Protesters from the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development rallying on Energy Day, November 15, in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, where COP27, the annual global climate conference, is taking place / credit: Twitter / AsianPeoplesMvt
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Peoples Dispatch.
At the COP 27 climate summit, an explosion of fossil fuel lobbyists was observed with over 600 such delegates present at the venue in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. With this number of registered delegates, this year’s COP has seen a rise of 25 percent among fossil fuel lobbyists compared to last year.
Notably, the fossil fuel lobbyists outnumbered any single community that has been at the frontline of populations affected by the climate crisis.
Three organizations, namely, Corporate Accountability, Corporate Europe Observatory, and Global Witness (GW), have analyzed the provisional list of attendees to the UN event. The finding reveals the scale at which the corporate actors directly linked to fossil fuel burning enjoy access to the critical climate summit of COP 27. Notably, the lobbyists are affiliated with some of the world’s largest polluting oil and gas companies.
There were 503 such lobbyists at the Glasgow summit of last year, and then also, this figure outnumbered the delegation from any single country. This year in Egypt, the only country that outnumbers the number of lobbyists, who are linked with the largest polluting corporates, is the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with 1,070 registered delegates. The UAE will host COP 28 next year.
An activist group named ‘Kick Big Polluters Out’ said in a statement, “The influence of fossil fuel lobbyists is greater than frontline countries and communities. Delegations from African countries and Indigenous communities are dwarfed by representatives of corporate interests directly at odds with the level of systemic change needed to slow the climate crisis.” They added that fossil fuel lobbyists were working openly through several country delegations.
Researchers belonging to Global Witness, Corporate Europe Observatory, and Corporate Accountability counted the number of registered individuals who are directly affiliated with fossil fuel giants like Shell, Chevron and BP (British Petroleum) or representing the fossil fuel industry as members of delegations that act on behalf of these industries. Some of the salient points that the analysis found are the following:
As many as 636 fossil fuel lobbyists are registered at COP 27; there are more fossil fuel lobbyists registered than delegations from Africa, and this is despite it being the ‘African COP’ this year; 29 countries have fossil fuel lobbyists within their national delegates; last but most important is that there are more lobbyists than representatives of the 10 countries that are most impacted by climate change, including Myanmar, Haiti, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.
The researchers also mentioned that activists from the Global South (developing countries) along with Indigenous communities that are in the most vulnerable conditions due to climate crisis have been kept at bay from attending the summit by high costs, challenges in getting visas and repressive actions implemented by the hosting country.
Civil society groups have raised apprehensions that with the increasing presence of fossil fuel lobbyists, the negotiations may get stymied, that too at a crucial time when the efforts of keeping the global temperature within 1.5 degrees Celsius should take center stage.
It’s worth mentioning that many environmental groups that work on the transition away from fossil fuel argue that including private players in the negotiations could be beneficial. However, the sheer size of the lobbyists at the negotiations can outweigh the benefits of their inclusion. Thus, the fear that their presence can actually slow the negotiations rather than limit their industries.
“The explosion in the number of industry delegates attending the negotiations reinforces the conviction of the climate justice community that the industry views the COP as a carnival of sorts, and not a space to address the ongoing and imminent climate crisis,” commented Kwami Kpondzo of Friends of the Earth Togo, the non-profit organization working to protect the environment and sustainable development.
In addition, a coalition of civil society groups recently made a submission to the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), the wing that supervises COP summits, saying, “ Climate action would continue to fail to meaningfully address the climate crisis as long as polluting interests are granted unmitigated access to policymaking processes and are allowed to unduly influence and weaken the critical work of the UNFCCC.”
M23 fighters loyal to Bosco Ntaganda moved on March 1, 2013, along the road towards Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as UN peacekeeping troops observed a gathering of armed people north of the city / credit: MONUSCO / Sylvain Liechti
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Peoples Dispatch.
At least eight civilians were killed and 28 others injured by UN forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s eastern province of North Kivu on Tuesday, February 7. The killings took place after confrontations between the local population and forces of the UN peacekeeping mission (MONUSCO) near Kanyaruchinya in the Nyiragongo territory.
The casualties were confirmed by Lieutenant General Constant Ndima on Wednesday, February 8, who added that civilians in the area were opposing the passage of the UN convoy, following which MONUSCO soldiers had fired “warning shots.” The people killed had been displaced by attacks of the M23 rebel group, increasingly acknowledged to be a proxy force backed by neighboring Rwanda, in the territories of Rutshuru and Nyiragongo.
The provinces of North and South Kivu have witnessed renewed unrest over past weeks as affected populations have accused foreign forces, now including the East African Community (EAC) Regional Force, of “passivity” and a failure to stop the offensive of the M23 rebel group.
In a statement on Tuesday, MONUSCO said that its convoy was returning from a supply mission to a base in Kiwanja, and was on its way to the provincial capital of Goma when it was stopped near Munigi. It added that the vehicles had been forced to stop after demonstrators had barricaded the roads, after which “attackers” set fire to the convoy’s trucks before stealing their cargo.
“Three people unfortunately lost their lives during the scuffles, while peacekeepers and the FARDC (Congolese troops) tried to protect the convoy,” the statement said. MONUSCO has said that a joint investigation with Congolese authorities will determine the exact circumstances of the deaths.
Unrest Grows As Clashes Continue
The killings on Tuesday took place less than a year after over 30 people were killed during major protests demanding the withdrawal of MONUSCO, citing its failure to ensure the security of the people. Amid the protests, it was also reported that members of MONUSCO’s Force Intervention Brigade had shot and killed two people in Kasindi, North Kivu, while returning from leave.
The mission has been present in the country for two decades. It was established by the UN Security Council (UNSC) in 1999 following the second invasion of the DRC by Rwanda and Uganda in 1998. With a current annual budget of approximately USD one billion, MONUSCO is the UN’s largest and most expensive peacekeeping operation.
In the wake of growing anti-MONUSCO protests, the UNSC renewed the mission’s mandate for one more year in December, with a troop ceiling of 16,161, of which 13,500 would be military personnel. The mission’s strategic priorities would be centered around the protection of civilians, support for the stabilization and strengthening of state institutions, and governance and security reforms.
Meanwhile, tense conditions were also reported in Goma on Tuesday, where protestors had set up barricades since February 5, cutting off major roads and districts and bringing public and commercial activities to a standstill.
People have condemned the occupation of the areas of Rutshuru, Nyiragongo, and Masisi by the M23, demanding that either the EAC forces fight the rebel group in these areas, or withdraw from the DRC altogether.
Fighting between the FARDC and M23 resumed in North Kivu’s territory of Masisi on Tuesday, about 20 kilometers from the town of Sake. The Congolese army was reportedly able to successfully repel the attack. The rebel group had captured the town of Kitchanga by the end of January, following which the FARDC announced that it had withdrawn from the area in an effort to “protect the civilian population.”
Civil society groups in Masisi have raised SOS appeals amid reports of massive displacement. According to UN figures, over 520,000 people had been displaced by fighting between the M23 and Congolese forces between March 2022 and the end of last year .
Clashes were reported a few kilometers from Sake, which lies less than 30 kilometers from Goma, on Thursday, February 9, as video footage showed people carrying their belongings and moving along the Sake-Goma road to reach the capital city. As of 2:40 pm local time, the city was still reported to be under the control of the FARDC.
Fighting has continued just days after the 20th Extra-Ordinary Summit of the EAC Heads of State held in Bujumbura, Burundi, on February 4. The final communique calls for an immediate ceasefire by “all parties,” and the withdrawal of all foreign armed groups, while calling upon Kinshasa to “facilitate the deployment of troops” from South Sudan and Uganda in the EACRF.
What of Congo’s Sovereignty?
The M23 had initially announced that it had agreed to a ceasefire, as decided by the Mini-Summit on Peace and Security in the Eastern Region of the DRC, held in Luanda, Angola, on November 23, 2022. The ceasefire was set to take effect on November 25, and would also be accompanied by the withdrawal of M23 forces from all occupied areas.
However, days into the ceasefire, the Congolese government accused the M23 of violating the ceasefire and massacring over 300 civilians in Kishishe, 70 kilometers from Goma. The killings were corroborated by MONUSCO and the UN Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO) in a report on December 7, which stated that at least 131 civilians had been killed.
In a report released on February 7, the UNJHRO revised the death toll to 171, affirming that the M23 had killed civilians in Kishishe and Bambo in retaliation “for their supposed collaboration with national defense and security forces and rival armed groups.”
On December 6, after the conclusion of the EAC-facilitated 3rd Inter-Congolese Dialogue in Nairobi, Kenya, the M23 announced that it was ready to “start disengagement and withdraw.”
Importantly, the Luanda summit’s final communique called for the “creation of the conditions of M23 currently controlled zones, by the EAC Regional Force,” and not the FARDC.
On December 23, the M23 announced that it was handing over the strategic town of Kibumba to the EACRF, a move the FARDC denounced as a “sham” meant to serve as a distraction while the rebels reinforced their positions elsewhere.
However, a confidential UN report covering the period between December 26 and January 3 stated that the group’s “total withdrawal from the area had not been confirmed” and that “suspected M23 movements were still sighted in the area.” It further noted that the group had taken control of further areas, “notably threatening Kitchanga, Mweso, Sake, Kilorirwe, Mushaki, and Nyamilima.”
Addressing the summit in Burundi, which was also attended by fellow EAC member Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, the DRC’s President Felix Tshisekedi told the EACRF commander Major General Jeff Nyagah: “Don’t favor the M23. It would be a shame if the population took it out on you. You have come to help us and not to have problems, be attentive to this, communicate with the population.”
A press release issued by the Congolese Foreign Affairs Ministry on February 5 highlighted that the summit’s participants had “unanimously noted” the implementation of the Luanda Mini-Summit roadmap by the M23.” Importantly, the statement added that the Congolese government “wishes to recall that the mandate of the regional force is, unequivocally, offensive.”
Despite being authorized to use force against the M23, the EACRF has reportedly not opted to do so yet. The president of Congo’s National Assembly, Christophe Mboso, has warned that “if within a reasonable time that the Regional Force (EACRF) is unable to support us against the aggressor and that its soldiers take pleasure in supporting or helping our enemies, we will ask the supreme commander of the armed forces, who is the President of the Republic… to take the necessary decision.”
Millions of Congolese are estimated to have died in the decades of invasion and war in the mineral-rich eastern provinces of the DRC. The theft and exploitation of the country’s resources by foreign armies and armed groups has long been acknowledged as a key driver of the war. In 2022, Uganda was ordered by the International Court of Justice to pay $325 million in reparations to the DRC, including for the damage caused to its natural resources.
The protests against MONUSCO—and, importantly, the EAC forces—have taken place in the context of increasing fears of Balkanization of the eastern provinces of the DRC to serve the interests of regional forces.
Protests against the force were held in Goma in January after the EACRF erected a buffer zone around Kibumba, prohibiting access to the area to the FARDC. “It is very serious to prevent the loyalist force from accessing a part of its territory formerly occupied by the enemy,” a member of a local group had said.
As concerns remain about what shape the EACRF’s presence might take in the DRC and what the outcomes of the Luanda and Nairobi processes may be, the Congolese people have always remained steadfast in their demand that the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the DRC must be respected.
A Saharawi refugee camp in the Tindouf province of Algeria / credit: European Commission DG ECHO
Editor’s Note: The following represents the writer’s analysis about a disputed area known as “Western Sahara” and was produced byGlobetrotter.
In November 2020, the Moroccan government sent its military to the Guerguerat area, a buffer zone between the territory claimed by the Kingdom of Morocco and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). The Guerguerat border post is at the very southern edge of Western Sahara along the road that goes to Mauritania. The presence of Moroccan troops “in the Buffer Strip in the Guerguerat area” violated the 1991 ceasefire agreed upon by the Moroccan monarchy and the Polisario Front of the Sahrawi. That ceasefire deal was crafted with the assumption that the United Nations would hold a referendum in Western Sahara to decide on its fate; no such referendum has been held, and the region has existed in stasis for three decades now.
Map of the disputed Western Sahara, with a red pin marking the location of Guerguerat, a town on the border with Mauritania / credit: Google
In mid-January 2022, the United Nations sent its Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, to Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania to begin a new dialogue “toward a constructive resumption of the political process on Western Sahara.” De Mistura was previously deputed to solve the crises of U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria; none of his missions have ended well and have mostly been lost causes. The UN has appointed five personal envoys for Western Sahara so far—including De Mistura—beginning with former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III, who served from 1997 to 2004. De Mistura, meanwhile, succeeded former German President Horst Köhler, who resigned in 2019. Köhler’s main achievement was to bring the four main parties—Morocco, the Polisario Front, Algeria and Mauritania—to a first roundtable discussion in Geneva in December 2018: this roundtable process resulted in a few gains, where all participants agreed on “cooperation and regional integration,” but no further progress seems to have been made to resolve the issues in the region since then. When the UN put forward De Mistura’s nomination to this post, Morocco had initially resisted his appointment. But under pressure from the West, Morocco finally accepted his appointment in October 2021, with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita welcoming him to Rabat on January 14. De Mistura also met the Polisario Front representative to the UN in New York on November 6, 2021, before meeting other representatives in Tindouf, Algeria, at Sahrawi refugee camps in January. There is very little expectation that these meetings will result in any productive solution in the region.
Abraham Accords
In August 2020, the United States government engineered a major diplomatic feat called the Abraham Accords. The United States secured a deal with Morocco and the United Arab Emirates to agree to a rapprochement with Israel in return for the United States making arms sales to these countries, as well as for the United States legitimizing Morocco’s annexation of Western Sahara. The arms deals were of considerable amounts—$23 billion worth of weapons to the UAE and $1 billion worth of drones and munitions to Morocco. For Morocco, the main prize was that the United States—breaking decades of precedent—decided to back its claim to the vast territory of Western Sahara. The United States is now the only Western country to recognize Morocco’s claim to sovereignty over Western Sahara.
When President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, it was expected that he might review parts of the Abraham Accords. However, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made it clear during his meeting with Bourita in November 2021 that the U.S. government would continue to maintain the position taken by the previous Trump administration that Morocco has sovereignty over Western Sahara. The United States, meanwhile, has continued with its arms sales to Morocco, but has suspended weapons sales to the United Arab Emirates.
Phosphates
By the end of November 2021, the government of Morocco announced that it had earned $6.45 billion from the export of phosphate from the kingdom and from the occupied territory of Western Sahara. If you add up the phosphate reserves in this entire region, it amounts to 72 percent of the entire phosphate reserves in the world (the second-highest percentage of these reserves is in China, which has around 6 percent). Phosphate, along with nitrogen, makes synthetic fertilizer, a key element in modern food production. While nitrogen is recoverable from the air, phosphates, found in the soil, are a finite reserve. This gives Morocco a tight grip over world food production. There is no doubt that the occupation of Western Sahara is not merely about national pride, but it is largely about the presence of a vast number of resources—especially phosphates—that can be found in the territory.
Detailed map of Western Sahara, showing borders with Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania / credit: Kmusser, based primarily on the Digital Chart of the World, with UN map and commercial atlases (Rand McNally, Google, Encarta, and National Geographic) used as references
In 1975, a UN delegation that visited Western Sahara noted that “eventually the territory will be among the largest exporters of phosphate in the world.” While Western Sahara’s phosphate reserves are less than those of Morocco, the Moroccan state-owned firm OCP SA has been mining the phosphate in Western Sahara and manufacturing phosphate fertilizer for great profit. The most spectacular mine in Western Sahara is in Bou Craa, from which 10 percent of OCP SA’s profits come; Bou Craa, which is known as “the world’s longest conveyor belt system,” carries the phosphate rock more than 60 miles to the port at El Aaiún. In 2002, the UN’s Under-Secretary General for Legal Affairs at that time, Hans Corell, noted in a letter to the president of the UN Security Council that “if further exploration and exploitation activities were to proceed in disregard of the interests and wishes of the people of Western Sahara, they would be in violation of the principles of international law applicable to mineral resource activities in Non-Self-Governing Territories.” An international campaign to prevent the extraction of the “conflict phosphate” from Western Sahara by Morocco has led many firms around the world to stop buying phosphate from OCP SA. Nutrien, the largest fertilizer manufacturer in the United States that used Moroccan phosphates, decided to stop imports from Morocco in 2018. That same year, the South African court challenged the right of ships carrying phosphate from the region to dock in their ports, ruling that “the Moroccan shippers of the product had no legal right to it.”
Only three known companies continue to buy conflict phosphate mined in Western Sahara: Two from New Zealand (Ballance Agri-Nutrients Limited and Ravensdown) and one from India (Paradeep Phosphates Limited).
Human Rights
After the 1991 ceasefire, the UN set up a Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). This is the only UN peacekeeping force that does not have a mandate to report on human rights. The UN made this concession to appease the Kingdom of Morocco. The Moroccan government has tried to intervene several times when the UN team in Western Sahara attempted to make the slightest noise about the human rights violations in the region. In March 2016, the kingdom expelled MINURSO staff because then-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon referred to the Moroccan presence in Western Sahara as an “occupation.”
Pressure from the United States is going to ensure that the only realistic outcome of negotiations is for continued Moroccan control of Western Sahara. All parties involved in the conflict are readying for battle. Far from peace, the Abraham Accords are going to accelerate a return to war in this part of Africa.
Maasai in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya / credit: Henrik Hansen on Unsplash
NAIROBI—Close to 500 organizations and 4,747 individuals recently petitioned the Tanzanian government to respect the rights of 70,000 Maasai pastoralists, who are at risk of being evicted from ancestral land because of the government’s collusion with big-game hunting interests.
The petition was delivered after a government official summoned on January 11 village and ward leaders within the 1,500 square kilometers in question, informing them the government would be making a decision for the interest of the country. Maasai residents are calling on President Samia Suluhu Hassan to drop the plans.
“The Maasai residing within the targeted Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) are disallowed from building decent houses or even planting a tree, including even owning a motorbike,” Joseph Oleshangay, a lawyer representing the Maasai, told Toward Freedom. “Successive governments have eternally destined this community to remain impoverished. Now, this current move is a continuation of the abuse meted on the Maasai.”
The boundaries of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area is in pink / credit: Encyclopedia Britanica
Royal Intervention
The Tanzanian government had planned to lease the 1,500 square kilometers of Maasai ancestral land to Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC), which a group of Dubai royal families own, according to the petitioners. But after evictions in 2009, 2013 and 2017, the Maasai sought legal recourse. A 2018 East African Court of Justice (EACJ) ruling placed an injunction, prohibiting the destruction of Maasai property, the harassment of the Maasai, and the eviction of the people as well as their more than 200,000 livestock. The injunction remains until the case arrives in court.
Despite several attempts, Tanzania’s Directorate of Presidential Communications declined to respond to Toward Freedom.
According to Oleshangay, with the government ignoring the court, the Maasai community has gone back to a regional court to seek protection and direction.
Within the three years the Maasai people have faced eviction, an estimated 15,000 people have been displaced from their homes.
Isaya Lesion, spokesperson for OBC and himself a Tanzanian national, told Toward Freedom that all the land in Tanzania belonged to the public and the president holds the land in trust of the citizens and may intermittently change its usage for the benefit of the country.
“It has happened before in Ihefu Basin, Mtwara and Kilobero, just to name a few places where evictions by the government have happened to pave the way for development on behalf of the nation.”
Lesion further says that the coterie of Civil Society Organizations (CSO), particularly in Tanzania, who are opposed to the eviction plans have “turned the Maasais into their milking cows, using them to secure funding from external donors. It’s a lucrative business and the key players, who disproportionately live in urban centers, live large as the Maasais continue languishing in poverty.”
However, human rights violations are the crux of the case against the government. Indigenous Maasai pastoralists are recognized as legal inhabitants of the land. About 2 million Maasai roam the arid and semi-arid parts of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, making them one of the largest pastoral groups worldwide. The Maasai are among the Horn of Africa’s pastoralists and itinerant farmers who have lost access to grazing areas and farmlands because of land grabs.
“Any attempts to evict them will certainly be unlawful, unjust, and discriminatory under national law and the international human-rights obligations and commitments of the Government of Tanzania,” said Ann Henga, executive director of the Dar es Salaam-based Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), in an interview with Toward Freedom.
Competing Interest
Hassan government announced plans to create a wildlife corridor, so OBC could use it for trophy hunting and tourism. The company describes itself on its Twitter account as “Sustainable Utilization (Hunting) and photography outfitters in Tanzania. Investors in Loliondo GCA hunting concession. 100% for wildlife conservation.”
Wildlife is 1 of the crucial aspect in our heritage as a country, we must invest and dedicate more in Anti-poaching and educating more people about the benefits of it. This wasn’t a successful raid b’coz the damage was already done, but it’s progress, consistency must be the key. pic.twitter.com/NjGrvN2gds
The government plans to lease to OBC the NCA, which encompasses the Loliondo division, among others. NCA is considered one of the most cinematic landscapes on the globe, with more than 1 million wildebeest migrating through the area every year. It is home to the critically endangered black rhino. In 1979, UNESCO declared the NCA a World Heritage Site.
Joan Carling, co-convener of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights International (IPRI), told Toward Freedom international attention appears to have stamped out eviction efforts.
“The inter-related reasons … are the pressure from UNESCO to address the growing number of humans in the area, which they consider a serious threat to the conservation of wildlife, and, in this sense, would affect the status of the park as a World Wildlife Heritage and Conservation area.”
NCA losing UNESCO recognition would mean fewer tourists. Loliondo is on the main migratory route for wildlife north of the Ngorongoro Crater, east of Serengeti National Park and south of Kenya’s Maasai Mara National Reserve.
In November 2017, the government ended a 25-year-old hunting tourism deal with OBC that reportedly was in exchange for millions of dollars to Tanzania’s armed forces.
The Gulf royal families gave $32,000 to the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party and $2 million to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, according to government records The East African newspaper reports to have seen. The monies were given in 1994, according to the regional newspaper, which quotes then-Chief Opposition Chief Whip Tundu Lissu. He said he had interrogated the issue for the past 20 years, but because of the alleged chicanery involved in the deal, the government has kept the details of the engagement shrouded in mystery.
“Once again, the Maasai are facing eviction just to please the UAE royal family, underlining the Tanzanian government insensitivity towards the Indigenous pastoralists, as it clearly prioritizes tourism revenue over its people,” said Dr. Paula Kahumbu, a wildlife conservationist and Chief Executive Officer of Wildlife Direct, a nonprofit registered in both Kenya and the United States, in an interview with Toward Freedom.
Trophy Fees
Despite the November 2017 announcement, OBC did not leave Tanzania for a few days. But current Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said OBC would stay. In November 2018, Tanzania lifted a hunting ban, which had been imposed in October 2015 following abuse and misuse of hunting permits. The OBC had been granted an exclusive license to hunt in 1992 during the presidency of Ali Hassan Mwinyi.
The annual hunting license fee is $60,000 per block allocated to a hunting safari company. Trophy fees for hunting an elephant or a lion are the most expensive. It costs $15,000 to kill an elephant and $12,000 to kill a lion. Presently, Tanzania is focused on attracting tourists who can afford a 21-day hunting safari that costs about $60,000, excluding the cost of flights, gun import permits and trophy fees.
“The Maasai have been subjected to a series of human rights violations and violent evictions in the name of conservation and luxury hunting and safari tourism,” Chris Lang of news outlet REDD-Monitor told Toward Freedom. “The rights of Tanzania’s Indigenous peoples and Tanzanian law must come ahead of a deal with a luxury hunting tourism corporation.”
Charles Wachira is a foreign correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya, and is formerly an East Africa correspondent with Bloomberg. He covers issues including human rights, business, politics and international relations.
