Heads of State and Government

Below is a visualization and description of some of the most significant incidents of political violence in Nigeria from July 30, 2016 to August 5, 2016. This update also represents violence related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. These incidents will be included in the Nigeria Security Tracker. // var divElement = document.getElementById(’viz1470670709672’); var vizElement = divElement.getElementsByTagName(’object’)[0]; vizElement.style.width=’100%’;vizElement.style.height=(divElement.offsetWidth*0.75)+’px’; var scriptElement = document.createElement(’script’); scriptElement.src = ’https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js’; vizElement.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, vizElement); // ]]> July 31: Militants attacked a Shell pipeline in Burutu, Delta. August 1: Nigerian troops killed five Boko Haram militants in Maiduguri, Borno. August 1: Nigerian troops bombed four Niger Delta militant camps, killing 114 militants. August 1: Herdsmen killed ten in Jema’a, Kaduna. August 1: Herdsmen killed twenty-two in Demsa, Adamawa. August 2: Sectarian violence led to the deaths of five in Irepodun/Ifelodun, Kwara. August 3: Kidnappers kidnapped two civilians and killed three policemen in Obio/Akpor, Rivers. August 5: Nigerian troops clashed with civilians in Bosso, Niger, resulting in the deaths of three soldiers and seven civilians.

The Mugabe regime appears to be continuing to unravel. After the regime arrested Evan Mawarire, a Christian pastor who has emerged as a leader of the protest movement #ThisFlag, judges in an unusual show of independence, ordered his release. Mawarire has now gone to South Africa, but denies he is seeking asylum, according to media. The media also reports that President Robert Mugabe has now referred to Mawarire by name, accusing him of organizing “violent” protests: “So beware these men of cloth, not all of them are true preachers of the Bible. I don’t know whether they are serving God. They spell God in reverse.” The Mugabe regime is also accusing “Western embassies” of supporting the #ThisFlag movement, especially the American and French ambassadors. Protests organized by #ThisFlag have been non-violent. However, there has been violence associated with the official security services. For its part #ThisFlag makes no reference to “regime change” in its social media postings, thereby depriving Mugabe of an excuse for a crackdown. Instead, it says it is mobilizing citizens to hold the government accountable for the “poverty, corruption, and injustice.” Reuters is reporting that the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association has issued a public statement that Mugabe’s “leadership has presided over unbridled corruption and downright mismanagement of the economy.” The war veterans also said they would no longer Support Mugabe’s political campaigns. In the past, Mugabe used the war veterans as thugs against his enemies. Meanwhile, the media is reporting that civil servants are concerned that they will again be paid late, as Zimbabwe has delayed paying its soldiers for the second month in a row. According to the media, soldiers were paid two weeks late last month. The media is reporting that the military will be paid the last week in July, while school teachers will be paid in August. When a regime is unraveling, it is dangerous not to pay soldiers which it relies on for protection.

Yesterday, the White House released a new policy document on the management of cyber incident response. The document, Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) 41, captures over a decade of lessons learned on how federal agencies respond to cyber incidents. It is clear about what federal agencies will do (as well as what they will not do) and sets up a series of mechanisms for coordinating federal action with private companies. It fixes long-standing problems in Federal response policy, formalizing the “bubble chart” and creating unified coordination groups to coordinate with private entities and state and local governments based on what works for responding to real world disasters. Unfortunately, nobody cares because the White House also released a Cyber Incident Severity Schema that looks like the ill-fated and often-mocked color-coded Homeland Security Advisory System and the twitterverse is all abuzz. So, instead of getting into the importance of the new presidential policy, let’s take a minute to understand why the schema is not the homeland advisory system’s “spiritual successor for hacking.” Believe it or not, the federal government does every once in a great long while realize that something does not work and fixes it. The Obama administration eliminated the Homeland Security Advisory System because national alert levels simply were not useful. Raising the alert level to orange because of a bomb threat to the financial sector in New York would cause seaports on the West Coast to burn overtime for guard patrols. Recognizing this problem, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) replaced it with the National Terrorism Advisory System to provide specific and actionable information to the public when such information exists. For cyber threats, there are already multiple similar systems used to convey government information to the public and to constituency groups including US-CERT alerts and joint intelligence bulletins from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and DHS released to select groups. The Schema does not replace or augment these systems. All the Schema does is create a way to quickly convey the severity of an incident to senior government officials. The press statement and the Schema document are clear that it is for internal government use: “a common framework within the federal government for evaluating and assessing the severity of cyber incidents and will help identify significant cyber incidents to which the PPD’s coordination procedures would apply.” In government, I saw first-hand the need for this kind of easy to understand rating of an incident’s severity. A breaking headline on MSNBC can easily send an agency head into a tailspin. Conversely, practitioners who routinely deal with cyber incidents can become inured to cyber threats and not move quickly to respond. Being able to use a simple and easily understood level system is just a common sense thing to do when a dozen or more agencies need to be on the same page. I can guess that the team that developed the schema probably thought about ways to avoid using colors. I can almost guarantee that the White House debated not releasing it because they knew that the color-coding would be mocked. Yet in the end, they decided to do both because they were the right things to do. Nobody ever gets confused about whether green or red is worse in a color hierarchy (numbers can go either way—DEFCON 1 and a category 5 hurricane are both the highest in their respective fields). And even though it is quite possible the public may never see the category rating of a cyber incident, releasing the schema is in the public interest. It helps explains the context for the PPD. Private companies may want to adopt it. At a basic level, there is no reason to make Electronic Frontier Foundation go through the process of a freedom of information act request to get it.

