foreignpolicy--2020-11-21--Paul Biya Is Offering Cameroon’s Anglophones Too Little, Too Late

Paul Biya Is Offering Cameroon ’ s Anglophones Too Little , Too Late On Sept. 7 , Cameroonian President Paul Biya signed a decree authorizing the country ’ s first election for members of the Regional Councils in each of the country ’ s 10 regions .
In describing the preparations for the vote , Essousse Erik , the director-general of Elecam , the government-controlled electoral commission , said : “ The elections would be a historic moment and a turning point in our democracy.
” In fact , the announcement that the government plans to hold elections for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it first declared its intent to do so in 1996 as part of a broader decentralization plan that would allow for significant autonomy in how Cameroon ’ s diverse population would be governed .
Unfortunately , it is too little , too late .
The announcement of the elections and the implementation measures comes as Cameroon is embroiled by a conflict in which separatist fighters in the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions seek to create an independent state called Ambazonia .
This conflict stems from the systematic marginalization of Anglophones , who comprise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s population , but was sparked by the repression of demonstrations of teachers and lawyers in the fall of 2016 who demanded linguistic autonomy within their respective institutions .
Now , four years after these demonstrations and in the midst of a war of secession that has killed thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands , Biya ’ s government—which has consistently been ranked as one of the most corrupt and authoritarian in Africa—is seeking to enact decentralization measures .
While enacting such reforms at the outset of the crisis may have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demonstrators , doing so now is simply another effort of the Cameroonian government to present the image that it is responding to the crisis and grievances of the Anglophone population without engaging in any meaningful dialogue or negotiations with civil society or separatist leaders .
The Regional Councils have their origins in a 1996 law that amended Cameroon ’ s 1972 constitution .
This constitution was Cameroon ’ s second following the abolition of a federal form of government by the country ’ s first president , Ahmadou Ahidjo .
Federalism had existed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cameroons merged with the former French colony of Cameroon in 1961 .
The constitutional reform of 1996 was announced with the intent of quelling dissent from ethnic and linguistic groups that had been excluded during the first decade of Biya ’ s government as well as that of his predecessor .
The groups that suffered from such marginalization included those from the West and Far North regions , although the predominant group was the Anglophone minority of the Northwest and Southwest regions .
Many years ago , the Cameroonian government agreed to constitutional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a devolution of governance to the regional level but refused to implement them .
The discontent that the Anglophone minority felt was compounded by the first multiparty elections held in 1992 , during which John Fru Ndi of the Social Democratic Front ( SDF ) came in second with 36 percent of the vote while Biya won 40 percent .
Allegations of electoral irregularities led to a prolonged period of unrest and a deep sense of marginalization within the Anglophone population .
In response , leaders from Anglophone Cameroon convened the All @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Buea Declaration , which called for a return to the federated government that existed prior to 1971 .
In 1994 , the second All Anglophone Conference convened and issued the Bamenda Declaration , stating that if Cameroon did not return to a federal form of government , the Anglophone regions of Cameroon would demand independence .
It was largely in response to these growing demands from Cameroon ’ s Anglophone community that the National Assembly of Cameroon adopted constitutional reform measures to create a more decentralized state .
At the time , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ruling CPDM party , and the reform measures were backed by Biya and the government .
The amendment stated that regions would be given jurisdiction over land management , budgeting , education , and other areas of governance .
It also promised that the main organ responsible for overseeing the decentralized form of governance would be the Regional Councils that were established in the amendment .
In addition to regional decentralization , the amendment also made the Cameroonian legislature bicameral by creating the Senate , which comprises 100 members ; 30 of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the other 70 being selected by municipal councils across Cameroon .
Despite the fact that the constitutional reforms were approved by the National Assembly , the power to convene elections for both the Senate and Regional Councils that the amendment created was given solely to the president .
And although nationwide elections occurred for both the presidency and Parliament the year after the amendment was enacted , Biya did not call elections for the Regional Councils or the Senate , meaning that the new bodies were never created .
In essence , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that had the potential to lead to a devolution of governance to the regional level but refused to implement them .
In ignoring the demands issued at the two All Anglophone Conferences and not moving ahead with the implementation of his own government ’ s decentralization policies , Biya signaled that he did not take the demands of the Anglophone minority seriously .
The unwillingness of the government to acknowledge the demands of the Anglophone population led to the emergence of several groups demanding the creation of an independent state , such as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Southern Cameroons Youth League .
The government pushed many of those demanding separation into exile , where they continued their advocacy while gaining minimal traction in Cameroon .
The events of the 1990s further instilled a deep-seated sense of resentment among Anglophone Cameroonians and other minorities across the country that the government ignored .
Even as other constitutional reform measures were fully implemented—including the abolition of presidential term limits , allowing Biya , who assumed office in 1982 , to remain in power—enacting meaningful decentralization was constantly avoided .
It was not until @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Senate be held , although the selection process for members by presidential appointments and selections by municipal councils that are generally dominated by the ruling party have led to the upper house of the legislature being yet another institution dominated by allies of Biya without any real power .
The lack of genuine decentralization and continued poor governance across Cameroon eventually morphed from an issue that was solely political to one that presented grave security challenges to civilians and the legitimacy of the Republic of Cameroon itself .
This first became evident @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Boko Haram , which had established a safe haven in the Far North region of Cameroon—long one of the most impoverished areas in the country .
Moreover , the Far North was marginalized from almost all matters of governance , allowing for Boko Haram and affiliated groups to recruit from and embed themselves into local communities due to decades of socioeconomic neglect by the Cameroonian state .
Boko Haram continues to pose a threat , as was exemplified by the government having to close over 60 schools due to security threats despite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Similarly , the lack of decentralization and the infringement on local education and judicial institutions sparked massive protests in the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions , leading to a war of separation following government crackdowns .
When demonstrations broke out in the fall of 2016 , the government violently suppressed them and ridiculed protesters ’ demands .
Despite the fact that the leaders of the demonstrations , Felix Agbor Balla and Fontem Neba , sought negotiations with the government , they were arrested and imprisoned for months .
To many Anglophones , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concerned about their grievances and that the creation of an independent state would be the only way to address them .
Instead of addressing the grievances when the demand of the Anglophone minority was genuine decentralization , the Cameroonian government responded with violence , causing the situation to escalate .
Instead of a genuine attempt to implement a negotiated solution to the Anglophone crisis and address the drivers of marginalization in regions including the Far North , this is yet another attempt to present a facade of reform .
Similar to the national @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of 2019 , and the so-called “ special status ” for the Anglophone regions that the elections will solidify , it will accomplish nothing .
The vast majority of political actors in Cameroon now argue that a return to a federal form of state is needed to address the challenges facing the country .
This includes Maurice Kamto , who is himself a Francophone and head of the main Cameroon Renaissance Movement ( CRM ) opposition party , along with Fru Ndi of the SDF , who has at times gone as far @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biya government during the ongoing Anglophone crisis have made him sympathetic to calls for separation .
Both the CRM and the SDF have stated that they will boycott any vote to elect members to the Regional Councils , meaning that if established the councils will have minimal legitimacy in the eyes of many Cameroonians .
Even if the opposition parties were not boycotting the election , victory for Biya ’ s CPDM party would be all but guaranteed as it controls the overwhelming majority of the councils that will serve as the indirect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Regional Council elections comes not even a year after the Cameroonian government announced a special status for the two Anglophone regions , which would see regional legislatures with some of the same responsibilities as the councils .
When the special status was announced , the government claimed that it would allow the Northwest and Southwest regions to have more autonomy than the other eight regions of the country and in doing so address the demands of the Anglophone minority .
However , the creation of the Regional Councils in all of Cameroon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same reforms implemented across the country .
This is yet another attempt by Biya and the hard-liners in his government to present an illegitimate effort to resolve the crisis and mitigate the increase in international criticism .
While many of the challenges facing Cameroon today could have been prevented by genuine decentralization and better governance in previous decades , resolving them now will require a fundamental change in how the country is governed .
To some , including Kamto , these demands broadly center on a political transition and a loosely defined federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two-state federation that existed in Cameroon for the first decade of its independence and allowed Anglophones to have a larger measure of autonomy than the rest of the country .
However , a return to federation that would see governors elected by universal suffrage and not appointed by the president , as is the case today , could gain support .
A resolution can only be achieved through consultations with marginalized groups across the country and negotiated settlements with separatist leaders in the Northwest and Southwest regions .
The overdue proposal to establish @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Biya ’ s government that ignores the root causes of the grave challenges facing the country .
Without genuine reforms derived from consultations and negotiations , Cameroon will continue to experience political and economic turmoil , leading to more violence and regional instability .

On Sept. 7, Cameroonian President Paul Biya signed a decree authorizing the country’s first election for members of the Regional Councils in each of the country’s 10 regions.
In describing the preparations for the vote, Essousse Erik, the director-general of Elecam, the government-controlled electoral commission, said: “The elections would be a historic moment and a turning point in our democracy.” In fact, the announcement that the government plans to hold elections for the Regional Councils comes over two decades after it first declared its intent to do so in 1996 as part of a broader decentralization plan that would allow for significant autonomy in how Cameroon’s diverse population would be governed. Unfortunately, it is too little, too late.
The announcement of the elections and the implementation measures comes as Cameroon is embroiled by a conflict in which separatist fighters in the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions seek to create an independent state called Ambazonia. This conflict stems from the systematic marginalization of Anglophones, who comprise nearly 20 percent of the country’s population, but was sparked by the repression of demonstrations of teachers and lawyers in the fall of 2016 who demanded linguistic autonomy within their respective institutions.
Now, four years after these demonstrations and in the midst of a war of secession that has killed thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands, Biya’s government—which has consistently been ranked as one of the most corrupt and authoritarian in Africa—is seeking to enact decentralization measures. While enacting such reforms at the outset of the crisis may have addressed some of the demands of the demonstrators, doing so now is simply another effort of the Cameroonian government to present the image that it is responding to the crisis and grievances of the Anglophone population without engaging in any meaningful dialogue or negotiations with civil society or separatist leaders.
Cameroonian opposition leader Maurice Kamto is greeted by hundreds of supporters after his release from prison in Yaounde on Oct. 5, 2019.
The regional elections, which are slated to occur on Dec. 6, will elect a total of 90 councilors to each of the regional bodies—70 divisional delegates and 20 traditional rulers. The traditional leaders will be selected by regional chieftaincy bodies, the majority of which are dominated by supporters of Biya’s Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) and have backed the party in previous elections.
The Regional Councils have their origins in a 1996 law that amended Cameroon’s 1972 constitution. This constitution was Cameroon’s second following the abolition of a federal form of government by the country’s first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo. Federalism had existed since the former British colony of Southern Cameroons merged with the former French colony of Cameroon in 1961. The constitutional reform of 1996 was announced with the intent of quelling dissent from ethnic and linguistic groups that had been excluded during the first decade of Biya’s government as well as that of his predecessor. The groups that suffered from such marginalization included those from the West and Far North regions, although the predominant group was the Anglophone minority of the Northwest and Southwest regions.
Many years ago, the Cameroonian government agreed to constitutional reforms that had the potential to lead to a devolution of governance to the regional level but refused to implement them.
The discontent that the Anglophone minority felt was compounded by the first multiparty elections held in 1992, during which John Fru Ndi of the Social Democratic Front (SDF) came in second with 36 percent of the vote while Biya won 40 percent. Allegations of electoral irregularities led to a prolonged period of unrest and a deep sense of marginalization within the Anglophone population.
In response, leaders from Anglophone Cameroon convened the All Anglophone Conference in 1993 that resulted in the Buea Declaration, which called for a return to the federated government that existed prior to 1971. In 1994, the second All Anglophone Conference convened and issued the Bamenda Declaration, stating that if Cameroon did not return to a federal form of government, the Anglophone regions of Cameroon would demand independence.
It was largely in response to these growing demands from Cameroon’s Anglophone community that the National Assembly of Cameroon adopted constitutional reform measures to create a more decentralized state. At the time, the National Assembly was dominated by the ruling CPDM party, and the reform measures were backed by Biya and the government. The amendment stated that regions would be given jurisdiction over land management, budgeting, education, and other areas of governance. It also promised that the main organ responsible for overseeing the decentralized form of governance would be the Regional Councils that were established in the amendment. In addition to regional decentralization, the amendment also made the Cameroonian legislature bicameral by creating the Senate, which comprises 100 members; 30 of the senators are appointed directly by the president with the other 70 being selected by municipal councils across Cameroon.
Despite the fact that the constitutional reforms were approved by the National Assembly, the power to convene elections for both the Senate and Regional Councils that the amendment created was given solely to the president. And although nationwide elections occurred for both the presidency and Parliament the year after the amendment was enacted, Biya did not call elections for the Regional Councils or the Senate, meaning that the new bodies were never created.
In essence, the Cameroonian government agreed to constitutional reforms that had the potential to lead to a devolution of governance to the regional level but refused to implement them. In ignoring the demands issued at the two All Anglophone Conferences and not moving ahead with the implementation of his own government’s decentralization policies, Biya signaled that he did not take the demands of the Anglophone minority seriously.
The unwillingness of the government to acknowledge the demands of the Anglophone population led to the emergence of several groups demanding the creation of an independent state, such as the Southern Cameroons National Council and the Southern Cameroons Youth League. The government pushed many of those demanding separation into exile, where they continued their advocacy while gaining minimal traction in Cameroon. The events of the 1990s further instilled a deep-seated sense of resentment among Anglophone Cameroonians and other minorities across the country that the government ignored.
Even as other constitutional reform measures were fully implemented—including the abolition of presidential term limits, allowing Biya, who assumed office in 1982, to remain in power—enacting meaningful decentralization was constantly avoided. It was not until 2013 that Biya called for elections to the Senate be held, although the selection process for members by presidential appointments and selections by municipal councils that are generally dominated by the ruling party have led to the upper house of the legislature being yet another institution dominated by allies of Biya without any real power.
Policemen wait in the shade after the electoral meeting in front of posters for President Paul Biya in Maroua on Sept. 29, 2018.
Until now, Biya’s government has consistently avoided calling Regional Council elections, likely because of the fear that the results could threaten the monopoly of control the central government maintains over affairs at the municipal level. Similarly, the government regularly appointed ministers and officials from marginalized groups and stated that in doing so all demands for power-sharing had been met. A prime example of this is the post of prime minister, which has been held by an Anglophone since 1991. In reality, such members of the cabinet are devout supporters of Biya and the ruling party and do little to address the marginalization of the groups they supposedly represent. In short, the status quo continued, and marginalization across the country continued to grow.
The lack of genuine decentralization and continued poor governance across Cameroon eventually morphed from an issue that was solely political to one that presented grave security challenges to civilians and the legitimacy of the Republic of Cameroon itself.
This first became evident in 2014 with the commencement of attacks by Boko Haram, which had established a safe haven in the Far North region of Cameroon—long one of the most impoverished areas in the country. Moreover, the Far North was marginalized from almost all matters of governance, allowing for Boko Haram and affiliated groups to recruit from and embed themselves into local communities due to decades of socioeconomic neglect by the Cameroonian state. Boko Haram continues to pose a threat, as was exemplified by the government having to close over 60 schools due to security threats despite claims that the group had been defeated.
Similarly, the lack of decentralization and the infringement on local education and judicial institutions sparked massive protests in the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions, leading to a war of separation following government crackdowns. When demonstrations broke out in the fall of 2016, the government violently suppressed them and ridiculed protesters’ demands. Despite the fact that the leaders of the demonstrations, Felix Agbor Balla and Fontem Neba, sought negotiations with the government, they were arrested and imprisoned for months.
To many Anglophones, this proved the Cameroonian state was not concerned about their grievances and that the creation of an independent state would be the only way to address them. Instead of addressing the grievances when the demand of the Anglophone minority was genuine decentralization, the Cameroonian government responded with violence, causing the situation to escalate.
Soldiers carry the coffin of one of the four soldiers killed in the violence that erupted in the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon in Bamenda on Nov. 17, 2017.
By deliberately ignoring the need for decentralization for over two decades, Biya’s government allowed for legitimate social grievances to boil over, leading to widespread political violence that has caused death, destruction, and grave humanitarian challenges across Cameroon. As the country faces several political crises, the government is seeking to implement decentralization measures that do not substantially address the grievances of marginalized populations and stem from a law that was written before they even existed.
Instead of a genuine attempt to implement a negotiated solution to the Anglophone crisis and address the drivers of marginalization in regions including the Far North, this is yet another attempt to present a facade of reform. Similar to the national dialogue that was held in the fall of 2019, and the so-called “special status” for the Anglophone regions that the elections will solidify, it will accomplish nothing.
The vast majority of political actors in Cameroon now argue that a return to a federal form of state is needed to address the challenges facing the country. This includes Maurice Kamto, who is himself a Francophone and head of the main Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM) opposition party, along with Fru Ndi of the SDF, who has at times gone as far to say that the actions of the Biya government during the ongoing Anglophone crisis have made him sympathetic to calls for separation.
Both the CRM and the SDF have stated that they will boycott any vote to elect members to the Regional Councils, meaning that if established the councils will have minimal legitimacy in the eyes of many Cameroonians. Even if the opposition parties were not boycotting the election, victory for Biya’s CPDM party would be all but guaranteed as it controls the overwhelming majority of the councils that will serve as the indirect electors.
Ironically, the announcement of the Regional Council elections comes not even a year after the Cameroonian government announced a special status for the two Anglophone regions, which would see regional legislatures with some of the same responsibilities as the councils. When the special status was announced, the government claimed that it would allow the Northwest and Southwest regions to have more autonomy than the other eight regions of the country and in doing so address the demands of the Anglophone minority. However, the creation of the Regional Councils in all of Cameroon’s 10 regions will see the same reforms implemented across the country. This is yet another attempt by Biya and the hard-liners in his government to present an illegitimate effort to resolve the crisis and mitigate the increase in international criticism.
While many of the challenges facing Cameroon today could have been prevented by genuine decentralization and better governance in previous decades, resolving them now will require a fundamental change in how the country is governed. To some, including Kamto, these demands broadly center on a political transition and a loosely defined federal state. Many Anglophones look to the two-state federation that existed in Cameroon for the first decade of its independence and allowed Anglophones to have a larger measure of autonomy than the rest of the country. However, a return to federation that would see governors elected by universal suffrage and not appointed by the president, as is the case today, could gain support.
A resolution can only be achieved through consultations with marginalized groups across the country and negotiated settlements with separatist leaders in the Northwest and Southwest regions. The overdue proposal to establish Regional Councils is simply another fig leaf from Biya’s government that ignores the root causes of the grave challenges facing the country. Without genuine reforms derived from consultations and negotiations, Cameroon will continue to experience political and economic turmoil, leading to more violence and regional instability.


foreignpolicy--2020-11-22--Cameroon’s Government Is Deceiving the West While Diverting Foreign Aid

Cameroon ’ s Government Is Deceiving the West While Diverting Foreign Aid Cameroon was once thought to be an island of stability in a sea of instability , but that mirage started to crumble in 2016 , as President Paul Biya mishandled what many in the outside world call the “ Anglophone Crisis , ” but what to many Cameroonians ( English and French speakers alike ) is just further evidence of the lack of political freedom , accountability , and competence that has plagued the country since 1961 .
For the second year in a row , the Norwegian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neglected displacement crisis in the world .
More than 1 million Cameroonians have been displaced internally , tens of thousands have fled to Nigeria , and thousands more from other countries have escaped to Cameroon to flee Boko Haram , the Islamic State West Africa Province ( ISWAP ) , or violence in the Central African Republic .
Both the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and the U.S .
Holocaust Memorial Museum ’ s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide report that Cameroon is at risk for mass atrocities and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beginning of 2020 , violence has surged both in the Anglophone Southwest and Northwest regions and in the Far North region , where Boko Haram and ISWAP are resurgent .
The Cameroonian government has conflated the Far North jihadist threat with the Anglophone crisis in an effort to maintain the flow of international support .
At the U.N. General Assembly in September , Cameroonian Foreign Minister Lejeune Mbella Mbella asked for increased international cooperation in support of the country ’ s ongoing struggle against “ terrorism.
” His belabored attention to “ multilateralism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s usual intemperate reaction to any international comment about its internal politics , economic policies , or conduct of its military operations .
Cameroon does all it can to reduce the international consequences of its failed militarization strategy against legitimate grievances in its Anglophone regions .
Rather than seeking peace through political compromise and better governance , the regime confuses the international community by describing the crisis as a two-front war against “ terrorists ” and “ criminals.
” After two years of painstaking research using GIS tools and open-source data analysis , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s military operations against Anglophones in the Southwest and Northwest regions have noticeably weakened Cameroon ’ s efforts against Boko Haram and ISWAP , leading to broader regional insecurity .
Since 2019 , Boko Haram and ISWAP have conducted larger-scale operations again , attacking Nigerian , Cameroonian , Nigerien and Chadian military targets and inflicting heavy casualties on soldiers and civilians alike .
In late September , Nigeria ’ s Bornu state governor ’ s convoy was attacked twice in two days not far from the Cameroon border .
But the Cameroonian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resurgence around Lake Chad because it perceives the Anglophone crisis as a bigger threat to its tight grip on power .
And , unfortunately , it is confident the international community will again ride to the rescue if the situation appears out of control .
Call it the moral-hazard problem of the global war on terrorism .
The Cameroonian government ’ s resolve to crush Anglophones militarily over legitimate grievances has pushed support for constitutional reforms or even a full return to federalism ( which was formally ended in 1972 ) off the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demand more .
It does not help that the government has long barred any serious talk of a return to federalism , offering only the empty promise of “ decentralization , ” which was a central feature of 1996 constitutional amendments but is only in the process of being implemented this year .
From a bilingualism commission established in 2017 to “ special status ” for Anglophone regions offered in 2019 , the government has attempted to show the international community that it is responding , but few within the country see any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problems of marginalization and mismanagement .
It is no surprise , then , that support for complete independence of the Anglophone regions ( on the basis of the 1961 borders of British Southern Cameroons ) , which some call Ambazonia , deepens as the conflict drags on .
A global survey conducted in October found that 86 percent of more than 3,700 Anglophone respondents backed full independence .
This result is not surprising given decades of economic and political marginalization rooted in a flawed decolonization process and , more recently , relentless violent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rights abuses , crimes against humanity , mass incarcerations , and theft of artifacts and destruction of cultural heritage .
Not only has this blunt strategy pushed more Anglophones away from seeing any future in a united Cameroon , it has also worsened regional instability in the Lake Chad region over the past two years .
The insecurity across the country is getting worse precisely because of the redeployment of security forces and the squandering of scarce financial resources on violently confronting the Anglophone problem when options for a negotiated solution were always @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2017 , in December of that year Biya convened his top military commanders and , as state radio reported , “ declared war on these terrorists who seek secession.
” In February 2018 , the government created a new military command region to direct operations in one of the Anglophone regions , a signal that military solutions would trump political ones .
Key military leaders that led efforts against Islamists in the Far North were eventually brought to the Anglophone regions , including Brig .
Gen. Valère Nka , disrupting already weak @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Force partners .
( Chad had regularly deployed troops to Cameroon and Nigeria since 2015 , but recently pulled them out because of complaints that Chadian forces were doing most of the fighting . )
There has also been significant investment in military infrastructure in the Anglophone regions .
By late 2018 , the Bamenda Airport started to undergo military redevelopment .
New helicopter facilities and a new barracks complex were added to complement an already existing base of the Bataillon d ’ Intervention Rapide ( BIR ) , the elite branch of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Israeli contractors , that takes orders directly from the presidency .
There is also ample evidence that armored vehicles , munitions , small arms , helicopters , and surveillance drones and aircraft originally provided to fight Boko Haram have been redeployed and used in the Anglophone regions .
Mack Defense Fortress armored personnel carriers ( APCs ) , donated by the United States for use in the Far North , have been observed at bases and on operations in the Anglophone regions .
U.S.-supplied C-130 Hercules aircraft , long relied on to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have been spotted regularly at Bamenda Airport .
A British firm recently won a five-year support contract to keep them in the air .
Two used Bell 412 helicopters were delivered in 2019 , at least one directly from the United States , and are now based at the BIR camp in Limbe in the Southwest region , augmenting two already in service .
Additionally , reports suggest that Cessna Caravan surveillance aircraft and drones supplied by the U.S. government in 2018 have been used over the Anglophone regions to identify camps of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Chinese and South African-supplied armored fighting vehicles , once the mainstay of mechanized units in the north , have also been identified down south .
Despite the escalating threat posed by Boko Haram and ISWAP in the north , Cameroon ’ s recent investment in military hardware has been largely focused on the Anglophone regions .
The ongoing delivery of Minerva Special Purpose Vehicles Panthera APCs from the emerging arms industry of United Arab Emirates to various branches of the security forces deployed in Anglophone regions is a case in point , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seen major deliveries of armored vehicles for some time .
The conventional military capability of Boko Haram was largely whittled down by 2016 from its peak in 2014 and 2015 , but the splintered ISWAP and Boko Haram factions did not disappear .
Reports from the ground plus satellite imagery suggest that Cameroonian forces have either withdrawn or reduced their commitments across the north since 2017 , increasing fear and insecurity among civilians , including those already displaced .
Community members have been press-ganged into makeshift vigilante groups by Cameroonian troops to defend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project shows that battles and violence against civilians in Cameroon ’ s two northernmost regions have soared since 2018 , reaching record levels in 2019 and continuing into 2020 at a far higher frequency than during Boko Haram ’ s earlier peak .
Cameroon ’ s security resources are clearly stretched thin by fighting on two fronts , enabling Islamist groups to gather momentum and rebuild their capabilities in the north .
