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Shared resources, waters spark off disputes as region discovers oil, gas

Monday October 27 2014
water

There are ongoing intra-regional disputes on common territorial and marine boundaries. For example, Kenya and Somalia are in disagreement over their Indian Ocean boundary. PHOTO | FILE

The global scramble for resources, particularly as it affects the hydrocarbons and fish sectors in East Africa, could degenerate into conflict, thereby jeopardise ongoing economic integration.

At the heart of this scramble are huge reserves of oil, natural gas and other minerals that are vital to the global economy.

Often overlooked is the fact that the regional waters — particularly the Western Indian Ocean — teem with millions of tonnes of tuna and other marine resources, that have continued to feed populations in industrialised countries and in which the global interest has risen over the past decade.

According to analysts, what is worrisome is that the mainland East Africa countries are caught between interests: Their own versus those of major industrial powers — United States, Britain, Australia, France, India, China and to some extent Russia.

The EastAfrican has learnt that a scramble for East Africa’s marine resources has been going on despite the presence of different UN bodies and international agreements.

While most states have been quick to sign and ratify the latter agreements, many are considered merely good on paper.

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However, East African countries to believe that their claim to marine resources outside their exclusive economic zones should be respected through such agreements.

Eight countries — Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, Somalia, South Africa and Tanzania — have submitted to the UN their desire to mark their territorial waters, the extent of their continental shelves as well as their exclusive economic zones.

But being johnie-come-latelies, regional states have been finding it difficult to secure their interests against those of foreign powers. For example, reports show that Mauritius and Maldives, which believe they have a legitimate claim over the Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean, have been unable to wrest it from Britain, which has expressed a determination to continue holding onto it even after the lease London had given to the US military comes to an end in 2016.

Britain split Chagos off from Mauritius in 1965, when the latter got Independence, and declared it the British Indian Ocean Territory. Then it leased Diergo Garcia Island, which is part of the archipelago, to the US for 50 years, beginning 1966.

This deal led to the deportation to Mauritius of 1,500 residents in 1971. The US converted Chagos into a strategic military airbase. Britain further declared Chagos a marine reserve in April 2010 in a decision that was contested by Mauritius in the UN’s permanent court of arbitration.

In the same vein, France is in conflict with Mauritius over the Tromelin Island and its 280,000 square kilometre exclusive economic zone.

Paris is also in dispute with Madagascar following its continued occupation of Scattered Islands (Iles Eparses), Europa Island, Glorioso Islands (Iles Glorieuse) and Juan de Nova.

At the same time, Comoros is angry with France over Mayotte Island while Madagascar and Comoros have put in a claim to Banc du Geyser, also occupied by France.

There are ongoing intra-regional disputes on common territorial and marine boundaries. For example, Kenya and Somalia are in disagreement over their Indian Ocean boundary.

Kenya is of the opinion that the border ought to run along the latitudes of the Indian Ocean similar to how its border with Tanzania is aligned. However, Somalia wants the boundary to run perpendicular to the coast.

READ: Kenya and Somalia in bitter dispute over Indian Ocean border

Somalia has had its own disputes over oil licensing. A report titled “The politics of oil in East Africa” published in 2011 in the Journal of Eastern African Studies, shows that the Puntland government invited oil companies into the country, resulting in disputes between various factions over these contracts, as well as disputes with neighbouring Somaliland over the boundaries of the two countries.

The report says that in 2005, Puntland’s President Mohamoud Muse Hersi led negotiations on the Nogal and Dharoor blocks with a holding company operated by two Australians.

But this created immediate conflict with the Somali Transitional Federal Government when Puntland ‘‘unilaterally signed a deal with Consort Private Ltd offering the company exclusive oil exploration rights in Puntland.’’

The TFG president then, Abdullahi Yusuf, declared the contract to be void, claiming that only he had authority to sign such deals.

Tanzania, too, has its share of disputes. According to a document by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd — The Deloitte Guide to Oil and Gas in East Africa: Where potential lies — Tanzania’s wish to extend its rights over the continental shelf for more than the 200 nautical miles provided for in the Law of the Sea Convention did not go down well with Zanzibar.

“This has given rise to some friction with the Zanzibar government, which has disputed the validity of exploration licences issued by the Ministry of Energy,” it says.

The document says that since 2013, Zanzibar has continued to express a wish “to take a more direct role in oil and gas exploration around the islands.”

Tanzania bases its licensing regime on the 1980 Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Act which applies to both the mainland and Zanzibar and empowers the Minister of Energy and Minerals to enter into production sharing agreements on behalf of the United Republic.

The unseen danger for Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia and other African countries sharing the Western Indian Ocean front, is that nearly all the mighty global powers are in open competition for the vast amount of resources there.

Reports seen by The EastAfrican show that the mineral-rich areas include what is termed the South West Indian Ocean ridge.

Partially enclosing Madagascar, the ridge is believed to contain vast quantities of cobalt, iron, manganese, titanium, cobalt, nickel, platinum, molybdenum and other rare earth metals and almost half-a-billion tonnes of ores rich in copper, iron, lead, zinc, gold and silver.

The region has also drawn global interest owing to the ongoing discoveries of oil and gas resources from Mozambique to Somalia, South Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Madagascar, Tanzania and Seychelles.

This has opened the entire region to no-holds-barred competition by the US, European powers as well as China, India and — to a lesser extent — Brazil and Russia.

China, India and other Asia-Pacific countries are said to be particularly thirsty for energy resources in this new globally significant oil-and-gas frontier.

As estimated by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) last October, these Asia-Pacific countries will need to invest as much as $11.7 trillion in the energy sector in the next 25 years to meet their bloated energy demands. Much of the investments will be directed to East Africa.

Indeed, every major global power considers this part of the world geo-strategically significant and has endeavoured to maintain a presence has. This has created a precarious militarisation of the Indian Ocean.

A report carried by the Indian Ocean Observatory (“Is it ‘War on Terror’ or Militarisation of the Western Indian Ocean?”) describes a worrisome trend in which all the global powers have continued to station their militaries in the Western Indian Ocean in the name of fighting terrorism and containing pirates.

For example, the European Union used on the anti-piracy resolutions passed by the UN Security Council to set up naval operations under the EUNAVFOR that covers an area estimated to be 3,700,000 square kilometres.

As reported by the Indian Ocean Observatory, this vast area extends from the Gulf of Aden to Seychelles and is obviously far out of reach of the Somali pirates.

France has maintained a military base in Djibouti — now with over 3,000 soldiers — for more than a century while Japan opened a $473 million base near Djibouti’s international airport in 2011.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) — which brings together 28 countries — runs Operation Ocean Shield, is also based in Djibouti.

On its part, the US runs a massive submarine and airbase in the Chagos Archipelago, as well as the Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti and is believed to be planning to move its Africa Command to the same country from the German headquarters.

The navies of India, China Germany, Pakistan, Italy, Kenya, Russia, Australia South Africa and Iran are based in the Western Indian Ocean with more or less similar objectives of combating piracy and terrorism.

But analysts are not convinced. Prof Macharia Munene of the United States International University was quoted in the media as saying that the heavy military presence in the Indian Ocean has to do with recent oil and gas off the east coast of Africa “which (now) whets the appetite of global industrial players.”

Besides oil and gas, data from the Food and Agricultural Organisation shows that the Indian Ocean supplies 24 per cent of the global demand for tuna while the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission says that as much as 1.3 million tonnes of different species of tuna are fished from the Ocean.

The European Union is the main beneficiary of deep sea fishing in the Ocean.

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