Sudan: Of Zebras And Stripes

SUDAN

Of Zebras and Stripes

In January, during his last month in office, former President Barack Obama temporarily lifted the economic sanctions on Sudan that had been in place for 20 years.

Obama’s rapprochement with the delinquent and violent regime of longtime President Omar al-Bashir was deemed a reward for the president’s “positive actions,” the Economist notes.

Sudan cooperated with the United States in its fight against global terrorism, sought to end its wars with rebels in the country’s west and south, and allowed aid workers to reach destitute civilians in conflict zones.

But with a new American president at the helm, a decision must be made about the permanence of normalizing relations with Sudan and its president. It begs the question: Can a zebra really change its stripes?

Many remain skeptical – and for good reason.

President Bashir seized power in Sudan in 1989 in a coup against a democratically elected government. He then proceeded to ban political parties and consolidate power through a series of sham elections and intimidation campaigns, the BBC reports.

Bashir’s crackdown on rebel groups in the western region of Darfur resulted in the systematic murder of hundreds of thousands of non-Arabs and perpetuated a drastic humanitarian crisis that continues today. Bashir is now wanted by the International Criminal Court for orchestrating genocide in Darfur. Many see his actions as simply unforgivable.

At the same time, some are starting to recognize Sudan as a potential partner for regional stability. Khartoum once helped smuggle weapons into Gaza vis-à-vis Iran, but diplomatic relations with Tehran have since cooled. Sudan now says it wants to normalize relations with Israel, Haaretz reports.

The United Nations also believes that Darfur, while still fragile, is reaching a point of stability. It announced in June that it will withdraw more than one-third of the nearly 19,000 peacekeepers it has in the region, the New York Times reports.

Still, human rights activists say that below the surface nothing has changed.

Last year President Bashir’s regime was accused of using chemical weapons against Darfuris. In an open letter to the Guardian, Niemat Ahmadi, president and founder of the Darfur Women Action Group, wrote that Sudanese forces continue to pillage Darfuri villages, rape women and reallocate stolen land to Khartoum loyalists.

And while Darfuri rebel factions have come to the table to negotiate peace with Khartoum, they fear that campaigns to demilitarize Darfur could leave the region at the president’s mercy, AllAfrica.com reports.

The Trump administration’s opinion on Darfur is still unclear: The White House recently pushed back a decision on whether to permanently end sanctions against Khartoum.

But with inflation on the rise and the Sudanese economy grinding to a halt, the White House needs to decide whether the zebra really has changed its stripes – or whether pretending to see a new pattern is in the best interest of both nations.

WANT TO KNOW

Kenya-Challenges And Consequences

KENYA

Challenges and Consequences

Opposition presidential candidate Raila Odinga challenged the results of the recent election in Kenya’s Supreme Court on Monday.

Odinga’s lawyers said there were discrepancies in some of the election forms, others lacked bar codes and other security features meant to prevent documents from being copied, and many of the election officers lacked the proper credentials, the local Standard newspaper reported.

Kenyan election authorities say President Uhuru Kenyatta was re-elected by a margin of around 1.4 million votes, and independent monitors said those numbers matched estimates they made based on a sample of around 2,000 polling stations.

But Odinga’s supporters say the problems they’ve identified mean that the results from around a third of the polling stations are flawed.

At least 28 people were killed in election-related violence following the August 8 polls, many of them shot by police during protests after the results were announced, Reuters reported.

The court must rule on the challenge by Sept. 1. If it rules in favor of Raila, a new presidential election must be held within 60 days.

DISCOVERIES

Politics Loom Large In Investor Decisions About South Africa

http://www.fin24.com/markets/equities/politics-looms-large-as-foreigners-cut-sa-stock-bets-20170828?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Fin24|AMUpdate&utm_term=www.fin24.com/markets/equities/politics-looms-large-as-foreigners-cut-sa-stock-bets-20170828

Some Wonderful Humor

Venezuela: Fight Or Flight

VENEZUELA

Fight or Flight

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro thumbed his nose at the prospect of more US sanctions and said he’s seeking an international arrest warrant for former Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz, who fled the country last week.

