Published April 8th, 2006 by Future Atlas
Waning of African impunity?
Impunity for Africa’s leaders shows signs of ending, suggests the CSM, citing the arrest of former Liberian president Charles Taylor and the corruption trial of the ex-president of Zambia.
Efforts to hold African leaders to account are the result of both external pressure and internal African initiatives.
Poor governance is the single largest obstacle to African peace and development. A remark by a citizen of the Congo a couple of years ago can be applied across the continent:
“The most sorrowful thing I have to live with is that we are incapable of coming up with an elite that can run things with Congolese interests in mind.” — Congolese in Blaine Harden, “The Dirt in the New Machine,” New York Times, August 12, 2001.
These are only the first signs of what would have to be a protracted process.
(The CSM article also suggests that the US role in Taylor’s capture “implicitly binds the US to helping keep the peace in Liberia, should the trial of the still-popular” leader cause instability.)