Connect with us

Foreign

Russia, West Vie For Influence Amid Africa Caution On Ukraine War

Published

4 years ago

on

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya (right) with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron at the presidencial palace in Yaounde, Cameroon

Unlike their Western counterparts, African leaders are being cautious in characterising the conflict in Ukraine as a war

Harare, Zimbabwe – Soon after landing in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, French President Emmanuel Macron made sure his views on the war in Ukraine were known and that his presence on the continent was felt.

While Europe and the West have characterised Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine as a war, African leaders are being far more cautious in their description of the conflict and remain neutral on the subject.

That impartiality is problematic for Macron, who also visited Cameroon, Benin and Guinea-Bissau during his visit last month.

“I have seen too much hypocrisy, particularly on the African continent,” Macron announced as he began his three-nation tour.

“And – I’m saying this very calmly – with some not calling it a war when it is one and saying they don’t know who started it because they have diplomatic pressures.”

Macron was not the only high-profile visitor to Africa that week.

In East Africa, Uganda laid out the red carpet to Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, who was on a four-nation tour to win the continent’s support over to Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

Lavrov seemed determined to outwit Macron in a battle for the hearts and minds of African leaders.

Where Macron was preachy and took the high moral ground on the position of African leaders and the war in Ukraine, Lavrov embraced his hosts and counterparts and did not question their ethical compass.

“We appreciate the considered African position as to the situation in and around Ukraine,” Lavrov wrote in a newspaper column published in Egypt, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda and Ethiopia, the four countries he toured during his visit.

“Although unprecedented by its scale, the pressure from beyond has not brought our friends to join the anti-Russian sanctions. Such an independent path deserves deep respect,” he added.

Lavrov’s strategy worked wonders.

When Lavrov finished his meeting with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, the African leader praised Russia, describing Moscow as a “partner” in the struggle against colonialism going back a century.

“If Russia makes mistakes, then we tell them,” Museveni said, referring to his own participation in student demonstrations against the Soviet Union’s crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968.

“We don’t believe in being enemies of somebody’s enemy,” he added.

Museveni has in the past enjoyed cordial relations with the West and Uganda is set to assume the chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement, a global body formed during the Cold War era by states seeking to avoid the geopolitical polarisation at that time.

Supporting Russia

Museveni is not the only African leader the Russians appear to have won over. Even countries Lavrov did not include in his recent visit are rooting for Moscow.

Zimbabwe, which has frosty diplomatic relations with the West, is in Russia’s corner on the issue of Ukraine. This is most apparent in state media coverage of the Ukraine conflict.

The Herald, a state-run daily, takes its cue from Moscow’s description of the war by describing Russia’s attack on Ukraine as a “special military operation”.

Zimbabwe’s ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (Zanu PF), enjoys historic relations with Russia dating back to the 1960s when the party was fighting for independence from Britain. To this day, Zanu PF officials address each other as “comrade”, a term state media in the country reserves for top government and Zanu PF officials.

South Africa, the Southern African economic powerhouse, also seems to be on the Kremlin’s side.

Like Zimbabwe’s Zanu PF, the ruling African National Congress (ANC), has a long-established relationship with Russia that dates back to the country’s struggle against apartheid.

Russia provided military support and training to a number of nationalist forces on the continent during the period of decolonisation.

African support for Russia was illustrated in March at the UN General Assembly when 17 out of Africa’s 54 nations abstained from voting on the war in Ukraine. The African contingent amounted to half of all abstentions recorded in the vote.

Food crisis and neo-colonialism

As a consequence of the Ukraine war, Africa has found itself bearing the brunt of food shortages and increased food prices as global-supply chains remain disrupted.

The West has blamed the crisis on Russia, accusing Moscow of deliberately “exporting hunger”.

That is a characterisation that Lavrov is fighting to change, blaming the disruption to food supplies on the sanctioning of Russia and the “absolutely inadequate reaction of the West”.

The threat of Russia colonialism is also being played up by Macron in a continent that for decades struggled under the yoke of European colonisation.

According to Macron, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is similar in character to conflicts of the “20th, even the 19th century”.

“It’s a territorial war, the likes of which we thought had disappeared from European soil,” Macron said.

“Russia is one of the last imperial colonial powers,” Macron declared.

For the old guard of nationalist African leaders who experienced segregation and the evils of colonial rule, such claims may hold sway.

Western diplomats also warn that it is not just the blatant invasion of Ukraine that should worry African leaders.

They point to the role of Russia’s Wagner Group – a private military contractor operating on the continent that they see as an increasing cause for concern. The West believes that the Wagner Group, which stands accused of human rights abuses, is controlled by the Kremlin.

Despite this, Russia is still influential in Africa and that is why Macron and other Western leaders are spooked.

‘New Cold War’

Ronald Chipaike, a lecturer in peace and governance at the Bindura University in Zimbabwe, said Lavrov’s visit was designed “to cement relations that have historically been premised on an anti-imperialism axis since the days of the Cold War”.

Stephen Chan, a professor of world politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), said the visits by Macron and Lavrov demonstrated the increased need to woo Africa at a time of growing global tension and a potential “new Cold War”.

“These (countries) are opening diplomatic overtures at the start of what looks likely to be a new Cold War,” Chan told Al Jazeera via email.

The West now realises that African support will come in handy at some stage, he said.

“France, Russia, the US and China are all courting African countries – both for diplomatic support in organs like the UN, but also as economic and political allies and partners. But there is a limit to this first stage,” Chan said.

Chan believes the recent diplomatic developments are part of efforts to set the stage for the “second and third stages” of a “rivalry from which Africa can benefit if it plays its cards astutely and does not rush towards the first courtier with what seems like a ‘good deal’.”

French President Emmanuel Macron (L) greets Guinea-Bissau's President Umaro Sissoco Embalo before leaving at Bissau's airport, on July 28, 2022 after a three-day African tour in Cameroon, Benin and Guinea-Bissau. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)
French President Emmanuel Macron greets Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embalo before leaving at Bissau’s airport, on July 28, 2022 

The race to win over Africa is becoming more heated by the day. Even the United States, which for years appeared uninterested in sub-Saharan Africa, has joined the diplomatic fray.

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, visited South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda last week. During his three-country trip he appealed to “governments, communities and peoples” across the continent to embrace Washington’s vision of democracy, openness and economic partnership.

The tour was seen as an attempt by the US to limit Russia and China’s influence on the continent but Blinken insisted that Washington does not see Africa as the “latest playing field in a competition between great powers”.

The US is not “trying to outdo anyone else” in Africa, he said.

“This is not our demand or insistence on democracy, it’s what people in Africa want, it’s clear in poll after poll, they want openness, they want it on an individual basis, as communities, and to choose their own path [as nations],” Blinken said in Pretoria.

China, on the other hand, does not care much for human rights and democracy in Africa.

Beijing has opted to work with Africa’s strongman leaders and offers assistance without criticism or calls for reforms. This approach has augured well with some despotic governments, such as Zimbabwe.

Lavrov did not pledge financial assistance during his visit, while Washington promised a total of $1.3bn to ameliorate the effects of hunger on the continent. France also promised to help with its French-led Food and Agriculture Resilience Mission (FARM) initiative to help African agriculture.

A Russia-Africa summit is scheduled for October in Ethiopia and it remains to be seen what it will bring in terms of aid.

“What we can draw from all this is that the Cold War never really ended. It has just been presenting itself in a different way over the years,” Bindura University’s Chipaike told Al Jazeera.

There are just more players now than there were during the bipolar political order of the Cold War, he said.

Piers Pigou, the International Crisis Group’s senior consultant for Southern Africa, said there is increased interest in the continent from “a growing number of actors vying for market share of the African economy”, including the European Union, a post-Brexit United Kingdom, and “France trying to resuscitate its Francophone relations”.

This competition presents opportunities for Africa if handled skilfully, Pigou told Al Jazeera.

Africa should avoid being pushed into partisan political alignments, especially when several countries are pursuing a non-aligned position with “various degrees of sophistication with respect to its messaging and public reasoning”.

Kenya has articulated that non-aligned position very well, Pigou said, while South Africa has been more muted.

“There is increased realisation from international powers of the need to pay more attention to Africa. And this has accelerated an already growing competition for engagement that we have seen.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
Related Topics:
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Foreign

Israel’s War On Gaza: List of Key Events, Day 101

Published

3 years ago

on

15th January 2024

By

Israel's war on Gaza: List of key events, day 101 | Israel War on Gaza News | Al Jazeera

Dozens of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes in central and south Gaza as Red Sea tensions rise.

Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 15, 2024:

Latest updates and human impact

  • Israeli attacks continue unabated overnight killing and wounding dozens of civilians in central and southern Gaza. At least 22 people were killed and a large number injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
  • Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an antiship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, which was shot down by a US fighter jet, announced US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
  • This was the first US-acknowledged Houthi attack since the US strikes on Yemen on Friday.
  • Hamas released a 37-second video showing three Israeli captives held in Gaza on Sunday, saying they would reveal the fate of the captives on Monday and urging the Israeli government to stop the offensive.
  • The Israeli military says it has shifted to a new phase of the war focused on the southern end of Gaza, where almost 2 million internally displaced Palestinians are running out of safe spaces to shelter.
  • The Gaza Ministry of Health has said almost 24,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. More than 60,000 people have been wounded in 100 days of war.

Diplomacy

  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
  • The White House said on Sunday that “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
  • Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ.
  • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X on Monday, calling for the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza on the 100th day since they were taken by Hamas. He did not mention the Palestinian casualties.
  • Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described herself as a “friend of Israel” to the press, will travel to Jordan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates this week, her office said on Monday.

West Bank raids and violence

  • Israeli forces arrested 25 students staging a sit-in in protest against high tuition fees at An-Najah University in Nablus. Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the protesting students received a text message from Israeli forces telling them to “surrender now”.
  • Israeli forces have reportedly raided the family home of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the village of Kobar, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
  • The Israeli army said on Friday that it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired upon soldiers.
  • The Israeli military killed two Palestinians after accusing them of ramming their car through a checkpoint near Hebron.
  • Local sources reported that Israeli forces bulldozed two Palestinian-owned houses during a Sunday midnight raid in the city of Qalqilya, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
  • Armed Israeli settlers broke into the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian residents’ houses and properties after midnight on Sunday, Wafa reported.
  • “Violent raids and arrests have become part of the fabric of daily life in the occupied West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said. At least 347 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been arrested since October 7.

 

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
Continue Reading

Foreign

Hamas Says Will Kill Hostages if Israeli Attacks On Gaza Civilians Continue

Published

3 years ago

on

10th October 2023

By

Flames and smoke billow during Israeli attacks against Gaza on October 9, 2023

Human Rights Watch terms Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza a ‘war crime’.

The Hamas movement has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning as Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, denying the enclave’s millions of residents access to food, water and fuel.

The warning from Hamas came on Monday as the death toll from the armed group’s surprise weekend attack climbed to 900 in Israel and revenge attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Gaza Strip killed more than 700 people and left some 3,700 others wounded.

Residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and a mosque have been among the sites attacked by Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones, according to media reports and witnesses.

Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida issued the threat to kill Israelis from the dozens held captive by the armed group. He said an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were taken captive by Hamas during the deadly cross-border incursion over the weekend.

As Israeli forces conducted intense retaliatory attacks on Gaza on Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a total blockade of the densely populated and besieged enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.

Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” by the siege announcement and warned that Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation will now “only deteriorate exponentially”.

A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in Israeli strikes, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 9, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in an Israeli attack, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 9, 2023 [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

Guterres also said some 137,000 people were taking shelter with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at schools across Gaza.

UNRWA said on Tuesday that almost 190,000 people have been displaced in Gaza amid the Israeli attacks and the figure is expected to grow further as the violence intensifies.

Nearly half a million people have also not received food rations this week in Gaza as UN food distribution centres have been forced to remain closed amid the Israeli onslaught, UNRWA said.

Human Rights Watch said Israel’s total blockade on the necessities of life for everyday people in Gaza was a war crime.

“Defense Minister Gallant’s statements are abhorrent,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime,” he said.

Shakir also condemned the threat by Hamas to kill hostages, warning that such action was also a war crime.

“All hostages should be safely released to their families,” he said.

On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.

Erdogan urged Israel against “indiscriminately” attacking civilians and delivered measured criticism of Hamas, urging both sides to respect the “ethics” of war.

The United Kingdom, French, German, Italian and US governments issued a joint statement on Monday recognising the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and supporting equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

INTERACTIVE_DEATH_TOLL_INJURED_ISRAEL_PALESTINE_OCT10_2023_0415
They said they would remain “united and coordinated” to ensure Israel can defend itself.

But the prospect that fighting could spread also alarmed the region and the world.

Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon.

Israel said one of its deputy commanders was also killed in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Continue Reading

Foreign

Western Leaders Accused of Hypocrisy Over Response To Palestine, Ukraine

Published

3 years ago

on

10th October 2023

By

US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the US, September 20, 2023

Social media users, including journalists and observers, are calling out what they call a ‘double standard’.

After Saturday’s surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to the social media platform X to offer “condolences go out to everyone who lost relatives or close ones in the terrorist attack”.

He also stated, “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable.”

Many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared similar sentiments.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel.”

Accusations of Western ‘double standards’

Some social media users have criticised these statements, saying they highlight a double standard.

Ukraine’s right to defend itself is praised by most international leaders while Russia’s invasion is condemned, but commentators said the same cannot be said about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Aaron Bastani, a leftist British journalist, said on X that there’s a “clear double standard in endorsing terrorism against civilian targets in Ukraine … and condemning it by Palestinians”.

Many users said Western diplomats and media support the Ukrainians who defend their land, but label the Palestinians fighting against Israel as “terrorists”.

https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1710787817415082349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710787817415082349%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

An illustration of a woman’s face, in which one eye is closed beside a Palestinian flag, and one eye open beside a Ukrainian flag, has been regularly shared as a symbol of the West’s alleged double standards in how the two conflicts are viewed.

https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1710994682883273172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710994682883273172%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

Clips also emerged on social media from a CNN interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, in which he posed the rhetorical question, “Why does the United States support Ukraine in fighting occupation – while here they support the occupier, who continues to occupy us?”

It is not the first time Western nations have been accused of double standards in their stance on the Ukraine war.

Earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report highlighting the West’s “double standards” on global human rights.

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, told Al Jazeera at the time that the occupation of Palestinian territory was a “particularly important one”.

“Without making any comparison between Russia’s aggression and Israel … it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression – a regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid,” Callamard told Al Jazeera.

Over the last three days, X users recirculated earlier statements calling out what they called Western hypocrisy, sharing video by the Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett from March 2022 in which he berated the Irish government’s double standards regarding Ukraine and Palestine:

“You’re happy to use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”

Barrett on Sunday again called out what he described as “shocking double standards of Western leaders supporting Ukraine resistance but condemning Palestinian[s].”

Meanwhile, others warned against comparing conflicts.

https://twitter.com/denfordauthor/status/1710993737738768607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710993737738768607%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

And some cautioned that Hamas and the Palestinians should not be seen as one and the same.

Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays for Arsenal, posted on Instagram, stating he “stands with Israel”.

Zinchenko has been a vocal supporter of his home country in its ongoing defence against Russia, and he participated in a Game4Ukraine charity match in London earlier this year to raise money for Ukraine.

After online backlash, with some questioning an alleged double standard in his support of Israel, the footballer removed the post and switched his social media account to private.

Several people claimed that Zinchenko’s football club, in not responding to his comments, was guilty of hypocrisy after they had distanced themselves from former player Mesut Ozil’s comments in 2019 over alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2013 - 2020, 47vibez Media.