News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

Growing fears of civil war in South Sudan

Posted: 10 Jul 2016 07:23 PM PDT

Latest outbreak of violence raises fears of a slide back into full-blown conflict in South Sudan.

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Juba - Renewed fighting erupted in South Sudan's capital on Sunday and forces loyal to Vice-President Riek Machar said his residence was attacked by the president's troops, raising fears of a slide back into full-blown conflict in the five-year-old nation.

There was no immediate response from the government of President Salva Kiir to the statement by Machar's spokesman. Kiir's information minister, Michael Makuei, said earlier the situation was under control and urged people to stay at home.

The two leaders, who fought each other in a two-year civil war that started in late 2013, had made a joint call for calm after clashes between rival factions broke out late on Thursday. At least 272 people have been killed in the fighting, a Health Ministry source told Reuters early on Sunday.

A Chinese UN peacekeeper was killed and several Chinese and Rwandan peacekeepers injured, Japan's UN ambassador, Koro Bessho, said on Sunday after the UN Security Council was briefed on the situation. Japan is council president for July.

The UN mission said UN compounds in Juba had been hit by small arms and heavy weapons fire.

“The Security Council expressed their readiness to consider enhancing (the UN mission) UNMISS to better ensure that UNMISS and the international community can prevent and respond to violence in South Sudan,” Bessho told reporters.

He said the 15-member council encouraged countries in the region to prepare to send additional troops in the event the Security Council decides to boost the strength of the nearly 13,500-strong UN force. The council also stressed the need for peacekeepers to use all necessary means to protect civilians.

The US State Department on Sunday demanded an immediate end to the fighting in South Sudan and ordered the departure of non-emergency personnel from the US Embassy in Juba.

“We're extremely worried about what appears to be the lack of command and control over the troops,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said on her way into the Security Council briefing, which the United States requested.

A confidential note to the council on Sunday from the UN Department of Peacekeeping, seen by Reuters, said: “UNMISS has adopted a proactive posture, conducting patrols within and outside” its compounds and has reinforced the perimeter security to enhance protection for displaced civilians and UN staff.

The note said the fighting between the rival troops “involved the use of attack helicopters and tanks” and that the UN compounds were in the cross-fire of the violence.

'Deeply frustrated'

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Kiir and Machar needed to take “decisive action” to regain control of the security situation in Juba and urged them to order their forces to disengage and withdraw to their bases.

“I am deeply frustrated that despite commitments by South Sudan's leaders, fighting has resumed,” Ban said in a statement. “This senseless violence is unacceptable and has the potential of reversing the progress made so far in the peace process.”

Residents of Juba's Gudele and Jebel districts reported heavy gunfire near the barracks where Machar and his troops have their headquarters.

The Health Ministry source said 33 civilians were among those killed in the latest clashes, which have fuelled fears about renewed conflict and raised concerns about the extent the two men can control their troops in the world's newest nation.

“We have called for an arms embargo, we think that this (violence) absolutely underlines the need for that and we are prepared to look at any measures that are necessary in order to stop this violence,” Britain's deputy UN ambassador, Peter Wilson, said on his way into the council meeting.

Earlier this year, Security Council veto power Russia said it was opposed to an arms embargo because Moscow did not believe it would be helpful to the implementation of a peace deal agreed to by Kiir and Machar last August.

When asked on Sunday about the possibility of a arms embargo, Russia's deputy UN ambassador, Vladimir Safronkov, said the council needed to do “something serious about stabilising the political situation”.

The confidential UN peacekeeping note said some 3 000 civilians, including senior opposition officials, had sought shelter at one UN site, while 800 other civilians had entered a second UN compound.

“Dr Machar's residence was attacked twice today including using tanks and helicopter gunships. Helicopters from Kiir's side attacked the residence twice,” Machar's spokesman, James Gatdet Dak, told Reuters by phone from abroad.

He added that the situation in Juba had subsequently calmed, echoing comments from residents who said gunfire had eased later on Sunday after several hours of shooting.

Stand-off

The fighting first erupted on Thursday, when troops loyal to Kiir stopped and demanded they be allowed to search vehicles of Machar's loyalists. That stand-off led to clashes.

