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mobby_6kl posted:Aand "[Security advisor] Dasuki 'stole $2bn' from anti-Boko Haram fight", apparently: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34855695 I don't think anyone was surprised at this news. 
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Nov 19, 2015 01:01
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Tesseraction posted:I do have to ask, is there anything positive Goodluck Jonathan actually achieved in office? I pulled an absurd paycheck from him for a year. South-south gettin' whiney since their dude is gone. I think this is more important than Boko Haram tbh https://www.facebook.com/radiobiafra/?fref=nf
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Nov 19, 2015 08:15
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So more terrorists holding hundreds hostage at once, this time in Mali. I'm hearing that right now a few people managed to escape, so maybe the counterassault is working?
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Nov 20, 2015 18:06
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Boko Haram posted:So more terrorists holding hundreds hostage at once, this time in Mali. I'm hearing that right now a few people managed to escape, so maybe the counterassault is working? The latest news is that the hostage situation is over with the remaining people holed up in the hotel freed after special forces cleared the hotel floor by floor. Seems the gunmen, may be three of them, have holed up on the seventh floor. Estimates of about 27 dead from unofficial sources. Ansar Dine seen to be main suspect now according to sources, to my knowledge this is the first time they've explicitly targeted foreigners (the hotel in question was a preferred one for foreign visitors) and this is the most sophisticated attack they have ever staged in the capital.
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Nov 20, 2015 18:14
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Actually scratch that Al-Mourabitoun have claimed responsibility. Also, the gunmen are dead
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Nov 20, 2015 18:24
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I've never heard of Al-Mourabitoun and Google isn't turning up much other than that they were formed after the recent Malian civil war from a few radical North African Islamist groups. Does anyone know much about them?
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Nov 20, 2015 18:59
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Slaan posted:I've never heard of Al-Mourabitoun and Google isn't turning up much other than that they were formed after the recent Malian civil war from a few radical North African Islamist groups. Does anyone know much about them? Al-Mourabitoun is the union of two groups, MUJWA and a splinter faction of AQIM loyal to veteran insurgent Mokhtar Belmokhtar who has clocked in time in Afghanistan and Algeria and has built a reputation as a competent commander. Both groups originated within al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, with MUJWA splitting off under the command of Mauritanians and Malian Arabs who attempted to shift the focus away from AQIM's Algerian/Arab-centric leadership to entice Black Africans to their cause (though they still retained good links with their mother organization as far as anyone can tell) Belmokhtar is more of a surly fellow who got into AQIM's bad books by pretty much completely ignoring the leadership and doing things under his own power, something that didn't exactly go down well with AQIM's commanders in Algeria when he was off messing around in Northern Mali. There are reports he is married to a Tuareg and has built support among some tribes based on this, he was cooperating rather closely with MUJWA before Al-Mourabitoun were formed. Both groups where heavily involved in smuggling both they merged, much more so than probably any other insurgent groups in Northern Mali. Belmokhtar pulled in a large amount of money from trans-Sahara cigarette smuggling, which AQ apparently found to be a tad distasteful, and MUJWA are apparently knee deep in the trans-Sahara drug smuggling network - they controlled the key smuggling node of Gao until the French/Malian operations drove them out of the town. Al-Mourabitoun aren't exactly considered the biggest threat in Mali though. Ansar Dine, which draws its leadership from Tuaregs and largely sees MUJWA and Belmokhtar as foreign interlopers in Mali, have been gradually uniting various jihadist factions in the North and have managed to cause several MUJWA commanders to defect to them and have severely undermined Al-Mourabitoun, whittling them down to a handful of holdouts. This attack seemed more like their handiwork as it specifically targeted foreigners and seemed to be an attempt to take hostages, something that Belmokhtar and his followers are well known for. It's something more out of their playbook than any of the local groups. kustomkarkommando fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Nov 20, 2015 |
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Nov 20, 2015 19:50
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Jagchosis posted:
I know this was a while ago, but surprise! The referendum won with 92% of voters supporting the constitutional change. quote:Sassou Nguesso ruled the Central African country from 1979 until 1992, when he was defeated in a presidential election. His rule resumed five years later after his forces defeated the then-president in a brief civil war. Thanks Christoph.
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Nov 29, 2015 16:14
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Kenya doesn't gently caress around with their hostile situation drills. quote:A security drill at a Nairobi university has led to the death of a staff member after many panicked when security forces used what students thought was live ammunition to stage a pretend attack on the school.  http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/mass-panic-kenyan-university-stages-terror-drill-151130125615364.html
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Dec 1, 2015 17:37
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I think I'm a little incredulous that somebody thought that was a good idea.
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Dec 1, 2015 17:43
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And I thought it was crazy when my high school did "lock down" drills where they had "active shooters" roam the halls with nerf guns shooting people who didn't fall the school shooter plan.
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Dec 3, 2015 20:31
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Tesseraction posted:I think I'm a little incredulous that somebody thought that was a good idea. There have been several university massacres there in the last few years. I can see why they would want to prepare more for it, though not warning the university was incredibly dumb, yeah.
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Dec 4, 2015 02:29
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Slaan posted:There have been several university massacres there in the last few years. I can see why they would want to prepare more for it, though not warning the university was incredibly dumb, yeah. My understanding was that it was the university that put the drill together. They just didn't give anyone a heads up, including staff.
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Dec 4, 2015 08:06
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kustomkarkommando posted:
Oh man, I remember this! There was a hilariously whiny AQ memo captured about how he was ruining all their wonderful plans by not following policy, and as I recall, also being bad at accounting. 
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Dec 4, 2015 10:05
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Slaan posted:There have been several university massacres there in the last few years. I can see why they would want to prepare more for it, though not warning the university was incredibly dumb, yeah. Oh yeah I can understand the drills, but running into a populated area appearing to be firing off real guns in a place where gun massacres are a legitimate thing to be worried... that's the kind of thing that has someone deservedly smacked round the head.
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Dec 4, 2015 10:46
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Burundi back in the international headlines after the biggest outbreak of violence in Bujumbura since the failed coup bid back in May, with armed assailants (so far unidentified) launching co-ordinated attacks on Military bases around the capital. The military is claiming 90 people have died, though most sources are stating that the majority of bodies where found in opposition neighborhoods (some with their arms tied behind their backs) - something that has become a trend since Nkurunziza's third term began, people disappearing and then turning up dead dumped in the streets. Since we last touched on Burundi there have been a couple of notable developments. One of the major ones was the Bujumbura Disarmament back at the start of November which gave civilians a few weeks to hand over any privately held weapons or face being treated as enemies of the state, when the deadline passed Nkurunziza ordered a series of security sweeps throughout the capital focusing specifically on opposition neighborhoods - the lead up to the expiration of the disarmament deadline saw thousands flee the capital fearing the subsequent security forces crackdown. In the last few months the unrest in Burundi has shifted away from street protests and riots and moved towards gun battles and assassinations, the disarmament has done little to curtail the violence:  source Nkurunziza seems to have become increasingly paranoid, preferring not to stay in the presidential palace. There has been a wave of assassinations targeting senior military figures since the election so you could say that his paranoia is justified and it's clear there are some concerns from the President's inner circle that a second coup attempt could be in the works, there have been claims that the assailants in several of these high profile assassination attempts where wearing military fatigues. I think I mentioned it before but generally the Burundian army are held up as a model of post-conflict rebel integration and are considered one of the more stable state institutions, uniting members of the FDD (the military element of Nkurunziza's CNDD-FDD) and former members of the pre-Ashura armed forces (referred to as ex-FAB). The coup back in May was organised by a CNDD-FDD aligned general and was put down with the assistance of ex-FAB personnel but it seems that as the security situation has become increasingly unstable Nkurunziza has begun purging/sidelining ex-FAB officers fearing a possible coup from within their ranks. Good piece on this here: IRIN News posted:“There is an increased crackdown on members of ex-FAB who are accused of being behind the killings of police and army officers in Bujumbura,” Anschaire Nikoyagize, president of the Burundian League for Human Rights, told IRIN. There has been a renewed push in the UN to look into possibly sending peacekepeers to Burundi considering the continuing violence (some people have talked about a threat of a repeat of the Rwandan genocide but this doesn't really fit the conflict as it is developing, it's primarily political and not ethnic). Targeted sanctions have been introduced by the US, EU and AU, a lot of international donors have suspended direct aid to the government already. Nkurunziza has attempted to placate international critics by setting up a new body, the Inter-Burundian Dialogue Commission, with the aim of negotiating a peaceful settlement - though the CNDI (to use the French acronym) was immediately blasted by the largest opposition faction CNARED, an umbrella organization formed in exile, as members are appointed by the President and all talks are held within the country without international mediation (though Uganda is apparently helping oversee the process, though if you remember some of the past posts on South Sudan that may not be a good thing...). Nkurunziza also effectively banned the 10 largest civil society groups in the country, who had all been involved in protests against his third term, accusing them of involvement in the failed military coup. This means that the CNDI is made up largely of church figures, a handful of representatives from NGOs that escaped the government's ire and reps from opposition political parties outside of CNARED - hardly a recipe for successful peace talks. Blue helmets might be on to their way to Burundi some time soon, something that is darkly ironic considering Burundi's hefty contribution of peacekeepers to Somalia. However most plans for dispatching peacekeepers to Burundi I've heard have involved peeling away numbers from the UN contingent in the Eastern Congo which seems like a pretty dumb idea but whatever
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Dec 13, 2015 17:33
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kustomkarkommando posted:wordsss Brother KKK, do you have any insight into the history behind the current tensions between the central Somali government and Puntland w/ escalating border violence and militarization this past month?
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Dec 15, 2015 01:37
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Can't see all of this going particularly well for Nkurunziza unless he plans on going full-hog dictator. Which would end up just as bad, really.
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Dec 15, 2015 17:23
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The gently caress is going on in Nigeria? e: I mean, holy poo poo, I've heard news of up to a thosand Shia muslims massacred? my dad fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Dec 15, 2015 |
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Dec 15, 2015 18:07
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 (that is the daughter of Jose Eduardo dos Santos)
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Dec 20, 2015 19:21
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surrender posted:
your
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Dec 20, 2015 21:46
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Which one?
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Dec 20, 2015 22:13
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Do you seriously not know who Nicki Minaj is dude? I know you're American.
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Dec 21, 2015 16:06
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Rwanda has given a resounding thumbs up to third termism with the constitutional referendum to extend term limits passing with 98% in favour, paving the way for Kagame to not only serve another seven year term after his current one expires in 2017 but also a fourth and fifth term (though these have been reduced from 7 years to 5 years). Some grumpy mumbling from donor countries but I doubt it will go anywhere.
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Dec 21, 2015 17:46
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Time for another Burundi update - this time with even more crisis! The AU has made a very significant move on December 17th by announcing the formation of the African Prevention and Protection Mission in Burundi (MAPROBU), a 5,000 strong preventative military forced mandated to: African Union Peace and Security Council posted:(a) prevent any deterioration of the security situation, monitor its evolution and report developments on the ground; (b) contribute, within its capacity and in its areas of deployment, to the protection of civilian populations under imminent threat; (c) contribute to the creation of the necessary conditions for the successful holding of the inter‐Burundian dialogue and to the preservation of the gains made through the Arusha Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Burundi; (d) facilitate, in collaboration, as appropriate, with other international actors, the implementation of any agreement the Burundian parties would reach, including, but not limited to, the disarmament of militias and other illegal groups, the protection of political personalities and other actors whose security would be threatened; and (e) protection of AU personnel, assets and installations; What makes this particularly note worthy, and has caught many AU observers by surprise, is a paragraph that may signal the AU breaking new ground: African Union Peace and Security Council posted:(ii) Urges the Government of Burundi to confirm, within 96 hours following the adoption of this communiqué, its acceptance of the deployment of MAPROBU and to cooperate fully with the Mission, with a view to facilitating the effective discharge of its mandate... With Article 4(h) being: AU Constitutive Act posted:the right of the Union to intervene in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely: war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity This has been seen as a rather unprecedented act by the AU, they have previously balked at invoking Article 4(h) to mandate humanitarian interventions when the topic was previously floated in Libya and Darfur. The fact the AU are seriously threatening to invoke Article 4(h) and intervene in Burundi against the government's will has raised more than a few eyebrows. Of course these threats wouldn't mean anything if Burundi accepted the deployment of MAPROBU but, unsurprisingly, they told them to gently caress off: M&G posted:“Burundi is clear on the matter: it is not ready to accept an AU force on its territory,” deputy presidential spokesman Jean-Claude Karerwa told news wire AFP on Sunday. A stance reiterated by Nkurunziza himself only a few days ago: The Guardian posted:“Everyone has to respect Burundi borders,” Nkurunziza said on Wednesday in comments broadcast on state radio. So where exactly does this leave the AU's threat to intervene? The AU has made it pretty clear in the past they would seek a UNSC resolution for any enforcement actions so the ball is technically in the UNSC's court to see if they will back up the AU's implicit threat and give them the green light to proceed. Of course, this could all just be some particularly muscular coercive diplomacy, it still seems pretty outlandish to imagine the AU intervening in a member state militarily. There has been some talk about the exact composition of MAPROBU with the general consensus being that it will probably be drawn from the African Standby Force which has been slowly spooling up to full operational capacity over the last couple of years and now seems ready to be deployed, Burundi could very well be its first deployment and such a rapid preventative deployment would align nicely with South African ambitions for the force (though they might not be so keen to push ahead with an intervention without state permission). More words on MAPROBU and some wonky stuff here. The sudden escalation in the stakes didn't go unnoticed and almost immediately after Burundi responded to the AU's statement Uganda, backed the EAC and UN, announced a recommencement of the stalled peace talks that they spearheaded shortly before the election.  Museveni to the resuce The talks reconvened on December 28th in Entebbe and promisingly members of CNARED, the largest opposition coalition in exile, where invited to attend and designated as the official representation of the Burundian opposition. As I've mentioned earlier Nkurunziza has refused to talk with CNARED as they support armed resistance and are thus condemned as terrorists by the government. Their inclusion in the peace talks seemed to offer a real prospect of significant movement but it seems this may have been a bit premature as after the first day of talks the Burundian government released this statement:  quote:The delegation of the government of the Republic of Burundi deplores that an organization not recognized by Burundian law has been invited to speak on behalf of the entire Burundian opposition In light of this statement it looks like the talks may have already broken down - it seems Nkurunziza may have been caught off guard by the invitation to CNARED and is pulling out of the talks completely which again raises the issue of international retaliation. If the government does refuse to attend the second round in 4 days in Arusha (a symbolic location for talks as it was the location for the 1998 peace agreement that ended the civil war) there will be increased pressure for the international community to respond and their options are dwindling. A major focus of the recent rounds of talks was apparently to try to extract some kind of deal to allow for the deployment of MAPROBU with governmental permission, if no such deal can be extracted the issue of intervention will remain. Something that has been raised which seems likely is Burundi being kicked out of AMISOM, the African Union Mission In Somalia. Burundi is a major contributor to the force and it's contingent's salaries are covered by the AU. Kicking Burundi out of the force and making it pull its roughly 5,000 troops back to the country where they would have a sudden and sharp reduction in salaries could severely Nkurunziza inner circle and standing with section of the military. But of course the risk that a sudden influx of military personnel landing in the country to find themselves not being paid months could lead to further defections to the opposition and splits within the military, which could intensify the violence. It would be a gamble but it's one of the few obvious plays the AU/UN has at the moment.  Edward Nshimirimana, leader (?) of Les Forces Republicaines du Burundi Another important development in the last couple of weeks was the announcement of an organized insurgent group, Les Forces Republicaines du Burundi (The Republican Forces of Burundi) or Forebu. An audio announcement was made by Edward Nshimirimana, a former army colonel, who has apparently defected with other militarily personnel to create Forebu with the aim of ousting Nkurunziza. Forebu is the first explicitly named insurgent group in Burundi, so far opposition attacks seem to be relatively nebulous and perpetrated by un-named assailants who the government prefer to label "Sindumuja terrorists" - Sindumuja being a Kirundi word adopted by the anti-third term protesters before the election to represent their movement that roughly means "I am not a slave" (of course the government adopting Sindumuja as a label for armed insurgents is a handy way to paint all opposition activists as terrorists). The relationship between Forebu and the remnants of Godefroid Niyombare's failed coup is not exactly clear, I haven't managed to pin down much about Nshimirimana's background (whether he was a member of the military during the Civil War or aligned with Nkurunziza's own insurgent group at the time) so it's not clear if Forebu is merely the official organization of the various groups responsible for the grenade/gun attacks in previous months or if they represent a new and seperate organization. Though Niyombare remains in the wind we haven't heard anything from him in months and the supposed leader of the anti-government insurgents is another surviving coup plotter Leonard Ngendakumana, who gave an interview back in July reiterating his support for armed resistance and was recently targeted for personal sanctions by the USA who directly connected him to various incidents alongside another opposition figure Alexis Sinduhije. Ngendakumana hasn't said anything yet re: Forebu so again the relationship isn't exactly clear.
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Jan 2, 2016 19:39
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Amnesty International has put out a report documenting evidence that Nkurunziza's security forces dug mass graves for victims of violence on December 11th.
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Jan 29, 2016 09:44
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Would the current unrest in Burundi give the Abahuza party any more of a higher profile? Burndian monarchists assert that republican Burundi has led to increased civil strife and tribal conflict, which is hard to deny given genocides in the Seventies and Nineties and multiple periods of prolonged civil war including the one we have now, and that a neutral Ganwa monarchy could bridge the Hutu-Tutsi divide. Could a restoration be a realistic third way given the near-constant warring over the presidency or does no-one think in those terms?
kapparomeo fucked around with this message at 10:38 on Jan 29, 2016 |
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Jan 29, 2016 10:36
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In Uganda news, Mousevini has claimed victory in recent elections with 60% of the vote, and celebrated by having the looser arrested and held at an undisclosed location. Democracy!
