Pambazuka News 513: Patrice Lumumba: Tributes to a fallen giant
Pambazuka News 513: Patrice Lumumba: Tributes to a fallen giant
Haiti on Tuesday briefly detained former dictator Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier, back from exile in France, and charged him with corruption, theft and abuses of power allegedly committed during his 15-year rule. While a noisy crowd of his supporters protested outside the prosecutor's office, Duvalier, 59, was questioned over accusations that he stole public funds and committed human rights abuses after taking over as president in 1971.
The autonomous region of Puntland in Somalia has announced that it will break with the federal government based in the embattled capital, Mogadishu. After a special meeting of Abdirahman Mohammed Farole's presidential cabinet, the government issued a statement saying that the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) 'does not represent Puntland in international forums' and that the United Nations Political Office for Somalia should 'reconsider its position and support for the TFG at the expense of other Somali stakeholders'.
Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali flees at the site of popular protest.
Ekpo Eyo’s ‘From Shrines to Showcases: Masterpieces of Nigerian Art’ – a book on the country’s myriad artistic works – is a ‘masterpiece in its own right’, writes Kwame Opuku. But while Eyo exhibits masterful knowledge of Nigeria’s rich gamut of artistic endeavour, the fact that so many of these works remain held outside of the country – seemingly not to be returned – is scandalous, Opuku concludes.
Why is it that the image of legendary Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba continues be so important to Africa? Chambi Chachage explores.
With President Bingu wa Mutharika turning on his Vice-President Joyce Banda, is Malawi on the road to dictatorship?
Reviewing Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem's 'Speaking Truth to Power: Selected Pan-African Postcards', Kenyantraveller lauds Tajudeen's wise yet accessible style: 'The book is never condescending or overly academic, just knowledgable and acerbic enough to get you thinking things through twice.'
The statistics are too far gone to claim: us
Me and the girls that carry my anguish
Sometimes I want to find someone to blame
Someone to imprison with guilt or at the every least point a finger at…
In the wake of protests in Tanzania and Tunisia and the authorities’ heavy-handed response, Kate Bomz draws parallels between the countries’ respective histories.
As South Sudan continues with its referendum, Alemayehu G. Mariam considers what will happen following the south’s probable independence, the longer-term consequences for Sudan and the wider significance for Africa’s direction in the 21st century.
Pambazuka News 512: Crises of citizenship and identity: Sudan, DRC and Côte d’Ivoire
Pambazuka News 512: Crises of citizenship and identity: Sudan, DRC and Côte d’Ivoire
In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers.
Ng?g? wa Thiong'o, one of the greatest writers, thinkers and philosophers of our time will be the keynote speaker on: Saturday, 22 January 2011, Waterfront Hotel at Jack London Square, 10 Washington St., Oakland.
This position provides the opportunity to support existing advocacy coalitions and campaigns on women's human rights in a stimulating, multicultural and dynamic environment.
The Municipal Service Project (MSP) has undertaken in-depth examinations of the gendered effects of privatization of public services, with a particular emphasis on the ways in which privatization creates additional burdens for women and exacerbates the power imbalance caused by the gendered divisions of labour. A new briefing note available on their website covers this issue and also includes an extended bibliography broken down by sector (water, health and electricity/energy) and thematic areas of interest.
The Southern Sudan Referendum Commission (SSRC) has assured referendum results will be successfully announced despite insecurity concerns and logistical challenges. The SSRC Chairperson Professor Ibrahim Khalil has said that 84 per cent of the registered voters cast their votes. This is a preliminary statistic carried by the Commission from 9th-14th January 2011.
Several Cabinet Minister have left Kenya on a mission to countries around Africa to lobby support ahead of the tabling of a Motion before the African Union (AU), to push for Kenya's withdrawal from the International Criminal Court statute. The AU meeting will take place between 30 and 31 January in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Union has already urged for a deferment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir's indictment by the ICC and could undoubtedly back Kenya's bid.
The Worldwatch Institute's 2011 edition of their flagship 'State of the World' report is available. It looks at the global food crisis, with particular emphasis on global innovations that can help solve a worldwide problem. State of the World 2011 not only introduces the latest agro-ecological innovations and their global applicability but also gives broader insights into issues including poverty, international politics, and even gender equity.
