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Creating Alliances, Making Connections

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ROAPE
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ROAPE’s Janet Bujra introduces a short film about the Connections workshops held across Africa in 2017-2018. The ROAPE Connections workshops brought together left activists and intellectuals to debate radical transformation on the continent. In the film activists talk about the importance and relevance of these radical gatherings.

By Janet Bujra

The ROAPE Connections workshops held in Accra, Dar es Salaam and Johannesburg in 2017-18 had several ambitions. The key one was to bring together left activists and intellectuals in debate and consideration of the potential for radical socioeconomic transformation and engagement in the continent. We held the first in Accra, Ghana in November 2017 to coincide with the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the 60th anniversary of Ghana’s independence. The workshop in Dar coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Arusha Declaration which heralded a bold socialist experiment. The final workshop in this series was held in Johannesburg, South Africa. Linking the workshops with a critical but engaged view of revolutionary anniversaries sparked searching political questions and provided fertile ground for the debates we sought to generate.

A second ambition was to open up a discussion about widening and diversifying audiences for a journal like ROAPE in Africa and doing this with a radical message and vocabulary. Ultimately the workshops aimed to convert audiences into partners.  Our film of the events provides a flavour of the excitement and serious intent of all of us who attended the workshops and show that it can be done.

The film complements the extensive coverage we have lent to our workshops on the ROAPE website and in the journal. The website has hosted debates, contributions and interviews with participants (these can be accessed here and here).  But we are also a journal and we wanted a record there too of the workshop events, in order to put the debates and issues into a wider setting. So, the journal has sought to continue the coverage by producing, short special issues from each workshop (the first of these can be found here).

Conference proceedings and reports are often supremely dull – so we looked for ways of translating our own heady experiences of participation into a written format. That demanded a quick turnover to get the material out, a more accessible (i.e. less ‘academic’) style and presentation and a showcasing of the immediacy and essentially collective nature of the debates and the lively forthright arguments. We don’t claim to have got this right yet, but we have certainly begun to create a novel presentational model.

At each of our workshops both local and international scholars and activists presented, but in our first attempt (in Accra) we struggled to get enough activists to commit themselves to paper. By the time we mounted the second workshop in Dar es Salaam, we were more prepared to provide support and mentoring to newer writers and to insist on brevity and accessibility for those more used to academic writing.  Unusually, we wanted participants’ reactions to the workshop format and outcomes to be woven into their accounts of positions within a spectrum of debate and we wanted them to locate themselves within the context of struggles and political realities. Most importantly, the testimony had to be politically engaged and responsive to the ROAPE remit, within a non-sectarian left field of interactive talk.

We are not claiming to have fully succeeded, but certainly by the second (Dar) report we had included all shades of political positioning represented in the workshop, with nearly all the presenters coming through, and with pieces displaying a high level of mutual responsivity.  We interspersed their accounts with excerpts from blogposts illustrating how the audience had indeed engaged with and responded to the discussions. These were presented in ‘speech bubbles’ as another kind of voice.

One of our main objectives in launching the Connections workshops was to bring in a new audience of activist researchers and scholars and particularly younger people. We wanted to gauge the extent to which left ideas and analysis were being taken up by them in African settings. We hoped that they would also find in their participation a way of getting their voices heard beyond their immediate struggles. We were genuinely surprised by what we discovered – for example, amongst young radical thinkers in Tanzania the Arusha Declaration still had a powerful hold. And evidence of resistance and organising was found which was anchored in left analysis. This was then reflected in the pieces which we published in our report (forthcoming in ROAPE, issue 158) detailing for example the emergence of the Tanzania Socialist Forum and in Kenya the Social Justice Centres which have sprung up in response to state repression.

We made a determined effort to draw in contributors from across Africa and were able to claim participation from North, West, East and South as well as from Europe (West and East) and the United States. This ensured that the workshops were genuinely sharing ideas from across the continent and beyond and they did so with passion and rigour and with a commitment to pan-Africanism which is often hard to achieve.  We also worked to ensure there was a gender balance in participation and indeed women participants spoke as often and sometimes more effectively than men.

Whilst we provided the initial impetus and suggested themes, we drew in local activists and intellectuals who then set-up organising committees for each workshop. In Ghana we worked with our long-time partner Third World Network-Africa, and their coordinator Yao Graham who is also ROAPE’s Africa editor.  In Tanzania we partnered with Issa Shivji’s Nyerere Resource Centre and in South Africa with comrades at the Centre for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg and the Society, Work and Politics Institute (SWOP) at the University of the Witwatersrand. They thus controlled the agendas and invited the speakers, with some input from us, so that in the end this was a genuinely collaborative effort, locally embedded but also responding to local and international debates.

In our first attempt to widen the radical scope of debates we drew on existing contacts in West Africa and were gratified by an enthusiasm to attend the workshop in Accra. In the end a bus carried trade-unionists and other activists from Nigeria to Ghana to take part. In Dar es Salaam there is an annual Mwalimu Nyerere Intellectual Festival, initiated by Issa Shivji, which had taken place just before our workshop. This festival has played a significant role in reviving pan-African consciousness in the region especially for the younger generation. It has created political space for progressive intellectuals and from social movement activists. Several activists from Tanzania and Kenya who participated then attended our workshop as well. One of these, Gacheke Gachihi from Kenya, produced a moving account of how he became an activist in the context of struggles over oppressive conditions for workers, the right to organise and protest and in confronting the state over extra-judicial killings (see forthcoming ROAPE 158 and Gachihi’s interview on roape.net here).

What also came out particularly in Dar es Salaam were the intergenerational tensions in left movements, with some young activists taking older comrades as their mentors, whilst others were determined to ‘ruthlessly criticise’ them so as to ‘transcend their theoretical and practical limitations.’ The basic message from the young radicals was for ‘more action and less talk’, but our sense was that the openness about such tensions was cathartic and did not interrupt dialogue about how to organise and what kinds of struggle to engage in to make a difference. It helped to ensure that our debates were politically engaged and not diverted into forms of narrow academicism.

Open dialogue was indeed the mode of all the workshops as we confronted difficult issues in how to provoke social transformation and avoid sectarianism. The foundational call for meaningful connections at all levels – intellectual, social, and political – proved profoundly effective. With our comrades and partners, ROAPE is planning to continue the debates and connections in workshops and activities to be held across the continent.

Janet Bujra is a longstanding member of the Review of African Political Economy.

 

 

The Real Legacy of Haile Selassie

By
ROAPE
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Yohannes Woldemariam exposes the real legacy of Ethiopia’s Haile Selassie. Few realise the wide gulf between Selassie’s mythological representations in popular culture and the reality of his tyrannical reign, the perception that Selassie was a proud African and a champion for black people is not supported by the facts. Unpicking Ethiopia’s foundational myths is vital for understanding where the country is today.

By Yohannes Woldemariam

Emperor Haile Selassie, who ruled Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974, died in 1975, but he lives on through the romantic lyrics of the late Jamaican reggae star Bob Marley and Ethiopian pop star, Tewedros Kassahun, better known as Teddy Afro.

Yet there is a wide range of views of the man whose full official title was: ‘His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, King of Kings and Elect of God.’ Some remember him as a benevolent ruler who resisted Italian colonisation. For others, he is a god. Yet, there are many others who view him as a tyrant.

Marley’s portrayal of Selassie is strongly influenced by the Rastafarian belief that he is God incarnate, as allegedly ‘prophesied’ by Marcus Garvey. On the other hand, Teddy Afro promotes his own version of Ethiopianism (Ethiopiawinet).

The Kebra Nagast (also known as the Glory of Kings) is the ancient text from which Selassie’s mythology stems. It narrates the relationship between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and their son Menelik I, who allegedly hid the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia. Like Menelik II (1889-1913), Haile Selassie, a distant relation, claimed descent from the Solomonic dynasty. Inspired by this ideology, Ethiopian kings and emperors have conquered lands and enslaved ethnic groups. In this sense, the Kebra Nagast can fairly be compared to the 19th century expansionist white American ideology of the Manifest Destiny.

Those who have solely learned about Selassie through the music of reggae stars and Teddy Afro may well have developed the impression that Selassie was a fatherly benevolent ruler and a champion of black people in Africa and the diaspora. However, this portrayal of Selassie and his predecessor, Emperor Menelik II is grossly distorted. Clearly, even though the last Ethiopian monarch was overthrown in 1974, undercurrents of the Kebra Negast still reverberate in the discourse of Ethiopian nationalism. While the majority of the Ethiopian people do not subscribe to this belief system, some Ethiopians look for aspects of the Kebra Nagast narrative for Ethiopiawinet (or Ethiopianism). Yet this mythology, or elements of it, creates huge divisions through its implicit expectation that Ethiopians accept this version of identity politics.

Rastafarian Representation of Selassie

For Rastafarians, Ethiopia is Zion and the Promised Land and in 1948 Selassie granted them land in the Rift Valley for a settlement in Shashemane. The settlement has never been very large, with no more than a thousand Rastas at its peak and now about 400. There was never a mass exodus of Rastas to Ethiopia, and they never assimilated. They continue to live in isolation much like the Amish in the United States.

The Rastafarian connection with Selassie is made with a tenuous understanding of Jamaican Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey’s famous prophecy: ‘Look to Africa, when a black king shall be crowned for the day of deliverance is near!’ This reference to ‘Africa’ was reinterpreted to mean Ethiopia and the link to ‘a black king’ was the coronation of Selassie in 1930. The travel writer Bill Wiatrak claims that the Rasta movement originated in Ethiopia but it actually began in Jamaica through the misinterpretation of Garvey’s message.

Garvey exhibited no admiration for Selassie. On the contrary, he condemned him as a ‘great coward’ for fleeing Mussolini’s troops in 1935, when Italy invaded Ethiopia. He also criticised Selassie’s practice of slavery, which was not abolished in Ethiopia until 1942. In Garvey’s own words:

It is preferable for the Abyssinian Negroes and the Negroes of the world to work for the restoration and freedom of the country without the assistance of Selassie, because at best he is but a slave master. The Negroes of the Western World whose forefathers suffered for three hundred years under the terrors of slavery ought to be able to appreciate what freedom means. Surely they cannot feel justified in supporting any system that would hold their brothers in slavery in another country whilst they are enjoying the benefits of freedom elsewhere. The Africans who are free can also appreciate the position of slaves in Abyssinia [Ethiopia]. What right has the Emperor to keep slaves when all the democratic sections of the world were free, when men had the right to live, to develop, to expand, to enjoy all the benefits of human liberty?

While few reggae aficionados realise the wide gulf between Selassie’s mythological representations in popular culture and the reality of his tyrannical reign, the perception that Selassie was a proud African and a champion for black people is not supported by the facts. He only reluctantly later embraced the Rastafarians because he understood their public relations value for his cult of personality. Some of his dedicated followers would be dismayed to learn that Selassie revered not his ‘own people’ but the Ferenjochu (Europeans) and Americans, who were routinely invited to lavish parties in his palace.

His overthrow in 1974 and subsequent death caused ‘a crisis of faith’ in Jamaica among the followers of the Rastafarian faith. The religion does not accept the former emperor’s death and instead depicts it as a ‘disappearance’. Bob Marley’s 1975 song called Jah Live seeks to refute the fact of Selassie’s death by insisting that a deity could not have died.

Reverence for Ethiopian Monarchs

Teddy Afro stylistically mimics Bob Marley when singing the praises of Selassie and even of Menelik II who claimed to be a descendent of Menelik I. In his songs, Teddy Afro proclaims unity and love for all Ethiopians. It is worth asking how Ethiopian unity is served by his praise for these monarchs. If his objective is to promote a unified pan-Ethiopian nationalism, such ideas seem to have backfired by provoking ethnic nationalism among the Oromo who do not share similar conceptions of these rulers ­– and rather view them as the reason for their oppression and suffering. A selective reading of history does little to build a strong national foundation.  Rather, a new social contract is desperately needed which respects the pluralism and diversity of the country.

Historical accounts of the reign of Menelik II show him as contemptuous of blackness, an expansionist, an enslaver and cruel. As a case in point, Eritreans made important, though little-acknowledged contributions to the Ethiopian victory over the Italian colonisers in Adwa in 1896 by gathering crucial intelligence on Italian war strategy. Emperor Menelik II returned the favour by savagely amputating the arms and legs of Eritrean war prisoners. Never mind that these poor Eritrean peasants were violently forced to fight under Italy, just as other European colonialists used Africans, Indians and other colonial subjects as cannon fodder for their wars of conquest everywhere. Nevertheless, Menelik II, the so-called ‘champion of a black victory,’ decided to set free his Italian and Libyan war prisoners while mutilating the Eritreans.

In fact, Menelik II’s reconstructed image as a historical agent of black liberation does not fit recorded events. For instance, his state of mind was revealed through a comment to a Haitian dignitary that he did not consider himself to be a black man. Therefore, Teddy Afro’s celebration of Menelik as the ‘Tikur Sew’ (Black Man) lacks any historical basis. Invoking Selassie or Menelik II as Teddy Afro does polarises communities because it insults those who do not share this interpretation of history and the terrible legacy of these monarchs.

Haile Selassie as an international statesman

It should be noted that Haile Selassie’s global prominence was due to his position as a very loyal client of the West – much like the Shah of Iran and Mobutu of Zaire.  These clients maintained power through repression and the murder and silencing of true patriots. Unlike Selassie however, history accurately remembers Shah Reza Pahlavi and Mobutu Sese Seko as tyrants. Yet, efforts are underway to depict Selassie as a pan-Africanist and a visionary. Some have campaigned vigorously for his statue to be erected in front of the African Union building in Addis Ababa. Sadly, the African Union has acceded to the request. This is both baffling and depressing.

Selassie often took undeserved credit for someone else’s contributions. One example was Lorenzo Taezaz, an Eritrean, who enhanced Selassie’s image during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. While the emperor was in exile in Bath, England, Taezaz secretly slipped into Ethiopia and organised the Arbeghoch (patriots). He recruited 2,000 or so Eritreans who had fled Italian colonial rule to fight for Ethiopia from their refugee settlements in Kenya. He also smuggled weapons for the Arbegnoch. A famous speech delivered by Selassie, famed for developing his aura as statesman and defender of his people, at the League of Nations in 1936, is widely believed to have been written by Taezaz. The emperor eventually repaid Taezaz by demoting him from his position as Foreign Minister. He died soon after in 1947 in suspicious circumstances.

Selassie the dictator

Does Selassie deserve to be depicted as a dictator? The historical record provides a decisive answer.

First, it is well-established that he spent $35 million to celebrate his 80th birthday during the Wollo famine. He travelled widely, visiting the United States many times, only stopping once in Jamaica in 1966.

Perhaps less well-known are Selassie’s crimes. These are too numerous and ghastly for the scope of this piece. For further reading on this, I recommend Michela Wrong’s book titled I Didn’t Do it For You. How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation.

Similarly, the autocrat is remembered in Tigray for inviting the British Royal Air Force to bomb the region in 1943 to quell what came to be known as the first Woyane Rebellion. He consolidated his power by weakening the provinces after Italy’s defeat by the British in 1941.

He was also harsh towards those Ethiopian patriots who fought against the Italians while he fled to Britain. For example, Belay Zeleke, a national war hero was hung on his orders. Unfathomably, Teddy Afro recently praised both Selassie and Belay Zeleke during an appearance at the Millennium Hall in Addis with the Eritrea President Isaias and Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy in the audience. It seems unconscionable to praise a murderous traitor and his victim, too.  The parable of Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski The Emperor, Downfall of an Autocrat is an accurate depiction of the real Selassie.

Why bother with Selassie at this time?

The romantic rewriting of Selassie’s legacy, and the distorted history of other Ethiopian monarchs have significant relevance for current Ethiopian politics. Selassie’s legacy needs to be exposed in light of attempts by musicians, historical revisionists in the diaspora, foreign beneficiaries and politicians to control the narrative through false representations.

Roape.net is posting the article now to give historical context to current challenges that threaten to plunge Ethiopia into crisis. There is fear that the country might enter a full-blown civil war, even as the Western world are celebrating Abiy as a reformer who saved Ethiopia from ruin. Unpicking the country’s foundational myths is vital for understanding where the country is today.

The myths surrounding Salassie’s rule cannot be dismissed as benign and harmless. Such stories create what the theorist of nationalism, Benedict Anderson, calls ‘imagined communities’ and its crucial role in political organising. For example, popular music can create a sense of belonging among people with shared sentiments that can lead to collective action. The misplaced form of black nationalism created by Rastafarians, in giving reverence to a man who never deserved it, is therefore harmful in the present.

Still, I celebrate the addition of reggae to UNESCO’s ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’ list while taking exception to the claim: ‘its contribution to international discourse on issues of injustice, resistance, love and humanity underscores the dynamics of the element as being at once cerebral, socio-political, sensual and spiritual.’ The record of reggae is rather more nuanced and mixed, particularly in reference to the place given to Selassie.

As the Indian freedom fighter and politician Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in 1946, ‘History is almost always written by the victors and conquerors and gives their view.’ History is ill served when popular celebrities and musicians motivated by religion or some kind of hyper-nationalism misrepresent the past. This is offensive to the victims and divisive for communities who need genuine solidarity in their struggles.

A version of this blogpost on Haile Selassie’s romanticized legacy was originally published on LSE’s Africa forum which was widely read and translated into Arabic by Al Jazeera. 

Yohannes Woldemariam is a political economist who has taught and worked in universities and research centres in Europe, Costa Rica, Africa and the United States. He can be emailed at ywoldem@gmu.edu

Featured photograph: Selassie revered Europeans and Americans, who were routinely invited to lavish parties in his palace (29 January, 1969).

Who Benefitted from the Peace Dividend in the DRC?

By
ROAPE
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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

By Wim Marivoet, Tom De Herdt, John Ulimwengu

The first decade of the 21st century marked a new beginning for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). After the signing of a peace treaty in 2002, the country re-connected with the world to engage in post-conflict reconstruction. In this blogpost, the authors ask who really benefitted from the ensuing peace dividend? By re-examining the evidence, they conclude that the country missed an important opportunity to combat the country’s devastating poverty.

Golden opportunity

In several respects, the first decade of the 21st century was a golden opportunity for the DRC: the death of Laurent-Désiré Kabila created a critical juncture, both internally and externally, during which everyone realised that a further implosion of the DRC should be prevented at all cost. Peace, democracy and poverty reduction were the three main ingredients of post-conflict reconstruction. In this blogpost we focus on the third ingredient.

The macro-economic indicators required for sustained poverty reduction were certainly encouraging. Not only was the public budget multiplied tenfold between 2002 and 2012, a successfully elaborated poverty reduction strategy was eventually rewarded by irrevocable debt relief in 2010 of around US$12.3 billion. These efforts also resulted in unprecedented GDP growth: negative growth rates turned positive in less than five years, from -7% in 2000 to almost +7% in 2004, and remained high until 2015, with the exception of 2009, the year after the global financial crisis. Accounting for population growth, estimated at 3%, per capita GDP still increased on average by 3-4% on an annual basis. In a broader perspective, the growth percentages observed over the 2004-2013 decade are unprecedented in post-independence DRC.

