African Leaders Weigh In On Protests in the US

Officials on the continent have expressed concern over developments in the U.S. following the death of George Floyd, the black American man killed in police custody in the city of Minneapolis last week. The head of the African Union described Floyd’s death as an act of “murder,” while South Africa’s ruling party is calling for calm in the U.S. Statements from the African continent could portend a shift in global relations — and hopefully, analysts say, make a bigger point: whether you live in Minneapolis or Monrovia, George Floyd’s death affects us all. In Addis Ababa, African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat took the U.S. government to task over the death of Floyd. Going a step further, the former Chadian prime minister used a powerful word that many protesters are using to describe Floyd’s death: Murder. Meanwhile, U.S. embassies in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo issued rare statements of concern over Floyd’s May 25 death and called for accountability after the arrest of a police officer on third-degree murder and manslaughter charges. Why? Because, in the words of Carine Kaneza Nantulya, Human Rights Watch’s Africa advocacy director, George Floyd is all of us. 

SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES