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
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
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
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.
Kenyans in the Diaspora are doing great work to develop their own country. Some are into housing projects, finance and others embarking on different ventures. However, a different initiative known as Diaspora University Town Project is set to be a breath of fresh air as it is unique, dynamic and with great potential to transform and improve the economy.
Diaspora University Town Project is a jobs creation venture focused on housing development and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. It is a project developed based on the human resource productivity approach that has in the last 40 years, since 1980, progressed the growth of the World Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from about $18 trillion to over $80 trillion.
The project is developed by Diaspora Kenyans, Ndara B Community and Partners. The goal of the project is to achieve Kenyans social and economic constitution rights of food, housing, healthcare, education, information communication technologies, clean environment, children rights and others through jobs creation.
The jobs creation plans include building of University, Town, Medical Hospital, Medicine Vaccine Plant and 500 Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The construction of the aforementioned will ensure 20,000 Jobs or more are created and a town settlement of 30,000 residents developed. The university town development plan will develop a town GDP of about Kshs 20 billion ($200 million).
The 30,000 residents of the town will benefit from the housing plan that is based on Kenya Constitution 43. (1) Every person has the right— (b) to accessible and adequate housing, and to reasonable standards of sanitation. (d) to clean and safe water in adequate quantities.
Diaspora University Town House Development plan has a budgeted production cost of each house. A house will be produced based on an individual developer capital input and a loan capital input as set up by the DUT THIDA system.
The project development system further integrates jobs creation and houses development such that those who get jobs in the town have accessible and adequate housing. The system is setup to ensure no slums and unclean, unhealthy environment results.
The project master development plan (MDP) applies jobs creation and housing development systems that are based on GDP growth. These systems are similar to those that create jobs and develop housing in countries that Diaspora Kenyans migrate to.
The University project is a plan founded and developed by Diaspora Scholars and will apply the WPI project-based learning approach. Led by Prof. Phillip Mutisya in Raleigh, NC more than 30 scholars are already working on the project. This plan is expected to create about 10% of the town jobs.
The University Medical Hospital project is developed by healthcare professionals in the Diaspora whose goal is to achieve the healthcare envisioned by Kenya Constitution 43. (1) Every person has the right— (a) to the highest attainable standard of health, which includes the right to health care services, including reproductive health care; (2) A person shall not be denied emergency medical treatment.
The medicine and vaccine plant plan by Daktari Biotechnology Ltd. is led by scientists Dr. Wilson Endege of Boston, MA and Dr. Benson Edagwa of Nebraska. The scientists are applying their technologies and intellect to innovate COVID, HIV, Malaria and Other drugs that will be produced at the plant.
Prof. Arch. David Mwale of Riverside, CA has designed the Medicine and Vaccine Plant based on the land allocated at Diaspora University Town. Diaspora Kenyans and Kenyans in Kenya are investing to build the plant.
Kenyans, especially Ndara B Community members, are excited and happy that Kenya scientists have the technologies and have started to work on the medicine and vaccine products that will make Kenya a producer of medicine and vaccines. The medicines and vaccines will help increase the life expectancy rate of Kenya.
“If you can imagine it, you can achieve it,” is a quote that continues to progress nations and people to be achievers. The imagination that every person should contribute toward the development of the U.S led to the jobs creation that grew the U.S. economy from $57 billion GDP in 1933 to the current $21 trillion GDP.
Diaspora Kenyans who are part of DUT are today imagining a Kenya where every Kenyan is contributing gainfully toward the development and sustenance of Kenyans and Kenya. They see their role as one of opening up Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that create jobs as Kenyans produce goods and services that advance Kenyans rights.
The biggest resource lost in Kenya is the human resource. Every day and year, millions of hours are lost to unproductivity or underproductivity. With about 80% of the 25 million Kenyan workforce unemployment and underemployed the human resource lost is currently estimated at Kshs 25 trillion.
It is through jobs creation and making the human resource productive that those working achieve their rights of housing, healthcare, education, clean water, clean environment, children rights and other rights.
The housing deficit is estimated at 3 million units. In next 10 years there is a need of another 3 million units. This means that in the housing sector the production needed is for about Kshs 30 trillion if every family right of housing is to be met in next 10 years.
The other resource lost is the Diaspora cash resource. From 2004 to 2020, the 17 years CBK records show the total Diaspora Remittances as $22.43 billion dollars (About Kshs 2.3 trillion.) In the last 5 years 2016 – 2020 the Diaspora remittances are recorded by CBK as $12.25 billion dollars (About Kshs 1.2 trillion.) About 50% of Diaspora remittances that would have created jobs went to donations.
The Diaspora Kenyans developing DUT are today asking fellow Diaspora Kenyans to invest their money in jobs creation. The goal is to have about 5% of the projected remittances of $30 billion remittances in the next 10 years (About $1.5 billion or Kshs 150 billion) be applied in DUT projects.
To encourage the Diaspora and to ensure the Diaspora make a return, DUT Credit has been started with a goal to be part of Kenya credit or loan advances grow. Kenya deposits from 2015 to 2020 grew from Kshs 2.3 trillion to Kshs 4 trillion deposits. This was a growth of Kshs 1.7 trillion in 5 years. The deposits growth supported loan advances growth from Kshs 2 trillion to Kshs 2.6 trillion. A growth of Kshs 600 billion.
DUT projection is that Kenya deposits fueled by jobs creation, houses development and GDP growth will pass the Kshs 10 trillion before 2030 and loan advances will reach Kshs 8.5 trillion as SMEs take loans to create jobs and good houses are built.
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