- Title: [SW Analysis](George B. N. Ayittey) The Somali Crises: Time
for an African Solution
- Posted by/on:[AMJ][Thursday, October 5, 2000]
Policy Analysis No. 205
March 28, 1994
THE SOMALI CRISIS:
TIME FOR AN AFRICAN SOLUTION
by George B. N. Ayittey
George B. N. Ayittey is an associate professor of economics at the
American University
and president of the Free Africa Foundation. His most recent book, Africa
Betrayed
(Cato and St. Martins, 1992), won the Mencken Award for best book of
1992.
Executive Summary
Somalia's societal breakdown and the famine that accom-
panied it were results of political and economic problems
common to most sub-Saharan African countries. The U.S. and
UN interventions in Somalia are unlikely to resolve the
country's crisis because they do not offer solutions based on
African initiatives. Indeed, dozens of UN and U.S. troops
have already been killed by Somalis angry with those forces
for trying to impose a settlement to Somalia's complex polit-
ical disputes, and hundreds of Somalis have been killed in
clashes with the occupying forces. That should not be sur-
prising since outside attempts to resolve Africa's problems
have regularly proven ineffective and even counterproductive.
The chronic crises in Somalia and sub-Saharan Africa in
general have been caused by a succession of repressive re-
gimes and their disastrous domestic policies. Flawed econom-
ic and political models have led to dismal growth in per
capita income, falling rates of food production, periodic
famines, systematic disregard of basic liberties, institu-
tionalized corruption, and ongoing civil wars.
A long-term solution to those problems can come only
from Africans themselves, not from well-meaning occupying
powers or grandiose nation-building schemes of the United
Nations. Traditional African systems of participatory gov-
ernment and free markets should serve as the model for the
region's societies. The transition to such systems may not
be easy, but it is the only way free and prosperous societies
will emerge and thrive in Africa. The United Nations and the
United States must allow Africans to work out their own
destiny.
Introduction
For much of 1992 most of Somalia lay in ruins--effec-
tively destroyed. It had no government, no police force,
nor even basic services. Armed thugs and bandits roamed the
country, pillaging and plundering, and murderous warlords
battled savagely for control of the capital, Mogadishu. The
carnage and the drought claimed over 300,000 lives, and
heartbreaking spectacles of emaciated bodies of famine
victims were daily visited upon the public by the Western
media.
During 1993 Somalia was occupied by U.S. soldiers
providing humanitarian assistance and by UN peacekeeping
troops attempting to establish order in the country. The
U.S.-UN intervention, of course, was prompted by a desire to
end the hunger and violence. Although the goal of the
humanitarian mission was quickly achieved, the United Na-
tions found itself dragged into the Somalis' battles, which
resulted in the deaths of dozens of UN peacekeepers and
hundreds of Somalis at the hands of U.S. and UN forces.
Even the United States has suffered casualties in its ef-
forts to impose stability in Mogadishu. When 18 U.S. sol-
diers were killed in October 1993 during a Somali-U.S.
confrontation, it became apparent to U.S. policymakers that
establishing a functioning society in Somalia was more
complex than they had thought.
Although the United States has refrained from commit-
ting itself further to nation building in Somalia and has
promised to withdraw from that country by March 31, 1994,
the United Nations has pledged to remain there to work out a
political settlement--a strategy likely to end in failure,
since disputing factions now regard the United Nations as an
obstacle to peace and "an occupying force." Indeed, the
violence aimed at the United Nations has been due precisely
to many Somalis' resentment that the solutions to their
problems would be dictated from outside and to suspicion
about the United Nations' political agenda.
Somalia's problems are characteristic of those of many
African nations. Unfortunately, as has been the case in
other African countries, outside forces will probably not
provide an enduring solution to Somalia's difficulties.
After all, despite massive economic assistance from the
West, famines have been occurring with depressing regularity
in Africa in recent years, and African economies have been
in dismal shape. Although droughts have played havoc with
agricultural production, the food supply has been far more
threatened by never-ending armed conflicts.
It is true that external factors, including the colo-
nial legacy, the Cold War, and other foreign meddling in
African affairs, have played a role in creating the region's
problems. But the primary causes of Africa's crises are of
internal origin: misguided political leadership, corruption,
capital flight, defective economic systems, senseless civil
wars, and military vandalism. Although foreign powers can
help with the resolution of Somali-type conflicts, it should
be recognized that Africans themselves bear the ultimate
responsibility for solving their problems. Indeed, they are
the only ones capable of providing a lasting solution.
The Reign of Terror in Somalia
Somalia's descent into chaotic lawlessness did not
occur overnight and could have long been predicted. Though
the Somalis are ethnically homogeneous, their plight under
and after colonial rule bore testimony to the capriciousness
of colonial boundaries. The Somali found themselves in five
jurisdictions: British Somaliland, Italian Somaliland,
Ethiopia (in the Ogaden), Kenya, and Djibouti. The nation
of Somalia was formed and granted independence in July 1960
when the British protectorate and the Italian trust were
joined and the rest of the Somali people were abandoned in
Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya.
The civilian administration that assumed power after
independence became hopelessly corrupt and incompetent. On
October 21, 1969, it was overthrown in a bloodless coup by
Maj. Gen. Mohamed Siad Barre, who adopted the socialist
model and the designation "Jalle," or "Comrade."
Government
was centralized under a "supreme revolutionary council," and
Somalia turned to the Soviet Union for tutelage during the
period 1970-77.
The break with Moscow came when the Soviets refused to
support Barre's grand scheme of uniting the Somali in one
"Greater Somaliland." Both Somalia and Ethiopia were Soviet
allies in the Horn of Africa, and the Soviets were unwilling
to support military incursions into Ethiopia. Although
Barre seized the Ogaden in southern Ethiopia in a successful
military campaign in 1977, he was routed and expelled by
Ethiopian forces with help from Moscow in March 1978.
The West Compounds Somalia's Problems
Barre then turned to the United States. The Carter
administration promised to help if Somalia would cut ties to
Moscow. Barre did so, and on August 22, 1980, Somalia and
the United States signed an agreement that permitted the
United States to use military facilities at the port of
Berbera. In exchange, Washington agreed to provide Barre
with $20 million in credits for the purchase of military
equipment, $5 million in budgetary support, and $20 million
in general credits that year. But the change in its geo-
political alignment did not save Somalia, which was already
beyond redemption.
In July 1976 the Revolutionary Council was disbanded
and replaced with the Revolutionary Socialist Party, the
sole legal party. Socialist policies, however, failed to
engineer economic development. Although Somalia did become
a major supplier of bananas, the economy was in tatters by
1979. The International Monetary Fund, summoned in 1980,
called for market-oriented economic policies, devaluation of
the Somali shilling, and sale of unprofitable state enter-
prises. After eight years of government policy zigzagging
and posturing, in June 1986 a frustrated IMF pulled out,
declaring Somalia ineligible for further borrowing.
Over the period 1965-87 living standards remained
stagnant. Even though Somalia received substantial amounts
of foreign aid, its gross national product per capita grew
at a miserable 0.3 percent a year, earning Somalia the title
"the Graveyard of Aid."(1) Over $800 million poured in from
the United States during that time.
Between 1981 and 1990 Italy alone spent more than $1
billion to sponsor 114 projects in Somalia. According to
Wolfgang Achtner, an Italian journalist, "With few excep-
tions, (such as vaccination programs carried out by NGOs
[nongovernmental organizations]), the Italian ventures were
absurd and wasteful." He wrote:
Approximately $250 million was spent on the Garoe-
Bosaso road that stretches 450 kilometers across
barren desert, crossed only by nomads on foot.
More than $40 million was spent to build a brand
new hospital equipped with sophisticated machinery
and operating rooms, in Corioley, south of Moga-
dishu. Since the Somalis were unable to run it,
the hospital was allowed to fall to pieces. The
Italian government paid about $95 million for a
fertilizer plant in Mogadishu that never became
operational. The Italians even established a
University of Somalia--despite the fact that 98
percent of the population is illiterate. The
Italian professors received salaries between
$16,000 and $20,000 per month.(2)
Piero Ugolini, an agronomist who worked for the techni-
cal unit of the Italian Embassy in Mogadishu from 1986 to
1990, revealed that a majority of Italian cooperative proj-
ects were carried out without considering their effects on
the local population. "[The] Italian aid program was used
to exploit the pastoral populations and to support a regime
that did nothing to promote internal development and was
responsible for the death of many of its people," Ugolini
said.(3)
Corruption increasingly became a problem, and foreign
aid simply went to replace capital outflows. In 1984, for
example, $15 million flowed out of Somalia. Misguided
socialist policies did not help food production, either. It
declined by 2.7 percent per capita over the 1975-80 period
and a further 1.3 percent from 1980 to 1985. By 1987 con-
sumer prices had risen 1,000 percent over their 1980 level.
