Tag: GreatLakesNews

{29 June 2016 – Following a visit to Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a senior United Nations humanitarian official today called on the international community to pay more attention to the dire needs of its residents.}

“These two countries are most definitely not in the political and funding spotlight in the way they need to be,” John Ging, Operations Director of the Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told journalists at the UN Headquarters in New York.

In the DRC, the humanitarian community has appealed for $690 million for this year, which is only 22 per cent funded, he added. Without additional funding, the capacity of aid organizations to operate will be hampered.

Meanwhile, some 1.8 million people are displaced from their homes, and 7.5 million people are in need of critical life-saving assistance, according to the latest UN figures presented at the briefing.

In addition, about half of the population lacks access to safe drinking water on a regular basis, which means greater exposure to water-borne diseases, such as cholera. While about 4.5 million people are food insecure, with about half of all children under the age of five malnourished.

Insecurity is another key concern in the country, for the 12.4 million people living in conflict-affected areas, and for the aid workers trying to assist them. The DRC has one of the highest numbers of security incidents against aid workers in the world.

Despite these challenges, there is a heightened sense of responsibility for ownership on the part of Government and local authorities, Mr. Ging said.

Angola: Concerns about El Niño and yellow fever
In Angola, 1.4 million people have been directly affected by El Niño, Mr. Ging said, adding that malnutrition is going up at an alarming rate.

On the yellow fever outbreak, the country is struggling to get the disease under control due to the limited vaccination coverage, he said.“This is a disease that should not affect anyone in 2016 because there is vaccination,” he said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and Angola’s Ministry of Health are conducting a campaign to vaccinate 19 million people, but only 12.7 million doses are available, he said. The yellow fever can be transmitted by mosquitos, he said, noting that China reported cases from some migrant workers who returned home.

The country also needs help as it is dealing with El Niño effect, yellow fever and the falling prices of oil, whose export accounts for a large portion of the country’s income, he said.

{GENEVA—Burundi’s human rights record is under scrutiny at the U.N. Human Rights Council over the objections and anger of that country’s government. The council said it is alarmed at the rise in rights violations in Burundi since last year’s political crisis. It wants the violations to stop, because it fears an ethnic conflict with devastating consequences for all of central Africa.}

The United Nations and the government of Burundi have polar opposite views on what is happening in the country, a year after President Pierre Nkurunziza was elected to what his critics call an unconstitutional third term.

{{Campaign of distortion}}

While the government accused the U.N. of a campaign of distortion, U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra-ad al-Hussein expressed great concern over the terrible reality that is playing out.

In a report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council, Zeid accused Burundi government agents and associated militia of killings, disappearances and arbitrary arrests. He said he is alarmed at the prospect of an escalation in ethnic violence.

“In the past six weeks, a number of members of the defunct armed Forces of Burundi, or ex-FAB, have been murdered, possibly because of their Tutsi ethnicity. In the south of the country, I have also been informed of speeches by members of the Imbonerakure amounting to incitement to violence against political opponents, with strong ethnic overtones,” said Zeid.

{{Imbonerakure, not militia }}

Given Burundi’s history of conflict between Hutus and Tutsis, the high commissioner warned the acts of incitement are potentially explosive. Willy Nyamitwe, a senior adviser to the president of Burundi, rejected accusations that the Imbonerakure, the ruling party’s youth wing, is spreading hate speech and attacking people.

He told VOA the group is not a militia.

“They do not have weapons. They are not killing people. But, you can see when you go through these reports that even the High Commissioner is saying it is a militia that is intimidating people, killing citizens, but without giving evidences. We need facts. So when there is no fact, there is flying rumors,” stated Nyamitwe.

Nyamitwe accused Rwanda and Belgium of trying to destabilize Burundi by manipulating organizations, such as the International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch.

“Some reports are really biased and it is a huge campaign of distortion and fabrication and lies that have been spread over the internet…Burundi is not the first country in Africa that has been destabilized by some powers that are working for regime change,” he added. “Everything that has been said about mass killings, about genocide against Tutsi were wrong.”

{{Conflict trends, violations}}

The high commissioner’s spokeswoman, Cecile Pouilly, agreed that genocide is a very specific and powerful term that should not be used lightly. However, she disagreed with Nyamitwe’s contention that the high commissioner’s report is not based on fact.

She told VOA that U.N. human rights monitors are in contact with a large network of people. She said they carefully document all the information they receive.

“What we observe is a number of extra-judicial executions going down. At the same time, we see a number of human rights violations going up. Other trends–including a number of arbitrary arrests, arbitrary detentions, and very worrying an increase in the use of torture and ill-treatment, especially in detention facilities run by the Service Nationale de Renseignement—intelligence agency, if you want—the police and the army,” Pouilly said.

She said grenade attacks against the police and army are increasing. People continue to be displaced within the country and as refugees in neighboring countries.

“And the crisis that is going on right now in Burundi, has been ongoing for months right now, is affecting the whole region,” explained Pouilly. “And, the high commissioner has on many occasions warned against the risk of destabilization for the entire region.”

The International Criminal Court recently said it will open a preliminary examination into violence in Burundi. U.N. rights chief Zeid welcomes that. He is urging the authorities to bring all those responsible for crimes to justice, and for the country to resolve its crisis through an inclusive national dialogue.

{Kenyan intelligence agencies estimate that around 100 men and women may have gone to join the IS in Libya and Syria.}

Recent arrests show the Islamic State’s growing presence in East Africa, where they are recruiting young Kenyans for jihad abroad and raising fears some of them will return to threaten the country.

Kenyan intelligence agencies estimate that around 100 men and women may have gone to join the IS in Libya and Syria, triggering concern that some may come back to stage attacks on Kenyan and foreign targets in a country already victim to regular, deadly terrorism.

“There is now a real threat that Kenya faces from IS and the danger will continue to increase,” said Rashid Abdi, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank in Nairobi.

The problem of eager but often untrained extremists gaining terrorist skills with IS and coming home to launch attacks is one European nations are already grappling with, and may soon be Kenya’s problem too.

“It’s a time bomb,” said George Musamali, a Kenyan security consultant and former paramilitary police officer.

“People going to Libya or Syria isn’t a problem for Kenya, it’s what they do when they come back.”

The first Al-Qaeda attack in Kenya was the 1998 US embassy bombing and the most recent large one a university massacre in Garissa last year, but the IS threat is new and as yet ill defined.

In March four men appeared in court accused of seeking to travel to Libya to join IS.

Then in early May, Kenyan police announced the arrest of a medical student, his wife and her friend accused of recruiting for IS and plotting an anthrax attack. Two other medical students were said to be on the run.

‘IS TERROR NETWORK’

Police chief Joseph Boinnet described a countrywide “terror network” linked to IS and led by Mohamed Abdi Ali, a medical intern at a regional hospital, “planning large scale attacks” including one to “unleash a biological attack… using anthrax”.

Three weeks later Kenyan police announced (using another IS acronym) the arrest of two more members of “the ISIS network that is seeking to establish itself in Kenya in order to conduct terror attacks against innocent Kenyans.”

Police said they had found “materials terrorists typically use in the making of IEDs” — homemade bombs — as well as “bows and poisoned arrows”.

Some experts dismissed the suggestion of an imminent large-scale attack in Kenya, but said the threat of IS radicalisation, recruitment and return is genuine.

“We can’t see either the intent to carry out such an attack nor any real planning for it,” said one foreign law enforcement official who has examined the anthrax allegation.

“But there is something in it: there is IS here, mainly involved in recruitment and facilitation.”

Martine Zeuthen, a Kenya-based expert on violent extremism at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, said the recent arrests “indicate that radicalisation continues to be a serious security concern”.

She said that while recruitment into the Somalia-based Al-Qaeda group Shabaab remains the primary danger, “there are also credible reports of recruitment from Kenya to violent groups outside the region, such as those fighting in Libya.”

“Like those who went to fight in Somalia and returned to Kenya, this new category of recruit may also return and pose a security risk to Kenya,” said Zeuthen.

MULTIPLYING THREATS

Kenyan authorities already struggle to manage the return of their nationals from Somalia, where hundreds of Kenyans make up the bulk of Shabaab’s foreign fighters.

In the future they will likely also have to deal with returning IS extremists as well as self-radicalised “lone wolf” attackers inspired by the group’s ideology and online propaganda.

“Kenya risks finding itself fairly soon in the position that Belgium or France or the US does, as IS-inspired extremists pose a domestic threat,” said Matt Bryden, director of Sahan Research, a Nairobi-based think tank.

“In Kenya, we’re not yet at the point where experienced fighters are coming back but it may not be far off.”

Bryden and others believe that for now the true number of Kenyan IS recruits may be just “a handful” but the existence of sympathisers with the capacity to help aspiring jihadis travel to Libya and Syria, often via Khartoum, Sudan, is not in doubt.

IS is a new entrant to a well-established jihadist scene in Kenya, exploiting the diverse grievances of angry, frustrated and disaffected young Kenyans.

Recent security operations on Kenya’s coast have forced Shabaab recruiters into retreat, inadvertently opening up space for IS.

“Success in dismantling the organised jihadi networks has created a vacuum into which IS is stepping,” said Abdi. “There is a proliferation of jihadi groups, and that makes for a much more dangerous situation.”

{State House tells Deputy President’s critics they are wasting time debating whether he will get support in election.}

President Uhuru Kenyatta has defended his deputy, Mr William Ruto, and assured him of his support in his 2022 bid for the presidency.

