SUDAN

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Sudan sends delegation to neighboring countries, bans aviation over state bordering Ethiopia

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Sudan sends delegation to neighboring countries to talk over the country’s border dispute with Ethiopia. 

Sudan’s Transitional Council and the Joint Council of Ministers have decided to visit neighboring countries regarding the country’s border dispute with Ethiopia, Al Ain News reported.

Authorities are reportedly in Cairo, Asmara, Juba and Saudi Arabia to explain the situation.

Lieutenant General Shamsedin Kabashi, a member of the Transitional Federal Council (TFP) is in South Sudan, Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, vice chairman of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Eritrea, Lieutenant General Ibrahim Jabir, a member of the Transitional Federal Council (TFP) in Chad, and Mohammed Faki Suleiman in Saudi Arabia.

Acting Foreign Minister Omar Kemedin, Chief of Intelligence General Jamal Aden Omar, Information Minister Faisal Mohammed Salih and Lieutenant General Sham Il-Dean Kabashi, a member of the Transitional Council, left for Cairo today.

Lt. Gen. Abdulfatah Alburhan visited the Ethiopia-Sudan border. Reportedly, he told members of the defense force that he will not leave the area as it belongs to Sudan.

Aviation banned

On Thursday Sudan announced a ban on civil aviation in the airspace of Al-Qadarif state which borders Ethiopia, citing security reasons, Anadolu Agency reported.

“The Ministry of Defense has sent a decision to the Civil Aviation Authority to prevent flying over the airspace of Al-Qadarif State,” Abdelhafez Abdelrahim, the spokesman for the Sudanese Civil Aviation Authority, told Anadolu Agency.

The decision was based on “security reasons,” he added.

The two East African nations have been locked in a border dispute since December when Sudanese forces crossed into Ethiopia saying they were reclaiming their lands.

Dozens Die in Ethnic Massacre in Troubled Ethiopian Region

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Source: The New York Times | Simon Marks and Declan Walsh

It was the latest of several bloody outbursts over the past year in the western region of Benishangul-Gumuz, along the border with Sudan, where ethnic tensions are running high.

At least 80 people were killed on Tuesday when unidentified gunmen stormed through a village in western Ethiopia in the latest of a series of ethnically driven massacres in the area, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and witnesses said on Wednesday.

The massacre in Benishangul-Gumuz region, along the border with Sudan, is the latest challenge to the regime of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who came to power in 2018 promising to unite Ethiopia but has struggled to contain a growing wave of ethnic violence.

The attacks further threaten the stability of Africa’s second-most populous nation at a time when Mr. Abiy is already embroiled in an escalating conflict in the northern Tigray region, where he launched a major military operation on Nov. 4 that he said was intended to capture defiant local leaders.

Analysts say the campaign in Tigray has hampered Mr. Abiy’s ability to stem clashes like the recent one in Benishangul-Gumuz, because it has forced him to divert soldiers from across Ethiopia to Tigray. As a result, ethnic clashes that had already been growing for months have only gotten worse.

In the latest episode, witnesses said that men of the Gumuz ethnic group, armed with rifles and swords, stormed into Daletti village early Tuesday. Photos from the aftermath of the attack, provided by local activists, showed bloodied bodies of women and children strewn on the ground, many with horrific wounds. They said that many of the victims were ethnic Amharas and Agaws, who are a minority in that region.

“A group of Gumuz men came to our village chanting ‘leave our land,’” said Sebsibie Ibrahim, 36, a shop owner in Metekel district, speaking by phone. “They fired their guns and used swords to attack anyone they came across — women, children, elderly people.”

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In the chaos that followed, houses were torched and an old man was beheaded outside his house, Mr. Sebsibie said. “Blood was flooding from his neck,” he said.

On Dec. 22, Mr. Abiy took time out from the campaign in Tigray to visit Benishangul-Gumuz and calm tensions in the area. But a day later, armed men attacked a village, leaving at least 100 people dead, according to human rights groups.

Aaron Maasho, a spokesman for the government-funded Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, which reported the killings on Wednesday, urged Mr. Abiy to deploy extra security forces to keep the peace in the troubled region.

“For the umpteenth time, we call on the federal and regional authorities to scale up security in Metekel,” he said, referring to the district of Benishangul-Gumuz where the killings took place.

