AFRICA AND THE NEXT THREE YEARS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00153R000100050004-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 11, 2008
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: March 28, 1983
• Content Type: REPORT

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DATE
TRANSMITTAL SLIP
A/NI0/AF
TRANSMITTAL SLIP DATE
TO:
NIO/E
Herb Meyer
DATE
28 Mar 83
DATE
TRANSMITTAL SLIP 28 Mar 83
TO:
Charlie Waterman
ROOM NO. BUILDING
H s.
REMARKS:
FYI
FROM: Harry Rowen, C/NIC
ROOM NO.
BUILDING
EXTENSION
1~FEB sNOS' 241
REPLACES FORM 36-8
WHICH MAY BE USED.
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January 1983
AFRICA AND THE NEXT THREE YEARS
There appears to be general agreement that the political and economic
outlook for the African continent over the next three to five years is a
gloomy one. But the continued economic deterioration of many parts of the
continent should not be allowed to obscure the present and potential brighter
spots that are still evident in the continent as a whole.
The catalogue of economic decline follows a familiar pattern for the
majority of countries and need not be recounted in detail. The problems fall
roughly into three categories: (1) festering sociological conditions--land
hunger, population growth, adverse weather conditions and absence of
technological skills--for which there can be no immediate cure and which have
long been recognized, (2) exogenous conditions such as depressed commodity
prices on world markets for African products, sharply increased petroleum
costs about which Africans themselves can do nothing, and (3) conditions for
which Africans themselves are primarily at fault and which are, at least to
some extent, remediable in the near term. Mismanagement of resources,
misplaced ideological emphasis, lack of trained manpower, corruption and
unrealistic expectations are endemic to the African scene. The result of this
combination of conditions, many of which have been slowly becoming more
evident since independence, has meant over the past five years a precipitous
decline toward bankruptcy for a critical mass of African countries.
Conditions which until recently have been supportable, or whose true
danger has been masked by the application of financial band-aids, have only
become critical in the past few years with the advent of Western recession and
STAT
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its worldwide effects. Export revenues have fallen dramatically while the
cost of imports have risen, driving some governments to ill-advised ventures
in import substitution (as in the case of Kenya). External funding aid has
been wasted on grandiose schemes of parastatal industrial development while
inadequate incentives to producers has meant that formerly self-supporting
countries have been forced to devote needed resources to food imports. The
growth rate of food production for black Africa as a whole has been a mere 2%
in 1982 and some seventeen countries suffered from low harvests or abnormal
food shortages. Food imports did not keep pace with needs. For the coming
year the growth rate in African economies is forecast by the Economic
Commission for Africa to range between negative and 1.1%.
The catalogue of fundamental ills standing in the way of African
development needs no elaboration. For most countries there is little prospect
of long-term resolution until growth of foreign exchange earnings can relieve
the present debt burden. Temporary assistance through rescheduling and
increased external aid will probably prevent most governments from,reaching a
point of collapse. But until and unless these governments can be brought to a
point of effective management of administration and resources little permanent
advance can be contemplated. In the short term African governments may be
forced to face up to the fact that they do not have the capacity to manage
such problems as customs collection, foreign exchange allocation and
development project review with available trained personnel and outside
experts may have to be made available to oversee these financial activities.
Distasteful though this may be to many governments, harking back as it does to
nineteenth and early twentieth century imperalism, they may find themselves
faced with this as an alternative to withdrawal of international or bilateral
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aid. The growing realization on the part of at least some African leaders
that their survival depends on continued external assistance may prompt more
ready assent to these draconian measures, at least on a temporary basis.
The creditworthiness of many African governments has been undermined in
the international financial community at least as much by political as by
economic factors. Economic discontent has been at the root of much of the
instability of African governments over the past five years but equally
important has been the influence of tribalism, corruption and the pervasive
feeling on the part of leaders that politics is a zero-sum game in which
survival becomes the controlling concern. There is a growing tendency toward
revolution from below--that is the overthrow of civilian governments not by
army officers (who are frequently content with the fruits offered them by the
civilian regimes) but by non-commissioned officers. While the overthrow led
by Doe in Liberia has attracted the greatest attention recently, it must be
remembered that some of the first African military coups were perpetrated by
seargents--Amin in Uganda, Eyadema in Togo, Bokassa in the Central African
Republic, Traore in Mali and Mobutu in Zaire--and their example could lead to
others, possibly in Sierra Leone or elsewhere in West Africa.
The fact that overturns of civilian regimes may come from the actions of
"other ranks" in the military will have a profound effect both on the style of
leadership in African countries and on the character of the regimes which
result. The first generation of George Washingtons in Africa was in hindsight
made up of a group of superior individuals possessing in many cases a
relatively high degree of education and political sophistication as well as a
generous endowment of personal charisma. They came up through the nationalist
ranks emergi.ng at the top by a process of elimination of other contenders.
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They fought for a single, easily understood popular cause which obscured the
continuing influence of tribal politics at least for a short period after
independence. These leaders also had a singular advantage in that, once in
power, they were faced with the relatively simple economic problems of post-
colonial administrations and controlled well stocked reserves built up in
London or Paris by the former administration. They had the luxury of being
able to pursue ideological goals that were frequently incompatible with the
colonial economies they ruled and the financial capability to waste
accumulated funds on development projects far beyond the abilities of the
civil service to manage.
The next generation of leaders, with which we are now living, possess few
of these advantages and are faced with enormously more complex problems,
political and economic, than were their predecessors. In most cases their
education level is far lower, they lack political experience and have no
single overriding cause to unite disparate ethnic and economic factions behind
them. They frequently have a profound distrust of the Western educated young
technocrats in the civil service whose advice they cannot understand and whose
technical skills are seen as a threat rather than as a support to their
leadership. This group of technically trained civil servants, who are often
coequal in age with the young leaders who have seized power, are in many cases
only too well aware of the serious economic and administrative straits of
their countries, having struggled in vain to make their counsels heard at the
top. Too many have resigned themselves to protecting their personal interests
by silence and by sharing in the corruption they see around them.
Continued economic disaster and managerial incompetence points up the
direction that many African governments will probably go over the coming
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years. The political prospect for m4ln of the continent is that of slowly
crumbling regimes, plagued by instability and with the constant prospect of
overthrow, only to be replaced by a different cast 'of characters, themselves
no more able to cope with the fundamental economic and social problems with
which they are confronted. Governments may be toppled by internally fomented
coups brought about by failure to live up to the expectations of their peoples
or in Muslim areas by religious fundamentalists struggling against the modern
world of technology. The most likely candidates to lead these coups will be
low ranking noncommissioned military, often inspired by tribal or personal
interests. For the most part they will lack either the educational or
experience qualifications to lead a government so that much will depend on
their being persuaded to listen to advice, both from the educated civil
servants and from abroad. Not that they are incapable of learning (as Doe in
Liberia has illustrated) but the level of their point of departure is
frequently so low that the process may take longer than they are likely to be
in office.
For many countries a succession of coups may be expected. Unfortunately,
they become less and less relevant to the precarious situation of the economy.
One need only look at the examples of Ghana and Upper Volta (where a recent
coup, one of many, received virtually no attention in the U.S. press). There
are, of course, exceptions to this somber scenario. Nigeria with its oil
wealth gives indication that a renewal of a civilian-elected government will
be accomplished this year (though not without turmoil). Indeed, if petroleum
demand picks up and the government becomes better able to manage its finances,
Nigeria may prosper. Ivory Coast, despite its current financial difficulties,
has the infrastructure--albeit heavily dependent on French technical
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expertise--upon which real progress can still be built depending on the size
and conservative exploitation of its oil resources. In Cameroon the recent
easy leadership transition and moderate economic development policy gives
evidence of continued stability. Similarly, even in the face of economic and
political dislocation, Kenya and Zimbabwe show some reasonable prospect of
progress.
