Africa Archive

Since taking office, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has articulated a new paradigm to structure Western engagement with Africa. This paradigm dispels the idea that Africa is a sick and helpless continent for the West to rescue and instead calls for robust European-African partnerships to manage Africa’s genuine challenges of violence, poverty, and corruption. True to his reputation as a man of action, Sarkozy has already transformed these ideas into practical policies, and the result has been a flurry of promising and innovative diplomatic initiatives concerning Africa over the past two months, especially vis-à-vis the ongoing tragedy in Darfur. If one […]

CAMBODIA CHARGES SENIOR KHMER ROUGE OFFICIAL — Cambodian authorities have arrested the Khmer Rouge’s ideological chief, Nuon Chea, to answer charges at a United Nations-backed tribunal that he planned and helped execute the murders of up to 1.7 million people. Chea, the most senior surviving member of Pol Pot’s murderous regime, was arrested Sept. 19 and charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. The move comes less than two months after the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) issued formal charges on July 31 against Kaing Guek Eav (better known by his alias, Duch) who ran S-21, […]

LONDON — Pomp, pagentry and the hip-hop group Black Eyed Peas accompanied Ethiopia’s celebration of its entry into the third millennium, seven years after the rest of the world but in line with the Coptic calendar of the Horn of Africa nation. But with the exchange of fiery rhetoric threatening to upset a fragile peace with neighbor Eritrea, new broadsides in the internal conflict raging in the Ogaden region on the country’s border with Somalia, and dissatisfaction with progress toward improved social welfare, Ethiopia has entered the 21st century much the way it wrapped up the 20th: divided and poor. […]

WASHINGTON — The hybrid war crimes tribunal set up by the government of Sierra Leone and the United Nations achieved what international observers described as a major milestone in July when it delivered sentences of 45 and 50 years to three men convicted of committing war crimes during Sierra Leone’s late-1990s civil war. The ruling at the Special Court for Sierra Leone marked the first-ever conviction of an African warlord for using child soldiers, and it came just a few weeks before a second round of convictions, on Aug. 2, in which two other former militia leaders were found guilty […]

RABAT, Morocco — Elections in Morocco that were projected to hand large gains to a moderate Islamic party on Friday ended with a record low voter turnout and only incremental changes to the parliament’s makeup. The Justice and Development Party (PJD), Morocco’s largest opposition party, was expected to increase its representation from 42 seats to as much as 80 in the 325-seat parliament, but only managed to win 47 seats, despite competing in more districts than in the previous election. The record low voter turn out was widely interpreted as a sign that Moroccans are dissatisfied with the current government […]

KAMPALA, Uganda — Northern Uganda has been mired in violent conflict for over 20 years. And though it rarely receives as many headlines as nearby fighting in Darfur, Somalia, or even Eastern Congo, the war in Northern Uganda, one of Africa’s longest running conflicts and humanitarian disasters, is inching toward a possible resolution. In Juba, Southern Sudan, negotiators from the government of Uganda and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) recently signed the third phase of a five-part peace agreement. The progress is important, but the government of Uganda and its Western sponsors still have much to answer for. Even […]

Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a weekly column covering the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. HOLLYWOOD CALLS FOR SUU KYI’S RELEASE: More than two dozen Hollywood stars, including Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon, Jennifer Aniston and Jim Carrey, signed an open letter to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Sept. 6 urging the world’s top diplomat to personally intervene in the case of detained pro-democracy leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi. “This courageous, brave woman whom many call ‘Burma’s Nelson Mandela’ should be released and the military regime should end its attacks […]

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Lust for oil can overpower a country’s democratic ideals and common sense, and the United States is not immune. Consider Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s rhetorical embrace of Equatorial Guinea’s president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, in April 2006. “You are a good friend and we welcome you,” she said. Two years earlier, the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations disclosed how Rice’s “good friend” and his family held multimillion dollar accounts, gleaned from government revenue, in Riggs Bank, which was eventually convicted of violating America’s Bank Secrecy Act. When not ripping off the state treasury, Obiang has […]

NEW YORK — A Chinese general was appointed to command a United Nations peacekeeping mission for the first time on Aug. 27. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Maj. Gen. Zhao Jingmin to lead the mission in the disputed territory of Western Sahara, where U.N. peacekeepers have monitored a ceasefire between Morocco and the Polisario Front, an armed separatist group, since 1991. Zhao will replace Gen. Kurt Mosgaard of Denmark, who completed his tour of duty Sept. 3, according to U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas. Zhao has an impressive biography and his appointment is not expected to generate any controversy in the Security […]