Malawi is a poor country: close to 65 percent of the rural population live on less than US$ 0.60 per day and 48 percent of children are malnourished. The first Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF) aimed to reduce such high poverty levels. It was introduced at a time when the country was transitioning politically to multi-party system. A review shows that despite the difficulties of this period, the social fund performed well.

An alleged ex-convict known only as "Maranda" may have been responsible for the rape of five-year-old Peris Akoth at the beginning of this year, in Kenya. Then again, he may not. However, the case has already become a rallying point for anti-rape campaigners who claim that abuses such as the one visited on Peris would be less likely to occur if Kenya had adequate legislation on the books. While a person found guilty of rape may end up with life imprisonment, there is no minimum sentence for the crime -- something activists are intent on changing.

The world of climate change science and policy has been rocked by the discovery that plants produce up to one-third of the second most important greenhouse gas. The findings are published in Nature today (12 January) by a team led by Frank Keppler from the Max-Planck Institute in Germany. Until now, researchers thought that most methane was produced by bacteria in environments lacking oxygen, such as the digestive system of cows and Asia's flooded rice fields. But Keppler's team says plants worldwide produce millions of tonnes of the gas each year, with the greatest share coming from the tropics, reports SciDev.

Violence against women plays a crucial and devastating role in increasing the risk to women of HIV infection. It is both a cause and a consequence of infection, and as such is a driving force behind the epidemic. The circumstances underlying the correlation between violence against women and HIV and AIDS are a complex weave of social, cultural, and biological conditions.

Countries that have committed grave human rights abuses should not have a seat on a new Human Rights Council as that would undermine the UN's credibility, US Ambassador John Bolton said Wednesday (January 11). South African envoy Dumisani Kumalo said he was optimistic and noted "there is beginning to be movement" on the size and selection process for the council.

In an important milestone, the UN refugee agency on Thursday (January 12) signed the first of seven expected tripartite agreements that will clear the way for up to 70,000 refugees to return to South Sudan in the first half of this year. The agreement was signed in the Kenyan capital between the governments of Sudan, Kenya and UNHCR – exactly one year and three days after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended 21 years of north-south civil war in Sudan was also signed in Nairobi.

“Improving the Quality of Literacy Learning in the Content Areas: Situational Analysis of Secondary Level Education in Botswana” underscores the importance of continuous literacy development in order to maximize secondary school students’ learning opportunities. The study sheds light on the critical issue of transitional challenges between primary and secondary levels of education. It argues that solid competencies in literacy are required for a truly participatory and student-centred approach to learning at the secondary level.

A Burundian human rights group has criticised the provisional release of 673 prisoners involved in the 1993 killing of the country's first democratically elected president and the ethnic reprisals it triggered. Human rights watchdog Ligue Iteka said the authorities' decision this week to free hundreds of detainees charged with political assassination, murder and breaching state security undermined Burundi's reconciliation efforts.

Elephants in Kenyan national parks and reserves are leaving their drought-stricken sanctuaries to search for water and food near human settlements, where they have attacked starving people trying to protect their crops. UN agencies have warned of hunger across the region because of drought and say the situation in eastern Kenya is particularly serious. People reportedly have died of hunger during what officials say is the country's worst drought in 22 years.

Delayed rains have resulted in power shortages across east Africa as falling water levels prompt hydro plant operators to curtail generation or even consider shutting plants down. An electricity shortage has gripped Tanzania due to water levels at the Mtera dam falls. With a minimum full capacity operating level of 690m, the level has reportedly dropped to 688.4m recently, leaving the 80MW facility generating as little as 34MW. The lowest possible level permitted by the Ministry of Energy and Minerals is 688m, according to the Water Power Magazine.

The Digital Education Enhancement Project (DEEP) is exploring how information and communications technologies (ICTs) can improve the quality of teacher education and learning. Research looks at primary schools in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province and in Cairo, Egypt.

Refurbishing used and second hand computers is one means among many for African schools to gain access to affordable ICTs. However, addressing Africa's digital divide is not simply a matter of shipping unwanted computers from the developed world. Not every second-hand computer is suitable for re-use. By sending unusable personal computers (PCs) to Africa, the developed world is dumping on to Africa the environmental challenge of disposing of the toxic substances in PCs.

The government of Zimbabwe is reportedly reviewing the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), in the wake of intense criticism and condemnation of Zimbabwe's dented human rights record and suppression of freedom of expression, according to an alert from the Media Institute of Southern Africa. This comes hard on the heels of a damning report by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR), which expressed concern over the suppression of fundamental rights and liberties through laws such as AIPPA, the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA).

On the first anniversary of cyber-dissident Abdel Razak Al Mansouri's arrest, Reporters Without Borders has reiterated its call for the immediate release of this former bookseller, who is serving an 18-month prison sentence for posting articles critical of President Muammar Gaddafi on the Internet. "Al Mansouri has become the symbol of the fight for free expression in Libya," the organisation said. "By using the Internet to publish independent news and information, he opened a path which many other Internet users are bound to follow."

This publication focusing on the key lessons from the Support to the International Partnership against AIDS in Africa (SIPAA) programme implemented between 2001 and 2005 in nine African countries, could not have come out at a better time. Though it is not an evaluation report, it tells the story of good practice from which readers will learn much about the programme. On the African continent there are numerous interventions and innovative methods being applied. Unfortunately many of these activities are barely documented, giving the impression that nothing significant is taking place.

Peter Busse, one of the first South Africans to openly declare his HIV status, died on Friday. Health-e News Service spoke to a few people whose lives Busse touched in many different ways. When 34-year-old mother of three Vicki Bam stood up at an International Women’s Day meeting in 2004, she had been living with the disease for two years. Her speech was testimony to the lives Peter Busse had touched and in the case of Bam – saved. “The first three months after I was diagnosed was a living hell. I even thought of committing suicide. But at that time I met someone who made a positive impact on my life. His name is Peter Busse who had been living with HIV/Aids positively for the past 17 years and he made me realize that being HIV positive is not a death sentence,” Bam told the gathering.

The Southern African NGO Network (SANGONeT) is pleased to announce the first ever South African NGO Web Awards. In recent years a growing number of South African NGOs have invested in ICT skills and infrastructure, including their own dedicated websites. This is a very encouraging trend and one which will hopefully continue to grow in future. This competition aims to raise awareness amongst South African NGOs about the benefits of having a web presence, stimulate interest in the application of web solutions and applications, and showcase best practices in website creation and maintenance.

Web users searching for South Africa's newest search engine Jonga on Google are more likely to find an Indian army 4x4, a South African tour company or the genealogy of a German whose name is "Jonga". That is if they find it at all. The search engine was dropped from the Google index "in its entirety" last week, according to owner of Jonga, Alistair Carruthers. Carruthers says he has "no idea whatsoever" why Jonga is no longer indexed by the world's biggest search engine.

What lessons did the international community learn from the Genocide in Rwanda ten years ago, especially in relation to the crisis in Darfur? Gerald Caplan, an expert on the Rwandan genocide, charts the response of the international community in Rwanda and then discusses what the response has been in Darfur. Once again, the international community, with key players only able to serve their various economic and strategic interests, have shown a scandalous disregard for human life and failed to act and prevent genocide.

(See French version below)

Even before the 1994 Rwandan genocide ended, some began wondering when "the next Rwanda" would be. Not "if", but when. Despite Indonesia in 1965, Burundi in 1972 and Cambodia from 1975 to 1978, genocide had receded in the public consciousness. From the late 1960s, it's true, memory of the Holocaust was in full bloom. But the Holocaust was treated as almost a self-contained phenomenon separate from "ordinary" genocide. The earlier Armenian genocide was mainly the crusade of Armenians, the Hereros' extermination was unknown beyond a few experts. As for the post-Holocaust massacres of half-a-million Chinese and Communists in Indonesia, the slaughter by the Tutsi army of perhaps 200,000 Hutu in Burundi, including all those with secondary education, and the deaths by beating, starving or torture by the Khmer Rouge of a million and a half Cambodians, none quite seemed to meet the standards set down in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (UNCG).

Rwanda was different. Rwanda was a classic UNCG genocide, fulfilling all the conditions, and it reminded the world that a half century after the world first vowed "Never again," genocide had not disappeared. What Primo Levi had said of the Holocaust was now said about Rwanda: It happened, so it will happen again. For some, it happened soon enough. For them, Srebrenica in 1995 seemed "another Rwanda", and indeed, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia eventually decided that the murder of 8000 Muslim Bosnian males by Bosnian Serb militias was indeed genocide. But this has been a controversial issue. Cold-bloodedly murdering 8000 Muslim Bosnians was beyond question an egregious war crime, even a crime against humanity, but, some wondered, how could it belong in the same category as killing 1 ½ million Armenians or six million Jews?

Rwanda, however, left no room for ambiguity. Ironically, the seeming absence of genocide since 1945 had made most observers refuse to take seriously in advance that an actual genocidal conspiracy was being hatched in Rwanda before 1994. Once it was over, it seemed all but inevitable that others could, would, follow. For many, early in the new millennium, Darfur seemed well on its way to becoming "the next Rwanda". The urgent question then emerged: Had Rwanda taught the world any lessons that might help prevent Darfur from following in its place?

Three lessons from Rwanda

Assuming of course that there really are any lessons at all that the past can teach the future, it is possible to isolate three from the unmitigated catastrophe of Rwanda in 1994. Of these, the first and most obvious is profoundly disheartening to all those who favor intervention in crises where no interests beyond the humanitarian are at stake. The second and third are apparently, or potentially, encouraging. To seek a ray of hope out of a genocide borders on the desperate, but in the curious universe of those who study genocides in order to prevent them, what else is there to hold on to?

The horror of the Rwandan genocide extends beyond its intrinsic bestiality. What's also notable is, first, how swiftly it became evident that this was a perfect storm of a genocide, and, second, how easily it could have been prevented. (Before addressing the betrayal of Rwanda by the "international community", genocide prevention activists must not forget that it could have been prevented most successfully if the Hutu conspirators who plotted to "cleanse" Rwanda of its Tutsi citizens had simply called off their plot.) Yet the genocide was not formally named as such by the vast majority of governments and institutions, including the United Nations and Organization of African Unity, until the 100 days of slaughter had virtually come to an end. Moreover, not only was the genocide not prevented, it was not even marginally mitigated. From the first day to the last, not a single reinforcement arrived in Rwanda to bolster the puny UN force of 400 that was trying desperately to save the relatively few Tutsi that it could.

Thus, the first lesson from Rwanda: the harsh unwelcome reminder - as if the world needed another - that the global powers-that-be are capable of almost infinite callousness and indifference to human suffering if geopolitical or political interests were not at stake. Calls for forceful intervention bases strictly on humanitarian grounds, as we have learned the hard way once again in Darfur, are simply irrelevant to those with the means to intervene.

Here I refer essentially to the Security Council, and within that body to the remarkably powerful five Permanent Members (P5) who alone hold a veto over all its resolutions. Since UN missions can only be authorized by the Security Council, and since any one of the P5 can veto any resolution, the leverage of the US, Britain, France, Russia and China can hardly be exaggerated. Those who have begged for a more assertive response in both Rwanda and Darfur understand the immutability of this phenomenon.

Often, middle powers are looked to as a means to exert pressure on the inner sanctum of the P5. Canada, northern Europe and the Scandinavian countries are all seen, sometimes naively, as being less in the thrall of self-interest and more open to humanitarian projects. In trying to leverage action for Darfur, activists placed considerable hope on these countries. The role of Belgium in 1994 shows both the leverage that a middle power can play and the perverse use it can make of that leverage.

For 110 years prior to the Rwandan genocide, no external power played a more deplorable role in Africa than Belgium - a tiny country responsible for giant crimes against humanity. Its impact on the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi was catastrophic. The turbulent history of the entire Great Lakes region in the 20th century would have been profoundly different if it had not been for Belgian colonial rule. Now, just as the genocide was exploding across Rwanda, the Belgian government sought to bring pressure on the Security Council to withdraw in its entirety its 6-month old UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR). Ten of Belgium's UN troops had been murdered by Rwandan government soldiers less than a day after the genocide was triggered by the shooting down of the Rwandan president's plane. The Belgian government decided it was politically impossible for its troops to remain in Rwanda. Their withdrawal very substantially undermined UNAMIR's capacity, and its lethal consequences are not merely theoretical. It immediately and directly led to the death of some 2500 Rwandans being protected by Belgian troops at the Ecole Technique Officielle (ETO) school compound in the capital, Kigali. At least the Belgian government had the good sense to feel humiliated by the decision to abandon Rwanda at its moment of greatest need, and sought to cover its guilt by convincing the entire world to share its culpability.

To the everlasting sorrow of Rwanda, the Belgians found the Administration of US President Bill Clinton ready and willing. Largely for their own entirely short-term partisan reasons, with pathological UN-hating Republicans breathing down their necks, the Clintonites were unprepared to have anything whatever to do with sending a new UN mission to a tiny African country which, as is invariably said, almost no American could even find on a map. Among the P5, France was the only country genuinely concerned about Rwanda for its own perverse reasons of francophone solidarity, and it was stealthily seeking a way to intervene on behalf of the Hutu extremist genocidaire government. It was left to the US Ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright, to lead a vigorous movement in the Security Council to literally decimate UNAMIR's 2500-odd force. Britain, for reasons British journalist-historian Linda Melvern is still trying to unravel, fell in solidly behind the Americans. Russia and China were largely uninterested, a situation that would change significantly in the case of Darfur. At the end of the genocide's second week, with an estimated 100,000 or more Tutsi and almost all prominent moderate Hutu already dead, and the genocide gaining daily momentum, the Security Council voted to reduce the UNAMIR mission to 250 men. Force Commander Romeo Dallaire, furious and sick at heart, disobeyed this explicit instruction and managed to retain 400 men for the duration of the genocide.

Even now, it is impossible to recapitulate these events without feeling they cannot possibly be true. But as virtually all authorities on the subject agree, and as the Security Council's reaction to Darfur a decade later make entirely plausible, they were only too true, and their lesson was clear. There seemed barely any depths to which the "international community" would not sink if it deemed them necessary to its own national interests, even if that interest was nothing more nor less than, in Belgium's case, covering up a cowardly abandonment of a people at ultimate risk, or for the US, winning an impending election. Political expediency was all, and human need seemed completely irrelevant.

However, two other lessons of the international reaction, distressing as they were at the time, seemed to offer a certain hope for intervention in future crises. First were the lies told by both US President Bill Clinton and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in later apologizing for their inaction during the 100 days. Both claimed that they were insufficiently aware of the situation at the time. These claims, on the part of both men, have been repudiated beyond a shadow of a doubt. They knew everything, or at least everything they wanted to know. Nevertheless, their very disingenuousness permitted the inference that the next time "another Rwanda" loomed, if it could attain a sufficiently high public profile, the Security Council would have lost the excuse of ignorance and have little alternative but to intervene. This apparent truth initially gave heart to the movement to intervene in Darfur.

Second, as already noted, almost no one in an official position at the time agreed to characterize Rwanda as a genocide and, led again by the Clinton administration, actually denied that a genocide was in fact in progress. This refusal to affirm the obvious was again tied directly to the Clintonites' electoral fears. Government lawyers studying the 1948 Genocide Convention appear to have decided that accepting the genocide label would trigger a major obligation on the administration to intervene actively. That such an interpretation was highly debatable is neither here nor there. It was perfectly possible to argue that a mere Security Council resolution satisfied the wording of the UNCG. But Clinton's advisors chose not to adopt this reading. Their judgment powerfully affected Clinton's public stance.

Television captured a moment of true self-debasement when a US State Department spokesperson, a certain Christine Shelly, tried to explain to reporters that Rwanda was the scene of "acts of genocide" but not of genocide. When pushed to indicate how many "acts of genocide" constitute one full genocide, Ms. Shelly, obviously humiliated beyond words, explained that she wasn't authorized to deal with that question. (To her everlasting chagrin, several documentaries on the genocide include footage of her disastrous performance, unforgivingly immortalizing her forever.) The difference between this pathetic moment and subsequent American reactions to Darfur under President Bush could hardly have been more glaring.

And indeed, Clinton's position that there was no full-blown genocide in Rwanda unwittingly provided the glimmer of hope out of an act of unsurpassed political opportunism. If Rwanda was "not quite" a genocide, and therefore intervention was not obligatory, it surely followed logically that if a genocide were declared in future, would it not mean that intervention was mandatory, inescapable? That logic, combined with the prospect that if a disaster was well-enough publicized, the world would have little choice but to move in, offered some real hope that the "next Rwanda" would not be betrayed and abandoned as the original Rwanda had been.

The next Rwanda

Then came Darfur. Less than a decade after Hutu Power was defeated, the world had found its "next Rwanda". It is irrelevant to my argument that serious genocide authorities disagree about whether the conflict is a genocide or not. All agree that it had many of the dimensions of a genocide, that it is an appalling catastrophe, and that robust intervention is demanded. As we know, no such intervention has occurred, and as this is written early in 2006, the situation seems to have deteriorated substantially and become even more complex - the almost inevitable consequence of the world's meagre response to date. From the point of view of the hopes raised by two of the optimistic lessons from Rwanda, the response of the "international community" to the crisis in Darfur can only be considered a giant, tragic set-back. It is not too much to say that Darfur shows that only the first despairing lesson - the bottomless cynicism and self-interest of the major powers - -remains valid, while the hopes have been largely destroyed.

After all, by the middle of 2004, at the very latest, everyone who counts knew that an overwhelming political and humanitarian man-made disaster had befallen western Sudan. On April 7, when he rightly should have been in Kigali for the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, Kofi Annan was instead in Geneva unveiling a new five-point plan for genocide prevention and announcing that the world must not permit Darfur to become "another Rwanda". Everyone who counts soon either visited Khartoum to plead with the Government of Sudan that was orchestrating the crisis, or popped in at a displaced persons or refugee camp in Darfur or across the border in Chad. When Annan and Colin Powell make a stop somewhere, you know that it's already a major story. It may not have competed with the Michael Jackson trial, but even in the mainstream media, Darfur stories, features and opinion pieces were remarkably common for a crisis so remote and complex.

The crisis in Darfur, in other words, was fairly big news. This was unlike Rwanda. Clinton and Annan knew all about Rwanda, but media coverage for many weeks was both minimal and distorted ("tribal savagery") so the public remained largely uninformed. Yet despite Darfur's profile, the Security Council was effectively paralyzed by the conflicting interests of the veto-casting P5. This time China, thirsty for Sudan's oil, and Russia, anxious to sell arms to a genocidal government, also played spoiler roles. The Council passed a series of powder-puff resolutions each threatening the killers in Khartoum that if they did not rein in their Janjaweed forces, they would be forcefully confronted with - yet another resolution. Perhaps not since a representative of Rwanda's genocidaire government retained his position on the Security Council through the entire 1994 genocide has the Security Council appeared to be more of a joke than over Darfur.

The role of the United States

Yet there was another reason for hope. Pushed by an unlikely coalition of domestic pressure groups, the US Congress and Executive publicly declared that Darfur constituted a genuine genocide under the 1948 Convention. Such a radical and dramatic step was unprecedented in American history. Both chambers of Congress hastily and unanimously passed their own resolutions declaring Darfur to be a genocide with barely an explanation, let alone debate, and President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell each eventually followed with their own concurring declarations. To the genocide prevention community, this seemed the moment they had so long dreamed of and planned for. What would be the point of making this declaration unless significant action was being planned? It was true the Bush government, and others, were modestly generous in providing humanitarian aid to the displaced and the refugees as well as funding for the Africa Union Mission to Darfur. But now, surely, with these declarations, was the long-awaited moment of qualitative escalation. Now we would see the kind of forceful intervention denied Rwanda and that was crucial if the travesty in Sudan was to be ended.

In fact, all that was needed was to pay heed to the second part of Colin Powell's statement before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Yes, the US had decided, upon looking at evidence it had specifically commissioned - the exact opposite of Rwanda - that a genocide was taking place before the eyes of the world. Powell had no doubt what the world expected next, and said so explicitly: "Mr. Chairman, some seem to have been waiting for this determination of genocide to take action. In fact, however, no new action is dictated by this determination. We have been doing everything we can to get the Sudanese government to act responsibly. So let us not be preoccupied with this designation of genocide. These people are in desperate need and we must help them. Call it a civil war. Call it ethnic cleansing. Call it genocide. Call it 'none of the above'. The reality is the same: there are people in Darfur who desperately need our help." (US Department of State, "The Crisis In Darfur," Written remarks before the Senate FRC, Washington, DC, September 9, 2004).

How was this possible? Had the historic declaration of genocide been nothing more than an opportunistic political ploy by the Bush administration to assuage some domestic pressure groups? Could even the Bush neocons be so cynical as to play politics with genocide? If not, how could this wholly unanticipated development be explained? How could the esteemed Colin Powell participate in this destructive exercise which has done so much to debase the currency of the Genocide Convention?

Within mere months of the American government's determination of genocide in Darfur, a new Bush administration betrayal of Darfur was exposed. First came the revelation that the CIA had sent a plane to Khartoum to ferry the head of Sudanese intelligence, General Salah Abdallah Gosh, to Washington for discussions with his American peers on the "war against terror". Sudan, it appears, had become "a crucial intelligence asset to the CIA." (Suzanne Goldenberg, "Ostracized Sudan emerges as key American ally in 'war on terror'," Guardian Weekly, May 6-12, 2005.) Never mind that General Gosh's name is widely assumed to be among the 51 leading Sudanese officials named by the UN-appointed International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur. The "war on terrorism" obviously trumps genocide.
Later we learned just how close this tie really was. In October 2005, Guardian reporter Jonathan Steele reported the following:

"Question: When do Bush administration officials cuddle up to leaders of states that the US describes as sponsors of international terrorism? Answer: When they are in Khartoum. I know because I saw it the other day…. We were attending the closing dinner of a 2-day conference of African counter-terrorism officials, to which the US and UK were invited as observers. The western spooks were less than happy to have the western press on hand, especially as their names were called out. But loss of anonymity was a small price for the excellent cooperation both agencies believe Sudan is giving to keep tabs on Somali, Saudi and other Arab fundamentalists who pass through its territory…. [The dinner] was in the garden of the headquarters of Sudan's intelligence service, not far from the Nile. Up stepped a senior CIA agent. In full view of the assembled company, he gave General Salah Abdallah Gosh, Sudan's intelligence chief, a bear hug. The general responded by handing over a goody-bag, wrapped in shiny green paper. Next up was the [British] M16 official, with the same effusive routine." (Jonathan Steele, "Darfur wasn't genocide and Sudan is not a terrorist," Guardian, October 7, 2005.)

There are still Darfur activists who believe that despite close working relationships between the Bush administration and precisely those Sudanese leaders against whom the International Criminal Court intends to issue warrants, the US can still be relied on as an ally in pressuring Khartoum to end its war against the Fur and other Africans. I wish I could agree. The Khartoum government is as canny as it is treacherous, and blithely uses its leverage to continue getting away with murder in Darfur. It now has trump cards with the Americans, the Chinese and the Russians. Those of us who urge intervention on strictly humanitarian grounds have no comparable influence whatever. The result is virtually pre-ordained: the death and rape and suffering in western Sudan will continue.

Are there now lessons from Darfur, having seen that the only lesson from Rwanda that proved relevant was the most despairing one? It is almost too disheartening even to ask. But for those committed to genocide prevention or to interventions on strictly humanitarian grounds, tough questions must again be asked, creative new directions and mechanisms sought. The alternative is too ghastly to contemplate.

* Gerald Caplan has a Ph.D. in African history from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is author of Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide, the report of the International Panel of Eminent Personalities appointed by the Organization of African Unity to investigate the Rwandan genocide; founder of "Remembering Rwanda"; and co-editor with Eric Markusen of a special edition of the Journal of Genocide Research devoted to the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. He teaches a course on the genocide to Rwandans in Rwanda.

* Please send comments to

De Rwanda à Darfur: Leçons Apprendu?
Gerald Caplan

Quelles leçons la communauté internationale a-t-il appris du Génocide dans Rwanda il y a dix ans, surtout par rapport à la crise dans Darfur? Gerald Caplan, un expert sur le génocide Rwandais, trace la réponse de la communauté internationale dans Rwanda et discute alors que la réponse a été dans Darfur. De nouveau, la communauté internationale, avec les joueurs clés seulement capable de servir leurs intérêts divers, économiques et stratégiques, a montré une indifférence scandaleuse pour la vie humaine et n’a pas agi et empêcher le génocide.

Même avant que le génocide Rwandan 1994 a fini, certains ont commencé à se demander quand "le Rwanda suivant" serait. Pas "si", mais quand. Malgré l'Indonésie en 1965, le Burundi en 1972 et le Cambodge à partir de 1975 à 1978, le génocide s'était éloigné dans la conscience publique. À partir de la fin des années 1960, c'est vrai, la mémoire de l'Holocauste était dans l'éclat complet. Mais on a traité l'Holocauste comme presque un phénomène indépendant séparé du génocide "ordinaire". Le plus premier génocide arménien était surtout la croisade d'Arméniens, l'extermination de l'Hereros était inconnue au-delà de quelques experts. Quant aux massacres de post-holocauste d'un demi-million de chinois et de Communistes en Indonésie, l'abattage par l'armée Tutsi de peut-être 200,000 Hutu au Burundi, en incluant tous ceux avec l'enseignement secondaire et les morts en battant, en mourant de faim ou la torture par le Rouge à joues Khmer d'un million et demi Cambodgiens, personne n'a tout à fait semblé rencontrer les normes déposées dans la Convention 1948 sur la Prévention et la Punition de Génocide (UNCG).

Le Rwanda était différent. Le Rwanda était un génocide UNCG classique, en réalisant toutes les conditions et il a rappelé au monde qu'un moitié de siècle après le monde d'abord juré "Jamais de nouveau," le génocide n'avait pas disparu. Que Primo Levi avait dit de l'Holocauste on a maintenant dit du Rwanda : Il est arrivé, donc il arrivera de nouveau. Pour certains, il est arrivé assez bientôt. Pour eux, Srebrenica en 1995 a semblé "un autre Rwanda" et effectivement, le Tribunal Criminel international pour ancienne Yougoslavie a finalement décidé que le meurtre de 8000 mâles Bosniaques Musulmans par les milices serbes Bosniaques était effectivement le génocide. Mais cela a été une édition controversée. Le fait d'assassiner à sang-froid 8000 Bosniaques Musulmans était indiscutablement un crime de guerre énorme, même un crime contre l'humanité, mais, certains se sont demandés, comment pourrait-il appartenir dans la même catégorie que le meurtre 1 ½ le million d'Arméniens ou de six millions de Juifs ?
Le Rwanda, pourtant, n'a quitté aucune pièce pour l'ambiguïté. Ironiquement, l'absence apparente de génocide depuis 1945 avait fait la plupart des observateurs refuser de prendre au sérieux à l'avance qu'une conspiration génocide réelle était faite éclore au Rwanda avant 1994. Dès que c'était fini, il a semblé presque inévitable que d'autres puissent, suivre. Pour beaucoup, tôt dans le nouveau millénaire, Darfur a semblé bien sur sa voie à la formation "le Rwanda suivant". La question urgente a alors émergé : le Rwanda avait-il enseigné au monde des leçons qui pourraient aider à empêcher Darfur de suivre dans son endroit ?

Trois Leçons De Rwanda

En supposant évidemment qu'il y a vraiment n'importe quelles leçons à tout que le passé peut enseigner l'avenir, il est possible d'isoler trois de la catastrophe non mitigée du Rwanda en 1994. De ceux-ci, le premier et le plus évident démoralise profondément à tous ceux qui préfèrent l'intervention dans les crises où aucun intérêt au-delà de l'humaniste n'est en jeu. Les deuxièmes et troisième sont apparemment, ou potentiellement, encourageants. Chercher un rayon d'espoir d'un génocide touche le désespéré, mais dans l'univers curieux d'entre ceux qui étudient genocides pour les prévenir, qu'est-ce qui doit là s'agripper ?

L'horreur du génocide Rwandan s'étend au-delà de sa bestialité intrinsèque. Ce qui est aussi remarquable est, d'abord, comment rapidement il est devenu évident que c'était une tempête parfaite d'un génocide et, deuxièmement, comment facilement il pourrait avoir été prévenu. (Avant qu'en adressant la traîtrise du Rwanda par la "communauté internationale", les activistes de prévention de génocide ne doivent pas oublier qu'il pourrait avoir été prévenu le plus avec succès si les conspirateurs Hutu qui ont conspiré pour "nettoyer" le Rwanda de ses citoyens Tutsi avaient simplement rappelé leur complot.) Pourtant le génocide n'a pas été officiellement appelé à ce titre par la majorité vaste de gouvernements et d'institutions, en incluant les Nations Unies et l'Organisation d'Africain Unity, jusqu'à ce que les 100 jours d'abattage soient pratiquement venus à une fin. De plus, pas seulement le génocide n'a pas été prévenu, il n'a pas été même très légèrement atténué. À partir du premier jour au renforcement dernier, pas un seul arrivé au Rwanda pour renforcer la force chétive de l'ONU de 400 qui essayait désespérément de sauver le relativement peu de Tutsi qu'il pourrait.

Ainsi, la première leçon du Rwanda : le mémento importun dur - comme si le monde a eu besoin d'un autre - que les "pouvoirs globaux qui être" sont capables de dureté presque infinie et d'indifférence envers la souffrance d'humain si geopolitical ou les intérêts politiques n'étaient pas en jeu. Les demandes de l'intervention énergique basent sévèrement sur les terres humanitaires, comme nous avons appris la voie dure de nouveau dans Darfur, sont simplement hors de propos à ceux avec les moyens d'intervenir

Ici je fais allusion essentiellement au Conseil de sécurité et dans ce corps aux cinq Membres Permanents remarquablement puissants (P5) qui seul tiennent un veto sur toutes ses résolutions. Puisque les missions de l'ONU peuvent seulement être autorisées par le Conseil de sécurité et puisque n'importe lequel des P5 peut interdire n'importe quelle résolution, la force d'appui des Etats-Unis, la Grande-Bretagne, la France, la Russie et la Chine peut à peine être exagérée. Ceux-là qui ont mendié pour une réponse plus assurée tant au Rwanda qu'à Darfur comprennent l'immuabilité de ce phénomène.

Souvent, les pouvoirs du milieu sont comptés comme un moyen d'exercer la pression sur le sanctuaire intérieur du P5. Le Canada, Europe septentrionale et les pays scandinaves sont tous vus, quelquefois naïvement, comme étant moins dans la servitude d'intérêt personnel et plus ouverts aux projets humanitaires. Dans l'essai d'exercer une influence sur l'action pour Darfur, les activistes ont placé l'espoir considérable sur ces pays. Le rôle de la Belgique en 1994 montre tant force d'appui qu'un pouvoir du milieu peut jouer que l'utilisation perverse qu'il peut faire de cette force d'appui.

Depuis 110 ans avant le génocide Rwandan, aucun pouvoir externe n'a joué un rôle plus déplorable en Afrique que la Belgique - un pays très petit responsable des crimes géants contre l'humanité. Son impact sur le Congo, le Rwanda et le Burundi était catastrophique. L'histoire turbulente de la région de Grands Lacs entière au 20ème siècle aurait été profondément différente s'il n'avait pas été pour la règle coloniale belge. Maintenant, de même que le génocide explosait à travers le Rwanda, le gouvernement belge a cherché à peser sur le Conseil de sécurité pour retirer dans son ensemble sa vieille Mission d'Assistance de l'ONU de 6 mois pour le Rwanda (UNAMIR). Dix des troupes de l'ONU de la Belgique avaient été assassinées par les soldats gouvernementaux Rwandan moins d'un jour après que le génocide a été déclenché par le meurtre en bas de l'avion du président Rwandan. Le gouvernement belge a décidé que c'était politiquement impossible pour ses troupes de rester au Rwanda. Leur retrait a très considérablement sapé la capacité d'UNAMIR et ses conséquences mortelles ne sont pas simplement théoriques. Il immédiatement et a directement causé la mort d'environ 2500 Rwandans être protégé par les troupes belges à la Technique Ecole Officielle (ETO) l'enceinte scolaire dans la capitale, Kigali. Au moins le gouvernement belge avait la raison pour se sentir humilié par la décision d'abandonner le Rwanda à son moment du plus grand besoin et a cherché à couvrir sa culpabilité en persuadant le monde entier de partager sa culpabilité.
Au chagrin éternel du Rwanda, les Belges ont trouvé l'Administration du Président américain Bill Clinton prête et disposé. Grandement pour leurs propres raisons de partisan entièrement à court terme, avec les Républicains NON DÉTESTANTS pathologiques respirant en bas leurs cous, les Clintonites étaient pas prêts pour avoir n'importe quoi du tout pour faire avec l'envoyant d'une nouvelle mission de l'ONU d'un pays africain très petit que, comme est invariablement dit, presque aucun américain ne pourrait même trouver sur une carte. Parmi le P5, la France était le seul pays sincèrement concerné du Rwanda pour ses propres raisons perverses de solidarité francophone et il cherchait furtivement une façon d'intervenir de la part du gouvernement genocidaire extrémiste Hutu. Il a été quitté à l'Ambassadeur américain à l'ONU, Madeleine Albright, mener un mouvement vigoureux dans le Conseil de sécurité à littéralement décimer la force 2500 étrange d'UNAMIR. La Grande-Bretagne, pour les raisons que l'historien-journaliste britannique Linda Melvern essaie toujours de défaire, s'est effondrée solidement derrière les américains. La Russie et la Chine étaient grandement indifférents, une situation qui changerait de façon significative en cas de Darfur. À la fin de la deuxième semaine du génocide, avec environ 100,000 ou plus Tutsi et presque tous Hutu modéré proéminent déjà mort et le génocide gagnant la vitesse quotidienne, le Conseil de sécurité a voté pour réduire la mission UNAMIR de 250 hommes. Forcez le Commandant charmeur Dallaire, furieux et malade dans le fond, a désobéi à cette instruction explicite et a réussi à retenir 400 hommes pour la durée du génocide.

Même maintenant, il est impossible de récapituler ces événements sans estimer qu'ils ne peuvent pas peut-être être vrais. Mais comme pratiquement toutes les autorités sur le sujet sont d'accord et comme la réaction du Conseil de sécurité à Darfur il y a une décade plus tard rend entièrement plausible, ils étaient seulement trop vrais et leur leçon était claire. Là a semblé à peine n'importe quelles profondeurs auxquelles la "communauté internationale" ne coulerait pas s'il les a jugés nécessaires pour ses propres intérêts nationaux, même si cet intérêt n'était rien plus, ni moins que, dans le cas de la Belgique, en recouvrant un abandon lâche des gens au risque ultime, ou pour les Etats-Unis, en gagnant une élection imminente. La convenance politique était tout et le besoin humain a semblé complètement hors de propos.

Pourtant, deux autres leçons de la réaction internationale, en faisant de la peine comme ils étaient à l'époque ont semblé offrir un certain espoir de l'intervention dans les crises futures. D'abord étaient les mensonges dits tant par le Président américain Bill Clinton que par le Secrétaire général de l'ONU Kofi Annan dans le fait de s'excuser plus tard de leur inaction pendant les 100 jours. Tous les deux ont réclamé qu'ils étaient pas assez conscients de la situation à l'époque. Ces revendications, de la part des deux hommes, ont été répudiées au-delà d'une ombre d'un doute. Ils savaient tout, ou au moins tout qu'ils ont voulu savoir. Quand même, leur même manque de franchise a permis l'inférence que la fois suivante "un autre Rwanda" a surgi, s'il pourrait atteindre un suffisamment haut profil public, le Conseil de sécurité aurait perdu l'excuse d'ignorance et a peu d'alternative, mais intervenir. Cette vérité apparente a au départ donné le coeur au mouvement pour intervenir dans Darfur.

Deuxièmement, comme déjà noté, presque personne dans une position officielle à ce temps n'a accepté de caractériser le Rwanda comme un génocide et, mené de nouveau par l'administration de Clinton, a vraiment refusé qu'un génocide progressait en fait . Ce refus d'affirmer l'évident a été de nouveau attaché directement aux peurs électorales du Clintonites. Les avocats gouvernementaux étudiant la Convention de Génocide 1948 ont l'air d'avoir décidé que le fait d'accepter l'étiquette de génocide déclencherait une obligation importante sur l'administration pour intervenir activement. Cette telle interprétation était extrêmement contestable n'est ni ici, ni là. Il était tout à fait possible de soutenir qu'une pure résolution de Conseil de sécurité a satisfait les termes de l'UNCG. Mais les conseillers de Clinton ont voulu ne pas adopter cette lecture. Leur jugement a puissamment affecté la position publique de Clinton.

La télévision a capturé un moment de vrai self-debasement quand un porte-parole de Département américain d'État, certaine Christine Shelly, a essayé d'expliquer aux correspondants que le Rwanda était la scène "d'actes de génocide", mais pas du génocide. Quand poussé pour indiquer combien "les actes de génocide" constituent un génocide complet, Mme Shelly, évidemment humiliée au-delà des mots, a expliqué qu'elle n'a pas été autorisée à s'occuper de cette question. (À son dépit éternel, plusieurs documentaires sur le génocide incluent la longueur en pieds de sa performance désastreuse, unforgivingly le fait de l'immortaliser pour toujours.) la différence entre ce moment pitoyable et réactions américaines ultérieures à Darfur sous le Président Bush pourrait à peine avoir plus lancé un regard furieux.
Et effectivement, la position de Clinton qu'il n'y avait aucun génocide complet au Rwanda innocemment a fourni la faible lueur d'espoir d'un acte d'opportunisme politique sans précédent. Si le Rwanda était "pas tout à fait" un génocide et donc l'intervention n'était pas obligatoire, il a sûrement suivi logiquement que si un génocide a été déclaré dans l'avenir, il ne signifierait pas que l'intervention était obligatoire, inéluctable ? Cette logique, combinée avec la perspective que si un désastre a été assez bien annoncé, le monde aurait peu de choix, mais emménager, a offert un peu d'espoir réel que le "Rwanda suivant" ne serait pas trahi et abandonné comme l'original que le Rwanda avait été.

Le Rwanda suivant

Alors est venu Darfur. Moins d'une décade après que le Pouvoir de Hutu a été vaincu, le monde avait trouvé son "Rwanda suivant". C'est hors de propos à mon argument que les autorités de génocide sérieuses sont en désaccord sur si le conflit est un génocide ou non. Tous conviennent qu'il avait beaucoup de dimensions d'un génocide, que c'est une catastrophe épouvantable et que l'intervention robuste est demandée. Comme nous savons, aucune telle intervention ne s'est produite et comme c'est écrit au début de 2006, la situation semble s'être détériorée considérablement et être devenue encore plus complexe - la conséquence presque inévitable de la réponse maigre du monde jusqu'au présent. Du point de vue des espoirs levés par deux des leçons optimistes du Rwanda, la réponse de la "communauté internationale" à la crise dans Darfur peut seulement être considérée un revers géant, tragique. Il n'est pas trop de dire que Darfur montre que seulement la première leçon désespérée - le cynisme insondable et l'intérêt personnel des pouvoirs importants - - restent valides, pendant que les espoirs ont été grandement détruits.

Enfin, avant le milieu de 2004, au plus tard, chacun qui compte savait qu'un désastre artificiel politique et humanitaire écrasant était arrivé au Soudan occidental. Le 7 avril, quand il devrait correctement avoir été dans Kigali pour la commémoration du dixième anniversaire du génocide Rwandan, Kofi Annan était plutôt à Genève dévoilant un nouveau plan de cinq points pour la prévention de génocide et en annonçant que le monde ne doit pas autoriser à Darfur à devenir "un autre Rwanda". Chacun qui compte bientôt a visité Khartoum pour supplier avec le Gouvernement du Soudan qui orchestrait la crise, ou a passé aux personnes déplacées ou à un camp de réfugiés dans Darfur ou à travers la frontière au Tchad. Quand Annan et Colin Powell font un arrêt quelque part, vous savez que c'est déjà une histoire importante. Il peut ne pas avoir rivalisé avec l'essai de Michael Jackson, mais même dans les mass-média principaux, les histoires de Darfur, les caractéristiques et les morceaux d'opinion étaient remarquablement communs pour une crise si lointaine et complexe.

La crise dans Darfur, autrement dit, était d'assez grandes nouvelles. Cela n'a pas ressemblé au Rwanda. Clinton et Annan savaient tous du Rwanda, mais la couverture médiatique depuis beaucoup de semaines était tant minimale que dénaturé ("la sauvagerie de tribu") donc le public est resté grandement non informé. Pourtant malgré le profil de Darfur, le Conseil de sécurité a été efficacement paralysé par les intérêts opposés du P5 jetant veto. Cette fois la Chine, assoiffée pour le pétrole du Soudan et la Russie, inquiète de vendre les bras à un gouvernement génocide, des rôles de becquet aussi joués. Le Conseil a passé une série de résolutions de houppette chaque menace des tueurs à Khartoum que s'ils n'ont pas freiné leurs forces de Janjaweed, ils seraient avec vigueur affrontés avec - encore une autre résolution. Peut-être pas puisqu'un représentant du gouvernement genocidaire du Rwanda a retenu sa position sur le Conseil de sécurité par le génocide de 1994 entier a le Conseil de sécurité apparu pour être plus d'une plaisanterie que sur Darfur.

Le rôle des États-Unis

Pourtant il y avait une autre raison pour l'espoir. Poussé par une coalition improbable de groupes de pression domestiques, le Congrès américain et l'Exécutif ont publiquement déclaré que Darfur a constitué un vrai génocide conformément à la Convention 1948. Un pas si radical et dramatique était sans précédent dans l'histoire américaine. Les deux chambres de Congrès à la hâte et ont unanimement passé leurs propres résolutions déclarant Darfur être un génocide avec à peine une explication, sans parler de la discussion et le Président Bush et le Secrétaire d'Etat Colin Powell que chacun a finalement suivi avec leurs propres déclarations concordantes. À la communauté de prévention de génocide, cela a semblé le moment dont ils rêvaient si longtemps et avaient planifié pour. Quel serait le point de faire cette déclaration à moins que l'action significative ne soit planifiée ? C'était vrai que le gouvernement de Bush et d'autres, étaient modestement généreux dans l'établissement de l'aide humanitaire au déplacé et les réfugiés aussi bien que le financement pour la Mission d'Union Africaine de Darfur. Mais maintenant, sûrement, avec ces déclarations, était le moment longtemps attendu d'escalade qualitative. Maintenant nous verrions que la sorte d'intervention énergique a nié le Rwanda et c'était essentiel si le travestissement au Soudan devait être mis fin.
En fait, tout ce qui a été nécessaire devait payer font attention à la deuxième partie de la déclaration de Colin Powell avant le Sénat américain le Comité de Relations Étranger. Oui, les Etats-Unis avaient décidé, sur le fait de regarder l'évidence qu'il avait spécialement commandée - l'opposé exact du Rwanda - qu'un génocide survenait avant les yeux du monde. Powell avait sans doute que le monde attendu ensuite et a dit si explicitement : "M. le Président, certains semblent avoir attendu cette détermination de génocide de prendre des mesures.

En fait, pourtant, aucune nouvelle action n'est déterminée par cette détermination. Nous avons fait tout que nous pouvons pour recevoir le gouvernement soudanais pour agir de manière responsable. Permettez-nous si pas d'être préoccupés de cette désignation de génocide. Ces gens sont dans le besoin désespéré et nous devons les aider. Appelez-le une guerre civile. Appelez-le le nettoyage ethnique. Appelez-le le génocide. N'appelez-le 'aucun des susdits'. La réalité est le même : il y a les gens dans Darfur qui ont désespérément besoin de notre aide." (Le Département américain d'État, "la Crise Dans Darfur," Les remarques écrites avant le Sénat FRC, Washington, courant continu, le 9 septembre 2004).

Comment c'était possible ? N'avait la déclaration historique de génocide été rien d'autre qu'un truc politique opportuniste par l'administration de Bush pour apaiser certains groupes de pression domestiques ? Pourrait même Bush neocons être si cynique pour jouer la politique avec le génocide ? Sinon, comment ce développement entièrement non attendu pourrait-il être expliqué ? Comment Colin Powell estimé pourrait-il participer à cet exercice destructif qui a fait tant pour dégrader la devise de la Convention de Génocide ?

Au cours des mois purs de la détermination du gouvernement américain de génocide dans Darfur, une nouvelle traîtrise d'administration de Bush de Darfur a été exposée. D'abord est venu la révélation que la CIA avait envoyé un avion à Khartoum pour transporter la tête d'intelligence soudanaise, général Salah Abdallah Mince alors, à Washington pour les discussions avec ses pairs américains sur la "guerre contre la terreur". Le Soudan, il apparaît, était devenu "un capital d'intelligence crucial à la CIA." (Suzanne Goldenberg, "le Soudan Exclu émerge comme l'allié américain clé dans la 'guerre sur la terreur'," le Gardien Chaque semaine, le 6-12 mai 2005.) Ne font pas attention à ce que le nom de général Gosh soit largement supposé pour être parmi les 51 principaux fonctionnaires soudanais appelés par la Commission d'enquête internationale NON NOMMÉE sur Darfur. La "guerre sur le terrorisme" coupe évidemment le génocide. Plus tard nous avons appris juste comment près ce lien était vraiment . En octobre de 2005, le correspondant de Gardien Jonathan Steele a signalé la chose suivante :

" Question : Quand les fonctionnaires d'administration de Bush se blottissent-ils aux chefs d'états que les Etats-Unis décrivent comme les sponsors de terrorisme international ? Réponse : Quand ils sont à Khartoum. Je sais parce que je l'ai vu l'autre jour. Nous assistions au dîner final d'une conférence de 2 jours de fonctionnaires de contre-terrorisme africains, à qui les Etats-Unis et le Royaume-Uni ont été invités comme les observateurs. Les fantômes occidentaux étaient moins qu'heureux d'avoir la presse occidentale en main, d'autant plus que leurs noms ont été appelés. Mais la perte d'anonymat était un petit prix pour la coopération excellente les deux agences croient que le Soudan donne pour garder des étiquettes sur Somali, les fondamentalistes arabes saoudiens et autres qui traversent son territoire. [Le dîner] était dans le jardin du siège social du service des renseignements du Soudan, pas loin du Nil. En haut marché un agent de CIA aîné. Dans la vue complète de la compagnie rassemblée, il a donné à général Salah Abdallah Mince alors, le chef d'intelligence du Soudan, une prise de l'ours. Le général a répondu par la livraison d'un sac de bon, emballé dans le livre blanc luisant. Ensuite en haut était le fonctionnaire M16 [britannique], avec la même routine trop démonstrative. "(Jonathan Steele, "n'était pas Darfur le génocide et le Soudan n'est pas un terroriste," le Gardien, le 7 octobre 2005.)

Il y a toujours des activistes de Darfur qui croient que malgré les rapports travaillant proches entre l'administration de Bush et avec précision on peut toujours compter sur ces chefs soudanais contre qui la Cour d'assises internationale a l'intention de délivrer des mandats, les Etats-Unis comme un allié dans le fait de pressuriser Khartoum pour mettre fin à sa guerre contre le Pelage et d'autres Africains. Je regrette que je ne puisse pas être d'accord. Le gouvernement de Khartoum est aussi circonspect que c'est perfide et utilise avec insouciance sa force d'appui pour continuer à échapper au meurtre dans Darfur. Il a maintenant des atouts avec les américains, le Chinois et les Russes. Ceux de nous qui préconisons l'intervention sur les terres sévèrement humanitaires n'ont aucune influence comparable du tout. Le résultat est pratiquement prédestiné : la mort et le viol et subissant dans le Soudan occidental continueront.

Y a-il maintenant des leçons de Darfur, ayant vu que la seule leçon du Rwanda qui s'est avéré pertinent était la la plus désespérée ? Il démoralise presque aussi même pour demander. Mais car ceux-là ont engagé à la prévention de génocide ou aux interventions sur les terres sévèrement humanitaires, on doit de nouveau poser des questions résistantes, de nouvelles directions créatrices et des mécanismes cherchés. L'alternative est trop affreuse pour contempler.

* Gerald Caplan a un doctorat dans l'histoire africaine de l'École d'Études Orientales et africaines, l'Université de Londres. Il est l'auteur du Rwanda : le Génocide Évitable, le rapport du Comité international de Personnalités Éminentes nommées par l'Organisation d'Africain Unity pour enquêter sur le génocide Rwandan; le fondateur "de pour Se souvenir du Rwanda"; et le coéditeur avec Eric Markusen d'une édition spéciale du Journal de Recherche de Génocide consacrée au 10ème anniversaire du génocide Rwandan. Il enseigne un cours sur le génocide à Rwandans au Rwanda.

Msia Kibona Clark explores the relationship between African Americans and the ‘new Diaspora’ of African immigrants to the United States. The relationship is not one that is without conflict, she writes, but argues that the two groups can no longer continue to segregate themselves from each other. In the future, the voice of African immigrants is likely to gain ground in areas of both domestic and foreign policy as Africans and African Americans prove to be valuable resources to each other.

(See French version below)

Africans and African Americans have always had a delicate and intricate relationship that has been influenced by history and perceptions. Phillipe Wamba, himself bi-cultural, once described the “fascination” Africans and African Americans have for each other as two groups which have been “gazing at each other across the Transatlantic divide like a child seeing itself in the mirror for the first time”. Well, today that “Transatlantic divide” is getting narrower. More and more Africans are coming to the United States, and these “distant cousins” are forced to, at the very least, acknowledge each other.

This acknowledgement, however, is not translating into a family reunion. African and African American social relations are dysfunctional at best and hostile at worst. The tensions that exist between Africans and African Americans in the US promise to reach a boiling point. In fact, there have been random cases of conflicts between African and African American students in American middle and high schools, as well as workplace conflicts over the hiring and promotion of one group over the other. While there are bright spots of cooperation and interaction, Africans and African Americans tend to segregate themselves from each other while harboring stereotypes and misconceptions that have prevented wide scale social interactions.

Every year Africans are entering American cities in larger numbers. In 1989, over 25,000 Africans immigrated to America. In 2001 the number of African immigrants doubled to more than 53,000. Over 75% of the African immigrants in the US today, in fact, arrived after 1985. And these numbers don’t include the more than 10,000 African students that enter US universities every year. In fact, many historians estimate that more Africans have immigrated to the United States since 1980 than came to the United States during the entire period of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Many of these Africans are moving into metropolitan areas, like New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, and changing the face of African America, in much the same way West Indians did generations earlier. While there have always been Africans in America, the dramatic increases in African immigration in the last twenty years have made them an important part of the American landscape in general and the African American community in particular. In the past, the majority of African Americans, who did not consider African immigrants a strong presence, and who often did not even know they were here, overlooked the small numbers of Africans in the US. With the current, and rising, number of African immigrants in America, African Americans are encountering Africans on a daily basis, from New York City to rural Alabama to the midwestern cities of Ohio and Minnesota.

This trend is also having an impact on the African American community in the Washington, DC area. With between 80,000 and 93,000 Africans, the area hosts the largest number of African immigrants in the country. African immigrants (80,000-90,000) in the Washington, DC area even outnumber Caribbean immigrants (49,000) in the area. Washington, DC is, in fact, home to a diverse group of pioneer African immigrants who have made up the community’s diplomatic core and which have provided foundations for recent African immigrants. Washington, DC, is also home to one of the nation’s oldest majority Black metropolitan areas and one of the nations largest historically Black universities (HBCUs), Howard University, all making for an interesting mixture of peoples of African descent.

Africans and African Americans in the Washington, DC, area, like in other parts of the country, come into direct contact with one another at school, at work, and in their neighborhoods. These contacts are shadowed in stereotypes of Africans as either poor and uncivilized or smart and arrogant. African men are also seen as domineering and African women as passive and accepting of the abuse they get at the hands of oppressive African men. African Americans are seen as lazy, obsessed with racism, and lacking a culture. African American women are seen as loose, while the men are seen as violent criminals. The Nigerian slang word “Akata”, which Americans were first exposed to in the film “Sugar Hill”, is a word used by some West Africans to refer to African Americans. The word, roughly translated, is a derogatory term meaning “savage”, “slaves”, “captives”, or (like in Sugar Hill) “cotton picker”. These are some of the images that tend to hover over any contact between Africans and African Americans.

Not wanting to paint a completely hopeless picture of African/African American relations, there are important areas of cooperation between the two groups. Outside of the many friendships that have been formed by members of either group, African immigration to the US has also translated into more marriages between Africans and African Americans. Some research says that there are more Africans married to Americans of African decent than to Americans of European decent. There is also cooperation in the realm of activism. While Africans have yet to become involved in large numbers in domestic issues (police brutality, affirmative action), African Americans have a long history of championing African causes. Organization such as Africa Action, Africare, the African American Institute, IFESH, and TransAfrica are all African American organizations that employ and work with Africans on issues impacting Africa. In the area of pop culture, R&B artist Akon, a Senegalese, has made a name for himself in an African American dominated genre. Also, hip hop artists like Common and Wycleff Jean have collaborated with African musicians, linking hip hop artists in the Diaspora to those in Africa, something unheard of ten years ago.
Overall contacts between Africans and African Americans are often complex and multi-layered. Economic background, level of African-centered consciousness, length of time in America, age, and family influences, all play a part in the interactions between Africans and African Americans.

For example, Africans who have been in the United States longer, tend to have a better understanding of the African American community and the politics of race in America. This is especially true of those Africans who immigrated to the US at a young age. This younger group is more likely to have African American friends and to socialize in circles outside of their immigrant community. Another very important link in African/African American contacts are bi-cultural children. Those born of one African and one African American parent are often the link that ties the two communities together. They often spend much of their lives translating the culture of one group to the other. It is often a mixed blessing to be bi-cultural, to be part of both communities, and to be caught in the middle of the tensions that both communities continue to hold on to. This group, however, also serves as a critical link in any hope of bridging the gap between these communities.

The case of bi-cultural children and young African immigrants brings up another interesting piece to this puzzle: identity. For the African American community, identity has been an important part of African American self-determination. African Americans have always determined who and what constituted an African American identity. African Americans have traditionally been thought of as those whose ancestors came to America via the transatlantic slave trade. African immigration is now challenging that identity in ways West Indians did not. Today’s African Americans may not necessarily have a history rooted in the transatlantic slave trade. Second-generation African immigrants and bi-cultural children have a different history and culture, but a number of them identify, at least partly, as being African American. Some of these Africans have never been to Africa, and look, sound, and act (and in some cases, feel) more like African Americans than they do like Africans.

The research, in fact, says that children of African immigrants are African American. While other research refers to this recent wave of African immigrants in the US as the “new Diaspora” and to the Africans who are coming to the US as the “other African Americans”. Academia, however, does not necessarily determine real life perceptions. Identity is fluid and multi-layered, and at times conflicts. As more Africans are arriving on American shores, African Americans have to deal with the implications of these “new African Africans”. No longer can the two groups continue to segregate themselves. Groups like the NAACP and the Urban League have, in the past few years, begun to at least acknowledge the presence of African immigrants in America. That has to translate into an inclusion of their issues in the African American agenda. African immigrants represent a legitimate voice in this country and have the potential of reaching a similar level of influence that other immigrant groups have in the areas of both domestic and foreign policy. We already see Africans playing an increasingly larger role in lobbying American foreign policy in Africa, a role that was primarily filled by African Americans. Aside from all the wonderful ideas of Pan Africanism, Africans and African Americans would prove to be valuable resources to each other. Likewise, the definitions of who is African American will likely change in the coming generations to make room for the Africans who are continuing to arrive in the United States in record numbers.

* Tanzanian born and American raised, Msia Kibona Clark is half Tanzanian and half African American. She holds a BA in Political Science from Johnson C. Smith University, an MA in Comparative and Regional Studies from American University, and is a current PhD Candidate and Sasakawa Fellow in Howard University's African Studies Department. Her research focuses on African immigrants in the US and their impacts on African/African American interactions and identity. In addition, Msia is the Ugandan Country Specialist with Amnesty International, works as a Book Reviews Editor with AllAfrica.com, and has done consulting and lecturing with several organizations.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Les Nouveaux Afro-Américains ou l’influence de l’immigration africaine sur les relations panafricaines et l’identité noire aux Etats-Unis
de Msia Kibona Clark

Les Africains et les Afro-américains ont toujours eu des rapports fragiles et compliqués qui ont été influencés par l’histoire et les perceptions. Philippe Wamba, lui-même biculturel, décrit la « fascination » qu’ont les Africains et les Afro-américains l’un pour l’autre comme deux groupes « qui se contemplent à travers le Transatlantique comme un enfant qui se voit dans un miroir pour la première fois ». Aujourd’hui, cette ligne de partage transatlantique se rétrécit. De plus en plus d’Africains partent pour les Etats-Unis, et ces « cousins éloignés » se voient obligés, tout du moins, de se reconnaître.

Toutefois, cette reconnaissance ne se traduit pas en rencontres familiales. Les relations sociales entre les Africains et les Afro-américains sont au mieux, troublées et au pire, hostiles. Les tensions qui existent entre les Africains et les Afro-américains aux Etats-Unis promettent d’atteindre un point d’ébullition. Il y a eu, en effet, certains cas de conflits entre des étudiants africains et afro-américains dans des établissements d’enseignement secondaire du premier cycle et des lycées américains. On note également des conflits sur le lieu de travail déclenchés par l’embauche et la promotion d’un groupe par rapport à un autre. Même s’il existe des cas plus positifs de coopération et d’interaction, les Africains et les Afro-américains ont tendance à s’isoler les uns des autres tout en nourrissant des stéréotypes et des idées fausses qui ont empêché des interactions sociales plus répandues.

Chaque année le nombre d’Africains arrivant dans les villes américaines s’accroît. En 1989, plus de 25 000 Africains ont immigré aux Etats-Unis. En 2001, le nombre d’immigrants africains a doublé, atteignant plus de 53 000. En effet, plus de 75% des immigrants africains aux Etats-Unis aujourd’hui sont arrivés après 1985. Et ces chiffres n’incluent pas les plus de 10 000 étudiants africains qui se font inscrire dans les universités américaines chaque année. En fait, plusieurs historiens jugent que le nombre d’Africains qui ont immigré aux Etats-Unis depuis 1980 dépasse ceux qui étaient venus aux Etats-Unis durant toute la période de la traite transatlantique des Noirs.

Bon nombre de ces Africains se déplacent vers des régions métropolitaines, telles que New York, Los Angeles et Washington DC, modifiant ainsi le « paysage africain » des Etats-Unis, de plus ou moins la même manière que les Antillais quelques générations plus tôt. Alors qu’il y a toujours eu des Africains aux Etats-Unis, la croissance spectaculaire de l’immigration provenant de ce continent pendant les vingt dernières années leur ont assuré une place importante dans le paysage américain en général, et plus particulièrement dans la communauté afro-américaine. Dans le passé, la majorité des Afro-américains, qui ne considéraient pas la présence des immigrants africains comme étant significative, et qui souvent ne savaient même pas qu’ils étaient là, négligeaient la communauté peu importante d’Africains aux Etats-Unis. Avec le nombre actuel d’immigrants africains, qui est en hausse aux Etats-Unis, les Afro-américains et les Africains se rencontrent au quotidien, depuis la ville de New York jusqu’aux régions rurales d’Alabama en passant par les états du Midwest tels que l’Ohio et le Minnesota.

Cette tendance influe aussi sur la communauté afro-américaine de Washington DC, région contenant le plus grand nombre d’immigrants africains du pays entier, entre 80 000 et 93 000. Le nombre d’immigrants africains (80 000 - 90 000) dans la région de Washington DC est même supérieur au nombre d’immigrants venant des Caraïbes (49 000). En effet, Washington DC est le domicile d’un groupe comprenant divers immigrants africains pionniers qui ont constitué l’essentiel du corps diplomatique de la communauté et qui ont bâti les fondations pour la récente immigration africaine. Washington DC abrite également l’une des régions métropolitaines à majorité noire les plus anciennes ainsi que l’une des plus grandes universités traditionnellement Noires (HBCUs), l’Université de Howard, tout cela contribuant à un mélange intéressant de peuples d’origine africaine.

Tout comme ailleurs dans le pays, les Africains et les Afro-américains se rencontrent à l’école, au travail et dans le voisinage. Ces rencontres sont imprégnées de stéréotypes, qui dépeignent les Africains comme étant pauvres et barbares ou raffinés et arrogants. Les hommes sont aussi perçus comme étant autoritaires alors que les femmes sont soumises et acceptent les abus exercés sur elles par l’homme africain tyrannique. Les Afro-américains sont considérés comme des paresseux, obsédés par le racisme et dépourvus de toute culture. Les Afro-américaines, quant à elles, sont perçues comme ayant des mœurs légères alors que les hommes sont des criminels violents. Le mot argotique nigérian « Akata », auquel les Américains furent confrontés pour la première fois dans le film « Sugar Hill » est un mot utilisé par certains Ouest-africains pour faire référence aux Afro-américains. Le mot, traduit de façon approximative, est un terme peu flatteur signifiant « sauvage », « esclave », « prisonnier » ou (comme dans le film), « cueilleur de coton », voulant dire « sale ». Ce sont là quelques unes des images qui planent sur tout contact entre Africains et Afro-américains.

On est loin de vouloir peindre un tableau totalement désespéré des relations africaines / afro-américaines car il existe aussi des terrains importants de collaboration entre les deux groupes. En sus des relations amicales entretenues entre les membres des deux groupes, l’immigration africaine aux Etats-Unis a aussi abouti à une augmentation de mariages entre Africains et Afro-américains. Les recherches avancent qu’il existe plus d’Africains mariés à des Américains d’origine africaine qu’à des Américains d’origine européenne. On note également une collaboration dans le domaine de l’activisme. Alors que les Africains ont encore à s’engager en grand nombre dans les affaires locales (la brutalité policière, la discrimination positive), on sait que les Afro-américains défendent depuis très longtemps la cause africaine. Des organisations telles que Africa Action, Africare, The African American Institute, IFESH, et TransAfrica sont toutes des organisations Afro-américaines qui emploient des Africains et travaillent avec eux sur des questions concernant l’Afrique. Dans le domaine de la culture Pop, l’artiste Sénégalais de RnB, Akon, s’est fait un nom dans un style de musique dominé par les Afro-américains. De plus, des artistes hip hop tels que Common et Wycleff Jean ont collaboré avec des musiciens africains, rejoignant les artistes hip hop de la diaspora à ceux de l’Afrique, du jamais vu dix ans auparavant.

En général, les rapports entre Africains et Afro-américains sont souvent complexes et multidimensionnels. Le milieu économique, le niveau de conscientisation à la chose africaine, la durée de leur présence en Amérique, leur âge, les influences familiales, tout influe sur les rapports entre Africains et Afro-américains.

Les Africains qui sont aux Etats-Unis depuis plus longtemps, par exemple, ont tendance à mieux comprendre la communauté afro-américaine et la politique des races en Amérique. Cela s’applique surtout aux Africains qui ont immigré aux Etats-Unis à un jeune âge. Ces derniers, plus jeunes, ont probablement plus d’amis afro-américains et ont tendance à fréquenter des cercles autres que leur communauté immigrante. Les enfants d’origine biculturelle constituent un autre lien très important dans le contact africain / afro-Américain. Ceux nés de parents dont l’un(e) Africain(e) et l’autre Afro-américain(e) sont souvent le lien unissant les deux communautés. Ils passent fréquemment une bonne partie de leur vie à transmettre la culture d’un groupe à l’autre. Dans de nombreux cas c’est souvent un avantage incertain d’être biculturel, de faire partie des deux communautés et d’être pris au milieu de tensions auxquelles chaque communauté s’accroche encore. Toutefois, ce groupe sert aussi de lien crucial dans tout espoir d’établir un rapprochement entre ces deux communautés.

Le cas des enfants de naissance biculturelle et des jeunes immigrants africains confère une autre dimension intéressante à cette perplexité : l’identité. Pour la communauté afro-américaine, l’identité a toujours constitué un élément important de leur autodétermination. Depuis toujours les Afro-américains ont l’habitude de définir de qui et de quoi est constituée l’identité afro-américaine. Les Afro-américains ont traditionnellement été considérés comme ceux dont les ancêtres étaient arrivés en Amérique lors de la traite des Noirs. Aujourd’hui, l’immigration africaine remet en cause cette identité comme ne l’ont jamais fait les Antillais. L’histoire des Afro-américains d’aujourd’hui n’est pas forcément ancrée dans la traite des Noirs. La seconde génération d’immigrants africains et d’enfants de naissance biculturelle possède une histoire et une culture différentes, mais certains d’entre eux s’identifient, du moins en partie, aux Afro-américains. Certains de ces Africains n’ont jamais été en Afrique, ils agissent (et dans certains cas, se sentent) plus comme des Afro-américains (auxquels ils ressemblent d’ailleurs) que des Africains.

En fait, les chercheurs s’accordent à dire que les enfants d’immigrants Africains sont des Afro-américains ; par ailleurs, d’autres chercheurs font référence à la récente vague d’immigrants africains aux Etats-Unis comme « La Nouvelle Diaspora » et aux Africains qui vont aux Etats-Unis comme « les autres Afro-américains ». Toutefois, les recherches et les études effectuées ne définissent pas forcément les perceptions réelles de la vie. L’identité n’est pas de caractère fixe et elle comporte plusieurs aspects qui se contredisent parfois. A mesure que plus d’Africains atteignent les côtes américaines, les Afro-américains ont à faire face aux conséquences de l’arrivée de ces « nouveaux Africains africains ». Les deux groupes ne peuvent plus continuer à s’isoler l’un de l’autre. Depuis les dernières années, des groupes tels que NAACP et The Urban League, reconnaissent au moins la présence d’immigrants africains en Amérique. Cela signifie que leurs problèmes doivent faire partie de l’ordre du jour de la communauté afro-américaine. Les immigrants africains représentent une voix légitime aux Etats-Unis et ont la capacité d’atteindre un niveau d’influence similaire à celui que d’autres immigrants ont en matière de politique locale aussi bien qu’étrangère. On aperçoit déjà des Africains qui jouent un rôle de plus en plus important dans le lobby de la politique étrangère américaine en Afrique, rôle qui était au début rempli par des Afro-américains. En sus des idées extraordinaires du panafricanisme, les Africains et les Afro-américains représenteraient des ressources précieuses entre eux. De la même manière, la définition de l’Afro-américain changerait probablement pour les générations futures, laissant la place aux Africains qui continuent à affluer aux Etats-Unis en nombre record.

* Msia Kibona Clark, de naissance tanzanienne, a été élevée aux Etats-Unis ; elle est mi tanzanienne et mi afro-américaine. Elle détient un diplôme en Sciences Politiques de l’Université Johnson C. Smith et est également titulaire d’une maîtrise en Etudes Comparées et Régionales de l’Université Américaine. Boursière Sasakawa au sein du Département des Etudes Africaines à l’Université de Howard, elle prépare actuellement son doctorat. Sa recherche porte sur l’immigration africaine aux Etats-Unis et son incidence sur les relations africaines / afro-américaines et l’identité. De plus, Msia représente l’Ouganda au sein d’Amnesty International et travaille comme rédactrice de comptes rendus pour AllAfrica.com. Elle a aussi été consultante et conférencière auprès de plusieurs organisations. Lors de ses fonctions professionnelles et de ses recherches qui portent sur la Diaspora africaine ainsi que sur la pensée féministe, elle a été amenée à visiter l’Afrique orientale et occidentale, Cuba et le Brésil.

Msia Kibona Clark étudie le rapport entre les Afro-américains et la « nouvelle diaspora » des immigrants africains s’installant aux Etats-Unis. Elle estime le lien non pas sans conflit mais elle est d’opinion que les deux groupes ne peuvent continuer à se dissocier l’un de l’autre. A l’avenir, il est probable que la voix des immigrés africains se fera entendre de plus en plus dans le contexte de la politique intérieure ainsi qu’étrangère à mesure que les Africains et les Afro-américains se révèlent mutuellement utiles.

Texte traduit de l’original sous la direction de Vanessa Everson (maître de conférences au sein de la section de français de l’université du Cap) par Kesini Muregesan.

Henning Melber, Research Director of The Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala/Sweden, raises questions about the area of “African Studies”, reviewing some of the key debates currently taking place over its motivation, form and content. What motivates scholars to embark on African Studies? Is there a more or less direct political agenda attached to African Studies? To what extent do African scholars have options to define, pursue, and realise their own socio-political ideals and convictions?

A debate on what is supposedly understood as African Studies tends to be dependant on the individual positioning of the respective author(s). There is an obvious historical (in the sense of imperialist) dimension to the matter: African Studies emerged mainly due to a colonial legacy or direct involvement of states and their agents (missionaries, ‘explorers’, traders, officials) in either the colonisation or decolonisation of African regions or people – with the latter as the passive objects rather than the architects of the study areas and subject matters defined as being of interest (of interest to others, of course).

There were strong geopolitical and strategic dimensions, which have motivated to some extent the focus on area studies (including African Studies). Hence one of the questions we are confronted with is that of the social and political interest: what motivates scholars not only to embark on African Studies, but beyond this what allows for employment and support by state institutions in this academic field? Is there a more or less direct political agenda attached to African Studies by those who support its institutionalised pursuance? And if so, which agenda and to what extent do we as individual scholars agree or differ on the underlying motives? Last but not least: how do we contribute by what we are doing and how we are doing it (as institutions and as individual researchers) to such an agenda and its execution? To what extent do we have options to define, pursue, and realise our own socio-political ideals and convictions through and by means of the academic role we play within such institutionalised framework of interaction?

The challenge to position oneself starts with the efforts to define the subject and reach a common understanding. According to a survey among scholars in the United States of America, “mainstream Africanists across the spectrum of US higher education appear to be divided with respect to what constitutes ‘African Studies’” (Alpers/Roberts 2002: 13; see also Kassimir 1997: 161). The differing choices include:

- Study of sub-Saharan Africa (22%);
- Study of the entire continent of Africa (33%); and
- study of the people of Africa, both in Africa and the diaspora (41%).

Alpers and Roberts suggest that African Studies “should also include … the place of Africa in its global context, both historically and contemporaneously”. But they themselves seem not to honour this explicit understanding in its full consequence when summarising that African Studies “is about peoples, both on the continent of Africa and abroad, rather than about a continent called Africa.” Instead, African Studies should be even more than this: it should include foreign interests, policies and influences, as well as perceptions outside of Africa on Africa (whatever the definition of “Africa” then is). To that extent, “Africa” is also seen as a mirror image of international relations, images, projections and their results.

A decade ago Martin and West (1995: 24) warned in the US-context of the profession that the “spectre of irrelevance” is hanging over “African Studies”. What they possibly wanted to alert to is that the future of African Studies rests on shaky grounds in countries like the USA (but also the UK or Germany, for that matter), as long as those in social (political and economic) power have no direct interest in the matters analysed (like in, let’s say, Near or Middle East, East European or Chinese and East Asian Studies, which for obvious reasons serve a direct purpose within dominant interests).

That does of course not mean that African Studies are irrelevant, neither within nor outside academic discourses - even though if that might well have been the perception of those having to some extent the power of definition (if only through executing control over allocating the financial means to make things happen). There were, however, interests emerging once again within the new scramble for control over African resources, in particular oil, which after 11th September 2001 in the US-declared global war against terror contributed to a revitalisation of African Studies as strategic area studies (cf. Barnes 2004).

This is beyond doubt a double-edged sword, as it reduces the continent again to an object of super power rivalry. It is therefore essential to argue with Kassimir (1997:156) for the relevance of African Studies beyond the “utilitarianism” of economic, geopolitical and strategic interests: “Local knowledge and global knowledge are inseparable and mutually constitutive”. One might even go a step further and – for the sake of the argument – maintain that local knowledge is at the same time global knowledge. As Kassimir (ibid.) concludes: “Both global knowledge and local knowledge are necessary for contemporary scholarship; only together are they sufficient.”

For Achille Mbembe, as one of the more prominent (and controversial) African scholars - who by the way has so far not abandoned his roots in the sense of remaining attached to a working environment within the continent instead of moving to an African Studies centre in one of the metropolitan universities - in support of such an approach African societies (like all other societies) can be located “between generality and singularity”, with a “peculiar ‘historicity’ … rooted in a multiplicity of times, trajectories and rationalities that, although particular and sometimes local, cannot be conceptualised outside a world that is, so to speak, globalized.” (Mbembe 2001: 9)

The unanswered question remains, however: who creates which type of knowledge and for what purpose?

Strong arguments for a legitimate and necessary place of African Studies in the accumulation of knowledge offered Iris Berger (1997: 5): “to transcend parochial Western theories and data, participants with in-depth area-based knowledge will be as essential as ever to true global and comparative dialogue”. She also deconstructs and demystifies the highly sensitive inner-African discussions over what deserves to receive the blessing as “African Studies” in a politically correct Afro-centric view by pointing out: “’Orientalist’ criticisms inevitably lump together a rich and diverse tradition encompassing writings from many perspectives … written by scholars from all over Africa, Europe and North America as well as other parts of the world. By treating some of these areas of interest as critiques of a pristine, homogenous ‘African studies’ rather than integral parts of a diverse and continually changing field, some critics have manufactured a mythical construct that they have then proceeded to dismantle. Furthermore, alleging that there is an “African” interest that scholars have neglected also assumes an essentialist uniformity of perspective among Africans, rather than acknowledging that complex individual and collective identities based on gender, nationality, language, ideology and scholarly orientation mitigate against any single specifically ‘African’ perspective on African studies.” (Berger 1997: 9) As relevant as the identified substantive elements are, she unfortunately ignores the fundamental dimension of social class and corresponding interests.

Berger (1997: 11) also maintains that “more important than the topics of African studies research during the coming years … will be the revitalization of academic life and academic freedom in Africa”. It is particularly interesting to take note of the related concerns and views articulated by Thandika Mkandawire (2002) and Ebrima Sall (2002). At the same time, a raging controversy among African scholars highlighted in recent years the marked differences over what should be considered as “legitimate African Studies”. As one of the protagonists points out: “legitimate criticism of the damaging effects of occidental Africanism has been transformed into an extreme fetishizing of geographical identities” (Mbembe 1999). He identifies the following main obstacles to rigorous academic debate within the inter-disciplinary field of African Studies: nativism (“as if black Africa were all of Africa and all Africans were negroes”), a territorialization of the production of knowledge (“the false belief that only autochthonous people who are physically living in Africa can produce, within a closed circle limited to themselves alone, a legitimate scientific discourse on the realities of the Continent”) and a “lazy interpretation of globalisation” (Mbembe 1999; see also Mbembe 2000).

To discuss beyond the convenient pseudo-radical polemic the (real) danger of (continued) domination of African Studies by “non-African” scholars meeting other than “African” interests (whatever this means) requires firstly a strict definition with the aim to operationalise and translate the terms in practical and political ways. Any premature generalisation confirms the structural side of the (indeed existing) substance of the matter. At the same time, however, it runs the risk of brushing aside the existing individual choices and options of collaboration and interaction. As the “Mbembe-Zeleza” controversy (if not feud) documents (cf. Zeleza 2003, Robins 2004), there is also the danger of a similarly ignorant counter-position, which ultimately results in claiming genuine control over knowledge on the basis of particular dimensions rooted in claims of origin and subsequent entitlement. While aspects of socialisation and individual experiences (with the emphasis on individual) complement collective identities at all times and result in the uniqueness of the human experience in each and every person, we should be careful to use the argument of being “the same” or “the other” for academic controversies as a mono-causal reasoning.

African Studies and the relevant disciplines contributing to the scholarly debate should be considered from a point of view of assumed strength concerning the value of truly inter-disciplinary oriented methods and schools of thought. It demands a dialectical understanding of scholarly work: African Studies benefit from the strength of the various disciplines applied and in return strengthen the various disciplines beyond the immediate space of what is considered to be “African Studies”.

Interesting in this constellation is the positioning of oneself and of others as scholars, activists, and intellectuals. To what extent does it allow “global Africa” to establish common denominators irrespective of origins and identities of the actors involved in the processes (politically, analytically)? Is there a common ground to act, which is able to eliminate (or at least put aside) potentially divisive aspects of one’s personal making (in terms of socialisation impacts through shaping the individual perspectives by means of gender, social class and cultural roots - to mention just a few most significant factors)? Who plays which role in “Africanizing Knowledge” (Falola/Jennings 2002), and to what extent is this at the same time again an expression of “global Africa” – simply because Africa can only be global under the factual circumstances created and confronting us all as human beings at the beginning of this 21st century? Could it be that the challenges “global Africa” is confronted with are the challenges all human beings the world over are tasked to meet?

* Henning Melber has a PhD in Political Science and a venia legendi in Development Studies. He was Director of The Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) in Windhoek between 1992 and 2000 and is Research Director of The Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala/Sweden since then. This article is a revised and shortened version of an editorial to a special issue on African Studies he guest edited for “Afrika Spectrum” (vol. 40, no. 3, 2005).

* Please send comments to

Literature

Alpers, Edward A.; Roberts, Allen F. (2002): “What Is African Studies? Some Reflections.” In: African Issues, (30)2, pp. 11-18
Barnes, Sandra (2004): Global Flows: Terror, Oil and Strategic Philantropy. Presidential Address to the African Studies Association, New Orleans, November 12.
Berger, Iris (1997): “Contested Boundaries: African Studies Approaching the Millennium. Presidential Address to the 1996 African Studies Association Annual Meeting.” In: African Studies Review, (40)2, pp. 1-14
Falola, Toyin/Christian Jennings (eds) (2002): Africanizing Knowledge: African Studies Across the Disciplines. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers
Kassimir, Ron (1997): “The Internationalization of African Studies: A View from the SSRC.” In: Africa Today, (44)2, pp. 155-162
Martin, William; West, Michael (1995): “The Decline of the Africanists’ Africa and the Rise of New Africas.” In: Issue: A Journal of Opinion, (23)1, pp. 24-26
Mbembe, Achille (1999): “Getting Out of the Ghetto. The Challenge of Internationalization.” In. CODESRIA Bulletin, nos. 3&4, p. 3
Mbembe, Achille (2000): “African modes of self-writing.” In: CODESRIA Bulletin, no. 1, pp. 4-19
Mbembe, Achille (2001): On the Postcolony. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of Califormia Press
Mkandawire, Thandika (2002): “African Intellectuals, Political Culture and Development.” In: Journal für Entwicklungspolitik, (18)1, pp. 31-47
Robins, Steven (2004): “’The (Third) World is a Ghetto’? Looking for a Third Space between ‘Postmodern’ Cosmopolitanism and Cultural Nationalism”. In: CODESRIA Bulletin, no. 1&2, pp. 18-26
Sall, Ebrima (2002): “The Social Sciences in Africa.” In: Journal für Entwicklungspolitik, (18)1, pp. 49-67
Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe (2003): Rethinking Africa’s Globalisation. Volume 1: The Intellectual Challenges. Trenton, NJ and Asmara: Africa World Press

EDITORIAL: Gerald Caplan examines Rwanda and Darfur, drawing some conclusions on the lessons that haven’t been learnt
COMMENT & ANALYSIS:
- Msia Kibona Clark investigates the relationship between African Americans and the ‘new Diaspora’ of African immigrants to the US
- Yifat Susskind examines the "man-made" components of the HIV/AIDS crisis and their impact for African women
- What is African Studies? What motivates it? What’s the political dimension? Henning Melber reviews the field
LETTERS: Readers respond to the Mustapha Mahmound Park massacre
BLOGGING AFRICA: African Shirts, Passion of the Present, Black Star Zero, Subzeroblue and more...
CONFLICT & EMERGENCIES: Congo conflict worst for 60 years, but world does nothing
HUMAN RIGHTS: Any quiet victories for human rights in 2005?
REFUGEES: Latest on the Mustapha Mahmound Park massacre in Cairo
ELECTIONS & GOVERNANCE: You can’t chase a freedom fighter from a house like a chicken thief, Museveni says
DEVELOPMENT: Countdown to the WSF meeting in Mali
CORRUPTION: South African deputy president in hot water for free flights
HEALTH & HIV/AIDS: Uganda’s not so successful Aids policy
EDUCATION: Condom teaching equals “immoral lifestyles” claim Tanzanian bishops
MEDIA/FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Do Internet companies need to be regulated to ensure they respect free expression?
ADVOCACY & CAMPAIGNS: Turning up the heat on the US government over Darfur
INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY: Connecting to the internet through your nearest lamp post in Senegal
PLUS: e-newsletters, fundraising, courses, jobs, books and arts…

The brutal Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency enters its twentieth year with no end in sight, made more complicated by the troubling political events in Kampala over the past few months, including the arrest of opposition figures, notes the International Crisis Group in a new report. The ICG says the rebels' new strategy of ambushing vehicles, including those of humanitarian aid agencies, has worsened the humanitarian situation in northern Uganda; while peace processes in Sudan and the Congo (DRC) are being disrupted as the LRA crosses borders without response from the UN Security Council.

An overwhelming number of voters approved a constitutional referendum in December 2005, which is expected to lead to general elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, official results of the poll show. The results, released on Wednesday by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), show that 84.31 voted for the new constitution and 15.69 percent against.

some tips: sunsets and starvation are good

Always use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in you title. Subtitles may include the words 'Zanzibar', 'Masai' 'Zulu', 'Zambezi', 'Congo', 'Nile', 'Big', 'Sky', 'Shadow', 'Drum' 'Sun' or 'Bygone'. Also useful are words such as 'Guerrillas' 'Timeless', 'Primordial' and 'Tribal'. Note that 'People' mean Africans who are not black, while 'The People' means black Africans

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. Do not mention rice and beef and wheat; monkey-brain is an African's cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care.

Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation.

Throughout the book, adopt a sotto voice, in conspiracy with the reader, and a sad I-expected-so-much tone. Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can't live without her. Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed.

Your African characters may include naked warriors, loyal servants, diviners and seers, ancient wise men living in hermitic splendour. Or corrupt politicians, inept polygamous travel-guides, and prostitutes you have slept with. The Loyal Servant always behaves like a seven-year-old and needs a firm hand; he is scared of snakes, good with children, and always involving you in his complex domestic dramas. The Ancient Wise Man always comes from a noble tribe (not the money-grubbing tribes like the Gikuyu, the Igbo or the Shona). He has rheumy eyes and is close to the Earth. The Modern African is a fat man who steals and works in the visa office, refusing to give work permits to qualified Westerners who really care about Africa. He is an enemy of development, always using his government job to make it difficult for pragmatic and good-hearted expats to set up NGOs or Legal Conservation Areas. Or he is an Oxford-educated intellectual turned serial-killing politician in a Savile Row suit. He is a cannibal who likes Cristal champagne, and his mother is a rich witch-doctor who really runs the country.

Among your characters you must always include The Starving African, who wanders the refugee camp nearly naked, and waits for the benevolence of the West. Her children have flies on their eyelids and pot bellies, and her breasts are flat and empty. She must look utterly helpless. She can have no past, no history; such diversions ruin the dramatic moment. Moans are good. She must never say anything about herself in the dialogue except to speak of her (unspeakable) suffering. Also be sure to include a warm and motherly woman who has a rolling laugh and who is concerned for your well-being. Just call her Mama. Her children are all delinquent. These characters should buzz around your main hero, making him look good. Your hero can teach them, bathe them, feed them; he carries lots of babies and has seen Death. Your hero is you (if reportage), or a beautiful, tragic international celebrity/aristocrat who now cares for animals (if fiction).

Bad Western characters may include children of Tory cabinet ministers, Afrikaners, employees of the World Bank. When talking about exploitation by foreigners mention the Chinese and Indian traders. Blame the West for Africa's situation. But do not be too specific.

Broad brushstrokes throughout are good. Avoid having the African characters laugh, or struggle to educate their kids, or just make do in mundane circumstances. Have them illuminate something about Europe or America in Africa. African characters should be colourful, exotic, larger than life—but empty inside, with no dialogue, no conflicts or resolutions in their stories, no depth or quirks to confuse the cause.

Describe, in detail, naked breasts (young, old, conservative, recently raped, big, small) or mutilated genitals, or enhanced genitals. Or any kind of genitals. And dead bodies. Or, better, naked dead bodies. And especially rotting naked dead bodies. Remember, any work you submit in which people look filthy and miserable will be referred to as the 'real Africa', and you want that on your dust jacket. Do not feel queasy about this: you are trying to help them to get aid from the West. The biggest taboo in writing about Africa is to describe or show dead or suffering white people.

Animals, on the other hand, must be treated as well rounded, complex characters. They speak (or grunt while tossing their manes proudly) and have names, ambitions and desires. They also have family values: see how lions teach their children? Elephants are caring, and are good feminists or dignified patriarchs. So are gorillas. Never, ever say anything negative about an elephant or a gorilla. Elephants may attack people's property, destroy their crops, and even kill them. Always take the side of the elephant. Big cats have public-school accents. Hyenas are fair game and have vaguely Middle Eastern accents. Any short Africans who live in the jungle or desert may be portrayed with good humour (unless they are in conflict with an elephant or chimpanzee or gorilla, in which case they are pure evil).

After celebrity activists and aid workers, conservationists are Africa's most important people. Do not offend them. You need them to invite you to their 30,000-acre game ranch or 'conservation area', and this is the only way you will get to interview the celebrity activist. Often a book cover with a heroic-looking conservationist on it works magic for sales. Anybody white, tanned and wearing khaki who once had a pet antelope or a farm is a conservationist, one who is preserving Africa's rich heritage. When interviewing him or her, do not ask how much funding they have; do not ask how much money they make off their game. Never ask how much they pay their employees.

Readers will be put off if you don't mention the light in Africa. And sunsets, the African sunset is a must. It is always big and red. There is always a big sky. Wide empty spaces and game are critical—Africa is the Land of Wide Empty Spaces. When writing about the plight of flora and fauna, make sure you mention that Africa is overpopulated. When your main character is in a desert or jungle living with indigenous peoples (anybody short) it is okay to mention that Africa has been severely depopulated by Aids and War (use caps).

You'll also need a nightclub called Tropicana, where mercenaries, evil nouveau riche Africans and prostitutes and guerrillas and expats hang out.

Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care.

* Binyavanga Wainaina is the founding editor of the literary magazine, Kwani? This article is from the latest edition of Granta, a magazine that publishes new writing - fiction, personal history, reportage and inquiring journalism - four times a year.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Midlands State University is calling for papers from individuals, academics and professionals interested in attending an international conference on “ Constitutionalism and Governance in Africa: Reconstituting Constitutional Government in the SADC.” The conference will be held in Zimbabwe from 25-27 April 2006. It is also open to those interested in issues covered but may not wish to develop papers for presentation.

Okello Oculi looks back at a Council for Development and Social Research in Africa (Codesria) meeting that took place in Maputo early in December under the title "Rethinking African Development: Beyond Impasse, Towards Alternatives". While the decimation of African economies through the application of so-called development policies was frequently raised during the meeting, attention also focused on the poor state of African scholarship.

The Council for Development and Social Research in Africa, CODESRIA, held its tri-ennial General Assembly in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, from 6-10 December, 2005. The theme of the event was "Rethinking African Development: Beyond Impasse, Towards Alternatives", and was attended by 400 scholars drawn from within and outside Africa. Its hosting by a Portuguese-speaking country (or rather a country where the language of government is Portuguese) was a landmark in unifying Africa's scholars across colonial language walls. The election of a female Mozambiquecan, Professor Tresa Cruz da Silva, as the new President, retained the tradition of having a woman at the top, while Professor Adebayo Olukoshi, of Nigeria, remains as Executive Secretary. Professor Zen Tedesse from Ethiopia stepped down from the presidency.

The theme of "impasse" in Africa's development clearly also applied to the dismal condition of scholarship in the continent's universities. The chairman of the "Scientific Council" of the organisation reported, for example, that out of the one thousand proposals sent by those who wished to participate in the Maputo assembly, only 155 were suitable in terms of quality of research. There was virtual poverty in philosophical issues including those in the fields of law and anthropology at a time when the continent is desperately in need of new directions and alternatives to the disaster in governance and economic decay which has marked the last three decades.

A major indicator of the impasse for Nigeria was in the low level of representation by the spread of universities which sent scholars and the ranking of those who attended. Only Ahmadu Bello University, Ibadan, Obafemi Awolowo, Nsukka, and Lagos State Universities, were represented with a grand total of less than 15. Like Kenya, Nigeria's more senior academics were either out of the business of active and creative scholarship or too tied down with earning money from consultancy work, or both. At a time when both countries are gripped by intense and often murderous struggle for power and over new directions for development, it was laughable that their weight was woefully light in Maputo as CODESRIA searched "Towards Alternatives".

In his opening speech Professor Adebayo Olukoshi condemned increasing calls by leading propagandists in Europe and North America for the "recolonisation of Africa". Professor Jomo Kwame Sunderam, a Malaysian scholar (whose father attended the 1945 Pan African Congress in Manchester and later named his son after Jomo Kenyata and Kwame Nkrumah who were at that Congress), ended his address by stating that: "Our challenge is to make History African", as against calls in newspapers like The Times (of London) and the Washington Post, as well as some think-tanks in London and Washington, for bringing an end to "problems of failed states in Africa" by establishing a new American Empire over the continent. Nigeria's academics and scholars are clearly not responding to these calls by increasingly choosing to watch football matches between Arsenal and Manchester United etc etc, instead of rising to CODESRIA's war horns.

Professor Sunderam drew attention to what he called " a counter-revolution against development economics" which since the 1980s hit Africa devastatingly with "trade liberalisation", "de-agriculturalisation", and negative "terms of trade". Opening up Africa's markets to massive imports resulted in de-industrialisation through the collapse of "whatever manufacturing capacity which had developed" in the 1960s and 1970s. The loss of jobs, in South East Asia, for example, hit jobs where women had sought liberation from tyrannies of household labour. Massive imports of food or food aid, and insistence by the World Bank and the IMF that subsidies to peasant farmers be withdrawn, resulted in undermining local food prices and capacities for food production, resulting in the collapse of food securities all across Africa.

The third blow has been in the prolonged decline in prices of primary commodities. Mwalimu Nyerere had long ago complained about the higher quantities of cotton or sisal Tanzania had to export in order to purchase one imported tractor. While prices of commodities from the tropics (like cotton) have declined severely, that of temperate commodities (like wool) have been much less. Moreover, the industrialized countries are producing chemical products out of Africa's plants, herbs and condiments and claiming intellectual copyrights over them.

In Sunderam's view, "intellectual property rights have become the biggest earners of foreign exchange for the United States of America". Finally, he focused on the sad fact that most governments in Africa now have "fewer instruments to be able to stimulate economic growth". This is due mainly to takeovers of local banks. In Kenya, for example, foreign banks have returned to the colonial practice of not lending to the local private sector, preferring to get 44 per cent of their earnings from buying government bonds; as well as charging interest rates as high as 26 per cent, thereby crippling productive investment.

In any case, only 20 per cent of foreign direct investment goes into the so-called "green fields" i.e. those that create new manufacturing capacities. The myth of foreign direct investment continues to hide the fact that African countries are net exporters of capital to North America and Europe either as debt over-repayments, payments for patents, over invoiced charges by multinational corporations, or stolen funds being hidden by corrupt officials.

One deficiency in the CODESRIA general assembly meeting in Maputo was that this analysis came from a scholar from outside Africa's universities. This is due partly to African governments keeping their own scholars away from government corridors and policy arena, with files marked "Secret" being more accessible to foreign researchers with dollars to pay as tips to their vigilant keepers. In addition to this, is the severe poverty of local scholars, which leaves the best of them vulnerable to funds to be earned from the IMF/World Bank - sponsored projects whose agenda have more to do with "palliative economics" than with "development economics". The promise by the Executive Secretary of the organisation, Professor Adebayo Olukoshi, that "fighting for academic freedom" will be a priority in the next three years, should include yanking open to African researchers creaky gates to government policy vaults.

* Okello Oculi, Ph.D, is Executive Director of Africa Vision

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Despite urgent appeals for international aid by both the government of Zambia and WFP in December 2005, no new donations have been received and refugees in Zambia have been on half-rations since 1 January 2006. "We have a refugee caseload of up to 82,000 people and we have not received any new contributions since July 2005, so it's getting a bit difficult. The food stocks we do have will run out by the end of March. We need $8.5 million to provide food to refugees until the end of December this year," WFP spokeswoman Jo Woods told IRIN.

Burundians were the largest group of displaced people to repatriate in 2005. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) assisted around 60,000 of the 400,000 Burundians living in Tanzania to return home, and more are expected to follow. The largest new refugee population in 2005 in the sub-region came from Central African Republic. More than 10,000 people started fleeing to southern Chad in June following attacks near the border by unidentified armed groups.

Health-e’s new resources page include the following sections: Reports, which includes a selection of developmental and health-related reports, papers and publications; HIV/AIDS and the Media, includes topical discussion papers on the role of the media and guidelines for journalists reporting on the epidemic; A range of statistics and indicators from various sources is found in the Statistics section; Upcoming Events and Conferences will be of interest to those working in the health sector and a list of contact numbers can be found under Contacts.

The Funding Road Map contains summary information about funding sources for global health projects, including eligibility criteria, application procedures and contact information. Over 50 funding opportunities are listed, plus more!

Today, January 5th, CODEPINK is launching a new campaign called '' Women Say No to War'' to bring together US women like Alice Walker, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Susan Sarandon, Cindy Sheehan and Dolores Huerta with women from countries such as Britain, Canada, Australia, Mexico, the Philippines, Japan, Jordan, Iran and especially Iraq. The purpose? To tell leaders - and the world - that women have had enough of the senseless war in Iraq.

Several Egyptian journalists have launched a new Internet radio station. According to Al-Jazeera.net, the radio station is believed to be Egypt's first to broadcast primarily news.

The International Development Research Centre invites proposals from teams interested in developing and establishing a multi-stakeholder information and monitoring system in two states in Nigeria: Bauchi and Cross River. This call for proposals is part of the planning phase for a proposed multi-year CA$ 15 million IDRC-CIDA collaborative initiative to support an evidence-based primary health system in Nigeria, the Nigerian Evidence-based Health Systems Initiative (NEHSI).

The US Population Reference Bureau has produced a CDROM, in English and French, featuring a collection of data and research on female genital mutilation/cutting from a variety of sources. Funded by USAID, this resource is a direct response to existing information gaps. Single copies of the CDROM are available free of charge.

Singapore company Nex-G Systems was initially contracted to provide "smart" solar powered lampposts to Cameroon which would be remote controlled from a central point. Moving forward from this, the company has decided to also install telecoms infrastructure so that the lampposts enable people to go online and make telephone calls. The company plans to install WiFi, a short-range wireless technology, on about 4,000 lamps in Douala, providing Internet access even to some of the city's remote areas.

Former Kenyan government minister Raila Odinga has told the police he believes his life is in danger. Mr Odinga, who was sacked last month, says he has received assassination threats and is constantly being pursued by men in unmarked vehicles. Mr Odinga is leader of the Orange Democratic Movement which campaigned against the constitutional proposals backed by President Mwai Kibaki.

Corruption deals in Africa are getting bigger. The crooks are getting smarter and doing ever greater damage to Africa's economies - sucking out resources meant for health, education and clean water. Unlike their Asian counterparts, Africa's robber-barons prefer to take their booty to Europe or the United States, far from prying eyes.

Two opposition MPs from northern Uganda have been found not guilty of murdering a local official in 2002. MPs Reagan Okumu and Michale Ocula are from presidential challenger Kizza Besigye's party, who is facing multiple court charges himself. The MPs said the charges were politically motivated. The judge said the prosecution case was "a crude and amateur attempt at creative work".

Sudan joined Chad on Tuesday (January 10) in offering to open talks to defuse mounting tension along their joint border, but the two sides still appeared far apart. At the weekend, Chad said it was ready to talk to Sudan but only if Khartoum agreed to a set of conditions, including the disarmament of Chadian rebels N’djamena claims are operating on the Sudanese side of the border.

South Sudan’s largest militia group has announced that it will join the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), formerly a rebel group and now a partner in Sudan’s national unity government. Under the agreement, called the Juba Declaration of Unity and Integration, the armed forces of the two groups will merge, reducing the number of disparate armed groups in the south that have caused much insecurity.

At least 52 cases of cholera have been reported in parts of the Tanzanian commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, over the last month, a city official said on Tuesday (January 10). "We are worried over more new cases although we have warned the people to adhere to rules of hygiene, including boiling drinking water, use of toilets and washing hands with soap," Gaston Makwembe, the Dar es Salaam City Information Officer, said.

The National Anti-Corruption Forum has received a boost with the commitment of R3,6m for corruption-fighting activities by Business Against Crime and the German Technical Co-operation (GTZ) development body. The forum, which started its work last year, consists of 30 members, with 10 representatives each from business, government and the civil society. Forum objectives include encouraging whistle-blowing and reporting of corruption in business, government and civil organisations. The forum also wants to promote leadership that is committed to the creation of a culture of integrity, as reported by Transparency International.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) and African Airlines Association (AFRAA) have blamed frequent air crashes in Africa on weak economies, poverty and corruption. Countries such as Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia, Sudan, Ethiopia and lately Nigeria and Gabon were listed as those with growing space misfortunes in the last two years. While AFRAA considered these countries as lacking established sound and well regulated civil aviation sector, IATA saw the bane of Africa's aviation under-development as rooted in inadequate infrastructure, as reported by Transparency International.

For over 20,000 years, clans of hunter-gatherers have survived in central Botswana’s stark, desert plains. Now, a handful are left, locked in a bitter dispute over their right to remain in what has been declared a wildlife reserve. Botswana’s efforts to remove two small ethnic Basarwa communities from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve is the latest chapter in a long history of dislocation and loss. Government officials argue the Basarwas’ changing lifestyle is incompatible with wildlife conservation. They want the last holdouts – estimated at less than 30 – to be resettled where they can be provided modern services such as schools and clinics, as reported by The Star.

A 30-year-old law in Namibia banning male-to-male sex is preventing condom distribution in the country's prisons and hindering HIV prevention efforts, according to HIV/AIDS advocates, South Africa's Mail & Guardian reports. According to government officials, condom distribution would promote sex between men, which is outlawed under the 1977 Criminal Procedures Act.

Shut Them Down! is an essential collection of reflections on the movement against the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. As well as action stories from the frontlines of resistance to the summit, there are detailed accounts of how various aspects of the mobilisation were organised, and analysis of the lessons to be learned.

As the death toll from flooding in Mozambique over the past few days has climbed to 22, officials are now faced with the threat of waterborne diseases like cholera. "About 200 cases of cholera have been reported across the country," a spokesman for Mozambique's National Institute for Disaster Management (INGC), Rogerio Manguele, told IRIN on Monday.

A 13-year old girl published her first novel on Wednesday, with the story of young love drawing plaudits from critics for its groundbreaking style. Magalie's Triumph by Victoire Calissa Ikama Ngala began arriving in bookshops around the Republic of Congo capital, Brazzaville, as critics noted its conversational, screenplay-like feel - a break from many French-language novels that are written in more formal prose.