CAPE VERDE - a guide to five amazing islands

(Update May 2019)

I get asked quite often which was my best trip and which has been my favorite country so far. How can I possibly answer such a question? How can I compare let's say Italy to Viet Nam?
Well, the pizza is tastier and the language is prettier in Italy.
Then again the Buddhist temples are bigger and the variety at farmers' markets is more abundant in Viet Nam.
Got the point? How could I ever compare?
Fortunately, I don't have to.

But if someone pointed a gun to my head and made me choose, I would say Cape Verde. Cape Verde with its beauty, charm, and incredible variety is the secret star on my personal globe.


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Ahhh ... La Gloire De Mayotte Fabuleux-- Know Anyone Who's Ever Been To The French Département Of Mayotte?

A friend of mine just got back from Mayotte. He was only at Dzaoudzi Airport, across the channel from Mamoudzou, his plane having stopped briefly on a trip between Moroni on Grande Comore and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania (a stopover itself on the way to half a dozen other places on an inconvenient and circuitous route to Florida). And there is no convenient way to get to Mayotte from America, take my word for it. But people do go there. It's a couple of islands in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and Mozambique. There are no hotel chains... always a very good indication that you might be onto someplace worth going to visit. Mayotte is part of a larger small chain of Islands, the Comoros, but Mayotte's 50,000 people voted to stick with France when the rest of the islands formed an independent country in 1974. There was another referendum in 2009-- since the population had grown to nearly 200,000-- and 95.2% of the voters decided they'd rather be part of France than part of the Union of Comoros. 97% of the people there are Muslims. Before being taken over by France in 1841, Mayotte had been conquered by Madagascar and a succession of Afro-Arab sultanates.

The Comoros, which has been chaotic and politically unstable, claims sovereignty over Mayotte and the UN has tended to agree. In 2011 France vetoed a Security Council resolution giving Mayotte back to the Comoros. It's now France's 101st département. That's an unheralded victory over Sharia Law, which is being eased out in favor of the French civil code. (Someone needs to tell American Islamaphobe Bryan Fischer.)

French is the official language of course, but more people speak Shimaore, Shindzwani, Kibushi and Shingazidja than French, at least as a primary language. On the other hand, the currency is the Euro and Americans don't need visas to go there. The tourist attraction is unspoiled nature and unspoiled beaches. Tourists go for the snorkeling, scuba diving, whale watching and sailing. It's always hot and tropical but the best time to go is between June and October when is relatively cooler and free of the cyclones that plague the islands during the rainy season (November to May).

Mayotte... that's all there is

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Bored With Mali? There's Always Guinea-Bissau... Unless You Worry About Safety

Guinea Bissau is bigger than The Gambia

That the Tuaregs of Mali (as well as Niger and Mauritania) hold hundreds of thousands of Bella and other black Africans in slavery is certainly not enough to motivate any kind of intervention from France, Britain, NATO or anyone else. Even when the Tuaregs have captured, in quick succession, Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu-- and two-thirds of Mali-- it wasn't until Islamist groups with a jihadi agenda and murky ties to al-Qaeda, that the West intervened. Mali has no oil but it isn't that far from oil-rich, Muslim-roiled Nigeria. Oil and Islamic jihadis... that gets the West's attention-- and fast. Slavers taking over a country-- who cares? Same with international drug barons... it might be inconvenient and yucky-- but if there's no oil or jihad involved, you're on your own.

I know people are just starting to figure out what Mali is; so I feel bad having to introduce a whole new country and it's problems onto the blog. AroundTheWorldBlog, meet Guinea-Bissau. This small (slightly bigger than Maryland) West African state tucked between Senegal and Guinea, was once part of the Empire of Mali. Portugal began colonizing it in the 1500s and kidnapping it's people to sell as slaves. Coincidentally, it used to be identified on maps as the Slave Coast. A rebellion began against fascist-led Portugal in the 1950s and they finally drove the Portuguese out in 1973. The first elections, though, weren't held until 1994 and since then every government has been violently overthrown. Not one president has finished his term. It's one of the poorest countries in the world-- on a level with Nepal, Burundi, Niger, Congo, Mali, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Haiti, Liberia and Malawi.

