Africa's Future

Speech by Frits Bolkestein MP, President of LI

Africa's Future

Since the countries of Africa have become independent there have been both Afro-optimists and Afro-pessimists. In the early sixties it was the first group who clearly set the tone. They believed that with Western technical aid, Africa would be able to stand on its own two feet reasonably quickly and would gradually come to adopt Western democratic values. It was a time in which Western universities and research institutes suddenly began to take an interest in a part of the world which was previously assumed to have no culture, no civilisation, no political traditions and no history. I don't have to describe here how the initial enthusiasm cooled rather rapidly after a number of years. If Africa was in the news, it was almost always about civil wars and famine. The Afro-pessimists quickly gained ground.

Two fundamental features have contributed to the general malaise of several African states. The first is wholly inexcusable and has been best described as the development of "personal monarchies" with the assets of the state for the benefit of family and clan. In many cases there has been nothing less than organised theft of national resources. For example, Zaire no longer has an economy or civil society in any ordinary sense. President Mobutu owns the country rather than rules it. He is supported by a clan of 100 rich families. Below them are 40 million people living in primitive and poor conditions. Western governments can not escape a share of responsibility for having propped up this international robber in charge of Africa's second largest country. There are several mini-Mobutus in charge of other African states.

The second feature of post-independence Africa is much more excusable and understandable, though in the end also destructive. That is the flirtation of Africa from the 1060s with socialism. Kwame Nkrumah set a trend which was followed by others such as Kenneth Kaudan and Julius Nyerere, who tried to rationalise their authoritarian regimes in a benevolent but straitjacket manner embracing what the world now sees as a failed political philosophy marked by excessive power of the state and its institutions, stifling individual enterprise and initiative.

Following the end of the cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Empire, it looked for a moment as though the optimists had won the battle. Many believed that the Soviet Union was the biggest obstacle to the development and democratisation of Africa. The return to freedom in Eastern Europe fed the hope that in Africa too, freedom was just around the corner. The agreement on the independence of Namibia and the abolition of apartheid in South Africa appeared to lend support to this optimism. In Washington, and then in Western Europe too, several democratisation programmes began, whose purpose was to create a basis on which a "civil society" could be developed in various African countries. But the Afro-pessimist once again quickly saw their views confirmed. Multiparty democracy did not work in most African countries. I will come back to this subject later.

Myself, I am one of the optimists. That's not because I firmly believe in the "malleability of society". I consider Afro-pessimism to be unwarranted and even dangerous for three reasons. Firstly, because there are numerous African states where good progress in economic and social development has been made in recent years and where there is no threat of anarchy. It is also the case that the violence of the nineties is clearly not as bad as it was in the eighties, when there was total war in Chad, Uganda, Ethiopia, Mozambique, the Western Sahara, Sudan and Angola. Secondly, I am afraid that if the incorrect assumption that Africa is a hopeless ease becomes generally accepted, then this will have an adverse effect on the willingness of the outside world to continue to help the Continent. This would be quite the wrong attitude to take towards the very many Africans who are doing their best to improve their situation. Thirdly, I lead a party which for good reason upholds the values of "freedom and democracy". I am in agreement with former US President, Jimmy Carter, who said that as long as there are people in the world who are not free, neither can we be free.

Being an optimist does not mean ignoring reality. Although it is difficult to define precisely the right conditions for democratisation, as a realist I would, nevertheless, like to underline that a number of factors may have a positive influence. These include economic growth, a well educated population, and a relatively high level of industrialisation. Countries like Taiwan and South Korea have met these conditions. There we see how a pluralistic political system can be created without any pressure being exerted from outside.

Multiparty democracy means more than having several parties in a state. The expectation that the mere creation of a multiplicity of parties would bring popular participation and government accountability, has been frustrated by a belief that winning an election itself is the sole purpose of political parties and is an end in itself rather than the means to a broader end - that of implementing policies aimed at achieving political stability and economic development.

The concept of functioning opposition with a right to question the policies and actions of government and to criticise constructively has not sufficiently developed in most states. There are five universal pre-conditions before one can describe any state as genuine democracy.

  • First, freedom of assembly. It is quite unacceptable that in many African states licenses are required before one can hold a public meeting or a rally. In others political organisations themselves are required to register with a government before they are allowed to operate. Liberals must oppose such restriction on the right to assembly.
  • Second, independence of the judiciary. Judicial authority cannot be respected if judges are simple the mouthpieces of government with their promotion dependent on their compliance with the dictates of the rulers of the state. The courts themselves should be final arbiters in electoral disputes.
  • Third, transparency and accountability. There must be full and thorough financial accountability for all government expenditure to democratic parliaments. Sadly, this is rare on this continent.
  • Fourth, freedom of press and broadcasting. In very many countries the press, but especially radio and television, are wholly controlled by the government, as SABC used to be, and are simply the outlets for partisan propaganda.
  • Fifth, independence of the electoral commission. It is vital any country that the body organising the election be genuinely independent of government. This can be done in a number of ways. One is to ensure all persons nominated to it are acceptable to all the political parties. Another is to allow each party to nominate a quota.

