Africa

October 26, 2018 (JUBA) - South Sudanese peace celebrations have been delayed by one day to take place on 31 October, the minister of information Michael Makuei announced on Friday.

Minister Makuei announced the delay following the weekly cabinet meeting saying technical issues triggered the sudden delay.

"The government has decided that the celebration should be pushed for a day, but it will be on Oct. 31. This is to give a chance for any technical work which is incomplete, to allow it to be completed so that the celebration comes out the way we expected," he said.

The minister added that there are many other occasions that take place on the same day as the independence of Turkey and a European Union meeting to which many African leaders are invited.

The celebrations intend to show South Sudanese that war is over, in a way to contribute to creating a suitable atmosphere for the implementation of the revitalized peace agreement.

The IGAD and the international community encouraged the South Sudanese leaders to make public statements and meetings together to send a positive message across the country about the commitment of the peace partners to the signed pact.

Despite his formal demands for three confidence-building measures, the SPLM-IO leader Riek Machar is expected to attend the celebrations as he would be with the peace grantors and the government pledged to take draconian security measures.

Unconfirmed reports Khartoum say Machar would come with the Sudanese President to Juba and return with him.

The South Sudanese government extended the invitation for this event to the IGAD leader and some African leaders such as the Rwandan president who is the chairperson of the African Union and the South African and Tanzanian presidents.

(ST)

The role of two photographers who raised global awareness of civilian suffering during Liberia’s brutal civil war, is being celebrated in a new photographic exhibition which opens on Friday night in New York, supported by the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

The United Nations human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, on Friday warned that the forcible mass expulsion of Congolese migrants from Angola has resulted in “serious human rights violations by security forces on both sides of the border” and left at least 330,000 returnees in an “extremely precarious situation”.

Atta brings a résumé with the least appropriate background imaginable for a regime seeking to whitewash a record of corruption, repression, genocide, terrorism, and discrimination.

By John Prendergast

Over the last two years, Sudan has engaged in a charm offensive aimed at normalizing its relations with the United States. Despite its president being indicted for genocidal crimes by the International Criminal Court and his regime having a long history of support for terrorist organizations going back to the creation of al Qaeda, Sudan has successfully lobbied the Obama and Trump administrations to lift comprehensive sanctions.

Emboldened by this diplomatic victory, which cost the regime almost nothing in terms of substantive policy change, the regime has turned its attention to convincing Washington to remove it from the State Sponsors of Terror List, which will enable it to receive billions of dollars in debt relief.

To lead that effort and head its embassy in Washington, Sudan sent General Mohamed Atta, the former chief of the notorious National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS), who has arrived with no fanfare in Washington to embark on this new assignment.

His entrance was quiet for a reason.

General Atta, who is not related to the Egyptian with the same name who led the 9/11 attacks, brings a résumé that nonetheless represents the least appropriate track record imaginable for a regime seeking to whitewash the reputation of a government steeped in corruption, repression, genocide, terrorism, and religious and racial discrimination.

Under Gen. Atta, NISS has been deployed in the regime's arrest and persecution of Christian priests, churchgoers, and other religious and ethnic minorities, operating jails and secret detention facilities where systematic torture and abuse of detainees are routine.

Atta also had command responsibility for Sudan's Rapid Support Forces, a brutal security-military unit built from the infamous Janjaweed militias responsible for mass atrocities in Darfur. He is responsible for using these recycled Janjaweed militiamen for the violent suppression of civil protests in September 2013 which led to the killing of more than 200 peaceful demonstrators, many of them school children. As such, Atta's CV is directly part of the Sudanese regime's history of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.

Today, the U.S. is fully aware that Sudan is harbouring radical Islamist clerics and groups that openly advocate violent extremism, indoctrinating Sudanese youth to the ideologies of the so-called Islamic State and al Qaeda. Hardliners within the regime are directly implicated in recruiting youth and secretly sending them to fight for the two terrorist organizations and their affiliates elsewhere in Africa, Syria, Iraq, and beyond.

Atta, as the head of NISS, has been working at the very center of activities that give the lie to its repeated promises of cooperation with the U.S. in the war on terror. Leaked internal documents have revealed that NISS adeptly assumes the double agent role by, on the one hand, cooperating with and enabling these terror groups, while on the other hand occasionally blowing the whistle on them to NISS counterparts in the U.S. intelligence community.

It is shocking that anyone would even entertain the idea of removing the Sudan regime from the State Sponsors of Terror List.

Just this summer, the State Department alerted U.S. citizens to reconsider travel to Sudan, warning that “Terrorist groups continue plotting attacks in Sudan, especially in Khartoum… [and] have stated their intent to harm Westerners and Western interests through suicide operations, bombings, shootings, and kidnappings.” Some of these groups and clerics are supported or enabled by the Sudan regime, in particular by the NISS under Atta.

The regime in Khartoum has remained brazenly committed to enabling extremist groups and terrorist organizations and continues its war against its own people, including a recent escalation of attacks against civilians in Darfur and the brutal oppression of Christians and other minority groups across the country.

Sudan's selection for the face of its D.C. charm offensive is worse than tone-deaf, it's a shocking affront to Americans who care about human dignity and religious freedom. The Trump administration should immediately revoke Atta's diplomatic visa and put him on a plane back to Khartoum. And Congress should send a strong signal to the administration and to the Sudanese regime that sending such representatives and continuing such actions should ensure that Sudan remains firmly on the terrorist list until there is real change in Sudan.

John Prendergast is Founding Director of the Enough Project and Co-Founder of The Sentry.

A selection of the best photos from across Africa this week.

The top United Nations human rights official has called on Burundi to “immediately retract” its threat to try and prosecute members of a UN Commission of Inquiry into rights abuses in the central African nation.

Lesein Yes decided to combine his love of nature and football after hearing about deforestation.

Lamin Cham explains why he wants to testify at The Gambia's new truth and reconciliation commission.

A new film about the British rock band Queen throws the spotlight on the East African archipelago's famous son.

The top United Nations official in the Central African Republic (CAR), said on Tuesday he is “hopeful that the necessary foundations to build sustainable peace” have been established and that long-lasting stability will depend on the will of its people, and support from the international community.

A televised rape trial in South Africa of a Nigerian televangelist prompts a furious backlash.

Millions of African and Asian women work as maids in the Gulf. They have few rights and abuse is rife.

While security has improved in Darfur, inter-communal tensions in the conflict-plagued region of Sudan are still high, with clashes over land and livestock, the head of the joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission said on Monday.

The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres said on Monday he is “outraged by the continued killing and abduction of civilians by armed groups” near Beni, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)’s North Kivu region, which has been grappling with an Ebola outbreak since August.

Biafran leader Nnamdi Kanu had not been seen since soldiers stormed his home more than a year ago.

Chelsea's Nigeria international defender Kenneth Omeruo says things are looking up after a work permit hitch delayed his start to life in La Liga on loan to Leganes.

Defending champions Nigeria will face South Africa with hosts Ghana set to play Cameroon, as the draw for the 2018 Women's Nations Cup is made in Accra.

The rural eatery where you can buy a traditional favourite with the most modern of currencies.

Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about her family, Africa, misogyny and the adaptation of Americanah.

Ex-Guinea striker Ismael Bangoura is given a six-month suspended jail sentence and fined more than 130,000 euros after being convicted of fraud by a court in France.