Yesterday was a day to reflect on what has happened in the 40 years since the Swissair flight from Zurich dropped me in South Africa. The airport was called Jan Smuts Airport. It is now called Oliver R. Tambo International Airport.

      I found myself finally in Africa. I had dreamed of coming here since I was a university student with a dear college friend from Zimbabwe named Mutizwa Chirunga. I saw no jungles or wild animals. Johannesburg is a lot like Denver. It is 6000 feet above sea level. Even 40 years ago it was amazingly modern. I had no hotel reservations. I sighted a shuttle with a familiar name-Holiday Inn. I got on and was taken to the hotel that still exists to this day. I checked in and rested. That night I went down to the hotel dining room. Ironically it was called "The Confederate Room." I met two incredible British people named Graham and Sue Harris. We became fast friends.

        Early 1981 was a heddy time for South Africa economically. Gold went to $800 US per ounce. One South African Rand equaled $1.00 US. (As of this morning you would need 14.25 South African Rand to buy a dollar.) It was also a sad time when Apartheid was still in place. Africans and Indians were hit with terrible discrimination. Chinese, on the other hand, were called "Honorary Whites" and treated decently.

        After five days in the hotel, I rented a room in the home of a wealthy woman architect in the upscale suburb of Northcliff. Her name is Barbara Broadhurst. We stayed friends for many years afterwards.

        I worked at an insurance brokerage named Price Forbes Federale Volkas. I had an Audi company car with all expenses paid. I lived the life of white privilege with servants in the house, etc.

        I soon learned that all was not well in this seeming "paradise." South Africa was engaged in its own Vietnam war in Angola and Southwest Africa (later Namibia) The six o'clock news often contained reports of young men killed "on the border."

       Fear and unease permeated the air. South Africans believed a scenario about the Soviets taking over South Africa. In their minds, a large fleet of Russian Navy ships would appear off the coast of South Africa. The Soviet equivalent of the US Marine Corps would storm ashore. Russian aircraft armed with nuclear warheads would circle overhead. An ultimatum would be given: "Surrender or face nuclear annihilation."

      The US and Europe would view these events as deeply disturbing. They would not come to South Africa's defense because they would not see it worth starting World War III. All would be lost.

        I soon found a life with a different party every night. It was,as the old saying goes: "Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we may die!" If a man met a woman and did not try to take her to bed on the first date, his sexual orientation was questioned. Under the puritanical laws and attitudes was a wild sexuality. Everyone, South Africans know how to party and have fun!!!

        Let us fast forward 40 years. South Africa survived the difficult transition to black majority rule. It has some economic and political problems. The crime rate is high. It is surviving and viable. My old employer is still going strong. It is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange as Price Forbes (Pty) Limited. My company Waltradecc is still active in South Africa. All the old buildings that I knew well are still around. My beloved Indian restaurant The Curry Tavern is long gone. Anna you and I still have an investment presence in South Africa. It is good to have a story with a somewhat happy ending.

Mocambique-Domino Theory

 

MOZAMBIQUE

Domino Theory

People used stones and bedsheets to write “Help” and “SOS” on the ground in a desperate attempt to gain the attention of an aircraft flying over Palma during an Islamic State attack on the city.

As government forces fled after the surprise attack in late March on the northern Mozambique town, the Dyck Advisory Group, a private military contractor, was trying to evacuate folks in helicopters, Sky News reported. “We won’t survive another night,” South African construction contractor Wesley Nel told CBS News. “If they get in… we’ll be slaughtered.”

The Mozambican military has since regained control of the city of around 70,000, the BBC wrote. But the consequences of the violence are still being felt.

Dozens were killed in the attack. Wesley’s brother, Adrian, was among them, killed during an ambush as he attempted to flee the city in a vehicle convoy along with thousands.

Palma is near French company Total’s oil and gas facilities. The boldness, speed and ferocity of the attack took many by surprise. But Islamic State-affiliated militants calling themselves Ansar al-Sunna also known as al-Shabab (the Youth) have been operating in the region since 2017. Many fear the attack was an opening salvo in a larger campaign to gain control of the former Portuguese colony.

That campaign has claimed at least 2,700 and displaced as many as 600,000 people, the Washington Times wrote. Hunger and famine are growing worse. Impoverished Mozambique was already suffering from a humanitarian crisis stemming from a devastating cyclone in 2019, added Al Jazeera.

The government of President Filipe Nyusi in the capital of Maputo has long resisted foreign help with the crisis. His reluctance could stem from how the militants are less jihadists and more aggrieved citizens who, as Amnesty International says, live in a region that has suffered “decades of under-investment, government negligence, and crushing poverty.”

Some locals welcome the armed groups, feeling fury over the situation: The northern coastal region, with more than 2.3 million people, has enormous natural wealth, including oil and gas reserves, ruby deposits and other gems and minerals. Meanwhile, residents, most of them Muslim, live in one of the poorest districts in the country, which has a per capita income of $503 a year. The region is marked by high illiteracy and unemployment rates.

“This wealth has only benefited a few corrupt politicians and angered residents who are mostly young,” David Salimo, a retired Mozambican soldier who fled to the refugee camp after militants invaded his village, told the Washington Times. “These youth have organized militarily to challenge and control this natural wealth…And they have the support of the local population who are poor and feel marginalized.”

He was referring to people like Claudio Holande, who fled his home when militants attacked his village, looted and burned homes and crops. “It’s not fair at all. We have lived in poverty for a long time and yet we have a lot of natural resources,” said Holande, 45. “This wealth needs to benefit our people, not corrupt and selfish government officials.”

