Day: October 27, 2021

Once commonplace, abuses by state security forces against civilians in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have dropped sharply in the previous year, according to rights groups.

Boubacar, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, said last year unidentified gunmen came to his home at night, shot and wounded his wife and son, then killed his brother.

The next day, on doctors' orders, he traveled to Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, for medical treatment to save his son’s injured hand from amputation.

While he was away, he said, Burkinabe security forces kidnapped two of his brothers. Neighbors, he said, identified the forces. Since then, the family has had no word and doesn’t know if the two are alive or dead.

Abuses by security forces in the Sahel conflict, where Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger battle terror groups linked to Islamic State and al-Qaida, were once common.

Last year, the number of civilian fatalities caused by security forces was approaching those caused by terror groups.

Data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, ACLED, shows the number of civilian fatalities caused by security forces has fallen dramatically in the last year to Oct. 1, compared with the previous year.

They have dropped by 77% in Burkina Faso, 74% in Mali, and 65% in Niger.

Rights groups say they have also observed the change and suggest why it might have occurred.

“We believe that there’s a combination of factors,” said Corrine Dufka, West Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “First has been reporting by human rights groups, by journalists, as well as pressure from the international community.”

Analysts say there could be other factors at play, including the outsourcing of military activities to government-backed militias, among other things.

“Over this period, the security situation in the Sahel has continued to get worse,” said the European Council on Foreign Relations’s Andrew Lebovich. “And so, I think one other possible explanation is that regional security forces are doing somewhat less patrolling and are doing somewhat fewer operations where they’re actually interacting with populations in rural areas, especially.”

The Burkinabe army says accusations of abuse by security forces have not been proven. In a statement to VOA, it said respect for human rights is a major concern for the national armed forces and is part of the basic education for soldiers.

But the consequences of the atrocities are not going away.

“The bad news is there have not been investigations, much less, justice and accountability,” said Human Rights Watch’s Dufka.

Boubacar said trying to seek justice from the same authorities he believes committed crimes would be pointless.

He said he can't see how there would be a positive outcome, even if he went to court, so he decided to let matters lie.

But he still wants to know what happened to his brothers.

Source: Voice of America

The general leading Sudan’s coup has vowed to usher the country to an elected government. But Abdel-Fattah Burhan has powerful allies, including Gulf nations and a feared Sudanese paramilitary commander, and he appears intent on keeping the military firmly in control.

Burhan first gained prominence in 2019, when he and other top generals toppled Omar al-Bashir, under pressure from mass demonstrations against the autocrat’s 30-year rule.

He remained in charge for several months, until international pressure forced the military to reach a power-sharing deal with the protesters. That established a joint civilian-military Sovereign Council headed by Burhan that was supposed to rule Sudan until elections, set for 2023.

Burhan’s record was relatively clean and he was not indicted by The International Criminal Court like al-Bashir and others for crimes against humanity during the Darfur conflict of the early 2000s. He was a rare non-Islamist among the top generals during al-Bashir’s military-Islamist regime. That helped Sudan emerge from the international pariah status it had under al-Bashir.

On Monday, Burhan swept away the vestiges of civilian government. He dissolved the Sovereign Council and the transitional government, detained Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and other officials, and declared a state of emergency. Hamdok was released Tuesday, but others remain in custody.

The takeover came just weeks before Burhan, 61, was scheduled to be replaced by a civilian as head of the council. He has promised that the military will hand over power once a government is elected in July 2023.

Civilian control would not only undermine the military’s political power, but also threaten its extensive financial resources and could lead to prosecutions for rights violations in the past 30 years.

Burhan has been backed in recent years by Egypt, led by a general-turned-president, and Gulf countries, particularly the United Arab Emirates. He trained in Egypt’s military college and has made multiple visits since 2019 to the Emirates’ de-facto ruler, Abu Dhabi crown prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Those countries avoided criticizing Monday’s coup, calling instead for calm and dialogue.

“There’s a general preference for a strong military leader who is very transactional. That fits Gulf interests more than a democratic government,” said Cameron Hudson, a former U.S. State Department official and Sudan expert at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center.

“They’re fearful of what an Arab Spring success story looks like,” he said, referring to the uprisings in 2011 that helped inspire the Sudanese protests.

Also standing behind Burhan is another general, one who is more feared: Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the Rapid Support Forces — a paramilitary unit that grew out of the al-Bashir-backed Janjaweed militias notorious for atrocities and rapes during the Darfur conflict.

RSF fighters were prominent in Monday’s coup, taking part in arresting Hamdok and other senior officials and clamping down in the streets. The force is virtually a “de facto parallel army of tens of thousands of battle-tested fighters,” said Suliman Baldo, senior adviser at The Sentry, an investigative and policy group focusing on war crimes in Africa.

Burhan has a long connection with Dagalo, who is also known as Hemedti. Burhan was a commander in Darfur, where the military and RSF waged a brutal campaign to crush an insurgency, Baldo said. As many as 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million were displaced in a campaign of mass rape and abuse.

He distanced himself from the atrocities, once telling the BBC, “I am not responsible for any bad actions in Darfur. ... As far as I’m concerned, I was fighting an enemy just as all regular forces do.”

In 2015, Burhan and Dagalo coordinated the deployment of Sudanese troops and RSF fighters to Yemen to fight with the Saudi-led coalition against Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels. Their forces received hefty payments from the Saudis and Emiratis, building those countries’ connections to the two commanders.

In the uprising against al-Bashir, Burhan and Dagalo refused orders to violently disperse the protesters and even met with them at their sit-in camp. Behind the scenes, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates encouraged them to push out al-Bashir.

But protests continued after al-Bashir’s fall, with demands for the military to give up. On June 2, 2019, security forces and RSF fighters attacked the protesters. More than 100 people were killed, and soldiers raped dozens of women. Prosecutors blamed paramilitary forces, but the bloodshed stained Burhan and Dagalo in the eyes of protesters.

“Burhan was responsible because he was the leader, it’s that simple,” said Osman Mirgany, a Khartoum-based columnist and editor of the daily al-Tayar. “He promised not to touch the sit-in and then a massacre occurred. From that point on, people realized he would never keep his promises.”

For the military's opponents, that skepticism hangs over Burhan’s promises of civilian rule. Baldo, of the Sentry group, said the general and Dagalo are both intent on remaining free from civilian oversight.

Moreover, he said, they are “concerned about being held accountable for atrocity crimes committed under their command” — in Darfur and in the 2019 sit-in killings and rapes.

Source: Voice of America

Despite the military takeover in Sudan on Monday, Nureldin Satti, Sudan’s ambassador to the United States, remains in his post and vows to continue working with U.S. officials. In an interview with VOA's Nabeel Biajo, Satti said that he rejects the military moves and is coordinating with Sudanese diplomats around the world to mount pressure on Sudan’s military leaders to restore the civilian-led government.

The interview was edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: What is your position regarding the military takeover in Sudan?

Satti: I reject the military coup that was orchestrated on October 25. … I shall be working with my colleagues in the diplomatic service and with the diaspora around the United States and around the world to see to it that this coup is not accepted, and that the coup intentions and results be reversed as soon as possible.

VOA: Have you received any instructions from Sudan whether you should continue serving as Sudan ambassador?

Satti: No, no. Nothing.

VOA: The government that appointed you has been toppled. What is your next move?

Satti: Well, my next move is to continue serving as ambassador of the Sudanese people and ambassador of Sudan in the country as long as it takes. I shall remain in position to defend the principles of the government that has been toppled illegally by the military. And I consider myself as being the ambassador of a country and not under a regime.

VOA: If General Abdel-Fattah Burhan decides to fire you and appoint a new diplomatic mission, let’s say in the U.S, will you defy the order and refuse to abandon your post?

Satti: I will, you know, cross that bridge when I come to it. I cannot foretell what will be my reaction. It depends on the conditions that will prevail from now until that decision, and things are going to be much more complicated than that. In order for him to appoint a new diplomatic mission, it will be an issue. … It's not going to be easy for this regime … to appoint a new ambassador to the United States.

VOA: So, you're saying they have power, but they don't have legitimacy?

Satti: Absolutely.

VOA: You mentioned that you have joined other diplomats in other capitals to resist what is happening in Sudan. What are you doing exactly?

Satti: I am talking regularly to U.S. officials. Today, I spoke to staffers from the [U.S.] Senate and officers from the State Department. Yesterday, I spoke to the assistant secretary for African affairs at the State Department. I continue to engage, you know, the U.S. administration and Congress and to explain the position. And I have to say that there is overwhelming support to my position and that of my colleagues who have taken the same position. … I engage, of course, with the diaspora, and I had a meeting with the representatives of the diaspora in the United States yesterday. It was a very good meeting, and we agreed to work together. And I believe that my colleagues also in other embassies, like the one in Brussels, and in Paris, in Geneva, in Beijing, in South Africa and in New York are doing the same thing.

VOA: When you meet with U.S. officials, what are you asking them to do?

Satti: I am asking them to put pressure on the coup perpetrators in order to reverse the action that they have taken, and to take the country back to where it was 48 hours ago and to accept to engage wholeheartedly with the civilian component in order to take the country out of this crisis. A military coup has never resolved problems. It is only adding to our problems and complicating things for us. So, that's the message that I'm passing here. The United States [has] to put pressure on the coup plotters in order to change. … We have nothing against the military, but our problem is certain people in the military who do not want this revolution to move forward.

Source: Voice of America

The Committee to Protect Journalists says Sudanese military authorities on Tuesday arrested journalist Maher Abugoukh, a manager at Sudan state television, at his home in Khartoum.

The military seized power in a coup on Monday.

The CPJ said in a press release the reason for the arrest has not been disclosed and that Abugoukh’s whereabouts are unknown.

Abugoukh has been critical of the military during live radio and television shows, said the New York-based media rights group.

“Sudanese authorities must release Maher Abugoukh immediately,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour in the statement. “Sudanese journalists must be free to cover the unfolding coup without fear of reprisal and raids and with unrestricted access to telecommunications services.”

Abugoukh’s arrest comes amid several recent attacks on journalists in Sudan.

Source: Voice of America

Here's a look at what U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top diplomats have been doing this week:

Sudan

The United States called on Sudanese military forces to release all civilian leaders in detention, amid growing international condemnation of the military takeover. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken underscored the U.S. support for a civilian-led transition to democracy while speaking to Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok after his release from military custody.

Sudanese Security Forces Arrest 3 Leading Pro-Democracy Activists

Iran

The United States said it is prepared to return to Vienna for talks aimed at restoring a 2015 Iran nuclear deal that has been stalled for months, adding it is possible to "quickly reach and implement an understanding on return to mutual full compliance with the JCPOA." Iran said Wednesday it would resume talks with world powers about its nuclear development program by the end of November.

First 'X-gender' passport

The U.S. State Department announced Wednesday it has issued the first U.S. passport with an X-gender marker for nonbinary, intersex and gender-nonconforming people. The move follows a commitment to ensure "the fair treatment of LGBTQI+ U.S. citizens, regardless of their gender or sex."

US State Department Issues First 'X-Gender' Passport

Digital security

The State Department is creating a new Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy to focus on tackling cybersecurity challenges at a time of growing threats from opponents. There will also be a new special envoy for critical and emerging technology, who will lead the technology diplomacy agenda with U.S. allies.

US State Department Creates Bureau to Tackle Digital Threats

Taiwan

The United States encouraged all United Nations member states to join the U.S. in supporting Taiwan's "robust, meaningful participation throughout the U.N. system" and in the international community, consistent with Washington's "One China" policy. Calling Taiwan "a democratic success story," Blinken said Taiwan's meaningful participation in the U.N. system is "not a political issue, but a pragmatic one." China said Taiwan has no right to join the United Nations.

US Calls for Renewed Taiwan Participation at UN

On the 50th anniversary of the adoption of U.N. Resolution 2758, a senior U.S. official said the international community benefits from "Taiwan's expertise to address some of today's most difficult global challenges," while explaining how China is misusing U.N. Resolution 2758 to block Taiwan from participating in the U.N. system.

Turkey

U.S. officials said the Biden administration seeks cooperation with Turkey, a NATO ally, on common priorities but will not shy away from addressing disagreements while promoting the rule of law and respect of human rights globally. The remarks came after Turkey declared 10 ambassadors from Western countries "persona non grata" for calling for the release of Turkish philanthropist Osman Kavala.

Turkey to Banish 10 Western Ambassadors, Erdogan Says

Source: Voice of America