This article was produced by Peoples Dispatch / Globetrotter News Service.
The Workers’ Party of Tunisia and several human rights groups have strongly objected to a deal proposed by European countries on the movement of migrants. They have called it a violation of sovereignty and the human rights of refugees.
On June 11, top European Union (EU) officials visited Tunisia and issued a joint statement after meeting President Kais Saied, saying that both parties have agreed to work jointly to end “irregular migration.”
Critics of the deal claim that the EU is using Tunisia’s precarious economic condition to force it to control the movement of migrants across the Mediterranean Sea in exchange for financial support, just like they did with Turkey and Libya.
The Workers’ Party claimed in a statement on June 15 that any such deal will make Tunisia a “policeman” patrolling its borders so that people trying to escape their deteriorating economic conditions can be stopped from going to Europe and punished.
Reports indicate that the EU is pushing Tunisia to establish a harsh border policy in exchange for its support for the country’s stalled bid to obtain a $1.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.
Tunisia’s loan has been stalled for months due to Saied’s reluctance to implement the reforms demanded by the IMF. Saied is reportedly worried that his government—already facing large-scale popular resistance since his political coup in July 2021—will face another popular upsurge if the IMF’s demands to cut subsidies for essential commodities such as flour and fuel, cuts to social services, and privatization are implemented.
Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan (left) and RSF head General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, aka Hemeti / credit: Peoples Dispatch
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Peoples Dispatch.
Tensions simmering between Sudan’s army and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) boiled over into armed clashes on the morning of Saturday, April 15, following disagreements over the integration of the autonomous RSF into the army’s command chain.
The issue of integration was a key aspect of a deal that Sudan’s ruling junta was to sign with right-wing civilian forces to share power with the latter. The left in Sudan has been critical of the proposed deal, questioning the sincerity of the parties. Speaking to Peoples Dispatch a few hours before the fighting broke out, the Sudanese Communist Party’s Foreign Relations Secretary, Saleh Mahmoud, said “Both the forces, the army and the RSF, have a mutual interest in escalating armed conflict, so that it can be used as a reason to not hand over power to the civilian forces.”
According to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the air force carried out strikes destroying RSF’s Tiba and Soba base in Khartoum State on Saturday. Heavy gunfire began in the morning in several cities, including in the vicinity of the Presidential Palace and the airport in the capital Khartoum city.
Earlier, the RSF, which is led by the ruling military junta’s deputy chairman, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, aka Hemeti, claimed to have taken control of the Presidential Palace, the seat of the junta’s chairman and army chief, General Abdel Fattah al Burhan.
Later, however, after continued fighting, the SAF claimed that the RSF troops had left their weapons behind and fled the the presidential palace area to hide in the residential areas. The army has called on the residents to stay home.
The RSF had also claimed to have taken control of the airports in Khartoum and in El-Obeid, over 400 km southwest of Khartoum in the state of North Kordofan. It also claimed control over the military airbase in Merowe, 200 km to Khartoum’s north, in the Northern State which borders Egypt.
While Hemeti is backed by the UAE, Egypt, which is said to be backing Burhan in this internal struggle, reportedly has planes in this airbase, making it a crucial infrastructure.
On April 12, at least a hundred RSF vehicles surrounded this airbase. Sudan Tribune reported that “the army surrounded the RSF troops and requested them to evacuate but the paramilitary force refused.” Subsequently, military vehicles of the RSF also rolled into Khartoum and several other cities.
Complaining that “this deployment and repositioning” of the RSF “clearly violates the law,” the SAF spokesperson issued a statement at 3 a.m. on Thursday, warning that the “continuation” of such deployments “will inevitably cause more divisions and tensions that may lead to the collapse of security in the country.”
According to the RSF, which first issued a statement on the fighting, clashes began after a surprise attack by the army on its troops in Soba, before simultaneous attacks on its bases in several other cities. The SAF has in turn accused the RSF of lying to conceal its own aggression.
RSF and the Army Worked Together to Protect Military Rule from Pro-Democracy Movement
Established in 2013, the RSF was formed by coalescing the various militias used by the state during the civil war in Darfur in the 2000s to commit alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
Omar al-Bashir, the former dictator under whose administration these alleged crimes were committed, stands trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC). He was forced out of power on April 11, 2019, about four months after the start of the pro-democracy protests that have come to be known as the December Revolution.
By the time of his ouster, the RSF had become, and remains, one of the most powerful organizations in the country with a vast financial network built on mining gold in Darfur. Hemeti had pledged over a billion dollars to help stabilize Sudan’s central bank in the aftermath of Bashir’s removal.
Such increasing power and influence of the RSF have been making the army uneasy over the years. Reports about underlying tensions between the Burhan and Hemeti have been frequent. However, united with the intent to maintain military rule and protect it from the December Revolution, the two forces had been working together.
The junta formed by the generals in Bashir’s security committee after his removal was chaired by army chief Burhan, who in turn declared RSF head Hemeti his deputy on April 12, 2019, exactly four years before he would deploy the RSF to surround Merowe military airbase.
When the mass sit-in demonstration occupying the square outside the army HQ continued after Bashir’s removal, insisting on a civilian administration, the junta deployed the RSF on June 3, 2019. In the massacre that followed, RSF troops killed over a hundred protesters, wounding many more and raping several while the army watched over from its HQ.
Right-Wing Parties Seek Compromise with the Military Junta, Again
In the aftermath of this massacre, right-wing parties in the coalition, Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC), entered into negotiations with the junta, forming a joint civilian-military transitional government in August 2019. In protest against this compromise, the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP), a key player in the December Revolution, broke away from the FFC, which was formed in January that year to represent the pro-democracy protest movement.
Under this power-sharing arrangement with the FFC, the military controlled the defense, the police, the foreign policy, and much of Sudan’s economy. The little power that was ceded to the FFC-chosen civilians in this government was taken back with the military coup in October 2021, since when military rule has been absolute.
“No negotiations, No Compromise, No partnership” with the military, is a slogan that has been resonating in the mass-protests that have continued since the coup, regularly drawing hundreds of thousands to the streets in several towns and cities across the country.
Disregarding this popular call for the complete overthrow of the junta and the prosecution of its generals under a fully civilian transitional government, the FFC returned right back to negotiations after the coup, seeking a compromise and partnership with the military again.
The unpopular negotiations were supported by the Trilateral Mechanism, formed by the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), African Union (AU), and the seven-countries regional bloc, Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
The United States threw its weight behind these negotiations, imposing pressure on the military as well as the right-wing FFC parties to make compromises and come to another power-sharing agreement.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which are backing Burhan, and the UAE, which is backing Hemeti, all want a military regime in Sudan, albeit with different hierarchical structures, Fathi Elfadl, national spokesperson of the SCP, told Peoples Dispatch.
“But the Americans,” he added, “have been pushing for a comprehensive agreement with the FFC to establish a civilian authority, which, however, will only serve as a cover for the real authority that will be invested in the Security and Defense Council controlled by the junta.”
Under much Western pressure and growing threats to their authority from the radical mass-movements below, the junta and the FFC signed a Framework Agreement in December 2022, laying the path toward a final political agreement on another power-sharing arrangement.
By then, at least 120 had been killed and thousands injured in the crackdown on pro-democracy protests by the army, the police, and the RSF. Yet, unwilling to compromise with the military, the network of over 5,000 local Resistance Committees (RCs) across Sudan, which have been leading the mass-protests since the coup, rejected the agreement, and vowed to continue mass-actions till the junta is toppled.
Hundreds of more protesters have since suffered injuries in the crackdown that has continued despite the junta’s commitment in the Framework agreement to respect “international human rights charters.. freedoms of peaceful assembly and expression”.
While the agreement stated that a civilian Prime Minister will be the supreme commander of the armed forces, Burhan clarified to media only days later that the “civilian Supreme Commander of the SAF” neither “presides over the army chief” nor appoints him, but “only approves recommendations made to him.”
Despite these demonstrations of bad faith, the FFC proceeded under the aegis of the trilateral mechanism to negotiate the contested issues left unresolved in the framework agreement.
These included the review of the Juba peace agreement which has brought no peace to the war-torn regions like Blue Nile and Darfur where hundreds of thousands have been displaced since in continuing armed attacks, mostly by the RSF and the militias it supports. Another contested issue was the nature of transitional justice for the victims of the June 3 massacre and other atrocities.
With several compromises, the FFC had found common ground with the junta on most of these issues by last month when the signatories of the framework agreement announced that the final political agreement will be signed by April 1. This was to be followed by a constitutional declaration on April 6, and finally, the establishment of the new joint transitional government by April 11, the anniversary of the overthrow of Bashir.
‘Only Way Out of the Crisis Is to Restore the Revolution’
However, on April 1, the signing of the political agreement was postponed to April 6, and then indefinitely delayed. The FFC said that the delay was caused due to a disagreement between the army and the RSF over the integration of the latter into the former’s structure.
While Burhan is insisting that the integration should take place within the two years of the transitional period by the end of which an election is to be held as per the agreement, Hemeti has refused, demanding 10 years.
“By lining up with the RSF in this dispute, the FFC has lost the little credibility they may have been left with after entering into negotiations with the junta for the second time,” SCP’s Foreign Relations Secretary, Saleh Mahmoud, told Peoples Dispatch.
While the FFC has denied the allegation, Middle East Eyereported that according to a draft of the final agreement it has seen, a period of 10 years had been agreed upon for this process of integration. Given that the FFC claims that it is only the disagreement within the security forces that is impeding the final agreement, the provision of 10 years in the draft might be an indication of the FFC’s willingness to allow the notorious paramilitary another decade of autonomy.
One explanation for the alleged siding of the FFC with the RSF is that the RSF agrees with the FFC that parties that have not signed the framework agreement should not be a part of the political agreement or have a share in state power. Burhan, however, has shown his keenness to also include other parties outside the framework agreement, especially those who had been in alliance with the ousted Bashir’s Islamist National Congress Party (NCP).
With the escalation of hostilities, however, the prospect of a final political agreement on the basis of the framework agreement has practically fallen apart, argued Mahmoud.
SCP reiterated in its statement that “the only way to get out of the crisis is to restore the revolution and establish the authority of the people.”
The leaders of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan (right), and Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev (left), met with European Union President Charles Michel (center) in Brussels on May 22 / credit: president.az
While Russia continues conducting its “special military operation” in Ukraine, Moscow’s ally, Armenia, has been seeking to normalize relations with its arch enemy, Azerbaijan. Although the South Caucasus region has traditionally been in the Kremlin’s geopolitical orbit, it is the European Union that seems to be playing the major role in peace talks, border delimitation and the reopening of transportation links.
During the past six months, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev met three times through the mediation of European Council President Charles Michel.
In the past, Russia had mediated conflict between the two Caucasus countries over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Although it is an internationally recognized part of Azerbaijan, it has been under Armenian control for more than two decades. In November 2020, Pashinyan and Aliyev traveled to Moscow to sign a ceasefire deal that effectively ended the 44-day war that Yerevan and Baku fought over the mountainous region.
As a result of the conflict, Azerbaijan restored its sovereignty over most parts of Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as surrounding areas. More importantly, Russia deployed about 2,000 peacekeeping troops, which strengthened its positions in the South Caucasus.
Map of Caucasus region, with Nagorno-Karabakh in yellow / credit: Wikipedia/CuriousGolden
‘Karabakh Has Turned Into South Ossetia’
Russian forces are stationed mostly in parts of Nagorno-Karabakh that are still under Armenian control.
According to Tom Mutch, a New Zealand-born journalist who covered the 44-day war, such a position allows Moscow to turn the region into its de facto military state.
“Let’s be honest, Karabakh has turned into South Ossetia now,” Mutch told Toward Freedom, referring to Georgia’s breakaway region that Russia recognized as an independent state in 2008, following the brief war Moscow fought against its small neighbor. “Russia holds all of the political and military power in the region. But the problem is that the Kremlin is so distracted by what is going on in Ukraine that it doesn’t really have any ability to focus on Karabakh.”
Despite its preoccupation with the war in Ukraine, Russia hosted Azerbaijani and Armenian delegations on June 3 in Moscow, where they held the 10th meeting of the trilateral working group on the opening of regional transport communications. According to reports, representatives of the three countries discussed and coordinated on borders, customs, and other kinds of control, as well as safe transit of people, cars, and goods by roads and railways through the territories of Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Following the Brussels meeting in May between Pashinyan and Aliyev, Baku and Yerevan announced the creation of commissions for border delimitation. In other words, they would look into increasing movement between the two states.
Dr. Gulshan Pashayeva, a board member of Azerbaijan’s Center of Analysis of International Relations, claims that is one of the tangible results of the peace talks held under the EU auspices. Still, she does not think the EU can replace Russia as the major mediator in the South Caucasus.
“EU and Russia are quite different geopolitical actors with incompatible resources and influence,” she told Toward Freedom. “Therefore, they cannot replace each other.”
Both Azerbaijan and Armenia are members of the EU’s political and economic Eastern Partnership initiative. Russia, on the other hand, sees both countries as its allies—Armenia, through the military alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and Azerbaijan, in the form of the allied cooperation agreement signed in February.
Under the mediation of Russian President Vladimir Putin on November 26 in the southern Russia city of Sochi, the leaders of rival countries Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to ease remaining tensions after their 2019-20 war over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan (right) and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev (left) flank Putin / credit: commonspace.eu
No Agreement Without Moscow
According to Russian political analyst Sergey Markedonov, Russia and the West have always cooperated regarding the Karabakh issue. But the problem is Western powers no longer want to work with Moscow amid the Ukraine conflict.
Meanwhile, Mutch said Nagorno-Karabakh could be a place Russia and the EU can cooperate, despite their strained relations regarding Ukraine.
“But I don’t see any agreement that can be signed without Moscow’s final say,” he stressed.
In his view, the real reason why peace talks seem like they are making progress is the military defeat of Armenia in 2020.
“The speech that Pashinyan made in April was widely seen as signaling that he was prepared to give up Armenia’s aspirations for a de jure independent status of Karabakh,” Mutch said. “That was the sticking point of negotiations for the past 25 years.”
In that speech on April 13, the Armenian prime minister said, “The international community is telling Yerevan to lower the bar on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh.” He pointed out Armenia “cannot rely on international partners, not because they do not want to help the landlocked nation, but because they cannot help.”
Pashinyan also recently emphasized that the most important and most urgent issue between Armenia and Azerbaijan is the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. For Baku, however, the status of the mountainous region has already been resolved.
The most important and most urgent issue between Armenia and Azerbaijan and for the peace in our region is the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. pic.twitter.com/oT1eCluiOE
“I strongly believe that Armenia will come to understand that there will be no special status for ethnic Armenians living in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan,” Samir Mammadov told Toward Freedom. He heads the international affairs department at “Back to Karabakh” Public Union – a political organization that aims to return ethnic Azeris to Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Armenian government officials often claim that they want the rights of Armenians living in Azerbaijan to be respected. Azerbaijan can and will ensure that without allowing the creation of an artificial autonomy within its borders,” Mammadov said, pointing out that if Yerevan continues insisting on the status of Karabakh, Baku will “probably raise the issue of the rights of Azerbaijanis ethnically cleansed from Armenia.”
In other words, Baku expects Yerevan to recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, while Armenia fears full implementation of the ceasefire deal the two sides signed in 2020 in Moscow would jeopardize the landlocked nation’s sovereignty. According to the Moscow agreement, “Armenia shall guarantee the security of transport connections between the western regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic in order to arrange unobstructed movement of persons, vehicles and cargo in both directions.”
Since the end of 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war Azerbaijan and Turkey have been promoting the concept of the “Zangezur corridor,” which, if implemented, would connect Azerbaijan to the Nakhchivan Autonomous Region and Turkey to the rest of the Turkic world through Armenia’s Syunik Province / credit: Mapeh / Wikipedia
The Fate of a Corridor
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently assured Armenian officials the future railway and highway that will connect Azerbaijani mainland with its Nakhchivan exclave through southern Armenian will be “based on the recognition of the sovereignty of Armenian territory.”
For Azerbaijan, the future transportation route should be part of the Nakhichevan Corridor, also known as the Zangezur Corridor.
“The narrative of the wording of a so-called corridor is unacceptable for Yerevan,” Pashinyan said in a June 13 interview. “We have one corridor in our region, and this is the Lachin corridor connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.”
That corridor is a mountain road that is de jure in the Lachin District of Azerbaijan, but is under the control of a Russian peacekeeping force as a result of the 2020 ceasefire deal.
Thus, the future of transportation links in the South Caucasus will almost certainly be on the agenda of future meetings between Pashinyan and Aliyev, be it in Brussels or in Moscow.
“The EU is ready to step up its support,” Michel said in a May 23 statement. “We agreed to remain in close contact and will meet again in the same format by July/August.”
Meanwhile, Lavrov is planning to meet today in Azerbaijan, which can be viewed as Russia’s attempt to keep both Armenia and Azerbaijan in its geopolitical orbit, despite the EU’s recent new role as a major mediator.
Nikola Mikovic is a Serbia-based contributor to CGTN, Global Comment, Byline Times, Informed Comment, and World Geostrategic Insights, among other publications. He is a geopolitical analyst for KJ Reports and Enquire.
About 11,000 people have been estimated dead due to the impact of a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Syria and Turkey / credit: Aaman News English
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in Peoples Dispatch.
The head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, Khaled Hboubati, demanded on Tuesday, February 7, that Western countries, specifically the United States and its allies, lift their siege and sanctions on Syria so that rescue and relief work can proceed unimpeded, after the country was devastated by a powerful earthquake on Monday.
“We need heavy equipment, ambulances and fire fighting vehicles to continue to rescue and remove the rubble, and this entails lifting sanctions on Syria as soon as possible,” Hboubati said at a press conference on Tuesday, as reported by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
A powerful earthquake registering a magnitude of 7.8 struck Turkey and Syria on Monday. Over 5,000 people have been reported dead so far. In Syria alone, the death toll was 1,602 on Monday. These numbers are only expected to rise as a large number of people are suspected to be still buried under the debris of houses that collapsed in the earthquake and its aftershocks.
Kahramanmaraş, a city in Turkey, was reported to be the epicenter of the earthquake, and the nearby city of Gaziantep—home to millions of Syrian refugees—was reportedly hit the hardest. Relief and rescue operations in Turkey have been affected by bad weather as several of the affected areas have received heavy rain and snowfall on Monday and Tuesday.
Syria’s northern provinces such as Idlib, Latakia, Hama, and Aleppo have also been badly affected by the earthquake. Some of the affected areas in Idlib and Aleppo are under rebel control and densely populated by refugees from other parts of the country.
Though several countries including the United States and its allies have extended their support to Turkey in its relief and rescue work, they have refused to extend similar assistance to Syria. The U.S. State Department made it clear on Monday that it was only willing to support some work carried out in Syria by NGOs, but that it would have no dealings with the Bashar al-Assad government. “It would be quite ironic—if not even counterproductive—for us to reach out to a government that has brutalized its people over the course of a dozen years now,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said, as quoted by Al Jazeera.
On Monday, the Syrian government had issued an appeal to the international community asking for help. Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad is quoted in Al-Mayadeen as having said that his government was willing “to provide all the required facilities to international organizations so they can give Syrians humanitarian aid.”
Sanctions Hamper Relief and Rescue Work
Claiming that “Current U.S. sanctions severely restrict aid assistance to millions of Syrians,” the American Arab anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) asked the U.S. government on Monday to lift its sanctions. While it said that the NGOs working on the ground were doing a commendable job, it also said that the “lifting of the sanctions will open the doors for additional and supplemental aid that will provide immediate relief to those in need.”
The U.S. Congress had adopted the so-called Caesar Act in 2020, according to which any group or company doing business with the Syrian government faces sanctions. The act extends the scope of the previously existing sanctions on Syria, imposed by the U.S. and its European allies since the beginning of the war in the country in 2011.
The impact of sanctions on Syria’s health and other social sectors and its overall economic recovery have been criticized by the UN on several occasions in the past. The UN has also demanded that all unilateral punitive measures against Syria be lifted.
Meanwhile, countries such as China, Iran, Russia, Cuba, Algeria, and the UAE, among others, have expressed their willingness to provide necessary support to Syria, and have sent relief materials already.
Al-Mayadeen has however reported that the delivery of international aid, as well as the speed of relief and rescue work in Syria, continue to be impeded as the Damascus international airport is not fully operational at the moment. The airport was hit by an Israeli missile on January 2 and repair work is not yet complete.