The coming month will be a stressful one for Brazilians. The Olympic opening ceremony on August 5 may have two rival presidents in attendance, killer mosquitoes, pesky media, and now, the potential for terrorism. Most Brazilians had long hoped the games would be a chaotic but happy mess, like the 2014 World Cup, and few anticipated an embarrassment. But sentiment has shifted with the arrest of a dozen alleged homegrown extremists. Terrorism can be added to the long litany of potential problems that have led Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes to note that “contingencies are always possible,” and that the Olympics have been a “lost opportunity” for Brazil. With the Australians refusing to move into their “uninhabitable” Olympic quarters, male U.S. golfers avoiding Rio de Janeiro on Zika concerns, and athletes complaining about astounding pollution, the games are already a net public relations loss. The only winners so far seem to be the state of Rio de Janeiro, which received a last minute, R$2.9 billion emergency fund from the federal government that is enabling it to pay down overdue civil servant salaries, and the federal military personnel in the Força Nacional, whose living allowances were more than doubled when they threatened to walk away from running security for the Games. In Brasília, meanwhile, the political games will also be getting underway. August will start a day early, with demonstrations—both in favor and against the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff—planned nationwide for Sunday, July 31. Rousseff’s defense in the Special Committee on Impeachment should wrap up by the end of this week, and the Committee will likely vote during the first week of August on whether or not to proceed to trial. There is little doubt that the Committee will move to a trial, although the legitimacy of impeachment has been vociferously challenged, including by one federal prosecutor, Ivan Marx, who undermined the fiscal basis for impeachment by arguing that there were no grounds for criminal prosecution. The Senate trial, however, won’t get underway until the last week of August, which will keep Brasília on tenterhooks all month. Prosecutor Marx’s claims about the absence of criminal responsibility, and the brouhaha over Glenn Greenwald’s harsh criticism of the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper for its misleading reports on polling about the possibility of holding new elections, have seriously dented the legitimacy of pro-impeachment forces. Uncertainty will be exacerbated by politicians’ longstanding tradition of selling their support dearly, which means that Senators may play up their ambivalence about impeachment until the last minute in the hopes of convincing the interim Michel Temer administration to be generous with budget allocations, key appointments, and state debt negotiations. Street demonstrations are likely again during the third week of August, with all of the uncertainty about potential violence and strange behaviors that popular demonstrations elicit. A vote against Rousseff still seems much more likely than not, but August will play cruelly with the faint of heart. August also sets the stage for the last two years of the presidential term. Minor policy changes have been slowly wending their way through Congress in the first two months of interim President Temer’s administration, including legislation establishing Central Bank autonomy and facilitating labor outsourcing. But the major reforms that Temer has suggested, and that markets have been clamoring for—including pension and labor reform—won’t move forward until impeachment is finalized (assuming, of course, that Rousseff loses in the Senate). Even the end of the impeachment drive won’t bring major legislative movement, though, as legislators’ attention will have to turn almost immediately to the nationwide municipal elections. Free TV advertising by politicians begins August 26, and then there will be five weeks of chaotic campaigning before the first round of elections on October 2. The second round of elections, in major cities, won’t be until October 30, meaning that for all intents and purposes, the legislative calendar and major reform initiatives will be on hold until November. But does this mean that Brazil is in danger of becoming the world’s largest failed state, as one blogger recently noted in the Financial Times? Pshaw. Brazil is facing a remarkable set of challenges, undoubtedly. But it has also weathered the storms of recent years far better than could be expected from many of its emerging market peers. August will be tumultuous, and the remainder of the presidential term will be difficult, no matter which politicians survive the next month. But Brazilians have been through dark times before in the past thirty years since redemocratization, and Brazilian democracy has always emerged, resilient and improved, on the other side. The much more important long-term question is how this experience will affect Brazil’s developmentalist economic policies and its coalitional political system, which have both been shaken to their core, but remain deeply embedded. That is a subject for a future post. In the meantime, August will give us plenty to think about.

