Africa News blog
African business, politics and lifestyle
The dangers of witchcraft
Every year, hundreds of people in the Central African Republic are convicted of witchcraft. One man, who received a 4-year sentence, says his case highlights some of the failures of the country’s judicial system.
Ange Mberkoulat was convicted of witchcraft after his village chief accused him of trying to kill a relative. He is officially a convict but is serving his sentence outside jail because of lack of resources in prisons
Ange says he was accused falsely. To make things worse arsonists allied to the chief burned down his house and beat up his wife. He and his family of 3 have since moved in with his sister-in-law.
The Central African Republic has endured several coups since independence in 1960 and fighting between rebels and government forces in the north has forced about 300,000 people from their homes. The political situation remains unstable despite disarmament programmes and a new national unity government in 2009.
PHOTOBLOG: Children in Kenya and Haiti forced to grow up fast, if they survive
I had a flashback the other day when I was looking at photographs from Haiti of 15-year-old Fabianne Geismar, shot dead in the head after stealing wall hangings from a Port-au-Prince store, crushed in the Jan. 12 earthquake.
The image of Fabianne sprawled on the ground, blood trailing over the paintings she’d grabbed, took me back to my own childhood in Nairobi and the sight of a 7- or 8-year-old-boy – probably the same age as me at the time – who was caught stealing sweets from a street vendor and was beaten and burnt with rubber tyres. They called it mob justice.
REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
To this day, I’ll never understand why that poor boy had to die such a violent and senseless death for something so trivial. I feel the same way about Fabianne – she survived one of the most catastrophic events in living memory, only to be shot in the head for petty theft. And for stealing wall hangings where there are no walls.
Gaddafi tries to steal show at African Summit. Again
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has been stealing the show at African Union summits for years now. With theatrical – sometimes bizarre – entrances, rambling, grandiose speeches and his well-known penchant for dressing up, Gaddafi has gobbled up media coverage and bemused his fellow leaders.
But he probably wasn’t expecting what happened yesterday when he introduced two traditional African “kings” to speak to the assembled African leaders. Peals of laughter started to ring around the room. It began when he made the announcement and it continued as they spoke. It seems that some African delegates have begun to consider the continent’s longest serving leader ridiculous. And aren’t afraid to show it.
He turned up with the “kings” at last year’s summit, too. Despite opposition from some African leaders, he was then elected chairman of the African Union and set about trying to push his pet project of a “United States of Africa”.
Many Africans suspect he sees himself the obvious leader of such an entity
Why is the world ignoring Somalia?
I’m blogging from the African Union’s annual summit in Addis Ababa and can see the Somali delegation from where I’m sitting. They’re mingling right now, cups of coffee and croissants in hand, pressing the flesh and smiling and joking with leaders and ministers from all over the continent and beyond. Delegates are responding warmly to the men who represent a government hemmed into only a few streets of the capital Mogadishu as they fight an increasingly vicious Islamist rebellion.
But you get the sense the other delegates are responding so warmly to compensate for something: The fact that the Somalis are here looking for help and nobody is really willing to stick their neck out and give it to them.
Somalia’s strife — as well as the conflicts in Sudan and DR Congo — have dominated the agenda at these summits for years now. But there’s something different about this year. The African delegates seem confused – really genuinely confused – about why the international community is dragging its heels.
When Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero — a guest at the summit – stood up on the opening day he made some of the most dramatic remarks any world leader has made on the Horn of Africa country.
Uganda gays feel threatened by bill
Being gay or lesbian in Uganda is illegal and those who are risk being locked away for up to 14 years. Now, a new parliamentary bill wants gay people to face even stiffer penalties and is proposing life imprisonment and even death sentences in some cases.
Pepe Julia Onziema and her partner, who asked that her identity be hidden, spend most of their time together — indoors. They are a lesbian couple living in Uganda where homosexuality is against the law. Pepe is also a gay rights activist in Kampala and is openly vocal about her sexuality and because of that she is often victim to discrimination and harassment.
“Myself I am at risk,” Onziema told Reuters Africa Journal “I can’t move on the streets as I used to, I can’t go to a shop … I have been picked off the streets, detained for sometime, ridiculed, intimidated, some money taken away from my wallet…”
David Bahati, an MP for Uganda’s ruling party, proposed the bill. “Homosexuality has become a huge issue in this country we know that it is not our values, it” not Ugandan, it’s a threat to our traditional family and the children of Uganda…”
Ethiopian plane crash should not sully success story
When news of the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash broke this morning my heart sank at the thought of covering yet another negative story about Ethiopia.
