Image is from this Black Agenda Report article by the Communist Party of Kenya.
In June, large anti-government protests shook Kenya. President Ruto and his parliament were attempting to pass the new Finance Bill 2024, which, among other things, would have hiked taxes on the population, with a 16% sales tax on bread and a 25% duty on cooking oil, as well as new taxes on financial transanctions and vehicle ownership. There would also have been levies on women’s sanitary products and digital goods such as phones, among other measures affecting hospitals.
Hundreds of protestors stormed the parliament building and began to tear the place apart. Shortly afterwards, on June 26th, Ruto announced that he was withdrawing the bill, calling the tens of deaths and hundreds of injuries “unfortunate”. A couple weeks later, Ruto then fired his entire cabinet (aside from his foreign minister) and communicated his wish to the nation to form a “broad-based government”. Funnily enough, in July, it was announced that the majority of positions were to be filled by members of the old cabinet, while other positions were taken by members of the opposition. This has prompted scepticism among the population, including calls to resign, but there haven’t (yet) been any major anti-government events to pressure this outcome. The Communist Party of Kenya has been working to get some of their comrades back after they were abducted by the police during the protest period, and have otherwise supported the protests against Ruto.
The measures in the bill were strongly encouraged by the IMF. Kenya’s debt is currently around $80 billion, of which about 10% is owed to China for infrastructure projects (such as a railway linking the capital, Nairobi, to the port city of Mombasa, as well as 11,000 kilometers of road throughout the country). The rest is owed to a combination of the US, IMF, World Bank, and Saudi Arabia. More than half of government revenue is going towards repaying the debt - but despite these massive payments, it has only grown. The most recent round of IMF plundering (and the impetus for current events) began in 2021, when they offered a 38-month programme to “help” Kenya, which would involve the usual warfare on the poor and the dismemberment of any useful societal institutions.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you’ve wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don’t worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Kenya! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Are there any Morocco Understanders out there who can tell me what this means https://www.dw.com/en/morocco-years-long-strategy-to-claim-the-western-sahara-increasingly-pays-off/a-70021096
spoiler
Morocco’s strategy on the Western Sahara has paid off Jennifer Holleis 08/23/2024August 23, 2024
With France, another key country supports Morocco’s claim on the disputed region. What are the consequences for the local Sahrawi people, neighboring Algeria and the volatile region as a whole? https://p.dw.com/p/4jngW Copy link United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) personnel disembark from a helicopter Morocco is increasingly successful in claiming the phosphate-rich Western Sahara region with its access to the Atlantic Ocean. Image: Fadel Senna/AFP
For Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, this summer could go down in history. For five decades, the Western Sahara, a territory to the south of the country, has been at the center of a conflict which might now end.
The phosphate-rich region with direct access to the Atlantic Ocean is home to the around 160,000 local Sahrawi people who have been seeking autonomy ever since Spain withdrew from the area in 1975.
The Sahrawis are represented by the Polisario Front, which is backed by neighboring Algeria. But Rabat claims the territory belongs to Morocco.
As a consequence of this on-going dispute, Morocco and Algeria have clashed repeatedly, and have cut ties in 2020, even though Algeria does not seek control of the Western Sahara itself.
Over the past years, Morocco has gained more and more support for its claim on the region and this summer, France changed its diplomatic stance, too.
On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the coronation of King Mohammed VI, the 61-year-old monarch received a congratulatory letter
by French President Emmanuel Macron in which he said that from now on, France will be supporting Morocco’s plan for the Western Sahara.
This plan, which was initially proposed by Rabat in 2007, includes creating autonomous political institutions in the region as well as pushing economic development including a port at the Atlantic Ocean. However, Morocco will be holding control over foreign affairs, defence and currency.
“France’s recognition is an extremely symbolic move that might seal the fate of the Western Sahara conflict,” Sarah Zaaimi, a researcher and the deputy director for communications at the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council, told DW.
