16, June 2018
Congo-Kinshasa: Kabila, going, going, gone 0
Democratic Republic of Congo’s parliament will, at President Joseph Kabila’s request, hold a special session to consider legislation providing legal protection for former presidents, lawmakers said.
The announcement could be a further sign that Kabila intends to step down after an election in December despite speculation that he is trying to circumvent term limits that forbid him from running again.
Kabila to contest or not
Prime Minister Bruno Tshibala told Reuters this week that Kabila would not be a candidate, the clearest declaration yet from a senior government official on the matter.
But Kabila himself has refused to publicly commit to leaving office and some of his supporters have in recent weeks floated a legal rationale that would allow him to stand again.
“At the request of the president of the republic, an extraordinary session will be convened,” lower house speaker Aubin Minaku told deputies on Friday at the close of the latest parliamentary session.
“We will examine several items including the law on the status of former chiefs of state, the designation of a new member of the constitutional court and the law on the tax to promote industry,” he said.
It was not immediately clear when that session would take place.
Protecting Kabila to facilitate transition
Under the constitution, former presidents already receive broad immunity from prosecution as senators for life.
Modeste Mutinga, a senator from an opposition party, introduced legislation in 2015 to reinforce those protections in an effort to encourage Congo’s first ever democratic transition.
It stipulates that former presidents and their aides will not be liable for arrest for common law violations committed in the exercise of presidential functions. It also provides for bodyguards for ex-presidents and increases in their pension.
However the bill never came up for a vote.
“As the initiative for taking up this law during the extraordinary session comes from those who blocked the law, we think that this time we are really going to examine (it),” Mutinga told Reuters.
Kabila’s tumultous reign
Kabila succeeded his assassinated father as president in 2001. He was required by the constitution to step down in December 2016 but the election to replace him has been repeatedly delayed.
Since then, security forces have killed dozens of anti-Kabila protesters while surging militia violence has raised the spectre of a repeat of civil wars around the turn of the century that cost millions of lives.
The special session will also select a new Constitutional Court justice to replace Felix Vunduawe Te Pemako, who was named president of a separate court this week.
Last month, Kabila and parliament named two close Kabila allies to the court in moves analysts say could be geared either at securing a judgment that allows him to run again or bolstering the chances that his preferred successor will win.
REUTERS
16, June 2018
Italy prevents two more refugee boats from docking 0
Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has warned yet another refugee rescue mission off the Libyan coast that it would not be allowed to unload its “human cargo” at an Italian port.
Salvini’s warning came days after the new right-wing and anti-refugee Italian government denied a safe harbor to the Aquarius, a French NGO-operated charity ship, to unload its more than 600 rescued refugees and asylum seekers on board, causing uproar and a sharp spat with France.
“While the Aquarius is sailing toward Spain, two other Dutch NGO-operated vessels (Lifeline and Seefuchs) have arrived off the Libyan coast, to wait for their human cargos once the people smugglers abandon them,” the Italian minister said in a Facebook post on Saturday.
“These gentlemen should know that Italy no longer wants to be complicit in the business of illegal immigration and they will have to look for other ports to go to,” further said Salvini, who heads the far-right League party, adding that he took the action “for the benefit of all.”
Following Italy’s controversial decision to bar the Aquarius from docking, however, Malta quickly followed suit, leaving the ship stranded at the Mediterranean until Spain offered to the vessel a safe harbor. The Aquarius, which is jointly run by SOS Méditerranée and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), is due to arrive in Valencia on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Ferdinando Pagnoncelli, president of polling company Ipsos Italia, said that based on a survey conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday, almost 60 percent of Italians were in favor of closing the country’s ports.
Libya is the main departure point for asylum seekers attempting to reach Europe by sea. Many refugees have crossed the central Mediterranean to Italy over the past four years as human traffickers took advantage of a security vacuum in Libya after the toppling of its long-time ruler.
Thousands of other asylum seekers have perished at sea.
To stop the flow of the refugees headed for Europe, the Libyan coastguard has stepped up its interception operations. To carry out those operations, the Libyan coastguard has been funded, equipped, and trained by European countries.
The Libyan coastguard has previously accused NGOs of creating panic and confusion by their presence during rescue operations as the refugees and asylum seekers all surge to reach the charter boats to avoid being returned to crisis-hit Libya.
Source: Presstv