As anger grows in the east, rebel groups are due to talk to
the Khartoum regime next month
On 15 January, Libya is to host talks between Khartoum's Islamist government and rebels grouped in the Eastern Front organisation. Last month, the Front attended a workshop at...
President Kibaki's authority hangs by a thread after a botched
government reshuffle
Facing total disaster after a reshuffle fiasco last week in which a third of the new ministers turned down their appointments, President Mwai Kibaki has managed to entice...
Not content with being the Mother of the Nation and the leading pro-abstinence and anti-condom campaigner, Uganda's First Lady Janet Museveni is penetrating the political arena. Mama Janet,...
The people's rejection of the president's draft constitution
has killed the Rainbow coalition
To make sense of his defeat in the constitutional referendum on 21 November, President Mwai Kibaki must choose between crushing his opponents or coopting them. The referendum campaign...
The referendum has relaunched or unmade several political careers: Raila Odinga: The referendum brought his rivalry with President Mwai Kibaki to a head. Their 2002 alliance to oust...
The ideology that has taken over Western utilities spreads in
Africa
In Africa, as across the world, water is a hot topic. The hottest current debate is about whether its supply should be organised by private companies or, as...
Disputed elections, the shooting of oppositionists and donor worries hasten political change
The ruling party is on the defensive. Its brutal response to opposition protests at election irregularities and the criticism which that has aroused, may mark its transformation. At...
The arrest of the strongest opposition candidate for the presidency
left everyone weeping
Diplomats coughed and wiped their eyes as they left the Chief Magistrate's Court. An ill wind had blown tear-gas past the Court, where the strongest opposition leader, Colonel...
The government now looks likely to lose the 21 November constitutional referendum, barring a last-minute swing of voter sentiment. Some 42 per cent of Kenyans polled by the...
A corpse and an ambitious politician return to upset President
Museveni's re-election plans
President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni's two big political rivals have returned from exile and sparked major new challenges to the President and the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM). First...
Too many observers think of the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) as an ill-disciplined bunch of ghost soldiers flying about in junk helicopters. President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni hopes...
Voting in Zanzibar was again rigged by the ruling party and its
security forces
The government could pay a heavy price for its decision to declare the victory in Zanzibar of incumbent President Amani Abeid Karume of the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi,...
Vol 46 No 22 |
- ERITREA
- ETHIOPIA
There may be some diplomatic method in Asmara's apparent madness
Indignant at what he calls blatant international bias against Eritrea in its border dispute with Ethiopia, President Issayas Afeworki is restricting the work of the United Nations Mission...
Two big threats hang over the new regional government of Southern
Sudan
The new administration in Southern Sudan is not receiving the promised oil money from the National Congress-dominated government in Khartoum. At the same time, the stability of the...
Khartoum is starving the South of its oil revenue. January's Comprehensive Peace Agreement allocated to the Government of South Sudan half of the revenue from oil produced in...
Vol 46 No 21 |
- SUDAN
- UGANDA
Despite energetic denials, Khartoum continues to help Kony and
the LRA
In the early hours of 11 October, an Antonov flew over Western Equatoria, Southern Sudan, an unmistakable sound for civilians used to government bombing. Twice last month an...
Orange Revolutionarie smell victory over Banana Republicans in
the constitution campaign
National elections are not due until December 2007 but Kenya is the middle of a bizarre election contest between two factions of the same cabinet. On paper, the...
Support is growing for the opposition Civic United Front (CUF) in Zanzibar ahead of the 30 October national elections, amidst a growing military presence on the islands with...
Khartoum's Islamists are confident of dominating the Government
of National Unity
The list of appointments to the new Government of National Unity (GNU) confirms that it is not much concerned about national unity. The National Islamic Front/National Congress Party...
Under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the National Congress Party (NCP) aka National Islamic Front (NIF) gets 52 per cent of ministers in the Government of National Unity, the...
The former Director of Rwanda 's External Security Organisation, Colonel Patrick Karegeya, has been released after being held for five months without trial at Mulindi military prison (AC...
Where next for the Lord 's Resistance Army? Some 400 LRA fighters under deputy commander 'Brigadier' Vincent Otti crossed into north-east Congo-Kinshasa last month from Southern Sudan. But...
With the ruling party certain to win the mainland, Zanzibar will see a delicate balance
Although the United Republic of Tanzania has a population of 32 million people and the tiny islands of Zanzibar have only one million, the eyes and ears of...
The candidate of the governing Chama cha Mapinduzi for the presidency of Tanzania, Jakaya Kikwete, has been conducting a vigorous campaign all over the country and is being...
The threat of a boycott may be the opposition's most powerful weapon in next year's elections
With the present rules and political climate opposition parties, even in an alliance, stand no chance of ousting President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and his National Resistance Movement in...
The arrest of a Belgian Roman Catholic priest has revived controversy over Rwanda's gacaca tribunals. With unprecedented speed, on 11 September the gacaca sent Guy Theunis, of the...
The aid which keeps nearly three million displaced people in Darfur alive and which is critical to tens of thousands of returning Southerners is threatened by a new...
There's many a slip ahead, in the referendum and its constitutional
consequences
Kenyan voters will be asked to vote 'Yes' (a banana symbol) or 'No' (an orange) on 21 November, in a referendum on ratification of the proposed new constitution....
Exiled anti-corruption czar John Githongo is to return to Kenya next month to hand a detailed dossier on his investigations into parliament's Public Accounts Committee. This follows a...
The government cannot get to the capital, where Islamists and
many others reject it
President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed's plans for foreign troops to provide the security he needs to allow him to go back to Mogadishu are still blocked. After much international...
Al Itihaad al Islamia (AIAI, Islamic Unity), the most fervent and best organised of Somalia's Islamist groups, has links to several members of the Transitional Federal Government now...
Relations with the European Union are cooling sharply. EU election observers roundly criticised the 15 May general elections, infuriating Premier Meles Zenawi. The head of the EU Election...
Hardline measures against dissident soldiers and journalists point to government nervousness before March's elections . In power since 1986, President Yoweri Museveni will contest again, after parliament lifted...
Garang's death means that changes he imposed on the SPLM have
been reversed
Only days after the death of the Southern Sudanese leader, John Garang de Mabior, some senior officials of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and Army were quietly commenting...
Salva Kiir Mayardit's 19 August appointment of Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon as Vice-President of Southern Sudan signals continuity and reconciliation. After John Garang's death on 30 July, Salva...
Vol 46 No 17 |
- SUDAN
- AFRICA
Sudanese Vice-President John Garang's death in a helicopter crash on 30 July (see Feature) highlights the danger of African travel, especially in vast roadless countries such as Congo-Kinshasa...
Ex-Finance Minister Donald Kaberuka's victory in the 21 July African Development Bank presidential election (AC Vol 46 No 11) is the latest success for Kigali's increasingly effective diplomatic...
The sudden death of Southern leader John Garang has brought riots
and new fears for the future
The death of the man who led Southern Sudan in its war with the Khartoum government for 22 years has stunned the country. Three weeks previously as part...
A little girl runs along a path, pulling a monkey on a length of twine, a gift from one of her uncles. The girl is Atong, aged eight,...
After the disputed elections, government and opposition edge warily
towards an accommodation
Many opposition members of parliament are likely to take their seats after signs of progress from the first round of talks between government and opposition parties to discuss...
President Kibaki praises the dissident Odinga and is embarrassed
by his friend Murungaru
The bizarre pas de deux between President Mwai Kibaki and cabinet dissident Raila Odinga raises doubts as to whether the President can win the national referendum on the...
Everyone claimed victory in the referendum of 28 July (AC Vol 46 No 15). The National Resistance Movement has been strengthened because it won the 'Yes' vote it...
Concern is mounting about the fate of army Spokesman and former Director of External Intelligence Colonel Patrick Karegeya, embroiled in a power struggle within the ruling Front Patriotique...
Garang's mass welcome in Khartoum shocked the NIF - but doesn't
guarantee his success
As a million and a half cheering people rushed to see John Garang de Mabior's triumphant return to Khartoum after 22 years at war, the National Islamic Front...
The Islamist government is under unprecedented pressure but is skilled at bouncing back
Forced to accept a non-Muslim, Southern rebel as First Vice-President and a draft constitution that promises the democracy it cannot risk, the Islamist government is under unprecedented pressure....
In a confused campaign, the referendum on multiparty politics is too close to call
In the referendum on 28 July, voters will be asked to choose between two symbols: a tree for changing to multiparty politics, a house for continuing the 'no-party'...
The governing Rainbow Coalition looks united for a change.
Will it last?
After months of chaos and corruption charges, events are finally moving President Mwai Kibaki's way (AC Vol 46 Nos 10 and 13). The economy is growing faster, with...
Parliament's support on 28 June for a constitutional bill has unblocked the limit on how many terms a president can serve. It opens the way for President Yoweri...
After more delays and disputes, some of the would-be government
heads home
When the new Transitional Federal Government (TFG) made its grand departure from Nairobi, representatives of the international community lined up to wish President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed well and...
The idea of the Transitional Federal Government was to share senior appointments proportionally: four for the big clans (Darod, Rahenweyn, Dir, Hawiye) and one-half for others, such as...
The local government elections bring change and hope for a
calmer future
Burundi's politics have been transformed by the local government elections on 3 June. Firstly, they passed off peacefully, except in five communes of Bujumbura Rural Province, where the...
The power struggle has worsened in the ruling party following the surprise success of opposition parties in May's elections (AC Vol 46 No 11). Hardliners in the Ethiopian...
A week after being left off the Group of Eight finance ministers' list of African states eligible for debt relief on 11 June, President Mwai Kibaki's government has...
Vol 46 No 12 |
- TANZANIA
- BRITAIN
A controversial US$143.5 million project to commercialise Tanzania's water and sewage system has ended in acrimony and political embarrassment for the World Bank and the British government which...
No one expected the ruling party to do so badly but it still holds
power at the centre, facing a revitalised opposition
It was a stunning setback for the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. When the polls closed on 15 May, the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD)...
The Coalition for Unity and Democracy appeals to Amhara nationalism, which the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front calls chauvinism. The CUD wants to get rid of the...
Once again, the islands quarrel and South Africa tries to reconcile
them
Rival leaders seemed to have found a way out of years of coups and secessionist crises when they adopted a new power-sharing constitution in 2001. Now, tensions over...
It is Anjouan island's turn to fill the Union presidency after elections in April 2006. Leading candidates include:
We hear Jan Pronk, the United Nations Secretary General's Special Representative for Sudan since June, seeks another job. The Netherlands' former International Development Minister (65) hoped for a...
Somalia's foreign partners are wondering how long its Transitional Federal Government (TFG) can last. Since they painstakingly arranged for its creation, two big things have gone wrong. President...
To succeed, the new government must be more than a triumphant army
The Government of South Sudan (GOSS) is waiting to be born. Its formidable task is to build a country from scratch and according to January's Comprehensive Peace Agreement...
As the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement negotiates for a new Government of South Sudan and a power-sharing role in a new national government, its own leadership is opaque...
Along the old front line in Western Equatoria, the bush and the birds had taken over. Now people are beginning to return, some selling bananas by the roadside....
The national presidency seems safe for Kikwete but Zanzibar remains uneasy
By a surprisingly wide margin, the ever governing Chama Cha Mapinduzi last week picked its candidate for October's presidential election: Foreign Minister Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete. Nobody expects him...
A legal and political row is brewing over an expensive new warship
Assurances to the Treasury by the Chief of General Staff, General Joe Kibwana, about a 4.1 billion Kenya Shilling (US$53.5 million) deal to buy a new patrol boat...
The arrest of the army spokesman and former Director of External Intelligence, Colonel Patrick Karegeya, on 30 April points to new tensions in President Paul Rugambwa Kagame's government....
Three anti-corruption campaigners have left the scene as Total
Man returns
The drive against corruption has run out of steam. President Mwai Kibaki's National Rainbow Coalition was elected in January 2003 on a straightforward anti-corruption platform (AC Vol 46...
The government has failed to push a crucial bill through a parliament full of loyal members (AC Vol 46 No 8). The bill would have authorised a referendum...
Western governments send Khartoum officials for trial one week
and promise them aid the next
The bizarre spectacle of Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha glad-handing Western politicians at the International Donors' Conference in Oslo on 11-12 April highlighted the confusion among European and...
Former President Obote's promised return gives life to Museveni's
re-election campaign
Democratic passions have been revived by ex-President Apollo Milton Obote, who announced his return to Uganda after 20 years of exile in Zambia but then said he'd changed...
If the G6 parties can coalesce around a single presidential candidate, they will become the most powerful opposition group. The G6 components are the Free Movement, Justice Forum...
Vol 46 No 8 |
- DJIBOUTI
- FRANCE
The mysterious non-appearance of a promised report on the state-run Radio France Internationale on the investigation into the death of French Judge Bernard Borel has caused anger among...
The real presidential contest is for nomination by the still ruling party, Chama cha Mapinduzi
Next month, the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), which has produced all four presidents since Independence in 1961, is due to announce its candidate in Tanzania's presidential elections...
There has never been such a fight for the presidential nomination since Tanzania opened up to multi-party politics in 1994
For the front-runners, the also-rans and late arrivals, read the article
The United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea already has big credibility problems because of Ethiopia's continuing failure to implement a boundary commission ruling on where the frontier...
Tanzania is getting a new ammunition factory thanks to George Forrest International, a firm whose eponymous main shareholder has big interests in Congo-Kinshasa and has told United Nations...
SLA fighters try to overthrow their leader while the NMRD demonstrates
its affinity with Chad
The Sudan Liberation Army appears to have a new leader. SLA members say that 'democratic consultations' are under way but the money is on the Chief of Staff,...
The United Nations International Commission of Inquiry's report into the atrocities in Darfur names 51 individuals it recommends for prosecution at the International Criminal Court. The file has...
As the killings continue, at last the UN considers sanctions,
peacekeepers and prosecutions
January's United Nations International Commission of Inquiry report on Darfur may not have concluded genocide was taking place but still may have shamed world decision-makers into action. Describing...
Pressure mounts on President Mwai Kibaki to act against corruption after his anti-graft czar, John Githongo, resigned on 7 February. Opposition MPs and local campaigners are looking at...
At last, Burundi's constitutional referendum is set for 28 February, or so says Paul Ngarambe, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI). The big political obstacle faded...
Infighting in the ruling coalition over election rules and constitutional
reform further undermines President Kibaki
President Mwai Kibaki faces a new schism in the ranks of the unstable National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) over his ultimatum that all its parties must hold elections by...
As the governing National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) quarrels over internal elections, Kenya's alliance system is becoming increasingly fluid and a new set of leaders is jockeying for position...
A proposed third term for the President upsets Ugandans' hopes
for peace
hey marched through Kampala, waving dried banana leaves and banners reading 'Operation Kisanja'. Some held aloft three fingers, showing support for a third term for President Yoweri Kaguta...
President Yoweri Museveni's government in Kampala remains locked in a bloody counterinsurgency campaign against the Lord's Resistance Army, a fierce and brutal pseudo-Christian cult backed, opportunistically, by Sudan's...
Vol 46 No 3 |
- SUDAN
- BRITAIN
Reports that British intelligence is training Sudan government spies raise awkward questions about policy following the 1 February release of a 244-page United Nations report detailing the involvement...
The peace deal shores up the regime but raises doubts about
the eventual plan for Southern independence
At long last, Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) has been signed, in Kenya's National Stadium on 9 January. Yet the participants have very different aims: the regime wants...
While accelerating its military build up in Darfur, the National Islamic Front government signed a peace deal on 7 January with the mysterious new rebel group, the National...
The temporary capital of Southern Sudan will be Rumbek, home to the South's first secondary school and, since its recapture by the Sudan People's Liberation Army in 1997,...