The present political and economic turmoils of many African countries
may, however, in the longer term produce a brighter side than that we now
see. Firstly, whatever their internal conditions, African countries will
still possess resources in minerals and other commodities that the outside
world will need increasingly and for which in many cases no alternative
sources or replacements have yet been found. Secondly, the economic strains
and the threat of bankruptcy that African governments now face is producing a
greater sense of realism on the part of leaders concerning what can be
accomplished in development with outside aid. There is a growing acceptance
of the limits of the scale of development projects and of the finite
boundaries of external aid. There will always be those who seek millennial
solutions that produce nothing but disorder and anarchy as the religious
fundamentalists have demonstrated elsewhere in the world. But for every one
of these there is a Diouf in Senegal and a Mugabe in Zimbabwe who seek
progress in limited but more certain avenues. This new realism may well act
as a protection of Western investment in Africa. A leader who is fully aware
that his country's mines must produce if he is to survive, is less likely to
disrupt their operation than one who seeks to nationalize foreign interests
for the sake of an ill-defined nationalist ideology. It is unlikely, to take
a small example, that an overturn of government in Freetown will impede
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production of rutile in a mine two hundred miles south, if the new leaders are
aware that this represents a major source of the income that keeps them in
power and that without expatriate supervision and foreign capital, the income
would dry up.
A new spirit of realism, however tentative, is not confined to
Africans. External lenders are more aware of the limitations of African
governments to absorb aid and to carry out the projects for which aid is
given. The sometimes optimistic expectations of IMF agreements have been
dashed too often. African governments are becoming more aware that they must
accept stringent economic discipline if they are to share in the declining-pot
of Western aid, both public and private. Inevitably, the contraction of
available external resources will create foci of assistance to fewer
countries. Those who are able to comply with IMF or other external
restrictions on their economic activity will be those to which available aid
will be more likely to go. The new limitations will hopefully encourage the
emergence of regional rather than national concentrations of aid resulting in
more rational utilization of manufacturing capacities.
Steps toward a fundamental restructuring of public donor aid to avoid
duplication of projects and overload of the administrative circuits of
receivers would have beneficial effects, but these cannot be applied to all
countries at once. If a model can be worked out for one judged most capable
of carrying out a redirected aid package, and it is successful in application,
the example would not only serve to promote political stability in the
recipient but could encourage others to enter into similar arrangements.
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Foreign Policies in Africa
Despite the very substantial percentage of national income devoted to
defense by African countries, it is unlikely that in the coming three to five
years there will be serious armed incursions by black African countries
against their neighbors. With very few exceptions, such as Nigeria and South
Africa, African armed forces are designed for the protection of domestic
political leadership and for suppression of internal dissent rather than for
organized aggression against a neighbor. Virtually no African country except
Ethiopia and Libya can afford financially to mount a military campaign against
a neighbor. Moreover, black African armies suffer from such logistical
shortcomings that they would have great difficulty transporting and supporting
a sizeable force even as far as their own borders. The Chad Peacekeeping
force of last year could only be gotten in place with sizeable monetary and
transport assistance from the West.
There will continue to be isolated episodes of low-level hostilities
across borders. Ethiopians and Somalis have been skirmishing in the Ogaden
over a period of centuries, and it is unlikely that any formal peace agreement
will be forthcoming in the near future. Siad's domestic political position is
too risky to permit him to make more than gestures toward negotiation to
satisfy the West. Cross-border operations are probable in southern Africa by
South African forces seeking to suppress any possible aid to the ANC, but the
armed forces of the black states are too weak to take any retaliatory
action. With the possible exception of the Nigeria-Cameroon border where
hostilities over oil rights flare up from time and the continued possibility
of incursions into Zaire's Shaba province by dissidents from Angola, there
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appears to be little chance that fighting of a significant nature could break
Internal tensions which now exist and which might arise elsewhere under
unforeseen circumstances provide the Soviets with ample opportunity for
meddling and for obstruction of U.S. interests. Although Africa is fairly low
in the ranking of Soviet priority interests, it can be assumed that Moscow
will take advantage of any situations that could destabilize governments
friendly to the West. Moreover, the Soviets would be most reluctant to lose
any of the leverage they now possess in the three pro-Soviet countries--
Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia--and will apply pressure particularly to the
Angolan regime not to permit departure of Cuban forces. Elsewhere in Africa
Soviet influence is either marking time or declining somewhat. Those leaders
who are feeling the most severe economic pressures fully realize that there is
little hope of direct Soviet aid except in the form of arms. Although such
help may be attractive, it does nothing to relieve the requirements of
international and private lenders to restructure faltering economies. Libyan
financial assistance still remains a drawing card, but it has so many strings
attached and has so often consisted of unrealized promises that African
governments have become wary of it except in cases of critical necessity.
