|
imported post -
24-11-06, 10:32 AM
[align=left]
Africa Confidential Volume 47 No 23
21 November 2006
Handlery Union Square Hotel
Geary Street, San Francisco
Dear Readers,
San Francisco is not the obvious place to seek elucidation about the
post-election stand-off in Congo-Kinshasa or the race for the presidential nominations in Nigeria, but for the last four days, the city's St Francis Hotel on Union Square has hosted some of the most eminent writers
and researchers on Africa, courtesy of the African Studies Association
of the United States and its energetic Executive Director, Carol
Martin.
As the cable cars trundled down Powell Street, delegates resplendent in boubous and dashikis stood on the sidewalk or in the grand lobby of the
St Francis, animatedly discussing the real intentions of Congo's Jean-Pierre Bemba or indeed those of Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo. Grey eminences such as Professor Ali Mazrui were sought out; a few streets away Kenya's Ngugi wa Thiongo had arrived on a book tour. The city that launched a thousand spliffs took a surreal but benign look at the proceedings. Surely this must be good for tourism, San Franciscans concluded.
The annual meeting of the ASA is the world's biggest gathering of African and Africanist academics. Each year the organisers take soundings on the structure of the programme, which is really a series of mini-conferences. Some 20 sessions are held simultaneously, each with its distinct subject but fitting into the conference's general sweep. This year it was Rethinking Africa and the World. The latest conundrums are attacked with critical vigour. Does the term 'failed state' have any practical meaning? Why are opposition parties so unsuccessful? Is Africa's increasingly successful film industry developing on its own terms?
On Friday, Guest Speaker US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi E. Frazer held court on the hotel's 31st floor, affording the audience - when the drama on the podium occasionally let up - a panoramic view of the Bay Area, North Beach and the Golden Gate bridge. My thoughts turned to the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti's suggestion that the city's Coit Tower should be reengineered with a pronounced tilt, on the grounds that such an innovation had helped the local economy of Pisa.
Defending the record of President George Bush's administration to
African academics and activists is a tough brief. Several speakers lambasted
US diplomacy and corporate behaviour in Africa. The disagreements were
civil but unbridgeable, at least in San Francisco. Frazer briskly
navigated the key issues on the continent. It was 'fine' for Bemba to
challenge the legitimacy of Joseph Kabila's election win - as long as it was
the lawyers and not the militias that handled the brief. African Union
policy on Darfur was hampered because of a split between North Africa
and the rest of Africa, she said, adding that Eritrea's President
Issayas Aferwerki was playing a 'spoiler' role in Somalia. Apparently he
won't pick up the phone to US officials, even when Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice is on the line.
African states were moving from a partnership with the West to taking a
much stronger leadership role, Frazer argued, but added that the
transformation was a 'long-term'project. Formerly Bush's National Security
Advisor on Africa, Frazer said she was initially shocked by the amount of
time that the Assistant Secretary had to spend consulting with European
allies instead of working on the ground in Africa. She was also
outspoken about other countries' policies in Africa - China is making
irresponsible loans to African states which have just negotiated debt relief
schemes and French businesses in Africa are among the most corrupt, while
US businesses are among the least crooked. Mon dieu!
The most fulsome tributes were saved for those countries which Frazer
regards as heading in the right direction: Benin, Botswana, Ghana, Mali,
Senegal, Tanzania and, of course, Liberia. President Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf's Liberia was a triumph not just for Liberians but also for US
diplomacy, Frazer insisted. When asked if that was so, why hadn't
Washington granted Liberia a big debt reduction deal, Frazer replied that it was
already on the table.
Frazer can be a more passionate advocate for Africa than its own
leaders, applauding the 200 multiparty elections organised on the continent
in the past decade as evidence of substantive and wide-ranging political
change. Africa is also making a much bigger contribution to
international diplomacy, supplying 30% of the United Nations' peacekeeping troops.
Countries such as Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa are among
the ten biggest troop-supplying countries in the world.
However, Frazer was evidently frustrated that most of her time this
year has been spent on two countries: negotiating support for a UN
protection force in Sudan's Darfur region, and trying to dampen down the
conflict between Somalia's transitional government and the Islamic Courts
regime.
As Frazer's meeting was winding down, 30 floors down another was
beginning on Africa's big wars, suspended wars and political obstructions to
economic development. Luminaries such as the International Crisis
Group's John Prendergast, Nigeria expert Richard Joseph, Southern African
and development specialist Witney Schneidman and former Ambassador to
Nigeria Princeton Lyman were on the podium.
Prendergast put US policy under unfriendly fire for its insistence on
'an unworkable' peace deal in Darfur; he further damned US policy makers
as 'missing in action' as the Somali conflict threatens to turn into a
regional conflagration and as the Lord's Resistance Army peace talks in
northern Uganda start to falter. A vigorous debate then broke out about
giving LRA leader Joseph Kony a waiver from the International Criminal
Court - renewable yearly - if he signs and keeps to a peace deal.
Elsewhere in the hotel, UN economists were discussing debt reduction,
literary analysts were pontificating about French philosopher Jean-Paul
Sartre and Ghanaian writer Ayi Kwei Armah, while buzzwords such as
modernity, identity, immateriality, reimaging and commodification all
ricocheted around the hotel walls. It was a sign that some of San
Francisco's beatnik surrealism had crept through the doors of the imposing St
Francis Hotel. I could have sworn that was Jack Kerouac in the bar.
Confidentially yours,
Patrick Smith
Editor
Africa Confidential
[/align]
---- ''Only justice can bring peace''
Far Eastern words of wisdom
|
imported post
Sponsored links
Linear Mode
