Democratic Republic of Congo’s parliament will, at President Joseph Kabila’s request, hold a special session to consider legislation providing legal protection for former presidents, lawmakers said.

The announcement could be a further sign that Kabila intends to step down after an election in December despite speculation that he is trying to circumvent term limits that forbid him from running again.

Kabila to contest or not

Prime Minister Bruno Tshibala told Reuters this week that Kabila would not be a candidate, the clearest declaration yet from a senior government official on the matter.

But Kabila himself has refused to publicly commit to leaving office and some of his supporters have in recent weeks floated a legal rationale that would allow him to stand again.

“At the request of the president of the republic, an extraordinary session will be convened,” lower house speaker Aubin Minaku told deputies on Friday at the close of the latest parliamentary session.

“We will examine several items including the law on the status of former chiefs of state, the designation of a new member of the constitutional court and the law on the tax to promote industry,” he said.

It was not immediately clear when that session would take place.

Protecting Kabila to facilitate transition

Under the constitution, former presidents already receive broad immunity from prosecution as senators for life.

Modeste Mutinga, a senator from an opposition party, introduced legislation in 2015 to reinforce those protections in an effort to encourage Congo’s first ever democratic transition.

It stipulates that former presidents and their aides will not be liable for arrest for common law violations committed in the exercise of presidential functions. It also provides for bodyguards for ex-presidents and increases in their pension.

However the bill never came up for a vote.

“As the initiative for taking up this law during the extraordinary session comes from those who blocked the law, we think that this time we are really going to examine (it),” Mutinga told Reuters.

Kabila’s tumultous reign

Kabila succeeded his assassinated father as president in 2001. He was required by the constitution to step down in December 2016 but the election to replace him has been repeatedly delayed.

Since then, security forces have killed dozens of anti-Kabila protesters while surging militia violence has raised the spectre of a repeat of civil wars around the turn of the century that cost millions of lives.

The special session will also select a new Constitutional Court justice to replace Felix Vunduawe Te Pemako, who was named president of a separate court this week.

Last month, Kabila and parliament named two close Kabila allies to the court in moves analysts say could be geared either at securing a judgment that allows him to run again or bolstering the chances that his preferred successor will win.

REUTERS

Angola’s president, Joao Lourenco has said his government is ‘talking regularly’ with the Congolese president, Joseph Kabila as it monitors the political situation in the restive country.

Lourenco, who was speaking exclusively to Euronews, said the talks with Kabila are advisory in nature and that its up to the Congolese president to ‘follow the advice or not’.

‘‘All we want is this agreement to be fulfilled, because we understand that failure to do so can lead to political and social turmoils that will not be very pleasant to the Congolese people and to the neighbors themselves including Angola,’‘ Lourenco said.

Kabila’s final term came to an end in 2016, but he has remained in office via a constitutional provision that allows him to stay until his successor is elected. The government has postponed elections several times, citing logistical challenges. The latest date set for elections to replace Kabila is December 23, 2018.

Kabila keeps the country guessing

The opposition, working together with the powerful Catholic Church in the country has organised protests and demonstrations asking Kabila to declare that he will not seek re-election, but many of these protests have been met with repression by the country’s security agencies.

Two weeks ago, Lourenco met with Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame and French president Emmanuel Macron to discuss the situation in Congo. Authorities in Kinshasa protested the meeting saying they would not accept any foreign led solution reached without their participation.

Congo’s neighbours have in the past expressed fear that should Kabila insist on violating the constitution to seek another term, the chaos resulting from the political fallout could further destabilise the country and the region.

The opposition has expressed concern over several actions of the ruling party including erection of Kabila billboards and posters across the country, and a promotional video released a week ago highlighting the achievements of Kabila’s presidency.

An intervention by DRC’s neighbours?

Asked whether Angola and its partners would intervene in case Kabila violates the agreement and Congo is plunged into great instability, Lourenco said ‘any intervention would be made in the interest of stability for all’.

In the past, political turmoil in the vast nation has drawn in up to 9 countries including Uganda, Rwanda and Angola.

Source: Africa News

In a perfect political scenario, the next head of state of the so-called One and Indivisible Cameroon should have come from the Anglophone regions of the country. 20^th May 2018 marks the 46th anniversary of the Cameroonian nation and President Biya was convinced Cameroon would boast the largest economy in the CEMAC region and the Eldorado of peace deep within the African continent. The Francophone dictator was also confident that the two year running conflict with the people of Southern Cameroons which has claimed 2000 lives since 2016, would finally be over.  Now, the ground has shifted, in part due to Biya and President Buhari’s miscalculation that by abducting and extraditing the Acting President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe Julius to Yaoundé, the Southern Cameroons resistance would quickly collapse, especially if Nigeria lent its full support to French Cameroun.

But, as we now know, the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and its leadership are still alive and active and Sisiku Ayuk Tabe by extrapolation is still in power and after two years of fighting, Nigeria is now home to more than 40,000 Southern Cameroonian refugees and facing growing crises in the Cross River and Benue States. In Yaoundé, the army is at war with itself combating internal disintegration. In addition, the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia presently controls a large portion of the rural communities in Southern Cameroons – a concern for both the French government backing Biya and the international community. With age telling on Biya and succession palaver rocking the ruling CPDM crime syndicate, nobody in La Republique du Cameroun knows what Mr. Biya is most concerned with right now. The crisis in the Central African Republic has spilled over into the East region of Cameroon and the situation is becoming more intractable.

The current breakdown in Francophone and Anglophone relations in Cameroon is due to the Biya regime seeming indifference to the crime against humanity situation playing out in Southern Cameroons. Biya is running out of cash and can no longer handle the hydra-headed crisis in the Far North, East and in Southern Cameroons with arms and ammunition. The strategy now has been to blame it all on the US ambassador to Cameroon, His Excellency Peter Barlerin. Southern Cameroons has already fallen out of Yaounde’s control. What the two Cameroons need now is peace talks.

It will be an unfortunate situation if peace talks do not begin soonest. Recently, the mayor of Mamfe, John Ayuk Takunchong made an appeal for inclusive dialogue that depicted the deteriorating security situation in the Manyu County.  The Biya’s senseless war in Southern Cameroons has cost more than 14 million dollars – money that could have been better spent on developing the economy and infrastructure. The bitter truth is the Ambazonian people were subjected to a systematic and often brutal assimilation policy after reunification. The outcome is the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Nonetheless, from the perspective of the US chief diplomat in Yaoundé, the time to achieve a lasting peace has arrived as a result of the 2018 presidential elections without Biya as a candidate. The reasons for both Cameroons to dialogue are in a multiple. Firstly, Biya and his ruling CPDM party no longer have a strong majority government and military support even among French speaking Cameroonians. Secondly, the Cameroonian economy is not performing well. The young populations in both Cameroons are migrating out of both French and Southern Cameroons in hundreds if not thousands. Furthermore, majority of the junior Francophone army officers now appear unwilling to support the Biya government and many are simply fed up with the never-ending deployment and unrest – especially when just across Cameroon borders they can see the important economic progress of countries like Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and even Congo-Brazzaville.

It’s ironic that Biya’s attempt to crush the Anglophones and destroy the Ambazonian Interim Government has unintentionally led to increasing unrest inside his own country – French Cameroun which could lead to more Cameroon government soldiers dying. Moreover, is it really in French Cameroun’s best interests to be killing innocent Southern Cameroonian citizens including women and children and prolonging the war? Certainly, there’s no easy way forward for the Yaoundé government no matter what choices are made including ousting Biya from power.  However, we of the Cameroon Concord News Group can’t help thinking that the most realistic strategy for French Cameroun is to send Biya parking and adapt to the advent of Southern Cameroons autonomy and by doing so make it French Cameroun-friendly. Do it before “wata na wata” takes all of us away. A stitch in time saves nine

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has appointed his housing minister as the new prime minister and tasked him with forming a new cabinet in the North African country.

“President el-Sisi received Dr. Mostafa Madbouly today to commission him to form the new government,” Presidential spokesman Bassam Radi wrote Thursday on his Facebook page.

Madbouly, 52, was minister of housing, urban utilities and urban communities in Prime Minister Sherif Ismail’s cabinet. He served as an interim prime minister from November 2017 to the end of January this year, while Ismail received medical treatment abroad.

Ismail submitted the resignation on Tuesday, a move that is in keeping with political tradition that the government should resign at the start of a new presidential term.

Sisi was sworn in on Saturday for a second term in office. A former intelligence chief and defense minister, 63-year-old Sisi started another four years in office, some three months after securing 97 percent of the votes in a nationwide election without serious competition in his run for re-election.

The turnout in the much-criticized election was 41 percent, lower than the 47 percent recorded four years earlier. That could be a potential setback for Sisi who sought to portray the election as a referendum on his efforts to overhaul Egypt’s economy over the past years and root out terrorism in the North African country.

The vote was marred by allegations that real contenders for the election pulled out from the race because of an intimidation campaign by the government. Serious opposition contenders halted their campaigns in January while authorities arrested the main challenger whose campaign manager was also beaten up.

Sisi came to power in 2014, a year after he led the military to oust Egypt’s first competitively-elected president Mohamed Morsi in a coup. He served as the defense minister in Morsi’s government before orchestrating the putsch.

Sisi, who had initially vowed to eliminate terrorism, has failed to fulfill his pledge to this day. Just last November, Daesh-affiliated militants targeted a mosque in Sinai and killed over 300 people — the deadliest attack in Egypt’s recent history.

On the other hand, human rights groups and activists have constantly accused Sisi of violating public freedoms and suppressing opponents. Most of his opponents and vocal members of civil society have also been arrested in the past few months.

Rights groups say the army’s crackdown on Morsi’s supporters has resulted in the deaths of over 1,400 people. About 22,000 others have been arrested, including some 200 people who have been sentenced to death in mass trials.

The incumbent president also triggered intense criticism and controversy at home in April 2016 by handing over the strategic Tiran and Sanafir islands in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia, in a move interpreted as his government’s submission to the Riyadh regime.

Sisi’s government has further been part of the Saudi-led coalition that has killed some 14,000 Yemeni people since the start of the war three years ago.

Source: Presstv

The UN has called for calm in Mali after dozens of people were hurt during banned opposition protests in Bamako, sparking calls for the prime minister to resign two months ahead of a presidential election.

The opposition said some 30 people were hospitalized — including prominent opposition figure Etienne Fabaka Sissoko who was left “in a coma” — after security forces fired “live ammunition” at protesters on Saturday.

The government rejected the claims outright.

“It is absolutely false to say that shots were fired using live ammunition,” a source close to the security ministry told AFP.

Earlier Sunday, the ministry said the security forces were bound by three words — “professionalism, courtesy and firmness” and that the police had acted to maintain public order.

It denounced the protestors for having injured a policeman in the head.

A “transparency” rally outside the party headquarters of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita attracted several hundred people.

Police fired tear gas and beat demonstrators with batons, according to an AFP reporter at the scene. Clashes also took place in other locations.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who visited Mali last week, called late Saturday for “calm and restraint by all parties”.

“(He) calls on the Malian government to ensure the protection of fundamental human rights and freedom of expression to peaceful demonstrations, including in the context of the ongoing state of emergency,” a UN statement said.

Mali is one of the so-called “G5 Sahel” states — along with Burkina Faso, Chad, Mauritania and Niger — which have launched joint operations against militant groups.

Most protests are banned as the nation has lived under a near-constant state of emergency since an attack on a hotel in Bamako in November 2015 left 20 people dead.

Terrorize the opposition

“In a dozen places, unarmed protesters were attacked with tear gas and clubs,” the office of opposition presidential candidate Soumaila Cisse said in a statement.

“The headquarters of the ADP (Alliance for Democracy and Progress) was attacked by police special forces, who threw grenades. The prime minister’s security services fired live ammunition at protesters gathered” in front of the building, the statement charged.

“Three opposition leaders were violently beaten on the head with clubs and batons,” it added.

“The intention of the government was clear: to terrorize the opposition and all democratic forces.”

The statement also called for “the resignation of the prime minister”.

The demonstrations come ahead of July 29 elections in which Mali President Keita, 73, will face more than a dozen challengers.

The opposition has called for equal access to public radio and television for campaigning.

“The UN secretary-general regrets the government-imposed ban on the demonstrations by opposition parties,” the UN said.

“(He) urges political actors and the civil society to favor dialogue in order to maintain an environment conducive to the holding of credible and transparent elections.”

Opposition leaders have called for new demonstrations next Friday.

(Source: AFP)

Mixed reactions have greeted news of a July 30 date for Zimbabweans first general elections after Robert Mugabe was forced out of power.

On Wednesday, Emmerson Mnangagwa announced that a general election will be held on July 30, seen as crucial to securing foreign investments.

“I think he has got the final say, he has got the powers to put on a date, we have been ready to vote”, said Harare resident, Aston Matava.

Frank Nemayire ’‘looks forward to any changes in employment, or lack of liquidity, from the one who will be elected.“

However some are disgruntled. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which relies on voters who have fled the Mugabe regime, has suffered a setback as the Constitutional Court has decided that Zimbabweans in the diaspora could only vote by moving to the country.

‘‘First of all we have been clamoring for diaspora vote, we wanted the demilitarization of Zimbabwe’s Electoral Commission and the army, the state security agents should not be involved in the electoral process”, said Albert Chidhakwa.

Lyne tte Biti thinks the announcement is rather too soon. ‘‘In my opinion our party’s demands for electoral reforms have not been heard, so it makes no sense”, she added.

Missing from July’s election, for the first time in 20 years, will be Zimbabwe’s foremost political gladiators, Mugabe and longtime leader of the MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai, who died of cancer in February.

Mnangagwa goes into the election with the advantages of incumbency and the backing of the army. His face main rival is 40-year-old Nelson Chamisa and the MDC.

Critics have accused Mnangagwa of being Mugabe’s most loyal acolyte, and blame him for a crackdown on rebels in the mid-1980s that rights groups say killed 20,000 civilians. He denies those charges.

Source: Reuters

Zimbabwe announced on Wednesday it would choose a new president and parliament on July 30, in the country’s first electoral test since the removal of its autocratic former leader Robert Mugabe.

His successor, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, unveiled the date in the official Zimbabwe Government Gazette.

“Monday, the 30th day of July, 2018 (is) the day of the election to the office of President, the election of members of the National Assembly and election of councilors,” Mnangagwa said in a proclamation.

Once a right-hand man to the 94-year-old Mugabe, Mnangagwa dramatically succeeded the veteran leader in November after nearly four-decades in charge when troops swarmed the streets and briefly seized key sites.

Mnangagwa, 75, will square off against the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, now led by 40-year-old Nelson Chamisa following the death of Morgan Tsvangirai in February.

If no candidate receives a simple majority in the first round of the presidential election, a run-off will be held on September 8.

Elections under Mugabe were marred by corruption, intimidation and violence, but Mnangagwa has vowed to hold a free and fair vote.

The election will be the first to be monitored by Western observers in many years.

On Monday Harare and the European Union announced that observers from the bloc would monitor polls in the southern African country for the first time in 16 years.

The head of the last EU observer mission, Pierre Schori, was thrown out of Zimbabwe in 2002 on the eve of presidential elections that were condemned as flawed.

Following the high-profile spat, Zimbabwe barred the EU and other Western observers from sending further missions to monitor polls in the country as Mugabe grew more and more defiant of foreign criticism up until his downfall.

And in a further sign of Zimbabwe’s growing efforts to mend fences with former foes following Mugabe’s resignation, the country has applied to re-join the Commonwealth, the bloc of former British colonies said Monday.

Harare’s membership was suspended in 2003 over the violent and graft-ridden elections the previous year.

Zimbabwe left the Commonwealth at the height of violent land seizures, when white farmers were evicted in favor of landless black people — a policy that wrecked agriculture and triggered economic collapse.

Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland confirmed that the organization would also send observers to the elections.

Mugabe sent shockwaves through the ruling ZANU-PF, the party he dominated for decades, when he recently posed with a retired general who will take on the government in this year’s election.

Despite a slew of reformist pledges and announcements it is unclear whether Mnangagwa, who was a vital cog in the ZANU-PF party and helped Mugabe to hold onto power for 37 years, has won the support of ordinary Zimbabweans.

(Source: AFP)

South African politician Julius Malema says the King Mswati of eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) should leave politicians in the country to thrive.

According to Malema, who leads the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), South Africa’s third-force party, Mswati could go ahead to marry as many women as possible but his inteferance in the freedoms of citizens was unacceptable.

Whiles speaking at an EFF event to mark the African Day 2018 in the city of Tshwane, Malema praised Mswati for opting to remove the colonial name Swaziland and to replace same with eSwatini.

… release the political prisoners in Swaziland. We want total freedom in Swaziland. We don’t want the king to interfere with the freedoms of the people of Swaziland.

“Here at home, eSwatini, King Mswati, please leave politics to politicians and continue marrying as you want to marry many women, it’s fine.

“It’s your own problem but release the political prisoners in Swaziland. We want total freedom in Swaziland. We don’t want the king to interfere with the freedoms of the people of Swaziland.

“So we are saying to the king, please allow the people of eSwatini – what a beautiful name. This monarch (dictator) of Swaziland, he thinks better than the ANC people, he has changed the colonial name Swaziland to eSwatini,” Malema said to applause.

The King who took over the reins over three decades ago has over a dozen wives. He usually picks a wive after the annual reed dance ceremony.

The change of name was made during the double celebration in the southern African country. The first landmark was his 50th birthday and the country’s 50 years of independence. eSwatini is known to be one of the world’s last remaining absolute monarchies.

Mswati III took over at the age 18, he rules by decree and has over the years been at the crossroad between ruling as a traditional monarch or modernising his kingdom through multi-party democracy.

Rights groups like Amnesty International, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders have accused him of policies that trample human rights and democracy.

Source: Africa News

Cameroon, a nation which less than eight years ago could pride itself among the “most” peaceful countries in Africa is now at the threshold of an inferno with many raising fears of a possible replay of the sad tale that plagued Rwanda in 1994.

Today, Cameroon is fighting a war on two fronts with civilians and military casualties raising at a geometric rate. In its Northern regions, the Nigerian-oriented terrorist sect, Boko Haram and the Anglophone crisis in its English speaking regions threaten to tear the agile nation apart.

Crisis Group warns

The International crisis group in its Watch list 2018 publication highlighted Cameroon among the nations to be on watch this year.

In their report, they observed that “the Boko Haram insurgency is on the wane in the Lake Chad basin but continues to carry out attacks against civilian and military targets in Cameroon’s Far North. The war has killed about 2,000 Cameroonians, displaced roughly 170,000 and triggered the rise of vigilante self-defence groups. Meanwhile, Cameroon’s Anglophone regions have experienced violent flare-ups as the central government represses dissent over the perceived marginalization of the English-speaking minority.”

The impact of the lingering Anglophone crisis which has since December 2016 escalated from a civil protest to a semi-armed revolution keeps souring, gulping and causing the state, corporations, businesses as well as individuals colossal sums of money with its effect on the economy described by many as “problematic”.

Despite the huge financial and capital loss and the thousands of internally displaced and refugee seeking Anglophones that have been affected by the prolonged crisis, the probabilities of it ending anytime soon is decimal, experts hold.

With a yet to be established death toll which is feared to be in hundreds, Nkongho Felix Agbor-Balla, president of the outlawed consortium and founder of the Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa holds that “the Anglophone crisis is the biggest time bomb in Cameroon.”

His opinion is seemingly shared by the International Crisis Group which remarked that “if the situation is not defused through dialogue, the entire country could be destabilized ahead of elections.”

While Boko Haram continues to multiply its suicide attacks in the Northern Regions of Cameroon, several armed groups of the Cameroon separatist movement have emerged in the North West and South West regions.

Anglophone crisis is born

What started as a trade unionist civil protest has now metamorphosed into a semi-armed revolution with the media being flooded daily with news of killings, abductions, burning of villages, attacks on government officials and massive arrests.

While the government has on more than one occasion sworn to do all to protect the territorial boundaries of Cameroon, those advocating for secession or restoration, as some prefer, threaten to burn their way to independence.

Despite the fact that calls continue to mount on the need to organize a roundtable and an all inclusive dialogue so as to proffer lasting solutions to the crisis, Cameroon’s Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji is noted to always insist that the government will not dialogue with secessionists.

While the killings and atrocities continue to multiply on both camps, many have warned of an imminent civil war. While at some quarters, some people believe open confrontations might hasten and bring the desired solutions to the crisis, historians such as Nchiwo Thomas in Buea, warns that Cameroon might be heading towards the Rwanda path.

Lessons from Rwanda

It should be recalled that in less than four months of fighting; April 7, 1994 – July 1994, over 8,000 inhabitants perished in the Rwandan genocide pitting the Tutsi against the Hutu majority.

The lessons to be drawn by anyone before embarking on any armed confrontation is visible to all. As in less than four months, some eight thousand Rwandese were slain, property destroyed, millions sought refuge in neighboring countries, women and girls got grossly abused with underaged children having to live with the trauma after witnessing the carnage.

Even though a number of people got tried for fueling the genocide, the scar left on the population of Rwanda and the entire nation will not fade away, at least not any time soon.

At the end of the fighting, the factions decided to down their weapons and come together and pledge to guarantee responsible governance and participation; assure repairable, reconcilable justice, promote human rights and fight to promote impunity.

Time for Cameroon to avoid Rwanda’s route

Haven learnt the hard way, many have opined that Cameroon should learn from the mistakes of Rwanda and make hay while the sun still blooms. With the traditional and modern media having a crucial role to play in the Anglophone crisis as it did in the Rwanda genocide, many have called for media practitioners to exercise caution and be diligence while carrying out their function.

But with the advent of the social media and the rise of citizen journalism which have proven very difficult to keep in check, fears are rife that the current bend negotiated by the Anglophone crisis might lead to Rwanda in 1994.

Source:Face2FaceAfrica.com

Algeria has roundly rejected and denounced fresh claims by the Moroccan foreign minister that it played an “operational” role in alleged Iranian support for a pro-independence Western Sahara movement.

Nasser Bourita, Morocco’s top diplomat, had told the French-language Jeune Afrique weekly news magazine that Algiers offered more than a meeting venue for members of the separatist Polisario Front and Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement.

He had claimed that “Algeria has given more than its blessing. It has given an opening, backing and operational support.”

Rabat has accused Iran of using Hezbollah to support Polisario, a claim Tehran has sharply dismissed.

“Algeria strongly condemns and deplores the statements made by the Moroccan foreign minister in an interview, released yesterday in a Paris magazine,” the Foreign Ministry in Algiers said in a statement late on Sunday.

Algiers has criticized Rabat for not providing any evidence to support its claims, adding it continuously makes up “stories.”

Earlier this month, Morocco severed its diplomatic relations with Iran, with Bourita accusing Tehran and Hezbollah of training and arming Polisario members via the Iranian Embassy in Algeria.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said there was no cooperation between Tehran’s diplomatic mission in Algiers and the Algeria-backed movement.

Hezbollah also blamed the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia for the diplomatic tensions, saying Rabat cut ties with Tehran under pressure from the trio.

In turn, Algeria summoned Morocco’s ambassador to protest the “unfounded” claims.

Rabat annexed Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, in 1975, and has since then been in conflict with Polisario, which demands a referendum on self-determination and independence.

The movement, which aims to end Morocco’s presence in the Saharan region, recently said they sought to set up a “capital” in the region, prompting Rabat to caution it would respond with force.

Source: Presstv