Category: General

The conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region appears to be escalating, with reports that Tigrayan and Amhara forces are recruiting more youths to fight in the country’s north. Aid agencies are warning that a drawn-out war in Ethiopia would cost thousands more lives and worsen food insecurity.

Local media reports forces from Ethiopia’s Amhara, Oromia and Sidama region are mobilizing to attack Tigrayan forces, a few weeks after Ethiopia’s government declared a unilateral cease-fire in the country’s north.

Many now fear the fighting in Tigray may turn into an ethnic conflict.

“In the last three-four days, the fighting is over there. The TPLF wants to go back and take some of those lands which belonged to the Amhara, which were taken in the last 27 years. So it seems the Amhara are resisting and fighting back there. So things are not really that great in terms of talking about the suffering of the people there,” Obang Metho who heads the Solidarity Movement for New Ethiopia, an organization fighting for social justice told VOA. Metho says the fighting is concentrated at the Tigray-Amhara border.

The disputed territories are the Welkait, Tegede, Humera, Telemte and Raya districts. The Amhara claim the land was taken from them when the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front took control of the national government in 1991.

Amhara, the second biggest ethnic group in Ethiopia, took over some disputed areas between the two federal states in the north of the country last year.

This week, the government in Addis Ababa, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, threatened to end its cease-fire, blaming Tigray rebel forces for provocation.

Ethiopian political commentator Befekadu Hailu says the conflict between the Amhara and Tigray needs a political solution.

“Since Ethiopian politics is shaped by ethnicity and regions are named after ethnic groups, it sounds like the ethnic groups are fighting,” Hailu told VOA. “So very distinct, the Tigray regional state has its own militia force and Amhara regional state has its own militia. So these militias are receiving instructions from their regional governments and they are fighting because they are instructed by their political leaders. So it’s not some random and communal driven conflict but it’s a politically driven one.”

Fisseha Tekle, an Ethiopian researcher for rights group Amnesty International, says civilians are caught in the latest fighting in the north and security forces are carrying out discriminatory arrests.

“The situation remains dire and the conflict seems to escalate this week. But what follows is that since the withdrawal of the Ethiopian national defense force in parts of Tigray, there has been a wave of arrests and detention targeting Tigrayans in Addis and out of Addis. So we have spoken to family members, lawyers and friends of those people who are affected. So it shows that Tigrayans are being targeted by Ethiopian security forces,” Tekle said.

The Tigray conflict has driven some 50,000 people into neighboring Sudan and caused a hunger crisis affecting millions. The region is largely cut off from the rest of the country and aid agencies are struggling to access the area to provide needed humanitarian and medical assistance.

Source: Voice of America

The World Meteorological Organization is calling for action to halt climate change as extreme weather becomes the norm rather than the exception.

Heavy rainfall this week has triggered devastating floods across western Europe, killing and injuring scores of people, destroying homes and livelihoods. At the same time, parts of Scandinavia — northern Europe’s coldest region — are enduring scorching temperatures.

The Finnish Meteorological Institute says Finland had its warmest June on record, which has extended into July. Southern Finland it notes has had 27 consecutive days with temperatures above 25 degrees Celsius. By Finland’s normally frigid temperatures, that qualifies as a heatwave.

The western U.S. and Canada also have been gripped by heat, with many records broken in states of Nevada and Utah. Last August, Death Valley, California reached a temperature of 54.4 degrees Celsius, the world’s highest temperature record. But meteorologists believe Death Valley may have equaled that record a week ago on July 9.

The spokeswoman for the World Meteorological Organization, Clare Nullis, says the heatwave in the western U.S. has led to megadrought conditions and numerous wildfires.

“The heatwave that we saw in parts of the U.S. and Canada at the end of June…This heatwave would have been virtually impossible without the influence of human-caused climate change,” said Nullis. “Climate change, caused by greenhouse gas emissions, made the heatwave at least 150 times more likely.”

Nullis says climate change already is increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. She adds many single events have been shown to have been made worse by global warming.

“We need to step up climate action,” said Nullis. “We need to step up the level of ambition. We are not doing really enough to stay within the targets of the Paris agreement and keep temperatures below two degrees Celsius, even 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.”

The spokeswoman’s call echoes that of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who is urging all countries to do more to avoid a climate catastrophe linked to rising carbon dioxide emissions and temperatures.

Source: Voice of America

Sudan’s vice president visited South Sudan’s capital on Wednesday to reiterate Khartoum’s support for its neighbor and to urge the government and armed groups to fully implement the 2018 peace agreement.

After meeting with President Salva Kiir, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, vice president of Sudan’s transitional government, said Sudan will continue to offer its support to the peace partners in South Sudan so they can carry out security arrangements and other parts of the deal that have yet to be implemented.

