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Archive for April, 2010

A Nigerian Oil Curse?

Posted in Contemporary History, Economic History, Violence, tagged , , , , , on 30/04/2010 | Leave a Comment »

There are often references being made to the oil curse, the supposed wretchedness of resource endowments that plunges developing countries into a never-ending spiral of internal strife and instability. The rationale is partially based upon the developing countries’ weak institutional framework which makes states harbouring valuable extractible resources susceptible to predation from external or internal factions. But there is also an economic aspect, the export commodities inflates the domestic exchange rate to the detriment of manufacturing sectors, making these less competitive. Over-reliance on a poorly diversified portfolio of export commodities also makes the economy highly susceptible to market volatility, as commodities such as crude oil, minerals or agricultural produce etc are subject to frequently changing international price fluctuations.

Nigerian GDP per Capita vs Value of Oil Production

An example of such reliance would be Africa’s largest crude oil producer Nigeria. At 2.17 million bbls/day (2008, BP Statistical Review 2009) Nigeria is a substantial supplier of oil known as Bonny Light, a gasoline-rich crude, favoured among primarily American refineries for its high quality (49.7% of Nigerian exports, 2008), making it inexpensive to refine. With daily exports running at approximately 2 million bbls/day, two Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs) are required for transshipment. Nigeria has also seen falling apparent consumption levels over the last ten years, currently standing at around 200k bbls/day.

Nigerian Crude Oil Production, Exports & Apparent Consumption

Nigerian oil production is, however, not running at total capacity and that is due to guerilla activities shutting in approximately 0.5 million bbls/day. This is the result of the long-standing insurgency conducted by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), destroying pipelines and attacking installation infrastructure and crew.

MEND Guerillas 2008

They have stated to be fighting for a more equitable sharing of the oil revenues, with a greater portion being earmarked directly to the producing region. Additionally a stated goal has to be lowering pollution levels from the production facilities and reducing Nigeria’s dependence upon foreign companies to extract the oil wealth. However many would liken their activities to opportunist banditry. The response from the oil companies operating in the Niger Delta has been to employ Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSOs) units to gain mobility should the conflict escalate into a large-scale war, to lobby the Nigerian government for added military protection and to hire private security firms. Despite the Nigerian government’s counterinsurgency tactics, the guerillas have been successfully in conducting their activities since the early 1990s, something that might illustrate their resilience.

Even though Nigeria suffers some negative consequences of its resource endowment, the positive aspects in the form of export earnings more than makes up for it, as is clearly visible from the GDP per Capita graph. In periods of high international oil prices, revenue from oil exports should be diverted to building more sustainable manufacturing sectors and into increasing the overall education level of the population. More resources should also be diverted to the producing regions in an attempt to reduce the recruitment incentive for the guerilla movements. Should the Nigerian government succeed in pacifying the insurgents an additional 0.5 million bbls/day in production capacity would be freed, increasing total production by 20%, in 2008 that would have meant $20 billion on an annual basis.

Sources: BP Statistical Review 2009 & US Dept of Energy EIA International

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Mad Dogs and Englishmen: The Imperial Climate

Posted in Imperial History, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on 21/04/2010 | Leave a Comment »

Information as to the Conditions and Cost of Living in the Colonial Empire (3rd Edition) Issued by the Colonial Office and Printed by His Majesty’s Stationary Office 1937

The British Empire 1897

Prefatory Note.

The Information contained in this publication regarding conditions and the cost of living in the various Colonies, Protectorates, and Mandated Territories has been supplied by the Governments of the Dependencies concerned in reply to the questionnaire printed on page iv. It is intended primarily for the use of persons who contemplate taking up Government employment in the countries mentioned, but it is hoped that it may be of use to others also. The publication will be periodically revised and brought up o date. While every endeavour has been made to see that the information contained in this volume is as far as possible accurate, neither the Secretary of State for the Colonies nor the Governments concerned can accept responsibility for the absolute accuracy of every statement made, especially in such matters as comparisons of standards and cost of living, which depend largely upon the individual.

Questionnaire. (As circulated to Colonial, etc., Governments.)

1. Climate (especially with regard to its suitability to men, women, and children from the United Kingdom) and any special precautions to be observed by Europeans.

Aden

"...prolonged residence causes gradual but definite deterioration of health and efficiency..."

The climate of Aden is fairly healthy, though the warmth and humidity are trying between April and October. During the north-east monsoon, that is, between the latter part of October and April, the climate is generally cool and pleasant. Sickness is rather more prevalent during the colder months than in the hot weather, a circumstance which is perhaps connected with the wider variations of temperature in the cool season. The principal diseases which affect Europeans are a mild form of dysentery, dengue and sand-fly fever, minor fevers of influenzal type, and pharyngeal and bronchial catarrh. Malaria is practically non-existent, but it can only be kept in abeyance by constant supervision of the potential breeding grounds of anopheline mosquitoes in Sheikh Othman and elsewhere. Mosquitoes of other kinds and indeed winged insects of all kinds, including house flies, beetles, and winged ants, are comparatively rare in Aden, except after heavy rain (which rarely occurs), and local swarms of mosquitoes, when found, are generally due to the carelessness in the storage of domestic supplies of water. The use of mosquito-nets is not necessary. Enteric fever (typhoid) is comparatively rare, but it is advisable for newcomers to be protected through inoculation.The only common infectious diseases in Aden are chicken-pox and mumps, but the incidence of these diseases is mainly among the Arab and Indian population. Contrary to the general impression, heat-stroke and sun-stroke are not common in Aden, but the use of some form of protective head-gear is necessary during the hot hours of the day. The glare from the sun during the greater part of the year is very intense, and the use of sun-glasses is to be recommended. The climate of Aden is such that prolonged residence causes gradual but definite deterioration of health and efficiency, and it is not advisable, as a rule, to spend more than two hot seasons and three cold seasons consecutively without a period of leave in the United Kingdom or in a similar climate. This particularly applies to women and children, for whom a stay of three consecutive seasons is too much; infants and children up to three or four years of age and adolescents generally do well even during the hot months, but children of school age are better away from Aden.

Bahamas

The climate of the Bahamas during the winter is delightful. There is never any frost and the average temperature is about 70 F; there is little rain and cool breezes prevail. The rainy months are May, June, September, and October, and it is during these months that the greatest heat is experienced, the temperature ranging from 80 F to 90 F. The heat during the summer months is very humid and trying and owing to the complete absence of elevated land no alleviation is obtainable locally. Nevertheless, the islands are at no time unhealthy, and young white children thrive throughout the year. Few tropical diseases exist, malaria being practically non-existent. Houses generally are screened and in some localities mosquito nets can be frequently be dispensed with. A pipe-borne water supply and a sewerage system extend throughout the city and suburbs.

Barbados

The climate of Barbados is equable and cooler than the proximity of the island to the Equator would suggest. It is suitable to men, women, and children from the United Kingdom to a greater extent perhaps than any other West Indian Colony. From November to May it enjoys constant north-easterly winds, and the temperature at night falls sometimes as low as 64 F. During the rainy season the temperature in the shade ranges between 80 F and 86 F, but the heat is seldom very oppressive. Barbados is much patronized for health purposes by residents in the neighbouring Colonies, numbers of whom avail themselves of the excellent facilities for sea-bathing which the island affords.

"...excellent facilities for sea-bathing.."

Special precautions against disease are not taken generally by local residents. As a precaution, however, against mosquitoeborn infection many residents sleep under mosquito nets, and newcomers should invariably do so. The water supply is good, but it is advisable that newcomers to Barbados should be inoculated against typhoid fever.

Bermuda

The climate is generally healthy, and it is suitable for adults and children of both sexes and all ages. The mean monthly temperature for 1935 was 70.5 F., the absolute minimum was 47.5 F. in March, and the absolute maximum 88.8 F. in July. The mean relative humidity was 78, the driest month was January with a figure of 73, and the most humid August with a figure of 84. Rainfall averages about 60 inches per annum and is fairly evenly spread throughout the year. In winter months a fire in the evening, whilst not an absolute necessity, adds considerably to one’s comfort. The summer months of July to September inclusive are somewhat enervating, more on account of the humidity than on account of the temperature. On the other hand there is almost always a pleasant sea breeze blowing. In the winter these breezes frequently become strong winds which are less pleasant. Hurricanes do occur, but there has not been a serious one since 1926. Bermuda is singularly free from diseases, and malaria is now unknown. The death-rate in 1935 was 9.9 per mille.

British Guiana

In spite of the Colony being so near the Equator, the climate is more sub-tropical than tropical. For most months of the year the maximum shade temperature is about 85 F., and even in the hottest months 89 F. is rarely recorded, while the night temperature of 70 F. is very rare. There are two wet and two dry seasons in the coastland regions; the long wet season, usually from April to August, being succeeded by the long dry season up to the middle of November, followed by the wet weather towards the end of January, and the short dry season until April. The rainfall average is about 85 inches on the coastland belt, and 58 inches on the savannahs. In the forest regions of the interior the contrast between the wet and dry seasons is less marked than on the coast, the rainfall being more regular throughout the year. In the savannah region of the interior there is a well-marked dry season from October to February; while the wettest months are from May to August. It may be said also that the range of temperature is slightly greater in the forest regions than on the coastland region, and is even greater still on the savannah region; thus on the savannahs the main maximum shade registered is 92.5 while the minimum shade is 72.2. Fresh sea-breezes blow steadily almost without intermission during the daytime for the greater part of the year; during the months of January, February, and March they continue both night and day and make life, even for the European, exceedingly pleasant. The general direction of the wind is north-east, east north-east, or east. Occasionally, however, during the wet months of the year, a land-breeze is experienced from the south-east, south, or south-west, and with this wind the heaviest falls of rain occur. The wind varies from “gentle” to “fresh” and gales are exceedingly rare. Hurricanes are unknown. The constant winds temper the heat of the tropical sun and keep the temperature inside the houses cool and pleasant. Visitors from other tropical countries frequently express surprise at the pleasantness of the climate. The nights, too, throughout the year are uniformly cool and conducive to sleep. There are rarely twenty days in any year on which bright sunshine is not recorded. The daily average throughout the year is little over six hours, but except when rain is falling dull and cloudy weather is very rarely experienced. In the dry season the average record of sunshine is nearly ten hours a day. Rain generally occurs during the early part of the day. Generally speaking, Europeans look well and, with care, retain good health in the coastal belt where, in view of lack of development in the interior, practically all European recruited staffs reside. European women and children have better health and a healthier appearance than in most other parts of the tropics.

British Honduras

The climate is suitable for men, women and children of any age. Special precautions to be taken by Europeans:- Light tropical clothing, including undergarments, should be worn. Exposure to the sun should be avoided, as much as possible, between the hours of 11.0 a.m. and 2.0 p.m. After severe exertion and if tired, warm baths rather than cold should be taken.

Ceylon

At the lower elevations, in the hot weather, the climate of Ceylon is unmistakably tropical, but during the cooler seasons, which depend on the monsoons, frequent rain cools down the atmosphere and the blazing sunshine is veiled by clouds.

Andrew Carnegie in Ceylon January 1879

In the hills, the air temperature falls with increase in altitude, and at the higher elevations the hot season resembles a continuous summer in the temperate zone. During the monsoon periods much of the hilly country is subject to heavy rainfall and the percentage of rainy or even sunless days is very high. On the whole, the climate of Ceylon is fairly good for the tropics. The accessibility of the hills is a great boon to the plain dwellers and a change to the sea is beneficial to those who live in the hills. In the low country the districts which have been opened in rubber, coconuts, and other products are generally fairly healthy, but in the unopened localities malaria is common.

Cyprus

The climate of Cyprus, generally speaking, is temperate and healthy and is equally suitable to men, women, and children from the United Kingdom. The excessive heat of the plains during the summer is trying to Europeans, but the heat is dry except on the coast and the winters are cold and invigorating. There are numerous resorts in the hills at altitudes varying from 6,000 to 2,000 feet where the summer season from June to September can be passed in eminently healthy surroundings and without discomfort or inconvenience. The rainfall is slight and almost confined to the winter months. During the hot weather in the plains it is necessary to sleep under nets that are proof against both mosquitoes and sandflies, but otherwise there are no precautions to be observed by Europeans.

Falkland Islands

The climate of the Falkland Islands is characterised by the same seasonal variations as in the United Kingdom. During the summer months the constant high winds are rather trying. The winters are slightly colder and the summers several degrees cooler than in the United Kingdom. The range of mean temperature is 12.6 F. only, that is between 49.3 F. in January and 36.7 F. in July, as against 62.7 F. in July and 38.8 F. in January at Kew. The mean for the year is about 7 degrees lower than at Kew but the winters are not so damp or trying as they are in the greater part of England.

The Gambia

The climate of the Gambia is unsuitable for Europeans for long periods of residence. Frequent visits to more temperate climates are necessary to enable them to recuperate. The climate is generally agreeable from November to May, but during the rainy season from June to October is unpleasant at times and presents the unhealthy features common in tropical countries during and before the rains. The climate is unsuitable for European children not only on account of the probability of their getting malaria, but also because of the lack of suitable foods and companionship. The changes in temperature during the cool season are also very trying. Europeans tend to become anaemic, and European children particularly so. It is generally inadvisable for Europeans to remain for more than eighteen or twenty-four consecutive months in the Gambia without proceeding to a more temperate climate. Changes of scene and air cannot be obtained to the extent required.

Gibraltar

The climate is similar to that of Europe with the temperature ranging between about 42 F. and 94 F. and a rainfall of about 36 inches. No special precautions need be observed by residents, but all drinking water should be boiled.

Gold Coast

The Gold Coast climate is not nearly as bad as is sometimes believed. It is hot and damp, but is cooler than most tropical countries in similar latitudes. The temperature averages about 80 F. for the year, dropping considerably up-country during the months of January and February, and on the coast in June and July, to a degree reminiscent of an English summer day, with cold nights when a warm blanket is appreciated. The wet season begins about the end of March and continues in varying degrees all over the Colony, Ashanti, and the Northern Territories until October, with short dry spells. In the Colony and Ashanti where most of the country is covered with large forest, the rains are heavier than in the Northern Territories, where the country is covered with scrub, or in Accra, Winneba, and Cape Coast, where vegetation is sparse.

Rule No. (7) Don't go out after 8 a.m. without a helmet!

The highest rainfall recorded in 1935 at any single station was 130.39 inches and the lowest 26.19 inches. The country is not suited for settlers or permanent residents, and the usual length of tour varies from one year to eighteen months, after which about four and a-half months are spent in a temperate climate. The number of European women in the country increases annually, and as a whole they stand the climate well. Few stay out for more than a year at a time. Newcomers would be well advised not to bring out their wives until they have themselves seen the conditions of living or until they have consulted some woman who has previous residence. A Government official must obtain permission to bring out his wife. This is rarely refused save to an official in his first tour. Children should not be brought out without previous experience of the Colony. The chief tropical diseases are mosquito-borne, but these can be avoided to a great extent and with reasonable care it is possible for a European to keep fit. A newcomer would be well advised to observe the following rules:

(1) Don’t forget the daily 5 grains of quinine.

(2) Don’t drink alcohol before sundown.

(3) Don’t drink unboiled or unfiltered water.

(4) Don’t sit about after games without a sweater.

(5) Don’t sleep without a mosquito net.

(6) Don’t forget mosquito boots after dusk.

(7) Don’t go out after 8 a.m. without a helmet.

(8) Don’t neglect inspection of your kitchen utensils and your kitchen.

(9) Don’t forget to have your filter scrubbed weekly.

(10) Take regular exercise.

Jamaica

The climate of Jamaica is probably one of the best tropical climates in the world, but it is desirable, although not essential, for European children to spend some of their school years in a temperate zone. On the sea coast the period from June to October is sometimes uncomfortably hot and it is wise for European women and children to go to the hills for that period if possible. Special precautions should be observed with regard to water supply, contamination of fresh fruit and raw vegetables, and contamination of food after  cooking. In certain districts anti-malarial precautions are necessary.

Kenya

The geographical area which comprises the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya is situated 5 degrees North and 5 degrees South and is bounded on the east by the Indian Ocean and Italian Somaliland, on the north by Abyssinia, on the west by Lake Victoria and the Uganda Protectorate, and in the South by Tanganyika Territory.
The country may be described consisting of:
(i) The Coastal Belt which is essentially tropical, although the nights are frequently cool except during the hottest months from November to April. The mean shade temperature is 80 degrees Fahrenheit and the average rainfall about 40 inches.
(ii) A region between just over sea level and under 3,000 feet stretching from the near coast to the foot-hills of Mount Kenya and round to Lake Rudolph in the north. This region, which includes more than half the area of the Colony is sparsely populated has an average temperature of between 70 degrees Fahrenheit and 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and an average rainfall of about 10 inches.
(iii) The Highlands, consisting of alternating mountain ranges and high level plateaux, bounded by the low lying areas on the east and north and by the Lake Area in the west. These plateaux are at elevations varying from 3,000 to 9,000 feet, the mountains being of greater altitude. Mount Kenya, after which the Colony is named, is 17,040 feet in height and is capped by continual snow and ice. Mount Elgon is 14,000 feet high and is just below the snow line. The Aberdare range, on the east of the Rift Valley, reaches 13,000 feet, and the Mau Escarpment, on the west of the Rift Valley, attains a height of over 10,000 feet. In this highland area the climate is invigorating, with cool breezes and cold nights especially from June to August. The mean shade temperature is between 55 degrees Fahrenheit and 65 degrees Fahrenheit. The average rainfall ranges generally from 30 to 50 inches, but is higher in certain parts.
(iv) The Lake Area, consisting of the region bordering the shores of Lake Victoria (3,726 feet). This area is at an average height of 4,000 feet, has an average annual rainfall varying from 40 inches to over 70 inches in different localities.
The heaviest rainfall is normally experienced during the “long rains” of March to May and “short rains” of October to December, but seasons vary considerably. January and February are usually dry and sunny, while July and August are cloudy and cool.
Generally speaking, the climate of the highlands is pleasant and suitable for European adults provided reasonable precautions are taken. The country lies on the Equator and the sun should be treated with respect. In the case of children it is generally considered advisable that at least a part of the period between the ages of 8 and 20 years should be spent in a country where a more uniformly temperate climate is found.
In a considerable part of this area there are numbers of European farmers and facilities for social intercourse are enhanced accordingly. Given reasonably adequate housing conditions a high standard of health can be maintained by both officers and their families.

The Land Settlement Commissioners commented on the climatic conditions in the East Africa Protectorate, signed Nairobi on the 21st November 1918:

“An important matter for the consideration  by each person who is contemplating settling in the East Africa Protectorate* is the suitability of the climate for a white race. In respect of this matter the medical faculty hold widely divergent views. Some are of the opinion that a frequent change to a temperate climate is essential, while others consider that with ordinary care in living, which means wholesome food, proper housing, and the ordinary precautions which are observed in other tropical climates, there is no reason why a white man should not make a home for himself and his family in this country. This would appear to be borne out by the testimony of many old resident settlers who gave evidence. Only time can prove whether the virility of our race can be maintained without change to a temperate climate.”

*Now Kenya Colony and Protectorate

Oversea Settlement Office (1924) General Information as to Kenya Colony and Protectorate, London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office. p. 8.

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The Congo Free State – A Latifundium of Terror

Posted in Economic History, Imperial History, Violence, tagged , , , , , on 16/04/2010 | 1 Comment »

‘Leopold II…has knit adventurers, traders and missionaries of many races into one band of men, under the most illustrious of modern travellers (H.M. Stanley) to carry into the interior of Africa new ideas of law, order, humanity, and protection of the natives.’[1] The Daily Telegraph, 22nd of October 1884

Grossly Deceived by King Leopold: the great African explorer Henry Morton Stanley (Bula Matari) & the slave boy he freed and sent to England to be educated, later to accompany him on expeditions, Kalulu in 1872

Some of the worst atrocities committed during the European powers’ partition of Africa during the latter decades of the 19th Century were carried out in King Leopold II’s Congo Free State. There are estimates of ten million casualties as a direct consequence of his reign[2] and it has made a profound impact upon the Congo’s later development into what one might refer to as a failed state. However it was not incidental that this level of violence would be exerted within this particular colonial possession. The Congo Free State fulfilled several of the criteria needed for development into such an atrocious regime. The combination of a comparatively small state apparatus with little resources in terms of military and economic power, controlled by a ruthless leader attempting to rule and maximise profits made from extracting the resources of a vast territory led to the use of significant administrative coercion. The colonial leadership identified the use of terror as the most cost-efficient method of imposing rule and facilitating extraction, devising a systematic approach towards the territory’s population. This system of terror was structured in several layers. One of which was an incentive system indirectly rewarding the colonial administration for the use of excessive force, another was the recruitment and collaboration of different native peoples acting as soldiers for the colonial officials. As the administration’s wages were directly linked to the profits made from extracted resources, it created incentives for the use of ruthless measures, linking the market mechanism with violence.

The International African Association 1884

1885 Establishing The Congo Free State

Sir Francis de Winton

‘A little more than a quarter of a century ago, a great genius for evil, having achieved in rapid succession a series of diplomatic master strokes, stretched out to reach the sceptre which was to give him power over life and death over twenty million human beings.’[3] It is by these words Edmund Morel commences his History of the Congo Reform Movement characterising succinctly both the protagonist and by which methods he acquired control over an immense landmass in equatorial Africa. L’Etat Indépendant du Congo or the Congo Free State as it came to be known by English-speakers was officially notified to the world as established on 1st August 1885. A month earlier a decree issued by Belgian official de Winton stipulated that all ‘vacant lands’ within it were to be considered state property[4]. This vast tract of land comprised of some 2.3 million square kilometres, 77 times greater than Belgium, straddling most of the rainforest and bush territory surrounding the Congo River in Equatorial Africa.

King Leopold II of the Belgians

As a comparatively weak actor in terms of military and economic resources Leopold used a cunning diplomatic strategy in order to obtain his African colony. This was manifested through portraying himself as having philanthropic motivations by using his front-organisation the International African Association[5] whilst using the rivalries among the great powers to his advantage. By supporting Leopold the Germans, through Bismarck, sought to thwart French expansion and the effects of French protectionist trade policy, in addition to check British dominance in Africa. The British viewed the Belgian King’s project as doomed to failure and would in this regard not protest against the establishment of Leopold’s rule as he would act as a neutral actor and a guarantor of free trade in the short term by impeding the French. Sharing the British view of imminent failure, France was persuaded into recognition through Leopold’s promise of bequeathing the territory the French Empire upon his death. The diplomatic recognition of the United States was obtained through human agency and promises of following noble policies of fighting slavery and creating markets for American industry by imposing free trade[6].

 

Organisational Aspects of the Congo Free State

The Congo Free State differentiated itself from typical colonies as it lacked a metropolis, the state was de facto King Leopold’s personal property, retaining the characteristics of a greatly magnified Roman latifundium. The King’s constitutional position in the Congo was described by a contemporary study as, ‘the titulary of sovereignty. All the rights and all the duties of government are summarised and incorporated in his person … The sovereign … is the direct fountainhead of the legislative and judicial power. He can, if he chooses, exercise these powers directly and personally… His will cannot meet with any judicial obstacle. He would say … with greater accuracy than Louis XIV, ‘The State, it is I’ … He is the absolute master of the whole of the internal and external sovereignty of the Independent State … The organisation of the army, the industrial and commercial regimes, are established freely by himself according to the idea, be it accurately or faulty, which he has of their utility and efficacy. He regulates with the same independence all the external relations of the State. In a word, Leopold II possesses personally, and exercises personally, save where he thinks it advisable to delegate to others, all the prerogatives that popular custom recognises to Sovereign States.’[7] By decree on the 30th October 1892 Leopold divided the Free State into distinct zones giving commercial rights to concession companies, whilst reserving the greatest sphere for the crown[8]. He maintained the right to tax all exports made by the private companies and kept all profits from the crown’s zone.

The first years of the Free State’s existence the colony made substantial financial deficits, of which Leopold would personally carry the burden of raising capital through the issuance of undersubscribed bonds[9]. Trade was primarily centred on the acquisitioning of ivory from natives, trading strings of beads and similar goods for the tusks of nomadic elephants. This was reflected in the colony’s administrative apparatus, composing merely of some fifty posts, most of which were manned by only one or two Europeans consisting of little more than a living quarters, a warehouse and a flagpole[10]. The first five to seven years of the State can in this regard be said to have been little worse in terms of atrocities committed against the indigenous population than that of other colonial ventures in Africa. Deaths in this initial period were largely caused by the porterage of elephant tusks or through the construction of such infrastructure as the roads and eventually the railroad bypassing the cataracts of the Congo River[11].

 

Red Rubber

‘Tell them (the rubber agents) that we cannot and therefore will not find rubber; we are willing to spend our strength at any work possible, but the rubber is finished. If we must either be massacred or bring rubber, well, let them kill us; then we suppose they will be satisfied.’[12]

In the Rubber Coils, Punch 1906

The violence of which the Congo Free State derived its notoriety can be attributed to the period of rubber extraction. The system that developed to facilitate the large-scale harvesting of the latex from this plant was the catalyst that changed the Free State’s political economy from a largely conventional colonial regime into a company government pursuing profit maximisation through extreme coercive means.

The Congo rubber genus Landolphia retains characteristics of fragility and is easily killed through excessive or incorrect tapping. It grows as a wild vine, climbing upwards in a twisting fashion around the trunks of large trees. It rather sparsely populates the rainforests of Equatorial Africa, being populous in certain confined areas and as few as one plant per hectare in others. This stands in stark contrast to the rubber plant species Hevea grown in Brazil, a hearty and productive genus suitable for large-scale latex production in plantation style agricultural units[13]. The difference between these plants might have led to early misconceptions among the Free State’s administration as to the productive capabilities of their particular domestic plants.

External economic and technological changes led to a significant increase in international demand for rubber. With the advent of a technique strengthening and enhancing the heat resilient properties of rubber through vulcanisation in 1839 and the invention of the pneumatic rubber tyre in 1887, the road was paved for augmented demand and hence increased prices for the product’s main component, latex. The combination of rising rubber prices, declining ivory profits, improvements in transportation infrastructure allowing the state to profit from high-bulk, low value commodities, the King’s precarious financial situation and willingness to allow coercive action against the indigenous population all led the way to an economy primarily based on rubber harvesting. Despite the rise in prices, rubber still retained features of having a low value-to-volume ratio, there was few skills involved in its harvesting, requiring little more than a knife and a collection vessel for the latex, thus qualifying most of the population to take part in the harvesting. Due to its low value-to-volume ratio large amounts of the commodity would be required to breach the fixed and variable cost levels imposed through transportation and colonial administrative costs. To achieve profit maximisation for the State, labour-input costs would be externalised to the indigenous population, put in another way, labour would be obtained through coercing the natives.

