El País Más Estratégico del Mundo: Djibouti y el Hombre que No Se Va

And there's a complexity here that I think often gets lost in the western press.

Djibouti is a genuinely diverse country, ethnically speaking.

You have the Issa Somalis, the Afar people, and a significant Yemeni Arab population.

Managing those tensions isn't trivial, and Guelleh's defenders would say he's kept the country stable while neighbors collapsed.

Bueno, Somalia está al lado.

Well, Somalia is right next door.

Etiopía está al lado.

Ethiopia is right next door.

Eritrea está al lado.

Eritrea is right next door.

Todos estos países tuvieron guerras terribles.

All these countries had terrible wars.

Djibouti no tuvo una guerra civil.

Djibouti didn't have a civil war.

Para muchos ciudadanos, eso es muy importante.

For many citizens, that matters a great deal.

The stability argument.

I've heard it about a dozen authoritarian leaders across three continents, and it always makes me uncomfortable, because it's not entirely wrong.

That's the problem with it.

Mira, la estabilidad es real, pero el precio también es real.

Look, the stability is real, but the price is real too.

Djibouti tiene muchos problemas: pobreza, desempleo, mucha corrupción.

Djibouti has many problems: poverty, unemployment, a lot of corruption.

El cuarenta por ciento de la población vivió con menos de dos dólares al día.

Forty percent of the population lived on less than two dollars a day.

So the port is busy, the bases are humming, the rents from foreign militaries are flowing in, and a significant portion of the population is still deeply poor.

The geography generates wealth, but the question of who captures that wealth is political.

Exacto.

Exactly.

Y la oposición criticó esto muchas veces.

And the opposition criticized this many times.

Dijo que el gobierno usó el dinero de las bases militares para sí mismo, no para la gente.

It said the government used the money from the military bases for itself, not for the people.

Let me ask you something.

The China angle here is fascinating to me.

China built its first ever overseas military base in Djibouti, in 2017.

Now we're in the middle of this Iran war, the Red Sea has been a conflict zone for two years with Houthi attacks on shipping.

Does Guelleh's position become more or less secure in that environment?

A ver, más seguro.

Well, more secure.

Cuando el mundo es más peligroso, Djibouti es más necesario.

When the world is more dangerous, Djibouti is more necessary.

Todos los países grandes necesitaron la base militar más que antes.

All the major countries needed the military base more than before.

Nadie quiso perturbar a Guelleh.

Nobody wanted to upset Guelleh.

Right, so the regional crisis is actually an insurance policy for him.

That's a dark kind of logic but it tracks.

The worse things get in the Strait of Hormuz, the more indispensable the Bab-el-Mandeb becomes.

Es que también hay algo importante sobre la relación con China.

There's also something important about the relationship with China.

China invirtió mucho dinero en Djibouti, no solo la base militar.

China invested a lot of money in Djibouti, not just the military base.

Construyó el puerto, construyó el tren entre Djibouti y Etiopía.

It built the port, it built the railway between Djibouti and Ethiopia.

Djibouti le debe mucho dinero a China.

Djibouti owes a lot of money to China.

The debt trap question.

There were serious analysts, including people at the Pentagon, who looked at Djibouti's debt to China and worried that if the country couldn't repay, China could effectively take control of the port.

That's not a hypothetical, that happened in Sri Lanka with Hambantota.

La verdad es que Guelleh usó la competencia entre China y Estados Unidos de forma muy inteligente.

The truth is that Guelleh used the competition between China and the United States in a very intelligent way.

Cuando los americanos dijeron "tienes demasiada deuda con China", él respondió: "Pues, denme más dinero vosotros."

When the Americans said 'you have too much debt with China,' he responded: 'Well, give me more money yourselves.'

[laughs] That is a genuinely masterful negotiating position.

I mean, playing superpowers against each other while sitting on the world's most important maritime chokepoint.

He's not wrong.

Bueno, es inteligente para Guelleh.

Well, it's smart for Guelleh.

Pero la pregunta es si es bueno para los ciudadanos de Djibouti.

But the question is whether it's good for the citizens of Djibouti.

Ellos votaron ayer, pero la oposición no tuvo mucho espacio para hacer campaña.

They voted yesterday, but the opposition didn't have much space to campaign.

Look, that's the thing I keep coming back to.

There were opposition candidates.

The election happened.

But Human Rights Watch and others documented restrictions on the press, restrictions on assembly, and a political opposition that operates with very limited resources against a ruling party that controls the state apparatus.

It's technically an election.

Is it meaningfully democratic?

That's a harder question.

Mira, en 2013 y en 2016, la oposición protestó después de las elecciones porque creyó que hubo fraude.

Look, in 2013 and in 2016, the opposition protested after the elections because it believed there was fraud.

En 2016, la policía arrestó a algunos líderes de la oposición después de las protestas.

In 2016, the police arrested some opposition leaders after the protests.

So the pattern is: election happens, result is challenged, protests occur, state responds with force.

That's not unique to Djibouti, but it tells you something about how the system manages dissent.

A ver, hay que decir también que la Unión Africana y la Liga Árabe observaron las elecciones en el pasado.

Well, it must also be said that the African Union and the Arab League observed the elections in the past.

Sus evaluaciones fueron más positivas que las de las organizaciones occidentales de derechos humanos.

Their assessments were more positive than those of western human rights organizations.

And that gap in assessments is itself a geopolitical story.

The definition of what counts as a legitimate election is contested terrain.

Western liberal democracies have one standard, and a lot of African Union member states are governed by people who would rather not apply that standard too strictly.

Es que este debate es muy viejo en África.

This debate is very old in Africa.

Muchos líderes africanos dijeron que las democracias occidentales usaron las elecciones como un instrumento de presión política, no como una preocupación genuina por los ciudadanos.

Many African leaders said that western democracies used elections as an instrument of political pressure, not as genuine concern for citizens.

No, you're absolutely right about that.

And they're not entirely wrong, either.

The United States maintained warm relations with Guelleh for twenty years because of Camp Lemonnier, the US base there.

You can't spend two decades cozy with someone and then give a credible speech about democratic values.

Exacto.

Exactly.

Y esto es algo que los ciudadanos de Djibouti entienden perfectamente.

And this is something the citizens of Djibouti understand perfectly.

Vieron cómo los americanos, los franceses, los chinos, todos vivieron bien con Guelleh.

They saw how the Americans, the French, the Chinese, everyone lived comfortably with Guelleh.

Entonces, cuando alguien habló de democracia, la gente no escuchó con mucha confianza.

So when someone talked about democracy, people didn't listen with much trust.

Here's what interests me about the longer arc.

Guelleh is seventy-eight.

He's been doing this for twenty-seven years.

At some point there's going to be a succession question, and Djibouti has no practice with peaceful transfers of power.

That's not a small thing.

Bueno, en el país hay rumores sobre su familia, sobre personas dentro del partido que quieren el poder.

Well, in the country there are rumors about his family, about people inside the party who want power.

Cuando un líder muy fuerte envejece, la lucha interna empieza siempre.

When a very strong leader grows old, the internal struggle always begins.

Pasó en otros países africanos.

It happened in other African countries.

And that internal struggle, in a country where the US, France, China, Japan, and Italy all have military assets, could get very complicated very quickly.

The outside powers would have strong interests in who comes next.

Each one probably has a preferred candidate already.

Sí, y por eso este sexto mandato de Guelleh es interesante no solo para hoy, sino para el futuro.

Yes, and that's why this sixth term of Guelleh's is interesting not just for today, but for the future.

Él no habló mucho en público sobre quién lo va a reemplazar.

He hasn't spoken much in public about who will replace him.

Eso crea mucha incertidumbre.

That creates a lot of uncertainty.

So to pull this together: yesterday, most of the world shrugged at a small country holding an election where the incumbent was virtually certain to win.

But that small country controls one of the most critical maritime passages on earth, sits at the intersection of US and Chinese strategic competition, and faces an uncertain future when its long-serving leader eventually leaves.

Djibouti is not a footnote.

It's a pressure point.

Mira, eso es exactamente correcto.

Look, that's exactly right.

Y la próxima vez que leas sobre el Mar Rojo, sobre los barcos, sobre la guerra en Oriente Medio, piensa en este pequeño país en el Cuerno de África.

And the next time you read about the Red Sea, about the ships, about the war in the Middle East, think about this small country in the Horn of Africa.

Djibouti siempre está allí, en el centro de todo.

Djibouti is always there, right at the center of everything.