Here is a quick round-up of this week’s technology headlines and related stories you may have missed: 1. Authoritarian leaders tend to dislike the internet, unless it helps them. The failed coup in Turkey is a prime example of the complicated relationship authoritarian leaders have toward the internet. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been known to chastise Twitter, tried to block internet access in 2013 during the Gezi park protests, admitted to being “increasingly against the internet every day,” and called social media "the worst menace to society." However, had it not been for the internet, it would have been much more difficult for Erdogan to rally his supporters against the coup using FaceTime on CNN Turk. Tweets from official government accounts repeated that message, mobilizing civilians to march through Istanbul and Ankara. Zeynep Tufekci at the New York Times and information security researcher The Grugq explore this contradiction further, and what it means for human rights, the notion of cyber power, and future coup plotters. 2. French government wags finger at Microsoft over Windows 10. The Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), France’s data protection authority, put Microsoft on notice for collecting too much information about customers’ software and habits via its Windows 10 operating system. Software makers have always collected usage and diagnostic data to improve their products, but CNIL believes Windows 10 goes too far. For example, Windows tells Microsoft what applications a user has downloaded, doesn’t tell users about cookies being left on their machines, and the software allegedly transfers data to the United States using the invalidated Safe Harbor framework. CNIL has given Microsoft three months to fix these issues. In response, Microsoft issued a statement noting it would work with CNIL to address its concerns and amend its privacy policy to reflect that it will transfer data according to the new Privacy Shield framework, which came into effect earlier this month. 3. U.S. government proposes legislative amendments to facilitate foreign access to data held by U.S. tech companies. In February 2016, the Washington Post reported that the United States and the United Kingdom were working on an agreement to streamline the process by which UK law enforcement gains access to data about UK persons stored by tech companies--Google, Facebook, Twitter and the like--in the United States. Such a deal would require legislative changes in the United States, and late last week, the Department of Justice submitted a legislative proposal to the Senate to do just that. In a nutshell, it would allow the Attorney General to enter into executive agreements enabling other countries to go directly to a U.S. service provider to obtain content-related data about one of their nationals without seeking a warrant from a U.S. court. Lawfare’s David Kris seems pretty upbeat about the proposal, whereas Just Security’s Jennifer Granick points out a few flaws. Congress had acted quickly in the past with respect to possible data sharing arrangements with allies (e.g. the swift passage of the Judicial Redress Act to support the Privacy Shield negotiations), so it’s not completely unreasonable to think that it might do so again. 4. The GOP endorses hacking back. The Republican party adopted its platform this week, which noted that “users have a self-defense right to deal with hackers as they see fit,” effectively endorsing the notion of "hacking back." Many in the cybersecurity community are opposed to such initiatives, as it would worsen the already woeful state of online security, make it even harder for law enforcement to attribute cyber activity, and is illegal. Businesses, on the other hand, argue that they need to defend themselves and strike back at adversaries to create a deterrent effect. 5. WhatsApp temporarily blocked in Brazil, again. WhatsApp encountered more trouble in Brazil this week. A judge blocked the messaging service on Tuesday for failing to cooperate in a criminal investigation, only for the Federal Supreme Court to overturn the measure hours later. This is the third time that WhatsApp has been temporarily banned in Brazil since December. Facebook, WhatsApp’s owner, is surely unamused in contrast to Telegram, a competitor, which has seen its usage spike in the country.

Nigeria’s notorious corruption was a centerpiece of the 2014-2015 presidential campaign of Muhammadu Buhari, and fighting it has been a centerpiece of his administration. Abuja is an important Washington partner, and a successful Nigerian campaign against corruption is in the American interest. However, Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow Matthew Page argues that the United States is not doing nearly enough in a hard-hitting, thought-provoking brief on corruption, “Improving U.S. Anticorruption Policy in Nigeria.” Page deftly sketches out the magnitude of corruption in Nigeria and its threat to democracy and good governance. Then he turns to the heart of his brief, why U.S. help has been largely ineffective. He notes that U.S. policy since the restoration of civilian government in 1999 has largely been focused on security cooperation, economic growth and development, and democracy and governance. But, not corruption. In an important insight, Page sees a divergence of approach between senior administration policy makers and U.S. working-level officials. Hence, President Obama, Secretary Kerry, Attorney General Lynch and Treasury Secretary Lew have publicly stated that anticorruption efforts are a U.S. policy priority in Nigeria. Yet diplomats cultivate relationships with as wide a range of elites as they can, including those who are corrupt. There are also perennial issues of interagency coordination. Page’s bottom line: “U.S. anticorruption policy remains broad-based and untargeted, centered on modest assistance programs for police investigators and civil society watchdogs.” Page’s specific recommendations repay careful consideration. They are all practical: Establish a U.S. interagency working group on Nigerian “kleptocracy” that would facilitate coordination and cooperation among the relevant U.S. agencies; Establish within the U.S. Embassy in Abuja a FBI special agent tied to the Bureau’s International Corruption Unit in Washington; Issue an executive order on Nigerian kleptocracy that would enhance efforts to restrict Nigerian financial transactions in the United States related to corruption. A vigorous U.S. anticorruption policy requires the closest partnership with the Nigerian authorities. However, in the past, corruption – often blatant – infected the highest reaches of the Nigerian government. Too many high level officials were making too much money from corruption. Under Buhari, that has changed, but “corruption fights back.” Buhari has made it clear that he seeks outside assistance. That provides a special opportunity for a new U.S. anticorruption campaign.

Chinese Companies lag on Transparency Chinese companies filled the bottom twenty-five spots in a recent Transparency International report ranking one-hundred emerging market multinationals on anticorruption efforts. Three received zeroes (on a zero-to-ten scale) for failing to list subsidiaries, release financials on foreign operations, or set up antibribery programs. The Chinese government is not pressing for change, instead killing a business-led anticorruption task force within the G20 framework. As a result, foreign companies operating in China are hard-pressed to avoid bribery—a challenge reflected in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) cases. So far this year, over half of all corporate FCPA actions involved bribes paid to Chinese officials, and since 2008, the United States found more cases of misconduct in China than in all other countries combined. Bailing out Zimbabwe Mounting popular frustrations over economic hardship and public corruption led to Zimbabwe’s largest anti-government protests in a decade. As my colleague John Campbell explains, the country’s political and economic situation is deteriorating rapidly—unemployment tops 80 percent, and the government has missed payments to civil servants and pensioners. International donors look willing to lend Zimbabwe $1 billion to pay off its World Bank, African Development Bank, and International Monetary Fund debts, enabling the country to receive new loans. Though that might avoid an economic collapse and humanitarian emergency, it will likely shore up President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party, whose behavior precipitated the crisis. It is hard to imagine his government pursuing promised economic reforms or refraining from stealing from replenished public coffers—as they have from its lucrative diamond sector. U.S. Efforts to Fight Nigerian Corruption In a new CFR brief, International Affairs Fellow Matthew T. Page argues that the U.S. government should do much more to deter official Nigerian corruption. Elite theft has long undermined the country’s development, security, and governance—areas in which the United States invests significant resources as a longtime ally. Page explains that despite anticorruption rhetoric from high-level U.S. officials—including President Obama and Secretary Kerry—the U.S. approach remains non-confrontational and ineffective. He offers three recommendations for how U.S. policymakers can better support Nigerian efforts, building on President Muhammadu Buhari’s aggressive anti-graft campaign. Page’s piece is the first in CSMD’s new Corruption Brief series that will analyze and propose solutions for a range of corruption issues globally. Watch this space for more.    

In my piece published this week on Foreignaffairs.com I reflect on Argentina’s and Brazil’s current political and economic situations. I argue that while their current challenges are their own, a potential long-term solution to their problems comes from each other—namely working to build an integrated South American economic hub. You can read the first two paragraphs of the article below: This year has been a rough one for South America’s two largest states. Brazil—once lauded as a rising global power—has fallen deeper into recession and political turmoil. And although Argentina is finally attempting to transform itself into a model of sober pro-market governance after years of Peronist populism, it shares with its northern neighbor a grim set of economic and political indicators: stagnating growth, endemic corruption, and a new government beset by high expectations. As a result, Argentine President Mauricio Macri’s initially high approval ratings have declined since he took office in December. In Brazil, meanwhile, interim President Michel Temer comes close in unpopularity to the disgraced Dilma Rousseff. Despite their undeniable problems, however, there remains in both countries a cause for optimism. Argentina and Brazil are, for now, absorbed in their own domestic dramas, but they have within easy reach the long-term solution to their economic woes: each other. You can read the entire piece as it appeared on Foreignaffairs.com here.

