Tuesday 29 Oct, 2024 {HMC} Botswanan opposition activists took to the streets of capital Gaborone over the weekend ahead of general elections set for this Wednesday. They wanted to march to Zimbabwe’s embassy with a petition that voiced concerns the neighboring country is conspiring to help Botswana’s ruling party extend its 58-year hold on power. But the marchers did not reach their destination.

The weekend march was organized by a coalition of opposition parties under the Umbrella for Democratic Change, or UDC.

But police, wielding guns, batons and shields pushed back the marchers and barricaded roads, forcing them to disperse.

UDC representative Phenyo Butale read out the petition despite the failed effort to reach the Zimbabwean Embassy. The petition urged Zimbabwe not to interfere in Botswana’s election.

Butale told VOA there have been reports Zimbabwe wants to aid the ruling Botswana Democratic Party, or BDP, by helping it rig this Wednesday’s election. The party has been in power since 1966. Its candidate, President Mokgweetsi Masisi, is seeking a second term. He faces three challengers.

“We decided to march to the Zimbabwe Embassy because we have been receiving credible information that there is an attempt by the Zimbabwean government to assist their friends here, the ruling party in Botswana, through clandestine means,” Butale said.

He said the police were not supposed to prevent them from marching to the embassy.

“We were met by brute force,” he said. “Heavily armed police blocked the way and said we cannot go to the embassy; we need a permit. We told them that our interpretation of the law is that the process of asking for a permit is not because we need permission to enjoy our freedom of expression; the purpose is for the police to facilitate us and ensure our safety.”

Police said that for a demonstration to take place the organizers must obtain a permit first.

But political analyst Zibani Maundeni, a professor at the University of Botswana, says the police’s actions could be viewed as political.

“The police have to be a neutral body,” Maundeni said. “If people organize a peaceful demonstration, there is no reason it should be stopped. In many countries in the region, the police have been a problem, acting in favor of the ruling party.”

Meanwhile, the ruling BDP has denied claims it is working with Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party to win the elections.

Equally, ZANU-PF spokesperson Farai Marapira said there is no truth in the Botswana opposition’s allegations.

“We do not interfere in the internal activities of any other country, Marapira said. “We do not interfere in the processes. We respect the electoral processes in different countries, and we support what the people of those countries will have decided on. This is just absurd and an insult to ZANU-PF and an insult to the people of Botswana themselves.”

The handling of early voting in Botswana has also been criticized, with reports saying some polling stations ran out of ballot papers.

Masisi is a former vice president. He took office in 2018 after he was handpicked to succeed President Ian Khama, who stepped down that year. Masisi was officially elected in 2019 to a five-year term.

SOURCE VOA

Tuesday 29 Oct, 2024 {HMC}  Guinea authorities dissolved dozens of political parties and placed two major opposition ones under observation late Monday, while the transitional government has yet to announce a date for elections.

The West African country has been led by a military regime since soldiers ousted President Alpha Conde in 2021. The West African regional bloc known as ECOWAS has pushed for a return to civilian rule and elections are scheduled for 2025.

The mass dissolution of 53 political parties and required observation of 54 others for three months is unprecedented in Guinea, which held its first democratic election in 2010 after decades of authoritarian rule. The Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization announced the moves based on an evaluation of all political parties begun in June. The evaluation was meant to “clean up the political chessboard,” according to the ministry.

The 67 parties that will be under observation for three months can operate normally but must resolve irregularities noted in the report. Those parties include the Rally of the Guinean People, which is the party of former President Alpha Condé, and another major opposition party, the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea.

The authorities said the parties placed under observation failed to hold their party congress within the time limit and to provide bank statements, among other issues.

Guinea is one of a growing number of West African countries, including Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, where the military has taken power and delayed a return to civilian rule. Earlier this year, the military junta in Burkina Faso extended its transition term by five years.

Col. Mamadi Doumbouya, who leads Guinea, overran the president three years ago, saying he was preventing the country from slipping into chaos and chastised the previous government for broken promises.

However, since coming to power he’s been criticized by some for being no better than his predecessor.

In February, the military leader dissolved the government without explanation, saying a new one will be appointed.

Doumbouya has rebuffed attempts by the West and other developed countries to intervene in Africa’s political challenges, saying Africans are “exhausted by the categorizations with which everyone wants to box us in.”

SOURCE VOA

Tuesday 29 Oct, 2024 {HMC} The end of one of the world’s deadliest and yet most shadowy wars is as difficult to predict as the end of the large peacekeeping force meant to contain it.

Congo desperately wants stability in its mineral-rich east, of intense interest to the global economy. But political friction means the government wants the longtime United Nations peacekeeping force there to get out.

That would leave the vast region, overrun with dozens of armed groups including one affiliated with the Islamic State organization, with even less defense for millions of displaced civilians. But frustration has become so high with the peacekeepers that many Congolese want them gone, too.

The Associated Press witnessed the dilemma on a rare visit and night patrol with the U.N. force now known as MONUSCO, which entered Congo more than two decades ago and has 14,000 peacekeepers on the ground.

It patrols a landscape that feels far from the authority of Congo’s government, with its dirt roads churned into slippery mud in pounding rains and residents long accustomed to feeling that, security-wise, they are on their own. Some of the region’s armed groups are self-defense collectives.

During a visit to one frontline town, Sake, about 24 kilometers from the regional hub of Goma, the AP spoke with militia members trying to defend the population from a resurgent group, the M23, and its sniper fire from surrounding hills.

The M23 is backed by neighboring Rwanda, whose government denies it. The involvement of better-equipped Rwandan forces, with U.N. experts estimating up to 4,000 of them in Congo, has led to talk of war by Congo’s government.

A July truce brokered by the United States and Angola has reduced the fighting between Rwandan and Congolese forces, but clashes between M23 and other militias continue.

“We are fighting the enemy who is a foreigner in our country. They are not Congolese, but they want to take Congo,” said one fighter, Amini Bauma.

Sake is one of the last main routes into Goma under government control, but fierce fighting this year forced most residents to flee, leaving boarded-up homes.

About 160 civilians and soldiers came through Sake’s military hospital during the summer, most with gunshot wounds, said Omar Kalamo, a nurse. In August, a bomb exploded behind the building, he said.

Some who fled are now returning, finding little safety elsewhere. Bitakuya Buhesha found his house destroyed. But he said he’d rather brave the gunfire than live in displacement camps, which have been infiltrated by fighters.

“We’ve waited a long time and we don’t know whether our army will win this war or if it’ll be the M23 rebels,” he said.

Many Congolese who once looked to the U.N. peacekeeping force with hope are now angry. Multiple protests, some of them violent, have targeted the force in recent years.

Last year, at Congo’s request, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to draw down the peacekeeping force and gradually hand over its security responsibilities to Congo’s government by this December.

But the soaring violence means that departure is now delayed.

On a recent day, peacekeepers in armored vehicles pulled into a small base in the hazy hills outside Goma, its tents surrounded by looping razor wire and sandbags. Troops perched with a machine gun pointed in the rebels’ direction.

In recent months, clashes between Congo’s army and M23 came within a mile of the base.

The U.N. force is trying to find new ways to repel the rebels. Last year, it established new bases between the frontlines and about 600,000 displaced people sheltering around Goma. It is training Congolese soldiers in the hope that they can fill the security void once it leaves.

“If the belligerent armed groups had come forward and attacked the civilians, the MONUSCO would have changed its stance purely from defensive to offensive operations,” said U.N’s center sector commander for North Kivu province, Brig. General Ranjan Mahajan.

MONUSCO described the security challenges “multiple and multifaceted” and said only one of its brigades is tasked to go on the offensive. That affects a single area, Beni, where deadly attacks have been especially frequent. The U.N. mission otherwise is defensive and works alongside Congolese forces and others.

But some Congolese, who see the U.N. force as not aggressive enough, said any new efforts to protect them are futile.

“You can see that MONUSCO is there, but that’s in name only … People are dying, but it does nothing,” said Maombie Aline, a displaced person in Goma.

And yet, the international community has warned that the U.N. force’s pullout would leave a security vacuum. More than 80% of Congo’s 7 million displaced people live in areas protected by the U.N., according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

Last month, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said the peacekeepers’ pullout from South Kivu province in June left critical gaps, and the Security Council shouldn’t authorize further withdrawals until there’s a plan to mitigate them. The U.S. is the force’s top financial supporter.

Congo’s communication minister, Patrick Muyaya, said there would be a new timeline for MONUSCO’s departure, but didn’t give details. He said a joint team of government and U.N. officials was evaluating the situation.

Goma’s streets are full of armed men, local and foreign. In addition to the U.N. force and an unknown number of Congolese forces, there are about 1,000 foreign mercenaries, a coalition of local militia and a Southern African regional force. A recently deployed East African force was kicked out amid criticism it was ineffective.

“It’s a military jungle,” said Onesphore Sematumba, a Congolese researcher for the International Crisis Group. “There are many actors, but everyone has their own agenda … they can’t make a difference because they are divided.”

Global interest in eastern Congo’s minerals is one reason the violence is so difficult to contain, experts said.

Congo is the world’s largest producer of cobalt, a mineral used to make lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and smartphones. It also has substantial gold, diamond, copper and cobalt reserves.

In May, M23 fighters seized the town of Rubaya, which holds deposits of tantalum — used in electronics, including Apple devices —and extracted from coltan. The area is estimated to supply more than 15% of global production of tantalum and now generates about $300,000 a month for M23, said Bintou Keita, head of Congo’s U.N. mission.

U.N. experts in June said a portion of Rubaya minerals have been smuggled across the Rwandan border.

Rwanda is selling minerals from eastern Congo and passing them off as conflict-free, said Darren Davids, an analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit — allegations documented by both U.N experts and the U.S.

Davids said the international community has hesitated to meaningfully call on Rwanda to stop the fighting because it has become a reliable trading partner for the West as competition grows for the minerals.

Meanwhile, the Rwandan-backed rebels are accused of obstructing and threatening the U.N. mission so it can seize more territory, and are widely expected to benefit from its departure.

Rwanda’s government and M23 didn’t respond to requests for comment.

SOURCE VOA

Tuesday 29 Oct, 2024 {HMC} Chad’s President Mahama Idriss Deby has launched a security operation to track and neutralize several hundred Boko Haram fighters who attacked and killed on Sunday more than 40 Chad government troops in the Lake Chad Basin, shared by Cameroon, Nigeria, Niger and Chad. Deby visited the area on Monday and assisted in the burial of his soldiers.

Chad state TV reports that President Mhamat Idriss Deby has ordered that flags be flown at half-mast and that all radio and tv stations in the central African states should play only religious music for three days from October 28 at midnight.

Deby announced on Monday the three days of national mourning after visiting Ngouboua, a western village in Lake Chad, on the island of Bakaram, near the border with Nigeria where Boko Haram fighters killed at least 40 Chad government troops on Sunday night, according to Chad state TV.

Videos of Deby dressed in a military uniform and present at the burial of soldiers killed have been broadcast several times since Monday by local TV stations, including Chad state TV.

After the burials, Deby announced the launch of “Haskanite,” a military operation with fresh troops deployed to Lake Chad, to search out and eliminate members of the terror group hiding in the large area. Deby spoke on Chad state TV.

He said as president of Chad, he is the supreme commander of government troops and guarantor of the security and safety of civilians, and that he has ordered Chad’s military to protect civilians and their property by tracking and eliminating Boko Haram terrorists who committed atrocious acts on government troops and are hiding in the vast Lake Chad.

Chad officials note that Haskanite is a strong and resilient plant that grows in deserts and in the Lake Chad area. The deployed government troops are experienced and have the equipment necessary to defeat the jihadists, Deby said.

Chad military officials say they estimate the number of soldiers in the jihadist attacking force was 300 and that the surprise assault came Sunday at around 10 pm. In addition to the 40 deaths, several dozen government soldiers were injured, they said.

Scores of the attackers were killed and the fighters succeeded to escape with some dead bodies and seized weapons according to Chad’s military. Many civilians either died or were injured in the attack, Chad military says. Deby ordered that all civilians and troops receive medical care free of charge.

Chad’s military says the heavily armed jihadist fighters took control of the garrison before torching vehicles, motorcycles and buildings equipped with heavy arms. The attackers disappeared in the waters of lake Chad and surrounding villages.

Saibou Issa, a conflict resolution specialist at Cameroon’s University of Maroua, says it will be difficult for Chad to singlehandedly fight the jihadists in Lake Chad.

Issa says it is obvious that poverty and hardship push Boko Haram fighters who either surrendered or were weakened by the firepower of forces from Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger to rejoin smaller jihadist groups in Lake Chad. He says Lake Chad, which serves as a hideout for jihadist groups, is vast and only joint efforts from states that share the lake can stop militants, who are becoming more active.

Issa spoke on Cameroon state Radio on Tuesday. He said the militants attack mainly for supplies and seize weapons from both armed groups and government troops in Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.

Chad’s government says it has informed the Multinational Joint Task Force of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, or MNJTF — made up of 11,000 troops and rescue workers from Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria — to assist in a renewed push against the terror group. VOA could not independently verify if troops of MNJTF have been deployed, but Cameroon says its military is alert.

The United Nations says over 40,000 people have been killed and 3 million have fled their homes in Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Chad. since 2009, when fighting between Nigerian government troops and Boko Haram militants degenerated into an armed conflict and spread to Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

SOURCE VOA

Tuesday 29 Oct, 2024 {HMC} At least one civilian was killed and seven others injured in an explosion targeting a popular restaurant in the Howlwadaag neighborhood of Beledweyne, Hiiraan region, on Tuesday.

The restaurant, frequented by local youth, particularly football players, was the site of the blast, leaving nearby residents in shock.

Security forces arrived at the scene hours later to investigate but did not report any arrests.

Tensions have been escalating in Beledweyne in recent weeks. Last night, gunmen killed a Somali National Army soldier, Abdirahman Ali Kaar, and took his AK-47 rifle in the Koshin neighborhood.