Evidence of a frankly inventive approach to reporting has chipped away at the reputation of the late Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski. But when it came to the big picture, in Africa and elsewhere, the author of <i>The Emperor</i>, among other books, tended to get things right. Take the subject of crude oil, for example, and the invariably damaging consequences for poor countries where large deposits are discovered.
Côte d’Ivoire’s grand old man, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, had a prodigious stock of aphorisms, but one of his favourites was ”peace is not a word, it’s a way of life”. Peace is not today’s motif. Peace accords, on the other hand, are. And the worry is that they have become a way of life for one of Africa’s least responsible political classes.