Africa Notes

Africa Notes: Gay Rights and the Alien Tort Statute

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Do African politicians have a reason to support gay rights?
A recent conversation with some colleagues and the discovery of a post about “Gay Relief” on Ramblings of a Procastinator in Accra got me thinking again about the politics of homosexuality in Africa. In the blog post, Abena Serwaa writes:

Contrary to what most people believe, African leaders love gay people. In recent times, the African politician has come to realise that no single issue can galvanize and unite the citizenry across the usual divides than calls for gay rights.

As she mentions, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s call for African leaders to respect gay rights has not had its intended effects. Ghana’s President had this to say:

Ghanaian society frowns on homosexuality, if the people’s interest is that we do not legalize homosexuality, I don’t see how any responsible leader can decide to go against the wishes of his people.

And recent Nobel Prize Winner Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf also vowed to veto any bill legalizing homosexuality. Her Press Secretary said this:

Liberians should hold this government by her word. This President will not sign into law anything called same sex marriage. This government opposes gay rights. In fact, government will not compromise its religious belief for any (foreign) aid. We have listened to the vast majority of our people who have spoken on this issue and kicked against it, so this government has the will of the people and believes in the dreams and aspirations of the people and I can assure you that President Sirleaf will not sign that bill.

Of course, Africa is not the only part of the world that struggles to accept gay rights as Brian Whitaker notes, there is an “ongoing battle for gay rights in the Arab world.” And how can we expect this to happen any easier there than it does here in the US? Jimmy Carter, one of our most famous human rights campaigners, has just now come around to supporting gay civil marriages. And I think everyone knows how Santorum has felt about gay rights for some time.

The question becomes: what will it take to incentivize politicians in Africa (and elsewhere) to promote gay rights? No, I don’t yet have the answer.

Can Americans be sued for pursuing anti-gay agendas in Africa?
Indeed, just recently a Ugandan gay rights group, Sexual Minorities Uganda, has filed suit against American evangelist Scott Lively using the Alien Tort Statute (ATS; a statute I have written about here). As reported by the New York Times:

The lawsuit maintains that beginning in 2002, Mr. Lively conspired with religious and political leaders in Uganda to whip up anti-gay hysteria with warnings that gay people would sodomize African children and corrupt their culture.

The Supreme Court is currently hearing a different ATS case which may impact whether other cases such as this get heard. But this could be an interesting way to hold our own extremists accountable.

Africa Notes: Black Star Surf Shop

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Surfing in Africa
The Economist, has this story on the “Beach Rush”. I don’t think the numbers of surfers going to Africa are all that substantial, but there are some cool scenes and great possibilities. In the story the mention the Black Star Surf Camp, which is run by theBlack Star Surf Shop at Busua Beach.

wpid-Boy-on-Boogie-Board-2012-03-19-13-09.jpg
The story behind this outfit is pretty neat, involving some help form a couple former Peace Corps Volunteers in the mid-2000s. A brief documentary on their effort is available here:

Personally, I think the sign of their greatest success–or Ghana’s, at any rate–will be when local demand for their services consistently outweighs foreign demand.

Africa Notes: Angola has had a busy week

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I’m not the only one who has noted Angola’s busy week in politics. Africa is a country has a post on this. Here are the big themes:

Fall Elections
The elections are six months away. It is unlikely that the current ruling power, MPLA, will lose power, but that doesn’t mean others are not challenging them.

  • A UNITA population, Abel Chivukuvuku has now created his own party to launch his presidential campaign: CASA, short for “Ample Convergence of Angolan Salvation” (Africa is a country)
  • Independent newspaper, Folha 8, was raided by Angolan authorities.
  • Anti-government protests took place in Luanda and its suburbs. There were minor clashes with police. Attempts to protest in Benguela as well were apparently blocked by police intervention. Concerns about the head of the electoral commission were central to these protests.
  • Rafael Marque, who I was fortunate enough to meet not so long ago, testified this week regarding human rights crimes in Angola’s diamond mines (Africa is a country). If human rights is his cause, he might have more work cut out given reports on how the police have handled the recent protests: “Activists Beaten Just Days Before Protest.”

Meanwhile, the President is trying to bolster his self-image. Dos Santos announced new investments in small and medium businesses. Shrikesh Laxmidas at Reuters has a quick overview of the“Key political risks to watch in Angola”: succession, protests, the election itself, transparency, economic growth, and oil dependency.

Angola saves Portugal
The tone of this theme was set last fall, when news reports showed increased investment flows from Angola to Portugal. And, while it has been standard in recent years to discuss the problems of African immigration to Europe, it seems that migration flows are the other way around with respect to Angola. From Reuters:

Pedro Luz, 34, who recently graduated with a second degree in business management, is a typical young professional who has been drawn to Angola by opportunity and better pay. Sent out from Lisbon, he is working as a business consultant on a project that will last four months but expects to stay longer.

