| Africa – News |
|---|
| Troops Kill Bomber Outside Camp of Refugees from Boko Haram |
| Sun, 30 Oct 2016 14:36:20 +0000 Troops shot and killed a man with explosives boldly showing strapped to his torso Sunday, as he tried to enter a refugee camp in northeastern Maiduguri city where another suicide bomber killed five people a day earlier. The Sunday morning bombing is the fifth explosion in three weeks in Maiduguri, the birthplace of the Boko Haram Islamic extremist group blamed for the bombings. Maiduguri is also the headquarters of the military campaign to halt the insurgency. The recent bombings have created a new wave of fear at Bakassi camp, which houses more than 16,000 people terrorized by Boko Haram into fleeing their homes. "Why are they not ready for us to enjoy peace£'' asked resident Usman Ado. Another, Abubakar Gajibo, said he saw the bomber "clearly displaying the strapped explosives on his body." Residents alerted soldiers who tried to persuade the man to surrender. But when he started running toward the camp gate, they shot him. One explosive blew up immediately and a second was safely detonated, Gajibo said. The military said there was no blast and soldiers had to detonate the explosives. On Saturday, a female suicide bomber blew herself up at the camp entrance, killing five men and injuring 11 women. A second blast 30 minutes later came from a tricycle taxi driven by a suicide bomber carrying two passengers. A bomb blast on Oct. 12 killed eight refugees in a taxi-van just outside Maiduguri. In February, two female suicide bombers walked into a crowd of refugees at Dikwa camp, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Maiduguri, killing 58 people and injuring many more. Boko Haram has stepped up attacks after a months-long lull caused by a leadership struggle. Nigeria's home-grown insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people and forced some 2.6 million people from their homes. |
| Troops Kill Bomber Outside Camp of Refugees from Boko Haram |
| Sun, 30 Oct 2016 14:36:20 +0000 Troops shot and killed a man with explosives boldly showing strapped to his torso Sunday, as he tried to enter a refugee camp in northeastern Maiduguri city where another suicide bomber killed five people a day earlier. The Sunday morning bombing is the fifth explosion in three weeks in Maiduguri, the birthplace of the Boko Haram Islamic extremist group blamed for the bombings. Maiduguri is also the headquarters of the military campaign to halt the insurgency. The recent bombings have created a new wave of fear at Bakassi camp, which houses more than 16,000 people terrorized by Boko Haram into fleeing their homes. "Why are they not ready for us to enjoy peace£'' asked resident Usman Ado. Another, Abubakar Gajibo, said he saw the bomber "clearly displaying the strapped explosives on his body." Residents alerted soldiers who tried to persuade the man to surrender. But when he started running toward the camp gate, they shot him. One explosive blew up immediately and a second was safely detonated, Gajibo said. The military said there was no blast and soldiers had to detonate the explosives. On Saturday, a female suicide bomber blew herself up at the camp entrance, killing five men and injuring 11 women. A second blast 30 minutes later came from a tricycle taxi driven by a suicide bomber carrying two passengers. A bomb blast on Oct. 12 killed eight refugees in a taxi-van just outside Maiduguri. In February, two female suicide bombers walked into a crowd of refugees at Dikwa camp, 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Maiduguri, killing 58 people and injuring many more. Boko Haram has stepped up attacks after a months-long lull caused by a leadership struggle. Nigeria's home-grown insurgency has killed more than 20,000 people and forced some 2.6 million people from their homes. |
| International Court Hit by Planned Exit of 3 African States |
| Sun, 30 Oct 2016 14:25:32 +0000 When the treaty creating the International Criminal Court was opened for signatories in 1998, Egyptian-born legal scholar Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni called it "a triumph for all peoples of the world.'' Fast-forward 18 years, and the lofty ideal of establishing a court that would end impunity for atrocities and deliver justice to victims is reeling from the announced departures of three African member states: Burundi, South Africa and Gambia. Never before has one of the court's 124 member states quit. Now three have. Concerns are growing that more African countries will leave. The court, which this year moved into a new headquarters in The Hague, long has been accused by some African leaders of bias against their continent. At first glance, it's easy to see why. Since the Rome Statute treaty creating the court came into force in 2002, the ICC has convicted only four people of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Three were from Congo and one from Mali. The court so far has indicted only suspects from Africa, ranging from notorious Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. It currently has 10 full-scale investigations underway, with nine in Africa and the other in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. But Alex Whiting, a professor at Harvard Law School and former ICC prosecution coordinator, said the court shouldn't be blamed for the Africa focus. In six cases, the African countries themselves asked the ICC to investigate, and two others were referred to the court by the U.N. Security Council. "Could the ICC really have declined to move on these cases£'' Whiting said. Supporters of the court say more is at play, including fears in Burundi and Gambia that ICC prosecutors could target rulers there. The court's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, herself a Gambian, was defiant this week and insisted — as do other observers — that the court will weather the crisis. "I don't think we should feel we are defeated and that the court will close tomorrow,'' Bensouda told a seminar in The Hague. "No, the court will have its challenges. We will counter those challenges. We will confront them and move forward.'' The African departures have highlighted broader criticisms of the court, which employs some 800 staff and has a proposed budget next year of just over 150 million euros ($164 million). Most notable is its failure to tackle crimes outside the continent, such as the litany of atrocities in Syria's brutal civil war. "It is understandable that countries that have voluntarily submitted themselves to the ICC wonder why there is no accountability in places like Syria, and why the Security Council has not acted to refer Syria to the ICC or construct a tribunal for Syria,'' said Whiting. "That's why I think that the criticism of the African countries should be aimed at the international community rather than the ICC.'' Syria's civil war is largely out of reach of the ICC prosecutors because the country is not a member of the court. A resolution by the U.N. Security Council to refer the Syrian war to the ICC was vetoed in May 2014 by Russia and China. Another longstanding criticism that feeds into African discontent is the fact that global powers such as the United States, Russia and China are not members. Theo van Boven, an honorary professor of international law at Maastricht University who led the Dutch delegation at the Rome conference that created the ICC, said the absences hurt the court. "It would be helpful indeed if major powers... would join and contribute to the representative character of a judicial institution that is standing for universal values of an imperative nature,'' Van Boven wrote in an emailed response to questions by The Associated Press. The court's focus has begun shifting further afield. It is currently conducting 10 so-called preliminary examinations — probes to establish whether to open a full investigation — in countries including Afghanistan, Ukraine and Colombia, as well as the Palestinian territories and alleged crimes by British forces in Iraq. While the court has had high-profile failures in Africa — the collapse of the case against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and the inability to have Sudan's president arrested — it also has registered successes. ICC judges have delivered convictions for using child soldiers in conflict and for horrifying sexual crimes that long have gone unpunished. They recently convicted an Islamic militant for destroying historic mausoleums in the Malian desert city of Timbuktu. It is still possible that South Africa, a staunch supporter of the court under former President Nelson Mandela, will reverse its decision to leave the court, Prof. Michael Scharf, dean of the law school at Case Western Reserve University, said. The decisions by South Africa, Burundi and Gambia to leave also might be a wake-up call for the court, he said, ``inspiring a serious re-examination of ICC-African relations and ultimately leading to reforms in the ICC's approach to Africa.'' The global human rights umbrella organization FIDH slammed the countries' departures as damaging the lofty goals of the court. "We believe that withdrawing from the ICC puts a premium on impunity,'' the group said in a statement signed by 106 rights groups, including many from Africa. "Withdrawal poses a threat to one of the greatest advances in justice of the 21st century, at a time when genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes are perpetrated regularly and rampantly worldwide.'' |
| Chad’s President: Lake Chad Basin Remains Vulnerable to Boko Haram |
