African Arguments
Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - 09:08
Heavily armed members of Uganda’s elite anti-terrorism police stand guard along the neatly manicured perimeter of the US Embassy in Kampala. Occasionally they shout commands and point their guns.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - 06:13
We have read recently that Somalia has a National Army, but is that really the case? Upon closer scrutiny one realises that Somalia has parallel armies – 3 of them – which exist independent of each other in different parts of this increasingly splintered.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - 08:06
As the IGAD led mediation talks resume in Addis Ababa, South Sudan’s political future looks uncertain.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - 09:52
Mr. Ban visited the Sahel region in late 2013 along with World Bank President Jim Yong.
Friday, January 31, 2014 - 08:51
Within days of the outbreak of the violence in mid-December, the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) deployed to South Sudan at the government’s invitation. The UPDF’s mission at the outset was ostensibly to evacuate the over 200,000 stranded Ugandan nationals and to secure strategic installations in Juba. However, several weeks into the operation, President Yoweri Museveni disclosed that the UPDF was also involved in combat operations alongside government forces.
Friday, January 10, 2014 - 12:15
The conflict in the Central African Republic is spiralling out of control. “Strife in Central African Republic could turn into religious war and spill over borders, UN warns,” reads the headline in the UN’s latest report. The UN’s head of Political Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, told the Security Council that killings were continuing daily, dividing the country along religious lines – nearly 1 million have been driven from their homes and half the population needs aid.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - 09:33
It is time to divest ourselves of all our romantic delusions about South Sudan. We were all so focused on helping the South escape the repressive colonial clutches of Khartoum that we forgot about the need to prepare the South Sudanese people for self-government. Of all the African countries that came to independence since 1950, South Sudan has had the least amount of preparation.
Thursday, December 5, 2013 - 11:43
African Arguments interviewed Thierry Vircoulon, Project Director for Central Africa at International Crisis Group on the current situation in the Central African Republic.
Monday, December 2, 2013 - 07:57
On Saturday, 23 November, Angola’s capital, Luanda, awoke to a ‘state of siege’. Government security forces invaded the headquarters of the largest opposition parties, and used tear gas to impede a peaceful protest demonstration from gathering. Over 300 people were arrested on that day, and at least three were killed, including Manuel Hilberto de Carvalho ‘Ganga’, a leader of the youth wing of second-largest opposition party, CASA-CE.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - 07:22
Last week I was in Dadaab refugee camp when the World Food Programme, in the midst of a budget crisis, took the unprecedented step of cutting by 30% the food rations that it distributes twice a month to the 400,000 refugees living in the camps. Outside the food distribution centre – a row of huge warehouses full of rice, flour and oil – an angry crowd shook their half-empty plastic sacks at me. They took me, a white man, for a representative of the United Nations and thus responsible for their plight.