Africa

1, August 2018

Zanu-PF wins most parliamentary seats in post-Mugabe Zimbabwe ⁰

Zimbabwe’s ruling party ZANU-PF has won the majority of seats in parliamentary elections, official results show, as vote counting continues separately in the presidential vote.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) said on Wednesday that ZANU-PF had picked up 110 seats against the 41 for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Another 58 seats are yet to be declared.

The final results of the presidential poll are expected by Saturday.

ZANU-PF, which ousted former president Robert Mugabe after 37 years last November, would need an additional 30 seats to have a two-thirds majority, which would allow it to change the constitution at will.

Opposition candidate Nelson Chamisa, who leads the MDC, has accused the electoral commission of delaying presidential results to favor the ruling party, led by his rival, President Emmerson Dambudz Mnangagwa.

The supporters of Zimbabwean opposition party heckle anti-riot police in the capital, Harare, on July 31, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

He accused the commission of releasing the parliamentary results first to prepare people for a Mnangagwa victory.

“The strategy is meant to prepare Zimbabwe mentally to accept fake presidential results. We’ve more votes than ED (Emmerson Dambudzo),” he said in a Twitter message. “We won the popular vote (and) will defend it.”

His supporters took to the streets on Tuesday, protesting the delay in the results. Crowds also gathered outside the MDC Alliance headquarters in the capital, Harare, celebrating what they believed to be Chamisa’s victory.

The gathering was followed by the deployment of a truckload of policemen and water cannon to the area.

The supporters of presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa cheer outside the opposition headquarters in Harare, July 31, 2018. (AFP)

Allegations of fraud risk plunging the country into violence.

Millions of people voted peacefully in the Monday election, the first-ever vote without Mugabe in almost 40 years in Zimbabwe.

His 37-year old ruling came to an end last November after Zimbabwe’s military took over the capital and the state broadcaster and held Mugabe and his wife under house arrest in a bloodless coup d’état.

Source: Presstv

1, August 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: They Came, They Killed, They Destroyed And It is still happening ⁰

More than two years ago, troops loyal to the Biya regime in Yaoundé launched a violent attack against the people of Southern Cameroons after the Anglophone leadership created the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. The Francophone dominated army killed hundreds, if not thousands of women and children. The Ambazonian justice department continues to discover mass graves in Mamfe, Dadi, Belo, Ekondo Titi, Menka Piyin, Kwa Kwa, Muyenge, Batibo, Wum, Bali, Azi, Alou and Tombel to this day. As part of the same French Cameroun military campaign, Cameroon government troops raped and killed women and girls. More than 3,000 Southern Cameroonians are still being detained in French Cameroun and their fate is unknown.

The Southern Cameroons Interim Government has ordered an investigation that might lead Ambazonians to detain relatives in French Cameroun. For more than two years running, 98% of Southern Cameroons territories previously held by the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime have been recovered by Ambazonia Restoration Forces. French Cameroun authority is disappearing from Southern Cameroons and the atrocities committed by the Biya regime forces are now on the spotlight.

The African Union and the UN have failed to realize that the Southern Cameroons story is not over, and by so doing they are providing a fertile ground for similar atrocities to happen again in Ambazonia. Truth be told to power, Biya and his army including his gang of political elites have been defeated in Southern Cameroons, but the French ideology that governs French Cameroun is what is driving the violence.

After the attack and destruction of Kendem, Kembong, Kwa Kwa, Muyenge, Belo, Menka Pinyi, Bekora, Mbonge and the killing of several Roman Catholic clergies, Cameroon government forces also attacked Wum, Bui, Ndop, Kumba, Muyuka, Ekona, Azi and forced over 160,000 people to flee for their lives. They destroyed the villages and took control of it. It has now been liberated.

The Biya regime has attempted to deceive the international community with a humanitarian plan that promised to do more, to help victims of the Southern Cameroons war. But as I write, Yaoundé is instead ensuring that none of its soldiers is brought to justice and that such mass atrocities continue to happen. Three years running, the world has not made good on any of its international obligations to the people of former British Southern Cameroons.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

28, July 2018

African Union, CEMAC intentionally ignores Biya’s despotic actions against Southern Cameroonians ⁰

The African Union and CEMAC are maintaining a kind of deliberate silence on the genocide currently going on in Southern Cameroons and the chairman of the pan African organization is not going to criticize the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime for its despotic acts because the French government need their economic and military presence in the Sub Saharan country.

