March 1999

The shockwave of financial crisis which began in Thailand on 2 July 1997 appears to hang in suspense. But this is an illusion. Globalisation of the world economy has created an interdependence between national economies, and the knock-on effects of crisis are therefore that much greater. The truth is we do not know where the domino effect will strike next.
The shockwave of financial crisis which began in Thailand on 2 July 1997 appears to hang suspended. This, however, is an illusion. It (...)

Some 40 candidates are standing in the presidential election on 15 April. Several are backed by army factions. General Khaled Nezzar is publicly supporting Abdelaziz Bouteflika, while other officers are banking on an open election to provide the future head of state with legitimacy. On 12 February President Liamine Zeroual threatened to take all necessary measures “if attempts to pervert the course of this election continue.” This threat brought an immediate response from General Nezzar. The split in the army is understandable. The generals have won a military victory in the civil war but suffered a political defeat. Public support for the army, weakened by the economic crisis, has been further undermined by the extraordinary violence used to crush the Islamists. It is no coincidence that most of the candidates are advocating dialogue with all parties to the conflict. After more than 60,000 deaths, a political solution may finally be at hand. But if so, the army will have to allow the president to be freely elected and, once elected, allow him to exercise real power.

It was the growth of the self-defence groups that created the conditions for a civil war of unprecedented savagery. The strategy of the military leadership, based on an agreement with the Islamic Liberation Army and the break-up of the armed groups, is beginning to pay off. Violence is now at a “tolerable” level.

At the end of February the former military ruler, General Olusegun Obasanjo, was declared president-elect after winning 63% of the vote in Nigeria’s presidential election. He is due to take office on 29 May. But the election was mired by accusations of vote rigging. Former US President Jimmy Carter, head of a 60-member monitoring group, refused to endorse the election. The general’s only opponent, Chief Falae, claimed that he had been cheated of victory by massive fraud, although his own conduct has not escaped criticism. The tussle between the two men, both Christian Yorubas from the southwest, looks set to create further instability in a country racked by 15 years of military rule.

September 1998 is a time that will be remembered in South Africa. It was then that Pretoria broke with the African policy it had followed since the end of apartheid by taking sides with the self-proclaimed president of Congo, Laurent Kabila, and brutally suppressing an uprising in neighbouring Lesotho.

A few weeks before he was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature, the Portuguese writer José Saramago went to Chiapas with the Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, to meet Subcomandante Marcos and report to the world on the sufferings of the Indians of southern Mexico. He met a proud people who have refused to give up hope. The Zapatistas with their National Liberation are insisting on autonomy - but not secession or separatism. Notwithstanding, the 1996 San Andrés accords failed to materialise into the hoped for law to amend the constitution. Two years ago negotiations were broken off and since then the government has tried to bring the Zapatista forces to their knees with a combination of aid programmes and counter-insurgency measures using armed civilian groups. In the violence that has followed over a hundred have died.

The continuing furore over the capture of Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan in February and the wave of Kurdish unrest it unleashed across Europe has served to heighten the EU’s existing fears of uncontrollable waves of immigrants arriving at its doors. The Fifteen are in the process of creating a cordon sanitaire around their common borders, with the aim of turning Turkey and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe into buffer states who can receive refugees and process their demands for protection. Europe already has a security-based approach to immigration. Now it is seeking to offload its responsibilities onto third-party countries - with poor track records in human rights.

In Germany, the Social Democrats and Communists have been sparring for 80 years. Yet last October the SPD (Social Democrats) and PDS (Democratic Socialists, the ex-communist party) came together in a historic alliance to govern the German land of Mecklenburg-Pomerania.

The presence of numerous heads of state accompanying King Hussein to his final resting place had less to do with homage to a respected ruler than to international anxiety. For Jordan is at the very heart of all the contradictions that rock the Middle East. And the circumstances in which Prince Hassan was dismissed and replaced by Hussein’s son Abdallah give cause for concern.

The new king has inherited a particularly complex situation. The majority of the population is of Palestinian origin, which means that the failures of the peace process would cause justifiable concern in Jordan. What would become of Jordan if the Oslo accords collapse, or if the Israeli right wins the next elections, or even if Yasser Arafat unilaterally proclaims a Palestinian state on 4 May? Relations with the PLO are complicated, as seen by King Abdallah’s dismissal of Arafat’s recent declaration in favour of a joint Palestinian-Jordanian confederation. In Amman no-one has forgotten that for some of the Israeli right, the Palestinian state already exists, it is Jordan, and the Palestinians should, they say, take over.

These uncertainties have been made worse by regional divisions, and the wave of historic transitions it is about to witness as a new generation succeeds to power in Syria, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and perhaps in Iraq. Already since Hussein’s departure, the Emir of Bahrain has died. Most worrying, the political and military axis formed between Turkey and Israel, with King Hussein in the background, has aroused strong opposition in the Arab world, especially in Syria (allied to Iran). President Hafez Al Assad’s arrival in Amman, planned even before the king’s death, confirmed the importance that the regional players attach to the Hashemite kingdom, which - in spite of American support - cannot afford to ignore its powerful neighbours, in particular Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

What choices will King Abdallah be able to make? He has inherited a kingdom which is quite unlike the country his father took over at the start of the 1950s. He must pay attention to an educated public, active political parties and an occasionally impertinent press. He must also move in a changing regional environment, torn between the monarchy’s indispensable alliance with the United States and a public opinion which affirms its Arab identity. Abdallah’s choices will be few, especially since most of the constraints surrounding him have less to do with kingly strategy than the evolution of a region which for over 50 years has remained both coveted and unstable - unstable because coveted. - A.G.

What is the future for suppliers of organic produce now that the big marketing and distribution companies are moving in? Will they survive the shock? As a result of the “mad cow disease” panic, organic farming is enjoying an unprecedented boom. Consumer demand has never been so strong. The major retail stores are filling more and more of their shelves with organic produce. Organic shops and supermarkets - or at least claiming to be organic - are shooting up everywhere. However, now that organic farming is coming into its own and is also receiving subsidies, it has become a juicy market niche ripe for exploitation. Faced with the encroachment of big business, the organic lobby seems uncertain which way to turn.

The assault on the real in January 1999 was the result of a careful sharing out of roles between the IMF and the “investors”, whom it allowed to put the finishing touches to the looting of Brazil’s currency reserves. With public assets to sell off cut-price, foreign capital can now come and shop around. But there is fierce resistance by all sectors of society - which could upset these well-laid plans.

After the capture of Abdullah Öcalan (Apo), handed over to the Turks in Kenya on 15 February 1999 and transferred to Turkey’s Imrali jail, the Kurds feel scorned and complain “the Kurds have no friends”. For most of them, the PKK leader has been the victim not just of a veritable manhunt, but also a Turkish/American/Israeli “plot” to which the Greek and Kenyan governments have been party. That is the reason for their anger and the wave of often violent demonstrations against these countries’ embassies and consulates in Europe, the Middle East and the Caucasus - which could well continue and grow yet more radical. Kendal Nezan looks at the roles played by the various powers in the dramatic capture of Öcalan and warns that the Kurds’ collective despair may well push them to blind violence.