The tripartite alliance that is destabilisng the Horn of Africa

The common political vision of the leaders of Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia threatens to throw the region into turmoil.

Three years ago, a wave of political change swept across the Horn of Africa. In Sudan and Ethiopia, popular protests led to a change in leadership and what many assumed were democratic transitions. Ethiopia and Eritrea ended their two-decades-long rivalry, for which Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The peoples of the Horn of Africa were euphoric for what many thought would be a new chapter in the region’s history.

Today, contrary to expectations, mass atrocities, inter-state wars, and autocratic entrenchment have become the defining features of the region. Over the last six months, several international conflicts have (re)emerged, notably between Ethiopia and Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia’s Tigray region, and Somalia and Kenya.

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Egypt and Sudan are also threatening Ethiopia over the latter’s plans to proceed with a second filling of the controversial Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile river. Within Ethiopia alone, two significant insurgencies have been launched in this period, while ethnically motivated mass atrocities continue to take place regularly. The Horn of Africa is caught in a spiral of violence where domestic and regional conflicts overlap and fuel each other.

The conflicts and rights violations in recent months are not isolated incidents but part of a broader pattern of regional disorder, in which non-compliance with fundamental international legal norms is a central feature.

Four destabilising trends

The first indicator of creeping anarchy in the Horn of Africa today is the recent proliferation of territorial disputes and overall disregard for state boundaries. Eritrea, for example, has begun occupying parts of Tigray in northern Ethiopia and is issuing Eritrean ID cards to residents. Ethiopia is making territorial claims on Sudan’s Fashaga region and in response, Sudanese officials are raising claims on parts of Benishangul Gumuz in Ethiopia.

Within Ethiopia, Abiy has supported the Amhara Regional State’s annexation of parts of Tigray Regional State. Sensing Ethiopia’s weakness, Djibouti recently announced its intention to exploit the Awash river in Ethiopia. At the same time, Ethiopian politicians are publicly making irredentist claims on Eritrean territory. Finally, Somalia and Kenya have exchanged threats over contested maritime space.

While there is nothing wrong with territorial demands made through legal means, what we see is a recent trend of states trying to take over territory by force in order to create a fait accompli. This has led to a contagion effect where one actor’s breach of the norm of territorial integrity encourages other actors to do the same.

The second trend is the increased prominence of foreign troops and mercenaries in domestic and regional conflicts. Abiy Ahmed has outsourced counterinsurgency to Eritrean soldiers in his war against Tigray as well as employed them in the border conflict with Sudan. Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi has also used Ethiopian troops against local opponents in Somalia. At the same time, Somali soldiers have allegedly fought in Ethiopia.

The main problems with these forces are their legal ambiguity, their tendency to commit extreme human rights abuses, and their unique capacity for fuelling inter-communal tensions. Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki is a central driver of this trend. He has built an entire economy centred on seeking economic rents from mercenaries and military bases.

The third problem is the growing disregard for international humanitarian law. Over the last six months alone, Ethiopian and Eritrean forces have engaged in systemic ethnically cleansing, rape, starvation, and massacres on an unprecedented scale. Eritrean troops have also destroyed refugee camps in Ethiopia hosting Eritrean refugees and forcibly returned thousands of them back to Eritrea. So far, this has not had any serious repercussions for the culprits, and when faced with criticism, Abiy and Afwerki have been dismissive.

Finally, today the Horn of Africa is also characterised by a sharp decline in multilateral diplomacy. The regional body Intergovernmental Agency for Development has been excluded from most of the conflicts and peace processes; it has notably been absent in the Ethiopia-Eritrea peace process and the war in Tigray. Instead, leaders have chosen to structure their cooperation and manage conflicts outside of institutional frameworks and through personal channels, which is a significant obstacle for preventive diplomacy.

Eritrea's President Isaias Afwerki, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, & Somalia's President Mohamed Abdullahi

The domestic politics fuelling regional instability

The destabilisation of the Horn of Africa is primarily a function of the domestic politics of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia. Abiy, Afwerki, and Abdullahi forged the tripartite alliance in 2018 with the aim of moulding the regional order according to their domestic political ideals. The three leaders are opposed to federalism, the accommodation of ethnonational diversity, and institutionalised governance. Instead, they prefer a centralised state under the command of a strongman who rules by fiat.

Afwerki – the godfather of the alliance – has ruled Eritrea without a constitution or a single election for almost 30 years. The source of his autocratic longevity is a universal and indefinite military conscription policy that has contained most of the youth in military barracks and compelled hundreds of thousands to migrate. These conditions have made popular rebellion practically impossible.

In Ethiopia, Abiy was selected by his political party to transition the country to democracy in 2018. However, using COVID-19 as a pretext in June 2020, he postponed elections and imprisoned his opponents. His attempt to concentrate power and suppress Ethiopia’s various ethnonational groups has led to civil war and looming famine.

Abdullahi was supposed to prepare Somalia for its first direct elections in several decades. Instead, he has been trying to centralise power in the federal government, which has resulted in conflict with various regional governments, notably Jubbaland. His term expired in February, and following the example of his regional allies, he extended it for two more years. This has initiated a constitutional crisis and armed conflict, which eventually forced Somali lawmakers to cancel his term extension. He is the first president since the Somali state-building process began in 2004 to try to remain in office after his term expired.

The regional trends that are today destabilising the Horn of Africa emanate from these domestic conditions. The efforts to break federalist forces in Somalia and Ethiopia have led to a spill-over of conflicts across state borders and have fuelled regional rivalries. The members of the tripartite alliance also manage inter-state relations in the same way they govern their domestic politics – they conduct diplomacy through personal channels and resolve disputes through military means.

The alliance’s behaviour is particularly destructive because of its long-term consequences. For example, territorial conflicts, ethnic cleansing, and rape as a weapon of war sow the seeds for inter-generational grievances. In Ethiopia, Abiy’s policies have already revived secessionist sentiments in Tigray and Oromia. And the extent to which Ethiopia will continue to exist as one nation after the war is now questionable. In the last six months alone, these conflicts have displaced more than two million people in Tigray, and the European Union’s envoy to Ethiopia says this may be “the beginning of one more potentially big refugee crisis in the world”.

What is unfolding in the Horn of Africa is a significant threat to international security. Halting the ongoing descent into anarchy requires, first of all, concerted efforts to compel leaders to respect their constitutions.

In both Ethiopia and Somalia, Abiy and Abdullahi must be pressured to enter into a political dialogue with their contenders to reset their democratic reform processes. Secondly, the use of foreign mercenaries in domestic conflicts must be deterred. In particular, verification mechanisms must be established to ensure the withdrawal of Eritrean troops from conflicts across the region. And finally, perpetrators of serious violations of international humanitarian law must be held accountable in order to pave the way for a reconciliation process but also to deter others from engaging in such acts.

Source: Al Jazeera

HOW TO WIN ELECTIONS. IT'S SIMPLER THAN YOU THINK.

We have been hearing a lot about this lately. How to win elections. And the answer could not be simpler: give the electorate what they want.

How often do we hear the condemnations from the Left, who never fail to tell us we are the nasty party, as they demand we tear down statues at pace and apologise to everyone we have apparently ever offended since the year dot.

While that may sound like nice and decent British values, have we actually paused for a moment, taken a deep breath and asked ourselves one important question: are the things we shout about from the rooftops on social media, actually the same things the British electorate want or care about?

The answer, more often than not, is no. The Left are so deeply immersed in their convictions of what they consider to be right or wrong, they forget to consult the people that count - the great British public; the very same people who every so often make their feelings known at the ballot boxes.

The reality of what is happening in Britain right now, has never been clearer than during the run-up to the elections. Listening to what people have to say on the doorstep, and I mean really listening, not politely nodding and telling the electorate what you believe they should be thinking or feeling, has never been more insightful or important. Vast numbers of people are quite simply not in the least bit interested in petty party politicking. In fact, they abhor it. Nitpicking and back-biting is something they all too often have to deal with in their own daily lives, so they certainly do not need to hear it from our opposing politicians, who spoon-feed it to them on almost an everyday basis. For most, the Prime Minister's wallpaper was of no interest to them; frankly, they are more concerned with their own decor. Not surprisingly, their concerns and worries relate far more to the running of the country; Covid recovery, our economy, housing, education, jobs, the NHS, services, infrastructure - and very importantly it would seem, crime and immigration, which is a huge issue to many British people, but one they feel reluctant to raise for fear of being falsely labelled a racist. But these are the things that matter to British people, no matter how much you choose to think they care more about pulling down statues from a bygone age, and to which they have no connection whatsoever. Many people lead good and respectful lives, but they do so in the here and now. What I am hearing is, let's not rewrite history, but educate and learn from it. You can not right the wrongs of the past, you can only learn from them. That is a more common opinion that anyone might think.

It has been eleven years since Bigotgate, but Gordon Brown was wrong to call Gillian Duffy a bigot then and he is still wrong after all these years. Calling a member of the public a bigot instead of listening to her worries and concerns about Britain, was hardly the mark of a good Prime Minister. And it seems the more aggressive Leftist politics becomes, the less likely people are to vote for it. This might explain why Wales fared better with the Leftist vote. Welsh Labour politics is noticeably milder than its English version, and although the Conservatives gained more seats this time, Welsh Labour will once again be forming a new government after twenty two years of Labour rule in Wales.

This mounting frustration I am picking up on is heady and potent. As one lady explained to me, being 'woke' in 2021, is doing more harm than good. Thinking in terms of its literal sense, you are only ever properly addressing social injustices if everyone is happy with the outcome. There is no point in pleasing one section of society, if the rest become unhappy because of it. Where is the justice in that?

Brits need to be heard, not silenced. After all, they are the ones giving you your platform, so it is not wise to upset them.

I think the lady may well find many share her sentiments.

Chinese rocket’s chaotic fall to Earth highlights problem of space junk

China has played down fears that its Long March 5B rocket could hit a populated area or a plane in flight but there is no shortage of problem debris in orbit.

Sometime this weekend the upper stage of a Chinese Long March 5B rocket will plunge back to Earth and most of it will burn up on re-entry – but perhaps not all.

Military experts in the US expect the booster stage to come down on Saturday or Sunday, but have warned it is difficult to predict where it will land and when and how much material might hit the ground – or if it could knock a plane out of the sky.

The Long March 5B rocket - VCG/Getty Images

The Chinese government, perhaps predictably, is playing it calmly. “The probability of causing harm to aviation activities or [on people and activities] on the ground is extremely low,” the foreign ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, said on Friday.

But the fiery fate of the booster, wherever it comes down, speaks to the larger issue of space debris and space sustainability, especially as space becomes a target not just for national space programs but also increasingly the private sector. Under international treaty, private space actors, who are expected to put 45,000 satellites in low Earth orbit over the next several years, are under the legal responsibility of their host nations.

Add to that, an estimated 9,300 tons of space junk that’s already orbiting the planet and the issue of space collisions and debris pollution is an issue of concern.

Last month, mission controllers at SpaceX headquarters in California warned orbiting astronauts to put on their spacesuits and get back in their seats because a piece of space debris could strike the capsule. Previously, a piece of paint the size of a fingernail struck the windscreen of a space shuttle, piercing two of three layers of glass.

“Space debris has been known for a while, but now you have more competition in space. You don’t just have two space-faring nations – the Chinese are very significant, as is the European Space Agency, among others. When you have more actors and more stuff, it gets more complicated,” said Joanne Gabrynowicz a professor at the National Center for Remote Sensing, Air, and Space Law at the Mississippi Law Center.

Experts have repeatedly voiced their worry about the risk of collisions since 2009, when two satellites – Iridium 33 and the derelict Russian military Kosmos-2251 –accidentally collided at 26,000mph over Siberia, shattering both in thousands of pieces. The European Space Agency hosted a major conference on the subject last month.

“There’s a lot of stuff being put into low Earth orbit, and some of it could possibly hit one another,” said Gabrynowicz.

According to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, China had every reason to know Long March 5B was unpredictable and would become uncontrollable. “It’s my judgment that the Chinese are negligent. China says it will probably fall in the ocean. But probably is doing a lot of work here. The last one would probably fall in the ocean, except it didn’t. It fell on the Ivory Coast,” he said.

An Ivorian gendarme takes notes next to debris that fell from space in the village of N’Guessankro near Bouake in central region in Ivory Coast on 12 May 2020. Photograph: AFP via Getty Images

The fate of Long March 5B could refocus governments and international bodies on the issue of space sustainability, and that could provide more opportunity to firms like UK-based Astroscale that are preparing to tackle the debris problem with commercial junk-collecting services.

According to the European Space Agency, about 6,900 of 11,370 satellites placed into Earth orbit are still circulating, with about 4,000 functioning. But the number of debris objects regularly tracked by Space Surveillance Networks stands at 28,160. The discrepancy is accounted for by more than 560 “break-ups, explosions, collisions, or anomalous events resulting in fragmentation”.

Astroscale is currently demonstrating a vehicle called “ELSA-d” in lower Earth orbit to show that space debris clean-up is indeed possible. It’s a fiendishly difficult task, especially if the target satellite is spinning and tumbling. The test is using a satellite to capture a test drone using a magnet; in time, larger objects will require a robotic arm.

The company’s managing director, John Auburn, said the real problem might not be the big pieces of debris that create the headlines and cause people back on ground to cast a nervous eye in the skies.

“The big problem in space is not big debris, but when big debris breaks up and becomes small debris,” Auburn said. “A one-centimetre fragment can destroy your spacecraft and it’s traveling so fast you don’t know it’s there from the ground. We don’t want a disaster, so it’s very important that governments build into licences requirements that old and broken stuff is brought back down.”