Paradoxically , the international community has been relatively quiet on the government ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , perhaps because of Cameroon ’ s supposed utility in the fight against jihadis—a fight they have not seriously engaged in for more than three years .
External actors that can offer military and economic assistance to Cameroon need to ensure their efforts are not enabling the Biya regime ’ s crackdown on its own Anglophone citizens .
The so-called fight against terrorism has become , unfortunately , an opportunity to extract resources and support from the international community to keep incumbent regimes in power .
Across the continent , the ability of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the poor quality of governance combined with the absence or impunity of security forces .
In recognition of this worsening situation in Cameroon , on Sept. 8 , a bipartisan U.S. Senate resolution was introduced by Sens .
Jim Risch of Idaho , chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee , and Ben Cardin of Maryland .
It includes the toughest congressional language yet , calling on the Biya government and “ armed separatist groups , ” often referred to locally as local defense or restoration forces , to “ end all violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cameroonians , and pursue a genuinely inclusive dialogue toward resolving the ongoing civil conflict in Anglophone Cameroon.
” The preamble is particularly hard on Biya—in power since 1982 and the “ oldest head of state in Africa ” —criticizing his centralization of power , corrupt practices , repression of the opposition , and fraudulent elections .
At the end of September , a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on “ Democratic Backsliding in Sub-Saharan Africa ” identified the problem of U.S. military support being used in atrocities against Anglophones .
In a response @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Omar , Christopher Fomunyoh of the National Democratic Institute explained that especially in the past two years , “ some of the resources that were initially donated to the government of Cameroon to help in the fight against Boko Haram … have moved , both in terms of material and personnel , into the Anglophone regions of the country where there is an ongoing armed conflict.
” Still , the United States and most international actors with any influence in Cameroon , including France , have yet to invest sufficient political capital or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ armed groups , and civil society leaders towards real , mediated negotiations .
France ’ s reputation in West and Central Africa , already precarious on historical grounds and because of its recent unilateralist impulses , does not make it a good candidate for leading international efforts to help solve the Anglophone crisis .
Halfhearted peace efforts need a revitalized coalition of international stakeholders to make any progress .
An informal Swiss-led process driven by nongovernmental organizations and launched late last year has neither official buy-in from the Biya government nor broad support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demanding peace and justice .
A government-organized “ national dialogue ” late in 2019 fooled more international actors than domestic constituencies .
Appeals for a COVID-19 cease-fire by the U.N. and a distinguished group including Nobel laureates in June 2020 were ignored by the government and some of the armed groups .
And in July , secretive meetings between imprisoned Anglophone leaders and members of the government produced neither concrete results nor clarity about whether the government was genuinely pursuing a new strategy or trying , yet again , to mollify international critics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ toward ending what has become a regional civil war , the Biya government signed a cost-shared $ 160 million “ reconstruction and development ” agreement with the U.N. Development Program in May for the country ’ s two Anglophone regions , where security forces have razed more than 200 villages since 2016 .
The Biya government ’ s latest strategy is to move ahead with new regional council elections in December , hoping to placate both domestic and international critics with a sign that the decentralization first promised in the 1996 constitutional amendments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in at least three and perhaps four of Cameroon ’ s 10 regions , the security situation hardly allows for these indirect elections to be conducted safely , and most electors ( only municipal councilors and traditional rulers get to vote ) are already affiliated with the ruling party anyway .
The international community must not fall for this charade and should instead reassess its assistance to what is a financially struggling Biya government .
After more than three years of intense military operations in the economically critical Anglophone regions , Cameroon ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scarce resources are still being poured into military imports , training , infrastructure , and operations .
Regime politicians , military commanders , and supportive media muddy the waters by calling opponents of the regime “ terrorists and criminals ” or insurrectionists—whether they are Boko Haram and ISWAP hard-liners in the northern regions , Anglophone separatists , federalists , or even opposition politicians such as Maurice Kamto .
Cameroon ’ s heavy-handed military response in the Anglophone regions has ruined an economically vital part of the country , driven any solution other than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ speakers , and enabled the resurgence of extremist movements in the north .
Biya and his regime intimately understand how to manipulate the international community to insulate the government from international pressure and oversight , and foreign governments and institutions must stop allowing themselves to be deceived .
Continuing references to the so-called war on terrorism and regional stability allowed Cameroon to receive International Monetary Fund bailouts , humanitarian funding , and military assistance , despite an abundance of evidence of severe repression , economic mismanagement , and lack of sincerity about solving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ towards combating the resurgent Islamist threat in the north is to encourage Cameroon to peacefully resolve its Anglophone crisis .
Until the international community convinces the Biya regime to enter mediated negotiations to seek a political solution , its attention will remain divided , to the detriment of the region ’ s stability .

Cameroon was once thought to be an island of stability in a sea of instability, but that mirage started to crumble in 2016, as President Paul Biya mishandled what many in the outside world call the “ Anglophone Crisis ,” but what to many Cameroonians (English and French speakers alike) is just further evidence of the lack of political freedom, accountability, and competence that has plagued the country since 1961.
Cameroon was once thought to be an island of stability in a sea of instability, but that mirage started to crumble in 2016, as President Paul Biya mishandled what many in the outside world call the “Anglophone Crisis,” but what to many Cameroonians (English and French speakers alike) is just further evidence of the lack of political freedom, accountability, and competence that has plagued the country since 1961.
For the second year in a row, the Norwegian Refugee Council selected Cameroon as the most neglected displacement crisis in the world. More than 1 million Cameroonians have been displaced internally, tens of thousands have fled to Nigeria, and thousands more from other countries have escaped to Cameroon to flee Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), or violence in the Central African Republic.
Both the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide report that Cameroon is at risk for mass atrocities and urgent action is needed. Since the beginning of 2020, violence has surged both in the Anglophone Southwest and Northwest regions and in the Far North region, where Boko Haram and ISWAP are resurgent.
The Cameroonian government has conflated the Far North jihadist threat with the Anglophone crisis in an effort to maintain the flow of international support. At the U.N. General Assembly in September, Cameroonian Foreign Minister Lejeune Mbella Mbella asked for increased international cooperation in support of the country’s ongoing struggle against “terrorism.” His belabored attention to “multilateralism,” however, belied Cameroon’s usual intemperate reaction to any international comment about its internal politics, economic policies, or conduct of its military operations.
Cameroon does all it can to reduce the international consequences of its failed militarization strategy against legitimate grievances in its Anglophone regions. Rather than seeking peace through political compromise and better governance, the regime confuses the international community by describing the crisis as a two-front war against “terrorists” and “criminals.”
After two years of painstaking research using GIS tools and open-source data analysis, we have drawn the conclusion that Cameroon’s military operations against Anglophones in the Southwest and Northwest regions have noticeably weakened Cameroon’s efforts against Boko Haram and ISWAP, leading to broader regional insecurity.
Since 2019, Boko Haram and ISWAP have conducted larger-scale operations again, attacking Nigerian, Cameroonian, Nigerien and Chadian military targets and inflicting heavy casualties on soldiers and civilians alike. In late September, Nigeria’s Bornu state governor’s convoy was attacked twice in two days not far from the Cameroon border. But the Cameroonian regime is willing to ignore an Islamist resurgence around Lake Chad because it perceives the Anglophone crisis as a bigger threat to its tight grip on power. And, unfortunately, it is confident the international community will again ride to the rescue if the situation appears out of control. Call it the moral-hazard problem of the global war on terrorism.
A group of women wait while a local non-governmental organization registers locally displaced residents for food aid in Buea on May 11, 2019.
The Cameroonian government’s resolve to crush Anglophones militarily over legitimate grievances has pushed support for constitutional reforms or even a full return to federalism (which was formally ended in 1972) off the table for many Anglophones, who now demand more. It does not help that the government has long barred any serious talk of a return to federalism, offering only the empty promise of “decentralization,” which was a central feature of 1996 constitutional amendments but is only in the process of being implemented this year.
From a bilingualism commission established in 2017 to “special status” for Anglophone regions offered in 2019, the government has attempted to show the international community that it is responding, but few within the country see any of these measures as solving the fundamental problems of marginalization and mismanagement.
It is no surprise, then, that support for complete independence of the Anglophone regions (on the basis of the 1961 borders of British Southern Cameroons), which some call Ambazonia, deepens as the conflict drags on. A global survey conducted in October found that 86 percent of more than 3,700 Anglophone respondents backed full independence. This result is not surprising given decades of economic and political marginalization rooted in a flawed decolonization process and, more recently, relentless violent repression, including well-documented atrocities, human rights abuses, crimes against humanity, mass incarcerations, and theft of artifacts and destruction of cultural heritage.
