Ethiopia peace talks start in South Africa

By Anait Miridzhanian and Bhargav Acharya

^{A destroyed tank is seen in a field in the aftermath of fighting between the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) forces in Kasagita town, in Afar region, Ethiopia, February 25, 2022. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri}

JOHANNESBURG, Oct 25 (Reuters) – The first formal peace talks aimed at ending two years of war between the Ethiopian army and forces from the country’s northern region of Tigray started in South Africa on Tuesday and will end on Sunday, the South African government said.

At stake is an opportunity to end a conflict that has killed thousands, displaced millions and left hundreds of thousands on the brink of famine in Africa’s second most populous nation, destabilising the wider Horn of Africa region.

The talks, mediated by the African Union, begin as the government has been making significant gains on the battlefield, capturing several large towns in Tigray over the past week.

The government offensive, conducted jointly with allied troops from neighbouring Eritrea, has raised fears of further harm to civilians, leading African, U.S. and European leaders and Pope Francis to call for a ceasefire and urgent talks.

The African Union said its chairman, Moussa Faki Mahamat, was “encouraged by the early demonstration of commitment to peace by the parties”, without elaborating.

South Africa “hopes the talks will proceed constructively and result in a successful outcome that leads to lasting peace for all the people of our dear sister country Ethiopia,” said Vincent Magwenya, spokesperson for President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The African Union mediation team is led by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, supported by former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Deputy President of South Africa Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

United Nations and the United States representatives participated as observers, the African Union said.

“We are looking very eagerly at Pretoria to the talks. That’s the only way forward,” Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, told a press conference on Tuesday evening in Nairobi. “If the parties do not really engage meaningfully in a negotiated solution we’ll be in this situation forever.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged the parties to engage seriously and agree an immediate truce.

“These talks represent the most promising way to achieve lasting peace and prosperity for all Ethiopians,” he said in a statement.

‘MAN MADE FAMINE’

The conflict stems from grievances dating back to the nearly three decades when the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a rebel movement-turned-political party, dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition until 2018.

The party lost power at the national level after falling out with the government led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed but continued to dominate its northern stronghold.

The government has accused the TPLF of seeking to restore its national dominance, which it denies, while the TPLF has accused the Abiy government of oppressing Tigrayans and over-centralising power, which it denies.

The Tigrayan delegation has said its focus at the talks in South Africa would be on an immediate cessation of hostilities, unfettered access to Tigray for humanitarian aid, and the withdrawal of Eritrean forces.

The government has said it views the talks as an opportunity to resolve the conflict and “consolidate the improvement of the situation on the ground”, apparently a reference to its military advances in Tigray.

The war has compounded other serious problems in Ethiopia including a drought, the worst in four decades, that has caused a food crisis and damaged the economy.

Earlier on Tuesday, World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is from Tigray and served as a minister in the Ethiopian government in the past, issued the latest in a series of public criticisms of the current government’s actions.

“Due to the siege in #Tigray, Ethiopia, many people have died of starvation, man made famine & lack of access to essential health care in past 2 years,” Tedros wrote on Twitter.

The Ethiopian government has denied allegations from humanitarian organisations that it was blocking them from accessing Tigray. It has accused Tedros of trying to secure arms and diplomatic backing for Tigray forces, which he denies.

(This Oct. 25 story has been corrected to clarify in paragraph 13 the sequence of events that led to the war)

Fonte: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ethiopia-peace-talks-start-south-africa-2022-10-25/

Tens of thousands of Sudanese protest on coup anniversary, protester killed

KHARTOUM, Oct 25 (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Sudanese protesters on Tuesday marked the first anniversary of a coup that halted the country’s transition towards democracy in the largest demonstrations since mass marches in January.

The protesters faced heavy tear gas and stun grenades as they marched towards the presidential palace in Khartoum and in Omdurman across the Nile, Reuters reporters said.

They dispersed before sundown, reaching around 1 km from the palace, following a similar pattern to the series of anti-coup protests over the past 12 months. Internet services were blocked until after 6 p.m., monitoring group Netblocks said.

One person was killed in Omdurman when they were run over by a truck belonging to security forces, the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors, aligned with the protest movement, said, becoming the 119th person to be killed in the demonstrations.

The military takeover halted Sudan’s transition to democracy following the overthrow of Omar al-Bashir in 2019, and plunged an economy already in crisis further into turmoil. Foreign donors quickly suspended funding and the currency tumbled, and the government hiked taxes spurring numerous strikes.

A year on, Sudan’s military leaders have not appointed a prime minister, while Islamists loyal to Bashir who were purged from the civil service have returned. Bashir remains in jail pending trial on charges he denies related to the coup that brought him to power in 1989 and the early 2000s war in Darfur.

Tribal violence has broken out across the country, including in Blue Nile state over the past week, where up to 250 were killed, according to the United Nations.

The generals, who say they will give up power when a government is in place, are engaged in negotiations with the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) coalition that had been sharing power before the coup. Many protesters reject the talks.

On Tuesday, they burnt tyres on main roads, chanting “power belongs to the people, the military belongs in the barracks”, Reuters reporters said.

There was no immediate response to requests for comment on the protests from government officials. Sudanese police said they had fired tear gas and water cannon at people they said were “armed, trained forces in military formations” and requested special dispensation to deal with them.

“Even though they blocked the internet and closed the bridges, we will keep putting pressure on the military until they step aside,” said Salah Abdallah, a 21-year-old university student, who said he was against the deal.

Footage circulated on social media from other protests in cities including Bahri, Atbara, El Fasher, Port Sudan and Madani. Reuters could not immediately verify the images.

NEGOTIATIONS

The resistance committees that have sustained the anti-military movement with regular protests have mostly rejected negotiations with the military, criticising them as dealings of the elite, and demand that its leaders be brought to justice over the killings of protesters and other violations.

The FFC last week presented its vision for a civilian-led authority to lead a transition to an election.

A leader of the group told Reuters, on condition of anonymity, the negotiations were going well. He said differences that remained, on issues of transitional justice and security sector reform, “could be overcome”.

“The biggest roadblock is the Islamists who are trying to create crises and an atmosphere that is not conductive to finding a solution,” he said, particularly those who remain a significant presence in the military and security services.

Islamist leaders loyal to Bashir, who are not involved in the negotiations, have rejected the possibility of a deal with the FFC as exclusionary and say it does not represent the majority of the country.

In a statement, the United States, Britain, European Union and other Western countries said they “stand ready to help Sudan unlock its economic potential after a return to a credible civilian transition”.

Fonte: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/internet-services-blocked-sudan-ahead-coup-anniversary-protests-2022-10-25/

WHO’s Tedros says narrow window to ‘prevent genocide’ in Ethiopia

_{Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) speaks following his re-election during the 75th World Health Assembly at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, May 24, 2022. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse}

NAIROBI, Oct 19 (Reuters) – World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday there was a “very narrow window now to prevent genocide” in his home region of Tigray in northern Ethiopia.

Tedros, who previously served as Ethiopia’s health minister and foreign affairs minister, has been sharply critical of Ethiopian authorities throughout the two-year war.

The government has, in turn, accused him of trying to procure arms and diplomatic backing for rebel forces – charges he has denied.

In his sharpest comments on the war yet, Tedros told reporters in Geneva that food and healthcare were being used as weapons of war in Tigray, which is largely cut off from the outside world.

“There’s no other situation globally in which 6 million people have been kept under siege for almost two years,” Tedros said. “There is a very narrow window now to prevent genocide.”

Ethiopian government spokesperson Legesse Tulu, Redwan Hussein, the national security advisor to the prime minister, and the prime minister’s spokesperson Billene Seyoum did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Ethiopian government has repeatedly denied blocking humanitarian supplies to Tigray or targeting civilians. The conflict has killed thousands, displaced millions and left hundreds of thousands on the brink of famine.

Ethiopian forces and their allies have captured several towns in Tigray this week, raising fears that the advancing soldiers will commit abuses against civilians.

A joint investigation by the United Nations and Ethiopia’s state-appointed human rights commission last year found that all sides fighting in the Tigray war committed violations that may amount to war crimes.

Ethiopia’s government said this week that its forces respect human rights.

The Tigray conflict is rooted in long-running rivalries between regional power blocs over control of Ethiopia as a whole and in deep disagreements over how power should be balanced between federal and regional authorities.

Ethiopian authorities have previously accused Tedros of supporting Tigray forces, without providing evidence.

“Yes, I’m from Tigray, and yes, this affects me personally. I don’t pretend it doesn’t,” Tedros said on Wednesday.

“I have many relatives in some of the most affected areas. But my job is to draw the world’s attention to crises that threaten the health of people wherever they are.”

Fonte: https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/whos-tedros-says-narrow-window-prevent-genocide-ethiopia-2022-10-19/

Qatar aims to accelerate development of Namibia oil discoveries -energy minister

_{Qatar Energy CEO and Qatar’s State Minister for Energy Saad al-Kaabi speaks at an event announcing agreements for the construction of the world’s largest Blue Ammonia project in Doha, Qatar, August 31, 2022. REUTERS/Mohammed Dabbous}

WINDHOEK, Oct 10 (Reuters) – The head of QatarEnergy, who is also Qatar’s energy minister, said on Monday the company wants to speed up the development of two oil wells it discovered off the Namibian coast with joint venture partners earlier this year.

Saad al-Kaabi said drilling work is expected for 2023 to get a better understanding of deliverability and capacity, but did not indicate when the two oil finds will be brought into production.

QatarEnergy has a 30% interest in the Venus X1 while the field’s operator TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA) has 40%, Impact Oil and Gas owns 20% and Namibia’s state-owned NAMCOR has 10%.

In the Graff-1 well, Shell Plc (SHEL.L) and QatarEnergy each hold a 45% stake, while NAMCOR owns the remaining 10%.

The discoveries could make Namibia, the southern neighbour of OPEC member Angola, another oil producer along the African Atlantic coast.

The companies have not yet detailed the quantities found but the discoveries are likely in billions of barrels, Namibia’s mines and energy minister said in September.

“We are trying to expedite that as fast as possible to ensure we can get the development finalised,” Al-Kaabi told reporters in Windhoek during a visit to the southern African nation.

“These development always take years to develop, it’s not something that can be done very fast and this is deep offshore development, so it has its complications.”

Namibia’s energy minister Tom Alweendo told an oil conference in Dakar last month that the joint venture partners could start production in four years.

Fonte: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/qatar-aims-accelerate-development-namibia-oil-discoveries-energy-minister-2022-10-10/

Vote counting starts in Lesotho’s polls in southern Africa

By MOGOMOTSI MAGOME and HERBERT MOYO

_{A man wearing a blanket cast his vote at a poling station in Maseru, South Africa, Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. Voters across Lesotho are heading to the polls Friday to elect a leader to find solutions to high unemployment and crime. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)}

MASERU, Lesotho (AP) — Vote counting has begun in southern Africa’s tiny mountain kingdom of Lesotho following a day when thousands of citizens in urban and rural areas voted to elect the country’s 120 legislators.

Soon after the polls closed, electoral officials were seen verifying voters’ rolls at various polling stations.

The Independent Electoral Commission will announce the official results, which some expect will come by Tuesday.

No major disruptive incidents in the voting have been reported, although some accounts from voters and polling officials indicated that some people whose names were not on the voters’ roll were turned away.

At one station in Thaba Tseka district in the rural part of the country, the expected turnout was almost half of the number of registered voters expected.

The elections are a tight race between the top three parties out of a field of more than 60 registered political parties.

Outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Mathibeli Mokhothu of the Democratic Congress party is running against his current coalition partner Nkaku Kabi of the All Basotho Convention and businessman-turned-politician Sam Matekane of the Revolution for Prosperity.

Friday was a public holiday to encourage voting by the country’s 2.1 million people. Lesotho is entirely surrounded by South Africa.

Lesotho’s King Letsie III presides over a constitutional monarchy but has virtually no political power. Whichever party wins enough representatives in the National Assembly to form a government will select the new prime minister. With so many parties contesting the election, a coalition is very likely, say experts.

At a polling station in Thetsane, an industrial area of the capital Maseru, a mix of elderly, women and young people waited in line as voting got off to a slow start after polls opened at 7 a.m.

Many voters told The Associated Press that they hoped the election of new leaders would bring change as the country is facing high levels of unemployment, increasing crime and political instability.

Tseliso Seutlwadi, 32, who is unemployed was among the first to vote.

“We need a change and it will only be brought by us through our votes. Basically unemployment is too high in this country. We have university degrees but we know that only 10% of people get hired. What happens to the rest?” asked Seutlwadi.

He said that many people had lost jobs at the factories during the COVID-19 pandemic and some had turned to crime and prostitution to make a living.

“As young people we want to have an impact on the future of this country. We can see factories closing down, rape against women is on the rise, we have to stand up as young people and influence what happens in this country,” said 37-year-old Ntsoaki Lenea.

The garment-making industry is Lesotho’s largest employer after the government and had more than 45,500 textile workers at the beginning of 2020, but about 25% of those jobs were lost during the pandemic, according to official statistics.

About 320,000 people in Lesotho are currently experiencing a severe food “crisis” and are in urgent need of aid “to save lives, reduce food gaps, protect and restore livelihoods and prevent acute malnutrition,” according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.

Election observers from the European Union, the Commonwealth, the African Union and the Southern African Development Community are in Lesotho to assess the electoral process.

Fonte: https://apnews.com/article/health-elections-covid-general-southern-africa-a831345187dd1e34e8903a9c24d0618f

Ethiopia, Tigray head invited to peace talks in South Africa

By CARA ANNA

_{FILE – In this image from video, Tigray’s regional president Debretsion Gebremichael speaks during an interview in Mekele, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia on July 7, 2021. The leader of Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region and the federal government have been invited to peace talks in South Africa in early October 2022 as part of a pan-African effort, according to a letter seen Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2022 by The Associated Press. (AP Photo)}

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The leader of Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region and the federal government have been invited to peace talks in South Africa this weekend as part of a pan-African effort to end one of the world’s most overlooked wars, according to a letter seen Wednesday by The Associated Press.

If Debretsion Gebremichael attends the proposed talks between the Tigray and Ethiopian sides, it will be the highest-level effort yet to end the two-year war that has killed thousands of people from conflict and starvation.

Ethiopia’s government has accepted the invitation, national security adviser Redwan Hussein said. In a separate statement, the government called it “consistent with the Ethiopian government’s prior positions” that talks be mediated by the AU and be held without preconditions. The statement, however, does not give details about who might attend.

A diplomat in Addis Ababa said the African Union was still waiting for a response from the Tigray side. The spokesman for the Tigray forces, Getachew Reda, could not immediately be reached. Another member of the Tigray negotiation team, Tsadkan Gebretensae, told a U.S. think tank last week that “we have agreed on an African-led process, but that should not be carte blanche for the AU to impose what should be a peace process.”

The diplomat in Addis Ababa also said representatives from the European Union, the United Nations and the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development are expected to attend the talks as observers in support of the AU’s mediation team. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The letter from the chair of the AU Commission says the AU-convened talks would be “aimed at laying the foundation for a structured and sustained mediation” between the two sides toward a “durable resolution of the conflict.”

The AU letter says the talks would be facilitated by AU special envoy and former Nigerian President Olesegun Obasanjo with the support of former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and former South African Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

The talks come more than a month after fighting in Tigray renewed following months of relative calm. Forces from neighboring Eritrea, allied with Ethiopia’s government, are again joining the fighting in what Tigray forces have described as a large-scale offensive.

On Tuesday, an airstrike hit the Tigray town of Adi Daero where displaced people were sheltering, a humanitarian worker who visited the site afterward told the AP. They described the scene as “total carnage” and said health workers reported more than 50 people killed. The worker spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The Tigray region has been largely cut off from the world since the war began in November 2020, with more than 5 million people without basic services including electricity, phone, internet and banking. Medicines have run desperately low. On Thursday, the U.N. said trapped staffers were finally able to rotate out of the region for the first time since the fighting renewed.

The fighting also has spilled over into Ethiopia’s neighboring regions of Amara and Afar as Tigray forces have tried to pressure the government, putting hundreds of thousands of other civilians at risk.

United Nations-based investigators have said all sides have committed abuses.

Tsadkan, the Tigray negotiation team member, said last week that Tigray representatives had met three times with Ethiopian authorities — in Djibouti and Seychelles — and he thanked the United States government for organizing the meetings, which he said produced a “clear proposal for a cessation of hostilities.” But after that, he asserted, the Tigray side was “betrayed.” He didn’t give details.

The Tigray authorities seek unfettered access for humanitarian aid, the resumption of basic services, respect for constitutional boundary arrangements and the withdrawal of foreign forces, Tsadkan said.

The Tigray authorities “will accept whatever comes out” of an impartial, agreed-upon peace process, he said. He didn’t immediately respond to questions Wednesday.

Fonte: https://apnews.com/article/africa-south-kenya-ethiopia-abiy-ahmed-111e5606197359d5e8160d6f78cd032b

Kenyan lawyer in ICC case linked to new president found dead

_{Kenyan lawyer Paul Gicheru appears before a pre-trial chamber, via video-link from the ICC detention center, before facing charges against him of bribing and threatening prosecution witnesses in the case against Kenya’s recently elected President William Ruto, which was ultimately dropped amid allegations of witness interference, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands on Nov. 6, 2020. Kenyan police say that Gicheru was found dead at his home late Monday, Sept. 26, 2022 though it was not immediately clear how he died. (International Criminal Court via AP)}

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Police say a Kenyan lawyer facing charges at the International Criminal Court of bribing and threatening prosecution witnesses in a past ICC case against Kenya’s recently elected president has been found dead.

Paul Gicheru had pleaded not guilty earlier this year to all eight counts of interfering with witnesses in the case against William Ruto, who had been charged with involvement in violence after Kenya’s 2007 election that left more than 1,000 people dead.

A police report seen by The Associated Press said the family of the 50-year-old Gicheru found him unconscious at his home Monday night. “The body was found lying on the back, clean, casually dressed and no saliva or blood on any body opening,” the report says, noting that “the deceased is a known diabetic and high blood pressure patient.”

The police report noted that Gicheru’s 20-year-old son, who told his mother that Gicheru “had taken something,” was later found with “froth” coming from his mouth and difficulty breathing. He was in stable condition at a local hospital, the report said. It was not clear what happened.

In comments to reporters, family lawyer John Khaminwa said the family had described Gicheru as stressed in the hours before his death. “He was not himself,” Khaminwa said. The family intends to bring in pathologists to “look at his internal organs and other things,” he said.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission said it was “concerned with the shocking news of the untimely death” and urged a swift and conclusive investigation.

The charges against Ruto and others, including previous President Uhuru Kenyatta, were dropped in 2016 when the case fell apart amid allegations of witness interference. Ruto denied the allegations against him. The court’s decision to drop the case specified that it did “not preclude new prosecution in the future.”

Ruto was chairing his first Cabinet meeting on Tuesday after being sworn in on Sept. 13 following a narrow election win.

ICC spokesman Fadi El Abdallah said he could not comment on Gicheru’s case but only on the procedure to be followed: “If there is information about the death of an accused, a confirmation of this information should be submitted to the (trial) chamber and then the chamber issues a decision ending the case.”

Judges are currently considering their verdicts in the case. No date had been set for a hearing to deliver the judgment.

Fonte: https://apnews.com/article/africa-elections-presidential-kenya-international-criminal-court-4a66339a9e2a8180de61d12608eeb8ea