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Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates top news and analysis from and about the African continent.
African leaders used this week’s virtual United Nations General Assembly to call for international support to help their economies recover from the coronavirus pandemic, pushing for debt cancellation and up to $ 100 billion in annual support over the years. next three years.
From a health perspective, the continent appears to have weathered the pandemic better than many experts predicted, recording just 5 percent of global cases and 3.6 percent of deaths. But Africa’s economies have been hit by extraordinary steps governments took to curb the spread of the virus. South Africa saw its economy shrink by 51 percent in the second quarter of the year, and Zambia has started to default on its debt. The continent is projected to slide into its first recession in a quarter century.
As new COVID-19 cases decline and testing capacity continues to improve, more African governments are easing restrictions and struggling to revive their economies. But many administrations lack the funds to push for a quick revival, as leaders like Alassane Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire warned in their video speeches to the General Assembly this week. Ouattara called on “African partners to take bolder action.”
G-20 members have already agreed to suspend all debt payments until the end of the year, but some countries have been reluctant to accept the offer, fearing that it would lower their credit ratings and actually worsen their long-term economic prospects. . . Others have said that the suspension has not released enough cash to adequately deal with the crisis. In his speech to the General Assembly, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi said that the international community now needs to “take other decisions with a view to completing [debt] cancellation.”
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, speaking in his capacity as president of the African Union, framed the continent’s requests for debt cancellation and financial support as a “comprehensive stimulus package.” He also specifically called on global powers, including the United States and the European Union, to lift sanctions against Sudan and Zimbabwe, to help accelerate their economic recovery.
Economic relief was not the only item on the agenda at this week’s remote General Assembly. Ramaphosa was one of many African leaders who used his video speeches to reiterate demands for a permanent African seat on the UN Security Council.
Stay up-to-date on the news from Africa with our selected Africa news cable daily.
Here is a summary of news from other parts of the continent:
North Africa
Libya: The Libyan National Army, the dissident militia fighting the internationally recognized Libyan government for control of the country, said it killed the leader of the Islamic State in Libya during a raid in the southern city of Sabha earlier this month. An LNA spokesman said Abu Moaz al-Iraqi was among the nine militants killed in the attack. The Islamic State has not confirmed the death of al-Iraqi, who took over command of its Libyan affiliate in 2015. The extremist group, made up of former al-Qaida militants who have taken advantage of the chaos in Libya after the 2011 ouster under President Moammar Gadhafi, briefly seized the key port city of Sirte in 2015. Although its activities have declined since then, the Islamic State has continued to launch irregular attacks in the capital Tripoli.
east africa
Ethiopia: A prominent opposition figure, Jawar Mohammed, was one of 24 people charged over the weekend with crimes related to terrorism and other crimes stemming from the violence that erupted in July following the murder of a popular singer who criticized the government. . Attorney General Gedion Timothewos said 2,000 people could still face charges related to the violent demonstrations in the capital Addis Ababa and in the sprawling Oromia region. More than 180 people died and 3,500 were arrested during those protests, including Jawar, a former media mogul who receives significant support from the youth of the Oromia region. A former ally of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Jawar turned against the government and accused Abiy of not doing enough to support the Oromo community. In addition to terrorism charges, he has been charged with telecommunications fraud and violating firearms laws. He faces life in prison if convicted.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, center, at the 33rd African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Feb.9, 2020 (AP photo).
South Africa
Botswana: Wives are now allowed to own land at the same time as their husbands following a presidential amendment to the country’s land policy. The decision will have an immediate impact on the allocation of land in Botswana, allowing citizens to register for free plots. Previously, women were prohibited from doing so if they married a man who had already received a plot. Rights groups said this created major problems if the couple divorced or the husband died. President Mokgweetsi Masisi reviewed the 2015 policy late last week, acknowledging that it “was discriminatory against married women and did not treat them the same way as men.”