In order to successfully achieve a large-scale labour mobilisation through coercion the State put in place a legal framework in 1892 exacting a monthly rubber tax[14] from the Africans, the amount of which would be left to local administrative agents’ discretion. The ideological foundation for labour exploitation was described in an official statement; ’The natives must be induced to throw off their natural indolence and improve their condition. A law therefore, which imposes upon them light and regular work is the only means of giving them the incentive to work; while it is an economic law, it is also a humanitarian law.’[15] Adhering to the widespread contemporary belief that Africans were naturally apathetic, the only remedy being labour, and should repay the colonial masters for giving them civilisation, a quid pro quo. However as coercion replaced comparatively legitimate trade as the main incentive for rubber harvesting, productivity among the natives slumped and justifications for applying greater force became a self-fulfilling prophecy[16].

 

Wielding the Chicotte

To maximise rubber volumes colonial officials were subject to an incentive system rewarding a continuous increase in rubber yields. This took the form of bonuses and promotion and “according to a directive issued by Free State administrators in 1892, the rate of bonuses to agents was to increase in direct proportion to a decrease in purchasing prices from natives.” [17] The singular measure of a rubber agent’s value in the eyes of the Free State would be the volume of rubber he managed to obtain for export[18]. Salaries were kept to a minimum by both the State and concessionary companies, this had the dual effect of recruiting ‘people who had been refused by other companies or who had been dismissed by them for bad behaviour’[19] and to give officials added incentive for behaviour that would maximise rubber extraction and thus make them eligible for bonuses.

The operational aspects of the Congo Free State facilitating the massive labour mobilisation involved the recruitment of natives into soldiering, by both voluntary and involuntary means. The military arm of the Free State took the form of a substantial army called the Force Publique formally established in 1888[20], led by European officers with the rank and file consisting of African soldiers, from both different parts of Africa and within the State’s boundaries. Drawn from missionary camps, freed slaves or exacted as tax from native communities, they were generally strangers to the area they would serve and without a sense of identification with local groups.[21] Being outside the native social structure and social ladder of advancement the soldiers had great incentives to perform the duties laid upon them by the State diligently and would often re-enlist after their seven year tour to become career soldiers. However, this was not always the case as desertions and mutinies were not uncommon, the military regime exacting discipline by the chicotte was harsh, wages low and malnourishment widespread.

Force Publique at Stanleyville

The soldiers would exploit their newfound position to the utmost, as one village in Busira accounts the custom of how soldiers would claim women; ‘A bullet would be sent to the home of the desired woman; if she or her husband refused the “invitation”, that same bullet was used to kill her.’[22] Over the 1890s the Force Publique officers and men would number approximately nineteen thousand and consume half the State budget[23]. To cover the vast expanse that was the Congo Free State, rules stipulated that the army would be divided into garrisons of no more than twenty five armed men per State post, circumventing this decree would be the use of auxiliaries. The auxiliary personnel were known to the Europeans as capitas, assuming the role of collaborating village chiefs and oversaw the local rubber extraction. These played a pivotal role in facilitating the large-scale coercion of African labour as described in one account by a concessionary company Societé Anonyme Belge pour le Commerce du Haut Congo post in Basoko. [24]

The coercive methods afflicted upon the natives for the collection of rubber was the culmination of the colonial institutions introduced and presided over by Leopold. These entailed various techniques available for the rubber agent as detailed in the field manual[25] distributed to all officials. Procedurally the State or concessionary company would establish a post manned by Europeans and Force Publique soldiers. They would proceed to survey the local surroundings and population determining how much each would contribute in terms of rubber and ivory. A method of enhancing yield was through the extension of post territory to cover additional villages or compelling women and children to collection duties.

Congolese Female Hostages

Famine and disease would often be a result of the latter policy, as the societies would be deprived of their sources of food. For augmented control the agents could enlist capitas supervising the collection within the village society and thus also increase levels of violence. The excessive force exacted by the capitas were manifested through the severed hands, noses or ears they would have to exhibit to the officials for each spent cartridge, proving that they had not squandered the ammunition[26]. In case the men of the village fled, compliance would be enforced through hostage taking of the village chief, women or children. Making them susceptible to rape, starvation or disease and not released until a ransom of rubber or ivory was paid[27]. Also the methods of collection that had to be undertaken by the natives produced a significant death toll, as collectors would be required to travel farther as the local sources of rubber were depleted owing to the fragility of the Landolphia genus. This would make villagers susceptible to attacks from wild animals, starvation and disease or merely from the act of extracting the rubber itself from tall trees.

 

Concluding Remarks

‘In such a country and such a climate, put a rough-grained Belgian army officer, unaccustomed to the management of coloured races and untrained in civil government, give him absolute power over the native population, and orders to raise revenue to the utmost of his ability; above him place a military autocrat as governor, as sternly determined to be obeyed as if he were at the head of a regiment; and higher still, appoint a resolute Minister, desirous above all things of proving his royal master’s enterprise to be commercially sound, and the train is fully laid for exactions enforced by cruelty.’[28]

Congo Natives and Missionaries Displaying Severed Hands

In any analysis of history one should be aware of the historiography that has shaped our current understanding of past events, but in the particular case of the Congo Free State the evidence of its atrocious nature is overwhelming both in the scope and the breadth of sources. The contemporary analysis made by Mr William Clayton Pickersgill describes succinctly the nature of the violence inherent in the Congo Free State. It was a violence that derived from the policies of King Leopold II seeking profit maximisation through externalising labour costs within a legal and moral vacuum. As the rubber collection required little capital investments in the form of tools, few skills in the form of collection techniques and only modest physical fitness, it qualified a vast majority of the Congolese population to become potential labourers.

Mutilated Congolese Victims

With the breadth of the potential victims thus expanded the external incentives for administrative coercion was increased through rising rubber prices, a dire financial position held by the territorial owner, the non-existence of legal protection for the natives, the incentive structure for the colonial officials, the human agency of collaborating natives and the racial ideology that served to pervert the morality of the subjugating agents. The indigenous population inhabiting this particular part of the African continent were true victims of historical coincidence. The coincidence that a European ruler, displaying no cognitive ability for empathy, gaining against all odds the control over a vast territory, driven by a combination of greed and financial desperation to devise a system so brutal that its reverberations still are felt over a century later in the form of a failed state. It stands in stark contrast to the celebratory newspaper articles published immediately before the creation of the Congo Free State and a reminder of the potential effects in the form of extreme violence that might derive from investing in a single person absolute power.

Save the Congo

 

[1] The Daily Telegraph, 22 October 1884 cited in Pakenham, T. (1992) The Scramble for Africa. London: Abacus.

 

[2] Ascherson, N. (1999) The King Incorporated. London: Granta Books. pp.9

[3] Morel, E.D. (1968) History of the Congo Reform Movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[4] EIC Decree of 1st July 1885

[5] L’Association Internationale Africaine (AIA), Leopold would later merge the AIA with the International Congo Society to form the Congo Free State.

[6] Reeves, J. S. (1894) The International Beginnings of the Congo Free State. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press. p. 32.

[7] F. Cattier, Droit et Administration de l’Etat Indépendant du Congo (Brussels, 1898) p.134

[8] “Decree of 30th October 1892,” in Lycops and Touchard, Recuil Usuel, I, 606.

[9] Ewans, M. (2002) European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and its Aftermath. London: RoutledgeCurzon. p. 111-112.

[10] Ewans, M. (2002) European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and its Aftermath. London: RoutledgeCurzon. p. 114.

[11] Ewans, M. (2002) European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and its Aftermath. London: RoutledgeCurzon. p. 114.

[12] Village headman to a British missionary, 1905. Recorded by Reverend Harris, 17th January 1905, and used as evidence by the Congo Reform Association; cited in Harms, “The End of Red Rubber: A Reassessment,” p.85.

[13] Nelson, S. H. (1994) Colonialism in the Congo Basin 1880-1914. Ohio University Center for International Studies: Ohio. p. 84.

[14] Impôts en nature. Nelson, S. H. (1994) Colonialism in the Congo Basin 1880-1914. Ohio University Center for International Studies: Ohio. p. 89.

[15] The Congo : A Report of the Mission of Enquiry Appointed by the Free State Government 1905

[16] Nelson, S. H. (1994) Colonialism in the Congo Basin 1880-1914. Ohio University Center for International Studies: Ohio. p. 92.

[17] Nelson, S. H. (1994) Colonialism in the Congo Basin 1880-1914. Ohio University Center for International Studies: Ohio. p. 92.

[18] Ewans, M. (2002) European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and its Aftermath. London: RoutledgeCurzon. p. 161.

[19] According to George Grenfell, a Congo missionary and explorer cited in Ewans, M. (2002) European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and its Aftermath. London: RoutledgeCurzon. p. 161.

[20] Hochschild, A. (1998) King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Macmillan: London. p.123

[21] Nelson, S. H. (1994) Colonialism in the Congo Basin 1880-1914. Ohio University Center for International Studies: Ohio. p. 106.

[22] De Ryck Collection, 26.15, no. 7. Cited in Nelson, S. H. (1994) Colonialism in the Congo Basin 1880-1914. Ohio University Center for International Studies: Ohio. p. 107.

[23] Hochschild, A. (1998) King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Macmillan: London. p.123

[24]‘Each post had established in the principal villages capita-chiefs: men selected generally on account of their superior intelligence and audacity. These capitas assumed great power among the natives, and had under their command scores of assistants recruited from the scum of the native population. They were supposed to see that the natives collected rubber, and they ensured this generally by means of blows, and occasionally by a bullet…. The manager of the (European post) entrusted to the capita-chief a quantity of merchandise, sufficient to pay the natives for their rubber at a rate not exceeding threepence per pound; but the capitas usually appropriated the goods to their own use, and took the rubber without any payment whatever. Some of them had, as the result of the peculations, become the possessors of dozens of wives and many slaves. They literally “ate up” the country by forcing the natives to bring them goats and fowls and other provisions… Some of the capitas had hundreds of armed followers, who went about in bands devastating the villages, ravishing the women and shooting down the men on the slightest provocation.’

Burrows, Curse of Central Africa, 167-168. Cited in Nelson, S. H. (1994) Colonialism in the Congo Basin 1880-1914. Ohio University Center for International Studies: Ohio. p. 108.

[25] Manuel du Voyageur et du Résident au Congo

[26] Ewans, M. (2002) European Atrocity, African Catastrophe: Leopold II, the Congo Free State and its Aftermath. London: RoutledgeCurzon. p. 164.

[27]‘This officer’s method was to arrive in canoes at a village, the inhabitants invariably bolted on their arrival; the soldiers were then landed, and commenced looting, taking all the chickens, grain etc., out of the houses; after this they attacked the natives until able to seize their women; these women were kept as hostages until the Chief of the district brought in the required number of kilogrammes of rubber. The rubber having been brought, the women were sold back to their owners for a couple of goats apiece, and so he continued from village to village until the requisite amount of rubber had been collected.’ A British vice consul reported in 1899,  cited in: Hochschild, A. (1998) King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Macmillan: London. p.161

[28] British Consul General to the Congo Free State Mr. William Clayton Pickersgill, Foreign Office 10/731 1st June 1897 cited by Anstey, King Leopold’s Legacy, p.9. and Nelson, S. H. (1994) Colonialism in the Congo Basin 1880-1914. Ohio University Center for International Studies: Ohio. p. 80.

(Norwegian Congo Agents, Missionaries and Mercenaries: http://www.frittogvilt.no/kongeligslaveleir/norske.html)

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The Sierra Leone Civil War

Posted in Contemporary History, Imperial History, Violence, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 12/04/2010 | Leave a Comment »

As a direct consequence of the abolitionist movement’s campaigns in Britain, the settlement called Freetown was founded 1787 for emancipated slaves. Initially consisting of the so-called black poor from Britain and Nova Scotia, it later would become home for the liberated Africans captured by the British anti-slavery squadron. Assuming status as a crown colony in 1808, Freetown was a relatively prosperous settlement with its citizens enjoying some of the highest standards of living in Africa.

Freetown, Sierra Leone 1803

This was especially true in relation to education owing to the presence since 1827 of Fourah Bay College, the first Western style university in West Africa. Sierra Leone would not take its present form until 1896 with the appropriation of Freetown’s hinterland as a British protectorate. As opposed to the Creole population in the colony of Freetown, the people inhabiting the protectorate had a low standard of living and engaged primarily in subsistence agriculture. Upon independence from Britain in 1961, Sierra Leone retained a division between the minority, urban Creole and the rural majority. The newly elected Prime Minister Milton Margai from the Protectorate would attempt to reconcile the differences, following a pragmatic and conservative pro-British policy. This would however prove to be a short-lived interregnum as Milton Margai died in 1964, his half-brother Charles Margai taking over the role of Prime Minister.

Siaka Stevens (1 Leone, 1974)

Siaka Stevens and his All People’s Congress (APC) would narrowly win the 1967 elections, establishing Sierra Leone as a republic in 1971 and himself as its president. His presidency would lay many of the proximate foundations for the later civil war, crucially weakening political institutions and government power through corruption and oppression. Following a referendum in 1978, Stevens turned Sierra Leone into a single-party state and would not retire until 1985 with the swearing in of Major-General Joseph Momoh. The new president would follow Steven’s kleptocratic way of governance, continuing the process of emasculating the Sierra Leonean state apparatus.

