News

17, November 2020

African countries not progressing in good governance ⁰

Governance progress slowed across Africa for the first time in a decade, even before the coronavirus pandemic hit, with commitment to democracy and civil rights faltering, a major report said Monday.

The Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance, published every two years, gives each country’s government a score according to criteria including anti-corruption measures, protection of civil liberties and caring for the environment.

More than 60 percent of Africans live in countries that made progress in good governance over the period 2010 to 2019, this year’s report said.

But progress has slowed in the last five years and this year, for the first time in the last 10 years, the combined score for all the countries fell year-on-year, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation added.

The foundation, set up in 2006 to focus on the need for good political leadership and public governance in Africa, cited growing curbs on people’s ability to exercise their democratic rights and take part in civil society.

The results use data from last year and do not therefore include the impact of coronavirus.

Since the pandemic began, some elections have been postponed while “the continent had been going through a deterioration of civil society space, participation and rights long before Covid-19,” the report said.

There is “an increasingly precarious environment for human rights and civic participation” as well as a “deteriorating security situation,” it added.

– ‘Worrying declines’ –

Also this year, the incumbent presidents of Guinea and Ivory Coast succeeded in pushing through constitutional changes allowing them to stand for a third term, sparking deadly unrest while adding their names to a long list of leaders with similar playbooks.

Post-election clashes have claimed scores of lives in Ivory Coast and at least 21 in Guinea, where several opposition figures are in police custody over the violence.

In Nigeria, largely peaceful youth-led protests against a hated police unit spilled over into looting and violence.

The UN last week called for urgent measures to protect civilians in Mozambique’s northeastern Cabo Delgado province, where jihadists are wreaking havoc, warning that the population was “desperate”.

Since 2015, countries’ scores for security and rule of law and participation have slowly worsened while scores for rights and inclusion have fallen more sharply, the report said.

Only one country, Ethiopia, has made progress across all areas measured over a decade, the report said — but the continent’s second most populous country is now embroiled in a military conflict pitting the federal government against the dissident northern region of Tigray.

Across Africa, progress in some areas such as economic opportunity has come alongside “worrying declines in participation, rights, inclusion, rule of law and security,” the report said.

– Covid inequality –

Coronavirus threatens gains in economic opportunity, “worsening an already alarming situation,” it added.

For the first time, the report looked at new areas such as digital rights and inclusiveness as well as environmental sustainability.

South Africa, ranked sixth, has declined over the decade, falling more steeply since 2015, and is on a “concerning trajectory,” the report found.

The country’s former president, Jacob Zuma, was forced out by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) over a slew of corruption scandals.

ANC secretary general Ace Magashule was charged last Friday with multiple counts of fraud, corruption and money laundering allegedly committed under Zuma.

Source: Africa News

17, November 2020

French radio station RFI announces Paul Biya’s death ⁰

On Monday, November 16, 2020, the French media announced the death of several public figures on its website before removing them, claiming that it was a bug.

French Radio RFI surprised its listeners on Monday, November 16, 2020, by publishing in advance on its website, the obituaries of several public personalities yet still alive. All in all, about a hundred people of established fame were treated to articles announcing and describing the circumstances of their death. They included Alain Delon, Sophia Loren, Clint Eastwood, Pele, Sir Alex Ferguson, Yoko Ono and the President of the Republic of Cameroon, Paul Biya.

Alerted by the outcry caused by these articles, the public media quickly withdrew them and apologized on the social networks, indicating that a bug was at the origin of this situation.

“A technical problem led to the publication of numerous obituaries on our site. We are mobilized to rectify this major bug and apologize to those concerned as well as to you who follow us and trust us,” reads the RFI twitter account on Monday, November 16, 2020.

However, unless official information from the government of the Republic of Cameroon proves otherwise, it is important to remember that Paul Biya is alive and well! We saw him last November 12, at the funeral of his elder sister, Régine Ngonda, who died on October 31, 2020 in Yaoundé.

By Rita Akana with files

17, November 2020

UN General Assembly president reprimands Security Council for ‘failing to do its job’ ⁰

UN General Assembly president Volkan Bozkir on Monday criticised the Security Council, saying it was failing to respond to the world’s biggest challenges due to “competing interests.”

“The council has, on many occasions, failed to carry out its responsibility to maintain international peace and security,” Bozkir, a Turkish diplomat, said at a debate on reforming the body.

“Competing interests among its members and frequent use of the veto have limited the Security Council’s effectiveness. Even in some of the most urgent humanitarian crises, the council could not provide a timely and adequate response.”

There has been growing criticism of the body, which has not been reformed in decades, with France’s President Emmanuel Macron saying in a recent interview with Le Grand Continent that it “no longer produces useful solutions.”

Bozkir said reform of the Security Council was “an unavoidable imperative — both challenging and essential.”

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Security Council has held few meetings devoted to the virus.

It took more than three months to overcome friction between the United States and China to pass a resolution on July 1 calling for more international cooperation and to support a call by the secretary-general for a ceasefire in war-torn countries to help fight the disease.

During the debate on reform, the 193 UN members discussed the right to veto, the privilege of the five permanent members of the Security Council (United States, China, Russia, France and United Kingdom), enlarging the forum and its regional balance.

Modest expansion of council?

Russia, which has used its veto 15 times since 2011 on the Syrian dossier alone, and the US do not wish to see that power reduced.

“The United States remains open, in principle, to a modest expansion of the Security Council,” said American diplomat Ngoyi Ngoyi. But “this must be pursued in a way that will not diminish the Security Council’s effectiveness, or its efficiency, and will not alter or expand the veto.”

Deputy Russian ambassador Anna Evstigneeva argued that “ideas leading to the erosion of the prerogatives of the permanent members of the Security Council, including the right to veto, are unacceptable.”

Using the veto, or even the threat of using it, “have repeatedly prevented the United Nations from becoming associated with dubious companies,” she added.

Later, Chinese ambassador Zhang Jun criticised an “over-representation of developed countries” and called for a larger presence of small and medium nations, particularly African ones.

The Security Council, which can decide on international sanctions and the use of force, has 15 members. In addition to the five permanent nations, it has 10 non-permanent members elected for two-year terms.

Germany is a candidate for another permanent seat on the Council, along with Brazil, Japan and India. Africa is seeking two spots but has yet to identify potential future beneficiaries.

Source: AFP

17, November 2020

Russia’s Putin approves establishment of naval base in Sudan ⁰

Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved the establishment of a major naval base in Sudan, which will improve Moscow’s ability to operate in the Indian Ocean and expand its influence in Africa.

In a decree released on Monday, Putin announced that he had approved a Russian government proposal to set up a naval logistics hub in the North African country and ordered the Russian Defense Ministry to sign an accord to go ahead with the venture.

According to a draft document related to the agreement and unveiled earlier this month, the naval facility would be able to moor no more than four ships — including nuclear-powered vessels — at the same time.

The document further said the hub would also be used for repair and resupply operations as well as a resting place for Russian naval service members.

16, November 2020

Syria mourns top diplomat & seasoned politician Walid Muallem ⁰

Syria’s Foreign Minister and deputy Prime Minister Walid al-Muallem has died at the age of 79.

Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that Muallem died at dawn on Monday.

According to the report, he would be laid to rest later on Monday in Damascus.

There were no details on the cause of his death, but Syria’s top diplomat had for years been suffering from a heart condition.

“He was known for his honorable patriotic positions,” the government said in a statement.

According to a source close to the Damascus government, it is widely expected his deputy, Faisal Mekdad, will succeed him as foreign minister.

Muallem first took on the portfolio of the foreign minister in 2006. He was also designated deputy prime minister in 2012.

The veteran diplomat held a succession of top diplomatic posts, including ambassador to the United States.

In his last statements, Muallem denounced the persisting and unilateral economic sanctions against the Syrian nation, saying on October 25 that the sanctions have deteriorated the economic situation, particularly with the COVID-19 pandemic raging across the globe.

He also condemned the Western role in setting conditions and fabricating flimsy pretexts to halt the return of Syrian refugees to their homeland, slamming the West for politicizing the purely humanitarian issue and its use as a card for advancing their political agendas.

Some 5.6 million Syrians have been forced to flee abroad as refugees, mostly to the neighboring countries of Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq.

Moreover, one million Syrian children have been born as refugees ever since the foreign-backed militancy began in their country back in March 2011.

Syria’s top diplomat repeatedly slammed the US role in the conflict that plagued his country.

In August 2012, Muallem said Washington was “the major player against Syria” in the war, noting that the US was supporting terrorism in Syria in spite of its claims to be fighting it.

He also said in his annual address to the United Nations General Assembly in 2019 that “tens of thousands of foreign terrorist fighters have been brought to Syria from more than a hundred countries, with the support and cover of States that are known to all”, in an apparent reference to the US and Turkey, who maintain an illegal military presence in northern Syria.

Muallem also warned that the Western claims of alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government served as a pretext to launch a military campaign against his country.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The Syrian government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies are aiding the Takfiri terrorist groups that are wreaking havoc in the country.

Government forces have already managed to undo militant gains across the country and bring back almost all of Syrian soil under control.

Source: Presstv

15, November 2020

US: Biden faces repair job at US spy agencies after tumult under Trump ⁰

Shortly after comparing US intelligence agencies to Nazis, Donald Trump tried to mend fences on his first full day as president.

On Jan. 21, 2017, standing before a marble wall at CIA headquarters honoring officers who died in service, Trump pledged “so much backing” before delivering a campaign-style speech inflating his inauguration attendance and attacking the “dishonest media.”

His use of the memorial as a prop marked the start of a stormy relationship with his spy services in which Trump denigrated their leaders, rejected their findings, appointed loyalists to replace top officials who disagreed with him and condoned using government secrets to attack political opponents.

Now, President-elect Joe Biden and his picks to lead the spy agencies must fix the damage: rebuilding both trust and morale within the agencies and their relations with Congress and the White House, said current and former US officials.

Source: Reuters

14, November 2020

Challenges faced by Ambazonians living with disabilities aggravated by the Southern Cameroons crisis ⁰

People living with disabilities in Cameroon’s Anglophone northwest and southwest regions have been badly affected by a deadly separatist crisis. Some have been killed, wounded, or abandoned, while others have been forced out of their homes.

Nearly four years into the violence, this group faces heightened danger of attacks because most of them find it difficult to flee when their communities come under assault.

At the conference room of the coordinating unit of associations of persons living with disabilities in the Anglophone northwest, 45-year-old Samuel Nyingcho, head of the unit. He has been living with vision loss for the past 33 years. He tells RFI that the challenges facing people living with disabilities in these regions are unbearable.

“A good number of persons with disabilities have lost their lives, a good number of them have lost property, their houses have been burnt…Almost all of them have lost economic activities and good number of them have lost access to education,” he says.

“Equally, the non-communicable diseases like hypertension and other diseases have affected persons with disabilities because of the trauma that has affected them throughout all of this crisis,” Nyingcho adds.

In a report published earlier this year by Human Rights Watch, the group said people living with disabilities and older people have been among those killed, violently assaulted, or kidnapped by government forces and armed separatists in the conflict torn northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon.

Peaceful protests that were carried out in late 2016 by Anglophone lawyers and teachers against perceived marginalisation by the French-speaking central government were met with a brutal crackdown by security forces.

The following year, some disgruntled English speakers took up arms against the state to create their own separate state from Cameroon which they will call ‘Ambazonia’ after what they say are decades of marginalisation.

As a consequence of the violence, several persons living with disabilities in the conflict areas have been traumatised. Many others took long journeys in search of safety when their communities came under assault.

Sheron’s story

Wearing a violet blue t-shirt, slim fit black trousers, and violet tennis shoes, 29-year-old law graduate Sheron, (not her real name), sits in her electric wheelchair at the headquarters of an organisation here in Bamenda were she now volunteers. ‘Sheron’ has been living with mobility difficulties for more than 15 years as a result of childhood polio.

She told RFI that the government forces stormed her native Bafut town, about 23km northwest of Bamenda earlier this year. They were looking for separatist fighters, commonly known here as Amba boys. In the process, many people were brutalised, some shot dead and property destroyed.

“We only heard that there were many trucks at the junction with many soldiers. A few minutes later, we started hearing serious gunshots. I could not run but we saw many young people running into the bush,” she says.

“My sister then took me out of my wheelchair put me on her back and started running to the bush. We even fell twice and she was pregnant and had some complications during birth. We spent two days in the bush without my wheelchair, food nor water,” Sheron adds.

The story of Sheron is not unusal for residents of the northwest and southwest regions of Cameroon. Many, especially in the rural communities, have been through similar experiences since the crisis became an armed struggle in 2017.

“A good number of them have fled the villages into the safe areas in the urban towns and that has made life for them very difficult. There are some who stayed in the bush more than one month and there are some who have even been raped,” Nyingcho says.

“There are some who have been sexually harassed and there are a good number that have trekked long distances in the bush to be able to get to where they are,” he adds.

According to the United Nations, over four million people have been affected by the crisis in the Anglophone Northwest and Southwest regions and amongst them are people living with disabilities some of whom are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.

Lack of assistance makes it harder

But Nyingcho says more than 95 percent of people living with disabilities do not have access to mainstream humanitarian provisions in the conflict zones, thus making life even more difficult.

Sisterspeak 237, an organization that projects the voices of women and minority groups in Cameroon, is appealing to the humanitarian agencies and other actors operating in the conflict zones, says coordinator comfort Mussa.

“Because of the ongoing crisis, we are witnessing an increase in the number of people with disabilities. There are many people who have lost an arm and leg..you know..They have lost one or more body parts. and there are people who have become blind,” Musa says.

She adds that “it is very disheartening to see that even when they have lost some of these senses, and body parts and now are living with one or more impairments,” she adds.

As Sheron and her siblings fled to Bamenda, their journey under normal circumstances would have taken less than an hour, but unfortunately for them, it took them about 48 hours, Sheron says.

“From Bafut to Bamenda, we took two days because the first day we left the house, we reached at a certain point where there were gunshots, so some inhabitants around had to give us a place for us to spend the night and the roads were blocked in a way that I could not use my wheel chair .My siblings had to carry me on their back and if this person is tired, the other person will take over,” she adds.

RFI asked the Cameroonian Ministry of Social Affairs to address the issues rais’ed by this report, but the ministry refused to comment.

Source: RFI

13, November 2020

Cameroon man seeking asylum in Canada deported from the U.S. ⁰

An asylum seeker hoping to make his way to Canada has been deported back to Cameroon, where he believes he could be executed over his participation in a peaceful protest in 2017.

Kenneth was pulled from a plane heading from the United States to Cameroon on Oct. 13 after officials with Canada Border Services Agency agreed to a meeting on Oct. 30, but when the time came for his CBSA meeting, officials with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, chose not to release him from custody.

Global News has agreed not to use the 29-year-old’s full name to protect the identity of family members.

London Abused Women’s Centre executive director Megan Walker, who had been advocating for Kenneth, told Global News on Thursday that at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday she was sent a photo of a plane taking off from Texas on its way to Cameroon with roughly 90 passengers on board.

Source: Global News

13, November 2020

American, French and Czech peacekeepers killed in helicopter crash in Egypt ⁰

A helicopter with the U.S.-led Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in the Egyptian Sinai crashed on Thursday near the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, killing seven members of the peacekeeper force, the MFO said.

Those killed were five Americans, a French national and a Czech national, all of them military service members, the MFO said in a statement. It added that one American MFO member survived and was medically evacuated.

An earlier statement had said that eight peacekeepers were killed, including six Americans.

An official briefed on the incident, who could not be identified by name or nationality, told Reuters it was an accident caused by mechanical failure.

The Czech Defence Ministry released a statement confirming a Czech army member was among those killed in the helicopter crash. The statement said the cause of the crash was a technical fault.

In a tweet, the U.S. Defence Department said its initial report of six service members was incorrect and that five U.S. service members had been killed and one hospitalised.

The Israeli military said it evacuated the injured peacekeeper to a hospital in Israel.

The MFO was installed to monitor the demilitarization of the Sinai under the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace accord. It has decreased in size in recent years as the neighbouring countries tightened security cooperation against Islamist-led Sinai insurgents.

However both Israel and Egypt have, in the past, opposed proposals by Washington to reduce U.S. participation in the MFO, whose website lists some 452 Americans among the force’s 1,154 military personnel.

Cairo sees the MFO as part of a relationship with Israel that, while unpopular with many Egyptians, has brought it billions of dollars in U.S. defence aid, sweetening the foreign-enforced demilitarisation of its sovereign Sinai territory.

For Israel, the MFO offers strategic reassurance in a region where allegiances can shift. In a statement of condolence, Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi described the MFO as “extremely important … to maintaining security and stability”.

The MFO statement said the helicopter was on a “routine” mission when it crashed. The Israeli military said in a statement it had offered to send a rescue team to the scene.

According to its website, the MFO draws personnel from 13 countries and covers an area of more than 10,000 square kilometres (3,860 square miles) in the Sinai.

Source: REUTERS

12, November 2020

US: Lawmakers ask immigration to halt deportation of Cameroonian and other African asylum-seekers ⁰

The United States House of Representatives has asked the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop the deportation African asylum-seekers from Cameroon and other countries on the continent.

Karen Bass, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa, Bennie Thompson, Shelia Jackson-Lee, Judy Chu, Joaquin Castro and Jamie Raskin disclosed this in a joint statement issued on Tuesday.

The lawmakers said the deportation process by ICE should be put on hold until a new administration is sworn in.

The statement reads, “Our offices have been alerted that African asylum-seekers from Cameroon and other African countries, many of whom were allegedly improperly coerced by ICE to sign voluntary deportation orders, will be deported as early as tomorrow morning. Upon their arrival to their designated countries, many will be at imminent risk of death.

“Their deportation should be put on hold until the new administration is sworn in and able to carefully review these claims. Anything otherwise is outrageous and unacceptable. We plan to introduce a measure this week to condemn this deportation should it take place.

“The United States should uphold its commitment under international treaties related to refugees and asylum-seekers and halt this unjust deportation.”

The US has indicated interest to fly some Cameroonian asylum seekers back to their home country despite fears that their lives will be at risk.

Some of the deportees are activists from the country’s Anglophone minority, who face arrest warrants for their political activities from government forces with a well-documented record of extrajudicial killings.

Source: Sahara Reporters