When Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was running for re-election in 2021, scenes of patriotic regime loyalists piercing their fingers to vote “yes” in blood went viral on social media and in the country’s news blogs. Similar videos of emotional and near-ritualistic support for the regime have been the norm for decades, going back to the initial ascendance of Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, in the 1970s. While some of these spectacles may be staged and enforced by the regime, the sheer volume and enthusiasm of loyalist affinity poses a challenge to those who would like to believe that Assad is isolated and that he maintains power only through fear and violence. The ideological and emotional hegemony that is often wielded by dictators should not be underestimated, and it has significant implications for the notion of shared futures and national reconciliation.
Western visions for a post-war Syria often entail the creation of disarmament and reintegration programs oriented toward members of Islamist groups and militias. However, there is less discussion about how the legacies of state authoritarianism in regime-controlled or otherwise loyalist areas will likely hinder any type of post-war reconciliation. Even in countries that have transitioned to democracy after decades of authoritarianism, the process has often been slow and fragile partly due to the psychological legacies and habits of dictatorship, which can lead people to see authoritarianism and patronage as a first answer to any hardship, conflict, or other personal difficulty.
Many analysts and political pundits have categorized Syrians into seemingly clear-cut divisive groups, labelling them according to their sect, religion, ethnicity, or more aggressively according to their political orientation. Terms such as “loyalist” (mwali) and “opposition” (mu’arud) in a binary narrative have also featured predominately among opposition groups and regime officials. Another term, “neutral” (ramady), also became popular among both opposition and regime officials. In his interview with Barbara Walters on Dec. 6, 2011 Assad hailed those with neutral political standpoints, claiming that they provided him with legitimacy. At the same time, those who have an ambivalent political position such as the neutrals are continuously perceived by the opposition as accomplices of the regime; this again imposes a politicized binarism that “if you are not with the revolution, then you are an Assadist.” Such hardened categorization of Syrians underestimates the impact of the process of ideological indoctrination and consequently divides Syrians even more.
While some have framed the logic of support or regime loyalty as stemming from sectarian affiliation, material benefits, or social status, no one has addressed how ideology and socialization over the previous five decades have impacted Syrians’ political judgment and in turn helped form a support base for Assad. Indeed, as in any war and armed conflict, the simplistic classification of parties — dividing Syrians into “opposition,” “loyalist,” and “neutral” camps — reflects an inadequate understanding of how political loyalty, passive consent to a polity, or even mobilization of dissent are to great extent shaped by long decades of ideological indoctrination and coercive tactics.
For more than 50 years the Ba’ath regime in Syria has propagated a model of national ideology that emphasizes a chivalrous and militaristic affiliation with the regime as a form of personal identity and a mode of social advancement. While the top-down control of material resources and information certainly contributed to the maintenance of the Assads’ power, the widespread internalization and replication of loyalist ideology among large segments of the general population have become the central means by which the regime continues to function. Even among those Syrians who do not consider themselves Assad loyalists, there is often a sense of political apathy or lack of belief that a different society could be possible. Such Syrians frequently describe themselves as politically “neutral” or “grey” (ramady) and focus instead on personal material success and stability. Many so-called neutrals as well as loyalists tend to look back with nostalgia on the era of relative social order and the submersion of sectarian and ethnic differences that was enforced under the Baathist dictatorship. With an opposition that is increasingly fragmented among various identities and ideologies, and a war that has dragged on for more than 10 years, there is great reason for concern that political fatigue, depression, and authoritarian nostalgia will continue to plague Syrian politics far beyond any potential political agreement to end the conflict.
The current pressing question that dominates analyses of the Syrian conflict is how to end the war in a military sense. Once that happens, however, we will be confronted with the question of how to build an alternative vision and put Syria back together to prevent a resurgence of violence. The sharpening of sectarian and ethnic lines that has occurred during the conflict will create an obstacle to democratic reforms, as will the continuation of mental and political habits ingrained through multiple generations of authoritarianism. In order to challenge these authoritarian legacies and help prevent a resurgence in political violence, the international community must pay close attention to how U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254 will be implemented, and its impacts on identity narratives and citizens’ attitudes.
While no two countries are identical, past examples of post-authoritarian nations offer useful insights for policymakers. In post-Baathist Iraq, the interim U.S.-led regime purged the Iraqi government of anyone who was identified with or linked to the Ba’ath party. Senior professionals holding high-level positions in the political, military, and civil sectors were removed. This resulted in a strong sense of exclusion and disenfranchisement among significant portions of the Iraqi population, and it was commonly viewed as a sectarian effort targeted against Sunnis. In addition, the legitimacy of the interim government was severely damaged by the perception that it was the puppet of a foreign power (the U.S.). The refusal to allow anyone associated with the Baathists to participate in the national reconstruction of Iraq directly contributed to the outbreak of civil war in 2006.
The need to address and re-integrate regime loyalists (as well as various militia factions) into a shared society raises the question of what kind of process and policies would be more effective. I would argue that authoritarian legacies should be countered by a bottom-up process in which diverse Syrian civil organizations are empowered to mediate reconciliation efforts and to establish new national narratives and common ground. This does not mean that combatants should be given broad amnesty, as occurred in Lebanon after that country’s civil war. In that case, the predominant narrative became one of enforced amnesia, in which underlying memories and tensions were never truly examined and resolved. This again contributed to protracted conflict and civil dysfunction. Thus, the international community should continue to support Syrian-led initiatives to prosecute combatants who are proved to have committed crimes, for example in a process similar to the recent Koblenz trial that convicted a senior Syrian regime official of crimes against humanity. Such prosecutions, however, should not extend to a blanket alienation or condemnation of all individuals associated with the regime. The difficult choices faced by such individuals and the decades of widespread social indoctrination that they encountered should be taken into account, as a starting point for developing new political narratives of democracy and reintegration.
Another potential point of common ground for Syrians can be found in the rejection of foreign “meddling.” Close following of loyalists and even the official page of the Syrian Republic Guard on social media show explicit criticism of Iranian and Russian intervention. Likewise, most of the country’s diverse factions agree that interventions by regional and international powers during the war have largely served to advance those foreign countries’ geopolitical agendas rather than the interests of Syrians. For example, the sanctions imposed by the U.S. in that country’s “Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act” are widely viewed in Syria as being equally harmful to the opposition’s efforts as they are to Assad. Academics and policy analysts have questioned the benefits of sanctions in overthrowing authoritarian regimes or even changing regime behavior. Moreover, sanctions have also stripped Syrians of their agency, as they have become part of the broader dispute between the U.S. and Russia, turning the Caesar Act into leverage used by great powers to further their own interests as opposed to a political tool in the hands of Syrians. Because sanctions were encouraged by and perceived as an outcome of Syrian lobbying in the U.S., this has created a social fracture among Syrians. Ordinary Syrians living in regime-controlled areas, who are also subject to regime’s entrenched anti-Western propaganda and a narrative that casts any Syrian opposition as a terrorist, fundamentalist, or accomplice with Israel, look with hostility toward Syrian opposition groups and attribute their hardships to Syrians who fled the country. Therefore, Syrians in the diaspora should offer help through civil organizations and the West and the U.N. should facilitate such communal networks. This will help to construct more of an inclusive national narrative — one that goes beyond with/against Assad — and create a sense that Syrians are all one in this. Moreover, effective steps can be taken by Syrian lobbying groups in the West where steps to alleviate economic sanctions must only be made if mechanisms to ensure the safe return of refugees and allow local civil society organizations to distribute aid are implemented first.
