IMPACTS IN AFRICA OF THE DIPLOMATIC ROW BETWEEN SAUDI ARABIA AND QATAR

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The explosion of contradictions between Qatar and and Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and their satellites on the other, is reflected in the military-political situation not only on the Arabian Peninsula, in Syria and Libya, but throughout Eastern Africa, associated with the crisis participants’ complicated system of relations. On June 5, 2017, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates launched a campaign against Qatar. The anti-Qatar campaign leaders then failed to achieve a rapid resolution of the crisis in their favour through a Qatari capitulation. The regional response to the campaign was mixed, with most Arab leaders seeking to avoid taking sides. Saudi Arabia and the UAE found immediate support from Bahrain and Egypt. But they proved unable to expand the coalition. GCC stalwarts such as Kuwait and Oman sought instead to mediate the conflict, while most African states tried to remain neutral. 

HIGHLIGHTS:

Saudi Arabia is losing the shadow war against Iran in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain, along with Egypt, broke diplomatic relations with Qatar on June 5 and simultaneously announced a trade embargo.

Various African countries have taken sides, showing their solidarity with either the Saudi-friendly Gulf State or Qatar.

Extensive web of alignments and divisions across the Horn of Africa puts pressure on countries to declare solidarity with either side of the Qatar crisis.

The Horn of Africa is not only of interest to Western and key Asian powers, it has recently also drawn the attention of Middle Eastern countries.

Crisis in the Gulf has had an unexpected consequence – a rush to build ports all down the Somali coast.

Qatar’s emir toured six West African nations to shore up support for his country in its dispute with its Gulf brethren.

Introduction

In early June 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and the Maldives broke diplomatic relations with Qatar and moved to isolate it. Tension among a number of these states – especially the main protagonists, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE – is not new, but with the Middle East polarized, conflicts persisting around the region and the Gulf states themselves projecting their power, their dispute risks making an already bad situation worse. Exactly what precipitated the move is unclear, Doha was given no warning. Saudi and Emirati officials cited no specific catalyst but rather spoke about an accumulation of frustration and unkempt pledges. Two issues apparently vexed them in particular. First, some officials alleged that Qatar had cozied up to Iran, though Qatar’s policies largely fall within the stated Arab consensus of confronting Tehran’s proxies, maintaining economic ties, and planning to negotiate at some future point when the Arab hand has been strengthened.

Second, and more importantly, officials accused Doha of backing “extremists”, by which they mean a range of both jihadist and political Islamist groups and particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, which their governments tend to see on a continuum with groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS). After Saudi Arabia called on a number of African states to join its boycott of Qatar, it became clear that the crisis is spilling over the Gulf’s borders. Senegal was first to recall its ambassador from Qatar’s capital Doha. Somali-land, Comoros, Chad, Gabon, Djibouti, Eritrea and Mauritania followed suit, and after some days Niger announced it was doing the same. More and more African Muslim majority countries are severing ties with Qatar citing solidarity with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Nations. Several countries have taken sides but Somalia, both Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation (as well as Ethiopia) have decided to stay neutral. 

Background

Qatar’s actions in the Middle East have been an irritant to its neighbors for years. Tension across their mutual border grew in the late 1990s, when Doha began to use its financial wherewithal to extend its regional political clout. It pursued an iconoclastic and at times seemingly contradictory foreign policy, at the center of which was mediation of conflicts; strong ties with the U.S., whose important military base it hosted; sponsorship of a powerful, often combative pan-regional media instrument (Al Jazeera); as well as patronage of groups with an Islamist bent, notably the Muslim Brotherhood but also, later, some in the salafi-jihadist orbit. Seen broadly, Qatar’s leadership has sought to advance its interests by triangulating between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. Qatar has also sought to be the region’s mediator, playing an outsized role resolving conflicts from the Levant to North Africa and beyond. In the last decade, however, Qatar has stepped up its role as an independent regional actor. It has not only shown sympathy to groups that embrace political Islam (generally under the guise of supporting democracy), but it appeared to seek to encourage the uprisings that swept the Arab world in 2011. Safe at home with its tiny, wealthy, secure, and loyal population, Qatar often seemed willing to sow disorder and discord overseas.

In simplistic terms, the problem first (between Qatar and Saudi Arabia) started in the year 1995, when Sheikh Tamin overthrew his pro-Saudi father and Qatar made its first shipment of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) from the offshore North Field: the largest gas reservoir in the world. Qatar was able to use the agency created by its gas wealth to assert its unrestricted autonomy. This has allowed it to support whom it chooses, notably the Muslim brotherhood on occasions, and form ties with powers such as Iran, the U.S., and Russia. Qatar’s reliance on gas instead of oil has left it free from the Saudi domination it would have been exposed to as an oil-reliant member of OPEC. It has also been necessary that Qatar maintain a working relationship with Iran to protect its economic source of autonomy. Qatar self-imposed a two-year freeze in gas exploration and output in 2005, supposedly to study how the gas field was responding to exploitation. Given the suspension was lifted 10 years late, in April 2017, when Iran caught up with Qatar’s gas production, it was clear sign of goodwill to Iran. Concerned about their loss of control in the Middle East, irritated by the growing Qatari-Iranian working relationship and Qatar’s autonomy, and emboldened by Trump’s visit and Qatar’s public rejection of Trump’s call to isolate Iran, Saudi took the opportunity to re-assert control over Qatar after previous failed attempts between 2002 and 2008. The trade restrictions included closing airspace to Qatari planes and banning Qatari seaborne vessels.

The crisis in Gulf relations erupted on May 24, 2017, when Qatar and the world woke up to shocking “fake news” that was leaked, claiming links between Qatar, and terrorist groups and jihadists. Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt (together known as the Arab Quartet) imposed a blockade on Qatar on June 5, and the crisis has evolved since the into a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) media war where the feuding parties have been lobbing alternate facts, fake news and innuendo at each another. They also have severed diplomatic ties. The UAE took steps to ease certain aspects of the Fujairah restrictions with respect to co-loading Qatari oil, although the ban remains in effect for the port’s very large crude carrier (VLCC) jetty, which is operated by the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).

To revolve the embargo, Doha has looked for new markets turning a particular attention to the Countries of Africa and various countries have taken sides, showing their solidarity with either the Saudi-friendly Gulf States or Qatar. This cluster of Saudi-friendly states, have joined forces to isolate Qatar both diplomatically and economically. 

CURRENT SITUATION

Competition for influence between rival Gulf states stretches beyond the Horn that straddles the strategic Bab-el-Mandeb strait, links the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea and is plagued by the nearby war in Yemen, into the Sahel as well as Central and West Africa.  Qatar’s emir toured six West African nations on December 2017 to shore up support for his country in its dispute with its Gulf brethren. Africa, at the moment, is a battlefield not only in the Gulf crisis but also in the fierce rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran that is often fought in countries like Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon and Mauritania primarily as a sectarian struggle between Sunni and Shiite Islam. But Gulf crisis has mainly expanded to the Horn of Africa, potentially fuelling simmering regional conflicts.

Gulf crisis is spilling over into the Horn of Africa

In the Horn of Africa, nations including Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan face pressures from the Saudi-led collation to sever ties with Qatar. For years, the shores of East Africa provided a crucial point for smugglers to reach Yemen, as well as a target-rich hunting ground for pirates. The Qatar’s longtime ally Sudan, has managed to stay neutral in this dispute. It has no interest in upsetting its new allies, but also wants to maintain good relations with Qatar, which played an important role in trying to end the Darfur conflict and has long provided substantial development aid and investment. Qatar’s key role in the mediation process between Darfur and Khartoum rebel groups makes Sudan coalesce around Qatar. It is important to remember that Qatar is also significant lender of hard currency to the Central Bank of Sudan, making the ties between Sudan and Qatar event stronger. However, Sudan also has strong ties with Saudi Arabia, and it has joined a military coalition against Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen.

The Qatar crisis could potentially unravel the Chad-Sudan rapprochement of recent years. Chad has accused Qatar of supporting rebel movements that threaten its regime, after rebels attacked a Chadian army patrol on the border with Libya on 18 August 2017. Not only did Chad denounce Qatar for providing support for Chadian rebels in Libya, but it also accused Qatar of providing asylum for one of Chad’s most wanted rebel leaders – Timan Erdimi. Though Chadian foreign minister denied that its current rift with Qatar is connected to the regional Qatar crisis, Chad did recall its ambassador from Qatar when the Qatar boycott erupted in June as a stance of “active solidarity with Saudi Arabia.” Additionally, Chad has recently been on excellent terms with Egypt. 

For Somalia, both sides of the Gulf crisis have deep rooted interests and relations. The internationally-recognized government in Mogadishu has long enjoyed positive relations with Saudi Arabia, its biggest trade partner in the Gulf region. Nonetheless, Somalia’s president, Farmajo, has sided with Qatar and called for dialogue between all parties. Somali President so far has resisted both pressure and financial inducements to back the Saudi-UAE axis and sever links with Qatar (according to rumors, Farmajo’s support for Qatar is a return of favor for Doha’s financial support during the 2017 Somali presidential election). The UAE has likewise increased its activity in Somalia to protect its broader geo-strategic interests, which includes security in the Gulf of Aden and counter-terrorism efforts. In April 2017, the UAE pledged $100 million in humanitarian aid to Somalia to tackle drought. It also established a Military Training Centre for Somali commandos in May 2015 and has supported regional forces, contributing towards building Somali National Army capacity to fight the insurgent group al Shabaab. The new government nonetheless wants to remain neutral in the current dispute. However, staying nonaligned may be difficult for the Somalia, particularly in the context of burgeoning relations between Gulf states and Somalia’s autonomous and semi-autonomous regions, a point of extreme sensitivity while Somalia’s federal and resource-sharing structures remain unclear. By opting for neutrality, he appears to have enhanced his domestic credibility.

Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa’s preeminent diplomatic and military power, decided to remain neutral. Ethiopian Prime Minister expressed particular concern about the Gulf states’ increased military presence, reflecting his country’s fears that an emboldened Eritrea, which play a pivotal role in Riyadh’s and Abu Dhabi’s regional strategies, could use this as an opportunity to boost its military capacity. The fresh urgency of the “Eritrea Question” in Addis Ababa also is linked to Ethiopia’s rivalry with Egypt, which has close ties to the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Egypt is boosting its military cooperation with Eritrea as well as its presence in the Red Sea, deploying a flotilla of combat vessels that include a frigate capable of firing long-range missiles. While Eritrean and Egyptian officials claim their naval cooperation is for “counter-privacy” purposes only, some Ethiopian commentators dispute this, accusing Cairo of trying to isolate or destabilize Ethiopia through “strategic encirclement”. The Gulf crisis has only magnified Ethiopia’s suspicions regarding Egypt’s ambitions in the Horn, which will almost certainly complicate already delicate negotiations over how to allocate Nile waters. Ethiopia relations with Saudi Arabia remain cordial, despite serious disagreements over the planned deportation of thousands of undocumented Ethiopian migrant workers. The kingdom remains an important source of investment, but the Saudis’ growing military profile in the Horn plays into traditional Christian fears of Arab/Muslim powers.

Djibouti announced its ‘solidarity’ with the Saudi-led coalition in boycotting Qatar, by officially downgrading its level of diplomatic representation in Qatar. Djibouti, a member of the Arab League, increases the pressure on Qatar, albeit without having an impact to the strength of the economic embargo. Djibouti’s ties with Saudi Arabia have been strong, with plans underway for a pact that would allow the latter to build its own military base in Djibouti.

A game of chess : Gulf crisis expands into the Horn of Africa

The Gulf crisis has expanded to the Horn Africa, potentially fuelling simmering regional conflicts. Since the conflict began, the UAE and others have established military bases in East Africa. Renewed fears of heightened tension in the Horn, a region pockmarked by foreign military bases that straddles key Indian Ocean trade roots with its 4,000-kilometre coast line, was sparked by Sudan last month granting Turkey the right to rebuild a decaying Ottoman port city and construct a naval dock to maintain civilian and military vessels on the African country’s Red Sea coast. The Sudanese-Turkish agreement raised anxiety in capitals on both sides of the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which has bases in Berbera in the breakaway republic of Somaliland and in Eritrea, fear that the agreement will allow Turkey, with whom they have strained relations because of differences over Qatar, Iran and Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, to station troops close to Jeddah. Saudi Arabia and the UAE suspect Qatar of funding the development of Suakin. Adding to tension is the fact that Turkey suspects the UAE of having supported a failed military coup in July 2016. The agreement is even more stinging because relations between Saudi Arabia and Sudan had significantly improved after the African country broke off diplomatic relations with Iran in early 2016, an early Saudi victory in its fight for Africa with the Islamic republic. A sharp uptick in the expansion of foreign militaries in the Horn of Africa accompanied the growth of economic competition in the region in 2017. China, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates have opened military bases throughout the area in the past two years. The region is strategically important to these states for various reasons: securing shipping routes in the Bab al Mandab Strait, proximity to the ongoing conflict in Yemen, and the desire to array forces in the region alongside rivals including the United States. The competition between the UAE and Turkey in the Horn of Africa has yielded mixed results in Somalia. The Somali Federal Government (SFG) has received significant counterterrorism training support from both nations, as well as humanitarian aid from Turkey. In Eritrea, the UAE invested heavily beginning in mid-2015. The Emiraty military now operates from the Assab base, from smaller outposts on the Yemeni islands of Socotra and Perim. The UAE is also expanding its presence into Somaliland at the port of Berbera, and into SFG another military base will be built in Somalia’s breakaway northern territory of Somaliland (Bosaso port) in October 2017.

