Moroco Banks Are Aggressively Investing In Africa

https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/why-banks-morocco-are-spreading-wealth-around-africa

Mocambique: Something Fishy

MOZAMBIQUE Something Fishy The former finance minister of Mozambique’s extradition to the US was postponed and he was transferred to solitary confinement, following his indictment along with at least 17 others in connection with an alleged scam involving $2 billion in fraudulent loans to state-owned companies. South Africa’s Kempton Park Magistrates Court on Wednesday rejected former Mozambique Finance Minister Manuel Chang’s lawyers’ claims that his arrest was unlawful, South Africa-based Eyewitness News reported. But the authorities moved him into solitary confinement following arguments that he was denied a bed and forced to pay protection money in the Modderbee prison – where he had shared a cell with 20 other inmates. Mozambique announced the indictments Monday following the charging of three ex-Credit Suisse bankers in the US over their role in the scheme – in which the southern African country borrowed money from international investors to fund projects that included a state tuna fishery, Al Jazeera reported. Chang, 63, was arrested in South Africa at the end of December. In Mozambique, he and the other defendants were charged with “abuse of power, abuse of trust, swindling and money laundering,” the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) said in a statement.

Gabon: Business As Usual

GABON

Business as Usual

Gabon is returning to business as usual after government forces thwarted an attempted military coup – killing two of the plotters, arresting five army officers, and freeing some hostages taken when they assumed control over a state-run radio station.

On Monday, Lt. Kelly Ondo Obiang, commander of the Republican Guard, read out a statement saying the military had seized control of Gabon’s government in order to “restore democracy,” the Associated Press reported. A government spokesman said he was among the army officers taken into custody.

The failed coup means President Ali Bongo’s government remains in control of the oil-rich country, which has been ruled by more than half a century by Bongo and his father, Omar, who died in 2009. Critics say the family has enriched themselves at the expense of the people, a third of whom live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.

Bongo, who narrowly won re-election in a 2016 vote that the main opposition candidate said was plagued by irregularities, has been out of the country since October amid reports that he had a stroke.

Sudan: Spring time Again

SUDAN

Springtime Again

The Arab Spring appears to have come belatedly to Sudan.

Protests flared in the Northeast African country recently amid a dire economic crisis that many believe could topple President Omar al-Bashir, an alleged war criminal wanted on international charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and other acts he stands accused of committing in Darfur during a civil war in the early 2000s.

“What started in December as a provincial demonstration against rising food prices has morphed into a campaign by opposition activists for Mr. Bashir to go,” wrote the Financial Times in an editorial.

The authorities arrested several faculty members from Khartoum University on Sunday as fresh protests hit the capital and other cities in a response to a call from professional unions for al-Bashir to step down, Al Jazeera reported. Interior Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman told parliament on Monday that a total of 816 protesters have been arrested since the demonstrations began last month, Al Jazeera said separately.

Al-Bashir has been in office since 1989, when a bloodless coup swept him into power along with the Sudanese branch of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood. “The Arabization and Islamization of Sudan, at all costs,” was their goal, explained Yassmin Abdel-Magied, a Sudanese-Australian writer, in the Independent.

The president has since broken with his militant comrades. Now he’s most interested in holding onto power and avoiding international justice.

Take, for example, a speech he delivered to police officers amid clashes that have resulted in the deaths of scores of protesters.

“It is the duty of the state to maintain security without abuse, and to implement internal security principles using the least possible force,” said al-Bashir, according to a broadcast of the speech carried on the Sudanese government’s news agency, according to CNN. “The purpose is not to kill the people but the ultimate goal is to maintain the security and stability for the citizens.”

The Turkish news agency Anadolu captured more of the speech on video. “But sometimes – as we said and as God himself said – you have, in the exacting of penance, life,” al-Bashir said. “What is exacting penance? It is killing, it is execution, but God described it as life because it is a deterrence to others so we can maintain security.”

Killing equals life. That’s dictators’ logic laid bare.

Al-Bashir has promised to raise civil servants’ wages, reported Al Jazeera. He has called on unidentified countries for funds to stimulate the economy, Bloomberg added. Saudi Arabia undertook the same moves to avoid serious uprisings during the Arab Spring.

Sudanese opposition groups were undaunted. They called for more demonstrations.

“The regime, in its present composition and given its political, economic, regional and international isolation, cannot pull through this crisis,” an alliance of opposition parties said in a statement cited by the Associated Press.

The Arab Spring gave voice to the people’s concerns. It also unleashed terrible, violent forces. The Sudanese are trying to decide which road to take.

WANT TO KNOW

The Congo-Fraught Elections

CONGO

Fraught Elections

With the first results set to come out this week, US President Donald Trump has deployed 80 soldiers and “appropriate combat equipment” to Central Africa amid fears that Congo’s long-delayed election may erupt into violence.

The troops are being sent to Gabon, from where they will be ready to protect US citizens and diplomatic facilities in neighboring Congo if violence breaks out, NBC News reported.

Since voting began on Dec. 30, there have been reports of irregularities from election observers and the opposition.

President Joseph Kabila has held office since 2001, when his father, Laurent Kabila, was assassinated. He was subsequently elected in 2006 in the country’s first free and fair elections. The ongoing polls should mark the country’s first peaceful democratic transfer of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960.

Kabila’s term expired in 2016, though he remained in office by dint of repeated election delays, and term limits prevent him from running again. His handpicked successor, Emmanuel Shadary, remains under European Union sanctions for serious human rights violations.

Somalia: No Longer Welcome

SOMALIA

No Longer Welcome

Somalia has ordered United Nations envoy Nicholas Haysom to leave the country after he raised questions about the arrest of a former al-Shabab leader who had run for a regional presidency.

A foreign ministry statement late Tuesday declared Haysom “persona non grata” and accused him of diplomatic overreach after he questioned the legal basis for the arrest last month of Mukhtar Robow, a former al-Shabab spokesman who defected from the group in 2017, the Associated Press reported.

Haysom also asked whether UN troops had been involved in his detention. Ethiopian soldiers from the African Union force in Somalia and local police made the arrest a few days before the regional election – in which Robow was one of the leading candidates.

The arrest sparked deadly protests, as Robow was spirited away to a Mogadishu prison run by the country’s intelligence service.

The incident is a test case for how Somalia will deal with defectors from al-Shabab, Africa’s most active extremist group, the agency said.

South Africa: The Fugitives And The Reformer

SOUTH AFRICA

The Fugitives and the Reformer

The Guptas own coal and uranium mines, steel mills and other enterprises that made them one of the richest families in South Africa.

Today, after allegedly fomenting corruption in the administration of ex-President Jacob Zuma, they live in self-imposed exile in Dubai.

Zuma left office in 2018, but the Guptas’ influence has tainted the African National Congress, the political party that Nelson Mandela led in the fight against apartheid, the New York Times reported.

The country he left behind faces enormous challenges, along with a legacy of politically motivated violence that the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town lamented in his Christmas Eve sermon.

“We welcome the changes in government” since Zuma resigned, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba said, according to SABC News, a South African news outlet. “But how far will good, clean government take us when people are being killed on picket lines, stabbed in our schools, beaten up in service delivery protests and assassinated in disputes over who will hold public office?”

Slow economic growth is dogging South Africa. More than a quarter of the population is unemployed. Starbucks recently announced it was scrapping plans to expand in the country, citing high costs and lack of disposable income, wrote Agence France-Presse.

If Starbucks doesn’t want to open next to the outstanding Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town, the country has a problem.

Zuma’s successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, has been clearing Zuma allies out of government and state-owned businesses and launched a campaign to attract $100 billion in foreign investments in an effort to restore confidence.

“South Africa swims in a sea of darkness right now,” argued Branko Brkic, editor of the Daily Maverick, a South African online news magazine. “For the sake of the country’s survival, it’s crucial that there is at least one person who can see the light. For the first time in many years, that person happens to be the country’s president.”

But Brkic noted that Ramaphosa needs the support of African National Congress officials in rural areas if he wants to win what is sure to be a tough election in May 2019. Those leaders are often less than aboveboard and will expect to gain from aiding the president.

Without Zuma on the ticket, however, noted Bloomberg, Ramaphosa’s rivals have less to complain about, especially if the new president continues to don the mantle of a reformer.

Critics have accused Ramaphosa of graft, too, though for now he appears to have avoided an inquiry because a formal complaint has yet to be filed, reported South Africa’s City Press.

South Africa’s journey from segregation to democracy inspired the world. The hopes of people around the world now ride on Ramaphosa’s shoulders.