Moreover, from the Soviet viewpoint Qadhafi is not always to be relied upon to
reflect Soviet interests because he puts his own peculiarly Muslim and
personal goals first. For the most part, African regimes are more likely to
be threatened by their own mismanagement and by popular discontent at home
than they are by Soviet machinations over the next three years.
For their own particular purposes, the Iranians have begun to express a
growing interest in West Africa and to a lesser extent in Tanzania. Their
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chief concern is to export their particular brand of revolution to those
countries with substantial Muslim populations, but a secondary objective is
undoubtedly to spike American interests wherever they can. Apart from an
appeal to religious fundamentalism, Iran is able to exert strong influence by
offers of oil supplies to the cash-strapped countries of West and East
Africa. It cannot be assumed that Iranian and Soviet interests are
necessarily parallel but any Iranian success in destabilizing moderate West
African regimes can only serve Soviet ends in the long term.
The U.S. and Southern Africa
Over the coming five years, U.S. interests are more likely to be
concentrated on southern Africa than elsewhere on the continent. The recent
history of U.S.-South African relations need not be recounted. Suffice it to
say that there would appear to be little argument that the policy adopted
under the present administration of constructive engagement is the most viable
option open to the U.S. today. Halting steps toward settlement of the
Namibian question have been taken and we are closer to a peaceful outcome than
at any time in the past, although a wide gap and many hurdles remain before
the problem is finally laid to rest. Recent reports of efforts by the South
African and Angolan governments to negotiate at least a temporary cease-fire
in southern Angola are encouraging but still leave unanswered the future role
of Savimbi and UNITA.
In a very real sense, however, the Namibian issue may well become
secondary in the overall picture of South African foreign policy. Relations
with South Africa's other black neighbors are increasingly moving to the front
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of the stage and could affect U.S.-South African relations more profoundly
than a continuing Namibian stalemate. After the rejection in 1980 of South
Africa's efforts to form a "constellation of states" surrounding it to the
north, South African regional policy has become distinctly more aggressive.
Its immediate goals appear to be not only to prevent active support for ANC or
other guerrilla groups stemming from bases in surrounding countries, but even
to eliminate any political relations between the black governments and the
insurgent groups. Recent incursions into Mozambique and Lesotho by South
African forces and suspicions that they have been involved in raids into
Zimbabwe indicate that the South African government feels it necessary to
engage not only in attacks on known insurgent concentrations but in preemptive
action to repress what the military regards as potential future threats.
The ultimate goals of this new phase of external pressures are at this
point far from clear. The strong support offered to the NRM in Mozambique
would appear on the surface to be aimed at overthrow of the Machel regime
(although South Africa has officially denied any such thought). But it is
difficult to see how this would advance South African interests in that, if
sufficiently pressed, Machel would feel called upon to call in Soviet or Cuban
assistance on a large scale. South Africa has indicated publicly and
privately that this would provoke immediate retaliation but substantially
increased South African casualties would create domestic resistance to the
Botha regime. There is, moreover, no guarantee that pressures strong enough
to topple Machel would result in a regime more sympathetic to South African
aims--indeed, there is at least an even chance that a more hard-line
leadership would emerge backed by outside forces.