Barre's Brutality
As Barre's regime became increasingly corrupt and
unpopular, it resorted to force to crush all opposition.
Torture, mass executions, pillage, and carnage were the
regime's signatures. So paranoid was Barre's military
regime that it declared war on its own people. In May 1988
it dropped bombs on Somali citizens after they demonstrated
against Barre's 20-year despotic rule. Hundreds of thou-
sands of innocent people were put to death or imprisoned
without the benefit of legal procedures.
Many politicians, businessmen, religious leaders, and
young students simply vanished or were butchered. For
example, on July 16, 1989, in the early hours of Iid al-
Adha, a Moslem holy day, government forces swooped down and
arrested six prominent imams after morning prayers. Whole
sections of the crowd of worshippers were gunned down.
Innocent people were rounded up by the hundreds, and many
were murdered and buried on the Jasira beach. Over 1,000
died that day.
In March 1990 Africa Watch, a New York-based human
rights organization, charged Barre's regime with "responsi-
bility for the deaths of 50,000 to 60,000 civilians since
hostilities broke out between the government and rebels from
the Somali National Movement."(4)
Warlordism Replaces the Barre Dictatorship
Two rebel movements--the United Somali Congress and the
Somali National Movement--set out to overthrow Barre. In
January 1991, the same month the Persian Gulf War erupted,
they succeeded in driving Barre from power. After his
ouster, however, internecine rivalry erupted between the
rebel groups. The USC controlled the south, including
Mogadishu, while the SNM controlled the north. In March of
that year the north seceded to form the Republic of Somali-
land. Then factionalism emerged within the ranks of the
USC.
One faction was led by interim president Ali Mahdi
Mohamed and the other by Gen. Mohamed Farah Aidid. Moga-
dishu became a divided city, as the two battled for control.
Aidid controlled most of the southern sector, while Mahdi's
stronghold was the Kaaraan district and other northern
areas. That turn of events shocked many. The country, in
the process of removing Barre, had already been devastated--
reduced to an ash heap of charred buildings and burned-out
vehicles, with decomposing bodies littering the streets.
Yet "educated" barbarians were waging a fierce battle to
determine who should be president, totally unconcerned about
the plight of their people.
There was more ammunition in Somalia than food and
medicine. Africa Watch affirmed that "the level of disci-
pline among the troops [was] so low, the number of free guns
so high and the need to loot for food so great that fire-
fights [would] undoubtedly continue."(5) Between November
1991 and March 1992 an estimated 41,000 people were killed.
Most of the victims were civilians, half of them women and
children.
Postcolonial Africa's Political and Economic Disaster
Unfortunately, the excesses of the Barre regime are not
the exception in Africa. In the late 1980s many African
governments, including those of Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia,
Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Sudan, Togo, and Zaire, de-
clared war against their own citizens in their mad obsession
with political power. In Mozambique, for example, ragged
government troops and a shadowy guerrilla army took turns
terrorizing villages and stealing their meager crops.
Entire units stooped to banditry. For many people, guns
became a source of income. Mozambican soldiers have been
known to hire out their weapons to criminals for a fee or a
part of the loot.
The plight of Somalia encapsulates the experience of
most black African nations: years of colonial misrule, the
establishment of arbitrary state boundaries, independence,
repressive governments, violence, and widespread hunger or
famine. Somalia's latest crisis only makes it more urgent
to examine the region's bitter history to help prevent
similar developments elsewhere.
In the 1960s when Africa gained its independence from
colonial rule, its people were euphoric. "Free at last!"
they chanted. The colonial "infidels" had been driven out
of Africa, and Africans no longer had to submit to the
indignities of foreign domination. Africa was capable of
charting its own course in its own image, not that of the
"racist" colonialists. Today the optimism and euphoria of
the 1960s have been replaced by a deep sense of disappoint-
ment, anger, and betrayal.
Independence did not herald the era of freedom and
prosperity trumpeted by the nationalists. Three decades of
independence and "freedom" have witnessed a steady increase
in the incidence of hunger and a systematic deterioration of
living standards across Africa. More perfidious, the eco-
nomic exploitation and political oppression of the African
people have intensified--at the hands of the same elites and
nationalists who denounced the colonial powers for exploit-
ing Africa to develop their European countries. With few
exceptions, the nationalists who took over were worse than
the departing colonialists.
Deteriorating Economic Conditions
From 1965 to 1987 Africa's annual rate of growth of GNP
per capita averaged a dismal 1.1 percent.(6) Agricultural
growth was negligible, with output growing at less than 1.5
percent after 1970. Food production failed to keep pace
with population growth. Food production per capita fell by
7 percent in the 1960s, 15 percent in the 1970s, and contin-
ued to deteriorate in the 1980s. In 1987, for example, it
dropped by 4.9 percent.(7)
In sub-Saharan, or black, Africa, the crisis has been
particularly trenchant. The decline has been especially
calamitous in Nigeria, which could not translate its oil
bonanza into sustainable economic prosperity. According to
the World Bank:
Sharply rising oil prices boosted exports from $4
billion in 1975 to $26 billion in 1980, while GNP
per capita rose from $360 to more than $1,000.
Rising public expenditures fueled by oil revenues
shifted production from agriculture to services.
When the price of oil collapsed, so did Nigeria's
export receipts. By 1986, they were down to $6
billion, while external debt rose from $5 billion
in 1980 to $25 billion in 1986. Real imports
contracted at an average annual rate of 20 per-
cent. Growth rates turned sharply negative, and
GNP per capita fell to $370.(8)
Though net foreign direct investment in Africa as a
whole has fallen, the drop has been sharpest in black Afri-
ca. Foreign investment dropped dramatically from $1,222
million in 1982 to $498 million in 1987. The French seem to
have been especially disillusioned. "French direct invest-
ment in sub-Saharan Africa ran at $1 billion a year in 1981-
83; by 1988 that had translated into a net outflow of more
than $800 million."(9)
The overall picture is even more distressing when
compared with other regions of the Third World. Social and
Table 1
Growth of Real GDP per Capita, 1965-2000 (Average Annual
Percentage Change)
_________________________________________________________________
Percentage Change
Population ____________________ Projection
(million) for the
1989 1965-73 1973-80 1980-89 1990s
_________________________________________________________________
Industrial countries 773 3.7 2.3 2.3 0.8-2.5
Developing countries 4,053 3.9 2.5 1.6 0.2-2.9
Sub-Saharan Africa 480 2.1 0.4 -1.2 0.3-0.5
East Asia 1,552 5.3 4.9 6.2 4.2-5.3
South Asia 1,131 1.2 1.7 3.0 2.1-2.6
Europe, the Middle
East, and North Africa 433 5.8 1.9 0.4 1.4-1.8
Latin America
and the Caribbean 421 3.8 2.5 -0.4 1.3-2.0
____________________________________________________________________
Source: World Bank, World Development Report 1991 (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 3.
economic indicators of development, such as growth of out-
put, health, and literacy, have shown the weakest perfor-
mance in black Africa. Table 1 gives rates of growth of
gross domestic product per capita by region.
Political Repression
As their economies deteriorated, Africans also saw
their political rights sharply curtailed and themselves
subjected to extremely cruel systems of government. Africa
has more dictators per capita than any other region in the
world. The most damning fact of the past 30 years is that,
until 1990, no independent country on the African continent
replaced its leaders in a free and fair election. Since
1957 there have been more than 160 African heads of state,
but only 6 in the history of postcolonial Africa up to 1990
relinquished political power voluntarily, and 4 of those did
so after 14 or more years in power.(10) The rest looted their
treasuries and mismanaged their economies until they were
overthrown or assassinated in military coups.
After independence, two social classes emerged in
Africa, the elite and the peasants. Although the peasants
constituted over 90 percent of the population, they exer-
cised no political power. There are 53 African countries,
including South Africa. Two (Morocco and Swaziland) are
monarchies. Only 13 of the others (Benin, Botswana, Cape
Verde, Egypt, Gambia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Namibia,
Sao TomÇ and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, and Zambia) are
democracies that allow their people the right to elect their
leaders. Six of those 13 (Cape Verde, Madagascar, Mali, Sao
TomÇ and Principe, Seychelles, and Zambia) are recent addi-
tions to the tiny democratic club. Twenty-four are military
dictatorships, and the rest are farcical "democracies" where
one person runs for president under a one-party state system
and typically wins 99.99 percent of the vote.
