Robert Mugabe named chair of the African Union

[NewYorkExpress]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-31/zimbabwe-robert-mugabe-becomes-african-union-chairman/6059228

Robert Mugabe, the only leader Zimbabwe has known for the thirty years since the Lancaster House Agreement, has been named the chairman of the African Union. Mugabe, 90 is the most controversial Chairman since Muammar Gadaffi held the post from 2009 to 2010, mainly owing to genocide in the early 1980's, blatant thievery of elections in 2002 and 2008, attacking opposition loyalists in 2008, and violently seizing property from Zimbabwe's white minority. While Western officials will have no choice but to conduct business with the African Union, the tenor almost certainly will change from the last few chairpeople (Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, Hailemariam Desalegn and Yayi Boni)

[BaconBacon96]

Ugh.

[Horus]

Joke Union.

[politicus]

As the outgoing head of SADC that was basically inevitable since it is Southern Africa's turn to lead the AU. There is an established practice of regional rotation: East, North, Southern, Central and West Africa. And it is only for a year.

[Famous Mortimer]

The most controversial head of the AU since FIVE YEARS AGO. I'm surprised it's been that long.

[politicus]

The most controversial head of the AU since FIVE YEARS AGO. I'm surprised it's been that long.

He is replacing Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz from Mauritania. A two time coup leader from a country which has actual slavery and in 2011-12 AU was led by Teodoro Obiang -  who has ruled Equatorial Guinea longer than Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe and is an even worse tyrant.

This is a shame because Southern Africa has some of the best leaders on the continent, but there have been people just as bad heading the AU. Mugabe is just better known in the West.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

The most controversial head of the AU since FIVE YEARS AGO. I'm surprised it's been that long.

He is replacing Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz from Mauritania. A two time coup leader from a country which has actual slavery and in 2011-12 AU was led by Teodoro Obiang -  who has ruled Equatorial Guinea longer than Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe and is an even worse tyrant.

Obiang is probably the most orwellian dictator in Africa, yet due to him keeping much lower profile than Mugabe or Gaddafi, he remains largely unknown figure.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

The most controversial head of the AU since FIVE YEARS AGO. I'm surprised it's been that long.

He is replacing Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz from Mauritania. A two time coup leader from a country which has actual slavery and in 2011-12 AU was led by Teodoro Obiang -  who has ruled Equatorial Guinea longer than Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe and is an even worse tyrant.

Obiang is probably the most orwellian dictator in Africa, yet due to him keeping much lower profile than Mugabe or Gaddafi, he remains largely unknown figure.

Obiang is a hero compared to his uncle, who had political rivals shot by soldiers dressed in Santa costumes while "Those Were The Days" played over the loudspeakers.

[ingemann]

The most controversial head of the AU since FIVE YEARS AGO. I'm surprised it's been that long.

He is replacing Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz from Mauritania. A two time coup leader from a country which has actual slavery and in 2011-12 AU was led by Teodoro Obiang -  who has ruled Equatorial Guinea longer than Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe and is an even worse tyrant.

Obiang is probably the most orwellian dictator in Africa, yet due to him keeping much lower profile than Mugabe or Gaddafi, he remains largely unknown figure.

Obiang is a hero compared to his uncle, who had political rivals shot by soldiers dressed in Santa costumes while "Those Were The Days" played over the loudspeakers.

Why are African dictators so weird, it's like there are some kind of factor, which limit how weird non-African dictator can be and still end up in power, while such a factor doesn't exists in Africa.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

The most controversial head of the AU since FIVE YEARS AGO. I'm surprised it's been that long.

He is replacing Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz from Mauritania. A two time coup leader from a country which has actual slavery and in 2011-12 AU was led by Teodoro Obiang -  who has ruled Equatorial Guinea longer than Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe and is an even worse tyrant.

Obiang is probably the most orwellian dictator in Africa, yet due to him keeping much lower profile than Mugabe or Gaddafi, he remains largely unknown figure.

Obiang is a hero compared to his uncle, who had political rivals shot by soldiers dressed in Santa costumes while "Those Were The Days" played over the loudspeakers.

Why are African dictators so weird, it's like there are some kind of factor, which limit how weird non-African dictator can be and still end up in power, while such a factor doesn't exists in Africa.

The Kims in North Korea might be the only ones to outdo some of the African dictators (Idi Amin, etc).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

There was also that guy in Turkmenistan.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

To say nothing of the Trujillato, but I guess that was a different time.

[ingemann]

All those dictators was and is in their context rather logical. The Kim dynasty mix Stalinism with a mix of Imperial Japanese world view and Confucianism. It's sick, but it makes sense in its context.

Saparmurat Niyazov was somewhat crazy, but at the same time, he governance was relative sane outside his attempts to build a personal cult. So I get why he got away with eccentric behaviour.

Trujillo was in general unpleasant, but his self hatred of his Haitian/Mulatto heritage made political sense, especially in the context of the time he ruled and the general hostility of Dominicans toward their western neighbours.

[Simfan34]

The AU has done an excellent job of shedding the OAU's "dictators' club" image and returning to its founding Pan-African principles of continental integration and economic independence, I tell you. Today, now the continent's esteemed leaders can gather in Addis Ababa, in their shiny new Chinese-funded, designed, and built (from here on just "Chinese") headquarters they were "gifted". They can get from the airport quickly by taking the Chinese express road with its undulating series of overpasses and underpasses, and travel around the city in the Chinese ring road.

Very soon visiting dignitaries will also be able to ride the Chinese elevated railway, although said railway happens to cut across the main roads and squares of the city and is a navigational disaster and an even worse aesthetic one. As a testament to the quality of contemporary African leadership and bureaucratic oversight, the whole thing seems to have been designed by some Chinese person who never stepped foot in the place, and was unquestioningly accepted by the local officials, who even dismissed some Swedish consultants who expressed skepticism about the Chinese.

Only as the project neared completion and the catastrophic effect it had on the already chaotic traffic flow became obvious did officials start planning an "integration plan" on how to reconcile things like the presence of support columns in the middle of intersections, tracks running on road medians without interruption (and slightly above road level) for miles, and the positions of station entrances with the need for people in cars, taxicabs (almost all old Ladas), trucks, minibusses, and buses (both ancient German ones and new Chinese ones, the latter falling apart very quickly) to get places. And don't even think about walking anywhere- the sidewalks, where extant, are impossibly narrow. Merchant stalls intrude on the sides or are perched several feet above newly cut roads that again seem to have given their surroundings no consideration.

If they want to get out of town they can take the Chinese "expressway" (by Chinese custom an expressway and not a motorway- this agitates me to no end), which, while honestly a beautiful sign of progress is marred by Chinese style signs with barely readable, not to mention hideous, signage, complete with the grotesquely distorted Chinese serif typefaces (SimSun et al) they inexplicably seem fond of. And I say nothing about their total neglect of our own language(s).

You would be mistaken to consider this a solely Ethiopian phenomenon. In Nairobi, opinions of the much lauded Chinese Thika "Superhighway" have cooled due to its awkward, Chinese-style design and poor signage, which despite the perfectly logical, asethically pleasant work of a local design firm that proposes signage in conformance to the extant British-style regulations, stubbornly remain poor copies of Chinese-style road signage which in turn ape American Interstate signs.

Speaking of aping, the Chinese have also begun to import into Africa their utterly terrifying habit of attempting to build in classical western architectural styles. They are for the most part very bad at it. I have long suspected that the Chinese architects working in Africa are the worser talents of their profession (indeed, even in China one notices that the design of more prominent projects tend to be entrusted to foreign architects), when this is combined with the general cluelessness of most people about the principles of classical architecture necessary for attractive buildings and the apparent tendency of African decision makers to give unqualified acceptance to Chinese plans, pure horror is the result, the most egregious probably being the new seat of the Angolan National Assembly; yet I had to argue with people who thought it looked good. In Ghana too there is a new Chinese Foreign Ministry building whose proportions are all wrong.

For all this Africa remains poorly connected with itself, the talking points, which you've surely heard from the likes of Moyo, Sachs, Blair, and those on the "development" circuit, of how it is more expensive to move a good from one African country to another than it is to transport it intercontinentally remains true- I was just reading the other day how moving a tonne of cocoa in Ghana from its point of origin to an outbound port accounts for more than 50% of the total transportation cost- 400 times what it does to move that tonne, per kilometre, by sea!

The multiple "Pan African Highways" remain largely notional, with all having unpaved sections, to say nothing of modern dual carriageways. The Chinese (albeit Deng-era) TAZARA is, perhaps the most substantial transnational transit corridor in the continent, most of the colonial rail lines remain in disrepair, most border crossings a simple two way road affairs.

There is no customs union, no single free trade zone, the AfBD is in shambles, I'm not even sure if the "Pan African Parliament " still exists, or what it would do if so. To its credit it has done a good job with AMISOM in Somalia, which is stablising and rebuilding (with significant support from Turkey, of all people). But otherwise it has done little to its credit, and perhaps the biggest joke of all is that there is an African country that is not in the AU- Morocco, as the AU ridiculously continues to recognise the not-and-never extant SADR as a member. To be areal force for good the AU would need to abandon the principle of "non-interference" that discredited the OAU and limits its ability to be an agent of progress. Of course, the issue is that there are more African leaders who are at least illiberal in their style of rule than those who are not, so the introduction of interventionist doctrines such as R2P or whatnot is tantamount to opening Pandora's Box.

At the same time, many prefer the pseudo-clientelistic relationship they've established with China, which has them doing much of the work while they can claim credit for development and enrichen themselves all while not having to bother with the pesky concerns of western donors about things like "rights", or, more fairly, exceedingly risk averse and overly cautious Western firms. Some countries may yet gain from the next wave of low-cost manufacturing, which they stand positioned to benefit substantially from, but they will risk being stuck in a Bangladesh-level state of development if they continue to send their raw resources to be processed in Chinese factories (and elsewhere) as opposed to developing value-adding industries of their own to produce finished goods for export. If the AU would get serious about developing its economic and trade institutions, which they've postponed for years, this would help finance such development and encourage intra-continental trade. Who else would?