Gunfire broke out again on Friday between the vice-president's bodyguards and the presidential guard, while the two men were holding talks at the presidential State House to defuse tensions. Both men said at the time they did not know what had prompted the exchange of fire.

Kenya's presidency urged Kiir and Machar to move heavy weaponry and contingents of soldiers out of civilian areas in Juba. It said Kenya was ready to support law enforcement. Kenya Airways has suspended flights to Juba.

Machar and Kiir spent months wrangling over details after signing the peace deal last year. Machar finally returned to Juba to resume his former position as vice president in April.

Fighting since 2013 has left swathes of the country of 11 million people struggling to find enough food to eat. It has also disrupted oil production, by far the government's biggest source of revenues, leaving South Sudan mired in poverty.

REUTERS

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Lesotho newspaper editor shot

Posted: 10 Jul 2016 07:23 PM PDT

Lloyd Mutungamiri, the editor of the Lesotho Times and Sunday Express newspapers, has been critically injured in Maseru.

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Maseru - Lloyd Mutungamiri, the editor of the Lesotho Times and Sunday Express newspapers, has been shot and critically injured at his home in the capital, Maseru.

He was shot around midnight on Saturday as he parked his car after returning from work. His wife, Tsitsi Mutungamiri, said she heard several gunshots and then screamed for help before going out of the home after the shots had ended. She found her husband slumped in the car bleeding profusely after one bullet shattered his jaw.

The shooting is the culmination of what has been a few tough weeks for the company, which has faced serious hostility from the government of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili, who accuse its newspapers of being too critical of it.

Mutungamiri was initially picked up for interrogation by police detectives on June 23, 2016, after the Lesotho Times published two reports deemed to have defamed the powerful commander of the Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) Tlali Kennedy Kamoli. One report suggested that the Lesotho government was discussing a proposal for a hefty R40-million pay-out for Kamoli to exit the LDF in line with a recommendation by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) inquiry into Lesotho’s instability that Kamoli be relieved from his post. Another story was a satirical column which argued that Lesotho was far better off without General Kamoli.

Publisher and CEO Basildon Peta was subsequently summoned to the police and charged with criminal defamation and crimen injuria over the contents of the satirical column that goes by the moniker Scrutator. He was released on R30 800 bail and surety on July 6, 2016. He is due back in court on July 19, 2016.

Africa Media Holdings (AMH), the publishers of the Lesotho Times, said it was clear the hit on Mutungamiri was a targeted assassination attempt. Nothing was stolen from the editor, so a robbery could not have been the main motive. A detailed statement would be issued on Monday after doctors have pronounced on Mutungamiri’s condition. But the company expressed serious concern at the Lesotho government’s open hostility against the Lesotho Times. A spokesman for one of the parties in the coalition government went on air recently and asked for Peta to be killed, accusing him of being a spy.

African Union (AU) chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma recently condemned the breakdown in the rule of law in Lesotho after an attack on the house of arch government critic and National University of Lesotho (NUL) pro-vice chancellor, Professor Mafa Sejanamane. The country has in recent times experienced a spate of killings. In one incident, four people were shot dead at Qeme near Maseru. The main opposition All Basotho Convention (ABC) said the four were its supporters who had attended its rally in the area. A daughter of an ABC MP was shot dead on June 22, 2016, as she arrived home driving the MP’s vehicle. The MP, Lehlohonolo Moramotse, claimed he was the main target of the attack and the assassins had thought he was the one driving the car.

Lesotho has been on a downward spiral since the assassination of former LDF commander Maaparankoe Mahao on June 25, 2015, and the reinstatement of Tlali Kamoli by Prime Minister Mosisili after the latter was returned to power in the February 28, 2015, snap elections. The snap elections were called after Kamoli launched a coup attempt on then Prime Minister Thomas Thabane on August 30, 2014. Thabane, who had fired Kamoli and replaced him with Mahao, fled the country only to return under heavy South African police guard. He and all the other opposition leaders are now living in exile in South Africa after various attempts to kill them by suspected LDF members. They have vowed not to return as long as Kamoli remains as the head of the LDF. No arrests have been made in any of the shootings or attacks on suspected government opponents.

A SADC special summit on Lesotho on June 28, 2016, gave the country a month to outline timeframes for implementing the regional body’s commission of inquiry recommendations.

INDEPENDENT FOREIGN SERVICE

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