Uprisings - Social Tsunami የዓመፅ ሞገድ: August 2011

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Nigeria has every right as a sovereign nation to take a position on any international position.

"It is not a question of one country holding a higher moral ground than the other. Each country has it's own foreign policy ideals and objectives and it is completely beside the point to say that one country is criticizing the position held by another. Nigeria's position is very clear and is consistent and it is principled."

Nkosana Dlamini

Libyans in Zimbabwe celebrate Muammar al-Gaddafi's fall. Harare, which backs Gaddafi, is considering expelling the Libyan ambassador after he defected to the opposition.

These were the words of the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, Dr Reuben Abati, while fielding question from State House journalists on Thursday, August 25.

According to Dr Abati, "Nigeria's position on Libya as published is consistent, is principled, Nigeria respects the wishes of the people of Libya, Nigeria has advised the transitional council to ensure that the interest of the people are defended and that multiple- party democracy is returned as quickly as possible and that reconciliation, reconstruction should be objectives of the new administration.

"As for Mr. President speaking with the leader of the transitional council, well it has not happened yet, but I'm sure when the opportunity comes, two leaders talking to each other at a moment like this, I don't think there is a problem with that."

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Africa Splits Over Recognizing Libyan Transitional Council

Gaddafi loyalists ambushed at Libya checkpoint - YouTube

Gaddafi loyalists ambushed at Libya checkpoint - YouTube: ""

'via Blog this'

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Sporadic fighting continues in Tripoli - YouTube

Sporadic fighting continues in Tripoli - YouTube: ""

'via Blog this'

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The Battle for Tripoli: Fighting for the Streets of the Libyan Capital - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

André Liohn / DER SPIEGEL

Tripoli has fallen. Or has it? As rebels continue fighting to topple Libyan autocrat Moammar Gadhafi, the streets in the capital have become chaotic. Some are celebrating the arrival of the rebels while others are firing at them from the rooftops.

The fighters lie in the shade of plane trees in a small park along Tripoli's coastal road, just a few hundred meters from the beach. The rebels are tired and filthy, their t-shirts cling to their sweaty bodies under the scorching sun. They need a break from war. But they won't rest long -- a few men are already cleaning their Kalashnikov rifles again, clicking new rounds into the chamber.

Among them stands a man who seems out of place in his clean striped shirt, trousers and brown business shoes. Long before the fighting broke out, he was a military drill instructor, but then worked as a lawyer for many years. At 57, he is much older than the other men. Using his real name would be too dangerous, so they call him by his nom de guerre, Commander Milut. Moammar Gadhafi's fighters will likely lose this war, but for the moment, they are still have to power to hunt down families of the rebels.

Roughly 120 men strong, the rebels in the park call themselves the Jadu brigade, because many of them come from the small city of Jadu in the Nafusa Mountains, where most of the country's Berber population lives. Since the beginning of the uprising against Gadhafi in February, the men from the rugged mountains southwest of the capital city have been fighting from village to village. Making their way down into the desert they shot their path to the ocean and to Tripoli. These men from the mountains are the main force helping to take over the city, which is likely to fall soon. But fighting is still fierce on the city's streets.

Commander Milut trained most of the rebels. He knows war, having fought in the Chadian-Libyan conflict and for Gadhafi's army in Lebanon. Most of his soldiers are hardly over the age of 20, and some can't even grow a beard no matter how hard they try.

He is arguing with some of his fighters, who have encircled him. They are shouting, but he remains calm. Rebel troops don't function like a real army -- there are commanders, but each rebel fights by choice and doesn't necessarily take orders. Still, they can be advised and guided.

Anxious to End the Conflict

Some of Milut's people want to immediately attack Gadhafi's fortress Bab al Aziziya, where the heaviest gunfire can be heard. But the commander, who hasn't yet lost any of his men in the fighting, would prefer to play it safe and send a small group out to scout the way.

"The boys are tired and stressed, they're exhausted and want to bring this to an end quickly," he says. He understands their impatience, he says, but his fighters can't simply wade into a firefight. It's important to coordinate with other groups and be cautious, particularly as the end draws near, he says to quiet them.

Right now Tripoli is a witches' cauldron -- chaotic, wild, and extremely dangerous. Rebels have a number of areas under control, including one in the city center where a four-lane street has drawn crowds of revellers. "Shafshoufa maalechi," they yell repeatedly. It means "Get lost, mop-head," and refers to Gadhafi and his tousled hair. It seems as though all of Tripoli was waiting to be freed, but the scene is misleading. The other side is hard to see at first, but they are there and they are fighting.

A large number of sharpshooters pick out their targets from atop tall buildings, killing both rebels and civilians alike. Women and children are falling suddenly, with bullets in their heads.

The sharpshooters don't seem squeamish. In a house along the coastal road there are three dead soldiers. Two were shot, but the third had his throat cut. That's more than war -- it's also retribution.

No Mercy For Gadhafi's Goons

Other Gadhafi soldiers have holed up in machine gun nests, taking aim at bridges, streets and squares. Milut wants to know where they are before his brigade approaches. "I can't just send my boys under fire," he says. "I know almost all of their parents." Before the war Jadu had just 11,000 residents.

As far as Milut is concerned, the war has been won and it makes no sense for the sharpshooters to go on fighting. They could give up, toss away their weapons, take off their uniforms and disappear into the chaos. Instead they continue killing. But they are nothing more than dead men walking. They have a few hours, or maybe two or three days left to live. For these men the rebels rarely show mercy.

On Monday night the fight continued under the wonderfully clear Tripoli sky, where the Milky Way was as brilliant as a planetarium show above the lit minarets. Red blasts of tracer ammunition exploded as NATO jets droned on at high altitude, their bombs exploding dully elsewhere, much more powerful than the bark of rapid-fire cannons or the rumble of artillery.

On Tuesday morning, the rebels prepared themselves for battle once again, loading fresh rockets into launchers. Just after 11 a.m. the day gets hot. A lot more people will die today, but perhaps it will end by the next call to prayer. "Insha'Allah," the Jadu rebels say often. "God willing."

Libyan Rebels Seize Tripoli, Two of Gadhafi's Sons Captured - ABC News

Rebel forces took control of much of Tripoli tonight, and thousands flooded the streets of the Libyan capital and other cities around the country to celebrate what they hope will be the end of Moammar Gadhafi's 42-year reign.By OLIVIA KATRANDJIAN

Aug. 21, 2011

"We were waiting for the signal and it happened," Nour Eddin Shatouni, a 50-year-old engineer celebrating the apparent collapse of the strongman's regime, told The Associated Press. "All mosques chanted 'God is great' all at once. We smelled a good scent, it is the smell of victory. We know it is the time."

The Transitional National Council (NTC), the administration set up by the rebel forces, claimed that three of the Libyan strongman's sons have either been captured or surrendered.

Muhammad Gadhafi, son of the Libyan leader, told Al Jazeera in a weepy phone call that he had surrendered to opposition forces. Crying on the phone, he said that his house was surrounded by gunfire and he was under house arrest.

Shortly before that phone call, his brothers Seif al Islam and Saadi, were captured by rebel forces in Tripoli, according to the NTC. Seif al Islam, like his father, has been indicted on charges of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

ICC representatives will meet Monday with the transitional forces to discuss how Seif al Islam will be transferred to the Hague, ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told The Associated Press.

PHOTO: People celebrate the capture in Tripoli of Moammar Gadhafi's son and one-time heir apparent, Seif al-Islam, at the rebel-held town of Benghazi, Libya, early Monday, Aug. 22, 2011.

Alexandre Meneghini/AP Photo

People celebrate the capture in Tripoli of... View Full Size

Motion Filed to Dismiss DSK Charges; Libyan Rebels Control State TV Watch Video

Libya Revolt: BBC Journalist Ambush Caught on Tape Watch Video

Top U.S. Official: Gadhafi Past Tipping Point Watch Video

Rebel forces have surrounded the Gadhafi compound, Bab al Aziziya, a representative of the rebel government told ABC News and gunfire has been heard outside the compound.

Mohamad al Akari, an NTC advisor, said that if Moammar Gadhafi is still in Tripoli, they believe he is in Bab al Aziziya.

"Tonight it's over," Akari said.

The NTC also claimed that members of Gadhafi's presidential guard have surrendered to the rebel forces.

Libyan rebel forces gathered in Green Square in the heart of Tripoli, but there were isolated clashes with government forces and snipers throughout the city, according to multiple reports.

In Benghazi, in eastern Libya, crowds set off fireworks, waving flags and cheering for Gadhafi's departure.

President Obama said the day's events proved that there was only one choice for Gadhafi: to give up power and let the Libyan people decide their own future.

"The surest way for the bloodshed to end is simple: Moammar Gadhafi and his regime need to recognize that their rule has come to an end," Obama said. "Gadhafi needs to acknowledge the reality that he no longer controls Libya. He needs to relinquish power once and for all."

The secretary general of NATO, whose air strikes Gadhafi blamed for the rebels' success, also said Gadhafi's regime was "clearly crumbling."

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said air strikes would continue if government troops make "any threatening moves toward the Libyan people."

Gadhafi's whereabouts were unknown, but audiotapes of the strongman were broadcast on state television this evening that his forces would not give up and would "fight until the last blood drop."

"How come you allow Tripoli the capital, to be under occupation once again?" he said in the broadcast, in which he was not shown. "The traitors are paving the way for the occupation forces to be deployed in Tripoli."

Monday, August 22, 2011

P J Crowley warns of 'chaos' in Libya - YouTube

P J Crowley warns of 'chaos' in Libya - YouTube:

Friday, August 19, 2011

Libyan rebels advance towards Tripoli

Sunday, August 14, 2011

"A Creeping Military Coup in Khartoum," Dissent Magazine, August 10, 2011

A Creeping Military Coup in Khartoum”
Dissent Magazine (on-line), August 10, 2011
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?keyword=Sudan

By Eric Reeves

On August 2, the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime in Khartoum decided to delay the medical evacuation of ten Ethiopian peacekeepers who were injured by a powerful landmine explosion in Abyei, a highly contested region in Sudan. The convoy of peacekeepers, operating under UN authority, hit the mine near Mabok, southeast of Abyei town and very close to 1956 North-South border. One man died instantly and ten were badly injured---three critically. And yet for more than three hours, Khartoum's Sudan Armed Forces, including their military intelligence, refused a UN helicopter permission to leave Kadugli in South Kordofan (some 200 kilometers away). Indeed, according to the head of the UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations Alain Le Roy, the SAF commander threatened to "shoot down the helicopter" if it attempted its medical evacuation mission (http://www.rnw.nl/africa/bulletin/sudan-threatened-chopper-heading-dying-troops-un-0 ). The three critically wounded soldiers all died before they could be brought to medical facilities in Kadugli.
Details of the events have been confirmed by Le Roy and other UN diplomatic sources. One "expressed shock at the incident," and another was reported by Agence France-Presse as saying (anonymously) that at least one of these peacekeepers could have survived his wounds if transported promptly.

Even in their outrage, UN officials showed a perverse unwillingness to offend Khartoum---the most likely reason for their anonymity. This determination runs deep in the UN, as it responds to crisis after crisis in Sudan, on both the political and humanitarian sides of the organization (http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article298.html). This muting of criticism has been justified in a number of ways: to preserve aid access, to facilitate "negotiations," to seem---especially in the Arab and Islamic worlds---"evenhanded" in all criticisms of parties to the conflicts in Sudan. But in the end, it is precisely this diffidence and fecklessness that allow Khartoum to threaten humanitarian and peacekeeping efforts in the first place. And in the end, the UN is all too accurate a reflection of its member nations.
An Ethiopian peacekeeping force---the third UN-authorized peacekeeping force in Sudan---was required only because the SAF unilaterally seized Abyei on May 20, in violation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) between North and South and a "final and binding" determination of Abyei's borders by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2009. (Not coincidentally, shortly after the regime seized Abyei it launched a genocidal assault on the Nuba people in South Kordofan, North Sudan, an assault that continues unabated.)The Ethiopian force was deployed in order to create secure conditions for the more than 120,000 displaced Dinka Ngok to return to their native Abyei. But Khartoum declared that its military forces will withdraw from Abyei, as they have nominally agreed, only when all 4,200 troops of the Ethiopian armored brigade have deployed; and there is no provision for the future threat posed by Arab Misseriya militia proxies that were so active in the looting of Abyei. Since it is now the height of the rainy season, and transport is difficult if not impossible, deployment could take many months. During this time, Khartoum's seizure of Abyei will increasingly become a fait accompli.

SO WHAT does it say about the regime that it would issue orders to shoot down a UN medevac helicopter trying to save badly injured UN peacekeepers? To be sure, in one sense it is nothing new: such acts of barbarism have defined the regime since it seized power by military coup in 1989---in South Sudan and Darfur, and in Abyei and in South Kordofan. In the 1990s in the Nuba Mountains, home to the African Nuba people of South Kordofan, Khartoum launched a genocidal jihad, which killed or displaced hundreds of thousands of the indigenous Nuba. There are no firm figures for these terrible human losses, but Julie Flint---an expert on the Nuba---estimates that 60,000 to 70,000 were killed by Khartoum's militia forces early in the campaign (http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Commentary/2011/Jun-21/War-clouds-gather-in-South-Kordofan.ashx#axzz1UM7rRXZF). And in Darfur and the Nuba Mountains today, the deliberate aerial bombardment of civilian and humanitarian targets continues unabated. (I have recently chronicled these particular atrocity crimes in detail from 1999 to the present: http://www.sudanbombing.org/)

The list of such crimes is long and various. Human rights groups reported, while they still had access in Darfur, countless brutal raids against the villages of African tribal groups perceived as the civilian base of support for the insurgency that began in 2003. By Darfuri estimates, some 4,000 to 5,000 African villages have been completely or partially destroyed and depopulated. Antonov bombers, helicopter gunships, ground troops, and Arab militia allies (known collectively as the "Janjaweed") ravaged the agricultural livelihood of African farmers, by poisoning wells, destroying food and seed stocks, burning dwellings and markets, and looting and killing livestock. Radio Dabanga (http://www.radiodabanga.org/) continuously reports on the epidemic of rape that Khartoum loosed upon the girls and women of Darfur, as well as on deadly attacks on camps for displaced persons. The regime has engineered or permitted widespread insecurity in order to attenuate humanitarian access to the region.

So in a moral sense, there is ample and recent precedent for the decision to deny medical evacuation of the wounded UN peacekeepers. Even so, this act suggests something new about how the cabal in Khartoum sees itself in its engagement along the border regions with South Sudan. Indeed, there is considerable evidence that the regime is undergoing a "creeping coup," orchestrated by elements in the military leadership. Several observers have noted this possibility, including Julie Flint in a recent dispatch based on a document from an official in Khartoum (http://goo.gl/ON8Mh). No doubt this official is rightly fearful that if a military coup from within is successful, there will be very little room for civilians in the new configuration of power: "[A] well-informed source close to the National Congress Party reports that Sudan's two most powerful generals went to [Sudanese President Omar al-] Bashir on May 5, five days after 11 soldiers were killed in an SPLA ambush in Abyei, on South Kordofan's southwestern border, and demanded powers to act as they sought fit, without reference to the political leadership."

"'They got it,' the source says. 'It is the hour of the soldiers---a vengeful, bitter attitude of defending one's interests no matter what; a punitive and emotional approach that goes beyond calculation of self-interest. The army was the first to accept that Sudan would be partitioned. But they also felt it as a humiliation, primarily because they were withdrawing from territory in which they had not been defeated. They were ready to go along with the politicians as long as the politicians were delivering---but they had come to the conclusion they weren't. Ambushes in Abyei...interminable talks in Doha keeping Darfur as an open wound.... Lack of agreement on oil revenue....' 'It has gone beyond politics,' says one of Bashir's closest aides. 'It is about dignity.'" We, in turn, might ask about the "dignity" of the millions of victims Khartoum has sacrificed for its own survival. I think it is extremely likely that what Flint's sources tell her is accurate, and immensely consequential. The decision to threaten to shoot down a UN medical helicopter---a gratuitously self-destructive action---is but one example of the regime having come 'round to the "hour of the soldiers." Al-Bashir himself came from the army, and now goes under the title of "Field Marshal." And he has depended on the military as his strongest constituency in asserting his presidential powers. So it's possible that al-Bashir himself is leading the coup as a way to prevent political rivals from seizing power in the turmoil that now prevails in Khartoum---or that he is on the way to becoming a puppet of the military. But one way or another, the military is ascendant. Flint's document makes sense of a good deal of what we have seen recently in Sudan. Take, for example, the decision by notorious regime hardliner Nafi'e Ali Nafi'e to sign an agreement on June 28 with political representatives of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), an agreement that would address some of the issues that precipitated the crisis in South Kordofan and commit both parties to seek a cessation of hostilities. On returning from his visit to China in early July, al-Bashir promptly overturned Nafi'e's decision and declared that the SAF would "continue their military operations in South Kordofan until a cleansing of the region is over" (http://goo.gl/kad0r).

Nafi'e would never have made the decision to sign such a consequential agreement without confirmation from al-Bashir. Something changed in the political environment. Either the SAF leadership demanded that the agreement be renounced, or al-Bashir sought this opportunity to undermine his closest---and thus most dangerous---hard-line ally. Since then, the military campaign in South Kordofan has gone on undiminished, although a number of Nuba sources have indicated to me that the SAF is enduring a terrible beating at the hands of the Sudan People's Liberation Army/North (SPLA-N). Photographs of captured equipment, detailed ground reports, and assessments from other regional sources and U.S. government officials all paint the same picture of a Northern military force outmaneuvered and out-fought by the highly motivated SPLA-N. Indeed, morale is a fundamental problem in the SAF, especially among its African conscripts. Two full battalions are reported to have deserted rather than fight the SPLA-N; if true, this might explain why Khartoum appears to be utilizing proxy Arab militia forces more heavily. Military defeats and desertions can only add to the humiliation that the SAF leadership undoubtedly feels, and may make an expanded war more likely. Indeed, Blue Nile State---like South Kordofan, part of North Sudan but traditionally allied with the SPLA/M---may be the next front. Malik Agar, governor of Blue Nile, is a political leader of the northern wing of the SPLM and a fearsome military leader, as he proved during the years of civil war. He has repeatedly warned that the longer the conflict continues in South Kordofan (now over two months), the more likely it is that Blue Nile will become involved in the fighting (http://www.sudantribune.com/Sudan-s-Blue-Nile-state-governor,39567). Confidential UN reports from the weeks prior to South Sudan's July 9 independence make clear that there have been large military deployments in the region, by both the SAF and SPLA.
If conflict spreads to Blue Nile, the war will become truly national in scope, and rebel alliances---already evidently in the making---will become inevitable, as different peripheral regions make common cause against Khartoum. This civil war will likely involve Abyei, South Kordofan, Blue Nile, and Darfur---but also Nubia in the far North, the Beja people in the east (victims of yet another fraudulent peace agreement with Khartoum), and other marginalized populations. At some point, it's likely that even the military of South Sudan will no longer remain on the sidelines, despite the restraint it has so far shown in the face of Khartoum’s military provocations, including the seizure of Abyei. In short, a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions is in the making. And this will occur sooner rather than later without an effective international response, which so far is nowhere in sight.

INTERNATIONAL POLICY responses, as John Prendergast has recently argued, have "stove-piped" Sudan's various conflicts, attempting to treat them separately rather than as part of a pattern of action by the NIF/NCP regime (http://www.enoughproject.org/blogs/new-sudan-report-time-try-something-else). The root cause of conflict in Sudan is Khartoum's decades of brutal misrule and marginalization (often violent) of the various populations on the periphery of Sudan. The purpose has always been conspicuous: self-preservation, self-enrichment, and the furthering of a radical agenda of Islamism and Arabism. A military coup of any sort will only strengthen these ambitions. We should expect no restraint: Many in the SAF leadership will eventually be indicted for atrocity crimes by the International Criminal Court (al-Bashir has already been indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity). These brutal men know there is no future for them except The Hague if there is genuine regime change.

Many Sudanese believe that the coup is proceeding. As Flint notes, "the Northern SPLA leadership has warned of the domination ... of the military junta over the leadership of Bashir's National Congress Party." Such a coup would make things a great deal more difficult on any diplomatic front and may quickly lead to the expulsion of all humanitarian organizations from Darfur, completing the elimination of international witnesses to the ongoing genocide by attrition. Similarly, a military regime---with or without a figurehead---will do everything it can to forestall humanitarian access to South Kordofan. The UN Secretariat gives no sign of appreciating the implications or connections of recent events in Sudan. Calls for "an end to the fighting" and for a "UN investigation of allegations of human rights violations" in South Kordofan will go unmet. Matters are hardly helped by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who persists in her skepticism about events in the region (http://goo.gl/Z2wrW), despite a report by UN human rights investigators on the ground in June detailing massive atrocity crimes by Khartoum and its Arab militia allies (http://www.sudantribune.com/UNMIS-report-on-the-human-rights,39570). But the United States, the Europeans, and the African Union are no better. There is nothing approaching a consensus in assessing recent events, let alone in fashioning demands of Khartoum that will entail real consequences if unmet. If Khartoum continues to deny humanitarian access in South Kordofan and to bomb the Nuba Mountains in the coming weeks and months, the consequences are clear. In the absence of a fall harvest that now seems impossible, the real dying, by famine, will begin. Is the world prepared to watch as this unfolds? All evidence suggests that the answer is yes. By refusing to acknowledge the implications of current developments, UN and Western officials will be able to indulge expressions of outrage after the fact. In early March in this space I argued that "if war resumes in Abyei, it is likely to spread quickly to the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan and Southern Blue Nile. The entire North/South border could become one long military front" (http://dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?id=396). This prediction is perilously close to being fully realized. And yet at the time of my warning, the Obama administration was encouraging both Khartoum and the leadership in the South to "compromise" on Abyei---to ignore the terms of the Abyei Protocol in the CPA and the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration. This was all the encouragement Khartoum needed. By late March it had become clear, I argued, that the regime had taken effective military control of Abyei, making the May 20 invasion inevitable (http://www.sudanreeves.org/Article315.html). Protests from the Obama administration at that point were meaningless.
In their current form, demands for a human rights investigation and humanitarian access in South Kordofan simply carry no weight with Khartoum, particularly as the military continues its ascent. Such demands by international actors of consequence---with no entailments or credible threats---are a form of moral dishonesty. This is nothing new when it comes to Sudan; but given the changed political dynamic in Khartoum, such convenient self-deception is likely to result in unfathomable destruction.

[Eric Reeves has published extensively on Sudan, nationally and internationally, for more than a decade. He is author of A Long Day's Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide.]

Libya rebels control Zawiyah - YouTube

Libya rebels control Zawiyah - YouTube: ""

Friday, August 5, 2011

Daily Maverick :: Eritrea: Africa's North Korea, complete with unhinged president

Eritrea’s not known for much except good coffee and an abiding hatred of Ethiopia. So it caught the world by surprise when the UN accused the tiny country of planning and organising a massive terror attack on Addis Ababa, the capital of the African Union and of the hated Ethiopia. But given President Afwerki’s parlous mental state, and the strange affinity with Somalia’s Al-Shabaab, perhaps the global community should have seen it coming. By SIMON ALLISON.

It’s not every day that a UN report accuses a country of terrorism. UN reports tend to be dry and flavourless, filled with prevarications and hedging of bets. This latest, from the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, is different. Alongside a number of interesting observations in its 415 pages was one sensational claim: that Eritrea, the tiny Red Sea country which fought such a long war with Ethiopia for its independence and has just been displaced as Africa’s newest country by South Sudan – and whose capital Asmara is home to Africa’s finest cappuccinos – was behind plans for a massive terror attack in Addis Ababa.

The report reads: “In January 2011, the Eritrean government conceived, planned, organised and directed a failed plot to disrupt the AU summit in Addis Ababa by bombing a variety of civilian and governmental targets.”. The goal was “to make Addis Ababa like Baghdad” through a series of coordinated car bombs: one outside the African Union headquarters, one in the Merkato, Africa’s largest open-air market, and one in the area between Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s office and the Sheraton Hotel, the city’s hotel of choice for visiting presidents and their retinues. If successful, “the operation would almost certainly have caused mass civilian casualties, damaged the Ethiopian economy and disrupted the African Union summit."

But it failed. In January, Ethiopia claimed to have disrupted a major terrorist operation, making a number of arrests and confiscating C4 plastic explosives, detonators and sniper rifles. Ethiopia, somewhat inevitably it seemed, given the longstanding enmity between the two countries, blamed Eritrea, a claim treated with some scepticism. But to see the claim repeated in a UN report gives it a lot more credibility, despite (or because of?) the fact that the Eritrean government is furiously denying the accusation.

To understand the implications of all this, and to understand why the failed attack has such powerful symbolic overtones, it’s necessary to delve into the dark, murky world of Horn of Africa politics and examine a few of Eritrea’s key relationships.

Firstly, and most obviously, there’s the relationship between Eritrea and its neighbour and onetime overlord, Ethiopia, the roots of which are in the colonial era. Unceremoniously lumped together under the Italians, this became the justification for lumping them together again after independence; this time as supposedly separate entities under the guise of a “federation”. But this was just a political conjuring trick to allow Ethiopia, under Emperor Haile Selassie, to effectively occupy Eritrea. Geography’s to blame for Selassie’s territorial acquisitiveness: Ethiopia is one of the largest land-locked countries in the world. The country was (and remains) desperate for access to Eritrea’s Red Sea ports as an outlet for its manufacturing and industrial output.

Denied much of a say in the running of the Federation, the hollow nature of which became clear in 1962 when Selassie unilaterally annexed the territory, Eritreans began a war for their own independence in the 1960s which would run for three decades, continuing despite the fall of the Emperor and the rise of dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia. It was a bitter and brutal conflict, with casualties in the hundreds of thousands, and was only solved when Mengistu himself was overthrown by an Ethiopian rebel group, which in turn was supported by the Eritrean rebels. But international recognition of Eritrea as its own country in 1991 didn’t solve the dispute, particularly over some border areas which were contested by both sides. Sure enough, war broke out again in 1998, killing another few hundred thousand troops and civilians. Tensions have simmered ever since.

The second important relationship to understand is the one between Eritrea and Somalia. Although the two countries don’t share a common border, Eritrea’s malign influence has been an important part of the success of Al Shabaab, the extremist group which effectively controls much of Somalia, with Eritrea funnelling funds and arms to them. The same UN report which accused Eritrea of planning to bomb Addis Ababa noted that “Asmara’s containing relationship with al Shabaab, appears designed to legitimise and embolden the group rather than to curb its extremist orientation or encourage its participation in a political process”. It’s a confusing tactic; Al Shabaab and the Eritrean government appear to have little in common, except religion, although Eritrean Islam is nowhere near as fundamental as that preached by Al Shabaab; perhaps the idea is that the more powerful Al Shabaab becomes the more will the extremist group be able to cause chaos in the ethnically-Somali eastern provinces of Ethiopia. But the link between the country and the militant group has had very real consequences for Eritrea, particularly in terms of its relationship with the international community.

It would be polite to describe this relationship as “strained”. In fact, it is almost nonexistent. Mostly because of Eritrea’s links with Al Shabaab, but doubtless with the help of a little backroom diplomatic manoeuvring from Ethiopia, Eritrea has become a pariah state; under heavy sanctions from the United Nations, suspended from the African Union and voluntarily withdrawn from the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, the Horn of Africa’s SADC equivalent, after IGAD supported the sanctions. Relations with the African Union are particularly difficult. It doesn’t help that the organisation is headquartered in Addis Ababa, the heart of the enemy as far as Eritrea’s concerned and that Ethiopia exerts so much power in AU decisions.

Understanding Eritrea’s relationships – with Ethiopia, with Al Shabaab in Somalia and with the international community – is key to understanding the symbolism of the planned attack on Addis: A strike at the capital of the old enemy, revenge against the African Union which had never really welcomed it into the fold, and an atrocity in the style of the Islamic fundamentalists who are causing such havoc across the Ethiopian border.

Symbolism aside, it remains unclear exactly what Eritrea wanted to achieve with the attack, besides pissing off a lot of very powerful people. But logic, perhaps, was not the overriding factor in the country’s decision-making. Eritrea’s first and only president, the struggle leader Isaias Afwerki, has ruled Ethiopia since independence. His stint in charge has been less than stellar and things keep getting worse. Eritrea was one of only two African countries whose overall governance quality declined significantly over the last five years, according to the Ibrahim Index of African Governance. It’s not easy to decline significantly, requiring markedly worse performances across a whole range of statistics and indicators. Poverty is endemic, education and healthcare barely there, while recent reports suggest the government is actively covering up the food situation in the country. The dire food shortages in Ethiopia, Kenya and particularly Somalia are well-known, but Eritrea has denied that its people are suffering at all, a claim received with scepticism by international aid agencies.

Speculations about the reasons for Eritrea’s decline and stagnation focus strongly on the person of the president. And the question everyone seems to be asking is: Is he just plain mad?

This is an oft-proffered explanation for poor leadership in Africa. Mugabe has syphilis, go the rumours, while Ghana’s JJ Rawlings had bipolar disorder. Mostly, these kinds of unsubstantiated “diagnoses” can be dismissed as the inability of good humans to accept the existence of evil in people. But in Afwerki’s case, given the variety of well-placed sources from which they stem, the rumours might just be credible. The confidential diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks provide the best insight. In them, the Djiboutian foreign minister calls Afwerki “a lunatic”. The American ambassador to Eritrea describes him as an “unhinged dictator”. A leading Eritrean businessman, says “he is sick”. A former bodyguard, who defected to Ethiopia, said the president is a “recluse who spends his days tinkering with gadgets and carpentry work...it was difficult to tell how Isaias would react each day and his moods changed constantly”.

But insane or not, Afwerki remains in charge and as long as he is, the Eritrean regime is likely to remain the North Korea of Africa; an international pariah state pursuing a lunatic foreign policy and a disastrous domestic one. The solution to the problem of Isaias Afwerki is simple, of course. The American ambassador put it elegantly: “The regime is one bullet away from implosion.” Perhaps the Americans know something about international politics after all. DM

UN report accuses Eritrea of plotting to bomb AU summit on BBC News;
Fears that Eritrea may be hiding its famine victims from the world on The Independent;
WikiLeaks cables by country on The Guardian;
Read the UN report here.

Photo: Eritrea's President Isaias Afwerki gestures during an interview in Asmara May 13, 2008. REUTERS/Radu Sighet
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