The tiny country of Djibouti sitting at the strategically critical
entrance from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea is quickly turning into
the latest confrontation between the USA and China in Africa.
Djibouti, home to the only US permanent military presence in Africa,
has recently notified the American military that they have to vacate
Obock, a small secondary base which will see the installation of some
10,000 Chinese troops in their place.
The announcement, made the day after US Secretary of State John Kerry
visited Djibouti last May is deeply worrying for Pax Americana for it
comes on top of a major package of economic investments by China that
has Djiboutian President Guelleh openly talking about the importance
of his new friends from Asia.
China is about to complete a $3 billion railroad from the capital of
Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, Africa’s second largest country to Djibouti,
Ethiopia’s only outlet to the sea. China is also investing $400
million in modernizing Djibouti’s notoriously undersized port, where
for the past 17 years (since the Ethiopians tried and failed to take
Eritrea’s port of Assab during Ethiopia’s war against Eritrea from
1998-2000) Ethiopia has been forced to import 90% of its fuel and food
from.
The US military pays Djibouti $63 million a year for the use of Camp
Lemonnier, home to 4,000 US troops and one of the worlds largest drone
bases used to terrorize the populations of Yemen and Somalia. This is
a pittance really, when compared to the hundred$ of million$ a year
that the Chinese investments will bring into Djiboutian government
coffers.
The fact that 10,000 Chinese troops are being installed next door to
such a critical US military base is causing powerful members of the US
Congress to suddenly discover that Djibouti, long a de facto province
of Ethiopia, is a “major violator of human rights”, dangerously
“undemocratic”, and that it is time for “regime change” in the tiny
country of about half a million people, long one of the poorest and
most repressive on the planet.
So don't be suprised if we wake up one morning and find that in the
name of “democracy” there has been a military coup in Djibouti and
that the Chinese, like what they are experiencing in South Sudan, find
themselves with the short end of the stick when it comes to their
rivalry with the USA in Africa.
Thomas C. Mountain is an independent journalist, living and reporting
from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached at thomascmountain at g
mail dot com
Received on Tue Aug 11 2015 - 08:01:16 EDT