Tag: GreatLakesNews

{The United Nations is speeding reinforcements to its beleaguered peacekeeping force in South Sudan, where ferocious fighting was raging in the oil-producing north.
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“We are working on 48 hours delivery of several of the critical assets that we need,” and the first reinforcements should arrive by Saturday, the world body’s special envoy to the violence-wracked country, Hilde Johnson, told journalists via videoconference from Juba.

The UN is bulking up its peacekeeping muscle in the African nation, which won independence from Sudan only two years ago, amid a vicious fight between troops loyal to South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and fighters backing his sacked vice president, Riek Machar.

The UN security council agreed on Tuesday to nearly double the size of its mission known as UNMISS, allowing for up to 12,500 soldiers and 1,300 police, after the violence sparked on December 15 and raged out of control.

Thousands of people have died, according to the United Nations, and tens of thousands of civilians are seeking protection at UN bases in the country.

While the conflict appeared to start as a power struggle — with Kiir alleging a foiled coup attempt and Machar saying it was really a purge of potential challengers to the president — it rapidly took on an ethnic dimension.

The violence now cleaves along a divide pitting members of Kiir’s Dinka tribe against Machar’s Nuer clansmen.

A South Sudan army spokesman, Philip Aguer, told AFP troops were fighting forces allied to Machar inside the town of Malakal, capital of Upper Nile state.

{Over 500 Congolese nationals have fled into the western Uganda district of Bundibugyo following armed clashes back home.}

The clashes broke out at dawn on Christmas day when a group of Uganda rebels operating in eastern Congo, the Allied Democratic Front (ADF), attacked Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) unit in Kamango, near the Uganda/D.R Congo border.

Confirming the incident, the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) 2nd Division spokesperson, Major Ronald Kakurungu, said the ADF attacked FARDC at around 5.00am local time.

“By this evening (Xmas day), so far 500 Congolese refugees had fled to Busunga border point,” Major Kakurungu told New Vision on phone.

He said the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) was already moving in to relocate the Congolese from Bubukwanga.

A Congolese source based in Kasindi, told New Vision that the attackers, whose numbers could not immediately be established, struck and looted assorted weapons from the Congolese before retreating back into the eastern DRC Rwenzori jungles.

The attacks come hardly five months after similar clashes between the ADF and FARDC that saw over 30,000 Congolese flee to Uganda for their lives in July.

“We are taking precaution and put our troops on extra alert and are working with police to screen the refugees lest we are infiltrated by wrong elements disguising as refugees,” Kakurungu said on Christmas day.

He said the refugees were being carefully screened as the security agencies along the Rwenzori region were monitoring the movements along the common border to stem any possible enemy attack.

The ADF, a Muslims fundamentalist group led by Jamil Mukulu, first attacked Kasese on 13 November 1996, before later spreading to the entire Rwenzori region where they committed various atrocities including the burning of about Uganda Technical College Kicwamba students in their sleep.

In 2001, the UPDF announced that it had defeated the ADF and that the remnants had fled to the DRC, where they have set up hideouts in various places.

From their hideouts, the rebels resorted to survival tactics including attacks on civilian populations, small abductions, petty trade and occasional ambushes on travellers.

“Should the ADF dare us, we are very prepared to deal with them,” Major Kakurungu warned.

New Vision

{A special UN force in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo used helicopters Wednesday to fire on Ugandan rebels and help government troops retake the town of Kamango after an attack that killed civilians.}

“South African helicopters in the UN intervention force were asked by FARDC (the DR Congo army) to give them support to recapture Kamango,” said a senior officer with the UN mission to DR Congo (MONUSCO) who declined to be identified by name.

“We have already taken back Kamango,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Olivier Amuli, a FARDC army spokesman in North-Kivu province, the mineral-rich but volatile region plagued by a number of armed groups.

Amuli admitted that at the time of the attack on Kamango the Congolese forces “withdrew because they were outnumbered”.

The rebel attack took place before dawn, said Teddy Kataliko, head of the civil society in the Beni region where Kamango is located.

The civil organisation blamed the initial attack on the Islamist Ugandan rebel group ADF-Nalu in collaboration with Uganda’s army. It is one of the oldest but least-known armed groups based in eastern DR Congo.

“We have 10 people kidnapped, 11 civilians and five soldiers wounded, and several civilians killed, as well as homes burned, by the attackers,” Kataliko earlier told AFP.

The officer from Monusco also confirmed the retaking of Kamango by government troops saying “apparently the demonstration of force and the involvement of South African Rooivacks intimidated the ADF-Nalu.”

Kataliko said the rebels were “now heading towards the town of Nobili,” on the Congolese-Ugandan border, where more than 150,000 people have taken refuge from the fighting.

