Day: November 16, 2021

More than 200 people, most of them women, marched in the city center of Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, on Tuesday against what they call growing intolerance in the Central African state. The protesters, marking this year’s International Day for Tolerance, sang that there is a growing lack of respect for each other’s cultural and religious beliefs.

Secretary General of the Council of Imams and Muslim Dignitaries of Cameroon Adamou Ngamie took part in the protest. Ngamie says all Muslims, especially Imams, must try to preach inter-religious tolerance because it is praised by God in the Holy Quran. He says intolerance is bringing confusion and discord in Cameroon, which is in dire need of tolerance that will breed cohesion and bring back peace to the country.

In 2020, the government of Cameroon reported on problems of inter-religious intolerance in the central African state. It cited conflicts between Christian Pentecostal churches and Muslim fundamentalist movements on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria. The report said several clashes resulted in casualties but gave no further details.

Tuesday’s protesters noted intolerance in Cameroon spiked in 2017 when Anglophone separatists, complaining of second-class treatment, took up arms against the French-speaking majority state.

Cameroon’s separatist conflict has claimed more than 3,000 lives and displaced more than 550,000, according to the United Nations.

22-year-old University of Yaounde student Anabel Michou marched in the protest. She says hate speech and propaganda on social media by both separatists and authorities promote intolerance.

“We are calling on everybody to join us on board, to build a hate free Cameroon, to promote social cohesion, to ask for peace. Wherever we find ourselves, we have a collective role to play to make Cameroon a better country. There are alternative, nonviolent means of saying what we have and using the right channels for our thoughts to be heard. And we should also remember, we cannot build by destroying. We have to build by making what we have better.”

The Cameroon Women’s Peace Movement, which has been urging troops and separatists to lay down their arms, organized the protest. Movement member Nicoline Nwenushi Wazeh says the separatist conflict would be greatly reduced if Cameroonians learned to tolerate each other.

“We need to acknowledge that every human being is a separate entity [person] and this acknowledgement needs to come from the government through enforceable laws against intolerance. Parents should have a communication around tolerance with their children. In schools, children should be able to know about tolerance. We should be able to promote tolerance.”

In July, Cameroon launched a campaign against what it called growing online hate speech, intolerance, and xenophobic statements.

Rights groups, however, note that along with xenophobic statements, authorities also define hate speech as criticism of the state and long-time President Paul Biya.

The government did not issue any statements for this year’s International Day for Tolerance but has in the past called on all Cameroonians to live together in harmony.

Source: Voice of America

The late F.W. de Klerk, South Africa’s final apartheid president, leaves a legacy as complicated as the nation he once led.

Some South Africans say de Klerk, who died last week, deserves to be honored as one of the world’s great statesmen for releasing Nelson Mandela and helping South Africa toward democracy.

Others, though, are focusing on de Klerk’s support of whites-only rule for most of his political career and for the alleged role he played in the murderous rampage of anti-apartheid activists.

“F.W. de Klerk, knowing him also on a personal level for many years now, he’s very misunderstood,” said Jan Bosman, the director of the Afrikanerbond, a group representing Afrikaner interests. “Some very unfair remarks are made towards him. And I think it’s unfair at this stage, also in the time of death, to be so harsh and so critical.”

Elected president in 1989, de Klerk released African National Congress leader and anti-apartheid icon Mandela from prison in 1990, setting off South Africa’s path to its first democratic, multiracial elections. Four years later, de Klerk’s National Party lost to the ANC, which has held power ever since.

After that, de Klerk was a visible figure amid national reconciliation efforts and fierce debate over whether the pain of segregationist rule could ever be erased.

Political critics and activists say he never went far enough to condemn the brutal acts committed under the whites-only rule. Activists say it is unlikely that former officials during apartheid will ever face justice.

In the 1980s, as South Africa experienced one of the most violent periods in its history, the government, in which de Klerk was a senior member, imprisoned thousands of people. Its forces killed scores of anti-apartheid activists, including four from the small town of Cradock in Eastern Cape province.