The country has no embassies in the U.S. or Britain and little tourism. If you want to visit, you have to stop in Lisbon and get a tourist visa there-- just like in the old colonial days! (It only takes a couple hours though... not counting the flight to Portugal.) Virtually no one will accept credit cards anywhere in the country but everyone love Euros and dollars. International phone service is, at best, sporadic. The country is considered one of the most violent in Africa and much too dangerous for tourists and the U.S. State Department warns American citizens to not travel there. From the State Department website:

The United States established diplomatic relations with Guinea-Bissau in 1975, following its independence from Portugal. Post-independence, the country has seen a mix of coups, attempted coups, civil war, assassinations, and democratic elections. The United States strongly condemned the April 2012 attempt by elements of the military to forcibly seize power, called for maximum restraint on all sides and the restoration of legitimate civilian leadership, and continues to work with its partners in the region and beyond as it monitors developments on the ground. Now that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has returned Bissau-Guinean military factions to their barracks and a civilian government is in power, the United States is working with its partners and the Transitional Government of Guinea-Bissau to facilitate free and fair elections by Spring 2013, and to promote basic reforms on governance, justice, and economic development.

There is no U.S. Embassy in Guinea-Bissau. All official U.S. contact with Guinea-Bissau is handled by the U.S. Embassy in Senegal. Local employees staff the U.S. Office in Bissau, and U.S. diplomats from the Embassy in Dakar travel frequently to Bissau.

Given the April 12, 2012 coup, the United States was obliged to terminate foreign assistance to the Government of Guinea-Bissau consistent with the requirements of section 7008 of the Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act for 2012. Previous limited non-humanitarian assistance focused primarily on the justice sector as well as demining and proper weapons storage programs.

It gets worse. If you happened to read a report by Adam Nossiter in the NY Times last November, you're probably aware that Guinea-Bissau has been taken over by an international drug syndicate and is the major hub for cocaine traffic-- 30 tons a year-- between Latin America and Europe. The country is addicted to coke and crack and it defines the term "narco-state."

When the army ousted the president here just months before his term was to expire, a thirst for power by the officer corps did not fully explain the offensive. But a sizable increase in drug trafficking in this troubled country since the military took over has raised suspicions that the president’s sudden removal was what amounted to a cocaine coup.

The military brass here has long been associated with drug trafficking, but the coup last spring means soldiers now control the drug racket and the country itself, turning Guinea-Bissau in the eyes of some international counternarcotics experts into a nation where illegal drugs are sanctioned at the top.

“They are probably the worst narco-state that’s out there on the continent,” said a senior Drug Enforcement Administration official in Washington, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize his work in the region. “They are a major problem.”

Since the April 12 coup, more small twin-engine planes than ever are making the 1,600-mile Atlantic crossing from Latin America to the edge of Africa’s western bulge, landing in Guinea-Bissau’s fields, uninhabited islands and remote estuaries. There they unload their cargos of cocaine for transshipment north, experts say.

The fact that the army has put in place a figurehead government and that military officers continue to call the shots behind the scenes only intensifies the problem.

...Was the military coup itself a diversion for drug trafficking? Some experts point to signs that as the armed forces were seizing the presidency, taking over radio stations and arresting government officials, there was a flurry of drug activity on one of the islands of the Bijagós Archipelago, what amounted to a three-day offloading of suspicious sacks.

That surreptitious activity appears to have been simply a prelude.

“There has clearly been an increase in Guinea-Bissau in the last several months,” said Pierre Lapaque, head of the regional United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for West and Central Africa. “We are seeing more and more drugs regularly arriving in this country.”

Mr. Lapaque called the trafficking in Guinea-Bissau “a major worry” and an “open sore,” and, like others, suggested that it was no coincidence that trafficking had spiked since the coup.

Joaquin Gonzalez-Ducay, the European Union ambassador in Bissau, said: “As a country it is controlled by those who formed the coup d’état. They can do what they want to do. Now they have free rein.”

The senior D.E.A. official said, “People at the highest levels of the military are involved in the facilitation” of trafficking, and added: “In other African countries government officials are part of the problem. In Guinea-Bissau, it is the government itself that is the problem.”

United Nations officials agree. “The coup was perpetrated by people totally embedded in the drugs business,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the political environment here.

The country’s former prosecutor general, Octávio Inocêncio Alves, said, “A lot of the traffickers have direct relationships with the military.”

...Officials point to several indicators, besides the increase in plane flights, to show that Guinea-Bissau has become a major drug transit hub.

They cite photographs of a recently well-cleared stretch of road in a remote rural area near the Senegal border, complete with turning space for small planes. The clearing was created under the supervision of military authorities, officials say. They also note mysterious absences of fuel at the tiny international airport in the capital, presumed stolen by traffickers.

Four months before the coup, a plane, with the aid of uniformed soldiers, landed in a rural area in the center of the country, which is the size of Belgium, said João Biague, head of the judicial police. The landing took place not far from General Injai’s farm.

Mr. Biague heads what is nominally the country’s antidrug agency, though he made it clear that he and his staff are largely powerless to practice any form of drug interdiction despite receiving frequent tips about small planes landing from abroad. “The traffickers know we can’t do much,” he said.

The agency is so starved of funds that he does not have money to put gas in its few vehicles, Mr. Biague said. Paint is peeling on the outside of the judicial police’s two-story colonial building downtown, and mold blackens the ground-floor pilasters. It is allocated $85 a week from the country’s Justice Ministry.

“The agents we have in the field want to give up because they have nothing to eat,” Mr. Biague said.

In the last three years, there have been more than a half-dozen unsolved political assassinations here, including of the longtime president and the former army chief of staff, as well as at least two coup attempts, besides the successful coup. Nobody has been successfully prosecuted, though drugs were linked to many of them.

Last month, the justice minister of the transitional government warned opposition politicians not to speak publicly of “cases that don’t concern them,” under threat of criminal penalty.

This week, the repression appeared to tighten. General Injai threatened journalists with death if they asked questions about the assassination of the former president, and he warned that there would be many arrests as a result of the countercoup attempt.

There is remarkably little public talk of the unsolved political killings or of the country’s relations with the drug business. There have been no demonstrations; no discussion in the Parliament, shut down since July; no news conferences.

“A country that’s not capable of discussing its own problems-- it’s not a country, it’s not a state,” said Mr. Alves, the former prosecutor general.

The Obama administration, while encouraged France and then Britain, to intervene in Mali and is offering material support for the endeavor, has a very different attitude towards Guinea-Bissau. After explicitly linking the country’s military to the drug trade in 2010 and freezing the U.S. assets of drug kingpins ex-chief of the navy, Rear Adm. Bubo Na Tchuto, and the air force chief of staff, Ibraima Papa Camara, the Obama administration has backed off considerably. The top U.S. diplomat at the Guinea-Bissau desk in Dakar, Russel Hanks: "You will only have an impact on this transition by engagement, not by isolation. These are the people who came in to pick up the pieces after the coup.”

And, no, neither Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham nor Kelly Ayotte brought up Guinea-Bissau in the Senate confirmation hearings for Chuck Hagel today. Awesome tunes though:

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Are Countries Ditching Française For English? Oui, Bien Sûr

Hollande et Bongo

Avez-vous des difficultés à comprendre la langue quand vous voyagez en pays de langue française? Cela pourrait aller dans le sens de l'oiseau Dodo.

Although Roland is from French background and although I loved in France and taught in Montreal, neither of us is really fluent in French. A couple years ago we were worried about a month we were spending in Senegal and Mali, two Francophone countries in West Africa, formerly Afrique occidentale française. But, as it turned out, everyone we met in the big towns spoke English and in the countryside almost no one spoke French anyway, just local languages. I've been to Morocco, where almost everyone does speak French, other than in the extreme north, over a dozen time and it's always been easy enough to communicate with pidgin French and English, And it looks like in some of the former French colonies of Africa, where France has created incentives to stay in a Francophone community, countries are embracing English, just like the rest of the world. I always felt so very lucky in my travels. I could be sitting around in Kabul or Katmandu or Goa with a dozen people from half a dozen countries and everyone would use English. I worked 4 years in a meditation center in Amsterdam where we had a constant flow of people from France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Morocco, Portugal, Eastern Europe, Japan... not to mention Dutchmen-- and the official language of the center: English. And France is just as happy to see them go.

Gabon’s President Ali Ben Bongo announced in October the country will start promoting English as a second language, in addition to the current French in a move that seems to be a growing trend in Francophone West Africa.

Gabon's presidential spokesman, Alain Claude Billie By Nze, says efforts to adopt English will begin within the educational system, but classes will also be available for adults. He says Gabon is not the first country in the region to move in this direction.

He says Rwanda, another African country that formerly called French its official language, made the switch to English in 2009.

And according to Strategico political risk analyst Lydie Boka, who is based in France, Burundi could be the next country in Africa to join the English-speaking Commonwealth.

“Burundi is going that route," said Boka. "I think they’ve asked to join the Commonwealth without saying whether they would abandon the Francophonie. I think a number of African countries, rightly or wrongly, think the English-speaking countries develop faster.”

Some African officials note that French keeps them regionally isolated and if they wish to diversify their global economic interests or partnerships, then English is the best way to do so.

The timing of Mr. Bongo’s announcement could not have been more pointed, coming just ahead of this year’s summit of Francophone nations, hosted by the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Boka says Gabon’s decision to move toward English could be seen as a political snub to new French President Francois Hollande-- whom the Gabon leader felt did not afford him the proper reception during a recent trip to France.

“The same day he met with Bongo, the (Gabonese) opposition met with the Socialist party, which is the party of Hollande," said Boka. "And the Socialist party issued a communiqué that the French Socialist party was concerned about the democratic deficit in a number of countries, including Gabon.”

The Bongo family is one of three African presidential families being investigated by French authorities since 2008 for so-called "ill-gotten gains"-- cars, homes and other luxury assets in France allegedly bought with embezzled state funds.

French President Hollande took office earlier this year professing, as many of his predecessors have, to finally do away with "Francafrique."

Francafrique refers to the sphere of influence France has sought to maintain over its former colonies through what many say have been corrupt, personal ties with African leaders and off-the-books diplomacy, often at the expense of democracy and human rights.

Analysts say that Gabon, in particular under former president Omar Bongo, epitomized Francafrique.

It was former president Bongo who was so memorably quoted by a French newspaper in 1996 as saying that "Gabon without France is like a car with no driver. France without Gabon is like a car with no fuel."

President Hollande's desire to recalibrate France's relationship with Africa was reflected in his comments to reporters just days before he travelled to Kinshasa for the 14th Francophonie Summit.

He said the Francophonie is not simply about a language and French is not simply for France. He said French is also the language of Africa and in coming years, more Africans will speak French. This language, he said, belongs to them but it is also a language representing values and principles, including democracy, good governance, and the fight against corruption.

Gabon's presidential spokesman, Billie By Nze, says the country's move to English is about pragmatism, not politics.

He says President Bongo went to Rwanda to study its experiment with bilingualism before making his decision, which he says was based on economic and educational motives.

Learning English, he said, is a good business decision, as oil accounts for 80 percent of the Gabon's exports and much of that, and other, business is done in English with the Middle East and China.

Since World War I, English has gradually eclipsed French as the modern lingua franca, the language of global diplomacy and trade.

Gabon's decision to put English at the heart of its education system reflects a growing interest in English among young people throughout West Africa, whether it be to understand the words to American rap music or one day score a job with an international NGO or a multi-national cooperation.

Francophone organizations say they are not alarmed by Gabon’s announcement.

Ousmane Paye-- special assistant for the secretary general at the International Organization of the Francophonie-- says French is not an endangered language in West and Central Africa.

He says of the 53 French-speaking member nations who gathered at the 14th Francophonie Summit in Kinshasa in October, 28 were African countries and more than 55 percent of French speakers currently live in Africa.

The International Organization of the Francophonie estimates that by 2050, more than 80 percent of French speakers worldwide will live in Africa.

Although those projections were put together without factoring in Gabon and Burundi, let alone other countries that might follow their lead.

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