Not only has this blunt strategy pushed more Anglophones away from seeing any future in a united Cameroon, it has also worsened regional instability in the Lake Chad region over the past two years. The insecurity across the country is getting worse precisely because of the redeployment of security forces and the squandering of scarce financial resources on violently confronting the Anglophone problem when options for a negotiated solution were always available.
After increasing incidents of violence in 2017, in December of that year Biya convened his top military commanders and, as state radio reported, “declared war on these terrorists who seek secession.” In February 2018, the government created a new military command region to direct operations in one of the Anglophone regions, a signal that military solutions would trump political ones. Key military leaders that led efforts against Islamists in the Far North were eventually brought to the Anglophone regions, including Brig. Gen. Valère Nka, disrupting already weak command-and-control coordination with regional Multinational Joint Task Force partners. (Chad had regularly deployed troops to Cameroon and Nigeria since 2015, but recently pulled them out because of complaints that Chadian forces were doing most of the fighting.)
There has also been significant investment in military infrastructure in the Anglophone regions. By late 2018, the Bamenda Airport started to undergo military redevelopment. New helicopter facilities and a new barracks complex were added to complement an already existing base of the Bataillon d’Intervention Rapide (BIR), the elite branch of Cameroon’s security forces, trained by Israeli contractors, that takes orders directly from the presidency.
There is also ample evidence that armored vehicles, munitions, small arms, helicopters, and surveillance drones and aircraft originally provided to fight Boko Haram have been redeployed and used in the Anglophone regions.
Mack Defense Fortress armored personnel carriers (APCs), donated by the United States for use in the Far North, have been observed at bases and on operations in the Anglophone regions. U.S.-supplied C-130 Hercules aircraft, long relied on to resupply troops in the Far North, have been spotted regularly at Bamenda Airport. A British firm recently won a five-year support contract to keep them in the air. Two used Bell 412 helicopters were delivered in 2019, at least one directly from the United States, and are now based at the BIR camp in Limbe in the Southwest region, augmenting two already in service.
Additionally, reports suggest that Cessna Caravan surveillance aircraft and drones supplied by the U.S. government in 2018 have been used over the Anglophone regions to identify camps of armed groups in the heavily forested terrain. Chinese and South African-supplied armored fighting vehicles, once the mainstay of mechanized units in the north, have also been identified down south.
Despite the escalating threat posed by Boko Haram and ISWAP in the north, Cameroon’s recent investment in military hardware has been largely focused on the Anglophone regions. The ongoing delivery of Minerva Special Purpose Vehicles Panthera APCs from the emerging arms industry of United Arab Emirates to various branches of the security forces deployed in Anglophone regions is a case in point, while units in the north have not seen major deliveries of armored vehicles for some time.
The conventional military capability of Boko Haram was largely whittled down by 2016 from its peak in 2014 and 2015, but the splintered ISWAP and Boko Haram factions did not disappear. Reports from the ground plus satellite imagery suggest that Cameroonian forces have either withdrawn or reduced their commitments across the north since 2017, increasing fear and insecurity among civilians, including those already displaced. Community members have been press-ganged into makeshift vigilante groups by Cameroonian troops to defend against these resurgent extremist attacks.
Data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project shows that battles and violence against civilians in Cameroon’s two northernmost regions have soared since 2018, reaching record levels in 2019 and continuing into 2020 at a far higher frequency than during Boko Haram’s earlier peak.
Cameroon’s security resources are clearly stretched thin by fighting on two fronts, enabling Islamist groups to gather momentum and rebuild their capabilities in the north. Paradoxically, the international community has been relatively quiet on the government’s militarized approach to the Anglophone crisis, perhaps because of Cameroon’s supposed utility in the fight against jihadis—a fight they have not seriously engaged in for more than three years. External actors that can offer military and economic assistance to Cameroon need to ensure their efforts are not enabling the Biya regime’s crackdown on its own Anglophone citizens.
Soldiers conduct the daily flag-lowering ceremony at the Force Multinationale Mixte base in Mora on Sept. 28, 2018.
The so-called fight against terrorism has become, unfortunately, an opportunity to extract resources and support from the international community to keep incumbent regimes in power. Across the continent, the ability of extremist groups to recruit is related to the poor quality of governance combined with the absence or impunity of security forces.
In recognition of this worsening situation in Cameroon, on Sept. 8, a bipartisan U.S. Senate resolution was introduced by Sens. Jim Risch of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Ben Cardin of Maryland. It includes the toughest congressional language yet, calling on the Biya government and “armed separatist groups,” often referred to locally as local defense or restoration forces, to “end all violence, respect the human rights of all Cameroonians, and pursue a genuinely inclusive dialogue toward resolving the ongoing civil conflict in Anglophone Cameroon.” The preamble is particularly hard on Biya—in power since 1982 and the “oldest head of state in Africa”—criticizing his centralization of power, corrupt practices, repression of the opposition, and fraudulent elections.
At the end of September, a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing on “Democratic Backsliding in Sub-Saharan Africa” identified the problem of U.S. military support being used in atrocities against Anglophones. In a response to a pointed question from Rep. Ilhan Omar, Christopher Fomunyoh of the National Democratic Institute explained that especially in the past two years, “some of the resources that were initially donated to the government of Cameroon to help in the fight against Boko Haram … have moved, both in terms of material and personnel, into the Anglophone regions of the country where there is an ongoing armed conflict.”
Still, the United States and most international actors with any influence in Cameroon, including France, have yet to invest sufficient political capital or financial resources to nudge the government, armed groups, and civil society leaders towards real, mediated negotiations. France’s reputation in West and Central Africa, already precarious on historical grounds and because of its recent unilateralist impulses, does not make it a good candidate for leading international efforts to help solve the Anglophone crisis.
Halfhearted peace efforts need a revitalized coalition of international stakeholders to make any progress. An informal Swiss-led process driven by nongovernmental organizations and launched late last year has neither official buy-in from the Biya government nor broad support among all the domestic and diaspora groups demanding peace and justice. A government-organized “national dialogue” late in 2019 fooled more international actors than domestic constituencies.
Appeals for a COVID-19 cease-fire by the U.N. and a distinguished group including Nobel laureates in June 2020 were ignored by the government and some of the armed groups. And in July, secretive meetings between imprisoned Anglophone leaders and members of the government produced neither concrete results nor clarity about whether the government was genuinely pursuing a new strategy or trying, yet again, to mollify international critics.
The Biya government signed a cost-shared $160 million “reconstruction and development” agreement with the U.N. Development Program in May.
Despite the total lack of progress toward ending what has become a regional civil war, the Biya government signed a cost-shared $160 million “reconstruction and development” agreement with the U.N. Development Program in May for the country’s two Anglophone regions, where security forces have razed more than 200 villages since 2016.
The Biya government’s latest strategy is to move ahead with new regional council elections in December, hoping to placate both domestic and international critics with a sign that the decentralization first promised in the 1996 constitutional amendments is finally coming to fruition. But in at least three and perhaps four of Cameroon’s 10 regions, the security situation hardly allows for these indirect elections to be conducted safely, and most electors (only municipal councilors and traditional rulers get to vote) are already affiliated with the ruling party anyway.
The international community must not fall for this charade and should instead reassess its assistance to what is a financially struggling Biya government. After more than three years of intense military operations in the economically critical Anglophone regions, Cameroon’s economy is reeling, but its scarce resources are still being poured into military imports, training, infrastructure, and operations.
Regime politicians, military commanders, and supportive media muddy the waters by calling opponents of the regime “terrorists and criminals” or insurrectionists—whether they are Boko Haram and ISWAP hard-liners in the northern regions, Anglophone separatists, federalists, or even opposition politicians such as Maurice Kamto.
Cameroon’s heavy-handed military response in the Anglophone regions has ruined an economically vital part of the country, driven any solution other than independence off the agenda for many English speakers, and enabled the resurgence of extremist movements in the north.
Biya and his regime intimately understand how to manipulate the international community to insulate the government from international pressure and oversight, and foreign governments and institutions must stop allowing themselves to be deceived. Continuing references to the so-called war on terrorism and regional stability allowed Cameroon to receive International Monetary Fund bailouts, humanitarian funding, and military assistance, despite an abundance of evidence of severe repression, economic mismanagement, and lack of sincerity about solving political conflicts peacefully.
The first step towards combating the resurgent Islamist threat in the north is to encourage Cameroon to peacefully resolve its Anglophone crisis. Until the international community convinces the Biya regime to enter mediated negotiations to seek a political solution, its attention will remain divided, to the detriment of the region’s stability.


foreignpolicy--2020-11-23--Biden to Nominate Blinken as Secretary of State

Biden to Nominate Blinken as Secretary of State Here is today ’ s Foreign Policy brief : Antony Blinken to be nominated as U.S. Secretary of State , Guatemala calls for OAS help , and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed gives Tigrayan forces 72 hours to surrender .
