Africa

By D. Parvaz in Africa on May 14th, 2012
Shaaban al-Zurok, Taher Moftah and Nasser Omar Khalifa, waiting at the airport [D. Parvaz/Al Jazeera]

A fact of life in Libya is that things are resting on a fragile balance, and at any moment, the slightest nudge can tip things over into chaos.

The strike by the air traffic controllers pushed things firmly into chaos territory on Saturday night, with shouting matches that stretched from the check-in desks to boarding gates and beyond.

Booked on a flight to Benghazi, my fixer, Asaad, and I were told that our flight would be delayed by two hours. Then four and a half. We got a boarding pass for a 10:30pm flight and waited in the lounge, mostly with men with angry looks cemented on their faces.

“If they’d told us there was a strike, I would have made other arrangements – we have jobs to do,” said a man going only as Taher.

At 11:30 Asaad took a stroll and came back telling me that he’d been walking around on the tarmac.

By Malcolm Webb in Africa on May 14th, 2012

Major General Ceasar Achellam, a key commander of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, has been captured by Ugandan forces in the Central African Republic. But the big question remains: does this mean the Ugandan army and its allies are, after 25 years, finally closing in on the LRA’s leader Joseph Kony?

LRA movements suggest Kony called a meeting of all LRA units in the Central African Republic around September or October 2011. After that, it seems they all dispersed in small units – some to DR Congo, others in CAR and a few in South Sudan, plus unconfirmed rumours of some in Sudan.

By Tania Page in Africa on May 13th, 2012

Simon Mynekeni is one of the most recent victims of necklacing, a brutal apartheid-era practise of putting a tyre around someone's neck, dousing it in petrol and setting it alight.

It's a horrible way to die.

But when I asked his aunt what it said about the community in the township of Leslie, expecting her to say it was a reflection of how low people could stoop, her answer stunned me.

She said her nephew was a bad man and it would teach other alleged criminals what the consequences would be if they turned against their own community.

Simon was killed for allegedly raping and murdering an elderly woman, without proof, and, extraordinarily, while the police were present, he was attacked by a mob.

By Omar al-Saleh in Africa on May 12th, 2012
Photo by EPA
Libya will be holding its first general elections next month, the first free and multi-party polls perhaps in 47 years.

Over a million voters have registered since voter registration opened on May 1. The two-week exercise is to end on May 14. But candidates and parties were given only eight days to register.

Parties and candidates competing for the 200 seats of the National Congress (parliament) have protested saying they won't have enough time to meet the requirements in order to get them registered. 

The parties also criticised the National Transitional Council, the interim government, for being slow to enact laws that regulate their work and formation.
Libya will be holding its first general elections next month, the first free and multi-party polls perhaps in 47 years.
By D. Parvaz in Africa on May 11th, 2012

TRIPOLI, Libya - That Muammar Gaddafi was killed in October is something that is well-known and celebrated by most here.

Tags: Libya, Tripoli
By Omar al-Saleh in Africa on May 10th, 2012
People take part in the funeral of Ali Al-Quoud, a guard at Libyan prime minister's office, in Tripoli May 9 [Reuters]

Tuesday's attack by gunmen on the headquarters of Libya's interim government was not the first time when former revolutionaries had used their weapons to enforce their demands and it probably won't be the last.

But the incident was definitely the most violent so far.

Around 200 ex-fighters with 50 vehicles armed with multiple rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns surrounded the headquarters of the government. The clash left some people dead or injured.

At the scene, you feel how tense it is.

Tags: Libya
By Barnaby Phillips in Africa on April 28th, 2012
Photo: AFP

There was a strange contrast between the setting, a quiet courtroom in an orderly town in the Netherlands, and the terrible events that the judge was describing.

He spoke of young girls forced into sexual slavery and young boys made to kill, of the forcible carving of initials onto children's flesh, and mass rape and amputations.

He was talking about events in distant West Africa, in Sierra Leone's civil war, more than a decade ago.

The defendant, Charles Taylor, listened intently for more than two hours, his chin in his hand.

At the end, when he was pronounced guilty on all counts of having "aided and abetted" Sierra Leone's rebel RUF, Mr Taylor blinked, and looked around the room.

For one moment, he appeared confused.

We were here, on a cold spring day in the Hague, because Mr Taylor, a former warlord and president of Liberia, was judged too dangerous a man to put on trial in West Africa.

Historic verdict

By Zeina Khodr in Africa on April 26th, 2012
Photo by AFP

In Khartoum, there is widespread concern over the recent flare-up of violence in border areas with South Sudan..

However, nationalist feelings are high..

"I am with war," Ali Ahmed Saeed said. "Many of us are supporting our government's hardline stance even though we may have our differences with our leadership.

"This is because we built their land [South Sudan] and allowed them to separate but they still want to take what is ours."

The withdrawal of South Sudanese forces after their brief takeover of the oil town of Heiglig in Sudan's Southern Kordofan State hasn't brought peace or the two sides any closer together.

Sudan says it doesn't want to take the fight to South Sudanese territory, but both sides have accused the other of declaring war.

Relations between the long-time enemies, who were supposed to become partners when they split, are at an all-time low.

By Malcolm Webb in Africa on April 20th, 2012

The ‘Kony 2012’ YouTube video was a phenomenon previously unseen in new media. 

Attracting over one hundred million views, it has been described as the most viral online campaign in history.

It made Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony a household name, and pushed discussion about his Lord’s Resistance Army, who have been terrorising East and Central Africa for 26 years, to the top of the agenda.

It also attracted a lot of criticism from across the world, and in particular, from some of Uganda’s online community, many of whom said the film ignored Ugandan voices. 

By Hashem Ahelbarra in Africa on April 13th, 2012
A Tuareg nomad stands near a 13th century mosque in Timbuktu [Reuters]

A few trips to a military base on the outskirts of the capital, revealed a lot to me about the ethnic and political divide in the west African country of Mali.

The base is the headquarters of a mid ranking officer who paraded on the national stage in a daring and unprecedented way.

Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo was frustrated with an army in disarray, a Tuareg rebellion gaining ground in the north and a corrupt political elite. One night in the base he told his colleagues enough was enough and that something had to be done.

On Wednesday, March 21 at around 9pm, gunshots shattered the quiet night of Bamako - it took people a few hours to realise that a group of disgruntled soldiers had taken control of the presidential palace and TV building. It was a coup.

A group of officers appeared on television explaining the motives behind the coup, and a few days later I met with the coup leader.

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