GENERAL NEWS

Central Africa: Great Lakes Spy Chiefs in Kampala over Terror Threat

NEWS STORY

Source: The Star

By Adow Mohamed

13 July 2015 - INTELLIGENCE chiefs from the Great Lakes states will meet in Kampala, Uganda, tomorrow to discuss ways to counter the growing threats of terrorism in the region.

Kenya will be represented by NIS chief Maj Gen Philip Kameru.

Intelligence gathering and sharing is high on the agenda as al Shabaab continues to pose a threat.

The region, usually known as International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, are Kenya, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohammed said on Friday in Nairobi that the meeting will discuss the shared threats.

She said terror groups may take advantage of the humanitarian crises faced by many member states such as Burundi and DRC.

"Even as we take cognizance of the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in DRC, South Sudan, Burundi and the CAR, we should still pay sufficient and urgent attention to terrorism," Amina said.

The spy chiefs' meeting comes as intelligence sources say al Shabaab may announce allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

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BURUNDI

Burundi president's faces emerging armed rebellion as vote looms

NEWS STORY

Source: Reuters

By Edmund Blair

13 July 2015 - Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza may find an election victory he is assured of this month swiftly overshadowed by the emergence of an armed insurgency in a nation at the heart of one of Africa's most combustible regions.

After weeks of protests against the president's bid for a third term, a general involved in a failed coup says he is mobilizing troops, grenade attacks echo round the capital and armed clashes have erupted in the north of a nation still scarred by civil war.

"We are heading for trouble," said one senior Western diplomat, warning of a "slide back into a low-level conflict" after ethnically charged fighting ended just a decade ago.

Opponents say another five-year term is unconstitutional and are boycotting the July 21 vote, thereby assuring Nkurunziza of victory. Western donors and African neighbors have urged him to step aside.

Yet the rebel-turned-president has shrugged off the pressure, citing a court ruling saying he can run again.

"Political intervention to influence Nkurunziza to end his campaign for a third term failed," General Leonard Ngendakumana, a leader in the abortive May 13 putsch, told Reuters. "The only way to reach this objective is to use force."

In response, presidential spokesman Gervais Abayeho said any threat "will meet the full force our defense and security forces."

A flare-up in Burundi risks repercussions well beyond the borders of this tiny nation of 10 million people and will create fresh instability in a region with a history of ethnic conflict.

More than 145,000 Burundians - almost 1.5 percent of the population - have already fled across borders. The crisis could drag in regional players, like Rwanda, a victim of a 1994 genocide that has vowed not to let it happen again in the area.

The crisis is escalating. Grenade blasts in Bujumbura have become frequent. General Ngendakumana said his loyalists were behind assaults that targeted police, who opponents blamed for shooting and killing demonstrators.

In the north of Burundi, regional officials said the army last week fought gunmen, who Ngendakumana said were loyal to the coup leaders. A provincial governor said the group had crossed from Rwanda, a charge Kigali denied.

"ONLY OPTION"

"There is a clear move towards violent resistance," Thierry Vircoulon, an expert at International Crisis Group, said. "The opposition considers now that armed resistance is the only option left."

Burundi had been making a slow recovery from civil war that had pitted rebel groups from the Hutu majority against the army at the time commanded by minority Tutsis. The 12-year conflict, which erupted in 1993, killed about 300,000 people.

Such a huge toll in a small country might have made bigger headlines had it not been for a more brutal killing spree in 1994 in next door Rwanda that left 800,000 mostly Tutsis as well moderate Hutus dead. Rwanda has the same ethnic mix as Burundi.

"You can forget development," said the Western diplomat said of Burundi's crisis. "There will be lots of refugees and potentially the ethnic card could be taken up again."

Till now, ethnic polarization has been avoided. Protesters have come from both sides of the divide. The coup leader, General Godefroid Niyombare, is a Hutu, while Nkurunziza, of mix parentage, led a Hutu rebel force in the war.

But General Ngendakumana, another Hutu who fought under Nkurunziza and later became a top intelligence officer before he was fired in February, accused the president of stoking ethnic divisions.

In particular, he said the ruling party's youth wing Imbonerakure, widely seen as a Hutu force, had been armed. "This situation can lead to a genocide," he said in an interview.

The ruling CNDD-FDD party denies this, accusing opponents of provoking violence because they cannot win at the ballot box.

LACKING LEVERAGE

Yet reports of threats by Imbonerakure, often cited by those fleeing Burundi, have alarmed Western powers. One diplomat has called it the "scariest" element of the crisis.

Chastened by their failure to halt the Rwandan genocide, the United States and European Union have threatened sanctions on individuals behind Burundi's violence and have cut some aid to a nation that depends on donors to fund about half its budget.

Yet diplomats say they are struggling to find pressure points to change the government's course.

"It is incredible, this leverage doesn’t seem to work, at least on the real people involved,” said one senior diplomat.

African nations have also failed to haul the nation back from the brink, even though the African Union, often accused by critics of taking a timid line, bluntly refused to send monitors to the parliamentary poll in June, saying the vote would not be fair.

A group of east African neighbors and South Africa have demanded the presidential election be delayed to July 30 to allow for mediation, and said Imbonerakure and any other groups must be disarmed by military observers.

The government pushed back the vote, but only to July 21, saying the constitution would not allow a further delay, while the observers have yet to be deployed.

"The region was not able to do conflict prevention and will have to do crisis management," said Crisis Group's Vircoulon. "Managing the crisis will be more costly."

Burundi’s Opposition to Boycott Presidential Poll

NEWS STORY

Source: VOA

By James Butty

13 July 2015 - Burundi’s opposition FRODEBU Nyakuri party said it will not take part in the country’s July 21 presidential election.

A decree signed by President Pierre Nkurunziza moved the election from July 15 to 21 at the request of East African Community (EAC) leaders.

But FRODEBU Vice President Frederic Bamvuginyumvira said one week is not enough to repatriate tens of thousands of refugees who have fled the country, re-instate independent media, and allow exiled politicians to return in time to take part in the election.

But, Bamvuginyumvira said his party will take part in the mediation efforts of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, appointed a week ago by the EAC to facilitate a dialogue between the government and opposition. He said the opposition wants to remind Museveni of his role in the making of the Arusha Agreement ending Burundi’s civil war.

“It is understandable to postpone election for one week. It is not possible during one week to solve a problem of arms which are disseminated in the country. The second problem is that we have to repatriate Burundians who fled Burundi to surrounding countries. The third problem is that we have some political leaders who are today outside of our country,” he said.

Bamvuginyumvira said FRODEBU will not take part in the election claiming the independent media, through which the opposition can make its case to the voters has been destroyed and some of its owners forced to flee.

“We do not have private media to give Burundians the same information that is given by the public media. So, if we want to balance information, we need both private media and public media. This is a problem which cannot be solved in six days,” Bamvuginyumvira said.

But Bamvuginyumvira said his party will take part in Museveni’s mediation efforts. He said, even though the Ugandan leader has been running his country for 29 years, the FRODEBU wants to take part to remind the Ugandan leader about the 2006 Arusha accord.

“What we know as Burundians is that President Yoweri Museveni attended the meeting where we discussed the Arusha Peace Accord and reconciliation. We will be there to remind him that, ‘Mr. President, you know you have been to Arusha to discuss among Burundians. You remember you advised us to have reconciliation between the Hutus and the Tutsis, and you said Hutus should participate in the government,’” he said.

Nkurunziza’s decision to stand for a third consecutive five-year term has sparked months of violent protests because the opposition said a third term is a violation of the Arusha peace accord.

Mamvuginyumvira dismissed government claims that some of the violence has been perpetrated by opposition supporters. Instead, he said, the ruling CNDD-FDD youth wing, known as Imbonerakure, is responsible for most of the violence.

“We have never been behind the violence because, when we have demonstrations in Bujumbura, everybody knows that they [are] only peaceful demonstrations. We know who (is) behind the violence. We have young people from ruling party – CNDD-FDD -- who are behind the violence because they have guns, they have all the means to make violence,” he said.

Burundi military: 31 suspected rebels killed, 170 captured in recent fighting

NEWS STORY

Source: Associated Press

By Gerard Nzohabona

Bujumbura, 13 July 2015 - Burundi's army killed 31 suspected rebels and captured 170 others in fighting in the country's north, a military spokesman said on Monday.

The fighting, which comes amid political unrest over the president's controversial bid for a third term, has raised fears of a return to civil war in this central African country.

Military spokesman Col. Gaspard Baratuza told a news conference in northwestern Cibitoke province that six soldiers were wounded in recent fighting with suspected rebels, and that nearly 80 assorted weapons were seized.

Canesius Ndayimanisha, governor of northern Kayanza province, said that suspected rebels carried out two attacks inside Burundian territory on Friday after entering the country through the dense Nyungwe forest on the Rwanda border.

Burundi has been tense since April when the ruling party nominated President Pierre Nkurunziza to be its candidate in presidential elections later this month.

Unrest boiled over into a military coup in May that was quickly put down by pro-Nkurunziza forces, but at least 77 people have died in sporadic protests in the capital, Bujumbura, by civilians who say Nkurunziza must go after serving the two constitutionally-allowed terms. The nation's constitutional court has ruled in the president's favor, saying he is eligible for a third term because he was chosen by lawmakers — and not popularly elected — for his first term.

The U.N. human rights chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein told the U.N. Security Council last week that "the risk to human life, and to regional stability and development, is high" as a result of escalating politically motivated violence and Burundi's history of recurring bloodshed and atrocities.

Burundi Claims Rwanda Aiding Rebels

NEWS STORY

Source: Daily Nation (Kenya)

By Kevin J. Kelley

13 July 2015 - The head of a Washington lobbying firm representing Burundi's government said on Saturday that Rwanda is providing arms and logistical support to opponents of Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza.

The allegations by Joseph Szlavik, head of Scribe Strategies & Advisors, followed reports of fighting between government troops and an unidentified armed group near Burundi's border with Rwanda.

Rwanda has denied involvement in the growing rebellion inside Burundi.

Scribe is being retained by Burundi's government to argue in the US in support of Mr Nkurunziza's decision to seek a third term as president in a vote now set for July 21.

Mr Szlavik noted in an interview with the Nation that the Burundian leader's right to run for re-election had been affirmed in May by the country's Constitutional Court.

"Western powers call for respect for the rule of law, and this was the ruling by the Constitutional Court of Burundi," Mr Szlavik said.

The United States opposes Mr Nkurunziza's bid for a third term on the grounds that his candidacy violates a provision in Burundi's 2005 internal peace agreement limiting a president to two terms.

Scribe will file a required lobbying disclosure form with the US Justice Department regarding Burundi later this week, Mr Szlavik said. The amount of compensation for his firm's work is still being negotiated, he added.

Mr Szlavik's group has already begun lobbying on behalf of the Burundi government, having arranged a series of meetings in Washington last month for Foreign Minister Alain Nyamitwe. The outcome of the minister's talks with US government officials was that "they agreed to disagree," Mr Szlavik said.

LOBBYING CONGRESS

He also told the Nation that Scribe recently signed a $250,000 (Sh25.5 million) deal with the Ugandan government to lobby the US Congress, influence media coverage of Uganda and assist Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa in his role as president of the United Nations General Assembly.

Scribe will play no role in defending Ugandan laws criminalising homosexual relations, Mr Szlavik said.
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