America No Longer Has a Critical Media

By Henry Srebrnik, [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner

Hannah Arendt, one of the foremost scholars of totalitarianism, explained that “a totalitarian state is one that aspires to nothing less than defining and controlling reality.” In today’s “woke” America, media elites determine what is and isn’t appropriate. The system suffers no dissent from within, its practitioners policing the boundaries of acceptable – that is, left-wing – opinion. Other views are deemed “controversial,” a euphemism warning readers that these are wrong.

The press that existed in America from the end of the 19th century until the turn of this one was designed to inform. But it is now more like Pravda in the old Soviet Union.

Roger Kimball, editor of the New Criterion, contends that the American mainstream media “has dropped any pretense of professional objectivity” and are “partisan political actors who try to shape what they’re reporting to achieve a political purpose.”

Over the past four years, they have shared a single overriding preoccupation: consolidating an social consensus that justifies itself by the claim that Donald Trump’s presidency is an existential threat that makes every action by the White House a national emergency.

The media both demonstrates and justifies its role in opposing this extraordinary threat by hyping one supposed crisis of American democracy after another, be it the advent of fascism, Russian control over Trump, the danger from white nationalists, and so forth.

In an article published in the Columbia Journalism Review Sept. 8, Musa al-Gharbi, a sociologist at Columbia University, observed that the quantity of coverage devoted by the print media to Donald Trump is without historical precedent.

The New York Times, for instance, has increasingly embraced advocacy journalism. Its new reporting eschews balance and objectivity in favour of a more revolutionary narrative.

In 2018, “Trump” was the fourth-most-used word in the New York Times. On average, Trump was directly mentioned two to three times in every article, writes writes al-Gharbi, and indirectly mentioned an additional once or twice. “Trump has ceased to be just a topic of news, he seems to be the prism through which we interpret and discuss everything.”

A new tool from Stanford University’s Computer Graphics Lab revealed that cable news has undergone a similar transformation. In other words, he concluded, “news media have basically been running with 2016 campaign-level attention on Trump for four years straight now.”

Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, owns the Washington Post, which has always been a liberal newspaper. But, writes Michael Anton, a lecturer and research fellow at Hillsdale College, it was never “so shamelessly dishonest.”

Lee Smith, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, concurs, noting that each day brings a new story “trumpeting a new mortal threat to the republic or some dastardly revelation based on sources that are usually anonymous.”

On the other hand, the disinterest evinced by this media complex toward the violence and destruction carried out over the past few months is a striking case of the collectivized decision-making process that now governs them. For details of the chaos one needs to read local newspapers.

That’s because the media establishment is increasingly driven by narrative constructions based on theories of identity and power. For these journalists, the “dangerous majoritarian mob lurking in the middle of the country plotting to oppress vulnerable minorities” must be countered, asserts Jacob Siegel, a senior writer at the Tablet magazine website.

The proper aim of politics, therefore, is to wield the power of elite institutions to enforce “correct” thinking. Hence dissenters are regularly vilified as racists and reactionaries.

These ritual denunciations help enforce cohesion among journalists and within the larger educated professional class. They provide an deterrent for anyone tempted to notice the gap that separates elite moral crusades from the priorities of ordinary Americans.

“I think over the past few years, there’s been a kind of new groupthink developed on a number of topics among institutional progressives and a lot of people who are involved have the same zealousness as the convert to a new religion,” according to Zaid Jilani, a journalist who considers himself left-wing but refuses to follow the “party line” on every issue.

Much American journalism has abandoned the traditional standards and practices that once defined reporting. What’s left is a media largely controlled by “woke” progressives.

 

Protests Continue in Divided Belarus

By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

Massive protests that began in the wake of the Aug. 9 presidential election, in which the incumbent Alexander Lukashenko awarded himself an 80 per cent victory, have overtaken Belarus. It was a result that has been declared illegitimate by every serious political observer and has led to mass demonstrations.

Often referred to by many in the media as “Europe’s last dictator,” he was even heckled at a post-election rally that was supposed to be full of his core constituency, workers from the rural parts of the country.

The post-election demonstrations have not subsided and seem to be spontaneous. The pre-election protest leaders, including Lukashenko’s main opponent Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, are mostly in exile or in undisclosed locations, and so the crowds that gather in Independence Square in Minsk are entirely self-organized and autonomous.

About 100,000 people have rallied against him weekly in Minsk -- by far the biggest opposition protests of his rule. Women have been at the heart of the protests. Supporters of LGBTQ+ rights appeared with rainbow flags in the women’s march in Minsk on Sept. 5.

Police arrested more than 400 people as tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators took to the streets of Minsk during the “March of Heroes” protest on Sept. 13. 

This has all come as a surprise. After all, Lukashenko centralised power, marginalised all opposition and “won” rigged elections on no less than four previous occasions.

Lukashenko was able to enjoy huge Russian subsidies of cheap oil and gas in return for his political loyalty. A “Union State” between the two nations has existed since 1999, which guarantees free movement and employment in both states. 

In early February Lukashenko visited Russia to hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the further integration process within the treaty. So the events following the August election have caught Lukashenko off guard.

In the Ukrainian Euromaidan Revolution that removed Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, anti-Russian feeling was very evident. But in Belarus, a country ethnically and religiously close to Russia, anti-Russian rhetoric is absent.

There are no European flags, nor many slogans about Europe or the European Union, nor are there any demands to join NATO.

Instead, we see the colours of the Belarusian National Republic, flown by the short-lived pre-Soviet independent republic of 1918-1919 and again from 1991 to 1995, prior to Lukashenko’s total takeover. Lukashenko had restored a modified version of the Soviet flag as the nation’s banner. The demonstrations have been about ending the dictatorship, pure and simple.

Russia remains the country’s chief ally. They have held joint military exercises and the struggling Belarus economy relies on trade with its powerful neighbour. Russia also maintains two military facilities in Belarus, the Vileyka VLF Transmitter and Missile Attack Early Warning System site in Hantsavichy.

In recent years relations had cooled after Moscow moved to end subsidized oil and gas supplies. However, now that Lukashenko is in trouble, he has again turned to Russia. He met with Putin on Sept. 14 for their first encounter since the anti-government protests erupted in Belarus -- a sign that the two leaders have drawn closer amid the crisis after months of strain over bilateral ties.

“These events showed us that we need to stick closer to our older brother,” Lukashenko told Putin, referring to the protests. He noted that disagreements between Moscow and Minsk can involve any issue except security.

Putin announced in late August that a Russian military contingent is ready to intervene on behalf of Lukashenko “if necessary.” Russia could send them in if the protests got really out of control,” he remarked. Putin also granted a $1.5 billion loan to Belarus.  

Moscow’s backing has emboldened the Belarus president. Many foreign independent news outlets have been stripped of their accreditation and several local independent online media sites that have played a key role in reporting on the crisis have been blocked, while members of Russia’s state-owned media have been invited in.

The opposition is not backing down. Tikhanovskaya, living in Lithuania after being forced into exile, told Putin that any agreements made with Lukashenko will not have legal force. “I regret that you have decided on dialogue with a dictator and not with the people of Belarus.”

 

The Presidential Race in Pennsylvania

By Henry Srebrnik,  [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

American citizens residing outside the country vote by absentee ballot in the last location that they lived in before leaving the United States.

In our case, that’s the 13th Congressional District in south-central Pennsylvania, a largely rural area that includes portions of Adams and other counties.

With its 20 Electoral College votes, the Keystone State is a must-win for President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden. Pennsylvania is among a group of competitive battleground states where this fall’s results could decide the presidency.

Although it voted Democratic in the six presidential elections prior to 2016, that election saw Republican Trump win the state by a razor-thin 48.58 per cent to 47.85 per cent for Hillary Clinton. It was one of three “blue wall” states (Michigan and Wisconsin were the others) Trump won on his way to the White House.

Pennsylvania’s two U.S. senators are divided by party, with Democrat Bob Casey Jr. and Republican Pat Toomey, making it one of nine states to have a split United States Senate delegation. There is no Senate race in the state this year,

In the House of Representatives, the 18-member delegation is also evenly split, with nine members from each party. The 13^th Congressional District is represented by John Joyce, a Republican. He is being challenged by Tom Rowley, the Democrat. With its white majority of 87 per cent, Joyce faces little opposition in this solidly Republican district.

In Pennsylvania, the president is trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr. in vote-rich Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, but statewide, Biden’s lead over Trump has dropped by 1.4 points.

The former Vice President now holds a small 49 per cent to 46 per cent lead over Trump among likely Pennsylvania voters, according to a recent AARP-commissioned public opinion survey.

Trump has pivoted to a “law and order” message in the state amid protests over racial injustice. The Republicans believe efforts to paint Biden as weak on crime will help Trump win back suburban voters, and especially women, who supported him in 2016 but have since soured on him.

To that end, Trump and his team have been paying frequent visits to the state as they work to build enthusiasm. “Trump is just on the wavelength of rural America in a way that previous Republicans were not,” remarked David Hopkins, an associate professor of political science at Boston College and the author of “Red Fighting Blue: How Geography and Electoral Rules Polarize American Politics.”

However, Biden appeals more to rural voters than Clinton did. He was born into a working-class Irish Catholic family in Scranton.

This month also saw two major developments that are a source of worry for Trump. A story published by the Atlantic magazine – a fiercely pro-Democratic publication – claimed that a few years ago on a European trip Trump called U.S. soldiers injured or killed in war “losers,” and questioned the country’s reverence for them.

Trump angrily denied the article’s claims, calling it a “disgrace.” He holds the military “in the highest regard,” White House spokeswoman Alyssa Farah said in response. “He’s demonstrated his commitment to them at every turn: delivering on his promise to give our troops a much needed pay raise, increasing military spending, signing critical veterans reforms, and supporting military spouses. This has no basis in fact.”

Then came the publication of veteran reporter Bob Woodward’s book “Rage.” An associate editor of the “Washington Post,” also a partisan newspaper supporting Biden in this election, Woodward interviewed Trump in January and asserts that the president knew the gravity of the coronavirus pandemic but downplayed its severity.

“I wanted to always play it down,” the president told him. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.” With close to 200,000 deaths by mid-September, this seems damning in retrospect.

Will these revelations change Trump’s level of support? Perhaps, though probably many of his backers will ignore the new information or even be critical of its release so close to the election. We shall see.

As it stands now, the 13^th district of Pennsylvania will remain in Trump’s column, and Joyce will retain his seat, but the state itself remains Biden’s to lose.

Guyana is Mired in Ethnic Conflict

By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

Guyana’s ethnic woes make it a difficult country to govern.

Guyana’s 780,000 people form what many social scientists have characterized as a plural society, a form of social organization found in some countries that were colonized by Western powers.

Africans were brought over as slaves to work the sugar plantations, later followed by Indians as indentured labour when slavery was abolished.

By transporting different peoples from various parts of the globe for economic reasons, the British created a segmented colonial society.

The two groups remained highly discrete racial, ethnic and cultural communities with minimal common values.

Even after the end of British colonial rule in 1966, this South American country remained one of deep cleavages, with no common religious, political or ideological institutions to bridge the chasm between the ethnic groups. They have no common normative or philosophical framework, and therefore no concept of moral obligation towards each other.

In effect, one group rules over another through political or even military force; and those who are dominated feel little sense of shared identity with the political system. This has been true since independence

Indo-Guyanese now account for 39.8 per cent of the population, followed by Afro-Guyanese at 29.2 per cent. Guyanese of mixed heritage make up 19.9 per cent while indigenous peoples are at 10.5 per cent. Afro-Guyanese are Christians, Indians mainly Hindu.

Plural societies, maintained M.G. Smith, a Jamaican social anthropologist who taught at Yale University, are “defined by dissensus and pregnant with conflict.” So politics becomes a zero-sum game.

Since independence Guyana has seen fierce political rivalry between the two main ethnically-based parties, one largely the vehicle for the Afro-Guyanese population, the other dominated by the descendants of South Asians from the Indian subcontinent.

The 2020 presidential proved no different. The election on March 2 pitted the 75-year-old incumbent David Granger, leader of the People’s National Congress (PNC), the party supported by the Black population, against 40-year-old Irfaan Ali of the South Asian-backed People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C). Granger had won the 2015 election against the PPP/C’s then incumbent, Donald Ramotar.

Granger declared victory days after the vote but the opposition alleged that the results had been inflated in Granger’s favour. Following allegations of vote tampering, a recount, and a lengthy legal battle, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) finally declared Ali as the winner on Aug. 2 – a full five months after the balloting.

The GECOM also announced that Ali’s party had won a narrow majority of 33 of the 65 seats in parliament, with Granger’s PNC-led but unwieldy A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change (APNU-AFC) winning 31 seats. Another group claimed the remaining seat.

The election was one of the most significant since Guyanese independence because of one of the largest new discoveries of oil in the world off the coast of the country, which could put Guyana among the top 10 oil producers in the world.

Production by Exxon Mobil in the offshore oil fields, estimated to contain at least eight billion barrels, started last December.

Each side feared the opposing party would exclude it from the oil riches and use the proceeds to cement its political power for decades. After all, the new president will be the one to administer the windfall resulting from the find.

As if there were not enough internal conflicts in the country, Guyana is also at odds with its neighbours, dating back to quarrels between rival imperial powers. Much of Guyana is claimed by Venezuela in the west and Suriname in the east.

The Guyana-Venezuela border largely follows the Schomburgk Line, so called after the German-born British naturalist and explorer who sketched it in 1840.

The Venezuelan authorities, however, have long maintained that the Essequibo River, not the Schomburgk Line, is their natural eastern border. This is no small matter: the area in between the line and the river is 159,000 square kilometres, or 62 per cent of Guyana’s territory.

Not only is Guyana’s western neighbor claiming most of the country, the nation on the other side, Suriname, claims the so-called New River Triangle in the southern part of both countries’ common border.

Not surprisingly, the border dispute with Venezuela has revived after the discovery of the offshore oil reserves.

Rivalries Flare Between Greece and Turkey

By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

Over recent weeks, tensions have been rising in the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean, prompted by what seems like a simple rivalry over energy resources.

Turkey has pursued an aggressive gas exploration effort, sending its seismic research vessel the Oruc Reis, heavily protected by warships of the Turkish Navy, into its waters. Turkey is also holding a military exercise off northwest Cyprus until Sept. 11.

Turkey and Greece have competing ambitions over gas reserves and they disagree profoundly over who has rights to key areas of the eastern Mediterranean. They have laid claim to overlapping areas, arguing they belong to their respective continental shelves.

Turkey has embraced a doctrine known as Blue Homeland (Mavi Vatan in Turkish), which aims to secure control of maritime areas surrounding its coasts.

But this conflict goes further than that. In fact, it’s part of one of the oldest “clash of civilizations” in history, dating back to the 15^th century, when the powerful Ottoman Turks, a Sunni Muslim people who had arrived in Anatolia, defeated the Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire, the centre of eastern Christianity.

Greece and the Balkan kingdoms would become subjects of the Ottoman Empire for centuries. Greece recovered its sovereignty in the 19^th century, though it didn’t regain all of its present-day territories until 1912.

A vicious war between the two countries following the First World War, with massive ethnic cleansing. Millions of Greeks fled mainland Turkey and Turks were expelled from Greek lands.

Meanwhile, the island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean, until 1960 a British colony, remained home to both groups. Upon receiving independence, Greek-Turkish enmity finally led to a Turkish invasion in 1974.

There, too, transfers of population followed, and the island is divided into a rump Greek-Cypriot state in the south, and a self-proclaimed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, guarded by Turkish troops, in the north.

Despite multiple diplomatic efforts over the decades, the Cyprus issue has proved as intractable as ever.

As well, since coming to power, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pursued a more aggressive foreign policy. So the tensions over energy have added a new element to a very old dispute.

The current quarrel has to do with Turkish claims to maritime territories in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Ankara contends that the many Greek islands off Turkey’s Aegean coast should be entitled only to a much reduced Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), a sea zone in which a sovereign state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources.

They nearly went to war in 1996 over uninhabited islands in the Aegean Sea. 

In late June, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu argued that it was unacceptable that the small island of Kastellorizo, which lies just off the Turkish mainland and is more than 500 kilometres from Athens, has a maritime jurisdiction area extending 370 kilometres in every direction.

Up until now, Greece and the Greek Cypriot government have refused to negotiate with Turkey on the maritime border issue. They insist that it has already been settled by international treaties.

So when the Oruc Reis left the port of Antalya on Aug. 10, as Ankara resumed searching for oil and gas near Kastellorizo, Greece accused Turkey of threatening peace in the eastern Mediterranean.

Turkey claimed that it is well within its rights to explore areas claimed by Cyprus and Greece. Ankara believes it is being treated unfairly and resents what it perceives as its exclusion from talks on energy discoveries in the Mediterranean.

The Greek Cypriots, along with Greece, Egypt, Israel, Italy, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority on Jan. 16 established the East Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF), creating a platform for natural gas cooperation.

The EMGF was a response to an accord signed between Turkey and Libya’s UN-recognized Government of National Accord last November, which Turkey says grants Ankara economic rights to a large part of the eastern Mediterranean, including areas Greece regards as its economic waters.

Turkey's foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, warned Greece on Aug. 26 that Ankara is ready to do “whatever is necessary” to protect its legitimate interests in the region.

Even if this is resolved, Greeks and Turks will find something else to quarrel about. They always do.

 

The Pandemic Propels Populists to Power

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

We know that nationalism, isolationism, xenophobia, and attacks on the liberal world order have been increasing for years. That trend will be accelerated by the pandemic.

Many governments have used the crisis to give themselves emergency powers, moving them still further away from democracy.

In late March, Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte rammed a bill through his country’s parliament that granted him vastly expanded emergency powers, ostensibly to fight the novel coronavirus.

The measure granting Duterte the new powers was approved by Philippine lawmakers using Zoom, the remote teleconferencing service, and put the country under a “state of national emergency.”

The bill authorized Duterte to reallocate the national budget as he saw fit and to personally direct hospitals. “Do not challenge the government,” he insisted in a televised address. “You will lose.”

However, Duterte failed to win approval to take over private companies and utilities, authority he had sought.

Also that month, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban pushed even more expansive emergency legislation through his parliament, enabling him to suspend existing laws, decree new ones, and arrest individuals deemed to be peddling “falsehoods” about the pandemic or “obstructing” the government’s efforts to fight it.

“He is using this crisis to further increase his power,” remarked András Bíró-Nagy, the director of the Budapest-based Policy Solutions think tank. “The Hungarian prime minister enjoys the situation where he can act as a captain in a crisis. I don’t see him giving up these powers again easily.”

Although parliament did lift this authorization in mid-June, the fact that it was ever in force in the first place is worrying. Hungary’s case demonstrates that populism can degenerate into arbitrary rule, and it should make observers suspicious of the democratic loyalties of populists in power.

Duterte’s and Orban’s COVID-19 power grabs were especially brazen, but they were far from the only attempts by authoritarian leaders or parties to use the current health crisis as an excuse to curtail civil liberties or undermine the rule of law.

Authoritarian regimes in Bangladesh, Belarus, Cambodia, China, Egypt, El Salvador, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Venezuela, and Vietnam have all detained critics, health workers, journalists, and opposition members during the pandemic.

Democracies that have lately come under assault, meanwhile, such as Brazil, India, and Poland, have seen populist leaders or ruling parties seize on the crisis to remove checks on their power or weaken the opposition.

Hybrid regimes, whose electoral mechanisms combine democratic and autocratic elements, are at risk of receding into electoral autocracies.

“In states of emergency, there may be a need to temporarily derogate from certain rights and procedures but any such measures need to be temporary, proportionate and absolutely necessary from a public health perspective,” contends Lydia Gall, an Eastern Europe researcher with Human Rights Watch.

Democracy was faltering globally even before the pandemic, as populism gained strength after the 2008 crash, with more and more jobs insecure and poorly paid.

For each of the past 14 years, according to Freedom House, which released its Freedom in the World 2020 report in March, more countries experienced an erosion of political rights and civil liberties than strengthened political rights and civil liberties.

People in 64 countries experienced deterioration in their political rights and civil liberties in 2019, while those in just 37 countries experienced improvements. Democracy has declined in 25 of the 41 established democracies since 2006. This has reversed the pattern of the preceding 15 post-Cold War years.

“The unchecked brutality of autocratic regimes and the ethical decay of democratic powers are combining to make the world increasingly hostile to fresh demands for better governance,” said Sarah Repucci, Freedom House vice president for research.

Also, according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an intergovernmental organization that supports democracy around the world, at least 70 countries and territories across the globe have postponed various elections and referenda due to COVID-19.

When societies reopen, continued large-scale unemployment and economic distress may well fuel more populism, whose advocates are ready to mobilize against an establishment that, they contend, has deprived people of their freedom and livelihoods at the same time.

 

Mozambique Targeted by Terrorists

By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

When you think about Islamic State terrorism, Mozambique isn’t a country that comes to mind. After all, it is in southern Africa, far from the Middle East.

Still, its location on the Indian Ocean, and the influence of Muslim traders, led to conversions to Islam over the decades. Today, about one-fifth of the country’s 30 million people are Muslim, and they predominate in the northern provinces. The rest of the country is mainly Christian.

This has led to attempts by militants to seize control of these areas. The region is far from Mozambique’s main central city of Beira and the capital, Maputo, in the far south.

Attacks began in the northernmost province of Cabo Delgado in 2017 and have rapidly gathered pace this year with insurgents seizing key towns for brief periods and increasingly hitting military or strategic targets.

That came after the group, known as Ahlu Sunnah Wa-Jama, pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS) last year, calling themselves an affiliate of its Central Africa Province. IS subsequently began claiming the local group’s attacks.

At least twice they have been spotted flying the black and white Islamic State flag and they have publicly declared their intention to turn Mozambique into a “caliphate.” Many are from the Kimwani people, who have suffered economic and social marginalization.

In 2010 a huge gas field was discovered off the coast. Overnight Mozambique became home to the fourth largest gas reserves in the world -- and became a target of Islamic insurgents.

The government hopes to reap as much as $100 billion in revenue over the next quarter-century from the projects being developed by French, American, Italian and other energy firms -- more than six times the current annual gross domestic product. Mozambique is still struggling to emerge from a 16-year civil war that ended in 1992 and badly needs the income.

In late March, insurgents captured the strategic and heavily-defended port in the far northern Mozambique town of Mocimboa da Praia. Two days later, they seized another important town, Quissanga.

It was one of several attacks on the port, 60 kilometres south of the projects It is used for cargo deliveries to the developments.

Rebel groups have also occupied villages more than 100 kilometres from the coastal capital, Pemba, before leaving under Mozambican Defence and Security Forces fire.

On Aug. 12, Islamic State claimed via its media channels to have taken over two military bases in the vicinity of Mocimboa da Praia, resulting in the deaths of a number of Mozambique soldiers and the capture of weaponry ranging from machine guns to rocket-propelled grenades.

Insurgents sank one of the French-made HSI32 interceptor boats Mozambique bought from the Abu Dhabi-based shipbuilder group Privinvest in the latest attack on the port.

The UN, in coordination with the Mozambican government, in early June requested US$35 million for a Rapid Response Plan for Cabo Delgado. Tanzania has also said it will launch an offensive against the jihadists in forests along the border with Mozambique.

The Brazilian-born Catholic bishop of Pemba on July 21 stated that the Cabo Delgado armed attacks have caused a humanitarian crisis affecting more than 700,000 people, almost one-third of the province’s population.

“The world still has no idea what is happening, because of indifference, and because it seems that we have already become accustomed to wars,” Bishop Luíz Fernando Lisboa said.

More than 1,500 people have died and another 250,000 have been displaced since the violence began. Several sub-contractors on the gas projects have been killed while outside the perimeter of their sites.

But the upsurge in brutal violence in northern Mozambique, including the beheadings of women and children, has now sounded alarms in the region.

Observers say the evolution of the insurgency in Mozambique is remarkably similar to Boko Haram’s emergence in northern Nigeria, with a marginalised group exploiting local grievances, terrorising many communities, but also offering an alternative path for unemployed youths frustrated by a corrupt, neglectful and heavy-handed state.

Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi has called these “heinous crimes,” but the solution to the conflict lies in good governance, and an attempt to address deep-seated economic and social grievances, including a share of any future gas revenues for those living in the region.