Africa Business

Tunisian President Kais Saied confirmed Tuesday that a draft constitution to be put to a referendum on July 25 will not enshrine Islam as the “religion of the state”.

“The next constitution of Tunisia won’t mention a state with Islam as its religion, but of belonging to an umma (community) which has Islam as its religion,” he told journalists at Tunis airport.    

“The umma and the state are two different things.”

Saied took delivery of the draft text on Monday, a key step in his drive to overhaul the Tunisian state after he sacked the government and seized far-reaching powers last July in moves opponents called a coup.

Sadeq Belaid, the legal expert who headed the drafting committee, had told AFP in an interview this month that he would remove all reference to Islam from the new document in a challenge to Islamist parties.

His comments, partly referring to Saied’s nemesis Ennahdha, an Islamist-inspired party which has dominated Tunisian politics since 2011, sparked a heated national debate.

The first article of Tunisia’s 2014 constitution — and its 1959 predecessor — defined the North African country as “a free, independent and sovereign state. Islam is its religion and Arabic is its language”.

The 2014 document was the product of a hard-won compromise between Ennahdha and its secular rivals three years after the revolt that overthrew dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

The new text, produced through a “national dialogue” excluding opposition forces and boycotted by the powerful UGTT trades union confederation, is meant to be approved by Saied by the end of June before being put to voters next month.

That is a year after the former constitutional law professor sacked the government, later consolidating his power grab by dissolving parliament and seizing control of the judiciary.

His moves have been welcomed by some Tunisians tired of the corrupt and often chaotic post-revolutionary system, but others have warned he is returning the country to autocracy.

Saied has long called for a presidential system that avoids the frequent deadlock seen under the mixed parliamentary-presidential system.

Asked about that issue on Tuesday, he said: “Whether the system is presidential or parliamentary is not the question. 

“What counts is that the people have sovereignty. There’s the legislative function, the executive function and the judicial function, and separation between them.”

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has officially declared an end to refugee status for nationals of Ivory Coast, stating that the country has “turned the page” on bitter conflicts.

“The cessation of (refugee) status is a gesture that has legal value because the people who stay abroad are no longer refugees. But it also has an important symbolic value, because it indicates that the country has turned the page,” Filippo Grandi told AFP on Monday during a visit to Ivory Coast.

Speaking on World Refugee Day, Grandi described the move as “the last act of the end” of the crises that have wracked the west African country, culminating in serious post-electoral clashes in 2010-2011, when incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo refused to admit defeat at the polls by challenger Alassane Ouattara.

Fighting rocked the commercial capital Abidjan, some 3,000 people were killed and at least half a million people fled to safety, according to official agencies.

The lifting of refugee status by the UNHCR will take effect on June 30 and concerns a few tens of thousands of refugees who sought refuge in neighbouring countries during the conflict, Grandi said.

The UNHCR estimated in September last year that Ivorians had, with some exceptions, no cause to benefit any longer from international protection. Of 325,000 refugees, 310,000 have already returned voluntarily to their country, the commissioner added.

“Everywhere in the world we see rather the opposite. I came here to show the exception and to say that it is possible to do it if there is a political will,” he said, at a time when the UNHCR has counted more than 100 million refugees or displaced people around the world.

Ivory Coast, the former economic hub of west Africa and still the world’s leading cocoa producer, is engaged in a reconciliation process, marked in June 2021 by Gbagbo’s return after the International Criminal Court acquitted him of crimes against humanity during the crisis.

Leaders from the 54 Commonwealth countries gather in Rwanda under tight security this week for a long overdue but controversial summit that was twice postponed by Covid.

Flags, from the tiny Pacific island of Tuvalu to South Asian giant India, are flying at the airport and the palm tree-lined road leading to the city and the Kigali Convention Centre where the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting takes place Friday and Saturday.

Some $4.7 million has been spent sprucing up the capital, with President Paul Kagame keen to portray “the country of a thousand hills” in the best possible light.

But the event, which was supposed to have been held in June 2020, takes place amid outrage at Britain’s migrants settlement deal with Rwanda, and questions about the host’s human rights record.

