Launched in 2010, the assault on Mozambican gas reserves suddenly stopped due to the jihadist offensives in Palma, a city on the doorstep of the future $ 20 billion plant owned by Total. It was precisely the French oil group that announced the stop of activities pending a radical change in the security situation in the north of the country, in a “verifiable and lasting way” they said from Paris. This should not happen soon given the conditions of the Maputo army and given the increasingly stratospheric proceeds of heroin trafficking in the Cabo Delgado region, located 2700 kilometers from the capital.
With a note sent to the local newspaper The country, Total yesterday declared the suspension of the works and the withdrawal of all its staff from its mega project of production of liquefied natural gas, ready to declare “causes of force majeure”. The announcement came about a month after a raid by jihadist militias in the city of Palma, the logistics hub of the mining sector a few kilometers away from the field, during which some foreign workers were also killed. The Cabo Delgado region still is partially occupied by the Islamists Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jamma, known locally as al Shaabab (not to be confused with the Somali group of the same name), who claim to be affiliated with the Islamic State. On 24 March, after the insurgents had taken control of Palma, Total had already postponed the resumption of the activities of its project. Yesterday he decreed the final end of the works.
It is early to know when these will resume. One thing is certain, the plant that was supposed to become operational in 2024 will be very late. However, if Total has suspended the project, it has not yet abandoned it, so much so that the subsea drilling activities that take place offshore continue normally. The problem is on the mainland, where jihadist attacks have multiplied for a year now, with beheadings, rape, mass killings and fires of entire villages. These appalling acts of violence have already caused 2600 deaths, more than half of them civilians. According to government sources, the al Shaababs have already forced 723,000 people to flee their villages. João Pereira, one of the investigators who came from Maputo to investigate the Islamists, recently declared that the situation has been out of control for months: “With their actions they intend to challenge the central power and destabilize the entire region, where they are already trafficking heroin and smuggling rubies. , ivory and precious wood ».
Meanwhile, Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi is increasingly pressured by his Western counterparts, since in the Islamist-infested area, in addition to Total, the US oil company ExxonMobil and our Eni also work on very expensive projects for the exploitation of offshore gas. Now, neither the police nor the Mozambican army, poorly trained and poorly equipped, are able to stem the Islamist militias. President Nyusi then resorted to the notorious Wagner contractors, but not even the mercenaries linked to the Kremlin were able to stop them. To defend themselves, the oil multinationals resort to military personnel from the best departments of the government forces, for which Eni, ExxonMobil and Total spend more than a million dollars a month.
The fact is that Cabo Delgado has been the region with the highest rates of illiteracy and child malnutrition for decades. It is also one of the few provinces with a Muslim majority, which for a long time followed a moderate Sufi tradition. In 2008, however, the Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jamma sect was born, immediately influenced by the most extremist imams of East Africa. In addition, hundreds of farmers and fishermen in that area had been displaced to make way for mining and energy infrastructure, which created a deep distrust of local authorities. The path that favored the settlement of the jihadist group in the region went hand in hand with a sort of popular uprising, exactly as it had happened in Boko Haram in northern Nigeria. Today, the Mozambican jihadists also control the routes of illegal trafficking although in their few videos they swear not to fight to get rich but only to impose the Koranic law and to close secular schools.
In July 2019, the Islamic State recognized the Cabo Delgado rebels as affiliated with its Central African branch. From that moment, the strategy adopted in their attacks, intended to conquer cities and villages rather than to control them, coincides with the modus operandi of Isis. Also, if they used to attack with machetes, they now have automatic weapons. They no longer limit themselves to stealing from brigands, but occupy government buildings, block roads and hoist black flags in conquered places. In doing so, they threaten the exploitation of the immense gas fields, Mozambique’s only hope of development.
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