PETROL PRICE WON’T BE REDUCED!

Ken Ofori Atta, Minister of Finance Designate

By Ekow Mensah

There are very strong indications that the public expectation that petroleum prices would be reduced by the Akufo-Addo administration would not be met at least for now.

Minister designate for Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta says the prices of petroleum products would remain the same.

He is quoted in “The Daily Statesman”, of Thursday, January 12, 2017 as saying that there will be no immediate increase or decrease in the price of petroleum products.

Many Taxi and trotro drivers started jubilating immediately after the victory of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the December 7 polls in expectation of drastic reduction in the prices of petroleum products.

Since 2001, all Governments have come into office promising to reduce the prices of petroleum products but have ended up increasing them.

In the case of former President John Agyekum Kufuor, his government increased the price of petrol by more than 100 per cent in the first year in office.

The Akufo-Addo administration has made many other promises which it insists will be kept.

These include a substantial reduction in utility bills and the reduction of corporate tax from 25 to 20 per cent.

President Akufo Addo

It has also promised to remove import duties on raw materials and machinery for production within the context of the ECOWAS Common External (CET) Protocol.

The special import levy is to be abolished along with 17.5 per cent VAT on imported medicines.

The 17.5 per cent VAT on financial services, and 5 per cent VAT on domestic airline tickets will also be abolished.

In addition to the tax reliefs, the Akufo-Addo government has promised to introduce free Senior Secondary School education, build a dam in every village in the northern regions and establish at least one factory in every district.

The Government promises to give every one of the 275 constituencies US $1million every year for development projects.

The days after the reading of the 2017 budget would be most interesting.

  

Editorial

A SALUTE FOR KUFUOR

President J.A Kufour, has once again broken ranks with some elements of his own political party and declared that former President John Dramani Mahama ought to have a say in which house he is allocated.            

The courage of the former President in standing up to the die hards in his own party is admirable even if we disagree with the handing over of three houses to every departing President.

Our position is that former Presidents like all Ghanaians should buy or build their own houses and not impose that responsibility on the already overburdened tax payer.

In the specific case of former President Mahama, it is important to point out that the house in question is not the official residence of the Vice President.

It is a Cocoa Marketing Board Bungalow which was converted for the use of Vice President K.N. Arkaah.

The official residence of the Vice President is currently under construction on the Switch Back Road.

We are happy that former President Mahama has withdrawn his request to stay in that house.

We salute former President J.A Kufour for daring to be different and speaking his mind all the time.

THE OGONI TRAGEDY REVISITED

Ken Saro Wiwa

By Sanya Osha

Much has changed about Ogoniland twenty years since the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight comrades. With the Niger Delta flush with money and arms, rebels and criminals now have more bargaining power. Some observers claim they have the capacity to cause mayhem on the scale of Boko Haram. The only thing not to have changed is the anger the Ogonis feel towards the Nigerian nation. And that is a ticking time bomb.

A little over twenty years ago, the Ogoni Nine were hanged in Nigeria sparking off outrage, and causing befuddlement and repercussions against the General Sani Abacha regime. Ken Saro-Wiwa, the public face of the Ogoni struggle, became an icon of resistance after he had spent the latter part of his tragically curtailed life as the voice of the voiceless in the Niger Delta.
 

Saro-Wiwa possessed all the romantic and leadership qualities to change the course of Nigerian history and not just the Ogoni cause which was informed by a basically ethnonationalist drive. Saro-Wiwa decided to wage his struggle during a dire epoch in Nigeria’s political history. The June 12 presidential election crisis of 1993 was at its height.
 

Moshood K.O. Abiola had won the elections but was refused his mandate by a selfish cabal headed by the then military ruler of the country, General Ibrahim Babangida. Rather than swear in the winner of the polls, Babangida elected to hand over power to Ernest Shonekan, a former CEO of United African Company (UAC), a multinational corporation with strong colonial antecedents. On the evening Shonekan was delivering his acceptance speech, a huge fly kept buzzing around his head as if it were fecal matter. Shonekan was widely viewed in the West of the country as a betrayer of the broad-based Nigerian democratic cause. He looked weak, ineffectual and spoke in an unvarying and often annoying monotone that appeared to expose a lack of confidence. In just four months, he was duly ousted from power by the gloved fist behind the throne: General Sani Abacha.

Abacha was meant to have retired along with his erstwhile boss Babangida, but it was decided it was better that he remained behind so as to conceal the skeletons and dirty linen of the previous rulers of the country. As they say, never trust anyone with power. Abacha turned out to be probably the worst monster to have ruled the country. Serving the country was the least of his concerns. He merely wanted to gorge himself on the intoxicating spoils of power and nothing else. His public demeanor was inscrutable; taciturn, dour and largely undemonstrative. His eyes remained mostly hidden and his lips barely moved. It was hard to fathom what he was thinking behind those dark sunglasses. But his feudal attitude seemed to disclose one thing: all Nigerians lived at his mercy and he was prepared to wield the big stick to prove the point. And he did often have to prove the point.

Abacha established an elite corps of personal bodyguards headed by the redoubtable Major Mustapha who terrorised and brutalised everyone that crossed him. Distinguished men who were old enough to be his father were reduced to weeping emotional wrecks in short order. Mustapha couldn’t impress himself enough with his inexhaustible capacity for torture. Illustrious professors were reduced to begging for their sanity and lives. A particular infamous crack shot, Sergeant Rogers, grew to prominence in Mustapha’s elite corps. Rogers is notorious for having slain the gallant and sartorially elegant Kudirat Abiola, the wife of the then detained politician, in broad daylight.

Sani Abacha

All radical political figures were either to be co-opted or eliminated by the regime. Foremost amongst those murdered was Alfred Rewane who was dispatched of in his twilight years. A few supposed radicals such as Ebenezer Babatope and Olu Onagoruwa joined the Abacha cabinet as ministers and destroyed all their democratic credentials in one stroke. The real radicals were forced to flee abroad for safety.