Mr. Abiy’s decision to open up Ethiopian politics after he came to power in 2018, releasing political prisoners and allowing exiles to return, was widely acclaimed. But it also unleashed simmering ethnic tensions.

Benishangul-Gumuz, for example, is home to five major ethnic groups, mostly from the Berta and Gumuz peoples. But the region is also home to minority Amharas, Oromos, Tigrayans and Agaws — a source of escalating tension.

Billene Seyoum, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Abiy, did not respond to questions about the violence.

Dessalegn Chanie, an Amhara opposition politician, said there had been signs in recent days that armed men from the Oromo and Gumuz ethnic groups were preparing an attack, particularly in areas where there was little federal security presence.

“These attacks were premeditated and highly prepared,” he said.

Although Mr. Abiy declared victory in Tigray last month, United Nations officials say the fight continues.

On Wednesday, Ethiopia said its military had killed three senior members of Tigray’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, including Seyoum Mesfin, a former foreign minister of Ethiopia.

Sudan blames Ethiopia for civilian deaths amid fears of new conflict

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Source: The National News

Relations between the two governments, which both field substantial armed forces, are rapidly worsening.

Sudan says government-backed Ethiopian militiamen killed five women and a child during a raid just inside its territory, further fuelling tension in the border region.

On Wednesday, Sudan warned of “dangerous consequences” for bilateral relations after an Ethiopian warplane breached Sudanese airspace in the border area, according to a foreign ministry statement. It did not specify the type of Ethiopian aircraft or say how long it stayed inside Sudanese airspace.

“The Foreign Ministry condemns this escalation by the Ethiopian side and demand that such acts are not repeated in the future,” it said.

Also on Wednesday, a Sudanese military helicopter crashed while attempting to land at an airport in the eastern Qadaref region at the end of what the military said was a reconnaissance mission. The two-man crew, both flight captains, survived the crash, it added without giving more details. It was not immediately clear whether the helicopter crew’s mission was related in any way to the tension on the border with Ethiopia.

Ethiopia’s alleged aerial intrusion came one day after Addis Ababa warned Khartoum that it was running out of patience with its continued military build-up in the border region, an area at the centre of a decades-old territorial dispute.

The two countries have been sharply at odds over a Nile dam being built by Ethiopia.

Ethiopia warned Sudan that it was running out of patience with its continued military build-up in the border region, an area at the centre of a decades-old territorial dispute.

The area in question, Al Fashqa, is within Sudan’s international boundaries, but has long been settled by Ethiopian farmers, and late last year suffered weeks of clashes between forces from the two sides.

“The Sudanese side seems to be pushing in so as to inflame the situation on the ground,” Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman Dina Mufti said on Tuesday. “Is Ethiopia going to start a war? Well, we are saying let’s work on diplomacy.”

On the same day, Sudan’s foreign ministry strongly condemned the militia raid in its eastern breadbasket Qadaref region and called on the international community to work for the cessation of such actions.

It blamed the raid on the Al Shifta militia, an outfit widely believed to enjoy the informal backing of the Ethiopian military.

Two Sudanese women were also missing after the Monday raid, the government said.

Monday’s raid was the latest in a series of violent incidents in recent weeks in the border region. Sudanese troops moved to retake border areas long held by Ethiopia and defended by government-linked militias, who also allegedly operate smuggling rings.

The fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region forced at least 50,000 of its residents to flee their homes and seek refuge in Sudan.

Ethiopia accuses the Sudanese military of infiltrating its territory, saying Sudan was seeking to take advantage of the conflict against separatist rebels in Tigray.

Sudan’s information minister Faisal Saleh denied the Ethiopian charges.

“We fear that these comments contain a hostile position towards Sudan,” Mr Saleh said.

“We ask of Ethiopia to stop attacking Sudanese territory and Sudanese farmers.”

He also said late on Tuesday that a joint committee set up last month to resolve differences over the border has so far failed to make any progress.

Sudan and Ethiopia have long had problems along their porous border, whose demarcation was determined in agreements reached early in the last century. The two countries are bound by close cultural ties but, in various conflicts since the 1950s, both sides have supported rebel groups fighting the other’s government.

The latest round of tension on the Sudanese-Ethiopian border, however, comes at a critical time in relations.

Water wars?

The latest round of tension on the border, however, comes at a critical time in relations.

Sudan is seething over Ethiopia’s recent announcement that it would go ahead with a second filling of the water reservoir behind the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, starting this summer.

According to Addis Ababa, this would happen regardless of whether an agreement on the operation of the dam was reached with downstream Sudan and Egypt. Ethiopia began the initial filling of the dam last summer, without giving prior notice to either Egypt or Sudan.

The nearly complete hydroelectric dam, Africa’s largest, is built less than 20 kilometres from the border with Sudan and on completion, is expected to generate 6,000 megawatts of power.

For Sudan, the absence of co-ordination on the operation of the dam could potentially spell disaster for its eastern region, through flooding and the disablement of its own hydroelectric dams on the Nile. For Egypt, the dam could mean a significant reduction in its vital share of the Nile’s waters, something Cairo says it will not tolerate.

Sudan and Egypt have been trying to persuade Ethiopia to enter a legally binding deal on the operation of the dam as well as agree on mechanisms for resolving future disputes. Ethiopia favours recommendations, rather than a binding deal.

The latest round of negotiations on the dam collapsed this week when Sudan insisted that experts from the African Union be given a greater role in drafting an agreement.

Ethiopia and Egypt rejected the suggestion, insisting the three nations must maintain ownership of the negotiating process.

ISIS, Reborn: The Islamic State’s African Revival is a Lethal Blind Spot

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Source: National Interest | Jordan Cope

With four burgeoning safe havens, ISIS has revived in Sub-Sahara and could be deadlier than ever.

ISIS–

Before 9/11, many forget that Osama Bin Laden largely made a name for himself in Sub-Saharan Africa. In Sudan, he conceived his Islamic Army Shura, laying “the groundwork for a true global terrorist network” known as Al Qaeda.

There, Bin Laden largely began to call for jihad against Western forces and gained the prowess to export terrorism against American targets, hence Al Qaeda’s attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, just two years after his expulsion.

History might just be repeating itself as the West forgets its lessons and again neglects Sub-Sahara’s intensifying terrorism.

The consequences could be grave. Just cue 2019, when a Kenyan Al Qaeda affiliate plotted to hijack a plane and execute a 9/11-style attack.

While the attack was foiled, its scare overshadows a troubled decade, in which Sub-Saharan Africa witnessed an unprecedented resurgence in Islamist groups, with Islamic State (ISIS) affiliates displacing millions while seeking to establish bases in six African countries, and at times, hosting territory the size of Belgium.

Raising further alarm, experts have described 2020 as a breakout year for ISIS affiliates, an unsurprising reality given the attacks that recently claimed fifty in Mozambique and 100 in Niger.

While history echoes, ISIS’s pivot to Africa and new festering hotspots therein could prove more dangerous than those of its Middle Eastern past.

There, ISIS has strategically established territory in cross-border zones. This tactic has allowed it to conduct attacks and disappear across borders, rendering it effectively untouchable to all affected countries—which are amongst the world’s most impoverished and unprepared to dislodge ISIS. Some hotspots also approximate natural resource basins, whose wealth, if seized, could enormously enrich the ISIS network and its capabilities.

Given the implications of inaction—an emboldened ISIS network with multiple safe havens from which it can attack the West—ISIS’s African presence commands greater attention as a top security concern.

Four hot spots warrant attention. First is West Africa, which endures multiple internal insurgencies. Most concerning is that governing Boko Haram whose presence envelopes Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon.

Since 2009, Boko Haram has killed 36,000 and displaced 2.5 million civilians while seeking to establish a caliphate and depose Nigeria’s government. While it coordinated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb post-2010, in 2016, the group splintered, with one faction continuing with allegiance to the Islamic State West Africa Province, and the other remaining steadfast to Abubakar Shekau’s faction.

While Boko Haram’s territory once matched Belgium in size, the group’s division cost territory. Nevertheless, its presence in Nigeria’s Borno state looms large, and its positioning couldn’t be more conveniently located at the crossroads of four countries.

Such positioning has allowed Boko Haram to disappear into Chad. Last year it conducted perhaps the deadliest terrorist attack in the country’s history—killing ninety-two. It also infiltrated Niger, where it claimed twenty-eight lives and razed 800 homes, and Cameroon, where in one attack it killed seventeen.

With Nigeria unable to contain Boko Haram, it remains questionable whether any of the aforementioned countries can do so, especially given their military and economic inferiority. Whereas Nigeria’s military ranks 42nd out of 138 surveyed countries, those of the others rank no higher than 87th.

They also lack financial resources, ranking amongst the world’s poorest. Out of 190 surveyed geographic entities, Nigeria and Cameroon ranked 141st and 145th, while Chad and Niger ranked below 174th in GDP per capita.

Not to mention, Chad, the next best militarily after Nigeria, overcame a recession and had to rely on France to subvert a coup—all just in the last four years. Chad cannot afford this vulnerability as ISIS festers and its southern oil fields beckon, posing a potential lifeline and revenue source for ISIS if captured.

West Africa’s other great insurgency engrosses Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. There, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara has conquered “ungoverned space” where the three “failing” states meet.

With Mali and Burkina Faso ranking no higher than 165th in terms of GDP per capita and 96th in military might, the two likely will not fare better in preempting another impending ISIS safe-haven.

ISIS’s next major hot spot situates East Africa, particularly Mozambique’s northern border with Tanzania, where ISIS affiliates have killed 2,000 and displaced 430,000 civilians since 2017.

In Mozambique, the Islamic State in the Central African Province has captured “four tourist islands,” and Mocimboa da Praia, a port in the state of Cabo Delgado, which straddles Tanzania and boasts tremendous resource wealth—natural gas and ruby reserves approximating $50 billion in value—that if seized could enrich ISIS’s network.

ISIS has also used this position to infiltrate Tanzania, hence its October invasion, where 300 fighters killed twenty before retreating to Mozambique.

Mozambique and Tanzania’s economies and militaries rank inferior to those of Nigeria’s, suggesting that the two might struggle to suppress this third prospective safe-haven.

Quickly deserving mention is the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF)—a group with suspected ISIS-links—and its stronghold over the mountains straddling the DRC and Uganda, from Rwenzori to Ituri, where “[m]uch of the [DRC’s] gold is mined.”

While the Salafist organization has existed since 1995, it has become rather deadly recently, killing 800 Congolese civilians in 2020. While the DRC’s military ranks 71st, its economy ranks amongst the poorest, 185th.

If left unchecked, the ADF could become another asset in ISIS’s portfolio, granting ISIS pivotal access to another cross-border zone, to invaluable gold mines, and to a foothold in the DRC—the world’s most endowed per resource wealth.

With four burgeoning safe havens, ISIS has revived in Sub-Sahara and could be deadlier than ever. Embedding at the cross borders of failing countries, ISIS has achieved near untouchability. With no Sub-Saharan government able to contain its expansion in a resource-rich area, the West, whatever its response, must urgently react before ISIS can multiply its capabilities and international reach to an unparalleled degree. Let us not forget the lessons of Sudan.

 

Jordan Cope is a fellow for Middle East Forum’s Islamist Watch project. He is also regarded as an expert in the Middle East. Follow him on Twitter.

Image: Nigerian soldiers hold up a Boko Haram flag that they had seized in the recently retaken town of Damasak, Nigeria, March 18, 2015. Reuters/Emmanuel Braun.

Sudan says Ethiopian military plane crossed its border

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Ethiopia denies Sudan’s claim, which it said was a ‘dangerous escalation’ in the border dispute between both sides.

Sudan says an Ethiopian military aircraft entered its airspace in “a dangerous escalation” to a border dispute that has seen deadly clashes in recent weeks.

“In a dangerous and unjustified escalation, an Ethiopian military aircraft penetrated the Sudanese-Ethiopian borders,” Sudan’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that the move “could have dangerous ramifications and cause more tension in the border region”.

The ministry also warned Ethiopia against repeating “such hostilities”.

An Ethiopian military spokesman, General Mohamed Tessema, told the AFP news agency he had no “tangible information” on Sudan’s allegations and the situation at the border was “normal” on Wednesday.

Separately, a Sudanese military helicopter, loaded with weapons and ammunition, crashed on Wednesday shortly after taking off from an airport in an eastern province that borders Ethiopia, according to the state-run Sudan News Agency (SUNA).

“A military helicopter crashed at Wad Zayed airport in Gedarif State … when the crew tried to land the plane shortly after taking off,” SUNA reported.

The report said the plane caught fire after hitting the ground, adding that “all three members of the crew survived”.

High tensions

Tensions have been running high between the two countries over the Al-Fashaqa region, where Ethiopian farmers cultivate fertile land claimed by Sudan.

Al-Fashaqa region – which has seen sporadic clashes over the years – borders Ethiopia’s troubled Tigray region where deadly conflict erupted in November between Ethiopia’s federal and Tigray’s regional forces.

In December last year, Sudan accused Ethiopian “forces and militias” of ambushing its troops along the border, leaving four dead and more than 20 wounded.

Ethiopia said Sudanese military forces “organised attacks … using heavy machine guns” in December last year.

On Tuesday, Addis Ababa claimed Sudanese forces were pushing further into the border region and warned that while it “gives priority to peace”, it has “its limit”.

In response, Sudan’s information minister and government spokesman Faisal Mohamed Saleh said Khartoum did not want war with Ethiopia but its forces would respond to any aggression.

Khartoum also accused Ethiopian armed men of killing five women and a child on Monday in the area, calling it a “brutal aggression”.

The two sides held border talks last month, and Sudan declared its army had restored control over all border territory that had been taken over by Ethiopian farmers.

The border dispute comes at a sensitive time between the two countries, who along with Egypt have recently hit another impasse in talks over the massive Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile River.

 

Source: Al Jazeera and News Agencies

 

Sudanese helicopter crashes near Ethiopian border

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Sudanese helicopter crashes near Ethiopian border, crew members survived.

A Sudanese military helicopter crashed in the border region with Ethiopia, all crew members survived, the official SUNA news agency reported on Wednesday.

The military helicopter crashed after taking off from Wad Zayed airport in the state of Gedarif, which borders Ethiopia.

“The crew tried to land the plane shortly after taking off but the plane hit the ground and set on fire,” the news agency said, adding that the three crew members survived.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Talks Over Ethiopia’s GERD Reached A Deadlock

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Talks Over Ethiopia’s Nile Dam Hit Another Deadlock, Egypt Says Bloomberg

Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia failed to agree on the way forward for talks on Ethiopia’s giant dam on a Nile River tributary, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The matter is being referred back to the chairman of the African Union, which is mediating the discussions, the ministry and Sudan’s state news agency SUNA both said.

 

Renaissance Dam talks resume after Sudanese blockage Arab News

The Sudanese delegation said it demanded a comprehensive agreement that addresses all issues related to the dam. It also said that the AU should play a more effective leadership role in the negotiation.

Egyptian Minister of Irrigation Mohamed Abdel Aty met with the US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin last week to review negotiations on the GERD and Egypt’s desire to complete the negotiations.

 

GERD negotiations reach a dead-end. Ahram-Online

“Sudan insisted on the necessity of delegating the African Union appointed experts to present solutions to the disputed issues in the talks and to elaborate on the GERD agreement; something which both Egypt and Ethiopia rejected because the negotiation process, as well as the right to draft the texts and provisions of the filling and operating agreement of the GERD, are fundamental rights for the three countries,” said the Egyptian statement.

“We cannot continue this vicious cycle of round talks indefinitely, considering that the GERD represents a direct threat to the Roseires Dam, which has a reservoir capacity less than 10% of the GERD’s capacity if the filing and the operations of the GERD starts without an agreement and daily exchange of information,” said Sudanese Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources Yasser Abbas.

 

Sudan refuses to split GERD negotiations into two agreements. LomaZoma

Sudan refused Sunday to split agreements on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), for the first filling and permanent operation as two separate agreements.

“Sudan does not tolerate nor can it bear to proceed with endless negotiations, without results or solutions,” Abbas said.

 

Nile dam row: Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan fail to reach consensus on negotiation mechanism MENAFN

Sudan insisted on the need for mandated experts designated by the African Union (AU) to propose solutions to the contentious issues under negotiation, and to draft an agreement.

Both Egypt and Ethiopia rejected the Sudanese proposal, as they stressed the right of the three parties to formulate the agreement. This is especially as the AU experts have no experience in the technical issues related to the project.

The meeting concluded that the South Africa’s representative would submit a report to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, on the outcomes of the talks to consider the coming step.

Why Ethiopia and Sudan have fallen out over al-Fashaga

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Source: BBC | Alex de Waal, African Analyst

 

The armed clashes along the border between Sudan and Ethiopia are the latest twist in a decades-old history of rivalry between the two countries, though it is rare for the two armies to fight one another directly over territory.

The immediate issue is a disputed area known as al-Fashaga, where the north-west of Ethiopia’s Amhara region meets Sudan’s breadbasket Gedaref state.

Although the approximate border between the two countries is well-known – travellers like to say that Ethiopia starts when the Sudanese plains give way to the first mountains – the exact boundary is rarely demarcated on the ground.

Colonial-era treaties

Borders in the Horn of Africa are fiercely disputed. Ethiopia fought a war with Somalia in 1977 over the disputed region of the Ogaden.

In 1998 it fought Eritrea over a small piece of contested land called Badme.

About 80,000 soldiers died in that war which led to deep bitterness between the countries, especially as Ethiopia refused to withdraw from Badme town even though the International Court of Justice awarded most of the territory to Eritrea.

It was reoccupied by Eritrean troops during the fighting in Tigray in November 2020.

After the 1998 war, Ethiopia and Sudan revived long-dormant talks to settle the exact location of their 744km-long (462 miles) boundary.

The most difficult area to resolve was Fashaga. According to the colonial-era treaties of 1902 and 1907, the international boundary runs to the east.

This means that the land belongs to Sudan – but Ethiopians had settled in the area and were cultivating there and paying their taxes to Ethiopian authorities.

‘Deal condemned as secret bargain’

Negotiations between the two governments reached a compromise in 2008. Ethiopia acknowledged the legal boundary but Sudan permitted the Ethiopians to continue living there undisturbed.

It was a classic case of a ‘soft border’ managed in a way that did not let the location of a ‘hard border’ disrupt the livelihoods of people in the border zone; there was coexistence for decades until just now, when a definitive sovereign line was demanded by Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian delegation to the talks that led to the 2008 compromise was headed by a senior official of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Abay Tsehaye.

After the TPLF was removed from power in Ethiopia in 2018, ethnic Amhara leaders condemned the deal as a secret bargain and said they had not been properly consulted.

Each side has its own story of what sparked the clash in Fashaga. What happened next is not in dispute: the Sudanese army drove back the Ethiopians and forced the villagers to evacuate.

At a regional summit in Djibouti on 20 December, Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok raised the matter with his Ethiopian counterpart Abiy Ahmed.

They agreed to negotiate, but each has different preconditions. Ethiopia wants the Sudanese to compensate the burned-out communities; Sudan wants a return to the status quo ante.

While the delegates were talking, there was a second clash, which the Sudanese have blamed on Ethiopian troops.

As with most border disputes, each side has a different analysis of history, law, and how to interpret century-old treaties. But it is also a symptom of two bigger issues – each of them unlocked by Mr Abiy’s policy changes.

Territorial claims in Tigray

The Ethiopians who inhabit Fashaga are ethnic Amhara – a constituency that Mr Abiy increasingly hitched his political wagon to after losing significant support in his Oromo ethnic group, the largest in Ethiopia. Amharas are the second largest group in Ethiopia and its historic rulers.

Emboldened by the federal army’s victories in the conflict against the TPLF over the last two months, the Amhara are making territorial claims in Tigray.

After the TPLF retreated, pursued by Amhara regional militia, they hoisted their flags and put up road signs that said “welcome to Amhara”. This was in lands claimed by Amhara state but allocated to Tigray in the 1990s when the TPLF was in power in Ethiopia.

The Fashaga conflict follows the same pattern of claiming sovereignty – except that it is not about Ethiopia’s internal boundaries, but the border with a neighbouring state.

The failure to resolve it peacefully is the indirect result of another of Mr Abiy’s policy reversals: Ethiopia’s foreign relations. For 60 years, Ethiopia’s strategic aim was to contain Egypt, but a year ago Mr Abiy reached out a hand of friendship.

The two countries each regard the River Nile as an existential question.

Egypt sees upstream dams as a threat to its share of the Nile waters, established in colonial era treaties. Ethiopia sees the river as an essential source of hydroelectric power, needed for its economic development.

The dispute came to a head over the construction of the huge Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (Gerd).

The bedrock of the Ethiopian foreign ministry’s hydro-diplomacy used to be a web of alliances among the other upstream African countries.

The aim was to achieve a multi-country comprehensive agreement on sharing the Nile waters. In this forum, Egypt was outnumbered.

Sudan was in the African camp. It was set to gain from the Gerd, which would control flooding, increase irrigation, and provide cheaper electricity.

Egypt wanted straightforward bilateral talks with the aim of preserving its colonial-era entitlement to the majority of the Nile waters.

In October 2019, Mr Abiy flew to the Russia-Africa summit at Sochi. On the side-lines he met Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi.

In a single meeting, with no foreign ministry officials present, Mr Abiy upended Ethiopia’s Nile waters strategy.

He agreed to Mr Sisi’s proposal that the US treasury should mediate the dispute on the Gerd. The US leaned towards Egypt.

If the young Ethiopian leader, who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending tensions with Eritrea, thought he could also secure a deal with Egypt, he was wrong. The opposite happened: the 44-year-old cornered himself.

Sudan was the third country invited to negotiate in Washington DC. Vulnerable to US pressure because it desperately needed America to lift financial sanctions imposed when it was designated a “state sponsor of terrorism” in 1993, Sudan fell in with the Egyptian position.

Ethiopian public opinion turned against the American proposals and Mr Abiy was forced to reject them, after which the US suspended some aid to Ethiopia. US President Donald Trump warned that Egypt might “blow up” the dam, and Ethiopia declared a no-fly zone over the region where the dam is located.

‘Pattern of mutual destabilisation’

The Nobel laureate can ill-afford further disputes with Egypt, amidst the conflict in Tigray and the clashes in Fashaga. The latter raise the ghosts of a long history of rivalry between Ethiopia and Sudan.

In the 1980s, Communist Ethiopia armed Sudanese rebels while Sudan aided ethno-nationalist armed groups, including the TPLF. In the 1990s, Sudan supported militant Islamist groups while Ethiopia backed the Sudanese opposition.

With armed clashes and unrest in many parts of Ethiopia, and Sudan’s recent peace deal with rebels in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains still incomplete, each country could readily return to this age-old pattern of mutual destabilisation.

Relations between Sudan and Ethiopia reached their warmest when Mr Abiy flew to Khartoum in June 2019 to encourage pro-democracy protesters and the Sudanese generals to come to agreement on a civilian government following the overthrow of long-term ruler Omar al-Bashir.

It was a characteristic Abiy initiative – high profile and wholly individual – and it needed formalization through the regional body Igad and the diplomatic heavy lifting of others, including the African Union, Arab countries, the US and UK to achieve results.

Sudan Prime Minister Hamdok has tried to return the favour by offering assistance in resolving Ethiopia’s conflict in Tigray. He was rebuffed, most recently at the 20 December summit, at which Mr Abiy insisted that the Ethiopian government would deal with its internal affairs on its own.

As refugees from Tigray continue to flood into Sudan, bringing with them stories of atrocities and hunger, the Ethiopian prime minister may find it more difficult to reject mediation.

He also risks igniting a new round of cross-border antagonism between Ethiopia and Sudan, deepening the crisis in the region.

Russia Opening Major Military Base in Sudan

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Source: Military Watch Magazine

The announcement of plans for the establishment of a Russian naval base on Sudan’s east coast, which has reportedly been under consideration since 2017 but is thought to have been delayed by a Western backed coup in the African country in April 2019, has given are grounds for speculation that Russia could be planning to reestablish a stronger naval presence overseas by opening further facilities in other vital theatres. Late in 2017 the Head of the Russian Defense and Security Committee Viktor Bondarev suggested that Moscow could consider restoring its military presences in Cuba and Vietnam, referring to these countries as Russia’s “historical partners” on the basis that both hosted Soviet military facilities during the Cold War and relied heavily on Soviet support to counter Western threats. Bondarev stated that restoring the country’s military presence was in the “interests of international security,” as a result of “intensified U.S. aggression.”

Russia’s only foreign military facilities outside the former Soviet Union are in Syria, where the country maintains both a key naval base on the Mediterranean Sea in Latakia province, and the nearby Khmemim Airbase which was established in September 2015 to facilitate a contribution to the Syrian government’s war effort. Facilities in Sudan are expected o be ambitious in size, according to the recently released plans, and will have a capacity for 300 military and civilian personnel and four ships including nuclear vessels, indicating that Moscow is willing to invest in such projects to enhance its maritime power projection capabilities and boost its overseas presence. Facilities in Vietnam and Cuba however would allow Russia to project power to strategically critical regions, the former being the most hotly contested and arguably the most strategically critical in the world today, and the latter placing Russian assets near the American coast – and in a strong position to support nearby Venezuela and Bolivia which are important strategic partners. With Russia gently rebalancing its military towards a greater focus on East Asia, Vietnam is a potentially ideal host for historical, political and geographic reasons. Neither China nor North Korea are expected to allow any permanent foreign military presence on their soil, and facilities on Russian territory are effectively boxed in by the Japanese islands, where there is a heavy U.S. presence, which impede open access to the Pacific.

Regarding to the potential for future foreign military facilities, Victor Bondarev stated: “I believe under the condition of increased tension in the world and frank intervention in the internal affairs of other countries – Russia’s historical partners – our return to Latin America is not ruled out. Of course, this should be coordinated with the Cubans… We should also think about our Navy’s return to Vietnam with the permission of the [Vietnamese] government.” He stressed that such steps would be effective responses to increased U.S. assertiveness in both regions. Bondarev has been far from alone in calls for such action, with his statement coming just hours after the first deputy chairman of the Russian parliament’s upper chamber’s Defense and Security Committee, Frants Klintsevich, called for a reopening of military facilities in Cuba specifically. Given the generally low endurance of post-Soviet Russian surface warships, which are no heaver than frigates, the existence of overseas bases is particularly highly valued. Russia’s most heavily armed Soviet era warships, the Kirov Class nuclear powered battlecruisers, are currently undergoing a comprehensive and very ambitious refurbishment which will allow them to deploy considerable force for port visits across much of the world as required – with these having a higher endurance than any surface combatant fielded by any other country.

In 2016 Russian lawmakers Valery Rushkin and Sergei Obukhov submitted a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu calling on them to consider the restoration of overseas military bases. This development came two years after the Crimean crisis and the sharp deterioration of relations with the West, and following the establishment of Khmeimim Airbase and beginning of a successful military campaign in Syria in 2015. Amid growing tensions with the Western Bloc, and in light of Russia’s expanding roles in both the Pacific and South America, such plans may well come to fruition – in particular if the upcoming U.S. administration recommits the United States to the Pivot to Asia initiative. A Russian military presence would shift the balance of power in both regions significantly against the favour of Western interests, and whether the facilities are naval or air bases they are likely to deploy a number asymmetric military assets such as hypersonic missiless to compensate for a smaller presence. In Vietnam in particular, it would also provide opportunities for more joint military exercises and potentially increase the appeal of more Russian arms purchases for the Vietnamese military – which is considered a leading client for several next generation weapons systems.

 

Russia Planning Major Naval Base in Sudan

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Source: Military Watch Magazine

New Facility to Service Nuclear Assets

The Russian Defence Ministry is planning to build a naval base on Sudan’s east coast, which would provide the Navy with its second overseas facility after the one on Syria’s  Tartus following the closure of bases in Cuba and Vietnam. The facility was referred to as a “logistical support centre” where “repairs and resupply operations and rest for crew members” can take place, with a draft agreement already having been signed. The facility would have a capacity for 300 military and civilian personnel and four ships, and would be able to accommodate nuclear vessels, making it significantly larger than the Syrian facility at least before its wartime expansion after 2016. It remains uncertain what kind of warships the facility is deigned to accommodate, and whether heavier warships such as battlecruisers will also be accommodated. The base will be located on the northern outskirts of Port Sudan, and Russia will also gain the right to transport “weapons, ammunition and equipment” for the base through Sudanese ports and airports.

Russian Navy Slava Class Missile Cruiser | Military Watch Magazine

 

Sudan’s military establishment has maintained close defence ties with Russia, despite a Western-backed coup in the country in April 2019 ousting the longtime President Omar Al Bashir who was closely aligned with Moscow. Under Al Bashir’s rule Sudan and Russia were discussing the possibility of a naval base from at least late 2017, alongside the potential sale of advanced Su-30SM and Su-35 fighters to the Sudanese Air Force. Al Bashir had personally appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin in a visit to Moscow in 2017 to help support Sudan against ongoing Western efforts to partition the country through subversion. Sudan has faced serious political and economic crises since the coup, with the country’s political future highly uncertain. The draft agreement for the naval facility stipulates that its establishment “meets the goals of maintaining peace and stability in the region, is defensive and is not aimed against other countries,” with Sudanese forces maintaining the right to use the mooring area. The deal will stand for 25 years after its signing, and could represent a game changer for the balance of power in the Red Sea as Russia establishes a sizeable military presence in the area. Such a development could also give more clout to Sudan’s military establishment, which is thought to be seeking to contain the empowerment of pro-Western elements in the country