“We believe there is the risk of a massacre and that’s why we are asking to establish a humanitarian corridor,” he said, making an appeal to the government to come to the aid of those people.

Kataliko also said that those fleeing the fighting would not be able to cross the border into Uganda, which was closed.

ADF-Nalu stands for Allied Democratic Forces-National Army for the Liberation of Uganda and is considered the only Islamist organisation in the region.

In July the Congolese army battled the ADF-Nalu rebels to take control of the Kamango region, but the fighting had sent tens of thousands of people fleeing for safety in neighbouring Uganda.

MONUSCO reported that at least 21 people were killed last week with “extreme brutality” in the Beni region. The UN did not identify the assailants but again local civil groups pointed to the Ugandan rebels.

The rebels are led by Jamil Mukulu, a Christian convert to Islam, and has never really managed to take its fight against President Yoweri Museveni’s regime to Uganda.

Some observers have voiced concern that ADF-Nalu could become a link in the growing network of radical Islamist groups in East Africa.

MONUSCO’s mission in DR Congo includes a 3,000-strong UN intervention brigade made up of troops from Tanzania, South Africa and Malawi, specially authorised to go after armed groups ravaging DR Congo. There are another 17,000 peacekeepers mobilised in the overall mission.

The mission helped bring down the M23 rebel movement last month, which was suspected of receiving support from Rwanda and Uganda, something both countries deny.

AFP

A team of journalists has formed a network that will bring together media professionals from across the East African Community in an ambitious initiative that will transform the region’s media landscape.

The East African Journalists Platform (EAJP) aims to advance the regional integration agenda and encourage networking among journalists in the region. It will also enable quick exchange of information on events across the region using its wide network of journalists.

The Platform will work closely with the EAC Secretariat, Organs and Institutions. It will also establish linkages with regional businesses, development organizations and umbrella bodies.

The formation of EAJP followed a series of meetings in Nairobi, Bujumbura and Kampala attended by journalists from all the five EAC member states. The meetings coincided with regional meetings being held in those capitals, the latest being the Media Summit and EAC Heads of State Summit held in Kampala at the end of November.

The 54 founding members of the Platform are drawn from all the five EAC Partner States. The group includes journalists from both print and broadcast areas and is drawn from a wide spectrum of media houses.

It is chaired by Kenyan freelance writer and editor Isaac Mwangi, who is also a columnist with the East African News Agency. He is deputized by Florence Apolot of WBS TV in Uganda.

James Karuhanga of Rwanda’s New Times newspaper is the Platform’s Secretary, while Peter Saramba of the Mwananchi Newspaper in Tanzania is Assistant Secretary. The Treasurer is Florine Mukeshimana of Radio Publique Africaine in Burundi.

The media houses with members in the network include the IPPMedia in Tanzania, Nation Media Group, Standard Group, Radio Africa Group, Citizen TV and the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation in Kenya; and Fedeco Radio, Mwananchi and Zanzibar Leo in Tanzania.

Uganda is represented by journalists from the New Vision, Kings Broadcasting, and Uganda Network Radio, among others. Rwanda’s representation includes journalists from the Rwanda Focus, Radio Izuba, and Radio Huguka. Burundi has journalists from the Burundi Press Agency, Iwacu newspaper and Radio-Télévision Nationale du Burundi, among others.

Apart from the Platform, other media bodies that are expected to be formed in the near future include an East African Media Council as well as a separate body that will bring together media owners and other stakeholders in East Africa.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

As Ban Ki-moon Meets Tanzania’s Kikwete, Seeking Troops for South Sudan, No UN Answers on FDLR, Central African Republic

By {{Matthew Russell Lee}}

UNITED NATIONS, December 24 — To try to move to South Sudan five battalions of soldiers from UN Mission in the DR Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Abyei, Darfur and Liberia, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has been working the phones.

Ban’s Spokesperson Martin Nesirky has refused to hold a briefing for the past two days and ignored written questions for 72 hours. So when at 12:21 pm on December 24 the UN announced that Ban would meeting with Tanzanian president Kikwete at 12:30 pm, Inner City Press ran to cover it.

Upstairs in Ban’s 38th floor conference room sitting across from Kikwete were Ban, his chief of staff Susana Malcorra and Department of Peacekeeping Operations deputy Edmond Mulet. Inner City Press tweeted photographs here and here.

