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Why Has The Mute Button Been Pressed On Africa? - Politics - Nairaland

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Why Has The Mute Button Been Pressed On Africa? by StupidInyamiri: 1:50pm On Feb 02, 2019
Recent crackdowns in several African countries have been met with a muted response from the international community. Should the West be doing more to protect democracy on the continent?

For even the most mildly superstitious souls it was an unsettling moment: the newly sworn-in president of the Democratic Republic of Congo was delivering his maiden speech when he was unable to go on.

"I am not OK," Felix Tshisekedi declared.

Aides moved in to help and he was eventually able to resume. An adviser later reported that the new president's flak-jacket was too tight and he had felt faint.

President Tshisekedi was standing near his predecessor, Joseph Kabila, whom many fear will continue to exert a powerful control over the government - a suffocating influence some have suggested after allegations, which have been denied, of a secret deal between the two.

The world looked at DR Congo, suspected a big electoral fix but decided to look the other way.

There was no appetite for confrontation on the part of the African Union (AU), the Southern African Development Community (Sadc), the European Union or the United States.

Joseph Kabila shakes Felix Tshisekedi's hand
Image caption President Tshisekedi (R) has been accused of doing a deal with his predecessor Joseph Kabila (L)
The AU hastily convened and just as hastily abandoned a mission to DR Congo's capital, Kinshasa, that had been intended to promote a negotiated solution to the row over electoral fraud.

The requests to delay the announcement of official results were ignored.

US contradiction
The AU was left with nothing to negotiate. For a regional body that promotes "African solutions to African problems" it was a humiliation.

The US ambassador to Kinshasa, Mike Hammer, hailed a "first-ever peaceful, democratic transfer of power", in the process managing to look past the State Department's own publicly expressed concerns over the electoral process.

There was no easy answer to the dilemma presented by the vote. From early on it was clear that there were not going to be large demonstrations against the government, no great manifestation of public fury to pressure the international community into action.

This in part was to do with the fractured nature of the political opposition, fear of the security forces and the decision by the Catholic Church and civil society to refrain for now from large-scale mobilisation.

Protester in Kinshasa
Image caption Western powers have opted for promoting stability in the DR Congo
Looking at all of this, the regional and international actors opted for what diplomats call "stability". In DR Congo this means a continuation of the existing muddle while hoping that it does not all collapse into disaster.

For the millions of Congolese - displaced from their homes by conflict, living with dire poverty and the threat of disease, denied a share in the immense mineral wealth of their nation, bullied and preyed upon by armed groups - do not expect an amelioration of their plight any time soon.

In all of this it is also worth considering what I would call the politics of preoccupation.

It is not just in relation to DR Congo but also to Zimbabwe with its crackdown on dissent and Sudan in the throes of a popular uprising against the regime of President Omar al-Bashir.

The last few weeks have seen deepening repression. Soldiers in Zimbabwe terrorise their fellow citizens and their counterparts in Sudan fire live ammunition into crowds. Yet the international response has been muted, to put it mildly.
People protesting in Sudan
Young people have been at the forefront of protests in Sudan
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt called on Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa not to "turn the clock back".

This statement was based on the assumption that the clock had moved forward in Zimbabwe since the ousting of Robert Mugabe at the end of 2017, a doubtful proposition just now.

Rather than condemn the brutality in Zimbabwe, the most powerful country in the region, South Africa, called for the lifting of economic sanctions.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa

There is the fight against corruption and for his political base within the governing African National Congress (ANC) where allies of his predecessor, Jacob Zuma, still lurk.

Winning a handsome majority in the coming elections will strengthen Mr Ramaphosa's hand. Do not expect any emphatic foreign policy departures until he feels more secure.

https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-africa-47060799?__twitter_impression=true

Re: Why Has The Mute Button Been Pressed On Africa? by Babacele: 6:50pm On Feb 23, 2019
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