Day: January 6, 2022

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has announced that Beijing will soon appoint a special envoy for the Horn of Africa. Wang’s announcement during a visit to Kenya on Thursday comes as the U.S. envoy to the Horn heads to Ethiopia, which has been struggling with over a year of war. The region has also seen setbacks from a coup in Sudan and an election stand-off in Somalia.

The visiting Chinese top diplomat said his country will appoint a special envoy to lead the peace process in the Horn of Africa.

Speaking in the coastal Kenyan city of Mombasa, Wang said his country will support the people of the Horn of Africa in finding peace.

He said it was important to have a consultation on equal footing and to put the destiny of this region firmly in its own people’s hands. He suggested countries in the region might convene a conference on the peace of the Horn of Africa. He added that in order to discuss this matter in depth, to share political consensus and to coordinate actions, China will appoint a special envoy to provide the necessary support for this process.

The plan to appoint a special envoy for a war-torn region is seen as part of China’s ambitious plan to play a role in the region’s politics and security.

The announcement comes as U.S. special envoy for the region Jeffrey Feltman is expected to visit Ethiopia in a renewed effort to end that country’s conflict.

China is among the countries suspected of supplying military hardware to the Ethiopian government, including drones.

Nasong’o Muliro, an international relations lecturer at the Technical University in Kenya, said China is turning from economic issues to military matters.

“Special representatives are not purely for trade. They do a lot of peace and security matters… But once China starts flexing its military power and having bases, then we may go to proxy wars,” Muliro said.

The U.S. Department of Defense, in its annual report to Congress on China’s military activities, said Beijing wants to establish military bases in Kenya and Tanzania, a claim denied by China.

Ethiopia is facing political instability after the government launched an offensive against rebels in the Tigray region in November 2020. The conflict has led to millions of people being displaced and tens of thousands dead. The 14-month-old war threatens to split the country.

Kenya’s Foreign Minister Raychelle Omamo said Wang and Kenyan officials also discussed trade issues during the foreign minister’s two-day visit.

“We signed an MOU (memorandum of understanding) and the establishment of a working group will look into the issues of tariff and non-tariff barriers to Kenya-China trade and to fast-track and increase exports from Kenya to China. Both sides also concluded and signed two protocols to facilitate bilateral trade, particularly in the export of avocados and aquatic products from Kenya to China,” Omamo said.

The Chinese delegation visited the Kipevu oil terminal in Mombasa, which cost $400 million to build.

Chinese money accounts for 67% of Kenya’s external debt, and many Kenyans fear the country may lose control of key facilities like the Mombasa port if Kenya fails to repay the loans.

Source: Voice of America

A bill that would have increased the punishment for homosexual acts in Senegal from 5 years to 10 years will not be voted on, after lawmakers in a parliament committee on Wednesday rejected approving it for a vote by the full legislative body.

While prosecutions targeting gay people are rare, a 2020 survey by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, an activist group, said such prosecutions are on the rise in the West African country.

The rejected law, introduced in December, would have increased jail time to 10 years for anyone who commits an “act against nature” with someone of the same gender.

The bill would have also targeted “lesbianism, bisexuality, transsexuality, intersexuality, bestiality, necrophilia and similar practices,” AFP reported.

In its most recent international human rights report, published in March 2021, the U.S. State Department criticized Senegal for “violence or threats of violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex persons” and the “existence or use of laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults.”

Homosexuality is widely viewed as deviant in Senegal, which is 95% Muslim.

Proponents of the bill said they would continue to seek its passage.

According to Reuters, Ghana is also considering lengthening jail time for same-sex activity.

Source: Voice of America

Russian soldiers have deployed to Timbuktu in northern Mali to train Malian forces at a base vacated by French troops last month, Mali’s army spokesperson said Thursday.

Mali’s government said last month that “Russian trainers” had arrived in the country, but Bamako and Moscow have so far provided few details on the deployment, including how many soldiers are involved or the Russian troops’ precise mission.

The Russians’ arrival has generated sharp criticism from Western countries, led by former colonial power France. They say the forces include contractors from the mercenary Wagner Group, which they accuse of human rights abuses in other countries.

Mali’s government has denied this, saying the Russian troops are in the country as part of a bilateral agreement.

“We had new acquisitions of planes and equipment from them [the Russians],” the Mali army spokesperson told Reuters. “It costs a lot less to train us on site than for us to go over there. … What is the harm?”

He did not say how many Russians had been sent to Timbuktu.

Local residents told Reuters that uniformed Russian men were seen driving around town but could not say how many there were.

Russia’s defense ministry was not immediately available for comment.

The Russian forces’ arrival in Mali follows deployments to several other African hot spots, part of what analysts say is an attempt by Moscow to recover influence on the continent after a long absence following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.

France helped to recapture Timbuktu from al-Qaida-linked militants in 2013. France’s withdrawal from the city is part of a significant drawdown of a previously 5,000-strong task force in West Africa’s Sahel region sent to battle jihadist groups.

Source: Voice of America

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday named career diplomat David Satterfield as the new special envoy to the troubled Horn of Africa.

Satterfield, 67, who has experience in the Persian Gulf states, Lebanon and Iraq, most recently has served as ambassador to Turkey. He is replacing Jeffrey Feltman, another veteran diplomat, who had held the Horn of Africa posting, covering the countries of Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia, since last April.

In making the appointment, Blinken said, “Ambassador Satterfield’s decades of diplomatic experience and work amidst some of the world’s most challenging conflicts will be instrumental in our continued effort to promote a peaceful and prosperous Horn of Africa and to advance U.S. interests in this strategic region.”

The top U.S. diplomat said Feltman, 63, would continue to work at the State Department in an advisory capacity on African affairs.

In assessing his tenure in the Horn of Africa in November, Feltman pleaded for an end to the “violence, humanitarian catastrophe and atrocities in northern Ethiopia,” in the Tigray, Amhara and Afar regions.

The Ethiopian government has been at war with Tigray’s ruling TPLF party since November 2020.

“But we are also deeply concerned with violence and tensions elsewhere in Ethiopia,” Feltman said. “If not addressed through dialogue and consensus, these problems can contribute to the deterioration of the integrity of the state.”

Last month, the State Department also expressed concern about Somalia’s delayed elections and what it called “the procedural irregularities that have undermined the credibility” of those polls.

Source: Voice of America