December 1997

Peace has been restored by an almost unknown army and the new Kinshasa regime is trying to put the country back on its feet after thirty years under Mobutu. The economy is still paralysed and the transition hard for an impoverished people, eager for democracy. But, little by little, by trial and error, life is returning to normal.
As soon as they arrived in Kinshasa on 19 May 1997, Laurent-Désiré Kabila’s team began to tackle the most urgent problems before starting to rebuild the country’s (...)

The ruling party’s defeat in the partial legislative elections on 26 October was a clear sign of the voters’ rejection of the Peronist rule of Carlos Menem. The economy is in less good shape than a superficial glance at the figures might suggest. And corruption at the highest level is endemic. As witnessed by the government’s measures to subvert the system of justice to its own ends. The choice for today’s voters is between republican order and mafia-infested chaos.

Yesterday, everyone was singing the praises of Asia’s emerging countries. But after the hurricane which has been sweeping its financial markets, the Southeast Asia bubble has burst with a vengeance. The debacle of the past months now puts into question the development paradigm that has driven emerging third world countries into a precarious modernity.

Southeast Asia: a capitalist’s heaven until disaster struck. The lessons to be learned? None, according to the gurus. What goes up must come down. If Southeast Asia is now doing badly, it is because it was doing too well before. Or so they say...

The UN Commission on Human Rights is facing problems with its investigation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kinshasa has already blocked two previous missions led by Roberto Garreton, the Commission’ special rapporteur, who has written several reports on Africa, and, in particular, a damning report on the atrocities during the Congo-Zaire liberation war. Here, he reports on the obstacles he faced.

The UNSCOM inspectors have finally returned to Baghdad. This was largely due to the efforts of the Russian foreign minister, with the backing of France. It was a rebuff for Washington’s anti-Saddam crusade, usefully conjured up at a moment when its Middle East policy is in disarray in the absence of any move in the “peace process”. But Washington still remains unwilling to consider any compromise that would lift sanctions on Iraq and relieve the suffering of the civilian population. The deadlock remains, and with it the danger of a new flare-up.

The storm that has hit the money markets in Asia and affected the rest of the world is part of a wider danger. That is financial globalisation, which has become a law unto itself with its own powers, embodied by institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD and the World Trade Organisation. Together, they threaten the power base of real states in the real world.

Violence in Egypt, fighting in Kurdistan, risk of conflagration in Iraq and the peace process in deep coma, this is scarcely the new order promised after the Gulf war. American double standards - a continued blockade on Iraq but failure to put pressure on Israel - are causing frustrations which are leading to the search for new alignments. The military alliance between Turkey and Israel is being countered by a common Arab front led by Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Here, our special correspondent examines at first-hand the aims and fears of Israel, Syria and Turkey, and their implications for the region.

One and a half million newborn babies die every year from the wrong kind of feeding. Despite the risks, and an international code designed to stamp out abusive commercial practices, the dried-milk companies continue to use their powers of persuasion to get women to give up breast-feeding and buy their products. Particularly in the third world, where this is frequently an issue of life and death..

Fifty years ago the UN decided to partition Palestine into two states, one Arab, one Jewish. The ensuing Arab-Israeli war ended with Israel expanding its share of the land by a third, while what remained to the Arabs was occupied by Egypt and Jordan. Several thousand Palestinians fled their homes, becoming the refugees at the heart of the conflict. Israel has always denied that they were expelled, either forcibly or as a matter of policy. Israel’s “new historians” have been re-examining that denial and have put an end to a number of myths.

The PKK, after thirteen years of fighting and thousands of lives lost on both sides, declares itself ready for a cease-fire on the basis of a federation with Turkey - a proposal unacceptable to Ankara. Meanwhile, it operates secretly in southern Turkey but openly in its bases in northern Iraq, where it engages with Iraqi Kurdish movements. It also has women soldiers and its own TV station...

The economic boom and astronomic incomes of top businessmen have put philanthropy back on the agenda in the United States. Bill Gates is coming up with $200m from his own pocket and as much again from his Microsoft empire. Ted Turner of CNN has capped this with a pledge of $1 billion to the United Nations. In his own words, “the more good I do, the more the money has come in”. And, indeed, the motives for munificence are various. Giving has become a fine art.

Given up for dead a year ago, the American unions are rediscovering their strength with a string of recent victories. But the material conditions of the poorest of the workers has not improved, despite the sustained growth of the economy. Now, intellectuals are trying to rekindle the relations they had with the unions at the time of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and support them in asking for justice and not just charity.