The second cyclone to strafe Mozambique this season has put about 160,000 people at risk, with raging floods already threatening to cut off the northern region’s main city and days of torrential rain in the weather forecast.
“It’s an awful sense of déjà vu,” said Nicholas Finney, response team leader with the aid group Save the Children, describing the stunned reaction to Cyclone Kenneth, which blasted the southern African nation just six weeks after flooding caused by Cyclone Idai killed more than 600 people.
It’s the first time in recorded history that two cyclones are hitting Mozambique in the same season, raising concerns about the impact of climate change on such weather events, the Associated Press reported. But of more immediate concern are the fears that twice as much rain could fall in Kenneth’s aftermath as fell during Idai.
The government said more than 160,000 people have been affected in the largely rural region, while more than 35,000 homes in Mozambique’s northernmost province of Cabo Delgado were damaged or destroyed.
It was a sunny and beautiful Friday morning
in the Port Elizabeth (South Africa) suburb of Saint Albans. It was a special
national holiday. All South Africans (regardless of race) were going to the
polls to elect a new president for the first time in the 500+ year history of
the country.
I was going through hard times
financially. I had a low-level clerical government job. I did not own a car. I
lived in a humble apartment with two other men. I only had a good diet because
my job was working at a center for military, police, and prison services
personnel. I got to eat in the officer’s mess. The food was quite decent.
Despite my humble circumstances, a
brand-new 3 Series BMW sedan pulled up at my apartment building. A well-dressed
captain in the South African army stepped out of the car. He walked to the door
of my apartment and knocked. When I opened the door, he told me that he had
been sent to take me to the polls to vote. (How I got this VIP treatment will
be the subject of a blog post tomorrow.)
I followed him to the BMW and got in on the
passenger side. There was great fear on this beautiful and sunny day. Major
violence and disruption had been predicted. As we drove through the streets of
Saint Albans, soldiers and police lined the streets. Despite all this tension,
there was a feeling of relaxation, hope, and confidence.
When we arrived at the polling place, the
captain came with me to the place where voters were checked in and given their
ballot. I presented my South African National ID book. The captain vouched for
me with election officials. I was given a two-page paper ballot. It had the
pictures of all candidates by the place to cast one’s vote. This was because so
many of the voters were illiterate and could not read and write.
I went to a polling station. I made my decision
and cast my vote. The captain drove me back to my apartment. Throughout South
Africa that day, there were sporadic and infrequent episodes of violence. No
charges were ever made of election tampering or voter fraud.
A little before midnight, Nelson Mandela was
declared the winner. There was euphoria all over South Africa. Parties were
going on everywhere. (Take my word for it, no one knows how to give a party
like South Africans!) For me the most touching moment of this election euphoria
was when a black woman was being interviewed on The South African Broadcasting
Commission. She said these words: “Finally they will start treating us like
adults and stop treating us like children!”
On that day I was part of an incredible
moment in history that was watched all over the world. I was honored to have
been allowed to vote. I was delighted to see a fair election with little
violence or intimidation. State President FW de Klerk conceded in a most-kind
manner.
I now have the benefit of 25 years to look
back on that day and what followed. Nelson Mandela went on to serve 5 years as
president. He exceeded all my expectations. The two men who came after him as
president were huge disappointments. At the time of the election 25 years ago,
South Africa was the economic power house of the African continent with 40% of
the continent’s gross domestic product. Now South Africa has the number three
economy in Africa with Nigeria being #1 and Egypt being #2.
Some progress has been made to alleviate
the huge disparity in comes and wealth that existed between the 15% white
minority and the 85% majority of color. The unemployment rate is still above
27%. Corruption is rampant. Crime rates are high. The new president, Cyril
Ramaphosa is honest and sincere. He has a hard challenge to overcome.
South Africa has not achieved what I had
hoped for it 25 years ago. But it is not a failed state either.
The tiny West African country exported more than a million slaves to the United States and elsewhere centuries ago. On the country’s coast stands the Door of No Return, a moving memorial at the port where slaves once embarked on the torturous Middle Passage.
