Africa

A couple of campers describe the moment three lions explored their campsite and licked their tent.

Ethiopia's rescue mission after cross-border kidnapping

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed profound concern over reports of increasing political tensions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) linked to the continuing uncertainty surrounding the country’s electoral process.

By Manyang David Mayar

Last Sunday, Riek Machar boldly walked to the alter at St. Emanuel Parish, a church mainly of Dinka-Bor congregation, and got hold of the microphone and started to speak. Some of the Christians got irritated, some were surprised and a sense of confusion filled the church. The drama quickly spread out and now still remained as one of the biggest conversations you can hear at tea places under trees, under Amaraat in Juba and in social media platforms.

The main concern of those debates was whether it was a right thing for the church to allow Riek Machar into the Holy House or not and whether it was a right time and place for Riek Machar to speak to Bor people about peace. Members of the public have different opinions about that but one thing I have noted is a confusion on how people looked at Riek and how Riek looked at himself in front of his audiences.

After fighting a war that killed several vulnerable people across the country in Bor including those women in the church, did Riek see himself like a winner in front of the Jieng (Dinka) people? To better understand this, you have to study the speech he delivered in the church.

Did he say sorry for what had happened? No. Did he apologize for any damage the war has caused to the people not only in Bor but across the country? No. What did he say? He only narrated his exit from Juba and blamed Salva Kiir for the Tiger trigger. And now that he is back, it is time for peace and reconciliation. Full stop. No recognition of the mistakes and deaths. And that to my observation make Riek to still see himself in his own eyes like a winner. Especially now that he is back in Juba and holding the second most powerful position in the Transitional Government of National Unity (TGONU).
But to the congregation whose relatives and people they know were killed by Riek forces in Bor, Riek is a sinner. And for that reason, many people think Riek shouldn't have been allowed to go even closer to the first row in the church leave alone standing at the alter and addressing Christians. So in the situation where Riek sees himself like a winner and people see him like a sinner, where does peace belong?

Peace is always at the heart of those who are quick to say sorry and at the heart of those who are quick to forgive. But dilemma comes in when one party fails to say sorry. What does the offended do in that case? The Bible tells us to release such people in our hearts so that our relationship with God can be good. Not because you like what the person did to you but because the Bible says God will do the fighting when you forgive. If we understand these Biblical Concepts as Christians, then Riek Machar visit last Sunday shouldn't be of a big confusion. And only then can peace, concrete and true peace be achieved in this country.

Manyang.davidmayar@gmail.com

Despite an uncertain global economic landscape, Africa’s prospects are positive, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, urging the continent’s leaders to use recent gains to address rising social and economic inequalities.

Acknowledging the sustained progress made on rebuilding Liberia after the 1999-2003 civil war, the United Nations Security Council today terminated an arms embargo against the country and dissolved the related mechanisms, namely the sanctions Committee and the expert panel.

Tanzania is facing a sugar shortage, despite being a relatively large-scale producer of the commodity.

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for South Sudan has strongly condemned the killing of Veronika Racková, a Slovakian nun and medical doctor who was shot on 15 May in Yei, while on a humanitarian mission, and later succumbed to her wounds.

Spain sends sympathies to Nigeria over tomato 'emergency'

Two United Nations agencies have begun providing both seeds and food to nearly 50,000 hungry farming families in some areas of the conflict-torn Central African Republic (CAR) to ensure that they don’t eat seeds meant for planting.

Human Rights Watch

Sudan: Students, Activists at Risk of Torture

Free Detainees; Investigate Abuses

(Nairobi, May 25, 2016) – Sudanese national security officials have detained dozens of students and activists – many of whom are still in custody – without charge since mid-April 2016, during protests on university campuses, Human Rights Watch said today.

Some have been held for more than a month. Others are held in locations that the government has not revealed, without access to lawyers or contact with family, putting them at increased risk of torture.

“Sudan is cracking down on activists, students, and even their lawyers, with abusive and thuggish tactics,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should put a stop to these tactics, immediately make the whereabouts of all detainees known, and release anyone being held without charge.”

