Africa Archive

African leaders made plain their disappointment and concern over Sudan’s handling of the conflict in its western Darfur region by rejecting the central African country’s bid to lead the African Union during an annual summit this week that also saw a first effort at African mediation by new U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Prosperous and stable Ghana instead assumed the mantle of the 53-member pan-African grouping at the meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, amid warnings from Sudanese rebels that they would attack an under-equipped AU peacekeeping force operating in Darfur should Sudan be tapped to succeed the Congo […]

It is no longer possible to chin up in Zimbabwe. Not with the profusion of woes rending the country each passing day. Dozens are dying at the country’s public hospitals following a monthlong strike over pay by the few remaining doctors, inflation is fast approaching the 1,300 percent mark and political oppression has reached epidemic proportions. Formerly a major tobacco producer and breadbasket for southern Africa, Zimbabwe continues to hurtle down the tubes, producing an endless stream of sob stories. It rivals war-torn African countries in spewing out displaced people and refugees running away from the country’s socio-economic meltdown. A […]

NAIROBI, Kenya — Six months of peace talks to end more than two decades of conflict in northern Uganda have been virtually for naught, and their progress is now being held up by a simple question of geography. Bellicose rhetoric from Sudan President Omar al-Bashir that the Lord’s Resistance Army would be expelled from the south of his own embattled nation “by the end of this month” has emboldened the shadowy rebellion to demand a new host — and mediator — for negotiations to end the war that has made night travellers of tens of thousands of children and displaced […]

“Look, these people, they have no jobs, no food, no education, no future. I just figure that we have two things we can do. Help, or we can sit back and watch a country destroy itself on CNN.” –Sgt. Matt Eversmann in “Blackhawk Down.” Pity the poor Somalis, or the millions of them that have not yet found sanctuary in Europe, Canada or the United States. Recent events seem to have sucked them back into the cycle of violence and destruction that ruined the country in the 1990s, and made Somalia the poster-child for the concept of the failed state […]

So far, U.S. forces in the East Africa have limited air strikes in Somalia — the alleged home of several high-ranking al-Qaida suspects — to one aerial assault earlier this month that killed dozens, none of which were high-profile targets, a Pentagon spokesman told World Politics Review. “That was the only air strike conducted there,” said the spokesman, refuting reports that U.S. forces have conducted follow-up attacks since the Jan. 8 strafing that left dozens dead. The U.S. military has said all those killed were Islamist fighters, though Somali witnesses on the ground reported some civilians killed. The Pentagon spokesman […]