The Best Uganda*

How China and the US pave different roads to development in East Africa

2012-08-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

China's influence is visible on the streets of Kampala where Chinese contractors are building several high-rises.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just wrapped up a ten-day tour of Africa, in part an effort to counter China’s growing influence on the continent.

She delivered her first speech at a university in Dekar Senegal, emphasizing "the link between democracy and development is the defining element of the American model of partnership" with Africa.

"The U.S. will stand up for democracy," she said. "Even when it might be easier or more profitable to look the other way, to keep the resources flowing. Not every partner makes that choice. But we do and we will."

It’s an interesting question for any developing country: Build high level democratic ideals and institutions or build roads, bridges and buildings. The U.S. and China are taking different paths on this question.

In Uganda, China’s influence dots the landscape. Uganda is about half the size of California, with almost as many people. In the capitol, Kampala, beeping boda-bodas or motorcycle taxis whiz by, carrying daring passengers across often rough roads in the city center.

Two brand new, twin high-rise buildings stand tall as a testament to China's giving. They will house the office of the president, vice president and prime minister. China funded their construction.

"They are everywhere, in everything. It seems the rest of the world hasn’t woken up yet," says businessman
Elly Karuhanga of China's growing interest and influence.

Karuhanga is an oil company executive and has dealt with both Chinese and U.S. officials. He says China is building roads, hospitals and government buildings. Some projects are outright gifts and others are funded by long term loans from China. Sometimes, Chinese contractors do the work.

"The Chinese are bringing what the rest of the world failed to bring to the table," he says. "The rest of the world brings aid for governance. They want multi-party elections. They want terms office fixed. They want this and that about how to organize society along the western style," he says. "The Chinese have nothing to do with that. They don’t talk about politics."

Journalist Joachim Boembo puts it simply:

“The people see China as real. Because it is things you can see," he says. "The West is abstract. Western aid is abstract,"

He said there's another advantage to China's support.

“It doesn’t enter into some bottomless hole in government. It goes into projects." he said "In that sense, money from China represents something tangible, unlike America and World Bank and IMF money which is intangible. And that money ends up being stolen."

Or eaten. That’s how Ugandans describe the way money gets gobbled up by corruption. The money gets eaten, they say.

Chinese officials call their approach a win-win strategy.

Xiaoming Zou is Commercial Counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Kampala. He says as an example, China is offering to loan Uganda $350 million to build a 20-mile highway from the airport in Entebbe to Kampala.

“Uganda benefits a lot," Zou said. "Because that is the first highway Uganda ever had in history."

How does China benefit? He says China gets jobs for engineers and others working on the projects. He points out that building infrastructure in Africa "will lay foundation for further Chinese investment" in the future.

China’s involvement in Uganda’s economy goes from top to bottom. It goes from big ticket projects to small household items at the street market. Chinese products are everywhere in the markets, from plastic shoes to cheap electronics.

Some Ugandans are critical of China’s so-called win-win strategy. Critics like professor of international political economy Yunus Lubega Butanaziba from Nkumba University.

"It is a lose win situation that I see. Not a win win situation. It sounds nice to hear, but it does not take place in the real world," he says. “I do not see a situation in which Uganda gains in relation to Chinese markets or projects of development.”

He says Uganda is not winning enough jobs or trade and is getting flooded with low quality goods — from household items to appliances to building materials. Those cheaply made products undercut local merchants.

All of that may be true. But in the high stakes political and economic game of global influence, China surpassed the U.S. in recent years to become Africa’s largest trading partner. Last month, China announced plans to give a $20 billion credit to African governments for infrastructure projects. That's double the amount China gave three years ago.

KPCC's Shirley Jahad recently returned from a trip to East Africa as part of a grant from the International Center for Journalists funded by the Ford Foundation and the Brooks and Joan Fortune Family Foundation.

Ethiopia's powerful Orthodox Church leader dies suddenly

2012-08-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

The powerful Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Paulos, has died at the age of 77 in an Addis Ababa hospital.

The sudden death of the controversial leader could add to tensions in the influential church that is already divided both at home and abroad.

The church's public relations office said Thursday that the synod and other leaders would meet to arrange the funeral and transitional leadership.

Unlike his predecessor, Abune Paulos was a handpicked Patriarch, chosen by prime minister Meles Zenawi in an apparent bid to defuse opposition by Christians to his rule.

Around half of Ethiopia's 85 million population are orthodox Christians and traditionally, the Orthodox Church plays an important role in Ethiopian political life.

Abune Paulos survived an assassination attempt in the mid 1990s inside the church.

His full title was His Holiness Abune Paulos, Fifth Patriarch and Catholicos of Ethiopia, Ichege of the See of St Tekle Haymanot, Archbishop of Axum.

Some churches mainly from the diaspora community opted out of his leadership as a Patriarch and formed another grouping in exile.

He was jailed by the former military government of Mengistu Hailemariam and lived in exile for years before returning to Ethiopia in 1991 when there was regime change.