The African Union is under very strong French government influence and the French are pushing the AU to neglect counter-democratic activities and human rights abuses conducted by the Biya Francophone regime in Yaounde against its own citizens. Yaounde is also hosting several French military service men and women who are participating in maintaining French surrogates in power in countries such as Gabon, Chad, the Central African Republic and Congo-Brazzaville.

There is simply no way that this current Francophone dominated African Union certainly under Chad’s Moussa Faki is going to complain at all about the despotic actions by the Biya regime. The Francophone CEMAC nations have turned a blind eye on the Yaoundé regime’s actions against human rights and violations of international law in Southern Cameroons.

According to the UN, some 161,000 Southern Cameroonians have been displaced by the war declared against the English speaking people by the 85 year-old leader President Paul Biya. Some 50,000 Ambazonians have also fled the conflict into neighboring Nigeria. With attacks on Southern Cameroonians increasing in French Cameroun, the Yaoundé regime is slowly but surely rendering most of Southern Cameroons citizens stateless.

Biya and his gang have gone to great lengths to clamp down on any sign of dissent. Troops from France and Chad were deployed to assist the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) in its crackdown. Scores of Southern Cameroonians have lost their lives and hundreds of others sustained injuries or arrested as a result of the Biya regime’s crackdown.

By Chi Prudence Asong

19, July 2018

President of South Sudan says ready to accept peace deal ⁰

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir said he is ready to accept a peace deal to end a civil war and set up an inclusive new government.

The deal being negotiated in Sudan would give the country five vice presidents and also covers security and power sharing.

“The people of South Sudan are looking for peace and if that arrangement can bring about peace to the people of South Sudan, I am ready to take it,” said Kiir late on Wednesday at a swearing-in ceremony for his foreign minister.

“People talk about exclusivity, nobody is to be left out of the government. I accept it,” he said.

South Sudan erupted in conflict in 2013 because of a dispute between Kiir and his former vice president Riek Machar. Tens of thousands have been killed, a quarter of the population has fled their homes and the oil-dependent economy has been wrecked.

A 2015 peace deal briefly halted the fighting but it fell apart after Machar returned to the capital the following year.

The conflict has mostly been fought along ethnic lines, pitting Kiir’s dominant Dinka tribe and its rival, the ethnic Nuer of Machar.

President of South Sudan, Salva Kiir (4th R) poses with South Sudan’s opposition leader Riek Machar (3-L) during peace talks at Uganda’s statehouse in Entebbe where they were received by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni (C) along with Sudan counterpart Omar al Bashir (4th L) on July 7, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

This week Kiir named Nhial Deng Nhial, ex-presidential adviser and also his chief negotiator in the Khartoum talks, as his new foreign minister, replacing Deng Alor.

(Source:Reuters)

19, July 2018

Congo-Kinshasa: Kabila mute on political future in address to lawmakers ⁰

President Joseph Kabila has refused to make clear pronouncements on his political future as leader of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Speaking in an address to a joint sitting of the country’s legislature, Kabila whose legal tenure of office expired in December 2016 failed to address the issue of whether he was interested in continuing as president.

His over 40-minutes address to lawmakers focused largely on internal issues like security, the economy, unemployment and development plans executed under his presidency. He also touched on the DRC’s repositioning in regional and global diplomacy.

Most political watchers had expected him to make clear statements on his political involvement in a country that is heading to the polls in December 2018. He, however, stated that the elections would take place.

Opposition parties have long claimed that despite the expiration of his term two years ago, Kabila has plans of seeking a third term in office – which provision is not existent in the current constitution.

Top regime officials – Kabila spokesperson Lambert Mende and Prime Minister Bruno Tshibala, are on record to have said that Kabila will oversee elections and step down once a successor is elected.

Kinshasa has repeatedly used the lack of security and lack of a credible voters register to postpone elections. The December 2018 date has the full backing of the international community even though the opposition have expressed concerns over the process so far.

Source: Africa News

13, July 2018

Bribery and Corruption: African Union boss Mahamat arrives in Cameroon ⁰

The chairman of the African Union Commission, Dr Moussa Faki Mahamat, arrived in Cameroon Thursday for an official visit.

Dr Mahamat was received at the Nsimalen International Airport in Yaoundé by Cameroonian Prime Minister Philemon Yang.