Diverging voices, deficient data

But did the observed unprecedented GDP growth also translate into poverty reduction? Expert opinions are divided on this point. Those close to the Government of the DRC as well as IMF experts, are predictably optimistic. At the moment of granting debt relief to the DRC, the IMF referred to a ‘satisfactory implementation of the country’s poverty reduction and growth strategy, maintenance of macroeconomic stability, improvements in public expenditure and debt management, and improved governance and service delivery in key social sectors such as health, education and rural development.’ In contrast, Pierre Englebert voiced a popular opinion that ‘Congo’s sizzling rate of economic growth has so far not had much of an impact on the welfare of its citizens, particularly the poorest ones.’

In a recent paper, we answered this crucial question by taking another look at two national household surveys, which were conducted respectively in 2004/5, right before the 2006-elections that inaugurated the first post-conflict government, and in 2012/13, about 7 years after the first round. On the basis of this data, both the Institut National de la Statistique (INS) of the DRC in 2014 and the World Bank concluded that there had been a significant decrease in poverty between the two survey periods. Using the same datasets, both institutions found that the poverty headcount decreased by 5 to 8 percentage points (see Table below).

However, a first problem with both estimates is that they cannot be replicated: the World Bank reports its poverty estimates without elaborating on the methodology, nor explaining why they differ from the INS results. Although INS provides more details on its methodology, we could only replicate the 2005 poverty estimates, but not its 2012 estimates.

Reported and replicated percentage of people in poverty, DRC (2005-2012)

  Reported estimates Data replication

based on INS-2005 methodology

 Data replication

based on improved methodology
  INS World Bank
  2005 2012 diff. 2005 2012 diff. 2005 2012 diff. 2005 2012 diff.
Urban

Kinshasa

 61.8

41.9

 60.4

36.8

 -1.4

-5.1

 66.6

56.3

 62.5

52.8

 -4.1

-3.5

 64.4

46.6

 75.5

56.1

 11.1

9.5

 61.9

73.7

 58.6

55.7

 -3.3

-18.0
Rural 75.8 65.2 -10.6 70.5 64.9 -5.6 75.2 84.7 9.6 66.8 69.5 2.6
DRC 71.3 63.4 -7.9 69.3 64.0 -5.3 72.1 81.4 9.3 65.1 65.6 0.5

Wim Marivoet, Tom De Herdt and John Ulimwengu (2019) Reviewing DRC’s poverty estimates, 2005-12. Both the original datasets and our reworked dataset can be downloaded at this website

Moreover, when we applied the methodology used by INS in 2005 to the 2012 survey, we found that the percentage of people in poverty substantially increased from 72% to 81% . This is not only in sharp contrast to the INS own reported results, it also runs counter to what we know about the macroeconomic trend of the DRC economy.

Improving existing poverty methodologies

To produce more accurate poverty estimates and trends, we reviewed the INS methodology and recommended a few modifications. More specifically, while the INS did not apply a consistent methodology to define a representative sample for the two survey periods, we proposed a way to correct for this. Second, we proposed a coherent way to deal with differences between house renters and house owners. Further, we proposed a coherent method for calculating poverty lines and we use these poverty lines also to account for differences in price levels between the major cities and between different rural regions. Finally, we correct for errors in reporting food consumption.

While implementing the above recommendations, we find that it was especially important to correct for the high degree of market fragmentation that profoundly characterizes the DRC economy. In itself, this fragmentation results from the combined effect of (1) differences in dietary and consumption practices, (2) regional differences in productive capacity, (3) differential access to international markets and (4) notoriously weak communication and transport infrastructure. Usual poverty line methodologies typically deal with these inter-regional differences by distinguishing between urban and rural areas, but in the case of the DRC this captures only one-third to less than half of the variety in cost-of-living differences measured through the method we propose.

No change in poverty

Based on the revised methodology and in line with both INS and World Bank estimates, our findings suggest that two-thirds of the DRC population are poor. This is concerning, especially given that the measure of poverty adopted essentially pegs poverty to insufficient food intake. In other words, more-or-less two-thirds of the people in the DRC are undernourished.

Moreover, contrary to both INS and World Bank estimates, we find that the percentage of people in poverty in general did not significantly change between 2005 and 2012. In other words, the decade of unprecedented economic growth did not visibly translate into increased consumption for the bottom two-thirds of the population. In fact, comparing the official approach and the one proposed in this blogpost, we found consistent evidence in terms of poverty rates only for Bas-Congo and Katanga. In all other regions, we found that the direction of poverty and its magnitude are different across methodologies.

It is worth noting that there are important regional differences. In cities and towns, poverty did decrease, whereas it increased in the countryside. The positive trend observed in urban areas is mainly driven by the capital city of Kinshasa where poverty decreased spectacularly (-18 percentage points), which was due to a significant increase in overall income across all social groups. However, Kinshasa stands out as an exception; for the rest of the country, there is very little evidence of trickle down of per capita GDP growth. This result is consistent with evidence on ‘kinocentrisme’ (a systematic bias to favour the capital city) and with analyses that point to a disproportionate weight of Congo’s mining sector within the political economy of reconstruction.

Our findings also point to an urgent need to make both international and national statistical services more transparent and available to the wider public. Increased public scrutiny will surely increase the quality and credibility of official poverty estimates.

Wim Marivoet works as a Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Dakar. His main research interests involve poverty measurements, livelihoods, and food and nutrition security, with a particular focus on the DRC. Tom De Herdt works at the Institute of Development Policy at the University of Antwerp, he specialises in poverty and development in Congo-Kinshasa, Nicaragua, Rwanda and Cameroon. John Ulimwengu is an expert on poverty dynamics, economic growth, and rural development and works for the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington.

Featured Photograph: Boulevard du 30 Juin (the day of Congo’s independence in 1960), 4 March 2010.

 

Kenya’s War Against the Poor – an interview with Gacheke Gachihi

By
ROAPE
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ROAPE’s Leo Zeilig interviews the Kenyan activist Gacheke Gachihi who is the coordinator of the Mathare Social Justice Centre in Nairobi, which organises campaigns against police brutality and killings. In this interview Gacheke speaks about the struggles in the last twenty five years against police brutality and extra-judicial killings in Nairobi and some of the organisations and social movements that are confronting the Kenyan state on this issue. Gacheke also introduces the extraordinary short documentary, just released, which charts the campaigns against these killings, from within Nairobi’s poorest settlements. The interview was conducted via twitter as Gacheke attended a major social movements conference with activists in Nairobi.

Please can you introduce yourself and tell us briefly how you became active?

My name is Gacheke Gachihi and I am coordinator of the Mathare Social Justice Centre (MSJC) and member of the Social Justice Centre Working Group [Mathare is a large-scale informal settlement in Nairobi, housing approximately 300,000 people]. The MSJC created a path for social justice centres as public/open spaces to convene grassroots social movements and community organizing against police brutality and extrajudicial killings in Nairobi – this was our first and principle objective.

My own political consciousness evolved in early 1992 in the Huruma Car Wash centre in Mathare, where I was first exposed to police brutality and social injustices …. I started a campaign against this violence and social injustices by distributing human rights posters and leaflets against police brutality and killings. Later I became community organizer in Mathare and other informal settlements in Nairobi that also face systematic police brutality and extra-judicial killings of youth between about 14 and their early 20s.

Though as a young man from a poor rural area, forced to survive by his wits, in a city like Nairobi, my entire early life was political. Yet it was only as I became organised and started organising my work mates did this ‘politicisation’ – consciousness as its called – became explicit.

As the coordinator of the Muthare Social Justice Network can you explain to our readers what you do and what the major issues are in Kenya and Nairobi at the moment?

I am a community organizer. We organize and coordinate political accountability and social justice campaigns to mentor a new generation of activists, as well as build similar grassroots movements and organisations across Nairobi and in other parts of Kenya.

Kenya today is facing a serious crisis of an alternative to the current political leadership that can inspire hope across the country and among the young. As you know, our fight – as we see across much of the continent – is against an inherently, deeply violent neoliberal economy, that is manifesting in systematic corruption, ethnic mobilization and political violence and unemployment which results in the criminalization of youth in the informal settlement. Less reported by academics, professionals and the media is the action of groups like ours, and other organisations in communities and settlements in the major cities. The economic and political violence of modern Kenya is devastating for everyone, but especially the victims and the families of those murdered in these extra-judicial killings. However, where there is injustice on this scale, there has been – and will continue to be – resistance by the communities, and much of this is organised. Our small group, and other  similar ‘justice centres’ is evidence of this push back and the attempt to draw attention to state violence against the poor. And we have scored some impressive successes – as the film we have made demonstrates.

For a long-time you have been involved in bringing attention to extra judicial killings. Can you explain to our readers what this activism involves? How bad is the problem in Kenya?

Police violence and killings are rooted in the history of Kenya’s neo-colonial state that we inherited from  the British. Related to this, is the deep corruption of security agencies that has led to systematic police brutality, extortion and summary execution of youth in the informal settlements across the country and in Nairobi in particular.

Let me give your readers an example: Mathare Social Justice Centre has documented more than 800 cases of police killings by the police, and other state agents, between 2013-2015. Imagine that number, which is considerably more than the total British army fatalities in Afghanistan! [according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence there were 173 deaths of army personnel in Iraq between 2003 and 2011, and in Afghanistan 454 British forces personnel deaths between 2001 and 2015. A total of 627].

We don’t say this, but these are the statistics of a war, not a figurative, metaphoric war of poverty against the poor, which exists, but a targeted actual social conflict, organised by the state to pick off and kill members of Kenya’s poorest. The details of these killings can be found in our action report Who is Next. It’s an important report which exposes how police killings target the urban poor and marginalized for killings in the name of fighting crime, which has seen the criminalization of urban poor youth, as the permanent neoliberal economic crisis pushes millions of Kenyan youth into poverty and hopelessness. If this sounds dramatic, it is only because the concrete situation is.

