Day: September 24, 2021

WINDHOEK, NAMIBIA — Namibian activists and opposition members stormed parliament this week over a deal with Germany to atone for a colonial genocide more than a century ago.

Opposition lawmakers also called for a renegotiation of the deal, in which Germany has agreed to fund about $1.3 billion in development projects over 30 years to redress land taken and tens of thousands killed from 1904 to 1908. Critics said the amount was insufficient.

Activist Sima Luipert vowed legal action if the Namibian parliament approved a bill accepting the deal. She said the deal, which the Namibian and German governments reached in May, violated the participation and informed consent rights of the ethnic Ovaherero and Nama peoples.

Hundreds gather

Luipert was one of about 300 protesters at the Namibian parliament Tuesday objecting to the bill. Some in the group jumped over gates to voice their opposition.

The Landless People’s Movement, which led the protest, said it wanted to ensure opposition to the bill was heard. Group spokesman Eneas Emvula said, “Part of the people that walked this long journey to parliament, from Katutura, alongside Independence Avenue, are actually members of parliament and leaders of the opposition political parties within parliament.”

Namibian Vice President Nangolo Mbumba said everyone has a right to protest. But he also underscored that opponents of the deal who wanted direct compensation would not get it.

“People thought because this is a genocide negotiation issue, the descendants of those communities, the victims, they would now be compensated individually,” Mbumba said. “The Jewish people were being compensated as survivors; so are the Mau Maus. We are talking after 117 years, if you count from 1904. It is four generations already.”

Supporters say the agreement, which took years to negotiate, is acceptable for an atrocity committed by a Germany that existed before World War I.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA — U.N. investigators are accusing Burundi’s government of hiding widespread rights violations and repressive measures behind a façade of democracy. The charge comes in a report by the Commission of Inquiry on Burundi submitted to the U.N Human Rights Council.

The commission on inquiry says encouraging signs that Burundi might be moving toward a more democratic society following the election of President Evariste Ndayishimiye have proven to be an illusion.

Despite initial improvements in human rights at the end of the electoral process in 2020, Commission Chair Doudou Diene notes a significant increase in violations as of June this year.

“To date, only symbolic gestures, though welcome, and often controversial decisions, have been made so far. These are neither sufficient nor adequate to have a sustainable and profound impact on the human rights situation. The façade of normalization hides a very concerning human rights situation,” Diene said, speaking through an interpreter.

The report finds most violations occur in the context of the fight against armed groups allegedly responsible for attacks throughout the country since August of last year.

However, Diene said the Commission believes these armed attacks have been used as an excuse to pursue political opponents in violation of their human rights.

He said Burundian authorities are tightening their grip over the activities of civil society and denying people their right to freedom of expression and association. He said the government has cracked down on a free media and has suspended some media outlets.

He said journalists who dare to question or criticize the government are vilified, intimidated, or threatened.

“It is clear that the Burundian authorities consider that civil society’s sole purpose is to assist them and to support government projects, thereby denying the very principle of freedom of association. In particular, it seeks to control the operating costs of NGO’s and the salaries of expatriates,” Diene said.

In his rebuttal, Burundi’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, Renovat Tabu, ignored all criticisms raised by the Commission. He cited the many improvements he said his government made in the fight against injustice, in furthering freedom of opinion and of the press, in education and a wide range of other human rights.

He said Burundi had several institutions engaged in the promotion and protection of human rights. He added that Burundi’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission was operational and doing an excellent job in cementing national reconciliation.

Source: Voice of America

A potential deal to bring as many as 1,000 Russian mercenaries to Mali is likely to further destabilize the country, according to senior U.S. officials who are urging the interim government to instead focus on elections.

Word of the not-yet-finalized deal, with Russia’s Wagner Group, has already rankled some French and European officials. And it now appears to be drawing increased attention from the United States, itself wary of Russian efforts across Africa.

“We continue to be concerned about the rise … of malign influences on the continent,” a senior administration official said Friday in response to a question from VOA about the potential deal with Moscow.

“We don’t think looking to outside forces to provide security is the way forward,” the official said.

“That is not how to best start down the road to true stability,” the official added, stressing the need to move ahead with a transition to a “fully elected, democratic government.”

The comments came just days after Mali celebrated its independence, with an estimated 3,000 people taking to the streets of Bamako to protest Western anger over the deal with Russia, some of them calling concerns about the tentative agreement “foreign meddling.”

The deal, first reported by Reuters, would pay Wagner $10.8 million a month to train Mali’s military and provide security for senior officials.

Malian authorities have also been increasingly vocal in expressing displeasure with the U.S. and France, which announced in June that it would bring home about 2,000 counterterrorism forces it had in Mali and neighboring countries.

“If partners have decided to leave certain areas, if they decide to leave tomorrow — what do we do?” Prime Minister Choguel Maiga asked in remarks posted on the country’s Le Jalon news site. “Should we not have a plan B?”

In a possible effort to ease such concerns, the U.S. sent the commander of U.S. forces for Africa, General Stephen Townsend, to Mali on Thursday, where he and other U.S. officials met with Malian transitional President Assimi Goita and Defense Minister Sadio Camara.

“Malian and international partner forces have shed blood together while fighting against the terrorists that threaten innocent civilians in Mali and the Sahel,” Townsend said in a statement Friday, following the visit.

“We want to continue this long-standing partnership,” he added.

Following France’s announcement that it would be reducing its counterterrorism forces in Mali and the Sahel, the Pentagon said it would continue to “assist building partner capacity” in the region.

And recent meetings of the U.S.-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS have focused on stopping the spread of the Islamic State and other terror groups in Africa, and in Mali in particular.

However, while U.S. AFRICOM is working with a number of partners in West Africa and the Sahel, security assistance to Mali itself has been limited, under U.S. law, because of the coup.

Much of the concern focuses on IS-Greater Sahara, which is thought to have at least several hundred fighters in the region, and on the al-Qaida-affiliated Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, also known as JNIM.

U.S. and European military officials have also long expressed concerns about Russian involvement in Africa, warning of the corrosive influence of mercenaries with the Wagner Group, who are often perceived to be doing the Kremlin’s dirty work.

“They are everywhere,” Vice Admiral Hervé Bléjean, director-general of the European Union Military Staff, told a forum this past June. “They bring nothing to the country except immediate security answers, maybe, at the price of committing a lot of … violations of human rights and atrocities.”

On Friday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters the presence of Wagner Group mercenaries in Mali would be “a red line for us.”

“It would have immediate consequences on our cooperation [with Russia] on many other issues,” he added.

Source: Voice of America

Migration Response Centres (MRCs) in the East and Horn of Africa, and Yemen, have provided support services to thousands of migrants at a time when COVID-19 worsened the vulnerability of populations on the move.

The pandemic has led to riskier migration pathways, reduced livelihood opportunities, and increased discrimination for migrants. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in the first eight months of 2021 alone, over 19,000 migrants passed through the 12 MRCs in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan as well as the Migration Response Point in Aden, Yemen, where they accessed a range of services

In this context, IOM, government and partner representatives have agreed on a strategy to improve the coordination and the quality of assistance offered by MRCs to migrants in need.

MRCs are located on key migration routes towards North Africa and Europe, the Arabian Peninsula, and South Africa. The centres are making it possible for governments, IOM, and other partners to work jointly in providing support to migrants who find themselves in difficult and sometimes life-threatening situations.

The assistance offered ranges from medical and psychological support, shelter, food, hygiene items, clothing and information for assisted voluntary return and reintegration.

In September over 50 representatives from government bodies, UN agencies, local NGOs, migrant community associations, along with IOMM staff, got together to formulate a Regional Strategy (2021-2024) for MRCs in the East and Horn of Africa and Yemen.

Three strategic priorities were identified for the next three years, namely: (1) the prevention of protection concerns, (2) the delivery of quality assistance and protection services, and (3) the strengthening of sustainability and comprehensiveness of services through increased partner involvement and government ownership.

Yohannes Sissay, from the Office of the Attorney General in Ethiopia emphasized: “The MRC strategy has a direct relevance to what we have already been doing as the Government of Ethiopia.” He also expressed the need for a strategy that has buy-in from the MRCs themselves.

Mohamud Jama Muse Eid, Director of MRC Bossaso – one of three MRCs in Somalia – said: “In the next three years, it is our common obligation to improve migration management systems through the inclusive participation of all partners. We wish to create a special coordination platform for all our partners.”

In the next stage of the process, partners will again convene for a validation workshop on the Regional MRC Strategy ahead of its launch.

Ashraf Hassan, Senior Regional Programme Manager of the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration in the Horn of Africa (the EU-IOM Joint Initiative), said: “The process of developing a regional MRC strategy is one with which we hope to strategically position MRCs within the overall migration response in the region, recognizing them as important mechanisms for the coordination and delivery of protection and assistance to migrants in vulnerable situations.”

Mr. Hassan added: “Importantly, this process is also an opportunity to re-define and strengthen our partnership to ensure a coordinated and holistic response to the situations faced by migrants in vulnerable situations.”

About the EU-IOM Joint Initiative

Launched in December 2016 with the support of the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), the programme brings together 26 African countries of the Sahel and Lake Chad region, the Horn of Africa, and North Africa, along with the European Union and the International Organization for Migration, around the goal of ensuring that migration is safer, more informed and better governed for both migrants and their communities.

Source: International Organization for Migration