Observer 25 Apr 2012 - Oman Daily Observer

DIONCOUNDA Traore was sworn in as Mali’s new interim leader in Bamako on April 12. — AFP
A fractured territory
By David Lewis
WITHIN weeks, Mali has plunged
from being a sovereign democracy
to a fractured territory
without a state, occupied by competing
groups in the north while politicians and
coup leaders in the south jostle for control
of the capital Bamako.
There is no sign the broken nation
can be put back together soon — raising
concerns among neighbours and Western
powers of the emergence of a lawless elements
exploited by criminals.
“We have never been in such a dire
situation at any other time in our history,”
said Mahmoud Dicko, inuential head of
the Islamic High Council in the former
French colony once seen as a poster child
for electoral democracy in West Africa.
“There is no state and two-thirds of the
country is out of control,” he said of the
seizure by a mix of activists and Tuaregled
ghters of the northern desert territory
one-and-a-half-times the size of France.
Ask Malians in the street what they
think of the crisis and most will say they
are “depassé” — a French term for being
overwhelmed by events that go beyond
comprehension.
Even before March 22 coup and ensuing
the ghters’ advance, Mali was
struggling to deal with this year’s drought
on the southern rim of the Sahara. Over
270,000 Malians have ed their homes as
the violence makes bringing aid to hun-
NEW CHALLENGES
Ex-fighter turns
a nation builder
By Pascal Fletcher
SOUTH Sudan’s President
Salva Kiir (pictured),
who spent
much of his life as a commander
ghting in one of
Africa’s longest and deadliest
civil wars, says it will take
another lifetime to make his
newborn country prosperous,
secure and self-sufcient.
For now it is locked in
ghting with Sudan, the worst
violence since South Sudan
became independent under a
2005 peace agreement with
Khartoum.
“Building a nation will
take our lifetimes,” the
ghter turned president told
leaders of his ruling Sudan
Peoples’ Liberation Movement
(SPLM) last month,
listing huge challenges in
infrastructure, education and
healthcare.
While other members of
the southern elite boast academic
credentials obtained
in the West, Kiir is seen as a
no-nonsense army man, most
comfortable in the eld. He
joined the south’s rst battle
(1955-1972) at 17 and later
became a major in the Sudanese
intelligence services.
ger victims even harder. But while Mali
is now rmly on world radar screens as
a serious security threat in the making,
neither Western powers nor its neighbours
can agree on how to come to its rescue.
A deal struck between the junta and
negotiators from the 15-state West African
ECOWAS group was meant to see
the army hand back the reins of power to
civilians in return for neighbours giving
military help to regain the north.
The naming of an interim president
has nominally shifted the seat of power
from a dusty out-of-town barracks back to
the repaired presidential palace. But midranking
coup-leading ofcers still hold
sway, last week arresting top politicians
and military brass.
A personality cult has sprung up around
Captain Amadou Sanogo, the hitherto obscure
US-trained ofcer turned junta chief
whose face is now emblazoned on badges
pinned to the chests of soldiers and civilians.
“You cannot push aside a military
committee that has led a coup,” he told
reporters in Bambara, one of Mali’s national
languages. “You can say you don’t
want soldiers in power but nowhere in the
world are they pushed aside.”
Unless new elections are held by May
23 — an all but impossible task given the
situation in the north, Sanogo will, under
the ECOWAS accord, have a say in shaping
the transition body due to run Mali
until polls can be held.
But a glimpse at what led to the coup
In a tough speech to parliament
interrupted by clapping,
Kiir asked his people in
April to prepare for war after
his troops made a surprise
grab of the disputed Heglig
oileld.
He admonished UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki-Moon
for asking him to leave Heglig,
which is key to Sudan’s
economy. “I told him you
don’t need to order me because
I am not under your
command,” Kiir said.
Bowing to demands from
the UN Security Council,
South Sudan said on Sunday
it had withdrawn its troops
from the contested Heglig
oil region, raising hopes the
neighbours had pulled back
from the brink of all-out war.
While promising to work
for national unity and reconciliation,
Kiir warned South
Sudanese in his March 26
speech that “the biggest challenge
to achieving this vision
is our relationship with the
government of Sudan”.
Following South Sudan’s
birth as Africa’s newest state
in July 2011 after a landslide
southern referendum endorsing
this move, Kiir’s SPLM
government has quickly become
embroiled this year in
disputes with Khartoum over
ill-dened border lines, and
especially over the economic
lifeblood of both states — oil.
Independence gave South
Sudan three-quarters of the
oil output held by Sudan.
But Juba has rejected Khartoum’s
insistence, reinforced
by conscation of southern
cargoes, that it pay a certain
level of transit fees to send its
oil through Sudan’s northern
pipelines and Red Sea port.
13
ANALYSIS/OPINION
OMAN DAILY Observer
shows that even when elections are held,
they offer no easy x to Mali’s woes.
By mid-March, the national mood had
been strained for weeks as Mali’s army
struggled to contain a push by Tuareg-led
ghters in the north. Morale-sapping defeats,
including one that led to the slaughter
of dozens of soldiers, sparked protests
in the south, both among civilians and
soldiers. It was one such army protest on
March 21 that snowballed faster than anyone
expected. Within hours, it morphed
into a coup d’etat against incumbent
President Amadou Toumani Toure which,
while not too surprising, was largely accidental.
“It was a mutiny that developed into
a coup d’etat because they realised there
was a vacuum,” Said Djinnit, head of the
United Nations Ofce for West Africa,
said. “We all applauded the democratic
dispensation but we now realise that democratic
dispensation was very fragile.”
With his palace under attack from
parts of his own army, Toure ed into hiding.
Foreign condemnation was swift and
harsh as neighbours imposed trade and
diplomatic sanctions and even aired the
possibility of returning Toure to power
by force. But the reaction of the street to
the largely bloodless coup was less clear
cut. Hundreds of civilians unhappy with
Toure’s rule cheered soldiers on as they
seized state television, while pro-coup rallies
easily outnumbered anti-coup demonstrations
in the days that followed.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25, 2012
Prosecutors split
between parties
By Joan Biskupic
IN the ornate Chinese
Ballroom of Washington’s
Mayower Hotel, nine
Republican state attorneys
general gathered last month
at a long, white-cloth covered
table for an unusual news
conference. One by one, as
TV news cameras rolled, they
catalogued their many lawsuits
against President Barack
Obama’s administration.
When it came to Arizona
Attorney General Tom
Horne’s turn, he said, “We
have eight lawsuits.” One of
those, defending Arizona’s
new law requiring police of-
cers to check the papers of
anyone they suspect is in the
US illegally, will be heard by
the US Supreme Court today.
Like the Supreme Court
challenge to the Obama-sponsored
healthcare law heard
last month, the Arizona case
is part of a larger story about
an escalating battle between
Republican-led states and the
federal government. All but
one of the 16 states that have
led “friend of the court”
briefs on the Arizona side
have Republican governors.
Meanwhile, all of the
11 states lining up with the
Obama administration are led
by Democrats.
The ranks of Republican
attorneys general have swelled
dramatically in the last decade,
resulting in a nearly even
nationwide partisan split that
is unprecedented in modern
history. Republican attorneys
general now number 24 of
the 50 state attorneys general,
compared with just 12 as recently
as 2000.
While it is not uncommon
for attorneys general to try to
use the courts to advance the
priorities of their own political
party, lawyers on both sides
say the newer crop of Republicans
— particularly the core
nine who organised the May-
ower news conference — are
more tightly co-ordinated and
often more vocal about their
political goals than Republican
attorneys general have
been in the past.
In the late 1990s, prominent
Democrats such as New
York’s Eliot Spitzer and Con-
necticut’s Richard Blumenthal
set much of the agenda for top
state prosecutors.
The steady rise in Republican
attorneys general partly
follows the increased Republican
dominance in statehouses
since the 1990s and, separately,
the higher prole that
attorneys general have drawn
in recent decades through
multi-state litigation such as
against tobacco companies.
The Republicans gained a majority
of the governors’ ofces
in the 1994 elections, fell behind
Democrats in the 2000s,
then again took the majority in
2010 elections.
“There seems to be, in addition
to the size, an intensi-
ed cohesion and collegiality
among the (Republican)
AGs,” said Texas Attorney
General Greg Abbott, one of
the nine, in an interview. “Part
of it is based on personality.
Part of it is based on sense of
purpose.”
That sense of purpose —
to ght what Abbott and the
others say is overreaching by
the Obama administration —
has mitigated differences that
might have been prompted
by regionalism, ambition, age
and length of service.
“We trust each other,” said
Florida Attorney General Pam
Bondi, another of the nine and
a leader of the challenge to the
Obama healthcare law. “We
look out for each other. We
are a team.”
Many of them participate
in monthly phone calls coordinated
by the Republican
State Government Leadership
Foundation, a group that
raises money for conservative
causes and helped arrange the
March news conference. Chris
Jankowski, the foundation’s
executive director, said the
calls are focused on strategy
and policy yet can involve litigation
decisions.
The ofcials also co-ordinate
their efforts through the
Republican Attorneys General
Association, another fundraising
group. That organisation,
started in 1999 out of frustration
with environmental and
other priorities of the then
Democratic state attorneys
general, raises money to help
elect more Republicans.
THE Denza electric car is unveiled at Auto China 2012 car show in Beijing. — AFP
An electric marathon
By Bill Smith
TECHNOLOGICAL and pricing
issues have slowed China’s drive
to mass-produce affordable electric
cars, but analysts and insiders believe
partnerships with foreign rms could
help it to reach its long-term goal.
CH Auto, a small producer in Beijing,
is promoting its Cylent two-seater “city
commuter car,” which uses lithium-ion
(li-on) battery technology.
The company is among dozens of
Chinese, foreign and joint-venture rms
showing futuristic electric models alongside
hybrids and fuel-efcient conventional
vehicles at Auto China 2012, which
opens to the public in Beijing today.
Last week, the government issued its
revised plan to develop annual capacity
for 500,000 electric vehicles by 2015 and
about 5 million by 2020 as the “strategic
orientation” for China’s market.
The plan prioritises industrialisation
of pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles,
as well as fuel-efcient conventional
vehicles. It commits the government to
subsidising energy-saving vehicles and
accelerating construction of charging stations
for electric vehicles.
Local governments in at least 10 major
cities are supporting plans to develop
electric vehicles by regional car makers,
many of which are state-controlled or
have state enterprises as major shareholders.
But some analysts worry that practical
problems will delay the programme and
make the government miss its targets.
Even heavy subsidies will not attract
enough Chinese consumers, who can buy
a petrol-driven compact car for less than
half the cost of an electric vehicle, the
pessimists say. “I think the development
of electric cars is slower than expected,”
Cui Dongshui of the China Passenger
Car Association said.
“There are many problems,” Cui said,
pointing to poor marketing and a mismatch
between research and production
of electric vehicles.
“All those years of scientic research
projects are displayed on the exhibition
stands but they haven’t been accepted by
ordinary people,” he said.
Companies also worry that government
subsidies for electric vehicles are
too low and will only be offered for a
few years, said Jia Xinguang, chief analyst
for the China Automobile Consulting
Corporation.
CH Auto’s Cylent name reects another
problem: the safety of speeding
electric cars looming behind pedestrians
and cyclists with no aural warning.
Quality issues also raise doubts about
the heavy packs of multiple li-on batteries,
which are likely to fail if just one of
the cells is substandard.
“Immature battery technology, underdeveloped
supply chains and lack of
infrastructure standards are just a few of
the barriers that have prevented China’s
EV (electric vehicle) industry from taking
off,” US consulting rm McKinsey
said in a report last week.
“Our research shows that plug-in hybrid-electric
vehicles could provide the
right bridge in the short- to medium-term
on the road to a future dominated by battery-electric
vehicles,” the report said.
Cui agreed that the government should
allow a more “natural” transition to electric
vehicles, but he said that even hybrids
were difcult to market in China.
Gloves off
By Herve Rouach
NICOLAS Sarkozy is taking the gloves off in his bid to
beat Francois Hollande in the French presidential runoff,
saying he will “blow out of the water” the Socialist
he accuses of eeing debates.
“We’re going to be horrible,” the conservative daily Le Figaro
yesterday quoted a Sarkozy adviser as saying, with the
paper saying there were “no holds barred” ahead of the May
6 run-off. “We have to harass Hollande, like they’ve harassed
me,” Sarkozy reportedly told his advisers after being beaten
28.63 per cent to 27.18 in the rst round which qualied the
two men for the second round.
Sarkozy is expected to play up the inexperience of his rival,
who has been a lawmaker, the head of the Socialist Party for
11 years and of a rural local administration in central France
but has never held a ministerial post.
The right-winger believes he will triumph in a one-on-one
televised debate set for May 2, and called already on Sunday
for three debates to be held, an invitation swiftly rejected by
Hollande’s team.
The hyperactive Sarkozy is expected to deploy all his energy
in particularly virulent attacks on the Socialist candidate.
“This is about debating before the French people, project
against project, personality against personality, experience
against experience. The French people have a right to know,
Mr Hollande must not run away,” Sarkozy said on Monday.