Mounting criticism of the regime from its loyalist base for its economic failure can be another common ground among all Syrians. One way Syrian diaspora groups and independent Syrian policy actors can reclaim agency is through producing an inclusive national narrative that focuses on criticizing Assad’s manipulation of sanctions by diverting millions in aid from foreign agencies. Reclaiming agency by producing an alternative narrative by Syrians in the diaspora that facilitates criticism against authoritarianism and cronyism should go in parallel with developing a mechanism to support vulnerable groups in regime-controlled areas to survive a desperate economic situation. This should not be by inducing Syrians inside the country to risk their lives to confront an aggressive regime but by playing an active role in challenging a siege mentality created by the sanctions and in discrediting the regime’s claims to legitimacy, which use anti-Western, “rally around the flag” narratives as mobilizing tools. This in turn could help build a base to challenge authoritarian tendencies in post-conflict Syria. The international community should explore ways to support spaces for political dissidence inside regime areas, simultaneously working with regional actors to support decentralized governance structures in non-regime-controlled areas under their influence. In a similar fashion, many loyalists have become resentful of Russian and Iranian involvement, suspecting that these powers do not really have their wellbeing at heart. Syrians can come together to reclaim their agency by opposing the country’s use as a pawn in international power games, while also tackling issues of authoritarianism and cronyism within Syrian society that help to enable this foreign meddling. Improving local governance and living conditions in non-regime-controlled areas could present an alternative desirable politics for loyalists and neutrals who are concerned with re-establishing order and prosperity.
Finally, the reconstruction of Syria can benefit from the safe return of refugee and diaspora populations and the empowerment of the younger generations. Civil groups and policy makers should also think of how to benefit from the emergence of a new generation of Syrians over the decade-long conflict. Many such individuals today have little allegiance to either the Assad regime or opposition militias. As such, they are well-situated to establish connections with Syrians inside the country and to help depolarize and depoliticize the narrative. It is vital to challenge the knee-jerk authoritarian assumption that differences in political views are grounded in conflicts between different communities, identities, sects, and patronage networks. This can be done by ensuring that reconstruction does not exclude any group or pit one sect or ethnicity against another. We know from prior experiences with democratization that its success depends on the establishment of a new form of political culture and an active citizenry. Therefore, the process of reconciliation and conflict reduction should begin with Syrians looking inward and assessing their country’s own civic conditions, rather than assuming that external agencies or strongmen can step in and rescue us from the destructive legacy of the war.
This article was originally published by the Middle East Institute.
In February 2021, three months into the war in Tigray in northern Ethiopia, researchers noticed something that would confirm their worst fears about the nature of the conflict.
With a communications blackout and access to the region largely closed off, the team from research organisation Vigil Monitor turned to satellite data to monitor the conflict. On the 10 February, after noticing a NASA fire management readout of a single fire in the middle of a road in a rural village called Adi Chilo, Vigil’s alarm bells went off and a rapid response satellite image was requested. The devastation in the area was stark and upon first inspection, the images of burnt-out vehicles, houses, and food stocks pointed towards damage caused by battle, says Alexander Lee, Vigil’s director and lead investigator.
But something didn’t look right. The structures were burned from the inside out without connecting burn scars, and the damage was far too extensive. From above the scars resembled a shotgun spread-like pattern that indicated a possible systematic door-to-door burning of homes and livelihoods.
The team analysed high- and low-resolution satellite imagery from different dates and triangulated this with other data – witness testimonies, social media, local and expert insights, and media reports of mass killings on 10 February. Vigil deduced there had been two incidents, not one: damage to vehicles inflicted on 9 February during a military ambush; and fire damage to houses and grain stores on 10 February. The second incident appeared to be a deliberate retaliation on the civilians in the immediate area by the security forces who were ambushed. This atrocity was by no means unique. The Vigil team applied their mixed methods research in multiple locations to demonstrate that the tactic of following up military ambushes with civilian attacks was, in fact, a trend across Tigray. Incident by incident, they developed an overall picture of widespread and systematic human rights abuse of thousands of civilians across the Tigray region.
A New Direction for Conflict Analysis
Satellite and open-source data are now reshaping how we understand the drivers, dynamics and direction of conflicts – particularly in regions off-limits to international actors and subject to information blackouts.
This wasn’t always the case. For decades, satellite imagery was the exclusive domain of governments, originating in the military and intelligence operations of the Cold War and the Space Race. Then, in 2000, regulations were relaxed and satellite data (also known as remote sensing) opened up to multiple sectors. For those researching and investigating conflicts, it transformed the monitoring of atrocities – providing visual evidence of violence, demolitions, mass graves, secret prisons, and other abuses.
Two decades on, the use of remote sensing research in conflict analysis is much broader. A growing number of companies provide ever-cheaper data to diverse organisations – research institutes, universities, media, governments, civil society, commercial risk analysis, and others. Researchers, including many working on the XCEPT programme, increasingly combine satellite and open-source data analysis with traditional research methods to dig deeper into why violence occurs, how conflicts connect across borders, the fallout for communities, and ways to build peace.
And, crucially, this research feeds into conflict and humanitarian response policies and interventions.
“We’re looking to use evidence and information so that we can track evolving situations, in order to prevent violence and conflict,” says Moazzam Malik, former Director General, Africa, at the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). As well as documenting atrocities and laying the groundwork for accountability, policymakers use this mixed methods research to “understand the motivations and entry points for a whole range of conflict actors, so that one can begin to think about resolution, mediation, and… address underlying grievances.”
Amid information wars, ‘fake news’, and authoritarian media crackdowns, sifting truth from lies is difficult. Research that draws on multiple datasets to triangulate evidence, cut through the misinformation, and arrive on policymakers’ desks in a timely, concise and reliable fashion, is vital, helping shape policy responses more finetuned to meet conflict challenges.
Melding Old and New
With the use of remote sensing technologies in the commercial and civil society space booming, it is crucial that researchers engage with them. Finding the optimal mix of new and established research methods to identify conflict trends takes time, tenacity, expertise, and sound contextual knowledge. It typically involves honing in on an incident, understanding the specifics of it as thoroughly as possible – including by triangulating research with other data sources – and then by expanding to finding similar events.
In August 2017, fleeing atrocities committed by Myanmar’s military, almost a million people from the minority Rohingya community sought refuge in camps on the Bangladesh side of the border shared by the two countries. Years later, the majority remain, unable to return due to persistent threats of violence, compounded by new economic and political crises. Lack of sufficient resources and infrastructure to accommodate Rohingya in Bangladesh, combined with increasingly restrictive measures deployed by local authorities around the movements and freedoms of refugees, have led to a protracted humanitarian and human rights crisis in this border region.
An integral part of humanitarian crisis response, but one that often receives less attention is the task of gathering insights and evidence to build contextual analysis that underpins the delivery of support. It can be challenging to undertake research in situations of protracted crisis, in terms of accessing target respondents, responding to rapid changes and unpredictability, ensuring representative sampling, and maintaining ethical practices and avoiding harm. The need to produce timely, efficient and robust data must also be balanced with the need to ensure that the research methods employed are inclusive, sensitive and appropriate for the environment.
In this context, The Asia Foundation and the Center for Peace & Justice at Brac University formed a research partnership, collecting data on the experiences and perceptions of camp residents to contribute to improved humanitarian response and service delivery. The partnership produced a set of approaches for carrying out research that emphasizes trust-building and collaboration with target groups.
The methodological approach is tailored to working with respondents who have experienced extreme conflict-related trauma, seeking to engage them directly in all stages of the process, from research design to data collection, analysis and verification of findings. The introduction of feedback loops in the research design, explicit opportunities for respondents to review work, not only contributes to their trust in and ownership of findings but also strengthens the validity and nuance of the research outputs.
The outcome of employing this approach enables greater participation of the affected population in the generation of knowledge and solutions about the issues facing them, despite increasingly restrictive policies and directives applied to refugee camp governance.
This effort links with trends in global aid and humanitarian policy around the need for localized responses. Localization recognizes that affected populations know their own needs and priorities, and that local responders should be empowered to address them. The advantages of this shift are manifold, from ensuring more equitable decision-making to improved effectiveness of aid responses and resource distribution. The potential for localization principles to extend into the humanitarian research sector merits further exploration. Experience shows that participatory approaches are possible even in severely restricted environments, such as during a pandemic or in crisis settings.
A detailed practice paper outlining the community-driven research approach developed by The Asia Foundation and Brac University’s Center for Peace and Justice is available here. The partnership is part of the UK government-funded XCEPT program’s local research network.
In January 2022, the Somaliland National Drought Committee estimated that over 800,000 people in the country were experiencing acute food insecurity and water shortages due to three consecutive failed rainy seasons. The situation has not improved since, and if the current drought conditions persist, it is expected that over 1 million people will need emergency assistance in the coming months.
Somaliland’s eastern regions—Sool, Togdheer and Sanaag—are the hardest hit. Some areas have not received rainfall for the last four years. A researcher based in the city of Lasanod explained:
The Sool region is the hardest hit in Somaliland because there are areas in the region that have not received sufficient rain for the past 3-4 years. This has resulted in migration of livestock to areas in the Haud region that received rain causing early depletion of pasture and water.
The Haud is a vast territory stretching between southern Somaliland and the north-eastern part of Ethiopia’s Somali Region. During the April to June wet season—known as the Gu—the Haud is suitable for livestock grazing. During droughts pastoralists migrate to different parts of the Haud wherever the pasture and water is sufficient.
When I visited Odweyne and Burao in the Togdheer region in February 2022, I observed that while some parts of the region still have some dry pasture, they lacked water, making emergency water trucking for livestock and people a top priority. During my visit, I saw that animals were dying and local people felt helpless in the face of the crisis.
Like other arid and semi-arid regions in the Horn of Africa, Somaliland has been facing drought since the Gu (April to June) and Dayr (October to November) rains failed in 2021. While drought is seasonal and recurrent, the intensity of the crisis is not simply a result of a lack of rain.
Several economic, social, and political factors—local and global in origin—have also undermined well-established community coping mechanisms, including external assistance from the diaspora, which have previously helped communities through periods of drought. During the current drought a combination of economic factors related to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as more local political and security issues, have disrupted the coping mechanisms of communities in the region.
A drop in demand for livestock in Saudi Arabia
A collapse in demand by Saudi Arabia (KSA) for livestock—sheep and goats—from Somaliland since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic is a major factor in making the current drought more difficult to cope with than previous such events. During the pandemic, Saudi Arabia cancelled the Hajj pilgrimage, which usually brings millions of Muslims to the Kingdom and requires a massive increase in imports of sheep and goats from Somaliland, which are slaughtered for food. Prior to the pandemic, most pastoralists would sell their livestock in advance of the Hajj, when the demand for livestock in Saudi Arabia was at its highest. While there had already been a partial ban on livestock imports from Somalia since 2016—due to animal health concerns—the measures taken by the Kingdom to control the spread of Covid-19 made the situation significantly worse.
The current drought is consequently taking place at a time when pastoralists have been unable to sell livestock for export for two consecutive years. This has resulted in debt arrears, depletion of cash savings and the need to maintain (at significant cost) a stock of export-quality livestock that cannot be sold. The drought itself, causing the deaths of many animals, has also depleted the numbers of high-value stock, causing a serious economic loss.
Financial losses due to the Covid-19 export ban, and the reduced demand of livestock during the pandemic, have been estimated at USD 42 million across Somaliland’s livestock export value chain. Livestock producers, who rely almost entirely on the Saudi market to sell their sheep and goats, have been some of the worst affected financially by the drought.
Inflationary pressures on communities
Since the start of the pandemic, Somaliland has been battling high levels of inflation. Prices of fuel, water and staple foods have increased due to the interruption of global production and supply chains. Increasing costs of container transport globally have been felt strongly in Somaliland, leading to a spike in commodity prices. The chair of the Somaliland Chamber of Commerce revealed in February that the cost of bringing a 40 foot container from China to Somaliland has increased by more than 400 per cent, from USD 3,000 before the pandemic to USD 13,000 today.
Some food importers have suspended their businesses due to the high cost of international transportation. Ordinary people, in both urban and rural areas, have been badly affected by the resulting rise in price of basic commodities. For example, over the last year, a 50kg sack of rice has increased from USD 24 to USD 30; flour from USD 21 to USD 27; and sugar from USD 23 to USD 28. In the same period, fuel prices have increased from USD 0.6 to USD 1 per litre, triggering a demonstration by water truckers in Hargeisa in February 2022 against rising fuel and water prices.
The rising cost of water has affected emergency drought relief efforts. The regional humanitarian coordinator in Burao, who I interviewed in February said:
During this drought, we have been appealing for assistance from aid agencies for a long time. But only two aid agencies responded, and they said we would support you with a water emergency, but it has to go through a tender process in order to award a contract. However, as they were processing their tender, the price of one water tanker of 50 barrels increased from USD 180 to USD 350 in the remote border areas. Then the aid agencies cancelled their support because it was no longer feasible.
Political and security crises limit aid, access and migration
Some areas are more affected than others by the drought; Gedo, Bay, Mudug and Sool have been the most affected regions. Of these, Sool has suffered particularly badly due to political and security factors that have constrained the humanitarian response. A Somaliland government official in Lasanod said:
Security-wise, the Sool region and its capital Lasanod are considered a red zone [high risk area]. This affects the operation of NGOs. The NGOs that should have been based in Lasanod have their offices in Burao. We raised this issue with the Ministry of Internal Affairs on why Sool and Lasanod are in the red zone, but they always say we do not know. It is political.
In addition, some parts of Sool and Sanaag are considered ‘disputed areas’ between Somaliland and Puntland without a permanent and meaningful humanitarian presence. At the same time, development projects rarely reach this area, meaning there has been less assistance building up effective systems to respond to drought. Commenting on this, a Somaliland government official in Lasanod stated:
Puntland and Somaliland are competing over the control of the Sool region. There are areas like Buhoolde district in the Togdheer region, which neither Puntland nor Somaliland controls. Humanitarian NGOs do not have a presence and this district remains one of the most drought-affected areas. But the drought-affected people in Buhoodle cannot access international or government-led emergency responses due to politics.
Protracted clan conflicts have also limited migration and resource sharing between communities, particularly in the Sool region. The President of Nugaal University noted:
The Sool region faces political, security and development challenges, but there are also protracted and bloody conflicts within the local communities in the region. Such conflicts took place in the east of Lasanod, Buhoodle and Yagori areas. Due to these conflicts, the local communities cannot share water and pasture resources during this drought season, this worsens the drought conditions.
Where cross-border migration can take place, it often creates a burden on host communities and their meagre resources when they are already dealing with the drought. For example, conditions in the Sool region worsened due to the migration of drought-affected pastoralists from Haud (both within Somaliland and Somali regional state) and Mudug (Puntland) to the Nugal area, spreading diseases and parasites amongst the livestock brought there.
Competing international crises
During droughts, international donors often play an important role in the humanitarian response. However, unlike during the 2016/2017 drought, when the international community responded quickly, this time the response has also been slow. On 21 February, a senior FCDO Somalia official stated that the current conflict in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic have meant that major donors have multiple crises competing for their attention, thus slowing their response to drought and famine in the Somali regions. On top of this, donors are still supporting communities displaced by previous famines in Somaliland and Somalia with transfers of cash and food..
Multiple local and international crises have exacerbated drought conditions in Somaliland, hampered community coping mechanisms and slowed down the international response. A more effective drought response should consider both short-term and long-term interventions. In the short term, water and animal feed should be delivered to the affected communities. In the case of Sool, Buhoodle and Eastern Saaang regions, Somaliland and Puntland should put their political differences aside and form a joint humanitarian committee that involves the diaspora and local business community.
