Zachariah Mokhothu inside the home he shares with his mother in the South African township of Kutlwanong. In his 15-year mining career, he got injured and developed tuberculosis before his paralysis / credit: Ihsaan Haffejee / New Frame
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by New Frame.
Zachariah Mokhothu, 49, was excited when he got his first job in mining. He is the eldest son and was the only breadwinner. He never imagined that working underground would change his life. As he gets into the car to head home to Kutlwanong township outside Odendaalsrus in the Free State, pieces of his wheelchair keep falling off.
“Is there anyone who used to work in mining who has a scrap of a wheelchair like this?” he asks casually as he sits in the car.
According to Statistics South Africa, the mining industry generated Rand 527.5 billion ($36 billion USD) in sales in 2019, with 16 commodities ranked in the top 10 internationally. South Africa is currently ranked fifth in the world for mining’s contribution to GDP and in the top three globally in terms of production.
While the industry continues to thrive, there are plenty of men like Mokhothu who pay for its success. During his 15-year career in mining, he got injured and contracted tuberculosis (TB) before his paralysis.
Mokhothu says he was pushing a wheelbarrow at work when he realised that his left arm had gone numb and he couldn’t move it. He went to the site manager and asked for his medical aid documents so he could go to the doctor. He was told his documents were missing and that he possibly didn’t sign for medical aid. “It is impossible that I didn’t sign for my medical aid when I know that anything can happen underground. Mining is dangerous,” he says.
Mokhothu’s relationship with his employer, Redpath Mining, deteriorated from the moment he walked to the hospital after being denied a company car to take him. He was alone there and a few days after a stroke had caused the numbness in his arm, the rest of his body followed.
Former mineworker Zachariah Mokhothu / credit: Ihsaan Haffejee / New Frame
Trickery and Denial
His mother Regina Mokhothu says it was difficult when he couldn’t move at all. “We got no support from the mine, not even a check-up. Luckily Zacharia still had medical aid from his former employer, so he went to a couple of physiotherapy sessions before it expired.
“My heart breaks when I see his situation and how the mine has treated him. He was the only breadwinner when he was working. The family didn’t want for anything. I’ve become too old to work. I used to be a domestic worker in the city.”
A Redpath mining representative said Mokhothu wasn’t injured on duty and that he wasn’t an employee yet when he had the stroke. “If he was injured on duty, the process would be to complete forms, send them to [insurance company] Rand Mutual, observe how severe the situation is and pay accordingly. Rand Mutual makes that decision.”
Mokhothu says he was tricked into signing a voluntary termination agreement and that he has a document to this effect. He also has a letter from Rand Mutual notifying him about his payments towards medical aid.
Thabani Tsokodibane, 56, had worked in the mining industry for over 10 years. In 2010, he was diagnosed with drug-resistant tuberculosis / credit: Ihsaan Haffejee / New Frame
Mining Fatalities
More than 11,000 mineworkers died in South Africa between 1984 and 2005, according to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy. The death toll from mining accidents was about 270 in 2003 and the department, Minerals Council South Africa and other industry stakeholders reached an agreement to reduce mining fatalities by 20 percent a year. There was an improvement from 2010 onwards, but fatalities have increased again in recent years.
Those who survive mining accidents, such as Thabani Tsokodibane, 56, tell of the lack of care and blatant disregard they experience at the hands of managers and employers when they are injured or fall ill. Tsokodibane had been working in the mining industry for more than a decade when he contracted TB at Harmony Gold’s Bambanani mine in Welkom in 2010.
He went to the clinic and was told he had drug-resistant TB. “I took my medicine every day. I was at the clinic daily for almost a year. At work, nobody said much to me or called to check. I thought everything was still in order. But when I went back to work, they said, ‘We have put somebody else in your shift, go home.’”
Disappointed and worried about providing for his wife and seven children, he applied for a job at another mine. But the human resources (HR) department told him in the final stages of the process that the mine could not employ him because his health tests had shown he was not fit to work underground. The TB had affected his lungs, leaving him with chronic breathing problems.
“My body has never been the same. I can build and do plumbing, which I used to do for extra income, but now I work slower because I just get weak,” says Tsokodibane. He says it is more difficult to breathe and he comes down with flu-like symptoms, including coughing every five minutes, that sometimes last for weeks. “I go to the clinic, get cough mixture and that’s all.”
