Africa

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) promised that he’d make U.S. relations with South Sudan less friendly, unless their government releases one of his constituents, who he said has been wrongly accused of committing crimes.

“We’re looking at this case very seriously as a test of their judicial system and their intentions,” Vitter said on the floor Tuesday. “If this unjust detention continues, I’ll make sure there are repercussions to that relationship.”

The State Department issued an updated travel advisory for Burundi on Thursday warning Americans in the tiny east African nation of the threat posed by Somali Islamists.

“Because Burundi participates in peacekeeping operations in Somalia, the terrorist organization al-Shabaab, based in Somalia, has threatened to conduct terror attacks in Burundi,” the advisory reads. “It may also target U.S. interests in Burundi.”

The advisory says political tensions have remained high since the disputed 2010 election and warns of the risks posed by widespread corruption and lawlessness.

The State Department on Tuesday condemned South Sudan's decision to expel the United Nations' top human rights officer in the country.

“We are deeply concerned about the Republic of South Sudan’s decision to order a Human Rights Officer working for the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) to depart the country within 48 hours,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement. 

South Sudan's decision to expel Sandra Beidas appears to be related to an August U.N. report accusing the country's army of crimes — torture, rape, killings, and abducting civilians — during the civilian disarmament campaign in South Sudan's Jonglei State, the Sudan Tribune reported Sunday. Expelling the diplomat is a “breach of legal obligations,” UNMISS chief Hilde Johnson told the newspaper in a statement.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Algeria's president on Monday to press Africa's largest country for military assistance as the United Nations weighs an African-led intervention for its southern neighbor, Mali.

Mali became the latest front in America's war on terror when radical Islamists took over the northern half of the country following a military coup in March. Some of them are affiliated with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which may have been involved in last month's attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

The U.N. Security Council has since approved the concept of a West African-led military intervention, and the United States and other countries are looking to Algeria to provide military and counterterrorism expertise.

“A whole range of countries in the region really look to Algeria for leadership on this,” a senior State Department official said in a background briefing ahead of Clinton's trip. “Obviously, they’re not ceding sovereignty, but they know Algeria has unique capabilities that no one else in the region really has ... the strength of its military forces, its intelligence-gathering capability, all up and down the road on this stuff.”

President Obama on Wednesday said he would renew sanctions against people involved in the longstanding conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). 

President George W. Bush in 2006 ordered the Treasury Department to block the U.S. assets of people contributing to the conflict under a law that allows the president to declare an “unusual and extraordinary threat ... to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States.” 

The sanctions must be renewed every year to stay in force and can be terminated by Congress.

Two powerful business groups want a federal court to modify or scrap what they call burdensome Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules that force companies to disclose whether they rely on minerals from war-stricken parts of Africa.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers have petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the rules, which are required under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

A divided SEC, in a 3-2 vote in August, approved rules aimed at cracking down on the use of “conflict minerals” from the militia-ravaged Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and surrounding areas.

The business groups’ short petition Friday does not spell out the basis for challenge. The two groups, in a statement, said the business community “understands the seriousness of the strife occurring in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

The timeline of events and the administration’s shifting explanations have become a major problem for Democrats.

The president of Malawi, Joyce Banda, used her keynote address Thursday at a Capitol Hill reception for the African diplomatic corps to thank Congress for this summer's vote renewing a trade deal that allows African countries to export textiles to the United States duty-free.

“Congress has demonstrated a resolve to assist the people of Africa, especially the thousands of women employed in the textile industry,” Banda said. “Africa needs partnership, not patronage.”

She called for more investment in her small southeast African country, saying doing so is in America's interest.

“Africa is indeed on the rise,” she said. “There is increasing optimism about Africa.”

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) wants Uganda's ambassador to the United States to answer questions about the slaughter earlier this year of 22 elephants at Garamba National Park.

The congressman's letter follows a Sept. 3 New York Times report suggesting the U.S.-funded Ugandan military could have been behind the March 15 slaughter, which is estimated to have netted more than $1 million in ivory. The Obama administration has awarded tens of millions of dollars in military aid to Uganda over the past four years and sent 100 military advisers to the region to hunt for Joseph Kony, whose Lord's Resistance Army is a main player in the ivory poaching epidemic now threatening Africa's elephants, fueled by Asia's growing middle class.

“It is imperative that we do all that we can to protect the lives and future populations of the elephant,” Kucinich wrote to Perezi Kamunanwire. “The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) is conducting an investigation into this mass elephant killing. I ask that you fully cooperate with this investigation and work to protect the endangered elephant population.

“I look forward to hearing from you regarding any information you may have regarding this incident.”

Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, will head the American delegation to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's funeral on Sunday, the State Department announced Thursday. Read more...