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Published 3rd November 2022

Vol 63 No 22

Ethiopia

Addis Ababa and Tigray sign an uneasy truce

Copyright © Africa Confidential 2022
Copyright © Africa Confidential 2022

A trio of African politicians have presided over a tentative step towards ending the world’s deadliest conflict

The truce signed between Addis Ababa's federal forces and Tigrayan representatives in Pretoria on 2 November opens the prospect of an end to the fighting and resumption of essential services to northern Ethiopia, but critically it does not in any way constrain Eritrea, whose forces have been playing a leading role in the conflict.

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Chang's extradition to the US looms

Manuel Chang. Pic: opais.co.mz
Manuel Chang. Pic: opais.co.mz

Former Finance Minister Manuel Chang would rather be tried in the US than his own country, sources have told Africa Confidential

The United States and Mozambican governments have been fighting for the right to extradite former finance minister Manuel Chang from South Africa to face money-laundering and fraud...

Onshore war versus offshore gains

Copyright © Africa Confidential 2022
Copyright © Africa Confidential 2022

Cabo Delgado insurgents have lost key positions but look set for a long war, while Maputo pleads with the operators to get the LNG project restarted

Officials applaud operations by the Rwandan Defence Force (RDF) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) troops to clear roads and transport hubs in troubled Cabo Delgado ...

BLUE LINES
THE INSIDE VIEW

The disjointed international response to the fighting between the Congolese army and the Tutsi-led M23 militia in eastern Congo-Kinshasa has shown where influence lies in the evolving regional order. The little traction that has been generated towards peace talks has been powered by Angola's President Joao Lourenço and Kenya's ex-President Uhuru Kenyatta. The United States and the west more broadly have been largely ignored.

As Africa Confidential went to press, member...

The disjointed international response to the fighting between the Congolese army and the Tutsi-led M23 militia in eastern Congo-Kinshasa has shown where influence lies in the evolving regional order. The little traction that has been generated towards peace talks has been powered by Angola's President Joao Lourenço and Kenya's ex-President Uhuru Kenyatta. The United States and the west more broadly have been largely ignored.

As Africa Confidential went to press, member states of the East African Community had agreed to send a joint military force to eastern Congo-K. Kenya will command the force, which will also include soldiers from Burundi, Uganda and South Sudan. This is a bold move for an organisation that has hitherto been little more than a trading bloc. It may look to the experience of Ecowas in Sierra Leone and Liberia, some two decades ago.

An EAC mission has clear advantages to a western-led intervention. Two problems in the UN missions in Mali and Congo-K, both of which have faced street protests, are that they underplay political dialogue and focus instead on supporting state institutions. While EAC members have strained relations with each other, a regional African response is less likely to be dragged into domestic political fights, stir colonial grievances, or geopolitical battles. The EAC forces are also allowed to engage armed groups, an authority the UN usually lacks.

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Ramaphosa names his party allies

The president will face off against the man controlling the ANC machine at the party’s upcoming elective conference

Discontent over the multiple powerful positions accumulated by African National Congress Secretary-General Paul Mashatile was behind President Cyril Ramaphosa's decision not to mak...

Economic woes hit Akufo-Addo on all sides

Ruling party MPs call for the head of the finance minister, as critics blame corruption for the plunging cedi and rising prices

Under growing pressure from within and outside his New Patriotic Party (NPP), President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is trying to mollify critics of the government's economic strate...

President Hassan edges towards political reform and big gas

Ahead of the signing of a multi-billion dollar gas export project, investors are keeping a close watch on stability

This year, the government is embarking on two big projects which could radically change the country's political economy over the next five years. Firstly, and under pressure from o...

Prosecutor Batohi swings into action

The tide is turning against corruption despite a factionalised ruling party and failing state-run transport and power utilities

In the early hours of 27 October, Matshela Koko, former chief executive of the ailing state power utility Eskom, and 16 senior officials were arrested on fraud charges relating to ...

Massacre threatens transition plan

Mahamat Déby's plan to stay on at least until late 2024 and keep control of security is in question after state forces brutally suppressed demonstrations

Interim President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno 'Kaka' and his 'inclusive' new government, which boasts reconciled oppositionists and reformed militia leaders, is in deep crisis ...

Local processing row holds up rare earth mine

Australian company says its discovery at Ngualla is the world's fifth largest rare earth deposit outside China

A battle over the processing of minerals produced in Tanzania is holding up a US$350 million project to mine rare earths at Ngualla, in the south-west of the country. The investors...

A different kind of cronyism

President Ruto's new cabinet establishes a new elite ushered in with maximum connections and minimum scrutiny

Keen to honour his campaign debts, and with apparently little concern over the integrity of his nominees, President William Ruto has sworn in a 24-member cabinet that is heavy on l...

Bamako's wolf warrior diplomacy backfires

Foreign Minister Diop's attacks on France and peacekeepers meets sceptical silence at UN Security Council

After accusing France of supporting Islamist militia groups at a UN Security Council meeting on 18 October, Bamako's foreign minister Abdoulaye Diop dialled down the rhetoric five ...

Unions and oppositionists warn of a social explosion

Widespread food and fuel shortages are driving anger on the streets as President Saïed focuses on his authoritarian political project

As police clashed with protestors in Tunis over the weekend of 15-16 October, the IMF announced that it had reached provisional agreement with President Kaïs Saïed's gove...

Pointers

Dash to oil depends on China

Uganda is hoping that Chinese funding will enable it to make good on plans to start commercially pumping its oil reserves in April 2025, as the latest part of its ambitious East Af...

Conflicted over conflict

The international community's weak and contradictory responses to the fighting between the Congolese army and Tutsi rebel group M23 means that, apart from criticism from the United...

Judiciary in the dock

The independence of Botswana's judiciary is in the spotlight following accusations by a tribal chief that President Mokgweetsi Masisi told her he would direct judges on how to rule...

Climate of scepticism

Expectations are low ahead of next week's COP27 climate change summit in Sharm el Sheikh. Although the African Union common position has moved away from an early draft that emphasi...

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