Sudan's Mercenaries

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been accused of widespread abuses in Sudan, including the 3 June massacre in which more than 120 people were reportedly killed, with many of the dead dumped in the River Nile.

The RSF are now the real ruling power in Sudan. The RSF was formally established by decree of then-President Omar al-Bashir in 2013. But their core of 5,000 militiamen had been armed and active long before then. They are a new kind of regime: a hybrid of ethnic militia and business enterprise, a transnational mercenary force that has captured a state. Their commander is General Mohamed Hamdan "Hemeti" Dagolo, and he and his fighters have come a long way since their early days as a rag-tag Arab militia widely denigrated as the "Janjaweed". 

The core of the Janjaweed were camel-herding nomads from the Mahamid and Mahariya branches of the Rizeigat ethnic group of northern Darfur and adjoining areas of Chad - they ranged across the desert edge long before the border was drawn. During the 2003-2005 Darfur war and massacres, the most infamous Janjaweed leader was Musa Hilal, chief of the Mahamid. Bashir formalised them into a paramilitary force called the Border Intelligence Units. 

Hemeti was offered a sweet deal: back pay for his troops, ranks for his officers (he became a brigadier general), and a handsome cash payment. His troops were put under the command of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), at that time organising a proxy war with Chad. Hemeti's fighters, serving under the banner of the Chadian opposition, fought their way as far as the Chadian capital, N'Djamena, in 2008.

In 2013, a new paramilitary force was formed under Hemeti and called the RSF,  made answerable to Mr Bashir himself - the president gave Hemeti the nickname "Himayti", meaning "My Protector". Training camps were set up near the capital, Khartoum. Hundreds of Land Cruiser pick-up trucks were imported and fitted out with machine guns.

By 2017, gold sales accounted for 40% of Sudan's exports. And Hemeti was keen to control them.  He already owned some mines and had set up a trading company known as al-Junaid. In November 2017. Run by his relatives, the Al-Junaid company had become a vast conglomerate covering investment, mining, transport, car rental, and iron and steel. The RSF took over Sudan's most lucrative gold mines.

Hemeti became the country's biggest gold trader and Dubai is the destination for almost all of Sudan's gold, official or smuggled. But Hemeti's contacts with the UAE soon became more than just commercial. In 2015, the Sudanese government agreed to send a battalion of regular forces to serve with the Saudi-Emirati coalition forces in Yemen - its commander was Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, now chair of the ruling Transitional Military Council. But a few months later, the UAE struck a parallel deal with Hemeti to send a much larger force of RSF fighters, for combat in south Yemen and along the Tahama plain - which includes the port city of Hudaydah, the scene of fierce fighting last year. Hemeti also provided units to help guard the Saudi Arabian border with Yemen. 

The RSF's strength had grown tenfold. Its command structure didn't change: all are Darfurian Arabs, its generals sharing the Dagolo name. With 70,000 men and more than 10,000 armed pick-up trucks, the RSF became Sudan's de facto infantry, the one force capable of controlling the streets of the capital, Khartoum, and other cities.

 By controlling the border with Chad and Libya the RSF is also the biggest border guard.  Under the Khartoum Process, the European Union funded the Sudanese government to control migration across the Sahara to Libya. Although the EU consistently denies it, many Sudanese believe that this gave license to the RSF to police the border, extracting bribes, levies and ransoms - and doing its share of trafficking too.

Through gold and officially sanctioned mercenary activity, Hemeti came to control Sudan's largest "political budget" - money that can be spent on private security, or any activity,without needing to give an account. 

Hemeti is one of the richest men in Sudan - probably with more ready cash than any other politician - and was at the centre of a web of patronage, secret security deals, and political payoffs. It is no surprise that he moved swiftly to take the place of his fallen patron. Hemeti has moved fast, politically and commercially. Every week he is seen in the news, handing cash to the police to get them back on the streets, to electric workers to restore services, or to teachers to have them return to the classrooms. He handed out cars to tribal chiefs.

As the UN-African Union peacekeeping force drew down in Darfur, the RSF took over their camps - until the UN put a halt to the withdrawal. Hemeti says he has increased his RSF contingent in Yemen and has despatched a brigade to Libya to fight alongside the rogue general Khalifa Haftar, presumably on the UAE payroll, but also thereby currying favour with Egypt which also backs Gen Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army. Hemeti has also signed a deal with a Canadian public relations firm to polish his image and gain him political access in Russia and the US.

Hemeti is a wholly 21st Century phenomenon: a military-political entrepreneur, whose paramilitary business empire transgresses territorial and legal boundaries. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48987901?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world/africa&link_location=live-reporting-story

Capital Punishment

Kenya Hots Up

Kenya’s getting hotter. Much hotter than the 1.5˚C increase that has been deemed acceptable by global leaders, and it is too hot for livestock, wildlife and plants to survive. Thousands of households, dependent on farming and livestock, are at risk too.

According to findings, the thermometer has been climbing steadily upwards across this East African nation’s entire 21 arid and semi-arid counties, with the temperature in a few counties already surpassing the 1.5°C above pre-industrialised levels that research that has predicted would be reached between 2030 and 2052.

The counties are:

• West Pokot and Elgeyo-Marakwet, which have both recorded an increase of 1.91° C;
• Turkana and Baringo, which both recorded a 1.8° C increase;
• Laikipia county which showed a 1.59° C increase and;
• Narok which had a 1.75° C.

The Kenyan study today noted that humans were already feeling the impact of these increased temperatures as over the last four decades the livestock in some counties have declined by almost a quarter of the overall livestock population because of the temperature increase over this time.

“In all the 21 counties, we observed a 25.2 percent decline in cattle population between 1977 and 2016, and this is directly linked to the increased heat,” Dr Mohammed Yahya Said, the lead investigator and a consulting scientist at Kenya Markets Trust, which conducted the research, tells IPS. “This is a very disturbing statistic especially for a pastoral community whose main livelihoods are derived from livestock,” remarks Said. He explains that according to projections, temperatures are most likely to increase even further, which called for informed preparedness. He did not say how much higher the temperature would rise.

http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/07/parts-kenya-already-1-5˚c/

The Ebola Threat

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a global public health emergency, World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations health agency has announced, just days after the epidemic spread to a major urban hub for the first time.

"It is a measure that recognises the possible increased national and regional risks and the need for intensified and coordinated action to manage them," WHO said in a post on Twitter. But the UN agency also said no country should close its borders or place any restrictions on travel or trade because of Ebola.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said in a statement it was "time for the world to take notice" of the epidemic and called for a redoubling of efforts to battle it back.

Health experts welcomed Wednesday's declaration but urged WHO to now focus on galvanising international aid and changing "the playbook" on the ground in order to end the epidemic.

"Otherwise we can expect the DRC epidemic to either spin out of control or, more likely, we will have a steady drumbeat of needless suffering and death for the next year, maybe much longer," said Lawrence Gostin, faculty director at US-based Georgetown university's O'Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law. Gostin also cautioned that complacency in the international community was "crippling the response", saying the "status quo is no longer tenable".

Laura Miller, acting DRC director for US-based NGO Mercy Corps, welcomed WHO's declaration and said she hoped it would "translate into urgent and practical action, including more funding from international donors. Every day, women, men and children are dying of the Ebola virus and it is becoming too easy to forget that the ever-climbing case numbers are people." 

UN warnings

Islamist attacks are spreading so fast in West Africa that the region should consider bolstering its response beyond current military efforts, and donors should back such a move, the head of the United Nations said. Groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State have strengthened their foothold across the arid Sahel this year, making large swathes of territory ungovernable and stoking local ethnic violence, especially in Mali and Burkina Faso.

Armed militancy is not confined to West Africa and its spread has been aided in many areas by poverty, corruption and state violence. Eleven people were killed last week in an ambush in a gas-rich province of northern Mozambique, the latest in a spate of execution-style attacks in the area.

http://news.trust.org/item/20190710141511-6a5sa/

The Ebola Threat

The head of the World Health Organization has called the world’s second worst Ebola outbreak a “global wake-up call” to the escalating risk of disease outbreaks spreading from conflict areas neglected by the international community. Only when there was “fear and panic” in the headlines did the international community put money into responding, said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The real issue was a lack of day-to-day funding for preparedness to combat serious epidemics before they become regional or international threats, he said.

“The problem is that donors refrain from paying until there is fear and panic. That has to change. We should not be funding by huge amounts when we panic, but should be funding to avoid panic.”

Tedros added that while he believed the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo could be controlled in the short term – given the right security conditions – the virus would inevitably return while political instability continued in North Kivu and Iruri, the provinces at the heart of the outbreak.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/jul/09/ebola-outbreak-global-wake-up-call-says-who-head-tedros-adhanom-ghebreyesus-congo

Zimbabwe flooding: secularism versus religion

In March parts of Zimbabwe as well as Mozambique were struck by a cyclone that caused widespread flooding and deaths. A comrade from Zimbabwe comments.

The securalists (weather watchers) made very accurate forecasts. Some of us used WhatsApp to advise/forewarn others of the impending disaster, but believers and Zim bosses, as usual said “Scientists are not Jesus’ and “Ignore social media malice,” relying on primitive hallucinations and prognostications, as in Genesis 9:11 ‘Neither shall all flesh be cut off by a flood’ (one of the false covenants).

If the Zim bosses were to rely more on secular knowledge they would attend more climate change meetings and not hire expensive jets for useless talkshops and hogwash prayer rallies. Indeed, over thirty years they would have, if they had relied on secular analysis, resettled people on terrain not so vulnerable to floods as Rusitu Valley considering its proximity to the danger source. However, since no close relatives of the powers-that-be were victims and that such a fate is a very remote possibility for them, once the only kindness (First Lady’s condolence message) was circulated, all was done! And the compassionate team had the audacity to hire the most expensive aerial taxis and continue their extra-useless (megadeals) talkshops.

The Issac Newtons, Charles Darwins, Galileos, Yuri Gagarins, Karl Marxes and many others on the side of secularism who did so much to open the minds and eye of humans were ignored, as, alas!, many still adhere to the primitive mythical hogwash, i.e invoking divinity and soliciting the suspension of logic. Yes, defying the reality that death means ceasing to exist and believing that one who failed to save himself and died 2,000 years ago can help anyone.

GODWIN HATITYE, 

Harare.

China and America scamble for Africa

Last week, the 12th US-Africa Business Summit, a high-level event attended by 11 African heads of state and government and some 1,000 business leaders, was held in Maputo, Mozambique. During the three-day event, US officials unveiled a $60bn investment agency which will seek to invest in low and middle-income countries, with a special focus on Africa.

 National Security Advisor John Bolton presented the Trump administration's "New Africa Strategy": 
"Great power competitors, namely China and Russia, are rapidly expanding their financial and political influence across Africa. They are deliberately and aggressively targeting their investments in the region to gain a competitive advantage over the United States."

It already appears that Africa is set to become yet another battleground for the escalating trade war between China and America. Africa is already witnessing the first signs of an emerging new cold war. And just like the previous one devastated Africa, fuelling wars and forcing African governments to make economic choices not in their best interests, this one will also be detrimental to African development and peace.

Chinese trade with Africa has increased 40-fold over the past two decades; in 2017, it stood at $140bn. Between 2003 and 2017, Chinese foreign direction investment (FDI) flows have also jumped more close to 60-fold to $4bn a year; FDI stocks stand at $43bn - a significant part of which has gone to infrastructure and energy projects.

China has significantly expanded African railways, investing in various projects in Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Angola and Nigeria; it is currently building a massive hydropower plant in Angola and have built Africa's longest railway connecting Ethiopia and Djibouti.

In contrast, for a long time the US has viewed Africa as a battlefield where it confronts its enemies, whether the Soviets during the Cold War, terrorists after 9/11 . Washington has never really made a concerted effort to develop its economic relations with the continent. Trade between the US and Africa has decreased from $120bn in 2012 to just over $50bn today. US FDI flows have also slumped from $9.4bn in 2009 to around $330m in 2017. The new $60bn investment fund announced last week is a welcome initiative from the US but it will not be able to challenge Chinese economic presence on the continent. 

The USA  accuses China of using "debt to hold states in Africa captive to its wishes and demands" and has warned African states to avoid Chinese "debt diplomacy" which is supposedly incompatible with the independence of African nations and civil society and poses "a significant threat to US national security interests". Yet, Africa is only the fourth-biggest recipient of Chinese FDI after Europe (mainly Germany, UK and Netherlands), the Americas (mainly the US and Canada), and Asia. The US has also borrowed heavily from China; currently its debt to its rival stands at $1.12 trillion. By contrast, Africa owes China around $83bn.

Africans are fully aware of and concerned about high indebtedness, trade imbalances, the relatively poor quality of Chinese goods and services and Beijing's application of lower standards of labour and environmental practices. But many do not share the American perspective that their economic relationship with China is to their detriment and rather see it as an opportunity that provides much-needed unconditional funding and that takes into account local priorities. As Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh has pointed out, "The reality is that no one but the Chinese offers a long-term partnership." The pressure the US is currently exerting on African countries to move away from partnerships with China could hurt African economies. It could force African countries into making choices that are not in their best economic interests and miss out on important development projects or funding.

The escalating tensions between the US and China could also end up threatening the security of the continent. Both countries are militarily involved in Africa. 

Over the past 15 years, the Chinese People's Liberation Army has been engaged in a number of security missions across the continent, making modest auxiliary troop contributions to peacekeeping operations in Sudan, South Sudan, Liberia, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It has also contributed millions of dollars of peacekeeping equipment to the African Union Mission in Somalia and provided significant funding to the Intergovernmental Authority on Development for its mediation in South Sudan. In 2017, the first Chinese overseas military base was opened in Djibouti officially supposed to provide support for the ongoing anti-piracy operations of the Chinese navy, yet the facility has the capacity to accommodate 10,000 troops.

China's military presence in Africa, however, pales in comparison to that of the US. Over the past few years, US Africa Command has run some 36 different military operations in 13 African countries, including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Somalia, South Sudan and Tunisia. It has more than 7,000 troops deployed on the continent. It has a large base in Djibouti - the biggest and only permanent US military base in Africa - but it also runs at least 34 other military outposts scattered across the west, east and north of the continent where US troops are deployed and military operations (including drone attacks) are launched from. The US also directly supports the armies of Egypt, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mali, Niger and others as well as the G5 Sahel force tasked with counterterrorism.

The fallout of the US-Chinese competition is particularly apparent in the strategic Red Sea region, through which passes one of the most important maritime routes. Countries in the region are not only feeling growing US and Chinese pressure to take one side or the other. 

Djibouti has recently found itself at the centre of US-Chinese diplomatic confrontation. Being a host to military bases of both superpowers, the small countries have had to play a difficult balancing game. In 2018, Djibouti seized control of its Doraleh Container Terminal from the Emirati company DP World, claiming its operation of the facility was threatening its sovereignty. The Djibouti authorities had feared that the UAE's investment in the nearby Port of Berbera in the autonomous Somali region of Somaliland could challenge its position as the main maritime hub for Ethiopia's large economy. Its decision to terminate the contract with DP World, however, triggered a sharp reaction from Washington, a close Emirati ally. The Trump administration fears that Djibouti could hand over control of the terminal to China. 

Bolton warned: "Should this occur, the balance of power in the Horn of Africa - astride major arteries of maritime trade between Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia - would shift in favour of China. And, our US military personnel at Camp Lemonnier could face even further challenges in their efforts to protect the American people."

Djibouti was forced to declare publicly that it would not allow China to take over the terminal but that has not eased US fears. Ever since, the US sought to secure a possible alternative location for its African military base: neighbouring Eritrea. It encouraged regional actors, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to pull Eritrea out of its decades-long isolation. In a matter of months, long-time enemies Ethiopia and Eritrea concluded a peace agreement to end their 20-year-old cold conflict, while the UN lifted sanctions on Asmara. As a result, Eritrea could emerge as a strategic rival to Djibouti, offering its coast for foreign military and economic facilities. The UAE, for example, has already set up a military base near the port of Assab.

Sudan has also been the battleground of the ongoing superpower turf war. Sudan in fact became the biggest beneficiary of the $60bn Africa investment package China pledged in 2018, having some $10bn in Chinese debt written off. The Chinese government also made a lot of plans to develop facilities in Port Sudan.

Meanwhile,  al-Bashir's removal was approved in Washington, which has since appeared to back the interests of Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the country. The two Gulf states currently hope to install another strongman sympathetic to their regional politics, who would maintain Sudan's participation in the war in Yemen and curb Turkish and Qatari influence. At this point, it seems China is at risk of being sidelined by the significant sway the UAE and Saudi Arabia have with Sudan's Transitional Military Council (TMC).

To  preserve its interests and its peace, Africa has only one option: to reject pressures to swear allegiance to either of the two powers.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/cold-war-africa-190630102044847.html