Inaccurate Assumptions About Algeria

Algerian President Bouteflika’s surprise about-face in going back on his previous decision to run for a fifth consecutive term in office has been the talk of Africa the entire week, with this announcement taking many off guard but nonetheless largely being met with universal applause as the most responsible recourse to avoid an outbreak of violence in this strategically positioned North African state. The country had been experiencing an unprecedented wave of peaceful protests in reaction to his originally declared candidacy fed by the majority-youthful population’s indignation at high unemployment and a stagnant economy, to say nothing of how insulted they felt that an elderly leader who is speculated to be physically and perhaps even mentally incapacitated after suffering a 2013 stroke would be put forth once more as the face of the nation by what are thought to be his powerful military-intelligence “deep state” handlers.

A lot has already been written about what might come next in Algeria, but most observers are either analyzing events in a vacuum or are making predictable comparisons to the 2011 “Arab Spring” theater-wide Color Revolutions, neither of which are entirely accurate because they both miss the fact that Algeria represents the eighth non-electoral regime change in Africa in as many years and is therefore just the latest manifestation of a larger trend that has hitherto not yet been brought to the public’s attention. It’s true that there are shades of the “Arab Spring” in what’s presently taking place in Algeria, but simply stopping there doesn’t do the country justice because it misleadingly implies that foreign powers had a predominant hand in guiding the course of events there. It also overlooks everything else of regime change relevance that took place in the continent over the past eight years and therefore inaccurately assumes that this is a one-off event unrelated to anything prior.

Rolling Regime Changes

For simplicity’s sake, here’s a breakdown of the most pertinent events apart from the Algerian one that was just described, including the two non-electoral regime change attempts that failed, two electoral ones that deserve mention for reasons that will be explained below, and a short international intervention in support of a mostly forgotten regime change operation:

* 2011-2012 “Arab Spring” Events In Tunisia, Egypt, And Libya:

The whole world is aware of what happened during that time so there isn’t much need to rehash it other than to point out the author’s interpretation of those events as an externally provoked theater-wide regime change campaign that was originally intended to replace long-serving secular governments with Turkish-aligned Muslim Brotherhood ones prior to the inevitable leadership transition that would eventually take place after their elderly leaders pass away.

The whole point in preempting this process and artificially accelerating it was to ensure that their successors would remain geopolitically loyal to the US, which couldn’t be guaranteed if this “changing of the guard” was “allowed” to occur “naturally”. Moreover, the US thought that it could weaponize the semi-populist appeal of political Islam in those countries in order to portray its proxies as having the “genuine” support of the public. This nevertheless backfired in Egypt but was ultimately manageable.

* 2014 Burkina Faso:

The sudden onset of progressively violent protests in response to long-serving President Blaise Compaoré’s attempts to change the constitution to run for yet another term quickly resulted in a regime change that was briefly challenged a year later by loyalist special forces in a failed coup. Some observers predicted that the “Burkinabe Revolution” would trigger an “African Spring” against other rulers who had been in office for decades and also were speculated to soon announce their intent to follow in Compaoré’s footsteps and change their own constitutions as well, though this forecast didn’t unfold as expected.

Still, the 2014 Burkina Faso regime change could in hindsight be seen as evidence that genuine (as in, not externally provoked, guided, and/or hijacked) protests are capable of unseating entrenched governments and the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucratic structures (“deep state”) behind them. It should also be noted that the international community recognized Compaoré’s resignation and subsequent decision to go into self-imposed exile (thought to be motivated by his desire to evade justice for his alleged corruption and other crimes by the post-coup authorities) whereas they were against the military coup attempt by his loyalists a year later.

* 2017 The Gambia:

Most of the world has forgotten about it and barely anyone paid much attention to it at the time anyhow, but a Senegalese-led ECOWAS military intervention toppled Gambian President Jammeh at the beginning of the year after he refused to step down from office following his electoral loss a month prior in December 2016. The leader of this tiny sliver of an African state was also becoming internationally reviled by the West even before the 2016 election because of his decision to withdraw from the Commonwealth of Nations and begin the process of doing the same when it came to the International Criminal Court. In addition, his 2015 declaration of an Islamic Republic also earned him the West’s consternation, not that they needed any other excuses given the aforementioned.

The Gambian case study somewhat mirrors the controversial French-led UN intervention that took place in the Ivory Coast in 2011 following a similarly disputed election a few months prior, though the Ivorian leader wasn’t as lucky as his Gambian counterpart in that he was captured by French-backed forces and extradited to The Hague, where he was charged with war crimes but eventually acquitted earlier this year. The lesson to be had from both the Ivory Coast and The Gambia is that international coalitions can be assembled to remove recalcitrant leaders from office who refuse to accept electoral results, though this is less of a “rule” and more of a trend, though one that might gain support at home and/or abroad if it follows highly publicized protests that give the intervention the pretense of legitimacy (whether genuine or not).

* 2017 Angola:

This rising power in Southern Africa experienced a democratic transfer of power that summer from revolutionary leader Jose Eduardo dos Santos to fellow MPLA member and designated successor João Lourenço in what was initially thought by many to be a carefully coordinated “shuffling of the cards” by the Angolan “deep state” but which eventually proved to be a “deep state” coup after Lourenço quickly went to work eradicating the power structure that his predecessor implemented and even going after the former “royal family” (in particular, his daughter [who’s also Africa’s richest woman and its first female billionaire] and son on corruption charges). Suffice to say, this was a shock for many, though generally a pleasant one for most.

The abovementioned events prove that sometimes the “deep state” is the most influential force driving regime change in certain countries, namely those with post-war revolutionary parties that still remain in power. It’ll turn out that Angola might have been an inspiration for what later took place in Ethiopia and just occurred in Algeria, albeit with both unfolding under slightly different circumstances and in varying ways, but the point is that the so-called “powers that be” might either be engaged in serious infighting among themselves and/or decide that the most responsible course of action in the name of national stability is either “shuffle the cards” or carry out a genuine regime change behind the scenes to preemptively or reactively quell (potentially) destabilizing (anti-corruption-driven or election-related) unrest.

* 2017 Zimbabwe:

The tail end of 2017 saw the Zimbabwean military carry out a de-facto coup against nonagenarian revolutionary leader Robert Mugabe during a period of rising civil society unrest in this economically destitute country. Barely anyone disputes that this was indeed a military coup, and one that was possibly partially inspired by Mugabe’s controversial grooming of his wife as his successor at the expense of the ZANU-PF political and military elite, but it wasn’t legally recognized as such abroad because otherwise the African Union and other actors would have been compelled to impose varying degrees of sanctions against the country in response.

This interestingly shows that some military coups are supported by the so-called “international community” while others such as the soon-to-be-described Gabonese attempt earlier this year aren’t, suggesting  that there might be certain criteria involved in determining whether such seizures of power (or attempts thereof) will be (even begrudgingly) accepted abroad or not. The 2005 and 2008 Mauritanian military ones and the 2010 Nigerien one weren’t endorsed by the world but serious actions weren’t taken to isolate them both because they uncontestably succeeded and also out of concern for destabilizing the security situation in the terrorist-afflicted West African region.

* 2018 South Africa:

Jacob Zuma was pressured to resign in early 2018 due to what many have interpreted as being a “deep state” coup against him carried out by a rival faction of the ruling ANC led by his eventual successor Ramaphosa. Party infighting heated up after the BRICS leader found himself ensnared in corruption scandals that may or may not have been tacitly facilitated by his rivals, with all of this occurring against the backdrop of rising anti-government unrest and the increasing appeal of opposition parties. Whether out of the pursuit of pure power and/or sensing that the party needed to change both its external branding and internal policies in order to remain in power, Ramaphosa eventually deposed Zuma and took the reins of this rising African Great Power despite the electorate never voting him into office.

The 2018 situation in South Africa showed that even the most outwardly stable of the continent’s countries and the one most highly regarded by the “international community” (both Western and non-Western alike, the latter in regards to BRICS) can experience a non-electoral regime change, albeit one that was mostly executed behind the scenes following an intertwined pressure campaign by the public and the ruling party’s rival faction that aspired to enter into power. In a sense, South Africa – which is generally considered to be one of Africa’s most vibrant democracies – set the tone for the rest of the continent because the message that it sent was that all of its peers could potentially do the same without any external criticism being levelled against them whatsoever so long as they pulled it off smoothly and labelled it an “internal affair”.

* 2018 Ethiopia:

Ethiopia captivated the world’s imagination after its post-war ruling party decided upon the relatively young 41-year-old former military intelligence officer Abiy Ahmed to be its new leader following the outbreak of violent unrest in 2016 that threatened to return Africa’s second most populous country to civil war. To make a long story short, Abiy is of the Oromo ethnicity that represents the country’s largest plurality but which has traditionally been underrepresented in its ruling class, especially following the rise to power of the Tigray-led EPRDF, but he swiftly got to work dismantling the party’s “old guard” in what can only be described as a “deep state” coup with overwhelming public support. Importantly, he also made peace with neighboring Eritrea and put the two fraternal people’s lingering tensions behind them as they jointly embarked on crafting a new regional future for the Horn of Africa.

Ethiopia set the precedent whereby large-scale unrest might serve as an incentive for responsible factions of the “deep state” to carry out a coup against their ruling rivals, building upon the Angolan antecedent in that the Southern African case didn’t occur in response to any significant protests or outbreak of violence like the one in the Horn of Africa did.  The events in Ethiopia are also evidence that even the most entrenched and militarily powerful “deep states” are comprised of diverse factions, some of which have radically different ideas than the ruling ones, as might turn out to be the case in Algeria too depending on how the situation there unfolds. The main point, however, is that “deep state” factions might use naturally occurring or externally provoked unrest as their pretext for rising to power behind the scenes and ultimately in public.

* 2018 Comoros:

It’s difficult to categorize what exactly took place last year in the island nation, but it can most objectively be summed up as a semi-popular and possibly externally influenced attempt to actively challenge the country’s regional center by a peripheral unit that felt disenfranchised by democratically instituted constitutional reforms that removed the coup-prone state’s rotating presidency clause. There was briefly fear that Anjouan would attempt to secede from the union once more and that this scenario might provoke another international intervention to restore national unity like what took place in 2008, but these were abated after the military quickly restored law and order after dislodging the couple dozen fighters who attempted to take over that part of the country.

What’s important to pay attention to is that intra-state regional disputes could dangerously create the pretext for nationwide or provincial regime changes depending on how the course of escalating political events develops. The Comorian President in this case is thought to have taken advantage of his home region’s demographic (and consequently, electoral) dominance to legitimize his bid to remain in power, demonstrating a variant of other reform methods that have been attempted elsewhere in Africa but custom-tailored to his country’s specific situation. Even though some members of the international community criticized last summer’s referendum, they still accepted it because his initiative did in fact democratically win, even if the odds were stacked in his favor per the demographic factor that was just described.

* 2018-2019 Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC):

There was global trepidation for the past year after former President Kabila delayed his country’s first-ever democratic transfer of power for logistical reasons that he would try to change the constitution to remain in power indefinitely, something that his traditional Western  backers pressured him not to do while his new Chinese patron remained silent about on the basis that its political process is an internal affair (though its strategic cobalt interests there might have played a role in its position to stay on the good side of the government). The country gradually slid into an undeclared state of low-level civil war that could more accurately be described as a hybrid one and which could have exploded on command into a much larger conflict had he not unexpectedly reached a speculated deal with one of the opposition leaders to supposedly allow Tshisekedi to replace Kabila while the former strongman would remain the “grey cardinal” after his party came out on top in the parliamentary elections.

International media and local activists decried this stunt as a blatant undermining of what should have been a democratic transfer of power that some observers said would have rightly resulted in Fayulu winning had the vote truly been free and fair, but that candidate posed the greatest threat to the Congolese “deep state” that owes its lucrative existence to Kabila and was – as the narrative goes – sidelined in favor of Tshsekedi, the son of a well-known opposition leader. This can be seen as a hybrid form of both an “internationally recognized” election and a “deep state” coup, the former of which was universally recognized probably because of the multilateral interests involved in retaining stability in the mineral-rich country (at least for the time being) while the latter was suppressed in order not to sully the optics of the DRC’s “first-ever democratic transfer of power” (and consequently the soft power of those who endorsed Kabila’s cunning plan).

* 2019 Gabon:

As was touched upon earlier, there was a failed attempt to stage a military coup in the economically stratified and politically polarized country of Gabon where an ageing and ailing leader continues to rule as part of a political dynasty that’s been in power for over half a century. The regime change operation was quickly put down by the rest of the military forces that didn’t join in the coup, though the event succeeded in shedding global light on the underlying tensions prevalent in this OPEC member country. It also temporarily raised concerns about whether the French would use their in-country military forces to aid the embattled government and “restore democracy” if the rebels succeeded in seizing power from their proxy.

Because of its sudden onset and abrupt end, the international community had no choice but to reactively condemn it like they always usually do whenever something of the sort happens, but it might have been begrudgingly accepted just like the Mauritanian and Nigerien ones that preceded it earlier along this timeline if it succeeded without any serious resistance. That wasn’t the case in Gabon because it seemed like the military faction of the “deep state” is satisfied with President Bongo, possibly due to some behind-the-scenes patronage relationship, and therefore wouldn’t want to sacrifice their own self-interests even in the name of settling a still-lingering electoral dispute that sharply divided the nation a few years prior.

Key Variables

In view of the insight that can be gleaned from the abovementioned ten examples, it’s possible to identify the key variables that pertain to each targeted leader, the trigger event for the non-electoral regime change operation, and the determining factors behind its success or lack thereof:

Targets:

The typical target seems to be a long-serving elderly leader with speculative health concerns who represents a power structure (whether his own or inherited) that increasingly large segments of the population and/or a faction of his “deep state” has come to believe (whether on their own or with foreign infowar and NGO “nudging”) doesn’t support their interests. They’re also usually plagued by accusations of corruption (whether real, exaggerated, or false) that serve to incite unrest during periods of nationwide economic hardship caused by either systemic mismanagement, Hybrid War, and/or a drop in the price of primary exports (oil, commodities, etc.).

Triggers:

It’s usually the case that something directly or indirectly related to an impending “changing of the guard” or political transition triggers the non-electoral regime change movement, be it efforts by the incumbent to change the constitution in order to run for another term, declaring their candidacy for the x-consecutive time after already serving for many years, fears by a “deep state” faction that the incumbent will lose the next election and therefore lead to their successor possibly dismantling the power structure they inherit (usually on “anti-corruption” grounds for populist appeal), a disputed election, or in the case of the “Arab Spring”, the perception of so-called “regional momentum”.

Determinants:

Most non-electoral regime changes succeed because of factors beyond the public’s view, namely the state of affairs within the “deep state” and in particular the loyalty of the military forces that enjoy a legal monopoly on violence by virtue of their being. It’s important, however, that there’s some “plausible” public pretext for the regime change, be it protests, a corruption scandal, or a disputed election, and the unity of the “deep state” is also another important determinant because rival factions might abuse the aforesaid for their own purposes. Sometimes the threat of sanctions against the incumbent and their clique for using force to quell unrest could widen “deep state” divisions and facilitate regime change.

Who’s Next On The Chopping Block?

All of this begs the question of which countries might be next to experience their own non-electoral regime changes, with the following ones most closely aligning with the author’s model elaborated on above and being presented in alphabetical order:

* Cameroon:

President Biya won his sixth term in office late last year following a serious breakdown of law and order in the separatist Anglophone region abutting the Nigerian border, which came on the heels of Cameroon finally seeming to surmount the challenge posed by Boko Haram in the northern part of the country. The primary geostrategic consequence of his ouster under the possible scenario of a nascent Color Revolution in the cities merging with the Unconventional War in the rural periphery might be the destabilization of what the author described as China’s plans to create a “West-Central African CPEC”, though if managed properly by the “deep state”, it might contrarily stabilize this megaproject’s viability if the choreography succeeds in placating the population.

* Republic of the Congo:

The other less-discussed Congo located between the DRC and Gabon, this one is presided over by one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders who recently joined OPEC and also put an end to a simmering insurgency in the Pool region surrounding the capital. Unlike Cameroon, it’s less clear what the geostrategic consequences of a non-electoral regime change here could be, but it might potentially be a factor in whether the country continues to remain within the joint orbit of France and China or decisively pivots to one or the other. In this sense, it could change the “balance of power” in Central Africa and contribute to the gradual retreat of Françafrique in the face of overall Chinese gains in France’s historic “sphere of influence” and Russia’s recent ones in the Central African Republic.

