Essential The Africa the Media Doesn't Tell You About

[Premeditated]

Yes, but some important countries in Africa are getting worse in various ways: Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria etc.

why do yall continuously think Kenya is doing bad when practically all sectors of their economy is growing?

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

why do yall continuously think Kenya is doing bad when practically all sectors of their economy is growing?

Do you read about Kenya's economics? Kenya is broke.

David Ndii: Kenya is Broke

 

[Premeditated]

Do you read about Kenya's economics? Kenya is broke.

David Ndii: Kenya is Broke

I usually try to keep up with east africa's economy

am I suppose to read a passage or video? bout to watch it

 

[The Odum of Ala Igbo]

I usually try to keep up with east africa's economy

am I suppose to read a passage or video? bout to watch it

I'd watch the video.

I'd read this primer:
GREED AND DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR: A primer on dystopian economics

 

[phcitywarrior]

Damn over 90 percent of export revenue comes from oil. The nigerian state is powerless. The country is run by plutocrats

Nigeria has really not been able to implement an effective tax system. If it did, there would be higher government revenue and also, more stringent auditing of government spending by the public.

 

[loyola llothta]

Italy accuses France of fuelling migration by continuously colonizing Africa

Luigi di Maio -- Photo: Bloomberg

Italian deputy prime minister who is also labour and economy minister, Luigi di Maio, has accused France of fuelling migration by continuously colonizing dozens of African countries leaving them impoverished.

He made the remark during a visit to central Italy at the weekend after France criticised Italy for not allowing rescue boats carrying migrants in the Mediterranean to dock following the United Nation’s claim that about 170 migrants were feared drowned in two separate Mediterranean shipwrecks.

“The EU should impose sanctions on France and all countries like France that impoverish Africa and make these people leave, because Africans should be in Africa, not at the bottom of the Mediterranean,” he was quoted by the BBC.

“If people are leaving today it’s because European countries, France above all, have never stopped colonising dozens of African countries,” added the leader of the Five Star Movement (M5S) which is a member of the right-wing ruling coalition that has been described as racist for its strong stance against migrants.

Di Maio’s statement angered France which summoned the Italian ambassador to France, Teresa Castaldo, to the foreign ministry in Paris on Monday.

Di Maio reiterated his statement on Monday following the summoning by saying France would be a failed economy if not for Africa’s help. He also supported the yellow vest protesters in France urging them not to give up, reports BBC.

“France is one of those countries that by printing money for 14 African states prevents their economic development and contributes to the fact that the refugees leave and then die in the sea or arrive on our coasts … If Europe wants to be brave, it must have the courage to confront the issue of decolonisation in Africa,” he said.

Di Maio’s remark follows the strong statements of his colleague deputy prime minister and interior minister, Matteo Salvini, who has in the past referred to African migrant workers in Italy as slaves.

Salvini, who heads the Italian League party that holds a tough stance against immigration, made the racist remark in September 2018, in response to a public statement implying that Italy needed immigrants because the population was ageing.

Last year, Salvini filed a defamation suit against the country’s first black cabinet minister of Congolese descent for calling his far-right party “racist” in 2014.

Cécile Kyenge will face trial in the northern city of Piacenza over comments made in an interview during a social democratic event when she reacted to a photograph posted on social media by Roberto Calderoli, a former senator of the far-right League party depicting her as an orangutan.

The ridiculous lawsuit follows her 2017 victory in a four-year legal battle against an Italian member of the European Parliament, Mario Borghezio who was found guilty of defamation and racial hatred during a radio interview in 2013.

Since the far-right coalition party’s assumption of office in June 2018, racist attacks, especially against African migrant workers, have gone up.

In an attack on June 11, 2018, two Malian refugees who were living in a migrant centre near Caserta, a city north of Naples, were shot from a vehicle by supporters of Matteo Salvini who had shouted slogans in support of him, they told local media.

In August 2018, 32-year-old Senegalese street vendor Cisse Elhadji Diebel was shot three times in Naples by two strangers on a scooter by the central train station. According to Italian weekly L’Espresso, at least 33 attacks were perpetrated across the country in the past two months.

Italians are quick to dismiss racist attacks against African migrants and the police do not ensure justice despite protests regularly sparked by attacks.

Matteo Salvini is behind the blocking of a humanitarian rescue boat carrying 60 migrants rescued off Libya in July 2018. He stated clearly that they were not welcome.

Italy is one of the biggest recipients of migrants arriving in Europe mainly from Africa.

Link:Italy accuses France of fuelling migration by continuously colonizing Africa - Face2Face Africa

 

[loyola llothta]

Embarrassing. Does Burundi lack the means to construct that building?

idk but i know the EU been on they ass the last couple of years

Burundi is a tiny East African nation of 11 million, the fifth poorest in the world, and it’s leaning eastward, building alliances with Russia and China. It is geo-strategically situated, bordering Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east, and the hugely resource rich Democratic Republic of Congo to the west.

A Russian firm won the contract to exploit its nickel reserves, which are probably its most valuable resource. Officials said that the Russian firm offered better terms than its Western competitors.

In May 2015, Russia and China blocked a UN Security Council resolution to censure Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza for seeking another term in office—his second or third, depending on one’s interpretation of the Burundian constitution. Russia’s UN Ambassador, the now deceased Vitaly Churkin, told reporters,

“It’s not the business of the Security Council and the UN Charter to get involved in constitutional matters of sovereign states.”

 

[loyola llothta]

 

[loyola llothta]

Rare cyclone in Africa kills 122 in Mozambique and Malawi after unleashing heavy rains

March 15, 2019

Cyclone Idai destroys parts of Mozambique. Pic credit: Club of Mozambique

Flooding from tropical cyclone Idai, the biggest to hit southern Africa in over a decade, has left 122 people dead in Mozambique and Malawi, with more than 140,000 people displaced, local media reports.

Described as the deadliest weather disaster of 2019, the tropical cyclone made landfall on Thursday evening just north of the port city of Beira in Mozambique.

The strongest winds around the eye were about 160km an hour, blowing from the south across the city, according to Aljazeera.

Cyclone Idai destroys parts of Mozambique. Pic credit: Africa Feeds

The winds left the 530,000 residents of Beira cut off from the outside world on Friday after power cables were destroyed and communications severed, the Eyewitness News reported.

“There is no communication with Beira. Houses and trees were destroyed and pylons downed,” an official at the National Institute of Disaster Management told AFP.

“There was no tsunami-type storm but Beira and Chinde (400 kilometres, 250 miles northeast of Beira on the coast) were badly hit.”

Officials say a hospital and seven schools lost their roofs and four houses were destroyed, adding that efforts were being made to assess the extent of the damage.

Idai cyclone destroys homes. Pic credit: Anouk Delafortrie/Twitter

Evacuations were ordered along coastal regions of the country as the cyclone approached.

“The government has decreed a red alert due to the continuing rains and the approach of the tropical cyclone Idai, expected to reach the country between Thursday to Friday,” the cabinet spokeswoman Ana Comoana earlier said.

Mozambique’s national carrier LAM said on late Wednesday that it was cancelling all flights to Beira and Quelimane, which is also on the coast, as well as to Chomoio, which is inland.

Many passengers were, however, not aware of the cancellations, leaving scores of them stranded at Maputo International Airport, reports Eyewitness News.

Prior to the cyclone’s most recent landfall, Al Jazeera reported that at least 66 people were killed in Mozambique, 45 in Malawi and four in South Africa following torrential rains that brought in its wake flash floods.

The floods in Mozambique have already destroyed 5,756 homes, affecting 15,467 households and 141,325 people, the report added. In neighbouring Malawi, the government declared a state of emergency after 56 people died and hundreds of thousands were displaced by flooding, the Evening Standard reported.

Now considered the deadliest weather disaster of 2019, Idai is expected to bring highly destructive winds, heavy rains in excess of two feet and a 20-foot storm surge, according to The Weather Channel.

As it moves inland on Friday, the weather system will weaken but may result in significant rainfall and widespread flooding over the Sofala and Manica provinces, the extreme eastern parts of Zimbabwe and southern parts of Malawi, the South African Weather Service said.

Mozambique experienced deadly floods amidst devastating hurricanes in the past, including 2000 and 2007, Reuters said. About 350 people died, and over 650,000 displaced when Cyclone Eline hit the country in February 2000.

South African charity, Gift of the Givers, had earlier warned of “substantial devastation with massive flooding both from river and sea” when Idai made landfall.

An article on The Conversation in November 2018 had also warned Southern African governments to brace themselves for more tropical cyclones in future.

“Coastal buildings, roads and bridges need to be built to withstand the high wind speeds, heavy rainfall and possible storm surges to prevent costly damage to infrastructure,” the article suggested.

It also called for improved forecasting systems so that cities and towns can effectively evacuate before a storm makes landfall to avoid any deaths.

Source:

Rare cyclone in Africa kills 122 in Mozambique and Malawi after unleashing heavy rains - Face2Face Africa

 

[loyola llothta]

UN relief cereal causes stir in Uganda as four die of suspected food poisoning

March 22, 2019

Super Cereal, a blended food designed to prevent malnutrition
An investigation has been launched by the World Food Programme and Ugandan government into deaths linked with the distribution of fortified porridge to refugees and people in the northeastern Karamoja region.

Four people – two men, a woman and a child – have died and a further 262 have received treatment after consuming the United Nations food supplement called Super Cereal, The Guardian reports.

Uganda stopped nationwide distribution of the fortified porridge after it was alerted of possible food poisoning among people who consumed the cereal in the northeastern Karamoja.

“A big number of those were hospitalized with mental confusion and vomiting,” Ugandan Disaster Preparedness Minister Musa Ecweru said Monday.

Victims include children younger than five, the VOA reports.

The investigation comes a month after the World Food Programme (WFP) found that its stocks of Super Cereal were of poor quality, though maintaining it had no safety issues.

The autopsies of two people had not been able to determine the cause of death, the Ugandan Health ministry said, adding that further toxicological tests would be conducted.

Authorities have so far sent samples of the cereal, allegedly procured from Turkey, to laboratories in Kenya and South Africa for testing.

The WFP said Super Cereal “aims to improve nutrition among pregnant or breastfeeding women by preventing stunting or treating life-threatening malnutrition.”

About 47,000 women and children in Karamoja and 102,000 refugees in 13 hosting districts across Uganda receive Super Cereals supplements under the government’s maternal child health and nutrition programme, which WFP implements, according to The Guardian.

The WFP said it carried out all the required quality controls before the purchase and distribution of the cereal. The Uganda National Bureau of Standards had also inspected the product to ensure that it met international standards.

“We are still puzzled about this localised situation [contamination]. The concentration of sickness is just in two districts out of the eight that Super Cereal is distributed,” El Khidir Daloum, WFP’s country director for Uganda was quoted by The Guardian.

“We did a complete due diligence for the supply. Our motive is to save lives with quality food.”

About 1.2 million refugees who are mostly from neighbouring South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are being hosted in Uganda.

The country’s health ministry said the WFP is working with district authorities to retrieve all Super Cereal stocks from communities and health centres.

Meanwhile, aid agencies are still giving out food relief to refugees and people in Karamoja where human welfare, living conditions and quality of life of the people have declined.

These have been attributed to environmental issues, poor health and infrastructure, insecurity, and chronic food shortage as an estimated 20% of Karamoja’s population is facing a food crisis, said a Uganda food security outlook report.

At the moment, much of Karamoja remain heavily dependent on aid from the United Nations World Food Programme and other agencies.

UN relief cereal causes stir in Uganda as four die of suspected food poisoning - Face2Face Africa

 

[loyola llothta]

The CFA Franc: French Monetary Imperialism in Africa

Ndongo Samba Sylla argues that the CFA franc – officially created on 26 December 1945 by a decree of General de Gaulle – used across much of Africa today is a colonial relic. For those hoping to export competitive products, obtain affordable credit, work for the integration of continental trade, or fight for an Africa free from imperialist control, the CFA franc is an anachronism demanding orderly and methodical elimination.

On 11 August 2015, speaking at the celebrations marking the 55th anniversary of the independence of Chad, President Idriss Deby declared, ‘we must have the courage to say there is a cord preventing development in Africa that must be severed.’ The ‘cord’ he was referring to is now over 71 years old. It is known by the acronym ‘CFA franc’.

The pillars of the CFA franc

Like other colonial empires – the UK, with its sterling zone; or Portugal, with its escudo zone, France had its franc zone. The CFA franc – orginally the French African Colonial franc – was officially created on 26 December 1945 by a decree of General de Gaulle. It is a colonial currency, born of France’s need to foster economic integration among the colonies under its administration, and thus control their resources, economic structures and political systems.


Image: Antonio Medina via The Corner EU (Francophone Africa: The Polemic Over the CFA Franc - The Corner)

Post-independence the CFA franc was redesignated: for the eight members of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) – Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo – it became the African Financial Community franc; for the six members of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CAEMC) – Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Chad – the Central African Financial Cooperation franc. The two zones possess economies of equal size (each representing 11 per cent of GDP in sub-Saharan Africa). The two currencies, however, are not inter-convertible.

As established by the monetary accords between African nations and France, the CFA franc has four main pillars:

Firstly, a fixed rate of exchange with the euro (and previously the French franc) set at 1 euro = 655.957 CFA francs. Secondly, a French guarantee of the unlimited convertibility of CFA francs into euros. Thirdly, a centralisation of foreign exchange reserves. Since 2005, the two central banks – the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) and the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) – have been required to deposit 50 per cent of their foreign exchange reserves in a special French Treasury ‘operating account’. Immediately following independence, this figure stood at 100 per cent (and from 1973 to 2005, at 65 per cent).

This arrangement is a quid pro quo for the French ‘guarantee’ of convertibility. The accords stipulate that foreign exchange reserves must exceed money in circulation by a margin of 20 per cent. Before the fall in oil prices, the money supply coverage rate (the ratio of foreign exchange reserves to money in circulation) consistently approached 100 per cent, implying in theory that Africans could dispense with the French ‘guarantee’. The final pillar of the CFA franc, is the principle of free capital transfer within the franc zone.

The CFA franc: for and against

Despite its exceptional longevity, the CFA franc by no means enjoys unanimous support among African economists and intellectuals. Its critics base their analysis on three separate arguments. Firstly, they condemn the absence of monetary sovereignty. France holds a de facto veto on the boards of the two central banks within the CFA franc zone. Since the reform of the BCEAO in 2010, the conduct of monetary policy has been assigned to a monetary policy committee. The French representative is a voting member of this committee, while the president of the WAEMU Commission attends only in an advisory capacity. Given the fixed rate of exchange between the CFA franc and the euro, the monetary and exchange rate policies of the franc zone nations are also dictated by the European Central Bank, whose monetary orthodoxy entails an anti-inflation bias detrimental to growth.

Secondly, they focus on the economic impact of the CFA franc, construed as a neocolonial device that continues to destroy any prospect of economic development in user nations. According to this perspective, the CFA franc is a barrier to industrialisation and structural transformation, serving neither to stimulate trade integration between user nations, nor boost bank lending to their economies. The credit-to-GDP ratio stands around 25% for the WAEMU zone, and 13% for the CAEMC zone, but averages 60%+ for sub-Saharan Africa, and 100%+ for South Africa etc. The CFA franc also encourages massive capital outflows. In brief, membership of the franc zone is synonymous with poverty and under-employment, as evidenced by the fact that 11 of its 15 adherents are classed as Least Developed Countries (LDCs), while the remainder (Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon) have all experienced real-term economic decline.

Finally, they maintain that membership of the franc zone is inimical to the advance of democracy. To uphold the CFA franc, it is argued, France has never hesitated to jettison heads of state tempted to withdraw from the system. Most were removed from office or killed in favour of more compliant leaders who cling to power come hell or high water, as shown by the CAEMC nations and Togo. Economic development is impossible in such circumstances, as is the creation of a political system that meets the preoccupations of the majority of citizens.

For its partisans, in contrast, the underlying logic of the CFA franc lies not in neocolonialism, but in monetary cooperation. The under-development of the franc zone nations is attributed to factors independent of their monetary and exchange policies, in particular to their political instability and the poor economic policies of their leaders.

The CFA franc is characterised as a credible and stable currency, a significant virtue given the experience of most currency-issuing African nations. This counter-argument is, however, flawed: experience shows that nations like Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, which post independence withdrew from the franc zone and mint their own currency, are stronger economically than any user of the CFA franc.

It is also claimed that the CFA franc has allowed inflation to be pegged at a rate considerably lower than the African average. For its critics, however, the counterpart of this low inflation rate is weak economic growth and the creation of fewer jobs. Not to mention that this low average inflation rate does not prevent cities like Dakar from ranking among the most ‘expensive’ in the world.

In fact, the terms of the debate are quite simple. The CFA franc is a good currency for those who benefit from it: the major French and overseas corporations, the executives of the zone’s central banks, the elites wishing to repatriate wealth acquired legally or otherwise, heads of state unwilling to upset France etc. But for those hoping to export competitive products, obtain affordable credit, find work, work for the integration of continental trade, or fight for an Africa free from colonial relics, the CFA franc is an anachronism demanding orderly and methodical elimination.

From forbidden topic to emerging social movement

In October 2016, a group of African and European economists published a book entitled [in translation] Liberate Africa from Monetary Slavery: Who Profits from the CFA Franc? The date was not selected at random; it coincided with a meeting of the franc zone’s finance ministers, central bank governors and regional institutions. In the wake of the public debate sparked by the book, people are beginning to speak out.

France maintains the position that the CFA franc is an ‘African currency’, existing only as a support to Africans, who retain their ‘sovereignty’. Some heads of state, like Alassane Ouattara in Côte d’Ivoire and Macky Sall in Senegal take the same line. Unlike Idriss Déby, Macky Sall describes the CFA franc as ‘a currency worth keeping’. Ouattara goes further, insisting that the currency is a matter for experts and thus not a subject for democratic debate. From this standpoint, any critic of the CFA franc must by definition know nothing about it.

Yet, alongside radical economists and intellectuals, the critics of the CFA franc also include former international officials like Togo’s Kako Nubukpo (ex-BCEAO), Senegal’s Sanou Mbaye (ex-African Development Bank, and Guinea-Bissau’s Carlos Lopez (ex-UN Economic Commission for Africa), as well as African bankers like Henri-Claude Oyima (President-Director General of BGFI Bank).

From a taboo subject raised only by a handful of African intellectuals and politicians, the CFA franc debate is starting to enter day-to-day conversation and to attract the attention of activists. A social movement is developing to demand the joint withdrawal of African nations from the CFA franc. On 7 January 2017, on the initiative of ‘SOS Pan-Africa’ (‘Urgences Panafricanistes’), an NGO set up and run by the activist Kemi Séba, anti-CFA demonstrations were organised in several African and European cities, and in Haïti. The mobilisations varied in size according to country, bringing together intellectuals, pan-Africanist and anti-globalisation activists and others. SOS Pan-Africa has since issued a symbolic appeal for Africans to boycott French products.

The current alternative to the CFA franc in West Africa is the joint currency planned for members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The new currency was due to enter circulation in 2015, but this has since been deferred until 2020. The new deadline may or may not be met, but one thing seems increasingly clear: the CFA franc no longer has a future.

This article was first published on the Review of the African Political Economy (ROAPE) blog.

 

[loyola llothta]

Death Toll Reaches 446 in Mozambique After Cyclone Idai
Published 24 March 2019

• 

“We asked Jesus to protect us, so that this does not happen again,” people pray in Mozambique as death toll rises to 446 due to Cyclone Idai.

