At the heart of the conflict is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a hydroelectric project on the Blue Nile. Ethiopia’s dam construction has angered Egypt, which sees it as a threat to its water supply. The Nile is crucial for Egypt, providing nearly all its water resources. While Ethiopia argues that the dam is solely for electricity generation and won’t significantly impact water flow, Egypt still needs to be convinced. This dispute has deep historical roots, reflecting long-standing power dynamics between the two nations.

The region’s history is marked by conflicts and shifting alliances. In the 1970s, Cold War dynamics played out in the Horn of Africa, with the United States and Soviet Union supporting opposing sides. The Ogaden War between Ethiopia and Somalia in 1977–1978 was a significant event, resulting in a Somali defeat that still resonates today. These historical conflicts have shaped current relationships and tensions between countries in the region.

Countries of the Horn of Africa. Via Zeremariam Fre (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has ambitious plans for his country, including rebuilding the capital and reestablishing Ethiopia’s access to the sea. This vision includes developing a port in Somaliland, a move that has angered Somalia. Ethiopia’s potential recognition of Somaliland has further complicated regional dynamics. Meanwhile, Eritrea’s relationship with Ethiopia has cooled.

Involving outside powers adds complexity to the situation. Egypt has begun providing military support to Somalia, potentially countering Ethiopia. The United Arab Emirates plays a significant financial backer in the region, though its exact strategy remains unclear. Other external powers, such as Turkey, India, China and the United States, also have interests in the area, further complicating the geopolitical landscape.

Precarious stability and the global implications of African tensions

The ongoing civil war in Sudan and the instability in South Sudan contribute to the region’s overall volatility. These conflicts have drawn in various international actors, each with their own agendas. The situation in Sudan, in particular, has the potential to impact the broader regional dynamics, especially given its strategic location and historical ties to both Egypt and Ethiopia.

Despite having a significant military presence in Djibouti, the United States is currently preoccupied with other global issues. This relative disengagement from the Horn of Africa’s tensions could allow other actors to fill the power vacuum. A solid mediating force is necessary to avoid escalating regional conflicts.

The situation in the Horn of Africa resembles the complex alliances and tensions that preceded World War I. The interconnected nature of the conflicts, the involvement of multiple regional and global powers and the potential for rapid escalation are concerning parallels. The region’s strategic importance, particularly in maritime trade and geopolitical influence, makes these tensions globally significant.

Looking forward, the stability of the Horn of Africa remains precarious. The combination of historical grievances, current political ambitions and resource disputes creates a volatile mix. The role of external powers, particularly China and the United Arab Emirates, will be crucial in shaping future developments. As global attention remains focused on other crises, the risk of overlooking the simmering tensions in this critical region could have far-reaching consequences for regional and global stability.

[Peter Choi edited this podcast and wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Making Sense of Rising Tensions in the Horn of Africa appeared first on Fair Observer.

Keir’s election has changed Britain’s trajectory and — hopefully — its standing in the world. As many others have said, after the ignominious prime ministerships of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, we at last have adults running our government. It is an event that I have been hoping and working for since 2014 when he sat at my dining table for the first time.

Let me explain. Keir and I live within the same constituency — Holborn and St Pancras, in central London. In that year, our local member of Parliament, Frank Dobson, announced he was standing down, opening the way for a new MP. Our constituency is a safe Labour seat and highly desirable. 

Our local party had three excellent candidates (as well as several also-rans) to choose from. They included the chair of Camden Council, our local administration. She was a woman, and we were keen to have more gender balance in Parliament. Then there was the chair of our own Labour Party — a fine young Asian lawyer, and we also wanted more ethnic diversity. And there was a very popular local doctor. We would have happily backed any of them.

Then, out of the blue, up popped Keir Starmer. Very few of us knew him. In his former role as Director of Public Prosecutions, he ran key cases across the country. It was a position that prevented him from being a member of any party. In November 2013, he stood down and rejoined Labour, of which he had been a member since his youth.

When Keir decided to stand for Frank Dobson’s seat, he began ringing local party members, asking to come and see them. And so it was that he arrived at my home for coffee.

Now, Keir is someone who listens more than he talks. But there is something about the way he does it that is entirely engaging. You know he is really listening, taking in your every word. Within 10 minutes I thought: “He’s not just our next MP, he’s our gift to the whole Labour Party.”

I have got many things wrong, but this was one I was right about. Keir took months off and embarked on an intense campaign of meeting and listening to as many local party members as possible. I went with him, knocking on doors, sitting in kitchens.

It was a strategy that none of the other candidates adopted. They spoke to party officers and relied on their local reputations. But Keir’s strategy paid off in spades. When the selection meetings took place, party members whom we had never met before came out in droves. Keir won hands down.

The fact that he was selected against apparently insuperable odds should tell us something. Our new prime minister is intensely competitive, intensely strategic and intensely hardworking. Once he adopts a course, he follows it, no matter how difficult it may appear. His focus is extraordinary. 

As his semi-official biographer Tom Baldwin records, Keir lived in a North London flat as a young man. It had a rotting floor and was above a sauna and massage parlor. One friend’s father was hesitant to visit the building as he feared others would think it was a brothel. One day, thieves broke in. Keir was so buried in his work as an attorney, concentrating on the arguments, that he didn’t notice.

There are many stories of hardship in Keir’s early days as a barrister supporting radical causes, but perhaps one stands out. It is the McLibel story. In 1986, a group of environmental activists distributed a six-page amateurish leaflet entitled, “What’s wrong with McDonald’s: everything they don’t want you to know.” It accused the giant corporation of a long list of evils, from producing unhealthy hamburgers to clearing the Amazon rainforest. McDonald’s decided to take them on and brought a libel case that, in time, the company would deeply regret. 

Most members of the penniless activist group gave up and paid a small fine. But two — Helen Steel and David Morris — refused, and the case went to court. It was to become the longest libel trial in British history, with experts flying in at their own expense from around the world to support them. But behind the scenes, they had another supporter. Keir Starmer gave them free legal advice for ten long years. Without it, they would hardly have won the final settlement which found that both sides had arguments in their favor.

There are many stories of this kind. Keir seldom refers to them. But a word of warning to anyone who gets to know our prime minister: don’t take him on at football. I have played against him in an unofficial game we used to have among Labour activists. He’s as tough as they come. I am a South African, and the only way I could survive was to use the tactics I knew from my early days playing rugby. He was a little taken aback, as I broke all the rules, something that Keir would never do.

I doubt that he will have time for this for a while, but one thing you can be sure of: He will continue his support for Arsenal — our local North London football side — and for the English team, no matter how well or badly they play.

Passionate, radical and doggedly determined, as well as astute and knowledgeable. That is the man that I have come to know and to respect.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Keir Starmer – My Prime Minister, Member of Parliament and Friend appeared first on Fair Observer.

At its most basic, the election repeated lessons from abroad: Over time, parties that lead nations in their fight against colonialism lose their gloss. The Indian National Congress or the Kenyan African National Union are cases in point. When the reality of running a country comes home to roost, voters gradually become disillusioned.

In South Africa, the proportional representation system exacerbated this disillusionment. Voters elect national lists and are deprived of someone to represent their own suburbs, towns and villages in parliament. Further, the low vote threshold allowed dozens of tiny parties to emerge, eroding the vote shares of the once mighty African National Congress (ANC).

South African voters are unhappy, and only 58.6% of them turned out to vote this year, down from 66% in 2019. Still more dramatically, the ruling ANC dropped to 40.2% from 57.5%. This is the first time that the ANC has failed to win a majority since the implementation of universal suffrage in 1994.

Five parties split most of the votes. Source: Election Commission of South Africa. https://results.elections.org.za/dashboards/npe/

“Doomsday coalition”

The ANC can no longer rule alone. What should it do now? The party has rejected suggestions that President Cyril Ramaphosa fall on his sword and resign — at least for the moment. Ramaphosa and other party higher-ups have been locked in meetings all weekend. The National Working Committee of the ANC met on Monday, followed by the National Executive Committee meeting today.

The choices the party faces are stark. One path would lead to an alliance with the new party of former President Jacob Zuma, uMkhonto weSizwe (MK). The party is so new and so dependent on Zuma’s charisma that it could hardly forge a stable relationship with the ANC. It is also deeply critical of the judiciary and the constitution.

The other possibility for the ANC would be to seek a relationship with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) of Julius Malema. They are sometimes described as “radical,” but in reality, they combine xenophobia against Africans from the rest of the continent with demands for the seizure of land and wealth.

EFF members at a voting booth in Khayelitsha, Western Cape. Author’s photo.

Either alliance would see an acceleration of capital flight, combined with an exodus of skilled South Africans, black and white. 

“The reality is if we do end up with an ANC-EFF or ANC-MK (coalition) there will be initial market jitters,” said Mandisa Zavala, head of asset allocation at financial firm Alexforbes in Johannesburg. Zavala predicted that this could spark an outflow from government bonds and pressure on the currency. The official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), described a potential alliance ANC–EFF alliance as a “doomsday coalition.”

A government of national unity?

Alternatively, the ANC could take a completely different direction. Dr. Frans Cronje, chair of the Social Research Foundation, argues that the ANC really has only one alternative: to seek an alliance with the DA. This would require both parties eating a good deal of humble pie, since they have engaged in vitriolic attacks on each other.

The ANC is strongly statist, arguing that only the government can really run major institutions and redistribute jobs and wealth to the black majority. In reality, this has meant redistributing wealth to the ANC elite, in gross corruption that was termed “state capture” by an official enquiry. The DA — which has been holding its own meetings — takes exactly the opposite approach. While it believes in state payments to lift the poor out of poverty, it is strongly free-market in its economics. It is difficult to see how the approaches can be reconciled.

ANC supporters in Khayelitsha. Author’s photo.

