Africa Research Bulletin February 2013

Africa Research Bulletin
Political Social and Cultural Series

Volume 50 Number 1 January 1st31st 2013
The French and Malian troops had captured a string of other towns on the way north after the offensive began on January 9th. On January 26th, they seized Gao, the most populous city in northern Mali. Thousands of people poured onto the streets to celebrate their arrival. Most militants appeared to have ed into desert hideouts, said the BBCs Thomas Fessy in the capital, Bamako
(BBC news online 28/1).
MALI
France Sends in Troops A united rebel offensive and push south sparks a French-led military intervention to re-take the north and oust the Islamists.
Amid scenes of jubilation in liberated towns, accusations of atrocities by the Malian army, ethnic tensions and a violent hostage scenario in neighbouring Algeria (p. 19563), French-led troops pushed north through Mali re-taking towns from the Islamist rebels. By January 28th they had taken control of the airport in the key northern city of Timbuktu, French military ofcials said. The troops had encountered no resistance as they headed towards the city, a senior ofcer with the Malian army told AFP news agency (28/1).
This issue pp. 1954782

South Sudan Sudan Latest Talks Fail 19554
Egypt Lack of Change Sparks Unrest 19555 Madagascar Electoral Agreement Algeria Deadly Hostage Crisis 19558 19563
(adapted from Africa Confidential Jan)
The advance came as African Union (AU) leaders met in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia p. 19552) to discuss sending more troops. Outgoing AU chairman Benins President Boni Yayi on January 27th hailed France for its military intervention, saying it was something we should have done a long time ago to defend a member country. In a statement, the AU said it wanted to make an African 400 km Standby Force 200 miles Western ALGERIA Sahara operational in Mali Limit of Bamakos control in 2012 soon. African states M A U R I TA N I A Islamist advance have pledged nearly Town bombed by S A H A R A 5,700 troops to supFrench forces Strength of forces: Jihadist: Current estimates of 5,000-6,000 port French and trained fighters, with 1,000-1,300 around Malian forces in Lre & Diabali Tessalit African: Mali 12,150 Senegal 500 their campaign but RO Togo 500 Chad 2,000 Adrar Timbuktu L K i d a l des Ifghas only a small part of Benin 300 OF Nigeria 900 Burkina Faso 500 Guinea 144 BA the African force Niger 500 Ghana 120 M AK Kidal European: 2,500 French troops, plus had so far deployed. O DU up to 400 training personnel from EU West African leadcountries to retrain Malian army M A L I RING 2 Timbuktu Bourem 012 ers grouped in FRENCH Gao FORCES BASES Goundam ECOWAS (EcoGao Mnaka Lr BambaraAnsongo Maound nomic Community Konna Nioro Diabali of West African Kayes Douentza Mopti S Mo p ti Ba v N States) earlier ar ig NIGER er Markala Kolokani Djenn Sgou pleaded with the San Kita UN to fund the Koulikoro Koutiala BAMAKO B U R K I N A FA S O African force, pointing out that the UN Sikasso Bougouni GUINEA had nally given the BENIN green light to the GHANA CTE DIVOIRE African deployment
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Central African Republic Peace Agreement 19567 Eritrea Not a Coup Somalia Suicide Bomber Targets PM French Hostage Rescue Fails 19569
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Contents
Continental Alignments 19552 Internal Developments 19555 National Security Military Overseas Relations Social and Cultural Rates Index 19563 19576 19577 19579 19580 19582
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Published monthly since 1964

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http://wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/arbp
ISSN 0001 9844
19548 Africa Research Bulletin
plan on December 20th. But due to lack of funds there is no African troop in the north of Mali and had France not taken the decision to intervene these groups which everybody in Abidjan was calling terrorists and drug trafckers, would have taken over the whole country effortlessly. The AU summit unanimously approved a $50m budget to support the immediate deployment of the African force from out of its own funds to be drawn from the annual budget ($280m in 2012), with $5m from the Peace Fund and nearly half ($20m) from arrears paid up by members, PANA reported (29/1). The AU Declaration on Mali also expressed profound support for the French military aid and called for the revision of the Mali military plan to increase troops there. The heads of state called for international contributions for AFISMA and the Malian Defence Forces and on the immediate neighbours of Mali to provide intelligence and any other support that could facilitate the ongoing operation. AFISMA deployment will accelerate when the resources are available, AU Commissioner for Peace and Security Ramtane Lamamra told journalists on January 28th. We intend to put in place an Integrated Task Force, made up of the AU, the UN and ECOWAS. UN Secretary Ban Ki Moon said military specialists were already on the ground to work with the Malian army. He said helping the Malian government to restore its territorial integrity was a moral imperative for the international community. On the sidelines of the AU summit, the EU pledged 50m to bolster the multinational force, saying a further 250m of development money would also be made available. After the AU summit, an international donors conference on January 29th pledged $455.53m for AFISMA (see box). Meanwhile, the US said it would provide mid-air refuelling for French warplanes. The Pentagon said it had also discussed plans for the US to transport troops to Mali from countries including Chad and Togo. UK Prime Minister David Cameron said British forces would offer logistical assistance to help transport troops and equipment. France intervened in its former colony after Islamists launched a push to the south. Paris said the whole of Africa, and even Europe, was under threat if the Islamist offensive succeeded. RFI (20/1) quoted French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius as afrming that had France not involved its army, democratic Mali would no longer exist and its neighbourA
ing countries would be threatened by violence and intolerance. The objective of this operation is to stop the terrorist forces advance to the south. Afterwards, there is the plan that has been adopted by the international community and in this plan, as provided for at the beginning, the French are only facilitators and not in the front-line at all But in order for this plan to be adopted and see the light of day, it is necessary that Mali continue to exist and necessary that the terrorists should not have taken the whole of Mali, the French Foreign Ministry website (11/1) quoted Fabius as saying. As French and Malian troops moved into Gao, Malian ofcials spoke of scenes of joy, but also some looting. Crowds celebrated the arrival of French forces. Many smoked cigarettes, women went unveiled and some men wore shorts to out the severe Sharia law that had been imposed for months. Youths on motorcycles ew the ags of Mali, France and Niger, whose troops also helped secure the ancient town on the Niger River. A military spokesman in Paris told AFP that the French and Malian troops now controlled access to the city as well as the territory between Timbuktu and Gao. Once Timbuktu was fully secured, the French-led troops were expected to focus on the last rebel stronghold, Kidal, near the border with Algeria. Then, once Kidal is taken, the rst phase of the French operation will be over. The second phase will be to track down the militants to their desert hideouts, which could prove a much more difcult task. The terrorists will gain access to the mountains. This is to be expected. They are part of organised international crime, PANA (29/1) quoted AU Commissioner for Peace and Security Ramtame Lamamra as saying. This gives room for hit-and-run operations. It calls for regional cooperation. The AU said that stabilization of Mali would take longer and called for a series of meetings to be organised with the Malian leaders to facilitate effective border monitoring. (Sources as referenced
in text)
and the secular National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), brokered by Burkina Faso. French surveillance revealed that Ag Ghalis men had been joined by ghters from Al Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) in a two-pronged push to seize Svar and the nearby key town of e e Mopti. Some 200 vehicles, carrying thousands of ghters, were converging on this critical area from Lr and ee Douentza. Victory would have left them free to seize Svar, whose runway is the only e e one besides Bamako able to receive large aircraft. It would have opened the route to Bamako and critically undermined the international intervention planned for later in 2013. President Hollande dispatched Burkinabased Special Forces and attack helicopters on January 12th, following up with Mirage and Rafale bombing strikes on Islamist camps and supply bases across the north. It followed air attacks by deploying ground troops and armoured vehicles to supplement the small commando teams around Svar, Diabali e e (170 km. north of Sgou) and the key e Niger River bridge at Markala, Africa Condential reported (18/1). Although the militants have pulled out of Douentza, Timbuktu and Gao, they are far from defeated. During months of control, they have hidden weapons and fuel in remote places. They are comfortable operating in desert terrain. Those ghting in the west are, says French Defence Minister Jean-Yves le Drian, determined, well-trained and heavily armed. Mystery still surrounds Ansar Dines decision to pull out of the Ouagadougou talks and join a major new offensive. There were rumblings that AQIM and MUJAO had put pressure on Ag Ghali to end the negotiations or that Ansar Dine ghters were defecting to those groups, rich with cash from drug trafcking and hostage ransoms. One senior Ansar Dine commander is reported to have been killed near Konna. Some reports suggest Ag Ghali ed to his Ifoghas tribes heartland around Kidal. There were reports of other conicts among the jihadists late in 2012. One commander, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who is widely linked to be behind the In Amenas attack (p. 19564), is reported to have differed with AQIM chiefs Abou Zeid and Yahya Abou el Hamame, and developed ties to MUJAO. Meanwhile Omar Ould Hamaha, a Malian Arab (Brabiche) who had been e involved with both Ansar Dine and MUJAO, has founded a new group, Ansar el Sharia, drawn from his own people.
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Joint Rebel Offensive Direct French intervention on January 11th was sparked by the discovery that the jihadist advance into Konna, a town just 56 km north of the key Svar e e military base, the lock on the gateway to Malis populous south, was not just a negotiating ploy to gain new concessions. Ansar Dine, led by the Malian Touareg Iyad ag Ghali, had recently pulled out of talks with the government
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January 1st31st 2013
Africa Research Bulletin 19549
The MNLA has offered to support the French campaign, although the groups strength is much reduced. The Touareg former Deputy Chief of Staff, Major General Al Haji ag Gamou, commander of semi-regular forces attached to the army but defeated in 2012, was reported to be planning a pro-government assault on Mnaka, in the far east, from their e refuge in Niger. He may have up to 600 men, largely drawn from his Imghad clan. (Africa Condential 18/1) Regional Attitudes On the whole, the global community supports the UN-backed intervention amid concerns the vast arid zone could become a new Afghanistan-like haven for Al-Qaeda. African Arguments looked at the idea of this threat in an analysis entitled Is Al-Qaeda about to bring terrorism to Europes backyard in North Africa?. It said that the French intervention along with the apparent reprisal in the form of the In Amenas hostage crisis had brought the AQIM threat to international attention but that the threat AQIM posed to Europe had been overstated. (African Arguments 22/1) In the African region, there were some shifts in opinion and much debate among Malis neighbours, with some wanting to depict the scenario as a Western-led ght against Islam. Others continued to argue and press for dialogue. Burkina Faso: President Blaise Compaor, the ECOWAS peace mediator, e argued for a return to dialogue as soon as possible: Im ready to meet dissidents from Malis Ansare Dine Islamist group, he told a press conference on the sidelines of the AU summit. President Compaor said the inter-Male ian negotiations must not exclude armed groups which agree to renounce violence and recognise territorial integrity. He pointed out that though some among Ansar Dine had decided to go to war by turning a blind eye to its commitments; a healthy part of the movement has decided to secede and to get back to the negotiating table and recalled that both Ansar Dine and the MNLA had signalled willingness to talk back in December. He also noted that the Malian crisis was the result of poor political governance marked by marginalization of the countrys northern part. The crisis in Northern Mali is a political crisis. We will indeed carry out military operations to recover territorial integrity, but we will be obliged to resume political dialogue for sustainable peace, President Compaor said. (PANA, Addis Ababa 28/1) e Algeria: Traditionally hostile to foreign interference, Algiers threw its support
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behind operations in Mali against Islamist forces in a surprise about-turn that saw it open its skies to French warplanes on January 13th. The change of heart followed a betrayal by armed rebel groups in Mali who, in December, had vowed to cease hostilities. It represents a failure of Algerias non-interventionist policy, some observers said. Omar Belhoucet, the editor of Frenchlanguage daily El Watan, said Algerias altered position was undeniable, after the government did everything, rightly, to settle things in a diplomatic way. Western diplomats in Algiers say the speed with which French military operations were launched on January 11th took the Algerian government by surprise. But its making the best of a bad situation, one diplomat told AFP, adding that the authorities had never completely ruled out the military option. The position of Algiers has evolved, said Rachid Tlemcani, a political expert for whom the decision to authorise French overights amounted to a form of indirect participation in the military operation in Mali. But he argued that the Algerians must be extremely disappointed, because France was playing the double-game of negotiating while preparing itself militarily. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on the 13th conrmed that Algeria had authorised the overights of Rafale ghter jets based in France. The West African nations contributing to the intervention force bristle at Algerias resistance to swift action, according to Niger analyst Jibrin Ibrahim. Algeria and Mauritania have deployed their huge lobbying powers within the AU and the UN to insist on the path of negotiations between the different Malian factions, he said. In that time the insurgents were able to consolidate their positions, he argued. They have done everything to block the role of the ECOWAS leadership. We in West Africa cannot allow Algeria and Mauritania to pursue this policy of exporting their problems to our region. The interim Malian Prime Minister Diango Cissoko, accompanied by a toplevel delegation, including Defence Minister Diaran Kone, met President Abdelaziz Bouteika in Algiers on January 14th. ( AFP, Algiers 14/1) West African states started stepping up efforts to rally support for their intervention, by inviting Maghreb countries to participate. I call on both Mauritania and Algeria to participate along with African and international forces in order to eliminate terrorist forces in the north
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of Mali, ECOWAS Chairman and C^te o dIvoire President Alassane Ouattara said on January 19th in Abidjan. (Magharebia.com 21/1)
Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal on January 21st reiterated that his country would not put boots on the ground in Mali, but stressed that the integrity of Mali has to be preserved. We cannot accept a Sahelistan tomorrow on the Algerian frontier. ( AFP, Diabaly 21/1) Mauritania: President Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz is under pressure from both the jihadists and France. Back in November he said that his country will never enter this war, but he withdrew the pledge in a meeting with Hollande on January 15th. Jihadist forces from northern Mali have not only been freely using Mauritanian territory in their attacks on Bamako and on French forces, they are believed to be preparing to attack targets in Mauritania itself. While Abdelaziz had stood rm against involvement in the military operation, he couldnt really avoid it. Malian Prime Minister Django Sissoko had previously asked him to reconsider his position. Western powers see Abdelaziz as a staunch ally, critical to military operations in Mali. Among the less wellknown pressures on the President have been the kidnappings by jihadists in Mauritania. They abducted a French national, Gilberto Rodriguez Leal, 61, on November 20th 2012 from Dima, e Mali, 102km from the Mauritanian border, having undoubtedly passed through Mauritanian territory. MUJAO claimed the kidnapping. Nouakchott did not publicly react to MUJAOs use of its southern border as a transit route. AQIM and Ansar Dine patrol that border. Now that French aircraft are bombing northern Malian towns such as Ler, only 60kms from the border, e refugees are ooding into Mauritania and the jihadists will no doubt move with them. Existing Islamist networks in Mauritania will proliferate and consolidate; the strategy will be to spread the battle across the region and complicate the French response. Within two days of the French intervention, Abelaziz publicly demanded that the army secure Mauritanias borders. Yet its capacity to do so is in question. The border with Mali alone is over 2,200 km. long. The Mauritanian people are generally reluctant to get involved: some are sympathetic to the Islamists, many are anxious to avoid conict. (Africa
Condential 18/1)
Some Mauritanian religious leaders in a press statement denounced what they called a war waged by the enemies of Islam whose main objective is to take control of Northern Mali. They thereC
fore urged all Muslims to unite as a single force against the aggressors, warning the Mauritanian government against any kind of support to Malis interim government and the French forces on the ground. Three parties in Mauritanias ruling coalition called on January 21st to send troops into Mali two parties called the Movement for Renewal and Democratic Renewal, as well as former prime minister Yahya Ould Ahmed El Waghefs Adel party welcomed the courageous intervention by regional countries and the international community, which they said was helping save Malis territorial integrity and chase out terrorists and drug trafckers from the region. (
AFP, Nouakchott 21/1 2013)
can framework, Abdessalem, who hails from ruling Islamist party Ennahda, said. President Moncef Marzouki had already expressed apprehension about the French initiative, saying that he would have preferred a negotiated political solution.But he also warned that the occupation of northern Mali by jihadist groups posed a threat to Tunisia, which was becoming a corridor for arms reaching the Islamist militants. ( AFP,
Carthage 15/1 2013)
Humanitarian Crisis Aid agencies were struggling to cope with the scale of the humanitarian crisis in West Africa caused by thousands of Malians eeing conict, according to an Oxfam study. Oxfam details the failure of aid organisations to deal adequately with the fallout from the escalating conict in the region. The charity says that basic needs, such as nutrition, protection and education are not being met. In the four days following the start of the French assault on January 10th, at least 10,000 Malians abandoned their homes, joining the 375,000 people who had already been displaced by the unrest. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) predicted that another 710,000 people would be forced to ee because of the conict. The civilian death toll from the conict is still unknown largely because humanitarian groups have been blocked from going into the conict areas since French involvement in military operations. Oxfam found that logistical challenges, the limited experience of in-country humanitarian organisations in dealing with emergencies and a small UNHCR presence at the start of the crisis all meant the response had been slow and insufcient. There are now more than 55,000 refugees in Mauritania, 53,000 in Burkina Faso, and an estimated 1,500 in Algeria, and some camps are already said to be dangerously overcrowded. Ilaria Allegrozzi, a policy manager for Oxfam in Mali, said: Basic needs are not being covered in an equal way, particularly with regard to education, nutrition and protection. Thats what weve observed in the camps. In Niger, malnutrition rates, particularly among children, are very high. Malnutrition rates amongst children under ve in Nigers refugee camps are now at 21% way above the threshold of 15%, which the World Health Organisation (WHO) uses to declare an emergency.
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The mixed feelings in Mauritania were reected in press coverage there. War in North Mali: France saviour or re-coloniser? asked the daily Le Rnovateur. It e said Frances intervention in Mali had not been hailed by all.The weekly Le Calame however approved efforts to defeat the jihadists and said ECOWAS will at last help Mali after months of hesitation. Bilali noted that the name of the French mission Serval which refers to an African feline famous for its habit of urinating permanently in his territory to mark it, is a clear message to those who think that Francafrique is over. (PANA,
Nouakchott 16,19/1)
A few Mauritanian scholars issued fatwas prohibiting support of the military intervention but this was promptly rejected by other religious leaders. The fatwa prohibiting the war on northern Mali is deemed harmful to the interests of Mauritania and Mali, Adviser to the Minister of Religious Affairs Sidi Mohamed Ould Shawaf responded. The Union of African Scholars also issued a paper about the war on terror. Armed groups in northern Mali are the ones responsible for what is happening now, they said. Any condemnation of French military intervention would not nd any resonance on the ground unless accompanied by an alternative for resolving the crisis. (Magharebia.com 21/1) Egypt, breaking ranks with the global community, warned the Paris-led offensive could spark regional conict. We do not accept at all the military intervention in Mali because that will fuel conict in the region, President Mohamed Mursi said. (AFP 21/1) Tunisia: Foreign Minister Rak Abdessalem said on January 15th that his country was in principle opposed to all non-African military operations. We believe that the problems arising in Africa must be resolved within an AfriA
With so many more refugees expected in the coming months, Oxfam says those distributing aid need to adapt their programmes rapidly to better support host communities and those displaced. In many places the huge inux of refugees has put a strain on local people who were already struggling on limited resources. In the town of Bassikounou in Mauritania, for example, the towns population of 42,000 is now dwarfed by the 54,000-strong camp nearby. Tom McCormack, director of Save The Childrens programme in Mali, said: Violence in any country is nasty, but because this is one of the poorest countries in the world, people who are displaced are stretched to the limit. Even in the good years in Mali, many people have nothing to fall back on. Last year we had the double whammy of these political problems, coupled with a food shortage. It created a lot of misery. The medical relief charity Mdecins sans e Frontires (MSF) said on January 18th e it was being blocked access to Konna by both sides in the conict. The charity said it was trying to send a medical team to the area to assess the needs and to deliver medical and humanitarian assistance. Malik Allaouna, MSF operations director, said: Entire regions are now cut off from outside aid. Bamakos Archbishop Jean Zerbo said a new period of suffering has begun for the Malian people and called for the creation of a humanitarian corridor to transport food and medicines to the affected populations. Journalists have also had restricted access. The Malian government has accredited journalists to work in the capital Bamako and Sgou 260km to the e north, but nowhere else. This isnt normal, said South African journalist Nick Lama. We have no information only testimony over the phone, and press releases We want to go [to affected areas] speak to citizens and Islamists to nd out what is happening that is our job, he said. Meanwhile, a Malian army source said the Islamist ghters were deploying child soldiers and using the population as a shield. Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged rebel groups to immediately release child soldiers within their ranks. The rights group said it had interviewed several witnesses reporting children as young as 12 taking part in the ghting. These groups seem to be wilfully putting scores of children directly in harms way, said Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at HRW.
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Mali in Brief
1st: French President Francois Hollande states in a New Years address that France is prepared to support Mali in quelling a rebel advance, but only under the auspices of the UN Security Council. 4th: Just US$2m of the $370m needed has been raised to cover humanitarian operations in Mali in 2013, according to UN Ofce for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). 84 ofcers from the Touareg Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) aboard 17 land-cruisers surrender to the Mauritanian army on the border opposite Basiknou, Mauritanian news agency Al-Akhbar reports. 8th: Burkina Faso Foreign Minister Djibrill Bassole says talks between the Malian government and two armed groups, Ansar Dine and MNLA, are postponed until a later date. Malian army uses heavy weapons near Mopti to ght back against the rebels, according to a Malian security source. 9th10th: Malian army loses control of strategically important central town of Konna, 55km from Mopti and only an 8-hour drive away from Bamako. A spokesman for Ansar Dine claims his movement controls Konna. The large-scale and unexpected attack is seen by the government as a direct and serious threat. As residents try to ee Svar and Mopti, e e Government Communications Minister Manga Dembel urges people to stay calm in e a nationwide address. We are working with our partners night and day to explore rapid solutions to this crisis. France initiates air offensive. Hollande in a televised speech says he is responding, on behalf of France, to a request by the Malian President for assistance. The operation will last the time necessary. Some ground troops also arrive. The UN security council meets ands says the threat in Mali is extremely serious and it is necessary to act. Islamists say they will push farther south. 11th: Interim President DioncoundaTraore declares a state of emergency under which public gatherings, rallies and anything that can disrupt public order are banned. French helicopter pilot, Lt Damien Boiteux, is killed during air raid to support Malis ground troops in the battle for Konna. 11 Malian soldiers also killed and 60 injured. Mdecins sans Frontires (MSF) warns that e e the 55,000 Malian refugees in Mauritania face serious malnutrition and high mortality rates. Counter-offensive, led by Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, a senior commander of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) attacks Diabaly. 12th: Intense ghting in Konna, Amba, Bor e and Douentza in Mopti Region. President Traore addresses nation, saying that every Malian should consider himself henceforth as a soldier. Motorists in Bamako y French ags. Malis army retakes control of Konna after one of the worst clashes with Islamists since the start of the crisis. Dozens of Islamists are killed, according to the Malian military A
and witnesses. Malian troops carrying out a mop up operation, says Col. Diarra Kone. 13th: Algeria allows France to over-y its territory. Paris announces the use of Rafale bomber planes based in France, for the rst time. French air strikes in Gao and Kidal territory held by Islamist groups since April 2012 target rebel training camps, say eyewitnesses. Islamist groups ee Gao and telephone lines are cut. French air strikes are reported to kill prominent Islamist leader and up to 100 rank-andle ghters. Abdel Krim, nicknamed Kojak, was said to be a key lieutenant of Iyad Ag Ghaly. Witnesses say ghter jets strike a camp used by Islamist militants in Lere, around 150 km north of Konna. Aides to Hollande describe the militants as better equipped, armed and trained than they had expected. 14th: Mauritania deploys troops to the eastern border with Mali to prevent the inltration of armed terrorist groups. Rebels abandon key northern bases. Residents in the towns of Gao, Douentza and Timbuktu report all Islamists have ed, though a rebel spokesman calls it a tactical retreat. Islamists seize the town of Diabaly in government-held territory, 400 km north of the capital. They vow to strike at the heart of France. Ethnic-Touareg separatists say they are ready to support France by taking on Islamist rebels on the ground. 15th: France engages ground troops to retake Diabaly. Hundreds of soldiers from France and Mali head to the town, which witnesses say is bombarded by French ghter planes. Hollande says the French intervention has three objectives ending terrorists attacks, as well as securing Bamako, where we have thousands of citizens, and help Mali to restore its territorial integrity. 16th: OCHA estimates at least 30,000 people have ed northern Mali since French-led offensive began. A cabinet meeting in Bamako discusses the fear of reprisals growing among the Arab and Tamashek communities of Mali and warns against racism. French troops secure a strategic bridge along the Niger river at Markala in western Mali. Events take on a new international dimension, with a massive hostage-taking crisis at a gas site in Algerias remote south-eastern desert, perpetrated by Islamists claiming to avenge Frances military intervention in Mali. AU President Thomas Boni Yayi praises the remarkable work of the French military in Mali, saying its troops are practically saving Africa. Spain authorizes the use of its air bases by the French aircraft and allows them to overy Spanish airspace, Defence Minister Pedro Morenes says. 17th: Malian army seals the border with Mauritania to cut off eeing insurgents. First ECOWAS troops - 40 Togolese soldiers arrive in Mali. At emergency talks on the crisis in Brussels, EU nations gave their support to
France and offer military aid, possibly including troops. 18th: French army begins ofcial ground deployment at Markala in Segou region. Eye witness accounts speak of summary executions carried out by the Malian army in Svar. Malian army says it has now wrested e e total control of Konna after inicting heavy losses on the enemy. 19th: ECOWAS holds extraordinary summit, urges member states to hasten troop deployment and endorses appointment of Major Gen. Shehu Usman Abdulkadir of Nigeria and Brigadier Gen. Yaye Garba of Niger as commander and deputy commander of the MISMA and asks UN to fund MISMA. Transition Prime Minister Diango Cissoko greets arriving troops from Nigeria, Togo and Benin. Gao residents kill a local jihadist leader, Alioune Toure, to avenge the murder of a local journalist, Kader Toure ofcials said. Two Nigerian soldiers are killed and ve others seriously injured in an attack on a military detachment heading for deployment in Mali but still within Nigeria at the time. The terrorists detonated a high-calibre remote-controlled IED (improvised explosive device) they planted by the roadside as the military convoy was passing and opened re on the soldiers, Nigerian army spokesman, Maj-Gen. Bola Koleoso says, blaming Boko Haram. 20th: Nigerian Islamist group Jamaatu Ansarul Musilimina Fi Biladis Sudan (Ansarul Vanguard for the Aid of Muslims in Black Africa) claims responsibility for the attack on Nigerian soldiers. Ansarul splintered from Boko Haram in June 2012 and is believed by some to have close ties to Islamist groups in North Africa and Mali (See p. 19572). 21st: Diabaly and Douentza are retaken by Malian forces and their French allies. Diabaly residents applaud wildly as a convoy of about 30 armoured vehicles with some 200 Malian and French troops enter. French military ofcials and local residents say eeing Islamists have riddled the town with landmines.The region around Diabaly has long been a hub for al Qaeda-linked cells believed to have camps in the Ouagadou forest near Mauritanias border. ECOWAS parliament declares total support for the military operations. EU to release 50m as part of its Peace facility for Africa, to pay the per diem of [MISMA] soldiers, the cost of transport of troops and medical care. When political situation improves, 250m budgetary assistance to the Malian government, through support to civil society, to ensure food security and improve water supply in Bamako. 22m for emergency food aid, intended for victims of the conict, managed by partners of EU humanitarian organisations operating in Mali. The West faces a decades-long battle to defeat AQIM, UK Premier David Cameron warns. 22nd: Mali government extends state of emergency by three months.
Continental Alignments
26th: Gao is seized from Islamists. About a dozen rebels are killed in Gao, while French forces suffer no losses or injuries, the French Defence ministry says. Youths in Gao say there are still some rebels and rebel sympathizers around, but they are being found. 27th: ECOWAS Committee of Chiefs of Defence Staff (CDDS) meet in Abidjan (Cote dIvoire) on January 26th and agree to accelerate deployment of additional forces (5,700), an emergency budget for the AFISMA HQ and the acceleration of UN support. Defence Chiefs also validate the establishment of a seven-nation sub-committee to accelerate decision-making and oversee the validation
and arbitration processes of the force generation. French forces bomb Kidal home of the head of Ansar Dine. The UN will deploy an international peacekeeping operation in Mali once the armed operation to oust Islamist insurgents is over, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announces in Addis. Libya has stopped the ow of weapons being smuggled across the Saharan desert to Mali the Foreign Minister tells the AU. 28th: French and Malian forces take Timbuktu with little ghting but eeing Islamist rebel ghters torch several buildings,
including a library of priceless manuscripts says mayor, Ousmane Halle. AU summit authorises the deployment of a human rights component within AFISMA. 29th: At a donors conference in Addis, international donors pledge $455.53m (289m) for AFISMA According to a list of donations carried on the AUs Twitter account on, Japan pledged $120m, the US $96m and Germany $20m. India and China pledged $1m each, the AU said, the same as Sierra Leone, which will also contribute 650 troops. (France 24,TV Ivoirienne, PANA, AFP, RFI, Tout sur lAlgerie, IRIN)
The AU has recommended civilian observers monitor the human rights situation in the areas which have come back under the control of the Malian government. Human rights groups have accused the Malian army of committing serious abuses including summary executions. ( AFP 16,18,27/1, The Independent, London 21/1; IRIN 17/1)
Gathering Troops Colonel Paul Geze is the French missions commander French ofcials said at the end of the month they now had 2,900 troops in Mali. Some 3,700 French troops overall are engaged in Operation Serval, backed by African forces both in Mali and neighbouring Chad. The African contingent was expected to be bolstered to 7,900, including 2,000 troops promised by Chad. The EU is to send a European military training mission to Mali starting in midFebruary and consisting of 450 members, including 200 trainers. The EU has also allocated 50m towards supporting the deployment of African forces. The US and UK are both helping with intelligence, airlift of troops, refueling of planes and logistics, but did not plan to send combat troops. However, the UK amended this on January 29th saying it would deploy about 330 military personnel to Mali and West Africa, includ-
ing as many as 40 military advisers who will train soldiers in Mali, and 200 British soldiers to be sent to neighbouring African countries, also to help train the Malian army. None would have a combat role. Belgium, which sent a 40strong military contingent to Mali on January 28th taking a number of helicopters equipped with medical facilities, said they would be used to evacuate the wounded from the war front. The Belgian government also said that its soldiers would not be involved in the battle on the ground, PANA reported. West African troops started to mobilise on January 17th for the force headed by Nigerian General Shehu Abdulkadir and some 2,000 soldiers were expected in Mali by January 26th. Regional powerhouse Nigeria originally planned to send 900 troops but raised this gure to 1,200 on January 18th. A technical team, in addition to the force commander, were quickly deployed on the ground. In a letter to the countrys Senate, President Goodluck Jonathan said he had concluded that our national security is under imminent threat or danger as a result of the crisis in northern Mali. It said the soldiers would be deployed for limited combat duties. Togo also increased its offer of troops from 540 to 733 men. Niger, Senegal and Burkina Faso promised 500 soldiers
each, Benin said it would deploy 300 men, but later raised this to 650. Guinea will put 150 boots on the ground and Ghana 120. Ghanas contingent will consist of a construction engineer squadron that will be responsible for providing accommodation, defence systems, electrical expertise. Chad, which is not an ECOWAS member, has promised 2,000 soldiers. A rst contingent of 200 arrived in the countrys eastern neighbour Niger, a military source said on January 17th. They were to be joined there by Burkinabe and Nigerien forces before heading together into Mali. Our elements went aboard three aircraft the tanks were transported in a C130, the pick-up trucks in an Antonov and the troops embarked on a Boeing of the Toumai Air Tchad airline, a military source said. The Chadian commitment for Mali consists of an infantry regiment and two support battalions, Foreign Minister Moussa Faki Mahamat said on January 17th. Battle-hardened Chadian soldiers, used to conict in the desert, are expected to provide a key operational boost to MISMA. ( AFP, Bamako
& NDjamena & Accra & Abuja 14,17/1; PANA,Brussels 28/1)
CONFERENCES AND COMMISSIONS
AFRICAN UNION
20th Summit, Addis Ababa A deal for DR Congo stagnates, but there is progress on Mali.
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agriculture and the goals towards industrialisation. There is no doubt that Africa needs to sustain the growth momentum that it has been able to achieve over the last decade. This can only be done if we manage to bring structural transformation, Hailemariam said. Hailemariam outlined his key agenda for the Presidency by calling for effective African participation in the development of the new set of UN anti-poverty goals to replace the UN Millennium Development Goals.
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The Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn took over the Chairmanship of the African Union (AU) on January 27th, with a pledge to work towards the execution of various plans, including AUs internal reforms. The new chairman, who took over from Benins Thomas Yayi Boni, pledged to prioritise the implementation of the AU plans seeking to boost
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He said the emergence of serious conicts in parts of Africa was a setback which required urgent steps to deal with. We should do everything possible to help restore constitutional order in Mali, safeguard the sovereignty of the country and address the humanitarian crisis in collaboration with the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), the new AU Chairman stated. Prior to the summit, AU Foreign Ministers elected new members to the Peace and Security Council, bringing on board Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Nigeria and Uganda. They will replace Kenya, representing East Africa, Zimbabwe (Southern Africa) while Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea were both reelected for a further term of three years. Libya was replaced by Algeria in North Africa. (PANA, Addis Ababa 27/1) The collapse of a peace deal for troubled eastern DR Congo overshadowed the summit meeting of African leaders on January 27th28th, as efforts continued to drum up support for military intervention in war-torn Mali. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had urged leaders from Africas Great Lakes region to sign an agreement aimed at ending recurrent unrest in eastern DR Congo, where the M23 rebels control swathes of mineral-rich territory. But a signing ceremony for the deal, the details of which have not been made public, was cancelled on January 28th just 30 minutes before it was due to take place. This is a very complex issue, talks are still continuing, said Eri Kaneko, a spokeswoman for Ban, without giving further details. The presidents of Rwanda and Uganda which UN experts have accused of backing the M23, a charge both governments deny as well as DR Congo, Angola, Burundi, Republic of Congo, South Africa and Tanzania had been expected to sign the deal. Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni both refused to comment on the proposed deal, holding a discreet meeting on January 28th on the sidelines of the AU summit, an AFP reporter said. Ban urged regional leaders at the opening of the AU summit to endorse a Peace Security and Cooperation Framework to address the structural causes of the recurring cycles of violence in the region. Other discussions at the summit focused on Mali, including the scaling-up of African troops to help the Malian army battle Islamist militants who seized the countrys vast desert north in April 2012.
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The outgoing AU chairman, Thomas Boni Yayi, had told fellow leaders their response to conict in Mali had been too slow, and thanked France, the countrys former colonial ruler, for taking the lead in its military intervention there (p. 19547). He appealed for further commitment for the nancing of all the forces. The UN chief also told the summit he was determined to do everything to help the people of Mali, but urged the government to ensure an inclusive political process. After the summit, African leaders stayed behind for a donor conference on January 29th to drum up support for the Mali International Support Mission. Tensions between Sudan and newly independent South Sudan and efforts to build peace in chronically unstable Somalia were also discussed at the summit. South Sudans President Salva Kiir and his northern counterpart Omar al-Bashir met on January 25th, and again on the 27th, but ofcials said no progress had been made (see below). ( AFP 28/1 2013) After two days of intensive talks, PANA reported that African leaders resolved to pep up the continents response to the crises by making the African Standby Force (ASF) a reality. The ASF is part of a longer term project to boost Africas capacity to handle conict, and is the last part though yet unimplemented of the African Peace and Security Architecture. The force has been slated to become a reality in 2012, but that date was missed and eventually pushed forward to 2015. But African leaders are now seeking a quick establishment of the force. We shall operationalise this important aspect of our security in months if a number of steps are met, said AU Commissioner for Peace and Security Ramtane Lamamra. There is absolute necessity for Africa to empower a rapid deployment force. The summit decided to make the ASF one of its core issues of discussion when it reconvenes on May 25th in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for the celebrations marking 50 years of the continents unity. (PANA, Addis Ababa 29/1)
President Jacob Zuma and Hikepunye Pohamba of Namibia, the other two nations in the SADC troika handling regional security issues. President Armando Guebuza of Mozambique also attended. ( AFP 9/1 2013)
POLITICAL RELATIONS
NORTH AFRICA
Regional Challenges A coordinated approach to security will help to confront the fallout from Mali.
The prime ministers of Libya, Algeria and Tunisia decided on January 12th to reinforce border security and join forces in tackling regional challenges including terrorism, arms trafcking and organised crime. The decision was taken by Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zidane, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal and Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali during a meeting in the southern Libyan oasis of Ghadames. They pledged in an 11-point plan to create common border checkpoints and intensify cooperation in the security sphere through joint patrols, and vowed as well to tackle organised crime and terrorism. The premiers also addressed the crisis in Mali, which shares a border with Algeria. It is necessary to nd a political solution to this crisis by fostering dialogue between the different parties in Mali to preserve the sovereignty and unity of its territory, they said in a joint statement. The Libyan Prime Minister told journalists the situation in Mali has made it necessary for us to meet in order to prevent and tackle its consequences. It requires close coordination between our military and intelligence services to prevent anything that might affect our security, the movement of persons, arms and drugs trafcking, terrorism and human trafcking, he said. Libyan authorities in December decided to close the countrys borders with Algeria, Niger, Chad and Sudan, decreeing the oil-rich south a military zone, in a move seen by analysts as a response to the crisis in Mali. Although Libya does not share borders with Mali, it has been the worst affected by the spillover of weapons and ghters, both Tuareg and Islamist, that accompanied the 2011 uprising that ousted dictator Mouammar Gaddafy. With West African governments now pushing for intervention to evict the
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IN BRIEF
SADC: Conict in eastern DR Congo and the political crises in Madagascar and Zimbabwe topped the agenda of a summit of southern African countries in Tanzania on January 10th. The summit was attended by President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania, South African B
jihadists from northern Mali, Libya and its neighbours, particularly Algeria, fear the ghters and weapons will stream back north across the Sahara. ( AFP 12/1
2013)
High-Level Implementation Panel on Sudan (AUHIP), included three deals on cooperation, security and post-secession matters. However, the signed agreements did not tackle the issues of Abyei and border demarcation. A referendum had been scheduled to be held in Abyei to decide the fate of the area coincident with the referendum on self- determination for South Sudan in January 2011, which resulted in the separation between the north and the south, but the voting did not take place due to differences over who had the right to vote. (News Agencies 21/1) However, earlier press reports suggested that South Sudan had started withdrawing its troops from the border with Sudan, to allow a buffer zone to be created between the two nations. The Safe Demilitarized Buffer Zone (SDBZ) is a key part of the September deal to allow South Sudan to restart oil production, the revenues from which are vital for both economies. By withdrawing its forces the government of South Sudan is clearly demonstrating its full compliance with the signed security agreements and full commitment to their implementation, says a statement the South Sudanese government issued on January 17th. The statement, which bears the signature of South Sudans Defence Minister John Kong Nyuon and Justice Minister John Luk Jok, asserted that the withdrawal was in full compliance with the road map put forward by the African Union Peace and Security Council, and which was endorsed by the United Nations Security Council. This withdrawal was completed within the time frame that had been agreed by the Parties. This is the rst step in the separation of forces and the full operationalisation of the SDBZ (10km withdrawal from the centreline), the statement read in part. The centreline has been a point of contention. Under the agreement, the centreline is nonbinding and will have no inuence on the resolution of disputed areas and any nal border agreement. Large areas of the 2,000km border remain undemarcated. At a meeting of the bilateral Joint Political and Security Mechanism in Addis Ababa, convened by the AUHIP from January 14tgh15th, South Sudan fully accepted the full demilitarisation of the 14 mile area. The issue on Mile 14s inclusion has proved controversial in South Sudan, especially in Northern Bahr el Ghazal State where the Malual Dinka claim that the ownership of the fertile grazing area is not in dispute.
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SOUTH SUDAN SUDAN