Zimbabwe is rapidly deteriorating, if not imploding. In the midst of a drought, estimates are that up to half of the rural population will face hunger or famine in the coming year. The economy is contracting, and the government is running out of hard currency, British sterling, the U.S. dollar, and the South African Rand, which it uses since it abandoned its own currency. The government is failing to pay its civil servants and some of its security forces and has imposed a ban on imports from South Africa. Unemployment figures are so high – up to 85 percent –as to be meaningless. The government’s diamond revenue is running out or diverted. President Robert Mugabe – at times referred to as “Uncle Bob” – is 92 years of age, and it shows. His political behavior is increasingly quixotic. He has abandoned a traditional pillar of his regime, the “war veterans,” who played a crucial role as Mugabe’s thugs and drove the white farmers out. He has even threatened the “veterans” with mayhem if they dabble in succession politics. Mugabe’s party, ZANU-PF, is factionalized over the succession issue, with the security services supporting Emerson Mnangagwa while “Generation 40” supports Mugabe’s wife, Grace, as does Uncle Bob, at least for now. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe functions as an inefficiently repressive police state, and regime critics “disappear.” Government spokesmen blame “opposition parties” and “Western embassies” for fomenting unrest. The traditional opposition parties continue to be in disarray and do not provide a credible alternative to the current regime. Up to now, however, Zimbabweans have been remarkably passive, or they have left the country, especially for South Africa, and they are now found all over the world. Though Zimbabwe is divided ethno-linguistically, the Shona are the largest; Mugabe’s mother was a Shona. And, undeniably, Mugabe retains substantial support, especially in rural areas. After all, he drove the white people off the land, and they may come back once he is gone. However, driven by and fear of hunger, passivity may be giving way to anger and manifesting itself outside conventional politics. There are now daily demonstrations and strikes that attract some of the unpaid government employees. The strikes are widespread, though of limited duration. A strike on July 6 is described by the media as the largest in the country’s history; more are planned for the week of July 11. Thus far, they have apparently been non-violent, though there has been some destruction of property. Reminiscent of the early days of the Arab Spring, demonstrations are organized through social media and by hitherto unknown figures. One is Evan Mawarire. He is a pastor but earns his living, such as it is, as a professional master of ceremonies. According to South African journalist Simon Alllison who has interviewed him, Mawaire was driven into political activism by his inability to raise the money for his children’s school fees. His mode of public protest, now widely adopted, is to wear the Zimbabwean flag around his neck. His hashtag, #ThisFlag, has hits in the tens of thousands. But, again reminiscent of the Arab Spring, Mawarire appears to have no political program beyond overcoming Zimbabwean passivity about a rotten regime, and he claims no affiliation with any political party. The government jailed him on trumped-up charges on July 12. How these strikes and protests evolve will in large part depend on how much violence occurs. There are scattered reports of police violence in “high density suburbs” (slums) outside the country’s largest cities, Harare and Bulawayo. If the security services, those that are still being paid and are loyal to Mugabe, resort to widespread violence, that could ignite deep public rage with unpredictable consequences. An all-too-frequent African pattern is that it is the security services that set off a cycle of violence which then spins out of control. There is also the question of the impact of ongoing public protests on the ZANI-PF internal political jockeying. In so far as the regime is functioning, Mnangagwa appears to be the most responsible, if also the most sinister. A breakdown of order might drive party support his way.  

In 2016, once again, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation has found no retiring African leader qualified for the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African leadership. Mo Ibrahim, a British-Sudanese telecom billionaire, set-up the prize in 2006. It may be awarded annually to an African elected head of state who promoted good governance and then left office in accordance with the constitution. The prize is very rich: $5 million, spread over ten years, followed by $200,000 a year for life. The foundation has awarded the prize to an African head of state only four times since the prize was established. It was awarded to the following: Mozambique’s Joaquim Chissano (2007)   Reuters/Mike Hutchings   Botswana’s Festus Mogae (2008)   Reuters/Jorge Dan Lopez   Cape Verde’s Pedro Verona Pires (2011)   Reuters/Haruyoshi Yamaguchi   Namibia’s Hifikepunye Pohamba (2015)   Reuters/Siphiwe Sibeko In addition, the foundation made an exceptional award to Nelson Mandela in 2007, long after he had left office, and awarded a separate award to Desmond Tutu, then archbishop of Cape Town and a founder of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The prize committee is highly distinguished and, at present, comprised of Martii Ahtisaari, former president of Finland and Nobel laureate for his peace-building work; Aïcha Bah Diallo, former Guinea education minister and chair of the UNESCO Committee on women’s education in Africa; Graça Machel, former first lady of Mozambique and South Africa, advocate for education; Festus Mogae, former president of Botswana; Mohammed El Baardei, former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency; Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and former UN high commissioner for human rights; and Salim A. Salim, former secretary general of the Organization of African Unity. The prize’s criteria has been met only four times and is widely taken as an indictment of the quality of African national leadership. Others, however, criticize the prize’s criteria as unduly ‘Western.’

This post was co-authored by Cheryl Strauss Einhorn and Andrea Walther-Puri. Cheryl is an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. Andrea is a researcher focusing on security sector reform and a PhD candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. A key component of the U.S. strategy to counter terrorism (CT) focuses on working with weak states to combat violent extremist threats. While U.S. efforts are well intentioned and may be necessary, this approach toward weak states fails to address pre-existing root causes of poor development, governance, and security. Instead a U.S. budget imbalance, heavily skewed toward defense spending, dedicates far more resources to building partners’ security capacity, specifically military and law enforcement assistance, than to addressing what drives people to become radicalized or building competent governance institutions. However, it is these exact structural and policy weaknesses that enable extremist groups to expand their reach across borders and share tactics, training, and weapons with other like-minded groups. The US approach is lopsided. It further destabilizes vulnerable nations and augments global instability. Since 9/11, the U.S. has launched two CT partnerships in Africa, one to counter the effects of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram in the Maghreb and Sahel, and one to counter al-Shabab in East Africa. The pace of U.S. military involvement is accelerating. While three years ago, there were four Africa-based groups designated by the State Department as foreign terrorist organizations, today, there are twelve. But many of these nations lack effective, accountable security sectors that uphold the rule of law and protect their borders, providing opportunities that bad actors can, and have, exploited. A recent study conducted by the Rand Corporation states African “countries that are most in need of [security] assistance are usually the ones least able to make positive use of it.” A former senior Department of Defense (DOD) CT official agrees. “Most of the countries [in Africa] we help are dysfunctional with large swaths of ungoverned territory,” he says adding that, since the programs focus on building ‘quick fix’ tactical military capacity that often includes equipment and arms—provided to chaotic and unreliable militaries—“it’s almost throwing money away.” Part of the problem is that terrorism is not always a top priority for countries that have other more pressing problems. When African nations accept U.S. CT assistance they are not willing to reform their security institutions to enable them to put the assistance to proper use. Furthermore, precious local resources are often not devoted to sustaining U.S. investment in infrastructure and equipment. For example, post 9/11 Mali was the U.S.’s leading Sahelian military CT partner, receiving CT training for an elite unit, the 33rd Regiment des Commandos Parachutistes. Yet despite years of cooperation, when Malian forces deployed to confront Tuareg separatist groups and terrorist organizations in the North, the mission failed. The troops lacked food, water, fuel, and munitions to sustain their effort. Military training and equipment alone does not create a professional security sector; institutional infrastructure to support military action is mission critical. Even the government doesn’t know the impact and effectiveness of U.S. security assistance. Neither the State Department nor DOD use consistent metrics to systematically measure progress or evaluate results. What data collection exists often focuses on outputs not outcomes such as measuring the number of trainees as one of several measures of success. “The lack of comprehensive assessment criteria and analysis poses challenges not only for conducting qualitative assessments, but also for the government’s decision-making on future programming and resource allocation, and for congressional oversight” testified Lauren Blanchard, an African Affairs Specialist with the Congressional Research Service before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa in June 2015. On a continent that has a poor history of military coups, rebellions, civil wars, poor governance, illegitimate elections, and extreme poverty, a principally security-related CT approach may not only fail to deter terrorists, it may increase instability.

International attention has been focused on the devaluation of the national currency, the naira, but there have been important security developments meanwhile. Militants, called the “Niger Delta Avengers" (NDA), have attacked oil infrastructure, resulting in a decline in production, with estimates ranging from 40 to 60 percent. As profits from oil and gas account for more than 90 percent of Nigeria’s foreign exchange and more than 70 percent of the government’s total revenue, the events have harmed the Nigerian economy. In the meantime, Boko Haram in the Northeast is far from destroyed. It continues to carry out operations, though on a reduced scale. There is anecdotal evidence that Abuja is shifting military resources from the fight against Boko Haram to the Delta. There is concern that if military pressure is reduced, Boko Haram will surge. Against this backdrop, on June 21, Voice of America carried a report according to “a senior official at the state-owned oil company” that the Nigerian government has reached a cease-fire with the NDA. However, on Twitter the NDA are saying: “The NDA High Command never remember having any agreement on cease-fire with the Nigeria government.” The Minister of State for Petroleum is in the Delta at present. He wants to negotiate rather than use force. The incoming secretary general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Mohammed Barkindo, a Nigerian, says, “The government, I understand, are negotiating, they are discussing and we are beginning to see the positive results.” Some conclusions can be drawn. The government appears intent on negotiations, at least at present, rather than the use of military force. This is positive. Army and police methods in the Northeast were a driver of Boko Haram recruitment, and that pattern might well be repeated in the Delta if the government tries to destroy the NDA by force. But, it is unclear whether the NDA will negotiate. It is also uncertain which individuals are authorized to speak for the NDA, who are likely to be loosely organized and locally based. Too, anecdotes that the government is moving military forces into the Delta as a precaution if the negotiations fail are credible. Also, in the Northeast, a general from Niger on June 21 said that a multinational force “has begun operations against Boko Haram along the border between Niger and Nigeria,” according to Reuters. “The operations have as their objective (to end) the occupation of all the zones currently occupied by Boko Haram. Our role is to firmly secure the border,” said Niger Brigadier-General Abdou Sidikou Issa. If this is a significant effort, it might help cover the transfer of Nigerian military assets to the Delta. Finally, President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed new Acting Police Inspector General (AIG) Ibrahim Kpotun Idris. His predecessor has retired because he reached the age limit for the position. The new AIG has been an assistant inspector general of police. While sketchy news reports do not indicate whether this appointment represents a housecleaning, one is sorely needed within the police. The police are a national, not local, body, comparable in some ways to the gendarmerie in France. They have been widely accused of human rights abuses which are a driver of public support or acquiescence for Boko Haram and the NDA.