Let me come back to the future of Africa. Unfortunately, the conditions in Africa are much less favourable than in the Far East. For example, the continent has an external debt of US$ 233 billion and in 1995 saw its debt-to-export ration increase to 270 per cent. East Asia, in contrast, saw its debt-to-export ratio decline to 83 per cent in 1995. Many African economies show either very slow growth or not growth at all. The middle classes are still very small. Despite all efforts, the level of education in many countries has remained low and, last but not least, the transition to democracy has always been most difficult in the so-called "multi-ethnic societies". Almost all African countries come under this category. Regrettably, all too often, we see that elections only increase the struggle for power and politicians then call upon ethnic affinities in order to tighten their grip on power. Event in countries such as Burundi, Kenya and Nigeria illustrate this.

Under these circumstances the outside world has few options. All too often European and American democratisation programmes have concentrated on removing various technical obstacles to democracy and it has been assumed that the problems is mainly due to a lack of knowledge and experience. For example, political parties are trained in running campaigns, helped with the registration of electors, all sorts of NGOs received funding to undertake public information campaigns, etc. The actual problems, however, are political in nature; and this political process is barely affected by the technical programmes. Numerous recent elections have generally been "procedurally fair" but at the same time "largely non-competitive". I have borrowed these terms form a commentary made by the American State Department on the elections in Ethiopia in 1994.

The ultimate test of democracy in Africa is whether the opposition leaders, who call for free elections, are willing to accept defeat when it comes. Naturally, the outside world can do little to remove these political obstacles because this would amount to an interference in internal affairs. The NGOs who carry out many of the funded programmes, are also in a weak position when it comes to rapping politicians or political parties over the knuckles for undemocratic or despotic behaviour. The initial conclusion to be drawn from developments in recent years, is that, even in countries where elections have been held, the transition to democracy is far from complete. The elections in Burkina Faso failed, those in Angola and the Gambia were followed by renewed violence, and those in Djibouti, the Ivory Coast and Kenya were far from fair. The second conclusion which can be drawn from this is that Western support programmes appear to have had no great effect, as shown, for example, by the Kenyan elections. A great deal of foreign money and international effort had been invested in these elections. Although I do believe that had these programmes not existed, the results would have been even less satisfactory.

I do not have to remind you of the fact that in some African countries the internal conflicts are so severe and violent that, for the time being, all support programmes are doomed to failure. Much more forceful forms of international intervention are required if we are to prevent genocide or regional escalation. I am talking now about conflict prevention, conflict management, peace keeping, humanitarian intervention and "peace enforcement". Happily, Africa has a few examples - such as Mozambique - where the outside world was able, with some success, to bring and end to internal violence and provide a basis for political and economic recovery. In Angola (currently host to the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world) progress is being made as well.

This brings me to another area where Africa is entitled to look for international support: the reduction of the trade in arms. The flood of weaponry over Africa fuelling both ethnic conflicts and urban crime is immense. I would like to see us at least make a beginning in recognising that the convential arms trade is itself responsible for much of the denial of human rights in our world today, and for the denial of that most basic right - to live in peace without fear. We must do something to turn the present limited UN register of arms sales into an effective instrument of control and supervision. We need to discover how to replace arms security with human security. The developing world spends more than 50 billions US dollars of its scarce foreign exchange reserves on arms imports. Nations that can not feed and educate their children should not pretend that such expenditure helps the security of their citizens. Liberal parties should be committed to control that.

One of the conditions for democratisation I mentioned earlier was economic growth. It is clear that any successes in this area will also partly depend on your own efforts. How determined you are to liberalise the economy and keep inflation down will to some degree determine your further development. This does not take away from the fact that the richer part of the world, and the EU in particular, has a major influence on the prevailing conditions. The development relations between the EU and Africa - particularly the Sub-Saharan countries - are regulated by the Lom?IV agreement. This rest upon two pillars, namely, aid and trade. The aid is funded by the European Development Fund, which cynics have labelled a pay off in exchange for a moderate stance by the EU on the matter of market access.

The other pillar, that of trade, is unfortunately, still rather weak. Lom?IV did provide for better market access - better in any event than that which the World Trade Organisation provided - but this applied mainly to industrial products in which Africa has only a small share. There is plenty of room for improvement in the area of agricultural produce. The situation here is that in most cases a zero tariff applies to contingents or a calendar system is used in which a zero tariff applies during a certain period of the year (e.g. during the winter season in Europe).

Finally: although much has gone wrong in Africa in recent years and there has often been terrible suffering, it is a continent with huge potential. Our challenge is still, therefore, to make sure that the great expectations of 35 years ago are realised.