Africa News Round Up, November, Friday

Kenya government officials have said the International Criminal Court’s case against its two highest elected officials risked destabilizing the entire east African region Reuters reports

 

At a debate to discuss the crisis resulting from the court’s cases against President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto, the Kenyan attorney-general said the court and its member states were playing “Russian roulette” with the country.

 

“Our country is the linchpin in the peace and security involving more than 250 million people from Djibouti to Eastern Congo and everybody in between,” Githu Muigai told a special debate called at the request of the African Union.

 

He said Kenya – an ally of the West in the fight against militant Islam in neighboring Somalia – was a “pillar of security” in Eastern Africa, to loud applause from many African delegates at the conference.

 

Kenya is pressing the ICC’s members for an immediate change in the rules to say that heads of state do not have to attend trials, part of a broader campaign to halt the cases against its political leaders.

 

Officials also want a longer-term amendment to the founding treaty that would ban the prosecution of heads of state, a campaign which has become a rallying point in Africa, where many leaders say they are the target of an overzealous court in The Hague.

 

“Africa feels marginalized, like toddlers, whom the international community feels has never learned to walk,” Kenyan Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed told Reuters on Wednesday.

 

Last week, the African Union lost its bid to have the U.N. Security Council defer the cases for a year so the two could deal with the aftermath of an attack on a shopping mall by al Qaeda-linked Somali militants.

 

Kenya said the outcome highlighted the need for reform of the Security Council to prevent a few powerful nations imposing their will on the world. It pledged to continue its fight at the ICC’s annual meeting in The Hague, which started on Wednesday.

 

Human rights groups oppose the proposed changes as well as apparent compromise solutions such as a British proposal that would make it easier for the accused to participate via video link, saying these would weaken the court’s mission to bring to justice those ultimately responsible for war crimes.

 

“The amendments represent an attempt to recreate the ICC in the image of African justice,” said George Kegoro, executive director of the Kenyan section of the International Commission of Jurists.

 

“Timid, pliable and serving the comfort of leaders rather than justice for victims.”

In the Central African Republic, US officials have cast doubt on reports that Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony is negotiating his surrender, the BBCreports.

 

A US State Department official told the BBC that some rebels had been in contact but Kony was not among them.

 

However, CAR officials later insisted that Kony, who is wanted for alleged war crimes, has been in talks with their government.

 

The US has offered up to $5m (£3.3m) for leads resulting in his arrest.

 

The US official also noted that Kony had previously used “any and every pretext to rest, regroup, and rearm, ultimately returning to kidnapping, killing, displacing and otherwise abusing civilian populations”.

 

Kony was on the verge of signing a peace deal in 2008 but insisted that the International Criminal Court (ICC) first drop its arrest warrant, which it refused to do.

 

On Wednesday, a CAR government spokesman told the BBC that Kony was in the country but wanted his security to be guaranteed before giving himself up.

 

According to AFP news agency, CAR leader Michel Djotodia, said: “Joseph Kony wants to come out of the bush. We are negotiating with him.”

 

BBC Africa security correspondent Moses Rono says this is not the first time that a breakthrough has been reported with the LRA.

 

But he says that Kony is now a shadow of his former self, reportedly in fading health, having lost many fighters and operating in a volatile region, with armed gangs keen to earn the $5m reward.

 

Elsewhere in the Central African Republic, France has warned that the country is on the verge of genocide, France24 reports.

 

This comes as the UN considers sending thousands of peacekeepers to the strife-torn country.

“It’s total disorder,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told France 2 television, adding that the United Nations was considering authorising African and French troops to intervene in the country.

“You have seven surgeons for a population of five million, an infant mortality rate of 25 percent in some areas and 1.5 million people who have nothing, not even food, and armed gangs, bandits, etc,” he said.

 

The former French colony, an impoverished country rich in natural resources ranging from gold to uranium, has descended into chaos since a coalition of rebels known as Seleka ousted President Francois Bozize in March.

There are about 400,000 internally displaced people, 64,000 refugees, and burned villages, largely in the western part of the country.

Since seizing power aided by the Seleka alliance, transitional President Michel Djotodia has failed to control the ex-rebel fighters despite being officially dissolved.

In Libya,  CNN  reports militias surrendered their Tripoli bases to the military on Thursday, nearly a week after growing public anger over the presence of armed groups in the capital sparked deadly clashes.

In a series of ceremonies across the coastal city, militias from Tripoli as well as smaller towns such as Zintan handed over their bases to the authorities, including the Ministry of Defence and Libyan air force. These included the Mitiga airbase, as well as the Islamic Call Center.

Public anger has been growing over the armed groups’ refusal to disarm in the two years since they toppled the North African country’s longtime leader, Moammar Gadhafi.

Last Friday, Tripoli residents marched on the headquarters of militias from the city of Misrata. The militia opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, unleashing heavy clashes that left 47 people dead and more than 500 injured in the worst violence in the city in two years.

Government officials attending the ceremonies nonetheless praised the handover as a major step toward building the Libyan state and its security forces.

During a press conference at one of the ceremonies, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan lashed out at a reporter who asked whether the government had guarantees the handovers were real, and not ceremonial.

“We are not joking here, we are not in a theater to be acting” Zeidan said. “We are serious about this. … We have a duty to fulfill and we will fulfill it God willing. The weapons that were in the hands of these groups was the security threat and now this threat has disappeared”.

While many Libyans welcomed the move toward disarming militias, the real impact on the ground has yet to be seen