Who’s Afraid of African Democracy?

We reproduce a short piece by Helen Epstein (author of "The invisible Cure" on the fight against AIDS in Africa) in the New York Review of Books  reviewing Adam Branch and Zachariah Mampilly’s Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change  and simultaneously addressing the latest episodes of social and political unrest in the African continent (notably Burundi but also Burkina and the DRC with mentions to Senegal and Uganda) within a larger framework of Western support to autocratic and seemingly perpetual regimes in the region. A backing rooted in the adjustment programs dictated by the IMF and World Bank and renewed with the so-called War on Terror. We have added hyperlinks and some context material at the end.

Ndabashinze Renovat/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Security forces facing off with protesters in Bujumbura, Burundi, May 20, 2015

Who’s Afraid of African Democracy? Helen Epstein New York Review of Books  May 21, 2015

Poor Burundi. Landlocked, tiny, and known mainly for ethnic conflict, it was for years the subject of one of the most intense international peace-building efforts in history. By the time the Arusha Peace Agreement was finally signed in 2003, 300,000 Burundians had died in a civil war rivaling in ferocity that of its neighbor Rwanda. Huge sums had been invested in grassroots workshops, high-level meetings and summits to end the fighting. According to Burundi specialist Peter Uvin, taxi drivers in the capital Bujumbura joke that the per diems received during these protracted negotiations built the poshest neighborhood in the city. Now, a decade after the peace process came to what seemed a successful conclusion, and despite billions of dollars in humanitarian aid, the country appears to be falling apart again.