HORN OF AFRICA

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The brutal dictatorship the world keeps ignoring

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The Washingtonpost | Adam Taylor | June 12, 2015 |  >>> 

On Monday, the United Nations released the results of a year-long investigation into human rights in Eritrea. What it found was horrific. Detailing “systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations,” the U.N. commission of inquiry argued that Eritrea was operating a totalitarian government with no accountability and no rule of law.

“The commission also finds that the violations in the areas of extrajudicial executions, torture (including sexual torture), national service and forced labor may constitute crimes against humanity,” the report said.

However, it appears the report failed to produce any mainstream outrage. Unlike similar U.N. reports on alleged crimes against humanity in North Korea, or online criticism of human rights abuses in places such as Saudi Arabia or Qatar, the horrific accusations against Eritrea didn’t produce a viral outcry.

Why not? It certainly doesn’t seem to be because of the severity of the accusations. Crimes against humanity are pretty much as serious as you can get, and it’s hard to read the United Nations’ full report and not be shocked.

It’s hard to imagine now, but hopes were initially high for Eritrea in 1993 after it gained independence from Ethiopia after 30 years of civil war. Since then, however, President Isaias Afwerki has clamped down and allowed no room for an opposition. The U.N. report described a Stasi-like police state that leaves Eritreans in constant fear that they are being monitored.

“When I am in Eritrea, I feel that I cannot even think because I am afraid that people can read my thoughts and I am scared,” one witness told the U.N. inquiry.

The system leads to arbitrary arrests and detention, with torture and even enforced disappearances a part of life in Eritrea, the U.N. probe found, and even those who commit no perceived crime often end up in arduous and indefinite national service that may amount to forced labor. Escape is not a realistic option for many: Those who attempt to flee the country are considered “traitors,” and there is a shoot-to-kill policy on the border, the report said.

It’s also worth noting the significant effort and risk put into creating the report: The Eritrean government refused to allow the United Nations access to the country to investigate, so the U.N. team interviewed more than 550 witnesses in third countries and accepted 160 written submissions. Many approached by the United Nations declined to give testimony, even anonymously, citing a justifiable fear of reprisal.

Still, experts don’t seem too surprised at the lack of outrage generated by the report. “Clearly, Eritrea doesn’t capture the imagination, or rouse the conscience of Americans, much in the way North Korea does,” Jeffrey Smith, an advocacy officer at the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, explained. “President Afwerki, while unquestionably a chronic human rights abuser and eccentric despot, isn’t portrayed by the American media in the same way that Kim Jong Un is.”

“North Korea also makes headlines for other reasons — namely its nuclear ambitions and the ongoing threat it poses to regional stability in East Asia,” he added. “Similarly, while Eritrea is certainly a police state similar to North Korea in many ways, it’s largely kept out of the headlines because Africa in general doesn’t feature highly on the agenda of policymakers here in the United States.”

The fact is, while the scope and authority of the U.N. report lent its allegations an added weight, academics and human rights researchers had long written similar things about the Eritrean state without a significant mainstream response in America or Europe.

In 2014, for instance Human Rights Watch called Eritrea “among the most closed countries in the world” and pointed to “indefinite military service, torture, arbitrary detention, and severe restrictions on freedoms of expression, association, and religion.” Reporters Without Borders has repeatedly ranked it as the worst country in the world for press freedom — worse even than North Korea.

“The U.N. report? We knew it already,” said Ismail Einashe, a Somali-British journalist who works with Eritrean migrants. “Too little, too late.”

Despite this, some reports on the country ignore this and focus on another aspect of Eritrea: Its unlikely tourism sector. International isolation, a history as an Italian colony and reported Qatari investment may have made Eritrea a unique if distasteful vacation destination: As one travel blogger put it last year, the capital of “Asmara felt much more like Naples than North Korea.”

Sara Dorman, an expert in African politics at Edinburgh University, doesn’t think much of either comparison.

“I don’t think it’s particularly helpful,” she said of the country’s reputation as the “North Korea of Africa.” At the same time, she stressed that Eritrea really does deserve to be seen as a special case. “As somebody who studies authoritarian regimes elsewhere in Africa, the Eritrean regime’s control over its population is qualitatively different than other African states,” Dorman said, before pointing to features such as the scale of Eritrea’s intelligence service and the practice of punishing entire families for the crimes of one member.

There are plenty of historical arguments for why the world should pay more attention to what’s happening in Eritrea. Former colonial rulers Italy and Britain have an obvious legacy there, and so does the United States, which allowed Ethiopia to incorporate Eritrea with the aim of keeping the U.S. Kagnew Station military base in the country. In addition, Eritrea has a difficult recent history with its East African neighbors: It’s currently under U.N. sanctions for supporting al-Shabab, the Somali Islamist group, and others in the region.

But one important reason to pay attention has become an unavoidable reality for Europe. Eritreans make up a large share of the migrants crossing the Mediterranean in flimsy boats to seek asylum in Europe: More than 22 percent of those who made the journey in 2014 were from the country, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, second only to Syrians. They flee not because of a civil war like that in Syria, but because of the immense restrictions the Eritrean state puts on their lives. As one escaped Eritrean put it, life there is a “psychological prison.”

Despite this, a number of European nations have recently tightened the restrictions on Eritrean migrants, many citing a Danish immigration report from last November that prompted criticism from human rights groups. The European Union is also considering increasing the amount of aid it sends to Eritrea via the European Development Fund. Experts like Dorman hope that the U.N. report may lead some in Europe to reconsider.

