Behind the East African nation of Djibouti's strained relations with Eritrea - and Qatar - is the country's counter-terrorism strategy

November 24, 2017

One of the only things the small East African nations of Eritrea and Djibouti agree on is Qatar’s destabilizing role in the region. When Djibouti downgraded its diplomatic relationship with Doha on June 5th, the government knew there would be consequences. But it was unaware they would fall so close to home.

In a surprise move, Qatar announced the withdrawal of its troops from the Eritrea-Djibouti border on June 14. Qatar’s forces had been keeping the peace between Eritrea and Djibouti since 2010, as part of a Doha-led mediation process. The two African nations had a brief border conflict in 2008 – a dispute which dates back to a 1900 colonial agreement between Italy and France which left the precise location of the border ill-defined.

Following Qatar’s withdrawal Eritrean forces quickly took full control of Dumeira Mountain and Dumeira Island. “Djibouti will have to react to this seizure in some way though in what manner Djibouti will respond to this is unclear,” said Joseph Siegle, Director of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in a June interview.

As painful as the loss of that territory is, Djibouti may still think its decision was worth it. The country’s stance against Qatar is part of a tougher fight against terrorism both within its region and beyond. Djibouti was a founding member of the Islamic Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism and also participated in the Arab Islamic US Summit held in Riyadh in May. This has continued despite the potential loss of Djiboutian territory caused by Qatar – this summer Djibouti also formally joined the US-led Coalition to Defeat ISIS.

Djibouti believes that its struggle against Eritrea is tied to terrorism concerns. It asked the UN’s Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group to investigate alleged Eritrean funding for the Somali terrorist group group Al-Shabaab last year. Djibouti has also accused Asmara of funding a group of 200 Djiboutian rebels. “I personally doubt that Qatar is directly funding Al-Shabab in Somalia. There is more evidence to suggest the possibility of Eritrean support for Al-Shabab but, of course, Qatar could be using Eritrea as a proxy,” said a senior Somali intelligence official who agreed to speak off the record during the recent intelligence conference in Khartoum.

Despite the crisis along the border with Eritrea, Djibouti has maintained a force of roughly a thousand soldiers in Somalia as part of the African Union force fighting Al-Shabaab. But Qatar’s sudden withdrawal may have cost Djibouti more than a strip of its territory. Djibouti also worries about the fate of its prisoners of war held by Eritrea – an issue that Qatar had attempted to negotiate.

At the end of the 2008 conflict, Eritrea held nineteen Djiboutian prisoners of war – though some escaped and four were later were released. “[Eritrea] continues to spread blatant lies about the prisoner’s condition and has refused to account for them despite repeated calls by the UN Security Council,” Ambassador Dualeh said.

While Djibouti would be outgunned in any renewed fighting, the country’s changing economic fortunes might strengthen its military and negotiating position in the future. “The tiny new nation has no army, less than one square mile of arable land and no resources except sand, salt and 20,000 camels,” the New York Times wrote in 1977. In the intervening decades Djibouti has become an economic success story – its GDP of Djibouti increased by 6.5% in 2016, in part thanks to the development of its port and transport services.

Djibouti aims to become the “Dubai of Africa” and serve as a regional trading hub. Ethiopia – with a population of one hundred million – is the world’s most populous landlocked country. It depends on Djibouti’s port to reach the sea, and as a result the tiny country handles ninety percent of Ethiopia’s maritime trade. To better meet those needs, Djibouti opened two new harbors this year – and another port is nearing completion.

Djibouti also maintains its diplomatic clout by hosting several foreign military bases. Camp Lemonnier, a former French Foreign Legion outpost, has been America’s only permanent military base in Africa since 2001. Sitting next to Djibouti’s international airport, the US joint-operating base has been an important part of America’s ongoing wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Djibouti has also welcomed military bases from China and Japan in recent years – and Saudi Arabia is also considering a base. Partly in response, Eritrea is host to a base from the home of the real Dubai: the United Arab Emirates.

War is bad for business, and ultimately Djibouti hopes its dispute with Eritrea will be ameliorated through negotiation. Ambassador Dualeh told Raddington Report that, contrary to media reports, China has not offered to act as a mediator of the dispute now that Qatar has gone.

“We would like to see the UN Security Council urge Eritrea to resolve the border issue peacefully,” Dualeh said, “and to accept to submit the boundary dispute to the International Court of Justice, for a final and binding determination of the boundary based on international law”. No one expects that to happen soon.

source=https://raddingtonreport.com/djibouti-struggle-against-terrorism/

Appeals court rules against mining company Nevsun Resources, clearing way for workers to have claims of human rights violations heard in Canadian court 

Workers and visitors walk within the processing plant at the Bisha Mining Share Company in Eritrea, operated by Canadian company Nevsun Resources. Photograph: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

Thursday 23 November 2017 13.52 GMT Last modified on Thursday 23 November 2017 13.56 GMT

A Canadian mining company has lost its bid to block a lawsuit accusing it of human rights abuses against miners in Eritrea after a ruling by an appeals court in British Columbia.

The decision, against Nevsun Resources, paves the way for a groundbreaking legal challenge that links the Vancouver company to allegations of modern slavery.

The case, launched in 2014 by three refugees who alleged they were forced to work at Bisha mine and endured harsh conditions and physical punishment, is one of only a handful in which foreign claimants have been granted access to Canadian courts to pursue firms based in the country over alleged human rights abuses abroad.

Filed in Canada, the lawsuit was directed at Canada’s Nevsun, which owns a controlling interest in the gold, copper and zinc mine through a chain of subsidiary corporations.

The case was catapulted into the spotlight last year when a court in the province of British Columbia ruled that it could be heard in the Canadian legal system.

Nevsun appealed the 2016 ruling, arguing that any lawsuit should be heard in Eritrea. On Tuesday, however, the British Columbia court of appeal dismissed the company’s challenge, noting the risk of corruption and unfairness in the Eritrean legal system.

Joe Fiorante of Camp Fiorante Matthews Mogerman, the lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said: “There will now be a reckoning in a Canadian court of law in which Nevsun will have to answer to the allegations that it was complicit in forced labour and grave human rights abuses at the Bisha mine.

”In affidavits filed with the court, the plaintiffs – all of whom have since left Eritrea – alleged that as conscripts in the country’s national service system, they were forced to work for government-owned construction firms subcontracted to build the mine. They claimed the conditions were inhuman and work was carried out under the constant threat of physical punishment, torture and imprisonment.

A truck arrives to ferry excavated gold, copper and zinc ore from the main mining pit at the Bisha Mining Share Company in Eritrea. Photograph: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

Since Nevsun owns 60% of the Bisha Mining Share Company, which owns and operates the mine (the other 40% is owned by the Eritrean government), the plaintiffs claim the Canadian company must have been aware of the reported abuses, but failed to prevent or stop them.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

In their decision, the British Columbia appeals court judges referenced a 2016 UN inquiry into human rights in Eritrea, which found the government had committed crimes against humanity in a widespread and systematic manner. The report noted that officials in the one-party state had enslaved up to 400,000 people, with many describing how the country’s system of lifelong military service amounts to modern-day slavery.

This system is at the heart of the case against Nevsun, said Fiorante. “Our case alleges that people that were conscripted into that system were forced to work in service of building a Canadian-owned gold mine in Bisha, Eritrea,” he said.

Fiorante added that about 60 people have so far come forward with similar claims of being forced to work at the mine.

Nevsun has denied the allegations contained in the lawsuit. While the company declined to comment on the latest ruling as the matter is before the court, a Nevsun spokesperson referred to a 2015 human rights audit of the Bisha mine, noting that contractual commitments strictly prohibit the use of national service employees by Bisha’s contractors and subcontractors.

Last year the Guardian spoke with several people who alleged they had been forced to work at the mine, earning as little as a dollar a day. The work was carried out amid horrendous conditions and a climate of fear and intimidation, they claimed.

“The mine was like an open prison,” said one former security guard, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect family still in Eritrea. “They can take you and do what they want with you. I was owned by them. We were like objects for the government and for foreign companies to do with us what they wanted.”

Source=https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/nov/23/canadian-mining-firm-historic-legal-case-alleged-labour-abuses-eritrea-nevsun-resources

Africa, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Horn of Africa

Chancellor Merkel announces the failure of talks, as the EU's largest economy gets closer to a possible new election.

Merkel is due to meet the German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who could call for new elections [Reuters]

 

 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced that her efforts to form a three-way coalition failed after liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) withdrew from the talks.

"Now we have to deal with the facts. And the fact is that we were unable to finish the coalition talks with success," Merkel said in a press conference on Monday.

"It is a day of deep reflection on how to go forward in Germany. As chancellor, I will do everything to ensure that this country is well managed in the difficult weeks to come."

Merkel's centre-right Christian democratic political alliance (CDU/CSU) secured 33 percent of the general election that took place in September, losing about nine percent of the votes compared to the last election in 2013 and failing to form a single-party government.

The chancellor was holding talks with the FDP, which secured 10.7 percent of the votes in September, and the Greens, which scored 8.4 percent in the vote, to form a coalition government.

FDP: We made compromises

FDP leader Christian Lindner said that his party made various compromise offers during the talks that ended unsuccessfully.

He said that tax policies, European policies, questions of migration and education were among the compromises his party was willing to make.

"We know that politics lives from balancing and with just 11 percent one cannot dictate the course of an entire republic," he told reporters in Berlin.

Immigration levels, climate change and the future of the EU were reportedly among the areas of contention in the failed coalition talks.

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Merkel is due to meet the German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who could call for new elections.

She can also form a minority government if she can secure enough support from other parties in individual policies.

"A snap election would lead to rougher and much more polarised political campaign than we had seen in September," Michael Thumann, diplomatic correspondent at DIE ZEIT newspaper, told Al Jazeera from Berlin.

"I think the first thing Merkel will try is to form a minority government. The president will try to work with her on that," Thumann said.

Merkel has been the chancellor of Germany for the last 12 years.

A government vacuum in Europe's largest and strongest economy might affect many issues such as the eurozone’s stability and discussed reforms backed by France.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera News

Africa

By JEFFREY MOYONOV. 19, 2017

Photo

 

Thousands protested on Saturday in Harare, Zimbabwe, demanding that President Robert Mugabe step down. Credit Ben Curtis/Associated Press

President Robert Mugabe’s own party voted to oust him as its leader on Sunday, a day after thousands of Zimbabweans took to the streets to celebrate his stunning fall from power after a military takeover.

The governing ZANU-PF party, which held emergency talks at its headquarters in the capital, Harare, to consider the fate of the president who had ruled for 37 years, appointed the previously fired vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, as Mr. Mugabe’s successor.

Under the Constitution, Mr. Mugabe remains president, even if in name only. But if he does not resign by noon Monday, the committee members decided, he would face impeachment by Parliament.

Cheers and dancing broke out in the building after the vote, according to video shared on social media.

Before the committee’s decision, Chris Mutsvangwa, a war veteran who has led the campaign to oust Mr. Mugabe, said as he went into the meeting, “We are going all the way,” according to Reuters.

The central committee also expelled the president’s wife, Grace Mugabe, as head of the ZANU-PF Women’s League. Mrs. Mugabe, widely viewed as his likely successor, has not been seen in public since Wednesday.

On Sunday, she was barred from the party for life, along with several other government officials — including Jonathan Moyo, the minister of higher and tertiary education.

Photo

Mr. Mugabe, center, made a public appearance on Friday at a university graduation ceremony despite a military takeover. Credit Ben Curtis/Associated Press

The downfall of the 93-year-old autocratic ruler began with a military takeover on Wednesday. Once respected as a liberation icon who went into exile after fighting colonial rule, Mr. Mugabe became isolated from fellow party officials.

Other veterans of the fight for independence from white-minority rule joined the march on Saturday as Zimbabweans poured into the streets and danced, sang and shouted with joy at the prospect of Mr. Mugabe’s rule ending.

After voting to fire Mr. Mugabe as party leader, the party committee took up the matter of impeachment.

Innocent Gonese, the parliamentary chief whip from the Movement for Democratic Change — Tsvangirai party, told The A.P. that when Parliament resumed this week, the chamber would “definitely” put in motion a process to impeach Mr. Mugabe.

Mr. Mugabe was also meeting on Sunday for a second round of talks with the army commander Constantino Chiwenga, who had placed the president under house arrest. The military, seeking to deflect claims of a coup, said that the action was aimed at rounding up ZANU-PF officials implicated in economic crimes that have ravaged the economy of the southern African nation.

 

Mr. Mugabe, who has resisted stepping down, was seeking to negotiate a dignified departure, the Zimbabwe state-run broadcaster said.

A Catholic priest, Fidelis Mukonori, was mediating. Others on the negotiating team include the acting intelligence director, Aaron Nhepera, and the Mugabe spokesman George Charamba.

The youth league of Zimbabwe’s ruling party said Mr. Mugabe should resign and take a rest as an “elder statesman,” while his wife should be expelled from the party “forever,” The Associated Press reported.

Photo

Emmerson Mnangagwa in Harare, Zimbabwe, earlier this month when he was still vice president. Credit Aaron Ufumeli/European Pressphoto Agency

The league leader, Yeukai Simbanegavi, praised the military on Sunday for moving against what she described as a group of “criminals” led by Mrs. Mugabe, The A.P. said.

“It is unfortunate that the president allowed her to usurp executive authority from him, thereby destroying both the party and the government,” she said.

A majority of the party’s leaders had recommended expelling Mr. Mugabe — a harsh rebuke of the man who had controlled the organization with an iron grip since the country gained independence in 1980.

In a resolution, party leaders said Mr. Mugabe should be removed for taking the advice of “counterrevolutionaries and agents of neo-imperialism”; for mistreating his vice president, Mr. Mnangagwa, whom Mr. Mugabe abruptly dismissed; and for encouraging “factionalism.”

It urged the “immediate and unconditional reinstatement” of Mr. Mnangagwa, at least until the national elections that are scheduled for next year.

On Sunday, the leaders put force behind their recommendations, ousting Mr. Mugabe and setting up the vice president to succeed him.

Mr. Mugabe had fired Mr. Mnangagwa in a move that positioned Mr. Mugabe’s wife to succeed him as president. But the firing may have been an overreach by the Mugabes, as it singled out an erstwhile ally with liberation-war credentials and strong support from the military.

But the fired vice president also has critics, who accuse him of being politically ruthless and of plotting to form parallel institutions within the governing party. Mr. Mnangagwa is unpopular in parts of the country: He lost his parliamentary seat at least twice, once after he was accused of firebombing his opponent’s house, according to an editor of The Zimbabwean newspaper.

The political crisis will be on the agenda for a summit meeting in Angola on Tuesday of four countries in the southern African regional bloc: South Africa, which sent envoys to negotiate with Mr. Mugabe on a departure; and Angola, Tanzania and Zambia.

Source=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/19/world/africa/zimbabwe-robert-mugabe.html

Africa, Zimbabwe

South African leader says he spoke to Zimbabwean counterpart, who 'indicated' he was fine but not allowed to leave home. 

Zuma said Mugabe indicated that he was confined to his home [Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]

 

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has been confined to his home, according to a statement by the office of his South African counterpart, Jacob Zuma.

South African officials said Zuma spoke to Mugabe by phone on Wednesday, amid a military takeover of government buildings in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.

"President Zuma spoke to President Robert Mugabe earlier today who indicated that he was confined to his home but said that he was fine. South Africa is also in contact with the Zimbabwean Defence Force (ZDF)," the statement read.

"President Zuma has reiterated his call for calm and restraint and for the ZDF to ensure that peace and stability are not undermined in Zimbabwe," the statement continued. 

 

A tweet sent separately on the South African government's official Twitter account said Zuma would be sending special envoys to the country in the aftermath of the crisis.

"President Jacob Zuma, in his capacity as Chair of SADC (Southern African Development Community), is sending Special Envoys to Zimbabwe and Angola in light of the unfolding situation in the Republic of Zimbabwe," it said.

In a televised broadcast earlier on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Zimbabwean military said Mugabe and his family were "safe and sound", without providing further information about his whereabouts.

"We are only targeting criminals around him who are committing crimes that are causing social and economic suffering in the country, in order to bring them to justice" said Major General SB Moyo.

The Zimbabwean military made its move early Wednesday morning, quickly taking control of presidential and parliamentary buildings, state TV, and Harare's airport.

Tanks blocked off the entrances to government offices and troops patrolled streets in the capital, as many residents of the city decided to stay away from potential flare ups of violence.

Mugabe, who is 93-years-old, is Africa's oldest leader, taking helm of the country in 1980.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera News

Source=http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/zuma-zimbabwe-president-mugabe-confined-house-171115105609690.html