A Malian soldier stands guard as Mali's President Dioncounda Traore visits French troops at an air base in Bamako, Mali January 16, 2013. REUTERS/Joe Penney

The French intervention in Mali this week raises the specter of another first-world nation’s rather recent mission to weed out Islamic militants. As France's jets pummel the desert and its troops face ground battles against al Qaeda-linked rebels, a troubling analogy has presented itself in media reports and analyses: Will Mali become France’s Afghanistan?

France's mission in Mali is to prevent the Sahel region from becoming a terrorist planning and training ground, particularly for al Qaeda’s North African wing, AQIM. The BBC’s security correspondent Gordon Corera explains the situation in terms of the conditions in Afghanistan before the U.S. intervention in 2001.

“No-one in Paris - or any other Western capital - wants parts of Mali to become like Afghanistan in the 1990s - a place where acts of terror further afield could be planned and where people would then ask why something was not done earlier."

Indeed, concerns that Mali will become an ungoverned militant safe haven and training ground mirror the rhetoric used to rally support for the war in Afghanistan. The Associated Press made the comparison back in October.

“Many in the West fear that northeast Mali and the arid Sahel region could become the new Afghanistan, a no-man's-land where extremists can train, impose hardline Islamic law and plot terror attacks abroad.”

Yet similar intentions in Afghanistan have flung the U.S. into arguably its longest war, and cost over 3,200 lives of coalition forces and an untold number of Afghan civilians (some estimates put the number at roughly 20,000).

The fighting in Mali already has proven “harder than expected,” according to an AP report, despite a flat terrain that provides few places for extremists to hide (U.S. News reporter Paul D. Shinkman has pointed out the difficulty of finding combatants in Afghanistan’s “isolated porous mountain border with Pakistan" and "densely populated areas.") Al Qaeda’s control, too, may be greater in Mali than Afghanistan.

"Al-Qaida never owned Afghanistan," former United Nations diplomat Robert Fowler told the AP. "They do own northern Mali."

There are certainly key differences between the two countries. In an article for the Globe and Mail exploring whether Mali will look like Afghanistan, interim director of the Centre for International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa Dave Petrasek offers a caveat on how the two interventions will differ:

"The Taliban have political aspirations within a defined territory, whereas AQIM’s aims are far less containable. And in response to a reporter’s questions about parallels with Afghanistan, French ministers have insisted that the commitment to Mali is not open-ended and will last only a few weeks."

The AP also cites differences between the populations as a factor that could influence the outcome.

“Another factor in the success of military intervention will be the reaction of the people, who, unlike in Afghanistan, have little history of extremism. Malians have long practiced a moderate form of Islam, where women do not wear burqas and few practice the strict form of the religion. The Islamists are imposing a far more severe form of Islam on the towns of the north, carrying out amputations in public squares, flogging women for not covering up and destroying world heritage sites.”

Now, with hundreds of French troops advancing from the Malian capital Bamako toward Islamist insurgents, France risks embroiling itself in a protracted conflict in a faraway country.

Despite France's insistence that the intervention will last just a few weeks, Reuters journalist Mark John notes the mission has the potential to lock France into Africa for decades.

"Africa's latest war is likely to entail a long stay for France with an exit strategy that will depend largely on allies who have yet to prove they are ready for the fight."

Ultimately, Afghanistan should serve as a reminder that the true legacy of France's involvement in Mali will depend on how they leave the country.

By Aaron Maasho

Ethiopia and Eritrea are still at each others’ throats. The two neighbours fought hammer and tongs in sun-baked trenches during a two-year war over a decade ago, before a peace deal ended their World War I-style conflict in 2000. Furious veRed Sea, UNrbal battles, however, have continued to this day.

Yet, amid the blistering rhetoric and scares over a return to war, analysts say the feuding rivals are reluctant to lock horns once again. Neighbouring South Sudan and some Ethiopian politicians are working on plans to bring both sides to the negotiating table.

Asmara has been named, shamed and then slapped with two sets of U.N. sanctions over charges that it was aiding and abetting al Qaeda-linked rebels in lawless Somalia in its proxy war with Ethiopia. However, a panel tasked with monitoring violations of an arms embargo on Somalia said it had no proof of Eritrean support to the Islamist militants in the last year.

Nevertheless, Eritrea’s foreign ministry wasted little time in pointing a finger of accusation at its perennial rival. “The events over the past year have clearly shown that it is in fact Ethiopia that is actively engaged in destabilising Eritrea in addition to its continued occupation of sovereign Eritrean territory in violation of the U.N. Charter,” the ministry said in a statement last month.

The Red Sea state was referring to Addis Ababa’s open declaration in 2011 in which its late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said his country would no longer take a “passive stance” towards its rival following Eritrea’s alleged plot to bomb targets in the Ethiopian capital during an African Union gathering of heads of state.

Then foreign minister (and now premier) Hailemariam Desalegn followed up on the rhetoric soon afterwards by disclosing his government’s support to Eritrean rebels. Meles and Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki were once comrades-in-arms, even rumoured to be distant relatives. Ethiopia’s late leader rubber-stamped a 1993 referendum that granted independence to the former province after their rebel groups jointly toppled Communist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam’s military junta two years earlier.

The love affair did not last long. The pair fell out spectacularly after Eritrea introduced its own currency in 1997 and Ethiopia responded by insisting on trading in dollars. Their economic spat aggravated already simmering border tensions, which culminated in Eritrea deploying its tanks months later and occupying hotly disputed territory that was under Addis Ababa’s administration.

Ethiopian troops breached Eritrea’s trenches nearly a year later and retook contested ground – namely the flashpoint town of Badme – before a peace deal was signed. What then followed is the sticking point that remains today. An independent boundary commission awarded Badme to Eritrea in 2002 but the ruling is yet to take effect. Ethiopia wants to negotiate its implementation and warns that delimitation of the border as per the finding would unreasonably split towns and other geographical locations into two.

Asmara on the other hand insists on an immediate hand-over. The bickering has evolved into a proxy war and diplomatic skulduggery as both sides attempt to bring about regime change in the other. But despite the harsh words, mediation efforts are in the pipeline. Deng Alor, neighbouring South Sudan’s Minister for Cabinet Affairs, told Reuters on Wednesday his newly-independent country is about to embark on rounds of shuttle diplomacy between the capitals of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Both countries, he said, have given their blessing.

A handful of Ethiopian members of parliament are also devising a similar initiative, local sources say. Addis Ababa has never ruled out mediation. But even though Eritrea publicly dismisses any idea of a thaw in strained relations before the Badme spat is resolved, recent developments might change its mind, some believe.

Ethiopian analysts think Asmara now realises that its neighbour may easily adopt a more belligerent stance following the sudden death of Meles, who they say stood firm against a potential slide towards full-scale conflict. And of course not all Ethiopians express enthusiasm about an independent Eritrea, the creation of which left their country without access to the Red Sea.

Some diplomats say the chances of both sides making drastic concessions from their current positions remain slim. So will the mediation efforts finally yield a deal?

Many South Sudanese hoped the country’s emergence as the world’s newest nation would begin an era of prosperity, but the country has remained mired in disputes with its northern neighbour over oil, the border and a many other issues.

The landlocked South shut off its oil production in January, instantly erasing 98 percent of state revenues, as part of a dispute with Sudan over how much it should pay to export crude using pipelines and other infrastructure in the north.

Discontent has been rising over the oil shutdown, which piled hardships on people already weary from years of conflict. While many South Sudanese are still basking in the pride of their hard-won political freedom, they are starting to ask when they will enjoy the material benefits of independence.

Prices have been soaring, forcing many people to tighten their belts while corruption has gone largely unchecked.

South Sudanese voted overwhelmingly to secede in a referendum last year that was promised in a peace deal that ended more than two decades of war over ideology, religion, ethnicity and oil. Some 2 million people died in the conflict. Amid pomp and flag-waving, the former guerrillas of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement took full control of the country on July 9, 2011.

They also took about three-quarters of Sudan’s oil output, bringing in billions of dollars that many citizens hoped would be channelled to develop a nation where just over a quarter of adults can read and life expectancy is under 50.

Instead, officials are now scrambling to find enough money to keep basic services running. Independence has also failed to end violence both inside the country and on the border with Sudan. In April, South Sudan’s army occupied an oil-producing region also claimed by Sudan, bringing the countries close to a new war.

A few months earlier, the armed forces failed to prevent cattle raids between warring ethnic groups that killed hundreds of people. Human rights groups say weak rule of law allows security forces to carry out abuses against civilians with impunity.

The challenges have not dampened everyone’s optimism and they are those who believe that South Sudan’s era of prosperity is here. What do you think?

The al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters who have used pick-axes, shovels and hammers to shatter earthen tombs and shrines of local saints in Mali’s fabled desert city of Timbuktu say they are defending the purity of their faith against idol worship.

But historians say their campaign of destruction in the UNESCO-listed city is pulverising part of the history of Islam in Africa, which includes a centuries-old message of tolerance.

Over the last three days, Islamists of the Ansar Dine rebel group which in April seized Mali’s north along with Tuareg separatists destroyed at least eight Timbuktu mausoleums and several tombs, centuries-old shrines reflecting the local Sufi version of Islam in what is known as the “City of 333 Saints”.

For centuries in Timbuktu, an ancient Saharan trading depot for salt, gold and slaves which developed into a famous seat of Islamic learning and survived occupations by Tuareg, Bambara, Moroccan and French invaders, local people have worshipped at the shrines, seeking the intercession of the holy individuals.

This kind of popular Sufi tradition of worship is anathema to Islamists like the Ansar Dine fighters – Defenders of the Faith – who adhere to Salafism, which is linked to the Wahhabi puritanical branch of Sunni Islam found in Saudi Arabia.

Experts are comparing the Timbuktu tomb destructions to similar attacks against Sufi shrines by hardline Salafists in Egypt and Libya in the past year. The attacks also recall al Qaeda attacks on Shi’ite shrines in Iraq in the past decade and the 2001 dynamiting by the Taliban of two 6th-century statues of Buddha carved into a cliff in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan

Some believe the tomb-wrecking onslaught by Ansar Dine, which is led by Tuareg chieftain turned Salafist Iyad Ag Ghali, may have been directly triggered by UNESCO’s decision on Thursday to accept the Mali government’s urgent request to put Timbuktu on a list of endangered World Heritage sites.

Scholars are also fretting about the fate of tens of thousands of ancient and brittle manuscripts, some from the 13th century, housed in libraries and private collections in Timbuktu. Academics say these prove Africa had a written history at least as old as the European Renaissance.

Do you think Timbuktu tomb destroyers have pulverised Islam’s history? Are the al Qaeda-linked Islamists right in destrying the tombs?

South Africa’s economy is still largely under the control of whites who held power under apartheid, President Jacob Zuma has said calling  for a “dramatic shift” to redress the wealth balance more evenly in favour of the black majority.

Zuma, speaking at the start of a major policy meeting of his ruling African National Congress, said the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality posed long-term risks for Africa’s richest country 18 years after the end of apartheid.

Without giving details, he called for a “dramatic shift and giant leap” in coming years to spread the country’s wealth more equitably, mentioning the distribution of mineral resources and land ownership as areas which needed to be overhauled. Zuma said the proposed “second transition” was necessary to complement the negotiated end of apartheid in 1994, when he said “certain compromises” over economic ownership had been made to ensure a smooth political transition from white minority rule.

The ANC has drafted a raft of policy documents that call on mining firms to pay more to the state to help finance welfare spending.The proposals also advocate relying on state-owned enterprises to be engines of job creation and growth. Zuma said the debate over how the country’s mining wealth should be used must go beyond simply the question of “to nationalise or not to nationalise.” Calls for nationalisation from some sectors of the ruling ANC have stirred investor concerns in the world’s No. 1 platinum producer.

He also called for a new programme for land reform, saying the current “willing buyer-willing seller” policy had been too slow in returning white-owned farmland to blacks dispossessed by the apartheid state. But he did not spell out what alternative mechanisms of land ownership transfer should be adopted.

Do you think it is possible for South Africa to reform the white-dominated economy without hurting the economy itself and are there any other ways of dealing with problems effecting the economy?  How much is the ANC to blame for economic woes?

The African Union has moved its July summit to the Ethiopian capital after Malawi blocked the attendance of Sudan’s President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the bloc said

Malawi last month asked the African Union to prevent Bashir from taking part in the event, saying his visit would have “implications” for its aid-dependent economy.

As an ICC member state, Malawi would be obliged to arrest Bashir if he enters its territory. Bashir is accused of masterminding genocide and other atrocities in Darfur. The ICC’s chief prosecutor has called for aid cuts to countries that fail to detain him.

African heads of state voted in 2009 not to cooperate with the ICC indictments, saying they would hamper efforts to end Sudan’s multiple conflicts, and criticised the court for unfairly targeting African countries.

But what message is Africa Union sending to the rest of African leaders by moving its summit from Malwi to Ethiopia. Is the Afican Union justified in moving the summit?

Israel this week started deporting a planeload of migrants to South Sudan early on Monday, the first of a series of weekly repatriation flights intended as a stepping stone to dealing with much greater influxes of migrants from Sudan, Eritrea and Ivory Coast.

About 60,000 Africans have crossed into Israel across its porous border with Egypt in recent years. Israel says the vast majority are job seekers, disputing arguments by humanitarian agencies that they should be considered for asylum.

Many in Israel see the Africans as a threat to public order and to the demographics of the Jewish state. Street protests, some violent, have put pressure on the government, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned of Africans “flooding” and “swamping” Israel, threatening “the character of the country”.

The government has seized on the few hundred South Sudanese migrants, whose de facto refugee status was rescinded by an Israeli court this month, and whose government, sympathetic to Israel, is happy to take them back

Some of the migrants have accused government right-wingers of racist incitement and inflammatory language. Some Israelis too, are uncomfortable with the idea of rounding up members of a different racial group and holding them in camps, seeing a betrayal of Jewish values and even distant echoes of the Nazi Holocaust, all in a country built by immigrants and refugees.

Do you think Israel is doing the right thing deporting African migrants?

By Cosmas Butunyi

The dust is finally settling on the storm that was kicked off in South Africa by a controversial painting of President Jacob Zuma with his genitals exposed.

The country that boasts one of the most liberal constitutions in the world and the only one on the African continent with a constitutional provision that protects and defends the rights of  gays and lesbians , had   its values put up to  the test  after an artist    ruffled feathers by a painting that questioned the moral values  of the ruling African National Congress . 

For weeks, the storm ignited by the painting  called  ‘The Spear’, raged on, sucking in Goodman Gallery that displayed it and City Press, a weekly newspaper that had published it on its website. The matter eventually found its way into the corridors of justice, where the ruling ANC sought redress against the two institutions. The party also mobilised its supporters to stage protests outside the courtroom when the case it filed came up for hearing. They also matched to the gallery and called for a boycott of City Press , regarded as one of the country’s most authoritative newspapers. 

 The controversy  has cooled down now that the newspaper  has  removed the artwork from its website, the gallery pulled it down  after it was defaced. The ANC  has withdrawn its lawsuit.

Throughout this drama, one issue that came up frequently in the huge debate that it kicked off, was the issue of artistic licence, specifically in Africa.

“We say No to abuse of artistic expression”, a placard screamed during one of the protests called by the ANC outside a court in Johannesburg after a case the ruling party had filed came up for hearing.  

In other parts of Africa novelists such as Ngugi wa Thiong’o of Kenya, playwright Wole Soyinka of Nigeria, and poet Jack Mapanje of Malawi have been locked up in the past for their critical writings.  

Where does much of Africa stand when it comes to artists challenging the ethos by which much of the continent is guided?.   What role should art play in African society?   Can art be used in modern Africa to correct ills of society?. What of African playwrights and novelists who have  been thrown behind bars for too much scrutiny of national governments.

By Cosmas Butunyi

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress may have expelled the rubble-rousing youth league president, Julius Malema, but challenges still remain for President Jacob Zuma, who is seeking a second term in a race that he is considered the frontrunner.

Observers say that Malema, who is considered one of the most prominent members of the party to openly break from Zuma, still can be a thorn in his side even though he is permanently barred from party-related events. He may use his expulsion to sharpen his criticism against Zuma’s government.

Zakhele Ndlovu, a political analyst at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, says that while numerous predictions are being made of a possible Zuma victory in December, ‘anything can happen’ due to the changing balance of power in the party.

“People who sympathise with him could become influential and bring him back,” Zakhele told Reuters.

It is nearly impossible for Malema to return to the party before its electoral meeting at the end of the year. He would first need the approval of the ANC’s National Executive Committee, which is led by Zuma and stacked with his supporters. Even if he were to win over the NEC, Malema does not have the support of ANC delegates now to win reinstatement.

“Malema will recede into the background; power is already shifting away from him. The accumulation of his troubles will keep him occupied but we might still expect some noise from the Malema faction that Zuma has sidelined before December,” argues Nic Borain, an independent political analyst.

Malema’s ouster could also complicate things for challengers to Zuma who are linked to the former youth leader including Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe.

Do you think this is the end to Malema’s push for ANC leadership? Is Zuma’s quest for second term been strengthened by Malema’s expulsion from the party?

By Isaac Esipisu

The continents’ newest and second Africa’s  female president took over the reins of power in Malawi to offer a new and more responsive style of leadership that is expected to spur economic recovery of one of Africa’s poorest nation. Joyce Banda was sworn in as president two days after President Bingu wa Mutharika died of heart attack at 78.

The new president, Joyce Banda started her presidency in an enthusiastic and robust way; mending ties with foreign donors that could see Malawi pull out of an economic crisis. The new president of Zambia , Michael Sata, is making the transition easier, contributing 5 million litres of petrol that should help the economy. Banda, a 61-year-old policeman’s daughter who won recognition for championing the education of underprivileged girls, now enjoys widespread support among a population whose lives grew increasingly difficult under Mutharika

Mutharika, a former World Bank economist, also got off to a good start in 2004.   Malawi was at the time the darling of international donors. Programmes to subsidize fertilizer and provide seeds to farmers created an economic revival that made it one of the world’s fastest growing economies. But his fortunes turned dramatically and upon his death many Malawians were openly celebrating his passing.

In 2005 the country declared a national disaster as more than five million people were in need of food aid because of widespread shortages due to bad harvests. However, three years later the country produced a bumper harvest, turning it into the breadbasket of the region, mainly because of the success of Mutharika’s fertiliser and seed subsidy programme.

But under his leadership Malawi was at odds with its traditionally largest donor, Britain , following a decision by the government about a year ago to expel the British High Commissioner after he accused Mutharika for “increasingly becoming dictatorial” in a leaked diplomatic telegram. There were nationwide protests against Mutharika’s rule in July 2011 as Malawians personally blamed him for the country’s economic woes and the persistent fuel and foreign exchange shortages. Mutharika was criticized for calling in the police to quell the protests, which resulted in 20 deaths, as he vowed to crush the rebellion against him.

Malawi’s donor relations suffered greatly following accusations that the southern African country has failed to respect the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and the right to freedom of the press. Donors had refused to release up to $400 million and the United States suspended a $350 million energy grant.

The currency crisis caused queues for petrol and doubled the price of essentials for the typical Malawian, who struggles to get by on less than a dollar a day. Mutharika made things worse by telling donors they could go to hell and proposing a “zero deficit budget” that cut spending and raised taxes on the few firms and individuals with the money to pay them. This pushed more of the formal economy into the black market, stifled the few sectors responsible for job creation, and, combined with the loss of international support for the budget, sent the economy on a downward spiral.

 Many of Malawi’s leaders  started with a lot of promise but the trappings of power corrupted them to such an extent that they forgot the source of their power and become gods who brooked no advice, let alone criticism, regardless of whether it is constructive or not. And after the false dawns of Mutharika’s regime, Malawians will be forgiven for reserving their judgment until much later. 

And it would be too simplistic to think that Malawi ’s problems have ended with the death of President Bingu wa Mutharika. But on the other hand it is an opportunity for the newly appointed President to step up and offer a new and more responsive style of leadership. The country’s failing economy, and the fuel and foreign exchange shortages saw unprecedented nationwide protests against Mutharika and if the new president can address these issues, then Malawi will surely get back to economic recovery. 

But do you think President Joyce Banda will sustain her promise and lead Malawi to economic recovery? Is Joyce Banda the answer to Malawi ’s problems? How do you think she will be able to handle both economic and political issues in Malawi ?