World roundup: May 4 2021
Stories from Syria, Afghanistan, Chad, and more
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THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
May 3, 1815: In a clash that offered a kind of foreshadowing of the later Battle of Waterloo, an army led by the Napoleon-installed king of Naples, Joachim Murat, is badly defeated by a smaller Austrian army at the Battle of Tolentino. Murat abandoned Naples altogether and fled to Corsica, leading to the end of the Neapolitan War and the restoration of Ferdinand I as king of Naples and Sicily.
May 4, 1799: The British East India Company and its allies capture the fortress of Seringapatam in the southern Indian sultanate of Mysore, ending a one month siege and along with it the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War and, indeed, the Anglo-Mysore Wars as a whole. The ruler of Mysore, Tipu Sultan, had been a perpetual thorn in the EIC’s side, having risen to the throne during the Second Anglo-Mysore War and having led the kingdom into the Third Anglo-Mysore War. He was killed at Seringapatam and his kingdom was mostly absorbed by the EIC and its allies, the Maratha Empire and Hyderabad.
May 4, 1904: The United States assumes ownership of a nearly defunct French project to build a canal across Panama connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. This was just a few months after Panama’s US-backed declaration of independence from Colombia, which the Roosevelt administration encouraged because the Colombian Congress wouldn’t ratify the treaty leasing the canal zone to the US. The project was completed in 1914 and it’s fair to say it was kind of a big deal.
INTERNATIONAL
Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for May 4:
154,969,283 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (+775,817 since yesterday)
3,240,622 reported fatalities (+13,648 since yesterday)
For vaccine data the New York Times has created a tracker here
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
23,051 confirmed coronavirus cases (+74)
1617 reported fatalities (+7)
Syrian state media is reporting that an Israeli missile strike targeting towns in northwestern Syria’s Latakia and Hama provinces early Wednesday killed at least one person and wounded six more. It’s further reporting that all the casualties were civilian. It’s unclear what the Israelis might have been targeting.
The head of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Directorate, Khalid Humaidan, reportedly visited Damascus on Monday for a meeting with the head of Syria’s intelligence services, Ali Mamlouk. This is believed to be the first Syrian-Saudi interaction at such a high level since 2011 and presumably signals a broader attempt to come to some kind of accord. It could be related to the recently reported diplomatic engagement between Iran and several Arab states, including the Saudis, though I’m just speculating here. It’s definitely an outgrowth of a slow process of re-normalizing relations between Bashar al-Assad’s government and the various Arab states that backed the rebel side during Syria’s civil war, a process that was led by the UAE and has also incorporated Egypt.
So far there have only been some tentative steps taken in the direction of bringing Assad back into the club of Arab leaders, but a diplomatic breakthrough with the Saudis—which reportedly could come as soon as the end of Eid later this month—might speed things up considerably.
IRAQ
1,086,141 confirmed cases (+6143)
15,608 reported fatalities (+42)
At least two more Iraqi military facilities housing foreign personnel came under rocket attack on Tuesday. Somebody fired six rockets at Balad airbase north of Baghdad, wounding a foreign contractor working for a US firm that helps maintain Iraq’s F-16 fleet. Two more rockets struck Ayn al-Asad airbase in Anbar province, to no apparent effect.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi government has lodged a formal complaint over the Turkish military’s latest operation against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq. Presumably this complaint will have about the same effect that all of the Iraqi government’s previous complaints about all of the Turkish military’s previous operations on its territory have had, which is to say none.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
838,697 confirmed cases (+76) in Israel, 298,921 confirmed cases (+718) in Palestine
6369 reported fatalities (+2) in Israel, 3296 reported fatalities (+13) in Palestine
Benjamin Netanyahu’s deadline to form a government ended at midnight (local time) with no coalition deal in place. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin now has three days to decide whether to choose another candidate to form a government—probably “centrist” (in the Israeli context; these things are relative) Yair Lapid—or to ask the Knesset to vote on a candidate without any preliminary coalition talks. If he chooses the latter it likely means Israel is headed for a new election. Frankly either way Israel is probably headed for a new election, but if Rivlin gives Lapid (or somebody else) an opportunity to build a coalition then the process will take a bit longer.
IRAN
2,575,737 confirmed cases (+20,150)
73,219 reported fatalities (+344)
The first secretary of Switzerland’s embassy in Tehran apparently fell to her death from an upper floor of the apartment building in which she lived. Her body was discovered Tuesday morning. Circumstances here are very murky and there’s no indication of any foul play in the reporting, at least not as yet. But accidental falls from tall buildings are not terribly common, so I would imagine there’s going to be some speculation as to what happened. The Swiss embassy manages US diplomatic interests in Iran so this could have significant repercussions depending on how it shakes out.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
60,797 confirmed cases (+234)
2654 reported fatalities (+6)
The Taliban has reportedly undertaken a “major” offensive in Helmand province, part of a broader escalation in violence since the previous May 1 deadline for the withdrawal of US forces, negotiated by the Trump administration, passed on Saturday. Taliban fighters have seized control of a number of military outposts around the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, though Afghan security forces have so far been able to keep them to the outskirts of the city. Despite the outburst of violence, the Biden administration says it remains undeterred with respect to its new September 11 withdrawal deadline.
With the US continuing with its Afghan withdrawal plans I know it can be hard to remember What We’ve Been Fighting For these past ~20 years. Fortunately a new investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project offers a reminder that part of the war has been about helping our friends get rich:
Afghanistan’s crags and valleys hold at least a trillion dollars’ worth of minerals, first mapped by Soviet geologists in the 1970s. Local warlords and foreign powers have plundered these deposits ever since.
The Taliban and other armed groups have battled both the central government and each other for control of the mines, using them to fund their insurgencies. Even former U.S. President Donald Trump coveted Afghanistan’s gold, lithium, uranium, and other mineral riches. In 2017, Trump was persuaded to keep troops in the country by its president, Ashraf Ghani, who dangled the prospect of mining contracts for American companies.
American troops are still in Afghanistan — at least until September — and Ghani has delivered. In late 2019, SOS International (SOSi), a Virginia-based company with links to the U.S. military and intelligence apparati, obtained exclusive access to various mines across Afghanistan. As part of the deal, Ghani’s family got a little something on the side.
Ghani granted a SOSi subsidiary, Southern Development, also known as SODEVCO, rights to buy artisanally mined ore. An OCCRP investigation found that the president’s brother, Hashmat Ghani, owns a significant stake in Southern Development, which operates a mineral processing plant on the outskirts of Kabul.
The concession presents both a conflict for both the Afghan leader and the U.S. government.
Really? Gee whiz, I can’t imagine why. The OCCRP report is a long read but worth your time.
MYANMAR
142,858 confirmed cases (+16)
3209 reported fatalities (+0)
Myanmar’s junta government is outlawing TV satellite dishes, extending its effort to isolate the country from external communications. It had previously restricted internet services in an effort to undermine protests against February’s coup. The carnage that’s ensued in the wake of that coup continued on Tuesday, as at least five people were reportedly killed by at least one “parcel bomb.” Details are sketchy but among the dead are three police officers who quit to join the anti-junta movement and one former lawmaker who was removed from office as part of the coup. A recently declared rebel group called the Chinland Defense Force also announced that its forces had killed four Myanmar soldiers in a battle in Chin state overnight, though that’s unconfirmed as far as I know.
CHINA
90,714 confirmed cases (+17) on the mainland, 11,791 confirmed cases (+4) in Hong Kong
4636 reported fatalities (+0) on the mainland, 210 reported fatalities (+0) in Hong Kong
Foreign ministers from the G7 nations met in London on Tuesday for their first in person session since pre-pandemic days. They don’t seem to have come to any specific decisions but they did apparently agree to Do Something about China, which I’m sure is as big a weight off of your shoulders as it is off of mine. It sounds like they’ll be Doing Something about Russia as well, and they also raised the possibility that they might Do Something in the future with respect to trouble spots like the Balkans, Ethiopia, Iran, Myanmar, and the Sahel. So reassuring!
The European Commission announced on Tuesday that it’s effectively “suspended” efforts to ratify the European Union-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment. Beijing and Brussels concluded the commercial agreement in December but there’s been little momentum behind its ratification in the European Parliament and now that the EU has imposed sanctions on China, and China has retaliated, the Commission apparently feels it’s better to put the whole thing on ice for the time being.
One of the most frequently asked questions when it comes to stories alleging Chinese mistreatment of the Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups is why the rest of the Islamic world doesn’t really seem to care all that much. No matter how much credence you might or might not give to those allegations it’s interesting that the response from major Islamic powers has been either silence (a la Saudi Arabia) or a few tentative and tepid comments (a la Turkey). Economics is a big part of the equation, as China is increasingly the primary consumer of Gulf oil and has been a lifeline for Iran and, to a lesser extent, Turkey. But according to George Mason’s Jonathan Hoffman there’s another relevant aspect of China’s relationship with these countries:
My recent research suggests another part of the story has received far less attention: the significant increase in religious engagement between Beijing and these countries, which helps explain the enthusiasm from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt for the crackdown in Xinjiang.
China has been able to align its hostility toward its Muslim population with the antipathy of these countries toward particular forms of political Islamism — ranging from mainstream political groups that want their governments to expand democracy, cut corruption and protect human rights, to more radical Islamist groups that denounce governments as apostates and puppets of the West.
At the very least, when China categorizes its handling of Uyghur issues in the context of a “war on terror” type effort to contain radical Islamism, it gives governments in Saudi Arabia, et al, a good narrative to feed their own people, some of whom might otherwise see stories about the Uyghurs and wonder why their leaders aren’t also Doing Something about China.
OCEANIA
SAMOA
3 confirmed cases (+0)
No reported fatalities
Samoan O le Ao o le Malo (head of state) Tuimalealiifano Va’aletoa Sualauvi II has moved to annul last month’s parliamentary election and hold a do-over on May 21. Through an unlikely set of circumstances, the first go-round produced a deadlocked legislature, with the ruling Human Rights Protection Party and the opposition Faith in the One True God (FAST) party (with the support of one independent) each emerging with 26 votes. What makes this unlikely is that Samoa’s Legislative Assembly normally has 51 seats, but an additional seat had to be added in order to meet electoral rules about minimum representation for women. That extra seat went to HRPP, creating the tie. FAST is challenging the creation of that 52nd seat in court. Party leader Fiame Naomi Mata’afa has already rejected the snap election decision as premature given that Samoa’s Supreme Court has yet to rule on that legal challenge.
AFRICA
NIGERIA
165,215 confirmed cases (+16)
2063 reported fatalities (+0)
Islamic State West Africa Province fighters killed at least 30 people in an overnight attack on a Nigerian military base in the town of Ajiri, in Borno state. Ten of the dead were civilians. Five more people, all civilians, were killed on Tuesday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb outside the town of Rann, which is close to the Cameroonian border in the eastern part of Borno state. The bomb was likely left by ISWAP, whose forces attacked another military outpost near Rann over the weekend but were driven off.
CHAD
4835 confirmed cases (+7)
170 reported fatalities (+0)
At Responsible Statecraft, FX contributor Alex Thurston argues that the Biden administration should rethink US policy toward Chad in the wake of longtime dictator Idriss Déby’s death last month:
Current U.S. policy towards Chad is predicated on the idea that, as the Foreign Assistance website puts it, “Chad is a strong U.S. partner in helping to maintain regional stability.” Indeed, Chadian forces played leading roles in counter-jihadist operations in Mali in 2013 and in Nigeria in 2015. Those actions reinforced the image of Chadian soldiers as hardened “desert warriors” to whom France and the United States could outsource tough counterterrorism missions. In many ways, U.S. policy has simply mirrored and supported French policy. A sort of bargain developed in which France would support Deby, even militarily, while Washington would also treat Deby as an essential element of the regional security architectures. Under Deby, Paris and Washington were routinely accused of overlooking the Chadian leader’s authoritarianism, corruption, and brutal human rights record.
The present moment offers an opportunity to reassess that policy, especially amid last week’s African Union fact-finding mission in Chad, one of whose goals is to “examine strategies to facilitate a swift return to constitutional order and democratic governance.” When Washington chooses to, it has shown that it can successfully pressure coup-makers in the region to cede power to civilians. Amid coups in Mali in both 2012 and 2020, the United States invoked Section 7008 of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations to suspend aspects of foreign assistance. In both cases, military leaders formally ceded power to civilians within weeks. Although few observers would hail Mali — the epicenter of the Sahelian crisis — as a success story, these policy choices helped preserve a shred of respect for constitutional order and the rule of law.
ETHIOPIA
259,354 confirmed cases (+541)
3772 reported fatalities (+15)
As the AP reports, Ethiopia’s precarious security situation is leading to a precarious political situation:
Tigrayans and the United States government allege ethnic cleansing in western Tigray, where Amhara authorities assert they are reclaiming land that Tigray leaders seized in the 1990s. The term “ethnic cleansing” refers to forcing a population from a region through expulsions and other violence, often including killings and rapes.
Members of other ethnic groups elsewhere say they have been targeted, too. Scores of people have been killed in clashes this year between the Amhara and the Oromo, Ethiopia’s two largest ethnic groups. In the country’s west, the Gumuz have been accused of massacring people from both the Amhara and Oromo groups.
With the rising violence, some in Ethiopia wonder how the government will pull off national elections on June 5. The decision to delay voting from last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic helped to spark the Tigray conflict when the region’s leaders objected, asserted that Abiy’s mandate had ended and held a regional vote of their own.
