“One of the biggest problems in Africa is that governments do not trust their people” -Dr. Harry Verhoeven

 BY FANUEL LAKEW

Dr. Harry Verhoeven is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford University (St Cross College). His research focuses on conflict, development and ecological change in Sudan and he is the convenor of the Oxford University China-Africa Network (OUCAN) and Oxford-Central Africa Forum (OCAF). He is also involved in research on the Great African War and political violence in the Great Lakes Region.

His research focuses mainly on the politics of water and agriculture in Sudan (and their link with political-economic evolutions) but he also writes on Ethiopia, Congo (DR), Uganda and Rwanda, concentrating in particular on regional conflict, the internal dynamics of regimes, rebel movements and natural resources.

The Ethiopian Herald's Fanuel Lakew has interviewed Dr Harry Verhoeven and discussed various issues including his educational and professional background as well his views on hydro-politics in the Eastern Africa Region, and African-China relations. The following is the full text of the interview.

Herald:- Would you introduce yourself to our readers?

Dr. Harry:- I was born in the Kingdom of Belgium, Western Europe in 1985 and I had a wonderful and educated family. I was able to travel from a young age to very different countries, come across many cultures and am very greateful for that. My travel does hopefully given me a certain degree of humility in my dealings with people and the cultures.

I studied my first years in Belgium in Social Sciences mainly Politics and Economics and then I moved to the United Kingdom (UK) right now live and work there. Then I studied in London School of Economics my Masters Degree and completed my doctorate at the University of Oxford which focuses mainly on the issue of the Nile, politics of the Nile and Sudan's role on that as well as some on Ethiopia and Egypt.

Since then I have been teaching African politics at the University of Oxford. I have also researched there on the whole range of issues pertaining to mainly Africa and a little bit to China and the Middle East.

Herald:- You have been to Ethiopian many times. How did you find Ethiopia, and what things impressed you most?

Dr. Harry:- Ethiopia is a very beautiful and fascinating country and I think it is a very complex country which is not easy to understand even if you visit many times and read a lot of books.

Herald:- What are these complex things?

Dr. Harry:- Oh! I think Ethiopian society but also Ethiopian politics even the economic situation are not so easy to understand and you know you have deep history that is connected to politics, religion, social affairs and relations to the outside world. So, I find a very complex society and for that reason very interesting to study and to try to better understand. So, I always enjoy coming back because I find it a good challenge for myself.

The other reason I like to come is because I like this country very much and I like its cultures and nationalities. I also find it to be a good place to work in. Of course, sometimes there are some issues of infrastructure or the telecom but it is a safe country and great weather, and hospitality and kindness of people.

Herald:- You have conducted researches on Great African War and political violence in the Great Lake Region and you mainly focus on African politics. Was there any special reason why you choose to focus on African politics?

Dr. Harry:- Yes there are some specific reasons. The first thing is that when we come to East or Central Africa, many things are happening; and many people are doing many different things but the truth is that violence has unfortunately been disproportionately important in defining the lines and options available to the overall majority of people living over there.

What is particular about this violence is that often that happened for a long period of time and is very systemic; not just by one government or one regime or political party. So, it is difficult to try to make any progress on any of the other issues we are concerned with such as social, environmental, economic, and political. Thus, we need to tackle this question of violence. Why do certain leaders take this decisions even though they have often catastrophic outcomes?

I would like to think that my research and partnership make a small but meaningful contribution to address those issues particularly in this region. The first reason is general while the second reason is personal. I happened to spend quite a little bit time in Northern Uganda in 2005 which at the time was in the midst of a terrible war, terrible insurgency by the Lord Resistance Army fighting against the Ugandan government. Living there I saw for myself the consequences of war and what is like to be in a war zone, and seeing the impacts on the people whether in terms of physically or mentally. You know, you see not just the material deprivation the poverty, the hunger and the disease which are pervert in many parts of Africa even the other part where there is no any war.

But the other dimension was fear of war and memories of war and the ways of distortion between families, human being, ethnic groups, religions, etc. is the frightening thing. For me, obviously that has changed my life. I mean I have seen poverty and suffering before and so particularly in the many of the children who taught me many things and for whom I have a highest consideration for teaching me something. For me it remains one of the best types of education which books never teach you.

