Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the Zimbabwe government both denied on Tuesday that they were in talks to arrange the resignation of President Robert Mugabe. At a news conference on Tuesday evening, Tsvangirai confirmed, however, for the first time personally that his party had won the elections.
Rigging fears were increasing in Zimbabwe on Tuesday three days after the election commission failed to release results from the presidential vote, in which the opposition Movement for Democratic Change claims to have ousted authoritarian President Robert Mugabe.
Comorian rebel leader Mohamed Bacar was put in military custody on the French island of Reunion on Saturday pending a decision on whether to deport him after charges against him were dropped, authorities said. Bacar fled the Indian Ocean island of Anjouan this week when Comorian and African Union troops toppled his renegade government.
It is a matter of hours to go before voting stations open for Saturday’s elections in Zimbabwe. The Mail & Guardian Online spoke to South African political parties and NGOs ahead of the controversial poll. ”Mugabe will rule again. It would be a miracle if he didn’t,” said the Inkatha Freedom Party’s Musa Zondi.
Somalis uprooted by fighting in Mogadishu looted trucks carrying United Nations food aid on Friday, peacekeepers said, highlighting what relief agencies warn is a fast deteriorating humanitarian catastrophe. Somalia now has one million internal refugees, aid workers say, and their numbers are swelled by an exodus of about 20 000 civilians each month.
The military operation to oust the rebel leader of the Comoros island of Anjouan was hailed on Friday as a success by the African Union, in dire need of a boost to its conflict-resolution record. The first ever AU-backed plan to remove a renegade leader came after failed negotiations.
Somalia’s Islamist insurgents vowed on Thursday to launch more hit-and-run attacks against the government, saying their tactics were designed to reduce civilian casualties. Islamist fighters briefly seized the town of Jowhar, north of Mogadishu, on Wednesday, highlighting the interim government’s inability to assert its authority.
Comoros demanded on Thursday that France hand over a rebel leader wanted by the Indian Ocean archipelago for crimes against humanity and troops fired teargas to stop protests against the former colonial power. Paris confirmed late on Wednesday that Mohamed Bacar, the self-declared leader of Anjouan island, had fled to nearby French-run Mayotte.
France is considering giving asylum to a renegade Comoran leader who fled an invasion by Comoran and African Union troops, a minister said on Thursday. French security forces guarded the main airport on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte where Bacar was taken on Thursday.
Comorian rebel leader Mohamed Bacar has fled to the French-run Indian Ocean island of Mayotte from nearby Anjouan, where Comorian troops had been searching for him, French and Comorian officials said on Wednesday. Joint African Union and Comorian forces attacked and seized control of Anjouan island on Tuesday to topple Bacar.
Comoran and African forces on Wednesday battled die-hard supporters of Anjouan’s fugitive strongman as the federal authorities pledged a transition government in the Indian Ocean isle by the end of the week. Mohamed Bacar (45) was still on the run on the second day of the military operation.
A coalition of Comoran and African Union (AU) troops on Wednesday combed Anjouan hunting for its renegade leader after invading the Indian Ocean island the day before. The coalition staged its long-awaited landing in Anjouan’s capital and main port of Mutsamudu, where they were greeted by cheering residents.
South Africa has steadfastly refused to join in the chorus of criticism of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe despite paying an ever higher price for the crisis across its northern border. As Zimbabwe goes to the polls this weekend, analysts believe South African President Thabo Mbeki may feel little enthusiasm towards Mugabe but will never embarrass his fellow leader.
Troops from the Indian Ocean archipelago of Comoros seized the rebel island of Anjouan on Tuesday with African Union military help, and the government said its self-declared leader had fled dressed as a woman.
The Indian Ocean archipelago nation of Comoros said it had captured the capital and airport of the rebel island of Anjouan on Tuesday in a African Union-backed seaborne assault. ”Our troops have their feet on the ground … The assault has started well and good,” Mohamed Bacar Dossar, a presidential official in charge of defence, said.
The road from Harar runs for more than 960km east towards the border with Somalia, penetrating deep into the desiccated badlands of the Ogaden desert, the dusty heart of Ethiopia’s war-torn Somali regional state. This is the land that the self-styled separatists of the Ogaden National Liberation Front claim as their own.
A fresh batch of African Union (AU) troops arrived on the Comoros island of Moheli on Friday, joining Comoran forces massed for a military offensive to retake the rebel island of Anjouan. The Indian Ocean archipelago — between Madagascar and Mozambique — did not recognise the re-election of Anjouan leader Colonel Mohamed Bacar in June 2007.
The international community must overcome its reluctance to get involved in Somalia and help put an end to abuses there, a special United Nations envoy said on Thursday. ”While more people are talking about Somalia, there is still little action to stop the violence,” Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah told the Security Council during a debate on whether to send UN peacekeepers to the East African country.
Attacks on four villages in West Darfur in January and February by the Sudanese armed forces amounted to a ”deliberate” military strategy. The attacks resulted in at least 115 deaths, according to a report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN African Union Mission in Darfur.
Battles erupted in Somalia’s capital on Wednesday between Islamist rebels and Ethiopian troops backing the government a day after the United Nations said it was still too dangerous to send peacekeepers there. Witnesses in northern Mogadishu said three Ethiopian soldiers and at least one insurgent were killed as both sides traded heavy fire.
South African Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma called on Tuesday for eleventh-hour talks in Comoros as African Union troops prepared to support federal forces in a bid to take control of the rebel island of Anjouan. ”The federal government first wants the disputed elections dissolved,” she said.
Sierra Leone’s military chiefs are working on means to downsize from its current 10 000 soldiers to 8 500, Defence Minister Palo Conteh said on Friday, according to a state radio report. ”We cannot allow a large army …We have to downsize to a lean army that can react quickly to a given situation,” he said.
South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki said he opposed a threatened African Union-backed assault by the Comoros archipelago’s troops against the rebel island of Anjouan, saying it should be given time for a poll. Hundreds of federal troops have amassed on nearby Moheli island vowing an imminent assault on hilly, wooded Anjouan.
South Africa on Wednesday rejected ”with contempt” claims by jailed British mercenary Simon Mann that it backed his plot to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. ”South Africa is thrown in just out of the blue … he says he had a nod from us. I would like to know in what sense he had a nod,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad said.
A ”virulent and vicious” smear campaign is being waged against Zimbabwe over the list of observers invited to witness the country’s elections on March 29, the country’s ambassador to South Africa, Simon Moyo, said on Monday. The campaign is being driven by the West and certain sections of the South African media, he said in a statement.
Centuries before European colonialists carved up Africa, Arab traders marvelled at the profits to be reaped in the fabled lands south of the Sahara. ”In the country of Ghana, gold grows in the sand as carrots do and is plucked at sunrise,” wrote Ibn al-Faqih, a ninth-century chronicler.
Senegal wants the international community to guarantee a peace accord between Chad and Sudan to end years of conflict between the two feuding neighbours, President Abdoulaye Wade said. The Senegalese leader will host the signing of a peace pact on Wednesday between Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno and Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir
African neighbours Chad and Sudan will sign an agreement to end their long-running conflict in Dakar next week, the Senegalese president said on Friday. "There will be the signing of a general agreement and an implementation agreement" on March 12, President Abdoulaye Wade said.
European Union member states and the United States have been excluded from a list of observers who will be invited to monitor the March 29 general elections in Zimbabwe, the government announced on Friday. The only European country that had been invited to send monitors was Russia, while the Commonwealth was also left off the invitation list.
Zimbabwe has invited 47 regional and sub-regional organisations as well as countries from Africa, Asia, the Americas and one European country — Russia — to observe this month’s election, the government mouthpiece Herald reported on Friday.
Sudan vowed on Wednesday to continue its search for a French special forces soldier missing in war-torn Darfur for two days after his European Union peacekeeping patrol strayed across the border from Chad. The commando went missing on Monday when at least one vehicle taking part in the EU’s mission to Chad crossed into Sudan.
The United Nations in Sudan accused a rebel group on Monday of blocking access to a mountainous area in Darfur where 20 000 people are trapped after fighting between the government and rebels. Ameerah Haq, the UN humanitarian chief for Sudan, said an assessment mission to the Jabel Moun area was denied access by the Justice and Equality Movement.