Category: Politics

{Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has set fire to a huge stockpile of ivory in an effort to show his country’s commitment to saving Africa’s elephants.}

More than 100 tonnes of ivory was stacked up in pyres in Nairobi National Park where it is expected to burn for several days.

The ivory represents nearly the entire stock confiscated by Kenya, amounting to the tusks of about 6,700 elephants.

Some disagree with Kenya’s approach, saying it can encourage poaching.
Before igniting the first pyre, Mr Kenyatta said: “The height of the pile of ivory before us marks the strength of our resolve.

“No-one, and I repeat no-one, has any business in trading in ivory, for this trade means death of our elephants and death of our natural heritage.”

{{Does burning actually destroy ivory?}}

The burning comes after African leaders meeting in Kenya urged an end to illegal trade in ivory.

Experts have warned Africa’s elephants could be extinct within decades.
But some conservationists have expressed opposition to the ivory burn in Kenya, the biggest in history.

They say destroying so much of a rare commodity could increase its value and encourage more poaching rather than less.

Botswana, which is home to about half of Africa’s elephants, is opposed to the burn and its president did not attend the event in Nairobi.

Demand for ivory comes largely from Asia, with the main trafficking route being through the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

The ivory is getting through because people are prepared to pay for it. Stopping the men with arrows and the corrupt officials is just one part of the solution – the other is destroying the hunger for ivory.

The love of ivory goes back millennia. Its pure, translucent beauty and the ease with which a tusk can be carved into intricate sculptures have given it a lasting value throughout the ages.

Tackling demand and destroying the market are both important but there are also ways of making elephants more valuable alive than dead.

In the parks and game reserves of Africa, close encounters with the most remarkable animals on the planet lie in wait – you just need time, patience and a good eye.

Some 1.35 tonnes of rhino horn will also be burned.

The street value of the ivory to be destroyed is estimated at more than $100m (£70m), and the rhino horn at $80m.

“We don’t believe there is any intrinsic value in ivory, and therefore we’re going to burn all our stockpiles and demonstrate to the world that ivory is only valuable on elephants,” said Kitili Mbathi, director general of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

{Opposition politician promises no compensation and pledges to nationalise banks if his EFF party wins local polls.}

The leader of South Africa’s opposition Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party has launched his party’s campaign for the upcoming local elections, promising to rescue citizens from poverty, unemployment and corrupt government.

Around 40,000 people turned up at Orlando Stadium in Soweto on Saturday displaying massive support for fiery EFF leader Julius Malema’s promises to seize white-owned land without compensation and nationalise the banks.

The huge turnout was a shot across the bows of the ANC, which failed to fill a similar stadium during the launch of its own manifesto in the coastal city of East London two weeks ago.

“We are not chasing the whites away. We are saying you have too much land. We want you here in South Africa, but 80 percent of the land belongs to us,” Malema told the crowd.

The white minority still holds the vast majority of farmland as well as a disproportionate share of the country’s wealth.

The EFF is capitalising on black discontent over the perceived lack of change under the ANC government since the end of apartheid 22 years ago.

Campaign promises

Malema, clad in the EFF’s signature red overalls and beret, made many promises from free land, water and electricity for the poor to flushing toilets in all homes as he campaigned ahead of municipal elections in August.

“We want black communities to be like white communities,” he told the enthusiastic crowd.

The ANC, which has ruled since its iconic leader Nelson Mandela took power in 1994, showed in 2014 national elections that it still had overwhelming support.

However, it has been hard hit by a series of scandals involving President Jacob Zuma and some commentators predict it could lose a couple of major municipalities in the upcoming vote.

The EFF was founded 2013 by Malema after he was thrown out as the leader of the ANC’s youth wing.

In national elections less than a year later it won more than a million votes, taking 25 seats in parliament and becoming the third largest party behind the centrist Democratic Alliance, which holds 89 seats.

This will be the first time the EFF has contested local elections, where issues such as housing, service delivery, poverty and unemployment rank high on voters’ lists of complaints.

{The court adjourned the case to May 5 and did not rule on bail application.}

Gambian prosecutors have charged opposition leader Ousaniou Darboe and 19 other activists with conspiracy to commit a felony.

Darboe, leader of the United Democratic Party, and his co-defendants, including a new accused Masanneh Lalo Jawla, all pleaded not guilty to the charge at the high court in Banjul.

They had previously been charged with unlawful assembly, rioting and incitement to violence.

Jawla was also charged with all the counts earlier levelled against his co-defendants.