“As expatriates here we have a lifestyle we simply don’t get at home,” he said. “If we didn’t have this crisis in Europe, Angola wouldn’t be my first choice.”

Songangol is reportedly in talks to “buy more of Portugal’s Galp”.

Updated: I shouldn’t post things late at night. I accidentally pasted the wrong quote above in the original version of the post (a quote about migration to Brazil instead of Angola… both are covered in the Reuters article).

Africa Notes: Top Stories from West Africa

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Violence and War

In Court: Kiobel, Shell and Nigeria

  • The US Supreme Court decided to hear new arguments in the Kiobel case, about Shell’s complicity in the torture of Nigerians in the Niger Delta. (For more on this case see my previous post).
  • I had a chance to meet Justice Scalia when he was at our campus this past Thursday but he was tight-lipped on this active case. He did seem to suggest that he already knew what the outcome would be. And he didn’t seem too unhappy. So that could be a sign that we are about to see a more restricted interpretation of the Alien Tort Statute very soon. Also, I overheard him talking about the Citizens United decision and his view on the freedom of speech. From that I take it that he, at least, doesn’t see that decision really bearing much weight on the broader question of whether corporations are citizens.
  • Knox at Opinio Juris seems to agree that we should be pessimistic about future use of the ATS to implement human rights law.

Elections and Democracy

Africa Notes: Boko Haram and a failed special forces rescue attempt

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Boko Haram is increasingly capturing the media’s attention. Its members have engaged in an unfortunately consistent set of attacks on the Nigerian population over the last two years. As Richard Dowden says in a blog post today (“Boko Haram – More Complicated Than You Think”), this group began as a somewhat peaceful group. For Dowden, it was after their leader was tortured to death in 2009 that violence became part of their agenda. (See also Alex Thurston: “Boko Haram in National Perspective”.)

This group has raised a number of significant challenges for the Nigerian government, which still deals with instability in the Niger Delta. They have tried to ramp up their security, to try them in courts, and to engage in dialogue. It is still not entirely clear what they want (see Dickinson on “What Boko Haram Wants”and Anzalone’s discussion of this), but it is clear that their primary focus is on Nigeria-specific issues. So while their tactics and “jihadi” framing (and perhaps funding?) might tie them to Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM), they haven’t yet emphasized that other group’s global agenda.

The impacts of these events are happening at multiple levels. Within Nigeria, there is the obvious political instability that such terrorism breeds. A report last Friday said that 10,000 people had fled Northern Nigeria for Niger and Chad (two of the very poorest countries in the world and not the first place I would go if I were escaping a calamity!). A recent report from Executive Analysis, Ltd at African Arguments, factors in Boko Haram’s activities in considering Nigeria’s “risks of a coup or civil war.” There are also important economic effects within Nigeria. Alex, at SahelBlog, also notes this (and is a great source for information on Boko Haram in general). Chikjioke Ohuocha reported recently for Reuters that the insurgency is “forcing extra spending on security…diverting money away from needed infrastructure spending and could be costing as much as 2 percent of the country’s economic output.” He also cited an investment analyst as saying that the scale and location of the attacks (far from the major commercial hubs) have meant that so far “foreign investors are prepared to live with the threat”.

At the global level, this is impacting international views on both Nigeria and the African continent. IR blogger Walter Russell Mead things Nigeria’s government is “doing little to defuse the threat”. And he uses Boko Haram as an example of how Africa’s problems are still really deep. All of that Afro-optimism that we have been hearing about economic growth across Africa, he suggests, is probably just another “false dawn”.

What happened yesterday: the failed rescue attempt.

British and Nigerian Special Forces failed in a rescue attempt of Italian Franco Lamolinara and British citizen Chris McManus, both of whom were kidnapped by members of Boko Haram. The kidnappers apparently killed the two hostages as retaliation during the rescue attempt. The Italian government is reportedly upset that they were not informed that this action was going to take place.

Alex Thurston at SahelBlog has an important take on these events. Many had said that Boko Haram was not yet engaging in kidnapping but these events suggest we now have clearer evidence to the contrary:

any doubts about whether it really was Boko Haram that kidnapped the Europeans – doubts that stem from the facts that Kebbi is far outside Boko Haram’s normal zone of operations, that Boko Haram never seems to have kidnapped a Westerner before, or that communications from the kidnappers never seemed to fit with the style of either Boko Haram or AQIM – may be swept aside as the narrative takes hold that this kidnapping was a Boko Haram operation, full stop. There are, indeed, many possible explanations that deserve consideration, ranging from the possibility that the kidnappers were opportunistic criminals to the possibility that they were copycats to the possibility that it was Boko Haram itself, or a splinter group. Those complexities, uncertainties, and nuances may now be ignored. Perhaps more importantly, the idea – or the reality (because I really don’t know) – that Boko Haram is kidnapping Westerners will play into larger narratives about what kind of threat the group poses to Nigeria and to the West.

At least some of the kidnappers have been arrested and President Goodluck Jonathan said in a statement “the perpetrators of the murderous act, who have all been arrested, would be made to face the full wrath of the law.”

