30, November 2019
Gabon’s Operation Mamba: an anti-corruption drive or political witch-hunt? 0
Authorities in Gabon this week arrested eight people who are suspected of theft and money-laundering in what is seen as follow-up to Operation Mamba, an anti-corruption campaign launched in 2017 by President Ali Bongo, who has been battling serious illness.
The revived anti-graft drive has seen a string of top-level arrests in the central African country, as accusations that millions of euros have disappeared from state coffers swirl around top officials.
“Eight people have been placed in preventive detention,” Gabon’s prosecutor Andre Patrick Roponat said on Thursday, adding that they were accused of “siphoning off public funds and money-laundering.”
The group appeared before a judge on Wednesday along with eight others who were released on bail, Roponat said.
Pro-government newspaper L’Union reported this week that more than 85 billion CFA francs ($142 million) have “evaporated” over the past two years from the funds of the Gabon Oil Company.
60-year-old Bongo said last month he was “fiercely determined” to push ahead with the campaign against graft.
Political witch-hunt?
One high-profile political figure embroiled in the affair is Brice Laccruche Alihanga, Bongo’s former cabinet director who took the lead and spoke for the president after he suffered a stroke in 2018.
Laccuruche had held his cabinet post for more than two years but was dismissed on November 7, at the start of a wave of arrests.
He has announced on social media that he will undertake a new mission for “the president and for Gabon”.
Earlier this week, lawyers told AFP that presidential spokesman Ike Ngouoni and a dozen others were arrested and questioned over their ties to Alihanga.
The lawyers also insist that “there is a political vendetta” in the current process, a claim the country’s Prime Minister refutes.
During his months-long absence abroad for treatment, speculation over Bongo’s fitness surged and the army quashed a brief attempted coup.
Bongo has ruled Gabon since 2009, following the death of his father Omar Bongo, who was in power from 1967.
AFP
30, November 2019
France reviews counter-terrorism strategy in Sahel 0
French President Emmanuel Macron told his country military leaders to consider all options as it seeks to review its operations against Islamist militants in West Africa.
Macron’s first public remarks since 13 French soldiers died during a combat mission in Mali included an earnest plea for his international allies to do more.
France, a former colonial power, is the only Western country with a significant military presence waging counter-insurgency operations in Mali and the wider Sahel region south of the Sahara desert.
What happened?
The 13 French soldiers were killed in Mali on Monday when two helicopters collided in the dark after being called in to provide air support during a combat mission to track down a band of Islamic State fighters.
Islamic State said on Thursday that its West African branch had caused the collision, but it did not provide any evidence for the claim.
The French government has faced criticism at home that its troops are bogged down, while critical voices in the region have increasingly scorned Paris for failing to restore stability and anti-French sentiment has grown.
Thirty eight French troops have been killed in the West African Sahel since France sent troops to Mali in 2013.
Macron’s reaction
Macron invited those seeking to understand the cost of France’s mission in the Sahel should witness a ceremony to honour the dead soldiers. The country will be mourning its heaviest single loss of troops for nearly four decades.
“France is acting in the Sahel on everyone’s behalf,” an emotional Macron told a news conference with NATO General-Secretary Jens Stoltenberg.
“Our mission there is important. Nevertheless, the situation we face compels me today to examine all our strategic options.”
France’s options
Macron said he had told his government and top military leaders to look hard at France’s operations in the region, adding, “I told them all options are open”.
He gave no indication what those options were. However, French officials have ruled out withdrawing its 4,500-strong force from the region, fearing this could lead to even more chaos.
As France mourns the dead commandos, Macron wants to incorporate more European allies into operations and to ensure local troops are better trained and equipped.
French officials have also bemoaned the fact peace accords agreed in Mali in 2015 have still not been implemented and that the political will power to implement them is missing.
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told lawmakers there was a need for more political action in Mali and a common desire to defeat terrorism, adding that was also the case for neighbouring Burkina Faso.
An unwinnable war?
Despite French troops, 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Mali and thousands of pan-regional forces, Islamist militants have strengthened their foothold across the arid Sahel region, making large swathes of territory ungovernable and stoking ethnic violence, especially in Mali and Burkina Faso.
On Wednesday, France’s top general acknowledged France would never achieve a total victory over al Qaeda- and Islamic State-affiliated militants.
Macron’s government denies it is bogged down in an intractable conflict. But Monday’s deaths have provoked renewed public comparisons with the United States’ drawn-out military involvement in Afghanistan.
France has complained to European allies that it is bearing the brunt of a counter-terrorism operation that benefits all Europe. It hopes to persuade them quickly to send special forces to the region to back up local troops, Le Drian said.
REUTERS