The Sahel region is Africa’s biggest and most concerning problem. Violence has become a daily norm in the countries that make up the Sahel region. This 5,000 kilometer stretch of land just below the Sahara Desert crosses from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea on the eastern edge. There are many countries which make up the Sahel region. These include: Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria – along with Gambia, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania and Senegal.

The problem that this region faces is one that has been hard to cope with and difficult to prevent. The region is primarily sustained through agriculture. However, global climate changes have hit this particular stretch of land the hardest. This has allowed small and large armed groups to thrive, taking over what’s left of the resources through rampant killings and bloodshed. The lack of necessities such as food, water and shelter has forced hundreds of thousands to flee their countries and move into neighboring areas where they think a future could be sustained. That move also seems highly unlikely.

West Africa’s semi-arid region is a problem that hasn’t seen much attention. Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso are facing the brunt of the problems. The crisis level in these countries has reached a boiling point. One-third of Burkina Faso is now a conflict zone with violent extremist attacks taking place daily. To identify why attacks are taking place and why they’re not being tackled is another complex story in itself. Starting in 2012, when the unrest first began, many opposing groups emerged in these countries, the majority of them in Mali. These groups are now being dominated by other groups that have associated themselves to either ISIS or Al-Qaeda.

The uprisings particularly in Libya and Algeria have also sent the security situation in the region tumbling down. Armed groups primarily emerged in this region due to lawlessness, poverty and unemployment. The lack of state presence has allowed these rebel groups to form strongholds and fight state authorities if they try to encounter them. Over 4,000 people lost their lives just in 2019 alone. The number continues to increase but there have been no measures put in place considering the vast swathes of land that terror and armed groups occupy in this region.

In Nigeria, the Boko Haram has been the main source of problems occupying the country’s northeastern region. This has also dragged countries like Chad, Cameroon and Niger into the bloody conflict. What these terror groups want is the basis of these problems. Armed rebel groups are fighting against the government to obtain what they call ‘legitimate rights,’ those that have been neglected by their governments. Another issue is of food scarcity. Armed groups and militias have underlined that the ‘control over resources’ in their case is the main priority. However, for groups like Boko Haram and those pursuing a more extremist Islamist approach, they are seeking to overthrow ruling governments, have a more religious direction in the workings of the government and force extreme laws. For example, the kidnappings and killings of young girls and boys by Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria over the last year and earlier years.

What makes this situation graver is the fact that these terror groups have continued to multiply and intensify attacks despite the presence of the United Nations, nearly 4,000 French forces and the G5 security force. Unless fragile governments don’t pick up pace and initiate measures which protect their citizens, a move to resolve these conflicts would never appear.

The Sahel region is well-known for its routes for drug trade, human trafficking and ethnoreligious tensions. With the start of the new year, the violence did not cease. On January 5, a roadside bomb killed 14 people in Burkina Faso. Armed groups with links to Al-Qaeda and ISIS claimed responsibility. Another similar bombing was seen in Mali’s central region of Altona.

French President Emmanuel Macron has promised to send additional troops to the region to safeguard civilians but how effective that might be, only time will tell. In a meeting on January 13 in Pau, France, President Macron hosted leaders of Chad, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Mauritania. The leaders committed to greater action in the region and also agreed on the Coalition of Sahel, a command structure which will unite France’s 4,500-man operation Barkhane and the G5 force of West African nations.

The ever-increasing violence can only be stopped when extremist groups are tackled, the government initiates quick action and people are informed of how to end problems and bring in more resources for the development of individual lives. The region remains a hotbed for continuous terror activities but if the governments that are involved act promptly, many future deaths will be avoided. Lastly, more action is needed by major world powers to limit the ever-growing threat that terror groups pose. The involvement of the European Union would make the situation slightly better, if not completely.

L'articolo No End in Sight for Violence in the Sahel Region proviene da InsideOver.

Caught in a costly counter-terror quagmire, France’s Emmanuel Macron is calling for help in West Africa. For six years, his soldiers have toiled to tame rampant Islamic extremism in the Sahel. It has been a bloody struggle. Last month, thirteen Frenchmen perished in an aircraft collision. The incident, Paris’s gravest military disaster in decades, has spurred Macron to once again seek international assistance. But with the body count building, support – both within Africa and outside – is proving hard to come by.

When President François Hollande deployed troops to the Sahel in 2013, his objectives were clear. France’s former West African colonies, overrun with Islamic extremists, needed help, and with swift action, the militants could be denied a dangerous regional foothold. His nation’s superior air-power soon turned the tide against the terrorists, who fled their urban strongholds in northern Mali.

But the fighters – some aligned with Islamic State and al-Qaeda – quickly regrouped in the sprawling Sahelian outback. From their rural hideouts, they have waged an ever bloodier insurgent campaign. Innocent civilians have, by and large, suffered the worst of the carnage. In the first half of 2019 alone, almost 170,000 were forced to flee their homes. Where French flags were once waved in welcome, they are now burned by locals incensed at the spiralling violence.

The shift in sentiment has rattled Macron. At a recent NATO meeting in London, the Frenchman demanded that West African counterparts curb the growing dissent or face a dialling down of France’s military commitment. “Do they want our presence and do they need it?” he asked pointedly, reminding regional leaders that French troops were fighting for their “collective security”. 

But on the ground, there is an inescapable truth: local forces are bearing the brunt of the bloodshed. Since Operation Barkhane – the mission’s official designation – commenced, France has lost 41 personnel. That number is significant, but it pales in comparison to Malian casualties. In a single attack last month, 53 local soldiers were slain. Since September, at least a hundred have died. 

The recent air accident – which claimed 13 French lives – has reiterated, however, the vulnerability of Macron’s troops. Not since a Beirut-based barracks was bombed in 1983 has the nation suffered so terrible a military tragedy. Now more than ever, the isolation of France’s 4,500 strong deployment – the largest of any Western nation in the region – is evident. 

And the murky mission is growing ever more complex. What started as clear cut counter-terror operation has degenerated into an intricate war on savvy insurgents. The area’s rampant criminality, nonexistent rule of law, civil unrest, and the onset of battle-hardened militants from IS’s Middle East collapse has muddied an already confused campaign. It is an almighty endeavour for France to undertake alone – a fact not lost on Macron’s NATO allies. 

They’ve alluded to assistance and offered heartfelt condolences for the dead, but none seem keen on meaningful intervention. The EU would, perhaps, dispute this, having pledged over €250 million to help train local forces. The UK, Spain, Estonia, and Denmark have also committed logistical support – but none have spilt blood-fighting the terrorists who, in theory, threaten them all. 

Parisian lawmakers have not minced their words on the apparent injustice. Should security diminish further in the Sahel, Europe “will have two swords of Damocles over its head: terrorism and kidnappings, but also illegal immigrants since many are travelling through these regions,” French armed forces minister Florence Parly warned recently.

Financial support would be welcome – Operation Barkhane costs the French taxpayer some €690 million a year – but it is hard power assistance that her government seeks above all else. Macron is especially keen on EU allies committing special forces to the fight, units trained in the craft of counter-insurgency. It is, in the mind of the French president, Europe’s time to shape global security, filling the space of a retreating United States.

But West Africa’s instability is rooted in issues immune to military intervention. A functioning judicial system, effective and accessible healthcare and education, economic development. These are the keys to lasting peace, experts believe. 

“[A main] priority should be addressing the socio-economic and political causes of the insecurity,” says Flore Berger, an analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “The most effective way of doing this would be to allow short-term security objectives to give way to long term development, social and political efforts with the ultimate goal of fostering trust between the people and their authorities.”

Achieving this level of root-and-branch reform will take not just time, but concerted international action. France wants to coax the world into its West African conflict – but perhaps a focus on peace, not war, would serve the cause better. 

L'articolo France Calls For Counter-Terror Help In West Africa proviene da InsideOver.

1,660kg of cocaine was found in Guinea-Bissau in September 2019, in one of Africa’s biggest drug seizures. The drugs, found in a bungalow outside Canchungo, Guinea-Bissau, was seized with another 250kg of cocaine found in a couple of houses nearby.

Three Colombians, a Mexican and eight other people were arrested at the scenes of the crime. A further eighteen cars were seized, along with a speedboat. The drugs were headed for Europe, where the UN World Drug Report 2019 has recorded increased cocaine use, alongside North America.

Earlier in March, Guinea-Bissau police seized 800kg of cocaine in the country known as “smuggler’s paradise”. Poverty and corrupt, dysfunctional judicial systems have left West Africa increasingly prone to drug smuggling rings.

More than a decade ago, Colombian drug cartels arrived in West Africa. Their purpose was to turn the region into a transit hub for cocaine being imported from Latin America and into Europe. Africa’s political instability has also left citizens vulnerable to the drug smuggling trade.

‘The fact of the matter is that without assistance, Guinea-Bissau is at the mercy of wealthy, well-armed and technologically advanced narcotics traffickers,’ said the Consultancy Africa Intelligence agency.

A senior official at the US’s Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) said: “Geographically, West Africa makes sense. The logical thing is for the cartels to take the shortest crossing over the ocean to West Africa, by plane – to one of the many airstrips left behind by decades of war, or by drop into the thousands of little bays – or by boat all the way. A ship can drop anchor in waters completely unmonitored, while fleets of smaller craft take the contraband ashore.

“A place like Guinea Bissau is a failed state anyway, so it’s like moving into an empty house.

