Erdoğan promises Africans common development and prosperity meantime his country sinks into deep economic crisis.
During the 3rd Africa — Turkey summit, President Erdoğan promised African countries to strengthen economic cooperation and contribute to the continent’s peace and prosperity. How can he deliver these promises with an unprecedented internal economic crisis in his country? In reality, Turkey represents another predatory foreign power for Africa. Through the complicity of a corrupt political class and various dictators, Erdoğan wants to plunder the continent’s natural resources to restart his economy and sell weapons, focusing on drones produced by his family. Turkey as well as being a bluff represents a major fact of instability in Africa.
The 3rd Africa-Turkey Summit was held in Istanbul from 15 to 18 December. The heads of state of 16 African nations were present, along with more than 102 ministers and representatives of the African Union and the Economic Community of Western African States. Among them: Félix Tshisekedi, current president of the African Union, Macky Sall of Senegal, Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana, representing ECOWAS, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe and Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has promised to the African continent a future of prosperity thanks to the support of Turkey. “This summit is a testament to the fact that Turkey is interested in Africa and Turkey’s interest in Africa is not a temporary. It is a commitment that has been maintained. Our African brothers and sisters are showing that they are interested in better cooperation with Turkey”, said the Ottoman dictator concerned about the growing popular opposition in his country.
To contribute to the fight against Covid19, Turkey will send 15 million doses of the vaccine to Africa in the next few months. He has promised to increase bilateral trade which has reached $ 30 billion in the past 11 months. Erdoğan assures that trade will almost double in the next few years. The presence of Turkish investors on the continent will also be strengthened, remembering that Turkish companies are currently engaged in investments worth 78 billion dollars and employ 25,000 Africans, without however dwelling on the poor wages given and the harsh working conditions imposed.
In addition to strengthening trade and investment, the Grand Vizier has promised a lot of money for education, including the possibility of studying in Turkey (currently 14,000 African students reside in the country), as well as funds for youth and women’s development, health , infrastructure and agriculture.
But it is on the Defence and sale of armaments that Erdoğan focused with particular joy, given that he personally owns many shares in the national war industry and the combat drones that all African dictators are now competing to buy are manufactured by a company own by the Grand Vizier family . To justify the promotion of family business, Erdoğan fills his mouth with the fight against terrorism and Third World solidarity towards “our African brothers and sisters” to strengthen peace and stability on the continent. Pure propaganda given that Turkey, with the sale of drones to Ethiopia, has become a first-rate actor in Ethiopian civil war and an accomplice in the attempt to eliminate by genocide 7 million Ethiopians in Tigray and to subjugate others 40 million in Oromia with iron, blood and terror.
The summit was imbued with devious and untrue promotion of the Third World ideology. Erdoğan presents himself as the champion against Western neo-colonialism capable of emancipating Africa. He cites the shame for humanity that only 6% of the African population is currently vaccinated. Claims a permanent seat for Africa in the United Nations Security Council and warns of Western interference in the “internal affairs” of African nations, with clear reference to Ethiopia where it is engaged in a no-holds-barred confrontation with US that support the democratic forces trying to free the country from the ferocious dictatorship of Premier Abiy Ahmed Ali totally subjugated by the Eritrean dictator Isaias Afwerki.
Worn-out anti-colonial Third World rhetoric is used to conceal Erdoğan’s true intentions about Africa, which he personally sees as only a continent of opportunities to enrich his country and family. “The increased economic cooperation between Turkey and African nations has been driven in part by Turkey’s desire to diversify its trading partners. Rather than limiting itself to immediate neighbours, Turkey has turned to wider regions, including Africa, to diversify its strategic commitments. In this regard, Ankara has considered African countries as equal partners in its foreign policy as well as economic objectives “, explains Ismail Numan Telci, Deputy Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Ankara, failing to emphasize that the Grand Vizier’s partners are for the majority dictators terrified that their own populations could depose them in order to establish democracy and therefore mainly interested in arms and military support for Turkey.
The third Africa-Turkey summit highlights all the subjection of the majority of African leaders, now devoid of any strategic vision of independent and indigenous development, constantly looking for a godfather be him American, European, Russian, Chinese or Turkish. Godfathers who are not interested in the development of the continent but in its plundering. Godfathers who ruthlessly apply the policy of keeping Africa poor in order to impose their rules for own prosperity, relying on a corrupt political class and dictators without a shred of morality and humanity.
Enthusiastic about the new partner and the linked business (of which their populations will see no benefit) these corrupt political rulers and dictators, blinded by power and money, fail to understand that Turkey is an extremely weak partner, on the verge of economic failure dictated by the dictatorial regime imposed by Erdoğan and his mad arms race. Consequently, they fail to understand that for Turkey Africa represents only a possibility of plundering vital natural resources in an attempt to save the disastrous internal economic situation.
The currency and debt crisis of 2018–21 seriously affected the Turkish economy, bringing the country to the brink of collapse. The crisis is characterized by the dramatic collapse in the value of the Turkish lira, high inflation, rising financing costs and the related increase in loan defaults. The Turkish lira tumbled as much as 15% against the dollar, hitting an all-time low for the 11th consecutive session. Since the beginning of the year it has lost 42% of its value, including the sharp decline of over 22% recorded in early December.
The terrible devaluation of the national currency is accompanied by a worrying inflation that leads to the exorbitant increase in the prices of consumer staples and an insolvency of public and private debt that leads to the contraction of economic growth expected for 2022.
The Turkish economy, beyond the nationalist rhetoric of the Grand Vizier, is based on the influx of foreign capital to finance the private sector. Turkish banks and large companies are drowned in foreign currency debt. The devaluation of the Turkish lira makes it more difficult and burdensome to repay them. In 2022, Turkey must find around $ 200 billion to finance its large current account deficit and maturing public and private debts. This figure should be maintained for 5 consecutive years to remedy the situation. The state has gross reserves of just $ 85 billion. Complicating the situation is the drastic drying up of the inflows of international loans and investments caused by the aggressive Turkish foreign policy in the Mediterranean, North Africa and Syria.
According to Turkey’s leading business association — TUDSIAD, President Erdoğan has lost faith in Western-style capitalism since the 2008 financial crisis and attempts to address the emerging powers: Russia and China without achieving great results. Beijing and Moscow are reluctant to help Turkey, which they consider more a competitor than an ally. Russia and Turkey have clashed several times in Syria, Libya, and Nagorno-Kahrabakh supporting hostile local factions. China also interprets Turkey as a competitor especially in Africa.
American investments collapsed after the Turkish military adventure in the Syrian city of Afrin in the governorate of Aleppo, under the control of the Kurdish militias. In 2018, a military operation by the Turkish army removed control of the city from the Kurds, increasing instability in Syria and the proliferation of Islamic terrorist groups. The invasion against the Kurds (known allies of the Americans) put a strain on relations with the United States (main economic partner) which considered the Turkish military intervention as an unnecessary and nefarious aggression. Now another reason for the clash between the two countries has arisen and concerns the civil war in Ethiopia.
Erdoğan has chosen to directly support the fascist Amhara regime while the United States and part of the NATO member countries support the democratic forces: TPLF and Oromo Liberation Army. Turkey sold drones and ammunition worth $ 51 million to the Addis Ababa regime in October 2021 alone. Obviously, it did not collect any money and was forced to turn this large sum of money into a loan as Premier Abiy Ahemed Ali drained the national coffers to continue the civil war and genocide against Tigray.
European lending and investment inflows also collapsed due to Erdoğan’s political disagreements with Germany, France and the Netherlands and continued provocations against Greece. The flow of foreign private investments has decreased due to the growing authoritarianism of the Grand Vizier in pure Ottoman style which increases the tax burden on investors, complicates investment opportunities and does not allow independent financial analyses in Turkey to assess the real investment risk. Between January and May 2017, foreign portfolio investors financed $ 13.2 billion of Turkey’s current account deficit, according to the latest available data. In the same period of 2018, foreign investors made up just $ 763 million of a whopping $ 27.3 billion deficit. Since 2019 there are no more data available, prohibited by the Grand Vizier.
The external debt since the end of 2017 has doubled compared to 2009 to reach 214 billion dollars. In 2018, Turkey’s gross external debt, both public and private, amounted to $ 453.2 billion. Another $ 181.8 billion was added in 2019.
The situation is close to economic collapse. The salvation plan presented by the Turkish Finance Minister to avoid bankruptcy did not work. The three-year plan aimed to “rule inflation, stimulate growth and reduce the current account deficit.” The plan included the reduction of public spending by 10 billion dollars and the suspension of public infrastructure projects not yet started. The transformation phase of the plan focused on value-added areas to increase the country’s export volume and long-term production capacity with the goal of creating two million new jobs by 2021.
In terms of macro economy, after the decrease in economic growth recorded in 2019 (+ 2.3%), Turkey has returned to benefit from an increase in growth which in 2021 settled at + 9%. But economic and social inequalities hit the highest levels of the last decade, house and food prices are skyrocketing and consumer confidence is at its lowest ever. The poorest rural classes traditionally close to Erdoğan, are the losers, now crushed by debts in foreign currency valued against the lira. The new jobs have not been seen while the harsh period of austerity linked to the economic salvation plan has substantially reduced the purchasing power of the population by increasing the pockets of extreme poverty.
The Turkish president, explains the Financial Times, seems to want to please businesses rather than the people, but it is a strategy that is not paying off. The economic crisis in Turkey is having devastating concrete effects on the lives of Turkish citizens, who see their daily lives upset by the country’s difficulties. The most critical of the president see Erdoğan’s monetary policy as a gigantic economic experiment on the skin of the population.
The Grand Vizier who promises prosperity to African countries has failed to make Turkey an industrialized country. Economic data show that industry accounts for only 5% of the Turkish economy. The sector is squeezed by the high cost of raw materials and energy, both of which increased by more than 90% last November. Now Erdoğan hopes that the robbery of African raw materials can lower costs and revive the national industrial sector. A robbery already guaranteed by corrupt African politicians. As an example, the Ethiopian Premier in order to repay the drones and their ammunition bought has given the green light to the Turkish exploitation of Ethiopia’s natural resources.
“Erdoğan — writes the Financial Times — simply does not have a game plan. Turkish authorities have spent several billion dollars defending the lira in recent weeks and at the same time praising the virtues of a cheap currency. None of this makes sense. There is no logic “. Erdoğan has fired six senior “dissident” central bank officials and three of its governors in the past two years as all have criticized his monetary policy. In their place he was placed by trustworthy low-profile men, simple Yes Men.
The population is reduced to extreme poverty especially in rural areas, where Erdoğan’s electoral base is located. The Turks have experienced a steep drop in their standard of living due to the collapse of the national currency. Their family budgets have been destroyed as have their plans for the future. Prices are rising too fast while wages remain stagnant and eroded by inflation.
The party of the Grand Vizier: Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi — AKP (which ironically translates as the Ethiopian Prosperity Party into: Justice and Development Party) is slipping into opinion polls ahead of the elections scheduled for mid-2023. is growing. The percentage of Turks who blame Erdoğan and his AKP government is increasing with each passing day. The Grand Vizier is expected to show his true face shortly by implementing ferocious repression and establishing a dictatorship (which in fact is already in practice) to avoid electoral defeat and democratic change.
Foreign investors are starting to flee since the Grand Vizier abruptly fired Central Bank chief Naci Agbal last March as a critic of the Boss’s economic policy. Agbal was replaced by a truly incompetent but loyal to the regime: Şahap Kavcıoğlu banker, senior executive of the AKP and owner of the newspaper Yeni Safak, a rudimentary tool of the regime’s propaganda.
This is Turkey that should lead Africa on the path of prosperity and well-being, protecting it from us Western vultures, neo-colonialists and imperialists. Due to its totally inadequate and anachronistic political class, Africa risks becoming the victim of yet another emerging power by amplifying the devastating effects on African populations of the predatory policies of Russia and China Beyond the curtain of Third World and anti-colonial rhetoric, Turkey’s impact on Africa appears to be deleterious as it is based on geo-strategic calculations of military expansionism that are overcoming the strategies of economic penetration and acquisition of new markets. A military expansionism stuffed with diplomacy in support of “southern countries against the excessive power of Western powers” and humanitarian activities to hide the real objective: the territorial protection of African natural resources that Turkey intends to rob (like other world powers) for the exclusive advantage of their own national development.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, regardless of the serious internal economic crisis, is spending huge funds to maintain a direct military presence ( military bases included ) in Somalia and Morocco. Turkish troops participate in UN peacekeeping missions in Mali and the Central African Republic with the main objective of strengthening its bilateral relations with these countries opposing to France and Russia. It has entered into military cooperation agreements with Chad, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea. Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan.
The spearhead is the sale of the TB2 Bayraktar combat drones, which are in great demand after being credited with changing the fate of conflicts in Libya, in the separatist Azerbaijan region of Nagorno-Kahrabakh and now in Ethiopia. A billion dollar deal because the real core business lies in the ammunition of the TB2 Bayraktar drones.
The sale of drones follows the same logic as the Kalashnikov. The remotely operated vehicle itself is relatively cheap but the ammunition is prohibitively expensive and consumed quickly. The dictatorial regimes in order to win the armed popular resistance or the external enemy go into debt to the bone in order to buy the ammunition they consume in a few hours of combat. TB2 Bayraktar are conquering new markets: Angola, Nigeria and Togo.
It matters little if there are horrific civilians massacres behind the use of Turkish drones. What matters is to loudly highlight their military success in order to increase sales to the various African dictators. Ephemeral successes. The experience of countries that have already used the Bayraktar TB2s show that these new weapons do not resolve but aggravate conflicts. In Libya, tensions remain high and three days ago the militiamen surrounded the Prime Minister’s palace in Tripoli, raising the tension due to growing disputes between rival militias in view of the now certain postponement of the elections scheduled for 24 December.
The conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Kahrabakh has officially ended but border tensions remain very serious and clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijani troops resumed last November, intensifying in the first two weeks of December. In the region there is a risk of a proxy war between Turkey which supports Azerbaijan and Russia allied to Armenia. Putin is increasing military support concerned with stopping Turkish expansionism in his backyard.
In Ethiopia, TB2 Bayraktar avoided the fall of the capital Addis Ababa but did not stop the war. The democratic forces of the TPLF, OLA and other 7 regions are willing to continue the war of liberation on the strength of the fact that, despite the Turkish drones and the intervention of the Eritrean army, the fascist regime is unable to obtain a definitive victory. Unfortunately, the genocide in Tigray and ethnic cleansing in Oromia are intensifying and Ethiopia risks following the fate of Syria and Yemen.
“Turkey is increasingly becoming a destabilizing actor in Africa, from Libya to Ethiopia, from Somalia to Chad. Its drones are the new Soviet Kalashnikov. cheap and terrible. “ Says Ahmed F. Mohamed (@AhmedGureyy) graduate in Economics and expert in security and geopolitics of East Africa who lives in Hargheisa, capital of the Republic of Somaliland.
The African Rebirth that we have lived with so much joy, trust and hope, between 2002 and 2015 seems to have definitively waned as the African ruling class was unable to ensure true well-being to the population and democratic openings, leaving the leadership of the countries to presidents at life suffering from senile idiocy or young heads of state inexperienced but thirsty for money, blood and power like the Nobel Peace Prize winner Abiy Ahmed Ali.
The African ruling class has not been able to seize the opportunities offered by the new multipolar word after the end of the Cold War. Instead of wisely playing its cards between the Western and emerging powers, several African Countries passed from one master to another without the possibility of autonomously deciding own future and development. The Continent is returning to be the predation ground upset by coups d’état, dictatorships , civil wars and genocides.
“The Istanbul Summit does not differ from the other summits held by Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and the United States. We regularly attend these promising and flattering summits but the result is always the same. Each summit is held in the exclusive interest of the host country. It is a shame for the continent that our heads of state participate enthusiastically. “ explains Ahmed F. Mohamed
“My blood froze in my veins to see the ritual photos of the Third Africa-Turkey Summit. The African heads of state and ministers photographed together with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan looked like many monkeys trained alongside their new Turkish master. Only Rwandan President Paul Kagame showed dignity ”. This is the comment of a foreign policy professor and pan-Africanist at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.
