Day: December 7, 2022

PRETORIA, Leaders of South Africa’s governing party have backed President Cyril Ramaphosa as he faces corruption allegations and a possible vote in parliament on impeachment.

He came to power pledging to tackle corruption but has now been caught up in his own crisis.

An independent report said Ramaphosa may have broken the law by allegedly covering up a theft at his farm.

He has denied any wrongdoing and his spokesman said the report was “flawed”.

The report, which was commissioned from a panel of legal experts by the speaker, will be debated in parliament. The African National Congress (ANC) leadership has said it will tell its MPs, who form the majority, to vote against its adoption.

This came after Ramaphosa challenged the report in the country’s Constitutional Court.

Earlier, leader of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters Julius Malema called for the arrest of the president alleging that he had committed a crime. Ramaphosa has not been charged with anything at this point.

Ramaphosa became president in 2018 after the resignation of Jacob Zuma, whose time in office had been weighed down by many such allegations.

This scandal erupted in June, when a former South African spy boss, Zuma-ally Arthur Fraser, filed a complaint with police accusing the president of hiding a theft of $4m in cash from his Phala Phala game farm in 2020.

Ramaphosa admitted that some money, which had been hidden in a sofa, had been stolen, but said it was $580,000 not $4m.

The president said the $580,000 had come from the sale of buffalo, but the panel, headed by a former chief justice, said it had “substantial doubt” about whether a sale took place.

In his submission to the Constitutional Court, Ramaphosa wants the country’s top judges to rule that the findings of the panel are unlawful and set aside. He is also asking the court to declare that any steps taken by parliament on the back of the release of the report to be declared unlawful and invalid.

Source: Nam News network

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) agreed at a summit this week to establish a regional peacekeeping force to fight terrorism and restore democracy after military coups.

The ECOWAS standby force will be led by chiefs of defense staff of member nations, with the stated aim of addressing terrorism and coup attempts among ECOWAS members.

The force will also help restore democratic order in places where coups already have taken place.

Abuja-based political analyst Rotimi Olawale said the peacekeeping force is a welcome development.

“ECOWAS is not unfamiliar with creating peacekeeping forces. In the ’90s, ECOWAS was popular for creating ECOMOG, which was responsible for restoring peace and order in a number of countries including Liberia,” Olawale said. “It’s a welcome development, particularly in response to counter violent extremism that we’re seeing growing in western Africa. What I see might pose a challenge is this peacekeeping force is expected to respond to two twin challenges.”

The 15-member West African bloc has seen many coups in the last two years, including ones in Mali and Guinea and two this year in Burkina Faso. The three countries have been suspended from ECOWAS decision-making bodies.

ECOWAS leaders say the coups have set back decades of democratic gains made in the region and have earned it a reputation for being unstable.

ECOWAS member nations also are battling jihadist fighters operating across borders, making it difficult for individual nations’ security forces to address.

Security analyst and editor-in-chief of Security Digest newspapers Chidi Omeje said there will be initial challenges.

“This is a purely unconventional kind of warfare, you don’t even know the boundaries or who your adversaries are. So, how would such standby force identify adversaries?” Omeje said. “We have the anglophone and the francophone, these two blocks always have this mutual suspicion for each other, they have different perspectives in the way that they deal with each other.”

Olawale agreed that restoring peace and order will not be easy.

“There were cases where the sitting governments in some of these countries thwarted their constitutions to extend time of office of incumbent. Public opinions in some of the countries support use of force to have a fresh start,” Olawale said. “I feel ECOWAS needs to be very careful in how it responds to coups. There will be a lot of problems if there’s no public buy-in, especially among the citizens of the countries.”

This week, the West African bloc told Mali’s ruling junta to free 46 Ivorian troops who were sent to provide backup for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali but have been held since July.

Defense chiefs from member nations of ECOWAS will meet in January to discuss a way forward for the peacekeeping force.

Source: Voice of America

BRUSSELS, An auction house in Belgium has rendered an apology after it received backlash for trying to sell three skulls of Africans who were killed when the Democratic Republic of Congo was a colony. Vanderkindere auction house also canceled the auctioning of the skulls in question.

The individuals whose skulls the auction house was trying to sell were reportedly killed between January 1893 and May 1894. Vanderkindere’s attempt to sell the body parts was condemned by the human rights group, Collectif Mémoire Coloniale et Lutte contre les Discriminations (CMCLD).

The group also called for a demonstration in Brussels to protest the sale of the skulls and to also call on the Belgian government to seize and conserve them “in an appropriate way and with dignity.”

The skulls were part of a private colonial collection that Vanderkindere had planned to put on public sale on Dec 14. “The Vanderkindere auction house sincerely apologizes for having offered at auction a lot comprising three human skulls linked to the Belgian colonial past, and this is why they are imperatively withdrawn from the sale,” the auction house said.

“We in no way condone the suffering and humiliation suffered by the people who are victims of these colonial acts. We once again offer our deepest regrets to anyone who has been hurt and hurt by the sale of this lot.”

The news of the skulls being put up for sale sparked outrage in the European nation as well as on social media. Human rights organizations labeled the decision as “dehumanizing and racist.”

Between 1908 and 1960, Belgium colonized the Central African territory formerly known as the Belgian Congo. Reports state that millions of Congolese nationals were killed under Belgian rule. Some also died due to famine and disease.

Source: Nam News Network