Michel Temer’s first month as interim president has not been the stuff of dreams. Even though important elements of urgently needed economic reforms have advanced, impeachment politics continue to cast a long shadow, corruption investigations continue to percolate, and Temer’s legitimacy remains under constant assault. As impeachment continues to move forward in the Senate, Dilma Rousseff and her supporters have pulled out all the stops. Actors at Cannes and other cultural events have protested the alleged coup, demonstrators have hit the streets alongside former President Lula, and perhaps looking for a wedge that might drive moderates to her side, Rousseff has suggested that if reinstated, she would call for new elections. Public support for impeachment has fallen slightly, although most Brazilians say they would rather not see Rousseff return and chances are still better than not that she will be convicted by the Senate in August. But Rousseff’s supporters know that their own long-term political fortunes depend on questioning the legitimacy of impeachment, and fence-sitting senators seem to be using the uncertainty surrounding support for impeachment to extract a pound of flesh from the interim president. Temer has built a defensive cabinet, following the time-tested recipe of appointing ministers who faithfully represent the majority legislative coalition. They are complemented by a parallel kitchen cabinet of technocrats in the Finance Ministry, the National Development Bank (BNDES), Banco do Brasil, Treasury, and state-owned enterprises. The bifurcated cabinet may help to ensure Temer’s survival, but it also helps to explain the ambiguous results of the last month: progress on fiscal reforms, such as more realistic fiscal targets and the DRU law (which reallocates tax revenues in favor of the federal government), but also important setbacks, such as a tone deaf congressional push for higher civil service wages. Most damaging, of course, is that Temer’s allies, especially within the PMDB party, are a constant embarrassment: wiretapped conversations between a defendant in the Lava Jato case and party heavyweights Renan Calheiros, José Sarney, and Romero Jucá, suggested an effort to undermine anticorruption efforts and confirmed many Brazilians’ worst suspicions about the Temer coalition. Recognizing his own tenuous support and the likely political confusion of coming months, Temer appears to be governing largely symbolically, announcing a number of high-impact measures that require little legislative support, such as reducing the number of ministries, creating a new concessions program, rebuilding regulatory agencies, and reviewing the rules on Petrobras’ participation in the pre-salt oilfields. The most important major legislative initiative announced by the government is social security reform, but debate over the specifics of the proposal is unlikely before municipal elections in October, given that Temer cannot afford a divisive battle while Congress is still fighting the impeachment battle or distracted by electoral politics. The best news in the short term is that the Temer administration is reportedly planning to back a series of accountability reforms proposed by the Ministério Público prosecutorial service, presumably to help it to recover some modicum of credibility in the anticorruption effort. Multiple corruption investigations continue to destabilize the political world. A plea bargain by former OAS executive Leo Pinheiro included allegations of campaign finance violations by Marina Silva, one of the few prominent politicians as yet untainted by the Lava Jato case. Rumors of a plea bargain by construction magnate Marcelo Odebrecht and the investigation of former President Lula’s involvement in the Petrobras scandal have Brasília abuzz. The Zelotes investigation of tax evasion seems to have moved into a new phase with the indictment of the president of one of Brazil’s largest private banks, Bradesco. The possible removal of Eduardo Cunha from the Chamber of Deputies presidency continues to generate sparks in Congress, and there is (as yet unfounded) speculation that Cunha might try to save his skin through a plea bargain of his own. Meanwhile, the impeachment trial will move into higher relief beginning next week, as the defense presents its case and President Rousseff is scheduled to testify. In sum, the coming weeks and months are likely to remain full of drama and tension, with a distracted political class focused less on governance than survival. In the background, almost as an afterthought, will be efforts to address the multiple economic challenges the country faces: heavily burdened state companies, the threatening fiscal deficit, and the critical situation of Brazil’s state governments.

