East Africa Archive

More than 11 years after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Dominic Ongwen’s arrest, and nearly two years after he was captured and transferred to The Hague, his prosecution finally began in December. Ongwen, a former senior commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), faces 70 counts, including charges of murder, enslavement, rape and torture. He allegedly committed or oversaw these atrocities as part of the Ugandan rebel militia’s bloody campaign against the people of northern Uganda’s Acholiland that originally began in 1987. Though the LRA remains active in pockets of central Africa, it was driven from Uganda […]

Last week, Pravind Jugnauth, the son of Mauritius’ outgoing prime minister, Anerood Jugnauth, was appointed prime minister after his father announced he was stepping down. Many in Mauritius have denounced the move as nepotism and called on the opposition to hold a referendum. In an email interview, Roukaya Kasenally, a senior adviser at the Africa Media Initiative, discusses politics in Mauritius. WPR: To what extent does the appointment of outgoing Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth’s son, Pravind Jugnauth, as prime minister belie Mauritius’ reputation for solid democratic institutions and practices? Roukaya Kasenally: In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s latest Democracy Index, Mauritius […]

The so-called Islamic State received some modest good news recently from Somalia, in what has otherwise been a dismal stretch of losses for the jihadi group. In October, a small militant faction aligned with the Islamic State took and held Qandala, a port town in northern Somalia, for more than a month before withdrawing. It was the first time a group linked to the Islamic State has occupied a town in Somalia. Talk of the Islamic State dominated much of the debate on counterterrorism issues during the U.S. presidential campaign. Yet as concerning as the Islamic State’s Qandala operation is, […]