LONDON — All too often good news from Africa gets tucked away. Sentences like this one do not get too much attention:

“The political parties were generally able to campaign freely. The media was able to report without unfair restrictions. The voters were able to cast their ballots without fear and for the candidates and parties of their choice. The counting of the votes was transparent and fair.”

That was the verdict of the Commonwealth group sent to Sierra Leone to observe its first general election after a civil war that had so recently involved barbaric atrocities and caused thousands of deaths.

The mid-May election was a triumph for the international community, especially the United Nations and the Commonwealth, and most of all for Sierra Leoneans.

The lesson is that none of the seemingly intransigent problems around the world are incapable of resolution. Often the skies suddenly clear at a time when they seem to be at their darkest.

What has happened in Sierra Leone — and a few years ago in South Africa — can be repeated in Cyprus, Ireland, the Congo, even Kashmir. Just now a road to peace has appeared in Angola.

No such positive signs have appeared in Zimbabwe, although the nature of its problems is quite different from those in Angola or Sierra Leone.

Since Zimbabwe’s violent and controversial election in March, which was internationally condemned and led to the country’s suspension from the Commonwealth, conditions there have worsened. The violence continues, the media is still being harassed, law and order is at the whim of government. To cap it all, food shortages are worsening.

Yet the world has moved on to other things.

For now comes the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) — the long-planned joint effort to eradicate poverty and put Africa on the path of economic development, which is to be laid before the summit meeting of the Group of Eight industrialised nations (G-8) at Kananaskis, near Calgary, in Canada on June 26-27.

NEPAD is a home-grown plan, carrying a pledge by African leaders “based on a common vision and a firm and shared conviction that they have a pressing duty to eradicate poverty and place their countries, both collectively and individually, on a path of sustainable growth and development and, at the same time, to participate actively in the world economy and body politic”.

Planning for NEPAD is headquartered in South Africa and the programme is being driven from Africa. To succeed it requires $64 billion a year in aid. When Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who will chair the G-8 summit, whistle-stopped through seven African countries in April, he said confidently: “Have no doubt the millstones of despair that have weighed down the people of Africa for too long will be lifted.”

The test will come when Chretien and his G-8 colleagues sit down and take a hard look at the economic and political state of Africa. The NEPAD deal depends on the clear commitment by African leaders to better governance. This is given in the basic NEPAD document, backed by the African Union, which admits past development efforts have failed partly because of “questionable leadership”.

It says “democracy and state legitimacy have been redefined to include accountable government, a culture of human rights and popular participation”. And it admits that “the hopes of Africa’s peoples for a better life can no longer rest on the magnanimity of others” — namely the developed world.

In this context Zimbabwe becomes a litmus test. Although it is far from being the only African country with a poor political record, it has become the world’s most glaring current example of economic failure through misgovernance.

Leading African proponents of NEPAD are presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria. For weeks they have been trying, in the wake of Zimbabwe’s disastrous presidential elections, to get talks going between the government of President Robert Mugabe and the opposition, led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

The opposition insists the election must be re-run — an election many African governments nodded through as free and fair.

Mbeki and Obasanjo, with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, formed the Commonwealth troika that decided that Zimbabwe had to be suspended from the Commonwealth.

Mbeki and Obasanjo know only too well that the Zimbabwe situation could undermine NEPAD.

As the leading advocate of NEPAD, British Prime Minister Tony Blair will face a hard sell in Kananaskis to leaders like American President George W Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Shroeder because the violence and lawlessness in Zimbabwe is unabated.

A report by Physicians for Human Rights, an independent group of Danish doctors, documents numerous cases of torture and other politically motivated government-endorsed violence since the election.

“Based on the unfolding events and various actions and statements by President [Mugabe] and the ruling party, it appears that there is a continuity of purpose on their part in the post-election phase,” the report said. “It remains their intention to repress the people of Zimbabwe, to incite violence against those perceived not to support government, and to offer impunity to those who commit political crimes that are in the government’s interests.”

In contrast, Blair will be able to point at Kananaskis to several hopeful signs in Africa in such countries as Sierra Leone, Angola and Lesotho, as well as indications of peace coming to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In Ghana, power was transferred last year to the opposition after a good election. And places like Botswana and Tanzania have long records of stability.

Lesotho’s May 25 election seems to point that troubled little country to a more stable future, where Commonwealth observers gave the election a fair wind.

Africa has been cursed by poor or fraudulent elections or by situations where opposition parties have refused to accept defeat. The Westminster first-past-the-post system has often proved wholly unsuitable.

For years now Uganda has been stable under a no-party system. It may not be the answer, but democracy can be exercised through many procedures and Africa needs to find the most suitable.

Some time back, The Economist magazine greatly upset Africa with a front cover that called it ‘The Hopeless Continent’. It is said that the headline had been changed somewhere along the line in the office from ‘The Hapless Continent’.

Although many of Africa’s recent troubles have resulted from bad leadership, colonial history dictates that hapless — certainly not hopeless — is the word G-8 leaders should focus on in Kananaskis.

— GEMINI NEWS

About the Author: DEREK INGRAM is the founder of Gemini News Service and has covered Commonwealth affairs for more than 30 years.