22 February 2021
Anti-Terrorism/ECOWAS: Sampson Kwarkye of the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) calls the 2020-24 Action Plan to ‘eradicate’ terrorism in West Africa, adopted by ECOWAS in 2019, a step in the right direction. But there are many problems with it. 1) It does not seem to be getting off the ground (“only initial meetings have been held with member states to discuss and agree on putting the plan into operation”) 2) It is overambitious: to end terrorism within five years will hardly be possible (“Counter-terrorism is a complex, long-term endeavour that requires significant investments of time and money”) 3) It forgets about the root causes (“nearly 80% of the plan’s budget is allocated to three areas: border management and security; information and intelligence sharing; and training and equipment for defence and security forces”; “the conditions that allow terrorism to thrive will go unattended”).
https://issafrica.org/iss-today/slow-progress-for-west-africas-latest-counter-terrorism-plan?utm_source=BenchmarkEmail&utm_campaign=ISS_Weekly_FR&utm_medium=email
Somalia: The “international community” has intervened and invested in the state building and peace building efforts for the last two decades, yet the political situation is once again at a stalemate. Elections have not been held, so is Farmaajo still president? Peter Fabricius gives an overview of the main points of contention. The main issue seems to be centralisation of power versus federalism/decentralisation. During his mandate, Farmaajo has failed to foster political stability, yet the country can ill afford the apparently deepening political divide.
https://issafrica.org/iss-today/somalia-misses-a-vital-meeting-with-the-electorate?utm_source=BenchmarkEmail&utm_campaign=ISS_Weekly_FR&utm_medium=email
Congo-Kinshasa/Big Man Politics: Paul-Simon Handy and Félicité Djilo reflect on the (absence of) rule of law. Politics in the country is all about being president. Félix Tshisekedi has changed nothing about that. His recent outmanoeuvring of Joseph Kabila who had been trying to remain the strongman behind the throne has been possible because of the tradition of political ‘transhumance’ and by poaching the latter’s supporters. It brought two years of cohabitation between a presidency and a Parliament controlled by different parties to an end. But it does not augur well at all for the rule of law. And “the main party in the DRC happens to be neither FCC nor Tshisekedi’s Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS), but rather political opportunism”.
https://issafrica.org/iss-today/presidentialism-shouldnt-trump-democracy-in-the-drc?utm_source=BenchmarkEmail&utm_campaign=ISS_Weekly_FR&utm_medium=email
Kenya/ Voluntariness of Female Terrorism: Women and girls act as recruiters, logistics planners, financial conduits, spies, masterminds behind terrorist attacks, conveners of terror cells.” 16 case studies look into the question how voluntary their recruitment is. “Al-Shabaab recruitment thrives on revenge among individuals who see the state as the perpetrator of the injustices suffered in their lives. A crisis event in the life of women and girls – such as the police killing a loved one – was found to be an important tipping point. Some women join extremist networks to avenge the death of a husband, fiancé, or son at the hands of government security actors.” There are no clear conclusions: some have made autonomous decisions – others have been forced or coerced to join through deception or intimidation.
https://theconversation.com/why-we-did-it-the-kenyan-women-and-girls-who-joined-al-shabaab-151592
Mali/Women & Radio: Empowerment means different things for different women: staying in school, negotiating more equitable relationships, learning how to start a small business to become financially independent and provide for one’s family. How to do this?
“Access to information is the route to empowerment and, in Mali, radio remains the main source of information. The country has 170 private radio stations, 121 of which are volunteer-run community stations. Radio is widely trusted”. But “women’s empowerment in Mali cannot be reduced to a matter of individual choice or agency. It refers to collective agency and decision making”. Development programmes often go wrong in this. Radio must not extract women from the web of relations that surround them.
https://theconversation.com/radio-in-mali-can-empower-women-by-remembering-they-are-part-of-a-social-web-155486
Rwanda/South Africa: A Rwandan politician – Seif Bamporiki, coordinator of the Rwanda National Congress (RNC) – who lived in exile in South Africa has been shot. The question is: was it a politically motivated murder?
BBC Africa Live 22 February 2021. 5:02
21 February 2021
Congo-Kinshasa: In 2010, the UN published a report documenting 617 war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of genocide committed in the DRC between 1993 and 2003. “By then, Congolese people had already been ravaged by years of imported conflicts, which killed more than 5.4 million people between 1998 and 2008 – mostly through starvation or disease.” The perpetrators were not brought to justice. “(T)he international community chose to turn a blind eye, ostensibly for ‘peace’.” Even 17.000 UN troops cannot assure peace. The culture of impunity has fuelled insecurity and emboldened killers and rulers such as Kabila. With more than 100 militia groups killing, raping, looting and displacing people (6.6 million Congolese are IDPs), violence is omnipresent and farming and food production has been destroyed. 22 million Congolese now face starvation.
And Vava Tampa in this Guardian article concludes: “This is an internationally sanctioned catastrophe to which we all need to open our eyes.” #CongoIsBleeding
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/12/congo-famine-crisis-international-tribunal-drc-militias
Côte d’Ivoire/Child Slavery: Eight young adults, originally from Mali, have launched legal action in a US court in Washington DC against Nestlé, Cargill, Barry Callebaut, Mars, Olam, Hershey and MondelÄ“z. They claim to have been among thousands of children used as slaves (forced to work without pay) on cocoa farms and they accuse the corporations of aiding and abetting such enslavement in their supply chains.
The article contains details of the accusation and short, rather vacuous reactions of the accused.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/12/mars-nestle-and-hershey-to-face-landmark-child-slavery-lawsuit-in-us
Tanzania/Covid-19: The country stopped publishing Covid-19 data in May 2020. One month later, president Magufuli declared Tanzania coronavirus-free. Now the World Health Organization has urged Tanzania to start reporting coronavirus cases and share its data. After a spate of deaths of government officials – the vice-president of Zanzibar, Seif Sharif Hamad, among them – fears have increased that there may be a hidden epidemic.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56145510