We welcome your feedback at morningbrief @ foreignpolicy.com .
Foreign Policy can confirm that President-elect Joe Biden intends to nominate Antony Blinken as Secretary of State .
The news was first reported by Bloomberg .
The news of Blinken ’ s impending nomination comes as the Biden campaign plans to formally announce @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tuesday .
Some more have already leaked : Linda Thomas-Greenfield , the top U.S. diplomat for African Affairs under President Barack Obama , is lined up as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations , and Jake Sullivan is set to take on the role of national security adviser after holding that same position under then-Vice President Joe Biden .
Blinken you ’ ll miss it .
Although well-respected in D.C. policy circles , Blinken ’ s relatively low profile would be a departure from previous Democratic secretaries of state : Both Hillary Clinton @ @ @ @ @ @ @ global name recognition when they took the post during the Obama administration .
In contrast to his Democratic predecessors , who may have had their own power bases , Blinken has spent most of his career by Biden ’ s side .
His foreign-policy career began at the U.S. State Department , eventually becoming senior aide to then-Senator Joe Biden on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee , who then made him his national security adviser when he became vice president .
His most recent public position was as deputy secretary of state in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ administration .
Upon leaving public service , Blinken founded a consultancy with Michèle Flournoy .
As Flournoy is hotly tipped to become Biden ’ s secretary of defense , it would bring their professional relationship to the global stage .
In his own words .
Blinken gave a broad outline of how he sees the world Biden is stepping into in a Brookings Institution blog post in 2019 coauthored with Robert Kagan .
By Blinken and Kagan ’ s account , today ’ s “ increasingly dangerous world … looks more like the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , nationalists and demagogues on the rise ; autocratic powers growing in strength and increasingly aggressive ; Europe mired in division and self-doubt ; and democracy under siege and vulnerable to foreign manipulation.
” They add that new challenges , “ from cyberwarfare to mass migration to a warming planet ” are problems that “ no one nation can meet alone and no wall can contain.
” On China .
Speaking to CNN ’ s Fareed Zakaria in October , he gave a glimpse of his approach to China , focusing , like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The China challenge is less about their strength , rising though it is , and more about our self-inflicted weaknesses , ” Blinken said .
A Biden administration would “ work with our allies and partners and actually assert our values .
And that that ’ s how you engage China from a position of strength.
” On Monday , Nov. 23 , the trial of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy on corruption charges begins today in Paris .
President-elect Joe Biden is expected to announce members of his cabinet .
Foreign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here .
On Wednesday , Nov. 25 , the United States releases its second estimate of gross domestic product for the third quarter of 2020 .
On Friday , Nov. 27 , an order by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States ( CFIUS ) ordering social media app TikTok to divest any assets linked to parent company ByteDance comes into effect .
Sun , Nov. 29 , Brazil holds its second round of municipal elections .
Mekele ultimatum .
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has issued an ultimatum to Tigrayan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or your capital faces bombardment .
“ Our people in Mekele should be notified that they should protect themselves from heavy artillery , ” an Ethiopian military spokesman advised , echoing Abiy ’ s Sunday statement .
Susan Rice , a former U.S. national security adviser and possible Biden cabinet appointee , suggested that an indiscriminate assault on the Tigrayan capital would constitute a war crime .
Brazil protests .
Protesters flocked to the streets of Brazil over the weekend to voice their anger over the killing of João Alberto Silveira Freitas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ security guards outside a supermarket in Porto Alegre .
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has played down the unrest : Appearing to reference it at the G-20 conference , he called it an “ attempt to import to our land tensions that have nothing to do with our history.
” Video footage shows the guards repeatedly punching Freitas in the head as he is pinned to the ground .
Local press reported his cause of death as asphyxiation—bringing comparisons to the death of George Floyd in the United States in May .
China pressure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Department of Commerce could restrict Chinese companies from purchasing U.S. technology and other products , if enacted .
First reported by Reuters , the rule would name 89 Chinese companies as “ military end users , ” meaning any U.S. companies must first obtain licenses before doing business with them .
The companies targeted include Commercial Aircraft Corp of China , a would-be competitor to Boeing .
Rage in Guatemala .
Guatemala ’ s government has called on the Organization of American States ( OAS ) to help them “ promote dialogue among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cuts to social services turned violent .
Protesters set the country ’ s Congress alight on Saturday while thousands took to the streets .
Guatemalan authorities condemned the violence and said in a statement that they had “ no other path than to turn to the international community.
” Vaccine equality .
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on COVAX , the initiative set up to assist low-income countries in accessing a coronavirus vaccine , to immediately begin talks with vaccine manufacturers in order to secure doses .
“ I am concerned that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said on Sunday after the G20 summit , pointing out the European Union and United States had agreements with drug makers for a vaccine .
COVAX , which was initiated by the World Health Organization and the GAVI alliance , has received support from dozens of countries , although notably not the United States .
The initiative has raised $ 5 billion so far , $ 600 million of which has come from Germany .
AMLO ’ s approval .
Despite an ailing economy and record murder rates , Mexican President Andrés Manuel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hit a one-year high according to a new poll .
Some 64 percent of Mexicans support his leadership , an increase from 59 percent in August .
Welfare programs for the elderly , students and poorer areas were rated as his most popular policies , while the poll showed Mexicans growing increasingly wary about how he is handling the coronavirus pandemic .
López Obrador ’ s party , currently in control both houses of Congress , faces mid-term elections in June 2021 .
While the cruise industry is facing a reckoning in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ferry route between Finland and Sweden has given an example of resilience .
Upon leaving Stockholm the Viking Grace cruise ship ran aground at Mariehamn , a stop on the way to the Finnish city of Turku .
None of the 331 passengers or 98 crew were hurt and the boat was dragged off the seabed by two tug boats before making its way to Turku under its own engines .
For more from FP , visit foreignpolicy.com , subscribe here , or sign up for our other newsletters .
Send your tips @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to morningbrief @ foreignpolicy.com .

Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: Antony Blinken will be nominated as U.S. Secretary of State, Guatemala calls for help from the Organization of American States, and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed gives Tigrayan forces 72 hours to surrender.
Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: Antony Blinken will be nominated as U.S. Secretary of State, Guatemala calls for help from the Organization of American States, and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed gives Tigrayan forces 72 hours to surrender.
If you would like to receive Morning Brief in your inbox every weekday, please sign up here.
Biden’s Picks For State, United Nations, and National Security Advisor Become Clearer
Foreign Policy can confirm that President-elect Joe Biden intends to nominate Antony Blinken as Secretary of State. The news was first reported by Bloomberg.
The news of Blinken’s impending nomination comes as the Biden campaign plans to formally announce a slate of cabinet picks this coming Tuesday. Some more have already leaked: Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the top U.S. diplomat for African Affairs under President Barack Obama, is lined up as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Jake Sullivan is set to take on the role of national security adviser after holding that same position under then-Vice President Joe Biden.
Blinken you’ll miss it. Although well-respected in D.C. policy circles, Blinken’s relatively low profile would be a departure from previous Democratic secretaries of state: Both Hillary Clinton and John Kerry were national figures with global name recognition when they took the post during the Obama administration.
In contrast to his Democratic predecessors, who may have had their own power bases, Blinken has spent most of his career by Biden’s side. His foreign-policy career began at the U.S. State Department, eventually becoming senior aide to then-Senator Joe Biden on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who then made him his national security adviser when he became vice president. His most recent public position was as deputy secretary of state in the final two years of the Obama administration.
Upon leaving public service, Blinken founded a consultancy with Michèle Flournoy. As Flournoy is hotly tipped to become Biden’s secretary of defense, it would bring their professional relationship to the global stage.
In his own words. Blinken gave a broad outline of how he sees the world Biden is stepping into in a Brookings Institution blog post in 2019 coauthored with Robert Kagan. By Blinken and Kagan’s account, today’s “increasingly dangerous world … looks more like the 1930s than the end of history—with populists, nationalists and demagogues on the rise; autocratic powers growing in strength and increasingly aggressive; Europe mired in division and self-doubt; and democracy under siege and vulnerable to foreign manipulation.” They add that new challenges, “from cyberwarfare to mass migration to a warming planet” are problems that “no one nation can meet alone and no wall can contain.”
On China. Speaking to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in October, he gave a glimpse of his approach to China, focusing, like Biden, on relationships with allies: “The China challenge is less about their strength, rising though it is, and more about our self-inflicted weaknesses,” Blinken said. A Biden administration would “work with our allies and partners and actually assert our values. And that that’s how you engage China from a position of strength.”
The World This Week
On Monday, Nov. 23, the trial of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy on corruption charges begins today in Paris.
