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African press review 1 November 2016

Rwanda lists senior French army officers it claims aided the planning and execution of the 1994 genocide. US President Barak Obama extends sanctions against Sudan for another year. Ban Ki-moon asks the UN Security Council to decide what to do with the several hundred South Sudanese opposition fighters who are currently taking refuge in the DRC.

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Rwanda has released the names of 22 senior French army officers it says knowingly aided the planning and execution of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis.

The East African regional paper says the list released by the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide is likely to further envenom the row between Kigali and Paris, in the wake of the reopening of investigations by France into the shooting down of a plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana.

The move to revive the probe has angered Rwanda, which has threatened to sever diplomatic ties with Paris.

According to the report released yesterday, General Jacques Lanxade, who was the army chief of staff and General Christian Quesnot, the special chief of staff representing President Mitterrand, failed to act on intelligence they received concerning the genocide.

The two, along with 20 other senior French soldiers, are accused of providing equipment, logistical and personnel support for the training and development of the Rwandan army, despite clear evidence of massacres carried out by troops as part of a discriminatory and genocidal policy.

Rwanda and France continue to trade accusations over the events which led up to the genocide, with Kigali maintaining that the French, who were the main allies of Habyarimana's government, abetted the killings.

Inflation up in Kenya, slightly down in Uganda

Also in the East African, news that inflation in Kenya hit an eight-month high of 6.47 percent in October on higher food and petrol prices.

In Uganda inflation was slightly lower at 4.1 percent year-on-year in October, according to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, mainly due to a slowdown in food prices.

Obama renews sanctions against Sudan

US President Barak Obama yesterday extended sanctions against Sudan for another year, saying Khartoum's actions and policies continue to pose a threat to national security.

The story is at the top of the front page of today's Sudan Tribune.

In September the State Department welcomed Sudanese government efforts to combat terrorism and its increased cooperation with Washington.

Despite this, Obama yesterday renewed US sanctions imposed in 1997, restricting US trade and investment and blocking assets of the Sudanese government. Yesterday's executive order includes additional sanctions in relation to the conflict in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.

Machar supporters lost in the DRC

United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon has asked for intervention of the UN Security Council to decide what to do with the several hundred South Sudanese opposition fighters who are currently taking refuge in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

There are more than 750 soldiers of the armed opposition faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army loyal to former First Vice-President Riek Machar, who accompanied their leader into the DRC following fighting against government forces in Juba in July. The men were left behind when their leader was moved to Sudan for medical treatment.

Early last month the Congolese government told the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC that the fighters should leave within a week.

The UN has been trying to broker an agreement between DRC and South Sudan on the repatriation of the fighters or their relocation to a third country until a political deal is in place.

New call for an end to the rule of Salva Kiir

Also in the Sudan Tribune, a report that a newly emerged rebel faction in South Sudan has called for the removal of President Salva Kiir from power by any means.

The group, calling itself the South Sudan Democratic Front, called for the removal of what it described as the "failed and illegitimate regime of the SPLM/SPLA Party through peaceful means, armed struggle or both”.

The movement is based in the Equatoria region.

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