Abacha indeed became Nigeria’s worst imaginable nightmare. He behaved like a child capable at any moment of the most infernal tantrum; one that meant the power over life and death. He held on to the levers of power like an infant might have clutched bars of candy and wasn’t prepared to let go until all his perceived enemies were dead and buried. His viciousness and oddity haven’t yet been successfully captured in fiction for the mere reason that he exceeds the bounds of the imagination and thus leaves it sorely inadequate.

Psychological oddity

The only artist capable of depicting and satirising this psychological oddity was Fela Anikulapo-Kuti who was well into decline when Abacha took on the reigns of power. Kuti was already ill and slowly dying. Abacha’s anti-drug czar, General Bamayi, sent his goons to Kuti’s residence to have him arrested and handcuffed. Kuti was then paraded before TV cameras, his grey streaked mane wildly unkempt, looking as gaunt as a skeleton and unusually withdrawn. Insiders of the Kuti empire claim this single act of brutal insensitivity more than anything else hastened his death. He died less than a year later.

Bamayi, the spineless general who had ordered the gross violation of the global icon, grinned with a ridiculous gap-toothed mouth over his supposed victory. Abacha and his henchmen were unabashedly anti-culture and civilisation; they were out to kill, maim and destroy because that was what was required to rule and hold onto power. It was this unbridled lust for power that created one of Africa’s most devastating dictators.

It took a great deal of courage to confront Abacha knowing that it could only mean one thing; certain death. Apart from the radical activists who spoke out against Abacha’s inhumanity, mention ought to be also made of the role played by what was left of the independent press.

The independent press was certainly responsible for the myths that built Abacha into a veritable figure of terror. Abacha wasn’t interested in rarefied notions of public relations; he had no public relations machinery worth mentioning to burnish his image. Indeed, it could be said that he had no understanding of the concept, let alone its utility. Within this obvious gap the independent press stepped in.

Abacha emerged as an autocrat who was reckless and whimsical. The state had been hijacked by an unfeeling despot who was in turn ruled by caprice, veniality and unpredictable rage. He held cabinet meetings with ministers individually and not collectively so as to employ the divide-and-rule tactic to maximum effect. Also, he held most of his meetings at night and matters of state languished unattended to. The country teetered on the brink of absolute administrative collapse while he continued to siphon the contents of the national fiscus at a rate hitherto unknown.

Petroleum, the country’s main source of foreign exchange, was controlled by Abacha and his circle of cronies. At one point, he was responsible for the importation of a brand of oil that smelled highly toxic. Dwellers of congested cities groaned and held their breaths as the reek suffocated everyone. In a country awash with natural gas and oil, long queues emerged at gas stations that lasted for weeks. Motorists took to passing nights at the stations waiting for elusive fuel. An exorbitant black market flourished as a result of the artificially created scarcity. Abacha couldn’t be bothered by the muted complaints of the citizenry. Instead, he took to flying in call-girls without travel documents from Asia. He had also become a Viagra addict on account of his insatiable appetites.

When Abacha died mysteriously in 1998, he was rumored to have been indulging his favorite pastime even though his first wife had provided him with almost a dozen children. Abacha was the most unreal anomaly that could happen to any nation. The only suitable comparison to him is Mobutu Sese Seko of what used to be called Zaire. The two despots rather than manage their countries plundered them relentlessly. Zaire, now called the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is yet to recover from the prolonged plunder orchestrated by the Mobutu regime. Mobutuism survives after the fall and eventual demise of Mobutu; it has become a way of life, a systemic form of nation-wide dissolution that has resulted in warlordism, chronic conflict and violence that are self-replicating. These kinds of violence and disintegration were also evident in parts of Nigeria.

It was within this scenario of sociopolitical malaise that Saro-Wiwa launched his project of ethnic self-determination. Abacha reduced the country to a pariah nation when he hanged Saro-Wiwa and the eight others. Nigeria was immediately suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations. The country lost friends, goodwill and considerable standing among the comity of nations and its people suffered immeasurably as a result of this precipitous fall in status. A state that exhibited such a fragrant disregard for human life, democracy and human decency just couldn’t be taken seriously and the only figures to counter this unenviable reputation were its artists of global stature.

Under the Abacha regime, the country was slowly being suffocated by despair, paranoia and the airless claustrophobia engendered by the ruthless police state. Saro-Wiwa’s severest crime was having the courage to dare this state. His death paradoxically was a fervent burst of life amid the zombie-like existence to which many Nigerians had been reduced. His death was the final wail of indomitability in the face of apparent ceaseless and mindless tyranny; a tyranny that subsequently disgorged its tyrant of value and humanity. Abacha stands for a curse everyone struggles to forget while Saro-Wiwa has been transformed into a hero whose promise all and sundry jostle to realise. The despot’s currency is death which causes his irredeemable disappearance while his victim is eventually resurrected by the same death that ends his earthly sojourn.

Incessant outbreaks of violence

The Ogoni crisis which reached its peak in Nigeria in the 1990s has divided all the major stakeholders in the conflict. In this case, the major stakeholders are the Nigerian state, the multinational petroleum concerns, the Ogoni community (along with other oil-bearing communities in the Niger Delta) and the rest of the Nigerian populace. These merely refer to the broad-level stakeholders but there are undoubtedly other important ramifications within the classificatory parameters just mentioned. For instance, within the Ogoni community there are divisions along the lines of those who are pro-government and those who uphold an opposing stance. These divisions run deep and define the more subtle contours of conflict amongst the Ogoni people.

Due to the fact that the major stakeholders of the conflict are unable to reach a consensus as to problem-solving approaches, there have been incessant outbreaks of violence in the Niger Delta region where Ogoni communities are to be found. In this regard, the major policy problem is what approach may be adopted to halt the seemingly unending tide of violence? The oil wealth produced by communities such as the Ogoni is perhaps the glue that holds the Nigerian federation together. The state understands this and this is why it gives knee-jerk responses to any conflict emerging from the Niger Delta. It needs the wealth to keep the various organs of the state apparatus functioning and to prevent the entire nation from grinding to a halt.

As such, it has not been absolutely clear to itself about how to keep functioning on the resources provided by petroleum with little or no conflict from the communities that produce them. A large part of this lack of clarity stems from a sense of anxiety. The state often hesitates when it confronts the question: Can the Nigerian state survive without the oil wealth produced by the aggrieved petroleum generating communities?

The major source of conflict between the Ogoni people and the oil-producing communities of the Niger Delta generally on the one hand, and the Nigerian state on the other, is the inability to agree upon an acceptable revenue allocation formula between the two major stakeholders. Nigeria is a federation made up of at least two hundred and fifty ethnicities who often feel distanced from the state. The state is not always viewed as an impartial arbiter and defender of the common good as it is historically an extension of the colonial apparatus. The Nigerian state has also been deformed by decades of military rule and at other instances civilian mismanagement.

Oil wealth, as a result, has been mismanaged and looted by government functionaries and their collaborators in various sectors of society. Of course, the Nigerian state even when admitting to its deplorable history is unwilling to yield to the demands of the oil-producing communities and so the cycle of violence continues. It is not enough to label the youth of the Niger Delta as outright criminals even though there is widespread criminality occurring in the area.

It is important to admit that there has been a dire mismanagement of oil wealth by representatives of the Nigerian state who often work in collision with multinational actors. It is also important to note that ethnicity rather than being mobilised as a rich source of diversity has been deployed by myopic powerbrokers as a chancre of divisiveness. As noted one of the major sources of conflict is the lack of a mutually acceptable revenue allocation formula. This factor generates other problems such as failure to deliver basic amenities of life to the oil-producing communities in view of the stupendous oil wealth they generate.

The areas suffer from overcrowding, poor roads and transportation networks, inadequate medical facilities and educational institutions among other drawbacks. All these further fuel the grievances of the people in those communities. Criminally-minded people in turn exploit these grievances with acts of lawlessness that are conducted on the pretense that they are lashing out against decades of impunity on the part of the Nigerian state. They claim that the state is incompetent, partial and corrupt and has consequently lost the moral high ground by which to act in accordance with their interests.

The activities of these criminal actors often manage to infiltrate those of legitimate social activists working for the improvement of living conditions in the Niger Delta. In other words, illegal armed gangs can be found alongside legitimate social movements ostensibly campaigning for a similar set of social concerns. Sometimes this blurs the demarcation between illegality and proper conduct. This blurring in turn impairs the lens through which policymakers dealing with the Niger Delta perceive the crisis. Armed gangs masquerade as social activists in kidnapping foreign workers of multinational oil concerns and ask for large sums in foreign currency. They issue death threats if their illegal monetary demands are not met. Gun running is widespread in the region thereby contributing to the general state of insecurity. Subsequently, the incidence of armed banditry is spreading well beyond the oil-producing communities in the south. It is rapidly being transformed into an instrument to pursue and gain political power in other parts of the country. Part of this is as a result of a prevailing culture of impunity in the oil-producing communities.

From a colonial state to a rentier one

The common view proffered by the Nigerian state is that indigenes of Ogoni land and the other oil-producing communities in the Niger Delta have a tendency towards lawlessness and are bent on undermining the Nigerian nation. They are seen as secessionists and outright rebels. But is this an entirely correct view? Not quite. The Nigerian state cannot be judged as an impartial player in the conflict. Its evolution from a colonial state to a rentier one ought to be addressed from a broader historical canvas than is often employed.

In periods of chronic military dictatorship, the state became transformed into an instrument of oppression just as it was during the colonial era. Beginning from the colonial era, grievances in Ogoni land had been mounting. The state had no adequate mechanisms in place to assuage those grievances. Even the historical context of those myriads of grievances is equally important. Indigenes of Ogoni land are quite small as a minor ethnicity when compared to other major ethnic groups in Nigeria. The Hausa-Fulani political elites that have largely dominated the seat of power are usually viewed with mistrust and deemed to be insensitive to the plight of the inhabitants of the oil-producing minorities. The Igbo, another major eastern Nigerian ethnic group, are also viewed with suspicion by the oil-producing minorities.

During the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970), the Igbo as an ethnic group intended to secede from the Nigerian nation taking along with them virtually all the oil-producing minorities in southern Nigeria where most of the petroleum resources of the country are concentrated. Ken Saro-Wiwa claimed that oil was the major cause of the civil war. In many respects, he was correct. Oil-producing communities such as the Ogoni people are thus sandwiched between a number of major ethnic groups that did not appear to understand or appreciate their plight.

This created a siege mentality in Ogoni land as well as a persecution complex amongst its indigenes. Never did the Nigerian state up to the moment of the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight compatriots on 10 November 1995 devise a cogent strategy to address this siege mentality which afflicted the Ogoni people. Instead it resorted to the militarisation of the territory and employed forceful measures in quelling demonstrations and dissent. Of course this only worsened the prevailing siege mentality and persecution complex in Ogoniland and other similar communities. This in turn created the space for lawless actors in those communities to move in and begin to act under a variety of social concerns: resource control and allocation, equitable federalisation, environmental consciousness and cultural and political self-determination.

Sectors of the state-controlled media often tried to portray both lawless and law-abiding inhabitants of Ogoni land unpalatably. They were simply construed as rebels bent on truncating the pan-Nigerian project. When embarking on researching and writing my book on the crisis entitled, Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Shadow: Politics, Nationalism and the Ogoni Protest Movement, I attempted to examine the various historical strands behind this popular façade. I posed the questions: Who are the Ogoni people? What are their psychological complexes? What are their problems? How do they live in comparison to other Nigerians? What are their fears and expectations?

I also posed the following questions relating to the Nigerian state: What are the historical antecedents of the Nigerian state? Can it be said to be impartial given the fact that it monopolises the instruments of force and controls the mechanisms of governance? How sincere was its drive towards democracy? These are some of the questions I posed regarding the Nigerian state to give the ongoing conflict in Ogoniland and the Niger Delta generally a deeper historical context. They, hopefully, provide alternative ways of viewing the problem.

I delved into various theories of conflict management and resolution. I consulted theories dealing with the problems of managing complex multi-ethnic societies. I also surveyed processes of truth and reconciliation in nations (such as South Africa and Chile) undergoing elaborate rituals of social healing. I realised it was unhelpful for the Nigerian state to maintain the guise of an impartial party in the ongoing conflict. It required rigorous critique and reconstruction after decades of militarism. If oil-producing territories such as Ogoniland needed to be demilitarised so did the state’s approaches to conflict management. I went on to argue that entire sectors of Nigerian society needed to be demilitarised including civil society itself.

Indeed many civil society institutions, cultures and practices had become tainted with militarism and were in urgent need of transformation to meet the imperatives of democracy. Demilitarisation cannot thus be confined to state policies alone or the forcefully administered oil-producing territories. It is a process that must pervade the whole of Nigerian society including other African nations that have similar historical experiences. In addition to the demilitarisation of the polity, it is important to keep all channels of dialogue open between the aggrieved oil-producing communities and the Nigerian state. The employment of force by either of the parties has only contributed to the spiraling of the conflict. In recent times, the Nigerian state called for amnesty for armed rebels willing to lay down arms. This is a step in the right direction and confirms the long-term effectiveness of dialogue and a non-militarist approach.

I also advocated the adoption of democracy and democratic practices for a number of reasons. First, the channels of dialogue are freer and more vibrant under democracy. Second, governmental accountability is more open to public scrutiny under democratic rule. Finally, the use of force becomes more glaringly anachronistic and perhaps more morally reprehensible. These are some of the measures, conditions and views I advocated during the height of crisis when Nigeria was still within the clutches of military rule.

A ticking time bomb

Much has changed about the situation of the insurgents since the death of Saro-Wiwa. With the Niger Delta flush with money and arms, rebels and criminals now have more bargaining power and some observers claim they have the sort of capacity to cause mayhem on the scale of, say, Boko Haram. The only thing not to have changed is the anger the indigenes of the region feel towards the Nigerian nation, which many claim is a ticking time bomb. It would appear that disaffection and rebellion have become attractive career options for youth ostracised by decades of social and economic exclusion, neglect and abuse which from the point of view of building a cohesive country are certainly of not much use. As a result of the activities of the rebellious youth in the region, the notion of ‘the boys’ has changed drastically from its colonial meaning of third class subjects or natives, as the case may be, to a category of men who ‘run things in the streets’, who are, as it were, solidly in charge.

The city of Lagos twenty years after Saro-Wiwa has changed considerably. It has rebounded with its customary vibrancy, élan and flair. The move of establishing Abuja as the federal capital rather than Lagos sucked a measure of life out of the latter. The military elite and their civilian bureaucrats absconded to the interiors of the country carrying along with them a large portion of its federal wealth yet Lagos has managed to thrive and retain its imaginative vigour in an almost miraculous style. When the city decided to honour the memory of Saro-Wiwa, it did so with its customary aplomb and distinction. A range of participants were involved: high school kids, poets, artists, musicians and lovers of the arts were all there. The spirit of resistance Saro-Wiwa embodied was evident in the manner the city chose to remember the departed hero underlining the fact that with or without state support self-sufficiency and resilience were all that are needed to fashion a worthwhile existence.

Jahman Anikulapo and Toyin Akinosho of the Lagos Book and Art Festival led the team that organised the commemoration of Saro-Wiwa which turned out to be a success as there was a little something for everyone within the crowds that graced the occasion. Each night, there were different genres of music: highlife, Afrobeat, classical, reggae, funk, Afropop, rock and urban contemporary. The event ran from morning until past midnight during a couple of days and it did indeed feel, at moments, a trifle too much to digest all at once. Anikulapo and Akinosho counter such misgivings saying, “this is a festival” and one cannot but agree that in the spirit of fiesta, it was very much a remarkable feast of riotous creativity.

* Sanya Osha is a philosopher, novelist and poet. His novels include Naked Light and the Blind Eye (2010) Dust, Spittle and Wind (2011), and An Underground Colony of Summer Bees (2012), a novel about a drug subculture set in Durban, South Africa. He has also published a book of poetry, A Troubadour’s Thread (2013). Postethnophilosophy, his work of philosophy, received honorable mention in 2013 from the New York Association of African Studies (NYASA). He is a research fellow at the DST-NRF CoE in Scientometrics and STI Policy in the Institute for Economic Research in Innovation at Tshwane University of Technology.

South Africa’s Junk Credit Rating Was Avoided, But At The Cost Of Junk Analysis

President Jacob Zuma

By Patrick Bond

Major investors were hoping Zuma would fall, but the ruling ANC turned to well-tested strategies to yet again protect him. And although credit rating agencies had offered pessimistic commentary on Zuma’s reign in their most recent statements, they did not downgrade South Africa to junk status. But the whip remains poised above the country’s head, awaiting next June’s ratings.

Standard&Poors (S&P) gave South Africa a fearful few hours of anticipation last Friday, just after dust from the political windstorm of the prior week settled. The agency downgraded the government’s securities that are denominated in the local currency (the Rand) although it refrained from the feared junk status on international securities. It was a moment for the ruling business and political party elites’ introspection, but in heaving a sigh of relief they are not looing far enough.

At a time of near-recessionary conditions and rising unemployment, local and international observers are probably mistaken to consider President Jacob Zuma a nearly spent force. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) turned to well-tested procrastination and cover-up strategies to yet again protect Zuma last Monday. The prior weekend’s meeting of the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) had considered the notion that he should step down, presumably to be replaced by his deputy, the billionaire (and former trade unionist) Cyril Ramaphosa, well ahead of the scheduled December 2017 ANC leadership vote. (The other major contender for ANC president is Zuma’s ex-wife, outgoing African Union chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, with ANC Treasurer Zweli Mkhize a potential compromise candidate.)

A reported third of the NEC delegates were supportive of his recall, but Zuma once again remained in control. The party’s ability to ‘self-correct’ appears to have expired, with a great many leaders ‘captured’ by a carefully-constructed patronage system centred on three immigrant-Indian brothers, the Guptas. Deputy Finance Minister Mcebesi Jonas provided evidence of that system last March, in the form of the Guptas’ oral offer to him to become Finance Minister (along with a $43 million inducement) if he served their interests in major procurement contracts.

ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe then announced, “We will deal with the broader picture. We are refusing to be narrow in dealing with this matter because the threat is bigger than this one incident.” In May, however, he ended the Gupta ‘state capture’ investigation, saying it was ‘fruitless’ supposedly because of inadequate evidence. Last month, however, the outgoing independent Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, released a blockbuster report summarising the evidence of Gupta malfeasance, which compelled the electricity parastatal leader to step down in humiliation.

Last week was even more eventful, what with the internal ANC attempt to oust Zuma. No doubt, opposition parties from the centre-right (Democratic Alliance) and far left (Economic Freedom Fighters) quietly welcomed the continuation of Zuma’s reign because a far worse outcome would have been his replacement by Ramaphosa. In spite of his role in the Marikana massacre, he will be a harder opponent to ridicule in the months ahead.

Again rated just shy of junk

But major investors were obviously hoping Zuma would fall, and that Ramaphosa’s ascension would end the career threat against their favourite ANC politician, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan. Given how much power the credit ratings agencies wield, Gordhan appears to have been spared an anticipated cabinet reshuffle in which Zuma goes for broke. The agencies retain this power because while Fitch, Moody’s and S&P offered pessimistic commentary on Zuma’s reign in their most recent statements, they did not downgrade South Africa to junk status. The whip remains poised above South Africa’s head, awaiting next June’s ratings.

The reprieve left the whole economically-aware population of South Africa cautiously celebrating. However, last Friday’s statement by S&P – typically a stricter judge than Fitch and Moody’s – lacked logic and conviction, aside from predictable neo-liberal nostrum to cut the budget deficit and reduce labour’s limited influence even further. On the other hand, S&P’s incompetence may allow South Africans to better dispute the all-encompassing power of ratings agencies.

For these are dangerous institutions whose mistakes – e.g. as the 2008 world financial meltdown gathered pace, giving AAA investment grade ratings to Lehman Brothers and AIG just before they crashed, as well as to Enron four days before it fell in 2001 – can be catastrophic to investors and the broader economy.

No wonder the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) Goa leadership summit in October agreed to explore “setting up an independent BRICS Rating Agency based on market-oriented principles, in order to further strengthen the global governance architecture.” However, given how poorly “market-oriented principles” hold up in the chaotic world financial system, and given the dominance of neoliberal economic bureaucrats within the BRICS, this strategy appears as self-defeating as the BRICS’ alleged ‘governance’ reform of the International Monetary Fund last December. Then, aside from South Africa (which lost 21 percent of its vote), four BRICS increased IMF voting shares at the expense of Nigeria and Venezuela (each of which lost -41%), and many more poor countries from Africa and Latin America.

This week the main question to ponder is why, given utterly zany politics and the stagnant economy, was South Africa not downgraded all the way to junk? S&P lowered the risk rating of local state securities, but not the sovereign (foreign) debt grade. The main reasons S&P gave are telling:

“the ratings on South Africa reflect our view of the country’s large and active local currency fixed-income market, as well as the authorities’ commitment to gradual fiscal consolidation. We also note that South Africa’s institutions, such as the judiciary, remain strong while the South Africa Reserve Bank (SARB) maintains an independent monetary policy.”

Translation:

·         “the country’s large and active local currency fixed-income market” = pension and insurance funds keep buying government bonds because residual exchange controls force 75% of such funds to stay inside SA and create a large artificial demand for state securities;

·         “the authorities’ commitment to gradual fiscal consolidation” = Gordhan promised that the budget deficit will fall from this year’s 3.4% to 2.5% by 2019, even though this requires cuts into the very marrow of already tokenistic social grants. It will result in recent increases for 17 million recipients falling below the inflation rate faced by poor people;

·         “South Africa’s institutions, such as the judiciary, remain strong” = not only do the courts regularly smack down Zuma’s excesses, but more importantly they also religiously uphold property rights, which in South Africa are ranked 24^th most secure out of 140 countries surveyed by the Davos-based World Economic Forum; and

·         “the SARB maintains an independent monetary policy” = in spite of incredibly high consumer debt loads (nearly half the country’s active borrowers are ‘credit impaired,’ according to the National Credit Regulator, having missed three repayments), the SARB has raised interest rates six times since 2014, to levels amongst the world’s highest.

Another reason S&P is optimistic is supposedly that “The trade deficit is declining on the lower price of oil (which constitutes about one-fifth of South Africa’s imports),” but in reality, the trade deficit just exploded. South Africa had a $1.4 billion trade surplus in May, but this became a $330 million deficit in October. Meanwhile over the past month, the oil price soared 21%, from $43 to $52 per barrel, and last Friday, OPEC’s latest collusion to cut output aims to push it past $60 in coming weeks. (And the stronger Rand witnessed over the course of 2016 did not offset that rise: over the last month, the rand fell from 13.2/$ to 13.8/$; its last peak was R6.3/$ five years ago.)

Revealing silences

Not only are S&P’s rudimentary observations off target, the silences in its statement are also disturbing. If we consider crunch problems that might lead to a drastic financial crisis here, S&P was surprisingly blasé about the country’s foreign debt. The last SARB Quarterly Bulletin records that debt at the highest ever (as a ratio of GDP) in modern SA history: 43% (higher than PW Botha’s default level of 40% in 1985).

Neither does S&P mention illicit financial flows (which have been estimated by Global Financial Integrity at $20 bn/year); or the balance of payments deficit due to profit and dividend outflows (usually more than $10 bn/year) following excessive exchange control liberalisation; or South Africa’s exceptionally high international interest rates on 10-year state bonds, at 9% (3rd amongst 60 major economies, only lower than rates in Brazil and Turkey which both pay 11%). Corporate overcharging on state outsourcing – which the Treasury’s Kenneth Brown says costs taxpayers $17 billion per year – does not warrant a mention.

To S&P’s credit, however, the agency gave critics of big business at least minor affirmation by observing “the corporate sector’s current preference to delay private investment, despite high margins and large cash positions.” In an opposite signal, though, S&P also gave the country’s leading disinvestor, Anglo American, an improved rating on Friday (all the ratings agencies had reduced Anglo to junk status in February). S&P isn’t about to downgrade the disinvesting firms, and state-directed reinvestment – e.g. as in 1960s South Korea – is not on the cards. So in media coverage this foundational critique of our big corporates’ ‘capital strike’ was only barely mentioned by a sole local periodical (Business Report).

It still strikes me that like the Gupta and (Stellenbosch-based Afrikaner tycoon) Rupert families, the three rating agencies will continue attracting the accusation of “state capture!” insofar as the public policy this neoliberal foreign family dictates is also characterised by short-term self-interest, occasional serious oversights and national economic self-destruction. The only reasonable solution is progressive delinking from the circuits of world finance through which these agencies accumulate their unjustified power.

* Patrick Bond teaches political economy and political ecology at the Wits School of Governance: pbond@mail.ngo.za

FIFTY TRUTHS ABOUT FIDEL CASTRO

Commandante Fidel Castro

By Salim Lamrani

The historic leader of the Cuban Revolution has forever marked the history of Cuba and Latin America, making his country a symbol of dignity and resistance.

1. Fidel Castro was born into a family of seven children on August 13, 1926, at Birán in the current province of Holguín, from a union between Angel Castro Argiz, a wealthy Spanish landowner from Galicia and Cuban born Lina Ruz González.

2. At the age of seven, he was sent to the city of Santiago de Cuba where lived with the teacher who was to be responsible for his education. She nonetheless abandoned him to his fate. “She deceived my family”, and “I have known hunger”, Fidel Castro recalled. A year later, in January 1935, he entered the religious school, Hermanos de La Salle, as an intern. In January 1938, after rebelling against the authoritarianism of a teacher, he left the institution at the age of eleven for Dolores College. From 1942 to 1945 he continued his schooling in Havana with the Jesuits at Belen College. After receiving high marks in his studies, his teacher, Father Armando Llorente, wrote in the institution’s directory, “He has distinguished himself in all literary subjects. He has also been a true athlete, an excellent and team-oriented player. Always courageously and proudly defending the college flag, he earned the admiration and affection of all. He intends to continue his studies in law and we have no doubt that he will fill brilliantly the pages of his book of life”.

3. Despite having gone into exile in Miami in 1961, following the tensions between the revolutionary government and the Cuban Catholic church, Father Llorente always retained fond memories of his former student: “I am often blamed for speaking well of Fidel. But I cannot speak ill of the Fidel that I knew. Moreover, one day, he saved my life. These are things that you can never forget”. Fidel Castro had jumped into a river to save his teacher who was being carried away by the current.

4. In 1945, Fidel Castro entered the University of Havana, where he began a law career. Elected as Faculty of Law delegate, he actively participated in demonstrations against corruption in the government of President Ramón Grau San Martín. He did not hesitate to publicly denounce the armed gangs of BAGA, a group with links to government authorities. Max Lesnik, then Secretary General of the Orthodox Youth group and a comrade of Fidel Castro, recalls an episode: “The committee ’30 September’ [created to fight against the armed gangs] had decided to denounce the government and the gangsters during the plenary session of the Students’ Federation. More than 300 students from various faculties thronged the hall to listen to Fidel when someone shouted [...]: ‘He, who speaks too long, will speak for the last time’. It was clear to whom the threat was addressed. Fidel got up from his chair and, with a firm and poised step, walked to the center of the hall. After requesting a moment of silence in memory of the martyrs [...], he began reading an official list of the names of all gang members and the leaders of the Federation of University Students who had received stipends from the government”.

5. In 1947, at the age of 22, Fidel Castro participated with Juan Bosch, the future President of the Dominican Republic, in an attempted landing at Cayo Confite intended to overthrow the dictator Rafael Trujillo, then supported by the United States.

6. A year later, in 1948, he participated in the Bogotazo popular uprising triggered by the assassination of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, a progressive political leader and presidential candidate in Colombia.

7. After finishing his graduate studies in law in 1950, Fidel Castro worked as a lawyer until 1952, defending the poor, before entering politics.

8. Fidel Castro never militated for the Popular Socialist Party (PSP), the communist party of pre-revolutionary Cuba. Rather, he joined the Cuban People’s Party, also called the Orthodox Party, which had been founded in 1947 by Eduardo Chibás. Chibás’ progressive Orthodox Party program was based on several key elements: national sovereignty, economic independence achieved through the diversification of agricultural production, banning the latifundios (large estates), the development of industry, the nationalization of utilities, the fight against corruption, the struggle for social justice and the defense of workers. Fidel Castro has expressed his belief in the thinking of José Martí, of Chibás and in anti-imperialism. A talented orator, he ran in the parliamentary elections of 1952 as a candidate of the Cuban People’s Party.

9. On March 10, 1952, three months before the presidential elections, General Fulgencio Batista shattered the constitutional order by overthrowing the government of Carlos Prio Socarrás. He won the immediate support of the United States, which officially recognized the new military dictatorship.

10. Fidel Castro the lawyer filed a complaint against Batista for breach of the constitutional order: “If courts exist, Batista should be punished, and if Batista is not punished [...], how then can the court judge a citizen for sedition or rebellion against a regime that is both illegal and the product of unpunished betrayal?” The Supreme Court, subservient to the new regime, found his complaint to be inadmissible.

11. On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro became head of an expedition of 131 men committed to launching attacks against the Moncada barracks in Santiago de Cuba, the second most important military fortress in the country, and the Carlos Manuel de Cespedes barracks in the city of Bayamo. The goal was to take control of Santiago –the historical cradle of all revolutions– and launch a call to rebellion throughout the country to overthrow the dictator Batista.

12. The operation was a bloody failure and many fighters –55 in total– were murdered after being brutally tortured by Batista’s military, while only six had been killed in combat. Some managed to escape thanks to the support of the local population.

13. Fidel Castro, captured a few days later, owes his life to Sergeant Pedro Sarría, who refused to follow the orders of his superiors and execute the Moncada leader. “Do not shoot! Do not shoot! You cannot kill ideas”, he exclaimed to his soldiers.

14. During his historic defense entitled “History Will Absolve Me”, Fidel Castro, defending himself, denounced Batista’s crimes and the misery in which the Cuban people lived. He presented his program for a free Cuba, based on national sovereignty, economic independence and social justice.

15. Sentenced to 15 years in prison, Castro was released two years later in 1955, following an amnesty granted by the Batista regime. He then founded the July 26 Movement (M 26-7) and announced his plan to continue the fight against the military dictatorship before going into exile in Mexico.

16. With a young doctor named Ernesto Guevara, Fidel Castro organized the Granma expedition. Castro had no trouble convincing the young Argentine who later recalled: “I met him during a cool night in Mexico City, and I remember that our first discussion revolved around international politics. A few hours later –in the early morning– I had decided to become a member of the future expedition”.

17. In August of 1955, Fidel Castro published the first manifesto of the 26th of July Movement, a document that included the main points he had made in his “History Will Absolve Me” defense. There is the question of land reform, banning latifundios, social and economic reforms that favor the underprivileged, national industrialization, housing construction, lowering rents, nationalization of telephone, gas and electrical services, education and culture for all, tax reform and the reorganization of government services to fight against corruption.

18. In October 1955, in order to raise funds for the expedition, Fidel Castro made a tour of the United States where he met with Cuban exiles. The FBI put the patriotic clubs that were founded in different cities by 26-7 M under close surveillance.

19. On November 25, 1956, Fidel Castro left from the port of Tuxpan, Mexico, aboard the Granma, a boat designed to hold 25 people. There were in total 82 revolutionaries aboard when it set sail for Cuba with the aim to triggering a guerrilla war in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra.

20. Due to climatic conditions, the crossing was a nightmare. One member of the expedition fell overboard. Juan Almeida, a member of the group and future Commander of the Revolution, recalls the episode. “Fidel told us the following: ‘As long as we have not saved him, we will not move from here’. Everyone was touched by his words and it aroused our fighting spirit. We felt that with this man, nobody would be abandoned. Yet, it was jeopardizing the expedition. Still he was finally saved”.

21. After a voyage that lasted seven days, instead of the five that had been forecast, the troupe landed on December 2, 1956 in what was, according to Raúl Castro, “the worst swamp anyone had ever seen”. The revolutionaries were dispersed by gunfire from Cuban aviation, and pursued by some 2,000 of Batista’s soldiers who had been waiting for them.

22. A few days later, in Cinco Palmas, Fidel Castro rejoined his brother Raúl and ten other members of the expedition. “Now we’re going to win the war”, the M 26-7 leader said to his men. The guerrilla war had begun. It would last for 25 months.

23. In February 1957, the Herbert Matthews interview with Fidel Castro appeared in the New York Times, thereby permitting US and world public opinion to discover the existence of a guerrilla force in Cuba. Batista later admitted in his memoirs that through this media coup “Castro was becoming a legendary figure”. Matthews, however, nuanced the importance of his interview: “No advertising, as sensational as it might have been, would have made any difference, if Fidel Castro had not been exactly the man I described”.

24. Despite official declarations of neutrality in the Cuban conflict, the US provided political, economic and military support to Batista, and opposed Fidel Castro up to the final moments. On December 23, 1958, one week before the triumph of the Revolution, while Fulgencio Batista’s army was in disarray despite its superiority in men and weapons, the 392^nd meeting of the National Security Council, with President Eisenhower in attendance, took place. Allen Dulles, the CIA director, made the US position quite clear: “We must prevent Castro’s victory”.

25. Despite the support of the United States, his 20,000 soldiers and material superiority, Batista could not defeat a guerrilla force comprised 300 armed men during the final offensive in the summer of 1958 that had gone on to mobilize more than 10,000 soldiers. This “strategic victory” demonstrated the military genius of Fidel Castro who had anticipated and defeated the “End of Fidel” operation launched by Batista.

26. On January 1, 1959, five years, five months and five days after the July 26, 1953 attack on the Moncada garrison, the Cuban Revolution emerged triumphant.

27. During the formation of the revolutionary government in January 1959, Fidel Castro was appointed Minister of the Armed Forces. He did not occupy the presidency, which devolved on Judge Manuel Urrutia, nor the post of Prime Minister, which went to the lawyer José Miró Cardona.

28. In February 1959, Prime Minister Cardona, opposed to economic and social reforms he considered too radical (the land reform project, for example), resigned. Manuel Urrutia then appointed Fidel Castro to the position.

29. In July 1959, faced with the opposition of President Urrutia, who refused further reforms, Fidel Castro resigned as Prime Minister. Huge popular demonstrations broke out across Cuba, calling for the departure of Urrutia and the return of Fidel Castro. The new President of the Republic, Osvaldo Dorticós, then reappointed Fidel Castro Prime Minister.

30. The US immediately showed itself hostile to Fidel Castro by welcoming the dignitaries of the former regime, among whom were several war criminals who had looted the national treasury and fled with some 424 million dollars.

31. Yet from the start, Fidel Castro demonstrated his willingness to maintain good relations with Washington. Nevertheless, during his first visit to the United States in April 1959, President Eisenhower refused to receive him and preferred to go golfing instead. John F. Kennedy expressed his regret about the incident: “Fidel Castro is part of the legacy of Bolivar. We should have given a warmer welcome to the fiery young rebel at the moment of his triumph”.