* Chad:

Occupying the pivot space between Saharan and Equatorial Africa, President Idriss Deby came to power on the back of a coup in 1990 and has remained in office ever since, mostly relying on the fact that his country’s military is regarded as one of the strongest in all of the continent and has an operational reach as far west as Mali. He’s not without his domestic detractors, however, some of whom have led large rebel formations towards the capital in several unsuccessful coup attempts that were at times thwarted through the intervention of his French ally, such as last month when Paris bombed an anti-government convoy that crossed into northern Chad from Libya. For all of its faults, Chad seems to be “too big to fail” for France and it’s unlikely that the former colonizer will ever let this prized piece of real estate slip from its grasp.

* Equatorial Guinea:

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has reigned for nearly four decades and survived numerous coup attempts, some of which were planned by mercenaries in this tiny but oil-rich island-coastal nation in the strategic Gulf of Guinea.  Being located where it is and with the resource wealth that it has, it’s an important piece of the African chessboard that France might want to pry away from its American ally in order to reinforce its policy of Françafrique that’s facing its greatest threat ever from China and Russia in Central Africa. Apart from the “friendly competition” between those two Great Powers, there isn’t really much else that can be said at this time about the possible outcome of any non-electoral regime change in Equatorial Guinea.

* Mozambique:

The incumbent leader has only been in power for a few years, but he represents the corrupt and increasingly reviled FRELIMO party that’s been ruling Mozambique since independence, though to their credit, the authorities have been progressively implementing what appears to be a “phased leadership transition” to incorporate the former RENAMO rebel opposition into the country’s “deep state” as part of a peace deal. That said, this responsible arrangement could always collapse at any time, and the country is nowadays threatened by mysterious jihadists who’ve been wreaking havoc along the northern borderland with Tanzania, so “black swan” developments that might trigger a non-electoral regime change are more likely here than in most of the other predicted targets, which could have an impact on global LNG geopolitics given its sizeable offshore reserves (coincidentally located in close proximity to where the new terrorist threat emerged) and regional security.

* Sudan:

Sudan is undoubtedly in the throes of a multifaceted Hybrid War that the author elaborated upon at length in a previous piece late last year and which should be skimmed for reference if one’s interested in the strategic nuances involved, but the latest update is that its “deep state” might be preparing for a “phased leadership transition” in a manner which seemed to have influenced the Algerian one that suddenly followed soon thereafter. Simply put, Sudan is indispensable to China’s Silk Road vision for Africa and is also Russia’s gateway to the continent, so its destabilization and possible “Balkanization” like President al-Bashir warned about a year and a half ago would inflict very serious damage to multipolar integration processes all across the continent.

* Uganda:

Finally, the country that most closely fits the criteria of the author’s non-electoral regime change model is Uganda, the military heavyweight in the transregional East and Central African space that’s been ruled by President Museveni for the last one-third of a century. During the last few years, however, his mostly-youthful population (which is also one of the fastest growing in Africa, notwithstanding the large amounts of migration [sometimes illegal] that it receives) has become restive and most recently (and one can argue, quite naively) placed their hopes in the singer-turned-politician Bobi Wine because they see in him a comparatively younger face of anti-systemic change. However a non-electoral regime change might unfold in Uganda, its consequences would change the entire “balance of power” in this strategic part of the world at the height of the New Great Game and modern-day “Scramble for Africa” in the New Cold War.

Concluding Thoughts

Using the latest events in Algeria as the lead-in to discussing the other non-electoral regime changes and attempts thereof that took place in Africa since the “Arab Spring”, it’s clear to see that three separate – but sometimes interconnected scenarios – have unfolded, be they Color Revolutions like in the aforementioned 2011 events, genuine non-externally-influenced people’s movements like 2014 Burkina Faso, or “deep state” coups such as what took place in 2017 Angola and which later structurally inspired the subsequent ones in Ethiopia and Algeria (both of which were driven in part by the first two scenarios). All countries have power structures (“deep states”), but some are more flexible than others when confronting bottom-up pressure (which may or may not be externally influenced – and in the future, possibly weaponized against China’s geostrategic interests), which usually makes or breaks the regime change operation and will determine whether the forecasted targets will survive if they end up on the chopping block too.

eurasiafuture.com

(Click on the image to enlarge)

The Algerian military had originally seized power in 1992 after it was apparent that an Islamist party, the Islamic Salvation Front, would win a democratic election. Bouteflika assumed control of a “National Reconciliation” government in 1999, which was, in reality, a front for the military. Bouteflika had been on the Algerian political scene the 1970s, when he served as Algeria’s globetrotting foreign minister. Bouteflika’s resignation spelled the end of the rule of Algeria’s independence-era “old guard” – the “four Bs of Bouteflika, Ahmed Ben Bella, Houari Boumediene, and Chadli Bendjedid.

Bouteflika resigned on April 2, 2019. He was replaced by acting president Abdelkader Bensalah, the Chairman of the Council of State, who remains supported by the armed forces hierarchy, particularly, Algerian People’s National Army chief of staff Ahmed Gaid Salah, until a new presidential election is held this summer.

For the world, Bouteflika’s resignation represented a sea change for the resource-rich North African nation. When Bouteflika was Algeria’s foreign minister in the 1970s, his foreign interlocutors included US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, British Foreign Secretary James Callaghan, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, and Egyptian Foreign Minister Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

In Sudan, President Bashir, who had served as Sudan’s president since 1989, was toppled by a military coup that followed mass pro-democracy protests. Even though Bashir resigned, he still has hanging over his head an indictment for crimes against humanity in Darfur, which were brought by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The coup against Bashir was led by his own Vice President and Defense Minister, Lieutenant General Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, who announced the creation of a textbook Transitional Military Council. The council invited the opposition and protesters to form a civilian government.

Protesters have not left the streets of Khartoum and other major Sudanese cities. Many recently turned out in force to protest an offer of $3 billion in assistance to Sudan from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Many protesters told the Saudis and Emiratis to keep their money. They recalled that Bashir was a longtime recipient of assistance from Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai and they do not want to see one president with puppet strings to the Saudis and Emiratis replaced by another.

In Libya, forces of the rebel “Tobruk Government,” led by a one-time Central Intelligence Agency asset and US citizen, “Field Marshal” Khalifa Hifter, commander of the Libyan National Army, stood at the outskirts of the capital, Tripoli, after conquering most of the country, including the eastern province of Cyrenaica, the southern region of Fezzan, and most of the western province of Tripolitania. In 1987, Hifter became a prisoner of war of Chadian forces after Libya’s unsuccessful military invasion of Chad. In 1990, Hifter decided to go to work for the CIA and he spent almost twenty years in Falls Church and Vienna in northern Virginia, near CIA headquarters, and was involved in various US plots against Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.

After the outbreak of the US-, NATO-, and Israeli-supported rebel uprising against Qaddafi in 2011, Hifter assumed command of the rebel Libyan Army. In 2017, Hifter’s forces took control of Benghazi. HIfter took aim at the Government of National Accord, the United Nations-recognized government based in Tripoli. Hifter has been called a war lord and he his forces have been accused of carrying out war crimes in Libya. Hifter is supported by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, Israel, and the Abu Dhabi-based mercenary army of Blackwater founder Erik Prince. It is believed by many informed observers that Prince is an interlocutor between Hifter and the Israelis.

Although the US formally recognized the Tripoli government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, Donald Trump called Hifter in mid-April offering him praise and support. Trump’s encouraging words to Hifter, who he glowingly referred to as “Field Marshal,” came after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo requested Hifter and his forces to “stand down” and begin negotiations with the Sarraj-led government for a peaceful resolution to the Libyan civil war. Trump’s unconditional support for Hifter also came after Trump’s White House meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a major ally of the “Field Marshal.”

Some outside players are not keen on Hifter being in control in Libya. Turkey has been caught arming Libyan guerrilla groups opposed to Hifter, including groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Sarraj government. While Morocco is seen as backing the Tripoli government, Tunisia has been accused of supporting Hifter.

Hifter, who once tried to invade Chad on behalf of Qaddafi, is seen as potentially bringing Chad and its president, Idriss Deby, into his orbit. For that reason, Qatar, which does not want to see Chad fall under Saudi and Emirati influence, is backing a Chadian guerrilla force led by Deby’s nephew, Timan Erdimi, who is attempting to oust Deby. Erdimi’s base of operations is the Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti (BET) region along the Chadian-Libyan border, the same area where Hifter suffered his “Waterloo” in 1987.

An interesting point about the spelling of Hifter’s name. As with Qaddafi, whose name had more than thirty spelling variations, when Hifter first appeared on the scene after the outbreak of the rebellion against Qaddafi, news reports spelled his name as “Hifter.” It then dawned on the CIA that the spelling was outwardly similar to “Hitler.” The media, in unison and complying with the “groupthink” that is expected from them, began spelling the “Field Marshal’s” name as Haftar. This writer prefers to use the CIA’s original spelling of “Hifter,” regardless of whether it sounds like Hitler. The CIA should have thought about that before it hauled Hifter out of mothballs in northern Virginia and gave him his own army in Libya.

