Togo Travesty

The announcement coming when it did, the same weekend the African Cup of Nations champion was crowned, the Confederation of African Football (Caf) was probably hoping it would slide by unnoticed. Instead, they've managed to ensure the tragedy that befell the Togolese national football squad stayed at the top of the news headlines while Egypt fought its way to a 1-0 victory over Ghana to claim the title for the second consecutive time. In case you missed it, Togo has been banned from the next two African Cups, not for cheating or doping as you might expect, but for pulling out of the tournament after three people were killed in a half hour machine gun siege on their bus by rebels moments after as they entered Angola.

Wait, let's rewind. This year's tournament was held in Angola, a nation that has enjoyed less than eight years of peace since the end of a 27 year civil war. Among the 16 teams competing, the tiny west African nation of Togo (12 on the map) in fact boasts a relatively powerful squad. Touting a couple of English Premiership players, Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor and Aston Villa midfielder Moustapha Salifou they were unfortunate both geographically and politically in having drawn to play their group stage games in Cabinda, one of four venues for the tournament. You see, Cabinda is an exclave. Not only is it separated from the rest of Angola by a strip of the DR Congo and does it share it's northern border with the other Congo, but it's also home to the last pocket of unrest leftover from the civil war. Despite the signing of a peace deal in 2006, the nationalist movement Flec (Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda) has continued a low-level insurgency as it tries to claim independence from the Angolan government.

Ahh, seems I need to back up some more. Angola was plunged into 27 years of civil war from the moment it won it's freedom from Portugal in the Angolan War of Independence, itself a 14 year struggle which was only brought to an end with the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon. While all civil wars are complex, a reading of Rysard Kapuscinski's Another Day of Life would be an essential starting point in deciphering the complex web of armed faction acronyms, from the MPLA to UNITA, and supporting nations from Cuba to Zaire. It was a conflict which saw Chevron prop up a socialist regime and Cuban soldiers protecting American oil installations against CIA sponsored South African mercenaries. Fortunately for our purposes, focusing on Cabinda, only two factors need to be remembered, Flec and oil. Angola is sub-Saharan Africa's 2nd leading oil producer, with the Cabinda region producing about 60% of its total output. In fact, while diamonds furnished most of the revenue for the rebel UNITA during the civil war, it was Cabinda oil that kept the government MPLA going. Diamonds versus oil, and in the end, oil emerged victorious.

Yet Cabinda has always been more than physically separate from the rest of Angola. Even though it too had been a Portuguese protectorate since the Treaty of Simulanbuco, of 1 February 1885 (Portuguese only), the area has a distinctive culture, ethnicity and history and thus Angola and Cabinda were kept as officially separate overseas provinces. Locals were never Portuguese citizens, being labeled indigenas and forced to pay a head tax or work for the state six months of each year (p.103 gives a more thorough account). The rebel group, Flec, was not immune to the fracturing into splinter groups so common during civil war, with the result that when a peace deal was finally signed in 2006, most of the soldiers didn't feel it applied to them. While the Angolan government marketed a lasting peace, future trouble was inevitable in a corrupt environment that breeds fierce competition for the spoils of natural resources (pp.30-36 for more).

So, that brings us to the fateful day for the Togolese national team. The question is how could the team be sanctioned with suspension from the next two editions of the tournament in 2012 and 2014 and slapped with a $50,000 fine when it clearly was the fault of the organizers for having scheduled the matches in such a volatile region where warnings of possible attacks had been issued? Caf's executive committee's case seems to be based on three points. First, the Togolese team shouldn't have driven but flown; second, the team withdrew shortly before the tournament; thirdly, and most importantly it seems, there was 'political interference' in the decision to pull the team out of the tournament. The first claim rests on the organizers assertion that teams were told to fly in the regulations posted on the web site; the second on Article 78 of Caf's regulations which specifies such a punishment for teams withdrawing shortly before the competition; the third on strict policy intended to separate politics from sport. Absurd, all three.

