GENERAL NEWS

Down but not out for the count: The besieged term limit in Africa is fighting back

OPINION

Source: Mail & Guardian Africa

2 September 2015 - A few weeks back the term limit in Africa looked to be out for the count - the victim of a barrage of body blows as incumbents either successfully muscled through additional terms, or set the stage for their staying put.

The most stunning appeared to have been landed from Rwanda, where lawmakers said that they could only find 10 people nationally who opposed suggested constitutional changes to allow president Paul Kagame to run for a third term in power when his current second lapses in 2017.

Having steadied the Rwandan ship following the genocide, Kagame went on to pick up a string of accolades for steering the dramatic rebuilding of the country, despite accusations of being authoritarian, he had looked set to ensure his legacy would be spoken of in revered tones had he handed the baton.

His neighbour, Burundi’s Pierre Nkurunziza, in July pushed his way through the criticism into a third term in office, arguing that his first term was not by an election as he had been picked by parliament. He drew sympathy from African Union chair Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s only leader since 1980, who said leaders should be allowed to continue “if people want” as two terms could seem like two weeks.

Botswana’s Ian Khama also weighed in: “It doesn’t matter how you got there. At the end of the day, once you sit in the office and you assume all the functions and duties of that office, you are serving your term,” he said. “In my opinion, he (Nkurunziza) has served two terms”, Khama, whose country has term limits and who is serving his own second and last, said as he last month took over the rotating leadership of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The blows have kept coming. In the often obscure Republic of the Congo, president Denis Sassou-Nguesso last month sacked two ministers who opposed plans by the ruling party to change the constitution to allow him run for a third term next year.

In close by Democratic Republic of Congo, the opposition says it fears incumbent Joseph Kabila is planning to run for an illegal third term in elections set for late 2016.

While Kabila has yet to say if he will step down, protests in January claimed more than 30 lives in demonstrations against a law that provided for a census before the November 2016 vote, seeing it as a ploy to extend his term by at least two years. The law was eventually amended by parliament, but has done little to allay concerns of opponents, their sentiment being that it is only a tactical retreat.

Then there are those countries where term limits were long stamped out by veteran incumbents.

Sudan’s Omar al Bashir was in April re-elected with nearly 95% of the vote, extending his quarter-century rule, in an election boycotted by the main opposition parties.

Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni is up for re-election early 2016, having been in power since 1986, and only a major upset would see him leave office. In Ethiopia, where there is no term limit for the executive prime minister, the ruling party claimed 100% of the parliamentary seats.

And even regional bloc ECOWAS put forth a suggesting for limit caps, which was hastily shot down by Togo and The Gambia.

Momentum

The momentum of the debate has seemed to be in favour of the “stability” proponents, both the intelligentsia and the ordinary voters, leading to US president Barack Obama to half-jokingly quip that while he felt he would also win a third term, “the law’s the law”.

“When a leader tries to change the rules in the middle of the game just to stay in office, it risks instability and strife, as we’ve seen in Burundi,” Obama said at the AU headquarters in late July.

But despite all arrayed before it, it would appear the term limit has not yet been completely knocked out, as it shows stirrings of something akin to a floored pugilist looking to clamber back up.

And it has come from both likely—and unlikely—sources.

On Sunday, the transitional government in the Central African Republic adopted a new constitution that would limit future presidents to two terms in office as the country seeks to end more than a year of sectarian violence.

The new charter would cap the president’s mandate to five years that can only be renewed once and cannot be prolonged for any reason, and would create a new senate to help govern.

With Tanzania headed for tightly-contested elections next month that incumbent Jakaya Kikwete would leave after the end of his second term mandate was never in doubt.

In Mauritania, despite President Ould Abdel Aziz having come to power through a coup in 2008 and winning re-election in a ballot boycotted by the opposition last year, the ex-general has said he had no intention of modifying the Constitution to remain in power after the end of his second mandate in June 2019.

“I never thought of changing the Constitution”, he told reporters in Nouakchott, the Mauritanian capital in March. The country’s law stipulates non-renewable two presidential mandates of five years.

Tightened up

In other countries, the two-term limit, while being upheld, is also being tightened up.

Liberia is set to put to a referendum a proposal to cut the presidential tenure from six to four years as part of a package of constitutional reforms. A national constitutional conference recently voted by a majority to back the shortened limit.

In March, Senegal president Macky Sall says he was proposing a referendum that would cut his presidential term from seven to five years.

“I was elected for seven years (but) next year, I will propose the organisation of a referendum for the reduction of my mandate,” he told a news conference with foreign media in Dakar.

“Have you ever seen presidents reduce their mandate? Well I’m going to do it,” Sall told the meeting, making good on a pledge which formed part of his election campaign in 2012.

“We have to understand, in Africa too, that we are able to offer an example, and that power is not an end in itself,” he added. Under current law, elections are scheduled for 2019, but Sall wants them held two years earlier, although he has been non-committal on whether he would stand for a second term.

At the World Economic Forum in June, South Africa’s Jacob Zuma and Ghana’s deputy president slammed leaders who broke term limits.

There is still life in the brigade seeking to limit presidential service, it seems.

And while having limit stipulation is different from observing them, the renewed movements around around the continent would suggest that it is a debate that is far from over.

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DRC

North Kivu militia leader Ngoa Bisire surrenders to UN Mission

NEWS STORY

Source: Xinhua

Kinshasa, 1 September 2015 - The leader of Raia Mutomboki militia Ngoa Bisire and four of his family members over the weekend surrendered to the UN Mission for Stabilization of Congo (MONUSCO) in North Kivu province, an official source said Monday.

"The surrender is the fruit of dialogue on peace and security that was initiated in this part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo)," North Kivu's Deputy Governor Feller Lutaichirwa revealed.

Bisire and four of his family members were transferred to MONUSCO's Demobilization, Disarmament, Reintegration and Repatriation camp in Munigi within the same province.

Elsewhere, some sources told Xinhua tension was rising in Ntoto locality within the same region where three people were abducted by a group allied to another rebel leader Delphin Mbaenda de Kifuafua who is opposed to militia fighters surrendering to provincial authorities.

The eastern part of DR Congo has been characterized by multiple conflicts between various militia groups who have been fighting over control of villages and territories.

The DR Congo army, supported by the UN forces, have launched numerous operations in the zone to end the attacks carried out by these militia groups against the civilian population.

On Saturday, one of the militia leaders, Bede Rusagara, succumbed to injuries he sustained during clashes with the DR Congo forces in the east of the country.

DR Congo ‘terminator’ warlord Ntaganda’s ICC trial to open

NEWS STORY

Source: AFP

Former Congolese warlord Bosco “Terminator” Ntaganda goes on trial Wednesday before the International Criminal Court for war crimes including the rape of child soldiers within his own rebel army.

1 September 2015 - The former leader of rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who turned himself in in 2013, faces 18 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity at his highly-anticipated trial before The Hague-based court.

Prosecutors say Ntaganda played a central role in savage ethnic attacks on civilians in the mineral-rich and restive northeastern Congolese province of Ituri in 2002-2003, in a conflict rights groups believe has left some 60,000 dead since 1999.

Ntaganda “recruited hundreds of children... and used them to kill and to die in the fighting,” ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said.

Girl soldiers were “routinely raped,” the prosecutor added.

But she brushed aside criticism that the court was targeting just one ethnic group for prosecution. “This trial is about Bosco Ntaganda and how he took advantage of the ethnic tensions in Ituri to gain power and money,” she said.

Prosecutors have collected 8,000 pages of evidence and plan to call some 80 witnesses -- 13 of them experts and the rest victims.

Three of the victims to take the stand will be former child soldiers in Ntaganda’s rebel Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (FPLC), their lawyers said.