“There is no prison in Guinea-Bissau. One rusty ship patrols a coastline of 350km, and an archipelago of 82 islands. The airspace is un-patrolled. The police have few cars, no petrol, no radios, handcuffs or phones.

“You walk in, buy the services you need from the government, army and people, and take over. The cocaine can then be stored safely and shipped to Europe, either by ship to Spain or Portugal, across land via Morocco on the old cannabis trail, or directly by air using ‘mules’.”

The global drugs trade is an incredibly complex, illicit industry. Law enforcement worldwide have found it impossible to control this industry, because of its complexity.

From the farmers who feed their families growing cocaine to the law enforcement officers who turn a blind eye for a ‘cut’ of the profits, to the everyday citizen in Europe – including wealthy, powerful people, some politicians – who abuse the drugs, the drug chain is too long and too complex to be defeated.

The United States would finally admit to this impossibility when different states began legalising recreational marijuana use, starting with Colorado in 2012. Unfortunately, this war on drugs would come at a huge cost to the country’s African American population who were deliberately criminalised for decades, by the US government, for using and selling marijuana.

In Europe, the rhetoric of blame continues to be used when talking about drug trafficking in Africa. News reports fully blame the lack of police equipment and social infrastructure that have attracted Latin American drug lords to operate in the area. Yet, West Africa’s drug trafficking would not be catalysed if demand from Europe didn’t make drug trafficking extremely profitable.

This is a rhetoric of power: the people who use the drugs from safe distances are allowed to point fingers at those who grow, make and traffic the drugs in unsafe, dangerous and, many times, hopeless conditions.

In 2011, Matthew S. Jenner, from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law would argue against criminalising drug trafficking.

“Forty years ago, the world declared war on drugs,” he wrote. “Today, after decades of failing to adequately control drug consumption, an even graver problem has emerged: violent drug traffickers have taken the industry hostage and will stop at nothing to preserve their power.

“Governments have instituted dozens of programs to dismantle the illicit drug industry, but they have seen only marginal success.”

In 2009, the West Africa Coast Initiative (WACI) was launched by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (DPA/UNOWAS), Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and The International Crime Police Organization (INTERPOL).

Its goal is to use force to “address the menace of transnational organized crime, including drug trafficking.” It is operational in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and Cote D’Ivoire.

“All the venues are being screened to expand the WACI programme implementation beyond the initial five targeted States, to serve as a model for all ECOWAS members,” its website states.

The presence of WACI in these countries will only serve to make drug traffickers more crafty in their trade, and government officials more prone to corruption.

The global drugs trade is “one of the top five largest industries in the world after the arms trade”. Rather than making forceful attempts to squash this globalised and heavily-profitable network, Africa’s biggest challenge would be to fix the sociopolitical and economic problems drawing its local population to this industry.

The future of the African Union is dependent on the continent achieving its aims to “promote sustainable development at the economic, social and cultural levels” and to “promote peace, security, and stability on the continent”.

The ENACT transnational organised crime programme’s research and analysis of Africa’s drug trade, policy, and future consumption trends reveals that sub-Saharan Africa will see the globe’s biggest surge in illicit drug users in the next 30 years, caused by organised crime and ineffective policy. With one in four people in the world predicted to be African by that time, the AU must hasten to achieve its sociopolitical and economic aims by its 2063 deadline.

West Africa’s opiate crisis, today, is an example of bigger problems to come if the AU does not meet its objectives. The same problems that caused West Africa’s drug trafficking boom are the same problems that will continue to exacerbate the problem unless the root of this continental malaise is addressed.

L'articolo The Global Drugs Trade Finds a Profitable Hub in West Africa proviene da InsideOver.

The poorly-regulated and patchily-policed areas of West Africa near the Sahel and eastern Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger are experiencing a jihadist gold rush. As the Islamic State and Al Qaeda continue to lose territory in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia their affiliate groups have their eyes on a glittering new prize: West Africa’s Sahel region. It’s a strip of land running southward of the Sahara with unstable government control and a patchy military presence. Even more importantly, the Sahel contains a highly fungible resource that can be used to finance terrorism: gold. Extremist groups have found the Sahel to be a perfect haven for establishing control of bountiful gold mines, a valuable resource which can be easily melted down and is accepted as payment throughout large swathes of the developing world.

How Does It Work?

Seizing control of mines serves a dual purpose: it gives militants a source of wealth that is very difficult to trace and it also lets them secure a powerful social and economic position in local communities. In nations like Burkina Faso where incomes are less than $700 per year and most people get buy on growing just enough food to eat, those offering a job and physical protection can be a significant attraction. Militants are helped along by a gold trade mainly run on the black market and a profusion of corrupt local officials unpopular with the people. As Nadia Adam and Lori-Anne Theroux-Benoni noted for the Institute for Security Studies, “Communities are infiltrated through co-opting, coercing or killing local leaders. Extremists take advantage of existing intra- or inter-community conflicts to recruit.” Gold is a highly-fungible asset that lets extremist groups continue to expand influence and run global operations including past attacks on the Ivory Coast and against foreign nationals. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger export $2 billion in gold per year, the vast majority on the black market and out of sight of government regulation.

How Many Gold Mines Do The Terrorists Control In West Africa?

The short answer is that no government or analysts know exactly how many gold mines terrorists have in the Sahel or are taking a cut from. This is partly because Burkina Faso and neighbors have so many unofficial and remote mines that are hard to find even by satellite and difficult to access or assess. As Reuters reports, even data from the best sources is inconclusive about exactly how many mines and how much money terrorist groups are making from Burkinabe gold. However, at minimum terrorists in Burkina Faso were in charge of at least 15 gold mines in Burkina Faso as of this September. The amounts involved are massive: “in 2018, government officials visited just 24 sites near where attacks had taken place and estimated they produced a total of 727 kg of gold per year – worth about $34 million at current prices.” Scores of additional eyewitness reports and experiences make it clear that the problem is widespread and growing. The Armed Conflict and Event Data Project (ACLED) has identified that around half of Burkina Faso’s 2,200 gold mines in 2018 were within 16 miles (25 kilometers) of where extremists had launched attacks. Many foreign workers in Burkina Faso’s mining industry are now generally flown in by helicopter to bypass roads controlled by insurgents and militants.

Unofficial Mines Are Rampant in Burkina Faso, Mali And Niger

Small mines without valid licenses abound in Burkina Faso and neighboring nations, pumping out billions in gold wealth per year. Almost none of this is officially regulated or registered, in fact a mere two percent of Burkina Faso’s gold exports from 2018 were “officially” exported out of the country. The black market is king and it feeds the people. Gold mining, in general, has become a major draw for poor farmers who want a way to support their family. There is also significant use of child labor in the gold mines. Once working in the mines, conditions are often very harsh, hours long and pay relatively low, also providing a weak spot for extremists to exploit by offering slightly higher pay and more incentives than foreign companies and regular camps. Although oil, vanadium, titanium, zinc, iron and uranium also provide some lifeblood to the Burkina Faso economy, gold is certainly the big attraction today for investors and foreign firms. As the head of the gold miners’ union Moamoudou Rabo put it, gold mining is the heart and soul of the Burkinabe economy. “There is nothing else.”

Attacks On Mines Are Increasing

Earlier this month 47 Burkinabe were mowed down by terrorists along the road to the Canadian-owned Boungou gold mine in the country’s east near Arli National Park and more than 60 seriously injured. Last month 20 individuals were slaughtered by jihadists in the country’s north at an unofficial gold mine. In January Canadian geologist Kirk Woodman was kidnapped and murdered by jihadists after being taken at gunpoint from Tiabongou camp in the northern region of the Sahel. Numerous kidnappings and robberies have been reported over the past years and are contributing to growing instability in the country.

The overall levels of militant and tribal-driven violence in Burkina Faso and the region are extremely high and under-reported in much of the Western press, partly because a lot of focus has been on France’s battles with militants in Mali. The region also came up briefly into Western and American attention when four US soldiers were killed by militants in Niger in October 2017. So far in 2019 over 500,000 Burkinabe have been forced to flee their homes because of militant violence and 1,600 have been killed. The violence is particularly bad in the nation’s east but has also been increasing in Burkina Faso’s, south and north. Niger, too, is beset by intense terroristic and tribal violence, partly as a spillover. It is an extremely serious situation, to say the least. Last year in Burkina Faso was no better, with a string of vicious attacks against civilian and government targets. The escalating violence also spills over into neighbors, letting militants build up stable operational bases in-country, infiltrate into Togo and Ghana and launch attacks onto the West African coast including Benin.

How The Terrorists Export The Gold

The majority of Burkina Faso’s jihadist gold is secretly shipped out to Togo and other adjacent countries, refined, and then exported principally to the UAE and also to Turkey, Switzerland, India and Saudi Arabia. In 2018 alone the UAE imported over 7 tons of gold worth over $260 million from Togo which is then processed and sold to buyers in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Switzerland. Burkina Faso has many holes in its border and does not have strict or effective border control. Terrorists and smugglers hide the gold in herds of cows, hay bales, and in bags on buses and cars. The high price of gold smuggling and sometimes strict penalties for failing motivates ordinary people to go to great lengths to get it over the border. Togo is where it is sorted and then processed and exported. The gold is also secreted out of country from the international airport in Ouagadougou.

Measures Being Taken

Attempts have been made to crack down on Togo’s Wild West gold industry by the UN but so far the results are not conclusive, and international pressure on the UAE regarding its gold import has been met with denial of any laxity or wrongdoing by Emirati authorities. Burkina Faso claims it is taking serious measures to counter the epidemic of violence and gold mine occupation, including warning miners to leave volatile camps and killing 30 militants this past February. Operation Firestorm this spring put Burkinabe troops up against militants in the east. Burkina Faso’s government says Firestorm was successful in quelling jihadist strength in the east; Operation Uprooting in the north began in May and operations are not yet concluded. Over 500 have been killed so far as a result of jihadist actions in the east and north according to the Burkinabe government.

French Involvement In Burkina Faso

France is also involved, and deployed troops into Burkina Faso earlier this month for counterterrorism operations named Operation Bourgou 4 at the behest of the Burkina Faso Government. France has previously provided air power and other assistance to Burkina Faso but the move represented France’s first solid commitment of ground troops to the African nation. It is necessary to bolster beleaguered Burkinabe troops but has received a mixed reaction in the country where some worry about a return to colonial times or believe that France is only acting out of economic incentives. Most of France’s 4,500 troops over the last half-decade are in Mali, Niger and Chad.

Future Security Implications Of The Situation

Put bluntly the security implications of this story are dark. Economically frustrated and unstable regions of the world being taken over by determined terrorist groups to fund their operations sounds like the plot of a Tom Clancy page-turner, but it’s real life. Without systemic and institutional changes to bring Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger’s economies out of the black market and a concerted effort to clean up corruption and wrest control of the gold mines from militant groups, it is exceedingly likely that terrorist groups will continue to make increasing amounts of money by leeching off the region’s considerable gold.

L'articolo Treasure Troves Of Terror: Jihadists Seizing Gold Mines In West Africa proviene da InsideOver.

Benin President, Patrice Talon, has announced that West African nations will withdraw their foreign reserves of the CFA franc from France.

“We unanimously agree on this, to end this model,” he said. “The central banks of African countries of WAMU (West African Monetary Union) will manage all of these foreign currency reserves and will distribute them to the various central bank’s partners in the world.”

Countries under WAMU include Benin, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Togo, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea-Bissau.

The Central African CFA, whose central bank is the Bank of Central African States (BEAC), will not be affected by this move. It includes the Congo Republic, Gabon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and Central African Republic.

Africa has kept its West African and Central African CFA reserves in France since 1945. Following World War Two, the CFA was pegged to the French francs and, later, to the Euro.

At the time of creation, the CFA franc made its first declaration of parity to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Its name stood for “Franc of the French Colonies of Africa”. During the 1960s, after the independence of African nations, the CFA came to mean ‘Communauté Financière Africaine ‘ (African Financial Community), but the independence of the continent would not be reflected in the CFA name.

In 2012, African Business magazine pointed out the CFA as a symbol of “lingering neocolonialism”. It asked, “whether the degree of autonomy achieved since 1960 is sufficient to be truly independent”? At the time, the CFA was still guaranteed by the French treasury.

Today, the CFA franc is completely dependent on Europe’s financial rule. It must follow the same monetary policies set by the European Central Bank. 65% of its external reserves are held in the Operations Account in Paris. Similarly, converting the CFA franc to the euro is only guaranteed by the French Treasury.

“In a show of her generosity and selflessness, metropolitan France, wishing not to impose on her faraway daughters the consequences of her poverty, is setting different exchange rates for their currency,” French Finance Minister, René Pleven, would say about the creation of the CFA.

In Africa, the CFA is a symbol of neocolonial dependence. In France (and Europe) it is a symbol of Western generosity to former colonies who, in centuries past, needed to be “saved” by European colonisation.

African no longer wants to be “saved”. That it needed to be saved in the first place is questionable. France’s “generosity” would come at a great cost, when, following Africa’s independence, the IMF began lending the continent loans with great interest rates attached. This action alone would send Africa plunging into poverty a state in which it is still trying to escape today. It was also the West’s intervention that would kill the Pan African movement of the 1960s, as newly-independent African nations tried to collectivise to strengthen the continent.

The decision to withdraw the West African CFA from France follows Africa’s attempt to unionise, to “transform Africa into the global powerhouse of the future”.

“Agenda 2063” is the new Pan African dream: “The Africa We Want”, its slogan reads. It is a “concrete manifestation of the pan-African drive for unity, self-determination, freedom, progress and collective prosperity pursued under Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance”.

“The current [CFA] model is more of a phycological problem than a technical,” Benin President, Patrice Talon continued.

“I can’t give you the date, but the willingness of everyone is already there,” Talon said, responding to French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire’s openness to a reform of the currency. “Psychologically, with regards to the vision of sovereignty and managing your own money, it’s not good that this model continues. ”

Last month, Bruno Le Maire said: “What I can tell you is that the President of the Republic is ready for an ambitious reform of the franc zone. But I repeat: it is up to the member states of the franc zone to take the initiative, make proposals and measure how far they wish to go.“

Outward willingness to a cause does not necessarily equate inward intent. In the last few centuries of Africa’s history, up until the present, the continent’s advancement has continuously been derailed by positive promises from more advanced nations: promises which belie neocolonial intent.

In recent years – taking examples from the IMF – China has trapped Africa in debt that the continent cannot afford to pay back. (Africa may be forced to sell off its land and resources to Chinese ownership, creating a new neo-colonial servitude to China.)

Africa must learn from the blind spots of the Pan African leaders of the 1960s. Neocolonial powers will simply not give up their financial chokehold on a nation enriched with natural resources and mass population power. With complete financial freedom, Agenda 2063 would otherwise be easily realised. To take back financial control of Africa, the West may begin to spearhead more political turmoil for the continent.

L'articolo As West Africa Withdraws its CFA Reserves, Will France Retaliate? proviene da InsideOver.

With Christmas around the corner, the demand for chocolate will rise exponentially in the coming month. Yet, even though the chocolate industry is worth over £75 billion a year, cocoa farmers in West Africa – where 60% of cocoa is grown – still struggle to eke out a living.

Fairtrade International recently conducted a survey revealing that only 7% of all farmers currently earn a living income. And in rural Côte d’Ivoire, cocoa farmer households earn just 37% of a living income. According to a further report, Craving a Change in Chocolate, these farmers struggle to get by on as little as 74p per day – well below the world’s extreme poverty line. Yet, in stark contrast, for around £1.86 per day, which is the average price of a large bar of chocolate, they would be able to have a more sustainable life.

Living in abject poverty, they are often unable to afford necessities such as food, medicine, and education for their children. Furthermore, they are frequently exposed to unsavoury conditions, such as working without the proper protection; long hours in the blistering heat; and accidents or injuries as a result of working with dangerous tools.

What is at the root of the problem?

Michael Ehis Odijie, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre of African Studies at the University of Cambridge, pointed to deforestation as the root of the problem. Many researchers believe that once forestland have been massively cleared, cultivation becomes difficult. Historically, migration into new forestland – following forest depletion – was an inherent part of cocoa production.

“Cocoa production moved from Mexico to Central America in the sixteenth century.  The Caribbean became the production hub in the seventeenth century, and then Venezuela in the eighteenth century. Ecuador and Sao Tomé were the hubs in the nineteenth century before Brazil took over. And then Ghana and Nigeria in the early twentieth century followed by Côte d’Ivoire. The main part of the story is rotation within these countries,” Odijie said.

“These movements follow a line of deforestation. Although cocoa cultivation is vulnerable to several shocks and stressors, such as weather-related shocks (climate change, droughts, floods), biological shocks (black pod disease, swollen shoot virus, pests, mistletoe), price fluctuation, and economic/political shocks, deforestation is the crucial factor in explaining these shifts. This is because, again, forestland is a production factor.”

A constant cycle of deforestation and migration inadvertently leads to a spike in production costs, which farmers are unable to recover by increasing their prices, since they have little control over such things. Chocolate manufacturers do not want diversification, hence many have started collaborating with NGOs to create sustainability in their supply chains. Despite this, sustainability programs do not take into account the changes in the cost structure due to post-forest cultivation.

Fairtrade International identified the problem and have been working towards introducing a reference price to take into account the cost of production. But Odijie argued that their methodology is deeply flawed, since it only collates quantitative responses to changes in cost structure, and instead, a reference price that takes into account the increasing cost of production is needed.

“The increasing cost of post-forest cultivation is what is causing poverty. Planters now have to employ more labour, use more fertilizers, and more pesticides – all of which increases the cost – regardless of price. This explains why planters (especially in Ivory Coast) earn more now compared to the past and are also poorer now. And while some of the extra costs get deflated in several practices, they show up in other areas. For example, some planters use extended relatives to cover the extra labour, but as a result, spend more money on food feeding the relatives,” he explained.

Child labour

With over 2 million children in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana working in cocoa fields, child labour has also become a major concern. In a statement, Amnesty International surmised that the volatility of the cocoa price proves to be a big challenge for the farmers whose livelihood depends on it, pushing them into cost-saving actions such as slavery and child labour. It stated, “The cause is lack of control as well as price manipulation by large hedge funds counting on large quick returns on short term investments. This makes farmers not only the victims of the chronic underinvestment of their own country but also the victim of greedy businessmen at the stock market.”

One of the reasons why it has been difficult to completely eradicate child labour is because big chocolate manufacturers are unable to pinpoint every farm from where they source their cocoa. Mars, the maker of M&M’s and Milky Way, can trace only 24 per cent of its cocoa back to farms; Hershey, the maker of Kisses and Reese’s, less than half; Nestlé can trace 49 per cent of its global cocoa supply to farms.

