REGIONAL DISCUSSIONS:

Spartan wrote:Over the past few weeks I've had musings related to why Francophone countries are doing a poor job securing their countries, from Mali, C.A.R, DRC etc and decided to do some digging on their inventories. And I wasn't alone. Turns out, most are modestly equipped. The problem isn't poverty or equipment, it's the mentality - they just haven't got the stomach to fight, even a good fight. I was pleasantly surprised Guinea, for example, is not doing very badly hardware-wise compared to Malawi a country of similar size (with Tanzania to contend with, potentially)

Guinean soldiers with mean-looking Russian-made troop carriers. But seriosuly, the guy above needs to retire (another systemic problem in Francophone armies, the ranks that form the foot soldiers are staffed with 40 - 50 year-olds)


Guinean Airforce Mi-24s

mchoraji wrote:I am surprised there are oil products shortage in ug allegedly due to the up-coming polls in kenya.here all is well & i haven't seen any cause for alarm.don't panic & hopefully there will be no disruptions.the extra cost element when products are fellied thr' the dar port is a problem that ug,rw,burundi & E. DRC shouldn't unnecessary bear

http://www.monitor.co.ug/Business/Commodities/Fuel-shortage-ahead-of-Kenya-elections-pushes-pump-prices-up/-/688610/1699734/-/4thrd8/-/index.html

Clashes between rival factions of the March 23 movement (M23) in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo have left 10 people dead.

The fighting broke out late on Sunday in the Rutshuru area because of differences within the ranks of M23 over the stance the rebels should take on the peace deal that was signed by regional leaders on Sunday in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, AFP reported on Monday.

A hospital source in the town of Rutshuru said that 10 people died in the clashes, while two injured men were taken in for medical treatment.

On Sunday, the eleven countries in the Great Lakes region of Africa signed a UN-mediated peace agreement meant to end the interminable cycles of violence that have been plaguing the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo for many years.

The leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia signed the peace deal, which paves the way for the deployment of a new military brigade to take on rebel groups fighting the Kinshasa government.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon attended the signing ceremony, but no representatives of rebel groups came to Addis Ababa.

In a meeting in the Mozambican capital Maputo on February 8, leaders from the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) approved the deployment of a 4,000-strong peacekeeping force, which would come from Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries, to Congo.

The force will be able to combat "whoever is trying to destabilize the situation in the eastern part of Congo," SADC Secretary General Tomaz Salomao said after the meeting.

The force would be contained within the existing UN peacekeeping force in Congo, known as MONUSCO -- the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In July 2012, Congolese President Joseph Kabila and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, along with other leaders from the Great Lakes region, signed an accord that called for the creation of a neutral international military force to combat rebels in the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu in the eastern Congo.

The agreement also called for the Great Lakes leaders to work with the African Union and the United Nations "for an immediate establishment of a neutral international force to eradicate M23, FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), and all other negative forces in eastern DRC, and patrol and secure the border zones."

The M23 rebels defected from the Congolese army in April 2012 in protest over alleged mistreatment in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC). They had previously been integrated into the Congolese army under a peace deal signed in 2009.

Since early May 2012, nearly 3 million people have fled their homes in the eastern Congo. About 2.5 million have resettled in Congo, but more than 460,000 have crossed into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.

Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few decades, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on since 1998 and left over 5.5 million people dead.

mogen wrote:In the meantime, Anglophone Cameroonians appear to be determined to keep throwing a spanner in the works.

http://www.africareview.com/News/Cameroon-Anglophone-separatists-up-the-stakes/-/979180/1705362/-/13jkl8t/-/index.html

mchoraji wrote:by the way the article i posted yesterday was from Press Tv.they have a follow up today on the link i am posting down. can anyone confirm if M23 are in-fighting? i don't really believe Press tv. it's usually an iranian govt. propaganda tool. when OLN started they were being used by al-shabaab kuingilia KDF but sometimes they get it right

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/02/27/290991/rocket-attack-kills-8-in-east-congo/

wrote:Breaking: Freelance militia in Kismayo allied to Somali gov disarmed and arrested by Kenyan AMISOM troops

ole Nkarei wrote:@Mogen - live Ops. Give it space to close out.

Agents Provocateurs. Recent flare up killed 18 of Merahan and Ogadeni - kwani how?

mogen wrote:

ole Nkarei wrote:@Mogen - live Ops. Give it space to close out.

Agents Provocateurs. Recent flare up killed 18 of Merahan and Ogadeni - kwani how?

Thanks bro. A little kijapo helps straighten rough edges in AK47-carrying bad boys>

ole Nkarei wrote:

mogen wrote:

ole Nkarei wrote:@Mogen - live Ops. Give it space to close out.

Agents Provocateurs. Recent flare up killed 18 of Merahan and Ogadeni - kwani how?

Thanks bro. A little kijapo helps straighten rough edges in AK47-carrying bad boys>

Its all about the SFG making determined efforts to either stop or influence the Federation of Jubba...

MOOZALENDO wrote:The SA police still keep setting new records. They must have some of the most callous and inhumane people indeed! Probably besting the apartheid police in fact. Have a look at this...
SA Police brutality'.....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukswmVSm8TE

How do you do that to a fellow even if they are from a neighboring country Bwana?

Mooz

Farah Jama wrote:Reports from Mogadishu say Somali Gov is preparing 2000 strong militia to attack #Kismayo city. The militia is led Gobaanle,a former warlord. If those reports over Mogadishu's military intervention are confirmed, Somalia may slide back into civil war again

Spartan wrote:All eyes and thoughts are on the Kenya elections here. A record number of Ugandan journalists are in Kenya to cover the polls. As for me, I am always tuned in on Citizen TV in the mornings on my office TV (to watch Naswa, that Kenyan version of Just For Laughs). Today I will have to tune in the whole time. The sudden silence by all security aficionados is very telling. Go ahead and do us proud.

Spartan wrote:All eyes and thoughts are on the Kenya elections here. A record number of Ugandan journalists are in Kenya to cover the polls. As for me, I am always tuned in on Citizen TV in the mornings on my office TV (to watch Naswa, that Kenyan version of Just For Laughs). Today I will have to tune in the whole time. The sudden silence by all security aficionados is very telling. Go ahead and do us proud.

Kenya


Kenya’s Election: What Uhuru Kenyatta’s Victory Means for Africa


By Alex PerryMarch 09, 2013113 Comments

SIMON MAINA / AFP / Getty ImagesSupporters of Kenyan presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta touch his picture on an election poster as they celebrate upon learning of his victory in Kenya's national elections on March 9, 2013 in Kiambu, north of Nairobi.



Uhuru Kenyatta, wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity, won election Saturday as Kenya‘s new President. The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission announced that Kenya’s richest man, the current Deputy Prime Minister and former Finance Minister, and the son of Kenya’s first President Jomo Kenyatta, won 50.07% of the vote — just marginally more than was needed to avoid a second round run-off. Kenyatta’s running mate Will Ruto, a second of the four Kenyans indicted by the ICC, is slated to become Deputy President. Turnout was a high 86%. With the margin of victory so thin, and the count plagued by days of delays and hundreds of thousands of spoiled ballots, Kenyatta’s main rival, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, has already said he will fight it in court.
If the result withstands Odinga’s challenge, a win for Kenyatta would represent the most stunning articulation to date of a renewed mood of self-assertion in Africa. Half a century ago, Africa echoed with the sound of anti-colonial liberation. Today, 10 years of dramatic and sustained economic growth and a growing political maturity coinciding with the economic meltdown in the West and political dysfunction in Washington and Europe, has granted Africa’s leaders the authority and means to once again challenge Western intervention on the continent, whether it comes in the form of foreign diplomatic pressure, foreign aid, foreign rights monitors or even foreign correspondents. In his victory speech, Kenyatta said: “Today, we celebrate the triumph of democracy; the triumph of peace; the triumph of nationhood. Despite the misgivings of many in the world, we demonstrated a level of political maturity that surpassed expectations. That is the real victory today. A victory for our nation. A victory that demonstrates to all that Kenya has finally come of age. That this, indeed, is Kenya’s moment.” He also pledged to work together with his political opponents with “friendship and cooperation.” “Kenya needs us to work together,” he said. “Kenya needs us to move on.” In a pointed warning to the international community, he added: “We expect the international community [to] respect the sovereignty and democratic will of the people of Kenya. The Africa star is shining brightly and the destiny of Africa is now in our hands.”
(PHOTOS: Scenes from Kenya’s 2013 election.)
The ICC, based in The Hague, is a particular focus of African anger. The court accuses Kenyatta of being one of four Kenyans who orchestrated the bloody tribal violence which followed the last election in 2007-8. After paramilitary police loyal to the incumbent Mwai Kibaki — also from Kenyatta’s Kikuyu tribe — stormed the counting center, and shortly thereafter officials declared their candidate the winner, the country erupted in weeks of killing in which around 1,200 died and tens of thousands were displaced. The ICC intervened to try to bring those most responsible for the violence to account after concluding Kenya was unable to do so for itself
But the ICC’s focus on Africa — nearly all of its investigations concern Africans — has earned it accusations of bias. And the manner in which the 2007-8 tribal violence was beamed around the world by the Western media, deterring tourists and overshadowing the story of an increasingly less impoverished, and more healthy, sophisticated and self-reliant Kenya, also drew widespread resentment. At this election, with a new 2010 constitution, and a new electoral body with a new — though not glitch-free — electronic voting system, Kenyans’ determination to hold a peaceful election has been palpable. The popular mood has also been notably anti-Western. Foreign diplomats have been warned of blood-curdling revenge should they interfere in the poll. Foreign journalists have been publicly ridiculed and denounced as prejudiced if they predicted chaos and disaster. And a central message of most candidates’ campaigns was strident, patriotic self-determination. Kenyatta and Ruto — who deny the charges brought by the ICC — managed to convert a Kenyan public that initially largely supported the ICC’s attempts to call them to account into one that viewed the ICC as a representative of unwarranted Western interference in African affairs. In the last days of the campaign, Kenyatta’s Jubilee Alliance reflected and heightened the anti-West mood, saying it was “deeply concerned about the shadowy, suspicious and rather animated involvement of the British High Commissioner in Kenya’s election.” Such assertions of sovereignty are only likely to intensify under a Kenyatta presidency. Ruto’s trial is due to begin on May 28, Kenyatta’s on July 9. Both men have said they will attend — a point Kenyatta repeated Saturday when he said his government would “continue to cooperate with international institutions.” Kenyatta has, however, said that his official duties would prevent their pair from being at The Hague continually — a pointed diluting of the court’s importance, and one that will likely drag out trials already expected to last several years.
From the West’s perspective, a Kenyatta victory presents a conundrum. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson, warned before the election that “choices have consequences,” widely seen as a recommendation that voters should back Odinga. London has already warned that it would keep official contact with a President Kenyatta to a minimum, as it does with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. But the reality is that, in a world where Kenya finds itself as much sought after as suitor, Western powers no longer get to call the shots in Africa. In many ways, and particularly in its home-grown innovations in mobile technology such as mobile banking and solar power, Kenya personifies the new, emerging Africa of young and dynamic entrepreneurs. Its position as East Africa’s business hub has only been enhanced by its recent discovery of large reserves of oil and gas. Kenya is also a lynchpin of the U.S. and European security structure in Africa, ranged as it is against Islamist groups and pirates, particularly in neighboring Somalia. Westerners rely on Kenya in other ways too: the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, is the base of choice for much of the international community in East Africa, from large embassies to aid group headquarters to donor conferences to security contractors. And should the West give Kenya the cold shoulder, it may find it is not missed as it once might have been: Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern and Latin American diplomats and businessmen are also part of the fabric in today’s Kenya.
In Washington last month, Carson’s predecessor at the State Department Jendayi Frazer warned Western leaders to be “pragmatic” in their approach to Kenya, adding she was “troubled” by Carson’s “very reckless and irresponsible” statement, which she called “essentially meddling in Kenya’s election.” The ICC case against Kenyatta “is a weak one and is based on hearsay,” she said in a public discussion at the Brookings Institution, and — in words that might have come from Kenyatta himself — she added the ICC itself was “a very manipulated institution, particularly by the West.”



Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/03/09/kenyas-election-what-uhuru-kenyattas-victory-means-for-africa/#ixzz2ND1hHIEk

mogen wrote:I read on Twitter

Farah Jama wrote:Reports from Mogadishu say Somali Gov is preparing 2000 strong militia to attack #Kismayo city. The militia is led Gobaanle,a former warlord. If those reports over Mogadishu's military intervention are confirmed, Somalia may slide back into civil war again

.


Anyone heard this from your contacts in Crazy Town/Kismayo?

mchoraji wrote:So kabila issues a threat to M23.without external help, is he really able to punish the M23 should they fail to heed his warning?

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/03/12/293122/congo-gives-m23-till-mar-15-to-disarm/