South Sudan: Omer Eshaq Mohammed from Lol State resignation letter to Maj. Gen. Rizik Zacharia Hassan (18.05.2018)

South Sudan: Hon. Ustaz Lewis Anei Madut-Kuendit resignation letter to President Salva Kiir Mayardit (18.05.2018)

Burundi: Declaration de la Coalition des Independants Amizero V’Aburundi sur le Deroulment du Processus Electoral du Refferndum du 17 Mai 2018 (18.05.2018)

Statement by the Deputy Chairperson of the African Union at the Second High-Level Revitalisation Forum of South Sudan: Addis Ababa, 17 May 2018

South Sudan: Centre for Inclusive Governance, Peace and Justice (CIGPJ) – Press Statement (17.05.2018)

Opinion: Is the launch of Somali Shillings (SOS) – A IMF sponsored Bond-Notes?

“S-O-S, please someone help me

It’s not healthy for me to feel this

Y-O-U are making this hard”Rihanna on ‘SOS’ released 14. February 2006

This is what it seems like, it doesn’t seem like economic viable effort or worth enterprise, when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) needs to loan and get donor aid valued $41 million United States Dollars, it seems more like quick rich scheme, than anything else. Borrowing funds to print currency never seems like a good idea, especially when the state has itself 300 external stakeholders keeping this in order and fragile alliances all over. You can wonder who will benefit from the Somali Shillings (SoS).

Out of the measure of doing so, 26 million will go to procurement and printing the shillings, the 4 denominations they are put in. This all is done in measure against counterfeit, but nearly none of the loaned or donor-funded money will go to that, only 0.06 million US Dollars. Meaning a measly and insignificant amount money will actually go to stop the counterfeit currency floating around.

That is why I am suspicious, if they are just thinking of printing them, and dropping them in the markets in Mogadishu, how will this benefit the citizens and the Federal Republic itself?

Because it seems like another piece of Bond-Notes, where the funding of the enterprise is bound on foreign currency and foreign bound loans, which makes it an extra debt on the state. As the IMF is co-sponsor and the one behind the enterprise, they are securing as a foreign entity, the national and federal currency. Which happens to be SOS. All of that should send the smoke-signals and the tapping on the floor. Send the signal “SOS”.

Because they state: “This letter provides IMF staff’s assessment on the readiness of the Central Bank of Somalia (CBS) to issue a new national currency under Phase I which will be limited to exchanging the counterfeit Somali shilling notes currently in circulation with new currency” (IMF, 11.05.2018). That is why I question it too, since so little of the funding for the project goes to counterfeit operations, will it be successful? Do they think the magic wand of new paper-money will compensate for the one that is counterfeit right now? How will they go about the exchange from old to new, and will they do that with all currency or will they accept the old-counterfeit to get rid off all fake currency floating around?

Seemingly, it seems like borrowing more money, to print a new line of SOS, which is an SOS to the world. Also, where the IMF needs a huge sum of money, to procure and print them, while the state only get scraps and no direct plan to really eradicate the counterfeits. Because they are only putting up a Counterfeiting Framework, but not initially working against it. Meaning, it is just borrowing and printing new shillings, without any purpose of actually combatting the problem itself. Which is rare thing to do.

Let see how this goes, but I hope this is not a IMF sponsored Bond-Notes project, because that is how it seems like, borrowing funds and donor funding to get new currency floating. Not a good idea, more issues as I see it. That is just me though. Peace

South Sudan Council of Churches: Statement at the High-Level Revitalisation Forum (HLRF) – (17.05.2018)

UNHCR suspends resettlement programme from Sudan as fraud probe gathers steam (17.05.2018)

KHARTOUM, Sudan – UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is temporarily suspending its refugee resettlement programme from Sudan in connection with two ongoing investigations launched in February and March by the organization’s independent Inspector General’s Office.

A separate anti-fraud and integrity support mission is expected to deploy shortly.

“At present we are still dealing with allegations, based on reports that have come from refugees. Nonetheless these are worrying and the integrity of the Sudan resettlement programme has to be assured beyond any doubt,” said UNHCR Representative for Sudan Noriko Yoshida. “Should wrongdoing be confirmed, those responsible can expect the consequences to be severe.”

Resettlement is one of the three main solutions for refugees and applies to vulnerable people for whom there is no possibility of either voluntary return or local integration. As such, it is a vital lifeline.

UNHCR encourages anyone with information about suspected fraud or other wrongdoing to contact its Inspector General’s Office without delay on http://www.unhcr.org/inspector-generals-office.html. UNHCR never charges fees to help refugees or others under its duty of care.

Opinion: Nkurunziza’s Life-Presidency Projects starts today!

If you ever where thinking that the Presidency of Pierre Nkurunziza was for the betterment of the Burundian people, you we’re terribly wrong. Now after the third term that he took for himself, counting the Arusha Peace Agreement and the Constitution. Today, the Imbonerakure and the army to intimidate and spread fear. To get the people to show up in masses to vote in favor of the President. This has been shown all over Burundi. That is the reason why the VOA and BBC was suspended during the campaigning and the referendum. The government didn’t want this out.

This is a government that want only the perfect news out. The CNDD-FDD don’t want the reality out. They want to look like perfect, like everyone is behind the President and his party. The whole state is eaten by the CNDD-FDD, the state is run by them and they are using the Imbonerakure, whose are more important than ever. They have gotten a bigger space in the Republic after the protest of 2015. When the people flee and more of the opposition leaders, and former leaders has been killed. If not like there are so many people whose been detained because they we’re against the referendum now.

This Referendum of 2018 isn’t to change the Constitution for the people, this is to sign off more terms for Nkurunziza and make it easier for him to rig the next elections. All of this is to secure him and his place. Make him the king and the rest is his peasants.

That is why this is the nail in coffin for the ideals of the Arusha Agreement of 2000 and the Constitution of 2005. Also, now after this the idea of continuing the East African Community mediation effort of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and H.E. Benjamin Mpaka. They should just give it up and stop it. The Inter-Burundian Dialogue has been flawed and controlled by the state, therefore, they have picked the times and stakeholders. It is just as they have been just buying time for Nkurunziza to change the Constitution in his favor. That is what is happening now. By any means necessary.

Nkurunziza are planning to rule for life, leave a legacy of blood and oppression. Pierre wants to be remembered for the toils and tyranny against his own citizens. That he did so to gain his own wealth, misuse public resource and create scarcity. You know that there is a dark side to the referendum, other than creating more terms for the President. Who already had the Constitutional Court in 2015, make a ruling in his favor, in such a way that he could run on the third term, when the President only could run twice. So laws hasn’t mattered to him in the past, so they will not now.

The Burundian population is his personal pawns, they are the ones that can be used and he can profit on. The people are the ones he needs to get personal profits, but not better their lives. Nkurunziza is now a soon a tyrant for life. He is not planning on leaving office. Pierre is planning to stay for life, use all tricks and consolidate all power within him. So that the everyone has to wait for his decrees and decisions.

Today, is just signifying it. All the way through the campaign period, that has campaigned for “no” to the referendum. They have been detained and harassed by Imbonerakura, this has been reported from districts all over the Republic. So it is not like the President hasn’t shown democratic values, but neither is this revision of the Constitution. It is made to secure him and seal his fate.

This is the end of the Arusha Agreement, the final nail in the coffin of the Inter-Burundian Dialogue. Why discuss peaceful transition and balance of power, when the President is taking it all already? There is nothing to give to the other parties and the real opposition to the President. The ones that are still alive is outside and in exile. That is because of the fear of the state, that has assassinated plenty of the opposition leaders and opposition activists in the Republic.

So a man that uses death and detaining of the opponents. Are not having political discourse and having consensus with all political stakeholders. That is a tyrant steering the wheel and deciding the path for everyone. Everyone just has to blindly follow and not questioning him. They have to stand on guard and be poetic about it.

That is why the Referendum of 2018 appearing. President Nkurunziza isn’t planning to send doves, to create a paradise, than he would believe in accountability, transparency and taxation with representation. It is not force-fed public, with a government forced in their face and they have to obey. There no other rule of law, and the state can even get rid of you if your speaking up against them. Nothing will be left behind, nothing will be left without touched and if you oppose them, expect to stop breathing or having a heartbeat.

That is what the Nkurunziza does and if people forget that, then they forget the reality of what he does. Peace.

Burundi: Communique du FNL Relatif au Vote de ce 17 Mai 2018 (17.05.2018)