Longer-term, given the dependence of pastoralists on livestock exports for revenue and commodity imports for food, a number of things can be done to make these communities more resilient to shocks. For example, insurance mechanisms can be introduced to help pastoralists cope with the loss of livestock during droughts; livestock export markets can be diversified, so as not to rely on one potentially volatile destination (in this case, Saudi Arabia); funds can be set aside to anticipate and help communities deal with crises; and there should be more investment in water sources that can be accessed during drought. On the political side, renewed efforts should be made to address security, particularly in Sool and Sanaag, which will allow more investment and development assistance in these areas, and thus reduce their vulnerability to drought.
Ahmed M. Musa is a Senior Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) working for the Aid Accountability Project. He is also a Postdoctoral Researcher with the University of Nairobi‘s Diaspora Humanitarianism Project, which is a collaboration with the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), Rako – Research and Communication Centre and RVI.
The attack against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on January 17 was a reaction by Ansar Allah, better known as the Houthis, to neutralize the Emirati role in recent military operations in the governorates of Shabwa and Ma’rib. This will force the UAE to decide on its role in the Yemen war, where it has few good options.
In the latest incident, the Iran-backed Houthis launched a drone attack near Abu Dhabi airport, as well as a missile attack, according to their spokesman. The drone attack set fire to fuel trucks, which exploded and killed three people.
To understand the context, we need to examine what has happened in Yemen in recent months. Last November, forces forming part of the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis redeployed from Hodeida Governorate to the Shabwa front. Among them were the Giants Brigades, a militia supported by the UAE that is better organized than any of the other military units backed by the coalition.
Through such a step, the coalition sought to redefine the rules of engagement in Yemen. This included the sending of allied forces to other fronts, after the freezing of the Hodeida front thanks to the Stockholm Agreement. The main objective was to halt the Houthis’ military progress in Shabwa and Ma’rib, particularly after the group took over several districts of the two governorates in the past three months. These advances occurred as negotiations in Oman between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis faltered.
The coalition’s new military plan required a consensus between the Saudis and Emiratis. This was facilitated by administrative changes in Shabwa in order to meet the UAE’s conditions for green-lighting the participation of its local allies in the battle. The UAE had demanded the removal of the governor, Mohammed bin Adyo, who is backed by the Islah Party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. He was replaced by Awad al-Awlaki, who has good relations with the UAE. In addition, the UAE-backed Shabwani Elite Forces also returned to Shabwa after changing its name to the Shabwa Defense Forces.
In early January, the Giants Brigades began a military operation to push the Houthis out of the districts they controlled in Shabwa. In less than ten days, they and Yemeni government forces retook the districts of Usaylan, Bayhan, and large parts of Ayn. The battle moved to the Harib District of Ma’rib. Control of Harib would allow coalition-backed forces to take all of Ayn and dominate supply lines on Ma’rib’s southern front, to the Houthis’ disadvantage.
The reentry of UAE-backed forces into the battle against the Houthis was a significant step, after the Emiratis had announced in July 2019 that they were withdrawing from Yemen. At the time the Houthis claimed that they had reached an understanding with the UAE in which the Emiratis agreed not to escalate the situation in western Yemen, otherwise the UAE would be targeted. It is notable that, until this week, Houthi attacks with drones and missiles—a capability they acquired in mid-2017—had not encompassed the UAE, but were exclusively directed against Saudi cities. That explains why Houthi leaders mainly threatened the UAE during the recent military operations in Shabwa.
One of the main unanswered questions is whether the Houthis were actually the ones who launched the attack against Abu Dhabi, or whether their role was to claim responsibility for an attack carried out by Iran. The distance between Sanaa and Abu Dhabi is around 1,500 kilometers and there are doubts that the Houthis could have carried out so accurate a strike from Yemen. Many recalled the attack against the Aramco facilities in Abqaiq in September 2019, for which the Houthis claimed responsibility, but with which a United Nations committee later disagreed. Observers pointed the finger at Tehran as being the real culprit in that attack.
When the attack against Abu Dhabi took place this week, it may not have been a coincidence that the Houthi spokesperson, Mohammed Abdulsalam, was in a meeting with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. Last week, Abdulsalam met with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in Oman. Tehran appears to be benefiting from the Yemen war to intimidate its Gulf neighbors and show them that they will have to take Iranian interests into consideration in the future, otherwise their security and stability will be threatened.
In terms of destruction, the attack against the UAE was relatively limited. But its real impact is that it brings home to Emirati leaders that, if they don’t change their behavior, their country will be included in the Houthis’ target list from now on. The attack was preceded by the Houthis’ seizure of the Emirati ship Rawabi off the Hodeida coast in the Red Sea last week. The ship was transporting medical and military equipment belonging to Saudi forces from Yemen’s Socotra Island.
This incident will put the UAE in front of two choices. The first is to retreat from the escalation in Ma’rib and focus its operations on areas far from the front line with the Houthis. If the UAE steps back, it is likely that the attack this week will remain just a message from the Houthis to remind the UAE not to increase its military involvement. However, this would mean that the Emiratis would remain vulnerable to Houthi attacks or that of their backers. Moreover, such a choice would also weaken again the UAE’s partnership with Saudi Arabia.
A second choice would be, on the contrary, for the UAE to escalate its military, political, and diplomatic involvement in Yemen. However, to do so it would need to strengthen its air defenses to protect against any potential military responses in the future. It would also force the UAE to reconsider its strategy in Yemen and harmonize its military approach there with Saudi Arabia. Moreover, that could have a negative impact on the Emiratis’ relations with Iran, and could undermine the recent thaw in relations between the two countries.
Whatever the UAE decides, the repercussions of the latest incident will remain present in how the conflict in Yemen progresses. This is only the latest example of how the war has spread beyond the confines of Yemen to have major implications for the wider region. Such a direction underlines why a resolution to the conflict is more imperative than ever.
The diplomatic crisis between Lebanon and several Gulf states has little to do with the remarks of George Qordahi prior to his appointment as Lebanese information minister, in which he criticized the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Its main cause is Hezbollah’s growing role in Yemen and the party’s impact on the faltering talks in Oman between Saudi Arabia and Ansar Allah, better known as Houthis.
In the aftermath of Qordahi’s comments, Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador from Beirut and asked Lebanon’s ambassador to leave the kingdom. Riyadh had also indefinitely banned all Lebanese agricultural imports starting last April, after Captagon pills were found in a consignment of Lebanese pomegranates. The most recent Saudi actions were replicated by Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. While Qordahi’s remarks were a pretext for the Gulf states’ actions, their moves appeared to be premeditated and reflected growing Saudi displeasure with Hezbollah’s dominant position in Lebanon, as well as the group’s regional role on Iran’s behalf.
Saudi Arabia has long played a vital role in Lebanese affairs, and in 1989 it hosted the Taif conference that led to an agreement on a new constitution. After the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri in 2005, which was followed by the withdrawal of the Syrian army from the country, Hezbollah’s role grew, putting Saudi-backed groups, including Sunni political parties, on the defensive. At the same time, Hezbollah became more active regionally, intervening in Syria to bolster President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and supporting Iran-backed Shiite movements elsewhere.
Hezbollah’s involvement in neighboring Yemen was of particular concern for the Saudis. The Saudi-led coalition’s military campaign against the Houthis, after they had seized control of Sanaa in September 2014, led to increased military cooperation and coordination between the Houthis and Hezbollah. Hezbollah took on several functions, including directly supervising the political, military, and media affairs of the Houthis. There have also been reports of involvement by Hezbollah military experts in Yemen.
The key question today, then, is why did Saudi Arabia escalate the crisis with Lebanon, when Hezbollah’s hostility toward the kingdom was known? A principal reason appears to be Hezbollah’s assistance to the Houthis in their ongoing offensive against oil-rich Ma’rib Governorate, the last stronghold of the Saudi-backed government of President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi. In recent weeks, the Houthis have taken over districts in the southern part of the governorate and have advanced towards the city of Ma’rib. Saudi media outlets have accused Hezbollah of providing military support to the Houthis.
