Tag: GreatLakesNews

Somalia’s most senior religious preachers has been in killed in Puntland.

Sheikh Abdulkadir Nur Farah, who is also known as Sheikh Abdulkadir Ga’amey, was Friday gunned down inside a mosque in Garowe town, the capital of the semiautonomous state of Puntland.

Garowe is some 1,000 km north of the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

Witnesses said Sheikh Farah was in the middle of afternoon prayers at Beder Mosque when he was attacked by a young man wielding a pistol.

He was shot several times and died while being transferred to a hospital.

Puntland President Abdurahman Mohamed Farole, confirmed the Sheikh’s death and said that an outraged crowd had captured the gunman.

“He was a great sheikh who preached the true Islamic faith,” President Farole said.

“His only crime was that he was very critical of the methods of Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda,” he said, adding that the cleric would get a state funeral.

The President named the arrested suspect as Abdurahman Hussein Jama Bile.

Puntland security officials confirmed that a suspect had been detained and investigations were underway.

Officers also confirmed that the gunman also wounded three people while trying to escape from pursuers.

One of the injured was in a critical state.

Puntland leaders that Al-Shabaab militants who have been facing military pressure from African Union peacekeepers have been moving into their territory, leading to increased security problems in Puntland.

In January, several countries including Britain, Ireland and the US, issued travel advisories against Somaliland, a self-declared republic in north-western Somalia, citing increased terrorist threats.

Wirestory

A delayed U.N.-mediated peace deal aimed at ending two decades of conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is due to be signed in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Feb. 24, the United Nations said.

African leaders failed to sign the deal last month due to the concerns of some countries over who would command a new regional force that would deploy in eastern Congo and take on armed groups operating in the conflict-torn region.

The so-called intervention brigade would be contained within the existing U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo, known as MONUSCO.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent out invitations on Friday for the Feb. 24 signing ceremony and intended to travel to Ethiopia for the event, his spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said. “All the invited presidents have committed to either be there or delegate power to sign,” Nesirky said.

Rwandan Deputy U.N. Ambassador Olivier Nduhungirehe posted on Twitter that the “African Union, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, Southern African Development Community Chairs, as well as 10 Heads of States of the region will attend the signing ceremony.”

Envoys have said that one of the main reasons the deal was not signed in January was that three countries in the 15-member Southern African Development Community regional bloc – South Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique – felt they did not have enough information on the enforcement brigade.

The creation of an enforcement brigade within a U.N. peacekeeping mission is new for the United Nations, according to officials in the world body. Peace enforcement missions allow the use of lethal force in serious combat situations, while peacekeeping operations are intended to support and monitor an already existing ceasefire, diplomats and U.N. officials say.

A new Security Council resolution would be needed to approve the intervention unit and is likely to be supported by the 15-member council, envoys have said.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous has made clear that the brigade would fight under the banner of MONUSCO, which means it would be under the same command as regular MONUSCO troops, who conduct patrols and support the Congolese security forces.

But diplomats had said South Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique, which are the most likely candidates to supply the several thousand troops of the brigade, believed it should have its own command.

The countries take the view that MONUSCO has not performed well under its current command, such as when it allowed M23 rebels to occupy the eastern city of Goma last year for 11 days before they withdrew.

Rebels in mineral-rich East

The M23 rebels began taking large swathes of the mineral-rich east early last year, accusing the government of failing to honor a 2009 peace deal. That peace deal ended a previous rebellion and led to the rebels’ integration into the national army. They have since deserted the army.

The Congolese army has failed to quell the growing 10-month insurgency by M23, which has dragged Congo’s eastern region back toward war and, according to U.N. experts, has received cross-border support from Rwanda and Uganda. Rwanda and Uganda strongly deny the accusations of involvement.

Ladsous said that if approved by the U.N. Security Council, the enforcement unit would be equipped with a three-pronged mandate to prevent the expansion of armed groups in eastern Congo as well as to “neutralize” and disarm them.

