Africa

South Africa is in for a rough ride as the ruling ANC prepares to choose President Jacob Zuma's successor.

The political process in South Sudan is not dead but requires significant resuscitation, the head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the crisis-torn country told the Security Council today.

The United Nations health agency’s regional office for Africa has announced that Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi will take part in a breakthrough pilot programme to make the world’s first malaria vaccine available in selected areas, beginning in 2018.

Almost 30,000 young Somali children, many of them displaced by a searing drought, are being vaccinated against measles this week in a United Nations-backed emergency campaign in one of the country’s hardest-hit towns.

Park ranger Rodrigue Mugaruka Katembo, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, explains how he lives in constant fear of attack for protecting wildlife in Virunga National Park.

Ilhan Omar explains how she made history to become the first Somali-American legislator in the US.

Sudan is a the northern white rhino, and the last chance for the survival of his species.

Documenting the workplaces of a generation of Ghanaians.

In our series of letters from African journalists, writer Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani looks at the discovery of mystery cash piles in Nigeria.

Mass graves, child soldiers and police decapitations are all features of a little known Congolese conflict, as the BBC's Catherine Byaruhanga reports.

Many different countries are trying to get a toehold in Somalia as it slowly emerges from chaos.

April 21, 2017 (JUBA)-The armed opposition Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO) Friday has confirmed that some senior commanders have surrendered to the Ugandan army deployed in the northern part of the east African country.

Last week, several media outlets in Uganda reported the two senior SPLM-IO officers Identified as Maj. Gen Benjamin Luboi and Brigadier Gen. Taban surrendered to Ugandan army in Padibe Sub-county, Uganda's northern Lamwo district near the South Sudan's Eastern Equatoria province.

Initially, the armed opposition group had denied the report, saying only civilians have fled to northern Uganda.

However, the newly appointed deputy SPLM-IO spokesperson, Lam Paul Gabriel confirmed the report and said they welcome the decision by Ugandan authorities and the UNHCR.

“We would like to thank the staffs of the Ugandan prime minister's office and the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees for helping Benjamin and his friends get registered as refugees,” he added.

Gabriel dismissed that any of the two rebel officers was the commander of the rebel forces in Pajok, Eastern Equatoria.

“The sector command base is not in Pajok but between Imotong and Namurunyang/ Kapoeta state,” he added.

Earlier this month of April, the UNHCR reported that over 6000 refugees have crossed into northern Uganda district of Lamwo.

The influx of refugees was triggered by a military operation carried out by the government forces in Pajok, a town of more than 10,000 people 15 km (10 miles) north of the Ugandan border, to flush out rebel guerrillas in the area.

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April 21, 2017 (JUBA)- A peace and security forum drawing participation of governors from at least 14 states in South Sudan is underway in Kuacjok town, the administrative headquarters of Gogrial state

Women from a cattle camp walk near Gogrial (Photo Tim Freccia/Enough Project)

Gogrial governor Gregory Deng Kuac Aduol said on Friday the conference brings participants from states in the Upper Nile region together with those from neighbouring states in Bahr el Ghazal region.

The two-day conference commenced on Friday 21st April 2017 and is expected to end on 22nd April 2017.

This security and development meeting draws 14 governors and over 500 government officials including Abyei administrative area, northern Liech and Ruweng states among others.

“It will focus on how to curve communal conflicts, cattle thefts and border security control in their respective administrative areas and will reduce insecurity along our borders and provide everlasting peace and stability between our civil populations,” said Governor Gregory.

The forum will also discuss ways of opening interstates trade to boost economic stability in the country, he added.

He pointed that lack of security hampers the ongoing efforts to remove the spectre of famine which is the main challenge facing the South Sudan, adding the growing insecurity now prevent the circulation of local product and merchandises from a state to another.

"I call our citizens to support this conference so that its bear fruits," Aduol said.

The forum will also tackle issues of interstates feeder roads and development of state infrastructure.

This conference is the first ever since the appointment of the governor of Gogrial state in January 2017.