Perhaps the DA could offer the ANC a “confidence and supply” arrangement. It would allow the ANC to hold the presidency, but would possibly take the influential position of speaker of parliament in return for guaranteeing that the ANC get its budget adopted. Still, the DA would seek other assurances. Many measures would be negotiated bill by bill as they came up for debate.

Such an arrangement could provide South Africa with a degree of stability and a generally centrist governance. This would be in line with the views of the majority, who are mostly Christian and conservative in outlook.

Instead of a confidence and supply arrangement, it is not impossible for the ANC and DA to form a full national unity coalition. However, the DA, as the potential smaller partner, is wary of being forced to compromise too greatly.

DA supporters rally in Cape Town. Author’s photo.

The situation is anything but clear. Many options could be considered before the dust settles. South Africans, along with their neighbors who rely so heavily on their regional economic strength, will be looking on nervously.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Limited Options for South Africa’s ANC After a Devastating Election appeared first on Fair Observer.

Most reporting is from the cities and urban areas, but a third of the electorate lives in rural areas. I went to Napier, some 170 kilometers southwest of Cape Townhome. This town is home to around 5,000 people.

“I grew up in the days of ‘two doors,’” John October tells me, recalling the days of apartheid. Back then, shops, train stations and official buildings had one door for whites and another door through which people of color would be allowed to enter. They were bitter times for people like October , who was classified as “colored,” of mixed racial ancestry. He stands in front of a wall of family photographs explaining what he had to deal with over the years. Some are of weddings and births, others sports, but many show him sitting on committees where he served after the end of official discrimination in 1994. October was a councilor for the ANC in Napier from 2006 to 2011.

John October revels in his councilor days. Author’s photo.

October was also a postman. “The ANC came to see me because they couldn’t win Napier,” he explains. “But I knew everyone.” He is immensely proud of his achievements in office. October drives me around, showing the health centre, library and school that he campaigned to get built. Housing was perhaps his proudest achievement. He shows me the 250 homes that he pushed for in what is called “Smartie-town” — after the multicolored sweets, because of the brash colors the houses were painted in.

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October has retired from politics and now looks somewhat wistfully back, but without regret. He worries about his people, who still have to cope with overcrowded houses, poor education and endemic drug use. “Times are hard, but what can you do?” he says, with a broad smile. October won’t say how he will vote, but he is clearly not impressed with the ANC government’s delivery.

Napier is not Cape Town

Napier, like all South African urban areas, still bears the scars of apartheid. People of color live in one part of the town and whites in another. There is no law for this, but prices of property and differentials of wealth and income take their toll, even though there are some signs of change. 

This is a small town that attracts people who want to leave the big cities to seek a quieter life and an alternative lifestyle. Nelis Singels is one of them. He moved with his wife and two children to Napier after giving up a profession in conservation to pursue his passion for art. A skilled ceramicist and sculptor, he has a gallery on the high street, which is where we meet.

Nelis Singels poses with his art. Author’s photo.

“The ANC are playing the race card to win votes,” he tells me. “They make promises just to get people to the polls. But after the election what will happen?” Key services such as electricity and water have failed across the country, and there are fears that they will fail again as soon as the election is over. Singels loves Napier, where his family can thrive. He won’t be voting for the ANC or its main rival, the Democratic Alliance (DA), which runs this town and the Western Cape in which it is situated. He worries about budget cuts for the town, which relies on grants from the central government. “I want someone who will look after the interests of my people,” he explains. As a white Afrikaner, identity is still as critical as any other factor for him.  

I meet Karen Donald in a busy café that serves the passing trade as well as locals. She’s a warm, bubbly woman, and our conversation is repeatedly interrupted as she greets people coming and going. Donald is a DA councilor for Napier. Their authority has won plaudits for running a non-corrupt, efficient administration. That’s something of a rarity in South Africa, where local governments have either collapsed or are delivering few services to their people.

Councilor Karen Donald is a personable lady and approachable by all.

Donald is anything but complacent. “How do I get government ministers to take any notice of our bridge?” she asks. “It’s in a terrible condition and needs repairs.” The bridge was a victim of local floods, but getting the resources and expertise to get it mended is no easy task.

It is just one of the issues confronting the town. It may look inviting and charming to visitors passing through, but it has real problems. There is a large shanty town, which houses the growing African population which arrives from across the country and the continent, hopeful for jobs, which this province has managed to provide while others have failed.

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The DA may get the credit for running efficient administrations, but it has many critics. Parties have mushroomed, and both the governing party and the opposition have seen their vote shares eroded. The DA may win in towns like Napier, but across the nation, it looks unlikely to increase its vote share much beyond 23%. 

A coalition government is likely to emerge after this election. Coalitions have been administering a rising number of local governments across the country for some years. Many have proved to be unstable and prone to collapse. The people of quiet towns like Napier enter this year’s election with more than a little apprehension about their political futures.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post A New Political Order Is Dawning in South Africa’s Towns appeared first on Fair Observer.

The former speaker is not alone in facing justice. Lonwabo Sambudla — the former chief executive of the African National Congress (ANC) Youth League’s financial arm and, perhaps more importantly, a son in law of Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s President between 2009 and 2018 — was before a court attempting to hang on to his three luxury vehicles. Sambudla wanted to hold on to a Bentley, a Ferrari and a Rolls-Royce despite the fact that he was apparently unable to pay for them.

The ANC elite plundered state resources

The two incidents above are just a snapshot of the quagmire into which the ruling ANC elite has descended into. The depth of corruption and cronyism were revealed in stark detail by a government commission led by Justice Raymond Zondo. Its reports revealed how the South African state has been effectively “captured” by the ANC elite.

As the BBC reported, the commission detailed in over 5,000 pages how the elite plundered state resources.

The evidence revealed how ANC leaders, including former and current government ministers, allegedly participated or encouraged looting at a massive cost to the country.

This included crippling the country’s revenue service, bringing the national carrier South African Airways to its knees, looting the agency that runs the country’s passenger railways, and interfering with the public broadcaster, the SABC.

The secret service was also weakened through the appointment of senior spies who prevented investigations from taking place at the behest of Zuma and others who were seen as close to him.

“The blurring of lines between the ANC and the state was laid bare, party interests were prioritised, crucial government departments were used for the benefit of individuals, resulting in manipulation and political influences,” said South African political analyst Dr Mcebisi Mdletyana.

The political price of “state capture”

The South African public has long resigned itself to the failure of Eskom, the state electricity provider, to provide an uninterrupted supply of electricity. Power goes out for hours at a time. Sadly, in recent months, water has become equally scarce. Johannesburg, and its neighbouring black suburb of Soweto, have been chronically short of water for sometime now. 

This failure of the ANC administration to provide essential public services explains the collapse in support for the party as the Brenthurst Foundation lays bare in a detailed analysis. February polling, the third in a series, showed ANC support declining to below 40% for the first time. The foundation provided the following summary. 

A national survey of voters conducted on behalf of The Brenthurst Foundation has found that the ANC’s support has fallen to 39%, making a coalition government highly likely following the general election in May this year.

The biggest gainers have been the Democratic Alliance (DA), which has risen to 27% from 23% in October last year and Jacob Zuma’s MK party which has 13% of the vote, making it the third largest party with the EFF falling from 17% in October last year to just 10%.

With 33% of the vote, the Multi-party Charter (MPC) coalition (DA, IFP, ActionSA, ACDP and FF+ among others) is just 6% behind the ANC.

Other polling suggests the ANC’s share of the vote will be higher and the electoral outcome is very much dependent on the size of the turnout. Even so, few polls give the ANC more than 50% of the vote. 

Frans Cronje, the director of the Social Research Foundation, says that overall recent surveys give a sense of where the country is going. “If you average out all the polls done, it’s clear the DA will end up at around 24% … the ANC at around 45%, but after the emergence of the MK Party [of Jacob Zuma], this is down to 42%,” he says.

Certainly, the ANC’s share has been on the slide. It won 57.50% of votes in the last general election in 2019, down from 62.15% in 2014. 

In South Africa’s proportional representation system and dip below 50% will leave the ANC dependent on political allies. It would be the first time since the National Party won the 1948 election, and brought in apartheid, that a governing party would require an ally. Few doubt the ANC will be the largest party after the May election. The real question is who will be the ANC’s allies in a coalition.

Unstable coalition politics likely at the national level

South Africans are unfamiliar with coalition politics at a national level, but have become all too familiar with them in the country’s provinces and regions. There were 32 regional and local coalitions running administrations in March 2024. Many are chaotic and unstable, especially those in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay. 

The coalitions are often sustained by just one or two votes from tiny local parties who can hold their larger allies hostage. These tiny parties are always threatening to quit or change sides and bring the administration down. How an alliance government might operate at a national level is something South Africans have no memory or experience of. 

These problems come as there is growing international involvement in the election process. In the past, politicians have mobilised social media for political ends. Bell Pottinger, the British public relations firm, collapsed after it was exposed for attempting to stir up racial hatred. The firm had been hired by Zuma’s allies.

Currently, the Russians and Chinese are threatening to use disinformation in an attempt to keep their ally — the ANC — in power. Karen Allen, who earlier worked for the BBC, summed up the South African situation.

In the current environment, now supercharged with artificial intelligence (AI), Russia is accused number one in information operations, using experience from its international troll farm — the Internet Research Agency. Russia also appears to consider Africa an attractive target, given the weak checks and balances in many of the continent’s fragile democracies.

The Africa Center for Strategic Studies identified 23 campaigns targeting Africa since 2014; 16 linked to Russia. The Digital Forensic Research Lab warns that the “political and social instability caused by influence operations” has ramifications beyond countries’ borders.

Given the tensions and uncertainties surrounding the May 2024 election it will take all the resources of the Independent Election Commission to ensure that there is a free and fair election. There is a great deal at stake and the future of South African democracy hangs in balance. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post South Africa Now Faces a Pivotal Election appeared first on Fair Observer.

Who can forget that Jacob Zuma, the former president, faces 700 allegations of corruption, fraud, money-laundering and racketeering charges but is yet to be tried in court? Instead, the ANC has finally admitted this week that the party lied to parliament when it described a publicly-funded swimming pool at Zuma’s private villa as a “fire pool” installed as a safety feature!

This year’s election will be tougher for the ANC than the earlier ones. Most recent polling shows that the party will get fewer than 50% of the votes. In South Africa’s proportional representation system, this means that the ANC will have to look for allies to continue governing. One outlier poll suggests that the ANC’s vote share would fall to just 33%. 

Rural realities and why the ANC pitch resonates

The black African population, upon which the ANC relies, still turns out and votes for the party, particularly in the rural areas. Under apartheid, the countryside, termed “homelands” or “Bantustans” were dumping grounds for black Africans. They could only legally leave these arrears if they could get one of the rare tightly-controlled permits. Today no such restrictions apply and there has been a migration to the cities. Yet the rural areas are still home to a third of the population. 

It is here that the people still vote for the ANC in huge numbers. They have not forgotten the party that led the fight to liberate them from apartheid. The ANC-led government also brought electricity to remote areas of the country, built homes across hillsides and, above all, provided them with social security benefits. Entire families, often unable to find work, came to rely on the small, but vital payments to family members who are disabled or retired. 

The maximum monthly state pension stands at 2 090 rand per month. That is just $122, but it keeps whole families from destitution. Maintaining this pension is vital and the ANC understands this well.

When elections come around, the ANC plays to all its strengths. The party still derives legitimacy from its decades-long opposition to the apartheid government and its previous great leaders, especially Nelson Mandela. However, the ANC’s primary appeal is simple: it warns the poor that they will lose their social security if another party comes to power. This is untrue but truth no longer matters to the ANC in its pursuit of power.

The ANC has employed this cynical tactic over several elections. A survey by the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Social Development in Africa (CSDA) carried out in the run-up to the 2014 election indicated that just under half of voters were not aware that the social grants that they received were theirs by right. 

The centre’s director, Leila Patel, said the finding was “worrying” as it meant that these voters — 49% of the respondents — were not aware of their rights. The potential for political abuse is large, given that just under 16-million grant beneficiaries are receiving social grants amounting to R121bn this year. Agriculture MEC [Member of the Executive Council – provincial Minister] in KwaZulu-Natal, Meshack Radebe, for example, said in April that “those who receive grants and are voting for the opposition are stealing from the government”. He said that those who voted for another party should “stay away from the grant”, as if social grants were gifts from the ruling party. In fact, these grants are funded by taxes in order for the government to meet its constitutional obligation to provide social protection.

Summarising the study, Professor Yoland Sadie described the role of social grants in deciding voter behaviour as important, possibly decisive.  

…social grants can provide an incentive for people to vote for the ANC, since a large proportion of grant-holders who support the party do not think that “they will continue receiving the grant when a new party comes to power.” A majority of respondents also agreed ‘that they would vote for a party that provides social grants’. Therefore, in a situation where one party has dominated the electoral scene for such a long time, and without having the experience of other parties being in power, it is difficult for voters to ‘know’ whether these benefits will continue under a different party in power – particularly if the official opposition has the legacy of being a “White” party.

Opposition tactics in 2024

The electorate has no shortage of parties to choose from in these elections. There will be more than 100 new political parties on the ballot, including ActionSA, the Patriotic Alliance, Rise Mzanzi. For the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance [DA], this will pose a challenge. The DA has its roots in the white, Progressive Party. For many years it fought apartheid with its sole Member of Parliament, Helen Suzman putting up doughty resistance to racist legislation. Bitterly attacked by the government for her stand, she won widespread international appreciation for her performance from 1961-1974.

Since the end of apartheid, the DA has gone through several leaders, some of them black. Today John Steenhuisen is leader of the party and, officially, of the opposition. As a white politician he can (and is) dismissed as representing an ethnic minority. 

The DA has made no secret that it is organising a coalition of opposition parties to challenge the ANC. What Steenhuisen calls the “moonshot pact.”  The ANC has used this to suggest to the electorate that, if elected, the DA will return to the policies of apartheid. ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe hinted as much when he accused Steenhuisen of organising “apartheid parties” to remove the ANC from power. “Steenhuisen is trying the impossible. He’s trying to organise all apartheid parties and parties of Bantustans to form a group that will defeat the ANC,” Mantashe said.

To resist these allegations the DA has now hit back. It is targeting the issue of benefits and grants, using a Tweet.

Steenhuisen is making a well targeted pitch. All South Africans know that their electricity supply has collapsed, the police seldom answer calls for help and unemployment has hit families hard. Will this pitch erode the ANC vote among key constituencies, including the rural communities? It is too early to tell.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Why South Africa’s Poor Vote for the Now Corrupt ANC appeared first on Fair Observer.

There are no simple explanations for this phenomenon. Africa is a huge continent with 54 different sovereign states. It is far too complex to capture in a nutshell. Still, some general trends contribute to political instability.

A history of division

The first trend is centuries old. The Sahel, a strip of arid, yet habitable land, runs across the northern part of Africa. This area connects the vast Sahara Desert to the north with the rest of Africa to the south. It is a meeting-place of civilizations. Here, the Muslim civilizations of the  north of Africa meet the animist and Christian civilizations of the south. Within the Sahel, too, Arab and Berber populations come into contact with black populations.

The two sides have a fraught relationship. Since the Islamic Caliphate conquered the northern part of Africa in the 7th century, Muslim North Africa has often looked upon the rest of Africa as a source of booty and slaves. Arab and Berber kingdoms of the north frequently raided and conquered the states of the south.

Later, when the trans-Atlantic slave trade began, the flow of slaves partly reversed. Muslim Africans, often prisoners of war, were transported through the states of the south and sold to the Europeans as slaves. The Europeans shipped them from ports in West and Central Africa to colonies in the New World like Brazil and the future United States.

Centuries of mutual exploitation and enslavement created deep-seated distrust between Muslim and non-Muslim Africans. This pattern largely persisted until the late 19th century, when European power eclipsed Muslim power. Britain, France, Portugal and other colonial powers carved up most of Africa into colonies.

The second source of division occurred in the 1960s, when European power in Africa waned. The Europeans withdrew, leaving power to administrations dominated by local elites, often those who had a good relationship with the exiting colonial power. Those who came to power in this way were reluctant to let it go. In a large number of cases, they created kleptocracies dominated by their own families, and their main support came from their ethnic groups. They lived like kings in their palaces — or abroad — while their countrymen starved.

These de facto kings relied on their military to rule the people. However, palaces softened them and their families. Children of African dictators prefer shopping in Paris and partying in London. Rarely do they serve in remote military posts. So, the officer corps is usually not connected to the ruling family by blood ties. The army thus has little incentive to support the corrupt ruling family. Officers tend to be like scruffy street dogs who can chew up the palace poodles. This makes military coups common.

The third source of division is peculiar to the former French colonies. It reinforced both of the previous divisions. When the British left Africa, they largely left their colonies to their own devices. Instead, the French tried to influence policy by rewarding cooperative African elites with French citizenship. Even after giving its colonies independence, France still controlled them by running an informal empire. 

By backing friendly elites with money and military support, France created a situation in which the rulers of African nations were more dependent on Paris than on their own populations. It is one thing to be ruled by an elite, but it is much worse to be ruled by an elite that answers to a foreign power. This created deep resentment among African populations.

The state of Africa today

Finally, the French empire in Africa is disintegrating. Many African nations have expelled the French military. Instead, they are now relying on Russian military contractors for support. In this way, mercenaries like Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group or its more Putin-friendly replacement, Redut, have expanded their influence in Africa. 

Russia is a master at propaganda that it spreads through various means, especially online. Moscow also pays Africans to spread pro-Russian propaganda. Russians and their African accomplices push anti-Western narratives, fostering the impression that Africa’s problems are the fault of France and the US. Of course, as per this narrative, working with Russia is the solution to all of Africa’s problems. It is plausible that Russia will politically dominate parts of Africa for the next decade or two. But, in the end, Africa swallows up all conquerors. Russian domination won’t last.

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Russia Is Destroying the Powerful French Empire in Africa

The real loser, aside from the West, is the African Union (AU). The AU formally counts all nations in Africa as its members. It keeps military brigades on standby across the continent. Yet they seldom intervene when coups occur. Niger, Gabon and Burkina Faso have recently had coups. Expectedly, the AU did not act. Like the UN, which has only fought one war in its history, the AU is paralyzed. Currently, military intervention cannot be done multilaterally. There are always some members who would prefer not to intervene.

Nigeria, the most populous and one of the most powerful nations in Africa, formed the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to serve as a more local substitute for the AU. ECOWAS could have been Nigeria’s “coalition of the willing.” But even within its narrower geographic focus, too many states in the region oppose ECOWAS’s goals for the organization to be effective. Furthermore, Nigeria is fighting a civil war of its own against the Islamist group Boko Haram and does not have any political cohesion. Every president hangs on by his fingernails to power.

UN peacekeeping forces will not stop coups either. Besides, the UN is held back by red tape and corruption. The US maintains some military bases on the continent, but Washington has no appetite for intervention. Donald Trump had a more isolationist bent while Joe Biden is distracted by Ukraine, the Middle East and Taiwan.

Will Africa make it through? Things certainly do not look good right now. In Sudan, one of Africa’s largest nations, a civil war is currently unfolding. Forces loyal to Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, aka Hemedti, have pushed the Sudanese army out of many cities, including the capital, Khartoum. Hemedti is a Muslim and considers himself an Arab while the forces that oppose him are largely black African. So, the same old story is playing out.

Related Reading

Sudan Is on the Brink of a New Catastrophe

It is far too early to begin predicting what will happen in Sudan or the continent as a whole. What we can say is that chaos is increasing, economic activity is decreasing, and life is getting worse for everyone. Yet Africans are hardworking and resourceful. The African diaspora wires much more money back home than all international aid to Africa put together. In the end, Africans are resilient. They will bear these unstable times and outlast foreign interventions. They and we can be confident that the future will be African, and it will be bright.
[Anton Schauble wrote the first draft of this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/podcast are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Why Africans Fight for Survival as Coups Pummel the Continent appeared first on Fair Observer.

The Sudanese war — which erupted in April this year — has pitted the Sudanese Armed Forces against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). On the surface, it was no more than a quarrel between two generals. However, behind the military men are a range of outside forces. While the army has been the traditional bastion of the state, the RSF grew out of the notorious Janjaweed, a notorious Sudanese Arab militia charged with genocide for its activities in Sudan’s western region of Darfur.

As Kate Ferguson of Protection Approaches wrote:

“The RSF is the Janjaweed rebranded, the “devils on horseback” used by the Sudanese government from 2003 to implement widespread and systematic crimes against non-Arab communities across Darfur. The RSF was, and still is, commanded by Gen Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo.” 

The war is a tragedy for the Sudanese people. It has forced an estimated 6.7 million people to flee from their homes. According to aid agencies, this is “the largest displacement crisis globally.” Although apparently no more than a regional issue, Sudan’s conflict has the potential to reshape the politics of the region, with implications for the entire Middle East.

That reshaping might come later. At the moment, the humanitarian crisis is dire and can be grasped from two maps. The first map, by the International Organisation for Migration, shows where the population has fled.

The second map, by the Famine Early Warning System, shows just how close many Sudanese are to famine, having been forced off their lands. Over half the population — 25 million people (including 13 million children) — urgently need humanitarian assistance.

The fall of Wad Madani after three days of fighting left the RSF with a precious resource. Not only did it capture a city that was home to the army’s first infantry division, the RSF now holds the urban area to which most aid agencies decamped after the fighting erupted in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. Now, the rebel RSF holds most of Khartoum and large parts of Darfur, while the Sudanese army, under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has had to decamp to the relative safety of Port Sudan.

Chatham House analysts neatly summed up the situation: “An effective partition has emerged in Sudan, with the army controlling the east and northeast and the RSF controlling much of the capital and west of the country.”

International forces fueling the conflict

The African Union (AU) and its regional body — the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) — have made little headway in attempting to end the fighting. South Sudan, Djibouti and Ethiopia are attempting to appoint a special envoy, but even if they manage to select an appropriate mediator, it is hard to see how this envoy will make progress. The much vaunted African Standby Force, on which the AU and the international community have spent vast sums of money, is yet to be deployed. Instead, the only viable peace talks have taken place in Jeddah, which indicates that the Arab world, not the AU, is playing a more significant role in Sudan. 

The fighting between the Sudanese army and the RSF is backed by external supporters. Burhan and the army look north for support. Historically, most Sudanese have looked to Egypt for support. Burhan was trained in Egypt and is a regular guest of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has just won a third term in office. The Sudanese general can also rely on the Saudis for some backing. Also, the US gives Burhan and the army lukewarm support. 

The reason US support is lukewarm is simple. President Joe Biden is bogged down by the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. With his reelection bid kicking off, Biden has little time to concentrate on Sudan. This apparent indifference is a mistake. Alex de Waal argues that benign neglect does not serve Washington’s interests. The Sudanese crisis will only end when the US engages more robustly.

Note that Burhan and the army have a poor support base. The RSF is much better resourced. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, generally referred to mononymously as Hemedti, leads the RSF. He is a former Janjaweed leader who was the deputy head of the Transitional Military Council following the 2019 Sudanese coup d’état. Hemedti has backers and the RSF has more money, men and motivation than the army. 

Hemedti has links across the border in Chad, which he has exploited to the full. In fact, the RSF, is a revamped version of the Janjaweed and has terrorized Sudan. Its Arab fighters have attacked and killed African populations in Darfur.

Hemedti has also taken control of the resources of the region in general, and its gold mines in particular. He was encouraged and supported by Russia’s Wagner Group, which has taken a share of the spoils in return for supplying weapons to the RSF. This supply was tracked and traced by CNN. There is now clear evidence that the Wagner Group has been providing the RSF with missiles. Sudanese gold, flown out of Libya and on to the Russian base at Latakia paid for the weapons. This gold has not only funded Wagner, but also President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Apart from Russia’s Wagner Group, the UAE is the RSF’s other major backer. The Sudanese army says it has “information from intelligence, military intelligence, and the diplomatic circuit that the UAE sends planes to support the Janjaweed.” The UAE has established hospitals in Chad to provide treatment for refugees fleeing from the fighting. Although the UAE denies it, there is a widespread belief that the aid is little more than a front for weapons supplies for the RSF.

Uganda is seen as an alternative route for the UAE’s support for Hemedti’s operations. Reportedly, when a plane landed at Uganda’s main airport Entebbe in June this year, its flight documents said it was carrying humanitarian aid sent by the UAE for Sudanese refugees. Instead, “Ugandan officials said they found dozens of green plastic crates in the plane’s cargo hold filled with ammunition, assault rifles and other small arms.”

Little surprise then that the Sudanese army declared 15 members of the UAE embassy persona non grata on December 11. But outgunned and with limited diplomatic support, Burhan’s position appears to be weakening. At this moment there seems little chance of his allies providing the Sudanese army with the backing they require to hold off the Hemedti-led RSF. If Hemedti was to succeed in his campaign to oust the Sudanese military (and he is still some way from that objective) it would be a huge boost for his backers. The UAE would have extended its influence deep into Africa. The Wagner Group would have enhanced its operations across a vast swathe the Sahel. Hemedti’s victory would strengthen Putin’s influence and finances. It would also be a major blow to the US and the West. Already the Wagner Group has effectively chased the French out of Mali. Needless to say, a great deal is riding on the outcome of the Sudanese civil war. The future not only of a country but also of an entire region is at stake.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Sudan Is on the Brink of a New Catastrophe appeared first on Fair Observer.

The Story of a Dam

A large recent African success is Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam. Built on the Blue Nile about 40 kilometers east of Sudan, Ethiopia completed the third phase of filling the reservoir for this huge dam in August last year. Two out of its 13 turbines are now operational, generating 750 megawatts of electricity. Ultimately, the dam is expected to produce more than 5,000 megawatts, which will more than double Ethiopia’s current output.

The construction of the dam is a triumph for Ethiopia. Neighbors Egypt and Sudan opposed the construction, fearful that the dam would reduce their share of the Nile waters. Their fears may be misplaced. The purpose of the dam is to generate hydroelectric power. It might change the timing of the flow of waters downstream but is unlikely to divert much water from the Blue Nile.

The Grand Renaissance Dam is a great Ethiopian triumph. The project was estimated to cost $5 billion. Given Egyptian hostility, international donors turned shy. Ethiopians dug into their own pockets to build this dam. In 2011, when dam construction began, Ethiopia’s GDP was a mere $31.95 billion. To put matters in perspective, the country decided to spend 15.65% of its GDP to build one single dam.

The entire country pitched in for the dam effort. The common women and men of Ethiopia bought bonds to fund the dam. The government persuaded employees to contribute a portion of their incomes to the project. Critics suggest that there was a fair degree of arm-twisting and this is probably true, but it is fair to say that Ethiopians saw this dam as a national project.

Impressively, the majestic wall of the dam was constructed without external funding. It is certainly true that China has pitched in to help construct the dam. In the US, China’s role has stirred controversy. Chinese companies have undertaken some of the construction work. In 2013, China provided Ethiopia a “loan of $1.2 billion USD in 2013 to build power transmission lines connecting the dam with nearby towns and cities.”

Yet it is important to remember that this impressive dam is fundamentally an Ethiopian achievement. It is a great example of a very African success.

Educating the Poorest

At the other end of the continent, many poor pupils are let down by South Africa’s education system.  Amnesty International, commenting on this “broken and unequal” system, reported that it was “characterized by crumbling infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms, and relatively poor educational outcomes, is perpetuating inequality and, as a result, failing too many of its children, with the poor hardest hit.”

Even in such a system, a rare success has blossomed in an impoverished community. Bulungula College, an independent school in rural Eastern Cape, has become the first school in the district to achieve a 100% matric pass rate. This college was set up by Bulungula Incubator, which was founded in 2006. Then, “only one parent in the local Xhora Mouth community had passed matric.” In this community, “an average of six people from the community matriculate each year, and 95% of school learners from the area do not pass grade 12.”

In 2022, all 36 learners in the class of 2022 passed the matric examinations. Mthandwa Sincuba is the principal of the college. He hit upon the strategy of extra classes. In his words, “From the beginning of the year, we started with extra classes from 6am until 9pm. We also had weekend classes.”

Under Sincuba’s leadership, Bulungula College also takes a progressive approach. It provides students with better services, has a strict policy against corporal punishment, provides support to children from families that struggle to provide adequate nutrition, offers birth control to all girl students and encourages those who become pregnant to stay on in school until and after they give birth.

This extraordinary project was the brainchild of David Martin. He was walking along the coast in 2002 when he came across a beautiful site by a stunning river. Martin fell in love with the area and the people. They were desperately poor but he worked with the community of Nqileni village, establishing Bulungula Lodge at the river mouth.

Once the lodge was open for business, tourists came to stay in one of the most beautiful parts of South Africa. Today, Martin has transferred Bulungula Lodge to the local community, who now run it themselves and improve their living standards. Bulungula College is part of the same project and is a classic example of a small but significant African success story.

Examples in Every Town and Village

Many think that only outside advisers and external funding can transform poor communities. This is untrue. Almost every country in Africa has local successes that emerged from individual and community initiatives.

Three simple examples where Africans have spent their own money to make a material difference to their lives are:

• the bicycle (now, the scooter),
• the sewing machine, and
• the mobile phone.

Each of these goods has increased income, information and security, transforming millions of lives in the process. The success of the bicycle and now the scooter has been well documented. They provide a cheap way of transport in this vast continent. Similarly, the sewing machine is a raging success. It has provided millions of women livelihood.

Mobile phones are now found across the continent. East Africa has been a leader in mobile banking, thanks to the ubiquity of these phones and African ingenuity. The M-PESA system is a world leader in mobile banking. It enables customers to transfer cash as well as shop for products and services. They can also withdraw cash by visiting an agent, typically their local corner shop, or transfer it to others from their phones.

Even the much-maligned gun—the curse of mankind—has helped the continent. African leaders adopted this weapon to resist colonization and Ethiopians beat off Italian invaders in the Battle of Adwa. On March 1, 1896, African soldiers used guns better than their European counterparts, achieving a historic victory that still fills the continent with pride.

For all the ingenuity in Africa, the question as to who coughs up the cash for the investment the continent needs is tricky. Undoubtedly, funding from the World Bank and the African Development Bank is helpful. Private non-African companies, whether Western, Chinese or Indian, have a role too.

Yet the most important role is perhaps that of the African Diaspora. In 2016, the World Bank estimated remittances crossed $600 billion that year. Of these, over $440 billion went to developing countries and Africa comprised a small but significant percentage. In November 2022, the World Bank published a report on remittances and estimated that remittances to Africa in 2021 surged by 16.4% to reach $50 billion. In the same year, aid to Africa was $60.5 billion. 

Remittances reach beneficiaries directly. They are often sent to family members, Hence, they are better directed, suffer far less leakage and have a much bigger multiplier effect than aid. In other parts of the world internal savings and remittances have had a much bigger impact than aid. Africa’s people are no different from anyone else in the world. Like many other places in the world, including the US and the UK, they are building their own futures despite their politicians. Over time, African solutions to African problems can resolve Africa’s problems. The many successes are a living testament to that possibility.[Charlize Cheesman edited this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post How Real African Solutions Now Overcome African Problems appeared first on Fair Observer.

Peace in our time?

The peace deal was brokered in November 2022 in Pretoria and Nairobi. These agreements allowed for a ceasefire, aid flows and the deployment of African Union-led monitors who would oversee the re-establishment of Ethiopian government authority over Tigray.

The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the party that dominates the region, promised to disarm its fighters within 30 days under the agreement. That was signed on November 2. It has still not been completed, at least in part, because the text contained the provision that this would “depend on the security situation on the ground.”

As Patrick Wight wrote, the subsequent Nairobi agreement “states that disarmament of the Tigray Defence Forces’s heavy weapons will be “done concurrently with the withdrawal of foreign and non-ENDF (Ethiopian National Defence Forces) from the region.” What a “concurrent” disarmament of TDF and withdrawal of Eritrean troops looks like in practice is anyone’s guess. It would be positive if this means the alarmingly rapid disarmament provisions agreed to in Pretoria will be delayed.

It has been the Eritreans that have been holding up progress. At the end of December there were eyewitness reports of Eritrean forces leaving Tigrayan towns. “Eritrean soldiers, who fought in support of Ethiopia’s federal government during its two-year civil war in the northern Tigray region, are pulling out of two major towns and heading toward the border, witnesses and an Ethiopian official,” Reuters reported.

Others are less certain. Tigrayan refugees fear that the Eritreans remain in parts of the region. Tigrayans have posted photographs of Eritreans in Tigrayan cities on Twitter, including Adwa.

Meanwhile, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki has been claiming “victory” for his forces over the Tigrayans. “My pride has no bounds”, he said in his New Year message. But the Eritrean leader is taking no chances. He is reported to be training dissident Ethiopians in case his relationship with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed goes sour.

Afwerki previously used foreign troops to threaten neighboring leaders with the use of force. In 2011, the United Nations reported that Eritrea was behind a planned “massive” attack on an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, using Ethiopian rebels. It would be wrong to assume that a similar attack is now on the cards, but training dissidents could be a tactic to maintain pressure on Ahmed.

Maintaining tension and instability across the Horn of Africa has been a tactic the Eritrean leader has used consistently since capturing Asmara, the Eritrean capital, in 1991. Since then, Afwerki has led his country into no fewer than eight different conflicts – from Somalia to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

How will Europe and the US respond?

US President Joe Biden has been assiduous in attempting to end the fighting in Tigray. Biden appointed special envoys to the Horn of Africa as soon as he came to office. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken went out of his way to meet Ahmed during the US-Africa summit in December. He raised the question of peace with Ahmed as well as the ending of the Eritrean troop presence in Tigray. Some wags have suggested that the peace agreements signed in Pretoria and Nairobi were so closely linked to Washington’s efforts they should be termed “US solutions to African problems” – clearly, a play on the phrase “African solutions to African problems.”

Who Can Resolve Ethiopia’s Catastrophic Conflict?

The key question now is whether sufficient progress has been made to lift the American and European sanctions against Ethiopia. They were introduced to try to end the war. In the words of Jeffrey Feltman, the former US special envoy to the Horn: “The United States and the European Union hoped that, combined with emergency humanitarian assistance, punitive measures such as the threat of sanctions and the withholding of development aid would halt the atrocities and move the parties from the battlefield to the negotiating table.”  While the two parties did come to the negotiating table, it is unclear if the peace in Tigray is sustainable.

After two years of war, Ethiopia’s economy is said to be on the verge of collapse. The country needs nearly $20bn for its reconstruction. The EU Foreign Affairs Council is due to meet Brussels on January 23 and one of the issues on their agenda is the possible unfreezing of hundreds of millions of euros pledged in aid to Addis Ababa. Since 2021, the EU froze nearly $210m in aid to Ethiopia, following the draconian blockade Addis Ababa imposed on the Tigray region. The money is badly needed and it is not yet clear what strings the Europeans may attach to the lifting of sanctions.

For Eritrea, the picture is clearer: Washington has no time for Afwerki and is likely to keep the president under pressure. Afwerkid is already so isolated that it is unlikely that he cares greatly about western attitudes. He prefers to rely on his Arab neighbors, China and possibly Russia for international support. Eritrea will keep playing its game of promoting Ethiopian rebels to retain relevance in the region. This is bad news for Ethiopia and prospects of peace.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Tigray War Was Tragic, Can Peace Prevail Now? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Yet the African Union brokered agreement is odd. It fails to mention one of the key participants in the conflict: the government of Eritrea. This is extraordinary since the Eritreans have tens of thousands of troops battling the Tigrayans. The agreement contains just one oblique reference to Eritrea’s role. Article 3/3 states that: “This Permanent Cessation of all forms of hostilities shall include…subversion or the use of proxies to destabilise the other party or collusion with any external force hostile to either party.”

The word “Eritrea” is never mentioned, yet the reality is that this war was primarily the brainchild of Isaias Afwerki, Eritrea’s unelected president and the region’s strongman. It is at his behest that conscripts have been rounded up and sent to fight in neighboring Ethiopia.

The Highway from Hell and House to House Conscription

All along the B30 highway – deep inside Tigray – Eritreans troops are under siege, fighting for their lives. The road links the western city of Shire, the sacred site of Axum and the historic town of Adwa, scene of the famous Ethiopian victory over the Italians in 1896. Today it has become the Highway from Hell, with beleaguered Eritrean and Ethiopian forces under constant attack from Tigrayan ambushes.

Some will wonder why Eritreans are inside Ethiopia at all. On March 21, 2001, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said Eritrean troops would be withdrawn. Yet 20 months later the Eritreans are still fighting on Ethiopian soil.

Eritreans in the diaspora tell of friends and families terrified into giving up their children to go and fight, and of Afwerki’s notorious security forces going door-to-door to search out the few remaining young men and women who can be taken away for “National Service”. Many will never return.

There are first-hand accounts of men as old as 70 being forced into conscription. Families that resist are put out onto the streets – with anyone coming to their aid facing the same humiliating penalty. Eritrean hospitals are reportedly overflowing with wounded soldiers who have been ferried back from the front. Some can hardly cope with the dead and dying.

Ethiopian divisions transferred to Eritrean

It now seems clear that while the fighting is inside Ethiopia, it is Eritrea that is pulling the strings. The Daily Telegraph reported that Ethiopian troops had been transferred to Eritrea as the current offensives were erupting on August 26.

One source at Ethiopian Airlines told The Daily Telegraph that the country’s flagship carrier has been chartering dozens of flights to ferry soldiers and weapons up north to the frontline. Flight data showed a significant uptick in unscheduled domestic chartered flights last month, which flew in the direction of Lalibela, a key logistics hub for the Ethiopian army near the frontline. On just one day, September 1, at least eight Boeing 737s with a capacity of 180 soldiers and four Canadian made De Havilland Dash 8-400 with a capacity of 90 appeared to set off for Lalibela.

This is very much in line with what Alex de Waal reported on October 7: “About 30 [Ethiopian National Defense Force] ENDF divisions relocated from Amhara and Western Tigray into Eritrea last month, placing themselves under Eritrean overall command.” This is exactly as Afwerki would wish it to be. His is the hand that will guide the region’s reconstruction, if the Tigrayans can be eliminated. 

Just prior to the war commencing in November 2020, Afwerki brought his closest political and military advisers together for an intense discussion on how to proceed. The president told them that the country had to accept that it has a small and not very viable economy and a lengthy Red Sea coast, which Eritrea cannot patrol on its own. He is reported to have suggested that some sort of “union” with Ethiopia might be possible, at least in terms of economic co-operation and maritime security.

War has been Afwerki’s modus vivendi ever since Eritrean independence in 1993. He has fought all his neighbors – from Sudan to Djibouti – and sent Eritrean troops as far as the Congo. As Asia Abdulkadir, a Kenyan analyst put it to Bloomberg: “War is the way for Afwerki to stay involved in Ethiopia’s politics” and peace is simply not an option as long as the TPLF are still around, she said. 

How Afwerki responds to Wednesday’s peace agreement is hard to predict, but he is unlikely to end the plotting that has been his modus operandi for the past five decades.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post How Eritrea Has Driven Ethiopia’s Tragic Tigray War appeared first on Fair Observer.

To head off any chance of being imprisoned, he has deployed the so-called “Stalingrad defense.” This is a term for a legal strategy of stalling proceedings based on technicalities. Zuma’s lawyers are fighting every attempt to put him before a judge on the basis of arcane technicalities. Finally, this strategy is wearing thin and Zuma’s supporters are now resorting to alternative tactics.

Past Precedent

This is not the first time that Zuma faces time in prison. Last year, the Constitutional Court of South Africa found Zuma guilty of contempt of court and sentenced him to jail for 15 months. Zuma’s supporters took to the streets in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng. They blocked roads, assaulted people, and looted and burned supermarkets.

When Zuma’s legal team were in court on April 11,  they reminded the court of what had happened. They warned the judge that the riots that ensued after his jail sentence last year resulted in the deaths of more than 350 people. Zuma’s lawyers claimed that the riots “were partly motivated or sparked, to whatever extent, by a sense of public outrage at perceived injustice and special treatment of Mr Zuma.” They were making an obvious threat.

It is important to put Zuma’s July 2021 riots in context. The country’s most notorious mass killing remains the Sharpeville massacre of March 1960. This occurred during the era of apartheid. The massacre cost 69 lives as the police fired into a crowd. The Zuma riots cost many more lives than the Sharpeville massacre.

To contain these riots, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa had to deploy 25,000 troops. He admitted that he had no prior warning from his intelligence services of the scale of the unrest. This is unsurprising. Zuma was an intelligence agent for the African National Congress (ANC) and has strong links with South Africa’s security services. As the South African media have reported: “Former senior security agency and ANC members aligned with Jacob Zuma have allegedly instigated the unrest in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. Citing sources in the intelligence community…these former agency members used intelligence networks to spark the riots.”

The government made promises to bring those who instigated the Zuma riots to justice.  Duduzile Zuma-Sambundla, Zuma’s daughter, was one of those accused of stoking the riots. She and none of the major figures allegedly behind the Zuma riots have been held accountable. Of the 3,000 suspects arrested, all of them have been small-fry.  

Constitutional Challenge And Risk of Becoming a Failed State

Like a latter-day Samson, the former president is threatening to bring down the South African constitutional order around him. Those close to Zuma have threatened both the judges and the constitutional order itself. The South African constitution, shaped under Nelson Mandela is today questioned by factions of the ANC who want to make the judiciary and the constitution subservient to the political establishment.

Many ANC leaders, keen to stave off allegations of wrongdoing, have muttered darkly about the constitution for years. KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala recently criticized the courts, saying “It is time we should debate whether the country does not need parliamentary democracy where laws enacted by Parliament should be above all and not reviewed by another organ…” Ironically, Zikalala is calling for a return to parliamentary supremacy — the hallmark of the apartheid years.

There is a real cost to such maneuvers by ANC politicians. In its December conference,the party will elect a new leadership. If some ANC members have their way, they could even remove Ramaphosa, although this seems unlikely as of now. Nevertheless, the ANC’s branches and its provincial structures are experiencing a bitter battle between the pro- and anti-Zuma factions. These factions are fighting for the support of the ANC’s 1.5 million members in meetings across the country, some of which are turning violent.

While the ANC is locked in internal battles, there are warnings that South Africa might be turning into a failed state. The government has failed to provide many essential public services already. The railways have been vandalized and looted so severely that no trains have run in the Eastern Cape since January 7. Critical coal and iron ore exports are grinding to a halt because of cable theft  that has gone unchecked for years because of South Africa’s systemic corruption.  As per Bloomberg, “more than $2 billion in potential coal, iron ore and chrome exports were lost” in 2021.

The failure of the electricity supply system is so chronic that it is hardly remarked upon. In the Cape, the opposition Democratic Alliance has plans to dump the state electricity provider — Eskom — and establish its own power supply.

In a September 2020 report, Eunomix warned that “bar a meaningful change of trajectory, South Africa will be a failed state by 2030.” The remarks were echoed in March this year by the treasury director general Dondo Mogajane. He took the view that, if South Africa continued on its present path, it could indeed become a ‘failed state’ with “no confidence in the government, anarchy and absolutely no control in society.”

In April, Ramaphosa was forced to respond to Mogajane. The president adamantly declared that South Africa was “not a failed state yet and we will not get there.” Ramaphosa claimed that his government was taking steps to rebuild South Africa’s capacity and fight corruption. This claim remains an admirable but unfulfilled ambition.

Zuma has not been brought to court and his associates are locked in battle with Ramaphosa’s supporters for control of the ANC and the country. Meanwhile, growth rates slide, unemployment rockets and poverty remains endemic. Even as South Africa is on the slide, the world’s attention is elsewhere. This is a tragedy. Africa could lose one of its few genuine democracies and see the collapse of its largest economy.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Jacob Zuma Threatens to Bring South Africa to its Knees If He Is Jailed appeared first on Fair Observer.

Even as the focus has been on Ukraine, a bloody and brutal conflict has raged in Tigray for 17 months but hardly attracted global attention. On March 25, rebel Tigrayan forces declared that they would respect a ceasefire proposed by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as long as sufficient aid was delivered to their war-scarred northern region “within reasonable time.”

Martin Plaut on the Tigray War, Ethiopia and More

In this episode, we have the former BBC World Service Africa Editor explain what is going on in the Tigray War in Ethiopia and you can read what he has to say below.

How significant is the humanitarian ceasefire in Ethiopia’s Tigray region?

This is the first real breakthrough in the negotiating process that we’ve had since the war began in November 2020. There have been terrible bitter months in which there has been a huge loss of life. As per estimates, up to 500,000 people have died either from the conflict or from starvation in Tigray. The whole of Tigray is surrounded by enemies with the Eritreans to the north and the Ethiopians to the south, the east and the west.

To avoid starvation, it is vital that supplies get through. The Tigrayans need something like a hundred (100) trucks a day. They’ve had 100 trucks in the last, I don’t know, six weeks. There’s starvation in Tigray and humanitarian assistance is desperately needed.

Why has the ceasefire taken so long?

Essentially the Ethiopians and the Eritreans who are prosecuting this war have used starvation as a weapon of war. They are trying to crush the Tigrayan population whom they loathe by any means possible. They attempted to invade the country in November 2020 but that didn’t work. The Tigrayans had to flee their capital but, after a few months, they reorganized and they pushed the Eritreans and the Ethiopians right out of most of Tigray.

There are only some areas on the west and in the far north of Tigray which are still occupied. So the Ethiopians and the Eritreans have basically used starvation as a weapon of war. They’ve cut all communications links, they’ve prevented medical supplies from coming in and they prevented the trucks from rolling in either through the east or through the south. The people are starving.

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How serious is the humanitarian situation?

The situation is terrible. As always, it is always the very young and the very old who die first. The problem is that we have no absolute certainty about what is going on because the government of Ethiopia and of Eritrea have refused to allow any journalists to the frontlines even on the Ethiopian and Eritrean sides, let alone into Tigray itself. All communications are cut to Tigray, banking services are cut, there’s no way of paying for anything, all fuel supplies going in have been prevented. So Tigray is almost like a sealed-off area and nobody knows really what is going on but we do get to know some things from whispers, and the whispers are terrible.

Why has this war attracted less attention than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

If you prevent all international journalists from going in, there’s a news vacuum. How do you cover a story when nobody is allowed to be on the ground? Then, you can’t actually get the shots, film the mother with the dying baby or the grandparents unable to feed themselves or look after themselves. You do not get this information we’re getting now, day in, day out, from Ukraine.

You’re getting nothing from Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, let alone the rest of the area, some of which is very remote. Most monasteries have been looted, women have been routinely raped, I mean literally routinely raped. Some of the testimony was so brutal it is truly some of the worst I have ever seen in my life.

What is at the stake for Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa?

Essentially, there are two views of Ethiopia. As per one view, Ethiopia is an imperial country, a single unitary country that was developed in the 19^th century and should really essentially return to that. The Tigrayan have another view. They say that we are all ethnic groups, we must all have a federated system in which real power reverts to all of the ethnic areas. That is what the Tigrayans tried to do until 2018 when they lost power. They tried to create this federation sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully.

Essentially, those are the two views of how Ethiopia should be run and it’s equally the way in which the whole Horn of Africa should be governed.

How can Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed resolve this war?

My view is if he doesn’t really allow an alternative view of the way Ethiopia is run then it is unlikely that we will have a resolution of this conflict. That will mean that we’ll go back to war. We’ve already seen somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000 people killed and that’s before you take in the deaths of the Somalis who fought in this war, of the Eritreans, tens of thousands of whom have been thrown into the frontline, so I mean the death toll could be immense.

And we don’t want to see any more of this suffering so we really do need some kind of resolution that addresses the political as well as the humanitarian issues.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Making Sense of the Tigray War in Ethiopia appeared first on Fair Observer.

The first is 1.2 trillion rand ($85 billion). It is the estimate of how much money has been lost to corruption. The government’s commission, chaired by Justice Ray Zondo, has been unearthing corruption on an industrial scale.

Who Can Resolve Ethiopia’s Catastrophic Conflict?

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Nelson Mandela himself pointed to this scourge back in 2001, when he remarked: “Little did we suspect that our own people, when they got a chance, would be as corrupt as the apartheid regime. That is one of the things that has really hurt us.”

Yet the graft revealed by Zondo has been eyewatering. This is how The Washington Post reported the key finding: “[G]raft and mismanagement reached new heights during the 2009-2018 presidency of Jacob Zuma. While details remain murky, observers estimate that some 1.2 trillion rand ($85 billion) was plundered from government coffers during Zuma’s tenure.”

This is a sum that no middle-income country can afford to squander. Many hoped that President Cyril Ramaphosa could rectify the situation, but the glacial pace of his reforms has disappointed many who believed in him.

The other figure is 75%. It is the percentage of youths who are unemployed. While the ANC, and the well-connected elite that run the government, help themselves to taxpayers’ cash at will, the young languish without jobs.

Little surprise that the ANC’s appeal is fading. The party won fewer than half all votes for the first time when the municipal elections were held in November last year.

Racial Classification in South Africa

Bad as this tale is, at least one could assure friends that state-enforced racial classification is a thing of the past. Gone is the notorious apartheid system that divided every man, woman and child into four racial subdivisions: “African,” “Indian,” “colored,” “white.” One might have assumed that this madness was scrapped when white rule was eliminated in 1994 — or so one might have thought. Yet every South African is still racially classified by law.

Take one case. Anyone wanting to lease a state farm in August 2021 would be warned that: “Applicants must be Africans, Indians or Coloureds who are South African citizens. ‘Africans’ in this context includes persons from the first nations of South Africa.” No “white” South African — no matter how impoverished — would have the right to apply. Poverty is not a criterion; only race is considered. Even young men and women born years after the end of apartheid are excluded.

A complex system known as “broad-based black economic empowerment” (BBBEE) was introduced. Every South African is racially categorized and a system of incentives is applied across government and the private sector. White men face the greatest discrimination, African women the least.

Here is an example of how it applies in one sector. The Amended Marketing, Advertising and Communications Sector Code of 1 April 2016 specifies a black ownership “target of 45% (30% is reserved for black women ownership) which should be achieved as of 31 March 2018. The 45% black ownership target is higher than the 25% target of the Generic Code.” To win tenders or contracts, all enterprises must comply with the regulations.

Race Hate

At the same time, South Africa’s ethnic minorities face racial abuse and racial threats unchecked by the state. The radical populist Julius Malema made singing “Kill the Boers” a trademark of his rallies. In this context, the term “Boer,” or farmer, is about as toxic as the n-word is in the American South.

Malema is now on trial. Yet far from the state prosecuting him for stirring up race hate (a crime in South Africa), it was left to an Afrikaans trade union to take him to court. Asked whether he would call for whites to be killed, all Malema would say was that, “we are not calling for the slaughtering of white people … at least for now.”

The trial has had to be postponed because the prosecutor was so fearful of being ladled a “racist” for bringing the case that she resigned.

Nor are whites Malema’s only target. Malema has attacked South African “Indians” as an ethnic group, accusing them of failing to treat their African employees fairly. “Indians are worse than Afrikaners,” he declared in 2017. In another context, he referred to Indians as “coolies” — possibly the most derogatory term he might have used.  Yet the state fails to prosecute him.

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One final example. When President Ramaphosa was asked to pick the country’s next chief justice, the public submitted some 500 names. The final four were Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, President of the Supreme Court of Appeal Mandisa Maya, Gauteng Judge President Dunstan Mlambo, and Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo. All are fine legal minds. Not one of them is from among the country’s ethnic minorities.

This, despite the fact that some of the most eminent lawyers South Africa ever produced, who fought racial discrimination for years were not African. Men like George Bizos, Joel Joffe, Sydney Kentridge, Ismail Ayob, Edwin Cameron and Bram Fischer would probably not be selected today. Even Arthur Chaskalson, who defended the ANC at the Rivonia trial of 1963 and was chief justice of South Africa from 2001 to 2005, would probably be excluded.

Fighting Back

Glen Snyman — himself a “colored” or a mixed-race South African — has founded People Against Racial Classification to campaign against discrimination. “The government and private sector should deliver to all South Africans equally and not discriminate on identity,” he argues.

But racial classification has its supporters. Kganki Matabane, who heads the Black Business Council, says that even though “democratic rule is nearly 27 years old, it is still too soon to ditch the old categories,” the BBC reports. “We need to ask: Have we managed to correct those imbalances? If we have not, which is the case — if you look at the top 100 Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed companies, 75% or more of the CEOs are white males — then we have to continue with them.”

The ANC’s most celebrated document was the Freedom Charter of 1955. It was the statement of core principles of the ANC and its allies and memorably promised that: “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white.” With South Africa’s ethnic minorities continuing to face racial discrimination and exclusion from top jobs in government and even in the private sector, it is a promise more honored in the breach than the observance.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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The Far Right and the Politics of Feeling

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Rishi Sunak holds the economic future of the country in his hands through his control of the Treasury as chancellor of the exchequer. Kwasi Kwarteng is Sunak’s deputy, as secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy. Sajid Javid is in charge of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

Facing them across the House of Commons sits David Lammy, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary. Rosena Allin-Khan is Labour’s minister of mental health, and the woman charged with getting her party from the opposition into government is Shabana Mahmood, Labour’s national campaign coordinator.

Minority Representation

These men and women have little in common politically. Some are passionate capitalists, others fervent socialists. But all are members of Britain’s ethnic minorities. Some have family backgrounds in the Indian subcontinent. Others — an admittedly smaller number — can trace their roots to Africa. It is a little commented-upon fact that in Britain today, ethnic minorities are almost numerically represented in Parliament. Some 14% of the British population has an ethnic minority background, and 10% of MPs elected at the last general election in 2019 are black or Asian.

The key point is not simply the numbers, but rather that they are as likely to be found on in the governing Conservative Party as they are in the opposition Labour Party. Back in 1987, the situation was very different. Four ethnic minority MPs were elected that year: Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant and Keith Vaz. All were Labour members.

As the House of Commons Library points out, “Their number has increased at each general election since then — most notably from 2010 onwards … But if the ethnic make-up of the House of Commons reflected that of the UK population, there would be about 93 Members from ethnic minority backgrounds … Of the 65 ethnic minority Members, 41 (63%) are Labour and 22 are Conservatives (34%). There are two Liberal Democrat MPs from an ethnic minority background.” These MPs have not languished in obscurity. They have been promoted to the highest political offices of the land, by both major political parties.

The policies they would pursue could hardly be more different. Priti Patel has been roundly criticized by Labour for her virulent hostility to unrestricted migration and her determination to crack down on smuggling refugees over the English Channel from France. Her plans for “pushbacks” using the navy to deter migrants have been described as “inhumane, unconscionable and extremely reckless.”

Patel’s background — her family came to Britain in the 1960s before dictator Idi Amin’s mass expulsion of Asians from Uganda in 1972 — appears to have had little influence on her opinions or policies. Little wonder that she is a favorite of the Conservative right and a potential successor to Boris Johnson as prime minister.

Zero Tolerance

The significance of the rise of Britain’s ethnic minorities through the ranks is that neither of the two main parties that dominate the country’s politics can any longer tolerate the kind of overt racism that was once a regular part of British culture. Patel and Allin-Khan may be poles apart politically, but neither would accept policies of the kind that once were espoused by the likes of the Enoch Powell.

His notorious “Rivers of Blood” speech from 1968, in which he warned against the impact not just of immigration but also of a bill before Parliament designed to fight racism, was widely welcomed. The Conservative right hailed him as a champion, and Labour-supporting London dockers marched to Parliament to show their support.

Does this imply that racism in Britain is a thing of the past? Emphatically not. But given Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system, it means that only fringe parties, with little chance of winning seats in Parliament, are likely to take up the issue.

Overt racism is still nurtured by a section of British society. The Brexit referendum in 2016 brought out the worst in some communities. The attacks on Poles were particularly disgraceful, given the bravery of their pilots, over 8,000 of whom fought in the critical Battle of Britain over the skies of England during World War II. No fewer than five neo-Nazi groups are banned in the UK, with Patel condemning “evil white supremacist groups, who target vulnerable people across the world.” A third of all terror plots uncovered in Britain emanate from the far right.

None of this should be ignored. It is not inconceivable that overtly racist politics will rear its head once more in Britain, but neither the Conservative Party nor Labour is likely to support it. Only in extreme circumstances are they likely to flourish. As such, it may be that British politics can today be considered post-racial.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Has Britain Achieved a Post-Racial Politics? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Of these, the conflict in Ethiopia is probably the most burning issue. The forces from Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region are advancing toward the capital, Addis Ababa, and panic is beginning to spread. The US has warned its citizens to leave now, saying that it will not repeat the evacuation from Afghanistan. Britain has echoed the warning while putting troops currently serving in Kenya on standby to assist.

Ethiopia’s Heavy Hand in Tigray Sends a Message

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The Somali situation has remained unsolved since the collapse of the last central government with the fall of Siad Barre in 1991. Sudan’s struggle to overthrow the military who have seized power is critical but unlikely to spill over into neighboring states.

From the start of the war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region in November 2020, there were warnings that the conflict could lead to the collapse of the country, with catastrophic consequences for the region. The day after the war began, Johnnie Carson and Chester Crocker, both former US assistant secretaries of state for African affairs, put their names to a statement signed by some of America’s best-informed Africanists, warning that the conflict might lead to the “fragmentation of Ethiopia,” which would be “the largest state collapse in modern history.”

They suggested the consequences could be catastrophic, and their concerns are worth quoting in full:

“Ethiopia is five times the size of pre-war Syria by population, and its breakdown would lead to mass interethnic and interreligious conflict; a dangerous vulnerability to exploitation by extremists; an acceleration of illicit trafficking, including of arms; and a humanitarian and security crisis at the crossroads of Africa and the Middle East on a scale that would overshadow any existing conflict in the region, including Yemen. As Ethiopia is currently the leading Troop Contributing Country to the United Nations and the African Union peacekeeping missions in Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia, its collapse would also significantly impact the efforts by both to mitigate and resolve others conflicts in the Horn of Africa.”

Their warning was prescient. What began a year ago as the invasion of the northern region of Ethiopia has spread across large areas of the country. Maps of the fighting show areas across Ethiopia held by Tigrayan forces or fighters of their allies, the Oromo Liberation Army.

How Did the Tigray War Begin?

This is by no means simply a war between the Ethiopian government and Tigray. The conflict began with an attack on Tigray by Ethiopian federal forces, militia from the Amhara region, supported by invading troops from Ethiopia’s northern neighbor, Eritrea, as well as forces from Somalia. The Tigrayans had ruled Ethiopia for 27 years until being ousted by the current prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, in 2018. The animosity between them was predictable.

The Tigrayans, smarting from their loss of power, attempted to defy the new Ethiopian prime minister. They resisted attempts to remove heavy weaponry from the Northern Command (headquartered in Tigray’s regional capital, Mekelle, which they controlled). These weapons guarded northern Ethiopia (and Tigray, in particular) against any Eritrean attack. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) mobilized their citizens to block roads and prevent their removal.

However, the position of the Eritreans and Somalis requires some explanation. Tensions between Tigray and Eritrea can be traced to the liberation movements of the 1970s. Back then, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) had an uneasy alliance, working together to fight the Ethiopian government. This culminated in 1991 with the simultaneous fall of Addis Ababa and Asmara. The EPLF provided support to the TPLF in the assault on Addis Ababa and then gave close protection to the TPLF leader, Meles Zenawi. But this alliance hid ideological and tactical disputes.

The TPLF came to power, ruling Ethiopia via the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. By 1998, this relationship had ruptured and Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a bitter war that ended in 2000, leaving some 100,000 people dead. A peace agreement was signed in Algiers, but, much to the fury of Eritrea, Ethiopia refused to accept the border drawn by the boundary commission established by the treaty.

In response, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki collaborated with the Somali Islamists of al-Shabab and Ethiopian guerrilla movements in a failed attempt to oust the Tigrayan rulers of Ethiopia. However, in 2018, internal factors finally saw the TPLF lose their grip on power in Addis Ababa, to be replaced by Abiy Ahmed.

Enter the Eritreans

Ethiopia’s Abiy and Eritrea’s Isaias believed they shared a common enemy in the Tigrayan military and political leadership. A series of initiatives led to an end to hostilities in 2018 between Eritrea and Ethiopia, a conflict that had simmered since the 1998-2000 border war. In a series of nine joint meetings by the Eritrean and Ethiopian leaders, they developed a joint strategy to rid themselves of the Tigrayans. It is instructive that their final visits were held at the military bases of Eritrea and Ethiopia.

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Abiy canceled scheduled elections, arguing they could not be held because of the coronavirus pandemic. But his mandate had expired and the Tigrayans said he had no right to act in this way. They proceeded with their own elections, despite being instructed by the federal authorities not to. The last straw came when Abiy sent General Jamal Muhammad to take control of the Northern Command at the end of October 2020, only to have the TPLF put him on a plane back to Addis Ababa.

The federal government and the Tigray regional authority were clearly on a collision course. Exactly what happened on November 4 last year is not clear, but fighting broke out at the Northern Command base in Mekelle, which the TPLF took control of. Tigray was under attack from the north, east and south, with reports of drones, possibly supplied by the United Arab Emirates, fired from the Eritrean port of Assab in support of the Ethiopian government’s war effort.

This is not the “law-enforcement operation” described by Abiy. On November 6, 2020, he said in a tweet that operations “by federal defence forces underway in Northern Ethiopia have clear, limited & achievable objectives.” Six months later, this was hardly a plausible assessment. It had evolved into a full-scale war, which the Ethiopian government and its allies appeared to be winning. After an artillery bombardment of Mekelle, Abiy could rightly claim that his forces were in “full control” of Mekelle. He said that the army’s entry into the city marked the “final phase” of the conflict with the TPLF.

From Defense to Offense

In reality, the Tigrayans had pulled their forces out of the cities and had headed to the countryside and the mountains to conduct a guerrilla war — just as they had done before 1991. Mekelle had fallen, but the Tigrayan administration had ordered its forces to withdraw before the attack.

The UN, in a secret report, feared the war would become an extended conflict, characterized by irregular warfare. This is indeed what has transpired. By April 4, 2021, Abiy admitted that the fighting was far from over. Capturing the cities had not ended the war. Then, in June this year, the Tigrayans burst forth from the countryside, recapturing their capital, Mekelle, by the end of the month. Instead of leaving matters there, they continued pushing south, taking cities until Addis Ababa itself felt under threat, even though the Tigrayans are still many miles away.

The United States and European Union have been working with the African Union in an attempt to end the fighting. The US has imposed sanctions on Eritrea for its role in the war and threatened to extend these to Ethiopia and Tigray. Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has acted as a mediator, visiting Mekelle as well as Addis Ababa. He has had limited success.

The burden of resolving this conflict now rests on the shoulders of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta. Whether he can succeed where others have failed remains to be seen.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Who Can Resolve Ethiopia’s Catastrophic Conflict? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Local elections hardly ever make international headlines, but the May 2011 election in South Africa should have been an exception. Although it was, of course, mainly about issues of interest to the people of Durban or Johannesburg, the results were in reality the best indicator of popular opinion before the next general election in 2014.

At first glance the election was a walkover for the ANC. It won 63.65% of the vote – a loss of just 3% compared with the last election in 2006. The ANC remains the dominant political force in South Africa, taking every one of the nine provinces, apart from the Western Cape – the region around Cape Town. But beneath the surface there was a more complex reality.

Three key trends emerged.

·      The Democratic Alliance (DA) – historically a white party – emerged as the major challenger to the ANC, extending its hold over the Western Cape.

·      Support for other parties was eroded, leaving the political field mainly a two-horse race.

·      The ANC vote dipped in most areas, but this trend was masked by its increasing support in the province of KwaZulu-Natal – in which Durban is situated.

Rise of the Democratic Alliance

The table below is an indication of the progress the Democratic Alliance has made since the first truly democratic election in 1994 that saw the end of apartheid and the dawn of Nelson Mandela’s Presidency. The table is not entirely satisfactory, since it compares general election results with the May 2011 local election, but it is a useful indication of trends.

The Democratic Alliance, which evolved from the Progress Party, a liberal white party that consistently opposed apartheid in parliament, is now the largest opposition party in the country. The next largest party, the mainly Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party, took just 3.56% of the vote.

So how does one explain the rise of the DA? The answer lies in a strategy that has combined two factors: winning over sections of a still racially divided electorate and arguing that it provides the best services to local communities.

The party, now led by a charismatic former journalist, Helen Zille, has managed to convince most minorities in the country that it represents their interests. It did so by first wooing those white voters who previously backed the National Party which introduced apartheid. Then it won over the Coloured (mixed race) voters who live predominantly in the Western Cape and a fair proportion of the Indians, many of whom live around Durban.

This explains the majority of the DA’s electoral support. But in the May 2011 election something new took place. The party increased its support amongst black African voters from approximately 1 % in 2009 to approximately 5 % in 2011. These votes were essential to the DA, since they translated into approximately 20 % of the party's overall support. For the first time the party took wards (not municipalities or cities) in which there were no minority voters.

This was achieved by pointing to the services the party delivered to local communities and by putting forward attractive black candidates for key positions. The party now has a clever strategy of allowing anyone to stand for the party, even if they have not previously been party members. There is a rigorous selection process but it is no longer the case that only party hacks are put up for election. This, together with an effective system of political education, has produced a series of attractive black representatives. They include the party’s spokesperson, Lindiwe Mazibuko, a highly effective orator.

Having said all this, it is clear that the DA has not yet made a real breakthrough in the black community, the vast majority of whom continued to back the ANC.

The ANC: still the dominant political force?

In the run up to the May 2011 election there was considerable speculation that the ANC would suffer from voter fatigue and disillusionment with the party’s performance in providing local services. Protests against the level of service delivery are now endemic in South Africa. Hardly a week goes by without some community taking to the streets, blockading roads with burning tyres, stoning the police and even burning down local government offices. There is considerable evidence of anger at the endemic corruption in local government offices, most of which are run by the ANC.

In fact, turnout rose in May’s election, partly because competition for votes was intense and campaigning was effective. But it is worth highlighting the conclusions arrived at by Justin Sylvester and Sithembile Mbete:

“Overall the ANC, despite having lost support predominantly among minorities and the middle classes, continues to hold onto its electoral base that is firmly rooted among the poor. Why is this so in spite of the challenges within local governance and an increasing level of civil unrest?”

They then point to the unique position the ANC enjoys because of its alliance with the trade union federation COSATU and the South African Communist Party. These left wing allies, organised in the Tripartite Alliance, are highly effective at going house to house to get out the vote.

“The answer perhaps lies largely within the ruling party’s hegemony over the discourses on socioeconomic transformation. The Tripartite Alliance with its broad cross section of political interests and traditions in particular is adept at mobilising around these issues, thus providing the ANC with a formidable structure with which to retain its electoral support.”

The worrying trend for the ANC is that its partners inside the Alliance are increasingly vocal in their criticism of the party – particularly highlighting the problems of corruption. In late 2010 the unions pointed out that the issue was so serious that it threatened to transform South Africa into what they described as a “predatory state.”

“The seriousness of the extent to which it (corruption MP) has infected our organisations, our polity, and society is shown by:

• The emergence of death squads in several provinces, linked to corruption, and the murder of people who have taken a stand, or have whistleblown;

• The open way in which prominent ‘business figures’, linked to top political leaders deepen perceptions that there is blatant abuse of power to concoct illegitimate business deals worth billions of Rands;

• The extent to which factions in organisations are increasingly not about ideology or political differences, but about access to tenders.

Notwithstanding the work of government, a danger exists that if the current trajectory continues, the entire state and society will be auctioned to the highest bidder.”

The unions have begun mulling over whether to found their own left wing party, while the Communist Party has considered standing candidates of its own in forthcoming elections. So far neither has taken this step, but the ANC is worried about this trend, which could mark a turning point in the party’s electoral fortunes.

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