Category: General

UNICEF says 4.5 million children in South Sudan face a humanitarian crisis and the organization needs more money to help.

The announcement comes on the 10th anniversary of the country’s independence.

The “hopes that independence would bring a new dawn for the country’s children have faded,” UNICEF said in a press release.

The group cites conflict, flooding, droughts and deepening economic woes for the problems, adding that a recent peace agreement has only “partially been implemented” and has not improved the situation for children.

UNICEF says it needs $180 million to help the most vulnerable children in South Sudan.

“If we, as a humanitarian community, do not receive sufficient funding, the reality for children and families is that no help will be coming,” said UNICEF South Sudan Representative Andrea Suley.

UNICEF says 8.3 million people in South Sudan need humanitarian support, which they say is even higher than during the 2013-2018 civil war.

Source: Voice of America

NKANDLA (South Africa)— Hundreds of supporters of Jacob Zuma marched alongside the former South African president in his hometown of Nkandla on Saturday, a show of force against a court decision to jail him for 15 months for failing to appear at a corruption inquiry.

The constitutional court on Tuesday gave Zuma 15 months in jail for absconding in February from the inquiry led by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo. Zuma has until the end of Sunday to hand himself in, after which police are obliged to arrest him.

“They can give Zuma 15 months … or 100 months. He’s not going to serve even one day or one minute of that,” his son Edward Zuma said at the gathering. “They would have to kill me before they put their hands on him.”

The jail sentence was seen as sign of just how far Zuma, once a revered veteran of the struggle against white minority rule, has fallen since embarking on a presidency beset by multiple sleaze and graft scandals between 2009 and 2018.

His downfall has divided the ruling African National Congress, which cancelled an executive committee meeting over the weekend in order to focus on the ensuing crisis.

The ex-leader has applied to the court for the sentence to be annulled on the grounds that it is excessive and could expose him to COVID-19.

Zuma, who did not speak to his supporters but is expected to address them on Sunday, wore a black and gold tropical shirt as he walked through the crowd, but no mask. He was guarded by men dressed as traditional warriors from his Zulu nation, wearing leopard skins and holding spears with oval ox-hide shields.

In an application to annul the decision submitted on Friday, Zuma said going to jail “would put him at the highest risk of death” from the pandemic because he was nearly 80 and has a medical condition.

Zuma also called the sentence a “political statement of exemplary punishment”. He has maintained he is the victim of a political witch hunt and that Zondo is biased against him.

Zuma gave in to pressure to quit and yield to his successor, Cyril Ramaphosa, in 2018, and since then has faced several attempts to bring him to book for alleged corruption during and before his time as president.

The Zondo Commission is examining allegations that he allowed three Indian-born businessmen, the brothers Atul, Ajay and Rajesh Gupta, to plunder state resources and influence policy. He and the brothers, who fled to Dubai after Zuma’s ouster, deny wrongdoing.

Zuma also faces a separate court case relating to a US$2 billion arms deal in 1999 when he was deputy president.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Fourteen bases that had been run jointly by the United Nations and the African Union in Sudan’s Darfur region for 13 years are now under Sudan’s control and to be used by local populations.

The recent official handover comes in accordance with a framework agreement signed on March 4 between the United Nations and African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) and Sudan.

The U.N. Security Council voted last year to turn over the sites to the Sudanese government, but M’Baye Babacar Cissé, U.N. assistant secretary-general, said the repatriation of equipment and staff from Darfur had been going on for four months.

“The main beneficiaries in fact were the local communities and the IDPs (internally displaced persons) and the teams’ sites were supposed to be used as vocational training centers, education centers, clinics, health centers or community activity centers,” Babacar told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus program.

Eight of the 14 sites were stripped bare by looters from the local communities in Darfur. But some of the sites are serving locals, Babacar said, referencing the former outposts known as Zalenji and Kalma.

Zalenji “is now [under] the University of Zalenji,” where early occupation of the sites by the university of the same name prevented looting, he said.

“… Kalma was transferred to the IDPs and now they are the ones managing Kalma as [a] health center,” Babacar told VOA.

UNAMID repatriated its peacekeeping equipment to its respective countries along with about 6,000 staff members who had performed peacekeeping operations in Darfur since December 2020. Some of those operations, however, were interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Babacar said.

“We had at the end of December 2020 programmatic activities as well as state liaison projects that were implemented by the U.N. agencies that were not completed because of the COVID crises that affected the operation.”

The pandemic interrupted some community projects that were directly under the supervision of Civil Affairs of UNAMID, including water projects and community engagement workshops with youth, women and local traditional leaders.

The U.N. diplomat said Sudan’s transitional government now has the responsibility of protecting civilians against attacks in Darfur.

“The government is committed to putting together a joint force to protect the local community and the U.N. will continue to support that end, but we will no longer have a physical protection mandate,” Babacar told VOA.

During UNAMID’s 13-year mandate, it had more than 97,000 peacekeepers including military and police in Darfur, drawn from 110 countries. It will leave behind a small contingent estimated to be 1,000 to 1,500 individuals.

Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded this year in Darfur, an area plagued by deadly violence for decades during the administration of former President Omar al Bashir.

Dozens of people were killed in January shortly after the peacekeepers announced their phased withdrawal from the region. Arab militias attacked a displacement camp in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur. Five days of fighting between Arab and Masalit tribesmen in April left 87 people dead and more than 190 people wounded, according to the Sudanese Doctors Committee in West Darfur.

Source: Voice of America

Tanzanian opposition leaders and rights activists held a forum Thursday urging the government to revise the constitution to allow more political space. The forum, called “Katiba Day,” which means constitution day, comes after President Samia Hassan asked Tanzanians to give her time to first fix the economy.

The movement was fueled by President Samia Hassan’s remarks Monday, when she held her first press conference.

Hassan urged Tanzanians to give her more time before she can allow the banned political rallies to resume and revive the stalled process of drafting a new constitution.

“Give me some more time so that I can stabilize Tanzania economically, inviting investors to invest and creating jobs and then the rest will follow,” the president said. “When the time arrives, we will deal with the issue of the new constitution and lifting the ban on political rallies. Right now we do allow political parties to organize meetings with their people, and I think you see that.”

The late President John Magufuli halted the process of drafting a new constitution soon after taking office in 2015 and banned political rallies the following year.

Opposition politicians say there’s no reason to give President Hassan time, saying that democracy cannot limit economic growth.

Benson Singo is the deputy secretary of the Party for Democracy and Progress, better known as Chadema.

“The constitution needs to be written not for the president’s wishes but for the wishes of Tanzanians,” he says, adding that his party will not agree to give the president additional time, because even Magufuli requested more time to build the country. “When we gave it to him, he dropped the economy,” he said.

Rights groups say the president should focus on the constitution since it facilitates stability.

Onesmo Olengurumwa is the director of the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders coalition.

“The things the president wants to do will go smoothly if she has a constitution that allows her to do them with the assurance of stability,” he said, adding that “she has to do things in the national interest, not in her own interests.”

Tanzania is currently governed by the 1977 constitution that was formed under a single-party system. Opposition and critics are challenging it since it favors the ruling CCM party.

Source: Voice of America

A proposed law aims to prevent South Africans from obtaining firearm licenses for self-defense. While gun critics say limiting access to guns has proven successful in reducing deaths, some proponents argue that taking guns out of some hands — specifically, women’s hands — will deepen what the president has called a “second pandemic,” of gender-based violence.

South Africa’s rate of intimate femicide — the killing of women by their partners — is five times the global average, according to the World Health Organization.

And the big driver of that, they argue, is the nation’s high rate of gun ownership. That’s the argument from South African legislators pushing this bill, that fewer guns in public hands has statistically led to fewer gun deaths.

Gun owners and advocates disagree, and say it matters who is holding the gun. One particularly vocal group consists of women, who say the constant threat of violence calls for self-defense. The nation’s unacceptably high rate of sexual violence once led Interpol to name the country the “rape capital of the world.” President Cyril Ramaphosa recently described gender-based violence as the nation’s “second epidemic.”

This 33-year-old woman asked us to conceal her identity out of fear for her safety. That’s because in the space of three months, she said, she was raped multiple times, first by a gun-toting home intruder who broke into her house repeatedly and threatened to kill her sleeping brother, and then by the friend she confided in. She says both men had guns and used them to terrorize her.

Now, she wants one, too, and is seeking a license for self-defense.

“Because I’ll have it with me, I feel like I’ll be empowered. And should anything that is life-threatening happen — and obviously, I’ll try and get out of the situation — but if I can’t, then I’ll do what I can to save my life,” she said. “It basically could be the dividing line between life and death. And I’ve been in those, and I feel like I need to take charge and take a stand. I have been failed so many times, and I think it’s time to stop blaming other people and think what could what could I do differently to keep myself safe and to keep my life safe. So, I feel like it would help empower me to know that I don’t have to give in. If I can’t get out of it, then there’s a way to disable them from doing what they’re trying to do to me or anybody around me at that time.”

Her pain was compounded, she said, when her parents blamed her for the assaults. She said she has spent years in therapy and has no desire for revenge.

Lynette Oxley is a licensed firearms dealer in Johannesburg who works with women seeking gun licenses. She’s also an accomplished sport shooter. In 2015, she founded Girls on Fire, a group that represents women who own guns for sport and self-defense.

She says she trains women to think of guns as a deterrent.

“If you talk to all of the lady firearm owners that I’ve spoken to through the years, they say it actually makes you less aggressive, because you’re aware that if you do take that step, it’s a big step,” said Oxley. “It’s not something that you actually want to do. So actually, it calms you down. It makes you actually think about scenarios. And the big thing is, get out of this scenario if you can. But … if you are attacked, then obviously that is the best way of defending yourself against a bigger stronger perpetrator.”

But, says researcher Nechama Brodie, who studies gender-based violence, the very valid fears women have can’t necessarily be solved with more guns. She pointed to the last time South Africa’s government tried to restrict gun access in the early 2000s. Studies showed that gun deaths from femicide dropped significantly.

“I really do understand, as a woman living in South Africa, how vulnerable you feel,” Brodie said. “And how we imagine, because we’re told by Hollywood, as well as by gun owner lobbies, that having a firearm on your person is the one thing that’s going to make you safe. But the data shows us that firearms make all of us anything but safe, and the most important step that we could take to improve women’s safety in South Africa would be to disarm more men, not to arm more women.”

Brodie argues that if the goal is to protect women, there are other, less dangerous interventions, like better street lighting, more community safety initiatives and burglar bars on homes.

All of these women agree on the actual problem here: South African girls and women feel unsafe — on the streets and in their homes — every day.

But are guns the answer? That’s the question facing Parliament in coming months.

Source: Voice of America

Our guest for today is Dwayne Darnell Martin, an assistant film director, from the U SA. He’s been here with his crew to shoot for a documentary film. Here’s a brief chat about his observation of what Eritrea truly is.

It’s really nice to have you here, Dwayne. Welcome back to Eritrea. Let’s start with your documentary production house. What triggered you to work on Eritrea?

When I first came out here, when I started doing research and told people I was coming, they warned me against coming. They were saying a lot of horrible things. So I had some hesitations. I thought I was a well-read person and studied pretty well, but I never heard about the country and its background. So I thought it was odd. When I first came to the country, it was totally opposite from what people said. It was warm and welcoming. Everyone was happy; I saw nobody down, upset or mad. It was just very interesting and I thought that if I had that experience maybe other people should know about it. So it’s more out of curiosity.

What was the narrative you heard about Eritrea before you got here and what difference did you see?

I had some reservations about coming here just because of the negative media coverage. But I talked to people and asked all the right questions and that’s not the perception I came away with. I asked very pointed questions and people were very open and they gave me direct answers. It was a 180 degree difference from what I saw on the media.

From what you have observed, can you tell me why the world has been so unjust to Eritrea?

I think Eritreans just want to have self-determination and mark out their own future. I think they are being villainized to a certain degree because they have been a beacon to the rest of the world of how to have self-determination and how you stand up against colonial and imperial powers. They don’t really give people motivation to rise from their own countries to take control of their own narratives. They rather do like they did to some other countries and just reap their resources and extract them from the people. When anyone stands against that and defeats them, that’s not something they want to expose and bring to light. I don’t think Eritrea is any different from or any worse than anybody else. In fact, the women’s empowerment, women’s equality and their different cultures all in one unified people; it’s almost like a Wakanda to me. I have never seen anything like this in America. The Christians, the Muslims and all the different ethnic groups put that to the side and respect their culture. At the end of the day, they have one unified culture. People from outside would love to come and divide and conquer, but that’s impossible because there’s so much unity here.

I’ve heard you visited different cities and villages of the country, including colleges and hospitals. What did you notice about the social service facilities?

They were all professional and they were all staffed with people who are very passionate. They had the most modern equipment, most modern medicine and nobody paid anything. The doctors were trained here in the country, which is another good thing, and it was amazing. Everybody had an opportunity to participate, nobody was left out. People didn’t have to travel to the city center to get treatment. They have made sure the clinics were available for people in the communities. So everybody had access. They also had referral services. You can start in your local district and if you had a larger problem they refer you to the bigger hospitals. Everybody was passionate.