You have also been involved in an excellent documentary which roape.net are delighted to host, can you speak about the film and your hopes for it?

We hope the film will inspire resistance against police violence and killings, and galvanise the struggle more widely against Kenya’s economic brutality. We also have an organisational objective: we hope the film will help us to unify social struggles in Kenya among the urban poor and create similar Social Justice Centres as spaces to organize, educate for liberation the urban poor and youth, as well as start to widen consciousness so that police violence is seen as part of Kenya’s neo-colonial state that must be supplanted. The film is also part of documenting our struggles – and organising the ‘memory’ of these struggles, inspired as we are by Thomas Sankara, and many great freedom fighters in Africa.

What role can radicals and socialists play from other parts of the continent and elsewhere in the campaigns you are involved in?

We need international solidarity to amplify our voices and connect our struggle with international socialist movements also fighting imperialism, police violence and capitalist neoliberalism elsewhere. Our struggle is international, inevitably, as the beast we face in Kenya – killing us on a daily basis – is in various forms the same animal that destroys lives, hopes and communities across the continent, and world.

Our struggle must be connected to other movements and activists to survive. We need to unify our resistance and support each other’s campaigns. In Kenya we need to speak, write and explain as widely as we can about these systematic killings and violence, and ask for material support for the campaigns.

As a symbolic gesture we are also involved in planting trees in memory of victims of extra-judicial killings and international solidarity movements and individuals can help fund such initiatives as part of the struggle for justice and healing the families of those murdered.

Inspiration is vital to our movement. So we frequently remember the words of Wangari Mathaai, the famous Kenyan activist – maybe your readers will also find inspiration and wisdom from it, ‘A great river always begins somewhere. Often it starts as tiny spring bubbling up from a crack in the soil, just like the little stream on my family’s land in Ihithe, which starts where the roots of the fig tree broke through the rocks beneath the ground. But for the stream to grow into river, it must meet other tributaries and join them as it heads for a lake or sea.’

Our tiny bubbling spring in Mathare is breaking through…Aluta Continua.

Gacheke Gachihi is an activist in Nairobi’s Mathare informal settlement, he is also involved in regional social movements and politics. He was a participant in ROAPE’s workshops in Dar es Salaam and Johannesburg last year.

Communists and Decolonisation in Africa – Call for Papers

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ROAPE
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A unique initiative by the Gramsci Foundation calls for researchers to present research on the history and politics of communist parties from all over the world and their relationship with African movements.

Recent years have seen a proliferation of studies on the relations between the communist movement and anti-colonial liberation movements, on the encounters between the ‘socialist camp’ and the Third World, and more generally on communism’s influence on decolonisation and the formation of the postcolonial world. These studies have adopted global- and international-history perspectives which are ever less confined to the classic themes of debates within the Comintern or Soviet strategies during the Cold War. In particular, the use of a transnational approach directed at reconstructing the connections and influences that developed in parallel to the more visible and traditional relations of communist internationalism appears to be becoming ever more relevant.

This conference seeks to make a fresh contribution to these new historiographical developments, proposing an examination of the communists who were active within the imperial and post-imperial spaces.

Abstract submissions due by 30 April. If your paper is accepted your travel and accommodation costs to Rome will be covered by the conference organisers. For more information see the official call for papers here.

Send your abstract now

Debating Africa’s Liberation and Transformation

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ROAPE
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To commemorate the 60th anniversary of the first All-African Peoples´ Conference in Ghana in 1958, the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana organized a conference under the theme ‘Revisiting the 1958 All-African Peoples´ Conference: The Unfinished Business of Liberation and Transformation’ which took place at the beginning of December last year in Accra. Zuzana Uhde describes how the conference evoked and celebrated the spirit of Pan-Africanism and socialism and debated vital questions of radical political economy.

By Zuzana Uhde

The conference, ‘Revisiting the 1958 All-African People’s Conference’ held in Accra at the end of last year, focused both on highlighting the historical impact and legacy of the 1958 meeting and on reflecting on the current development of the Pan-Africanist movement and various challenges people in Africa face decades after the historical moment of liberation from colonial occupation. Akilagpa Sawyerr served as a chair of the conference and Dzodzi Tsikata, the director of the Institute of African Studies (IAS), was a chair of the planning committee.

The significance of this conference was not only that it took place in Ghana, as did the first All African Peoples’ Conference (AAPC), but, more importantly, that it gathered together scholars, activists, trade unionists and artists mainly from Africa and the diaspora (in total 34 countries) who are as dedicated as the intellectual leaders of 1958 to engaging in the critical debates and social struggles to transform Africa. The legacy of Kwame Nkrumah, who played a key role in 1958 conference as well as establishing the Institute of African Studies in 1962, was a key theme for the whole conference.

While the 1958 AAPC was the starting point, around which the conference was built, its focus was on the critical diagnosis of today´s challenges. This was reflected in the conference plenaries as well as the parallel sessions. The first day focused on youth in Africa and its role in continuing social struggles for liberation and emancipation of the continent. Young participants were also given a special space in the closing session of the event.

The conference opening keynote speech was delivered by Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a global expert on Congolese history and politics. The second day plenaries focused on an analysis of economic domination and global capitalism. The third day plenaries dealt with knowledge production and democracy. While the final day plenary session was devoted to the future of Pan-Africanism. The stage was given to Womba Nkanza, representing the peasant movement, and Evelyn Davis-Poe from Lincoln University.

Horace G. Campbell, based at Syracuse University New York who also served as the third Kwame Nkrumah Chair at the University of Ghana, gave a vibrant closing keynote address on this matter, highlighting the necessary link between Pan-Africanism and anti-capitalist struggle. During the whole duration of the conference participants were engaged in the debate about actualizing the idea of Pan-Africanism and despite the ever-present disagreements between proponents of a political and nativist basis of Pan-Africanism, the overall interpretation inclined towards realising the fundamental idea of solidarity in social struggles for global justice without limiting it to an Afrocentric or racial framework.

Thursday´s presentations on neoliberalism and Africa´s political economy led to a lively debate. Gyekye Tanoh from Third World Network-Africa made a compelling argument that a full understanding of today´s challenges in Africa requires moving beyond the limited framework of neo-colonialism and prioritizing an analysis of capitalism and class relations. This sparked a debate evoking the long-running dispute about the relationship between analytical concepts of class and race. Tanoh argued that overlooking capitalist relations of production prevents the formulation of effective remedies to many contemporary problems. He gave as an example the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone and Liberia which was partly brought about by deforestation caused by the activities of transnational corporations in the mining industry.

‘Neoliberalism, Africa’s Economies and the Living Conditions of Africans’ Chair: Sylvester Akhaine. Speakers: Gyekye Tanoh, Kojo Amanor, Chambi Chachage, Anita Nayar

Kojo Amanor from the IAS at the University of Ghana also highlighted critical issues of political economy and focused on the commodification of agriculture. His example of a campaign against child labour launched by TNCs as a measure against local farmers in West Africa resisting the expansion of a transnational agribusiness showed, not only the cynical use of human rights language, but also how activism ignorant of capitalist dynamics can serve the interests of transnational corporations.

Chambi Chachage, a blogger and researcher, then emphasized economic Pan-Africanism, and Anita Nayar, a director of Regions Refocus, stressed the importance of a feminist analysis of economic structures beyond a limited focus only on redistribution. In the afternoon plenary session, Adotey Bing-Pappoe from the University of Greenwich in London, spoke about cooperatives, and Donna Andrews from the University of the Western Cape, in Cape Town, criticized the environmental destruction by TNCs and highlighted the concept of resource democracy. Yao Graham, the coordinator of Third World Network-Africa, discussed the ideological bias behind the mainstream focus on corruption which overshadows the exploitation by and immense increases in profits of transnational mining companies in Africa.

‘Ending Imperialist Domination and Transforming Africa’s Economies’ Chair: Charles Abugre. Speakers: Adotey Bing-Pappoe, Yao Graham, Donna Andrews, Neville Singham 

The parallel sessions opened debates on diverse topics, such as Pan-Africanisms today, emancipation of women, youth, neo-colonialism and imperialism, migration, knowledge production, reparative and restorative justice, global environmental risks, African Union, etc. One point which deserves highlighting is the effort of the organizers to bring to the forefront different feminist perspectives which are an integral part of the history of African thought. Both at the plenaries and in the parallel sessions many presenters challenged gendered disparities within African society.

Whilst Mpumelelo Tshabalala and Mandy Banton, David Wardrop and Susan Williams, who wrote an earlier review for roape.net on the symposium at the University of London, noted that the speakers at the London event were predominantly male and it was dominated by white African Studies scholars, the Accra event felt more balanced in terms of gender as well as representation of people from Africa and the African diaspora. However, the backstage debates noted the tendency of scholars from the global North to overlook conferences and academic events at African universities. This trend goes hand in hand with the prevailing whiteness of African Studies in the global North which reproduces the old approach towards Africa as an object of Western knowledge production. Ultimately it is not only about an individual´s colour but about the racial structures within institutions: academia is not immune to racial domination in knowledge production.

The four days in Accra evoked the spirit of Pan-Africanism and socialism which was also shown in the participatory approach towards adopting the conference resolutions. Whilst the 2018 conference was more academic than the politically mobilizing 1958 event, there was a clear effort to strengthen critical engagement of academic scholarship in Pan-African social movements built from the bottom up. The final resolutions focused on six areas: Pan-Africanism today and tomorrow and building a new politics for substantive democracy and security; Pan-African Epistemologies for knowledge production; Ending imperialist domination and transforming Africa’s economies; Climate change and environmental repair; Restorative and reparative justice; Youth, workers, progressive women, and Africa´s transformation. The conference resolutions are published online on the conference webpage.