Thomas M. Hill, director of North Africa Programs at the Washington-based think tank United States Institute of Peace concluded
in an op-ed this month that the Western Sahara conflict “is over” and that the indigenous Sahrawi independence movement is left with no choice but to eventually settle for some form of autonomy within Morocco. Prime Minister of Morocco Aziz Akhannouch next to French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte MacronPrime Minister of Morocco Aziz Akhannouch next to French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron After the letter to King Mohammed VI, French President Emmanuel Macron met the Moroccan Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch in Paris. Image: Antonin Burat/Le Pictorium/MAXPPP/picture alliance France acts with an eye on migration
France is only the latest state to recognize the Western Sahara region as Moroccan territory. Spain did so in 2022, as did the United States as part of a “quid pro quo” for Rabat’s normalization of diplomatic ties with Israel in 2020.
The Gulf countries and various African and Latin American countries regard the Western Sahara as Moroccan, too.
About the same number of countries support the Polisario Front and the quest for independence by the Sahrawis. However, support for this side has been stalling.
The UN neither recognizes the sovereignty claims of Morocco nor those of the Polisario Front. The international body endorses a UN-led referendum for the local Sahrawis instead.
This is also the position of the European Union, despite first Spain’s and now France’s changed stances.
Alice Gower, director of geopolitics and security at the London-based consulting firm Azure Strategy, highlights that France’s diplomatic turnaround after years of keeping neutral on the topic is less driven by the desire to end the actual dispute over the Western Sahara.
“France’s recognition has little practical effect on the ground,” she told DW.
“Macron’s move has undoubtedly been in part motivated by transactional politics as migration is a fiercely contested issue in France,” she said. The Western Sahara has become one of the most frequented departure points for aspiring migrants and France hopes that Mohammed VI will help curb migration to Europe.
In addition, France also has a high level of interest in avoiding a power vacuum in the increasingly volatile region that includes unstable and warring countries like Libya and Sudan.
“Macron desires to prop up the Moroccan monarchy, which has been suffering a crisis of legitimacy in recent years amid rising Russian and Iranian influence in neighboring Algeria and broader security concerns across the Sahel,” Gower said. Polisario Front soldiers celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Polisario Front Polisario Front soldiers celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Polisario Front Morocco has been pushing for control over the Western Sahara region, with growing support from France, Spain and the US. Image: Guidoum Fateh/AP/picture alliance Algeria’s political pressure
However, France’s decision also has the potential to “throw Algeria more in the arms of the Russian Iranian axis, and push Algeria into a counter move, particularly in light of its upcoming presidential elections in early September,” Atlantic Council’s Zaaimi told DW.
Zine Labidine Ghebouli, a political analyst on Algeria and postgraduate scholar at the University of Glasgow, is therefore worried that “the region may be heading towards the moment when the Polisario Front decides that it is more appropriate and more useful to intensify its military campaign rather than waiting for a diplomatic solution that may not come.”
So far, however, the Sahrawi news agency only reported that the “Polisario Front has asserted that resolving the situation in occupied Western Sahara necessitates the ‘strict and firm implementation’ of international legitimacy resolutions affirming the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination.”
An autonomous region is also envisioned by the around 173,600 Sahrawi refugees
who have been living in Algerian refugee camps for the past 50 years. According to recent numbers by the UN, they have been bearing the world’s second longest-standing refugee situation. Graffiti of a Saharawi Refugee CampGraffiti of a Saharawi Refugee Camp The Sahrawi population in Algeria has been bearing the world’s second longest refugee situation, according to the UN. Image: Noe Falk Nielsen/NurPhoto/picture alliance
Meanwhile, Algeria has stepped up its diplomatic pressure. Algier recalled its ambassador to Paris and started to refuse Algerian nationals deported from France.
For Ghebuli, there is no doubt that this is in reaction to France’s Morocco support.
“The Western Sahara has become an extension of Algeria’s national security domain,” he told DW.
morocco extracting fruits of being comprador piggies, by redrawing international borders and annexing territories (
)
The sooner Morocco ends its Western Sahara border issue, the sooner it can revive its border dispute with Algeria. France retaking Algeria is always the goal.
The Algerian response from the foreign ministry last month
The Algerian government has taken note, with great regret and deep disapproval, of the unexpected, ill-timed and counterproductive decision of the French government providing unequivocal and unqualified support to Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara. This decision was officially communicated to the Algerian authorities by the French authorities in recent days. The colonial powers, both old and new, tend to recognize, understand and assist one another. France’s decision clearly stems from questionable political motives, morally dubious assumptions and legal interpretations that lack any foundation or justification. This French decision does not contribute to a peaceful resolution of the Western Sahara issue. Instead, it bolsters the impasse–one precisely created by the so-called Moroccan autonomy plan–which has lasted for more than seventeen years. Even though the international community has long been convinced that the Western Sahara issue undoubtedly falls under a decolonization process to be completed, this French decision twists the facts by giving credence to colonial practices and unjustifiably backs Morocco’s alleged sovereignty over Western Sahara’s territory. France’s stance is especially unacceptable given that it comes from a permanent member of the Security Council supposed to adhere to the Council’s decisions in particular and international law in general. Finally, at a time when the UN is mobilizing efforts to give new momentum to the process of seeking a political settlement to the conflict in Western Sahara, this French decision runs counter to these efforts and hinders progress towards peace, stability and security in the region. The Algerian government views that the French decision does not serve the objectives of peace in Western Sahara. It only serves to extend the current impasse, and both justifies and bolsters the colonial fait accompli in this territory. The Algerian government will consider all the consequences stemming from this French decision, for which the French government bears sole and complete responsibility.
Just two days ago the Moroccan representative attacked the Sahrawi representative in an African Union meeting in Japan (and got his ass handed by the Algerian diplomat) the article you put says it a few times “the recognition is symbolic” it doesn’t change anything the war is still fought on the ground and the tides won’t shift just because fr*nce helped them color some parts of the map red, the Moroccan plan as I’ve explained before is a 5 page PDF with 2 pages of it being introduction, only a waste of time while they colonize the land similar to the two state “solution”.
How are we supposed to raise awareness? I want more people to learn about Morocco’s colonialism of the Sahrawis, and now seems an excellent time to get that idea across considering we are now talking about Palestine, Congo, and Sudan.
Edit: Algeria and Algerians in almost every form will be based, the brother body slammed him in front of the world.
idk
i’m not a morocco expert, but that article reminded me of an article naked capitalism posted earlier this month. phosphate mining is critically important as a material industry for morocco. morocco has been engaged in ongoing warfare with and colonization of the western sahara and the sahrawi since 1975. the current king of morocco is the son of the king that started the invasions of the western sahara. one policy of USamerica during “competition” with china for critical resources is securing friendly governments over resources, like the bolivian coup. while that ultimately did not work in bolivia, the broad policy of authoritarian but compliant governments controlling resources is a US trick as old as time.
phosphate will always be relevant for mining and export for fertilizer. what’s interesting to me as armchair people’s secretary for electrification is how much longer phosphate will be relevant in modern batteries. lithium iron phosphate batteries are advantageous, especially for vehicle and utility applications, because iron and phosphate are cheap/ relatively abundant. lithium is not and never will be. there are a number of promising alternatives, both at an academic research level and in different manufacturers’ test cars. as soon as it is industrially viable to switch to nickel batteries or one of the more esoteric other options, everyone will do so. when that happens, the idea of phosphate as a critical material might no longer hold water. i’m sure morocco will be happy anyways to take land they’ve been after for fifty years, but it seems like if that happens it would sour relations with algeria. i’m sure one of our comrades from algeria could say much more about that.
sodium ion is probably going to replace lithium ion
Why would Algeria refuse Algerian nationals deported from France? What does that accomplish?
Fun fact: I have been completely banned from talking about Morrocan politics with my moroccan inlaws because I kept asking about the differences between West Sahara and Palestine. Apparently I was an idiot who did not appreciate that Morrocco had a rightful claim to the land (doubtful) as it used to be ruled by the kingdom of Morocco prior to Spanish and French colonization.
Wow, it’s that bad in West Sahara?
Morocco is literally buying israeli surveilance drones to spy on the population that lives there, and has even erected a massive wall down the middle of Western Sahara, which blocks off the Sahrawi population from accessing the sea. So it’s not quite apartheid level, but it’s surely looking like israel post nakba but prior to their complete descent into madness.
Should have caused extra damage by saying that the west sahara is rightfully mauretanian and belongs to Hassaniya.