It’s wonderful for a country that has been in war for decades to want to educate every person, to make sure that they are taken care of as far as health is concerned. It’s just beautiful and shows the idea of the community that you want to represent to the world. It’s phenomenal, it’s impressive and it should be the standard for every country. You are still building from the ground up but you want to make sure that you dedicate resources to the people and that’s just beautiful.

We live in a small corner of Africa. But the peace and security we have is unmatched. What have you observed firsthand about the peace and security in Eritrea?

It was totally peaceful. I didn’t see any places with guns; I didn’t see any check points. Everybody just walks nonchalant, nobody’s worried about anything. I saw kids playing in the streets. They seem that they have total freedom, total safety. And women walking by themselves at night, it’s a beautiful place. I mean I live in a nice neighborhood back at home but I don’t know if my kids go play as freely. I’m not sure about the surrounding areas, so it seems more free here than back home. Nobody gets pulled over by the cops; it’s all one people. Back at home you see cops every ten minutes, good or bad. Out here, it’s not even needed. It’s peaceful, I feel totally safe.

What’s the overall impression you’ve got from the Eritrean people in general? Have they met your expectations?

They surpassed my expectations, everybody was very humble, very nice. The people are very peaceful. The first thing somebody told me was ‘welcome home, brother’. They didn’t know who I was and where I’m from, they could tell I was an outsider and they said welcome. Nobody made me feel out of place, I felt nothing but warmth and acceptance.

Nipsey Hussel is from my community. He motivated the community with principles I think he learned here about self-determination and perseverance, and I think that’s why he is so popular and well received. He had messages aside from rap; it was more about taking control of your community and ownership. That’s why people like him and respect him and that’s why his legacy still continues today.

I want to encourage people to see it for themselves and to maybe take a visit because it’s very easy from a distance to believe the things on the media and everything has a spin for a reason.

You’ve come here on more than one occasion. What changes have you seen?

When I first came here there was still some tense situation with Ethiopia. Since then they’ve made peace and people are happy to make the peace and that’s been the focus.

Thank you again.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

Eritrea is endowed with enormous potential. Boasting a 1,200-kilometer coastline and a fair share of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — an important strategic connection in the maritime commerce route, pristine beaches and dozens of secluded islands that make it a one-of-a-kind tourist destination, it also has a young, vibrant population, and, importantly, enjoys a semblance of peace in a turbulent region. The list could go on and on. All of these things were supposed to have led to Eritrea’s prosperity.

But after 18 years of independence, the once-promising country was isolated and sanctioned for nearly a decade. According to Yemane G. Meskel, Eritrea’s Information minister, these actions were nothing but politically engineered charges that resulted in deleterious economic consequences and an imposed climate of insecurity that cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars in potential revenue.

Why did the international community come to assume Eritrea was accountable for crimes it had not perpetrated and ultimately impose sanctions on it? To understand this, we must unwind and look back in time. In the 1940s, Haile Selassie, then-emperor of Ethiopia, had expansionist ambitions, made his desire to expand Ethiopia’s territory by annexing Eritrea known to the world at the Paris Peace Conference and the First Session of the United Nations, and sought assistance from the United States in annexing Eritrea, then under British protectorate military control.

The Americans, who felt indebted to Ethiopia for their assistance in World War 2, agreed and used every tactic possible to ensure Ethiopia’s regime maintained the upper hand. As a result, the US declined to support Eritrea’s desire for independence. Although these events occurred more than half a century ago, they explain US policy views and actions towards Eritrea in its post-independence history.

Subsequently, Emperor Selassie abrogated the UN-sponsored Federal Act and annexed Eritrea in 1962 with the blessing of the US. During the Eritrean War of Independence, which lasted until 1991, the United States continued to support Ethiopia militarily and diplomatically – resulting in the deaths of some 250,000 Eritreans.

In 2008 and 2009, the TPLF regime launched a campaign, again with US backing, targeting Eritrea. Its support to the TPLF regime, including supporting Ethiopia’s disastrous invasion of Somalia, demonstrates America’s unwavering backing, which included always following Ethiopia’s policy in the region; the TPLF campaign culminated in a slew of international sanctions placed on Eritrea.

Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea ( SEMG) Role

The UN Security Council established an “expert Monitoring Group,” which churned out reports alleging Eritrea’s support for the al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab terrorist organization. In retrospect, it is now clear that the overarching purpose behind these fallacious reports was to weaken and downgrade Eritrea’s defense capabilities and pave the way for agendas of re-annexation by the TPLF–dominated Ethiopian regime.

According to media accounts and eyewitnesses, the Intelligence Section of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) enlisted the help of a prominent member of the Monitoring Group. The accounts narrate visits to Alshabab prisoners in Kenyan and Ethiopian prisons by key members of the Monitoring Group, offering them deals in return for evidence pointing to Eritrea as their sponsors. The false “witness testimonies” were published as incriminating evidence and facts in the Monitoring Group Reports, which led to the adoption of the sanctions.

The late Girma Asmerom, Eritrea’s ambassador to the United Nations until his death in 2016 questioned whether the Monitoring Group assertions had been corroborated by solid information and that their findings are substantiated by credible sources. Asmerom stated that the SEMG itself admits that in compiling the report it has relied on “defectors”, “unnamed diplomats”, and “authorities in East African countries”, and “confidential notes submitted by regional authorities”.

The international community did not listen to Eritrea’s arguments, whose pleas went unheeded. When the sanctions were implemented, Ethiopia’s government still occupied parts of Eritrean land and threatened additional attacks.

An arms embargo was also placed on Eritrea when Ethiopia was buying hundreds of millions of dollars in weaponry. These untenable positions lead to the disturbing inference that the world might have been tacitly supporting another annexation of Eritrea — a repeat of the hand dealt to Eritrea in the 1950s and 60s.

Eritrea’s comeback

The regional dynamics have changed since July 2018. Eritrea and the new government in Ethiopia signed a Peace Agreement in Asmara, which led to full normalization of relations with the resumption of full diplomatic ties, air services, and a formal cessation of military hostilities. Families estranged by the war and subsequent climate of perpetual tension have been united. Furthermore, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia signed a Tripartite Agreement allowing all the three countries to embark on the path of robust regional economic cooperation as well as “close political, economic, social, cultural and security ties.”

While the world appears to have conspired against the small country, Eritrea managed to survive from the crippling sanctions; with the sanctions’ lifting, Eritrea now has a chance to start on a clean slate. The country has significant natural riches that have remained untapped, including oil reserves beneath the Red Sea and significant gold deposits in the Zara mountains.

The investment opportunities are many – the extractive sector, manufacturing, fishing, agriculture, and tourism, to name a few. In recent years, the government’s emphasis has been on physical infrastructure – although legal and administrative infrastructures are already in place – to foster an enabling environment. Much attention is also being paid to domestic investment by Eritrean citizens. Regional cooperation agreements now being negotiated provide another layer to the investment matrix.

The prospective investment sectors are many and diverse, including the extractive industry, manufacturing, fishing, agriculture, and tourism. Because the legal and administrative infrastructures are already in place, the Eritrean government has concentrated its efforts in recent years on improving the physical infrastructure to create a more favorable atmosphere.

Déjà vu

When the unjustifiable sanctions were removed, and the normality was picking up, a similar plot that began in the 1940s appears to take up again in Eritrea, keep the nation under another set of harsh sanctions, different powers in Europe and the US that have used TPLF as a proxy political organization to promote their regional objectives are playing the role they played in the last century again.

There are now ongoing diplomatic and media efforts to resurrect the defunct TPLF, turn the clock back, and establish a state of perpetual tension and war in the region. Even considering diplomatic lethargy and entrenched interests on the part of certain parties, this contradicts logic and common sense.

Similarly, the European Union is pursuing a misguided aim of resurrecting the TPLF regime. They ignore the fact that the TPLF launched massive, premeditated, unprovoked, and reckless attacks on Ethiopia’s Northern Command to neutralize this large contingent, appropriating its weaponry, including Ethiopia’s entire arsenal seizing power in Ethiopia before attacking Eritrea.

Despite the enormous level of criminality committed by the TPLF group, several EU nations seem eager to somehow rehabilitate the criminal organization at the cost of Eritrea’s sovereignty. It’s mind-boggling. This is the backdrop to the unwarranted inferences that Eritrea is once again witnessing from the EU and the United States. Will the world allow another injustice to be perpetrated against a nation with so many opportunities? Time will tell!

Source: Dehai Eritrea Online