Essential The Africa the Media Doesn't Tell You About

[Sinnerman]

How Mozambique's corrupt elite caused tragedy in the North

It suits Mozambique's President Filipe Nyusi’s government that the Islamic State rebel group claims it organised the attack in late March of this year on Palma –– it helps distract from the crime and corruption at the heart of the problem.

Things have turned out quite differently for Mozambique; after a gruelling civil war that dragged into the 1990s, the award-winning president Joaquim Chissano and his team of young technocrats like prime minister Luisa Diogo worked to turn the country around. IMF resident representative Felix Fischer told this author in 2009 that Mozambique’s post-conflict bounce-back was “Vietnam-like” in its trajectory.

There were new mining and energy projects, a smelter that had brought back international capital, a useful balance of Chinese infrastructure and European budget support. Tourists flooded over the border from South Africa. The economy was creating jobs.

With the arrival of President Armando Guebuza – an authoritarian Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo) party general – in 2004, the technocratic faction of the party shrank, and those linked to the military grew.

‘Mr Gue-Business’, as he was nicknamed, heralded an uptick in elite self-enrichment and also the beginning of a more confrontational attitude towards northern Mozambique.

The H train
Drug trafficking was already a huge problem in Mozambique – a country which, according to César Guedes of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), can barely manage its own maritime security, “let alone prevent international crime syndicates operate across its 3,600km of coastline”.

A leaked US diplomatic cable in 2010 explained: “Despite anti-corruption rhetoric, the ruling Frelimo party has not shown much serious political will to combat narcotrafficking.”

“Mohamed Bashir Suleman (‘the other MBS’), described as the largest narcotrafficker in Mozambique, has direct ties to President Guebuza and former president Chissano. Other traffickers bribe both high and low level officials. Chief of customs Domingos Tivane is a significant recipient of these narcotrafficking-related bribes. Police officials told Embassy officers that they are unwilling to go after “big fish” narcotraffickers because of their ties to senior officials.”

Joe Hanlon on Mozambique: Why were the 'experts' surprised by the occupation of Palma?

Guebuza’s protegé Celso Correira (now minister for land and rural development, and campaign manager for President Nyusi) took over management of the Nacala Port, identified as a key channel for much of the illicit cargo that comes in and out of Mozambique. Then the biggest narcotrafficker, MBS was the number-one financier of the ruling party, according to US diplomats.

The amounts trafficked are eye watering. In 2018, London-based academic and former international correspondent in Mozambique Joseph Hanlon published a paper called ‘The Uberization of Mozambique’s heroin trade’. In it, he estimated some $600m-800m of heroin transited through Mozambique annually, with $100m used to bribe members of Frelimo.

READ MORE Mozambique needs gains in security and corruption in north to develop LNG

“Mozambique is part of a complex chain which forms the East African heroin network. Heroin goes from Afghanistan to the Makran coast of Pakistan, and is taken by dhow to northern Mozambique. There, the Mozambican traffickers take it off the dhows and move it more than 3,000km by road to Johannesburg, and from there others ship it to Europe,” wrote Hanlon.

Boatloads of cash
It is not just drugs. In the dog days of the Guebuza administration, when he was trying to change the constitution to allow a third term, the politically connected elite pulled off an even greater heist.

This time it was robbing the treasury in Maputo. In 2014, a secret $850m loan for Ematum, a tuna fishing company owned – curiously – by Mozambique’s intelligence services. Other secret loans came to light, including a $525m loan to the state-owned Mozambique Asset Management company. The loans were a front for bribery and kickbacks, and have been the subject of many legal investigations. The $2bn in total loans contributed to an economic downturn and the government to default on its debt repayments.

Stephen Bailey-Smith, a senior economist at Global Evolution, which eventually bought the loans when they were repackaged, says the debt repackaging finally demystified the tuna bonds: “Investors assumed this was effectively sovereign debt. I don’t think anyone in their right mind thought they were taking a risk solely linked to a tuna fishing company. Remember, at the time, people were jumping up and down about how Mozambique would be the next big thing, one of the largest gas producers in world, and people wanted to get in early. With limited other opportunities, the bonds provided a way in.”

READ MORE Mozambique's civilians defenceless as armed forces defend Total's gas project

Not everyone was doing well in Mozambique. While on a tour of the country, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva remarked: “No Mozambican can feel proud to open their car door and see a hungry person looking for something to eat in the rubbish.”

How Mozambique’s corrupt elite caused tragedy in the north

 

[loyola llothta]

Yep


China's the only game in town right now for major development

 

[Red Shield]

How Mozambique's corrupt elite caused tragedy in the North



How Mozambique’s corrupt elite caused tragedy in the north

 

[Red Shield]

Interesting...

Would have thought they would have put it in Nigeria since from what I can see way more Nigerians are using twitter

 

[Sinnerman]

I don't really know how much time we have left to shape up. Hell you had a story about Russian mercenaries committing crimes in the CAF the other day

Interesting...

Would have thought they would have put it in Nigeria since from what I can see way more Nigerians are using twitter

Ghana is much more stable, that might be it.

My fellow Nigerian brehs are going to be salty about it though

 

[Yehuda]

Someone said Lagos already has a Microsoft office and will have a Facebook office soon.

 

[Red Shield]

I don't really know how much time we have left to shape up. Hell you had a story about Russian mercenaries committing crimes in the CAF the other day




Ghana is much more stable, that might be it.

My fellow Nigerian brehs are going to be salty about it though

We probably only got anywhere from 20 to 50yrs before the next few centuries are decided.

Yeah I was thinking Ghana stability too. But isn't Nigeria bigger economy wise

 

[Sinnerman]

We probably only got anywhere from 20 to 50yrs before the next few centuries are decided.

Yeah I was thinking Ghana stability too. But isn't Nigeria bigger economy wise

Larger economy, and much larger population. Yet they still chose Ghana. Says something about my country(Nigeria), doesn't it?

I'm hoping it's more 50-100 years before the next few centuries are decided, lol

 

[Red Shield]

Larger economy, and much larger population. Yet they still chose Ghana. Says something about my country(Nigeria), doesn't it?

I'm hoping it's more 50-100 years before the next few centuries are decided, lol

Yeah..Nigeria still has the raw ingredients to be something major

20 to 50 yrs.. no way there aren't massive global changes over the next 20 years

 

[loyola llothta]

Interest in Libyan human rights spikes massively 10 years ago then falls to almost nothing after March 19 2011, the day the US/NATO began its intervention. What a fascinating coincidence.

 

[Yehuda]

Burkina Faso ex-president Compaoré to face trial over Thomas Sankara murder

Exile is to be tried in absentia alongside 13 others for complicity in murder

Captain Thomas Sankara in 1983. Photograph: Patrick Durand/Sygma via Getty Images

Emmanuel Akinwotu West Africa correspondent
Tue 13 Apr 2021 18.18 BST

The exiled former president of Burkina Faso, Blaise Compaoré, is to be tried in absentia for the murder of Thomas Sankara, one of Africa’s most revered post-independence leaders who was killed in a 1987 coup.

Sankara, a Marxist, pan-African leader, was murdered after four years in power and succeeded by his former friend Compaoré, who has repeatedly denied involvement. Compaoré went on to become one of Africa’s longest serving leaders, governing Burkina Faso for 27 years.

The former president has been in exile in Ivory Coast since 2014, when he was swept from power by mass protests triggered by his attempt to extend his tenure.

The trial is a landmark moment in a 34-year quest for justice, led by Sankara’s family and supported by many in Burkina Faso.

While in power, Compaoré denied calls for Sankara’s remains to be exhumed, but the country’s transitional government reopened the investigation in 2015. In 2016 Burkinabé authorities issued an international warrant for Compaoré’s arrest, but Ivorian authorities have rejected extradition requests for the former president who has since become a citizen of Ivory Coast.

Compaoré and 13 others face charges of complicity in murder, and concealing the body of Sankara and several aides who were killed alongside him

Guy Hervé Kam, a lawyer for the Sankara family, welcomed the news. “The time for justice has finally come. A trial can begin. It will be up to the military prosecutor to determine a date for the hearing,” he told AFP.

Among the others accused is Gilbert Diendéré, Compaoré’s former right-hand man and military general, who headed the elite Presidential Security Regiment, at the time of the coup.

Diendere has been in prison in Burkina Faso serving a 20-year sentence for leading a coup attempt in 2015 against the country’s transitional government.

Blaise Compaoré’s trial is a landmark moment in a 34-year quest for justice. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters

A date for the trial has not been confirmed but a lawyer for the former general said it could begin soon. Some of the suspects have since died.

Sankara, known as the African Che Guevara, came to power in 1983 after an internal power struggle following a coup. At 33, he was one of the youngest leaders in modern African history.

His radical programme of nationalisation, land redistribution and mass social welfare has been seen as transformative, over a four-year rule of one of the world’s poorest countries.

Leaps in education and healthcare provision, social reforms towards ending polygamy and female genital mutilation, his vehement support for independence from colonial rule in Africa and disavowal of aid from western financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank endeared the 37-year-old to many on the continent.

His administration was also criticised for curtailing press freedoms and political opposition in the country before he was killed. In 2017, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said France would declassify government documents concerning Sankara’s killing, after years of criticism of the role played by the former colonial ruler.

Lawyers for Sankara’s family have indicated that several documents have been sent to the Burkinabé judges, but have not revealed what they contain.

In Burkina Faso, Sankara’s reputation has only burgeoned since his death, amid widespread impoverishment. Since 2015, jihadist insurgency, spreading from Mali across the Sahel, has killed more than 1,200 people and left more than a million displaced.

He is also revered across Africa, a young continent where presidents have increasingly changed constitutions and sought to extend their stay in power.

Burkina Faso ex-president Compaoré to face trial over Thomas Sankara murder

 

[loyola llothta]

12 April 2021
Why NATO Destroyed Libya Ten Years Ago
By Manlio Dinucci


Ten years ago, on March 19, 2011, US/NATO forces began their bombardment of Libya by air and by sea. The war was initiated directly by the United States, first through Africa Command (AFRICOM), and then through NATO under US command. Over the course of seven months, US/NATO airplanes carried out 30,000 missions, including 10,000 strikes involving over 40,000 bombs and missiles. Italy – with the consensus of its multi-party Parliament (with the Democratic Party-Pd in the front row) – played a part in the war, providing seven air bases (Trapani, Gioia del Colle, Sigonella, Decimomannu, Aviano, Amendola and Pantelleria), fighter-bombers Tornado, Eurofighter and other warplanes, and the Garibaldi aircraft carrier and other warships. Even before the air-naval offensive, tribal and Islamist groups hostile to the government had already been financed and armed, and special forces were infiltrated, especially by Qatar, in order to spread armed conflict within the country.

And that’s how an African country which, as documented by the World Bank in 2010, maintained “high levels of economic growth”, where GDP rose 7.5% a year, which demonstrated “high human development indicators” such as universal access to primary and secondary education and a 40% university attendance rate, came to be destroyed.

Taking disparities into account, the average standard of living in Libya was higher than in other African countries. About two million immigrants, mostly African, found work there. The Libyan state, which possessed the largest oil reserves in Africa, in addition to natural gas, ceded limited profit margins to foreign companies.


Thanks to energy exports, the Libyan balance of trade was in the black to the tune of $27 billion USD per year.



Those resources enabled Libya to make about $150 million USD in foreign investments. Libyan investments in Africa were decisive in the African Union’s creation of three financial organizations: the African Monetary Fund, headquartered in Yaoundé, Cameroon; the African Central Bank, based in Abuja, Nigeria; and the African Investment Bank, headquartered in Tripoli. The mission of these organizations was to create a common market and common currency in Africa.

It’s no coincidence that the NATO war to destroy the Libyan state was initiated barely two months after the rise of the African Union, which, on January 31, 2011, led to the creation that year of the African Monetary Fund. This is proven by emails written by the Obama Administration’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, later released by WikiLeaks, showing how the United States and France wanted to eliminate Qaddafi before he used Libya’s gold reserves to create a pan-African currency as a an alternative to the dollar and the CFA franc, the currency France imposed on 14 former colonies.

It’s also proven by the fact that the banks were released even before the bombers in 2011, ceasing $150 million USD of Libya’s foreign investments, most of which have disappeared. Goldman Sachs, the most powerful investment bank in the United States, whose vice president was Mario Draghi, played a leading role in the looting.

In Libya today, energy export revenues are hoarded by power groups and multinationals amidst the chaos of armed conflicts. The standard of living for most of the population has been decimated. African immigrants, accused of being “Qaddafi’s mercenaries,” have been imprisoned in zoo cages, tortured and killed. Libya has become the main transit route for human traffickers in a chaotic wave of migration towards Europe that has taken the lives of more victims that the 2011 war. In Tawergha, the NATO-supported Islamist militias of Misurata, who assassinated Qaddafi in October 2011, have truly carried out an ethnic cleansing, forcing around 50,000 Libyan citizens to flee with no hope of returning.

Also responsible for all of this is the Italian parliament, which on March 18, 2011 committed the Italian government to “adopt any and all initiatives (including the entrance of Italy into the war against Libya) to ensure the protection of the region’s populations.”

Link:
Perché la Nato dieci anni fa demolì la Libia | il manifesto

 

[Yehuda]

 

[loyola llothta]

Ethiopians and Eritreans Rally for National Sovereignty, Against US Intervention

31 Mar 2021



Ethiopians and Eritreans Rally for National Sovereignty, Against US Intervention Ethiopians and Eritreans from all over Northern California rallied in San Francisco for peace and for the sovereignty and self-determination of their home countries.

“We are asking the US to stop interfering in the internal affairs of Ethiopia.”

In 2019, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the long-running conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, but the US and its longstanding ally, the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF), have not supported the peace. Ethiopians and Eritreans from all over Northern California rallied for peace and for the sovereignty and self-determination of their home countries on March 26, 2021, in San Francisco, first on its Embarcadero Plaza waterfront and then at City Hall. I reported the story on Pacifica/KPFA’s Evening News . My particular concern, as a US citizen, was that all the reporting about alleged genocide in Tigray has started to sound like that which preceded the US/NATO destruction of Libya and the outset of the ongoing US bombing campaign in Syria. This was one of many such rallies held by Ethiopian and Eritrean communities in diaspora, and this is their press release. - Ann Garrison

A Call for Action to Stand in Solidarity with Ethiopia's Government

We are Ethiopian Americans, Ethiopians, and friends of Ethiopia, including our Eritrean sisters and brothers. Today we are marching to bring awareness to the current situation in Ethiopia and the current US Administration’s antagonistic position towards Ethiopia.

Ethiopia achieved freedom with a lot of sacrifices three years ago from Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a group that ruled the country with an iron fist for more than 27 years. Since TPLF’s ousting, Ethiopia has been undertaking a number of reforms and paving a path to democratic governance. To disrupt this trajectory, TPLF has been sabotaging the country’s progress. The straw that broke the camel’s back happened when:

1. TPLF organized a well-equipped militia and special forces of over two hundred thousand strong and, on the night of November 4th, attacked the Northern Military Command of Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) and massacred, imprisoned, and drove government troops out of the region. Any nation in the world would consider this a treasonous and heinous crime, as Ethiopia does.
2. TPLF militia also massacred over 700 civilians targeting ethnic Amharas in the town of Mai-Kadra on the night of November 9th, as was documented by Amnesty International .
3. TPLF also fired rockets to civilian-populated cities in Ethiopia and Eritrea with the intention of regionalizing the war, harming civilians, and destroying infrastructure.
4. Remnants of TPLF’s defeated militia are today terrorizing citizens, interfering in aid distribution and damaging infrastructure.

The Federal Government of Ethiopia has been undertaking Law Enforcement Operations in the Tigray region of Ethiopia to bring the perpetrators of this treason to justice and bring peace and stability to the region.

We urge the United Nations, the US Government, the Biden Administration, the European Union, and all the peace-loving people of the world to join us by supporting the Ethiopian Government in its duty to enforce law and order and protect peace in its territory. Please be part of the solution by condemning the TPLF treason, asking the US to stop interfering in the internal affairs of Ethiopia, and supporting the Ethiopian government in its effort to bring peace and stability in the Tigray region.

CONCERNED CITIZENS, ETHIOPIANS AND ERITREANS
San Francisco, California, March 26, 2021

For more information, contact: GLEAN, Global Ethiopia Advocacy Nexus gleanethiopia.com Twitter, @GleanEthiopian

link:
Ethiopians and Eritreans Rally for National Sovereignty, Against US Intervention | Black Agenda Report

 

[loyola llothta]

Tanzania to revive US$30B LNG project


April 12, 2021

The newly sworn-in Tanzania President Samia Suluhu Hassan is set to revive the long-stalled US$30B liquefied natural gas LNG project in Lindi, Tanzania.

The project was sidelined under the administration of the former President, the late John Pombe Magufuli with his administration instead prioritising the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline to take oil from Uganda to the Tanzanian port of Tanga.

According to the President, she tried to work on the LNG project in Lindi Tanzania when she was sworn in as the vice president back in 2015 but discovered it was beyond her and stopped. Nevertheless, she has now directed the Ministry of Energy to accelerate talks with the project’s stakeholders, Shell and Equinor.

Also read: What next for Tanzania’s LNG after Equinor cut its annual balance sheet?

LNG project in Lindi

Tanzania LNG would involve gas from Shell-operated blocks 1 and 4 and Equinor’s Block 2 being piped from deep-water subsea wells to two or three liquefaction trains at Lindi. These blocks house about 35 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas, split about evenly between the two operators’ assets.

According to Shell, The offshore deepwater gas in the south of Tanzania is located in fields over 100km offshore, and some are in water that is up to 2,500m deep and 2,500m below seabed. Distance between the fields can also be over 100km apart. Depth, distance and terrain means the Tanzania LNG project is at the cutting edge of deep sea exploration technology and provides a unique opportunity for developing unique competencies and capabilities in the local supply chain and within TPDC as the project tackles these technical obstacles.

LNG is natural gas that has been cleaned and cooled in huge refrigeration units to a temperature of around -162oC. The LNG process converts the gas into liquid, substantially reduces the volume of the gas more than 600 times. This is similar to shrinking a football to the size of a marble. This makes the gas easier to store and transport safely to markets around the world in purpose-built ships.

Link:
Tanzania to revive US$30B LNG project