Tag: GreatLakesNews

{Tanzania Army spokesman Col. Kapambala Mgawe addresses the media in Dar es Salaam }

{{Tanzania is seeking to persuade the United Nations to allow its peacekeeping forces to use deadly force and heavy weapons to defend themselves when under attack.}}

The development came just a day after seven Tanzanian soldiers who were part of the UN Mission in Darfur (Unamid) were killed and 17 others injured.

Both the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and African Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma condemned the attack, but the Tanzania People’s Defence Forces (TPDF) believes the death toll would not have been as high if the troops were allowed to use deadly force to defend themselves.

“We are only allowed to use armoured personnel carriers under Chapter VI. This puts our troops in danger in such volatile areas like Darfur. We are seeking permission for Unamid to be allowed to use heavier weapons, including tanks,” TPDF spokesman Colonel Kapambala Mgawe told The Citizen yesterday on the sidelines of a briefing on the Darfur tragedy.

Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter sets out the UN Security Council’s powers to maintain peace. It allows the Council to “determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” and to take military and non-military action to “restore international peace and security”. This allows the use of heavier military equipment for defensive purposes.

However, Chapter VI, despite having the same purpose of maintaining peace, puts more emphasis on peaceful settlement of disputes and allows only the use of light firearms for defence.

The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which also involves Tanzanian troops, is well equipped and uses helicopter gunships and other heavy weapons.

The Tanzanian soldiers were attacked by gunmen about 25 kilometres west of a Unamid base at Khor Abeche, north of the South Darfur state capital of Nyala on Saturday.

NMG

{{Malawi President Joyce Banda has told the former leaders of Mozambique and South Africa that there will be no deal on the Lake Malawi wrangle.}}

Mr Joachim Chissano and Mr Thabo Mbeki had gone to Lilongwe to mediate on the Malawi-Tanzania lake border wrangle.

Malawi is disputing Tanzania’s claim of ownership of part of Lake Malawi.

The two countries referred the matter to the Southern Africa Development Corporation (SADC) Forum of Former Heads of State and Government, which is headed by Mr Chissano.

President Banda also gave a thinly veiled indication that if Malawi if is not satisfied with the resolution of the mediators, that country might consider taking the matter to International Court of Justice.

Malawi President made the remarks in Lilongwe when she jointly addressed the press soon after the discussion with the duo.

“We cannot enter into any deal over the lake until the matter is resolved,” Mrs Banda said.

President Banda insisted that Malawi owns the lake with only a part that was ceded to Mozambique.

President Banda is said to have quoted the 1896 agreement between Britain and Germany, former colonial masters of Malawi and Tanzania respectively that recognised the lake to be owned by Malawians.

Mr Chissano said he would pass the message to Tanzania.

“We are determined to resolve the matter within three months,” Mr Chissano said.

NMG

{{The African Union Court on Human and People’s Rights has no jurisdiction to handle crimes against humanity charges facing Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto, its president said on Sunday.}}

Lady Justice Sophia Akuffo, however, said there were plans by the 54-member African Union to expand the court’s jurisdiction.

Speaking to journalists at the Inter-Continental Hotel in Nairobi, Lady Justice Akuffo, who is Ghanaian said a recommendation on the expansion of the court’s work is expected to be tabled before the AU Heads of State summit in January 2014 before being put to a vote.

“A team of experts is working on the recommendation,” she said.

Among the issues the experts are deliberating on is the definition of an unconstitutional change of government following the Arab Spring that swept through Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

An AU summit had proposed that the court be strengthened to handle the cases facing President Kenyatta and Mr Ruto, who are being prosecuted at The Hague in Netherlands, among others.

But on Sunday, Lady Justice Akuffo said the court as presently constituted could not handle criminal cases.

“We are only a court of human and people’s rights. However, if expanded, the African Court will be a different thing altogether,” she said.

NMG

{{At least 60,000 refugees from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have now arrived in neighbouring Uganda after fleeing a rebel attack on a town near the border, Red Cross officials said.}}

Catherine Ntabadde of the Uganda Red Cross said on Sunday that her organisation had already registered 41,000 refugees and that 20,000 more were waiting for registration.

The numbers show a dramatic rise from earlier estimates and due to the fact the rebel attack was a surprise, the influx is stretching humanitarian capacities.

“Given such numbers there is need for urgent humanitarian assistance, as some of the refugees are sick and have left all their belongings in Congo,” said Ntabadde.

The refugee influx is continuing three days after the Ugandan rebel group, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), attacked Kamango town, killing a number of people and briefly occupying it, according to Ugandan military officials.

Refugees have streamed across the border into western Uganda’s Bundibugyo district since then, though the numbers of new arrivals crossing on Sunday had slowed to a trickle.

“Many new arrivals are also reported to be staying in the community,” United Nations refugee agency official Karen Ringuette said.

Aljazeera

{{U.N. peacekeepers in Democratic Republic of Congo will begin using unarmed drones on a trial basis to monitor its war-torn east, the head of peacekeeping operations told media on Sunday.}}

U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, in Paris to attend France’s Independence Day celebrations, told press a deal signed on Friday with an unnamed company would allow for a “complete picture of what is happening” on the ground.

Thick forests, rugged terrain and few roads have complicated peacekeepers’ efforts to control the area.

“We have just signed a commercial contract for the UAVs, and I say UAVs, not drones, as they are unarmed,” Ladsous said, referring to unmanned aerial vehicles.

“This is a major innovation. For the first time the U.N. is going into state-of-the-art, 21st-century technology.”

U.N. peacekeeping troops have been in eastern Congo for more than a decade, and the MONUSCO force is currently 17,000 strong – the largest U.N. force in the world.

But the complex conflict has dragged on, killing millions through violence, famine and disease since the 1990s.

That has led the U.N. to create a new “intervention brigade” – part of the MONUSCO force but charged with the task of not merely peacekeeping but taking proactive steps against rebel groups.

It has already begun patrolling and is approaching full strength, Ladsous said.

Most peacekeepers from Tanzania and South Africa are already in place, and those from Malawi are expected to be deployed at the end of July or early August to complete the 3,000-strong force, he said.

Ladsous defended the brigade’s mission to take a more active approach to neutralizing rebel groups. U.N. peacekeeping principles stipulate impartiality and “non-use of force except in self-defense and defense of the mandate”.

“Neutrality, impartiality: that is the case for classic peacekeeping,” said Ladsous.

“How can you be neutral or impartial to those terrible armed groups who have been for years now, a decade or more, killing civilians, raping women, recruiting child soldiers? No, you cannot be neutral.”

Congo has been afflicted by an insurgency by M23 rebels in its border area with Rwanda and Uganda in the last year.

{reuters}

{{Sudans Misseriya Arab tribe have renewed their rejection of the African Union High Implementation Panel (AUHIP) proposal for holding a referendum in Abyei area this October.}}

A referendum initially scheduled for January 2011 to decide the fate of the Abyei border area failed to take place over disagreements between Khartoum and Juba about who is eligible to participate in the vote.

Last year, the AU mediation team proposed holding a referendum in Abyei this October, but stated that only those residing permanently in the area will be allowed to vote in the plebiscite and decide whether they want to join Sudan or South Sudan.

This proposal would effectively make the majority of voters come from the Dinka Ngok tribe, aligned with South Sudan thus putting the Arab Misseriya nomads, who spend several months in Abyei every year for grazing, at a disadvantage.

The Misseriya’s paramount chief, Mukhtar Babo Nimir, told the pro-government Sudan Media Center (SMC) website on Saturday, that a referendum without engaging the Misseriya will be doomed to failure.

He stressed that the Misseriya people are the true stakeholders in Abyei, saying that they will never abandon their inherent right under any circumstances.

Nimir further added that western countries’ alignment with South Sudan on the issue of Abyei and their attempts to bypass solutions adopted by the two countries would only drag the region to an endless conflict.

The US government said that the only way the two countries can resolve the impasse over the contested region of Abyei was through a referendum.

The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, stressed in a meeting with South Sudan’s president Salva Kiir last May that Juba and Khartoum needed to stick to the AUHIP proposal..

Nimir pointed that in the absence of a local government, priority should be given to establishing a joint administration in Abyei including civil institutions and a legislative council, stressing that the lasting solution lies in peaceful co-existence between the Misseriya and Ngok Dinka.

South Sudan refuses the implementation of an agreement reached on 20 June 2011 to establish an interim administration in Abyei unless Khartoum accepts to hold the referendum proposed by the AUHIP.

The Sudanese government rejects this process because it excludes the Misseriya pastoralists from participating in the vote.

ST

More than 30,000 people have fled their homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and crossed into neighbouring Uganda after a rebel group that had been hiding out in eastern Congo attacked a town.

Families streamed across a bridge over a river near the border, clutching belongings. Some carried firewood over their heads, many brought livestock and women held small babies.

The Ugandan military said the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan rebel group that was driven across the border into the dense jungle of the DRC after a violent campaign in the late 1990s, overran the town of Kamangu on Thursday.

They briefly occupied it and, though they have since left, Ugandan military spokesman Paddy Ankunda said people are still crossing into Uganda for fear of the rebels. Ugandan troops have been sent to reinforce the border.

The ADF waged an insurgency against the Ugandan government in the late 1990s from bases in the Ruwenzori Mountains and across the frontier in eastern Congo. At its peak, it was blamed for a series of deadly blasts in the capital.

{wirestory}

{{At least seven international peacekeepers have been killed and 17 wounded when they came under heavy fire from a large group of unknown assailants in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region, the peacekeeping force UNAMID has said.}}

The incident on Saturday took place in an area where peacekeeping is the responsibility of Tanzanian forces, and was the force’s worst death toll from a single incident since it was deployed five years ago.

The “extended firefight” happened near Khor Abeche in South Darfur, the African Union/United Nations-led force said in a statement, without confirming nationalities. Two of the 17 wounded soldiers and police officers were female.

Years of international peace efforts have failed to end conflict in Sudan’s western region of Darfur, where mainly African tribes took up arms in 2003 against the Arab-led government in Khartoum, which they accuse of discriminating against them.

Violence is down from its peak in 2004-05, but has picked up again this year as government forces, rebels and Arab tribes, which were armed by the government early in the conflict, are now fighting among themselves over resources and land.

About 300,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in Darfur this year due to fighting, according to the United Nations.

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and some aides on charges of masterminding war crimes in Darfur. They deny the charges and refuse to recognise the court.

Events in Darfur are hard to verify as Sudan severely restricts travel by journalists, aid workers and diplomats.

{Source: Agencies}