Cyclone Idai claimed more lives. Mozambique’s death toll rose to 446 from 417, a government minister said Sunday. In Zimbabwe, United Nations agencies have given different tolls of 259 and 154, while in Malawi 56 people died in heavy rains ahead of Idai. The new death toll of all the three countries put the casualty number around 700.


Mozambique’s Land and Environment Minister Celso Correia said the cyclone had affected 531,000 people in his country, with 110,000 people in makeshift camps.

Helicopters and boats have been rescuing some people stranded for days on rooftops and trees.

"We're going to have to wait until the flood waters recede until we know the full expanse of the toll on the people of Mozambique," Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) co-ordinator Sebastian Rhodes Stampa said.

Some survivors have been digging through rubble with their bare hands to search for loved ones, while government and aid agencies have been flying in help.

Cyclone Idai hit Beira, on the Indian Ocean, with winds up to 170 kph (105 mph), before barreling inland to Zimbabwe and Malawi, flattening homes and claiming lives.

Worshippers gathered at battered churches in the Mozambican port of Beira on Sunday, praying for divine protection as the death toll crept up from a cyclone and floods around southern Africa.

“We asked Jesus to protect us, so that this does not happen again,” said congregant and survivor Maria Domingas, 60, who saw trees crashing into her house and water filling her bedroom.

Rhodes Stampa said, “Every day the water recedes we reach more people. Every day the roads open we have better access and we can deliver at more volume and that is the important thing here.”

Death Toll Reaches 446 in Mozambique After Cyclone Idai

 

[loyola llothta]

Boko Haram Attacks. Is Chad Losing Control of the Central African Pivot Space?
March 25, 2019

The geostrategically pivotal Central African country of Chad is dangerously losing control of the region after recent developments despite having one of Africa’s most powerful militaries, with Boko Haram’s deadliest-ever attack against its forces last Friday proving why the government of long-serving leader Idriss Deby depends on being a joint Franco-Zionist protectorate in order to survive, but even that might not be enough to ride out of the wave of change that’s sweeping the region.

Boko Harm Strikes Back

Boko Haram brazenly inflicted its deadliest-ever attack against Chadian forces last Friday after killing 23 soldiers along the northeastern shores of Lake Chad and causing long-serving leader Idriss Deby to replace the chief of staff of his armed forces and two other deputies in response. Most of the world assumed that the regional terrorist group was defeated after a concerted multinational effort by the four countries of the Lake Chad region over the past few years, but the organization is nevertheless very much alive and as dangerous as ever as recent events in Chad and neighboring Niger prove. All of this is somewhat surprising, however, since Chad is regarded as having one of Africa’s most powerful militaries and is even capable of projecting power as far west as Mali as part of the French-led “Operation Barkhane” anti-terrorist mission across the Sahel, making one wonder whether this geostrategically pivotal Central African country is finally losing control of the region after recent developments.

What A Difference A Decade Makes!

The regional security situation used to be markedly different a decade ago than it is today. The state-to-state Hybrid War in Sudan’s Darfur had finally been defused and Chad’s northern and southern flanks were secured by friendly long-serving Libyan and Central African Republic (CAR) strongmen Gaddafi and Bozize respectively. Cameroon, which functions as Chad’s energy and commercial outlet to the rest of the world, was stable under President Biya’s then-uncontested rule, while neither Niger nor Nigeria were seriously threatened by Boko Haram at that point in time.

Nowadays everything is altogether different. Sudan is destabilized from within by an incipient Hybrid War, while Libya has been a failed state and haven for Chadian rebel groups since the 2011 NATO war on the country, though General Haftar is progressively restoring stability there. The Central African Republic is emerging from its previous failed state status of the past half-decade but with Russia replacing the influence of Chad’s French patron there. As for Cameroon, it’s in an unofficial low-intensity state of civil war, while both the Nigerien and Nigerian borderlands have become heated battlefields against Boko Haram.

The Franco-Zionist Protectorate

In the context of the many non-electoral regime changes that have taken place across the continent over the past decade (the “African Spring”) and the deteriorating security environment all along its periphery (both in terms of unconventional challenges like rebels/terrorists and general strategic ones such as Hybrid Wars and Russia’s rising influence in the CAR and Sudan), it’s little wonder that Chad has clung even tighter to its French patron and sought the help of its in-country military forces from time to time. Paris has a history of militarily intervening at crucial moments in order to support its political proxies in the country, which has been Deby for nearly the past three decades since he seized power in a 1990 coup and expanded his nationwide patronage network throughout the entire armed forces.

Still, the neo-imperial policy of Françafrique is under unprecedented strain after suffering enormous strategic setbacks by Russia in the CAR. It’s also seriously challenged by the rising terrorist threats that have emerged in West Africa (specifically Mali) as a direct result of the 2011 NATO War on Libya and which are now spilling over into Burkina Faso and beyond. This could explain why Deby thought it fitting to seek “Israel’s” security assistance in exchange for coming under its joint protectorate influence. The majority-Muslim country broke ranks with most of the “Ummah” by hosting the “Israeli” earlier this year and signing several security, intelligence, and other deals with his political entity. Evidently not having full faith in the long-term prospects of Françafrique, Deby is betting that his government would have better prospects of survival by becoming a Franco-Zionist protectorate instead.

Destabilization Scenarios

Even with the support of both France and “Israel”, Deby might not be able to ride out the wave of change that’s sweeping the region since foreign military assistance might not suffice for dealing with the multifaceted challenges that Chad could potentially face in the near future. Putting aside the serious danger posed by Boko Haram and its increasingly brazen attacks inside of the country within relative proximity to the capital city, there are three interconnected scenarios that could unfold to catalyze a “phased leadership transition”, some of which were touched upon two years ago in the author’s Hybrid War analysis on Chad. These are a worsening of the Cameroonian Hybrid War, the creation of a Color Revolution movement (especially one that gives off the optics of a North-South Muslim-Christian “Clash of Civilizations”), and a “deep state” coup.

To explain, Chad is almost entirely dependent on Cameroon for access to the outside world, so the deteriorating situation in its neighbor could eventually lead to a disruption in trade (especially if Color Revolution unrest paralyzes its main ports) that would immediately spike prices in the landlocked country that’s ignobly regarded as one of the world’s poorest states. This could naturally provoke protests that might quickly turn into a Color Revolution, particularly if the state disproportionately reacts with lethal force and singles out certain ethno-religious communities for punishment. In the worst-case scenario of rapidly spiraling instability, possibly accelerated by an uptick in Boko Haram and rebel attacks during this time, the Chadian “deep state” might conclude that their nation’s interests are best served by initiating a “phased leadership transition” against their elderly leader such as the one underway in Algeria and possibly soon in Sudan too.

Concluding Thoughts

Regardless of what happens in the coming future, it’s undoubtable that Chad has found itself in a more challenging regional security environment than ever before, especially after Boko Haram’s brazen attack last Friday. The country’s de-facto status as a joint Franco-Zionist protectorate might be enough to thwart most conventional and unconventional threats, but would be irrelevant in safeguarding the state if its Cameroonian lifeline is abruptly cut off by a worsening of the Hybrid War in the neighboring nation. The chain reaction of consequences that this could quickly trigger might be enough to bring superficial change to the country, though any “deep state”-driven “phased leadership transition” probably wouldn’t change the substance of the Chadian system or remove France and “Israel’s” influence within it. Rather, it might lead to Chad losing control over the Central African pivot space and refocusing its attention inwards in the aftermath, which could irreversibly alter the regional balance of power in unpredictable ways.

Copyright © Andrew Korybko, Global Research, 2019

 

[phcitywarrior]

Can some one break down the economics of the CFA and it’s limitations? I understand the politics of it, but the economics around its convertibility still puzzles me.

 

[loyola llothta]