23, September 2019
Burundi govt accuses Catholic bishops of spreading ‘hatred’ 0
Catholic bishops in Burundi came under fire from authorities for “spitting venomous hatred” over a damning message read out in churches Sunday denouncing intolerance and political violence ahead of 2020 elections.
The message issued by the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Burundi and read out in churches expressed their “concern” eight months ahead of the May 20 presidential election comes five years after President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term plunged the country into crisis.
In the letter seen by AFP, the bishops raised the alarm over efforts to “suffocate and assault certain political parties and to persecute their members. Criminal acts go as far as murders with political motives… perpetrated against those with different opinions to the government.”
They also said the ruling party’s youth league — the feared Imbonerakure which the UN has accused of atrocities — had “taken the place of security forces”.
Presidential spokesman Willy Nyamitwe lashed out at the bishops on Twitter after the message leaked on social media ahead of the church services.
“Some bishops should be defrocked because it is becoming a habit: on the eve of elections they spit their venomous hatred through incendiary messages,” he wrote on Saturday.
The secretary general of the ruling CNDD-FDD Evariste Ndayishimiye meanwhile accused the bishops of “sowing division”.
“It is shameful to spread hatred among the faithful,” he told a political gathering Saturday.
A team of investigators from the United Nations earlier this month warned of a climate of fear in Burundi ahead of the elections, with crimes against humanity and other serious violations continuing with impunity.
“The commission found that the eight common risk factors for criminal atrocities are present in Burundi,” it said, insisting that “the evolving situation must be monitored with the greatest vigilance.”
The Imbonerakure especially have carried out killings, disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detentions, acts of torture and rape against actual or alleged political opposition members, the investigators said.
At least 1,200 people were killed in violence in the wake of the 2015 election and more than 400,000 were displaced in violence between April 2015 and May 2017 the UN says was mostly carried out by state security forces.
In a surprise development, Nkurunziza announced last year that he would not stand for election in 2020, confounding critics who accused him of working to extend his grip on power.
Relations soured between the government of Nkurunziza, a devout evangelical, and the Catholic Church after it opposed his third-term bid in 2015.
(AFP)
24, September 2019
US: Impeachment pressure grows over Trump’s call with Ukraine president 0
Pressure is escalating for Democrats in the US Congress to launch impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump over allegations that the Republican president had asked his Ukrainian counterpart to launch an investigation that could damage Democratic political rival Joe Biden.
Speaking to reporters as he arrived at the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday, a defiant Trump said he is taking the impeachment threat “not at all seriously”
“The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption… and largely the fact that we don’t want our people, like vice president Biden and his son, creating… the corruption already in the Ukraine,” Trump said.
Trump also sought to deflect any blame from himself and redirect it towards Biden, accusing the former vice president, without evidence, of engaging in corruption in Ukraine.
The latest crisis for Trump was sparked earlier this month after The Washington Post reported that Trump made a phone call in July to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and allegedly attempted to coerce Zelensky into finding damning information about Biden’s son’s business dealings in Ukraine.
On Sunday, Trump acknowledged that he discussed Biden and his son in a call with the Ukrainian president.
Several Democrats now argue that Trump’s call for Ukraine to investigate Biden, and what they suspect was a threat to condition $250 million in aid to Ukraine on an investigation of Biden, is impeachable conduct.
That view may be pushing House leaders towards a tipping point for launching removal proceedings.
The Democratic leader of a key congressional panel said on Sunday the pursuit of Trump’s impeachment may be the “only remedy” to the situation.
Amid the growing pressure, several Republicans in the US Senate, which would hold a trial of Trump should the House impeach him, have signaled they want the president to be more transparent about the call and the whistleblower’s complaint.
“I would just urge the president — you know, he’s talking openly about the conversation — to release as much as possible,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump loyalist, told the Hugh Hewitt radio show.
However, Democrat leaders have hesitated to pull the impeachment trigger. Launching impeachment proceedings could be a politically risky move ahead of a presidential election.
Source: Presstv