Zuzana Uhde specializes in critical social theory, feminist theory and research of global interactions. She focuses on the research of political economy of transnational migration in relation to global justice and sub-Saharan Africa, and transnational care practices. Zuzana is a visiting researcher at Makerere University in Kampala.

Featured Photograph: Kwame Nkrumah was the first leader of Ghana, until he was overthrown in a coup in 1966.

To Conquer Political and Economic Power

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ROAPE
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Benjamin Selwyn’s The Struggle for Development challenges the dominant view that argues human development can only be achieved through continued economic growth and industrialisation. In this review, Salvador Ousmane praises a book that aims at the total reconceptualisation of human development, to see development as a process of resisting and ultimately transcending capitalist exploitation.

By Salvador Ousmane

This book describes labour-led development as an alternative view to what the author calls the ‘Anti-Poverty Consensus.’  This dominant view argues that human development can only be achieved through continued economic growth and industrialisation. The aim of the book is to ‘reconceptualise human development as a process of resisting and overcoming capitalist exploitation and to stimulate thinking and actions that contribute to that objective.’

Labour-led development views society from the perspective of the labouring class rather than from the perspective of capital accumulation or national development.’  It takes the view that the working class are the gravediggers of capitalism and that the success of the global socialist revolution develops organically from the day to day struggles of labour against capital.

Benjamin defines the class that through its own endeavours has the potential to liberate itself as follows:

The global labouring class includes unpaid women workers largely responsible for social reproduction in the household, urban/industrial employed workers (‘the working class’ in traditional Marxian terminology), urban and rural unemployed workers, ‘informal’ workers that populate the ever-expanding urban slum lands, many members of the peasantry, and many members of the so-called emerging developing-world middle class.

Benjamin critiques hard neoliberalism then goes on to expose the holes in the alternative softer, ‘progressive’ capitalism promoted by a range of thinkers. These writers still accept that the prime aim of human development should be economic development, but to a greater or lesser extent accept a key role for the state in regulating this development.  Benjamin points out the fundamental contradiction arising from this approach of the ‘advocacy of labour exploitation and oppression in the name of ameliorating labour’s condition.’

The Big Lie

Global wealth increased by two thirds in the decade to 2013.  But these resources were overwhelmingly captured by the world’s wealthiest people.  According to Oxfam’s 2018 World Inequality Report, since 1980, the poorest half of humanity only gained 12 cents of each dollar of global growth, in contrast the richest 1% gained 27 cents. As Warren Buffet, one of the 1% said, ‘there’s been class warfare going on for the last 20 years, and my class has won.’

The World Bank and others claim that the number of the global poor reduced by half in the first 15 years of this millennium. However, this is solely based on a reduction in the numbers of those who attempt to exist on less than ‘a dollar a day.’ The same group also welcome the growth of what they call the ‘middle class’, defined as those having only between $2 and $10 a day.

Yet, Selwyn writes that this ‘middle class’  are ‘better described as part of the burgeoning global labouring class.’ They are compelled to sell their labour power for wages in order to survive. In the process they are exploited by capital which is able to benefit from surplus value in a manner described by Karl Marx in Capital. This book argues that ‘capitalism is a social system of exploitation, expropriation and degradation which generates continually evolving forms of poverty.’

So in reality the number of the ‘extremely poor’ may have reduced, but the number of poor in the world is increasing at a faster rate. In addition, finally eliminating global poverty even measured by ‘a dollar a day’ as envisaged by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals would take at least 200 years at the high global growth rate of the decade to 2008.

In contrast, empirical evidence in The Struggle for Development shows that, even in a very poor country, using numbers which could be drawn from Bangladesh for example, extreme poverty could be eliminated by transferring only three per cent of GDP from the richest to the poorest eighths of the population.

Benjamin points out that neoliberalism and the varieties of capital centred development being implemented over the last 30 to 40 years have resulted in ‘accumulating resentment among labouring classes [that] represents a social tinderbox, where sparks can detonate mass collective unrest.  These revolts can be toxic as well as potentially emancipatory.’  Whereas the author celebrates collective actions especially in South Africa, Argentina, South Korea and China, he also acknowledges that this resentment can also be turned against other nationalities, ethnic groups or religions. He gives the example of South Africa in April 2016 when such anger was directed against migrants from other African countries.

Benjamin acknowledges this danger but does not seem to recognise the importance of building effective political organisations to focus this resentment against capital nor the dangers of trade union leaders’ inability to lead effective struggles against capital rather than negotiating compromises.  The failure, so far at least, to build effective mass parties of the global labouring classes to successfully fight for what Selwyn describes as ‘labour-led development’ is arguably our greatest weakness.

Poverty Chains and the World Economy

Benjamin’s second chapter describes what are called global value chains but may be better understood as outsourcing to the Global South. This is causing de-industrialisation in the north with the famous Rust Belt in the US which formed at least part of the base for the election of Donald Trump. The classic import of raw materials from the Global South for production in northern factories has now changed significantly, much global industrial production is now taking place in areas of the south. So at least some southern countries are now at least as industrialised as their northern counter-parts.

This process underpinned the global boom until 2008 as transnational companies gained an increasing share of their profits from overseas subsidiaries (a third of world trade is now within such multinational companies) and other production in the Global South where profits may be a third higher than in the previous heartlands of capitalism. Benjamin argues that low wages in the Global South are less due to lower productivity than the socially determined rates of pay in these countries and the inability of trade unions to win progressive wage settlements for their members.

This chapter ends by considering the implications for northern workers.  Some authors have claimed that northern workers benefit from the super-exploitation of southern workers and peasants. In contrast Benjamin points out that this exploitation ‘has exerted colossal downward pressures on worker’s wages across much of the global north.’

Beyond Exploitation Democratic Development

The last chapter of the book moves to consider what could be done if a labouring-class movement was to ‘conquer political and economic power in a relatively poor country.’  This would be the first stage Selwyn argues in building socialism (which he calls a ‘minimum utopia’) – which would require international change and the development of a real global social commonwealth. This global process, Selwyn considers, would take significant time and would require the socialist state to maintain relations in a hostile world still dominated by capitalist states – a process that the author says, ‘may be called intermittent revolution.’

The new state would move towards decentralised participatory planning with democracy extended into the workplace. This would be based on social ownership of the means of production, allowing the identification and satisfaction of communal needs through worker-community co-operation.

Concerning the banking system, odious debts would be cancelled and capital controls introduced to stop capital flight. Money would be treated as a public resource which should be controlled for the collective good. A universal basic income would be introduced in return for household work and social care for dependants. Democratic industrial policy would be based on equitable and ecological innovations with ‘up-cycling’ using local skill sets to recycle material, including, Selwyn adds rather bizarrely, 3D printers! Agrarian reform would recognise the need to earn foreign currency from exports, achieve local food security and generate high-quality employment. But Benjamin emphasises the national level in ensuring food security and in planning.

Foreign policy would be a delicate balance between peaceful existence with capitalist powers and links with social movements in these countries. Although these social movements could perhaps be used to apply pressure for non-intervention and positive development assistance. Pressure would also have to be applied to ensure the development of a collective agenda to combat environmental destruction.

Economic policy would be based around ‘spreading and sharing of tasks’ and so establishing full employment. While priorities would be based on collective determination of priorities rather than profits maximisation for the few. The state would campaign for real gender equality, probably using quotas in the process and steps would be taken to develop a multi-cultural society which learns and respects all social groups.

These ideas, Selwyn argues, would be proposed in collective discussion and l  ‘advanced and debated in the same democratic spirit.’ This would be part of the process of re-education that would be necessary to instil a new set of democratic and co-operative values across society, in contrast to the selfish and individualistic values of our own societies. This is an aspect that Selwyn rather underplays.

Conclusions

This is only a short book and so does not provide all the answers, but it does provide an overarching analysis of current capitalist production and a strategy, especially for Southern workers and the poor, to adopt if they are to achieve real development. Selwyn sees labour-led development where the ‘global labouring class’ themselves organise and struggle to increase their own wages and improve the conditions in which they work.

Benjamin echoes the Communist Manifesto by saying that ‘Capitalism is an immensely dynamic wealth-generating system. It has established, on a global scale, the basis for a world free from poverty.’  Unless this happens, he recognises that capitalism ‘will more certainly wreck the planet, create new forms of mass poverty, and reproduce mega-inequalities than deliver the dream of well-being for all.’  This is almost certain with all varieties of top-down development, in contrast to the labour-led approach that he comprehensively and convincingly argues for in this book.

The book ends with an emphasis on the links between current struggles and a future utopian society, in the words of an organiser of an occupied factory in Argentina, ‘This [process of factory occupation] is big, because . . . what one has regarded as a utopia, has become now necessary and possible . . . If we could take this . . . to a regional, country, world level . . . we would be talking of another world,’ It provides a strategy for socialists to identify and support, both theoretically and practically, as real-existing examples of labour-led struggles and development across the world.

Benjamin Selwyn’s The Struggle for Development is published by Wiley and available here.

Salvador Ousmane is a Senior Lecturer and writer.

Featured Photograph: A demonstration in support of the Zanon factory occupation (or ‘recovered factories’), now known as FaSinPat (‘Fábrica Sin Patrones’, which means ‘Factory Without Bosses’), in the southern Argentine province of Neuquén.

Hidden in Plain Sight – Private Cartels in Africa

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ROAPE
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Across the world the extent of corporate collusion raises a range of fundamental questions relating to the manipulation of markets and capture of the policy agenda by private companies. Little is known about the extent of such collusion in so-called developing countries, in Africa in particular. Based on recent research for ROAPE, Thando Vilakazi argues that the form and extent of collusion across much of the continent points to limitations of conventional ‘governance fixes’, namely competition law, to address private cartels in Africa.

By Thando Vilakazi

There is a growing body of evidence that collusion between competitors in the global economy has led to significant economic harm to consumers, with prices typically between 15% and 25% higher than would pertain under competition. A lot less is known about the extent of and harm arising from collusion in so-called developing countries, in Africa in particular. There are indications that there is widespread domestic and cross-border collusion in, for example, southern and East Africa. The related social harm is likely to be very significant given high barriers to entry and concentration in key industries, meaning that competitive constraints are lower and the likelihood of collusion is higher. Our own research points to high mark-ups from cartels in the cement and fertilizer industries in southern and East Africa, involving arrangements that have extended beyond national borders.

The extent of corporate collusion raises a range of fundamental questions relating to the manipulation of markets and capture of the policy agenda by private companies. In the transition from generally state-led economies to liberalisation our case studies point to deeper concerns about widespread cartel conduct. This has to do with the fact that private companies, including large transnational corporations in these industries, have deliberately misrepresented their conduct, manipulated markets, and influenced the policy agenda to reinforce their market power. This includes lobbying for regulatory barriers which limit entry as part of industrial policies which favour established businesses.

Importantly, the form and extent of collusion points to limitations of conventional ‘governance fixes’, namely competition law, to address the conduct. This is the case in various African countries where our case studies show that companies have become sophisticated in concealing the coordinated arrangements (including through secretive information exchange) while presenting a façade of competition. Competition authorities are now widely established in most countries on the continent, but they are constrained in terms of resources and capabilities to deter and uncover secret collusion and the elite interests which underpin it. The remainder of this blogpost highlights some of the key insights from our research in relation to each case study.

The cement cartel in South Africa had effects which stretched across neighbouring countries in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) area. A marketing agreement and several exemptions, which came into effect in 1971, laid the basis for the firms to coordinate distribution, supply and prices in the ‘local’ SACU market.  The agreement was endorsed by the apartheid government as part of its policies to support mining activities. In South Africa’s transition to democracy and open markets in the 1990s, the government withdrew its exemption of the legal cartel to usher in competition. This was in line with the shift in the balance of power in the prevailing political settlement at the time.

Unknown to the new government, the companies came together to reform the cartel a few years later, now under a secret agreement to manipulate the market. This occurred even as the firms publicly lent support to the government’s objective of increasing competition and building housing and infrastructure for the previously marginalised black population. Furthermore, the cartel continued despite the introduction of a new competition law and independent authority in the late 1990s, with powers to uncover and prosecute restrictive practices. This raises questions about the ability of governance institutions to address market power where it is deeply entrenched and reinforced by a legacy of elite ties and control of access to key markets and resources.

The private cartel lasted until 2009. While the businesses portrayed a sense of competition, they had rigged markets to maintain agreed market positions and extract rents, including through the exchange of detailed information which reduced the need to meet regularly (and risk detection).

The private cartel in fact led to substantial profits and prices soaring well above those enjoyed during the period of state-sanctioned coordination. Under the legal cartel, the firms were subject to scrutiny and had to justify their prices which played a role in disciplining the companies’ behaviour. Companies were required to make commitments to maintain a ‘reasonable’ level of prices and make investments, while the government ensured adequate returns to the firms. This is in contrast to the period after the legal cartel, where the new government had expected, under the new neoliberal economic policy paradigm, that firms would compete, and that competition would undermine rents. In reality, this was certainly not the case.

The outcomes in the cement sector point to the fact that policy failures, including the inability to make markets more inclusive, can be shaped by the nature of elite alliances, rather than simply market failures or weak institutions. In the fertilizer industry, this is illustrated in the role that transnational corporations have played in distorting normatively developmental agricultural policies for profit (such as local inputs subsidy programmes), while fronting as ‘partners’ of government in making markets work.

The various initiatives for increasing fertilizer supply to improve agricultural output and food security in Africa have been narrowly framed in terms of market failures in transport and local retail markets. This has diverted attention from analysis of the conduct of the main companies. It is no secret that there has been extensive collusion between leading global producers in the production and trading of fertilizer (especially for potash and phosphoric products). However, there is no mention of the need to address this in donor-sponsored strategies for a green revolution in Africa! These arrangements have harmed developing countries in particular, and undermined the objective of increasing access to fertilizer.

There are also collusive arrangements that have operated between fertilizer importers in South Africa and Zambia, for example. In South Africa, producers and importers which previously enjoyed state support (also linked to the production of chemicals and explosives for mining), colluded to raise prices and divide markets in local supplies, and exports to Southern African countries. An illegal cartel arrangement lasted from 1996 to 2005 until it was uncovered by the competition authority. The main firms settled the cases with the authority, in exchange for reduced monetary fines, no doubt less than the economic harm caused. The conduct was concealed in the workings of the industry association, which, amongst other things, facilitated the exchange of detailed information to maintain the cartel agreement while presenting themselves as maintaining standards and quality in the market (and promoting consumer wellbeing).

In Zambia, a local importer, Nyiombo Investments, colluded with a South African company (previously involved in the South African cartel) to rig tenders for supplying the government subsidy programme as well as to allocate markets and agree prices. The local investigation which uncovered the conduct was concluded by Zambia’s Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) in 2013, with fines being levied for conduct which was estimated to have cost government around US$20 million. The companies were also linked to fraudulent relations with government procurement officials around tenders for the subsidy.

These arrangements, as set out in our ROAPE paper, provide important insights into the factors that have contributed to the real market dynamics involved, including the role of local and business elites. First, companies have clearly manipulated supplies and controlled local markets through lobbying for regulations that protect their interests, and corruption. Second, government actors have contributed to shaping the market outcomes that harm consumers. For example, problems with the fertilizer subsidy programme in Zambia related to the ties between local (government) interests and the businesses, including in skewing tenders to ensure that preferred companies win (and no doubt share the rents). Third, the experience with subsidy programmes generally points to the fact that while companies have positioned themselves as partners of government in supporting smallholder farmers,in particular, the market outcomes are not reflective of competition. Instead they point to further entrenchment of market positions and rents to the exclusion of other local suppliers.

In Tanzania, this pattern is illustrated in the investment made by global fertilizer giant, Yara International, in the Southern Africa Growth Corridor Initiative (SAGCOT) which was expected to reduce the costs of importing fertilizer. Instead, the programme has meant that Yara has cornered the local market, leveraging the fertilizer terminal facilities which ultimately only it can access to supply emerging smallholder farmers. The (high) level of prices relative to regional equivalents suggest that the benefits have not accrued to the local market. Control of key infrastructure by private interests, often with the support of governments – for example, Yara is understood to have received favourable terms in accessing land for the terminal – has served to lock out rivals without matching scale and influence.

The powerful regional and transnational interests in fertilizer and cement remained relatively unchallenged even after the coordinated arrangements and collusion had been uncovered. It was not until the entry of significant regional rivals in both industries that there appeared to be a return to more competitive and pro-developmental outcomes. For example, the entry of Export Trading Group (ETG, a Kenyan company) in regional fertilizer markets has disrupted existing arrangements, and contributed to a reduction in prices in some countries and additional investments, even as Yara has bought up other challenger firms such as Greenbelt Fertilizers to retain its market position.

In cement, the entry at significant scale of Dangote-linked cement companies in Zambia, South Africa and Tanzania has drastically reduced prices from around 2015. This impact has extended beyond country borders through exports of cheap cement into high-priced markets such as Malawi, pointing to the importance of trade policies which strengthen the integration of the region and industrial policies (with appropriate conditionalities) that attract large scale investment and players with the capabilities to undermine incumbents.

Meaningful policies to improve economic outcomes for the marginalised poor in African countries need to encompass strategies for fostering local rivalry and the introduction of challenger firms. Such entry of local rivalry has disrupted the distribution of benefits and power which has sustained rents for insiders. In turn, incumbents have subsequently had to make investments in capacity and improved logistics to enable them to compete rather than simply handicapping rivals and manipulating the policy agenda in their favour.

More importantly, the case studies  in our research suggest a need to recognise the critical role that insider and business interests have played in skewing outcomes in many key industries. This requires an emphasis on understanding how collusion, and markets, have worked in practice and whose interests have been served. A critical understanding of the underlying arrangements and balance of power in key markets is an important part in explaining the outcomes observed and how these consumer harming practices can be avoided or minimized in future. It also requires recognition of the limited role that competition authorities can play in undermining arrangements between political and business elites which may have existed for many years. These arrangements may be entrenched in the workings of markets and reinforced by the sharing of rents and quid pro quos such as investment spending which in effect has strengthened the position of incumbents.

The fact that the coordinated arrangements have stretched across national borders means cross-border enforcement by regional economic community competition authorities is critical in fostering cooperation between countries to identify collusion. It is evident that arrangements that on the surface appear to be domestic agreements between companies, often mask extensive regional cartels which not only substantially harm millions of vulnerable consumers in major economic sectors. In small, concentrated markets with high barriers, the harmful effects of collusion in terms of economic development are likely to exceed any efficiencies that may arise from coordination, particularly where those rents are only shared by a handful of insiders.

This blogpost is based on research that appears in T. Vilakazi and S. Roberts  (2018) ‘Cartels as ‘fraud’? Insights from collusion in southern and East Africa in the fertiliser and cement industries,’ in Review of African Political Economy, and part of forthcoming special issue on fraud in Africa (out later in 2019)

Thando Vilakazi is Director at the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development (CCRED) at the University of Johannesburg, specialising in research, teaching and advice on competition policy and industrial development issues.

Featured Photograph: Image from a South African campaign against cartels and corruption (Amandla campaigns).

Algeria’s Uprising: The Beginning of the End of ‘Le Pouvoir’?

By
ROAPE
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Tin Hinane El Kadi writes about a revolutionary movement in Algeria which poses a real threat to the survival of the regime. She describes a young generation determined to go beyond the usual arrangements between parties and the establishment to produce radical change. The slogan in the streets is ‘El Chaab yourid isskat ennidam’ – ‘The people want to bring down the system.’