Africa Notes: Seeing Kony

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Invisible Children is getting a lot of press for its new campaign: Kony 2012. They even have a slick movie (see below), which is something they are particularly good at.

Joseph Kony is clearly a bad guy and no one doubts this. The best piece to read on recent effort to go after Kony is a recent piece in Foreign Affairs by Schomerus et al.: “Obama takes on the LRA”. (h/t Blattman).

What I write about below is the debate about Invisible Children’s efforts and influence on US policy. But it might be worthwhile to note that another news item about the LRA seems to have been lost in the blogosphere. Reuters Africa reports that the “LRA launches new Congo attacks, may be “last gasp”.”

Is Invisible Children Doing a Good Thing Here?

There is an active debate out there about this. As one of my colleagues recently posted on facebook: “My development and academic friends think it’s the worst ever. Many other friends are urging us to watch.” That mirrors what I hear, perhaps amplified by the fact that the ex-boyfriend of a relative of a friend was one of the original filmmakers (and maybe still works with IC). A link in her comments to a Foreign Policy Blog piece by Joshuah Keating, summarizes the main critiques in its title: “Joseph Kony is not in Uganda (and other complicated things).” More generally, the criticisms focus on their tactics, on their knowledge, and on a fear of how the combination of these could lead to less-than-desirable outcomes.

Tactics
In fact, in the past a number of observers in the development and aid community have been critical of IC. For instance, over at Metblogs in 2007, they noted that people involved in an IC protest in DC lacked the most basic knowledge about Uganda and the LRA. Of course, that is actually pretty normal for campaigns of any stripe. Participants are rarely well-briefed. However, that does less to excuse their awkward “abduct yourself” campaign back in 2009. Chris Blattman, an expert on the conflict and on child soldiers in Africa, wrote:

There’s also something inherently misleading, naive, maybe even dangerous, about the idea of rescuing children or saving of Africa. It’s often not an accidental choice of words, even if it’s unwitting. It hints uncomfortably of the White Man’s Burden. Worse, sometimes it does more than hint. The savior attitude is pervasive in advocacy, and it inevitably shapes programming. Usually misconceived programming. The saving attitude pervades too many aid failures, not to mention military interventions. The list is long.

One consequence, whether it’s IC or Save Darfur, is a lot of dangerously ill-prepared young people embarking on missions to save the children of this or that war zone. At best it’s hubris and egocentric. More often, though, it leads to bad programs, misallocated resources, or ill-conceived military adventures. There’s lots of room for intelligent advocacy.

However, Blattman may be more optimistic about “intelligent advocacy” than I am. Not everyone in the US should be expected to know about Uganda and the LRA, but it could be, in this case, that a little information is better than none. (For even more information, see the recommended sources below the film clip.) Additionally, it is important to think about how we are defining the goals of the Kony 2012 campaign. If the goal is about keeping the public “aware” of the issue, then something is to be said about their tactics. My (somewhat limited) understanding is that there is a solid literature on “Why Millions Can Die and We Don’t Care” (links to Psychology Today). So while I get why it might seem like a bad idea to Mark Kersten to have “a five year-old white boy feature more prominently than any other northern Ugandan…” in the Kony 2012 film, I also get why they did it. And it definitely works at getting people’s attention.

Knowledge: The Situation is More Complicated…

On the recent Kony 2012 Campaign, Stephanie Carvin at Duck of Minerva had this to say:

To put it simply, the situation on the ground in Uganda is complex. Military humanitarian intervention has serious consequences. Ham-fistedly intervening in a conflict of which few have a nuanced understanding of the conditions on the ground, where local actors are already engaged in trying to bring about a peaceful resolution, is not going to help and may in fact serve to make a difficult situation worse. Buying a bracelet from an American run NGO will not change this.

I am increasingly getting the feeling that if this is the future of international politics and humanitarian intervention, there are high-definition troubled waters ahead.

Fear: How this can lead to worse outcomes

Mark Kersten, again:

In the end, ‘Kony 2012′ falls prey to the obfuscating, simplified and wildly erroneous narrative of a legitimate, terror-fighting, innocent partner of the West (the Government of Uganda) seeking to eliminate a band of lunatic, child-thieving, machine-gun wielding mystics (the LRA). The main beneficiary of this narrative is, once again, the Ugandan Government of Yoweri Museveni, whose legitimacy is bolstered and – if the ‘Kony 2012′ campaign is ‘successful’ – will receive more military funding and support from the US.

Final thoughts:

Invisible children have come a ways since 2007 and should be commended in their efforts to learn and communicate more effectively about Uganda. No one can argue that they haven’t tried, for instance, they have funded the LRA Crisis Tracker, something I stumbled upon via the more reputable ReliefWeb website. That said, I think Blattman and others are right that there are other experts to consult besides advocacy groups when deciding on what to do about Kony.

The Kony 2012 Movie:

Recommended sources on Uganda and the LRA: