Day: December 1, 2022

Victims of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda have had mixed reactions to plans by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch proceedings in absentia against the group’s fugitive leader, Joseph Kony.

While some say the action against the leader of the bloody two-decade conflict in northern Uganda would be welcomed, others say it’s pointless without Kony being brought to justice.

Kony is the International Criminal Court’s longest standing suspect at large. In 1987, he launched his rebellion against the ascent to power of President Yoweri Museveni.

After investigations into the Lord’s Resistance Army rebellion opened in 2004, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Kony in 2005.

Kony is wanted on 33 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The allegations against him include murder, cruel treatment, enslavement, rape, and attacks against the civilian population.

Despite efforts by different nations, including the United States, to capture him, however, the rebel leader remains elusive.

Last Thursday, Karim Khan, the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, announced he had applied to launch hearings against Kony in the rebel leader’s absence.

Khan said the move will intensify efforts to find Kony. He noted that it will represent a meaningful milestone for victims who have waited patiently for justice for almost two decades.

Retired Bishop Nelson Onono Onweng spoke with VOA about a May 19, 2004, raid in Lukodi village, which was then a camp for internally displaced people in the Gulu district of northern Uganda. Onweng lived in the camp and was a religious leader there.

Onweng said that on that fateful day, LRA rebels, led by Dominic Ongwen, raided the village, leaving more than 60 people dead. Seventeen of the dead were close relatives of the bishop. Ongwen is serving a 25-year prison sentence.

The bishop said that as a victim, he and others will have confidence in the court if it can deliver justice, even in Kony’s absence.

“If they keep waiting until Kony is captured and taken to court, those witnesses may all be dead, and evidence may get lost,” he said. “So, if they could do, because it has taken too long.”

ICC prosecutor Khan argued that if the charges are confirmed in Kony’s absence, a future trial following his arrest could move more quickly and effectively.

Beatrice Akello, a legislator from northern Uganda, said the move is not helpful if Kony is not heard.

“Who will be defending him [Joseph Kony]?” she asked. “After passing the judgment, how will they execute it? I don’t want this thing of dilly dallying. If people want to help us, let them come out and help us. But they should not pretend to be helping us when they are not.”

The Ugandan government has failed multiple times to capture Kony. Henry Oryem Okello, Uganda’s state minister for foreign affairs, said the latest move will place Kony under pressure.

“This will be a Kony out there in the bush who’s now found guilty as opposed to a Kony who is out in the bush there, who’s not subjected to a judgment of guilty on crimes [against] of humanity,” he said.

The LRA was responsible for the abduction of upwards of 60,000 people, including 20,000 children, many of whom were recruited as soldiers. The LRA also displaced close to 1.5 million people and killed an estimated 100,000 others.

Kony’s deadly operations were based in northern Uganda, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Source: Voice of America

PRETORIA, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa is facing a possible impeachment threat over the “Farmgate” scandal.

The president has been accused of covering up a $4m theft from his farm in 2020, including kidnapping and bribing the burglars into silence.

A leaked report from an independent panel has found that Ramaphosa abused his position and may have broken an anti-corruption law.

He has denied wrongdoing, and said the money was from selling buffalo.

The panel’s findings have been handed to parliament, which is set to examine them and decide whether or not to launch impeachment proceedings next week.

Ramaphosa is less than a month away from a conference which will decide if he can run for a second term with his party, the African National Congress (ANC), in 2024. The incident could be particularly damaging as Ramaphosa ran for office on an anti-corruption ticket.

The ANC will hold a meeting with its executive on Thursday, where it is expected that the issue will be discussed.

The Farmgate scandal erupted in June, when a former South African spy boss, Arthur Fraser, filed a complaint with police accusing the president of hiding a theft of $4m from his Phala Phala farm in the north-east of the country in 2020.

Fraser, who is a close ally of former President Jacob Zuma, alleged that the money could have been the proceeds of money-laundering and corruption, and accused the president of kidnapping and bribing the burglars.

Holding such a large amount of money in dollars could violate foreign exchange control laws.

Ramaphosa has confirmed a robbery, but said the amount stolen was less than that alleged, and denied attempting to cover it up.

Some $580,000 which had been paid in cash for buffalo was stolen from under sofa cushions in the farmhouse, he said.

“I did not ‘hunt’ for the perpetrators of the theft, as alleged, nor did I give any instructions for this to take place,” he wrote in a submission to the panel’s report.

The panel concluded that there were many unanswered questions, calling it a “very serious matter”.

Little information was kept about the man who supposedly paid the money for buffalo, it said, adding that he had still not collected the animals two and a half years later.

The panel also said it was strange that the money had been kept hidden in a sofa, rather than in a safe until it could be lodged in a bank account.

“We think that the president has a case to answer on the origin of the foreign currency that was stolen, as well as the underlying transaction for it,” the report said. It added: “The president abused his position as head of state to have the matter investigated and seeking the assistance of the Namibian president to apprehend a suspect.”

Namibian president Hage Geingob has previously denied any involvement in the incident. — NNN-AGENCIES

Source: Nam News Network

With China seeing the biggest anti-government protests since 1989, analysts say African governments are watching closely, mainly with economic concerns.

For the past few days, the eyes of the world have been on the outbreak of mass protests in cities across China, with demonstrators furious at continued strict COVID-19 lockdowns as part of President Xi Jinping’s unpopular “zero-COVID” policy.

The protests have also taken on a political angle, leading to comparisons to Tiananmen Square, with protesters being heard shouting: “Step down, Xi Jinping! Step down, Communist Party!”

The U.S. and German governments have said they support the right of peaceful protest in China, but from Africa there has been silence.

Still, African governments — while they are unlikely to either denounce or support the protests — will be paying close attention because China is the continent’s largest trade partner, said Cobus van Staden, cofounder of the China Global South Project, which examines China’s engagement with Africa.

“In relation to the African responses to it, I think they’ll probably be muted, and they’ll mostly be concentrating on how the impact is, of the disruptions on … kind of on commodity trade, for example,” he said.

Paul Nantulya, a researcher at the U.S. Defense Department’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies, said there are “high stakes” on the African side in terms of the zero-COVID policy and its effects on supply chains.

“There is a concern, obviously on that African side, that some of this trade might be disrupted if these lockdowns continue,” he said.

As for democratic South Africa saying anything in support of the protesters, Steven Gruzd, from the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg, said Pretoria was more likely to take a neutral stance similar to its position on the conflict in Ukraine.

“South Africa’s not going to publicly call out China, South Africa’s going to keep quiet I think and not interfere,” he said. “I certainly don’t think they’re going to give support to the protests, this is after all their BRICS ally and their largest trading partner.”

Contacted for comment on the protests by VOA, two spokesmen for South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said there was no reaction from the department.

In neighboring Zimbabwe, a longtime ally of Beijing, the spokesman for the ruling ZANU-PF party, Chris Mutsvangwa said, “As a matter of policy ZANU-PF does not interfere in the internal affairs of other United Nations member countries.”

Only in Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, the sole major African state that supports Taiwan and does not have relations with Beijing, Percy Simelane, the spokesman for the king’s office, said of the Chinese protests, “We believe in freedom of expression for all nations and societies.”

Aside from the lack of government reaction, media coverage of the protests on the continent has also been muted. Outlets across the region are mostly picking up news articles from the international wires, with very few local op-eds on the nature of the dissent.

However, Kenyan and South African newspapers this week both ran original copy on how their local currencies and economies stood to be affected by the unrest. They focused on fuel prices and exports.

There has been silence from the Chinese state media too, but that might change if the protests continue, Nantulya said.

“One can expect that over the next few weeks China is really going to up the ante. It does have a sizeable media infrastructure and architecture on the continent of Africa, and we can be sure that it will make maximum use of the capability to regain the narrative, to control the narrative, and essentially to discredit the protests and whichever African sympathies might be out there,” Nantulya said.

For now, Chinese police are out in force and officials have warned of a “crackdown,” but there are also indications the government may be looking at softening COVID restrictions.

Source: Voice of America

Next year will set another record for humanitarian relief requirements, with 339 million people in need of assistance in 69 countries, an increase of 65 million people compared to the same time last year, the United Nations and partner organizations said today.

The estimated cost of the humanitarian response going into 2023 is US$51.5 billion, a 25 per cent increase compared to the beginning of 2022.

“Humanitarian needs are shockingly high, as this year’s extreme events are spilling into 2023,” said the Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths.

“Lethal droughts and floods are wreaking havoc in communities from Pakistan to the Horn of Africa. The war in Ukraine has turned a part of Europe into a battlefield. More than 100 million people are now displaced worldwide. And all of this on top of the devastation left by the pandemic among the world’s poorest.

“For people on the brink, this appeal is a lifeline. For the international community, it is a strategy to make good on the pledge to leave no one behind.”

The 2023 Global Humanitarian Overview (GHO), launched today by the UN in collaboration with nongovernmental organizations and other humanitarian partners, paints a stark picture of what lies ahead:

At least 222 million people in 53 countries will face acute food insecurity by the end of 2022. Forty-five million people in 37 countries risk starvation.?

Public health is under pressure due to COVID-19, monkeypox, vectorborne diseases, and outbreaks of Ebola and cholera.

Climate change is driving up risks and vulnerability. By the end of the century, extreme heat could claim as many lives as cancer.

It will take four generations – 132 years – to achieve global gender parity. Globally, 388 million women and girls live in extreme poverty.

The response plans in the GHO detail how aid agencies working together around specific types of aid – including shelter, food, maternal health, child nutrition and protection – can save and support the lives of a combined 230 million people worldwide.

This year, humanitarian organizations have delivered assistance to stave off the most urgent needs of 157 million people. This includes food assistance for 127 million people; sufficient safe water for nearly 26 million people; livelihood assistance for 24 million people; mental health and psychosocial support for 13 million children and caregivers; maternal health consultations for 5.2 million mothers; and health-care services for 5.8 million refugees and asylum-seekers.

Humanitarians have painstakingly negotiated access to communities in need, most recently in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, to deliver water and food rations. And the Black Sea Grain Initiative has been renewed, ensuring a continuous flow of food commodities from Ukraine to global markets.

National and local organizations are members of 80 per cent of all Humanitarian Country Teams, providing essential guidance and leadership. And from Afghanistan to the Central African Republic, local organizations led by women are engaged in humanitarian planning and programming.

Donors have provided a generous $24 billion in funding as of mid-November 2022, but needs are rising faster than the financial support. The funding gap has never been greater, currently at 53 per cent. Humanitarian organizations are therefore forced to decide who to target with the funds available.

Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

A new European Union proposal for an international tribunal to try Russian aggression in Ukraine has received mixed reviews — prompting a thumbs up from Kyiv and rights advocates but doubts from experts about its feasibility and whether it will receive broad-based acceptance.

“Russia must pay for its horrific crimes, including for its crime of aggression against a sovereign state,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen Wednesday, laying out arguments for establishing a new, United Nations-backed court. “We are ready to start working with the international community to get the broadest international support possible for this specialized court.”

The United Nations-backed International Criminal Court — also known as the ICC — in the Netherlands is already looking into alleged Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, as well as possible Ukrainian atrocities. Russia has denied committing war crimes and accused the international community of ignoring abuses by Ukrainian forces.

Special U.N.-backed tribunals aren’t new. The body proposed by von der Leyen, if ever realized, would focus on Russian aggression in Ukraine.

First lady points to thousands of crimes

The Ukrainian government has been quick to support the idea. Visiting a London exhibition this week on alleged Russian war crimes, Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska called for justice.

She said more than 40,000 Russian crimes had been registered in Ukraine. Look at the photos at the exhibition, she told her audience, and abstract ideas of war in Ukraine will become real.

Moscow has dismissed the idea of a new war crimes tribunal as having no legitimacy. Experts suggest it would be challenging to establish one.

“My reading of what Ursula von der Leyen said is that the EU doesn’t take for granted that there would be overwhelming international support — and that it recognizes there has to be a sort of campaign to win support for the idea,” said Anthony Dworkin, a policy fellow specializing in human rights and justice at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank.

Proposal needs support from developing nations

Brussels will especially need backing from developing countries in Africa and elsewhere, said Dworkin.

“I think it’s very important that that should be done, rather than European countries kind of short-circuiting the attempt to win international legitimacy for the idea by just setting it up themselves,” he said.

Even if it’s up and running, such a tribunal could face obstacles if, for example, Russian President Vladimir Putin or other Russian officials face war crimes charges yet are still welcome to visit some nations. That was the case with Sudan’s former leader, Omar al-Bashir, who traveled to multiple countries despite ICC arrest warrants.

Charges against high-level Russian officials may also complicate any future Western efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

“A court is supposed to be politically independent,” said Dworkin. “And therefore, you wouldn’t for instance expect — if there is a kind of negotiation at the end of the conflict — that the charges would be somehow dropped as part of the negotiation. The charges will persist.”

Source: Voice of America