By Timothy Kalyegira

Top 100 Africans of the Year 2000
[ back to top Africans of 2001 ]

Here then is the preliminary list of the Top 100 Africans of the Year, 2000.

1. ISMAEL OMAR GUELLEH (DJIBOUTI), president.
2. LAURENT GBAGBO (IVORY COAST), opposition leader, president.
3. EUGENE VAN AS (SOUTH AFRICA), executive chairman, Sappi.
4. GENERAL BAPTISTA JOÄO DE MATOS (ANGOLA) , Chief of General Staff, Angolan army.
5. BRIAN WHITTAKER (SOUTH AFRICA), Director, the Business Trust.
6. ABDELAZIZ BOUTEFLIKA (ALGERIA), president.
7. ZINE EL ABIDINE BEN ALI (TUNISIA), president.
8. ROBERT MICHAEL GODSELL (SOUTH AFRICA) , CEO, AngloGold.
9. PIETER COX (SOUTH AFRICA), chairman, South African Coal, Oil and Gas Corporation.
10. BARRY DAVISON (SOUTH AFRICA), CEO, Amplats.
11. THOMAS GRAHAM DALE (SOUTH AFRICA), MD, Gold Fields Limited.
12. NICHOLAS OPPENHEIMER (SOUTH AFRICA) , chairman, De Beers.
13. TOM VOSLOO (SOUTH AFRICA), chairman, M-Net.
14. JACKO MAREE (SOUTH AFRICA), group chief executive, Stanbic.
15.. ISAIAS AFWERKI (ERITREA), president.
16. JOB BWAYO (KENYA), AIDS researcher.
17. AGGREY ANZALA (KENYA), AIDS researcher.
18. JECONIAH NDINYA-ACHOLA (KENYA) , AIDS researcher.
19. MOHAMMED HOSNI MUBARAK (EGYPT), president.
20. ALI KHALIF GALAYDH (SOMALIA), Prime Minister.
21. GENERAL DAUDI TONJE (KENYA), Chief of General Staff, Kenya armed forces.
22. BAKILI MULUZI (MALAWI), president.
23. MATTHEW OLUSEGUN OBASANJO (NIGERIA) , president.
24. WILFRED KIBORO (KENYA), Chief Executive, Nation Media Group.
25. MICHAEL WALNE (SOUTH AFRICA), executive chairman, Natchix
26. J. WELWOOD BASSON (SOUTH AFRICA), managing director, Shoprite Checkers.
27. OLUSEGUN FAYEMI (NIGERIA), photographer.
28. WILLIAM MUHAIRWE (UGANDA) , director, national water agency.
29. JOHN HALAMANDRES (SOUTH AFRICA), CEO, Steers.
30. HAMZA MWAMHEHE (TANZANIA), veterinary researcher.
31. SAMUEL OKWARE (UGANDA), Chairman, national Ebola Task Force.
32. FRANCIS OMASWA (UGANDA) , Director of Medical Services, Minsitry of Health.
33. AYALEW TILAHUN (ETHIOPIA), team doctor, Ethiopian Sydney Olympic team.
34. DEOLA SAGOE (NIGERIA), fashion designer.
35. RENATE KRIEGLER (SOUTH AFRICA) , jewel designer.
36. KENNETH DAVID KAUNDA (ZAMBIA), former president, AIDS campaigner.
37. THABO MBEKI (SOUTH AFRICA), president.
38. MORGAN TSVANGIRAI (ZIMBABWE), opposition leader.
39. JULIA SEBUTINDE (UGANDA), High Court Judge.
40. NELSON MANDELA (SOUTH AFRICA), peace negotiator.
41. ROBERT GABRIEL MUGABE (ZIMBABWE), president.
42. HAILE GEBRSELASSIE (ETHIOPIA), track and field athlete.
43. DERARTU TULU (ETHIOPIA), track and field athlete.
44. NOAH NG'ENY (KENYA), track and field athlete.
45. HICHAM EL GUERROUJ (MOROCCO), track and field athlete.
46. ALLAN DONALD (SOUTH AFRICA), cricket bowler.
47. PATRICK MBOMA (CAMEROON), football striker.
48. GEZAGHNE ABERA (ETHIOPIA), track and field athlete.
49. NOURIA BENIDA-MERHA (ALGERIA) , track athlete.
50. MARIA DE LOURDES MUTOLA (MOZAMBIQUE), track and field athlete.

Click here for the continuation of the Top 100 List
51-70

#1. ISMAEL OMAR GUELLEH (DJIBOUTI) , president. Since the Horn of Africa country of Somalia fell apart in 1991, there was no government or state structure of any sort for nine years. The country was run by powerful clan warlords like General Mohammed Farah Aideed and Ali Mahdi and rapidly became the most lawless nation in the world. AK-47 assault rifles were sold openly at vegetable markets.

Over the years, twelve conferences were held without success to resolve the civil war. A United Nations peacekeeping mission led by the United States resulted in the killing of 18 U.S army rangers in 1993.

Finally in 2000, President Ismael Omar Guelleh of the neighboring, little regarded nation of Djibouti managed to do that which had eluded the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity for nearly 10 years. On August 8 in the Djibouti town of Arta, a conference opened to restore peace to the war-torn country.

This thirteenth effort at peace resulted in the establishment of an interim government headed by the 58 year-old Addulkassim Salat Hassan, a former cabinet minister in the government of the late former president General Mohammed Siad Barre. Several warlords rejected the new government and threatened to sabotage it with violence.

Nevertheless, in October the government took up residence in the capital Mogadishu. Hundreds of young Somali men volunteered for enlistment in the new national police force. By early November, it appeared that the threats of the warlords were not going to be a major factor in Somali affairs and finally a decade of strife and complete anarchy was about to be put behind.

As the peacemaker who achieved what for nine years had seemed the impossible in Somalia, Ismael Omar Guelleh is nominated as the African of the Year for 2000. Guelleh had solved one of the most complex problems ever to confront the modern world --- how to revive a nation from scratch, after the state structure and public service has completely crumbled.

#2. LAURENT GBAGBO (IVORY COAST), president. As the main opposition candidate who stood against Ivory Coast's military head of state General Robert Guei in the October 22 presidential election, Gbagbo scored one of the year's most significant ---- and probably one Africa's most important ever --- political victories.

