[Gunmen sprayed bullets at New Year revellers in two bars in north-east Kenya on Sunday, killing five people, the latest in a wave of attacks near the border with Somalia.]
BURUNDI :
Burundi : les vœux très politiques du président Pierre Nkurunziza
lundi 02 janvier 2012/Par RFI
Pas de négociations ni de dialogue avec l'opposition a annoncé Pierre Nkurunziza, le président du Burundi, dans son très long discours pour le nouvel an. Son intervention, très attendue, a remis à 2015 la possibilité d'un débat démocratique national et avertit que « les forces armées continueront leur lutte contre les groupes criminels » qui œuvrent dans le pays, tout en dénonçant « les media locaux et internationaux qui les soutiennent ».
La réponse du président burundais a été on ne peut plus claire : pas de négociations, pas même un simple dialogue avec la seule opposition a annoncé Pierre Nkurunziza, dans son long discours en kirundi, la langue nationale du pays. Il demande plutôt à cette opposition de se préparer pour la prochaine échéance électorale fixée en 2015.
La reprise des violences depuis le retrait de l'opposition du processus électoral en 2010 ? Le président Pierre Nkurunziza a balayé du revers de la main toutes les inquiétudes, rappelant au passage que tous les groupes armés qui ont tenté une telle aventure en 2011 ont été anéantis.
Même chose pour les violations massives des droits de l'homme et les dizaines de cas d'exécutions extrajudiciaires dénoncées par le Conseil de sécurité de l'ONU. Le président burundais n'y a fait aucune allusion.
Le chef de l'État a choisi plutôt d'annoncer deux grands chantiers pour cette année la création d'une Commission vérité et réconciliation chargée de faire la lumière sur 40 ans d'histoire marquées par de nombreux massacres interethniques et la révision de la Constitution.
Deux sujets très sensibles pour une société civile burundaise qui reste cependant très préoccupée, car elle espérait plus d'ouverture de la part du pouvoir.
Le Burundi célèbre le cinquantenaire de son indépendance en 2012.
RWANDA :
Kagame decries negative publicity about Rwanda
By GAAKI KIGAMBO /www.theeastafrican.co.ke/Posted Sunday, January 1 2012
In the middle of December, President Paul Kagame went to great lengths to convince Ugandan and foreign reporters at a dialogue in Kampala, that his government wasn’t hostile to journalists but for a lot of “prejudice” and “falsehoods” that coloured the news about Rwanda.
Christopher Kayumba, a media instructor and practitioner, says he won’t be surprised if Rwanda continues to receive this kind of coverage in 2012.
“It is not surprising. Africa as a continent is poorly reported on.
Whatever happens is reported without context,” Kayumba told The EastAfrican.
In his view, media owners and policy makers had better identify values and interests and heavily invest in promoting them instead of expecting, or demanding, coverage they consider pleasant.
Over the course of 2011, among the media related incidents that drew attention to Rwanda was the arrest of three journalists, including Joseph Bideri, the former managing director of the pro-government New Times newspaper.
Three others were sentenced to prison, one for 17 years, her co-accused seven, while the third in absentia for 30 months. Another one was killed in Uganda.
In the virtual world, Kagame had a heated exchange on Twitter with British journalist Ian Birrell who had called him “despotic” and “deluded” because he, had said in an interview with UK’s Financial Times newspaper, that UN and human rights groups had no right to criticise him.
“Sometimes if you know about issues of Rwanda and you hear what is being written or said about us from outside you wonder whether this is the Rwanda you know or the people of Rwanda you know,” Kagame noted.
“All the developments taking place in Rwanda will never be talked about. The storyline is Rwanda [is] anti media, anti journalists, they kill journalists, they imprison journalists. It’s keeping at it,” he added, visibly exasperated.
“I don’t want you to not consider your line of saying the government of Rwanda is said to hate journalists and in fact sometimes they might want to kill them or they kill them. Include that but include it among the possibilities you have to investigate and get to the bottom of [an issue]. I don’t see why you need to always say this is it, this is a fact, this is what you should believe, when there are so many of these options.”
Kagame took particular exception to Reporters Without Borders, an international organisation that monitors press freedom around the world, calling it “liars without borders.”
“They need to really consider some evidence and facts,” Kagame started.
“Are they accusing us of not liking the media of Rwanda, or Rwandan journalists, and yet we like journalists from outside? Because journalists from all over the world come and operate in Rwanda with as much comfort as they want.”
RSF insists Rwanda is hostile to journalists, doesn’t care about press and media freedoms, and brooks no criticism.
It ranks the country nine places from last in its index on press freedom and maintains Kagame on its list of media predators in the world.
Kagame cited the murder last year of journalist Jean Léonard Rugambage as a case in point, noting how the person who had purportedly killed him had been arrested, the weapon he had used proven through forensics, and the case taken to the courts of law.
