As insurgents threaten to hamper the development of the reserves of natural gas found off the coast of northern Mozambique, the government has asked the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to intervene. So far, the South African government has kept mum on the matter, although rumours suggest otherwise. BizNews talks to Liesl-Louw-Vaudran of the Institute for Security Studies, and Leigh Elston, an industry analyst, to gain further insight from experts on the situation. – Jarryd Neves
South Africa is watching the events in the northern parts of Mozambique closely, where ISIS is threatening the development of the liquified natural gas that has been found off the coast at Cabo Delgado. The government of Mozambique – that is ill-equipped to deal with the insurgents – has asked the Southern African Development Community (SADC) for help. But there has been no official response from the South African government – although it has been discussed behind closed doors in parliamentary committees. There are also rumours circulating in Parliament that maritime units from Simon’s Town have been moved to KwaZulu-Natal, to prepare to be deployed near the naval base of Pemba. Liesl Louw-Vaudran, from the Institute for Security Studies, told the BizNews Midweek Catch-up Webinar that there is pressure on the members of SADC – including South Africa – to become involved militarily in Mozambique.
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It’s one of the biggest investments on the continent and it was announced in 2016. That is really when a lot of the issues started, not only the insurgency, which is quite a complex phenomenon. It would be good to go into the root causes that we have identified for the insurgency in Northern Mozambique. We’ve seen that political issues crop up in many places around the continent when there is such a big announcement of investment, the stakes are high. Mozambique is a desperately poor country and in many different ways, the state is very weak. There is a lack of capacity to actually deal with its problems.
The insurgency is right where the natural gas exploration is happening. There are also some old threats by remnants of Renamo that fought against Frelimo in Mozambique during the South African apartheid era. It’s quite a complex situation and there was a lot of hope among politicians and Mozambicans that they would benefit from the gas exploration. But the whole situation has now turned into a very violent conflict. It’s very dramatic. I think people really underestimate what is happening in Northern Mozambique.
Have there been attacks on companies, like Total, who’s involved there?
There has been good protection and most of it is offshore, as you know. There haven’t been direct attacks on some of these installations, as we might have seen elsewhere on the continent. But, the area is threatened. Praia, which is the little harbour town north of Pemba – where a lot of this activity has taken place – has become completely lawless, as one report says. The insurgents have taken over the town, attacked people, kidnapped people, burned down government installations, etc. Some of the routes have now become insecure.
You have to use convoys. It really isn’t safe for people to move around. Of course, if you have a big investment like that, you have a lot of other infrastructure and there are lots of South African companies that might not be directly involved in natural gas themselves. But because of this big investment and the need for all kinds of secondary activities, there are many South African companies and others that are now involved there, in that whole coast.
Of course, those beautiful islands – South Africans go there on holiday. There’s been massive investment there as well. So it’s extremely worrying then, to see that – I think, for now it’s been smaller towns – but they came very close to attacking Pemba. But there are villages that are literally emptied out of inhabitants. I think we underestimate the brutality of these attacks. People are being beheaded, women and girls are being kidnapped.
There’s been a lot of miscommunication and a lack of information. Also, I think there’s a language barrier, because if you look at what is being said in the Portuguese media, for example. It’s amazing how ordinary Portuguese citizens are much more aware of what’s going on in Cabo Delgado than South Africans are. It’s on our doorstep.
There’s also the fact that the Mozambican authorities have really tried to prevent any information coming out because of the gas investments. They don’t want this to be threatened, they don’t want the companies to pull out. For now, we haven’t seen any of the investors being cancelled or any of the companies expressing doubts. Some have withdrawn personnel, but that officially has been said is because of Covid-19. So there hasn’t been – from what we can see – any official impact at this point, on the actual investments that have been announced and that have been made.
Read also: Isis attacks in Mozambique: Assessing the risk in SA – expert insights
Is there a possibility that South Africa is going to become involved?
The threat against South Africa came from the Islamic State, just when there were talks that a SADC force might be sent to help the Mozambicans, because there’s a feeling amongst civil society and many organisations, saying “Where is SADC? Where is the region? Why is nobody assisting Mozambique?”.
There was speculation that there would be South African military involvement. So there was this threat to say “don’t get involved.” It’s exactly what happened when Kenya, for example, got involved in Somalia to stem Al-Shabab. Then we saw massive attacks in Nairobi, you know, the Westgate shopping centre and many other places in Kenya. There were reprisals for this. So this is the danger.
I think the misunderstanding is some people think this insurgency can spread to South Africa. This is pretty much contained in the Cabo Delgado province for now – on the Tanzanian border – a completely northern province. At this point, there is no danger that the insurgency – at least in the short term – is going to spread from Cabo Delgado and spread downwards to Maputo and then attack South Africa in that way. But what the counterterrorism specialists are saying is that we could have individual attacks – people claiming to be from the Islamic State.
In 2018, there was an incident in Verulam, KwaZulu-Natal. There have been isolated incidents, very few that are actually verifiable. What we can verify is that terrorist groups are definitely using South African banking and logistics. The U.N. and SADC asked South Africa to track this. But there isn’t really a threat that the insurgency itself – which is very localised by some local grievances in Cabo Delgado, ethnic, political and historical, et cetera – is going to spread all the way down.Â
Leigh Elston, a leading oil and gas industry analyst who is based in Maputo, said South Africa could help Mozambique in dealing with the Islamist frat. But she did not think it would involve boots on the ground.Â
The Rovuma Basin gas discoveries – which were at the beginning of 2010 – were one of the top discoveries in the world over the last 25 years. So, on any scale, it’s huge. For Mozambique, it’s an absolutely phenomenal discovery. What’s also been very surprising, is the pace with which they’ve actually developed these reserves in a very challenging environment. The gas price crashed twice over the last 10 years.
It’s Cabo Delgado, which is a very undeveloped province. It’s one of the poorest provinces in Mozambique, there’s very little infrastructure and it’s a country with – and they do have – gas development experience. You have the Sasol gas fields in Inhambane – as you mentioned earlier – but they haven’t built anything close to infrastructure on this scale. Energy is a very specialised type of industry. So really, it’s been kind of amazing that from first discovery to final investment decision (FID) of the Coral South floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) project – the floating liquefaction plants – that made FID in 2017 and then this year – last year having FID made by Anadarko – and then the financial close by Total, this year has been pretty incredible.
I think that definitely the Mozambique government has to be commended for managing to get this off the ground in very, very challenging circumstances. They have their own $2-billion debt crisis. They’ve had the insurgency. So again, to 2017 and still these projects have pushed forward.
So how big do you think the threat is of this group? Are they linked to ISIS? How big a threat are they?
It is essentially a local grievance. It’s a local issue. Over decades, there has been a lack of development in Cabo Delgado, a lack of economic opportunities for people living in the province, who have seen big investments in gas, in mining, at which point, they’ve assumed that there’s going to be more jobs for locals, more development.
That’s been very slow to come and will continue to be slow, because you’re not even going to see first gas exports for another five years. It’s going to be another five years after that until you really actually see any revenues coming in and then how much is going to trickle down to the north is the big question.
There is an Islamist element to it, and actually, I think the US had a press conference a few days ago where they said, yes, there are signs that ISIS is involved, but they’ve probably piggybacked onto something which was primarily a local grievance, and now they’re trying to exploit that to the extent that they can.
The danger is they’re going to increasingly provide resources, training and support, certainly giving the conflict more publicity than it would have had if it had remained just a purely local conflict. But, lots of Mozambican researchers, lots of people who are based in the country say that you have to look at it as a local conflict primarily with this Islamist agenda, but sort of to the side. To the extent that it’s a regional issue, it is going to impact South Africa.
It’s the neighbouring countries and I think particularly Tanzania. But, it’s sort of the biggest threat to you (South Africa) in terms of sort of regional risks. In terms of Sasol’s investment, they’re a long way south to be in danger from that threat. There’s definitely talk of it moving south into Nampula, but not as far as Inhambane in the south of the country.
There were, for example, discussions of South Africa building a pipeline or being part of a consortium of receiving gas – if there was a pipeline built from the Rovuma basin gas fields into South Africa – potentially connecting to Sasol’s existing gas pipeline. I think the conflict now makes it look like that kind of investment in pipeline infrastructure looks like it could be very risky because that’s obviously something that could be attacked.
Read also: Islamic State threat on SA’s door: Africa’s biggest investment under guard in Mozambique
Linda: Well, I know that Naledi Pandor, the Minister of International Relations, has been asked by Mozambique to help, as a member of SADC. You don’t expect South African troops to suddenly show up in Maputo?
No, I don’t think so. It’s not necessarily something that can be solved militarily. I think there is definitely a lot of support that can be provided regionally and by sharing experience. I know Mozambique – up to now – has been very reluctant to share intelligence about what’s going on and even some kind of training or support of Mozambican troops.
But it’s better really, to look at the social side of the conflict and the economic side. How you can help create jobs, help improve social infrastructure, hospitals, schools, roads, all these kind of things. There’s a lot of sharing of experience that SADC partners and the region can do, such as programmes and assistance that can help. Donors like the U.S. are looking at the sort of support it could provide following Cyclone Kenneth in the area. That kind of support. But I don’t think the military involvement of South African troops on the ground is going to be very helpful in this in this situation.
What do you know, Leigh, about the Dyck group? It’s a private security, private transport company operating there at the moment.Â
Exactly. So it is – I think – based in South Africa, but it is a former Zimbabwean guy, Lionel Dyck. They have been providing support to the Mozambican troops. Since they’ve been providing that support, they have been firing from helicopters to support ground troop operations and also moving troops back and forth. I think that contract has been renewed. Now some elements of that contract will also include support on the ground, since having that support, the army has been more effective in being able to retake some villages that the insurgents were in. Not wholly, not every battle has been won. It’s obviously still an ongoing issue. Some of that support has been effective.
