News has reached us that Joseph Eneko, Governor of Ituri in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and member of the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Democratie/Kisangani (RCD/Kisangani) was murdered on November 21, 2002. This murder is not just one more name in a long list of those lost in the mini-world war that has been gripping central Africa. The peace and reconciliation efforts in the DRC are seriously undermined by such assassinations, potentially plunging that country further into a cycle of endless death squads, retaliations and full-scale war. Facilitating the resolution of the civil war in the DRC must become a major focus of the attention of the newly formed African Union. The full array of diplomatic initiatives will be necessary in order to bring about not only a cessation of violence, but a just resolution of the demands for democracy and popular control on the part of the people of the Congo. Attempts at continental development and an African Renaissance will go nowhere as long as the open sores represented by the crises of the DRC as well as other hotspots such as Zimbabwe, go unhealed. It is critical that supporters of peace and justice for the DRC speak out against terror as represented by the murder of Governor Eneko. We in the Diaspora cannot afford to turn a blind eye to such events.

Following a recent oil spill in the Niger Delta, send protest letters to Shell in Nigeria demanding:
1. immediate and full clean-up of the spill;
2. relief materials to the community to cushion the economic effects of
the spill;
3. adequate compensation to the local people whose environment and means
of livelihood have been destroyed by the spill.
ADDRESS:
SPDC Nig. Ltd
Freeman House
21/22 Marina, P.M.B. 2418
Lagos, Nigeria
Tel: 23412601600-19
Fax: 23412636681
[email][email protected] and [email][email protected]

Zackie Achmat is not hungry, but tucks into the chocolate cake just the same. Achmat is HIV positive, yet refuses to take the antiretroviral drugs that could prolong his life. But he does boost his immune system with protein -- with chocolate cake. Achmat is not a shanty dweller unable to afford the drugs; he is not a so-called "Aids dissident" who believes the drugs are poison; he is not mad, and he is not suicidal. Zackie Achmat, according to Nelson Mandela, is a national hero: an ordinary man whose extraordinary resolve could help save thousands of African lives, at the cost of his own.