Eritrea’s Gold Rush

Leading Horn of Africa expert Charlotte Touati exposes the role played by Canadian gold mining company Nevsun and other global actors in propping up the regime of Isayas Aferwerki, one of Africa's most dangerous dictators. In so doing, Touati shows how global capital networks help perpetuate economic and political instability in the Horn of Africa, which in turn is fostering violence and instability throughout other parts of the world.

Using a narrative framework and a core cast of characters to help guide non-specialist readers through her findings, Touati explains the enormous significance of how Nevsun partnered with the Aferwerki to open the Bisha gold mine and save his regime from bankruptcy. As Touati relates, when Eritrean refugees later claimed they were "conscripted" to work in the mines without pay as part of their National Service, Nevsun hired lobbyists to defend Eritrea's actions and cast the very notion of human rights as a Western "Trojan horse." Australian, Chinese, and Russian actors gradually became involved, and philological analysis shows that the propaganda and disinformation campaigns of the infamous Russian Wagner Group ultimately stem from the rhetoric of Afewerki and his lobbyists, this likely thanks largely to Australian intermediaries.

Ultimately, such violently anti-Western rhetoric is not only fuelling Wagner's role in the Tigrayan war, but also igniting new conflict throughout the Sahel and the rest of Africa's infamous "Coup Belt." It takes on even wider global dimensions when we consider the ongoing crisis around the Red Sea ports, which Eritrea controls, and the question of the influence of the Gulf States in the Horn of Africa.