For Riyadh, if Ma’rib were to fall it would pose two major threats. First, it would greatly strengthen the Houthis and, therefore, make them far less likely to accept political compromises that fall short of recognizing their full control of Yemen. And second, the consolidation of Houthi rule on Saudi Arabia’s southern border could potentially allow the Houthis, and beyond that Iran, to use Yemen as a pressure point against the kingdom in the future.
In a recent round of negotiations between Riyadh and Houthi representatives in Muscat, Oman, in which the Omani mediator reportedly made significant progress, the Houthis refused to put an end to their offensive in Ma’rib. On the contrary, they stepped up their attacks in order to enter the city before an agreement. According to reports, Hezbollah’s leadership pushed the Houthis not to compromise with the Saudis before the fall of Ma’rib, so as to be able to transform their victory into political gains. The battle for Ma’rib is of central importance to Iran and Hezbollah, and the party’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, has mentioned it repeatedly.
Amid this crisis, two questions remain paramount for Lebanon. The first one is whether the Saudi dialogue with Iran that has taken place in Baghdad can continue under the present circumstances? Might those talks be adversely affected by recent developments on the Lebanese front? Or, conversely, might Saudi retaliation against Lebanon lead to progress in Yemen, in that Saudi Arabia would impose a quid pro quo in which it would reverse its measures against Lebanon in exchange for a settlement with the Houthis?
And the second question is how might the consequences of the battle for Ma’rib affect Lebanon? If the Houthis were to win, this would undoubtedly lead to an extension of Lebanon’s isolation by the Gulf states, at least until Saudi Arabia reached an agreement with the Houthis, which could take time. On the other hand, if the Houthis were prevented from taking Ma’rib, and talks in Oman advanced, this could have a positive impact on the Lebanese situation.
Peripheral Vision: Views from the Borderlands sheds light on how political, security and socio-economic developments affect the people living in contested borderlands and, conversely, how border dynamics shape change and transition at the national level.
In this issue we cover:
– Tunisia’s Border Regions: Between Security and Social Unrest
– Less Violence, More Tensions: Trends of Identity-Based Conflict in Subnational and Border Areas Across Asia
– Trade, Taxes and Tensions in the Somali Borderlands
Produced by The Asia Foundation, Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, the Rift Valley Institute, and their local partners—it draws on recent research and analysis produced by the project to interpret current events from the perspective of border regions. PERIPHERAL VISION is published twice a year, as a timely update of dynamics on the ground.
The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan is having a multidirectional impact on the mobility of Afghans. While radical shifts in the political and economic life of the country are driving an outflux of Afghans, the sudden drop in violent incidents may enable new patterns of connectivity and mobility inside the country. Geographic mobility can be categorised as cross-border (interstate), cross-country (intrastate), and local forms of human movement, with various levels of permanence, in pursuit of different goals. It is still difficult to predict in the long term what the Taliban’s rise to power will mean for internal and external mobility. However, it is certain that while international mobility remains a major challenge, domestic movement has changed in new ways as the conflict environment evolves.
Many Afghans who felt that Taliban control posed a great risk to their personal safety have tried to flee the country out of fear of reprisal. Many more wish to leave because they do not think they have a place in the country in the current context. The United States alone airlifted more than a hundred thousand vulnerable Afghans out of the country. At the same time, the flow of foreign funds into the country has virtually stopped, precipitating a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and a surge in economic emigration. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees predicted in late August that up to one million Afghans may flee their homeland by the end of 2021.
The migration of Afghans across land borders has been slow so far because governments of neighbouring Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey, as well as countries in Europe, have stepped up border restrictions. While Pakistan’s political leadership at times has tried to downplay the risk of refugee exodus, countering the narrative that most Afghans wish not to live under Taliban rule, Pakistani leaders have also said that “Pakistan is in no condition right now to accept any more refugees”. Pakistani local government officials have stated that even if an emergency unfolds, new refugee camps should be set up on the Afghan side of the border. The country already hosts 1.5 million Afghan refugees, some of whom have been living there for more than 30 years. Iran, home to the second-largest Afghan refugee population after Pakistan, is also stepping up border measures in the face of increasing flows of Afghans seeking security and livelihoods. European countries, often the ultimate destination for Afghans travelling through Pakistan and Iran, are signalling that they are unwilling to accept new refugees, and Turkey, a major gateway to Europe, is increasing restrictions on its border with Iran. In the emergency G20 meeting on Afghanistan (October 13, 2021) the European Union pledged USD 1.15bn to Afghanistan and its neighbours which are taking in refugees. Humanitarian aid will be critical in slowing down the pace of the Afghan exodus.
Since the beginning of this year, the sharp increase in violence that pre-empted the Taliban’s takeover of the country has led to an additional 400,000 internally displaced Afghans, on top of 2.9 million who were already internally displaced. Many of those displaced during the intense fighting between June and August were sheltering in Kabul. The drop in violence that followed the Taliban military victory makes it possible for many to return to their homes in parts of the country that until recently were all but unliveable. Many displaced families are returning to their homes, at the behest of Taliban authorities in the capital who claim to have already facilitated the return of more than a thousand families by mid-October. However, the process has been slow, especially for the families from the north who were part of the last wave of displacement before Kabul fell. Thousands more families are living in open areas of Kabul, some lacking income and shelter as winter is fast approaching. Other groups are facing increasing risk of displacement with the Taliban’s takeover. In addition to the expulsion of Afghans from Panjsheer province due to the Taliban’s heavy-handed military approach to countering resistance, the balance of power has shifted against Hazaras in central Afghanistan causing mass expulsions from the area. Many Panjsheeris and Hazaras are finding their way to Pakistan and Iran to avoid further Taliban aggression. The increasing threat of the so-called Islamic State of Khurasan is likely to prompt Shias of Afghanistan, who are mostly Hazaras, to seek safety in Shia-majority Iran.
The prevalence of the Taliban across the country has caused an unprecedented reduction in violence, especially in rural Afghanistan. In mid-September, a doctor in Wardak province, less than 100 km from Kabul, reported that for the first time in over two decades of his work there, they had no patients with conflict-related injuries. Reduced barriers to the overland movements of goods and people are opening new patterns of connectivity and movement inside the country, which may present opportunities for decentralised approaches to aid delivery to reach the most vulnerable Afghans. Truck drivers tell reporters that extorsion and bribery have virtually stopped on major highways. At the same time, however, other parts of society are seeing a return to some of the Taliban’s well-documented oppressive policies. While there is uncertainty around women’s freedom of movement with documented divergences between formal policy and practice as well as a regional variation, the prognosis for Afghan women is not positive. Especially considering that the Afghan conflict has left many Afghan families with a matriarch, who may have no choice but to leave Afghanistan to survive potential Taliban restrictions on women’s activities in the public domain.
Government and NGO jobs were a major drive for rapid urbanisation in Afghanistan. The collapse of the country’s foreign-dependent economy dramatically reduced the appeal of urban centres driving Afghans to migrate from cities to rural areas. Many employees of the former government and NGOs have been among the first to leave Kabul. Migrating back to rural areas may help reduce living costs for the urban-to-rural migrants but they face uncertain futures in rural Afghanistan. While the agricultural sector will likely become an increasingly important source of livelihoods, with exports able to generate the foreign currency that Afghanistan badly needs to import other necessities, many mobile Afghans had severed their ties to land in their villages, lost farming skills, and will be returning to rural Afghanistan during a severe draught. It is crucial that humanitarian aid, especially food, consider the impact it may have on the Afghan agricultural sector. Investment in sustainable farming is needed to enable Afghans to capitalize on the new opportunities for revival in the countryside that have emerged with the drop in violence.
The points explored in this article underscore how Afghans may be even more economically vulnerable in the face of political and economic isolation now than they were during the last period of Taliban rule in the 1990s. Though much of the international community’s attention remains focused on the movements of Afghans looking to flee the country, internal mobility dynamics present opportunities and challenges as longer-term needs for humanitarian aid and development support emerge.
The conflict between the federal government and the Tigray Defence Forces (TDF) has spread beyond Tigray, intensified old animosities between Tigray and Amhara, and drawn in armed groups from Oromia, Benishangul, and Afar, deepening identity-based contestations across Ethiopia.
These days fighting is moving ever closer to the capital, Addis Ababa, threatening a catastrophic escalation. Ethiopia’s cabinet declared a nationwide state of emergency and there are widespread reports of Tigrayan civilians being arrested without reasonable grounds. Governments around the world, from the US to Turkey, are advising their citizens to leave the country immediately.
Meanwhile, northern Ethiopia is facing a worsening humanitarian crisis, with more than eight million people in urgent need of assistance. In Tigray, at least 400,000 people are believed to be living in famine conditions. Two million people have been internally displaced and there are more than 60,000 refugees in Sudan. The first humanitarian convoys for more than a month recently entered the region, but there is still a need for 100 trucks a day to meet the local population’s most basic needs.
An joint investigation by the United Nations (UN) and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC), plus a subsequent report by the EHRC, have laid bare the widespread abuses, torture, and sexual violence against civilians committed by the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) as well as Tigrayan, Amhara, and Eritrean forces during different phases of the conflict including some which may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Tigrayan Advances But End Game is Unclear
Ethiopian government forces have been on the back foot in recent months. The TDF has captured significant territory including major cities and towns such as Weldiya, Dessie, and Kombolcha. Tigrayans also formed an alliance with the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), which has captured territory in many parts of Oromia facing limited resistance from the ENDF and its allies. Joint forces are within 200km of Addis Ababa.
In Afar, the insurgents seek to cut off the main supply route to Addis Ababa from neighbouring Djibouti which would allow them to impose a blockade on the capital and potentially open a crucial supply line to Tigray. As such they have been met with stern resistance from federal and Afari forces.
But the end game of the Tigrayans is still not clear. They are yet to articulate a coherent political plan or form a coalition that has a chance of gaining national legitimacy.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and OLA recently established an alliance with seven smaller groups calling for the formation of a transitional authority, but the details of the agreement, which does not include many legitimate stakeholders, remain unclear. It is still uncertain whether the TPLF-TDF is fighting to conquer the entire country, to secure Tigrayan autonomy in a confederated Ethiopia, or to secede.
For his part, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed remains bullish and committed to military victory, having declared he would lead the army from the frontline, and calling on citizens to take up arms against groups his government has designated as terrorists. He maintains significant backing in Addis Ababa but the federal government is no longer the only power base in the country.
Regional administrations are leading their own forces and prioritising their own ethno-federal agendas – fighting not only to protect and expand their territory but also to carve out favourable positions for themselves in possible future political dispensations. A self-sustaining logic of violence is at risk of being established.
Limited International Leverage
Neither side seems willing to listen to external calls for peace. Abiy appears to believe the international community wants to remove him and so his only option is to pursue a winner-takes-all approach. The TPLF/TDF also sees little value in negotiation, especially since its recent advances. Both sides perceive the other as an existential threat.
The European Union (EU) and the US have exerted some pressure by halting aid, with the latter also suspending Ethiopia from the African Growth and Opportunity Act, to try and bring the conflict to an end. Sanctions on Ethiopian actors have been withheld, at least for now, to allow time for negotiations to bear fruit, but targeted measures have been placed on Eritrean officials and institutions due to their destabilizing role in the conflict.
However, these efforts have had little success so far and the punitive action by external actors has been instrumentalized to stoke nationalism and mobilize resistance. Mediation will be crucial to resolving this conflict – but there is no single actor who can effectively carry it out.
The African Union (AU) Horn of Africa representative, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, is engaging in shuttle diplomacy but his team needs more support and resources to achieve meaningful progress. US and EU envoys are also playing an important role in talks with domestic and regional players.
The AU is in a delicate position. Its headquarters are in Addis Ababa and its decision-making model demands consensus, making strong action such as suspending Ethiopia highly improbable. The regional bloc – the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) – is similarly hamstrung due to upheaval in post-coup Sudan, the current chair. Even before the coup, deteriorating relations between Khartoum and Addis Ababa, and the ties between IGAD’s Ethiopian executive secretary and Abiy, made it challenging for the bloc to act as a mediator.
In the absence of feasible institutional mechanisms, the engagement of regional leaders such as President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya is vital. Kenya, currently a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, has protected Addis Ababa from sanctions – along with China and Russia – insisting instead on an African-led resolution to the conflict. But it has also been outspoken on the humanitarian crisis and urged an end to hostilities. Following his talks with Abiy in Addis Ababa, Kenya’s president discussed ways to resolve Ethiopia’s conflict with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa.
Genuine Dialogue and Reconciliation
A road map to sustainable peace in Ethiopia can only be drawn after a ceasefire is achieved. For de-escalation to happen, both the federal government and rebels need to acknowledge each other as interlocutors. This would require the federal government to lift the designations of TPLF and OLA-Shene as terrorist groups and the rebel groups to accept the legitimacy of federal jurisdiction. The government and federal states would also need to allow humanitarian relief to reach Tigray as a matter of urgency. Meanwhile, a UN-mandated independent monitoring and evaluation commission could be established to oversee the ceasefire.
All sides would then need to recognize the overarching need to find a new political settlement and address Ethiopia’s deep-rooted structural problems. They need to start working towards reconciling their conflicting historical narratives, agreeing on a division of power between the centre and the regions, managing demands for ethnolinguistic self-determination, and resolving territorial disputes.
To move forward peacefully, Ethiopian leaders need to find a way to accommodate competing ideological perspectives and build a vision for consensual governance. This can only happen through national dialogue and an inclusive transitional process.
To this end, a dialogue platform has been established by the Ministry of Peace and several local organizations. But to strengthen this emerging process, the government should be an equal partner – alongside civil society groups and others – with peacebuilding and reconciliation endeavours reinforced.
The transitional process should include the federal government, rebel movements and senior opposition party leaders such as Jawar Mohammed, Bekele Gerba, and Eskinder Nega, as well as civil society and religious leaders, and eminent personalities.
Such an inclusive process could lead to an interim government of national unity recognised by all stakeholders. This government, with a short, pre-determined tenure, could implement institutional reforms to strengthen the federal project and allow for genuine devolution which would pave the way for national elections which meet local expectations and international standards.
A transitional justice strategy – essential for societal healing and holding perpetrators of atrocities to account – should also be developed. And stakeholders should agree on a process to manage autonomous regional security forces and reunify the national army. Addressing the economic drivers of conflict, such as ensuring peace dividends at a local level, is an important element of any long-term solutions. International partners should support this process with resources and technical expertise.
This article was originally published on Al Jazeera.
The head of Sudan’s armed forces Lieutenant General Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan claims the military coup of 25 October was to protect the transition to democracy because political infighting was stalling progress on establishing crucial institutions. But despite a clear determination to make the coup stick, the military is clearly under pressure and may have overestimated its chances of success.
The coup has been accompanied by arrests of politicians, activists, and leaders of local resistance committees, including some of Sudan’s most effective advocates for democratic transformation. Additionally, administrators appointed since the revolution have been dismissed while members of the old regime and Bashir’s feared intelligence service have reappeared.
Despite a communications blackout being used as cover for the security services forceful disruption of the resistance, with reports of 14 killed and hundreds injured, the Sudanese public – which removed Bashir’s Islamist regime with the most powerful protest movement in the country’s history – are demonstrating they will not accept a return to authoritarian rule.
Millions participated in coordinated pro-democracy protests across Sudan and beyond its borders on 30 October, and the non-violent resistance has continued, with large protests planned for 13 November and mass strikes paralyzing the country’s economy. This gives hope that the coup could still be reversed.
No Effective Leadership or Support
The military failed to build an effective civilian coalition in advance of the coup, or to have an alternative government in place, relying instead on opportunistic allies among its patronage network, Darfuri armed movements, and the Islamists. It is proving much more difficult than expected to persuade reputable civilians to join a post-coup government.
The generals also misjudged the strength of external reactions, with widespread international condemnation and calls for an immediate return to civilian rule from Sudan’s international donors and regional partners. The African Union (AU) has suspended Sudan while the US – clearly incensed the coup took place just hours after their regional envoy Jeff Feltman had been in Khartoum – reacted strongly and sought to coordinate with its allies.
Riyadh and Abu Dhabi notably joined calls for the restoration of the civilian-led transitional government, encouraged by Washington and London. Despite their strong prior relationship with the Sudanese military establishment, the Gulf states have already shown that they will not cover the costs of propping up Sudan’s failing economy.
Sudan’s generals are isolated, although geo-strategic interests do help them retain Russian and Israeli backing. Support is chiefly coming from Egypt which lobbied to soften the AU stance on suspension. Having quelled its own pro-democracy uprising in 2013, Cairo seeks Khartoum’s support in its dispute with Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
A major pressure point is Sudan’s ongoing economic crisis, further amplified by COVID-19. In July, inflation was more than 400 per cent worsening already dismal living conditions for many. Meaningful economic recovery is heavily reliant on international support which key donors have made clear is contingent on the political transition moving forward.
The US immediately paused its $700m assistance and the World Bank suspended $2 billion in development grants. Sudan had also been on course to write off much of its $56 billion external debt under the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative, also now threatened.
The military have unlocked an ongoing economic blockade of Sudan’s eastern ports and flooded markets with cheaper foods in an attempt to soften resistance on the street. This further highlights its enduring control over key levers of the economy and is evidence of its previous efforts to sabotage the transition.
An Emerging Political Settlement?
With the military under pressure, there remains a possibility that the coup could be reversed. But talks between representatives of the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) and the generals remain precarious. The outline of a potential settlement has emerged which would see the prime minister Abdalla Hamdok resume his functions, all political detainees released, and the transitional constitutional order restored. Hamdok is the sole credible figure to lead a civilian transition and is understood to see these as minimum requirements for his return.
Shuttle diplomacy by the United Nations (UN), the Troika, AU, and other officials has yielded only glimmers of progress. Four civilian cabinet members have been released but other key figures remain in detention.
And the military continues to demonstrate a lack of good faith, arresting members of the FFC central council following a meeting with UN envoy Volker Perthes, and disbanding the committees that were recovering assets acquired corruptly by the former regime, detaining both their members and records. The concerning release of Islamist allies and appointments of officials from the Bashir era only further undermines Burhan’s claim to be acting in the interests of civilian rule.
These moves have hardened civilian demands for a full handover of power and for charges to be brought against the coup leaders, but Burhan remains under intense pressure not to back down from hardliners within Sudan’s powerful security apparatus. These forces are headed by generals who held senior posts in the Bashir regime and include Islamists and Bashir sympathisers determined to block the democratic transition so they can regain control of the state apparatus.
Without realistic means of removing the military from the political scene there are clear risks of escalating violence, but it is still possible to build a more inclusive civilian-military partnership with determination and compromise on both sides.
As a first step to de-escalate tensions, all those detained for political reasons since 25 October should immediately be released, and Sudan’s international and regional partners must maintain pressure on the military and its backers to accept a legitimate civilian transition is paramount for stability in Sudan.
The military has controlled Sudan for 52 of its 65 years of independence and is deeply entrenched in key aspects of the economy such as agriculture, industry, and mining, so civilian pro-democracy forces will have to accept a continued role for the military is unavoidable for some time yet.
And they may need to address the fears of the military leaders, perhaps through an amnesty programme, in return for concessions that reinforce the transition. Sudan’s international partners must likewise emphasise the need for compromise and realism to its civilian and civil society leaders.
Creating and Strengthening Institutions
Neither side finds these bitter pills easy to swallow, so it is imperative political and institutional spaces are created and protected to allow for debates and disagreements to be both aired and contained. This would also provide an opportunity to re-double efforts to create a set of strong civilian-led institutions which will put Sudan back on the path to a more stable future.
A joint civilian-military body should be established to discuss the military’s direct interests, such as unresolved issues of power-sharing, corruption, and security sector reform. Establishing an effective parliamentary security committee would apply crucial civilian oversight of reform and address the military’s role in key economic sectors. Tackling justice and accountability requires setting up the high judicial council, a constitutional court, and appointing a chief justice, as well as dealing with the issue of Bashir and others subject to ICC arrest warrants.
Creating a legislative assembly is vital to broadening political participation and ensuring checks and balances on the leadership. Decisions under the transition were taken by only 41 people in cabinet and the sovereign council, so representatives from Sudan’s political movements and civil society should be given places in the transitional institutions and parliament, with suitable experts chosen for the 11 independent commissions provided for in the constitution.
And there is no need to rush to early elections, but there should be an emphasis on creating a conducive environment to enable people all across Sudan, including in the peripheries, to fully participate rather than opening the door for the old regime to return through sham elections.
The coup is a major setback for Sudan’s democratic transition and the freedom, peace, and justice dreamed of by its people. There are fears of an Islamist counter-revolution by stealth which could yet lead to a brutal crackdown and renewed conflict. But in carrying out the coup, Sudan’s military leaders may have inadvertently exposed their own fragile foundations both at home and abroad.
With steadfast, unified diplomacy, pressure on those seeking to support the coup, and consistent messages to all parties on the necessity of compromise, Sudan’s external partners can still help its long-suffering and courageous people put the civilian transition back on track.
In September 2021, at the height of the unprecedented fuel shortage in Lebanon, a tanker carrying Iranian fuel docked at a Syrian port where the fuel was loaded onto trucks and driven through an illegal border crossing into Lebanon. The fuel shipment was brokered by Iran-backed Hezbollah to help alleviate Lebanon’s energy crisis that has been brought on by the country’s ongoing economic crisis. The newly formed Lebanese government made no comment about the shipment while Hezbollah hailed the arrival of the fuel a ‘victory’ and as having ‘broken the American siege’ on Lebanon. Despite it being in violation of US sanctions on trade with Iran, the US ignored the scenario altogether.
Although Hezbollah’s propaganda around the arrival of the Iranian fuel exaggerated its potential impact on Lebanon’s fuel shortage, the incident is significant because of what it signals about regional conflict. Firstly, the Lebanese government’s acquiescence to the shipment effectively means implicit acceptance that the border between Syria and Lebanon is porous. Secondly, the absence of condemnation by the United States signals that Lebanon is viewed as a component of the Iranian ecosystem in the Middle East – of which the Syrian conflict is another major component – rather than a distinct player. Both angles demand a new policy framework in understanding and addressing the dynamics of conflict in the region that goes beyond country-focused approaches.
Western governments including the US and UK have for many years helped provide security infrastructure on the Lebanon-Syria border. For example, the UK has funded watchtowers on the Lebanese side of the border to stop the influx of militants from Syria into Lebanon and control smuggling between the two countries, which flows in both directions. The Iranian fuel entered Lebanon through one of the many illegal crossings along the border. The fact that the Lebanese government turned a blind eye to this shows that no amount of technical infrastructure support by the international community would halt illicit transactions of this kind when the authorities themselves are complicit. It also complicates the distinction between licit and illicit activities.
The company that Hezbollah used to distribute the Iranian fuel in Lebanon, Amana, has been on the US sanctions list since 2020. However, sanctions have not stopped Amana from operating inside Lebanon or from continuing to have financial transactions with entities in Syria or Iran. This shows that while the sanctions have largely succeeded in severing financial ties between sanctioned companies and actors engaged in business with the West, they have not fully cracked the illicit financial system that links countries such as Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Iraq. This financial system plays an important role in sustaining actors involved in conflict in these countries as well as their relationships with one another.
Iran and Hezbollah are major participants in the Syrian conflict, as well as other conflicts in the Middle East, and the Iranian fuel incident highlights the regional and national networks that Iran and Hezbollah rely on to operate, which are not limited to non-state actors. The arrival of the Iranian fuel was publicized well in advance and the Lebanese authorities could have, for example, deployed personnel to block its arrival in Lebanon or tried to hold those involved in this illegal transaction accountable. That they chose not to shows the extent of Hezbollah’s control over the Lebanese state and that corruption in Lebanon goes beyond taking advantage of state resources; it is systemic and not limited to a few bad apples inside state institutions. This in turn highlights the short-sightedness of any approach to stabilization or security in Lebanon that is merely focused on providing technical assistance to state institutions and does not take into consideration the wider context of the need for good governance and institutional reform.
Joseph Diing Majok is a South Sudanese researcher with the Rift Valley Institute (RVI) and a member of the X-Border Local Research Network, part of the XCEPT programme. His work, in partnership with Dr Nicki Kindersley, is focused on the borderland regions between Northern Bahr el-Ghazal state in South Sudan, and Darfur and Kordofan in Sudan. On the strength of his work with the Local Research Network, as well as several other projects with RVI, Diing was recently awarded a scholarship to study for a Masters at Edinburgh University. We asked Diing about his work under XCEPT and his upcoming MSc in Africa and International Development.
Joseph, hi to you in Juba – please introduce yourself.
I’m Joseph Diing. I was born around 1987 – it’s not exactly clear because my mum and dad had never gone to school, and they did not know exactly the year I was born, but it seems to be 1987. I was born during the war, in the SPLA [the Sudan People’s Liberation Army]-controlled area where I grew up. I am one of the ‘beneficiaries’ of the SPLA bush schools, where I studied until the peace agreement came [in 2005]. And this is when we first moved into town. I sat for my secondary school certificate, and finally studied Anthropology at the University of Juba. I graduated in 2018.
And how did you begin your career as a researcher?
One of my university lecturers, who was affiliated with the Rift Valley Institute, invited me to participate in a workshop on oral history research techniques. My first work with RVI was as a research assistant trying to identify key informants and schedule interviews with them, and provide translation and data transcription. In 2018, when the X-Border Local Research Network project began, I was called back as a research assistant to collect data in the field, especially in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, where I have a lot of contacts and knowledge – it’s where I come from. My lead researcher Nicki Kindersley wanted to develop me, not just to work and make money, but to devote myself, to be able to write, and to become a future researcher.
You’ve just won this prestigious and very competitive scholarship to study an MSc in Africa and International Development at the University of Edinburgh – congratulations!
It’s really like a dream, you can’t imagine! When I went to school in 2000, under a tree, only one teacher, and most of our teaching was about military training – Attention! Turn to the right! Turn to the left! – it was a sort of preparation for being in the army, for future liberation. It was a mechanism to control us, and to put us into the SPLA when we grew up. It was not intentionally to educate us for the future, because we were at war and we lived in an area that was heavily affected by violence, and raiding from various militias, and also the government forces. So, from there … to get a scholarship to study in the UK is just like a dream. And also because, in my country, scholarships are not given on merit, but on political loyalty or relationships.
What are you going to focus on in your postgraduate studies?
I was chosen for this scholarship because of my work with the Rift Valley Institute and the X-Border Local Research Network, and so my research experience and the area I’d been focusing on, especially cross-border migration, militarisation, agriculture and labour transitions, and governance.
With this scholarship I’m going to further explore the political economy of agrarian transformation in the borderland of South Sudan. The theme is militarised governance in the labour system, and the impact on agriculture in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal. I will also look at how access to capital – where you form your own militia and tax people on the road – affects the social stratification and gender roles of the Dinka people in the borderland.
Could you share what sorts of experiences and opportunities the X-Border Local Research Network, the LRN, has offered?
The X-Border Local Research Network partnership includes international researchers taking a supervisory role and empowering local researchers – for example, giving them the chance to analyse [data], and guide them to build their critical thinking on analysing the situation. And also in their writing. If the partnership continues, I think South Sudan will have more local researchers in the future – I think it’s a very good relationship.
Let’s turn to the focus of your research. What interests you about borders and borderlands?
You’ll see people focusing on the centre – for example on Juba. And people sometimes look at the borderlands as areas far away from the capital with no influence on political changes inside the city, which is quite wrong.
If you look at access to power in the capital, the border is very important because it’s a semi-autonomous place where people recruit and mobilise, and negotiate themselves into power in the centre. People who are in political power in Juba compete for control of the border between Sudan and South Sudan because then they have access to money through tax. These [contestations] are very influential in shaping the political power dynamic inside the city.
Has anything surprised you during the course of this research?
What I really learn [in the field] is the interconnection between the labour system in the 1980s and 1990s – when people were displaced and being exploited in Darfur – and how it relates to today. It’s the very same people who formed their own militias – exploiting people, benefiting through agriculture and labour, and also taxing them – who continue to control the region of Northern Bahr el-Ghazal. And what was perceived as illegal exploitation [previously] has become legal today.
So there are deep historical echoes here?
If you look at the history of South Sudan and Sudan, there is a lot that is happening today that can be related to the 1980s, and if you analyse even further back – there is a lot that can be related to the 17th century when the Messeriya and the Rizeigat Arab tribes in Darfur used horseman to raid the Dinka tribe of Bahr el-Ghazal. They killed people, dispersed the population, and robbed their property. And also took slaves – using them as their workers on the farms in Darfur and also in Kordofan, and selling them to Jazeera, where the plantations were developing.
So this is really fascinating! Why did people go back? Because what was perceived to have been wrong, and what people fought against during the 1980s and 1990s, is the same system installed today – and legalised.
And are people resisting this new-but-old exploitation?
Women, young people, and even elderly people who are being exploited every day have started a discussion. I’m really interested in researching this resistance further, because people have now become quite suspicious of their own government. And there are local discussions happening on how to resist this form of exploitation, which is now branded as “legal”, or something reasonable.
What forms is the resistance taking?
One emerging form of resistance is the Church. The Church counsels people, but it also enlightens people about standing up for their rights, and some Pastors tell people to stand for their rights.
Another form of resistance is song. Men and women are coming together, for example in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, and they’ve initiated a dance club, where people dance and they sing songs trying to correct their leaders, and they try to point out the exploitation and brutalities being inflicted upon them.
Women experience the worst exploitation in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal. They’re prevented from migrating across the border to Sudan by security officials. A woman would only be allowed to cross the border once she had a letter from her Chief, and she has to pay a lot of money to be allowed to cross. Why? To keep this population of women, and exploit them by making them work on the farms with less payment – or sometimes they get paid in grain. But there is resistance. Women hold dance parties to interact together, and there’s also a club where women go and discuss their own issues.
Do you share your final research with the communities you focus on?
The Rift Valley Institute does dissemination. After we publish a report, we go back to the people in the community – we call them, we organise a small meeting to discuss it, and they are so impressed! Sometimes they look to us as activists. We’re communicating their problem to people who can help them, which is really very good. So, when I go to Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, many people know me as a researcher, as someone who collects data in order to help them, to elevate their voices to be heard by people in the US and the UK who cannot come to Northern Bahr el-Ghazal.
Read Joseph Diing’s work produced via XCEPT’s X-Border Local Research Network:
