Westgate attack demonstrates Kenya’s continuing ‘Somalia problem

Most visitors who have spent any length of time in Nairobi have been to the Westgate Centre. This US-style mall complex, situated in the wealthy Westlands region of the city, has profited in recent years from the plentiful expat and middle class Kenyan shilling. However, it’s not a place some have much love for – the clear delineation of Nairobi’s haves and have-nots is marked out by the rich folk who enter up its steps and the poor street-hawkers who hang about in the parking lot and try to sell you stuff.

That such a violent and abhorrent act should take place in Westgate was no accident – it was carefully chosen by people who knew how they could have the greatest impact on Kenya and get the most coverage internationally: strike where the rich and the foreign hang out.

This is a place that symbolises the country’s confident new wealth:  The growing economy, the two-fingers-to-the-west election of ICC-indicted Uhuru Kenyatta, the evident, but incomplete, ‘Africa rising’ narrative. But it also demonstrates the extent of the Somalia-shaped problem Kenya has on its doorstep.

For the first time in its history Kenya has an occupying military force in another country. When its troops crossed the Somali border in 2011, and eventually took Kismayo earlier this year, the feeling was that this assertive change in foreign policy was going to cause some kind of reaction. Abdullahi Boru Halake, a Kenyan political analyst says that “Nairobi has been in the crosshairs of Al Shabaab since Kenyan forces intervened in Somalia October 2011. We had closely contested elections and the ongoing ICC cases that took much of the attention. In a way, up to this time, we have dodged bullets/bombs.”

Stig Jarle Hansen, author of Al Shabaab in Somalia, states that rumours of Al Shabaab’s demise have always been greatly exaggerated: “Shabaab has lost teritory and has faced a conflict over Omar Hamami, but it is better than ever in conducting terrorist attacks…conventional means are more exhausted.”

Indeed, up until now Nairobi seemed to have got off fairly lightly with a few grenade attacks (generally on bars), which one Kenyan journalist speculated to me was, in part, a sign of local business disputes, rather than Islamic militancy. There was also a nasty matatu bombing in Eastleigh, the predominantly Somali district of the city. Eastleigh has also suffered from a police crackdown on its population, who have for many years been distrusted by other Kenyans, both for their connection to the crime and warlordism of Somalia, but also for their success in business.

A noticeable security increase in shops was the most obvious consequence of the Kenyan invasion whilst Al Shabaab has continually asserted that they would drive the occupiers into the sea. But the efficacy of placing a few more guards with metal detectors on the doors seemed debatable. This would be unlikely to deter a really determined attacker, as Westgate now seems to show.

The eastern Somali region of the country was more obviously affected, with a number of attacks taking place near the border, particularly in the town of Garissa, which included a mass shooting at a church in July 2012 that killed 15 people. In the understandable drama of the last 2 days (which exceeds anything Kenya has experienced since the US embassy bombing in 1998) we should not forget these lower-profile killings.

Kenya has a genuine security problem with Somalia which is unlikely to be addressed by the withdrawal of Kenyan forces from the country. Hallake, again, describes the Westgate attack as being “a case of a systemic intelligence failure which is a function of intelligence aligning itself with politics rather than being a professional outfit… the case for an enhanced and deepened security sector reform has never been this urgent.” Stig Hansen says that Kenya is “not even close” to disrupting Shabaab’s capacity to carry out sophisticated attacks of this nature.

To fight this threat Kenya is going to need more international support with its intelligence and counter-terrorism strategy. This is something western countries are well-qualified and capable of providing. No one wants East Africa’s most important city to descend further into fear and paranoia given its key role as a regional hub for business, diplomacy and the development sector. Kenya should also avoid a knee-jerk crackdown on its Somali population, something that has the potential to stimulate yet further violence, which is no doubt what the attackers intended.

So this is probably going to mean more engagement with the Kenyan security and intelligence services at a time when western powers have been trying to keep the new government at arm’s length whilst its two top men are on trial at the ICC.

If the Westgate attack shows us anything it’s that Al Shabaab remains organised and dangerous and Kenya’s Somalia problem is nowhere near solved.

Yes East Africa Can Avoid The Resource Curse....

East Africa is the new fossil fuel frontier. In the last few years Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique have discovered large quantities of commercially viable oil and gas deposits, with the potential for even more discoveries as more aggressive prospecting continues. There is reason to be upbeat about the region’s economic prospects over the next three decades, or at least before the oil runs out. But the optimism must be tempered by an acknowledgement of the dangers that come with the new found resource wealth. Of particular concern are issues of governance and sound economic management.

We are all too aware of the dangers of the resource curse. This is when the discovery and exploitation of natural resources leads to a deterioration of governance, descent into autocracy and a fall in living standards. Associated with the resource curse is the problem of the Dutch disease, which occurs when natural resource exports (e.g. oil and gas) lead to an appreciation of the exchange rate, thereby hurting other export sectors and destroying the ability of a country to diversify its export basket. The new resource-rich Eastern African states face the risk of having both problems, and to avoid them they must cooperate.

In many ways Eastern African states are lucky to be late arrivals at the oil and gas game. Unlike their counterparts in Western and Central Africa, nearly all of them are now nominal electoral democracies with varying degrees of institutionalized systems to ensure transparency in the management of public resources. Across the region, the Big Man syndrome is on the decline. But challenges remain. Recent accusations of secrecy, corruption and bribery surrounding government deals with mining companies suggest that there is a lot of room for improvement as far as the strengthening of institutions that enforce transparency (such as parliaments) is concerned. It is on this front that there is opportunity for regional cooperation to improve transparency and resource management.

