In East Africa, a silent drama is unfolding and no one is paying attention
Kenya is the highest spender in the region on its military. File Photo Kenya is the highest spender in the region on its military. File Photo
Posted Monday, May 2 2011 at 00:00
In many parts of Africa today, everything is going boom! But even as the street protests play out, in the wider East Africa a power and arms race is unfolding largely out of sight.
Just as Tunisia and Egypt seemed to be beginning to calm down, Libya erupted in an uprising that turned messy and has now become a bloody civil war.
In Ivory Coast, the usurper president Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to hand over power to his rival Alassane Ouattara, stubbornly clang to power. Fed up, Ouattarra, the UN and the French called out the dogs and bombed the presidential residential where Gbagbo was hiding.
Next door, Burkina Faso’s Blaise Compaore had to run for the hills for a few days, after his soldiers mutinied over unpaid salaries.
Then it came to East Africa – but not all in the way observers expected. In Kenya, protests at the high cost of living were quickly deflated when the government quickly made two sharp cuts in duty on diesel and kerosene. In Uganda, the opposition decided to “Walk to Work” to protest high fuel prices, and were met by bullets and teargas.
Part of Ugandans’ anger arises from the fact that while they suffer, the Museveni government seems to have lost its senses as far as taxpayers’ money goes. His election campaign is thought to have cost a record $700 million, not too far off from the estimated $1 billion that US President Barack Obama spent in his 2008 presidential bid.
As the rumblings in Uganda gathered steam, it emerged that the government was spending $740 million on sophisticated fighter jets, and planning to lavish $1.3 million on the upcoming swearing-in ceremony of the president.
Yet, dramatic as all these events were, and destined to transform East African politics, the stories that could truly shake up the region went largely unnoticed.
First, in Uganda, state media reported that the $740 million jets were meant to “protect the oilfields” that are expected to be sending oil to the market in three or so years. People sneered briefly, and forgot about it.
Then, on April 21, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said, “We have embarked on regime change in Eritrea. This regime change is not by invading Eritrea, but by supporting the Eritrean people and groups, which want to dismantle the regime.”
It is remarkable that his statements didn’t make the slightest ripple.
However, at least the news agencies bothered. Two days earlier, in the Tanzanian capital Dar es Salaam, there was an event that was totally ignored by international and most East African media. It was the communiqué by the East Africa Community leaders from Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda following their summit.
Inside it, East Africa’s chiefs had buried dynamite. Item 16 in the communiqué said, in part, “The summit supports the African Union and Igad (the Intergovernmental Authority on Development) on a one-year extension for the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia to enable the government to draft a new Constitution and intensify its war against the al Shabaab terrorist insurgency.”
It then continued, in item 18, “The summit expressed support for the African Union and Igad positions backing the request that the Transitional Government extend its tenure for one year before elections in order to allow for the maintenance of security and stabilisation.”
There is nothing unusual there, until one realises that the AU (at least publicly) has not yet made a decision about the end of the transition in Somalia.
The Igad position has been more public. It decided to support the extension of the Transitional Federal Parliament (TFP), not the Government (TFG).
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