Eritrea Wire

The West African bloc ECOWAS has suspended Guinea’s membership after a military coup that removed President Alpha Conde. ECOWAS leaders on Wednesday urged Guinea’s coup leaders to release Conde and return to constitutional order. The West African bloc plans to send a high-level mission to Guinea to try to mediate the situation.

Burkina Faso’s foreign minister, Alpha Barry, announced the suspension late Wednesday after a virtual extraordinary meeting of all 15 member states of the Economic Community of West African States.

ECOWAS leaders at the meeting demanded the immediate release of Guinea’s ousted president Alpha Condé and his return to power.

They also said a mediation mission will be sent to Guinea on Thursday to facilitate a return to constitutional order.

Military forces led by lieutenant colonel Mamady Doumbouya overthrew president Condé’s government on Sunday, sparking widespread criticism from leaders including Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

Godbless Otubure is the global president of Ready to Lead Africa, a nonprofit promoting constitutional democracy. He says Conde was the one threatening order in Guinea.

“People’s freedoms, people’s ways of life and capacity to make decisions based on consensus have all been lost because one man’s ambition had become too detrimental to the health of the democratic expression in Guinea,” he said.

Condé, 83, became the first democratic president to be elected in Guinea in 2010 and was reelected in 2015.

But last year, he modified the country’s constitution allowing him a chance at a third term in office. His victory at the polls was largely disputed and led to protests that killed dozens of people in October.

General Secretary of the West African Civil Society Forum, Komlan Messie, says ECOWAS failed to act when it ought to.

“Modifying the constitution is a constitutional coup, we condemn military coup but also we condemn constitutional coup. At that moment we would have expected ECOWAS to do the same thing they’re doing today,” he said.

In May, ECOWAS suspended Mali for its second coup in months, after a military coup last August ousted Mali’s former leader Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta.

Otubure and Messie say coups in Africa nations are setting back years of democracy in the region and impeding growth.

Source: Voice of America

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told AFP on Thursday that he feared the return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan would encourage influential jihadist armed groups in the Sahel, as he called for a strengthening of “security mechanisms” in that region.

“I fear the psychological and real impact of what happened in Afghanistan” in the Sahel, Guterres said in an interview. “There is a real danger. These terrorist groups may feel enthusiastic about what happened and have ambitions beyond what they thought a few months ago.”

Guterres said it is “essential to reinforce security mechanisms in the Sahel,” because it “is the most important weak point, which must be treated.”

“It is not only Mali, Burkina or Niger. Now we have infiltrations in Ivory Coast, in Ghana,” he added.

He noted that France will reduce its presence in the region and cited news reports that Chad wants to withdraw some troops from border areas around Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali.

“This is the reason why I am fighting for there to be an African counterterrorism force with a mandate under Chapter 7 [which provides for the use of force] of the Security Council and with dedicated funds, which can guarantee a response to the threat level,” he added.

Insufficient capacity to respond

“I fear today that the response capacity of the international community and the countries of the region are not sufficient in the face of the threat,” he said.

The U.N. chief has been trying for several years to give the G5 Sahel force – Chad, Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso – a U.N. mandate accompanied by collective funding from the world body.

France supports Guterres, but the U.N.’s leading financial contributor, the United States, has rejected the move.

“This blocking must be ended. It is absolutely essential,” said the secretary-general.

He said he was worried about fanatical groups where death “is desirable,” with armies “disintegrating in front of” these types of fighters.

“We saw this in Mosul in Iraq, in Mali during the first push towards Bamako, we saw it in Mozambique,” he said. “This danger is real, and we must seriously think about its implications for the terrorist threat and the way in which the international community must organize itself in the face of this threat.”

Source: Voice of America

Eritrean nationals in Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand commemorated the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the armed struggle for Eritrea’s independence with patriotic zeal.

At the commemoration event the Eritrean community held in London on 4 September, Mr. Estifanos Habtemariam, Eritrean Ambassador in Great Britain and North Ireland, gave a briefing on the significance of 1 September in the history of the Eritrean people as well as on the objective situation in the homeland.

The event was featured with cultural and artistic programs as well as an exhibition depicting the heroic feat the Eritrean people demonstrated during the armed struggle for independence.

In the same vein, the Diamond Jubilee of the beginning of the armed struggle for Eritrea’s independence was commemorated in various cities of Australia and New Zealand in which nationals participated in-person and virtual formats in compliance with the guidelines in those countries to control the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Mehari Tekeste, General Consul of Eritrea in Australia, gave an extensive briefing on the objective situation in the homeland and the region and called on nationals to strengthen organizational capacity and participation in the national development drives.

At the event, chairmen of Eritrean communities and national organizations, and associations delivered speeches in a virtual format focusing on the significance of the Day in the history of the Eritrean people.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

Lawyers for a Colombian businessman say they’re exploring their options after a court in the West African country of Cape Verde rejected their appeal to halt his extradition to the United States.

The Cape Verde high court’s written judgment, dated August 30 but published Tuesday on the court’s website, said Alex Saab must stand trial in the United States.

Saab is wanted on charges of laundering money through U.S. banks in connection with a Venezuelan bribery scheme. He has been held in Cape Verde since June 12, 2020, when he was arrested while his private plane stopped for fuel en route to Iran.

Venezuela’s socialist government had protested his arrest, saying Saab was acting as a special envoy to seek food, medical supplies and fuel for the South American country.

The U.S. government has imposed strict sanctions on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and others in his administration.

‘Political battle’

Geraldo Almeida, one of Saab’s attorneys, told VOA’s Portuguese Service that the case had turned into a “political battle taking into account” the U.S. government’s power.

Almeida said he and others on Saab’s defense team were not “throwing in the towel.”

But João Resende-Santos, a law professor at the Higher Institute of Legal and Social Sciences in Cape Verde, told VOA that no further appeals are available.

“The next step is the foreign affairs ministry to communicate to the U.S. Embassy in Cape Verde about the court’s decision. This administrative process is brief and the U.S. Embassy has 45 days to bring Alex Saab to the U.S.,” he said.

In early January, Cape Verde’s Court of Appeal in Barlavento ruled that Saab should be extradited to the United States. The defense appealed to the country’s Supreme Court, which in March upheld the lower court’s verdict.

Saab and another Colombian businessman, Alvaro Pulido Vargas, were indicted in July 2019 in U.S. federal court in Miami for allegedly joining in a bribery scheme from late 2011 through at least September 2015, according to a U.S. Justice Department news release.

The men allegedly laundered approximately $350 million from bank accounts in Venezuela “to and through bank accounts located in the United States,” the Justice Department said.

Source: Voice of America

KHARTOUM – Sudan summoned Ethiopia’s ambassador to Khartoum to inform him that 29 corpses found on the banks of a river abutting Ethiopia were those of Ethiopian citizens from the Tigray ethnic group, Sudan’s Foreign Ministry said.

It said in a statement late on Tuesday that the ambassador had been summoned on August 30 and was told that the bodies had been found between July 26 and August 8 on the Sudanese side of the Setit River, known in Ethiopia as the Tekeze.

The corpses were identified by Ethiopians residing in the Wad al Hulaywah area of eastern Sudan, it said.

The statement did not say how the people died.

Dina Mufti, spokesperson for the Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Ministry, did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The river is the current de facto borderline between territory controlled by Tigrayan forces and those controlled by Amhara forces allied with Ethiopia’s federal government. At a different point the river also separates Sudan from Ethiopia.

Tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia have been running high because of a spillover of the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region and Ethiopia’s construction of a giant hydropower dam on the Blue Nile.

Tens of thousands of refugees have fled into eastern Sudan and there have been military skirmishes in an area of contested farmland along the border between Sudan and Ethiopia.

Sudanese authorities said on Sunday they had confiscated a weapons shipment that arrived by air from Ethiopia on suspicion the arms were destined for use in “crimes against the state.”

Sudan’s Interior Ministry said later on Monday that the shipment had turned out to be part of a legal cargo imported by a licensed arms trader.

Source: Voice of America

MOGADISHU – Somalia’s president and prime minister appear locked in a power struggle over the country’s spy chief and the death of a cybersecurity agent. Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble this week suspended the head of the National Intelligence and Security Agency, Fahad Fassin, for failing to investigate the agent’s death. But the president rebuked the move and on Wednesday appointed Yasin as a national security adviser.

President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo convened a national security meeting on Tuesday and reshuffled some top security positions, appointing suspended spy director Fahad Yassin as his national security adviser, while installing former Banadir regional intelligence chief Colonel Yassin Abdullahi as new acting director of the National Intelligence and Security Agency, NISA.

Roble described the president’s move as an obstruction of justice toward the investigation of the alleged death of young female spy Ikran Tahlil Farah.

Farah disappeared in June and was declared dead by NISA this month, though the spy agency has yet to disclose any details about her passing.

Political analyst Hassan Mudane says the bitter exchange between offices of the president and his prime minister could weaken cooperation between federal government institutions.

He says various institutions such as the judiciary, the presidency, the security departments mainly in the capital of Mogadishu as well as the fight against the armed group al-Shabab, will be affected by the wrangles. He added that the election process coordinated by the office of the prime minister will also be tested.

Elections for 19 remaining seats in the upper house of Parliament and 275 members of the lower house are expected to kick off shortly in Somalia’s slow-moving election process.

But according to security analyst Samira Ahmed of the Hiraal Institute, the tiff between two top leaders will make the work of Somali security agencies and their international partners very hard.

She said the prime minister was tasked to spearhead the electoral process, which was in good shape so far, but this latest difference between his office and that of the president may impact on security and damage the credibility and confidence in the electoral process. She added that in terms of perception, it also damages the legitimacy of the state building process in the eyes of the Somali people and international partners, as well.

In a joint press statement, the leaders of the opposition who are also presidential candidates threw their weight behind the prime minister while terming the actions of the president as derailing the ongoing election process.

Source: Voice of America

JUBA , SOUTH SUDAN – The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) called on military commanders and political leaders Tuesday to end clashes in Western Equatoria state following the deaths of at least five people on Monday.

A joint team made up of South Sudan defense forces and Opposition Alliance forces was dispatched to Tambura to resolve the conflict, according to Major General Lul Ruai Koang, spokesperson for the South Sudan People’s Defense Forces (SSPDF).

Reports circulated that fighting erupted between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army In Opposition (SPLM/A IO) and SSPDF forces loyal to General James Nando.

There are varying accusations of who was involved in the fighting that has destabilized the region and led locals to flee the town of Tambura.

Koang said the fighting involved a few soldiers but not full compliments of troops.

“That was not a clash between the two armies, it was a clash between elements from both sides,” Koang told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus radio program.

But SPLM-IO spokesperson Major General Lam Gabriel denied that the fighting involves opposition forces. The SPLM-IO is the political wing of the opposition group.

Father Emmanuel Bie Gbafu, the local parish priest, relocated to a United Nations base in Tambura for safety reasons.

Displaced families are sheltering at UNMISS camps in Tambura, and thousands of residents have fled the fighting, Gbafu said.

Gbafu said he heard gunshots in Tambura beginning early Monday but did not know “who was fighting who.”

“We don’t know who is doing the killing, (but) civilians are dying,” Gbafu said.

The violence is endangering the town’s nearly 10,000 residents, creating the risk of further displacement and increasing humanitarian needs, according to an UNMISS statement.

The statement quoted UNMISS chief Nicholas Haysom as saying it is “vital” that national and local political leaders “take urgent action to resolve tensions and bring communities together to avoid further loss of life, homes, and livelihoods.”

Aid workers are “caught in the crossfire while trying to carry out critical tasks,” Haysom said. He called on authorities to do more to ensure that aid agencies have safe access to people in need.

South Sudan’s Joint Defense Board vowed to end tensions by separating forces in the area.

“We know it’s civilian violence, but the presence of the IO and SSPDF in the areas is making the situation become more political,” SPLM-IO spokesperson Gabriel told South Sudan in Focus.

But Western Equatoria State Information Minister William Adriano Baiki said the conflict in Tambura is not between two ethnic communities but between warring forces.

Source: Voice of America