The violence in Djibouti comes days after the US Navy convened 15-nation military maneuvers in the country’s waters, ostensibly designed to help East African nations in fighting piracy, drug trafficking and illegal fishing. The two-week Cutlass Express 2021 exercise includes maritime forces from Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Madagascar, the Comoros, Mauritius, and Seychelles as well as India and the United Kingdom. (Stars & Stripes)

Map: ISS Africa

The Sri Lanka naval deal was announced along with a donation of new patrol boats to the Philippines, part of growing Chinese military aid to Manila. This relationship comes despite Manila's claim to China-held islands in the South China Sea. 

China has also gained access to facilities in the Maldives, Seychelles and Oman as part of the maritime component of its Silk Road trade and infrastructure initiative (also dubbed the Belt and Road Initiative). The Pakistani port of Gwadar has also been incorporated into the Maritime Silk Road, as China is investing in the strategic TAPI pipeline project through Pakistan. To secure these interests, Islamabad has allowed Chinese military forces into the Himalayan territory of Gilgit.

Similarly, in addition to developing port terminals in Burma under the Silk Road project, China has established a military listening post in Burma's Coco Islands. Leaders in Bangladesh have gone to great pains to emphasize that there is no militayr component to China's Silk Road port facility under contstruction in Chittagong.

While the Silk Road is an ostensibly civilian project, China has also established its first foreign military base at Djibouti, leading Western wonks to warn that Beijing is seeking a "string of pearls" network of bases across the Indian Ocean. (SCMP, SCMP, SCMP, NYT, The Diplomat, The Diplomat, Nikkei Asian Review, China Daily, Daily Star, Bangladesh, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi)

Map via CIMSEC

The leaks reveal that a top financier of the Fujimori campaign set up offshore accounts in the British Virgin Islands and Seychelles through Mossack Fonseca. The financier, Jorge Yoshiyama Sasaki is the son of the elder Fujimori’s dictatorship-era cabinet minister Jaime Yoshiyama Tanaka. The younger Yoshiyama Sasaki and his wife Joon Lim Lee Park funneled over $113,000 into Fujimori’s 2011 and 2016 presidential campaigns. The elder Yoshiyama Tanaka has also been implicated in offshore money laundering, and is also one of Keiko Fujimori’s key financial supporters.

Another candidate, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (Peruanos Por el Kambio), apparently signed off on a recommendation for an associate to set up a Panamanian shell company. Kuczynski, a former minister in the presidency of Alejandro Toledo, is tied for second place with leftist candidate Veronika Mendoza (Frente Amplio). Ex-president  Toledo himself is also running (with Perú Posible), although trailing badly—and is likewise implicated in the Panama revelations. His former advisor Cesar Almeyda—who briefly served as President Toledo’s intelligence chief in 2003—apparently set up an offshore account through Mossack Fonseca as director of the company Trei Investments Corp.

Finally, candidate and former president Alan García (APRA)—also trailing badly—is linked to the offshore scandal through two confidants, his business partner Jaime Carbajal Pérez and his former cabinet minister Hernan Garrido Lecca. (TeleSur, RPP)

Keiko Fujimori was already facing charges of fraud before the Panama revelations. On March 24, the Special Electoral Jury (JEE) rejected a petition to have her candidacy annulled for attempted vote-buying through monies distributed at her campaign rallies.  (La Mula)

In the last debate before the election, Fujimori faced off April 3 with the above candidates, as well as two more from the left: Miguel Hilario (Progresando Perú), an Oxford-trained Shipibo-Conibo indigenous leader; and Gregorio Santos (Democracia Directa), president of Cajamarca region. Santos, imprisoned while corruption charges are pending against him, was given a special furlough to attend the debate. (RPP, El Comercio, LivingInPeru)

Namibia’s President Hage Geingob is said to have discussed the idea in a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a China-Africa summit in Johannesburg last week. Geingob was nailed on the rumors by the BBC’s quaintly aggressive HardTalk program. Geingob responded somewhat equivocally, stating that such a decision “would not be done in secret.” He added that it would be considered “if the Chinese come to us with a proposal, like everyone else does… Americans asked for the same thing, we did not decide on any of them.” (New Era, Namibia, Mail & Guardian Africa, SA, Dec. 9) But the US embassy Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, promptly issued a statement denying that any such request had been made. (New Era, Dec. 11)

Xi Jinping did pledge to deepen cooperation with Namibia in infrastructure and development in his meeting with Geingob. These seem to mostly concern expansion of operations at Swakop Uranium’s Husab mine. Swakop Uranium is majority-owned by parastatal China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Corp. (New Era, Namibia, Dec. 7) Authorities are taking harsh measures to head off labor unrest at the Husab facility. Last month, 350 workers at the mine were dismissed after a court ruled their strike illegal. (Namibia Economist, Dec. 4; Africa Intelligence, Dec. 1)

Five years ago, it was reported that China was seeking a naval base in Seychelles, to combat Indian Ocean piracy.