The Sudanese government has repeatedly and violently cracked down on protests, including in September and October 2013, when security forces killed more than 170 protesters. Authorities have arbitrarily detained, tortured, and otherwise ill-treated detained protestors, including using sexual violence on female students.

Starting in mid-April 2016, government security forces, including national security and riot police, clamped down on student demonstrations against the sale of Khartoum University buildings, as well as earlier detention of protesters and a range of other issues at other campuses across Sudan.

Government forces have used tear gas, rubber bullets, and batons – and in some cases live ammunition – to break up protests and arrest scores of protesters. Reports that armed pro-government student groups are helping government security forces to break up protests, including with live ammunition, are of particular concern, Human Rights Watch said. Two students were killed and many more injured in El Obeid on April 19, and Omdurman on April 27.

The government accuses the protesters of using violence and has brought murder charges against one, Asim Omer, a 25-year-old student.

During the crackdowns, Sudan's National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) have detained dozens of protesters, including young students and older graduates. Human Rights Watch received credible reports that many of those detained have been beaten and subjected to other forms of ill-treatment. Most have not been charged or had access to family or visits from their lawyers.

If the authorities have credible evidence that any of those detained have committed legitimate offenses, they should have already charged the detainees. Anyone not already charged should be released pending any potential charges the authorities intend to bring, Human Rights Watch said.

Among those held without charge for more than a month is Ahmed Zuhair, in his early 20s, who was arrested on April 13, from a hospital where he and others were being treated for injuries sustained during a protest. Murtada Habani, a civil engineer in his late 50s, and Mohammed Farouk, an engineer in his 40s, were among a group arrested on April 23, during a peaceful demonstration in front of Khartoum University.

Authorities have also detained lawyers and student activists during legal consultations. On the afternoon of May 5, a group of about 15 armed national security officials raided the Khartoum law offices of a prominent lawyer, Nabil Adeeb, and arrested a group of students, their family members, and office staff. The students were getting legal advice on appealing a May 3 university decision to suspend or dismiss the students.

The security officers separated the lawyers from their clients, forced most from both groups to squat on the floor, and beat many of them, before forcing about 16 people into police cars, witnesses told Human Rights Watch. The authorities also confiscated Adeeb's laptop. Security officials also arrested several other students who were not at the meeting, but whom the university had previously dismissed or suspended. Most are held at unrevealed locations, without access to visitors.

All NISS detainees are at risk of ill-treatment and torture, Human Rights Watch said.

Badr Eldin Saleh, a 25-year-old first-year student who was detained on April 13 for 10 days, was beaten while in detention. Family members told Human Rights Watch that when they met him he told them he had been beaten and insulted, was unable to walk easily, and had marks of beating on his back. Saleh was rearrested on May 5 at Adeeb's office and remains in detention at an undisclosed location.

Female students arrested in April, but since released, told Sudanese monitors that NISS staff sexually harassed them during interrogations. At least three women, including Mai Adil, a student leader in her early 20s and women's rights activist, were arrested again recently and are being held by NISS at Omdurman Women's Prison without charge or access to visitors.

Sudanese authorities have stifled reporting on the protests and restricted media freedoms. Editions of Al Jareeda, a daily newspaper, have been confiscated five times, most likely because of its reporting on the demonstrations. Zuhair, one of those arrested in April at a hospital, had been attempting to report on the demonstrations, credible sources said. In late May NISS confiscated another publication, Al Mustaqila, twice, without providing any reason or grounds.

Human Rights Watch is also concerned about other detainees in NISS custody, some of whom have been in detention for many months. Abdelmonim Abdelmowla, a Darfuri graduate, was arrested in December 2015 with a Darfuri student, Ali Omar Musa. While Musa was released in May 2016, Abdelmowla remains in NISS detention without charge, his lawyers told Human Rights Watch.

“There is no justification for Sudan using or condoning violence and abuse to silence protesters and activists, or arbitrarily detaining them and denying access to lawyers and other due process protections,” Bekele said. “Authorities should immediately put an end to these abuses and respond to public protest in a manner that respects basic freedoms of expression and assembly.”

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Sudan, please visit:
https://www.hrw.org/africa/sudan

For more information, please contact:
In New York, Jehanne Henry (English, French): +1-917-443-2724 (mobile); or henryj@hrw.org. Twitter: @JehanneHenry
In Amsterdam, Leslie Lefkow (English): +31-6-21597356 (mobile); or lefkowl@hrw.org. Twitter: @LefkowHRW

By Magdi El Gizouli

Death ended Hassan al-Turabi's long political career last March in the most suitable of places. Hassan collapsed in his office in the headquarters of the Popular Congress Party (PCP) in Khartoum's upscale Riyadh neighbourhood as he was going around his daily business as party leader. He passed away in Royal Care Hospital, the top private health care facility in Sudan. The physicians treating him broke their Hippocratic oaths sharing details of his clinical condition on social media in apparent glee. In Hassan al-Turabi's theology, this office death would equate with death on a prayer mat, prostrate in praise of the Lord. It was actually this claim that political action for the good of Islam was a spiritual matter, equal if not superior to actual prayer, that constituted his most significant contribution to the politics of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the mid sixties Hassan al-Turabi led a sectarian split from the Sudanese version of the Muslim Brotherhood, modelled after Egyptian precedent, precisely on these grounds.

The debate at the time was framed as one between the ‘educationalist' and the ‘political' bloc. The first advocated a gradualist transformation of society through the education of individual members to become pious Muslims who could then inspire others. Turabi, on the other hand, was unsatisfied with the inherited notion of piety. A pious Muslim has the duty to face the challenges of the modern world, he argued, and these he located primarily in the nation state and the market. A modern Muslim's engagement in the struggles of power, politics and business, is a form of ibada meaning servitude to Allah, Turabi opined. The position that Turabi advocated would allow a man like Nafie Ali Nafie, Sudan's spy chief during the early 1990s, to torture opponents with impunity as a spiritual duty born out of the obligation to defend an Islamic political order. At the time Turabi made these arguments these events were in the distant future, and his reasoning was not only attractive but of epochal consequences. Young Sudanese Muslim men and women, who passed through school and university education and crossed class and racial barriers as they did so moving up social hierarchies, were in search of a way to live out their faith in Islam as well as their baptism in modernity in political terms. Many found Turabi's reasoning enlightening and empowering. When speaking of this era Turabi fondly recalls that the Islamic Movement of the sixties and seventies was a fraternity of equals with no ‘sheikh' standing above to dictate decisions, and he his partially true. He only ignores that the Islamic Movement's inner democracy was a victim of his eminence. He continued to lead the Islamic Movement since that eventful conference in 1964 until he ordered its dissolution in 1989 with pervasive authority. His critics within the Islamic Movement vanished from the scene one by one in defeat. The Islamic Movement was Turabi's horse as it were. He sacrificed it for the stable of the state.

In this Khalduniyan cycle of growth and decline, the Islamic Movement under Turabi offered its members, largely young men and women from small town backgrounds, a brotherhood and more important probably a sisterhood of equals. Men from affluent Khartoumian backgrounds like Ghazi al-Attabani fraternised with the Zaghawa Khalil Ibrahim and the Shilluk Mango Ajak under the banner of Islam. The assumed organic unity of faith was far from sufficient to address the deep historical divide between the riverine heartland and the peripheries of the country. Rather, the Islamic Movement proved a catalyser of fissions and the version of Islam it employed to win the state divisive and deadly evolving as an ideology of the state into a punishing racist doctrine of exclusivity rather than the universal challenger of zulm (injustice) that Turabi preached.

Whenever he enraged the state, Turabi could count on the shield of kith and kin to spare him the most rabid reactions of the powerful. As the heir of a Sufi hero married to a granddaughter of the Mahdi, Turabi could pursue his dream of power with remarkable bravado. He knew how to navigate and utilise riverine Sudan's system of privileges while he railed against it. Turabi was a frequent inmate under Nimayri and under Bashir but his life was too connected to be cut off. Nimayri killed Abd al-Khalig Mahjoub, the former leader of the Communist Party, on accusation of responsibility for the abortive 1971 coup but spared Turabi after the 1976 raid against Khartoum from Libyan bases in which the Islamic Movement was full blown partner.Turabi, a school friend of Nimayri, reaped the benefits of the bloody operation in the form of a reconciliation with the rayes. Mohamed Nur Saad, the officer who led the campaign, was executed and Turabi became a minister. The alliance with Nimayri was crucial to the Islamic Movement's eventual rise to power in 1989. Bashir incarcerated Turabi several times for alleged ties to the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) but sat at his deathbed in Royal Care hospital. Khalil Ibrahim, the leader of the JEM and a veteran mujahid, gasped his last breath under a tree close to Wad Banda, North Kordofan, in an airstrike targeting his convoy.

Turabi argued his way through the contradictions of his political career by claiming that the Islamic Movement was continuously under threat from its adversaries and behind them Western powers intent on extinguishing the very possibility of an Islamic polity. Hence, he reasoned, it was justified to strike the alliance with Nimayri the dictator and US ally, and to carry out a military coup against a parliamentary system in which the Islamic Movement was kingmaker. Turabi's anti-colonial drive, genuine as it might be, targeted the capture of the state inherited from the colonial order, a mission he did achieve. Beyond that objective, Turabi's reworking of the state accentuated its coercive and extractive character and did little to domesticate it in favour of the peoples it reigned over. The state he was forced to part with in December 1999 when President Bashir declared a state of emergency and dissolved parliament was an angry beast that wages war as a form of governance and still continues to do so today, not unlike its colonial predecessors. Turabi's anti-colonialism is more ambivalent than it seems. You could listen to him dismiss Western education as a tool of cultural hegemony in terms a bit more subtle than Boko Haram and brag about his London Masters and Sorbonne doctorate in the same salvo of rhetoric. The sheikh as he came to be known believed in Western modernity but preferred to phrase his belief in an Islamic idiom.

Abd al-Wahab El-Affendi argued recently that Turabi's true legacy, the embodiment of his intellectual contribution to Islamic reform, is Ennahda Movement in Tunisia given Turabi's influence on its leader Rashid al-Ghannoushi. The admired Turabi here is the pan-Islamic champion of freedoms for women, universal shura, arts, sciences and sports; the mufti of modernity who fuses al-Shatibi and Hegel and is ready to challenge centuries of Islamic reaction. A keen disciple might manage to selectively patch together this image of Turabi from his written and spoken record. He actively nursed this image as an oppositionist during an era when ‘political Islam' was a newly minted brand. Indeed, Turabi enjoyed stellar success with young women from small town Sudan who were seeking to overcome patriarchal barriers to their education and careers without breaking with the social system in which they were embedded. The left's inability to think the Muslim woman limited the attraction of its agenda for emancipation despite a remarkable record in the 1950's and 1960s. Turabi picked up where the left appeared handicapped. For a while, the charismatic Dr. Hassan enjoyed the status of a rockstar among women believers in the cause. The hijab which Turabi promoted to replace the cumbersome tob appeared to the cosmopolitan women of upper and middle class Khartoum a detestable symbol of suppression. The aspiring Muslim woman of small town and rural Sudan though found in the hijab a ticket to the opportunities of the capital city and the wider world and a legitimate licence to flout the gender barriers and roles of her upbringing.

In power, Turabi drew on the human resources that the Islamic Movement provided, the young men and women who looked up to him as a Mahdi of the new age, to cement the power he shared with the military officers of 1989. Rather then reinvent Islam for the lofty emancipatory purposes that El-Affendi claims were inherited by Ennahda, Turabi invested in war as a tool of nation-making. The faithful of the Islamic Movement, the Manshiyya resident cheering behind, flocked to the war fronts in southern Sudan to wage a jihad against their fellow citizens. When his purposes changed Turabi signed a political accord with the Sudan Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) under John Garang, the very enemy he declared a legitimate target of holy war, earning himself several months in prison. Some of the faithful jihad veterans could not stomach the new twist and escaped the harsh realpolitik of the sheikh to the cushion of Sufi spirituality. The core Islamic Movement as such did not recover from the Turabist roller-coaster and is today a hollow structure displaced wholly by the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). Contrary to expectations, the NCP mutated beyond the control of its founder Hassan al-Turabi when his disciples turned against him preferring the shield of power under the command of the military to the trappings of Turabi's transnational ambitions. The sheikh miscalculated and lost. He pursued a politics of anger for a decade before reversing course once again to become Bashir's main partner in ‘national dialogue'. Turabi's PCP rehashed the old argument of imminent threat saying the fate of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt informed the decision. Hassan al-Turabi's legacy, I presume, is not Ennahda whatever his influence was on al-Ghannoushi and his followers but the NCP and the injunction of prayer to the state.

May 24, 2016 (JUBA) – South Sudan's Vice President, James Wani Igga, has told forces of the Tiger Battalion which are redeployed around the national capital, Juba, to stay alert and be ready for any eventualities.

South Sudan's vice-president, James Wani Igga, speaks at the opening of the national reconciliation and peace conference in Wau on 2 September 2014 (ST)

Igga, in his speech broadcasted on the state-owned South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC) on Monday evening, made the warning to the troops of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) of President Salva Kiir's faction when he visited them on Monday near Nesitu, east of Juba.

The third powerful politician in the war-ravaged nation who is an ally to President Kiir during the two years of the civil war that ended in August 2015, told the forces to always be on alert like members of an ethnic group, the Kachipo, who he said allegedly wash one eye at a time in order for the other eye to see what was going on.

“Comrades, you should always wash your face like the Kachipo. The Kachipo do not cover both eyes like we do when washing our faces. They first wash one eye while using the other one to see and guard against any attacker around them,” Vice President Igga told the forces who responded by singing war songs in Dinka language.

Also, the newly appointed presidential adviser on Military Affairs, General Daniel Awet Akot, who accompanied the Vice President to the military base, congratulated the Tiger Division for a “job well done” in fighting the war against the opposition faction of the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO) led by the current First Vice President, Riek Machar.

The presidential guards reportedly are recruited in Bahr el Ghazal region by the current chief of general staff, Paul Malong Awan, when he was governor of Northern Bahr el Ghazal state.

The Vice President also told the forces to stem out tribalism among them and promote reconciliation.

It was not clear why the senior government politicians visited the forces around Juba and urged for readiness.

(ST)

May 24, 2016 (KHARTOUM)- The opposition Future Forces of Change (FFC) and the National Dialogue's Higher Coordination Committee (7+7) have agreed to continue joint meetings over inclusive dialogue and the African Union-brokered Roadmap Agreement.

The opening session of the first roundtable on Sudan's national dialogue in Khartoum on 6 April 2014 (SUNA)

The FFC coalition includes several parties that were part of the government controlled national dialogue, but they decided to suspend their participation in the process demanding to ensure freedoms and include the other opposition forces including the armed groups.

Speaking to journalists following the third meeting on Tuesday, Hamid Mumtaz of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and 7+7 member, said that both parties have agreed to continue discussions on the participation of the holdout political forces so as to ensure the inclusiveness of the dialogue process and to end the armed conflicts in Sudan.

In the meantime, FFC spokesperson, Ahmed Abu-al-Gasim, said that the joint committee decided to continue next week the discussion on the agendas in the hope of reaching an all-inclusive dialogue leading to end war in Sudan.

Last March, the chief mediator Thabo Mbeki encouraged the two sides to engage the discussions, hoping that the opposition FFC groups would join the process and contribute to hold an inclusive dialogue.

The armed groups and the National Umma Party (NUP) have refused to sign a roadmap he proposed asking for the inclusion of all the opposition groups and to ensure political freedoms.

In separate statements, the head of FFC media sector Mayada Suwar al-Dahab, described the meeting as "positive" adding that the two parties agreed on the inclusiveness of the dialogue and to continue discussions to include all the parties before to hold the National Dialogue General Assembly.

Last Monday the ruling NCP announced that the general assembly will be held next October with the participation of the willing political parties and armed groups.

FFC political secretary and deputy chairman of the Reform Now Movement (RNM) Hassan Rizq last week said the dialogue conference wasn't inclusive.

he further said that FFC sees that the outcome of the dialogue conference must be dealt with as a step towards the inclusive dialogue, saying the holdout opposition should develop their own proposals and then the two sides could reach joint recommendations.

(ST)

May 24, 2016 (RUMBEK) - At least three people were killed and two others sustained injuries in a revenge attack that occurred in Rumbek North county of Western Lakes state.

Cows in front of Luak, a Dinak Bor traditional house for keeping cattle on December 28, 2011 (ST)

Officials say pastoralists from Tonj state crossed into Rumbek North county border and raided cattle, a move that provoked Rumbek North youth to raid Tonj state.

The two state governments have deployed security forces along suspect routes as a mechanism to avoid future raids.

Western Lakes state minister for local government and law enforcement, Benjamin Makuer confirmed the incident, but said security had been beefed along the borders.

“Our commissioner in Rumbek North [county] is implementing the order, he has so far collected 101 cows that were identified to be from Tonj state, which were raided by youth from Rumbek North [county]”, said Makuer.

“We shall make sure all cows are returned to Tonj,” he added.

Tonj state governor, Akec Tong Aleu had also instructed county commissioners bordering Western Lakes state to identity the cows raided from Rumbek to be collected and returned back to their rightful owners within two weeks.

(ST)

May 24, 2016 (RUMBEK) - Lawmakers in South Sudan's Western Lakes state on Tuesday passed a resolution directing the state ministry of local government and law enforcement agency to deal with illegal tax collectors.

Map detail of South Sudan showing Lakes state in red

The chairman of market committee surveillance, Madhieu Makuac Adhil said several institutions are involved in collecting taxes in Rumbek market without proper authorisation from authorities concerned with tax collection.

“The ministry of finance, trade and industry is in charge for tax collection from all businesses operators, but local security agents have turned into tax collectors on streets, from shop to shop and establishing more road blocks without justification,” he said.

At its seventh session held in Rumbek, 17 members passed the vote against four, authorizing the local government ministry to deal with illegal tax collectors.

“There will be an auditing body and investigation body to track those involved and if anybody is found guilty, immediately that person must face law,” said Madhieu.

He also cautioned the public to desist from illegally using the form designed by the finance ministry for tax collection.

Meanwhile, Western Lakes state minister for local government and law enforcement, Benjamin Makuer Mabor has directed that the order from MPs be imposed.

The need to establish a state revenue authority and supervision of fuel stations to avoid unnecessary collection of money were some of the recommendations passed.

MPs also resolved that all authorities involved in the market's regulation be removed.

(ST)

May 24 2016 (YAMBIO) - The Chairperson for Yambio county land dispute committee has been shot in Yambio town, capital of Western Equatoria state by unknown gunman.

Rev. Father Charles Bangbe (File Photo ST)

Speaking to Sudan Tribune from Yambio Hospital where doctors were attending to his bullet wound, Reverend Father Charles Bangbe, explained that an armed man with AK47 rifle entered his bedroom at around 10:00 pm and ordered him to sit down, then shot him. The unknown gunman who shot him on his left hand left, thinking that he was dead.

Reverend Bangbe who doubles as Secretary General for Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Church CEEC, said he could not remember having a personal problem with an individual that could result to the attempt to murder him.

He however said such an incident could be related to the land issues because he had had been solving land cases in the land committee set up by the state government to address disputes in Yambio county.

“I am a pastor and think I have no problem with anyone which could result to attempt to kill me. I believe it may be connected to the land issues that I am solving to give back the land to the owners,” he said.

Mayor of Yambio Municipality, Badagbu Daniel, condemned the incident in the “strongest term” and he called upon the people of Yambio town to remain calm while the government was working hard to investigate and bring the culprit to book. No arrest has been made so far.

Meanwhile the Senior Rector of CEEC in South Sudan, Canon Yepeta Nathan, urged the people of the newly created Gbudue State [Western Equatoria] to refrain from killings but should forgive one other.

He further urged the people of Gbudue State to pray hard for peace in the whole country.

Church leaders have been targets in several incidences in Yambio since the outbreak of the conflict which resulted into unknown gunmen killing people at night and threatening others to die soon.

One of the Episcopal Church pastor in Birisi survived death at the onset of the conflict in the area and church properties have been looted and houses around the church burnt.

This is the first shooting since peace was signed between South Sudan government and South Sudan National Liberation Movement in early April 2016.

South Sudan is known for rampant lawlessness as such unknown gunmen also terrify citizens including in the capital, Juba, where President Salva Kiir's government is based.

(ST)

May 23, 2016 (JUBA) - South Sudan lawmakers have unanimously supported the nation's membership to the East African Community (EAC) at a special parliamentary sitting, despite opposition's outcry.

South Sudanese MPs stand during a parliamentary session in Juba on 31 August 2011 (AFP)

South Sudan was admitted to the five nation bloc this year, five years since the application was dropped at the headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania. Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya are other members of the EAC, first established in the 1970s.

Philip Thon Leek, chairperson for foreign affairs and international cooperation, presented the motion in parliament on Tuesday, outlining possible benefits in joining the group.

“South Sudan will have a chance to work with powerful investors especially for large infrastructure projects [such as Africa power master plan, East Africa network, East African railway]. This will enable South Sudan to integrate its oil pipeline projects in addition to transportation of imports and exports cheaply,” said Thon.

Members of the main opposition Democratic Change (DC) Party protested the sitting, describing it as illegal since the Transitional Government of Nation Unity (TGoNU) was established under the terms of peace agreement signed last year.

Onyoti Adigo, the leader of minority in parliament said there should be no more parliamentary business without reconstitution of the transitional national legislative assembly as stipulated in the peace agreement signed in August 2015 to end 21 months of fighting between the government of President Salva Kiir and armed opposition faction led by Riek Machar.

"The assembly should be expanded to 400 members and there is no need to continue with any business without the new leadership in the house," Adigo told reporters on Monday.

The opposition lawmaker is also critical on the disadvantages posed by joining the EAC because South Sudan will be a dumping ground and receiver without exporting anything to southern neighbouring countries of Uganda and Kenya.

Philip Thon Leek, an MP representing Duk county and a former governor of Jonglei state, agreed that there are challenges amidst the opportunities for South Sudan in the EAC.

“Job opportunity is one of the major disadvantages that will be felt immediately due to disparity in the level of education and technical skills. South Sudan has only 27% literacy rate compared to 78% in partner states,” he said.

“Definitely after joining the East African Community, some of the phenomena of white color job will follow suit. This will be true of international NGOs operating in the country," he said, emphasizing that many South Sudanese will be outcompeted in the job markets if South Sudan open her borders to experts from neighbouring countries.

He said local industries will be affected negatively, stating their growths will be hampered because "established industries will take over the market."

He said the government now has a duty to promote local growth and development.

(ST)

May 23, 2016 (KHARTOUM) - The Egyptian-Sudanese Higher Committee (ESHC) would start a two-day meeting at the level of under-secretaries of ministries and experts in Khartoum Wednesday to discuss a number of joint issues including the disputed Halayeb triangle.

Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir (L) shakes hands with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, during a news conference after their meeting in Cairo on 19 October 2014 (Photo: Reuters)

The Sudanese side will be headed by the foreign ministry under-secretary Abdel-Ghani al-Naim while the Egyptian side will be chaired by the assistant foreign minister for neighbouring countries, Osama al-Majdoub.

Sudanese presidential assistant Musa Mohamed Ahmed said the issue of Halayeb is of great significance, stressing that the government stance in this regard is “constant and declared”.

He told reporters following his meeting with the Vice President Hassabo Monhamed Abdel-Rahman Monday that the government doesn't deal with Halyeb as a political issue but rather a matter of sovereignty.

Ahmed further pointed to joint efforts that have been made during the previous period to avoid escalation that could adversely impact on the two peoples and nations, expressing confidence that the problem could be overcome.

The Halayeb triangle overlooks the Red Sea and has been a contentious issue between Egypt and Sudan since 1958, shortly after Sudan gained independence from British-Egyptian rule.

The area has been under Cairo's full military control since the mid-1990's following a Sudanese backed attempt on former Egyptian president Mohamed Hosni Mubarak's life.
Egypt brushed aside Sudan's repeated calls for engaging in direct negotiations to resolve case or referring the dispute to international arbitration.

Relations between Sudan and Egypt have been frosty over the past few years, but they've recently begun to thaw thanks to a series of conciliatory diplomatic gestures.
In October 2014, presidents of the two countries upgraded representation in a joint committee aimed at strengthening bilateral ties.

Meetings of the three levels of the ESHC usually begin by the meeting of the under-secretaries and experts followed by the meeting of the foreign ministers and conclude with a presidential meeting between the two heads of states.

Khartoum would host the meeting of the experts and undersecretaries between 25 to 26 May while the ministerial and presidential meetings will be held in Cairo at a later date.

(ST)

May 24, 2016 (WASHINGTON) – An advocacy group, Enough Project, said there was need in South Sudan to bring to justice the leaders responsible for the 2013 crisis.

US peace activist John Prendergast speaking to senior South Sudan army officers during his visit to Bor February 9, 2014 (Photo: Larco Lomoyat)

Authored by John Prendergast, Founding Director of the Enough Project, he said the statement presented the case for the United States (U.S.) and the broader international community to counter what he said was the violent kleptocracy.

The 9-page brief statement, entitled “The Paper Tiger in South Sudan: Threats without Consequences for Atrocities and Kleptocracy” was followed. The brief presents critical recommendations for U.S. leadership, including imposing and enforcing targeted sanctions on senior officials of consequence in order to pressure these leaders to place the well-being of their people ahead of personal enrichment and power politics.

“After 30 years of either living in, visiting, or working in South Sudan, and after extensive analysis undertaken by my colleagues at the Enough Project, our collective conclusion is that the primary root cause for the atrocities and instability that mark South Sudan's short history is that the government there quickly morphed into a violent kleptocracy,” Deng said.
“Grand corruption and extreme violence are not aberrations; they are the system,” he said.

An elite pact, he added, like the current peace deal between the Juba government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army-In Opposition (SPLA-IO) may be the quickest path out of the immediate violence.

He said unless the violent “kleptocratic” system is addressed head-on by policymakers internationally, the billions of dollars spent annually for peacekeeping, humanitarian aid, and the ongoing diplomacy and assistance supporting the peace deal there will simply be treating symptoms, not addressing the primary root cause of cyclical conflict.

“The surest way for the United States and the broader international community to create real consequences and build critically-needed leverage for peace is by hitting the leaders of rival kleptocratic factions in South Sudan where it hurts the most: their wallets,” the statement said.

The lack of money requires a hard-target transnational search for dirty money and corrupt deals made by government officials, rebel leaders, arms traffickers, complicit bankers, and mining and oil company representatives.”

“Addressing root causes will require much greater international leverage, which until now has been a cripplingly and puzzlingly insufficient part of international efforts to support peace and human rights in South Sudan.”

“Sanctions, anti-money laundering measures, prosecutions, asset seizure and forfeiture, and other economic tools of 21st-century foreign policy are key instruments in securing foreign policy goals,” it said.

The administration, it said, should consider enacting secondary sanctions that would target foreign financial institutions engaged in facilitation of public corruption in South Sudan.

Additionally, sectoral sanctions could be deployed to limit certain types of financing available for future (rather than current) petroleum projects.”

The representatives see some evidence that officials from countries neighbouring South Sudan may have played a role in facilitating or helping to conceal the offshoring of their assets.

“The United States has tools at its disposal to foster significant change and help to end the suffering on the ground in South Sudan,” it said.

He said the Obama administration should deploy the tools of financial pressure accordingly, and the U.S. Congress should work to ensure that the agencies responsible for administering sanctions and leveraging such tools have sufficient resources and staff to fulfil this mission.

(ST)