Latest news with #Quaid'Orsay
Mada
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Mada
The West is moving to recognize Palestine: Does it matter?
'I can confirm the UK will recognise the state of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly in September, unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and commit to a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a two-state solution,' Keir Starmer, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, said on July 29. Starmer spoke after he had just convened an exceptional Cabinet meeting. A few days before, French President Emmanuel Macron announced his own country's intention to recognize the state of Palestine. Australia, Canada and other Western countries followed suit, adding their weight behind Global South countries, most of which have recognized Palestine since the late 1980s. For many of the countries considering recognizing Palestine as a state, the decision sits somewhere between a shift in position and a mere nominal move as each balances its own internal and external policy decisions. And while those outside Western diplomatic quarters might see some efficacy in recognizing a Palestinian state, it is roundly too little, too late to change the reality on the ground in Gaza. A high-level British diplomat explains the UK move as largely an act attuned to voter sentiment as public opinion shifts against Israel, a feeling reflected in the Cabinet. 'Within Cabinet, the division was between [recognition] being the right thing, but it should not be a threat [to Israel] or it being the right thing and that it should be a threat to Israel.' The diplomat says that the urgency was mobilized by the 2024 Labour Party Conference. 'The images of starvation played a big role,' he says. Starmer's recognition pledge is only one and a half lines out of a six-line paragraph outlining the different conditions that, if fulfilled by Israel, will avert the decision to recognize Palestine. One condition is for Israel to have taken lasting steps toward a ceasefire by September, the time at which its military is currently planning to launch an invasion of Gaza City. 'The UK foregrounded the conditionality, which raised criticism. But conditionality can be an incentive. Also, [Israel will have to abide by] the whole package of conditionality, not just part of it,' the diplomat says. The British diplomat admits that the UK felt compelled to move toward the announcement with France making its own. 'It would have looked bad,' he says. Macron took to X to triumphantly announce an unconditional recognition of Palestine on July 24. 'True to its historical commitment to a just and durable peace in the Middle East, I decided that France will recognize the state of Palestine. I will make the official declaration at the UN General Assembly this September.' A Paris-based French diplomat at Quai d'Orsay says that Macron's decision was mobilized by the deteriorating situation on the ground in both Gaza and the West Bank. Equally, the French president is on a quest to lobby other nations to recognize Palestine. The French diplomat explains that the move is only one parameter of a broader resolution to the crisis, and its goal is to prepare a day-after scenario whereby, once the ceasefire is announced, the Palestinian Authority would move into Gaza, ending Hamas rule. France's pitch for using the statehood pledge as a means to propose the day-after configuration in Gaza is contained in the July 29 New York Declaration that came out of a UN member state-led conference on Palestine and the two-state solution. The conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, declared that 'following the ceasefire, a transitional administrative committee must be immediately established to operate in Gaza under the umbrella of the Palestinian Authority.' In the weeks since, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has struck out with plans not only to assume security control over the entire strip, but to redefine the terms of who will be granted civilian administration powers in the aftermath. 'So, it's neither Hamas nor the PA. That's our plan,' he said. French diplomacy has centered the PA in its declaration, and correspondence between Macron and PA Chair Mahmoud Abbas has taken place toward that end. In a letter dated June 9 to Macron, and also addressed to Starmer and Saudi Arabia's Mohamed Bin Salman, Abbas again condemned Hamas for the October 7 attacks, and vowed to sign a peace agreement with Israel and assume sole governance of the Gaza Strip. '[Hamas] will no longer rule Gaza, and must hand over its weapons and military capabilities to the Palestinian Security Forces,' Abbas wrote, citing the principle of 'one state, one government, one law and one gun.' He also pledged to hold a presidential election within the year and 'improve governance, financial transparency and women's and young people's participation.' The New York Declaration also mentioned 'the deployment of a temporary international stabilization mission upon invitation by the PA and under the aegis of the UN,' welcoming initiatives by member states ready to contribute troops. 'This mission, which could evolve depending on the needs, would provide protection to the Palestinian civilian population, support transfer of internal security responsibilities to the PA, provide capacity building support for the Palestinian State and its security forces, and security guarantees for Palestine and Israel, including monitoring of the ceasefire and of a future peace agreement, in full respect of their sovereignty,' the declaration further reads. From the Palestinian people's perspective, the calculus is far simpler. 'Whether we like it or not, people in Palestine want their own state,' says a Europe-based Palestinian diplomat who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity. The source explains that some of the small gains statehood would afford Palestinians include the ability to travel freely, get visas, register children easily and other aspects of daily life that are facilitated by the state. 'If your state is not recognized or if you don't have a state, your life is miserable,' they say. The other aspect the Palestinian diplomat points to are the obligations recognition entails. 'Countries that recognize Palestine have legal obligations under international law and this will enable us to pursue Israeli violations of international law in national courts as well as international ones,' they say. Abdel Ghany Sayed, a scholar of international law, explains that there are two ways of thinking about statehood. One considers that once the objective elements of what makes a state exist (such as defined territory, permanent population, government and capacity to enter into relations), then there is a state, and other states' recognition is merely declaratory. The other theory considers recognition by other states crucial and constitutive of statehood. 'Two thirds of the world already recognizes Palestine. Even the Security Council speaks about a Palestine along the 1967 borders, and not just the General Assembly. Israel recognizes Palestine as per the Oslo accords,' Sayed adds. Seen from this perspective, there is nothing legally significant in the declarations, according to Sayed. But there is a legitimacy cast by certain sovereign states recognizing Palestine in a context where not all sovereign states are equal in the GA, and some have more rights than others. The rest is details. 'Recognition can ease international moves against Israel, depriving it of an important argument: that Palestine is not a state,' says Sayed, who was once a lawyer in the office of the International Criminal Court prosecutor, witnessing firsthand how Israel distracts international legal proceedings against it by getting the courts (and the UN) to spend a lot of their time proving that Palestine is a state. 'Now there will be less time spent on this argument.' Sayed also points to how recognition puts Palestine in a more favorable position in the context of the Geneva Convention and the applicability of international humanitarian law, since the current war would be classified as an 'international armed conflict' between two states. This puts more responsibility on Israel, compared to a 'non-international armed conflict' context, whereby the war is taking place between a state and a non-state actor. However, many Palestinian voices have criticized the statehood pledge, pointing out its insufficiency to end the war on Gaza in comparison to steps like arms embargoes and divestment, and arguing that it further strengthens a contentious Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian diplomat tells Mada Masr that notwithstanding the fact that the Palestinian Authority has been invested in the recognition move since 2011, 'there is something performative in the current declarations, especially that they mostly respond to domestic pressure. It's also an easier step to take as opposed to imposing an arms embargo or ending trade. It's too little too late.' In their concluding thoughts, the Palestinian diplomat says that recognition by these states in and of itself doesn't meet 'the national aspirations of our people.' What is needed, they say, is a new formula: 'new thinking that would ensure reparation, repatriation and restitution, address the historical suffering, be able to dignify all our dead, bring criminals to justice and provide us with rights and a space that enables us to process and heal.'
El Chorouk
30-06-2025
- Politics
- El Chorouk
Paris Has Learned Its Lesson Well From Algeria In The Sansal Case
A statement issued by the French Foreign Ministry regarding the sentence handed down to a French citizen who presented himself as a journalist and was sentenced to seven years in prison reveals a remarkable shift in Paris's position on Algerian judicial decisions, contrary to what happened in the case of the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, which caused an uproar in French political and media circles after he was sentenced to five years in prison. Although the sentence was harsher than that handed down to Sansal, the French Foreign Ministry, in its statement issued on Monday, June 30, 2025, could only express its 'regret' over the 'harsh sentence' handed down by the Dar El Beida court in the capital on Sunday, June 29, 2025, against French citizen Christophe Gleize, who was immediately imprisoned. The French Foreign Ministry said in a statement reported by the French news agency France Presse that it had been 'closely monitoring the journalist's situation since his arrest in Algeria in May 2024' and had 'provided him with consular assistance and protection throughout his trial.' It also confirmed that 'all services remain available to assist him and are in regular contact with him, his family and his advisors.' The Quai d'Orsay added that 'a request for a visit permit was submitted as soon as the conviction was handed down,' based on the principle of consular assistance. It also affirmed France's commitment to 'freedom of the press throughout the world,' in a statement that was careful to exclude Algeria, so that it would not be interpreted by the Algerian authorities as an escalation motivated by doubts about the decisions of the Algerian justice system, which President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has affirmed on more than one occasion is independent. The Algerian judiciary accused the convicted French national of 'praising terrorism,' according to a statement by the French Foreign Ministry. Christoph Gleiz was arrested more than a year ago in the province of Tizi Ouzou while engaging in suspicious activities. The Algerian government attempted to portray the defendant as a journalist by announcing France's commitment to 'freedom of expression,' even though he did not disclose his professional identity when applying for a visa. It was noteworthy that the French Foreign Ministry did not call on the Algerian authorities to release the French citizen, in the context of the worsening crisis between the two countries, in order to avoid a new setback, at a time when bilateral relations are marked by an 'undeclared truce,' marked by visits by some French businessmen to Algeria, most notably that of Rodolphe Saada, owner of the major French shipping company CMA CGM, who was received by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. According to sources close to the French organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the case dates back to May last year, when the French citizen was arrested in the province of Tizi Ouzou on charges of engaging in activities related to terrorism. The organization warned its Algerian members not to make any statements about the Christophe Gleize case, in the hope of resolving it away from media hype and political debate. However, the failure of all these attempts, with the issuance of the conviction, prompted Reporters Without Borders to break its silence. Other sources familiar with the details of this case indicate that investigations have revealed communication between the imprisoned French citizen and individuals classified as terrorists in Algeria who work for a terrorist organization. What further complicated Christophe Glice's situation was that he entered the country on a tourist visa and not on a mission visa, which means that the defendant concealed the purpose of his visit to Algeria and attempted to deceive the relevant authorities. The unusual calm in the official French position on the Algerian judiciary's sentencing of Christophe Gliez to seven years in prison reveals that Paris has learned its lesson well from the Soussal case, namely that attempting to play the role of guardian or commander no longer works, but rather complicates the situation, especially since the French authorities are eagerly awaiting the final decision in the case of the Franco-Algerian writer on Tuesday, July 1, 2025.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
French street artist imprisoned in Azerbaijan is freed after 14 months
A French street artist who had been sentenced to three years in prison in Azerbaijan for painting a graffiti in the Baku metro has been pardoned and freed, French authorities announced Tuesday. Théo Clerc, 38, has returned to France following 422 days in detention after he was pardoned by Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told lawmakers. In a message posted on X, Barrot said that Clerc was 'back in France, after 422 days in detention.' He added: "It is the honor and pride of French diplomacy and its representatives to have worked tirelessly for his release.' For her part, the entourage of the European Union's head of diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, announced that she had contributed to the Frenchman's release by pleading his cause during a recent visit to Azerbaijan. This release 'illustrates the effects of discreet diplomacy and respectful dialogue,' said Kallas in a message on X. French authorities had complained in September that Clerc was submitted to 'discriminatory treatment," because two co-defendants who were accused of the same offense – a New Zealander and an Australian - only received 'simple fines' for the same offences. In September 2024, the Quai d'Orsay condemned the 'arbitrary and blatantly discriminatory treatment' of Théo Clerc. The street artist's conviction provoked outrage in France, which called on its citizens to refrain from travelling to Azerbaijan unless absolutely necessary. Indeed, France has advised its citizens against traveling to Azerbaijan because of a lack of legal protections and the risk of 'arbitrary detention and unfair sentencing." Another French citizen, Martin Ryan, is currently being held in Azerbaijan on espionage charges - charges which have been rejected by Paris. French-Azerbaijani relations have been strained ever since Azerbaijan completely retook the Nagorno-Karabakh region following a lightning offensive in September 2023, which led to the exodus of more than 100,000 Armenians. Baku accuses Paris of supporting Armenia, while France accuses Azerbaijan of interfering in its overseas territories - allegations that the latter rejects.
Euronews
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
French street artist imprisoned in Azerbaijan is freed after 14 months
A French street artist who had been sentenced to three years in prison in Azerbaijan for painting a graffiti in the Baku metro has been pardoned and freed, French authorities announced Tuesday. Théo Clerc, 38, has returned to France following 422 days in detention after he was pardoned by Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told lawmakers. In a message posted on X, Barrot said that Clerc was 'back in France, after 422 days in detention.' He added: "It is the honor and pride of French diplomacy and its representatives to have worked tirelessly for his release.' For her part, the entourage of the European Union's head of diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, announced that she had contributed to the Frenchman's release by pleading his cause during a recent visit to Azerbaijan. This release 'illustrates the effects of discreet diplomacy and respectful dialogue,' said Kallas in a message on X. French authorities had complained in September that Clerc was submitted to 'discriminatory treatment," because two co-defendants who were accused of the same offense – a New Zealander and an Australian - only received 'simple fines' for the same offences. In September 2024, the Quai d'Orsay condemned the 'arbitrary and blatantly discriminatory treatment' of Théo Clerc. The street artist's conviction provoked outrage in France, which called on its citizens to refrain from travelling to Azerbaijan unless absolutely necessary. Indeed, France has advised its citizens against traveling to Azerbaijan because of a lack of legal protections and the risk of 'arbitrary detention and unfair sentencing." Another French citizen, Martin Ryan, is currently being held in Azerbaijan on espionage charges - charges which have been rejected by Paris. French-Azerbaijani relations have been strained ever since Azerbaijan completely retook the Nagorno-Karabakh region following a lightning offensive in September 2023, which led to the exodus of more than 100,000 Armenians. Baku accuses Paris of supporting Armenia, while France accuses Azerbaijan of interfering in its overseas territories - allegations that the latter rejects.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Simon Mann was the last of a generation of white mercenaries. What came after may be far worse
Simon Mann, the Old Etonian soldier of fortune who died last week at the age of 72, should have been the coda to the inglorious symphony of the white mercenary in Africa. So madcap, so incongruous was the 'Wonga Coup' he attempted to launch in Equatorial Guinea in 2004 that it seemed to belong to another era. Africa had moved on, old hands declared. Mann, poor fellow, had failed to read the winds of change. Yet far from being a holdover from the past, Mann has proved to be a harbinger of the present. Analysts reckon there are now more foreign mercenaries operating in Africa than ever before. The Russians, in the form of the Wagner Group, were the vanguard of the second wave, arriving in 2017. But others are following in ever greater numbers, Turks, Chinese and Romanians among them – perhaps soon even Americans, with Erik Prince, the founder of the infamous Blackwater mercenary group, reportedly offering Congo his services as part of a putative minerals deal with Donald Trump. Some are shadowy outfits, manned by ruthless racketeers, deployed to advance their states' geopolitical ambitions. Others lay claim to greater respectability. Blanching at the term 'mercenary', they call themselves private military contractors. Many play a vital role in protecting weak governments by training inexperienced national armies, guarding key installations and taking the lead in counterinsurgency operations against Islamist militants. Whatever their role, few of the new generation have the panache of the mercenaries of yesteryear who culminated with Mann. Their era began in the early Sixties, in the years when newly independent African states were struggling to find their feet. From Nigeria and Congo to Angola and the island states of the Indian Ocean, they were on hand – often with the blessing of Whitehall and the Quai d'Orsay – to support secessionist movements, prop up feeble governments or mount the occasional coup. Of Mann's forebears the two that most stand out were 'Mad Mike' Hoare, a stiff-lipped Anglo-Irishman and one-time accountant, and Bob Denard, the flamboyant Frenchman with whom he had an unspoken rivalry. Hoare, who bore a passing resemblance to Montgomery, led his motley fighters, the fabled Wild Geese, in defeating Congo's China-backed Simba rebels, who numbered Che Guevara in their ranks, and shoring up the breakaway province of Katanga. He and his 300 men recaptured Stanleyville, later to be renamed Kisangani, from the Simbas, freed 2,000 European hostages, most of them nuns and priests – and then dynamited the vaults of every bank in the city before drinking its taverns dry. It was a tale of derring-do worthy of Empire and made Hoare, who made his men attend church every Sunday, a hero on Fleet Street. Among those who lapped up his antics back home was the young Simon Mann, sitting in the back of a classroom plotting imaginary coups in his atlas. Hoare did much to romanticise the reputation of the white mercenary in black Africa. Yet the image belied a darker reality, too. Some of Hoare's men were German ex-Nazis who still wore the Iron Cross. Most had old-fashioned views on race. Hoare and his Wild Geese had no compunction about shedding blood, decorating their trucks with the heads of Simba warriors they had slain. Hoare, who died in 2020 at the age of 100, may have been a character but, if anything, Denard was even more swashbuckling. He had been in Katanga at the same time as Hoare, leading a unit called 'les affreux' ('the terrible ones'). He later changed sides, was shot in the head by a North Korean soldier, recovered under the care of a nurse and then married her. He reportedly had six other wives, some of them at the same time. After a failed attempt to seize power in Yemen and Benin, he turned his attention in 1977 to Comoros, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, launching the first of four coup attempts he made there. Leading just 50 men, equipped with sawn-off shotguns and two dozen cases of Dom Perignon champagne, he toppled the socialist president, who was shot dead 'while attempting to escape'. Denard effectively ran the country for the next decade as head of the presidential guard, a position he lost after the puppet president he installed was also shot mysteriously. Denard was acquitted of the killing but the mounting presidential body count did him no favours. Whatever their flaws, Mann grew up idolising such men. Like them, he would go on to find triumph and disaster on the world's poorest continent. He helped set up Executive Outcomes, which made a fortune protecting Angola's oil fields from rebel attack in the 1990s and was later involved with an offshoot, Sandline International, seeing action in diamond-rich Sierra Leone's civil war. But in an uncanny echo of his two heroes, Mann's mercenary career ended with a ludicrously injudicious coup attempt. In 1981, Hoare attempted to seize power in the Seychelles, flying economy into Victoria, the capital, with a group of mercenaries disguised as members of a beer appreciation society, The Ancient Order of Froth Blowers. Taking their cover too seriously, most of the men had over indulged on the flight. After starting a brawl in the arrivals hall, a customs officer found an AK-47 in one of their bags, prompting a gun battle that ended when Hoare and his men hijacked an Air India flight to get back to South Africa. The mercenaries drank all the champagne on board and were promptly arrested on arrival. In 1995, Denard's final attempt to take back power in Comoros similarly failed after he and his men drifted onto a beach in inflatable dinghies one moonless night only to find the French army waiting for them. Denard, who died in 2007, spent 10 months in a French prison, Mad Mike Hoare 33 months in a South African one. Mann, whose father and grandfather both captained England at cricket, did more time than both of them combined after a fantastical plot, allegedly concocted in 2004 in the hallowed surroundings of White's, the club in St James's, to overthrow Obiang Nguema, then, as now, the dictator of Equatorial Guinea. The conspiracy was ludicrously complicated, with Mann buying an old Boeing 727 to fly his mercenaries from South Africa to Equatorial Guinea, making a detour in Harare to pick up weapons. The plan was then to fly across the continent to meet an advance party already in Equatorial Guinea, storm the presidential palace and then install a little-known exile as the country's new leader. The problem for Mann was that the entire plot had been blown wide open even before his crew left South Africa. Mann and his team were promptly arrested on arrival in Zimbabwe, where he would serve four years before being transferred to complete a further 13 months in Equatorial Guinea's notorious Black Beach prison. Mann's outfit had neither the intelligence nor the infrastructure in place to succeed, notes Piers Pigou, a Johannesburg-based analyst who has long studied mercenary operations in Africa. 'It was a bit of a Heath Robinson operation,' he said. 'I think everyone was surprised that they ran such a leaky ship, which enabled the authorities in South Africa and therefore Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea to be prepared. I still look at that coup and wonder how on earth they think they could have succeeded.' Mann's failed coup seemed like a final hurrah for white mercenaries in Africa. It was certainly an anomaly. By the turn of the millennium, African economies were growing, democracy was on the rise and, though many countries remained chronically weak, conflict was on the wane. Alas, it was not to last. By 2017 a new breed of mercenary had begun to appear in Africa in the form of the Wagner Group, which offered armed services in exchange for access to natural resources – deals remarkably similar to the one Mann and his co-conspirators hoped to strike in Equatorial Guinea. Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner's founder, may have lacked the class of the those who ploughed the same furrows in earlier decades: he did not swill champagne like Denard or recite Shakespeare like Hoare. He did not even go to Eton. But, at least in some cases, Wagner was crudely effective. Hired by Faustin-Archange Touadera, the president of the Central African Republic, Wagner beat back the country's Islamist rebels, though it imposed a huge cost. To this day, the CAR remains virtually a Wagner colony, Mr Pigou says. Wagner was nominally dissolved following Prigozhin's death in a mysterious plane crash in 2023 weeks after he marched on Moscow in an attempted rebellion of his own. The outfit, now controlled more directly by the Russian state, continues to prop up half a dozen African governments, most of them military dictatorships, and has faced numerous accusations of perpetrating massacres and other abuses. Other state-linked mercenary outfits of varying quality have also appeared on the scene. Chinese private military groups operate in more than a dozen African states, mainly to protect China-run oil facilities, mines and infrastructure projects, guard logistics routes and protect Chinese nationals against the rising threat of kidnapping. Chinese mercenaries may be authorised by Beijing to carry and use weapons in Africa but, unlike Wagner, they do not directly prop up authoritarian regimes or intervene in internal politics. Other foreign groups are more overtly engaged in fighting. Last year, Sadat, a Turkish private military force with ties to the country's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reportedly suffered casualties while engaging with Islamist insurgents in Niger. Sadat, which insists that it does not provide 'paramilitary or mercenary services', says its focus is on strategic consultancy, military training and protecting important economic facilities. Not all mercenary groups deliver on the bold promises they make. In 2022 the Congolese government hired 1,000 predominantly Romanian mercenaries, who became known as 'the Romeos', to defend eastern cities against the country's M23 rebels. But when the rebels advanced on Goma and Bukavu, the two biggest cities in the east, in January, the Romeos cut and ran, abandoning their weapons and vehicles as they fled for the safety of the UN peacekeeping base. Both cities swiftly fell and the mercenaries eventually surrendered to M23. Not all mercenaries are as rapacious as Wagner or as hapless as the Romeos. Indeed, says Mr Pigou, some do a lot more good than harm. In 2019, Filipe Nyusi, then the president of Mozambique, originally looked to Wagner to fight an Islamist insurgency in the north. After the jihadists humiliated the Russians, killing scores, Mr Nyusi turned instead to a rather different beast, the Dyck Advisory Group (DAG), led by Lionel Dyck, a colonel who served in the Rhodesian army. Dyck, who died last year, broadly fits the definition of a mercenary but he always insisted that his group followed the highest international standards governing private military contractors. As a result, it helped prevent countries like Mozambique, with weak indigenous armies, from slipping into chaos and bloodshed. By training Mozambique's police, it also strengthened the country's ability to defend itself in the future, he argued. While DAG has faced criticism in the past, including of carrying out attacks on civilians which it denies, it is a reminder, cautions Mr Pigou, that blanket, knee-jerk condemnation of mercenary activities in Africa is counterproductive. 'There's a cookie-cutter demonisation of the bloodthirsty white mercenary,' he said. 'There are elements of truth in this, but these narratives are predicated on cartoon characters that don't reflect the realities on the ground. 'They miss the kind of sober cost-benefit analysis of what they guys are able to achieve.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
