Vol 53 No 9 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
Church peacemakers and SPLA troops try to end a complex conflict
Conflict on the border with Sudan may have calmed things in Jonglei, where South Sudan’s worst fighting had long been under way. Phase One of the government’s Disarmament,...
Tanzania’s peaceful reputation could suffer as politicians mobilise unemployed young people in their campaigns
A pattern of slowly mounting civil unrest is emerging as a major theme in Tanzania’s political landscape as an increasingly restive young generation ponders its limited opportunities. The...
The Tanzania Police Force’s effectiveness in dealing with civil unrest is questionable. It is not properly equipped or trained for public order and the focus of commanders is...
The parliamentary caucus of the governing Chama cha Mapinduzi is demanding that eight cabinet ministers resign after the Controller and Auditor General issued a damning report on...
UN experts’ reports differ over Darfur arms violations
A seismic diplomatic row is rumbling at United Nations headquarters in New York over the circulation of a damning report by former UN experts pointing to the supply...
Small bands of the Lord’s Resistance Army are going into eastern Congo and employing new methods to terrorise local people
Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) fighters have left Central African Republic for Garamba, in Orientale Province in north-eastern Congo-Kinshasa. They are now concentrating on theft and looting rather than...
Threats, rivalries and renewed ethnic tensions befoul the air as the international court’s suspects try to close down the case
The two declared presidential candidates facing charges of crimes against humanity at the Hague are determined to ward them off. An unexpected cabinet reshuffle at the end of...
Khartoum mobilises against South Sudan and breaks off all negotiations
The seizure of the oil town of Heglig by South Sudan’s armed forces on 10 April ratchets up Juba’s confrontation with Khartoum’s National Congress Party (NCP) regime, which...
Vol 53 No 8 |
- SOMALIA
- TURKEY
Turkey is underscoring its engagement in Somalia through development projects in Somaliland and Puntland. It sees the projects as proving to the United States and European Union the...
Regardless of the recent defeats of Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen, senior African Union Mission in Somalia commanders privately admit that the next phase of military operations is fraught with potential difficulties. Since forcing Al Shabaab out of Mogadishu in August, five years after Amisom first came to Somalia, the Ugandan People’s Defence Force’s 5,500-strong contingent is slowly moving out to assume control of new territory beyond the capital. Any bolder moves to occupy territory further afield, however, depend on leaving currently-occupied zones to Transitional Federal Government (TFG) soldiers and police, whose competence and reliability are in some doubt. Amisom commanders also worry because communications are scant and coordination absent with the Ethiopian forces to the south. Now that the Kenyan forces have been re-hatted as Amisom, links with them should improve.
Lack of trust in the TFG forces who have to take over the Ugandan and Burundian positions when Amisom moves out of Mogadishu is making Amisom tread...