Eritrea Wire

The attack in Burkina Faso last month that killed 160 civilians was in retaliation for activity by pro-government civilian militias in the area, according to Human Rights Watch.

In the daytime, Daouda Diallo is a scientist. By night, he is one of Burkina Faso’s most prominent human rights campaigners.

He runs the Collective Against Impunity and Stigmatization of Communities, a campaigning group set up in the wake of the Yirgou massacre, an attack that saw around 200 people killed, mostly from the Fulani ethnic group, in early 2019.

In Burkina Faso’s conflict with the Islamic State group and al-Qaida, the number of civilians killed by security forces has often come close to the numbers killed by the terror groups.

Diallo has been deeply affected by this.

“I’m a very sensitive person — I like to help the widow and the orphan, the vulnerable. … I’ve devoted my time to this, but it’s not an easy job, and I go unpaid. I do it for humanitarian reasons,” Diallo told VOA.

Diallo also points out that one of the government’s most controversial policies is a law that allows preexisting civilian militias, known as koglweogos, to be armed and trained by the government.

The new force is called the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland, or VDPs.

When the law was created in 2020, Human Rights Watch said arming poorly trained civilians could lead to abuses.

So far, at least 95 people have been killed in 38 incidents of violence against civilians by VDPs, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.

A man, whose full name has been withheld to protect his safety, says he watched as VDPs killed two of his neighbors after accusing them of being terrorists.

“…Issa was sick and decided to go to the market. The VDPs shot at him there. Issa ran to his house, where they killed him. Bad things happen. That’s why I had to run away. The militias are chasing you; the terrorists are chasing you.”

Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Defense did not respond to VOA’s interview request about the incident.

One VDP leader, who asked to not be named, said most VDPs simply want to defend their homeland, many having had terrifying encounters with terrorists themselves.

“The terrorists came and burned my house. They were looking for me, but fortunately I was not around. They also killed some of my neighbors and burned their houses as well. It’s because of that I really felt I had to join the VDPs,” he said.

A leader of the ruling MPP party admits it’s possible VDPs commit abuses — but says they are necessary.

“Within the framework of the fight against terrorism, we are obliged to face the fact that the VDPs make a very big contribution,” said Lassane Sawadogo, MPP Party Executive Secretary.

As widespread protests against insecurity in Burkina Faso have swept the country in recent weeks, President Roch Marc Christian Kabore said he will reform the VDPs as one way of improving security.

Diallo says the government should take corrective action quickly. However, the government has yet to say what its actions will be.

Source: Voice of America

The U.N. voiced alarm on Tuesday at the eruption of deadly violence during protests in Eswatini, calling for an independent investigation into all alleged rights abuses, including by law enforcement.

The U.N.’s rights office said there were claims that security forces had engaged in “disproportionate and unnecessary use of force” after being sent to quell protests that escalated last week.

Spokeswoman Liz Throssell told reporters in Geneva there were claims police had used live ammunition, and she also highlighted reports of looting and vandalism by protesters.

“Although the situation is now reported to be calm, we remain concerned at the potential for further unrest,” she said.

The protests in the tiny landlocked southern African country, formerly known as Swaziland, first erupted in May following the death of a 25-year-old law student, allegedly while in police custody.

But after protesters in Africa’s last absolute monarchy ramped up their campaign for political reform last week, the government deployed the army to disperse the crowds.

Unverified videos have emerged of beatings by security forces. Local civil society and opposition groups have claimed several dozen were killed.

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for both sides to address their differences “through inclusive and meaningful dialogue.”

Amnesty International accused the security forces of a “frontal attack on human rights” and alleged at least 20 people had been killed.

The government said it has not received an official report of any deaths.

Throssell urged security forces to minimize any use of force during protests.

“We also call on the government to ensure that there are prompt, transparent, effective, independent and impartial investigations into all allegations of human rights violations,” she said.

Source: Voice of America

Egypt and Sudan have rejected Ethiopia’s initiative to start without prior agreement the second phase of filling its controversial Nile dam, an operation that risks escalating tension ahead of a Security Council meeting Thursday.

Egypt announced Monday evening that it had been informed by Addis Ababa of the start of the second phase of filling the dam, built by Ethiopia upstream of the Nile. And on Tuesday, Sudan said it received the same notification.

But Ethiopia has not officially confirmed this operation on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which has long been the subject of conflict with Egypt and Sudan who fear for their water resources.

An Ethiopian official only said on condition of anonymity that the operation would take place “in July and August” and that adding water was a natural process especially during the summer rainy season.

Egypt “firmly rejects (this) unilateral measure,” Egyptian Irrigation Minister Abdel Aty said in a statement, denouncing “a violation of the law and international standards that regulate construction projects on shared basins of international rivers.”

In Khartoum, the foreign ministry also denounced a “flagrant violation of international law” and described the Ethiopian initiative as “risk and imminent threat.”

Draft resolution

Two days before the Security Council meeting on this issue, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Choukri met his Sudanese counterpart Mariam al-Mahdi in New York.

They expressed in a statement their “strict rejection” of the filling initiative and called on the Security Council to “support their position on a binding agreement on the filling and operation of the dam.”

The Security Council meets at the request of Tunisia, a non-permanent member of the Council and representative of the Arab world, on behalf of Egypt and Sudan. Ethiopia is opposed to this meeting but is expected to attend.

Tunisia has given its 14 Security Council partners a draft resolution calling for an end to the filling of the reservoir, diplomatic sources learned on Tuesday.

In this draft, obtained by AFP, the Security Council asks “Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to resume their negotiations (…) in order to finalize, within six months, the text of a binding agreement on the filling and management of the GERD.”

The objective is to “guarantee Ethiopia’s capacity to produce hydroelectricity from GERD while avoiding inflicting significant damage to the water security of downstream states,” the text specifies.

This text provides that the Security Council also demands “the three countries to refrain from any declaration or measure likely to jeopardize the negotiation process.”

France, which chaired the Security Council in July, had previously considered that the capacity of the U.N. body to find a solution to the conflict was limited, this file being rather managed by the African Union.

Uncompromising line?

Ethiopia, which said it had operated the first phase of filling in the summer of 2020, had announced that it would proceed to the second phase in July, with or without an agreement. The dam is considered vital to meeting the energy needs of its 110 million people.

The completion of the dam is also a political priority for the Ethiopian prime minister, after months of war in Tigray, says Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, professor at the University of Addis Ababa.

“It is a factor of unity for the Ethiopians in the midst of all these ethnic conflicts and it is therefore important for the country and its leaders to complete the dam on schedule,” he continues.

Egypt lamented that the negotiations have been deadlocked since April and accused Ethiopia of having “taken an uncompromising line,” reducing the chances of reaching an agreement.

Sudan hopes the dam will regulate its annual flooding but fears adverse effects without agreement. Egypt, which is 97% dependent on the river for its water supply, sees it as a threat to its resources.

Costantinos believes that “on the contrary, it will have a positive impact because it will prevent flooding in Sudan and this water will be available to them. It will not be retained permanently.”

The mega-dam, with a total capacity of 74 billion cubic meters of water, has been built since 2011 in northwestern Ethiopia, near the border with Sudan, on the Blue Nile, which joins the White Nile in Khartoum to form the Nile.

With an announced electricity production capacity of nearly 6,500 megawatts, it could become the largest hydroelectric dam in Africa.

The renewed tension created by the filling of the dam between Khartoum and Addis Ababa adds to other thorny issues that have poisoned relations between the two neighboring countries.

The war in Tigray at the end of 2020 in northern Ethiopia prompted some 60,000 people to flee to Sudan, which was already in the throes of economic difficulties. And a decades-old border dispute, linked to Ethiopian farmers who had settled in Sudanese territory, remains potentially active.

Source: Voice of America