Hifter, who once served as Qaddafi’s loyal army officer, is practicing the same sort of tribal politics as Qaddafi to achieve total control of the country. He has made common cause with such tribes as the Misrati, Zintan, Zawiya, and even Qadhadhfa tribe ex-officials of the Qaddafi government.

The Trump administration is clearly a spectator to the rapidly unfolding changes in North Africa. The winds of change across the Sahel and Maghreb regions are also beginning to be felt further south in sub-Saharan Africa. Two erstwhile allies, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, both authoritarians, who show no desire to leave office anytime soon, are rattling sabers at one another. Kagame, who leads a minority Tutsi government in Rwanda, has accused Museveni of backing rebel forces of the majority Hutu tribe of Rwanda, namely, the Hutu-led Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda; General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, the former Tutsi comrade of Kagame, who served as his Army chief of staff and head of military intelligence before breaking with Kagame; and veteran members of the Association France Turquoise, mostly Hutu former Rwandan Army members loyal to the late President Juvenal Habyarimana and participants in the French military’s Operation Turquoise in 1994. The operation was designed to protect Hutu forces from the advancing armies of Kagame, who was then backed by Museveni’s Ugandan military.

It was the April 6, 1994 downing by a missile of the Rwandan presidential aircraft carrying Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira, home from a peace summit in Tanzania that triggered the Rwandan genocide. African politics makes for strange bedfellows as dissident General Nyamwasa was blamed by a French court of inquiry of participating, in league with Kagame, in the attack on the presidential aircraft. Now, Nyamwasa, a Tutsi, is allied with his old enemies, the Hutus, in trying to drive Kagame from office.

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda soon spread to neighboring Burundi and Zaire/Democratic Republic of Congo. That same scenario could reoccur if Rwanda and Uganda go to war. But, as with the fluid geo-political situation in North Africa, the Trump administration is a by-stander. Pompeo has little regard for African affairs, while Trump referred to African nations as “shit holes.” The exodus of Africa and Middle East experts from the State Department, National Security Council, and CIA, and their replacement with right-wing and neo-conservative ideologues loyal to Trump, Pompeo, and National Security Adviser John Bolton will ensure that the United States will be driving blind as events in Africa and the Middle East continue to unfold.

Every Friday since February 22, the cities and towns of Algeria have seen massive demonstrations that have brought women, men, children, and old people pouring into the streets, often in high spirits but always voicing pointed political demands. What had provoked the demonstrations was the announcement by the ageing, extremely non-functioning president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, that he would seek a fifth 5-year term in the country’s upcoming elections.

On April 2, Army Chief of Staff Gaid Salah announced that Bouteflika had resigned, effective immediately. But this was not enough to satisfy the demonstrators, who turned out in equal—or greater—numbers for last Friday’s protests.

What has been going on in this large North African country of 42 million people—and what resonance might the events there have for the rest of the Middle East?

I have been to Algeria only three or four times. But I’m lucky to have close (marital) access to William B. Quandt, one of the few Americans who has studied the country deeply over many decades. In 1969, he published a groundbreaking book that studied the leadership of the country’s historic independence movement, the FLN. He followed that work on Algeria with another sole-authored book in 1998, and with contributions to several other books and papers, as well.

So in this week’s column, instead of writing my own, fairly ill-informed thoughts about Algeria, I’m happy to share the following exclusive interview I conducted with Bill Quandt about the exciting developments there:

HC: The Algeria specialist Hugh Roberts recently made some intriguing observations about the mass movement in Algeria. One was that, though Algeria has a long history of mass marches being held in various towns and cities, dating back to the independence struggle in the 1950s, this series of marches has been notable for both its peaceable nature and its gender inclusivity. How would you account for those features?

WBQ: It is true that there have been lots of small protests in recent years, usually focused on specific issues. And there was the nation-wide uprising in October 1988 that was something of a precursor to what is now happening – but it was angrier, more militant, mostly made up of young men, with lots of Islamists joining in. And it ended with a wave of violence when the army intervened.

That uprising did bring about some temporary changes – a new constitution, the end of the one-party system, a relatively free press – but when the elections in 1992 were about to be won by an Islamist party, the military stepped in and cancelled the elections, deposed the president, and soon thereafter Algeria descended into a terrible period of violence known as the “black decade”.

So now Algerians, I believe, are trying to make sure that this time their collective cry for change will be different – hence its peaceful nature, the inclusiveness, and initially just the single demand for Bouteflika to go. That brought literally millions of people into the streets on successive Fridays, and it’s not over yet. And it succeeded in achieving its initial goal. But by the time it did, the demands of the masses had grown, and now the slogan is that the whole “system” should go.

A lot of energy is now going into discussing how to find some balance point between “everything must go”, and the idea that Bouteflika’s departure is the most that can be expected in the near term.

HC: What are the next challenges the movement faces?

WBQ: The movement needs to put forward a credible road map and a group of people who can speak on its behalf during this initial period of the post-Bouteflika era. And they need to figure out how to keep the army from turning against them.

So far the army and police have been quite restrained, but there are a few worrisome signs.  Some protesters stress that the people and the army are brothers; others call for the chief of staff to leave along with all the others who were part of the old order.  The latter demand is a non-starter and will have to be abandoned in favor of working out a transition in which the army plays a part but does not dominate.

For the moment, the military is saying that the constitution should be followed by naming an interim president, which was done today (Tuesday.) Senate President Abdelkader Bensalah was chosen as expected – and he now has 90 days to organize a new presidential election, if the constitution is followed literally. This is totally rejected by most of the demonstrators, who see this as a guarantee that the new order will be “Bouteflikism without Bouteflika” – much as the Egyptian uprising in 2011 finally resulted in “Mubarakism without Mubarak.”

HC: It’s notable that in 2011, when the “Arab Spring” erupted in so many other Arab countries, it did not do so in Algeria—as we both witnessed when we were there in 2012. How do you account for that?

WBQ: I think that Algerians were still getting over the trauma of their “black decade” of the 1990s and were wary of setting off another period of intense confrontation. Also, the government had large reserves of money and they spread it around generously to buy off discontent.  Then, Bouteflika was still a functioning president – he did not suffer his stroke until 2013 – and he still had some credit for having ended the horrific violence of the 1990s. Finally, once the Algerians saw how most of the other Arab Spring uprisings were unfolding, there wasn’t much enthusiasm for following suit.

HC: Can Algeria’s democrats avoid the fate of their counterparts in Egypt, a country that has a similarly deep role of the army in controlling politics, and where the military found ways—with help from Saudi Arabia and the UAE—to beat back the democratic tide of 2011?

WBQ: This will be a big challenge, but so far the vast majority of Algerians seem willing to keep pressing for real change by peaceful means. Like the Egyptian military, the Algerian security services have been central to the choice of presidents from the beginning. But I do not get the impression that the Algerian military has such huge corporate interests as does its Egyptian counterpart. There is also the strong historical narrative of the army and the people fighting side by side for independence, and the idea that the army is a “popular” one.  But this remains the great unknown.

The chief of staff, Gaid Salah, says that the popular will should be respected, but at the same time seems to be pushing ahead with the narrowly defined constitutional procedures that will result in very little real change.

I would be surprised if the Algerian Chief of Staff were to seek the Presidency himself, as Sisi did in Egypt. I think the military will prefer a less visible, behind-the-scenes, role. Half of Algeria’s presidents have been civilians, half have been military men. By contrast, since 1952 Egypt’s presidents have all been from the military with the exception of the brief Morsi interlude in 2012-13.

HC: How can Algeria avoid the fate of Syria, Yemen, or Libya, where the schisms opened up by the “Arab Spring” resulted in horrendous, atrocity-laden civil wars?

WBQ: Several things make me think Algeria will not end up like Syria, Yemen or Libya. First of all, in each of those cases there was massive foreign intervention – sometimes in the form of foreign jihadists coming into the country (Syria), sometimes NATO military forces (Libya), and sometimes neighboring Arab forces (Yemen). In these cases there was also very deep polarization within the societies which was played upon by these foreign interventions.

For the moment, there is really little sign of any foreign intervention in Algeria, and whenever it is suspected it is immediately strongly denounced by the mass of demonstrators. Also, there are so far no ethnic or regional divisions – in fact, the national flag is regularly seen side by side with that of Algeria’s sizeable Berber minority, and slogans are often posted in Arabic, Berber, and French.