While it is easy for governments to ignore weak domestic oversight institutions and civil society organizations, it is much harder to renege on international agreements and treaties. A regional approach to setting standards of transparency and accountability could therefore help ensure that the ongoing oil and gas bonanza does not give way to sorrow and regret three decades down the road. In addition, such an approach would facilitate easier cross-border operations for the oil majors that are currently operational in multiple countries, not to mention drastically reduce the political risk of entering the region’s energy sector. It would also leave individual countries in a stronger bargaining position by limiting opportunities for multinational firms to engage in cross-border regulatory arbitrage.

The way to implement regional cooperation and oversight would be something akin to the African Peer Review Mechanism, but with a permanent regional body and secretariat (perhaps under the East African Community, EAC). Such a body would be mandated to ensure the harmonization of laws to meet global standards of transparency and protection of private property rights. The body would also be mandated to conduct audits of national governments’ use of revenue from resources. The aim of the effort would be to normalize best practices among states and to institute a global standard for states to aspire more – more like the way aspirations for membership in the European Union has been a catalyst for domestic reforms in the former Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe.

Regional cooperation would also provide political cover to politicians with regard to economically questionable fuel subsidies. The realities of democratic government are such that politicians often find themselves forced to concede to demands for fuel subsidies from voters. But history shows that more often that not subsidies come at an enormous cost to the economy and instead of benefitting the poor only benefit middlemen. In addition, as the case of Nigeria shows, once implemented such policies are never easy to roll back both due to politics and the power of entrenched interests. Regional agreements capping any fuel subsidies at reasonable levels would be an excellent way to tie politicians’ hands in a credible manner, while at the same time providing them with political cover against domestic criticism.

Beyond issues of governance, there is need for cooperation on regional infrastructure development in order to reap maximum value for investment and avoid unnecessary wastes and redundancies. Landlocked Uganda and South Sudan will require massive investments in infrastructure to be able to access global energy markets. The two countries’ oil fields are 1,300 km and 1,720 km from the sea through Kenya, respectively. One would hope that as these projects are being studied and implemented, there will be consideration for how to leverage the oil and gas inspired projects to cater to other exports sectors – such as agriculture, tourism and light manufacturing – as well

KPMG, the professional services firm, recently reported that transportation costs eat up as much as 20 per cent of Africa’s foreign exchange earnings.  There is clearly a need to ensure that the planned new roads and railways serve to reduce the cost of exports for all outward oriented sectors in the region. Embedding other exports sectors (such as agriculture, timber, domestic transport, etc.) in the process of developing new transportation infrastructure will minimize the likelihood of their being completely crowded out by the energy sector.

In isolation, each country’s resource sector policy is currently informed by domestic political economy considerations and regional geo-politics. There is an emerging sense of securitization of resources, with each country trying to ensure that the exploitation of its resources does not depend too much on its neighbours. Because of the relatively small size of the different countries’ economies, the risk of ending up with economically inefficient but expensive pipelines, roads and railways is real. South Sudan is currently deciding whether to build a pipeline through Kenya (most likely), through Ethiopia, or stick with the current export route for its oil through Sudan (least preferred due to testy relations).

For national security and sovereignty reasons, Uganda is planning on a 30,000-barrel per day refinery in Hoima, despite warnings from industry players that the refinery may not be viable in the long run. Some have argued for the expansion of East Africa’s sole refinery in Mombasa to capture gains from economies of scale, an option that Uganda feels puts its energy security too much in Kenya’s hands.

In the meantime, Kenya and Tanzania are locked in competition over who will emerge as the “gateway to Eastern Africa,” with plans to construct mega-ports in Lamu and Tanga (Mwambani), respectively. While competition is healthy and therefore welcome, this is an area where there is more need for coordination than there is for competition among Eastern African governments. The costs involved are enormous, hence the need for cooperation to avoid any unnecessary redundancies and ensure that the ports realize sufficient returns to justify the investment. Kenya’s planned Lamu Port South Susan Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET) project will cost US $24.7 billion. Tanzania’s Mwambani Port and Railway Corridor (Mwaporc) project will cost US $32 billion.

Chapter 15 of the EAC treaty has specific mandates for cooperation in infrastructure development. As far as transport infrastructure goes, so far cooperation has mostly been around Articles 90 (Roads), 91 (Railways) and 92 (Civil Aviation and Air Transport). There is a need to deepen cooperation in the implementation of Article 93 (Maritime Transport and Ports) that, among other things, mandates the establishment of a common regional maritime transport policy and a “harmonious traffic organization system for the optimal use of maritime transport services.”

The contribution of inefficient ports to transportation costs in the regional cannot be ignored. Presently, the EAC’s surface transportation costs, associated with logistics, are the highest of any region in the world. According to the African Development Bank’s State of Infrastructure in East Africa report, these costs are mainly due to administrative and customs delays at ports and delays at borders and on roads. Regional cooperation can help accelerate the process of reforming EAC’s ports, a process that so far has been stifled (at least in Kenya) by domestic political constituencies opposed to the liberalization of the management of ports. The move by the East African Legislative Assembly to pass bills establishing one-stop border posts (OSBPs) and harmonized maximum vehicle loads regulations is therefore a step in the right direction.

Going back to the issue of governance, more integrated regional cooperation in the planning and implementation of infrastructure development projects has the potential to insulate the projects from domestic politics and patronage networks that often limit transparency in the tendering process. Presently, Uganda is in the middle of a row with four different Chinese construction firms over confusion in the tendering process for a new rail link to South Sudan and port on Lake Victoria. 

The four firms signed different memoranda with different government departments in what appears to be at best a massive lapse in coordination of government activities or at worst a case of competition for rents by over-ambitious tenderpreneurs.  This does not inspire confidence in the future of the project. A possible remedy to these kinds of problems is to have a permanent and independent committee for regional infrastructure to oversee all projects that involve cross-border infrastructure development.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that Eastern Africa is lucky to have discovered oil and gas in the age of democracy, transparency and good governance. This will serve to ensure that the different states do not descend into the outright kleptocracy that defined Africa’s resource sector under the likes of Abacha and Mobutu in an earlier time. That said, a lot remains to be done to ensure that the region’s resources will be exploited to the benefit of its people. In this regard there is a lot to be gained from binding regional agreements and treaties to ensure transparency and sound economic management of public resources. Solely relying on weak domestic institutions and civil society organizations will not work.

