Reflections: Release of Areva Uranium Mine French Hostages

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Areva, Hostages, Niamey, Niger, Sahel

Not an Africa in DC topic, but worth a post that I hope readers will reflect on, as symbolically, the following event has resonated in a very poignant manner with me.

Four French hostages, who were seized in Niger, a month after I concluded Peace Corps service there, were released yesterday.  When I think of all that has transpired in my life since leaving the Sahel in August 2010, all I can say is that these men went through a very long ordeal.  I probably don’t have quite the level of appreciation for my life that the former hostages do now, but it certainly does hammer home to me how precious the here and now is.

In addition to that, two French citizens and nationals were abducted (and subsequently killed) from a restaurant in Niamey that I frequented while in Niger’s capital city.

My Favorite African Candy Bar (and Personal Musings of South Africa in Africa)

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Accra mall, Devex, Lesley Anne Warner, Nando's, Osu, Peace Corps, Sahel, Shoprite in Accra, South Africa in Africa, South Africa in Ghana, Steers, Tex candy bar

I really enjoy reading Lesley Anne Warner’s travel vignettes (a fellow DC-based Africanist blogger), so with that inspiration in mind, I’ll try to increasingly focus on a few personal musings – particularly before the DC think tank scene gears back up for action after Labor day.  Yesterday’s post on my time in the Sahel can be seen as the opening salvo in that direction.

For today, I’ll provide a link to my favorite African candy bar.  It apparently dates back to 1956.  The increasing spread of South Africa’s commercial presence throughout the continent, something that has been very visible to me in the 8 years that I have been traveling to Africa fascinates me, particularly as the first African country I visited was South Africa – a mark that I share with many Americans.  I have discussed this briefly in posts on the Central African Republic and Nigeria.  On a related note, in my inbox today from Devex is a link to a piece on South Africa’s emergence as a donor of aid.

Leaving the Peace Corps in 2010, I traveled overland from the Sahel to Ghana.  It was my second visit and I was in awe of the many changes that had transpired in four years.  Particularly notable was the opening of an indoor shopping mall in Accra (complete with a very expensive cinema).  It was anchored by the South African grocer Shoprite, and had several other retailers based in South Africa as well.  Even at the time of my first visit to Ghana in 2006, South African fast food restaurants such as Nando’s (chicken) and Steers (hamburgers) were operating in Accra.  Bread from Baker’s Inn could even be found on a Liberia Refugee camp outside of the city.  However, the most pleasing change was that in 2010 (unlike 2006), I was able to find my favorite African candy bar in Accra.

Why is the Regime in Burkina Faso Respected Abroad?

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Blaise Compaoré, Burkina Faso politics, Chad foreign policy, Djibrill Bassolé, Foreign Minister Burkina Faso, gold production in Africa, Sahel, Wilson Center

Unfortunately, my work schedule tomorrow will prevent me from hearing Djibrill Bassolé, the Foreign Minister of Burkina Faso, speak at the Wilson Center.  I did however hear the Minister speak there last Spring, just after the coup in Mali.

While he sounded all of the appropriate notes then, the rhetoric just does not match the reality.  Blaise Compaore come to power after leading a coup and killing Thomas Sankara, Burkina Faso’s visionary and personable leader who made great strides during a four year administration.  Compaore continues to meddle callously in African politics – Burkina Faso played a significant role in the civil wars in Liberia and Ivory Coast.  Despite this authoritarian heritage, Burkina Faso is well respected in the West and is looked to as a mediator of west African conflicts.

Although it is Africa’s 4th largest gold producer, Burkina Faso lags at the very bottom of the human development index, with the other states of the Sahel.  I resent the Wilson Center’s close relationship with the Compaore regime (as evinced by these repeated visits by Bassole) and I particularly resent the fact that the West has come to view Burkina Faso as an authority on west African foreign policy (why do we need a briefing on Mali’s elections from Bassole?  Are no Malians able to come to DC to do this?  Have we ceded that much ground to China?).

Through its military support of the French intervention in Mali, Chad looks to be joining those ranks as well.  These are not developments that one wants to see in the Sahel, the poorest region of Africa.

SAIS, CSIS & the Embassy of Niger Tackle Governance & Security in the Sahel

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Algeria, Amadou Toumani Touré, AQIM, CSIS, Goodluck Jonathan, Libya, Mali, Maman Sidikou, Niger, Sahel, SAIS

I made it to the final of the 4 panels that SAIS’ “Governance and Security in the Sahelian States: From Crisis to Sustainable Recovery” Conference convened over the past two days (disclaimer – I left at the tail end of the Q&A).

The panel had a strong DC flavor, as it included Jennifer Cooke of CSIS, the Ambassador of Niger, Maman Sidikou, and John Paden, a professor at George Mason.  The lone foreign interloper was Hugh Roberts, a professor at Tufts who was also a regional interloper as he is a North African (Algeria) specialist.

Jennifer Cooke got things started,

SAIS Sahel Conference: Day 1

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Niger, Paul Lubeck, Sahel, SAIS

I’m just back from a quick pop-in on the SAIS Sahel States conference this afternoon.  I was planning to attend the session on “Sahelian States in Comparative Perspective: Governance and Insecurity”.  Although I did get to speak with the graduate student panelist working on Niger (he knew a former Peace Corps colleague quite well), I did not hear any of the formal remarks as the session was 30 minutes behind schedule and there seemed to be no/minimal indication that its launch was imminent, so I sadly returned to work, unenlightened on Sahelian security.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed some great networking conversations and the meeting presented an exciting opportunity for me to speak in Hausa, which I hadn’t done in several years.  I hope I’ll be able to attend at least one of the sessions tomorrow.

If any of you were there, please share your thoughts or email me at africaindc@gmail.com about submitting a guest post.

SAIS Mega Conference on the Sahel

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AQIM, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Sahel, SAIS

DC’s focus on the Sahel has exploded since the emergence of AQIM and Boko Haram around 2009.  As a Peace Corps volunteer heading out to the Sahel in 2008, I was able to find very little on the region, so this is a much needed emphasis.

I’m sure that most readers of this blog will be aware of a 2 day conference, ‘Governance and Security in the Sahelian States: From Crisis to Sustainable Recovery’ that is taking place at SAIS this Thursday and Friday (the agenda is here).

The exigencies of my job mean that I probably won’t be able to attend, but I hope to hear from those of you who do.  The conference looks set to be another great contribution of SAIS to the African affairs discourse in DC.

One interesting observation – the conference appears to convene no experts on either Mauritania or Burkina Faso.  The US is a great supporter of the authoritarian regime that has governed Burkina for over a quarter of a century and Mauritania, governed by a coup leader turned politician, is also a strong ally in the war on terror.