In the first commentary piece of this month's newsletter Ms Sanusha Naidu comments on South Africa’s recent inclusion into the BRIC grouping. The second commentary by Alexandre de Freitas Barbosa looks at relations between Brazil and Africa (article in Portuguese) followed by a review by Prof Deborah Brautigam of a recently released report on China’s possible influence and activities in African media. The January edition is available .
Saferworld and the Africa Peace Forum are delighted to invite you to the report launch of China’s Growing Role in African Peace and Security. China is increasingly coming to play a larger role in Africa’s peace and security landscape. This event provides an opportunity for a panel of speakers to present their own views and perspectives on the topic.
APSA and the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) University of Nairobi, are pleased to announce a call for applications from individuals who would like to participate in a workshop on 'Representation Reconsidered: Ethnic Politics and Africa's Governance Institutions in Comparative Perspective' from 23 July to 6 August 2011, in Nairobi, Kenya. The 2011 APSA Africa Workshop will be led by Todd Eisenstadt and Carl LeVan, both of American University in Washington, DC, along with Josephine Ahikire from Makerere University in Uganda , and Karuti Kanyinga from the University of Nairobi, Kenya.
The exact number of women and girls who have experienced sexual abuse in the DRC is not known, writes Nikki Whaites for the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service. In 2008, the United Nations Population Fund reported 15,996 registered cases of sexual violence across the country. And 65 per cent of those were children, the majority girls – 10 per cent were under the age of 10. But few are paying attention.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick, or at least his press team, responded promptly to last week’s concerns on a new food price spike with a comment piece in the Financial Times. It’s fascinating as much for what is missing as for what is in there, says this Oxfam blog. On the plus side, Zoellick gives due priority to food as ‘the essence of life’ and argues that the G20 needs to show leadership. But the whole piece seems to suffer from a straitjacket of free market ideology. Whatever the problem, the answer can’t go beyond liberalising trade and investment, voluntary codes of conduct, access to information, and improved aid and safety nets for those that fall through the cracks.
The marathon task of counting the ballot in southern Sudan's independence referendum was underway on Sunday after the week-long polling on partitioning Africa's largest nation closed. 'Secession. Secession. Secession', the returning officer intoned on Saturday night as he carefully unfolded each ballot paper cast at a polling station in a school in the southern capital of Juba before pronouncing the voter's choice.
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has welcomed the pledge from Tunisian President Ben Ali to allow press freedom and to end internet censorship, saying the move vindicates the long-running campaign for independence by journalists led by the Syndicat national des journalistes tunisiens (SNJT), an IFJ affiliate. 'We welcome this commitment to press freedom by President Ben Ali,' said Jim Boumelha, IFJ President. 'It is long overdue and now he must make good on his promises.'
Relative calm returned to western Zambia Saturday though under heavy police patrols after Friday’s bloody protests left two people killed and nine wounded as activists pressed for secession of the region. Police shot dead two youths in an effort to crush Barotseland activists who wanted to hold a rally at Limulunga royal village in Mongu – about 600 kilometres west of the capital Lusaka – to discuss secession of the province.
The African Union's mediator in Ivory Coast's deadly leadership standoff is to return to Abidjan this week for his latest bid to bridge the yawning gap between two increasingly entrenched presidents. AU mediator and Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga flew to Abuja on Sunday to meet the head of west African regional bloc ECOWAS, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, after which he will head to crisis-stricken Abijdan.
A jobless man who set himself on fire in a northeast Algerian town bordering strife-torn Tunisia to protest the mayor's refusal to meet him over jobs and housing died of his injuries on Sunday, his family said. It was the one of four attempted public suicides in Algeria this past week in apparent copycat replays of last month's self-immolation of a 26-year-old graduate in Tunisia which triggered a popular revolt that led to the ouster of that country's ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Ivoirians are still crossing from western Côte d'Ivoire into Liberia at a rate of 400 to 600 a day, according to an 'initial refugee assessment' issued by the UN World Food Programme (WFP). Using data drawn from a four-day mission to Liberia border areas earlier this month, the WFP's study on the Ivoirian refugee influx and food security notes that 'refugee consumption is inadequate' and highlights the need for refugees to receive either full food rations or partial rations complemented by supplementary feeding.
The political crisis in Côte d'Ivoire is hitting an already broken education system, with gunfire disrupting classes, teachers staying home for political reasons and families increasingly desperate about their children's schooling. Under-investment and instability in recent decades have weakened education in Côte d'Ivoire and many development projects - now suspended - called for strengthening basic services such as health and education.
As the International Criminal Court (ICC) decides whether to charge six prominent Kenyans over the violence that followed the 2007 presidential election, internally displaced persons (IDPs) have expressed concern over their much-delayed resettlement. 'We feel we have been suffering in camps for too long; we wonder if those who caused us the displacement ever think of our welfare,' Peter Kariuki, an IDP at the Mawingo camp in Nyandarwa district, Central Province, told IRIN.
Tunisia is trying to restore order following the 'Jasmine Revolution' that led former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to leave the country on Friday. Until new presidential elections are held within the next two months, Chamber of Deputies Speaker Foued Mebazza will be Tunisia's president. Ben Ali is now in Jeddah, the Saudi Royal Palace confirmed Saturday.
The first Wikileaks cables from the US Embassy in Maputo revived the discussion on narcotics smuggling that had happened in mid 2010, reports Global Voices. Back then, the US Treasury added Mozambican businessman Mohamed Bachir Suleman to its list of international drug kingpins, sanctioning his businesses by freezing their US-held assets and preventing Americans from doing business with them. Suleman was one of a list of only 87 individuals globally.
A new initiative to support production of renewable energy in Mauritius may provide a model for other countries to follow suit. 'We have got so much sunshine here,' says Andrea Gungadin, rector of the Hindu Girls College, a private educational institution in Curepipe, southern Mauritius. 'Why allow it to go waste when we can use it to produce electricity at a time when fossil fuel is becoming scarcer and more expensive?' The college, which has 1,400 students, is producing 14 KWh of clean electricity daily from a three kilowatt solar system mounted on its roof. This represents about a fifth of the school’s energy needs.
Despite some progress, Nigeria is lagging behind its peers in reducing deaths among children under five. The mortality rate remains worryingly high for newborn infants – 700 children less than 28 days old die in the country every day. A new report published by Nigeria’s Ministry of Health however acknowledges that the mortality rate for children has fallen by about a fifth since 1990, but this progress has been unevenly spread – with important implications for health policy.
Luleki Sizwe, a small, all-volunteer group that campaigns for LGBT people, is based in Cape Town’s mostly poor black townships and rural areas. The organisation works with and supports women who have been victims of what has fast become a ubiquitous form of targeted sexual violence in South Africa: 'corrective rape' against gay women or women suspected of being gay, as a form of 'curing' them. A campaign of the organisation has garnered 130,000 signatures worldwide.
This paper explores social movements’ roles in challenging relationships of poverty and inequality. It begins by examining the motivations, emergence and strategies of these movements. The author then argues that movements are highly relevant to poverty reduction dialogue because they challenge the dominant way in which it is understood, and suggest alternative means of achieving it. Cases from Bolivia, India, Peru and South Africa are considered.
Sex work has increasingly become a popular means of making money for young girls in the urban areas in Malawi. This article makes reference to an intervention project in Malawi that was implemented in 2004 and sought to empower sex workers and to encourage them to insist on consistent use of condoms. The messages were also designed to encourage the young sex workers to modify their behaviour and withdraw from the practice.
Christiana Garpeh listened attentively with her headphones as she put together her first radio piece of the day. She ignored the Beyonce song playing in the newsroom to focus on transcribing an interview. The interview was with a woman from Pagos Island, a part of Monrovia cut off from the rest of the city by swamps. She was seeking donors for women's literacy classes and classes in soap making and tailoring. Each working day Garpeh produces about two such stories on the needs of women for broadcast by Liberia Women Democracy Radio, housed in a two-story building in Congo Town on the outskirts of Monrovia, the nation's capital.
The lives of Botswana’s transgender people are seemingly about to change for the better, following the registration of Rainbow Identity Association (RIA), a trans and intersex oriented organisation, formed in 2007 after founder, Skipper Mogapi, realised marginalisation of these gender identities among the general lesbian, gay and bisexual movement in that country.
No matter how many times researchers caution about the tendency to exaggerate the impact of information technologies (ITs) as 'magic bullets' to address a host of development challenges, common talk is predictably techno-optimistic, says this article on the website of the Communication Initiative. Policy makers, the media and aid organisations usually throw nuance aside to hail the arrival of the latest technology.
The South African Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union (Saccawu) plans to picket a Massmart shareholders meeting to show opposition to the group's impending deal with Walmart, reports South Africa's Daily Times. Massmart's shareholders are expected to vote for the global retail giant's offer to acquire 51 per cent of Massmart's shares at the meeting. The anti-Walmart coalition includes the Congress of South African Trade Unions, social movements and civil-society organisations.
A four-part series of US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks shows that the US knew about the extent of corruption and discontent in Tunisia, and chose to support Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the now deposed Tunisian president, regardless. Written in June of 2006 by William Hudson, the US ambassador to Tunisia, the memos were composed just four months after Donald Rumsfeld, the then-US secretary of defence, visited Tunisia to discuss expanding military ties between the two countries.
Two South African groups have launched a move to get an arrest warrant issued against Tzipi Livni, the chairperson of Israel's Kadima party, during a visit to the country next week, Israeli media have said. Haaretz.com, quoting Channel 10, said the Media Review Network (MRN) and the Palestine Solidarity Alliance (PSA) allege Livni committed war crimes in her role in Israel's three-week war on Gaza in late 2008-2009. Livni was then foreign minister in the government of Ehud Olmert.
Nigeria's ruling Peoples Democratic Party has nominated incumbent Goodluck Jonathan as its presidential candidate after fending off a primary challenge in the country's mainly Muslim north. Jonathan's nomination on Friday allows him to stand in the April presidential elections, which are viewed as one of the most important in the history of Africa's most populous country.
State security agents ransacked Teranga FM last week, a community radio station located outside the capital, and ordered its closure, Reporters Without Borders has learned from various sources. Launched in 2009, Teranga FM is based in Sinju Alajie, about 20 km west of Banjul, the capital. It is funded by donations from the local population and advertising.
Over the past four years, violence against journalists and other media professionals in Somalia has escalated to an alarming level. Somalia is now the most deadly state in Africa for journalists. According to the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUOSJ), between 2007 and 2010, 22 journalists were targeted and murdered specifically for their journalism, 32 were wounded while conducting their journalistic work, 108 journalists were imprisoned, 200 journalists received death threats, and 250 journalists fled the country.
Traditional funding sources for NGOs are drying up and grants are being reduced due to various factors, says this article on Externally, the fact that South Africa is viewed as a middle income economy has resulted in decreased funding opportunities. It has also been noted that the inadequate expenditure of funds by the South African government has contributed to the decrease in donor funding. The recent economic recession has seen some funding organisations in the United States merging to survive, just like their United Kingdom counterparts. Some have indicated that they intend to focus on programmes that are replicable regionally, say, in a number of countries within the Southern Africa Developing Countries (SADC).
Like many of its neighbours in the region, Tunisia has long approached the internet as a force to be censored. Tunisians are barred from accessing a wide variety of sites, from the seemingly innocuous YouTube to sites providing information on human rights in their country. Yet, in a surprising speech in which Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the Tunisian president, announced that he will not run again for office, he also promised something long hoped-for by Tunisian netizens: Internet freedom.
As slain land rights activist Moses Mpoe was laid to rest on 11 December, thousands of community members gathered to mourn and remember him, reports The Press Institute. During the funeral, murmurs circulated suggesting that senior government officials and their families were responsible for Mpoe’s assassination, as Mpoe played a major role in a court case that aimed to return more than 30,000 acres of land in the area known as Mau Narok to the Maasai community, a semi-nomadic people indigenous to East Africa who are known for their distinctive dress and customs.
How is it possible that a woman living in a water-rich region only needs to open the tap to get enough water for herself and her family, while a woman in a water-scarce region has to walk for miles and miles to get far less water of much worse quality? This article has two parts. The first deals with dominant positions concerning water: the neoliberal agenda, consequences of water privatisation, and the UN stance. The second part looks at what is missing in this picture and ignored by the dominant perspectives - namely, global inequalities and gender discrimination.
Soldiers patrolling on the periphery of the BeitBridge border fence have been accused of sexually harassing desperate border jumpers intending to cross to South Africa. Zimbabweans living in South Africa who had come to the country hoping to acquire travel documents have been forced to leave the country without passports due to chaos at the Home Affairs Department. Sources who spoke to Radio VOP said women who use undesignated entry points into South Africa are subjected to sexual harassment including rape.
The International Organisation for Migration has confirmed that millions of Zimbabweans who left home and settled in foreign countries were economic refugees. 'The assessment we have done so far confirms that many Zimbabweans chose to move in pursuit of better economic opportunities, and with things improving in the country we expect an improvement in the returning of those immigrants,' IOM Deputy Chief of Mission to Zimbabwe, Katie Kerr told journalists on the sidelines of her organisation’s boat donation to the department of Civil Protection in Harare.
The Human Rights League of the Horn of Africa (HRLHA) is highly concerned about the safety of nine Oromo refugees from Ethiopia whose whereabouts are not known since they were extra-judicially arrested and taken away by members of the Djibouti force in Djibouti on different occasions in the months of November and December 2010, and January 2011. HRLHA has a profound belief that the two countries – Djibouti and Ethiopia – are acting jointly in hunting, arresting and punishing alleged members and/or supporters of opposition political organisations and human rights activists.
Human Rights Watch has called on Saudi Arabia to stop the deportation of Somali refugees back to the war-torn Horn of Africa nation, reports Bloomberg. Saudi authorities sent more than 150 people back to the Somalia capital, Mogadishu, on 17 December, HRW said, citing local press reports. Another 2,000 were returned in June and July, according to the United Nations.
The Ethiopian government has unveiled an HIV policy for its transport sector, which has grown significantly in recent years alongside the rapidly expanding road network. 'Various national studies have shown that those working across the transport sector - especially drivers and their assistants - are vulnerable to HIV infection as they spend considerable time away from their families,' said Ethiopia's transport authority director Kassahun Hailemariam.
In its push to expand participation in tertiary education, the government announced last week that opportunities for South Africans who passed school-leaving examinations in December would grow by 56 per cent this year. And under political pressure to provide free higher education, President Jacob Zuma promised students on state loans a free final year if they graduate.
President Jacob Zuma told party leaders this week to implement the government's new growth plan immediately, insisting it could be refined as they went along. With unemployment officially above 25 per cent of those actively looking for work, South Africa lost more than a million jobs in the recent global downturn. School-leavers and unskilled young men and women are the hardest hit by joblessness.
A leading academic has ripped into the country's education system saying it is failing South Africa's youth. Speaking at the graduation ceremony for the Eastern Cape Student Sponsorship Programme at Selborne College in East London, Rhodes University vice-chancellor Dr Saleem Badat called the state of education in the country a 'tragedy'. 'It is an absolute scandal that the South African school system functions the way it does in 2010, 16 years after the start of democracy in our country,' Badat said.
Cameroonian gay rights activist Alice Nkomo has come in for sharp criticism over a European Union grant meant to provide health training for sexual minorities in the conservative country. News of the euro 300,000 grant which was finalised last week has heightened already widespread sentiment against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders in the west African country. Anti-gay movements in the country have urged the government to take the EU to task for providing the funds to Ms Nkomo’s organisation.
Some Muslim women in western Uganda are demanding that a new HIV prevention programme for Muslims include condom promotion, going against calls by local religious leaders for the programme to be limited to messages on faithfulness and abstinence. 'The holy Koran allows Muslim men to marry four wives, but men still go out of wedlock and have extra-marital relationships,' Jazira Mugisa told IRIN/PlusNews.
Sex workers operating in East Africa are generally aware of the HIV risks of unprotected sex, but for many of them, the extra cash incentive clients often offer for sex without a condom is worth the risk. According to Basilisa Ndayisaba, coordinator of local NGO Society for Women against AIDS in Africa (SWAA-Burundi), which raises awareness among sex workers on condom use and HIV risk, despite their best efforts, many sex workers in Bujumbura remain apathetic about condom use.
A very important patent decision may have just been made in Mumbai. Abbott Laboratories, one of the world's biggest research-based drug companies, doesn't like it - they are now considering what to do. But HIV/Aids campaigners are celebrating. The Mumbai patent office has rejected Abbott's application for a patent in India on its drug Kaletra - a combination of the two antiretroviral medicines lopinavir and ritonavir. The decision could help enable the manufacture of cheap versions of a key Aids drug, reports the London Guardian.
A new study from the American Journal of Public Health reports that mining is a significant determinant of countrywide variation in tuberculosis among sub-Saharan African nations. The study's authors conclude, 'Our findings suggest that mining profoundly affects not only the health of miners but also the dynamics of TB incidence in sub-Saharan African nations...As shown by the population risk of mining, improved public health and health care conditions for miners may be necessary not only for the miners themselves, but for controlling TB more generally among sub-Saharan African populations.'
Associate Programme Officer (Advocacy): The job purpose is to contribute to the achievement of RCK mission of improving refuges welfare by influencing polices, systems, structures and practices of the Government, UNHCR and partners though lobbying and advocacy.
Associate Programme Officer (Information and research): The job purpose is to contribute to the achievement of RCK information/ research programme by assisting the programme officer in coordinating and performance of activities such as sourcing of materials, liaising with the media, research institutions and disseminating information.
Seeking advice, Laurent Gbagbo's been teleconferencing with Mwai Kibaki and Robert Mugabe, Gado reckons.
Pambazuka News is pleased to announce the call for submissions for the first annual Pambazuka Samir Amin Award. This award, launched to mark Samir Amin’s 80th birthday in 2011, pays tribute to the extraordinary contribution Samir Amin has made to our understanding of the exploitation of the peoples of Africa and the global South.
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s public criticism of Israeli policy towards Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank has triggered accusations of anti-Semitism and calls for him to step down as patron of the South African Holocaust Foundation. Sign a in support of a man whose ‘life has been lived in the spirit of “never again” – the ultimate lesson of the Holocaust.’
Post-election Cote d’Ivoire, Sudan’s referendum, public demonstrations in Tunisia and the nature of poverty in Haiti feature in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere, by Dibussi Tande.
The US remains the world’s biggest market for diamond jewellery, but it is China that has secured access to Zimbabwe’s controversial diamond fields. Khadija Sharife investigates.
created by a coalition of human rights organisations condemning the Israeli government for its actions against refugees and asylum seekers that deny them ‘their right to dignity and contravene Israel’s obligations under international human rights and refugee law’.
Israel’s plans to deter asylum seekers include refusing them the right to work and the opening of a refugee camp in a remote location where 10,000 people could be held indefinitely, and provided with only their basic needs. Around 85 per cent of Israel’s 30,000 asylum seekers are Eritrean or Sudanese.
Two people were killed on 5 January when the Tanzanian police force opened fire on supporters of political party Chama Cha Demokrasia who were engaged in a peaceful protest in Arusha. The Tanganyika Law Society has issued a statement condemning the use of excessive force by police and calling on the government to uphold and strengthen the rule of law and good governance.
Around 60 Banyamulenge refugees have been victims of torture and ‘cruel treatment by the Ethiopian police’ and ‘illegally detained with no reasons’, writes Akim M. Hakiza, in to uphold its commitments to refugees under international law.
Pambazuka Press is pleased to announce the release of its new titles for 2011, available at www.pambazukapress.org.
The UN is capable of saving Côte d’Ivoire from collapse but it cannot do so as long as it plays ‘second fiddle’ to the western powers that ‘pay the piper’, argues Akyaaba Addai-Sebo.
If there's one thing that Gbagbo has done it's this: Show the Ivorians that there is life after France, writes Paisible Ivoire.
With the Sudanese referendum this week, Nnimmo Bassey looks back at Nigeria's civil war in 1967, what is at stake for South Sudan and the role of oil in the region.
This week, the people of Southern Sudan will cast their votes in a historic referendum to determine whether to secede from the North, likely becoming Africa’s newest independent nation, writes Nisrin Elamin. The referendum represents not only a failure by the Sudanese government ‘to make unity a viable option’, but also the complicity and silence of the people of northern Sudan ‘around policies that, if left unchallenged, could ultimately lead to the further fracturing' of the nation, argues Elamin.
As the stand-off in Côte d’Ivoire continues, Explo Nani-Kofi discusses the country’s broader political history, the involvement of external interests and the wider parallels to be drawn with the experiences of other African states.
As Côte d'Ivoire remains in a troubling state of political deadlock, Horace Campbell discusses the increasing militarisation of politics, the history of external interests in the country and broader conditions behind the contested 2010 election.
Prabhat Patnaik explores ‘the third phase’ of modern imperialism, ‘marked by the hegemony of international finance capital’, globalisation, and the pursuit of neo-liberal policies’, and the opportunities opened up by the capitalist crisis for transitions to socialism.
‘The violence in Congo may seem unintelligible but its roots lie in institutional practices introduced under colonialism, which 50 years of independence have only exacerbated,' writes Mahmood Mamdani.
As South Sudan votes for its right to exist, H. Nanjala Nyabola draws on the 2007 Kenyan elections for comparison and calls for expectations to be moderated.
From African-American gospel music to the soul of James Brown, the reggae of Bob Marley and the Afrobeat of Fela Kuti, Alemayehu G. Mariam charts the rich history of protest music and the need for new battle songs to rally around.
Opposition political parties and groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have denounced a bill passed by the ruling party to revise the Constitution as a mandate of 'mass cheating'. In a declaration made available to PANA on Monday, the opposition said the revision of the Constitution to have only one round of voting in the presidential election 'is a dangerous step backward', which would reduce the legitimacy of the president, increase challenges to his power and create instability.
A YouTube video is currently creating a stir among the Ivorian online community, reports Global Voices. It shows militaries beating up prisoners in the 'Maison d'Arrêt et de Correction' prison (MACA). According to the person who posted the video, the prisoners are Alassane Ouattara's partisans. Since the beginning of the political crisis in Ivory Coast, dozens of people have been arrested in Abidjan for their political opinion, and jailed at the MACA.
During the night of Wednesday, 5 January, young people took to the streets in the Algiers neighborhoods of Bab El Oued, Climat de France and Rais Hamidou to shout their anger at a socio-economic situation characterised by a high cost of living and unprecedented misery in such a rich country. Several other cities in the country also saw rioting, especially Oran, located west of Algiers, where young people ransacked several public buildings. The riots continued in other towns: Akbou and Tazmalt in Kabylie. This post from Global Voices contains links to commentary from bloggers about the protests, and a video showing some of the protest action.
Tunisian netizens are working around the clock to show the rest of the world the ongoing carnage in their country. Despite the fact that protesters on the ground are facing a heavy-handed response from the authorities, and cyber-activists are facing the same dilemma, photographs, testimonies and videos showing the daily mayhem are appearing online. Visit this Global Voices page to see a video of a protest in which shots are fired and photographs of the situation.
Mohamed Ahmed Noor was under no illusions when he agreed to take on the job of mayor of Mogadishu, capital of Somalia. He was living in the relative safety of London when the offer was recently made. He sat his family down and told them he may not be coming back. 'I explained the dangers of the job, that I may be killed and that one day they may hear on the news that the mayor of Mogadishu has been assassinated, or killed in an explosion.'
Last week marked the first anniversary of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that devastated the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti, leaving a quarter of a million of its people dead, more than 300,000 injured, and approximately a million and a half homeless. One year after this natural disaster, the horrors facing Haiti’s population have only deepened, with a cholera epidemic claiming thousands of lives and a million left stranded in squalid tent camps.
The past year has seen mixed fortunes for activists working towards abolishing the death penalty in Africa. Togo and Burundi joined the ranks of African states that have removed capital punishment from their statutes, while Gambia extended its application to new offences. In April, Nigerian state governors announced they wished to see executions resumed 'as a measure to decongest prisons' and directed prison authorities to initiate execution papers.
Gado wonders what would happen were WikiLeaks to make all phone calls and text messages public.
The international community should accept Somaliland into the family of nations, writes Abdirahman Mohamed Dirye.
South Sudan votes in the referendum.
Uche Igwe travels to Rivers State in Nigeria and reports on progressive reforms by the state governor in the areas of healthcare, education and food security.
Author Adam Jones asks John Pilger to retract his endorsement of a controversial recent book on the Rwandan genocide.
South Africa's local government elections are widely expected to take place in May, but since the five-year term ends in March the polls could even be held sooner. Less than 55 per cent of the electorate turned out to vote in the last round of local government elections in 2006 - and many have since been disappointed by their ward councillors. Rhodes University political science lecturer Richard Pithouse says there will be high levels of repression in the months leading up to the local government elections.
The World Health Organisation launched a plan on Wednesday to stop a form of drug-resistant malaria from spreading from Southeast Asia to Africa, where millions of lives could be at risk. It would cost about $175 million a year to contain and prevent the global spread of the artemisinin-resistant parasite which first emerged along the Thai-Cambodian border in 2007, the United Nations agency said.
Sanya Osha’s ‘Naked Light and the Blind Eye’ breathes new life into the popular theme of the transition from a tribal culture to modernity, writes Adeola Adams.
Mozambican poet and painter Malangatana Ngwenya passed away on 5 January. Pauline Wynter celebrates the iconic artist who brought the world around him to life.