The.Economist.2007-02-10 (966424), страница 18
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The reviewers also worried that “black economic empowerment”, which is meant toredress the injustices of apartheid, has benefited mainly a lucky few, and that politicians have movedinto business with unseemly haste. The reviewers were also worried about the HIV/AIDS epidemic, thepersistence of many inequalities and South Africa's exceptionally high level of violent crime. Moreover,the report said, ordinary people feel disconnected from those they have elected.Before the panel's country report, South Africa had made its own self-assessment. The government saysit was based on an unprecedented array of public consultations and followed the rules. But independentgroups complain that it consistently sacrificed quality for speed.
According to Ross Herbert of the SouthAfrican Institute of International Affairs, who was closely involved, the government was heavy-handed inmanaging the process, removed or downplayed problems (including corruption, crime and weaknesses inthe country's democratic system) after the text was publicly endorsed, and bent the rules by putting aminister in charge of the council that oversaw the self-assessment.
Even more disappointing was theaction plan, perhaps the essence of the exercise. Mr Herbert says it ended up being vague andincomplete, and was revised without consultation just before the AU summit.So will the peer-review mechanism survive in its intended, rigorous form? After more than three years,only three countries have gone all the way through the mill; South Africa seems loth to do so withoutconstraints. If things are to improve, the scope—it is being said—may have to be altered, themethodology clarified and the Johannesburg-based secretariat beefed up.
Ultimately, the mechanism'ssuccess will depend on the countries that sign up to it. In South Africa, it has at least sparked a publicdebate.Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.About sponsorshipCongoKeep the United Nations engagedFeb 8th 2007From The Economist print editionInternational peacekeepers are still sorely neededTHE UN's peacemaking effort in Congo is still being praised in song by one of the country's liveliestcomedians, Mira Mikanza. “When Koko [Grandpa] Souing [Swing] comes into the game/No one willshoot,” sings Mr Mikanza in tribute to the UN's William Swing, who for nearly four years has headed theUN's mission to Congo, better known by its French acronym, MONUC.The song of praise is deserved.
In October MONUC oversaw the more or less orderly run-off of apresidential election, won by the incumbent, Joseph Kabila. But the peace is shaky. The UN's 17,000peacekeepers are struggling to keep Congo calm.But MONUC's continuing existence in such necessarily large numbers is far from guaranteed. It costsabout $3m a day, at a time when the UN's overall budget is under severe strain. The UN's new secretarygeneral, Ban Ki-moon, visited Congo last month and told the country's 60m-odd people that they could“count on us”.The peacekeepers are expected to stay for the time being. But it is less sure that the UN's teams tryingto foster civil institutions and encourage Congo's politicians to respect the new constitution will be kepton. “We're in enormous competition with the other missions,” says Mr Swing, an American.
“It's a hardsell.” MONUC's mandate is up for renewal this month.Plainly, MONUC is still needed. Armed groups operate largely unchecked, especially in Congo's unrulyeast. Last week Mr Kabila's police and soldiers cracked down on opposition protests against the results ofrecent provincial governors' elections, killing at least a hundred people.This has put MONUC in a quandary. It is supposed to protect Congo's civilian population, while helping tobuild up and train the revamped security forces. But the new army is widely viewed as Congo's mainhuman-rights abuser.
MONUC refused to condemn the recent killings outright. Moreover, Mr Kabila iskeen to assert a new sense of sovereignty. He tellingly refused to greet Mr Ban on his arrival in Kinshasa,the capital, but met him instead in the provincial city of Kisangani, in Congo's east, where the presidentis more popular.The UN Security Council is due to vote to extend MONUC's mandate next week. There is a worrying senseof drift. It would be tragic if, after the huge effort the UN has put into mending Congo, it slides back intomisgovernment and violence.Copyright © 2007 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group.
All rights reserved.About sponsorshipThe CaucasusHanging togetherFeb 8th 2007 | BAKUFrom The Economist print editionAFPThe implications of a diplomatic shift in an important oil-rich regionGet article backgroundWHEN God was parcelling out land to the peoples of the earth, the Georgians arrived late. But theirexplanation—that they had been drinking in his honour—so delighted God that, according to a Georgiancreation myth, he granted them the world's choicest spot.
The gods have indeed favoured Georgia thiswinter, bestowing a mild one when a harsh one might have been disastrous. But the Georgians owethanks also to an earthly benefactor: their neighbour Azerbaijan, whose oil-fuelled foreign policy istransforming the volatile but vital Caucasus.Since the revolution of 2003 that swept Mikhail Saakashvili to Georgia's presidency, his yen to join NATOand the European Union has infuriated the Kremlin. Last autumn, the Russians imposed postal andaviation blockades, alongside the existing embargoes on Georgia's water, wine and fruit.
Then, with winterapproaching, they doubled the price for Russian gas—in theory for commercial reasons, but with the realaim of taming Mr Saakashvili.Yet, for all Mr Saakashvili's high-profile rambunctiousness, the most important country in the Caucasus isAzerbaijan. With around 8m people, most of them Shia Muslims, it has the biggest population. It also hasoil and gas, which a consortium led by BP is extracting from the Caspian Sea and pumping through newpipelines across Georgia to Turkey and beyond. All the Caucasian economies are now picking up, aftercollapsing with the Soviet Union—even corrupt Armenia's, dependent though it mostly is on remittances.But the growth created by Azerbaijan's second oil boom (the first was 100 years ago) was the highest inthe world last year: 34.5%, says the finance minister.Azerbaijan's president is Ilham Aliev, who inherited the job from Heidar, his strongman father.
Theyounger Aliev seemed also to have inherited the Caucasian skill of diplomatic balance, eschewingGeorgian-style pyrotechnics. But that careful equilibrium appeared to change in December, when theRussians tried to hike the price of the gas that, despite its own reserves, Azerbaijan was itself stillimporting.
The idea was apparently to stop Azerbaijan helping the Georgians with cheaper supplies.“Commercial blackmail,” said Mr Aliev. Azerbaijan stopped importing Russian gas altogether—and, thanksto the warm weather, gas from Azerbaijan seems set to help Georgia through the winter. ElmarMammadyarov, Azerbaijan's foreign minister, says his country is merely “taking responsibility as aregional leader.” Mr Saakashvili is more exuberant: “a geopolitical coup”, he says of the new gasarrangements. The truth is, Mr Aliev now needs Mr Saakashvili too. Azerbaijan's future, and Mr Aliev'spower, rest on the new pipelines, which have bound their two countries together, and bound both of themto the West.
In a few years they may also carry Kazakh oil from the other side of Caspian, and—perhaps—gas from Turkmenistan. That would undo Russia's grip on the supply of Central Asian gas to Europe, andis as unpopular an idea in Moscow as it is welcome elsewhere.Two things undermine the hope that the fractious Caucasians have finally learned to hang together, totheir own benefit and that of Western energy consumers.One is domestic politics.
Russia's diplomatic power may be waning, but its political model remains popular.Armen Darbinian, a former Armenian prime minister, quips that his and other post-Soviet countries havebecome “one-and-a-half party states”: a party of power, plus others that are basically decorative. InAzerbaijan, opposition activists are regularly harassed and locked up. Like Russia, Georgia, Armenia andAzerbaijan will all hold presidential polls next year.
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