Friday, September 27, 2019
Sudan:Our Turn
SUDAN
Our Turn
Human-rights groups representing victims of the Darfur genocide filed a criminal complaint Thursday against French banking giant BNP Paribas alleging the lender was providing financial services to the Sudanese government during the genocide and thereby facilitating it, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Plaintiffs say the bank allowed the Sudanese government to pay security forces and make purchases abroad between 2002 and 2008, when country was targeted with economic sanctions.
The bank said that it wasn’t aware of the complaint and that it wouldn’t comment on judicial procedures.
The complaint is expected to reopen a dark chapter in the bank’s history – the largest in Europe by assets – which was the target of a US investigation for violating its economic sanctions against Sudan.
Four years ago, the lender was ordered to pay nearly $9 billion and plead guilty to violating sanctions against Sudan, Iran and Cuba in an unprecedented case.
Part of the fine was used to pay victims of the September 11 attacks and others including the twin 1998 US Embassy bombings in East Africa. The genocide victims in Darfur never received compensation.
“To this day, they have been denied the possibility of justice,” Mossaad M. Ali, a plaintiff in the case, told the Journal.
Thursday, September 26, 2019
South Africa: Going Home Again
Going Home Again
Running a marathon is challenging enough so doing one with a tree strapped on your back is understandably exhausting.
Even so, South African activist and tree-grower Siyabulela Sokomani and a group of friends, ran the Cape Town Marathon on Sept. 15 with saplings rising from their backpacks.
Their performance wasn’t a test of endurance but a call to promote the planting of native trees in South Africa in order to cope with drought and climate change, Reuters reported.
The group is raising cash to plant 2,000 trees in Khayelitsha, one of Cape Town’s biggest townships, and get rid of the invasive trees that suck up ground water and hinder rainfall from feeding the soil and dams.
Last year, Cape Town suffered its worst drought in more than a century, forcing authorities to impose water rationing and set up public water points.
The US-based Nature Conservancy said in a 2018 report that 14.6 billion gallons of water could be saved within six years if non-native plants were removed and replaced with indigenous plants, Agence France-Presse reported.
Many believe it’s actually a good solution: The South African succulent Spekboom is quite sustainable, growing almost anywhere, and it absorbs carbon dioxide faster than most trees in dry conditions.
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Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Zimbabwe: Growing Thirst
ZIMBABWE
Growing Thirst
Two million people in Zimbabwe’s capital were left without water after the government ran out of foreign currency to pay for imported water treatment chemicals, forcing officials to shut down the city’s waterworks Monday.
The new crisis is another marker in the country’s ailing economy, which has been dealing with hyperinflation and shortages of essential imported commodities including wheat and fuel, the Telegraph reported Tuesday.
Harare’s acting mayor Enock Mupamawonde said that pumping was originally scheduled to resume on Tuesday after the government managed to procure a week’s worth of chemicals from local suppliers.
He warned, however, that the services might not last long.
Harare residents have relied on hand-pumped municipal or informal boreholes, where lines can last for hours.
Meanwhile, Zimbabweans have endured months of drought, which has dried up rivers across southern Africa. The situation is heightening the risk of water-borne diseases.
Now, officials are scrambling to avoid a repeat of a cholera epidemic following a water shortage a decade ago that killed 4,000.
Monday, September 23, 2019
Egypt_ Of Genies And Bottles
EGYPT
Of Genies and Bottles
Hundreds of protesters clashed with Egyptian security officials Sunday in the port city of Suez, the second day of demonstrations demanding the resignation of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.
On Friday, Egyptians took to the streets of several cities in defiance of a six-year ban on demonstrations following the 2013 military ouster of former Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, Agence France-Presse reported.
Security forces have arrested more than 250 people since demonstrations began, the Guardian reported.
The demonstrations were set off by videos released by exiled businessman and actor Mohammed Ali accusing Sissi and the military of corruption. On Saturday, he urged Egyptians to join a “million-man march” on Friday.
Sissi has denied Ali’s charges even as the accusations have touched a nerve in the population, which has been struggling economically over the past few years. In July, one in three Egyptians lived below the poverty line – less than $1.40 a day, according to government figures.
Egypt imposed strict austerity measures beginning in 2016 in exchange for a $12 billion loan package from the International Monetary Fund. Even so, Sissi has been spending billions on large infrastructure projects such as the new capital.
Thursday, September 19, 2019
Algeria: Don't Believe It
ALGERIA
Don’t You Believe It!
Algeria’s powerful army chief on Wednesday ordered police to seize vehicles bringing protesters into the capital, the latest measure aimed at curbing weekly demonstrations going on since February demanding a purge of the ruling elite.
The measure followed a march by thousands of students in Algiers Tuesday demanding Dec. 12 elections be delayed. They have already been postponed twice since the ouster of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April, who was in power for 20 years, Al Jazeera reported.
The protesters want political reforms and the removal of Bouteflika loyalists before any election is held.
The government has made some concessions to the protesters by arresting several high-ranking members of the establishment, but it has also cracked down on demonstrations and arrested several prominent activists.
Lieutenant-General Ahmed Gaid Salah said the protesters are being led astray by “the gang” – a reference to those who held powerful positions under Bouteflika. Salah himself is a target of the protests.
Still, the army chief has emerged as the most prominent figure in the power vacuum that followed Bouteflika’s departure.
Meanwhile, students say they will continue to protest until they see reform.
Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Zimbabwe-Dance Hall Dreams
ZIMBABWE
Dancehall Dreams
Winky D is a hero among some in Zimbabwe.
The popular singer performs Zimdancehall music, a reggae-descended genre that gives voice to the “veiled discontent” and “disillusionment” that’s widespread in the southern African country, wrote the New York Times.
The target of Winky D and others’ ire, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, has allegedly organized mobs to disrupt the singer’s appearances.
Mnangagwa took over Zimbabwe’s government in November 2017 after his former ally, then-President Robert Mugabe, was ousted in a coup.
Mugabe had held power since he helped lead the fight for the country’s independence from Britain in the early 1980s. His economic policies, including redistributing land from white citizens who had enjoyed privileges under British rule, destroyed the country’s economy, argued the Telegraph.
Many Zimbabweans hoped Mnangagwa would change things. Instead, he has failed to enact meaningful reforms fast enough. Inflation in June, the most recent figure available, was 175 percent, National Public Radio reported. A drought has led a third of the country’s 16 million citizens to require food aid. Corruption is the norm.
Mugabe died earlier this month at the age of 95. His passing released a flurry of introspection among Zimbabweans and observers witnessing his legacy of wreckage.
“I remember Mugabe [as] an angry man who channeled his rage against colonial rule to become one of Africa’s most influential and longest-lasting leaders,” recalled Associated Press reporter Andrew Meldrum.
Mnangagwa was no less angry or violent in his brutal suppression of dissent as a military leader and boss of his and Mugabe’s political party, the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front, or ZANU–PF, left-wing news website CounterPunch added.
Mnangagwa has tried to distance himself from Mugabe’s economic legacy, noted Reuters. But Zimbabweans can’t help but make the link as they remember the former president.
“Mugabe’s death has come at a time when we have moved on without him,” said Richmond Dhamara, a street fruit vendor in Harare, told the New York Times. “I don’t think he will be missed that much, because he is the same (as those) who succeeded him – cruel.”
In the wake of Mugabe’s passing, it’s almost sad to see the upswelling of positive memories about his first wife, Sally, whom he married in 1961 and who died in 1992. In the BBC, for instance, journalist Elizabeth Ohene portrayed Sally Mugabe as a anti-imperialist freedom fighter. Others viewed her as a feminist.
Few have fond memories of Mugabe, though, anymore. And most believe that he kept the dream of a prosperous, stable Zimbabwe from being realized. As will his successor.
Friday, September 13, 2019
Sudan: Blood For Blood
SUDAN
Blood for Blood
Thousands of Sudanese protesters gathered near the presidential palace in Khartoum Thursday, demanding justice for those slain during pro-democracy demonstrations earlier this year.
“Blood for blood, we won’t accept blood money,” the crowd chanted.
It was the first major protest since the country’s military and civilian groups signed a power-sharing agreement last month to install a three-year transitional government that will end in elections.
Protesters demanded the appointment of a new head of the judiciary and a new public prosecutor to prosecute members of the security forces responsible for deaths during demonstrations against Omar al-Bashir and against the military council that initially replaced him, Reuters reported.
Bashir was ousted in April.
In June, the military council sacked public prosecutor Awaleed Sayed Ahmed Mahmoud after he announced he would investigate the killings of dozens of people during a sit-in on June 3.
Authorities claimed that casualties amounted to 87 that day, but protest groups have put the toll at nearly 130.
Justice for slain protesters has been one of the key demands of the civilian parties in the power-sharing deal.
Tunisia-The Art Of Listening
TUNISIA
The Art of Listening
The Tunisian presidential election is heating up.
That’s important because voters are deciding more than who will lead the Mediterranean country when they go to the polls on Sunday, Al Jazeera wrote.
The future of democracy in the Arab world is also at stake.
“The upcoming presidential election presents a test for the willingness of political actors to once again accept an electoral process that none of them can entirely control or predict,” wrote scholars Max Gallien and Isabelle Werenfels in an op-ed in the Washington Post.
The Arab Spring began in Tunisia in late 2010 when people took to the streets in protests that eventually ended the corrupt, harsh rule of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. That freedom movement spread throughout North Africa and the Middle East.
The Arab Spring failed to live up to many of its promises. Still, democracy took root in Tunisia. In 2014, the country held its first free and fair democratic polls since independence from France in the 1950s, putting President Beji Caid Essebsi into office.
But Essebsi passed away in July, triggering a political reordering.
Essebsi, 92, had already announced that he would not run again in elections previously scheduled for November. But the Tunisian constitution states that voters must elect a new president 90 days after the office becomes vacant so officials moved the vote up to Sept. 15.
Coincidentally, parliamentary elections were already scheduled for October. Suddenly, the presidential elections would precede the parliamentary ones, potentially giving legislative candidates in the president’s party a big leg up on competitors, explained the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Also, in his last days, Essebsi refused to sign a law that would have prohibited controversial but popular presidential candidates from running if they received money from charities, NGOs or foreign organizations.
The measure was clearly meant to ban media magnate Nabil Karoui from running, Reuters reported. Karoui is now sitting in jail on charges of money laundering and tax evasion, but because the law was never enacted, he’s still eligible to run for president.
Twenty-five other candidates are also running, including an Islamist with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood – the now-toppled Islamist group that rose to power in Egypt during the Arab Spring – and openly gay candidates, France 24 reported.
They’re addressing the calls of Tunisians for a better economy, progress against corruption and other improvements, wrote Chatham House, a British think tank.
Those demands aren’t new. But at least now the people in power are listening. Because they have to.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Rwanda: A Helping Hand
RWANDA
A Helping Hand
Rwanda agreed on Tuesday to take in hundreds of African refugees and asylum-seekers held in detention centers in Libya, a move that has been hailed as an example of African governments taking initiative to solve the continent’s problems.
The agreement signed in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, comes after repeated allegations that migrants were living in dire conditions in the Libyan detention centers, Al Jazeera reported.
Rwanda will receive the first group of 500 people predominantly from the Horn of Africa in the coming weeks, but is prepared to host as many as 30,000 Africans currently in Libya.
Since the ouster of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya has become a major transit route for African refugees trying to reach Europe by boat.
Officials from the African Union hailed the deal and hope other African countries will offer similar assistance – though none has come forward so far.
“It is a historical moment because Africans are extending their hands to other Africans,” said Amira Elfadil, the African Union’s social affairs commissioner.
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Nigeria-The Exodus
NIGERIA
The Exodus
Nigeria is planning to repatriate about 600 of its citizens this week from South Africa after a wave of xenophobic violence targeting foreigners has created tensions between Africa’s two heavyweights.
“The first flight will carry 320 Nigerians. We will have another one immediately after that,” Nigeria’s Consul General Godwin Adamu told Agence France-Presse.
The exodus follows rioting in Johannesburg that targeted foreigners and their businesses, and killed at least 10 people.
Violence against foreigners has grown in South Africa along with anti-immigrant sentiment as the country continues to grapple with a 28 percent unemployment rate.
In response to the violence, Buhari’s government temporarily closed South Africa’s diplomatic mission in Lagos and Abuja, while Nigeria’s ruling party has urged the government to nationalize South African firms operating there.
Meanwhile, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has condemned the violence, adding that “the majority of foreign nationals in our country… are law-abiding and have the right to conduct their lives and businesses in peace,” he said, according to the BBC.
Democratic Republic Of THe Congo-Scourge Act II
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Scourge Act II
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,300 people between 2014 and 2016.
As of late August, more than 2,000 people have perished in the yearlong outbreak of the fatal virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a European Commission report.
Aid workers and others are sounding alarm bells that the recent crisis is poised to become far worse than that of 2014-2016.
Relative peace had reigned for years in the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone when Ebola struck there. In contrast, war and violence have wracked the Democratic Republic of Congo for years.
“To fight Ebola, we need freedom of movement, we need access, we need security,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres during a recent visit to Congo, according to a press release.
The UN has an approximately 15,000-strong peacekeeping force stationed in the country. The BBC explained the history that drew peacekeepers to the country and required them to remain: the 1997-2003 civil war that claimed 5 million lives and dragged in the country’s neighbors, and fighting that flared up after President Joseph Kabila remained in office in violation of the constitution in 2016. Last year, the Guardian wrote about the “bloody cycle of violence and political turmoil” arising from conflicts between rebels and the central government.
This summer, President Felix Tshisekedi, who replaced Kabila in January, launched a campaign to stamp out renegade militias throughout the sprawling, mineral rich Central African nation. Three soldiers and 20 militiamen recently died in a clash in the northeastern region of Ituri, Agence France-Presse reported.
At the same time, public health specialists face hurdles in Congo that similarly hindered their efforts in West Africa, including community traditions of caring for sick loved ones at home.
“We are asking people to leave the safety of their homes when they fall sick to go to an isolated cell in an Ebola treatment center where their lives are in the hands of complete strangers,” Emanuele Capobianco, a doctor with the International Federation of Red Cross, told SkyNews. “And we are doing all this in communities that have learned to distrust outsiders following decades of violence and unrest.”
Science might come to the rescue. Researchers in Congo recently identified the “first clearly effective treatments” for Ebola, reported National Public Radio.
But doctors also face dangers as treatment centers have come under attack in the country.
Politics is another factor in the fight against the virus. After seven months in office, Tshisekedi formed his government recently, including officials who critics say are proof that Kabila still wields too much power in the country, wrote Voice of America.
Hopefully Tshisekedi either helps stop Ebola or gets out of the way of those who can.
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
South Africa-The Blame Game
SOUTH AFRICA
The Blame Game
Five people died on Monday after anti-immigrant demonstrators began attacking foreigners and looting their shops in Johannesburg, South African police said.
Authorities arrested more than 180 people in the riots, which have become increasingly common in the country, Al Jazeera reported.
A recent report by the African Center for Migration & Society, which has monitored attacks on foreigners in South Africa for decades, called them a “longstanding” feature of post-apartheid South Africa.
About 8 percent of South Africa’s 50 million people are migrants.
The newspaper also said many locals attribute the recent violence to frustration over the country’s high unemployment rate, which is about 28 percent.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people on the continent have condemned the violence, using the hashtag #SayNoToXenophobia.
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Burkina Faso: And Justice For Some
BURKINA FASO
And Justice For Some
A military court in Burkina Faso on Monday convicted and jailed two generals on charges of masterminding a coup in 2015 against the country’s transitional government.
The court sentenced General Gilbert Diendere to 20 years in prison on charges of murder and harming state security, while General Djibril Bassole, accused of treason, was given a 10-year prison sentence, Al Jazeera reported.
Both generals were allies of deposed former president Blaise Compaore, who fled the country in 2014 after attempting to extend his grip on power.
A transitional government took over, but it was overthrown by an elite unit of the army on Sept. 16, 2015 – less than a month before scheduled general elections.
The coup only lasted a week, but it caused a deep rift in Burkina Faso’s armed forces and weakened their ability to cope with attacks from militant groups in a country rife with inter-ethnic violence.
Last month, a terrorist attack killed at least two dozen soldiers, the latest in a series of attacks against the military and also civilians in the past four years.
The decision has been hailed as a victory by many in the country, who had hoped the judicial process would provide more detail on what exactly happened and usher in a period of reconciliation.
“Today, we know who did what and, especially, why,” said Guy Herve Kam, a lawyer representing civilian plaintiffs.
Eritrea-We Don't Need No Education
ERITREA
We Don’t Need No Education
Every Eritrean high school student spends the 12th grade at the Warsai Yikealo Secondary School and Vocational Training Center near the border with Sudan.
The students quickly realize that reading and arithmetic are not uppermost in their masters’ minds.
“From the first month, the alarm rings at 5 a.m.,” a former studenttold Human Rights Watch. “They make you run to the toilet, you (have) five minutes to wash — if we had water, which wasn’t always the case — five minutes to put your uniform on. You get punished if you don’t manage. We would have military training until 8 a.m. The military trainer is always with you; he stays in the dorm. The (physical) punishments were so hard; I was desperate to escape them and so I would try to stick to the rules.”
As the Mail & Guardian explained, the school and training center are located within the Sawa military base. A photograph in the South African newspaper showed a graduating class of students dressed in fatigues, sporting different colored berets and marching like soldiers on parade.
The school-cum-compulsory basic training is an example of how Eritrea is one of the most repressive regimes in the world under former freedom fighter and current President Isaias Afwerki,argued the Globe Post. After they graduate, many students will be assigned to the military or other jobs as part of their “national service,” an indefinite period of time when their life aspirations are put on hold.
Neither the people nor their legislators have ever ratified an Eritrean constitution. Parliament was discontinued years ago. The ruling party, which happens to be the only legal political party in the country, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, hasn’t held a convention in years. No independent media outlets exist. International news organizations are banned from stationing journalists in the country permanently.
Quartz wrote about how especially the young have been fleeing the country in order to avoid national service. One would think Afwerki would make changes in order to avoid such an exodus, but his aidestold Reuters they needed to build up Eritrean forces to defend against foes like Ethiopia. The two countries fought a war between 1998 and 2000 that only officially ended in 2018.
Eritreans in the US and Europe have launched social media campaigns calling for Afwerki’s ouster, the BBC reported. A regional specialist, Valerie Frank, wrote in African Arguments that the president’s grip on power is only tightening.
Some have openly wondered whether the president might want to ask himself if it’s wise to fill an army that keeps him in power with people who don’t want to serve.
Monday, September 2, 2019
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