Prior to the tournament, the team had been practicing in the Congo, in Pointe Noire. A quick look at the accompanying map (zoom in top left) will show that without strict warnings about the lack of safety, which you wouldn't expect when a major tournament is being played in the area, flying over the southern tip of the Congo, Cabinda, a bit of DR Congo (labeled Zaire on the old map) and then much of Angola to Luanda to turn around and fly back to Cabinda would seem ludicrous. As for the regulations stipulating the necessity to fly, the nearest I could find is 16.15. Satisfactory transportation means should be put at the disposal of the visiting team, the referees and the commissioner, either by road or by air if the distance is superior to 200 Km. The travel should be made on the day before the match at the latest and at a reasonable hour of the day, except if visiting team arrive late. Pointe Noire to Cabinda is much less than 200 km, besides, I don't think there was a plane waiting for the team anywhere, thus the bus ride. Additionally, it's clear that someone on the Angolan side knew they were planning on going by bus as the team was accompanied by an Angolan security force. Thanks to Google maps you can try to follow their route.

Next, while article 78 does specify punishment for "forfeit notified less than twenty days before the start or during the final competition", a quick look down the page to Articles 80 and 89 reveal that "Reserves are made as to cases of force majeure and shall be decided by the Organising Committee" - three dead and a backup goalkeeper with a bullet lodged in his spine as a result of a terrorist attack sounds like it would fit the bill. Additionally, just days before the decision to impose the penalties, Caf president Issa Hayatou was quoted as saying, "We wished they would have stayed but respect their decision to leave." Shortly after the attacks he was quoted further saying, "It is left to you to decide to stay in a competition synonymous of fraternity, brotherhood, friendship and solidarity. And in case you decide to leave the competition, we will definitely understand your decision and it will be accepted."

Point three is admittedly the stickiest. Amid the aftermath, the team wavered back and forth between going home and playing, finally holding a team vote and surprising everyone with the decision to stay. At this point however, Togo's Prime Minister Gilbert Houngbo overruled the team's decision and ordered them home, denouncing the security in Angola and sending the presidential plane to collect the squad. Technically, politics have entered the sporting realm at this point. Yet, wasn't the choice of Angola as host nation politically motivated, seen as an opportunity to develop its facilities, tourism and infrastructure - over $1 billion was spent, $600 million alone for the four new Chinese built stadiums. The decision to have Cabinda serve as a venue was even more transparently politically charged in a brazen effort to prove to the outside world that peace and stability had been achieved in the region and therefore ready for foreign investment.

The organizers miscalculation also affects politics beyond Angola's borders. The leader of the Flec movement that claimed responsibility for the attacks, Rodrigues Mingas, lives in exile in France. Tensions have arisen as the Angolan government has criticized France for not taking appropriate measures to have him extradited. Don't forget, the tournament is officially known as the Orange Africa Cup of Nations, Orange of course being a French telecommunications company. Back in Cabinda, the government is using the attack to justify a crackdown on political opponents, rounding up priests, professors and lawyers. Needless to say, the authorities don't have a very good track record of treating their detainees well. Meanwhile in Togo, presidential elections are due to be held later this month and I've got a feeling this tragedy will be an issue. It seems that politics have a way of getting involved in situations like this no matter how hard you try to avoid it.

Any other year and the whole tournament would most likely have been canceled, however, it comes in the same year that Africa will host it's first World Cup, when South Africa takes center stage for the world's most popular sport (No matter what you hear over the next few days, far more people will watch the World Cup than the Super Bowl). Somewhat ironically, 2010 also marks the African Union's Year of Peace and Security. This tournament was to serve as further proof that the continent was ready for the challenge, but it has only given ammunition to those who have questioned the decision to hold the world's biggest sporting event in 'the dark continent'; never mind that Cabinda is further from Johannesburg that London is from Moscow.

This latest in a string of bizarre decisions from football's governing authorities came down from leadership represented by Issa Hayatou, a man who symbolizes many of the reasons Africa has seen so little progress. Hayatou has been dictator president of Caf for over twenty years and it is no coincidence that the leader of his home nation of Cameroon, Paul Biya, has also been president since 1982 - José Eduardo dos Santos has been Angola's president since 1979! These type of men have been great innovators in the world of phony elections, ensuring that the cycle of corruption (you'll find Angola at 162 of 180 countries on the corruption index) and poverty will continue while they live like kings. Sport, much like oil, is a natural magnet for corruption as displayed in Angola where at least a third of oil revenue is siphoned off into the pockets of the politically connected while the people are left to suffer. At its best, football serves to bring the people of the world together, at it's worst, it serves to further the political aims of the entrenched elite.

How to lose friends and influence

"Reputation, reputation, reputation! O I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial."

- Shakespeare, Othello, Act 2 Sc. III

The Harvard University professor Joseph S. Nye Jr. first coined the term "soft power" back in 1990 to describe the ability of a political body, such as a state, to indirectly influence the behavior or interests of other political bodies through cultural or ideological means. It's now identified as the third form of power that nations can wield, with the other two being "hard power", military might, along with economic strength. Power is the ability to influence the behavior of others to get the outcomes one wants; you can coerce others by threatening them with a stick, you can induce them with payments, or you can simply attract or co-opt them. The year 1990 could be seen as a high water mark for the USA for all three forms of power: the symbolic defeat of communism with the fall of the Berlin Wall the previous year, the US and its allies were about to unleash the 'Desert Storm' invasion of Iraq and the poor deprived citizens of Moscow were finally able to order their first Big Mac. American hegemony was sealed, the new world order of American led globalization would usher in a new era of peace and prosperity. However, Russian bombers may soon be stationed in Cuba as naval battle groups are sent to Venezuela to perform joint exercises, while Chinese investors are exchanging ideas with Brazilian ethanol producers and Iran can sit tight in the knowledge that the security council will block any meaningful resolution against it at the UN. So, what's happened here?

While the US military hasn't been overwhelming in its performance in Iraq or Afghanistan, you can't deny that it is still the unquestionable hard power force in the world. The trouble is that the group of people who have come into power over the last 20 years or so have seen American military preeminence as a passport to do what they want. This view, that Charles Krauthammer has called “the new unilateralism" holds that the United States is so powerful that we can do as we wish and others have no choice but to follow. They have used that view as a way of applying American military power to all sorts of problems. As for soft power, well the current administration has finally come around in the past couple of years to admit that it is relevant. As recently as 2004, then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld professed to not even understand the term soft power, claiming popularity was too ephemeral to be measured. When the actions of the current administration are combined with the popularly held view that they didn't even enter power democratically, the effects are easy to see in a growing tide of anti-Americanism. Oh oh, I'm feeling quite ranty, this could be a long post, bear with me.

That we have come to a point where outright purchases of private sector companies is not only proposed but accepted by many who claim to be defenders of free markets bodes ill for the future of American society - Ron Paul
The most important source of US power for the past century has been its financial weight. Now that the market roller coaster of the past week has resulted in what is essentially the nationalization of the financial industry, that era has officially ended. Time magazine went so far as the refer the the US as the United States of France. Although history may look back at these events as the turning point, the loss in economic power has been a long time coming. On October 26, 2000 you could buy a Euro with 82.52 US cents. While it has bounced off its low, the markets told the US about its confidence in the economy Monday as the Euro rose to US$1.4824 in afternoon trading, up from the $1.4470 on Friday. Meanwhile oil was up over $25 at one point, but settled for a $16.37 gain to end at US$120.92 and gold shot up $44.30 to settle at US$909 an ounce. In that fateful year of 1990, the US also moved from a negative to a positive current account balance as it managed to record its last positive figure in 1991, just shy of $3 billion. This essentially means that the US has been buying more goods (and services) from abroad than it is selling, with the flow of foreign funds into the US financing the difference. In other words, foreigners are purchasing such things as US Treasuries, shares in companies, and even firms or property. The deficit is precisely the amount foreigners must acquire in US denominated assets to keep the dollar from falling. Up to now, foreigners have been willing to finance the shortfall because of their belief in the American way. The past week not only has investment banking died, the American way could die with the proposed banking bailout package, result, goodbye dollar as the world's currency.

The typical knee-jerk reaction to the above problem has been to point the finger at China. Their currency is undervalued, or they aren't importing enough American products. However it's China that is winning the power war where it really matter as coincidentally they have the world's largest current account surplus, $370 billion. Hard power, they've definitely got that. Soft power we can start with the Olympics, where, although the shine was tainted a bit by the Tibet protests, still was an overwhelming success in the world's opinion. Beijing aggressively courts the governments of countries with diplomacy, trade deals, debt forgiveness, and aid packages. China's no questions asked policy is diametrically opposed to that of the US and the EU and has resulted in a spreading Chinese influence globally. Right now, your kids wear Chinese clothes and play with Chinese toys. It is not at all inconceivable that their kids will listen to Chinese pop and prefer Chinese movies. The inhabitants of southeast Asia are already doing so. At least there's always the lingua franca of English to fall back on, right? Wrong, the Chinese are working hard to change that in their favour too. In 2005, China's education ministry announced a new initiative to boost Chinese-language teaching in American universities and language institutes around the world. Beijing University, China's most prestigious, announced a visiting-scholars fund to encourage foreign PhDs to study in China. More than 110,000 overseas students from 178 countries studied in China in 2004. This figure marked a ten-year high, and an increase of over 40 percent from 2003. "There's a belief that to get ahead, it would behoove you to go to China, in the same way that ten years ago people said the same about the United States.

While the US has focused on using its military to secure influence, particularly in respect to oil, China has signed oil and gas exploration contracts around the world; with Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela and Cuba in the Americas; in the Central Asian states such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and China's oil exploration interests extend to Burma, Vietnam, and Malaysia in southeast Asia; imports of crude oil also constitutes the bulk of China's imports from African states. The Chinese approach to foreign relations is officially termed "noninterference in domestic affairs." Unlike the hypocritical policies of the US, China doesn't mix business with politics and argue that such attempts by foreign nations to discuss democracy and human rights violate the rights of a sovereign country. While the US disregards international law in places like Iraq or Guantanamo while trying to twist other nations into following their vision of the world, China has its Tibet but doesn't force its ideals on others. As a result, examples of the growth in Chinese influence are not hard to find, even outside their traditional sphere of influence:

South America:
In Argentina, following their disastrous effects “neo-liberal” economic policies backed by Washington and the International Monetary Fund, “You cannot understand the miraculous Argentine recovery after the financial crisis of December 2001 without considering the boom in soy exports to China”. In Bolivia, China will invest $1.5 billion in the onshore oil and gas sector as well as showing interest in developing its largest tin mine, Huanuni. In Chile, China will set up a joint venture with the state copper company, Codelco. Meanwhile, a Chinese-led consortium bought oil and pipeline assets for $1.4 billion in Ecuador. The story is even bigger in Brazil and Venezuela. Farmers have been rushing to plant soy on the fringes of the Amazon rainforest in an attempt to satisfy China's voracious appetite. As for the ethanol politics in Brazil, maybe you can learn more here. It has also imported millions of tons of oil and iron ore from Brazil and has signed a deal to help construct a major natural gas pipeline. Finally in Chile, 2006 saw the Bachelet government sign a free trade deal with China in an effort to boost sales of copper, fruit, and fish oil. The Chilean president boasted of figures showing a $1.4 billion increase in trade between the two nations last year. “When Chile considers how to continue its development, Chile thinks big,” Bachelet remarked. “And to think big means to think China.”

Africa:
In Africa, where the game was once ideological, it has become purely financial. Che Guevara no longer stalks the Angolan countryside. Where once the government of China would build a 1,100-mile-long railway across Tanzania to support a communist brother, today it's all about profit. The continent sits on 90% of the world’s cobalt, 90% of its platinum, 50% of its gold, 98% of its chromium, 64% of its manganese and one-third of its uranium. It is rich in diamonds, has more oil reserves than North America, and has been estimated to hold 40% of the world’s potential hydroelectric power. Africa is now supplying a third of the oil fuelling China’s economic boom. Angola has overtaken Saudi Arabia as China’s largest supplier of oil. Trade hit $55 billion last year, up 40% from the year before. It is expected to top $100 billion in 2010. China has overtaken Britain as Africa’s third-largest business partner and is fast catching up with France. In Angola, which exported roughly 465,000 barrels of oil per day to China in the first six months of 2007, Beijing secured a major stake in future oil production in 2004 with a $2 billion package of loans and aid that includes funds for Chinese companies to build railroads, schools, roads, hospitals, bridges, and offices; lay a fiber-optic network; and train Angolan telecommunications workers. Sudan, with its vast oil reserves, is the number one recipient of Chinese investment, and sells some two-thirds of its oil to Beijing, while receiving arms in return. Whether rebuilding the infrastructure in Addis Ababa, or building a railway line linking Khartoum to the Red Sea, the common theme across the continent seems to be that China offers "no-strings" aid, a marked contrast to Western donors who impose conditions on aid and tie trade sweeteners to human rights issues. Robert Mugabe said, “We have turned east, where the sun rises, and given our backs to the West, where the sun sets." OK, it's Mugabe, but even a respected leader like President Festus Mogae of Botswana, who may run the best-managed country in Africa said, "China treats us as equals, while the West treats us as former subjects,” he has said. “That is the reality. I prefer the attitude of China to that of the West.”