| Sun, 30 Oct 2016 01:08:50 +0000 Chadian President Idriss Deby said Saturday that the multinational joint task force fighting the Boko Haram insurgency in Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria and Niger was finding it difficult to crush the terrorists, who are hiding in communities around the Lake Chad basin. Deby, who was speaking at the end of a visit to Cameroon, said it was imperative for the population to help the military by denouncing suspected Boko Haram fighters. Deby said the firepower of the Boko Haram terrorist group had been greatly reduced by the task force, causing the militant group to resort to cowardly moves such as taking people hostage for ransoms, stealing cattle and food, and deceiving people, especially women and young girls, to carry out suicide missions, just to give an impression it is still strong. He said the Boko Haram of today was no longer the Boko Haram of 2014, when it could attack on a large scale. He said it became a shadow of itself when its fighters started hiding as ordinary people in communities to cause havoc. Peace called vital to development The president congratulated people living around Lake Chad for creating self-defense groups to fight the terrorists. But he added that in order for the group to be eradicated, people should denounce suspects in their communities. He said that without peace, stability and security, central African countries would never attain their development objectives. Deby said the 40 million inhabitants of the Lake Chad area, spread across Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Benin, were the most vulnerable to Boko Haram atrocities because that area has remained the terrorist group's stronghold. He said that if the population did not collaborate by reporting suspects, poverty levels would continue to increase as many schools have remained closed and poverty reduction programs will become more difficult to execute. The president said the military had been finding it difficult to organize raids in the area because the terrorists were using civilians as human shields. The United Nations reports that the BokoHaram insurgency in Nigeria and its spillover to neighboring countries has caused the displacement of over 2.7 million people, generating multiple challenges, especially in the Lake Chad basin. |
| Kenyan Authorities Systematically Eroding Civil Rights, Report Says |
| Sat, 29 Oct 2016 23:27:24 +0000 A new report says Kenyan authorities are systematically curtailing civil liberties by targeting defenders of civil rights. The authors are concerned about the impact that the trend might have on Kenya's 2017 elections. Rights activists have complained for years about alleged extrajudicial killings by Kenyan police. Criticism intensified after the killings this June of human rights lawyer Willile Kimani, his client and their driver. The new report on civil liberties is the result of a fact-finding mission by an umbrella group, the World Organization Against Torture. Benson Olugbuo was a mission delegate and is executive director of the CLEEN Foundation, an organization that agitates for what it calls "accessible justice." Speaking to reporters Friday in Nairobi, Olugbuo said Kenya needs police and judiciary reform if the country's civil liberties are to remain intact. 'Sustained' reform "So we are asking for police reform which is sustained, because it is not a day's business, it's a process," he said. "We are also asking that agencies that are independent should also be allowed to work and that where there are grievances, people should have that right to go to court, to go to police to report." He also said Kenyans' right to demonstrate, "which is provided for in the constitution, should be protected." The new report was compiled after the mission met with representatives of civil society groups, the police, the judiciary and the European Union delegation in Kenya. Samuel Mohochi, the executive director at the International Commission of Jurists, Kenya chapter, said democratic gains made over the years are slowly being eroded by authorities, and advocates for civil liberties are being silenced. "I think the increasing or rising levels of intolerance in society, especially for specific duty bearers or actors, would then create a fertile ground for increased intolerance to criticisms, and therefore that in itself is a clawback to democratic gains," he said. "And it starts slowly. Before you realize it, you are in a police state, so these are things that should be flagged at the earliest opportune moment." 81 disappearances The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) is an autonomous public body charged with redressing human rights violations. Commission Chairperson Kagwiria Mbogori says that in the past year, KNCHR has presented 81 cases of forced disappearances to the inspector general, the attorney general's office and the director of public prosecutions for action. Mbogori says that proving who is behind the disappearances is becoming extremely hard. "The act of disappearance can be explained in a number of ways," Mbogori said. "It may be some people have been killed and their bodies have never been found, but it is impossible to really narrow down and point a finger to a particular culprit or culprits. This is very saddening, and right now we are dealing with citizens who have encountered this, and it's very harrowing. It is worse than death, because you don't know if your loved one has died or whether they are somewhere suffering or where they went, et cetera. The uncertainty is terrible." The World Organization against Torture says the elections slated for 2017 could prove fatal if the trend of silencing civil society continues unabated. Around 1,100 people were killed in violence after the 2007 elections, with another 600,000 displaced. Next year's vote is scheduled for August. New members of Kenya's electoral commission are set to take office this December. |
| Similar Opportunities, Challenges Face Female Leaders Worldwide |
| Sat, 29 Oct 2016 23:03:49 +0000 A victory by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton next month would add one more name to the list of the fewer than two dozen female heads of state and prime ministers in the world. But the number of women in high-ranking positions — ministers, governors, parliament members and CEOs — is growing. And despite the different cultural and political backgrounds among those powerful women, there are striking similarities among them, according to researcher Susan Madsen, who studies the development of prominent female leaders in the United States and other countries. "I've done very in-depth interviews with some women leaders in Eastern and Central Europe, China and also in the Middle East," said Madsen, at professor at Utah Valley University in Utah. "I've got very interesting similarities, actually, with all the women." Politics at the dinner table Female leaders are raised in a similar family environment, according to Madsen. "The dinner table conversation was when many of these women found their voices," Madsen said. "Their fathers encouraged them to talk about the issues, around what was happening in the town, whether it was politics, or issues in schools. They actually were able to really have good conversations where the children were not hushed, where the children were asked to share their opinions." They were also encouraged to listen thoughtfully to others. "Either mothers or teachers or whatever helped them learn to reflect more effectively than a lot of other people," she explained. "If you don't know how to reflect well and learn from your mistakes, you're just not going to progress and be a strong leader. [I] also found that all of the women actually were avid readers, and their parents encouraged them to read and learn." In addition, Madsen found that most prominent female leaders used to play team sports. "It's actually quite amazing how much you can learn from team sports, including helping women and girls understand how to lose and be OK with that — know that you have to get up and try the next time, and how to work with the team," she said. "The research says that women in the workplace sometimes are not good at supporting each other. They actually will cut each other down, but team sports actually help you develop positive relationships with other women and build them up." Distinctly female leadership style Madsen, who teaches management classes, also serves as a director for several women's advocacy organizations, including the Utah Women and Education Initiative and the Utah Women and Leadership Project. She noted that women's approach to leadership is different than men's. "Generally speaking, women are just more collaborative," she said. "They really listen better. Research has shown women actually observe nonverbal behaviors better than men. They see more subtle things that are happening and can adjust and adapt, and really bring other people into the conversations. "Women ask different questions and talk about different things. So women in politics ... we will bring up and have our voices on different issues than men. Those issues are things like education — and this is not just in the U.S. — health care, child care, family issues, social programs [and] homelessness. We still bring up, as women, other issues, but we tend to bring up some of those issues that really represent the society." Lessons from challenges, mistakes But there are common obstacles that often keep women from playing a more prominent role in their societies, Madsen says. "It doesn't matter the country, it doesn't matter the income level or cultures — different studies say women have less confidence than men,” Madsen said. "Also, women don't aspire generally, as much as men, to be leaders. That comes from girls and women not seeing women as leaders. The social norm is that men should be leaders more than women, just because that's how it's been done for years. “Perfectionism in women can be a barrier, as well," she added. "If a man has 50 to 60 percent of the knowledge and skills, he'll put up that application, he'll file to run. With women, the research says, it's about 90 to 100 percent — that a woman wouldn't apply for a job or file for public office unless she's almost perfect." To change that mindset, Madsen says, societies have to remove some of the hurdles that stand in the way of female empowerment. "We have to help girls and women understand the importance of becoming a leader," she explained. "We've got to teach them that they actually can be leaders and they actually should be leaders. "We've got to provide girls and women more with experiences that will increase their aspiration to be leaders, so they can see they can lead in situations to help people around them. We need to help them understand how to network, and provide them with more mentoring opportunities." Madsen says women who have risen to positions of power have yet another common responsibility: leading by example, to inspire the next generation of female leaders to do the same. |