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President Macky Sall of\u00a0Senegal\u00a0should ensure that civilian protection, human rights, and justice and accountability are the focus of the African Union\u2019s agenda as he takes over leadership of the 55-country body, Human Rights Watch said today. The African Union (AU) summit is scheduled for February 5-6, 2022.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cSenegal\u2019s President Macky Sall is taking up the presidency of the African Union as the continent faces enormous security and health challenges, political upheaval, and social unrest,\u201d said\u00a0Carine Kaneza Nantulya, Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cDespite the challenges, Sall has an opportunity to demonstrate the AU\u2019s leadership and commitment to its founding principles by taking bold, uncompromising stances against state-sponsored abuses, responding to victims\u2019 calls for protection and justice, and pressing for equal and fair multilateral relations with the Global North.\u201d<\/p>\n
African leaders meeting in Addis Ababa should give priority to addressing the rampant abuses occurring in the conflict in Ethiopia between fighters affiliated with the Tigray People\u2019s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian federal government and its allies, including Eritrea. The conflict, now ongoing for more than a year, is having a devastating impact on civilians<\/p>\n
Many violations by Ethiopia\u2019s warring parties are war crimes and some may amount to crimes against humanity.\u00a0Despite recently allowing limited humanitarian supplies to enter Tigray via air, the federal government has for seven months maintained an\u00a0effective siege\u00a0on the region, preventing millions of people from accessing food, medicine, cash, and fuel, as well as basic services. In the adjacent Amhara region, communities displaced by fighting and abuses have described looting and destruction of health centers, and limited\u00a0access to medical care\u00a0and food<\/p>\n
During the first two weeks of January, at least 108 civilians were\u00a0killed\u00a0in government airstrikes in Tigray, including 59 in a January 7 airstrike on an internal displacement site.\u00a0And while the government has released some detainees in recent weeks, thousands of Tigrayans arbitrarily detained under the country\u2019s sweeping state of emergency remain in informal and formal detention sites<\/p>\n
\u201cAU member states should not ignore the serious crimes committed by all warring parties, including federal government forces, in Ethiopia\u2019s conflict,\u201d Kaneza Nantulya said. \u201cGiven the gravity of the crimes, the AU should respond and act under its\u00a0prevention and protection mandate\u00a0by calling on all warring parties to end abuses and pressing the government to lift its effective siege of Tigray.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond the Ethiopian crisis, civilians have been the target of attack elsewhere on the continent. Armed Islamist groups, government forces, and allied militia fighters killed at least 800 civilians during attacks across\u00a0the Sahel\u00a0region in 2021. About 700,000 children\u00a0are out of school\u00a0in Cameroon\u2019s Anglophone regions due to attacks by armed separatist groups. In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the government\u2019s imposition of military rule to address insecurity in the region\u00a0has not improved civilian protection. More than 1,900 civilians have been\u00a0killed\u00a0since the start of\u00a0martial law\u00a0in May 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Mozambique, the\u00a0Islamic State (ISIS)-linked insurgent group,\u202flocally known as Al-Shabab or Al-Sunna wa Jama\u2019a, has committed numerous grave abuses, including indiscriminate attacks against civilians,\u00a0kidnappings, and sexual violence. Government forces have also been implicated in serious abuses, including\u00a0threats and unlawful use of force against civilians.<\/p>\n
Past Human Rights Watch research has underscored\u00a0the nexus\u00a0between security and accountability. In many contexts, the lack of justice for serious crimes \u2013 past and present \u2013 by government forces has fueled recruitment by armed groups. The African Union should rethink its counterterrorism and counterinsurgency approach and put the rule of law and justice and accountability at the forefront, Human Rights Watch said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The AU should also support efforts across the continent to establish and effectively put in place specialized mechanisms to investigate and prosecute serious international crimes. In South Sudan, the AU\u2019s legitimacy is at stake after more than four years of discussion with the government on establishing a\u00a0hybrid court\u00a0that could help break the country\u2019s cycles of violence and impunity. In Chad, Hiss\u00e8ne Habr\u00e9\u2019s victims still await reparations from the fund the court\u00a0established\u00a0in 2016.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0surge in coups\u00a0and military takeovers over the past year, including in Burkina Faso,\u00a0Chad,\u00a0Guinea, Mali, and Sudan, has often denied citizens the right to choose their government, reversed hard-won progress on the rule of law, and resulted in grave human rights abuses. The instability, civic unrest, and political upheavals are frequently rooted in people\u2019s grievances about corruption and the perceived unwillingness of political elites to uphold their constitutional obligations and promises of reform, including promoting political pluralism and\u00a0stepping down at the end of their term.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although term limits are not required by international law, the lack of term limits \u2013 combined in many cases with political repression and election rigging \u2013 undermines the spirit of democracy and has facilitated a pattern in many countries in which incumbents maintain power through periodic elections that are neither free nor fair. This has led to elected governments that are democratic in name only \u2013 but authoritarian in all other respects.<\/p>\n
Of the 10 African countries\u00a0with the greatest number of people displaced, 9 have authoritarian-leaning governments, making the shrinking civic and political space a key factor in Africa\u2019s population movements. To achieve real progress toward respect for human rights and people-centered democratic governance, the African Union should adopt and enforce additional policy tools to support the regular, peaceful, and democratic transfer of power. That should include an AU ban on unlimited and unaccountable executive power and stronger policies and tools to deter election rigging and political repression.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe AU should take action not just as a matter of democracy building, but to better manage increasing cross-border refugee and security issues,\u201d Kaneza Nantulya said. \u201cAfrican leaders should see the peaceful transfer of power through credible elections as a key element in promoting the security of everyone on the continent.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The AU needs a concerted response to the Covid-19 pandemic, as fewer than\u00a010 percent of the continent\u2019s people\u00a0are fully vaccinated, mainly because countries have unequal access to vaccines. To address this challenge, Sall should use his AU presidency to urge member states to increase their investment in health infrastructures, while pressing Western governments to ensure that companies that developed safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines transfer technology widely to capable manufacturers in Africa and to the World Health Organization technology hubs.<\/p>\n
Sall should also press Western governments and multilateral institutions to adopt a\u00a0waiver\u00a0of intellectual property protections on vaccines, treatments, and testing that has been stalled for more than a year at the World Trade Organization.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe African Union should encourage its members to put in place and\u00a0expand social protection systems\u00a0to fulfill the rights to social security and an adequate standard of living amid rising poverty and economic disparities caused by Covid-19 responses,\u201d Kaneza Nantulya said.<\/p>\n
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Human Rights Watch (HRW).<\/i><\/p>\n
Source<\/a> President Macky Sall of\u00a0Senegal\u00a0should ensure that civilian protection, human rights, and justice and accountability are the focus of the African Union\u2019s agenda as he takes over leadership of the 55-country body, Human Rights Watch said today. The African Union (AU) summit is scheduled for February 5-6, 2022. \u201cSenegal\u2019s President Macky Sall is taking up the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":81721,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/1644305416_577_418.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[278],"tags":[258,256,4380,4696,281,4691,450,279,280,5759,6852,257,5100,254,5757,6156],"class_list":["post-81720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dr-congo","tag-africa","tag-africa-news","tag-african","tag-central-africa","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-dr-congo","tag-dr-congo-news","tag-drc","tag-drc-news","tag-focus","tag-justice","tag-news","tag-rights","tag-south-africa-today","tag-summit","tag-union"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/1644305416_577_418.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/africa-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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