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The South African government has shown that it is peculiarly sensitive to
the rhetoric of black leaders to the north. Any attempt to argue that a
greater application of the carrot not the stick is met with the complaint,
"How can we deal with people who keep calling us names?". One element of
South African policy is clearly concerned with enforcing black respect for
South Africa as a nation and as a regional power; if necessary respect will be
created by the exercise of naked power should diplomacy fail. Repeated
insistance, for example, by South Africa that the Mugabe government deal with
it on a basis of equality results in demands for negotiation at the
ministerial level between the two governments. When this is not forthcoming,
economic punishment is administered by holding up trade and transport
agreements. South Africa demands recognition of its status as a regional
power even at the cost of alienating Western sympathies. In this quest for
respect, there is an element of racialism; essentially the Botha regime is
saying that black governments have proved themselves incapable of managing
independent administrations, further proving the basic tenets of apartheid.
The South African need for recognition and respect is part and parcel of
the firmly held conception that Africa as a whole is dying and that South
Africa remains the sole bulwark against the "total onslaught" of the Soviets
in black Africa. The continued economic deterioration and the political
instability from which these countries have suffered is cited as evidence that
black leadership cannot meet "civilized standards." Deep-seated tribal
dissension in Zimbabwe and elsewhere only goes to prove the thesis even more
fully, as South Africa sees it, and reinforces the view that the homeland
structure is the only viable form of state for black Africa. The growing
weakness of African governments leads inevitably in the view of Pretoria to
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new opportunities for the Soviets to create Marxist states. Even though
Moscow clearly does not rate Africa as the most fertile ground for
adventurism, it is difficult, if not impossible, to convince the South
Africans that theirs is the only correct interpretation. The leadership of
the Botha government has repeated publicly and privately that "the red flag
shall never fly over Windhoek" and their actions are ultimately based on this
perception. A call by Machel in Mozambique for added Soviet assistance or
Cuban troops would only serve as demonstration to South Africa of the accuracy
of its prediction; in fact it could be argued that Pretoria would welcome an
increased Cuban presence in Mozambique as a means of convincing the West that
a strong South Africa is a bastion vital to the non-Communist world.
Ironically, an aggressive South African policy toward its neighbors
creates the likelihood of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The greater success
South Africa has in undermining the economic foundation of its neighbors by
denial of transport facilities or other forms of assistance, the more
necessary it may become for the black regimes to seek help from the Soviets
and their surrogates. If South African pressure, exerted directly or through
aid to internal insurgent movements, becomes strong enough to threaten the
already fragile stability of governments in Mozambique, Zimbabwe or Zambia,
the greater is the opportunity for the Soviets to push moderate black
leadership out of office. In pursuing its aim of demonstrating that black
govenments are inherently incapable of managing their own affairs, the South
Africans may be playing the Soviet game so well that the result is exactly
what Pretoria claims to fear most--a group of Marxist states in surrounding
southern Africa with Soviet influence growing correspondingly stronger on
South African borders. This prospect also serves internal South African
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domestic interests by deflecting attention from racial discrimination to an
external threat.
The United States may, however, find itself in the dilemma of having
forcibly to insist on restraint on South Africa's active policy of continued
destabilization. Pretoria is, of course, fully aware of the dangers of
embarassing the United States to the point where constructive engagement comes
to an abrupt end. Given the need for Western support and the psychological
pull toward the U.S. among white South Africans, such an outcome would be far
from South Africa's best interests. Accordingly, we may see a number of small
steps being taken (such as the current reports of a negotiated cease-fire with
Angola and meetings with Mozambican officials) that will encourage the United
States to continue its efforts to bring peace to southern Africa. These moves
will never go so far as to endanger Pretoria's ultimate goal of protecting the
pace of internal South African change, nor will they indicate any fundamental
change in Pretoria's view of the Soviet threat.
The United states has no real choice but to continue the tortuous and
slow-moving negotiation with Botha's government, but the implementation of
constructive engagement may require considerably stronger indications than
have hitherto been given that it must be a reciprocal policy. Public and
private exhortations to restraint may not be enough to limit Pretoria's
ambitions. Active support, even to the point of military assistance, to
Mugabe or other southern African leaders to enable them to resist South
African incursions may ultimately be the only method of impressing on the
South African regime that the benefits of constructive engagement are not to
be taken for granted. They entail limitations in the long-range policy
ambition of recognition as a regional power that Pretoria may find
unacceptable.
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