Tag: GreatLakesNews

{{The stage is set Wednesday for a major legal duel between President Uhuru Kenyatta and International Criminal Court ( ICC) Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda during a key meeting at The Hague.}}

The trial Bench has issued a three-point agenda that will be deliberated during the status conference set to last approximately four hours.

The defence of President Kenyatta will be pushing for the termination of the case, with Ms Bensouda expected to lay bare additional investigative steps her office has undertaken against the Head of State since she requested for an adjournment of the case two months ago.

The status conference coincides with the date earlier set for commencement of the president’s trial that was, however, put off after the prosecution cited insufficient evidence.

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But ahead of the critical meeting, Bensouda appeared to shift goalpost asking the judges to adjourn the case until the Government of Kenya cooperates with the court by giving more evidence against Uhuru.

The Government of Kenya’s non-compliance has blocked an important avenue of investigation in this case and the GoK has failed to provide a supportable explanation for its obstructionism,†Bensouda told the Trial Chamber headed by Japanese judge Kuniko Ozaki.

On December 19 last year, the former Gambian Attorney General and Justice Minister requested an adjournment of the trial date for three months in order to “undertake additional investigative steps†against the President.

But in her latest filing, Bensouda conceded that there has been no breakthrough in new investigations.

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{{The fight against corruption will be part of government performance contracts, President Uhuru Kenyatta has said.}}

The kenyan President noted that the vice remains the greatest barrier to Kenya’s social and economic development.

“There is no dignity in corruption and we must work together to change the mentality,” he said.

He was speaking on Tuesday when he met members of the National Anti-Corruption Steering Committee at State House, Nairobi.

The government plans to pursue a two-pronged strategy; prosecution of culprits and civic education to inform the public of progress made.

{President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy President William Ruto during a meeting with the National-Anti-Corruption Campaign Steering Committee at State House, Nairobi on February 4, 2014}

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{{Four terror suspects believed to have been behind the attack that occurred at a restaurant at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) have been charged in Court.}}

The four Somali nationals appeared in Court on Monday, over suspicions of masterminding the attack two weeks ago which was initially said to be a bulb explosion. They however did not take their plea after it emerged that they could not understand English or Kiswahili.

Milimani Magistrate Doreen Mulekyo was forced to defer the plea taking to February 4, to allow the Court provide a Somali Interpreter for the four.

Hassan Abdi Mohamed, Mohamed Osman Ali, Yusuf Warsame and Garad Hassan Fer are said to have been found with explosives on January 16, at Shauri Moyo trading centre.

“In a motor vehicle registration number KBS 965E Toyotta Avensis silver in colour jointly with others not before court were found in possession of two kilograms of an explosive TNT in contravention of the law,” read their charge sheet.

There was also a bullet riddled body of a man thought to be their accomplice, in the vehicle.

Police said the vehicle was sprayed with bullets while speeding off from the airport, soon after the incident, which Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo had at the time dismissed as a ‘bulb explosion’.

Anti terrorism police unit officer, Leonard Bwire said that the four acquired Kenyan identification documents fraudulently and had been sneaking in and out of Somalia at will.

Bwire claimed that their goal was either to train with the Al-shaabab or to bring explosives to Kenya.

The prosecution has already indicated plans of amending the charges to include that of fraudulently obtaining Kenyan passports.

“The ATPU has information that the terrorist attack at the Java Restaurant within the JKIA on 16 January was planned and executed by the suspects together with others who are yet to be arrested,” explained the officer.

Bwire also revealed that the suspects led police officers to their residences in Ushirika Estate within Eastleigh where an inventory of the items recovered was made.

He further claims that the suspects have a vast network in the country aimed at carrying out terrorist attacks on public gatherings and foreign establishments.

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{{South Sudanese rebels accused government forces on Sunday of razing the hometown of their leader Riek Machar, violating a ceasefire, and said the army was drawing support from foreign fighters now in the country.}}

Rebel spokesman Lul Ruai Koang said government SPLA forces and fighters from the Sudanese Justice and Equality Movement – a rebel group from north of the border – had destroyed the northern town of Leer on Saturday, massacring women and children as they fled.

An army spokesman said he had not received any reports of fighting in Leer, where the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said last week more than 200 of its staff had been forced to flee because of growing insecurity.

The government accuses the rebels of flouting the ceasefire signed on January 23.

