Africa Archive

Moments of candor from sub-Saharan African politicians are rare, but they do occur. Near the end of 2005, Eriya Kategaya, then a former cabinet minister in Uganda, criticized the role of Western donors in supporting the personal rule of leaders like Yoweri Museveni. “Hinging the destiny of a country to an individual is absolutely not correct,” he said. Granted, Kategaya, once again a cabinet minister, delivered his lament while temporarily ejected from Uganda’s ruling party for opposing Museveni’s push to erase presidential term limits. But that should not blunt his analysis. The West and its development industry have serially backed […]

ELDORET, Kenya — As he stands amid the rows of mud-strewn tents, Eliud Njoroge recounts a familiar tale in the narrative of this country’s recent post-election crisis. Njoroge, an ethnic Kikuyu, had lived for 32 years in the Kalenjin town of Soy, a stronghold of Raila Odinga, the opposition candidate in last December’s presidential election. When violence erupted following the contested victory of the incumbent Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, Njoroge’s house was burned by machete-wielding youth, and his life threatened by neighbors who demanded that he and his family return to Central Province, the Kikuyu ancestral homeland, where they’d never […]

CONTINUING CONCERNS ABOUT CHINESE HUMAN RIGHTS — The spectacular Olympic picture China has sought to paint for a world audience continues to be marred by human rights abuses, as media outlets, human rights groups and international diplomats put pressure on the Olympic host to ease controls on the Chinese people. U.S. President George W. Bush made several public calls for China to end repression during his high-profile visit to Asia and the Games, including an appeal outside a Beijing church, where Bush told journalists “God is universal and God is love, and no state, man or woman should fear the […]

Editor’s note: Rights & Wrongs covers the world’s major human rights-related news and appears every week in World Politics Review. To browse past editions of Rights & Wrongs, click here.MELANCHOLY BURMA COMMEMORATES 8-8-88 — Pro-democracy supporters both inside and outside Burma last week marked the 20th anniversary of that country’s Aug. 8, 1988, uprising against military rule with demonstrations around the globe, but few held out much hope of impending change. The military presence inside Burma was high for the anniversary though no major demonstrations were reported. Millions of Burmese took to the country’s streets in the summer of 1988 […]

Rather than linking to each of his half-dozen or so insightful posts on the coup in Mauritania, I’ll just recommend you click through and check out Kal’s coverage over at the Moor Next Door. You’ll find everything from the internal dynamics behind the coup, to regional and global reactions. As Kal puts it, things are moving fast, and he’s keeping a close eye on them.

Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs covers the world’s major human rights-related news and appears every week. Click here to browse the Rights & Wrongs archives.REPORT: CHINA’S TIBET CRACKDOWN HAS INTENSIFIED — China’s crackdown on Tibet has only intensified in days before the Olympic Games, according to a new report from the International Campaign for Tibet, a human rights group with offices in Washington and Europe. “Despite its promotion of a ‘peaceful Olympics,’ China has intensified its crackdown on Tibet this week following the most significant uprising in nearly 50 years,” the Aug. 5 report, “Tibet at a Turning Point: the […]