It would have the aid of unmanned surveillance drones to hunt down armed militias difficult to spot in the vast territory of eastern Congo. Ladsous said the drones would provide an element of deterrence because the rebels would know they were being watched.

The planned use of drones, is also new for the United Nations, U.N. officials say. Congo’s prime minister said on Thursday that the drones could be deployed as early as June.

Reuters

Ambassadors from five member states surrounding Lake Tanganyika Basin have agreed to undertake a joint campaign to mobilise resources to push for the implementation of development programmes in the area.

With a population of over 40 million people and high levels of poverty, vulnerability, persistent conflicts and pollution, the initiative is set to open a new chapter of collective efforts to redress the disappointing situation.

Chairmanof the group of ambassadors based in Belgium – Brussels, Dr Diodorus Kamala, said in a statement recently that there was a compelling need to support Lake Tanganyika Basin development initiatives.

The group comprises ambassadors from Tanzania, Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC.

He said the development initiative aimed to implement the Lake Tanganyika Water Sanitation and Environmental Management (LTWASAN) project was initiated by the East African Community (EAC), Comesa, UN-Habitat and the Lake Tanganyika Authority.

“In stepping up the exchange of goods and enhancing passenger traffic, the following ports are to be expanded and the port facilities in Bujumbura, Kigoma, Kasanga, Mpulungu, Moba and Kalemie, Uvira, Kiliba modernised,” reads part of the statement adding,“The purpose of the port development is to increase the safety of passengers, facilitate and accelerate shipping traffic, and to link up all the countries and towns on Lake Tanganyika.”

Dr Kamala said that the group wanted to modernise communications technology in the basin to control shipping traffic, prevent accidents and be able to alert rescue services in an emergency.

As part of the shipping traffic refurbishment and development programme, Dr Kamala said, waste water treatment plants would be built in the ports and standards in existing ones improved.

“At the same time, a waste disposal system is to be set up that will help generate energy from waste.”

He added; “We also want to promote sustainable eco-tourism. The purpose of this type of tourism is to benefit the local population by conveying the unique attractiveness of nature and landscape and at the same time to ensure that livelihoods and the area itself are safeguarded.”

According to the diplomat, the basin is to be connected to traffic systems in the surrounding countries by extending and modernising airports at Mbala, Kalemie, Bujumbura, Kigoma, and Kasanga.

NMG

A leading media advocacy group is calling on Congolese authorities to release a journalist who was sentenced in December to six months in prison on defamation charges.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said Saturday that Joachim Diana Gikupa, editor of daily newspaper La Colombe, should be released pending an appeal. U.N. radio Okapi reported that Gikupa’s lawyers filed an appeal saying he was in poor health.

CPJ says that Gikupa was convicted of criminal defamation for publishing a report alleging that a Chinese company managing a local hospital had sold expired medication, among other things.

It condemned Congo’s use of criminal defamation charges to jail journalists for critical reporting.

The group says the Chinese company, Gen Tai, denied the allegations and filed a complaint against the Feb. 9, 2012 report.

wirestory

Surveillance drones could be used by peacekeepers in the rugged hills of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the first such deployment of unmanned aircraft in a U.N. mission, as early as June, Congo’s prime minister said on Thursday.

The Security Council approved their use last month in Congo’s porous and volatile borderlands, where U.N. experts claim a year-old rebellion has received support from neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda, a charge both countries deny.

“The process of acquiring drones has already been launched. By June or July they should be operational,” Augustin Matata Ponyo Mapon told reporters after returning from New York where he met Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon.

A spokesman for Congo’s U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as MONUSCO, said he was not aware of a deployment date for the drones.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told the Security Council in January that aerial systems were needed to monitor an area of rugged terrain, thick forests and possessing few roads. But unlike unmanned U.S. aircraft that have carried out strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, the U.N. drones will not be armed.

The Council said it would be a trial deployment “to enhance situational awareness … on a case-by case basis” after concerns from Russia, China and Rwanda over the use of aerial surveillance equipment delayed the decision for weeks.

MONUSCO initially asked for surveillance drones in 2008, but the request was never met.

The M23 rebels began taking large swathes of the mineral-rich east early last year, accusing the government of failing to honour a previous peace deal.

They seized and held the eastern city of Goma for 11 days in November, dealing a severe blow to the image of MONUSCO, whose peacekeepers did not intervene to stop the well-equipped force, and reviving interest in the use of drones.

An uneasy truce is now in place, and Uganda is currently hosting talks between Kinshasa and the rebels. But progress towards a negotiated settlement to the crisis in the east, scene of two decades of bloodshed, has been slow.

Matata Ponyo also said that significant advances had been made towards the deployment to the country’s east of a 4000-troop strong intervention force agreed by central African nations last year.

The force, composed mainly of soldiers from eastern and southern African nations, will operate under the existing U.N. peacekeeping mandate but is tasked with pursing illegal armed groups.

wirestory

Jubilee Presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta has condemned the stoning of Raila supporters at a rally in Embu on Friday.

In a statement, Uhuru says such incidents are not acceptable and urged all his supporters to always maintain peace and tolerate his competitors.

A statement from Uhuru’s Director of Communications Munyori Buku reads, “Uhuru Kenyatta has called for peaceful campaigns. He also called on leaders not to incite or provoke the public with language full of hate. Mr. Kenyatta called on all Kenyans to tolerate the views of others even when they do not agree with them.”

TNA’s National Chairman Johnson Sakaja has also termed the incident as a ‘retrogressive action’ which should be condemned in the strongest terms possible.

“TNA would like to dissociate itself from such retrogressive actions and in the same vein, condemn in the strongest terms any acts of violence meted out on any candidates in the course of their campaigns.”

Sakaja is urging all polititicans to desist from provocative language or statements likely to incite youths to violence during campaigns.

Trouble started when a group of about 500 youths who were chanting ‘Jubilee! Jubilee!’ started pelting the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) supporters with stones but were soon restrained by police.

The group seemed to have been incensed by a pronouncement by Mwea parliamentary aspirant Bishop Daniel Njagi who said the region was not a Jubilee stronghold and accused its flag bearer of doing little for the region.

Some of the stones narrowly missed two helicopters which were parked in the stadium, but no injuries were reported.

Outgoing Kangundo Member of Parliament (MP) and CORD member Johnston Muthama who was also at the rally accused a rival party for hiring the unruly youth.

“If you think you are helping your candidate by pelting us, you better know that the rest of the country is watching. It is better to listen to what we have to say then accept or ignore it,” Muthama warned.

The CORD deputy presidential candidate Kalonzo Musyoka also called on politicians to stop using youths to carry out their dirty work.

Echoing Sakaja also in a statement sent to newsrooms the CORD National Coordinating Committee chairman Franklin Bett termed the act retrogressive “because politicians have a right to campaign in any region of the country.”

“Mr. Odinga just like any other Presidential candidate in Kenya has a right to tour any part of this country to ask for votes. Such acts of violence are unacceptable in the Kenya of today and should be condemned by all and sundry,” he said.

Police led by the Embu police chief formed a buffer zone of about 200 metres between the Jubilee and CORD supporters to allow the luminaries carry on with their meeting.

Odinga successfully addressed the crowd and said he had written to the British Prime Minister urging him not to petition a case where Mau Mau fighters are seeking compensation.

“The British government has appealed the ruling and I have talked to the PM because the survivors are now very old and could die before getting justice. He wrote back telling me that we will discuss the issue soon after the March 4 elections,” he said.

He also called on teachers to shelve a planned nationwide strike until the elections are held.

“Teachers want to strike while we are nearing an election. What we have is a caretaker government because there is no Parliament which can discuss the issues,” he appealed.

capitalFM

Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia claimed Friday that they have executed a Kenyan soldier after the Nairobi government failed to meet their demands.

The Islamic extremist rebels of al-Shabab said in a statement Friday that they executed an army private after deadline expired Thursday. The militants want the release of all “Muslim prisoners being held on so-called terrorism charges in Kenya.”

Al-Shabab threatened to execute the five remaining Kenyan hostages in 72 hours if the Muslim prisoners are not released.

“While the Mujahideen have executed the serving KDF (Kenya Defense Forces) soldier, there is still a chance of securing the release of the remaining 5 prisoners. As a response to the growing pleas of the prisoners’ families who have contacted us, HSM (al-Shabab) is adding a grace period of 72 hours,” the statement said.

Al-Shabab said the Kenyan government does not value the lives of Kenyan citizens because it had not taken the opportunity to negotiate for the lives of the hostages.

Kenya has said it will not negotiate with terrorists.
“We cannot negotiate with terrorists … we want to rescue the hostages or have al-Shabab surrender them unconditionally,” said military spokesman Col. Cyrus Oguna.

Oguna said the Kenyan army cannot confirm al-Shabab’s claim that the rebels executed the soldier in their custody.

Kenya has suffered a spate of gun and explosive attacks since it deployed troops to Somalia to fight the militants in October 2011. This move came after cross-border attacks blamed on the militants.

Twitter on Jan 25 suspended the account used by al-Shabab after the insurgents used the micro-blogging site to announce a death threat against Kenyan hostages. Twitter’s terms of service says it does not allow specific threats of violence against others in its posts.

Al-Shabab uses Twitter mainly to make claims of enemy kills and to spread its view of events in Somalia and East Africa. Terrorism analysts believe the account is run by a Western-educated person; al-Shabab claims several dozen American and Britons among its ranks.

The Kenyan government is being sued for police brutality in the violence following the 2007 election.

The lawsuit comes as Kenya prepares for a new election on March 4 amid warnings from international human rights groups that the police are not ready to prevent electoral violence while refraining from human rights violations.

The families of seven people shot dead five years ago and eight wounded survivors this week filed a lawsuit to sue the Kenyan government claiming the shots were fired by police during a dispute over who won Kenya’s 2007 presidential election.

Five human rights groups are also part of the suit against the government.

Government records show police shot dead 405 of the more than 1,100 people who died in the post-election violence following a dispute in the presidential race in 2007 general elections.

Many of them were shot in the back, according to documents filed Wednesday by law firm Nderitu Partners and Advocates on behalf of the group late Wednesday.

According to the suit unlawful orders were given to the police and the government failed to train police on lawful methods of how to deal with civil unrest. And the government did not investigate the abuses.

Those suing the government are from western Kenya. In the 2007 elections, the majority of the people in western Kenya supported the main presidential challenger Raila Odinga — who polls had consistently put as the front runner — and took to the streets in violent protests after the electoral authority announced President Mwai Kibaki had been re-elected.

The violence ended after former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan brokered a peace deal in which Odinga became prime minister in a coalition government. As part of the peace arrangement the coalition government promised to adopt a new constitution, reform the judiciary and police force.

A 2008 government investigation into what caused the violence found that mistrust of the judiciary, which was tainted by allegations of corruption, fueled the violence as politicians chose to protest instead of going to the courts to seek justice.

The police force was seen to have taken sides in the chaos fuelling the conflict, the report said.

Efforts to improve the police system have been criticized as ineffectual but ongoing reforms on the judiciary have received praise and have led to recommendations that the government should fire 13 out of the country’s 53 high court judges.

For decades Kenya’s police have been criticized by advocacy groups for ineffectiveness, endemic corruption, human rights violations and impunity.

A bribe-taking culture exists in the force and officers live in deplorable conditions, are poorly paid, under-equipped and understaffed, outgoing police spokesman Eric Kiraithe admitted last year. “Corruption in the police force is deep and wide,” he said.

Human Rights Watch, in a report titled “High Stakes: Political Violence and the 2013 Elections in Kenya,” released earlier this month, says police shortcomings are highlighted by the continuing rural violence that in 2012 and early 2013 that has claimed more than 477 lives and displaced about 118,000 people.

“Many of these incidents have been linked to pre-election maneuvering as local politicians mobilize support. The police and other authorities have repeatedly failed to prevent the violence or hold those responsible to account,” the rights groups said.

During violent clashes in 2012 and early 2013 the police frequently failed to intervene and when they did, they often used excessive and indiscriminate force, Human Rights Watch said.

Amnesty International at the end of January criticized the pace of reforms in the police force and cast doubt on its preparedness to handle possible violence during the or after the elections.

“The laws guiding the police reform have not been put into practice in time for the general elections. As a result, the very same policing structures blamed by many for serious human rights violations during the 2007-2008 post-election violence remain in place for the 2013 elections,” Amnesty International said in the report titled “Police Reform in Kenya: A Drop in the Ocean.”

The National Police Service Inspector General David Kimaiyo said Wednesday that the police are ready to tackle any challenges that may be presented by the elections.

AP

The African Union says Congo has sent 500 troops to join a Uganda-led military effort to hunt down Joseph Kony, the fugitive head of the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group.

The troops were handed over in a ceremony Wednesday, the African Union said in a statement received Friday, bringing to 3,350 the number of African soldiers deployed against the LRA.

Uganda, South Sudan and the Central African Republic have already contributed troops to an African Union military program conceived last year to eliminate the LRA from the vast jungles of central Africa.

They are assisted by about 100 U.S. military advisers.

The LRA watchdog group Enough Project says the military mission against the LRA, a brutal group that recruits children, needs more boots on the ground.

wirestory

Kenya’s Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta now wants to be allowed to take part in his trial at the International Criminal Court through video link “on a regular basis.”

Kenyatta, who took part in Thursday’s status conference via video link from Nairobi, has now been asked to make a written submission of his request and state the legal basis by February 28.

“The defence team of Kenyatta has raised the possibility of the accused to be permitted to participate via video link on a regular basis.

Should the team wish to pursue this issue, the chamber requests for written submission in that regard including the legal basis and practical modalities of this request,” Presiding Judge Kuniko Ozaki told Kenyatta’s lawyers who were at The Hague.

Former Eldoret North MP William Ruto was also allowed to participate during Thursday’s status conference via a video link.

However, ICC Outreach Programme in Kenya Maria Kamara last Friday indicated that the status conference was different from the trials and it was not obvious that the same can be extended to the trials.

It will however depend on the decision of the trial judges once it receives Kenyatta’s submissions.

During the status conference that lasted for about two hours, Ozaki said the court would not be able to allocate separate chambers to hear the two Kenyan cases.

She explained that they had suggested to the presidency to use Courtroom I for both cases, which they want heard over a period of four hours each every day.

“The most favourable way was to constitute two chambers to hear the cases in parallel. We have been in communication with the presidency recommending in particular that additional judges be assigned to compose two separate chambers.

As all parties are aware, this court faces logistical challenges including availability of courtrooms. Use of Courtroom I is the only option,” she asserted.

They will however await a decision of the presidency.

Meanwhile, the judge also announced to the court that the conditions given to Kenyatta, Ruto, former Head of Civil Service Francis Muthaura and former radio presenter Joshua arap Sang will remain the same.

She said the court had not changed summonses to appear and that they will continue to be in effect for purposes of trial.

In 2011, the Court Registrar Silvana Arbia said as long as the suspects comply with the conditions set by the court, their liberty would not be curtailed by arresting or detaining them.

The court had set four conditions which include lack of contact with a victim or a witness. They were also expected to refrain from obstructing or interfering with the attendance or testimony of a witness, or interfering with the prosecution’s investigation.

They are also barred from committing crimes and to attend all required hearings at the court. So far, the four have complied with the court and appeared whenever they were required to do so.

capitalFM