Czech Protesters Rail Against Inflation, Sanctions and the Ukraine Proxy War

On July 9, the government of Rwanda said that it had deployed 1,000 troops to Mozambique to battle al-Shabaab fighters, who had seized the northern province of Cabo Delgado. A month later, on August 8, Rwandan troops captured the port city of Mocímboa da Praia, where just off the coast sits a massive natural gas concession held by French energy company TotalEnergies SE and U.S. energy company ExxonMobil. These new developments in the region led to the African Development Bank’s President M. Akinwumi Adesina announcing on August 27 that TotalEnergies SE will restart the Cabo Delgado liquefied natural gas project by the end of 2022.

Militants from al-Shabaab (or ISIS-Mozambique, as the U.S. State Department prefers to call it) did not fight to the last man; they disappeared across the border into Tanzania or into their villages in the hinterland. The energy companies will, meanwhile, soon start to recoup their investments and profit handsomely, thanks in large part to the Rwandan military intervention.

Why did Rwanda intervene in Mozambique in July 2021 to defend, essentially, two major energy companies? The answer lies in a very peculiar set of events that took place in the months before the troops left Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda.

 

Billions Stuck Underwater

Al-Shabaab fighters first made their appearance in Cabo Delgado in October 2017. For three years, the group played a cat-and-mouse game with Mozambique’s army before taking control of Mocímboa da Praia in August 2020. At no point did it seem possible for Mozambique’s army to thwart al-Shabaab and allow TotalEnergies SE and ExxonMobil to restart operations in the Rovuma Basin, off the coast of northern Mozambique, where a massive natural gas field was discovered in February 2010.

The Mozambican Ministry of Interior had hired a range of mercenaries such as Dyck Advisory Group (South Africa), Frontier Services Group (Hong Kong), and the Wagner Group (Russia). In late August 2020, TotalEnergies SE and the government of Mozambique signed an agreement to create a joint security force to defend the company’s investments against al-Shabaab. None of these armed groups succeeded. The investments were stuck underwater.

At this point, Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi indicated, as I was told by a source in Maputo, that TotalEnergies SE might ask the French government to send a detachment to assist in securing the area. This discussion went on into 2021. On January 18, 2021, French Defense Minister Florence Parly and her counterpart in Portugal, João Gomes Cravinho, talked on the phone, during which—it is suggested in Maputo—they discussed the possibility of a Western intervention in Cabo Delgado. On that day, TotalEnergies SE CEO Patrick Pouyanné met with President Nyusi and his ministers of defense (Jaime Bessa Neto) and interior (Amade Miquidade) to discuss the joint “action plan to strengthen security of the area.” Nothing came of it. The French government was not interested in a direct intervention.

A senior official in Maputo told me that it is strongly believed in Mozambique that French President Emmanuel Macron suggested the Rwandan force, rather than French forces, be deployed to secure Cabo Delgado. Indeed, Rwanda’s armies—highly trained, well-armed by the Western countries, and given impunity to act outside the bounds of international law—have proved their mettle in the interventions carried out in South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

 

What Kagame Got for the Intervention

Paul Kagame has ruled Rwanda since 1994, first as vice president and minister of defense and then since 2000 as the president. Under Kagame, democratic norms have been flouted within Rwanda, while Rwandan troops have operated ruthlessly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A 2010 UN Mapping Project report on serious human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo showed that the Rwandan troops killed “hundreds of thousands if not millions” of Congolese civilians and Rwandan refugees between 1993 and 2003. Kagame rejected the UN report, suggesting that this “double genocide” theory denied the Rwandan genocide of 1994. He has wanted the French to accept responsibility for the genocide of 1994 and has hoped that the international community will ignore the massacres in the eastern Congo.

On March 26, 2021, historian Vincent Duclert submitted a 992-page report on France’s role in the Rwandan genocide. The report makes it clear that France should accept—as Médecins Sans Frontières put it—“overwhelming responsibility” for the genocide. But the report does not say that the French state was complicit in the violence. Duclert traveled to Kigali on April 9 to deliver the report in person to Kagame, who said that the report’s publication “marks an important step toward a common understanding of what took place.”

On April 19, the Rwandan government released a report that it had commissioned from the U.S. law firm Levy Firestone Muse. This report’s title says it all: “A Foreseeable Genocide: The Role of the French Government in Connection with the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda.” The French did not deny the strong words in this document, which argues that France armed the génocidaires and then hastened to protect them from international scrutiny. Macron, who has been loath to accept France’s brutality in the Algerian liberation war, did not dispute Kagame’s version of history. This was a price he was willing to pay.

 

What France Wants

On April 28, 2021, Mozambique’s President Nyusi visited Kagame in Rwanda. Nyusi told Mozambique’s news broadcasters that he had come to learn about Rwanda’s interventions in the Central African Republic and to ascertain Rwanda’s willingness to assist Mozambique in Cabo Delgado.

On May 18, Macron hosted a summit in Paris, “seeking to boost financing in Africa amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” which was attended by several heads of government, including Kagame and Nyusi, the president of the African Union (Moussa Faki Mahamat), the president of the African Development Bank (Akinwumi Adesina), the president of the West African Development Bank (Serge Ekué), and the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (Kristalina Georgieva). Exit from “financial asphyxiation” was at the top of the agenda, although in private meetings there were discussions about Rwandan intervention in Mozambique.

A week later, Macron left for a visit to Rwanda and South Africa, spending two days (May 26 and 27) in Kigali. He repeated the broad findings of the Duclert report, brought along 100,000 COVID-19 vaccines to Rwanda (where only around 4 percent of the population had received the first dose by the time of his visit), and spent time in private talking to Kagame. On May 28, alongside South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, Macron talked about Mozambique, saying that France was prepared to “take part in operations on the maritime side,” but would otherwise defer to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and to other regional powers. He did not mention Rwanda specifically.

Rwanda entered Mozambique in July, followed by SADC forces, which included South African troops. France got what it wanted: Its energy giant can now recoup its investment.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is a senior non-resident fellow at Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo Morales Ayma.

Editor’s Note: The following is the writer’s opinion and represents the first in a 2-part series on the October 25 Sudan coup. Part 2 can be read here.

The October 25 military coup d’etat in Sudan marked the collapse of the unstable and rotten compromise between the military and liberals that took place in the summer of 2019. That deal was brokered to stop the mass revolutionary process that had erupted and overthrown President Omar al-Bashir, who had been in power for 30 years. Despite the military junta’s declaration of a state of the emergency, the masses poured into the streets of the capital, Khartoum. Even Abdalla Hamdok was reinstated as prime minister by the military junta. The people in the streets who have fought and shed blood for a month to win civilian rule have met this news not with jubilation, but with rage.

What is going on in Sudan? This question constitutes the first point of contention in the international community, and this political dispute is, of course, reflected in the media. At a time when the idea is being promoted that differences in the international community over what is happening are nothing more than a reflection of the international conflict, it should be remembered that the Sudanese people are most concerned with this division.

It is often said the events in Sudan until this moment were an intense expression of an international conflict. From this correct idea, another wrong idea was adopted, which was that the Sudanese people inevitably will be victims of these international duels. To respond to this idea, the conflicting parties in Sudan must first be described.

Internal Forces Share Power

What are the features of the “old” that should be changed?

The main contradiction in Sudan is among looters, regardless of their dress and political names, and regardless of whether they are “civilians” or “militaries.” However, the poles of the current conflict were only partly an expression of this basic contradiction. When the Sudanese people took to the streets at the end of 2018, they were expressing the need for the required profound change, and with Bashir’s security committee, formed from the main military forces in the country, removed him from power. 

The Sudanese Sovereign Council is an 11-member body that was created after Bashir’s ouster through the draft constitutional declaration in August 2019 in the South Sudanese city of Juba. Members of a civilian group called Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) and leaders of the Transitional Military Council (TMC) comprised this council, a collective body that was meant to act as the head of state until November. Instead, the council was dissolved with the October 25 coup. Council leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan announced the dissolution, adding it would be replaced with a government that would be nominated.

Up to the formation of the Sudanese Sovereign Council and its recently dissolved government, Sudan began to witness political changes in the governance structures, without the required deep change. The structure of the Sudanese regime was characterized by basic general features. It is not possible to talk about an actual transformation if the Sudanese people did not perceive a change in these features, which has not happened until now. 

So what are these basic features? The Sudanese national framework is placed at the top of this list, as Sudan has lost its southern part and is living in a continuous state of armed civil conflicts in scattered areas of the country. These elements constituted a double threat to the unity of Sudan, meaning the primary challenge is Sudanese people live in an entity whose existence is threatened.

In addition to these existential dangers, Sudan was systematically looted by the West through Sudanese intermediaries, and its people were starved and impoverished, so unemployment and marginalization increased. The production process in all its forms was hampered to turn Sudan’s fertile lands into battlefields. Its workers and peasants were turned into fuel for these conflicts, and mercenaries in foreign wars.

The Sudanese have nothing to do with it. Sudan was blackmailed by placing it on the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list, and turning it into a country that lives on Western aid and loans with well-known political conditions in place. All this came in addition to disrupting political life and the absence of effective national forces caused by suppression, then plunging the country into conflict with armed forces, whose voice for long periods overshadowed the voice of the national forces.

UNSC Speaks on the Coup

How can we read the positions of the primary forces in conflict?

The dispute erupted between the civilian and military components of the Sudanese Sovereignty Council after a conflict that remained unabated even after the body was established. In fact, no clear distinctions in the positions of the “civilians” or the “militaries” emerged. Both parties contributed to the consolidation of the liberal policies that brought the conditions of the Sudanese to this point. Both parties clearly contributed to the notorious normalization agreement with the Zionist entity known as Israel, and neither provided any serious direction to establish national reconciliation to prevent the fragmentation of the country. Despite their seemingly identical positions, the military’s move on October 25 constituted a controversial point on the international scene, which indicated regional and international powers differentiate between the two components of the Sovereign Council. That led to the UN Security Council failing several times to obtain consensus on a statement on the events in Khartoum. When a statement emerged on October 28, the UNSC described what happened as “controlling the power,” not as a coup. The statement also stressed the “need to adhere to the constitutional document and the peace agreement in Juba” and called on the authorities. The military was asked to “restore the civilian-led transitional government on the basis of the Constitutional Document and other foundational documents of the transition.”

The difficulty in adopting this statement did not in any way end the divided opinions on what occurred in Sudan. Rather, it reflects the international balance of power that has impeded a correct characterization of the coup and softened rhetoric toward the military. 

Returning to the White House’s Bosom

But the most important question remains: What has caused different countries to take various positions on the military move? 

After the military overthrew Bashir in 2019, Sudan entered a period of anxiety that drastically changed its relationship with the world. The most noticeable of which was Sudan’s official and gradual return to the bosom of the “Western House”—a term used for the White House. This involved re-opening the door for loans, lifting sanctions, and removing Sudan from the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list, among other things. 

All this prompted observers to search for the price Sudan had to pay in exchange for this “Western amnesty.” At first glance, it seemed to be normalization of relations with the Zionist entity, Israel. However, events today indicate normalization was only the public aspect of the cost to Sudan. The military component was the first to brag about relations with the Zionist entity. However, the West seems very concerned about the military’s unique power and the exclusion of the civilian component. The primary explanation for all this appears to lie in the obscured part of the price Sudan paid to the Washington. Although it is difficult to be certain about this issue, we can conclude the West is more comfortable with the Sudanese Sovereign Council’s civilian component headed by the now resigned Abdalla Hamdok, who grew up within the same Western institution and is considered close to it. The civilian component would build relations with the West and Washington at the expense of Russia and China, for example. Hence, removing Sudan from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and other facilities came as an opportunity to restore these relations and push relations with Russia and China to a kind of apathy, in addition to some indicators coming from Egypt.

Questions raised about Hamdok’s position on the Renaissance Dam, which is being built in Ethiopia and threatens to cut off water access to Egypt, expresses Washington’s tacit satisfaction with the Sudanese army’s move. It seems the list goes on to include differences in attitudes of the civilian and military components on the nature of Sudan’s relationship with the world. Although some of those attitudes are still unknown, but we can expect to hear of them soon.

The door to interpretations is very wide, but it will not be long before the players reveal their secrets as positions and alignments cannot be hidden for long. Power today is in the hands of the Sudanese army, which is subject to external and internal pressures. From this particular angle, it can win over the Sudanese people’s support in confronting external pressures. Sudan needs to alter its position in the global conflict to be in the place that meets the interests of its people. That is, inevitably away from the Western camp and Washington.

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, and Diallo has contributed to translated editions of papers and articles in Arabic and English for several research centers within the African continent.

Editor’s Note: Members of Toward Freedom‘s Board of Directors are involved in struggles while they serve on TF‘s working board. Board President Rebecca Kemble spent the summer in central Minnesota, where a struggle against pipelines carrying oil derived from Canadian tar sands has taken place. Enbridge Energy is a Canadian multinational corporation running tar sands pipelines through the United States for export because it has not been able to get permission to build them in Canada. However, all of the land through which Enbridge’s Pipeline 3, known as “Line 3,” passes either is 1854 or 1855 Treaty Territory. The Obijwe people ceded the territory to the U.S. government in exchange for the rights to hunt, fish and gather on those lands in perpetuity. Line 3 also plows through hundreds of wild-rice beds. Northern and central Minnesota, as well as northern Wisconsin, are the only places where wild rice grows. The plant is sacred to the Anishinaabe peoples (made up of the Ojibwe, Ottawa and Pottowotami nations) of the Great Lakes region. The U.S. government initiated the 1854 and 1855 treaties to avoid costly military campaigns for land conquest. Since they were written, these treaties have been broken multiple times. In the last several decades, the Ojibwe people have been successfully asserting their treaty rights in federal courts. The White Earth Band of Ojibwe recently sued Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources for permitting Line 3 and, in so doing, failing to protect the state’s fresh water. Manoomin (wild rice) is named as a plaintiff in that case. (In Ecuador and New Zealand, rivers have been named plaintiffs.) At least 6 active and autonomous “No Line 3” camps have occupied central Minnesota over the past summer. Some have been established as direct-action camps, while others are cultural and educational camps.

Monday, October 12, marked Indigenous People’s Day, which kicked off a series of daily protest actions in Washington, D.C. While U.S. President Joe Biden issued a proclamation Monday affirming Indigenous sovereignty, the federal government continues to allow violations of Indigenous sovereignty, such as in the form of pipeline projects.

Arrests have started inside the BIA.
Police are threatening press and taking equipment. Announcing they will arrest Indigenous press. #occupythebia #expectus pic.twitter.com/sYmACFbwor

— Jennifer K. Falcon (@JenniferKFalcon) October 14, 2021

1. Abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
2. Restoration of 110 million acres (450,000 km2) of land taken away from Native Nations
3. Bring Home Our Children Buried At Your Residential Schools
4. Restoration of treaty-making (ended by Congress in 1871)
5. Establishment of a treaty commission to make new treaties (with sovereign Native Nations)
6. Land Back
7. Water Back
8. Honor the Treaties
9. No new leases for oil and gas or extractive industry on public lands
10. Free, Prior, and Informed Consent
11. Reclaim and affirm health, housing, employment, economic development, and education for all Indigenous people
12. Restoration of terminated rights
13. Repeal of state jurisdiction on Native Nations
14. Federal protection for offenses against Indians

Below is a series of photos Rebecca Kemble captured over the summer.

Visitors arriving at Shell City Campground learned about 1855 Treaty Territory and their responsibilities under those treaties. Treaties are not just about Indigenous people—they are agreements between sovereign nations and must be upheld on both sides. The U.S. Constitution calls treaties “the supreme law of the land” and the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the rights of Indigenous people to hunt, fish and gather in territories where treaties have reserved those rights, including 1855 Treaty Territory in central Minnesota. What good is a right to hunt, fish or gather if there is no game, fish or plant food to harvest? This is the basis for opposing extractive industries in Tribal territories: It destroys the basis for practicing Indigenous ways of living.

Honor the Earth delegation joins a Fourth of July parade in Park Rapids, Minnesota, as police and sheriff cars follow.