Politics

Central Africa Republic’s president, Touadéra presents draft constitution to parliament

Published

10 months ago

July 11, 2023

Ahead of the planned referendum scheduled for July 30, the President of the Central African Republic, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, has delivered the new constitution draft to parliament.

CAR’s minister for Youth and Sport, Aristide Reboas said the new constitution was the first of its kind in the country.

“There are two elements in a constitution: the history of a people and the geography of a people. And yet we have always had constitutions imposed on us by historical contingencies. In other words, they come from outside, they are imposed on us, including the regimes”, Reboas said.

The country’s current constitution was promulgated in late 2004. Under the 2004 law, the president is head of state and limited to two consecutive five-year terms. The constitution also provides for a prime minister, a council of ministers, and a 105-member National Assembly.

If adopted, the new constitution will eliminate the president’s term limit of two, allowing a third term in office.

According to a senior United Nations official in a report in June, historic local elections have been deprioritized and delayed in favour of a referendum that risks destabilizing the country.

UN experts believe that the country’s National Assembly must ensure that the drafting of a new constitution does not jeopardize ongoing efforts toward peace and reconciliation in the country.

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Politics

Burkina Faso investigating reports of northern killings

Published

3 hours ago

April 28, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

A government spokesman has revealed that Burkina Faso is looking into reports that 223 people were killed by the Burkinabe army in two villages in the north in February.

The killing was first reported by the Human Rights Watch (HRW), causing a rift between the junta-led West African state and some foreign media that published the report. The HRW report released on Thursday said that the military had executed residents of Nodin and Soro, including at least 56 children, as part of a campaign against civilians suspected of working with jihadist terrorists. The report was based on interviews with witnesses, members of civil society, and other groups.

Rimtalba Jean Emmanuel Ouedraogo, a spokesman for the government, said that HRW’s claims were “peremptory” and that the junta was not unwilling to look into the claimed crimes.

“An investigation has been launched into the killings in Nodin and Soro,” Ouedraogo said in a late-evening statement, quoting a statement from a regional prosecutor on March 1.

Since Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger’s militaries took over in a series of coups from 2020 to 2023, violence in the area has gotten worse. This is because of the ten-year fight with Islamist groups related to Al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Attacks on Burkina Faso got much worse in 2023, with more than 8,000 people killed, according to the U.S.-based crisis-monitoring group ACLED.

Politics

S’Africa lengthens troop deployment in Mozambique, Congo DR

Published

2 days ago

April 26, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a speech that South Africa’s military would keep sending troops to Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which are both in the middle of wars.

The extension will leave 1,198 members of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) in eastern Congo for an unknown amount of time. They are there as part of a United Nations peacekeeping force helping Congo fight rebel groups.

The statement also said that 1,495 members of the SANDF would keep working in Mozambique, where they have been since 2021 helping the government fight dangerous extremism in the north.

After two SANDF troops were killed and three were hurt by a mortar bomb in Congo in February, South Africa’s military operations abroad have been looked at more closely at home this year.

Meanwhile, the major opposition party in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance, said that Ramaphosa sent troops into a war zone without being ready.
Under the supervision of the UN, the SANDF has taken on many dangerous and difficult peacekeeping tasks over the years to help war-torn African countries stay stable and peaceful.

In 2003, South Africa was one of the first countries to send troops to Burundi to help the peace process. During the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) peacekeeping mission in 2000, the SANDF led attempts to stabilize the country’s politics, rebuild and improve infrastructure, and train DRC troops.