In our situation everything we do is risky...' General Paul Kagame told Africa Confidential on 9 December in Kigali as he explained plans to open up the country's...

Donors heaped praise on Finance Minister Donald Kaberuka's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper launched in Kigali late last month. The PRSP has to be designed and implemented before Rwanda...

President Daniel arap Moi's loyal support for the United States' war against terror is hitting local difficulties.

Many unusual cargoes have been delivered to Sudan in recent years, as former resident Usama bin Laden knows. Yet one of the strangest (though not necessarily most dangerous)...

If Usama bin Laden and his comrades headed for Somalia, they could find it even less comfortable than Afghanistan. American and French ships patrol the coastline and blockade...

From now on, I will sleep more soundly', said President Benjamin Mkapa at the signing, on 10 October, of an agreement between Zanzibar's warring political parties. The pact...

Tanzanite is a purple-brown crystal that, when superheated, turns into a pretty blue gem. Tanzanite sales in the United States alone are reckoned to be worth more than...

Rwanda and Uganda risk repeating the disaster which overtook the equally revolutionary governments of Eritrea and Ethiopia, whose war in 1998-2000 cost over 100,000 lives and wrecked both...

British Development Minister Clare Short's intercession in Whitehall didn't stop Rwanda and Uganda banging war drums elsewhere. As Presidents Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni were signing their London...

A born-again Executive Outcomes operation is at the centre of allegations of a military contract between ex-South African Defence Force soldiers and the Sudanese army. A former director...

The heat is off. Skillfully turning the American calamity of 11 September to diplomatic advantage, President Daniel arap Moi was among the first African leaders to sign up...

Somalia is moving up the agenda: the United States believes Al Qaida may have used Al Itahaad's bases there as operational staging posts. In particular, that Al Itahaad...

October has been good for Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. He has appointed a new President, reshuffled his cabinet, won gushing tributes from Western diplomats and donors, and turned...

We are on the verge of reaching a breakthrough which will bring permanent peace and stability', said Nelson Mandela, former South African President and Burundi's peace mediator, on...

The Kinshasa government's abandonment of the Inter-Congolese dialogue on 19 October raises new doubts about its commitment to the Lusaka peace accord. Foreign Minister Léonard She Okitundu and...

Sudan's government is walking a tightrope. Since the United States' and British bombing of Afghanistan began on 7 October, the threat to the National Islamic Front (aka National...

As war-hero-turned-dissident Mesfin Hagos prepares to return home to near certain imprisonment for criticising President Issayas Afewerki, international pressure is mounting on the government to reverse its recent...

The caseload from the 1994 genocide has left 115,000 suspects in gaol, detained but not convicted, in conditions which human rights advocates call inhuman. A few alleged leaders...

Critics of President Issayas Afeworki complain about his autocratic style. On 18 September, he proved their point, when six of his critics in the ruling People's Front for...

There is growing concern in Kigali and Bujumbura about the consequences of efforts by Congo-Kinshasa's President Joseph Kabila to expel the 'negative forces', the hardline militias involved in...

President Daniel arap Moi has run out of promises. The Board of the International Monetary Fund refuses to unblock further loans - in particular, a hoped for quick...

The wedding of the Kenya African National Union and the National Democratic Party was consummated in a carnival atmosphere at the Moi International Sports Complex outside Nairobi on...

Three thousand more votes for the priest and it would have been curtains for 'the Boss'. Yet after 24 years of paternalistic socialism, plus lucrative capitalism for some,...

When supermarkets run out of imported toilet paper and shoppers fight for the last disposable nappies, there's a problem - in Seychelles, if not in most African countries....

Environmental activists are demanding an international investigation into allegations that over 50 people were killed when Tanzanian police cleared the area surrounding the Bulyanhulu gold mine in 1996....

Regional peacemakers are now embroiled in the minutiae of the Arusha Accords on ending Burundi's eight-year civil war, amid general scepticism that the power-sharing agreement brokered by Nelson...

'Egypt possesses cards it has not yet used for preventing the separation of southern Sudan'. Thus spake Cairo's Ambassador to Khartoum, Mohamed Asim Ibrahim, in June 2000. Egypt...

Ever since it seized power on 30 June 1989, the National Islamic Front has been declaring its desire for peace while accelerating the war. The first speech by...

On 26 June, the international Arab press began speculating about a new Egyptian-Libyan Initiative. Ten days later, the nine points emerged and became headline news. Some are reminiscent...

The fin de siècle has been delayed. Among party hacks, journalists, and commission agents, the gossip is dominated by Daniel arap Moi's exit from the all-powerful presidency after...

A political row looms after President Yoweri Museveni, his son Lieutenant Muhoozi Kainerugba and his brother Major General Salim Saleh were accused in court of being party to...

Kenya's role as Chair of the principle Sudan peace forum is under threat after claims that it was negotiating to import oil from Sudan. Oil is at the...

Though recognised by the Organisation of African Unity, Inter-Governmental Authority on Development and United Nations, the Transitional National Government (TNG, AC Vol 42 No 10) controls just a...

Nerves are jangling in Asmara after the resignation of the Ambassador to Sweden, Norway and Finland. Hebret Berhe boldly criticised the resistance to reform and democracy of the...

The ruling People's Front for Democracy and Justice is now deeply split. At the end of May, 15 leading members of the PFDJ's 75-member Central Council published an...

The government's announcement of its new coalition took even some of its members by surprise. On 11 June, the radio announced that Raila Amolo Odinga and his colleagues...

It's not just on the political front that the ruling elite of the Kenya African National Union and its cronies are facing financial problems:

President Paul Kagame made his name as a military strategist, the successful head of Uganda's military intelligence until 1990, then leader of the forces that conquered his own...

Efforts to reunite the two main Southern factions - John Garang's Sudan People's Liberation Army and Riek Machar's Sudan People's Democratic Front - have suffered a setback. Riek...

The United States fears East Africa may follow West Africa into chronic instability. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, visiting Kenya last week, had two symptoms of regional...

Ethiopia's security chief, Kinfe Gebre Medhin, was shot four times in the back outside the Armed Forces Officers Club in Addis Ababa on 12 May. The murder hits...

Battling a powerful lobby for postponement, President of Somaliland Mohamed Ibrahim Egal is determined to hold a long-delayed constitutional referendum on 31 May. He wants voters to back...

Ethiopia is in political crisis. In most countries, this would be natural after such riots as those of 17 and 18 April. Perhaps 41 people were killed (according...

Southern leaders at daggers drawn since 1991 have reached agreement in principle that Riek Machar's forces be reintegrated into the Sudan People's Liberation Army of Colonel John Garang....

Losing is completely hypothetical. It will not happen,' President Yoweri Museveni told journalists in Kampala on the eve of the presidential election on 13 March. He did not...

President Daniel arap Moi declared last month that women don't reach the pinnacle of public life because their brains are too small. Shortly afterwards, he appointed Dr. Sally...

The debate on Washington's Sudan policy touches two of the Republican government's core constituencies, big oil and the religious right. Their countervailing pressures may delay a radical shift...

In one week, Sudan has lost two leaders, one much loved and respected and one widely hated and feared. The contrast could not be greater between Yousif Kuwa...

The Khartoum regime's drive to become a major oil producer is systematically killing Sudan's southern citizens and and destroying their homes. Backed by Western and Asian companies, this...

Foreign companies benefitting from the oil bonanza include: The pipeline: built by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the line consists half of Chinese pipe, half of...

The position of Civil Service chief Richard Leakey is threatened by court proceedings alleging that he unconstitutionally intervened in a fraud case against the Dutch Bank ABN-Amro. The...

It's been a tough few weeks for Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Eritrean intransigence over the United Nations' Temporary Security Zone between the two armies has delayed implementation of...

When President Daniel arap Moi met the President of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, and the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Horst Köhler, Kenya's stalled economic...

Kenya knew that World Bank President James Wolfensohn and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Horst Köhler wanted to meet Daniel arap Moi in person, with no advisors or...

Rebel militias are stepping up the pressure as Burundi mediator Nelson Mandela drives the peace talks forward. Some 40,000 people have fled the fighting in northern Bujumbura since...

For the first time in his political life, President Issayas Aferworki faces serious challenges from his political peers. There is now a substantial group within the ruling People's...

Ethiopia, like Eritrea, is conducting a post-war reassessment (gim-gema), covering the decade since the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) took power. When it is complete, Prime Minister...

Oh dear! The media had exaggerated reports of Zanzibar's troubles, some foreign embassies were biased in favour of the opposition Civic United Front (CUF), foreign election observers had...

The arrest of the National Islamic Front government's founding father, Hassan el Turabi, on 21 February sent ripples of glee through Sudanese communities: the previous two times he...

Many have been surprised to learn that Djibouti had Africa's - and possibly the world's - longest-serving Prime Minister. For most people, this fact emerged only when Barkad...

The late President Laurent-Désiré Kabila left an unfinished mystery for Burundi. He had long supported Hutu rebel groups against Major Pierre Buyoya's government in Bujumbura. Yet six days...

Cairo is trying to coopt Western governments, Algeria and Saudi Arabia into a scheme to present President George W. Bush's new team with a detailed ready-made policy for...