Month: July 2020

The U.S. military has accused Russia of sending weapons and mercenaries to Libya in an attempt to gain a foothold in the north African country. U.S. Africa Command’s latest accusation against Russia came on July 24, as Libya’s rival camps face off in a battle over the strategic central coastal city of Sirte. The Pentagon released photos that it claims show Russia providing supplies and equipment to the Wagner group, a Russian private military company. Vadim Allen has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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A lawyer for an alleged Rwandan ex-spy chief living in France says his client denies allegations that he was involved in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.  Aloys Ntiwiragabo is now under investigation by French prosecutors.In an interview with VOA, lawyer Benjamin Chouai said his client Aloys Ntiwiragabo has been living in France for years.One of two lawyers defending Ntiwiragabo, Chouai said French authorities have been fully aware of his client’s whereabouts, since Ntiwiragabo applied for legal status here.French judicial authorities said Saturday they had opened a crimes against humanity probe targeting Ntiwiragabo.The move followed a report by investigative news site Mediapart, which tracked the former intelligence chief and his wife to a suburb of Orleans, about 110 kilometers south of Paris.The former International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, or ICTR, once identified Ntiwiragabo as one of the architects of the Rwandan genocide that killed about 800,000 people.But, the AFP news agency reports the ICTR, now succeeded by another mechanism, had long ago dropped an arrest warrant against Ntiwiragabo, as did French and Rwandan authorities.Reports suggest investigators seem to have lost track of him years ago.Lawyer Chouai said his client was not in hiding.He said Ntiwiragabo never hid his real identity in France, and is available now to answer investigators’ questions. His client strongly contests the Mediapart report, Chouai says, and insists he played no role in the genocide.Radio France International reports Ntiwiragabo remained in Rwanda’s military during the genocide but at least initially sided against a key organizer of the killings.Ntiwiragabo also authored a 2018 book offering his version of the broader 1990s Great Lakes conflict, through French publishing house Editions Scribe.The French probe into his actions follows the May arrest in France of another major genocide suspect. Felicien Kabuga was accused of bankrolling the genocide. The 84-year-old had been hiding for years outside Paris and is now appealing his transfer to Arusha, Tanzania to face trial.Alain Gauthier, who heads a French genocide survivors’ group, estimates several dozen other suspects remain at large in France. He denounces the slowness of France’s judicial system.Other alleged suspects include Agathe Habyarimana, widow of the former Rwandan president, whose death helped trigger the genocide. She lives outside of Paris. 
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Greece will this year return 1.4 billion euros to pensioners whose income was slashed during the financial crisis of the past decade, the country’s prime minister said on Wednesday. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ conservative government made the decision following a top court ruling which said that some pension cuts imposed in 2015-2016 were illegal. Mitsotakis said the one-off payment applies only to main pensions — not supplementary pensions or benefits. The money will be distributed to about 2 million private and public sector pensioners, a government official said. The decision is expected to burden this year’s budget. Greece’s economy is seen shrinking by up to 10 percent this year due a nationwide lockdown the government imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus. “This particular cost touches the limits of the country’s fiscal potential,” Mitsotakis told lawmakers. “There is no room for further provisions.” Under the terms of three international bailouts in 2010-2015, Greece cut state pensions several times to reduce spending and make the system viable. The country still has the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the eurozone and the health pandemic dashed its hopes for strong growth this year. Its finances are being closely monitored by the country’s international lenders, the European Union and the IMF. 
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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced he had tested positive but successfully overcome the novel coronavirus on Tuesday — adding a new twist to a charged presidential election season in the former Soviet republic often called the “last dictatorship in Europe.”Lukashenko, 65, revealed the news during a Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, candidate for the presidential elections, reacts during a meeting with her supporters in Minsk, Belarus, July 19, 2020.Svetlana Tikhanovskaya — whose husband, the political blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky currently sits in jail on what she says are trumped up charges — has emerged as the opposition’s lead candidate and a political star by taking direct aim at what she says is Lukashenko’s legacy of repression.“Yes, I was scared at first,” she said in her first televised speech. “I know what depths this government can go to in order to preserve its place. But I am no longer scared.”Protests against the government have been met with brutal police force and arrests of demonstrators and journalists. Since May, more than 1,000 people have been detained by police, according to the Vysna Human Rights Center.Belarusians attend a meeting in support of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, candidate for the presidential elections, in Hlybokaje, Belarus, July 24, 2020.Tsikhanovskaya says she has ferreted her young children out of the country amid government threats as she has embarked on her campaign.What Virus?But Lukashenko’s announcement that he tested positive for the coronavirus — and breezily survived —- also again highlighted the Belarusian leader’s controversial attitude towards the global pandemic.Indeed, as COVID-19 has infected millions worldwide, Lukashenko has dismissed fear of the virus as mass “psychosis” — a minor health issue he has said could be easily cured with a shot of vodka, a hot sauna, or doing farm work or strenuous exercise.As much of the world shuttered its economies to stamp out the virus, Lukashenko ordered that life in his country go on as usual.Belarus’ national soccer league continued to play throughout the spring.  Schools were opened after a short delay. A mass Victory Day celebration to mark the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany went off as scheduled in May. Participation by government employees was in some cases mandatory.Official statistics show Belarus with nearly 70,000 infections and just over 500 deaths.Government critics argue those figures far underrepresent the real number of cases.“It’s hard to convince someone a disease isn’t scary if it killed your relative. It’s hard to convince someone life is good when you’ve lost your job due because the coronavirus is affecting the global economy,” says Andrej Stryzhak of #ByCovid19, a volunteer group that has emerged to help doctors and hospitals deal with the pandemic.Civil Society SurgeLacking federal support, Belarusian civil society has rallied to address the health crisis.Volunteers have raised money to buy personal protective gear for hospitals and schools. Restaurants have donated food. Hotels provide rooms pro bono to medical workers. Private businesses have contributed funds.That collective activism has now shifted to politics ahead of the August 9th election, with volunteers helping to organize rallies, spread campaign information, and sign up as election monitors for the vote.“The coronavirus has strongly influenced how Belarusians look at the vote,” says Stryzhak of #ByCovid19 in an interview with VOA.“Now people are taking matters into their own hands. Belarus has awakened.”In turn, Lukashenko has claimed nefarious outside forces are staging a street revolution that would inflict chaos on a country of 9 million that he alone has ruled since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.In what some observers saw as an ominous sign, the Belta state news agency reported security services had detained 32 “foreign mercenaries” on Wednesday, without elaborating.
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