It was the first time that a civilian opposition leader in Africa, by a simple and direct appeal to the population, had aroused enough passion to result in a popular uprising against a military government. What hundreds of beleagured opposition politicians in Africa, harassed by dictatorships and military regimes have only dreamed of --- a massive popular uprising --- was achieved almost spontaneously in Ivory Coast, the strongest economy in West Africa.

 On October 25, with Ivory Coast, one of Africa's previously most stable countries rapidly descending into anarchy, two days of protests called by Gbagbo led to the abdication of General Guei. It was the first civilian coup against a military regime, in complete contrast to the typical military overthrow of a civilian administration.

No condemnation was needed from any western country, no report by Amnesty International, no statement of protest from the Organization of African Unity or the United Nations. A simple call to the indignation and courage of the public led to the downfall of General Guei. When the Supreme Court banned the main opposition leader Alassane Outtara from contesting the election, he protested but was unable to use his moral authority to summon the public to take a stand.

While the opposition in Zimbabwe felt that the drastic land reform policies of President Robert Mugabe were disrupting the economy and bringing Zimbabwe into disrepute, and while they charged that the June 24-25 parliamentary elections were rigged, they were still unable to translate that moral outrage into a concerted public uprising against Mugabe.

This is what makes Gbagbo's influence so important. On October 25, Gbagbo, recognizing the legal details that would be encountered before he could assume office, called on the military junta government to continue running the affairs of state --- another departure from the typical self-seeking attitude of African politicians. He also proposed some form of joint governance of Ivory Coast with Alassane Outarra, which Ouatarra rejected.

Then on the night of November 2, the new government of President Gbagbo announced that henceforth, the display of the president's official portrait in public offices, hotels, airports, and other buildings, and on the country's currency, would be banned.

In this attempt to end the cult of personality so prevalent in previous years in Ivory Coast and Africa, Gbagbo showed further proof that he was not an accidental winner of the October 22 elections. Here was a politician of some mettle.

Radio France on November 3 also reported that Gbagbo had proposed a re-negotiation of the country's military pact with France to close down the French army base in Ivory Coast. Gbagbo argued that to maintain a French troop presence in his country undermined his country's independence.

Once again, in confronting the question of the dependency relationship between France and her former African colonies --- an umbilical tie not usually questioned --- Gbagbo demonstrated why it was fortuitous for Ivory Coast that he was permitted by the Supreme Court to stand against General Guei.

#3. EUGENE VAN AS (SOUTH AFRICA), executive chairman, Sappi. Of all the companies on the African continent, Sappi carries with it the truest reflection of what high standards can come out of Africa.

Sappi is the world's largest producer of the glossy, wood-free high quality paper used in world reknown publications such as the fashion magazines Vogue and Cosmopolitan, the news magazines Newsweek, TIME, and the Economist, and Reader's Digest.

Sappi's global assets were as of November 2000 estimated at US$5 billion, with the company recording an average growth rate of 26 percent in turnover since 1990 and 17.4 percent in operating profit.
In a sense most ironic, the western glamour images published in these prestige magazines which are so slavishly admired and imitated by millions of Africans, are actually enhanced by the high quality of paper which is produced in Africa, of all places.

The irony is almost equal to the one regarding chocolate, a confectionary that represents the very definition of the much-fancied western, consumer, urbane lifestyle.

In simple terms, most of the world's cocoa, the main ingredient in chocolate, is produced by the West African nation of Ivory Coast.

Would that Africans, especially Black Africans, came to see that with more self-belief and steady, hard work, they too could become the centre of more world conquering products and services.

On October 20, Sappi, which sponsors the Sappi Printer of the Year awards, opened them up  to printers ifrom all over the world. The awards had until now been restricted to printers in Africa, North America, and Europe.

The award will henceforth include printers from Latin America, Asia, and Australasia.

On October 26, South Africa's Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut (AHI) awarded the MS Louw prize to Sappi Chairman Eugene van As for his remarkable contribution to business in South Africa.

The award cited Van As' contribution in establishing Sappi as one of the biggest companies in South Africa, one of South Africa's most important global companies, and one of the world's top ten paper companies.

On November 9, the company announced year-end and fourth quarter eranings of US$363 million --- a staggering 198 percent improvement from 1999 --- for the period ending September 2000.

What is important about Sappi is that its product is not too far from the ordinary person. Everytime a woman flips through a fashion magazine or a busy executive scans the pages of a major world news magazine, chances are that that high quality pages on which they are printed came from South Africa.

#4. GENERAL BAPTISTA JOÄO DE MATOS (ANGOLA), Chief of General Staff, Angolan armed forces. As Angola's top military officer, de Matos has done more than any other person to deal with one of Africa's most formidable problems --- the National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA), the rebel group that has battled the MPLA government since 1975.

The United Nations imposed sanctions on UNITA in 1993 and since then has added sanctions against UNITA trading in diamonds on the world market. Hundreds of thousands of casualties have resulted from the 25-year civil war.

On September 14, 1999, the Angolan army launched its most comprehensive offensive against of UNITA, taking most military analysts in the region by surprise. By December, an estimated 80 percent of UNITA's fighting capacity had been neutralized. UNITA, even as a rebel group, was until then even more powerful a fighting force than most African government armies.

By September 2000, serious doubts were being raised about UNITA's capacity to ever take the upper hand again in Angola's civil war and UNITA, led by veteran guerrilla Jonas Savimbi, disappeared from world news headlines.

Sensing that the tide of war had turned decisively against UNITA, the government of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos rejected UNITA's request for peace talks.

The implications are far reaching. Angola, endowed with oil and diamonds, is potentially one of the world's richest countries. Any extended period free from the fighting would inevitably start the road to recovery and the effects of an economically revived Angola would be felt throughout the entire region.

"We have been saying all along that FAA forces are deeply committed to resolving the war problem in Angola," De Matos told Angolan radio on November 20.

"A full-fledged effort will continue to be made not only to deal with Jonas Savimbi's guerrilla forces, but also to ensure that the lives of Angolans throughout the country are protected and the main land communication routes remain open."

Through most of 2000, hardly an international peacekeeper or statesman visiting the region left without holding talks with General De Matos. It was through his planning and command that rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo, backed by Uganda and Rwanda and who were making a rapid advance on the capital Kinshasa, were abruptly stopped in their tracks.