Electing a new Patriarch is a drawn out process.

Asia's new delicacy: Africa's lion bones

2012-08-16T12:46:00.000-07:00

Lion bones have become a hot commodity for their use in Asian traditional medicine, driving up exports from South Africa to the East and creating new fears of the survival of the species.

Conservationists are already angry over lion trophy hunting.

The skeletons are mostly shipped to Vietnam and Laos, feeding conservationists' fears that the market will drive up lion poaching -- just as the illegal hunting of rhinos escalates for their horns, also popular in Asian traditional remedies.

"Suddenly, and very recently, there are a great number of people from Laos who have a big interest for trophy hunting. And that had never happened in the whole history of Laos!" said Pieter Kat from conservation NGO LionAid.

Around 500 lions are hunted legally every year in South Africa, most of them from commercial lion breeding farms which also supply zoos all over the world.

Until recently hunters paid $20,000 just for a trophy to hang above the fireplace, and the carcass was thrown to the dogs.

But their crushed bones have become popular as substitute for the bones of tigers in love potions or "tiger wine". Trade in tiger parts is banned under international law as the animal is a threatened species.

Make extra buck

Now Asian hunters buy lion trophy hunting permits to get at the bones.

"They prefer hunting lionesses, whose $4,000 price tag is more affordable than the males," Kat told news agency AFP.

Most swear it's about the trophy, which means safari operators and breeders can easily dispose of the carcass at the same time and make an extra buck.

A lion skeleton these days fetches up to $10,000.

A few hundred partial or complete lion skeletons were shipped out of the country in 2010, according to latest official figures -- all completely legal.

The trade started in 2008.

"That trade is monitored very, very closely by provincial officers," said Pieter Potgieter, chairman of the South African Predator Breeders Association.

"They don't release the bones unless they are sure that they come from a legally hunted lion or that the lion died of natural causes."

But activists cry foul play, saying it is worsening the captive breeding of lions for what has come to be known as "canned" hunting.

"Lions are now being specifically bred in captivity to be 'harvested' for their bones," said Paul Hart, who runs a lion sanctuary in the south west of the country.

Coy on numbers

Animal rights groups also say some cats are killed off on the sly, a theory possibly supported by the nabbing of illegal exporters at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg.

Breeders are also coy about the number of lions they have on their farms. South Africa is thought to have 5,000 in captivity.

But the bones of wild lions -- thought to be more potent -- are worth even more in Asia, which threatens the 3,000 big cats left in the country's reserves, animal rights groups say.

Around 700,000 people signed an online petition asking President Jacob Zuma to suspend lion bone exports from his country.

"It is just a question of time before the poachers find their way in this market and kill the lions. Why should they go and buy an expensive carcass from a breeder if they can poach it and get it for nearly nothing?" said Chris Mercer from the Campaign Against Canned Hunting.

Breeders deny the lion bone trade will spark poaching similar to that of rhinos. Almost 500 were killed last year alone for their horns, whose trade is banned.

"If lion bone is available legally, on the market, why would anyone choose to take all the risks and costs associated with poaching?

"The South African lion breeding industry can supply a lot of demand, and we can make a contribution towards the saving of the Asian tigers and also the South African lions," Potgieter defended.

Groups are divided over the dilemma: maintain a legal and regulated trade in lion carcasses from animals bred in captivity or outlaw the trade and risk a spike in poaching.

Rights group casts doubt over Angola vote credibility

2012-08-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

An international rights group has expressed concerns over the credibility of Angola's upcoming August 31 vote even as the country's main opposition party threatened to demonstrate if it did not receive guarantees that the ballot would be fair.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) Wednesday said that the Angola government had made sure that the vote would not be fair.

Key concerns that could be a threat to peaceful and fair polls were yet to be addressed, HRW Africa director Daniel Bekele said.

"...[These] include the lack of impartiality of the National Election Commission, restrictions on the media, a climate of repression in Angola’s interior provinces, and increasing political violence and intimidation in the capital, Luanda," Mr Bekele said.

In a report titled “SADC: Press Angola, Zimbabwe on Rights as Elections Near”, the watchdog urges Southern African Development Community (SADC) bloc leaders to press both governments to improve human rights conditions ahead of their planned elections.

SADC’s annual heads of state summit is scheduled for August 17 and 18 in Maputo, Mozambique.

"Although Angola’s 2010 constitution guarantees the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and freedom of the media, the government has increasingly limited the exercise of these rights”, HRW added.

Main opposition party Unita has also accused the national electoral commission of padding the voters list.

The commission, which denies this, has postponed a planned meeting with the party until Friday.

"We do not know the reason why the meeting has been postponed but are going to make our position on the electoral process known on Thursday," Voice of America Radio quoted the party’s spokesperson Alcides Sakala as saying.

Unita president Isaias Samakuva and CNE boss Andre da Silva Neto are also scheduled to meet but the date remained unclear.

President Jose Eduardo dos Santos' ruling MPLA is expected to handily win the election. He has been in power since 1979.