Borders in the Limelight - African Union

Borders in the Limelight
January
2015
This monthly memo provides a snapshot of recent news articles related to border issues
in Africa. Apart from capturing the latest delimitation and demarcation activities on the
continent, additional emphasis is placed on cross-border cooperation, security, conflicts,
migration, economic activity and experiences of everyday life in African borderlands.
***
Ce memo mensuel offre un aperçu de plus récents articles tirés par la presse au niveau
des questions transfrontalières en Afrique. D'ailleurs, à part expliquer les derniers
développements au niveau des activités de délimitation et démarcation frontalière, une
importance supplémentaire a été attachée à toutes questions liées à la coopération
transfrontalière, la sécurité, la migration, l’activité économique et la vie quotidienne des
régions frontalières africaines.
EAST AFRICA
The Republic of Uganda and the Republic of South Sudan
signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Boarder
Delimitation and Demarcation.
Republic of Uganda Ministry of Foreign Affairs, December 8th, 2014
Government of the Republic of Uganda has signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Boarder
Delimitation and Demarcation with the Republic of South Sudan to pave way for setting up the Joint
Technical Committee and other mechanisms to resolve the outstanding boarder dispute between Uganda
and South Sudan.
The MOU was signed by Hon. Asuman Kiyingi Minister of State Regional Cooperation and Dr.
Barnaba Marial Benjamin Minister of Foreign Affairs Of South Sudan who signed on behalf of the
Republic of South Sudan.
Rwanda, Uganda to create more one-stop border posts
The NewTimes, December 30, 2014
Movement of goods, services and people between Rwanda and Uganda could be eased further, thanks to
the new initiative to create a one-stop border post at the Gatuna/Katuna border.
Richard Sezibera, the East African Community secretary general, has said. The two countries will on
January 1 integrate operations at the Gatuna/Katuna border to reduce the cost of doing business.
“The idea is to have both Rwandan and Ugandan customs and immigration officers operating in the
same office so that clearing of goods, services and people is done once on each side,” Sezibera told
Business Times yesterday.
Creating a one-stop border means that people or goods entering Rwanda are all cleared on the Rwandan
side, while those leaving the country are cleared on the Ugandan side.
Nemba border post on the Rwanda/Burundi border and Cyanika (Rwanda/Uganda) are already operating
under the one-stop border system. A similar arrangement is in place at Malaba on the Uganda/Kenya
border. Kagitumba (Rwanda/Uganda border) and Namanga (Kenya/Tanzania) border posts would also
be integrated soon, Amb Sezibera added.
“Pooling of resources will help reduce time and the cost of doing business between the two countries.”
During the recently-concluded eighth Northern Corridor integration projects summit, the Heads of State
directed the ministers in charge of immigration to conclude the agreement on free movement of labour
and services and remove the work permit fees charged by January 1, among others.
Charles Mugabe, a border manager at Katuna-Uganda, said the initiative will ease movement of goods
and services.
“It is part of the initiatives aimed at fast-tracking the East African Community (EAC) common market
protocol. It serves us better in terms of logistics and time we spend clearing goods and people at the
border and also make people ‘feel’ the integration process,” Mugabe argued.
PSF welcomes initiative
Antoine Manzi, the director of advocacy at the Private Sector Federation, said streamlining border
procedures will boost cross-border trade.
“We welcome any project that seeks to streamline and improve regional trade and movement of labour
and services. The private sector is optimistic that such initiatives will help foster trade between partner
states,” Manzi added.
Theadore Murenzi, the chairman of the Rwanda Long Distance Truck Drivers Association, said
establishing a one-stop border post will greatly reduce the time trucks spend at borders awaiting
clearance.
“For us, it’s a game changer in the way we do business, it basically means reducing the time spent on
clearing cargo trucks.”
One-border posts will make East Africa better for business
The New Times, January 11, 2015
Rusumo border post on the Rwanda Tanzania border now operates a one-stop centre for clearing goods
and people crossing the border; the first of its kind in the region.
That means that a Rwanda businessman exporting goods overseas, through this border, can have all the
paperwork sorted from one point on the Rwanda side of the One-Stop-Border post.
Similarly, goods entering the country can have all the customs paperwork sorted from the other side
without going through another cumbersome process upon crossing the border.
This has been made possible by new facilities put in place under the One-Stop-Border project that bring
all officials involved in the process of clearing people and goods under one roof.
This has indeed been long-overdue. Traders have for decades complained about the numerous and
lengthy customs documentation while crossing borders with the region. This has not only cost them
time, but also money as goods unnecessarily delay reaching the market. No doubt, therefore, that this
project, if rolled out to all border posts, will eliminate the red tape and enable people and their goods to
move faster for the good of all the economy of the whole region.
This project therefore comes in handy in accelerating economic integration in the East African
Community, by eliminating some of the non-tariff barriers to free and faster movement of goods and
services.
Beyond regional integration, faster movement within our borders will certainly make the region a better
and cheaper place to do business and more attractive to foreign investors.
As we fast track regional infrastructure projects aimed at boosting production, there is need to inject
some resources in replicating similar projects in all border posts in the region as quickly as possible.
Only then shall we talk about a truly integrated region.
Kenya retaliates against Tanzania over tour vans
East Africa Business week, January 18, 2015
Kenya has lost patience with Tanzania over denying their tour operators access to Tanzanian
national parks using Kenyan registered tourist vans and issued a banning order of its own writes
SHARON KYATUSIIMIRE.
Beginning this month Tanzanian tour vehicles have been barred from fetching or dropping off tourists at
Kenyan airports until further notice.
The Tanzania Natural Resources and Tourism Minister, Lazaro Nyalandu said last week, “The
government is also shocked by the Kenya’s decision because airports are not part of the agreements
involving the two sister countries.”
However he said efforts are being made to engage Nairobi over the issue.
East Africa’s two tourist destination giants have been holding fruitless talks over the re-opening of the
strategic Bolongoja border post. It lies between Serengeti National Park and Maasai Mara Game
Reserve in Kenya.
The area is rich in wildlife, however Kenyan tourist vans are not allowed into Tanzania, but the Kenya
government had no similar restrictions on their Tanzanian counterparts.
The Kenyans have long complained that this causes incoveniences for their clients who have to switch
vans if they want to cross the Mara River and view Tanzanian game animals. Kenya tour firms have to
contract their counterparts in Tanzania so that the tourists can continue with their safaris.
Tanzanian tour operators are on record that they fear being driven out of business if Kenyan-registered
tour vehicles are allowed to operate in Tanzania.
The Bolongoja post has been closed since the late 1970s, during the days when the first East African
Community was disintegrating.
In early 2014, the five Partner States sat under the umbrella of the East African Tourism Platform to sort
out the issue and others related to bottlenecks in the regional tourism sector. They met at the EAC
Secretariat in Arusha.
The Tanzania Society of Travel Agents (TASOTA), insisted that tour vehicles from neighbouring
countries should continue being denied entry into Tanzania. They said their members’ livelihood
depends on this restriction.
Tanzania also charges Ugandan tour operators a $100 fee as a working permit.
However for Kenyan operators to satisfy Tanzania authorities, they must be in a four-wheel drive
vehicle with Tanzanian registration numbers and driven by a Tanzanian national.
Apparently Kenyan tour guides/drivers are classified as foreigners and pay same fee as tourists, to enter
premium parks. This does not apply for Tanzanian tour/driver guides who are charged much less.
There is a fierce rivalry between East Africa’s biggest countries over the rich pickings from the tourism
industry which in 2012 brought nearly $3 billion in total to the EAC.
The Arusha meeting was supposed to come with answers that would resolve the situation however much
was left in the air. This is particularly embarrasing, because the EAC is talking about developing a
single tourist destination package.
However the EAC Partner states continue to squabble about tour operators being denied entry into
neighbouring countries. Among issues raised in Arusha last year were; Partner States denying entry of
tourist vehicles registered in other Partner States, harassment of driver guides at the border crossing into
another Partner State, disparities in fees charged, cross border cooperation in wildlife law enforcement,
cooperation and support in addressing multi-lateral environment agreements.
The Arusha meeting was scheduled to discuss these challenges and also deliberate on how to effectively
involve other sectors to improve and enhance cooperation in Tourism and Wildlife Management sectors
in line with Articles 115 and 116 of the Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community.
The latest move by Kenya is a clear sign that things have come to ahead and another set of talks is
urgently needed to thrash out the issue once and for all.
Rwanda-DRC Border Tense amid Deadly Riots, Congolese
flee in Massive
NewsofRwanda, January 22, 2015
The situation at the DR Congo-Rwanda border is tense as hundreds of Congolese began crossing
into Rwanda for their safety early Thursday morning.
Bukavu, a border town with Rwanda has been declared as a ‘dead city’ by civil society organisations
following Wednesday’s violent demonstrations which involved looting and vandalism.
Bukavu Mayor, Filemon Mulolo, insists, “Nothing big happened.” But reports say businesses are closed.
No open shop and a few people are seen walking on the streets, except the mobs.
As for Goma, another DRC town bordering with Rwanda’s Rubavu district, situation worsened
Thursday morning after three people were reportedly killed during an accelerating uprising.
Deadly protests have been ongoing for the past week in DR Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, following a
proposed bill to postpone next year’s presidential elections for three years.
President Joseph Kabila, whose second and last term ends next year. The bill, proposes conducting a
census before elections first.
A national wide demonstration has been characterized by angry mobs demanding the bill be thrown out
of parliament because it is a “plan to extend Kabila’s rule”.
Sylidio Sebuharara, KigaliToday corespondent in Rubavu says the riots in Goma this morning triggered
a massive panic as police swept on the streets shooting live bullets and tear gas.
He witnessed hundreds of Congolese, with bicycles, mats, and sacks, women carrying crying babies
fleeing into Rwanda.
Two students were and a motor-taxi rider were reported dead on spot, as hundreds squeezed themselves
throw a narrow boarder fighting to cross over into the Rwanda side.
Local authorities asked Rwandans living near the border to remain calm. Sheick Bahame Hassan,
Rubavu district mayor said, “We told them to do their business in Goma town, not beyond, because
going into the villages can expose them to unexpected repercussions.”
A similar message has been sent to Rusizi residents. However, the borders between two the countries
remain open.
Some Congolese have reportedly started seeking a temporary stay in Rwanda, as they wait for the
situation to stabilize.
Meanwhile, informal pathways across borders with DRC were all closed. Rwandans were advised to use
regular border posts for business.
Rubavu mayor said Rwandan security forces were alert in case violence triggered a spilling insecurity.
“We just remind our people that our army is firm to defend the country’s sovereignty in case someone
attempts to threaten it,” he said.
Central AFRICA
Thousands flee Cameroon border to escape Boko Haram
attacks
CBSNEWS, January 20, 2015
YAOUNDE, Cameroon - More than 10,000 panic-stricken Cameroonians are fleeing border regions
with Nigeria's Borno state for safer locations following attacks by Nigeria's Islamic militant group Boko
Haram, government officials said Tuesday.
Boko Haram has, in the past month, raided at least two dozen villages and towns in northern Cameroon.
The group also kidnapped dozens of people during an attack on Mabass village on Sunday.
The insurgents are looting food and livestock, and a humanitarian and food crisis looms, the minister of
territorial administration and decentralization Rene Emmanuel Sadi said Tuesday.
Students and teachers are among those who have fled their homes. More than 10 schools were deserted
after attacks Sunday, adding to the about 140 schools that have shut their doors because of the
insurgency bleeding over into Cameroon, said Cameroon's minister of education Monouna Fotso. The
government is trying to accommodate the affected students, Fotso said.
There is a moral obligation for safer schools to admit the children despite limited resources and space,
said Bernadette Appi, a teacher at a primary school in Maroua, where some children have been moved.
The attacks in Cameroon highlight the growing regional threat posed by Boko Haram. The militant
group seeks to impose Islamic Shariah law in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation with 170 million
people. The group has seized villages in an area stretching about 250 kilometers (155.35 miles) along
the border between Cameroon and Nigeria.
Boko Haram attacked Mabass village, in the Far North region of Cameroon, early Sunday and staged its
largest kidnapping yet in Cameroon, according to the government. The military said up to 60 people
were kidnapped, though about 30 eventually escaped.
Chadian troops began arriving in Cameroon on Sunday to support Cameroon's army in the fight against
the militants.
Neighboring countries increasingly are being drawn into Nigeria's five-year Islamic uprising, which has
killed thousands and driven 1.6 million people from their homes, including across borders into
Cameroon, Niger and Chad.
Boko Haram has been recruiting fighters in all three countries, officials said.
WEST AFRICA
Attack Near Ivorian Border That Killed 2 Draws Liberia
‘Concern’
Front Page Africa, 11 January 2015
Abidjan, Ivory Coast – The Liberian government says it is investigating new reports of fighting near its
border with neighboring Ivory Coast which reportedly led to the killing of two Ivorian soldiers.
Ivorian State media reported Saturday that two soldiers have been killed in a raid on military posts in the
southwest of the country. The Ivorian Press Agency said the attack began early Saturday morning in the
town of Grabo, near the border with Liberia. The soldiers were killed in the village of Dahioke, 20
kilometers (12miles) outside the town.
On Sunday, the Liberian government’s chief spokesman Information Minister Lewis Brown said the
reports have drawn Liberia’s concern: “The Government of Liberia is concerned about news reports of
recent attacks in border towns and villages of Cote D’Ivoire. Consistent with the policies of good
neighborliness and a commitment to regional peace and security, the relevant Liberian security agencies
are seriously investigating these reports as well as engaging their counterparts in Abidjan,” Brown said
in a statement Sunday
The Minister added that the Liberian government is fully committed to work with and support the
Ivorian authorities and international partners in strengthening border security, regional peace and
stability, as well as raid our countries of the mutually destabilizing activities of non-state actors.”
Western Ivory Coast was hit hard during Ivory Coast's 2010-11 post election violence, which erupted
after former President Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede defeat to his successor, Alassane Ouattara.
Pro-Gbagbo fighters fled along with civilians into neighboring Liberia, and raids targeting the new army
have occurred sporadically ever since. One raid in June 2012 killed seven U.N. Peacekeepers and at
least 10 civilians.
Last February, just a year after the two countries agreed to reopen their respective borders, a similar
attack killed four Ivorian soldiers and several attackers were after suspected gunmen from Liberia raided
a border town in Liberia. Gunmen from Liberia have carried out several assaults on towns near the
border in recent years, which the government and the United Nations have blamed on allies of former
President Laurent Gbagbo.
The border was shut down in 2012 for several months due to an attack in June 2012 but was partially
reopened, but only in Maryland County in the far southeast, making it possible to cross into the Ivory
Coast between Saniquellie (past Ganta) and Man.
Union du fleuve Mano:
r la sécurité transfrontalière
réunion
d`
échanges
su
Abidjan.net, 13 janvier 2015
Le Ministère de l’Intégration Africaine et des Ivoiriens de l’Extérieur ( MIAIE) a organisé le mardi 13
janvier, à son siège, une réunion de dialogue politique sur la violence et la sécurité transfrontalières au
sein de l’Union du Fleuve Mano (UFM), en collaboration avec le WANEP-Côte d’Ivoire (Réseau d
’édificationde la paix) et Conciliation Resources.
L’objectif général de cette rencontre d’échanges a été de contribuer à l’amélioration de la politique, de la
pratique de la paix et de la sécurité au niveau de la frontière ivoiro-libérienne.
Au cours de la cérémonie d’ouverture de cette réunion de dialogue politique sur la violence et la sécurité
transfrontalières, la Directrice de Cabinet Adjoint, Mme Yolande Tanoh a au nom du ministre de tutelle,
souhaité la cordiale bienvenue à tous les participants avant de planter le décor de cet atelier.
« L’Union du Fleuve Mano River est un exemple pilote pour tout ce qui touche la violence et la sécurité
transfrontalière. Les solutions qui seront apportées pourront servir d’exemple pour tous les problèmes
transfrontaliers, parce que le véritable problème demeure la coopération transfrontalière » a déclaré
Mme Yolande Tanoh.
L’occasion a été également donnée aux représentants de l’UFM, WANEP-Côte d’Ivoire, Conciliation
Resources d’intervenir autour de la nécessité de régler la question de la paix et la sécurité
transfrontalière. La perspective d’un état de veille stratégique a été dégagée à l’approche des élections
présidentielles et face à la propagation de la fièvre hémorragique à virus Ebola.
Notons que cette rencontre au sujet de la paix et la sécurité transfrontalière va s’appuyer sur deux (02)
rapports d’études menées par Conciliation Resources
La première en 2014 en collaboration avec l’université IDS-Sussex en Grande Bretagne a porté sur
l’analyse des réponses de politiques aux tensions transfrontalières ivoiro-libériennes.
La seconde également en 2014, en collaboration avec l’Insitut de recherche et de développement
démocratique du Libéria (IREDD-Libéria) et le Wanep-CI, auprès des groupes communautaires, des
officiels de la sécurité (douane, immigration, police), des fonctionnaires et des Forces armées
(gendarmerie, FRCI, etc…) dans quatre localités situées à la frontalière ivoiro-libérienne (DananéLogatou et Touepleu-Toetown).
More security scanner along Nigeria’s borders to detect
terror financiers
StarAfrica, January 13, 2015
Inter-Governmental Action against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA) is to install more
scanning machines along Nigeria’s borders to detect financiers of terrorist activities.GIABA is a
specialised institution of ECOWAS that facilitates the adoption and implementation of Anti-Money
Laundering (AML) and Counter-Financing of Terrorism (CFT) in West Africa.
Mr. Timothy Melaye, GIABA’s Information Manager, said in Lagos on Tuesday that the move was to
strengthen the organisations effort at monitoring and tracking terrorism financing.
“So far, GIABA will say that there is reduction in the volume of money laundering and terrorism
financing taking place in Nigeria and other ECOWAS states, but we are not there yet” he explained.
He said GIABA’s aim is to ensure that Nigeria and other ECOWAS countries are rid of money
laundering and financing of terrorists activities for good.
“GIABA, therefore, will in 2015 be working with ECOWAS member states to install more scanning
machines in Nigerian borders,” he said.
The installation of the equipment, he said, would make it much easier for law enforcement agencies to
detect illegal movement of cash from and into Nigeria.
Senegal reopens border with Ebola-hit Guinea
World Bulletin, 26 January 2015
Senegal had closed its border with Guinea in August 2014 to prevent the spread of
the disease.
Senegalese authorities on Monday reopened their country's border with Guinea five months after it was
closed due to fears of the deadly Ebola virus, a Senegalese official has said.
Senegalese Interior Minister Abdoulaye Daouda Diallo said the decision was taken following a series of
meetings with Guinean officials during which they briefed their Senegalese counterparts on measures
taken to curb the virus.
Diallo noted, however, that security considerations were not absent from the decision to reopen the
border.
"This is why a security body will be formed at border crossing points to prevent the spread of Ebola," he
said in a statement.
Senegal closed its border with Guinea on Aug. 21 of 2014 in a move aimed at preventing Ebola from
seeping into the country.
Some three months later, it reopened its land and air borders with its next-door neighbor.
More than 20,000 people have contracted Ebola in the three hardest-hit West African countries, namely
Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
As of last December, some 8,000 people had succumbed to the virus in these three countries, according
to the World Health Organization.
Ebola, formerly known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, is a severe – often fatal – illness in humans.
The virus can be transmitted to people from wild animals, but can also spread via human-to-human
transmission.
Liberia: UN urges Ebola surveillance along border
StarAfrica, January 27, 2015
Representatives of the governments of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire are meeting in
Freetown to agree on methods to control and prevent disease outbreaks along their common border
areas.The meeting which opened on Monday, is continuing into Tuesday under the umbrella of the
Mano River Union, a sub-regional political grouping comprising the four countries,
The United Nations supports the initiative, according to Amadu Kamara, Crisis Manager for the UN
Mission Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) in Sierra Leone.
In a statement released in Monrovia on Tuesday Kamara was quoted as saying to the gathering that
included Ebola Response administrators, medical officers, technical and operational planning experts
from all four countries that Ebola could not be defeated without “addressing its regional dimensions.”
The virus should be seen as “one epidemic with many fronts,” he said.
According to an UNMEER press statement, the gathering dubbed the “Sub-regional Ebola Technical
Meeting on Border Surveillance and Disease Control,” participants hope to formulate guidelines that
will regulate how patients, corpses and laboratory samples are transferred across borders.
Such guidelines will also focus on cross-border surveillance conduct and contact tracing.
There is a UN mandate to support “efforts to rationalize resources, provide the strategic framework for a
regional approach, as well as to ensure that our borders do not make it easy for the disease to escape,”
stressed Kamara.
He said: “We have moved from a phase where we were being hounded and hunted to a stage where we
are now hunting Ebola.”
Recent figures by the World Health Organization show that transmission rates are declining in all three
countries.
‘Time for integrated border management in WA’
Ghanaweb, 27 January 2015
The Director General of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS), Commissioner of Police (COP) Dr Peter
Wiredu, has called for an integrated management of national borders in West Africa in view of the
emerging trend of terrorist attacks in the sub-region.
He said access to and the movement of sophisticated arms across borders in the sub-region by terrorist
groups raised concerns which needed effective and integrated border management to tackle.
Some West African states are currently being threatened by terrorist groups.
Recently, a terrorist group in Nigeria, Boko Haram, abducted 80 people from Cameroun, many of whom
were said to be children.
Training programme
Dr Wiredu made the call in a speech read on his behalf at the opening session of a training programme
for Immigration officers and Customs officials drawn from West Africa in Accra yesterday.
The four-day programme, on the theme: “Promoting safer migration, security and integration”, was
organised by the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy (LECIAD), under the
ECOWAS–Spain Migration Project.
The ECOWAS–Spain Migration Project was launched in 2014 to equip officials with knowledge on
regional and international legal and policy frameworks to promote safer migration.
Need for collaboration
Citing the Boko Haram group in Nigeria to buttress his suggestion, Dr Wiredu said the group’s activities
were a threat to the stability of the whole sub-region, hence the need for collective measures to deal with
terrorism in the region.
He said it had become necessary to build the capacity of Immigration and Customs officials to enable
them to better appreciate the issues involved in terrorism and migration in order to handle them.
For his part, a Deputy Director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Mr
Bonaventure Adjavor, said it had become necessary to promote greater inter-sectoral collaboration
among member states of the ECOWAS.
He, therefore, called on ECOWAS to create the necessary structures for integration, indicating that the
situation called for action and not for the sub-regional group to only spearhead the call for integration.
Highlighting the essence of the training programme, the acting Director of LECIAD, Dr Boni Yao Gebe,
said the project was in recognition of the challenges associated with intra-regional migration and the
increase in illegal migration to Europe.
Despite the existence of a number of legal and policy frameworks that guaranteed safer migration, he
said, there was still a general lack of awareness of the instruments among officials, as well as weak
dissemination of information on migration.
He said the project would help train officials to handle various categories of migrants and also develop a
web portal to promote the various legal instruments on migration.
Délimitation, démarcation et bornage de la frontière: Le
Sénégal et le Mali se mettent aux normes
Malijet, 05 Février 2015
L’Union africaine a lancé l’invite, le Sénégal et le Mali ont répondu à travers la ratification du traité sur
la délimitation, la démarcation et le bornage de leurs frontières. Il s’agit de se sécuriser davantage.
Sécuriser les frontières pour prévenir les conflits et mieux faire face à la criminalité transfrontalière et
autres trafics. Entre le Sénégal et le Mali, l’ambition est en bonne voie. Hier, les députés ont voté à
l’unanimité le projet de loi numéro 25/2014 autorisant le président de la République à ratifier le traité
sur la délimitation, la démarcation et le bornage de la frontière entre le Sénégal et le Mali signé le 22
mai 2014 à Bamako. Selon le ministre sénégalais des Affaires Etrangères, ‘’ce projet de loi s’inscrit dans
le cadre de la mise en œuvre des directives du Programme frontière de l’Union africaine adopté le 7 juin
2007 à Addis Abeba et invitant l’ensemble des pays du continent à procéder, au plus tard en 2017, à la
délimitation, à la démarcation et au bornage de leurs frontières’’
Ce traité qui est le fruit de plusieurs mois de négociations, s’inspire, selon Mankeur Ndiaye, du principe
de l’intangibilité des frontières héritées de la colonisation. Il fixe de manière précise les coordonnées de
la frontière entre les deux pays (délimitation), prévoit l’implantation de bornes frontières en béton armé
(bornage), et promeut la coopération transfrontalière entre les peuples maliens et sénégalais. Le ministre
d’expliquer que des ‘’cartes officielles mutuellement convenues ont permis le tracé de la frontière entre
les deux pays d’une longueur de 480 km environ’’. Ainsi, les deux parties s’engagent à matérialiser ce
tracé frontalier par l’implantation de bornes en béton armé sur le terrain.
De la sécurisation des frontières des autres pays limitrophes
Les travaux de bornage seront supervisés par une commission technique mixte paritaire de
matérialisation de la frontière entre les deux pays, souligne l’article 5 du traité. ‘’Le Sénégal a mis sur
place une commission nationale de gestion des frontières composées d’agents de plusieurs ministères
impliqués. L’Assemblée nationale est aussi représentée dans cette commission qui travaille avec une
autre commission du genre au Mali’’, a informé Mankeur Ndiaye.
Selon le ministre, le coût des travaux d’abornement et de l’entretien des bornes sera supporté, de
manière équitable, par les deux parties. ‘’Dans le contexte actuel où les pays font face à la criminalité
transfrontalière et au trafic de tout genre, sécuriser les frontières est une grande nécessité’’, a déclaré le
député Samba Diouldé Thiam. Dans la foulée, le ministre des Affaires Etrangères a souligné que la
prochaine étape consistera à sécuriser les frontières du Sénégal avec les pays voisins de la GuinéeBissau, du Cap-Vert et de la Gambie. En ce qui concerne ce dernier pays, une commission sénégalogambienne pour la délimitation des frontières a été mise sur pied depuis 2011.
Cross-cutting Border Issues
Boko Haram crisis: African Union to discuss multinational
force
BBC News, 16 January 2015
Ghana's President John Mahama has said he and other African leaders will discuss plans next week to
"deal permanently" with Boko Haram militants.
He said he wanted African Union (AU) countries to produce a "specific plan of action" for tackling the
Nigeria-based Islamist group collectively.
"This has to end. We have to make this terror end," he said.
Boko Haram has seized control of many towns and villages in north-east Nigeria in a six-year
insurgency.
It has also begun threatening Nigeria's neighbours and earlier this week launched a raid on a military
base in northern Cameroon.
Cameroon fight
Mr Mahama said: "We must find a way to act together to share information, to synchronise our
strategies, to pool our resources in order to rid the entire African continent of terrorism.
"We cannot stand by silently, idly waiting for the international community to intervene on our behalf."
He said the crisis over Boko Haram was "increasingly getting to the point where probably a regional or a
multinational force is coming into consideration".
Earlier, Cameroon said Chad was sending a large contingent of troops to help it fight incursions by Boko
Haram.
It came three days after Cameroon said it had killed 143 Boko Haram militants who had attacked one of
its army bases at Kolofata near the Nigerian border.
It was the first major attack on Cameroon since Boko Haram threatened the country's leader in a video
posted online earlier this month.
World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2015
Open Borders: Unavoidable or Unnecessary?
World Economic Forum, January 22, 2015
Globalization has been a growing force since the Industrial Revolution, removing barriers to the
movement of goods, capital and people. Yet today, the movement of people is hindered by mounting
fears of terrorism, migration and geopolitical instability. Are open borders a real threat?
-Why do we block the free movement of people?
- What would be the consequences of open borders?
Speakers: Antonio Guterres, Peter Limbourg, Thomas Maizière, Arne Sorenson, Simonetta Sommaruga
Topics: Open Forum
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