DRC

At least 20,000 infected in southeast Congo measles outbreak - UN

NEWS STORY

Source: Reuters

By Aaron Ross

Kinshasa, 12 August 2015 - A measles outbreak in the copper-mining Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 315 people and infected at least 20,000, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

Hundreds more deaths have likely not been documented due to difficulties accessing remote areas, The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a draft report on the province's worst outbreak of the disease since 2010-11.

"The measles epidemic in the province of Katanga is only worsening and gaining ground," said the report seen by Reuters.

More than $2.4 million will be needed to organize vaccination drives and treat those already infected in the southeastern province, it said.

Some 1,085 people died and about 77,000 were infected in the 2010-11 epidemic, according to a study in the scientific journal BMC Infectious Diseases.

The industrial copper and cobalt mining zones in the province - Africa's leading producer of both metals - have been largely untouched by the current outbreak as they lie hundreds of kilometers south of the worst affected areas.

Measles is a highly contagious virus that can lead to deadly complications like diarrhea, dehydration, respiratory infection and encephalitis.

Mortality rates are low in developed countries but can rise to as high as 20 percent in poorer countries, according to medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

It costs about $1 in developing countries to vaccinate a child against measles.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warned last November that progress toward wiping out measles has stalled worldwide due to poor vaccine coverage.

Access to healthcare is low in Congo, which ranks 186 out 187 on the U.N. Human Development Index.

République démocratique du Congo: répression avant la présidentielle

OPINION

Source: El Watan.com

13 août 2015 - Pays de la région africaine des Grands Lacs, la République démocratique du Congo (RDC) risque de connaître la même situation que son voisin, le Burundi. D’où l’inquiétude de la communauté internationale. Selon l’AFP, les Nations unies ont hier appelé Kinshasa à cesser «immédiatement» les arrestations extrajudiciaires en RDC, estimant qu’elles nuisent à la «crédibilité» du processus électoral. «Chaque arrestation extrajudiciaire de membres de la société civile, acteurs politiques ou média, confirme la tendance à la restriction de l’espace politique» alors que le pays doit entamer en octobre un cycle d’élections, a déclaré le directeur du Bureau conjoint des Nations unies aux droits de l’homme (BCNUDH), José Maria Aranaz. «Il faut arrêter toutes les arrestations extrajudiciaires immédiatement pour éviter l’impact négatif sur la crédibilité du processus électoral», a-t-il ajouté.

Mardi, le BCNUDH s’était dit «très préoccupé» par la disparition depuis samedi à Kinshasa de Bienvenu Matumo, l’un des militants les plus actifs du mouvement Lutte pour le changement (Lucha) et diplômé de la première promotion de la nouvelle Ecole nationale d’administration (ENA). Lucha a indiqué mardi que, en mars, Bienvenu Matumo avait «fait l’objet de recherche par l’Agence nationale de renseignement (ANR), parce qu’il avait participé à l’organisation de l’atelier de lancement de Filimbi», qui se présente comme un collectif de mouvements d’éducation à la citoyenneté, non-partisan et non-violent. Le 15 mars, une trentaine de personnes ont été arrêtées lors d’une réunion d’échanges sur la bonne gouvernance en Afrique organisée par Filimbi. Toutes ont été relâchées à l’exception de Fred Bauma, de Lucha, et Yves Makwambala, webmaître et graphiste du groupe Filimbi, qui attendent la reprise de leur procès pour «complot contre la personne ou la vie du chef de l’Etat et tentative de renversement des institutions».

Le porte-parole du gouvernement, Lambert Mende, a indiqué que Kinshasa n’était pas informé de cette affaire : «J’ai l’impression qu’il y a des montages de ces jeunes, de ces petits malins. (...) Nous ne savons rien du tout, rien du tout.» De son côté, dans un appel hier à une «action urgente», Amnesty International estime que la disparition de B. Matumo ressemble à des cas «où de jeunes militants et défenseurs des droits de l’homme ont été soumis à une disparition forcée en RDC, avant qu’ils ne soient relâchés ou formellement inculpés».

L’organisation en question appelle à contacter les ministres concernés (Intérieur, Justice) et le chef de l’ANR afin que, s’il est bien détenu, B. Matumo soit relâché ou inculpé «rapidement», qu’il ait accès à un avocat et ne soit pas exposé à la «torture et autre mauvais traitement».

Le mildiou du pouvoir

Le climat politique est tendu en RDC à l’approche de la présidentielle prévue en novembre 2016, à laquelle le président Joseph Kabila, au pouvoir depuis 2001, ne peut se représenter selon la Constitution.

En janvier, principalement à Kinshasa, plusieurs dizaines de personnes ont été tuées au cours de manifestations violentes, réprimées par les forces de sécurité.

Les manifestants dénonçaient un projet de loi électorale qui aurait pu permettre à J. Kabila de se maintenir au pouvoir au-delà de la fin de son deuxième mandat. Des présidents de pays africains comptent modifier la Constitution pour rester au pouvoir. Au Rwanda, pays voisin de la RDC, le Parlement a donné mardi son feu vert pour réviser la constitution pour permettre au président Paul Kagamé de briguer un troisième mandat. Le même jour, le président tchadien Idriss Deby Itno [a] évoqué sa possible candidature à une réélection dans la perspective de la présidentielle prévue en 2016, alors qu’il est depuis 25 ans au pouvoir suite à un coup d’Etat :

«Vingt-cinq ans, c’est long. Si j’avais la possibilité de m’assurer que le pays marchera après moi, je quitterais aujourd’hui même le pouvoir. Si mon départ pouvait renforcer la paix, la sécurité et la concorde, j’aurais pris mes vacances.» Et d’ajouter : «J’appartiens au Mouvement patriotique du salut, le moment venu, il appartiendra à ce parti de désigner son candidat. Toutes les dispositions sont prises de manière à ce que les élections se déroulent dans la transparence libre et démocratique (…). Quitter pour quitter le pouvoir et laisser le Tchad dans le désordre, je ne le ferai pas.» Au Congo Brazaville, les partisans du président Denis Sesso Nguesso activent dans le même sens.

President Kabila’s Plan to ‘Slide’ Into a Third Term Causes Jitters in DRC

OPINION

Source: http://afkinsider.com/101751/president-kabilas-plan-to-slide-into-a-thir...

11 August 2015 - To take the political pulse of this sprawling, mineral-rich country, head to the busiest stretch of Lumumba Boulevard, one of the capital’s main roads. On weekdays, a large crowd gathers here to peer at the newspapers posted on an eight-foot-high wall and loudly trade opinions on the news of the day.

Recently, the shouting has been about President Joseph Kabila’s plan to carve the country’s 11 provinces into 26, which many Congolese see as a ploy to delay the coming presidential election and allow Mr. Kabila to “slide,” as people here say, into a third term.

“We already know these are political maneuvers,” said Theo Balsomi, an unemployed college graduate, as he jostled with others to get a look at the newspapers on a recent afternoon. “Knowing the reality of our country, we have lived through many regimes. We won’t allow Mr. Kabila to slide for even a second. The whole population would oppose that.”

Mandated in 2006, the plan to split the provinces lay dormant until the president revived it in March. The new provinces have been named, but elections for governors and other leaders have yet to be held.

Before voting for a new president in 2016, the Democratic Republic of Congo must go through a series of elections on the local and provincial levels. Mayors, village chiefs and councils must be named, and deputies and governors need to be elected in the provinces. The longer this process takes, the more likely the presidential race will be postponed.

Under Congo’s Constitution, the president is limited to two terms. However, delays in the packed electoral calendar, which is already months behind schedule, are stoking fears that a postponed presidential election could allow Mr. Kabila to stay in power for months or even years longer.

Rwandan rebels kidnap 6 Tanzanian Muslim leaders in DR Congo, demand $20,000 ransom

NEWS STORY

Source: Mail & Guardian Africa

This could be awkward for Tanzania, which in the past called on Rwanda to negotiate with the rebels now turned kidnappers.

12 August 2015 - THE kidnappers of six Tanzanian imams and their Congolese driver have asked for a ransom of $20,000, a source from the Congolese Islamic Community (COMICO) said Tuesday.

The six Tanzanian imams and their Congolese driver were kidnapped on Aug. 2, 2015, by men suspected to be members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in Rutshuru territory, North Kivu province in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo).

“Currently, they have been located in Rutshuru forest. There are people following them. Their kidnappers are asking for a ransom of $20, 000,” COMICO coordinator El Hadji Masudi said.

“We do not have money, but we hope they will be released soon,” he said, adding that “our Tanzanian brothers had come to preach.” Civil society groups in North Kivu have equally expressed concern over the abduction.

“This is an unfortunate incident because the kidnappers may destroy our country’s good relations with Tanzania, making us look like enemies of our Tanzanian brothers,” said Thomas Mwiti, the president of North Kivu civil society groups. Mwiti revealed that close to 500 people had been kidnapped in Rutushuru territory since the beginning of this year.

This development can only [be] awkward for Tanzania. In 2013, Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete, called on Rwanda to open political negotiations with the FDLR, drawing a remarkably angry response from Kigali.

Rwanda sees the FDLR as no more than remnants of the forces that carried out the genocide that killed nearly million people in the country in 1994.

Relations between the two East African neighbours soured considerably in the immediate aftermath. Tanzania at that time listed the FDLR as “freedom fighters.”

To complicate matters, Tanzania is the lead contingent of the UN’s special UN Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) - the first UN peacekeeping unit mandated to neutralise armed groups in the DR Congo - under the wider and much-maligned peacekeeping operation Monusco.

Deadlines to disarm the armed groups, including FDLR, have come and passed without significant action against them. Kigali blames FIB’s ineffectiveness against FDLR on the ambivalence of Tanzania and South Africa, another key member of the force, suggesting they have sympathies for the rebels.

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RWANDA

Rwandan General Expected Home From UK Following Release

NEWS STORY

Source: The East African

11 August 2015 - The head of Rwanda's National Intelligence and Security Services Lt Gen Emmanuel Karenzi Karake is expected to return home in less than 48 hours after a UK court dismissed a case to have him extradited to Spain to face charges.

Gen Karenzi Karake was arrested in June in the UK on a European arrest warrant issued based on indictments of a Spanish Judge accusing the Rwandan General and 39 others of committing crimes against humanity.

On Monday, a court in London dismissed the case on grounds that the Spanish arrest warrants were not connected to Britain in anyway, despite the UK having earlier said that it had a legal obligation as an EU country to effect the arrest warrants.

According to Rwanda's Justice Minister Johnston Busingye, who was in London to oversee the procedure, the decision by the court means that Mr Karake is free to return home and continue battling the charges from Rwanda.

"We said it from the beginning that this case was flawed and had no basis. We will keep fighting. This was and remains an unjust case," Mr Busingye said from London.

Earlier reports had indicated that the charges had been dropped but it was later confirmed that the case against Mr Karake, who was out on conditional bail, was dismissed under a clause in Britain's Extradition Act, which caters for crimes committed on British soil or against British citizens.