Category: Key Issues

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa is under fire for hosting joint naval exercises with Russia during the one-year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, with critics saying it will be a propaganda victory for Moscow. But what does the third participant in the drills, China, have to gain from the tripartite exercises taking place this week?

Some analysts told VOA that, in China’s case, Exercise Mosi II, off South Africa’s east coast, is less about a real exchange of military prowess and more about important political and diplomatic optics.

“China has a lot to gain from these exercises,” said Paul Nantulya, from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington. “It is sending a very powerful signal to other African countries that in-person military training is now back on the table. … China and [its] People’s Liberation Army are basically back” after years of closed borders during the pandemic.

He said the drills were also sending a message to China’s competitors, namely the U.S., that Beijing has military clout in the region. The South Africa war games are taking place at almost the same time as the U.S. Army’s Exercise Justified Accord in Kenya and just after U.S.-led maritime exercises off the Gulf of Guinea.

They also take place amid heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing in the wake of the U.S. shooting down an alleged Chinese spy balloon and after Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that China is considering supplying Russia with weapons for its war against Ukraine.

Priyal Singh, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in Pretoria, had a similar assessment.

“This assists Beijing in illustrating to the West [and the world in general] that it has a foothold in the South Indian Ocean through its strong relations with South Africa. I believe this may be important to China, given the geopolitical contestations being played out across the Indian Ocean region,” Singh said in an email to VOA.

“I believe that the decision to proceed with these exercises was primarily driven by political considerations. Navies play important diplomatic and symbolic roles,” Singh’s ISS colleague Denys Reva added.

Darren Olivier, director at the African Defense Review, pointed out this week’s naval exercises off South Africa are limited in nature and “focused mostly on basic maneuvers and light gunnery.”

“It’s important to note that South Africa has a NATO-oriented operational and tactical doctrine that’s dissimilar to that of Russia and China, which inherently limits what can be done jointly, and unsurprisingly as a result, the exercise as described will not feature in-depth exploration or testing of any serious combat capabilities or procedures,” he said.

Asked by VOA what China seeks to gain from the exercises, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. said “the joint maritime exercise held by the navies of the three countries in the southern waters of Africa is of great significance.”

“It will help deepen the exchanges and cooperation among the navies, improve their ability to jointly respond to maritime security threats, demonstrate their determination to maintain regional maritime peace and stability and their good will and strong capabilities to actively promote the building of an ocean community with a shared future.”

China, Russia and South Africa are all members of the BRICS grouping of emerging economies, which also includes India and Brazil.

Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at SOAS University of London, said that for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to join their Russian counterparts “in an exercise far away from China is highly beneficial,” as the Russian navy is more modernized.

Asked whether such exercises could act as preparation for an invasion of Taiwan, Tsang said they were too different, but added that “enhancing the capacity of the PLAN to operate long-distance will be beneficial in general terms to enhancing its capacity in a Taiwan Strait crisis in the future.”

The PLAN “need to train for long-distance deployments, particularly off Africa, where China is building up its interest,” he said. China has invested heavily in the continent through President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Infrastructure Initiative and is Africa’s biggest trade partner.

But there are more than economic reasons for China to join the exercises, according to Nantulya. They include having the ability to protect the many Chinese nationals working in Africa — the Chinese have been engaged in anti-piracy operations off Africa’s East coast for years — and maintain stability in countries that host Chinese peacekeepers or strategic investments.

Also, Nantulya said, it’s possible Beijing — which has only one military base in Africa, in Djibouti — is looking to establish additional bases on the continent in the next decade.

The U.S. has raised concerns about a possible Chinese base in Equatorial Guinea on the Atlantic coast.

“In terms of Russia, I think it’s quite obvious that what China has been doing is trying to provide Russia some form of platform to be able to continue conducting international relations despite the fact that it’s been heavily sanctioned,” Nantulya said. The war games that have been heavily criticized for taking place amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The U.S. State Department has told VOA by email, “We note with concern South Africa’s plan to hold joint naval exercises with Russia and the PRC. … We encourage South Africa to cooperate militarily with fellow democracies that share our mutual commitment to human rights and the rule of law.”

According to Chinese state media, China has sent a destroyer, a frigate and a defense ship to the exercises in South Africa, which run until February 27.

 

Source: Voice Of America

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE — Pope Francis, the head of the Anglican Communion and top Presbyterian minister together denounced the criminalization of homosexuality on Sunday and said gay people should be welcomed by their churches.

The three Christian leaders spoke out on LGBTQ rights during an unprecedented joint airborne news conference returning home from South Sudan, where they took part in a three-day ecumenical pilgrimage to try to nudge the young country’s peace process forward.

They were asked about Francis’ recent comments to The Associated Press, in which he declared that laws that criminalize gay people were “unjust” and that “being homosexual is not a crime.”

South Sudan is one of 67 countries that criminalizes homosexuality, 11 of them with the death penalty. LGBTQ advocates say even where such laws are not applied, they contribute to a climate of harassment, discrimination and violence.

Francis referred his Jan. 24 comments to the AP and repeated that such laws are “unjust.” He also repeated previous comments that parents should never throw their gay children out of the house.

“To condemn someone like this is a sin,” he said. “Criminalizing people with homosexual tendencies is an injustice.”

“People with homosexual tendencies are children of God. God Loves them. God accompanies them,” he added.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, recalled that LGBTQ rights were very much on the current agenda of the Church of England, and said he would quote the pope’s own words when the issue is discussed at the church’s upcoming General Synod.

“I wish I had spoken as eloquently and clearly as the pope. I entirely agree with every word he said,” Welby said.

Recently, the Church of England decided to allow blessings for same-sex civil marriages but said same-sex couples could not marry in its churches. The Vatican forbids both gay marriage and blessings for same-sex unions.

Welby told reporters that the issue of criminalization had been taken up at two previous Lambeth Conferences of the broader Anglican Communion, which includes churches in Africa and the Middle East where such anti-gay laws are most common and often enjoy support by conservative bishops.

The broader Lambeth Conference has come out twice opposing criminalization, “But it has not really changed many people’s minds,” Welby said.

The Rt. Rev. Iain Greenshields, the Presbyterian moderator of the Church of Scotland who also participated in the pilgrimage and news conference, offered an observation.

“There is nowhere in my reading of the four Gospels where I see Jesus turning anyone away,” he said. “There is nowhere in the four Gospels where I see anything other than Jesus expressing love to whomever he meets.

“And as Christians, that is the only expression that we can possibly give to any human being, in any circumstance.”

The Church of Scotland allows same-sex marriages. Catholic teaching holds that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect, but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.”

 

 

Source: Voice of America

When Pope Francis arrives in Congo and South Sudan next week, thousands of people will take special note of a gesture more grounded than the sign of the cross. Watching from their wheelchairs, they will relate to the way he uses his.

 

The pope, who began using a wheelchair last year, is visiting two countries where years of conflict have disabled many, and yet they are among the world’s most difficult places to find accessibility and understanding. His visit is heartening Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

 

“We know that it’s a suffering, but it also comforts us to see a grand personality like the pope using a wheelchair,” said Paul Mitemberezi, a market vendor in Goma, at the heart of the eastern Congo region threatened by dozens of armed groups. “Sometimes it gives us the courage to hope that this isn’t the end of the world and one can survive.”

 

Mitemberezi, a Catholic and a father, has been disabled since he was 3 because of polio. He works to support his family because he can’t imagine a life of begging. On the way to market, his three-wheeled chair crunches the stones of unpaved roads. Without a ramp at home, he must leave the brightly painted vehicle outdoors, at risk of theft.

 

Every morning, before he leaves for basketball practice, he makes sure the chair’s still there before crawling out his front door. “It is my legs, which helps me to live,” he said. He applies a bicycle pump to the wheels and is off, weaving through traffic of motorcycles and trucks.

 

Pope Francis is still adjusting to a life that Mitemberezi has long accepted. The pope was first seen publicly in a wheelchair in May, with an aide pushing it. The pope, at age 86, never propels himself. Sometimes he walks with a cane, but he uses the chair for longer distances and has a wheelchair lift to get on and off planes.

 

Francis has insisted that his mobility limitations don’t affect his ability to be pope, saying “You lead with your head, not your knee.” He has lamented how today’s “throwaway culture” wrongly marginalizes disabled people. He makes it a point to visit places serving the disabled during his foreign trips, and routinely spends time greeting wheelchair users at the end of his general audiences.

 

“No disability — temporary, acquired or permanent — can change the fact that we are all children of the one Father and enjoy the same dignity,” Francis wrote in his annual message for the U.N. International Day of Persons with Disabilities in December. He said people with different abilities enrich the church and teach it to be more humane.

 

Such messages are warmly awaited by wheelchair users in South Sudan, where a five-year civil war killed hundreds of thousands of people. As in Congo, data is lacking on just how many people are disabled by conflict or other means.

When Pope Francis arrives in Congo and South Sudan next week, thousands of people will take special note of a gesture more grounded than the sign of the cross. Watching from their wheelchairs, they will relate to the way he uses his.