Following the coup d’état that had ended the life and reign of Liberia’s president William Tolbert in 1980, the country had been in the hands of a dictator named Samuel Doe. The Americo-Liberian political order that had ruled the country since it’s initial stages in the early 19th century had thus come to an end. The new order was despotic and heightened Liberia’s level of misgovernment, paving the way for the instability and factional strife that would set the stage for a protracted civil war.

Monrovia, Liberia

Supported financially by the United States, Doe had survived many attempted coups; this however would come to an end in 1989 when an investigative team uncovered gross financial mismanagement[1]. Liberian exiled college graduate – turned warlord Charles Taylor would in the same year launch an insurgency from neighbouring Côte d’Ivoire. He and his 100 men band, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), had received guerrilla training in Libya and were supported by Côte d’Ivoire’s president Félix Houphouët-Boigny[2]. Due to Doe’s repressive rule, Taylor faced no difficulties in recruiting insurgents, and in a spree of violence, he launched an offensive against the capital Monrovia in 1990. However the capital was under siege by another faction led by Prince Johnson who would in turn capture and kill the incumbent dictator.

Charles Taylor

After a Nigerian led intervention by the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in Monrovia an interim unity government was installed. Taylor refused to take part in this unity government and set up a parallel regime in ‘Greater Liberia’ looting the rural areas for valuable commodities and signed commercial deals with Western companies[3]. With neighbouring Sierra Leone possessing some of the world’s largest diamond deposits, Charles Taylor sought to expand his commercial trading empire westwards to the diamond fields of Kono. The one-time army corporal and professional photographer Foday Sankoh had met Taylor in the Libyan training camps[4] and made his appearance on the 23rd of March 1991 as the head of the initial Revolutionary United Front (RUF) attack on Sierra Leone. Additional attacks followed soon thereafter in the easternmost section of the country and were followed by the opening of an additional front in the southern province. After years of corruption and mismanagement the Sierra Leonean regular army was inept at handling the escalating military situation and this would allow the rebel soldiers a free hand in the rural areas. Gaining control over the diamond fields, the RUF were given the means to purchase both weapons and drugs.

Diamond Exports (Source: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02678.pdf)

Crucial elements of the RUF combat operations, as recruitment was mainly done through the abduction of youth. Through violent initiation rituals aimed at alienating the recruits from their family or village community, the recruits were inducted into the guerrilla organisation and injected with narcotics during combat situations. After one year of unsuccessfully fighting the rebel forces, the incumbent APC regime was ousted through a coup d’état with a junta called the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) led by 27 year-old Captain Valentine Strasser[5]. The new regime would initially gain popularity by ending the cartels run by the APC’s business cronies that were keeping both petrol and rice prices high. They had inherited a thoroughly corrupt military, and the rebel forces had launched a campaign with the objective of stopping the harvest through the mutilation of civilians. The initial actions taken by the regime was to dismiss a significant proportion of the army’s senior ranking officers and replace them with a young and inexperienced cohort. Through a successful offensive dubbed ‘Operation Genesis’, the NPRC drove the rebel army to the easternmost Kailahun district, enabling the resumption of diamond mining operations, however the rebels would soon regain the territory, continuing the conflict in a seesaw fashion[6].

Valentine Strasser

With the financial situation of the military deteriorating due to the loss of external aid, soldiers were defecting en masse to the RUF, with the addition of civilian criminals imitating rebel behaviour in looting the adjacent areas. A new phenomenon did also appear; the soldiers would act as rebels by nightfall, pillaging their local communities.[7] At the end of 1995 the NPRC again held the upper hand after engaging a mercenary firm called Executive Outcomes (EO) to pacify the rebels.

Executive Outcomes

With domestic control established a move was made to hold elections and transfer power to civilian authorities. After an attempt to manipulate the process in his own favour, his deputy Brigadier Julius Bio overthrew Strasser in January 1996.[8] Despite rebel attempts to disrupt the elections with mutilation of victims’ limbs, they were held across Sierra Leone and by 1996 Ahmed Kabbah emerged as the country’s new president. A peace treaty between Sankoh’s RUF and Kabbah’s government were signed in Abidjan in November of that year, formally ending the war. Only six months later, after the withdrawal of EO, rebel forces under the leadership of Major Johnny Koroma ousted president Kabbah and installed a regime that he dubbed the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC). He declared that the RUF was now merged with the regular army and appointed its leader Sankoh vice-president of the AFRC. After ten months Nigerian led ECOMOG forces would again intervene in the conflict and drive the AFRC to its north-eastern heartlands, reinstating Kabbah. In terms of violence exerted against the civilian population the crescendo of the civil war would be initiated in January 1999 with the rebel offensive dubbed ‘Operation No Living Thing’. Despite being protected by a 15,000 strong Nigerian contingency[9] the rebel forces overmanned the capital and went on a two-week killing spree. Human Rights Watch published an account of the scenes playing out in Freetown: “Civilians were gunned down within their houses, rounded up and massacred on the streets, thrown from the upper floors of buildings, used as human shields, and burnt alive in cars and houses. They had their limbs hacked off with machetes, eyes gouged out with knives, hands smashed with hammers, and bodies burned with boiling water. Women and girls were systematically sexually abused, and children and young people abducted by the hundreds.”[10] The massacre would claim an estimated 20,000 civilian lives, with 700 Nigerian soldiers killed, but would also mobilise the international community to react. The United Nations Mission to Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) was sent to replace ECOMOG and a peace treaty was brokered and signed in July 1999 between president Kabbah and the RUF leader Sankoh.

British Intervention

The RUF would violate the peace treaty, but this sparked a British intervention in May 2000 that stabilised the situation and led to a cease-fire. Later that year hostilities again broke out, triggering an intervention by Guinean military forces. With the signing of the second Abuja Agreement in May 2001, the country stabilised and the Sierra Leonean president Kabbah could declare the civil war officially over on the 18th January 2002.

The Civil war had left at least 50,000 dead, tens of thousands displaced and a significant proportion of the population mutilated and crippled for the duration of their lifetime. Over a decade of fighting had ceased and what had once been one of Africa’s most developed states were left in complete shambles. The man substantially to blame for the human tragedy, Foday Sankoh, would suffer a peaceful death only 18 months later, an end he had denied to so many.

The questions posed by scholars following the conflict were substantially why and how this could take place in Sierra Leone. Two major causes sparked the conflict initially: the state’s institutional weakness after two decades of mismanagement and secondly the predatory action of external criminal militia organisations. The mercenary element of the RUF organisation cannot be overstated in regards to explaining their excessive violence. It also elucidates the organisation’s propensity to recruit child soldiers and the reason for why the conflict kept going for so long. As diamond mining is so lucrative, especially in the governance vacuum created by a war, the individual army units in the conflict had an incentive to prolong the conflict. This was especially true for the mercenary outfit known as the RUF, a proxy of the Liberian warlord Charles Taylor.

[1] Martin Meredith, The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence, (London: Free Press, 2006) p. 556

[2] Ibid., p. 557

[3] Ibid., p. 561

[4] Lansana Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa: The R.U.F. and the Destruction of Sierra Leone, (London: Hurst & Company, 2005) p. 52

[5] Lansana Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, p. 70

[6] Ibid., p. 79

[7] Ibid., p. 81-82

[8] Ibid., p. 94

[9] Ibid., p. 121

[10] Human Rights Watch, Getting Away with Murder, Mutilation and Rape. (New York, 1999)

Recommended reading:

Executive Outcomes Founder Eeben Barlow’s Blog: Eeben Barlow’s Military and Security Blog

Lansana Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa: The R.U.F. and the Destruction of Sierra Leone, (London: Hurst & Company, 2005)

Lansana Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa

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Fighting Season in Afghanistan

Posted in Imperial History, Violence, tagged , , , , on 05/04/2010 | 1 Comment »

Is there any relationship between labour demand in Afghanistan’s agricultural sector and Taliban activity? Co-variation between casualty data and temperature statistics suggest there might be a link.

Source: iCasualties.org

There is a clear upward trend in NATO fatalities in this particular conflict, most notably 2009 saw a substantial increase in annual casualties, 520 were killed, a growth of 225 soldiers or 76.3% year-on-year. Another worrying statistic is that the casualties for 2010 has followed the last six years’ trend, from the first three months of data (January to March 2010) 140 soldiers have been killed, on an annualised basis this represents 568 casualties or an increase of 9.2% year-on-year. What one though should bear in mind is that these numbers only show one side of the story, as troop level data is unavailable one can only measure the absolute and not the relative trend.

Sources: iCasualties.org & http://www.worldweather.org/115/c00219.htm

By conducting a closer examination of the statistics one notices an intra-annual trend, a seasonality in the fatality time series. It shows that casualty rates are above the annual average from June to September, with a reduction in July. Within this ‘fighting season’ fatality rates have been on average 60% higher than the rest of the respective year, measured from 2005 to 2009. Late spring heralds a resurgence in Taliban activity, possibly an effect of the surplus labour capacity made available after sowing various agricultural crops except wheat, this would reconcile the reduction in activity from September/October onwards, coinciding with the harvest of spring sowed crops and the sowing of wheat. The reduction in casualties during the month of July coincides with the harvest of irrigated wheat, with rain fed wheat being harvested between May and August, these are the nation’s staple grain crops (2008/09 crop 4.25 million tons). During the winter, harsh climatic conditions most likely tempers insurgent activities and thus also lowers NATO casualty rates.

The Wheat Harvest vs The Relative Casualty Level

As there potentially might be a link between the activities in the Afghan agricultural sector and the recorded NATO casualties, efforts should be made in monitoring meteorological data such as precipitation and temperatures in the regions in order to predict insurgent activity levels. With most of Afghanistan’s farmers engaged in subsistence agriculture it is fair to suggest that their marginal productivity is higher in times of favourable weather conditions, raising their real income levels above those gained by Taliban employment. The opportunity cost of engaging in non-agricultural activities during such bumper crop seasons would be substantially increased. Put in another way, adverse weather conditions such as extreme temperatures or the absence of spring rains cause a reduction in wheat harvest levels and will reduce agricultural labour demand, thus also increase the labour input level available for insurgent activities. Conversely, bumper harvests should absorb labour capacity during key harvesting seasons, reducing both the labour inputs available for the Taliban and the potential insurgent’s motivations for engaging in military activities as his primary needs for food has been met.

Afghanistan Agriculture:

USDA Crop Explorer – Afghanistan (Monitors Precipitation)

USDA Afghanistan Profile

USDA Crop Intelligence Report – Afghanistan Wheat June 2009

.....

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Back to the Future for Africa?

Posted in Economic History, Imperial History, tagged , , , , , , , on 04/04/2010 | Leave a Comment »

The partition had left the European powers in control of the African continent, what followed was resource extraction in order to make the venture profitable. The industrial revolution had greatly enhanced the world’s demand for raw materials, commodities such as cotton, rubber, coal, iron ore, copper and others had increased enough in value to justify a substantial transport leg. In economic terms the European states had only vertically integrated their supply chain through the seizure of the upstream suppliers, now controlling both the midstream (manufacturing) and the downstream (consumer markets). By exercising formal control of the raw material suppliers, the need for operating through middlemen and their affiliated cost would be lowered in addition to substantially reducing the risk for investors. The lowered long term risk would thus both increase the availability and reduce the cost of capital, capital needed to construct the infrastructure required for transportation of the raw materials. The infrastructure constructed were mainly roads, telegraph cables, harbours and railways. It vastly increased the profitability of extracting low-value high-bulk commodities such as minerals or perishable goods such as agricultural produce. Before they were constructed the economy would rely on the availability of rivers or porterage, the latter being slow, expensive and not to mention highly dangerous. Maintaining the infrastructure requires a strong state apparatus with the ability to either finance its upkeep itself or attract outside investment, this again hinges on the state’s ability to keep the investor’s perception of affiliated risk low in relation to the potential reward. With the independent African nations’ dismal record of misgovernment, this type of foreign direct investment has been hard to attract, leading to a vicious circle of under-development and economic regression.

Chinese financed TAZARA railway in Tanzania

However, over the last decade a new player has appeared on the world stage, an economy that has maintained a double digit annual growth rate since the early 1980s and has now emerged as the global manufacturing hub. China now produces 47.6% of the world’s annual steel output, or 567 million tonnes (2009), this compares to 16.1% or 123 mt only ten years earlier. It’s role as the world’s supplier of manufactured goods has led to a huge jump in its demand for raw materials, commodities such as iron ore, steam coal, met coal, crude oil, and a range of metals and minerals. Despite maintaining the world’s largest reserves of coal, China prefers to meet its demand through seaborne imports from primarily Indonesia and Australia, but also South Africa is a substantial supplier. The same goes for iron ore, where an estimated 80% of steel is produced from ore imported from mainly Australia or Brazil. The reason is simple, the low transportation costs combined with the high quality (FE content for ore, carbon content for coal) of the foreign commodities makes them more cost efficient than using the domestic materials.

For Africa, Chinese commodity demand growth represents a significant economic opportunity, possessing substantial mineral and metal deposits. To make their extraction and export economically feasible would require investments into the colonial transportation infrastructure or construction of new networks. But political risk is still an element preventing such investments from taking place, contemporary China as opposed to the European 19th Century powers, cannot merely intervene military and assume sovereignty over the supplying territories, but needs to proceed through the formal political and commercial channels. Should China manage to sustain its economic growth level and still favour imports to cover commodity demand, African countries with substantial raw material factor endowments in addition to low political risk will be the continent’s economic winners over the medium to long term.

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