Continental view – Africa
African conflicts have cost the continent $300bn in the last 15 years
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Saturday, 17, Nov 2007 05:28
A selection of the top news stories making the headlines in Africa in the last two months.
Question-marks in Darfur
Not much good news came from Sudan throughout much of September and October, with reports of a south-eastern town being razed to the ground on October 7th following quickly on the deaths of at least ten peacekeepers after a raid on their base in the same area.
But on October 27th Khartoum announced a unilateral ceasefire as peace talks began in Sirte, Libya. The news was welcome, but the agreements reached appeared to be compromised by the fact that three major rebel groups refused to attend.
More significant to prospects on the ground, according to Amnesty International researcher Liz Hodgkin, are prospects for the forthcoming UN-African Union peacekeeping force.
But expectations have been remorselessly undermined by the UN's under-secretary general for peacekeeping affairs, Jean-Marie Guehenno. On October 9th he said the mission was severely under-resourced and unable to cope; and on November 14th he went further, warning that the planned deployment may not even go ahead.
"It is a terrible dilemma, because on the one hand, you can say that a force, even if it doesn't have all the assets, can make a limited difference for a number of people in Darfur, and that is something in itself which is good," he said.
"On the other hand, if that force was to know humiliation in the early stages of its deployment, then it would be very hard to recover from such a humiliation. So it's an extremely difficult decision to make."
Click here for full story…
…here for a wider look at the Darfur crisis…
…and here to read an interview with Amnesty International on Darfur.
Mugabe v the rest
The Robert Mugabe against the world slanging match continued into the autumn, with British prime minister Gordon Brown looking especially keen to pick a fight. Mr Brown wrote in a newspaper article that he would boycott December's EU-African Union talks in Lisbon if the Zimbabwe president attended.
Mr Mugabe was unimpressed. His spokesperson, Boniface Chidyausiku, said Mr Brown had "no right" to push his weight around and added that Zimbabwe had a "sovereign right" to attend.
To allow the Zimbabwean president to attend the meeting, EU member states would have to agree to lift a travel ban currently imposed on him.
But Mr Brown said Britain was prepared to ask the EU to extend travel and commercial sanctions against Mr Mugabe's regime.
As if spurred to action against western powers by Mr Brown's remarks, Mr Mugabe launched an attack of his own on September 27th.
He called US president George Bush a hypocrite for criticising Zimbabwe's human rights record in his address to the UN general assembly.
"Mr Bush and Mr Brown have no role to play in our national affairs. They are outsiders and should therefore keep out," he said.
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…and here for a summary of the situation in Zimbabwe.
Islamists continue attritional war
Violence has continued in war-torn Somalia in the last two months, with radical Islamists primarily targeting the Horn of Africa country's capital Mogadishu.
The Elman Peace and Human Rights Organisation claims 469 civilians have been killed in fighting since the start of October, the Reuters news agency reports, while the political situation took a step backwards with the resignation of prime minister Ali Mohamed Ghedi in October.
Perhaps worse still, rebel leader Aden Hashi Ayro has called on insurgents to begin targeting the previously-untroubled Ugandan peacekeepers patrolling the city's streets.
Responding to a November 15th call to arms against the African Union force, militants launched a 90-minute gunbattle against peacekeepers in the early morning of November 17th. Observers fear it may be the first of many such attacks.
Click here for full story…
…and here for a summary of the situation in Somalia.
In from the cold
Libya ended its period as an international pariah on October 17th as it took a seat on the UN security council.
The north African state had been high on the US' list of state sponsors of terrorism and had twice been blocked to accession to the UN's highest body in the last two decades.
But in the latest voting, after removing Libya from the list last year, the US allowed Tripoli's case to pass by.
Libya, led by Colonel Muammar Gadafy, won a place on the influential body along with Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia and Vietnam.
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Other major developments
October 11th: Expensive conflicts. A report from Oxfam and others concluded that armed conflict across Africa had cost the continent over $300 billion (£147 billion).
Click here for full story
November 4th: Sarkozy steps in. The French president flew to Chad to secure the release of seven of 17 charity workers arrested for attempting to smuggle over 100 children out of the country.
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November 5th: King Tut revealed. The legendary King Tutankhamun's face was revealed to the public as his body was moved from his tomb in Egypt to a climate-controlled glass display case.
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