They are among 38 people arrested over demonstrations on April 14 and 16.

Some of them were detained on April 14 after a rare opposition protest demanding political reforms while the others were arrested following a demonstration two days later against the death of UDP official Solo Sandeng in custody.

The court adjourned the case to May 5 and did not rule on bail application.

Their lawyers told the court that the opposition activists had been denied adequate food, access to medical attention and family visits.

Defence lawyer Hawa Sisay Sabally said her client Fanta Darboe had sustained severe injuries to her right hand and other parts of the body but had not yet received medical attention.

Prosecutor Hadi Saleh Barkum rejected the claims.

The court, however, ordered prison authorities to allow the defendants access to adequate food, care and visits from their relatives.

{The former international footballer George Weah will run for president of Liberia for a second time.
}

He said he had the “vision” to transform the country.

Mr Weah, who played for teams including Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan and Chelsea, was the highest-ranking African footballer in Fifa’s list of greatest players of the 20th century.

His previous presidential bid, in 2005, was defeated by current president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Her second term in office will end in 2017 and under the country’s constitution she cannot run again.

During his football career, Mr Weah became a UN goodwill ambassador.

Later he turned to politics. He is currently a senator for the western province of Montserrado, which includes the capital Monrovia.

In 2011 he ran for vice-president under Winston Tubman but did not win.

Mr Weah belongs to the opposition Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) party.

Announcing his presidential bid in Monrovia, he said he had been a “victim of poverty” like many of his supporters, and said he would boost vocational education.

Anthem and portraits – Jonathan Paye-Layleh, BBC News, Monrovia

Liberia’s national anthem was played before Mr Weah took to the stage.

First, he held a moment of silence in memory of the thousands of people who died of Ebola.

He told his crowd of supporters: “Our gathering here today is about the future of our country and our people.

“In the last ten years our people have continued to live in abject poverty, education a mess, health delivery system a disaster, electricity and pipe-borne water elusive.”

“Like many of you, I have been a victim of poverty,” he said. “There were times I didn’t have school fees.”

A leading research organization has recently rated Mr Weah’s performance in the Senate as low.

Party members from across Liberia presented a petition asking him to run, saying they believed he was the man “to solve Liberia’s numerous problems”.

Some party members paraded up and down the sandy party headquarters, beneath giant portraits of Mr Weah.

They sang: “George Weah is the man we want, George Weah is the man we want.”
Mr Weah pledged to increase the national budget, work towards religious harmony, and support vocational education.

To wild applause, he said: “God is with us, and hope is alive.”

{ANC however insist they still have faith in Zuma’s leadership.}

Thousands of South Africans took to the streets across the country on Thursday to press their demand that President Jacob Zuma steps down.

The protests, organised by over 75 civil organizations, followed a Constitutional Court judgment on March 31 which found that Zuma failed to defend, respect and uphold the Constitution by ignoring Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s recommendations regarding payment for security upgrades at his private home in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal Province.

The protests took place in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and other cities across the country.

In Johannesburg, hundreds of protesters, who included academics, politicians, environmentalists, students, trade unionists and social activists, sang liberation songs and waved placards calling on Zuma to resign.

‘‘Down with Zuma” and “Zuma must fall”, they chanted.

‘‘It is the duty of the President to defend the Constitution. Zuma had disregarded that and that is a sign that he is no longer fit to be president and we demand that he must resign immediately. We are calling on his party, the African National Congress (ANC) to recall him,” said Reverend Moss Ntlha, general secretary of the Evangelical Alliance of South Africa.

As the country will hold local government elections on August 3, the ANC will “be punished by the voters with Zuma as the president”, The Rev Ntlha said, adding that they will continue to call for the President to step down until the government listens.

He said: “If the government cannot listen to opposition political parties we think that they can listen to the civil society.”

Mr Nelson Qekema from the opposition Azapo party called on South Africans to defend the Constitution by forcing Zuma to resign.”

We must defend the fruits of our liberation and democracy. We must stand up and show Zuma the door,” he said.

Ferrial Adam, an environment activist from Unite Against Corruption, said they will continue to mobilise the South Africans to protest until Zuma heeds their call.

ANC national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa told Xinhua that the party will not recall the president and still has faith in his leadership.

‘‘We are not going to recall the president and we have no reason to do that.

‘‘We are 100 per cent behind the president and still have faith in his leadership,” said the spokesperson.

Mr Kodwa also stated that those who were demonstrating were exercising their democratic right.