It’s particularly galling for Ethiopians that the airline is one of the few international success stories for a country known mostly for famine and war.
When the news emerged I also immediately knew how hard the company’s staff would take it. I’ve been to the sprawling campus that serves as headquarters to Africa’s arguably flagship airline many times. The last time was just last week to interview CEO Girma Wake and I left with a gift of Ethiopian coffee and the impression that I’d rarely seen people so passionate or proud about their work and what it does for their country.
Ethiopian Airlines is a company that Ethiopians are proud of. It has consistently expanded and remained profitable through tough times for other airlines and all manner of global economic strife. It has prioritized safety in a continent with a lamentable record and it is aggressively expanding into China and India.
May god bring comfort to those affected families. This past week’s incident is an isolated & tragic thing. As this reuters’s story testifies, and Girma Wake the president of Ethiopian Airlines has assured; foriegn tourists and investors coming to & going out of Ethiopia should feel assured, that Ethiopian Airlines is safe and secure airline to travel on; tainted only by this tragic isolated incident with otherwise a superb record of safety and service.
How will Chinese culture influence Africa?
So far, media coverage of China’s involvement in Africa has mostly been about investment. Stories of Chinese engineers in hard hats standing by roads up mountains in Ethiopia. Stories of Chinese farmers moving to Zambia.
But, in a push to extent its economic reach, China is now making a very real effort to export its culture to the world’s poorest continent. Last year the Asian giant overtook the U.S. as Africa’s top trading partner, confirming to the West that it has a real battle on its hands to maintain its influence over African nations.
But, while China’s economic influence is now mighty and its cheap goods can be bought everywhere from Lagos to tiny tribal villages in remotest Ethiopia, Africans, especially young ones, still admire and try to copy U.S. culture.
Middle class teenagers in Nairobi dress like suburban kids from Atlanta, posters of Obama adorn minibus windows in Kinshasa, American hip-hop is everywhere.
God forbid! Africans are displaying the servility and inertia that has led us to where we are today. Africa can do business with any and everybody, but one thing is clear; there is no such thing as a free lunch. Chinese have more than a billion people which they are unleashing on the rest of the world. These guys want to subdue the world and they do not respect human rights. They have no mechanism for recourse except the Chinese communist party. Africans should shudder at the thought of having a tight embrace with this dragon. but no! “lets see what they bring to the table!!” What table? The table you will be sacrificed on one day. Just like at the Berlin conference when Africa was shared between western powers. After they had embraced them too closely, drinking their whiskey, selling their brothers, giving them land, all in the name of seeing what they would bring to that proverbial table. Only to discover that Africa was what was for lunch. Strange how history repeats itself. Only a fall does the same thing over and over expecting a different result.
The unnumbered dead
The simple answer to the question of how many people died in Congo’s civil war is “too many”.
Trying to get a realistic figure is fraught with difficulties and a new report suggests that a widely used estimate of 5.4 million dead – potentially making Congo the deadliest conflict since World War Two – is hugely inaccurate and that the loss of life may be less than half that.
The aid group that came up with the original estimate unsurprisingly says the new report is wrong.
The problem is the way estimates are reached.
Guinea tests Western influence in Africa
Whether Guinea’s absent junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara makes it back to his home country or not will be the latest test of Western powers’ dwindling influence in Africa.
Ex-colonial power France and the United States — desperate to avoid a failed state in a region which is already attracting the interest of narco-traffickers and other criminals — have both made it clear Camara should be kept well away.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner warned Camara’s homecoming after treatment in Morocco following an assassination bid could spark an all-out civil war.
After talks with French and U.S. diplomats, caretaker junta leader Sekouba Konate announced last week that he would work with a prime minister from the opposition in a transition government that would hold democratic elections.
The west has ran out of strategy a long time ago. When they decided to protect their farmers and ask us to deregulates how lives. Hello China, where next are you investing?
Africa-Asia ties flying high
Investment from China and other Asian countries was an important factor in several years of unprecedented growth in Africa before the global downturn hit.
It is very much seen as a critical driver for Africa’s future growth prospects as well.
China has repeatedly emphasised its commitment to Africa through the global troubles and is emerging even more solidly implanted on the continent now. Other Asian countries are also pushing hard, as a recent high-level Indian visit showed.
As one of the main links between Africa and Asia, Ethiopian Airlines offers an interesting indicator as to how the ties have held up and are expected to grow.
-
Search
Follow Africa News blog
This man is ageing but never gets mature. Also shame to some of his baby sitting African leaders.