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April 21, 2017 (KHARTOUM) - The Sudanese government has deposited with the United Nations (UN) the coordinates of the baselines from which its maritime areas are measured, including the disputed Halayeb triangle with Egypt.

The Halayeb triangle, which is a 20,580 km area on the Red Sea, has been a contentious issue between Egypt and Sudan since 1958, shortly after Sudan gained its independence from the British-Egyptian rule in January 1956.

The area has been under Cairo's full military control since the mid-1990's following a Sudanese-backed attempt to kill the former Egyptian President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak.

On 2 March, President Omer al-Bashir issued a decree including the baselines from which the maritime areas of the Republic of Sudan are measured.

By virtue of its membership in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Sudan is required to notify the UN Secretary-General of any development affecting the geography of its maritime boundary.

In conjunction with the notification, the Sudanese foreign ministry deposited with the UN its reservation on a similar decree issued by former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 1990, in which he laid the baselines for the Egyptian maritime areas.

“The Republic of the Sudan declares its rejection and refusal to recognize the provisions of the declaration issued by the Arab Republic of Egypt on 9 January 1990, entitled Presidential Decree No. 27, which touches on the Sudanese maritime border, North of Line 22, which was included within the maritime coordinates announced by Egypt within its maritime borders on the Red Sea in paragraphs 56-60,” read Sudan's declaration seen by Sudan Tribune.

“The above points (in Mubarak's decree of 1990) are located within the maritime boundaries of Sudan's Halayeb triangle which falls under Egyptian military occupation since1995 to date, and thus are part of the Sudanese maritime border on the Red Sea” added the declaration.

The foreign ministry stressed that the Halayeb triangle is a Sudanese territory located within the political and geographic borders of the Sudan, saying these borders have been recognised internationally during the various historical periods, including the period of the British-Egyptian condominium colonisation.

It underscored that Sudan inherited these borders since its independence was declared in 1956, saying this fact is supported by the UN records and maps and wasn't disputed by any party.

The foreign ministry pointed out that Sudan has been notifying the UN Security Council on this issue annually since 1958 until 5 January 2017 “in order to renew its rejection of the Egyptian military occupation of Sudan's Halayeb triangle and maritime borders”.

“As well as to renew its non-recognition of all sovereign actions by the Egyptian government in the Halayeb triangle and maritime borders on the basis of the current situation,” it added.

Last April, Cairo refused a demand by the Sudanese government to hold direct talks on Halayeb and Shalateen or to accept the referral of the dispute to the International Court of Arbitration.

Egypt has used to reject Sudan's repeated calls for referring the dispute to international arbitration.

The international law provides that the agreement of the two parties is needed to arbitrate a dispute by the tribunal.

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April 21, 2017 (KHARTOUM) - The state security prosecution office in Khartoum Thursday has summoned the former chairman of the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) and accused him of harming the health security by forming an illegal body.

CCSD is an independent doctors association that was formed during the doctors' strike in October 2016 as a parallel body to the pro-government Sudanese Doctors Union (SDU).

In a statement extended to Sudan Tribune on Thursday night, the CCSD said the General Union of Medical and Health Professions and the SDU have filed charges against its former chairman Hassan Karar Mamoun.

“In an unsurprising move on Thursday morning, the former head of the CCSD was summoned by the state security prosecution and taken from doctors' residence in Khartoum to the state security prosecution's department of crimes against the state” read the statement.

The statement pointed that a large number of lawyers has volunteered to defend Mamoun and prove, saying the government has acknowledged the legality of the CCSD since the federal and state health ministries and the Vice President sat to with the committee to negotiate to end the doctors' strike last year.

It added the doctors during their strike aimed to achieve professional demands that don't pose any threat to the state security, pointing to the increased targeting of doctors through criminal charges recently.

The statement further accused the said the General Union of Medical and Health Professions and the SDU of seeking to criminalise the same people who they claim to be representing, describing the latter's move as “disgrace”.

It is noteworthy that the Sudanese doctors in October 2016 went on a two-month intermittent strike and refused non-emergency treatments to patients to protest the poor working conditions, lack of medicines and lack of doctors protection after increasing attacks by frustrated patients and their families.

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April 21, 2017 (JUBA) - South Sudan government judges and lawyers declared an open-ended strike, demanded the resignation of Chief Justice Chan Reech Madut and wages increments.

The assembly of judges and justice made the declaration in the capital Juba.

“The General Assembly of Justices and Judges voted unanimously to enter into an open strike until the following demands are fulfilled; the honourable Chief Justice Chan Reech Madut must resign, provision of a car for justices and judges for transportation, provision of stationery and creation for a conducive working environment. Creation of courtrooms to each and every judge,” said Geri Legge, a Justice of the Court of Appeal after the general assembly meeting.

The strike begins on Monday, April 24.

The judiciary senior officials accused Chief Justice Chan of failing to follow up on promises made last year to increase wages and improve working conditions. Justices and judges receive monthly salaries between SSP 8,000 and SSP 12,000.

The judges and justices are among highly paid government employees but the depreciation of South Sudanese pound against the United States Dollars means their wages are now less than $50 per month. $1 sales for SSP 180 in the black market in Juba on Friday. The local economy is in a free fall and prices for basic commodities have skyrocketed in recent months.

Chief Justice is appointed by President Salva Kiir and it is not clear if he will act to resolve the judicial crisis. Last year, a similar strike was called off within a week after the government promised to address the conditions set forth. Most of those pledges, according to judges, are never met.

In a statement released on Friday, 21 April 2017, the judges call for fulfilment of better working conditions, increased pay; six months leave with pay, three months for Christmas and Easter.

The release demands the enactment of justices and judges pension law, provision of identification cards, promotion of the judges and appointment of more judges in the country.

The reasons for these demands, the statement argues, are to improve the provision of services.

“Finally, the rationale behind our demands is an order to deliver good service to people, address the backlog of cases and also strengthening of the independence of the Judiciary of the Republic of South Sudan,” the statement stressed.

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By Eric Reeves

The Darfur region of western Sudan has been recognized since 2004 as the site of genocide since 2004 by dozens of political officials and bodies (including the U.S. Congress and the EU Parliament), human rights groups, a wide range of genocide and human rights scholars, and such commemorative bodies as the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Vad Yashem in Israel. Senator, candidate and President Obama not only declared that genocide was occurring in Darfur but campaigned on the issue in 2008, referring to the Darfur genocide as a “stain on our souls.” Indeed.

These judgments should hardly have been surprising. The annihilating character of attacks on non-Arab/African civilians and villages in Darfur; the systematic denial of humanitarian aid to these ethnic populations; and the pointed pronouncements of various officials and proxies of the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party regime—all made “genocide” the inevitable characterization. Only political diffidence or disingenuousness kept the characterization from being universally accepted.

Moreover, the outlines of the genocidal ambition were articulated with remarkable clarity in a memorandum originating from the headquarters of notoriously brutal Arab militia leader (Janjaweed) Musa Hilal in Misteriya, North Darfur at the height of the violence: “change the demography” of Darfur and “empty it of African tribes.”

Lest we think Musa Hilal as only a “man of letters,” we should recall that he was identified by numerous eyewitnesses as having presided at the February 2004 slaughter at Tawila, North Darfur. More than 100 people were killed, 350 girls and women were abducted, and more than 100 women were raped. A number of the women and girls were raped in front of their fathers, who were then killed. This was Musa Hilal's idea of “demographic change.” And this was only one of many atrocities that he either directed or orchestrated.

More than a decade later, in September 2015, Human Rights Watch provided the world with a clear, authoritative, and deeply researched report on the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), by then the dominant militia force in Darfur, called by some the “new Janjaweed.” This report is more important than ever as we survey the “militia state” that Darfur has become as part of Khartoum's genocidal counter-insurgency, and the report provides compelling evidence that Musa Hilal's ambitions continue to animate the violence orchestrated by Khartoum against non-Arab/African tribal populations. The voice of particular significance in this report is that of Vice President of the regime, Hassabo Mohammed Abdel Rahman—reported by a defecting militiaman:

Ahmed said that a few days prior to leaving for East Jebel Marra, Sudanese Vice President Hassabo Mohammed Abdel Rahman directly addressed several hundred army and RSF soldiers: “Hassabo told us to clear the area east of Jebel Marra. To kill any male. He said we want to clear the area of insects. … He said East Jebel Marra is the kingdom of the rebels. We don't want anyone there to be alive.”

I am astonished that these words by Khartoum's Vice President have not registered in a consequential way with those Western nations formulating various policies of accommodation with the regime, particularly since they define so precisely the nature of the violence that accelerated from 2012 through the militarily successful campaign against the Jebel Marra massif in Central Darfur in 2016.

Notably, the Jebel Marra campaign included the use of chemical weapons against clearly civilian populations in the region, a fact that raised not a shred of international indignation of the sort Bashar al-Assad's attacks in Syria have. The campaign was successful and denied rebel forces in Darfur their last significant military redoubt. The genocidal counter-insurgency has—after fourteen years of unspeakable violence, destruction, and deprivation—succeeded.

In the wake of such victory, Khartoum is eager to begin dismantling the camps for displaced persons that have done so much to define destruction and suffering during the Darfur genocide. UN figures suggest that approximately 3 million people remain displaced from their homes, some 300,000 as refugees in eastern Chad. They are overwhelmingly people from the non-Arab/African tribal populations of Darfur. Extant mortality data and reports, while limited in many ways by Khartoum, when aggregated strongly suggest that well over 500,000 people have been killed directly or indirectly by the violence Khartoum has so effectively engineered Many tens of thousands of girls and women have been raped as sexual violence continues to be deployed as a brutal weapon of war.

Deprivation is unspeakable in many locations as the best current estimate is that 30 percent of the population in Darfur that remains inaccessible to humanitarian relief operations because of Khartoum's obstructionist policies. Children die in unforgivably large numbers for lack of food, medicine, and shelter. 30 percent of the population in need represents almost 1 million people, as the UN has recently estimated that Darfur's population in need is 3.3 million people.

I offer in a recent analysis representative examples of camps and locations that remain inaccessible despite the claim by former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power that there has been a “sea change” of improvement in humanitarian access in Sudan. Hers is a preposterous falsehood, and yet it stands uncorrected by any U.S. government official—past or present. It is a particularly outrageous falsehood, given the fact that in addition to obstructing humanitarian relief in Darfur, Khartoum continues to impose a total humanitarian blockade on the large and highly distressed populations in rebel-controlled areas of South Kordofan and Blue Nile. By crediting Khartoum with a “sea change” of improved humanitarian access, Power's statement perversely works to diminish incentives for the regime actually to make such improvements.

All this is particularly significant given the terms of the last-minute Executive Order signed by President by President Obama in the last week of his administration, lifting sanctions on Khartoum and stipulating terms for the permanent lifting of U.S. sanctions on Khartoum—which include prominently an improvement in humanitarian access.

What does Darfur look like in the wake of this ghastly “success”?

The character of Khartoum's success in Darfur is revealed in an soul-destroying dispatch from Radio Dabanga as well recent reports from the Small Arms Survey (“Remote-control breakdown: Sudanese paramilitary forces and pro-government militias”) and the Enough Project (“Border Control from Hell: How the EU's migration partnership legitimizes Sudan's militia state”). What they have in common is the characterization of the region as a “militia state,” one in which security has essentially been turned over to the militia forces that have fought for Khartoum and which will sustain themselves—beyond significant salaries in the case of the RSF—primarily by continuing predations on civilians and permanent and by violent expropriation of farmlands and pasturage.

Hamid Nur, a man known to me as someone of extraordinary knowledge, integrity, and humanity, is reported by Radio Dabanga as having offered this assessment:

Sudan's western region is politically, militarily, and economically dominated by militias, says the head of the Darfur Civil Society Platform. The Darfur displaced and refugees have no way to return to their [homes and farms] as the places are occupied by militiamen and their families. In an interview with Radio Dabanga, Hamid Ali Nur, head of the Darfur Civil Society Platform, called the repeated statements by the Sudanese government and the recent report by the US military attaché about the improved security situation in Darfur inaccurate and incorrect.

