Skip to main content

African press review 16 June 2015

An update on the whereabouts of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who did not spend the night in a South African jail. Now the Pretoria High Court wants to know how the man suspected of war crimes in his own country was allowed to go home. Did the Zuma government deliberately ignore a court decision?

Advertising

As confidently predicted in yesterday's Press Review, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir did NOT spend the night in a South African jail.

According to the main story in this morning's Johannesburg-based BusinessDay, Bashir arrived home in Khartoum yesterday to a hero's welcome, despite the fact that a South African court ordered him not to leave as it decided whether to arrest him over alleged war crimes. Bashir was in South Africa to attend the African Union summit. A warrant for his arrest was issued by the Hague-based International Criminal Court in 2009.

The High Court in Pretoria says that the South African government is in contempt of court and should have arrested and detained Bashir.

The government has been given seven days to file an affidavit explaining the details of Bashir's departure.

The court buildings in Pretoria were busy yesterday.

Another story on the front page of BusinessDay reports that the Pretoria High Court yesterday dismissed an application to order President Jacob Zuma to immediately release the Marikana Commission report, which was handed to him on March 31.

The application was launched last week by miners who were injured during the unofficial strike at Lonmin’s Marikana mine in August 2012, where at least 44 people died, the majority in clashes with police.

Zuma opposed the application, and has promised that he will release the report at the end of this month.

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari is planning to visit Cameroon to cement a regional fighting force against Islamist insurgents Boko Haram.

Buhari met his counterparts from Niger, Chad and Benin at a summit in Abuja last week but Cameroon’s Paul Biya missed that meeting.

Sacked Ugandan prime minister Amama Mbabazi announced yesterday he will challenge his former ally, President Yoweri Museveni, in elections next year.

Seventy-year-old Museveni, the east African nation’s leader since 1986, has already been chosen as the ruling National Resistance Movement’s (NRM) candidate.

Mbabazi, former NRM secretary-general and prime minster from 2011-2104, was sacked by Museveni last September following reports he was planning to stand against him.

Security forces surrounded Mbabazi’s home after he announced his candidacy.

The main story in the Kenyan Daily Nation reports that a British national killed in last Sunday's abortive raid at a military camp in Lamu County, has been identified.

The Englishman is said to be 25-year-old Thomas Evans, originally from Buckinghamshire.

His identity remains to be officially confirmed because DNA tests are still being carried out.

A spokesman for the Kenya Defence Forces said Evans had been identified from photographs.

The Kenyan Standard alleges that police officers at Mpeketoni did not respond on time during a terrorist attack last year and arrived only to collect bodies of the more than 70 victims of an al-Shebab attack, according to a human rights report.

The report says officers attacked citizens, beating them up instead of taking the injured to hospital. The report which was released yesterday in Nairobi, exactly a year after the attack, says security officers resorted to rounding up Muslims and Somalis. Some were held in detention for weeks while others were beaten by security officers, according to Davis Malombe from the Kenya Human Rights Commission.

The Kenya National Human Rights Commission says security forces were slow to respond when armed Al-Shabaab militia attacked a passenger bus and at least eight villages in Lamu and Tana River counties.

The attackers killed 87 people, including four security officers.

The front page of the Cairo-based Egypt Independent says the Obama administration is mistaken in its support for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. This is because Washington is aiding the regime's crack down on political opposition, creating an even more unjust and violent Egypt. This is according to an editorial in the influential Washington Post newspaper.

Sisi and his supporters maintain that the current military-backed regime is the only guarantee of stability. The Washington Post editorial says that the country has in fact become more violent, with more people dying in terrorist attacks since Sisi took over as president.

The reason for the increased violence, the Post argues, is the increased oppression of all political opposition by the Sisi administration.

Daily newsletterReceive essential international news every morning

Keep up to date with international news by downloading the RFI app

Share :
Page not found

The content you requested does not exist or is not available anymore.