Latest Talks Fail The negotiation round, which ends with the trading of accusations, highlights the complexities of implementing agreements.
The Sudanese government has accused South Sudan of foiling their most recent round of negotiations, claiming that Juba did not care to implement their agreements. Following the talks with South Sudanese delegation in Ethiopias capital of Addis Ababa on January 19th, the Sudanese delegation said in a statement that Juba was not serious about making practical steps to implement what had been agreed on by their two Presidents during a previous summit. On January 7th, Sudan and South Sudan had resumed negotiations focusing on three issues, including the implementation of the transitional arrangements on Abyei, security arrangements on the demilitarised zone and preparation of a comprehensive matrix with specic timeframes for the agreements signed by the two countries in Addis Ababa on September 27th, 2012 (Vol. 49, p. 19443C). The Sudanese delegation explained that the talks on Abyei stalled with South Sudans insistence that the make-up of the legislative council of Abyei should be 12 Southern Sudanese members against 10 members for Sudan, while Sudan insists on equal representation. Sudan further accused South Sudan of backtracking from its commitments regarding security arrangements and the withdrawal of its troops from the disputed areas. It added that the South Sudanese delegation had also rejected the formation of the monitoring mechanisms concerned with breaking the link between its army and the rebels at Blue Nile and South Kordofan areas, the cessation of hostilities, and ending support for armed rebel movements. On January 5th Sudan and South Sudan agreed to implement the item on security arrangements, form civil institutions for the Abyei area and work out a matrix with specic timeframes to implement the agreement. The September 27th agreement, witnessed by members of the African Union
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South Sudan said the withdrawal of its troops from Mile 14 would take 47 days from the day the pullback commenced, and should be completed by the deadline of February 4th. The acting chief negotiator, Minister John Luk Jok noted: By withdrawing its forces south of the centreline of the temporary administrative and security map of the AUHIP and agreeing to the full demilitarisation of the SDBZ and the 14 miles area, the government of South Sudan is clearly demonstrating its full compliance with the signed security agreements and full commitment to their implementation. (Sudan
Tribune 19/1)
According to The Citizen, Khartoum (21/1), the vicious circle of failure in talks was due to a lack of condence. The paper noted that the two countries traded accusations over the responsibility of each party for the failure of the latest round of negotiations in Addis Ababa when they had been expected to agree on a matrix prepared by the African mediation for the implementation of the September 2012 cooperation agreement. Under the state of persistent failure, the African mediation is expected to craft proposed compromises to bridge the gap that is still separating the positions of the two sides for it is illogical to insist on holding failure-doomed meetings. It is essential to get out of this vicious circle, and then search for a new ground for consensus. () While the two countries continue to accuse each other of unwillingness to reach agreement on key disputes, both bear a great measure of responsibility for creating the sort of difculty that could lead to an economic and humanitarian catastrophe, negatively impacting citizens on either side. (The Citizen, Khartoum
21/1)
IN BRIEF
C^te dIvoire Liberia: Liberias Defence o Minister Bernie Samukai said on January 8th that its troops had begun to withdraw from the C^te dIvoire border, where they o were deployed in June 2012 after repeated raids. The pullout would be completed on January 13th, but could be redeployed if necessary. Several Liberian army units were deployed to border posts between the two countries to counter armed gangs raiding the Ivorian side from Liberia. In an ambush in southwest C^ te o dIvoire in June, 18 people died, including seven United Nations peacekeepers from Niger. ( AFP 8/1 2013)

Finance: Morsy El Said Ahmed Hegazy Foreign Affairs: Mohamed Kamel Ali Amr Health and Housing: Mohamed Mostafa Mohamed Ahmed Hamed Higher Education: Mostafa El Sayed Mossaad + Housing and Urban Development: Tarek Wak Mohamed + Information: Metwaly Salah Abdel Maksoud Metwaly + Insurance and Social Affairs: Nagwa Hussein Ahmed Khalel Interior: Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim Mohamed Moustafa Investment: Osama Abdel Moneim Mahmoud Saleh Justice: Ahmed Mahmoud Ahmed Mekky Labour: Khaled Mahmoud Mohamed Hamed Al Azhary + Legal and Parliamentary Affairs: Omar Mohamed Mohamed Salem Local Development: Mohamed Aly Ismail Beshr Petroleum and Mineral Resources: Osama Mohamed Kamal Abdel Hamid Planning and International Cooperation: Ashraf Al Sayed Al Araby Abdel Fatah Religious Endowments: Talaat Mohamed Afy Salem Scientic Research:. Nadia Eskndar Zkhary Sports: Al Emary Farouk Mohamed Abdel Hamid Supply and Social Affairs: Bassem Kamal Mohamed Auda Tourism: Mohamed Hisham Abbas Zaazou Trade and Industry: Hatem Abdel Hamid Mahmoud Saleh * Water Resources and Irrigation: Mohamed Bahaa El Dine Saad Youth: Osama Yassin Abdel Wahab + Key to abbreviations of political parties: * al-Hadara: Al-Hadara / Civilisation Party + FJP: Freedom and Justice Party ++ Indep: Independent (www.cabi-
Internal Developments
GOVERNMENT APPOINTMENTS
EGYPT
Cabinet Reshufe Frustration at the lack of real change spills over onto the streets again in unrest that refuses to be quelled.
Egypt swore in 10 new ministers on January 6th in a cabinet shake-up aimed at improving the governments handling of the countrys ailing economy ahead of talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over a badly needed US $4.8bn loan. The reshufe, which President Muhammad Mursi had promised in response to public anger over Egypts economic malaise, affected two key ministries, the Interior and Finance. It also solidied Islamist control of the government, putting three portfolios in the hands of members of the Presidents Muslim Brotherhood. Mursi met with the new ministers after their swearing-in ceremony at the presidential palace in Cairo where they discussed ways to revive tourism and attract foreign investors, a presidential ofcial said. Prime Minister Hisham Qandil, meanwhile, said he stressed in his rst meeting with the new ministers the need for immediate action to stabilise the economy. At the heart of those efforts lies the $4.8bn loan that Egypt has requested from the IMF. Cairo says the funds are needed to bolster condence in the countrys economy and attract foreign investors. Egypt asked the IMF for a delay in the talks on the loan after a wave of political turmoil erupted in December over a contentious new constitution. Mass protests and street violence tied to the constitution dealt yet another blow to major foreign currency earners, including tourism and foreign investment. The opposition, a coalition of liberal, secular-leaning, and leftist groups, was not offered any seats in the new cabinet and has said that any government shakeup that does not replace Qandil falls short of what is needed. El-Morsi Hegazy, a professor of public nance at Alexandria University, takes over the Finance Ministry, replacing Mumtaz el-Said, who was appointed by
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the countrys transitional military rulers and widely viewed as being at odds with the Brotherhood. Mohammed Ibrahim, meanwhile, will lead the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for the police force. He previously was in charge of prisons and prior to that was director of security in the province of Assiut, which has a large Coptic Christian population and has also been home to a number of Islamic militant groups. Ibrahim said his priorities would be to ght a rising wave of crime and restore stability to Egypt. We will strike with an iron st against anyone that threatens the security of the nation and Egyptians, Ibrahim told the state news agency, pledging to clamp down on cross-border weapons smuggling. Egypt has been ush with weapons smuggled from Libya and Sudan. Three of the new ministers are from the Brotherhood, according to the spokesman for the groups Freedom and Justice Party, Ahmed Subaie. They take over the ministries of Transportation, Local Development and Supply and Interior trade, giving the Brotherhood a total of eight cabinet posts. Also included in the reshufe were the ministries of Civil Aviation, Environment, Electricity, Communication and Parliamentary Affairs. Karim Ennarah, a researcher on police and security reforms at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said the previous Interior Minister, Ahmed Gamal Eddin, was likely replaced because Brotherhood leaders were upset with the polices handling of attacks against the groups ofces and supporters during the December clashes with the opposition over the constitution. (News
Agencies 6/1)
net.gov.eg/)
Revolutionary Spark Egyptian opposition supporters protested across the country on the second anniversary of the uprising that swept Hosni Mubarak from power, with ve people killed in the city of Suez on January 25th. Police clashed with President Mursis opponents in Cairo outside his palace and near Tahrir Square. Alexandria also saw clashes. In Ismailia, protesters set re to the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhoods party. Critics accuse the President of betraying the revolution, which he denies. The President appealed for calm to end the clashes, in which at least 379 people were injured in 12 of the countrys 27 regions. On January 25th, police red tear gas to disperse protesters who had tried to cross barbed-wire barriers outside the presidential palace in Cairo, state TV reported. Protesters tents were also dismantled. Earlier, some protesters erected checkpoints at the entrances to Tahrir Square
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The cabinet is now as follows:

President: Mohamed Mursi Prime Minister: Hisham Mohamed Qandil Ministers Agriculture and Land Cultivation: Salah Mohamed Abdel Moemen Khalil Civil Aviation: Wael Amen El Maadawy Communication and ICT: Atef Ahmed Helmy Naguib Culture: Mohamed Saber Ibrahim Arab Defence and Military Production: Gen. Abdel Fatah Said El Sissy Drinking Water and Utilities: Abdel Kawy Ahmed Mokhtar Khalifa Education: Ibrahim Ahmed Ghoneim Deif ++ Electricity and Energy: Ahmed Moustafa Emam Shaaban
to verify the identities of people passing through. Others set up an exhibition of photographs of those killed at various protests over the past two years. The roads leading from Tahrir Square to several nearby government buildings and foreign embassies have been blocked by concrete walls since November 2012. Demonstrators tried to dismantle one of them on January 24th, but a new wall was built to block entry to the cabinet headquarters. There were also reports that opposition supporters had blocked railway lines leading both to the north and south out of Cairo. Earlier, state TV showed protesters in the city throwing stones at public buildings as motorcycles carried injured people away.
In Ismailia, witnesses said youths had broken into and ransacked the ofces of the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, before setting re to it. The citys governorate headquarters was later also stormed. Clashes were reported in at least two locations in Alexandria, with police ring tear gas and protesters burning tyres. At least 10 people were reportedly injured. The unrest showed no signs of abating and a large military deployment was made at the end of the month in three cities along the Suez Canal Port Said, Ismailia and Suez where a state of emergency has been declared. The military was there to protect key installa-
Chad New Prime Minister

President Idriss Deby on appointed chief of staff Djimrangar Dadnadji as Prime Minister following the resignation of Emmanuel Nadingar, state radio announced. I have the honour to hand in my resignation as prime minister, head of government, three years after you appointed me in this post. Today I have come to the end of my mission, Nadingar wrote in a resignation letter read out on the radio, which also announced Dadnadji as his successor. Nadingar, in ofce since March 2010, was re-appointed following disputed April 2011 re-election of Deby, who has held power since 1990. Government reshufes are a frequent occurrence in the landlocked African desert nation run with an iron st by Deby, and premiers rarely last more than two or three years. (www.presidencetchad.org/; AFP 21/1 2013)
Egypt Two Years of Revolution

2011, Jan. 25th: Egypt protests erupt, involving thousands of demonstrators, after a revolt topples Tunisias ruler. The protests, which are centred in Cairos Tahrir Square, gather more than a million people across the country on February 1st. Feb. 11th: After daily protests President Hosni Mubarak resigns and hands power to the army led by Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi. About 850 people die in the unrest. 12th: Promising a peaceful transition to democracy, the army suspends the constitution and dissolves parliament. Mar. 19th: Egyptians widely approve a new constitution. Apr 13th: Authorities say Mubarak is being held in a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh. June 28th29th: More than 1,000 hurt as protesters and police clash in Tahrir Square. Nov 19th: Start of week-long clashes between police and anti-military demonstrators that leave 42 dead. 28th: Egypt holds the rst stage of its rst post-revolt parliamentary election. Islamist parties win about two-thirds of the seats, of which half go to the Muslim Brotherhood. 2012, Feb.1st: Riots kill 74 people after a Port Said football match. June 2nd: Mubarak and his former Interior minister Habib al-Adly sentenced to life in prison for the deaths of protesters during the revolt, while six police commanders are acquitted. 30th: Mohammad Mursi, who won the presidential election with 51.7% of the vote, is sworn in, becoming Egypts rst civilian and Islamist ruler. Aug: 5th: Gunmen kill 16 guards in Egypt near the border with Israel before crossing into the Jewish state. Israel says ve gunmen were killed on its side. A
12th: Mursi scraps a constitutional document which handed sweeping powers to the military and ousts Tantawi. Nov. 22nd: Mursi decrees sweeping new powers for himself. 23rd: Protests erupt against what the opposition terms Mursis power grab. 30th: Islamist-dominated constituent assembly adopts the draft constitution after a process boycotted by liberals and Christians. Dec. 8th: Mursi annuls the decree giving himself sweeping powers, but maintains a controversial referendum on the constitution. 15th, 22nd: 64% of voters in the two-round referendum back the new constitution, after a vote which the opposition says is tainted. Egypt plunges into a deep political crisis, with demonstrations by supporters and opponents of Mursi turning into sometimes deadly clashes. 2013, Jan 6th: Mursi reshufes his cabinet amid a serious economic crisis. 13th: The Appeals Court accepts an appeal lodged by Mubarak and his Interior minister Habib al-Adli against life sentences for the death of protesters in the 2011 uprising. The court orders a retrial. 19th: Charges against 379 people involved in clashes against the police in 2011, are dropped following a decree by Mursi granting them amnesty, the ofcial MENA news agency said. 20th: Five people are killed in a northern Cairo district as clashes erupt after a police ofcer accidentally kills a man while chasing a drug dealer, ofcials said. 29th: Army chief General Abdul Fattah alSisi warns that the political crisis could lead to a collapse of the state. ( AFP, Cairo 13-20/1; France 24 13/1;MENA 19/1)
tions namely the Suez Canal, one of Egypts main sources of foreign revenue. By January 29th, more than 50 people had died. Thousands were again on the streets of Port Said on the 29th for the latest funerals of those killed. In Cairo, police again red tear gas at youths in Tahrir Square. (BBC News Online 25,29/1) Nur Party Leader: The Islamist Nur party elected a new chief on January 9th after a split within the powerful ultraconservative Sala movement splintered the party ahead of parliamentary elections. The party at a general assembly selected Yunis Makhyun, who was a member of parliament until a court annulled the Islamist-dominated house in June, in a vote shown live on television. His party had won 112 seats in that parliament, in a surprise showing for a movement that had mostly eschewed politics before the overthrow of president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. The partys former leader, Emad Abdel Ghaffour, resigned along with 150 members to form Al-Watan, a competing Sala party ahead of fresh elections which are expected after February. Egyptian press reported the split was caused by disagreements over the inuence of powerful Sala clerics in the AlDawaa al-Salaya group, which had established the Nur party. The inuence of Salas, who have a considerably more rigid interpretation of Islam than President Mohamed Mursis Muslim Brotherhood movement, in parC
ticular worries Egypts Coptic Christian population. Salas have been blamed for inaming sectarian tensions in the country, which witnessed a spike of attacks on Copts over the past three years. ( AFP 9/1
2013) Referendum yes vote p. 19519B
GHANA
President Sworn In Despite the oppositions protests, the new government takes shape.
President John Drahami Mahama was sworn in for his rst four-year term on January 7th, with tens of thousands of excited and cheering party supporters thronging the seaside Independence Square in the capital city of Accra. He took the Presidential Oath and the Oath of Ofce administered by the Chief Justice, Mrs Georgina Wood, to assume ofce as the fourth President of the Fourth Republic of Ghana. Vice President Paa Kwesi AmissahArthur also took the oath of ofce at the colourful ceremony. South African President Jacob Zuma, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf were all at the ceremony. Some 12 African heads of state in all were said to be in attendance. Mahama won 50.7% of the vote in the December 7th election, but the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) has disputed the result and petitioned the Supreme Court. Parliamentarians were sworn in later on the same day. The NDC won 148 seats in the 275-seat House while the NPP has 122. There is one seat for the Peoples National Convention (PNC) and four independent members. The opposition NPP boycotted the swearing-in, and some members of the party called on former president John Kufuor, a member of the party, to stay away from the ceremony. Kufuor, widely respected for having stepped down after his two terms of ofce despite his party narrowly losing 2008 elections, deed such calls and attended the ceremony. There will be two by-elections as the new Speaker, Edward Doe Adjaho of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), has vacated his seat, while one NDC MP died suddenly on December 25th. On January 11th, President Mahama named his rst 12 ministers with the most prominent being the nomination of Ms Hannah Tetteh, former Minister for Trade and Industry, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
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Seth Terpker becomes Minister of Finance and Economic Planning while former Youth and Sports Minister Clement Ko Humado goes to the Ministry of Agriculture. Dr Oteng Adjei, former Energy Minister, moves to the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, while Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, former Deputy Energy Minister has been nominated as the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources. Alhaji Collins Dauda, former Transport Minister moves to the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Dr Edward Omane Boamah has been nominated as Minister of Communications and Mr Mahama Ayariga, former Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry has been nominated as Minister of Information. The new faces are: Akwasi Oppong Fosu as Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Professor Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang as Minister of Education, Alhaji Amin Amidu Sulemana at the Ministry of Roads and Highways and Nana Oye Lithur as the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection.
(PANA, Accra 7,11/1)
Magharebia.com reported on January 2nd that the Foreign Minister, Ali Suleiman Aujali, had submitted his resignation to the General National Congress (GNC) on December 31st, citing personal reasons for the decision. On January 6th, Muhammad AbdalAziz was assigned to head the merged Ministries of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. (Magharebia.com 2/1;
MAP news agency, Rabat 6/1)
A further seven appointments were made on January 17th. The nominees are Dr Benjamin Bewa-Nyog Kunbuor, Minister in Charge of Government Business in Parliament, Mrs. Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, Minister for Justice and Attorney-General, Emmanuel Armarh Ko Buah, Minister of Energy and Petroleum and Mrs. Dzifa Attivor, Minister of Transport. The rest are Nii Armah Ashietey, Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Ms. Hanny-Sherry Ayittey, Minister of Health and Mr. Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, Minister of Youth and Sports. (PANA, Accra 17/1) The Ghanaian Chronicle reported on January 20th that President Mahama appeared to have bowed to pressure from the chiefs of the Western Region to appoint Emmanuel Armah Buah as Minister for Energy and Petroleum. The chiefs had reasoned that oil and gas had been found in the region, so a person from that area should oversee the sector. The cabinet appointments were due to be ratied at the end of January. (The
Ghanaian Chronicle, Accra 20/1) Tight vote Vol. 49, p. 19521A
In a separate development, the main liberal coalition, the National Forces Alliance, withdrew from the national assembly on January 7th in protest over delays in forming a committee to draft a post-Gaddafy constitution. A statement from the coalition, which holds 39 of 80 seats reserved for parties in the assembly, said that the main reasons for the decision to pull out included the delay in establishing a committee to draft a new constitution. Other reasons for the withdrawal were what members described as chaotic proceedings and the lack of adequate security for the assembly, where sessions have been often disrupted by demonstrators who barge into the premises while parliament is in session to inuence decisions. Nearly 15 months after Libyan strongman Mouammar Gaddafy was slain by rebels who toppled his regime, the country is still at odds over who should draw up a new constitution. Some want the 200-member GNC to appoint a panel to carry out the task. Others want fresh elections to a constitutional convention. The National Forces Alliance, the largest coalition bloc in parliament, want the constitutional committee to be elected by the Libyan people themselves. ( AFP
7/1 2013)
LIBYA
New Foreign Minister The government seems paralysed to act on drawing up a new constitution.
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Mounting problems of security, economics and social development will hustle democratic Libyas feeble central government and half-formed state institutions into action on several fronts in 2013, comments Africa Condential. However, this will not happen until popular frustration with the status quo forces the current crop of inexperienced ministers and other politicians to act. The region around Benghazi, Cyrenaica, is most likely to produce an upset that will test both the resolve and ability of the GNC and the interim government to keep the democratic transition on track. The likeliest ashpoints for any challenge to central authority from Benghazi are rstly, the new constitution and secondly, the issue of devolving control over hydrocarbon expenditure and revenue to regions or localities. These
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Sierra Leone Cabinet Appointments

Two months after his re-election, President Ernest Koroma appointed 16 ministers to his cabinet on January 5th. Three other ministers were named in December. The government website revealed that the cabinet, which is still not yet complete, as it is subject to parliamentary approval, is as follows: President: Ernest Bai Koroma Vice-President: Sahr Sam-Sumana Ministers (www.statehouse.gov.sl/) Foreign Affairs: Dr. Samura Kamara Finance and Economic Development: Dr. Kaifala Marah Ministers of State: Momodu Kargbo, Alhaji F.B.L. Mansaray, Defence: Alfred Paolo Conteh Internal Affairs: J.B. Dauda Justice and Attorney-General: Frank Kargbo Trade and Industry: Alhaji Osman Boie Kamara Energy: Oluniyi Robbin-Coker Water Resources: Momodu Maligi Information and Communications: Alhaji A.B.S. Kanu Health and Sanitation: Miatta Kargbo Works, Housing and Infrastructural Development: A.P. Koroma Local Government and Rural Development: Diana Konomanyi Mines and Mineral Resources: Alhaji Minkailu Mansaray Agriculture, Food Security and Forestry: Dr. J. Sam Sesay Lands, Country Planning and the Environment: Musa Tarawally Marine Resources and Fisheries: Capt. M.A. Pat-Sowe Social Welfare, Gender and Childrens Affairs: Moijueh Kaikai Education, Science and Technology: Dr. Minkailu Bah Transport and Aviation: V.C. Minah Political and Public Affairs: Alhaji Alpha Saahid Bakarr Kanu Tourism and Cultural Affairs: Mrs. V. Saidu-Kamara Resident Minister, East: William Juana Smith Resident Minister, South: Muctarr Conteh Resident Minister, North: Alie D. Kamara Electoral aftermath Vol. 49, p. 19523B
questions split both Cyrenaica and the rest of Libya. The Islamist camp and the groups favouring maximum regional autonomy, neither of which secured many votes in Julys general elections, may use their control of militias to oppose any political development they do not favour. The GNC will start the year as it nished 2012, by postponing any decision that risks triggering conict. It may take some months for the GNC to accept that the rapidly declining public trust in its members means that it cannot now reclaim the right it originally envisaged to appoint the 60-member constitutional convention. Eventually, the need to get some sort of basic law in place regardless of the political cost will oblige GNC President Mohamed Magarief to announce direct elections to the convention. According to the already accepted model, Cyrenaica, Fezzan and Tripolitania will each send 20 delegates to the convention, meaning that general elections, which might not happen until the autumn, will be entirely different in character from the July 2012 vote for the Congress, where 120 of the 200 members of parliament were from Tripolitania. The convention will contain a much higher proportion of federalists (champions of strong regional and weak central government), Islamists and representatives of minority ethnic groups such as the Touareg and Toubou. It will quickly give political expression to many of the divisions within society that currently have no outlet. The role of political parties, campaigning and the voting process itself will create many disputes. Producing a body whose legitimacy is universally recognised will be difcult. Arguments over the role of Sharia (Islamic law), the level of autonomy permitted to regions and the place of revolutionary brigades within society will cause the constitution-writing process to drag on far beyond the year initially allocated. (Africa Condential 11/1)
I will not be a candidate at the elections, I will sacrice myself for the sake of the 20m Malagasy, he said in a prime-time television address to the nation. Rajoelina had been under erce international pressure not to run in the polls, as a way to end an almost four-year crisis that has led to a range of sanctions that have crippled the economy. I will manage the transition until the end and I am ready to make a democratic transition. I wish all the best to whosoever will replace me, he said. The man Rajoelina ousted in a militarybacked coup, former president Marc Ravalomanana, has already heeded calls not to run in the elections. He remains in exile in South Africa. The dual announcements mean the rst round of elections on May 8th will open a new chapter in Madagascars coupprone politics. Rajoelina and Ravalomanana have dominated the political scene for the last decade, their rivalry dening the island nations politics. The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) has been mediating in the crisis, and the European Union (EU) had pressed for just such a neither, nor solution as a means of ending the gridlock. Anything that promotes and encourages peace and quiet is extremely positive, EU ambassador to Madagascar Leonidas Tezapsidis told AFP after Rajoelinas speech. The international community is expected to stump up for a large part of the elections $71m price tag. AFP says that the bitter rivals may have opted out of the presidential race, clearing a key hurdle to ending a longrunning political crisis, but analysts warn the pair will likely pull strings from behind the scenes. News that the arch-enemies had agreed to step aside received a global thumbsup and raised hopes that a post-coup deadlock may be edging to its end after dogging the Indian Ocean island for four years. But a cloud of uncertainty still hovers over the elections, and analysts say that the two men will remain heavy-weight political players despite being out of the race in theory. Rajoelina wants to be president in 2018, and so he must be president now, even (it is) by proxy, to prepare for 2018, said Guy Ratrimoarivony of the Centre for Diplomacy and Strategic Studies in Madagascar.
CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES
MADAGASCAR
Electoral Agreement Neither main player will stand in the 2013 election but they could still be pulling strings by proxy.
Interim President Andry Rajoelina said on January 15th that he will not run in crunch presidential elections in May, a decision that could help end a political crisis that erupted when he seized power in 2009.
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Given the power tussle between the archrivals, Ravalomanana will do the same, Ratrimoarivony said. The protagonists are looking at proxies that they are going to push who will run in the election and they become the powers behind those proxies, said Trevor Maisiri, senior researcher for southern Africa with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. Strongman Rajoelina, at just 38 years old, is unlikely to vanish from the countrys politics and could be buying time to allow the dust to settle after ruling as transitional leader since his army-backed takeover. The expected May date for a rst round of polls is also uncertain. Rajoelina is now trying to switch the election calendar, pushing for the parliamentary vote to run ahead of the presidential, a move seen as a ploy to swing back onto the political scene through the back door. If his party wins, he could pull a Vladimir Putin-style manoeuvre and get appointed prime minister of the coupprone island. After serving two terms as president, Russian strongman Putin gave the reins to Dimitry Medvedev in 2008, becoming prime minister until the pair then went on to swap jobs. Madagascars prime ministerial post will be chosen by parliament under a new constitution which is also causing uncertainty as it has yet to be recognised internationally and by some on the local political scene. We could have another Russian scenario. Who knows if Rajoelina is not creating that kind of scenario where in ve or 10 years he is back as president of Madagascar, said Maisiri. The SADC, which mediated in the conict, has appealed to the Madagascar parliament to come up with a law that would grant amnesty for Ravalomanana. Exiled in South Africa since 2009, he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to hard labour over the death of 36 protesters shot by his presidential guard. The Interior ministry has identied a surprisingly high number of contestants for the elections, with 216 parties and more than two dozen presidential candidates declared. ( AFP 15, 20/1 2013)
Zimbabwes rival political leaders say they have reached a deal over a new constitution, removing a key obstacle to holding elections. The agreement was struck in talks involving President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Mr Tsvangirai said a long journey had ended, while Mr Mugabe said he was glad that a deal had been reached. The Prime Minister had set the adoption of a constitution through a referendum as a condition for polls due later in 2013. Tsvangirais Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party and Mugabes Zanu-PF party entered into a fractious coalition following the 2008 election, which was marred by violence and allegations of vote-rigging. Although details of the deal have not been made public, it is understood that the powers of the president have been curbed a key demand of the MDC. AFP reports that the new basic law would bolster the power of parliament, set a 10-year presidential term limit and strip away presidential immunity. Zanu-PF had also agreed to the formation of elected provincial legislatures. There would also be an executive in each province, headed by an elected chairman. Agreement had also been reached to overhaul the legal system by creating a constitutional court as the highest of the land. However, it is still unclear what agreement has been reached on the powers of the army, police and intelligence services another major sticking point between the parties. The MDC has repeatedly accused the security forces of unleashing violence against its supporters during the 2008 election to help Mugabe hold on to power. In early January, the US-based campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) raised concerns about whether Zimbabwe would make key reforms before the October deadline for elections. Zimbabwe had failed to reform key laws, like the public order, security and information acts, it said. HRW said there had been no changes to the justice system which remains extremely partisan towards Zanu-PF. The security forces, election bodies and state broadcasters were also politically partisan, remaining loyal to Mugabe and Zanu-PF, it added. (BBC News Online,
AFP 17/1)
battle with cancer. President Robert Mugabe announced the death, saying, We have lost a real revolutionary, a ghter of freedom, a friend of the people. He will be dearly missed by all of us. Nkomo was appointed to one of the countrys two vice-presidencies under Mugabe in late 2009. Responsible for overseeing nancial, economic and environmental policy Nkomo, a former speaker of parliament, was seen as loyal to Mugabe. He can be counted on to do Mugabes bidding, a leaked US diplomatic cable dating from 2009 said. While he was sometimes mooted as a successor to Mugabe, few believed he had a real shot at taking the top post. But his death will rekindle the succession battle in the ruling Zanu-PF, and it is unclear who Mugabe will appoint to replace Nkomo, or if he will be replaced before the elections slated to take place in 2013. Nkomos death may further divide the party on factional grounds, given the long history of succession tussles, said International Crisis Groups senior researcher, Trevor Maisiri. The party may mute the succession of the vice president and hold on until after elections. Nkomos appointment was the culmination of a political journey that began in the early 1960s, when he joined the proindependence movement, Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU). The group later became part of Mugabes Zanu-PF party and Nkomos appointment was a way of cementing that relationship. If Mugabe chooses to delay naming Nkomos successor, he runs the risk of plunging into disarray the Zanu-ZAPU coalition, fomenting allegations of the marginalisation of the Matabele, and giving the MDC an easy ride in Matabeleland. Zanu-PF will not want to go to the next election without having appointed a vice president from that region, who will lead the partys (campaign) in that region, Maisiri told AFP. His death prompted condolences from the US embassy in Harare, which said he played an important role in shaping the course of Zimbabwean history. Whether as a teacher, a politician, an advocate for Zimbabwes independence, or as a public servant, Vice President Nkomo was a patriot who dedicated his life to Zimbabwes sovereignty and prosperity, the US embassy said in a statement.
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ZIMBABWE
Constitution Deal Is this a breakthrough at last which will lead to the organisation of elections in 2013?
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Vice-President Dies Vice-president John Nkomo died on January 17th in Harare after a long
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David Coltart, the Education Minister and MDC party member, said although Nkomo was from a party I clash with often, I always had a very cordial relationship with him and that he had a moderating inuence in cabinet. If an appointment is going to be made, Zimbabwes former envoy to South Africa and now party chairman Simon Khaya-Moyo is rumoured to be the favourite, but he may be contested by Mines Minister Obert Mpofu whose inuence in Matabeleland has grown rapidly, triggering a standoff with some party heavyweights. But the battle for succession may include people from other regions given that some regions have over the last few years questioned why the VP position is reserved for someone from Matabeleland. The Manyikas and the Karangas have been demanding a balance in the presidium arguing they have been left out for a long time. (
AFP 17/1 2013; The Zimbabwe Independent website, Harare 18/1)
that led to Zimbabwes independence in 1980. A trained sociologist, he was vice-chancellor at the University of Zimbabwe, published several books on traditional medicine and was president of the Zimbabwe traditional healers association.
( AFP 11/1 2013) Zanu-PF conference Vol. 49, p. 19525C
began as political riots quickly turning into ethnic killing. The violence was the worst in Kenya since independence in 1963, and Lwanga is under no illusion as to the magnitude of the work before her. However, opinion remains divided over the commissions performance, with opponents arguing the body has been a waste of public nances. What tangible thing has it done for Kenyans? former political detainee and civil rights activist Timothy Njoya asked AFP, calling it a waste of taxpayers money. To date, the commission has investigated more than 100 hate speech cases, some involving the very top of Kenyan society. However, fewer than ten of those cases went to court, and none of the accused was found guilty. ( AFP 20/1
2013)
ELECTIONS
KENYA
Tackling Hate Speech Steps are taken to avoid a repeat of the terrible violence after the 2008 elections.
With elections weeks away, Kenya is tackling the hate speech that fanned ethnic violence that followed presidential polls ve years ago in which more than 1,100 people were killed. Set up in 2008 after the contested polls, Kenyas National Cohesion and Integration Commission tries to identify those guilty of hate speech in the run up to the next elections on March 4th. If you are guilty of hate speech, we will get you, Milly Lwanga, who heads a team monitoring hate speech at the commission, told AFP. At the commissions premises in Nairobi, a group of ve men monitor social media sites, searching for words or statements that might constitute hate speech. Internet sites such as Twitter and Facebook have seen a rapid rise in popularity since the last elections, with now over a quarter of Kenyans online. In 20078, it was radio stations that encouraged rival supporters to go out and attack other groups, broadcasting the location of where groups were, while mobile phone text messages were also used to whip up emotions. One former radio presenter, Joshua Sang, faces trial in April for crimes against humanity charges in the International Criminal Court (ICC), charges he denies. Field ofcers primarily attend political gatherings to monitor what is said there, and include police ofcers, journalists, students and community leaders. If there are elements of hate speech, we summon the person in question and warn them. Most of those warned cease immediately, said Lwanga. Violence following the last elections shattered Kenyas image as a beacon of stability in east Africa, with what
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Party Primaries Prime Minister Raila Odinga on January 23rd downplayed protests that marred the just-concluded party primaries, arguing its effects would not affect his presidential bid. We have come to the end of ercely competitive election primaries. To all people of Kenya, I urge for calm and reconciliation, he appealed. Raila dismissed as speculation fears that the chaos may dent his quest for the presidency, reiterating that the unrest was not a party affair, but an unfortunate occurrence. He also said assumptions that he might lose support as a result of the violence were not based on any facts. The Prime Minister said his party had relied on information received from returning ofcers. Raila said the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) faced challenges in three out of the 47 counties and thus could not be perceived to limit his presidential chances. The violence was isolated in some areas. The incidents are unfortunate but its time to put everything behind and move forward united as a country, he urged. (The Standard website, Nairobi
23/1)
Election Fraud Case: Police arrested and charged a director of a human rights organisation, Zimrights, with alleged election fraud on January 14th, a lawyer for the accused said. Beatrice Mtetwa said Okay Machisa had been charged with scanning voter registration certicates with false names and misrepresenting that these people had been registered as voters. Zimbabwe police over the years have led a crackdown on non-governmental organisations seen as critical of President Robert Mugabes rule. Police had already carried out a raid on the Zimrights ofces in central Harare in December, detaining another ofcial, Leo Chamahwinya, who faces the same charges. Mtetwa said the police conducted another raid after Machisas arrest to look for evidence of any payments that had been made to the people he is alleged to have connived with. On January 16th, the Harare magistrates court denied bail to Machisa, saying he was a ight risk, and that he should remain in jail while further investigations took place. He was expected to be back in court on January 30th. ( AFP
14,16/1 2013)
Chavunduka Dies: Gordon Chavunduka, a Zimbabwean politician who was among negotiators for independence from Britain, died in hospital in the capital Harare on January 11th after a long battle with cancer, his MDC party said. Chavunduka, 82, was on the delegation to the 1979 Lancaster House Conference
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Meanwhile, Finance Minister Njeru Githae was the rst political heavyweight to fall by the wayside as primaries held by political parties ended on January 19th. Githae failed in his bid to capture a ticket to central Kenyas Kirinyaga Countys gubernatorial race. He was beaten by little known Joseph Ndathi on The National Alliance (TNA) ticket.
(PANA, Nairobi 19/1) C
Retirement Bonuses Kenyan MPs awarded themselves a $107,000 (65,000) retirement bonus in one of the last sessions of parliament before the general elections. The package will also provide them with an armed guard, a diplomatic passport and access to airport VIP lounges. It is the second time the MPs have voted for a golden handshake. President Mwai Kibaki vetoed an attempt in 2012 after widespread protests. The MPs are among the highest paid in Africa, earning $13,000 a month, while the average yearly salary in Kenya is about $1,700. The latest vote was passed on January 9th with fewer than 30 MPs in the chamber, according to parliamentary transcripts. The retirement package is the same as that approved in October, but this time the MPs have also recommended bonuses for the president almost $300,000 in cash and allowances the vice-president and the prime minister. When he vetoed the previous bill, Mr Kibaki said it was untenable in the prevailing economic circumstances in the country. The Salaries Review Commission told Kenyan media it was uncertain whether the vote was constitutional, while civil society groups have reacted with outrage. The executive director of Kenyas Human Rights Commission. Atsango Chesoni, said the package was preposterous and in completely bad taste.
(BBC News Online 10/1)
to PANA he signed for his own benets, including a $3m winding up allowance, a monthly salary of Ksh1m, four foreign trips funded by the government, 26 domestic workers and three new cars every three years. (PANA, Nairobi 16/1) In an earlier development, deputy Prime Minister Musalia Mudavadi was nominated the presidential candidate of a new alliance, the Amani (Peace) Coalition. The alliance brings together the United Democratic Forum (UDF), Kenya African National Union (KANU), New Ford Kenya and Vision Party of Kenya. (Daily
Nation website, Nairobi 4/1) Presidential candidates Vol. 49, p. 19523A
The ministers accuse Belkhadem of trying to use state institutions to realise personal ambitions, and say they no longer recognise his authority as from today, January 9th. The FLN and RND are both members of the presidential alliance created in 2004 to support head of state Abdelaziz Bouteika. ( AFP 9/1 2013)
TOGO
Opposition Protest Attempt The authorities continually clamp down on simmering discontent.
Togolese security forces on January 11th for a second straight day prevented a protest by the opposition in the capital Lome by occupying the area for the planned march and ring tear gas. A member of the coalition that planned the protest said at least three people had been injured and ve were detained. An AFP correspondent saw security forces re tear gas at a group of about 30 youths. The previous day, the coalition said around 20 people were injured and 18 were detained. A journalists union said three journalists were also hurt. Lets Save Togo, a coalition of opposition and civil society groups, had planned three days of protests to begin on January 10th, the latest ahead of legislative and local elections due to be held by the end of March. Territorial Administration Minister Gilbert Bawara had warned late on the 9th that the march itinerary would not be allowed. Togo has banned marches in commercial areas of the capital, saying they posed too great a risk to security and were difcult to police. The opposition has denounced the ban, calling it a bid to stie dissent in the small West African nation led by the same family for more than four decades. A series of protests in recent months have been dispersed with tear gas. Lets Save Togo is seeking the departure of President Faure Gnassingbe and a wide range of reforms. Legislative elections were originally due in October, but they have been postponed amid disagreements over electoral reforms. Gnassingbe recently announced that they would be held by the end of March. ( AFP 11/1 2013) In a later move, the authorities brought the opposition leader Agbeyome Kodjo for questioning over two major res at markets that the government had labelled criminal acts, his party said.
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PARTIES AND POLICIES

ALGERIA
Ouyahia Resigns The ruling parties bring pressure to bear on their leaders.
The secretary-general of the National Democratic Rally (RND) and former prime minister, Ahmed Ouyahia, resigned his post in a letter addressed to party ofcials and activists effective from January 15th. He said the move came after an assessment of the prevailing conditions in the party, alluding to a split within party ranks. However, there had been pressure on him to leave the party leadership before the convening of the partys National Council session. (El-Khabar
website, Algiers 4/1)
On January 10th, a social mediamobilised group of protestors set re to 221 cofns in front of Parliament to show the growing public anger over the $100,000 end-of-term package for departing MPs. A Facebook-convened group was mobilised to protest against the MPs last wish, after sending petitions to thousands of social media users and raised funds to construct black cofns which were set on re at the Parliaments entrance. In the biggest show of the growing freedom of expression since the passing of the new constitution, police guarding Parliament stood at a distance, guns ready, but did not stop the activists from setting off the re. The protestors, wearing black T-shirts, organised a funeral band and a gun salute, often the ingredients of a state funeral, and later set the cofns on re. AFP 12/1 reported that President Kibaki had rejected the latest attempt to award send-off bonuses to MPs, yet according
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AFP later reported that eight ministers from the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN) had also called in a statement on January 9th for party chief Abdelaziz Belkhadem to resign. The FLN ministers call on Abdelaziz Belkhadem to cede his place to a new secretary general during the next meeting of the central committee from January 31st to February 2nd, the signatories said in the statement sent to AFP. They also urged Belkhadem to voluntarily and from now announce his intention (to quit) to allow proper preparation for the party meeting, the statement said. The eight who signed are the ministers of health, national solidarity, transport, higher education, information and telecommunications, agriculture, parliament relations, and Maghreb and African affairs. The ministers are all on the central committee, the partys supreme body. Four are members of the political ofce, the partys management.
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Kodjo, a former prime minister and expresident of parliament, is a key gure in the Lets Save Togo coalition. His party has labelled attempts to tie opposition gures to the res as politically motivated. Two of the countrys main markets were hit by res in early January that caused signicant damage, but led to no deaths. The partys Vice President was also detained and had been held since January 13th, according to the ofcial. The party has denied any links with the res and called on the government to arrest the culprits. ( AFP 16/1 2013)
public television to air documentaries discrediting Sata in the run up to the 2011 elections. Being an employee in the ministry, he arbitrarily and in disregard of defamation laws and ZNBC editorial policy did direct the board and management to air Stand up for Zambia documentaries, an act prejudicial to the rights and interest of ZNBC, said Namukolo Kasumpa, spokeswoman for the anti-corruption taskforce. Stories written from the series of documentaries were also published in the local pro-government press. Investigative journalist Chanda Chimba, who produced the documentaries, was arrested for the publication of the stories and for allegedly receiving payment for the stories. Davis Mataka, a former managing director of state-owned Zambia Daily Mail and Ngande Mwanajiti, a media consultant, were also taken in and jointly charged for publishing an unregistered private, but pro-government, newspaper ahead of the elections which were won by Sata. The four were later freed on bail. Police on January 17th arrested Hakainde Hichilema, leader of the second largest opposition party, the United Party for National Development (UPND), charging him with defamation of the President. Hichilema and Mumba were later released on bail. Mumba accused the government of trying to annihilate the opposition. Obby Chibuluma of civil society organisation SACCORD said, We are moving at a supersonic speed towards dictatorship.
( AFP 9, 17, 18/1)
ZAMBIA
Graft Arrest The opposition leader is targeted for the third time.
The authorities arrested outspoken opposition leader Nevers Mumba on January 8th for graft allegedly committed more than two years ago when he was the countrys ambassador to Canada. Anti-corruption task force spokeswoman Namukolo Kasumpa announced the arrest after Mumba, accompanied by dozens of his Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) supporters, was led to the cells at a Lusaka police station. Leader of the largest faction of the former ruling party, Mumba was Zambias envoy to Canada between 2009 and 2011. His party lost power to President Michael Satas Patriotic Front (PF) in 2011. He is accused of awarding Can $34,000 (US $34,450) worth of contracts for the renovation of the ambassadors house without following proper procedure. He is also alleged to have failed to comply with systems when he received and disbursed a donation of more than Can $122,000, given to the Zambian government by the worlds gold leader Barrick Gold Corporation. It was the third time Mumba had been arrested in recent weeks. Earlier, he was locked up for unlawful assembly when he met traditional leaders, and also arrested for statements police said were likely to breach the peace, when he claimed the ruling party was planning to destabilise the opposition. ( AFP
8,9/1)
As such, the statement attributed to Sakeni is conrmation of the fears we have raised in the past that the Patriotic Front government has no political will to facilitate a process that will lead to Zambians giving themselves a popular Constitution they have desired for a long time, Fr. Lungu said in a statement on January 22nd. He said the situation was compounded by governments failure to bring about consensus on the Constitution-making process by attending to some key issues which stakeholders had raised. He added that his organisation had been engaged in several discussions with other stakeholders and had agreed on certain positions and a plan of action which they would start implementing shortly. The Oasis Forum comprises of the Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ), Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (EFZ), Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC), Non-Governmental Organisations Coordinating Council (NGOCC) and the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ). (PANA, Lusaka 22/1)
IN BRIEF
C^te dIvoire: The former Prime Minister o Jeannot Kouadio-Ahoussou has been appointed Minister of State to the President of the Republic. Appointed Prime Minister in March 2012 to replace Guillaume Soro, Kouadio-Ahoussou left the post in November, following the dissolution of the government. (PANA, Abidjan 9/1) DR Congo: On December 31st, senators adopted an amended bill on the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI). The CENI must be composed of 26 members, including a member of a city in Kinshasa Province. Eight members will be appointed by the majority, six by the opposition, and 12 by civil society. A major innovation is the involvement of both social and political forces in the CENI. Members of the civil society cannot belong to political parties. They will be selected by their peers. (RTNC TV, Kinshasa 31/12) Nigeria: President Goodluck Jonathan has forwarded the names of two ministerial nominees to the Senate for conrmation. They are Kabiru Tanimu from northern Kebbi state who will replace Defence Minister Bello Mohammed, dismissed in 2012, and Prof. Chinedu Nebo from southern Enugu State, nominated as Power Minister in place of Barth Nnaji, who also left in 2012. (PANA, Lagos 17/1) Uganda: The anti-corruption court on January 18th sentenced former junior Health Minister Mike Mukula to four years in prison after nding him guilty of embezzling USh210m (US$80,000) from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation account. Others accused with him had been cleared in 2012. These included
No Referendum After All? Meanwhile, a body comprising inuential organisations in Zambia has expressed shock and alarm at the governments ambivalence on whether or not the countrys draft constitution will be subjected to a referendum. Information Minister, Kennedy Sakeni, had said the government was not sure whether there would be a referendum on the draft Constitution. Reacting to the comment, spokesman for the Oasis Forum, Fr. Cleophas Lungu, observed that the Technical Committee currently working on the draft Constitution was operating on the basis that the Constitution would be subjected to a referendum. Lungu also noted that President Michael Sata, both in his inaugural speech in 2011 and in his maiden speech in Parliament as President, was very clear that there would be a referendum on the issue.
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In a separate development, an ex-Information Minister and three journalists were arrested for old stories that were critical of the then opposition leader, and now president, Michael Sata. Ex-minister Ronnie Shikapwasha was charged with abuse of ofce for telling
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January 1st31st 2013 Jim Muhwezi (former health minister), Alex Kamugisha (former junior health minister) and Alice Kaboyo, a former private secretary.
Africa Research Bulletin 19563 (Daily Monitor website, Kampala 18/1)
National Security
ALGERIA
Deadly Hostage Crisis Scores die when special forces launch a counter attack on Islamist hostagetakers at a desert gas plant.
Terrorism will not prevail, Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said on January 21st at his rst news conference since he took ofce ve months ago, where he gave grim details of the fourday siege at the remote Tiguentourine gas eld by foreign jihadists with links to Al-Qaeda. The militants claimed their attack was in protest at Algerias complicity in Frances military campaign against Islamists in Mali (see p. 19547). The assault came on the sixth day of the military intervention. An Islamist group calling itself Signatories in Blood a combat unit led by an Algerian, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who was recently ousted from Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), claimed responsibiliy and called for a halt to this aggression against our people in Mali. The militants, who numbered around 30, had inside intelligence and detailed plans of the important 15-hectare (37.7-acre) site, according to Sellal. He told the media that the jihadist commando came from northern Mali. Run by BP, Norways Statoil and Algerian state oil company Sonatrach, the remote site, which accounts for 10% of Algerias considerable natural gas production, lies deep in the southern desert, 800 miles from Algiers, and 35 miles from the Libyan border. Paris Match magazine published a warning from Signatories in Blood that France and other countries could now expect new attacks. The attack at In Amenas is only the beginning, a spokesman was quoted as saying, highlighting the offensive by French crusaders and Zionist Jews in Mali. But Sellal said the militants invocation of Frances offensive in Mali was a smokescreen, arguing that the attack on the gas plant had been planned for at least two months. More than a week after the siege, the precise numbers caught up in the bloodshed remained uncertain. Sellal said 37 foreign nationals from eight countries
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and one Algerian died, with ve more people unaccounted for. However, totals released by individual nations come to a gure of 40 dead or missing from nine
Algeria Hostage Crisis Timeline

January 16th: Militants attack two buses carrying In Amenas workers, killing two, a Briton and an Algerian. They then go on to the gas facilitys living quarters and main installation, seizing hostages. Some gas workers manage to escape 17th: A spokesman for the hostage-takers demands the army withdraw so negotiations can begin. Thirty Algerian and 15 foreign hostages escape. Algerian forces attack after the militants try to move their hostages in ve four-wheel-drive vehicles. Four of them are destroyed in an air strike and an unknown number of hostages killed. 18th: Stalemate as Algerian forces surround the gas plant where the remaining hostages are held. Moktar Belmokhtar proposes that France and Algeria negotiate an end to the war being waged by France in Azawad (northern Mali). 19th: Algerian forces launch a nal assault after reports that the hostage-takers were killing their captives. Just beforehand, the captors kill seven of the remaining hostages, but 16 are freed. Ofcial media say 11 kidnappers killed their last seven foreign hostages before being killed by the army. The special forces managed to kill 32 kidnappers and to free 685 Algerians and 107 foreigners, according to the government. Troops discover that the plant had been mined. 20th: Private Algerian television Ennahar and daily El-Watan respectively report the discovery of a further 25 and 30 new bodies at the site. French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian describes the hostage-taking as an act of war. Belmokhtar says the raid was carried out by 40 ghters from the Muslim world and European countries, and that he is speaking in the name of the mother outt, of Al-Qaeda. The Islamists behind the assault threaten to stage strikes on nations involved in Mali. International leaders lay the responsibility squarely on terrorists, putting aside criticisms expressed at the outset over the Algerian army methods. 21st: Sellal says some 29 of the 32 militants were killed and the other three arrested; they had entered the country from neighbouring Mali ( AFP 21/1, BBC News online 25/1, agencies)
nations, excluding Algeria. Japan suffered the biggest conrmed death toll with 10 nationals known to have died. Other countries suffering deaths or injury to nationals are: UK, Philippines, Norway, US, France, Romania, and Malaysia. Nearly 700 Algerians and 100 foreigners survived. Algerian special forces launched two assaults, one on the 17th, a day after the deadly drama unfolded and then in a nal raid on the 19th during which they killed the remaining attackers, but not before seven foreign hostages were shot dead by their attackers. Mr Sellal said this second assault was more laborious because of the difculties of access to the site. Unfortunately, the last hostages were executed by their hostage-takers with a bullet to the head. There was a collective assassination. Later reports said three of the assailants were captured. Earlier in the day, troops entering the renery had found 15 charred bodies, while some 16 had been freed before the nal assault began. The entire renery was mined with explosives and booby-traps, Sonatrach said in a statement, and Algerian media reported that the militants had planned to blow up as much of the complex as they could. Mid-morning, a re broke out in the plant, and Algerian special forces went in. Foreigners Executed Harrowing accounts of the siege emerged, with survivors recalling how fellow hostages were brutally executed. Foreigners were rounded up, many had their hands tied behind their backs with rubber cable-ties, others had their mouths taped. The hostage-takers, which Algerian ofcials said included at least three explosives experts, set about strapping Semtex bombs around the necks and waists of some of the hostages. Some survivors said foreigners were shot as they ran to escape. Several Algerians helped to hide foreigners, giving them their clothes. One French catering manager hid under a bed and four planks of wood for 40hours, remaining undetected. A Filipino survivor said gunmen used him for cover: Whenever government troops tried to use a helicopter to shoot at the enemy, we were used as human shields. A security source said two more of the attackers, known as the Canadians, were Arabs with joint nationality. Ofcial sources in Algeria have said the militant squad included three Algerians and men from six other nationalities. In addition to the Canadians, there were
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the 21st, but Paris said it could not verify the information. The groups head, Algerian Mohamed Amine Bencheneb, who was killed by the military, was behind the October 2011 kidnapping of two Spaniards in southwest Algeria and released in July 2012, a security source said. Controversial Tactics Algeria refused foreign offers of aid in handling the crisis and this, and its decision to send its military in to re on vehicles full of hostages, drew widespread international criticism. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci admitted that his governments security forces had made mistakes during the hostage crisis. He also said Algeria would need international help in the ght against terrorism. Medelci told the Associated Press: We are in the process of assessing our mistakes. In that assessment we are leaning more towards establishing that the operation was a success. Mr Medelci also said Algeria was likely to reinforce security measures at sites
Tiganturine gas field
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men from Egypt, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and 11 from Tunisia. Canadas Foreign Affairs department said it was seeking information, but referred to the possible involvement of only one Canadian. Meanwhile French and Algerian intelligence sources claimed that at least one of the attackers was a French national, according to media reports on
Moktar Belmokhtar
Veteran jihadist Moktar Belmokhtars audacious hostage attack after a bitter split from his north African Al-Qaeda allies is a statement that he is still a force to be reckoned with, experts say. The one-eyed Islamist who has eluded capture for years formed his own brigade, the Signatories in Blood after a series of bitter feuds saw him cut ties with AQIM, of which he was a founding leader. He returned to Algeria from Afghanistan in 1993, joining the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), which conducted a violent campaign of civilian massacres in its battle against the governments. Belmokhtar thrived thanks to his intimate knowledge of the nearly lawless Grey Zone of southern Algeria, northern Mali and neighbouring Niger. An expert in smuggling, he has forged close ties with important Tuareg tribes, notably by orchestrating marriages into his family. For years he has furnished ghters in northern Algeria with weapons bought through his smuggling network. Despite having life and death sentences on his head for several attacks in Algeria, Belmokhtar has often been reported dead, only to re-appear later. This is why he has never accepted that (AQIM leader Abdelmalek) Droukdel, who is wary of him, has chosen other leaders to command Zone 9, the Sahara, says Mohamed Mokaddem, author of several books on Al-Qaeda. To [Belmokhtar] Abou Zeid is just a vulgar smuggler turned jihadist with no legitimacy. He believes Abou Zeid continued trafcking fuel and cars while ghting in the name of Allah and Afghanistan, says Mokaddem. Mauritanian specialist in Islamist movements in the Sahel, Isselmou Ould Moustapha, agrees. Belmokhtar considers Abou Zeid an ignoramus, a leader without charisma. He feels mistreated by AQLIM because, unlike other jihadist leaders in its history, he comes from southern Algeria, and not the north. But with the hostage seizure in In Amenas, he made a grand strike. Belmokhtar was pushed out as one of AQLIMs top two leaders in northern Mali in October for what one regional security ofcial said were his continued divisive activities despite several warnings. With a reputation as a smuggling baron - dealing in contraband cigarettes, stolen cars and even drugs, as well as proting from illegal immigration networks - Belmokhtars commitment to AQLIMs puritanical brand of Islam was questioned by some members of the group. But while still in the AQLIM saddle, he vowed in July that the group would act with rmness and determination against anyone collaborating with a foreign military force that might intervene in Mali. In a statement released by Mauritanias private news agency Nouakchott Informations (ANI), an AQLIM mouthpiece, Belmokhtar said: We will not stand by with our arms crossed and we will act as the situation demands with rmness and determination. He kept his word. ( AFP 17,19/1)
where multinationals operate in the country, insisting that foreign workers will continue to work in Algeria and that is the best way to answer the terrorists. He defended the governments decision to attack instead of negotiating. Faced with such an attitude (of terrorism), its not just words that solve the problem. Its action, he said. He argued that Algeria wasnt the target of the attack, but they are targeting investors in Algeria and the foreigners who work there. The Independent, London (28/1) says this is in step with British Prime Minister David Cameron, who two days previously told the same conference at Davos that the G8 should share the burden of ghting international terrorism, not only through military action, but also with diplomacy, aid, political relations and support for democracy. Six British nationals died in the siege. Despite the heavy loss of life, David Cameron had earlier refused to criticise the hardline tactics of the Algerian government which, right from the start, ruled out any negotiation with the terrorists. The responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched these vicious and cowardly attacks, he said. AFP (20/1) said US President Barack Obama, his French counterpart Francois Hollande and US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta refused to blame Algeria and said responsibility for the deaths lay with the terrorists. The blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it out, and the United States condemns their actions in the strongest possible terms, Obama said in a statement. He added that the US stood ready to provide whatever assistance Algerian ofcials needed in the aftermath of the attack. Hollande called Algiers response the most appropriate given it was dealing with coldly determined terrorists ready to kill their hostages. Echoing President Hollandes response, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told Europe 1 radio the events showed the need to be relentless in the face of terrorism. It emerged that Britain, Japan, the US and other countries whose nationals were caught up in the events issued a joint demarche to Algeria on January 18th. A demarche is a formal diplomatic move in which a countrys stance is conveyed in person rather than by note to another government. Japan was among the more forthright of nations as the hostage crisis unfolded, summoning Algierss ambassador to demand answers and to push for military restraint as armed forces surrounded the plant. A senior Japanese ofcial met
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Algerias prime minister on January 23rd to press for an explanation of the gas plant siege; 17 Japanese nationals were at the facility when the jihadists struck nine died and seven survived. Speaking at the press conference on the 21st, Algerias Prime Minister said although there was relative quiet, the situation was still difcult and vigilance was required. But despite calls for calm, public opinion is terried of further fallout from Algerias decision to allow overights by French ghter planes in their offensive against Islamists in neighbouring Mali, according to analysts. Chac Mesbah, a military expert, said the Algerian public is scared of seeing Algeria become a spillway for violence. The hostage debacle has also reminded Algerians of the countrys long and bloody experience with radical Islamists and the governments actions to suppress them. And more recently, since Malis Islamists began taking over territory in March 2012, regular attacks by AQLIM and its breakaway Jihad and Unity Movement in West Africa (MUJAO) have continued in Algeria, mostly against security forces.The hostage siege is a reminder that Algerias violent nightmare could be far from over. Regional terrorism expert Mohamed Mokaddem said terrorist groups want to transform the Algerian desert into an operational regrouping zone, if theyre under pressure in Mali, adding that Algeria would not be able to go through the Mali intervention untouched. Libyan Connection? The arms used came from Libyan rebels who overthrew the Gaddafy regime, an Algerian daily reported on January 23rd. The rst interrogations of the three terrorist captured by security services have revealed that rebels in Zintan (southwest Libya) were behind the sale of the arms used against the gas plant, reported Echorouk. A well-informed source close to hardline Islamist grooups in Libya told AFP on the 22nd that the militants received logistical aid from Islamists in the neighbouring country. The source did not specify the exact nature of the aid but acknowledged that Libyan Islamists were also responsible for establishing contacts between the captors and the media. Tunisian daily El Watan, meanwhile, reported that the operation was organised and prepared in Libya. Only some elements came from northern Mali to reinforce the group. Their heavy arms came from Libya where tonnes of weaponry were dropped by French aircraft during the uprising against Gaddafy, it said, quoting Tunisian security
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sources. Both Algerias Minister of Interior Dahou Ould Kablia and Foreign Minister Medelci had alleged that the terrorist group attacked the complex from Libya. The Libyan Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Ministry strongly denied the reports, and PANA reported (20/1) Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zidane as ruling out any link between Libya and the hostage-taking, saying his country would not allow anyone to threaten the peace and security of its neighbours. At the same time, he voiced support for Algeria and Mali in their ght against terrorism, Magharebia.com reported (21/1). According to Echourouk El Youmi website on the 20th, one of the captured terrorists said the group prepared for the operation in Niger, under the supervision and planning of Belmokhtar. He also said as well as aiming to inict damage and loss on the gas complex, the group aimed to capture a large number of foreign hostages and take them towards Mali to use them as leverage on the international community. In the latest developments in the region, the armed forces have strengthened their presence in various areas near the border with Mali, Niger and Libya, with a view to preventing any inltration into national territory by terrorist groups. According to Algerian newspaper ElKhabar website (22/1), military reinforcements have been observed in the area as well as persistent air patrols.
(Sources as referenced in text)
Separately, a court handed a life sentence on January 8th to Gharbia Amar, an Islamist convicted of participating in the 2003 kidnapping of 15 foreign tourists, including 10 Germans, in the Sahara desert, AFP reported from Algiers (8/1). A Malian, Youcef Ben Mohamed, was acquitted of the same charge but given a seven-year jail term for belonging to an armed terrorist group and smuggling illegal weapons. Amar was also convicted on the arms trafcking charge.
BURKINA FASO
Herder Farmer Clashes Reliance on traditional laws and collective punishment must be addressed to stop the killings.
Fighting between herders and farmers in the central-eastern Sangou area, which left seven people dead, is a warning that recurrent violence between the two groups could get out of hand unless urgent action is taken, said Allahidi Diallo, governor of the Central-East region, one of the countrys most fertile. On December 31st clashes broke out again between Fulani herdsmen and Bissa farmers (aka Busangas) after a herders cattle grazed on a farm. A lot of property, including houses, granaries and cattle was destroyed, said Diallo adding that a temporary curfew was imposed in Sangou village and the surrounding areas. He said ghting had spread to areas as far as 100km away. Interior Minister Jerome Bougouma said that people were being attacked because of their ethnicity and the violence was mainly due to lack of faith in the judiciary, and the reliance on traditional laws and collective punishment. He pledged that a security forces unit would be established in the troubled region. In 2012, the government held workshops in the 13 regions to seek ways to ease tensions among different communities. Government statistics show 55 people have been killed in clashes in the past four years and on average there are 600 such conicts every year. The peace initiative focused on land regulation, the importance of protecting nomadic paths and seeking ways in which farmers and herders can sustainably use natural resources. In Burkina Faso, livestock are an economic mainstay for many families, with 80% of rural families keeping at least one or two animals to fall back on when times are hard. Hassan Barry, head of Tapital Puulaku, a Fulani cultural organization promoting understanding between pastoralists and farmers, said many in the centre-east
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Pipeline Attack: Two guards were killed and seven others wounded when the Ain Chikh pipeline in the Djebahia region (north) was blown up on January 27th. The area is an AQIM stronghold, but militants rarely carry out attacks there.
(BBC News online 29/1).
AQIM Leader Killed: The army killed one of Abdelmalek Droukdels top aides in the Boumerdes region in what an Algerian journalist described as part of quality security operations to stamp out the organization, Al-Jazeera reported (5/1). Izza Rezki, aka Abou Djaffar, was among nine Islamist militants killed in a week-long operation the army carried out east of Algiers, Al-Jazeera quoted Algerian newspapers as saying. Meanwhile an Algerian court on January 18th sentenced Droukdel to death in connection with a 2007 twin suicide attack, APS news agency reported. Ten other accomplices were also sentenced to death, six of them in absentia, APS said, adding that only four of the defendants in the case were in the courtroom to hear the verdict.
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Rebels in the Central African Republic said on January 2nd they were suspending their advance and would hold peace talks with the government, after regional armies sent reinforcements to stop them reaching the capital.
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region had not been reached during the sensitisation campaign. He urged that local administration ofcials be trained to increase understanding between farmers and herders and sensitize them before the beginning of rainy seasons in order to have zero deaths. In December, farmers lost their donkeys after an attack but later the perpetrators were released by the security forces, said Halidou Barry, a Fulani herder. Justice must prevail when there are attacks from either side. Around 600 people, mainly women and children, have been displaced by the latest ghting, Diallo told the UN humanitarian news agency, IRIN. Some have sought refuge in villages outside Sangou, while others crossed the border into neighbouring Ghana. A local resident told IRIN the men were hiding in the bush with their cattle. Burkina Fasos Ministry of Social Welfare sent food and tents to the displaced, but Diallo said more was needed. The emergency aid sent was done on the basis of rst estimates which are now outdated On security, the situation is under control. But there is an emergency. The imperative now is the management of humanitarian issues because there are huge concentrations of displaced persons in certain areas, Diallo added. There is no attack and no clashes. Security forces are patrolling. The Ghanaian Chronicle said (11/1) that nine people had been killed in the clashes and that 240 Fulani refugees, who had ed to Ghanas Bawku West District of the Upper East Region, refused to be repatriated fearing for their safety. Another 300 plus had gone home, however. (IRIN,
Ouagadougou 9/1; Ghanaian Chronicle 11/1)
The Seleka rebel coalitions lightning three-week advance from the north of the country to within striking distance of the capital Bangui in the south had raised fears of a spreading crisis and drawn regional calls for negotiations with the government in the Gabonese capital Libreville. Rebel spokesman Eric Massi announced the rebels were ready to talk, saying: I conrm that we have decided to suspend the offensive towards Bangui, and that we will send a delegation to Gabon to participate in peace talks. The talks started on January 8th and were mediated by Republic of Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso, under the aegis of the Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC). Massi said the rebels did not believe President Francois Bozize,whom they accused of failing to honour a 2007 peace deal, was sincere in his offer to take part in unconditional talks and still demanded his departure. The Seleka coalition is however in favour of peace, and we have always said we do not want to enter Bangui, he said. Central African nations had already begun sending reinforcements to Damara, the last major town between the rebels and the capital, to bolster the CARs army against the rebels. The regional troops were ghting under the banner of multinational African force FOMAC, which was launched in 2008 by CEEAC in a bid to stabilise the coupand rebellion-prone country. Northern neighbour Chad, whose President Idriss Deby is an ally of Bozize, contributed the largest number of troops, 760 soldiers. Meanwhile, President Bozize sacked his son Jean-Francis as Defence Minister and took over the portfolio, his ofce said. He also dismissed army chief of staff Guillaume Lapo. Bozize had in his New Year address expressed his disappointment at the way the army failed to respond to the rebel offensive. ( AFP 2/1
2013)
from the opposition and setting out other power-sharing details, according to the United Nations. Under the accord, Bozize will be allowed to nish his mandate, which ends in 2016, but he cannot replace the new prime minister during the transition period. Bozize has said he will not stand for a new term. The agreement also calls for the withdrawal of all foreign military forces except those sent by the CEEAC countries. Seleka made this demand specically to secure the withdrawal of about 200 South African troops sent in December. The UN Security Council welcomed the signature of the ceasere, in a statement, which emphasised the necessity of an expeditious implementation of these agreements and called on all parties to implement them in good faith. The 15-nation council urged all parties to allow safe and unhindered access to peoples in need of humanitarian assistance as quickly as possible and for all civilians held by armed groups to be released. The violence in the country of some ve million has affected more than 300,000 children, with child soldiers recruited and some girls forced to act as sex slaves, according to UN agencies. The UN withdrew non-essential staff and the dependents of all workers in December as rebels neared Bangui. The UN humanitarian department, OCHA, has voiced serious concern about the plight of civilians amid reports of widespread looting and violence. The World Food Programme (WFP), which has suspended its operations in the country, says hundreds of tonnes of food have been stolen from warehouses across the country. ( AFP 11/1 2013) Premier Appointed PANA reported on January 17th that opposition leader Nicolas Tiangaye had been appointed as the new Prime Minister in line with the Libreville agreement. He will form a new all-inclusive government, paving the way for parliamentary elections within 12 months to replace the national assembly. (PANA,
Brazzaville 17/1)
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Peace Agreement Bozize is allowed to stay, but his Prime Minister must come from the opposition.
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After three days of talks, on January 11th, the Seleka rebels signed a ceasere deal with President Bozize, who agreed to set up a government of national unity and call new elections. In addition, the two sides and the political opposition signed two political accords allowing for the appointment of a prime minister
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A lawyer by training, he made a name for himself in the impoverished west African nation by defending Jean-Bedel Bokassa, the former self-proclaimed emperor, and by arguing for Rwanda before the International Criminal Court. He is a former head of the Central African Human Rights League, ex-president of the national transition council
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set up after Bozize swept into power in a 2003 coup and one of the main authors of the constitution adopted in 2004, which provided that the president could serve no more than two terms consecutively, putting him at odds with Bozize. With Tiangaye in his post, one of the rebel leaders, General Mahamat Moussa Dhaffane, said his country was ready to move on. We are not rebels by conviction, he said. We agree that things should change we will also change. The country needs peace and economic development. I want to leave a peaceful and prosperous country for our children. One diplomat said that Tiangaye was a man of integrity in a sea of corruption. He has integrity. His record is impeccable. He doesnt compromise, adds top opposition gure Martin Ziguele. A good person, said Eric Massi, spokesman for the Seleka rebels. ( AFP 17/1 2013) MISNA, however reported on some of the concerns voiced by local sources. Although the signing of the Libreville accords and the appointment of a prime minister undoubtedly relieved the people who feared renewed ghting if the negotiations failed, the latest developments raised scepticism. Many in fact doubted that this was the denitive solution to the crisis. Though the people hoped for a positive outcome from the CEEAC mediation, some local sources, who remained anonymous for security reasons, told MISNA that all happened too easily and fast, at least in appearance. While the Libreville accords are considered better than nothing, they however dont give sufcient guarantees on the operative capacity of the future government, which will bring together components that are too different and will lack condence in one another. An institutional situation, stress the local sources, that risks further slowing and complicating the adoption of government policies in a nation that already lacks essential services for citizens, from education to health, despite its rich oil resources. The accord between the government of Bangui, political opposition and Seleka rebel coalition had immediate repercussions. The local Radio Ndeke Luka announced the release of some prisoners, mostly of the Goula ethnic group, arrested in December on suspicion of complicity with Seleka. French forces have reduced their troops in Bangui, deployed at the end of December to protect Frances interests and ensure security in the capital. However, Chadian troops will remain in CAR for another year, coinciding with
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the transition period. (Misna news agency website, Rome 18/1) Rebel offensive Vol. 49, p. 19511A
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

Use of Drones Mooted Attempts to come up with a viable, effective and consensus solution military or otherwise to the conict in the Kivu region, continue.
In early January UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous asked the Security Council to strengthen its DR Congo operation, including by using drones, AFP and other news agencies reported. The United Nations is seeking unmanned air vehicles for operations with peacekeeping forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo, despite resistance from neighbouring nations, defence blog, RP Defense reported. Ofcials with the international force, MONUSCO, which relies on member states to supply military forces, have made requests to at least two UAVoperating nations, France and the US, to make systems available in support of its long-running stabilisation mission. While no details about the UAVs requested have been announced ofcially, reports indicate that the UN is seeking aircraft capable of at least a 12h ight endurance, similar to the Belgian militarys Israel Aerospace Industries RQ-5 Hunter systems that have been previously deployed there, RP Defense said. The request initially met with resistance from neighbouring Rwanda, which denies accusations it has been supporting the rebel M23 group the DR Congo army mutineers operating in eastern DR Congo. Rwanda said it does not want Africa to become a laboratory for foreign intelligence devices. Olivier Nduhungirehe, a Rwandan diplomat at the UN, said his country would oppose the use of drones, calling for further assessment of how they would be used: We express reservations about the introduction of UAVs to peacekeeping operations when the issues that go along with it are still being discussed, he told the state-owned media in Rwanda. President Paul Kagame overturned this however when he said on January 21st that he had no problem with UN plans to deploy surveillance drones, AFP reported (21/1). I have no problemif they think it can help it is up to them, Kagame told reporters, although asking how the drones would contribute towards peace. Ugandas Defence Minister Crispus Kiyonga, also said that Uganda had no
C^te dIvoire o New Year Deaths A National Tragedy

The investigation into a stampede that killed 63 people and injured 49 others during New Year celebrations in Abidjan, blamed an insufcient security deployment as well as a number of anomalies near the scene of the tragedy, an ofcial said on January 5th. The main causes were insufcient security forces as well as the presence of a construction site fence that made the street narrower and caused a bottleneck when crowds dispersed after the reworks display, Abidjan prosecutor Simplice Kouadio Kof said. The streets were inadequately lit and one pavement was blocked by tree trunks, he also said in a statement read on public television, adding that he would take legal action against the suspects. He said several members of the local administration and re department had been questioned over the tragedy, after which three days of national mourning were declared by President Alassane Ouattara. The opposition party of ousted former president Laurent Gbagbo called for Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko to resign. The Ivorian Peoples Front (FPI) charged that the government, in calling out thousands of young Ivorians to a night-time event on a grand scale, did not take the necessary security precautions to avoid such a national tragedy. ( AFP, Abidjan 5/1) War Crimes Charge: Former close aide to ousted president Gbagbo, Charles Ble Goude, has been charged with war crimes, ofcials said. Ble Goude, former leader of the Young Patriots movement, who had been living in exile for 18 months evading authorities, was extradited to C^te dIvoire o on January 18th after his arrest in Ghana. One of his lawyers, Kwame Akuffo, slammed the speedy extradition as illegal. He said he had not had a chance to meet with Ble Goude after his arrest on January 17th and that as far as he knew there had been no court hearing before the extradition. What happened was an extraordinary rendition, Akuffo said. The FPI said the move was in contradiction with a pledge by Ouattaras government to seek peace and reconciliation. Ghanas national security co-ordinator Larry Gbevlo-Lartey said that Ble Goudes extradition followed an ofcial request from C^te dIvoire. Ble Goude has been o agged as one of several Gbagbo supporters who could be tried by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Trial hearings for Gbagbo himself are set to begin on February 19th. ( AFP, Abidjan 21/1 2013; Ghanaianagenda.com Jan)
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objections to a UN plan to use drones for intelligence-gathering. As far as drones are concerned, the drones can be used for two purposes: you use them for intelligence or for ghting. If a drone is for intelligence and it respects sovereignty it will be all right, he said, adding however that before the drones are deployed, we need to consult and agree. DR Congo is already the UNs biggest peacekeeping mission with more than 17,000 troops and 1,400 police at an annual cost of $1.5bn. But the forces are spread thin in the huge country and the UN is under orders to cut costs. Monusco was humiliated in 2012 after rst vowing to prevent armed rebels from taking the regional capital before standing aside and allowing them to march into Goma. The UN has been considering drones since 2009, when it asked the US for the technology and was refused. The cost of UAVs has fallen dramatically in the past ve years and the Pentagon has lost its monopoly on the technology with countries from Belgium to Pakistan manufacturing them. The rst UN drone deployment faces signicant opposition from veto-wielding China and Russia who have concerns over the security of the intelligence gathered. The use of unmanned drones could have far-reaching implications for the future of international peacekeeping, commented Daniel Howden, writing in The Independent (10/1). The paper quoted DR Congo analyst Jason Stearns as saying drones could be a technical x to one of the key problems: monitoring meddling by neighbouring countries and gathering information about security developments in the vast interior of the country. The UNs peacekeeping head, Herve Ladsous, has been pushing for the organisations creaking and poorly supplied missions to be modernised and has threatened to name and shame under-performing troop contingents. He told the Security Council that the Congo mission needed more helicopters, night-vision equipment, river units and drones. Experts have warned that while drones might be useful they would not be a panacea for Monusco or similar operations. They could distract from the real issues at stake: the dereliction of the Congolese state, foreign military meddling, and the increased use of armed groups by all actors to bolster their power, said Mr Stearns. (Sources as
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Special Brigade Regional leaders had been critical of MONUSCO, accusing it of looking on as hundreds of thousands of DR Congolese are made homeless and others ee to neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda. They keep citing the example where MONUSCO allowed the M23 to capture Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu. Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, Ugandan defence chief, told reporters that the military chiefs from the regional blocs of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) met over the weekend of January 19th20th and recommended to the African Union (AU) that the operation of the UN force be halted for its failure to protect Congolese. We are recommending that Africa takes over MONUSCO. We put in a brigade, they give us assets and we do our job, Xinhua quoted him as saying (24/1). Aronda said the defence chiefs decided that the regional leaders should stick to their original proposal of deploying a Neutral Intervention Force (NIF) and the outcome was forwarded to the AU Summit in Addis Ababa (p. 19552). According to Ugandan Defence Minister Crispus Kiyonga, the DRC government has contributed $20m towards the operation of the NIF. South Africa has promised logistical support while SADC as a regional bloc will provide the bulk of the troops. Ramtane Lamamra, the AUs peace and security commissioner had said earlier in January however that there had been talk of merging the NIF with MONUSCO. The general direction of discussions is towards a formula, a creative formula, that would amalgamate the two, he said. Lamamra had been speaking after a meeting of ministers from the 11-member ICGLR in its ongoing effort to get the NIF off the ground, AFP reported from Addis Ababa (8/1). In the event, this was what the AU decided a special brigade of some 2,000 soldiers, which will be set up within MONUSCO, and headed by a Tanzanian ofcial was announced on January 29th by the AU special representative for the Great Lakes Region, Mr Boubacar Diarra. The designation of a Tanzanian at the head of the Brigade was agreed by consensus by countries of the region. The other consensual point is the integration of the Brigade within MONUSCO, he said in a news conference at the 20th AU summit. Mr. Diarra, who is
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also the head of the AU Bureau in Burundi, said that the MONUSCO special brigade would not only ght the M23 rebel movement but other negative forces, PANA reported (28/1). Besides pursuing military efforts to end the crisis, there are regional efforts to pursue peace through talks. The ongoing talks between the DRC government and the M23 rebels are mediated by the Ugandan government and Kiyonga is the facilitator despite accusations that Uganda (as well as Rwanda) has backed the M23 ghters, claims which both countries have strongly denied, AFP and other news agencies pointed out (16/1). Peace Talks Agenda The DR Congo government and M23 rebels on January 16th agreed on an agenda for peace talks being held in Kampala, talks mediator Kiyonga said. The talks will focus on four areas: reviewing a previous 2009 peace agreement, security matters, social, political and economic issues and how to implement any agreement to be signed, the statement said. The parties will henceforth begin negotiations of the substantive issues of the agenda, the statement said. Although the M23 rebels were persuaded to withdraw from Goma after a 12-day occupation, they still control large areas of territory just outside the strategic mining hub. Negotiations started in mid-December but have progressed slowly, with the rebels issuing a raft of demands ranging from calls for a ceasere to demands for major political reform. The M23 declared a unilateral ceasere on January 8th as the peace negotiations resumed. On December 31st, the UN imposed sanctions on M23 rebels and their alleged Rwandan allies, the Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) slapping an arms embargo on both groups. The Security Council also imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on two key M23 gures: the groups civilian leader Jean-Marie Runiga Lugerero and Lieutenant Colonel Eric Badege, a commander suspected of being responsible for the deaths of women and children. ( AFP, Kampala
& Kinshasa 1,16/1 2013)
In new claims, civil society bodies in Nord Kivu on January 18th accused soldiers of the Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF) of massively inltrating the M23 rebel groups ranks over the previous few days. Mr Omar Kavota, the civil society body deputy coordinator, said that the aim was to make the DRCongo
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fragile with the Rwandan soldiers joining the Congolese security services once a peace deal is reached at the ongoing Kampala peace talks. (R. Bunia 18/1) Jail Break: At least 300 prisoners broke out of a North Kivu jail on January 13th, at Butembo in the Beni territory, 200 km north of Goma. Radio Okapi reported that 372 inmates escaped, out of a total 399 detainees after a local Mayi Mayi militia force clashed with prison warders. The Mayi Mayi were being taken by soldiers to Bunia, in neighbouring Orientale province, where they were to undergo military training before joining the army. ( AFP, Kinshasa
15/1 2013) Back from the brink p. 19527
ERITREA
Not a Coup Dissident troops briey seize the information ministry demanding reform and the release of political prisoners.
Eritreas government said on January 22nd that all was calm in the capital Asmara a day after armed mutineers seized the information ministry, with opposition sites saying the stand-off was settled. All is calm today, as it was indeed yesterday, said Yemane Gebremeskel, the director of Eritrean President Issaias Afeworkis ofce, in a message to AFP (22/1). Opposition website Awate.com, based in the United States but with close connections inside Eritrea, said that the commander of around 100 rebel soldiers had agreed to surrender, AFP reported.
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Es Sufelya Reira 15 Rufaa Wad Medani EI Manaqil Himora Gedaref Tessenei Agordat Barentu
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Asmara Decamere Adi Ugri Adi Quala Adi Dairo Adwa
Zula Marsa Fatma Adi Kaie Adigrat Meder
France 24 (21/1) referred to diplomatic and diaspora sources saying that there were 200 soldiers. The face-off was solved when the government accepted his [the army commanders] terms Awate said, although there were no further details. The reports were impossible to conrm independently, and it was not clear if the mutineers had formally surrendered. Amanuel Ghirmai, an Eritrean journalist in Paris for independent Radio Erena, said that army mutineers stormed the hill-top ministry which towers over the capital of the Red Sea state early on January 21st. They reportedly ordered news readers at the government-run television and radio station the only source of media for the authoritarian state to read a statement that they would implement the countrys 1997 constitution. The statement also reportedly ordered the release of prisoners of conscience. Eritrea has the dubious distinction of being ranked last in the world for press freedom by media rights group Reporters Without Borders (known by its French acronym, RSF). However, while the state-run Eri-TV television and radio broadcasts were taken off air, they had resumed broadcasting on January 22nd. BBC news online said state television resumed normal transmission with a delayed news bulletin at 21:45 local time on the 21st but the news that night made no comment on the occupation of the site. Eri-TV, under regime loyalists, has resumed broadcasting live, added Awate. All Ministry of Information employees have been released. The websites of key Eritrean state and ruling party media SAUDI ARABIA operated erratically, with the site for the ruling Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) party inacYEMEN cessible for part of January 21st, BBC news online (21/1) reported.
Sapt al Ulaya 45 Tanumah Abha Khamis Mushayt Najran Sabya Jizan Samitah Al Luhayyah Hajjah Sana 15 Al Hudaydah Bayt al Faqih Dhamar Ibb Mawshij Taizz
lowing an epic 30-year liberation war from neighbouring Ethiopia. Awate claimed the mutineers were led by an army commander called Saleh Osman, a hero of the bloody 1998 2000 border war with Ethiopia, when he refused orders to abandon the key southern port of Assab, defending it and beating back invading Ethiopians. The uprising appears to have been a case of Saleh Osman trying to jolt back negotiations for democratisation he had been having with the presidents ofce that have stalled, Awate added. Voice of America (23/1) quoted Eritrean-born journalist Tewolde Tesfagabir who said the brief seizure of the Information Ministry and state media was an effort by dissident soldiers to focus government attention on issues of concern, including the release of political prisoners but, in a country where the constitution is not effectively implemented, political movements can be considered as paramount to treason, Tewolde said. Selam Kidane, an Eritrean human rights activist and director of human rights organisation, Release Eritrea, told Al Jazeera (22/1) that details of what had happened were still unclear but that those who took part in this operation were not senior personnel, but young people fed up with the situation in the country. These were not army ofcers, these were young soldiers new recruits and those who were forced into the army, she said. Instead of young people eeing the country as in the past, they are now standing up and acting. Eritrean opposition activists exiled in neighbouring Ethiopia said there was growing dissent within the Eritrean military, especially over economic hardships. According to the opposition, the government launched a purge of top leaders following the reported mutiny, AFP reported (25/1). Multiple arrests some sites say dozens of people detained include the number three of Eritreas only political party, a regional governor and senior military ofcers, according to website reports (Awate.com and Asmarino.com) which could not be independently conrmed. Those arrested reportedly include Abdella Jaber, director of organisational affairs for the ruling Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice (EPRDF), and Mustafa Nurhussein, governor of the Southern region, one of Eritreas six provinces. (Sources as referenced in
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Edd Agulai Mekele Assab Korem Kobo
Abiy Adi EI Hawata Singa
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e Blu
e Nil
Atbara Gonder
Maychew Sekota Lalibela Werota Weldiya Bati
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Djibouti Saylac Dikhil
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Debre Markos 10 Mendi 35 Debra Sina Erer-Gota 40 Dire Dawa Jijiga Harar Hargeysa
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Multiple sources reported that one of those held inside the information ministry was the daughter of Issaias, who has ruled the Horn of Africa nation with an iron grip since independence in 1993, folB
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National Security
Eritrea Facts and Figures

The army dissidents action shone a brief spotlight on Eritrea, one of the most isolated countries in the world. Geography: 21,000km2 located between Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti with a 1,000 km coastline along one of the worlds busiest shipping lanes on the Red Sea. Population: 5.4m (World Bank gures), divided into nine ethnic groups. Diaspora population: 1.2m (UN estimates). Religion: Ofcially split equally between Christians and Muslims. Capital: Asmara. Other key towns are the ports of Assab and Massawa. Languages: No ofcial language. The constitution treats all the nine languages equally, but Tigrinya, Arabic and English are used on a day to day basis. History: Eritrea was an Italian colony between 18891941. The territory was then administered by the British between 1941 1952. In 1962, the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie declared the annexation of Eritrea as an autonomous entity of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia. In May 1991, members of the rebel Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) led by Issaias Afewerki now president won their 30-year independence war against the Ethiopian government. The conict was a key factor in the fall of Ethiopias dictator Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam. On May 24th, 1993, Eritrea ofcially declared its independence. However, war broke out again in a bitter 19982000 border war with Ethiopia. A UN force of some 4,200 men was deployed along the contentious border zone after a peace deal, but the territorial disputes were never solved Ethiopia remains on land ruled to belong to Eritrea and relations between Asmara and Addis Ababa are still tense. In March 2012, Ethiopia attacked an Eritrean military base, accusing the country of supporting terrorist activities in its territories. Eritrea was also accused and sanctioned by the UN in 2009 for its alleged role in backing Somalias Al-Qaeda linked alShabaab insurgents. Government: Issaias has served as the president since 1991 of the one-party state. Opposition parties are banned and those who challenge the regime are jailed without trial, often in the harshest of conditions. After 15 top ofcials wrote an open letter in 2001 calling for democratic reforms dubbed the Group of 15, or G15 Issaias launched a brutal political purge, jailing 11 and with the others eeing into exile. Late in 2012 information minister Ali Abdu, one of the closest of a narrow elite around Issaias, was reported to have ed the country for exile abroad.He is believed to have ed to Canada. Media: Eritrea was ranked last in the world for press freedom by RSF. All independent media was shut down after the 2001 purge, while the last registered foreign correspondent was expelled in 2010. Human Rights: The UN estimated in 2012 that 5,00010,000 political prisoners were being held. Eritrea is accused by human rights groups and the UN of carrying out torture and summary executions. Economy: Returns from the diaspora play a crucial role. The economy has been hugely affected by long periods of war. Eritrea remains one of the poorest countries in the world. More than 80% of the population is involved in agriculture. Army: In 2012, the International Institute of Strategic Studies (ISS) estimated Eritrea to have an army of over 201,000. Military service is compulsory for both men and women, and can last for several years, even decades. ( AFP, Nairobi 21/1; Al Jazeera, Doha 22/1)
used to stie peaceful dissent. Several journalists and opposition members have been convicted under the law since it was introduced in 2009. Prominent blogger Eskinder Nega is serving an 18-year jail sentence along with leading opposition gure Andualem Arage, who was sentenced to life. Both men are appealing the ruling. An appeal by journalist Reeyot Alemu, who is in jail on terror-related offenses, has been rejected, her lawyer said on January 8th. Reeyot was sentenced to 14 years in prison in January 2012 after an Ethiopian court found her and four others including other journalists and an opposition member guilty of participating in a terrorist organisation and planning a terrorist act. Reeyot was a journalist for the nowdefunct independent newspaper Fiteh, which means justice in Ethiopias Amharic language. Ethiopia has one of the most restricted media in the world and the highest number of journalists living in exile, according to US-based press watchdog Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). At the beginning of the month police said they had arrested 15 members of Somalias Al-Shabaab in the east of the country. The 15 were planning to carry out attacks in Ethiopia, according to the NISS (National Intelligence and Security Service). On January 1st, an Ethiopian court found 10 people guilty of belonging to the Al-Qaeda-allied Al-Shabaab Islamists. Muslims in Ethiopia have in recent months held several protests against what they said was their governments harassment of people of their faith. ( AFP, Addis Ababa 8,15/1 2013;
Midnimo.com 3/1)
ETHIOPIA
First Jihadist Trial Al-Qaeda suspects are tried under the countrys controversial anti-terrorism legislation.
An Ethiopian court handed down heavy jail terms to 10 people convicted of having links to Al-Qaeda, a judge said on January 15th. The sentences ranged from three years to 20 years, and several of the convicted also face stiff nes. Judge Bahiru Darecha said the heavy sentences were justied because the accused were found guilty of plotting attacks as a group. But the court stopped short of handing out the maximum sentences of life in prison because
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of mitigating circumstances, he said, noting that several of the men have families and have never been convicted of a crime in the past. The 10, who included one Kenyan, were convicted earlier in January under Ethiopias anti-terrorism legislation for having links with Islamist extremists, in the rst trial in Ethiopia for Al-Qaeda suspects. They were charged with plotting jihad in Ethiopia and accused of receiving weapons training both inside and outside the country. The charges were rst issued in April 2012 against 11 people, of whom one was found not guilty. Only four of the defendants appeared in court, while the others were sentenced in absentia. Rights groups criticise Ethiopias antiterrorism legislation for being vague and
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Oromo Clashes: At least 24 students were injured on January 3rd when ethnic-based clashes erupted among university students on Arat Kilo campus of Addis Ababa University. The ghts broke out when students heading to the cafeteria in the morning saw the walls of the main library on campus and other places covered with grafti that denigrate the ethnic Oromo people. Opposition website Ethiomedia said students have little interest in starting clashes among themselves, and the government is the number one suspect for formenting disunity on campus to head off dissent. (Ethiomedia
3/1)
Opposition website Ogaden Online reported many clashes in January between the ONLA (the armed wing of
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The Gambia Human Rights Concerns

President Yahya Jammeh on January 8th dismissed the European Unions (EU) 17point demand for improved governance and respect for human rights saying that he would not compromise with anything that questioned Gambias independence. The EU demands included
free operation of independent media in The Gambia removal of restrictive barriers/monetary/regulatory to registration and licensing of the media removal of restriction on accessing and sharing information electronically revision of provision in criminal code that allows for prosecution on the charges of sedition, libel and false publication moratorium on death penalty provide information regarding the recent executions of nine prisoners including the location of their burial grounds to families improve prison conditions allow the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to prison facilities on regular basis
that Ethiopian troops were converging on Oray on the outskirts of the town of Galalshe, and conducting punitive campaigns against the rural communities there. It said the ONLA sent a team of specially trained commandos who successfully freed the civilians. The ONLA commandos engaged the marauding Ethiopians, killing 80 Ethiopian soldiers and wounding around 100 others.
(Ogaden online 19/1)
In early January, 19 people were killed in two separate raids there. The scale and brutality of recent killings with women and children hacked to death or torched in their huts have shocked many. In December, at least 45 people were killed in one attack. Kenya is battling a number of security threats, including a series of grenade attacks blamed on Islamist militants, supporters of Somalias Al-Qaeda linked al Shabaab. Four people, including three police ofcers, were wounded when a grenade was hurled at a police vehicle on January 7th in the northeast town of Garissa, close to the Somali border, a police source said. At least four people were killed and six seriously wounded when gunmen attacked a hotel restaurant in Garissa on January 15th. The Garissa County Commissioner Mohammed Maalim has attributed the series of terror attacks in the town to Kenyan-Somalis who deserted the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces in Somalia. Two suspected bombers died January 17th at one of the camps in the Dadaab complex, home to several hundred thousand Somali refugees, when the explosives they were carrying went off, police said. ( AFP, Nairobi Jan; Daily Nation,
Nairobi 2,7/1)
KENYA
Raft of Security Threats A political agenda is discerned in much of the violence.
Kenya is readying for the March 4th elections overshadowed by fresh fears of conict and a trial for crimes against humanity for a top presidential candidate. While all candidates say they want peaceful polls, Kenya is struggling with a raft of security threats following a string of violent attacks, some linked by police to politicians. The United Nations top humanitarian ofcial in the country, Modibo Toure, warned in January of concern over an increase in violence more than 450 people were killed and nearly 112,000 people ed their homes in 2012. Much has changed since the violent polls of 200708, including the 2010 introduction of a new constitution meant to bring change, although key pillars have been woefully implemented. But many fear changes in the constitution, including providing elections for the new posts of governors and senators, have increased the risk of violence at local levels, with ethnic rivalries exacerbated by political jostling for power. Ben Rawlence, who worked on Kenya for Human Rights Watch (HRW) until 2012, noted a frighteningly violent turn in many areas once minority groups realised the implication of the competition for a rash of new political ofces. Wherever a county does not contain a convincing majority from one ethnic group, or wherever the majority can be effectively challenged by a coalition of minorities afraid of being excluded, violence can be expected, he warned. Examples of such violence have already been witnessed, including the southeastern Tana River delta region, where bloody tit-for-tat raids have killed some 150 people since August 2012. Police chief David Kimaiyo has warned the clashes could be part of efforts to drive out one of the communities (the Orma and Pokomo) for political reasons.
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A journalist and correspondent for the Associated Press has been detained for the second time in a month, colleagues and watchdogs said on January 8th. Abdoulie John, who is also the editor of the JollofNews website, was detained by the National Intelligence Agency on January 7th, a Gambian Press Union ofcial said. He had been arrested (and then freed) in early December following a heated exchange with President Yahya Jammehs photographer while covering the release of Senegalese soldiers held by rebels in the Casamance region. The United States expressed great concern on January 7th for the safety of outspoken Gambian religious leader Imam Baba Leigh, who was arrested on December 3rd and is being detained incommunicado. He had criticised Jammehs regime for executing nine death row inmates. One of Baba Leighs relatives conrmed to AFP on January 6th that the religious leader had not been seen since his arrest. Gambias special criminal court on January 21st sentenced the countrys former police chief to 10 years in prison for drug trafcking, corruption and theft. Ensa Badjie, who is already serving a life term for robbery, was convicted alongside two former senior army ofcers for the crimes committed in 2010. ( AFP, Banjul 7,9,21/1 2013, PANA, Dakar 9/1)
NIGERIA
Violence Continues Unabated The escalation of the war in Mali may help convince other governments of the seriousness of Boko Haram as an international security threat.
Attackers killed eight people in a village in the village of Gajiga in embattled Borno state (north) on January 27th, with at least some of the victims throats slit, ofcials and residents said on the 28th. Gajiganna is roughly 50km from the state capital of Maiduguri, the base of Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, but it was not clear who was responsible for the latest violence. Boko Haram, which has said it is ghting to create an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, has claimed scores of attacks in Borno state, but criminal groups are also thought to have carried out violence under the guise of the Islamists. On the 21st, gunmen suspected of belonging to Boko Haram opened re on residents of Damboa, a market town in the northeast, killing 18 people in one of the deadliest attacks for several weeks. The attack apparently targeted local hunters who sell bush meat from animals such as monkeys and pigs,
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the Ogaden National Liberation Front, ONLF) and the Ethiopian army and its associate militia in the Ogaden region. It said that on January 16th for example, the ONLA received an intelligence tip
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National Security
which strict Muslims are forbidden to eat, local chief Abba Ahmed told journalists. Other residents however spoke of hunters in the area recently banding together to form a local vigilante group in response to robberies by Boko Haram members, sparking a revenge attack from the Islamists. Gunmen killed at least four policemen in attacks on January 14th and 15th in Kano (north); AFP reported (23/1) that attackers had beheaded ve people that day in Maiduguri. Also on the 19th, gunmen opened re on the convoy of the emir of Kano, an inuential Nigerian Muslim gure, killing ve people. The 82-year-old emir Ado Bayero was not hurt, but two of his sons were wounded. No one claimed responsibility for the attack, which sparked outrage in the country. On the 18th secret police said they had arrested two people suspected of being the masterminds of a twin-bomb attack in November on a church at a military barracks in the north that killed 11 people. A spokeswoman for the state security service said both men had confessed to being members of Boko Haram. The military on the 13th also claimed to have arrested a key member of the sect after a reward of some $160,000 had been offered for his capture. A task force in the northeast said it had arrested Mohammed Zangina in an upscale neighbourhood of Maiduguri. A statement said he was coordinator of most of the suicide attacks and bombings in Abuja, Kaduna, Kano, Jos and Potiskum. The Mali Connection
in June 2012 and is believed by some to have close ties to Islamist groups in North Africa and Mali. Ansarul is one of several radical Islamist groups seen as the leading security threat to Nigeria, writes This Day (21/1). The group had been dubbed a terrorist organisation by Britain, and has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of a French national in December (p. 19533B). Unlike Boko Haram, it seems to have a much more thorough focus on global jihad, rather than a domestic political agenda. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said on January 23rd that Boko Haram would pose a threat to other African nations if not contained, while also pledging support for Mali. Speaking in an interview with CNN, he denied that the Boko Haram insurgency was spurred by deep poverty in the mainly Muslim north and refuted widespread reports of major military abuses. Speaking from Davos, where he was attending the World Economic Forum, Jonathan spoke of Boko Haram members travelling to link up with members of Al-Qaedas north African branch, AQLIM, operating in northern Mali and other north African nations. The 900 troops (later raised to 1,200) sent to ght alongside French and local forces in Mali are joining an operation which the Nigerian government sees as an extension of its ght against Boko Haram. Security ofcials in Abuja say militants from the Islamist militia have received instruction in combat and bomb-making in training camps in northern Mali and that some of the groups leaders have sought sanctuary there after Nigerian security forces stepped up the hunt for Abubakar Shekau and other Boko Haram leaders. Boko Haram has been reinforcing its links with foreign Islamist groups such as AQUIM and Al Shabaab in Somalia, writes Africa Condential, London (18/1). Latest reports suggest that some Boko Haram ghters were among the MUJAO, AQLIM and Ansar Dine forces that attacked Konna in Mali on January 8th. Ofcials in Niamey add that Boko Haram ghters have been crossing Niger en route to Mali in substantial numbers over the past few months. Nigerian, French and US ofcials agree that this trafc has increased sharply in recent weeks, following earlier information that senior Boko Haram gures had set up in Gao. On his trip to Bamako in October, President Jonathan revealed that he had evidence that Shekau was using Mali as a base to coordinate attacks on Nigeria by Boko Haram. Nigerian ofcials are convinced that many of Boko Harams best
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trained operatives are now in northern Mali, reinforcing their incentive to ensure the West African force there makes progress. Nigerian securocrats may see the rapid escalation of the war in Mali as helpful in convincing other governments of the seriousness of Boko Haram as an international security threat. Until now many ofcials, in both Africa and the West, had seen the group as a mainly Nigerian entity but its capacity to move through the region, particularly along the corridor from north-eastern Nigeria to the far north of the Sahel, has prompted some reassessments. (Sources as referenced in
text) Security tightened p. 19532; Boko Haram looks to Mali p. 19533
Bombings Conviction: A Nigerian court on January 25th sentenced Edmund Ebiware to life in prison in connection with the twin bombings in the capital Abuja near independence day commemorations in 2010 that killed 12 people. Ebiware was accused of having knowledge of the planned attack beforehand and failing to report it. His sentence came days after the alleged mastermind, Henry Okah, was convicted in South Africa on 13 terrorism charges. He faces a minimum term of life in prison when the court sentences him by February 1st. The 2010 bombing shocked the country, occurring a short distance away from where foreign heads of state and dignitaries had gathered for celebrations marking 50 years of Nigerian independence. Okah was accused of being a key gure in MEND, the most prominent militant group in the oil-producing Niger Delta region. Three other suspects were also charged in Nigeria over the bombing, including Henry Okahs brother Charles Okah, who along with a third suspect are awaiting trail, while the fourth suspect died in prison. ( AFP 25/1) In reaction to the conviction, MEND issued a statement on the 26th, threatening to sabotage oil installations and South African companies, stating that Okahs conviction was political. Nigerias Minister of Information Labaran Maku, told the group to reconsider their threat because there were enough challenges facing the country without returning to that era it had left behind with the amnesty programme. (This Day 28/1)
MEND resurges in the south p. 19204
Meanwhile the local Vanguard newspaper reported (19/1) that its leader Imam Abubakar Shekau had escaped to Mali having been wounded recently in a gun battle with security men.
On the 19th, an explosion near the city of Okene in central Kogi State central Nigeria killed two soldiers who were due to be deployed to Mali, as part of Nigerias contribution to a UNsanctioned African intervention. The terrorists detonated a high-calibre remote-controlled IED they planted by the roadside as the military convoy was passing and opened re on the soldiers, Maj-Gen Bola Koleoso told the UN humanitarian and news analysis service, IRIN (21/1). On the 20th, the Islamist group Jamaatu Ansarul Musilimina Fi Biladis Sudan Vanguard for the Aid of Muslims in Black Africa, Ansarul, claimed responsibility for the attack, which it said was in response to Nigerias participation in the military intervention in Mali. JAMBS splintered from Boko Haram
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SOMALIA
Suicide Bomber Targets PM Al Shabaab is more dormant than defeated.
At least six people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up amongst a group of security ofcials outside the
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Somali prime ministers ofce in central Mogadishu on January 29th, army ofcials said. It is believed that many of those killed or wounded were soldiers or police. Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon Said was in his ofce at the time when the attacker struck but he was not harmed by the blast, AFP reported (29/1). No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, but the Al-Qaeda linked al Shabaab insurgents have vowed to topple newly elected President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, and have conducted a series of guerrilla style attacks in the capital. Shabaab ghters are on the back foot, having ed a string of key towns ahead of a 17,000-strong African Union (AU) force, which is ghting alongside Somali government troops to wrest territory off the Islamists. Ethiopian troops are also battling the Shabaab in the southwest of Somalia. They remain, however, a potent threat, still controlling rural areas as well as carrying out guerrilla attacks including suicide bombings in areas apparently under government control. The expectations of both Somalis and international donors for major improvements in 2013 are likely to be frustrated, according to Africa Condential (11/1). There has been some degree of normalization, but many of the knottiest political and security problems will persist. Although al Shabaab has suffered reverses, they are not on the scale that the international media have described; the organisation is more dormant than defeated. Security sector reform has a long way to go before the Somali national forces are in a position to stand on their own or command popular support. The rebirth of warlordism is a danger, especially if unscrupulous individuals believe they can exploit the anti-Shabaab campaign to engage in extortion and other means of self-enrichment. The same is true of the security ofcials or militias acting on behalf of Kenya, Ethiopia and other parties. If these forces pursue their own agendas, arrest people at will, break Somali law or ignore human rights, al Shabaab will not weaken to the point of splitting or surrendering. Its internal differences are signicant but will probably survive efforts to exploit them. Al Shabaab will probably remain an isolated terrorist threat, from ambushes, bombs and grenade or mortar attacks, in most urban centres, including in Puntland, where it recently invested resources and people beyond Galkayo and Bossaso. It will not be capable of reversing 2012s major losses of territory, says
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Africa Condential. Yet security will remain elusive in most parts of the country except for Mogadishu, where the empowerment of local militias could well increase security. The AU has renewed the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) mandate for six months, pending a review of its operational structure to secure more dependable funding and operational status, the Peace and Security Council (PSC) said on January 15th. The PSC welcomed the continued progress being made in Somalia both on the political and military fronts, PANA reported (15/ 1). Amisom said on January 16th it was probing the deaths of several civilians, including children, near Lego, 120km west of Mogadishu. The force says the civilians may have been caught on the 15th in an exchange of re with Islamist extremists, but witnesses on the ground say they were shot by Amisom soldiers. At least nine people died in clashes between Al Shabaab rebels and Somali government forces and their Ethiopian allies, a village elder said on January 6th amid conicting claims from both sides. Shabaab ghters ambushed a convoy of several hundred Somali and Ethiopian troops that was advancing on two towns in the southern Gedo region still controlled by the Shebaab Bardhere and Burhdubo. Meanwhile, pro-government moderate Islamist group Ahlu Sunnah wal Jamaa has vowed to take control Al Shabaabcontrolled areas in Gedo Region, privately-owned Radio Simba website reported (24/1). Ahlu Sunnah controls parts of Galguduud (centre) and Gedo regions. On the 15th, Somali government forces conducted a security operation in Mogadishus Wadajir Distinct, arresting over 1,700 suspects, Shabelle Media Network website reported. Mogadishu security chief Khalif Ahmad Irig told the media they had found that over 100 detainees were members of Al Shabaab and freed others. Unidentied gunmen on January 18th killed a Somali journalist working with the private Radio Shabelle in the capital Mogadishu, colleagues and witnesses said. Abdihared Osman Adan, a presenter at the radio was shot several times near his house in Mogadishus Wadajir district. We dont know the motives of the killers but it looks to be part of the campaign to eliminate free press in the country, said a colleague, Mohamed Bashir. Abdihared Osman Adan is the rst Somali journalist to be killed in 2013.
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Eighteen journalists were killed in Somalia in 2012 of whom four who worked for Radio Shabelle, including the stations director, reports AFP (18/1). No one has been brought to justice for the killings. The AU condemned the killing. (Sources as referenced in text) Key
town falls p. 19534
Ex-Pirates Launch Anti-piracy Campaign A group of former pirates in central Somalia regions has launched an antipiracy campaign in their regions in order to persuade colleagues still in the eld to renounce their activities, according to UN-backed Radio Bar-Kulan, Nairobi (23/1). The group will start touring areas along the pirate-infested coastline in Galguduud and Mudug regions including Hobyo, Xarardheere and Gaan, according to a member of the group, Diwan Abdullahi. Former Somali pirate kingpin Muhammad Abdi Hasan, who is also known as Afweyne (Big Mouth) is leading the anti-piracy campaigners. Security forces from Puntland Region have seized up to 10 pirates in Jariiban District, Mudug Region in central Somalia during an anti-piracy operation, reported privately owned Shabelle website (27/1). Regional security forces seized the pirates who were accused of planning to hijack foreign vessels off the coast of Garacad. Security forces vowed to continue implementing their antipiracy activities and eliminate piracy along Somalias coastline. The Independent, London reported (13/1) that piracy in the Indian Ocean, although far from eradicated, appears to have peaked thanks to land-based efforts by the regional Puntland government and cleverer counter-piracy measures at sea. There were 70 Somalirelated attacks on shipping in the rst nine months of 2012, compared to 199 over the same period in 2011, according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB). It was reported in January that the Gulf of Aden has now been surpassed by West Africas Gulf of Guinea as the worlds piracy hotspot. (Sources as
referenced in text)
SUDAN
Charter Arrests Khartoum continues its crackdown on opposition groups.
A number of Sudanese opposition party leaders are in custody following the signing of an accord, dubbed the New Dawn Charter, under which they agreed to overthrow the government of President Omar al-Bashir and institute a
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federal system of government based on democracy, pluralism and the separation of religion and the state. The charter, signed in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, on January 5th, calls on parties to work together to topple the regime through either democratic civil peaceful means or revolutionary armed struggle. Among the signatories are major political opposition parties under the banner of the National Consensus Forces, a coalition of armed opposition groups named the Sudan Revolutionary Front, as well as a number of womens and youth groups. Upon their arrival in Khartoum, ve politicians and activists Jamal Idris, head of the Nasserite Unionist Party; Nasserite Unionist Party member and womens rights activist Intisar Al-agli; and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) members Abdulrrahim Abdullah, Muhammed Zain Alaabdeen and Hisham Almufti were arrested. The government described them as traitors. On January 14th in Khartoum, security ofcers arrested the chairman of the executive bureau of the opposition National Alliance, Abdul Aziz Khalid, for having signed the Charter. The arrests have been widely criticized by local opposition and human rights groups as unconstitutional and in violation of the right to free speech. Labelling the agreement a false dawn, Sudanese presidential assistant and deputy chairman of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) Nae Ali Nae said the government was preparing a decisive move against those who signed it. Media outlets in Sudan have also reported that Vice President Al-Haj Adam Yousif has threatened to prevent opposition parties from conducting their political activities unless they reject the charter. Nae was quoted by ofcial Sudan news agency SUNA, as charging that the US and the European Union (EU) had sponsored and co-nanced the Kampala meeting, PANA reported (15/1). Since the arrests and proclamations by the government, a number of opposition politicians have distanced themselves from the accord in hopes of escaping the clampdown. Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on Sudan to allow independent groups to operate freely and conduct peaceful protests. Sudan should reverse its draconian steps against civil society groups, and international actors should publicly condemn such measures, Daniel Bekele, HRW Africa director, said in a
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statement on January 13th. The government-led campaign against Sudanese civil society organizations seems designed to stie diversity, human rights and dialogue on issues of critical importance, rather than to serve any legitimate purpose. (IRIN 15/1) The increasingly determined and unied opposition is now a major threat to the NCP, says Africa Condential (11/1), which it called crucial and just the tip of an iceberg. Meanwhile a former top UN ofcial in Sudan warned on January 18th that ethnic cleansing was going on in the southern part of Sudan, where the people are suffering from hunger, disease and bombing in two war-torn states. Mukesh Kapila who serves as a special representative of anti-genocide charity, the Aegis Trust called on the international community to come to the aid of the some 1.5m people living in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, where conict between rebels and Sudanese government forces has raged for over a year. It is estimated that up to 170,000 people have ed the conict and made their way to camps in South Sudan. In Blue Nile, where Kapila estimates 450,000 people are affected by the conict, elds and villages have been razed, he said, and the population is described on Sudanese radio as black plastic bags that must be cleared out of the area. In South Kordofan, where as many as one million people are affected, Kapila said he saw people living in caves and cracks and eating once every three days. Meanwhile Sudans army claims to have killed more than 50 rebels in clashes in South Kordofan state, SUNA reported on January 11th. The clashes took place some 15km from the state capital Kadugli, the army said, blaming the attack on ghters of the Revolutionary Front, an alliance of four rebel groups. The groups that make up the Front are active in South Kordofan, in Blue Nile state to the east and in Darfur to the west. Foreigners freed: Kidnappers freed 11 Sudanese engineers and road builders in Darfur on January 26th, after the earlier release of their four Chinese coworkers, SUNA said. International peacekeepers announced on the 16th that the Chinese had been freed, and that was conrmed by Beijings embassy. Recent years have seen a wave of kidnappings for ransom in Darfur and although violence is down from its peak and rebel-government clashes
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continue, Darfur is also plagued by banditry, inter-Arab and tribal unrest. In early January two Jordanian peacekeepers in Darfur were freed after 136 days of captivity. A Sudanese intelligence ofcer blamed outlaws for the incident. ( AFP 1228/1)
TUNISIA
Social Protests and Radical Islam Frustration at the governments failure to address poverty and rising unemployment has mounted since the revolution.
Tunisians on January 14th marked two years since the fall of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in a climate of uncertainty marked by social tension, jihadist threats and a political impasse, with rival factions taking to the streets of the capital. Violent attacks by Islamists and political deadlock over a new constitution continue to threaten the countrys stability. There is really no reason to celebrate, because nothing has been achieved so far, Aymen Sliti, 24, told Magharebia as the festivities unfolded on Bourguiba Avenue, which was at the centre of the mass uprising that toppled Ben Ali and sparked the Arab Spring. Security is lacking, and we face escalating extremism and violence, political conict, eeing investors and the bankruptcy of the state treasury. Banker Abdeljalil Amdoun described the future of the country as uncertain due to the stalled progress on constitution-writing. President Moncef Marzouki, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali and parliamentary speaker Mustapha Ben Jaafar saluted the national ag at an earlymorning ceremony in Tunis to mark the occasion. Shortly afterwards, Jebali, the secretary general of Tunsias main labour union, Hocine Abassi, and Wided Bouchamaoui, representing Tunisian employers, signed a social pact at the National Constituent Assembly, AFP reported (14/1). With unemployment considered a driving factor behind the revolution, and with Tunisia still rocked by repeated protests over poor living conditions, some of them deadly, the signing of the accord was loaded with symbolic importance. In the city centre, more than a thousand activists from across the political spectrum marched in separate groups down Habib Bourguiba Avenue. Frustration at the governments failure to address poverty and rising unemployment has mounted since the revolution.
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Security had been beefed up for the anniversary, with fears in particular that radical Islamist factions could use the occasion to carry out attacks. A police cordon separated hundreds of Islamist protesters from their secular rivals near the Interior ministry. Speaking in parliament after the signing ceremony, Jebali, from the ruling Ennahda party, promised to redouble efforts to forge a national consensus, and spoke of his desire to enlarge the ruling coalition to overcome the political divisions plaguing the country. Former premier Beji Caid Essebsi, who heads the secular opposition party Call of Tunisia, expressed concerned about the threat from radical Islamists, It is the (Tunisian) ag, which represents everyone. But some want to replace it with another, the black ag (of the Salasts). The people must remain vigilant because there is a threat, as we have seen in Sidi Bou Said, he told AFP. The mausoleum in Sidi Bou Said was ravaged by re the previous weekend in a suspected arson attack. Several shrines dedicated to Muslim saints have been torched or looted in recent months. On January 13th, the army deployed in the southern border town of Ben Guerdane after a week of clashes between police and residents demanding development projects to revive the areas local economy and reduce unemployment. On the 12th, protesters also hurled abuse at the Ennahda party, whose local headquarters were ransacked during the week. A customs ofce was also torched. The protesters asked that soldiers be sent in to keep the peace in the town. The military is better thought of by the people than the police force, which was at the heart of the repressive Ben Ali regime. An emergency strategy will be put in place by the Culture, Interior and Religious Affairs ministries to cope with repeated attacks against mausoleums, ofcial news agency TAP quoted Culture Minister Mehdi Mabrouk as saying on January 26th. Two Su mausoleums were torched on the 24th in the latest violence, which the mystical Muslim sect claims is being carried out by ultra-conservative Salast Muslims. AFP said Mohamed El Heni, the head of a Su union set up to counter the attacks, welcomed Mabrouks promise but said no concrete action had been announced in the eight months in which nearly 40 shrines had been destroyed. According to the union,
which has urged the Islamist-led government to take effective action, such attacks are nanced from abroad. Meanwhile, a Tunisian court has given one-month jail terms to 16 people implicated in violence in June 2012 linked to an art exhibit deemed offensive to Islam, ofcial media reported on the 16th. Salasts destroyed works of art exhibited in a smart suburb of Tunis which they considered blasphemous. The incident sparked clashes across the country that saw police stations and political party ofces set on re. The defendants were convicted of violating the state of emergency, but were acquitted from the more serious charges, which included rebellion, assaulting public ofcials and attacks on public order by organised gangs, the TAP news agency quoted their lawyer Salaheddine Barakati as saying.
(Sources as referenced in text) Nothing has changed p. 19537
the town of Fort-Dauphin. ( AFP, Antananarivo 12/1 2013) Malawi: Around one thousand people marched in cities across Malawi against tough government reforms, challenging the nine-month-old government of President Joyce Banda. Authorities deployed 3,000 police on the streets of major cities ahead of the march, fearing a repeat of nationwide rioting and looting in 2011 that left 19 people dead. The situation remained tense, but fears of widespread unrest appeared to have been overstated. ( AFP, Blantyre 17/1 2013) Morocco: The authorities said January 19th that they had dismantled another al-Qaeda recruitment cell, MAP reported and were now concerned about a proliferation of terrorist networks. This was the fth such group. Recruits allegedly underwent military and suicide bomber training before joining terrorist groups. (Magharebia.com 20/1) South Sudan: At least ve people were killed in Jonglei state in clashes between government troops and rebel soldiers who had come for peace talks, ofcials said on January 28th. Hundreds of civilians ed the clashes which broke out on the 27th during which the market in the remote town of Pibor was set on re as a government delegation arrived to negotiate with the breakaway commander of a local rebel movement. South Sudan army spokesman Philip Aguer said that one soldier and one rebel coming for the talks had been killed, while residents said that at least three civilians had died.The rebel faction, under the command of James Kuberin, were reported to have ed into the bush surrounding Pibor town. The eastern state of Jonglei is struggling from a spate of ethnic killings, a rebellion and an army crackdown. ( AFP 28/1) Uganda: Ugandan forces have killed a former bodyguard of Joseph Kony. Dick Olum, who commands a regional task force hunting the head of the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), said the bodyguard, Brigadier Binani, was killed near the town of Djema in eastern Central African Republic close to the border with South Sudan. The LRA has split up into small groups and Kony is currently thought to be hiding out close to where the borders of the CAR, South Sudan and Sudan meet. (The Independent, London 21/1) Meanwhile Ugandan police said on January 26th they had arrested leading opposition politician Kizza Besigye over plans to restart anti-government demonstrations in Kampala. Besigye, a former presidential challenger and leader of main opposition party Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), has been detained repeatedly as he has attempted to restart opposition demonstrations. A police statement said Besigye was charged with refusal to obey lawful orders and was being held along with Kampala mayor Elias Lukwago. (The Standard, Nairobi 27/1)
IN BRIEF
Angola: The ofcial death toll from a stampede at a New Years Eve evangelical vigil rose to 16 on January 2nd, as witnesses said the tragedy was caused by a scramble for sachets of holy water. Authorities probing the disaster discovered that the 80,000seater Cidadela Stadium in the capital Luanda was packed to nearly double its capacity. The police, re-ghters, health services and church leaders were overwhelmed by the numbers of people. The vigil was organised by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, founded in Brazil in 1977 and boasting more than a million followers in Angola, according to the culture ministry. Its overnight New Years Eve prayer vigil in Luanda is an annual event. The church has denied responsibility for the tragedy. ( AFP, Luanda 2/1 2013) Burundi: An appeal court on January 8th cut the life sentence of journalist Hassan Ruvakuki to three years, judges said, reducing the charges from terrorism to membership of a gang. Ruvakuki, who worked for French radio station RFIs Swahili service and local broadcaster Bonesha FM, was handed a life sentence in June 2012, a ruling condemned by press rights groups. ( AFP, Gitega 8/1 2013) Madagascar: Troops and police red teargas January 12th to disperse hundreds of protesters and free nearly 200 employees of mining giant Rio Tinto, including its local chief executive, who were trapped inside a mine, authorities said. Local residents armed with spears and slingshots launched the protest January 9th against what they complained were the low prices the company paid to buy their land, and to call for more locals to be hired at the companys mineral sands operation near
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EGYPT
Train Crash This latest incident highlights the problems of poor maintenance and management in the transport sector.
A train carrying military conscripts derailed southwest of Cairo on January 15th, killing 19 people and wounding 107, the health ministry said, highlighting the countrys chronic transport problems. The train was taking young recruits from south Egypt to a military camp in Cairo when two carriages went off the rails shortly after midnight in the Giza neighbourhood of Badrasheen, ofcials said. More than 60 ambulances were sent to the site of the accident, where rescuers extracted survivors and bodies from the twisted heap of metal on the side of the rails. Prime Minister Hisham Qandil was met with howls of outrage when he arrived at the scene, with local residents shouting, You have blood on your hands, Mr. Hesham. His security quickly whisked him away, according to AFP. President Mohamed Mursi later visited the injured at the Maadi military hospital in Cairo, while the Minister of Social Affairs, Nagwa Khalil, said the government would pay the families of those killed each E10,000 (around US$1,520), and families of the injured E2,000 (around $300), MENA said. The accident is the latest in a string of transport disasters plaguing Egypt, and comes just two weeks after a new Transport Minister, Hatem Abdel Latif, was appointed. Latif, of the Muslim Brotherhood, said there would be an investigation into the incident. The railway networks poor safety record stems largely from lack of maintenance and poor management. Egyptians have long complained that the government has failed to deal with the countrys transport problems, with roads as poorly maintained as railway lines. Meanwhile Egyptian police red tear gas to disperse protesters in the main railway station in second city, Alexandria, just hours after the train carrying conscripts derailed. ( AFP 15/1
2013)
The Benghazi branch of the Higher Security Committee consists of 16,000 members, 8,000 of whom applied to join the police while the rest joined calls for the committee to become an independent organisation, according to Al-Jazeera.
LIBYA
Police Reforms There is concern that security is still mainly in the hands of ofcials of the former regime.
Thousands of former rebels in the Libyan city of Benghazi applied to join the police force after the government dissolved the Higher Security Committee, which was created to maintain law and order after the fall of the former regime, Al-Jazeera reported on January 3rd. The Ministry of Interior dissolved the committee, made up of former rebels, and announced a plan to integrate it into the police force.
Those who oppose the move to integrate the committee into the police force argue that former regime loyalists, who took part in the crackdown on the uprising, still hold positions in Libyas security agencies. We have major reservations over the decision to integrate us into that institution [the police], committee member, Ahmad al-Zlitani, said. We demand that it be restructured and rebuilt to ensure it becomes an organisation that observes professional, ethical and religious rules, he said. (Al-Jazeera
TV, Doha 3/1)
Nigeria Defence Promotions

A total of 45 two-star generals recently promoted were decorated with their new insignias by President Goodluck Jonathan at a ceremony in Abuja on January 18th. The newly promoted ofcers included 22 Major Generals (Army), 19 Rear Admirals (Navy) and 14 Air Vice Marshals (Air Force). The Air Force recently promoted 129 ofcers including 14 Air Vice Marshals. The Navy promoted 112 ofcers of whom 19 Commodores were promoted to Rear Admirals. Similarly, 150 senior ofcers in the Army were promoted of whom 22 were elevated to the rank of Major General. (Daily Trust, Abuja 18/1) Meanwhile, Nigerias navy has transferred for prosecution 15 Russian sailors detained since October for allegedly transporting illegal arms, a navy spokesman said on January 8th. The MV Myre Seadiver was seized on October 19th off the coast of Lagos by a naval patrol, which also detained its 15 crew members. Weapons found on the vessel included 14 AK-47 ries with 3,643 rounds of ammunition as well as 22 Benelli MR1 ries with 4,955 rounds of ammunition. The intended destination or planned use of the arms was not clear. Nigeria is awash with illegal weapons that have fuelled violence in Africas most populous nation and largest oil producer. The ship was said to belong to the Moscow-based Moran Group and was ying a Dutch island ag at the time of its seizure. ( AFP 8/1 2013)
In a separate development, the Council of Ministers decided to create a higher police affairs council within the framework of restructuring the Interior Ministry. The ofcial spokesman of the Interior Ministry, Majdi al-Ir, said that the council would include 10 senior-ranking ofcers, including a legal specialist, and retired police ofcers who would work under the supervision of the Interior Minister to draw up the ministrys general policies in order to raise the level of performance. (Libyan Al-Ahrar TV, Doha 4/
1)
SOMALIA
Armed Forces To Be Paid: The Defence Ministry has started giving out the salaries of its forces in Bay Region [southwest] after months of unpaid wages.
The head of the Somali army, Gen. Abdiqadir Shaykh Ali Dini, said the troops will from now on receive their monthly wages, adding that they should, as a result, step up their ght against Al-Shaabab militants in the region. Government troops in Bay Region recently mutinied to protest non-payment of their salaries for more than a year. (Jowhar website, Mogadishu 3/1) AMISOM to Train Police in Djibouti: 200 ofcers from the Somali Police Force are in Djibouti to participate in a threemonth training course organised by the Police component of the Africa Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in conjunction with the Italian Carabineri. The police ofcers will receive specialised training in public order management under a scheme supported by the Italian government.
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The AMISOM police component has been working closely with their Somali counterparts and with the Federal Government of Somalia to build the capacity and professionalism of the Somali Police Force, which celebrated the 69th anniversary of its founding in December.
(Shabelle Media Network, Mogadishu 18/1)
put on reserve. Separately, a number of ofcers were promoted from the rank of Major General to the rank of Lieutenant General and also appointed as new deputies to the General Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. James Hoth Mai. The new deputies include Lt. Gen. Thomas Cirino Swaka, deputy Chief of General Staff for Training, Lt. Gen. James Ajongo Mawut, deputy for Operations, Lt. Gen. Malek Ruben Riak, deputy for Logistics, Lt. Gen. Malual Ayom Dor, deputy for Administration, Lt. Gen. Mangar Buong Aluel, deputy for Inspection and Lt. Gen. Chol Thon Balok, deputy Chief of General Staff for Moral and Orientation. The President put three senior ofcers in charge of the army sectors in the three greater regions of Bahr el Ghazal, Upper Nile and Equatoria. These include Lt. Gen. Gabriel Jok Riak in charge of Sector One (Wau), Lt. Gen. Johnson Gony Biliu for Sector Two (Malakal) and Lt. Gen. Charles Lam Chol in charge of Sector Three (Torit) respectively. The move came as a surprise as the army is in the process of transformation while trying to sort out the border disputes with the neighbouring army of Sudan.
(Sudan Tribune 21/1)
nation trying to transform its army, he said. The move should be seen as a morale booster, rather than a cause for concern, Mr Benjamin said, dismissing any connection between the reshufe and recent reports of political instability.
(BBC News Online 22/1)
Graduate Recruitment: The Defence Ministry has said that University and high school graduates will be given the opportunity to join Somalias armed forces. The defence minister said that the initiative is part of a capacity building plan for Somalias armed forces which is supported largely by the Turkish government, which will donate up to US$10m as part of a three-year plan to increase numbers of police ofcers to 25,000. (Jowhar website,
Mogadishu 21/1)
IN BRIEF
Rwanda: The country has been elected to the Regional Centre on Small Arms (RECSA) RECSA is an intergovernmental organisation established in June 2005 in Kenya, with members coming from 15 countries. Its mission is to coordinate action against small arms and light weapons proliferation in the Great Lakes region and Horn of Africa. (The New Times website, Kigali 23/1) South Africa Zimbabwe: A court in South Africa has temporarily halted a delivery of helicopters to the Zimbabwean military, human rights group AfriForum says. The group made the urgent request when it heard about the donation of South Africas retired Alouette eet, saying it would be irresponsible to give equipment to a force that was not neutral ahead of elections in 2013. South Africas defence ministry said the aircraft would not be assembled and would be used only for spare parts. (BBC News Online 25/1) Tunisia Portugal: The two countries will boost cooperation in the defence eld and set up projects in the defence industry, the economy and training. A meeting in Tunis between Portuguese Defence Minister, Jos e Pedro Aguiar Branco, and the Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali on January 18th focused on reinforcing bilateral co-operation as part of the 5+5 Defence Initiative chaired by Portugal in 2013. The 5+5 Defence Initiative gathers the Maghreb countries (Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia) and 5 European countries, namely, Spain, France, Italy, Malta and Portugal. (TAP 18/1)
SOUTH SUDAN
Army Dismissals The stated aim is to bring in new blood, but rumours swirl of an attempted coup.
The Sudan Tribune (21/1) reported that President Salva Kiir Mayardit had carried out reforms in the national army, dismissing a number of senior army ofcers from their duty as well as removing them from active service. In a presidential decree read on the stateowned South Sudan Television, Kiir relieved all the deputies of the Chief of General Staff in the army and replaced them with new promoted ofcers. They included: Lt. Gen. Obuto Mamur, Lt. Gen. Biar Atem Ajang, Lt. Gen. Pieng Deng Kuol, Lt. Gen. Ayuen Alier Jongror, Lt. Gen. Wilson Deng Kuoirot and Lt. Gen. Kuol Deim Kuol. The generals were also removed from the active membership of the army and
The Information Minister, Barnabas Marial Benjamin, later denied to the BBC that the dismissal of more than 30 top army ofcers had anything to do with a rumour about a coup attempt. He said the changes had been made to bring younger people into top positions. Benjamin told the BBCs Focus on Africa radio programme that top-ranking ofcers have a certain life span and such changes were necessary for a young
Overseas Relations
EGYPT ISRAEL
Anti-Inltrator Fence The new barrier will make it harder for African asylum-seekers to cross the border.
Israel has completed the main segment of a razor-wire fence along its border with Egypt. The ve-metre high fence is bolstered by military surveillance equipment and has been built, Israel says, to deter illegal migrants and Islamist ghters
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hiding out in Egypts lawless Sinai region. The nal 14km section will be completed within the next three months, leaving the fence stretching from Israels Red Sea port of Eilat to the Gaza Strip on the Mediterranean. In the desert beyond, hardline Islamist groups have expanded in a security vacuum caused by the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, with efforts to reimpose central authority proving slow. Security and illegal immigration were a target of Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin
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Netanyahus re-election campaign. He travelled by military helicopter to the southern frontier for a ceremony on January 2nd marking the completion of the 230km section of fence. Netanyahus government has accelerated its construction, deported some migrants and imposed legal penalties on Israelis who hire them without work permits. Thirty-six migrants crossed illegally into Israel in December and were arrested, compared with 2,153 who entered a year ago, Netanyahus ofce said in a statement. Just as we stopped completely the inltration into Israeli cities, we will succeed in the next mission the repatriation of tens of thousands of inltraC
Overseas Relations
Mediterranean Sea
Gaza
Jerusalem WEST BANK Dead Sea
GAZA
An Italian diplomat came under re in, Benghazi in early January but escaped unharmed. Guido De Sanctis, the Italian consul in the city, was travelling in his bullet-proof car when unidentied gunmen opened re. The security of diplomats in Benghazi has caused concern for foreign governments following the death of US ambassador Christopher Stevens in September 2012. It was unclear how the incident would affect Libyan-Italian relations. At a recent economic forum, the Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said security in Libya was essential to future Italian investment in the country. The Libyan government has guaranteed its maximum commitment to ensure those responsible for this vile act of terrorism face justice, Terzi said. Italy expresses its strongest condemnation and reafrms its full support for the course of democracy and reforms of authorities in Tripoli, AFP quoted him as saying (13/1). The BBC correspondent said there had been a visible rise in Islamist militants in Benghazi since the civil war that toppled Gaddafy. They are being blamed for the deadly attack on the US consulate on September 11th 2012 and recent assassinations of local police chiefs, BBC News Online (12/1) reported. Italy is the biggest foreign investor in Libyas energy industry and has been building up relations with the new government in recent months. Mohammed Megaryef, head of Libyas General National Congress and the de facto head of state, visited Italy in early January for business talks. De Sanctis, 51, has been in Benghazi since the start of the uprising against Gaddafy in 2011 and was due to leave for a posting in Qatar. Leave Benghazi Warning: European countries urged their nationals to leave the eastern city of Benghazi on January 24th, with Britain citing a specic and imminent threat to Westerners days after the deadly attack by Islamist militants in neighbouring Algeria (p. 19563). Germany and the Netherlands made similar warnings to their nationals. The call to leave Libyas second largest city irked Libyans keen to win foreign investment to rebuild a fractured infrastructure and boost the oil industry after the revolution which toppled Muammar Gaddafy in 2011. Security has been bolstered at oil elds, news sources said. (Sources as referenced in
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SOMALIA FRANCE
Hostage Raid Fails Soldiers come under heavy re as they try to rescue an intelligence agent.
French President Francois Hollande has ordered security stepped up around public buildings and transport in France because of military operations in Africa. He was responding to the risk of Islamist attacks after French forces attacked militants in Mali (p. 19547) and Somalia. Al Shabaab said on its Twitter account on January 17th it had killed French intelligence agent Denis Allex in retaliation for a failed French operation to free him. The French government had said it believed Mr Allex was killed during the raid the previous week, in which two French commandos also died. The French retrieved one of the bodies. On the 14th, Al Shabaab published a photograph of the other French soldier who the group said had died of gunshot wounds following capture during the raid. Frances Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Edouard Guillaud speaking on Europe 1 radio on the 16th accused al Shabaab of manipulating the media and reafrmed that Allex was likely already dead. Mr Allex a French intelligence agent was kidnapped in Somalia in July 2009. Al-Shabaab had earlier threatened to kill him and said that because of the rescue attempt, France would be responsible for his death, The Standard, Nairobi reported (17/1). On the 11th, about 50 French commandos launched an assault by helicopter on the Shabaab stronghold of Bulo Marer, believing Allex was being held in the town. Al Shabaab said it had had advance warning of the attack and Allex was not present. France says 17 militants were killed during the ghting, which witnesses said was intense and lasted for at least an hour. Several civilians were reported to have been killed in the clashes. Somalias government said it had no prior knowledge of the raid and it regretted the loss of civilian lives. The French soldiers were betrayed by Somali intelligence ofcers from the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA), said one Somalia analyst. So did the Somali blogger insidetheinsurgency (http://insidetheinsurg ency.wordpress.com/), a former militant Islamist who has kept jihadist contacts and has been reliable in the past. Both point out that the NISA has common ancestry with parts of Al Shabaab in the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), the organisation that ran the country until the
C
Beer Sheva
ISRAEL
Route of new Israeli border fence.

EGYPT
JORDAN
Sinai Pe n i n s u l a
Eilat
0
MILES
25
Taba
Al Aqabah SAUDI ARABIA
Gulf of Aqaba
tors already in Israel to their home countries, it cited Netanyahu as saying at the ceremony. More than 60,000 Africans have entered Israel on foot in recent years seeking work or refuge. They have stirred fears for public order and some have come under racially-motivated attack. The bulk are from Sudan or Eritrea and Israels ability to repatriate them is limited. Sudans government is hostile to Israel and Somalia is deemed a ravaged danger zone by refugee advocates. Israel portrays the vast majority of the migrants as illegal job-seekers. Humanitarian agencies say many of them should be considered for asylum. (Al
Jazeera.com 2/1)
Espionage Arrest: Egyptian prosecutors were interrogating an Israeli man in the Red Sea port of Nuweiba who is suspected of espionage, a judicial source said. Israeli media identied the suspect arrested in Taba as 24-year-old Andrey Pshenichnikov, a Russian-born immigrant to Israel who had been arrested by the Israeli Shin Bet security service in 2012 over his pro-Palestinian activism.
( AFP, Cairo 1/1 2013)
LIBYA EUROPE
Italian Consul Escapes Shooting The security of diplomats in Benghazi continues to cause concern.
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2006 US-backed Ethiopian invasion. There have been rumours of the French military working with NISA, writes Africa Condential, London (18/1). The French soldiers immediately ran into heavy re from, according to the blogger and some witnesses quoted by news agencies, many guerrillas and technicals (pick-up trucks) equipped with anti-aircraft cannon. African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) sources say only advance warning of the raid would explain why so much Shabaab military hardware was present at Bulo Marer. There was no connection to the French intervention in Mali, say both the French military and Africa Condential sources; the rescue operation had been in preparation for some time. Allex, a code name, was originally seized with another intelligence ofcer from the Direction Gnrale de la Scurit Extrie e e e e eure, Marc Aubrire on Bastille Day e 2009. AFP reported French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian as saying on January 12th that the raid was sparked by the intransigence of the terrorists who have refused to negotiate for three and a half years and were holding Denis Allex in inhuman conditions. At rst, Al Shabaab had wanted to exchange Allex for its prisoners in Somaliland and others held by the US in Guantnamo Bay, Cuba. The Hargeisa a government wanted $10m and Washington atly refused, says Africa Condential. After these moves came to nothing, rumours circulated recently that Al Shabaab was now willing to consider accepting cash in return for releasing its captive. The NISA is capable of efciency and ruthless action against Al Shabaab, said a source familiar with the agency, adding, When it comes to foreigners, that is a completely different matter. Whether for cash or from perceived clan obligations, said the source, One agent probably sold the
operational information to Shabaab.

SOMALIA US
Diplomatic Recognition Ofcial ties are re-established for the rst time since the Black Hawk Debacle in 1991.
The United States has ofcially recognized Somalias government in Mogadishu for the rst time in 20 years, US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said after meeting with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on January 17th. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were effectively cut in 1993 after two US Black Hawk helicopters were shot down over Mogadishu, killing 18 American soldiers, during an attempt to arrest two aides to militia leader Mohamed Farah Aideed. The country had been in chaos, with clan warlords and militants battling for control, since the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siyad Barreh in 1991. President Mohamuds visit to Washington represents a signicant change in the security and political situation on the ground in Somalia and our relationship with that country, said Johnnie Carson, assistant secretary of state for African Affairs. In addition to his meeting with Clinton, the Somali leader met with Dr. Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, as well as representatives of development agencies such as USAID. President Mohamud also met with President Barack Obama at the White House, signaling what Clinton said was a strong US commitment to Somalias future. The United States will be a steadfast partner with you every step of the way, she said. (allafrica.com, Washington 17/1)
Garowe Online said that the US decision to recognize the Somali Federal Government as the national government of Somalia had created a political storm in Somaliland with government ofcials, parliamentarians, opposition gures and traditional elders publicly voicing their dissatisfaction with the US announcement. Somaliland Interior Minister Mohamed Nur Arale Duur told reporters in Hargeisa that it was a slap in the face for Somalilands pursuit of independence from the rest of Somalia. (Garowe Online
21/1)
IN BRIEF
Congo Belgium: Belgiums ambassador to Congo, Jan de Bruyne, has been recalled to Brussels for using undiplomatic language during an ofcial function he hosted. Belgian Foreign Minister, Didier Reyners said de Bruyne failed to abide by his obligation of discretion about the host country. Mr de Bruyne reportedly delivered an allFlemish, contemptuous and shocking speech against Congolese President Denis Sassou NGuesso and his wife during a reception he hosted in the Belgian embassy in Brazzaville for a visiting Belgian economic mission. (PANA, Brazzaville 7/1) Piracy: Gunmen seized a Panama-agged oil tanker which was heading for the C^te o dIvoires economic capital of Abidjan, authorities said on January 21st. A statement from Abidjan port authorities said armed individuals hijacked the vessel ITRI on January 16th. The ship, which was due to discharge 5,000 tonnes of oil and was unable to put out a distress call in time for a rescue, has been located off neighbouring Ghana, it said. Authorities said a crisis team has been established for the hijacked vessel and its crew, adding that the highest military and civilian authorities are involved in handling the case. ( AFP, Abidjan 21/1 2013)
Social and Cultural

CONSERVATION
Africa East African nations have recently recorded an increase in poaching incidents.
Eleven elephants were killed by poachers during the weekend of January 5th6th, in the Bisadi area of Tsavo East National Park. Kenya Wildlife
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Service (KWS) said its rangers had launched an intensive hunt for a poaching gang believed to have slaughtered the elephants and carted away their tusks, The People, Nairobi (8/1) reported. Ofcials called it the countrys worst incident of its kind in the past three decades. Rampant poaching has continued in the Tsavo, Kenyas largest elephant sanctuary, despite KWS introducing the Canine Unit with sniffer dogs on a
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24-hour basis at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi and Moi International Airport in Mombasa to detect smuggling of ivory. The unit has, since 2009, netted more than 10 tonnes of raw and processed ivory, Plans are at an advanced stage by KWS to also introduce sniffer dogs at Eldoret International Airport as well as other exit and entry points. Stiffer penalties related to wildlife poaching have also been incorporated under a proposed wildlife law to deter poaching-related cases and incidents. Tsavo is the countrys largest contiguous ecosystem, the size of Rwanda and home to an estimated 13,000 elephants,
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Social and Cultural
Music for Mali

Some of Malis biggest artists have composed a song for peace in a country where the army, backed by French troops, is battling to drive out Islamist extremists occupying the vast desert north (See p. 19547). The seven-minute song, released in Bamako on January 17th, is titled Mali Ko (For Mali in the local Bambara language). It features about 40 artists, including ve from the north, reports AFP (18/1). Well-known Ivorian singer Tiken Jah Fakoly also collaborated on the composition, along with big names such as Toumani Diabate, Bassekou Kouyate and Fatoumata Diawara and Vieux Farka Tour, son of the venerated Ali Farka e Tour. e Music is deeply ingrained in Malian culture and the country boasts some of Africas best loved singers. In the Islamist-occupied zone, hardline sharia law has been imposed and music banned for months. Though the message of the song is one of national unity, individual singers level erce criticism at their ideological opponents, writes The Times, London (24/1) At a press conference, Diawara said she believed the population was looking to Malis musicians for the moral strength that had been lacking in the countrys often corrupt political elite. They have lost hope in politics, she says. But music has always brought hope in Mali. Malians are very worried today. We are busy losing our own country. We are very very concerned about not being able to sing in our own country because not only are women being raped, beaten and mistreated in the north, but now they want to prevent us from making music, knowing that music is the soul of Mali, said Diawara. In a slum near Bamako airport on January 18th, hundreds of refugees from the north met to dance and show solidarity at a concert by Baba Salaha, a Timbuktu based guitarist. Music is the tradition of the north in all sorts of ceremonies and to forbid it is a kind of crime against humanity, he explained. (Sources as referenced in text)
according to a 2011 census. (The People,

Nairobi 8/1)
Meanwhile some 638 pieces of ivory estimated to be worth Shs 100m ($1.1m) were impounded at the port of Mombasa on January 16th. Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Deputy Commissioner in Charge of Port operations Gitau G. Gitau said the consignment was destined for Indonesia, and added that a similar shipment was also intercepted in Hong Kong after it successfully evaded verication a month earlier in what he termed use of fake documents for clearance at
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the customs and Kenya Ports Authority Daily Nation reported (16/1). The government has launched an investigation. A problem which has always existed, but previously seemed containable, hit an unprecedented new level in 2012, with hundreds of rhinos and thousands of elephants illegally slaughtered to satisfy soaring demand in Asia for rhino horn and elephant ivory, writes The Independent, London (31/12). More than 600 rhinos were killed in 2012 and at least 3,000 elephants but those gures are probably conservative. Rhino horn is sought as a cancer treatment by multitudes of users of traditional Asian medicine. It is also considered an aphrodisiac. Ivory is being sought for luxury carvings for the teeming numbers of new millionaires in China and surrounding Asian countries. For both markets, prices have rocketed, with both rhino horn and ivory in some circumstances fetching $60,000 (37,000) per kilo equivalent to the price of gold. The prots generated are so vast that they are attracting both organised crime syndicates, and rebel groups across Africa, who are using sales of horns and tusks from animals they have killed to nance their civil wars. Kenyan police believe poached ivory proceeds are being used to fund terrorism after arresting a suspected militant with more than Sh1.5m he reportedly obtained from involvement in the recent elephant slaughter in Tsavo East National Park. The police claimed the suspect was trying to cross to Somalia to meet Al-Shabaab members with the loot when he was arrested. In South Africa alone, 633 rhinos were killed by poachers up to December 19th, 2012, with no fewer than 395 hit in Kruger National Park, the countrys largest wildlife reserve and leading safari destination. Rangers predicted than another 20 animals would be killed by the years end, making the total more than 650. This compares with an average poaching rate of 12 animals per year across the country between 2000 and 2007. Since then the average annual gures have shot up at an astonishing rate, going from 13 in 2007 to 83 in 2008, 122 in 2009, 333 in 2010 and 448 in 2011. South Africa has about 20,000 rhinos, or 80% of all the rhinos in Africa. Similarly, poaching of African elephants hit a new high in 2012, based on global seizures of illegal ivory, which at 34 tonnes, was 50% higher than the previous record of 23 tonnes set in 2011. At roughly one tonne of tusks to 10 elephants, this is well over 3,000 animals slaughtered, but the true gure across Africa is thought to be much higher.
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South African newspaper The Star website (7/1) described the carnage as continuing with news that already two rhinos had been killed, one in the Kruger National Park and the other at the Madikwe Game Reserve. The paper said 2013 had to be the year the corner was turned on the problem. (Sources as referenced in text)
Zambian Ban Zambia on January 10th banned lion and leopard hunting to protect rapidly decreasing feline numbers for a burgeoning safari industry, despite criticism that it will drive tourists away. We do not have enough cats for hunting purposes, especially if we have to save our national resources, according to Tourism minister Sylvia Masebo. Although there is evidence that safari hunting and wildlife record income for the country, there was a need to weigh the benets against the fast-depleting species of some animals, said Masebo. But the Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) said the ban would be bad for the tourist industry. The population of cats in Zambia is around 3,400 to 3,500 and with the ban on safari hunting for cats we are likely to lose on revenue. It is these cats that make Zambias safari hunting competitive in the region, said ZAWA head of research Chuma Simukonda. Only 55 felines were hunted a year, he said, though the income from the sport was unknown. ZAWA and the government are in a spat after authorities temporarily closed the agencys ofces pending investigations into graft. Its director and senior ofcials were red in December for alleged corruption in the awarding of safari hunting concessions. The countrys hunting community however sees the move as political meddling. ( AFP 10/1)
MEDIA
Africa The Vienna-based world press body records the deadliest year for journalists.
An unprecedented 132 journalists were killed in the line of duty or as a consequence of their reporting in 2012, the highest since the International Press Institute (IPI) started systematically keeping track of journalists deaths in 1997. In Somalia, IPI registered the deaths of 16 journalists, more than in any other single year over the last 15. Despite positive political developments and milC
itary gains against insurgents, Somalias instability ensured that impunity for the killers of journalists continued in 2012, prompting even more attacks. Somalias new president, Hasan Shaykh Mahmud, has promised to create a task force to investigate, a move that IPI has welcomed. However, the government itself has been implicated in several press freedom violations: in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, ofcials shut down Horseed FM, a Netherlands-based station, after it aired critical reports, an act of censorship that IPI vigorously protested. In Ethiopia, the government employed anti-terrorism laws to silence journalists. Though two Swedish journalists arrested in 2011 were released in September 2012 after agreeing to admit wrongdoing in exchange for a pardon, Ethiopian journalists were not so lucky. (see p. 19570) In Egypt, legal and political battles over the countrys new constitution and composition of the constituent assembly took centre stage, with observers fearing that the constitution could negatively
affect press freedom. On December 25th President Muhammad Mursi signed a decree that put into effect the controversial constitution. Supporters of the document say it enshrines the values that led to the recent revolution, but opponents fear articles outlawing the insult of individuals or religions could be used to restrict commentary and public debate.
(IPI press release, Vienna 31/12)
Disclaimer: The Publisher and Editors cannot be held responsible for errors or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in this journal; the views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reect those of the Publisher and Editors, neither does the publication of advertisements constitute any endorsement by the Publisher and Editors of the products advertised.
Tunisian Group Warns of Setback An independent group has warned that freedom of the press in Tunisias public and private media outlets is under threat, citing a catalogue of setbacks and violations, Al-Jazeera reported (3/1). In its monthly report, the Tunis Centre for Freedom of the Press documented incidents of aggression against 36 Tunisian journalists in December 2012. The centre documented incidents of violations against journalists either through the use of bodily violence or the judiciary. It cited the private television channel, El Hiwar Ettounsi, owned by human rights activist Taher Ben Hocine, as one of the media outlets that had been a frequent target of violations. It warned against the return of state censorship through interference in journalists work. Al-Jazeera also reported that the Tunisian Court of Appeals rejected a request for the release of Sami Fehri, the director of the private Ettounsiya Television. The court also issued arrest warrants for ve former directors in Tunisian national television on nancial and administrative corruption charges that could carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years. Fehri is accused of misappropriating national television funds during the rule of ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali through Cactus, a private TV production company which he co-owned with Belhassen Trabelsi, Ben Alis brother-in-law. (Al-Jazeera TV, Doha, 3/1)
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Africa Research Bulletin

Political Social and Cultural Series

This issue pp. 1954782

(adapted from Africa Confidential Jan)

Published monthly since 1964

Bamako-Senou International Airport

19548 Africa Research Bulletin

January 1st31st 2013

Africa Research Bulletin 19549

19550 Africa Research Bulletin

January 1st31st 2013

Africa Research Bulletin 19551

19552 Africa Research Bulletin

January 1st31st 2013

Africa Research Bulletin 19553

19554 Africa Research Bulletin

SOUTH SUDAN SUDAN

January 1st31st 2013

Africa Research Bulletin 19555

The cabinet is now as follows:

19556 Africa Research Bulletin

Chad New Prime Minister

Egypt Two Years of Revolution

January 1st31st 2013

Africa Research Bulletin 19557

19558 Africa Research Bulletin

Sierra Leone Cabinet Appointments

January 1st31st 2013

Africa Research Bulletin 19559

19560 Africa Research Bulletin

January 1st31st 2013

Africa Research Bulletin 19561

PARTIES AND POLICIES

19562 Africa Research Bulletin

Africa Research Bulletin 19563 (Daily Monitor website, Kampala 18/1)

Algeria Hostage Crisis Timeline

19564 Africa Research Bulletin

Tiganturine gas field

January 1st31st 2013

Africa Research Bulletin 19565

19566 Africa Research Bulletin

Sahel Nord CentreNord Boucle du Mouhoun CentreOuest 1 2 3 CentreEst

Hauts-Bassins Cascades SudOuest

1 - Centre 2 - Centre-Sud 3 - Plateau-Central

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

January 1st31st 2013

Africa Research Bulletin 19567

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

C^te dIvoire o New Year Deaths A National Tragedy

19568 Africa Research Bulletin

January 1st31st 2013

Africa Research Bulletin 19569

40 Port Sudan Suakin

100 100 Shendi

200 KM Algena 200 MI Sala Nakfa

Kelamet Keren Massawa

Asmara Decamere Adi Ugri Adi Quala Adi Dairo Adwa

Zula Marsa Fatma Adi Kaie Adigrat Meder

Edd Agulai Mekele Assab Korem Kobo

Abiy Adi EI Hawata Singa

Maychew Sekota Lalibela Werota Weldiya Bati

Djibouti Saylac Dikhil

Dese Debre Werk

19570 Africa Research Bulletin