Tag: GreatLakesNews

Tanzania is taking early steps to ensure no genocide would ever hit the country.

An 18-member committee has been formed to educate the people on the dangers of mass killing.

The committee will have the mandate to travel countrywide to conduct surveys to determine early indicators of genocide and advise the government on the way forward, the minister for Constitutional and Legal Affairs, Mr Mathias Chikawe, told an international conference on prevention of genocide here yesterday.

Mr Chikawe admitted that some early signs of genocide have been identified in the country, disguised in the form of ethnic and sectarian violence and if left unchecked they could spiral into countrywide doom.

{The Citizen}

An American drone has crashed in Somalia, a US official said Tuesday, after al-Shabaab militants claimed to have recovered the wreckage.

“I can confirm an RPA (remotely piloted aircraft) crashed in a remote area of the Somali coastline south of Mogadishu,” said the defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The incident is under investigation,” the official told media.

Officials declined to comment on what type of unmanned aircraft had crashed, whether it was armed and why it had gone down.

Somalia’s al-Shabaab insurgents said late Tuesday their fighters had recovered the wreckage of what they said was a crashed surveillance drone.

“This one is off the scrap yard,” the Shebab said in a message on Twitter alongside photographs it said were “wreckage of a crashed US drone”.

“This one will no longer be able to spy on Muslims again,” the Shebab said. “So much for the empty rhetoric on the drone programme,” they added, an apparent reference to a recent speech by US President Barack Obama on the use of the unmanned, robotic planes.

Al-Shabaab said the drone crashed near the southern Somali village of Bulo Marer in the Lower Shabelle region, an area held by the extremists.

French commandos had raided the village in January in a failed bid to free a kidnapped colleague.

The sound — or sight — of surveillance drones are common in southern Somalia, and missile strikes also have reportedly been carried out.

{NMG}

Africa Union decision seeking referral of cases facing President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia follows a similar resolution passed last year.

The resolution, released July 16 last year, after an Ordinary Session of the AU also mandated AU commission to present an objection to United Nations against International Criminal Court (ICC) cases facing Uhuru and Ruto.

Law Society of Kenya chairperson Eric Mutua says the AU resolution, accompanied by the threat from African States to withdraw may help to turn the tide in favour of the Kenyan suspects.

He explained that since African States have a significant leverage over the ICC due to their huge membership of 34, their request cannot fail to make an impact on ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda against convicting President Kenyatta.

Judicial process

“The court wouldn’t want to lose such a huge number of members. Infact, if African States walk away from the court, the institution would lose at least 80% of its work. It would be left much weaker than ever. The AU decision is a political strategy to influence a judicial process.

The ICC is a creature of politics and its work may often be influenced by political decisions outside the court,” he said.

He explained that the AU move has no legal impact on the crimes against humanity cases facing Uhuru and Ruto, but it is a tactic to intimidate the judicial process at The Hague to suit political interests.

Lawyer Mbuthi Gathenji told The Standard that the request by AU was not in vain since it was putting significant pressure on Bensouda to drop the cases and have them referred back to Kenya.

Gathenji said that if he were Bensouda, he would have relieved himself of the burden of trying the cases, claiming that they are gradually falling apart and getting a conviction would prove difficult.

“We have seen several significant witnesses recant their evidence against Uhuru and Ruto. One of the judges also withdrew from the case citing shortcomings on how the investigations were conducted by the prosecutor. So the case is difficult to win,” he said.

He added it was not impossible for the cases to be terminated and referred back to Kenya.

“Kenya has both the jurisdiction and the machinery to deal with the cases. There is absolutely no reason why the cases cannot be returned here. So going to the AU is a wise move that Uhuru did,” he said.

ICC Outreach Co-ordinator for Kenya Maria Kamara said a previous application by government to defer the cases to Kenya failed to convince the judges that the country was conducting genuine investigations.

Gathenji indicated that International Crimes Division of the High Court can handle the cases, adding that such a mechanism is already in operation in Uganda.

He noted the Kenyan case is unique since it was not referred to the ICC by the Government. He said the ICC prosecutor took the initiative to investigate and try the cases after the country failed to establish a credible local mechanism.

“There is nothing wrong with the court. It is just that the prosecutor is not handling the process correctly leaving some people to feel that she is being used to drive a certain agenda against African leaders,” he said.

{Standard}

{{ Kenyan members of parliament voted Tuesday to overturn a directive that had reduced their pay, hoping it will force the government to pay the higher salaries earned by legislators in the previous parliament.}}

The legislators’ pay was slashed from $126,000 to $78,000 earlier this year by a government commission which said the country’s wage bill was too high.

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission had also argued that although Kenya was among the world’s poorer economies its legislators were earning more than French legislators.

Kenya adopted a new constitution in 2010 which intended to remove the parliamentarians’ powers to set their own pay, instead giving the remuneration commission power to determine pay for all public servants, including the president.

Earlier this year, the commission cut the president’s annual pay from around $340,000 to $185,000.

The minimum wage in Nairobi is about $1,500 a year but many here live on even less.
But the parliamentarians got around the commission’s cuts by voting to overrule the pay cut.

In a well-attended session of parliament Tuesday the MPs unanimously voted to remove the directive reducing their salaries and then many walked out following the vote, even though there were other important reports and motions to be discussed.

Eric Mutua, the chairman of the Law Society of Kenya, said his organization will challenge the legislators’ attempts to disregard the commission’s directive in court.

Mutua is seeking directives from the court on whether parliament has the power to overturn the directive by the salaries commission.

Mutua said that the new constitution prevents parliamentarians from passing legislation which affects their own interests.

He said even though parliament had voted to remove the directive it did mean the government was obliged to pay them their previous salaries.

Many Kenyans see their legislators as lazy and greedy in a country where hundreds of thousands live in slums. Legislators often argue that they need high salaries to give hand-outs to poor constituents for school fees and hospital bills.

{{Member states of the East African Community are contemplating the possibility of harmonising the educational system so that student formation will be based on the same standards.}}

According to Tanzania’s deputy minister for the ministry of East African Co-operation, Dr Abdullah Saadalla, the new system will provide for an educational standard that is similar in the entire region.

“The system, if approved will enable graduates to work in any of the member states as there will be no difference in the educational background,” he said.

However, the deputy minister said it was not easy to impose the system at the moment because member states were using different curricula and media of instruction in providing education.

He said plans were on course to review the curricula and syllabi for pre-primary, primary and secondary education levels as well as vocational training institutes.

However, the deputy minister told parliament that in the health sector, already there were uniform syllabi and curricula, resulting in the possibility for health officials and doctors to operate in all East African countries without restrictions.

“As we speak here, a doctor who has been trained at IMTU can work directly in Nairobi or any other country within the EAC without any problem,” said the deputy minister.

{NMG}

{{The military has joined in the hunt for two Administration Police officers who are in the hands of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab terror group following an abduction.}}

The insurgents attacked two police posts at Damajaley and Abdisugow on Saturday night at the main border in Garissa County.

Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo said security agencies in Kenya and Somalia have joined hands to locate the whereabouts of constables Fredrick Chirchir and Joseph Wambugu who were abducted in the attack.

Kimaiyo said the attackers were members of Al-Shabaab from Somalia and that they are tracking their movements. “We cannot account for two of our officers after the attack but we are sure they are alive. Our security forces are pursuing them,” said Kimaiyo.

{standard}

{{An official of United Nations (UN), Hilde Johnson, has raised the alarm that the multinational peacekeeping force in South Sudan lacked sufficient troops and aircraft to protect civilians affected by fighting in the country’s eastern region.}}

A report by Reuters Monday claimed that tens of thousands of people have been uprooted by clashes between the army and rebel forces in Jonglei state.

Almost all of the 10,000 residents of Pibor town in Jonglei have fled their homes, aid agencies said, following looting by the state security forces and rebel threats to attack it.

Moreso, Sudanese army said on Sunday it killed more than 70 rebels of the revolutionary front, which attacked Al-Dandaro area in South Kordofan state.

“More than 70 of the rebels were killed and the rest fled the area,” Xinhua quoted Al-Sawarmy Khalid Saad, Sudanese army spokesman, as saying in a statement.

He added that the armed forces are still chasing the rebels and continuing the combing operations to ensure security and stability in the area.

Johnson, who is the head of the UN mission, said she has doubled the number of peacekeeping troops in Pibor.

“We cannot sustain a presence with the logistical capacity that we have, with the problems we have with air transport and by road. So, we cannot protect civilians in big, big, big numbers,” Johnson told Reuters.

The UN mission has 6,560 troops to cover a country the size of France with barely 300 kilometres of paved roads.

Seasonal rains have turned the region, where the government hopes to drill for oil with France’s Total, into a swamp, severing road access.

On April 9, gunmen ambushed and killed five UN peacekeepers and seven civilian staff in Jonglei.

Earlier this month, President Salva Kiir said he would punish ill-disciplined members of the security forces engaged in acts of violence against civilians in Jonglei and also those who gave the orders.

Johnson also dismissed criticism by a Dutch think-tank, the Clingendael Institute, which said the UN mission steered clear of confrontation with the government and failed to fulfill its role as a watchdog.

“If you come as an outsider with no history, and you come waving the whip, I can assure you that the outcome is not necessarily going to be the most positive one for your cause,” the Norwegian envoy said.

{wirestory}