“They were driving back from Port Elizabeth to Cradock when they were ambushed, and they were killed,” said Lukhanyo Calata, the son of Fort Calata, one of the four killed.

For much of the 1980s, de Klerk was a member of the government’s State Security Council. SSC documents show that in the months leading up to the killings of the “Cradock Four,” the council discussed the activists’ “permanent removal from society.” Minutes of the meetings indicate that de Klerk was present.

“We wanted de Klerk to confirm what he’d said in those meetings,” Calata said. “We wanted him to tell us the truth about what his role was in the planning and conspiracy to murder the Cradock Four. He knew that a crime would be committed and yet he never did anything to stop it.”

Six former police officers later confessed to abducting and executing the Cradock Four, burning the bodies and dumping them in bush near Port Elizabeth. De Klerk denied any knowledge of political assassinations, blaming them on “rogue low-level operatives” within apartheid-era security forces.

Earlier this year, de Klerk claimed that senior ANC leaders “made deals” with his government to prevent prosecutions of apartheid-era politicians and killers. The ANC denies such deals were made.

“The ANC must be rejoicing today because their secret about who it was that entered into those deals with apartheid operatives, de Klerk took that information with him to the grave,” Calata said.

De Klerk repeatedly acknowledged that while he was in favor of apartheid in his “younger years” and a staunch supporter of whites-only rule, he eventually grew to regret his position.

“Since the early 80s, my views changed completely,” de Klerk said in a taped message shortly before his death. “It was as if I had a conversion. And in my heart of hearts, realized that apartheid was wrong. I realized that we had arrived at a place that was morally unjustifiable.”

South African President Cyril Ramaposa, the leader of the ANC, said de Klerk should mostly be judged for leading the country out of apartheid.

“We are saddened because he did play a key role in ushering in democracy in our country,” Ramaphosa said in a statement. “He had the courage to step away from the path that his party, that he led, had embarked upon from 1948, and we will remember him for that.”

De Klerk’s foundation said his funeral on Saturday would be private, attended by family and close friends.

Source: Voice of America

The families of nine Somali workers shot dead while working on a bush clearance project funded by the United Nations are calling for a full and a transparent investigation into the incident.

The families say their relatives were instructed to carry out semi-military activities without proper security protection. Guards recruited to give them protection were on a breakfast break at the time of attack. The victims have received death threats according to documents seen by VOA Somali. According to the coordinator of the workers, the threats were coming from people claiming to be al-Shabab militants.

“We did not get justice,” says Jama, the son of one of the workers killed. “We need a thorough investigation and accountability.”

The incident occurred on February 25, 2019, when gunmen believed to be al-Shabab militants attacked the workers as they cleared the bush from the sides of the Mogadishu-Afgoye corridor.

Al-Shabab uses the bushes to hide improvised explosive devices. Cutting the bush was specifically intended to remove trees to deny Al-Shabab the opportunity to plant IEDs.

The multimillion-dollar project was funded by the United Nations Mine Action Services (UNMAS), which subcontracted a Ukrainian company, Ukroboronservice (UOS) to carry out the work. The families say the project was risky, and they allege negligence on the part of the United Nations and the Ukrainian company.

Families say the incident was kept under wraps until a VOA report aired the grievances of the victims’ relatives in July 2020.

The U.N. now says it has conducted a review of the incident and held discussions with the contractor. The contactor completed providing “financial aid” to the families of those killed and those injured in the attack, the U.N. told VOA Somali.

On June 5 this year, UOS officers met with the victims and their families in the office of the district commissioner in Afgoye, UNSOM spokesperson Ari Gaitanis told VOA Somali.

“They also explained the process of payment of the financial compensation, the amount that was to be paid to those injured and to the families of the deceased, as well as the documentation that would be required from the injured and the family members of the deceased to proceed with the payments,” he said.