Thabani Tsokodibane worked in a mine in Welkom in South Africa’s Free State / credit: Ihsaan Haffejee / New Frame
‘Some Sort of Justice’
Mokhothu and Tsokodibane hope to receive compensation from their respective former employers through the Tshiamiso Trust. They are hopeful that, after a long wait, they will get some sort of justice for the effects of mining on their bodies and would like more than monetary compensation.
Mokhothu says he is most frustrated with how his employer treated him. “I was tricked. After years, I got a letter from [medical insurance company] Discovery about the payments that were deducted from my salary, which means they hid my medical aid from me. I think it’s because they wanted to deny that I had the stroke at work. Mines are very good at denying responsibility. Even with TB, you will be asked if you have proof that you got it from work.
“I have a diploma in secretarial services from Standford college. I thought I could do admin at the mine and the HR person came and said he can give me light duty, I should just sign. But when I read the document, it was a voluntary termination agreement. I refused to sign and was very angry that they tried to trick me like that.”
Mokhothu wants to run his own business one day. He lives with his mother, apart from his wife and children who live in another township, because the roads in Kutlwanong are easier to navigate in a wheelchair; it doesn’t get stuck in the mud. He takes taxies to the hospital, to collect his grant or to submit documents at the Tshiamiso Trust offices and it is hard.
“I never wanted to be a miner. I wasn’t finding a job with my diploma and the opportunity came up. I regret being part of this industry where people see you get hurt in the line of duty, on their premises, and refuse to take responsibility. It’s as if I put myself in this wheelchair.”
Harmony Gold spokesperson Moeketsi Maloeli said: “All employees have a choice on whether to take medical aid or not. If they happen to fall sick without medical aid, there are health hubs with state-of-the-art equipment, some are even better than government hospitals. A miner can go there until they get well.”
Editor’s Note: The video was produced by African Stream.
People who live in the Sahel, a transitional area in Africa between the Sahara Desert and the savanna that is rich in mineral and fossil-fuel deposits, have rejoiced at French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that the Berkhane military operation in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger has ended. These countries were once part of a larger French controlled territory known as French West Africa. However, many former French colonies continue to be forced to use the French currency, the franc, and have been subject to French military occupation in the name of anti-terrorism.
As anger over incoming tax hikes boils over in Kenya, African Stream takes a deep dive into the role the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has played in ramming austerity down Africans’ throats. It boils down to neocolonial debt slavery, a system designed to oppress Africans, while oiling the wheels of otherwise faltering Western economies. African Stream’s Kenneth Kaigua breaks down this complex issue.
Protester holding the Sudanese flag in Khartoum after the October 25 coup / credit: Revolutionary masses of Sudan
Editor’s Note: These interviews with Khartoum-based activists that the author conducted represent part 2 of a two-part series on the Sudan coup. The first part can be read here. Certain interviewees chose to use their first name or initials because of perceived security risks.
Muzan Alneel, Marxist Political Activist and Blogger
Krisboo Diallo: What is your opinion about the recent events in Sudan… Were you surprised by the coup?
Muzan Alneel: A change that leads to further concentration of power at the hands of the military was expected. To go with a plain and simple military coup, using pickup trucks and DShKs [Degtyaryova-Shpagina Krupnokaliberny, a Soviet heavy machine gun] was just a bit too silly and weird. Nevertheless, it was not a surprise. Not to me. And as I saw, not to the Sudanese public, who on October 25 looked relieved more than anything, and many using the phrase “delayed battle” to refer to the coming post-coup struggles and fights with the military.
I was surprised by the way in which the November agreement was announced. The prime minister and the military have put so little effort in manufacturing popular support for the agreement and then took a great risk by announcing it as a pre-planned large-scale demonstration [that] was taking place. They created a space for the public to instantaneously debate the agreement, share their thoughts on it and eventually rejected with chants that spread across cities on the same day.
This tells me that Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok read the output of the last two years very wrong. It seems he thought his unpopular policies that people often warned him [against] implementing were accepted due to a personal carte blanche he has from the Sudanese people and that it will work for the agreement, too. And that is not true. In reality, the public had clear enemies (the previous regime), but was not clear in their definition of allies, due to lack of clarity in the definition of demands and policies necessary to deliver them. This stance against the previous regime was translated [as] support for the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC, civilian group). Then and as the FFC started compromising more than the public can justify support, moved only to SPA (Sudanese Professionals Association) with clear rejection of the FFC, and in the same manner from the SPA to the civilian cabinet, and finally to just Hamdok. A better reading of the situation would have told him that his action will lead to a divorce between street action and the classic elite and bourgeois political club. Fortunately for Sudan, he miscalculated, leading to a level of radicalization in the streets that would have taken great effort and organizing to reach, if not for that.
KD: Is the civilian component an expression of the aspirations of the revolutionary masses?
MA: No, it isn’t. The policy decisions taken by the partnership government over the past two years and the efforts that the civilian component spent on passing these policies (e.g., economic liberalization policies [neoliberal policies]) are counter-revolutionary policies that, by definition, do not express the [demands] of the revolutionary masses.
The support for the cabinet was coming from the idea that there’s a common enemy, i.e., the NCP regime (National Congress Party). Even at the time when they implemented counter revolutionary policies and decisions, the majority said criticizing the cabinet will lead to strengthening the pro-NCP or pro-military arguments.
After the coup, and as a more radical position was adopted by the majority of those in the streets, the members of the civilian components—whether those not detained or those detained and later released—were still putting out their reformist statements. Even their supporters, who once justified their actions as wise, realistic and clever in handling the military, rejected them. Some of them who made the mistake of joining the demonstrations and trying to share their reformist speeches in the streets were rejected and ridiculed by the masses.
KD: The basic structure and strikes are the best way to bring down the coup?
MA: Strikes and civil disobedience (in all their possible and new forms) are the only unarmed path to bring down the coup.
The Sudanese people have watched armed resistance trying to take a shot at the NCP regime for decades with little success and extremely high risk to their communities and the overall population.
It had been our experience that armed resistance was used by the NCP to justify extreme violence and the NCP often dealt with it by creating and arming pro-government militias across ethnic lines, creating ethnic divisions and a decay in the relationship between the state and citizens that we will be dealing with for a very long time. Probably much longer than after we deal with all the militias (armed forces and RSF “Rapid Support Forces” included).
KD: What do you think about the position of regional and international powers on the current events in Sudan?
MA: International powers are following their usual path prioritizing and supporting a dictatorial form of stability over all other possible paths. It fits with their interests, so that is no surprise. Regional powers have taken a few steps back this time, it seems, in comparison with 2019. The messages from the United States asking Egypt and the Gulf states to step back might be the reason.
I believe it is also becoming clearer to the agents of international powers in Sudan that their “contacts” in the political club are no longer able to control the masses, or even reflect or predict their actual position. We can see them in Khartoum now, reaching out to create new “contacts” in spaces previously too radical for them to acknowledge, whether officially by meeting invitations or the usual tricks of closed meetings, support and “workshops.”
These actions must be watched carefully. The recent meeting invitation to resistance committees from the UN SRSG (UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General) Volker Perthes brought up a debate regarding how to deal with the international community. The UN Secretary-General [António Gutteres]’s latest statement about how the Sudanese should accept the deal pushed more people to reject the UN, or at least see it in a negative light. All committees rejected the first invitation for the first meeting. In the second meeting, some rejected [while] some joined, and asked for them to live-broadcast it and stated their rejection of the UN’s approach.
Those international mediators are a threat to the resistance committees and are working very hard to co-opt it. This, in my opinion, is the main issue we should focus on and fight in terms of international interventions. The rest—statements, sanctions, etc.—are just official blah blah blah.
KD: Does the international community have ambitions or interest with the military government?
MA: It was clear over the past two years that the international community and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) pushed for different schemes of privatization to deal with military investments. This reflected their priority to remove an armed player from the market. Other forms of army intervention in politics (e.g., oppression of the masses) are of no importance to the international community. It seems from what we saw in the past two years the international community would prefer dealing with a neoliberal civilian government, but can tolerate the military staying in the market (or even dominating it, as is the case in Egypt) for “stability.”
Maysoon Elnigoumi, Radical Writer
KD: What is your opinion about the recent events in Sudan… Were you surprised by the coup?
Maysoon Elnigoumi: I guess we have always anticipated a coup since the signing of the partnership between the military and the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC). For the past year, we were all watching what could only be described as an escalation in the relationship between the military components in the government against their civilian partners. The language was very aggressive and provocative. On the other hand, the civilian partners kept speaking about a “harmonious relationship.” Despite this, the coup was still a surprise for me. I guess it was this desperate need to believe in our political parties and political elite, that they know what they’re doing, something like the adults in the room. But the coup has freed me from this delusion, I think.
KD: Is the civilian component an expression of the aspirations of the revolutionary masses?
ME: Right after the election of the FFC, you could see them moving away from some of the revolutionary slogans they have been repeating, and adopting the discourse of officials in the time of the Omar al-Bashir dictatorship. For example, about how subsidies benefit the rich or how the bread queues have disappeared, as well as the clouded statements concerning the “peace agreement” and “transitional justice,” which nobody still knows what they mean by it.
KD: The basic structure and strikes are the best way to bring down the coup?
ME: I think the strikes, the protests and the grassroots local movements are about reimagining the political scene Sudan inherited since colonialism and post-independence, in which a minority of tribal leaders, political elites and army generals set the political agenda of the state. This current movement is shifting from trying to exert pressure on a new kind of political agreement, in which the army is kept out of politics and the country is run by the traditional civilian political elite, because the statements by party leaders [indicate] they cannot envision a political establishment that does not include the army. You can see the statements by neighborhood committees now focusing on politics on the local grassroots level.
KD: What do you think about the position of regional and international powers on the current events in Sudan?
ME: From the very beginning, there was reluctant support [for] the revolution by certain regional powers. It was not until [they] had seen the same military leaders in power after the signing of the agreement that [they] shifted [their] position. Having General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan as head of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council and [General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo] Himedti as deputy vice president of the council [guaranteed] continuing business as usual during the times of the ousted Bashir regime, whether continuing to providing manpower for the Yemen war, or land grabbing in Sudan, or curbing Iran’s influence in the region. The civilian component was unable—or perhaps unwilling—to change anything from the previous regime agenda.
KD: Does the international community have ambitions or interest with the military government?
ME: One of the victories touted by the civilian led government of Prime Minister Hamdok is the “return” of Sudan to the embrace of the “international community,” after 30 years of estrangement from international politics. However, it’s the clichéd narrative: Sudan frees itself from the shackles of despotism into the arms of unhinged structural adjustment programs, with plenty of sweet promises and bonuses from the international community, and becomes the new poster child for the IMF and proponents of the free market and the “smart” limited role of government and public institutions.
The international community wants a government that does not disrupt the narrative of current world affairs. However, it wants [the government] to continue in that role without the embarrassment of supporting a military government that targets peaceful civilians and commits crimes. That is why it is very active in the intermediary efforts of selling a power-sharing agreement to the world and to the Sudanese people, using the same condescending language of colonialism: That the people of Sudan should accept the current power-sharing agreement, as it is “best for them,” and marketing it as a rational choice, gaslighting the current revolution as irrational and unreasonable.
Protesters in Khartoum, Sudan, after the October 25 coup / credit: Revolutionary masses of Sudan
Nabila, Union Activist
KD: What is your opinion about the recent events in Sudan… Were you surprised by the coup?
Nabila: These last events were expected as there were indicators that pointed that there was an imminent coup, just by analyzing the escalating events. I was not surprised, but I had my doubts at the beginning that the military would actually execute a coup. But the bickering and the confrontation within the Sudanese Sovereignty Council and between the ministers confirmed my doubts.
KD: The basic structure and strikes are the best way to bring down the coup?
Nabila: I don’t expect that the demonstrations, nor the grassroots movements nor civilian disobedience, may defeat the coup. On the contrary, after the previous strike it seemed the authorities worked hard to dismantle the unions. But because the grassroots movement is widening its base and more people are joining, it might lead to gradually limiting the regime’s powers and influence. Perhaps this grassroots movement may reach the military institution itself and the lower ranks might self organize. The combination of civil disobedience, grassroots organizing and demonstrations may change the nature of the alternative oppressive regime, a regime which allows for a wider margin of freedoms that may allow us to organize, perhaps one that maintains one’s right to life. I am not concerned anymore with defeating the coup, but rather with how far this grassroots movement can go and what it can achieve. I believe instability of civilian rule since independence has not allowed for the building of a strong grassroots movement (meaning unions). Then it was followed by the 30 years of [Islamist] Ingaz rule, which completely dismantled the unionist movement. However, now the concept of grassroots organization has expanded to include neighborhood resistance committees and the talk for the need of local councils and local representation. Perhaps if this grassroots movement is able to maintain a balance of powers, which includes the military on one hand, and the political parties and the powerful elite on the other, perhaps we may reach some form of democratic rule, in which all parties are in a win-win situation. However, it’s hard to say what the military really wants or to what extent this balance of powers may compromise or handle. I guess this is a question we all need to think about.
KD: What do you think about the position of regional and international powers on the current events in Sudan?
Nabila: The regional powers are only concerned with serving their own agenda that benefits them. Nothing new here. But what should change is how we could regain sovereignty and limit their influence.
KD: Does the international community have ambitions or interest with the military government?
Nabila: The international community won’t have a problem with supporting any regime as long as it fulfills their wishes. Had this regime been able to gain a wider popular base, it would have been supported by the international community. I mean, why are we even presuming this? Look at [President Abdel Fattah al-] Sisi in Egypt. He has the support of the international community.
Protesters in Khartoum, Sudan, after the October 25 coup / credit: Revolutionary masses of Sudan
Tametti, Member of a Neighborhood Resistance Committee
KD: What is your opinion about the recent events in Sudan… Were you surprised by the coup?
Tametti: All the crimes that resulted from the coup, the murders, the detentions, the torture, the stifling of freedoms—not only in Khartoum, but also in Kordofan, Obein, Kirending and Jebel Moon—these are not separate events. But it only demonstrates that the revolution has failed in creating a system that provides people with safety and protection and public freedoms, and true peace and justice for all victims. This coup was not a sudden thing. It was preplanned and meant to ensure that no real change happens, and that the interim peace does not work on dismantling the previous regime and its beneficiaries. It’s all linked with regional powers who are in conflict with the Sudanese people. Therefore, for me, the coup was not a sudden thing, it was pre-organized and pre-planned and it is a very dangerous thing that threatens the livelihoods of the Sudanese people. We never trusted the military and the janjaweed (militia group). We never considered them partners. We’ve always viewed them as an extension of Bashir’s security council. All these crimes are a result of our great distrust for the military and the Janjaweed. Actually, the night before the coup, I was telling a group of friends that I expect the military is going to announce a coup anytime soon. This was my own analysis: The weak performance of the FFC allowed the military to strengthen their lines. Also, the escalation of events in eastern Sudan, the economic situation in which the army presides on most of the economic institutions, the negligence from the side of the army in providing protection to the civilians. Even that last coup in the army, I felt it was a way to measure how the people would react to news about a coup. Not to mention the Presidential Palace sit-in. So I was not surprised. I don’t even think the previous regime has fallen. I mean, the military leadership were the ones in control. They were the ones appointing the top people in government, like the attorney general, the head of the Judiciary. Even how they were leading the process agreement in Juba (capital of South Sudan).
KD: Is the civilian component an expression of the aspirations of the revolutionary masses?
Tametti: So everything was already in their hands, the economy, the peace process, the government. For us, in the street we never even believed that the Bashir regime had fallen. It was his same security council taking reins. It wasn’t a full revolution, and the political elites have failed us and we kept chanting in the streets: It still did not fall.
KD: The basic structure and strikes are the best way to bring down the coup?
Tametti: The civil disobedience, grassroots organization, and strikes are our peaceful tools to we are using to face this regime, and we are still innovating and creating new peaceful ways in which we close down on this coup. I mean we have disposed of [Omar Al-Bashir]’s rule with our bare chests, and his regime was more stable and more powerful, this is evident from the way this coup is brutally facing any peaceful protests, it is a sign of desperation and fear, we can see them trying to cover themselves with the slogans of the revolution, however we are working towards building local rule and representation to limit and beseige this bloody regime, we are adamant on being peaceful and we will not turn into armed protests because we have seen that how since 1953 armed confrontation has only further distabilized the country and divided it.
KD: What do you think about the position of regional and international powers on the current events in Sudan?
Tametti: Regarding the regional powers, some of them had a positive stance, such as the African Union’s initial response in condemning the coup and freezing Sudan’s membership in the Union. Also Kenya’s official response in condemning the coup. Ethiopia’s official response was that it supported the people of Sudan. South Sudan, at the beginning, called for the release of the political prisoners. So there were some responses that were against the coup. However, on the other hand, you have countries like Egypt, and the [United Arab Emirates], who have supported the coup because they are invested in having an unstable regime in Sudan that is not strong, to further exploit Sudan or to implicate us in regional conflicts and wars that we have no business being involved in. For us in Neighborhood Resistance Committees, we have longed for and we are working towards breaking from Sudan’s past, in which it’s rulers were agents of regional powers. We want to achieve full sovereignty and independence, to put Sudan’s interests first above all other agendas. And on that basis, we want to create links and relationships with the international community. We were very disappointed in UN Secretary General António Gutteres’ remark, in which he advised the people of Sudan to approve of the Burhan-Hamdok agreement. As well as the appointed [UN special] representative to Sudan, Volker Perthes’ position, urging people to accept the Burhan-Hamdok agreement as a way forward. We view [United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan] UNITAMS’ role as explicit support for the coup. And several neighborhood committees have issued statements expressing their disappointment.
KD: Does the international community have ambitions or interest with the military government?
Tametti: We do understand that the international community, the European countries, the USA—the troika—have interests in Sudan. I don’t think that’s a problem. It could be a way to communicate about the situation in Sudan. However, we see their view that a deal or a partnership that includes the military as the only way towards transition as erroneous position and a weak position that does not express the aspirations of the people of Sudan. Even the USA talking about elections as a way out is not a good position. What elections when we do not have a census, when there are a lot of issues barring the full participation of all Sudanese? We still have displaced people camps. The transitional period has not achieved any of its goals. We can only see this as a wish by the forces of the international community to advance their interests and control on Sudan rather than supporting true change and and true transition towards democracy as demanded by the people of Sudan.
Protesters in Khartoum, Sudan, after the October 25 coup / credit: Revolutionary masses of Sudan
Y.S., Revolutionary Activist
KD: What is your opinion about the recent events in Sudan… Were you surprised by the coup?
Y.S.: The recent developments have done a great service to the revolution. It has expanded its horizon and has reorganized the revolutionary powers around the demands of justice, freedom and peace. This would not have been possible had it not been for the coup, which has lifted the mask on the so-called civilian-military partnership, and it has exposed those who are invested in the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a certain political elite from both the military and the civilian parties. It has revealed that the conflict is not actually between the civilians and the military—as claimed by the FFC—but it is actually a conflict within a certain political class, unconcerned with the aspirations of the Sudanese people for a civilian rule. Therefore, these recent developments have shown the people who supports their search for justice and who stands in their way toward achieving it, including international organizations, which were never faced with hostility before, but their latest stance in supporting the coup has put them in a position of being a barrier towards justice.
I did not completely expect the coup. It didn’t make sense to me why the military leadership would want to dispose of the civilian partners who were in line with their interests. However, it’s not strange the military has ambitions to be in total control.
KD: Is the civilian component an expression of the aspirations of the revolutionary masses?
Y.S.: The current movement, I believe, is capable of taking down the coup.
KD: What do you think about the position of regional and international powers on the current events in Sudan?
Y.S.: The regional powers intervene aggressively in Sudan to ensure the continuance of previous investments or in hope of newer ones, and to ensure the flow of raw materials and natural resources with no regulation. Sudan is an open battleground for regional and international conflicts to be fought on, amidst a total absence of any national agenda from the civilian and military ruling elites. The regional powers are unconcerned with the aspirations of the Sudanese people, But when there is threat to their interests, it is only logical that they side with the generals, the warlords and some armed militias.
KD: Does the international community have ambitions or interest with the military government?
Y.S.: The international community, by which we mean the United States, is interested in dragging Sudan within the world order of trade agreements and the financial system. It supports whomever achieves those interests. Hamdok, with his background, is the most likely candidate. Since he is part of what is basically a military regime, supporting him is actually supporting military rule.
Kribsoo Diallo is a Cairo-based Pan-Africanist researcher in political science related to African affairs. He has written for many African magazines and newspapers. Diallo has contributed to translated editions of papers and articles in Arabic and English for several research centers within the African continent.