Chinese and French oil companies involved in the East African Crude Oil Pipeline project, to be built from Uganda to Tanzania, say affected villagers are being compensated. But rights groups representing hundreds of families who will be displaced by the project tell a different story. The $3.5 billion project is projected to run 1,450 kilometers from the southwestern Homia district of Uganda to the Port of Tanga in Tanzania. On Sunday, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and President Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania signed three agreements paving the way for construction of the pipeline, expected to be completed in 2025. FILE – Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, right, and Tanzania’s President Samia Suluhu Hassan meet at the Statehouse in Entebbe, Uganda, in this handout picture taken and released on April 11, 2021, by Presidential Press Unit of Uganda.Kitutu Mary Goretti, Uganda’s minister for energy and mineral development, says the agreements will be a significant boost to Uganda’s economy and its people. “Other processes are already ongoing, including the acquisition of land for the pipeline and (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) EPC Management activities,” Goretti said. “It is important for the people of Uganda to take note of and position themselves to benefit from the extensive activities already going on.” However, human rights organizations say pipeline construction will displace up to 10,000 people, who are not being adequately compensated. Sewanyana Livingstone, the head of the Foundation for Human Rights organization, says locals are not being heard. “Of course, the population along the pipeline are interested in compensation. Because they were displaced; they were not heard; they are not party to the negotiation. We are trying in our follow-up activities to see how (French energy company) Total can bring them on board. But at the moment, they seem to be excluded,” Livingstone said. According to the agreements signed Sunday, Total will hold the largest stake in the pipeline with 62 percent. The Uganda National Oil Company and Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation will each hold 15 percent, and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or CNOOC, will own the other 8 percent.  Pierre Jessua, Total’s general manager, says the company has not voluntarily delayed the compensation to the affected families. “It was, I would say, due to the stop-and-go of the project that we had to interrupt the process,” Jessua said. “But we never actually took the lands and deprive the people from the land. We have evaluated the land, evacuated the crops from the land, evaluated the buildings which were on the land.” Chen Zhugobia, president of CNOOC’s Uganda branch, says very few people in their areas of jurisdiction are yet to be compensated. “We have already compensated most of the people related to the land. And from my memory, only about 6 households are not compensated,” Zhugobia said. Upon completion, the East Africa Crude Oil Pipepline will be the longest in the world, carrying 230,000 barrels of oil per day from Ugandan oil fields to Africa’s east coast. 
 
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U.N. agencies warn northern Mozambique is facing a long-lasting humanitarian and protection crisis as conflict, hunger and disease grip hundreds of thousands of people in the region.
People are still fleeing in droves from the impact of the violence that erupted in northern Mozambique’s coastal town of Palma. Many of the thousands of people who have fled to Pemba, the capital of Cabo Delgado, tell stories of the horrific attacks by Islamist militants, who reportedly killed dozens of people and committed other atrocities. Speaking on a video link from Pemba, director of emergencies for the U.N. children’s fund Manuel Fontaine says people relate how they have had to flee in the middle of the night. They speak in sorrow of families being separated while running for their lives. “I heard about this young woman who was pregnant and… her husband was just killed in front of her. And these are constant stories. Stories of people being kidnapped and stories of gender-based violence, horrific stories of lots of people walking for days and days, kids arriving with their feet swollen and injured and having to be taken care of,” he said.FILE – Families wait outside the port of Pemba for a boat to be evacuated from Palma, April 1, 2021.UNICEF says malnutrition rates among displaced children in Cabo Delgado are alarmingly high, with at least 33,000 in need of lifesaving specialized nutritional feeding. It says cholera and COVID-19 are of growing concern. The agency has appealed for $52.8 million for Mozambique this year, $30 million of that amount targeted for Cabo Delgado. It says only 37 percent of the appeal is funded and international support for its humanitarian operation is urgently needed. In a separate appeal, the World Food Program is seeking $82 million to ramp up food aid in northern Mozambique. WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri says in the wake of the heinous attacks in Palma, families and individuals have had to abandon their homes, their belongings and livelihoods to flee for safety. “WFP teams on the ground have spoken to these families that are on the move — their stories illustrate horrific violence and deepening despair… As the security situation continues to deteriorate, more than 950,000 people in the north of Mozambique are now facing severe hunger,” he said. Phiri say the WFP plans to assist 750,000 internally displaced people and vulnerable members of the host communities in Cabo Delgado and three other northern provinces. He says WFP is organizing emergency food distribution for families who have fled the violence in Palma.  
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As Benin awaits results from Sunday’s election, many hoped the small, West African country would continue its tradition as a beacon of democracy in the region.  But analysts worry Benin is following the path of neighbors like Chad, which held elections the same day and is expected to extend President Idriss Deby’s 30-year rule.  Benin made history in 1991 when it became the first mainland sub-Saharan African country to peacefully vote out an incumbent leader.  But critics and political analysts say Benin’s reputation as a stable democracy has begun to erode under President Patrice Talon.  Though he’s been praised for growing Benin’s economy and infrastructure, Talon has been widely panned for quashing critics.   Benin’s President Patrice Talon talks to African Union observers after casting his ballot at a polling station in Cotonou, Benin, Apr. 11, 2021.After winning a five-year term in 2016, he broke a promise not to run again and pushed through election laws that sidelined opponents or forced them into exile.   As a result, of the 19 candidates who planned to run against Talon on Sunday, just two largely unknown figures were deemed eligible.   Gilles Yabi is a Beninese political analyst based in Senegal and the founder of West Africa Citizen Think Tank.  “It’s possible to have a democratic regression and of course we cannot exclude that in a few years, if we continue in this trajectory of exclusion of political actors, of using the justice system to exclude political opposition, and to reduce the liberties, of course we can have Benin becoming a country like other countries in West Africa, or like others in Central Africa, where the realities are no longer a democratic system,” he said.Talon’s government used troops to violently crack down on election protesters last week, leaving at two people dead.   Political analysts are worried the democratic decline in Benin is part of a larger trend.  Over the last year, leaders of other West African nations such as Senegal, Guinea and Ivory Coast have also been accused of sidelining political opponents.  FILE – Chad President Idriss Deby takes part in a working session during the G5 Sahel summit in Nouakchott, June 30, 2020, .Chad’s President Idriss Deby has clung to power for the last three decades and is expected to win a sixth term after also holding polls Sunday.  Jeannine Ella Abatan, a senior researcher with the Institute for Security Studies in Dakar, says though Chad and Benin have very different political histories, she sees some worrisome similarities.  “You have this blurring of lines between the executive and legislative and the judiciary in that all institutions that are supposed to provide checks and balances have either been weakened or are controlled by the president,” she said.Abatan says both Chad and Benin have restricted media and used security forces to attack protesters.  A ballot box is emptied at the end of the voting operations at a roadside voting station in N’djamena, Apr. 11, 2021.Election results are expected as early as Tuesday in Benin and by Thursday in Chad.  
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Felix Tshisekedi, president of the DR Congo, is in full control of a new government unveiled Monday after a four-month power struggle with predecessor Joseph Kabila, an official announcement indicated.The president had in February named the head of state-owned mining giant Gecamines, Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde Kyenge, as prime minister.Sama Lukonde succeeded Sylvestre Ilunga Ilunkamba, who was forced out after a coalition between supporters of Tshisekedi and Kabila broke down.The new government dubbed the “Sacred Union of the Nation” counts 57 members including 14 women, according to a presidential decree read out over state broadcaster RTNC by the presidential spokesman, Kasongo Mwema.Sama Lukonde said the new team’s priorities would include security, infrastructure and electoral reform in the poor but resource-rich country.”The size of the government has been reduced, women’s and young people’s participation has been taken into account. Principles of representation and inclusivity have been upheld,” he added.But the challenges are huge for the government of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest country by area, with repeated massacres of civilians in the restive East, intractable corruption and tax income dwarfed by massive expenditures — currently shored up by the country’s partners. While members of Tshisekedi’s inner circle have been given the defense, interior, finance and education portfolios, figures from the anti-Kabila opposition have been named to key posts, including environment minister and deputy prime minister Eve Bazaiba of the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo (MLC). The new foreign minister is Christophe Lutundula, close to Moise Katumbi, a former governor of Katanga province who himself attempted to challenge Kabila in a 2018 election. DR Congo’s leadership crisis arose from elections in December that year that led to the first peaceful transition of power in the former Belgian colony’s history. Tshisekedi, the son of a veteran opposition leader, was declared the winner but was forced into a governing coalition with Kabila supporters who at the time wielded a huge majority in parliament. Tensions boiled over last year when Tshisekedi declared that power-sharing was blocking his agenda for reform, vowing to seek a new majority in parliament.In a series of moves, he won over many Kabila legislators, gaining the perceived support of almost 400 out of 500 members of the National Assembly. The new majority enabled him to force out Ilunga as well as the pro-Kabila speakers of both houses of parliament. With backing from both the US and European Union, Tshisekedi, 57, has a free hand to work on his priorities of slashing corruption and the poverty that affects two-thirds of Congolese, as well as pacifying the more than 100 armed militias plaguing the country’s east.  
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The early results of the first round of Benin’s presidential election are expected Tuesday, with President Patrice Talon set to win a second five-year term amid accusations of election fraud.Opposition leaders in the West African nation had called for a boycott of Sunday’s election, accusing Talon of pushing through election laws which disqualified his rivals or forcing them to leave the country.Talon’s supporters deny the claim of election fraud, citing an election official’s comment that the vote was mostly peaceful, with no major incidents, despite some deadly clashes leading up to the election.Still, not all voters made it to the polls. Emmanuel Tiando, president of the country’s electoral commission, the Autonomous National Electoral Commission or CENA, said voting could not take place in 16 of the country’s 546 boroughs, without an explanation.An association of civil society groups said there were incidents of voters being threatened, harassed and intimated based on reports from hundreds of elections observers who spoke to Agence France Presse.To date, the government has not publicly responded to the allegations, saying only that it was satisfied with the election.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday ordered an Army review of an investigation into a January 2020 militant assault on the Manda Bay military base in Kenya that killed three Americans and wounded three others.In a written statement announcing Austin’s decision, his press secretary, John Kirby, did not pinpoint what Austin found lacking in the initial investigation, which was conducted by U.S. Africa Command. By apparent coincidence, Austin plans to meet with Africa Command officials Tuesday in Stuttgart as part of a broader tour of Europe to consult with allies and talk to U.S. commanders. He will also meet separately with officials at U.S. European Command, also in Stuttgart.”An independent review will provide added insight, perspective, and the ability to assess the totality of this tragic event involving multiple military services and Department of Defense components,” Kirby said.NEW: @DeptofDefense withholding findings of investigation into the #alShabaab attack on the #MandaBay airfield in #Kenya -which killed 1 US servicemember & 2 US contractors- pending “an independent review” by “a 4-star general officer” https://t.co/nQLShUfcRM— Jeff Seldin (@jseldin) April 12, 2021Kirby said that after considering the results of Africa Command’s investigation, which have not been released publicly, Austin decided to order the Army to pick a four-star general to conduct the review. The Army chose General Paul Funk, commander of Army Training and Doctrine Command. Funk is an experienced combat veteran who served six deployments in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”It is the secretary’s desire to ensure there is a full examination and consideration of the contributing factors that led to this tragic event and that appropriate action is taken to reduce the risk of future occurrence,” Kirby said. “The families impacted deserve nothing less.”The attack by al-Shabab militants at the Manda Bay base destroyed six aircraft in addition to killing three Americans and wounding three others.The base, in the Kenyan seaside resort, was overrun by 30 to 40 of the al-Qaida-linked insurgents on January 5, 2020, marking al-Shabab’s first attack against U.S. forces in the East African country.The base at Manda Bay has been used for years by the U.S. military, but it only became a full-time airfield in 2016, with increased personnel, aircraft and operations.The initial phase of the assault came near dawn, when 20 to 30 al-Shabab militants slipped through the forest and fired rocket-propelled grenades onto the airfield at the base. The opening rounds of grenades quickly killed a soldier in a truck, wounded another, and killed two contractors in an aircraft and wounded one other. About a mile down the road, other militants fired on Camp Simba, a section of the base where U.S. forces are stationed.Marines from Camp Simba initially responded to the attack site and begin to fight back against the militants, who had made it onto the airfield and into buildings. But it took all day for Kenyan and U.S. security forces to finally quash the attack, search the airfield and secure the area.Air Force Colonel Chris Karns, spokesperson for U.S. Africa Command, said a “great deal of rigor” was put into the investigation, resulting in a number of immediate improvements. He said the goal has been to reassure the families and the American public “that we did everything possible to understand the situation and take appropriate action.”The investigation team made “findings and recommendations that fall outside U.S. Africa Command purview and ability to effect; therefore, we fully support the additional independent review directed by the secretary of defense,” Karns said. “We are confident in the report’s findings and remain committed to ensuring fixes and improvements in Kenya and across the continent.”Kenya has been a key base for fighting al-Shabab, which is based in Somalia and is one of the world’s most resilient extremist organizations. Al-Shabab has launched a number of attacks inside Kenya, including against civilian targets on buses, at schools and at shopping malls.Al-Shabab had been the target of a growing number of U.S. airstrikes inside Somalia during President Donald Trump’s administration. But Trump late last year ordered the withdrawal of the roughly 700 American forces there, and the bulk of those troops were pulled out of the country by mid-January. According to officials, there are fewer than 100 U.S. troops in Somalia now.Austin has launched a review of America’s military posture around the world.
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