The European Union (EU) Defense Ministers' Summit was held on May 6 in Brussels. Commissioner Josep Borell said the EU would send troops to Mozambique.
The Vice-President of the European Commission Josep Borrell created a surprise last Thursday. On the sidelines of the EU Defense Ministers' Summit, he said Europe will deploy armed troops to Mozambique.
In September 2020, the Mozambican government sent a letter to the EU, requesting its help against the insurgency. The last time Europe sent troops to Africa was as part of the French Operation Barkhane in Mali. Currently, 470 soldiers, mostly Estonians and British, form the Barkhane auxiliary troops in the Sahel.
Josep Borrell did not define the modalities of military intervention in Mozambique. He just said: "we will help the Mozambican armed forces against the terrorists". Indeed, since March 11, the United States State Department has qualified the ADF as a terrorist organization. However, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) are a Ugandan rebel movement, active in the DRC and Mozambique. In 2017, at the start of the insurgency in Cabo Delgado, ADF insurgents beheaded local officials. The reason for the attack was an alleged liaison between these officials and the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), President Nyusi's party. The ADF described these officials as corrupt.
In Mozambique 🇲🇿 let's stop qualifying the insurgents as jihadists https://t.co/gLe4Ma9O8N
- always vaudais (@TFilastin) April 11, 2021
Has Filipe Nyusi changed his mind?
At the end of December 2020, Portugal was to send a few dozen military experts to Mozambique. However, Josep Borrell then said: "we have problems in Mozambique, we are waiting for the green light from the government to send security experts," he said.
According to Africa ExPress, President Filipe Nyusi would have misunderstood the EU's remarks regarding the origin of the war in Cabo Delgado. The EU Commission wrote on its April 2020 report: "The violence in northern Mozambique was triggered by poverty and inequality". Specialist Sandro Pintus wrote on this subject: "It is in Mozambique's interest to portray the Cabo Delgado war as an international conflict, and not a local problem," the analyst explains.
As for the future European offensive, it has been in preparation for over a year. On April 22, 2020, the Council of the EU adopted a resolution preparing “necessary measures” for an offensive in Mozambique. According to Reuters, the EU has 1500 troops ready for deployment. According to the minutes of the Summit of May 6, 2021, this army will be enlarged. In Brussels, EU defense ministers decided to add more than 3000 troops. According to The Defense Post, the deployment of this European army would take 120 days. However, it would take an executive resolution from the United Nations Security Council to authorize it.
In addition, an unusual movement has been noticed for two months in training areas of the EUBG. In this case, the armored brigade "Ariete" carried out about twenty military exercises in Cellina-Meduna, in Italy. This base in particular contains the nucleus of the infantry regiment of the European Union Battle Group (EUBG).
US blacklists groups in Congo, Mozambique over Islamic State links. Some analysts have questioned links of Uganda's Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), and Mozambique's Ahlu Sunna WalJama's insurgency to ISIS. #mozambique #ISIS https://t.co/hbRC5Hp4bW
- Margot Kiser (@margotkiser) March 11, 2021
Between the ADF and Daesh, a story of semantics
However, the ADF came from another 40-year-old insurrectionary movement, Renamo. The former Renamo militia, belonging to the Dutch church, was formed by the apartheid South African regime. Most of the Renamo military leaders are now part of the ADF command. In addition, among the militias waging war in Cabo Delgado, the ADF is the group with the most Christians and the fewest Muslims. It is also the deadliest militia, alongside the Mozambican army and South African paramilitaries..
If the Western media insist on the terms “jihadists” and “Islamic terrorism” when speaking of the ADF, it is because another terrorist group is present in a neighboring region. The Ansar al-Sunna group, representing al-Shabaab, affiliated with Daesh, is present in Niassa and the bay of Palma. Nevertheless, the attacks of Ansar al-Sunnah have so far always been claimed. The paradox is that it is precisely the ADF attacks that we qualify as Islamic terrorism. This creates great confusion in the Western press. It is also not uncommon to see the same attack attributed to four different militias in the Western press. This is a maneuver by Filipe Nyusi to generate international support in a civil war between him and a rebel group.
ADF commanders are also assumed Christian extremists. Musa Baluku, the ADF commander, originally from the DRC, is part of the Konzos, a Congolese Protestant ethnic group. He also has a habit of crucifying his victims, many of whom are Muslims. However, the media do not hesitate to qualify Baluku as an “Islamist jihadist”. One wonders against whom exactly does Europe intend to wage war in Mozambique? Or, more precisely, on whose behalf ?