Africa
Chadian President Idriss Deby dies on frontline, rebels vow to keep fighting
Deby came to power in a rebellion in 1990 and is one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders.
Chad’s President Idriss Deby Itno has died on the battlefield after three decades in power, the army announced on state television on Tuesday. The rebels that launched the offensive against the regime rejected the transition government led by one of Deby’s sons, and vowed to pursue the offensive.
“We categorically reject the transition,” said Kingabe Ogouzeimi de Tapol, spokesman for the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) on Tuesday. “We intend to pursue the offensive.”
The stunning announcement about the president’s death came just hours after electoral officials had declared Deby, 68, the winner of the April 11 presidential election, paving the way for him to stay in power for six more years.
Deby “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield” over the weekend, army spokesman General Azem Bermandoa Agouna said in a statement read out on state television.
The army said a military council led by the late president’s 37-year-old son Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, a four-star general, would replace him.
Deby’s campaign said on Monday that he was headed to the frontlines to join troops battling “terrorists“.
Four Star General Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno, 37, son of the slain Chadian President Idriss Déby, seen here in N’djamena on April 11, 2021, will will replace his father as head of a military council, the army announced on April 20, 2021. © Marco Longari, AFP
The circumstances of Deby’s death could not immediately be independently confirmed due to the remote location. It was not known why the president would have visited the area or participated in ongoing clashes with the rebels who opposed his rule.
Rebels based across the northern frontier in Libya attacked a border post on election day and then advanced hundreds of kilometres south across the desert.
‘A courageous friend’, says France
France on Tuesday paid tribute to Deby as a “courageous friend” and “great soldier”, while urging stability and a peaceful transition in the African country after his shock death.
“Chad is losing a great soldier and a president who has worked tirelessly for the security of the country and the stability of the region for three decades,” the office of President Emmanuel Macron said in statement, hailing Deby as a “courageous friend” of France.
The statement also emphasised France’s insistence on the “stability and territorial integrity” of Chad as it faces a push by rebel forces towards its capital, N’Djamena.
Defence Minister Florence Parly praised Deby as an “essential ally in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel” while emphasising that the fight against jihadist insurgents “will not stop”.
One of Africa’s longest-serving leaders
Deby came to power in a rebellion in 1990 and is one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders.
Although ruling Chad with an iron fist, he was a key ally in the West’s anti-jihadist campaign in the troubled Sahel region.
On Monday, the army had claimed a “great victory” in its battle against the rebels from neighbouring Libya, saying it had killed 300 fighters, with the loss of five soldiers in its own ranks during eight days of combat.
Deby was a herder’s son from the Zaghawa ethnic group who took the classic path to power through the army, and relished the military culture.
His latest election victory – with almost 80 percent of the vote – had never been in doubt, with a divided opposition, boycott calls, and a campaign in which demonstrations were banned or dispersed.
Deby had campaigned on a promise of bringing peace and security to the region, but his pledges were undermined by the rebel incursion.
The government had sought Monday to assure concerned residents that the offensive was over.
There had been panic in some areas of N’Djamena on Monday after tanks were deployed along the city’s main roads, an AFP journalist reported.
The tanks were later withdrawn apart from a perimeter around the president’s office, which is under heavy security during normal times.
“The establishment of a security deployment in certain areas of the capital seems to have been misunderstood,” government spokesman Cherif Mahamat Zene had said on Twitter on Monday.
“There is no particular threat to fear.”
However, the US embassy in N’Djamena had on Saturday ordered non-essential personnel to leave the country, warning of possible violence in the capital. Britain also urged its nationals to leave.
France’s embassy said in an advisory to its nationals in Chad that the deployment was a precaution and there was no specific threat to the capital.
‘Expect things to get messy’
Douglas Yates, a professor in African Studies at the American Graduate School in Paris, told FRANCE 24 that Deby’s death had come as a total surprise.
“Two days ago news had come out from the US embassy that they were evacuating personnel because there were rebels marching on the capital, and frankly the thought was ‘(Deby) will defeat them’, because he has systematically defeated every attempted coup before now.”
Yates said that although Deby was hardly known to be a great democrat, “he was a real soldier and in some ways, this was a worthy death for him. To die involved in the battle was better for him I think than to die in his bed from Covid.”
The professor said much of Chad’s unrest stems from Deby’s own people in the east with discontent rising over Deby not distributing enough oil wealth to them.
“Frankly, there’s probably not enough oil wealth to go around to everyone, but basically there were people who were unhappy, who felt like they were not getting their share and that’s been a repeated pattern in attempted coups.”
On the issue of Deby’s replacement, Yates said: “Expect things to get messy during the transition.”
“He had been in power so long, and eliminating any rivals and imprisoning his democratic opposition. What you have [now] is a large number of people who would like to be the president of Chad rather than one unified opposition leader.”
“Like Napoleon had said: ‘After me, the flood.’ And certainly after Idriss Deby, the flood.”
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Alice B. Otchere is a native Houstonian and was raised in Houston’s Fifth Ward. She never thought of herself as a philanthropist. After high school, she attended the University of Northern Iowa, and along the way received Business School Certifications from the University of Michigan and the University of Texas. She established herself in Houston and developed a longstanding and successful career in Human Resources, at all levels through executive levels. Otchere visited Accra, Ghana in 2019 after connecting with her sons’ Ghanian family. The family welcomed her and her sons with open arms. While touring the country, she visited Sagyimase, the village which the family called their “home village”. She observed that there were no libraries in the area for the school children and others in the community of villages.
After visiting Ghana and returning to the United States, Otchere established the non-profit Literacy for Life (www.literatelife.org) in September 2019. She has received tremendous financial support from her immediate family, including her family in Ghana who donated the land. In addition, she received support from friends and Port City Chapter (TX) Links, Incorporated sisters by hosting fundraisers and receiving donations from many donors who appreciate the value of her commitment to share blessings with those in need. She also contacted the pending Consul General of Ghana in Houston to advise him of her plans. He was delighted to hear about a Houstonian engaged in humanitarian efforts in his home country.
Ms. Otchere returned to Ghana and Sagyimase in January 2020 to announce to the family and the village community her plans to build a library. While there, her desire and plans to build a library were confirmed. She saw the local village school and recognized it was underserved. She asked one of the teachers if they had a library. There were a few books, and the bookcase was dilapidated. As an avid reader, Ms. Otchere wanted to do something to ensure the schools, the students and all who lived in the area would have access to a library. She committed to do her part to work towards building and operating a Library in Sagyimase. 2020 offered challenges with the COVID pandemic; the air space in Ghana was closed and travel into the country was prohibited. But 2020 offered opportunities to work with the General Contractor, Architect and Project Manager to layout the plans for the library.
In September 2021 Otchere returned to Ghana to break ground for the library in Sagyimase, Ghana! Since that time, the project has been on-going, and the Project team has been successfully meeting construction milestones. The library is scheduled to open and begin operations October 16, 2023,
When asked what her family takes away from this experience, Otchere says, “you don’t have to be a millionaire to help a village”.
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A mannequin stands with head tilted, a knee jutting from the deep bias chiffon and woven fabric hemline of Papa Oppong’s Takari T, a T-shirt worn as a dress from the Ghanaian-born designer’s celebrated 2021 Yopoo collection, which evokes a Ghanaian woman’s life from birth to marriage to death. A “Ghana Must Go” bag — the ubiquitous blue, white and red reusable bags that have come to symbolize the forced migration of millions of Ghanaians from Nigeria — sits on the floor next to the mannequin.
It’s one of two looks from Oppong included in the Brooklyn Museum’s iteration of “Africa Fashion,” the blockbuster exhibition that opened last summer at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, and which runs Friday through Oct. 22 in New York.
“I can’t believe this is my work,” muses Oppong, as he raises his hands to his cheeks. “It doesn’t seem real. Coming from Ghana, I dreamed of creating work that could be this accessible. So this,” he says, spinning around to take in the work of fellow designers on display in a large central gallery, “is truly a dream come true.”
Like many of the additional designers included in the Brooklyn Museum exhibit, Oppong’s pieces evoke the heritage but also the political and socioeconomic realities of the African diaspora; from political satire and adherence to traditional weaving, hand-dyeing and beading techniques to collaborations with other African artists, from illustrators to weavers to photographers and musicians.
Organized thematically, the exhibition features garments, textiles, photography, books, music and catwalk footage from more than 40 designers and artists from 20 of Africa’s 54 countries, including pioneering 20th-century designers Kofi Ansah (Ghana), Naima Bennis (Morocco), Shade Thomas-Fahm (Nigeria), Chris Seydou (Mali), and Alphadi (Niger) in the “Vanguard” section. “The Cultural Renaissance” section explores the independence era, from the 1950s through the 1990s, a period of dramatic political, social and cultural upheaval reflected in the Pan-African fashion and art scene. “Politics and Poetics of Cloth” surveys the rise of Indigenous cloth as a political act; textiles from the museum’s Arts of Africa collection complement the V&A’s wax prints, commemorative cloth, àdìrẹ, kente cloth and bògòlanfini. “Capturing Change” chronicles the independence years through artists such as Seydou Keïta (Mali) and Malick Sidibé (Mali), from the museum’s collection, as well as fashion photography by James Barnor (Ghana). “Cutting Edge” is organized around concepts including “Afrotopia,” “Artisanal,” “Co-creation,” “Provocation,” “Minimalist,” and “Mixologist” and showcases a new generation of fashion designers and creatives, including South Africa–based designer Thebe Magugu, winner of the 2019 LVMH Young Fashion Designer Prize. “Through the Photographer’s Lens” examines the power of contemporary photography with a series of images of intricate African hairstyles from Nigerian photographer J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere, and work from New York native Kwame Brathwaite, the father of the 1970s “Black is Beautiful” movement who died last April. The exhibition concludes with “Global Africa,” which explores how the digital world accelerated the expansion of Africa’s influence in the fashion industry.
Photographer J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere’s images of African hairstyles are among more than 50 additional items from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection.
Additional new contemporary pieces also include Brother Vellies designer Aurora James’ Mother Nature gown with a raffia skirt and basket bodice, which the Ghanaian-Canadian designer wore to the 2019 Met Gala; a basket bag from Sudanese-American designer Eilaf Osman; and a shirt and skirt ensemble from Studio One Eighty Nine that features a pineapple husk belt and dried raffia straw hat.
“Haute couture, notions of the handmade and luxury, slow fashion, using dyes or materials that are non-invasive to the environment, this conversation around sustainability has always been part of the African continent,” says Ernestine White-Mifetu, the Brooklyn Museum’s Sills Foundation Curator of African Art, who adapted the exhibition with Annissa Malvoisin, the museum’s postdoctoral fellow in the Arts of Africa.
“And the contemporary designers from the continent have continued those traditions while taking the making and design of African textiles to a new level that’s extremely exciting,” continues White-Mifetu. “And this is an opportunity for audiences in North America to get to know what that looks like.”
The exhibit includes more than 50 items from the museum’s collection, including Egyptian jewelry from B.C.E. through 1st century C.E. and 19th and 20th century jewelry from Niger, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso. Many of the items have not preciously been on view. (The museum’s African galleries are currently undergoing a major renovation with a reinstallation slated for 2025.)
“African regions and culture and art isn’t stuck in a specific time period,” says Malvoisin. “The African fashion scene has always been vibrant, even 3,000 years ago. It was really important for us to include our collection because our collection highlights the cultural continuity and technological and manufacturing production that has continued for thousands of years and which are still being used today by the designers featured in the show.”
The contributions of African-born designers is already obvious in the fashion industry, but the exhibit is arguably the first comprehensive recognition of that legacy.
“We do fashion shows a lot [at the Brooklyn Museum], but to focus on African fashion in an expansive way, and to bring something like this to North America and in New York, which is one of the fashion capitals of the world, is really important. These shows are quite commonplace for European and North American designers,” says Malvoisin, invoking the Brooklyn Museum’s recent retrospectives of Christian Dior and Thierry Mugler. “This is placing African fashion designers on the same level as all of these other luxury fashion houses and designers. I feel like it’s just the beginning. Perhaps this will also lay the foundation and groundwork for something like that happening for an African fashion designer.”
Standing in the exhibit’s large central hall, Oppong — dressed head-to-toe in black Balenciaga, right down to his kitten-heeled shoe socks — takes in the designs from his contemporaries. “I know so many people in here,” he says, raising an arm toward a mannequin draped in Christie Brown’s She is King gold and black gown.
“I did art direction at Christie Brown for a year,” he says. “I love Kenneth Ize, Imane Ayissi. This hall is just magical.”
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CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – South African prosecutors on Friday significantly increased the number of charges they are bringing against Rwandan ex-police officer Fulgence Kayishema, who is wanted internationally for suspected participation in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
On the run for two decades, Kayishema was arrested on May 24 under a false name on a grape farm in South Africa where, according to a prosecutor, refugees working there gave him up.
He now faces 54 separate charges in South Africa relating to fraud and immigration offences, up from five previously, prosecutors spokesman Eric Ntabazalila said outside a Cape Town court.
Kayishema had been a fugitive from justice since 2001, when the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) indicted him for genocide for allegedly ordering the massacre of 2,000 people hiding in the Nyange Catholic Church.
He denied any involvement during a court hearing on May 26, though said he was “sorry” for the 1994 killings.
South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) alleges that Kayishema used a false identity to apply for asylum and refugee status in South Africa. Kayishema has not responded in court to the South African charges.
The case was adjourned to June 20 to allow Kayishema’s defence team to consult, at which point he could apply for bail.
Some of the local charges could see Kayishema imprisoned for up to 15 years, said Ntabazalila.
Kayishema is also expected to face extradition to Rwanda to be tried over the ICTR genocide indictment, but those proceedings have yet to begin, Ntabazalila said.
An estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and Hutu moderates were killed during Rwanda’s genocide, orchestrated by an extremist Hutu regime and meticulously executed by local officials and ordinary citizens in the rigidly hierarchical society.
Kayishema’s arrest left only three fugitives indicted by the international tribunal whose whereabouts remain unknown.
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