East Africa

East Africa

Details: East Africa; 12 September 2021; 858

JOHANNESBURG

South Africa's president announced a further relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions late Sunday in a bid to revive the continent’s most industrialized economy as virus cases slowed.

In a televised address to the nation, Cyril Ramaphosa said the Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19 advised the government to ease restrictions on the movement of people and gatherings.

“The Cabinet has therefore decided that the country should be moved from Adjusted Alert Level 3 and placed on Adjusted Alert Level 2 with effect from tomorrow, Monday, the 13th of September 2021,” Ramaphosa announced.

The president said the number of people allowed to gather indoors has been increased from 50 to 250, while the number of people allowed to gather for outdoor events is now 500 compared with 100 previously.

“This includes religious services, political events and social gatherings, as well as restaurants, bars, taverns and similar places,” he said.

The relaxation also comes as a relief to local politicians, who will now have an opportunity to hold small campaign rallies ahead of Nov. 1 local government elections.

The South African leader also allowed the sale of alcohol from retail outlets for off-site consumption between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. from Monday to Friday.

Alcohol consumption remains prohibited in public spaces, he said.

Ramaphosa also announced that the night curfew will now start at 11 p.m. instead of 10 p.m. and end at 4 a.m.

The president also said he will soon be providing further information on an approach to vaccine passports, which will be used as evidence of vaccination against COVID-19 and could help people gain access to public spaces such as for events.

Ramaphosa encouraged South Africans to get vaccinated to fight the pandemic and return to normal lives.

“If many people are not vaccinated and remain vulnerable to infection, the chance of new and more dangerous variants emerging is far greater,” he said.

South Africa, with a population of over 60 million, has administered 14.6 million vaccine doses and more than 7 million people are fully vaccinated.

“I want to stress that the vaccination program is open to all people in South Africa, whether or not they are South African citizens,” he said.

South Africa has the highest number of COVID-19 cases on the continent with more than 2.85 million and 84,877 fatalities recorded. Anadolu Agency

Details: East Africa; 12 September 2021; 829

More than 1,200 civilians have been killed in the restive DR Congo provinces of Ituri and North Kivu so far this year and millions of people now need humanitarian aid in the eastern region, the UN refugee agency said Friday.

Democratic Republic of Congo authorities declared a state of siege in May, an exceptional measure aimed at ending the reign of terror by armed groups operating in the region, most notably the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a group linked to the so-called Islamic State.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its partners, recorded "more than 1,200 civilian deaths and 1,100 rapes this year" in the two most affected provinces of North Kivu and Ituri, UN refugee agency spokesman Boris Cheshirkov told reporters in Geneva

"Attacks attributed to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) armed group have increased in brutality since late 2020, and the frequency of killings of civilians has not abated despite the state of siege," the UN refugee agency added.

Last weekend rebels shot or hacked to death at least 30 people in a new massacre in Ituri, UN sources said Monday. Members of civil society blamed the killings on the ADF, considered the deadliest of scores of armed militias that roam the mineral-rich eastern DR Congo.

The UNHCR has "recorded 25,000 human rights abuses this year. In total, more than a million Congolese have been internally displaced in the east of the country in 2021," Cheshirkov said Friday.

The UN agency also highlighted the need for a steep increase in humanitarian funding for the area.

"Less than four months from the end of the year, we have received just 51 per cent of the US$205 million required in 2021 for the operation in DRC."

According to the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), a respected US-based monitor of violence in the region, the ADF has killed 642 people in Ituri and North Kivu since January.

Congolese Nobel laureate Denis Mukwege on Friday called for an international criminal court for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), whose eastern provinces have been wracked by armed groups for a quarter of a century.

In a statement issued in the runup to the annual UN General Assembly in New York, Mukwege said impunity for brutal crimes was entrenched and local people lived "in fear and horror."

Despite the regional state of siege imposed in May, "the security situation in these provinces does not seem to be improving," said Mukwege, a gynaecologist based in the eastern DRC. African News/AFP

Details: East Africa; 12 September 2021; 866

Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i. File/NationMedia

Dr Fred Okengo Matiang’i — the CS for Interior and Coordination of National Government — is a man of large appetites. He eats life with a spade, not a big spoon. He’s not the kind of man to be lost in a crowd. He fills every room — both literally and figuratively. The man from Nyamira has a sharp tongue and even a more cutting wit. I watched him perform before MPs a fortnight ago and concluded that he has a tonne of emotional intelligence.

He can skewer you with highfalutin lexicon. Among Kenya’s top politicians, he’s a rare true philosopher king. He’s carving out a space for himself and stands to reap big in the fullness of time. Let’s dig deeper.

Dr Matiang’i isn’t a novel face to Kenyans. He’s had his share of controversies since he joined the Jubilee state as a Cabinet technocrat in 2013. He’s been criticised by civil society as heavy handed. The low point came when he shut down the press during the self-swearing in of ODM’s Raila Odinga following the botched 2017 elections.

He’s cracked down on dissent and bulldozed some difficult decisions in the dockets under his charge. But this is clear – Dr Matiang’i is a no-nonsense public servant. He can duke it out with the best of them, and give as much as he gets. He’s not a shrinking violet. In fact, you get the impression he relishes a good fight.

The apogee of Dr Matiangi’s power came on January 22, 2019, when President Uhuru Kenyatta appointed him through Executive Order 1 of 2019 the chair of the innocuously named National Development Implementation and Communication Cabinet Committee. That mouthful of verbiage obscured a seismic shift in the hierarchy of the state. With the stroke of a pen, Mr Kenyatta rendered DP William Ruto nugatory.

Political prince

Dr Matiang’i effectively replaced Mr Ruto as the country’s numero dos, because that committee is composed of all the highest officials in the state. It runs the government and Dr Matiang’i — not Mr Ruto — sits atop it. Mr Kenyatta had made Dr Matiang’i deputy president in all but by title. A new political prince was born.

I have a confession to make. Dr Matiang’i for a long time worked for the State University of New York (SUNY) at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy as its Eastern Africa representative. SUNY is among the largest universities in the US and I teach at the University at Buffalo, one of its flagships. Dr Matiang’i and I also had a mutual friend, the late distinguished Africanist, Prof Joel Barkan, who wrote prodigiously on Kenya.

By all accounts, Dr Matiang’i was an excellent academic leader and policy wonk during his work with SUNY. He holds a PhD from the University of Nairobi. He’s one of the few accomplished, worldly, and erudite senior officials in the state.

Dr Matiang’i is among a minuscule cadre of younger leaders who could very well go all the way to the top in our lifetimes. There aren’t many high-profile competitors in that relatively youthful league, except Mr Ruto. He’s next in line after Wiper’s Kalonzo Musyoka, Narc Kenya’s Martha Karua, Amani’s Musalia Mudavadi, and ODM’s Raila Odinga. He’s in the next “starting 11” if he’s not a “starter” already.

I am not discounting Governor Kivutha Kibawana or Governor Charity Ngilu. But they are older than him. He’s in pole position because Kenyans only elect to the presidency those with executive experience, and he’s got lots of it. Those in civil society had better watch him and gain some executive experience.

I don’t think Kenyans had seen Dr Matiang’i in his true element until MPs “grilled” him over the supposed “downgrading” of Mr Ruto’s security detail. In a staccato but unflappable style, Dr Matiang’i took Mr Ruto and his brigand to the cleaners.

Massive riches

They say be careful what you wish for. Kenyans didn’t know the extent of Mr Ruto’s massive riches, or the cost to poor taxpayers who pay to guard him and his moolah, including his chickens. Nor that he’s arrogated unto himself the power to assign policemen to guard his friends. All in all, we learnt that Mr Ruto is protected by a whopping 257 armed GSU and police personnel – more than eight times his predecessors.

Dr Matiang’i calmly defrocked and exposed Mr Ruto as a “hustler” hypocrite who lives larger than the “dynasties” on state largesse. The man owns five helicopters, tens of thousands of acres of farms and land, and an eye-popping battery of private homes, hotels, and businesses.

It was a knockout by Dr Matiang’i. To prove his bona fides as a philosopher king, Dr Matiang’i coined a new term — sympathy addiction — a witty riff off “sex addiction” to describe Mr Ruto. Like or hate him, Dr Matiang’i is now firmly in the public’s zeitgeist as a possible future head of state. He’s the first Kisii since the late Simeon Nyachae with clear a shot. By Makau Mutua, Sunday Nation

Makau Mutua is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Margaret W. Wong Professor at Buffalo Law School. He’s chair of KHRC. @makaumutua.