Of course China also continues to sell arms to Sudan, among other African countries. In the period from 2003 to 2006, China's arms sales to Africa made up 15.4 percent ($500 million) of all conventional arms transfers to the continent. Notable weapons sales include those to Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Burundi, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Beijing has also sent Chinese military trainers to help their African counterparts. Arms sales and military relationships help China gain important African allies in the United Nations, including Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Nigeria, for its political goals, including preventing Taiwanese independence and diverting attention from its own human rights record. The Congressional Research Service reports that China views these sales as a means of "enhancing its status as an international political power, and increasing its ability to obtain access to significant natural resources, especially oil" (PDF). Africa registered 5.8 percent economic growth in 2007, its highest level ever, in part because of Chinese investment. Experts say the roads, bridges, and dams built by Chinese firms are low cost, good quality, and completed in a fraction of the time such projects usually take in Africa. China also contributes peacekeepers to UN missions across Africa, including Liberia and Darfur. It has cancelled $10 billion in bilateral debt from African countries, sends doctors to treat Africans across the continent, and hosts thousands of African workers and students in Chinese universities and training centers.

Iran:
Again, here the Chinese are winning the game based on what were once American rules. While the US threatens with the stick and carrot, China has won the game of influence. Where the US supported the Shah and paid the price, China doesn't meddle, it does business. Back in 2004 Sinopec group signed a $70 billion deal for Iranian oil and gas over the next 20 years. Annual bilateral trade has reached $20 billion. In September Chinese President Hu Jintao met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a man the US refuses to talk to. Result, the blocking of American resolutions to punish the Iranian government for going forward with their nuclear program. "We mutually complement each other. They have industry and we have energy resources" said Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's former representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency. China has no wish to see democracy flourish in the Middle East and has no problems dealing with the world's only theocracy.

Venezuela:
A category onto itself thanks to Hugo Chavez, his trip to China this week is what got me thinking about this post. While the US loathe him, they need him, well, his oil at least, as Venezuela is the 4th largest exporter of oil and 3rd largest exporter of gas products to their market, gobbling up about half of Venezuela's total exports...for now. After first stopping in America's other favourite nation, Cuba, Chavez arrived in Beijing while most world leaders were converging on New York, about which Chavez commented, "It's much more important to be in Beijing than in New York." It's too bad really, as you may recall his 2006 tirade against the US at the UN meeting in which he referred to Dubya as the devil. He hit the ground running in Beijing, announcing plans to build refineries and a fleet of oil tankers as part of a plan to double oil exports to China by 2010. On November 1st China will launch Venezuela's first satellite and according to Chavez will also be selling them a couple dozen fighter planes. Of course this follows Chavez' last trip to China a couple years ago when trade agreements were signed which Chavez referred to as the "Great Wall" against American hegemonism. In return China promised to back Venezuela's bid to join the UN security council (which eventually went to Panama), build houses for 20,000 people as a contribution towards Mr Chávez's policy of reducing homelessness, help build a fibre optic network, modernise a gold mine and develop railways and farm irrigation systems. After Beijing, Chavez plans on visiting Moscow, Belarus, Portugal and France.

So, what's my point? Take my adopted home country of Poland as an example. To a Pole, the US has always been the promised land, where an entrepreneur (a French word by the by) could start with nothing and wind up rich through hard work and business savvy. This vision has given the US a huge supply of soft power, influence. The bailout package now before Congress represents a serious threat to this ideal. The Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac bailouts already brought a nationalized housing market, AIG insurance, the last thing the beacon of free markets needs now is a socialized banking system. Capitalism will always have winners and losers. Just as war results in casualties (another problem the west can't seem to face), business involves bankruptcies. Instead of subsidizing corporations, the US needs to refocus its efforts on regaining its former position in the eyes of the world; China and to a lesser extent Russia are making huge inroads around the world. Even the head of the Pentagon, the hard power centre of the US, Secretary of Defence Robert Gates has argued for more funding for soft power activities. A trillion dollars can buy a lot of friends, why use it to reward failure and increase the power of the central banking system? Thomas Jefferson wrote: "The Central Bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution...if the American people allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."