While it seems that the 12:30 meeting with Kikwete only came together at 12:05, Ban’s spokesperson’s office rather than hold a briefing sent out a list of countries and leaders Ban has spoken to about “bolstering the capacity of the UN peacekeeping mission in the country (UNMISS)” —
“Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union Commission; Hailemariam Dessalegn, Chairperson of the African Union and Prime Minister of Ethiopia; Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda; Joyce Hilda Mtila Banda, President of Malawi; Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, President of Tanzania; Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Pakistan; Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh; and Khil Raj Regmi, Prime Minister of Nepal.”
So Kikwete was included, 24 minutes after his meeting with Ban began. But not included, among Asian countries, was India — one wondered, because of the two killed Indian peacekeeers in the Akobo camp last week?
It’s one thing to ask the Troop Contributing Countries. But as Inner City Press reported yesterday, Cote d’Ivoire ambassador Bamba back in July 2013 said his government disagrees with pulling UN peacekeepers out of his country before 2015. Cote d’Ivoire is not listed among Ban’s conversations; nor is the Kabila goverment of the DRC. There, pulling out a battalion may impact the pledged “neutralization” of the Hutu FDLR militia. But, Congolese sources suggest, maybe Kabila is OK with that — he is sending 850 of his “elite” troops to the Central African Republic.
More than 24 hours ago, Inner City Press asked Ban’s spokesperson Martin Nesirky a series of still unanswered questions, including:
“Given that the SG said ‘we are now actively trying to transfer our assets from other peacekeeping missions, like MONUSCO [the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo] and some other areas’ — which assets is he / the UN trying to transfer out of the DRC? How does this relate to the UN’s pledge to now move to neutralize the FDLR?”
And
“In Central African Republic, please confirm civilian(s) killed by Chad troops in MISCA force, and state whether there is any UN support to this unit and if so how the UN’s Human Rights Due Diligence Policy applies.”
Now, having still no answer to these, Inner City Press has asked Nesirky:
“In the Central African Republic, please confirm or deny that Chadian peacekeepers fired on protesters (and that the UN will do about it), and engaged in a skirmish with Burundian peacekeepers.”

{More than 1 200 South African soldiers will spend Christmas on a peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.}

They are part of a SADC deployment in the volatile Eastern DRC, under the auspices of the UN Mission, MONUSCO.

Peacekeeping has been a key feature of a post-94 democratic South Africa. Since 2001, SANDF members have been deployed to the DRC. This follows agreements between Pretoria and Kinshasa, and peacekeeping under UN auspices.

Twelve years on, various regiments are still in the DRC and they include engineers, medics, pilots, military police and ground forces operating on the frontlines.

Christmas will be a “special day” away from home for the soldiers. They have been hailed as agents of peace and have received a pat on the back from deputy defence minister, Thabang Makwetla.

Most of the soldiers are expected to be home after April.

Agencies

{ British, Canadian and Kenyan citizens are among 3,000 foreigners trapped in a South Sudan city experiencing bouts of heavy machine gun fire, one of the most violent areas of a weeklong conflict that has likely killed more than 1,000 people, a top U.N. official said Monday.}

Australians, Ugandans and Ethiopians are also among 17,000 people seeking protection at a U.N. base in Bor, a city that could see increased violence in coming days, said Toby Lanzer, the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator.

The death toll from a week of violence in South Sudan has likely surpassed 1,000 people, though there are no firm numbers available, he said. The number of internal refugees is probably more than 100,000, said Lanzer, who is seeking urgent financial assistance from the U.S., Britain and other European countries.

“I know there are many thousands of people seeking protection in churches,” Lanzer said. “I know that we have our own staff that have literally walked into the bush and are communicating from there. That’s where they say they are safest.”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the Security Council late Monday to add 5,500 troops and police to the 7,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, citing growing violence in many parts of the country, human rights abuses, “and killings fueled by ethnic tensions.”

Ban proposed in a letter to the council obtained by The Associated Press that the troops be transferred from U.N. missions in Congo, Darfur, Abyei, Ivory Coast and Liberia, along with three attack helicopters, three utility helicopters and a C130 military transport plane.

AFP

{A pointman of South Sudan’s fugitive former Vice President Riek Machar has accused President Salva Kiir of not being honest in calling for talks to end the crisis in Africa’s youngest nation.}

Mr Stephen Kuol, a Minister in the troubled Jonglei State of South Sudan told the Nation on Monday that President Kiir is “not serious” about talks because those he should be talking with have either been scared away or have been put in custody.

“Salva Kiir was just under pressure from the region, from south Sudanese themselves and the international community to accept dialogue. It wasn’t his initiative and up to now I don’t think he is serious,” Mr Kuol said in an interview in Nairobi.

“There is an agreement that there should be dialogue. What is not clear now is whether President Salva Kiir will release political prisoners. The way forward is this: Salva Kiir must release all political prisoners so that they participate in the dialogue. It should not even be a contest between Riek Machar and Salva Kiir.”

