For the time being, the 37 year-old has the backing of former colonial power France.

President Emmanuel Macron went to N’Djamena for Friday’s funeral of Mahamat’s 68-year-old father who died at the hands of rebels a day after winning his sixth term as President of the troubled, largely desert country.

Constitutionally, Chad’s parliamentary speaker should have taken power and moved to elections within 18 months.

But the constitution and parliament have both been scrapped by the military council that put the son at the helm.

The country’s borders have been closed and a night time curfew is being enforced

France’s decision to back this move “for reasons of security following extraordinary events” puts its at odds with the international community.

The African Union, which is bound by its basic law to red card any unconstitutional change in government, has called on Mahamat to restore the country to legality.

Chad’s opposition has called the new power structure a “dynastic coup” and its trade unions are calling for a general strike until the constitution is restored.

There is an uneasy calm in Chad following the move that has played into the hands of the rebel Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT).

Mahamat realises this. He has made frequent appeals over national radio for peace and insisted that he open to dialogue.

The opposition will not take up this offer while he claims to be president.

France’s support comes because of Chad’s pivotal role in the fight against jihadis in the Sahel – that strip of land between the Sahara and the North African coastal states.

Idriss Deby was an inveterate supporter of the group of five Sahel states.

These include Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Mali.

In N’Djamena on Friday, Macron impressed on their leaders present the need to stand united against militant Islam threatening all their countries.

Will they heed the call from their former colonial power, who provides Chad with intelligence and security?

Or will they fall into line with the African Union that is bound to exclude Chad from the continental body’s deliberations until the constitution is restored?

The post African Union prepares to red card Chad for unconstitutional change of government appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

Not surprisingly France’s President Emmanuel Macron was among the first world leaders to congratulate Joe Biden on winning the US Presidency.

Paris and Washington have a crowded schedule of business, starting with Biden bringing the United State back into the climate change agreement signed  in the French capital four years ago.

Biden will be an extremely welcome participant at the climate summit in Scotland.

France continues to control the file on this make-or-break issue for the world.

Running close behind welcoming America’s more prominent green agenda , France is looking for increased US support for the initiative to fight Islamist jihadis in the that strip of land between North Africa and the Sahara Desert known as the Sahel.

President Donald Trump has effectively told Macron that this French-led initiative is to Paris’ account.

Washington’s has given $8,5 million to Chad to help it counter ISIS terrorism.

This pales next to the boots on the ground and cash contributed to the G5 comprising Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mauritania.

The group was set up in 2014 when Mauritania held the AU presidency.

It has been underpinned by two resolution of the United Nations Security Council.

The world organization has committed 10 000 troops to its anti terror group in the region known as MINUSMA.

France has put its muscle where its mouth is with 3 000 troops from Operation Barkhane .

France stepped into drive out the Islamists who took advantage of a 2012  coup in Mali.

Things have become vary complicated since then and France could do with help form a fellow permanent Western member of the UN powerhouse.

Ibrahim Boubakar Keita, installed in 2012, was unseated in another coup last August which led to Bah Ndaw becoming become the interim president.

Further confusing things, Amadou Toumani Tourè, who led Mali for a decade during which he introduced democratic reforms before he deposed in the 2012 putsch, died in Turkey this week.

It will be impressed on Biden that Germany has provided 900 troops to the Sahel operation and the European Union  has chipped in 50million euros.

Even the cash-strapped African Union has contributed $3 million.

The world is waiting on the new administration in Washington.

The post France has a crowded schedule of business with the new Washington administration appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

President Cyril Ramaphosa had his work cut out when he took on the chairmanship of the African Union this year.

He is committed to steering the continental body along its final bumpy stretch of road to the ambitious goal of silencing the Guns in 2020.

More importantly, the bean counters argue, he  has to oversee  the final implementation of the African Free Trade Agreement.

Both of these face an existential threat from COVID 19.

Silencing the guns means ending all wars, civil conflict, violence conflict, and gender-based violence on the continent.

Herculean does not being to describe this task.

Since their inception, African conflicts have gobbled up the lion’s share of United Nations peacekeeping operations.

Deploying the blue helmets currently takes up an amount approaching $8 billion a year. That is $1 billion more than the overall budget of the world organisation.

Of the 13 active UN peacekeeping operations around the planet, no fewer than seven – Western Sahara, Darfur, Central African Republic, Abyei, South Sudan, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo – are in Africa.

The latter is the largest and most expensive blue helmet operation, taking up 20 000 of the 100 000 UN peacekeepers deployed worldwide.

To put some perspective on this, the number of UN troops deployed in the DRC is half the number of US troops stationed in Germany.

The United States currently picks up 28% of the UN peacekeeping tab which is less than one percent of total US defense spending – about as much as Washington spends in a month on its military operation in Afghanistan.

African leaders have for a time sought to pay more for peacekeeping in their determination to give credibility to the principle of African solutions for African problems. 

The best they can manage is a 25:75 split in costs with  the UN and this has yet to be inked.

As the battle with the COVID 19 pandemic turns the G7 economies on their heads, African countries know that they will feel the cost even  more keenly.

They are having to go to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for money simply to feed their people.

The Bretton Woods institutions are obliged to make their assistance conditional on the recipients adhering to strict austerity policies.

Silencing the Guns and implementing an African Free Trade Agreement are undeniably desirable.

Silencing the Nevertheless AU chairman Cyril Ramaphosa will be hard pressed to convince the lenders that these projects take priority over fiscal discipline and  financing the bare necessities.  

The post COVID 19 puts a heavy burden on Cyril Ramaphosa as AU chairman appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

He was speaking at a summit in Pau he hosted for the five countries facing increasing violence from the so-called Islamist State in Greater Sahara.

President Emmanuel Macron is concerned about the anti-French sentiment expressed in Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso about its military support for the fight against jihadis.

France has 4500 troops in the region where it stepped in to stop Mali being overrun by terrorists.

At the Pau summit he committed a further 220 troops to the operation which will now have a joint command structure.

The six countries present called on the United States to continue what they called its crucial support for their fight.

The post France to bolster support for fighting jihadis in the Sahel appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

He has also prayed for and end to wars in Africa.

There was a heavy African flavour to the traditional Christmas message read by Pope Francis.

He prayed for migrants seeking refuge from violence and better lives for their families, and urged the United Nations to take more muscular actions to deal with their plight.

And he prayed for peace in Burkina Faso where a Christmas Eve attack by jihadis has left 35 people – many of them women – dead.

He also prayed for South Sudan, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger and Nigeria.

The post Pope prays for peace in Africa appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger has raced to home to deal with a deadliest  rebel attack on his country in living memory.

A military spokesman in Niger says 73 soldiers were killed in yesterday’s  attack on a base in Inates near the border with Mali.

It follows an attack in Agando, also in the west of the country, on Monday that left four soldiers and 14 rebels dead.

The military spokesman say several hundred attackers were involved and they sustained heavy casualties.

French President Emmanuel Macron has called a meeting in Pau, southwestern France next week of the G5 Sahel group to which Niger belongs with Mali, Mauritania, Chad and Burkina Faso.  

The post 73 soldiers die in Niger’s deadliest rebel attack in living memory appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

Speaking at the end of the NATO summit in London, Macron says the Sahel leaders must address anti French sentiment about its role in Africa.

France is the only Western country with a substantial military presence in Africa.

It sent in troops to prevent Mali being overrun by Jihadis in 2013.

It still has 4 500 soldiers helping the so called Sahel G5 comprising Mali, Niger, Mauritania, Chad and Burkina Faso.

French President Emmanuel Macron says if those troops are stay there, African leaders must affirm that they need them.

The post Emmanuel Macron says African countries must address anti-French sentiment appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

Analysts fear that,  like Al Shabaab, the terror group will use relatively soft targets in Africa to show it is still operational.

So-called Islamic State has made its deadly presence felt in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Northern Mozambique, Mali and Burkina Faso.

The news portal Defence Web says this should of concern to South Africa’s National Defence Force which might be called in to protect neighbors from the Southern African Development Community.

The ISIS fighters have not been flown in to African locations. They have come in smaller numbers escaping fighting in Syria and Iraq, bringing with them experience, skills, techniques and tactics.

The post Al Baghdadi’s death won’t stop ISIS operations in Africa appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

This brings to 19 the number of Christians gunned down in this religiously diverse country this past month.

Two people were wounded along with the four killed while celebrating mass yesterday.

As with the previous attacks, no-one has claimed responsibility .

Authorities suspect Mali-based Islamist militants moving across the border to attack churches in this country where 60% of the 20-million population are Muslims.

Catholic Bishop Justin Kientega says Christians reject the growing spiral of violence in Burkina Faso.

Four Catholics were killed in church the previous Sunday.

A priest and five parishioners were killed earlier in May. 

Last month six Protestants were killed during a religious service.

The post Gunmen in Burkina Faso kill four Catholics celebrating mass appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.

Speaking on the sidelines of the African Union summit in Addis Ababa the UN chief says the continent could become an example to the world of solving and preventing conflict.

Antonio Guterres cites a peace deal between Ethiopia and Eritrea and the peace agreements signed in South Sudan and the Central African Republic to back his assertion that a wind of hope is blowing through the Africa.

As usual, the UN chief is one of the honored guests at the gathering of the heads of state and government from the 55 members of the continental grouping.

Guterres also mentions elections in Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mali as proof of the rise of democracy in Africa.

The post UN chief sees a wind of hope blowing through Africa appeared first on Jean-Jacques Cornish.