June 19, 2007 -- In the ancient history of Darfur, the existing region had been characterized by waves of migrations due to the movements of Arab and African tribes. These waves of migrations had significantly influenced the shaping of Darfur history as well as its norms, traditions and customs. Clearly, migrants had brought with them cultural, social, economic and religious currents, some of which had made radical changes in Darfur. Due to Darfur’s natural and climatic diversity, a number of tribes had settled in different parts of the area. Each tribe had its own chief assuming the management of its affairs independent of any other authority. The tribal customs were the term of reference that had governed the relations between different tribes in Darfur. Indeed, Darfur had been known to the world since the ancient history. It has been mentioned that some pharos had once visited the area, while the Romans had made attempts to subjugate Darfur in order to exploit its resources. Admittedly, the 40 Days Road linked Darfur to the Egyptian Governorate of Asute. Moreover, a number
Africa
By Fathi M. El Fadl People's Weekly World
June 10, 2006
The following is a response to questions posed by the People’s Weekly World editorial board to Fathi M. El Fadl, a leader of the Sudanese Communist Party, about the current situation in Sudan and in particular Darfur.
Founded in 1946, the Sudanese Communist Party has been a political force in the country for 60 years, despite harsh repression against it. Although relatively small, it was considered the best organized political party when Sudan won its independence from Britain in 1956. Sudan’s current president, Omar al-Bashir, took power in a 1989 coup. Since then, “the SCP has emerged as one of the Bashir government’s most effective internal opponents, largely through fairly regular publication and circulation of its underground newspaper, Al Midan,” according to sudan.net.
Taking issue with many western media reports, El Fadl says the crisis in Sudan is not one of race or ethnicity (Arab vs. African), but a political and economic one that requires political and economic solutions.
By Thandokuhle Manzi and Patrick Bond
May 26, 2008 -- The low-income black township here in Durban which suffered more than any other during apartheid, Cato Manor, was the scene of a test performed on a Mozambican last Wednesday morning (May 21). At 6:45am, in the warmth of a rising subtropical winter sun, two unemployed men strolling on Belair Road approached the middle-aged immigrant. They accosted him and demanded, in the local indigenous language isiZulu, that he say the word meaning ``elbow'' (this they referred to with their hand). The man answered ``idolo'', which unfortunately means ``knee''. The correct answer is ``indololwane''. His punishment: being beaten up severely, and then told to ``go home''.
March against xenophobia, Johannesburg, May 24, 2008.
See also ``Xenophobia tears apart South Africa's working class'' by Thandokuhle Manzi and Patrick Bond.
Watch South Africa: The New Apartheid, on the South African government's treatment of migrant workers and refugees and the involvement of racist white farmers.
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May 21, 2008 -- According to the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, as of May 19, 2008, the death toll in a wave of attacks targeting foreigners around South Africa's main city of Johannesburg has risen to at least 32, with an estimated 6000 people seeking shelter in police stations, churches and community halls. The violence has spread to Zandspruit, northwest of Johannesburg, and Tembisa, Primrose, Reiger Park and Thokoza, on the eastern perimeter of the city, as well as other working-class communities.
By Norm Dixon
US “peacekeepers” in Somalia in 1993 massacred more than 1000 people, including civilians and children, in a single afternoon. While western media reports focused on the deaths of 18 US soldiers, broadcasting shocking pictures of a dead pilot being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, the fact that hundreds of Somalis (200, according to the US government) died in the clash was barely mentioned. A US journalist's investigation has revealed the US covered up the terrible extent of the bloodbath.
Mark Bowden from the Philadelphia Inquirer, who is researching a book on the US occupation of Somalia, interviewed former US soldiers and officials as well as Somali witnesses. His findings were published in the London Observer on March 22.
The US invaded Somalia on December 9, 1992, under the guise of a “humanitarian” operation to protect aid workers distributing food. The US handed over control to the United Nations in May 1993. At its height, the operation involved 35,000 troops from 20 countries, 24,000 of them from the US.
Norm Dixon
January 9 marked the first anniversary of the historic “comprehensive peace agreement” (CPA), which ended the devastating 21-year war in the south between the central government in Khartoum and the impoverished people of southern Sudan. Despite the enthusiasm of the anniversary celebrations in the ramshackle southern capital of Juba, there are growing concerns that Sudan’s powerful northern elite is not committed to peace and may again plunge the south into war.
By Dale T. McKinley
April, 2008 -- The character and content of the past and ongoing political, economic, social/humanitarian and (progressive) organisational crisis in Zimbabwe has received huge amounts of analytical and empirical attention from the broad left in Southern Africa and, to a lesser extent, from the global left. Several books, numerous essays/articles, frequent seminars/workshops and countless blogs and emails have been offered on almost every aspect of the crisis. While these efforts have certainly provided much-needed intellectual stimulation/debate, important information, degrees of organisational impetus and knowledge-generation about the crisis, and have often catalysed practical efforts to assist, and be in solidarity with, progressive forces in Zimbabwe, the Achilles heel of the struggle for a new Zimbabwe -- the strategy and tactics of resistance/opposition -– has, for the most part, been treated as a ``poor cousin'', forever condemned to sit on the margins of the main ``conversation'' and struggle.
By the International Socialist Organization (Zimbabwe)
April 11, 2008 -- The March 29, 2008, elections have brought into sharp relief the escalating crisis in Zimbabwe. [At the time of writing] the government–appointed Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has not announced the results of the presidential election, which the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change led by former trade union leader Morgan Tsvangirai -- MDC(T) [a marginal faction of the MDC led by Arthur Mutambara, also stood] claims to have won by a margin of more than 50%. The results for the parliamentary election show that the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), led by Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, has lost its majority to the opposition for the first time since independence.
March 28, 2008 -- Fourteen years after South Africa's first democratic elections and the fall of racial apartheid, John Pilger describes, in an address at Rhodes University, the dream and reality of the new South Africa and the responsibility of its new elite. (See video clips of John Pilger's visit here.)
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By John Pilger
On my wall in London is a photograph I have never grown tired of looking at. Indeed, I always find it thrilling to behold. You might even say it helps keep me going. It is a picture of a lone woman standing between two armoured vehicles, the notorious ‘hippos’, as they rolled into Soweto. Her arms are raised. Her fists are clenched. Her thin body is both beckoning and defiant of the enemy. It was May Day 1985 and the uprising against apartheid had begun.
By Kjell Havnevik, Deborah Bryceson, Lars-Erik Birgegård, Prosper Matondi & Atakilte Beyene
December, 2007 -- Agriculture's dominant role in Sub-Saharan Africa's local, national and regional economies and cultures throughout pre-colonial history has been foundational to 20th century colonial and post-colonial development. No other continent has been so closely identified with smallholder peasant farming. Nonetheless, smallholder farming has been eroding over the last three decades, perpetuating rural poverty and marginalising remote rural areas. Donors' search for rural ``success stories'' merely reinforces this fact. Certainly many farmers have voted with their feet by increasingly engaging in non-agricultural livelihoods or migrating to urban areas. In so doing, the significance of agriculture for the majority of Africa's population has altered.
Click here to see and hear Venezela's President Hugo Chavez discuss food sovereignty in Latin America, Africa and the world.
http://www.links.org.au/node/262
At the most recent general election, in July 2005, Lalit presented candidates in all twenty constituencies.1 In the ten days leading up to polling day, the national radio and TV station carried party political broadcasts in short slots recorded by members of parties participating in the election.