Tunisia: A Remission, A Strike

TUNISIA

A Remission, A Strike

Two suicide bombers hit the capital of Tunisia on Thursday, killing a police officer and injuring at least eight other people.

The attacks came as the country’s 92-year-old president was rushed to the hospital for treatment for a “serious illness,” the second time he has been hospitalized this month, the Associated Press reported.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks via its Aamaq news agency. However, a connection between the group and the bombers has not yet been substantiated.

One of the bombers detonated explosives in a commercial district near the French embassy around 11 a.m., apparently targeting a police patrol. This bomb killed the police officer, as well as injuring another. Nearly simultaneously, the second bomber detonated a device at the entrance to the offices of the anti-terrorism brigade on the outskirts of the capital. Four officers were hospitalized with injuries sustained in that blast.

Islamic State also claimed credit for Tunisia’s deadliest terror attacks, which killed 22 people at the Bardo Museum in Tunis and 38 people in the coastal city of Sousse in 2015.

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The Big Century 21 Population Growth Will Be In Africa

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/06/22/the-un-revises-down-its-population-forecasts?cid1=cust/dailypicks/n/bl/n/20190625n/owned/n/n/dailypicks/n/n/na/261722/n

Mauritania Still Has Slavery

MAURITANIA

First, or the Umpteenth

Ruling party candidate Mohamed Ould Ghazouani won Mauritania’s presidential election with 52 percent of the vote, the electoral commission said Sunday.

For the record books, it’s a historic first – the country’s first election to pass the torch from one democratically elected leader to another. But Biram Dah Abeid, who came in second with nearly 19 percent of the vote, called it the “umpteenth coup d’etat against the will of the people,” alluding to alleged irregularities, Al Jazeera reported.

Mohamed Ould Boubacar, who came third, said that “multiple irregularities… eliminated any credibility” the election might have had.

For many, especially Abeid’s supporters, the result was disappointing for another reason.

Though slavery was abolished nationwide in 1981 and criminalized in 2007, human rights activists say tens of thousands of black Mauritanians still live as slaves “owned” by lighter-skinned masters of Arab or Berber descent.

Ghazouani has denied the problem is widespread, while Abeid, an anti-slavery activist who is himself the descendant of slaves, made the issue a main focus of his campaign.

Ethiopia: Change Is Hard

ETHIOPIA

Change Is Hard

Ethiopia put down a coup attempt in the northern Amhara region, but the country’s army chief and the head of the regional government were killed in connection with the incident.

Amhara President Ambachew Mekonnen and Amhara Regional Government Office Advisor Ezez Wassie were killed by gunshots Saturday evening, CNN reported.

The Army Chief of Staff General Seare Mekonnen and retired Major General Gezai Abera were killed at Seare’s Addis Ababa home by his bodyguard, according to a statement from the office of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Seare was coordinating a response to the coup attempt when he was killed, the prime minister’s press secretary told CNN.

A Brigadier General named Asaminew Tsige was responsible for the failed coup, Abiy said.

The first ethnic Oromo to lead the country, Abiy took office in 2018 after years of Oromo protests over their economic and political marginalization – though they are the country’s largest ethnic group. Since then, he has forged a landmark peace deal with Eritrea, freed thousands of political prisoners and taken other dramatic steps to transform the country. But ethnic tensions remain high.

Mauritania: Of Bondage, Of Shame

MAURITANIA

Of Bondage, Of Shame

Voters in the conservative West African state of Mauritania go to the polls to elect a new president on June 22. It will arguably be their first real exercise of their democratic rights since a series of coups between 1978 and 2008, reported Africanews.

It might also be the beginning of the end of the desert country’s greatest shame.

Incumbent President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, a 62-year-old former general, is stepping down after his second term due to term limits, the London-based Arab Weekly explained. He helped stage a 2005 coup and rose to power after a 2008 coup.

In office, Abdel Aziz portrayed himself as a peacemaker between the country’s Arab-Berber community and the Haratines, who are former slaves and their descendants, wrote Al Jazeera. Recently, in an Eid al-Fitr holiday address, he asked voters to “demonstrate their democratic sense” and “engage in responsible competition in an atmosphere of tolerance and brotherhood” in the run-up to the election, Turkey’s Anadolu Agency reported.

Human rights advocates disagree with the president’s assessment of himself. They had a different message for voters.

“Mauritania’s next president must urgently tackle the country’s poor human rights record by taking a tougher stance against slavery, human trafficking, and attacks on the rights to freedom of expression, including intimidation and harassment of activists speaking out against discrimination,” proclaimed Amnesty International and 32 local human rights organizations in a statement.

Human Rights Watch implored Abdel Aziz to show some respect for civil liberties before he left office and release blogger Mohamed Ould Cheikh Mkhaïtir, who has been in prison for the past five years for an allegedly blasphemous post.

The president has also failed to squelch Mauritania’s most notorious violation of human rights: the institution of slavery. The country was the last to ban slavery, in 1981, but lawmakers didn’t pass a law to enforce the ban until 2007. As many as one out of every five people in Mauritania’s population of 4.4 million are slaves, according to CNN.

Six candidates are running, making a July 6 runoff possible. The contenders include the president’s pick, former Defense Minister Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, and two candidates who have made slavery part of their campaigns: anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid and the main opposition candidate, former Prime Minister Sidi Mohamed Ould Boubacar.

“I am thinking of those who have suffered and continue to suffer from slavery, of all those who suffer from bitterness, arbitrariness, injustice and marginalization,” Boubacar said as he announced his candidacy in March, Radio France Internationale reported.

Whoever wins will have a rare historic opportunity. Whether they take it is another question.

The Congo-A Fearful Toll

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

A Fearful Toll

Civil society groups said ethnic violence has claimed more than 240 lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo since last week and convinced some 300,000 others to flee their homes.

The rising tide of strife in the volatile eastern province of Ituri has sparked frightening memories of clashes between the Hema and Lendu ethnicities that resulted in an estimated 50,000 deaths between 1999 and 2007, Reuters reported.

A witness told the news agency that machete-wielding attackers believed to belong to the rival Lendu farming community hacked her husband and other herders to death in the Hema village of Kpatsi, then set fire to their houses.

Fighting between the two communities had led to widespread displacement in late 2017 and early 2018, but the situation had been calm until recently, the UN Refugee Agency said. Following the recent killings, people are fleeing their homes on a massive scale in three of Ituri’s five administrative territories. That’s exacerbating an already dire situation, as the DRC has an estimated 4.5 million internally displaced people.

Nigeria: Back In Black

NIGERIA

Back in Black

Three suicide bombers killed at least 30 people in the northeast Nigerian state of Borno on Sunday, marking the deadliest attack by Islamist militants in the country this year.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. But both Boko Haram and Islamic State have previously carried out terrorist attacks in Borno during a decade-long insurgency that has claimed more than 30,000 lives, Reuters reported.

“Yesterday (Sunday) around 8 p.m. it was reported that there was a very loud explosion in (the village of) Konduga. On reaching the scene of the incident we found there was a lot of casualties. In fact, the death toll was over 30 and the injured over 42,” an emergency service official told the news agency.

The three suicide bombers targeted a crowd gathered to watch a soccer game on a large screen, the agency said, noting that Boko Haram regards the sport as corrupting and un-Islamic.

In response, President Muhammadu Buhari called for security measures to be put in place at such open-air screenings around the country, according to a spokesman.

Egypt: A Trial, A Death

EGYPT

A Trial, A Death

Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, died Monday after collapsing during his trial in a Cairo courtroom.

No cause of death has been released so far, the New York Times reported. But critics blamed inhumane treatment during his imprisonment for his failing health. The former president had been denied medicine for diabetes, high blood pressure and liver disease, and been held in solitary confinement for long periods, they claimed.

Morsi’s erstwhile political party, the Muslim Brotherhood, called it a case of “full-fledged murder,” according to Reuters, and urged Egyptians to gather for a mass funeral. Amnesty International urged Egypt to investigate the cause of the 67-year-old leader’s death, the agency reported separately. Specifically, the human rights watchdog called for an investigation into the medical treatment Morsi received.

In 2012, Morsi won Egypt’s first democratic presidential election following the Arab Spring uprising but he was removed from power a year later in a military takeover. He was facing trial for espionage, though he had been imprisoned on various other charges since 2013, the Times noted.

Russia's Plan For Making Friends In Africa

https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/russia-putin-diplomacy-africa-great-power?id=743c2bc617&e=1bd154cf7d&uuid=875aca70-8914-441e-af06-dea36c763dcc&utm_source=Topics%2C+Themes+and+Regions&utm_campaign=5d152ac762-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_06_14_10_37&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_743c2bc617-5d152ac762-53655957&mc_cid=5d152ac762&mc_eid=[UNIQID]

Uganda: Diseases Without Borders

UGANDA

Diseases Without Borders

A 5-year-old boy died of Ebola on Wednesday in Uganda, becoming the first cross-border victim of a deadly outbreak that has so far been limited to Congo.

In response, an expert committee from the World Health Organization will meet Friday to again weigh whether to declare a global health emergency, the Associated Press reported.

With 1,400 people dead in Congo, the outbreak is already the second largest ever. Making matters worse, the authorities believe the risk it will spread to neighboring countries is high due to rebel attacks and local resistance that have hampered the medical response.

The boy who died was among a dozen or so people stopped at the border who already showed signs of suffering from the disease, which is fatal in up to 90 percent of cases. But six of them, including the 5-year-old, left the isolation center where they were sent and sneaked into neighboring Uganda, a local coordinator of response teams told the agency.

“Many people are evading (border) customs and using small footpaths and it is difficult for us to follow the contacts,” the aid worker said.

Botswana Legalizes Gay Sex

BOTSWANA

Ruling for Dignity

Botswana decriminalized gay sex on Tuesday, becoming the ninth country in the past five years to do so.

