Stories about Sub-Saharan Africa from April, 2006
Sudan: Child soldiers return home
Sudan Watch reports on the return of child soldiers to their homes in the south of the country – the return has been organised by UNICEF
Chad: Sudan backs rebels
Passion of the Present points to a Reuters report that claims the Sudanese government are backing the rebels in Chad who wish to overthrow President Idriss Deby.
Zimbabwe: MDC renewed determination
Zimbabwean blog, Enough is Enough, comments on the MDC's leader Morgan Tsvangirai renewed determination to restore “Zimbabwe to what it should be”
Uganda: War in the North
Uganda-CAN posts an interview with Geoffrey Oryema, the founder and director of the Acholi Youth Leadership Program (AYLP) in Gulu. The AYLP was set up to provide support to young people affected by 20 years of war.
Nigeria: Civil War
Naijablog comments that Nigeria has failed to reach its moment of “genius” mainly because it has so far refused to acknowledge the depths of its suffering – “the civil war, the 40 years of rule by an elitist cabal, the brutality and brutalism of everyday experience for the masses”.
Some Excerpts from West African Blogs
Gambia Dictatorial rule of Yahya Jammeh of Gambia–Home of the Mandinmories“Gambians are bleeding from excessive taxation. They are bleeding from the debt burden that is incurred in their name and siphoned off to overseas banks in some of the greatest corruption debacles that has occurred since independence…There's the literal blood,...
DRC: Report Says Ruling Party Received Illegal Corporate and State Funds
NIZA, a Dutch NGO, published a report alleging President Kabila's party (PPRD) is illegally funded by private enterprises of the Katanga region and has received government funds, says (FR) Le Blog du Congolais.
DRC: “A Poem From My Heart”
Lines from a poem posted (FR) by Prince du Fleuve du Congo: “Son of this Sacred Land, I cry for your misfortune/Yet for your salvation, I fight with fortitude.”
Image from DRC: Kobolo Humor
A Kobolo is a public transportation vehicle in the DRC. It is also the Congolese word for trunk. Photo courtesy Le Renouveau Congolais. In a humorous photo essay, Le Renouveau Congolais lists (FR) all the different positions that make Kinshasa public transportation bearable.
Kenya: Ministerial perks
You missed this writes on Kenyan ministers whose perks have been increased and asks “what the MPs are going to do with all the extra tax-payers money that they are eager to line their pockets with.”
Nigeria: technology and violence
Chippla writes on terrorism, technology and violence using Bin Laden, Nigerian militants and the Kenyan Mau Mau uprising and the ANC struggle against apartheid as examples of how “one mans terrorist is another man's freedome fighter”
Ethiopia: Blogging media
Ethiopian blogConcoction points to an op/ed in the Economist that claims that news media are “already feeling the heat” from the blogosphere as blogs are changing the media.
South Africa: TRC
Agathon Rwasa points to a report in which Archbishop Desmond Tutu admits that the Truth and Reconciliaiton Commission failed “to meet the needs of apartheid victims”…”Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is dismayed at the “ungenerous reparations” to victims of apartheid who appeared before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and has...
Sudan: genocide
Weichegud!ET Politics comments on Darfur, Rwanda and the failure of the West and Africa to act – in the case of Darfur we have been warned over and over yet still nothing happens. We as Africans also need to take responsibility…”Excuse me. 400,000 people have died. When do we start...
Uganda: Two countries
Black Star Journal points to an IRIN report on Uganda entitled “One country, Different realities”..
South Africa: Writing in indigenous language
Singing SouthAfricaness discusses African writers writing in their indigenous languages…”The idea that African writers should write in native African languages, therefore, is linked to the idea of the tyrany of the trace, as discussed above. Ngugi suggests that African writers should be enriching their own languages through producing work in...
South Africa: Carmen in Xhosa
African Shirts comments on another film from South Africa…U-Carmen eKhayelitsha which is a ” Xhosa language film based on Bizet's opera Carmen, and it won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival last year.
African music #7
Nothing beats a music festival. You meet like the music lovers, people interested in the genre and enjoy the good party vibe. And though you know the lineup in advance you have no idea what antics will be displayed on stage. With these musings I look forward to the 4th...
Nigeria: Internet exchange points
Oro reports that Nigerian internet traffic will soon have it's own exchange points which should speed up the time it takes for your email to reach its destination and vice versa. “The Board of Nigerian Communications Commission has approved a proposal to fund the setting up of Internet eXchange Points...
Zimbabwe: Unpatriotic
Moral Fibre reports that Zimbabwean Vice President has complained that young Zimbabweans are not generally patriotic. Hardly surprising given the state of the country….”Circumstances in Zimbabwe are not conducive to a patriotic populace, I'm afraid. What with inflation at 913.6%, unemployment at 70% and the omnipresent threat of wide-scale famine,...
Africa: Chinese visit
akwaabaghana reports that the Chinese leader, President Hu Jintao begins a week long tour of Africa - no doubt to check on how his country's investments are going and to encourage African leaders to welcome even more Chinese money.