New African articles from September 2002

New African archives from September 2002

Letters.
September 1, 2002... Our regular readers will have noticed that the New African in their hands today has a new look. We are always finding better ways to present the news, and so we have this. We await your responses. To give you even more value for money, we have...

In times of peace, prepare for war. (Baffour's Beefs).(Editorial)
September 1, 2002... The prodigal son is back, after his recent African adventures. Many thanks to all of you who through letters, emails and phone calls, kindly enquired about my whereabouts while Beefs disappeared unceremoniously from your dinner plates. Now I am...

Commonwealth Games Hansen versus Mbango: for the first time, Africa performed rather poorly at the Commonwealth Games. Clayton Goodwin went to see them. (Gallery).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... A shia Hansen v Francoise Mbango in the triple jump showdown on the last day of athletics action in the Commonwealth Games in Manchester--that was the sports confrontation of the year. Forget Lennox Lewis v Mike Tyson or anything in football's...

African Union what next? (Cover Story I).
September 1, 2002... At last, Africa has got its Union! it may have been 40 years too late, but the launch, in Durban on 9 july, was historic. "We are now one"--at least on paper and in our hearts. But the question now on every African lip is: How do we realise the...

AU-EU, the contrasting heritage. (Last We Forget).(African Union-European Union)
September 1, 2002... It is not by coincidence that the wealthier nations were colonisers and imperialists and that Africa, the second largest but the least developed of the continents, has an historical heritage of slavery and colonial exploitation, with adverse...

Jammeh: 'Nepad will never work'. (The Gambia).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... "People are sick and tired of African beggars. Nobody will ever develop your country for you. I am not criticising NEPAD, but the way it was conceived to be dependent on begging." Yahya Jammeh speaks. Lokongo Bafalikike reports. Africa's...

MPs vs Obasanjo: "you don't tell the Holy Spirit how it advises somebody", but Nigerian MPs want Obasanjo out. (Nigeria).(President Olusegun Obasanjo)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Just as everybody thought Nigeria was stabilising, the lower house of parliament springs a surprise. On 13 August, the House of Representatives met in an emergency session and ordered President Olusegun Obasanjo to resign within two weeks......

Will Moi get his man? One good turn deserves another. More so in Kenya, where President Moi wants to pass the ball back to the Kenyatta destiny. (Kenya).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Before he died in 1978, Kenya's first president, Jomo Kenyatta, had defied his inner circle and groomed his vice president Daniel arap Moi to take over from him. Now, despite the heated opposition from his own inner circle, Moi is bent on...

Good news for all women of Africa: there will be 50% women and 50% men in the AU Commission. Historic, reports Tom Mbakwe. (African Union).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Things are really happening in Africa! Days after launching the African Union (AU) in Durban, it was announced that the new AU was to meet "in six months time" (in December) to begin the delicate negotiations for the establishment of a Single...

Rawlings in trouble: Ghana's ex-president attacks new government and gets quizzed. (Ghana).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... At long last, ex-President Jerry Rawlings has succeeded in talking himself into trouble. On 13 August, he confirmed in a BBC interview that he had been questioned by the security services after he had called on Ghanaians to "defy" President...

Divided, we unite: if things don't work in six years time, Sudan will divide in order to unite. (Sudan).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... After 19 years of war, the Sudanese people have finally agreed that if things did nor work in six years time, they would divide their vast country in order to unite it. That is essentially what came out of the "Machakos Protocol", negotiated...

Even 'darlings' can get fed up: "I work well with Western countries, but they interfere too much," says Museveni. (Uganda).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... The Western media unashamedly calls President Yoweri Museveni a "darling of the West", but if his speech on 6 August to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meeting in Kampala is any guide, then the Ugandan "darling" is getting fed up...

Still playing with fire: the two former friends turned enemies are still shouting across the trenches. (Eritrea/Ethiopia).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Maskal, the Ethiopian new year celebrated in September, is a lovely time in the highlands of north-east Africa. The end of the summer rains--currently beginning in Ethiopia though they seem to have been somewhat delayed in neighbouring...

'Oh, Kagame is such a sweetie': after much cajoling, Rwanda has signed a peace agreement with Congo. But will it withdraw its troops as promised? Only the godfathers know. (Congo/Rwanda).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Six years after his first troops landed in Congo to "help" chase out Mobutu, the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, finally came round to sign a peace deal with his Congolese counterpart, Joseph Kabila, on 30 July. Signed in Pretoria, South...

Africa's forgotten island. (Diego Garcia).
September 1, 2002... On 9 July, as the glasses clicked and the beautiful speeches flowed in Durban at the launch of the African Union (AU), a part of Africa was being consigned to the "forgotten file". It was not the 39-year-old OAU, but the Chagos Archipelago, the...

The history they don't want us to know. (Diego Garcia).
September 1, 2002... Diego Garcia has a very eventful history, but because of the underhand manner in which the island was stripped off its indigenous people, the history has been conveniently buried by the powers that be. Like continental 'African history"...

How 30 years of deceit blew up in British faces. (Diego Garcia).
September 1, 2002... For 30 years (since 1971), Britain kept its upper lip tight over the forced removal of the Ilois people, deceiving the world that nothing of the sort had happened. But the cleverly-maintained facade came clashing down on 3 November 2000 when...

Is it rehabilitation for Eyadema? (Politics in Brief).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... EU-Togo co-operation was suspended in 1993, after the electoral violence of that year blamed on President Gnassingbe Eyadema. Since then, the EU has refused to resume aid to Togo until "free and fair elections" are held. Yet on 18 June,...

Botswana destroying the san. (Guest Column).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Stephen Corry is the director general of the London-based NGO, Survival International. He takes issue here with Botswana for evicting the Gana and Gwi people from their ancestral lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve... to make way for...

Zimbabwe the mother of all ranches. (Feature).
September 1, 2002... In the heartland of Zimbabwe's semi-arid provinces of Midlands and Matabele-land lies DEBSHAN, short for De Beers Shangani Estate. It belongs--since the 1930s--to the Oppenheimer family, the super wealthy owners of the now privately owned De...

CFA-euro thy shall not rock the boat: for years, the 15 CFA zone countries have willingly kept 65% of their export earnings in the French treasury as condition for their continued stay in the CFA-French Franc (and now euro). (Feature).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... France has always claimed that it "guarantees" the CFA currency. But in reality, it is the African countries themselves, as poor as they are, who "guarantee" the CFA. This is made possible by the so-called "Operational Accounts" opened for...

Earth summit the question that won't go away.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Ten years after the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, another one -- the world summit on environment and development (WSED) -- is being held in johannesburg, South Africa, from 26 August to 4 September. But will it change anything? ...

Life in Ghana in the 1950s (Part 4). (Under the Neem Tree).
September 1, 2002... When the King was knighted by the British (who don't do such things for nothing) as well as being made a member of the Executive Council of the whole Gold Coast to boot (the equivalent of a cabinet minister of today), he, naturally, came under...

South Africa tourism: it's all in the price. (Special Report).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Tourism is enjoying a boom in South Africa, and medical holidays are the new craze--from plastic surgery to heart transplants in royal surroundings, all for a few dollars. Mandela's country may soon become the top tourist destination in the...

Mining: dethroning king monopoly. (Special Report: South Africa).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... A new mining bill is about to empower blacks, to have a share of the industry that once contributed 45% of GDP. But the traditional mining giants are not happy. Pusch Commey reports. South Africa's economy was built on mining. The discovery...

Rand fiddle, fiddle, fiddle? The commission set up to probe the fall of the rand has presented its report-in fact two reports. The banks have welcome one but the doubts still linger. (Special report: South Africa).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... In a modern economy, currency is everything. It has a huge psychological component, and often the general population has taken the strength of the currency as an indicator of the health of a country. This has considerable effect on mood,...

So, Angola joins the list? (Not in Black or White).
September 1, 2002... Instead of images of "an irreversible peace", "a new independence" and stories of the beginning of reconciliation, what do we get? Television pictures of starving, emaciated, too weak to even walk, dying-before-your-eyes Angolan babies,...

The twins. (The Interview).(Ambassadors Veronica Sharon Boakye Kufuor and Julie Jake Ayorinde)(Interview)
September 1, 2002... They are not exactly twins, but Her Excellencies Veronica Sharon Boakye Kufuor and Julie Jake Ayorinde are affectionately called "the twins" by the african community in Prague, Czech Republic, where they represent Ghana and Nigeria...

Too good to be true: stunning photographic work celebrating the world's unique ethnic cultures. (Books).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... In April next year, the London-based publishers Constable & Robinson will be publishing Colin Prior's wonderful coffee-table book, Living Tribes, a photographic portrait of 15 tribal groups who have retained their identity despite the...

The future is bright: though dominated by foreign companies, the oil and gas industry has become vital to African development. (Oil and Gas).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... The upstream oil industry in Africa accounts for 7% of the world's total, with proven reserves of 76 billion barrels. Five countries have a lion's share (85%) of Africa's production. They are, in order of output, Nigeria, Libya, Algeria, Egypt...

What's new in Africa: Pusch Commey looks at the new oil and gas projects on the continent and writes about the great news consuming Sudan which is earning about $1m a day from oil. (Oil and Gas).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... Several key oil and gas projects dot the resource-rich African continent, with several exploration companies scouring land and sea to strike oil or gas. Sudan is fast becoming noted as an oil producing country. Its proven reserves are estimated...

Major projects in Africa: the West African Gas Project, taking gas from Nigeria through Benin, Togo and Ghana is about to come on stream. (Oil and Gas).(Brief Article)
September 1, 2002... A sterling example of regional cooperation in Africa, and good sense is the West African Gas Project (WAGP). An example of what the African Union is all about. Needless to say if there were no colonial borders dividing the African people, most...

Jamaica land of wood and water celebrates. (Diaspora).
September 1, 2002... Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago celebrated 40 years as independent nations in August. here, our Caribbean expert, Clayton Goodwin, takes us through 40 years of struggle, crises and triumph by one of africa's lost tribes. This summer Queen...

We won't be a banana republic: to those who want to own this country for Britain, govern it for the British Empire as in the past, we say here on this national shrine that the game is up and it is time for them to go.(Brief Article)(Editorial)
September 1, 2002... We are a people that came into being, that made a nation against the resolute will of the unjust and powerful. We are a child that imperialism would never have wanted to see born. Each grave here speaks to our nation. Those who lie here...