Details: East Africa; 12 September 2021; 901

Uganda is pushing for vaccination before opening schools to while Burundi has opened schools after closing for three months. Photo via Nation

Schools in Burundi are set to reopen on Monday September 13, after a three-month long holiday, amid a surge in Covid-19 cases countrywide.

The Ministry of Health has imposed mandatory Covid-19 screening for students reporting back to school.

“The tests are mandatory for students in secondary school and boarding schools, the rest may go for the test voluntarily,” Jean Bosco Girukwishaka, spokesman for the Minister of Health told The EastAfrican.

Mass testing for students, teachers and staff members of boarding or secondary schools kicked off on Friday, and will run to Tuesday September 14.

“In the first week of September 2021 Covid-19 cases increased especially in Bujumbura and other towns in the countryside and this is as a result of not complying with already preventive measures against the pandemic,” reads a statement from the Ministry for Health.

According to the government’s Covid-19 report dated September 6, 2021 the daily average rate of new Covid-19 cases stood at 154, since July 21, 2021 the date when the highest number of new cases was recorded.

However, the situation is different in Uganda. Schools remain closed in the country to date, despite several hints by government officials and a slow successful teacher vaccination campaign initiated late August. Recently, First Lady Janet Museveni echoed President Yoweri Museveni’s stand that schools will only open if all the teachers and non-teaching staff were vaccinated

Since closure in May 2020, only a few classes such as the candidate and finalists have had in-person lessons. Students from the rest of the classes such as Senior 1 and 2 as well as Primary 1 have not been to school since.

And in a TV appearance recently, Information and National Guidance Minister Chris Baryomunsi and said while it won’t be long before schools are opened, clear safety measures will have to be put in place.

“Since we expect dozens of vaccines, we should be able to vaccinate as many people as possible,” he said. The Ministry of Education spokesperson Denis Mugimba, says about 183,000 teachers have been vaccinated out of 550,000 teachers targeted, in addition to about 180,000 non-teaching staff. - NELSON NATURINDA/MOSES HAVYARIMANA, The EastAfrican

Details: East Africa; 12 September 2021; 923

Col. Mamady Doumbouya led special forces into the presidential palace and deposed the country's 83-year-old president Alpha Condé
Doumbouya is a familiar figure to American forces who have help train 100 Special Forces members led by the Colonel and have worked with him for years
Due to the timing and the close relationship with the Colonel the current situation has been an 'embarrassment' for the Pentagon, the Times reported
A video of American solders smiling as they make their way to the U.S. Embassy on Sunday has led to suspicion of American involvement in the coup
Doumbouya's coup was most likely fueled by tensions within the defense establishment who deprived his Special Forces unit of resources

U.S forces were caught off guard when a Guinean colonel they trained turned out to be the mastermind behind the country's recent coup and is now the leader of the West African nation.

Col. Mamady Doumbouya has declared himself the new leader of Guinea after he led special forces into the presidential palace and deposed the country's 83-year-old president, Alpha Condé, on September 5, the New York Times reported.

He is said to have slipped away to mount the coup early Sunday, raising suspicions he did so while his US instructors were asleep.

They had been working with Doumbouya and other Guinean service personnel to train them in counterterrorism techniques, and to help them prop up their civilian government.

Guinea's new leader and his allies are said to have been angered after Condé successfully changed the country's constitution to enable him to serve a third term as president.

Doumbouya, once a close ally to Condé, is a familiar figure to American forces, who have been in the country since July to train a group of about 100 Special Forces members led by the Colonel and have worked with him for years.

Doumbouya (center) is a familiar figure to American forces who have helped train 100 Special Forces members led by the Colonel and have worked with him for years

83-year-old president Alpha Condé, (pictured) whose popularity in the country has been declining for years. was deposed

Kelly Cahalan, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Africa Command, told the Times the coup is 'inconsistent with U.S. military training and education.'

U.S. officials also told the Times, who obtained a photo of Doumbouya posing with U.S. military officials outside the American Embassy, they were 'puzzled' by his decision to stage a coup at a moment when he was working so closely with Americans.

U.S. officials said they were looking into reports that Doumbouya and his conspirators slipped away from the training base in the middle of the night while instructors were sleeping, the Times reported. By GINA MARTINEZ FOR DAILYMAIL.COM