By Tin Hinane El Kadi

Algeria is going through a revolutionary moment. Algiers, once known as ‘the Mecca of Revolutionaries’, had the largest demonstrations in its history, as millions of citizens protested against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika who is seeking to remain in power after 20 years of continuous rule. The protest movement now demands the removal of the entire regime. The phrase ‘Yetnahaw gaa’ (all of them will be removed) has become widespread among protesters and on social media, reinvigorating a wave of mass emancipatory politics in the country.

To what extent can the current protests really challenge the system?  Will the country go through a phase of superficial reforms allowing the regime to survive by making a few concessions, or will this mass movement produce revolutionary change? Algeria’s regime, referred to among Algerians as ‘Le Pouvoir’ (the Power), constitutes an opaque network of military, political and economic elites who have, despite some variations and turbulence, astutely managed to rule the country without interruption since independence. Radical change will depend on the capacity of the popular movement to maintain pressure on the system and shift the balance of power.

Background on recent events

On 22 February hundreds of thousands of Algerians took to the streets to voice their rejection of Bouteflika’s decision to run for a fifth term. Another large-scale demonstration took place on 24 February 24 at the call of Mouwatana, a political platform in the opposition. These demonstrations grew in the following days to involve millions of Algerians across the country. These mass protests have been mainly peaceful with the slogan ‘Silimya, Silmiya’ (Peaceful, peaceful) emerging as a defining motto of the movement.

The mass contestation includes all social classes, old and young people as well as many women. Students have been leading impressive anti-Bouteflika rallies on weekdays. The government announced the early closure of universities in an unsuccessful attempt to weaken the student’s mobilisation. Several corporations have joined the protest movement including lawyers, trade unionists, teachers, journalists, lecturers, and even judges.

Bouteflika, 82 years old, has been president since 1999. He has been confined to a wheelchair after suffering a stroke in 2013. The ailing octogenarian rarely appears in public and has not given a public address for the past seven years. Realising the threat paused by the upheaval, the regime responded with a letter attributed to president Bouteflika published on Algeria’s Press Agency on 10 March. The letter announced the delay of the presidential election initially set for 18 April and promised that the incumbent president would not run for a fifth term. This means that Bouteflika’s mandate will be stretched indeterminately until the organisation of a vaguely defined transitional conference, led by the incumbent regime. Old faces of the system such as Noureddine Bedoui, Ramdan Lamamra, and Lakhdar Ibrahimi have been appointed to lead the announced transition.

                                                  The banner says, ‘Break with the system: no elections under this system’

This manoeuvre failed to appease the movement. On 15 March, millions of Algerians took to the streets, in what was arguably the biggest demonstrations in the country’s history. People demanded the immediate departure of the president and his entourage and expressed their mistrust of any government-led transition. Protesters chanted slogans like ‘Bouteflika Matzidch Edkika’ (Bouteflika, do not stay an extra minute), ‘FLN, Degage’ (FLN, get out), ‘Djazair hourra, democratia’ (a free and democratic Algeria), and the regionally-famous ‘El Chaab yourid isskat ennidam’ (The people want to bring down the system).

A Delayed Spring

For the past couple of years, Algeria appeared impervious to the popular demonstrations sweeping across the region. Despite the outbreak of sporadic strikes and protests, these have remained contained and failed to transform into confrontations against the regime, until now.

The confluence of two key factors can explain Algeria’s long ‘stability’. First, Algerians mostly feared a return to the political turmoil and violence of the 1990’s civil war. The painful memories of the décennie noire (black decade) are still present in people’s collective consciousness. Second, oil rents have allowed the government to buy social peace and co-opt several opposition groups over the past two decades. Government subsidies cover a vast array of goods and services ranging from bread and milk to energy subsidies and social housing programmes. They reached a total of €62.8 billion  in 2018. This high level of redistribution makes Algeria Africa’s least unequal society.

But as Frantz Fanon, who was a fervent supporter of Algeria’s independence, rightly says in The Wretched of the Earth published in 1961: ‘The big confrontation cannot be indefinitely postponed.’  The strength of these two inhibiting forces described above faded with time. On the one hand, the wall of fear collapsed thanks to a generational change. Over 70 per cent of Algeria’s population, today is believed to be under the age of 30. The young generation who has been leading the protests is not old enough to remember the civil war and is thus not impaired by the spectre of political violence. Moreover, the regime’s attempt to spread fear by bringing up the Libyan and Syrian scenarios failed miserably, with protesters chanting among other things ‘Dzayer machi Sourria’ (Algeria is not Syria).

On the other hand, the drop in oil prices in 2014 undermined the government’s redistributive capacity. Recent financial laws have shown an apparent turn towards austerity, with cuts in social spending and new taxes. While Algeria has free universal healthcare and free education, including tertiary education, the quality of these services has deteriorated tremendously over the years due to lack of investments and tensions created by demographic growth. Besides, the incumbent regime failed to build a vibrant industrial sector and to diversify the economy away from hydrocarbons, resulting in a vulnerable economy and high rates of unemployment, estimated at 30 per cent among the youth.

Public frustration was burgeoning over limited freedoms, decreasing purchasing power, and significant corruption scandals. In the summer of 2018, senior politicians and military figures were found involved in a colossal cocaine scandal. The regime’s logic was to encourage Bouteflika to run for a fifth term to maintain access to state privileges and sustain accumulation within its networks. However, the announcement of the regime’s aim to present Bouteflika for another term came as an unbearable extra humiliation for Algerians. ‘Le pouvoir’ was not prepared for the massive mobilisation the declaration created.

In neighbouring Egypt, the deep state emerged intact from its confrontation with the protests. Resistance to the system has been either violently repressed or strategically co-opted, allowing the old order to thrive, under a new face. In Egypt, as in Algeria, the army holds tremendous political power, and thus the question of whether Algerians will succeed where Egyptians have failed is pertinent. However, the Egyptian scenario is in some respects similar to Algeria’s aborted transition of 1988. This time around, Algerians seem determined to break free from the established system despite its renowned tenacity.

‘Le Pouvoir’: A History of Survival

After independence from French colonialism in 1962, the National Liberation Front (FLN) emerged as the sole actor with political and historical legitimacy. The critical role played by the FLN in the decolonisation process and its centralisation of power during the last years of the colonial period were the determining factors in the establishment of the postcolonial FLN one-party system. The political and armed wings of the FLN allowed for the creation of a regime based on a strong alliance between the army, the presidency, and the party.

                                                                           The banner says ‘All of them will be removed’

The ongoing contestation of the political order is not unprecedented. The violently repressed 1980’s Berber Spring represented the first large-scale rebellion against the system. In 1986, the decline in oil prices reduced Algeria’s external revenue by 55 per cent in a single year. This hastened an acute socioeconomic crisis characterised by high unemployment, soaring inflation, and widespread shortages in essential goods. By October 1988, anti-government riots spread across the country, forcing the abolition of the one-party system, the introduction of the first democratic reforms in North Africa and the Middle East and the move from a state-socialist economic model to a market-driven economy.

Yet political Islam emerged as a serious challenge to the FLN-Military coalition. After the left-leaning opposition had been crushed, the Islamic Front of Salvation (FIS), emerged as the only serious political force channelling popular anger. The idea that a return to Islamic values was the solution to the Algerian predicament was widespread among disenfranchised segments of the population. In the first multi-party legislative elections held in the country in December 1991, the FIS was poised to win the popular vote. Threatened by the loss of its monopoly on power, the military, backed by high officials within the FLN, staged a coup d’Etat in 1992. The coup radicalised FIS supporters and Algeria entered a decade long civil war during which the army and various Islamist groups fought mercilessly causing an estimated 150.000 deaths.

‘Le pouvoir’ eventually succeeded in crushing the Islamist insurgency, restoring its grip on power. The deep state emerged virtually unscathed from the civil war. In 1998, Abdelaziz Bouteflika – who had worked as Fanon’s secretary before independence – was elected president after all other candidates had withdrawn from the race claiming that the military rigged the elections. Bouteflika’s rule was marked by political repression, the emergence of a prominent oligarchy, and rampant corruption. In this period, the regime demonstrated a somewhat confused ideological orientation, which combined features of both economic nationalism and neo-liberalism. Depending on whether oil prices were in a ‘boom’ or a ‘bust’ cycle, the ruling elite adopted either a protectionist policy or espoused a path of austerity and liberalisation. Most of the opposition was co-opted, including Louisa Hanoune’s Parti des Travailleurs (Workers’ Party), a Trotskyist party which regularly voiced its support to Bouteflika and the regime.

Power Fragmentation

While the regime succeeded in adjusting and manipulating the previous crisis by making concessions on the margins, its current capability to come up with a survival plan appears extremely weak. The mere fact that the ailing Bouteflika was the only option the regime had to sustain itself in power indicates its fragility. The regime’s inability to find a successor is partly due to the difficulty in agreeing on a consensual figure from within the system who could guarantee the sustainability of access to existing power networks.

The regime is far from homogenous, and power struggles between different clans are evident.  The 2015 firing of intelligence chief Mohamed Mediène, known as Toufik, who was perceived as the true power-holder in the country was an illustration of this. After Toufik’s eviction, it seemed that the presidential clan which includes the president, his brother Saïd Bouteflika, several political and business figures, and the military clan led by General Gaid Saleh, chief of staff of the national army, had settled on a new, more centralised, power balance.

However, signs of power fragmentation were apparent as the country headed towards the electoral period, with a broad restructuring in the army, and a severe institutional crisis within the Algerian National People’s Assembly (APN) in 2018. The ongoing popular uprising has further precipitated fragmentation within the regime. Several allies of Bouteflika have voiced their support to the protests. Mouad Bouchareb, the head of the FLN, has declared in a press conference that he stands with the people. Similarly, Hocine Kheldoun, a senior party figure in the FLN said during a TV interview that the long-serving president was ‘history now.’

