Significantly the EU’s top court acknowledges that the government of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR)  is the internationally recognized authority over Western Sahara and thus controls the agriculture and fishing in the territory under Moroccan occupation.

This is a legal victory for the POLISARIO, the ruling party in the SADR who challenges the European Council that acts on behalf of the 27 EU member-states.

It finds the EU did not secure the consent of the Saharawi people before entering into agreement with Morocco.

Polisario representative to theEU Oubi Bashir hailed “a great victory for the desert cause”.

In early 2018 the European Court of Justice ruled that  a fisheries agreement between the EU and Morocco cannot include the waters of the Western Sahara.

This dealt a multi-million euro blow to the cash-strapped Kingdom that relies largely on  exports are dagga and oranges. 

Normally, Rabat acts petulantly against challenges to its occupation of the Western Sahara.

It quit the then Organisation of African Unity when the continental body accepted the membership of the SADR.

When Spain treated SADR President Brahim Ghali for COVID earlier this year, Morocco withdrew its guards from the two Spanish enclaves on the African continent.

This allowed Moroccans fleeing human rights violations and economic constraints in their home country to pour into Ceuta and Melila seeking a better life in Europe.

The latest European Court decision is certainly a blow to EU-Morocco relations.

In this matter,  the kingdom is forced to  be circumspect in demonstrating its anger.

The EU is far and away the largest trading partner with Morocco and the largest foreign investor in the kingdom.

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Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed says the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be filled with or without an agreement with the riparian countries Sudan and Egypt who view the dam as an existential threat.

They rely on the Nile for more than 90% of the water needs in their largely desert countries.

Ahmed recalls that Ethiopia was left out of negotiations on the use of the Nile waters between Britain, as the colonial power, with Egypt and Sudan.

He maintains that building the dam, which will make Ethiopia a hydro-electrical-generating power, is its sovereign right.

His predecessors warned that they would go war to protect their access to the Nile waters. Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi subsequently ratcheted things down in favour of negotiations.

Recently though, both he and his Sudanese neighbour have resorted to bellicose language.

Egypt would not allow a drop of Nile water to be stolen from it, he said.

Sudan’s Irrigation Minister Yasser Abbas warned “all options are open” in safeguarding his country’s access to the water.

Both the riparian countries and Ethiopia have in turn gone to the United Nations Security Council swapping accusations of negotiating in bad faith.

As African Union Chairman last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa attempted, without success, to mediate an agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD.

Current AU chair, Congolese President Felix Tshisikedi had a bash at mediation earlier this month that also ended in deadlock.

Al Sisi has taken yet another diplomatic initiative, sending his Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on a six-nation African safari, hoping to win support from continental partners.

Shoukry visited the Comoros, South Africa, the DRC, Niger, Senegal and Tunisia.

In South Africa, the minister engaged in some fence mending.

He thanked President Cyril Ramaphosa for his mediation last year.

It is no secret that Egypt was highly suspicious of these efforts, suspecting that Ramaphosa was biased in favour of Ethiopia

Shoukry’s trip will be viewed favorably by African leaders who hold fast to the principle of African solutions to African problems.

However Al Sisi maintains his wish to see the United Nations, the European Union and the United States involved in trying to get Ethiopia to take a more understanding view of Egyptian and Sudanese fears.

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President Cyril Ramaphosa is in an urgent meeting with his Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapsia-Nqakula today following his announcement that he’s sent troops to Mozambique to evacuate South Africans trapped there by ISIS-affiliated jihadis fighting government forces.

At least on South African died in the Islamist attack on the town of Palma in the north of Mozambique earlier this week.

The palm-fringed fishing town was regarded as a safe zone in the violence plagued Cabo Delgado Province  which has one of the largest liquified natural gas projects on the planet.

subhead Total staff withdrawn

The French energy company Total, which has a primary involvement in the development, has withdrawn its staff from Palma.

Ramaphosa spoke about detaching the troops while attending a wreath-laying ceremony for the late Winnie Madikizela Mandela.

He did not specify how many South African soldiers had been sent into Mozambique, nor did he say how many South Africans were still in Cabo Delgado.

The terror campaign which began in 2017 with machete-wielding fighters claiming they had been marginalized in the search for gas riches, has become a sophisticated, foreign-financed operation that has seen more than 1500 local villagers killed and more than half a million displaced.

Seven people, including the South African Adrian New were killed in the latest jihadi attack.

subhead Trapped in hotel

At least 180 people who sought shelter in the Amarula Hotel in Palma are believed to be trapped there.

Forty three South Africans who were missing after the attack have been accounted for.

Hundreds have been taken by boat from Palma to the provincial capital of Pemba .

It is not possible to ascertain the condition of those trapped because the terrorists have cut communication lines to Palma. The last telephone contact there was on Wednesday.

The United States has sent a detachment of special forces to Mozambique to provide anti-insurgency training to government forces.

Portugal has made a similar offer to its former colony as has the European Union.

subhead Multilateral military assistance

Mozambique which has shown itself to be incapable of containing the insurrection initially asked neighboring ,South Africa for military assistance. Ramaphosa declined saying the country’s national defence force it was not able to acting unilaterally in conflict of this magnitude.

His hand has been forced by his nationals, mostly involved in the gas project, becoming imperiled.

There is no indication how long the South African troops will remain in Mozambique

Both the African Union and the regional Southern African Development Community (SADC) have discussed providing multilateral military assistance to Mozambique. However, they do not have the financial means to do this without help from the United Nations or Western powers.

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The hundreds of thousands who have taken to the streets protesting against the military coup in Myanmar.

The railway workers who are ensuring the trains don’t run-on time, the bank employees who are watching the the ATM dispensers run out of cash. The footballers who won’t play for their country while the soldiers try to run it. The engineers whose protests stop the cogs of progress turning.

Many have been out risking death, beatings and lengthy jail terms for opposing the February 1 coup.

But the soldiers’ repression cannot stop them.

There are fears of a massive crackdown.

United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar Tom Andrew says he’s terrified of this happening.

Western members of the UN Security Council warn that the army leaders will be held accountable for any violence or repression.

China has not yet condemned the coup.

The military, who overturned the landslide electoral win by the National League for Democracy led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate  Aung San Suu Kyi last November have not produced evidence to support their allegations of electoral fraud.

They say 40 million of the 53 million Burmese support their action.

The mass demonstration today was designed exactly to fly in the face of this.

The NLD leader appeared in a virtual court hearing today on tripod up charges of importing communications equipment and violating Myanmar’s natural disaster legislation.

She has been detained since the coup.

Her international fortunes have waned since she supported the military by denying that they were responsible for ethnic cleansing against the Muslim Rohingya minority.

This woman, who spent 15 years under house arrest during the nearly six decades that the military have held powerMyanmar in  remains the undisputed leader of the overwhelming mass of Burmese.

Until the military coup is reversed, she deserves international support.Note

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The Ethiopian premier has his Attorney General Gedion Timotios out there telling the international media that his hand has been forced.

“Winning the Nobel Peace Prize doesn’t take away his responsibility as the Commander in Chief,” Timotios tells the BBC’s Hard Talk.

Ahmed is dealing with rebels bent on seizing weapons and taking military control of the north Ethiopia.

“No government anywhere in the world could accept that,” he says.

Pressed on the declaration from Ahmed’s military that there would be no mercy for the people of the Tigray capital Mek’ele, now facing its final onslaught, Timotios attributes this to a Colonel of the line who was actually referring to the leadership of the Tigray Peoples Liberation Forces.

The harsh reality is that there is a raft of frighteningly bellicose statements out there from Ahmed and his forces. 

There is also his admonition to the United Nations, the European Union and the African Union, who have expressed their fear of growing conflict in the Horn of Africa not to interfere.

Evidently Ahmed feels it is his personal responsibility to restore order in Ethiopia.

Anyone seeking peace and stability rather than retribution and revenge would surely appreciate the assistance of the paramount regional and international organisations.

It is not too late.

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Ahmed won the coveted prize last year largely for forging a complex and difficult peace with neighboring Eritrea.

In doing so he greatly assisted stability in the Horn of Africa, one of the most dangerous hotspots on the planet.

He has yet to match domestically what he has achieved regionally.

In that respect he’s like the 1991 peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

She richly deserved the prize awarded for her doughty resistance to the brutal military regime in Myanmar.

Her star has faded of late because of her stubborn refusal to speak out against what is to all intents and purposes a genocide against the Rohingya people – a Muslim minority in a majority Buddhist country.

Ahmed has decided to show his muscle against the minority Tigray people.

Comprising only six percent of Ethiopia 110 million people they dominated business and politics until Ahmed from the majority  Oromo ethnic group took the helm.

The Tigrayan have a special place in Ethiopia’s history.

Legend has it their land bordering Eritrea was the home of the  Queen of Sheba.

A church in Tigray is said to house the Ark of the Covenant.

In 1991, the same year Aung San Suu Kyi won her Nobel Prize the Tigrayan led the fight to topple the cruel Derg regime in Ethiopia.

They have, of late become hugely angry at Ahmed reforms, claiming that they are becoming increasingly marginalized.

They are not the only ethnic group to oppose Ahmed’s reforms.

On November 4, Tigrayan rebels attacked a government military base.

There is no reliable indication of casualties.

Indeed the toll from three weeks of fighting is difficult to ascertain.

It is said to be hundreds, perhaps thousands.

The United Nations says if reports of attacks against civilians are true, it would amount to war crimes.

At least 40 000 Tigrayan have fled into neighboring Sudan to escape the fighting.

The Tigrayan have ratcheted up things with rocket attacks into Eritrea to the north and the Ethiopian province of Amhara to the South.

