With the focus on Ukraine, it is easy to forget that Russian President Vladimir Putin supports his Syrian counterpart Bashar Al-Assad's continuing destruction of his country, and the maiming of women and children, including thousands of Palestinian refugees in Syria. Since March 2011, pro-government forces have killed 3,196 Palestinian refugees, including 491 under torture, and 2,663 others are still missing since disappearing into intelligence prisons, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, a UK-based group of activists.

The latest pictures from Mariupol in Ukraine resemble another Syria in the making. Thousands of civilians, including women and children, have been killed in a war that only started on 24 February. Putin's culpability in Syria has created mayhem and worsened the plight of the people. Palestinian refugees in places such as Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria joined their neighbours in 2011 to demand political inclusion and the extension of human rights. Since then, Yarmouk has been bombed and the Palestinian refugees face a bleak future.

Whilst the world was witnessing the annihilation of political dissenters in Syria, Russia supplied weapons to pro-regime fighters and vetoed almost all UN resolutions intended to stop Assad in his tracks. In 2019, Russia was joined by China when it vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for a truce in the region of Idlib, the last rebel-held stronghold in north-west Syria. That was the thirteenth time that Russia had vetoed a resolution on the Syrian conflict, and the seventh that China had done so. Russian support for Syria increased dramatically when the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East began in 2011. Fearing a possible domino effect of events into Russia, Putin hastened to support Assad to thwart a national uprising in Syria.

Western sceptics have enough reasons to excuse Putin's invasion of Ukraine. In the middle of Russia's destruction of property and the killing and displacement of millions of people, they argue against Europe's double standards in its treatment of refugees. Such treatment has attracted widespread criticism, exposing disturbingly racist fault lines, particularly when compared with the way that refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan have been treated. Poland's extraordinary mobilisation to help Ukrainian refugees raises some uncomfortable questions about the country's tough stance against asylum seekers and migrants from elsewhere.

Such blatant double standards have, unfortunately, driven many people to take strong positions on the Russian invasion. Many have used the Palestinian struggle for freedom as proof of the accusations of hypocrisy and double standards against European and Western nations. Israel has been killing Palestinians almost casually for decades — on average, one Palestinian child has been killed every three days by Israel for the past 20 years and more, for example — and destroying Palestinian homes in an ongoing act of ethnic cleansing. The result is that the occupation state has displaced millions and killed thousands of Palestinians since the creation of the state in 1948 in occupied Palestine.

The global — particularly Western — reaction in Ukraine could not have been more different from the inaction against Israel for its military occupation of Palestine. Having endured bombardment, death and destruction at the hands of an occupying power, Palestinians have expressed their sympathy with the people of Ukraine. If justice and international law had any real importance in global politics, then Israel would have faced the same condemnation and sanctions that have been imposed so rapidly on Russia and Russian individuals. Instead, despite the sanctions imposed upon them, Russian oligarchs are able to find refuge in Israel.

This disgraceful reality means that the plight of the Palestinians and their struggle is likely to be amplified by what is happening in Ukraine. As such, those involved in the struggle should remain focused on ending the Israeli occupation and developing international solidarity.

One anecdote serves to emphasise some of the points highlighted in this article. In 2011, when Bashar Al-Assad started to kill his people in Syria, Hamas was forced to take a principled position on the conflict. In 2012, therefore, senior members of Hamas and their families left their headquarters in Damascus in "quiet protest" because the movement could not support the regime. Hamas decided to do what it felt was best for the Palestinian struggle. We can only imagine what would have become of the movement and, indeed, the Palestinian struggle overall, if it had decided to remain in Syria and continued to get aid from Assad's regime and then Russia.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia deserves a similar judgement, irrespective of the politics of the warring parties and notwithstanding the obvious double standards. Palestinians and those who support the struggle of Palestine must insist on a just and balanced outcome. The people of occupied Palestine should support the Ukrainians in their predicament, without taking a political position in the conflict.

About the author

Thembisa is a senior research fellow at Afrasid.  He holds a Masters degree in Politics, he is a columnist with the Middle East Monitor in London and a research fellow at Al Sharq Forum in Istanbul, Turkey. He also serves on the board of Common Action Forum in Madrid, Spain and on the board of Mail and Guardian publication in South Africa. He is the former Bureau Chief of Al Jazeera Media Network for Arabic and English Channels in Southern Africa.

A hunger for insatiable conquests, a ghost from the Second World War, has reawakened. That ghost is hounding Europe – but may soon reach Asia and, perhaps, the rest of the world.

The spectre may spread fast following the events of 24 February, when Russia launched a full-scale military attack on Ukraine, bombing major cities like Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa and Mariupol and moving in across its own borders as well as from Belarus, Crimea and the Black Sea.

The strikes followed months of troop build-ups, Russian demands to the United States and NATO, negotiations with the US and European leaders, and US warnings of Russia’s invasion plans. They were closely preceded by Moscow’s recognition of two separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine as independent.

Some in Asia are predicting similar conflicts. They believe that, emboldened by Russian’s invasion of Ukraine, China is ready to move on Hong Kong, Taiwan and Tibet. China – as Russia has done with Luhansk and Donetsk – will claim that it owns these three territories.

Taiwan, a nation of 24 million people, is watching the events unfolding in Ukraine with keen interest. China declaring sovereignty over it cannot be far-fetched: recently, China has tried to manage the Taiwan Strait in the South China Sea through invasive military activities which cannot just be described as intimidating but rather as signals to nudge Taiwan into rejoining mainland China. The presence of the People’s Liberation Army, with its bombers, fighter jets and surveillance aircraft as well as warships and aircraft, in the Taiwan Strait and around Taiwan’s mainland are viewed as a strong campaign that will culminate in an armed invasion.

Taiwan’s democracy is relatively young. It held its first free legislative elections in 1992, followed by its first presidential elections in 1996. Before that the Kuomintang governed under martial law from 1949 to 1987; political dissent was harshly repressed and Taiwanese who had inhabited the island long before 1945 faced discrimination. But, since the early 90s, it has peacefully transferred power between parties several times. However, since Taiwan elected Tsai Ing-wen as its president in 2016, it has reported thousands of cyberattacks from China, targeting its government agencies. In 2020, Taipei accused four Chinese groups of hacking into at least ten Taiwanese government agencies and 6000 official email accounts since 2018 in a bid to access government data and personal information.

In the first few days of Joe Biden's presidency in the US, Taiwan reported a "large incursion" by Chinese warplanes over the space of two days. This was followed by China flying a huge number of military jets into Taiwan’s air defence zone throughout 2021.

This prompted United States Admiral John Aquilino, head of the Pentagon's Indo-Pacific command, to warn that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan "is much closer to us than most think”.

China has also engaged in disinformation and has increased its control over Taiwan’s media.

Elsewhere in the region, Beijing has been alarmed by the Dalai Lama’s calls for independence in Tibet and Hong Kong’s demand for autonomy for its population of 7.5 million. The west has openly backed these calls.

Tiny Tibet’s desire for independence has especially irked China, which already occupies half the country after defeating the small Tibetan army. Tibet’s political figures are gagged and activists in exile are criticised by China. The far-larger Hong Kong, a former British colony, is culturally and economically very different from mainland China. This has led to a great deal of tension, which peaked in 2020 as a controversial “national security law” gave the Chinese Communist Party the power to arrest activists, seize assets, fire government workers, detain newspaper editors and rewrite school curriculums. This sullied relations even further.

It remains to be seen whether China’s powerful military, which includes the world’s largest navy by number of ships, will take a leaf out of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s book and invade its troublesome territories.

Stephen Tsoroti

Stephen Tsoroti is a Research Fellow at Afrasid based in Zimbabwe. He is a multi-award winning journalist and has written extensively on gender, labour and climate issues amongst others. Stephen was named journalist of the year by Zimbabwe Biodiversity Award 2000.

The end, in 1992, of a post-independence civil war in Mozambique left citizens feeling optimistic about their and the country’s future. But, almost three decades later, real progress continues to elude the vast, resource-rich southern African country as it lurches from one crisis to another.

Mozambique boasts vast but as yet unexplored mineral resources. However, poverty rates are high in many parts of the former Portuguese colony.

For nearly five years, Mozambique has been in the throes of an insurgency that has made life uncertain for both citizens and foreign investors priming themselves to reap huge windfalls from the huge gas discoveries in the northern part of the country.

The bloody insurrection in Cabo Delgado province by an Islamist-linked armed group calling itself Ansar al-Sunna (supporters of the tradition) is generally believed to be linked to the marginalisation that locals in Cabo Delgado and other remote northern provinces have always complained suffering at the hands of the ruling elites in Maputo (which is around 2,400kms from Cabo Delgado). The province has become a magnet for investors and the people there are shown images of multi-million investments in extractive industry projects and hear often how rich their province is in natural resources like oil and gas – but none of the benefits have cascaded down to them or amounted to any tangible benefits.  

Five years ago, youths in Cabo Delgado launched an uprising against the government. These are frustrated young people who want jobs and demand government services; the toxic cocktail of poverty and radicalisation lit the fires of an insurgency that continues, largely away from the international spotlight.

In 2019, the insurgents pledged allegiance to the so-called Islamic State, marking the first Islamist-linked conflict in southern Africa and alarming the world. The nature of their relationship with the larger terror group is uncertain. In March 2021, the fighters launched a brutal attack on the port town of Palma, close to the gas projects. It left dozens of people dead, and, within a month, the militants controlled a significant chunk of territory in four of the country’s five provinces.

A history of oppression, radicalisation

Cabo Delgado has a long history of both oppression and radicalisation. Once a favoured target of slave traders, the province’s Muslim-majority population was repeatedly forced into labour for the production of cotton and other cash crops during 500 years of Portugal’s colonial domination.

The first shots in Mozambique’s independence war were fired in this province in the mid-1960s. However, during the subsequent decade of the liberation struggle, it was the Makonde tribal group, mostly Christians from the province’s highlands, who went on to play a central role in the subsequent Marxist Frelimo government. The coastal Muslim Mwani people were largely sidelined, which partly explains their frustrations and grievances. Cabo Delgado residents call their region “Cabo Esquecido” or “forgotten Cape”.

At some point around 2007 the Mwani people slowly began to believe – through radicalisation – that having an independent state could solve their social exclusion. They did not trust government institutions and decided to solve local problems themselves. The central government responded by calling the Mwani bandits and criminals, sending in heavily armed police to restore public order. In October 2017 the extremists, who had previously targeted civilians, began attacking police posts and military barracks.

Outside intervention

Mozambique’s government then tried to quell the uprising by hiring Russian mercenaries. The guns for hire suffered heavy casualties and were forced to flee.

President Filipe Nyusi then reluctantly turned to other African countries for assistance. This had been on offer for some months, especially from other members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) as well as the European Union and the US. Nyusi initially insisted that Mozambique did not require outsiders’ boots on the ground: instead, he called for training, weaponry and money. But, come July 2021, Rwandan and southern African troops (from Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa and Tanzania) were finally deployed to Cabo Delgado to fight alongside Mozambican soldiers. At this stage the insurgency was slowly spreading into the neighbouring Niassa province and Tanzania.

Some security observers have suggested that France might be behind Rwanda’s push into Mozambique: The European nation, they argued, was trying to protect a $20 billion gas field investment by French energy giant Total. It is a view shared by author and journalist Joseph Hanlon, who has written extensively about the unfolding of events in Cabo Delgado. However, it’s worth nothing that within two weeks in July 2021, the 1,000-strong Rwandan detachment made more headway than Mozambique’s own army and foreign mercenaries had achieved in four years, wrestling back key infrastructure that had been under rebel control for two years.

What comes next?

President Nyusi will want to leave a positive legacy at the end of his second five-year term in 2024. In the second week of February 2022, he went on a diplomatic offensive around the world, looking for assistance and money for the war; award-winning Mozambican journalist Luis Nhachote is among those documenting this drive.

Meanwhile, the bystanders in this war – the EU – and global energy giants are watching and hoping that their time to reap what they’ve sowed in investment is drawing nearer.

About the author

Charles Mangwiro is a research Fellow at Africa Asia Dialogues (Afrasid) specialising on geopolitics of Mozambique.  He also serves as the  editor of Radio Mozambique in Maputo, Mozambique. 

For many countries in the Middle East, October and November’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) summit in Glasgow revealed a reality at the heart of climate change: they are not chiefly responsible for the problem, but will be badly affected by it.

The evidence suggests that global warming will do the Middle East no favours. For an early example of the phenomenon’s damaging power, it is timely to look no further than Syria. Climate change caused the generational drought that preceded the ongoing civil war there. That drought drove rural farmers into urban centers like Damascus and Aleppo, priming the populace for concentrated, large-scale political unrest. 