China initially joined an international anti-piracy naval force and more recently established its first overseas military base in Djibouti, a country that already hosts US, French, Saudi and Japanese military facilities: China has negotiated permission for construction of a permanent military base in Djibouti (completed in July 2017) and the current agreement ensures China’s right to maintain up to 10,000 soldiers in Djibouti through 2025. At same time, China has previously invested heavily in Djiboutian infrastructure, funding upgrades to ports and airports and financing 70% of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway. Turkey have signed an agreement on December 26, 2017 to transfer responsibility for Suakin Island in the Red Sea. He has stated its intent to build a naval dock on the island to support both military and commercial vessels, stating the agreement could result in any kind of military cooperation. The agreement prompted Egypt do deploy hundreds of troops, additional weapons, and military transport vehicles to the Sawa military base in Eritrea. After that, Sudan has deploying thousands of troops to the border region of Kassala and Etiopia, similarly, sent additional troops to the Eritrean border. The Suakin Island agreement followed decades of disagreement between Sudan and Egypt over the Halaib Triangle border region.

Qatar, in response to Eritrea and Djibouti’s decision to downgrade relations with the Gulf state when the conflict erupted last June, withdrew its peacekeeping contingent of 400 troops from the Red Sea island of Doumeira. Eritrea immediately seized the island that is also claimed by Djibouti in a move that could ultimately spark an armed conflict that may draw in Ethiopia. While reaping the benefits of heightened interest, the Horn risks increased tension and violent conflict in what has become a high stakes chess game for both Middle Eastern and African adversaries.

The Gulf crisis comes at a difficult moment for the historically conflict-prone Horn, much of which is either politically unstable, mired in internal armed conflict or still in a state of fragile post-conflict recovery. Turmoil in the Gulf has sharply escalated the region’s already dangerous militarization as governments are pressed to side either with Saudi Arabia and the UAE or with Qatar. Perhaps most alarmingly, the Gulf crisis potentially could put Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti on a path toward armed confrontation, inflaming the Horn’s most dangerous three-way territorial dispute. In particular, the Eritrean government’s statement have remained cautions, because he has authorized the UAE and Saudi Arabia to use the port of Assab as a base for their operations in Yemen, upgrading the airport and expanding the seaport to accommodate their aircraft , ships and troops. Cooperation in the coalition has also bolstered the Eritrean government in its wider international relations.

Experts believe all these Gulf military installations will become permanent features in East Africa.

GCC investment in North Africa 

The Arab quartet has been trying to isolate Qatar, but in North Africa, their search for supporters failed remarkably. Despite the Gulf Cooperation Council’s significant investment there, most North African countries have maintained a neutral position rather than siding with either camp. Since 2011, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar have competed for political and financial influence in North Africa. Qatar’s sway peaked in the first two years following the Arab uprising, as its allies – mainly political Islamists – led transitions in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco. But its role shrank after 2013, following the military coup in Egypt that overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government, the Islamist Ennahda party’s withdrawal from power in Tunisia and the quasi state-collapse in Libya. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have expanded their efforts in North Africa. They poured billions into Egypt after the coup, and have pledged to invest in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. The UAE government has armed proxies and intervened militarily in Libya.

Sub-Saharian West Africa

Effects of the Qatar crisis have not been contained to the Gulf, but they are affected many African states, including the West and Sub-Saharan Africa.  At the end of December 2017, Qatar Emir traveled to Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. Although subjected to intense pressure from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the only country that the Emir visited on this to have taken a position on the blockade was Senegal, which recalled its ambassador to Doha this past June. In contrast, Guinea’s President – who also serves as Head of the African Union – called for dialogue and the pursuit of the Kuwaiti mediation, while Ghana surprised many observers by announcing that the country would open an embassy in Doha, even as the crisis was in full swing in November. 

Since the outbreak of the Gulf crisis, the lobbying dynamics at work toward the G5 Sahel Member States show the strategic importance of West Africa for the involved parties. The security alliance includes Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Mauritania. Although the last three have sided with the Saudi-Emirati coalition, Mali and Burkina Faso have not bowed to pressure from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly called on the countries in the Sahel zone to make their position clear, but it is very unlikely that Bamako and Ouagadougou will turn their back on Qatar, as these two states have just established diplomatic relations with Doha and have an eye on the emirate’s capital flows. In August 2015, state-run company Qatar Mining obtained its first African permits in Mali, and is now operating on four sites across the country.

CONCLUSIONS

The example of the Horn of Africa shows a new trend of alignment and division among African states, becoming ever more involved in a conflict that is not their own. The decision whether to side with Qatar of the rest of the Arab nations could later deeply affect the African countries and their relations with GCC states. At the moment, it seems that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are in a stronger position than Qatar. The further expansion of this spat might depend on what Saudi Arabia or Qatar can offer to a particular state and how strategically important it is. In this regard the Horn of Africa is the most strategic region from a security perspective and this is why the GCC spat extending here, while also less apparent in other parts of Africa.

Intra-Gulf disputes are also having an increasing impact on relations in the Horn of Africa, with the potential to disrupt regional stability. Balancing these dynamics will be a big diplomatic test for states in the region that are already facing a complex array of developmental, political and conflict challenges. Overall, the extensive web of alignments and divisions across the Horn has put these African countries in a precarious situation where they are pressured into declaring solidarity with either side of the crisis. Despite the particular approach wielded by the Gulf, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia have been ambivalently neutral. Their balancing act, initially done so to serve their own self-interests, has now left these countries in a situation where a lean toward either end of the spectrum will yield to direct impact on their functionality. On the other hand, Djibouti and Somaliland expressed solidarity with “Arab Quartet”, primarily due to the Saudi/UAE-led bloc’s grand promise of infrastructural investments, military development and cordial relations with these fragile countries in search of assistance and political relevance.

Direct hegemonic pressure from the Boycott Quartet and “softer” economic power exerted by Qatar have led the major North African countries to adopt positions of neutrality. But as eastern Libya shows, this is not a consistent position in the region. Mauritania, a junior member of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), is also anti-Qatar, and so are most of the countries forming the AMU’s southern belt (Chad, Niger and Senegal). Far from following a default policy, each country made unique calculations that led it to choose neutrality. Countries that usually have little else in common reached similar political conclusions. But this also means their decisions may change if the quartet increases pressure, putting them again at odds.

The Qatar crisis has proven that conflicts among the “Sunni” states continue to be as intense as their regional struggle with Iran and that regime security concerns continue to drive their policies. Regional powers miscalculate the likely outcome of their policies with impressive frequency, a cautionary note for those hoping for the region to ride out the current turbulence. This makes the mixed messages from the Trump administration especially dangerous at a critical time in the Middle East. Among the numerous risks and uncertainties concerning the outcome of the Gulf crisis, one thing is certain: it will continue to have an impact and spread across Africa, in both eastern and western parts of the continent.

Given the actual political situation, the near future scenario that might happen, could foresee consolidating rift between camps in the sub-region could have repercussions on conflicts elsewhere, in which the Gulf states are involved directly – militarily – or indirectly by suppling funding and arms. Qatar and its adversaries could be tempted to inflict harm on each other in Syria, Libya, Yemen, the Gaza Strip of the Horn of Africa. Above all, a cemented antagonism would completely paralyze the already weak regional organizations, the GCC and the Arab League. If this scenario comes to pass, it will be difficult to mediate between the parties. The precondition for successful intervention would be intensified and above all coherent efforts by Washington, which maintains security partnerships with all the Gulf monarchies. At the same time Europe’s influence should not be underestimated. Ultimately Qatar, Saudia Arabia and the UAE have all been weakened by the conflict. And while identifiable camps have emerged, they also contain diverging interests within them. The Qataris will not want to become over dependent on Turkey and Iran, while a close partnership with politically unreliable and economically stricken Egypt will be costly for Saudi Arabia in the medium term. In the short term mediation by the EU or individual member states - possibly in conjunction with the hitherto neutral Gulf states Kuwait and Oman – could help to defuse the acute crisis. It is therefore all the more urgent for EU to address clear demands to all the conflict parties, defined by long-term considerations rather than short-term economic interest. It need to communicated to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi that national sovereignty and the principle of proportionality in international law must always be respected. Both sides should also be called upon to intensify their efforts to eliminate jihadist terrorism, without misusing that fight as a pretext to suppress political opposition. Above all, the parties should be pressed to avoid injecting their strife into other regional conflicts.

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