The more than two-year-long civil war in Ethiopia has left many children orphaned or separated from their families. The psychological trauma lingers for these children. Mulugeta Atsbeha visited children at a school-turned-shelter in this story narrated by Salem Solomon.
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Category: Africa
Africa news. Africa is highly biodiverse, it is the continent with the largest number of megafauna species, as it was least affected by the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna. However, Africa also is heavily affected by a wide range of environmental issues, including desertification, deforestation, water scarcity, and pollution
Kagame Looking at ‘Resolving’ Detention of ‘Hotel Rwanda’ Hero Rusesabagina
Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Monday said there were discussions about “resolving” the fate of Paul Rusesabagina, who was portrayed as a hero in the Hollywood film “Hotel Rwanda” and is serving a 25-year sentence in Rwanda on terrorism charges.
Rusesabagina was sentenced in September 2021 over his ties to an organization opposed to Kagame’s rule. He denied all the charges and refused to take part in the trial that he and his supporters called a political sham.
Washington has designated him as “wrongly detained”, partly because of what it called the lack of fair trial guarantees. Rusesabagina has U.S. permanent residency rights.
Kagame has said his country would not be bullied over Rusesabagina, but on Monday appeared to suggest that there was room for compromise.
“We don’t get stuck with our past. We move into the future,” Kagame said during a video interview at the Global Security Forum.
“So there is discussion, there is looking at all possible ways of resolving that issue without compromising the most fundamental aspects of that case.”
In August U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had raised his concerns with Kagame over the trial. Rwanda has said the trial was lawful.
Rusesabagina was feted around the world after being played by actor Don Cheadle in the 2004 film “Hotel Rwanda”. The movie portrayed him as a hero who risked his life to shelter hundreds of people as manager of a luxury hotel during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Rusesabagina, a vocal critic of Kagame, acknowledged having a leadership role in the opposition group but denied responsibility for attacks carried out by its armed wing. The trial judges said the two were indistinguishable.
Rights groups say Rusesabagina’s jailing is an example of Kagame using authoritarian tactics to crush political opposition and extend his more than two decades in power, allegations the president denies.
your ad hereNew Tunisian Parliament Begins Its First Session
Tunisia’s new parliament, elected in December and January in a vote with a turnout of 11%, sat for the first time on Monday in a session closed to all but state media and with the opposition coalition saying it would not recognize its legitimacy.
Journalists were not allowed to attend the opening session of parliament for the first time since the 2011 revolution. Officials told reporters on Monday that only state TV and radio and the state news agency were allowed to cover the event.
President Kais Saied shut down the previous elected parliament in July 2021, moving to rule by decree in a move that opposition parties called a coup. He has said his actions were legal and needed to save Tunisia from years of crisis.
The new parliament, operating under a constitution that Saied wrote last year and which was passed in a referendum with a turnout of 30%, will have very little power compared with the body it replaces.
As most parties boycotted the election, and candidates were listed on ballot papers without party affiliation, most of the new parliament members are political independents.
The National Salvation Front, the main opposition coalition that includes Tunisia’s biggest party, the Islamist Ennahda and activists, said in a statement on Monday it would not recognize a parliament emanating from a coup following elections that were boycotted by the majority.
your ad hereTropical Cyclone Freddy Hammers Mozambique for Second Time
Record-breaking Cyclone Freddy made its second landfall in Mozambique on Saturday night, pounding the southern African nation with heavy rains and disrupting transport and telecommunications services.
French weather agency Météo-France warned of “destructive and devastating” winds and “dangerous seas and heavy rains” that could lead to landslides. It said Freddy will go further inland through the weekend, generating heavy rains in Mozambique and southern Malawi, with rain also likely in Zimbabwe and Zambia.
It’s the second time Freddy has hit the country, with the cyclone originally making landfall late last month.
Météo-France also raised concerns that Freddy is unlikely to weaken over land in the coming week and has a high probability of exiting back into the sea. Freddy made landfall with maximum wind speeds at sea measuring 155 kilometers an hour and sea gusts averaging 220 kilometers an hour, the agency said.
Freddy was initially on course to make landfall in the country Friday night but stalled over the Mozambique channel. The cyclone then intensified on Saturday and regained strength as it barreled toward land, Mozambique’s National Institute of Meteorology said.
The cyclone’s second punch was showering a low-lying, vast land teeming with rivers and “almost all of them have no dam” to ease flooding, said Salomao Bandeira, a scientist at Mozambique’s Universidade Eduardo Mondlane. Flooding in the country earlier this year slammed regions where major rivers are controlled by dams, allowing some degree of control, Bandeira said, raising fears this hit could lead to more destruction.
The projected deluge is already worrying health and disaster agencies in both Mozambique and Malawi, who have recently been battling cholera cases and other water-borne ailments. The U.N. and EU-led disaster alert system has already issued a red alert projecting that some 2.3 million people will be impacted. Mozambique’s disaster institute has moved thousands of people to storm shelters in anticipation.
“More lives are being saved in Mozambique today” due to early preparedness, Bandeira said.
In a statement released Saturday, Malawi Red Cross said it had activated its early response teams in southern Malawi to prepare for the cyclone.
Earlier in the week, Freddy’s longevity and baffling trajectories caused the U.N. weather agency to set up a committee to determine whether it has broken the record as the longest-lasting tropical cyclone in recorded history after traversing more than 8,000 kilometers in the southern Indian Ocean.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Freddy has already catapulted into the record books for the second-ever highest accumulated cyclone energy, or ACE, a measurement of a cyclone’s energy over time.
Freddy is also the third storm on record to last more than 22 days, said NOAA’s Carl Schreck. Hurricane John in 1994 and an unnamed Atlantic hurricane in 1899 are the other two. The natural weather event La Nina and a negative Indian Ocean Dipole, or a change of temperatures over the ocean, “may have produced ocean temperatures and atmospheric circulations that made an event like this more likely,” Schreck added.
Any storm that can remain at such a “strong intensity for so long and make two landfalls is important in terms of human impacts and in terms of science,” said Kristen Corbosiero, professor of atmospheric and environmental sciences at the University of Albany.
“Intense storms generally go through a series of eyewall replacement cycles and intensity fluctuations,” where the cyclone begins to develop a a new eye, Corbosiero said. “But Freddy didn’t have these cycles for most of its life cycle. Trying to understand why, will be a good research topic.”
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Former Zimbabwean Commercial Farmers Thriving in Zambia
Some of the Zimbabwean farmers whose land the government seized for redistribution two decades ago moved to Zambia and have prospered. In the past year, those farmers started exporting food to Zimbabwe, which has been struggling with food insecurity, partly because of those land seizures. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Chisamba, Zambia. Videographer: Blessing Chigwenhembe
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30 Migrants Missing, 17 Rescued After Boat Capsizes in Mediterranean
Thirty people are missing and 17 were rescued Sunday in the central Mediterranean after the boat they were fleeing Libya in capsized during bad weather, Italy’s coast guard said.
Rescue operations were ongoing, supported by merchant ships and aerial support by the EU’s border agency Frontex, while two additional merchant vessels were en route to the area, the coast guard said in a statement.
Earlier Sunday, the Mediterranea Saving Humans charity had tweeted that according to several sources, the vessel, traveling in the direction of Italy, had capsized about 177 kilometers north-west of Benghazi.
Alarm Phone, another charity which picks up calls from migrant vessels in distress, said on Twitter it had first alerted authorities Saturday, emphasizing the boat, which was carrying 47 people, needed immediate rescue.
After an initial rescue attempt by a merchant ship failed due to bad weather, Libyan authorities asked Rome for help given that they lacked the means to carry out the rescue, the coast guard said in the statement.
Rome then requested merchant ships in the area to join the rescue efforts. However, the migrant vessel turned over during an attempt to transfer the people on to the “FROLAND” merchant ship Sunday morning, it said.
The coast guard added that two of the rescued people needed medical assistance and would be disembarked in Malta before the merchant vessel could resume its trip to Italy.
Arrivals on the rise
Italy’s coast guard said Sunday that the capsize occurred outside Italy’s Search and Rescue area (SAR).
However, Rome’s ability to rescue migrants at sea has come under scrutiny following a Feb. 26 shipwreck near the southern region of Calabria, in which at least 79 died.
On Saturday the coastguard said that more than 1,300 migrants had been rescued in three separate operations off the southern tip of Italy, with a further 200 saved off Sicily.
The numbers of migrant arrivals in Italy have been on the rise, piling pressure on the country’s conservative government, which took office in October promising to cut the flow only to see a sharp increase in such landings this year from both North Africa and Turkey.
Some 17,600 people had reached Italy this year as of March 10, compared to 6,000 in the same period of 2022. Hundreds have also died trying to cross the Mediterranean and reach Europe.
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South Africa Rapper Costa Titch, 28, Dies During Performance
The South African rapper Costa Titch died on stage while performing, police said Sunday, as they opened an investigation into the circumstances of the 28-year-old’s sudden death.
The artist “collapsed while he was performing” Saturday evening at the Ultra South Africa concert in the Johannesburg suburb of Nasrec, police told AFP.
They said a post-mortem would establish the cause of death.
Costa Titch scored a major hit with “Big Flexa,” which has more than 45 million YouTube views, showcasing the Amapiano or ‘the pianos’ local subgenre of house music blending house, jazz and lounge music.
Videos on social media of his concert Saturday show him performing with his microphone in hand when he appears to fall. He continues singing but collapses again, prompting other artists to come to his aid.
Costa Titch, whose real name is Costa Tsobanoglou, died a month on from the assassination of another popular South African rapper Kiernan Forbes, known as AKA.
Forbes was shot dead outside a Durban restaurant and an investigation is ongoing into what has been seen as a likely contract killing.
Tributes swiftly appeared Sunday for Titch with Julius Malema, leader of radical leftist party EFF, posting an image of a broken heart alongside Costa Titch’s name on social media.
The Southern African Music Rights Organization wrote on Twitter: “SAMRO is saddened by the passing of popular rapper Costa Tsobanoglou, better known as Costa Titch. Heartfelt condolences to his family, friends and broader music industry.”
“RIP, Costa Titch. Great talent gone too soon,” tweeted rapper Da L.E.S.
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Ethiopian Journalist Honored by US Sounds Alarm on Media Freedom
An Ethiopian journalist presented an award by the United States has sounded the alarm over media freedom in her country, which Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to visit.
Meaza Mohammed, the founder of the online network Roha TV, was honored at the White House on Wednesday on International Women’s Day as part of a group receiving “International Women of Courage” awards.
Introducing her, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Meaza “shares stories of those who are often silenced.”
“Despite three arrests in under one year, she continued to raise her voice, advocating for survivors of gender-based violence and urging accountability for crimes committed against them,” Jean-Pierre said.
In an interview with AFP, Meaza said that authorities also raided her outlet and seized everything from her office.
“This award is a big thing for me — not only for me, but for the women out there in my country,” she said. “Because in my country, having a media (outlet) or working in (the) press is very dangerous, very difficult.”
Internet platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, Telegram and TikTok, have been inaccessible in Ethiopia since February 9.
The shutdown came after a dispute within the Ethiopian Orthodox Church led to calls for demonstrations against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. The issue was resolved but the sites remain down.
The northern region of Tigray, the scene of an armed conflict with the federal government, was largely deprived of telecommunications for the two-year duration of the war.
Blinken is due in Ethiopia on Wednesday on the highest-level US visit since the war with plans to encourage the peace process.
Meaza came to prominence for her campaign for answers over the kidnapping in late 2019 of a group of students whose fate remains unknown.
The students belong to Ethiopia’s second largest ethnic group, the Amhara, and Meaza has been accused in some quarters of a pro-Amhara tilt in the ethnically diverse nation where questions of identity have become increasingly incendiary.
Speaking to AFP in Washington, Meaza denounced “ethnic cleansing” against the Amhara, who have long held privileged positions in Ethiopia’s economic, political and cultural life.
An Amhara militia known as the Fano has also been accused of numerous abuses.
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Theft Probe Clears South African President of Wrongdoing
A corruption watchdog group said in a preliminary report that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa was not involved in a cover-up concerning the theft of a large amount of cash he had stuffed into a sofa at his farmhouse.
Allegations of a cover-up about the theft of the money had hung over the president’s head for months and had almost cost him his presidency.
Vincent Magwenya, Ramaphosa spokesperson, said in a statement, “We reiterate that the president did not participate in any wrongdoing, nor did he violate the oath of his office.”
Ramaphosa will still be the focus of a police investigation into the money and where it came from and what he did after it was stolen.
The findings of the investigation have not been released publicly, but some media outlets have obtained copies of the report. They indicate the probe found that the head of the president’s protection service acted improperly when he launched an investigation into the theft of the cash without reporting it to the police.
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Record-Strength Cyclone Freddy Pounds Mozambique after Making 2nd Landfall
Cyclone Freddy battered central Mozambique on Sunday after making landfall for a second time in a month and breaking records for duration and strength of tropical storms in the southern hemisphere.
More than 171,000 people were affected after the cyclone swept through southern Mozambique last month, killing 27 people in Mozambique and Madagascar. More than half a million people are at risk of being affected Mozambique this time, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
After passing by the port town of Quelimane, the storm was continuing on inland towards the southern tip of neighboring Malawi, satellite data showed.
Communications and electricity to Quelimane have been cut, making it difficult to assess the extent of the damage. At least one person was killed there on Saturday when his house collapsed on him as the storm swept onshore, state TV reported.
Two weeks ago, 27 died when the storm first made landfall, after first being spotted near Indonesia on Feb. 6.
After swirling for 35 days, Freddy is likely to have broken the record for the longest-lasting tropical cyclone, with the previous record was held by a 31-day hurricane in 1994, according to the World Meteorological Organization.
It has also set a record for the highest accumulated cyclone energy, a measure of the storm’s strength over time, of any southern hemisphere storm in history, according to the U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.
Climate change is making hurricanes stronger, scientists say. Oceans absorb much of the heat from greenhouse gas emissions, and when warm seawater evaporates its heat energy is transferred to the atmosphere, fueling more destructive storms.
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In Shadow of Conflict Nearby, Rebel Upsurge Hits DR Congo’s Ituri
Marie Dzedza has lost hope of leaving a displaced people’s camp and returning to her village in the eastern Congolese province of Ituri, where rebel violence is surging while regional attention focuses on a conflict in a neighboring territory.
Five years ago, Dzedza lost both her hands in a machete attack during a raid by members of the CODECO group, one of several militias that have destabilized the densely forested province in Democratic Republic of Congo and forced 1.5 million to flee their homes since late 2017.
“We miss our old lives,” she said at the Kigonze camp she shares with nearly 14,000 others, who live in rows of featureless white tents squeezed onto a clearing outside the provincial capital Bunia.
“I hate my life here … This is why I am asking the Congolese government to do something to restore peace, so that I can return home.”
The prospects are not good. Attacks have increased significantly in recent months with 419 civilians killed between Dec. 1 and mid-February, according to internal U.N. data, even as a major offensive by a different rebel group has drawn some Congolese forces away to North Kivu province to the south.
In Ituri, “what we are seeing is an upsurge,” said Bintou Keita, head of the U.N.’s peacekeeping mission known as MONUSCO, which is due to pull out of Ituri and the rest of eastern Congo by 2024 according to a transition plan that is under discussion.
On an official visit to Ituri on March 1, her first in months, Keita and local authorities blamed CODECO and a rival militia called Zaire for the spiraling bloodshed and reprisal attacks.
The groups, which operate in remote areas and do not have official spokespeople, could not be reached for comment.
Looming security shortfall
In January, mass graves containing 49 bodies, including those of women and children, were discovered in two villages in Ituri, killings attributed by the U.N. to CODECO.
The insecurity has made it harder to deliver aid to those who were able to escape such attacks, worsening the humanitarian crisis, international aid groups have warned.
In mid-January, the U.N. aid agency OCHA said 12 humanitarian organizations had been forced to limit their operations in parts of Ituri because of increased attacks since the start of 2023.
Nevertheless, the steep security deterioration in Ituri has been overshadowed by the recent turbulence in North Kivu. The latter has caused greater political and diplomatic fallout with Congo, the U.N., and other nations accusing Rwanda of backing the M23 rebels there. Rwanda denies it backs the M23.
Ituri’s military governor Lieutenant-General Johnny Luboya N’Kashama said the army was seeking talks with the armed groups, while also conducting large-scale patrols with MONUSCO and building new bases so it can react quicker to reports of attack.
The departure of MONUSCO has raised concerns about a looming military shortfall, but N’Kashama said the army intended to plug the gap.
“We have recruited a lot of personnel. And we believe that within three to four months, whether it’s the police or the army, we will have enough to start relieving the U.N. troops,” he told reporters after talks with MONUSCO’s Keita.
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Deadly Cyclone Freddy Pummels Mozambique for 2nd Time
Cyclone Freddy pummeled Mozambique Saturday, killing one person, ripping roofs off houses, and triggering a lockdown in one port town, a resident and local media said, two weeks after 27 died when the storm first made landfall.
Freddy, one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the southern hemisphere, started sweeping onshore by 10 p.m. local time (2000 GMT), satellite data showed, after hours of battering the southern African coast with rain.
It was the second time the cyclone struck the country since it was named after being spotted near Indonesia on February 6.
“The town is a no-go zone; no shops or businesses open. Everything is closed. We’re locked up,” resident Vania Massingue said by telephone from her house in the port settlement of Quelimane, located in the storm’s path in the central Zambezia province. “I can see some houses with roofs torn apart, broken windows and the streets [are] flooded. It’s really scary.”
Freddy could break record
After swirling for 34 days, the weather system is likely to have broken the record for the longest-lasting tropical cyclone. According to the World Meteorological Organization, the previous record was held by a 31-day hurricane in 1994.
State broadcaster TVM said one person died when his house collapsed, and that the power utility had switched off the electricity completely as a precaution. All flights were suspended, it added.
The cyclone is slow-moving, which meteorological experts say means it will pick up more moisture off the sea, bringing heavy rainfall.
Climate change
Around the world, climate change is making hurricanes wetter, windier and stronger, scientists say. Oceans absorb much of the heat from greenhouse gas emissions, and when warm seawater evaporates its heat energy is transferred to the atmosphere, fueling more destructive storms.
More than 171,000 people were affected after the cyclone swept through southern Mozambique last month, bringing heavy rains and floods that damaged crops and destroyed houses, with OCHA putting its death toll at 27 so far —10 in Mozambique and 17 in Madagascar.
More than half a million people are at risk in Mozambique this time, notably in Zambezia, Tete, Sofala and Nampula provinces.
Freddy, which is also expected to hit northeastern Zimbabwe, southeast Zambia and Malawi, has set a record for the highest accumulated cyclone energy, a measure of the storm’s strength over time, of any southern hemisphere storm in history, according to the U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.
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Survivors of Deadly Raid Return to East Congo Village
Residents of the Mukondi village in eastern Congo inspected the burnt-out remains of their homes Friday and told how they fled for their lives as rebels cut the throats of people around them.
Members the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) struck Mukondi and a neighboring village overnight Wednesday, torching buildings and killing at least 39 people and wounding many more, according to the local authorities.
“They killed with machetes and lit homes on fire,” local chief Kasereka Deogratias said near the blackened wreckage of a building in Mukondi. “People are scared to come back.”
The scale of the bloodshed has shocked the broader community in North Kivu province that has been menaced by marauding armed rebel groups since wars in the 1990s.
The Islamist militant group attacked the villages as residents were celebrating International Women’s Day, said resident Paluku Mukata, who was among those who escaped.
“People’s throats were slit, lots of them,” Mukata said.
Mukondi farmer Kambale Kiviko said he only realized the village was under attack when he saw smoke rising into the air as he came back from his fields. Soon after, he was forced to the ground at gunpoint.
The attackers said, “Don’t bother talking because you’re no more useful than the people we’ve just killed here,” Kiviko explained.
The Islamic State, which the ADF pledged allegiance to in 2019, claimed responsibility for the attack late Friday.
The ADF, a Ugandan armed group, is one of the main militant groups behind the bloodshed in eastern Congo, where around 10,000 people have been killed since 2017, according to Kivu Security Tracker, which maps the unrest.
Jerry Paluku Mafuta Mingi, another Mukondi farmer, spoke of villagers’ fear for the future as he stood in the ruins of the local medical center that had been burned to the ground.
“Now we’re here, we are so afraid because we don’t know where the enemy came from and we don’t know where they holed up when they left our village, so we are in total despair,” he said.
The violence has destabilized swathes of eastern Congo, driving over 5.5 million people from their homes in what has become the largest internal displacement crisis in Africa, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
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China’s ‘Digital Silk Road’ in Africa Raises Questions
A group of U.S. lawmakers recently drafted a resolution criticizing South Africa’s government for its close relations with Beijing, including its use of Chinese technology, and called on President Joe Biden to review American’s relationship with Pretoria.
The resolution was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives as South Africa conducted naval exercises with China and Russia in February.
There are U.S. concerns about the surveillance risks of Chinese telecommunications, but some analysts say it falls on each government to responsibly use technologies, and China is not the only player in the tech industry.
The U.S. has already banned Chinese technology company Huawei at home, saying it’s a risk to national security. There is also a push on Capitol Hill to ban Chinese social media app TikTok.
In sub-Saharan Africa, where less than 30% of people use the internet, most governments welcome China’s investment in digital infrastructure – a part of the Belt and Road Initiative dubbed the “Digital Silk Road.” Because of Chinese government subsidies, they see it as a cheaper path to greater connectivity.
The U.S. resolution mentioned two South African companies with links to Chinese tech that the lawmakers felt were of concern. One of them, Vumacam, operates about 2,000 cameras in Johannesburg, with the technology intended to crack down on the rampant crime that plagues the commercial capital.
The U.S. concern is Vumacam “has partnered with Chinese company Hikvision for the cameras’ hardware,” the resolution said. The sale of Hikvision products was also recently banned in the U.S.
Contacted by VOA about its use of Hikvision, Vumacam responded: “We can confirm that we have multiple hardware vendors and not one single vendor. … Any hardware is susceptible to penetration risk if not properly managed, regardless of its brand or country of origin. Vumacam’s focus is therefore firmly on system security, and as such, Vumacam’s network is run by its own proprietary platform, which undergoes rigorous and regular testing.”
Huawei dominates
The U.S. resolution also pointed to Telkom, South Africa’s partly state-owned telecom operator, which “launched its 5G network throughout the country in October 2022 using technologies from Huawei technologies.”
Neither Telkom, a spokesperson for South Africa’s state security agency, nor a spokesperson for the Government Communication and Information System responded to requests for comment.
The U.S. faces an uphill battle in vying for telecommunications influence in Africa. Washington has been trying to catch up to China’s vast network in Africa, announcing last year that U.S.-backed telecom company Africell had invested to deliver a 5G network in Angola.
But across the continent, Huawei dominates: Its subsidiaries own up to 70% of all 4G networks.
Last year, Ethiopia rolled out its first 5G network powered by Huawei. Zimbabwe has a Huawei Smart Cities program – as do Kenya and Uganda – and has installed Hikvision cameras in public spaces. Insurgency-wracked Nigeria recently announced it was planning to buy Chinese cameras to monitor its borders.
“China has signed resolutions to increase cooperation in areas like counterterrorism, safe city projects, border security and cybersecurity,” Bulelani Jili, a South African cybersecurity fellow at Harvard University, told VOA. “China also supplements this promise with commitments to offer finance, technical assistance and training to African governments on topics ranging from digital forensic techniques to cybersecurity.”
Spying concerns
Digital watchdogs, however, often label China as one of the worst abusers of internet freedoms domestically, and observers from the West worry that African regimes with undemocratic tendencies could adopt not just Chinese tech but the way China uses it to monitor dissent.
Already in Zambia and Uganda, the governments were found to have used Chinese technology to spy on the opposition and critics. In Zimbabwe, there are concerns it will be used to do the same ahead of elections later this year.
China also made headlines in 2018 with reports of Beijing having bugged the Chinese-built African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa. China stridently denied the allegations.
Responsibility of local governments
In some parts of Africa, Jili said, technology and the potential of its risks are tied to local and geopolitical factors.
“What is clear is that digital surveillance devices do not simply constitute smooth-functioning systems that provide the means of socially equitable and competent policing. Rather, they are convoluted assemblages that are entangled in broader economic, legal and political arrangements,” he said.
“And the risks of using them with inadequate laws are great, particularly in a region with established problems at the intersections of inequality, crime, governance, race, and policing. … The adoption of new technologies on the continent is rarely accompanied by the implementation of robust regulatory frameworks,” he added.
Some China experts say the risks from Chinese tech to Africa are overblown and the focus should be on all the players in the tech arena, including European and American firms.
As well as Vumacam, U.S. firm IBM also has a contract with the city of Johannesburg for digital surveillance, said Iginio Gagliardone, an associate professor at Johannesburg’s Witwatersrand University and author of the book China, Africa and the Future of the Internet.
In terms of spying on opponents, he said, there’s evidence a previous Ethiopian administration spied on dissidents in the diaspora, using software from a number of European companies. Meanwhile, Israeli spyware firm Pegasus has also been used by African governments.
Whether such technology is used to clamp down on opponents is not up to China, Gagliardone argued, but rather the African governments who utilize it.
“China with no doubt is an autocratic regime. … At the same time, China has not tried to impose or suggest that other countries follow in its footsteps,” he told VOA.
Gagliardone said it’s important to hold all large and powerful actors to account when it comes to the possible misuse of tech in Africa.
“The responsibility is really widespread. … If we just focus on China, we miss the bigger picture,” he said.
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UN Weekly Roundup: March 4-10, 2023
Editor’s note: Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch.
UN chief makes brief trip to Ukraine
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday assailed Russia’s yearlong invasion of Ukraine as a violation of international law as he arrived in Kyiv, Ukraine, for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on extending grain shipments from the war-torn country and securing the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The two men met on Thursday in the Ukrainian capital.
UN nuclear board meets following chief’s visit to Tehran
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s 35-nation board of governors met this week in Vienna. Part of its discussions centered on Iran and its nuclear program. Agency chief Rafael Grossi traveled to Iran’s capital, Tehran, last week after reports the IAEA found traces at the Fordow fuel enrichment plant of uranium particles enriched to 83.7% — just below the weapons grade threshold of about 90%. Iran said it would cooperate with the agency’s investigation of the particles. Tehran denies seeking a nuclear bomb and says the resource is only for civilian purposes.
UN buys oil tanker to start salvage operation off Yemen
The United Nations said Thursday it has purchased a $55 million vessel to transfer more than a million barrels of oil from a neglected tanker that threatens Yemen’s Red Sea coast, and the salvage operation is planned for early May. The U.N. has warned for several years that the 47-year-old FSO Safer supertanker is a ticking time bomb that could leak, sink or explode, unleashing a massive ecological and humanitarian catastrophe. David Gressly, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said the tanker purchase is “the most significant step forward” in resolving the issue in many years.
Commission on status of women gets underway
At the start of the Commission on the Status of Women on Monday, Secretary-General Guterres warned that at the current pace, gender equality is projected to be 300 years away. He warned that progress is “vanishing before our eyes” as women’s rights “are being abused, threatened and violated around the world.”
Wednesday marked International Women’s Day. While there was a lot of talk about empowering women and protecting their rights, there was little action at U.N. meetings. [[At UN on International Women’s Day, Talk of Women’s Rights, Little Action
In brief
— Secretary-General Guterres welcomed the announcement Friday that adversaries Saudi Arabia and Iran have agreed to resume diplomatic relations in the next two months. The deal was agreed to in Beijing, which hosted talks between the two countries. Guterres said good neighborly relations between Tehran and Riyadh are essential for the stability of the Gulf region, and he offered his good offices to further advance regional dialogue. The development comes as the U.N. and other nations have been working to end the war in Yemen, a conflict in which both Iran and Saudi Arabia are deeply involved.
— March 11 will mark 12 years since Syria’s civil war began with a crackdown on anti-government protesters that turned into a full-out conflict that has killed thousands and launched a massive refugee crisis. The suffering has been compounded by the February 6 earthquake. Secretary-General Guterres said support that has come for earthquake survivors must be channeled into the political track, and he called for peace in a statement marking the anniversary. He said, “Now is the time for us to act in unison, to secure a nationwide cease-fire, advance the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people, and create the conditions necessary for the voluntary return of refugees in safety and dignity, with our strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity of Syria, and to regional stability.”
— The World Health Organization said Wednesday that it had fired its regional director for the Western Pacific following an internal investigation into allegations of misconduct. The WHO probe was triggered by an investigation published by The Associated Press in January last year in which more than two dozen staff members accused Dr. Takeshi Kasai of racist, abusive and unethical behavior that may have undermined the agency’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He denied the charges.
— The U.N. Security Council is on a field mission to the Congo from March 9-12. The ambassadors are there to assess the security situation and implementation of the U.N. peacekeeping mission’s mandate. They are meeting senior Congolese officials in Kinshasa and plan travel to Goma, in the violence-plagued east.
— International Atomic Energy Agency Chief Rafael Grossi was confirmed Friday by the agency’s Board of Governors for a second four-year term. Grossi expressed appreciation for his reappointment and said it comes at a time when “we face many major challenges, and I’m fully committed to continue to do everything in my power to implement the IAEA’s crucial mission in support of global peace and development.” His new term starts December 3 and runs until December 2, 2027.
Quote of note
“Discrimination diminishes us all. And it is incumbent on all of us to stand up against it. We must never be bystanders to bigotry.”
— Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to a U.N. meeting Friday marking the international day to combat Islamophobia.
What we are watching next week
The package deal that facilitates the export of Ukrainian grain and Russian food and fertilizer products to international markets will expire on March 18. If neither party objects to its renewal, it will automatically continue. But Russia has made noises about the Black Sea Grain Initiative and the corresponding Memorandum of Understanding for Russian food and fertilizer, saying Moscow is not benefiting enough. Secretary-General Guterres made a brief trip to Ukraine, meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday to discuss the deal. Next week, senior U.N. and Russian officials are set to meet in Geneva to discuss implementation. Under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Ukraine has exported more than 23 million metric tons of grain and other foodstuffs from three ports since the deal was signed in late July.
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Strong Storm Freddy Set to Hit Mozambique Again
Tropical Storm Freddy was on track to hit the coast of southern Africa again early Saturday, after killing at least 27 people in Mozambique and Madagascar since it first made landfall last month.
One of the strongest storms ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere, Freddy may also have broken the record for the longest-lasting tropical cyclone, according to the World Meteorological Organization, which said the current record is held by a 31-day hurricane in 1994.
Freddy was named on February 6, 33 days ago.
More than 171,000 people were affected when the cyclone swept through southern Mozambique two weeks ago, bringing heavy rains and floods that damaged crops and destroyed houses, according to U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA.
OCHA on Friday put Freddy’s latest death toll at 27, 10 in Mozambique and 17 in Madagascar.
As many as 565,000 people could be at risk in Mozambique this time around in Zambezia, Tete, Sofala and Nampula provinces, with Zambezia expected to be the hardest hit, according to the country’s national disaster management agency.
Its central region director, Nelson Ludovico, said the agency was preparing for the storm’s landfall in the early hours of Saturday and had moved people to makeshift shelters.
“It’s a slow-moving cyclone. This is bad news in terms of rainfall because it means it’s hovering quite close to the coast and it’s picking up more moisture, so the rainfall will be heavier,” Clare Nullis, spokesperson for the World Meteorological Organization, told reporters in Geneva.
The storm is likely to cause extreme rainfall over large parts of Mozambique as well as northeastern Zimbabwe, southeast Zambia and Malawi, she said.
Around the world, climate change is making hurricanes wetter, windier and more intense, scientists say. Oceans absorb much of the heat from greenhouse gas emissions, and when warm seawater evaporates its heat energy is transferred to the atmosphere, fueling stronger storms.
Freddy has set a record for the highest accumulated cyclone energy, a measure of the storm’s strength over time, of any Southern Hemisphere storm in history, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The storm has generated about as much accumulated cyclone energy on its own as an average North Atlantic hurricane season, Nullis said.
“World record or not, Freddy will remain in any case an exceptional phenomenon for the history of the southwest Indian Ocean on many aspects: longevity, distance covered, remarkable maximum intensity, accumulated cyclone energy amount, [and] impact on inhabited lands,” said Sebastien Langlade, a cyclone forecaster at the Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre in La Reunion, in a statement from the WMO.
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African Ministers in Malawi Discuss Cholera Outbreaks
The World Health Organization has called for Africa to step up the fight against cholera, which in the last year killed more than 3,000 people in 12 African countries, with more than half the victims dying in Malawi’s record outbreak. The global health body and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held a two-day emergency meeting on cholera this week in Malawi with ministers from 14 African countries.
The two-day meeting ended Friday with a call for countries to take a holistic approach in improving issues of water, sanitation and health among their populations.
A closing statement said more commitment was needed on surveillance and prevention to eliminate the deadly cholera bacteria, which is spread by dirty water.
The participants also resolved that African countries need to start producing their own cholera vaccine.
Dr. Ambrose Talisuna, WHO’s regional adviser for health security in Africa, said the continent continues to face cholera outbreaks despite past commitments to eliminate the disease.
“They committed themselves in 2018 by Regional Framework for Africa but we are lagging behind, the milestones are lagging behind,” Talisuna said. “So we really want to revitalize cholera prevention and control sustainably in Africa.”
Talisuna said 12 African countries have current cholera outbreaks, totaling some 130,000 cases, with more than 51,000 in Malawi.
“This is just too much, and we don’t know how many countries will have cholera before the end of the year,” he said. “But the outbreak we see in Malawi is so far the largest and it is related to issues around climate change but also cross-border movement.”
Malawi has recorded more than half of Africa’s cholera fatalities, making it the worst outbreak the country has battled in decades.
Malawian Vice President Saulos Chilima told the delegates Friday the country is now seeing a drop in cases largely because of an anti-cholera campaign the Malawi government launched last month.
The country has also seen a drop in the fatality rate, from 3.3% in August, to 1.8% now, still above the WHO target rate of 1 percent.
Malawi’s Minister of Health, Khumbize Kandodo Chiponda, confirmed that progress has been made.
“The numbers have significantly gone down,” Chiponda said. “About three weeks or two weeks ago we were having about 700 or 800 cases on a daily basis. But as of now there are about 200, sometimes 300. Even people who are dying from cholera, the numbers have gone down.”
Health rights campaigner Maziko Matemba told VOA that the involvement of WHO and the Africa CDC in the cholera fight could help the country abolish some common diseases too.
“We hope that there will be more research and surveillance in Africa, which will help and support the ending of some of these conditions which are preventable in nature,” Matemba said. “But also, it will create awareness to countries to put more resources toward health to end some of these conditions which are preventable in nature.”
Dr. Merawi Aragaw, head of emergency preparedness and response unit at Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there is a historical precedent for eliminating cholera: Europe. He said African outbreaks can be stopped if governments take a well-coordinated, collective and multi-sector approach like Europe did 150 years ago, which helped that continent virtually eliminate the waterborne disease.
Aragaw said the approach would center around improving water and sanitation infrastructures across Africa.
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Tanzania’s Opposition Welcomes President’s Pledge to Restore Competitive Politics
Tanzania’s opposition has welcomed President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s pledge to restore competitive politics and review the country’s constitution. The longstanding demands from the opposition were ignored by her predecessor, the late John Magufuli.
The president made the remarks Wednesday at an opposition gathering celebrating International Women’s Day, where she was invited as the guest of honor.
Hassan said that every journey of development begins with a step, and that progress will come gradually according to the laws and guidelines set for Tanzania. She also promised that reforms for the country are here, saying a new nation will be built with competitive politics and without violence.
Since coming to power in 2021 following the sudden death of Magufuli, Hassan has been working on changing some of her predecessor’s policies, including lifting the ban on political rallies.
Magufuli’s government passed various strict laws, such as the Media Services Act to censor critics, opposition politicians, and journalists. The law resulted in the suspension of four newspapers and several online media platforms.
It was also under Magufuli’s rule that several opposition members were arrested and jailed for participating in political activities.
Devotha Minja, a member of the women’s wing of the opposition Party for Democracy and Progress, better known as CHADEMA, said she believes Hassan will give the people democratic politics that allow citizens to choose a leader who will be announced by the Electoral Commission and will be held accountable, unlike the current situation.
Tanzanian rights activists are optimistic about the future of democracy in the country.
Kumbusho Dawson, executive director of Reach Out Tanzania, a non-governmental organization that promotes civil and political rights, said this is a big step, and it shows that the president is creating an opportunity for other political parties and competitive politics. This includes allowing political rallies, he added, saying that when it comes to the issue of a new constitution, it has been a longstanding demand. Her predecessor rejected it outright, saying he was prioritizing development.
Political analyst Deus Kibamba, a lecturer at the Center for Foreign Relations in Tanzania, said the president’s comments regarding the restoration of competitive politics and constitutional review are welcome.
However, he wondered whether members of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi Party will support these moves. He said there is a trend where candidates win elections without competition, and a party that is used to swimming in such waters cannot please a president who desires genuine competition.
Meanwhile, opposition politicians and rights activists hope a level political playing field is around the corner, but expressed concerns since it’s the president’s party that created the current environment.
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Cameroon Says Rebel Attacks Intensify to Disrupt March 12 Senate Elections
Cameroon’s military says separatists in its North-West region have blocked roads and attacked military vehicles to disrupt Sunday’s Senate elections. Witnesses say several bodies were seen around the destroyed vehicles. The military has not confirmed any casualties and vowed to protect voting, despite the rebel blockade.
Cameroonian government troops exchange fire with separatist fighters in Tadu, a village in the central African state’s North-West region.
In the audio, extracted from a video shared on social media, a man identifying himself as separatist general Viper says fighters will chase out or kill government troops deployed to protect voters in Cameroon’s March 12 senatorial election.
Cameron’s Senate, the upper house of Parliament, has 100 seats. The election will be held for 70 seats. The other 30 will be appointed by President Paul Biya.
The military confirms that the video was taken in Tadu on Thursday. The military says besides Tadu village, government troops have fought gun battles with separatist fighters in several dozen locations, including Bamenda, Ndop, Wum, Jakiri, Oku, Bambili and Sabga in the North-West region and Manfe, Menji and Tiko in the South-West region.
The government says several military vehicles have been destroyed by improvised bombs planted by separatists in the Northwest.
Army captain and military spokesman Cyrille Serge Atonfack Guemo refused to comment on the number of troops killed but said about two dozen fighters have died in two weeks.
Civilians say bodies were seen around destroyed military vehicles.
Vanigansen Mochiggle is an opposition Social Democratic Front, or SDF, candidate. He says battles between Cameroon government troops and separatists are making it impossible for Senate candidates to campaign.
“The prevailing situation in the region is not propitious for an election. The conflict exacerbated,” said Vanigansen. “The separatists are all over the place. It is even very difficult for the candidates to move to their various divisional headquarters, so we have that challenge.”
A statement from the Roman Catholic Church in Kumbo and Ndop says transport buses and private vehicles are grounded and there has been no movement of people or goods in the past three days.
The government says civilians who disrespect separatist orders and move out of their homes are being abducted and tortured.
The SDF says candidates must send campaign messages through radio and TV, telephone calls and social media platforms, including WhatsApp and Facebook.
The SDF accuses Cameroon’s government of ordering the military to protect only candidates with the ruling Cameroon Peoples Democratic Movement, which the government denies.
Deben Tchoffo is the governor of the Northwest region.
Tchoffo says Biya has given instructions to the military to protect all civilians and make sure the March 12 senatorial elections are hitch-free. He says separatists who are attacking government troops and civilians to disrupt the elections will be killed if they do not surrender.
Tchoffo said despite the separatist threats Cameroon will prove to the world that it is a democratic state by organizing free, fair and transparent senatorial elections.
Separatists who have vowed to disrupt the elections in English-speaking western regions launched their rebellion in 2017 after what they said was years of discrimination by the country’s French-speaking majority.
The conflict has killed more than 3,500 people and displaced more than half a million, according to the United Nations.
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In Ghana, Basketball Used as Incentive to Stay in School
An aid group in Ghana is using the popularity of basketball and the Basketball Africa League to help keep kids in at-risk communities in school. A program known as DUNK Grassroots offers basketball practice for students who rack up reading credits at the library. Senanu Tord reports from Jamestown, Ghana.
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Sudan Teachers Remain on Strike Despite Government Claims of Concessions
Sudan’s state schoolteachers have been on strike since November over low and unpaid salaries. They accuse the military government of failing to prioritize education and are calling for the civilian government to be restored. Meanwhile, Sudan’s finance minister says the government has met the teachers’ demands. Henry Wilkins reports from Khartoum, Sudan.
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Doctor in Embattled Somaliland City Says 145 Dead
The director of a hospital in a disputed city in the Somaliland region says at least 145 people have been killed in more than two months of fighting between anti-government fighters and Somaliland security forces after local elders declared their intention to reunite with Somalia.
Abdimajid Sugulle, with the public hospital in Las-Anod, told The Associated Press on Saturday that more than 1,080 other people have been wounded and over 100,000 families have fled the city of Las-Anod since late December. Most civilians have fled, he said.
The director accused Somaliland forces of destroying the hospital’s laboratory, blood bank and patient ward in mortar attacks. “The Somaliland forces who are positioned outside the town have been shelling civilian residents and medical facilities indiscriminately. “No single day passes without shelling and casualties,” he told the AP by phone.
Somaliland’s defense ministry has denied shelling the hospital, and the government has asserted it has a “continuous commitment” to a cease-fire it declared Feb. 10. “Indiscriminate shelling of civilians is unacceptable and must stop,” the United Nations and international partners warned last month.
Somaliland separated from Somalia three decades ago and seeks international recognition as an independent country. Somaliland and the Somali state of Puntland have disputed Las-Anod for years, but the eastern city has been under Somaliland’s control.
The U.N. mission in Somalia and the U.N. human rights office had said the violence in Las-Anod killed at least 80 people between Dec. 28 and Feb. 28 and more than 450 noncombatants were wounded, including medical personnel. The U.N. has called for respect for medical workers and unhindered humanitarian access.
The conflict in Las-Anod began when an unidentified gunman killed a popular young politician in Somaliland’s opposition party as he left a mosque. Protests followed against Somaliland officials and forces in the city.
Somaliland’s government has blamed the unrest on fighters with “anti-peace groups and terrorism” and alleged that the al-Shabab extremist group, affiliated with al-Qaida, has supported some of the attacks.
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South African Scientists Use Bugs in War Against Water Hyacinth Weed
The Hartbeespoort dam in South Africa used to be brimming with people enjoying scenic landscapes and recreational water sports. Now, the visitors are greeted to the sight of boats stuck in a sea of invasive green water hyacinth weed.
The spike in Harties – as Hartbeespoort is known – can be attributed to pollution, with sewage, industrial chemicals, heavy metals and litter flowing on rivers from Johannesburg and Pretoria.
“In South Africa, we are faced with highly polluted waters,” said Professor Julie Coetzee, who has studied water hyacinths for over 20 years and manages the aquatic weeds program at the Centre for Biological Control at Rhodes University.
Nutrients in the pollutants act as perfect fertilizers for the weed, a big concern for nearby communities due to its devastating impact on livelihoods.
Dion Mostert, 53, is on the verge of laying off 25 workers at his recreational boat company after his business came to a standstill because of the carpet of water hyacinths.
“The boats aren’t going anywhere. It’s affecting tourism in our town… tourist jobs,” Mostert said pointing towards his luxury cruise boat “Alba,” marooned in the weeds.
He has considered using herbicides, but admits it would only be a quick fix against the weed.
Scientists and community members have, however, found a unique way to deal with the invasion by introducing a water hyacinth eating bug called Megamelus scutellaris.
The tiny phloem-feeding insects are the natural enemy to the plants, both are originally from the Amazon basin in South America, and are released by thousands at a time.
The insects destroy the weed by attacking tissue that transports nutrients produced in the leaves during photosynthesis to the rest of the plant.
The insect army has previously reduced the expanse of water hyacinths to a mere 5% on the dam, Coetzee said. At times the weed has covered at least 50% of it.
Environmentalist Patrick Ganda, 41, mass rears the bugs at Grootvaly Blesbokspruit wetland conservancy southeast of Harties, once home to more than a hundred species of birds which attracted a lot of tourists.
But now, unable to find food such as fish and small plants with much of the wetland’s water covered in plants, there are only two to three species of birds left, he said.
Scientists warn that while the insects have been fairly successful in controlling the situation, more needs to be done to treat its cause, which authorities could tackle by tightening regulations on waste water management.
“We are only treating the symptom of a much larger problem,” says Kelby English, a scientist at Rhodes University.
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Malawi’s Ex-Information Minister Jailed Amid Concerns of Selective Justice
Malawi’s high court has sentenced a former information minister and a subordinate to six years in prison for stealing computers and generators meant for a state-owned news agency. The punishments come the same week a presidential adviser and a ruling party spokesman resigned over corruption in the current government.
The sentences spotlight the government’s crackdown on corruption and concerns that it’s being used to weed out rivals.
Former information minister Henry Mussa and his director of information Gideon Munthali, both members of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party or DPP were sentenced this week, more than five months after their conviction on corruption charges.
They join several officials of the previous government jailed over various corruption-related cases, in a crackdown that the administration of President Lazarus Chakwera launched soon after winning the 2020 election.
This includes the arrest last November of the country’s vice president, Saulos Chilima, who allegedly took payments amounting to $280,000 and other items from British businessman Zuneth Sattar in return for Malawi government contracts.
DPP spokesperson Shadreck Namalomba applauds the crackdown, but said the problem is that the effort is marred with selective justice. He said most of the arrested are officials of the former ruling party rather than the current ruling party Tonse Alliance.
“Senior people in the Tonse [Alliance] government are resigning and are mentioning that there is gross corruption in the Tonse government,” Namalomba said. “Now what is ironic is that there is no one who has been arrested in the Tonse government, anyone who is answering a case of corruption in court and anyone who is imprisoned within the Tonse government.”
Namalomba said a good example of selective justice in the fight against corruption is the six years custodial sentence given to Mussa and Munthali although they returned the property they stole.
“We hear that people now, the Cashgaters, are being pardoned because they have returned money,” Namalomba said. “This is laughable. While others, like the case of honorable Mussa, they returned the money but he has been jailed while people who also defrauded the government are being forgiven. This is selective justice and it must not be condoned.”
Cashgaters is the name given for people who defrauded the Malawi government of an estimated $30 million during the administration of former president Joyce Banda, from 2012 to 2014.
Banda’s People’s Party is among nine parties that form the Tonse Alliance.
Local media reported last week that five Cashgate suspects recently dodged imprisonment after paying back the money they stole while three others were negotiating with the government to reimburse the funds and be discharged.
Attorney General Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda told a local daily this week that he believes that amnesty remains the most viable way to recover public assets from suspects convicted of defrauding the government.
Political analyst George Phiri said the problem is that the Malawi government is mixing the fight of corruption with politics.
“Because if you look at all the people mentioned, they belong to the opposition Democratic Progressive Party,” Phiri said. “But what about these cases that we have seen from the Tonse Alliance? And there are many other things within the country which the suspects are not taken to court.”
VOA could not get immediate reaction from government authorities on the allegations of selective justice in dealing with corruption in Malawi.
However, President Chakwera told parliament Tuesday this week that delays in hearing corruption cases would end soon, following the establishment of a special anti-corruption court.
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