Category: Politics

KAMPALA —

Uganda’s military has confirmed sending troops into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) against Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels. Uganda blames the ADF for a series of bombings in the country. But analysts say inviting the Ugandan army into the DRC could raise tensions with neighboring Rwanda.

Uganda has sent ground forces into the Democratic Republic of Congo in the ongoing armed operation against the Allied Democratic Forces rebel group.

Brigadier Flavia Byekwaso, the Uganda army spokesperson, confirms to VOA that after it used artillery and airstrikes early this week against the ADF, Uganda sent in ground troops.

“And I can confirm at this point in time that they’ve already entered into their bases,” said Byekwaso. “Part of our end set is to make sure that we pacify that part of Congo. We make sure that we get rid of the terrorists that are there. So, the attainment of this is going to determine for this operation how long it’s going to take.”

The Ugandan army has not revealed how many ground soldiers have been sent into the DRC.

Aside from ADF rebel forces, a militant group from Rwanda — the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda — have also been active in the Eastern DRC, forcing Rwanda to deploy its forces against the FDLR. Analysts fear that may worsen the already shaky relation between Uganda and Rwanda, which are operating in the same region.

Pierre Boisselet, coordinator of the Kivu Security Tracker, says while the deployment of the Ugandan army has caused mixed reaction, the military intervention many not solve the many root causes of the conflict, but more importantly, now uproot the ADF, which has been in the DRC for two decades.

“They have to do with the failings of the Congolese state mostly. But also with the rivalry of the various neighboring countries of the DRC and their competition for influence over Eastern DRC,” said Boisselet. “And so, inviting them to operate directly in the DRC is also a significant risk.”

But Muyaya Patrick, the Congolese government spokesperson speaking to VOA, says the decision by President Felix Tshisekedi to let forces of neighboring countries operate in the DRC is to bring peace and economic development to its people.

“I don’t think there’s going to be any difference on what we are doing now with Uganda, with the operations taking place along the border of the two countries,” said Patrick. “What we are doing with Uganda, we put the same mechanism in place with Rwanda, and we did the same from Burundi. So, everybody then (can) be sure that every country (is) working to bring peace, to bring more security for our population and for ourselves.”

Ugandan forces blame ADF rebels for bomb attacks in November in which five people lost their lives.

In 2000, in a six-day battle between Ugandan and Rwandan forces around the Congolese city of Kisangani, at least 150 civilians were reported killed. This reportedly led to the 1998-2003 war in which Uganda was fined $13 billion by the International Court of Justice in 2005.

Source: Voice of America

María Ribeiro da Silva, 64, spent a hot afternoon hawking a new contraption to acquaintances and friends who passed by her small grocery store on the outskirts of São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and home to more than 12 million people.

Everyone who passed by received the same invitation from her: “Come, come and see my stove. It’s beautiful. I made it.”

Each guest received the same explanation: “I built a real wood fire oven, with a chimney and everything. No more smoke, no more heat.”

It had been almost 50 years since Ribeiro da Silva cooked with firewood. Since she arrived in São Paulo in 1974, fleeing drought, hunger and poverty in the impoverished northeast region of Brazil, she has only cooked with gas.

“I spent my childhood using firewood. We didn’t have gas. We didn’t have the money to have a real stove. But since I arrived in Sao Paulo … wood was in the past,” she told VOA.

But with the Brazilian economy worsening, and the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the poorest parts of the population, firewood has become the only option for millions of families like Ribeiro da Silvas’.

It was a slow and gradual process for Ribeiro da Silva. First, firewood was only used in extreme cases when the gas ran out and there was not enough money to replace it. But when she lost her job as a cleaner at a company in downtown São Paulo six months ago, firewood became the primary fuel to cook food.

“Now, I only use the gas stove for simple things like making coffee or heating the food I cooked on firewood. I don’t have any more money to buy gas. The price is too high. It’s impossible,” she said.

Skyrocketing fuel prices

According to data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, at least 25% of the Brazilian population is using wood as their primary cooking source.

This was before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Due to the pandemic, the Brazilian Statistical Institute stopped carrying out quarterly in-person surveys, so we don’t have data for 2020 and 2021,” said Adriana Gioda, a professor in the department of chemistry at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and a leading researcher on firewood consumption by Brazilian families.

“But since 2016, when the federal government cut subsidies for residential gas and tied the fuel price policy to the international prices, there has been a steady growth in the use of firewood to make food,” she told VOA.

Fuel prices have been rising steadily over the past five years but have skyrocketed since President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019. He promised not to interfere with the country’s state oil company and allow fuel prices to follow the international market.

This year alone, the price of residential gas rose by an average of 35%. Liquefied petroleum gas is the primary fuel for food production in Brazil, and its cost is linked directly to the price of the oil barrels.

‘Back in time’

“In the interior of Brazil, in rural and more isolated areas, using firewood is a tradition. But what impressed us most is that the use of wood is advancing precisely in the most urban areas, in large Brazilian cities, such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo,” Gioda said.

And it is rising in areas such as Jardim Marajoara, a poor neighborhood of migrants from the northeast region of Brazil on Sao Paulo’s outskirts, where Ribeiro da Silva lives. It is in these regions that the poorest and those most affected by the economic crisis are concentrated.

Juarez Viana, a bus driver who also lost his job during the pandemic, has turned to firewood to cook. He, like Ribeiro da Silva, lives in a suburb of São Paulo that is sprawling into the last green areas of the city. Once a week, he crosses the street and enters a small forest to fetch wood.

