From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sat May 15 2010 - 17:56:48 EDT
How much does Washington care about African democracy?
The U.S. government's rhetoric on atrocities in Africa doesn't match its
long record of supporting authoritarian regimes.
Blowback
May 15, 2010|Kevin Funk and Steven Fake
After five days of voting, the withdrawal of virtually all of the opposition
presidential candidates and countless accusations of ballot tampering, voter
intimidation and worse, Sudan's flawed elections drew to an unceremonial
conclusion last month, while doing little to advance democracy in Africa.
Indicted war criminal Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir has maintained his grip on
the presidency with 68% of the national vote, and the Sudan People's
Liberation Movement will do the same in the south after obtaining 93% of
votes in that region.
For their part, despite pro forma criticisms of electoral irregularities,
outside powers appear largely content to play along. In his
<http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/28/opinion/la-oe-carter-20100428-13>
April 28 Times Op-Ed article, former President Jimmy Carter hailed Sudan's
election as, despite flaws, an important step to peace for the country. Glib
comments such as U.S. special envoy Scott Gration's eyebrow-raising
assertion that Sudan's elections would be "as free and fair as possible"
raise an important and oft-obscured question: What is Washington actually
looking to accomplish in Africa's largest nation?
Tellingly, relations between the U.S. and Sudan have typically been less
bitter than frequently reported. Even as the Darfur conflict peaked,
Washington was actively collaborating with Sudanese officials and groups
directly implicated in the violence and developed a close
intelligence-sharing relationship with Sudan's notorious security agency.
Then-Sudanese intelligence chief Salah Abdallah Gosh - against whom the U.N.
recommended instituting sanctions - was flown to Washington for meetings
with U.S. government officials on a CIA jet in 2005.
However, since Khartoum's defiant tendencies and China's well-cemented
position in Sudan's booming oil industry make a full Washington-Khartoum
rapprochement unlikely, the U.S. has turned to cultivating its budding
alliance with oil-rich and increasingly oppressive south Sudan, expected to
be an independent nation after a 2011 referendum on its status.
And while the dust settles on postelection Sudan, several regional U.S.
allies are gearing up for their own supposed exercises in democracy.
On Sudan's eastern border, U.S. stalwart Ethiopia has been preparing for
late May elections by "waging a coordinated and sustained attack on
political opponents, journalists and rights activists," in the
<http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/03/24/ethiopia-repression-rising-ahead-may-
elections> unminced words of Human Rights Watch (HRW).
As documented, the ruling party has been using its "near-total control" of
the state apparatus to "systematically punish . opposition supporters" and
"severely restrict the activities of civil society and the media."
As HRW comments with some understatement, "Ethiopia is heavily dependent on
foreign assistance, which accounts for approximately one-third of all
government expenditures." However, "The country's principal foreign donors -
the World Bank, United States, United Kingdom and European Union - have been
very timid in their criticisms of Ethiopia's deteriorating human rights
situation."
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