As in Kenya, the ruling party has strengthened its grip despite multi-partyism
The ruling parties in East Africa's former one-party states are thriving. As President Daniel arap Moi's Kenya African National Union looks forward to a thumping victory in presidential...
Secret efforts by Egypt to get the National Democratic Alliance talking to the National Islamic Front government may be overtaken by the opposition's dry-season offensive.The Sudan People's Liberation...
The government launched its long-promised human rights initiative to coincide with the 9 December visit by the United States Secretary of State. Madeleine Albright flattered the Ethiopian Peoples'...
KANU is set to win this month's elections but at a high cost to the economy
Opposition hopes for the 29 December election rest on their ability to force President Daniel arap Moi to a second round of voting for the Presidency. To do...
The rebellion in the north damages President Museveni's reputation and his budget
In Africa, President Yoweri Museveni's stock runs high, some argue it's second only to Nelson Mandela's. Triumphantly and genuinely elected last year, Museveni's reputation is based on his...
Almost overnight, KANU’s top brass have discovered the value of political reform
Using whips and clubs and firing teargas canisters, police broke up another demonstration demanding constitutional reform, this time at Nyahururu on 19 October. It was the latest in...
Talk of improved relations between the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front and the main Oromo opposition party, the Oromo Liberation Front, looks overblown. On 8 October, the...
The government's reshuffle of top army posts is widely considered a bid to be seen to be doing something amid rising protest against the pressganging of teenagers for...
Kigali's intervention in Zaïre helped to oust Mobutu but produced no victories at home
The transformation of old Zaïre in to the new Democratic Republic of Congo has also transformed the politics of the region around Lake Kivu. Yet insecurity remains endemic...
In what is believed to be the first such case ever, a Sudanese doctor has been charged in Scotland with committing torture in the Sudan. On 5 September,...
The government is now beginning to feel the pain of indulging its sweet tooth
There is no likelihood in the near future that the International Monetary Fund will resume lending from its US$220 million balance of payments support. The Kenya government has...
As factions grow weaker, foreign intervention is in danger of making them stronger again
On the face of it, the plan for 25 Somali factions to meet in the north-eastern port of Bossasso in November sounds like a step forward for the...
Two small islands declare independence while demanding recolonisation by France
The Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros has again sprung a surprise on the world, with two of its three islands calling (separately) both for independence and for...
President Nelson Mandela's extraordinary peacemaking bid in Sudan, which appears to have pleased only the National Islamic Front, came without South African Foreign Ministry support, Africa Confidential understands....
The campaign to demand constitutional reform has turned into a full-frontal assault on an increasingly desperate President Moi
This is a bad year for authoritarian governments. The dean of despots, Mobutu Sese Seko, was chased out in May, Sudan's Hassan el Turabi faces coordinated military opposition...
Sweeping changes in the region have not ended the rebellions against Kampala
After helping to bring major changes to neighbouring Congo-Kinshasa and Southern Sudan, the Ugandan armed forces have now escalated their attempts to stamp out Uganda's own rebel movements....
In AC Vol 38 No 15, we said that Ethiopian Teachers' Association President Taye Wolde Semayat had been freed: we learn that he was released from chains but...
'Ignore statements made in the next two months by the US Ambassador to Khartoum'. This is the extraordinary advice which US officials have given (discreetly and verbally) to...
Asmara's introduction of its own Nacfa currency and dropping of the Ethiopian Birr (with which, for now, it has exchange rate parity) rang some alarms in Addis Ababa....
As Sudan's conflict threatens to spread, Washington policy- makers are contemplating the fall of the National Islamic Front
Sudan is moving up Washington's agenda. After years of US ambiguity, those urging a tough line against Khartoum have won the argument over those favouring 'constructive engagement'. This...
Conspicuous among those lobbying for dialogue with the National Islamic Front is US-born Mansoor Ijaz, the Pakistani-descended founding Chairman of Crescent Investment Management, which he says has a...
Vol 38 No 15 |
- ETHIOPIA
- BRITAIN
The shooting by police of a teachers' leader has led to the suspension of Britain's aid programme. Ethiopia requested the move after Whitehall insisted on a public enquiry...
Africa Direct, a London-based organisation campaigning against the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (AC Vol 38 No 12), is holding a conference entitled 'Rwanda: the great...
Opposition demands for political reforms before the elections unsettle President Moi
Delaying the elections, probably until November or December, is beginning to look like a major error by President Daniel arap Moi. Even six months ago, his ruling Kenya...
Washington officials are talking of a major review on Sudan policy and a harder line against the National Islamic Front government as opposition forces in southern and eastern...
Vol 38 No 13 |
- ETHIOPIA
- SOMALIA
Ethiopia has won another round in its war against Islamists. Somalia's main Islamist movement, Al Itahad al Islami, lost its last major bases to an Ethiopian assault on...
Somalia's banknotes are falling apart but attempts to replace them are causing new problems. Ali Mahdi, self-proclaimed President in North Mogadishu, tried to bring in new notes five...
The President's men come up against wary donors and a socialist government in Paris
On the eve of the twentieth anniversary of Independence, ministers went to Geneva to ask for help. After two years' wrangling with donors over conditionality, Finance Minister Mohamed...
The country had only one credible party of opposition. Now it has none. The National Convention for Constitution and Reform (NCCR)-Maguezi fell apart in confusion last week. Its...
Winning this year's elections is more important for KANU than obeying the IMF
Within eight weeks Finance Minister Musalia Mudavadi must produce a budget. The International Monetary Fund expects Kenya to meet its fiscal guidelines and speed up privatisation. The hard...
Meles' alliance with Eritrea and Uganda is changing the balance of power in the region
Ethiopia is once more a force to be reckoned with, as Prime Minister Meles Zenawi emerges from the shadow of his 'elder brother' President Issayas Aferworki of Eritrea....
Repression is not working; the Bujumbura regime is making new enemies
Major Pierre Buyoya has made a few gains. The triumph of Laurent-Désiré Kabila's forces in Zaïre has cut off from its usual bases the main armed opposition to...
An opposition attack on government forces at a little known mountain called Togan, about 100 kilometres north of Kassala, has produced sheaves of documents detailing the National Islamic...
Attacking from the east, the opposition is capturing territory and winning new recruits; and in the south it's threatening Juba
The collapse of the government army's operations against fierce opposition attack in the south and east has thrown the ruling National Islamic Front into confusion. It is no...
On the ground, the Sudan People's Liberation Army looks competent and confident of taking Juba. Its rout of government forces is unparallelled since the 1991 split. Under the...
At last some good economic news to bolster President Mkapa's multi-party democracy
Tanzania may not be an economic tiger yet but visitors to Dar es Salaam (population: 3 million and growing fast) can easily see that the sleepy days are...
Somali leaders juggle their shrinking options while outsiders compete to make peace
Two competing peace processes are under way in Somalia, each linked to a neighbouring state. Supporters of January's agreement at Sodere, Ethiopia, are trying to create a political...
A hero's funeral was accorded to Horace Kolimba. Yet when he died on 13 March, he was central to a fierce row in the traditionally united ruling Chama...
The war in Zaïre has brought more violence to Rwanda: some 600,000 Hutu fled home, among them many Interahamwé and former Rwandan troops. The killing goes on: people...
A rare victory for the opposition may present a serious challenge to KANU
Raila Odinga's defeat of the ruling Kenya African National Union's Fred Amayo in the Langata by-election on 11 March offers a rare glimmer of hope to the opposition....
The SPLA is fighting in the North for 'national unity' but what about the South?
The National Democratic Alliance's military gains in the north (AC Vol 38 No 3) have distracted attention from the continuing problems of Southern politics. While some opposition leaders...
Sudan is not going to be expelled from the International Monetary Fund just yet – thanks to Malaysia, we hear. Kuala Lumpur paid instalments on Sudan's US$1.7 billion...
Italian shuttle diplomacy across the 'Green Line' dividing Mogadishu has persuaded Hussein Mohamed Farah 'Aydeed' and Ali Mahdi Mohamed to resurrect the October 1996 peace deal, brokered by...
The government is getting nervous about Afars: their territory covers its main route to the sea and Eritrea's port of Assab. Military action in 1996 failed to break...
Northern and Southern oppositionists have seized territory from the government and look capable of staying on the offensive
The battle for Sudan has begun (AC Vol 37 No 8). The opposition strategy is to follow military successes with a civilian uprising; against this is the National...
Arab governments'reactions to the Sudanese opposition's offensives have less to do with Sudan than with Israel and the United States. Many governments and newspapers echoed Khartoum's line: an...
President Moi's old friend rejoins the cabinet to mastermind politics and the succession
Nicholas Kipyator Biwott is back. He has stayed close to power in the five years since Western donors successfully pressed for his dismissal as Minister of Energy. Now...
Politicians have begun the year with a peace accord – but Hussein Aydeed stays outside
A new year, a new faction agreement. On 3 January, after six weeks of pool-side discussions at the Ethiopian hot-spring resort of Sodere (AC Vol 37 No 25),...
Al Itahad al Islami, Somalia's main Islamist organisation, says that it intends to become a political party, to the unease of the National Executive Council. NEC members have...
A popular general is saying things the government would prefer to keep quiet
The army is struggling with rebels in the north and west and faces escalating hostilities on the Sudan border yet within its own ranks, a war of words...
A foreign capital free-for-all won't be enough to rescue the economy
President Albert René's government seems to have run out of steam. The money-men expect a devaluation of the Rupee Seychellois, followed, they hope, by a loan from the...
Sudan's National Islamic Front government (AC Vol 37 No 25) faces a military onslaught by opposition forces in Blue Nile province but Arakis is still negotiating to bring...
Asmara's investment drive provokes less interest than its adventurous foreign policy
Combining an assertive foreign policy, hard-nosed economic reforms and a tight rein on domestic politics, President Issayas Aferworki is cast from a similar mould to Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni....