Insecurity a top issue as African leaders meet in Ethiopia

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Written by northsouth

Category: Africa

Published: 05 February 2022

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ADDIS ABABA — African leaders are meeting Saturday at a summit that is expected to discuss the continent’s most pressing challenges, including a new wave of coups in West Africa and a slow response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, is also expected to gather support for Africa’s push toward permanent representation on the United Nations Security Council.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in his opening remarks called for cooperation among African nations in demanding two permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council.

“Today, more than seven decades after the creation of the United Nations, Africa remains a junior partner, without a meaningful input or role within the system of international governance,” Abiy said.

“We should collectively insist that Africa’s reasonable request for no less than two permanent seats and five non-permanent seats in the U.N. Security Council be adopted.”

Speaking via video link, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said cooperation between the the U.N. and the African Union “is stronger than ever.” Guterres noted that “injustice is deeply embedded in global systems,” with Africans “paying the heaviest price.”

“The unethical inequalities that suffocate Africa fuel armed conflict, political, economic, ethnic and social tensions, human rights abuses, violence against women, terrorism, military coups and a sentiment of impunity,” he said.

Most of the summit’s sessions will be held behind closed doors.

The African Union, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary in July, has often been criticized for its apparent inconsistencies in responding to sporadic crises on the continent of 1.3 billion people.

Ahead of the summit, the bloc’s most recent major decision was to suspend Burkina Faso after mutinous soldiers ousted democratically elected President Roch Marc Christian Kabore in a coup, citing his inability to stem Islamic extremist violence. That decision came after the West African regional bloc ECOWAS had suspended Burkina Faso.

West Africa’s new wave of coups began in 2020 in Mali, followed by another in Guinea the following year, and then Burkina Faso in late January. Just a week later, gunmen tried and failed to overthrow the president of Guinea-Bissau.

Elsewhere, there are deadly conflicts in countries ranging from Mozambique to Ethiopia.

The International Crisis Group said in a statement that securing a cease-fire in Ethiopia, supporting dialogue in the Sahel and reforming the African Union Mission in Somalia should be among the African Union’s priorities this year.

“It has been a turbulent year for Africa: tens of thousands killed in wars in the Horn of Africa, countries falling back under military rule, and struggles with faltering transitions and Islamist militancy,” the group said ahead of the Summit. “The (African Union’s) institutions must be able to tackle these problems, as well as climate change-related security threats.”

Human Rights Watch urged President Macky Sall of Senegal to focus on civilian protection, justice and accountability as he takes up the presidency of the African Union.

“Despite the challenges, Sall has an opportunity to demonstrate the AU’s leadership and commitment to its founding principles by taking bold, uncompromising stances against state-sponsored abuses, responding to victims’ calls for protection and justice, and pressing for equal and fair multilateral relations with the Global North,” Carine Kaneza Nantulya, Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

The African Union summit should prioritize addressing the rampant abuses occurring in the conflict in Ethiopia between fighters loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Ethiopian federal government and its allies, including Eritrea, the rights group said.

‘Plastic man’ has a cape and a superhero’s mission: cleaning up Senegal

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Written by northsouth

Category: Africa

Published: 21 January 2022

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DAKAR - Dressed head to toe in plastic, Modou Fall is a familiar sight in Dakar. But however playful his costume, his goal couldn’t be more serious: ridding the capital of the scourge of plastic bags, writes the New York Times.

Modou Fall, who works to educate fellow Senegalese residents about the dangers of plastic trash, making his case at the annual marathon in Dakar, Senegal, in November.

As the marathon runners stretched and took their places on the starting line, one man stood out, dressed, as he was, in plastic from head to toe.

A multicoloured cape made entirely of plastic bags swept the sandy ground. A hat constructed out of plastic sunglasses was perched on his head.

But this man, Modou Fall, was not competing in the annual marathon held in Dakar, Senegal’s capital, each November. He was participating in a different kind of race: one to save the West African country from the scourge of plastic waste that clogged its waterways, marred its white beaches and constantly blew across its streets.

With the marathon drawing large crowds and a major media presence, he could not pass up the chance the race presented to promote his cause.

Waving the Senegalese flag and carrying a loudspeaker from which spilled songs cataloging the damage caused by plastic — “I like my country, I say no to plastic bags” — Mr. Fall swished in and around the runners in his long plastic cloak as the race began.

Those at the race who stopped him to ask for selfies fell into his well-laid and oft-used trap: He seized every opportunity to give them a gentle lecture about environmental issues.

After the last group of runners had left the starting area, Mr. Fall and his team of volunteers began to pick up the empty water bottles and plastic bags they had left behind.

For the foreign racers and tourists the marathon brought to Dakar, this might have been their first encounter with Mr. Fall, but for local residents, he’s a familiar presence known as “Plastic Man.”
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He can often be seen dancing through the streets dressed in a self-designed and ever-evolving costume made entirely of plastic, mostly bags collected from across the city. Pinned to his chest is a sign that reads NO PLASTIC BAGS. It’s a fight he takes very seriously.

His costume is modelled after the “Kankurang” — an imposing traditional figure deeply rooted in Senegalese culture who stalks sacred forests and wears a shroud of woven grasses. The Kankurang is considered a protector against bad spirits, and in charge of teaching communal values.

“I behave like the Kankurang,” Mr. Fall said in a recent interview. “I am an educator, a defender and a protector of the environment.”

While plastic waste poses a severe environmental problem around the globe, recent studies have found Senegal, despite its relatively small size, to be among the top countries polluting the world’s oceans with plastic. This is in part because it struggles to manage its waste, like many poorer countries, and it has a large population living on the coast.

In an effort to reduce its share of pollution, the Senegalese government implemented a ban on some plastic products in 2020, but the country has had a hard time enforcing it. Senegal, with a population of about 17 million, is projected to produce more than 700,000 metric tons of mismanaged plastic waste by 2025 if nothing is done, compared with about 337,000 metric tons in the United States.
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Mr. Fall, 48, has been fighting against plastic waste for most of his adult life. A tall, quietly charismatic former soldier, he first noticed plastic’s damaging effects in 1998 during his military service. He was stationed in rural eastern Senegal, home to many herding communities, where he saw their cows getting sick after consuming the fragments of plastic bags that littered the arid landscape.

The herders would slaughter their valuable animals before they inevitably died. This way, at least, eating their meat would not be haram, or forbidden by Islam.

After his military service, Mr. Fall sold T-shirts and life buoys in Dakar’s busy Sandaga market, where dozens of traders displayed all kind of goods, often packed in plastic. Plastic bags were cheap and plentiful, and shopkeepers would toss them into the street with abandon, unaware of how they could harm the environment.

For months, Mr. Fall tried to get his fellow shopkeepers to recognize the environmental threat posed by using so much plastic, and if they did use it, to dispose of it properly. But nobody listened. The market was a mess.

Fed up, one day he decided to try leading by example. He would clean up the entire market on his own.

“It took me 13 days, but I did it,” he said.

The plastic eventually came back. But he’d succeeded in making some of the stall holders think twice.

And stopping the rising tide of plastic became Mr. Fall’s obsession. “If it continues like this, the lives of future generations are in jeopardy,” he said.

In 2006, Mr. Fall used his life savings, just over $500, to found his association, Senegal Propre, or Clean Senegal.

He planted dozens of trees across the city and held community meetings to persuade people to stop buying throwaway plastic. He organized cleaning and tire recycling campaigns in Dakar’s lively neighborhoods, his waste pickers dodging taxi drivers and street vendors as they went.

With the plastic waste they collected, Clean Senegal made bricks, paving stones and public benches. Old tires became couches that they sold for about $430 apiece — money that went toward more environmental efforts like planting trees at schools.

Other street vendors began to see the point of what he was doing, and joined in.

“I used to throw plastic bags or cups in the street after use because I wasn’t aware of the dangers it could cause,” said Cheikh Seck, 31, who sells sunglasses and watches in Pikine, his home suburb in Dakar. “Plastic waste is a global concern, and I am more than happy to contribute to the fight that Modou started.”

The plastic waste clogging up the ocean waters off Dakar has damaged fishing stocks, further decreasing the incomes of Senegalese fishermen already struggling against their waters being overfished. Plastic can also poison agricultural land.

Mr. Fall’s message seems to be catching on. At November’s marathon, the third one he has cleaned up after, some of the runners now knew his favorite slogan and yelled it to him as they passed: “No to plastic waste!”

Following much of the marathon route, Mr. Fall and his team of 10 young volunteers in green shirts and gloves fanned out for their cleanup operation.

They picked up water bottles outside Dakar’s pioneering Museum of Black Civilizations, which showcases one of Africa’s largest art collections. They collected hundreds of plastic bags on the leafy campus of Cheikh Anta Diop University. They found plastic cups in the thrumming city center, known as Plateau, home to the presidential palace and many embassies.

One of the neighbourhoods they passed through was Medina, built by the French during the colonial period, and where Mr. Fall was born. After his father died when he was 4, Mr. Fall’s mother moved the family to the suburbs. As a single mother, she struggled to make ends meet running a restaurant, and Mr. Fall had to leave school after only six years of primary education to support the family by taking jobs in metalworking and house painting. After his mother died, he joined the army.

By mid-afternoon of the marathon day, Mr. Fall and his team were staggering under the weight of the plastic they had collected. A van drove up and they handed over hundreds of plastic bottles.

The team took a short break for lunch. But not Mr. Fall. He was still focused on his mission. There were five miles to go along the race route, and he set off, his plastic cape floating around him.

South Africa Parliament chamber ‘completely gutted’ by fire

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Written by northsouth

Category: Africa

Published: 03 January 2022

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By GERALD IMRAY

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Fire crews have continued to work at South Africa’s national Parliament complex in Cape Town on Monday after a major fire blazed through the buildings a day earlier, causing extensive damage.

The main chamber of the National Assembly was “completely gutted,” City of Cape Town safety and security official J.P. Smith said, and parts of the roof had collapsed.

“The entire Parliament complex is severely damaged, waterlogged and smoke damaged,” Smith said.

Firefighters were still working on “hotspots” in the National Assembly building more than 24 hours after the fire started, Cape Town Fire and Rescue Service spokesman Jermaine Carelse said. But the fire crews had been scaled back from around 70 firefighters Sunday to 20 by Monday morning.

Other buildings in the complex were also damaged by the fire that started early Sunday morning and spread from an old Parliament building that now houses offices to the National Assembly building.

With grand columns and stately white and red brick buildings, the Parliament complex has been at the center of South Africa’s history for more than 130 years. Some of the buildings have weathered British colonialism, the apartheid regime and South Africa’s transition to democracy under the presidency of Nelson Mandela.

A man arrested Sunday is being questioned in connection with the fire, police said. He is to appear in court on Tuesday and is expected to face charges of breaking and entering, theft and arson, while he will also be charged under South Africa’s National Key Points Act, a security law controlling access to places of national importance and government buildings.

The man had to be rescued from the fire on Sunday, according to South African media reports. Parliament was closed for the holidays and no injuries were reported.

Patricia de Lille, the Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, said Sunday that someone had turned off a valve which prevented a fire sprinkler system from functioning.

She said an investigation into the cause of the fire has been taken over by the Hawks, a South African police unit that deals with serious and high-profile crimes.