                                            One of the banners says, ‘To the dustbin of history’

The military has so far stayed in its barracks. Recent statements made by the army have expressed sympathy for the protest movement. The messages emphasised the privileged relationship between ‘the army and the people.’ The protests have according to General Gaid Saleh shown a ‘great sense of patriotism and unparalleled civic behaviour.’ Yet no reference has been made to Bouteflika’s suggestion that he remain president. While there is no explicit support for the protest movement demands, it looks like the army is in the process of distancing itself from Bouteflika and his clan.

French Interventionism

Former colonial power France has already voiced its support to Bouteflika’s plan to unconstitutionally remain in power until a transitional conference is held. Emmanuel Macron applauded Bouteflika’s move and described it as ‘opening a new phase in Algeria’s democracy.’ Dominique de Villepin, previous French minister of foreign affairs, has appraised the regime for avoiding a disaster through the announced reforms.

For the West, the ‘security’ and ‘stability paradigms’ have long triumphed over other concerns. Based on a colonial doxa which posits that countries in the region can only be ‘stable’ under the rule of an autocratic regime, western powers have not voiced serious support for the protest movement. Europe’s incommensurate fear of a new migration wave means that the EU will back the alternative that ensures the most ‘stability.’ Yet, for the millions of Algerians determined to change the course of history, ‘stability’ lies in emancipation from a corrupt and repressive system.

                               One of the banners says, ‘We will not fall into the trap of the 1990s’

A truly popular and democratic Algeria would undoubtedly challenge France’s interests. Algeria’s relationship with the old colonial power is based on asymmetric exchange. For years, French firms have benefitted from juicy contracts, including the  the Metro of Algiers and the management of several airports across the country. These benefits came in exchange of no meaningful technological transfers. The free trade agreement between the EU and Algeria has resulted in a significant trade deficit for Algeria. It is estimated that between the agreement’s adoption in 2005 and 2016 Algeria lost over €7 billion . New leadership is required for the country to challenge inherited unequal agreements and put structural transformation back on the agenda.

In brief, the historical mobilisation which started on 22 February  poses a real threat to the continuity of ‘le pouvoir.’ Young people leading the demonstrations are aiming to go beyond the usual arrangements between parties and the establishment to produce radical change. A meaningful transition entails dissolving the current political order and building a fresh democratic system, based on popular inclusion. The Algerian regime seems quite fragmented, and it has so far failed to find viable alternatives for its endurance. This situation opens the doors of optimism and hope. This being said, the black box of the regime is notorious for its manoeuvres and it may have new cards to play. The interaction of mass mobilisation with organised politics in the coming weeks will determine the rules of the game.

Tin Hinane El Kadi is a member of Le Collectif des Jeunes Engagés (The Collective of Young Algerian Activists), an Algerian organisation advocating political change and youth involvement in public affairs. She is also a political economy researcher working on the ESRC-funded research project ‘Tale of two green valleys’ at the London School of Economics and a data analyst for the Citing Africa project.

Photographs: Tin Hinane El Kadi is responsible for all of the photographs in the post.

‘The mines make us poor’: Large-scale mining in Burkina Faso

By
ROAPE
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Artisanal gold mining has a long history in Burkina Faso, but industrial gold mining is experiencing a recent boom in the country. Since 2007, for example, 15 industrial mines have opened. The research group GLOCON has released a report which puts the views of those affected by large-scale gold mining in Burkina Faso at the centre of the analysis. For roape.net the authors discuss the report’s findings.

By Mirka Schäfer, Franza Drechsel and Bettina Engels

Gold mining has both a long history as well as a recent boom in Burkina Faso. In the form of artisanal mining, locally known as orpaillage, it began long before colonisation. Industrial mining, however, is a new phenomenon: since 2007, 15 industrial mines have opened. Currently, in 2019, eleven gold mines and one zinc mine are in operation, and exploration and exploitation licenses for industrial mining have been issued for almost half of the surface of the country. While mining companies and the government promise jobs and ‘development’, what is the actual experience of the people living close to the mines? The research group GLOCON (Global Change – Local Conflicts) has released their most recent  Country Report which puts the views of those affected by the industrial mines in Burkina Faso at the centre of the analysis. The analysis reveals that the perspective of the people living close the mines differs from the one of the companies and government. While there are few advantages, mainly certain investment in infrastructure, there are many negative impacts, including the devastating loss of livelihood.

Loss of livelihoods

The most relevant negative impact of industrial mines concerns the loss of livelihoods. Burkina Faso’s rural population mainly depends on subsistence agriculture and livestock farming. Artisanal gold mining is another important source of income. A new mine is installed on land that was previously used for farming, cattle herding or artisanal mining. Many residents are impeded from pursuing their former livelihood activities as they have lost their fields and/or are denied the possibility to engage in artisanal mining.

The expropriation of people from their land for the purpose of mining is legally possible in Burkina Faso, and mining companies are obliged to compensate the residents for their loss. But despite international standards which recommend providing substitute cultivation areas, land is nearly always compensated by payments. While these should serve as an investment in alternative income generating activities, they are more often used for the daily needs as it is difficult to establish alternative livelihoods, and many people state that the loss of land for agriculture and herding leads to poverty. Also, the construction and production phase of a mine and the effects on the environment and living conditions of the people last much longer than the actual compensation payments.

Since orpaillage is generally prohibited on mining concession areas, the local population is deprived of yet another important source of income. Even though the mining management as well as government officials make promises regarding employment opportunities in the industrial mines, people strongly express their dissatisfaction with the few positions being created and that non-locals are advantaged in being employed by the mine. Unemployment and poverty, sometimes even hunger are the consequences of the combination of the loss of livelihoods and the lacking compensation and employment options by the mining operators.

Involuntary resettlement

Thousands of households are relocated to newly constructed villages for the benefit of the construction or extension of a mine. Problems of the resettlement process include a lack of transparency and information, disruption of the social structure by the new arrangement of the houses in the villages, and longer distances for the daily routines of the residents.

Another concern is related to damaging effects and increasing health problems. The work of the mine includes dynamite blasts in order to crush the gold containing rock. These provoke ground motion and bring dust and rocks into the village, which leads to increased respiratory illnesses. Furthermore, the detonations cause damage to the houses, even the newly built ones, and produce a lot of noise and even a feeling of ‘earthquakes.’ Residents also complain about pollution due to the use of toxic products or waste left close to the village. Furthermore, defunct tailing dams or the spill over of chemical products contaminate the groundwater.

The reallocation of land and the damaging effects of the mines also impact cultural sites such as graves or religious sites that become inaccessible or are threatened by the mine operations. This has led to conflicts, for example around the Karma mine, where dynamite blasts are viewed as a threat to the nearby Ramatoulaye Mosque, an important site of pilgrimage.

Unfulfilled promises and repression

Even though according to Burkinabé law, mining companies need to obtain the consent of the local population regarding the plans to construct a mine in their vicinity and the potential repercussions on their lives and environment, many residents in the neighbourhood of the mines claim not to have been informed. Apart from the lack of prior information they also complain about unfulfilled promises. Often, the mine management attempts to counter the negative impacts of the mine by promising infrastructure developments and employment during the construction process as well as later in the mine. However, these promises do not materialise for the vast majority of the population.

When residents stand up for their rights, they often experience repression by state authorities and operators. Repression includes unlawful dismissals of those who unionise. Demonstrations and roadblocks are countered with physical violence by police or special security forces and protesters are arbitrarily arrested.

Generally, residents feel that the mining companies are taking from them without giving enough back. Many people are under the impression that the mine management and the government are in cahoots. A housemaker from the village Imiougou, close to the Bissa-Bouly mine states: ‘I ask the government and the mine not to turn their backs while we suffer.’

The mine management and the government

The affected populations try to engage with the mine management and the local and national authorities to demand local employment and income generating opportunities. They also seek compensation payments, investment in local infrastructures, and access to artisanal mining sites, micro-credit schemes and training.

Despite repression, the affected populations use different ways of addressing the actors they see in charge: letters, meetings, petitions, press conferences, demonstrations, marches, roadblocks and sit-ins are just some of the highly diverse array of strategies that the residents employ to raise their claims.

GLOCON’s Country Report offers a rare perspective on how local populations experience industrial mining in Burkina Faso. Contrary to the promises of mining companies and the government agencies, the qualitative analysis of the survey shows that the opening of mines in the country have not improved the living conditions of the residents. Instead, the findings reveal that the grave social and environmental impacts of the industrial mines are at the expense of residents. One peasant from Taparko in the North of the country summarises: ‘They have taken everything from us: our land, our jobs, our health, our peace and our hope.’

Read the full report in English and in French. For further background on Burkina Faso, read Lila Chouli’s 2012 pamphlet, ‘Enough is Enough’.

Mirka Schäfer is currently studying in the Master programme in social and political sciences with a focus on social inequality and postcolonial and feminist theories at Humboldt University in Berlin.

Franza Drechsel is a reseacher who focuses on conflicts over gold mining in Burkina Faso as well as state-society relations and post-coloniality in Africa.

Bettina Engels teaches at the Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany and is a regular contributor to ROAPE. Together with Kristina Dietz, she is joint director of the research group GLOCON. Her research focuses on conflict over land and mining, critical agrarian studies, and class theory.

Featured Photograph: Essakane gold mine is located in north-eastern Burkina Faso.

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For 50 years, ROAPE has brought our readers pathbreaking analysis on radical African political economy in our quarterly review, and for more than ten years on our website. Subscriptions and donations are essential to keeping our review and website alive.
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