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Togo’s tension: democracy vs. stability
Maybe it was too early in the morning. Or perhaps their hearts just weren’t in it.
Whatever the case, a rally called by Togo ‘s opposition leaders for early Tuesday — meant to voice full-throated outrage over the March 4 election they say was rigged to favour the incumbent — was a near no-show.
Not even the opposition leaders turned up.
“It was a thousand or so youths, they burned a couple of tires and the police dispersed them,” said a Reuters witness. “The opposition leaders did not even come.”
Unclear if this was a good thing.
Togo’s March 4 election was seen as a test for democracy in Africa, a continent notorious for coups and flawed polls that have undermined efforts toward civilian rule. International observers have said the poll appeared fair.
But it was also seen as a test for Togo’s own ability to come through a presidential vote without bloodshed.
The dangers of witchcraft
Every year, hundreds of people in the Central African Republic are convicted of witchcraft. One man, who received a 4-year sentence, says his case highlights some of the failures of the country’s judicial system.
Ange Mberkoulat was convicted of witchcraft after his village chief accused him of trying to kill a relative. He is officially a convict but is serving his sentence outside jail because of lack of resources in prisons
Ange says he was accused falsely. To make things worse arsonists allied to the chief burned down his house and beat up his wife. He and his family of 3 have since moved in with his sister-in-law.
The Central African Republic has endured several coups since independence in 1960 and fighting between rebels and government forces in the north has forced about 300,000 people from their homes. The political situation remains unstable despite disarmament programmes and a new national unity government in 2009.
Human rights activists say judicial corruption and abuse of prisoners are a problem. Witchcraft is a criminal offence here and is even punishable by execution in cases of homicide. The manner in which investigations are carried out is also often questionable.
State Prosecutor Kongo Parfait explains it like this: “Sometimes we directly consult a sorcerer who will put a product into the eyes of a person who has no relation to the victim and who can then determine where the fetishes of the accused have been hidden. Once the accused is found, he has to unearth the fetishes. Sometimes they will be found in the field or under the bed of the person and so on. In general, those are the indications.”
The catholic mission in Bozoum, about 300 km (200 miles) from the capital Bangui, often intervenes in witchcraft cases.
african people, please save yourselfs still you can; perhaps to save the human rase again !!!
Bringing aid and being a target
Posted by George Fominyen, AlertNet‘s humanitarian affairs correspondent for West and Central Africa, based in Dakar. He is also West Africa coordinator for Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Emergency Information Service.
The abduction of two Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) workers in Chad this month after a robbery at their compound near Sudan’s Darfur region has again brought to the fore the question of attacks on aid workers.
Aid workers in Chad told me assaults on compounds and car-jacking on the roads happen every week and that armed bandits are their biggest worry. But Chad is not unique. There have been at least 16 reported attacks on humanitarian workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo between January and June this year, according to statistics from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Fifteen of these attacks involved guns and in one case the attackers took hostages.
Worldwide, 260 humanitarian aid workers were killed, kidnapped or seriously injured in 2008, the London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI) reported in a policy brief. This toll is the highest in 12 years and has spiked in the past three years, the study said.
But why are aid workers targets? They are supposed to be helping people.
“Humanitarian workers are seen as rich people in places where most of the population is poor,” said Philippe Adapoe, the country director of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Chad.
Africa’s Secret: GABON 30 August election tragically under threat. After embezzling dictator of 41 yrs Bongo dies, ruling party tries to force dynastic successor, his son Ali. http://tiny.cc/01Ddg. Candidate http://www.Moubamba.com calls for democracy and end to brutal poverty in oil rich Gabon. Support change in Africa
I tend to agree with Samuel, when he says that perhaps the fact that African nation’s representation in the ICC is a reflection on our need to right the wrongs. I won’t be deluded and say that Africa does not have these problems but I will say that we have been largely misrepresented. One cannot generalize about Africa, Richard Dowden make a good point in saying that for every generalization that is made about Africa, five countries fall away. Instead of looking at this in a negative way by asserting that Africa is indeed the lost continent we should actually be proud that we acknowledge the problems that we have and we are finding ways to mitigate them. In short, no I do not think it is a true reflection of the continents problems, in fact I think it is more a reflection of the countries need to change what is believed to be the status quo in Africa.
from Global News Journal:
More power-sharing in Africa?
Kenya's power-sharing government was only born after weeks of election violence that killed 1,300 people. Zimbabwe's power sharing agreement is yet to bear fruit as southern Africa's former breadbasket crumbles into economic ruin.
So will power sharing in Central African Republic, where one of Africa's most forgotten conflicts has been simmering for more than half a decade, fare any better?
After 10 days of United Nations-backed talks, President Francois Bozize, a former army chief who seized power in a 2003 coup, has agreed with rebel and opposition leaders, including the man he deposed, to form a consensus government to rule until the next scheduled presidential elections in 2010.
The stakes are high. Despite its mineral riches, which include diamonds and uranium, Central African Republic remains prostrated by poverty and languishes near the bottom of the U.N. human development index. The country and its people are scarred by fighting before, during and after the 2003 coup that included mass rapes -- used as a weapon of war -- torture and killings now being investigated by the International Criminal Court. Low-intensity northern insurgencies since then have driven tens of thousands of civilians into the bush as they flee rebel and bandit raids, and government army counter-attacks.
From Sudan in the east, gangs of poachers marauding over the border have decimated CAR's historically rich wildlife of elephants and big game, which used to draw the world's rich and famous on hunting trips. Some conservation groups have even turned to hiring South African mercenaries to try to curb the poachers. From the north and east, fierce Chadian and Sudanese fighters raid over the frontier, while feared highway bandits known locally as "zaraguinas" prey on travellers and villagers alike, even striking over the western border into Cameroon to rob and seize children for ransom from wealthy cattle-raising tribes.This year, Ugandan rebels of Joseph Kony's notorious Lord's Resistance Army have sacked villages in the remote southeast corner of CAR.
Against this backdrop of endemic violence, can Central African Republic's power-sharing initiative deliver lasting peace? Can the former enemies, President Bozize and the rebel warlords, "bury the hatchet of war" and deliver the long-suffering nation and its people from "Satan and his demons", as former President Ange-Felix Patasse put it? What do you think?
Stability or reliable business partners? To be fair the two tend to go together and tend also to go with development, but these are tendencies and usually diverge the longer stability is pursued. I admit that favoring democracy over stability can seem rather callous to those hurt by the instability, but before anyone would favor stability over democracy, let them ask themselves what if it were I marginalized by the lack of democracy. Then again, one might ask his or herself, what it were I hurt by the lack of stability.