Corruption

Since entering Los Pinos last year, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has wasted no time in pushing some of Mexico’s most-needed economic reforms through Congress, but the same has not been true for the government’s security strategy. Last week I spoke with Larry Mantle on KPCC’s “Airtalk” about Peña Nieto’s proposed new police force and what it could mean for the country’s security situation. You can listen here.

This is a guest post by Emily Mellgard, research associate for the Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies program. Robert Hormats, U.S. undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy, and the environment, recently flagged ivory as a “conflict resource.” His classification adds emphasis to what is by now a generally accepted reality; ivory trafficking funds instability in Africa. Many organized criminal gangs, insurgents, and terrorists in Central Africa are, to varying degrees, funding their activities by slaughtering elephants and smuggling the ivory abroad. The porous borders and opaque border regulations, which often impede legal trade, facilitate illicit trade and smuggling. Ivory from slaughtered elephants is transported across borders to international, predominantly Asian, markets. The money from these sales goes back to the trafficking networks, which are increasingly controlled by rebel groups and insurgents; hence, ivory smuggling directly funds instability in Africa. Keith Somerville, in January 2013, wrote about the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and janjaweed (Sudanese militias) involvement in ivory trafficking networks across Central Africa. African governments cannot effectively tackle rampant poaching, the porous borders that facilitate ivory trafficking, or the incentives to participate in the slaughter and trade, without addressing the underlying issues that facilitates the illegal trade. African nations would need to nurture strong institutions, community engagement in the national culture, and grassroots incentives to conserve wildlife rather than exploit it. They need practical regional and international cooperation strategies to curb the demand that feeds ivory trafficking. These initiatives however, require political will and practical capacity, both of which are too often lacking. A positive example of such cooperation may be the recent announcement of the creation of a multinational African force, approved by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). A force of one thousand soldiers would be deployed in Central Africa specifically to fight a group of Sudanese poachers blamed for the recent slaughter of eighty-nine elephants in Chad. The effectiveness of the force remains to be seen. The troops must be adequately paid and trained, not only for combat and surveillance, but to sensitize them to in the vital role elephants play to African culture. This will hopefully prevent the troops using their mandate to partake in poaching and trafficking themselves. That such cultural training is necessary is illustrated by a September 2012 incident—which many scientists and Congolese authorities attribute to a Ugandan military helicopter—in which a herd of twenty-two elephants, including the young, were shot and their tusks hacked off.

At the National Endowment for Democracy this Monday, I met with a large group of democracy promotion specialists from all over the world. They offered valuable insights about how their work was affected by the weakness of democracy in many developing nations, by the pushback against democracy promotion by several major autocratic powers, and by the growing influence of money in politics in nascent democracies, where opportunities for vote-buying and graft actually seem to increase as compared to the period of authoritarian rule. Following the meeting, NED blogger Michael Allen posted several of my prescriptions for reforming democracy assistance. You can read them here.

South Africa’s International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane on April 4 announced that all South African troops in the Central African Republic (CAR) will be withdrawn because there is now no constitutional government in that country. She also said that at an extraordinary summit of the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) in Chad, other African leaders were “almost pleading” with South Africa not to pull out. The international relations minister said the decision to withdraw was made solely by the South African government. The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomed the withdrawal from CAR, but demanded that the president immediately inform Parliament about any new deployments of South African troops to the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Uganda that are somehow linked with CAR. Recalling apartheid-era South African thuggery outside its borders, the DA press release said “the president is making a big mistake if he thinks the defense force can be deployed B.J. Vorster-style in secret without informing the public and Parliament.” Meanwhile, General Arda Hakouma, the self-proclaimed chief of staff, and commander of the rebel force that took Bangui, claimed there were thirty-six South African dead, not the thirteen acknowledged by the South African government. Another source claimed the body count was closer to fifty. Hakouma also claimed they took South African prisoners who were later turned over to the Central African Multinational Force (FOMAC). The Zuma administration’s lack of transparency throughout the CAR episode feeds the sense that it is not telling the whole truth. Public anger over the Zuma administration’s deployment of troops is not going away in South Africa. Appearing to reflect widespread civil society views, the South African Civil Society Information Service published April 3 a piece by Glenn Ashton. In it Ashton observes that the Zuma administration’s arguments about deployment in CAR are “unconvincing and inadequate.” He characterizes the South African deployment as “neo-colonial,” in that it was designed to protect the economic interests of South Africans connected with the African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party: “Research has revealed that ANC heavyweight insiders like Billy Masetiha, Joshua Nxumalo, and Paul Langa were or are involved in various business interests in CAR. These interests are further linked to the ANC through the increasingly notorious Chancellor House Trust (the ANC’s in-house investment arm), perceived to be involved in crony capitalism as well as being a key funder of the ruling party.” He concludes that the CAR intervention “…indicates a dangerous shift by South Africa towards supporting illegitimate regimes in order to protect economic interests with strong links to powerful (South African) domestic political networks. The presence may have been legal, but was it morally defensible?” Having backed down and withdrawn the troops from CAR, Zuma will survive the outrage. The CAR episode will not resonate much with his Zulu, township, and much of the ANC base. But this misadventure betrays the ideals of Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and other architects of the “rainbow nation;” and further erodes the ANC’s moral credibility. Post-apartheid South Africa was supposed to be different, a beacon for the rest of the world.

Corruption is one of the most important public issues in South Africa and it receives exhaustive media coverage. And well it should. Transparency International ranked South Africa at sixty-ninth out of 176 countries in its 2012 "Corruption Perception Index." Botswana, ranked at thirty, was the least corrupt African country, while Cape Verde (thirty-nine), Mauritius (forty-three), Rwanda (fifty), Seychelles (fifty-one), Namibia (fifty-eight), and Ghana and Lesotho (both ranked at sixty-four) are all considered less corrupt than South Africa. As is usually the case with such rankings, the countries that outrank South Africa are small, with the notable exception of Ghana. Nevertheless, corruption is a problem, and many South Africans fear it is getting worse. For some South Africans, President Zuma has long been the face of public racketeering and corruption. At present, they focus on the president’s private family compound in Nkandla. The compound has been rebuilt in an elaborate, traditional Zulu style. How it was paid for is unclear; to say the least. In parliament the president said he paid for it with family money and a loan. However, the non-governmental organization Global Integrity, citing Mail and Guardian reports, which were in turn based on a KPMG audit, found that “a striking number of benefactors” were involved before the president spent any of his own money. On that basis, the leader of the opposition COPE party in parliament accused the president of “knowingly misled parliament,” which amounts to perjury. At parliament’s request, the minister of public works prepared a report on the allegation that R206 million of public money was spent on security for the compound. The opposition Democratic Alliance is calling for the report to be made public. The African National Congress (ANC) majority in parliament could block that move, but it would thereby risk considerable embarrassment. This episode illustrates once again that an independent parliament with well-organized opposition parties, is a check both on executive behavior and the ruling ANC in South Africa, even when the latter holds a substantial majority of the seats.  

This is a guest post by Jim Sanders, a career, now retired, West Africa watcher for various federal agencies. The views expressed below are his personal views and do not reflect those of his former employers. Alexis Okeowo’s recent article in Bloomberg Businessweek on Aliko Dangote, “Africa’s Richest Man Is Just Getting Started,” paints a positive picture of Nigeria’s economic prospects. Included in Goldman Sachs’ “Next 11 list of the most promising twenty-first century economies,” and seen by Citigroup as a “3G,” i.e., a global growth generator, Nigeria is perceived as booming, and Dangote’s success appears to be a product of “broader improvements in the country’s business environment.” Earlier this year, the Financial Times, citing among other factors the country’s 6 percent growth rate and Standard & Poor’s rating upgrade, judged that Nigeria’s economy was taking off, so much so that its “economic trajectory” posed a threat to South Africa’s “pre-eminent” position. But while the financial press continues to gush about the amount of money to be made in the country, a range of Nigerian voices are expressing fear and anger. Former World Bank official Oby Ezekwesili’s passionate convocation address at the University of Nigeria Nsukka in January criticized an “indulgent elite class” that had squandered $67 billion in reserves that the Obasanjo administration handed over to its successor government in 2007. Transparency and accountability, key to governance benefiting the general public, remain elusive. Nigeria’s “indolent elite,” according to Osun State governor Rauf Aregbesola, is largely responsible for the crisis in the North, and he expects that “a similar level of violence may soon occur in other parts of the country.” Tunde Bakare, leader of the Save Nigeria Group, believes “Nigeria needs total cleansing.”  In a sermon at the Latter Rain Assembly church in Lagos, Bakare stated that, “We need what happened in Ghana [public execution of corrupt officials] to happen in Nigeria to send a shock wave to the corrupt people in the country.” Yet it is those Nigerians without a voice who may matter most.  Writing about her work in Sierra Leone, Cassie Biggs explains that, “When people feel they have nowhere to turn to, violence becomes the only option.”  An associate adds that “if youth are not given a space, they will make one for themselves, often by violent means.” While the financial community continues to view Nigeria mainly through the lens of growth statistics and market potential, large parts of the country are witnessing “a steady slide into anarchy,” according to a This Day editorial, where laws don’t apply and violence has become the currency of daily life.

Kenyan elections took place on March 4. While some technical aspects of it were ragged, especially the transmission and consolidation of vote counts, voting appears to have been largely peaceful. Thus far, there has been little questioning of the credibility of the process. If neither candidate wins fifty percent plus one of the ballots cast, there will be a run-off in April. Polling results before election day showed the two presidential candidates very close, but with Kenyatta developing some forward momentum. Based on incomplete results, Uhuru Kenyatta is leading Raila Odinga. His followers are looking for a first round victory. Kenyatta seemed increasingly confident that he could avoid a runoff. However, on March 5 the elections commission determined that the hundreds of thousands of spoiled ballots would be added to the ballot total. This makes a runoff more likely. Kenyatta appears worried and is lashing out, accusing the British High Commission (embassy) of meddling in Kenyan internal affairs. As of now, it looks like voters primarily supported presidential candidates on the basis of ethnic alliances–not issues. It remains to be seen whether the losers will accept the election results and whether there is one round or two. Ethnic divisions run deep. In the run-up to the elections, there was ethnic identity campaigning and some hate speech that does not bode well. If there is a second round, we can anticipate a second wave of ethnic alliances, with no guarantee that the first round front runner will prevail. Presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta and his vice presidential running mate William Ruto are under indictment by the International Criminal Court at The Hague for their involvement in ethnic violence following the 2007 elections. They say they are innocent of the charges, and they have pledged to cooperate with the ICC and to go to The Hague to stand trial. Their trial, originally scheduled for April, has been postponed to August. Nevertheless, if they are elected president and vice president of Kenya, it remains to be seen how the ICC dimension will play out. Many Kenyans want to see justice done following the violence of 2007. However in 2010, the Kenyan parliament passed a resolution, only advisory, urging that the government withdraw Kenya from the jurisdiction of the ICC. If Kenyatta and Ruto prevail in the elections, this might be an option. If, however, they lose, a Kenyan government might well be indifferent to their ICC fate. Hence, the future relationship of Kenya to the ICC could also be determined by the outcome of the elections. Kenyans also voted for governors and senators of forty-six newly created counties, part of a restructuring of the state mandated by the new constitution, which was designed in part to preclude a recurrence of the prolonged and bloody crisis that followed the elections in 2007. Nevertheless, the “elephant in the living room” remains whether the 2013 elections will be followed by violence similar in magnitude to that of 2007. The constitutional restructuring of the state has reduced the power of the presidency and may mitigate Kenya’s traditional winner-take-all political culture. That in turn may encourage less violence. Kenyans genuinely also seem to want to avoid ethnic violence, having witnessed its destructive power in 2007. Such factors may reduce the risks.

Around one billion people live in fragile or failing states. Yet no Washington administration has developed a strategy for helping such states address the causes of their fragility. Instead, most administrations respond ad hoc to the crises of the day, ranging from Tunisia and the debut of the Arab Spring, to Mali and radical Islamism in the Sahel. Too often, Washington’s focus is short term and on “international terrorism,” rather than on the root causes of state failure. Pauline Baker and Eric Ham have done a public service by  proposing a comprehensive U.S. strategy for addressing state failure in their new report, S.O.S.: A U.S. Strategy of State-Building. They systematically designate four “core issues:” demographic pressure, economic and social inequality, broken security apparatus, and de-legitimization of the state. They propose that the United States work to build institutional capacity for good governance, but separate and apart from its military and security responses to counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency. Their proposal requires that Washington identify potential host governments with the need and willingness to be partners in state-building. Furthermore, the strategy encourages the United States to greatly enhance its cooperation and coordination with the business community and multinational organizations with the aim of fostering economic opportunity. To give state building its proper due, the report urges that a state-building strategy be included in the president’s National Security Strategy; and, moreover, that the administration establish an undersecretary for state-building in the Department of State. Baker and Ham use Nigeria as a case study to demonstrate how their “core issues” influence state failure. They note that the already existing Nigeria-U.S. Bilateral Commission could be the entry point for the joint development of a comprehensive strategy to address state-building. Baker and Ham’s “core issues” provide a useful analytical framework. Their proposed U.S. comprehensive strategy ought to lead to some fresh thinking about what Washington can do to strengthen failing states, even if some of their recommendations (e.g., establishment of an undersecretary for state-building) are bound to be controversial. Pauline H. Baker is president emeritus of the Washington-based, non-governmental organization(NGO) Fund for Peace. She led the Fund’s development of an annual Failed State Index that is published by Foreign Policy. Eric Ham is at Global Political Solutions, a private business development and government relations firm. Baker and Ham led the Fragile State Strategy team of the Society for Internal Development’s (SID) Washington, DC chapter. SID is an NGO that has long focused on development issues, and  is associated with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

The South African police on February 28 “allegedly” tied a Mozambican cab driver, Medo Macia, to the back of a truck and dragged him to the police station where he died. Apparently, the cab driver had parked his vehicle in a way that blocked traffic. I say “alleged;” but the video of the atrocity (the images are disturbing) is clear, and it has gone viral in South Africa and elsewhere–the New York Times ran the story on February 28. The incident took place in Daveyton, a black township outside Johannesburg. Earlier in the month, the incompetency of the investigative and forensics skills of the police was highlighted at the bail hearing for Oscar Pistorius, the celebrated double amputee gold medal athlete accused of murdering his girlfriend. Last year, the police were involved in, or responsible for, the deaths of Marikana platinum mine workers, an incident that riveted national and international attention and is still under investigation. Apparent police brutality recalls some of the worst abuses of the apartheid era; South Africans remember that Steve Biko, a founder of the black consciousness movement and a hero of the anti-apartheid struggle, also died in police custody. Prominent South Africans are using the Pistorius case, and the brutal rape and murder of Anene Booysen on February 1, to highlight violence against women. In Biko’s time, the police force was white-dominated and mostly deployed to protect whites. It was known for its brutality against blacks and opponents of the apartheid regime. Since the end of apartheid, white police have been bought-out or pensioned off, and the national police force now is almost entirely black. The years following the end of apartheid saw a massive increase in crime, perhaps analogous to a similar wave in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A consequence was the Mandela and Mbeki governments greatly expanded the size of the police force, but without provision for adequate training and equipping. Official rhetoric too, at time encouraged police brutality. However, South Africa, a genuine democracy, has self-correcting mechanisms lacking in non-democratic states. The Macia atrocity has been denounced by President Jacob Zuma and eight policemen have been arrested. In the Pistorius case the judge was publicly scathing about the performance of the police. Civil society, very powerful in South Africa, and the media is thoroughly seized with the issue of policing and police brutality. That is not to say that reform of the police will happen quickly or easily, any more than extensive gun control in the United States, even in the aftermath of the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut school shooting. The institutions and processes, however, are in place in South Africa for such reform to occur. This incident may prove, as Newtown has in the U.S., a watershed of public and political will for reform.

Search for Common Ground, a distinguished Washington-based NGO devoted to international conflict resolution and peace building that has long focused on the Great Lakes Region, organized a special two-day meeting of the Great Lakes Policy Forum (GLPF) earlier this week–the 165th meeting of the Forum. The Council on Foreign Relations and the Nitze School of International Studies at Johns Hopkins hosted and participated, along with many other Congo-watchers from the executive and legislative branches, NGOs, and academia. Search for Common Ground arranged for the presence of experts from the Congo, and there were representatives of the Congolese diaspora in the United States. The focus was on local and regional issues on the first day, international perspectives on the second, when diplomats from Congo, Rwanda and Uganda were present. The first day was under Chatham House Rules, the second was on the record. Assistant Secretary Johnnie Carson in formal remarks urged that the international community accord Congo a higher priority than it does at present, and he laid out a U.S. policy framework. These discussions took place in the immediate aftermath of the signing in Addis Ababa of a UN-sponsored framework agreement by eleven nations that aims at ending the violence in Eastern Congo. With respect to internal Congolese issues, there was a consensus on the importance of improving governance, security sector reform, and the need to develop and harness political will with respect to corruption and a host of other ills. There was also agreement on the need to review and probably expand the UN’s mandate in Congo. As for the international dimension of the Congolese crisis and the intervention of Rwanda and Uganda, there were “three different narratives” that, in effect, were irreconcilable. The Congolese participants (and UN agencies and many independent observers) argue that Rwanda and Uganda are actively involved in supporting militias and rebels in eastern Congo, while Rwanda and Uganda strenuously deny it. Assistant Secretary Carson noted that there have been more than five million deaths in Congo since the 1997 departure of Mobutu Sese Seko, a dictator who ruled and looted the country for thirty-two years. That the international community has permitted such carnage is a scandal. I find the Congolese charges against Uganda and Rwanda credible. At the very least the international community should be pressuring those two states to desist, no matter how useful their support is on other issues.

There is a useful new feature on cfr.org, the Council on Foreign Relations’ website. Ask a CFR Expert invites members of the public to submit questions on U.S. foreign policy, and CFR fellows respond to questions that pertain to their own areas of expertise and research. The following question was recently proposed to me: “What will it take for the United States and others to address the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo?” This was my response. Congo’s natural wealth makes it an African arena of competing ambitions. It is an open secret that senior political and military figures from Rwanda and Uganda sponsor irregular militias in eastern Congo to access its mineral resources for personal enrichment. Corrupt Congolese politicians similarly enrich themselves, while Congo’s government provides almost no security, health services or education. Human rights organizations credibly accuse government agents, the military, and local militias of committing atrocities to coerce the local population. The United States, Belgium, China, and African states could pressure the Ugandan and Rwandan governments to cease supporting militias. They could urge the Congo government to reform its military and the police and reduce official corruption. With its economic heft in central Africa, China could play a positive role in a diplomatic push against Ugandan and Rwandan support for the militias. But, Congo is not a high international priority, and China is reluctant to intervene in the internal affairs of their trading partners. Instead, the international response is to leave Congo to the United Nations to meet minimal humanitarian needs. Congo’s government would need international assistance for reform and to move against corruption, but it may not have the capacity to challenge the powerful individuals who benefit from the present system. In sum, the exploitation of Congo’s vast resources by competing elites and militaries for personal enrichment promotes insecurity and stymies development. Only very strong Western and African public outcry and a change in China’s nonintervention approach might open the possibilities for change. I encourage others to submit questions as well, whether they are on U.S. policy toward Africa or other areas of foreign policy.

Kenya goes to the polls on March 4 with Uhuru Kenyatta and Raila Odinga the only credible presidential candidates. The Ipsos Synovate poll shows that Kenyatta is ahead with 44.8 percent of the vote to Odinga’s 44.4 percent. Kenyatta is ahead in twenty counties while Odinga has nineteen. The polling company identifies Nairobi and three other counties as toss-ups. To win the presidency without a runoff requires the victor win 50 percent plus one of the votes. Under those circumstances, a runoff looks highly likely. Both candidates are longtime political rivals; Kenyatta is the son of Jomo Kenyatta, one of the early African independence leaders and Kenya’s first president. In the past, elections have been dominated by appeals to ethnic identities and coalition building. There has been widespread electoral fraud and considerable violence that threatened the legitimacy of the democratic process. The elections of 2007 were particularly bloody and provoked a political crisis that lasted for months. It ended only with a power-sharing agreement brokered by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan with strong international support. Under its terms, the incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, assumed the presidency while Odinga became prime minister. Subsequently, the country adopted a new constitution designed to reduce the saliency of ethnic divisions and reform electoral procedures. Nevertheless, there is widespread fear that the March 4 elections will be violent. The Nairobi Star comments that Kenyans are moving out of areas that are ethnically mixed, and shop keepers are emptying their shelves and closing their doors. Kenyatta is under indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for crimes he allegedly committed during the 2007 elections. If he wins on March 4, or in the possible runoff, Kenya will face the challenge of an indicted chief of state. Kenya is a signatory of the Rome treaty (unlike the United States) and therefore recognizes the jurisdiction of the ICC. Polls show that voters opposed to Kenyatta are significantly swayed by his indictment.

An often overlooked problem with the so-called “war on drugs” mindset has been the effect on local populations: as military officials or militarized law enforcement officers fight narcotraffickers, they often play by rules of engagement that end up hurting the very citizens they are mandated to protect. Human Rights Watch has just released a report on disappearances in Mexico over the last six years. The document, “Mexico’s Disappeared: The Enduring Cost of a Crisis Ignored,” painstakingly investigates some 250 cases. The local police are linked to the most disappearances (roughly 40 percent of those that Human Rights Watch investigated), but the report provides unsettling evidence that all branches of Mexico’s armed forces have been involved in disappearing people at some point. This includes Mexico’s navy—generally considered to be one of the least corrupt military branches—for 20 missing people in June / July 2011. The report argues that it is not just the armed forces and police that contribute to the disappearances, but also the country’s judicial system. It reveals how prosecutors systematically delay or altogether avoid investigations, demanding at least seventy-two hours to pass before beginning the process and discouraging family members from filing claims when security forces are involved. For example, when Nitza Paola Alvarado Espinoza tried to report the Mexican army’s arbitrary detention (and eventual disappearance) of her cousin, Irene Rocío Alvarado Reyes, she was sent from one state prosecutors office to another, only to be finally told that there was no prosecutor available to speak with her. These 250 cases are just those that Human Rights Watch has investigated. Last November a leaked document from the Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Prosecutor’s Office named over 25,000 people who had disappeared on President Calderón’s watch. Recent official revisions place the actual number closer to 27,000. Current President Enrique Peña Nieto’s government has vowed a shift in the country’s security strategy, recently announcing a national program on crime prevention that will pour some $9 billion into programs targeting drug addiction, as well as school and domestic violence. Though many critique the lack of specifics, the rhetoric has definitely shifted. But the government will need to do more to bring safety and security to Mexico’s streets than just change the way it talks about crime. It will have to make sure that law enforcement officials and citizens alike understand that the ends don’t justify the means, and that disappearances cannot continue if Mexico hopes to turn the security corner and establish a sustainable democratic rule of law.

Zimbabwe’s public account is down to its last $217. The finance minister says the country’s finances “are in paralysis.” How can that be? Zimbabwe’s diamond fields at Marange could hold between two and seven billion carats of raw diamonds, and constitutes a quarter of global diamond output, according to Bernard Chiketo in "Think Africa Press." As I blogged in June 2012, many think that the revenue from diamonds is bypassing the Treasury and going directly to Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu/PF party and its operatives. The four largest companies exploiting the Marange diamond mines are all closely tied to the ruling party. In November, former South African president Thabo Mbeki charged that Zimbabwe’s diamonds were controlled by a “predatory elite.” Opposition politicians claim that Zanu/PF handed over the Marange fields to allied private companies. This was to ensure the party continued to enjoy a stream of revenue even after it lost control of the Treasury and the National Social Security Authority to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) when Mugabe acceded to a unity government under pressure from South Africa and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). And indeed, the current minister of finance, one of the founders of the MDC, has been a vocal critic of the close association between Zanu/PF and the mining companies that hold concessions to the Marange fields, and an advocate of more transparency in diamond revenues. The political temperature is rising in Zimbabwe. A referendum on a new constitution expected soon, to be followed by presidential elections. In this context, Zanu/PF and MDC operatives are accusing each other of lying about Marange diamonds and the state of the country’s public finances. The opposition MDC is calling for the nationalization of the diamond mines, with joint supervision by the mining and finance ministries. The real issue, however, is the utter lack of transparency with respect to what has become Zimbabwe’s cash cow.

Environmental degradation associated with the petroleum industry in the Niger Delta impacts directly on the livelihoods of indigenous farmers and fishermen. Environmental issues were an important basis for popular support, or at least acquiescence, for the low level insurgency carried out against the federal and state governments by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) between 2004 and 2007, with sporadic activities continuing into the present. In part because it has operated in Nigeria for more than fifty years, and because its operations have been mostly on land, the multinational oil giant Shell is often the focus of local and international environmentalist ire. According to the Nigerian press, the director of the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth, Geert Ritsema, claims Shell should be held responsible for pollution in the Niger Delta region: “The pipeline network of Shell in Nigeria is in a very poor state.” He said that Shell has spilled twice as much oil over the years as the amount leaked during the British Petroleum disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Shell and other big oil companies respond that the spills are caused by sabotage, oil theft, and illegal refiners, and that when spills occur, they are cleaned up to the satisfaction of the Nigerian federal government. Nigeria’s oil belongs to the Nigerian state, but most of the oil is produced by private oil companies, such as Shell, in partnership or by agreement with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, a government-owned entity. Most of the profits go to the Nigerian state. In part because of this close relationship between the oil industry and the state, international environmentalists seek to try pollution cases in European or American courts rather than Nigerian. Accordingly, four Nigerian farmers, with the support of the Dutch non-governmental organization Friends of the Earth, sued Royal Dutch Shell in the Dutch District Court of The Hague for four oil spills between 2004 and 2009. The case was watched closely in Nigeria and by the international environmental community. On January 30, 2013, the court ruled that the oil spills were, indeed, caused by sabotage, that Royal Dutch Shell is not liable. It dismissed the claims of the Friends of the Earth. The court did find that the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), a Nigerian subsidiary, could have prevented the sabotage in one case by plugging the well. The Court acknowledged the SPDC subsequently contained the leak. Nevertheless, legal proceedings continue against SPDC with the possibility of damages compensation to one farmer. This Dutch court ruling would appear to support the argument that much of the Niger Delta pollution is, indeed, caused by criminal activity carried out by local actors. In what may be an example of making lemonade out of lemons, Evert Hassink,a spokesman for Friends of the Earth expressed disappointment in the verdict which he described as “mixed” but observed that “we’ve succeeded in establishing the principle of going to court in the Netherlands or Europe because of what happened in another country.” The Nigerian media quotes Wale Fapohunda, a commissioner with the National Human Rights Commission, as saying the fact the case was filed in The Hague shows a lack of faith in the corrupt Nigerian judicial system. Lawrence Quaker of Human Rights Law Services in Lagos, said Nigerians are seeking international justice because of the failure of Nigeria’s judiciary. He observed that former Delta State Governor James Ibori was convicted in a UK court of stealing U.S. $77 million in public funds. In Nigeria, he had been found not guilty. Quaker is quoted as saying “It shows that the judiciary abroad is not biased and we can take cases against companies to their motherland for adjudication and get a fair hearing.”