Many modern African leaders justified the imposition of
autocratic rule by claiming that democracy was alien. They
declared themselves "presidents for life" and their coun-
tries "one-party states." The leadership that emerged in
postcolonial Africa was given to schizophrenic posturing and
arrant sloganeering. "People's Revolution! People's Power!"
they chanted. But they never dreamed of giving their own
people the power to remove an incompetent government they
did not want. "Freedom for the blacks in South Africa!"
they rightly demanded. But not for their own black people
in their own black African countries. "Only socialism will
save Africa and check the evil machinations of neocolonial-
ism, imperialism, and capitalist exploitation," African
leaders argued. It would have been bad enough had they
actually believed in that misguided economic philosophy, but
the socialist rhetoric was often merely a facade for rampant
corruption.
Under African "socialism," the bourgeoisie riding about
in Mercedes-Benzes were socialist party hacks and function-
aries. A minister in Robert Mugabe's cabinet gave this
definition: "In Zimbabwe, socialism means what is mine is
mine but what is yours we share." The "socialism"
institut-
ed in Africa was a peculiar type ("Swiss-bank" socialism)
that allowed the heads of state and phalanxes of kleptocrats
to rape and plunder the national treasuries for deposit in
foreign banks. Julius Nyerere of Tanzania was perhaps the
only true practicing socialist, but even his Party of the
Revolution was hopelessly riddled with corruption. Even
Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, generally regarded as the "father of
African socialism," apparently stashed millions away in
Swiss and other foreign banks, according to the Ghana Gov-
ernment Commission of Enquiry, set up in 1967 to probe
Nkrumah's assets. According to David Lamb:
Though [Central African Republic president Jean-
Bedel] Bokassa's regime was as nonsensical as any
in Africa, it should not be viewed in isolation.
Its absurdity was the tragedy of all Africa, a
continent that suffers so much at the hands of
misguided leadership. Never has Africa been more
in need of men with reasoned voices and clear
visions, and never has the honor roll of leader-
ship been so barren.(11)
It is imperative to draw a clear distinction between
the African people (primarily the peasants) and their modern
leaders, the elites. Failure of the elites is not synony-
mous with failure of Africans as a people. The modern
leadership, with few exceptions, has turned out to be intol-
erant, stubborn, and brutally repressive. After indepen-
dence, African leaders, who had vowed to bring freedom to
their people, suddenly turned their guns on them. The
socialist state, with its coercive powers, became an instru-
ment of oppression and exploitation. Those who expressed
views different from the party line had their lives abruptly
disrupted and were thrown in jail. With no political
rights, the peasants had no channels through which to seek
redress of their grievances. The police and the army, which
were supposed to protect them, instead perpetrated crimes
against them. Uganda offers a classic example. There, more
than 800,000 people perished at the hands of Idi Amin,
Milton Obote, and Tito Okello--all Ugandan heads of state.
Yet when Amin was killing peasants at the rate of 150 a day,
the Organization of African Unity did nothing.
Amin's reign of terror and slaughter is well known.
Less well known but equally horrible was the regime of
President Marc°as Nguema of Equatorial Guinea. In 1972,
just four years after his country won its independence from
Spain, Nguema declared himself president for life. Backed
by Cuba, he pursued a policy of systematic extermination of
anyone who stood in the way of his attaining absolute power.
By the time he was overthrown by a coup in 1979, he had
massacred an estimated 50,000 people, or one-seventh of the
country's population.
Sadly, little has changed since the days of Nguema and
Amin. Serious violations of civil rights and recent deten-
tions and massacres of civilians in Uganda, Ethiopia, Libe-
ria, and other African countries reveal the extent of the
continuing repression. Clearly, that is not the "freedom"
Africans fought for.
Why Things Went So Wrong
After independence most African states assumed a prima-
ry role in economic development. The degree of state inter-
ventionism varied from the relatively superficial (in Bot-
swana, Cameroon, and Mauritius) to the massive (in Algeria,
Angola, Benin, Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Zambia). The
rationale for dirigisme emanated from two sources.
The first was ideological, a product of the misconcep-
tions that emerged from the liberation struggle against
Western colonialism. Colonial rule was judged "evil and
exploitative." Abhorrence of colonialism transformed itself
into an ideological aversion to capitalism on the premise
that, because the colonialists were capitalists, capitalism,
too, was "evil and exploitative." That kind of syllogistic
reasoning characterized the pronouncements of such African
leaders as Nkrumah of Ghana, Modibo Keita of Mali, Nyerere
of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, and Mugabe of Zimba-
bwe. According to those leaders, free markets, free trade,
private enterprise, and the parliamentary system of democra-
cy were all Western capitalist institutions that should be
rejected by Africa. For example, Nkrumah warned Africa
against an insidious dogma propagated by the imperialists:
"that Western democracy and parliamentary system are the
only valid ways of governing; that they constitute the only
worthwhile model for the training of an indigenous elite by
the colonial power."(12) Highly centralized and intervention
ist socialist systems were established by Nkrumah and other
African leaders to spur development.
The second factor was coincidental and faddish. Re-
ceived orthodoxy, prevalent in much of the Third World at
that time, upheld the necessity of centralized planning and
control for pragmatic reasons. The efficiency of markets
was conceded, but they were supposedly either nonexistent or
underdeveloped and could not possibly serve as a guide to
investment decisions. Even where markets existed, it was
argued, prices were often distorted by structural rigidities
and inelasticities of supply and, therefore, provided unre-
liable signals to economic actors. In Africa organized
capital markets had long been absent, and commodity markets
could be cornered by powerful commercial interests. Only
the state could marshall the resources required to undertake
large-scale development projects. Furthermore, structural
impediments and infrastructural bottlenecks could be removed
only through state planning and action. The U.S. Agency for
International Development (U.S. AID), the World Bank, and
the IMF all supported the statist approach with large funds.
The Expanding Role of the State in Economic Affairs
Accordingly, wide-ranging powers were conferred upon
the state, and those powers eventually became concentrated
in the hands of a single individual (the head of state)
because there were few or no countervailing checks or safe-
guards. Development plans of various terms to maturity
proliferated across Africa in the 1960s. It was more than
fashionable for African governments to brandish those plans;
in fact, it was deemed economically suicidal for a govern-
ment not to possess one. Its possession demonstrated to
donors of foreign aid an African government's commitment to
the alleviation of poverty and its need for development
assistance.
To help achieve the objectives of those plans, a pleth-
ora of legislative controls was imposed on imports, exports,
prices, rent, interest rates and flows of money, credit, and
foreign exchange. Import and exports controls, for example,
were deemed necessary to conserve scarce foreign exchange.
State enterprises were established and given exclusive
franchises to shield the country from the avaricious propen-
sities of foreign multinational corporations. Detailed
controls over prices and the flow of money and credit en-
sured large-scale transfers of resources to the state. But
African leaders and elites misconstrued the notion of "de-
velopment," equating development with industrialization and
castigating all things native as "backward and inferior."
There was a pervasive belief among the nationalists and
elites that Africa's own indigenous institutions could not
be used for the rapid development and transformation of
Africa. Perhaps ashamed to be thought "backward," the
elites embarked on a program of development that imitated
foreign systems and placed obtrusive emphasis on heavy
industry, with a view to changing Africa's image. No longer
should Africans be relegated to the "inferior" status of
"drawers of water and hewers of wood." The overemphasis on
heavy industry led to the neglect of agriculture and other
primary activities.
Thus, the development that occurred in postcolonial
Africa can be described as "development by imitation."
Grandiose projects and schemes were copied from abroad and
transplanted to Africa. American farmers use tractors and
chemical fertilizers; so too must we in Africa. New York
has skyscrapers; so too must African cities. London has
doubledecker buses; so too must Accra and Lagos. The Soviet
Union has state farms; so too must Africa. In 1964 Nkrumah
demanded a bylaw requiring all advertisements in Accra to be
lit by neon so that the streets of the capital would resem-
ble Piccadilly Circus in London. France once had an emper-
or, so Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic
spent $20 million in 1976 to crown himself emperor. Rome
has a basilica; so too must Ivory Coast. The United States
has two political parties; so too must Nigeria. According-
ly, the military regime of President Ibrahim Babangida
created two political parties: the Social Democratic Party
and the National Republican Convention.(13) To add more in-
sult, the military regime also wrote the party manifestoes.
The list of examples of that type of unimaginative imitation
in Africa is endless.
Many African governments not only nationalized European
companies--ostensibly to prevent "foreign exploitation"--but
also turned their wrath on their own people, barring them
from many economic fields. For example, after Ghana gained
its independence, European companies were taken over by the
state. Mining operations were monopolized by the state and
private gold mining declared illegal. Furthermore, "Anyone
caught indulging in illegal gold prospecting, popularly
known as galamsey (gather them and sell), will be shot, a
PNDC representative announced to a workers' rally in the
Western Region."(14)
In many other African countries, the native populations
were squeezed out of industry, trade, and commerce while the
state emerged as the dominant, if not the only, player.
Indigenous operators were not tolerated. Indeed, there was
a time when the director of the Club du Sahel, Anne de
Lattre, would begin her meetings with the frightening re-
mark, "Well, there is one thing we all agree on: that pri-
vate traders should be shot."(15)
Under SÇkou Toure's nonsensical program of "Marxism in
African Clothes," in Guinea,
unauthorized trading became a crime. Police road-
blocks were set up around the country to control
internal trade. The state set up a monopoly on
foreign trade and smuggling became punishable by
death. Currency trafficking was punishable by 15
to 20 years in prison. Many farms were collectiv-
ized. Food prices were fixed at low levels.
Private farmers were forced to deliver annual
harvest quotas to "Local Revolutionary Powers."
State Companies monopolized industrial produc-
tion.(16)
Other African governments also adopted price controls
and various legislative instruments for the systematic
exploitation of the peasants. Prices of agricultural pro-
duce were fixed to make food cheap for the urban elites--the
basis of political support for African governments. The
prices peasants received for their produce were dictated by
governments, not determined by market forces in accordance
with African traditions. (African chiefs did not fix pric-
es. Bargaining remains the rule in all village markets,
even today.)
Under an oppressive system of price controls adminis-
tered by the elites, Africa's peasants came to pay the
world's most confiscatory taxes. In 1981 the government of
Tanzania, for example, was paying peasant farmers only 20
percent of the free-market price for their maize. According
to the International Labor Organization, Sierra Leone taxed
an average of 30 to 60 percent of gross income in the agri-
cultural sector.(17) In 1984 cocoa farmers in Ghana received
less than 10 percent of the world market price for their
crop. In Ethiopia, Guinea, Tanzania, and many other African
countries, peasant farmers were forced to sell their produce
or quotas only to state produce-buying agencies. When
Zambian traders refused to sell their produce at government-
dictated prices in 1988, authorities raided the markets.
They arrested hundreds of people; took their money; tore
down market stalls; and seized sugar, detergents, salt,
maize meal, soft drinks, candles, flour, and clothing.
Improvidence and Corruption
Resources, extracted from the rural areas through
various legislative devices and controls, were never used
for development for the peasants. The elites used them to
develop only the urban areas and built statues of and monu-
ments to themselves. In his 1989 New Year's address, Presi-
dent FÇlix Houphouet-Boigny of Ivory Coast, for example,
disclosed that "the country's peasant farmers had over the
years parted with four-fifths of the value of what they
produced to enable the government to finance economic devel-
opment."(18) But over 80 percent of Ivory Coast's development
was concentrated in Abidjan for the benefit of the elites,
not the peasants.
By the early 1970s an economic crisis had emerged
throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The ruling elites demanded
more foreign aid to cure Africa's ills. And foreign aid did
pour into Africa--from the West, in part to support Cold War
allies and in part to soothe Western collective guilt over
the injustices of slavery and colonialism. More than $300
billion in aid and various forms of credits and financial
assistance have been pumped into Africa since the 1960s. In
fact, according to Jennifer Whitaker: "Even in 1965, almost
20 percent of Western countries' development assistance went
to Africa. In the 1980s, Africans, who are about 12 percent
of the developing world's population, were receiving about
22 percent of the total, and the share per person was higher
than anywhere else in the Third World--amounting to about
$20, versus about $7 for Latin America, and $5 for Asia."(19)
Between 1980 and 1988 sub-Saharan Africa received $83 bil-
lion in aid. Yet all that aid failed to spur economic
growth and to arrest Africa's economic atrophy or promote
democracy. Africa is littered with a multitude of "black
elephants" (basilicas, grand conference halls, new capitals,
and show airports) amid institutional decay, deteriorating
infrastructure, and environmental degradation.
Much of the aid was misappropriated by elite bazongas
(raiders of the public treasury) and never reached needy
peasants. In 1986, for example, the U.S. General Accounting
Office found that $16.5 million in food assistance funds had
been embezzled by Liberian authorities. In September 1989
the Nigerian government discovered to its utter dismay that
over $4 billion of its foreign debt was "fraudulent and
spurious."(20) In other words, there was nothing to show for
that amount, suggesting embezzlement. As the Paris newspa-
per Le Monde complained bitterly in March 1990, "Every franc
we give impoverished Africa comes back to France or is
smuggled into Switzerland and even Japan."(21)
The manager of the failed Banque Commerciale de Benin
put it succinctly:
The basic problem here, beside a lack of
competence, is total corruption. The top people
line their pockets through political influence.
The president's (Mathieu Kerekou's) adviser,
Cisse, called le Marabout--"the priest"--stole 5 bil-
lion CFA (about $14 million) from this bank. We've
traced it to Switzerland, London and Monte Carlo. . . .
The chief bandit is the president, along with
his associates in the politburo. The chief prose-
cutor is the next biggest bandit. Another is the
minister of justice: all court decisions are de-
termined by bribes. I went to the presidential
palace along with a representative of the World
Bank. We were asked when the stolen money would
be recovered. It was rather difficult to answer,
"Mr. President, you have the money." . . .
The top men will have 10 or 15 mistresses who
used to run up big debit accounts here, and then
go to the Palais and say, "You've got to straight-
en me out with the bank."
The rulers now admit that they never under-
stood Marxism, and as a sop to opinion a few peo-
ple have been jailed. But new marabouts have been
brought in, and are still at the center of the
decision-making.(22)
Data on such illegal activities are difficult to come
by except when a disgruntled ex-official squeals. Even
then, it is difficult to establish the veracity of such
allegations. Nevertheless, there have been numerous pub-
lished accounts. In Ivory Coast, for example, "the central
bank calculates that some CFA 130 billion [or $456 million]
are spirited out of the country illegally each year."(23) In
London's Guardian Weekly Paul Webster claimed that Hou-
phouet-Boigny "was siphoning off French aid funds to amass a
personal fortune as high as 6 billion pounds sterling."(24)
By the late 1980s Africans themselves were identifying
the state as the problem. Nigerian scholar Claude Ake
explained:
Most African regimes have been so alienated and so
violently repressive that their citizens see the
state and its development agents as enemies to be
evaded, cheated and defeated if possible, but
never as partners. The leaders have been so en-
grossed in coping with the hostilities which their
misrule and repression have unleashed that they
are unable to take much interest in anything else,
including the pursuit of development.(25)
In a similar vein, Akin Mabongunje argued, "It is
generally agreed that the false start in all African coun-
tries has been due largely to the high level of governmental
and bureaucratic domination of the economy with its conse-
quences of inefficiency, profligacy and inappropriate con-
trol."(26)
Many of Africa's corrupt tyrants and Swiss-bank social-
ists were subsequently booted out or assassinated in mili-
tary coups. But the soldiers who replaced them were often
even worse. They were brutal to their people, systematical-
ly ruined one African country after another, and looted
national treasuries with military discipline--in Benin,
Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Congo, Ethiopia,
Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Ugan-
da, Zaire, and other countries.
How Africa Could Have Avoided Tragedy
Somalia's tragedy and the crisis in sub-Saharan Africa
could have been avoided if African leaders and elites had
used, to put it bluntly, their common sense. Development
deals with people. In Africa the people are the peasants--
the majority in every African nation. Development does not
take place in a vacuum but in an "environment." The envi-
ronment for development is the people's socioeconomic and
political setup, that is, the whole gamut of their social,
economic, cultural, and political institutions as well as
policies and actions of the government in power that affect
Africans at the grassroots level. That environment has to
be conducive to development. Some minimum level of stabili-
ty, peace, order, civil society, and respect for civil
liberties is necessary for productive activity.
Economic development does not mean the wholesale and
blind acquisition of the symbols and signs of modernity.
Nor does it mean that everything about indigenous Africa
must be rejected in favor of alien systems. In fact, the
true challenge for development personnel is to use existing
institutions to generate economic prosperity. Africa's
peasants can never be alienated from those institutions.
They are part of their culture. One cannot expect peasants
to suddenly renounce their age-old traditions and ways of
doing things. Nor is such abjuration absolutely necessary,
as demonstrated by the stupendous success of the Japanese.
The Japanese did not have to become "Americanized" or "Sovi-
etized" in order to develop.
Development simply means improving existing ways of
doing things to make the processes more efficient and pro-
ductive than before. By productivity is meant producing
more from the same or even fewer resources or, alternative-
ly, producing the same amount by using fewer inputs. In the
African context, development means using the same indigenous
system to produce more output. The principal beneficiaries
of economic prosperity ought to be the peasants, not the
elite minority that constitutes less than 10 percent of the
population of any African country. The real development
solution lies in returning to Africa's own roots and build-
ing upon its age-old traditions of participatory democracy,
free markets, and free trade. Those are the structures and
institutions African natives operated by for centuries
before the Europeans arrived.
An increasing number of Africans agree on that point.
Professor Ali Mazrui of SUNY (Binghampton) noted, "The
continent has much in its indigenous past to form the foun-
dation of its democratic future."(27) Ben Kwame Fred-Mensah
of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns
Hopkins University added:
There is a growing consensus among some African
and Africanist writers, development experts, and
the donor community that indigenous institutions,
values, and practices are the motor of grassroots
participatory development strategies. Consequent-
ly, there is a growing call for not only the uti-
lization of indigenous institutions, but also for
their rationalization and formalization.(28)
Indigenous Africa
In Africa's indigenous system of government, the chief
was typically chosen or appointed by a queen mother with the
full approval of a council of elders.(29) He did not appoint
himself. If the chief did not govern according to the will
of the people, he was destooled (removed) by his people. In
many cases, the people simply voted with their feet and
moved elsewhere. The history of Africa is full of migra-
tions. If the chief acted despotically, the West African
Yoruba had a unique way of removing him by a process known
as kirikiri. A mob of angry peasants would surround his hut
and pelt it with rocks, loudly abusing him. He would be
given three months to leave the village. If he failed to do
so, a group of strong men seized and disposed of him. The
Gikuyu of Kenya removed their king by a process known as
itwika, which means breaking away.
In each African village, extended families chose their
heads. If there were 10 extended families, there would be
10 such heads who would together form a council of elders.
Without that council, the chief was powerless. He could not
make any law without its approval. Even the powerful Zulu
king could not dictate a law without the approval of the
ibandla, or state council. Council positions were heredi-
tary, which meant that the chief could not remove the coun-
cillors and pack the assembly with his own appointees. The
council was an independent organ of government.
The chief and the councillors had to reach unanimity on
all important matters. Any adult could participate in the
council meetings, called ndaba by the Zulu and kgotlas by
the Botswana. In Senegal, even slaves, djam, sent their
representatives to the king's court. The Angolan king
Alfonso allowed the Portuguese merchants to send their
representative, Don Rodrigo, to his court.
Traditional African political decisionmaking was noted
for its protracted debates. If the chief and the elders
were deadlocked on an issue, a village meeting was called
and the issue put before the people for debate until a
consensus was reached. Those village meetings, usually held
under a big tree at the village market square, are variously
called pitso by the Xhosa, asetena kese by the Ashanti, and
shir by the Somali.
The indigenous African system of government was open.
No one was locked out of the decisionmaking process. One
did not have to belong to a particular political party or
family to participate. Note that the chief did not declare
the village a one-party state and impose an alien ideology
on his people.
In the economic sphere, the means of production were
owned by the African people, not by their chiefs or tribal
governments. Even land was not owned by the chief. It
belonged to the ancient ancestors, and the chief merely
acted as custodian. What was grown on the land was private
property, belonging to the farmers, not to the chief.
Peasants were free to choose whatever occupation they
wished. They did not queue in front of the chief's hut for
permission to engage in trade.
Precolonial Africa was characterized by considerable
freedom of movement of people and goods. The continent was
crisscrossed by a dense web of trade routes (for example,
the Trans-Saharan) along which the natives moved freely and
engaged in trade. Africans have long had an ingrained
cultural propensity to trade. Throughout their history,
they traveled great distances to purchase goods from "stran-
gers" at cheaper prices to sell at higher prices to make a
profit. Much of that activity was free from state controls
and regulations. State intervention in trade, commerce, and
markets by Africa's traditional rulers was the exception
rather than the rule. There was no native African law that
forbade Africans to enter into businesses if they wished.
By nature and tradition, Africans have always been free
enterprisers. Markets were the nerve centers of traditional
African societies, and market activity was dominated by
women.
The Colonial Experience
When Africa was colonized, the colonialists sought to
control indigenous economic activities to their advantage.
Africa's colonial history is replete with successes and
failures of those policies. For example, on the Gold Coast
(now Ghana), European mining companies sought, without
success, legislative curtailment of indigenous mining opera-
tions. The two operated side by side throughout the colo-
nial era.
Notably absent during that era were state or colonial
government enterprises. A few large European firms and
companies dominated, but no indigenous economic activity was
reserved exclusively for the colonial government or European
companies. Nor would the colonial administrations have been
successful had they attempted such repression. It would
have entailed an extraordinary expenditure of resources
because Africa had not then developed the communications and
transportation networks needed for effective control of the
inhabitants and their economic activities. Cost was one
reason the British adopted the policy of "indirect rule"--
administration through the chiefs.
For the most part, the natives were free to go about
their economic activities, although there were some restric-
tions on their movements and places of residence in some
colonies. The natives could open shops and compete with the
European firms. Many did and were successful. There were
rich African shopkeepers as well as timber merchants, trans-
port owners, and farmers during the colonial period.
Africa's indigenous institutions did not vanish com-
pletely under colonialism. The village market, for example,
survived and still exists in many places today. One well-
known one is the Dantokpa market in Cotonou (capital of
Benin); another is Kodjoviakope market in LomÇ (Togo). West
Africa described the Dantokpa market as "the nerve center of
Cotonou."
Animated from early morning to late at night,
scores of small retailers line its voms, or
streets. Mobylette repair shops, dressmakers,
millers preparing corn flour and cabinet-makers
carving red wood ply their trades next to tradi-
tional healers patiently waiting for clients.
Vendors of pimento, peppers, spices and vegetables
with piquant odors stand behind their stalls,
while itinerant peddlers are everywhere selling
dried fish, potato-fritters and corn flour.
Near the old port are the stands selling
textiles, the domain of the "Mama Benz." These
vigorous business women usually ride in shining
Mercedes cars, hence their name. Impressive by
their girth and the sumptuous cloth they wear,
their spectacular success has been built on the
sale of colorful textiles, most of which they
import from the Netherlands.
In the port, the fishmongers selling whole
fish are doing a brisk business. . . . The fisher-
men get to the open sea in their dugout canoes
that are decorated with brightly painted or intri-
cately carved designs.(30)
Colonialism weakened, but did not eradicate, Africa's
indigenous institutions. The restrictions colonial powers
placed on the traditional activities of Africans still
allowed them to pursue many of those activities alongside
European ventures. Worse repression occurred after indepen-
dence, when most African leaders rejected indigenous forms
of voluntary association and imposed statist models on their
people. The resulting dismal economic performance and
abuses of political and human rights have characterized
black Africa ever since.
Toward a Real Solution
Not all sub-Saharan nations have experienced political
repression and economic stagnation since the end of the
colonial era, however. The case of independent Botswana
provides useful lessons on how to draft long-term solutions
to the problems facing the rest of black Africa.
Lessons from Botswana
Botswana is the only black African country that re-
turned to its roots and built upon its indigenous institu-
tions in a comprehensive way. Most people in the West have
not heard of Botswana, but those engaged in the noble ef-
forts to save Somalia should examine the Botswanian experi-
ence and learn some appropriate lessons.
About 75 percent of Botswana's 592,000 square kilome-
ters is in the Kalahari Desert, and drought has always
threatened its economic security. The most serious recent
threat occurred during the seven years from 1981 to 1988.
So scarce is water that Botswana named its currency the pula
(rain).
When Botswana gained its independence from Britain in
September 1966, doomsayers gave the country (formerly Bechu-
analand) less than five years to implode and evaporate. It
possessed all the ingredients for another postcolonial black
African economic disaster. The rate of illiteracy was 80
percent, and the population was made up of nine ethnic
groups, raising the possibility of interminable ethnic
strife. (By contrast, Somalia is ethnically homogeneous.)
In addition, Botswana's endowment of natural resources was
poor: spartan deposits of low-grade coal, platinum, gold,
silver, diamonds, iron, potash, manganese, chromide, and
uranium. Moreover, the country lacked the technology to
develop the resources it did possess.
Landlocked Botswana was dependent on hostile neighbors
(Namibia, South Africa, and Rhodesia) for the transshipment
of its exports and imports. South Africa, which also held
Namibia illegally, and Rhodesia, then ruled by white suprem-
acist Ian Smith, exacted a heavy geopolitical price.
Wars of liberation in neighboring countries sent refu-
gees pouring into Botswana. But the humanitarian provision
of sanctuary for those refugees earned the ire of both
Botswana's white supremacist and its Marxist neighbors.
Botswana became the target of economic blackmail, intimida-
tion, and sabotage. In 1985, for example, South Africa
accused Botswana of harboring guerrillas of the then-banned
African National Congress and launched a series of raids and
destructive destabilization campaigns against Botswana's
capital, Gaborone.
In spite of those problems, Botswana managed to regis-
ter an impressive rate of economic advance, astonishing by
any African standard. From 1966 to 1986 Botswana's economic
growth averaged an astounding 8 percent a year; the South
African economy limped along at a miserable 1.5 percent per
year between 1965 and 1985, and most other African countries
produced even worse performances. In 1983 the rate of
growth of real GDP in Botswana was a dizzying 26.3 percent,
and GDP per capita exploded from $786 in 1980 to $2,049 in
1990. In 1990 Botswana's foreign debt was about $324 mil-
lion and its reserves stood at $2.7 billion--one of the
highest in the world on a per capita basis. Botswana did
not starve, but Somalia and other countries did.
The foremost reason for Botswana's success has been the
absence of civil and political strife. Second, Botswana
enjoys political stability, which was not engineered by a
military tyrant or by declaring the country a one-party
state. Botswana is a multiparty democracy. Third, the
Botswana government has pursued strikingly prudent economic
policies, allowing pragmatism, rather than emotional rheto-
ric, to guide its development. It did not adopt "African
socialism" or hurl invectives at business. Nor did Botswana
pursue anti-market policies. Free markets were established
and foreign businesses welcomed. Judicious fiscal manage-
ment was another factor. During export boom years, Botswana
saved the windfall, avoiding excessive government spending.
Those savings provided the cushion to ride out the lean
years.
By contrast, Nigeria did not invest wisely. When
sharply rising oil prices boosted Nigeria's exports from $4
billion in 1975 to $26 billion in 1980, it went on an import
binge. The government splurged on prestigious projects,
including a $23-billion new capital at Abuja, while politi-
cians illegally transferred as much as $15 million a day out
of the country. Nigeria even neglected agriculture, prefer-
ring to use cheap oil dollars to import food. The booms in
coffee, cocoa, and copper prices in the 1970s elicited
similar extravagant spending by Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya,
Uganda, Zaire, and Zambia.
Fourth, Botswana did not ignore its indigenous roots.
It built upon its native system of kgotlas. In fact, cabi-
net ministers are required to attend weekly kgotlas to
inform and consult the people. In 1991 the government tried
to explain a $25-million Okavango River irrigation project
to the villagers at a kgotla in the northern town of Maun.
Irate villagers vented their rage.
"You will dry the delta! We will have no more fish to
eat! No more reeds to build our houses!" a village elder
screamed.(31) For six hours the villagers excoriated govern-
ment officials for conceiving such a dastardly project.
Buckling under the wrath of the people, the government
canceled the project. Only in Botswana could that happen,
giving true meaning to such terms as "participatory develop-
ment" and "bottom-up development."
Lessons from the Rest of Black Africa
Governments in Somalia and the rest of black Africa did
not follow the same path. Development projects were drawn
up and dumped in the laps of the local people without con-
sulting them. The indigenous system was ignored. Yet in
Somalia it endured while the modern system completely col-
lapsed. Foreign relief workers say the traditional lead-
ers--clan elders--were far more effective than outsiders in
the distribution of relief aid during the 1991-92 crisis.
The "modern" leadership, by contrast, degenerated into
thugs, bandits, and feuding warlords.
Large parts of modern Africa have now been transformed
into arms bazaars, and endless conflicts have reduced prime
agricultural land to desolate wastelands. Civil wars rage
in at least 16 African countries today. Though many factors
impinge on Africa's ability to feed itself, civil strife has
been the chief among them.
Back in the 1960s Africa fed itself. Since then food
production per capita has fallen dramatically, forcing
Africa to rely more and more on food imports to supply about
35 percent of its needs today. Africa's peasant farmers now
see their lives and livelihoods recklessly disrupted by
"crocodile liberators" who leave much devastation, carnage,
and human debris in their wake.
Africa's conflicts have been about political dispensa-
tion--about greater freedom and autonomy from a repressive
militarized state. And the peasants suffer the most. Often
accused of collaboration, they are massacred or starved into
submission. Over 6 million Africans--mostly peasants--have
perished in various conflicts since 1960. According to the
U.S. Committee for Refugees, Africa's refugee count reached
5.4 million at the end of 1990, including 783,000 from Sudan
and Somalia in Ethiopia; 900,000 from Mozambique in Malawi;
371,000 from Angola in Zaire; over 700,000 from Ethiopia in
Sudan; and over 350,000, mainly from Ethiopia, in Somalia.
Those figures do not include internally displaced people,
estimated to exceed 13 million.
The Role of the Organization of African Unity
Africa has a regional organization, the Organization of
African Unity, whose mandate includes the preservation of
civil order in Africa. But that august body has produced
more invective than action. "Where is the OAU?" asked Henry
Assabill, a Somali refugee in Chicago. "Can't the OAU
mobilize the military forces at its command to oust the
warlords who are dividing Somalia?"(32)
In its entire history the OAU has not succeeded in
mediating an end to a single conflict in Africa. The OAU
has protested only when it has seen white faces in power in
South Africa. That body, which claims that "one man, one
vote" is necessary for South Africa, has not actively pro-
moted the institution of that democratic principle in the
rest of Africa. It has not even enforced its own Charter of
Peoples and Human Rights--tenets that are all vital for
participatory development.
And individual leaders of other African countries have
offered little, if any, assistance. "Somalia is burning.
People are dying in droves daily from bullets and starva-
tion. Yet African leaders are doing nothing to stop the
war," lamented Mahmoud Farra, a Somali refugee in Britain.
"Why hasn't an African leader or senior official of the OAU
ever visited Somalia to assess the situation and propose a
solution as [was] done by President Mitterrand of France in
Yugoslavia?" asked Rakiya Omaar, executive director of the
London-based human rights group African Rights.(33)
Recently, however, there have been signs that the OAU
has begun to shape up. A resolution was adopted in June
1993 to create a new "mechanism for conflict prevention,
resolution and management." The objective of the resolu-
tion, declared Secretary-General Ahmed Salim, is to allow
"Africa to be the center place for taking decisions relating
to conflicts."
A vital feature in any humanitarian mission to Africa
should be inclusion of the newly reformed OAU. The United
Nations should work to transfer the peacekeeping mission in
Somalia to the OAU instead of sidelining that organization
with a multitude of excuses. The oft-voiced charge that the
OAU is hopelessly inept and unreliable is a particularly
crude irony in light of the United Nations' performance in
Somalia. True, the OAU might fail in such a peacekeeping
and nation-rebuilding mission, but it should still be given
the responsibility and opportunity to try. In any case, it
is difficult to imagine the OAU's doing worse than the UN-
U.S. fiasco.
Needed: An African Solution
The shameful ineffectiveness of the OAU and African
governments in resolving crises in Africa has resulted in
solutions imposed from outside. It was in that context that
on November 23, 1992, President George Bush ordered a con-
tingent of 30,000 U.S. troops to lead a UN relief effort
into Somalia. The ostensible objective was humanitarian: to
secure the ports and supply routes, to protect relief sup-
plies from the thugs, and to deliver food to the starving.
On the surface, it is hard to question that mission
without appearing cruel and callous. Something had to be
done to end the staggering human misery. But serious reser-
vations can be expressed about the "external solution,"
whether that course of action was an effective way of help-
ing Somalia. First of all, not all Africans--not even all
Somali--supported the military intervention. "Leave Africa
alone!" fumed Femi Akomolafe, a Nigerian economist. "I am
not excited by the pyrotechnics of Westerners giving chari-
ty. Africa truly doesn't need it."(34) Nuruddin Farah, a
Somali novelist, wrote, "I confess that I find it extremely
difficult to get myself psyched up to put my faith in the
genuineness of a gesture of goodness originating in areas of
the globe with a history of imperialist domination."(35)
The day the troops landed in Mogadishu in the full
glare of TV camera lights will be etched in the memory of
many Africans as the darkest day in modern African history.
To them, the "humanitarian" mission carries repugnant under-
tones and ramifications that go far beyond the mere provi-
sion of food relief. For one thing, the mission assails the
dignity and pride of Africa and its people. "Shame on you,
Africa; shame on the Secretary General of the Organization
of African Unity; shame on your heads of state. I speak as a
pan-Africanist!" said Farah.(36)
The humanitarian mission reinforces existing myths by
insidiously portraying Africans as savage morons who are
incapable of solving their own problems and who must forever
wait for a white knight in shining armor to come to their
rescue. Even before the dispatch of the U.S. Marines,
hundreds of pieces, interviews, and commentaries on the
Somalian situation had appeared in the media. Barely a
handful were written or given by Africans, leaving the
offensive impression that Africans themselves are not knowl-
edgeable or articulate about their own condition, let alone
capable of crafting their own solutions.
Avoiding Recolonization
The mission resurrects old suspicions about colonial-
ism, despite the active involvement of the United Nations.
An editorial in West Africa, a magazine published by black
Africans, expressed those qualms: "We would do well to
recall that the concluding document of the iniquitous Berlin
Conference of 1884-5, which paved the way for the great
colonial carve-up known as `the scramble for Africa,' was
couched in very humanitarian language about abolishing
slavery."(37) The cynicism of that humanitarian mission was
expressed by Englishman Herbert Macaulay in 1905: "The
dimensions of `the true interests of the (African) natives
at heart' are algebraically equal to the length, breadth and
depth of the whiteman's pocket."(38) Said Jomo Kenyatta, the
black nationalist who won independence for Kenya in 1963:
"When the missionaries arrived, Africans had the land and
missionaries had the Bible. They taught us to pray with our
eyes closed. When we opened them, they had the land and we
had the Bible!"(39) More recently, Omaar and Alex de Waal,
codirector of African Rights, have warned the West against
engaging in "philanthropic imperialism" in Somalia and other
sub-Saharan countries.(40)
Somalia is an African problem, requiring long-term
African solutions. Back in 1985 short-term band-aid solu-
tions ("Live Aid" and "USA for Africa") were
applied to the
Ethiopian famine crisis. Ethiopians are still trying to
escape the vicious circle of poverty and famine.
Any long-term solution to the recurring famines must
have an African input or be predicated on an African initia-
tive. The fact that such an initiative is currently lacking
does not mean it should not be encouraged or actively
sought. Unfortunately, that has not been done. What Afri-
cans themselves were doing or should have been doing to
tackle the Somali crisis was of little interest to the
Western media. Omaar opposed U.S. military intervention in
Somalia (her native country) for precisely this reason: it
undermined local relief initiatives. She was promptly fired
from her job with Africa Watch for expressing such a hereti-
cal view. Yet without an African input, the mission in
Somalia is doomed to failure, no matter how magnanimous the
objective or noble the motives.
The gung-ho attitude that the Marines can be sent into
Somalia and quickly take care of the problem sends the wrong
message to Africa's dictators, especially those in countries
where a Somali-type situation is brewing--that they can
continue to slaughter their people, deny them basic human
rights, receive and squander U.S. aid, and, if things get
worse, the United States will send in the Marines to solve
the problem. The moral bankruptcy of such a message is
clear. It gives African governments little incentive to
shape up and do what they are supposed to do in the first
place. Those governments, it should be noted, have in many
cases received billions of dollars in U.S. military assis-
tance in the past. Their inability to send a peacekeeping
force into Somalia is a serious indictment of the effective-
ness of U.S. military assistance programs.
Undermining Prospects for Recovery
Compassion is a virtue and feeding the starving a noble
ideal, but blind compassion is pointless. Rushing headlong
into a foreign situation with little understanding of the
complexities of local particularities is likely to create
more problems than it solves.
Indeed, the outside forces in Somalia have already
discovered the difficulties of trying to establish a func-
tioning society in the midst of a civil war. It has become
virtually impossible for competing Somali forces to view the
United Nations as an impartial mediator. The fact that the
United Nations soon made the capture of Aidid its highest
priority eliminated any pretense that the international
agency could impose a political settlement without taking
sides. It came as no surprise that many Somali responded
with hostility to the United Nations' involvement. That
hostility manifested itself most violently on June 5, 1993,
when angry Somali killed 24 UN troops in Mogadishu. Unfor-
tunately, the United Nations has become ever more deeply
involved in trying to resolve the country's internal dis-
putes, and its response has been even more violent than the
actions of the Somali. Incidents in which UN forces have
clashed with Somali crowds have resulted in the deaths of
hundreds of Somali.
The United States has not been able to occupy Somalia
without becoming entangled in its domestic conflicts.
Indeed, Somali groups have expressed their hostility toward
the U.S. presence on numerous occasions, culminating in the
deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers on October 3-4, 1993. In the
words of columnist George F. Will, the U.S. intervention in
Somalia could be aptly termed "colonialism of
compassion."(41)
Obviously, a lasting solution to Somalia's problems cannot
result from such questionable involvement; in the final
analysis, policies must be judged by their consequences, not
their intentions.
Even food aid can prove harmful because it often under-
mines the local market in produce, creating disincentives to
grow crops in the future. For example, in Genale, Somalia,
Faaduma Abdi Arush, a 52-year-old peasant farmer, not only
survived the drought and Somalia's civil war but also man-
aged to produce a bountiful harvest of corn months before
the arrival of U.S. marines. But she could not sell her
crop. "Nobody is interested. Everybody has his own relief
supply," she lamented.(42)
"The quantities of relief food which have come flooding
in here have devastated the market for local produce," said
Willet Weeks, a staff member of the American branch of Save
the Children. "Now relief agencies are also discussing the
possibility of a price support program, in which they would
buy the crops of farmers at prices that make farming profit-
able."(43)
Recommendations
Since 1960 the West has provided more than $300 billion
in development assistance and various credits to Africa.
Unfortunately, that aid has failed to arrest Africa's eco-
nomic decline and, instead, has helped produce numerous
economic and political disasters, such as the one in Soma
lia. More effective assistance programs can be devised by
adhering to the following principles.(44)
Prevention Is Better Than Cure
Conflicts and wars against repressive and unrepresenta-
tive states have exacerbated crises in Africa. Angola,
Ethiopia, Liberia, Somalia, Sudan, Zaire, and other coun-
tries would probably not be facing such strife were they
democratic. Furthermore, it is better to attack the root
causes of a disease than to treat its symptoms. Humanitari-
an missions in Somalia, Sudan, and other African countries
are typical cases of treating the symptoms.
The repressive state is the root cause of Africa's
civil wars. Such conflicts are waged for two primary rea-
sons. Various ethnic groups may fight a secessionist war to
end political domination and economic exploitation by the
extremely centralized state (e.g., the Biafran War, 1967-70;
the Eritrean War, 1962-91: and the conflict in Cabinda,
1991). Other groups--mainly political--may fight a war to
overthrow an oppressive state and seize political power.
The absence of mechanisms for the peaceful transfer of
political power and the peaceful resolution of conflicts
means that seemingly innocuous political differences with an
ethnic flavor can easily degenerate into protracted and
intractable civil wars that rage for years (e.g., those in
Angola, Burundi, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Togo,
and Zaire). Such mechanisms should be established in Africa
as a matter of utmost urgency.
Political reforms in Africa are imperative. Although
the West can facilitate those reforms--say, by eliminating
aid programs that encourage corruption and politicize domes-
tic economies--its role can at best be marginal. Africans
must be responsible for initiating and sustaining the types
of reforms that will create more stable and democratic
political systems.
Institutions Last Longer Than Individuals
Independent institutions are needed that will allow
Africans to choose their leaders, express themselves freely,
and go about their economic activities freely. Whether the
West likes the leaders chosen by Africans is irrelevant. It
is the institutions that are important. Essential institu-
tions are free markets, democracy, an independent press, an
independent judiciary, the rule of law, property rights, a
neutral army, and a bill of rights.
There should be no Western aid to any African country
that is ruled by a military dictatorship or a one-party
state system that spends more than 10 percent of its budget
on the military and security forces or whose government
officials indemnify themselves against the misuse of funds.
U.S. AID cannot preach "accountability" while it allows
African governments to exempt themselves from accountabili-
ty. Recent cases occurred in Benin and Ghana. When Ghana
drafted its new constitution in March 1992, sections 33, 34,
and 36 were clandestinely inserted without any debate to
give the ruling military regime (the PNDC) blanket and
perpetual immunity for "any official act or omission (com-
mitted) during the administration of the PNDC." That is,
the PNDC cannot be called to account for the $3 billion in
various loans and credits it received over a 10-year period
from U.S. AID, the World Bank, the IMF, and other Western
government institutions.
The whole aid-allocation business is shrouded in too
much secrecy. Africans who are being helped often have no
idea of how much aid has been granted them and what it is
being used for.
African People vs. African Governments
The West should make a fundamental distinction between
the African governments and the African people. The West
still operates on the naive assumption that helping African
governments necessarily helps the African people. Most of
the governments in Africa are not only illegitimate but
woefully out of touch with reality and their own people.
The West should listen more to the African people than to
their illegitimate governments.
Neutrality
The West should deal with various political factions in
Africa with scrupulous neutrality. It should not favor one
political group over another--whether in South Africa or
Angola. The Clinton administration erred in granting diplo-
matic recognition to the Marxist MPLA regime in Angola,
where war is still raging and it is far from clear which
faction is actually in control of the country. Washington
simply cannot recognize one side in a conflict and remain
neutral at the same time.
Consistency
Standards adopted for Western policy initiatives in
Africa should be applied with rigorous consistency to all
African countries. Any form of apartheid in South Africa
cannot be condemned while the equally heinous apartheid
practiced by regimes in other African countries escapes
denunciation. While Western aid to the repressive Tanzanian
regime should certainly be eliminated, such a measure should
be applied to other, equally repressive governments as well.
In Africa foreign aid has far too often subsidized the cold-
blooded policies of recipient states and has a dubious
record of promoting democracy. Countries such as Kenya and
Malawi that are taking steps toward establishing multiparty
democracy are better off undertaking reforms without relying
on official loans that in the past have served to expand
their gigantic public sectors and politicize their econo-
mies.
Do Not Reward Corruption, Tyranny, or
Abuse of Human Rights
For far too long, African dictators and a cohort of
elites have plundered their countries, committed atrocities
against their people, and bolted to the West to enjoy their
booty. The West should make it clear that no political
asylum will be granted any African leader or diplomat who
knowingly and willingly participates in the oppression and
slaughter of his own people. Britain took the lead in May
1992 by deporting Abdulai Conteh, former vice-president of
Sierra Leone. Other Western countries should follow suit by
returning intellectual collaborators and scoundrels to their
home countries.
The United States, France, and Belgium are considering
setting up an international commission to seize the assets
of President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. The West should
also offer other African countries help in recovering the
billions of dollars of loot stashed abroad by corrupt Afri-
can leaders and ministers, while, of course, being mindful
of due process considerations.
Regardless of what the West chooses to do in Africa, it
must recognize that, ultimately, it is Africans who must
solve Africa's problems. The West can help, but the initia-
tive has to come from Africa itself. That means reform must
be generated inside Africa, not dictated from the outside.
Internally generated reform is far more sustainable. For
the African people to be able to solve their own problems,
they need freedom of expression to debate their own solu-
tions. That freedom is guaranteed by article 19 of the
United Nations' 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
but is lacking in the majority of African countries. It is
also guaranteed by article 9 of the Organization of African
Unity's Charter of Human and Peoples' Rights.
Only since the 1980s have Western governments and donor
agencies been promoting, at least in their rhetoric, human
rights and economic reform; their promotion of political
reform (democratic pluralism and government accountability)
is even more recent. But the West has largely ignored
intellectual reform (freedom of expression, thought, and the
media)--the most critical piece of the whole reform process.
African leaders say one thing while doing precisely the
opposite, and nobody can publicly criticize the flip-flops.
Not surprisingly, the "reforms" that have taken place in
Africa can be characterized as a rousing performance of the
"Babangida boogie": one step forward, two steps backward,
and a flip to land on a fat Swiss bank account. If the
African people themselves are to determine the type or types
of political systems that are suitable for Africa, they need
the freedom of expression to do so. Clearly, African ty-
rants are not serious about reform, especially when a "com-
passionate" West continues to make excuses for them.
Somalia's latest crisis has reminded the world that
chronic violence, famine, and stagnation remain unfortunate
features of much of black Africa. But Somalia's plight also
holds lessons for the future of the region. Both African
leaders and Western powers must avoid committing the same
errors and abuses that helped create the region's ongoing
problems. For civil society to once again thrive in Africa,
there must be a return to responsive civilian forms of
government. Freeing economies from state control would also
empower African citizens with a greater degree of individual
sovereignty. Those changes, however, must be based on
African initiative if they are to endure. Outside powers
have too often provided "help" that has only aggravated or
prolonged the continent's troubles, and the U.S.-UN inter-
vention in Somalia is proving no exception. It is time that
Africans work out their own destinies and put an end to the
recurrence of Somali-type disasters.
Notes
(1) IC Publications, New African Yearbook 1991-92 (London:
IC Publications, 1991), p. 303.
(2) Wolfgang Achtner, "The Italian Connection: How Rome
Helped Ruin Somalia," Washington Post, January 24, 1993,
p. C3. Emphasis in original.
(3) Quoted in ibid.
(4) The organization also noted that "entire regions have
been devastated by a military engaged in combat against its
own people, resembling a foreign occupation force that
recognizes no constraints on its power to kill, rape or
loot." Africa Report, March-April 1990, p. 10.
(5) Quoted in Reid G. Miller, "Aimless Shells Kill Women,
Kids in Somalian Civil War," Washington Times, March 2,
1992, p. A9.
(6) World Bank and United Nations Development Program,
African Economic and Financial Data (Washington: World Bank,
1989), p. 3.
(7) Ibid., p. 154.
(8) World Bank, World Development Report 1989 (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 48.
(9) "Time to Devalue: Africa's French-franc Zone," The
Economist, July 21, 1990, p. 82.
(10) They were Gen. Olusegun Abasanjo of Nigeria (after 1
year), El Hadj Ahmadou Ahidjo of Cameroon (after 22 years),
Abdul al Dahab of Sudan (after 1 year), Julius Nyerere of
Tanzania (after 23 years), Leopold Senghor of Senegal (after
20 years), and Siaka Stevens of Sierra Leone (after 14
years).
(11) David Lamb, The Africans (New York: Vintage, 1984),
p. 54.
(12) Kwame Nkrumah, Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare (Lon
don: Panaf, 1980), p. 8.
(13) According to Babangida, one party was a little to the
left and the other a little to the right. But Nigerians
promptly dismissed this "Babangida boogie" as "a little
to
the north and a little to the south." The two parties were
dubbed the Northern Republican Convention and the Southern
Democratic Party.
(14) "Illegal Gold Diggers Will Be Shot," West Africa, March
1, 1982, p. 618.
(15) Lyse Doucet, "Don't Shoot the Traders," West Africa,
January 26, 1987, p. 154. The Sahel is the semiarid region
bordering the southern terminus of the Sahara Desert. The
Club du Sahel is a Paris-directed governmental organization
that seeks to promote agricultural development and food
self-sufficiency in the Sahelian countries: Mauritania,
Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad.
(16) James Brooke, "Guineau Booms as Markets Replace Marx
ism," New York Times, December 28, 1987, p. 28.
(17) J. S. A. Funna, "Prospects for Sierra Leone," Text of
speech, West Africa, February 15, 1982, p. 446.
(18) "The Gravy Train," West Africa, May 1-7, 1989,
p. 677.
(19) Jennifer Whitaker, How Can Africa Survive? (New York:
Harper & Row, 1988), p. 61.
(20) "N30 bn Fake Debt," West Africa, September 25-October
1,
1989, p. 1614.
(21) Quoted in Jonathan C. Randal, "French-Speaking Africa
Hit by Popular Discontent," Washington Post, March 26, 1990,
p. A17.
(22) Jean Paul Cotier, "Benign Growth," American Spectator,
May 1990, p. 31.
(23) Gerald Bourke, "Houphouet's Heavy Hand," Africa Report,
May-June, 1990, p. 14.
(24) Paul Webster, "France's Black Burden," Guardian Weekly,
June 17, 1990, p. 9. For more examples of gross corruption,
see George B. N. Ayittey, Africa Betrayed (New York: St.
Martin's, 1992), pp. 233-64.
(25) Claude Ake, "As Africa Democratises," Africa Forum 1,
no. 2 (1991): 13-18.
(26) Quoted in D. R. Fraser Taylor and Fiona Mackenzie,
Development from Within: Survival in Rural Africa (New York:
Routledge, 1992), p. 217.
(27) "Elements of the New Africa," Index on Censorship,
April
1992, p. 9.
(28) Ben Kwame Fred-Mensah, "The Dilemma of Much-Needed
Institutional Change in Africa," Social Change and Develop
ment News 4, no. 1 (Spring-Summer 1992): 7.
(29) For an extensive discussion of precolonial Africa, see
George B. N. Ayittey, Indigenous African Institutions (Ards
ley-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Transnational, 1991).
(30) Ruth Massey, "Making a Better Living," West Africa,
April 3-9, 1989, p. 514.
(31) Neil Henry, "Arid Botswana Keeps Democracy Afloat,"
Washington Post, March 21, 1991, p. A3.
(32) New African, January 1993, p. 24.
(33) Both Farra and Omaar are quoted in African Letter, August
16-30, 1992, p. 9.
(34) Femi Akomolafe, "Leave Africa Alone," New African,
January 1993, p. 14.
(35) Nuruddin Farah, "Praise the Marines? I Suppose So," New
York Times, December 28, 1992, p. A15.
(36) Ibid.
(37) "Misgivings over Mogadishu," Editorial, West Africa,
December 14-20, 1992, p. 2135.
(38) Quoted in A. A. Boahen and J. B. Webster, History of West
Africa (New York: Praeger, 1970), p. 225.
(39) Quoted in Lamb, p. 17.
(40) Alex de Waal and Rakiya Omaar, "Doing Harm by Doing
Good? The International Relief Effort in Somalia," Current
History 92, no. 574 (May 1993): 202.
(41) George F. Will, ". . . When to Fold," Washington Post,
October 8, 1993, p. A27.
(42) Quoted in Alison Mitchell, "A New Question in Somalia:
When Does Free Food Hurt?" New York Times, January 13, 1993,
p. A1.
(43) Quoted in ibid, p. A8.
(44) These recommendations were also made by the author at
the House Foreign Relations Committee hearings on February
23, 1993.
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