Also, the Islamist current in Algeria, which is much weaker than it was in the 1990s, is going along with the peaceful nature of the demonstrations. As in Tunisia, the Algerian uprisings are largely nationalist, secular and united in calling for democracy and freedom. Where the Algerians are less well-endowed than Tunisia is in their lack of relatively autonomous groups like trade unions and professional societies that could begin to organize the demands of the protesters.

HC: Algeria shares a long border with Libya. How does this fact affect both the role of the Algerian military in politics and the prospects for a decent political transition in Algeria?

WBQ:  Algeria is the largest country in Africa in terms of area, so it has real security issues along a very extensive border.  By and large the Algerian military has done pretty well at keeping the chaos in Libya from spilling over into Algeria, and that has given it some legitimacy.  The challenge for the demonstrators is to acknowledge that the army has played, and will play, an important part in Algeria’s future, without letting it set all the rules and choose all the ostensible power holders.

HC: Can the Algerians learn something from their neighbors in Tunisia? Can those two democratic movements be mutually reinforcing.

WBQ: Many Algerians have a tendency to look down a bit on Tunisia, but I think that they have been paying attention to the relative success of the Tunisian transition from autocratic rule to a semi-functioning democracy. In addition, there has been good security cooperation between the two countries in the border area. In recent years, many Algerians have gone to Tunisia on vacation – it is nearby, inexpensive, and culturally familiar, but with touristic accommodations that far outstrip those in Algeria. They come back quite impressed with their neighbor to the east. So yes, the Tunisian example is a plus. But the main difference is that Tunisia never had a very strong or politicized army. Algeria does.

HC: Do you see any outside powers playing any significant role—for good or ill—in affecting the course of Algeria’s move towards democratic accountability and reform?

WBQ: France, the old colonial power, is the one country that always casts a shadow over developments in Algeria. Bouteflika was strongly supported by successive French governments because he brought stability and clamped down on the Islamists. In recent weeks, the French have been careful to say that they will not intervene in Algerian politics, but even little remarks in the French press can set off alarm bells in Algeria.

There is also some suspicion that the rich Gulf Arab states, who hate the idea of a new round of “Arab Spring” uprisings that might produce more demands for freedom and democracy, are eager to subsidize a transition from Bouteflika that results in no real change. Finally, some Algerians look for what the United States might do or say, but so far they are seeing and hearing nothing. Algeria is not on the very small radar screen of the Trump Administration – and that is probably a good thing.

mondoweiss.net

Algeria has long been the forgotten nation of North Africa. But now, it is bursting into the news as the latest example of popular revolution in the woefully misgoverned Arab word.

After seven weeks of mass street protests, Algeria’s ruler for the past two decades, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, finally faced the inevitable and resigned after a big shove from the army and the governing elite, known as ‘le pouvoir’ (the power).

Algeria is an important nation in spite of its recent semi-obscurity. At the center of North Africa, bordered by the Mediterranean and great Sahara Desert, Algeria has over 42 million people, with an important ethnic Berber minority in the mountains and uplands of the interior. Algeria is a major, world class producer of oil and gas, most of which is exported to Europe. In fact, 90% of government revenue comes from energy exports.

I have a particular interest in Algeria because I nearly went there as a guerilla fighter during its long, bloody war for independence from France (1954-1962). Algerian independence from brutal, exploitive French rule was then a noble cause that inspired many young men and women. Over one million people, mostly Algerians, died in the struggle. Torture and murder were rampant.

I led student demonstrations in Europe calling for free Algeria. As a result, I received my first death threats from La Main Rouge, a supposedly independent organization that murdered supporters of Algerian independence. Later, it was revealed to be a false flag branch of French foreign intelligence.

After independence, the victorious FLN (National Liberation Front) leadership set about killing one another. The revolution devoured its own. So much for youthful idealism and hope.

Post-war Algeria was run by the FLN hierarchy and military until gas and oil prices dropped in 1991 and the regime did not know what to do. It was decided to actually allow a free vote in local elections, one of the first in the Arab word. The moderate Islamic Salvation Front (FIS in French) won a landslide. The dictators, king and soldiers who ran the Arab world under US, British and French tutelage were horrified. The FIS was banned, its leaders jailed, and martial law imposed over Algeria.

A national uprising erupted against military rule. The army fought back with extreme cruelty, using torture, beheadings and executions that far exceeded the cruelties inflicted by former colonial ruler, France.
Over 200,000 Algerians died in this butchery.

Most FIS leaders were killed or murdered. But some escaped to Morocco, Libya and the Sahara to create a new militant fighting group, GIA, which still operates today in the Sahara, notably Mali, Cameroon, Chad and Togo. Leaders of the Islamic State took their cues from FIS/GIA.

A young, bright, personable former army officer, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, was named foreign minister. He eventually became president because the regime’s bigwigs (le pouvoir) could not agree on who was to become leader. Bouteflika became the compromise candidate and occupied this role for twenty years – at least until he suffered a severe stroke that left him crippled and mute. He kept ruling from a wheelchair.

Algerians, half of whom are under thirty years old, poured into the streets to demand democracy and free votes. Even army chief Ahmed Salah could not withstand these demands for a new Arab spring. The last one in 1991 turned into a disaster as reactionary forces in the Arab word and their US, French ad British backers reimposed autocratic rule on the long-suffering Arab world.

But Algeria might spark a new wave of revolution, notably in war-torn Libya, Tunisia and medieval Morocco. Egypt, a virtual US-Saudi colonial dictatorship, would be threatened by a democratic Algeria. The Saharan region would seek real independence from foreign rule.

As of now, we wait to see what will happen in Algiers. It would be good to see Algeria’s military step back and give up its unproductive role in politics. Algeria urgently needs to develop its civilian economy away from oil and gas. When they run out, Algeria will be forced to rely on agriculture and fishing.

Most important, Algeria’s army must ensure a peaceful transition to civilian government and fair elections. This would be the real second Algerian revolution for which so many have died. As we used to chant long ago, ‘long live free Algeria.’

ericmargolis.com

After surviving several assassination attempts by French partisans of Algérie Française , Charles de Gaulle in March 1962 signed a peace agreement ending French sovereignty over Algeria. The war for Algerian independence had been long and vicious, marked by terrorism and torture. Everyone who mattered in French politics believed in 1954 that Algeria was an integral part of France, to be defended at all cost. But by 1962, their view had changed. With cold realism, de Gaulle remarked of the conflict, now in its seventh year, “As for France, it will be necessary for her now to interest herself in something else.”

France did fine after granting independence to Algeria. Algeria less so. The Algerians who had taken the side of France, fought in its army, or served as administrators of the Algerian government fared terribly—many suffered appalling deaths at the hands of the vengeful victors. According to Alistair Horne's Savage War of Peace , 15,000 were killed in the summer after the March armistice.

An important reason de Gaulle broke with his conservative army supporters and became determined to negotiate Algerian independence was that he thought the French and Algerians were fundamentally different peoples. For him, Algérie Française, the “France of a hundred million” supplemented by Algeria's population and vast reserves of oil and gas, was total fantasy. His colleague Alain Peyrefitte quoted him as saying privately in 1959 that you could mix Arabs and French together, but like oil and vinegar in a bottle, after a while they would inevitably separate.He worried that an Algérie Française would lead inevitably to his home village of Colombey-les-Deux-Églises being transformed into Colombey-Les-Deux-Mosquées.

Nevertheless, Algeria after independence remained tightly connected to France economically, not least as a principal source of “temporary” factory workers, a migration that began during the Algerian war itself. Even as the need for factory labor diminished, France instituted family reunification provisions to allow workers to marry and bring their wives to France, a provision no subsequent president was able to undo. There are now some three million Algerians in France with French or dual citizenship. France's relationship with the Algerian government is privileged—every French president makes a state visit to Algeria in his first year of office. Trade is mutually important and Algeria plays a critical role in French African policy, as it borders Mali, Niger, and Libya. Basically everyone paying attention in France, except perhaps for Islamist militants, fears deeply the prospect of destabilization or unrest in Algeria.

Few seem to know the true balance of forces in Algerian politics: there is a powerful state apparatus linked to the army, but no strong political parties. Islamists won the first round of legislative elections in 1991, which provoked the army to stage a coup that set off a brutal civil war. Six years later, a party linked to the army won legislative elections, and in 1999, Bouteflika won the presidency and initiated a form of national reunification through amnesty. It is this Bouteflika, a young vanguard of Algeria's liberation movement in the 1960s, a conciliatory figure after the civil war of the 1990s, and now the octogenarian figurehead of a regime widely seen as corrupt, who sits atop Algeria's structure like a cork on a bottle. And no one knows what will happen when the cork is removed.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron's government last week recalled its ambassador for consultations, and regional specialists are saying, perhaps wishfully, that the Islamists are not nearly as popular as they were in the '90s. No one quite knows what the relevant analogies are. The Arab Spring, which led eventually to a military dictatorship in Egypt and a savage civil war in Syria, hardly seems promising. Nor does the revolt against Libya's Moammar Gaddafi, which led, after France supported the rebels, to his death and the breakdown of Libya as a functioning state. The sad fact is that there are few attractive models for governmental succession in Arab world (one might look hopefully to Tunisia, though it's a tiny country compared to Algeria).

The Franco-Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal captures well the ambiguity many feel. In a recent interview for Le Figaro, he welcomed massive peaceful demonstrations as the lifting of lethargy from a people who deserve better government than they have. He noted that Algeria is a rich country with a large number of educated and talented people. But he asked, “how does one pass to the next stage, of organizing free elections, repairing the damage done by 57 years of dictatorship and corruption, putting the country to back to work, providing a social blueprint. Who is going to lead that? Another Bouteflika produced in a lab of the security services? A committee of public safety? A helpful prophet?”

Sansal added that Islamists are always waiting in the wings, numerous and organized and determined. Algeria, he adds, is a conservative Muslim country.Salafism is a powerful force there, one the government has spent billions trying to counter through the development of a “true” Islam, building countless air conditioned mosques to rival the extremists. The result is that huge patches of the populace devote themselves daily to various forms of exorcism and have scant connection to modernity.

Sansal (and most other commentators) insist that the army's power won't fail—it controls the country completely and is determined to resist any Islamist challenge. But he also acknowledges that it never really won the civil war of the 1990s, that the Islamists were never defeated politically.

If Algeria were to collapse into chaos, France would be destabilized as well. The civil war resulted in a huge migration surge; this time it would be larger.Among the migrants would be a large number of Islamists, and illegal immigration would mean the French couldn't control everyone who would come. And France, at least some quarters, is already an Islamic Republic in embryo.

Macron recognizes that Algeria could become the iceberg that drowns his presidency, easily surpassing his bodyguard scandal (the Benalla affair) and the Gilets Jaunes. His administration seems torn between public displays of political correctness and worries about Islamicization. During the campaign, he made a grand gesture of accusing France of “crimes against humanity” during the colonial period, then walked the statement back. One of his key legislative allies said recently there was no real difference between the Muslim headscarf and a headband worn by Catholic schoolgirls, only to rebuked by a top female cabinet member who observed that “no woman in the world has been stoned for not wearing a headband.”

Official France repeats over and over its support for Algerian self-determination while fearing that Algerians will make a terrible choice, one that deprives France of a valuable strategic partner and unleashes an unmanageable migration wave. The conservative journals are full of admonitions about the need for tough-minded realism while offering few suggestions as to what this might entail. France's population was 17 times Algeria's in 1830, the year of colonial conquest. Now it is less than double. De Gaulle was right to say that in liberating Algeria, France would have to find something else to worry about. But 57 years later, it is proving not so easy.

theamericanconservative.com

‘This is La Main Rouge,’ said the gruff voice on our home telephone in Geneva, Switzerland.. ‘Stop your activities on behalf of the FLN or we will kill you.’ The mysterious caller hung up.

I was petrified. La Main Rouge was killing supporters of free Algeria across Europe.

This was 1959 where I was studying at the International School of Geneva. The war to liberate Algeria from 130 years of French colonial was at its bloodiest and most intense.

As an idealistic student, I was outraged by the brutality of this struggle in which up to 1.5 million Algerians were killed by the French and by fellow Algerians. I organized demonstrations calling for free Algeria, penned articles and carried messages for the Algerian underground (Front de Liberation National, or FLN)’s branch in Paris.

The death threat was the first of many I would receive over my life, along with much other heavy intimidation and offers of bribes to alter my journalistic positions. But the bloody Algerian War of Independence, that ran from 1954-1962, still holds particular resonance for me even though I’ve covered 14 wars since then. The horrors of Algeria’s massacres and torture have stayed with me all these years.

La Main Rouge (Red Hand), we later learned, was a false flag operation mounted by French intelligence (SDECE) to kill or frighten off supporters of the Algerian cause, notably pro-Algerian leftwing intellectuals, and arms suppliers.

That’s why I was elated to see France’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, officially admit that France had indeed conducted systemic torture in Algeria that he called ‘a crime against humanity.’ Previous French governments had denied the crimes in Algeria and censored reports and books about it.

Torture, ‘disappearing’ and judicial executions would no longer be sanctioned in France, even in extreme cases. Macron called France’s repression in Algeria ‘a crime against humanity.’

The record of the war is ghastly. Tens of thousands of Algerian suspects were rounded up at night, thrown into prisons, and tortured – many to death – using electric generators attached to their genitals or lips with steel clips. Intense beatings and use of masked informers were common. Many FLN suspects were sent to the guillotine.

The superb film ‘Battle of Algiers’ recounts ferocious efforts by French elite paratroopers and security forces to crush the FLN network. `We far outdid the Nazi SS and Gestapo,’ boasted one particularly sadistic French general.

As a result of the Algerian War, torture spread to France’s metropolitan security services and even regular police. But this is always what happens when torture is used. It spreads like a virus.

Back in 1995, then President Jacques Chirac admitted that French police, not Germans, had rounded up 75,000 French Jews and sent them to German concentration camps. France’s right was outraged.

Now, France’s right is denouncing President Macron for finally telling the truth and opening France’s secret archives

Which raises the question of torture by US occupation forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and of similar crimes by its satraps Egypt, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and by Israel. Under President Donald Trump, the US is going in precisely the opposite direction as France. Trump and his cohorts have lauded the use and efficacy of torture and called for its wider and more intense use in America’s modern colonial wars. The CIA’s new chief led one part of the torture program in Southeast Asia.

France is now purging itself of the crimes against humanity committed during the Algerian War. Nations, like people, need to occasionally cleanse their spirit of foul deeds and crimes. But not so the United States where the White House and Congress have become cheerleaders for torture.

It will be hard for Washington to keep holding itself up to be the world champion of human rights when its torturers are hard at work inflicting unspeakable punishments on suspects. Let’s recall that the Bush-Cheney administration massively increased the use of torture to try to prove a fake link between Saddam’s Iraq and 9/11. America disgraced itself and never could manufacture the ‘evidence.’

America and France are sister democracies. President Macron has shown Washington how to deal with the crime of torture. We should listen.

* * *

Epilogue: Algeria gained independence in 1962 thanks to the wisdom of President Charles De Gaulle. But, as Danton famously stated, ‘the revolution devours its young.’ The FLN’s rival leaders began murdering one another. The once noble struggle for independence turned into a bloodbath. Algeria fell under military rule and suffered worse horrors than even the French inflicted.

ericmargolis.com

Photo: Flickr

Leaders of secessionist groups visiting Washington were traditionally shunned by the State Department. These hapless would-be presidents and prime ministers would be lucky to meet with a low-ranking State Department employee. However, if their independence movements were championed by the Central Intelligence Agency, they would get red carpet treatment. Such was the case with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's favorite Balkans "toy boy," Hashim Thaci, the leader of the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army and now President of the Republic of Kosovo, which was carved out of Serbia but is still unrecognized by many of the world's most important nations, including China and Russia.

Today, one of the most-commonly seen words in State Department Country Desk reports is "secession." In the past, State Department senior bureaucrats would be raising this development with the Secretary of State as a major threat to US interests. The CIA would then be instructed to remedy the situation by providing intelligence support to the countries where secessionist activity was a rising problem. "Support" would range from intelligence assistance to full-blown military aid.

As the United States recedes from the "world's only superpower" status, to the chagrin of neoconservatives who are pouring into the Donald Trump administration in order to right the capsizing ship-of-state, secessionist activity is seen from the streets of Catalonia, which recently re-elected a pro-independence parliament, to virtual city-states in Mexico, which are increasingly going it alone to offset the breakdown in federal security and law enforcement support.

In the secessionist-minded Republika Srpska, a restive constituent region of the Bosnia-Herzegovina federation, Serbian nationalists have held a banned "Day of the Republic" celebration in the regional capital of Banja Luka. Srpska President Milorad Dodik has demanded more autonomy for his region, declaring there were two Serbian states, Serbia and Republika Srpska. Present at the banned event in Banja Luka were Serbian Defense Minister Aleksandar Vulin, Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic, and former Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic. Joining them was Anatoly Bibilov, the President of the Republic of the Republic of South Ossetia–the State of Alania, a region that broke away from the Republic of Georgia and received recognition from Russia, Nicaragua, Nauru, Venezuela, and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

To the consternation of Eurocrats in Brussels and in the Balkans, also in attendance was Aleksandar Karadjordjevic and his wife, the heirs presumptive to the throne of the former Yugoslavia, and Johann Gudenus, the chairman of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), which makes up half of the governing coalition of Austria. Dodik awarded a Republika Srpska medal to Austrian Vice-Chancellor Hans Christian Strache, the leader of the FPO faction in the Austrian government. In the past, such an international outpouring of support for a secessionist-minded republic would have resulted in a flurry of diplomatic protests and démarches from the State Department.

After a recent election returned a coalition of pro-independence Catalonian parties to a majority of 70 seats in the Catalonian 135-seat parliament, the neofascist Madrid government of Mariano Rajoy has been put into a quandary. The Catalonian parliament has re-elected former Catalonian President Carles Puigdemont, who was removed by Rajoy after an October 1, 2017 referendum that favored independence. Puigdemont, who is in self-exile in Belgium, where he has the support of the powerful Flemish pro-independence party, faces arrest by the Madrid regime if he returns to Catalonia. The thuggish reaction by the Rajoy regime has engendered sympathy for the Catalonian cause in other secessionist-minded regions of Spain, including the Basque region, Valencia, and Galicia, and around the world. The Castillian imperialists who govern Spain imprisoned several members of the Catalonian government in a Madrid prison after Rajoy imposed direct rule on Catalonia.

The case of Catalonia has resulted in popular blowback against Spain from other parts of Europe, including Scotland, which is demanding a second referendum on independence upon Britain's exit from the European Union.

Taking a cue from the Madrid government, Nigerian authorities recently arrested Cameroonian Anglophone secessionist movement leader Sessekou Julius Ayuk Tabe, along with some of his aides, in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. The arrests came after Cameroon accused Nigeria of harboring supporters of the breakaway region of Ambazonia on the Nigerian side of the border. French-speaking Cameroon considers the English-speaking secessionist movement to be a "terrorist" organization, the usual appellation assigned by Third World dictatorships to pro-democracy groups and movements. Nigeria has called those in the southern part of the country who want the restoration of Biafra, a nation that enjoyed a brief period of independence in the late 1960s. The Nigerian military eventually crushed the rebellion by the mainly Christian Ibos, who dominated the breakaway republic.

The newly-inaugurated president of Somaliland, Muse Bihi Abdi, was received with full diplomatic honors on his first trip abroad to neighboring Djibouti. What makes this newsworthy is that no country has formally recognized Somaliland's self-declared independence from Somalia, even though the country has been independent for 19 years. Somaliland, which has its own currency and issues its own passports, maintains an effective government as compared to that of Somalia's. In the past, Djibouti's full honors for the Somaliland president would have resulted in a curt diplomatic note from the US embassy in Djibouti for extending de facto recognition of Somaliland.

In Mexico, the town of Tancítaro, which lies deep within the drug cartel-controlled state of Michoacán, has decided to establish a de facto city-state. The "avocado capital of the world" is now governed by a "Junta," backed by wealthy avocado growers who have hired their own security force to contend with the narco-gangs. Similar quasi-city states have been established in Monterrey, where local businesses have taken over security duties from corrupt police, and Ciudad Nezahualcóуotl (or "Neza"), outside of Mexico City, where the local leftist administration has established its control over the local police, monitoring their every activity for corruption or human rights abuses.

The Algerian government has decided, after years of opposition, to acceding to some of the demands of the minority Berber Kabylie Independence Movement. Amazigh, the Berber language, is now an official language of Algeria. Algeria now celebrates January 12 as Yennayer, the Amazigh New Year. An Amazigh language academy is now planned in Algeria. In the past, the US State Department, influenced by US oil and gas firms active in southern Algeria, would have been aghast at concessions by the Algerian government to Berber nationalists. In what worries Spain, Amazigh is now the third most widely spoken language in Catalonia, after Spanish and Catalan. The Amazigh flag is often seen being waved with the Catalonian flag at independence rallies in Barcelona. There are common roots between the Catalans and Berbers and this has resulted in Amazigh support for Catalonia's independence and vice versa. Although many Amazigh speakers in Catalonia are Muslims, religion is a non-issue. The Catalan-Amazigh relationship pre-dates Christianity and Islam. The unity between the Catalan and Amazigh people are similar to the pan-Celtic pro-autonomy or independence solidarity between the peoples of Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany, and Galicia. Eventual Celtic and Catalan-Amazigh political unions cannot be ruled out.

In India, some "scheduled tribes," the name assigned by the government to indigenous tribal groups, are examining historical documents between British colonial officials and their own past leaders and are discovering they have every right to independence from India. Indian police recently arrested for "sedition" the 83-year old Ramo Birua, an 83-year-old from a village in Jharkhand state, because he called for the raising of the flag of an independent Kolhan state. Birua and his followers cited the rule imposed in 1837 by the British Agent for Kolhan region, Sir Thomas Wilkinson. The "Wilkinson Rule" stipulated that the existing civil and criminal laws of tribal states would be recognized by the British authorities. India's independence did nothing to change the Wilkinson Rule, thus, "scheduled tribes" across India, including the Karbi and Bodo of Assam, the Hmars of Mizoram, and the Bettada of Karnataka, have a legal right to go their own way. In the case of Mr. Birua, he claims his tribe's right to sovereignty is ensured by British Queen Elizabeth II, as the heir to Queen Victoria, the British monarch whose royal imprimatur was conferred upon the Wilkinson Rule.

Even within the United States, there is talk of "autonomy" by states from federal intrusions. Colorado is prepared to fight the Trump administration's stated crack down on marijuana sales. In Colorado and other states that have legalized marijuana, Democratic and Republican officials are prepared to fight the Drug Enforcement Administration in any moves against their legalized medical and recreational marijuana industries. The same applies to federal authority to conduct offshore oil exploration and drilling. California, which has also declared its independence from Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, is standing opposed to drilling in its Pacific waters. Florida successfully persuaded Trump to exempt it from the drilling order, however, Virginia, North Carolina, and other states are seeking similar exemptions. Other matters that are driving states' rights rebellions against Washington are in the areas of immigration, federal land use, engine emissions standards, voting rights, health care, and public education. Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, abandoned by Washington after repeated hurricane disasters, are subtly re-evaluating their previous opposition to independence.

The demise of neo-colonialist busybody diplomats at the State Department has ushered a "global spring," where both active and long-dormant independence movements are seeing glimmers of hope for their own nation-states.

Roughly, 8-11 thousand jihadi fighters come from Maghreb countries. The numbers vary according to different estimates. Some of the militants will lose lives on the battlefield, some will lay down their arms, but a large part will continue the efforts to reach the coveted goal of establishing a caliphate. With the battle experience received in Syria and Iraq, these seasoned fighters will pose a great threat to the stability of their respective homelands.

It has already started. Algeria faces a security challenge. The war against jihadism has turned Algeria into one of Africa’s top military powerhouses. In the past 20 years, Algeria has spent more on its military than all three of its immediate neighbors — Mo­rocco, Libya and Tunisia — com­bined.

Algeria is a country with a 1,200 km coastline. If waves of asylum seekers hit Europe from there, the Old Continent will be in real trouble. Besides, the country is a key supplier of oil and gas to the West. The implications of internal conflict in Algeria could be a real nightmare. Russia helps to prevent it and, thus, save Western Europe.

At least 6 thousand of IS fighters are Tunisians. Some of them hold prominent positions in the IS and the Nusra Front (Jabhat Fatah al-Sham) in Syria. Many Tunisian extremists are affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which is active in a half-dozen countries across North Africa. Tunisia is at odds over what to do if and when they come home. These fighters would have the capabilities and cultural familiarity to potentially create a formidable and sustained destabilizing force in Tunisia. Meanwhile, Tunisian security forces break up one IS recruiting cell after another.

Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco face threats from the East as well as from the South, where they have to counter the emerging «Sahara-Sahel Front». Islamists from Mali, Niger and Mauritania are regrouping to expand the zone of influence. For instance, Al-Qaeda militants have recently attacked a Malian army post near the border of Burkina Faso.

In North and West Africa, Al Qaeda is on the rise again. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has withstood the chokehold of the Algerian security services, US drones, and the French-led intervention in Mali, to launch a range of attacks in recent years, whether storming a beach resort in Ivory Coast or conducting a low-level insurgency in northern Mali.

A number of terrorist groups operating in Mali and neighboring areas – Ansar Dine, al-Mourabitoun, the Massina Brigades, the Sahara Emirate – united this February into one organization called Nusrat-ul-Islam. The newly formed group pledged allegiance to Taliban leader Mullah Haibatullah, al-Qaida leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri and the leader of al-Qaida's North African franchise Abu Musab Abdul Wadud.

Al-Qaeda and its affiliates are challenged by the IS. In November 2016, the Islamic State in Greater Sahara was formed, led by Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi.

The IS militants may regroup in the war-torn Libya. This country is probably the weakest link among Maghreb states. Defense officials have said the hardline Sunni Muslim militants are considering moving their headquarters to that country. A US military intervention is an option. According to Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, head of the Pentagon’s Africa Command, «The instability in Libya and North Africa may be the most significant near-term threat to U.S. and allies’ interests on the continent». Russia has been asked to intervene by Libyan political and military leaders.

The armed forces of Maghreb countries are getting prepared. The Moroccan military has just held exercises Flintlock-2017 with the US. Weapons systems, like, for instance, Russian Mi-28N Night Hunter attack helicopters, are procured to make the counterterrorist operations more effective. On March 15th, 2016, King Mohamed VI visited Moscow to sign several important agreements, including the agreement on mutual protection of classified information on military and military-technical matters and the declaration on the fight against international terrorism. Morocco is interested in strengthening its military capabilities with Russian weapons.

Last year, Russia provided Algerian and Tunisian authorities with intelligence and military aid to strengthen counterterrorism efforts. The package included Russian high-resolution satellite imagery of key Algerian border crossings with Tunisia, Libya, Chad and Mali. The imagery has enabled Algerian authorities to thwart several attempts by terrorists and insurgents to infiltrate Algerian borders. Algeria has shared this data with Tunisia.

Russia has close military cooperation with the states of the region. A country with a significant Muslim minority, about 10% of its popula­tion, it has been battling jihadists in the Caucasus for a number of years. It understands the problem and has vast experience to share. Unlike the US and other Western powers, Russia does not accompany its aid with lectures about human rights or political demands pushing for «democra­tic reforms». As Rus­sian armaments have proven themselves on the battlefield, it seems likely that Maghreb governments under terrorist threat will increasingly turn towards Moscow.

Today, Islamists of all kinds, especially the IS, are emerging as a very serious threat for the United States, its NATO allies and Russia. Despite the existing differences on Ukraine and a host of other issues where Russia and the West are on opposite side of the barricades, cooperation on fighting the threat is possible and necessary. After all, the enemy is common and its deadly activities go far beyond the scope of a regional threat.

Russia and the West could coordinate activities in Libya. Sharing intelligence and cooperating in joint special operations against key targets could be a start of a broader process. Russia and the US-led West could launch preliminary talks on the wording of a hypothetical UN Security Council resolution to make it approved if an international effort will be required to keep the region from abyss.

North Africa should not become a divisive issue to complicate the relations between Russia and the West. The situation calls for cooperation and dialogue. The IS will soon become a thing of the past if Russia and the West set aside what divides them and concentrate on what brings them together. This approach will benefit all. 

On January 19, two US Air Force B-2 stealth bombers struck Islamic State (IS) camps southwest of the Libyan city of Sirte, less than a month after the US Defense Department declared an end to an extended air campaign there. MQ-9 armed drones also participated in the strikes, using Hellfire missiles to hit targets that remained after the initial bombardment. The US military said some of the terrorists killed were believed to have been plotting attacks in Eu­rope.

Many IS formations remain in Libya’s desert interior, taking advantage of the country’s chaotic civil war, and are likely to target nearby oil fields.

As IS forces are losing ground retreating in Iraq, Syria, Libya and other places, Algeria may come under attack. In October, 2016, IS  announced the start of operations in Algeria and other countries of Maghreb. Infiltration of extremist groups may undermine stability. Jund al-Khalifa, an IS branch, is already operating in the country.

Algeria has recently applied a lot of effort to achieve a breakthrough in Libya's political stalemate. Many Libyan delegations representing various Libyan individuals and groups have visited Algeria for consultations.

With a population of 92 million, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa and the fifteenth-most populous on the planet Earth. It is fighting IS militants in the Sinai Peninsula. Cairo is involved in Libya throwing its support behind General Haftar, an anti-Islamist leader who represents the internationally backed government – the Council of Deputies. Just like Algeria, it also faces the potential threats coming for Libya to make the two nations potential allies.

Algeria can align with Egypt in a mediation effort. Algiers has clout with the groups based in Tripoli and Cairo can influence the groups it supports in the east of Libya. Supported by pertinent actors and international community, such an effort is likely to achieve the desired result – something no one has done before. But the role of Algeria will be crucial because, unlike Egypt or the monarchies of the Persian Gulf, it has never taken sides in the Libya’s conflict to make it an honest broker which commands the respect of all.

On his visit to Algeria on 7 January 2017, UN special envoy to Libya, Martin Kobler, emphasized the «key role of neigbouring countries, especially Algeria, in the search for a solution to the crisis in that country». According to him, 2017 «should be the year of decisions to reach a solution to the crisis that has been shaking Libya for many years». Nobody can carry out the mission better than Algeria. This country will be the main beneficiary if the Libya’s conflict is settled.

Algeria has a rich experience of fighting terrorists. It had its own war in the period of 1991-2002. With a 1,200 km coastline and a population of 40 million, Algeria is a privileged partner of the European Union. It’s scary even to think about refugee flows from this country hitting Europe. Besides, Algeria is a key supplier of oil and gas to the Old Continent. An internal conflict there will have grave consequences globally.

Algiers cooperates with Moscow in the field of security to prevent the terrorist threat. It has recently purchased 40 Mi-28 «Night Hunter« attack helicopters from Russia. In 2015, Moscow and Algiers signed a contract for the delivery of 14 Su-30MKA fighters to Algeria. The contract is to be fulfilled this year. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Algeria in February, 2016, to state that «Russia and Algeria both believe it is necessary to restore Libya's statehood through a truly national dialogue».

Moscow enjoys the relationship of friendship and strategic cooperation with Algiers and Cairo. It can use its growing weight in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to support a peaceful initiative. MENA will radically change if the Astana process and a Russia-supported Algeria-Egypt peaceful initiative make gains.

The experience of the recent past and the imminent terrorist threat make Algiers understand well the security concerns of other countries, like Syria, for instance.

Algeria has supported Syrian sovereignty since the outbreak of violence there in 2011. It has opposed moves by the Arab League to expel Syria, one of its founding members, from the pan-Arab organization.

The minister of Maghreb Affairs, African Union and the Arab League Abdelkader Messahel visited Syria in April. Messahel's mission to Damascus follows Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem's visit to Algeria in late March. Recently Algeria has supported the Astana process.

Algeria has systematically abstained in Arab League votes slapping sanctions on Syria. It also enjoys good relations with most Arab League nations and has consistently played a moderator role during periods of crisis in the region – whether among Arab nations or with other Middle Eastern countries. More recently, Algeria refused to get embroiled in the current war waged by Saudi Arabia against Yemen, preferring instead to apply mediation efforts behind-the-scenes to manage the crisis.

As an essentially Sunni Muslim nation, Algeria cannot be accused of standing by Damascus over Alawite or Shia solidarity (an accusation often leveled at Iran).

Algeria mediated secret talks between Syria and Turkey ahead of the announcement made last July by Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim that Ankara wanted to re-establish good relations with Syria. The statement was a departure from Turkish policy, which has over the past five years insisted on the removal of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

It’s worth recalling that it was Algiers that negotiated the release of US hostages held in Tehran after the revolution in 1979. Once, it has already done what nobody else could.

Algeria, a major player in the fight against terrorism in MENA, is a bulwark against militant groups spreading in Tunisia, Libya and Mali and other countries of the region. If the Astana process to reach solution to the Syria’s puzzle makes progress and peaceful initiatives to end the Libya’s crisis are launched, Algeria should play a key role and join main actors in the effort. It has immense diplomatic potential and unique advantages to make it stand out as a valuable actor and a perfect intermediary able to greatly contribute to peaceful settlements of the regional conflicts.