Sudan: UN human rights experts call for independent investigation into violations (12.06.2019)

GENEVA (12 June 2019) – UN experts said today they were seriously concerned that Sudan was sliding into a “human rights abyss”, urging the Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigation into violations against peaceful protesters since the start of the year.

“Given the scale and seriousness of the reported human rights violations and the need to act quickly to prevent further escalation, we call on the Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigation into the human rights violations in Sudan and to actively monitor developments on the ground,” said the experts appointed by the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The UN experts expressed alarm at reports of numerous deaths and injuries since 3 June 2019 as a result of the use of excessive force and violence by State Security Forces, and in particular the Rapid Support Forces, against peaceful demonstrators.

“One of a State’s most fundamental duties is to protect life,” they said. “In pursuing ordinary law enforcement operations, using force that may cost the life of a person cannot be justified. International law only allows Security officers to use lethal force as a last resort in order to protect themselves or others from death or serious injury.

“We urge the authorities to ensure that security forces handle protests in line with the country’s international human rights obligations and to carry out independent and thorough investigations.”

Women have been at the forefront of the peaceful protests in the country in recent weeks and months and have been among the first victims of the violence, including sexual violence, the experts said, adding that dozens of women human rights defenders had been arbitrarily held in an attempt to intimidate them. While some have been released, information received suggests several remain in police custody and are in need of medical attention.

The Sudanese authorities’ failure to respect and protect their citizens’ rights to freedom of association and peacefully assembly, to express their opinions and to make peaceful demands on their Government was also a matter of grave concern, the experts said. The experts called on authorities to reconnect the internet network after it was shut down at the start of June 2019.

“Freedom of expression and assembly is essential so that the legitimate concerns of the people can be heard and their needs, including their human rights, addressed,” they said. “The demonstrators have been calling for democratic change, including the hand-over of power to civilians by the Transitional Military Council (TMC).

“We call upon the Transitional Military Council to respect and protect the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to address the underlying causes for the demonstrations. As instructed by the African Union, the TMC must promptly hand over power to a civilian authority. This will avoid further precipitating Sudan into a human rights abyss.”

The experts expressed concerns about reports that three opposition leaders from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM/N Malik Agar faction) were allegedly deported from Sudan at the weekend. The men were arbitrarily arrested by the National Intelligence and Security Services last week.

Sudan: 30 civil society organisations call for urgent UN Security Council action to prevent further bloodshed in Sudan (11.06.2019)

Opinion: [Shootdown] Museveni’s new magic bullet to beat poverty!

Museveni made the remarks yesterday Sunday while delivering his speech during the 30th Heroes Day commemorations held at Kasanje War Memorial Grounds in Wakiso district. He noted that the new program is set to be unveiled during the national budget reading session on June 13. Museveni explained that although there are many several other poverty alleviation programs running across the country, the new program will finally offer the magic bullet to get out of poverty” (URN – ‘Gov’t to introduce another poverty alleviation program’ 10.06.2019).

In the Republic there been many schemes to stop the rampant poverty in Uganda. However, for some reason none of them is working. There sometimes so many going on at the same time, you could think it was a public enterprise to get foreign funding to allocate funds for the projects.

In 1995 the state Entandikwa Scheme launched it and by 2002. The state then introduced the Rural Micro Finance Project was launched instead in 2004. This was not the final one of these, even if the Micro Finances are still viable, but not the main stay.

In next step was the National Development Plan again lasted between 2010/11 – 2014/15 and the Poverty-Environment Initiative. This has been extended by the National Development Plan II (NDP II), which has a lasting period from 2015/16- 2019/2020 and still succeeding to this day.

However, as you would be thinking this is enough? Well, the same state has launched National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) was launched as a scheme in 2002. The Youth Livelihood Programme was launched in 2013. Operation Wealth Creation was launched in 2013. All of these things was created for the same reason, to end poverty. Surely there are plenty more programmes, schemes and tricks of the trade to end poverty. Still, the government have not able to fix the issue.

The National Resistance Movement (NRM) have launched all of these and apparently the President haven’t delivered on this promise. That is why the President again launches a new trick of the trade. This here is just the new way they are trying to sell the end of poverty.

The NRM have tried this their way since the beginning of its reign. President Museveni have clearly tried and not succeeded.

This new scheme is surely just a way for his closest associates to eat. They just need to be revitalized and amended to fit the donors paradigm and the whatever they can reconfigure the budgets.

Museveni is shooting in the dark, his shooting fish in the barrel, he finally has the answer to the magic bullet that shoot JFK in Houston. Because, there is more likely finding the solution of that, than actually solving the issues around poverty. The second reason is that as long as the public and citizens stays poor. They will need aid and foreign donors. Therefore, the President will use all methods and schemes to beat it, but never get results.

That is why this newest scheme will end up like all the other ones. This President has found a new way to get funds, just another trick of his trade. That is what he does, Gen. Salim Selah will surely be involved in this one too. Just like he has done in the past. That is how this is ending. Don’t be shocked or surprised.

The President and NRM had 33 years to be able to do this. They have created all of these methods, but they are never working. That is why I don’t believe this one will do the cut either. Because there is no general will by the authorities to actually get rid of it. They want initially to keep people poor, to be able to get “free” money from the donors and not have to do their job as a government. Peace.

RDC: Ensemble – Declaration Politique du 11 Juin 2019 (11.06.2019)

RDC: Mouvement de Liberation du Congo (M.L.C) – Communique Officiel (11.06.2019)

Association of Uganad Tour Operators Ltd: Planned Construction of Hydropower Dam over the Murchinson Falls (10.06.2019)

People Power – Uganda: Press Statement (11.06.2019)

RDC: Communication speciale de Son Excellence Monieur le Ministre de la Sante concernant l’epidemie de rougeole en Republique Democratique du Congo (10.06.2019)

DRC: Local leaders help turn the tide on Ebola (11.06.2019)

So far there have been more than 2008 cases in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri.

CAIRO, Egypt, June 11, 2019 – Joseph Kakule, the community leader of the Vighole area, has become one of the most committed social mobilizers in a region ravaged by the ongoing outbreak Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Kakule, 47, is a native of Butembo. He is one of the local leaders who are working to mobilize community engagement to combat Ebola. “Listening to my community, sharing its anxieties and trying to find a solution – that’s what motivates me,” he says.

Kakule and his deputy, 30-year-old Gervais Muhindo, form a duo resolutely determined to break the silence about the disease, and to end mistrust of Ebola health workers.

This week, they both feel happy that they have done their duty. They managed to persuade people who had come in contact with the most recent confirmed cases of Ebola to agree to be vaccinated. Located southwest of Butembo, Vighole is part of the Katwa health zone, which is considered one of the strongholds of community resistance. People here have turned a deaf ear to attempts to raise awareness of an epidemic that has continued to spread.

Every day for the past ten months, Ebola cases have been reported in Butembo – a city of more than one million inhabitants – and its immediate surroundings, including Binone, Kabondo, Kavisa, Kirimbere and Vuhunga. So far there have been more than 2 008 cases in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri, including 1 900 confirmed and 94 probable, with more than 1 340 deaths.

To make sure that vaccination teams from the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization could safely arrive on site to administer the Ebola vaccine, Kakule and Muhindo first toured the alleys of Vighole, meeting community members. Their goal was to conduct an in-depth door-to-door awareness campaign so that a vaccination site could be set up. They were targeting first and second degree contacts with people who had been diagnosed with the virus.

“It has been a long time since an Ebola response team could set foot here,” Kakule says, “but we are mobilizing against misinformation and lack of trust within our community, which itself is plagued by doubt and anger at the insecurity caused by armed groups.”

During the first six months of 2019, the Katwa area and the Butembo urban agglomeration experienced several attacks attributed to armed groups. These attacks included the looting and destruction of Ebola treatment centres, during which some health responders at the frontline and security forces repelling the attackers lost their lives.

Kakule remembers that, after difficult weeks of bitterness and misunderstanding following these violent incidents, he and Muhindo simply decided to organize community meetings to explain that the Ebola virus disease was a serious danger that threatened everyone without exception.

“Those who die of this deadly virus are our brothers and sisters. We cannot give up and watch the situation continue to deteriorate like this without doing anything,” Kakule says. The Vighole area was recently in uproar after a series of deaths occurred within a single family. First came the death of a 17-year-old boy suspected of having contracted Ebola, followed by the deaths of both his parents a few days later.

“I told myself that talking about Ebola to members of our neighbourhood is not a crime, even if other residents treat us like sell-outs bought by the response teams,” says Muhindo.

Muhindo says he often uses “the testimonies of those who are already healed from Ebola as a powerful argument to sweep away the doubt” of his neighbours in the Vighole area. He also talks about the importance of vaccinating or decontaminating affected households to prevent the disease from spreading further.

Combating misinformation

Teams of first responders to the deadly Ebola virus have often faced community mistrust, fuelled by misinformation spread by some parliamentary candidates in the general elections that took place in late 2018. This is one of the reasons why Kakule and Muhindo decided to fight misinformation about the epidemic, which is having an increasingly negative impact on their community.

“We talk to everyone – young, old and even children. We tell them that it is better to get vaccinated if you came in contact with a confirmed Ebola patient rather than wait a long time to develop the disease only to die later,” Kakule says.

On Friday, May 31, the response teams arrived in Vighole to begin vaccination in the field around the identified contacts. On the same day, the WHO Assistant Director-General for Emergencies and Health Risks, Dr Ibrahima Socé-Fall, visited the site and praised “the courage and commitment of these two community leaders,” referring to Kakule and Muhindo. Thanks to their hard work, their community, once resistant to response activities, is now mobilized to take ownership of the fight to get Katwa and its various neighbourhoods out of the chain of transmission of Ebola.

These response activities, coordinated by the Ministry of Health with the support of the World Health Organization and other partners, have generously received financial contributions from several donors, including Germany, the United States of America, the World Bank, the African Development Bank (AfDB), China, South Korea, the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), DFID, Japan, Norway, Sweden, the European Union, Canada. Gavi, The Wellcome Trust and others.

RDC: Ensemble – Communique (10.06.2019)