Central Africa
Cameroon: Opposition leaders said at least one protester was killed in demonstrations this week over President Paul Biya’s handling of the crisis in the troubled Anglophone region and his decision to hold regional elections in December. Security forces fired tear gas and water cannons at protesters in the economic capital, Douala, and surrounded the home of opposition leader Maurice Kamto, who had called the protests in part to reignite stalled talks to resolve the Anglophone crisis. . More than 3,000 people have died and nearly a million more have been displaced since separatist fighters from Cameroon’s English-speaking minority, based in the country’s two western provinces, launched an insurgency in 2017, seeking to establish their own independent state. . Government officials met with jailed separatist leaders in July, but the administration remains divided over the negotiations, as R. Maxwell Bone explained at a WPR briefing this week, with a camp threatening to sabotage the peace process.
Meanwhile, a military court sentenced four soldiers to 10 years in prison for the extrajudicial killing of women and children in 2015. A shocking video of the killings appeared in 2018, showing soldiers accusing two women, one with a baby. tied behind his back, from helping the militant Islamist group Boko Haram, before executing women and two children. Although the government initially dismissed the video as “fake news”, it generated outrage in a country where security forces are regularly accused of torturing and killing civilians in their campaigns against Boko Haram and Anglophone fighters.
West africa
Ivory Coast: In an attempt to defuse tensions before next month’s general elections, the government has announced plans to release nine associates of opposition leader Guillaume Soro from prison. Those detained, including five lawmakers, have been detained since December for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government of President Alassane Ouattara. Soro, who fled to France to escape arrest, was convicted in absentia of corruption in April and excluded from the presidential race. Calling the charges politically motivated, he has been encouraging protests against Ouattara’s controversial decision to run for a third term. Ouattara had vowed to resign, but reversed his decision after the death in July of his preferred successor, Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly. Even as Ouattara vows to restore stability to a nation with a recent history of civil war and military riots, his campaign threatens to fracture the Ivory Coast, as Clair MacDougall reported for WPR in August.
Mali: Bah N’Daw, a retired military officer and former defense minister, will be sworn in as president of a transitional government on Friday, and the leader of the military junta that deposed President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita will be his deputy. Assimi Goita, who heads the board, announced on Monday that he and N’Daw will lead the 18-month transitional government, following consultations with political parties and civil society. Observers said his inauguration should help resolve the period of political and economic uncertainty that followed the August coup, which Peter Tinti wrote about for WPR earlier this month. The West African coalition of leaders known as the Economic Community of West African States appeared to approve of the government, and members said they were ready to lift the economic sanctions imposed on the country following Keita’s ouster. ECOWAS leaders had previously said that they would not accept a government that included board members.
Main reading (and listening) of the Web
Blood Lands: In 2016, an alert was issued in the rural South African community of Parys that a white farmer had been attacked. Farmers in the area had suffered a series of violent attacks and a crowd of white men quickly gathered. They located two black men suspected of having committed the crime and began brutally beating them. They both died hours later. For the BBC podcast series, “Seriously …”, Andrew Harding followed the investigation into their murders and the trial that followed, which raised uncomfortable questions about why the two men were actually on the farm and exposed the lingering racial tensions in post-apartheid South Africa. .
Finding thousands of hidden dead from Zimbabwe: It was only after Keith Silika, a member of the Zimbabwe Police Protection Unit, moved to the UK in 2005 that he became aware of his native country’s history of violence, including massacres of thousands of Ndebele civilians that were overseen by former President Robert Mugabe in the 1980s. That discovery inspired Silika to study forensic archeology, while writing for Quartz Africa. Now, back in Zimbabwe, he is using his skills to expose how the state hid its victims and how the current regime, with the complicity of its security forces, continues to hide its violent past to avoid a public settling of accounts.
Andrew Green is a freelance journalist based in Berlin. He writes regularly on health and human rights issues. You can see more of his work at www.theandrewgreen.com.
