The geographical importance and the role of Turkiye in global politics, especially after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has increased. The role and significance of Turkiye as a member of NATO has also gained prominence. After Turkiye's green light, NATO has expanded to include Finland. Sweden is likely to follow once negotiations between NATO and Turkiye are concluded. All NATO decisions are made by consensus, after discussion and consultation among member countries.

The forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey on 14 May are important for the region and for Africa. There are several socio-political issues that have been raised as part of their respective election campaign by both presidential candidates. The foremost of these has been the state of the economy and refugees and immigrants, particularly Syrians. Moreover, the election takes place as Turkiye prepares itself for the 100th anniversary of the Republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has set a national target for Turkiye to become one of the world's ten largest economies. The elections, therefore, carry with them a great sense of nationalism which will be key in deciding the winner. As the leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Erdogan is facing a fierce challenge from Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP), part of the National Alliance for these elections.

The Turkish elections are also important for Sub-Saharan African countries, where Turkiye has been aggressive in re-establishing relations. Over the past 20 years, Turkiye has increased the number of its embassies across Africa from 12 to 42. Erdogan has underlined that a total of 10,480 African students who graduated from Turkish universities serve their countries as Turkey's "peace ambassadors". In South Africa, in particular, social engagements between the two nations have experienced a dramatic increase.

The current ambassador of Turkiye to South Africa, Aysegul Kandas, is regarded as the most engaging Turkish ambassador in Pretoria for decades. The earthquake tragedy which had an impact on millions of lives and property in south-east Turkiye has added to the country's general interaction and visibility in South Africa. Tourism and business have also increased tremendously over the years. According toTurkiye's Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, "South Africa is our largest trade partner in Sub-Saharan Africa. While the trade volume between our countries stood at only $457 million in 2003, it reached a record high of$3 billion by the end of 2022."

Africans will thus be observing the Turkish elections with a great deal of interest. Turkiye has embraced multiple approaches in how it deals with Sub-Saharan Africa. Consequently, there has been an increase in the number of Africans doing business in Turkiye at all levels. Moreover, there is also a growing Sub-Saharan African diaspora in Turkey, especially in Istanbul.

There is a desire by most Africans in Turkiye and beyond for the political status quo to be maintained. Turkiye has been careful not to apply a blanket foreign policy in dealing with Africa. Unlike many countries in the region, it recognises that Africa is not a country, but a continent consisting of 54 countries. Consequently, it has applied country-specific approaches in engaging Africa. According to Ahmed Vall, a researcher based in Qatar, this strategy has worked, and has "placed Turkiye on a different political pedestal in many countries in Africa."

Turkiye has also used its geopolitical positioning to lobby on behalf of Africa; the renewed grain deal signed between Moscow and Ankara continues to be praised around the world. Under the deal, Russia will allow Ukraine to export twenty-five million additional tons of grain, including foodstuffs, to underdeveloped countries, including some in Africa.

Turkiye's rapprochement with Africa is important, particularly now, as the political space in Africa becomes more polarised. The competitive nature of politics in Russia and the US continue to have an impact on African politics, which could fracture the political consensus in the African Union in the long run.

The voting patterns of African countries at the UN regarding the war in Ukraine is one case in point. The division within the African body politic on various matters could also impede economic growth.

China, meanwhile, has embraced a "see no evil, hear no evil" political approach with Africa. Hence, said Vall, Turkiye's presence in Africa presents an alternative to US and Russian hegemony across the continent. The current government in Turkiye has played a crucial balancing act in Africa; without Turkiye it could be argued that Africa could be thrown back into the days of the Cold War, forced to choose between Russia and the US. For this reason alone, Turkiye should continues its rapprochement with Africa after the elections.

The convenience of pairing Special Rapid Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force in Sudan, alongside the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) for the sake of "peace and stability" has proven not to be such a great idea after all. 

The RSF is the remnants of the Janjaweed, a paramilitary force responsible for the mass killing and displacement of thousands of people in Darfur, a province west of Sudan.

Both organisations received support from the then-president of Sudan, Omar Hassan al Bashir. Al Bashir is currently facing several charges, including five counts of crimes against humanity, two counts of war crimes three counts of genocide allegedly committed at least between 2003 and 2008 in Darfur, Sudan.

The Janjaweed, which was led by General Mohamad Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, dissipated after regional and international condemnation of mass killings and displacement of thousands of people in Darfur. Hemedti re-emerged later in 2013 as the leader of the RSF. 

2019 coup 

Under al Bashir, the RSF was granted powers to do as they pleased in the country. It turned its military capabilities into business, exporting its military services in return for money. 

Beginning in 2015, the RSF, along with Sudan's army, began sending troops to fight in the war in Yemen alongside Saudi and Emirati troops, allowing Hemedti to forge ties with the Gulf powers. RSF made a tremendous amount of money for its leader, Hemedti and his family. 

Notwithstanding the relationship Hemedti enjoyed with al Bashir, he joined forces with SAF in a coup in 2019 to topple al Bashir. After the coup, the RSF was responsible for providing security to some key places and infrastructure in Sudan, including the presidential palace in Khartoum.

Hemedti became a deputy head of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, an interim structure meant to lead all parties after the coup to a civilian government. There has always been scepticism and mistrust of RSF and Hemedti in Sudan. However, RSF's involvement in the coup helped, to an extent, to alter certain attitudes in its favour.

In 2021 hundreds of protestors were killed by RSF following protests against the Transitional Sovereignty Council's slow progress to civilian rule. RSF was accused of throwing some of the dead bodies of protestors into the Nile River.

According to the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors (CCSD), following the protests, "sixty people were reported to have been killed in the military crackdown in the capital Khartoum, before scores of bodies were found dumped in the river by the paramilitary RSF".

Attitudes towards the RSF hardened after the protests. Some Sudanese started calling for Hemedti to be reported to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Then tensions between the head of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, General Abdelfattah al Burhan and Hemedti began deteriorating.

Impatience with lack of civilian rule 

Realising the general public’s impatience with council's lack of progress towards the transfer of power to civilian rule, Hemedti started accusing al Burhan of hindering progress to civilian rule. 

Analysts argue that Hemedti is trying to whitewash the reputation of his paramilitary force, which began as brutal militias implicated in atrocities in the Darfur conflict. 

Al Burhan, on the other hand, argued that before power can be transferred to civilian rule, the RSF must be integrated into the SAF. Hemedti has been resisting the integration of his forces into the army for various reasons. 

Firstly this integration could weaken his leverage and power in the politics of Sudan, making him vulnerable. Secondly, Hemedti built the RSF.

"It is his asset and the most powerful tool, not only to keep him in power but to continue generating resources for him and his family", argues Ahmed Vall, a senior political analyst.

Hemedti is also likely to be arrested if he forsakes his powers in RSF. He stands accused of crimes against humanity in Darfur and mass killing of protestors in Khartoum in 2021.

Lessons for Africa  

There are lessons for other countries to be learned from the conflict in Sudan. Africa must reject all forms of military parallelism if it is to achieve long-lasting peace and stability. The inclusion of RSF into the Transitional Sovereignty Council might have achieved some semblance of peace in Sudan in the short term, however, it is proving to be a disaster in hindsight.  

There are other countries in Africa that need to take heed from the experiences in Sudan.

Ethiopia has several regional forces that are armed and often act independently from the national army. Weeks ago, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced plans to integrate Amhara forces into the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF). The announcement was rejected by regional generals in Amhara followed by violent protests.

The Amhara generals vowed not to allow the integration of their forces into police and national army in Ethiopia. Ethiopia was engaged in a civil war with a paramilitary wing of the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in Tigray from 2022 to 2022. The war left scores of casualties and millions displaced.  

Zimbabwe had similar experiences.

The Zimbabwe War Veterans intensified the expulsion of white farmers from their properties in 2008, with the support of President Robert Mugabe and his government. 

Politicians and cronies of Mugabe in Zimbabwe became owners of farms overnight. Today, most of those farms that were taken lie derelict. The war veterans, although weakened and rendered irrelevant in mainstream politics, remain a possible source of instability in Zimbabwe. 

South Africa is also not immune from the trappings of military parallelism. The existence of UMkhonto wesize Military Veteran’s Association (MKMVA), an organ of the governing African National Congress (ANC) must not be taken for granted.

The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan must surely renounce the Abraham Accords with Israel because of the occupation state's ongoing atrocities against the Palestinians and violations of their legitimate rights. The normalisation deals were cobbled together in September 2020 by Jared Kushner, the son in-law and former advisor of the then US President Donald Trump. The accords were signed initially by Israel, the UAE and Bahrain to normalise relations; Morocco and Sudan then followed suit.

Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians, notwithstanding the signing of the Abraham Accords, have intensified pressure on these four Arab states to renounce normalisation with Israel. The attack on Muslim worshippers inside Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem last week angered many around the world. Images on social media showed Israeli police beating Muslim worshippers viciously inside the mosque. This triggered yet another round of violence in the region with Israeli forces bombing several Hamas installations in the Gaza Strip in apparent response to rockets fired at the occupation state from both Lebanon and Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel has continued to kill Palestinians, arrest hundreds of Palestinians and demolish Palestinian homes.

Polls in Israel suggest that most Israelis, including those on what remains of the political left, support security incursions and the killing of Palestinians. They view such acts as part and parcel of their country's security narrative.  According to the Israel Democracy Institute , 53 percent of Israelis have expressed support for the extrajudicial killings of alleged Palestinian attackers, even after their arrest and when they "no longer pose a threat".

Former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who is touted as being left-of-centre and "a dove" in Israeli politics ended his tenure with a similar onslaught against Palestinians as part of his election campaign in 2022. Notwithstanding the Lapid-authorised violence against the Palestinians, he lost to Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Israeli elections are often preceded by violence and the bombardment of occupied territories in Palestine by the Israeli forces," explained Ahmad Vall, a scholar of Israeli-Palestine politics based in Qatar. "Killing Palestinians in the name of fighting terrorism has therefore become a commonplace in Israeli politics; it has the support of both the left and right of the political spectrum."

Importantly, the latest attacks against the Palestinians are surely a deliberate move to divert attention away from the mass protests in Tel Aviv against the extreme far-right coalition government led by Benjamin Netanyahu. Desperate to remain in power in order to avoid being sent to prison, Netanyahu wants to overhaul the judicial system in the country to give politicians control over the Supreme Court. The prime minister has been indicted for fraud, breach of trust and bribery. He and his family have apparently received gifts including luxury cigars, champagne and jewellery from wealthy individuals, estimated to be worth more than 700,000 shekels ($200,000), in exchange for financial or personal favours.

Netanyahu entered a coalition with several extreme far-right political parties in Israel, forming what is described as the most extreme government in Israel's history of extreme governments. Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) is an extreme far-right party led by Itamar Ben-Gvir. As Minister of National Security, he has authority over the police in Israel and the occupied West Bank. Ben-Gvir was once convicted of incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organisation. Avi Maoz is the leader of Noam party, also part of Netanyahu's coalition. Maoz has called for Jerusalem's Gay Pride event to be banned; disapproved of equal opportunities for women in the military; and wants to limit Jewish migration to Israel to those defined as Jews according to strict religious law.

The push for judicial overhaul in Israel, if successful, could help Netanyahu to circumvent the possibility of going to prison. At the same time, it could also assist the far right to fulfil its objective of religious extremism and an overtly anti-Arab agenda in Israel.

What do the plans mean for the Israeli left? The judicial overhaul will limit the power of the Supreme Court and give the government a majority on the committee that appoints judges. This means that minorities in Israel, particularly the LGBQT+ communities, could see their rights curtailed. Christians deemed to be proselytising in Israel could be imprisoned.  A draft Bill to be considered by parliament includes the penalty of a year in prison for soliciting someone to convert to Christianity, while the punishment would be two years in prison if the would-be convert is a minor.

The events of the past couple of weeks, especially the violence inside Al-Aqsa Mosque, bring into question the integrity of the UAE and the other Abraham Accords states that have normalised relations with Israel regardless of the ongoing violations of international law and Palestinian rights. Some argue that the normalisation deals have emboldened Israel to oppress the Palestinians even more than before, giving the settler-colonial state complete freedom to do whatever it wants in the occupied territories. The Abraham Accords are thus yet another betrayal of the people of occupied Palestine and their legitimate struggle. Hopefully, the events of the past week will serve as a warning for other Arab nations not to endorse the Abraham Accords nor otherwise normalise relations with Israel.

Palestinian artist, Abrar Sabbah, who received appreciation for her drawing against the provocative cartoon of the French Charlie Hebdo magazine mocking the earthquake disaster in Turkiye, stated she wanted to convey a message of support for Turkiye.

French magazine, Charlie Hebdo, has sparked outrage with a cartoon it published mocking Turkiye after two deadly earthquakes hit the country on Monday.

"Earthquake in Turkiye" was written in the top right corner of the cartoon. "(Didn't) even need to send tanks", it says at the bottom.

Sabbah, a 26-year-old Palestinian cartoonist, illustrator and graphic designer, edited Charlie Hebdo's cartoon in a video she posted on her social media account with a caption commenting: "Hey, immoral Charlie Hebdo. You wouldn't draw like that. This is how you would draw it! We will stand up again. The people will rise again!"

Sabbah, who is a graduate of Turkiye, received thousands of likes in a short time and circulated the internet.

Victims should not be mocked

Sabbah, who speaks fluent Turkish and preferred to explain her thoughts to Anadoluin Turkish, said, "I saw the cartoon made by Charlie Hebdo in these difficult times we live in. Of course, like millions of people, I was angry and could not remain silent. In my opinion, this cannot be a cartoon. Caricature is a satirical work. But people who suffer should not be mocked."

"Many people's rights are violated," she said, adding that she illustrated in her video what many people wanted to say.

"At the same time, I wanted to send the message that Turkiye is a very strong country, and the Turkish people are very strong people who do not give up. I hope this message reached well," she said. "Our most powerful weapon is the pen. By writing or drawing, this way we can send a more lasting message. I wanted the message in response to Charlie Hebdo's cartoon to be in a language they understand."

"I got lots of positive feedback. I have received many support messages on my personal account. For example, 'We couldn't make our voices heard, you told us what we couldn't say' or 'You gave us morale when we were in great pain and depressed.'," she said.

Painful disaster

The young Palestinian woman, who lived in Turkiye for six years to study at university, said she felt as much pain as a Turk feels.

"May Allah help both peoples in Turkiye and Syria. I felt as if my own family had been harmed," she said.

She went on to say that the desperation she felt made her redraw the cartoon of Charlie Hebdo.

"I made this drawing thinking about what I can do myself and how I can contribute. I tried to come up with a cartoon using my talent. I hope this misdirected (Charlie Hebdo) cartoon has been corrected," she said.

Turkiye will rise again

Expressing that the Turkish people value Jerusalem and Palestine as much as the Palestinians, Sabbah said, "This (Palestine cause) is the cause of all of us, of course, but the interest and feelings of our Turkish brothers in Palestine are more evident."

Sabbah noted that she constantly follows the speeches or works of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish ministers regarding Palestine or Turkiye, which convey a message that "We are one nation. The only difference between us may be language."

"I hope we will survive this painful disaster. Turkiye will rise again. The Turkish people are very powerful," she asserted.

Studying in Turkey

Sabbah, who came to Turkiye for undergraduate education in 2016, learned the Turkish language at Ankara University, Turkish Language Education Research and Application Centre (TOMER).

Sabbah graduated in 2021 from Selcuk University, Faculty of Communication, Department of Journalism in Konya, where she started after language education.

She was the first in the department and the third in the faculty.

Sabbah, who lives in the city of Akka, part of the historical Palestinian lands and located within the borders of today's Israel, speaks Turkish, English and Hebrew, in addition to her mother tongue, Arabic.

Palestinian Abrar Sabbah stated that she is trying to use the languages ​​she speaks to convey accurate information to the international public about the disaster in Turkiye.

"I am trying to convey our rights issues using these languages. I am trying to translate the news (from the earthquake area) as much as possible so that more people are aware of this disaster," she added.

(This article was first published by the Middle East Monitor, London)

It  was 1998, and President Laurent-Désiré Kabila was getting desperate. He had been in power for only a year, after overthrowing Zaire’s longtime dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, with the help of Rwanda and Uganda.

But his East African allies had turned against him, and were supporting rebel militias that were closing in on the capital, Kinshasa. He needed help. So he looked to the Southern African regional bloc for assistance. Troops from Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe answered the call and, by August 1998, the Second Congo War had begun. 

The conflict lasted for a decade and drew in nine African countries and 25 armed groups. By its end, in 2003, an estimated 350 000 people had been killed in the fighting, and more than five million had died in resulting humanitarian crises.

Nearly two decades later, the country, which was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is on the brink of another war. The Kinshasa government is at an impasse with a rebel group, the March 23 Movement (M23), which seized territories in the east and advanced towards the regional capital, Goma.

The group is allegedly receiving financial and military support from Rwanda, which is also accused of profiting from the region’s reserves of rare metals such as cobalt and coltan. Rwanda denies providing any such support, or dealing in any conflict minerals.

Congolese troops have been powerless to halt the rebel advances. A longstanding United Nations peacekeeping mission, Monusco, is active in the area but has no mandate to go on the offensive. It includes soldiers and police from more than 20 countries, including large contingents from South Africa, Morocco, Tanzania and Malawi.

Now it is DRC President Félix Tshisekedi’s turn to get desperate. He is looking east, to the East African Community, which has promised to intervene militarily if no peaceful solution can be found. Troops from Kenya have started arriving in the country, with more promised from Burundi and Tanzania.

Peace talks are underway in Nairobi, with the presidents of Burundi, the DRC, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda in attendance virtually.

M23, which appears to be respecting a ceasefire called for by these leaders but refusing their call to withdraw from held territories, is largely absent from the talks. 

If the talks don’t work out, Kenya’s President William Ruto has promised to send nearly 1 000 Kenyan soldiers into action to “enforce peace”.

This will not be as easy as he makes it sound.

Clever Gunyani* was a Zim-babwean soldier in the DRC as part of the intervention force in the late 1990s. 

“Kenya has chosen a difficult war,” he said. “The eastern front is a jungle and it rains almost every day. It is damp and wet. Imagine trying to drive an armoured vehicle in the mud — you just can’t. The equipment is useless. Aerial bombardment is impossible even with infrared.”

Gunyani said the harsh conditions mean the battle is as mental as it is physical, and unprepared soldiers are at risk of a breakdown. “We ended up keeping to our lines and declaring a ceasefire. It is useless to waste bullets on invisible targets.”

Davestone Nyoni*, also a Zimbabwean soldier, spent three years in the eastern DRC. He said he would go back if he had to. “God forbid, but if Zimbabwe is attacked today, we will need support from other nations, alliances have always existed. Of course, other interests are at play, like economics, for example. We went to war so that Zimbabweans could trade with the Congolese and vice versa.”

Nyoni warned: “If the force lacks discipline, the soldiers will end up being merchants and couriers of ill-gotten wealth.”

In Zimbabwe’s case, the enormous cost of the military intervention nearly bankrupted the country. To fund the fighting, which cost an estimated $1 million a day, the government began to print money that it did not have — a major contributing factor to the hyperinflation which destroyed the economy in 2008.

But some Zimbabweans were profiting, or profiteering, from the war. As an incentive to intervene, Kabila had dangled mining concessions and profit-sharing deals to Zimbabwe’s politically connected elite.

“It provided all sorts of off-budget income-generation for elements of the ruling party, and also the commercial interests of the military,” said Piers Pigou, the International Crisis Group’s senior consultant for Southern Africa. 

This allowed the ruling Zanu-PF to shore up its own power, even amid economic devastation, and contributed to an increasing militarisation of the state.

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa played a key role in overseeing these deals: as minister of justice, he visited the DRC’s Kasaï region to check in on Zimbabwe’s business interests, according to a United Nations report into how the Second Congo War was financed.

The stakes are even higher this time around. 

As well as vast reserves of gold and copper, the earth under the DRC contains more than half of the world’s cobalt and coltan, minerals that are vital to almost all renewable energy technologies such as electric cars and batteries. Together these untapped reserves are worth an estimated $24 trillion.

Kenya has made no secret of its economic interests in the country. Nelson Koech, the chair of the Kenyan parliament’s foreign relations committee, put it bluntly in an interview with The East African. 

He said: “Through this deployment, Kenya will also secure its vital interests including Kenyan businesses like banks operating in the DRC, numerous Kenyan business people in the country, bilateral trade with the DRC, and use of the Mombasa port by the DRC among others.” 

But the economic calculus of war is never quite so simple, and Kenya may not have anticipated all the costs. “War is a very expensive affair. It has ramifications on the economy of any nation which decides or is brave enough to intervene,” said Prolific Mataruse, a political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe. 

He warned Kenya that military interventions can have unintended consequences, and that these are “hard to budget for”.

Zimbabwe, after all, is still paying the price.

* Names have been changed to protect the identity of sources.  

This article first appeared in The Continent, the pan-African weekly newspaper produced in partnership with the Mail & Guardian.