New African articles from April 2002

New African archives from April 2002

Letters.
April 1, 2002... Lazy journalism New African usually manages to offer a different point of view of political and social events in Africa: which is why I am a faithful subscriber! However, I was very disappointed by some of the reporting on Zimbabwe in...

Where is the 'international community'? There is a political crisis in Madagascar, but don't tell the "international community". (For the Record: Madagascar).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The tense political situation in this African island nation has greatly exposed the hollowness of the "international community's" so-called concern for democracy and human rights in Africa. Madagascar went to the polls on 16 December 2001...

Is prosperity a state of mind? (Part 1). (Baffour's Beefs).(editorial on imperialism)(Editorial)
April 1, 2002... "And yet, truly, everything about our lives today is engraved with the legacy of imperialism. At their apex in 1914, European nations and the United States commandeered 85% of the landmass of the planet, and the political, economic, cultural...

Building Bridges -- Refugee Voices. (The Gallery).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... On 14 December 2000, the UNCHR launched an initiative to assist refugee artists from various countries to perform at a spectacular show in Geneva for the 50th anniversary of the UNCHR. The initiative has so far produced two albums. Building...

Ode to a master, turned 60: Peter Ezeh on Chike Aniakor, the Nigerian master of the uli visual art genre. (Nigeria: Appreciation).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... If a notable pioneer attains the age of 60, ordinarily the occasion is something to celebrate. But Dr Chike Aniakor of the University of Nigeria, Nzukka, the moderniser of the much-discussed uli visual art genre, sees life differently. He...

Mugabe stays! (Zimbabwe).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... At long last, the matter has been settled! Robert Gabriel Mugabe, 78, will continue to be Zimbabwe's president for the next six years. After one of the most crucial presidential elections in Africa's post independence history, Mugabe romped...

No draconian laws, we are British. (Africa/Britain).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... As the British government and its media upped the ante against Zimbabwe in February, accusing the Mugabe government of imposing "draconian" media laws on the country, poetic justice was served in large doses in central London when the Charing...

Not tonight, darling. (Malawi).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The idea of a man raping his wife is unheard of in many parts of "traditional" Africa. Now it is all over the place in Malawi. For the first time in the country's history, gender activists from developed countries have sponsored the launch of a...

African immigrants not welcome? (South Africa).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The spate of violence that erupted at the end of January in the informal settlement of Joe Slovo in the Western Cape, has once again highlighted the problem of xenophobia in South Africa. In a country that is said to have put most of its...

Not on my life. (Swaziland).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Mario Masuku, the leader of the People United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), an underground political party in Swaziland, is swimming in hot waters. He appeared before the high court in early February charged with sedition, having "uttered...

Britain yes, France no. (Kenya).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Was it a case of colonial ties or plain kith and kin favouritism? Either way, the French do not want to know. They are furious that the Kenyan government cancelled an offer made to Renault, the French motor manufacturer, to supply military...

'No blood-based study on Aids conducted'. (Ghana).
April 1, 2002... February, usually a dry month in Ghana because of the cold Harmattan winds that blow over the country from the Sahara Desert, suddenly turned out to be a most lively month this year in two respects. First, the former health minister (now...

NGOs in sex for food scandal. (West Africa).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Child abuse has been a prominent feature of the ferocious civil wars in three West African countries, namely Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, where it has been often reported that marauding soldiers have raped, abducted or mutilated thousands...

Obasanjo vs Parliament. (Nigeria).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Anything is possible in Nigeria these days, even including threatening to impeach the president for daring to ask MPs to tell him how they arrived at their fat salaries. This simple request from President Olusegun Obasanjo in late January...

No business as usual? (Zambia).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Barely two months in office, President Levy Mwanawasa's government is already seeing red. It has denounced what it calls "an incremental manipulation of democratic principles in Zambia by some foreign powers poised to slowly erode the...

The tsetsefly must die. (Africa).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... A new campaign to control the deadly tsetsefly (the parasitic carrier of sleeping sickness) in Africa has been launched by the OAU. Sleeping sickness affects as many as 500,000 people in Africa, 80% of whom eventually die. The fly is the...

Mrs Lumumba speaks. (Cover Story 1: Great Lives).
April 1, 2002... She may be "the forgotten widow", but on 5 February, when Belgium was offering its official "regrets" and "excuses" for its role in the assassination of Congo's first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, his widow, Pauline Opango, now 64, was in...

Zimbabwe: A smear job? (Feature: Zimbabwe).
April 1, 2002... Judgement has already been passed by Western governments and their media: the six-hour tape about the opposition's alleged plan to physically "eliminate" President Mugabe before the presidential election, is a "smear job". Without bothering to...

South Africa: 'Dr Death' feels the heat. (News in Brief).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The protracted legal tussle in the case of Dr Wouter Basson, the former head of South Africa's secretive chemical and biological warfare programme (GBW), continued in late January and February, with the prosecution presenting its final...

Sierra Leone: APC wants Blair to intervene. (News in Brief).(All People's Congress)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Two months to Sierra Leone's presidential and parliamentary elections fixed for 14 May, the UK branch of the country's main opposition party, the All People's Congress (APC) has written to the British prime minister, Tony Blair, asking him to...

February 24, a malevolent act! (Opnion: Ghana).
April 1, 2002... The 24 February 1966 coup that overthrew Nkrumah created a chain reaction that brought Ghana to the brink of a failed state. Now that it has been confirmed by declassified documents that the CIA, with the help of Britain and France,...

Savimbi -- a rebel without a cause? Antonio de Figueiredo, a Portuguese old horse, writes about the demise of Jonas Savimbi and what he meant to the independence and post-independence struggle in Angola. (Feature: Angola).
April 1, 2002... When Dr Jonas Savimbi was killed on 22 February at the age of 67, after fighting for 15 years against Portuguese colonial rule, and 26 years against the MPLA government, he must have been one of the oldest active guerrilla fighters in history....

Wanted, African monetary union. (Continental Viewpoint).
April 1, 2002... The existing 40 disparate, if not desperate, national currencies in Africa is a recipe for ruin. There has to be a creative way of breaking out of this trap, and it can only come through monetary union. "The current situation in Africa is...

Can't buy, can't sell ... Africa's double jeopardy. (Feature: Africa Trade).
April 1, 2002... "There has been too much talk about African poverty and too little action to eliminate it. Yet this poverty is man-made and, as such, can be tackled at its source and defeated -- if only people like Tony Blair demonstrate the will to fight it,"...

South Africa: Manuel delivers the goods. (Economy in Brief).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... South Africans of all races woke up in mid-February grinning from ear to ear after the minister of finance, Trevor Manuel, read his budget for 2002. It was universally praised across the political spectrum. Years of impeccable housekeeping had...

Black hawk down: Leslie Goffe on how Somalis see the new film about their historic clash with American soldiers on 3 October 1993. (Feature: Somalia).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Most Americans know about Somalia only as that place where American Black Hawk gunship helicopters were shot down and destroyed, and where 18 American soldiers involved in a mission to capture members of Mohammed Farah Aidid's cabinet, were...

Western Sahara: A victory for Morocco? New oil discoveries may further strengthen the Moroccan grip on Western Sahara. (Feature).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Following years of occupation, Morocco seems to be trying to take over Western Sahara by stealth rather than through the highly publicised projects of the past. For many, the sovereignty of the territory seems to be something of a...

Who is, or has, the problem? If you have to teach someone that their existence is a bad, terrible thing, then who is, or has, the problem? (Not in Black or White).
April 1, 2002... Naomi, Naomi, quite contrary, how your enemies do grow! But why are there so many of them? Naomi Campbell, 31, supermodel extraordinaire, has had an even greater amount of publicity recently because of her unprecedented court case against the...

Life in Ghana in the 1950s. (Under the Neem Tree).(Short Story)
April 1, 2002... Reminisces of a native boy. Part Two. For Part I, see NA February p38-39. When arrived at Kyebi Government School in 1951, I found that like Asiakwa Presbyterian, whose excessive caning was among the things I was running from, here too,...

Masire the Great. (Profile: Botswana).
April 1, 2002... Fancois Misser went to Botswana to meet Ketumile Masire, the former president, who turned Botswana into a debt-less country with $6 billion of its own reserves (thanks largely to diamonds), and who now has the onerous task of facilitating...

The Blue Book: Chapters 1 & 2. (Feature: Namibia Colonial Scam).(Excerpt)
April 1, 2002... We continue our serialisation of The Blue Book published in 1918 that Britain, Germany and South Africa agreed to destroy in 1926 because, according to the German Colonial Office, the book was "a great wrong not just against Germany but...

Brixton Stories: Beverley Andrews on Biyi Bandele's new play set in London. (The Arts).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Nigeria has produced many of Africa's literary giants, and Biyi Bandele's name should be added to this illustrious list. His latest production for Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company, titled Brixton Stories, looks set to become a big hit. Set...