Musings From Abroad

US to send 24 additional armoured vehicles to Kenyan police on mission in Haiti

Published

2 months ago

August 25, 2024

The United States military announced on Friday that it would provide 24 more armoured vehicles to Kenyan soldiers stationed in Haiti, who are in charge of a protracted security operation in the country devastated by violence in the Caribbean.

About 400 Kenyan policemen recently deployed to Haiti as part of a security mission authorised by the United Nations to combat heavily armed gangs who have taken over most of the capital.

The former administration of Haiti first requested the mission in 2022. Kenya is the only country that has sent troops out of the small group of nations who have pledged more than 2,500 troops in total.

The Department of Defense’s combined military command for Latin America and the Caribbean, known as SouthCom, or U.S. Southern Command, said that it will use U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo planes to transport the mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) MaxxPros to the capital’s main airport.

The statement indicated that the shipments would begin on Friday, bringing the total number of MRAPs supplied by the US to ten.

Additionally, it stated that 34 Overhead Gunner Protection Kits, or “turrets,” will be delivered by the aircraft to military-funded contractors who will mount them on the armoured vehicles to improve their field of vision during cooperative operations with the national police.

One of the mission’s first big sorties from the capital proved to be disastrous when Kenyan forces were forced to evacuate the Haitian village of Ganthier in late July.

The Miami Herald, citing a spokesman for the Kenyan army, stated that the lack of towers on the first MRAPs the Americans gave prevented personnel from fighting or retaliating against strikes from within.

Violence in Ganthier had by Aug. 1 displaced nearly 6,000 residents, U.N. data showed.

Close to 600,000 people have been internally displaced by the conflict and hundreds of thousands of would-be migrants deported back to Haiti, where nearly 5 million people are suffering from severe hunger. The mission’s initial 12-month mandate is set to end in October.

Haiti first looked to outside assistance in 2022 as gang violence intensified. Still, it was unable to find a leader willing to take the reins, and many foreign governments were hesitant to support the unelected government in the impoverished country.

Kenya, which has a lengthy history of taking part in international peacekeeping operations, announced earlier year that it was sending 1,000 police officers, citing its support for a neighbouring nation as groundwork.

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Musings From Abroad

UN head slams Sudan’s RSF as Britain seeks Security Council action

Published

3 days ago

November 2, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

While Britain announced it would work for a United Nations Security Council resolution on the conflict, which has been going on for more than 18 months, United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has denounced reported attacks on civilians by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Friday.

The world’s largest relocation crisis began in mid-April 2023 when the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces engaged in a power battle ahead of a scheduled handover to civilian administration.

The RSF is mostly to blame for the waves of ethnically motivated violence that have resulted from the current conflict.
According to activists, the RSF massacred at least 124 people in a village in El Gezira State last month, making it one of the bloodiest occurrences of the conflict.

The army is allegedly arming citizens in Gezira, according to the RSF. In the past, the RSF has denied causing harm to civilians in Sudan and blamed renegade actors for the action.

“Reports of large numbers of civilians being killed, detained and displaced, acts of sexual violence against women and girls, the looting of homes and markets and the burning of farms,” a U.N. spokesperson said, horrifying Guterres.

“Such acts may constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law. Perpetrators of such serious violations must be held accountable,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

According to Britain, which took over as the Security Council’s November presidency on Friday, the 15-member council will convene on Sudan on November 12 to talk about “scaling up aid delivery and ensuring greater protection of civilians by all sides.”

“We will be shortly introducing a draft Security Council resolution … to drive forward progress on this,” Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward told a press conference.

She stated that the draft would concentrate on “developing a compliance mechanism for the warring parties commitments they made on the protection of civilians in Jeddah over a year ago in 2023 and ways to support mediation efforts to deliver a ceasefire, even if we start local ceasefires before moving to a national one.”

For a resolution to be enacted, it must have at least nine votes and not be vetoed by the United States, France, Britain, Russia, or China.

The action was taken because the U.N. and aid organisations’ three-month permission from Sudanese authorities to utilise the Adre border crossing with Chad to provide humanitarian aid to Darfur is about to expire in mid-November.

Sudan’s U.N. Ambassador Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed stated on Monday that the army-backed administration is dedicated to enabling humanitarian supplies throughout the nation, even in areas under RSF control.

Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, stated on Monday that it would be “inappropriate to put pressure on” the Sudanese administration to decide whether the Adre crossing would be open past mid-November.

“We’re categorically opposed to the politicization of humanitarian assistance,” he said. “We believe that any humanitarian assistance should be conducted and delivered solely with the central authorities in the loop.”

Musings From Abroad

Ivory Coast’s Ouattara becomes IMF executive board member

Published

3 days ago

November 2, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Wautabouna Ouattara of Ivory Coast has been appointed as the third director for Sub-Saharan Africa on the executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which strengthens the region’s influence in policy-making by serving as the lender of last resort.

There are now 25 members of the executive board, which is in charge of the fund’s daily operations, thanks to the new role.

“The addition of a third African chair to our Board reflects the continent’s tremendous progress in developing its human and economic potential,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a statement on Friday.

After an election, an additional regional representative was formally appointed to the board, according to the IMF. It is its first expansion since 1992 when the Soviet bloc broke up and two postings were established for the former Soviet Union nations.

Despite having 18% of the world’s population, Africa’s 54 nations—the largest bloc in terms of number among the IMF’s 191 members—only have 6.5% of voting rights. About half of that comes from Sub-Saharan Africa’s vote portion.

A year ago, in Marrakech, Morocco, the new position for the area on the board was unveiled. However, detractors claim that, while the region struggles with debt, it does not adequately meet its requirements.

As nations like Zambia and Ghana restructured their loans and others, like Kenya, looked to the Fund for greater liquidity support because of rising debt interest obligations, the IMF has been playing an increasingly important role in the management of economies in Sub-Saharan Africa in recent years.