Month: May 2024

Brussels — Action must be taken immediately to address the humanitarian crisis in the Sahel or other countries will be drawn in and it will “become a problem for the world,” a UNHCR official warned Wednesday.

The volatile situations in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso risks overflowing into neighboring countries, the U.N. refugee agency’s director for west and central Africa, Abdouraouf Gnon-Konde told AFP in an interview in Brussels.

“The Gulf of Guinea, Togo, Benin, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire are already suffering because of the spiral of insecurity and the humanitarian situation — the same with Mauritania, the same with Algeria,” he said.

“If we don’t act now, if we don’t respond now, if we don’t find a way to remain there, stay and continue to remain engaged, finding a solution, then somehow those countries will be overwhelmed, the state will be overwhelmed, and it will become a problem for the world,” he said.

The official was on a visit to Brussels to stress to EU officials the need to stay focused on the African regions where some 10.5 million people have been displaced by conflict, even as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza dominate international news.

“Despite all the change, all the crises that we see in the world, despite all the conflict that we have, things are happening in the Sahel and that merits our attention,” Gnon-Konde said.

The day before, he participated in an EU-hosted donors’ conference for the Sahel. At the event, the European Commission pledged 201 million euros ($218 million) for vulnerable people in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Nigeria.

Military regimes in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali have pushed out troops from France, the former colonial ruler, and are increasingly turning to Russia for support as they battle jihadist insurgencies, causing wariness from Western donors.

Gnon-Konde said, for UNHCR, “it doesn’t matter who is in charge” in those countries, as the most important thing was to respond to the needs of the civilian populations.

He added that Chad, located between Niger and Sudan, was emerging as “a testing case” for countries in the region, international donors and the U.N.  

Chad — which has just announced its first government after three years of military rule — is hosting nearly one million Sudanese refugees and “there is a risk that that number will increase by the end of the year,” the UNHCR director said.
…

South Africans voted Wednesday in elections being described as the most important in thirty years because the governing African National Congress could get under 50 percent of the vote for the first time and lose its absolute majority in parliament. Kate Bartlett spoke to voters in two very different areas of Johannesburg about why they felt it was important to turn out.
…

Investigators using satellite imagery to document the war in western Sudan’s Darfur region say 72 villages were burned down in April, the most they have seen since the conflict began. Henry Wilkins talks with the people who do this research about how so-called open-source investigations could be crucial in holding those responsible for the violence to account.
…

Yaounde — Francophone lawmakers from about 30 African states are meeting in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, to find a solution to the political instability in French-speaking African nations — including a string of recent coups, security threats and popular discontent. The lawmakers say among the solutions to the growing crisis are dialogue, a return to democratic principles and an end to foreign influence.

The 150 lawmakers, members of the African region of the Parliamentary Association of the Francophonie, or APF, say many Francophone African countries have suffered deep political and economic instability and security threats.

Within the past four years several former French colonies in which France continued to wield political influence experienced military coups or takeovers, including Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Gabon and Chad.

The group says besides military takeovers French-speaking African states also have a record of long serving leaders.

Cameroon President Paul Biya has ruled for 41 years. Theodoro Obiang Nguema from neighboring Equatorial Guinea has been in power for about 45 years and Denis Sassou Nguesso has ruled the Republic of Congo for 38 years. Nguesso first came to power in 1979 and served until the 1992 election when he finished third. He took power again as a militia leader after a four-month civil war in 1997 and has been president since then.

Canada-born Francis Drouin is the president of the Parliamentary Association of the Francophonie. 

Speaking in Yaounde on Wednesday, Drouin said young people in French-speaking African countries complain that political instability remains high, and civilians are disgruntled because their freedoms are suffocated by long serving leaders and military governments. He said poverty, the absence of democracy and security threats plunge civilians into suffering and misery.

Drouin says the region’s youths yearn for the freedom to participate in decision-making.

Lawmakers attending the conference said Senegal distinguishes itself as an example of democracy after the country’s March 24 presidential elections, in which incumbent President Macky Sall was defeated by 40-year-old Bassirou Faye, whom the lawmakers say is a young man with new perspectives.

The lawmakers say France’s influence on its former African colonies is a source of concern among young leaders who want to take control of their national issues.

Djelassem Donangmbaye Felix is a political analyst and coordinator of A New Day, one of Chad’s opposition political parties. He is critical of the presence of French troops in former French colonies. He spoke to VOA via a messaging app from Chad’s capital N’djamena Wednesday.

Djelassem said French troops present in Africa either protect leaders loyal to France or destabilize governments that stand against France’s overbearing influence. He said that is the reason Chad’s opposition and civil society in December 2023 asked France to immediately withdraw troops who arrived in the central African state after being ordered to depart neighboring Niger by that country’s military junta.

Niger officials accuse France of failing to resolve the security crisis that has killed thousands and displaced millions across Niger.

Djelassem said French troops stationed in Chad have never assisted Chad’s government to fight armed groups and rebels destabilizing the central African state.

France has not responded to the accusation. But in March, Jean-Marie Bockel, French President Emmanuel Macron’s envoy for Africa, said after a meeting with Chad’s President that France will keep its troops in Chad. He said the troops will assist in fighting jihadists in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

Angola and Sao Tome and Principe are attending the conference as observers. The lawmakers say permanent dialogue with military leaders and long serving rulers can pave the way for improved political, economic, social and cultural lives in French- speaking African countries.
…

…

JOHANNESBURG — South Africans began voting Wednesday in an election seen as their country’s most important in 30 years, and one that could put their young democracy in unknown territory.

At stake is the three-decade dominance of the African National Congress party, which led South Africa out of apartheid’s brutal white minority rule in 1994. It is now the target of a new generation of discontent in a country of 62 million people — half of whom are estimated to be living in poverty.

Africa’s most advanced economy has some of the world’s deepest socio-economic problems, including one of the worst unemployment rates at 32%.

The lingering inequality, with poverty and joblessness disproportionately affecting the Black majority, threatens to unseat the party that promised to end it by bringing down apartheid under the slogan of a better life for all.

After winning six successive national elections, several polls have the ANC’s support at less than 50% ahead of this one, an unprecedented drop. It might lose its majority in Parliament for the first time, although it’s widely expected to hold the most seats.

Support has been fading. The ANC won 57.5% of the vote in the last national election in 2019, its worst result to date.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the leader of the ANC, has promised to “do better.” The ANC has asked for more time and patience.

Any change in the ANC’s hold on power could be monumental for South Africa. If it does lose its majority, the ANC will likely face the prospect of having to form a coalition with others to stay in government and keep Ramaphosa as president. An ANC having to co-govern has never happened before.

The election will be held on one day across South Africa’s nine provinces, with nearly 28 million people registered to vote at more than 23,000 polling stations. Final results are expected by Sunday. Ramaphosa was due to cast his vote in the morning in the Johannesburg township of Soweto where he was born and which was once the epicenter of the resistance to apartheid.

The opposition to the ANC in this election is fierce, but fragmented. The two biggest opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance and the Economic Freedom Fighters, are not predicted to increase their vote by anything near enough to overtake the ANC.

Instead, disgruntled South Africans are moving to an array of opposition parties; more than 50 will contest the national election, many of them new. One is led by South Africa’s previous president, who seeks revenge on his former ANC colleagues.

The ANC says it is confident of retaining its majority. Ramaphosa has pointed out how South Africa is a far better country now than under apartheid, when Black people were barred from voting, weren’t allowed to move around freely, had to live in certain areas and were oppressed in every way.

Memories of that era, and the defining vote that ended it in 1994, still frame much of everyday South Africa. But fewer remember it as time goes on.

“This will be the seventh time that South Africans of all races, from all walks of life, from all corners of our country, will go to vote for national and provincial government,” Ramaphosa said in his last speech to the country before the election. “We will once again assert the fundamental principle … that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people.”

Ramaphosa outlined some of his ANC government’s polices to boost the economy, create jobs and extend social support for the poor. The speech sparked a furious reaction from opposition parties, who accused him of breaking an electoral law that stops those in public office from using the office to promote a party.

On show in the vote will be the country’s contradictions, from the economic hub of Johannesburg — labelled Africa’s richest city — to the picturesque tourist destination of Cape Town, to the informal settlements of shacks in their outskirts. Millions will vote in rural areas seen as still ANC heartlands and analysts haven’t ruled out that the party might cling onto its majority given its decades of experience in government and an unmatched grassroots campaigning machine.

While 80% of South Africans are Black, it’s a multiracial country with significant populations of white people, those of Indian descent, those with biracial heritage and others. There are 12 official languages.

It’s the diversity that Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first Black president, highlighted as a beautiful thing by referring to his country as a “Rainbow Nation.” It’s a diversity that, with the emergence of many new opposition parties, also might now be reflected in its politics.
…