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Feb 22, 2016 08:50
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Constant Hamprince posted:In Uganda news, Mousevini has claimed victory in recent elections with 60% of the vote, and celebrated by having the looser arrested and held at an undisclosed location. Democracy! Nietzschean politics can be rather involved 
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Feb 22, 2016 13:05
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Well you see anti-FGM campaigners are the real oppressors andquote:Countries that have banned female genital mutilation (FGM) should allow less invasive practices such as small surgical nicks to girls' genitalia as a compromise, two American gynecologists said on Monday.
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Mar 3, 2016 18:02
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kapparomeo posted:Would the current unrest in Burundi give the Abahuza party any more of a higher profile? Burndian monarchists assert that republican Burundi has led to increased civil strife and tribal conflict, which is hard to deny given genocides in the Seventies and Nineties and multiple periods of prolonged civil war including the one we have now, and that a neutral Ganwa monarchy could bridge the Hutu-Tutsi divide. Could a restoration be a realistic third way given the near-constant warring over the presidency or does no-one think in those terms? Someone will have to lead and operate the institutions which represent the supposedly neutral Ganwa monarch. Any ethnic issue will just be transformed into new forms, rather than fighting over who is president they'll coup each other over who gets to be Head Chamberlain or whatever. Let's also remember that all these African states where historically run by monarchies, and it's not like ethnic and tribal conflict/wars didn't exist before.
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Mar 3, 2016 19:16
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because the individual human is an acceptable loss in the greater culture war, you see
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Mar 3, 2016 20:41
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I just finished reading the article...I think it's probably going to be accepted as correct. The (poor) harm reduction argument is stronger than the (horrific) cultural relativist argument. There's this unpleasant comparison to circumcision running through part of the article that the authors equivocate on, as well.
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Mar 3, 2016 21:17
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I first heard of that article and thought it was a compromise in places with no laws preventing FGM to try and prevent serious damage. I had no idea it was calling for re-legalisation of stage 1 FGM, ugghhh. I mean, I get that it's to stop back-alley surgery but it feels like this is more an admission of defeat than a long-solution.
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Mar 3, 2016 21:20
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Here's the article, for folks who are interested. My response as a bioethics person is a) I disagree strongly with many of the leveraged arguments, and b) this is a pretty good example of why I stay far away from international bioethics issues and anything that can in any way reference the male circumcision Choice quote, emphases mine: quote:Regrettably, academic and public health consideration of non-therapeutic FGA has been hampered by several issues. First, there is no recognised nomenclature based on the functional effects of each of the several procedures that may be employed to alter female genitalia. Second, discussion often is infused with a strong cultural and gender bias against FGA in all forms. Third, grouping all forms of FGA in discourse and condemnation assumes that all FGA procedures carry the same risks, which is medically inaccurate. Finally, authors arguing against all forms of FGA construe the concepts of beneficence and non-maleficence narrowly with regard to their scope, and too broadly with regard to their applicability. On the one hand, they argue that physical well-being trumps social and cultural well-being. On the other hand, they argue that concepts originally used to apply to the actions of physicians are equally applicable to parents. My favorite part is where the authors come up with an FGA classification system and promote a policy based on reducing harms that uses this classification, but can't tie the system to actual practice rates or particular procedures. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Mar 3, 2016 |
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Mar 3, 2016 21:27
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Well since this thread has been resurrected, have some news: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/joseph-kony/12182422/Joseph-Konys-LRA-abducts-scores-of-child-soldiers-in-new-wave-of-attacks.html http://www.africanews.com/2016/03/03/surge-in-lra-children-abductions-in-central-african-republic/ quote:The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has abducted 217 people since January in the Central African Republic (CAR), a campaign group has said. 
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Mar 3, 2016 23:31
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I must say Kony 2012 has been a rousing success.
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Mar 3, 2016 23:39
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The fact that some countries, like the USA, still practice genital mutilation is horrible.
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Mar 3, 2016 23:51
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The Belgian posted:The fact that some countries, like the USA, still practice genital mutilation is horrible. There's no need to force your personal ideology of celibacy onto others.
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Mar 3, 2016 23:53
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US carried out its biggest operation in Somalia since Black Hawk Down, killing 150+ al-Shabaab militants thru air raids in the north of the country, claiming that al-Shabaab had been preparing an imminent large scale operation as the justification
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Mar 7, 2016 22:15
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