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Wie könnte eine gute, nicht von den Interessen der großen Konzerne und nicht von europäischen Machtinteressen bestimmte Politik der EU gegenüber “Afrika” aussehen? Welche Forderungen …

Die Verländerung der UN-Mission steht in Kürze zur Abstimmung im Sicherheitsrat. Im Vordergrund der Mission steht die Kooperation mit der Operation Berkhane und mit den …

Zu den Massenprotesten in Bamako am 19.06.  hat Labour Net Germany weitere Berichte zusammengestellt: 24. Juni 2020 Erneuter Massenprotest in Mali: Für den Abzug der (vor allem) französischen Truppen, die nicht helfen, sondern unterdrücken Labour Net Germany hatte auch die Kritik an der Fortsetzung des Bundeswehreinsatzes in Mali dokumentiert: 29. Mai 2020 Massive Kritik an der Fortsetzung des Kriegseinsatzes Nach Planungen des Verteidigungsministeriums, über die der Spiegel im November 2019 berichtet hatte, sollten auch Soldaten des KSK Als Ausbilder in Mali stationiert werden. Fragen zur Rolle der KSH in Afghanistan hat heute Thomas Pany in Telepolis aufgeworfen.

The United Nations Security Council has renewed the mandate of its peacekeeping mission in Mali, MINUSMA, for a further twelve months. The seven-year operation has been beefed up and given extra powers, despite a divergence between the United States and France over the mission’s effectiveness. UN Security Council members on Monday voted unanimously to extend the mandate of MINUSMA, the organisation’s peacekeeping mission to Mali, until 30 June 2021. The number of personnel will be increased to 13,289 soldiers and 1,920 police officers. The mission’s budget has also been boosted to 1.2 billion dollars, making MINUSMA – the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali – the third most expensive peacekeeping operation in the world. It is also one of the most dangerous, and many observers agree that the extra resources are vitally necessary. […] G5 Support For the first time too, MINUSMA will provide support to the G5 Sahel Joint force, notably through the appointment of its former Africa bureau chief, Bruno Mpondo-Epo, as special adviser to the UN’s special representative to Mali, Mahamat Saleh Annadif. „I think it’s an attempt to better coordinate efforts,“ reckons Varenne. Currently, there are several military operations in the Sahel, including France’s 5,000-strong Operation Barkhane, the G5 force, comprising troops from neighbouring Sahel countries, a European Union training mission known as Takuba, due to be set up in 2021, and the MINUSMA operation. „MINUSMA’s new political mandate can be seen as a compromise between the US and France,“ Leslie Varenne explains. „The United States were incredibly skittish about spending any more money,“ she says. „The fact that they’ve accepted a bigger budget and agreed to enlarge the mission’s mandate suggests that they must have received guarantees in return.“ The renewal does commit to presenting a „possible exit strategy“ for the mission by March 2021, but Varenne reckons the Americans may have obtained more during negotiations. „The Americans have been lobbying for their candidate David Gressly to take over MINUSMA from Chadian boss Mahamat Saleh Annadif,“ she says. Gressly is the current head of the UN peacekeeping force in the DR Congo. „If they succeed, the Americans won’t mind that MINUSMA takes on a bigger political role if that role is in their hands.“ AllAfrica 30.06.20

One person has been killed and several others injured during largely peaceful demonstrations in Sudan, a government spokesman said, as tens of thousands of people took to the streets demanding faster reform and greater civilian rule in the country’s transition towards democracy. Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Sudanese cities on Tuesday despite a coronavirus lockdown to demand a transition towards democracy after the removal of longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir last year. Waving Sudanese flags, demonstrators gathered in the capital, Khartoum, and its twin cities, Khartoum North and Omdurman, after the government closed roads and bridges leading to the centre of the capital. Police used tear gas to disperse protesters marching on a road leading to the airport in Khartoum. There were no immediate reports of causalities. Similar protests also took place in Kassala in eastern Sudan and in the restive region of Darfur. They chanted „freedom, peace and justice“, the slogan of the anti-al-Bashir movement. Some protesters blocked streets with burning tyres. The „million-man march“ was called by the Sudanese Professionals‘ Association, and the so-called Resistance Committees, which were instrumental in the protests against al-Bashir and the generals who took over power for months after his removal. […] Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan, reporting from Khartoum, said the protesters rallied after weeks of organising in a bid to „correct the path of the revolution“. Demonstrators also say justice has not been served over the killing of protesters since December 2018, when the popular movement against al-Bashir began. Protesters are also saying that the transitional government handed over „major files“ to the military, which under the power-sharing deal, were meant to oversee security issues and not „day-to-day“ concerns such as the economy. The protest organisers also called for the appointment of civilian governors for Sudan’s provinces and making peace with the country’s rebels who were part of the power-sharing deal. They also called for swift, public trials for al-Bashir and top officials in his government. Al-Bashir, who has been in prison in Khartoum since his removal, faces an array of accusations related to the 1989 coup and the crackdown against the uprising against his rule. […] Meanwhile, in central Darfur province, hundreds of people, mostly displaced and refugees, were camping for the second day outside government buildings in the town of Nitrite. The protesters call for the resignation of the provincial government, and a halt to attacks by government-sanctioned armed groups, said Adam Regal, a spokesman for a local organisation that helps run refugee camps in the area. Regal shared footage showing hundreds of people, mostly women, holding signs that read: „Freedom, Peace and Justice,“ the slogan of the uprising against al-Bashir. Al Jazeera 01.07.20 In Pictures: Thousands of Sudanese take to the streets again ::::: Hundreds of thousands of people participated in demonstrations in the capitals of the five Darfur states and other towns in Darfur. They demanded a just peace, disarmament of militias, and achieving the goals of the revolution. Demonstrations took place in many camps for the displaced as well, including Kalma, Ardamata, Abushouk, El Hamidiya, Zamzam, Murnei, Ronga Tas, and Mukjar. The demonstrators demanded security, disarmament of the militias, dismissal of the military governors, and corrections of the course of the revolution. The coordination of the Resistance Committees in Ed Daein, capital of East Darfur, submitted a memorandum to the acting state governor demanding the dismissal of 13 officials, including directors of ministries. The memorandum also called for a restructuring of the Economic Committee to include the forces of the revolution. The memorandum demanded the formation of a committee to remove ‘empowerment’ (tamkin)*, and recover stolen endowment funds. It also calls for the formation of a legal committee to investigate suspicious or apparently fraudulent rezoning projects. The memorandum gave the governor of the state 72 hours to implement the demands. It threatens with escalation in the event that the demands are not met. In El Geneina in West Darfur, the Resistance Committees delivered a memorandum to the governor, demanding to completion of the revolution, and retribution for the protestors killed during demonstrations. They also called for better border control to prevent smuggling, and publication of the results of the investigation into the violent events in Kerending camp at the end of 2019, when more than 80 people were killed and at least 47,000 displaced. They seek the dismissal of remnants of the Al Bashir regime, guarantees that this year’s crops can be harvested, and more progress in dismantling ‘empowerment’ (tamkin)* and recovering stolen funds. The memorandum gave the governor of West Darfur 72 hours to respond to the demands. The coordination of the Resistance Committees in North Darfur called for achieving a just and comprehensive peace that addresses the roots of the conflicts in the country since independence. In a statement it called for the establishment of rule of law, reform, a handover to the ICC of all those indicted, the truth about what happened during the violent dismantling of the Khartoum sit-in on June 3, 2019, and bring all those responsible for violence to justice. It also seeks a state committee for the removal of empowerment (tamkin)*, and an immediate investigation into corruption in the state and the El Mawasir Market Ponzi scheme. The North Darfur Resistance Committees want civilian power structures in the state as soon as possible, but not established by partisan quotas. The memorandum calls for a fundamental restructuring of the military and the security institutions, and a single national army under the full supervision of a civilian cabinet. Atbara: Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Atbara in River Nile state. They delivered a memorandum with demands to the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), among them a correction of the course of the revolution, the appointment of civilian governors, forming the Legislative Council, and achieving peace, justice, and retribution. In Dongola in Northern State hundreds of thousands protestors gathered to demonstrate. A statement issued by the Resistance Committees, the Dongola Revolutionaries and the …

Statewatch News Online, 30 June 2020 Home page: http://www.statewatch.org/ e-mail: office@statewatch.org London, 29 June 2020 – The civil liberties organisation Statewatch has today delivered an open letter [1] with hundreds of signatories to Mr Kitack Lim, Secretary-General of International Maritime Organization (IMO), calling on him to revoke the Libyan maritime search and rescue (SAR) zone [2] in order to prevent the so-called Libyan Coast Guard undertaking ‚pull-backs‘ of migrants to Libya, where they face violence, abuse and mistreatment. The letter, drafted by Statewatch and Osservatorio Solidarietà [3] demands that the Libyan SAR zone, which was declared in December 2017 and has been operative since mid-2018, be struck off from international records for five key reasons: the country cannot be considered a safe port in which to disembark people, a requirement of international law; the Libyan Coast Guard and the Libyan Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre do not have the requisite capabilities to conduct operations of their own accord, often relying on the technical assets of the EU and/or its member states, in particular Malta and Libya, to coordinate operations; the Libyan Coast Guard’s membership includes persons identified as being or having links with human traffickers and its missions frequently involve ill-treatment of those ‚rescued‘; the IMO’s declaratory procedure, which allows states to claim a SAR zone unless other state parties object, has been used to undermine fundamental principles such as the right to life and the duty to assist in rescues at sea, with EU member states relinquishing their duties in pursuit of immigration policy goals; the existence of a Libyan SAR zone is being used to criminalise NGOs in order to prevent them undertaking rescues in Libyan waters and bringing people to genuine ports of safety in the EU. This letter supports a submission made to the IMO in March 2020 by the NGOs Comitato Nuovi Desaparecidos del Mediterraneo, Progetto Diritti and Open Arms, to which the IMO has still not responded. [4] More than 200 individuals and over 70 associations, groups and networks (some of which represent dozens of civil society organisations) from Europe, North Africa and beyond have signed the letter. 14 MEPs from nine Member States (Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden) and three groups in the European Parliament (European United Left/Nordic Green Left, Socialists & Democrats and Greens/European Free Alliance) have given their support to the initiative. [5] The European Commission formally recognises that Libya is unsafe for migrants, as certified by national and international courts, as well as UN agencies (UNHCR, IOM), special rapporteurs and experts on human rights. However, in practice, the Commission cooperates with EU member states and third-country governments and agencies to engineer a context that results in death at sea or returns to Libyan camps, where torture, mistreatment and other human rights abuses are rife, as the outcome of attempted sea crossings. Yasha Maccanico, a researcher for Statewatch, said: „The Libyan SAR zone makes a mockery of the law of the sea. It allows other states to relinquish their responsibilities under international law and subordinates human rights, the right to life and the prohibition of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment to the EU’s restrictive migration policy approach. The IMO needs to stand up to states misusing procedures for instrumental purposes, for the sake of the international legal system as a whole.“ Contacts Yasha Maccanico, Statewatch, yasha [at] statewatch.org Lorella Beretta, Osservatorio Solidarietà della Carta di Milano, cartamilanosolidarieta [at] gmail.com Notes [1] The open letter can be found here. It is available in PDF format, with the signatories as of the time of delivery, here . It remains open for signatures. [2] The 1979 International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue, for which the IMO is the responsible body, is designed to ensure that „no matter where an accident occurs, the rescue of persons in distress at sea will be co-ordinated by a SAR organization and, when necessary, by co-operation between neighbouring SAR organizations.“ It requires that rescued persons be taken to a place of safety. More information is available here. [3] Statewatch is a non-profit-making voluntary group founded in 1991 comprised of lawyers, academics, journalists, researchers and community activists. Its European network of contributors is drawn from 18 countries. Statewatch encourages the publication of investigative journalism and critical research in Europe in the fields of the state, justice and home affairs, civil liberties, accountability and openness. Website: https://www.statewatch.org Osservatorio Solidarietà is a group of activists, journalists, jurists, citizens acting in solidarity, members of NGOs and associations. Its goal is to identify and criticise political, media and legislative attempts to discredit and oppose initiatives to act in solidarity. Website: http://osservatoriosolidarieta.org/ [4] A first letter to the IMO was sent by Comitato Nuovi Desaparecidos, Progetto Diritti and Open Arms. See: Emiliano Drudi, Esposto all’IMO per demolire l’alibi della zona SAR libica, Tempi Moderni, 31 March 2020. It was reported on in English here. [5] The full list of signatories at the time of delivery can be found attached to the letter (pdf).