Day: July 4, 2022

Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi will meet his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, for talks in Angola this week, officials said Monday.

There were no details on what they would discuss, but the neighbors have been at diplomatic loggerheads since a surge of attacks in eastern Congo by the M23 rebel group — which Kinshasa accuses Kigali of backing.

Rwanda denies supporting the rebels and has, in turn, accused Congo of fighting alongside insurgents — a faceoff that has raised fears of fresh conflict in the region.

The meeting is likely to take place on Tuesday or Wednesday in Angola’s capital, Luanda, according to the officials — two of them from Congo and one Rwanda — who did not wish to be named.

Earlier on Monday, Kagame said he did not mind Rwanda being excluded from a regional military force set up in April to fight rebels in east Congo, removing a potential stumbling block to the initiative.

Congo had welcomed the plan but said it would not accept the involvement of Rwanda.

“I have no problem with that. We are not begging anyone that we participate in the force,” Kagame told Rwanda’s state broadcaster in a wide-ranging interview.

“If anybody’s coming from anywhere, excluding Rwanda, but will provide the solution that we’re all looking for, why would I have a problem?” Kagame said.

At the end of March, the M23 started waging its most sustained offensive in Congo’s eastern borderlands since capturing vast swaths of territory in 2012 and 2013.

Rwanda accuses Congo’s army of firing into Rwandan territory and fighting alongside the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, an armed group run by ethnic Hutus who fled Rwanda after taking part in the 1994 genocide.

Recent attempts to stop the violence militarily have proven unsuccessful, and in some cases backfired, security analysts and human rights groups say.

Despite billions of dollars spent on one of the United Nations’ largest peacekeeping forces, more than 120 rebel groups continue to operate across large swaths of east Congo almost two decades after the official end of the central African country’s civil wars.

Source: Voice of America

The West African bloc ECOWAS has lifted economic and financial sanctions against Mali’s military government after it vowed to hold elections in February 2024. The move was welcomed by many Malians who have been struggling under the restrictions and the global rise in fuel and food costs.

Early Monday morning, Bamako’s grand marché, or central market, slowly comes to life.

On Sunday evening, regional bloc ECOWAS announced the immediate lifting of economic and financial sanctions against Mali following a summit in Accra, Ghana.

The sanctions, imposed in January after military leaders delayed elections until 2026, were lifted after leaders announced a new election timetable in June with elections in 2024.

Mali is a landlocked country and depends on its ECOWAS neighbors for trade. The economic sanctions prohibited the trade of goods and closed borders between Mali and its neighbors, with exceptions for food, fuel and medicine.

Moussa Souare sells clothing in Bamako’s grand marché out of a small kiosk. He says his merchandise comes from Senegal, Benin and Nigeria — all countries that were cut off from Mali during the sanctions.

Taking a small break from speaking to clients, he says the sanctions made an already difficult situation worse.

Everyone works a little bit here and there to make a living, he says. Especially here, it’s a poor country. Our merchandise, it’s not made here. We don’t have those factories here.

In Bamako’s ACI 2000 neighborhood, a group of motorcycle taxi drivers gathered near a roundabout waiting for dispatches.

Seydou Coulibaly says he only began driving a motorcycle taxi, which pays little, because of a lack of available work in Mali. He says he hopes the lifting of sanctions will open up the country to more investment, and more jobs.

He says the sanctions were implemented, and we had a lot of difficulties. Different products became expensive, and there was also the rise in gas prices.

Though fuel was not subject to sanctions, gasoline prices have risen in Mali recently as they have worldwide.

Political analyst and political science professor Kalilou Sidibe says that though the lifting of sanctions is a turn in the right direction, it’s too early to say how the 2024 elections plan will play out.

For the moment, he says, the sanctions have been lifted. But the international community is watching the government. How will they proceed? How will concrete progress be made on the ground? It’s only after all of this that confidence can be re-established, he says.

The military government, which first took power in a 2020 coup, originally promised elections in February of 2022. It delayed elections in December 2021, citing lack of security.

Sidibe added that the management of Mali’s rampant insecurity will be an important issue for the junta and their ability to hold elections as promised.

With the lifting of sanctions, ECOWAS member states’ ambassadors will be able to return to Bamako. During the summit, ECOWAS leaders also agreed to a 24-month transition to civilian rule in neighboring Burkina Faso, which has also been under military rule since January. Burkina Faso and Mali have both seen increasing Islamist violence under military rule.

Source: Voice of America