
SPLM/A-IO – On the Trump Administration’s Proposal of Freezing Assets and Imposing Other Sanctions on South Sudan Leaders (15.06.2018)












I do not believe the reports that President Pierre Nkurunziza will step down in 2020 when his “final” third term is ending. As he has already rewritten the Constitution, gotten a favorable verdict in the Constitutional Court to run in 2015 and has reason to step down. As he has consolidated all powers among himself and his closest allies. Even build a youth brigade together with police, military and agents of the government oppress, detain and kill opposition activists and leaders. Therefore, he has no reason to step down. If so, what will he become if he steps down?
Will he become a shoeshine boy on the streets of Bujumbura or merchant. Since he has been the merchant of death and destruction. He has used propaganda and misused power. Shouldn’t he be afraid of stepping down? Since he has oppressed, taken total control and gotten rid of everyone standing in his way. Doesn’t he think that someone will have his crimes challenged if he steps down?
Seems like a dream after a 13 years of nightmare. He is supposed to just deliver 15 years of darkness and lack of dim light. I have feeling this isn’t real, other people like he has promised to step down and never did. They have said they would do so if the public wanted it. However, they have lingered for decades upon decades. Rigged elections, used the military as his power-tool to put the people into submission. Also the Imbonerakure to silence his opposition together with the Police. Therefore, he has little reason step down.
If someone is rewriting the Constitution to fit him, has all powers and should be afraid of prosecution and retribution after all the ills he has done. He would earn little to step down, unless he got a villa near Yahya Jammeh in Equatorial Guinea. That is the place where he should reside and surely President Obiang will give him space, like he offered Mugabe the other day. He want the dictator gathering on the outside of the African Union and no one can blame him for trying hard to do so.
However, Nkurunziza is just doing like many others of his kind. Speaking of stepping down, but never really doing so. He will rewrite and make sure he has the office. As he is using the state and the Republic as his private enterprise. The state party is all built around him and his cult-figure. He is the hero and the one that Burundi needs.
Therefore, I don’t believe the hype. At this speed there is a need for a revolution or a coup to bring him down. It is not like the elections or the CENI is built for anyone else than him. The way things are, everyone in the authorities are his stooges and his paid cronies. There are no one else than him. It is either Pierre or nothing. Peace.

The government of Djibouti had borrowed substantially from the World Bank to create a Center of Excellence facility, intended to address the problem of child malnourishment.
WASHINGTON D.C., United States of America, June 7, 2018 – This is a guest post by Jim Sanders, a career, now retired, West Africa watcher for various federal agencies. The views expressed below are his personal views and do not reflect those of his former employers.
Returning from an early autumn vacation in Acadia National Park last year, we exited I-95 near Waterville, Maine to grab a Starbucks coffee at a nearby mall. Seeking a second opinion on my theory that the Subaru station-wagon was the state car of Maine, I approached a total stranger who was climbing out of his Toyota Prius. After affirming that, in fact, he had owned one himself, the man identified himself as Dr. David Austin, a local physician. He also mentioned his upcoming tour in Djibouti, as a Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontiers, or MSF) physician, and explained that he had previously served in Sudan (Darfur) and Congo.
Having recently returned from the four-month tour with MSF in Djibouti, Dr. Austin was eager to speak about his experiences there. He worked in a tent hospital in the capital, which focused on treating malnourished children. Mortality is particularly high in that segment of the population. (In Djibouti, MSF expected a large refugee influx, but the flow of refugees into Djibouti failed to materialize, and so it developed a program specifically for malnourished children.)
The government of Djibouti had borrowed substantially from the World Bank to create a Center of Excellence facility, intended to address the problem of child malnourishment, but while the structure was built, it did not become operational. MSF, whose mission centers on providing aid in emergencies, eventually began to close down their tent hospital. A handover to another institution never occurred, yet every month, Dr. Austin said, more kids appeared needing treatment. “On paper,” he said, “the government treats malnourished children, but in reality many children do not get treated.”
Yet, as in his other African assignments, Dr. Austin felt buoyed by the people themselves, having previously remarked that, “There is a strong spirit of joyfulness in many Africans that I consider priceless.” Djibouti’s slums are worse than India’s, he explained, where the poor hammer out tin cans and make nice shacks, and sweep the areas around them to keep them clean. In Djibouti, in contrast, the poor live in rag tents, amidst a sea of garbage. “If your child dies, MSF will provide you a ride home, with your dead child,” Austin explained. “I went with one family [to take their deceased child home], driving forever through slums, until we reached a shack in the middle of nowhere.”
But despite their circumstances, the people are “lovely, eager to talk, and full of energy.” “There’s a lot going on,” he noted. Not least, a mini-Arab Spring, which has prompted a heavy-handed government reaction.


The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms all attacks, provocations and incitement to violence against Mission multidimensionnelle intégrée des Nations unies pour la stabilisation en Centrafrique (MINUSCA) by armed groups and other perpetrators.
KAMPALA, Uganda, June 6, 2018 – Security Council Press Statement on Attack against Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Central African Republic:
The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the attack on 3 June 2018 by armed elements against a patrol of the Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) in the village of Dilapoko (prefecture of Mambere-Kadei) in the west of the Central African Republic, which resulted in one Tanzanian peacekeeper killed and 7 others injured.
The members of the Security Council expressed their deepest condolences and sympathy to the family of the peacekeeper killed, and to those of the peacekeepers injured, as well as to Tanzania and to MINUSCA. They wished the injured a speedy recovery.
The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms all attacks, provocations and incitement to violence against MINUSCA by armed groups and other perpetrators.
The members of the Security Council reiterated that attacks against peacekeepers may constitute war crimes and reminded all parties of their obligations under international humanitarian law. They called on the Government of the Central African Republic to swiftly investigate this attack and bring the perpetrators to justice.
The members of the Security Council reiterated their full support for MINUSCA and expressed their deep appreciation to MINUSCA’s troop- and police-contributing countries.
The members of the Security Council reiterated their strong support for the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the Central African Republic, Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, and for MINUSCA to assist the Central African Republic authorities and the people of the Central African Republic in their efforts to bring lasting peace and stability, as mandated by the Security Council in resolution 2387 (2017).