 

The pope, who began using a wheelchair last year, is visiting two countries where years of conflict have disabled many, and yet they are among the world’s most difficult places to find accessibility and understanding. His visit is heartening Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

 

“We know that it’s a suffering, but it also comforts us to see a grand personality like the pope using a wheelchair,” said Paul Mitemberezi, a market vendor in Goma, at the heart of the eastern Congo region threatened by dozens of armed groups. “Sometimes it gives us the courage to hope that this isn’t the end of the world and one can survive.”

 

Mitemberezi, a Catholic and a father, has been disabled since he was 3 because of polio. He works to support his family because he can’t imagine a life of begging. On the way to market, his three-wheeled chair crunches the stones of unpaved roads. Without a ramp at home, he must leave the brightly painted vehicle outdoors, at risk of theft.

 

Every morning, before he leaves for basketball practice, he makes sure the chair’s still there before crawling out his front door. “It is my legs, which helps me to live,” he said. He applies a bicycle pump to the wheels and is off, weaving through traffic of motorcycles and trucks.

 

Pope Francis is still adjusting to a life that Mitemberezi has long accepted. The pope was first seen publicly in a wheelchair in May, with an aide pushing it. The pope, at age 86, never propels himself. Sometimes he walks with a cane, but he uses the chair for longer distances and has a wheelchair lift to get on and off planes.

 

Francis has insisted that his mobility limitations don’t affect his ability to be pope, saying “You lead with your head, not your knee.” He has lamented how today’s “throwaway culture” wrongly marginalizes disabled people. He makes it a point to visit places serving the disabled during his foreign trips, and routinely spends time greeting wheelchair users at the end of his general audiences.

 

“No disability — temporary, acquired or permanent — can change the fact that we are all children of the one Father and enjoy the same dignity,” Francis wrote in his annual message for the U.N. International Day of Persons with Disabilities in December. He said people with different abilities enrich the church and teach it to be more humane.

 

Such messages are warmly awaited by wheelchair users in South Sudan, where a five-year civil war killed hundreds of thousands of people. As in Congo, data is lacking on just how many people are disabled by conflict or other means.

 

While the road leading to the Vatican’s embassy in the South Sudan capital, Juba, was paved by city authorities this month for ease of travel, residents who use wheelchairs said they have long gone without easy access to schools, health centers, toilets and other public facilities.

 

The Vatican’s ambassador to Congo, Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, said he believed the sight of a wheelchair-using pope could be a powerful teaching moment in a culture where disabilities are often viewed with suspicion and superstition.

 

Families often abandon their disabled children, he said.

 

Seeing someone like the pope suffer should make Francis more approachable for people during his visit, Balestrero said. “They identify, in a way, even more with him.”

 

Source: Voice of America

While the road leading to the Vatican’s embassy in the South Sudan capital, Juba, was paved by city authorities this month for ease of travel, residents who use wheelchairs said they have long gone without easy access to schools, health centers, toilets and other public facilities.

 

The Vatican’s ambassador to Congo, Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, said he believed the sight of a wheelchair-using pope could be a powerful teaching moment in a culture where disabilities are often viewed with suspicion and superstition.

 

Families often abandon their disabled children, he said.

 

Seeing someone like the pope suffer should make Francis more approachable for people during his visit, Balestrero said. “They identify, in a way, even more with him.”

 

Source: Voice of America

DAKAR, SENEGAL — African heads of state and development partners will discuss ways to increase Africa’s agricultural production at a summit in progress in Senegal. Climate change, soaring inflation, and the effects of Russia’s war on Ukraine have combined to make food security precarious throughout much of Africa.

 

The consensus throughout the three-day event has been that it’s time for Africa to end its dependence on food imports.

 

The continent has enough arable land to feed 9 billion people, yet it spends $75 billion each year to import more than 100 million metric tons of food, according to the African Development Bank, which organized the summit.

 

“Only a secure continent can develop with pride,” said Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank. “For there is no pride in begging for food. The timing is right. And the moment is now. My heart and my determination is that Africa feeds itself.”

 

Around 282 million Africans suffer from hunger, according to U.N. figures, and persistent drought has pushed some areas such as the Horn of Africa and Madagascar to the brink of famine.

Recent disruptions in the global food supply chain have also aggravated the issue.

 

Africa typically imports 30 million metric tons of food from the now warring nations of Russia and Ukraine, and energy, fertilizer and food prices have increased by 40 to 300 percent, according to the African Development Bank.

 

In order to become self-sufficient, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said, African nations must increase funding toward agricultural initiatives and rural infrastructure.

 

“To succeed, there is no doubt that we need to subsidize farmers,” he said. “We must reduce the rate of rural to urban migration through the development of rural areas. We must invest heavily in irrigation to help address the increasing frequency of droughts.”

 

Due to high lending risks, less than 3 percent of total financing from African commercial banks goes towards funding agriculture, Buhari said, and central banks must pick up the slack.

 

At a CEO roundtable Thursday, Ahmed Abdellatif, president of Sudanese business conglomerate CTC Group, said risks can be minimized with agri-insurance.

 

“If you’re one of the unlucky half a percent where the rain does not come, it wipes you out totally, and you’re in very big trouble,” he said. “So agri-insurance would be a big enabler.”

Various speakers pointed to success stories on the continent. Ethiopia increased production of a heat resistant wheat variety from 5,000 to 800,000 hectares over a four-year period and is now on its way to becoming a wheat exporter.

 

The adoption of a drought-resistant maize variety in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda has more than doubled outputs.

 

In response to the conflict in Ukraine, Zimbabwe began producing its own fertilizer and wheat. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa said the country expects to produce enough wheat to begin exports next year.

 

“A country must be ruled by the people of that country. A country must be developed by the people of that country,” he said. “And a country must eat what it sows – that is village wisdom.”

 

The conference will continue through Friday.

 

Source: Voice of America

WASHINGTON — Top Chinese, Russian and American officials are scrambling this month to visit African nations and pledge their commitment to the world’s fastest-growing continent.

 

As President Joe Biden prepares for a visit later this year, several of his top officials have recently visited Africa. There, they must balance the desire to secure the continent’s support against Russian aggression and Chinese ambitions with their promise to work to benefit Africa.

 

Washington says this is not about countering Russian and Chinese ambitions — though the U.S. has expressed dismay over African nations’ reluctance to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — but about building meaningful relationships in areas such as business, health, peace and security.

“Our partnership in Africa is not about — about other nations,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in response to a question from VOA. “Our partnership there, it’s — as demonstrated by our commitments at the U.S.-Africa Leaders’ Summit — the United States sees African countries as genuine partners and wants to build relationships based on mutual respect.”

But the continent’s top diplomat says Africa, which was brutally colonized by European powers for centuries, is no one’s pawn. And, he pointedly added, China understands that.

 

“Africa refuses to be seen as an arena for influence struggles,” said African Union Commission chairperson Moussa Faki. “We are open to cooperation and partnerships with everyone, as long as they respect our principles, our priorities and our interests. The partnership we have with China is built on these principles.”

 

But as the most senior visiting U.S. official said recently, these great-power rivals are keenly aware of each other’s activities, especially as China and Russia flex their muscles globally.

 

“Many African countries are now plagued by high and unsustainable debt, and that’s undeniably a problem, and much of it is related [to] Chinese investment in Africa,” said U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the latest U.S. official to visit. “So, I think that’s simply a factual statement. But this is not for us. This is not a competition with China. We want to deepen our engagement with Africa.”

Analysts say these two goals — real partnership, but also great power competition — are not mutually exclusive.

 

“We want to check the ambitions of an expanding Russia and an expanding China, but we also want to see African countries collectively develop more of a political voice for themselves in international fora and create prosperity for their citizens at home,” said Cameron Hudson, who researches Africa at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

 

“So, all of these things can be true at the same time. However, we’re not acknowledging that truth. We are acknowledging only one truth, which is that we want to see Africa develop. And I think it’s just more complicated than that.”

Analysts estimate that China has spent more than $1 trillion on its global Belt and Road Initiative, which builds infrastructure in the developing world. China maintains a strict stance of noninterference in other countries’ internal affairs.

 

During his first trip on the job, China’s new foreign minister rejected the notion of the continent as an ideological battleground, as it often was during the Cold War.

 

“No country, no people, have the right to force African countries and its people to take sides,” said Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang. “Africa should be a platform for international cooperation, not an arena for competition between major countries.”

The next top American official to visit in coming days will be Biden’s ambassador to the United Nations, who previously oversaw the continent at the State Department.

And then, presumably, Biden himself. The White House said this week in response to a question from VOA that there are no concrete plans to announce yet.

 

Biden has framed the 11-month conflict in Ukraine as a fundamental struggle between democracies and autocracies. With Africa showing clear signs of democratic backsliding, Hudson wonders if Biden will keep those ideals in the forefront when he’s on African soil.

 

“Is he going to stick to those kinds of fundamental principles, which he says he holds, and have a very frank and honest and open dialogue with African states, criticizing them when it’s required, keeping the distance when it’s required?” Hudson asked.

 

“Or will he kind of ignore that or put that on a back burner so that he can build relationships that might advantage Washington at the U.N. or down the road politically?”

 

Source: Voice of America