East Africa Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Somalia’s Parliament voted overwhelmingly to remove Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire in a no-confidence vote last Saturday, citing his failure to prepare the country for democratic elections by early next year. The surprise move, which was supported by 170 of Parliament’s 178 lawmakers, follows Khaire’s dispute with President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed over the timing of national elections. Though preparations have been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing insecurity in Somalia, Khaire was pushing for the vote to take place by early […]

The British government has been vocal about the issue of human rights in China in recent weeks. It recently delivered a joint statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council, on behalf of 27 countries, on abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. And Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has strongly criticized Beijing for imposing sweeping national security legislation that severely undermines the autonomy of Hong Kong, which the Chinese government promised to respect in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. Raab specifically called out Beijing for violating its international legal obligations, while announcing that the U.K. would not shirk from its “historic […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa appears to be using COVID-19 restrictions as cover for a growing crackdown on regime critics, even as his administration mismanages efforts to provide relief to people suffering under lockdown measures in response to the pandemic. In the latest of a string of arrests of politicians and activists, security forces this week detained a prominent investigative journalist, Hopewell Chin’ono, and opposition politician Jacob Ngarivhume, who heads the small Transform Zimbabwe party. The two are accused of organizing nationwide, anti-government […]

As Americans have risen up in protest against police brutality, attention has understandably focused on the racist incidents of police killing Black Americans and their implications. How these outrages have come to light, however, remains underappreciated. They might never have been exposed without new technologies like smart phones and social media, whose use for accountability is transforming human rights. Until recently, documenting human rights abuses was a time-consuming and often imprecise activity. As a law student in the early 1990s, I worked on a United Nations project, led by the international legal scholar M. Cherif Bassiouni, to document war crimes […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s hold on power in Mali appears to be slipping as he struggles to quell rising protests over perceived corruption, contested parliamentary elections and his administration’s failure to suppress a years-long jihadist insurgency. A new coalition of the political opposition and civil society groups, led by an influential Muslim cleric, Mahmoud Dicko, began organizing the demonstrations last month in the capital, Bamako. The protests have grown increasingly violent, culminating in three days of clashes between demonstrators and security forces […]

This time last year, countries in East Africa were leading the continent in economic growth. Now, much of that progress is at risk as the region faces a dangerous triple threat: torrential rain and flooding, voracious swarms of locusts and the coronavirus pandemic. The three crises are compounding each other’s impacts. Border closures that were put in place to slow the spread of COVID-19 have strained the supply of pesticides and other equipment to fight the locusts that have ravaged the region for months now. Food supplies that were already under siege from the pests have been further devastated by […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The violent demonstrations that followed the killing of popular Ethiopian singer Hachalu Hundessa in Addis Ababa last week have left at least 239 people dead and led to thousands of political arrests. Hachalu’s Oromo community, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, is now bracing for a broader political crackdown as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s administration attempts to forestall additional violence. Hachalu gained fame for his protest songs, which gave voice to the feelings of political and economic marginalization among the Oromo, and he helped […]