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      in World Politics

      Amid Normalization With Israel, Sudan’s Future Hangs in the Balance

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      On October 23, the Trump administration announced the agreement between Israel and Sudan to normalize relations. Ordinarily, such an agreement would be good for both countries. But for Sudan, still struggling with imposing democratic norms after decades of brutal dictatorship, it could come at a price. The accord marks another step toward Israel’s long-sought acceptance in the Middle East. The agreement is especially noteworthy for Sudan’s role in the notorious Khartoum Resolution’s “Three Nos” — no negotiation, no recognition and no peace with Israel – declared at the Arab League summit in 1967 following the Arabs’ embarrassing defeat by Israel in the Six-Day War.

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      The agreement hardly portends the economic, trade and security benefits that will follow from Israel’s earlier agreements with the United Arab Emirates or even Bahrain. Sudan’s economy is on the ropes, suffering from a brittle political climate, rampant corruption, punishing sanctions imposed by the US since 1993 as a state sponsor of terrorism (SST) and the concomitant economic isolation, the sharp fall in oil revenues following South Sudan’s independence, and continuing internal instability. Israel stands little to gain other than one more embassy in an Arab nation.

      Normalization Amidst a Transition

      Sudan, on the other hand, could potentially benefit longer term from Israel’s vaunted economy and the resulting technology transfer and investment. But the latter depends on the very action that the accord could jeopardize. Sudan is engaged in an existential transition. Its former dictator, Omar al-Bashir, was overthrown in April last year following five months of massive and violent popular demonstrations throughout the country, especially in the capital Khartoum. Among his many crimes, al-Bashir had allowed al-Qaida to set up operations in Sudan in the 1990s and had ordered a genocide in the Darfur region in the early 2000s.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Al-Bashir’s successor was also removed as Sudanese opposition groups united to assert their growing power and demands for democratic reforms in the country. But merely removing two autocrats wasn’t sufficient, and the opposition has been locked in negotiations with entrenched interests among the security and intelligence services and the armed forces over the country’s political future.

      A transitional government, led by technocratic Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, is now engaged in a herculean effort to shed Sudan’s international pariah status, reintegrate the country into the international community, activate a moribund economy and establish the foundations for a durable democracy. To complicate his task, Hamdok faces resistance from the recalcitrant, self-interested class of al-Bashir leftovers in the armed forces and security and intelligence services. In addition, he must also now contend with dissent within the democratic opposition. Key members of this fragile coalition of opposition groups backing democracy have already announced their opposition to normalization.

      So, Sudan’s future hangs in the balance. Mixing the Israel normalization agreement into this steaming political cauldron is hardly likely to quell things. For one, there has been no public dialog about normalization after more than a half-century of estrangement from and antipathy toward the Jewish state. With national elections still two years away, Hamdok rightly understood that as interim prime minister he had no mandate to proceed with normalization and told US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as much earlier this month. He likely recalled the similarly rushed Israel-Lebanon peace agreement in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War in 1983, subsequently revoked by the Lebanese parliament after less than a year. (The Israelis may also be thinking the same thing.)

      However, Trump and Pompeo had Hamdok and the interim government over a barrel. Sudan’s efforts to return to the international economic fold hinged on the US lifting its sanctions on Sudan. The government had already agreed to pay $335 million in reparations to the victims and families of the Dar es Salaam and Nairobi embassy bombings, which had been the principal condition for lifting the sanctions. Pompeo already had the authority to lift the onerous SST restrictions.

      Desperate Need of Votes

      Donald Trump’s flagging political fortunes intervened. He calculated that notching a third Arab country on his Israel normalization belt would burnish his foreign policy credentials in the election. He even tried to win Benjamin Netanyahu’s endorsement in a phone call, asking the Israeli prime minister if he thought “Sleepy Joe,” a disparaging reference to his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, could have negotiated such a deal. The supremely wily Israeli politician demurred, however, merely expressing Israel’s appreciation for all of America’s efforts on behalf of Israel. Israelis watch American polls, too.

      In an act of what only can be seen as desperation in the face of trailing numbers in US national presidential polls, Donald Trump bragged to Netanyahu of a diplomatic achievement in negotiating — let’s call it by its real name, strong-arming — a weak and struggling nation into accepting a normalization deal with Israel. In an even more obvious sign of Trump’s fear of becoming a one-term president, he pressured a country he likely had in mind in his infamous declaration on “shithole countries” in January 2018.

      Sudan isn’t good enough for Trump’s America, but it will do as Israel’s newest diplomatic partner. That Trump did not grasp this irony only underscores his gross ineptitude and neophyte status in foreign policy. The real tragedy, however, is that the Sudanese people’s heroic struggle for democracy, already pursued at great sacrifice, is further freighted. Regardless of how the Sudanese may feel about their nation’s new ties to Israel, the enemies of their freedom and democracy will surely use this as a political cudgel to thwart Prime Minister Hamdok and the allied groups. Normalization with Israel could have waited. Democracy cannot.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Sudan and Israel agree US-brokered deal on normalising relations

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      Donald Trump seeks to score points from deal; Palestinians call it ‘a new stab in the back’Israel and Sudan have agreed to work towards normalising relations in a deal brokered by the US that would make Sudan the third Arab country to set aside hostilities with Israel in the past two months.Donald Trump sealed the agreement in a phone call on Friday with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his Sudanese counterpart, Abdalla Hamdok, and Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Sudan’s transitional military council. Continue reading… More

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      in World Politics

      Nigeria’s Chaos Is the World’s Chaos

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      For the past two weeks, the youth of Nigeria have been in the streets protesting the ruling order of a nation in crisis. Having seized on the theme of police brutality that inspired the massive demonstrations this year in the US, they are now challenging their government on a much broader range of issues that will define the future of the country. The demonstrations have grown to monumental proportions, and the government has begun organizing its predictably brutal response.

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      The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week on the major accomplishment of the protesters in an article with this title, “Nigerian Protesters Shut Down Africa’s Largest City, Escalating Standoff With Government.” The subtitle reads, “Authorities vow to restore order as demonstrations grow across Nigeria.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Restore order:

      What all governments attempt to do in times of revolt, with the aim of returning to the status quo of untenable, organized disorder that reigned before the revolt

      Contextual Note

      Though the drama has intensified in the course of this week and the outcome is still uncertain, the Nigerian government has already begun to deploy massive force in its effort to end the protests. Despite official denial, it is now clearly established that government security forces fired on the demonstrators on Tuesday evening in a continuous barrage that lasted between 15 and 30 minutes. They reportedly removed the security cameras from the scene and turned off the streetlights shortly before the shooting began. By Wednesday evening, Amnesty International had reported the killing of 12 protesters.

      The government did make a gesture to meet the protesters‘ demands when President Muhammadu Buhari proclaimed that the government would dissolve the specific police unit — known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) — blamed for excessive use of force and acts of depraved brutality. To prove their sincerity, on Sunday, the authorities, as reported by Al Jazeera, “ordered all personnel to report to the police headquarters in the capital, Abuja, for debriefing and psychological and medical examination.” But that promise of disbanding and replacing SARS had been made several times in the past and each time the same pattern of behavior and the same culture of violence returned.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The protesters are now demanding more than superficial reorganization of the police. They want to see concrete acts of justice for victims, including compensation for their families, the creation of an independent body for oversight of the police and “psychological evaluation and retraining of all disbanded SARS officers before they can be redeployed.” Having reflected on the root of the problem, they have also wisely asked for “an increase in police salary so they are adequately compensated for protecting the lives and property of the citizens.”

      Whenever a government speaks of restoring order, the order they are referring to is an expectation of docile acceptance of the system of governance they represent. At least some of the protesters appear to understand that order is not the result of calm acceptance, but of systemic coherence combined with consistency about the mission of the police focused on protecting citizens rather than the government and the established order.

      Where the government takes “order” to mean little more than a stable structure of power, in which the powerful have the means to fend off various forms of disturbance, the protesters seem to understand that the very idea of order implies systemic coherence. Any stable, functioning system relies on being able to identify, respect and manage complex dynamic principles.

      Any reliable mechanical system, such as the rotors of a helicopter, must include a series of mechanisms designed to respond to and compensate automatically for excessive force or tension. Human organizations, from nations and cities to small enterprises, must elaborate behavioral systems that permit enough flexibility to self-organize when states of disequilibrium threaten. They will include hierarchies and laws but also a culture of interaction that involves shared understanding and common reflexes. For anthropologists, that is largely what the idea of culture represents.

      The conflict in Nigeria — but the same could be said of the US today — is one between two conceptions of “order.” The first, that of the government, is an order that is imposed. The second, that of the protesters, is an order that is built on principles allowing for self-organization. To some extent, the tension between the two sums up many, if not most, of the dramas affecting democracy in the world today.

      Historical Note

      Al Jazeera quotes entertainer and entrepreneur Sidney Esiri, who sums up the logic of the events that have taken place over the past few weeks. “We the people, we are committed to peacefully protesting and exercising our rights as citizens to demonstrate for our cause,” he said, “but some arms of government, of different people, have found ways to disrupt this peaceful process and turn it into something violent so that they have the excuse to bring in the military, which is what they did yesterday.”

      This reading of the situation was confirmed by Anietie Ewang, a Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Nigerian authorities turned a peaceful protest against police brutality into a shooting spree, showing the ugly depths they are willing to go to suppress the voices of citizens,” she stated. The UN appears to agree: “United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an end to what he called ‘brutality’ by police in Nigeria.”

      The prospect for some reasonable, peaceful reestablishment of order seems remote. Femi Adesina, the Nigerian presidential spokesman, appealed “for understanding and calm across the nation, as the implementation of the reform gathers pace at federal and state levels.” But the protesters see that as the old trick of gaining time as the old order falls back into place. The public debate has become a question of time management — in this case, managing historical time. Esiri, better than anyone else in the leaderless movement, articulated the core question when he said to Al Jazeera that the “situation in Nigeria had gone to the point, where you have to look at it and say, ‘if not now, then when?’”

      Nigeria has a rapidly growing population that is expected to overtake the US to become the world’s third-populous country in the world by 2050. It is also one of Africa’s richest nations because of its oil reserves, but it hosts one of the highest levels of poverty in the world. “More than 55% of Nigerians are underemployed or unemployed and youth unemployment is even higher, according to official statistics,” cited by The Wall Street Journal.

      Whether consciously or not, the protesters against police brutality were inspired by this year’s demonstrations in the US. They may also have been inspired by the visible, albeit inconclusive cultural effects, of the US protests. At least for a short period, they enhanced the status of the Black Lives Matter movement, suddenly embraced by the corporate world and revealed some of the untenable chaos at the heart of a political class that is no longer capable of governing the nation in a stable or coherent way.

      These are two powder kegs, dissimilar in so many respects, but both representative of the deep contradictions of this historical moment. No one can guess how things will develop in the coming months in either Nigeria or the US. It has become unthinkable, just in terms of probability, that either nation, however the politics plays out, will manage to achieve what their establishments hope, which is to restore at least a semblance of the old order. History is taking a chaotic and violent turn. In which direction, nobody knows.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Mauritania’s Fading Promise and Uncertain Future

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      Mauritania is rarely in the news. A member of the Arab League, it shares with its southern neighbor Senegal a large offshore gas field that promises to bring a potentially huge windfall to the impoverished northwest African nation. The Greater Tortue Ahmeyim field sits in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the two countries at a depth of 2,850 meters. According to BP, which is invested heavily in the field, it has an estimated 15 trillion cubic feet of gas and a 30-year life span.

      The company signed a partnership deal in late 2016 with Kosmos Energy to acquire what it described as “a significant working interest, including operatorship, of Kosmos’ exploration blocks in Mauritania and Senegal.” BP’s working interest in Mauritania amounts to 62%, with Kosmos holding 28% and the Mauritanian Society of Hydrocarbons and Mining Heritage the remaining 10%.

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      BP says it is committed to sustainable development and promised a variety of programs to train Mauritanians, create jobs, contract local companies and build third-party spending with those companies. It has made further commitments to health and education projects, social development, capability building and livelihood and economic development.

      Basket of Worries

      But with the gas market depressed by a combination of COVID-19 and unusually warm winters in Europe, the bright hopes for Tortue Ahmeyim are already starting to fade. The initial goal of a staggered launch in three phases in 2020 to bring the field to full capacity by 2025 has been shelved. Phase one is now pushed back to the first half of 2023, with the Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) quoting Kosmos CEO Andy Inglis in May as saying that a final investment decision on phases two and three will not now be considered “until post-2023 when we’ve got Phase 1 onstream.” The goal of reaching full capacity is pushed back toward the end of the decade.

      Embed from Getty Images

      What may be more unsettling for the government of President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani was BP’s announcement in the summer that it will slash oil and gas output by 40% over the next decade. That was followed by the 14 September release of the company’s Energy Outlook 2020 that presented scenarios where peak oil demand had already passed or would pass by the middle of the decade. It is important to note that, presenting the Outlook, BP’s chief economist, Spencer Dale, underlined that “The role of the Energy Outlook is not to predict or forecast how the ‎energy system is likely to change over time. We can’t predict the future; all the scenarios ‎discussed in this year’s Outlook will be wrong.” That may be cold comfort to President Ould Ghazouani.

      The hard fact is that early ebullience about the potential of the Tortue Ahmeyim project by its consortium backers has now been replaced with an abundance of caution and with brakes strongly applied. So much so that James Cockayne, of MEES, opined: “The likelihood of these developments ever seeing the light of day, at least under BP’s stewardship, needs to be considered anew in the light of the latest far-reaching strategy shift from the UK major.” His gloomy conclusion was that “Mauritania’s hopes of gas riches appear to be hanging by a thread.”

      The president has another issue weighing heavy in his basket of worries, and that is the question of normalization with Israel. Commentators have anticipated that Mauritania would join the UAE and Bahrain in recognizing Israel, especially as Tel Aviv and Nouakchott had diplomatic relations from 1999 to 2009. In 2009, Mauritania froze relations in protest at Israeli attacks on Gaza.

      The UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed, the Abu Dhabi crown prince and de facto ruler, has been the driving force in Arab normalization with Israel. With Ould Ghazouani in attendance in Abu Dhabi, in February bin Zayed announced $2 billion in aid. For a country with a GDP that the World Bank estimated in 2018 stood at just over $5 billion, that sort of largesse buys a lot of influence.

      Normalization Bandwagon

      But the president is well aware of the strong sentiment within the country for the Palestinian cause. Tewassoul, the opposition Islamist party, was instrumental in 2009 in bringing protesters onto the streets of the capital demanding an end to diplomatic links with the Israelis. The party also backed the candidacy of Sidi Mohamed Ould Boubacar in last year’s presidential election. Ould Boubacar took 18 % of the vote, while another candidate and leader of the anti-slavery movement, Biran Dah Abeid, scored a similar percentage. Ould Ghazouani won with 52%, with the opposition denouncing the election as rigged.

      Although Mauritania officially outlawed slavery in 1981, the practice continues, with approximately 90,000 out of a population of 4.6 million enslaved. That situation caused US President Donald Trump’s administration to revoke Mauritania’s preferred trade status under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. Justifying his decision, Trump cited the fact that “Mauritania has made insufficient progress toward combating forced labor, specifically, the scourge of hereditary slavery.”

      It may be that if he wins reelection, Trump will revisit that decision and offer to drop the revocation as a carrot to bring Mauritania onto the normalization bandwagon. That would, of course, do nothing to hasten the end of slavery. As Human Rights Watch (HRW) notes in its World Report 2020, the Mauritanian government is doing precious little itself: “According to the 2019 US State Department Trafficking in Persons Report, Mauritania investigated four cases, prosecuted one alleged trafficker, but did not convict any.” HRW also detailed numerous human rights abuses, the stifling of free speech and the harassment and arrest of opposition politicians and activists, including the anti-slavery movement leader and presidential candidate Biran Dah Abeid.

      There is no doubt that the promise of economic gain that Tortue Ahmeyim represents could go some way toward steering Mauritania onto a modernizing path. Though the 2019 presidential election was challenged by the opposition, it did represent the first peaceful transition in the country’s long history of military coups after gaining independence from France in 1960. That, coupled with the windfall the gas field could bring, is a step in the right direction. But if the Tortue Ahmeyim project falters, so too will Mauritania’s chances for a better future.

      *[This article was originally published by Arab Digest.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      The US Must Support Sudan’s Path to Democracy

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      In the aftermath of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain formalizing diplomatic relations with Israel on August 13 and September 11, respectively, many experts predict that Sudan will be the next Arab state to follow suit. The main reason for this pertains to the fact that the Trump administration has been putting pressure on Khartoum to abandon the Arab Peace Initiative (API) and open up full-fledged ties with Tel Aviv. Undoubtedly the White House would desperately like to see Sudan take this step prior to America’s presidential election in November.

      In a characteristically transnational manner, President Donald Trump and those around him, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and adviser Jared Kushner, are reportedly making a quid pro quo deal with Khartoum. The US State Department will remove Sudan from the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SST) list in exchange for Khartoum normalizing relations with the Jewish state. Nonetheless, this is a cynical and misguided way for the Trump administration to approach Sudan as it disregards the significant ways in which Sudan has changed its policies, both domestically and internationally. Ultimately, it would serve US national interests to immediately remove Sudan from this list regardless of Khartoum’s stances on Israel and the API.

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      Since Sudan’s former president Omar Hassan al-Bashir fell from power in the spring of 2019, the country’s democratic experiment has faced myriad challenges. From COVID-19 to human rights abuses committed by the Sudanese military and major economic problems, Sudan has been dealing with many difficult issues amid the post-Bashir period. Today, there is no denying that the popular and non-violent revolution which ended Sudan’s three-decades-long dictatorship is fragile. International support for Khartoum is necessary for Sudan’s democratic struggle to succeed.

      Yet this is not forthcoming, due to a lack of focus in US foreign policy that has resulted in insufficient attention being paid to the specific policy drivers that must be implemented if Washington can hope to engage constructively with Sudan’s democratic process. It would behoove officials in Washington to adopt policies that result in the US helping, rather than hindering, Sudan’s difficult transition to democracy and civilian rule.

      Struggle for Democracy

      After Bashir’s ouster in a palace coup in April 2019, Sudan’s revolutionaries, millions of whom spent months on the streets pressuring the dictator to step down, continued protesting in favor of civilian leadership. In contrast to the many Egyptians who supported the military-backed coup in Egypt that toppled their country’s president, Mohammed Morsi, in July 2013, Sudan’s wider public knew not to blindly trust the country’s military to defend a democratic revolution. By June 3, 2019, hardline elements tied to the Bashir regime, including militants from the notorious Janjaweed militia, massacred Sudanese protesters in the capital, resulting in roughly 120 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

      Yet about two months after that atrocity, Sudan’s military and civilian revolutionaries agreed to a political compromise that came up with a government that is led by civilians but also maintains significant military representation.

      Since August 2019, a sovereign council consisting of six civilian and five military officials has been governing Sudan. Additionally, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok heads a technocratic cabinet comprised of civilians. Sudan plans to run free and democratic elections in 2022, with the interim period of time supposed to give Sudanese civil society an opportunity to regrow after being harshly oppressed under Bashir’s rule. During the present period, there has been a restoration of the freedoms of assembly, press and speech. But the democratic transition was agreed upon in the pre-COVID-19 era and at a time when impacts of the pandemic on public health, the economy and society could not possibly have been foreseen.

      For Sudan’s government, the gravest risk is that it will lose its legitimacy among more Sudanese citizens if the country’s economic situation remains bleak. Youth unemployment stands around 40% and could widen societal divisions if left unaddressed or if tackled in ways that exacerbate and widen existing fault-lines and inequalities. Long lines for petrol as well as staple foods are common in Sudan, where the country’s annual inflation rate reached 167% in September. The global coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown have only exacerbated the country’s economic problems and made it more urgent that actions be taken as soon as possible to support the political transition underway in Sudan rather than wait until 2022, by which time the impact of economic and social dislocation generated by the current crisis might be too late to effect a positive democratic outcome.

      Harm of US Sanctions

      “The single biggest obstacle to Sudan’s economic recovery is the continued U.S. economic sanctions, which … not only impacts trade with and investment from the United States, but from other countries and multilateral entities as well,” explained renowned American Middle East scholar, Dr. Stephen Zunes. Other experts such as the Atlantic Council’s Cameron Hudson agree that Sudan’s long-term economic progress depends on Washington removing its sanctions on Khartoum. Imposed by the US in 1993 when Washington labeled Sudan a state sponsor of terrorism, these sanctions were aimed at punishing Bashir’s government for its links to Osama bin Laden and other global terrorists, plus the regime’s sponsorship of armed Palestinian and Arab groups like Hamas, the Abu Nidal Organization, the Fatah-Revolutionary Council, Hezbollah, Jamaat al-Islamiyya and Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

      Yet today, Sudan’s post-Bashir government is not sponsoring any Salafi-jihadi terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda or the Islamic State (IS). In fact, even Bashir’s government was not doing so during its final years in power. In its 2015 country report on terrorism, the US State Department stated that Washington and Khartoum “worked cooperatively in countering the threat posed by al-Qa’ida and ISIL.”

      Thus, Washington’s current policy vis-à-vis Sudan suffers from being stuck in a previous era in which leaders, institutions and both regional and global circumstances were fundamentally different and in no way reflect the considerable changes in Sudanese politics over the past year and more. Hudson described the continued designation of Sudan as a state sponsor terrorism as representing to many “an anachronism and a symbol of Washington’s own lethargy in updating its policy toward Khartoum.” In sum, problems which the US had with Bashir’s regime decades ago should not be “effectively punishing [the Sudanese] further for having overthrown [the Bashir] dictatorship,” as Zunes argues.

      Last year, Prime Minister Hamdok spoke before the UN General Assembly and addressed Washington’s outdated policies in relation to Sudan: “The Sudanese people have never sponsored, nor were supportive of terrorism. On the contrary, those were the acts of the former regime which has been continuously resisted by the Sudanese people until its final ouster. These sanctions have played havoc on our people, causing them untold misery of all types and forms.” There is a risk that the longer these sanctions remain in place, the more the US becomes vulnerable to narratives that portray bureaucratic inertia in responding to changing circumstances as something more sinister, ascribing to Washington malign policy motivations that damage America’s standing and public diplomacy interests.

      A major concern is that Sudan’s economic situation and COVID-19 crisis could jeopardize the country’s transition to democracy. If the period of time between now and the planned 2022 elections is defined by economic crises and resultant social and political unrest, other actors including the military or conservative Islamists tied to the Muslim Brotherhood may find themselves best positioned to take power. The Sudanese public, so energized by the revolutionary success of 2019, may quickly become disillusioned if it perceives its struggle to have been in vain or to have been betrayed. The experience of disillusioned activists in Tunisia and Egypt has shown how some may be drawn toward radicalization if they feel there is no realistic alternative to an authoritarian status quo.

      Policy Recommendations

      In order to best secure the hopes for a future Sudan led by inclusive, secular, moderate and democratic civilians, the US government should end all its sanctions on Khartoum and establish fully normalized diplomatic relations with Sudan. Thus, given the urgency of helping Sudan preserve its hard-fought-for democratic gains since 2019 and US interests in seeing a smooth transition occur in the country, below are four key policy recommendations.

      Embed from Getty Images

      First, Washington should remove Sudan’s designation on the US State Sponsors of Terrorism list. Sudan’s inclusion on the SST list not only bars the US from economically assisting Sudan but mandates that Washington prevent the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other global financial institutions from giving Sudan loans or other forms of assistance. As coronavirus spreads across Sudan, the authorities have had a more difficult time coping with the pandemic because the World Bank came under US pressure in April 2020 to exclude Sudan from a list of developing countries that received help from a $1.9-million emergency fund. Furthermore, the designation requires US citizens to obtain the Treasury Department’s approval prior to engaging in any financial transaction with these Sudanese government. So long as Sudan is on the SST list, it will be difficult to imagine the impoverished country receiving sufficient levels of investment and trade in order to develop and prosper in the future.

      Second, the US should lift all other remaining sanctions on Khartoum and encourage multinational institutions to help Sudan, especially amid the global COVID-19 crisis. Because Omar al-Bashir ascended to power in an Islamist-driven military coup in 1989, and the military that took power in the 2019 palace coup did not come to power as a result of a democratic election, there remain prohibitions under Section 7008 of the State Department Foreign Operations funding. In practice, this prevents the US from providing much assistance to any country where the “military has overthrown, or played a decisive role in overthrowing, the government.”

      Yet the US should not wait to pull these prohibitions until after the 2022 elections, which is what Washington currently plans to do. Darfur-related sanctions are also still enforced, which as Hudson argues “will continue to have a dampening effect on outside investment until durable peace and credible accountability mechanisms have been implemented.” These sanctions deter banks and other financial institutions around the world from taking the risks that currently come with Sudan-related opportunities. Thus, lifting these sanctions could help boost Sudan’s foreign investment climate.

      Third, Washington should reverse its decision, made in February 2020, to end migrant visas from Sudan. This move basically brings all immigration from Sudan to a complete halt, and it will continue to do so even in the post-COVID-19 period if not addressed. As experts such as the Chatham House’s Matthew T. Page have explained, Trump’s domestic political agenda of taking hard stances on immigration issues amid his reelection campaign was largely behind this policy decision, which targeted Sudan and three other African countries. In the process, however, the US loses influence in these developing nations that see the American door slamming on them as only further reason to invest in even deeper ties with China and Russia.

      Finally, the US should stand with Sudan’s government in solidarity against COVID-19. While the US should first end sanctions on Sudan, which would help combat the spread of coronavirus in the country and among its neighbors, Washington should also give Khartoum aid to help the Sudanese authorities deal with the pandemic within their own borders. As other states worldwide have practiced “coronavirus diplomacy” to boost their humanitarian credentials, this demonstration of American soft power could secure some goodwill from the Sudanese public following decades of negative relations between Washington and Khartoum.

      Key Interests

      Ultimately, there is no good reason for the US to be working to undermine Sudan’s democratic experiment, even if that is not the intent but rather the unfortunate byproduct of a bureaucracy that is slow to respond, giving the impression of stasis. Perceptions often play a key role in shaping emerging realities, and for the Sudanese, who feel that their actions in ousting a dictator are deserving of American support, there may not be an open-ended window before expectation turns to disillusionment.

      Moreover, there are key American interests that can be advanced through a US-Sudan rapprochement that follows an unwinding of Washington’s sanctions on Khartoum. In terms of competition among global powers, Washington has long-term foreign policy interests in establishing a positive relationship with post-Bashir Sudan. Washington’s sanctions on Sudan, as well as outright American hostility against the country — most exemplified by the Clinton administration’s decision to bomb a factory in Khartoum in 1998 — have only pushed the country closer to China, Russia, and at previous junctures Iran too.

      Although Sudan is not a high-ranking issue of interest to the diplomatic establishment in Washington nor to the US public, the American and Sudanese people alike could stand to gain in many ways if their governments reconcile and work toward a more cooperative relationship following a rapprochement. As a farmland-rich country situated along the Red Sea at the intersection of the Arab and African worlds, Sudan represents an important part of the conflict-prone Horn of Africa. In this volatile part of Africa, many powers — China, Israel, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Russia, United Arab Emirates, etc. — are scrambling to consolidate their clout, and the US certainly has its own interests in the immediate and broader neighborhood.

      Embed from Getty Images

      While the focus on countering terrorism and violent extremism has, to an extent, taken center stage in the US, measures taken now that support the political transition to democracy and strengthen Sudan’s economy can have a significant impact in bolstering Sudanese resilience to potential shocks such as COVID-19 that, if mishandled, could undermine much of the progress made on the security and stability fronts.

      Yet beyond such strategic interests shaped by Sudan’s geopolitical position in the wider African, Arab and Islamic regions, the US would in an ideational sense be living up to its professed values if Washington adopted new policies that are aimed at supporting the Sudanese people in their struggle for democracy following 30 years of brutal dictatorial rule. Ultimately, the US is sending the wrong message when it emphasizes the importance of human rights but turns its back on Sudan’s non-violent, democratic revolutionaries while engaging openly with highly authoritarian states around Sudan such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

      From a soft power and public diplomacy perspective, too, greater support for Sudan would be a significant tool for the US to project as the world retreats into a great power rivalry synonymous with the Cold War in the 20th century, not least because the African continent has emerged as one of the frontlines for such perceived geopolitical competition with China.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Can the India-China Confrontation Play Out in East Africa?

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      China and India have never been friendly neighbors. The laws of geopolitics set the two Asian giants against one another. In recent years, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s confrontation with the US and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitions for a powerful and global India have inflamed nationalism on both sides of the Himalayan border. Bilateral tensions peaked in June, when a border clash in the Himalayan Galwan Valley resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers and an unspecified number of Chinese troops.

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      Now, the competition between China and India is moving to Africa, and to East Africa in particular. Since 2000, the continent has witnessed China’s deep and ubiquitous penetration through trade, investments, infrastructures, energy, budget support and security cooperation. In 2008, New Delhi showed a newfound interest in Africa.

      Despite China’s head start, India is trying to catch up to counter Beijing’s predominance over the continent. East Africa is the region where the two Asian powerhouses share vital interests and where their competition will likely play out more seriously.

      India’s Africa Policy

      India–Africa relations are rooted in history. The Indian Ocean constituted a channel of trade and population exchange for centuries. Consequently, East Africa has always enjoyed close ties with India, and around 3 million people of Indian descent live between the Horn and South Africa. After independence from British rule in 1947, India was politically active in Africa as a champion of decolonization and South-South cooperation. The period that followed saw India–Africa relations phase out until New Delhi brought the continent back into the picture from the mid-2000s.

      In economic terms, trade augmented eightfold between 2001 and 2017, making India Africa’s third-largest trading partner with a total exchange worth $62.6 billion. While Chinese trade with the continent largely outnumbers it, India has kept up the pace and investments grew alongside trade, jumping to $54 billion in 2016.

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      As a fast-growing manufacturing power, India places strategic relevance to raw materials for the stability of its supply chain and energy sector. Indeed, New Delhi’s exchange with Africa, like Beijing’s, is driven by natural resources — with oil and gas accounting for approximately two-thirds of the total — followed by gold and other ores.

      Political ties have also strengthened over the years. In 2008, the first India–Africa Forum Summit was launched in New Delhi and took place again in 2011 and 2015, with 41 African heads of state attending; the next conference was scheduled in September 2020. These summits allowed African leaders, on the one hand, to set out their cooperation priorities and India, on the other, to respond accordingly. As a result, India–Africa cooperation pivoted around capacity building, technology transfer and infrastructural investments. Lastly, India has sought support on UN reform, which would be unrealistic without the votes of African countries in the General Assembly.

      Security issues have been on the agenda as well. New Delhi is particularly active in the realm of anti-piracy. After the kidnapping of several Indian citizens by Somali pirates, the Indian navy stepped up its efforts after 2008 and escorted over 1,000 vessels across the Gulf of Aden, sometimes in cooperation with the European Union’s Mission Atalanta.

      Another domain that saw India at the forefront is UN peacekeeping missions. The Indian subcontinent has always been one of the leading suppliers of peacekeepers to UN missions, with 80% of them deployed in Africa. On top of that, Indian defense academies have provided training to the Nigerian, Ethiopian and Tanzanian military.

      Modi and the Challenge to China

      Modi has given further impetus to India–Africa relations. In July 2018, he outlined the 10 guiding principles of India’s engagement with Africa during a visit to Rwanda and Uganda. On that occasion, the prime minister leveraged India’s role in South-South cooperation to advance his credentials as leader of the developing world. Besides rhetoric, Modi moved from words to action by signing a defense agreement with President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and by extending two credit lines worth nearly $200 million to the Ugandan government. He also announced the opening of 18 new diplomatic missions in Africa by 2021, bringing the total to 47.

      The prime minister has placed a keen eye on East Africa, which is set to become the epicenter of the India–China confrontation. The Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden are essential maritime routes for India’s export-oriented economy. China is heavily investing along these two waterways through the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), especially in the port of Djibouti and the Suez Canal.

      Djibouti is indeed becoming yet another element of the Chinese maritime network in the Indian Ocean, along with Pakistan, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar. This network, the so-called “String of Pearls,” geographically surrounds India and is perceived as a strategic nightmare in New Delhi. Therefore, the Chinese expansion in the western Indian Ocean urges India to intervene.

      To counter the BRI in the Indian Ocean, New Delhi launched a similar initiative for East Africa: the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC). Conceived in 2016 and still at an early stage, this Indo-Japanese project will attract investments on development, quality infrastructure, institutional connectivity, capacity building and people-to-people cooperation to the region. Due to its anti-Chinese nature, the AAGC primarily targets contested countries like Djibouti and Ethiopia.

      In 2017, Indian President Ram Nath Kovind clustered both countries for his first official visit. At the time, Ethiopia was already the largest beneficiary of India’s scholarship scheme and lines of credit for Africa with $1.1 billion, besides being the scene of the 2011 India-Africa Forum Summit. Djibouti was a relatively new target for New Delhi. In the year of the visit, China opened its first overseas military base in Djibouti. Consequently, Kovind not only signed some cooperation agreements, but he also reportedly expressed India’s interest in a military base on Djiboutian soil, a project still under discussion.

      The geopolitical confrontation between India and China looms on the horizon. Africa — particularly the east — is set to become an arena of such a global, momentous challenge. India has economic, energetic and security reasons to deepen its relations with the continent. Furthermore, China’s ubiquitous presence in Africa and the Indian Ocean is a direct menace to Modi’s global ambitions. Although China is still out of reach, New Delhi’s engagement has been steadily expanding in all fields, and its approach based on soft power looks promising. The concepts of building Africa’s capacities and unleashing its potential, along with the employment of African workers instead of foreign labor like China, have resonated across the continent.

      On the one hand, East Africa is under India’s radar more than any other region of the continent for its strategic position. On the other, East African governments have a long track record of balancing off the influence of external actors. East Africa is also the region where India can rely on a robust diaspora community. Hence, India presents itself as a useful ally to balance China’s growing influence in the region.

      Finally, yet importantly, the US and the European powers might prefer New Delhi’s penetration into the continent at the detriment of China’s, which is perceived as a growing geopolitical threat to the West. East Africa, in sum, might soon become the new battleground of the economic and security confrontation between the two Asian giants.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Could COVID-19 Bring Down Autocrats?

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      The outbreak of COVID-19 initially looked like a gift to autocrats around the world. What better pretext for a state of emergency than a pandemic?

      It was a golden opportunity to close borders, suppress civil society and issue decrees left and right (mostly right). Donald Trump in the United States, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and others took advantage of the crisis to advance their me-first agendas and consolidate power. Best of all, they could count on the fear of infection to keep protestors off the streets.

      However, as the global death toll approaches a million and autocrats face heightened criticism of their COVID responses, the pandemic is looking less and less like a gift.

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      The news from Mali, Belarus and the Philippines should put the fear of regime change in the hearts of autocrats from Washington to Moscow. Despite all the recent signs that democracy is on the wane, people are voting with their feet by massing on the streets to make their voices heard, particularly in places where voting with their hands has not been honored.

      The pandemic is not the only factor behind growing public disaffection for these strongmen. But for men whose chief selling point is strong leadership, the failure to contain a microscopic virus is pretty damning.

      Yet, as the case of Belarus demonstrates, dictators do not give up power easily. And even when they do, as in Mali, it’s often military power, not people power, that fills the vacuum. Meanwhile, all eyes are fixed on what will happen in the US. Will American citizens take inspiration from the people of Belarus and Mali to remove their own elected autocrat?

      People Power in Mali

      Ibrahim Boubacar Keita won the presidential election in Mali in 2013 in a landslide with 78% of the vote. One of his chief selling points was a promise of  “zero tolerance” for corruption. Easier said than done. The country was notoriously corrupt, and Keita had been in the thick of it during his tenure as prime minister in the 1990s. His return to power was also marked by corruption — a $40-million presidential jet, overpriced military imports, a son with expensive tastes — none of which goes over well in one of the poorest countries in the world.

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      Mali is not only poor, it’s conflict-prone. It has been subject to military coups at roughly 20-year intervals (1968, 1991, 2012). Several Islamist groups and a group of Tuareg separatists have battled the central government — and occasionally each other — over control of the country. French forces intervened at one point to suppress the Islamists, and France has been one of the strongest backers of Keita.

      Mali held parliamentary elections in the spring, the first since 2013 after numerous delays. The turnout was low, due to coronavirus fears and sporadic violence as well as the sheer number of people displaced by conflict. Radical Islamists kidnapped the main opposition leader, Soumaila Cisse, three days before the first round. After the second round, Keita’s party, Rally for Mali, claimed a parliamentary majority, but only thanks to the constitutional court, which overturned the results for 31 seats and shifted the advantage to the ruling party.

      This court decision sparked the initial protests. The main protest group, Movement of June 5 — Rally of Patriotic Force, eventually called for Keita’s resignation, the dissolution of parliament and new elections. In July, government security forces tried to suppress the growing protests, killing more than a dozen people. International mediators were unable to resolve the stand-off. When Keita tried to pack the constitutional court with a new set of friends, protesters returned to the street.

      On August 18, the military detained Keita and that night he stepped down. The coup was led by Assimi Goita, who’d worked closely with the US military on counterinsurgency campaigns. Instead of acceding to demands for early elections, however, the new ruling junta says that Malians won’t go to the polls before 2023.

      The people of Mali showed tremendous courage to stand up to their autocrat. Unfortunately, given the history of coups and various insurgencies, the military has gotten used to playing a dominant role in the country. The US and France are also partly to blame for lavishing money, arms and training on the army on behalf of their “war on terrorism” rather than rebuilding Mali’s economy and strengthening its political infrastructure.

      Mali is a potent reminder that one alternative to autocrats is a military junta with little interest in democracy.

      Democracy in Action in Belarus

      Alexander Lukashenko is the longest-serving leader in Europe. He’s been the president of Belarus since 1994, having risen to power like Keita on an anti-corruption platform. He’s never before faced much of a political challenge in the country’s tightly-controlled elections.

      Until these last elections. In the August 9 elections, Lukashenko was seeking his sixth term in office. He expected smooth sailing since, after all, he’d jailed the country’s most prominent dissidents, he presided over loyal security forces, and he controlled the media.

      But he didn’t control Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. The wife of jailed oppositionist Sergei Tikhanovsky managed to unite the opposition prior to the election and brought tens of thousands of people onto the streets for campaign rallies.

      Nevertheless, Lukashenko declared victory in the election with 80% of the vote (even though he enjoyed, depending on which poll you consult, either a 33% or a 3% approval rating). Tikhanovskaya fled to Lithuania. And that seemed to be that.

      Except that the citizens of Belarus are not accepting the results of the election. As many as 200,000 people rallied in Minsk on August 23 to demand that Lukashenko step down. In US terms, that would be as if 6 million Americans gathered in Washington to demand Trump’s resignation. So far, Lukashenko is ignoring the crowd’s demand. He has tried to send a signal of defiance by arriving at the presidential palace in a flak jacket and carrying an automatic weapon. More recently, he has resorted to quiet detentions and vague promises of reform.

      Just like the Republicans in the US who appeared as speakers at the Democratic National Convention, key people are abandoning Lukashenko’s side. The workers at the Minsk Tractor Factory are on an anti-Lukashenko strike, and many other workers at state-controlled enterprises have walked off the job. Police are quitting. The ambassador to Slovakia resigned. The state theaters have turned against the autocrat for the first time in 26 years.

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      Despite COVID-19, Belarus doesn’t have any prohibitions against mass gatherings. That’s because Lukashenko has been a prominent COVID-19 denialist, refusing to shut down the country or adopt any significant medical precautions. His recommendations: take a sauna and drink vodka. Like Boris Johnson in the UK and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Lukashenko subsequently contracted the disease, though he claims that he was asymptomatic. The country has around 70,000 infections and about 650 deaths, but the numbers have started to rise again in recent days.

      There are plenty of oppositionists ready to usher in democratic elections once Lukashenko is out of the way. A new coordinating council launched this month includes former Culture Minister Pavel Latushko as well as prominent dissidents like Olga Kovalkova and Maria Kolesnikova.

      Even strong backing from Russia won’t help Lukashenko if the whole country turns against him. But beware the autocrat who can still count on support from a state apparatus and a militant minority.

      The End of Duterte? 

      Nothing Rodrigo Duterte could do seemed to diminish his popularity in the Philippines. He insulted people left and right. He launched a war on drugs that left 27,000 alleged drug dealers dead from extrajudicial murders. Another 250 human rights defenders have also been killed.

      Still, his approval ratings remained high, near 70% as recently as May. But Duterte’s failure to deal with the coronavirus and the resulting economic dislocation may finally unseat him, if not from office then at least from the political imagination of Filipinos.

      The Philippines now has around 210,000 infections and 3,300 deaths. Compared to the US or Brazil, that might not sound like much. But surrounding the Philippines are countries that have dealt much more successfully with the pandemic: Thailand (58 deaths), Vietnam (30 deaths), Taiwan (7 deaths). Meanwhile, because of a strict lockdown that didn’t effectively contain the virus, the economy has crashed, and the country has entered its first recession in 29 years.

      Like Trump, Duterte has blamed everyone but himself for the country’s failings, even unleashing a recent tirade against medical professionals. But Duterte’s insult politics is no longer working. As Walden Bello, a sociologist and a former member of the Philippines parliament, observes at Foreign Policy In Focus, “The hundreds of thousands blinded by his gangster charisma in the last 4 years have had the scales fall from their eyes and are now asking themselves how they could possibly have fallen in love with a person whose only skill was mass murder.”

      In the Philippines, presidents serve one six-year term, and Duterte is four years into his. He may well attempt to hold on for two more years. He might even pull a Vladimir Putin and change the constitution so that he can run again. A group of Duterte supporters recently held a press conference to call for a “revolutionary government” and a new constitution. Another possibility, in the wake of recent bombings in southern Philippines, might be a declaration of martial law to fight Abu Sayyaf, which is linked to the Islamic State group.

      But the combination of the pandemic, the economic crash and a pro-China foreign policy may turn the population against Duterte so dramatically that he might view resignation as the only way out.

      Democracy in the Balance

      Plenty of autocrats still look pretty comfortable in their positions. Putin — or forces loyal to him — just engineered the poisoning of one of his chief rivals, Alexei Navalny. Xi Jinping has just about turned Chinese politics into a one-man show. Viktor Orban has consolidated his grip on power in Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suppressed or co-opted the opposition parties in Turkey, and Bashar al-Assad has seemingly weathered the civil war in Syria.

      Even Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, despite an atrocious record on both the pandemic and the economy, has somehow managed to regain some popularity, with his approval rating nudging above his disapproval rating recently for the first time since April.

      The US presidential elections might tip the balance one way or the other. Although America still represents a democratic ideal for some around the world, that’s not the reason why the November elections matter. Donald Trump has so undermined democratic norms and institutions that democrats around the world are aghast that he hasn’t had to pay a political price. He escaped impeachment. His party still stands behind him. Plenty of his associates have gone to jail, but he has not (yet) been taken down by the courts.

      That leaves the court of public opinion. If voters return President Trump to office for a second term, it sends a strong signal that there are no penalties for ruining a democracy. Trump operates according to his own Pottery Barn rule: He broke a democracy and he believes that he now owns it. If voters agree, it will gladden the hearts of ruling autocrats and authoritarians-to-be all over the world.

      Voting out Trump may not simply resuscitate American democracy. It may send a hopeful message to all those who oppose the Trump-like leaders in their lands. Those leaders may have broken democracy, but we the people still own it.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More