According to the civil society leader, the Khartoum government has, to a large extent, succeeded in changing the Darfur population itself. “Militiamen and their families have occupied the villages and farms left by fleeing Darfuris during all these years.”

The civil society activist said that the government's options given to the Darfur displaced, either to return to their villages of origin or integrate them into the local communities by re-structuring the camps, are fake. “As the displaced are not able to return, Khartoum's policy is aimed at permanently displacing them from their homes, lands, and heritage.”

This is the face of a “successful” genocide—successful for the perpetrators, catastrophic for the victims, the non-Arab/African populations of Darfur.

We have had warnings of such genocidal success for more than thirteen years. In February 2004 I warned in the Washington Post that,

There can be no reasonable scepticism about Khartoum's use of these militias to “destroy, in whole or in part, ethnic or racial groups”—in short, to commit genocide. Khartoum has so far refused to rein in its Arab militias; has refused to enter into meaningful peace talks with the insurgency groups; and, most disturbingly, has refused to grant unrestricted humanitarian access. The international community has been slow to react to Darfur's catastrophe and has yet to move with sufficient urgency and commitment. A credible peace forum must be rapidly created. Immediate plans for humanitarian intervention should begin. The alternative is to allow tens of thousands of civilians to die in the weeks and months ahead in what will be continuing genocidal destruction.

These words have a morally scandalous relevance to this day, although I must admit I had no idea that I should be speaking of a genocide that would last years, not weeks or months—or that mortality from genocidal violence would be measured not in tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands of human lives.

Darfur has made “Never again!” seem to me the most appalling, the most disgraceful, and finally the most obscene phrase in the English language.

Eric Reeves, Senior Fellow at Harvard University's François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights

By Dak Buoth

It is an opportune time for President Festus Mogae, the Chair of the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation commission (JMEC) to pack and go back where he came from. And if he so wishes to remain in Juba, then he should be considered as an ex-JMEC Chairperson.

Festus' persistent silence in the face of deteriorating situation breeds confusion, complications, and hence makes the world stand aloof. And as Will Rodgers says ‘‘Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction'' Without much ado, he ought to be excommunicated for he did not communicate what keep transpiring on the ground for reasons best known to him and company.

As matter of fact, I'm not happy with the way he is dancing on victims' graves together with those belligerents. To add insult to injury, I'm now seeing him dining and winning with the same peace violators whom he is supposed to offer wise counsel.

He was hired on conditions that he will be monitoring, overseeing the smooth implementation of peace accord only in the ‘pre-transitional' and ‘during the transitional period'.

However, he is not supposed to continue occupying the same office in the ‘post' transitional period.

I'm convinced beyond reasonable doubt that the peace accord has collapsed and dead, and there is nothing being implemented.

Festus' continues to stay in office send the wrong impression that the peace agreement still exists when in fact there is none. In other words, his continued stay in the office covers the window for peace. To make matter worse, he is squandering resources that can be used to fast track desirable peace in our country.

I solidly hold that he should be relieved and JMEC disbanded respectively. By doing so, the world will see that the same peace agreement is dead or on a comma. And thus, they can either initiate a fresh political process and or reinvigorate the same peace accord as soon as possible. In my conscious analysis I believe:
1. That he failed to oversee and monitor the implementation of Peace Agreement
2. That he failed to finger-point at the peace violators, instead he is giving blanket-blames
3. That he failed to suggest alternative solutions and so he is ideas bankrupt.

I hereby challenge the appointing authorities, the African Union (AU) and IGAD to act accordingly because his legitimacy has been overtaken by events.

Three years of inaction are enough. Let's devise decisive ways. ‘‘Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph,'' Haile Selassie.

The writer is the Chairman of the Congress of South Sudanese Patriots; he can be reached for comments via eligodak@yahoo.com

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Central Africa was relieved to learn that Cameroon President Paul Biya instructed that full internet services be restored in the North-West and South-West Regions of Cameroon.

As the drought intensifies in south and north-eastern Somalia, the United Nations emergency food relief agency today airlifted to Mogadishu enough high-energy biscuits to assist 31,000 people for three days.