There are certain things you understand when you are there and see it; and I think that gave me some motivation to try again helping and understanding whatever small way I can as individual.

Herald:- What do you think are the root causes of the conflict in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lake regions, and how can they be resolved?

Dr. Harry:- It is a million dollar questions. Of course about many books have been written simply puts conflict as the work of human beings. Obviously there is a history of colonialism and very problematic external engagement in Africa in the post-colonial era since 1960s.

On conflicts in Africa, there is an awful leadership that many African countries enjoyed. Everything is the fault of the outsiders but they have been frankly many disastrous decisions by African governments and that is extremely worrying.

There is the fact that in many cases poverty means that people be vulnerable to extremist youth or extremist rhetoric where it is Marxist or religious, ethnic or racist because this poverty of course creates a lack of dignity and loss of self worth, and shame and humiliation comes after all of that not having being able to provide to your family and not able to marry in some cases as a serious staff. These all play an important role in explaining why ordinary Africans join rebel movement and doing terrible movements. As I said how we can solve these things and there is no one magical solution. The whole range of things need to be improved and it would be very welcomed if the outsiders come to the helpful position towards Africa whether in trade, aid, investment or politics. It would be very important for African leaders to be trusted. One of the biggest problems in Africa is governments do not trust their people. But of course if you treat your people like animals, they will act like animals.

The point of trust is that someone can only act responsibly if you give him freedom to do so. There can not be responsibility without freedom and no freedom without responsibility.

Thirdly, it is very important that African countries believe on regional integration whether in sub-regions or continent wide level. Do not do this because I get all romantic about Pan-Africanism.

I think cooperation will give you much better chance of dealing with the power politics and the global economy. Some countries are five million people and some countries ten million people, and it does not mean very much but if Africa unites or negotiates as one that it talks as a billion people.

When you talk to the USA, the European Union (EU) or China, it is a different organ and that is something I would hope will help also prevent these conflicts.

Herald:- Let us come to the issue of water. Some people fear that water would be a source of conflict specially in the Nile Basin region in the future. Do you think it would be a source of conflict in the region and how do you see that?

Dr. Harry:- In my writings, I have always argued against that. I do not think that there is any evidence to suggest that water or other scarcity of resources is going to cause conflict or already caused conflict. Scarcity in most cases stimulates people to cooperate whether at the level of a village or the level of states. There are a lot of academic researches which prove this statistically. People do not fight over water or other resources.

Particularly when we comes to the Nile region as I have argued so many times before, the future of the Nile Basin is in cooperation, to let the past be passed, to move forward, to share your resources.

Herald:- You must be aware of Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam. Don't you think that Ethiopia has the right to develop its water resource in order to fight poverty?

Dr. Harry:- Very quickly and simply put I believe that the Ethiopian Dam—Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GRD) on the Blue Nile is a good thing not just for Ethiopia but for the region as well.

It can bring cheap and clean electricity to countries that need such as Sudan, South Sudan, Egypt, Kenya and may be one day Eritrea. So, I think in respect to that we should support any attempt by any Ethiopian government to try to speed up regional integration and the languages that has been coming up from the government here is encouraging.

I would hope that the Egyptian government becomes more flexible and understand the dam does not have damage to it, and it could work for its advantage. This could help change the relations in the region which historically has seen dozen conflicts and proxy wars to those of cooperation, economic growth and peace.

Herald:- You have presented a paper under the title: “Is China's non-interference policy history? The people's growing willingness to intervene on the African Continent” here at the Institute of Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) of Addis Ababa University. Tell me a little bit about the argument of the paper.

Dr. Harry:- Okay. The argument of the presentation I made is that China is already giving up its interference policy in Africa because its growing business interests forced to increasingly get involved politically in Africa. Simply put the more economically exposed you are to a country, the more you are likely to want to protect your interest in that country. If I invest a lot of money for example here in Ethiopia, I do not want to have a government that confiscates my asset. I want to have some kinds of leverage over this government. So, I will develop a political tie that would build a bigger embassy, and I will try to protect that as much as I can.

In many cases political protection is enough and countries scale up to also militarily, and this is the classical story of what happened with the Americans in the Middle East in the Persian Gulf in search of the oil.

My argument about China is that as its interest deepens so does the tendency to want to protect even though China will maintains its rhetorical commitments to non-interference principle. In reality it will increasingly get politically involved in Africa as I showed in the presentation that already has huge amount of cases. You can think of China involving in peacekeeping in Africa including sending combat troops to Mali. You can think of China's involvement in Anti-piracy operations in the coast of Somalia.

We have seen the evacuation of China nationals from Libya at the time of civil war in Libya in the NETO intervention. Thus, this is likely to be increased not decreased in the future.

Herald:- There is a regional organization here in East Africa called IGAD (Intergovernmental Authority on Development). Do you think IGAD is successful in conflict prevention, management and resolution?

Dr. Harry:- In conflict prevention, the answer is no. IGAD and Ethiopia are trying to mediate these parties. That is welcome, necessary and important but it is not enough clearly. And let us encourage IGAD to do more to be vigilant and raise its gain further but let us not sit back and think everything is simple. We see conflicts in Somalia, tensions in Eritrea, the multiple wars in Sudan, South Sudan. And we are very far.

Herald:- So what has to be done to solve these problems?

Dr. Harry:- Fundamentally of course it is a political leadership as I always said wars are made by man, they can be solved by man.

Herald:- What are the lessons to be learned in this regard?

Dr. Harry:- It would help if countries would stop meddling in each others' matters. I mean Uganda is part of IGAD but unilaterally moves into South Sudan sending troops without consulting others.

Herald:- Would you tell me a little bit about the modern historical relationships between African and China?

Dr. Harry:- The relationship between China and Africa goes back to the 1950th and 1960th when China used to be ruled by Mao Zedong when he came to power after the revolution in 1949. Mao was to support a range of African liberation struggles as well as to support a number of progressive leftist regimes in Africa through friendship projects, typically building infrastructure and providing some support in agriculture, education and health care.

However, the political assistance was limited in terms of financial size and the impact. Perhaps, the famous project, the so called TAZARA railway— (also called the Uhuru Railway or the Tanzam Railway) links the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam with the town of Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia's Central Province. The project was financed and executed by the Peoples Republic of China at a cost of 500 million USD and was constructed as a turn key project between 1970 and 1975. TAZARA currently handles exports/imports of both Tanzania and Zambia, as well as Malawi, DR Congo, the Great Lakes region, South Africa and Zimbabwe— but apart from that there was not a huge amount of change in the development landscape of Africa.

The late 1970s, 80s and the beginning of 90s, the cooperation declined and China more focused on its internal growth and issues of democratization, economic reform, and opening up. This began to change as China began to realize that in order to sustain its growth and rapid industrialization external natural resources were needed.

For that it reason began intensifying relations with a range of African countries who mainly provide of natural resources and all critical materials such as petroleum, cooper, manganese, oil, etc.

The other phase, mainly after a year 2000, Africa did not just become a place where you could take resources but also you could sell things. Many people often see CHINA-AFRICA story as a straight forward extraction of resources. But the truth is that China serves a lot of things too here and provides services, engages in construction of roads and telecoms. It also provides cheap manufactured goods which are good business for Chinese companies particularly because there is no western competition, and the West thought there was no money to be made.

Herald:- Can you tell me the nature and the outcomes of the Sino-African relations?

Dr. Harry:- As I said the African-China relations is mainly driven by an economic goal which are explained in the extraction of resources as well as exporting of finished products. Historically, this is mainly about the so called One-China Policy. China does not pose any conditions on African countries. That is the policy of non-interference. China will not tell African countries how to organize their political system. But there is one exception. That exception is what we call the One-China Policy which is the instance of the government in Beijing that Taiwan as former part of China that they can not be independent, that it cannot be a state on its own. There cannot be any recognition for example for Taiwan by African countries. If you want official government assistance you have to recognize Beijing as a sole legitimate representative of the whole of China.

China also believes that engagement with Africa provides it with lots of diplomacy support in places like UN General Assembly, some degree of South-South Solidarity.

Herald:- Thank you very much for you time.

Dr. Harry:- Thank you.