News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

Amnesty accuses Nigerian police of torture

Posted: 22 Sep 2016 10:40 AM PDT

Amnesty International said people arrested by the Nigerian Special Anti-Robbery Squad were starved, beaten and shot until they paid officers a bribe to be released.

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Lagos - Amnesty International accused a Nigerian police unit on Wednesday of torturing suspects and demanding bribes to free them - allegations dismissed by the police.

The rights group said people arrested by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) were starved, beaten, shot and subjected to mock executions “until they either make a 'confession' or pay officers a bribe to be released”.

Nigeria's national police force denied the allegations, saying it did “not employ torture or any form of unauthorised technique in criminal investigation”. “Investigators are trained to conform to international best practices,” said spokesman Don Awunah.

A 32-year-old man, Chidi Oluchi, told Amnesty he was tortured after being arrested by SARS officers in the southeastern city of Enugu.

“They started beating me with the side of their machetes and heavy sticks. My mouth was bleeding and my vision became blurred,” he was quoted as saying in the report, adding that he was released after paying SARS officers 25 500 naira.

Amnesty said it was told by a senior officer that around 40 officers accused of manhandling detainees had been transferred to other stations in April 2016, although he did not say whether the claims against them had been investigated.

“It is time for the authorities to ensure that officers responsible for such human rights violations are finally held accountable,” said Amnesty's Nigeria researcher, Damian Ugwu.

“There is also an urgent need for robust legislation that ensures all acts of torture are offences under Nigeria's criminal law.”

Reuters

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Obama: Never been better time for Africans to partner with US

Posted: 22 Sep 2016 06:23 AM PDT

Africa’s rise is not just important to Africa, it’s important to the entire world,” US President Barack Obama has declared.

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New York – “Africa is essential to our progress. Africa’s rise is not just important to Africa, it’s important to the entire world,” declared United States President Barack Obama

“Yet, too many people across the continent still face conflict and hunger and disease,” said Obama during his address at the US-Africa Business Forum in New York on Wednesday.

The US president said Africa was on the move. The continent is home to some of the fastest-growing economies in the world and a middle class projected to grow to more than a billion customers. “an Africa of telecom companies and clean-tech startups and Silicon savannahs, all powered by the youngest population anywhere on the planet”.

“And wherever I’ve gone, from Senegal to South Africa, Africans insist they do not just want aid, they want trade,” Obama added.

“They want partners, not patrons. They want to do business and grow businesses, and create value and companies that will last and that will help to build a great future for the continent.

“The United States is determined to be that partner – for the long term – to accelerate the next era of African growth for all Africans. And that’s why, over the past eight years, we’ve dramatically expanded our economic engagement.

“We launched Trade Africa, so that African countries can sell goods and services more easily across borders – both within Africa and with the United States.

“We created Doing Business in Africa campaign to help American businesses – including small businesses – pursue opportunities across Africa.

“Nearly 300 American companies have taken trade missions to Africa, with more than 8 000 African buyers attending US trade shows,” said Obama.

If you are an African entrepreneur or an American entrepreneur looking for more support, more capital, more technical assistance, there has never been a better time to partner with the United States, he said.

Commitments from the Export-Import Bank and the US Trade and Development Agency have doubled. Investments by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the US government’s development finance institution, have tripled.

“Nearly 70 percent of Millennium Challenge Corporation compacts are now with African countries. And we’ve opened up and expanded new trade and investment offices, from Ghana to Mozambique,” said Obama.

Through Power Africa initiative, the United States is mobilising more than 130 public and private sector partners — and over $52 billion – to double electricity access across sub-Saharan Africa.

“Meanwhile, our Global Entrepreneurship Summits in Morocco and Kenya and our Young African Leaders Initiative are giving nearly 300 000 talented, striving young Africans the tools and networks to become the entrepreneurs and business leaders of the future,” said Obama.

African News Agency

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Kidnapped schoolgirls: Nigeria would welcome UN help

Posted: 22 Sep 2016 02:52 AM PDT

Nigeria's president says he would be open to UN bodies acting as intermediaries in any talks with Boko Haram on the release of about 200 kidnapped schoolgirls.

