Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.
The highlights this week: Nigeria starts refining oil at home, China speaks on Ethiopia-Somaliland pact, and McDonald’s faces boycotts across Africa.
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Namibia Backs South Africa’s ICJ Case
Namibia has issued a statement in support of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), including a scathing criticism of Germany’s decision to intervene in defense of Israel.
Namibian President Hage Geingob said on Saturday that Germany could not “morally express commitment to the United Nations Convention against genocide, including atonement for the genocide in Namibia, whilst supporting the equivalent of a holocaust and genocide in Gaza.” Berlin has not responded yet.
The German government said on Jan. 12 that the accusation of genocide against Israel had “no basis” and amounted to a “political instrumentalization” of the convention. “In view of Germany’s history and the crime against humanity of the [Holocaust], the Federal Government sees itself as particularly committed to the Convention against Genocide,” it said.
The Namibian presidency said in response that “no peace-loving human being can ignore the carnage waged against Palestinians in Gaza” and slammed Germany’s “inability to draw lessons from its horrific history.”
About 80 percent of the Herero population and 50 percent of the Nama population in German South West Africa, now Namibia, were killed between 1904 and 1908 after German soldiers drove them into the desert and sealed off watering holes to stop survivors from returning. The majority died in concentration camps that were a precursor to the methods used in the Holocaust.
In what historians describe as the first genocide of the 20th century, Namibians resisting colonization were placed in concentration camps and a death camp known as Shark Island—a prototype for Auschwitz—in which Indigenous people and children born from the rape of imprisoned women by German soldiers were gruesomely experimented on to prove racial inferiority. About 65,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama were massacred. The severed heads of Namibian prisoners were sent back to Germany for research, and native Africans were put on display in human zoos. Hermann Wilhelm Göring, the son of the colony’s governor, Heinrich Göring, became one of Adolf Hitler’s most notorious military leaders.
Beyond Africa, Bangladesh—another nation born amid genocidal violence—said in a statement released Sunday that it would intervene as a third party in defense of South Africa’s case. It is the only nation so far to announce it will do so. Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it “stands in support of South Africa’s application” against Israel’s “blatant disregard for and violation of international law” and “welcomes the opportunity to file a declaration of intervention in the proceedings in due course.”
The fact that South Africa has brought the case—and that the United States has reflexively opposed it—has further diminished U.S. credibility among Africans and shattered the notion that Washington stands for a rules-based order. Many nations in the so-called global south perceive blatant hypocrisy in Europe and the United States’ condemnation of an illegal occupation in Ukraine while continuing to staunchly back Israel despite the rising death toll in Gaza and settler violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “When you are on the wrong side of the U.N. secretary-general … you are dismantling your house with the very tools that built it,” wrote Nesrine Malik in the Guardian.
South Africa has asked the ICJ to take provisional emergency measures to immediately suspend Israel’s military operations in Gaza and “take all reasonable measures” to prevent genocide. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has remained defiant. “No one will stop us, not The Hague, not the [Iranian-led] axis of evil and not anyone else,” he said Saturday.
South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) party has long viewed the Palestinian cause through the lens of its own anti-apartheid struggle and has for years described Israel’s policies in the occupied Palestinian territories as a form of apartheid. The ANC also has historical reasons to resent the Israeli government and military. Israel secretly supplied weapons to South Africa’s apartheid regime, despite a U.N. arms embargo; leading Israeli generals advised South Africa’s military; and the two countries cooperated on highly sensitive nuclear and missile programs.
After his release from prison, Nelson Mandela forged a relationship with Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization, which had supported the ANC’s fight against apartheid while Israel was bolstering the white minority regime. Even if Pretoria does not win at the ICJ, South Africans largely appear to support their government’s case against Israel, as do the leaders of many nations in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.
Pretoria presented its case last Thursday under the 1948 Genocide Convention. Pretoria “unequivocally” condemned the atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 but argued no attack justifies the scale of Israel’s offensive in Gaza inflicting on Palestinians “conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction” as a group.
Pretoria argued Israel’s assault on Gaza had a “genocidal intent” and presented 20 minutes’ worth of statements made by top Israeli officials, including Netanyahu’s comparison of Palestinians to the biblical story of the Amalek nation, which God ordered the Israelites to destroy. The court heard that a deputy speaker of Israel’s parliament called “for the erasure of the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.”
In its occupation, “Israel for years has regarded itself as beyond and above the law,” one of South Africa’s lawyers, Max Du Plessis, told the court.
Israel, in its response, asked the court to dismiss the case, insisting that it is acting within its right to defend itself against Hamas after the group and its allies killed 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostage. “The appalling suffering of civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian, is first and foremost the result of Hamas’s strategy,” said Israeli legal advisor Tal Becker.
Israel’s lawyers rejected the suggestion that the comments made by Netanyahu and other senior officials proved that Israel had genocidal intent and said the statements did not reflect official government policy. “Some of the comments to which South Africa refers are clearly rhetorical, made in the immediate aftermath of an event which severely traumatized Israel,” said Malcolm Shaw, a member of Israel’s legal team. In order for South Africa to win the case, it has to prove direct and public incitement to commit genocide. Pretoria’s lawyers argued that incitement filtered down from government officials to Israeli soldiers.
The war has, in just over three months, killed 1 percent of Gaza’s population—nearly 24,000 people, including more than 10,000 children. A further 7,000 are reportedly still under rubble, and around 1.9 million people—more than 80 percent of Gaza’s population—have been displaced, according to the United Nations.
Human Rights Watch said it had documented the crime of starvation being used as a weapon of war in Gaza through Israel’s blockade of the strip. In its annual global report, the nongovernmental organization highlighted the “double standards” of governments silent on “Israeli violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza.”
The ICJ is likely to announce an interim measure in the coming days, but a final verdict could take years.
Wednesday, Jan. 17: Former Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma goes to court on charges of treason in connection with a failed coup in November 2023.
Morocco, Africa’s top-ranked team, takes on Tanzania in the Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament in Ivory Coast.
Thursday, Jan. 18: The East African trade bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) meets in Uganda to discuss the war in Sudan as well as tensions between Ethiopia and Somalia.
AFCON favorites Egypt play against Ghana.
Friday, Jan. 19: AFCON defending champions Senegal take on Cameroon.
Wednesday, Jan. 24: UNESCO World Day for African and Afrodescendant Culture.
China wades into Ethiopia-Somalia spat. Beijing, one of Ethiopia’s closest global allies, issued a statement on the ongoing row between Addis Ababa and Mogadishu. “China supports the federal government of Somalia in safeguarding national unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Thursday, adding, “Somaliland is part of Somalia.”
Somaliland signed a provisional deal leasing naval and Red Sea port access to Ethiopia for 50 years in exchange for Addis Ababa recognizing Somaliland’s sovereignty. The Somali government recalled its ambassador to Ethiopia and lambasted the deal as a “hostile move” and a breach of Somalia’s “territorial integrity.” Somalia’s president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, last week visited his Eritrean counterpart, Isaias Afwerki, amid furor over the deal. Eritrea views Ethiopia’s quest for port access as a potential threat to its own territorial integrity given Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s recent antagonistic posturing. (Ethiopia became landlocked in 1993, when Eritrea gained independence.) The East African bloc IGAD is set to discuss the feud between Ethiopia and Somalia on Thursday.
Nigeria begins refining oil. Africa’s biggest oil refinery has begun production in Nigeria. The Dangote Petroleum Refinery is the country’s first privately owned oil refinery, inaugurated last May with the aim of ending the country’s recurring fuel shortages. Nigeria is one of Africa’s largest crude oil producers but has long imported processed petroleum for domestic use because it lacks adequate working refineries; Nigeria spent $23.3 billion in 2022 on importing fuel. The plant is Nigeria’s single largest investment at a cost of $19 billion—some of it from the plant’s wealthy namesake—with a capacity to produce 650,000 barrels per day.
Comoros elections. Comoros held a presidential election on Sunday, in which five candidates stood against 65-year-old incumbent President Azali Assoumani. Some opposition leaders on the island nation accused the election commission of “fraud” and “ballot box stuffing” in several localities, after opposition election observers were prevented from accessing some polling stations. Assoumani took office in a coup in 1999 and was first elected president in 2002. He changed the constitution in 2018 to stay in power and abolish the country’s one-term rotational system between its three main islands. The constitutional change led to widespread protests that have since been banned. Full results are expected to be published later this week. If no presidential candidate wins outright, a second round of voting is set for Feb. 25.
McDonald’s operates in just four African countries—Egypt, Morocco, South Africa, and Tunisia—which are experiencing boycott campaigns in response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza. Many people in those countries are boycotting American chains, including Starbucks and KFC, over the war in Gaza.
McDonald’s chief executive Chris Kempczinski said markets in both the Middle East and outside the region had suffered a “meaningful business impact” due to “associated misinformation” surrounding the Israel-Hamas war. Writing in a letter published on LinkedIn on Jan. 4, Kempczinski said, “In every country where we operate, including in Muslim countries, McDonald’s is proudly represented by local owner operators.”
In October 2023, McDonald’s Israel donated thousands of meals to the country’s troops fighting in Gaza, leading to a public feud with consumers in the four countries. Following growing calls for a boycott of the chain, McDonald’s South Africa attempted to distance itself from the Palestine conflict by stating it was a separate entity from the franchise in Israel, as did franchises elsewhere.
Aid before diplomacy in Sudan. In Foreign Policy, Suha Musa argues that international mediators need to prioritize humanitarian aid over failing negotiations between warring generals in a conflict in which 7.3 million people have been displaced and up to 80 percent of hospitals in affected states are nonfunctional. “As measles, cholera, and dengue fever spread, it becomes increasingly obvious that if guns and bombs don’t kill Sudanese citizens, the failure of the health system and lack of medical supplies will,” she wrote.
Liberia’s war crimes investigation. Joseph Boakai, a 79-year-old former vice president under Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is set to replace George Weah on Jan. 22 as Liberia’s new president. In Al Jazeera, Liberian lawyer Dounard Bondo and writer Leshan Kroma argue that Boakai’s first term could be Liberia’s last chance for war crimes accountability 20 years after two devastating episodes of civil war.
Only a small number of warlords have been put on trial in foreign courts that relied on poorly recorded eyewitness testimonies. “If Boakai does not institute a war crimes tribunal now, and ensure that testimony from all living witnesses is securely recorded, Liberia may never get a chance to meaningfully prosecute war crimes,” the authors write.
Source link : https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/17/israel-gaza-icj-genocide-south-africa-namibia-bangladesh-global-south/
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Publish date : 2024-01-17 08:00:00
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