The European Parliament’s plenary session begins.
On Tuesday, Nov. 24, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi begins a two-day visit to Japan.
President-elect Joe Biden is expected to announce members of his cabinet. Foreign Policy has previewed some of the positions here.
On Wednesday, Nov. 25, the United States releases its second estimate of gross domestic product for the third quarter of 2020.
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam delivers her annual policy address.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi begins a three-day visit to South Korea.
On Thursday, Nov. 26, the United States observes Thanksgiving Day.
On Friday, Nov. 27, an order by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) ordering social media app TikTok to divest any assets linked to parent company ByteDance comes into effect.
Sun, Nov. 29, Brazil holds its second round of municipal elections.
What We’re Following Today
Mekele ultimatum. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has issued an ultimatum to Tigrayan regional forces: Surrender within 72 hours, or your capital faces bombardment. “Our people in Mekele should be notified that they should protect themselves from heavy artillery,” an Ethiopian military spokesman advised, echoing Abiy’s Sunday statement. Susan Rice, a former U.S. national security adviser and possible Biden cabinet appointee, suggested that an indiscriminate assault on the Tigrayan capital would constitute a war crime.
Brazil protests. Protesters flocked to the streets of Brazil over the weekend to voice their anger over the killing of João Alberto Silveira Freitas, a 40-year-old Black man, by security guards outside a supermarket in Porto Alegre. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has played down the unrest: Appearing to reference it at the G-20 conference, he called it an “attempt to import to our land tensions that have nothing to do with our history.” Video footage shows the guards repeatedly punching Freitas in the head as he is pinned to the ground. Local press reported his cause of death as asphyxiation—bringing comparisons to the death of George Floyd in the United States in May.
China pressure. A draft rule by the U.S. Department of Commerce could restrict Chinese companies from purchasing U.S. technology and other products, if enacted. First reported by Reuters, the rule would name 89 Chinese companies as “military end users,” meaning any U.S. companies must first obtain licenses before doing business with them. The companies targeted include Commercial Aircraft Corp of China, a would-be competitor to Boeing.
Rage in Guatemala. Guatemala’s government has called on the Organization of American States (OAS) to help them “promote dialogue among diverse political forces” after weekend protests cuts to social services turned violent. Protesters set the country’s Congress alight on Saturday while thousands took to the streets. Guatemalan authorities condemned the violence and said in a statement that they had “no other path than to turn to the international community.”
Keep an Eye On
Vaccine equality. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on COVAX, the initiative set up to assist low-income countries in accessing a coronavirus vaccine, to immediately begin talks with vaccine manufacturers in order to secure doses. “I am concerned that there are no negotiations,” Merkel said on Sunday after the G20 summit, pointing out the European Union and United States had agreements with drug makers for a vaccine. COVAX, which was initiated by the World Health Organization and the GAVI alliance, has received support from dozens of countries, although notably not the United States. The initiative has raised $5 billion so far, $600 million of which has come from Germany.
AMLO’s approval. Despite an ailing economy and record murder rates, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s approval rating has hit a one-year high according to a new poll. Some 64 percent of Mexicans support his leadership, an increase from 59 percent in August. Welfare programs for the elderly, students and poorer areas were rated as his most popular policies, while the poll showed Mexicans growing increasingly wary about how he is handling the coronavirus pandemic. López Obrador’s party, currently in control both houses of Congress, faces mid-term elections in June 2021.
Odds and Ends
While the cruise industry is facing a reckoning in the coronavirus era, one ship taking a ferry route between Finland and Sweden has given an example of resilience. Upon leaving Stockholm the Viking Grace cruise ship ran aground at Mariehamn, a stop on the way to the Finnish city of Turku. None of the 331 passengers or 98 crew were hurt and the boat was dragged off the seabed by two tug boats before making its way to Turku under its own engines.
That’s it for today.
For more from FP, visit foreignpolicy.com, subscribe here, or sign up for our other newsletters. Send your tips, comments, questions, or corrections to morningbrief@foreignpolicy.com.


Is OPEC Over?

In September , the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries ( OPEC ) turned 60—an anniversary that comes at a critical moment in its history .
While its power over oil prices has waxed and waned throughout its life , never before the COVID-19 pandemic was its very existence put into question .
After initial hesitation and major miscalculations , since April , OPEC has reluctantly played the role of market stabilizer to rescue an oil industry that was close to collapse .
Now peering down the barrel of peak demand and a much more competitive energy environment than in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its oligopolistic ambitions and aspire to serving mainly as ballast .
Over the past six decades , the oil market has evolved substantially on both the demand side and the supply side , forcing OPEC to adapt continuously , even when it looked obsolete .
But , as Princeton professor Robert Keohane has argued , international institutions rarely die : “ They are easier to maintain than to create.
” And so , through three broad phases , OPEC persisted .
Between 1960 and 1980 , OEPC acted as a geopolitical challenger .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ had started after World War II , its founding members—Iran , Iraq , Kuwait , Saudi Arabia , and Venezuela—wanted to regain control of their oil reserves , which were then under the de facto control of a handful of Western multinational companies .
In 1973 , as oil producers in Texas ceased to be able to keep up with rising U.S. domestic demand , the cartel managed to bring Western economies to their knees in retaliation for Washington ’ s support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War .
This first oil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ second one in 1979 triggered by the Iranian revolution , induced Western consumers to search for alternative energy sources , improve energy efficiency , and try to reduce their dependence on oil .
As one analyst has put it : “ When the price of something as essential as oil spikes , humanity does two things : finds more of it and finds ways to use less of it.
” Soon , OPEC was not only faced with lower demand but also with more barrels of crude coming from non-OPEC producers such as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Soviet Union .
From 1980 to 2000 , OPEC responded to the challenges by attempting to become a cartel .
In this second phase , it tried—not very successfully—to behave as a proper cartel , targeting both a ceiling and a floor price , while adjusting production accordingly .
OPEC ’ s undisputed leader , Saudi Arabia , made most of the adjustments .
Prices could not rise too fast , or global demand would flag .
But they could not drop too sharply either , or revenue would suffer .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 1982 , were meant to serve as a feedback mechanism on the supply side to help spot prices stay within the desired range .
In reality , cheating , infighting , and external competition undermined the effectiveness of OPEC ’ s strategy .
Only the rise of an oil-thirsty China in the 2000s relieved the cartel by lifting prices to historic highs—with the West Texas Intermediate ( WTI ) benchmark , one of the main global indices , getting close to $ 150 a barrel in 2008 .
In this third phase @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a sort of passive observer of the market ( with a short attempt to be more active during the Great Recession ) .
As long as oil demand kept growing , so did prices , and OPEC did not bother to intervene .
But with the start of the shale revolution in the United States in 2014 , OPEC saw its oligopolistic power being eroded once again .
Since then , it has struggled to find a new role .
Initially , Saudi Arabia appeared unwilling to act as the swing producer—that is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stabilize global prices—to push U.S. producers out of the market .
Between 2014 and early 2016 , oil prices dropped from almost $ 110 a barrel to $ 29 .
But in 2016 , bleeding public finances forced OPEC into an uncomfortable alliance , the so-called OPEC+ , with Russia and a number of countries within its geopolitical orbit , to try to counter the U.S. threat .
But the fragility of OPEC+ has become all too clear during the COVID-19 crisis .
As for any cartel , enforcing compliance with agreed quotas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ OPEC , whose mission is to stabilize oil prices in order to maximize revenue for energy-dependent governments .
When OPEC turned into OPEC+ , its membership jumped from 13 countries to 24 , making coordination even more difficult , particularly between rivals such as Saudi Arabia and Russia .
Riyadh wanted this alliance to become permanent , continuously insisting on production cuts .
Moscow , instead , wanted a temporary partnership , displaying a degree of tolerance for high production and low price .
But when the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread across @ @ @ @ @ @ @ differences crystallized abruptly .
The initial failure of OPEC+ to strike a deal to cut production in the face of free-falling demand triggered a price war that ended with the WTI oil benchmark deep into negative territory for the first time ever and with storage capacity almost filled .
Having learned the lesson the hard way , in April , OPEC+ achieved an unprecedented diplomatic agreement , agreeing to cut output to the tune of 9.7 million barrels a day ( almost 10 percent of global production ) , while obtaining the support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demand , and as originally decided , controls on output were eased a little in August and are likely to be confirmed at that level next week in occasion of the OPEC+ annual meeting .
And so far , compliance with the agreement that imposes major output cuts on oil-dependent , fragile economies has been high , close to 100 percent .
This is due not only to fears of a new price war , but also to the introduction of a mechanism that forces noncompliant signatories to compensate for past overproduction by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ number of weeks .
This is the most effective method OPEC has yet found to dissuade cheating .
Meanwhile , the credible commitments and a well-communicated strategy to roll back the output curbs have set market expectations and have kept prices relatively stable .
OPEC+ ’ s response during the COVID-19 pandemic should be a model for its activities in the future .
It should not just act as a market stabilizer during acute crises .
In the coming years , it will oversee the transition away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mobility and work organization that were already leading to lower demand for oil .
Moreover , despite the challenges posed by a likely split Congress , making the U.S. economy greener remains a priority of the Biden presidency .
China and Europe , too , are weaning themselves off oil .
In turn , global demand will be on the decline .
In order to avoid a drastic fall in prices , supply will have to adjust continuously to balance the market and put a floor on oil prices .
Only an alliance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 45 percent of global production , can guarantee the degree of readiness necessary to offset output surpluses .
U.S. producers are too many and too small to cooperate .
For this reason , OPEC+ should evolve from a temporary alliance into a proper organization to reliably shape market expectations .
Creating a price floor will be key to reducing market volatility , preserving the financial health of the industry and avoiding political turmoil in key regions such as the Middle East .
This will not mean particularly high prices , because any attempt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what ’ s needed by the market would encourage agile U.S. shale producers to turn the tap on and boost production , thus bringing prices down again .
In other words , in the current competitive market context , OPEC+ is in the position to set the price floor , while U.S. shale producers set the price ceiling .
And if OPEC+ plays its cards right , it could end up becoming a valuable forum for exchanging critical information and sharing best practices among member states to make their economies less dependent on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ setting itself up to be a major player in green economies , too .
OPEC+ remains a fragile alliance .
Its members are often geopolitical competitors and rule highly fractured societies , creating a fertile ground for clashing interests .
But the pandemic should be taken as an opportunity to mark a new beginning for the organization .

In September, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) turned 60—an anniversary that comes at a critical moment in its history. While its power over oil prices has waxed and waned throughout its life, never before the COVID-19 pandemic was its very existence put into question. After initial hesitation and major miscalculations, since April, OPEC has reluctantly played the role of market stabilizer to rescue an oil industry that was close to collapse. Now peering down the barrel of peak demand and a much more competitive energy environment than in the past, OPEC should put aside its oligopolistic ambitions and aspire to serving mainly as ballast.
In September, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) turned 60—an anniversary that comes at a critical moment in its history. While its power over oil prices has waxed and waned throughout its life, never before the COVID-19 pandemic was its very existence put into question. After initial hesitation and major miscalculations, since April, OPEC has reluctantly played the role of market stabilizer to rescue an oil industry that was close to collapse. Now peering down the barrel of peak demand and a much more competitive energy environment than in the past, OPEC should put aside its oligopolistic ambitions and aspire to serving mainly as ballast.
Over the past six decades, the oil market has evolved substantially on both the demand side and the supply side, forcing OPEC to adapt continuously, even when it looked obsolete. But, as Princeton professor Robert Keohane has argued, international institutions rarely die: “They are easier to maintain than to create.” And so, through three broad phases, OPEC persisted.
Between 1960 and 1980, OEPC acted as a geopolitical challenger. As part of the decolonization process that had started after World War II, its founding members—Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela—wanted to regain control of their oil reserves, which were then under the de facto control of a handful of Western multinational companies. In 1973, as oil producers in Texas ceased to be able to keep up with rising U.S. domestic demand, the cartel managed to bring Western economies to their knees in retaliation for Washington’s support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War.
This first oil shock, which was followed by a second one in 1979 triggered by the Iranian revolution, induced Western consumers to search for alternative energy sources, improve energy efficiency, and try to reduce their dependence on oil. As one analyst has put it: “When the price of something as essential as oil spikes, humanity does two things: finds more of it and finds ways to use less of it.” Soon, OPEC was not only faced with lower demand but also with more barrels of crude coming from non-OPEC producers such as Alaska, Mexico, Norway, and the Soviet Union.
From 1980 to 2000, OPEC responded to the challenges by attempting to become a cartel. In this second phase, it tried—not very successfully—to behave as a proper cartel, targeting both a ceiling and a floor price, while adjusting production accordingly. OPEC’s undisputed leader, Saudi Arabia, made most of the adjustments. Prices could not rise too fast, or global demand would flag. But they could not drop too sharply either, or revenue would suffer. In theory, output quotas, first enacted in 1982, were meant to serve as a feedback mechanism on the supply side to help spot prices stay within the desired range. In reality, cheating, infighting, and external competition undermined the effectiveness of OPEC’s strategy.
Only the rise of an oil-thirsty China in the 2000s relieved the cartel by lifting prices to historic highs—with the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) benchmark, one of the main global indices, getting close to $150 a barrel in 2008. In this third phase, and until 2014, OPEC remained a sort of passive observer of the market (with a short attempt to be more active during the Great Recession). As long as oil demand kept growing, so did prices, and OPEC did not bother to intervene. But with the start of the shale revolution in the United States in 2014, OPEC saw its oligopolistic power being eroded once again. Since then, it has struggled to find a new role.
Initially, Saudi Arabia appeared unwilling to act as the swing producer—that is, to cut or boost production to stabilize global prices—to push U.S. producers out of the market. Between 2014 and early 2016, oil prices dropped from almost $110 a barrel to $29. But in 2016, bleeding public finances forced OPEC into an uncomfortable alliance, the so-called OPEC+, with Russia and a number of countries within its geopolitical orbit, to try to counter the U.S. threat. But the fragility of OPEC+ has become all too clear during the COVID-19 crisis.
As for any cartel, enforcing compliance with agreed quotas has always represented the main challenge for OPEC, whose mission is to stabilize oil prices in order to maximize revenue for energy-dependent governments. When OPEC turned into OPEC+, its membership jumped from 13 countries to 24, making coordination even more difficult, particularly between rivals such as Saudi Arabia and Russia. Riyadh wanted this alliance to become permanent, continuously insisting on production cuts. Moscow, instead, wanted a temporary partnership, displaying a degree of tolerance for high production and low price.
But when the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread across the world in March, all the differences crystallized abruptly. The initial failure of OPEC+ to strike a deal to cut production in the face of free-falling demand triggered a price war that ended with the WTI oil benchmark deep into negative territory for the first time ever and with storage capacity almost filled. Having learned the lesson the hard way, in April, OPEC+ achieved an unprecedented diplomatic agreement, agreeing to cut output to the tune of 9.7 million barrels a day (almost 10 percent of global production), while obtaining the support of other G-20 countries. With improving demand, and as originally decided, controls on output were eased a little in August and are likely to be confirmed at that level next week in occasion of the OPEC+ annual meeting.
And so far, compliance with the agreement that imposes major output cuts on oil-dependent, fragile economies has been high, close to 100 percent. This is due not only to fears of a new price war, but also to the introduction of a mechanism that forces noncompliant signatories to compensate for past overproduction by producing below their quota for a certain number of weeks. This is the most effective method OPEC has yet found to dissuade cheating. Meanwhile, the credible commitments and a well-communicated strategy to roll back the output curbs have set market expectations and have kept prices relatively stable.
OPEC+’s response during the COVID-19 pandemic should be a model for its activities in the future. It should not just act as a market stabilizer during acute crises. In the coming years, it will oversee the transition away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy. The pandemic has accelerated trends in mobility and work organization that were already leading to lower demand for oil. Moreover, despite the challenges posed by a likely split Congress, making the U.S. economy greener remains a priority of the Biden presidency. China and Europe, too, are weaning themselves off oil.
In turn, global demand will be on the decline. In order to avoid a drastic fall in prices, supply will have to adjust continuously to balance the market and put a floor on oil prices. Only an alliance such as OPEC+, which represents around 45 percent of global production, can guarantee the degree of readiness necessary to offset output surpluses. U.S. producers are too many and too small to cooperate. For this reason, OPEC+ should evolve from a temporary alliance into a proper organization to reliably shape market expectations.
Creating a price floor will be key to reducing market volatility, preserving the financial health of the industry and avoiding political turmoil in key regions such as the Middle East. This will not mean particularly high prices, because any attempt to cut production too sharply and beyond what’s needed by the market would encourage agile U.S. shale producers to turn the tap on and boost production, thus bringing prices down again. In other words, in the current competitive market context, OPEC+ is in the position to set the price floor, while U.S. shale producers set the price ceiling.
And if OPEC+ plays its cards right, it could end up becoming a valuable forum for exchanging critical information and sharing best practices among member states to make their economies less dependent on the revenues from crude exports, while setting itself up to be a major player in green economies, too.
OPEC+ remains a fragile alliance. Its members are often geopolitical competitors and rule highly fractured societies, creating a fertile ground for clashing interests. But the pandemic should be taken as an opportunity to mark a new beginning for the organization.