Posted on March 24, 2024
As if the Houthis’ attacks on ships in the Red Sea were not enough, Ethiopia’s ambition to have a port in the Gulf of Aden has added to the tension. The two events are unrelated, as if there were an invisible barrier between them, with one taking place in the Arabian Peninsula and the other in the Horn of Africa. But because they are happening in the same ‘neighbourhood’, and because Ethiopia’s intentions carry the risk (albeit small) of war against Somalia, Ethiopia is kicking a hornet’s nest.
I will summarise the facts in one paragraph. Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, a large but landlocked country of almost 130 million people, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Muse Bihi Abdi, the President of Somaliland, which broke away from Somalia in 1991. Somaliland would lease a port and 20 km of coastline to Ethiopia for both military and commercial use. In return, Ethiopia would be the first country in the world to recognise Somaliland as a country (and give it shares in Ethiopian Airlines). The announcement was made on 1 January 2024. As the MoU has not been made public, there has been speculation about its exact content. The New York Times says: “Yet Somaliland insists that Ethiopia will build only a naval base, continuing to use the Berbera port for trade.”
Signing the MoU
It does not take a genius to guess that one of the reasons the MoU has not been made public is that The New York Times quote already implies that the ‘bilateral’ agreement actually has three partners, even though the name of the third is not included in the MoU. DP World, one of the world’s largest terminal operators, based in Dubai, UAE, and owned by the Emirati royal family, operates the port of Berbera. If the name of the port of Berbera is mentioned in the MoU, the trilateral deal is more than obvious.
Somalia immediately protested because it considers Somaliland to be part of its territory: It therefore sees the MoU as a threat of Ethiopian ‘invasion’ and declared it ‘null and void’. To rally international support for his cause, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud warned that the agreement would only strengthen al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda-linked group that controls much of Somalia’s countryside.
DP World, one of the world’s largest terminal operators, based in Dubai, UAE, and owned by the Emirati royal family, operates the port of Berbera. If the name of the port of Berbera is mentioned in the MoU, the trilateral deal is more than obvious.
Somalia is claiming an invasion:
President of Somalia
This protest has rallied the US, EU, Turkey and African countries behind Somalia. The situation in Somalia has been so appalling for decades that none of the previous countries want to risk the collapse of the fragile government currently ‘in power’ because… Ethiopia wants a port. The US, for example, wants to build five military bases. But the case that deserves more attention because of its novelty is that of Turkey. It has signed a 10-year defence and economic agreement with Somalia to protect its coast. Turkey already controls the airport and port in the capital, Mogadishu, and has the first foreign military presence in the country. So the US, EU and Turkey have poured so much money into Somalia that Ethiopia is in danger of undoing all that has been achieved in recent years.
The following excerpts from The New York Times summarise well what is going on (read the full articles by clicking the hyperlinks):
“Since taking office in May 2022, Mr. Mohamud has continued to improve stability in Somalia, a nation of 18 million people that has been decimated by decades of civil war, hunger and terrorism. His administration has secured billions of dollars in debt relief.”
And this other extract, also from The New York Times, reflects the fragility of the Somali situation:
“More than 1,000 foreign diplomats, military trainers, U.N. workers, journalists and others operate inside a security zone near Mogadishu’s seaside international airport, largely sealed off from the metropolitan mayhem by giant concrete blast walls topped by concertina wires. The assignment is considered so dangerous that the State Department has barred the U.S. ambassador, Larry E. André Jr., a 33-year Foreign Service veteran, from venturing into the city itself. Even within the green zone, he travels in an armored vehicle with a security detail.”
The Somali protest has rallied the US, EU, Turkey and African countries behind Somalia. The situation in Somalia has been so appalling for decades that none of the previous countries want to risk the collapse of the fragile government currently ‘in power’ because… Ethiopia wants a port.
Al-Shabab forces
There are two paradoxes here: At the moment there are still thousands of troops in Somalia as part of the African Union peacekeeping mission to fight al-Shabab, including some 3,000 … Ethiopian soldiers. And secondly, al-Shabab has already declared that it will defend Somalia against Ethiopia’s foreign interference in Somaliland.
And as if the threat from al-Shabab were not serious enough, African countries do not want to set a precedent of splitting countries (although Eritrea seceded from Ethiopia in 1993 and South Sudan from Sudan in 2011), so not a single country in the world recognises Somaliland. More on this in a moment.
Ethiopia has gone wild:
My view of Ethiopia is harsh because of the massacres and famine in the Tigray region, the authoritarian style of President Abiy Ahmed who, after winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, revealed his true self and now even supports Hemedti, who is carrying out genocide in Sudan. However, I recognise the paradox that one of the largest countries in Africa (almost 130 million people) does not have access to the sea, while all its neighbours do: Sudan (about 49 million people), Eritrea (about 4 million), Djibouti (just over 1 million), Somaliland (about 6 million), Somalia (about 19 million) and Kenya (about 56 million). The only exception is South Sudan (about 11 million), another landlocked countries
Since some of my assertions could be criticised as subjective, I prefer to quote reputable media whenever possible, as I did above with the two extracts from The New Year Times.
Since some of my assertions could be criticised as subjective, I prefer to quote reputable media whenever possible.
The Washington Post wrote:
“Eritrean forces, allied with Ethiopian government troops, had been angered by a recent battlefield defeat and took their revenge in at least 10 villages east of the town of Adwa during the week before the Nov. 2 peace deal, witnesses said, providing accounts horrifying even by the standards of a conflict defined by mass killings of civilians.”
“The atrociously murderous − 600,000 dead, according to the African Union − and destructive war that pitted the Ethiopian federal army against the insurgents of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front between 2020 and 2022 may have ended militarily in favor of the Ethiopian troops. Drought and then the destructive rains that followed the armed conflict condemned over 90% of Tigray’s 6 million inhabitants to malnutrition (…) the authorities in Addis Ababa are accused of abandoning the Tigrayans to their fate in order to complete the region’s kneecapping (…) In this country of 120 million [sic] inhabitants with considerable economic and human potential, the only one in Africa never to have been colonized, Abiy the modernizer has turned into an autocrat.”
If you search for the Nobel Peace Prize 2019 on the Nobel Prize website, you will find:
“The Nobel Peace Prize 2019 was awarded to Abiy Ahmed Ali ‘for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea.'”
Ethiopia and Eritrea were accused of massacring the Tigrayans a year later.
Ethiopia’s economy is also in serious trouble. Investment and exports have fallen. The local currency, the birr, has plummeted on the black market. The central bank’s reserves have been depleted. The country has defaulted on its foreign debt. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reported high inflation of over 20% last year. With such a bleak economic scenario, one cannot help but wonder if Ethiopia’s decision to kick the hornet’s nest of the region with the MoU with Somaliland is not a desperate attempt to gamble everything in the hope that UAE money will save the economy and provide a logistical solution for the country.
However, as I said, I recognise the paradox that one of the largest countries in Africa does not have access to the sea, while all its neighbours (Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somaliland, Somalia and Kenya) do.
Many maps still do not include Somaliland
But of course I do not endorse the bellicose style of its president, and I quote The Economist:
“In a jingoistic documentary aired on state television on October 13th, Abiy argued that landlocked Ethiopia must acquire a port on the Red Sea to break its roughly 120m people out of a ‘geographic prison’. Turning to history, he quoted a 19th-century Ethiopian warrior who had proclaimed that the Red Sea was the country’s ‘natural boundary’ (…) Ethiopia, Abiy noted, had indeed been a sea power with a navy and two ports, Massawa and Assab. It lost these along with the rest of its coastline in 1993, when Eritrea seceded to form a new country. Now, Abiy suggested, the moment was nigh to right a historic wrong. ‘It’s not a matter of luxury,’ he insisted, ‘but an existential one’.”
The international unfairness against Somaliland:
What I have never understood, however, is the West’s contempt for Somaliland. The facts:
- Somaliland was historically a different entity from Somalia. It was a British colony, whereas Somalia was an Italian colony that inherited Mussolini’s authoritarian traits.
- Somaliland made the terrible mistake of joining Somalia in 1961 after gaining independence in 1960. But Somaliland, realising it had got into bed with the wrong partner, fought a civil war and regained its independence.
- Somalia has been considered a failed state for decades. It has received billions of dollars in aid, much of it wasted on corruption and political chaos. Democracy has rarely worked and fraud has prevailed. It faces an insurgency by al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda group.
- In contrast, Somaliland has had democracy for decades: Elections are held and results are respected. It has enjoyed civil peace since regaining independence. It is certainly poor, partly because it is a pariah state (for example, its passport is not recognised by any country).
Contrary to Somalia, Somaliland has had democracy for decades: Elections are held and results are respected. It has enjoyed civil peace since regaining independence. It is certainly poor, partly because it is a pariah state (for example, its passport is not recognised by any country).
Already in 2006, The New York Times was saying the following about Somaliland:
Voting in Somaliland
“Fifteen years is a long time to live in limbo, although Somalilanders have not just been biding their time. They have been hard at work, trying to rebuild a place that was in a shambles when it declared itself independent. The capital was virtually leveled by the government in Mogadishu as it sought to quell the rebellion. The countryside was littered with land mines. The same kind of bitter clan rivalry that has led to the collapse of the rest of Somalia was alive and well here, too. Somaliland is now an oasis of sorts, a relatively peaceful, reasonably well functioning corner of a country that lies in ruins. Gunmen do not rule the streets here. The local police do. A series of elections have been held, including a presidential contest. In essence, Somaliland has been able to manage interclan rivalry and build basic democratic institutions, whereas the rest of Somalia has found itself in an anarchic struggle for control.”
This year The New York Times added:
“Somaliland has held numerous parliamentary and presidential elections. The territory is considered an oasis in a turbulent region.”
But Somaliland, the most democratic and peaceful country in the Horn of Africa remains without international recognition! How unjust the world can be!
Djibouti is in shock:
Djibouti, the smallest nation in the Horn of Africa, has strategically exploited its key geographical position on the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the entrance to the Red Sea. China has invested heavily in the Doraleh Multipurpose Port (DMP), which has a 4km quay and 15 berths, including one for the Chinese navy.
For years, however, Djibouti has had another, far more important customer— Ethiopia. “Over 95% of Ethiopia’s import-export trade (by volume) uses the Addis-Djibouti corridor,” according to the World Bank. Such heavy two-way traffic means that Djibouti receives US$1.5 billion in port fees alone.
If your country receives such an incredible amount of money every year, imagine the astonishment it must have felt when it learned of the MoU between Ethiopia (its client) and Somaliland (its southern neighbour). If Ethiopia gets access to DP World’s Berbera port from the UAE, Djibouti may end up with almost no gateway port business at all, because the only country ‘behind’ it is Ethiopia, and its other neighbours, Eritrea and Somaliland, do not need its ports. But that is not all. World Politics Review does a good job of summarising the drama, almost tragedy, that Djibouti could face if Ethiopia moves its logistics business to Somaliland:
For years Djibouti has had another, far more important customer than China— Ethiopia. “Over 95% of Ethiopia’s import-export trade (by volume) uses the Addis-Djibouti corridor,” according to the World Bank. Such heavy two-way traffic means that Djibouti receives US$1.5 billion in port fees alone.
“To cater to Ethiopia’s needs, Djibouti has built a host of new infrastructure, including ports for cargo and hydrocarbons as well as several industrial zones. It has also constructed a pipeline to transport gas from Ethiopia, while renovating and electrifying a 465-mile railway linking Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, and several surrounding industrial areas to the port of Djibouti. Reflecting the depth of economic ties between the two neighbors, over 75 percent of Djibouti’s GDP is currently dependent on transport services to Ethiopia.”
Doraleh Port in Djibouti.
You might ask: why electrify a 465-mile railway line between the Ethiopian capital and the port of Djibouti? This is another critical question for the small country. Believing that its ‘marriage’ with Ethiopia would last forever, or at least for many decades, it accepted Ethiopia’s proposal to electrify the railway with electricity generated by the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, popularly known as GERD. For years it has been importing electricity and water from Ethiopia from sources other than the GERD, which means that Djibouti is dependent on Ethiopia not only for the electricity that powers the railway but also for the water it drinks, as it does not have sufficient sources of its own. So far, however, the electricity supply has been poor, leading to water shortages as the water has to be pumped. The GERD was supposed to change all that, but what will become of the GERD if Djibouti and Ethiopia divorce? And it is not the same to suffer electricity and water shortages while receiving $1.5 billion a year as to do without.
Eritrea, the North Korea of Africa:
Ethiopia and Eritrea have a love-hate relationship; well, more hate than love, as the civil war lasted thirty years. The war ended in 1993 and Eritrea became an independent country. Between 2020 and 2022, Eritrea and Ethiopia came together to fight the Tigrayans, as we have seen before. But when Ethiopia made peace with the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front in November 2022, after the massacres we have commented on, Ethiopia’s relationship with Eritrea was damaged again. And now, of course, Eritrea, again an adversary, is supporting Somalia in its criticism of the MoU.
There is not much to say about Eritrea, or rather, there is so much to say about Eritrea, but it is so sad to talk about it. Two extracts say it all:
“An African gulag so ghastly that inmates risk death to escape.”
There is not much to say about Eritrea, or rather, there is so much to say about Eritrea, but it is so sad to talk about it.
“Every month some 5,000 Eritreans defy the ‘shoot on sight’ policy of their country’s border guards and escape on foot to neighboring Sudan and Ethiopia. Eritreans now (the article is from 2015 but the situation has not improved) make up the fourth largest group of asylum seekers in the European Union, and second largest group to arrive in Italy by boat after the Syrians. Unlike the Syrians, however, they are not fleeing civil war. Instead, they are escaping indefinite military service and repressive measures, such as forced labor and widespread imprisonment, that may, according to a recent UN inquiry, constitute crimes against humanity.”
Egypt has another reason to hate Ethiopia:
Egypt is also against Ethiopia wanting access to the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden. Egypt is so important in the Middle East that I will write an article only about the geopolitics surrounding Egypt with respect to the Houthis attacks on ships, which as you already know are immense as transit on the Suez Canal has plummeted.
Today I deal briefly with only one issue—GERD.
If you are downstream and at the very end of the river as Egypt, and if all your civilization since ancient history has gravitated around the Nile, you obviously care a lot about is happening upstream, particularly on which irrigation projects and dams are being built as they will reduce the flow of water and the latter will also reduce significantly the amount of silt and other sediments such as sand and clay, and organic matter and nutrients such as nitrogen and phosporus. Dams, in other words, could result in a ‘slimmer’ and less rich Nile.
The dams built up to now are: Roseires Dam in the Blue Nile in Sudan, completed in 1966 (and expanded in 2013); the Aswan High Dam in Egypt itself, completed in 1970; Merowe Dam in Sudan, completed in 2009; Bujagali Dam in Ugada, completed in 2012; and GERD in the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, being completed just recently. Just the names, however, do not say much; what matters with a dam is its capacity because that reflects either its height or most probably its water capacity.
- The Bujagali Dam on the White Nile in Uganda has a power capacity of about 250 MW.
- The Merowe Dam on the Nile’s main course, has a power capacity of approximately 1,250 MW.
- The Roseires Dam on the Blue Nile in Sudan has now a power capacity of around 1,800 MW.
- The Aswan High Dam in Egypt a power capacity of about 2,100 MW.
- And the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile will boast a power capacity of about… 6,450 MW, becoming Africa’s largest dam.
Construction of GERD
Now you understand why GERD is a huge headache for Egypt, and has bothered the bilateral relations between the two countries since Ethiopia started to build it in 2011. The issue has been widely covered and will be find in almost any book about the water wars of the future because regarding GERD the possible bombing of the dam by Egypt has been raised many times.
The issue has been widely covered and will be find in almost any book about the water wars of the future because regarding GERD the possible bombing of the dam by Egypt has been raised many times.
Let’s close this section with an excerpt of an article published in 2020 in The International Affaris Review with a title that could not be more specific: “Water or War: Egypt’s Fight for the Nile.”
“Egypt is considered one of the most water-stressed countries in the world. Only 2.8% of the country’s territory is arable, and Egypt’s average rainfall ranges from 200mm per year in coastal areas to just 2mm per year in most of the interior. The vast majority—approximately 85%— of Egypt’s limited water supply comes from the Nile River. However, Egypt is withdrawing 126.6% of the river’s total renewable water supply. That is, Egypt is taking more water than it can sustain; eventually, there will not be enough water. The Nile is literally the lifeblood of Egypt; without it, Egypt would not have enough water to sustain life. Egypt faces a dark future of water insecurity unless it implements domestic water reform and seeks interstate cooperation on water sharing.”
“While it is unlikely that the current crisis will erupt in violence, it should be noted that Egypt has been bellicose in its negotiations. Both the Egyptian government and the media have painted the international crisis as an attack upon Egyptian security. Cairo has gone so far as to have allegedly planned military operations against Ethiopia over the issue; these alleged plans include the Egyptian air force and commando units performing bombing raids on the GERD and other Ethiopian dams on the Nile.”
Sudan: the devil is winning
Sudan is another Red Sea port country and, like Somalia, another country in unbelievable chaos. In a few sentences, the current government is collapsing while the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are winning battles and territory, even controlling most of the capital, Khartoum. As in Somalia, there are other groups fighting, but all indications are that the RSF will control, if not all, then most of the country in the coming years, and that if they do not already control a port, they could do so if they continue to advance.
However, the issue has wider implications for the Horn of Africa for three main reasons. First, the RSF has been accused of committing genocide in western Sudan. Following the Darfur genocide in Sudan in the early to mid-2000s, in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed and millions displaced, the massacres carried out by the RSF have raised concerns in the Western world.
The RSF has been accused of committing genocide in western Sudan. Following the Darfur genocide in Sudan in the early to mid-2000s, in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed and millions displaced, the massacres carried out by the RSF have raised concerns in the Western world.
The Economist has been following the situation closely. The headline says it all:
“A genocidal militia is winning the war in Sudan.” And then the article goes on:
“The consequences of neglect are becoming starker. The conflict between erstwhile bedfellows—the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the regular army—is destroying the state they seized together in 2021, in a coup aimed at preventing a transition to democratic government. Two decades after ethnic cleansing in Darfur, a region in the west of the country about twice the size of Britain, there is again credible evidence of genocide—by the RSF, which metastasised from the Janjaweed militia that slaughtered black Africans in the 2000s. And things could soon get worse. In recent weeks the rsf has chalked up several major victories. Military analysts suggest it could try to take the rest of the country. Conflict monitors fear more genocidal violence.”
Hemedti and his RSF
Secondly, Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, has rolled out the red carpet for the leader of the genocidal RSF.
Here is an excerpt from Reuters:
“The leader of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces visited Ethiopia on Thursday where he said he discussed the need for a swift end to the war between the RSF and the Sudanese army, during the second leg of a rare publicly-announced foreign tour (…) Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said he had received Dagalo and his delegation ‘for a discussion on securing peace and stability in the Sudan’, posting pictures of them seated around a restaurant table.”
Ethiopia is lining up with the expected winner, and the RSF and Ethiopia also have a… common friend. The third reason comes now.
The UAE: The country pulling the strings behind the scenes
The United Arab Emirates has supported the genocidal RSF and, as we discussed above, everything points to it being behind Ethiopia’s decision to sign the MoU with Somaliland, as DP World already operates the port of Berbera, the largest in the country. But there is something else: when the UAE had forces in Yemen supporting one of the factions against the Houthis, it brought in RSF mercenaries to join the fight against the Houthis. In other words, the relationship between the UAE and the RSF has been going on for years. There is every indication that the UAE has been sending arms to the RSF in Sudan, and that these supplies have enabled the RSF to gain the upper hand in the current civil war.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has supported the genocidal RSF and everything points to it being behind Ethiopia’s decision to sign the MoU with Somaliland, as DP World already operates the port of Berbera, the largest in the country.
In this way, the fates of four countries are linked: Ethiopia, Somaliland, Sudan and the UAE.
Of course, the UAE has denied providing military support to the RSF, but all the evidence points to the contrary. Here are some excerpts:
“The RSF’s advances in large part reflect the uneven support outsiders have given the two sides. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) reportedly provides the rsf with weapons, armoured vehicles and drones via Chad, though there has been a un arms embargo on Darfur since the early 2000s. By one count there were 168 airlifts from the UAE between May and September. (The UAE has denied sending arms to ‘any of the warring parties’.)”
The New York Times with a title that says it all: “Talking Peace in Sudan, the U.A.E. Secretly Fuels the Fight.” And the article continues:
“From a remote air base in Chad, the Emirates is giving arms and medical treatment to fighters on one side in Sudan’s worsening war, officials say. Under the guise of saving refugees, the United Arab Emirates is running an elaborate covert operation to back one side in Sudan’s spiraling war — supplying powerful weapons and drones, treating injured fighters and airlifting the most serious cases to one of its military hospitals, according to a dozen current and former officials from the United States, Europe and several African countries.
“The operation is based at an airfield and a hospital in a remote town across the Sudanese border in Chad, where cargo planes from the Emirates have been landing on a near-daily basis since June, according to satellite imagery and the officials, who spoke on the basis of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.”
Sudanese government no longer supported by the UAE (pic from 2019)
And here is how The Economist links the MoU with the RSF and the UAE:
“Its announcement [of the MoU] came just as Abiy also played host to Sudan’s most notorious warlord, Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo (better known as Hemedti), whose paramilitary force, flush with Emirati cash and arms, is closing in on victory over the Sudanese army. In this view an Ethiopian military base in Somaliland is the latest step in an Emirati plan to secure a sphere of influence throughout the broader Gulf region and Horn of Africa.”
And now some facts about the UAE’s presence in Africa:
“Beyond renewable energy, the UAE has emerged as a major investor in Africa over the past decade. According to a study by White and Case, the UAE has emerged as the 4th largest investor globally in Africa after China, the United States, and Europe. From 2012-22, the UAE has recorded nearly $60 billion of foreign direct investment into the continent.”
“DP World – established in 1999 and owned by Emirati ruling families – has increased those inroads with port operations in Angola, Djibouti, Egypt, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal and Somalia (…) DP World’s developments in Somalia’s Bossaso port and Berbera in the self-declared republic of Somaliland amount to almost $1bn. The agreements caused a row with the Somali federal government, which considers Somaliland to be part of its territory and has often had a turbulent relationship with the semi-autonomous Puntland region, which includes Bossaso. But DP World appears to have shrugged off political pressure to continue operations in both regions.”
The Port of Berbera in Somaliland
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“As Chinese infrastructural funding tapers off and Western engagement wavers, Abu Dhabi’s cash flows have been coupled with a concerted diplomatic push: an approach mirrored to a lesser extent by its neighbors Saudi Arabia and Qatar. These ambitions have taken the UAE beyond the Gulf states’ historic North-African sphere of influence and from the nearby Horn of Africa into every corner of the continent.”
Concluding remarks:
I have nothing against these investments; on the contrary, I think they are excellent for African countries. My concern is the support for the genocidal forces of the RSF in Sudan and the lack of transparency regarding the MoU, as it is obvious that the UAE’s hands are pulling the strings behind the scenes.
On the first point, I have never understood supporting violent groups in the belief that the financier can control them. History tells us otherwise. The best example was during the Soviet-Afghan war of 1979-1989, when the United States supported Afghan mujahideen fighters resisting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. This support was part of a wider Cold War strategy to counter Soviet influence around the world. The US support, channelled through the CIA in a programme known as Operation Cyclone, included funding, weapons and training for the mujahideen groups.
While the US support was aimed at the Afghan mujahideen as a whole, it indirectly facilitated the rise of several militant groups, including those that would later become part of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The Taliban emerged in the early 1990s, after the Soviet withdrawal, as one of the factions vying for control in the power vacuum left in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda, founded by Osama bin Laden in 1988, also grew out of the Afghan jihad against the Soviets, with bin Laden and others who fought or supported the mujahideen turning their focus to a global jihad against the West, including the United States.
UAE money may buy Hemedti and his RSF now, but who knows in five or seven years?
The second point is the lack of transparency. This is a pity. And let’s put the cards more on the table:
Will Ethiopia go ahead with its plans or will it back down? If Ethiopia were without the support of the UAE, I am convinced that it would back down. But with the UAE ‘investing’ heavily in Sudan, having already invested in Somaliland’s port, and backing Ethiopia, who knows? And why?
Because the UAE is pulling more strings:
Egypt is in a terrible economic situation, not just because of the collapse of traffic through the Suez Canal by the very large container ships or very large tankers that pay the most, but for many other reasons, as I will explain in a future article. That is why the recent announcement of a multi-billion dollar investment by the UAE is a vital lifeline. According to Reuters:
“Egypt said on Friday it had signed a deal with the United Arab Emirates to develop a prime stretch of its Mediterranean coast that would bring $35 billion of investments to the indebted country over the next two months. The deal with ADQ, the smallest of Abu Dhabi’s three main sovereign investment funds, is for the development of the Ras El Hekma peninsula and could eventually attract as much as $150 billion in investments.”
So Egypt may now be thinking, “What’s the problem with Ethiopia having its port?”
And Somalia desperately needs UAE money too. Here is one of the many ways the UAE is pouring money into the country. The text is from The Somali Digest:
“A source within the Ministry of Defense revealed to The Somali Digest the specifics of the Emirati financial support: each of the 14,400 soldiers across 8 brigades trained by the UAE received $256 monthly, with logistics costs adding up to $2.53 per day per soldier, culminating in a total monthly cost of $331.9 per soldier. This calculation brings the total monthly expenditure to approximately $4.77 million. Additionally, officers received an additional $300 atop their standard SNA salary.”
The case of Somalia, however, is much more complex than that of Egypt regarding the ‘Ethiopian port’, as it is the country that is considered to have been invaded, even though it has not had control over Somaliland since 1991.
And what about Djibouti? Will UAE money appease that country too? No. In this case, the UAE literally gives a damn, because DP World is fighting the Djibouti government over the Doraleh container terminal. Here is the latest in this legal saga, summarised by Capital Business