The Texas-based geo-political analysis agency Stratfor said the Ugandan- and Rwandan-backed rebels could not take over Kinshasa as long as Angola stood in the way. The principal military strategist in Angola and one of Africa's most highly rated generals is General Bapitste Joao de Matos.

#5. BRIAN WHITTAKER (SOUTH AFRICA), Director, the Business Trust. The South African group called the Business Trust has embarked on one of the most ambitious series of projects ever. The business community is usually skeptical, certainly not idealistic, and focuses on the bottom line.

However, 100 South African companies have gone beyond the profit motive to work out remedies for the country's problems and raise the profile of Africa'' largest economy.

The Business Trust, headed by Brian Whittaker, is aiming at raising one billion South African Rand to fund several ventures in the areas of tourism, education, and combating the country's high crime rate.

The Trust aims at attracting over 800,000 new foreign visitors to South Africa and creating 100,000 new jobs in the tourism industry.

It also aims to reduce the number of school repeaters by 100,000 by 2005, and improve the reading skills of one million children.

The Business Trust is doing what intellectuals, business leaders, and civic groups in other African countries tend to theorize about: putting their weight behind their words. 

Ultimately, it is private initiatives such as these that will build the strength in society that has eluded most of Africa since the dawn of the independence decade in 1960.

#6. ABDELAZIZ BOUTEFLIKA (ALGERIA), president. As the current chairman of the Organization of African Unity, the Algerian president mediated successfully in the border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Since the ceasefire was signed in June, it has held with no major reported violations. By October, talks in the Algerian capital Algiers, sponsored by Bouteflika, turned to making the ceasefire a peace treaty, with a clarification of the two countries' disputed border.

Apart from his role in resolving the Ethiopia-Eritrea border war, Bouteflika in 2000 continued to maintain the upperhand in quelling the violence associated with the Islamic fundamentalist movements.

Although incidences of murders and kidnappings were still being reported during the year, they were significantly reduced from the years between 1992 when an election annulled by the army sparked off the violence and 1999 when Bouteflika announced an amnesty for suspected Islamic militants.

 #7. ZINE EL ABIDINE BEN ALI (TUNISIA), president. Although Tunisia rarely makes news, behind the scenes, the North Africa country is achieving economic development that makes it one of the models of Africa.

President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali has been in power since 1987 when he replaced the ailing Habib Bourguiba.

 Systematically, Ben Ali has initiated national development projetcs and carried then through. As a result, Tunisia sits at the top of Africa in several areas of national life.

The average calorie intake per day in Tunisia is 3,500. (The world average is 2,100). The country managed to attain the World Health Organization's target of Health for All by the year 2000, with healthcare available for all Tunisians.

Although Tunisia is Algeria's neighbour to the west, it has somehow been spared the spate of Islamic fundamentalist violence that has plagued Algeria since 1992.

Overall, Tunisia by 2000 had become one of Africa's most successful countries, primarily because of the policies of President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.

#8. ROBERT MICHAEL GODSELL (SOUTH AFRICA), Chief executive, AngloGold. Godsell heads another of the South African companies that are global at the outset, the sorts of companies which explain why South Africa remains by far Africa's largest and most dominant economy.

Anglogold is the world's largest gold producing company.

On August 3, AngloGold led the Ghana-based Ashanti Goldfields company in opening the new Geita Gold Mine in northwestern Tanzania, 90 km from the town of Mwanza.

The project was completed more than three months ahead of schedule, in a part of the world (needless to say) conspicuous for its failure to keep time and deadline. The Geita Gold Mine is the largest gold producer in East Africa.

But away from the business arena, AngloGold co-sponsored another vitally important matter --- the Riches of Africa Jewellery Design competition in New York City on October 20.

#9. PIETER COX (SOUTH AFRICA), Chief Executive, South African Coal, Oil and Gas Corporation (Sasol).

Sasol is poised to play a major role in the economic development of countries such as Tanzania, Mozambique, and Nigeria, by exploring for natural gas and oil.

On October 26, Sasol announced that it had signed three major agreements with the Mozambican government for the exploration of natural gas and export it to South Africa.

Mozambique in particular needs all the revenue-generating energy sources it can get to raise national standards of living, after the devastating civil war.

And 2000 was a year that saw increased profit for the energy company.

Sasol's turnover increased by 34 percent while operating profit increased by 73 precent for the year.

"The robust financial performance over the past two years is the consequence of a resolute pursuit by Sasol of its vision and growth objectives in clearly defined Southern African and international markets," says Cox.

On October 30, AECI Limited and Sasol Chemical Industries announced that they had concluded an agreement under which Sasol would acquire AECI's 50 per cent interest in the Fedmis Phalaborwa partnership.

Fedmis Phalaborwa is a joint venture between the two companies through which they manufacture and market phosphoric acid to an international market, for the production of fertilizers.

#10. BARRY DAVISON (SOUTH AFRICA), Chief Executive, Amplats. This is another of South Africa's global companies.

In this case, Anglo American Platinum Corporation Group (Amplats) is the world's leading primary producer of platinum.

It owns two smelters, six mines, a base metals refinery plant, and a precious metals refinery plant, all of them located in the northern and southwestern provinces of South Africa.

In 2000, Amplats headed by Davison, announced that, under its Waterval project, it would start producing an additional 395 000 ozs of platinum every year at its Rustenburg Section.

The project was part of the company's plan to increase its platinum production by 1.5 million ozs to 3.5 million ozs in 2006, up from the current 2 million ozs volume in 2000.

The increase in production is guaranteed to keep Amplats the world's largest producer of the precious metal for several years to come.

Amplats also said it was examining initiatives that would step up economic empowerment for South Africa's blacks in the country's mining industry.

#11. THOMAS GRAHAM DALE (SOUTH AFRICA), Managing Director, Gold Fields Limited. Gold Fields announced the acquisition in August of the Teberebie concession in Ghana from the Ashanti Goldfields company, for US$4.4 million. The deal was first reached in May.

Gold Fields is one of the worlds's largest gold producers, with annual production of more than 4 million ounces, reserves of 74 million ounces and resources of 152 million ounces.

#12. NICHOLAS OPPENHEIMER (SOUTH AFRICA), chairman, De Beers. Oppenheimer heads the world's largest diamond company. That alone would guarantee a listing on this tally of the Top 100 Africans of the Year.

But De Beers was in the news for much of the year over the question of the so-called conflict diamonds, the gems traded by guerrilla groups in Sierra Leone, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to fund their civil wars.

Under pressure from the United Nations and other quarters of the international community, De Beers announced that it would no longer buy diamonds known to originate from areas in Africa currently under conflict.

The motive for De Beers's decision to abide by the wish of the international community could well be debated. Perhaps the giant company calculated that with a freeze on the sale of conflict diamonds, it would hurt their rivals in the multi-billion dollar industry.

But if enforced, the self-imposed ban could have a significant effect on reducing the conflicts in the diamond-rich African countries. De Beers, more than any other factor, holds the key.

#13. TOM VOSLOO (SOUTH AFRICA), chairman, M-Net. Africa's largest pay television service, M-Net was founded in 1985 as South Africa's first private subscription television service.

Today, M-Net has a subscription base of about 1.23 million people in 41 countries spread over Africa. Among its attractions are Super Sport, the children's channel KTV, and Movie Magic.

In 2000, M-Net continued its Face of Africa competition, an event at which models are selected to represent the face of Africa's fashion potential.

The annual competition that was started in 1996, has launched the international modelling careers of several girls, most notably Nigeria's Patricia Oluchi.

M-Net, along with the AngloGold company sponsored the  much-acclaimed Africa Design fashion competition in New York City.

#14. JACKO MAREE (SOUTH AFRICA), Chief Executive, Stanbic. Standard Bank Investment Corporation (Stanbic) managed to achieve its projected earnings growth for the year ending December 2000.

The bank's Chief Executive Jacko Maree said Stanbic's performance had been impressive, considering the difficult conditions under which it had to operate.

"We have shown that we are able to deliver on the undertakings we made to our shareholders last November," he said.

Stanbic is one of South Africa's four largest banks and in terms of profit, maintains a record unequalled by its rivals.

In 2000, the bank's net income from interest was up by 4 percent, while its banking operations earned 34 percent higher income than in the previous period. Look for another strong year in 2001.

#15. ISAIAS AFWERKI (ERITREA), president. If a nation were to be rated on how far it breaks with the stereotype so commonly associated with Africa, then the one country that would stand out above the other 53 African states would be the tiny nation of Eritrea, roughly the size of England, located in the Horn of Africa.

This fiercely independent, Spartan people, fought Africa's longest war of the 20th century for independence from Ethiopia. On May 24, 1991, guerrillas of the Eritrean Peoples' Liberation Front stormed into the capital Asmara. The rebels had succeeded in defeating the forces of Ethiopian leader Colonel Megistu Haile Mariam, whose army was one of Africa's best equipped.

The psychological effects of the 30-year war, in which more than 150,000 Eritreans died, can still be seen today. The militaristic nation has fought wars with Sudan, Djibouti, Yemen, and Ethiopia since 1993. On the domestic front, Eritrea is even more impressive. For a long time after his country won independence from Ethiopia in 1993, president Issais Afwerki lived with his father in his father's house, in order to reduce the expense of maintaining an executive state mansion.

Self-reliance typifies the national mindframe. In an interview with the American magazine National Geographic in June 1996, president Afwerki declared: "We know we don't have the knowledge. We know we don't have the resources. We know we don't have the experience. Our conclusion is: Let's face it."

In May, at the height of the war with Ethiopia, something peculiar was reported by the Voice of America in a special profile on Eritrea: whereas the citizens of nearly all other African countries would most likely transfer their money into foreign, western banks in war time, cash deposits by Eritreans into the country's commercial banks had increased by 20 percent in an extraordinary show of national support for the war effort.

Corruption in public office is virtually unknown. Contracts for roads, schools, hospitals, and other public utilities are awarded and work delivered with no instances of embezzelment, a situation almost unheard of in Africa. At the outbreak of the war, thousands of university and technical college students, including girls, demonstrated through the streets of Asmara demanding to be enlisted in the army and sent to the warfront.

Leading by example, president Afwerki has created a country that defies nearly every stereotype of what an African nation is supposed to be.

It is this national character about Eritrea that makes a peace treaty with Ethiopia so important. Afwerki would be higher up on this list were it not for the May-June war with Ethiopia.

The amount of national revenue that would be set aside and used efficiently for infrastructure development rather than a military buildup, could turn Eritrea into one of Africa's best-performing economies in a few years' time. Eritrea's name is taken from the Latin for the Red Sea --- Mare Erythraeum.

#16. JOB BWAYO (KENYA), AIDS researcher. Part of the University of Nairobi research team which, in conjunction with British researchers from Oxford University, to develop a vaccine that stimulates the generation of T-cells in AIDS patients. The Kenyans say that by demonstrating that a blood cell known as Cytotoxie T Lymphocyte protected several Nairobi prostitutes from infection by the HIV virus, they had contributed to the development of the vaccine.

#17. AGGREY ANZALA (KENYA), AIDS researcher. Part of the University of Nairobi-Oxford University team that says it has developed an AIDS vaccine. This after a 10 year period of research in which prostitutes in the Majengo area of the capital Nairobi were discovered to have killer T-cells that destroyed the HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It had been a mystery for a long time why these Nairobi prostitutes never became infected with HIV, despite repeated direct exposure to the virus.

#18. JECONIAH NDINYA-ACHOLA (KENYA), AIDS researcher. Part of the University of Nairobi-Oxford University team of microbiologists which says it has developed an AIDS vaccine. In October, a dispute developed over the claimants to the patent for the vaccine. The Kenyan scientists said they had been deliberately excluded from mention in the patent file. The British researchers later said it had been an oversight and the matter was settled. This was yet another triumph for advanced African research, following on the success in July 1999 by Ugandan researchers at the Makerere University Medical School in Kampala.

The Makerere researchers in collaboration with scientists from the Johns Hopkins University in the United States developed a drug which reduces by 50 percent the chances of mother-to-child HIV transmission during childbirth.

#19. MOHAMMED HOSNI MUBARAK (EGYPT), president. As the year's most engaged diplomat, the Egyptian president at some point seemed headed for overstretch. Although much of his diplomacy concentrated on the turbulent Middle East, Mubarak was not without involvement in continental African affairs.

From April 3-4 in the capital Cairo, Mubarak hosted the first ever joint African and European Union summit. The summit was convened to "work towards a new strategic dimension to the global partnership between Africa and Europe."

From an Arab and Islamic point of view, Mubarak's decision to withdraw Egypt's ambassador to Israel in November, at the height of the two-month long Palestinian-Israeli clashes was the most important diplomatic move of the year.

By withdrawing the ambassador, Egypt was putting Israel under pressure to reduce the level of force being used against Palestinian demonstrators, something that even Israel's staunchest ally the United States disapproved of.

Egypt is the most pivotal Arab country in the Middle East and has had the longest diplomatic relations with Israel, dating back to 1978.

#20. ALI KHALIF GALAYDH (SOMALIA), Prime Minister. Once a new government was installed in Somalia after nearly 10 years without one, the next challenge was to try and rebuild the state system.

The task of rebuilding the government machinery in Somalia was given to Ali Khalif Galaydh, a former professor at Syracuse University in the United States and one time cabinet minister under General Mohammed Siad Barre.

"Nothing I taught prepared me for starting a state from ground zero," Galaydh told TIME magazine in an interview in November.

As it turns out, he has already worked on a strategy that he is convinced with resurrect Somalia. In an interview with The Monitor, a Ugandan newspaper in November, the Prime Minister argued that the fact of Somalia's complete disintegration is not without advantage.

The country's warlords, militias, and war in general have so disillusioned the population that they no longer have the authority to even apply force. Armed men are defecting by the drovs from the factions to the new national army and police forces being set up.

Galaydh says he plans to capitalize on that discontent and by this approach, discredit the warlords even further. He will also expedite justice and maintain law and order based on the traditional clan system.

As for economic reconstruction, he sees it as an easier challenge, if one understands the underpinnings of the society.

Since one of the main obstacles facing many African countries in their economic reform programmes is the reality of entrenched interests and groups, Galaydh once again sees a silver lining in the Somalia tragedy: there is nothing to reform since it has all broken down.

Somalia is, in a sense, the only country in Africa that is completely privatized. With none of the cumdersome government bureaucracy to deal with, Galaydh thinks he is poised to start from a clean slate.

Should Galaydh succeed in reviving Somalia and should the peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea hold, then an interesting irony might emerge --- the once strife-torn Horn of Africa area could potentially see the most dynamic economic growth in Africa. 

#21. GENERAL DAUDI TONJE (KENYA), Chief of General Staff, Kenya armed forces. General Tonje retired after four years as the chief of Kenya's armed forces and steadfastly turned down requests to serve another four-year term.

As Kenya's top soldier between 1996 and 2000, General Tonje oversaw the most far-reaching reforms ever in the armed forces since the East African country won independence in 1963.

"General Tonje introduced major changes in the military, including pegging future promotions to academic performance and allowing women soldiers to marry," said Kenya's independent Daily Nation newspaper on November 6.

Starting in October, all officers will be required to undergo university level education if they are to be legible for promotion.

Predictably, the changes were not well received by several senior army officers, many of whom had been enlisted at a time when academic qualification in the armies of the East African countries was not regarded by the colonial administrations as a priority. Several senior Ugandan army commanders from the 1960s to the 1980s were semi-literate.

Furthermore, it suited the political leaders at the time in East Africa to have armies commanded by modestly educated generals. If General Tonje's reforms are carried through, the face of the army in Kenya will be transformed.

Beginning in July 2012, no Kenyan Major will for instance be promoted to Lt.-Colonel without a Masters of Science degree in Military Science.

However, General Tonje's reforms fall short of radical. Promotion for starting with Colonel shall still be based on the discretion of the president, something that could limit the effectiveness of the army in its maintainance and even definition of national security. 

#22. BAKILI MULUZI (MALAWI), president. Reports of widespread corruption in the top ranks of the government abounded in Malawi for much of the year.

In July, a parliamentary committee published a report that implicated cabinet ministers in shady deals. Apparently, they had been making money from building contracts for non-existent schools in the country.

Then at the beginning of November, President Bakili Muluzi made a surprise move. He dismissed his entire cabinet for its alleged involvement in a $2.5 million deal of Mercedes Benz limousines. 

As if to stress his point, the ministers were ordered to find their way home, after their official cars were grounded.

Later, the limousines were put up for sale, with the government saying proceeds would go to its poverty alleviation programmes.

It could be argued that international donors put pressure on Muluzi to act on the official corruption. But so has such pressure been exerted on several other African countries with little success.

All across Africa, such drastic action has been hoped for, for so long by the long-suffering people. Muluzi acted suddenly and decisively and sent a signal to public officials that at least in his case, actions come faster and more forcefully than words.

#23. MATTHEW OLUSEGUN OBASANJO (NIGERIA), president. A commission to investigate past human rights abuses in Africa's most populous nation. In a year of bitter division between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria over the introduction of the strict Islamic Sharia code, in a year of ethnic clashes in the southwest, the paramount theme sounded by Obasanjo was unity and reconciliation.

Ironically for Nigeria, the end of military rule appeared to have opened up the country, not to greater unity, but discord, as tensions buried for decades by the presence of military regimes came to the surface.

On November 2, Obasanjo testifying before the human rights comission --- mapped after South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Comission, said he had forgiven the regime of the late head of state General Sani Abacha for detaining him in 1998.

By the middle of 2000, Nigeria --- Africa's most populous nation, where one out of every five Black people worldwide lives --- had fully regained its international stature.

The West African country moved closer and closer to South Africa in the creation of an alliance that would, perhaps, impact on the continent.

#24. WILFRED KIBORO (KENYA), Chief Executive, Nation Media Group. As the head of East Africa's largest media concern, Kiboro was looking beyond Kenya's borders in 2000. On March 16, the Nation Group concluded its acquisition of majority shares in Uganda's Monitor newspaper, the country's main private daily.

An FM radio station owned by the Nation Group was also scheduled for launch in Kampala in December.

As the venerable company marked 40 years in existence in November, its main publication, the Daily Nation remained the best-selling newspaper in East Africa. 

#25. MICHAEL WALNE (SOUTH AFRICA), executive chairman, Natchix. The largest producer of day-old chicks in Africa, National Chicks Farms (Natchix) is another of the large South African companies that are increasingly thinking continental and expanding their operations across Africa.

The company, founded in 1976, runs joint venture operations in southern African countries like Botswana, Swaziland, and Lesotho, and is now exporting day-old chicks to Mozambique.

The product, chicken, is especially relevant to sub-Saharan Africa where the mainstay of the economy remains for the large part agro-livestock in nature.

#26. J. WELWOOD BASSON (SOUTH AFRICA), managing director, Shoprite Checkers. In December, Shoprite opened a major new shopping centre in Kampala, Uganda, one of several concerns Shoprite plans to build across the continent. There is already a branch in Zambia.

Much of middle-level business and many products in sub-Saharan Africa reflect this new wave of post-apartheid South African expansion into territory previously rendered inaccesible for political reasons.

It will not be long before groceries and consumer goods previously reserved for the wealthy minority in sub-Saharan Africa become mass products available to common people.

And in all likelihood, they will be South African products, which are attractive since they are cheaper yet are of European quality.

#27. OLUSEGUN FAYEMI (NIGERIA), photographer. Fayemi did in 2000 what Africa Almanac was created to achieve --- to try and change the commonly held perception of Africa. In Fayemi's case, he published a book titled "Voices From Within, Photographs of African Children", based on the every day lives of children in Africa.

One of the themes of his book was to showcase the similarities between children from developed countries and those from developed countries, which was essentially to say they are all the same except for their social and economic conditions.

What is most noteworthy about Fayemi's work, which was featured on the CNN programme "Inside Africa" in November, is that it took 20 painstaking years to compile. In Africa, given the instability and circumstances, 20 years is a long time.

The role of photography in the formation of people's impressions cannot be underscored enough. Entire shifts in perception took place with the publication of classic photographs from World War II and the Vietnam War.

America was by and large established as an alluring place to be, through the photographs in the 1950s and 1960s of the picture magazine Life.

Fayemi's work, if well distributed, could do as much as any government's effort in creating a rightful image of Africa in the minds of thousands of Europeans and Americans.

#28. WILLIAM MUHAIRWE (UGANDA), director of the national water corporation.  One of the most intractable problems facing Africa remains the management of national and public utilities and corporations. In Uganda, a country once widely known for its dysfunction, 2000 brought an exception to the order of the day --- on August 31, the government granted the National Water and Sewerage Corporation the status of an autonomous parastatal body, in recognition of its unusual performance.

Under the leadership of Managing Director William Muhairwe, what had been an inefficient state-owned corporation for more than 25 years, was turned round by 2000 into a profit-making agency, something almost unheard of in the East African country. Muhairwe was appointed in November 1998.

Within his set 100-day schedule, previous gross mismanagement and financial loss was turned into a profit of about $200,000. The water agency now has its sights on extending piped water services to 85 percent of the Uganda's urban population by 2003.

For once, Uganda had not had to contract a foreign expatriat to turn round one of the most dysfunctional of public corporations.

#29. JOHN HALAMANDRES (SOUTH AFRICA), Chief Executive, Steers. Debonairs Pizza is the leading pizza franchise in Africa and by late 2000 was looking to expanding further afield into Africa.

The company plans to establish 50 new restaurants in various cities of Africa. It estimates that by 2003, about half of its revenue earnings will come from its branches outside South Africa.

It was established in 1991 by two university students who ran the business from a family bakery in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. It was acquired in 1996 by the Steers Group.

#30. HAMZA MWAMHEHE (TANZANIA), veterinary researcher. The Veterinary Investigation Centre (VIC) of Naliendele Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) in Tanzania's southern Mtwara Region in October began the production of the Newcastle Disease Vaccine (ND I-2) after successful research conducted in various Newcastle prone areas in the East African country.

The Newcastle disease, known as kideri or kitoga in Tanzania, kills between 50 and 100 per cent of chickens. The new vaccine ND 1-2 is unique for one important reason: it is thermostable, in that it can withstand temperatures of up to 28 degrees centigrade.

The previous vaccines like Lasota and HB 1 require special cooling equipment to maintain their effectiveness.

Dr. Mwamhehe and colleagues added to the growing number of African scientists and researchers who are contributing to the fund of scientific study. The VIC's contribution in particular brings applicable research to the conditions of rural Africa where modern facilities like electricity have yet to reach.

The outbreak of Newcastle Disease over the years had seriously affected the poultry industry in southern Tanzania, discouraging villagers from raising chickens. The new vaccine is expected to increase in the chicken numbers in the Mtwara region.

#31. SAMUEL OKWARE (UGANDA), Chairman, national Ebola Task Force. When the Ebola disease struck northern Uganda on September 27, a sense of alarm spread through the medical community in the country. International expert opinion of the deadly and highly contagious disease first discovered in the then Zaire in 1976 was that the Ebola kills about 90 percent of its victims.

By November 3, there was puzzling news out of Gulu, the northern town at the centre of the outbreak. Of the 266 confirmed cases of the Ebola, 134 patients had been treated in two hospitals, Gulu and Lacor, and they had made a complete recovery.

The Ugandan medical authorities confirmed that they had not misdiagnosed the disease in the 134 patients and that this indeed had been Ebola. The high recovery rate not only disproved the theory that the Ebola kills 90 percent of the infected people. It demonstrated the efficiency of the national Ebola task force chaired by Dr Sam Okware.

At an earlier period, Dr Okware was part of the team of Ministry of Health officials who oversaw the anti-AIDS campaign that has won Uganda much recognition all over the world.

#32. FRANCIS OMASWA (UGANDA), Director of Medical Services, Minsitry of Health. The World Health Organization Country Representative in Uganda acknowledged during a television discussion show on Kampala's WBS Television station in October that the success in preventing the Ebola crisis from getting much worse, had been due to the effectiveness of the Ugandan response.

Before teams from the U.S Centers for Diseases Contro and the World Health Organization flew to Gulu to join in the effort to limit the spread of the disease, Uganda's medical teams had responded fast enough to prevent a total catastrophe from occuring. Gulu district is one of the most underdeveloped in Uganda and a crisis of the proportion of Ebola would ordinarily have overwhelmed the health services.

Directed by Professor Francis Omaswa, Ugandan health workers isolated the first cases of infection and supervised the burial of the victims. The initial response to the outbreak explains why by November 3, a relatively small number of 83 people had died, compared to the 245 deaths in Zaire in 1995.  

#33. AYALEW TILAHUN (ETHIOPIA), team doctor of the highly successful Olympic squad at the Sydney Olympic Games. With eight medals, including four gold medals, this was Ethiopia's highest number of medals ever at an Olympic Games.

Ethiopia also finished second behind the United States in the number of track and field medals won. "We train high and compete low," Tilahun told a correspondent for the International Amateur Athletics Federation on October 2.

It is not very often that athletes, based in Africa, training with African facilities in a country as poor as Ethiopia, and trained by African coaches, go on to win so many medals at the highest level of international competition. 2000 was Ethiopia's year and more so will be the next Olympic Games in Athens.

#34. DEOLA SAGOE (NIGERIA), fashion designer. On September 17, Sagoe won the Africa Designs fashion competition in New York City.

At the fashion show that night, sponsored by South Africa's AngloGold, the largest gold producing company in the world, and M-Net, Africa's largest pay TV company, the images of Africa won the admiration of the more than 600 invited guests.

Four other African designers --- Bongiwe Walaza, Bonga Bhengu, Tracey Lee, and Julian, all from South Africa, took part in the competition.

But it was Deola Sagoe who won that night. Said Andre Leon Tally, the Editor-at-Large of the American edition of the fashion magazine Vogue: "The sophistication of the show was impressive. It is extremely exciting that African fashion is finally being showcased in New York."

Far from being simply a fashion show or a social event at which to display their ware, events such as these do what not even governments are capable of accomplishing: they establish images in the minds of hundreds of thousands, images which more than anything else, establish cultural hegemony.

For all the military and industrial might of the United States, the factors that turned it into the land that furnishes the dreams of many, were as simple as those designed by popular culture --- Coca-Cola, Mickey Mouse and the Disney empire, Hollywood, and Rock n' Roll.

Any fashion shows, musical events, film festivals, and other seemingly flippant social occasions that place the imagery of Africana before a worldwide audience, are doing for Africa what Coca-Cola, Elvis Presley, and Broadway did for America.

So was that New York night for Africa.

#35. RENATE KRIEGLER (SOUTH AFRICA), jewel designer. 22 year-old Renate Kriegler, a second year student of design jewellery at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, was amongst the winners of Gold Virtuosi, the world's first international gold jewellery design competition, which took place at the Vicenza Jewellery Fair in Italy today.

 Kriegler's design work led to her selection as one of 30 winners chosen from 3,000 entrants from 34 countries.

 Gold Virtuosi was sponsored by the world's biggest gold producer, the South African company AngloGold, the World Gold Council, and the Vicenza Fair, in the first competition ever to celebrate the versatility and beauty of gold, and to nuture excellence in design from all over the world.

Renate Kriegler's winning jewellery set titled "Thando", was made up of a ring, pendant and bracelet drawn from 271 grams of 18 ct. gold.

"I had never worked with so much gold before and it was a very luxurious and sensual experience," said Kriegler.

"I encourage gold jewellery designers in South Africa, both professional and amateur, to enter these kinds of contests because they generate publicity for our world-calibre goldsmithing talents and provide the opportunity to work with large quantities of African golds," she added.

Kreigler is also nominated as one of Africa's most outstanding people of 2000 by Africa Almanac.

As was the case with Nigeria's fashion designer Deola Sagoe, the jewellery of Kriegler puts Africa in a position to claim that all that glitters is gold. 

#36. KENNETH DAVID KAUNDA (ZAMBIA), former president, AIDS campaigner. As president of Zambia from independence in 1964 to 1991, Kaunda might have produced mixed results.

But in his retirement, he might have embarked on a mission that will prove perhaps more crucial than his political career.

In 2000, Kaunda embarked on a campaign to help contain the spread of AIDS in Africa. "Wherever I am needed in Africa, I will go," he said. "I am devoted to fighting AIDS."

Kaunda's new public service cannot have come a day prematurely. According to estimates, over 24 million adults and children in sub-Saharan Africa are now living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

A United Nations report said at least ten percent of the people between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine are HIV positive. In South Africa and Zimbabwe, half the people between those ages are expected to die of AIDS. One of Kaunda's sons died of AIDS in 1986.

A Voice of America editorial on November 18 said: "Kenneth Kaunda's mission is critically important. In too many places, HIV and AIDS are still seen as taboo and are shrouded in mystery, misinformation, or silence. The epidemic and its causes need to be talked about publicly and the scientific facts about AIDS laid out clearly -- at the highest levels of government and society...a greater political commitment can help contain the AIDS epidemic."

Apart from bringing his wide name recognition to the AIDS campaign, thus helping efforts toward greater openess, Kaunda has shown that there can be more significant roles for former African heads of state than peace mediation and shuttle diplomacy.

To immerse one's efforts in the anti-AIDS campaign at this time is much more vital than mediating in a border dispute.

Kaunda's decision to take up the campaign against AIDS exposes a degree of insincerity about South Africa's leading figures.

Notable South Africans like Nelson Mandela, former African National Congress Secretary General Cyril Ramaphosa, and former Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu have taken to the international diplomatic and lecture circuit, while almost ignoring the AIDS scourge now ravaging their country.

Yet South Africa is supposed to have Africa's most advanced healthcare system. For many years, these South African leaders lived in denial about the spreading AIDS crisis in their country.

But of course, Kaunda's belated involvement in the AIDS crusade also raises questions about his own attitude. Since his son died of AIDS as early as 1986, should that not have been the time while he was still president and with the power of his office, to launch a national AIDS campaign?

Nevertheless, his new campaign cannot go without being applauded.

#37. THABO MBEKI (SOUTH AFRICA) , president. The leader of Africa's most powerful economy, president Mbeki made more news in 2000 for an entirely different reason. His opinions on the cause and control of the AIDS epidemic stirred up worldwide controversy. But the most persuasive aspect of Mbeki's position was his assertion that in order to address the question of AIDS, it had to be resloved within the context of the grinding poverty on the African continent, the world region most afflicted by AIDS.