After gaining independence from France in the 1960s, Benin struggled through military coups and authoritarianism. In 1991, democracy emerged. Voters twice re-elected former dictator Mathieu Kérékou, but the political system nonetheless thrived. In the last parliamentary election four years ago, voters could choose between 20 parties.
Sadly, that democracy is now under threat.
Citing technicalities under new reforms, election officials recently ruled that only two parties can run in parliamentary elections on April 28, reported the Mail & Guardian, a South African newspaper. Both parties happen to be allied to President Patrice Talon, a cotton and shipping tycoon. No opposition candidates are standing for office.
Protests have flared up, but security forces have quashed them. Talon stationed troops, paramilitary forces and military vehicles throughout the country, including around the headquarters of the opposition Benin Rebirth Party.
The military is not the only way Talon appears to be consolidating power. Last month, the Tanzania-based African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights ruled that Benin mistreated former presidential candidate Sebastien Ajavon, a poultry magnate who lost to Talon in 2016.
As Bloomberg explained, after Ajavon lost the election, authorities found 40 pounds of cocaine in a shipping container of imported turkey gizzards in one of his companies and charged him with drug trafficking. He claimed he was being framed and now lives in exile in France.
Those moves led critics to charge that Talon was planning a power grab. “Talon’s plan is to revise the constitution as he pleases,” said Corneille Nonhemi, a young activist who had wanted to run for parliament as a candidate under Ajavon’s Social Liberal Union.
Talon countered that the new election rules were designed to encourage around 250 opposition parties to coalesce into two or three groups.
Former President Thomas Boni Yayi, who backed Ajavon in 2016, has called on Talon to postpone the election, wrote Agence France-Presse.
Beninese opposition leaders have also called on Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, the current chairman of the Economic Community of West African States, to intervene. “Nigeria has over 800 kilometers (of) land border with Benin Republic and principally stands to suffer the consequences of any political instability in Benin,” Jean Adèkambi, a leader in a coalition of opposition groups, said in the Nation, a Nigerian newspaper.
Hopefully, foreign military intervention won’t be necessary. Sometimes, as in The Gambia, the threat is enough.
Gold worth billions smuggled out of Africa: Billions of dollars' worth of gold is being smuggled out of Africa every year through the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East – a gateway to markets in Europe, the United States and beyond – a Reuters analysis has found. Customs data shows that the UAE imported $15.1-billion worth of gold from Africa in 2016, more than any other country and up from $1.3-billion in 2006. The total weight was 446 t, in varying degrees of purity – up from 67 t in 2006.
Mali’s prime minister and entire government resigned on Thursday, a month after the massacre of an estimated 160 Fulani herders by an ethnic vigilante group, and following the largest protests in decades.
A statement from the president’s office accepting the resignation provided no explanation as to why Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga was stepping down, but the move came a day after legislators mulled a no-confidence motion in response to the government’s failure to stop ethnic militias and Islamist militants, Reuters reported.
Malian authorities have detained five people suspected of taking part in the massacre. Even so, Maiga and President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita have failed to disarm the militia that many believe organized it in spite of promises to do so.
On March 23, men believed to be from the ethnic Dogon hunter community massacred ethnic Fulani herders in the central Mali village of Ogossagou, following a jihadist attack on an army post claimed by an al Qaeda affiliate that includes many Fulani members.
Mali has for years struggled with internal fighting and terrorism. The deteriorating political situation now jeopardizes reforms the government had pledged to implement this year – a process key to the country’s stability – including the agreement for peace and national reconciliation, South Africa’s Daily Maverick reported.
France on Thursday refuted claims by the internationally recognized government of Libya that Paris had thrown its support behind Khalifa Haftar – the military leader whose Libyan National Army (LNA) is fighting to take over Tripoli.
Earlier, the Libyan interior ministry said it had suspended relations between the ministry and the French due to the position of the French government in support of the “criminal” Haftar, France 24 reported.
A French foreign ministry official called the accusations “disappointing” and “completely unfounded,” while the French presidency said in a statement that it supported Libya’s internationally recognized government under Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj and was in favor of a political solution to the conflict.
While France has supported Sarraj’s Tripoli government in the past, there may also be a pragmatic interest in Haftar – who enjoys the support of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates because they see the general as a bulwark against Islamist militancy.
Meanwhile, the battle for Tripoli rages on, with the death toll now reaching 205 after two weeks of fighting, the World Health Organization said.
Widespread demonstrations, followed by the loss of military support, forced former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who’s 82 and seriously ailing, to resign earlier this month after 20 years in power.
Interim President Abdelkader Bensalah has scheduled a new election for July 4, reported Al Jazeera. But the protesters and others who helped bring an end to Bouteflika’s harsh, corrupt rule still aren’t satisfied.
“The old invalid is gone, but if Algeria is to move to ‘the better future’ that Mr. Bouteflika … wrote about in his resignation letter, then much bigger changes are needed,” the Economist wrote.
Bensalah, 77, was in the sights of protesters who took to the streets in recent days demanding an end to “Le Pouvoir” – French for “the power,” meaning the establishment class. Under the law, he can’t run for re-election. He was a Bouteflika ally, however, associated with a group of leaders who have run the country since fighting to end French colonial rule in the 1960s.
“Algerians refuse all the old figures who are at the root of the corruption that prevailed in the country,” civil activist Messaoud Boudiba told Bloomberg, adding that he was skeptical Bensalah could hold a fair and legitimate ballot. “Elections under current conditions means reproducing the same political system because there will be no evidence of transparency,” according to Algiers University political analyst Louisa Aid Hamadouche.
Many Algerians also fear the military might seek to step into the vacuum left after Bouteflika and his cronies pass into history.
Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah was instrumental in ending the president’s tenure in office, for example. But he has recently spoken on political topics, like how he supported elections, and mused about whether Bouteflika’s cabal might face prosecution, the Washington Post reported. That’s not exactly an apolitical stance.
Indeed, Middle East Monitor noted that one of the few serious candidates for the July 4 election is an ex-general.
The military has run the country before, Foreign Affairs explained. In fact, Bouteflika took office to bring an end to the so-called “dark decade” that began in 1992, when the army canceled the country’s first multiparty legislative elections to prevent an Islamist victory, triggering a civil war that ended with the Islamists mostly vanquished.
Taking office in 1999, Bouteflika promised “national reconciliation” after the bloodshed. In a resignation letter released after he stepped down on April 2, he asked the Algerian people for forgiveness, imploring them “to stay united, and never divide yourselves.”
His friends and his former generals should read that letter very, very closely.
The military council that took over Sudan following the ouster of longtime President Omar al-Bashir said Sunday it would select a civilian prime minister and cabinet, but not a president.
In a nod to protesters that have been agitating for change since December, army spokesman Lt. Gen. Shamseldin Kibashi said in a televised address that the military would not disperse the protests that have continued outside the military headquarters since Thursday’s coup, the Associated Press reported.
However, the protest leaders are calling for an immediate handover to a transitional civilian government, a freeze on the assets of top officials in Bashir’s government and the dismissal of all top judges and prosecutors, among other tough demands.
On Sunday, the military council also replaced the heads of the army and the police and the powerful National Intelligence and Security Service and formed committees to fight corruption and investigate Bashir’s party, the BBC reported. The military council also lifted restrictions on the media and released police and security officers who had been detained for supporting the protesters.
At least 14 anti-government protesters were killed in Sudan Tuesday as security personnel loyal to President Omar al-Bashir fired tear gas, rubber bullets and live rounds into the crowd gathered for a mass sit-in outside the army headquarters in the capital, Khartoum.
Since the latest protests began Saturday, a total of 22 people have been killed, including five soldiers who were defending the protesters, the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) saidin a statement, Al Jazeera reported. More than 60 people have been killed since the broader movement began, according to activists.
The government put the death toll from the latest round of protests at seven people.
Sparked by rising bread prices in December, the protests early on morphed into calls for the ouster of al-Bashir, who has ruled Sudan for three decades. More recently, protesters and the opposition Sudanese Congress Party (SCP) have called on the country’s military leadership to join in their push for the establishment of a transitional government.
On Monday, however, Sudan’s defense minister suggested such a move would not be coming anytime soon.
