Africa Rising 21st Century

            Last week, soldiers in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital, staged a coup.   Ostensibly, they were upset with military and civilian leadership and their lack of effective planning and equipment in the fight against jihadists in the Sahel.   However, citizens celebrated in the streets after the coup, apparently happy to be rid of the government of President Roch Kaboré.   This isn’t the first time that citizens appreciated the ouster of a government they didn’t believe in, but it is a very dangerous precedent.             In Nigeria some decades ago, politicians encouraged military intervention to rid themselves of a problematic government, like wiping the pieces off a chess board when you look to be losing the game.   Nigerian military leaders soon realized that they didn’t have to turn government back over to politicians foolish enough to dem...

              As of this writing, the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region has been underway for 15 months with no clear end in sight.   Tens of thousands of people have been killed, abused, displaced or otherwise harmed by this conflict, which continually threatens to exceed its current boundaries and tear this East African nation completely apart.   Given the importance Ethiopia has played in modern African affairs, one would hope that the international community would devise a workable, enduring plan to end this conflict and usher in a sustainable political environment in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be at hand.             The noted African intelligence newsletter Africa Confidential reported on January 21 that despite the release of political prisoners by the government of Ethiopia and a Tigrayan proposal for a ceasefi...

  Politics is said to be a dirty business.   As someone who’s observed and been involved in international, national and local politics for decades, I can say that it is certainly a rough game in which parties and candidates often show no mercy – aiming not just to defeat a political opponent but also destroy their reputations and even their very lives.   In this era of social media run amok, you can start a campaign of lies and half-truths that can live on beyond an election.   We see this in today’s America and will see much more in this critical election year. In Africa, it has been common for opposing political parties and candidates to be targeted by ruling parties and government officials.   Campaigns have been launched to discredit candidates, for example claiming they aren’t even citizens.   This was tried on Cote d’Ivoire’s Alassane Outtara and Angola’s Jose Eduardo Dos Santos.   It was tried here on the late Governor George Romney and former...

              China’s intentions for its interventions in Africa have raised many questions.   Some see their aims as nefarious.   Others believe they want to help other developing countries. China has a long track record in Africa, dating back decades.   They are not new players on the continent.             For example, the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority, more popularly known as the Tan-Zam Railway,  running between Dar es Salaam and Kapiri-Mposhi on the Zambian border, was built in the early 1970s with Chinese aid. It provided the main outlet to the sea for Zambia’s copper exports prior to the political changes in South Africa in the 1990s that opened southern transport routes.             More recently, Chinese loans have been used to finance coal projects in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Moroc...

  After threatening to remove Ethiopia from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) since November of last year due to human rights violations in the country’s Tigray region, the Biden administration finally announced the move on the first weekend of the new year, adding Mali and Guinea to the list of AGOA suspensions because of their recent coups. "The Biden-Harris Administration is deeply concerned by the unconstitutional change in governments in both Guinea and Mali, and by the gross violations of internationally recognized human rights being perpetrated by the Government of Ethiopia and other parties amid the widening conflict in northern Ethiopia," the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said in a statement. "Each country has clear benchmarks for a pathway toward reinstatement and the administration will work with their governments to achieve that objective," the USTR statement added.  The suspensions of Guinea and Mali come as no surprise since th...

              Since retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu died the other day, there have been numerous photos of him on social media – some in which people wanted to show that they had been blessed know him – but little in the way of explanation of why he is so highly thought of.   I will attempt to explain, using points in his life and his own words, so that his life’s meaning is genuinely shared beyond the current citations.             Desmond Mpilo Tutu was of mixed Xhosa/Motswana heritage, born on 7 October 1931 in poverty in the town of Kierksdorp.   He trained as a teacher, got married in 1955 and had four children.   In 1960, he was ordained as an Anglican priest and in 1962 moved to the United Kingdom to study theology at  Kings College London. In 1966, he returned to Africa, teaching at the  Federal Theological Seminary, South Africa, and th...