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      in Elections

      Obama didn’t deliver for Africa – can Biden prove that black lives matter everywhere? | Vava Tampa

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      How different is the Biden-Harris administration’s Africa policy going to be from Donald Trump’s, or even Barack Obama’s? Many African people, as well as the continent’s strongman leaders, are now gingerly asking – is Biden going to be Obama 2.0, or Trump-lite?For the sake of black lives mattering everywhere in these turbulent times, I hope Biden will chart a bold new course, diametrically away from not only Trump but also Obama’s Africa policy.I welcomed the Biden presidency with a deep sigh of relief. Yet I am still worried about his Africa strategy. Relations between president-elect Biden and African people will kick off with tensions and apprehensions – understandably so.For the past 60 years, Democrat and Republican presidents have approached Africa primarily for access to, and control of, our extractive industries and, at certain points, for counter-terrorism operations. This approach, under the influence of the cold war, translated into the US supporting Africa’s strongmen, leaving vulnerable people struggling to survive their ruthlessness, while China cheered from the sidelines.The most prominent of these strongmen, including but not limited to Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema, in power since 1979; Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, head of state since 1986; Djibouti’s Ismail Omar Guelleh, in post since 1999; Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, ruling since 1994, and Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki, in power since 1993. The human cost of US support for these men has been jarring for even the most cynical observers.By my calculation Africa’s strongmen have been responsible for more than 22 million deaths on the continent since independence in 1960. That is almost twice as many people as historians say were forcibly transported from Africa during the transatlantic slave trade. Yet it seems no US president has found this troubling.The bloodiestkilling field has been the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where brutal US-backed strongmen killed more than 5.4 million Congolese people over access and control of minerals between 1998 and 2008, and sparked outbreaks of disease, famine and the use of rape as a weapon of war. With Trump out of the picture, our biggest fear is a repeat of Obama’s Africa doctrine – and for many black people this is the single biggest concern about the Biden-Harris administration.As we all know, President Obama promised Africa one thing in Ghana in 2009: to support strong institutions instead of strongmen. That simple pledge – repeated, in one form or another – felt very personal to many of us fighting for peace and change.During the Obama presidency, 11 African strongmen clung to power, killing thousands of their citizensBut Obama delivered almost nothing meaningful; not because of a Russian or Chinese veto at the UN security council but because in the first few years of his presidency some in his team sought to protect people such as Joseph Kabila, former president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whose security forces were linked to killings and torture, and Paul Kagame, whose tight grip on the Rwanda presidency has earned him the tag of “benevolent dictator”.The result? Tragic. During the Obama presidency, 11 African strongmen clung to power, killing thousands of their citizens and displacing millions more. Yet almost not a single one of them faced a serious tit-for-tat consequences from the US – and this has been a colossal disaster for democratic forces across the continent.Trump, too, turned a blind eye to atrocities in Africa. During his presidency, President Biya’s troops in Cameroon have killed 4,000 civilians. In Ivory Coast, Allassane Ouattara “won” a third unconstitutional term with 94% of the vote. Many civilians were killed in election-linked violence. The list may very well go on.For the sake of black lives mattering everywhere, will the Biden-Harris administration end the US’s longstanding but shortsighted and destructive support for Africa’s strongmen? How may President Biden respond to #EndSars, a movement against police brutality in Nigeria, or #CongoIsBleeding, a campaign against exploitation in the mines of the DRC? What will he do to de-escalate growing tensions inside Ethiopia or in Eritrea?Many of us are wondering, too, whether or not Biden will refocus US policy and push for peace in Somalia, Libya, Cameroon or Mozambique? Will he support the creation of an international criminal tribunal for Congo to end the continuing killings and use of rape as a weapon of war and, simultaneously, jump-start development in Africa’s great lakes – a region that seems pitifully prone to strongmen and mass killing?Answers to these questions are unclear. But I am hopeful about Biden. His career and some of his pitch-perfect public statements – think of his 1986 statement against apartheid South Africa or his commitment to black lives mattering during the campaign trail – reveal instincts, even a moral commitment, to supporting Africa and black people. More

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      in World Politics

      Israel’s Comeback in the Horn of Africa

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      In 2016, Benjamin Netanyahu was the first Israeli prime minister to visit Africa in 30 years. The visit was consistent with his announced intent to rebuild Israel’s ties with the continent, especially East Africa, where his tour took him through Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda. Narrowing down focus on the Horn of Africa, Israel has a long history of engagement in the region that dates back to the 1960s. The Red Sea has always been a vital waterway for Tel Aviv as it connects the country to East Africa, Asia and Oceania through the tiny outlet of Eilat.

      This strategic imperative has always been confronted with the hostility of nearly all the states of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden basin. Only Ethiopia and Eritrea have maintained relations with the Jewish state in the past decades, though with some setbacks.

      Not All Arab States Will Normalize Ties With Israel

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      Now, even relations with Israel might see a significant change in the Horn of Africa. The Abraham Accords, signed in September by Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to normalize bilateral relations with Israel, have caused a diplomatic earthquake in the Middle East and beyond. On the one hand, the treaty turned Abu Dhabi into a broker facilitating dialogue between its regional partners and Israel. On the other, the accords showed the friends and foes of the United States that there is a file rouge between their ties with Washington and their relationship with Tel Aviv.

      The Abraham Accords were undoubtedly part of an effort of the US administration to garner a foreign policy success ahead of the November presidential elections. Yet this policy might stay in place longer, even with a Democrat at the White House. The Horn of Africa mirrors the Middle East in many aspects, and the recognition of Israel might be yet another one.

      Perspective Allies in the Horn

      On October 23, US President Donald Trump made a double announcement about Sudan. He first revealed Khartoum’s intention to normalize ties with Israel. Then he removed Sudan from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in exchange for the payment of compensation for two terrorist attacks against American embassies in which the regime of erstwhile Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir was involved. The recognition of Israel clearly came down as an additional request for the delisting of Sudan — an indispensable, long-awaited measure that will allow international aid to flow into the country and help Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to address the deepest economic crisis in decades.

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      But the issue of normalization with Israel is a highly contentious one for Sudan. The two countries have a conflicting history. The Jewish state has financed and trained South Sudanese guerrilla groups in the past, while the Arab country has long served as an operational base to ship weapons and aid to Hamas in Gaza. Not surprisingly, the announcement of the normalization sparked protests in Khartoum and led the Islamist National Umma Party to declare its withdrawal from the government coalition. Against this backdrop, the agreement does not seem under immediate threat since the levers of power ultimately remain in the hands of General Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagolo and General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who chair the Sovereign Council. The two generals benefitted from the UAE’s and Saudi Arabia’s military and financial support, with Abu Dhabi especially keen to see Sudan build stronger relations with its new ally, Israel.

      Eritrea is another country set to move closer to Tel Aviv. Eritreans received crucial military assistance from Israel during the liberation war against Ethiopia. After obtaining independence in 1991 after 30 years of conflict, Asmara went beyond establishing diplomatic relations and reportedly offered Israel a concession to open a military base on the island of Daklah, strategically located in the Red Sea. However, Eritrea’s growing isolation in the mid-2000s pushed President Isaias Afwerki more into Iran’s sphere of influence and, subsequently, on a collision course with Israel. The Asmara-Tehran alignment then became a key strategic concern for Saudi Arabia and the UAE since Iran allegedly used Eritrean soil as a logistics base to smuggle weapons to the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

      This concern prompted the Saudi and Emirati engagement in Eritrea, with Asmara ultimately realigning with the two Gulf states as signaled by the port concessions offered to the Emirati DP World and Eritrea’s membership in the Saudi-sponsored Council of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Now, with mediation by Abu Dhabi, even relations with Israel might be back on the table if President Afwerki decides to soften his country’s international isolation through a rapprochement with the United States.

      The third actor on the list might be Somaliland. The Somali breakaway republic, which emerged from the collapse of the state back in 1991, is probably holding talks with Tel Aviv, as the chief of Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, Eli Cohen, suggested in a recent interview. Here again, the UAE seems to play a crucial role. Somaliland has become a strong Emirati partner in recent years because of its strategic location looking out to the Gulf of Aden and southern Yemen. The alliance between Abu Dhabi and Hargeisa took shape around the concession of the port of Berbera to DP World and the construction of an Emirati airbase nearby.

      Inching Closer

      The UAE is very well positioned to bring Somaliland and Israel closer. Besides gaining a useful security partner in the fight against al-Shabaab, Hargeisa might see a rapprochement with the Jewish state as valuable political capital to sell to Washington in exchange for advancement in the process of recognition of its independence from Mogadishu. But Somaliland is not the only Somali state to enjoy strong ties with the UAE. Puntland in the north and Jubaland in the south are ruled by state governments similarly aligned to Abu Dhabi that could also require Israeli assistance against terrorism or even the Somali federal government in the future.Last but not least, there is Ethiopia. Addis Ababa and Tel Aviv resumed bilateral diplomacy in 1989, when the Derg military regime was toppled in Ethiopia. After years of clement relations, in September 2019, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took a successful visit to Israel. On that occasion, he signed a joint declaration with Benjamin Netanyahu that underlined their intention to foster cooperation, particularly in terms of bilateral trade, as well as military, economic and technological assistance. In this specific situation, it might be Israel that pulls the brakes on cooperation in order to avoid any steps that might antagonize Egypt, currently at loggerheads with Addis Ababa over the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project on the Blue Nile.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Finally, the two remaining states in the Horn of Africa, Somalia and Djibouti, do not seem willing to reproach Israel. The reason for that can be found in the relations that these countries enjoy with Turkey and Qatar as well as in the lack of incentives from the United States to move in that direction.Given Israel’s new posture in the Middle East and Africa, more states might be willing to open to Israel — or be pressed to do so — in order to improve their relations with the US and the UAE. Yet the Palestinian issue is still a contentious topic in the vast majority of the Muslim and the post-colonial world. This makes bilateral relations with Israel a divisive issue, both in domestic and regional politics. At the domestic level, recognition of Israel is often perceived as a betrayal of the Palestinian people, especially in those countries where the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamist movements are active, such as Sudan.

      At the regional level, the Turkey-Qatar axis firmly opposes any opening to Israel and has deep political, economic and security ties with many state and non-state actors across the Horn of Africa. Consequently, any agreement with Israel is likely to fuel internal dissent and entrench regional polarization at the same time. While new bilateral relations are always good news for the international system, normalization with Israel should be handled more carefully than other rapprochements.

      *[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 US Politics

      Laugh? We nearly all died – why my US failed state Twitter thread went viral

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      The chaotic US election has undoubtedly been the biggest story in the world in the last two weeks. Watching it unfold from over 13,000km away in Kenya, the election itself – the long queues, the delayed and disputed vote count, impugned credibility – was disturbingly familiar. Our own elections follow a near-identical pattern. The media coverage, not so much.
      Gone were the condescending tone, the adjective-laden labels and the expectation of violence and malfeasance so often applied to “foreign” elections. In its place was an easy familiarity and assumption of competence.
      The media did not feel it necessary to depict the US as a crisis-wracked, oil-rich, nuclear-armed North American country with armed terror groups roaming its ethnically polarized restless interior. But these were exactly the sorts of descriptors that have traditionally allowed western audiences to identify with and follow events in distant, “exotic” places. It seemed to me that the rest of us deserved the same consideration. And so I decided to offer this perspective in a Twitter thread

      gathara
      (@gathara)
      #BREAKING After days in barricaded presidential palace, US dictator, Donald Trump, hesitantly emerges to attend ceremony for fallen troops in coastal capital, Washington DC. Race is now on to get back to the palace before President-elect Joe Biden can sneak in and depose him.

      November 11, 2020

      Clearly, many across the globe felt similarly, given the response the thread has attracted. At last count, it had been viewed nearly 4m times, attracting more than 50,000 likes and nearly half as many retweets. And there was more than mere interest in the mechanics of what was happening in the US. There was a fair bit of joy at its expense.

      gathara
      (@gathara)
      #BREAKING Rumors – hotly denied by regime officials – are spreading that US dictator, Donald Trump, who has not been seen in public since he returned to the barricaded presidential palace days ago, may have fled the crisis-torn republic for asylum in an undisclosed country.

      November 11, 2020

      In 2016, the Republican candidate for president, Donald Trump, may have exaggerated somewhat when he declared: “The world is laughing at us. They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity.” No longer. As counting in the crisis-wracked North American state entered its 10th day, around the world it had become the butt of many jokes. After decades of enduring its hubris and condescension, many are happy to see the self-anointed “shining city on a hill” and self-proclaimed “greatest country in the history of the world” knocked down a peg or two.

      gathara
      (@gathara)
      #BREAKING As ruthless purge of disloyal elements within the country’s military continues, US Foreign Minister accuses opposition of rigging presidential elections raising fears corrupt regime of aging dictator, Donald Trump, will declare state of emergency and cling to power.

      November 11, 2020

      In truth, it has been a long time coming. For a long time, America has been to the world what Trump has been to America – a bull in a china shop. Rich, entitled, brash, over-confident and often downright stupid, since the end of the cold war the country has traipsed around the world, breaking stuff as it went, throwing its weight around, and playing fast and loose with cherished global norms. Its journalists and moviemakers (and president) rarely missed the opportunity to stress just what an uncivilized “shithole” the rest of the globe was and how much we needed the enlightenment offered by the Peace Corps.
      America always seemed surprised that other people did not necessarily appreciate being insulted or told how to live. Like Trump, it has had its enablers. Some, like the British, were true believers in its “manifest destiny” to rule and deliver the world. Others, like the French, were content to give their support while holding their noses.
      Like Trump, America’s successes were primarily economic and its monumental failures, in places like Vietnam and Iraq, cost hundreds and thousands of lives. It had a complicated relationship with the truth as exemplified by Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations, laying out the Bush administration’s rationale for war in Iraq. Like Trump it cozied up to dictators in Africa and gave a wink and a nudge to the apartheid regimes in South Africa and in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel.
      Inevitably perhaps, America’s excesses inspired a rival. Today, America finds itself as a bull in China’s shop. It has slowly been eclipsed in many areas where it was once dominant, especially in trade and lately in technology. And America has reacted much like Trump to the loss of its position as top dog – it is throwing a tantrum. From inciting a trade war to trying to wreck global alliances and treaties, to undermining the multilateral system, the US is showing that it will not go quietly into the sunset.
      Given all this, many around the world can be excused for feeling a little schadenfreude as the US is humiliated by an election that has ruthlessly exposed its inadequacies, and a president that has made a mockery of its claim to be the king of democracies.
      The election and four years of Trump have shown that far from being a paragon of democracy, the US has not only neglected its decaying democratic institutions at home, but has also incubated a dangerous authoritarianism. As the US fixes itself, the rest of us too need to reform the international system which for too long has operated on the mistaken belief that the US is what it claimed to be. The Trump presidency should be the wake up call we all need to build a better world.
      Patrick Gathara is a Kenyan political cartoonist, satirist and writer. Twitter: @gathara More

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      in World Politics

      Is Ethiopia on the Brink of Civil War?

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      Two years ago, scenes of jubilation broke out across northern Ethiopia. The border between Ethiopia and its former adversary Eritrea was open again after 18 years. Siblings were reunited, grandparents saw grandchildren for the first time, phone links were suddenly restored. A new era appeared to have dawned in the Horn of Africa after decades characterized by bitter civil wars, famine and ideological rigidity. The youth, who represent more than half the population, placed especially high expectations in the young new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed.

      East Africa Faces a Cascade of Crises

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      A better life with work and dignity appeared possible. Ahmed had been a surprise candidate from the party of the largest ethnic group, the Oromo, which had never headed the government. He wanted to break with the rigid developmental state concept of the previous government, which had been dominated by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Abiy’s guiding principles of democracy, privatization and love appeared outlandish. His peace settlement with neighboring Eritrea was a breakthrough that won him the Nobel Peace Prize.

      Escalating Power Struggle

      Today the borders between Eritrea and Ethiopia are firmly closed again. Hundreds of Ethiopians have died in ethnic pogroms in recent months. The killing of a prominent Oromo singer, Hachalu Hundessa, sparked weeks of protests, leading the government to block the internet for months and detain thousands of opposition supporters. The youth, whose protests propelled Abiy to power, have turned against him, their hopes dashed.

      The tinder ignited in early November, when fighting broke out between the TPLF and the federal armed forces in the northern state of Tigray. Internet and telephone connections were cut and flights suspended. The federal government imposed a state of emergency on the region, declared the TPLF a terrorist organization and appointed a parallel government for the TPLF-run state. Federal armed forces were deployed to the state border from other parts of the country and from neighboring Somalia. Both sides now claim to have the situation under control: Prime Minister Abiy reports successful strikes on TPLF air defenses while the TPLF claims to be militarily unscathed.

      The escalation began after Abiy indefinitely postponed the first free national elections, which had been scheduled for August, citing the COVID-19 pandemic. A few months earlier, he had dissolved the previous ruling party and founded the Prosperity Party. One effect of these moves was to reduce the political influence of the TPLF and enhance the position of previously neglected states like Somali and Afar.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The TPLF responded by questioning the government’s legitimacy — it regards Abiy as an opponent of ethnic federalism. In early September, the TPLF gained an absolute majority in elections to Tigray’s state parliament, which were deemed illegal by the federal government. After the TPLF’s long and harsh rule, many Ethiopians still bear resentment against it, and mass support for the group is therefore unlikely.

      This hardening of fronts reflects the weakness of Abiy’s government, which has failed to rein in ethnonationalist divisions and prevent ethnic pogroms. The prime minister had assumed that the completion of the gigantic Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile would generate enthusiasm and support across the entire population and function as a national unification project. That hope appears to have been dashed.

      A situation where conflict continues to escalate in Tigray and the country spirals into civil war could spell the end for Abiy’s transition. He risks losing the army’s loyalty and his control over parts of the country. A defeated TPLF could turn into an armed opposition, within or outside the country’s borders. There is also a risk that Eritrea’s president, Isayas Afewerki, will sense an opportunity to expand his country’s regional role again by intervening on Ethiopia’s side. This would weaken Ethiopia and render it more dependent.

      A Ceasefire Will Not Be Enough

      Internal collapse would have repercussions for Ethiopia itself — as the region’s most populous country – and for the entire Horn of Africa. A regional war would endanger the fragile transition in Sudan, while national fragmentation would directly impact the talks on a Nile dam agreement and the African Union Mission in Somalia, in which Ethiopia plays a decisive role.

      The first step toward conflict resolution would be for the TPLF and the federal government to recognize each other as legitimate actors. Talks could then be conducted by the region’s Intergovernmental Authority on Development under Sudanese leadership. The African Union, Europe, the UN and other partners should agree on a shared line on de-escalation. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as the mediators of the Ethiopian-Eritrean peace agreement, could also play an important role as guarantors.

      But a ceasefire can only be the start. Dissatisfaction is growing in all of Ethiopia’s regions, separatist tendencies are proliferating, and the system of ethnic federalism is on the verge of violent collapse. If these dangers are to be avoided, it is vital that the security forces prevent ethnic pogroms. And if he is to retain popular backing, Prime Minister Abiy must guarantee due process for political detainees. Finally, if any hope of a new start, democratic change and devolution of power is to survive, a comprehensive national dialogue will be vital.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions related to foreign and security policy.]

      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 Elections

      What will President Biden's United States look like to the rest of the world? | Timothy Garton Ash

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      What is the best the world can now hope for from the United States under President Joe Biden, now that the election has been called for him? My answer: that the US will be a leading country in a post-hegemonic network of democracies.Yes, that’s a, not the leading country. Quite a contrast to the beginning of this century, when the “hyperpower” US seemed to bestride the globe like a colossus. The downsizing has two causes: the US’s decline, and others’ rise. Even if Biden had won a landslide victory and the Democrats controlled the Senate, the United States’ power in the world would be much diminished. President Donald Trump has done untold damage to its international reputation. His disastrous record on handling Covid confirmed a widespread sense of a society with deep structural problems, from healthcare, race and infrastructure to media-fuelled hyper-polarisation and a dysfunctional political system.In a recent eupinions survey, more than half of those asked across the European Union found democracy in the US to be “ineffective”. And that was before Trump denounced as “fraud” the process of simply counting all the votes cast in an election. When the US lectures other countries on democracy these days, the politest likely answer is: “Physician, heal thyself!”. Even compared with the grim period of Vietnam and Watergate, this must be an all-time low for American soft power.Europe has many problems of its own, but set against the record of US regress over the last 20 years, our European story looks like triumphal progress. The same can be said for Australia, New Zealand or Canada. Still more dramatic has been China’s rise, facilitated by years of American strategic distraction.Even assuming that all legal challenges to his election will have been dealt with when the 46th president is inaugurated next January, he will face an almost bitterly divided country, an almost certainly divided government and a far from united Democratic party. Thanks to Trump’s shameless mendacity, millions of Trump voters may not accept even the basic legitimacy of a Biden presidency. His ability to push through desperately needed structural reforms will be hampered, if not stymied, if the Republicans retain control of the Senate.Fortunately for the rest of us, the area in which he will have most freedom of manoeuvre is foreign policy. Biden has immense personal foreign policy experience, as a former vice-president and before that, chair of the Senate foreign relations committee. He has an experienced foreign policy team. Members of that team identify their greatest strategic challenges as the “3 Cs”: Covid (including its global economic aftermath), climate change and China. That’s an agenda on which allies in Europe and Asia can happily engage. Rejoining the Paris climate agreement, which the US formally left on Wednesday, will be an important first step.Nato remains essential for Europe’s security against an aggressive Russia, but the key to winning back disillusioned Europeans will be to offer a new quality of partnership to the European Union. Even before he becomes president, Biden might like to express his appreciation for the way the EU has kept the flag of liberal internationalism flying while the US under Trump was awol. His first presidential visit to the old continent should include the EU institutions in Brussels. (Perhaps an address to the European parliament?) A bipartisan reference back to President George HW Bush’s 1989 “partners in leadership” speech in Germany could be helpful, but applying it now to the entire EU. In this partnership of equals, the US will not always sit at the head of the table. That’s what I mean by “post-hegemonic”.Europeans should do more for their own security, but Biden would be unwise to start by hammering away at the old “Spend 2% of your GDP on defence” theme. The German strategic thinker Wolfgang Ischinger has suggested a good way to reframe the issue: think of it rather as 3% on 3D – that is, defence, diplomacy and development. A self-styled “geopolitical” EU must assume a greater burden in its wider neighbourhood, which means to the south, across the Mediterranean to the Middle East and north Africa, and to the east, in relations with Belarus (currently in peaceful revolt), Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s aggressive but also fundamentally weak Russia.A new emphasis on the EU will leave the ultra-Brexiters who dominate Boris Johnson’s government in Britain feeling slightly miffed. But the Johnson government does have one good idea, which is to extend the G7 meeting it will host next year to major democracies in Asia.This chimes perfectly with a central leitmotif of the Biden team: working with other democracies. The US already has the Quad format, linking it with Australia, Japan and India. They will be at least as important as the EU and Britain when it comes to dealing with China.If the Biden administration is wise, it will envisage this as a network of democracies, rather than a fixed alliance or community of democracies. Even a “summit of democracies”, reportedly a pet scheme of the president elect, would pose tricky questions of who’s in and who’s out. Think of it as a network, however, and you can keep it flexible, varying the coalitions of the willing from issue to issue and finessing the difficult borderline cases. For example, Narendra Modi’s India is anything but a model liberal democracy at the moment, yet indispensable for addressing the “3 Cs”.On every issue, both the US and Europe should start by identifying the relevant democracies; but of course you can’t stop there. You have also to work with illiberal and anti-democratic regimes, including China. China is the greatest geopolitical challenge of our time. It is itself one of the “3 Cs”, yet also crucial for addressing the other two: climate change and Covid. It is a more formidable ideological and strategic competitor than the Soviet Union was, at least from the 1970s onward, but its cooperation is also more essential in larger areas.In pursuing a twin-track strategy of competition and cooperation, the US has unique strengths. Although the “greatest military the world has ever seen” ended up losing a war against technologically inferior adversaries in Iraq, the US is the only military power that can stop Xi Jinping’s China taking over the Chinese democracy in Taiwan. The US still leads the world in tech, which is the coal and steel of our time. We watch French series on Netflix, buy German books on Amazon, contact African friends on Facebook, follow British politics on Twitter and search for criticism of the US on Google. In the development of AI, Europe is nowhere compared to China and the US.Yet, especially given its domestic travails, the US cannot begin to cope on its own with a China that is already a multi-dimensional superpower. It needs that network of partners in Europe and Asia as much as they need it. So let the world’s democracies stand ready to grasp the outstretched hand of a good man in the White House. What a change that will be. More

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      in World Politics

      A Counterweight to Authoritarianism, People Power Is on the Rise

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      Despite all the obstacles, Americans are voting in huge numbers prior to Election Day. With a week to go, nearly 70 million voters have sent in their ballots or stood on line for early voting. The pandemic hasn’t prevented them from exercising their constitutional right. Nor have various Republican Party schemes to suppress the vote. Some patriotic citizens have waited all day at polling places just to make sure that their voices are heard.

      Americans are not alone. In Belarus and Bolivia, Poland and Thailand, Chile and Nigeria, people are pushing back against autocrats and coups and police violence. Indeed, 2020 may well go down in history alongside 1989 and 1968 as a pinnacle of people power.

      Some pundits, however, remain skeptical that people power can turn the authoritarian tide that has swept Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Narendra Modi into office. “People power, which democratized countries from South Korea and Poland in the 1980s to Georgia and Ukraine in the 2000s and Tunisia in 2010, has been on a losing streak,” writes Jackson Diehl this week in The Washington Post. “That’s true even though mass protests proliferated in countries around the world last year and have continued in a few places during 2020 despite the pandemic.”

      Diehl can point to a number of cases to prove his point. Despite massive popular resistance, many autocrats haven’t budged. Vladimir Putin remains in charge in Russia, despite several waves of protest. Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems to have only consolidated his power in Turkey. And who expected Bashar al-Assad to still be in power in Syria after the Arab Spring, a punishing civil war and widespread international condemnation?

      Could COVID-19 Bring Down Autocrats?

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      Even where protests have been successful, for instance most recently in Mali, it was the military, not democrats, who took over from a corrupt and unpopular leader. Rather than slink out of their palaces or send in the tanks for a final stand by, autocrats have deployed more sophisticated strategies to counter popular protests. They’re more likely to wait out the storm. They use less overtly violent means or deploy their violence in more targeted ways to suppress civil society. Also, they’ve been able to count on friends in high places, notably Donald Trump, who wishes that he could rule forever.

      Pundits tend to overstate the power of the status quo. Autocrats may have the full panoply of state power at their disposal, but they also tend to dismiss challenges to their authority until it’s too late. As Americans await the verdict on Trump’s presidency, they can take heart that the tide may be turning for people power all over the world.

      Overturning Coups: Bolivia and Thailand

      One year ago, Bolivia held an election that the Organization of American States (OAS) called into question. The apparent winner was Evo Morales, who had led the small South American nation for nearly 14 years. The OAS, however, identified tampering in at least 38,000 ballots. Morales won by 35,000 votes. Pressured by the Bolivian military, Morales stepped down and then fled the country. A right-wing government took over and set about suppressing Morales’ Movement for Socialism (MAS) party. It looked, for all the world, like a coup.

      The OAS report set into motion this chain of events. Subsequent analysis, however, demonstrated that the OAS judgment was flawed and that there were no statistical anomalies in the vote. Granted, there were other problems with the election, but they could have been investigated without calling into question the entire enterprise.

      It’s also true that Morales himself possesses an autocratic streak. He held a referendum to overturn the presidential term limit and then ignored the result to run again. He came under criticism from environmentalists, feminists, and his former supporters. But Morales was a shrewd leader whose policies raised the standard of living for the country’s poorest inhabitants, particularly those from indigenous communities.

      Embed from Getty Images

      These policies have enduring popularity in the country. With Morales out of the political equation, Bolivians made their preferences clear in an election earlier this month. Luis Arce, the new leader of MAS, received 55% of the vote in a seven-way race, a sufficient margin to avoid a run-off. The leader of last year’s protest movement against Morales received a mere 14%. MAS also captured majorities in both houses of congress. An extraordinary 88% of Bolivian voters participated in the election. The victory of MAS is a reminder that the obituaries for Latin America’s “pink tide” have been a tad premature.

      The Bolivians are not the only ones intent on overturning the results of a coup. In Thailand, crowds of protesters have taken to the streets to protest what The Atlantic calls the “world’s last military dictatorship.” In the past, Thailand has been nearly torn apart by a battle between the red shirts (populists) and the yellow shirts (royalists). This time around, students and leftists from the reds have united with some middle-class yellows against a common enemy: the military. Even members of the police have been seen flashing the three-finger salute of the protesters, which they’ve borrowed from “The Hunger Games.”

      The protesters want the junta’s figurehead, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, to step down. They want to revise the military-crafted constitution. And they want reforms in the monarchy that stands behind the political leadership. Anger at the royals has been rising since the new king took over in 2016, particularly since he spends much of his time with his entourage in a hotel in Bavaria.

      It’s not easy to outmaneuver the Thai military. The country has had more coups in the modern era than any other country: 13 successful ones and nine that have failed. But this is the first time in a long time that the country seems unified in its opposition to the powers that be.

      Finally, the prospects for democracy in Mali received a recent boost as the military junta that took over in August orchestrated a transition to more or less civilian rule over the last month. The new government includes the former foreign minister, Moctar Ouane, as prime minister and several positions for the Tuaregs, who’d previously tilted toward separatism. Military men still occupy some key positions in the new government, but West African governments were sufficiently satisfied with this progress to lift the economic sanctions imposed after the coup. National elections are to take place in 18 months.

      Standing Up the Autocrats: Belarus and Poland 

      Protesters in Belarus want Alexander Lukashenko to leave office. Lukashenko refuses to go, so the protesters are refusing to go as well. Mass protests have continued on the streets of Minsk and other Belarusian cities ever since Lukashenko declared himself the winner of the presidential election in August. The last European dictator has done his best to suppress the resistance. The authorities detained at least 20,000 people and beat many of those in custody.

      This Sunday, nearly three months after the election, 100,000 again showed up in Minsk to give punch to an ultimatum issued by exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya: Lukashenko either steps down or will face a nationwide work stoppage. Lukashenko didn’t step down. So, people walked out. The strikes began on Monday, with workers refusing to show up at enterprises and students boycotting classes. Shops closed down, their owners creating human chains in Minsk. Even retirees joined in.

      Notably, the protest movement in Belarus is directed by women. Slawomir Sierakowski describes one telling incident in The New York Review of Books:

      “After receiving reports of an illegal assembly, a riot squad is dispatched to disperse it. But when they get there, it turns out to comprise three elderly ladies sitting on a bench, each holding piece of paper: the first sheet is white, the second red, the third white again — the colors of the pro-democracy movement’s flag. Sheepishly, these masked commandos with no identification numbers herd the women into a car and carry them off to jail.
      How many sweet old ladies can a regime lock up without looking ridiculous?” 

      Women are rising up in neighboring Poland as well, fed up the overtly patriarchal leadership of the ruling Law and Justice Party. The right-wing government has recently made abortion near-to-impossible in the country, and protesters have taken to the streets. In fact, they’ve been blockading city centers.

      It’s not just women. Farmers and miners have also joined the protests. As one miner’s union put it, “a state that assumes the role of ultimate arbiter of people’s consciences is heading in the direction of a totalitarian state.”

      Strengthening the Rule of Law: Chile and Nigeria

      Chile has been a democracy for three decades. But it has still abided by a constitution written during the Pinochet dictatorship. That, finally, will change, thanks to a protest movement sparked by a subway fare increase. Beginning last year, students led the demonstrations against that latest austerity measure from the government. Resistance took its toll: Around 36 people have died at the hands of the militarized police. But protests continued despite COVID-19.

      What started as anger over a few pesos has culminated in more profound political change. This week, Chileans went to the polls in a referendum on the constitution, with 78% voting in favor of a new constitution. In April, another election will determine the delegates for the constitutional convention. In 2022, Chileans will approve or reject the new constitution.

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      The protests were motivated by the economic inequality of Chilean society. A new constitution could potentially facilitate greater government involvement in the economy. But that kind of shift away from the neoliberal strictures of the Pinochet era will require accompanying institutional reforms throughout the Chilean system. A new generation of Chileans who have seen their actions on the streets translate into constitutional change will be empowered to stay engaged to make those changes happen.

      In Nigeria, meanwhile, the recent protests have focused on an epidemic of police killings. But the protests have led to more violence, with the police responsible for a dozen killings in Lagos last week, which only generated more protest and more violence. Activists throughout Africa — in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and elsewhere — have been inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement to challenge police brutality in their own countries. Accountable governments, transparent institutions, respect for the rule of law: These are all democratic preconditions. Without them, the elections that outsiders focus on as the litmus test of democracy are considerably less meaningful.

      The Future of People Power

      People power has caught governments by surprise in the past. That surprise factor has largely disappeared. Lukashenko knows what a color revolution looks like and how best to head it off. The government in Poland contains some veterans of the Solidarity movement, and they know from the inside how to deal with street protests. The Thai military has played the coup card enough times to know how to avert a popular takeover at the last moment.

      But in this cat-and-mouse world, people power is evolving as well. New technologies provide new powers of persuasion and organizing. Greater connectivity provides greater real-time scrutiny of government actions. Threats like climate change provide new urgency. Sure, authoritarians can wait out the storm. But the people can do the same.

      Here in the United States, periodic demonstrations have done little to push the Trump administration toward needed reforms. Nor have they led to his removal from office. Trump delights in ignoring and disparaging his critics. He rarely listens even to his advisers. But the four years are up on Tuesday. The American people will have a chance to speak. And this time the whole world is listening and watching. Judging from the president’s approval ratings overseas, they too are dreaming of regime change.

      *[This article was originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus.]

      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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      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.

      Israel-UAE Deal: Arab States Are Tired of Waiting on Palestine

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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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      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