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Eritrean asylum seekers clash with police during a demonstration in Tel Aviv.
Eritrean riot fuels Bibi backlash
Over 150 people were injured, eight seriously, during violent clashes between hundreds of Eritrean migrants in Tel Aviv, Israel, over the weekend. Protesters breached police barriers, smashing storefronts, car windows, and an event set-up at the Eritrean embassy. Riot police responded with tear gas and stun grenades, and at least 30 officers were injured in battles with demonstrators. Thirty-nine suspects, including some found to be carrying weapons, tear gas, and an electrical stun gun, were arrested.
The rioters wanted to shut down a celebration of the rule of Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, 77, a vicious autocrat who has governed the country since it became independent in 1993. Eritrea, sometimes called “the North Korea of Africa," holds no elections, has no political parties or independent courts, restricts free speech and the press, and compels military service and forced labor. These conditions continue to spur Eritreans to flee; nearly 18,000 now call Israel home, after arriving illegally through Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
Even before this weekend’s shocking violence, however, Eritreans in Israel faced limited sympathy. The current government considers them “illegal job migrants,” not refugees. Former Interior Minister Eli Yishai was quoted as saying that he wanted to make their lives “so miserable that they would want to leave.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called them a threat to Israeli national security and “our national identity.”
The violence has now given Netanyahu grounds to act on these sentiments. On Sunday, he announced that 1,000 people supportive of the Eritrean regime would be deported and ordered ministers to draw up a plan to remove all African migrants from Israel. Right-wing politicians have chimed in their support, and Bibi may also use the situation to bolster his much-criticized Supreme Court reforms, since the court had previously stymied government attempts to deport illegal migrants. It looks like Eritreans seeking to escape tyranny back home may become political pawns in their adopted land.
picture of Planet Earth.
Ukraine’s war and the non-Western world
A new poll provides more evidence that Western and non-Western countries just don’t agree on how best to respond to the war in Ukraine.
Most Americans and Europeans say their governments should help Ukraine repel Russian invaders. Many say Russia’s threat extends beyond Ukraine. People and leaders in non-Western countries mainly want the war to end as quickly as possible, even if Ukraine must surrender some of its land to Russia to bring peace.
That’s not necessarily the message you might take from a recent vote on this subject in the UN General Assembly. On Feb. 24, the invasion’s one-year anniversary, 141 countries voted to condemn the invasion and to demand that Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally” withdraw from Ukraine. Thirty-two countries abstained. Just six – Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Eritrea, Nicaragua, and Mali – voted with Russia against the motion.
But it’s one thing to denounce the invasion. It’s another to arm Ukraine and sanction Russia.
Among the 32 countries that abstained – a group led by China, India, South Africa, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and others – and even in states like Brazil and Turkey that voted with the majority, there is deep resistance to the Western approach to the war. The reasons vary by region and country, but their argument with the West can be grouped into three broad categories.
First, the US and Europe, they say, are prolonging this costly war at a time when world leaders must turn their attention and focus their nation’s resources on other urgent global threats.
As India’s President Narendra Modi said this week in his role as chair of this year’s G20 summit: “After years of progress, we are at risk today of moving back on the sustainable development goals. Many developing countries are struggling with unsustainable debts while trying to ensure food and energy security. They are also most affected by global warming caused by richer countries. This is why India's G20 presidency has tried to give a voice to the Global South.”
It’s noteworthy that Modi delivered these comments in English.
In other words, the longer the war in Ukraine continues, the longer world leaders will be distracted from other challenges and the fewer resources they’ll have left to meet them.
Second, what gives Europeans and Americans the right, some ask, to decide which wars are legitimate and who is guilty of imperialist behavior? The US says Russia launched an invasion under false pretenses, but memories of Americans hunting Iraq for weapons of mass destruction bolster charges of hypocrisy. Many Latin Americans remember that Cold War-era Western crusades against Russian Communism included support for brutal dictatorship in their countries. Many in Africa and the Middle East who live in states whose borders were drawn by Europeans reject European appeals to defend Ukraine against imperialism.
Third, many developing countries value the chance to buy Russian energy and food exports at bargain prices. Western refusal to buy Russian products has given many poorer states the chance to fuel their recovery in this way, and their governments are well aware that any bid to remove these products completely from markets would cut deeply into global supplies, driving world food and fuel prices to dangerous new highs. Many of these countries need post-COVID economic lifelines and continuing to do business with Russia, especially on newly favorable terms, can help.
Americans and Europeans can make counterarguments in all these areas, but leaders and poll respondents in non-Western countries continue to warn that Western governments can’t expect others to share the sacrifices they claim are needed to resolve Western problems.
Should Western governments worry? The US and Europe will continue to supply Ukraine and sanction Russia with or without help from others. But if Western leaders want to effectively isolate Russia, both economically and diplomatically, reluctance and resistance from non-Western countries will limit how much they can hope to accomplish and how quickly.US President Joe Biden during a campaign stop ahead of the midterm elections in Hallandale Beach, Florida.
What We're Watching: Biden's secret papers, Ukrainians in Oklahoma, Tigrayan demobilization
Check your closets for classified docs
It’s been a rollercoaster kind of week for US President Joe Biden.
On the downside, it seems he just plumb forgot to return not one but two batches of classified documents from his days as VP. The first cache was reportedly found on Nov. 2 – yes, you read that right, just days before the midterms – but not reported publicly until Monday. Then, on Wednesday, reports emerged of a second tranche of unreturned docs discovered at another location. Biden, keen to distinguish himself from the way former President Donald Trump handled his own classified documents scandal, said his lawyers followed protocol and immediately contacted the National Archives about returning the documents. A Justice Department review is underway.
The good news this week for Biden is that for the first time since the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in Aug. 2021, his approval rating (46%) is now higher than his disapproval (45%), according to an Economist/YouGov survey. Why the uptick? Biden has signed major pieces of legislation like CHIPS and the Inflation Reduction Act in recent months. Meanwhile, Republicans blew their chance for a “red wave” in the midterms, and the GOP's chaotic election of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy shows just how deep divisions in the party are. Still, House GOP members are hellbent on investigating Biden over a range of issues including, perhaps, the newfound classified files. Biden has had a good nine months — could the GOP-controlled house change his fortunes?
Ukrainian fighters headed for Oklahoma
As Russia and Ukraine argue over who is winning the battle for strategically important towns in the Donbas region, there are new signs that US support for Ukraine’s defense is intensifying. The US Defense Department has announced it will welcome up to 100 Ukrainian soldiers to a training facility in Oklahoma next week to teach them over the coming months how to use and maintain a truck-mounted Patriot missile defense system (or battery) that the US has agreed to provide to Ukraine’s military. (The US is supplying one battery, and Germany will provide a second.) It’s a significant step toward helping Ukraine establish a unified air defense system at a time when Russia is relying heavily on long-range artillery to target critical Ukrainian military and civilian infrastructure as well as Ukrainian cities. This isn’t the first time Ukrainian soldiers have been invited to the US for training, but it remains unusual. The US also says it will train hundreds more Ukrainians in Germany in the use of other powerful weapons.
The long road to peace in Ethiopia
Tigrayan rebels on Wednesday started handing over heavy weapons to Ethiopia's federal government, as mandated by a cease-fire agreement signed two months ago. The deal ended more than two years of armed conflict and a humanitarian crisis that has killed thousands, left hundreds of thousands close to famine, and displaced millions. So far, so good, right? Not so fast. First, aid delivery and services have resumed but remain far below what's needed for a region that has been clobbered by fighting and cut off from the rest of Ethiopia since Nov. 2020. Second, before signing on the dotted line, the Tigrayans demanded the withdrawal of troops from neighboring Eritrea, who have been on-again, off-again fighting on behalf of the Ethiopian government for much of the war. Not all the foreign soldiers have left, and Asmara — which did not join the peace talks in South Africa — has been silent for months. Demobilization of the rebels is a big step toward ending the conflict, but peace will remain elusive until all of Tigray is fully back to business and Eritrea is finally out.Supporters gather in front of the house of Argentina's Vice-President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner after she was attacked in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
What We’re Watching: Argentine VP assassination attempt, Ethiopian escalation, Zaporizhzhia tour
Argentine VP survives assassination attempt
Argentina's influential VP Cristina Fernández de Kirchner survived an assassination attempt on Thursday night outside her residence in Buenos Aires. A gunman took aim from close range, but his loaded weapon failed to fire. Cops then arrested the man, a Brazilian national with a history of following hate groups on social media. We don’t know the motive and political violence in the country rarely gets bloody, but political tensions have been running very high since last week, when a prosecutor asked for the far-left firebrand VP and former president to be sentenced to 12 years in prison for corruption. Still, her trial will be anything but swift, and Cristina — as she’s universally known — is unlikely to go to jail for charges she calls a "witch hunt." President Alberto Fernández (no relation, nor a big fan of the VP) declared a national holiday on Friday, which the conservative opposition decried as a gambit to turn out crowds in favor of Cristina.
Eritrea jumps back into Ethiopia’s civil war
Eritrean troops have joined Ethiopian government forces in a fresh attack on the Tigray region, according to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. If confirmed independently, this would represent a major (re)escalation in the nearly two-year-long conflict between the Ethiopian government and Tigray militants who are seeking greater autonomy. Last year, Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed admitted Eritrean involvement in the war, after initially denying it. Until the resumption of fighting last week, the front had been largely quiet for months under a tenuous humanitarian truce, and diplomats were working to broker a more durable peace. That path looks closed now as both sides gear up for a full-fledged fight again. The war has already led to a humanitarian catastrophe in Tigray that is spilling into neighboring Sudan, and the UN has accused both sides of grave human rights violations and war crimes.
UN nuclear inspectors assess Zaporizhzhia damage
Arriving hours later than expected, a team of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors on Thursday visited the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine. After touring the facility for the first time, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi tweeted an on-site video vowing to set up shop there. But the last leg of the trip was almost derailed by heavy shelling, which Kyiv and Moscow blamed on each other. The Ukrainians say Russian artillery fire forced them to briefly shut down one of the reactors, while the Russians claim that the Ukrainians tried — and failed — to use the visit as cover for an assault to retake the site. Zaporizhzhia, Europe's largest nuclear power plant, seemed on the brink of disaster after six months of intense fighting near the perimeter, overworked staff, and likely damage to the facility. But the odds of another Chernobyl have now been reduced by the presence of the IAEA team — as long as Russia, keeps its word and lets the foreign scientists stay.
What We’re Watching: SCOTUS immigration ruling, Barbecue runs Haiti quake relief, Eritreans back in Tigray
SCOTUS brings back "Remain in Mexico" policy: The US Supreme Court has ordered the Biden administration to reinstate a Trump-era immigration rule that requires asylum-seekers who attempt to cross the US southern border to wait in Mexico until their applications get processed. This is bad news for Joe Biden for two reasons. First, he cancelled that policy because it failed to accomplish its stated goal of reducing processing backlogs, while leaving thousands of migrants stranded in Mexico in legal limbo. Second, Biden knows he can't actually implement the policy anew if Mexico doesn't agree to accept migrants whom the US wants to send back. More broadly, the ruling throws yet another wrench into an already testy US-Mexico relationship — with tens of thousands of vulnerable human beings caught in the middle. Biden, who's tied up with the Afghanistan fiasco these days, wants to avoid a tussle with the Mexicans amid record numbers of migrants arriving at the US border so far this year. The Mexicans, for their part, will probably want something in exchange (maybe COVID vaccines) to be helpful.
Haitian gangs run quake relief: Need assistance after the recent earthquake that has killed over 2,400 in Haiti? Call Jimmy "Barbecue" Cherizier, head of the notorious G9, a "federation" of nine criminal gangs that a year ago stopped fighting each other to declare war on Haiti's corrupt political class. In the wake of President Jovenel Moïse's July 7 assassination, Barbecue — an ex-cop known to burn his enemies alive — is arguably the most powerful person in the country. The government knows this, and so has secured a truce with the G9 to allow safe passage for aid. Indeed, Barbecue calling the shots on post-quake humanitarian relief illustrates the collapse of the Haitian state: If the government needs permission from criminal gangs to deliver assistance to victims of a natural disaster, it may also need their cooperation to eventually hold elections to replace Moïse — perhaps with a politician who's friendly to the G9.
Eritreans back in Tigray? For nine months the Ethiopian government has been warring — at various levels of intensity — with militant nationalists from the Tigray region who want more autonomy from the central government. Early on in the conflict, neighboring Eritrea sent in troops to help the Ethiopian army. In June, a shaky ceasefire was agreed to after Tigray forces gained the upper hand, and the Eritreans began to go home. But now US Secretary of State Tony Blinken says they're back. What's more, Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed reportedly made an unannounced stop in Asmara last week, for undisclosed reasons. These are ominous signals for a simmering conflict that is far from resolved. The US has slapped sanctions on Eritrean leaders who it says are responsible for war crimes in Tigray, but as we wrote recently, there may not be much the US can really do to avert a deepening catastrophe in Africa's second most populous country.A building is seen through a bullet hole in a window of the Africa Hotel in the town of Shire, Tigray region, Ethiopia, March 16, 2021. Picture taken March 16, 2021.
Is Ethiopia’s Tigray region really on the road to peace?
For eight months, one of the world's most gruesome civil wars has raged in the East African nation of Ethiopia, pitting the national government against militant leaders in the ethnically-distinct region of Tigray. But earlier this week it looked like the conflict had suddenly stopped after an unexpected ceasefire offer from the government. Will the truce hold, and what's at stake for the country and the wider region? Let's take a look.
First, why is this such a big deal? For one thing, it's in Ethiopia, which just three years ago was one of Africa's fastest-growing economies, standing out as an oasis of relative calm compared to its conflict-plagued neighbors in the Horn of Africa. In 2018, largely peaceful protests ousted the leader of an authoritarian government long dominated by ethnic Tigrayans, and a young reformist prime Minister named Abiy Ahmed took power. He opened the economy, freed political prisoners, and won international accolades. Abiy even won the Nobel Prize for ending decades of war with the neighboring gulag state of Eritrea, a major source of Europe-bound refugees.
Fast forward to November 2020, when a dispute over national election dates ignited long-simmering tensions between Tigrayan leaders and the federal government over Tigrayan autonomy. Shots were fired. The internet was cut. The national army invaded Tigray. Eritrea then got involved on the side of its former enemy Ethiopia.
Since then, at least 60,000 people have fled to Sudan and over 2 million have been displaced. International observers have warned of famine and genocide, raising the specter of yet another protracted humanitarian crisis with ripple effects for the entire Horn of Africa. Key Ethiopian allies, including the US, have pressured Addis Ababa to stop the bloodshed.
What happened on Monday? After a major counteroffensive, nationalist forces led by the Tigray Peoples' Liberation Front forces retook the region's capital. An hour later, the Ethiopian government declared a unilateral "humanitarian" ceasefire. Addis Ababa says its truce will be in place until the end of the planting season in September, which is crucial for farmers to produce food for starving Tigrayans.
Why now? The Tigrayans' recent strategic gains were crucial. We learned from Eurasia Group analyst Connor Vasey that the Ethiopian army was "losing ground fast" to the TPLF. There is also an election angle: Ethiopia has just held a general vote which Abiy is set to win, despite some opposition boycotts and no participation by Tigray. His election campaign relied in part on pro-war politicians, but Abiy may feel he has more room to talk with the Tigrayans now that the vote is over.
What comes next? It's hard to say. First, the TPLF has yet to respond to the federal government's unilateral ceasefire with its own truce.
Second, as William Davidson from the International Crisis Group told us, the two warring parties must figure out how to provide much-needed relief to the civilian victims of the conflict. In particular, he explained, having withdrawn its forces, Addis Ababa has to resist the temptation to interrupt humanitarian aid as a way to undermine its Tigrayan rivals.
Third, any long-term resolution will require both sides to sit down and clarify what they want from each other. Some Tigrayans, for example, demand independence, while others prefer for the region to maintain broad autonomy from the federal government but without breaking away from the rest of the country.
The wildcard: Eritrea. Although Eritrea says it's already pulling out its troops from key towns in Tigray, the Tigrayans are wary of the Eritreans because they intervened to support Ethiopia and claim parts of Tigray's territory. "A critical question now for the conflict is whether Eritrea's military will withdraw fully from Tigray," Davidson said.What We’re Watching: UK vaccine rollout, Eritrea in Tigray, football diplomacy
UK rolls out COVID vaccine: The United Kingdom on Tuesday kicked off the first COVID-19 vaccination campaign in a Western country amid global hopes of seeing a light at the end of the coronavirus tunnel. "Go for it," said the first patient to be inoculated, a woman who turns 91 next week. Great Britain is pioneering a vaccine jointly developed by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German company BioNTech which has proven to be 95 percent effective against COVID-19 infections. Meanwhile, Russia "launched" its own national vaccination campaign just ahead of the UK despite the fact that its miracle drug, Sputnik V, is still in the midst of clinical trials to test its safety and efficacy. With the US thought to be next in line to start vaccinating large swaths of residents, the success of these national vaccine rollouts — which will likely take way longer to carry out in developing nations — will be crucial towards global efforts to end the pandemic as soon as possible.
Is Eritrea aiding Ethiopia in Tigray? US government officials say they have plausible evidence that Eritrean soldiers have entered the volatile Tigray region, a hotbed of violence between the Ethiopian government and Tigray rebel groups, in order to help bolster Addis Ababa's military effort there. Eritrean troops are believed to have entered Tigray in mid-November and are lending weight to Ethiopia's crackdown on the radical Tigray People's Liberation Front, a clash that's led to thousands of deaths in mere weeks. Indeed, this development presents a major predicament for Washington and other Western governments who have long criticized Eritrea's government for its anti-democratic politics, but rely heavily on a security alliance with Ethiopia to maintain a foothold in the turbulent Horn of Africa. It's an interesting turn of events considering that Ethiopia and Eritrea were longtime foes until a peace accord was signed in 2018. We're watching to see how Washington and Brussels respond to this diplomatic quagmire in the days ahead.
World Cup draw gets political: The qualifiers draw for the 2022 men's football World Cup in Qatar will see Kosovo face three countries that don't recognize it as an independent state: Georgia, Greece, and Spain. In fact, Kosovo was first picked to play in another group against its bitter enemy Serbia — which Kosovo used to be a part of, and fought a bloody war with in the late 1990s before declaring its independence in 2008. However, the rules of UEFA, European football's governing body, prohibit matches between countries in "conflict," such as Armenia vs Azerbaijan or Russia vs Ukraine. Of its three rivals to win a place in Qatar, Spain has traditionally had the strongest position against Kosovo's independence because it worries that recognition would set a bad precedent for Catalonia, the Spanish region that tried (and failed) to break away from the rest of the country in October 2017. UEFA must now come up with a solution that all parties can live with, which will likely entail playing some games in neutral countries or without displaying national flags.Ethiopia at war with itself
Ethnic tensions between Ethiopia's federal government and nationalist forces in the northern Tigray region have erupted into a full-blown armed conflict. Are we on the brink of yet another civil war that could upend the Horn of Africa?
The back story. Tigray, despite accounting for only 5 percent of Ethiopia's population, has long punched above its weight in federal politics. After a coalition led by the radical Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) helped end the brutal reign of dictator Haile Mengistu in 1991, Tigrayan Meles Zenawi led the country for twenty years.
Although Ethiopia largely prospered during this time, other ethnic groups resented Tigray's stranglehold over the government, the economy, and the military. It all ended two years ago, when a wave of popular discontent brought to power the reformist Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia's first ethnic Oromo prime minister.
In a deeply fragmented country with more than 80 ethnic groups, many of them traditionally marginalized from the political process, Abiy was a breath of fresh air: he moved quickly to release political prisoners, and won a Nobel Prize for making peace with Eritrea. But the flip side of these reforms was opening a Pandora's box by allowing many long-simmering ethnic tensions to boil over. (Earlier this year, Abiy faced a bloody popular uprising from his own Oromo people over the murder of a nationalist singer.)
The trigger. On November 4, Abiy launched a military offensive in Tigray over an alleged TFLP attack on a federal army base. The move was widely viewed as payback for Tigray holding a regional election that was postponed elsewhere in Ethiopia due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Since then, things have rapidly spiraled. Both sides have accused each other of killing hundreds of civilians, although such claims are hard to verify with the Tigray region now completely shut off from the internet.
Spillover effects. In less than two weeks, the conflict has spread beyond Ethiopia's borders. Over the weekend, TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael said the Tigrayans had fired missiles into neighboring Eritrea in response to Asmara's alleged support for the Ethiopian army's invasion of Tigray.
If that is true, it would pit two former enemies against a common foe. Eritrea's authoritarian leader Isaias Afwerki despises the TPLF, which was heavily involved in the 1998-2000 border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Meanwhile, the crisis has already sparked the exodus of tens of thousands of civilians fleeing the conflict to neighboring Sudan. Sudan's ailing economy is in no shape to cope with such a massive influx of refugees, a humanitarian catastrophe in the making. And all of this comes as Khartoum and Addis Ababa are already at odds over a controversial Nile dam that the Sudanese worry will deprive poor farmers of water resources.
No end in sight. With such high stakes, the war in Tigray has rapidly escalated. Both sides are unwilling to back down, and the Ethiopian army faces in the TLPF a battle-hardened rival with little to lose now that they no longer call the shots in Addis Ababa.
Abiy is unlikely to accept further defiance from Tigray, while the Tigrayans are wary of the prime minister's planned transition from a federal to a unitary state. As the conflict deepens, stability across the Horn of Africa will be at (higher) risk.- After Iranian election, revival of nuclear deal with US is a safe bet - GZERO Media ›
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