News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

Judges reckless for allowing protests - Mugabe

Posted: 04 Sep 2016 09:47 PM PDT

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has accused court judges of being reckless in allowing anti-government demonstrations that later turned violent,.

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Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has accused court judges of being reckless in allowing anti-government demonstrations that later turned violent, state media reported on Sunday, a day before a legal challenge to last week's official ban on protests.

On Thursday, Zimbabwe outlawed all demonstrations for two weeks in Harare, which has witnessed protests against Mugabe's handling of the economy, cash shortages and high unemployment.

Some political activists have approached the High Court to challenge the ban which they say is unconstitutional. The hearing is set for Monday.

Mugabe told a conference of the ruling Zanu-PF's youth wing on Saturday that "enough is enough" and he would not allow violent protests to continue, the Sunday Mail newspaper reported.

Violence erupted more than a week ago when police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse marchers.

"Our courts, our justice system, our judges should be the ones who understand even better than ordinary citizens. They dare not be negligent in their decisions when requests are made by people who want to demonstrate," the Sunday Mail quoted Mugabe as saying.

"To give permission again when they are to the full knowledge that it is going to be violent or (there is) probability that there is going to be violence is to pay reckless disregard to the peace of this country."

Police routinely cite lack of manpower and a threat to security as a reason for barring opposition protests, but the decisions have often been overturned by the High Court.

Tendai Biti, leader of the People's Democratic Party and the lawyer behind the legal challenge to the latest ban, accused Mugabe of intimidating the judiciary and violating the constitution.

"What Mugabe is trying to do is breaching the constitution by assaulting the judiciary and by trying to cause direct and indirect fear into judges," Biti said.

Reuters

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Mali president fires defence minister

Posted: 04 Sep 2016 01:41 AM PDT

Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has fired Defence Minister Tieman Hubert Coulibaly after suspected militants briefly seized the village of Boni.

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Bamako - Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has fired Defence Minister Tieman Hubert Coulibaly after suspected militants briefly seized the village of Boni in the centre of the country on Friday, state television said.

Coulibaly is being replaced by Abdoulaye Idrissa Maiga, a former minister for territorial administration, who was also the president's campaign director at the 2013 election.

The attackers, who are suspected of belonging to the Ansar Dine group, burned public buildings and took an elected local official hostage before withdrawing after a few hours. No one was killed and the army is back in control, witnesses said.

The raid was the latest in a series this year in Mali, reflecting a rise in the power of Islamist groups that have spread a campaign of violence from the north to the centre of the country only a few hundreds miles from the capital Bamako.

Armed groups have proliferated since Islamists took advantage of an ethnic Tuareg uprising in 2012 to seize the north of the desert country.

A French-led intervention drove Islamists back in 2013 but instability has continued and undermines a fragile UN-backed peace process.

Islamist militants killed 17 Malian soldiers and wounded 35 when they attacked an army base in the central Malian town of Nampala in July. Ansar Dine and a Peul ethnic militia both claimed responsibility for that attack.

Reuters

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South Sudan in urgent need of more UN troops

Posted: 04 Sep 2016 12:40 AM PDT

Displaced civilians and religious leaders in war-torn South Sudan appealed to the UN Security Council to urgently deploy extra foreign troops.

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Juba - Displaced civilians and religious leaders in war-torn South Sudan appealed to the UN Security Council to urgently deploy extra foreign troops as government ministers questioned whether more peacekeepers were needed in the capital, Juba.

The 15-member council met with President Salva Kiir's cabinet, religious and civil society leaders and visited two UN compounds in Juba where tens of thousands of civilians have been sheltering amid nearly three years of violence.

While the country's conflict was sparked in December 2013 by political rivalry between Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar, Anglican Archbishop Daniel Deng warned that “people have been made to believe it's a tribal war.”

“What happened in Rwanda - we're afraid it can happen in this country,” he told the Security Council, referring to the Hutu genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.

Catholic Archbishop Paulino Lukudu Loro described the planned deployment of a 4 000-strong regional protection force to ensure peace in Juba, authorised by the Security Council last month, as a “reconciliation force.”

“We need this help,” he said. “We cannot put our nation on the right track alone.”

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 but slid into civil war after Kiir sacked Machar as his vice president. The conflict between forces loyal to Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, and Machar, a Nuer, has often followed ethnic lines.

The pair signed a peace deal a year ago but fighting has continued and Machar has now fled to neighbouring Sudan.

After a meeting between the council and Kiir's cabinet, US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said the cabinet ministers had asked “whether the regional protection force was still needed given that Riek Machar has fled the country, given the transitional government is working more smoothly.”

“We as a council sent an unequivocal message that 'yes, this force is still needed',” she told reporters. The Security Council has threatened to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan if the government does not cooperate.

South Sudan's Minister for Cabinet Affairs, Martin Elias Lomoro, said of the planned deployment: “We're discussing the modalities.”

The new force will boost a 12 000-strong UN peacekeeping force (UNMISS) that has been on the ground since 2011. When the conflict erupted in 2013, the United Nations took the rare step of sheltering civilians at several of its compounds.

“That's one of the reasons why a regional protection force is so necessary because so much of UNMISS's resources is devoted to protecting civilians in the camps,” Deputy British UN Ambassador Peter Wilson told reporters.

UN peacekeepers currently protect nearly 200 000 civilians at six sites around the country. The Security Council, which visited two camps in Juba on Saturday, were greeted at the UN House site by mainly displaced Nuer shouting “down, down, Salva Kiir.”

“We need your help, we are tired,” said Peter Gatkuoth, 23, who has sheltered at the UN House site for several years.

The South Sudan conflict has been marked by the use of rape as a weapon and some displaced women told council members on Saturday that they had to risk being the target of sexual violence every time they left the camp to get food and firewood.

“As a mother I can't imagine that choice,” Power said. “I know I would go and take that risk for my children, I think any mother would. We heard desperate appeals for the regional protection force to be deployed quickly.”

Oil producer South Sudan's fledgling economy has been battered by the conflict, driving prices higher and leaving half the country's 12 million people without enough food.

Paleki Ayang, director of the South Sudan Women Empowerment Network, told the council her monthly salary had dropped from $2 000 more than two years ago to $80.

“If somebody is hungry you can't preach to them about peace agreements,” she said.

Reuters

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