To attempt to solve the epidemic merely by providing high cost drugs, in a region where the average person earns a dollar a day was, in President Mbeki's opinion, to take the wrong measures. His controversial views gave the AIDS question its proper context: deal with the degrading poverty and half the problem is immediately resolved.

But there was more to Mbeki in 2000 than the controversy over AIDS. He deliberately refused to outrightly condemn Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe over the forced seizure of white-owned commercial farms. Mbeki knew, more than the western governments that were hasty in attacking Mugabe that the land question was more emotive and important than they were prepared to admit.

During the EU-African summit in Cairo, Mbeki boldly put Africa's case before the assembled European leaders, pressing the case for a united Africa working in cooperation with a united Europe.

And as crisis after crisis befell the continent, Mbeki maintained his stand that an African renaissance was underway.

#38. MORGAN TSVANGIRAI (ZIMBABWE), opposition leader. As popular as were president Robert Mugabe's land reform policies in southern Africa, much else about his administration was increasingly resented by Zimbabweans --- the declining economy, the country's troop deployment in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and high level corruption.

The leader of the newly formed opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Tsvangirai became the voice and rally in point for the growing discontent in Zimbabwe with the 20 year rule of the Zimbabwe African National Union party of president Mugabe.

In the June 24 to 25 parliamentary elections, the MDC won 57 seats in parliament, just five short of the ruling ZANU-PF party. Significantly, the MDC was only nine months old. However, post-election strikes and protests increasingly lost their appeal to Zimbabweans, who were increasingly faced with dire economic times. Apart from rising up against Mugabe, the MDC did not appear to have charted out an alternative and comprehensive economic recovery plan.

And as just and timely as his cause might have been, Tsvangirai was unable to do what Laurent Gbagbo managed so effortlessly --- call on Zimbabweans to simply get out onto the streets and protest until Mugabe abdicated from power.

#39. JULIA SEBUTINDE (UGANDA), High Court Judge. A commission of inquiry was launched in 1999 by the Uganda government into widespread corruption and inefficiency in the national police force. Chaired by a High Court Judge, Julia Sebutinde, the commission published its report in October.

The report has received conflicting responses in Uganda, some praising its thoroughness, others regarding Sebutinde as simply a tool by which the government could claim credit for its determination to wipe out corruption.

But not many could doubt that, whatever the government's calculation in naming the commission, the integrity of Justice Julia Sebutinde was a certainity.

Evidence of the commission's satisfactory work came later in the year when calls came for Sebutinde to investigate other questionable goings-on in the government.

#40. NELSON MANDELA (SOUTH AFRICA), retired former president. Mandela brokered the peace process in Burundi and the partial ceasefire on August 28, in Arusha, Tanzania. Nobel Peace prize laureate, 1993. Mandela brokered an agreement that has since been violated several times.

It might surprise many people in the West to see Nelson Mandela so far down this list of the year's top 100 Africans. But that is one reason further that Africans, rather than the West, should be left to decide who their real achievers are.

As a peacemaker, Mandela in 2000 failed to achieve the kind of breakthrough that most thought would come naturally to him.

Despite his international fame, Mandela was unable to impart it on the Burundi peace process, something that could not necessarily be attributed to the complexity of the Burundi crisis.

After all, the Ethiopia-Eritrea border dispute and the complete collapse of Somali, ruled for nine years by rival warlords, were no less intractable as regional problems.

Also, as has been mentioned before, the most critical problem in Southern Africa today is the fight against AIDS, a campaign that would benefit much more from Mandela's moral input than the Burundi's peace process, from which he was unable to yield much success.

#41. ROBERT GABRIEL MUGABE (ZIMBABWE), president. Unquestionably, the top news- maker from Africa in 2000 was the Zimbabwean leader. The reveberations from his controversial land reform policy will continue to be felt for several years to come.

At the heart of Mugabe's action against the country's powerful white commercial farmers was the premise that there was an essential state of injustice for so small a part of Zimbabwe's population to control so massive a percentage of the country's most fertile land.

While his approach to the land question was widely criticized around the world and even in Africa, Mugabe also received a surprisingly strong show of support from millions of Africans in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, and Namibia where much of the anti-colonial struggle originated with the advocacy of land reform. On a visit to Nigeria in November, Mugabe was also warmly welcomed by thousands of people.

Clearly, this support for Mugabe in southern Africa cannot be glossed over.

In its condemnation of Mugabe's action and the violence that resulted from the land, the international community seemed to overlook the basic question of long overdue land reform in much of southern Africa where in these largely agricultural societies, arable land remains one of the most precious economic resources. 

The crisis revolving around the white-owned farms also dramatically brought to the surface a reality that the world, assuming itself modern and enlightened, thought it was putting behind.

This stark reality was the fact that, for all the technological advancement, liberal philosophy, and assumptions about a global culture, human beings are essentially tribalistic.

Almost all the major newspapers, news agencies, and radio and television stations in the white, western industrialized world descended on the Zimbabwe events and gave then extensive coverage.

Obviously, it was because the livelihood and lives of their kith and kin were involved. Most of Zimbabwe's 80,000 whites are of Anglo-Irish descent.

All this raised the inevtiable question of why, if it was purely human life and the principles of justice that the West was responding to, had the same West been indifferent to the plight of thousands of displaced, tortured, and marginalised Black South Africans during the apartheid era?

During the 1980s, both the British government under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the U.S government of President Ronald Reagan vigorously defended the notion of "constructive engagement" with white, apartheid South Africa, as hundreds of young Blacks were arrested and harrassed by the police every week.

This is the reason the factor of Robert Mugabe in 2000 cannot be brushed aside as simple cynical posturing by the Zimbabwean leader.

#42. HAILE GEBRSELASSIE (ETHIOPIA), track and field athlete. Winner of International Amateur Athletics Federation Golden League titles, at 10,000 metres and 5,000 metres. World record holder at 10,000 metres and Olympic champion at 10,000 metres in 27:18.20, in Sydney, Australia. In one of the greatest long distance duels of all-time, Gebrselassie beat to the finish line his long-time rival, the five-time World Cross Country champion Paul Tergat of Kenya. Gebrselassie was Olympic champion at 10,000 metres in Atlanta, USA, in 1996, In which he beat Tergat into second place.