Africa and Trump’s ‘Banana Republic’
Publish date: 12 January 2021
Issue Number: 904
Diary: IBA Legalbrief Africa
Category: Corruption
As Donald Trump’s chaotic presidency continues to implode, Africa is monitoring developments closely as a new era begins to take shape. In his latest offering, acclaimed cartoonist Zapiro renamed Washington’s Capitol building – the site of last week’s carnage – as the ‘Banana Republic of Trump’. And Legalbrief reports that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said his country is ready to share its experience of a peaceful transition to democracy with the US. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa used the opportunity to call for the US to lift sanctions that Washington imposed in 2002 over rights abuses under former dictator Robert Mugabe. ‘The events (in Washington DC) showed that the US has no moral right to punish another nation under the guise of upholding democracy,’ Mnangagwa tweeted. Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who conceded to President Muhammadu Buhari before Buhari was declared winner of the 2015 presidential election, condemned gaining power at the expense of peace. ‘I have repeatedly said nobody’s political ambition is worth the blood of any citizen, in any part of the world. Absolutely nobody. Again, I reiterate that it is better to lose power at the cost of gaining peace, than to gain power at the price of losing the peace.’
And many other Africans have reflected on the irony of the tumult incited by Trump, who once famously referred to ‘shithole' African countries. ‘It's time for the African Union to send in peacekeepers to protect American citizens,’ a Rwandan Twitter user joked. A report on the TRT World site notes that French-Burkinabe satirist and cartoonist Damien Glez compared Trump to The Gambia's former dictator Yahya Jammeh, who refused to relinquish power after losing 2016's election. ‘We often look like those we snub,’ he said in an editorial in the Jeune Afrique magazine. Fahad Ag Almahmoud, the secretary-general of a Malian armed group, tweeted that his pro-government militia condemned the presence of ‘dozos’ (traditional Sahel hunters) in the Capitol. In Somalia and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa, people followed the events in Washington in horror, disbelief and bewilderment. ‘What was so shocking is the behaviour that was displayed by most of the leadership of the Republican Party in the US,' Adam Ow Hersi told DW in Mogadishu. ‘We could see some of them were enabling, others were indifferent and others were outright inciting the violence in Capitol Hill.’ In the DRC, a country with a history of coups, political turmoil and violence,’ one citizen told DW that ‘this is proof that electoral processes are not only being attacked in Africa.
The head of the US Africa Command (Africom) has become the first top-ranking American military officer to react publicly to the debacle, saying it remains focused ‘on its mission to protect and advance America's security and interests in Africa’. A report on the allAfrica site notes that US Army General Stephen Townsend said the US has withstood much greater and graver challenges in the past. ‘Our Constitution remains our bedrock, and our system of government is strong, resilient and will prevail,’ he said.
In a Mail & Guardian analysis, Tireniolu Onabajo and Idayat Hassan note that the consequences of the chaos will be felt across the world. ‘This is especially true for young African democracies. Trump’s example will be an excuse for African leaders to minimise their own attacks on democracy in their home countries. Moving forward, when altercations break out in Parliament – as they did in Kenya in 2014, when MPs engaged in fist fights over draconian anti-terrorism laws; or in Nigeria in 2018, when thugs barged into the senate while it was in session and stole the ceremonial mace – the response will inevitably be that it happens in America too. The next time an African leader uses his power of incumbency to influence election results or to undermine credible electoral outcomes, the response will be that America does it too. And the next time an African President refuses to accept an electoral defeat, he can and will say he learnt from the 45th “leader of the free world”.’
Trump’s recent ‘peace deal’ sought to establish ‘normal relations’ between Israel and Morocco. In return for Morocco establishing diplomatic relations with Israel, Washington will effectively recognise Rabat’s claim to the disputed territory of Western Sahara. ‘This quid pro quo arrangement has all the hallmarks of Mr Trump’s leadership style: an attempt to gratify his ego, the love for a deal whatever the long-term costs and an indifference to the damage the approach causes,’ the Financial Times noted. In a Sunday Times analysis, Ismail Laguardian notes that Trump has raised the stakes in the conflict with Western Sahara’s Polisario Front, which wants independence from Morocco and the withdrawal of troops along the 2 700km fortified wall that effectively separates the two countries. Backed by Algeria, the Polisario Front has been at the forefront of a guerrilla war against Moroccan troops along the border between the two territories. ‘As we count the days to Trump’s departure from the US presidency, there is a slight fear and trembling about conflict in North Africa. Libya is already in chaos; Morocco appears to have been emboldened in its hold over Western Sahara. Rabat has a terrible human rights record and continues to reject a referendum on independence for Western Sahara. The Polisario Front and Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic will, surely, ramp up their pressure on Morocco. Trump’s legacy, at least in North Africa, will ultimately be no different from that of the chaos sowed by Obama – with naught for the comfort of the people of Western Sahara.
In a further significant development, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi concluded his tour of Africa this weekend. CNN reports that the whistle-stop tour of Nigeria, the DRC, Botswana, Tanzania and the Seychelles continued a three-decade tradition of China's top diplomat making his first international trip each year to Africa. That tradition signals Africa's diplomatic importance to China, with stops in places like the Seychelles, a sparsely populated archipelago, proving no nation is insignificant to Beijing, and serves to embarrass Western countries which typically neglect the continent but often view it as within their natural orbit of influence.
