News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

South Sudan: Clooney, Cheadle urge action

Posted: 12 Sep 2016 08:40 PM PDT

Leaders on both sides of South Sudan's civil war profited from the conflict, according to a report released by George Clooney and Don Cheadle.

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Washington - The leaders on both sides of South Sudan's civil war and their families have profited off the conflict, amassing fortunes through links with bankers, arms dealers and oil companies, according to a report released on Monday by actors George Clooney and Don Cheadle.

At a news conference to present the report, they called on the international community to cut off the leaders' financial flows through tougher sanctions.

The report follows a two-year undercover investigation by The Sentry, a group co-founded by Clooney and fellow activist John Prendergast to look into the financing of African conflicts and comes at a time when the United Nations is threatening to impose an arms embargo against South Sudan's government.

The group said a network of international facilitators stretched from arms dealers in Ukraine to construction companies in Turkey, mining firms in Kenya, and Chinese investors involved in joint ventures in gambling and private security sectors in South Sudan.

According to the report, South Sudan's leader President Salva Kiir, his former deputy Riek Machar and military generals have pilfered state coffers, accumulated an array of luxury homes and cars, and enriched themselves and family members through stakes in oil and other business ventures.

Spokesmen for Kiir and Machar both denied the leaders had properties in Kenya or other African countries, as the report alleged.

The report also said South Sudanese army chief Paul Malong, who makes roughly $45 000 a year, has at least two luxurious villas in Uganda in addition to a $2 million mansion in a gated community in Nairobi.

The report said family members of top government officials have stakes in commercial ventures in South Sudan. Local laws forbid constitutional office holders from engaging in business activities outside the government while in office, it said.

The report said Kiir's family had been involved in a series of transitions involving government procurement deals and relationships with a foreign oil company. The group said it had obtained documents showing that Kiir's 12-year-old son held a 25 percent stake in a holding company formed in February 2016.

“The past five years South Sudan's leaders have engaged in mass atrocities on its citizens, starvation and rape, all while plundering the state's resources and enriching themselves and their families,” Clooney told the conference.

“The simple fact is they are stealing the money to fund their militias who attack and kill one another. It involves arms dealers, international lawyers, international banks, international real estate,” he added.

Ateny Wek Ateny, a spokesman for Kiir, told Reuters by phone on Saturday before the release of the report, which was embargoed for release on Monday, that Kiir did not own properties in Nairobi.

“The president doesn't have any property in Nairobi or anywhere,” Ateny said. “If there is anyone who says that, he is only accusing the president for no reason. The president does not even have a bank account, so how do these people arrive at all these?”

James Gatdet Dak, spokesman for Machar, also denied that Machar owned property in Nairobi or Addis Ababa.

“It is a lie. Dr Riek Machar's family does not own a house in Nairobi or in Addis Ababa as alleged,” he said, “They are renting a house in Nairobi, while the one in Addis Ababa was a temporary guest house provided to him by the Ethiopian authorities during the peace negotiations.”

Lobbying for action

Clooney said the group planned to lobby US President Barack Obama and other senior administration officials to impose sanctions targeted at South Sudan's leaders and to freeze their assets abroad.

The United States has poured $1.5 billion of aid into South Sudan despite widespread concerns over corruption.

Prendergast, a former director of African affairs at the White House National Security Council, said the “fatal flaw” of the international community was it did not pay enough attention to the “core rot” at the foundation of the new government.

South Sudan secured its independence in 2011 but by December 2013 longtime political rivalry between Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and Machar, a Nuer, had led to civil conflict that often followed ethnic lines.

The fighting has killed thousands of people and driven more than 2 million people from their homes, with many fleeing to neighbouring states.

World powers and regional states have struggled to find leverage over South Sudan's warring factions despite US and European sanctions on some military leaders and African threats of punitive actions.

The UN Security Council set up a targeted sanctions regime for South Sudan in March 2015, then in July blacklisted six generals, three from each side, by subjecting them to an asset freeze and travel ban.

REUTERS

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Zimbabwe bans opposition protests - again

Posted: 12 Sep 2016 07:08 PM PDT

Authorities in Zimbabwe have once again announced a ban on opposition protests through October 16.

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Harare - Authorities in Zimbabwe on Monday again announced a ban on opposition protests through October 16, state television reported.

The decision comes less than a week after Zimbabwe's High Court declared a two-week ban on anti-government protests invalid, saying it curtailed citizens' rights.

Police had declared the ban against protests in the capital, Harare, and the surrounding district for a two-week period following several violent clashes between police and anti-government protesters.

Human rights lawyer Tendai Biti, who represented the opposition in court, said the new ban was shocking. The opposition will take the case to court again, Biti told DPA.

The southern African country has seen months of protests against alleged human rights abuses and the deterioration of the economy under 92-year-old President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980.

ANA-DPA

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Zambian opposition loses bid to halt inauguration

Posted: 12 Sep 2016 08:39 AM PDT

Zambia's Supreme Court has rejected an application by the main opposition party to stop President Edgar Lungu's inauguration.

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Lusaka - Zambia's Supreme Court has rejected an application by the main opposition party to stop President Edgar Lungu's inauguration, set for Tuesday after last month's contested election, a lawyer for the opposition leader said on Monday.

The election row - which followed violence between rival campaign supporters in what is otherwise considered one of Africa's most stable democracies - could damage Zambia's ability to attract investment critical to reviving the economy.

“The court has declined to grant the application on grounds that as a single judge he has no jurisdiction,” Keith Mweemba, a lawyer for opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema told journalists.

Lungu's inauguration after the Aug. 11 election was postponed because Hichilema challenged the result in court, saying the vote was rigged. A law introduced in January says the winner of a presidential vote cannot be sworn in if their victory is contested in court.

On Friday the Lusaka High Court threw out an attempt by Opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) leader Hichilema to overturn a Constitutional Court decision not to give him more time to legally challenge Lungu's re-election.

Mweemba said his clients planned to file another application before the full bench of the Supreme Court.

Zambia will press on with swearing in its president Edgar Lungu for another five-year-term on Tuesday after Lungu won 50.35 percent of the vote according to the official results.

Prospects for resuming critical budget support talks with the International Monetary Fund have been dimmed by delays in swearing in a new head of state.

Lungu has been the head of the ruling Patriotic Front since its leader, Michael Sata, died in 2014. He won the presidency the following year, defeating Hichilema in their first electoral confrontation.

Reuters

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Zim cop accidentally shot dead by colleague

Posted: 12 Sep 2016 07:25 AM PDT

A Zimbabwean policeman was accidentally shot and killed, allegedly by a colleague, on the border of the Hwange National Park while in pursuit of poachers.

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Harare - A Zimbabwean policeman was accidentally shot and killed, allegedly by a colleague, on the border of the Hwange National Park during a high speed chase after poachers.

On Sunday, the two Zimbabwe Republican Police (ZRP) officers and rangers from the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority had set up an ambush at a water hole within the Sinamatella Camp in the park where four young elephants and many birds had died of cyanide poisoning.

According to Trevor Lane, who runs a wild life conservation charity, the Bhejane Trust, the poachers only managed to get one tusk as the other three poisoned elephants were too young to have tusks.

“The four suspects fled the ambush in a vehicle after being challenged, and the ambush team of two rangers and the two ZRP details gave chase. Very unfortunately the one detail had an accidental discharge in the chase vehicle, and hit the other ZRP detail, who has subsequently died. The suspects obviously got away but follow ups and investigations continue.”

He said this was “a most tragic incident”. Lane said the wildlife community was “very sorry about the dead policeman who died doing his duty”.

He told African News Agency the police had the registration number of the poachers vehicle.

“We hope they will soon be found.”

The dead man’s name has not yet been released.

More then 200 elephants have died from cyanide poisoning in Zimbabwe the last three years. Poachers usually poison water holes with cyanide which is easily available from the mining industry.

Parks and Wildlife Management Authority did not answer calls Monday.

African News Agency

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Tanzania quake kills 13, injures hundreds

Posted: 12 Sep 2016 02:37 AM PDT

A major earthquake has struck the border area between Tanzania and Uganda, causing widespread damage and killing at least 13 people.

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London - A major earthquake has struck the border area between Tanzania and Uganda, causing widespread damage and killing at least 13 people.

Local authorities in northwestern Tanzania say more than 200 people have been injured and there is "a lot of damage" to the worst-hit city of Bukoba, which has a population of 70,000.

The US Geological Survey initially recorded the quake at magnitude 5.9, though that has since been downgraded to 5.7, at a depth of just 10km.

It struck near the shore of Lake Victoria at 3.27pm local time on Saturday afternoon, and tremors could be felt as far away as western Kenya, though not in the capital Nairobi. An AFP correspondent with family in Bukoba said 10 family houses had collapsed. "My brother was driving around town, suddenly he heard the ground shaking and people started running around and buildings collapsing," he said.

Another correspondent for the news agency said "the walls of my home shook" in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. And journalists in Democratic Republic of Congo said it was felt, though faintly, in Bukavu in the east, but not in nearby Goma or Lubumbashi.

"This incident has caused a lot of damage," Deodatus Kinawila, the district commissioner of Bukoba, told the BBC. Later on Saturday, he said he did not expect the death toll to rise much further from 13. "For now, the situation is calm and under control," he said.

Images posted to social media showed the extent of the damage in Bukoba, and videos showed panic as people ran for safety. All those who died are understood to have been inside brick structures in the city at the time, said Augustine Olomi, regional police commander for the Kagera region. A statement from the Tanzanian president's office said that he was "shocked by reports of the earthquake that caused the death of many people, injury to others and destruction of property".

Though major earthquakes there are rare, northwestern Tanzania and Lake Victoria sit along the East African Rift, an area of seismic activity where the continental tectonic plate that makes up Africa is gradually splitting in two.

The Independent

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