Why African Women Bleach & The Golden Niche Of Marketing

 

“Bleaching” is the preferred term in many parts of Africa for the use of cosmetics that lighten the tone of the skin.

In 2011, the German government funded a study by the World Health Organisation into the dangers of bleaching with these cosmetics, many of which apparently contained inorganic mercury, a substance that can cause kidney damage, suppress immunity, induce anxiety and depression, and even permanently destroy the nerves in the limbs and skin.

The report placed the stamp of authority of a leading inter-governmental agency on a matter that had long attracted negative attention: many women of African ethnicity – 77% in Nigeria for instance – around the world bleach intensely at a high risk to their health in order to feel attractive. Indeed a significant portion of their income goes into sustaining this practice.

African critics of bleaching were however surprised to learn that the practice was widespread in Asia as well, since for many of them bleaching was strictly an issue of racial pride, self-image and identity.

Those who had framed the problem as a pure African one would have been puzzled had they heard that in the preceding year Indian activists had taken on a Unilever skin brand for allegedly promoting “skin-lightening” as a way of benefitting from the close-to-$10bn global trade in skin-whitening creams.

So like several issues of similar hue, a widespread ‘third world’ problem had been construed as a uniquely African problem, and much fuss made around a self-serving ‘African exceptionalism’ charade.

A little bit of history would have also taught some of the critics that in pre-modern Europe, women routinely ate arsenic in addition to rubbing the poisonous stuff on their skin in order to lighten their tone.

A little sociology would also have thrown up the uncomfortable fact that male bleaching is rising explosively and thus made a bit of trouble for the thesis that bleaching is all about male pressure and low female self-esteem.

Also worrying for the whole “self-image” framework of looking at the ‘problem’ might be emerging evidence that ‘skin-darkening’ may be the preference for the gay community in Asia’s hottest sex-spots, contrary to folkloric beliefs that male bleachers tend to be gay.

The biggest effect by far, however, of the tendency to look at bleaching only through the emotive lenses of racial self-identity, or in the sterile fashion preferred by public health specialists, is to miss many more fascinating facts about the self-care industry, and the social psychology of marketing in general, but especially in Africa.

First of all, there are several things going on when it comes to the skin-care industry.

Scandinavian women are buying ton-loads of skin-tanning creams, and the practice is spreading across Europe, with some serious health consequences too.

Fair-skinned women in the West who darken their complexion at the risk of their health are not necessarily making a racial statement.

Whilst global sales in skin-darkening compounds are lower (near $1 billion), that is no doubt because stronger regulatory enforcement in their main markets – Europe and America – makes aggressive marketing of shady stuff much harder. But the rise of internet marketing and more frequent travel are leading to explosive sales growth.

Meanwhile, government regulators in the West continue to warn stridently about the health dangers of anti-ageing products. The sale of such products in Africa are nearly negligible largely because of the demographic realities of a younger population, which have made being old the gateway to special status. In places where being old is rather mundane, people feel more status-anxiety about growing old. In a similar vein, it is trite fact that ‘naturally fair’ people appear in African populations, and being rarer, they could have been seen as ‘exotic’.

And therein lies an intriguing clue: it is most likely such intra-population ‘status determinants’ that fuel the global urge in humans to etch medals onto our largest and most outward-projecting organ, the skin, and perhaps not some macro-ethnic identity thing. It is the need to define some niche to slot ourselves into, to be part of some rare, non-mundane, segment of the population, which drives most people to experiment with their skin tone in search for some niche shade. 

The search for ‘personalisation’, the desire to customise for self, the fear of melding into the crowd, of not standing out in some way – these are the key factors racking up sales for the various skin-change solutions. Intriguingly, in market sentiment surveys, many African women who use creams that affect the tone of their complexion routinely mention ‘chocolate’ as the shade they are aiming for.

In fact, the most successful skin products are marketed as a tool to help you carve your own niche, achieve the complexion nature’s higher powers ordained for you in the pre-life. The makers sell you on the ability of their product to unearth some unique potential of your skin, help your deeper beauty emerge, restore the natural vibrancy and vitality of your skin, help assert your individuality, and indeed find for you: a golden niche.

No product that I have seen – and in preparing to write this I did see a tonne – announces an offer to turn you into some random sample of another race, gender, or age-group. Even anti-ageing creams promise to arrest deterioration due, not to natural aging, but hostile influences of the environment, such as that vile ‘oxidation’. And truth be told, each individual’s skin is different, and its health therefore requires deliberate interventions.

That some of this skin stuff is made by snakes-oil salesmen who exploit their customers’ search for a niche is to be expected; that’s the reality of all commerce. The extremes of the trade should of course be dealt with by the appropriate laws and regulations. For example, certain substances, such as hydroquinone, are banned from use in topical products because they are dangerous. It is a simple matter of enforcing those bans.

As for the rise in the skin-care industry on the back of the individual aspirations of black women and men alike, we have only scratched the surface.

Companies like Tiossan, Tara International, Ghandour, and Natura Sarl are a few players in a fast-emerging African home-grown skin-care industry with global ambitions that do not so much as whisper ‘lighter skin’ in their marketing campaigns. Clearly, these nimble, well-run, companies have seen beyond the $10 billion skin-lightening trade and are happier targeting a healthier chunk of the more than $170 billion spent globally on cosmetics.

And what have they seen? That the deeper need that skin-care customers of all backgrounds are trying to serve is to heighten their belief in their own inner uniqueness, a yearning for a golden niche. These emerging African brands sell themselves by emphasising rare attributes of dark skin and proclaim themselves as uniquely able to serve it. Far it be from them to offer some generic ‘ethnic stranger’ as the model for these special, unique, customers they are aiming to engage.

But thinking about it critically, shouldn’t this African skin-care marketing approach – of flattering the human ego’s yearning to be unique – become the benchmark of all marketing in a post-industrial age?

Confucius and the Curate’s Egg: The Morality of China in Africa

It is oddly appropriate that in reviewing a book that expends many pages in slightly obscure, not always enlightening and often whimsical accounts of the philosophy of Confucianism and folk tales of the Middle Kingdom, that I should employ a very English euphemism taken from a Punch cartoon from the Victorian era to characterize it. For those who don’t know the cartoon, it shows a young Church of England curate at breakfast with his bishop. The curate’s egg is bad – but so as not to slight his superior he insists that parts of it are excellent.  That is rather the case with Stephen Chan’s book looking at the morality of China’s relations with Africa.

Having worked through it over a couple of days there were a few passages that were excellent but I was not convinced in the end that this would enable me to be as diplomatic or perhaps as obsequious as the curate. But I did feel that a little whimsy was appropriate as so much of the book has a strange, whimsical character that does not always sit well with the seriousness of the subject.

I do always worry when a book about Africa has in the title the words “Dark Continent”. It smacks of the sarcastic advice Binyavanga Wainaina gave to writers about Africa in his well-known Granta article in 2005 – darkness was a metaphor he clearly thought people should avoid.  Stephen Chan, I’m sure, intends its use to highlight some of the less sophisticated Chinese views that persist about Africa.  But it crops up in the book every now and again, as when one contributor, Jerru Liu, notes that “the behaviour of the descendants of Confucius in the Dark Continent is difficult for the West to understand”; one does wonder whether other constructions might have been better to get this across. It is one thing using the phrase to depict bluntly how many Chinese have preconceptions about Africans, as many Westerners also do, but another when trying to describe wider perceptions of Chinese behaviour in his own words.

And it is often the choice of language, of long passages about Confucianism and the Middle Kingdom, that make this a frustrating book to read.  Every now and then one gets glimpses of what could be valuable insights into Chinese approaches to Africa – as the majority of those writing in this slim volume are of Chinese origin – but the whimsical prose or somewhat obscure Confucian discourse then shroud the issue.  We get a lot of folksy or sentimental passages – about how Chan was touched to see Zimbabwean guerrilla leaders eating with chopsticks or how he at one stage seemed popular in Africa because his long-hair meant Africans seemed to equate him with the Shaolin monks of martial arts movies – but these do little in the end to increase the reader’s understanding of the issue of morality in China’s dealings with Africa or the nature and detail of those dealings.

The blurb on the back of the book says that the work “undermines existing assumptions concerning Sino-African relations”.  If there was any undermining going on it was of any lingering doubts about the racist attitudes of many Chinese towards Africa and Africans.  Outlining how “Africa is indeed part of the traditionally ‘barbarian’ world” in Chinese terminology, Chan goes on to say that explanations of the use of white devils for Europeans and black devils for Africans cannot be written off as metaphors for something less insulting, “they were condescending insults”; he then adds that “popular speech in China still uses these labels” (p.17). If that is his judgement on Chinese views of Africans, then it says little for the moral basis of the overall Chinese approach to Africa. He emphasises the point with the old Chinese story of Meng Huo who is crude in his tastes and behaviour but is allowed to remain a king under the tutelage of the virtuous Zhu of the Middle Kingdom – Meng Huo – who, like Africa, is a barbarian and “Barbarians, even those adopted as younger brothers, never quite cease being barbarians” (p. 21).

In between the folk-tales and excursions into Confucianism, there is some detail of the development of Chinese-African relations over time.  I would have liked more of this and greater detail about current trade and investment relations and more in-depth analysis of the problems encountered – such as the repeated and bitter violence between Chinese mine bosses and miners in Africa and growing resentment of the expanding numbers of Chinese migrants and small traders across Africa.

The accounts are interesting, but patchy. So we get reference to China’s support for Savimbi’s UNITA against the MPLA in Angola, but no reference to the extensive arms deliveries and military training given to Roberto’s FNLA via Mobutu’s Zaire in combination with the CIA – the escalation of external intervention in the developing civil war that was arguably decisive in bringing the Soviet Union and Cuba into the conflict.  We get nothing of substance on the use of Chinese rather than African workers on a lot of projects and of the role Chinese retailers play in undercutting their African rivals by importing cheap and subsidised Chinese manufactured goods that, for example, have severely damaged the Nigerian textile industry or reduced South Africa’s trade in manufactured goods with the rest of Africa.

Comparing this volume with Chris Alden’s excellent and detailed China in Africa published by African Arguments and Zed in 2007, I am tempted to ask why Zed didn’t ask Alden for a second, updated edition rather than invest in a discursive and somewhat obscure volume that tells the reader more about the author’s feelings and musings than about the crux of a very important subject for Africa.

Is the International Criminal Court picking on Africa?

Many observers and critics of the International Criminal Court (ICC) argue that the Court has focused entirely on Africa and needs to expand its investigations to other continents. Some cast the ICC as a colonialist tool that is biased specifically against Africans. But while it is true that each of the individuals charged by the Court have been Africans, these arguments overlook and overshadow the fact that African governments have been largely supportive of the ICC and were instrumental in its founding.

As many have noted, of the eight active formal investigations that the ICC has opened in it’s over ten years of existence, all of them have been on the African continent. It is easy, then, with just that information, to conclude that the Court and its prosecutors have focused on Africa. But contrary to common perceptions, the ICC’s interventions in Africa have in fact been called for and supported by African states. In four instances—in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, the Central African Republic and Mali—the situations were referred to the ICC prosecutor by those very states.

In those situations where investigations were opened on the volition of the prosecutor, there was also support from African governments. In Kenya, the prosecutor was given evidence of crimes allegedly committed during 2007-08 post-election violence by an international commission established by the Kenyan government. Even then, an investigation was only formally opened after the Kenyan government failed to meet an agreed upon deadline for starting its own prosecutions.

Likewise, the investigation in Cote d’Ivoire was supported by the Ivorian government, under the leadership of President Laurent Gbagbo which voluntarily accepted ICC jurisdiction in 2003.

The remaining investigations—in Darfur and Libya—were referred to the ICC prosecutor by the United Nations (UN) Security Council, with both referrals receiving support from African states sitting on the Council at the time.

Rather than seeking out cases on the African continent, the ICC opened investigations where it was asked to, and where grave crimes were being committed. As current ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has said: “The office of the prosecutor will go where the victims need us… The world increasingly understands the role of the court and Africa understood it from the start. As Africans we know that impunity is not an academic, abstract notion.”

African support for the ICC

“My largest constituency is Africa and its state parties. I make every effort to liaise with them and be truly attentive to their concerns,” remarked Ambassador Tiina Intelmann, President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute (the ICC’s founding treaty) recently. Her office has carried out exhaustive efforts to respond to any question from African states, whether they are ICC states parties or not.

African countries have long supported the idea of an international criminal court. Members of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and later the African Union (AU) were actively involved in the ICC’s creation. During the 1998 Rome Conference negotiations, OAU Legal Adviser Tiyanjana Maluwa gave two justifications for Africa’s interest in the ICC: the continent’s historical endurance of atrocities such as slavery and colonial wars, and the memory of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, where the international community failed to take preventative action.

In Maluwa’s words, these experiences “strengthened Africa’s resolve to support the idea of an independent, effective, international penal court that would punish and hopefully deter perpetrators of such heinous crimes”.

This resolve has carried through to the present. African states have routinely responded positively to requests for assistance by the ICC during the course of proceedings. They have facilitated investigations and provided crucial support to their conduct.

For example, just last month Rwanda, which is not a state party to the Rome Statute, cooperated in facilitating the transfer of ICC suspect Bosco Ntaganda to the Court. Furthermore, in July 2012, six West African heads of state attending a meeting of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Burkina Faso called for the ICC to intervene and conduct investigations of alleged crimes in northern Mali.

The fact is that several ordinary African citizens do not share the same opposing views as some of their leaders on the ICC. While attending an expert roundtable meeting on the African Union, the ICC and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in Addis Ababa in March 2013, I was asked why heads of state and senior government officials feel they are entitled to immunity from prosecution?

The AU and the ICC: a shaky relationship?

The AU’s relationship with the ICC is admittedly far from perfect. The AU has supported UN Security Council deferrals of the investigations in Darfur and Kenya, and most notably instructed member states not to act on the arrest warrant for Sudanese President and ICC suspect Omar Al-Bashir, arguing that he has immunity as a sitting head of state.

But that is not the whole story. It is important to bear in mind that institutional relations are complex and take time to develop. As a case in point, the relationship between the ICC and the UN was foreseen in the Rome Statute, but the negotiations of a draft relationship agreement as a basis for discussions between both organizations lasted for two years. No such provisions were foreseen for the relationship between the AU and the ICC, so some tension between the two may be expected.

The ICC Office of the Prosecutor has said that overall the relationship between the ICC and the AU has been very good. Between 80 and 90 percent of the ICC’s requests for cooperation are directed to African states, including to non-states parties, and to date none have been refused. One could argue that the Court’s current cases could not have proceeded without the support and cooperation of the AU’s member states.

Crucially, members of the AU have also begun to assert the need to abide by their obligations as members of the ICC over their membership in the AU. Countries such as Botswana, South Africa, Burkina Faso and Niger have publicly affirmed the need to arrest ICC suspects on their territory. During preparations for the July 2012 AU summit in Malawi, President Joyce Banda announced that the arrest warrant against President al-Bashir would be acted upon if he were to attend, which led to the relocation of the meeting to Addis Ababa.

Where states have been reticent to cooperate with the Court, African civil society has pushed the issue. In Kenya, for example, civil society groups worked through the Kenyan judicial system to assert the government’s obligation to arrest Al-Bashir.

Africans support justice

With 34 states parties and 43 signatories to the Rome Statute, Africa is one of the ICC’s largest bases of support. With Egypt’s recent expressions of interest in joining the Court, that support looks like it will continue to grow in the future. Likewise, the African continent is well-represented on the ICC’s staff. Several Africans hold key positions in the Court, including the chief prosecutor, 5 of the courts judges are African including the first vice president and deputy registrar. Out of a total of 658 permanent ICC staff, 144 are African nationals, representing 34 African nations.

Critics of the Court all too often discount this participation. When they do, they lose sight of the fact that Africans are not the victims of a biased ICC, but willful supporters of the Court’s mission to end impunity for the crimes from which they have too frequently suffered.

Finally, the Rome Statute states the ICC should select the gravest situations under its jurisdiction.  It is not about regional or geographic representation, and its not a subject of high politics, it’s the law: where there are crimes falling within its jurisdiction that are not being addressed by national jurisdictions, under the new system of international justice, the Office of the Prosecutor should step in if the Court is to do what it was set up to do.

Those who argue that the court is targeting Africans should stop and think for a moment: there are more than 5 million African victims displaced, more than 40.000 African victims killed, hundreds of thousands of African children transformed into killers and rapists, thousands of Africans raped. Should the ICC ignore these victims?  Arguably, it’s not about focusing on Africa; it is about working for the victims, and the victims are African. That is why the Court is a solution; its impartiality, its independence ensures the legitimacy of its intervention.

