Rwandan Genocide Remembrance – Lead Africa Headlines

Fight­ing in Libya Threat­ens Secu­ri­ty in Entire North­ern Africa Region 

In Libya, the news is not about progress in the coun­try – it’s about insta­bil­i­ty there which helped push Amer­i­can troops out, albeit tem­porar­i­ly. It’s not clear where the U.S. troops, escap­ing the intense fight­ing in Tripoli, are relo­cat­ing to.

Eight years after for­mer Libyan leader Muam­mar Gad­hafi was killed in a “NATO-backed upris­ing” there is renewed fight­ing there for con­trol of the country.

 Gad­hafi, long gone, now makes the way for oth­ers of his type, to attempt con­trol of the coun­try. There has been a Unit­ed Nations (UN) backed peace plan, with an inter­im gov­ern­ment in the coun­try, the Gov­ern­ment of Nation­al Accord (GNA), since Decem­ber 2015. 

A new offen­sive on Tripoli led by Gen­er­al Khal­i­fa Haf­tar threat­ens the uni­ty of the country. 

Ryan Browne of CNN.com writes on April 19: “As a result of Haf­tar’s offen­sive, in April the US mil­i­tary with­drew a small num­ber of troops from Libya that had been per­form­ing diplo­mat­ic and counter-ter­ror­ism mis­sions against ISIS, cit­ing “increased unrest in Libya.”

The fight­ing has result­ed in an esti­mat­ed 220 deaths, 1000 wound­ed, and many flee­ing the area, accord­ing to Deutche Welle (DW News), cit­ing the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO).

Ear­li­er, Unit­ed Nations Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, Anto­nio Guter­res who trav­eled to Tripoli, left emp­ty-hand­ed and unable to bro­ker a cease­fire he hoped would pave the way for elec­tions in the coun­try. Guter­res expressed regret as he left Tripoli, on April 5.

This report from Vox explains the gen­e­sis of the cur­rent fight­ing, as well as the com­pet­ing groups hop­ing to con­trol the country. 

Aman­da Sku­na writes:

“The bat­tle began when the Libyan Nation­al Army (LNA), a force in con­trol of most of East­ern Libya, launched a sur­prise offen­sive on Tripoli. That attack threat­ens to rein­vig­o­rate the armed con­flict in a coun­try marred by insta­bil­i­ty since for­mer dic­ta­tor Muam­mar Qaddafi was deposed in 2011.”

Haley Blitzky, writ­ing for Task and Pur­pose says, “Forces loy­al to Gen. Khal­i­fa Hifter have been fight­ing with the U.N.-backed gov­ern­ment over the last few days, the Wash­ing­ton Post reports, as Hifter advanced on Tripoli, the coun­try’s finan­cial hub.”

In a riv­et­ing account of the geopo­lit­i­cal risks that the Libyan sit­u­a­tion pos­es for the entire region, OZY’s Neil Mun­shi paints a rather grim pic­ture of what is tak­ing place.

“A surge in vio­lence over the past six months has left thou­sands dead and hun­dreds of thou­sands dis­placed across one of the poor­est regions of the world. Now, some in Niamey fear that renewed fight­ing in Libya could lead some of the near­ly 1M migrants strand­ed there to flood across its border.”

The writer adds: “With the dis­ap­pear­ance of the Libyan state, Niger is now the bor­der with the West,” Moutari says. “If Niger falls, there is nothing.”

With a tense sit­u­a­tion in Libya, anoth­er frag­ile African nation, Niger, holds the bal­ance of peace between the North­ern African region and many nations in Europe.

Rwan­dan Geno­cide Remem­brance Brings Mem­o­ries Filled with Pain

With a march, a torch light­ing cer­e­mo­ny, and silence, the world remem­bers the Rwan­dan Geno­cide, 25 years since the mas­sacre occurred.  The com­mem­o­ra­tion events made head­lines on TV, as well as in news­pa­pers around the world.

The geno­cide took place in a 100-day peri­od between April 7 to July 15, 2004, and left more than 800, 000 civil­ians, most­ly Tut­sis killed in Rwanda.

Con­ver­sa­tion on the sub­ject was not so much about the progress that Rwan­dans have made since then– it was more about our human ten­den­cies, some of which fueled accu­sa­tions, and ten­sions that led to the killings. Even while Rwan­da is hailed as an exem­plary African nation today – a leader, Paul Kagame, despite his imper­fec­tions, and a nation that aspires towards mid­dle income sta­tus by 2035– many looked back and won­dered why broth­ers and sis­ters decid­ed to kill each oth­er so mercilessly.

Pho­tos of the anniver­sary events embed­ded in new reports could be seen all over the media, includ­ing this one, with lead­ers hold­ing hands, and light­ing a torch to demon­strate peace between indi­vid­u­als as well as between nations.

Mean­while, Rwan­da accused Ugan­da, a neigh­bor­ing coun­try, of sup­port­ing groups opposed to the Rwan­dan gov­ern­ment in Kigali, accord­ing to the Voice of Amer­i­ca. The Ugan­dan gov­ern­ment denied the accu­sa­tions. Also French pres­i­dent, Emmanuel Macron, notice­able absent from the cer­e­monies in Kigali, sent a junior min­is­ter to rep­re­sent him, accord­ing to Christi­na Okel­lo with Radio France International.

In her report, Okel­lo allud­ed to dif­fer­ences between the gov­ern­ment of Pres­i­dent Paul Kagame of Rwan­dan and the French gov­ern­ment on respon­si­bil­i­ties and ties between the two coun­tries which may have fueled ten­sions in Rwan­da lead­ing to the 1994 genocide.

The Voice of Amer­i­ca char­ac­ter­ized the dis­cord tak­ing place this way:

“Notably absent from the com­mem­o­ra­tion was French Pres­i­dent Emmanuel Macron, whose coun­try stands accused of aid­ing the geno­cide. Macron pro­posed an annu­al day of com­mem­o­ra­tion for the Rwan­da geno­cide on Sun­day, accord­ing to AFP.

The French del­e­ga­tion was led by Herve Berville, a Rwan­da-born mem­ber of Par­lia­ment who was orphaned in the genocide.

Bel­gium, which col­o­nized Rwan­da, was rep­re­sent­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Charles Michel, who admit­ted the coun­try’s par­tial respon­si­bil­i­ty in the genocide.”