Month: July 2024

nairobi, kenya — Kenya’s High Court on Thursday suspended a police ban on protests in the capital, stating citizens have a right to demonstrate peacefully. 

Before the high court’s decision, police had barred protests in Nairobi indefinitely, saying they lacked leadership that would ensure peaceful demonstrations. 

The suspension of the ban came before a planned protest, in which demonstrators were expected to march to the president’s office calling for his resignation over poor governance. 

Acting police inspector general, Douglas Kanja, in a statement said the lack of leadership had “made it difficult to enforce safety protocols.” 

Recent protests have left businesses counting losses after the lootings and burnings. 

Protests were yet to be seen Thursday, but major roads leading to the president’s office remained barricaded by the police. 

A month of protests

Kenya has seen a month of protests that started with calls for legislators to vote against a controversial finance bill that proposed higher taxes amid a cost-of-living crisis and ballooning public debt. 

At least 50 people have died since the protests began on June 18, according to the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. 

President William Ruto said he wouldn’t sign the finance bill that was passed by parliament on June 25 — the day protesters stormed and burned part of the building, prompting legislators to flee. The president last week dismissed almost his entire Cabinet and the attorney general, as demanded by protesters who accused ministers of incompetence, corruption and display of opulence. 

The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi on Thursday urged police to protect the right of Kenyans to demonstrate and encouraged the government to “continue taking steps forward” toward national unity and reconciliation. 

Some businesses in Nairobi remained closed in anticipation of protests Thursday. Police remained heavily deployed around the central business district patrolling the streets.  

Government spokesperson Isaac Mwaura on Thursday said the economy had incurred loses worth 6 billion Kenyan shillings ($45 million) because of ongoing monthlong protests. 

Police accused of brutality

Police have been accused of brutality against protesters. Japhet Koome, the former inspector general of police, resigned on July 12 after calls from demonstrators for him to take responsibility for the shooting of protesters. 

The Independent Policing Oversight Authority on Wednesday said it had forwarded four of 10 cases of police brutality to the director of public prosecutions with recommendations. 

The watchdog had recorded witness statements and directed that various police officers to appear before it to give their testimony. 

Kenyan police officers have in the past been accused of brutality and a contingent of 400 officers is currently in the Caribbean nation of Haiti leading a U.N.-backed police mission to combat gang violence. 
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Yaounde, Cameroon — Officials in the Central African Republic say at least 300 rebels have dropped their weapons in the past month in an operation jointly organized by United Nations peacekeeping forces and government troops. Yet, while a total of about 5,000 fighters have put down their arms in the past decade, peace seems to elude the troubled nation. 

Officials in the country say the rebels who have dropped their weapons since June 10 belong to the Coalition des Patriotes pour le Changement, or CPC.  

The government sees the CPC as a network of six rebel groups created in 2020 to disrupt the country’s presidential and legislative elections in December of that year. 

Government spokesperson Balalou Maxime, speaking on state television Wednesday, congratulated the approximately 250 CPC rebels for dropping their weapons when attacked by the Central African Republic military. He said he wants other rebels still hiding in the bush to know that they will be killed if they do not do the same. 

This week, forces of the U.N. stabilization movement in the Central African Republic, or MINUSCA, said an additional 44 fighters of another rebel group, the UPC, laid down their arms in the southeastern town of Mboki. MINUSCA said many weapons were seized but gave no further details.  

Central African Republic officials say the operation to neutralize armed groups or get fighters to surrender is aimed at making the country more peaceful before local elections slated for October. 

These would be the first local elections in the country since 1988.  

At least 5,000 rebels have surrendered their arms within the past 11 years, officials say, but fighting has yet to stop. The U.N. says some of the rebels who surrender end up rejoining armed gangs due to hardship and poverty. 

Halidou Halale, president of Cattle Ranchers Union in the Central African Republic, stressed that rebels who are cattle ranchers are willing to drop their weapons in exchange for a few cattle or goats as a source of livelihood. He said rebels either refuse to surrender or they return to armed groups after surrender because of hunger. 

Rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, have often reported that rebel and armed groups in the country commit war crimes, including deliberately killing civilians, raping women and girls, and destroying civilian property.  

In 2019, the government and 14 armed groups signed an African Union and U.N.-sponsored peace agreement. However, the deal failed to stop the fighting, as six of the 14 armed groups refused to honor their commitments following disagreements over power sharing and amnesty for arrested or fleeing rebels. 

The Central African Republic has been wracked with violence and instability since 2013, when a rebel group forced then-President Francois Bozize out of office.   
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MEXICO CITY — The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions Thursday on a man from Sierra Leone who is suspected of smuggling thousands of migrants from Asia and Africa into the United States. 

The ring allegedly run by Abdul Karim Conteh provided false documents and drove migrants to the border and offered advice on how to cross, the Treasury said. It also allegedly moved some migrants through Nicaragua, the Central American country that has been used as a springboard for migrant smuggling because of its lax visa requirements. 

The smuggling ring’s customers came from a dozen countries, including China, Iran, Russia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. 

Karim Conteh was arrested on July 11 in Tijuana, Mexico. The United States is pursuing Conteh’s extradition on federal migrant smuggling charges. 

Also sanctioned Thursday was his Mexican wife, Veronica Roblero, as well as two other people from Sierra Leone and Togo. 

The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control — the U.S. agency that combats illicit funds and money laundering — said the ring allegedly moved the money they charged the migrants for helping them cross the border illegally through the United States. 

The sanctions block the targets’ financial and other assets in the United States and prohibit U.S. citizens from having any transactions with them. 
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Nairobi, Kenya — Experts say Africa needs to invest in robust infrastructure if the continent is to have reliable internet after recent outages due to underwater cable failures highlighted the continent’s reliance on single-path connectivity.

Disruptions in March and May caused online banking problems and communication delays. Businesses experienced interruptions in many countries.

In March, on the Atlantic coast of West Africa, four submarine cables that deliver the internet to at least 17 countries went offline.

Less than two months later, Eastern and Southern Africa experienced outages after two undersea cables were damaged. In Tanzania, the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam closed for two days due to the disruption.

Ben Gumo, a Kenyan who relies on the internet to sell clothes, shoes and children’s wares, said he lost business during the May disruption.

“Someone … puts stuff in the [online] basket, but because of the outage he cannot complete the sale, so he cancels,” Gumo said, adding that he couldn’t update his website with new products.

According to the telecommunications research company Telegeography, over 100 cable cuts occur globally each year. Experts blame undersea volcanic activity, rock falls, recent rainfall and currents in rivers that are much stronger than when some of the cables were built.

Manmade activities also cause disruptions. According to one report, a ship was attacked in the Red Sea and drifted, its anchor pulling up three underwater cables.

Mike Last works with the West Indian Ocean Cable Company, which operates in 20 African countries and has built 36 data centers. He said recent disruptions prompted government officials and businesspeople to recognize the need for better internet infrastructure.

“What it made people realize is that you have to invest in a reliable network, you have to invest in redundancy,” Last said, meaning that internet service is provided by more than one source. “We’ve seen a real boom in clients coming to us wanting connectivity on the new subsea systems.”

Some countries can stay online when one internet source is cut off, although service is often slow and not stable, because service providers and telecommunication carriers invested in more than one international connection.

According to the World Bank, sub-Saharan Africa’s digital infrastructure coverage, access and quality are far behind those of other regions.

However, Africa is embracing the digital future. According to the Submarine Cable Networks, 37 countries have at least one subsea cable connection, and 20 countries have more than two subsea cables.

Last said cables planned by Google and Meta will improve connectivity.

One of the new cables, he said, has a high capacity. Another new cable — named 2Africa and led by Meta, the parent company of Facebook — is being built all the way around Africa.

“It brings a lot of capacity to Africa, and that will help,” Last said.

Experts warn that disparities in connectivity across Africa are expected, but that the development of infrastructure, government policies and private sector investments can accelerate growth.
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Mbabane, Eswatini — The sentencing Tuesday in Eswatini of two former members of parliament to lengthy prison terms on charges of terrorism marks a significant escalation in the tensions between the monarchy and those advocating for democratic reform in the southern African nation. Human rights groups condemned the convictions, saying the court decision raises questions about human rights and political repression. Pro-democracy activists say they are undeterred.  

The convictions of Mduduzi Bacede Mabuza and Mthandeni Dube, who were sentenced to prison terms of 25 and 18 years respectively, sent shock waves throughout Eswatini and the international community. 

The two men were arrested in July 2021 during pro-democracy protests that were violently put down by security forces, leaving dozens of people dead. Demonstrators were pressing for reforms to a complex system of non-party elections that ensured Eswatini’s ruler, King Mswati the third, faced no meaningful dissent.  

Rights group Amnesty International urged Eswatini authorities to immediately quash what it called “the unjust and baseless convictions and sentences of the former members of parliament.”  

Alpheous Nxumalo, a spokesperson for the Eswatini government, told VOA’s English to Africa Service the convictions were “discharged through the provisions of the law, which guarantees the rights of each and everyone who has been sentenced to appeal to a higher court.” He added that Eswatini’s international partners and friends should respect the country’s sovereignty and rule of law. 

Thantaza Silolo, a spokesperson for the Swaziland Liberation Movement (SWALIMO), told VOA that despite the harsh sentences handed down by the Eswatini High Court, the country’s pro-democracy movement remains resolute in its pursuit of democratic reform. 

“These MPs were strong inside the chambers of parliament and outside in calling to say we need a prime minister that is elected by the people, not a prime minister that is being appointed by the King and for that reason, they were sentenced, they were arrested and charged with heinous offenses as if they were criminals, they were murderers and terrorists,” Silolo said. “Yet, these are just advocates for change. These are just people who have been calling for freedom and we maintain as a movement that … we will continue to push for their release.” 

Political analyst Sibusiso Nhlabatsi sees the sentences as a major setback for democracy and human rights in Eswatini. She said the sentences are a classic example of “guilty until proven innocent,” with mere allegations being enough to secure a conviction. 

“You can see that the intention was to induce fear and I think most of Emaswati will now live in that shadow of fear — we don’t want to do what these people did and even members of parliament will say we don’t want to do what the other members of parliament did because we might follow suit,” Nhlabatsi said. “I think through this judgment the state has successfully entrenched itself. It has successfully been able to threaten anyone who may want to raise a voice against the establishment.” 

According to human rights activist Lucky Dlamini, the harsh sentencing of the MPs signals a wider attack on democracy and human rights in Eswatini. He said the country is a dictatorship, with the monarchy using state security forces to suppress dissent and violate fundamental human rights. 

“We remain under a cruel system of government which is an absolute monarchy where there’s immunity [for] the security forces against human rights activists and political activists and human right defenders, where they cannot be able to access justice in the courts, where they cannot be able to hold on to demonstration, where they cannot exercise freedom of the right to political participation, the right to freedom of expression, the right to freedom of access to the media, the right to freedom of assembly,” he said. 

A lawyer for the two former MPs said they plan to appeal their sentences. 
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