On Lumumba Day, January 17, 2016, the statue of Patrice Lumumba in Kinshasa was guarded by Congolese security forces blocking anyone who wanted to pay respects to Congo's independence hero. Non-violent youth activists live in constant fear of being jailed or worse as their country slips ever deeper into Orwellian terror.

More than twenty years after the end of formal apartheid, several African nationalists who resisted the inhuman system are still languishing in prison. Yet many apartheid agents who committed atrocious crimes against the African people were pardoned, some without even expressing any remorse. This is unacceptable. The ANC Government must release all political prisoners now.

The number of Chinese businessmen is growing in the Namibian capital, where they supply affordable but low quality goods especially to low-income earners. But not everyone is excited about the presence of the foreigners.

A member of the armed wing of South Africa’s Pan Africanist Congress party recently rejected a government offer of conditional release from prison. Kenny Motsamai, condemned to two life sentences and 19 years, insists that he is a political prisoner who was arrested and convicted under apartheid, a system declared by the UN as constituting a crime against humanity. Why can’t the ANC government release him and his fellow Black nationalists?

The terrorists’ goal was to destabilize Burkina Faso. But why now? The most plausible hypothesis is that they wanted to regain a rear base they lost when a popular uprising overthrew Blaise Compaoré in November 2014.