Hi everyone,
Happy end of February! Here is your monthly roundup.
After a lengthy civil war which lasted seven years, killed over 400,000 people, and sparked a regional refugee crisis which forced nearly two million people to flee their homes, South Sudanese rebel leader, Riek Machar, and the country’s President, Salva Kirr, announced a power-sharing deal intended to end the conflict in the East African country.
Under the agreement, Riek Machar, Kiir’s former deputy turned rebel leader, will become the First Vice President of South Sudan, with the country slated to hold its first election since independence in three-years time. The deal follows a similar 2016 agreement between the two men that quickly disintegrated into chaos. But the latest agreement is seen through a reluctantly hopeful lens by South Sudanese citizens and civil society groups monitoring developments in the country.
While the move to form a unity government, and some recent statements by President Kiir calling for South Sudanese refugees to return home has been a positive development, there are still major questions on the country’s new government structure and the ability of both men to sustain peace in the country.
“It’s just the beginning of protracted trench warfare over political space. There are many battles to come but the hope is they will be political battles that don’t have to result in a return to damaging conflict.” - Barney Afako, a conflict mediator and U.N. Commissioner tells the New York Times.
For more on the peace deal, check out Al Jazeera’s “Inside Story” featuring reporting by Hiba Morgan in Juba, and analysis from researchers at the International Crisis Group, Human Rights Watch, and Syracuse University.
Sudanese authorities announced this month that they agreed to hand over Omar al-Bashir, the former President of Sudan, over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face charges for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide for his role in the country’s bloody Darfur conflict. Al-Bashir, who was ousted from power in April 2019, has been deemed “at large” by the court since 2009.
It was only two months ago the former President was found guilty of corruption, illegitimate possession of foreign currency, and sentenced to two years in a correctional facility. Initially, Sudanese authorities moved to try him within the country’s legal system, but a recent agreement between authorities and rebel groups in Darfur now includes a deal to hand over individuals wanted for war crimes in the deadly conflict over to the ICC.
While the news may be a game changer for the case against al-Bashir, and the future of despots worldwide, there are still many questions about the feasibility of a possible hand over announced by Sudan’s new civilian council.
We’ll see what al-Bashir’s fate is going to be in the coming months, but the case before the ICC far surpasses him. My thoughts on the impact of a handover can be summed up by this line in an analysis piece from The Economist:
“It will chip away at the culture of impunity that emboldens despots everywhere.”
After France moved to expand its military presence in the Sahel, the African Union announced it will send an additional 3,000 troops to the troubled West African region to combat extremism and stabilize security in the affected countries.
Amid protests and violence, Guinea has delayed a referendum over proposed constitutional changes designed to extend the term limit for the country’s president.
Togo’s incumbent President, Faure Gnassingbe, has been re-elected to a fourth term after capturing 72% of the vote. The win extends Gnassingbe’s fifteen year rule, and his family’s 53 year control in the West African country.
For the 60th anniversary of the “The Year of Africa,” New York Times’ commissioned essayists of African-background reflect on the liberation of colonial Africa in a photo essay which explores the music, politics, and celebration of African life in 1960.
Nigerian immigrants and asylum-seekers in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, are building an Afrobeats industry in the heart of the European city. Quartz’s Joe Penny traveled to the Italian neighborhood of Ballaró to document the changes immigrants are brining in Europe’s southern music scene.
For the Associated Press, photographer Nariman El-Mofty travels alongside Ethiopian women migrants to document their perilous trip from the East African country to Saudi Arabia.
A case on behalf of Myanmar’s displaced Rohingya minority is advancing in The Hague, but the Plaintiff on behalf of the group is an unlikely source: The Gambia. In the Christian Science Monitor, Ryan Brown writes on the West African country’s complicated human rights legacy, and their latest advocacy on behalf of the southeast Asian minority group.
The song of the month comes from a subscriber, Tosin Adewale (Nigeria), who has chosen “Baba L'oke” by EmmaOMG ft. Florocka. See you next month!