“It’s hard work, and it seems like I’ve gone back in time,” said Viana, who is also a migrant from the Brazilian northeast. At 49, he remembers cooking with wood as a child. “But it’s worth it. We do not have more money to buy gas. The price is out of control. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“We are going back in time, going back at least half a century,” said pulmonologist Elie Fiss, a research director at Hospital Alemão Oswaldo Cruz. “Since the 1960s, we no longer saw respiratory problems related to the use of firewood for cooking. But with so many people going back to the firewood, this is a problem that will soon return to hospitals.”

Source: Voice of America

Support for South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party fell below 50% in local elections this week for the first time since the end of apartheid.

The results announced Thursday for many of Monday’s municipal wards showed the ANC received about 46% of the 12.3 million votes cast nationwide. Not since it became the nation’s dominant party in 1994 has the ANC seen such low support.

The party still achieved a majority in 161 municipalities, compared to 13 for the opposition Democratic Alliance and 10 for the Inkatha Freedom Party. No party won control in 66 other municipalities — in those areas the ANC likely will be forced into forming coalitions to hold power.

The ANC faced widespread criticism as many municipalities it governs are bankrupt and mostly are failing to deliver basic services.

In an interview with VOA, Sheila Camerer, a former member of parliament for the main opposition party Democratic Alliance, said her party’s platform hinged on better local governance.

“The message we took to the voters is the city works when the DA is in charge,” she said, citing results in Midvaal Local Municipality in Gauteng where the DA won more than 70% of the vote.

“We are not like the ANC,” she said. “We are not corrupt, and we do not let everything disintegrate.”

ANC leaders downplayed this week’s results and said it does not reflect a larger trend.

“Preliminary results indicate that we’ll have more hung councils than in the previous local elections,” said ANC Acting Secretary-General Jessie Duarte, speaking at the Independent Electoral Commission’s center in Tshwane.

“This will necessitate the need for coalitions or other forms of cooperation with other political formations,” he said. “This is nothing new. We’ve done so since 1994.”

Forming many coalitions, however, could be a formidable challenge for the ANC.

An increasing number of leaders of smaller political parties, such as Action SA’s Herman Mashaba, seem bent on isolating the ruling party.

“Action SA will not go into coalition with the ANC,” he said.

The Freedom Front Plus, a conservative, almost exclusively white Afrikaner party, doubled its share of the vote this week to five and a half percent when compared with 2016.

Party leader Pieter Groenewald said it hopes to be a potential kingmaker in several municipalities.

“We’re available as far as coalitions are concerned,” he said. But he added that the party will not join a coalition with ANC.

But some minority party leaders said joining a coalition with the ANC could work in their favor.

The Economic Freedom Fighters party got more than 10% of the vote this week, and in some wards, the party received the third most votes.

Deputy leader Floyd Shivambu said the party will put “anyone” into power, including the ANC if it means receiving leadership positions for EFF officials.

“The EFF wants to be part of government now,” he said.

The ANC’s Duarte wasn’t prepared to say which parties the ANC is willing to work with or what it would be ready to offer them in exchange for staying at the helm of major cities such as Johannesburg, Durban and Nelson Mandela Bay.

“The ANC’s approach to coalitions remains based on principle, not expediency, and guided by the spirit, mandate, and interest of the voters,” he said.

Source: Voice of America

A floundering economy, party in-fighting and ceaseless corruption allegations are plaguing South Africa’s ruling African National Congress. The nationwide local elections on November 1 will test whether loyalty to the party that brought an end to apartheid will prevail or shift in favor of a new political order.

In the neighborhood of Kliptown, Soweto, the late Nelson Mandela and others laid the foundation for the country’s democracy.

Now, nearly 30 years since the end of apartheid, the public housing that provided shelter to Mandela’s followers are crumbling.

Source: Voice of America

President Joe Biden will host Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta for a meeting in Washington on Thursday as the White House weighs sanctions against parties to the conflict in a northern region of the neighboring East African country of Ethiopia.

The meeting at the White House will mark Biden’s first as president with an African leader.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a statement that the two would discuss “efforts to defend democracy and human rights, advance peace and security, accelerate economic growth, and tackle climate change.”

Kenya holds the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council this month. The United States and Kenya have long cooperated on economic and security initiatives including counterterrorism.

The Biden administration is considering punitive action regarding the worsening crisis in northern Ethiopia, where thousands have been killed and millions are in need of humanitarian assistance.

Ethiopia’s national army launched a ground offensive against forces from the region of Tigray on Monday, the region’s ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) said.

Fighting broke out in November 2020 between Ethiopia’s federal troops and forces loyal to the TPLF.

The conflict has made about 5.2 million people in Tigray — more than 90% of the population — and 1.7 million people in other regions dependent on food aid. The United Nations blames a government blockade for the deteriorating humanitarian situation. The government denies it is blocking aid.

Last month, Biden signed an executive order paving the way for possible sanctions, including against the Ethiopian government and the TPLF, if they play a role in prolonging the conflict, obstructing humanitarian access, or committing serious human rights abuse.

The White House also said Biden and Kenyatta would discuss “the need to bring transparency and accountability to domestic and international financial systems.”

Kenyatta’s name appeared earlier this month in the “Pandora Papers” leak of what major news outlets called a secret trove of documents detailing what they said were efforts by many global leaders to stockpile money in tax havens.

Kenyatta has not responded to the allegations but has said he would do so later.

Source: Voice of America