As climate change causes rapid temperature increases, food shortages, and economic pain elsewhere, more Middle Eastern countries might tip over into bloodshed. Relatedly, climate change has helped fuel civil war and conflict across the Middle East, including in Syria, Libya and Yemen. 

In Tehran, between 4,000 and 5,000 residents lose their lives per year due to air pollution. According to a report by the World Bank published in April 2019, Tehran is ranked 12th among 26 megacities in terms of ambient PM10 levels. After Cairo, Tehran is the most polluted non-Asian megacity.

Energy sources, mainly water, have also become a reason for direct conflict between Middle Eastern countries. Nearly every country in the Middle East, from Morocco to Iran, shares water resources with a neighbour; some have little freshwater of their own. Therefore, a proxy war between Egypt and Sudan and between Turkey and Syria could become a frequent feature of Middle Eastern politics as water becomes even more scarce.

As an another example, it is at the heart of the siege of Gaza — the River Jordan is one of the biggest problem between Israel and the Palestinians. According to Amnesty International,  one of the most devastating consequences of this water conflict is the impact of Israel’s discriminatory policies on Palestinians’ access to adequate supplies of clean and safe water. As a result of continuous restrictions, many Palestinian communities in the West Bank have no choice but to purchase water brought in by trucks at extremely high prices ranging from 4 to 10 USD per cubic metre. In some of the poorest communities, water expenses can, at times, account for half of a family’s monthly income.

Over the years, water has also brought Iraq, Syria and Turkey to the brink of war over their shared rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris. Water, it is clear, matters as much as land.

There is some hopeful news. last November, Egypt and the UAE were selected as host countries for COP27 and COP28, respectively. The question, of course, is whether these opportunities will help mitigate against the destructive effects of climate change in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, or offer a platform to stabilise its water wars. Of course the events themselves are a cure for the economic hegemony of climate change – they are not the end of the road, but part of the journey. Hosting the events gives the region momentum.

Already, there have been positive signs. After COP26, Qatar rapidly started to focus on its own local energy sources to fight against climate change. The world's largest exporter of liqufied natural gas (LNG) announced its decision to pull out of OPEC, ending nearly 60 years of membership of the international oil producers' cartel. The withdrawal from OPEC did not mean that Qatar was getting out of the oil business altogether; it was simply withdrawing from an organisation that governs oil markets.

According to McKinsey “Global Gas Outlook to 2050”, the world is witnessing a new global energy transformation: LNG, it argues, will not only show resilience but will also be the fastest-growing fossil fuel between 2020 and 2035. Qatar can use its LNG status to adopt technology that offers energy alternatives; given that its geographic location places it at serious risk from climate change, it has no time to lose in transforming its energy sector.

To sum up, it is clear that COPS27 and 28 will be a platform for Arab people, and especially for the youth, who have been vocal on this topic, to be heard. Regionally, it is a time for climate activists to showcase what they have been doing on the ground. Many youths don’t get media coverage internationally. It will be a good oppourtunity for local people to be seen to be responding to pressure to act not only from the west, but from within their own region. People in the Middle East share some of the west’s problems – a lack of water, a collapse of ecosystems. Now, it is time to share the solutions.

About the Author

Elif Selin Calik is a Research Fellow at Africa Asia Dialogues (Afrasid).  She holds a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).  She is a regular contributor to publications like TRT World, Daily Sabah, Rising Powers in Global Governance and Hurriyet Daily News. She was one of the founders of the In-Depth News Department of Anadolu News Agency. 

The late Muammar Gaddafi erred in many policies and positions, but he was very correct in his lack of faith in the Arab League. Despite his discontent with it and its accumulated flaws, and despite his repeated threats over the years to withdraw from it, Gaddafi did not have the courage to withdraw from this crumbling league. He did not find an alternative, in his direction towards the depth of Africa. This is a sign of the difficulty of the trap of belonging to the Arab League and the almost impossibility of escaping from it.

The League was in better regional political condition than it is now and it did not encourage the divorce of the Arab League. Today, given the deterioration and fragmentation of Arab relations, withdrawal seems less difficult to implement and promote.

At the time of Gaddafi, it was possible to reform the Arab League, albeit with difficulty. However, some members, led by Egypt, refused to open the door to talk about any reform because it would have meant reconsidering the General Secretariat and the rest of the leadership positions and how they are assumed. This would have affected the sanctity of Egypt's monopoly on the General Secretariat and its control over the organisation's work mechanisms and positions.

Today, there is neither hope nor an opportunity for reforming the Arab League. It should be dissolved, and its employees and diplomats should be returned to their homes and countries. Algeria's relentless pursuit of hosting the next Arab summit, and its insistence on making it a success, is an unrealistic thought. The so-called Arab ranks no longer exist, and President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's talk about its unification is also far from reality and political realism.

Even if Algeria hosted the summit, its success remains a completely different story – and the terms of its success and failure need to be defined in this context. The fault is not in Algeria's intentions as much as it is also in other objective data, and in the members, their positions and their political mentalities.

The Algeria Summit, if and when it is held, will be the most difficult and dangerous. It may be the lowest ranking in terms of official representation (the quality of attendance has become the only measure of the Summit's success).

Aside from limited exceptional cases, such as the summits that followed major events, such as the "Three No's" summit in Khartoum after the setback of 1967, the Tunis Summit (1979) following the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel and the Fez Summit (1982) following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, it has not witnessed a summit of kings and presidents at the level of gravity of the awaited summit in Algeria this year.

The difference today is that the Khartoum, Tunis and Fez summits, for example, were held against the background of the dangerous events that preceded them and were punctuated by similar feelings and moods that led to similar positions. However, the 2022 Algeria summit is being held amid unprecedented division. It is also held to save face and show off, and not against the backdrop of dangerous unilateral decisions such as the normalisation of the UAE, Morocco, Bahrain and Sudan with Israel (does anyone know what the Arab League's position is on this normalisation?). These decisions are comparable in severity to the Camp David Accords at the time, and are even more than that.

The Arab region today is drowning in quantity and type of crises that cannot be solved. Syria needs a special summit. Libya as well; Yemen, Iraq, Tunisia, Lebanon, the Moroccan-Algerian crisis and the relationship with Iran. This is in addition to the crises of health, education, poverty, hopelessness, and illegal migration, which are concerns far more dangerous than politics and threaten human beings in their existence.

The other danger is that Arab governments and regimes are deeply divided over each of these crises, without exception. There is no similar Arab position (let alone unified) regarding any of these crises, and there will not be. Some crises were created by Arab countries, and they played dangerous sabotaging roles in them, so are we waiting for the wolf to assume the role of the shepherd?

There is a fact that Algerian officials need to consider seriously, which is the absence of any noticeable influence for them in the Arab environment. The centres of influence and their tools in the Arab world have changed and moved to other countries. This happened in the absence of Algeria, either because of the civil war in the 1990s, or when Bouteflika monopolised everything and decided to paralyse the country as soon as he was paralysed by illness.

Influence over the Arabs today is monopolised by certain countries, and Algeria is not one of them. This includes Saudi Arabia due to its economic and spiritual power, the UAE, by virtue of its economic strength and daring to engage in strategic risks, and Egypt is trying to hold on to the remnants of its traditional influence, supported by the Gulf. Then there are other countries like Qatar, Kuwait and Oman.

Algeria does not have the new tools of influence. It does not have the economic power to compete with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Its diplomatic traditions inherited from the Cold War are crippling it, and these traditions themselves discourage it from any diplomatic boldness. All this makes Algeria incapable of imposing its word in a forum such as the Arab Summit.

Algeria should think of finding a suitable excuse to give up hosting an Arab Summit that may not take place, and if it does, it will be nothing more than an occasion to exchange hollow diplomatic words and take pictures for memory. Then each guest will go back to their country at lightning speed. If Algeria cancels the Summit at all, no one will be sad, but rather it will lift the embarrassment from many Arab leaders.

If the Algerian authorities want to restore their place in regional diplomatic work, the Arab League is not the best door to this. Even worse, the Arab Summit is a trap, not a launching pad. Algeria should stop waiting for something from the Arab League. It should pay attention to Africa, and it should also fix its relationship with France, the European Union and other economic and strategic spaces on the five continents.

( This piece was first published by the Middle East Monitor on 03 February 2022)

About the author

Tawfiq Rabahi is an Algerian journalist.