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Voices from Zimbabwe and the Great Lakes

Categories: Sub-Saharan Africa, D.R. of Congo, Malawi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Elections, Freedom of Speech, Governance, Human Rights, Politics

Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe's blogosphere has virtually been deflated by threats of new legislation allowing government to surreptitiously spy on people's cyber activities. Their numerous voices have been silenced leaving a marked void in the chronicling of the one the world's worst crises. Please keep this troubled nation's valiant bloggers in your minds and prayers. A few bloggers still persist; here are some of the issues they have been reporting:

After an acrimonious split, Zimbabwe's opposition MDC is steeped in further controversy after a ghastly attack on Gertrude (Trudy) Stevenson. Stevenson, who has aligned herself with Arthur Mutambara's “pro-senate” faction, is the MP for the Harare North constituency on an MDC ticket. Zimpundit is sickened by the attack [1].

The Bearded Man [2] posts and discusses headlines on Zimbabwe every day.

D.R.C>:Carl at Because we're here boy no one else; just us shares his version of election-related developments [3]. These include; increased patrols by the airforce, the arrival of EU troops, a war threat by a presidential candiate if the elections don't go well, and relief organizations cutting back their operations in the country.

Meanwhile Fleurdafrique contempletes whether the elections will be just another historical event or if they will be democratic at all [4]:

Should I sit here and say “well at least we’re having elections”? What’s the point of having them if it’s clear who’s running the show?

Somebody is clearly taking a piss.


Malawi: Mike, the techblogger at Hacktivate makes an erudite yet succint point for the advantage of wireless in this post. [5]

Uganda:Dadennism at Country Boyi celebrates Ghana's final performance at the World Cup [6],

That out of Angola, Togo, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, the Black Stars reached this far was a truly outstanding achievement. This was Ghana’s first World Cup appearance as opposed to Brazil’s18th. And how can we be sure that the Samba boys didn’t invoke some Amazonian witch doctor to help out?

It cannot be denied that the Black Stars provided some of the most spectacular moments. We left an impression though we lacked a clinical finisher that would have made those instant turns in the box and incredible finishes.

We lost but we went down fighting. It never is too late to learn from mistakes. Step by step we shall get to the top, just watch out in 2010.

Jay's Idle Notes [7] is irate at president Museveni for

how he micromanages everything and the way he is running the country like a personal homestead. He is convinced(actually tries to convince everyone) that nobody else has the the good of the country at heart and therefore he has to perform the thankless task of being in charge of everything-setting university tuition fees, deciding who builds where, offering land to investors (99 year leases and all) et cetera. What hubris!!

Inktus contemplates the prospects of e-governance for Uganda. [8]

Lovely Amphibian has a few things to ponder in this post [9].