NOBEL LAUREATES CALL FOR ACTION ON BURMA — Eight other Nobel laureates joined with South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu earlier this month to call for an international arms embargo, supported by the United Nations Security Council, against Burma’s military junta. Despite international anger and pressure to reform in the wake of the regime’s October 2007 violent crackdown on demonstrations led by Burma’s monks, the ruling junta has largely continued with business as usual – denying basic human rights to Burmese citizens. Several countries, including China, Russia and India, continue to sell military equipment and arms to the regime. “Despite decades [...]
What stood out most about George Bush’s farewell tour of Africa — besides the development funds he handed out like “Santa Claus” — was his admission that American plans for another military base in that continent are dead. The question remains: Was an AFRICOM headquarters in Africa doomed by the increasing opposition to the plan among Africans and their governments, or was it done in by mission creep? AFRICOM began in February 2007 as simply a separate command to oversee all U.S. military operations in Africa (except Egypt). But it also stood for more than streamlining responsibilities. Enmeshed in its [...]
AFRICA’S RAPE EPIDEMIC SPREADS — Rape has long been a tool of terror for military forces, but in Africa the practice is now spreading to civilian populations, with members of various ethnic groups using it as a weapon against women and young girls of other groups, UNICEF said Feb. 13. “Sexual violence is taking epidemic proportions and it is translating into the civilian populations, no longer only the military and the militia. It seems there is a license to rape when everything falls apart, in the sense that it becomes legitimate to do things that you otherwise never would do,” [...]