Dagalo commended South Sudan’s leaders for progress made in reconstituting the National Legislative Assembly, the council of states and establishing state governments.  He said they need to move more quickly on implementing agreed-to security arrangements, especially the training of government and former rebel forces into a unified army.

“We have been assured that the joint forces are going to be graduated [from training], and this is positive news. And we hope that their graduation should not delay any more because we want to see the second batch go for training as well,” said Dagalo. He said Sudan would be monitoring “this development more closely through the different joint committees,” as a guarantor of the peace deal.

Chapter two of the revitalized peace agreement requires the parties to form a unified  army. The first group of forces registered at training centers across the country have remained at the camps for nearly two years.

Dagalo said implementing the peace deal is the only means to guarantee stability in the country.

He added that “a stable South Sudan will mean a stable Sudan.”

Sudan and Uganda are guarantors of South Sudan’s peace deal signed by the parties in September 2018 in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. The agreement calls for a 36- month transitional period to be followed directly by a national election but several of the document’s key provisions have yet to be carried out.

South Sudanese officials have repeatedly stated that the government lacks the funds needed to implement the deal.

Kiir has complained that sanctions and the arms embargo imposed on the country by the United Nations Security Council have slowed implementation of the peace agreement.  Kiir has also insisted that the country is unable to train thousands of joint forces to form a unified army due to a lack of weapons, an assertion that western diplomats and United Nations officials have questioned.

Tut Galuak, Kiir’s security advisor who also heads the country’s peace implementation committee, announced Wednesday that the joint forces will graduate shortly after the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Adha.

Despite the challenges that lie ahead such as chronic underfunding for training centers, Galuak told reporters the parties are fully committed to implementing the peace deal.

“We are certain in our stance that the peace implementation is going on well. All parties are optimistic about lasting peace in the country,” said Galuak.

 

 

Source: Voice of America

The South African government is sending 25,000 soldiers to areas it calls “flashpoints” as it tries to stop violence from spreading across the country.

Protests against the jailing of former President Jacob Zuma for contempt of court grew into civil unrest late last week.

Mobs have looted and destroyed parts of cities, burning and destroying factories and warehouses. Scores of people have been killed and hundreds injured.

As soldiers stream into areas threatened by mobs, so, too, are vigilantes.

In video sent to VOA by a senior army officer, private citizens can be seen opening fire with pistols, shotguns and rifles on a crowd trying to enter a suburb in the port city of Durban. The mobs were armed with bricks, clubs and large, broad-bladed knives.

Security analysts told VOA that people are taking the law into their own hands amid an erosion of faith in the ability of the police to protect them.

The violence in KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma’s home province, prompted Zulu King Misuzulu kaZwelithini to plead with his subjects.

“It has brought great shame upon us all. I never thought … I would see our own people so complicit in burning down the country. … My father’s people are committing suicide,” the king said.

The violence began after Zuma surrendered to prison authorities last week to begin serving a sentence for refusing to testify in an investigation of alleged corruption during his years in office. The investigation has split the African National Congress, which has led the country since apartheid ended 27 years ago.

Zuma’s supporters took to the streets, but the protests quickly turned into looting, as a country struggling with 30% unemployment, constant power outages and the coronavirus pandemic.

 

 

Source: Voice of America

A Zimbabwean environmental group is suing the government over purported plans to export elephants to China, which the group says has subjected the animals to unhealthful conditions.

In an application to Zimbabwe’s High Court, Advocates4Earth is seeking to prevent the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority from carrying out the transfer.

Lenin Tinashe Chisaira, head of the environmental group, said, “Basically, we are applying for a declaratory order that the Zimbabwe government and its agencies should respect international conventions, especially the resolutions that African elephants, African wildlife, should not be exported to destinations that are not appropriate for these species that are not natural or historic range.

“We strongly feel that there is a desire by some agencies of the government to violate those agreements by exporting some of our species to countries such as China, without abiding by the existing legal framework.”

The court application also cites the country’s environment minister, Nqobizitha Mangaliso Ndlovu, in the lawsuit.

Zimbabwe’s elephant population has grown in recent years, climbing to 100,000. Some farmers have complained that the elephants are destroying their crops and grazing lands.

However, the Zimbabwe Wildlife Authority denies it is in the process of exporting elephants to China.

‘Saying a lot of negatives’

Tinashe Farawo, the authority’s spokesperson, said of the environmentalists, “These are people trying to seek relevance. In President [Emmerson] Mnangagwa’s address, he put those people on notice. They are people who are bent on saying a lot of negatives. And they must prove that this is what we are doing. …  Fact remains: We are not capturing any elephants for export. Nothing of that sort is happening. They must bring the evidence.”

In the past, Zimbabwe has exported elephants to other countries despite objections from animal rights and environmental groups such as Advocates4Earth.

On Thursday, officials at the Chinese Embassy in Harare refused to comment, saying they were not cited in the court papers.

 

 

Source: Voice of America

Once again, Eritrea is facing the usual ritual that characterized the unjust and unfair treatment by some western countries with the hard-line positions against Eritrea in the pretext of human rights. The futile political ill-intent remains vilification, isolation, and destabilization of the nation. Moreover, the politicized HRC resolutions and mechanisms served as a continuation of the external existential threats including the 2010-2019 unjust sanction driven by the same western countries imposed under the umbrella of the UN. At the time the resolutions and mechanisms also served as a continuation of conflict in the Horn of Africa.

The above unjust and unfair treatment defies UN human rights resolutions and international principles that underline the vitality of dignified engagement and international cooperation predicated on partnership. Eritrea’s experience is a testimony that the confrontational approach does not create any dividend in the promotion of human rights. It is unprecedented that the approach is draining the overstretched resources that could have been used in other pressing priorities of greater significance.

In the above situation of existential external threats for almost two decades, Eritrea remained resilient and despite challenges and problems, tangible progress has been achieved including on human rights. After the peace, security, and development declarations with Ethiopia and Somalia in 2019, with a wider implication in the revitalization of the horn of Africa regional peace, security, and development, Eritrea has developed a national development road map.

Despite the COVID pandemic situation and the renewed futile efforts of hostile dominant forces with unwarranted geopolitical agendas and interests to abort the newly emerging regional dynamics in the Horn of Africa, including in the pretext of the Tigray crisis, Eritrea’s development effort in some productive sectors and critical areas of comparative advantages is going on and the effect of the pandemic is being controlled. The crisis was instigated by the premeditated attacks of the defunct TPLF clique for regime change agenda in Ethiopia and invade Eritrea, to make a regime change and occupy sovereign Eritrean territories. It is incumbent upon the HRC to rectify its view on the crisis and stop its allegations on Eritrea.

Madam President

In essence, the draft resolution is based on the unacceptable and unproductive as well as already rejected Special Rapporteur report presented in the present session. Eritrea rejects the resolution aiming extension the mandate for a further one year and will not cooperate with the Special Rapporteur for the following reasons:-

1. violates the principles of sovereignty and disregards Eritrea’s national context, needs, and human betterment ideals
2. attempts to portray an unwarranted systemic human rights failure negating Eritrea’s ground reality and the attendant tangible progress as well as challenges
3. relies on the unacceptable human rights benchmarks that undermine Eritrea’s national context, ownership, priorities, and human betterment ideas and has not created any dividend in the last ten years and will not in the future.
4. is full of presumptuous qualifications and relies on unverified claims from dubious sources and others who have a long history of advocating for “regime change”
5. There is no consent of Eritrea on the mandate

Nevertheless, the effort to mainstream human rights in national development is being strengthened and expanded. In this regard, Eritrea is committed to expand and strengthen engagement and international cooperation among others through the UPR and with the OHCHR on its three priorities presented to the office for technical capacity building. Nevertheless, it again rejects the continuation of unfair and unjust country-specific mandate under the new draft resolution being considered in this 47^th HRC session.

Madam President

In view of the above-stated position and the collective and shared responsibility that we all have to the ideals of humanity, human rights concerns ought to be addressed through genuine engagement and cooperation and decided by consensus. The situation is complicated by the protracted politicization of human rights creating polarization however dictates resort to voting. As such, consensus should not be a bunker to be utilized by certain western countries perpetuating political ill-intent in the pretext of human rights to subdue developing nations in particular.

In the above context, we call upon members of the Council with genuine positions in the promotion of human rights that befits the ideals of humanity to REJECT the draft resolution and send a strong message that business as usual is not the future.  The need to establish a unity of thinking, practice, and organization against politicization that endangers the decisive importance of the HRC as a body that emerged as a result of the failed experience of its predecessor is still of decisive importance for consideration.

I thank you!

 

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

The YPFDJ organization in Juba, South Sudan, conducted an activity assessment meeting on 11 July.

At the meeting, the participants conducted extensive discussion on the strengths and challenges of the organization and on the charted out programs and adopted various recommendations.

Speaking at the event, the Eritrean Ambassador in South Sudan, Mr. Yohannes Teklemicael, gave an extensive briefing on the objective situation in the homeland and the region.

Mr. Yohannes called on the youth to strengthen organizational capacity and participation in the national development programs.

Ambassador Yohannes also expressed the Embassy’s readiness to stand alongside the organization in all its endeavors.

 

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea