Image copyrightAFPThe African Union hopes .africa will create a unique online identity for the continent
Africa now has the unique web address .africa, equivalent to the more familiar .com, following its official launch by the African Union.
AU commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma hailed its creation as the moment when Africa “got [its] own digital identity”.
The AU says the .africa domain name will “bring the continent together as an internet community”.
Addresses can now reflect a company’s interest in the whole of Africa.
For example, a mobile phone company could create mobile.africa to show its Africa-wide presence, or a travel company could set up travel.africa.
Icann, the body that establishes these addresses known as generic Top-Level Domains, approved the move, after lobbying by the AU.
The campaign was spearheaded by a South African company ZA Central Registry (ZACR), which will now be responsible for registering .africa names.
ZACR’s boss Lucky Masilela said that .africa addresses could cost as little as $18 (£15), AFP news agency quotes him as saying, and registration will start in July.
Other domain names recently created by Icann, include .fun, .phone and .hair.
“It is so good to be back home, after having been away for too long.”
Those were the first words of Moroccan King Mohamed VI in a speech at the 28th African Union (AU) Summit Tuesday. The speech came after a vast majority of the AU’s member states voted Monday to readmit Morocco to the continental bloc after a 33-year absence.
As the Moroccan king addressed the chamber in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, it felt like a defining moment, according to Liesl Louw-Vaudran, an analyst at the Institute of Security Studies in South Africa. “I’ve been following the AU for 20 years and I never thought I would see King Mohamed walk in and make a speech, it was quite historic,” she said from Addis Ababa.
King of Morocco Mohammed VI (L) greets Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame in the main plenary of the African Union (AU) in Addis Ababa, January 31. The AU voted to readmit Morocco to the bloc after a 33-year absence, but the status of Western Sahara remains a matter of dispute between Morocco and some AU members.ZACHARIAS ABUBEKER/AFP/GETTY
But why has the North African country decided that, after a three-decade absence, it needs to rejoin the AU? After all, the collective is often criticized for bureaucracy and failing to resolve crises on the continent. Take Burundi, as an example: the AU has been largely toothless in dealing with a civil conflict that broke out in April 2015, which has killed more than 400 people. It backed off from sending in a peacekeeping force after Burundi expressed its dissatisfaction.
According to analysts, two key benefits stick out in Morocco’s reintegration in the AU: the opportunity for greater trade with African countries, many of which are growing much faster than European states; and a potential means of resolving the continent’s last remaining colonial dispute— the status of Western Sahara, a territory Morocco claims as its own but that an independence movement says deserves autonomy.
On the economic front, Morocco’s links with the rest of Africa are growing but still make up a small percentage of the country’s overall trade. The European Union is Morocco’s biggest trading partner, constituting 55.7 percent of its trade in 2015, with near neighbor Spain and former colonial power France being the biggest beneficiaries. Morocco has also been unable to benefit from intra-African trade regions to the same extent as other countries. It is a member of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), a five-country trade agreement with Algeria, Libya, Mauritania and Tunisia. But the AMU has made little progress in boosting trade on account of recurring disputes between Algeria and Morocco—including on Western Sahara, since Algeria supports its independence—and has not held a meeting since 2008.
Mohamed indicated in his speech that this was something he wanted to change, and that he has already been hard at work. The monarch said that Morocco had signed almost 1,000 agreements and treaties with various African countries since 2000, while he had made 46 visits to 25 countries on the continent in the same period. Moroccan banks have expanded throughout Africa, with a presence in more than 20 countries, and the country’s state-run airline Royal Air Maroc is one of Africa’s biggest airlines, with Casablanca used as a transit point for many sub-Saharan Africans traveling across the continent.
“Morocco has opened a number of interesting diplomatic and commercial interests with their nearest African neighbors,” says Claire Spencer, a senior research fellow and North Africa expert at international affairs think tank Chatham House. “It’s logical that if their sub-regional development [in the Maghreb] is not going to happen that this should take place within the African Union.”
The Western Sahara dispute was the reason why Morocco left the AU’s predecessor, the Organization of African Unity (OAU), in the first place. A desert area roughly the size of Colorado, Western Sahara has been at the center of a dispute between Morocco and the Polisario Front, an organization representing the indigenous Sahrawi people, since the 1970s. Morocco annexed the territory in 1975 after Spanish colonizers withdrew, prompting the Polisario Front to launch a guerrilla struggle that continued until 1991, when the United Nations brokered a ceasefire. An estimated 90,000 people are living in refugee camps near the Algerian desert town of Tindouf, according to the U.N., as a result of the conflict.
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon, left, arrives for a meeting with the Polisario Front’s representative at the U.N. in Bir-Lahlou, in the disputed territory of Western Sahara, March 5. The region has been mired in a protracted dispute between Morocco and the Polisario Front that is backed by Algeria.FAROUK BATICHE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Morocco left the OAU in 1984 when a majority of members voted to recognize the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, as the Polisario Front calls the territory. In Monday’s vote, several countries—including Algeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe—reportedly wanted to make Morocco’s readmission to the AU contingent on it recognizing Western Sahara’s borders. But a top Western Sahara official, Sidi Mohammed, told the BBC that it welcomed Morocco’s readmission, calling it “a chance to work together” on organizing a long-promised referendum on the territory’s status.
According to Louw-Vaudran, however, Morocco’s re-entry to the AU could simply offer the North African state an air of “legitimacy” in seeking its desired solution in Western Sahara. Morocco has offered limited autonomy to the territory, but is unwilling to counsel full independence.
“Morocco wants to work from the independence to get Western Sahara expelled from the AU and once and for all lay to rest the whole issue of Western Sahara and its claims to independence,” says Louw-Vaudran. “I don’t think there’s anyone who thinks that total independence for Western Sahara is still on the cards.”
In a veiled nod to the controversial issue, Mohamed said in his speech that he was aware some AU member states were suspicious of its intentions. “We have absolutely no intention of causing division, as some would like to insinuate,” he said. Time will tell whether that proves to be the case.
Fears Of War Increase As South Sudan Replaces Vice President
Once a year, the heads of 54 African countries gather in the Ethiopian capital to hammer out solutions (or not) to the continent’s big issues.
The 28th African Union Summit opened on Monday in Addis Ababa, and the agenda is looking pretty full.
1. The Morocco Conundrum
After a 33-year absence, the only mainland country that is not part of the AU wants to rejoin. Morocco left what was then known as the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1984 in a dispute over the status of Western Sahara, a desert state the size of Colorado that has been the center of an independence struggle for several decades.
In Morocco’s eyes, Western Sahara is part of its territory. But an organization founded by the indigenous Sahrawi people, the Polisario Front, launched a guerrilla struggle in the early 1970s to demand that the area be recognized as an independent state, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). Supported by Algeria, the Polisario Front received the backing of a majority of OAU members in a vote in 1984 on its claim of territorial integrity in Western Sahara, prompting Morocco to quit the bloc. A diplomatic stalemate has ensued in the region, despite calls by the AU and the U.N. for a referendum. Tensions were reignited in 2016 when former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon referred to the region as under “occupation,” a comment decried by Moroccan leaders and people who took to the streets to protest.
Morocco submitted its application to rejoin the AU in September 2016, and the country’s foreign minister said in January that it has the support of the majority of the bloc’s members. But the bid could still face resistance from some of Africa’s major powers. According to AFP reports on Monday, 12 countries including Nigeria, South Africa and Algeria, have requested a legal opinion from the AU as to whether Morocco could be readmitted while some members believe it is be occupying the territory of another member state—i.e. the SADR.
Moroccan protesters hold placards during a demonstration against comments by Ban Ki-moon on Western Sahara in Rabat, on March 13, 2016. Morocco asserts that Western Sahara is part of its territory, though Ban referred to it as under “occupation.”FADEL SENNA/AFP/GETTY
2. Preventing Genocide in South Sudan
The situation in South Sudan is perhaps the most urgent issue in sub-Saharan Africa. Writing in Newsweek in December 2016, former U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said that the risk of “mass atrocities” in South Sudan—which has been mired in civil war on and off since December 2013—“escalating into possible genocide is all too real.”
Despite the leaders of the opposing factions—President Salva Kiir and ex-vice-president Riek Machar—signing a peace agreement in August 2015, South Sudan continues to be convulsed by violence. A fresh outbreak of fighting in July 2016 has led to tens of thousands of people fleeing the country, and ethnic tensions have reportedly become a significant factor in the conflict: Kiir is a member of the majority Dinka, while Machar comes from the Nuer ethnic minority. Experts have warned of a second Rwanda, referring to that country’s ethnic genocide in 1994, in which at least 800,000 members of the Tutsi minority and moderate members of the Hutu majority died at the hands of Hutu extremists.
In a joint emailed statement on Sunday, the AU, U.N. and regional body the Intergovernmental Authority on Development “expressed their deep concerns over the continuing spread of fighting, and risk of inter-communal violence escalating into mass atrocities, and the dire humanitarian situation in South Sudan.” But with the international community so far failing to mitigate the crisis—the U.N. Security Council, for example, has consistently failed to impose an arms embargo on the country—the AU will have to come up with more than just words in order to be seen as making real progress in South Sudan.
South Sudanese government soldiers celebrate while standing in trenches in Lelo, outside Malakal, South Sudan, October 16. Experts have warned of the risk of genocide in the country, where civil conflict has raged since December 2013.ALBERT GONZALEZ FARRAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
3. Uniting Around a New Leader
The summit marks the end of Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s tenure as head of the AU Commission. Five candidates are competing to replace Dlamini-Zuma, whose term has ended; she is likely to run later this year to succeed her former husband, Jacob Zuma, as leader of South Africa’s governing African National Congress.
The vote on the next AU leader could well expose divisions in the organization. Three of the five candidates—Chad’s foreign minister Moussa Faki Mahamat, Kenyan foreign minister Amina Mohamed, and Abdoulaye Bathily of Senegal—are the most likely contenders, but voting could be complicated by a tradition that means the post tends to rotate between candidates from Anglophone and Francophone countries. If tradition is followed, Mahamat and Bathily would have an advantage—even though Kenya has been vocal in campaigning for votes for Mohamed.
In order to win, a candidate requires two-thirds of the votes, and a deadlock followed by political wrangling is a real possibility. That happened in 2012: Dlamini-Zuma was only elected in a second ballot after the first produced a stalemate and led to the incumbent having his term extended by six months.
The new South Africa has been a bastion of respect for human rights, and its decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court is a sign that something is terribly wrong with the tribunal. And it’s no secret: Since 2005, when it first issued arrest warrants, the court has indicted 39 people, every one of them African.
There are various explanations for this, some of them defensible. But the bottom line is that it was an inexcusable mistake for the court not to pursue other cases. It wouldn’t have been tokenism, because there are, unfortunately, plenty of non-African war criminals. Yet even if it were, the tokenism would have been justified to show that the court is more than the imperialist agent of regime change that many Africans consider it.
South Africa’s unexpected — and devastating — decision last weekto withdraw from the court is not based on any immediate fear that South African leaders would be prosecuted. In that sense, the decision differs sharply from that of Burundi, which was the first nation to initiate withdrawal, just a few days before the South African announcement.
Burundi’s motivation was the prospect of an ICC investigation of the political violence that has plagued the country in the last year, since President Pierre Nkurunziza declared his intention of running for a third term. Of 110 Burundian lawmakers, 94 had voted for the withdrawal, suggesting, if nothing else, consolidation of the political class against the possibility of an investigation that would probably have focused on the president himself.
It’s not terribly surprising that a president in that position would seek to avoid the ICCs jurisdiction by withdrawing. It’s much more surprising that a stable democracy like South Africa, which has a range of international obligations written into its state-of-the-art constitution, would send such a strong message of rejection.
The South African minister of justice, Michael Masutha, offered the explanation that South Africa considered the obligation to turn over foreign diplomats charged by the court to be a violation of its domestic laws that guarantee diplomatic immunity. In June 2015, the South African government failed to turn over Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was visiting for an African Union summit, even after a South African court ordered it to do so.
But the minister’s formalistic explanation rings hollow. South Africa’s constitution incorporates international legal obligations into domestic law, and would certainly be interpreted by South Africa’s progressive courts to trump any domestic requirements of diplomatic immunity.
What makes more sense is that the South African government is consolidating its position of regional and continental leadership by taking a stance that is sure to please other African heads of state. It’s precisely those heads of state who are most vulnerable to ICC prosecution. By weakening the court — and providing thick cover for any other African countries that wish to follow suit — South Africa is giving those leaders a tremendous diplomatic gift.
In other words, the statement that South Africa wants to respect the diplomatic immunity of other heads of state is a way of saying that South Africa wants to do business with African leaders.
The ICC worries African heads of state because it has adopted a prosecutorial policy of going after leaders whom it accuses of being responsible for political violence in violation of international law. Targeting a head of state or government is an attractive and admirable idea for an international body committed to enforcing human rights. In the case of authoritarian or autocratic governments, the leader often does bear moral responsibility for violence. And it would be deeply dissatisfying for an international criminal court to prosecute primarily lower officials who may have committed crimes but did not plan or direct them.
If the court is going to go after government leaders, however, it must confront the concern that, as South Africa’s Masutha put it, it is producing a “scenario of forced regime change by one country on another.” When the prosecution comes from a European geographical base and a court staffed mostly by non-Africans, the regime change has the further feature of seeming “imperialist,” the word used by the chief party whip of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress.
The simple solution for the ICC would have been to prosecute some — any — non-Africans. It’s not like the problem hasn’t been noticed. The ICC itself has held an online symposium of invited experts on what it rather delicately called “the Africa question.”
It must been noted in the ICC’s defense that six African cases brought to it from outside, four by the countries where the violations had occurred and two by reference from the United Nations Security Council. The first four were nondiscretionary, meaning the court had to investigate under its own rules. And in the other two, Sudan and Libya, there were strong grounds to commence investigation.
But that excuse explains why the court has pursued the cases it has — not why it hasn’t pursued others. Admittedly complex rules govern the court’s reach, and it can’t proceed where there are adequate domestic legal processes under way.
Nonetheless, the court’s prosecutors needed to reach more broadly. Initial investigations of cases involving Afghanistan, Colombia, Georgia, Honduras and South Korea could have proceeded more rapidly. The idea that Iraq would be free of crimes against humanity or that the Iraqi legal system could adequately treat them seems highly implausible on its face.
The lesson here is that tokenism isn’t always a bad thing. When it comes to demonstrating the legitimacy of a new and powerful international legal entity, a basic requirement is not only to be balanced but also to appear so.
South Africa’s decision is unfortunate, but the ICC opened the door, and it deserves the primary blame. The court in The Hague stands for the admirable aspiration to hold the worst criminals in the world responsible for their wrongs. But trying to achieve that ideal without pragmatic realism about what seems fair in international politics is a hopeless task.
South Africa’s constitutional court was supposed to hold hearings on this issue in November, but the government will now drop its appeal.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
The new South Africa has been a bastion of respect for human rights, and its decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court is a sign that something is terribly wrong with the tribunal. And it’s no secret: Since 2005, when it first issued arrest warrants, the court has indicted 39 people, every one of them African.
There are various explanations for this, some of them defensible. But the bottom line is that it was an inexcusable mistake for the court not to pursue other cases. It wouldn’t have been tokenism, because there are, unfortunately, plenty of non-African war criminals. Yet even if it were, the tokenism would have been justified to show that the court is more than the imperialist agent of regime change that many Africans consider it.
South Africa’s unexpected — and devastating — decision last weekto withdraw from the court is not based on any immediate fear that South African leaders would be prosecuted. In that sense, the decision differs sharply from that of Burundi, which was the first nation to initiate withdrawal, just a few days before the South African announcement.
Burundi’s motivation was the prospect of an ICC investigation of the political violence that has plagued the country in the last year, since President Pierre Nkurunziza declared his intention of running for a third term. Of 110 Burundian lawmakers, 94 had voted for the withdrawal, suggesting, if nothing else, consolidation of the political class against the possibility of an investigation that would probably have focused on the president himself.
It’s not terribly surprising that a president in that position would seek to avoid the ICCs jurisdiction by withdrawing. It’s much more surprising that a stable democracy like South Africa, which has a range of international obligations written into its state-of-the-art constitution, would send such a strong message of rejection.
The South African minister of justice, Michael Masutha, offered the explanation that South Africa considered the obligation to turn over foreign diplomats charged by the court to be a violation of its domestic laws that guarantee diplomatic immunity. In June 2015, the South African government failed to turn over Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was visiting for an African Union summit, even after a South African court ordered it to do so.
But the minister’s formalistic explanation rings hollow. South Africa’s constitution incorporates international legal obligations into domestic law, and would certainly be interpreted by South Africa’s progressive courts to trump any domestic requirements of diplomatic immunity.
What makes more sense is that the South African government is consolidating its position of regional and continental leadership by taking a stance that is sure to please other African heads of state. It’s precisely those heads of state who are most vulnerable to ICC prosecution. By weakening the court — and providing thick cover for any other African countries that wish to follow suit — South Africa is giving those leaders a tremendous diplomatic gift.
In other words, the statement that South Africa wants to respect the diplomatic immunity of other heads of state is a way of saying that South Africa wants to do business with African leaders.
The ICC worries African heads of state because it has adopted a prosecutorial policy of going after leaders whom it accuses of being responsible for political violence in violation of international law. Targeting a head of state or government is an attractive and admirable idea for an international body committed to enforcing human rights. In the case of authoritarian or autocratic governments, the leader often does bear moral responsibility for violence. And it would be deeply dissatisfying for an international criminal court to prosecute primarily lower officials who may have committed crimes but did not plan or direct them.
If the court is going to go after government leaders, however, it must confront the concern that, as South Africa’s Masutha put it, it is producing a “scenario of forced regime change by one country on another.” When the prosecution comes from a European geographical base and a court staffed mostly by non-Africans, the regime change has the further feature of seeming “imperialist,” the word used by the chief party whip of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress.
The simple solution for the ICC would have been to prosecute some — any — non-Africans. It’s not like the problem hasn’t been noticed. The ICC itself has held an online symposium of invited experts on what it rather delicately called “the Africa question.”
It must been noted in the ICC’s defense that six African cases brought to it from outside, four by the countries where the violations had occurred and two by reference from the United Nations Security Council. The first four were nondiscretionary, meaning the court had to investigate under its own rules. And in the other two, Sudan and Libya, there were strong grounds to commence investigation.
But that excuse explains why the court has pursued the cases it has — not why it hasn’t pursued others. Admittedly complex rules govern the court’s reach, and it can’t proceed where there are adequate domestic legal processes under way.
Nonetheless, the court’s prosecutors needed to reach more broadly. Initial investigations of cases involving Afghanistan, Colombia, Georgia, Honduras and South Korea could have proceeded more rapidly. The idea that Iraq would be free of crimes against humanity or that the Iraqi legal system could adequately treat them seems highly implausible on its face.
The lesson here is that tokenism isn’t always a bad thing. When it comes to demonstrating the legitimacy of a new and powerful international legal entity, a basic requirement is not only to be balanced but also to appear so.
South Africa’s decision is unfortunate, but the ICC opened the door, and it deserves the primary blame. The court in The Hague stands for the admirable aspiration to hold the worst criminals in the world responsible for their wrongs. But trying to achieve that ideal without pragmatic realism about what seems fair in international politics is a hopeless task.
South Africa’s constitutional court was supposed to hold hearings on this issue in November, but the government will now drop its appeal.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
FILE – In this Monday, Jan. 6, 2014 file photo, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir speaks after meeting with South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, in the capital Juba, South Sudan. South Africa has decided to withdraw… (AP Photo/Ali Ngethi, File)
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Until this week, no country had withdrawn from the International Criminal Court. Now two African states, South Africa and Burundi, have made official decisions to leave. Concerns are high that more African countries now will act on years of threats to pull out amid accusations that the court unfairly focuses on the continent. Here’s a look at what it all means.
SOMEONE TO TAKE ON GENOCIDE
Many in the international community cheered when the treaty to create the ICC, the Rome Statute, was adopted in 1998 as a way to pursue some of the world’s worst atrocities: genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Not all countries signed on, and before this week’s decisions by Burundi and South Africa, the treaty had 124 states parties. Notable countries that have not become states parties include the United States, China, Russia and India. Some countries are wary of The Hague, Netherlands-based court’s powers, seeing it as potential interference.
THE TRAVELS OF AL-BASHIR
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has become a symbol of the limitations facing the ICC, which does not have a police force and relies on the cooperation of member states. Al-Bashir has been wanted by the tribunal for alleged genocide and other crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region after the U.N. Security Council first referred the case to the ICC in 2005. Since then, however, al-Bashir has visited a number of ICC member states, including Malawi, Kenya, Chad and Congo. His visit to South Africa in June 2015 caused uproar, and he quickly left as a court there ordered his arrest. The ICC has no power to compel countries to arrest people and can only tell them they have a legal obligation to do it.
___
AFRICAN FRUSTRATIONS, AND THREATS
Only Africans have been charged in the six ICC cases that are ongoing or about to begin, though preliminary ICC investigations have been opened elsewhere in the world, in places like Colombia and Afghanistan. One case that caused considerable anger among African leaders was the ICC’s pursuit of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta for his alleged role in the deadly violence that erupted after his country’s 2007 presidential election. The case later collapsed amid prosecution claims of interference with witnesses and non-cooperation by Kenyan authorities. The African Union has called for immunity from prosecution for heads of state, and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni at his inauguration in May — with al-Bashir in attendance — declared the ICC to be “useless.”
___
HEADING OUT
Burundi kicked off the ICC departures this month when lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to leave the tribunal, just months after the court announced it would investigate recent political violence there. President Pierre Nkurunziza signed the bill on Tuesday. Now South Africa is deciding to leave as well, saying that handing a leader over to the ICC would amount to interference in another country’s affairs. It’s a dramatic turnaround for a country that was an early supporter of the court’s creation in the years after South Africa emerged from white minority rule and near-global isolation. With one of Africa’s most developed countries now pulling out, observers are waiting to see whether more states follow.
FILE – In this Monday, Jan. 6, 2014 file photo, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir speaks after meeting with South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, in the capital Juba, South Sudan. South Africa has decided to withdraw… (AP Photo/Ali Ngethi, File)
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Until this week, no country had withdrawn from the International Criminal Court. Now two African states, South Africa and Burundi, have made official decisions to leave. Concerns are high that more African countries now will act on years of threats to pull out amid accusations that the court unfairly focuses on the continent. Here’s a look at what it all means.
SOMEONE TO TAKE ON GENOCIDE
Many in the international community cheered when the treaty to create the ICC, the Rome Statute, was adopted in 1998 as a way to pursue some of the world’s worst atrocities: genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Not all countries signed on, and before this week’s decisions by Burundi and South Africa, the treaty had 124 states parties. Notable countries that have not become states parties include the United States, China, Russia and India. Some countries are wary of The Hague, Netherlands-based court’s powers, seeing it as potential interference.
THE TRAVELS OF AL-BASHIR
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has become a symbol of the limitations facing the ICC, which does not have a police force and relies on the cooperation of member states. Al-Bashir has been wanted by the tribunal for alleged genocide and other crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region after the U.N. Security Council first referred the case to the ICC in 2005. Since then, however, al-Bashir has visited a number of ICC member states, including Malawi, Kenya, Chad and Congo. His visit to South Africa in June 2015 caused uproar, and he quickly left as a court there ordered his arrest. The ICC has no power to compel countries to arrest people and can only tell them they have a legal obligation to do it.
