Africa

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.

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.

By Munyaradzi Gwisai

By Dale T. McKinley

CONTENTS

Class struggle revisited

New resistances