Kenya Following Sudan Tactics To Undermine ICC

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) obliges states parties to cooperate with the Court in regards to its investigations and prosecutions. It is perhaps not too surprising then that Sudan, which never ratified the Rome Statute, has not cooperated with the Court’s investigation in Darfur. What is novel is that Kenya—which joined the ICC in 2005—is now practicing its own form of non-cooperation that in many ways mirrors that of Sudan.

International community appeals for ICC assistance

In both Sudan and Kenya, ICC intervention was prompted by the findings of independent international bodies. This is key to understanding these states’ interactions with the Court.

In March 2005, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) referred the situation in Darfur, Sudan for investigation by the ICC prosecutor. 

This came after a UN Commission of Inquiry in Darfur revealed that crimes against humanity and war crimes had been committed and that the Sudanese legal system was incapable of dealing with human rights violations.  Later that year, the prosecutor opened a full investigation.

In the summer of 2008, the prosecutor requested the issuance of arrest warrants for President Omar Ahmad Al-Bashir and other suspects. For many African and Arab diplomats the decision to open investigations in Darfur wasn’t a big deal. They were stunned, however, that a serving head of state could be prosecuted by the Court following a referral from the Security Council.

Two years after the Darfur referral, Kofi Annan handed over the Waki Commission envelope – containing the names of those suspected of being primarily responsible for Kenya’s 2007-08 post-election violence – to the ICC prosecutor. In November 2009, the prosecutor requested permission from ICC judges to uses his powers to open an investigation into the violence, leading to charges against six prominent Kenyans, including the future president and vice president.

Measures to escape ICC prosecutions

The Kenyan suspects and their allies in government have used the government apparatus to establish alternative rule of law mechanisms. In April 2012, President Mwai Kibaki lobbied his peers to pass a resolution extending the jurisdiction of the East Africa court of justice (EACJ) to cover crimes against humanity. Kibaki’s intention was to ensure that Uhuru Kenyatta, Francis Muthaura, William Ruto and Joshua Sang did not go to the ICC. Although the heads of state of the East African community agreed to extend the jurisdiction of the EACJ in April 2012, the vice president of the East African Law Society, James Mwamu, complained that “The EACJ has no jurisdiction whatsoever to deal with criminal matters and the move by the legislative assembly to pass that motion is absolutely illegitimate”.

The Kenya National Human Rights Commission (KNHRC) Commissioner Lawrence Muite also challenged the government’s efforts to transfer the ICC cases to the EACJ.  “This is not about justice for Kenyans. It is all about politics and protecting a few individuals. They seek to add protocols to the EACJ just for the sake of four people”.

It is worth noting that as early as 2006 and 2007, civil society organisations in East Africa had been advocating for extension of jurisdiction of the EACJ to include human rights violations. However, this idea was hijacked by Kibaki to protect the four suspects indicted by the ICC.

Similarly, the Sudanese government established the Special Criminal Court for Events in Darfur (SCCED) on June 7, 2005 – a day after the prosecutor of the ICC announced that he was going to commence investigations in Darfur. However, the cases at the SCCED do not address major issues of accountability in Darfur.

The ICC prosecutor gave both Kenya and Sudan ample time to undertake genuine and effective prosecutions at the national level before moving forward with his prosecutions.

Both countries have also tried to have their ICC cases deferred by the Security Council (under Article 16 of the Rome Statute, which allows for a one-year deferral) and have sought African Union backing for their endeavours. However, neither has found a receptive audience among Security Council members.

Politicization of the ICC process

By appealing to tribal and ethnic sentiments – portraying the ICC as a tool of Western imperialism—politicians in Sudan and Kenya have brainwashed many citizens and discredited the ICC and the Security Council in their countries, their region and beyond.

Extensive propaganda has been used to spread lies and turn their citizens against the Court and the Security Council while improving the credibility of suspects wanted by the ICC.

In the run up to the March 2013 elections, ICC suspect and Kenyan President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta stated that Kenyans would be voting on a “referendum against the ICC.” In relation to the prosecutor’s decision to drop charges against co-accused Francis Muthaura, he said “if Muthaura’s case is collapsing, is that not an indication even mine will go nowhere?” Kenyatta’s lie was exposed by ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on March 20, 2013, when she stated very clearly that he will face trial because the charges against him have not been dropped.

Over the same period, the Kenyan Daily Post published a fake statement purporting to be from the former ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo apologizing to Kenyans for indicting four suspects of the 2007/8 post election violence. The statement entitled “Romour: is it true?? Uhuru/Ruto ‘s ICC cases…Exclusive apology of Moreno Ocampo to Kenyans” was completely false. While giving a speech with the headline “Ten Years of the International Criminal Court: Is the World Better Equipped to Deal with Mass Atrocities?” at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute, Hunter College in New York City on the 19th of March 2013, Luis Moreno Ocampo denied ever writing an apologetic letter to Kenyans.

In his condemnation of the Al-Bashir arrest warrant, former Sudanese UN Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad claimed that the ICC is tool of imperialism, claiming that certain permanent members of the Security Council – the UK, France and the United States – were using it to dominate and destabilize Sudan and gain access to its oil and land.  He went on to say that the Court reflects the brand of Euro-American justice that had destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan and Gaza.

Kenyans engaging legally

In May 2011, the Kenyan government pursued an admissibility challenge claiming that, as a result of the adoption of a new constitution and judicial reforms, it was now capable of investigating and prosecuting ICC suspects. However, pre-trial judges rejected the challenge, stating that there was no evidence of a national investigation into the 2007-08 post-election violence.   While explaining the decision to drop charges in the Muthaura case on March 11, 2013, Bensouda complained of a lack of cooperation: 

“Despite assurances of cooperation, the government of Kenya has provided only limited assistance to the prosecution and failed to provide the prosecution with access to witnesses or documents which may shed light on the Muthaura case.”

Kenyan ICC suspects have never argued that they are senior government officials and are also entitled to immunity. In August 2011, President Kibaki axed William Ruto from his cabinet as higher education minister and Kenyatta and Muthaura both resigned from their positions as finance minister and head of public service and cabinet secretary, respectively, after the ICC charges had been brought against them.

Sudan, on the other hand, attempted to challenge the jurisdiction of the court and admissibility of the Darfur situation through a Court-appointed defense counsel. Pre-trial judges rejected that request stating that the counsel didn’t have the right to make such a challenge. Sudan also argues that Al-Bashir is entitled to immunity based on Articles 98(1) and 27 of the Rome Statute.  In fact, Article 27 stipulates the irrelevance of official capacity, in particular concerning heads of state.

International community must stand firm on need for ICC prosecutions

In conclusion, Kenya isn’t living up to its obligations as an ICC member state in engaging with the Court from a strictly legal perspective. It has far too readily followed Sudan’s lead in attempting to shield suspects from justice through a variety of means.

Father Musaala's Letter on Failed Celibacy

FR ANTHONY MUSAALA

MIREMBE GARDENS

PO BOX 30329

KAMPALA
Tuesday 12th March 2013

AN OPEN LETTER TO BISHOPS, PRIESTS AND LAITY: 

THE FAILURE OF CELIBATE 
CHASTITY AMONG DIOCESAN PRIESTS.

It is an open secret that many catholic priests and some bishops, in Uganda 
and elsewhere, no longer live celibate chastity.

From the numerous cases on the ground one might be forgiven for saying that 
most diocesan priests either don’t believe in celibacy anymore, or if they do, 
have long since given up the struggle to be chaste.

In any case it still seems important for priests to vow even a woefully 
imperfect celibacy, if only for the sake of the hallowed ‘priestly image’.

The church however still maintains the fable that most catholic priests 
persevere in celibate chastity fairly well, which fiction begs belief.

ALL IS NOT WELL

All is definitely not well with what I call ‘administrative celibacy’, in the 
catholic church. It is a celibacy which is more forced than consented to, 
and its effects are anything but good.

I suggest that now more than at any other time, we must begin an open and 
frank dialogue about catholic priests becoming happily married men, 
rather than being miserable and single, either before or after 
ordination.

Although this may be quite a shock to many, but the alternative may be far 
worse. What do you think happens when lapses and scandals by priests, 
sisters,brothers and bishops continue unabated , whether hidden or not?

My forecast is that we will have a few more years of catholic 
self-deception; perhaps ten, telling ourselves and the world that everything 
is Ok, nothing serious. Then more scandals will surface.

As people become more enlightened (as in Europe) there will be a crisis of 
faith, perhaps a sudden collapse, with many leaving the church, either to join 
other churches (whose pastors may be no better, but who appear to be less 
hypocritical about it), or to become agnostics, especially the middle 
classes.

One must remember that there are other challenges facing the church, such as 
general weakening of faith, loss of sacramental life, low incomes, dull 
liturgies, and the challenges of the media. Many of the youth ( not the 
children) are already alienated from Catholicism and are easy prey to 
proselytizing groups.

FACING THE NAKED TRUTH

The number of catholic priests and bishops who are sexually active in Uganda 
is unknown, but almost everywhere unedifying stories of priests ‘sexploits’, 
are not hard to come by. These stories are told in counseling or as anecdotes,or 
by the media. They are told within the parishes and beyond. They are told at 
home in families, in taxis, in hair salons and in the markets.

What is talked about? Priests’ secret and not so secret liaisons with girls 
and women, coerced sex with house-maids, with students, with relatives; 
priests ‘wives’ set up in well established homes; priests involved with a 
parishioner’s wife; of priests romantically involved with religious Sisters; 
priests offering money for sex, and so on…

If you add to this, a fair number of priests’ and bishops’ children 
scattered around the nation, who are carefully hidden from view (and not so 
carefully!), not to mention children who are aborted at priests’ behest, we 
begin to get the true picture of human weakness, whose consequences are nothing 
less than catastrophic both for the priest and his partners, and which cannot be 
concealed by taking a vow of celibacy, or by retreats and more prayers.

LETS LEARN FROM EUROPE AND AMERICA

While in Europe and the States, the scandal of numerous paedophile priests, 
whose victims are rightly suing the catholic church is widely reported 
in the media, very little by contrast is heard about priests and bishops in 
Africa who continue sexually abusing female minors (or vulnerable women) with 
no legal action taken.

Obviously time has come for serious measures to be undertaken, similar to 
those in Europe and America. Apart from legal action in civil and ecclesiastical 
courts aginst offenders, strict ‘child protection’ codes and practices, must be 
enforced, by the state which for instance should prohibit young or 
vulnerable females from residing in parish houses, where some of the abuses 
occur.

THE SINS OF DECEPTION AND SILENCE
Thus the unnecessary and unpalatable deception about celibate priests, that 

they are chaste when they are not is clearly contradicted by what is on the 
ground. The deception is of course not tenable for much longer.

Surely we must first tell ourselves the truth as a church, that is to say, 
that celibacy has failed or is failing us, and then also tell the world which we 
have been deceiving the naked truth, before we are completely overtaken by 
events.

Unfortunately there is an ominous unhealthy conspiracy of silence about 
these matters among the Ugandan clergy and faithful alike, probably because 
priestly celibacy might be seen to be a hollow shell, which it mostly is 
nowadays.

The laity for all their good will, are also co-opted into this unwholesome 
silence, sometimes for lack of information, sometimes because they believe that 
they have some ‘moral’ duty to be loyal to an imperfect church. In truth their 
silence shores up the sins of priests and the destroys many lives.

MARRIED PRIESTS NOT WANTED FOR THE WRONG REASONS

When I ask lay people whether catholic priests should have the option to 
marry the answer is always NO; since they say, that would make catholic priests 
like Anglican reverends! As if that was the worse possible fate, yet Anglican 
clergy who are married certainly do not have the same levels and same kinds of 
sexual lapses as their catholic counterparts..

Most lay people in Uganda would not like their priests to have the option of 
marriage, yet it is their very own children, sisters, wives who are being used 
and abused by the clergy!

THE CAMPAIGN

A campaign for optional married priesthood in the catholic church is now 
required. This campaign is primarily a form of education and purification. It 
is not be construed as a rebellion against established doctrine but a reading 
of the signs of the times

Since there are no fundamental theological arguments against a married 
priesthood (there are already some married priests in he UK and Uniate catholic 
churches) but only arguments from tradition and church discipline, I believe 
that it is a matter of time before common sense prevails and marriage for the 
clergy in the latin rite (i.e. catholic) church is accepted..

I am aware that there is a big struggle ahead.Unfortunately celibacy also 
serves certain vested interests in the power structure of the church, and of 
course celibate priests are cheaper and easier to deal with, even to manipulate, 
by ecclesiastical authority, but I believe that in time we will be freed from 
this unecessary yoke, unhelpful as it is, which is all the more severe in Africa 
where family and family ties are so crucial to one’s psychological 
equilibrium..

PERSONAL INTEREST

One factor which has prompted me to take up this campaign is my own 
biography. I am one of a handful of several priests who had the misfortune of 
appearing in the press for supposed sexual trespasses.

In my case,which was 2009, it was cited that I must be a homosexual, because 
I had homosexual friends and went to homosexual gatherings. Not that I cared 
much whether or not someone thinks that I am homosexual. Certainly I have been 
called worse things than that.

In my defence I tried to point out that I didn’t actually recall having had 
homosexual relations with any of my rabid accusers, neither did they; which 
meant that hearsay alone became the evidence .

What I found troubling is what followed. Apart from all the pain and scandal 
caused to all concerned, I found that even though all the allegations were based 
on hearsay, I was being treated, by my superiors as the biggest sinner in 
Nineveh.

Up till now judgements are being made against me by ecclesiastical 
authority in the light of those events, which I suppose is to be expected. I 
wondered about this and came to the conclusion that priests who ‘get caught.’ 
like me, have to pay for the sins of all those who don’t get caught.

In other words failed celibacy requires scapegoats.Some clergy are able to 
get away with the grossest behaviour, because of their age, position, influence 
or even because of financial inducements.

So while I appear to have little moral authority to talk about celibacy as a 
priestly virtue because of what may or may not have happened to me in 2009, 
nevertheless I can point out the systemic immorality of the institutionalized 
hypocrisy called celibate diocesan priesthood, which severely punishes lapses 
when they appear, but condones the secret crimes of many more.

I believe that there must be a new openness at whatever it takes. The point 
is not that diocesan priests should leave the priesthood and get married, but 
compel the church to offer the option of a married priesthood. This will put an 
end to the double lives so many priests are forced to live
.

SOME CASES HEARD

Case One

I spoke with a 21 year old young man last week. He is one of seven children 
of a catholic priest who happens to still be serving within the Province of the 
Archdiocese of Kampala. The young man, who is willing to testify, lived in a 
parish house with his father priest, even serving on the altar with him, but 
having to pretend to be a visiting nephew.

At times he was assisted by his father to go to school, but was later 
abandoned. On one occasion he drank poison in order to end his life, due to the 
trauma, but was taken to hospital before he died.

Case Two

Another is a personal friend. He was fathered by a missionary priest of the 
White Fathers 58 years ago but is still suffering the trauma of no real identity 
or home.

Although he has since received some minimum compensation from the White 
fathers , he still feels that there was an injustice to his mother who is still 
alive , who was sexually assaulted by the said White father priest in his office 
when she was only sixteen. He wishes to sue.

Case Three

Another case is of a priest who seduced a member of my youth group who 
happened to be in need of school fees, at Old Kampala, She soon became pregnant 
by the said priest, disappeared from church activities and from her home to be 
established in a ‘home’.

Case Four

Another lady tells of how she went to confession, only to be sexually 
molested by the priest, who fondled her breasts during confession

Case Five

When I was at secondary school, it was common knowledge that various Brothers 
were having sexual activity with the boys. It was called ‘jaboo’. As a pubescent 
teenager, my first sexual encounter was actually with one of the brothers who 
invited me to his room on the pretext of doing some extra chemistry equations. I 
was sixteen at the time. Later I heard that several others had been through the 
same thing..with the same Brother and with other ones..Some are still alive to 
this day.

ACTION REQUIRED

I do not believe either that these cases are just a few ‘bad apples’ in the 
barrel, but rather they are symptomatic of a sick system which has lost its 
integrity in this one area, but won’t admit it.

Some of these cases are clearly criminal in nature, especially those of sex 
with children. They should be dealt with in a normal fashion and legal action 
taken in civil courts either against the church, or against those priests who 
offend.

I am therefore compiling cases from all over Uganda.I believe that if the all 
the victims of clearly molestations were to come out and sue the church in 
civil courts, such abuses would sharply decrease.

I am also helping to set up a Victims Support Group, independent of 
the church for obvious reasons, with guidance and help from similar groups in 
Europe and the States.

I have also engaged a Human rights lawyer to advise on the wider implications 
of clergy abuse on the basic human rights of individuals, especially women.

Join me in this exciting challenge to bring fundamental change and renewal 
to the catholic church.

Happy Easter

FR. ANTHONY MUSAALA