Monday, February 25, 2013

African Leaders Sign DRC Peace Deal


Front row, left to right,  Joseph Kabila Kabange President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Denis Sanssou N'guesso, President of the Republic of Congo, during the signing of the Congo peace deal in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,  Feb. 24, 2013.
Front row, left to right, Joseph Kabila Kabange President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Denis Sanssou N'guesso, President of the Republic of Congo, during the signing of the Congo peace deal in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Feb. 24, 2013.
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Sunday, February 24, 2013

SPLA will defend its territory from Sudan's aggression: official - Sudan Tribune: Plural news and views on Sudan


By Bonifacio Taban Kuich
February 23, 2013 (BENTIU) – The South Sudanese army (SPLA) will fight to protect its people and the country’s territorial integrity, should Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) invade the new nation, its fourth division commander in Unity State has assured.
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James Koang Chol, the SPLA fourth division commander in Unity state, February 23, 2013 (ST)
Speaking exclusively to Sudan Tribune on Saturday, James Koang Chol said the SPLA forces have been monitoring operations of SAF and its allied militias in neighbouring South Kordofan state, further accusing the Sudanese army of continuously bombing its territories.
“They have bombed our side, [but] we in the SPLA are in our position, specially this division. We have not moved any inches to the north, but they [SAF] have bombed our position in Jau [in Unity state], in which we lost one of SPLA soldier and some of the civilians were injured” said Chol.
The SPLA division commander warned that the southern army would retaliate, if provoked into war by Khartoum, as part of its mandate to protect South Sudan’s territorial integrity.
Last week, the SPLA accused the Sudanese army of bombing Jau area in its Unity state, killing two people and several cattle. The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) also confirmed the attack, which it claims occurred in a “contested” region.
Chol, however, insists South Sudan remains committed to the implementation of the September cooperation agreement, both Presidents Salva Kiir and his Sudanese counterpart, Omer al Bashir signed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Since then, implementation of the agreements on security and economic matters, as well as call for a demilitarized zone along the border and the creation of a “soft border” have made very little progress.
Early this year, talks between the two parties failed after disagreements emerged over security, border demarcation and the final status of the disputed Abyei area. The situation has caused a stalemate between the two countries, with Khartoum refusing to accept passage of South Sudan’s oil flows through its territories, unless Juba ends its alleged support for SPLM-N rebels, which is fighting the Sudanese army in the north’s restive Blue Nile and South Kordofan states.
During the interview, Chol said failure by the Sudanese army to withdraw from the disputed regions as stipulated in the cooperation agreement on security, could result into a bitter contest between the two armies.
“We cannot remain idle [and] we cannot remain as if our hands are tied, while the people of South Sudan are being killed. We are here to defend the people of South Sudan, [but] if they [SAF] continue bombing our position, definitely there will be a war”, the fourth division commander toldSudan Tribune.
South Sudan’s Kiir recently ordered the army to mobilise against any aggression from neighbouring Sudan, and instructed the governors in Border States to remain vigilant of the security situation.
Both Bashir and Kiir, according to South Sudan’s information minister, are due to meet at an AU summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia next month. The need to expedite implementation of the cooperation agreement, Benjamin Marial said, is likely to dominate the meeting of the two leaders. 
(ST)

Saturday, February 23, 2013

DR Congo Peace Agreement to Be Signed On Sunday


Uganda will participate in the signing of a framework agreement to restore peace in eastern DR Congo, in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Sunday, the foreign affairs ministry has confirmed.
The signing ceremony will be attended by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and presidents and officials from DR Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Angola, Congo, South Africa and Tanzania. The leaders refused to sign the agreement during the African Union summit in Addis last month.
Ban's spokesman, Martin Nesirky recently said that the secretary general will attend and all the invited presidents have committed to either be there or delegate power to sign.
Ambassador James Mugume, Uganda's foreign affairs ministry Permanent secretary however said that President Museveni was unlikely to attend, and could delegate a yet-to-be-named official.
The framework agreement will lay out a security plan that will toughen the UN peacekeeping mission to fight the negative armed forces in eastern DR Congo.
African Union has spoken out previously that it will not allow losing the command and control of the proposed Neutral International Force (NIF) to be deployed in Congo, and being place not be placed under the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo MONUSCO.
The existing UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO with 19,000 troops has been in DRC for 12 years and is largely ineffective in preventing conflict in eastern DRC, with President Museveni branding them as "military tourists" bent on sustaining the regional conflicts to earn from them.
The Natural International Force with a proposed 4,000 troops will be deployed in eastern DRC to take on the negative elements of M23, FNL, FDLR and ADF-NALU which are a threat to stability in DR Congo, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda.
Tanzania People's Defence Forces (TPDF) have offered to contribute a battalion to the Neutral International Force, with other troops expected to come from other SADC member countries such as Namibia, South Africa and Mozambique.
Uganda
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DR Congo Peace Agreement to Be Signed On Sunday