32. In October 1959, pilots from the US bombed Cuba and returned to Florida where they were unmolested by authorities. On October 21, 1959, a bomb dropped on Havana left two dead and 45 wounded. The person responsible for the crime, Pedro Luis Díaz Lanz, returned to Miami. He was not questioned and Washington refused to extradite him to Cuba.

33. In February 1960, Fidel Castro drew closer to Moscow, acquiring Soviet weapons only after the United States refused to provide the arsenal necessary for the island’s defense. Washington also pressured Canada and the European nations that had been approached by Cuba in order to force Cuba to turn to the socialist bloc, thereby justifying its own hostile policy toward Havana.

34. In March 1960, the Eisenhower administration made a formal decision to overthrow Fidel Castro. In total, the leader of the Cuban Revolution escaped no fewer than 637 assassination attempts on his life.

35. In March 1960, the French ship La Coubre, carrying weapons, was sabotaged by the CIA in the port of Havana. More than one hundred persons were left dead. In his address in tribute to the victims, Fidel Castro launched the slogan “Patria o Muerte” (Homeland or Death) inspired by that of the French Revolution of 1793, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity or Death.”

36. On April 16, 1961, following the bombing of the main airports in the country by the CIA, a prelude to the invasion of the Bay of Pigs, Fidel Castro proclaimed the “socialist” character of the Revolution.

37. During the Bay of Pigs invasion, conducted by some 1400 exiles supported by the CIA, Fidel Castro was to be found on the front lines of the battle. He inflicted a severe defeat on the US by crushing the invaders in 66 hours. His popularity then skyrocketed worldwide.

38. During the October 1962 missile crisis, Soviet General Alexei Dementiev was at the side of Fidel Castro. He recounted in his memories: “I spent the most impressive moments of my life with Fidel. I was with him most of the time. There was a moment when we considered that a military attack by the United States was close at hand. Fidel made the decision to sound the alarm. Within hours, his people were in combat position. Fidel’s faith in his people was impressive, as was the faith of his people and of ourselves, Soviets, in him. Fidel is, without any question, one of the political and military geniuses of the century”.

39. In October 1965, the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) replaced the United Party of the Socialist Revolution (PURE) which had been created in 1962 (it, in turn, had replaced the Integrated Revolutionary Organizations –ORI– created in 1961). Fidel Castro was appointed First Secretary.

40. In 1975, following the adoption of the new Constitution, Fidel Castro was elected President of the Republic for the first time. He would be re-elected to this post up until 2006.

41. In 1988, from more than 20,000 kilometers away, Fidel Castro, in Havana, led the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola. It was in this battle that the Cuban and Angolan troops inflicted a crushing defeat on the South African armed forces that had invaded Angola and occupied Namibia. The historian Piero Gleijeses, a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, wrote: “Despite Washington’s efforts [allied with the apartheid regime], Cuba changed the course of history in Southern Africa […]. The Cubans’ prowess on the battlefield and their virtuosity at the negotiating table proved decisive in compelling South Africa to accept Namibia’s independence. The victorious defense of Cuito Cuanavale was the prelude to a campaign that compelled the South African Defense Force (SADF) to leave Angola. This victory had repercussions far beyond the borders of Namibia”.

42. A lucid observer of perestroika, Fidel Castro, in a prescient speech given on July 26, 1989, declared to the nation that should the Soviet Union disappear, Cuba would resist and continue along the path of socialism: “If tomorrow or some other day we wake up to the news that a great civil war has broken out in the USSR, or even if we wake up with the news that the USSR has disintegrated [...] Cuba and the Cuban Revolution will continue to fight and resist”.

43. In 1994, at the height of the Special Period, he met Hugo Chavez for the first time. They formed a strong friendship that lasted until the latter’s death in 2013. According to Fidel Castro, the Venezuelan president was “the best friend the Cuban people ever had”. They set up a strategic partnership with the creation in 2005 of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, which now includes eight countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

44. In 1998, Fidel Castro received the visit to Havana of Pope John Paul II. The latter demanded that “the world open up to Cuba and Cuba open up to the world”.

45. In 2002, former President of the United States Jimmy Carter made a historic visit to Cuba. He spoke directly on live television: “I did not come here to interfere in Cuba’s internal affairs, but rather to extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people and to offer a vision of the future for both countries and for the Americas [...]. I want us to be friends and to respect each other [...]. Since the US is the most powerful of the two nations, it is for us to make the first move”.

46. In July 2006, following a serious intestinal illness, Fidel Castro was forced to retire from power. In accordance with the Constitution, Vice-President Raúl Castro succeeded him.

47. In February 2008, Fidel Castro permanently renounced any executive office. He has since devoted himself to writing his memoirs and regularly publishing articles under the caption “Reflections”.

48. After a trip to Cuba in 2001, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a historian and special advisor to President Kennedy, raised the question of the cult of personality: “Fidel Castro does not encourage the cult of personality. In Havana it is difficult to find a poster or even a post card with a photo of Castro on it. The icon of Fidel’s revolution, visible everywhere, is Che Guevara”.

49. Gabriel García Márquez, Colombian writer and Nobel Prize in Literature, was a close friend of Fidel Castro. He drew up a brief profile that underscores “the absolute trust he places in direct contact. His power is seduction. He looks for problems where they are to be found. [...] His patience is invincible. His discipline is ironclad. The force of his imagination expands the limits of the unexpected”.

50. The triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959, led by Fidel Castro, is the most significant event in the history of twentieth century Latin America. While Fidel Castro may remain one of the most controversial figures of that century, even his fiercest critics acknowledge that he has made Cuba a sovereign nation whose independence is respected internationally. His country has made undeniable social achievements in the fields of education, health, culture, sport and international solidarity. He will forever be the symbol of national dignity, someone who is always aligned with the oppressed and all those who fight for their emancipation.