Friday, March 30, 2018

Koku Anyidoho Granted Bail
March 29, 2018

The embattled Deputy General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Koku Anyidoho has been granted bail after spending two nights in the custody of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).

Mr Anyidoho was released by the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), the agency handling the case, in the presence of his father, Major General Henry Kwami Anyidoho and his lawyers.

CitiNewsroom’s Fred Djabanor reported that the conditions under which he was released are immediately not known.

Mr Anyidoho was picked up at the International Press centre on Tuesday for making comments deemed treasonable.

He was subsequently charged with treason.

Police have since been given permission to seize all electronic devices belonging to Mr Anyidoho by a High Court.

The court gave permission for all electronic gadgets including laptops, iPhone and iPads, believed to hold information related to the charge to be seized to aid the police investigations.

Mr Anyidoho landed in hot waters when, in an interview on Accra-based Happy FM, he called for the overthrow of President Nana Akufo-Addo over the ratification of the controversial defence cooperation agreement between Ghana and the US.

He said the overthrow will be in the form of a “civilian coup d’etat”.

The host of the show on which the comments were made, Kwame Affrifa, had also been invited by the police to aid in their investigations.

Support from Mahama

A former President, John Mahama, made recent comments on social media which suggest he did not approve of the way Mr. Anyidoho was taken into custody by the police.

On Wednesday, Mr Mahama criticised the Police for what he described as their ‘high-handed’ responses to “innocent” Ghanaians who massed up at the Police Headquarters on Tuesday night in solidarity with the arrested NDC national executive.

In a Facebook post, the former President chided Akufo-Addo government for the manner in which Mr Anyidoho was arrested and later charged with treason.

He, however, did not make mention of the comments made by Mr Anyidoho which have been widely condemned.

Mr Mahama later visited Mr Anyidoho at the BNI headquarters.


By: Godwin A. Allotey & Fred Djabanor/citinewsroom.com/Ghana
Recalling Africa’s Harrowing Tale of Enslavement
30 MAR, 2018 - 00:0

The “middle passage” describes the harrowing journey lasting several months from Africa’s west coast to the Americas during which millions of Africans, packed like sardines in the slave ships, died of thirst, hunger, rough seas and sometimes from the sheer brutality inflicted by the European slavers

George Pavlu
Correspondent

IN his book, “Slaves and Slavery”, published in 1998, the British writer Duncan Clarke defines slavery as “the reduction of fellow human beings to the legal status of chattels, allowing them to be bought and sold as goods”.

This, in essence, is what both the Arabs and Europeans did to Africans, to justify the shipping of millions of Africans as slaves to far-away lands in Asia (in particular, the Middle East) and the Americas.

“The African slave trade, surely one of the most tragic and disturbing episodes in the history of mankind,” Clarke writes, “had its origins in the intervention of forces from the civilisations that developed in the regions of the Mediterranean sea – today’s Europe and the Middle East – into the arena of the more fragmented civilisations of sub-Saharan Africa.

“Africa became a source of slaves for the cultures of the Mediterranean world many centuries before the discovery of the Americas, but it was that discovery and the resulting shift in focus towards the Atlantic that prompted the culminating explosive growth in slavery with such tragic effect.”

Slavery, in fact, was a central feature of life in the Mediterranean world, especially in Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, Greece, Imperial Rome and the Islamic societies of the Middle East and North Africa.

“The most important source of slaves in medieval Europe,” Clarke’s research shows, “was the coast of Bosnia on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea. The word “slave” and its cognates in most modern European languages is itself derived from “sclavus” meaning “slav”, the ethnic name for the inhabitants of this region . . .

“For various reasons, including the harshness of the terrain and endemic warfare among local clans, Bosnia proved the most convenient and long-lasting of these slave-supplying regions. Whichever clan gained a temporary upper hand was always willing to sell its captured rivals in exchange for the goods of the Mediterranean world in the markets of the ancient Romanised city of Ragusa (present day Dubrovnik). From there, Slavs were shipped as slaves by Venetian merchants, to supply new markets in the Islamic world.”

Thus, “for the Islamic world,” Clarke continues, “Slavs provided the major source of slaves in the 250 or so years between the defeat at the battle of Poitiers in AD 732 that forced the consolidation of their dramatic conquests across North Africa and the Iberian peninsula, cutting back the flow of war captives and the expansion of the import of black Africans across the Sahara from around AD 1000.”

The trade in slaves ended when the Ottoman Turks conquered the region in 1463.

“The effective closure of the last major source of slaves on the European continent,” says Clarke, “thus coincidentally took place at the same time as the Portuguese explorations of the West African coast, which were to open up the second and most devastating route for the exploitation of Africans as slaves.”

Figures on the Arab slave trade in Africa are hard to come by, but the historian Paul Lovejoy estimates that some 9,85 million Africans were shipped out as slaves to Arabia and, in small numbers, to the Indian subcontinent. Lovejoy breaks his figures down as follows:

Between AD650 and 1600, an average of 5 000 Africans were shipped out by the Arabs. This makes a rough total of 7,25 million.

Then, between 1600 and 1800, another 1,4 million Africans were shipped out by the Arabs. The 19th century represented the highest point of the Arabian trade where 12 000 Africans were shipped out every year. The total figure for the 19th century alone was 1,2 million slaves to Arabia.

Thus, in terms of numbers, Arabia’s 9,85 million is not far behind the conservative estimate of nearly 12 million African victims of the Atlantic slave trade. Some African historians, though, reject these figures on the grounds that they are too low. They suggest over 50 million Africans were shipped out during the Atlantic trade alone.

According to Lovejoy, another 4,1 million Africans were shipped across the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf and India.

“This trade also, with the notable exception of some Portuguese involvement in the area of Mozambique, and of 18th and 19th century French exports to islands under their control in the Indian Ocean, was largely conducted by Muslims,” adds Duncan Clarke.

Throughout the 19th century, the Omani Arab rulers of Zanzibar shipped hundreds of thousands of African slaves to work on clove plantations on the island. It was this trade that gave Europe and America so much satisfaction, after abolishing their own trade in African slaves, to highlight the wickedness of the Arab slavers who continued to enslave Africans well into the first decades of the 20th century.

Even to this day, Arab slavers are still at work in Sudan and Mauritania, buying and selling black Africans.

David Livingstone, the British missionary/traveller/explorer was so upset by the way the Arabs treated their African slaves that he wrote back home in 1870:

“In less than I take to talk about it, these unfortunate creatures — 84 of them, wended their way into the village where we were. Some of them, the eldest, were women from 20 to 22 years of age, and there were youths from 18 to 19, but the large majority was made up of boys and girls from seven years to 14 or 15 years of age.

“A more terrible scene than these men, women and children, I do not think I ever came across. To say that they were emaciated would not give you an idea of what human beings can undergo under certain circumstances.

“Each of them had his neck in a large forked stick, weighing from 30 to 40 pounds, and five or six feet long, cut with a fork at the end of it where the branches of a tree spread out.

“The women were tethered with bark thongs, which are, of all things, the most cruel to be tied with. Of course they are soft and supple when first striped off the trees, but a few hours in the sun make them about as hard as the iron round packing-cases.

“The little children were fastened by thongs to their mothers.

“As we passed along the path which these slaves had travelled, I was shown a spot in the bushes where a poor woman the day before, unable to keep on the march, and likely to hinder it, was cut down by the axe of one of these slave drivers.

“We went on further and were shown a place where a child lay. It had been recently born and its mother was unable to carry it from debility and exhaustion; so the slave trader had taken this little infant by its feet and dashed its brains out against one of the trees and thrown it in there.”

Such was the brutality meted out to the Africans by the Arabs. Like the Atlantic trade, the Arabian trade’s “middle passage” was equally as horrible and terrifying.

The “middle passage” describes the harrowing journey lasting several months from Africa’s west coast to the Americas during which millions of Africans, packed like sardines in the slave ships, died of thirst, hunger, rough seas and sometimes from the sheer brutality inflicted by the European slavers.

In the Arabian trade, the trudge across the Sahara, in leg and neck chains, and as Livingstone describes above, necks in large forked sticks and hands tied with bark thongs, was particularly harsh on the African slaves.

Says Duncan Clarke: “The hardships of these long marches across the desert were considerable and much later travellers reported that the routes were lined with the parched skeletons of those who succumbed to exhaustion and thirst along the way.”

The Arab slavers did not only march their African captives to Arabia, they also sometimes sold them to European slavers.

In modern times, the popular image of African slavery springs from the vision of a tormented male suffering under the lash of unceasing labour on some “New World” sugar plantation.

Yet the real face of servitude finds its focus in the forced migration of millions of girls and young women across the Sahara and the Horn of Africa in to the institutions of Islamic concubinage.

Why they preferred women

While in the European “New World”; the measure of a man’s stature was mapped out and calibrated on the physical dimensions of empire built upon the sinews of forced masculine labour, in the Islamic Orient wealth was a reflection of prestige, young girls the vessel of male hubris , the mats of male pleasure ground, the malleable material to be shaped to the master’s will.

Thus, women slaves in the Arab world were often turned into concubines living in harems, and rarely as wives, their children becoming free. A large number of male slaves and young boys were castrated and turned into eunuchs who kept watch over the harems. Castration was a particularly brutal operation with a survival rate of only 10 percent.

“The combined effect of all these factors,” says Duncan Clarke, “was a steady demand for slaves throughout the Islamic world, which had cover story to be met from wars, raids or purchases along the borders with non-Islamic regions. Although some of these slaves came from Russia, the Balkans and central Asia, the continuing expansion of Islamic regimes in sub-Saharan Africa made black Africans, the major source.”

So invasive was the practice of slavery into the economic, political, demographic, cultural, social and religious life of Africa and persisted for so many centuries, that while its effects varied both geographically and temporally in intensity, slavery outdistances in scale and scope any single or combination of disasters — natural or man-made, which descended upon the continent.

Slavery unquestionably checked population growth in Africa and consequentially placed tremendous pressure upon gender and marital relationships during the three critical centuries of European expansion to global domination.

In this sense, the feminine-oriented Arab slave trade, though neither motivated nor executed with economic benefits as prime objective, caused far greater demographic damage and consequently greater economic decline, with its excessive poaching of the reproductive potential of the harvested areas.

The impact on Africa

No people are blank slates upon which can be inscribed untold miseries and expect no account thereof. The Arab slave trade began long before the Islamic conquest of Africa, remained at relatively low level compared to the Atlantic slave trade and did not become illegal or abolished, and was maintained till well after the colonisation of Africa. The Arabian trade was outlawed in Ethiopia only in 1935 in order to gain international support against the Italian invasion.

In the Atlantic trade, the slaves came predominantly from Africa’s west coast with a male/female ratio of two-to-one. In the Arabian trade, the slaves were exclusively from the Savannah and the Horn of Africa, and favoured females over males at a ratio nearing three-to-one.

When slavery in the Black Sea area (the traditional source of the best grade female slaves for the Arab market) dried up, it triggered an even greater demand for Ethiopian “red” slaves, in particular the Galla and Oromo on account of their unquestioned beauty and willing sexual temperament.

And while the Europeans paid a higher price for male slaves than females, the reverse was the case with the Arabs. Moreover, while the European/New World slavers profited mainly from male labour, the Arabs saw profit in sexual satisfaction/reproductive potential. (Offspring of the union between Islamic master and female slave was born free, out of respect of the child’s Islamic paternity. Any offspring of the Atlantic trade were born into slavery).

“The laws of Islam ,” as the historian Hugh Thomas attests, “were in some ways more benign in respect of slavery than were those of Rome. Slaves were not to be treated as if they were animals. Slaves and freemen were equal from the point of view of God. The master did not have power of life and death over his slave property.”

But to the Africans shipped across the Red Sea, the “benign” Islamic laws provided little comfort — they were still slaves of Islamic masters who had unfettered sexual access to them (if they were female) or castrated and turned into eunuchs (if they were men).

The upshot of this gender profile of the respective slave-classes in the Atlantic/New World and the Arab/Oriental world explains the large and visible population of African origin in the New World where sexual relations between white and black was the exception while in the Arab world where miscegenation was the practice, the slave trade has left few visible traces.

So where are the descendants of the African slaves sent to Arabia/Orient? There are no large concentrations of them, anywhere in the Middle East or Asia.

Five years ago, a British TV documentary showed how poorly the descendants of African slaves in Pakistan are treated by the authorities. The racial discrimination was so bad that one of the African descendants recounted on camera how, even in sport, they were not picked to represent Pakistan at national and international levels no matter how good they were.

Population decline

The demographic effects of Arabian slavery on the source population (those left behind) cannot be overlooked, and specifically when considering the palpable effects on African fertility as a consequence of the grossly reduced female numbers.

To ensure survival, the Africans in the harvested areas adopted a variety of social measures, which were in practice as extreme as the circumstances called for. These revolved principally around the sexual purity of the population’s remaining female reproductive stock, as well as accelerating the female’s reproductive capacity.

Though the number of female slaves exported per annum from the Savannah and the Horn was far smaller than the numbers taken from the west coast in the Atlantic trade, the proportionate impact of the remaining at-brink Savanna/Horn populations was far more severe.

The Arabian trade reached a total of perhaps 5-8% of the source populations – and as mentioned earlier — as the proportion of females harvested was exceptionally high, this resulted in a massive surplus of males in the non-harvested population. Consequently the area experienced demographic stagnation bordering decline.

In 1600, the black African population was some 50 million — about 30% of the combined population of the New World, Europe, Middle East and North Africa. By 1800, the population had fallen to 20% of the total. In 1900, at the end of the slave trade, Africa’s population had fallen yet further to just over 10% of the total — the population now so collapsed as to negatively affect the continent’s labour intensive agricultural output.

In effect, while the populations of Europe and Asia increased year on year, Africa’s population declined dramatically due to the excessive poaching by the slavers, both Arab and European.

In Arabia, the slave class (principally female), unlike the New World slave class, could never maintain itself as a distinct social entity — principally because of miscegenation. This created an even greater demand for more and more new female slaves, and coupled with the frequent natural disasters of drought and famine in the Savannah/Horn, led many African families to offer their young girls in to slavery as a last hope of survival. There are many stories of long lines of hundreds of girls, mainly Oromos from Ethiopia, trudging across the Horn towards the Red Sea seeking enslavement.

Deprived of ideology, ritual, and the African rite of passage to adulthood and social membership, female slaves were uncommonly vulnerable to conversion to Islam (the benefits of manumission aside). Manumission describes a child born of a female slave and a free Islamic father is thus born free.

For the population remaining in Africa, it is in order to embark on some speculation as to what changes the trauma o f slavery may have wrought on African thought. The experience o f sudden turn o f fate (a common experience when confronted by the ever-present threat of slavers) tended to systematically undermine any efforts at long-term planning beyond the constant need to replace lost members.

It is a mistake to equate the bare survival o f Africa with cultural or social or economic stagnation, for the slave trade visited such panoply of tragically interconnected disasters into the lives of every African for centuries, that they have worked their way into the very “racial memory” of the continent and its people, particularly females, that only with time and kindness can it be expunged from the psyche o f Africa.

As one commentator puts it: “Could it be true that the corrosive effects of four centuries of commerce in humans, with its temptation, its in -built opportunism, its reduction of humans to a cash value, its cycles of revenge and its inevitable physical brutality, have built lasting flaws into African pattern of thought and action?”

– New African magazine
It’s Time US Accounts for History of Torture
30 MAR, 2018 - 00:03
Ariel Dorfman Correspondent

President Trump’s nomination of Gina Haspel to head the CIA has stirred objections from many quarters.

After 9/ 11, Haspel ran an illegal black site in Thailand where a man was tortured and she later wrote a memo calling for the destruction of proof of such “enhanced interrogations”.

She has paid no price for these actions, nor has she been called to account for them.

As a native of Chile, I can attest to how difficult it is for a people to confront horrors committed in their name, how disturbing to acknowledge a monstrous past. But that hard work of reckoning is crucial.

In 1973, Salvador Allende, the democratically elected president of Chile, was overthrown by the military.

During the 17-year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet that followed, legions of Allende’s followers, accused of being terrorists and enemies of the state, were unspeakably brutalised in secret detention centres run by agents of Chile’s intelligence services. More than 3 000 prisoners were executed and close to 40 000 were traumatised and scarred for life.

The majority of the perpetrators were men, but a large contingent were women. Some of those women worked in the bureaucracy that made possible the reign of terror, pushing paper or serving coffee and cookies. Some were directly involved in the kidnapping, torture and murder of the regime’s opponents.

Just as cruel as their male counterparts, they proved especially efficacious in humiliating the detainees sexually and extracting information from them. Reports based on interviews and court proceedings show that most of those female torturers joined the security forces early on. In January 1974, barely four months after the coup d’état, 70 women spent three months being trained as secret police in Rocas de Santo Domingo, a resort on the Pacific Ocean, incongruously occupying the very cabins that Allende had built so workers and their families could enjoy vacations by the sea for the first time in their lives. The female agents had been carefully selected by Ingrid Oldebrock, a Nazi sympathiser and police officer who would soon become notorious for, among other niceties, using a dog nicknamed Volodia to rape prisoners.

Survivors told investigators that her protégés and disciples engaged in more traditional forms of torture: beatings, water boarding, electrical shocks to the genitals, threats levied against families and false executions. The justification for such atrocities? Duty, the agents later claimed, and defence of the fatherland.

A book by Javier Rebolledo, based on the testimony of a secret police informant, among other sources, described some of the crimes committed by women: Lethal injections administered to detainees who were then cast from helicopters into the sea.

Men sexually assaulted as they hung by their wrists from the ceiling. Prisoners attacked sadistically by a tormentor who made sure no blood stained her elegant dresses.

It took many decades before the major role of women in the worst abuses was fully accepted by the public. It was as if Chileans found it particularly shameful, even far-fetched, that women could be as vile as men, that there was nothing inherently gentle about the so-called gentler sex.

Eventually, the terrible truth was inescapable: No part of society is immune to the contagion of violence. National commissions took testimony that documented the outrages inflicted by women; articles and books were published; television series fictionalised the repression; and some of the worst offenders were tried and imprisoned for their crimes.

Of course, the women, as well as the far guiltier men who were responsible for ordering and perpetrating the acts of terror, have their defenders, who, though lamenting the “excesses” of a “few bad apples”, insist that the secret police and their deeds were necessary to save the country from communism. But these are a minority. Most of my compatriots understand that torture was highly organised and systematic, part of an illegal and immoral programme ordered and condoned by the highest authorities of the country. The soul searching that has accompanied such a realisation, we hope, ensures that such abominations will never be repeated.

Very little soul searching about “enhanced interrogations” has taken place in the United States.

It’s one reason Trump could be elected despite declaring that he would bring back “waterboarding and a hell of a lot worse”.

In Chile and other countries that have suffered sustained state-sponsored terror, such words would ignite a firestorm of outrage, disqualifying anyone seeking higher office.

And yet here, an ignorant man who believes, against all evidence, that “torture works”, chooses a black site supervisor to run the CIA and gets away with it.

– Counterpunch.
Economic Sanctions Have Wide Impact on African States
30 MAR, 2018 - 00:03
Zimbabwe Herald

President Mnangagwa has repeatedly called for the removal of Western sanctions on Zimbabwe

Zamuxolo Nduna Correspondent

Economic sanctions are defined as the withdrawal of customary trade and financial relations for foreign and security policy purposes.

Sanctions take a variety of forms, including travelling bans, asset freezes, arms embargoes, capital restraints, foreign aid reductions and trade restrictions.

Economic sanctions in most instances in Africa are imposed on states which refuse to take orders from Western European states.

We would recall that in 1986 Japan and the US imposed economic sanctions on South Africa.

This was a strategic move to force the apartheid regime to its knees by means of economic sanctions.

The African continent, more than any other continent on the globe, has been targeted for economic sanctions from the United Nations General Assembly, the European Union and the US.

Sanctions imposed on African states are seen as a way of resolving conflicts and thus in recent years these have been overwhelmingly civil wars.

The level of “dependency” by African states is one of the factors which have led us to where we are today as the African continent.

For most Africans this topic is quite personal.

Basically, African states cannot solely function on their own without seeking financial assistance from their former colonial powers, yet we claim independence from France and any other Western countries.

While these sanctions are aimed at international peace and security, they often target individuals for alleged gross human rights violations and, in some cases, for leading unconstitutional usurpations of power, recognising that these factors impinge directly on the intensity and duration of conflicts.

According to former US ambassador to South Africa Princeton Lyman, “these targeted restrictions have also largely replaced the use of broad-based economic sanctions that have had a negative impact on the populations of affected countries.

“Both kinds of sanctions have nevertheless been used in Africa and are worthy of evaluation as to their effectiveness.”

Economic sanctions are tools, not policies.

In some cases, they do not even achieve their objectives.

When sanctions are supported by international communities they work better and achieve their objectives.

Sanctions have worked better when they are aimed at specific outcomes – such as a peace agreement or “ending one country’s support for war in a neighbouring country as with Rwanda’s support for rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)”.

If the objectives of economic sanctions are to pressure dictatorial regimes to give up power, they have the least effect.

Therefore, it is only by combination with engagement, and organised and effective domestic democratic pressure that sanctions can help lead to transitions to democracy.

However, in “Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire, restrictions on the trade in diamonds and other commodities weakened rebel or anti-democratic forces and facilitated either their defeat or their agreement to peace.

“But without supporting actions, sanctions alone would not have been sufficient.”

In South Sudan, sanctions have not produced the depth of political transitions needed.

I am currently witnessing the issue of South Sudan.

Conflicts in South Sudan can only be resolved once the country has reached political transformation.

The imposed sanctions in South Sudan are directed specifically to the conflict.

The sanctions have impacted severely on the economy of one of the newest states in Africa and isolated the regime.

They have not led the regime to undertake necessary or fundamental reforms.

Organisations such like Enough have proposed more sanctions being imposed on South Sudan.

These sanctions have negative impacts on South Sudanese whom are not residing in South Sudan currently.

International and African communities need to have serious engagement with the administration of South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit and opposition elements.

Support for civil society will be necessary to effect such transformation.

In the case of Zimbabwe, the US has defended its policy by stating that the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe were not targeted against the whole country, but a small group of people – believing that these individuals undermined democratic processes in Zimbabwe.

Evidence will, however, show that the sanctions are much broader.

As we might know, when the US intervenes in Africa it likes to do it in the name of “democracy”.

The EU lifted most of its sanctions in 2014, but kept them on Mr Mugabe and his wife Grace.

However, new President Emmerson Mnangagwa has repeatedly called for the removal of Western sanctions on Zimbabwe, as the country had opened up to international engagement and stood ready to conduct polls in a credible and peaceful way later this year.

“We call for the unconditional lifting of the political and economic sanctions, which have crippled our national development,” Mnangagwa was quoted saying in the past few months.

“We realise that isolation is not splendid or viable as there is more to gain through solidarity, mutually beneficial partnerships.”

I’m a firm believer that issues of the continent should be resolved by Africans.

Therefore these sanction are undermining the autonomy of our continent.

Zamuxolo Nduna is a Master’s degree student in Comparative Education at the Teachers’ College, Zhejiang Normal University in China. – Herald Live.
EDITORIAL COMMENT: US, Opposition Collusion: Zimbabwe Deserves Better
28 MAR, 2018 - 00:03 
Zimbabwe Herald

ZIMBABWE won independence from settler rule after 90 years of struggle beginning with the First Chimurenga/Umvukela of 1896/7 through the Second Chimurenga of 1966 to 1979.

Nothing came on a silver platter. We had to fight for the electoral democracy that the United States purports to want to teach us today as the US then circumvented legitimate, UN sanctions to buy Rhodesian chrome.

We are a proud people with a revered history of stolid, defiant protest to all forms of domination which is why even after close to two decades of an illegal economic sanctions regime, our people have not carved in and continue giving Westerners and their surrogates in opposition politics, the cold shoulder at the polls.

Anyone seeking to engage Zimbabwe should engage from that perspective. We would rather die on our feet than live on our knees. The Trump administration must not mistake Government’s willingness to engage for capitulation. Ours is just a normal wish to mend relations with fellow countries in the community of nations but within reasonable bounds.

We applaud France for commending Government’s progressive efforts and for pledging to advocate the lifting of the EU sanctions regime.

French Minister of State attached to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Mr Jean-Baptise Lemoyne, who paid a courtesy call on President Mnangagwa at the Africa CEO Forum in Abidjan, said France was happy with the reforms effected by President Mnangagwa and would advocate the complete removal of the EU economic sanctions regime.

The French statement exposed the Trump administration which, a week earlier, issued a series of demands as a precondition for re-engagement with Zimbabwe through amendment of the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act.

Suffice to say the American demands were an exact replica of demands by the MDC Alliance which visited Washington last year to lobby for the continuation of the US sanctions regime.

To this end we agree with President Mnangagwa’s call on the US to desist from making decisions on the basis of ignorance or self-serving opposition scripts.

Any objective observer will admit that President Mnangagwa is preaching and practicing a refreshing brand of politics which only those with ulterior motives can shun.

What is ironic is that the US demands come at a time of increasing hullabaloo in Washington over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election that saw Donald Trump thump Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House.

So if Americans cannot fathom covert or overt interference in their domestic politics, what makes them believe such interference is palatable for Zimbabwe?

Are we children of a lesser god? Or maybe a child race that requires chaperoning?

We are a self-governing people in our own right.

And to make matters worse it is the opposition candidate being packaged as representing the new who was among those who grovelled for the continuation of sanctions.

What this means is the young Nelson Chamisa represents old politics while the perceived old man, Emmerson Mnangagwa represents the new politics of engagement, investment and building on the nation’s founding values for national development, the inter-generational wish of all progressive Zimbabweans.

Now that Chamisa and the MDC Alliance are reading from the US script, Zanu-PF must make the removal of sanctions a pre-condition for any perceived reforms.

What is more, the MDC-T demands are unwarranted given that the party was part of the inclusive Government that was set up to prepare for Election 2013.

While a patriotic opposition is integral to keeping the governing party on its toes, a puppet opposition is inimical to and detracts from the national interest.

Zimbabwe deserves better.
EDITORIAL COMMENT: US Must Be an Example of Inclusive Dialogue
29 MAR, 2018 - 00:03
Zimbabwe Herald

The latest exchanges between Zimbabwe and the United States as a result of prescriptive reforms demanded by the American government as precondition for re-engagement have potential to worsen relations (hopefully that’s not what America is spoiling for) Zimbabwe has been labouring to build since the dawn of a new investment dispensation under President Mnangagwa.

Many Zimbabwean companies still suffer the debilitating effects of economic sanctions by the US Treasury Department’s Office for Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) that continues to intercept payments to or from Zimbabwean  firms.

Many countries prefer to use the US dollar when transacting given its stability, but it’s not international currency and therefore, like any other central banks in the world, the Federal Bank has powers to monitor all transactions in US dollars as a way of protecting its currency.

Following his ascendancy to power, President Mnangagwa has introduced sweeping economic and political measures we believe will have far- reaching consequences on the economy and the country’s foreign policy.

The President has amended the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act and the 51/49 percent ownership threshold now applies only to diamonds and platinum; he has pledged to compensate for farms taken under the land reform programme that were covered under Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements. Most paramount, he has promised free and credible elections as part of positive efforts to reach out to the global community.

It is against this backdrop that everyone expected the Western world and America, to abandon its bellicosity against Zimbabwe experienced over the years.

It is, therefore, disturbing to note two US senators — Messrs Jeff Flake (Republican) and Chris Coons (Democrat) — who are members of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee are now pushing a supplementary charge sheet on top of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) of 2001.

The additional demands resemble those made by the MDC Alliance recently.

That is why President Mnangagwa is spot on when he demands that the US should make decisions on Zimbabwe from an informed position and stop relying solely on the template it’s presented by opposition political parties and hostile civic society. This is completely at variance with the inclusivity America is demanding of the Government of Zimbabwe.

Shouldn’t America be leading by example by soliciting the views of all key stakeholders before making provocative demands on what the military is doing and what it should not be engaged in?

At the very least, we expect any pre-conditions for re-engagement with Zimbabwe to display an appreciation for the positive measures being undertaken to improve the political and economic situation in Zimbabwe.

Mr Chamisa and some members of his MDC Alliance appeared before the same US Senate committee on December 13 last year demanding an extension the current sanctions regime.

And it appears the US government took this appeal hook, line and sinker. It doesn’t seem to be amused by its ambassador here, Harry K. Thomas Jnr, who has been talking about an improvement in relations. The latest policy posture by America doesn’t benefit businesses, or American businesspeople already invested in Zimbabwe.

The US government is deliberately denying these companies an opportunity to join other international companies doing business in Zimbabwe. By the time America wakes up, it will discover that Zimbabwe has moved  on.

Zimbabwean companies, mainly State-owned, have suffered the most because their money has been confiscated by Ofac and are failing to receive payment after delivering goods and services to foreign markets.

To Mr Chamisa and fellow sellouts who have rejected President Mnangagwa’s positive overtures, Zimbabweans will judge you accordingly. What kind of a country does the MDC want its supporters to live in? Should they win elections (God forbid) what Zimbabwe do they want to inherit? A nation ruined by foreign sanctions championed by fellow Zimbabweans!

There is talk of an American delegation coming into the country. We hope they come with an open mind in the spirit of goodwill rather than as the whip of an imperial master sent to enforce a divine order from their god Donald Trump.
Zimbabwe President Mnangawa Speaks on New US Re-engagement Terms
28 MAR, 2018 - 00:03
Felex Share in ABIDJAN, Cote d’lvoire
Zimbabwe Herald

The United States (US) should make decisions on Zimbabwe from an informed position and stop reading only the text of opposition political parties that are afraid of elections, the President has said.

He said the US, which last week proposed multiple prescriptive reforms as a precondition for re-engagement with Zimbabwe, should have an appreciation of the situation on the ground to make rational decisions.

Two US senators — Messrs Jeff Flake(Republican) and Chris Coons (Democrat) — who are members of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, unveiled a proposed revised version of the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) of 2001.

They proposed conditions similar to demands made by the MDC Alliance through its Plan and Environment for A Credible Election (PEACE) documents launched by its presidential candidate Mr Nelson Chamisa last week.

Mr Chamisa and fellow principal in the MDC Alliance coalition, Mr Tendai Biti, including Mr Dewa Mavhinga — the director of Human Rights Watch in Southern Africa, a non-governmental organisation — appeared before the same US senate committee on December 13 last year and urged the US government to maintain the current sanctions regime on Harare.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Africa Report — a French magazine that focuses on African politics and economics — here yesterday, President Mnangagwa said he was glad the planned visit by American politicians soon would be an eye-opener.

“Fortunately Mr Flake and Mr Coons are coming to Zimbabwe,” he said.

“They are going to realise that the distance between Harare and Washington is very wide. This is why they are saying things that don’t exist in Zimbabwe. They only reproduced an agenda of the opposition which they were given last December by members of the opposition but when they come we shall say members of the opposition are here, can you go around with them and find where the military is participating in the elections. (They will find) zero and they will be able now to talk to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and they will get concrete answers; the Electoral Act is there.”

He added: “When looking at what they are saying, you realise that they are not informed. They are just reading the text of the opposition who are afraid of these elections.”

President Mnangagwa said most of the electoral demands by opposition parties were attended to with their consent.

“As a matter of fact most of things they are talking about, during the 2013 elections we came together as political parties and did amendments and on remnant issues which had not been done again we came together as political parties and agreed and made amendments to the Electoral Act as agreed by the liason committees of political parties. That has been done and achieved.”

He said no law in Zimbabwe forbid ex-military personnel from joining independent bodies or government entities.

“They talk about military people in ZEC,” President Mnangagwa said.

“We have no law in our domestic jurisdictions which forbids them say, for example, a person who joins army at an early age and then resigns at 28 perhaps to become an accountant or medical doctor or joins any parastatal must not be seen near democracy.”

President Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe was dumping toxic politics and entrenching democracy.

As such, he said, criticism from opposition parties was necessary as it strengthened his administration.

“I was surprised when almost all opposition parties attended my inauguration,” he said.

“I felt very good we have such chemistry but I realise that in any democracy, you don’t always agree. This is how democracy is. The best argument will win the day.”

He added: “I accept the opposition parties. I have no problem with them. In fact the more they interrogate and make constructive criticism of our administration I like it because I correct myself.”

President Mnangagwa reiterated that the forthcoming harmonised elections would be credible, free and fair.

Political parties, he said, should commit themselves to non-violence before, during and after the polls.

He also used the interview to clarify the amendments made to the Indigenisation Act as well as highlight the investment opportunities abundant in Zimbabwe.
Israeli Forces Kill 15 Palestinian Protesters on Gaza Border
Fri Mar 30, 2018 02:53PM
presstv.ir

Palestinian medical officials say at least 15 Palestinians have lost their lives and more than a thousand others sustained injuries when Israeli military forces opened fire on thousands of protesters, who have flocked to a sit-in near the border fence between the Gaza Strip and occupied Palestinian territories.

Spokesman for the Gaza Ministry of Health, Ashraf al-Qidra, said three were fatally shot east of the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis, Jabalia, located 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) north of Gaza City as well as the border town of Rafah.

He identified the victims as 27-year-old Omar Wahid Abu Samour, Mohammed Kamal Al-Najjar, 25, and 38-year-old Mahmoud Muammar.

The fourth was Mohammed Abu Omar, 22, who was shot and killed east of Shuja'iyya neighborhood of Gaza City.

Ahmed Oudeh, 19, 33-year-old Jihad Farina and Mahmoud Sa'di Rahmi were all killed east of Gaza City as well.

A 22-year-old Palestinian man, identified as Ibrahim Abu Sha’ar, was also shot dead east of Rafah.

Abdel Fattah Bahjat Abdelnee, 18, and 42-year-old Abdul Qader Mardhi al-Hawajri also lost their lives in Israeli attacks shortly afterwards.

Six more Palestinian protesters were also killed in the Israeli assaults.

Al-Qidra added that nearly 1,500 protesters were also injured during the rally.

Israeli drone fires teargas on protesters

An Israeli drone was filmed firing several rounds of teargas on the protesters near the Gaza border. An AFP correspondent said several people were injured by the containers, which fell from a height of between 10 and 20 meters.

Meanwhile, human rights organization Amnesty International has condemned the Tel Aviv regime’s policies of land confiscation and dispossession, calling on Israeli authorities to stop them.

The Britain-based organization, in a post published on its official Twitter page on Friday, stated Israel’s policies of land theft exacerbate the sufferings of the Palestinian nation, and deprive them of their basic rights.

We won’t concede ‘a single inch of Palestine’

Later in the day, Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh arrived at the "return camps" along the eastern Gaza border and spoke to protesters.

In a statement broadcast on Palestinian television, Haniyeh said, "We welcome the Palestinian people everywhere, who have defeated the enemy leaders' gamble that the old die and the young forget. Here are the young people, the grandparents and the grandchildren.”

"We will not concede a single inch of the land of Palestine and do not recognize the Israeli entity. We promise Trump and all those who stand by his business and his plot that we are not giving up on Jerusalem al-Quds, and there is no solution but for the right of return," Haniyeh added.

The Palestinian rally, dubbed the "Great March of Return," will last until May 15, which coincides with the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe) on which Israel was created. 

Every year on May 15, Palestinians all over the world hold demonstrations to commemorate Nakba Day, which marks the anniversary of the forcible eviction of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland by Israelis in 1948.

More than 760,000 Palestinians - now estimated to number nearly five million with their descendants - were driven out of their homes on May 14, 1948.

Since 1948, the Israeli regime has denied Palestinian refugees the right to return, despite United Nations resolutions and international law that upholds people’s right to return to their homelands.

This year's Land Day demonstrations appear especially combustible as Palestinian anger is already high over US President Donald Trump's decision in December to recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel's "capital."

Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem al-Quds and parts of Syria’s Golan Heights during the Six-Day War in 1967. It later annexed East Jerusalem al-Quds in a move not recognized by the international community.

Israel is required to withdraw from all the territories seized in the war under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, adopted months after the Six-Day War, in November 1967, but the Tel Aviv regime has been in non-compliance of that piece of international law ever since.
Israeli Forces Kill 15 Palestinian Protesters on Gaza Border
Fri Mar 30, 2018 02:53PM
BBC World Servce

Palestinian medical officials say at least 15 Palestinians have lost their lives and more than a thousand others sustained injuries when Israeli military forces opened fire on thousands of protesters, who have flocked to a sit-in near the border fence between the Gaza Strip and occupied Palestinian territories.

Spokesman for the Gaza Ministry of Health, Ashraf al-Qidra, said three were fatally shot east of the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis, Jabalia, located 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) north of Gaza City as well as the border town of Rafah.

He identified the victims as 27-year-old Omar Wahid Abu Samour, Mohammed Kamal Al-Najjar, 25, and 38-year-old Mahmoud Muammar.

The fourth was Mohammed Abu Omar, 22, who was shot and killed east of Shuja'iyya neighborhood of Gaza City.

Ahmed Oudeh, 19, 33-year-old Jihad Farina and Mahmoud Sa'di Rahmi were all killed east of Gaza City as well.

A 22-year-old Palestinian man, identified as Ibrahim Abu Sha’ar, was also shot dead east of Rafah.

Abdel Fattah Bahjat Abdelnee, 18, and 42-year-old Abdul Qader Mardhi al-Hawajri also lost their lives in Israeli attacks shortly afterwards.

Six more Palestinian protesters were also killed in the Israeli assaults.

Al-Qidra added that nearly 1,500 protesters were also injured during the rally.

Israeli drone fires teargas on protesters

An Israeli drone was filmed firing several rounds of teargas on the protesters near the Gaza border. An AFP correspondent said several people were injured by the containers, which fell from a height of between 10 and 20 meters.

Amnesty International slams Israel’s land expropriation policies

Meanwhile, human rights organization Amnesty International has condemned the Tel Aviv regime’s policies of land confiscation and dispossession, calling on Israeli authorities to stop them.

The Britain-based organization, in a post published on its official Twitter page on Friday, stated Israel’s policies of land theft exacerbate the sufferings of the Palestinian nation, and deprive them of their basic rights.

A picture taken on March 30, 2018 shows Palestinians taking part in a tent city protest erected along the border with Israel east of Gaza City in the Gaza strip to commemorate Land Day. (Photo by AFP)
We won’t concede ‘a single inch of Palestine’

Later in the day, Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh arrived at the "return camps" along the eastern Gaza border and spoke to protesters.

In a statement broadcast on Palestinian television, Haniyeh said, "We welcome the Palestinian people everywhere, who have defeated the enemy leaders' gamble that the old die and the young forget. Here are the young people, the grandparents and the grandchildren.”

"We will not concede a single inch of the land of Palestine and do not recognize the Israeli entity. We promise Trump and all those who stand by his business and his plot that we are not giving up on Jerusalem al-Quds, and there is no solution but for the right of return," Haniyeh added.

The Palestinian rally, dubbed the "Great March of Return," will last until May 15, which coincides with the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe) on which Israel was created. 

Every year on May 15, Palestinians all over the world hold demonstrations to commemorate Nakba Day, which marks the anniversary of the forcible eviction of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland by Israelis in 1948.

More than 760,000 Palestinians - now estimated to number nearly five million with their descendants - were driven out of their homes on May 14, 1948.

Since 1948, the Israeli regime has denied Palestinian refugees the right to return, despite United Nations resolutions and international law that upholds people’s right to return to their homelands.

This year's Land Day demonstrations appear especially combustible as Palestinian anger is already high over US President Donald Trump's decision in December to recognize Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel's "capital."

Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem al-Quds and parts of Syria’s Golan Heights during the Six-Day War in 1967. It later annexed East Jerusalem al-Quds in a move not recognized by the international community.

Israel is required to withdraw from all the territories seized in the war under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, adopted months after the Six-Day War, in November 1967, but the Tel Aviv regime has been in non-compliance of that piece of international law ever since.
Zuma Will Have Plenty Support from ANC Members When He Appears in Court
28 MAR, 2018 - 00:03 

JOHANNESBURG. – Former South African President Jacob Zuma can still expect support from ANC members when he appears in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Durban on corruption charges next week with some hinting that they would defy the national executive committee’s (NEC) decision to ban them from wearing party regalia.

News24 spoke to several party members who declared they would remain ardent Zuma supporters, including provincial and regional leaders and members of the Umkhonto We Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA).

Another offshoot, calling themselves the “Radical Economic Transformation Champions”, are urging South Africans not to ditch the man they dub the “father of radical economic transformation”.

After its three-day weekend, the NEC said in a statement, without mentioning Zuma’s name, that it understood both the ANC and society had the right to express their sympathy and solidarity with those called to account by law enforcement agencies, the courts and a judicial commission of inquiry.

However, it resolved that those who wanted to show their support, could only do so in their individual capacities and not through the structures of the 106-year-old liberation movement.

“Members involved in such actions are discouraged from displaying (the) ANC’s paraphernalia and thus creating the false impression that the ANC as [an] organisation identifies with, or approves of, the misdemeanours of which any member or leader may be accused,” secretary general Ace Magashule said, following the NEC meeting.

Controversial Eastern Cape ANC councillor Andile Lungisa is one of those who refuses to be told what to wear when he and a contingent from the province show their support for the former president of the ANC and the country.

He told News24 yesterday that the directive issued by the NEC would be like asking him to suspend his membership.

“I am not talking about anything that relates to the NEC. When you go there you don’t cease to be a member, because you are going to court, sometimes you must be rational when you take decisions,” said Lungisa.

“I will go to court as a member of the ANC, wearing ANC [regalia], with my membership in my pocket,” he added.

Lungisa said his support for Zuma stemmed from the ANC’s 2005 national general council, where it was concluded that the former president was being attacked by fellow comrades from within the movement.

“When we said Zuma was under attack from internal forces, that attack is directed at Zuma. Even today Zuma is targeted, he is under attack, they want to isolate Zuma. I, Andile Lungisa have not changed from that position of 2005, Andi lulolwane (I am not a bat). I don’t subscribe to what is called the politics of expediency,” said Lungisa.

Zuma faces 16 charges, including corruption, money laundering and racketeering. The charges relate to 783 questionable payments he had allegedly received in connection with the controversial multi-billion-rand arms deal.

National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head Shaun Abrahams announced this month that it would prosecute Zuma and he said he believed there were “reasonable prospects of a successful prosecution”.

The charges were dropped in 2009 by then NPA boss Mokotedi Mpshe, based on the telephone recordings referred to as “spy tapes”, which were presented to him by Zuma’s legal team.

The leaked tapes contained recordings of the telephone conversations between then Scorpions boss Leonard McCarthy and former NPA boss Bulelani Ngcuka, which Zuma’s legal team claimed showed political interference in the decision to charge him.

Lungisa is one of many expected to be at Zuma’s side during court appearances.

Previously, a group called the Friends of Jacob Zuma emerged to offer him emotional and financial support amid his many trials.

This time around there is the Radical Economic Transformation Champions, who are pledging to get South Africans from across the country to support him.

One of its members Nkosentsha Shezi, said it was important to rally around Zuma because he was innocent.

Shezi, who is also an ANC member, said there were many reasons behind the decision to rally around Zuma besides their belief that he is innocent.

“We have honoured him as the father of radical economic transformation. He introduced the world’s biggest ARV programme, which saved the lives of millions, especially black people.

“He introduced the 30 percent mining charter, he declared free education for the children of the working class and he’s the one that called for land expropriation without compensation even at the risk of his party not having declared so at that moment,” said Shezi.

He added that the Radical Economic Transformation Champions were engaging with many people across the country, who wanted to be there for Zuma.

“We are going to gather at King Dinuzulu Park and march to the Durban High Court. On the 5th, we will be there at night waiting for the programme,” explained Shezi.

Shezi said the invitation was open to everyone and not just ANC members. He said members of his organisation would attempt to budget enough money to produce T-shirts for those joining the demonstrations so that they were not in ANC regalia.

Sihle Zikalala, co-ordinator of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal’s provincial task team, said he would join those at Zuma’s side next week, but that he respected the directive from the NEC not to wear any of the ANC’s colours.

“I think it’s a decision that’s binding to all structures. I would not want to venture on that no structure of the ANC is going to be allowed to encourage people to use the regalia,” he said.

Zikalala said there was no decision on how to deal with those who ignored the NEC’s decision on the matter, but that it would be discussed at the time.

He said he wanted to personally be there for the former president because he was someone he had worked with previously.

“I will be supporting Zuma. It’s just that we have to go on a humanitarian basis that he is one of the ANC, one of the people we have worked with in the province. So we provide solidarity and support to anyone at any time,” said Zikalala.

President of the MKMVA Kebby Maphatsoe, said the structure had received the message from the party’s highest decision-making body and would abide by it.

“We were cited and we accept the decisions. We will go ahead, but as individuals,” he told News24.

Maphatsoe said he would inform the association’s provincial structures of the decision so they could start adjusting their plans accordingly.

He admitted that it could be difficult to control members, but had faith that they would abide by the decisions made by the party’s top leadership.

In his previous appearances challenging the charges against him, Zuma was backed by the SACP and Cosatu, but they have since had a fallout calling for him to step down last year.

– News24
Egypt’s Sisi in Landslide Victory
30 MAR, 2018 - 00:03

CAIRO. – Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has been re-elected for a second term with about 92 percent of the vote, preliminary results showed yesterday, with just over 40 percent of voters casting ballots.

Twenty-five million of the 60 million registered voters, or some 41,5 percent, turned out during the three days of polling that ended on Wednesday, state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram reported. Twenty-three million voted for Sisi.

The Akhbar el-Youm newspaper did not report the full turnout but said Sisi won 21,4 million votes, and his rival Moussa Mostafa Moussa 721 000 votes, without mentioning the number of spoiled ballots.

According to Al-Ahram, in addition to 23 million who cast valid votes, two million spoiled their ballot papers.

Al-Sisi’s sole challenger was the little-known Moussa, himself a supporter of the president, who registered immediately before the closing date for applications, saving the election from being a one-horse race.

Moussa conceded his loss on Wednesday night, telling a television station he had hoped for 10 percent of the vote.

“But I know the immense popularity of President Sisi,” he said.

Other, more heavy-weight would-be challengers were all sidelined, detained or pulled out.

Sisi, who as army chief ousted Egypt’s first freely elected president – Islamist Mohamed Morsi – after mass street protests in 2013, won his first term in 2014 with 96,9 percent of the vote.

Turnout of 47 percent in that year’s election was sharply higher than this year’s 40 percent despite appeals from Prime Minister Sherif Ismail for voters to fulfil their patriotic duty.

– AFP.
Ethiopia’s Ruling Coalition Elects Ahmed New Leader
29 MAR, 2018 - 00:03

ADDIS ABABA. — Ethiopia’s ruling coalition has elected Abiy Ahmed as its new chairman, according to state media.

The announcement by state broadcaster FANA means that Ahmed, who hails from the Oromo ethnic group, is now expected to succeed Hailemariam Desalegn as Ethiopia’s prime minister.

The chairman of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition has historically also taken on prime minister duties.

The EPRDF and its allies control all 547 seats in Ethiopia’s parliament, which must confirm the new prime minister.

In a surprise move on February 15, Hailemariam announced that he was stepping down as both prime minister and chairman of the EPRDF.

He said at the time that he would be staying on as prime minister in a caretaker capacity, until the EPRDF named a successor.

Local news site Addis Standard reported that Ahmed garnered 108 out of 180 votes in a meeting by the EPRDF’s Council, which comprises 45 members each from the four political parties that make up the coalition.

Mainly divided along ethnic lines, the parties are: the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), the Oromo People’s Democratic Organisation (OPDO) and the Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Movement (SEPDM).

Hailemariam’s abrupt resignation prompted the government to declare a six-month state of emergency in a bid to stem political unrest amid long-standing demands for greater freedoms.

Mass protests have been going on since 2015, when anti-government demonstrations broke out among the Oromo, Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group, and later spread to the Amhara, the second biggest group.

The protests, which initially began over land rights, but later broadened to include calls for greater political representation at the national level, were met with a harsh government response.

Human rights groups said hundreds of people were killed by security forces during the violence, while thousands of others were arrested.

Abiy will be the first Oromo prime minister in the 27 years EPRDF has been in power.

Last month, the 81-member OPDO central committee named Ahmed, a former minister of science and technology, as its new chairman.

— Al Jazeera.
‘Landmark Ruling’: A Woman is Sent to Prison in South Africa for Using Racial Epithet
By Meagan Flynn
Washington Post
March 30 at 3:23 AM

South Africa jails first person for racist speech

Vicki Momberg became the first person in South Africa to be sentenced to jail for racist speech on March 28. (Amber Ferguson/The Washington Post)

The officers arrived to assist a South African woman whose car was just burglarized, but she didn’t want their help. Or at least she didn’t want the help of a black officer, whom she repeatedly insulted in a racist rant. In a video that went viral in 2016, she repeatedly called him the k-word, a South African equivalent of the n-word.

That racial epithet eventually led to the woman’s arrest and conviction on four counts of “crimen injuria,” which in South Africa is the statute barring verbal racial abuse directed at another person.

On Wednesday, a judge in South Africa sentenced Vicky Momberg to three years in prison, with one year suspended if she does not commit the same offense.

“This is a landmark case, and it’s a landmark ruling, and we believe that it sets a precedent for other racial-related cases,” Phindi Mjonondwana, a spokeswoman for South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority, told reporters after the trial.

In the 2016 incident, Momberg used the k-word 48 times in her tirade, BBC reported. The video, captured by apparent bystanders, begins with Momberg ranting on the phone to someone about her hatred for black people.

“The k‑‑‑‑‑s here in [Johannesburg] are terrible,” she said, in the presence of several officers. “I’m so sick of it. I really am.”

Soon, a white officer approached her, asking if he could please have a word with her, saying the officers were here to help but that she could not insult his colleagues that way.

“Listen here,” she said, “I’m not going to change my mind. I hate the f‑‑‑ing blacks.”

And later: “They’re opinionated, they’re arrogant, and they’re just plain and simple … useless.”

And: “I’m happy for a white person to assist me or a colored person or an Indian person. I do not want a black person to assist me.”

As she got in her car minutes later, the black officer went to her window, calmly assuring her that he was only trying to help. He also said, “I’m asking you, did you insult me at any time?”

Momberg only grew more irate, saying as she turned on her car, “If I see a k‑‑‑‑‑, I will run him over. If I have a gun, I will shoot everybody.”

In a statement, the Nelson Mandela Foundation said it welcomed her prison sentence.

“It delivers a clear message to South Africans that the kind of race-based abuse for which Ms. Momberg was found guilty will not be tolerated,” the statement said. “For too long post-apartheid South Africa has pursued what we would call strategies of generosity in relation to such manifestations of racism. It must stop.”

In the past, South Africans have been prosecuted for verbal racial abuse under the crimen injuria statute, but they were just fined.

Last month, a South African man was fined 100,000 rand, or about $8,460, for calling a black man the k-word during an argument. In 2016, a former real estate agent was fined about a total of more than $13,000 for repeatedly referring to black people as “monkeys” in a Facebook rant, accusing them of littering and being uneducated.

But in recent years, the South African government has been calling for far stricter penalties for racist and discriminatory behavior. Earlier this month, the country’s cabinet approved the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill, allowing it to be sent to Parliament for a vote. That bill would make hate speech or hate crimes punishable up to three years in prison for first-time offenders and up to 10 years for subsequent offenses.

Michael Masutha, the minister of the country’s Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, said in a statement that Momberg’s case was a perfect example of why the bill was necessary in South Africa.

“We also find it defeating and disappointing that we are dealing with a case of this nature in a year where we celebrate the year of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela,” he said.

Mandela, who became the country’s first president in 1994 after serving 27 years in prison for his activism against apartheid, was born 100 years ago on July 18, 1918.
Stephon Clark Shot Six Times in Back - Eight Times in All - Private Autopsy Says
BY SAM STANTON AND TONY BIZJAK
Sacramento Bee
SStanton@sacbee.com
March 30, 2018 10:58 AM

Stephon Clark was shot six times in the back and eight times total by Sacramento police officers, according to a private autopsy released Friday morning by his family's legal team, a finding that may roil emotions in a city already on edge about the shooting of the unarmed black man.

The autopsy found that there were no bullet entries from the front. Instead, the review concluded that Clark was facing a house with his left side to officers when they opened fire and hit him first in the left side under the arm. The force of that round spun him around with his back to officers, and six rounds penetrated his back moving in a forward trajectory, the Clark family legal team said.

The last shot struck his left thigh area as Clark was falling or had fallen, the autopsy found.

Clark family attorney Benjamin Crump said the autopsy "affirms that Stephon was not a threat to police and was slain in another senseless police killing under increasingly questionable circumstances."

The review, conducted by prominent pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu, the former chief medical examiner in San Joaquin County best known for his research on football-related concussions, was released at a Friday morning press conference held by Crump and other attorneys representing Clark's family.

Clark, 22, was killed March 18 after Sacramento police received reports of a car burglar in the Meadowview area. Two officers chased Clark into the backyard of his grandparents' home, where they ordered him to show his hands, then fired 20 shots at him because they believed he had a gun, according to body camera video released by police.

Clark was later found to be carrying only a cellphone.

"The proposition that he was facing the officers is inconsistent with the prevailing forensic evidence," the pathologist said a morning press conference.

“He was facing the house, with his left to the officers," Omalu said. "He wasn’t facing the officers. His left back was facing to the officers.”

Omalu said it took 3 to 10 minutes for Clark to die: "It was not an instant death." Activists and family members have criticized the two officers for waiting to render medical aid.

Neither the Sacramento Police Department nor Mayor Darrell Steinberg provided an immediate response.
Stephon Clark Was Shot Eight Times, Mostly in His Back, According to Autopsy Requested by His Family
By Mark Berman
Washington Post
March 30 at 3:07 PM

Body camera and helicopter footage provides more information of the night Sacramento police shot and killed Stephon Clark, an unarmed father of two. (Joyce Koh/The Washington Post)

Stephon Clark, the unarmed 22-year-old killed by Sacramento police officers earlier this month, was shot eight times, with most of the bullets hitting him in the back, according to an independent autopsy requested by his family’s attorneys.

Bullets struck Clark in the neck, back and thigh, breaking bones and piercing his lung, said Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist. The bullets combined to make Clark “bleed massively,” Omalu said.

“His death wasn’t instantaneous,” Omalu, who is best known for his role in highlighting concussive damage to football players, said at a news conference Friday. Instead, Omalu said, “Death took about three to 10 minutes.”

Omalu announced his findings amid continuing public anger over Clark’s death. A day earlier, hundreds of mourners gathered to grieve for Clark at an emotional funeral that alluded to the tensions lingering in the community.

Clark, a black man and a father of two, was fatally shot on March 18 by Sacramento police officers. Police in the California capital said they were responding that night to a call about someone breaking into vehicles.

The shooting was captured on footage recorded by body cameras and a helicopter video. This footage showed Clark running to the backyard of his grandmother’s house where officers fired 20 times at him. Officials have not said how many times they believe Clark was struck.

The officers said they fired thinking Clark had a gun, but police have since said he was only holding an iPhone.

Omalu said that Clark “was not facing the officers” when he was killed. Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Clark’s family who spoke before Omalu on Friday, said the autopsy findings contradicted the police narrative of Clark’s death.

Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the autopsy findings or Crump’s comment Friday.

Six of the eight shots struck Clark in the back, while a seventh bullet hit him “slightly to the side of his body, but to the back of the side,” Omalu said.

“You could reasonably conclude that he received seven gunshot wounds from his back,” said Omalu, who conducted his autopsy on Tuesday and finished his report Wednesday. Omalu said all seven of these bullets could have been fatal on their own.

An eighth bullet that struck Clark in the thigh suggested that the 22-year-old “was either on the ground or falling close to the ground” when that shot hit him, Omalu said.

While he spoke, Omalu pointed to a diagram of the autopsy findings, which showed that most of the bullets struck Clark on the right side of his body, including one that appeared to hit him near his armpit.

Omalu’s news conference served as a grim reminder of the devastation gunfire can wreak upon the human body. A bullet that struck Clark’s right arm shattered his bone “into tiny bits,” Omalu said. Another injured to his spinal cord; others “perforated” his chest cavity and lungs, he said.

The Sacramento County Coroner’s Office did not immediately respond to a message seeking details on Clark’s autopsy earlier Friday. County records showed only the date of Clark’s death and described him as a 22-year-old black man.

Clark is one of at least 269 people fatally shot by police so far this year, according to The Washington Post’s database tracking such deaths. Since The Post began to track these shootings in January 2015, the Sacramento police have fatally shot six people. Including Clark, five of the six have been black men.

The release of the video footage capturing Clark’s death has given way to repeated protests in Sacramento. Demonstrators have blocked fans from entering NBA games, marched on the city’s streets and gathered Tuesday night at a City Council meeting to protest there.

Stevonte Clark, wearing a shirt with his brother’s face on it, sat at the council’s dais during the meeting and chanted his brother’s name.

Mayor Darrell Steinberg, in an interview the following day, said he was “extremely conscious” of the concerns many have expressed regarding police accountability in recent years.

“There is deep pain and anguish” in Sacramento, he said. “It’s our job to bear some of that pain, and to help translate the anguish and grieving and the historic pain [of black communities] into tangible and real change.”

Clark’s relatives and civil rights leaders have called for full transparency in the investigation into his death as well as charges for the two officers involved.

Just under 1,000 people are shot and killed by police officers each year, according to The Post’s database. Just a handful of those shootings each year lead to criminal charges, and convictions are even more rare, which has prompted intense criticism from civil rights activists across the country.

The Sacramento police department is conducting an investigation into Clark’s death, while the Sacramento County district attorney’s office is also conducting its own review.

Earlier this week, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) and Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn announced that the state Department of Justice would provide independent oversight of the police investigation into the shooting.

That announcement came the same day that Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said his office would not pursue criminal charges against two Baton Rouge police officers who fatally shot Alton Sterling in 2016, one of many that have prompted intense protests nationwide in recent years.

Hahn said he had confidence in his department’s ability to investigate the shooting, but felt that given “the extremely high emotions, anger and hurt in our city,” it was best for the community and the police force alike to have the state step in.

“Our city is at a critical point right now, and I believe this will … help build faith and confidence in the investigation from our community,” Hahn said.

Alex Horton contributed to this report, which was first published at 2:17 p.m. and has been updated. 
Kim Jong Un Addresses Chinese State Banquet 
This is the full text of the speech made by Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un at the banquet held for him.

Esteemed Comrade General Secretary Xi Jinping,

Esteemed Mme Peng Liyuan,

Dear Chinese comrades,

In the midst of the new situation on the Korean peninsula, which is changing as never before, we are now on a lightning visit to the People’s Republic of China with a desire to remain true to the long-standing, historic traditions of great friendship and revolutionary obligation between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the PRC and to inherit and develop the bilateral relations in a wonderful way down through the generations.

First of all, I would like to extend heartfelt thanks to esteemed Comrade General Secretary Xi Jinping, as well as Mme Peng Liyuan, who has managed to find time despite the demanding duties of leading the Party and state and is according a warm welcome to us like their own brothers and sisters.

I have been deeply impressed by the sincerity and solicitude shown by Comrade Xi Jinping and other leading Party and state cadres of China in accepting the proposal for our lightning visit with pleasure and in ensuring a success of our short visit, and I feel very grateful for this.

Availing myself of this meaningful opportunity, I extend warm congratulations on the successful conclusion of the two major meetings following the grand 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China and the election of Comrade Xi Jinping as president of the PRC and chairman of the Central Military Commission of the PRC.

I also tender warm greetings of members of the Workers’ Party of Korea and other Korean people to members of the CPC and other Chinese people.

Dear Chinese comrades,

This is my first visit to China.

That the first place of my foreign visit is the capital city of the PRC is too natural for me, and it is an expression of my ennobling obligation to prize the DPRK-PRC friendship like my life itself and carry it forward.

I deem it a high honour to visit my country’s great neighbour, and this visit has given me another opportunity to comprehend the preciousness of the DPRK-PRC friendship, a priceless legacy left by the preceding leaders of the two countries and a treasure common to the two peoples.

For long years the Korean and Chinese peoples supported and cooperated closely with each other, shedding blood and dedicating their lives to the joint struggle. Real life has taught them that their destinies are inseparable. They are now clearly aware that for the two brotherly neighbours with rivers in between, peaceful environment and stability in the region are critical, and it is costly to secure and defend them.

General Secretary Xi Jinping and I have just exchanged in-depth opinions on such important issues as the promotion of bilateral friendship and coordination of the pressing problems concerning the situation on the Korean peninsula, reaffirming our common commitment to consolidate the socialist systems of the two countries and ensure wellbeing and a bright future for the two peoples.

It is the steadfast stand of the WPK and the government of the DPRK to develop, true to the ennobling intentions of the preceding leaders, the friendly relationship between the two countries at a new, higher level, the relationship which was established through the sacred joint struggle for the cause of socialism and retained its original features even in the whirlwind of history.

Comrades,

Thanks to the leadership of the CPC with General Secretary Xi Jinping as the core, the Chinese people are achieving brilliant successes in accomplishing their cause of building a modernized socialist power in the new era, and their country is enjoying ever-improving international prestige. The WPK and the Korean people feel very pleased with this as if it is their own.

We sincerely hope that the Chinese people will achieve great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation under the wise leadership of General Secretary Xi Jinping by fully implementing the tasks put forward by the 19th Congress of the CPC.

Last, with the belief that my meaningful first meeting with General Secretary Xi Jinping in this spring, full of joy and hope, will constitute a significant occasion in bringing rich fruition in the development of friendly relations between the two countries, I propose a toast,

To the development of the great CPC and the prosperity of the PRC,

To the good health and happiness of respected General Secretary Xi Jinping and Mme Peng Liyuan, and

To the good health of all other comrades present here.
Kim Jong Un Welcomed With Pomp and Ceremony
A grand ceremony took place at the Great Hall of the People on March 26 to welcome Kim Jong Un, chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea, chairman of the DPRK State Affairs Commission and supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army, and his wife Ri Sol Ju, on an unofficial visit to the People's Republic of China.

As Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un arrived at the venue together with his wife, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, president of the PRC and chairman of the Central Military Commission, and his wife Peng Liyuan warmly greeted them.

The two leaders shook hands firmly.

The Chinese President warmly welcomed the DPRK leader who visited China as his maiden foreign visit.

The latter thanked him for showing meticulous concern for his visit and according him warm hospitality.

The DPRK leader and his wife had a photo session with their Chinese counterparts.

He exchanged greetings with the Chinese Party and government officials at Beidating, shaking hands with them.

When the leaders of the two countries stood on the platform, their national anthems were played.

The DPRK leader appreciated a salute from the chief of the honour guard.

He reviewed the guard of honour, conducted by the Chinese President.

The military band played light and soft music in a show of their joy of greeting the esteemed man from a friendly neighbour.

The venue, Beidating at the Great Hall of the People, was bedecked with the flags of the two countries and beautiful and rare flowers, with the guard of honour of the three services of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army lining up.

By PT staff reporter