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Abuja - Nigeria's president said on Thursday he would be open to UN bodies coming in to act as intermediaries in any talks with Boko Haram Islamist militants on the release of about 200 kidnapped schoolgirls.

Muhammadu Buhari has vowed to free the girls, whose abduction almost two and a half years ago from the northeastern village of Chibok triggered international campaigns and piled pressure on his predecessor Goodluck Jonathan.

Nigeria would "welcome intermediaries such as UN outfits, to step in", Buhari told UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly in New York, a statement issued by the president's office said.

Buhari last year said for the first time his government was ready to negotiate over the girls. In August he said he would let the Islamist militant group choose a non-profit organisation as an intermediary but the group has not commented on the proposal.

Any negotiations would be the first publicly known talks between the government and Boko Haram, whose seven-year insurgency to create an Islamic state in the northeast has killed 15,000 people and displaced more than two million.

"The challenge is in getting credible and bona fide leadership of Boko Haram to discuss with," said Buhari.

Boko Haram pledged allegiance to Islamic State last year but signs of a rift emerged after IS announced a new leader for what it described as its West African operations. Boko Haram's hitherto leader Abubakar Shekau appeared to contradict the appointment in a later video message.

"The split in the insurgent group is not helping matters. Government had reached out, ready to negotiate, but it became difficult to identify credible leaders," said the president.

Nigeria's failure to find the kidnapped children prompted an outcry at home and abroad. Critics of Buhari's predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, said his government was too slow to act.

Boko Haram published a video in August which apparently showed recent footage of dozens of the girls and stated that some had been killed in air strikes.

Authorities said in May that one of the missing girls had been found and the president vowed to rescue the others.

Nigeria is battling the jihadist group on the ground and with air strikes. A multi-national joint task force - comprising troops from Nigeria and neighbouring Niger, Cameroon, Chad and Benin - is also fighting the militants.

Reuters

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Congo threatens to punish anti-Kabila protesters

Posted: 22 Sep 2016 01:18 AM PDT

Congo's government has vowed to hunt down and punish those responsible for riots in which around three dozen people were killed.

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Kinshasa - The Democratic Republic of Congo's government vowed on Wednesday to hunt down and punish those responsible for riots in which around three dozen people were killed, as small pockets of protest continued in the capital.

Anti-government protesters gathered in parts of Kinshasa on Wednesday, but normal life resumed in most parts of the capital after two days of deadly riots, residents and witnesses said. The army was dispatched to parts of the city where tensions persisted.

"The Congolese national police are actively seeking out the... authors of these grave acts of murder and plunder," Attorney General Flory Kabange Numbi told reporters in Kinshasa. He also said migration officials would prevent those responsible from leaving the country.

Congo has for months suffered simmering anger over what opponents of President Joseph Kabila believe are his efforts to hold on to power beyond his constitutional term limit, either by delaying elections or revising the constitution, as other African leaders have done.

The protests on Monday escalated into violent clashes between demonstrators and police, leaving at least 37 protesters and six policemen dead, Human Rights Watch said. The official death toll given by the police on Wednesday was 32, of whom four were police officers.

However, Etienne Tshisekedi, among Congo's main opposition leaders, told Belgian television that around 100 people had died.

The office of Kabila, who has been abroad during the unrest attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York, issued its first statement on Wednesday condemning the violence and offering its condolences to victims' families.

Kabila "makes a call for calm and invites the entire population to go about their daily activities now that security is again fully ensured," said the statement read on state-owned television.

On Wednesday morning, angry youths burned tyres in one district as police fired warning shots, a resident said, and the army sent trucks carrying around 50 troops to a university campus to prevent any further demonstrations.

Kabila is ineligible to stand in the next election after serving two elected terms. Last week, the election commission petitioned the Constitutional Court to postpone the November poll. His supporters deny he is trying to prolong his rule.

World powers have become increasingly exasperated with Kabila's administration. French President Francois Hollande has blamed the state for the violence and called upon the government to respect the constitution.

The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday called on Congolese authorities to exercise maximum restraint and urged the country's leaders not to exacerbate the situation.

The US Special Envoy for Africa's Great Lakes region said on Tuesday that it was ready to impose additional targeted sanctions on individuals who have been involved in abuses or violence.