A tussle for the leadership of the Commonwealth, which represents some 2.5 billion people or a quarter of humanity, is also expected, with renewed talk about the body’s future role and relevance.

– Tensions? –

The fall-out from the migrant deal potentially puts Queen Elizabeth II’s heir Prince Charles in a tricky spot, as he makes his first trip to the east African country as her representative.

The visit — also the first to Rwanda by a British royal — will notably see the 73-year-old prince meet survivors of the 1994 genocide.

But his reported criticisms of the planned migrant deportations as “appalling” could make for an awkward meeting with Kagame and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson who back the scheme.

Britain’s Sunday Telegraph said the prince fears the row, which last week saw Europe’s top human rights court step in to halt the first flight, could mean the wider aims of the meeting are lost.

Amnesty International’s director for east and southern Africa, Deprose Muchena, called on Commonwealth leaders to take a “firm and clear stance” against the policy.

“Member states need to seize the opportunity in Kigali to denounce this inhumane arrangement and pressure the UK and Rwanda to end the deal,” he added.

– Rights –

Rwanda, currently locked in a spat with the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo over its alleged support for M23 rebels, has been a controversial choice as CHOGM host since it was announced in 2018.

This month, civil society organisations said there was a “climate of fear” in the country at odds with its glossy image abroad, including crackdowns on rights of assembly, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture and extrajudicial executions.

But they added: “The silence of the Commonwealth on Rwanda’s human rights record risk undermining the organisation’s human rights mandate, as well as its integrity and credibility.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists said two foreign journalists who had written critical articles about Rwanda were denied accreditation to cover the summit.

The head of Rwandan opposition Development and Liberty for All party told AFP “nothing has changed” since Rwanda joined the Commonwealth 12 years ago.

“Rwanda does not respect the values of the Commonwealth, democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights, freedom of expression,” said Victoire Ingabire.

– Future – 

Charles has been anointed as the next head of the Commonwealth when he becomes king, taking over from his 96-year-old mother, who has championed the organisation since she came to the throne in 1952.

But there is increased discussion about a move away from the royal family as its ceremonial head.

At the same time, republican movements in some of the 14 Commonwealth countries outside the UK where the queen is head of state are gathering pace.

Member state Barbados became the world’s newest republic last year, and other Caribbean nations are pushing to follow suit.

Another member, Australia, has also appointed a minister for the republic, in a sign of constitutional change on the horizon.

Those questions loom large over the summit, and whether a diminished global reach for the British monarchy will even affect the Commonwealth’s existence.

Announcing his trip, Charles said the fact that two-thirds of the grouping’s population was aged under 30 can make the Commonwealth “an unparalleled force for good in our world”, particularly on issues such as tackling climate change.

But Commonwealth watchers said that young people, who have no emotional attachment to the royals, could determine its future, loosening Britain’s dominance of the organisation, many of whose members are former British colonies.

“The new generation wants to question and re-evaluate the history of the empire and that is a good thing,” the British economist and former Labour politician Meghnad Desai said recently.

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Chinese demand for traditional medicines has sent poachers hunting for African animals from rhinos to pangolins. Now a humbler creature is threatened: donkeys.

Once prized by emperors, a gelatin called ejiao — made from donkey skins — is increasingly sought after by China’s middle class.

The health benefits are believed similar to products derived from rhino horns, from working as a blood thinner to acting as an aphrodisiac, which could ease pressure on endangered rhinos.

But as in countries from Burkina Faso to Kenya, South Africa is now seeing its donkey population plunge, threatening other businesses that make soaps and creams from donkey milk.

“In South Africa we have seen a rapid decline of the donkey population due to illegal slaughter to supply the Chinese skin trade,” said Jesse Christelis, co-founder of the Donkey Dairy. 

A recent study by researchers from the University of South Africa showed the donkey population shrank from 210,000 in 1996 to about 146,000 in 2019.

The shrinking supply has sent prices soaring. According to Christelis, a donkey would fetch about $30 at auction five years ago. Now they cost about $125 each.

That is still a relative bargain in China where donkey hides that sold for $473 in 2018 now sell for $1,160.

The ejiao produced from them can sell for up to $360 per kilogram.

South Africa legally exports about 10,500 donkey hides to China every year, but the real quantity is believed much higher as smugglers have tapped into the trade.

“This year, we intercepted two loads of donkeys that were going to Lesotho,” said Grace De Lange of the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

– Donkey rustlers –

“On our farm there has been a big focus to go look for donkeys that have been placed in places of misery and we actually buy them out,” he told AFP.

“We sit often on most of the auctions whether it is online or a physical auction to out bid the kill-buyers who supply the trade with donkey skins.”

Theft of donkeys also hits small farmers who need the animals to transport their produce.

“Stock theft units need to be more proactive,” said Ashley Ness, an inspector at the Highveld Horse Care Unit, an equine welfare agency situated on the outskirts of Johannesburg.

“Instead of taking action after the cause, they should take leads from villages that get approached by suspicious agents.” 

The top agriculture official in the North West province, Manketsi Tlhape, said they are “investigating all the reported incidents”.

However, donkey farmers like Christelis have limited options to protect their herd from thieves.

“We have electric fences, alarms and our donkeys are also micro chipped in case they get stolen,” he said.

– Donkey Dairy –

There is scant information on the size of the ejiao market, but the Britain-based animal welfare group Donkey Sanctuary estimated that in 2019 China needed five million skins to supply to the trade.

In contrast, the market for products using donkey milk is still in its infancy. The size of the global donkey milk market is projected to reach just $16 million by 2026.

South Africa has two donkey dairies, but they may not be viable if prices for the animals keep rising.

Kenya banned donkey slaughter in 2020, after the populations there plunged due to the skin trade.

Donkey milk is believed to contain antioxidant, antimicrobial and antidiabetic properties.

“I think the donkey skin trade is definitely a threat to donkey dairies in South Africa and across Africa,” said Christelis, who owns 116 donkeys at his farm.

“The increased demand for donkey milk is mainly from people suffering from eczema, psoriasis,” he said. “Seeing the donkey population being depleted, we don’t know if the demand for donkey milk will be met.”

Abdulrazak Gurnah, the British-Tanzanian Nobel-winning writer, has spent a lifetime confronting colonialism and racial politics — and welcomes a new generation keeping these issues alive.

The author has suddenly become a famous name in his 70s after winning last year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. 

Drawing on the brutal realities of colonialism in Africa and the dislocation and poverty he experienced when he came to England, novels such as “Paradise”, “Desertion” and “Gravel Heart” explore racism, exile and the legacy of European domination. 

Gurnah says his generation had a particularly complex relationship with colonialism. 

“For people of my father’s generation, colonialism was something they saw arriving, implanting itself, dominating. But they didn’t lose a sense of who they were,” he told AFP during a trip to Paris. 

“(My generation) couldn’t just brush it off. We could see that in fact much has been done — progress in medicine, technology, engineering… we are more urgently forced to try and engage and understand that relationship.”

He welcomes the recent wave of anti-colonial protests, often focused on statues and other symbols of the era. 

“I don’t care if they topple statues or not. But the symbolism is good,” he said.  

“And it provokes all these right-wingers to come out and start crying and complaining. Good. It means the issue is kept alive.”

– ‘A difficult time’ –

Gurnah grew up in Zanzibar, which became part of Tanzania after gaining independence from Britain in 1963. 

A year later, a Communist-inspired revolution led to problems for Gurnah’s Arab-origin family. 

His father came from a Yemeni family and his uncle was a wealthy trader of fish, dates and spices. 

They became targets when the Communists overthrew Zanzibar’s sultan and his mainly Arab government. 

“It was a difficult time for everybody, particularly people who the government considered to be foreigners. It was part of a racialisation process, quite unjust,” Gurnah recalled.

His family supported the Zanzibar Nationalist Party, which had tried to create a shared identity rather than focus on separate ethnicities. 

“We were saying: we’re Zanzibaris — we’re not Indians, Arabs, Africans. We don’t want to be racialised,” he said. 

“Of course the racial politics won, but I still want to adhere to: I’m a Zanzibari, I’m not a Yemeni, this or that, or an African.”

That debate found strange echoes after his Nobel victory, with Arabs seeking to claim him as one of their own. 

“The Arabs celebrated me as a Yemeni writer. I said well, fine, if you want. That’s not how I feel, but… it makes everybody happy, so why not?”

– ‘African literature’ –

Gurnah fled to Britain and spent years in poverty before managing to educate himself into a career as an academic and author.

With South Africa’s Damon Galgut winning the Booker Prize and Senegal’s Mohamed Mbougar Sarr becoming the first sub-Saharan African to win France’s Prix Goncourt, 2021 proved to be a landmark year for African literature.

Gurnah knows the label of “African literature” is far too vague since it encompasses such a vast and diverse continent, but he takes a relaxed attitude. 

“Those who use the term often already have a conception of African literature,” he said. “They might exclude white South Africans, or North Africans, or Ethiopians and Somalis.”

“(But) if we use it symbolically, it’s OK, I can live with that… and I don’t want to argue with anybody.”

Suspected jihadists massacred more than 130 civilians over the weekend in neighbouring central Mali towns, the latest mass killings in the Sahel region.

Local officials reported scenes of systematic killings by armed men in Diallassagou and two surrounding towns in the Bankass circle, a longtime hotbed of Sahelian violence.

“They have also been burning huts, houses, and stealing cattle — it’s really a free-for-all,” said a local official who for security reasons spoke on condition of anonymity.

He and another official, who like him had fled his village, said the death toll was still being counted on Monday.

Nouhoum Togo, head of a party in Bankass, the main town in the area, said the toll was even higher than the 132 announced by the government, which has blamed Al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists for the killings. 

The national authorities broke their silence on Monday afternoon after alarming reports proliferated on social networks over the weekend.

Togo told AFP that army operations in the area two weeks ago had led to clashes with jihadists. On Friday, the jihadists returned on several dozen motorbikes to take revenge on the population, he added.

“They arrived and told the people, ‘You are not Muslims’ in Fulani, then took the men away, and a hundred people went with them,” he said. 

“Some two kilometres (1.2 miles) away, they systematically shot people.”

He said the bodies continued to be collected in the areas around Diallassagou on Monday.

– Blaming the Macina Katiba –

The government blamed the attack on Fulani religious leader Amadou Koufa’s armed group, the Macina Katiba. 

Central Mali has been plagued by violence since the Al-Qaeda-affiliated organisation emerged in 2015.

A large part of the area is beyond state control and is prone to violence by self-defence militias and inter-community reprisals.

Since 2012, Mali has been rocked by an insurgency by groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State group.

Violence that began in the north has since spread to the centre and neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Civilians are often subjected to reprisals by jihadists who accuse them of collaborating with the enemy.

Some areas of the country, especially in the centre, have fallen under the jihadists’ control. 

The military ousted the civilian government in 2020 over its inability to halt the violence, and has said the restoration of security is its priority.

But civilians still often find themselves caught in the crossfire between armed groups, including those affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

– Deteriorating border situation –

Nearly 600 civilians were killed in Mali in 2021 in violence blamed mainly on jihadists, but also on self-defence militias and armed forces, according to a UN document published in March.

The UN has expressed alarm in Security Council documents at the deteriorating security situation in central Mali, as well as in the north and in the area along the borders of Burkina Faso and Niger.

Not far from those borders on Saturday, around 20 civilians were killed in the northern region of Gao — about 500 kilometres (311 miles) west of Bankass.

A UN spokesperson on Monday condemned “in the strongest terms the attacks perpetrated… near Goa and near Bankass”. 

Members of the UN Security Council “expressed their deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the transitional government of Mali”, the UN statement said. 

The number of civilians killed in attacks attributed to extremist groups has almost doubled since 2020 in the central Sahel, a coalition of West African NGOs said in a report released Thursday.

Last Wednesday, an armed group reported the death of 22 people in the Menaka region, right by Niger’s western border. 

In northern Burkina Faso, 86 people were killed in June in Seytenga. 

Mali’s junta leader Colonel Assimi Goita decreed three days of national mourning for the latest killings. 

East African leaders agreed Monday to send in a regional force to try to end fighting in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and called for an immediate ceasefire.

The move was announced by the Kenyan presidency after the seven-member East African Community held talks in Nairobi on an upsurge of violence in the volatile region that has ensnared neighbouring countries.

“The heads of state instructed that the regional force should, in cooperation with the military and administrative forces of the DRC, seek to stabilise and secure the peace in the DRC,” President Uhuru Kenyatta’s office said in a statement.

“The heads of state directed that an immediate ceasefire should be enforced and cessation of hostilities should commence immediately.”

The vast mineral-rich DRC is struggling to contain dozens of armed groups in the east, many of which are a legacy of two regional wars a quarter of a century ago.

A recent flare-up of heavy fighting in the east has revived decades-old animosities between Kinshasa and Kigali, with the DRC blaming neighbouring Rwanda for a resurgence of the M23 militia.

Rwanda has repeatedly denied backing the rebels, while both countries have accused each other of carrying out cross-border shelling.

The Kenyan statement did not say whether Rwandan troops would be involved in the regional force — but the government in Kinshasa insisted it would not accept their presence.

“Placed under the military command of Kenya, this force should be operational in the coming weeks and should not include within it elements of the Rwandan army,” the DRC presidency said on Twitter.

– ‘Collective approach’ needed –

Both DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame were at the meeting hosted by Kenyatta, along with the leaders of Burundi, South Sudan and Uganda, and Tanzania’s ambassador to Nairobi.

Kagame was in attendance even though Rwanda is hosting dozens of leaders from across the globe at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) later this week.

African Union Commission chief Moussa Faki Mahamat welcomed the outcome of the talks in a statement posted on Twitter.

“I urge the immediate implementation of their decisions in order to restore peace in Eastern DRC,” he added.

A primarily Congolese Tutsi militia, the M23 leapt to global prominence in 2012 when it captured the main eastern DRC city of Goma.

It was forced out shortly afterwards in a joint offensive by UN troops and the Congolese army.

But the militia has recently made a comeback, clashing with Congolese troops in violence that has inflamed tensions in central Africa and forced thousands of people to flee to neighbouring Uganda.

“The problems affecting the region like the crisis in Congo need a collective approach from all regional members of the East African Community,” Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said on Twitter as the meeting got under way.

“We must insist on working together because these people have suffered a lot.”

– Call for pressure on Rwanda –

Museveni’s government has sent in troops to help Congolese forces fight the Allied Democratic Forces, a militia group blamed for thousands of deaths in eastern Congo and a string of bombings in the Ugandan capital Kampala.

After M23 rebels captured the border town of Bunagana a week ago, Kenyatta called for the deployment of an EAC force to restore peace, and military chiefs from the bloc’s seven member states met on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the M23 said it was reopening the Bunagana border post, a busy trading and transit centre for goods that lies not far from the front line.

Tshisekedi has accused Rwanda of seeking to “occupy our land,” which is rich in minerals such as gold, coltan and cobalt “for their own exploitation and profit”.

He has called on the international community, and Britain in particular, to “pressure Rwanda to withdraw its troops”, noting London’s controversial agreement to send asylum seekers to Kigali.

“Given the UK’s recent $150 million immigration deal struck with Rwanda, we hope that Prime Minister Boris Johnson will be able to leverage his influence,” Tshisekedi said.  

Relations between Kinshasa and Kigali have been strained since the mass arrival in the DRC of Rwandan Hutus accused of slaughtering Tutsis during the 1994 Rwanda genocide.  

The number of young voters registered for Kenya’s August elections has dropped since the last poll five years ago, the election commission announced Monday, pointing to apathy among a youth disenchanted by economic hardship and widespread corruption. 

This is despite the total number of people who have signed up to cast their ballots increasing by more than 12 percent, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) said after an audit of the voters’ roll.

There will be 22.1 million voters on the register — often seen as a key point at which an election can be rigged — up from 19.6 million five years ago.

“The number of youth registered to vote in 2022 stands at 39.84 percent which is a decline of 5.27 percent against 2017,” IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati said. 

Under-35s account for three-quarters of Kenya’s population of about 50 million, according to government figures. 

Women were “still under-represented” in the voter register with their number accounting for 49 percent of the total, Chebukati said. 

– ‘Spirit of transparency’ –

The East African economic powerhouse will hold presidential and parliamentary elections on August 9, in the shadow of previous polls which have often been marred by ethnic violence.

With its diverse population and large ethnic voting blocs, Kenya has long suffered politically motivated communal violence around election time, notably after a 2007 poll when more than 1,100 people died.

Many young voters are showing little appetite for the election this year, disillusioned with a political elite widely seen as inept and corrupt. 

During the audit, more than 246,000 deceased voters were removed from the electoral roll, the IEBC said. 

Chebukati said the body was releasing the figures “in the spirit of transparency and commitment to public confidence in the register of voters”. 

This year’s presidential contest is shaping up to be a two-horse race between Deputy President William Ruto, 55, and 77-year-old Raila Odinga, a veteran politician and former prime minister. 

Two other candidates have been cleared to contest the race to succeed President Uhuru Kenyatta, who must stand down after serving the maximum of two five-year terms.

Ruto was initially anointed by Kenyatta as his successor but has found himself out in the cold after Kenyatta and Odinga forged an alliance in 2018.

Ruto is hoping his rags-to-riches journey from street hawker to top-ranking politician will resonate with Kenya’s youth, fashioning himself as a spokesman for “hustlers” trying to make ends meet in a country ruled by “dynasties”. 

The Kenyatta and Odinga families have dominated Kenyan politics since independence in 1963. 

China on Monday offered to play the role of mediator to resolve disputes in the Horn of Africa, on the opening day of a regional gathering in the Ethiopian capital.

The China-Horn of Africa Conference on security, Governance and Development is the first of its kind and underscores Beijing’s determination to play a greater role in a region beset by conflict and security issues.

“I am ready to provide mediation for the peaceful settlement of disputes, based on the will of the countries in this region,” said Xue Bing, Beijing’s first special envoy for the Horn of Africa.

He said it was important to “respect countries’ sovereignty and territorial integrity, refrain from interfering in other countries’ internal affairs… reject abuse of unilateral sanctions”.

“China is convinced that countries in the Horn have… (the ability)… to resolve differences through dialogue and consultations,” Xue said.

Redwan Hussein, national security adviser to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, said China was playing a “supportive role” in the region and that solutions to the various crises “should come from within”.

Ethiopia itself has been wracked by conflict in the north between government forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) since November 2020 that has killed untold numbers of people and triggered a humanitarian crisis affecting millions.

Abiy last week for the first time signalled he was open to negotiate with the TPLF, with a lull in fighting since a truce in March, while the rebels have spoken of possible talks in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

Xue was appointed to his role in February, shortly after a visit to Eritrea, Kenya and the Comoros by Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

The China-Horn conference, which wraps up on Tuesday, is being attended by representatives from Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda as well as Ethiopia and China — but with the notable exception of Eritrea.

China has a military base in Djibouti, its only one in Africa, as well as a port, aimed at securing its vast economic interests in the region.

West Ham announced the signing of Rennes defender Nayef Aguerd on Monday in a deal worth a reported £30 million ($37 million) once add-ons are included.

The Morocco international, 26, who spent two seasons with the French Ligue 1 club, has signed a five-year contract with David Moyes’ side.

“I was really excited when I heard about West Ham United’s interest,” said the left-sided player.

“When I heard about it, I knew I needed to go to the Premier League, because it’s a dream for every player.

“West Ham is a historic club. I saw a few of their games this year, and I saw the fans and the atmosphere were fantastic.”

Moyes, whose side finished seventh in the Premier League last season, said Aguerd had been on the club’s radar for some time.

“I am delighted to welcome Nayef to West Ham United,” said the Hammers manager. “We have tracked his progress for some time and I’m very pleased that we have been able to complete the signing. He’s a great addition that will add to our defensive options.”