UN Report on the security situation in Cote d’Ivoire

From Secretary-General, dated April 15.

The good news is the overall security situation stable, along with the country’s budding political atmosphere. However, the report raises worries about the disarmament about the northern-based Forces Nouvelles and militias in the western part of the country. Violent crime remains a concern, especially armed robberies.

In the political arena, the opposition party Rassemblement des republicans held its convention in Abidjan and named Allassane Dramane Ouattara as the party’s candidate for the presidential election scheduled for November 30. The ruling Front populaire ivorien held a rally in the former rebel capital Bouake.

Prime Minister Guillaume Soro attended a Women’s Day celebration in President Laurent Gbagbo’s hometown, and claimed the northern-based prime minister has a good working relationship with the president.

Civil society groups still clamor to be included in the Ouagadougou Agreement. Burkinabé president Blaise Compaore expressed desire to hold a national meeting with such groups.

Regarding the sticky issue of voting rights, more than 110 mobile courts have been dispatched throughout the country to issue duplicate birth certificates to any Ivorian over the age of 18 and not part of the previous census. By April 8, the courts had issued more than 565,000 certificates. They hope to finish by the end of the month.

While the legal framework for the electoral process has not been finalized, its budget has: $83 million, which the Ivorian government will chip in $18 and the European Union, Japan and Korea will provide $25. This currently leaves $40 million unaccounted for. (Any takers?)

The International Crisis Group is a little less sanguine about the political situation. In a recent report, the group points out that in the presidential election certain candidates may be willing to go to extremes, reigniting a potentially explosive environment.

The report also claims implementation has been shaky of many of the Ouagadougou Accords that brought a halt to the civil war. Importantly, they claim voter identification has not completely determined who is a citizen and who may vote. However, the largest worries go to all major political parties sticking to the Ouagadougou Accords and insuring the election is carried out in a transparent manner, with proper identification for all registered voters and a security situation that allows people to vote in peace.

Liberia's profits grow from its flag of convenience registry

Liberia is expected to ring up $19 million in profits from ships flying its flag of convenience in 2008, according to Reuters.

With a total of nearly 2,600 ships, representing 82-million tons, the West African nation enjoys the second largest active flag of convenience registry, after Panama. The government claims it will continue to use this loophole in seafaring law to collect revenue, which is administered out of an office in the U.S. state of Virginia.

Flags of Convenience in general, and Liberia’s in particular, have enjoyed a tumultuous history. The flag of convenience designation allows a ship to fly the flag of a country other than its country of ownership. According to the International Transport Workers’ Federation, a group working to eliminate this special status, the FOC allows ship owners to circumvent taxes, labor laws and the ability of countries to enforce minimum standards on sea vessels. There are presently 32 countries allowing the flag of convenience designation, and the ITWF claims (.pdf, page 10) Liberia’s ships average 12 years of age, which is on the low end of all ship registries. (The average for the U.S. is 23 years; Japan is 13 years and 17 years for Panama.)

During the Liberian civil war, the government of Charles Taylor was under sanctions from the United Nations Security Council. However, a report from Global Witness and the International Transport Workers Federation found that the government was using the flag of convenience status to illegally make money for the government by registering ships and hiring some of those ships to illegally transport diamonds and, more commonly, wood out of the country. (Logging was an important source of illicit revenue for the Taylor government.)

Here’s a short introduction to Liberia’s flag of convenience, from William Langewiesche, formally of the Atlantic, where the article appeared in Sept. 2003

No one pretends that a ship comes from the home port painted on its stern, or that it has ever been anywhere near. Panama is the largest maritime nation on earth, and is followed by bloody Liberia, which hardly exists. No coastline is required either. There are ships that hail from La Paz, in landlocked Bolivia. There are ships that hail from the Mongolian desert. The registries themselves are rarely based in the countries whose name they carry: Panama is considered to be an old-fashioned "flag," because its consulates collect the registration fees, but "Liberia" is run by a company in Virginia, "Cambodia" by another in South Korea, and the proud "Bahamas" by a group in the City of London. The system, generally known as "flags of convenience," began around World War II, but its big expansion occurred only in the 1990s - and in direct reaction to an international attempt to impose controls. By shopping globally, shipowners found that they could choose the laws that were applied to them rather than haplessly submitting as ordinary citizens must to the arbitrary jurisdictions of their native states. The effect was to lower operating costs - for crews and upkeep - and to limit the financial consequences of the occasional foundering or loss of a ship. The advantages were so great that even the most conservative and well-established shipowners, who were perhaps not naturally inclined to play along, found that they had no choice but to do so. What's more, because of the registration fees that the shipowners could offer to cash-strapped governments, the various flags competed for the business, and the deals kept getting better.

Community policing in Burkina Faso

"Of the 350 counties that comprise Burkina, there are at least 160 that have absolutely no security infrastructure," writes QuophyBlogeur in a post translated for Global Voices Online.

Burkina Faso’s government set aside funds for a community policing effort in 1998, but a lack of training and information derailed the project. A new policy was reborn in 2003 and is now getting underway. In principal, relevant security services are supposed to integrate with local communities to better understand their “security needs while the local populations are now to be involved in the prevention of crime and disruptions of public order.”

From Global Voices Online:

What can the Local Committees of Security really do? By confining them to the simple role of “prevention,” don't we run the risk of transforming them into demonic circles of denouncements or militias in the service of paranoid gurus who see enemies all around? These questions deserve to be asked, especially in a sociopolitical context where it is visibly difficult to undo the defense mechanisms of the church of politics. Will the Minister of Security have the room to help the CLS [Local Committees of Security] avoid some of the legacies of the CDR — the famous Committees of Defense of the Revolution–that continue to haunt some?

Of course, money appears to be the problem.

Jennifer Brea, who translated the piece for Global Voices Online, notes that community policing is one of those issues that will never pique the interest of a foreign correspondent writing for a big daily, but it is very important for ordinary people and their communities. I’d also say that this discussion says a great deal about peoples' priorities in Burkina Faso.

In the name of full disclosure, I am also involved in Global Voices Online.

West African leaders to discuss security issues

The fight against Tuareg rebels by the governments of Mali and Niger has motivated West African governments to schedule a security conference in the next few months. While the Tuareg rebellion has put the region’s instability on the radar, political leaders also acknowledge issues regarding the connection of the region’s poverty along with the issues of drug trafficking, the possibility of terror groups infiltrating the area along with the circulation of light weapons.

From Reuters:

Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore applauded efforts by his counterpart in Niger Mamadou Tandja and Malian leader Amadou Toumani Toure to resist a rebellion led by nomadic Tuareg peoples in the Sahara and the arid Sahel belt to the south.

The uprising in Niger has been the more bloody, with at least 49 soldiers killed by the Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ) since it launched an insurrection in February.

"In the Sahel area, the rebel movements which have appeared threaten the peace and security of the whole region," Compaore said.