The AU chief’s second visit to Cameroon comes shortly after the 31st summit of the organisation in Nouakchott, Mauritania.

Show gratitude

Dr Mahamat was in Cameroon in May last year to show gratitude to the people and President Paul Biya for supporting his bid for the continental seat.

The AU boss is expected to brief President Biya on the major resolutions of the Mauritania summit when they meet at State House on Friday.

Cameroon supports the ongoing AU reforms and was among the 44 countries that signed the continental free trade area (AfCFTA) at the end of the extraordinary AU summit in Kigali, Rwanda in March.

Dr Mahamat’s visit to Cameroon comes at a time the country was facing several challenges, including the Boko Haram threats in the Far North and the tension in the English speaking Northwest and Southwest.

Strife-hit regions

The visit could offer an opportunity for the AU to witness the reality on the ground and better appreciate government efforts at finding lasting solutions to the Cameroon uprising.

The Yaoundé regime hopes that at the end of the visit, the AU chief may galvanise the international community to support a FCFA12.7 billion Emergency Humanitarian Assistance Plan for the people of the strife-hit regions.

Cameroon hosts several specialised pan-African institutions, including the African Standby Force(ASF) Continental Logistics Base, the African Union Sports Council and the African Monetary Fund.

Source: The East African

12, July 2018

Municipal elections in Cameroon latest to be postponed ⁰

Local elections in Cameroon have been pushed back a year without explanation, according to a statement read out on state radio on Wednesday.

“The mandate of municipal councillors has been extended for a period of 12 months from October 15, 2018,” said the decree signed by President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 35 years.

The elections were supposed to be held before the end of the year, in parallel with presidential and legislative elections. No reason was given for the delay.

Legislative elections were also postponed earlier this month after Biya said that holding all three votes in the same period would be “difficult” due to “overlapping electoral operations”.

One of Africa’s longest serving leaders, the 85-year-old Biya could run for yet another presidential term in an election scheduled for October.

The presidential election will take place amid ongoing Boko Haram attacks in the far north of the country and unrest in its two English-speaking regions.

Source: AFP

11, July 2018

UN applauds Ethiopia-Eritrea rapprochement ⁰

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has hailed the rapprochement between ex-foes Eritrea and Ethiopia but has not offered to review the sanctions on the former country after expressions of concern by a number of council members.

A draft UNSC statement, initially prepared by Sweden, on Tuesday “reaffirmed that efforts by the Government of Eritrea to engage with the international community enable a review of measures on Eritrea.”

The US, China, the UK, France, and the Ivory Coast, however, objected to tying the betterment of ties between the two African neighbors to a review of Eritrea sanctions and ultimately dropped that reference from the statement, according to diplomats cited by Reuters.

Ethiopia, which is a current UNSC member, announced its desire on Monday for the UN to lift its own sanctions on Eritrea. Ethiopia and Eritrea had declared an end to their state of war earlier in the day and agreed on resuming diplomatic ties, developing ports, and renewing flights between the two nations after decades of conflict.

Eritrea remains under a UN arms embargo since 2009, after UN experts monitoring sanctions against Somalia accused Eritrea of providing political, financial, and logistical support to armed militants, undermining peace and reconciliation in the largely-lawless and impoverished Somalia. Eritrea, however, has rejected the accusations.

The 15-member UNSC is due to renew its arms embargo and targeted sanctions against Eritrea in November. The body may choose, however, to adopt a resolution before then to remove the sanctions.

A council resolution would need nine votes in favor and no vetoes by permanent members, namely the US, China, Russia, Britain, and France.

The resolution also said that a border dispute between Eritrea and Djibouti would be a factor in any UNSC review of the measures against Eritrea.

Both the US and China maintain military bases in Djibouti.

Source: Presstv

9, July 2018

Congo-Kinshasa faces upsurge of violence unless a deal is done with President Kabila ⁰

Amid a fresh wave of civil unrest in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the international community must question its confidence in President Joseph Kabila to achieve stability in a turbulent region. He has been at the helm since he took over as president in 2001 after his father, Laurent, was assassinated. The young Kabila ruled for a transitional period until 2006, before winning two elections.

He is now in his seventh year of what should have been just five years of his second term and is constitutionally barred from standing again. But he has remained in office after his mandate ended in late 2016. This, as the country awaits a long-delayed election. The delay has sparked deadly protests.

While Kabila cannot legally stand for a third term, the opposition is concerned that he might. Fears among opposition and church leaders have been further fuelled by Kabila’s appointment of three new judges to the constitutional court. Two are well-known allies.

But Kabila has no legitimacy and his authority is disintegrating. If the elections are delayed again there’s a real possibility that central Africa will slide into violent conflict once again. The armed violence is likely to be bloodier than in the past due to the number of fragmented localised groups aiming to grab their slice in one of the world’s most resource-rich countries.

If the international community wants to avoid another major armed conflict on the African content – in addition to the outstanding conflicts in Libya, Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan – urgent action is needed to negotiate with Kabila for his own peaceful exit before the country slides back into full-scale armed conflict.

Deteriorating situation

In the wake of Kabila’s refusal to cede power, the security situation has deteriorated. At least 10 of Congo’s 26 provinces are in the grip of armed conflict. This has forced over two million people to flee their homes, 800,000 of them children. The total number of internally displaced people is estimated to be 4.5 million while refugees are flocking into Uganda, Tanzania, Angola and Zambia.

The security situation in the DRC is dire. As the violence in Kasai and eastern parts of the country intensifies, escalating conflict in south eastern Congo looks set to continue.

File 20180703 116152 zmz6ac.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1 — President Kabila’s time in government has shown an inability to bring together the various ethnic groups. EPA/Michael Kappeler

More than 70 rebel groups are estimated to be operating in the country. They are all variously involved in skirmishes with the army or, more commonly, prey on civilians. This in turn creates a tangle of ethnic and tribal grievances for warlords to exploit.

In 2012, the M23 rebel movement briefly took the city of Goma. They were eventually thrown out by the Congolese army, supported by the UN. But the current violence in Kasai is threatening to overshadow even that disaster. In August 2017, for example, the “dead city” movements ensured that significant parts of the country’s urban population went on strike.

Some reports have suggested that more than 3,000 people have been killed since the start of 2017. More than 33,000 Kasai residents have fled into Angola. It has been suggested that the Bana Mura- a government sponsored militia – was behind the violence.

Last year major fighting occurred between Twa and Bantu populations in Tanganyika province. And as the year entered its last quarter, Uvira, on the outskirts of Lake Tanganyika, was the site for fighting between the rebel Yakutumba militia and government forces. Government forces fled and the rebels would have taken the city had they not been repulsed by Pakistani peacekeepers.

Despite a failure by the Yakutumba militia to take Uvira, it was a reminder of the level of dissatisfaction rising in the east, since the end of the Second Congo War in 2003. The rise of rebels operating in the east means violence could potentially spread to Kivu and beyond.

Uncertain times ahead

In 2017, presidential and legislative elections were delayed despite the Catholic Church reaching a deal with Kabila. The political crisis was further complicated by the death of long-standing opposition leader Étienne Tshisekedi later in the year.

The election planned for December this year is unlikely to bring together the various groups or solve the outbreak of violence in the country. The most likely candidate with the perceived ability to bring together the different groups is Moïse Katumbi. He has succeeded in rallying together opposition parties into a coalition backing his candidacy – an impressive feat in a country as fragmented as the Congo.

He also has by far the best broad plan to reconcile the country, which is what the country needs if the fragile peace is going to hold. But the country’s attorney general announced recently that Katumbi may not be eligible to stand in presidential elections because he held Italian citizenship from October 2000 until January 2017.

Under Congo’s constitution, its nationals cannot hold dual citizenship and have to petition the government to regain their citizenship if they take up a foreign nationality. But the provision, however, is loosely enforced and many prominent politicians are believed to have second citizenships.

Kabila’s time in government has shown an inability to bring together the various ethnic groups and to control the growth of dissatisfied rebel groups. This is despite the fact that the DRC has the world’s largest UN peacekeeping force, numbering 18,000 blue helmets, who try to enforce a measure of calm in the east of the country.

Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi has said that he hopes to see a commitment from Kabila to leave office at year’s end. More African leaders need to acknowledge the gravity of the crisis and apply pressure on Kabila through existing African Union mechanisms.

Source: News 24

28, June 2018

Ambazonia Crisis has brought Cameroon to the brink of civil war ⁰

Cameroon’s governance and security problems have historically attracted little outside attention. But this seems likely to change, for two reasons. The first is the growing political crisis in the Central African nation’s English-speaking region. The second is a presidential election scheduled for October 2018.

Roughly 20% of the country’s population of 24.6 million people are Anglophone. The majority are Francophone. The unfair domination of French-speaking politicians in government has long been the source of conflict.

Activists in the country’s Anglophone western regions are protesting their forced assimilation into the dominant Francophone society. They argue that this process violates their minority rights, which are protected under agreements that date back to the 1960s. Anglophone political representation and involvement at many levels of society has dwindled since the Federal Republic of Cameroon became the United Republic of Cameroon in 1972. There are growing calls for the Anglophone region to secede from Cameroon.

This festering conflict represents a major test as Cameroon prepares for the October elections.

Three things are urgently needed now in Cameroon. The first is to understand the origins of the crisis. The second is to support an inclusive national dialogue. And the third is to ensure that the 2018 elections are free and fair for all.

Growing crisis

Before 1961, the Southern Cameroons were a British administered territory from Nigeria. They elected to join the Republic of Cameroon by UN plebiscite in 1961 around the time of decolonization.

Cameroonian President Paul Biya visits China — President of Cameroon Paul Biya. (Lintao Zhang

A power-sharing agreement was reached: the executive branch of government was meant to be shared by Francophones and Anglophones. But that agreement has not been upheld and, over the years, Anglophone political representation has been steadily eroded.

The crisis came to a head in late 2016 when lawyers, joined by teachers and others with similar grievances, led protests in major western cities demanding that the integrity of their professional institutions be protected and their minority rights respected.

President Paul Biya responded by deploying troops to the region and blocking internet access. When peaceful demonstrations were met with violent repression it exacerbated tensions and escalated the conflict to a national political crisis.

On June 12, Amnesty International issued a report documenting human rights violations in Cameroon. The International Crisis Group says that at least 120 civilians and 43 members of security forces have been killed in the most recent waves of violence.

More than 20,000 people have fled to neighbouring Nigeria, and an estimated 160,000 are displaced within Cameroon.

Some human rights activists worry that Cameroon could be the site of Africa’s next civil war.

Agbor Nkongho, an Anglophone human rights lawyer and director of the Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, told the Washington Post:

We are gradually, gradually getting there (civil war). I’m not seeing the willingness of the government to try to find and address the issue in a way that we will not get there.

Another issue is that there are diverse views even within the Anglophone and Francophone communities about what would be best for Cameroon going forward.

Obstacles to national unity

In October 2017 the separatist leader Julius Ayuk Tabe declared the independence of the Republic of Ambazonia. His interim government laid claim to a territory whose borders are the same as the UN Trust Territory of Southern Cameroons under British rule (1922-1961).

The interim government’s spokesman, Nso Foncha Nkem, invitedFrancophones to leave the region and called on Anglophones in Biya’s “rubber-stamp” government to return to Ambazonia and support the movement. He also pleaded for unity, asking that Anglophones speak in one voice.

However, that call has not overcome the challenges posed by diverse viewpoints within the Anglophone population itself. Some favour secession. Others want to return to the 1961 federation and the power-sharing agreement. There are those who prefer decentralization that would devolve power to regional leaders, and some who simply want an administrative solution that would leave the Republic of Cameroon as it stands.

And among the Francophone population, there is some support for the radical separatists, while some see the Anglophone situation as a general crisis of governance and others deny any problem exists.

Mongo Beti, a Francophone novelist and activist who spent 30 years in exile, observed after returning home in the 1990s that a general absence of identification with a viable, unified nation due to various divisions had frayed Cameroon’s social fabric and was a significant impediment to progress.

It is unclear whether Biya, who is 85 and in power since 1982, will run for re-election. His 38 years in office as a corrupt, absent leader have left the nation in tatters. The vast majority of Cameroonians, whether Anglophone or Francophone, are hungry for change.

The way forward?

There is an urgent need for an inclusive national dialogue to harness this desire for change.

The government must recognize that it faces a substantive national crisis and take extraordinary steps. A general conversation about governance in all its regions is also necessary. Given the depth and severity of people’s grievances, a holistic approach is needed that would address issues of governance, security, and civic engagement to mend the bonds that have been broken.

This is necessary if the current crisis it to become an opportunity to develop a new road map for the future that could empower citizens.

Culled from Quartz Media