Day: October 8, 2021

French President Emmanuel Macron faced the frustration of young people from across Africa on Friday over a range of issues, including migration and the vestiges of colonialism, at a summit aiming to turn the page with the continent.

Billed as a chance to prove France’s commitment in particular to young Africans, the Africa-France summit gathering some 3,000 business leaders, artists and athletes in the southern city of Montpellier was largely dominated by the region’s crises.

“I can no longer stand to see African youths dying in the sea” trying to reach Europe, a woman told Macron as he visited the dozens of round tables at the vast Sud de France arena overlooking the Mediterranean.

A young Guinean urged him to “support the transition” after the military coup that deposed the West African country’s long-time president Alpha Conde last month.

Sibila Saminatou Ouedraogo, a Burkina Faso participant at the conference, said that African nations — many of them former French colonies — still labored under a “relationship of dependency” towards France that was holding back their development.

More than 1,000 youths were at the gathering which, though dubbed a “summit” by the French hosts, pointedly excluded leaders other than Macron.

‘System of humiliation’

The French president will later debate with 12 young people chosen by the Cameroon intellectual Achille Mbembe, who was tasked with organizing the meeting.

“We hope that Montpellier will mark a fresh start — that people listen to Africa and African youths, which have things to say to the world and France,” said Bakary Sambe, director of the Timbuktu Institute.

But the meeting also comes as many youths in particular have bristled at Macron’s decision to slash visas to Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians in a dispute on illegal immigration.

Mehdi Alioua, a political science professor in Rabat, denounced “a collective punishment” and a “system of humiliation” — sparking fierce applause.

“We’re stuck between condescending language from the West that want to educate Africans, and language from our governments claiming that the West wants to impose its values,” said Habiba Issa Moussa, a Nigerian studying in France.

Expectations are high that Macron will announce concrete steps such as those proposed by Mbembe, which include a fund for promoting democratic initiatives or increased opportunities for students to study abroad.

In a report given to the president this week, Mbembe said France was failing to recognize “new movements and political and culture experiments” underway in several countries.

After arriving in Montpellier, Macron said 26 artworks and other prized artefacts stolen by French colonial forces from Benin a century ago would be returned this month as promised.

Source: Voice of America

An alleged participant in the 1994 Rwandan genocide faces a possible 30 years in prison after U.S. officials deported him to Kigali, where he was taken into custody after his arrival Thursday.

Oswald Rurangwa, 59, escorted by U.S. security officials, was deported to Rwanda on a private jet. U.S. Embassy officials received him at Kigali International Airport and immediately handed him over to Rwandan security staff. Rurangwa was handcuffed and led into a waiting Rwanda Investigation Bureau van.

Speaking to reporters at the airport, Rwanda Prosecution Authority spokesman Faustin Nkusi said Rurangwa was the head of Interahamwe militia in the Gisozi sector, a suburb of Kigali, during the genocide.

“He participated in many acts of the genocide, including planning meetings, joining mobs of attackers, and killing. He committed genocide crimes, complicity to genocide, inciting people to commit genocide, murder and extermination as a crime against humanity,” Nkusi said.

“We issued an arrest warrant against him in 2008, but this coincided with the Gacaca [court] ruling that had already been handed down to him. So, the U.S. judicial authorities deported him to serve his sentence here,” he added.

In 2007, a Gacaca, or Rwandan community court, tried Rurangwa in absentia, finding him guilty of genocide and sentencing him to 30 years behind bars.

U.S. attorney Charles Kambanda, who is familiar with the case and knowledgeable about legal affairs in Central Africa, said the U.S. had a different rationale for deporting Rurangwa.

“Oswald Rurangwa was sent to Rwanda purely on account of immigration fraud,” the New York state-based attorney told the VOA Central Africa Service. “This means he was deported, not extradited. ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] handed him over.”

According to the prosecution, Rurangwa fled Rwanda in 1994 for the Kibumba refugee camp in what was then Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. He later moved to another camp, Kayindu, before applying for asylum in the United States in 1996.

Nkusi said Rwandan law permits Rurangwa to have his case retried.

“You have seen that he has been assigned an attorney,” Nkusi said, adding that Rurangwa would be informed of the earlier ruling and given a copy of his sentence. “He will also be informed about his right [of appeal] because even though he was sentenced in absentia, he has the right to have the case retried.”

Rurangwa was being taken to Mageragere prison, Nkusi said.

Source: Voice of America

Cameroon’s Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute visited the troubled western regions this week, calling for armed separatists to lay down their weapons or be killed. Civilians and rights groups say peace will only return if the government declares a cease-fire.

Ngute was met with shooting in Matazen, an English-speaking village bordering the French-speaking West region of Cameroon. He was rushed to his car.

Military troops said hidden separatist fighters in the surrounding bush wanted to scare civilians who were welcoming Ngute on his way to Bamenda, capital of the English-speaking North West region. The military said it did not fire back and the shooters escaped.

Ngute told hundreds of civilians in Bamenda that he was the bearer of a special message. He spoke in Pidgin, a popular language in Cameroon’s English-speaking western regions.

Ngute said Cameroonian president Paul Biya sent him to ask for an end to fighting, killing and the destruction of property. He said most Cameroonians want an end to the separatist crisis.

Fighters in the English-speaking regions who refuse to drop their weapons will be killed, Ngute said.

Scores of senior state functionaries, government ministers, lawmakers, traditional rulers and clergy accompanied Biya’s envoy to Bamenda.

Asheri Kilo, secretary of state in the Ministry of Basic Education, said Ngute asked leaders to give the separatists a message.

“He made us know that peace cannot come if we do not start it, if we do not promote it,” said Kilo, who is from Bui, an administrative unit near Bamenda called Division. “And he also intimated that we should continue to tell the truth to our people. We should continue to tell them that whatever they are looking for in the name of a Southern Cameroon [breakaway state] will never happen.”

Civilians carried billboards asking for an immediate cease-fire.

Daniel Fondoh, a French-speaking activist with the rights group Dynamique Citoyenne, said the Cameroonian government will likely not stop the fighting if it does not withdraw its military and begin negotiations with fighters for a return to peace. If the government of Cameroon continues to send its troops to fight the separatists, the central African state will continue to lose the lives of its citizens, Fondoh added.

Cameroon says it has created a special status for the English-speaking regions as a solution to the demands made by English speakers in the majority French-speaking nation. The special status means assemblies of chiefs, regional assemblies and regional councils for the two English-speaking regions, with each of them having elected presidents and three commissioners responsible for economic, health, social, educational, sports and cultural development affairs.

The special status for the English-speaking regions was proposed duringa grand national dialogue called by Biya from September 30 through October 4, 2019, to propose solutions to the crisis in the country’s English-speaking regions. Separatists reject the special status.

The United Nations says that the separatist war has forced more than 500,000 people to flee their homes since the conflict erupted in late 2017. More than 3,000 people have been killed.

Source: Voice of America