“Until we address the poverty issue and raise farmers out of poverty, then this will continue to be a problem,” Timothy McCoy, vice president of the World Cocoa Foundation, told Raconteur.

“If there was an easy solution to this, then we would have solved it a long time ago and moved on.”

L'articolo How Your Chocolate Addiction Traps Cocoa Farmers In Poverty proviene da InsideOver.

ECOWAS leaders have pledged $1 billion to combat the escalating threat of Islamist militancy in West Africa.

Mahamadou Issoufou, ECOWAS chairperson and the President of Niger, accused the international community of creating Libya’s current political crisis, as Islamic terrorist groups in Libya with links to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq strengthen their foothold in the Sahel region.

“It is the international community which is the cause of the Libyan crisis,” he said. “The Libyan crisis of which we are suffering the consequences in the Sahel region as well as in the Lake Chad. So now is not the time to divert our gaze away from the Sahel and the Lake Chad.”

This pledge came after the UN urged West African nations to bolster its response to ultra-rising Islamic attacks. Beyond current military efforts, “addressing the humanitarian crisis and drivers of the conflict will be a key issue,” it advised.

Olufemi Vaughan, Professor of Black Studies at Amhert College, Massachusetts, has argued that ethnoreligious division is woven into the history of colonial Nigeria.

“Following Nigeria’s independence from Britain in 1960,” his book reads, “Christian-Muslim tensions became manifest in regional and religious conflicts over the expansion of sharia [law], in fierce competition among political elites for state power, and the rise of Boko Haram. These tensions are not just conflicted over religious beliefs, ethnicity, and regionalism; they represent structural imbalances founded on the religious divisions forged under colonial rule.”

The US government has predicted that Nigeria will be a failed state by 2030. In a 122-page case study of the nation-state, the US government cites many factors for the inevitable decline of “Africa’s giant” into civil war.

“In its relatively short modern history, Nigeria has survived five military coups as well as separatist and religious wars, is mired in an active armed insurgency, is suffering from disastrous ecological conditions in its Niger Delta region, and is fighting one of the modern world’s worst legacies of political and economic corruption.

“A nation with more than 350 ethnic groups, 250 languages, and three distinct religious affiliations—Christian, Islamic, and animist, Nigeria’s 135 million people today are anything but homogenous. Of Nigeria’s 36 states, 12 are Islamic and under the strong and growing influence of the Sokoto [Sunni] caliphate.

“While religious and ethnic violence are commonplace, the federal government has managed to strike a tenuous balance among the disparate religious and ethnic factions. With such demographics, Nigeria’s failure would be akin to a piece of fine china dropped on a utile floor—it would simply shatter into potentially hundreds of pieces.”

The US government’s interest in Nigeria’s failure can be argued to be neocolonial self-interest, akin to the world power’s past with invading resource-rich nations for its sown wealth-accumulation. As President Issoufou argued, the international community, including the United States, is to blame for the Libyan crisis and, due to trickle-down effects, the terrorism crisis in the Sahel.

Nevertheless, the US’ case study explicates the tribal, regional and religious acrimony that has haunted Nigeria since its amalgamation in 1914.

From Civil War to Civil War?

Nigeria’s amalgamation joined disparate states together under one major British rule: the majority Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo tribes in the Northern, South-Western and South-Eastern parts of the nation were incongruous ethnoreligious tribes.

Amalgamation under one state would only serve to solidify severe ideological differences, differences which soon led to the Biafran War, Nigeria’s civil war between 1967-1970.

Nigeria, today, is led by President Muhammadu Buhari, a Sunni Muslim who was a pivotal leader during the Biafran War. His government has been accused of numerous cases of persecuting and killing Shia Muslims.

Under his presidency, the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) has been deemed a threat to Nigerian society and government. Formed by Sheik Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, the IMN is a small faction of Shia Muslims who, according to the Nigerian government: “views … Sheikh El-Zakzaky as the only legitimate source of authority in Nigeria … It does not recognise the authority of the Nigerian government, and views its leaders both Muslims and Christians as corrupt and ungodly.

“The main aim of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria is to propagate the ideology in Iran and turn the country [Nigeria] into an Islamic state as was done in the Iranian Revolution of 1979.”

The IMN, unlike Boko Haram, have been non-violent. Countercurrents calls the IMN is a “humanitarian organisation”. While it admits that El-Zakzaky was inspired by the Iranian Revolution, it also accuses the majority-Sunni Nigerian government leaders of persecuting Shia Muslims for sectarian reasons.

With accusations of Iran supporting El-Zakzaky’s work in Nigeria, supporters of the Sheik have accused the Nigerian government of being funded by Saudi Arabia and Israel. Countercurrents reports that both countries orchestrated Nigeria’s attack on Zakzaky “to undermine Iran’s growing ideological clout in the region”.