‘Innocent’

Ntaganda’s lawyer Stephane Bourgon said his client would seek to prove his innocence before the ICC’s judges.

“Mr Ntaganda maintains his innocence in respect of every charge laid against him. He intends to present a thorough defence,” Bourgon told a press conference at the ICC’s fortress-like headquarters in a suburb outside the city on Wednesday.

Ntaganda is “in good shape, he’s doing fine, he is looking forward to having a chance to present his case.”

It is the first time since the ICC opened its doors in 2003 that a suspect will be charged with raping and abusing women and children fighting within his own militia.

“Bosco Ntaganda is not only known... in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but also outside the region due to his reputation as a notorious person whose behaviour has raised alarm far beyond the Great Lakes region,” Bensouda told journalists.

‘The Terminator’

Ntaganda, 41, was once one of the most-wanted fugitives in Africa’s Great Lakes region until he unexpectedly walked into the US embassy in the Rwandan capital Kigali in March 2013 and asked to be sent to The Hague.

He was the founder of the M23 rebel group that was defeated by the Congolese government in late 2013 after an 18-month insurgency in the vast Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu region.

Observers say Ntaganda was most likely fearing for his life as a fugitive from a rival faction within M23, but his motives for surrendering to the ICC remain unclear.

Also nicknamed “The Terminator”, the once-feared rebel commander known for his pencil moustaches, cowboy hats and love of fine dining, faces 13 counts of war crimes and five of crimes against humanity. He has already pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The court had issued two arrest warrants against Ntaganda—the first in 2006 and the second with additional charges in 2012.

He had managed to evade capture mainly because he had remained a powerful commander.

The Rwandan-born Ntaganda is accused over his role in attacks on a number of Ituri towns over a year starting in September 2002.

His former FPLC commander Thomas Lubanga was sentenced to 14 years in jail in 2012 on charges of using child soldiers, one of only two convictions by the court since it was set up 12 years ago.

Born in 1973, Ntaganda is among a dozen Africans who have been in the custody of the ICC, a court criticised for apparently only targeting leaders from the continent. His trial is set to be complex and last several months.

Congolese child soldiers to give evidence against ‘warlord’ Bosco Ntaganda at The Hague

NEWS STORY

Source: The Telegraph (UK)

Children allegedly co-opted to fighting over mineral wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo among witnesses lined up in bid by International Criminal Court to secure rare conviction

1 September 2015 - Scores of Congolese child soldiers are due to give evidence at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the coming weeks against a man nicknamed The Terminator and held up as one of Africa's most brutal and feared warlords.

Bosco Ntaganda, 41, a former rebel commander in the mineral-rich and restive northeastern province of Ituri in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, faces 18 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity including the rape and abuse of women and child soldiers by his troops.

He was accused of presiding over abuses over a year between 2002 and 2003 but remained at large for a decade when he unexpectedly walked into the US embassy in Rwanda after the collapse of then rebel group, the M23.

As chief of military operations for the Union of Congolese Patriots, he is said by former child soldiers to have “led from the front” in a series of ethnic massacres, torture, rape, and the recruitment of children, some as young as seven, during a conflict linked to control for lucrative gold mines in the area that claimed an estimated 60,000 lives.

The ICC issued its first arrest warrant for him in 2006 but he was absorbed into the Congolese army in 2009 as part of the peace process and made general.

For years, the mustachioed, cowboy-hatted commander enraged foreign diplomats and rights groups with frequent appearances on tennis courts and at the top restaurants in the regional capital, Goma.

However, the ICC trial and conviction of his former UPC commander, Thomas Lubanga, embarrassed the Congolese government and paved the way for his detention.

Mr Ntaganda’s trial, which begins at The Hague-based ICC on Wednesday, is a major test for the 12-year-old tribunal which has been severely criticised by African leaders for unfairly focusing its efforts on the continent.

All nine of its investigations to date, resulting in the indictment of 36 people, hav