This follows assertions by some politicians in the Jubilee coalition that the DP does not have their guaranteed support.

State House Senior Director for Public Communication Munyori Buku on Tuesday rebuked Mr Ruto’s critics for “wasting their time” in warning that the DP may have to sweat for central Kenya’s support in 2022.

“The President has been categorical about the 2022 Jubilee ticket. He has made it very clear that the party will fully back Deputy President William Ruto,” Mr Buku said in a brief statement.

“First, the President has explained that 10 years of his own term are not long enough to implement the grand plan Jubilee has for Kenya. He has pointed out this super plan needs about 20 years to implement.”

The statement was prompted by comments by Nominated Senator Paul Njoroge at the weekend that the DP’s visits to the central region added little value to President Kenyatta’s 2017 campaigns but were meant to push his 2022 agenda.

In an interview with the Nation on Monday, Mr Njoroge repeated the warning, arguing the visits could, in fact, cause conflict between the Kikuyu and Kalenjin communities should they part political ways after 2017.

“It’s my feeling that the Deputy President is trying to blackmail the Kikuyu community when we know very well he is adding no value to (President Kenyatta’s) 2017 bid,” said an unapologetic Mr Njoroge.

“We keep promising Ruto that we are going to vote for him in 2022; suppose he feels betrayed (if we do not keep that promise), and then his people in the Rift Valley feel betrayed, you know how the story goes… and you know very well,” said the senator. “We might be creating unnecessary trouble.”

Mr Ruto, the former Eldoret North MP, became Deputy President in 2013 after running with Mr Kenyatta on a Jubilee coalition ticket. They beat their closest challengers, Cord by 6,173,433 votes to 5,340,546.

Mr Ruto’s United Republican Party (URP) and President Kenyatta’s The National Alliance (TNA) amassed great support in the Rift Valley and central regions, where they also have the greatest number of representatives in Parliament.

{{Merge formative parties }}

The Jubilee alliance is planning to merge the formative parties into one mass movement but the matter of the Deputy President’s fate after next year’s elections continues to surface.

Through a gentlemen’s agreement, the alliance is supposed to stay alive for 10 years, the time required for President Kenyatta and his supporters to reciprocate the votes they received from the DP.

But, occasionally, a politician from the President’s side drops an unguarded comment, indicating the dynamic nature of the country’s highly ethnicised politics.

Two weeks ago, Kiambu Governor William Kabogo was forced clarify his comments, then threatened to sue his rivals, after he suggested the DP will not be a straightforward backing from the Central region. URP leaders in the North Rift were infuriated by the comments.

“What I said is that DP Ruto needs to engage Central Kenya ahead of 2022,” said Mr Kabogo. “That he needs to reassure Central Kenya that he will secure their interests. There is no place where I said that Central Kenya will not support Ruto. They are politicians driving selfish personal interests at the expense of national cohesion and development.”

On Tuesday, State House said the President and his Deputy are still joined at the hip in developing the country and uniting communities, and that it will take longer than President Kenyatta’s term to accomplish those objectives.

“It is, therefore, crucial that he (Mr Ruto) be the one to take the agenda forward. Second, Jubilee has brought bountiful peace not only in the Rift Valley, but also in many other conflict-prone areas.The Jubilee ticket of President Kenyatta and Deputy President Ruto is good for its supporters and good for Kenya.

“Third, the DP is doing an excellent job and has proved his abilities, acumen and diligence as a leader. Those haranguing the country over the 2022 election are wasting their time. The reaction of Jubilee supporters and many other Kenyans has been absolutely clear in their support for the Deputy President.”

{Comoro President Azali Assoumani has assured Tanzania that his government shall continue strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries especially in business, health and education sectors.}

The Comoro leader gave the assurance at Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA) when he held talks with Vice-President Samia Suluhu Hassan on behalf of President John Magufuli.

Mr Assoumani decided to take a rest for a little while at JNIA on his way to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. He also commended the efforts by the Fifth Phase government to ensure that social services were available to Tanzanian citizens insisting that his government would continue learning from the Tanzanian government in a bid to stamp out problems bedevilling residents of Comoro.

Presenting the message from Dr Magufuli to the Comoro president, Ms Hassan assured the Comoro leader that Tanzania was committed to boosting bilateral ties between the two countries especially in the areas of business, education and health.

The Vice-President wished the Comoro leader a safe flight to Saudi Arabia where he will be conducting Prayers. In another development, the Vice-President held talks with Japan ambassador in Tanzania, Masaharu Yoshida, in which he assured the Japanese envoy that the Tanzanian government would continue putting in place the best business environment for various investors including those from Japan.

“Japan has been one of our good development partners in various projects in both the Mainland and Zanzibar especially water, education and health sectors setting a tone for other partners to emulate”.