If people continue to naively see Chinese as "friends" of Africa, buying into their rhetoric of "South-South partnership" or whatnot-- something decried by the then-Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria in a front page opinion piece in the FT a while back--yet something perpetuated by the AU, who with its China-Africa summits (something I find patronising) seems to be the coziest with China of them all (for God's sake, the previous Chairman of the AU Comission was literally half-Chinese!). The Chinese, as they do with their fellow BRIC Brazil (which has unsurprisingly been deindustrialising), want raw resources, so they can use them in manufacturing things. While an increasing number of Chinese businesses and businesses in China are looking overseas for lower cost manufacturing centers, as mentioned before there's only so much outsourcing can do- reinvestment, capital mobilisation, and moving up the value-added chain must come from within. Furthermore there's still tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people in eastern China who would still be willing to work for the kinds of wages that are nowadays considered too low in the Pearl Delta or the rest of the coastal east. Japan's auto industry did not come about through GM outsourcing production to there. Korea's shipbuilders did not start as branches of Newport News. Chinese steel production did not come about through Nucor or US Steel investment. Those industries were homegrown and competed with the established firms, they weren't branches of them. If Africa wants to industrialise they must realise China is not going to help them do that.

Until the AU starts doing more than just serving as a Chinese welcoming committee while steadfastly refusing to get involved in the most egregious conflicts or move beyond expressing their intent to establish a continental customs union, free trade zone, functional development bank, or other such institutions; it will, like most other regional blocs (the EU being the exception to the rule here) be more or less irrelevant in continental affairs and impotent regarding them. So, as Gaddafi did, Mugabe's chairmanship will serve as an embarrassing reminder of the quality of leadership that can be found in today's Africa.

But don't even think about getting rid of it- it's a boon to Addis's economy and Ethiopia's general prestige (what little of it is left since everything that's happened since 1974).

[Simfan34]

Good God! Having just seen the finished post on my phone, I am truly frightened by its length. Yikes. This is why I try to stay away from here when I have work to do... which I do.

[politicus]

But otherwise it has done little to its credit, and perhaps the biggest joke of all is that there is an African country that is not in the AU- Morocco, as the AU ridiculously continues to recognise the not-and-never extant SADR as a member. To be areal force for good the AU would need to abandon the principle of "non-interference" that discredited the OAU and limits its ability to be an agent of progress. Of course, the issue is that there are more African leaders who are at least illiberal in their style of rule than those who are not, so the introduction of interventionist doctrines such as R2P or whatnot is tantamount to opening Casandra's Box.

The continued Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara in violation of international law is a disgrace and it would be very wrong of the AU to recognize it. Of course the EU is an even bigger hypocrite for not implementing economic sanctions against Morocco.

R2P is part of article 4 of the AU charter, so they do have the possibility of enforcing it if a higher number of African governments become democratically elected and/or the most important ones decide to act more decisively in genocide/ethnic cleansing scenarios. SA and Nigeria have most of the responsibility here.

[Simfan34]

But otherwise it has done little to its credit, and perhaps the biggest joke of all is that there is an African country that is not in the AU- Morocco, as the AU ridiculously continues to recognise the not-and-never extant SADR as a member. To be areal force for good the AU would need to abandon the principle of "non-interference" that discredited the OAU and limits its ability to be an agent of progress. Of course, the issue is that there are more African leaders who are at least illiberal in their style of rule than those who are not, so the introduction of interventionist doctrines such as R2P or whatnot is tantamount to opening Casandra's Box.

The continued Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara in violation of international law is a disgrace and it would be very wrong of the AU to recognize it. Of course the EU is an even bigger hypocrite for not implementing economic sanctions against Morocco.

R2P is part of article 4 of the AU charter, so they do have the possibility of enforcing it if a higher number of African governments become democratically elected and/or the most important ones decide to act more decisively in genocide/ethnic cleansing scenarios. SA and Nigeria have most of the responsibility here.

I was going to say something about the lack of a Franco-German "heavyweight", in short I'll say that SA is too busy playing at being one of the "BRICS" and Nigeria too, well... Nigeria to have much of a stabilising role on the continent... I mean I'm laughing at the thought. As for Morocco... I'll get to that when I have more time.

[Famous Mortimer]

It was wrong for Morocco to invade Western Sahara but what's done is done. Too many Moroccans have been born there.

[politicus]

It was wrong for Morocco to invade Western Sahara but what's done is done. Too many Moroccans have been born there.

The rights of an indigenous population do not seize to exist just because the settlers outnumber it. Sometimes there need to be repatriation.

I know this can seem ironic given my views on Palestine, but in this case the settlement was conducted by a people that already had a nation state.