The protests took place as the country marked the Freedom Day, which is dedicated to the first all-race elections that ended the apartheid government in 1994.

On Thursday, Mr Zuma Zuma told thousands of supporters at a rally in northern Limpopo province to mark the 22nd anniversary of the election that brought anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela to power: “If you’re elected at one point, and people no longer want you, humble yourself, accept it,” Zuma told thousands of supporters at a rally in northern Limpopo province.

But Zuma also warned there could be no “shortcuts” to a shake-up at the top, saying any change of government had to come through “democratic institutions, so that we can have a peaceful state where the will of the majority prevails.”

Mr Zuma has faced a chorus of calls to step down following a flurry of scandals, most notably over his use of millions of dollars in public money to furnish his private residence with a swimming pool, amphitheatre, chicken run and other amenities.

In an interview last week with Al-Jazeera television, Mr Julius Malema, who heads the radical leftist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), warned: “We will run out of patience very soon and we will remove this government through a barrel of a gun”.

Municipal elections set for August 3 will test the impact of the scandals engulfing Zuma on the ANC’s support.

{The war-weary population appears to be breathing a sigh of relief.}

The metal gates are still twisted where troops in December 2013 stormed the house of South Sudan’s now new Vice President Riek Machar, as war erupted leaving tens of thousands dead.

But on Tuesday, just a stone’s throw away in his heavily-guarded state house, President Salva Kiir called the matter an “incident” as he welcomed the rebel chief turned “brother” Machar back to Juba, saying his return marked “the end of the war and the return of peace and stability”.

Peace doves were released, and after Machar was sworn into office, the two men stood alongside each other with hands on hearts, as a red-coated band played the national anthem, “God bless South Sudan.”

Hopes are high but the challenges – and the expectations the new government will swiftly solve them – are huge, analysts warn.

Many are cautious, pointing out that the pair have previously fallen out, fought, made up and fought again.

Machar, who returned to the post of vice president that he was sacked from five months before war broke out, said he wanted to work for “full implementation” of an August 2015 agreement “to make sure peace breaks out all over the country”.

SIGH OF RELIEF

For now, the war-weary population appears to be breathing a sigh of relief that for once, there is some hope for peace.

“We want the killing to stop,” said Teresa Nyadet in Juba, a 58-year old mother of eight, one of over 180,000 living behind the razor wire protection of UN bases across the country.

“We women, we want peace in South Sudan, and Machar must make sure the kind of life we are in stops.”

The next few weeks will be critical for persuading people the country has turned a corner.

“I am happy that Riek Machar has come, as this means that we are now going to get out of the camp,” said Elizabeth Akol, a mother of four, also at a UN base in Juba. “We are tired and have suffered a lot.”

The conflict, which has torn open ethnic divisions, has been characterised by horrific rights abuses, including gang rapes, the wholesale burning of villages and cannibalism.

Ensuring that the sides work together in a unity government, and that the thousands of rival armed forces now in separate camps inside the capital keep their guns quiet, will be an even bigger challenge.

SUSPICION REMAINS

Both sides remain deeply suspicious, and there is continued fighting between multiple militia forces who now pay no heed to either Kiir or Machar.

Mr Jok Madut Jok, who heads the Juba-based Sudd Institute think-tank, warned the return was only one of many steps.

“The people of South Sudan may be holding their breath for the war to end, but I think they should also be cautious not to let down their guard,” Jok said.

Both Kiir and Machar are former rebel leaders who rose to power during Sudan’s 1983-2005 civil war between north and south – a conflict in which two men fought each other – before South Sudan won independence in 2011.

Jok warned the old rivals “may disagree on several things along the way of the implementation, and that could easily return the country to a very messy situation”.

Machar’s return to a country awash with weapons was stalled for a week by arguments that at one point came down to a dispute over some two dozen rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns that his security detail was allowed to have.

{{CHALLENGES}}

The pair now face far bigger problems. The economy is in ruins, inflation has eroded savings and salaries, and without another round of massive international support there is little cash to rebuild and prove that the profits of peace are better than those of war.

With more than five million people in need of aid and more than two million forced to flee this homes, aid agencies who are struggling to support them said they welcomed any move towards peace but that the crisis was far from over.

“Though the peace process resolves some national level political disputes, it does not resolve escalating humanitarian and protection needs on the ground,” said Victor Moses, who runs the Norwegian Refugee Council aid agency in the country.

Others warned that without justice to address the horrific abuses carried out by all sides, reconciliation would not be possible and hatred would fester.