“If organizations don’t take note of this report, we really have to wonder about how they make these decisions,” she said.

Still, even if they don’t, the report does have one very vocal audience: The Eritrean government and pro-government media. In a statement published on Tuesday, Eritrea called the U.N. report a”cynical political travesty” that was an attack “not so much on the government, but on a civilized people and society who cherish human values and dignity.”

Finnish EU envoy to investigate ‘dire’ Ethiopia war

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EU Observer | The security situation in Ethiopia was “dire”, as Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto prepared to travel to the region on an EU fact-finding mission.

Finnish FM

Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto | Wikimedia Commons

“Nearly three months after the start of the conflict … the security situation in Tigray [a region of Ethiopia] remains dire, with reports of localised fighting especially in rural areas,” Haavisto told EUobserver.

“There is news circulating that hundreds of thousands of people have yet to receive [humanitarian] assistance,” he said.

But “access to the affected regions remains limited due to the challenging security environment and bureaucratic obstacles,” he added.

War broke out last year between the government of prime minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a local power which defied his rule.

The TPLF leader, Debretsion Gebremichael, said on Sunday (1 February) that the Ethiopian army was guilty of “genocide” and “massacres”.

He also said three foreign powers were fighting on Ethiopia’s side, while urging the international community to investigate “the atrocities” he spoke of.

An Ethiopian government spokeswoman told the BBC that Gebremichael’s words were “the delusions of a criminal clique” and accused the TPLF of “horrendous crimes” in return.

Ethiopia has also denied that Eritrean and Somalian forces, as well as Emirati drones, were fighting on its side.

But the US state department has confirmed that Eritrea was involved.

And Tigrayans who fled to neighbouring Sudan have told Human Rights Watch, an NGO, that Ethiopian forces were guilty of indiscriminate shelling and extrajudicial killings.

For his part, Finland’s Haavisto said: “The regional impacts of the Tigray conflict are of growing concern”.

“Reports indicate that more than 58,000 refugees have fled to Sudan and tensions in the border areas are growing dangerously,” he added.

The Nordic diplomat planned to go to “Ethiopia and its neighbouring regions” in the “next few weeks”, he said, after EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell tasked him with the mission last week.

Haavisto is to travel with Alexander Rondos, an EU special representative for the Horn of Africa.

An internal EU report, last November, said Europe feared “the unravelling of the Ethiopian state” and the creation of millions of refugees if the war got worse.

And it feared instability could spread to neighbouring Djibouti, Eritrea, and Somalia.

The Ethiopia conflict is just one of several in the EU’s southern neighbourhood, including ones in Libya, Israel, the Sahel, and Syria.

Meanwhile, Europe’s eastern flank is also becoming increasingly volatile.

Warfare recently erupted in Azerbaijan and goes on unabated in eastern Ukraine.

A political crisis in Belarus and mass-scale demonstrations in Russia have also posed questions about the future of the ruling regimes there.

Russia diplomacy
Russia, on Sunday, arrested another 4,000 people in nationwide protests calling on authorities to free opposition hero Alexei Navalny.

“Russian citizens’ right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression should be respected,” Haavisto told EUobserver.

Borrell, the EU top diplomat, is himself going to Moscow at the end of this week to urge Navalny’s release and to discuss “strategic” issues.

And Haavisto said it was important for the EU to keep up Russia diplomacy despite the deteriorating ties.

He also highlighted the need for “people-to-people contacts” between ordinary Russians and Europeans, “which have taken a big setback from the Covid pandemic”.

“We have a lot of experience on this, as Finland issues the highest number of Schengen visas in Russia,” Haavisto said, referring to Europe’s ‘Schengen’ free-travel area.

Through Eritrea, China Quietly Makes Inroads Near the Red Sea

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The Diplomat | China is finding an eager partner in Eritrea, an autocratic state generally overlooked entirely by world powers.

As Iran continues to dominate headlines across the Western world, China’s far quieter quest to influence Africa and Asia has escaped the news media’s attention of late. The many examples of this Chinese strategy include the world power’s relationship with Eritrea, a country on the Horn of Africa that rarely features in geopolitical discussions. Nonetheless, officials in Beijing intend to turn what some analysts still label “Africa’s North Korea” into a centerpiece of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s costly economic megaproject inspired by the Silk Road.

In May 2019, Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh Mohammed and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met in Beijing to laud what Eritrean officials dubbed “a healthy and strong partnership for the benefit of their two peoples.” Just five months later, Chinese Ambassador to Eritrea Yang Zigang said in an interview with Eritrea’s state-owned media that “China has consistently supported Eritrea’s nation-building endeavors by providing Eritrea with many kinds of assistance.”

The months of diplomatic niceties between China and Eritrea preceded a much more substantive development barely noticed by Western news agencies. In early November, the China Shanghai Corporation for Foreign Economic and Technological Cooperation — known as “China SFECO Group” — began building a 134-kilometer road in coordination with ranking Eritrean officials, an initiative heralded by Yang. He has displayed a keen interest in Eritrean infrastructure, noting on the embassy webpage, “Eritrea is endowed with two great natural harbors, Massawa and Assab.”

Eritrea has long expressed its enthusiasm for the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s bid to expand its sphere of influence by investing in countries across the Global South. A representative from Eritrea’s ruling party traveled to Beijing’s Belt and Road Forum in 2017. The Eritrean Information Ministry, meanwhile, praised China’s effort in 2019, calling it a step toward “open, inclusive, and balanced regional economic cooperation” and “integration of markets.”

t first glance, a little-known one-party state with an ailing economy would seem an odd choice for Chinese investment. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki has only succeeded at turning his country into a pariah state during 27 years of brutal rule, and the World Bank Group considers Eritrea “one of the least developed countries in the world.” Even so, Chinese President Xi Jinping likely sees his investment in Afwerki’s regime as an opportunity to secure an ally on the Red Sea.

Chinese tacticians have been eyeing the strategic region for some time. In early 2016, China concluded a deal with Djibouti, one of Eritrea’s neighbors on the Red Sea, to construct a military base – China’s first overseas military facility. The much-discussed Chinese outpost, which itself borders a similar American facility, became operational a year later. China has deployed soldiers throughout East Africa, even sending peacekeepers to secure Chinese-staffed oil wells in South Sudan.

Chinese-Eritrean relations appear focused on economics for the time being, but the possibility of militarization looms on the horizon. China and Eritrea cooperate in a variety of sectors, including energy and public health. The East Asian world power has a long history with its East African partner, arming Eritrea not only during its 30-year war of independence from Ethiopia but also during its second war with Ethiopia in the late 1990s. In more recent years, China has offered to mediate territorial disputes between Eritrea and Ethiopia, a sign of China’s wider ambitions.

In Africa and Eritrea in particular, China’s distinct foreign policy has given it a critical advantage over its Western rivals. Xi is more than willing to ignore Afwerki’s well-known abuses of human rights, such as conscripting tens of thousands of Eritreans and forcing them into what the United Nations terms “slave-like” labor. Though Eritrea has a population of just 6 million, only Syrian applicants for asylum outnumber Eritreans in Europe. Fifty thousand live in Germany alone.

While some Western countries have tried to engage with Eritrea in the last few years, they have faced backlash. European officials suffered significant embarrassment when The New York Times revealed that an Eritrean project funded by the European Union and facilitated by the UN relied on the labor of conscripts. Many European countries view Eritrea as a source of mass migration and a key front in their bid to stop it. Unlike China, which Afwerki has tried to court through his emphasis on Eritrea’s “strategic location,” Europe seems to have few long-term goals there.

The United States, China’s main rival in Africa, has indicated little interest in Eritrea. The State Department has admitted that “[t]ensions related to the ongoing government detention of political dissidents and others, the closure of the independent press, limits on civil liberties, and reports of human rights abuses contributed to decades of strained U.S.–Eritrean relations.”

As long as China keeps overlooking Eritrea’s dismal record on human rights, the two countries’ relationship seems likely to blossom. Despite a remarkable increase in goodwill toward the East African autocracy following Eritrea’s conclusion of a peace treaty with its longtime adversaries in Ethiopia, Afwerki has few friends in the international community. For its part, China has long stated its reluctance to interfere with or even comment on other countries’ internal affairs. That position has endeared Beijing to autocrats around the world.

For now, China only has one opponent in the race to establish a sphere of influence in Eritrea: the United Arab Emirates. The UAE operates an air base and a military port in the East African country in addition to its military base in Somalia. In a sign of China’s growing reach, however, the UAE is participating in the Belt and Road Initiative. Considering that China’s ambassador to the Middle Eastern regional power vaunted their relationship as “at its best period in history” in 2019, the prospect of a confrontation between the two countries over Eritrea seems dim.

SFECO Group’s project in Eritrea marks a new level of cooperation with China. As American and European officials turn their attention to the Middle East, China’s staying power in the Horn of Africa is growing. The Chinese presence in Djibouti sparked alarm across the West. In Eritrea, though, China is reaping the benefits of other world powers’ lack of interest in a rogue state. Unlike its Western counterparts, China has its sights set on the Red Sea.

How War in Ethiopia Impacts Red Sea and Horn of Africa Power Politics: The Battle in Tigray and Beyond

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Terrorism Monitor | Michael Horton

Ethiopia is a key prize in the scramble for influence and power in the Horn of Africa and broader Red Sea region. With its natural resources, population of 110 million, and well-equipped military, Ethiopia has become an African power. The nation’s capital, Addis Ababa, moreover, hosts the African Union headquarters, and the country is one of the few African nations never to be colonized. [1] Ethiopia has accordingly long played an outsized role in African and sub-regional politics.

For much of the last decade, successive Ethiopian governments have navigated treacherous regional and global politics by maintaining relations with diverse geopolitical actors. On the global level, Ethiopia has been—and remains—an important U.S. ally, while China accounts for the largest volume of foreign direct investment into Ethiopia. [2] At the regional level, Ethiopia has avoided becoming entangled in the Gulf’s acrimonious power politics between Saudi Arabia and the UAE and their two main adversaries, Qatar and Turkey. All four of those countries nevertheless provide Ethiopia with financial aid and private investment across multiple areas, especially its important agricultural sector. Turkey and the UAE, despite being regional rivals, also both maintain high-level military-to-military relations with Ethiopia.

The ongoing war in Ethiopia’s northernmost Tigray region will test Ethiopia’s strategy of balancing the interests of outside powers with its own need for domestic investment. At the same time, the war, which began on November 4, will present these same outside powers with new opportunities to enhance their relationship with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali (East African, November 7). However, those and other outside powers will also have ample opportunity to create instability in Ethiopia if they so choose.

Ethiopian Foreign Policy from Balancing to Entanglement

The war in Tigray pits the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) against the Ethiopian government. The TPLF, which dominated Ethiopian politics for much of the last three decades, is a formidable political and military power in its own right. While the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) has made quick progress in capturing major cities in the Tigray region, this was likely due to strategic withdrawals by the TPLF (Nazret, November 19). Such a strategy aligns with the TPLF’s long history of guerrilla warfare.

Barring some negotiated settlement between the TPLF and the Ethiopian government, the war in Tigray will likely evolve into an insurgency that will spill beyond the borders of Tigray. At the same time, the war in Tigray, even if it is contained to TPLF redoubts in the mountains, will attract the interest of outside powers. This is already the case with Eritrea, which has deployed troops within Ethiopia’s borders to help the ENDF bottle up the TPLF. In addition to its three decade-long battle for independence from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Ethiopia fought over disputed border towns from 1998-2000. Eritrea, which was once allied with the TPLF, is now supporting Abiy Ahmed, who signed a peace agreement with Eritrean president Isaias Afewerki in 2018 that ended the two countries’ longstanding border conflict (Addis Fortune, September 22, 2018).

The involvement of Eritrean forces in Ethiopia’s war in Tigray could be a harbinger of things to come. The UAE, which maintains military bases in Eritrea, may also be aiding Abiy Ahmed’s government. Conflicting and unconfirmed reports, for example, indicate the possible deployment of UAE-operated drones from the UAE base in Assab, Eritrea to Tigray. [3] The UAE, which is locked in a cold war with Qatar and Turkey, could try to enhance its relationship with Ethiopia by supporting its fight against the TPLF at the cost of Ethiopia’s relationship with Qatar and Turkey.

Turkey, however, like the UAE, enjoys excellent military-to-military relations with Ethiopia. Due to Ethiopia’s involvement in Somalia, with which it shares a long and largely unguarded border, Turkey works closely with the Ethiopian military and intelligence services. Turkey also regards Somalia, where it maintains its largest overseas military base, as the lynchpin in its strategy to preserve and grow its influence in the Horn of Africa and Red Sea region (Terrorism Monitor, November 20). In mid-November, Ethiopia withdrew large numbers of troops it had deployed in its ethnically Somali Ogaden region and Somalia itself to redeploy them to Tigray (Somali Affairs, November 3). Somalia-based al-Shabaab, therefore, will benefit from gaps left by the Ethiopian forces, and the relationship between Ethiopia and Turkey may deepen as Ankara seizes on opportunities to help Addis Ababa bolster security along its border with Somalia. Turkey also has greater ability than either the UAE or Saudi Arabia to offer the Ethiopian military what it lacks and most desires: drone technology and the expertise to use it (Terrorism Monitor, October 13).

Further afield, China, which has invested billions of dollars in almost every economic sector in Ethiopia, will act to protect those investments. China will make every effort to support stability in Ethiopia. Given China’s pragmatic foreign policy in Africa and in Ethiopia in particular, this support will be cost-effective and possibly covert. There is little doubt that China will aid Abiy Ahmed’s efforts to contain and defeat the TPLF. However, such aid will, as is customary with Chinese foreign policy, come with strings attached. [4]

Water Wars and Instability

On the other side of the equation, Ethiopia’s regional rivals will view limited instability in Ethiopia as a benefit. Ethiopia has completed its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and, as of July 2020, began filling the dam’s immense reservoir (Nazret, July 16). Egypt views the dam, which impedes the flow of water into the Nile’s primary tributary, the Blue Nile, as an existential threat. [5] Thus far, the two governments have failed to reach an agreement over how they will share the Nile’s water resources.

Over this summer, Egypt reportedly proposed to build a base in the unrecognized Republic of Somaliland (The East African, July 28). It is unlikely the government of Somaliland will accept the proposal. However, it reflects Egypt’s interest in enhancing its relations with other nations in the Horn of Africa and expanding its military’s regional reach as a way of checking what it sees as growing Ethiopian power.

For its part, Sudan, which will benefit from cheap electricity and flood control provided by the GERD, has been more willing to negotiate with Ethiopia on the dam. However, Egypt wields considerable influence in Sudan. The war in Tigray, especially if it is prolonged, may undermine the Ethiopian government’s ability to press forward with what Egypt views as an uncompromising agreement on GERD and hinder Sudan’s possible accommodation with Ethiopia on the dam.

Ethiopia’s Outlook

Ethiopia’s successful foreign policy, which is based on balancing the interests of rival countries in its natural resources and strategic position in exchange for access and investment, could be compromised by sustained war in Tigray. The TPLF is a sophisticated political and military organization that possesses the knowledge and institutional memory that will allow it to engage rival internal and outside powers. Abiy Ahmed’s government will find it requires more and new types of aid to deal with the challenges posed by the TPLF. Receipt of this aid, be it military or financial, will constrain Ethiopia’s nimble and independent foreign policy.

Notes

[1] Ethiopia was occupied by the Italians from 1936-1941. See Jeff Pearce, Prevail: The Inspiring Story of Ethiopia’s Victory over Mussolini’s Invasion (Skyhorse Publishing, 2014).

[2] In 2019, China accounted for the largest volume of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Ethiopia, followed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

[3] There are conflicting and unconfirmed reports in Western media on the possible deployment of UAE-operated drones from the UAE’s base in Assab, Eritrea to Tigray. See, for example: https://www.voanews.com/africa/expert-no-evidence-uae-drones-are-being-used-ethiopias-tigray-conflict; https://www.bellingcat.com/news/rest-of-world/2020/11/19/are-emirati-armed-drones-supporting-ethiopia-from-an-eritrean-air-base/; and https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-conflict-idUSKBN27V05M. While deployment of UAE-operated and Chinese-manufactured Wing Loong II drones would be consistent with the UAE’s deployment of drones over Yemen and Libya, it is unlikely at this stage. What is more likely is that the UAE is using surveillance drones within Eritrean territory to monitor incursions into Eritrean territory by TPLF forces.

[4] This is not to say that other countries providing aid, like the United States, do not also expect some kind benefit in return. However, China is particularly adept at incorporating countries into its financial and political web at relatively minimal expense to the Chinese treasury. See Tom Burgis, The Looting Machine: Warlords, Oligarch, Corporations, Smuggler, and the Theft of Africa’s Wealth (Public Affairs, 2016).

[5] For an overview of the complexity surrounding GERD and downstream riparian environments, see: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19089-x

UAE: The scramble for the Horn of Africa

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MEMO | The United Arab Emirates is waging a war for influence over the Horn of Africa.

Since the 2011 Arab Spring the United Arab Emirates has been taking an active role in a number of hotspots from Egypt, Libya to Yemen. The Gulf nation has spent $26 billion annually on its defence budget since 2016 and this is expected to increase to $37.8 billion by 2025, according to Research and Markets.

A growing security and war industry with military deployments abroad, US generals often refer to the Sheikhdom as ‘Little Sparta’. As of 2020, The UAE has military bases in Eritrea, Djibouti and Somaliland, which further indicates the importance of the Horn of Africa to Abu Dhabi. The region offers excellent access to the Red Sea, the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Aden, all of which are vital to the Emirates’ economic future as a global trading hub. The military bases ensure Abu Dhabi can see off threats to its interests and secure its influence over East Africa at a time when it is expanding its income streams away from the petrodollar.

The 2015 war in Yemen and the 2017 blockade of Qatar have seen Abu Dhabi take a more aggressive role in East Africa.

Countries in the Horn of Africa have by and large welcomed growing ties with the Arab World, but in 2017 following the breaking of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt with Qatar, countries across the world were pushed to take sides.

Somalia

Although the 2017 Gulf Crisis now looks like it is coming to an end, the countries in the Horn of Africa have already paid the price for it. Somalia found itself at the unwelcome end of the dispute.

Like other Horn of Africa countries, the Somali government adopted a neutral stance towards the Qatar dispute. The UAE, however, saw Mogadishu as silently in the pro-Qatar camp and Abu Dhabi was not pleased.

In 2017, as President Mohamed Abdul lahi Farmaajo assumed office, reports circulated that Qatar and Turkey had funded his campaign and further claims of officials appointed to prominent positions within Farmaajo’s administration having ties to Doha and Ankara unnerved Abu Dhabi.

The Somali government alleges the UAE is now actively destabilising the country, accusing it of funding opposition forces. These suspicions intensified after Dubai Ports World, DP World, bypassed the central government of Somalia and signed a deal with the semi-autonomous region of Somaliland to develop and operate Berbera port. DP World even brought in Ethiopian investment and gave Addis Ababa a stake in the port.

Mogadishu declared the deal illegal and tried to block it by taking out a complaint with the Arab League. Somaliland leader, Muse Bihi Abdi, said Farmaajo’s government was declaring war by attempting to block the deal. Under the deal, Somaliland stands to get investments of up to $442 million and a separate agreement with Abu Dhabi to allow the UAE’s military bases in the region could bring in a further $1 billion, according to the International Crisis Group.

Decades of civil war and the presence of extremist groups makes Somalia a very fragile country, fears UAE involvement could harm the country are a cause of constant concern for Mogadishu.

Sudan

In 1989, Omar Al-Bashir, a military commander, launched a coup and seized political power in Sudan. By 1993, he declared himself president and his political party, the National Congress, became the dominant political force. The National Congress is Muslim Brotherhood aligned and as such was generally treated with suspicion by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. However, in the 2010s, Al-Bashir’s regime began distancing itself from the brotherhood in order to improve its relations with the GCC countries.

Closer relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE had a price. In 2015, Riyadh formed a coalition to intervene militarily in Yemen. In 2011, the Yemeni government led by Ali Abdullah Saleh faced mass street protests known as the ‘Arab Spring’, the pressure would force him to step down in 2012. The power vacuum led to large parts of the country being taken over by the Iranian-backed Houthi group. The Saudi-led coalition aimed to crush the Houthis and declared war on them. Sudan became an important member of the war coalition.

In 2018, a popular uprising took place against Omar Al-Bashir and in April 2019 the military forced him from power. The military then formed a new government with civil opposition groups with the aim of transforming Sudan into a fully-fledged democracy and the UAE moved to minimise the potential damage to its interests caused by the revolution.

However, the fall of Al-Bashir means the UAE’s position in Sudan is not guaranteed and some fear the Emirates could try to subvert Sudan’s democratic transition.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia seems to have benefitted hugely from its partnership with the UAE, as the East African country has emerged as a big investment opportunity.

In February 2020, the UAE agreed to invest $100 million to support micro, medium and small scale projects across the country. Additionally, the UAE has pledged to build an oil pipeline between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which will provide the landlocked nation much needed energy.

Indeed this energy deal is possible after the UAE engineered a peace treaty between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 2018. The peace agreement was held up as an example of the UAE’s prowess. Ethiopia managed to gain these benefits while avoiding the polarising effects of the Qatar blockade.

In November 2020, armed conflict broke out in Ethiopia’s Tigray region between government forces and a powerful regional rebel army. The rebels’ leader openly accused the United Arab Emirates of carrying out a drone strike on Tigray, from its base in Eritrea, at the behest of Addis Ababa. While evidence has yet to emerge of the strike, it does indicate there is some local anxiety about the role Abu Dhabi might be playing in this potentially explosive situation.

Ethiopia could cause issues for the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as another close ally of the Gulf States, Egypt, has expressed anger at Addis Ababa’s dam across the River Nile. The Renaissance Dam built by Ethiopia reduces Nile water levels in Egypt, harming its energy, economic and environmental needs. Negotiations to find a solution keep breaking down and regional tensions are high.

The Horn of Africa is the playground for rising UAE aspirations and is a microcosm of what the UAE aims to replicate across the African continent. Much of this is driven by the decline of US influence globally, new regional alliances and powerhouses are emerging to manage international security. However, the UAE does not exercise total control over East Africa and is still in the early stages of developing its reach and influence. The Horn is full of flashpoints and the UAE could either help stabilise or destabilise the region.

Foreign meddling as a source of state fragility in Ethiopia

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MEMO Opinion | State fragility is a multidimensional concept that is often characterized by deficiencies in one or more areas of the core functions of the state: legitimacy, authority (competing claimants to power), and capacity (weak capacity to provide basic government functions). State fragility poses a serious problem for many developing countries as it leads to human flight and economic decline. Since 2015, for example, only five countries (Afghanistan, Somalia, S. Sudan, and Syria) have generated over 60 per cent of the 15 million refugees.

In many cases, state fragility is not just due to domestic political tensions, but a result of foreign intrusion into the affairs of countries. External intervention includes, but is not limited to, external support for factions opposed to the government, covert operations by foreign forces to destabilize the government, as well as foreign governments’ influence on outside actors such as multilateral agencies to suspend budget support, foreign aid, and other funding.

Negotiations have been underway between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan to reach a fair and balanced agreement that preserves the water rights of all three countries. This includes agreement on mechanisms for resolving disputes and ways to coordinate and exchange information regarding the operation of water dams in each country. The parties need to depoliticize their argument and use reliable science-based solutions that do not disadvantage the interests of any party.

While these negotiations are underway, Egypt has resorted to clandestine measures to achieve its narrow objectives. One is to destabilize the Ethiopian regime, for example, by providing financial and military support to political opponents, arming and training militants from Benishangul-Gumuz (the area where the dam is located) to carry out incidences of mass violence to create overall instability in the region. There is also increasing evidence that Egypt has also encouraged the Sudanese government’s takeover of several Ethiopian towns on the border (they made a statement that they support Sudan in its border conflict with Ethiopia). This is all because Ethiopia decided to exercise its legal right to build a dam within its domestic borders. This right is consistent with domestic and international law. Even though 85 per cent of Nile river water originates in Ethiopia, nearly all consumption and use occur downstream in Egypt and Sudan.

In many cases, Egypt has been breaking off the negotiations creating abnormal delays, disregarding the agreed procedures, and refusing to consider adverse proposals or interests. These are actions that amount to breaches of good faith and most likely abuse of the rights of states.

International law obliges states to negotiate disputes in good faith that arise in connection with the use and protection of shared natural resources. The essential nature of the obligation is for the parties to make efforts to strive towards an agreement that reconciles their competing rights of use. Good faith negotiations also include not advancing wholly self-serving legal arguments that undermine the rights of other parties, and not resorting to extra-legal measures to advance your goals.

In negotiations, it is essential to realize that successful negotiation is a joint effort. The use of direct or indirect pressure on other parties will harden positions and derail any efforts to reach an agreement.

Egyptian meddling in Ethiopia’s internal affairs to achieve its narrow goals on the dam is likely to have serious ramifications beyond the existing dispute at hand. Firstly, beyond its potential benefit, the dam issue is personal for most Ethiopians. Millions of citizens contributed out of their meager earnings to build the dam. Any effort by other nations that undermines the completion and use of the dam would be treated as an act of war by most people.

Secondly, Egypt and Ethiopia are important countries in the region with centuries of history and civilization. Their actions set a precedent in the region. It sends the message that if you don’t get your way through negotiation, you can bully your negotiating partner into submission.

Thirdly, such meddling will not achieve its objectives. Given Ethiopia’s anti-colonial past and resistance to foreign aggression, it is likely to harden the country’s position on the dam. This may be the most accommodating Ethiopian government that is willing to resolve disputes through negotiation. Future governments are likely to take the hardline position and resist any future negotiations that compromise their autonomy on the dam.

Fourthly, in spite of their long history and civilization, both countries face severe development challenges: high levels of poverty, income inequality, poor governance, and political instability. They are far behind in extending to their citizens the opportunities to fulfil their aspirations for a better life. The Fund for Peace, which prepares the State Fragility Index for 178 countries, ranks Egypt as the 35th most fragile state behind Angola and Mauritania (Ethiopia is ranked 21st) for 2020. The evaluation is based on social cohesion, economic indicators (economic decline, income inequality, human flight, and brain drain), political indicators (human rights, rule of law, state legitimacy, and public services), and social factors such as demographic pressures, refugees and internally-displaced people and external intervention. Such foreign meddling is not without cost for Egypt, which desperately needs these resources to build schools, infrastructure, and healthcare for its people.

Political observers of the Middle East suggest that such foreign meddling is intended to divert attention away from the critical issues facing the country such as poor governance, democracy, and human rights, and help it to gain some political legitimacy by appearing as a defender of the national interest.

Finally, such actions poison the well of Egypt-Ethiopia relations and create a sense of hostility between the two peoples who have lived peacefully for generations. Most people think that these actions do not reflect the will of the Egyptian people and are solely an act of a rogue regime that is out of touch.

It is time to stop foreign meddling and get back to work to bring about a mutually satisfactory solution by way of compromise, even if it means the relinquishment of strongly held positions and a willingness to meet the other side partway. Any attempt to destabilize your negotiating partner to achieve your goals, or insist upon the complete capitulation of your partner, is bad policy and will not work.

Ethiopia accuses Sudan of occupying its lands, fighting by proxy for third party

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MEMO | The border area has witnessed tension between Ethiopia and Sudan that is still escalating-Getty

Ethiopia has accused its neighbour Sudan on Friday of occupying part of its territory and fighting by proxy for a “third party”.

This was reported by the Ethiopian News Agency (ENA), quoting a member of the Ethio-Sudan Joint Boundary Commission Wuhib Muluneh.

According to Muluneh, Ethiopia: “Feels that reaching a bilateral decision is the best way out of the crisis rather than inviting a third party to interfere.” In an interview with ENA, he stressed: “There are doubts that a third party was behind the Sudanese move, which refers to a proxy war.”

Muluneh added that in light of the long-standing relations between the two countries, the dispute must be resolved peacefully, confirming that reactivating the border mechanisms is the only option to end the recent border crisis between Ethiopia and Sudan.

Muluneh asserted that before the start of any negotiations, the Sudanese army must evacuate the area “occupied” earlier by its troops who attempted to displace Ethiopian farmers, as he put it.

Sudan has not yet commented on the Ethiopian accusations.

Relations between Sudan and Ethiopia have been undergoing escalating tensions for weeks, following the outbreak of armed attacks on the borders of the two countries. Khartoum asserts that the attacks were carried out by Ethiopian militias backed by army forces on Sudanese territory, while Addis Ababa denies the accusations.

Somali men ‘forced into Eritrean army’ under impression they were signing up for security jobs in Qatar

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The Telegraph | The men are thought to be being sent to Tigray to fight in Ethiopia’s civil war.

Anger is mounting in Somalia over allegations young men are being secretly recruited and sent to Eritrea to fight in Ethiopia’s civil war.

Three families told Reuters their young sons had officially been recruited by Somalia’s government to work in Qatar, only to later find out they had been sent to Eritrea and forced to serve as soldiers.

Ali Jamac Dhoodi, 48, told the news agency he thought his son was working as a security guard in Qatar to help prepare for next year’s football World Cup. But he said he was later told by Somalia’s National Intelligence Agency that his son had died in Eritrea.

“They showed me a picture from their WhatsApp and asked me, ‘do you know this picture and his full name?’ I said, ‘yes he is my son,'” Dhoodi, 48, said. “They said to me ‘your son died’. I cried.”

Others said their sons, who had originally been sent to Eritrea for military training, were sent to fight in the Ethiopian civil war. Mothers have led rare protests in the capital Mogadishu demanding to know where their children had been sent, and some lawmakers have written to Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo asking for information.

“I heard that our children who were sent to Eritrea for military training have been taken and their responsibility was turned over to [Ethiopian Prime Minister] Abiy Ahmed to fight for him,” Fatuma Moallim Abdulle, the mother of 20-year-old soldier Ahmed Ibrahim Jumaleh, told The Associated Press.

“According to the information I gathered, our children were taken straight to Mekele city,” the capital of the Tigray region, she said. “You may understand how I feel, I am a mother who carried her child for nine months in my belly, that’s my blood and flesh.”

Eritrea is accused of involvement in the conflict pitting its neighbour Ethiopia’s federal government against the rebellious leaders of the northern Tigray region. Witnesses have accused Eritrean forces of massacring civilians and pillaging villages in the embattled region.

The United States on Thursday said it had pressed Eritrea’s government to immediately withdraw its troops from Ethiopia.

Somalian and Ethiopian authorities have denied Somali troops are being deployed in Tigray. Ethiopia and Eritrea have consistently denied reports of Eritrean troops fighting in the conflict, despite extensive Telegraph reporting and the video of an Ethiopian general pointing to the contrary.

The Qatari government responded on Friday by saying it condemned any false recruitment initiatives and urging relevant governments to investigate any abuses.

“The State of Qatar reiterates that any genuine offers of employment in Qatar will always come through official channels and approved recruitment agencies or Qatar Visa Centres,” it said in a statement to The Telegraph.

“We urge all individuals seeking employment in Qatar to confirm any offers they receive with these official channels or the embassy, prior to acceptance.”

Ethiopia Moves Artillery to Sudanese Border After Deadly Clashes

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Bloomberg | Sudan delegation met Saudi officials to discuss crisis. Tension adds to dispute over construction of giant hydro dam. 

Ethiopia moved heavy weapons to disputed territory on its border with Sudan, according to people familiar with the matter.

The military build-up in an area known as the al-Fashqa triangle signals increasing tensions, after deadly clashes in recent weeks raised international concern. Sudanese officials met Saudi Arabian officials in Riyadh on Wednesday to discuss the crisis, after the U.K. last week called for a de-escalation of tensions.

The Ethiopian army deployed armaments including tanks and anti-aircraft batteries to the border region in the past two weeks, said two foreign diplomats who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s spokeswoman Billene Seyoum referred a request for comment to the Foreign Ministry, and Redwan Hussein, spokesman for the government’s emergency task force, didn’t respond to a request for comment sent by text message.

Ethiopia’s government earlier this month accused the Sudanese military of carrying out organized attacks using machine-guns and armored convoys at their border. Those attacks killed “many civilians,” according to Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry.

Tensions between the two nations have ratcheted up since conflict erupted in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region on Nov. 4. Regional analysts and diplomats have said Abiy is under pressure from powerful Amhara politicians in his government, including Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen, not to back down on the border dispute.

The state of Amhara, whose fighters backed the Ethiopian federal army’s incursion into Tigray, claims ownership of parts of al-Fashqa, including areas that are within Sudanese territory. Historically, Khartoum has allowed Amhara farmers to conduct business and live in the fertile area as long as they pay taxes and operate under Sudanese laws. In turn, Ethiopia has recognized the land as Sudanese.

Demeke’s spokesman, Dina Mufti, didn’t answer two calls to his mobile phone seeking comment.

The border dispute is straining relations already weakened by an impasse over a giant hydropower dam Ethiopia is building on the main tributary of the Nile River. Sudan and Egypt depend on the flow of the river for fresh water, and both countries want Ethiopia to agree to rules on the filling and operating of the reservoir to safeguard supplies.

Sudan says the border area around al-Fashqa was demarcated under colonial-era treaties dating back to 1902, putting the land firmly inside its international borders.
Mohamed al-Faki Suleiman, a member of Sudan’s transitional government, said Wednesday he’d sought political support from Saudi Arabia in talks he held in Riyadh, Sudan’s state-run SUNA news agency reported. Any eruption of war could affect security in the wider region, including the Red Sea, he said.

Anger in Somalia as sons secretly sent to serve in Eritrea military force

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Ali Jamac Dhoodi thought his son was working as a security guard in Qatar, helping prepare for next year’s soccer World Cup. Then one day last April, officials from Somalia’s National Intelligence Agency arrived with $10,000 in cash.

They told him his son had died – not in Qatar, but in Eritrea, one of the world’s most secretive countries.

“They showed me a picture from their WhatsApp and asked me, ‘do you know this picture and his full name?’ I said, ‘yes he is my son,’” Dhoodi, 48, told Reuters. “They said to me ‘your son died’. I cried.”

They gave him the money, and told him not to ask questions.

Ali’s son was one of three young Somali men whose families told Reuters they had been recruited by Somalia’s federal government for jobs in Qatar, only to surface in Eritrea, where they were sent to serve in a military force against their will. Two other families said their sons had simply disappeared.

The apparent secret recruitment of young Somali men for a fighting force in Eritrea is stirring public anger in Somalia, a poor country where opportunities to work abroad are eagerly sought. Protests erupted last week in the capital Mogadishu and in the towns of Guriel and Galkayo over the missing recruits.

Reports that Eritrean forces have taken part in fighting that broke out in November last year in neighbouring northern Ethiopia – which Eritrea and Ethiopia strongly deny – have led some Somalis to worry their sons may have been sent there.

Asked if Eritrea had recruited Somalis, trained them or sent them to Ethiopia, Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Meskel told Reuters: “This is ludicrous … There is massive disinformation floating around.”

Somali government spokesman Mohamed Ibrahim and Information Minister Osman Dube did not respond to requests for comment on the Somali government’s apparent role in the recruitment, but Ibrahim said no Somalis had been sent to Ethiopia.

The leaders of Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea have been drawing closer together since 2018, after a change of leadership in Ethiopia. Ethiopia and Eritrea, once archenemies, signed a peace deal and have regular high level visits. Somalia – which once accused Eritrea of supporting Islamist rebels – now has friendly relations with its president.

‘A BULLET IS THE REPLY’

Hussein Warsame said his son Sadam, 21, had been recruited for a security job in Qatar in October, 2019. Nothing was heard from him for more than a year. Finally, last November, he phoned from Eritrea.

“We were all shocked to land in Eritrea. We thought we were being flown to Qatar,” he quoted his son as telling him. “Dad, there is no life here, I have not seen food save a lump or slice of bread since I left Somalia in 2019, and when recruits demonstrate or reject orders, a bullet is the reply.”

Sahra Abdikadir, whose son Aqil Hassan Abdi disappeared in 2019 under similar circumstances, told Reuters that he had called in January and said he was in a camp in an unknown location in Eritrea.

Eritrea, a heavily militarised society, has never held elections, has no independent media and forces its citizens into indefinate government service. Former guerrilla leader Isaias Afwerki has been president since 1993.

Somalia has had only limited central government rule since 1991.

Both countries have a history of decades of conflict in the Horn of Africa region, often involving their much larger neighbour Ethiopia.

A regional security analyst who asked not to be identified told Reuters he had learned from conversations with Somali security officials that about 1,000 Somalis had been recruited and taken to Eritrea in at least three groups. One group had returned to Somalia, the second group was unreachable and the third was still in Eritrea.

Reuters was unable to confirm those details.