“I have prepared a set of decisions and measures to defend us against commercial, financial or oil blockades that Donald Trump will decree,” Bloomberg quoted Maduro as saying.

Ortega and her husband fled to Colombia to avoid what they claim are politically motivated charges at home. A former Maduro loyalist, Ortega began opposing him earlier this year and sought to stop the elections for the controversial Constituent Assembly – which was formed on July 30 to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution in the face of the threat of a crippling US oil embargo.

She’s now set to address a meeting of the regional economic group Mercosur in Brazil, where she claims she will “show the world proof that will incriminate President Nicolas M

Angola-Follow The Leader

ANGOLA

Follow the Leader

Angolans go to the polls Wednesday to elect their next president and parliament. But what they are actually doing is writing a new chapter in the history of their young country.

Here’s the obvious change: Africa’s second-longest-serving leader, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, is stepping down after 37 years, a period defined by a brutal fight for independence from Portugal and a bloody, decades-long civil war.

Here’s the good news: The People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) will not fight over trenches, airstrips and dusty roads through scrubby forests. They will battle for the backing of 9 million voters, as the Guardian wrote.

And there’s more reason to be cautiously optimistic about this oil-rich country’s future.

The president’s handpicked successor, Defense Minister Joao Lourenco, is all but sure to win. And while Lourenco was a surprise choice, he’s a strong one, the Washington Post reported. He’s respected both at home and abroad, having held multiple high-level government positions. He’s also married to the World Bank’s former executive director for Angola, Nigeria and South Africa.

Indeed, Lourenco has a track record clean of corruption, a rarity in Angola, whose capital, Luanda, by the way, was recently ranked the most expensive city in the world, the Independent reports. The country is plagued by nepotism and elites lining their pockets even as their fellow citizens remain entrenched in poverty, the New York Times wrote.

And with oil prices sinking and inflation rising, Angolans have become increasingly restless as botched infrastructure projects, a lack of access to basic needs and a stagnant economy have squeezed them.

Sensing the dissatisfaction, the MPLA has run on a platform of “improve what is good, correct what is wrong,” Africa.com opined.

Still, observers urge caution: The status quo will likely remain for a while, despite the change of leadership, Deutsche Welle reported.

First, Lourenco will be beholden to party stalwarts in the government whose jobs are guaranteed by a statute that breezed through parliament during the last session.

Second, the current president’s daughter, Isabel dos Santos, is head of the state-run oil firm, Sonangol. Considered Africa’s first female billionaire, she won’t likely be going anywhere anytime soon, either.

Third, there’s concern over the crackdown on speech in advance of the elections, Human Right Watch reported.

Still, the MLPA is expected to pay a price for ruling incompetently. Recent polls show the party’s support is dwindling. They’re expected to win only 38 percent of the vote, which is enough to be the largest party in parliament, but hardly constitutes a mandate.

Also, the oil crisis and the strife of the past few decades have “focused minds…realizing the party is over,” said the Guardian.

So while a strong opposition and an ailing governing party could make life hard for Lourenco, it could also be an opportunity to reach across the aisle and let fresh air into Angola’s government and its future.

“We hope,” said Marcolino Moco, a former prime minister who is now a fierce opponent of dos Santos. “We have to try. We have to hope.”

https://www.stratfor.com/article/angola-age-old-story-money-power-and-family

AFRICA

Over One Million South Sudanese Flee From Violence to Uganda

By NICK CUMMING-BRUCEAUG. 17, 2017

Continue reading the main storyShare This Page

• Share
• Tweet
• Email
• More
• Save

Photo

A South Sudanese family crossing into Uganda in June. The United Nations refugee agency said about 1,800 people have fled across the border to Uganda every day for the past year. CreditBen Curtis/Associated Press

GENEVA — A daily exodus of villagers fleeing armed conflict, hunger and sexual violence in South Sudan has pushed the number of refugees sheltering in Uganda to over one million, the United Nations refugee agency said on Thursday, urging international action to deal with what it called one of Africa’s biggest humanitarian crises.

International relief agencies say that one-third of the South Sudanese population of 13 million people has now been displaced and that half of the population is suffering from severe hunger and is in need of food aid.

“We’re looking at Africa’s biggest displacement crisis,” Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the agency, said in an interview. “It points to the dramatic worsening of the situation inside the country.”

About 1,800 people have fled across the border to Uganda every day for the past year, 85 percent of them women and children, the refugee agency said. As many as 85 percent of those reaching Uganda recount horrific tales of seeing armed groups burning villagers alive in their houses, shooting people in front of their families, raping women and girls, and seizing boys to serve as conscripts, the United Nations reported.

MULTIMEDIA FEATURE

We Witnessed South Sudan’s Anguish

Our reporters went to South Sudan and found that the world’s newest nation has not turned out the way it was supposed to.

 OPEN MULTIMEDIA FEATURE

The villagers often travel for days through the bush to avoid indiscriminate killings by the marauding armed groups, which have set up checkpoints on the roads.

Continue reading the main story

RELATED COVERAGE

• 

  Displaced Population Hit Record in ’16, U.N. Says JUNE 19, 2017

• 

  War Consumes South Sudan, a Young Nation Cracking Apart MARCH 4, 2017

• 

  Drought and War Heighten Threat of Not Just 1 Famine, but 4 MARCH 27, 2017

• 

  South Sudan Prepares for IndependenceJULY 7, 2011

• 

  U.N.’s Famine Appeal Is Billions Shy of Goal MARCH 23, 2017

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story

Hundreds have escaped to South Sudan’s other neighbors — notably Sudanand Ethiopia — where, the refugee agency said, an additional million have sought shelter. Two million more have been driven from their homes for other reasons, the agency said.

South Sudan became the world’s newest nation in 2011, when it declared its independence after five decades of guerrilla warfare and the loss of two million lives. Civil war erupted four years ago, after President Salva Kiir sacked his deputy, Riek Machar. The move set off bloody confrontations between their supporters and rival ethnic groups. The bloodshed has escalated and intensified in the last year, with a sharp rise in ethnically targeted killings and sexual violence.

The United Nations started deploying 4,000 troops to South Sudan this month to bolster a peacekeeping force of 13,000, but as violence has spread to new provinces, the agency has not been able to do much to protect civilians outside its bases or to prevent attacks on relief agency staff members trying to deliver humanitarian aid.

Photo

A section of the the Bidi Bidi refugee settlement in northern Uganda. One-third of the South Sudanese population of 13 million people has now been displaced. CreditBen Curtis/Associated Press

Relief agencies say the impact of the fighting — which has forced farmers to flee, disrupting the planting of crops — and the looting of livestock has deepened economic hardship in one of Africa’s poorest countries.

In June, the United Nations food agency described conditions in South Sudan as catastrophic, and warned that the situation there was deteriorating, with more than six million people facing acute hunger.

“The number of hungry and displaced South Sudanese is overwhelming,” Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement on Thursday as he began a visit to the country. The staggering scale of suffering was evidence of “a style of fighting that appears calibrated to maximize misery,” he added.

Hospitals supported by the Red Cross had grappled with a significant rise in the number of war-wounded this year because of the increased fighting, Mr. Maurer said, while conflict was hampering the delivery of medical care.

The United Nations said weak international financial support was forcing cuts in lifesaving assistance to those fleeing the conflict. The refugee agency said it had received only one-fifth of the $664 million it had sought this year to support refugees in Uganda, and in June the World Food Program had cut in half the food rations it provided them.