Meanwhile, outside governments are stepping up, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. The Pentagon has dispatched military advisors, and Portugal is also sending military help, while encouraging the EU to intervene. Human Rights Watch called on the Southern African Development Community and the African Union to take a stronger role in preventing the militants from growing in strength in Mozambique.

Twenty years ago, Americans and others shuddered at the thought of Islamic terrorists gaining strongholds around the world to spread their hate. In truth, little has changed – especially for those caught in the middle – between militants, mercenaries and government soldiers.

People like Teresa Joaquim, 35, who these days sits outside of her tent at Metuge refugee camp in northern Mozambique and waits for something to change.

When the militants came to her village, they killed her husband and kidnapped her 16-year-old son. She and her 15-year-old daughter were raped and tortured. “I will never forget what they did to us,” she told the Washington Times. “They killed every old man they saw, kidnapped the young men and mercilessly raped the women.”

Afterward, she and her remaining four children walked for seven days to reach the camp, where they struggle with shortages of food and clean water. The children don’t go to school.

Joaquim now wonders what comes next but she, like many of the other refugees here, is very clear about one thing: She doesn’t care about grievances over mineral rights or who is right and who is wrong. “We want peace in our region so that we can go back home,” she said. “The government should find ways to end the attacks so that we are able to live without fear.”

Egypt- $1 Billion US For Blocking The Suez Canal

 

EGYPT

Pay Up

Although the giant ship that blocked the Suez Canal was released by tugboats recently, Egyptian authorities are refusing to allow it to continue on its course until its owners pay almost a billion dollars in compensation for disrupting maritime trade traffic, NBC News reported.

Last month, the Ever Given vessel ran aground in the man-made canal effectively disrupting one of the world’s most important trade routes and holding up about $9 billion in global trade each day.

Salvage operations took one week to free the ship. Even so, Egyptian authorities have been holding the ship until investigators finish their inquiry into the incident. Now they are demanding compensation.

The chairman of the Suez Canal Authority, Osama Rabie, said that the canal suffered shipping fee losses, salvage operation costs and “great moral damage.”

A spokesman for the ship’s Japanese owner, Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., said the company has been informed of the demand and the parties remain in negotiations.

The compensation includes a $300 million claim for “loss of reputation.”

Cape Verde: When Giants Come Calling

 

CAPE VERDE

When the Giants Come Calling

To Venezuela, Alex Saab is a diplomat. To the US, he is a fraudster with close ties to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. To Cape Verde, he’s a legal dilemma.

That diverse viewpoint was highlighted recently when the West African island nation’s Supreme Court ruled that local authorities could extradite Saab to the US, Reuters reported.

American prosecutors have charged Saab with helping Maduro arrange business deals to launder $350 million in violation of the sanctions that the US has imposed on the socialist South American country.

His alleged crimes are connected to a scheme designed to bilk cash from an international food program intended to help Venezuelans who have faced hunger due to Maduro’s mismanagement of the country’s oil-rich economy, explained the Associated Press. He has also helped arrange transactions of Venezuelan gold for Iranian gasoline, Bloomberg added.

Cape Verdean officials detained Saab in June when he made a stopover in the former Portuguese colony. Former President Donald Trump dispatched a US Navy warship to make sure he didn’t escape the country, wrote Al Jazeera.

His arrest could be illegal, however, according to the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States, because Interpol issued a so-called “red notice” for his arrest after he was detained, Agence France-Presse noted.

Saab’s lawyers have vowed to appeal the extradition to Cape Verde’s Constitutional Court. They have also related instructions from Venezuelan leaders that Saab should not discuss any confidential or sensitive information with American officials if he is taken into their custody.

Cape Verde is a stable democracy in Africa – it’s about 400 miles west of the Senegalese coast. Its proximity to Europe and Africa helped it benefit from the slave trade in centuries past. It has few natural resources, however, the Conversation wrote, importing much of its food. The coronavirus pandemic has seriously hurt its most important industry, tourism, according to Deutsche Welle.

Until recent years, it was also largely left alone.

But rivalries between the US, Europe and China have put Cape Verde in the center of a complicated geopolitical web. China is using Cape Verde as a waystation in its globe-spanning Belt and Road Initiative trade network. The US considers the country an important strategic partner.

As the Saab situation demonstrates, however, relevance entails responsibility. “Rather than leaning East or West, therefore, strategically positioning Cape Verde as a pivot between regions will be essential in maintaining competitiveness,” Foreign Policy magazine argued.

That’s a nice problem to have, actually.

Niger: Holding A Breath

 

NIGER

Holding a Breath

Nigerien forces foiled an attempted coup Wednesday, just days ahead of the country’s first democratic handover of power, Reuters reported.

Officials said that attackers from a nearby airbase had attempted to seize control of the presidential palace but later retreated after facing heavy gunfire and shelling from the presidential guard.

Dozens were arrested.

The attempted coup comes two days before President-elect Mohamed Bazoum, the ruling party’s candidate, will be sworn in following an election victory disputed by his opponent, Mahamane Ousmane.

Niger has been plagued by jihadist attacks as well as protests following Bazoum’s victory in a February presidential election runoff. Ousmane, a former president, has rejected the results and made accusations of fraud.

Bazoum’s election is the first democratic transition of power in a country that has seen four military coups since independence from France in 1960, including one which toppled Ousmane in 1996.