East Africa BriefingJune 2015

May at a GlanceJune 2015

RWANDA, MAy 25: Hundreds of supporters of the current Presi-dent of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, petitioned the country’s parliament to remove a clause from the constitution which would limit Kagame to two terms in office. Presidential terms are currently restricted to two, however there is growing speculation that Kagame may seek a third term in the upcoming 2017 elections.

RWANDA, MAy 31: Rwanda places an indefinite suspension on local-language BBC broadcasts in the country, in the wake of a row over an October 2014 documentary on the 1994 genocide.

Ethiopia, May 24: Parliamentary and regional elections held throughout the country are expected to result in a landslide win for the incumbent Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, when final results are released on June 22.

Somalia, may 26: At least 24 people were killed in Lower Shabelle, southern Somalia, after fight-ing broke out between Al Shabaab and government forces.

Tanzania, May 19: Outbreaks of cholera and severe diarrhea have struck tens of thousands of Burun-dian refugees who have fled to safety in neighboring Tanzania. Aid agencies working in villages on the edge of Lake Tanganyika say that the health infrastructure and sanita-tion facilities in the area have now been completely overwhelmed.

MozaMbique, May 12: The latest round of mediation talks between the Mozambican Government and opposition party Renamo have failed, according to mediators. The international mission of international military observers, supposed to monitor the implementation of last September’s agreement on the cessation of hostilities between the two sides, also came to an end on May 15.

MozaMbique, May 15: In one of the largest raids ever seen in the country, police in Mozambique seized nearly 1.3 tons of ivory and rhino horns obtained from the illegal slaughter of 65 rhinos and 170 elephants, from a house belonging to a Chinese national,.

Kenya, May 27: The trial against Kenyan Deputy President Wil-liam Ruto over accusations of planning and implementing attacks during the 2008 post-election violence is adjourned after the final witness refuses to testify.

Kenya, May 28: Non-Government Organization (NGO) Médecins Sans Frontières, who have maintained a presence in the Dadaab refugee camp in northern Garissa County since it was opened in 1991, announced the evacuation of 42 staff members from the camp over safety concerns.

Sudan, May 27: The Sudanese Government orders nine national newspapers to close for unspecified reasons. Journalists have since held demonstrations in Khartoum protesting against repression and in favor of press freedom.

South Sudan, May 27: The Chinese Government announced a mass evacuation of over 400 oil workers from the Paloch fields in South Sudan, due to the ongoing fighting in the oil-rich Upper Nile State.

Executive Summary

Regional OverviewJune 2015

Key Trends•Following a failed coup and another month of violent

protests on the streets of the capital, Burundian Presi-dent Pierre Nkurunziza moves the date of the upcom-ing presidential and legislative elections.

•Somali militant group Al Shabaab continues to establish itself in northern Kenya’s Garissa County as Kenyan police forces face new accusations of violence against the Somali community in the region.

•The construction of a crucial crude oil pipeline linking Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan under a public-private partnership framework will begin in 2016, it is an-nounced, as oil firms and regional governments continue to differ over proposed routes.

•There are hopes that rumors of Google investment in Kenya’s new $1 billion wind farm will encourage other private sector partners to look to the renewable energy market in the region.

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The Plains of Kenya

Reported Violent Incidents Source: EI, ACLED data

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BurundiNew Dates Set for Disputed Burundian Elections as Clashes ContinueEmbattled Burundian Presi-dent Pierre Nkurunziza has announced new dates for the controversial presidential and legislative elections which were

suspended earlier this month after weeks of deadly street battles between demonstrators and security forces. The presidential vote will now be held on July 15 and legislative elections on June 29. Nkurunziza’s deci-sion to run for another term has enraged opponents who believe it violates the Burundian Constitution and signifies a further crackdown on civil liberties in the increasingly authoritarian Great Lakes nation.

Many believe Burundi is now facing its deepest crisis since the end of the ethnically fueled civil war in 2005, after six weeks of unrest which have seen a failed coup attempt, widespread civil unrest and a rapidly worsening refugee crisis. While the official death toll from the current unrest stands at 20, the real total is believed to be much higher, with over 100,000 understood to have fled to neigh-boring countries to escape the violence. As protests continue on an almost daily basis in the capital Bujum-bura, the government’s youth militia, the Imbonerakure, patrol the country with a mandate to kill or intimidate anyone who does not support the president’s re-election campaign. On May 23 prominent opposition leader Zedi Feruzi was shot and killed in the restive Bujumbura dis-trict of Ngaraga, the latest in a series of attacks target-ing those leading the campaign against Nkurunziza.

Politics and SecurityJune 2015

Following a failed coup attempt on May 13, Nku-runziza has now purged his cabinet, removing his defense, trade and foreign ministers, as well as imposing further restrictions on independent media and opposition figures, telling all protesters that they would be treated as accomplices of the generals who staged the attempted coup and that security forces would treat them as such. Despite this, demonstrations have continued unabated, in a

move which observers believe is indicative of a newfound public hunger for good governance and a reaction against the repressive regimes and lack of democratic process seen in a number of other African nations in recent years, most notable Burkina Faso in 2014.

However, while the failed coup undoubtedly reinforced Nkurunziza’s hold on power, it also significantly under-mined his legitimacy and the legitimacy of the upcoming vote, already weakened by the weeks of violence. UN

envoy Said Djinnit recently stepped down as a mediator between the government and opposition leaders, the powerful Catholic Church has with-drawn its support for the elections and two mem-bers of the national electoral commission have also fled the country. If Nkurunziza succeeds in holding on to power through violence, corruption and an illegitimate election, the consequences for the sta-bility and development of Burundi will be severe.

Pierre Nkurunziza

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KenyaNorthern Kenya Experiences Increase in Al Shabaab Incidents Amid Concerns Over Levels of Police Violence

Tensions remain high in north-ern Kenya as Somali mili-tants Al Shabaab, the group responsible for the April attack

at Garissa University which left 148 students dead, continue to carry out attacks in the region. However, concerns are growing that the Kenyan authorities may inadvertently be contrib-uting to the radicalization of potential Al-Shabaab members due to their violent targeting of Somali migrants, particularly in Muslim areas of Kenya near the Somali border.

Kenya’s north-eastern region, including the vast Garissa County which is inhabited mostly by ethnic Somalis, has repeatedly been the target of Al Shabaab attacks over the years. However, the group has recently changed its demands to include not only the withdrawal of Kenyan troops from Somalia, but the removal of all non-Muslims from Kenya’s north-east-ern region, which it claims is Somali land. In the wake of this announcement the area has seen a noticeable increase in violence since the Garissa University attack on April 2 and it now appears that Al Shabaab has firmly established themselves in Garissa Country, using the thick forests in the region for cover. This month, militants are understood to have raided two villages north of Garissa looking for non-Muslims and attacked Kenyan police vehicles near the Somali border, injuring at least five officers. There have also been local reports of groups of 20-40 militants moving between different

Politics and SecurityJune 2015

areas throughout Garissa carrying sophisticated weap-onry and technology.

Compounding these issues, concerns are also growing about a new wave of human rights abuses allegedly being carried out by Kenyan security forces against Somali migrants in northern Kenya. The Kenyan police have faced accusations of violence against migrants in

the past, most notably follow-ing terror incidents such as the spate of Al Shabaab attacks along Kenya’s eastern coast in the summer of 2014 and, in this case, the Garissa University raid. On May 31 a senior police officer from Garissa uploaded photographs which appeared to show Kenyan police whipping a group of Somali migrants that security forces claimed were Al

Shabaab militants. The photos have since been removed, but the policeman’s commentary remains: “These Somali young men came to Garissa for a purpose but little did they know we [are] smarter than them.”

The incident has brought the targeting of the Somali community to the forefront of the security debate in Kenya. Kenyan security forces are being accused of using the excuse of Al Shabaab to harass Somali migrants, with unconfirmed reports of rapes and torture emerging throughout the north of the country. Human rights activists have called on authorities to address the issue, claiming that the use of such violent methods may push victimized Somali youths to join Al Shabaab and deepen the divide between Somali migrants and Kenyan citizens in an already volatile region of the country and at a time where Al Shabaab has threatened further Garissa-style attacks.

KenyaWill Oil Firms and Regional Governments Clash Over Route of Crucial New Oil Pipeline?The construction of a cru-cial crude oil pipeline linking Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan will begin in 2016, it was announced earlier this

month. Officials from the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia (LAPSSET) Corridor Development Authority (LCDA) also confirmed that the facility will be built under a public-private partnership framework, as the regional governments alone cannot finance the proj-ect. However, it is understood that the route touted by East African officials differs from the route preferred by the joint venture oil companies, and, with a final decision set to be made this month, there are a range of technical and geopolitical implications at stake.

The pipeline is part of the LAPSSET Corridor Proj-ect, which also includes the construction of a new port in Lamu, Kenya, as well as a new railway line, highway, airport and oil refinery that will benefit a host of East African countries once completed. The proposed northern route, preferred by the regional governments, will carry oil through northern Uganda to north Kenya, around the Lokichar Basin and up to the port of Lamu through 1,380 kilometers of piping.

Business and RegulationJune 2015

Under the northern corridor, Kenya would be able to export crude reserves discovered in its northern Turkana region, as well as giving South Sudan a much needed export route by allowing the conflict-ridden country direct access to a major port. The second route, which oil companies including Tullow Oil have advised is the most appropriate, would run from the oil fields in Hoima, western Uganda, through central Kenya to Mombasa; critically, not to the new port at Lamu.

While the joint venture oil companies have all openly declared their preference for the southern route, represen-tatives have said that it is up to the regional governments to make the final decision and that the northern route, while lacking some of the technical merits of the south-ern route, would still be viable. The pipeline is a critical component of the wider LAPSSET project and, when completed, it will be the longest heated crude pipeline in the world. Although the joint venture companies are likely to accept whichever choice is made when representatives from the regional governments meet to decide the route in Kampala this month, the selection of the northern path is likely to increase tensions between the oil firms and East African officials, at a time when private investment in the region remains of the utmost importance.

KenyaWill Rumours of Google Investment in Kenyan Wind Farm Encourage Other International Companies?Earlier this year, Kenya stepped up its efforts to transform 40,000 acres of land on banks of Lake Turkana, the largest desert lake in the world, into

a wind farm capable of generating 20 percent of the country’s current electricity capacity. Now, reports are emerging that Google is in talks to become an investor in the Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP) Project, and, while Google’s invest-ment would likely be rela-tively small, their support of the project would be a significant vote of confi-dence for other investors considering entering the East African power market.

The idea for the almost $1 billion project, which aims to install 365 wind turbines to take advan-tage of the high winds in the remote Lake Turkana region, was first conceived in 1998. In the intervening years however, a series of political changes, corruption scandals and outbreaks of violence prevented the project from getting off the drawing board until the creation of the LTWP Consortium in 2006. Eight more years of planning and gaining political support for the development followed until ground was finally broken on the site in late 2014. Over the coming two years, the project is expected to employ approximately 2500 people on a temporary basis as the hardware is installed and new road links built. Once the wind farm is up and running, 200 people will be employed at the site on

Business and RegulationJune 2015

a full-time basis throughout the operating period. The project is expected to generate $150 million a year in foreign currency savings to Kenya and provide a more reliable source of energy for homes and business that currently experience daily black outs. It is also hoped the project will provide a blue-print for other countries in the region hoping to develop their renewable energy market, as well as demonstrating to private investors the potential benefits of backing such a project.

The Turkana project secured all the required funding by 2014, attract-ing financial backers including the govern-ments of Denmark, Fin-land and Norway, the Afri-can Development Bank, the European Investment Bank and co-developers KP&P Africa, a group of Dutch and Kenyan businessmen. If reports of a Google investment

in the project are confirmed, their involvement in the project is likely to have more wide-ranging and symbolic implications than just the provision of financial support. The Internet giant has invested more than $2 billion in next-generation energy production in recent years, mostly in the US, but it also includes a $12 million investment in South Africa’s Jasper Power Project, one of the largest solar installations on the continent. Given Google’s global profile and the profile of the LTWP, set to be Africa’s biggest wind farm once completed, it is hoped Google investment in the project will be a major confidence boost for other investors eyeing up opportunities in East Africa’s rapidly developing energy market.

Turkwel River and Lake Turkana

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Regional ForecastJune 2015

Upcoming Key Events

KeNya There are unconfirmed reports that Al Shabaab militants have been circulating leaflets in western Kenya, threatening to carry out attacks on primary schools in the area. The risk of further attacks on educational or religious institutions remains high, particularly in the north and west of the country, specifically in Garissa County where there have been numerous reports of militant activity this month.

BuRuNdI Continuing violence is very likely in Burundi over the coming weeks, particularly in the capital Bujumbura. Ten-sions are certain to rise fur-ther as the June 29 legislative and July 15 presidential elec-tion dates draw closer and government forces continue their attempts to quash any opposition demonstrations.

TaNzaNIa The influx of nearly 100,000 Burundian refugees to Tanzania is over stretching the capacity of the Government of Tanzania, aid agencies and local services. Travel to the border regions between the two countries is not advised over the coming month as there will be a lack of access to basic provisions and services, along with a heightened risk of disease outbreaks.

eThIoPIa Five opposition parties have now announced that they will not accept the results of the recently held election and have called for the estab-lishment of an independent body of inquiry to inspect possible discrepancies. While any major outbreaks of violence are not expected, there is the possibility of demonstrations and low-level civil unrest, particularly in Addis Ababa.

editor: Clare Morton

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