Category: Legal Judicial

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is visiting Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda and the Republic of Congo this week, trying to counteract Western blame of Russia for a growing global food crisis. Experts say Russia will push its own narrative as to why it’s attacking Ukraine and use the visit to show it has friends.

Lavrov was in the Republic of Congo Monday, the second day of his tour, to meet with the leadership of the central African nation.

Steven Gruzd is the head of the Russia-Africa Program at the South African Institute of International Affairs, said Russia will play the victim card when meeting with African leaders.

“It’s a propaganda war as much as it’s a shooting war and we have seen from the Ukrainian side how successfully President Zelensky has used social media,” Gruzd said. “He gives daily messages, he talks to parliaments and to [the U.S.] Congress and to groups around the world. Virtually, he is seen being on the frontline and Russia is mounting a counter-offensive. I think this is all part of that same trend.”

Gruzd said it’s interesting that it is an in-person visit rather than online communication.

“I think it’s deliberately calculated to show that Russia is not isolated, that Russia still has friends in the world, that Russia still cares about Africa,” Gruzd said.

In Egypt, Lavrov met with Arab League leadership, seeking the support of the group’s 22-member states and accusing the West of ignoring his country’s security concerns. He is expected to do the same when he visits African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa.

Wale Olusola, who teaches international politics at Nigeria’s Obafemi Awolowo University, said Russia is using the African visit to clean up its image after invading Ukraine and seeks to influence the continent.

“The visit reverberates across all of Africa, so there is a message it sends globally in terms of a new relationship that Russia is trying to cut,” Olusola said. “Russia can make a big deal out of this visit, to at least give the impression to other members of the global community that it’s not isolated.”

Olusola said Russia could be seeking a long-term gain as well.

“These kinds of visits are not just diplomatic purely on the surface,” Olusola said. “We expect that some arrangement, some deals may be signed or informally agreed upon with Russia fairly in respect to countries that are having issues with security.”

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said Africa imports almost half of its military equipment from Russia, adding that arms export is a critical component of Russia’s economic growth.

By the institute’s count, the number of African countries buying weapons from Russia has grown to 21 from 16 in the 2000s. A handful of countries also use Russian-supplied mercenaries.

Olusola said African countries should use opportunities such as Lavrov’s visit to push for their own interests and that Russia must be willing to provide some kind of concrete economic and financial support for the challenged African economies.

“I think it’s an opportunity for African countries to reinstate the African position on the Ukraine crisis and, of course, to see ways beyond the Western relations and benefits it gets from Western countries,” Olusola said.

At the United Nations General Assembly in March, 38 African countries condemned Russia’s war on Ukraine, but supporters of Ukraine accuse African countries of doing too little to hold Russia accountable for its invasion.

Source: Voice of America

Bulldozers raze makeshift market stalls and buildings Monday morning in Tongolo, a neighborhood in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde.

Among the several hundred stall owners is Julio Evina.

Evina says it is regrettable that officials are destroying businesses along some major streets in the capital Yaounde and rendering families hungry simply because French President Emmanuel Macron will be visiting Cameroon. He says if not for Macron’s visit, he is certain that the government would not have filled potholes that have been causing accidents on roads in Yaounde.

France says Macron will discuss the food crisis in Africa provoked in part by Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as the challenges in increasing agriculture production in Africa and an upsurge in insecurity.

Cameroon faces Boko Haram terrorism that has killed over 30,000 people and displaced two million within 10 years in its northern border with Chad and Nigeria. The central African state also faces separatist conflicts that have killed at least 3,300 people and displaced more than 750,000 in 5 years according to the U.N.

Capo Daniel is the deputy defense chief of the Ambazonia Defense Forces, or the ADF, one of the separatist groups. He says the ADF hopes Macron will ask Biya to end the use of force as a solution to the separatist crisis in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions.

“One of our factions in our liberation movement called for lockdown as a means to protest Emmanuel Macrons visit, but other movements will be watching this event with the hope that Emmanuel Macron will be pushing Paul Biya to choose the path of peaceful resolution of the war.”

Politicians and civil society groups say they will discuss with Macron the possibility of a peaceful transition in Cameroon. Eighty-nine-year-old President Paul Biya has been in power for close to 40 years and critics accuse him of rigging elections to prolong his power until he dies. The government says he has always won democratic elections.

France says after Cameroon, Macron will visit Benin and Guinea Bissau.

Ejani Leornard Kulu, a political scientist and an analyst at the U.N.-sponsored University for Peace Africa Program in Addis Ababa, says Macron is expected to review his country’s economic, political and security ties with Africa. Kulu adds that African countries that have agreements with France are now seeking profitable partnerships with other world economies.

“We saw the president of the African Union and the African Commission going to Russia to see how cereals will not be blocked for Africans to have food. If we take the case of Cameroon signing a defense treaty with Russia, Cameroon surrendering mines exploitation to China, questions French positioning and even gives a sentiment of anti-French. So, France wants to reposition itself against other partners like China, like Russia.”

The government of France says Macron is accompanied by the French ministers of foreign affairs, armed forces and foreign relations, as well as the French secretary of state for development.

Source: Voice of America

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Seven protesters were shot to death in Sudan on Thursday, medics said, as large crowds took to the streets despite heavy security and a communications blackout to rally against the military leadership that seized power eight months ago.

In central Khartoum, security forces fired tear gas and water cannons in the afternoon as they tried to prevent swelling numbers of protesters from marching toward the presidential palace, witnesses said.

They estimated the crowds in Khartoum and its twin cities of Omdurman and Bahri to be at least in the tens of thousands, the largest for months. In Omdurman, witnesses reported tear gas and gunfire as security forces prevented protesters from crossing into Khartoum, though some later made it across.

The protests in the capital and other cities marked the third anniversary of huge demonstrations during the uprising that overthrew long-time autocratic ruler Omar al-Bashir and led to a power-sharing arrangement between civilian groups and the military.

Last October, the military led by General Abdel-Fattah Burhan toppled the transitional government, triggering rallies demanding the army quit politics.

Some of Thursday’s protesters carried banners calling for justice for those killed in previous demonstrations. Others chanted, “Burhan, Burhan, back to the barracks and hand over your companies,” a reference to the military’s economic holdings.

In the evening, protesters in Bahri and Khartoum said they were starting sit-ins against Thursday’s deaths, one of the highest single-day tolls to date.

June 30 also marks the day Bashir took power in a coup in 1989.

“Either we get to the presidential palace and remove Burhan or we won’t return home,” said a 21-year-old female student protesting in Bahri.

It was the first time in months of protests that internet and phone services had been cut. After the military takeover, extended internet blackouts were imposed in an apparent effort to weaken the protest movement.

Staff at Sudan’s two private sector telecoms companies, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities had ordered them to shut down the internet once again on Thursday.

Phone calls within Sudan were also cut, and security forces closed bridges over the Nile linking Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri, another step typically taken on big protest days to limit the movement of marchers.

On Wednesday, medics aligned with the protest movement said security forces shot to death a child in Bahri during neighborhood protests that have been taking place daily.

Thursday’s seven deaths, five in Omdurman, one in Khartoum and another child in Bahri brought the number of protesters killed since the coup to 110. There were many injuries and attempts by security forces to storm hospitals in Khartoum where the injured were being treated, the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors said.

There was no immediate comment from Sudanese authorities.

The United Nations envoy in Sudan, Volker Perthes, called this week on authorities to abide by a pledge to protect the right of peaceful assembly.

“Violence against protesters will not be tolerated,” he said.

Military leaders said they dissolved the government in October because of political paralysis, though they are yet to appoint a prime minister. International financial support agreed with the transitional government was frozen after the coup and an economic crisis has deepened.

Burhan said on Wednesday the armed forces were looking forward to the day when an elected government could take over, but this could only be done through consensus or elections, not protests.

Mediation efforts led by the United Nations and the African Union have so far yielded little progress.

Source: Voice of America

ABUJA– At least five persons were killed and nine others injured, when a bus suddenly caught fire yesterday, along the Lagos-Ibadan highway, linking three states in Nigeria’s south-west region, the traffic police said.

Ahmed Umar, a commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), in the southern state of Ogun, said, the fire incident in Ogere, a town along the Ogun corridor of the highway, occurred as a result of mechanical deficiency while in motion.

The five dead victims suffered some burns, while the injured suffered varying degrees of injury, Umar told reporters in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun.

The FRSC official advised motorists to ensure their vehicles’ road worthiness at all times, to avoid endangering passengers’ lives.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

TRIPOLI— The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that it evacuated 132 vulnerable asylum-seekers from Libya to Rwanda.

“UNHCR evacuated a group of 132 vulnerable asylum seekers, including young children and babies, out of Libya to safety in Rwanda,” UNHCR Libya tweeted.

The asylum-seekers, who are from different African countries, had been living in urban areas of the capital Tripoli and include survivors of violence and torture and women and girls at risk, said UNHCR in a statement.

Expressing gratitude to Libyan authorities for facilitating the evacuation, UNHCR Acting Chief of Mission in Libya Djamal Zamoum said “these vital flights provide hope and safety for some of the most vulnerable refugees and asylum-seekers in Libya.”

Zamoum urged other countries to “provide more pathways or resettlement opportunities to help others find safety out of Libya.”

Since 2017, a total of 8,296 vulnerable refugees and asylum-seekers have been evacuated out of Libya to safety, according to the UN relief agency.

Many illegal migrants, mostly Africans, choose to cross the Mediterranean Sea to European shores from Libya.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Suspected terrorists attacked a U.N. peacekeeping convoy in northern Mali on Wednesday, the United Nations said. A Jordanian peacekeeper was killed and three other Jordanians were wounded.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the supply convoy was under sustained fire for about an hour from attackers who used small arms and rocket launchers.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the attack and sent his deepest condolences to the families of the peacekeepers and the government and people of Jordan, Dujarric said.

According to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali, the attack was the fifth incident in the northern Kidal region in one week, Dujarric said.

“It is a tragic reminder of the complexity of the mandate of the U.N. mission and of its peacekeepers, and the threats peacekeepers face on a daily basis,” he said.

The Security Council later released a statement condemning the attack and calling on authorities in Mali to investigate and bring those responsible to justice. The statement added that the Security Council “underlined that attacks targeting peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law.”

Mali has struggled to contain an Islamic extremist insurgency since 2012. Extremist rebels were forced from power in Mali’s northern cities with the help of a French-led military operation, but they regrouped in the desert and began attacking the Malian army and its allies. Insecurity has worsened with attacks in the northern and central regions on civilians and U.N. peacekeepers.

Mali’s military returned to Kidal, a longtime rebel stronghold in the north, in February 2020, six years after its forces retreated amid violence. U.N. peacekeepers have also been deployed in the north.

Deadliest mission

The U.N. force has said more than 250 of its peacekeepers and personnel have died since 2013, making Mali the deadliest of the U.N.’s dozen peacekeeping missions worldwide.

The U.N. special representative for Mali, El Ghassim Wane, issued a statement Wednesday saying the U.N. mission remained determined to support Mali’s people and government in their quest for peace and security, Dujarric said.

In August 2020, Malian President Boubacar Ibrahim Keita, who died in January, was overthrown in a coup that included Assimi Goita, then an army colonel. Last June, Goita was sworn in as president of a transitional government after carrying out his second coup in nine months.

In mid-May, Goita’s government said security forces had thwarted a countercoup attempt that it said was supported by an unnamed Western government.

The accusations of foreign interference came as Goita’s regime has become increasingly isolated. A day earlier, the government announced that Mali was dropping out of a five-nation regional security force known as the G5. It was also sharply critical of former colonial power France, which announced in February that it was pulling its troops out of Mali.

While Mali’s junta initially agreed to an 18-month transition back to civilian rule, it failed to organize elections by the deadline in February. Last month, the government said it would need two more years in power before it could organize a vote.

Source: Voice of America

After seven decades on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II is widely viewed in the U.K. as a rock in turbulent times. But in Britain’s former colonies, many see her as an anchor to an imperial past whose damage still lingers.

So while the U.K. is celebrating the queen’s Platinum Jubilee — 70 years on the throne — with pageantry and parties, some in the Commonwealth are using the occasion to push for a formal break with the monarchy and the colonial history it represents.

“When I think about the queen, I think about a sweet old lady,” said Jamaican academic Rosalea Hamilton, who campaigns for her country to become a republic. “It’s not about her. It’s about her family’s wealth, built on the backs of our ancestors. We’re grappling with the legacies of a past that has been very painful.”

The empire that Elizabeth was born into is long gone, but she still reigns far beyond Britain’s shores. She is head of state in 14 other nations, including Canada, Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Bahamas. Until recently it was 15 — Barbados cut ties with the monarchy in November, and several other Caribbean countries, including Jamaica, say they plan to follow suit.

Britain’s jubilee celebrations, which climax over a four-day holiday weekend starting Thursday, aim to recognize the diversity of the U.K. and the Commonwealth. A huge jubilee pageant through central London on Sunday will feature Caribbean Carnival performers and Bollywood dancers.

But Britain’s image of itself as a welcoming and diverse society has been battered by the revelation that hundreds, and maybe thousands, of people from the Caribbean who had lived legally in the U.K. for decades were denied housing, jobs or medical treatment — and in some cases deported — because they didn’t have the paperwork to prove their status.

The British government has apologized and agreed to pay compensation, but the Windrush scandal has caused deep anger, both in the U.K. and in the Caribbean.

A jubilee-year trip to Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas in March by the queen’s grandson Prince William and his wife Kate, which was intended to strengthen ties, appears to have had the opposite effect. Images of the couple shaking hands with children through a chain-link fence and riding in an open-topped Land Rover in a military parade stirred echoes of colonialism for many.

Cynthia Barrow-Giles, professor of political science at the University of the West Indies, said the British “seem to be very blind to the visceral sort of reactions” that royal visits elicit in the Caribbean.

Protesters in Jamaica demanded Britain pay reparations for slavery, and Prime Minister Andrew Holness politely told William that the country was “moving on,” a signal that it planned to become a republic. The next month, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told the queen’s son Prince Edward that his country, too, would one day remove the queen as head of state.

William acknowledged the strength of feeling and said the future “is for the people to decide upon.”

“We support with pride and respect your decisions about your future,” he said in the Bahamas. “Relationships evolve. Friendship endures.”

When then Princess Elizabeth became queen on the death of her father King George VI 1952, she was in Kenya. The East African country became independent in 1963 after years of violent struggle between a liberation movement and colonial troops. In 2013, the British government apologized for the torture of thousands of Kenyans during the 1950s “Mau Mau” uprising and paid millions in an out-of-court settlement.

Memories of the empire are still raw for many Kenyans.

“From the start, her reign would be indelibly stained by the brutality of the empire she presided over and that accompanied its demise,” said Patrick Gathara, a Kenyan cartoonist, writer and commentator.

“To this day, she has never publicly admitted, let alone apologized, for the oppression, torture, dehumanization and dispossession visited upon people in the colony of Kenya before and after she acceded to the throne.”

U.K. officials hope countries that become republics will remain in the Commonwealth, the 54-nation organization made up largely of former British colonies, which has the queen as its ceremonial head.

The queen’s strong personal commitment to the Commonwealth has played a big role in uniting a diverse group whose members range from vast India to tiny Tuvalu. But the organization, which aims to champion democracy, good governance and human rights, faces an uncertain future.

As Commonwealth heads of government prepare to meet in Kigali, Rwanda, this month for a summit delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, some question whether the organization can continue once the queen’s eldest son, Prince Charles, succeeds her.

“Many of the more uncomfortable histories of the British Empire and the British Commonwealth are sort of waiting in the wings for as soon as Elizabeth II is gone,” royal historian Ed Owens said. “So it’s a difficult legacy that she is handing over to the next generation.”

The crisis in the Commonwealth reflects Britain’s declining global clout.

Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth under its authoritarian late President Robert Mugabe, and is currently seeking readmission. But many in its capital of Harare have expressed indifference to the queen’s jubilee, as Britain’s once-strong influence wanes and countries such as China and Russia enjoy closer relations with the former British colony.

“She is becoming irrelevant here,” social activist Peter Nyapedwa said. “We know about [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] or [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, not the queen.”

Sue Onslow, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London, said the queen has been the “invisible glue” holding the Commonwealth together.

But she says the organization has proven remarkably resilient and and shouldn’t be written off. The Commonwealth played a major role in galvanizing opposition to apartheid in the 1980s, and could do the same over climate change, which poses an existential threat to its low-lying island members.

“The Commonwealth has shown a remarkable ability to reinvent itself and contrive solutions at times of crisis, almost as if it’s jumping into a telephone box and coming out under different guise,” she said. “Whether it will do it now is an open question.”

Source: Voice of America

One of two Kenyans wanted for alleged involvement in wildlife and drug trafficking has been arrested in a joint U.S.-Kenyan operation. The U.S. government had announced a reward for information leading to the arrest of Badru Abdul Aziz Saleh.

U.S. officials said Kenya’s security agencies received a tip from the public that led to the arrest of Saleh Monday in Liboi, Garissa county. An embassy statement said U.S. and Kenyan law enforcement officials cooperated to apprehend Saleh.

Another suspect, Abdi Hussein Ahmed, remains at large.

On Thursday, the United States announced rewards of up to $1 million each for information leading to the arrest, prosecution and conviction of the two Kenyans.

Eric W. Kneedler, chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, said Monday’s arrest of Saleh “would not have been possible without the public’s support. He appealed for information leading to Ahmed’s arrest.

Saleh remains in police custody in Nairobi and is expected to be extradited to the U.S.

Saleh was arrested back in 2019 for drug trafficking but released on bail, according to the U.S. State Department. A statement said he was a fugitive with an outstanding warrant for his arrest. A federal grand jury in New York indicted him in 2021.

Saleh and Ahmed were accused in the transportation, distribution and smuggling of 190 kilograms of rhinoceros horns and 10 tons of elephant ivory from different African countries.

They were also alleged to have been involved in transporting and distributing 10 kilograms of heroin from Kenya to the United States.

If convicted, both could face up to 10 years in prison in the U.S.
In March, Kenya launched a financial toolkit to help fight illegal wildlife trade.

Source: Voice of America