Geopolitics / Africa

• International Community Presses Juba, Khartoum On Sudan Referendum

  The international community is pressuring the Juba and Khartoum governments to speed up preparation for a vote on South Sudan’s future – a decision that will be dominated by the fate of coveted oil resources -- but an expert on the African country criticizes the lack of understanding about Sudan. The referendum, scheduled for January 2011, is widely expected to result in the south parting ways with the north after years of bitterness and war. Oil is located mainly in the south, but the north is also on the hunt for the precious commodity because a deal to divide the oil wealth…

• Horn, Red Sea Braces for Instability as Somaliland Moves Toward Islamist Reunification With Somalia

  The Election Commission of the Republic of Somaliland on July 1, 2010 — as noted, the highly-iconic 50th anniversary date of the original union of the Republic of Somaliland with the former Italian Somaliland to create the Union of Somalia — announced that the pan-Somalist, radical Islamist Kulmiye party candidate, Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo, had won the June 26, 2010, Presidential elections. Kulmiye — with major support from a broadly-based network of Islamists throughout the region, a range of pan-Somalists and southern Somalian clans, several regional governments, and at least one major Western front organization — prepared a broad campaign for…

• Somaliland Presidential Election Besieged by Well-Financed Islamists, Threatening Horn/Red Sea Stability

  It is now apparent that moves forecast by GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs  by pan-Somalians and Islamists to undermine, overthrow, and discredit the Republic of Somaliland’s June 26, 2010, Presidential elections have begun, and may be about to burst onto the streets of Hargeisa, the capital, and other towns and cities in Somaliland. If the election process collapses, and the government is seized by the pan-Somalists through extra-legal means, such as street demonstrations, the Horn of Africa would revert to internecine conflict and move out of any influence by the West. Moreover, logistical support for Ethiopian trade - which has been…

• Violence and Fraud Being Injected into the Somaliland Presidential Election Process

  The delicate security situation in and around the Horn of Africa by mid-May 2010 began to get dramatically worse, with the potential for major problems for the international sea trade - particularly in energy products and manufactures - through the Red Sea/Suez sea lanes, as a result of major foreign involvement in major, and imminent, elections in Somaliland and Ethiopia. Arguably, the situation in Somaliland is the less stable of the two situations, although they are directly linked, given their contiguous borders, and the fact that Somaliland is now the key overland trade link for Ethiopia to Red Sea shipping.…

• Nigerian Uncertainties Created by Presidential Election Ambition May Hurt Global Energy Markets

  The apparent decision on May 11, 2010 — discreetly revealed by two Nigerian newspapers the next day — that Nigerian Pres. Dr Goodluck Jonathan would be interested in contesting the January 2011 Presidential elections may have been part of a process to “test the waters” on the incumbent President’s chances of electoral success. Whatever the motivation, the leak sent a message of concern through the global energy industry which is increasingly dependent on Nigerian — and Gulf of Guinea — oil and gas output. Dr Jonathan’s new confidence in his belief that he could take the Presidency in his own…

• Piracy In The Puntland Region of Somalia

  The Puntland region of Somalia has, in recent years, been increasingly seen as the springboard for piracy against commercial vessels operating in and through the Gulf of Aden at the foot of the Red Sea, and in the region to the East of the Horn of Africa. This activity has spurred the biggest influx of out-of-region naval forces into the Indian Ocean since World War II, and yet international and regional forces have been reluctant to intervene against the pirate groups on land, in their villages in Puntland, for fear of creating even worse strategic consequences in the delicate security…

• Somali Pirates Continue to Plague the Horn of Africa

  The Horn of Africa has become a hotbed of piracy due to outdated maritime laws, the lack of a Somali government and gut-wrenching poverty. Where there is a sea, there are pirates. - Greek proverb To many people, the term "piracy" evokes images of the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. Until last year piracy was an annoyingly persistent low-level irritant for maritime nations, clustered around several global hotspots, including African waters, the Straits of Malacca and relatively isolated incidents in Latin America. Last year the problem metastasized in the waters of Somalia, where now a motley international coalition of about…

• Nigeria "Back in Business" as Jonathan's US Visit Highlights Renewed Control of the Government

  The visit to Washington, DC, in April 2010 by Acting Nigerian Pres. Goodluck Jonathan, ostensibly as part of US President Barack Obama's Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) gave Nigeria the opportunity to "return to normal diplomatic life" after more than a year of relative isolation, in large part due to the illness of Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, who remains critically ill and in isolation. Significantly, the visit by Dr Jonathan resulted in Nigeria being removed from the US' terrorist watch-list.  The addition of Nigeria to the watch-list was a hasty US reaction to an attempted terrorist bombing of a US…

• Somaliland's Presidential Election Assumes Growing Priority as Major Powers Sense Strategic Urgency of the Horn Situation

  Somaliland’s delayed Presidential election is back on track after a period of active foreign interference to manipulate the electoral rolls, and is expected to take place before the end of 2010. The issue has assumed a significantly-increased profile within the US State Department and other foreign governments as security concerns mount in neighboring Somalia and, across the Bab el-Mandeb, in Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula. The US took the unprecedented step, in March 2010, of inviting a major delegation of Cabinet members and officials from the Republic of Somaliland to Washington for a series of talks on the country’s future.…

• Acting Nigerian President Moves Quickly Decisively to Get Country Back on Track

  Acting Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has moved decisively and rapidly to unify the Government under him, dismissing — on March 17, 2010 — the entire Cabinet which had been appointed by the now-incapacitated Pres. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. This followed his move, the week before, to appoint Lt.-Gen. Aliyu Mohammed Gusau as the new National Security Advisor, a post which oversees all the intelligence and security services as well as the Armed Forces. Sources told GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs late on March 18, 2010, said that about half the ministers would be invited back into the new Cabinet. The new cabinet…