Dakar to Riyadh: Links for 4/19/2024

Sahel and Nigeria

Climate change batters the region, particularly Mali and Burkina Faso.

Niger leans more on oil (Fr):

Le pays, qui accumule près de 500 millions de dollars d’arriérés de paiement selon le dernier rapport Moody’s, a perdu la confiance des banques et des bailleurs internationaux : en l’espace de quelques mois, sa note a été dégradée de Caa2 à Caa3.

Face à cette situation, la junte s’appuie sur la rente pétrolière pour boucler ses frais depuis le coup d’État. « C’est avec l’argent engrangé par la Société nigérienne des produits pétroliers (Sonidep) que la junte paie les salaires des militaires et de quelques fonctionnaires. C’est la seule source d’argent stable et récurrente pour le régime », confie à Jeune Afrique un opérateur local.

Authoritarianism (Fr) grows in Mali as the junta bans political parties and certain civic associations, and tightens controls on the media.

The Washington Post: “A senior U.S. Air Force leader deployed in Niger is raising an alarm over the Biden administration’s reluctance to heed an eviction notice from the military junta that last year overthrew the West African nation’s democratically elected government.” Well, at least the US still has an ally in Chad…oh, wait.

In Nigeria, the Chibok kidnapping was ten years ago. Read President Bola Tinubu’s (eloquent but to my mind unconvincing) argument that his administration is alleviating poverty, stabilizing the economy, and in that way laying the groundwork to restore security and curtail kidnappings.

North Africa

United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya Abdoulaye Bathily offered his resignation this week. He complained that “we have seen in recent months the development of parallel initiatives which have the objective, even if it is not declared, to disrupt the UN-led process…Unfortunately, those parallel tracks tend to divert of course, and sometimes they are taken outside the UN process, the UN is not even informed about these decisions and they run against what we have initiated and therefore it gives ample room to the Libyan leaders who are interested in keeping the status quo to continue to maneuver and to deploy their delaying tactics."

AP: “Italy’s Leader Keeps the Focus on Migration on Her Fourth Visit to Tunisia in a Year.”

Greater Horn of Africa

The newly released Spring 2024 issue of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) covers Sudan. From Raduan Ali’s “Dispatch from Nyala”:

The RSF controlled most of the city well before the fall of the SAF garrison. To date, however, it has not established government units capable of maintaining order, civil protection or even collecting taxes. In the first week of the war, Hemedti’s forces looted the state ministries, removing everything from desks to chairs to computers, which stripped the RSF of the capacity to tax Nyala’s market. The RSF, instead, finances its operations by sheep-stealing, checkpoint extortion and illicit trade. Rather than managing a treasury, its gold and other businesses are controlled by Hemedti’s family. Its looters convert stolen goods into cash in the markets of Darfur and the countries bordering it.

A forthcoming book takes a critical look at Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Mashriq

Reuters: “Explosions echoed over an Iranian city on Friday in what sources described as an Israeli attack, but Tehran played down the incident and indicated it had no plans for retaliation - a response that appeared gauged towards averting region-wide war.”

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen: “Oman Serves as a Crucial Back Channel between Iran and the US as Tensions Flare in the Middle East.”

Curtis Ryan: “The Impact of the Gaza War on Jordan’s Domestic and International Politics.”

Ahmad al-Jallad and Hythem Sidky: “A Paleo-Arabic Inscription of a Companion of Muhammad?”