To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s “Ripples of Hope” speech at the University of Cape Town, a congressional delegation (codel) visited South Africa the last week of May. It was led by Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia and an icon of the American civil rights movement; Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware; and Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late Senator Kennedy and the president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a U.S. based non-profit organization. After the codel returned to Washington, Senator Coons delivered a speech on the Senate floor that is deeply thoughtful, a meditation on the parallels between South Africa and the United States, especially with respect to centuries of racism and the still-incomplete efforts to address its consequences. It is a must-read for those who care about the United States and Africa. Senator Coons’s reference point is a quotation from Robert Kennedy’s 1966 speech, delivered during the zenith of Apartheid, which began by describing “a land in which the native inhabitants were at first subdued, but relations with whom remain a problem to this day; a land which defined itself on a hostile frontier; …a land which was once the importer of slaves, and now must struggle to wipe out the last traces of that former bondage.” Senator Kennedy paused before delivering the punchline: “I refer, of course, to the United States of America.” Senator Coons then proceeded to highlight and analyze the shared history and challenges of the two multiracial democracies. Senator Coons’s bottom line builds on a quotation from Nelson Mandela: “I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.” He went on to say: “The peoples of the United States must keep on trying. The people of South Africa must keep on trying.” That the codel visited South Africa at this particular time is important and significant, beyond the commemoration of the 1966 speech. South Africa faces a historic drought, near-zero economic growth related to the world-wide decline in commodity prices, and a presidential administration seemingly riddled with corruption. Many South Africans fear that the country’s liberal democracy is under assault from forces that include some close to the president. Further, at present, formal relations between Washington and Pretoria are correct but hardly cordial. In February 2016 the Secretary General of the governing African National Congress – the party of Nelson Mandela and current president Jacob Zuma – accused the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria of plotting “regime change” through the Obama administration’s Young African Leaders Initiative. In fact, the embassy had consulted in advance with the Secretary General on suitable South African candidates for the program. The codel’s visit is a reminder of the shared civil rights heritage of both countries and is a recognition and encouragement of South Africa’s rule of law based on institutions rather than personalities and a constitution with among the most sweeping protections of human rights in the world. Senator Coons has had a particularly close relationship with Africa. He has been a volunteer relief worker in Kenya, studied at the University of Nairobi, and worked for the South African Council of Churches; in his speech he recalled his deep admiration for Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Anglican archbishop of Cape Town and former president of the South African Council of Churches.  

This is a guest blog post by Ivan Rebolledo, managing partner of TerraNova Strategic Partners. Sunday’s election pitted the two versions of the Peruvian right against each other: the populist, Keiko Fujimori of the Fuerza Popular party, and the liberal, Pedro Pablo Kuczynksi (PPK) of the Peruanos por el Kambio party, with the latter’s win confirmed Thursday afternoon. In 2011, Ollanta Humala eventually won the second round, over Fujimori, with votes from the liberal right and center. PPK did it with votes primarily from the left, including important support from Veronika Mendoza and her Frente Amplio party. Since then, Fujimori has attempted to clean up her party’s image by removing the more controversial leaders and selecting better congressional candidates. Her 40 percent win in the first round showed this strategy’s success, as she garnered support from all socioeconomic classes. However, during the second round campaign, Fujimori campaign insiders were secretly taped and allegedly linked to drug trafficking, reminding the electorate of similar scenarios during her father’s presidency. She failed to quickly distance herself from the intrigue, which in the end thwarted her campaign. Though PPK was trailing due to his lackluster second-round campaign performance, close affinity to the United States including one-time U.S. citizenship, and years in the international banking sector, Fujimori’s problems became his successes, swaying the popular vote in his favor. This is the first time that the liberal right has won a democratic election in Peru. And it is the first time a candidate wins without espousing leftist rhetoric to then govern from the right. Clearly PPK is a free-market reformer (Peru sovereign bonds rallied yesterday after his confirmed victory). No one should be surprised when he implements liberal economic policies, as so many were with Humala’s turn to the right. The left knows this and still they voted for him. PPK’s tremendous gains between the first and second round create real weaknesses for his administration. He won just 21 percent of first-round votes, the other 30 percent “borrowed” from those opposing Fujimori. He also comes in with just eighteen representatives, or 14 percent of Congress. Few leaders have such meager parliamentary support. Now PPK’s biggest dilemma will be how to consolidate political power, which will probably mean working with Fujimori and her party. His top priorities should be crime and security; dealing with immense government corruption; accelerating economic growth by shrinking the informal sector; diversifying the economy away from extractive to manufacturing industries; and fortifying Peru’s role regionally and globally.