Category: Politics

KIGALI— US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to hold talks with Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Thursday, facing calls from campaigners to pressure Kigali over its human rights record and alleged support of rebels in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Blinken arrived late Wednesday in Rwanda, the final stop of a three-nation trip to Africa, hot on the heels of a visit to the continent by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The US diplomat has sought to woo African nations, which have largely steered clear of backing Washington against Moscow in the Ukraine war, by calling for an “equal” partnership with the continent.

His visit comes after an unpublished independent investigation for the UN, said Rwandan troops had attacked soldiers inside the DRC and aided M23 rebels, a primarily Tutsi rebel group.

The M23 has captured swathes of territory in eastern DRC in recent months, causing tensions to spike between Kigali and Kinshasa, which has repeatedly accused Kagame’s government of backing the notorious militia.

In the DRC on Tuesday, Blinken said the United States was “very concerned by credible reports that Rwanda has supported the M23,” adding that he would discuss the issue with Kagame, whose government has consistently denied the claims.

In a statement released Monday, Human Rights Watch called on Blinken to “urgently signal that there will be consequences for the government’s repression and abuse in Rwanda and beyond its borders.”

“Failing to address Rwanda’s abysmal human rights record has emboldened its officials to continue to commit abuse, even beyond its borders,” said Lewis Mudge, HRW’s Central Africa director.

The rights watchdog urged Blinken “to highlight systematic human rights violations, including crackdowns on opponents and civil society, both within and across Rwanda’s borders.”

Opposition leader Victoire Ingabire echoed HRW’s calls, saying that Blinken “should raise the issue of journalists and politicians who are in prison” for challenging Kagame’s government.

“Blinken has to ask our government to open up political space to everyone who wants to be active in politics,” said Ingabire, who spent six years in jail on terrorism charges.

Blinken is also facing calls to press for the release of Paul Rusesabagina, the “Hotel Rwanda” hero who is credited with saving hundreds of lives during the 1994 genocide.

A US permanent resident, Rusesabagina is a fierce critic of Kagame and was sentenced to a 25-year prison term last year on terrorism charges after a plane he believed was bound for Burundi landed in Kigali in August 2020.

Source: Nam News Network

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Rwanda, the last stop on his three-nation tour of Africa where he has articulated Washington’s new strategy for engaging with sub-Saharan African nations as “equal partners.”

Blinken comes to Rwanda at a particularly difficult time for Africa’s Great Lakes region, with the small central African nation at odds with vast neighbor Congo over allegations that both governments support rebels opposed to each other.

In a meeting Thursday with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Blinken is expected to discuss efforts to ease the tensions. Rwanda is rejecting a new report by United Nations experts saying they have “solid evidence” that members of Rwanda’s armed forces are conducting operations in eastern Congo in support of the M23 rebel group.

Blinken has said reports of Rwanda’s support for M23 appeared “credible.” After meeting with authorities in Congo on Tuesday, he said the U.S. will support African-led efforts to end the fighting.

Rwandan authorities in turn accuse Congo of giving refuge to ethnic Hutu fighters who played roles in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide that killed ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. There have long been tensions between the countries. In the late 1990s, Rwanda twice sent its forces deep into Congo, joining forces with rebel leader Laurent Kabila to depose the country’s longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

Both Rwanda and Congo deny the charges of backing rebel groups, and Rwandan authorities have rejected the latest report by U.N. experts as a move “to distract from real issues.” Rwanda also asserts that its security needs cannot be met while armed fugitives from the genocide continue to operate from inside Congolese territory.

A meeting between Kagame and Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi in Angola on July 6 produced a statement calling for a return to normal diplomatic relations, a cessation of hostilities and the “immediate and unconditional withdrawal” of the M23 from its positions in eastern Congo.

But M23, which comprises mostly ethnic Tutsis from Congo, continues to hold its positions near the border with Uganda, keeping the spotlight on Rwanda.

The chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a letter to Blinken last month called for a comprehensive review of U.S. policy toward Rwanda and noted his concern that Washington’s support for Rwanda, widely described by human right groups as authoritarian and repressive, is not in line with U.S. values.

The State Department said Blinken in Rwanda also will raise democracy and human rights concerns, including transnational repression and the limited space for the opposition.

Paul Rusesabagina, a permanent resident of the U.S. who is jailed in Rwanda after his conviction last year on terror-related charges, also is on the agenda. Rusesabagina, who achieved fame with the film “Hotel Rwanda” for sheltering ethnic Tutsis during the genocide, was a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In a statement ahead of Blinken’s visit, Rwanda’s government said it “looks forward to a robust exchange of views on governance and human rights, as has always been the case in the Rwanda-U.S. bilateral relationship.” It acknowledged the talks would include Rusesabagina’s situation.

Blinken on this trip also visited South Africa, where he described a strategy “rooted in the recognition that sub-Saharan Africa is a major geopolitical force.”

Source: Voice of America

The Kremlin has lashed out at European critics including leaders of EU states and besieged Ukraine over their calls for all Russians to be banned from the West until their country ends its invasion of Ukraine along with the underlying mindset.

The sharp response follows encouragement by the Finnish and Estonian prime ministers for a ban on visas to Russians and news that the French military has banned Russian nationals from a medieval fortress and touristic site outside Paris that houses military archives.

Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has killed tens of thousands of troops and civilians since it was launched in late February, sparked unprecedented financial and other sanctions, flight and airspace bans, and contributed to a global food crisis.

Some EU countries, including Latvia, have already stopped issuing visas to Russians, citing the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose defiant leadership has included nightly video messages imploring international assistance, this week urged the West to ban all Russians to discourage Moscow from trying to annex more territory.

Zelenskiy told The Washington Post that “whichever kind of Russian” should be made to “go to Russia.”

But Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said on August 9 that “the irrationality of thinking” behind calls for such bans “is off the charts.”

Amid increasing tensions with the West, poisonings abroad allegedly ordered by senior Russian officials, and the creep of Russian troops and proxy fighters from Georgia to Ukraine to Syria and central Africa, Putin and other Russian officials have complained of growing “Russophobia.”

Peskov said the fresh calls to ban Russians “can only be viewed extremely negatively” and warned that “any attempt to isolate Russians or Russia is a process that has no prospects.”

EU members and Russia neighbors Finland and Estonia have hinted they’re willing to try a visa ban.

Finland Prime Minister Sanna Marin told Finnish broadcaster YLE on August 8 that “it is not right that while Russia is waging an aggressive, brutal war of aggression in Europe, Russians can live a normal life, travel in Europe, be tourists.”

Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas followed with a call for countries to “stop issuing tourist visas to Russians.”

“Visiting #Europe is a privilege, not a human right,” Kallas tweeted. “Air travel from RU is shut down. It means while Schengen countries issue visas, neighbors to Russia carry the burden (FI, EE, LV – sole access points). Time to end tourism from Russia now.”

Barring all Russians would also impact the tens of thousands of people who have left that country out of protest or disagreement with the actions of Putin and his administration.

“They’ll understand then,” the Ukrainian president told The Washington Post. “They’ll say, ‘This [war] has nothing to do with us. The whole population can’t be held responsible, can it?’ It can. The population picked this government and they’re not fighting it, not arguing with it, not shouting at it.”

“Don’t you want this isolation?” Zelensky added, speaking as if he were addressing Russians directly. “You’re telling the whole world that it must live by your rules. Then go and live there. This is the only way to influence Putin.”

The French military has imposed a ban on Russians visiting the storied Chateau de Vincennes, once the residence of French kings and a venue for tours and concerts as well as part of the French armed forces’ historical archives.

AFP quoted two Russian women denied entry by French guards after showing their documents and being told they couldn’t get in “because you’re Russian.”

Putin has spent the decades since taking office in 1999 consolidating and otherwise tightening the country’s grip on media, including strictures in the past decade like laws on “foreign agents” and “undesirable” designations to punish activists, journalists, and any other perceived enemies.

Since the full-scale war in Ukraine was launched, criminal procedures and other punishments have been imposed for criticism of the Russian military or even just describing the conflict as a war, rather than the Kremlin’s preferred term, a “special military operation.”

Copyright (c) 2015. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036

President Cyril Ramaphosa will on Friday, 05 August 2022, address a Gala Dinner hosted by the South African Chapter of the International Association of Women Judges (SAC-IAWJ).

SAC-IAWJ is an Association of Women Judicial Officers that includes Magistrates and Judges, established in 2004 for the purpose of “Advancing Human Rights and Equality for All” in South Africa.

The South African Chapter of the IAWJ will, in collaboration with the University of South Africa (UNISA) and the Department of Women, Youth and People with Disabilities, host the Chapter’s 16th Conference and Annual General Meeting from 5 to 7 August 2022 at UNISA in Tshwane.

The conference will be attended by key jurists and academics, under the theme “Empowerment as a tool to fight Gender Based Violence #Breaking Barriers and Bias”.

This association’s conference forms part of a diverse range of activities that constitute Women’s Month 2022 which is being observed under the theme “Women’s Socio-Economic Rights and Empowerment: Building Back Better for Women’s Resilience”

The SAC-IAWJ will also during the gala dinner confer its Pioneers in the Judiciary Award to the newly appointed Deputy Chief Justice Designate of the Republic of South Africa, Justice Mandisa Muriel Lindelwa Maya, the first woman jurist to be appointed to this position in the history of South Africa.

Deputy Chief Justice Designate Justice Maya will assume her new role on 1 September 2022.

Source: The Presidency Republic of South Africa

A new Tunisian constitution greatly expanding presidential powers easily passed a referendum on Monday, according to an exit poll, but with very low turnout.

President Kais Saied ousted the parliament last year and moved to rule by decree, saying the country needed saving from years of paralysis. He rewrote the constitution last month.

Opposition parties boycotted the referendum, saying it dismantles the democracy Tunisia introduced after its 2011 revolution and could start a slide back toward autocracy.

Tunisia, meanwhile, faces a looming economic crisis and is seeking an International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue package, issues that have preoccupied ordinary people far more over the past year than the political crisis.

The exit poll by Sigma Conseil said 92.3% of the eligible voters who took part in the referendum supported Saied’s new constitution. There was no minimum level of participation. The electoral commission put preliminary turnout figures at 27.5%.

The new constitution gives the president power over both the government and judiciary while removing checks on his authority and weakening the parliament.

His opponents say his moves last year constituted a coup and have rejected his unilateral moves to rewrite the constitution and put it to a referendum as illegal.

However, his initial moves against the parliament appeared hugely popular with Tunisians, as thousands flooded the streets to support him, but with little progress in addressing dire economic problems, that support may have waned.

Official turnout figures for the referendum will be closely watched and the electoral commission is expected to release its own preliminary number later.

The lowest turnout of any national election since the 2011 revolution, which triggered the Arab Spring, was 41% in 2019 for the parliament that Saied has dissolved.

The president’s opponents have also questioned the integrity of a vote conducted by an electoral commission whose board Saied replaced this year, and with fewer independent observers than for previous Tunisian elections.

Casting his own vote on Monday, Saied hailed the referendum as the foundation of a new republic.

Western democracies that looked to Tunisia as the only success story of the Arab Spring have yet to comment on the proposed new constitution, although they have urged Tunis over the past year to return to the democratic path.

“I’m frustrated by all of them. I’d rather enjoy this hot day than go and vote,” said Samia, a woman sitting with her husband and teenage son on the beach at La Marsa near Tunis.

Others voiced support for Saied.

Casting his vote on Rue Marseilles in downtown Tunis, Illyes Moujahed said former law professor Saied was the only hope.

“I’m here to save Tunisia from collapse. To save it from years of corruption and failure,” said Moujahed, first in line.

But the atmosphere was muted in the run-up to the referendum, with only small crowds attending rallies for and against the constitution.

Economic decline since 2011 has left many Tunisians angry at the parties that have governed since the revolution and disillusioned with the political system they ran.

To address economic privations, the government hopes to secure a $4 billion loan from the IMF, but faces stiff union opposition to the required reforms, including cuts to fuel and food subsidies.

Source: Voice of America

A demonstration was held at the Ministry of Transportation in Abuja on Monday morning by the relatives of victims still in captivity.

The protest was triggered by footage released Sunday by the kidnappers, who were shown mercilessly flogging the captives. The kidnappers also threatened to kill some of the victims and sell the rest if the government did not respond to their demands.

They also threatened to abduct Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Kaduna state Governor Nasir El-Rufai.

It is not clear what the terrorists’ demands are, but the video triggered criticism of the government’s inability to rescue the victims.

On Sunday, the president’s spokesperson, Garba Shehu, called the terrorists’ threats “propaganda” and said security and defense forces “have their plans and ways of doing things.”

Shehu was not immediately available for further comment, but security analyst Senator Iroegbu said the terrorists cannot possibly kidnap the president. But he warned that the threats must be taken seriously.

“They’re trying to show that they’re more emboldened and there’s nothing the commander in chief can do. They could smell weakness, that this government is weak. The fear is that citizens are more vulnerable.”

Nine people were killed, and scores kidnapped on the Abuja-Kaduna train the night of March 28 after armed men bombed the tracks and derailed the moving train.

Experts blamed the attack on an unprecedented alliance between jihadists and criminal gangs.

In the recent video, one of the terrorists claimed to have been freed from the Kuje prison in Abuja after a jail break on July 5.

The claim corroborates claims that bandits and terror groups were working hand in hand, says Iroegbu.

“Terrorists can use banditry as a means to obtain money to advance their cause. Bandits can also use terrorism to obtain whatever they’re looking for, so there’s a mix already. The linkage between terrorism and banditry that is going on, the terrorists have seen a loophole there and married the two together.

Protesting relatives say they will not relent until authorities free their loved ones from their captors.

Temitope Kabir’s husband is among those held.

“We’re tired of waiting. We don’t want a situation where these people will carry out their threats. We need the government to do something, and they should do it now. We’re ready to be here for as many days as we can under rain, under sun.

Experts and families say Nigerian authorities have shown weak political will to secure the release of the victims. But authorities say they’re trying to tactically handle the issue without losing innocent civilians to a gun battle with the terrorists.

This month, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) claimed responsibility for a jail break that freed hundreds of inmates from Kuje prison, including high-profile terrorists.

Authorities have been searching for missing inmates. Also this month, Buhari’s advance convoy was ambushed in his hometown in Daura in northwest Katsina state. The president was not in the convoy.

Source: Voice of America

Pope Francis apologized Monday for the Catholic Church’s role in Canada’s former policy of separating Indigenous children from their families and forcing them to attend Christian schools, where many were abused.

“I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” Pope Francis said at a former Indigenous residential school in the western Canadian town of Maskwacis, Alberta.

More than 150,000 Indigenous children in Canada were forced to attend government-funded Christian residential schools from the late 1880s to the 1970s in an effort to distance them from their native languages and cultures.

Many of the children were physically and sexually abused in a system that Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called “cultural genocide.”

Thousands of Indigenous peoples gathered Monday to hear the pope speak near the site of the former Ermineskin Indian Residential School, many wearing traditional dress. Others wore orange shirts, a symbol of residential school survivors.

The pope said the residential schools were a “disastrous error” that was “incompatible” with the gospel and said the schools had “devastating” effects on generations of Indigenous peoples.

“I ask forgiveness, in particular, for the ways in which many members of the church and of religious communities cooperated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time,” he said.

He apologized for the Catholic Church’s support of a “colonizing mentality” and called for a “serious investigation” of the traumas inflicted on Indigenous children in Catholic educational institutions.

The pope has already apologized for the Catholic Church’s role in the Canadian residential schools during a visit by Indigenous delegates to the Vatican earlier this year. However, this is the first time the pope has apologized on Canadian soil.

The abuses at the Canadian residential schools drew international attention in the past year following the discoveries of hundreds of potential burial sites at former schools. Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission called on the pope to apologize for the abuses on Canadian soil.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has apologized for Canada’s role in the residential school system, saying it was an “incredibly harmful government policy.”

On his arrival in Canada on Sunday, the pope was met by representatives of Canada’s three main Indigenous groups — First Nations, Metis and Inuit – along with Trudeau.

On his flight from Rome to Edmonton on Sunday, Francis told reporters “This is a trip of penance. Let’s say that is its spirit.”

The pope’s visit to Canada will also take him to Quebec City and Iqaluit, the capital of the territory of Nunavut.

The 85-year-old pope canceled a trip earlier this month to Africa because of a knee problem.

Source: Voice of America

Zimbabwe’s central bank has introduced gold coins that it hopes will ease citizens’ demands for foreign currency. But economists and ordinary Zimbabweans are skeptical.

At the official launch of the gold coins in Harare on Monday, John Mangudya, head of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, said the coins are designed to reduce demand for U.S. dollars in the country.

Zimbabweans are largely shunning the weak local dollar in favor of U.S. greenbacks, which Zimbabweans see as more acceptable abroad and better at holding their value long term.

Mangudya said he hoped that Zimbabweans will now opt for the gold coins, which cost about $1,800 each.

“We are now providing that store of value to ensure that people do not run to the parallel market in search for foreign currency to store value,” he said. “And there is no other better product that can be used to store value other than gold.”

Mangudya said the coin is a sign of respect for the people of Zimbabwe.

“We know what you have been going through in terms of the fear factor of losing value and therefore we are providing this gold coin,” he said. It’s a genuine gold coin to ensure that it is saved and invested there.”

Mangudya said 2,000 coins will be manufactured, with future production depending on the public’s appetite.

Prosper Chitambara, a senior researcher and economist at the Labor and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe, said despite the bank’s hopes he doubts the coins will drastically reduce demand for American dollars.

“Even the demand for U.S. dollar as a store of value, it will also rise because there are still a lot of uncertainties relating to the convertibility of these gold coins — are [they] internationally tradeable, especially given the trust and confidence issues?” Chitambara said.

Chitambra also expressed caution about the coin.

“Most people may not have money to buy this since most citizens are literally living from hand to mouth,” Chitambara said.

One of those Zimbabweans struggling to get by is Christine Kayumba, a high school teacher in Harare.

“The issue of gold coins to us teachers in Zimbabwe, is something we can dream of,” Kayumba said. “It means a teacher who is getting a salary of $190 to $200 would need nine to 10 months to buy one gold coin.”

For Kayumba, that $200 of salary pays for transport, food, rent and money to send children to school. It’s money to live, she said, not to buy a gold coin.

“So, I believe the gold coins were meant for the rich people, not the ordinary teacher or any civil servant in Zimbabwe,” she said.

Mangudya told reporters Monday that gold coins of lesser value would be minted in future to cater for people who have fewer resources.

Source: Voice of America

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is facing a criminal investigation after a revelation that he failed to report the theft of about $4 million in cash from his farm in northern Limpopo province.

An account of the theft is contained in an affidavit by the country’s former head of intelligence Arthur Fraser, who has opened a case against Ramaphosa.

Ramaphosa has not denied the theft but claims that he reported it to the head of his VIP Protection unit, who did not report it to the police.

In South Africa it is illegal not to report a crime and according to Fraser’s affidavit, Ramaphosa tried to conceal the theft, which happened in February 2020 when he was attending an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Several opposition parties have called for a full investigation into the theft, including whether the amount of foreign currency allegedly stolen had been declared to the South African Revenue Service.

The Democratic Alliance, the country’s biggest opposition party, said Ramaphosa should come clean about the circumstances surrounding the theft and why it was not reported to the police.

“The president is facing a crisis of credibility and cannot hide behind procedural smokescreens to avoid presenting South Africans with the full truth around the money that was stolen from his farm, and the subsequent cover-up,” the opposition party’s leader John Steenhuisen said in a statement.

Another opposition party, the United Democratic Movement, has called on Ramaphosa to take a “leave of absence” while Parliament probes the incident, saying it is not prudent for it to do so while he was in office.

Ramaphosa publicly spoke about the incident for the first time over the weekend since the revelations surfaced, saying the cash was from buying and selling animals on his farm.

“I want to reaffirm that I was not involved in any criminal conduct, and once again I pledge my full cooperation with any form of investigation,” said Ramaphosa on Sunday.

“I would like to say that I’m a farmer. I’m in the cattle business and the game business. And through that business, which has been declared to Parliament and all over, I buy and I sell animals,” he said.

The sales are sometimes through cash and sometimes through transfers, and what is being reported is a clear business transaction of selling animals, said Ramaphosa.

He was addressing the Limpopo provincial conference of the ruling party, the African National Congress, where his political allies were re-elected, boosting his own chances for re-election as the ANC’s president at the party’s national conference in December.

Ramaphosa’s supporters have cried foul, saying the timing of the revelation is part of efforts to derail his efforts to be re-elected party president in December.

The information about the theft was revealed by Fraser, the former head of South Africa’s intelligence, who is known to be loyal to former President Jacob Zuma.

Fraser controversially approved Zuma’s release from prison on medical parole last year, an action that is now being contested in court as illegal. Zuma had been sent to prison last year after he was convicted of defying the Constitutional Court by refusing to testify at a judicial inquiry probing allegations of corruption during his presidential term from 2009 to 2018.

Source: Voice of America