“The brutal lack of justice against Shia Muslims in Nigeria brings the credibility of the State into question. Injustice is apparent in the prosecution of Zakzaky’s case as evidence is lacking and there is inconsistency within the governments judicial and executive actions,” Shia Rights Watch said.

The ethno-religious tensions between the Sunni Nigerian government and the Shia Muslim population seems to be one more step towards another civil war.

L'articolo Banned Shia Muslims: Are They a Threat to Nigeria and the Sahel? proviene da InsideOver.

Two-thirds of global drug deaths now come from opioids, according to a recent report by the UN. 53 million people worldwide use opioids today, coming second-place to cannabis, used by 188 million people globally.

A significant portion of opioid use is concentrated in West Africa. Codeine and tramadol, strong painkillers, are the main opioids used in the region, both recreationally and for mental alertness. In Nigeria, many workers use tramadol, because it allows them to work harder while ignoring pain and hunger.

“The market women use it here in Lagos. They use it to wake up very early and work long hours. They carry very heavy goods for hours when they use drugs,” a Nigerian businesswoman said.

“The men use it too. They can carry very heavy items like washing machines and fridges when they are on drugs, so they work as movers,” another retiree from Nigeria said.

Nigerian customs have intercepted many trucks bringing opioids into the country. In September 2018, The Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) intercepted a truck with concealed cartons of cough syrups with codeine, diazepam and tramadol injections and tablets.

Last month, the NCS intercepted containers of tramadol worth ₦5 billion ($14,000), in the capital, Lagos State. In July 2019, about ₦7 billion ($20,000) worth of tramadol was destroyed by the NCS. Almost 90% of the pharmaceutical opioids seized globally in 2016 were seized in Africa.

Why Opioids?

In West Africa, opioid usage is now a crisis. Opioids are cheap, widespread and highly accessible in many West African nations. Mainly manufactured in India and smuggled into West Africa, they offer mental release to a population living in poverty and facing mass unemployment, with no opportunities for social mobility.

West African nations top the world’s poorest nations list. In 2016, 79% of global suicide occurred in low- and middle-income countries. The rising rate of opioid abuse has directly led to an increase in mental health diseases in the region.

“In Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa triggers of mental illness such as unemployment and violent crime are at critically high levels. The mental health picture is far worse in poorer countries, especially those that have recently experienced civil wars and conflicts, including Liberia and Sierra Leone,” the UN explained.

Nigeria: Textbook Example

West Africa’s opioid crisis can be understood throughout Nigeria. 55% of youths in Nigeria are unemployed. A great cause of this unemployment is mass corruption within political institutions. Political elites have, for decades, stolen government funds for their personal pockets, refusing to invest in the country’s infrastructure and institutions.

Corruption among officials has led to very few prosecutions of drug dealers caught smuggling illegal opiates into the country. Although it is legal to buy tramadol from pharmacies in the country, many drug users opt for the illegal varieties which can go as high as 600mg, six times the recommended dosage for the synthetic opioid.

Nigeria has the fifteenth highest suicide rate in the world. Trauma caused by generational problems, such as poverty, economic and political instability, unemployment, lack of education, religious and tribal violence, along with a corrupt government, has led to 14% of the nation’s population abusing tramadol.

When taken in high doses, tramadol can produce the same high as heroin, giving users an euphoric experience. In Northern Nigeria, tramadol abuse is rampant among Boko Haram members, who take it before their violent attacks.

Mr Pierre Lapaque, the UNODC’s (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) Regional Representative in West and Central Africa confirmed in 2017 that: “Tramadol is regularly found in the pockets of suspects arrested for terrorism in the Sahel, or who have committed suicidal attacks. This raises the question of who provides the tablets to fighters from Boko Haram and Al Qaeda, including young boys and girls, preparing to commit suicide bombings”.

Many who have been internally displaced by Boko Haram also abuse tramadol for relief against PTSD as a result of their experiences, including loss of loved ones and being kidnapped to work as child soldiers.

In 2012, the Nigerian government banned over-the-counter codeine cough syrups after widespread abuse by the population. Tramadol, however, is a legitimate painkiller used in hospitals all over Nigeria. A nationwide ban of tramadol will cause patients dealing with pain to suffer, such as sickle cell anaemia patients.

The UNODC has pledged to “support governmental institutions in the region to strengthen the capacities of law enforcement and justice officials to fight illicit trafficking and terrorism.” Furthermore, it also promised to “deliver support on border control (land, aerial and maritime borders), and intelligence gathering and sharing.”

West Africa’s opioid problem, however, is a political one that wouldn’t benefit from simple government surveillance and crackdowns. Rather, West African governments must tackle youth, unemployment, civil unrest and war, and corruption. Once West Africa reaches social stability and financial mobility, mass demand for opioids will subside.

L'articolo West Africa’s Opioid Crisis: A Political Problem For Nigeria proviene da InsideOver.