Washington imposed sanctions on a senior police official in June for his role in what it described as the violent suppression of the country's opposition.

Exiled opposition leader Moise Katumbi on Wednesday urged new sanctions against security officials responsible for the deaths of protesters this week.

"Without sanctions, they will continue killing people like mosquitoes," he said.

Reuters

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Cape pastor saw Anderson ejected from Botswana

Posted: 22 Sep 2016 12:25 AM PDT

Cape Flats pastor Oscar Bougardt said he watched as immigration authorities led “kill-the-gays” Pastor Steven Anderson out of Botswana.

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Cape Town - Cape Flats pastor Oscar Bougardt said he watched as immigration authorities led “kill-the-gays” Pastor Steven Anderson out of the country at a Botswana airport on Tuesday.

Bougardt was invited by Anderson to the neighbouring country this week after the latter was banned from entering South Africa last week by Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gibaga due to his hate speech.

This following an outcry by the LGBTI community and the SA Human Rights Commission together with an online petition.

Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist church and 20 of his flock arrived in Botswana on a “soul winning” campaign last Thursday.

Bougardt, of the Calvary Hope Ministries in Strandfontein, who was previously sued for R1 million for preaching against homosexuality, offered the controversial American accommodation in Cape Town after a local hotel cancelled his reservation.

He described his brief meeting with the American.

“He paid for my flight and accommodation at a hotel after he invited me to Botswana as his guest,” he said. “He is so humble and slept in a place among the locals because I was his guest. He and his members met me at the airport and we drove to the hotel. We had a 40-minute conversation discussing the future of churches in Africa.

“He let me call my wife from his cellphone to let her know I am safe.

“I was speaking to her in Afrikaans and when I ended the call, he said to me: “Jy praat ook Afrikaans (You also speak Afrikaans) and spoke two sentences in Afrikaans; he did a good job of it in his American accent.”

“The plan was that we meet after his radio show the Tuesday to discuss that and his documentary he was filming.”

Bougardt was flying out of Gaborone’s Sir Seretse Khama International Airport on Tuesday afternoon when he saw authorities deporting Anderson.

“At 1pm while I sat in the foyer at the hotel, I saw the news that he was being deported,” he said.

“I believe this happened because of an influence from a neighbouring country.

“At 2.30pm, I saw Anderson with immigration, they let him leave without his clothing and he wasn’t even allowed to speak to me.

“He was boarded on an Ethiopian flight.”

Bougardt said he asked Anderson if he had really called for homosexuals to be executed after 49 people were gunned down in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June.

“He said that he said he didn’t feel sorry for them dying in the shooting, but that the media turned his words around,” explains Bougardt.

Daily Voice

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Zimbabweans angry at failure of Harare hospital

Posted: 22 Sep 2016 12:16 AM PDT

Zimbabweans launched an outcry after a leaked memo announced the temporary stoppage of operations at the country's main referral hospital.

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Harare - Zimbabweans launched an outcry on social media on Wednesday after a leaked memo announced the temporary stoppage of operations at the country's main referral hospital.

Harare Central Hospital was only able to perform emergency operations due to a lack of essential drugs and medicines, according to an internal hospital memo dated September 16, which was leaked to the media and seen by dpa.

The dysfunctional hospital was a sign of "total state failure," opposition leader and former finance minister Tendai Biti said on Twitter.

Harare Central Hospital, responsible for a catchment area of roughly 1 million people, cares for more than 110,000 patients annually and has more than 1,000 beds.

Citizens vented their anger about the move on news websites and WhatsApp.

The outrage was particularly focused on President Robert Mugabe, who regularly flies to Singapore for medical treatment.

Public hospitals in Zimbabwe have been suffering financial shortages for several years now, with many patients forced to bring their own linen and purchase their own medication at pharmacies.

"The shortage of drugs and equipment at central hospitals has reached crisis proportions, with patients going for days without proper treatment," said Itai Rusike, executive director of non-profit organization Community Working Group on Health.

The southern African nation's politicians, meanwhile, "get their treatment in the private sector or abroad," said Rusike.

Zimbabwe's economy has steadily deteriorated since Mugabe, 92, came to power in 1980 and has several times faced total collapse.

dpa

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