The battle for Tripoli is heating up in Libya as the eastern Libyan National Army (LNA) forces of Khalifa Haftar ignore international appeals for a truce.
Haftar’s army said 19 of its soldiers died in recent days as they advanced on the capital to attempt to unseat the internationally recognized government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, Reutersreported. Meanwhile, fighting in the south of the capital has killed at least 25 people, including fighters and civilians, and wounded 80, according to a spokesman for the Tripoli-based Health Ministry.
Haftar’s forces also bombed the country’s only functioning airport on Monday, though a spokesman for the rebels claimed they had not targeted civilian aircraft.
The surge in fighting comes amid preparations for a United Nations-brokered conference April 14-16 to map out elections and attempt to end the chaos that has plagued Libya since the ouster and killing of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Dying days for the dictatorship?Protests against the rule of Omar al-Bashir in Sudan are growing
With the army looking ready to fracture, the risk of more violence is growing
Middle East and Africa
THE SCRIPT goes like this. First, the government cuts subsidies on basic goods such as bread, sparking riots. Middle-class people, including doctors and university lecturers, then take to the streets of the capital, Khartoum, spearheading a national uprising against military dictatorship. The regime responds by deploying police and security forces. Civilians are arrested and beaten; some are killed. But after months of confrontation even the army joins the protests, as a group of generals announce the formation of a new interim government. The president, all out of luck, ends up in exile.
That was how events unfolded in 1985, the year of Sudan’s previous democratic revolution, which led to the overthrow of Gaafar Nimeiry and elections soon after. And it is a template that today’s protesters across Sudan are determined to follow. On April 6th, the anniversary of Nimeiry’s overthrow, tens of thousands followed a call by the Sudanese Professionals Association—a coalition of trade unions including those representing engineers, lawyers and journalists—to join protests against their strongman president, Omar al-Bashir. They called on him to step down, urging the army to join their struggle. It was the largest demonstration since unrest began in December in response to rising food prices. What has happened since suggests the four-month long uprising against Mr Bashir’s 30 year-old kleptocracy has entered its most crucial phase.
Demonstrators are now camped outside the headquarters of the armed forces and Mr Bashir’s current residence in unprecedented numbers. Teams of volunteers distribute supplies such as food, water and mattresses. On April 7th dozens of protests took place across the Sudanese capital, with car tyres set alight, and some roads and bridges blocked. That evening came reports of guns being fired towards people gathered outside the army compound; a second attempt to clear the sit-in took place in the early hours of April 8th. But it continues to swell. “We are in the midst of a fully fledged revolution now,” says Muhamed Osman, a political analyst in the capital.
There are signs that some elements within the armed forces are beginning to move against the president and his cohorts. Navy officers exchanged fire with members of Mr Bashir’s notorious spy agency and paramilitary forces when they tried to chase people away with tear gas and live ammunition. Soldiers have been spotted chanting with protesters. A video on social media shows some servicemen distributing bottles of water to demonstrators from army trucks. Another appears to show them firing into the sky in order to protect cheering civilians. Though it is unclear how widespread such actions might be, it suggests a rupture between the top brass, who have yet to disown the president, and the rank-and-file soldiers, many of whom count family members among the protesters. “They are trying to give them the maximum protection they can,” says Ahmed Elyas, an engineer.
This puts the president, and the country, in a dangerous position. Thousands have been arrested and at least 50 people killed since December. In February Mr Bashir declared a nationwide state of emergency, dissolved the government and replaced all 18 state governors with men from the armed forces or security service. In March he agreed to step down as head of the ruling National Congress Party, but he has yet to confirm he will not run for re-election in 2020. Mr Bashir, and some of those closest to him, fear prosecution for alleged atrocities. He has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for genocide and crimes against humanity in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region. “The army is beginning to fracture as an intransigent leader digs in,” says Abdi Rashid of the International Crisis Group. “The prospects of major violence are now more real than ever.”
Events in Sudan will be watched nervously by Mr Bashir’s fellow Arab leaders, who fear a second phase of the Arab spring that swept away several of them in 2011. Protesters in Algeria have recently forced the resignation of their ailing president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Who might be next?