___
AFRICAN FRUSTRATIONS, AND THREATS
Only Africans have been charged in the six ICC cases that are ongoing or about to begin, though preliminary ICC investigations have been opened elsewhere in the world, in places like Colombia and Afghanistan. One case that caused considerable anger among African leaders was the ICC’s pursuit of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta for his alleged role in the deadly violence that erupted after his country’s 2007 presidential election. The case later collapsed amid prosecution claims of interference with witnesses and non-cooperation by Kenyan authorities. The African Union has called for immunity from prosecution for heads of state, and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni at his inauguration in May — with al-Bashir in attendance — declared the ICC to be “useless.”
___
HEADING OUT
Burundi kicked off the ICC departures this month when lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to leave the tribunal, just months after the court announced it would investigate recent political violence there. President Pierre Nkurunziza signed the bill on Tuesday. Now South Africa is deciding to leave as well, saying that handing a leader over to the ICC would amount to interference in another country’s affairs. It’s a dramatic turnaround for a country that was an early supporter of the court’s creation in the years after South Africa emerged from white minority rule and near-global isolation. With one of Africa’s most developed countries now pulling out, observers are waiting to see whether more states follow.
Most do not associate Africa with the high-tech sphere of “space”. However, in recent years, many countries on the continent have woken up to the potential and usefulness of space technology. In sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria and South Africa are leading the charge.
What have South Africa and Nigeria have achieved?
Both countries have recognised the usefulness of satellites for earth observation, telecommunications and advancing space science. They have funded and overseen a number of launches.
Nigeria’s space agency, the National Space Research and Development Agency, flies several multimillion-dollar satellites. South Africa launched its first satellite,SUNSAT, in 1999. A second, SumbandilaSat, was launched from Kazakhstan in 2009. A year later, South Africa formed its National Space Agency, SANSA. In 2013, the Cape Peninsula University of Technology launched South Africa’s first CubeSat – a type of nano-satellite, known as ZACUBE-1.
And in early 2015, the Kondor-E satellite built for South Africa in Russia was launched into orbit. It provides all-weather, day-and-night radar imagery for the South African military.
Earth observation satellites can collect data on areas of importance to a country’s economy and well-being such as agriculture, natural disasters and elections. Nigeria has used its satellites to monitor the oil-rich Niger Delta . Its satellites have also been used in election monitoring, providing crucial information about voters who may otherwise have been overlooked by poll workers.
Satellites have also proved useful in the fight against extremist groups such as Boko Haram. In 2014, Nigeria used its SatX and Sat 2 to monitor the group’s movements and to help find the 273 girls it had abducted.
There are limits to how useful satellites can be in these situations. Finding those kidnapped proved difficult because the satellites only have a 2.5 metre resolution. This means that you cannot trace individuals’ movement – you can only get maps of some locations at some particular times.
Also, because satellites move from one location to another, it means that it can take up to four days for one to get into position to take a particular photograph.
Amnesty International has pioneered the use of satellite images for human rights research and advocacy over the past six years using imagery from GeoEye and DigitalGlobe. It has also used satellite imagery to collect information about Boko Haram’s activities. Satellite photos taken in January showed the scale of the group’s atrocities after they attacked the towns of Baga and Doron Baga.
Satellite image of housing in Doro Baga taken in January after a Boko Haram attack. Amnesty International
South Africa has harnessed earth observation satellite capability to do human settlement mapping. This has enabled it to monitor urbanisation by examining the growth of settlements and the transformation of housing. It provides useful data for service delivery projects and town planning.
As the largest space agency in southern Africa, SANSA frequently provides disaster monitoring and post-disaster assessment for South Africa and the region. Fires and floods are the most common natural disaster. It also monitors space weather effects and forecasts, which are crucial for aviation.
Other African nations are getting involved
Other growing sub-Saharan African countries have recently begun space programmes. Ghana launched its Space Science and Technology Centre in 2012. Kenya started its space programme in 2012. Kenya’s geographic position on the equator makes it ideal to launch satellites into geostationary and other orbits.
Oil- and mineral-rich Angola plans on launching its first satellite, AngoSat-1, into orbit by 2016. It is being built by a Russian consortium.
North African nations are no strangers to space and satellites. Algeria, which established its space agency in 2002, launched five disaster monitoring microsatellites in the 2000s, and an earth observation satellite in 2010. The latter was launched from Chennai, India.
Egypt, like South Africa, now has its own military satellite thanks to Russian assistance. Egypt launched its first satellite in 2007 for scientific research, but has run into recent concerns over human and financial resources.
Along with Sudan, Egypt has been at the forefront to establish a African space agency to combat some of the monetary and skills issues. The African Union Working Group on Space recently approved a draft African space policy and is currently developing a comprehensive space strategy.
However, even if African resources and skillsets are combined, an operational African Space Agency appears to be at least five to ten years away. Countries are focused on growing their own space agencies first. The project will also undoubtedly depend upon political relations between continental powerhouses Nigeria and South Africa, which are at a low.
Its effectiveness will depend on an African country developing domestic satellite launch capability, which is a huge necessary step forward in space exploration. Nevertheless, continued collaboration – such as SANSA working with the Zambia Remote Sensing Centre in a research project using satellite earth observation data for drought, soil and vegetation monitoring – will assist in speeding up the process towards a true continental space alliance.
Government space agencies aside, satellites over rural Africa can help provide Internet connectivity to hundreds of millions of African citizens. In June 2014, only 44% of the 410 million people who live in sub-Saharan Africa were living within 25km of an operational fibre optic network node. Facebook has reportedly been talking to satellite operator Avanti – which owns two broadband satellites over Africa – to help in this endeavour.
There is no question satellites and space exploration have socioeconomic benefits. Satellites can help find mineral resources. Satellites helped uncover an underground aquifer in Kenya’s driest region. The plethora of possible benefits is combined with other crucial hard to quantify advantages. These projects inspire youth, increase national pride and advance education.
But, space endeavours require capital. And for most African countries, capital is a limited commodity.
Zimbawe’s president, Robert Mugabe, gestures as he addresses supporters of his ruling ZANU-PF party at Harare International Airport, Zimbabwe, Sept. 24, 2016.
HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Zimbabwe’s president said Saturday that the African Union was planning to form a splinter group with countries such as Russia, China and India if the U.N. Security Council did not include members of his continent next year.President Robert Mugabe said the African Union was still concerned that it had no permanent seats on the Security Council.
Upon arrival in Harare from New York and this year’s U.N. General Assembly late Saturday, the 92-year-old Zimbabwean leader told ZANU-PF supporters that the African Union wanted to be on the Security Council if veto powers of the five permanent members — China, France, the United Kingdom, the U.S., and Russia — were not removed.
“It is not all permanent members being tough. It is Britain, France and [the United States of] America,” he said. “If they remain adamant, they must not cry foul when we agree to form our own organization with countries like China, India and other Asian countries. This is what we want to do next year in September, when we have made a commitment.”
During his 30-minute speech, Mugabe did not refer to calls made Thursday by his Botswana counterpart, Ian Khama, to step down and allow fresh blood to improve Zimbabwe’s economy.
Addis Ababa (AFP) – Morocco on Friday made an official request to return to the African Union, 32 years after quitting the bloc in protest at its decision to accept Western Sahara as a member.
“The Kingdom of Morocco has officially submitted a request to accede to the African Union (AU) Constitutive Act, and therefore, become a Member of the Union,” the AU said in a statement.
Rabat first announced its intention to return to the club in July, with King Mohammed VI saying his country wanted to “take up its natural place within its institutional family.”
Morocco quit the AU in protest in 1984 when the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) — commonly known as Western Sahara — was admitted as a member.
Morocco has occupied the sparsely populated Western Sahara area since 1975 in a move that was not recognised by the international community.
It maintains that Western Sahara is an integral part of the kingdom even though local Sahrawi people have long campaigned for the right to self-determination.
In 1991, the United Nations brokered a ceasefire between Moroccan troops and Sahrawi rebels of the Algerian-backed Polisario Front but a promised referendum to settle the status of the desert territory is yet to materialise.
The Moroccan monarch in July said his nation’s decision to return to the AU did not mean it was changing its stance on Western Sahara.
Rabat’s membership bid must be approved by a vote of the AU Commission in order to be accepted.
Image copyrightAFP
