Day: December 3, 2022

UN peacekeepers on Friday repelled an assault on a base near Timbuktu, Mali, a day after a nearby attack on a peacekeeper convoy, a UN spokesman said.

While there were no casualties among peacekeepers, the earlier assault wounded two local contract workers, said Stephane Dujarric, the chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The UN mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, dispatched a quick reaction force to reinforce peacekeepers on the ground, Dujarric said. The base was only set up following the first attack.

The MINUSMA mission suffers a high rate of casualties compared to other UN peacekeeping assignments, and only on Nov. 21 the detonation of an improvised explosive device wounded three peacekeepers.

Several troop-contributing countries are withdrawing their forces from the troubled nation on the fringes of the Sahel.

The spokesman said that following the latest attacks, the deputy special representative of the UN in Mali, Daniela Kroslak, promised MINUSMA remains determined to implement its mandate.

The Security Council only five months ago renewed the mandate to monitor, investigate, and publicly report Mali’s human rights situation and protect civilians from further attacks in close cooperation with the Malian authorities.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

The United States added Latin American adversaries Cuba and Nicaragua as well as Russia’s Wagner Group to a blacklist on international religious freedom, opening the path to potential sanctions.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Wagner Group was being designated due to involvement in abuses in the Central African Republic, where nearly a decade of bloodshed has had religious overtones.

“The United States will not stand by in the face of these abuses,” Blinken said in a statement.

Cuba and Nicaragua were both newly designated as “Countries of Particular Concern” under the annual determinations, meaning that the two leftist-led states — already under US sanctions — could face further measures.

Blinken kept on the blacklist all Countries of Particular Concern from 2021 — China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Nicaragua’s increasingly authoritarian president, Daniel Ortega, has clamped down on the Catholic Church since accusing it of supporting 2018 anti-government protests, which were crushed at the cost of hundreds of lives.

A bishop critical of the government, Rolando Alvarez, was put under house arrest in August with other priests and seminarians arrested on unspecified charges.

The designation of Cuba is the latest sign of pressure on the island by the administration of President Joe Biden, which has largely shunned previous Democratic president Barack Obama’s Vatican-blessed effort to seek an opening with the long-time US nemesis.

In its latest annual report on religious freedom issued in June, the State Department pointed to violence and arrests of Cuban religious figures over purported roles in rare public protests as well as restrictions on non-recognized Protestant churches.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez rejected the US blacklisting, calling it “arbitrary” and “dishonest.”

“It is known that in Cuba there is religious freedom,” Rodriguez tweeted.

The report had separately pointed to abuses of Russia’s Wagner Group in the Central African Republic, citing Amnesty International in linking the mercenaries to killings and sexual violence against Muslims.

The designation comes as US senators introduced legislation to slap a terrorism designation on the Wagner Group, which has also been involved in Mali and been accused of rights violations in Libya, Syria and Ukraine.

The Central African Republic, one of the world’s poorest countries, was plunged into civil war in 2013 when a Muslim-dominated rebellion overthrew the president, sparking reprisals from predominantly Christian and animist militias.

Blinken added the Central African Republic to a watchlist, meaning that it will be designated among Countries of Particular Concern without progress.

Also newly put on the watchlist was Vietnam. The State Department report said the communist authorities have harassed non-recognized religious groups, including Christian house churches, independent Buddhists and members of the century-old Cao Dai movement.

Algeria and Comoros remained on the watchlist from 2021.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

Three days of national mourning began in the DR Congo on Saturday after the alleged massacre of civilians in the country’s east, with the government now giving a death toll of “more than 100.”

On Thursday, the government accused the M23 militia — with whom it is locked in a months-long conflict — of slaughtering 50 people at Kishishe, a village around 70 kilometers north of the city of Goma.

The M23 hit back, saying the allegations were “baseless” and denying that it targeted civilians.

At a council of ministers meeting on Friday, the DRC’s president Felix Tshisekedi “condemned in the strongest terms the massacre of more than 100 compatriots in Kishishe,” government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said.

He said Tshisekedi had “instructed the government to declare three days of national mourning,” adding that flags would be flown at half-mast throughout the country.

The period of mourning will end on Monday with a televised fundraising event to support victims, Muyaya said.

Since reports of the massacre emerged, calls for an independent investigation have been mounting.

The president “asked the minister of justice to open an internal investigation without delay and at the same time to work for an international investigation to shed light on this war crime”, Muyaya said.

The March 23 movement, or M23, is a predominantly Congolese Tutsi rebel group that was dormant for years.

It took up arms again in November last year and seized the town of Bunagana on the border with Uganda in June.

After a brief period of calm, it went on the offensive again in October, greatly extending the territory under its control and advancing towards Goma.

Kinshasa accuses its smaller neighbor Rwanda of providing M23 with support, something that UN experts and US officials have also pointed to in recent months. Kigali denies the charge.

Source: Voice of America

Burkina Faso’s military government has suspended the broadcast of France’s RFI radio in the Sahel West African state over what it said were false reports and giving voice to Islamist militants, a statement from the government said Saturday.

The statement said RFI on Saturday broadcast a message from a leader of a militant group in which he threatened the population.

“RFI strongly deplores this decision and protests against the totally unfounded accusations calling into question its professionalism,” State-owned Radio France Internationale, usually referred to as RFI, said in a statement.

It added that the decision to suspend its broadcasting was made without prior notice and without the implementation of the procedures put in place by Burkina Faso’s communications regulator.

RFI Afrique radio, which has one of the largest footprints across French-speaking Africa, added that it will explore ways to restore its broadcasting.

The government said that RFI also repeated a press report — which it denied — that Burkina Faso’s President Captain Ibrahim Traore, who seized power in a coup in September, had said there had been an attempted coup to unseat him.

“In view of all of the above, the government has decided the immediate suspension of the broadcast of all RFI programmes across the national territory,” said the statement signed by government spokesperson Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo.

Burkina Faso is the second West African nation to suspend RFI’s broadcast. The first is that of the military government in neighboring Mali in March.

The decision comes amid a backdrop of soured relations between France and its former West Africa colonies Burkina Faso and Mali over frustrations that France has not done enough to tackle Islamist insurgents who occupied northern Mali in 2012 and have spread to neighboring states.

The prolonged insecurity led to political instability and military coups in August 2020 and May 2021 in Mali, and in January 2022 and September 2022 in Burkina Faso.

France pulled its troops from Mali as the relations between Paris and the junta in Mali deteriorated over delays in returning to constitutional rule, and Mali’s decision to turn to Russian private military firm Wagner Group to help fight the insurgents.

The French embassy, cultural center and military base in Burkina Faso were targeted by angry mobs on the day of the coup, and on November 18, demanding that France should leave and that the military leaders, should turn to Russia for help, like Mali, to fight the insurgents.

Source: Voice of America