IGIHE

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  • Chad to Withdraw Troops from Central African Republic

    Chad to Withdraw Troops from Central African Republic

    {{Chadian Troops have announced they will withdraw from Central African Republic which has been engulfed with a civil war which has culminated into a near genocide.}}

    The Withdraw notice was confirmed by a Chadian diplomat. Chad has contributed roughly 850 troops to the 6,000-strong African Union peacekeeping mission.

    Rwanda is also among countries that have contributed troops to strengthen the African Union Peacekeeping Force.

    Chad a predominantly islamic country said through the country’s foreign Ministry, “Despite the sacrifices we have made, Chad and Chadians have been targeted in a gratuitous and malicious campaign that blamed them for all the suffering in CAR.”

    The mainly Christian anti-balaka militias have been accused of spearheading violence against Muslim communities.

    Mostly Muslim Seleka seized power in March 2013 but was forced to step aside in January after failing to stem violence that U.N. experts have warned pushed the country close to genocide.

    About 1 million people were displaced by the violence. At least 2,000 people have been killed since December alone.

  • Kwibuka Flame of Remembrance in Gasabo District

    Kwibuka Flame of Remembrance in Gasabo District

    {{The Kwibuka Flame of Remembrance today reaches Ndera in Gasabo District, the 29th stop on its tour of Rwanda.

    The flame will return to the Kigali Genocide Memorial on 7 April 2014, the start of the national mourning period and twenty years since the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.}}

    You can view an interactive map of the tour here. The flame travels next to ETO Kicukiro in Gasabo District on 5 April 2014.

    Today’s event is hosted by Mayor Willy Ndizeye and will reflect on the events of the 1994 genocide as well as the journey of unity and renewal in Gasabo and Rwanda since.

    The Flame of Remembrance will be received by two 20 years olds, Afisa Tuyizere and Emmanuel Karenzi. A children’s choir from Groupe Scolaire Ndera will sing ‘Urumuri Rutazima’ (Never Ending Flame) to welcome the flame. The special guest is the Minister of Defence, Hon. James Kabarebe. The Mayor of the City of Kigali, Fidele Ndayisaba, will also speak.

    Genocide survivor Josephine Murebwayire will give testimony at today’s event. Josephine took refuge at the Ndera Hospital for Mental Health and was the only person to survive the massacres there. Gaspard Kalisa was born in 1961 in the former Rubungo Commune in Kigali.

    During the genocide, Gaspard saved approximately 30 families. He was awarded by IBUKA (the umbrella organisation for survivors groups in Rwanda) in recognition of what he did in 1994 and will also speak.

    Gasabo District is composed of the former Kacyiru, Rubungo, Gikoro, Gikomero and Rutongo communes. Before 1994, Gasabo was a mostly rural area except for the Kacyiru commune. Many Tutsi lived in Gasabo District, most of whom were killed in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

    At the Ruhanga memorial 32,257 victims are buried. A large group of Tutsi took refuge at a Protestant church there. After a brief resistance, they were attacked and killed by Interahamwe militia, backed by government soldiers.

    Tutsi in Jali took refuge in the Catholic Church there and were killed by soldiers from Jali Military Camp backed by militia from around the area. The remains of more than 26,000 Tutsi lie at rest there.

    When the genocide started, Tutsi from Remera, Kimironko and Gacuriro fled to Kibagaba Catholic Church. They were attacked by soldiers from Kami Military Camp and were killed by grenade attacks and bullets. More than 24,000 victims of the genocide are buried in Kibagaba.

    On the 7 April 1994 in Ndera, Tutsi and moderate Hutu fled to Ndera Neuropsychiatric Hospital, which was run at the time by white catholic clergy.

    On 11 April 1994, one thousand innocent civilians who had sought refuge at a school known as Petit Seminaire, Ndera were murdered.

    On the 17 April 2014 more than 20,000 people who had sought protection in the hospital were also killed.

    Belgian Commandos were sent in, but they only rescued foreigners and left hundreds of Tutsi to die at the hands of soldiers and militia.

    Ndera stands as a reminder of the failure of the international community during the Genocide against the Tutsi.

    Today, more than 20,000 victims are buried at the Ndera Genocide Memorial.

    {kwibuka}

  • Belgian Prime Minister Tells African Leaders to Respect Homosexuality

    Belgian Prime Minister Tells African Leaders to Respect Homosexuality

    {{The Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo has lashed out at Africa Leaders to respect the rights of gay people.}}

    Mr. Elio Di Rupo said, “We can not tolerate that some are denied their rights and persecuted for their origins, their sexual orientation, their religion and their convictions.”

    The Openly gay Prime minister made the remarks at a welcome dinner on Wednesday for some 80 EU and African leaders attending a summit.

    However, most African countries, with the exception of South Africa, have laws that ban or repress homosexuality.

    President Museveni who said he was ready for the battle against Pro gay activits, signed a Bill earlier this year that calls for “repeat homosexuals” to be jailed for life and requires people to report homosexuals.

    A legislator in Kenya recently likened Homosexuals to terrorists.

    Nigeria in January banned same-sex marriage and civil unions while homosexual acts already carry the death sentence under Sharia (Islamic law) which applies along with federal law in the north of the country.

    Reaction to the legislations has been fierce in the West, with several European countries having cut off aid to Uganda in protest and the US comparing the measures to anti-semitic laws in Nazi Germany and apartheid in South Africa.

    Gay rights has so far remained off the agenda at the two-day EU-Africa summit that ends later Wednesday.

    The European Union hoped to include in a final draft a pledge to uphold “the rights of the most vulnerable groups, including persons belonging to minorities”.

  • Suspected Prostitute Killed by ‘Client’

    Suspected Prostitute Killed by ‘Client’

    {{In Zimbabwe a suspected prostitute was found dead in a lodge in Mutoko after she was allegedly killed by a client who had hired her for a night over the weekend. The woman was found dead with head injuries and bruises on the forehead.}}

    The motive behind the killing is still not known and police are appealing for information that might assist in investigating the case.

    National police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Paul Nyathi said the incident occurred between last Saturday night and Sunday morning.

    “A certain man went to Kasipiti Sports Club in Mutoko and booked a room which he paid for US$5,” he said.

    He said the unknown man was later seen with the woman going into the room.

    It is still not clear what transpired between the two.

    The following day at around 11am a cleaner went to the room with the intention of cleaning and found the door open.

    “The cleaner then saw the woman’s body and a report was made to the police,” Chief Supt Nyathi said.

    He appealed to anyone with information leading to the arrest of the suspect to contact any nearest police station.

    In September last year, a 28-year-old Harare man appeared in court for strangling to death a prostitute he had hired for the night under unclear circumstances.

    Freddy Jasam of number 20 Chiguyakuya Road in Mufakose appeared before magistrate Ms Anita Tshuma facing murder charges.

    {Herald}

  • Europe ‘Needs Africa’s Help’

    Europe ‘Needs Africa’s Help’

    {{The 4th EU-Africa Summit opened in Brussels on Wednesday with the president of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy saying Europe needed Africa’s help in many areas, according to an Africa Review report.}}

    “Make no mistake, there are things on which Europe needs Africa’s help”, Van Rompuy said, mentioning the tackling of climate change, managing of migration and security on both continents as some of the issues of concern.

    The summit, running under the theme; “Investing in people, prosperity and peace”, opened with calls for peace, prosperity and more trade.

    The summit brings together 40 African and 20 European heads of state and government with an aim of deepening cooperation between the two continents.

    Some of the African leaders at the summit are AU Commission boss Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, presidents Hellen Sirleaf-Johnson of Liberia, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria and Paul Biya of Cameroon and King Mswati of Swaziland.

  • Standard to Acquire Francophone Footprint

    Standard to Acquire Francophone Footprint

    Africa’s biggest bank by assets, Standard Bank Group [JSE:SBK], plans to have a sound footprint in French-speaking Africa, where it currently has no significant presence despite being in 18 African markets.

    “In addition to opening up a representative office in Cote d’Ivoire, we want to follow clients to Francophone African markets. By doing so we want to get close to the economic players there,” Kenny Fihla, the head of client coverage at Standard Bank, told Fin24 in an interview.

    Fihla disclosed that the lender had even appointed a high-ranking French-speaking person to tackle challenges brought about by language barriers and other cultural issues, if and when the company moves full steam ahead to set up shop in French-speaking countries on the continent.

    “This has been our strategy in Mozambique and Angola where we appointed people who understand the culture there,” Fihla said. Mozambique and Angola are Portuguese-speaking countries.

    Most South African companies that have expanded aggressively into the African continent have found it hard to set up shop in Francophone Africa, because of the language barrier.

    Pan-African micro-financier Blue Financial Services, which has expanded aggressively into the African continent, found it hard to start flourishing operations in Cameroon, another French-speaking African country, because of the language barrier.

    According to Fihla, Standard Bank is in the process of starting a representative office in Cote d’Ivoire because the country is located in one of the most economically integrated regions on the continent.

    This shows the seriousness with which the bank views prospects on the continent, which has a growing middle class and is tipped for economic growth in the next decade.

    Standard Bank has disposed of its operations in the emerging markets of Russia, Argentina, Turkey and Brazil to focus its energy on Africa.

    news24

  • China Toddler Started Fire Which Killed 12

    China Toddler Started Fire Which Killed 12

    {{Investigators in China have accused a three-year-old girl of playing with a cigarette lighter and starting a workshop fire which killed 12 people, state media reported.}}

    “Many others” were injured in the blaze at a clothing workshop in Junbu in the southern province of Guangdong last week, the official Xinhua news agency said late on Wednesday.

    The workshop owner’s toddler ignited a stack of sponges while playing with a lighter, the report said, citing local investigators.

    The owner “turned himself in” after he was found to have been illegally using a residential building as a workshop, and had violated a range of fire safety laws including insufficient exits and a shortage of fire-extinguishing equipment, it said.

    Xinhua said the families of those killed in the fire had been compensated, without specifying the amount.

    Workplace safety standards can be poor in China, where fatal accidents happen regularly at mines and factories, with some blaming lax enforcement of rules due to corruption.

    A fire at a poultry plant in the north-eastern province of Jilin in June killed 120 and injured at least 70, in China’s deadliest blaze for over a decade.

    – AFP

  • Zuma, Mugabe Boycott EU-African Summit

    Zuma, Mugabe Boycott EU-African Summit

    {{Presidents and prime ministers from Africa and Europe gathered in Brussels on Wednesday for an EU-Africa summit designed to promote peace and investment on the world’s poorest continent.}}

    But cracks emerged even before the conference got underway, with some African leaders, including Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, deciding not to attend following a dispute over the invitation list.

    Mugabe, now 90 and the president of Zimbabwe since 1987, stayed away because his wife, Grace, was not invited.

    Both Mugabe and his wife are subject to travel bans under EU sanctions following the government’s crackdown on political opponents, but the European Union routinely waives those restrictions to allow Mugage to attend international meetings.

    In this case, EU officials said Grace had not been invited because no spouses were attending the summit, which already counts 65 heads of state and government and around 20 secretaries-general, including United Nations head Ban Ki-moon.

    Following Mugabe’s protest, South Africa’s Zuma also decided to stay at home, sending his foreign minister instead.

    Initially that was said to have been due to political considerations, with elections coming up in a month. But Zuma was later quoted by the South African Broadcasting Service as saying he did not like the way the summit had been set up.

    “I think that time must pass wherein we are looked at as subjects, we are told who must come and who must not come,” he said. “I thought the African Union and the European Union are equal organisations representing two continents, but there is not a single one of them who must decide for others.”

    The center of Brussels, a city accustomed to summits since the EU’s 28 leaders meet every few months, was shut down almost entirely for the arrival of the African heads of state, with heavily guarded motorcades charging through the town.

    European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, who has visited several African countries to prepare for the summit, described the occasion as an opportunity to discuss how to move beyond Europe’s colonial past and tackle the challenges of peace, security, growth and jobs in Africa.