Activists packed the courtroom to celebrate as the High Court rejected laws punishing homosexual sex with up to seven years in prison in a landmark ruling for Africa, the Associated Press reported. The decision closely followed an opposite ruling in Kenya, where the High Court recently upheld similar laws.

Gay sex remains a criminal offense in 67 countries and territories, including more than two-dozen countries in Africa. However, earlier this year, the southern African nation of Angola decriminalized same-sex activity and banned discrimination based on sexual orientation, the agency noted.

A Botswana-based nonprofit called LEGABIBO had supported an anonymous petitioner to take the case to the High Court, arguing that laws criminalizing gay sex between consenting adults “infringe on basic human dignity.”

The group shared a statement attributed to President Mokgweetsi Masisi saying people in same-sex relationships should not have to suffer in silence or fear discrimination. “Just like other citizens, they deserve to have their rights protected,” he said.

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Mali: An Eye FOr An Eye

MALI

An Eye for an Eye

Unknown assailants slaughtered at least 95 people in a village in central Mali on Monday, marking a possible escalation of an ethnic conflict that has been energized by Islamist extremists.

Nineteen people remained missing after the attack on the ethnic Dogon village of Sobame Da around 3 a.m. Monday, Interior Security Ministry spokesman Amadou Sangho told the Associated Press.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. But tensions between the Dogon and Peuhl ethnicities have been running high since a Dogon militia was blamed for an earlier massacre of a Peuhl village that killed at least 157 people in March, the agency noted. Following that incident, some Peuhl leaders had vowed they would get revenge.

Mali has long battled Islamist extremism in its northern region, prompting a French-led military intervention in 2012. But now the extremists are influencing communities in the south – with the Dogon accusing the Peuhl of conspiring with Islamic State to attack them and the Peuhl accusing the Dogon of collaborating with the country’s military.

Sudan: The Bloody 100

SUDAN

A Bloody Hundred

The death toll from the military crackdown on the protest movement in Sudan over the past few days reached more than 100 people on Wednesday.

“To this moment, the total number of deaths that have been accounted by doctors is 101,” the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors said, citing the retrieval of 40 bodies from the Nile River by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Al Jazeera reported. Later, Reuters reported that the government health ministry pegged the death toll at 46.

In the wake of the carnage, military council head General Abdel-Fattah Burhan offered to re-open negotiations without preconditions. But a spokesman for one of the groups leading the demonstrations said the protesters “totally reject” that proposal and accused the military council of offering negotiations while terror still reigns in the streets.

“This call is not serious,” Mohammed Yousef al-Mustafa, spokesman for the Sudanese Professionals Association, told the Associated Press. “Burhan and those under him have killed the Sudanese and are still doing it. Their vehicles patrol the streets, firing at people.”

Botswana: A Gift Of Elephant's Feet

BOTSWANA

Politics & Pachyderms

Approximately 450,000 elephants roam Africa. Poachers kill around 30,000 annually.

Do the math.

At that rate of illegal hunting, the days of the world’s largest land animal are numbered.

So one might question the optics of Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi giving footstools made from elephant feet to his counterparts from Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe early last month at a meeting to discuss how to save the animals, the BBC reported.

The presidents’ plans might also surprise many. Along with South African leaders, they want to lift their countries’ bans on hunting elephants so they might sell ivory to raise money for conservation projects while giving local communities leeway to deal with animals that sometimes ruin crops and pose dangers to families.

Last month, Masisi lifted Botswana’s five-year ban on hunting the pachyderms. The move shocked animal rights advocates because they have long considered Botswana, where one-third of Africa’s elephants live, a conservation success story. “The whole world is turning away from hunting,” Kenyan ecologist Paula Kahumbu said in an interview with the Guardian. “It is increasingly seen as an archaic practice.”

Defenders of the policy portrayed those critics as naïve.

“By sacrificing 700 elephants per year we’re likely going to save more,” Botswana-based wildlife veterinarian Erik Verreynne toldthe New York Times.

Verreynne might have a point. Poaching is closely correlated to poverty and corruption, according to National Geographic. Crafting policies that help officials exert control over elephant hunting might help address some of the social ills that give rise to it in the first place.

But the same studies cited in National Geographic also suggested that law enforcement was usually not a deterrent to poaching. In other words, rangers either didn’t stop poaching or they were complicit in it. If authorities can’t tackle illegal hunting now, will they be able to enforce regulations on legal hunting?

That said, elephant poaching in general is in decline, according to independent analysts, reported the Press Association, a British news agency.

Politics might be a better lens for considering this issue.

Botswana holds a general election in October. Lawmakers then electa new president. Given how lifting the ban is based on a plethora of myths about elephant numbers, Masisi’s decision was likely designed to curry favor with rural voters, argued economist Ross Harvey in the Daily Maverick, a South African online newspaper.

If elephants could vote, would Masisi change his mind? He just might if he visited the elephant (and rhino) orphanage operated by the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust near Nairobi, Kenya. Here, most visitors are visibly moved by the gentle young elephants that still mourn their parents – killed by poachers.