Day: November 24, 2021

The U.N. Security Council threatened sanctions Wednesday against spoilers in Libya’s presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for December 24.

“The Security Council recalls that individuals or entities who threaten the peace, stability or security of Libya or obstruct or undermine the successful completion of its political transition, including by obstructing or undermining the elections, may be designated for its sanctions,” the 15-nation council said in a presidential statement.

The council also called on all Libyan stakeholders to respect the results of the vote and to work together “in the spirit of unity and compromise” afterward for a peaceful transfer of power.

Additionally, members issued a united call for countries to respect the arms embargo imposed against Libya and for all foreign fighters and mercenaries to immediately leave the country. Instability, fighting and foreign interference have proliferated in Libya since the ouster and killing of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Libya is to hold elections in exactly one month — 70 years to the day since the country declared independence in 1951. The head of the High National Election Commission, or HNEC, said Tuesday that 98 people had registered by the deadline to run for president, a list that includes a son of Gadhafi and the commander of an eastern-based militia that tried to seize the capital, Tripoli, in 2019, as well as two female hopefuls.

On Wednesday, it was reported that Gadhafi, who is wanted on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court at The Hague, was among 25 candidates whose bids have been rejected by the HNEC.

More than 2,000 hopefuls have registered so far to run for parliamentary seats, including 276 women. That registration is open until December 7.

Earlier this month, the HNEC began distributing voter cards to the more than 2.8 million registered voters, with more than 64% of eligible voters having received them so far.

The HNEC has confirmed the first round of voting in both polls will be December 24, with a second round 50 days later, to accommodate counting and tabulating the results, as well as possible electoral challenges and appeals. The final results of both elections will be announced simultaneously.

Envoy abruptly resigns

It was also announced Tuesday the U.N.’s top diplomat for Libya, Jan Kubis, is stepping down. Kubis addressed his abrupt departure after less than a year in the post, in what was likely his final briefing to the council, via a video call from Tripoli.

He said he favors splitting the role of special envoy and head of the U.N. Support Mission in Libya, UNSMIL, into two jobs with the head of UNSMIL being located in Tripoli. This is something that had been discussed earlier but not acted on.

“In order to create conditions for this on 17 November 2021, I tendered my resignation,” he told the council. “In the resignation letter, I also confirmed my readiness to continue as the special envoy for a transitional period to ensure business continuity provided that it is a feasible option.”

However, he said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres accepted his resignation in a letter, effective December 10 before the elections.

“We will continue to work with him while we’re seeking a successor,” U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said of Kubis when asked about the secretary-general’s choice of date for his departure.

The previous envoy, Ghassan Salame, left the post in March 2020 citing stress on his health, and it took more than a year to find his successor. Now the secretary-general has set himself the Herculean task of finding a new envoy who is agreeable to both of the Libyan parties and the Security Council in less than three weeks.

In his parting briefing, Kubis said the political climate in the country remains “heavily polarized,” including tensions over the existing legal framework for the elections and the eligibility of some candidates.

“Libya continues to be at a delicate and fragile juncture on its path to unity and stability through the ballot boxes,” Kubis said. “While risks associated with the ongoing political polarization around the elections are evident and present, not holding the elections could gravely deteriorate the situation in the country and could lead to further division and conflict.”

 

 

Source: Voice of America

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Wednesday reportedly joined the front line where government forces are battling rebels from the Tigray region, prompting U.S.-led international calls for a diplomatic solution and an immediate cease-fire to the conflict.

The fighting in the north of Africa’s second-most populous country has killed thousands of people and forced hundreds of thousands into faminelike conditions.

Foreign governments have told their citizens to leave amid the escalating war and fears the Tigrayan rebels could march on the capital, Addis Ababa.

Abiy, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, “is now leading the counter-offensive” and “has been giving leadership from the battlefield as of yesterday,” Fana Broadcasting Corporate reported.

It was not clear where Abiy, a former radio operator in the military who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, had deployed.

State media did not broadcast images of him in the field, and officials have not responded to requests for details about his whereabouts.

Addressing reports of Abiy at the front, the U.S. State Department late Wednesday warned “there is no military solution” to Ethiopia’s civil war.

“We urge all parties to refrain from inflammatory and bellicose rhetoric, to use restraint, respect human rights, allow humanitarian access, and protect civilians,” a State Department spokesperson said.

A day earlier Washington’s special envoy for the Horn of Africa, Jeffrey Feltman, said that “nascent progress” risked being “outpaced by the military escalation by the two sides.”

Other foreign envoys also have been frantically pushing for a cease-fire, though there have been few signs a breakthrough is coming.

On Wednesday, U.N. chief Antonio Guterres called for a swift end to the fighting, comments made while on a visit to Colombia to mark the fifth anniversary of a peace deal between the government and former FARC rebels.

“The peace process in Colombia inspires me to make an urgent appeal today to the protagonists of the conflict in Ethiopia for an unconditional and immediate cease-fire to save the country,” he said.

The war erupted in November 2020 when Abiy sent troops into Tigray to topple its ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

He said the move was in response to TPLF attacks on federal army camps and promised a swift victory, but by late June the rebels had retaken most of Tigray, including its capital Mekele.

Since then, the TPLF has pushed into neighboring Amhara and Afar regions, and this week it claimed to have seized a town 220 kilometers from Addis Ababa.

Abiy’s announcement Monday that he would deploy to the front “has inspired many to … join the survival campaign,” Fana said Wednesday.

Hundreds of new recruits took part in a ceremony held in their honor Wednesday in the capital’s Kolfe district.

As officials corraled sheep and oxen into trucks bound for the north, the recruits broke into patriotic songs and chants.

“When a leader leaves his chair … and his throne it is to rescue his country,” Tesfaye Sherefa, a 42-year-old driver, told AFP.

Feyisa Lilesa, a distance runner and 2016 Olympic silver medalist, told state media the rebels’ advance presented “a great opportunity” to defend the nation.

The marathon runner gained political prominence by raising and crossing his arms as he finished the marathon at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, a gesture of solidarity with fellow ethnic Oromos killed while protesting abuses committed during nearly three decades of TPLF rule.

Even as it rallies citizens to fight, Abiy’s government insists the TPLF’s gains have been overstated, criticizing what it describes as sensationalist media coverage and alarmist security advisories from Western embassies.

The war has triggered a humanitarian crisis, with accounts of massacres and mass rapes, and on Wednesday the United Nations expressed worry over reports of large-scale displacement from western Tigray, where the U.S. has previously warned of ethnic cleansing.

“Tigray zonal authorities report of 8,000 new arrivals, potentially up to 20,000,” the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said, adding that it could not immediately corroborate the figures.

Several witnesses have told AFP of mass roundups of Tigrayan civilians in western Tigray in recent days.

Amhara forces occupied the fiercely contested area a year ago, with Amhara officials accusing the TPLF of illegally annexing it three decades earlier.

As Amhara civilians have poured in over the past year, Tigrayans have fled in the tens of thousands, either west into Sudan or east, deeper into Tigray.

 

 

Source: Voice of America