Uganda will participate in the signing of a framework agreement to restore peace in eastern DR Congo, in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Sunday, the foreign affairs ministry has confirmed.
The signing ceremony will be attended by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and presidents and officials from DR Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Angola, Congo, South Africa and Tanzania. The leaders refused to sign the agreement during the African Union summit in Addis last month.
Ban's spokesman, Martin Nesirky recently said that the secretary general will attend and all the invited presidents have committed to either be there or delegate power to sign.
Ambassador James Mugume, Uganda's foreign affairs ministry Permanent secretary however said that President Museveni was unlikely to attend, and could delegate a yet-to-be-named official.
The framework agreement will lay out a security plan that will toughen the UN peacekeeping mission to fight the negative armed forces in eastern DR Congo.
African Union has spoken out previously that it will not allow losing the command and control of the proposed Neutral International Force (NIF) to be deployed in Congo, and being place not be placed under the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo MONUSCO.
The existing UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO with 19,000 troops has been in DRC for 12 years and is largely ineffective in preventing conflict in eastern DRC, with President Museveni branding them as "military tourists" bent on sustaining the regional conflicts to earn from them.
The Natural International Force with a proposed 4,000 troops will be deployed in eastern DRC to take on the negative elements of M23, FNL, FDLR and ADF-NALU which are a threat to stability in DR Congo, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda.
Tanzania People's Defence Forces (TPDF) have offered to contribute a battalion to the Neutral International Force, with other troops expected to come from other SADC member countries such as Namibia, South Africa and Mozambique.
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Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Ethiopian Rebels threaten Canadian oil company - Sudan Tribune: Plural news and views on Sudan


February 18, 2013 (ADDIS ABABA) - An Ethiopian rebel group on Monday issued fresh warnings against a Canadian oil firm, urging the company to refrain from oil exploration activities in the country’s eastern region.
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ONLF fighters (file/Getty)
In a statement extended to Sudan Tribune, the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) accused the Canadian-owned Africa Oil Corporation (AOC) of conspiring with the government to exploit the region’s oil resources.
ONLF further said the Ogaden region is unsafe due to ongoing fighting and that the AOC must urgently halt its operations until the rebels reach a peace agreement with the central government.
“ONLF calls upon African Oil to desist from paying blood money to Ethiopia until a just settlement of the conflict is achieved and the people of Ogaden are in a position to be masters of their wealth and interest,” said the statement.
However, an Ethiopian government spokesperson has downplayed the warning issued by the rebels, with communications minister Shimeles Kemal saying the area has long been secure and under the control of government forces.
Kemal said the region is safe for exploration companies, dismissing the warning as a desperate and predictable propaganda ploy by the few remnant leaders of the group.
In 2007, ONLF carried out an attack in the region on a Chinese-run oil venture that killed 74 people, including nine Chinese oil workers.
After the attacks, Ethiopian forces launched an assault against the terrorist designated rebel group.
In 2010, the Ethiopian government signed a peace accord with a major section of the ONLF group
Meanwhile, last October, Kenyan-led mediation talks between Ethiopia and a second ONLF faction failed after the splinter group refused to accept a precondition to respect the country’s constitution
A third separate rival wing within the divided ONLF has since vowed to continue its armed struggle.
Ethiopia says the Ogaden region could have a potential 4 trillion cubic feet in gas reserves and hopes to become an oil-producing nation.
Currently there are a number of foreign oil companies engaged in oil exploration, but although there have been small findings of natural gas, there has never been a major oil discovery in the region.

Mali Crisis in the command | Article | Africa Confidential

Secret deals between army putschists and the jihadists threaten the military campaign as Bamako politicians demand retribution

The strange pact under which President Dioncounda Traoré appointed the serial putschist Captain Amadou Sanogo as head of the military reform committee in a grand ceremony in Bamako on 13 February exposes the contradictions at the heart of the government. It also raises questions about the fractured command of the national army and its willingness to fight alongsideFrench and West African forces in northern Mali. These doubts will probably speed up the timetable for the United Nations’ involvement, as requested by France and now discreetly backed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The idea is that the 7,000 West African forces would be subsumed into a UN peacekeeping operation, paid for by the UN Secretariat in New York. UN Political Affairs officials would work with ECOWAS to organise and supervise national elections. That, at least, is the French and West African plan but UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon remains far from convinced.
Mali map 
Just five days earlier, soldiers loyal to Capt. Sanogo were in a firefight with a unit of paratroopers at the Djikoroni base in Bamako. President Traoré’s appointment of Sanogo to head the Comité militaire de suivi des réformes des forces armées et de sécurité, which was strongly supported by ECOWAS, is to lure Sanogo away from his military base at Kati, south of Bamako, into an office in town where he will no longer control troops. In fact, Sanogo’s equivocation over the launch of France’s intervention on 11 January had already made him lose face among his military supporters.
The main reason for that, we hear, is that he had been plotting a coup against the Traoré government in early January. The plan was for a twofold strike: Sanogo’s troops would knock out the Bamako government as jihadists from Iyad ag Ghaly’s Ansar Eddine forces began their southwards march on 10 January. Several officers in Sanogo’s inner circle, such as ColonelYoussouff Traoré, have links to Ansar Eddine, according to security sources in Paris.
Sanogo’s plan was to present himself as the realist who had reached a deal with the jihadists and saved the south: that would have left his junta dominant in Bamako and the south in return for recognising Ag Ghaly as the new leader of the north.
The Sanogo-Ag Ghaly axis
The overthrow of Traoré would have blocked the West African intervention approved by the UN Security Council in December. Sanogo and his allies seem to have calculated that this would call the bluff of the ECOWAS forces, even if he would appear to preside over the partition of Mali. At the same time, Ag Ghaly had concluded that the peace talks with the Traoré government hosted by Burkina Faso were going nowhere. Algeria had pressured Ansar Eddine and Ag Ghaly, who is well known in Algiers, to talk to Bamako. Yet by early January, it was clear that Algiers had lost its influence over Ag Ghaly and could not stop him from launching a fresh offensive.
The jihadist push southwards aimed to forestall the Mission internationale de soutien au Mali(Misma) by seizing the military airbase at Sévaré and other key positions around Segou. Ag Ghaly’s attack was to provide the pretext for another putsch in Bamako and the new regime under Sanogo would negotiate. The fighters from Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and theMouvement our l’unicité et le jihad en Afrique de l’ouest may have found Ag Ghaly’s plan less than compelling. They retreated very quickly from Konna and Diabali after 11 January, leaving Ag Ghaly’s mainly Malian fighters to take the full brunt of the French counterattack. 
Algeria's meddling
Ministers in Bamako openly criticise Algeria for its ‘unhelpful meddling’. In 2010, Algeria established the Comité d’état-major opérationnel conjoint, which was meant to be a forum to coordinate with Mali, Mauritania and Niger against regional jihadist fighters but was also seen as a way to fend off French operations. CEMOC achieved little other than a few side deals between Algeria’s sécurité militaire and its regional counterparts. To the fury of Mali’s Defence Minister, Colonel Yamoussa Camara, Algeria did nothing to stop supplies from its southern provinces to the occupying jihadists in northern Mali. The subsequent attack on the In Amenas gas plant on 18 January, aided by collaborators inside the plant, exposed the failures of Algeria’s own powerful security services.
Algiers had kept open communications to both Sanogo and Ag Ghaly. Some in Sanogo’s personal guard had been trained by Algeria. There is no evidence that Algeria was complicit in the Sanogo- Ag Ghaly deal although it may have suited President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s government, which saw France’s intervention as exacerbating instability in the region. Algeria’s opposition crumbled once the jihadist offensive began and it quietly granted France overflight rights.
After the last month’s military push by France and the African forces, there is a renewed focus on the political route ahead for Mali. The government and the transitional Assemblée Nationale have now approved the creation of a negotiating commission to tackle the grievances of the north. The Presidency Secretary General, Ousmane Sy, is looking at who should be involved in the negotiations. It is not yet clear how the commission will work and whether northern interests will be represented or be part of a wider forum.
France is encouraging the Bamako government to include a wide range of northern politicians, activists and business people in the talks. However, it is trying to be discreet and is not making specific suggestions about members. The ground rules are that no northern groups linked to terrorism should be included. That rules out the Mouvement national pour la libération de l’Azawad (MNLA) and the Mouvement islamique de l’Azawad (MIA), which peeled off from Ansar Eddine last month (AC Vol 54 No 3). The main facilitator for the process is likely to be Burundi’sformer President Pierre Buyoya, who is the African Union’s Special Representative in Bamako. Traoré faces pressure from hardline nationalists in Bamako, who oppose any concessions to the Tuareg, whom they blame for facilitating the jihadist takeover. This may explain the government’s issue of arrest warrants for MNLA leaders this week. France said nothing about the warrants which could make its position more difficult, especially in Kidal (see Box). Many politicians in Bamako believe that France’s former President Nicolas Sarkozy was financing the MNLA as a means to pressure the failing government of President Amadou Toumani Touré.
Foreign funds could start flowing soon now the European Union has unblocked 250 million euros (US$333.85 mn.) in aid. France has relaunched its bilateral development support and the International Monetary Fund is preparing a transitional economic plan. The priority is quick-impact programmes to restore water, power and other basic services in the north. That would encourage people there to see practical benefit from the expulsion of the jihadists.
The timetable for negotiations is complicated by the plan to hold elections for a government which would have the legitimacy and credibility to embark on major structural reform to the political system and economy. Many Malian politicians talk about a ‘transition to the transition’. There is widespread agreement that Traoré and his ministers must give way to an elected government. It may be possible for some dialogue over northern issues to start before elections, although it is unlikely that any long-term changes could be agreed under Traoré.
No special deal for the north
Elections will change the dynamics. Candidates in the south are likely to take a tougher stance on the north to court electors. That will make truly national negotiations more difficult, whether on political devolution or development spending. Many Bamako politicians insist there would be no special deal for the north; nor is the idea of making Mali a federation or even confederation gaining much ground.
Uncertainty also hangs over the political timetable. Traoré has promised elections by 31 July but that would mean voting in the rainy season, when some communities are hard to reach and many Sahelian villagers are preparing the fields and planting seeds. Now it seems the most likely time for polls would be between October and December, after the harvest has been gathered in.

Monday, February 4, 2013

The Associated Press: Freedom returns to the storied city of Timbuktu

Freedom returns to the storied city of Timbuktu
TIMBUKTU, Mali (AP) — On the morning French commandos parachuted onto the sand just north of this storied city and ended 10 months of Islamic rule, Hawi Traore folded up her veil. On the next day, she wore heels. On the day after, she put on her sparkly earrings, got her hair braided and tried her mother's perfume.
Finally on Thursday, the 12-year-old girl dared to dance in the streets, celebrating freedom from the draconian rules that were imposed by the al-Qaida-linked militants on this desert capital for much of the past year.
Four days since French special forces liberated Timbuktu, there is a growing sense of freedom — particularly among women. The speed with which women have claimed back their freedom underscores one of the advantages the French hold against an elusive enemy on unforgiving terrain: The population here has long practiced a moderate Islam rather than the extremism of the militants.
Although Timbuktu has long been a code word for the ends of the earth, until recently its women led a relatively modern existence, where they were not required to be covered and could socialize with men. That changed abruptly last year, when radical Islamists seized control of the northern half of Mali in the chaos after a coup in the distant capital.
When they first arrived, Hawi, a tall, fast-talking, sassy preteen girl, was just learning how to put on makeup. She learned the hard way to wear the toungou, the word for veil in the Songhai language. Her slender arm still bears the scar left by the whip of the Islamic police, her punishment for not properly covering up.
Her once-free life became increasingly restricted, as did that of her sisters and friends.
The Islamists showed no mercy, beating everyone from pregnant women to grandmothers to 9-year-old girls who weren't fully covered. Even talking to a brother on the front stoop of a woman's own home could get her in trouble.
Smoking, drinking and music were banned. So was playing soccer. The worst punishment was reserved for love outside the rules, and an unmarried couple who had two children out of wedlock was stoned to death in one northern Malian town.
Fatouma Traore lives on Street No. 415 in Timbuktu, the road that runs directly in front of the building where the Islamic Tribunal operated in what was once a luxury, boutique hotel. A leaflet left in the dirt in the courtyard set out eight rules for how women should wear the veil.
Rule No. 1 is that the fabric should cover the entire body. Rule No. 2 is that it can't be transparent. Rule No. 3 is that it needs to be colorless. And finally, Rule No. 8 states that a woman should not perfume herself after putting it on.
"We even bought a veil for this baby," said the 21-year-old Traore, picking up her 1-year-old niece and hoisting her on one hip. "Even if you are wearing the veil and it happens to slip off and you are trying to put it back on, they hit you."
The French military launched an intervention to oust the Islamists from power in northern Mali on Jan. 11, and rapidly forced their retreat from the major cities in less than three weeks.
The French arrived here before midnight on Monday in a platoon of 600 soldiers, accompanied by 200 Malian troops. They included paratroopers flown in from a base in Corsica, who landed in the north under the cover of darkness, as well as a convoy of 150 armored vehicles which simultaneously reached the town's western perimeter, according to a French military spokeswoman.
The Islamists were nowhere to be found. They had vanished into the desert, leaving behind a terrorized population and obstacles for the French.
A plane was parked sideways in the middle of the runway at the airport to prevent other aircrafts from landing. Satellite photos showed the runway was also covered with evenly spaced mounds of dirt, said France's Defense Ministry on Thursday. Fearing hidden mines, the French called in specialists with heavy equipment to clear the three-kilometer (1.8-mile)-long landing strip after the damage by the Islamists.
"They destroyed parts of the runway. They removed sections of the asphalt. They destroyed the control tower. We had to control it to make sure that it was not mined," said Capt. Frederic, in charge of communication in Mali for France's 3rd Mechanized Brigade, who could only be identified by his first name in keeping with French military protocol.
Once the airport was secure, the troops rolled into this city of earthen, dun-colored homes in a massive convoy.
They drew crowds so thick that at times, the armored personnel carriers came to a standstill. People waved homemade French flags sewn together from bolts of red, white and blue fabric. Hawi and her mother stood on the side of the road, screaming, "Vive la France!"
The ecstatic women greeting the French were still covered in the all-enveloping veils imposed on them by the former Taliban-inspired occupiers. But hours after watching the French arrival, Hawi went home, folded up her veil and stuffed it away in her closet.
That same day, she pulled out the traditional pagne worn by women in much of sub-Saharan Africa. The Islamists considered it indecent because it was colorful and revealed the shoulders, arms and upper back.
By Tuesday, she dared to wear a pair of heels — also haram, or "forbidden" by the Islamic regime.
By Wednesday, she had found a newly opened women's hair salon, where she had her hair braided for the first time in months. She opened her jewelry box and put on two bright cube-shaped earrings. Her mother pulled out her eyeliner.
It was on Thursday that they rummaged through their closet and found the envelope where they had hidden their Samsung phone's memory card.
The Islamists had banned music of all kinds, including radios. When they realized young people were still listening to music using earphones, they began policing phones. During the final stages of the occupation, even ringtones became haram. People could not figure out how to change their cellphone settings, so for months many simply placed their phones on silent or on vibrate.
On Thursday, Hawi and her mother took out the memory card with the songs of a musician, a native of a village just 45 kilometers from the city. They went into the street, held up the tiny Samsung phone like a boombox and danced as they pumped it into the air.
Like her daughter, Hawi's mother, Fatouma Arby, also has a scar — on her right wrist where the Islamic police lashed her after they found her standing outside her house. The Islamists had gradually expanded the public space where women were restricted from the town center, to the alleys blanketed in sand running like veins across Timbuktu, all the way to the threshold of their own homes.
They had even created a prison just for women the likes of Arby, a feisty, 40-something mother and tomboy who exulted Thursday in her release.
"It's been a very long time since I put on makeup," she said, running her finger under her eye to show off the line of black kohl accenting it. "I've put it on to make myself beautiful. So that men see me, and find me beautiful."
A man she knows, a distant cousin, called out her name. She ran over to him and teasingly pulled his arm, as he pulled her back.
It was a tug-of-war between two people who for nearly a year could not so much as touch.