The European Union has announced it’s not going to send election observers as it had planned. Ethiopian officials insist the observers “are neither essential nor necessary to certify the credibility of an election,” which is fair enough I guess. But if you’re going to insist on holding an election in the middle of an ongoing civil war while intentionally disenfranchising millions of people, most of whom are members of one particular ethnic group that’s currently on the outs with federal authorities, it might help to have some ostensibly independent verification of the outcome.
KENYA
160,904 confirmed cases (+345)
2805 reported fatalities (+24)
At least two people were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Kenya’s Lamu county on Tuesday. A third person was wounded but apparently not severely. Given the location (near the Somali border) and the target (a truck involved in a project to build a barrier along the Somali border) it’s all but certain that the explosive was planted by al-Shabab fighters.
EUROPE
SLOVAKIA
383,609 confirmed cases (+381)
11,855 reported fatalities (+48)
The new Slovak government under new Prime Minister Eduard Heger won its initial confidence vote in the Slovak National Council on Tuesday, by a comfortable 89-55 margin. Heger, who had served as Economy Minister and deputy PM under his predecessor, Igor Matovič, assumed office on April 1 as part of a cabinet shakeup prompted by the near dissolution of Slovakia’s ruling four party coalition. Matovič, whose decision to purchase two million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID vaccine without consulting his coalition partners prompted two of those partners to threaten to quit, stepped down in order to keep the gang together and has assumed Heger’s former posts in the new cabinet.
AMERICAS
COLOMBIA
2,919,805 confirmed cases (+14,551)
75,627 reported fatalities (+463)
There are reports that Colombian police meted out some fairly brutal violence to anti-government protesters by Colombian police late Monday. At least 19 people have already been killed since protests began on April 28 over opposition to a controversial tax reform proposal, and that doesn’t include any new casualties from Monday’s incident.
Human Rights Watch says it’s received reports of five fatalities in Cali and is working to confirm them. Writing for Jacobin, Estefanía Martinéz says the tax reform proposal was really the last straw for Colombians who are fed up with President Iván Duque’s agenda:
Ever since November 2019’s massive demonstrations against Duque’s proposed austerity measures against labor, tax, and pensions, Colombia has been approaching a tipping point. Social indicators paint a stark picture: over seventy-two thousand COVID-related deaths, more than half of the labor force in the informal sector, and four million unemployed (nearly 10 percent of the population). The peasant sector has been largely left to fend for its own amid the pandemic. Meanwhile, the peace process between the Colombian state and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is at risk of being undermined by increased state-sponsored paramilitarization.
The reform bill proposed by Duque, which seeks to shore up Colombia’s finances in response to the pandemic-induced fiscal crisis, is anti-worker. The centerpiece of the original bill is increased taxes on wages and consumption; Colombia’s capitalist oligarchy and other dominant classes are largely exempt. Worse still, the bill seeks to maintain the country’s sizable military budget, ensuring that any challenge to Colombia’s neoliberal model — based on concentrated land ownership and forced dispossession — will be met with increased violence.
UNITED STATES
33,274,659 confirmed cases (+42,354)
592,409 reported fatalities (+853)
Finally, I know this has been a theme around here for a little while now, but I’ll leave you with Washington Post columnist Ishaan Tharoor on the continuing failure of wealthy nations, like—or especially—the United States, to do the right thing:
In the United States and a handful of other countries, the end of the pandemic seems near. Close to half of the U.S. population has received at least one vaccine dose in a nation awash with supply. In some states, local authorities are even trying to entice people to get a shot with promises of pints of beer and cash payments. Many Americans can now ponder sunny summer travel plans and a life free of most of the restrictions of the past year.
Much of the rest of the world isn’t so fortunate. The relentless surge of the coronavirus in India — where only about 2 percent of the population is fully vaccinated — is just the most intense reflection of an accelerating global tragedy. It took nine months for the world to track 1 million coronavirus-related deaths, but just six months to lodge the next 2 million. In sub-Saharan Africa, less than 1 percent of the population has received a shot. Some analysts predict that many countries in the developing world may only be fully immunized against the coronavirus by 2024. That gap, many experts fear, will lead to new deadly waves of the virus as it circulates and evolves.
“This is a man-made catastrophe,” former British prime minister Gordon Brown declared Monday during a World Health Organization briefing, where he called on the world’s wealthy nations to do much more to speed up the mass inoculation of much of the planet. “By our failure to extend vaccination more rapidly to every country, we are choosing who lives and who dies,” he said.