Day: February 27, 2023

PARIS— President Emmanuel Macron is to outline on Monday France’s revamped strategy for Africa, where anti-French sentiment is running high in some of its former colonies.

His speech at the presidential palace comes two days ahead of a four-nation tour of central African countries, as Paris seeks to counter growing Chinese and Russian influence in the region.

Macron is to visit Gabon for an environmental summit, followed by Angola, then the Republic of Congo, or Congo-Brazzaville, and finally the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

The president has insisted Africa is a priority of his second mandate in power, and in July he undertook a trip to Cameroon, Benin and Guinea-Bissau.

The French head of state, who was re-elected last year, is set to unveil on Monday “his priorities and his method to deepen the partnership between France, Europe and the African continent”, the presidential office has said.

His address follows a 2017 speech to students at a university in Burkina Faso in which he pledged to break away from his country’s former post-colonial policies on the continent of more than 50 countries.

He criticised “the crimes of European colonisation” and called for a “truly new relationship” between Africa and Europe.

But much has changed in Burkina Faso and the wider Sahel region since.

France has fallen out with new military authorities in Mali and Burkina Faso, withdrawing its troops from both former French colonies after years helping the authorities there battle jihadists.

Alarm has grown in Paris over the growing role of Russia in French-speaking African countries, alongside a Chinese push for influence that has been apparent for some years.

France and its Western allies accuse Russian mercenary group Wagner, infamous for its activities in Syria and Ukraine, of being active in Mali and the Central African Republic, also ruled by France in the colonial era.

Reports have also suggested Wagner is seeking to implant itself in Burkina Faso, claims Moscow dismissed last week.

In recent months, Paris has accused Russia of spreading disinformation to undermine French interests in former colonies.

Macron was expected, in his speech, to give more details about the future of the French military presence on the continent after announcing in autumn the end of its Barkhane anti-jihadist operation in the Sahel.

France still has thousands of troops in the region, including in Niger and Chad, but is seeking to redeploy some towards the Gulf of Guinea and tone down its presence on the ground.

The French president was also to reiterate the need to boost ties in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago.

“Faced with strategic threats — the war in Ukraine as well as economic and pandemic shocks — it is crucial that Europe and Africa be as aligned and as close as possible in their dialogue,” a French presidential adviser told AFP, asking not to be named.

Macron has repeatedly urged countries of the global south to condemn the war in Ukraine.

But when the United Nations on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to demand Russia immediately withdraw its troops from its pro-Western neighbour, three of the four countries Macron is visiting this week — Gabon, Angola and Congo-Brazzaville — abstained alongside China and India.

Macron will arrive in Gabon, a former French colony, on Wednesday to attend the One Forest Summit on preserving forests along the vast Congo River basin.

He will then head to the former Portuguese colony of Angola as part of a drive to enhance French ties with English- and Portuguese-speaking parts of Africa.

After Congo-Brazzaville, another former French colony, he will end his trip in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo — ruled by Belgium during the colonial era — on Friday and Saturday.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Russia’s war of aggression took center stage at the opening of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s five-and-a-half-week session in Geneva.

As he kicked off this historically long and politically charged conference, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned what he called the carnage unleashed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which he said, “has triggered the most massive violations of human rights we are living today.”

“It has unleashed widespread death, destruction, and displacements,” he told those gathered in Geneva. “Attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure have caused many casualties and terrible sufferings.”

Guterres presented a gloomy assessment of the state of human rights, noting that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which sets out the rights to life, liberty, security and many other rights and freedoms, was “under assault from all sides.”

He warned the erosion of human rights around the world has stalled and, in some cases, reversed progress in human development. He added that extreme poverty and hunger are rising around the world for the first time in decades.

“A record one-hundred million people have been forced to flee by violence, conflict and human rights violations,” said Guterres. “Just yesterday, yet another horrific shipwreck in the Mediterranean claimed the lives of scores of people seeking a better future for themselves and their children.”

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Tu¨rk said much of the progress made over decades was being reined back and even reversed.

“The oppression of the past can return,” he said, along with “the old authoritarianism, with its brutal limits on freedoms writ large, and the suffocating straitjacket of patriarchy.”

The high commissioner added: “The old destructive wars of aggression from a bygone era with worldwide consequences, as we have witnessed again in Europe with the senseless Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

Rights challenges in Africa

This week, some 150 heads of state, foreign ministers, and other dignitaries will present their priorities and the challenges they’re facing.

Democratic Republic of the Congo President Felix Tshisekedi headed a list of 46 dignitaries scheduled to speak during Monday’s opening day meeting.

He told the council that the main challenge facing his country was the cycle of violence and looting of natural resources by terrorists and armed groups since 1994, the year of the Rwandan genocide.

He said some 150 groups, including the M-23 rebels, mainly operate in the provinces of Ituri, Maniema, North Kivu, and Tanganyika.

“It is no secret to anyone that they are supported, armed by some states of the region, such as Rwanda and by foreign financial sectors,” he said. “For 30 years, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been the theater of the most abominable human atrocities.”

Rwanda has denied accusations that it has supported the M23 group in eastern DRC. However, United Nations observers and human rights groups have said there is evidence of Rwandan backing for the M23.

Tshisekedi said he is in consultation with 53 armed groups within the context of the Nairobi Peace Process. He said the consultations, which aim to re-integrate the militias into national life, do not include the M23 rebels or the group known as CODECO, a cooperative of militants drawn mainly from the Lendu farming community, which has been accused perpetrating violence against civilians.

Over the course of the coming weeks, the 47-member Council will review the human rights situations in Afghanistan, China, Myanmar, Syria, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Nicaragua, Israel and the Palestinian territories, among others.

It also will address thematic issues, such as torture, violence against children, discrimination, and freedom of religion.

Moscow is set to be represented at the meetings for the first time since Russia suspended its council membership last year.

Source: Voice of America

CUTRO (Italy)— Italy’s coastguard on Monday searched the sea and beaches for bodies following a shipwreck off Calabria, as the death toll rose to 62 and charities cared for children who witnessed loved

ones drowning.

The overloaded wooden boat broke up and sank early Sunday in stormy seas off Italy’s southern coast, with bodies, shoes and debris washing up along a long stretch of shoreline.

The death toll rose Monday to 62, a coast guard official said — and that number looked likely to increase.

Sergio di Dato, head of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) team offering psychological support to the survivors, said there were cases of children orphaned in the disaster.

“One Afghan 12-year-old boy lost his entire family, all nine of them — four siblings, his parents and other very close relatives,” he told journalists.

Firefighters from the town of Cutro readied a speed boat to head out on a fresh search of the area as helicopters flew overhead.

Save the Children charity said on Twitter it was supporting survivors from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria, including 10 minors who had been travelling with their families.

“There are many missing minors,” it wrote.

The charity said survivors described how “during the night, near the coast, they heard a loud boom, the boat broke and they all fell into the water.”

The survivors were “in shock… some say they saw relatives fall into the water and disappear, or die”.

The boat was reported to have set sail from Izmir in Turkey last week. Three suspected human traffickers were arrested and police were searching for a fourth, media reports said Monday.

David Morabito, a rescue diver in Calabria, told Rai state broadcaster he had recovered the bodies of young twins from the water.

“When you see the little, lifeless bodies of children, those images pierce your heart,” Morabito said.

“So many children dead. A tragedy,” he added.

The disaster has further fuelled the debate in Italy over search and rescue measures for saving migrants who run into trouble on the Central Mediterranean route, which is the world’s deadliest.

Far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, elected in September, has pledged to curb migrant arrivals.

Her government pushed through a controversial law last week that forces migrant aid charities to perform only one life-saving rescue mission at a time before heading directly to ports, which are often far away.

Critics say the measure violates international law and will result in more people drowning.

According to the interior ministry, nearly 14,000 migrants have arrived in Italy by sea so far this year, up from 5,200 over the same period last year.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

U.S. first lady Jill Biden made a high-profile visit to a tiny Kenyan community to draw attention to the severe drought that has gripped East Africa and created an unprecedented food insecurity crisis in Kenya.

The United States has provided the lion’s share of humanitarian aid to East Africa after rains failed here for a third straight year, causing unprecedented hunger that stretches from Somalia to this dusty Maasai village just three hours from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi.

The U.N. chief for Kenya told VOA that 6 million people are on the brink of extreme hunger this year and that the situation is exacerbated by the food-supply crisis caused by the conflict in Ukraine.

But the world’s richest nation can’t walk this road alone, Biden said after her visit to the Maasai village which is suffering the worst drought seen in this area in seven generations. The trip came at the end of a five-day visit that took her to Kenya and the Southwest African nation of Namibia.

“The United States is providing 70% of the budget, the money, that's coming into this region. But we cannot be the only ones,” she told reporters after her 90-minute visit. “We need to have other countries join us in this global effort to help these people of the region.”

To get there, Biden made a three-hour journey to remote southern Kenya, near the border with Tanzania. The drive took her large motorcade through villages with emaciated cows, dried-up creek beds and packed churches on a hot, bright Sunday morning — all the way to a remote church that serves as an humanitarian assistance station.

In Lositeti, Biden was greeted by thousands of residents of the largely Maasai community — many who had walked from within a 40-kilometer radius to reach the area’s only water point. A group of residents sang and danced as they draped Biden in a bright red shuka, the traditional robe worn by the pastoralist people who are famed for their skill as warriors and hunters.

Biden sat with a small group of women under a lone tree and for 30 minutes, asked them questions, with the help of an interpreter, about their experience of this crisis, which the United Nations’ resident coordinator in Kenya, Stephen Jackson, said is driven by climate change and exacerbated by the global food supply crisis.

Biden did not ask the women about the multiple drivers of their predicament.

"How does this compare to previous droughts in your lifetime?" she asked a woman who said she was a grandmother.

How do you find work now? she asked a woman who said her cattle had died.

How many of your children cannot go to school? she asked another.

How old is your baby? she asked a woman — who was breastfeeding her eager 7-month-old son — while speaking softly to the group of White House and U.S. aid officials, watched by several thousand community members and a dozen Kenyan and American journalists.

The women Biden questioned responded quietly, many in the Maa language. Afterward, Biden shared what they said with the gathered press.

“They talked about how their livestock are dying,” she said. “Obviously, you can see the drought here, how bad it is. The one source of water here feeds 12 villages, and each village has approximately a thousand to 1,200 people.”

Brenda Kariuki, the World Food Program’s Nairobi-based head of advocacy and communication, told VOA that the need across the East African region — which includes Somalia and Ethiopia — is vast.

“We require $6.5 billion in 2023 alone to continue feeding the people that need it,” she told VOA. “WFP is aiming to reach 45 million people. That’s a significant task, and we can't do it on our own. So, we look to our donors, our partners, our governments to really step up and make sure no one goes to bed without food.”

U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman said the country needs more than a short-term fix.

“I would just underscore what Dr. Biden said, is that everyone needs to help as best we can,” she told journalists. “Because this is going to continue for the foreseeable future. And this is very personal, and thank you for shining a light on the world so you're an extension of their voices.”

Kariuki said a high-profile visit to a crisis area can make a big difference.

“The presence of the first lady of the U.S. in the region, especially at a time when we have a food insecurity crisis, is a significant moment,” she said. “And I think she brings attention to a challenge that the region will have to address ... which is with food assistance and ensuring that people are not dying and going to bed hungry every night, but also to bring their attention to the world.”

Source: Voice of America