Some of his advisers have predicted that Hollande will be
“afraid” during the debate. “That’s right, Nicolas Sarkozy always
the show-off,” Hollande told the left-leaning Liberation
newspaper yesterday, deliberately contrasting his less-aggressive
tone with that of Sarkozy. He said he would go into the
televised debate “very serene”.
“I think it should be a time of elevation. The incumbent
wants to turn it into a ght, because he has no choice. He’s
like a runner who’s been distanced and tries to catch up by
grabbing the leader’s shirt,” Hollande said.
Hollande has sought to project an image of calm throughout
the campaign, despite accusations, even from within his
own camp, that he is wishy-washy, even boring, and maintains
vague positions.
Race in hand
By Peroshni Govender
SOUTH Africa’s President Jacob Zuma is the favourite to
win a second term to lead the ruling ANC in a race dominated
by factional politics instead of policy reforms for
Africa’s most powerful economy.
More than a dozen insiders in the ruling African National
Congress said that Zuma had the race in hand even though
there are strong factions in the party who want him out and
could make things difcult. “It’s Zuma’s race to lose,” said
one senior ANC member.
The winner of December’s party vote is almost certain to
be its nominee in the 2014 presidential election. Since the
ANC enjoys virtual one-party rule, its nominee is almost assured
of winning the ve year term as president.
The race will be fought at the local level with little attention
paid to warnings from all three of the major global credit
ratings agencies who have said the economy is on the wrong
track under Zuma, posing long-term risks to stability.
The battle to lead the 100-year-old ANC according to party
insiders is a two-horse race between Zuma and Deputy President
Kgalema Motlanthe. Zuma has a commanding lead in
delegates and unless Motlanthe make huge strides by the electoral
conference in December, Zuma should secure victory.
Motlanthe, or any other candidate, is not going to openly
declare their challenge to Zuma due to a party culture where
raising one’s hand too early is tantamount to political suicide.
The race will be fought behind closed doors, leaving out a
public that has grown increasingly angry at the ANC for not
doing enough to x a broken education system, failing hospitals,
rampant poverty and chronic unemployment.
“Motlanthe has strong support but it’s all about timing and
we want to make sure that his chances are good before nominations
open,” said a source close to the deputy president.
The ANC, a former liberation movement that became the
ruling party when the white-minority apartheid regime ended
18 years ago, is a broad-tent political grouping with members
ranging from hard core communists to business moguls.
Its consensus-building approach has stied radical ideas
from the left that include nationalising mines and seizing
white-owned farmland.
Stoking risks
By Olivia Kumwenda
SOUTH Africa’s plans to undo the wrongs of apartheid
by returning land seized from native blacks is embodied
in the life of Koos Mthimkhulu.
He was born on a white-owned farm in 1955 and attended
a school set up by white farmers to give him just enough
education for a life as eld hand. A short childhood gave way
to decades of milking cows, driving tractors and ploughing
elds for poverty-level wages.
When white-minority rule ended in 1994, the new democratic
government made it a priority to return land to those
dispossessed. It wrote the idea into the constitution and made
a plan that would make people like Mthimkhulu independent
farmers. Yet the practice under the African National Congress
(ANC) has fallen far short of targets and disappointment is
stocking up new risks of social, racial and economic crisis to
threaten the very democracy intended to save South Africa
from disaster.
The post-apartheid government selected Koos Mthimkhulu
for a programme under which it would buy agricultural
land from white farmers and turn parcels over to blacks who
had claims on the territory. It offered him money, advice and
moral support.
Greying at the temples and at ease tending a herd of cattle
and tilling elds, he now grows maize and sunowers in the
central atlands of the Free State, no longer tethered to white
bosses and proud of his substantial 500-hectare holding, of
which about a quarter is suitable for crops.
But Mthimkhulu does not own the land, the government
does. And in all likelihood, without ownership, he seems destined
for the failure that has hit many like him who thought
themselves among a fortunate few to get land: “I struggled for
a long time and I can’t get a loan from banks because I can’t
use the farm for security,” he said.
That is not the only drawback small farmers like Mthimkhulu
face; South Africa’s land reform ideals are being
crushed by government mismanagement and the economics
of pitching the new, small-scale operations into competition
with the industrial-size farms that have made the country a
global agricultural powerhouse, exporting billions of dollars
in farm products.
Most food is grown at places like the Royal Dawn orange
farm, 300 km northeast of Mthimkhulu’s homestead, in Mpumalanga
province.