The claims and counter-claims came as east African ceasefire monitors began to arrive in South Sudan, seven weeks after violence erupted in the capital, Juba, before spreading across the world’s newest state.

“(President Salva) Kiir’s forces burned down the whole of Leer town and entire surrounding villages,” Koang said in a statement.

“The latest destruction of Leer town in Unity state has no strategic, operational or tactical importance, but mere need for psychological satisfaction.”

Koang said the Ugandan military, which gave air and ground support to the SPLA as it battled to recapture rebel-held towns before the ceasefire, had swollen its ranks with fighters from the defeated M23 Congolese rebel group.

Hundreds of M23 rebels fled into Uganda after the Congolese army and a U.N. brigade flushed them from their strongholds. SPLA spokesman Philip Aguer said he had received no reports of foreign militiamen joining the conflict.

CEASEFIRE MONITORS

Ugandan army spokesman Colonel Paddy Ankunda called the rebel allegations “cheap lies”.

Thousands of people have been killed and more than 800,000 have fled their homes since fighting was triggered by a power struggle between President Kiir and Machar, his former deputy whom he sacked in July.

The conflict, which has taken on a largely ethnic dimension between the Dinka and Nuer tribes of Kiir and Machar respectively, has brought oil-producing South Sudan, a country the size of France, to the brink of civil war.

Machar on Friday accused Kiir of sabotaging the peace talks – which resume in neighbouring Ethiopia this week – and of waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing, in a Reuters interview at his bush hideout in remote Jonglei state.

An advance team of monitors sent by east African nations arrived in Juba on Sunday to start observing the shaky truce.

Diplomats expect them to focus on the three flashpoint towns of Malakal and Bentiu, near the main oilfields, and Bor, where some of the heaviest clashes have occurred, as well as the capital.

“We will start our mission, at least the teams will be deployed, within the next week,” General Gebreegzabher Mebrahtu, a retired Ethiopian general who is leading the advance team, told reporters in Juba.

The violence, the worst since South Sudan won independence from Sudan in 2011, has caused a humanitarian crisis.

At least 3.2 million people – more than a quarter of the population – face food shortages, the United Nations says. Aid agencies say insecurity is hampering their operations.

Defence Web

{The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, has welcomed the ruling allowing the extraction of journalist Walter Barasa to The Hague.}

Barasa is supposed to face charges for alleged bribery of witnesses in the case against Deputy President William Ruto and former Kass FM broadcaster Joshua arap Sang.

“We expect that the Government of Kenya will take all necessary steps to move the matter forward so that Walter Barasa can be arrested and surrendered to the ICC without undue delay to face charges for attempted obstruction of justice,” Bensouda’s office said.

Barasa on Friday lost a bid seeking to block an arrest warrant issued against him by the ICC last year.

While issuing the verdict, Justice Richard Mwongo said that Barasa’s application was premature because the High Court was not the right forum to determine whether or not the warrant was rightly issued or not.

The judge added that Barasa would only be able to get a chance to give his side of the story once he surrendered to the court or was given up to the court.

Barasa has however received 14 days of reprieve, within which he can appeal against the decision.

“The Interior Cabinet Secretary Joseph ole Lenku is now at liberty to commence these proceedings against Barasa but that liberty has been stayed for 14 days pending appeal,” directed the judge.

Justice Mwongo said that the only person with the power to challenge the application was Attorney General Githu Muigai and that the High Court had the jurisdiction to hear the matter.

The 41 year old journalist cum-activist is being sought by the ICC after he was accused of bribing three prosecution witnesses in the case against Deputy President William Ruto and Joshua arap Sang with amounts ranging between Sh1 million and Sh1.5 million.

He has however denied the claims, accusing the ICC Prosecution of having a vendetta against him.

Meanwhile the Attorney General is expected in The Hague in two weeks time to respond to a request by Bensouda to have all witnesses who have declined to testify in the case against Deputy President William Ruto and former Kass FM presenter Joshua arap Sang summoned.

Muigai is expected to travel to ICC on Valentine’s Day after being directed to do so by the court to clarify the principles of Kenyan law while at the same time giving an update on the current status of cooperation between Kenya and the Prosecutor’s requests.

The Attorney General will be required The Office of the Prosecutor has been expressing concern with the rate at which witnesses have dropped out of the case. At times the court has had to adjourn proceedings due to lack of witnesses.

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{Mining developers in Uganda’s northeast Karamoja region have failed to respect the rights of local residents who communally own the land for raising livestock and cultivating crops, Human Rights Watch said.
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The government and some exploration companies have excluded customary land owners from discussions to develop deposits in the area, the New York-based group said in a 140-page report entitled “How Can we Survive Here?” released today. The hunt mainly for gold and marble has intensified over the past two years as at least three companies started operating without the communities giving full consent, it said.

The East African nation, which has deposits ranging from gold to copper, hasn’t produced large quantities of minerals. The industry could expand “significantly in the near future” as investor interest in oil spreads to minerals, according to a report on the U.S. Geological Survey’s website.

Uganda, classified by the World Bank as one of the world’s poorest nations, discovered oil in 2006 and has an estimated 3.5 billion barrels of crude. London-based Tullow Oil Plc, Cnooc Ltd. and France’s Total SA are jointly developing the finds, which have yet to enter into production. The nation has sub-Saharan Africa’s fourth-biggest oil reserves.

The situation in Karamoja mirrors concerns in Uganda’s oil-rich regions about the possibility of heightened political patronage, corruption and restrictions on civil-society groups that criticize the government’s development plans, Human Rights Watch said. The report is based on 137 interviews between May and November.
Local Approval

The government ensures its development plans for the region have the backing of the local community, Barbara Oundo Nekesa, minster of state for Karamoja, said by phone.
Story: Prominent Mongolian Environmentalist Given 21-Year Jail Sentence for ‘Terrorism’

“It is not possible that government can work against its people,” she said from Kampala, the capital.

Karamoja, a region of 1.2 million people mainly of the pastoralist Karamojong ethnic group, has suffered recurring bouts of violence and food insecurity, with the highest rate of childhood malnutrition in the country, according to Human Rights Watch.

“Mining development could be a real boon to the people of Karamoja, bringing jobs and better security, services, and basic infrastructure,” said Daniel Bekele, the group’s Africa director. “However it is still unclear how the people of Karamoja will benefit, if at all, from mining, or how the government intends to protect their rights during this process.”

A Somali diplomat in Kenya has been held in detention for more than a week, Somalia’s ambassador has told the BBC.

Ilyas Yusuf Warsame, a secretary of the Somali embassy in the capital, Nairobi, is currently “under interrogation”.

Ambassador Mohamed Ali America said he had complained to the Kenyan authorities, who had said Mr Warsame did not have immunity as he was Kenyan.

The arrest comes amid a security crackdown in Nairobi, amid warnings of a possible terror attack.

Last September, Somalia’s al-Shabab group attacked a Nairobi shopping centre in which at least 67 people died.

BBC

{More than 400,000 people have been displaced recently in the so-called “Triangle of Death” – the area between the towns of Pweto, Mitwaba and Manono – in the Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations confirmed today.
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More than 600 homes in 11 villages have been destroyed since October, a dramatic increase in the last two years, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative for the DRC, Martin Kobler, said today that he was “extremely concerned” by the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in the southern province.

“All armed groups must stop their activities and allow humanitarian access to the main victims of this tragedy, the civilian populations” urged Mr. Kobler, who is also the head of the UN Mission in the country (MONUSCO).

The Mission today reported that most of the attacks in the region are perpetrated by Mayi-Mayi Katanga, one of the rebel groups known to operate in the country.

Fighting in the DRC between the Government and rebels – including the M23 who were defeated by the national army with UN support last month – the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and others, has displaced 2.9 million people, OCHA has reported.

The DRC has been torn apart by civil wars and factional fighting since its independence in 1960, but with the support of a series of UN missions, a measure of stability has been restored to much of the vast country over the past decade.

But fighting between the Government and a variety of rebel and sectarian groups has continued to devastate the eastern regions, particularly North and South Kivu provinces.

In March, the Security Council authorized the deployment of an intervention brigade within MONUSCO, based in North Kivu province with a total of 3,069 peacekeepers, to carry out targeted offensive operations, with or without FARDC, against armed groups threatening peace in that part of the country.

Mr. Ban, his Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region, Mary Robinson, and Mr. Kobler have stressed the importance of a political solution to address the underlying causes of violence in the region. The Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework for the DRC and the Region was signed by 11 nations last February, and has since been nickname