    “The theme we have chosen addresses the everyday concerns of our citizens – their safety and security, their job prospects and their future as families and individuals,” he said.

    The European Union is far and away Africa’s biggest development partner, providing more than 140 billion euros in aid between 2007 and 2013, including 18 billion in 2012 – nearly half the world’s aid to the continent.

    But the point of the summit is to try to move beyond emergency or development help and build “partnerships” in areas such as health, education, energy, agriculture, climate change and issues such as democracy and human rights.

    At the same time, the EU this week formally committed forces to a peacekeeping operation in the Central African Republic, a reminder that peace and stability are a pre-requisite for any closer trade and investment relations.

    {wirestory}

  • Cameroon Frees Minister Suspected of Embezzling Public Funds

    Cameroon Frees Minister Suspected of Embezzling Public Funds

    {{Cameroon minister has been release from jail a day after he was arrested and remanded in custody on suspected embezzlement of public funds, the Central African Nation’s government spokesman said on Tuesday.}}

    Louis Bapes Bapes, minister for secondary education, was arrested on Monday on instructions from a judge of the country’s Special Criminal Tribunal.

    The court was created in 2012 to try officials suspected of embezzling sums equal or above 50 million CFA francs ($105,100).

    “Today, the judge decided to release him,” Issa Tchiroma Bakary, the country’s communication minister, told a news conference late on Tuesday. He did not give any details why the minister was release.

    Bapes Bapes, who declined to make any comment after his release, is the first sitting minister to be arrested under President Paul Biya, 81, one of Africa’s longest serving heads of state.

    Biya, who came to power in 1982, launched “Operation Sparrow Hawk” in 2006 to combat corruption.

    {reuters}

  • U.S. Sending 175 Marines to Romania to Boost Africa Crisis Team

    U.S. Sending 175 Marines to Romania to Boost Africa Crisis Team

    {{The Pentagon said on Wednesday it was bolstering the size of its Europe-based African crisis response force to 675 Marines, sending 175 new troops to a Romanian base near the Black Sea at a time of tensions over Russia’s annexation of part of Ukraine.}}

    The Marines will be part of a team headquartered in Moron, Spain, and primarily meant for operations in Africa, although they can be sent anywhere, a Pentagon spokesman said. The decision to base the additional Marines in Romania was made last year before the current crisis, he said.

    But it came on the heels of news on Tuesday that General Philip Breedlove, the top U.S. officer in Europe, is considering moving a U.S. warship into the Black Sea in the coming days to reassure NATO allies and exercise with partners.

    Army Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, confirmed the department was looking at sending a ship to the Black Sea. He did not rule out exercises with the Ukrainian navy, but added the ship’s schedule of activities was still being decided.

    “This is to reassure our allies of our commitment to the region. … It is a direct result of the current situation in Ukraine,” Warren told reporters.

    Elaine Bunn, deputy assistant defense secretary for nuclear and missile defense policy, told a Senate subcommittee hearing that U.S. officials were in close touch with European allies in NATO about possible “military options for strengthening the collective defense.” She declined to give details.

    Warren said the decision to send 175 Marines to Mihail Kogalniceanu military base in Romania, near the Black Sea port of Constanta, was made before Russia seized control of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula last month.

    Some 265 Marines are already stationed at the Romanian base as part of a Black Sea Rotational Force that conducts training and other efforts to help build the military capacity of partners in the region.

    Other U.S. forces also are stationed at the Romanian base, which is taking over as a transit hub for equipment being flown in and out of Afghanistan following the decision to close the transit center at Manas in Kyrgyzstan this summer.

    To accommodate the additional Marines, U.S. officials in Romania sought and received permission from the government to have up to 600 Marines in the country at any given time, Warren said.

    He said the intent was to maintain the Black Sea Rotational Force of about 300 Marines, and 175 Marines for the crisis response force, plus some “head room” for additional personnel when troops who are rotating into the country overlap with those departing. The Black Sea Force is due to rotate soon, he said.