By Stephen Williams

Angola - from Afro-Stalinism to Petro-dollar capitalism

By Tony Hodges

?11.95 James Currey

ISBN 0-85255-851-1

In this comprehensive study, author Tony Hodges identifies four essential and interlinked transitional objectives for the country. They are: 1) the transition from war to peace; 2) from a dependence on international humanitarian aid-relief to self reliance; 3) from a one-party political system to a pluralist democracy; and 4) the switch from a ‘command economy’ to a capitalist free-market model.

He argues that while there has been a measure of progress towards these aims, there is evidence that the interests of powerful elites have compromised the process. Compared to what Mozambique has achieved, a sister lusophone nation that faced similar development challenges over the last decade - progress has been markedly poorer.

The difference has been one of national resources - in the case of Angola an abundance of mineral resources, in the case of Mozambique relatively few natural resources. The paradox is that those countries deriving and relying for their national income from primary commodities are more prone to hostilities because those commodities themselves serve to motivate, and finance, conflict. This analysis draws on the work of Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler in their 1999 study ‘Justice-Seeking and Loot-Seeking in Civil War’.

Lending credence to this hypothesis are the conflicts of DRC Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Causes have changed.

Certainly, the causes of the civil war that has been waged virtually continuously since Angola’s independence from Portugal in 1975 have changed radically. Previously, this war was considered counter-revolutionary - Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA forces, backed by SA’s apartheid regimes and US cold-war geo-political rationale, fighting to overthrow a totalitarian Marxist regime - but today, with the end of apartheid and the Cold War, there is no clear political or ideological differences between the two sides.

In the words of the author, “the war has become a crude struggle between rival elites for the control of resources through the capture or retention of state power.”

Meanwhile, most Angolans are suffering ever deepening poverty with at least a million citizens internally displaced and human-development indicators being among the worst in Africa. For example, Angola has the second-worst child mortality rates in the world. The war has resulted in current social spending by Angola’s government on the key development areas of health and education being just one-sixth of that allocated to defense.

Angola is potentially one of the richest countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Current crude-oil production of around 750,000 barrels a day, mainly from off-shore fields, accounts for over half the government’s total export revenues, and production is set to at least double in the next five years.

But this book alleges that Angola’s culture of political patronage and cronyism, and a web of secret accounts (the so called Bermuda Triangle), ensures that the $4bn of annual income derived from oil sales is never properly and publicly accounted for.

Elite has amassed fortunes

This has allowed an elite to amass fortunes from the oil sector - as well as diamond concessions, the privatisation of state assets, and the privileged access to foreign exchange and bank loans. And it is no coincidence that UNITA’s primary military objectives have been to seize control and output from the diamond areas of the north-east of the country. Industry experts put UNITA’s net earnings from diamonds, between 1992 and 1998, at some $2bn which has been used to finance the conflict.

Tony Hodges has been closely involved with Angola since his first visit in 1975 and worked for the UN in the country between 1994 and 1998. In general, this is a perceptive account of the state of the nation and the root causes of its predicament, but what the book lacks is any clear cut analysis of Angola’s short term prospects, or the role the international community can play to encourage the establishment of institutions promoting a truly accountable and inclusive democratic government.

That development, along with convincing Jonas Savimbi to commit to a democratically elected power sharing government - something that he has always resisted - seem to be the key issues to resolve the war. Twinned with effective international sanctions against illegal ‘conflict’ diamond sales, the oil-industry has a pivotal role to play in Angola’s regeneration.

Much will depend on the policies of the incoming US administration. The US is, by far, Angola’s most important trading partner - accounting for around twice as much of Angola’s export earnings as the rest of the world put together. The US already imports roughly as much oil from Africa (principally Nigeria) as it does from the Middle East, and that figure is set to grow when the huge ultra-deep off-shore reserves on Angola’s Atlantic seaboard come on stream.

US can exert pressure

The US could exert powerful leverage, particularly as many top-level Bush appointments have strong links with the oil industry. It is common knowledge that the Bush Presidential dynasty, George Snr and George W, had their political careers bank-rolled by the oil industry, and, until recently, Vice-President Dick Cheney led Halliburton Co, (an oil-services giant and a major player in Africa). National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has also been a member of Chevron’s board of directors, a company that has operated in Angola for the past 55 years. Chevron accounted for 60% of Angola’s oil production in 1999.

The US administration’s political will to act decisively and positively in Angola may well be instigated by the oil-industry itself. Quite apart from humanitarian considerations, it can be argued that it would be in their commercial interest to do so.

Chastened by recent events - most notably Shell’s experience in Nigeria and the resulting consumer boycotts in the West protesting alleged unethical corporate behaviour, the Elf-Aquitaine debacle unfolding in the French courts or, indeed, the controversy over the ‘signature bonuses’ paid by the oil majors for exploration rights to the Angolan government - there is a growing realisation of the reputational risks they run in doing business with corrupt regimes or in a less than transparent and responsible fashion.

Lords of the Atlas

By Gavin Maxwell

?25 Cassel

ISBN 0-304-34419-8

This famous book was first published in the 1960s, the result of several years painstaking research by the author. Since the author’s death his substantial collection of photographs have been edited and incorporated with his text for the first time in this edition, along with a previously unpublished essay on Morocco found amongst his papers.

Gavin Maxwell tells of the meteoric rise to power of an originally obscure warrior tribe, the Glaoua, and their equally sudden spectacular downfall. One member in particular, who was known to the world as El Glaoui, Pasha of Marrakesh, became a legendary figure of feudal power and magnificence.

The mountain tribes in the remote passes of the High Atlas were much as the clans of the Scottish Highlands in their feudal heyday: proud, constantly at war, the terror of caravans and even of the armies who had to negotiate their castle-studded passes.

Out of the intriguing and dramatic lives of Hadani and T’hami, the author has fashioned an epic story set against the superb background of the medieval city of Marrakesh and the pinnacled castles of the High Atlas, still magnificent as crumbling ruins.

These impressive, heavily fortified, ancient structures held the key to the Glaoua’s wealth and power. They provided sanctuary, for a price, to the caravans of camel trains that crossed the Sahara loaded with gold, amber, ostrich feathers, animal skins and slaves, heading for the great trading city of Marrakesh. They also afforded the Glaoua protection from rival Berber clans who were almost constantly at war with each other.

The Glaoua’s downfall was inextricably bound up with the Istiqlal, Morocco’s independence movement. Morocco became a French protectorate in 1912 (with Spain also given spheres of influence), and the unsubdued Glaoua reached an accommodation with the European colonialists. When the French decided to relinquish control of Morocco, paving the way for the restoration of Sultan Mohammed V to the throne, it spelt the downfall of the Glaoua dynasty - discarded by the French as mere pawns in a political endgame. But they did add a new word to the French lexicon. Glaouis? now means, in French political jargon, betrayal.

This is a dramatic history of intrigue and action, of remote and exotic places told in all its glory.

Order books through The Middle East Books Dept., IC Publications, 7 Coldbath Square, London EC1R 4LQ, UK. Telephone: +44 (0)207 713 7711 Fax: +44 (0)207 713 7898. Orders should include the nine-digit ISBN, book title, price and postage for each book — UK ?3, Europe (airmail) ?5, Rest of World (airmail) ?10. Payment must accompany each order, by sterling cheque drawn on a UK bank and made payable to IC Publications Ltd or by credit card giving number and expiry date, together with the cardholder’s name, address and telephone or facsimile number.

African Stories

Edited by Stephen Gray

?16.00 Picador

ISBN 0-330-48540-7


Some 40 short stories have been selected by Stephen Gray for this impressive volume of African short stories. From the outset, the editor was determined that the collection should be broadly representative of the rich diversity of contemporary African writing.

The book features authors who write in English (19 stories), with translations of those who write in French (13), Portuguese (five), Arabic (two) and Afrikaans (one) and is arranged in five regional sections - the north, the west, the east and central, Indian Ocean islands and southern. The author has also taken pains to include representatives of African nations with lesser known literary traditions such as Equatorial Guinea, Cape Verde, Togo, Djibouti, and Comores.

But, as the book’s excellent introduction makes clear, he has also made room for those ‘irregular’ writers who cannot be neatly classified - there is Albert Taieb of Tunisia writing about neo-colonials in Ivory Coast, Sylvie Kande of Senegal in Paris, Nuruddin Farah of Somalia in London, and the Tanzanian writer, M.G.Vassanji, who tells the story of a young Asian lady falling in love with a Ghanaian professor.

It is a wildly eclectic selection - some of the contributing authors are relatively well-known, others less so, indeed probably unknown to the majority of readers. Equally eclectic are the writing styles, with those following conventional techniques juxtaposed with those who challenge the traditional story-telling structure.

Often, the short story is considered the poor relation to the novel. Emmanuel Dongala, whose story ‘The Ceremony’, (never before published in English), is included in this anthology, made a pertinent comment when being interviewed in 1992. “No one should think that writing short stories is easier because they are shorter.”

Ben Okri, another contributor to this anthology with a short story, ‘A Prayer from the Living’, (previously published in the Guardian newspaper in 1993 in response to the famine in the Horn of Africa) seems to echo that belief. When interviewed by Stella Orakwue last year at the innaugral Caine Prize award (a $15,000 award for a short story, novella or narrative poem by an African writer) he told her that he viewed the short story as “...the most rigorous form in all literature apart from the sonnet. It’s much more difficult to write a good short story than to write a novel.”

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