“When you have all these facts lined up, where does one pick from to say this journalist was killed by the state? It is probably what you don’t show with evidence that you tend to build on to say it is the state,” Kagame argued.
According to him, “the burden falls on you to really give proof to what you’re saying.Putting me in a situation where I always have to prove my innocence even when evidence implicates somebody else is untenable.”
To note, on September 15, the High Court in Kigali sentenced one of the accused men in Rugambage’s case, Didace Nduguyangu, to 10 years in prison and acquitted the second, Antoine Karemera, a police officer.
RSF, however, cast doubt on the verdict claiming it had “not done much to resolve doubts about their guilt or innocence or the ability of the Rwandan justice system to function independently.”
Caution urged over EAC monetary union
By East african News agency / SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN/2nd January 2012
As the East African Community (EAC) inches closer to a political federation – scheduled to become a reality by 2015 – the issue of the region's monetary union continues to spur debate, with stakeholders urging caution over the move.
Rwanda, for instance, will not rush into a single currency zone, according to the minister in charge of East African Community affairs, Monique Mukaruliza, who says a crisis could arise if matters moved very fast in the achievement of a monetary union for the EAC five-member countries.
“It will depend on how it benefits us in terms of economic transactions with other regional members, otherwise for us we shall not rush," Mukaruliza said. "We need a monetary evaluation mechanism to ensure proper usage and avoid crisis that might arise in the region."
According to EAC's integration plan, the region is scheduled to have a single currency by the end of 2012 but observers and analysts say it is doubtful that this will be achieved.
Ugandan legislators recently called for a delay in the establishment of a single currency until "some issues" are sorted out. They argued that fast-tracking the single currency issue when loopholes remained in the region's Customs Union and Common Market protocols, that have already been passed.
News outlets quoted Betty Ochan, the MP for Gulu, northern Uganda, as saying: “Some of the principles in the treaty are confusing; we should not rush the issue of monetary union yet other issues like movement of labour and capital are still questionable.”
The legislators said some of the modalities that need to be discussed and agreed upon before the single currency is actualized include domestic and external debt management frameworks, joint financing of projects, macro-economic convergence, harmonization and coordination of fiscal policies, taxation and customs and national budget formulation processes.
Agreeing with the Ugandan legislators and Rwanda's position, Paul Collier, a scholar at Oxford University, said EAC member countries are better off without a monetary union.
Speaking in Entebbe in November, Collier said countries such as Burundi and Rwanda, Collier said, were likely to raise inflationary concerns in relation to Uganda's recent oil discovery in parts of the country.
He warned that the likelihood of oil-induced volatility in Uganda could have a ripple effect effect on the regional currency.
Commodity prices, Collier said, would shoot up in tandem with the high oil prices, making it difficult for other partner states to share the same currency with Uganda, whose inflation will then be riding on a high tide occasioned by high and fluctuating oil prices.
However, EAC sources argue that the Treaty under wich the regional body was established is silent on "salient issues", including matters of fiscal convergence, which are necessary for the monetary union to become a reality.
Despite pushing for a cautious approach over the single currency, Rwandan Minister Mukaruliza said it would be a great regional achievement if the monetary union was established as it would spur the region's economy.
Prof. Rama B. Rao, an economics and management professor at the National University of Rwanda, said if partner states were to effectively achieve and benefit from a single monetary union, there was need to learn lessons from other economic communities like Europe, where the Euro works.
George Gatera, a Rwandan businessman, told EANA that a single economic zone was important for regional trade.
“We always face the problem of exchanging money before we travel to other countries [within the region],” Gatera said.
RDC CONGO:
RDCongo : le signal de RFI coupé "jusque mardi" par Kinshasa
lci.tf1.fr/01012012
Le gouvernement de la République démocratique du Congo a coupé le signal de Radio France Internationale (RFI) "jusque mardi" pour protester contre son traitement de la situation
post-électorale dans le pays, où la réélection de Joseph Kabila est contestée par l'opposant Etienne Tshisekedi, autoproclamé "président élu". La coupure a été décidée par le ministre de la Communications et des Médias Lambert Mende. "Une mesure conservatoire a été prise jusque mardi parce que le gouvernement n'a pas du tout apprécié la façon dont RFI essaie de banaliser la pantalonnade anti-constitutionnelle de monsieur Tshisekedi", a déclaré dimanche
à l'AFP M. Mende, également porte-parole du gouvernement. Joseph Kabila est arrivé en tête (48,95%) de la présidentielle du 28 novembre, devant Etienne Tshisekedi (32,33%) et neuf autres candidats, selon les résultats que la Cour suprême de justice a validés malgré les nombreuses irrégularités constatées par les observateurs nationaux et étrangers. Selon M. Mende, le signal de RFI a été coupé suite à un sujet "juxtaposant les voeux de notre président avec les voeux de ce qu'elle appelle l'autre président".
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Lire suite du document : bur02012012.doc