Documents seen by VOA show UOS decided to pay $7,920 to each of the nine families who lost loved ones, and $3,960 to each of the four people injured in the attack. The families condemned the payment figures as an “insult.” Families say they do not know how the amount was determined.

Gaitanis says compensation money was “determined in line with international insurance practice for death and injury benefits, as applied to Somalia’s context.”

Legal expert Dahir Mohamed Ali disputed the money can be characterized as “compensation.” He said in the absence of a written contract between the employer and the casual workers, as in this case, the two parties have to negotiate a settlement. If they cannot reach an agreement, they may approach a local court to make a determination. In this context, the law existing in the area of operation — Somalia — applies, Ali said.

He said Islamic law, which usually is applied by Somali courts, awards the killing of a male person 100 camels ($100,000) while the blood money for a female person is 50 camels ($50,000).

Abshir Ahmed Mohamed, a Somali lawmaker who is supporting the families’ case, says he has received a letter from the program director of UNMAS in Somalia, Qurat-ul-Ain Sadozai, about the incident and the payment. Mohamed says Sadozai told him that payments by UOS do not constitute admission of responsibility or liability on the part of UOS, or U.N. organizations.

Mohamed, who is the deputy speaker of the Somalia’s upper house of parliament, says he wants to see Somali families receive their “full rights.” He said an investigation that includes the Somali government and the United Nations is necessary in order to find out what happened and who was responsible for the negligence.

Despite lingering questions about the incident, the U.N. in July awarded a new contract to UOS to undertake “Explosive Hazard Mitigation Services” in Somalia, Gaitanis said.

Gaitanis defends the new contract and says it was awarded through a competitive bidding process. He says the new contract does not include any bush clearance activity.

UOS did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Source: Voice of America

With the Earth becoming warmer and weather events more extreme, the African Union has set up a disaster operation center in Nairobi to help monitor major hazards and provide regional early warnings for drought, floods, extreme rainfall, food insecurity, and pests like the desert locust.

Major floods have become more common in Africa and show how vulnerable the continent is to climate change, even though it’s the lowest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the world.

To cope with such disasters, the African Union has set up a centralized monitoring and early warning system for the continent. The Nairobi Disaster Operation Center for the East African region is the continent’s first weather “situation room.”

“Council of the ministers within the member states sat and said we need to have a disaster operation center in Nairobi, which will focus mainly on early warning systems,” said Jully Ouma, a geographic information system analyst at the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, or IGAD, in Nairobi. “So, that gave birth to the establishment of this office so that we look at broader aspects of different disasters within the region.”

The center — located at the IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Center — uses East Africa Hazards Watch, a system developed by the center for collecting and sharing multi-hazard data with member countries.

“The system works automatically so that it ingests in the data set,” Ouma said, adding, “We have a super computing system within ICPAC, so there is less human attachment to it. It is also near real time. So, in every 10 days it updates itself and then we see the conditions of drought.”

The center provides climate information and early warnings to 11 East African countries. Officials say local communities must be ready to respond quickly to save lives and minimize damage.

“So, we must equip the communities themselves to be able to respond to a disaster in its first hours at least,” said Amjad Abbashar, regional director for Africa at the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. “And so, I think we owe it to them to set up these early warning systems and ensure that it is functional, and that people who are vulnerable to disasters are able to access that information in a timely way, to save lives and property.”

The situation room in Nairobi covers and reports on drought and floods. Another one in Niger, set to open this month, will monitor extreme rains and cyclones. The information collected at both sites will be distributed by the situation room at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa.

“We are responding to a very complex situation,” said Gatkuoth Kai, technical coordinator for disaster risk reduction at the Africa Union Commission. “Over the years, we have seen disasters increasingly becoming borderless. But even when a hazard is localized, the intensity easily overwhelms the national response. And in this situation, the Pan African solidarity is required. Therefore, having this situation room is going to facilitate that African solidarity.”

As Africa experiences more extreme weather, officials say early warnings and early action will help limit its impact.

Source: Voice of America