Insurgency in Northern Mozambique...

[TheGreenGoblin]

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqMFEPhPNIC3gdIPb7W ... A?e=v0a2GT

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqMFEPhPNIC3gdIQM2N ... w?e=iXQEj6

Context - https://www.newzimbabwe.com/mozambique- ... ing-hotel/

[TheGreenGoblin]

https://www.thesouthafrican.com/news/mo ... -28-march/

I am hearing that people are still trapped on the beach...

As many as 60 people – mostly foreign citizens – are unaccounted for following a deadly ambush on their convoy during an attack by Islamist militants in northern Mozambique.

According to recordings of security calls reviewed by the Guardian describing the aftermath of the attack, only seven vehicles in a convoy of 17 made it to safety after the attack on Friday, with seven confirmed dead and many injured in the surviving vehicles. Everyone in the other vehicles was assumed dead.

The harrowing details of the attack came after reports that South Africa was considering sending military forces as part of a mission to rescue its civilians left in the town.

Islamist rebels attacked Palma – where many foreign contractors have been working for a multibillion-dollar liquified natural gas project by the French energy company Total – on Wednesday, leading to five days of fighting so far. A few hundred foreign workers from South Africa, Britain and France sought refuge at hotels that quickly became targets for the rebel attacks, with an estimated 200 foreign workers at the Hotel Amarula. After a failed attempt to escape by sea, a convoy of vehicles attempted to flee the besieged hotel and reach the coast when they were ambushed twice.

Ex-colleague of mine is flying in supplies to this area for Total... spoke to him earlier on WhatsApp.... mass murder has occurred here...

One of the dead in the convoy was identified in South African media as Adrian Nel, who was reportedly killed when he and his father and younger brother joined the convoy that attempted to break out of the Amarula Lodge hotel.

Nel’s body and family members were eventually rescued by helicopter on Saturday morning and taken to the nearby – and heavily defended – Afungi liquid natural gas facility being constructed by Total.

The recordings describe scenes of utter chaos as helicopters and boats run by several security companies attempted to extract those trapped in the town. One convoy was hit in an ambush almost as soon as it had left the Amarula hotel where scores were sheltering.

In one recording a contractor describes the aftermath of the ambush. “That thing Pierre was describing. It was 17 vehicles. We know a lot of the guys involved in that convoy. Seventeen vehicles left Amarula – that compound.

“Only seven of the vehicles made it through. In those seven vehicles that made it through were seven confirmed killed. Quite few of them had been shot and injured but they are still alive.

“The other 10 vehicles never made it through. They are unaccounted for and are basically all assumed dead.”

With hundreds of expats initially reported trapped in the town in the aftermath of the attack, private security contractors had warned of the risk of an “absolute bloodbath”.

Between 50 and 60 people – understood to be mainly foreign nationals – were in 10 vehicles that are unaccounted for. It is feared that they all died in the attack in what the US embassy in Maputo is calling a “horrific situation”.

Amid considerable confusion over the situation, a spokesperson for Mozambique’s defence and security forces confirmed the death of seven people in the convoy including foreigners, adding that hundreds of other people, both locals and foreigners had been rescued from the town.

Omar Saranga added that “dozens” of other people had been killed in the town during the fighting.

The town of Palma in Cabo Delgado province was attacked by Islamist insurgents on Wednesday, with witnesses reported seeing bodies in the streets after the insurgents, believed to be affiliated with the terrorist group Isis, attacked Palma from three directions.

Among those in the evacuation convoy are understood to be many foreign workers as well as Mozambicans.

Those sheltering at the hotel had initially been told they would be rescued by boat on Thursday from a nearby beach with helicopters providing air cover but when boats did not arrive they decided to make a run for it on Friday.

The audio describing the response to the attack narrated scenes of utter carnage as at least one private security contractor struggled to respond to rescue staff while others ran low on fuel and ammunition.

According to audio describing the situation following the attack, passed on to the Guardian, another 150 people had been under siege at a compound in Amarula hotel without ammunition and had sent out a final SOS saying they did not “expect to make it through the night”.

The briefings suggest a scene of total chaos in Palma with security teams for Total describing their boats under fire and unable to evacuate from a nearby beach.

Human Rights Watch said that witnesses described seeing “bodies on the streets and residents fleeing after the ... fighters fired indiscriminately at people and buildings”.

A UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson said: “Our high commission in Maputo is in direct contact with authorities in Cabo Delgado to urgently seek further information on these reports.”

According to other accounts, almost the entire town was destroyed in the attack.

“As locals fled to the bush, workers from LNG companies, including foreigners, took refuge in hotel Amarula where they are waiting to be rescued,” a worker told the AFP news agency, on condition of anonymity.

The Mozambican military was reported to be struggling with its own dead and wounded from the attack after being completely overrun.

Mozambique’s insurgents are known locally as al-Shabaab, although they do not have any known connection to Somalia’s jihadist rebels of that name. The rebels have been active in Cabo Delgado province since 2017 but their attacks became much more frequent and deadly in the past year. The three-year insurgency of the rebels, who are primarily disaffected young Muslim men, in the northern Cabo Delgado province has taken more than 2,600 lives and displaced an estimated 670,000 people, according to the UN.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/mo ... uxbndlbing

[TheGreenGoblin]

We hold our heads in disgrace....

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

The latest from Sky news; https://news.sky.com/story/unseen-pictu ... e-12265947

All very worrying.

[TheGreenGoblin]

The latest from Sky news; https://news.sky.com/story/unseen-pictu ... e-12265947

All very worrying.

Never has the the motto on the former coat of arms of South Africa Ex Unitate Vires rung truer. There was absolutely no co-ordination between the various private security teams, helicopter companies, mercenary parties, the Mozambican government and military and the Total management team and company security, and this group of well armed, well trained, insurgents ran through the area like a hot knife through butter in this disorganised mess.

Underlying the disorganisation issue, the gas/oil avarice and religious extremism, is the old African tribalism (we Europeans give ourselves airs and call it nationalism). The local leaders around the barrier islands were always paid an element of tribute and thus peace was maintained in the past, but the government in Maputo saw fit to forgo this when oil intervened and we now see the price that comes with greed and lack of diplomatic nous, political foolishness thereby destabilising the established order without a unified plan or strategy, be that political or military (or even both).

[ian16th]

This is from a friend & neighbour.

I apologise if it doesn’t meet international standards of grammar and spelling, but it is as it arrived.

I deleted the company name.

A personal friend, in fact my ex best friend from Jhb, who recently went back to Scotland, her son was one of the guys who were in hiding in Palma with the war .... He spent 3 days hiding in the bush .. no food, no water, no sleep ... He witnessed people being beheaded and children killed infront of the bushes he was hiding behind. His colleague had part of his ear shot off ... Fortunately he managed to phone his sister via a satellite phone, who contacted his company who organised an aircharter to get them back to SA .... That took another 4 days, all he had was the clothes on his body ....
Very scarey stuff
They are into liguid waste ( company called XXXXXXXXXX ) and they were there chatting to Total and the gas work off the coast of Mozambique

[EA01]

Don't tell my Sister in Law they were Islamist Militants, she'll rip the hell outta ya for suggesting such a thing!

Seriously though, very scary, the likes of which you may perhaps expect in West Africa rather than Mozambique..

[Pinky the pilot]

Don't tell my Sister in Law they were Islamist Militants, she'll rip the hell outta ya for suggesting such a thing

Why? Who does she say did it then Fliegs?

I am genuinely curious.

[TheGreenGoblin]

A little bit of history that gives a little more context to what is going on in the north...

FRELIMO/RENAMO - The Civil War

Add oil, insurgents, apparently (so the scuttlebutt goes) the leader of the insurgents owns a big house in Ballito Bay in South Africa, Muslim fanatics, the CIA, the Russian Wagner Group of Mercenaries etc. etc. and you have a tinderbox literally soaked in oil!

Nothing is ever as simple as it seems in Southern Africa.....

The Muslim factor

[TheGreenGoblin]

Sent to me today... and despite the hubris etc. (Saffers are not known for their humility) most likely more than just mythos!

Shaun Carswell McHaffie
Well done to the South Africans DAG/STTEP - Job well done under the constraints of a limited budget, cancelled contract, and shortage of fuel and ammunition. If it was not for these 90% ex SF and SADF Men Anarchy by the Islamic Insurgents would have caused many many more deaths! What is commendable and makes me proud is the average age of these Soldiers PMC’s is late 55 to 65 years old BEFOK !

The Mozambique Army was routed disbanded and ran! The Police nullified from within! The truth is the South Africans worked 03:00 to sunset every day almost without sleep to contain this onslaught with +- 20 men 14 operational (Definitely deserving of the highest respect - very professional brave men that luckily, were well trained in the South African Military and in part, were and obviously still are the Best of the Best!!! Salut to friends deserving of respect and as noted “even a thank you” from the World Press )

Thats A First What a Stellar effort. Most Definitely not just a bunch of Anti Poachers but real seasoned Professionals who did SA proud Thank You Guys!

NB : on behest and request from the survivors these Men actualy went into hot spots and recovered Ex Pat and Locals including Bodies, to return loved ones and siblings back to Parents. Commendable and **** Brave Men with big big Balls!

Please share they deserve respect amongst our tribe of Veteran’s it was a great team effort not just a One Man Job!

https://zitamar.com/mozambique-extends- ... lgado-war/

Lionel Dyck on the situation a couple of days ago

One must take into account that DAG/STTEP are looking to have their contract renewed.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Sent to me today... and despite the hubris etc. (Saffers are not known for their humility) most likely more than just mythos!

Given the provenance of the name of the man purported to have sent this message, I am apt to believe the account as it stands.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Last month’s escalation in violence in northern Mozambique appears to have sparked the sub-continent’s regional bloc into action with no less than six Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders due to meet in Maputo this week.

The SADC troika (Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania) will meet in the Mozambican capital at the same time as the bloc’s security organ, under the chairmanship of Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi, gathers to “deliberate on measures to address terrorism”.

The meetings come over seven months after the Pretoria-headquartered Institute for Security Studies (ISS) warned SADC and the African Union assistance was needed in South Africa’s eastern neighbour.

President Cyril Ramaphosa will on 8 April attend the Extraordinary Double Troika Summit of Heads of State and Government of SADC in Maputo.

SADC is concerned about continued terrorist attacks in Cabo Delgado, especially for the lives and welfare of residents who continue to suffer from atrocious, brutal and indiscriminate assaults, South Africa’s Presidency said in a statement.

The Summit is preceded by meetings of senior officials and ministers.

Ramaphosa will be accompanied by Minister of International Relations and Co-operation Naledi Pandor, Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and Minister of State Security Ayanda Dlodlo.

Jasmine Opperman, Africa Analyst at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), said the Extraordinary Double Troika Summit is of “vast significance” as it will examine an obscure threat, the Iraqification (militarisation and foreign agendas) of Mozambique and SADC’s own role in regional politics.

In a clarion call to SADC ahead of the Maputo meetings, Democratic Alliance (DA) shadow defence and military veterans minister Kobus Marais is adamant military intervention in Cabo Delgado must be the top agenda item.

“Following the bloodshed in Palma, which claimed the life of a South African and trapped others in the area, military intervention is the only possible step to stop violence and restore security,” he said in a statement adding it was “unrealistic and unaffordable” for South Africa to do it unilaterally.

“Co-operation between forces from SADC member states will be critical to ensuring peace in Mozambique and the southern African region as a whole.”

To make this reality, Marais called on the South African delegation to Mozambique to push for “a troop surge” from all 16 SADC countries. “Heads of State must use this opportunity to finalise deployment of SADC forces,” he said.

South Africa cannot pay for the deployment because “it does not have the money or the capacity” and the regional grouping should seek wider support from Europe and the US. This approach, Marais maintains, will see much-needed additional funding and military equipment boost any SADC multi-national force deployed in Mozambique.

“Such a force will be able to engage in a rapid combat intervention to stop the insurgency in Mozambique.

“SADC is mandated and authorised to prevent destabilisation of the southern African region and it needs to intervene now to save Mozambique and ensure continued stability,” he said.

https://www.defenceweb.co.za/featured/c ... ozambique/

[TheGreenGoblin]

The hired guns - Dramatis Personae

- A veritable tower of Babel...

[ian16th]

The hired guns - Dramatis Personae

- A veritable tower of Babel...

French Armed Forces in the Indian Ocean (FAZSOI) have conducted training with the Mozambique authorities.

The Légion étrangère just happen to have a base on Mayotte, the one Comoran Island that is still French, a matter of 500km from the Moz mainland!

[TheGreenGoblin]

The hired guns - Dramatis Personae

- A veritable tower of Babel...

French Armed Forces in the Indian Ocean (FAZSOI) have conducted training with the Mozambique authorities.

The Légion étrangère just happen to have a base on Mayotte, the one Comoran Island that is still French, a matter of 500km from the Moz mainland!

France is considering a possible maritime cooperation agreement with Mozambique at the request of defence minister Jaime Neto, and the French Armed Forces in the Indian Ocean (FAZSOI) have conducted training with the Mozambique authorities. This discussion was expected to move forward at the Paris Peace Forum due to be held in November. France holds territory in the region — the island of Mayotte between Mozambique and Madagascar — which may act as a driver of greater regional security collaboration, along with the Total LNG project.

With Total, the underlying assumption, was that in extremis, personnel security would be underwritten by the French State (i.e. the military). Things have become muddled in this case, and big security errors have been made, with far too many different autonomous actors, with differing agendas, involved (often as competitors).

It is interesting to see that the Russian Wagner outfit have performed abysmally in this context. The Mozambican forces are also being trained by US special forces.

[ian16th]

One time that we were on holiday on Reunion, where the French Navy have a presence, we saw a French high speed launch with what looked to me like an Exocet missile, chuntered past.

[TheGreenGoblin]

In a region that is teeming with bandits, mercenaries, drug smugglers and greedy international profiteers, he was a rare flicker of hope. Bishop Luis Fernando Lisboa shone a light on the corruption of the government, the exploitative conduct of international businesses and the brutality of the security force. “The conflicts in the region have their origins in the costs of exploiting natural resources,” he said during an online conference late last year.

The priest was too vocal and too honest for his own good. After being summoned to Rome for a meeting with the Pope in December, the 65-year-old was removed from his post, dispatched from volatile northern Mozambique and relocated against his will to a backwater in Brazil.

“I would never ask to leave,” he said during a February radio interview, attempting to explain the circumstances and public pressure that led to his departure. “Those who live in lies do not like the truth. Those who practice corruption do not like to be charged for it. So these people feel inconvenienced. Whether from the government, from organisations, whoever they may be, people who occupy positions.”

Now, an Isis-linked insurgency in the country’s Cabo Delgado province has exploded and expanded, engulfing the city of Palma and displacing thousands of people. The insurgents have ties to Isis. Wielding machetes, they have cleared out villages and burnt out homes. Hundreds of civilians have been killed, including children allegedly beheaded at the hands of gunmen. Both the United States and Portugal, Mozambique’s former colonial overlord, are stepping up troop and Special Forces deployments, and the country has become a new front in the ongoing global war on terror.

An Islamist group with tenous ties to transnational terrorism calling itself al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the recent large-scale attack against the city of Palma, where it has cleared out thousands of people.

But experts say that while the group has some connections to international jihadi networks, it was the Mozambican government’s own failures and abuses that fanned the flames of discontent. Those include hiring a succession of foreign mercenary organisations to stamp out an insurgency born of the legitimate grievances outlined by Bishop Lisboa in sermons, public statements and media interviews.

“He was totally outspoken, not defending the insurgents or the government, but defending the people; it’s the people who are being oppressed,” says Joseph Hanlon, an east Africa specialist at the London School of Economics. “The government is desperate that this be seen as an Islamic State jihad and has nothing to do with their failures – poverty and inequality.”

Humanitarian groups describe the situation in northern Mozambique along the Tanzanian border as dire, yet another outbreak of misery and misfortune taxing the resources of aid organisations and the patience and attention of international leaders.

Already, tens of thousands of people escaping war were sheltering in Palma after being displaced from other sections of Cabo Delgado province in earlier outbreaks of armed conflict. Now aid workers are expecting tens of thousands more to swarm camps and shelters. “Many of the people fleeing, including children, have nothing but the clothes on their backs and have had to walk for days to reach safety,” said a report by the United Nations. Nearly a million people are food insecure in the area.

“Access has been difficult in the last month,” says Saviano Abreu, of the UN’s office for humanitarian affairs. “The conflict has prevented us from delivering assistance. People who were receiving access to vouchers were not able to find products at the market. In addition, we have thousands of thousands of people trying to leave but not able to.”

Mozambique, a Portugese-speaking nation of 30 million along the Indian Ocean, has struggled with civil war and insurgency since gaining independence from Lisbon in 1974. Blessed with fertile farmlands and minerals, it has begun to prosper, luring foreign investment. But development has been uneven, with peripheral regions like Cabo Delgado left out.

The country is majority Christian, but has a sizeable Muslim minority. The insurgency that has flared up in recent weeks began in 2017, as Islamist groups inspired by radical preachers in neighbouring Tanzania and within global jihadi networks grafted their ideas onto an impoverished corner of east Africa. Local anger had been exacerbated by the promises that never materialised of offshore gas riches from an investment by French energy giant Total. Cabo Delgado is also rich in ruby gems, as well as a transit point for international narcotics trafficking.

Rather than benefit the people, the investment projects have contributed to the forcible displacement of some.
“It was always the marginalised province,” says Hanlon. “There’s a lot of discontent – a lot of young people with little prospects. People were being pushed off land and very few people getting compensation.”

The radical Islamist preachers took root espoused a synthesis of hardline religious law and leftist social justice, sometimes clashing with established theologians for their unorthodox blending of faith and class warfare. They called for social justice and an end to corruption as much as sharia.

Militants began training in 2016, tutored by jihadi veterans from nearby Tanzania. It was a time near the height of Isis’s global presence. The first attacks began in 2017 and the movement spread like wildfire. “It grew very quickly,” says Mr Hanlon. “Because the socialist message had real resonance.”

They targeted civil servants and symbols of state power. The fighters, estimated at several thousand, are a mix of locals and outsiders.

“The majority are Mozambicans. But there are foreign fighters,” says Alex Vines, a specialist on African security matters at Chatham House. “This is a regional issue that involves Tanzania. Some of the early drivers of radicalization were from Tanzania.”

As the region became yet another Islamist insurgency hotspot, the Mozambican government’s response became a case study in what not to do. It dispatched poorly paid soldiers who shook down residents for their meagre belongings and roughed them up.

They hired several military contractors, including firms with links to controversial US war profiteer Erik Prince and the Kremlin-backed mercenary network Wagner Group, to carry out operations. The South African firm Dyck Advisory Group provided air support, and allegedly used barrel bombs dropped out of helicopters to target rebel hideouts. In June, they allegedly struck a hospital.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Continued from above...

“The people of Cabo Delgado are caught between the Mozambican security forces, the private militia fighting alongside the government and the armed opposition group locally known as ‘al-Shabaab’ – none of which respect their right to life, or the rules of war,” Deprose Muchena, of Amnesty International, said in a report issued last month. “All three have committed war crimes, causing the deaths of hundreds of civilians.”

The government is now ending its deal with Dyck and bolstering the use of the South African firm Paramount, which is planning to deploy several military helicopters to Cabo Delgado. The reliance on foreign mercenaries is controversial, but experts say the government has little choice.

“The army was never designed for this type of counterinsurgency,” says Vines.

Nearly 700,000 civilians have been displaced by the conflict, with more arriving to shelters that include sports stadiums daily. In a phone interview, Shelly Thakrel, of the World Food Programme, describes the plight of one woman, a farmer in Palma, who fled with her four children, including a pregnant daughter, in the latest round of fighting which began on 24 March.
“She hid in the bush when she heard gunshots and heard of people’s homes being burnt out,” she says. “She saw the insurgents. She couldn’t be sure if they were pursuing her or not. A military chopper was heard overheard and the insurgents fled.”

She managed to board a ferry for the arduous journey south to Pemba. “She doesn’t know if her mother is alive or not,” says Thakrel.

Unique among international organisations and players in Cabo Delgado, Bishop Lisboa was willing to speak about such wrongs. “He was very vocal,” says one international official, who spoke on condition that he not be identified for fear of jeopardising his organisation’s ability to work in Mozambique. “He was one of the only people talking about what’s happening.”

But his outspokenness had a price. He became the target of official pressure, as the government of President Filipe Nyusi and his long-ruling Frelimo party cracked down on any narrative other than their own. Government-affiliated newspapers began targeting him.

Last year Nyusi himself condemned “foreigners” who live in Mozambique and speak of human rights, sparking attacks against the bishop on social media. A pro-government mouthpiece attacked him as a “a criminal [who] should be expelled”, according to Amnesty. He has been accused of fomenting “rebellion against the government” in pro-regime news outlets.

“In the past, similar smear campaigns have led to the murder of human rights defenders, journalists, government critics and professors,” Amnesty warned.

The Independent was unable to reach Bishop Lisboa in Brazil.

“I had a few messages,” the bishop said in a radio interview. “I received a message or two from someone, advice from someone close. ‘Look, Mr Bishop, be careful. You should talk like this or talk like that.’”

He said the threats were never explicit, but the message was clear.

“People who like to do that kind of thing never do it directly,” he said. “[They do it] indirectly, to demonstrate that person is not welcome ... It happens to journalists, it happens to human rights activists, and it also happens to members of the Church.”


An international aid official describes a pattern of increasingly menacing behaviour toward the bishop. “He wasn’t feeling safe any more – not from the armed groups, but actually from the other side, the other players of the conflict,” says the official. “He was pressured, and I don’t think he was safe any more. He couldn’t be here any longer.”

Bishop Lisboa said news of the threats reached the Vatican, and so worried senior Church officials that he was summoned to see the Pope. “I recognise the delicate situation of the moment and the Holy Father, analysing the situation in Mozambique, decided to transfer me,” he said in the radio interview.

The bishop was removed from his post in February, and within weeks the insurgency worsened dramatically.

“We don’t see this as something that has an easy solution,” says one international official. “It has been escalating, and escalating very quickly. I don’t think the government has been playing a good role. I don’t think the international companies have been playing a good role. The drug routes are expanding. The violence is increasing. And I fear it will go to the next level kind of war.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/independe ... ml?r=42388

[ian16th]

Mozambique’s Frelimo gambled everything on gas – and lost

By Joseph Hanlon• 8 April 2021

The country's ruling party thought gas would secure a wealthy future, but that dream faded and finally was shattered by attacks that sent energy giant Total packing.

First published by New Frame.

The leadership of Mozambique’s ruling party, Frelimo, was dazzled by gas. The discovery of the second-largest gas reserve in Africa in 2010 led the political and business elite to believe Mozambique would be like Abu Dhabi, Qatar or Kuwait. Gas would make them fabulously wealthy and the riches would trickle down to ordinary people.

Poverty and inequality were increasing, but there was no reason to spend money on rural development because the gas bonanza would end poverty. Of course, the elites could take their share early, such as with the $2-billion secret debt in 2012. The gas windfall would benefit everyone by 2020, delayed to 2025 and then to 2030. The people would believe the dreams.

But in Cabo Delgado they did not, and an insurgency began in 2017 over growing poverty and inequality as well as political and economic exclusion. There is broad agreement that al-Shabaab, as the insurgents are known in Mozambique, initially comprised local people with a local leadership. Whether the Islamic State now controls al-Shabaab is a matter of huge debate, but even advocates of this view accept that it took over an existing local insurgency. Local people saw the development of a ruby mine in the province and the initial gas development and realised there were no jobs for them. The gas and ruby money was not trickling down to them.

The predictions were fabulous. In 2015, it was confidently predicted that gas production would start in 2019 with liquefied natural gas (LNG) production reaching 100 million tons a year (mt/y). Government revenue would be $95-billion over 25 years, almost doubling the current government expenditure of $3.5-billion a year.

The first profits were made by small energy companies selling out to bigger ones, and three multinational giants now control the gas. ExxonMobil (United States) is the lead company for the far-offshore half of the gas field along with Eni (Italy). Total (France) leads the half closest to the coast.

Eni was the first to start, ordering a small $5-billion floating gas liquefaction platform that is now being put in place. It will produce 3mt/y, probably starting next year. All the other LNG from both zones was to be produced onshore on the Afungi peninsula, just south of the town of Palma in the very far north of Cabo Delgado.

The original designs were for 10 LNG “trains” producing more than 50mt/y. This plan was halved, then cut again. Only in 2020 did Total go ahead with two trains to produce 13mt/y – and with no plans for further expansion. ExxonMobil delayed and delayed and has now said production is unlikely. So, by early this year, the dream of 100mt/y had already fallen to just 16mt/y. The gas bubble was deflating fast; work had begun on only a small part of the envisioned bonanza.

Patronage system

In Mozambique, the government, Frelimo and business are the same people, led by a handful of oligarchs who are surrounded by a penumbra of the Frelimo elite. They control contracts, land and licences, and thus the economy. Frelimo is now run entirely according to a patron-client system. At each level, people service those above them, demand obeisance from those below and collect money from whatever they are involved in.

The system is known locally as “goatism”, from the saying “the goat eats where it is tethered”. The police set up checkpoints to collect money, clerks demand a fee to process a document, and so on. School teachers must satisfy their school head by working actively on elections but, in exchange, they can demand bribes from pupils and parents and do not have to show up to teach.

In these circumstances, gas became the great promise and gamble. The patron-client system was kept working by promises of gas money – cash as early as 2012 for those linked to the $2-billion secret debt. From 2015, contracts for hotel rooms, transport and myriad services for the gas companies, as well as mandatory shares in gas-linked foreign investment projects, went to the local Frelimo fixers. For others, the gas bonanza was always just around the corner.

Like all good con artists, those at the top had to keep everyone believing the big pay-off was coming. Frelimo’s gamble was that, like a juggler, it could keep the balls in the air, hoping that no one noticed that the project was shrinking and delayed. With no money for development and growing wealth at the top, poverty and inequality increased.

But in the past two years, four things have changed: environmental concerns, global politics, the market and war. The gas project projections were done assuming wells would pump for 30 years – to 2060 – and thus long-term profits were assured.

Mounting pressure

There was no serious pressure on fossil fuels in 2010, and by the middle of the decade gas was being promoted as a transition fuel with half the carbon of coal, thus replacing it until renewables were available. But last year, environmentalists moved against all fossil fuels, including gas, and put huge pressure on energy companies to move out of these fuels.

Global politics also became an issue. China, with its huge number of coal-fired power stations and commitment to move to gas, had been seen as a major gas buyer. But US sanctions against China and the US taking sides in the Middle East led to China seeking gas producers not aligned to the US and in March signing major long-term contracts with Iran and Qatar.

Both these issues have hit the market, with projections for gas consumption in 20 years dropping. Most energy companies made multibillion-dollar write-downs of gas assets and abandoned new projects. Russia and Saudi Arabia have upped production to try to capture what is left of the market. ExxonMobil made clear it is unlikely to go ahead in Mozambique.

Meanwhile, the civil war in Cabo Delgado escalated. Insurgents reached the gates of Total on Afungi on New Year’s eve. Total pulled out most of its staff. The company said it would not employ a private army for protection. Total chief executive Patrick Pouyanné flew to Maputo on 18 January and personally told president Filipe Nyusi that Total would only return if Mozambique guaranteed security inside a 25km cordon around the gas project on the peninsula, including Palma where contract staff were based.

Nyusi staked his personal prestige and that of the nation on a promise of security. On the morning of Wednesday 24 March, Total announced that it trusted Nyusi’s promise and agreed to go back to work. That afternoon the insurgents walked and drove into Palma, inside the security cordon, unchallenged. There was no security protecting the town, although 800 soldiers were inside the walls at Afungi protecting Total workers.

It was Nyusi’s last roll of the dice. The whole gas gamble was bet on a promise of security, and Nyusi – and Mozambique – lost the bet.

Uncertain future

Total has said work “is obviously now suspended” and will only resume when the government really can provide security. In January, the company had left a skeleton maintenance team behind. When it left on Friday 2 April, it took everyone, handed the keys to the army and turned off the lights.

Will Total return? Not in the short term. It will take perhaps a year for more than 100 British and US military trainers already in Nacala, on the northern coast in Nampula province, plus Portuguese soldiers, to create a functioning army.

Total has other interests in Africa; it has only spent a small part of the $20-billion project cost and can still walk away. Even if it returns, it will demand a much more favourable deal with Mozambique. Alternatively, it could demand that a foreign army control the 25km security zone, similar to the Baghdad “green zone” in Iraq a decade ago, and that Mozambique pays the bills.

ExxonMobil has already written off $20-billion in gas assets elsewhere in the world and will not go ahead in Cabo Delgado. Total may walk away as well. It looks increasingly like Eni’s floating platform will be the only gas production in Mozambique – just 3% of the promised 100mt/y.

Mozambique is waking up to the realisation that billions of dollars flowing into the state budget and local pockets was only a dream. Frelimo bet the country on that dream. And last week it lost. DM

Joseph Hanlon has been writing about Mozambique since 1978 and is the editor of the newsletter Mozambique News Reports and Clippings. He is a visiting senior fellow in international development at the London School of Economics.

This article was first published by New Frame.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article ... -and-lost/

[TheGreenGoblin]

Mozambique’s Frelimo gambled everything on gas – and lost

By Joseph Hanlon• 8 April 2021

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article ... -and-lost/

Spot on, what a good article!