January 11, 2022

Man Accused of South African Parliament Fire Faces Terrorism Charge

The South African man charged with arson for burning down large parts of the country’s historic parliament buildings has also been charged with terrorism.

Forty-nine-year-old Zandile Christmas Mafe made his second appearance in court Tuesday. He is now facing several charges related to the fire, including terrorism, arson, breaking and entering and theft.

Mafe was arrested shortly after the fire erupted at the parliament buildings in Cape Town in the early hours of January 2nd.

He was allegedly found with laptops, documents and crockery in his possession. Prosecutors now say he was also in possession of an explosive device, hence the additional terrorism charge.

In his first court appearance his lawyer denied all charges against him.

Mafe has since changed lawyers, and is now being represented by the famous Dali Mpofu, who is affiliated with the left-wing Economic Freedom Fighters political party.

Mpfou has also been representing the country’s former president Jacob Zuma, who was jailed for contempt of court.

Mafe’s bail hearing was postponed till the 11th of February and he will be detained in a psychiatric institute.

It was revealed that he’d already been sent for psychiatric observation on January 3rd and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

The estimated damage to the parliament complex is just over 14 million U.S. dollars. That excludes the cost of moveable assets inside, like computers and furniture.

Source: Voice of America

January 11, 2022

At UN Security Council, Africans Urge Support for ECOWAS Mali Sanctions

The African members of the U.N. Security Council urged their counterparts on Tuesday to support sanctions imposed this week on Mali’s coup leaders by a bloc of West African nations.

“We call for the Security Council to respect and embrace the determination of the heads of state and government of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), that the proposal by the authorities to extend the transition to five years is unacceptable and that an expedited transition to constitutional rule in Mali should be undertaken without delay,” Michel Biang, Gabon’s U.N. ambassador, told the 15-nation council on behalf of his government, Ghana and Kenya. The three African states currently hold seats on the Security Council.

In a special summit on January 9, ECOWAS members imposed sanctions on Mali’s military government, which seized power in a coup, after it said it would not hold elections on Feb. 27, 2022, but at the end of 2025.

The sanctions include the closing of land and air borders between ECOWAS member states and Mali; the suspension of all commercial and financial transactions (with humanitarian exemptions); the freezing of assets and public enterprises located in the region in commercial banks; and the suspension of financial assistance from ECOWAS.

Mali responded by closing its borders with ECOWAS states and recalling its ambassadors.

“The number one interest of the A3 (Gabon, Ghana and Kenya) is in a peaceful and secure Mali, whose government reflects the will of its people and that is in full control of its territory,” Kenya’s U.N. envoy Martin Kimani told reporters following the meeting.

He urged the Malian authorities to comply with ECOWAS’s conditions for the gradual removal of the sanctions by producing an acceptable transitional calendar.

“In his address to the nation on 10 January, our president stated that despite the illegal, illegitimate and inhumane nature of these decisions, Mali remains open to dialogue with ECOWAS to strike a balance between the interests of the Malian people and respect for the principles of the organization,” Issa Konfourou, Mali’s U.N. ambassador, said of Interim President Assimi Goita.

The United Nations, which has more than 15,000 peacekeeping troops and police in the country, urged a quick resolution to issues linked to the transition.

“A protracted impasse will make it much harder to find a consensual way out, while increasing hardship for the population and further weakening state capacity,” the head of the U.N. mission, El-Ghassim Wane, told the council. “Such a scenario will have far-reaching consequences for Mali and its neighbors.”

Mercenaries

Several Western council members expressed concern about reports that Russian-backed mercenaries have been invited to Mali by the transitional military government.

“The confirmed presence of the Wagner Group in Mali risks destabilizing the country further,” Britain’s Deputy U.N. envoy James Kariuki told the council, referring to the contractors by name.

“The deployment of mercenaries will only increase the challenges facing Mali,” he said. “We urge the Malian authorities to rethink their decision.”

“We regret the fact that transitional authorities are using already limited public funds to pay foreign mercenaries, rather than supporting the national forces and public services for the benefit of the Malian people,” French Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere said. “France and its closest partners robustly condemn the deployment on Malian territory of mercenaries from the Wagner Group who are known to threaten civilians, pillage resources, violate international law and the sovereignty of states.”

Western states have accused Wagner mercenaries of involvement in conflicts in Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic and Ukraine.

Russia has denied any links with the group, and its envoy dismissed his counterparts’ accusations.

“We believe Malians have every right to interact with other partners that are ready to cooperate in promoting security,” Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said. “The hysteria around a Russian private military company is another manifestation of double standards, because it is well known that this market is dominated by Western countries.”

Mali’s envoy denied that mercenaries are present on its territory, saying those who accuse the government are engaging in a “false information campaign.”

Konfourou said the two countries have a long relationship dating to the 1960s and currently, Moscow has military personnel in Mali to train its military on Russian equipment.

Source: Voice of America

January 11, 2022

Eight Burkina Soldiers Accused of Plot to ‘Destabilize Institutions’

Eight soldiers including a high-ranking commander have been detained over a “plot to destabilize” Burkina Faso’s institutions, military prosecutors and security sources said Tuesday.

The military prosecutor’s office in the capital, Ouagadougou, said it had learned of an “allegation of a project to destabilize the institutions of the republic being planned by a group of soldiers.”

The office learned of the plot on Saturday after “a member of the gang” denounced the plan, it said in a statement.

An investigation has been launched and eight soldiers have been detained for questioning, the statement added.

The West African nation’s government has come under sustained pressure over failures to stem the bloodshed of a brutal six-year jihadist insurgency that claimed about 2,000 lives and forced 1.4 million from their homes.

Security sources told AFP that Lieutenant Colonel Emmanuel Zoungrana, the commander of western forces fighting jihadists in the country, was among those arrested.

One of the security sources said that “suspicions of a plot to destabilize (the government) with ramifications abroad” hung over Zoungrana and several soldiers since protests in November.

Hundreds took to the streets on November 27 to protest the state’s inability to stop the jihadist violence, with about 10 injured in clashes between demonstrators and police.

Tensions had been raised after 57 people, including 53 police officers, were killed by a jihadi attack that overran a northern Inata base earlier in November.

Two weeks before the Inata attack, the police based there had warned the authorities of their precarious situation, saying they were so short of food and were relying on poaching to eat.

Last month in a bid to defuse public anger over the jihadi violence, President Roch Marc Christian Kabore accepted the government’s resignation.

Lassina Zerbo, a former U.N. official who was installed as the prime minister of the new government, has called for “cohesion” in the face of the jihadi threat.

Like its neighbors Mali and Niger, Burkina Faso has been caught in a spiral of violence since 2015, attributed to jihadi groups affiliated with al-Qaida and the Islamic State militant group.

Source: Voice of America

January 11, 2022

Malians Face Economic Sanctions and Border Closures

West African sanctions imposed on Mali this week, after the country’s military government postponed elections, block all but essential commercial and financial transactions. While the punitive move aims to pressure the military to hold elections as promised in February, experts say ordinary Malians are also set to suffer.

Regional bloc ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, imposed sanctions on Mali after a special summit on January 9 held in Accra.

ECOWAS had already sanctioned members of Mali’s military government and threatened further sanctions if Mali’s military leaders did not abide by a formerly agreed upon election date of February 2022.

In December, Malian leaders proposed holding the next presidential elections in 2026.

Malian President Assimi Goita said that he remains open to further dialogue with ECOWAS to find a solution, despite “illegitimate, illegal, and inhumane” decisions by the regional bloc, and urged them to reconsider sanctions.

He said, we call on ECOWAS once again, for a thorough analysis of the situation in our country, placing the best interests of the Malian population above all other considerations.

Salimata Coulibaly, like more than 70% of Malians, works in the informal sector.

After finishing school, she was unemployed, and opened a shop with her family selling used appliances, children’s toys, and clothes brought by shipping container from France via Senegal.

This merchandise will not be able to pass into Mali along with other nonessential goods, while the sanctions are in place. Salimata and her family rely on the store’s income for basic living expenses.

Right now, she said, everything we do depends on the store. If we can’t get the containers here, it’s going to get us into trouble. Frankly, it will really get us into trouble. But we pray to God that ECOWAS and Mali can find an agreement, so that all this is over.

Kobi Annan, a risk consultant based in Accra with Songhai Advisory, a firm that does political and economic risk analyses in sub-Saharan Africa, said that Senegal is Mali’s biggest import partner.

He said that the widespread support of the military government in Mali will play a role in how Malian citizens view the sanctions.

“People will probably be willing to take a bit of suffering for a kind of patriotic stand, to show that Mali will not just back down in the face of opposition from ECOWAS. I think they will get to a point where it will start to get difficult. Mali is an import-heavy economy. They do well, relatively, in terms of food subsistence, but other things have to be imported, and as a landlocked country that’s especially difficult if your land borders are closed,” he said.

Guinea’s military junta released a televised statement Monday affirming the country’s support for Mali and stating that borders between Mali and neighboring Guinea will remain open.

Guinea’s former president Alpha Conde was ousted in a coup d’état in September 2021, and the country has been under military rule since. ECOWAS has mounted pressure on Guinea to return to constitutional rule.

An open border with Guinea, just 130 kilometers southwest of Bamako, gives Mali access to the port of Conakry.

Source: Voice of America

January 11, 2022

UN Expresses Dismay Over Human Rights Situation in Tunisia

The U.N. human rights office says it is seriously concerned about what it sees as a deteriorating human rights situation in Tunisia and is calling on the government to protect and respect the rights and freedoms of its people.

One of the latest gross violations occurred on December 31. On that day, two men, one a member of parliament and former justice minister, and the second man, a former interior ministry official, were snatched from their homes by men in plain clothes. They subsequently were bundled into cars and driven away without any explanation to unknown destinations.

U.N. human rights spokeswoman Liz Throssell says the lawmaker, Noureddine Bhiri, subsequently was put under house arrest. Since he has a heart condition, he has been transferred to a hospital, where he remains under guard.

The second man taken away, identified in media reports as Fathi Baldi, is now under house arrest.

Throssel says the men reportedly are suspected of terrorism-related offenses, though neither has been formally charged.

“Although the men’s families and the U.N. Human Rights Office in Tunisia have since been able to visit them, these two incidents echo practices not seen since the Ben Ali era and raise serious questions regarding abduction, enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention,” Throssel said.

Ben Ali was Tunisia’s authoritarian leader from 1987 until he was ousted by Arab Spring street protests in 2011. He died in self-exile in Saudi Arabia in 2019.

The U.N. rights office is urging Tunisian authorities to promptly let the men do free or charge them according to due process standards for criminal proceedings.

Following violent demonstrations on September 1, spokeswoman Throssell says President Kais Saied called on the country’s Internal Security Forces to change their practices and respect the rights and freedoms of the Tunisian people.

However, she noted authorities have yet to translate their words into action.

“As well as the actions of the Internal Security Forces, we are concerned at the stifling of dissent in Tunisia, including through the improper use of counter-terrorism legislation, and the increasing use of military courts to try civilians, which raise serious concerns regarding the equitable, impartial and independent administration of justice,” Throssell said.

U.N. officials say Tunisia has made tremendous progress toward promoting and realizing human rights over the past decade. They urge authorities to continue in that pathway.

They call on them to reform the security and justice sectors so they are fully compliant with Tunisia’s international human rights obligations.

Source: Voice of America

January 11, 2022

Award-winning Ugandan Writer Charged for Offending Museveni and Son

A Ugandan author who wrote critical comments about President Yoweri Museveni’s son has been charged with offensive communications. Kakwenza Rukirabashaija’s lawyer says he was tortured in detention.

Award-winning writer Kakwenza Rukirabashaija appeared before a court Tuesday and was charged with two counts of offensive communication.

Rukirabashaija was arrested on December 28 and taken from his Kampala home. The government says he was using his Twitter account to offend President Yoweri Museveni and his son, Commander of Land Forces Lieutenant General Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

The writer’s lawyer, Eron Kiiza, tells VOA he was not made aware of his client’s court appearance until later.

“This was a clandestine move intended to deny him an opportunity for legal representation and an opportunity to pursue his legal remedies like bail and opposing the charges which are bogus,” said Kiiza.

Rukirabashaija’s court appearance comes a day after the high court issued an order for it to take place before the close of business Wednesday.

The magistrate Tuesday also issued an order for him to be subjected to a medical examination by prison authorities to ascertain his health status.

During a January 3rd search at his home in Iganga district in the Eastern region, the writer reportedly whispered to his wife that he had been tortured. Photos of his blood-stained undergarments were later posted on social media.

The author was allegedly detained at the Special Forces Command facility in Entebbe, a claim the army vehemently denied.

The award-winning writer has been remanded to a prison facility until January 21, when he reappears before a court.

This is the third time he has been arrested. The first time was in April 2020 for his novel, The Greedy Barbarian, a fictional account of high-level corruption. He was again arrested the following September for his second novel titled Banana Republic, which detailed torture.

He won the PEN Pinter Prize International Writer of Courage Award in 2021.

Source: Voice of America