The said political prisoners are top politicians in the SPLM, the ruling party, who Kiir accused of influencing a mutiny supposedly engineered by Machar. But Kiir terms them as ‘rebels’ who should be put away as per the law.

“Those who may want to take the law into their hands, the long arm of the government will get them,” Kiir said last week.

“Those who have killed a person or persons will be taken to court and face the law. It’s right of every South Sudanese to be protected,” said Kirr.

Mr Kuol is the minister for Education in Jonglei State, even though the area has now fallen under the control of rebels loyal to Machar.

South Sudan has been in chaos for the last one week when soldiers allied to Machar fought the army under President Salva Kiir. Kiir later announced that it had been a failed coup attempt but still offered to hold talks with his opponent.

But the conflict has since morphed into what looks like a tribal contest between Dinka and Nuer, communities that dominate South Sudanese politics, leaving a humanitarian crisis in its wake.

Thousands of South Sudanese citizens have been seeking refuge at UN missions around the country while foreign countries have been evacuating their citizens.

On Saturday, President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered the Kenya Defence Forces to evacuate more than 1,600 Kenyans stranded in Juba.

Foreign Affairs PS Karanja Kibicho on Monday said the government will increase flights to three starting Tuesday to evacuate Kenyans stranded in South Sudan as the situation there remains volatile.

On Monday, Medical charity organization Doctors without Borders (MSF) announced that it was taking the situation in South Sudan “very seriously” and had sent more emergency medics to help.

But the situation in other parts mainly controlled by the rebels remains uncertain. Kenyans caught in trouble in far-flung parts of South Sudan continued to cry for help on Monday.

Ms Jane Owino told the Nation she has been trapped in a humanitarian camp in Bentiu, Unity State but were running out of supplies.

“We have been here for the past five days. The UN mission here has been giving protection, but there is no water and food is scarce,” she said adding she was in the company of about 200 people many of who are Kenyans.

Ms Owino who said she has been a clothes dealer in South Sudan since 2011 is a frequent traveler between Juba where she lives and the Unity State.

“Right now, we can’t leave because there is no transport and it doesn’t look safe because there has been fighting in this area.”

Bentiu is about 900 kilometres north of Juba and the South Sudanese government has admitted that it was no longer controlling Unity State meaning there was no guarantee for safety of those stranded there.

“Bentiu is not currently in our hands. It is in the hands of a commander who has declared support for Machar,” a Spokesman for the South Sudan government tweeted.

Although the Kenyan government ordered the military to evacuate stranded Kenyans in South Sudan, the mission was mainly limited to Juba and emergency support for those in accessible UN Mission camps. On Sunday, another group of Kenyans claimed they had been trapped at Yirol after escaping Jonglei via a boat.

“We have been stuck here for the past five days and we are running out of water. We have been surviving on biscuits and there are no vehicles,” Mr Martin Wabweni told the Nation on phone from Yirol, a town about 300km north of Juba.

“The vehicle drivers refused to continue fearing for their safety. Since then, the number has increased. We are about 80 Kenyans but the whole group is about 180 people. We have been accommodated at Comboni missionary centre here but we are afraid it may get worse,” he said.

Daily Nation

{The government has declined to disclose the wealth of President Kenyatta and his deputy, Mr William Ruto, to The Hague, arguing that it is prohibited by law.}

Attorney-General Githu Muigai also advanced that requests for information on the assets, property and accounts of President Kenyatta, Mr Ruto and former journalist Joshua arap Sang required a court order, which ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda failed to obtain.

Prof Muigai, in declaring the requests of the prosecutor unjustified, submitted that the Rome Statute which established the ICC only allowed The Hague’s court — and not the prosecutor — to require the Kenya to submit the information.

“The Government of the Republic of Kenya is barred, absent a court order, from undertaking such an exercise and consequently conveying to the prosecution information on properties identified,” he said in a application to Trial Chamber judges in charge of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s case.

Even if Ms Bensouda were to obtain such an order from the ICC judges, the AG submitted that it will require assurances that the information provided by the government regarding the assets, properties and accounts of President Kenyatta and his deputy Ruto will not be used to encroach into their privacy as provided for in the Constitution.

Should the court fail to provide the guarantees over the information being sought, he was categorical that the government would not yield.

“Until the prosecution furnishes the Government of the Republic of Kenya with such a court order… the Government of the Republic of Kenya will not be able to effect the relevant requests for assistance,” Prof Muigai’s strong-worded application states.

Prof Muigai argued that the requests were untenable.

Daily Nation