Ahmed’s assurance that the insurrection would not become a war has proved to be optimistic.

Fearful of a regional conflagration, the United Nations, European Union and African Union have all urgently called for an immediate ceasefire.

Ahmed is having none of it.

He says he will talk to the three AU envoys named to broker a peace.

Indeed he is open to negotiations with anyone except the Tigrayan leadership.

He has surrounded the Tigray capital of Mek’ele and warned residents to save themselves.

His uncompromising call to the Tigray leadership at the weekend was: “You have 72 hours to surrender.” 

He believes that Ethiopia will be pulled apart if he does not completely subdue Tigray. 

Angry and undoubtedly provoked, his bellicose language can be understood.

Nevertheless, it is not the behavior of an internationally acclaimed peacemaker.

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Morocco has has used military action to end a three-week blockade of his arterial road to West Africa by Saharawi’s demanding that the kingdom keep its promise to hold a referendum on the Western Sahara.

The territory has been under internationally-condemned Moroccan occupation since 1975 when General Franco’s fall forced Spain to end its colonial occupation.

Polisario, the Western Sahara liberation movement,  immediately turned their guns on the Moroccans and Mauritanians who sought to replace the Spanish.

Mauritania quickly abandoned such intentions, but the Moroccans, armed by the apartheid regime and other reactionary forces at the time, fought until a UN-negotiated truce in 1991.

More than 9000 people died in the fighting.

Only that part of the Western Sahara behind a sand wall, called a berm, is under Moroccan control.

United Nations peacekeepers monitor that area under Polisario’s control.

This  includes the town of Guergarat where the blockade, stopping 150 trucks daily is being enforced.

Polisario  has warned that any Moroccan military incursion into its territory will end the 1991 truce.

Morocco took almost a month to respond to the blockade.

Fearing a mutiny, Moroccan authorities have not issued their army with bullets.

Only the paramilitary gendarmerie is given live rounds.

The military action from Rabat this week entailed anti-tank rounds entrusted to units believed to be loyal to King Mohammed VI.

Polisario does not share the fears of the international and continental organisations about the escalation of violence.

The liberation movement is under pressure from Saharawi activists to force the kingdom to keep its promise, made as part of the truce agreement, to hold a referendum on self determination for Western Sahara.

A return to fighting will also force the African Union and United Nations to decide who holds ultimate responsibility for enforcing peace and getting a Western Sahara settlement.

The African Union, at the behest of Morocco, which joined it only three years ago after shunning it because to recognizes the government of the Western Sahara, wants the file to be carried by the United Nations where it has the support of France and the United States.

The United Nations has been unable to get any movement on a settlement.

The the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has not found a suitable replacement for former German President Horst Kohler who threw in the towel more than a year ago as his special enjoy to the Western Sahara.

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France’s  Foreign Trade and Economic Attractiveness Minister Franck Riester, reaffirms his country’s commitment to stand by South Africa in these challenging times and to support mutual economic partnerships with South Africa 

A statement from the French Embassy in Pretoria says that as a key partner within the G20 and the United Nations, and also as chair of the African Union, South Africa has been a key partner for France in the fight against the pandemic. 

Riester visit “ sends a strong message of support and solidarity to Africa, following the initiatives taken by President Emmanuel Macron and President Cyril Ramaphosa since the start of the crisis. 

“These initiatives have made it possible, in particular, to set up a collective, coordinated international response under the guidance of the WHO, as well as a new mechanism for research and the pre-purchase of vaccines for vulnerable countries, namely the COVAX initiative supported by France and South Africa. 

“The SANOFI laboratory, with a strong presence in South Africa, has just announced that it will supply 200 million doses through this mechanism, once a vaccine has been found,” concludes the statement. 

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Kagame denies claims that Rwandan troops have been deployed to its neighboring state.

Rwanda and Burundi fell out five years ago over an attempted coup on President Pierre Nkurunziza and have been at loggerheads ever since.

Local and foreign NGOs in the eastern DRC say Burundian and Rwandese troops are fighting alongside rival militia.

Thousands have been displaced in renewed violence this month.

President Paul Kagame insists there’s not a single Rwandan soldier in eastern DRC.

Burundi’s spokesman Jean-Claude Karerwa  says his country does not deploy troops in Africa except at the request of the African Union or the United Nations.

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They say they’re echoing the call by United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

The ceasefire call comes from French Foreign Minister Yves le Drian and his counterparts from Germany  Heiko Maas and Italy Luigi Di Mayo.

EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell has endorsed the call which was spurred by the refusal of Tripoli’s  Government of National Accord led by Fayez Al Sarraj to accept an EU blockade of Libya to enforce the United Nations arms embargo.

The government, which is backed by the UN, says the naval action has failed to stop weapons getting through to rebels led by Khalifa Haftar who are bent on occupying the capital. 

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