In its 2011 budget, the White House asked for over $80 million in military programs for Africa, while freezing or reducing aid packages aimed at civilians.
Africa: No Butter, But Lots of Guns
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Africa
The Scramble for East Africa
The East African Community has accelerated negotiations with Europe for an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). The race is on for negotiators and lobbyists to either let Europe in or keep it out. And so far, influential EPA advocates are in the lead, according to Yash Tandon, former head of the South Centre and critic of African EPAs with Europe. As corporate proponents advance the trade deal, negotiations threaten East African unity at a critical time in its still early development.
Congo’s Quest for Liberation Continues
Congo has long been the focus of resource exploitation. The first era of colonization in Africa, beginning in the mid-1880s, was most pronounced in this central African country. Belgium’s King Leopold brutalized the population in his quest for rubber and riches, leaving a legacy of natural resource exploitation by white Europeans in the heart of Africa.
U.S. Hijacks ICC conference
The United States managed to foil the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) adoption of the crime of aggression as part of its mandate during this month’s review conference in Kampala, Uganda. But the U.S. presence at the conference demonstrates a new engagement with the ICC, and the Obama administration’s interest in helping to shape international law.
Loose Oil Is a Way of Life in West Africa
Big oil spills are no longer news in Africa. The Niger Delta, where the wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface, has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates
South Africa: The Return of State Repression
South Africans appear to have had their constitutional right to protest suspended during the 2010 World Cup, writes Jane Duncan, following a directive from the country’s police service (SAPS) to municipalities hosting matches. Skeptical of claims that the country does not have the capacity to police marches and the World Cup simultaneously, Duncan asks whether SAPS decision is motivated by ‘the need to remake South Africa’s brand in the international media as a land of peace, reconciliation and stability’, or if it reflects, more seriously, ‘an intensification of a recent trend towards suppressing the waves of protest action’ by the Zuma administration.
Liberals Back Dictator’s Ethnic War
Human rights activists in the world’s most powerful country report that a mystical African is forcing children into his army and killing women who encourage men to leave it. They call his rebellion bizarre and inexplicable, and demand military intervention. Liberal legislators lay aside their usual criticism of their country’s bullying of Africa for economic and military gain, and support an attack on the madman on humanitarian grounds.
The Trillion-Dollar Question
The full-page ads in The Washington Post seem so reasonable. The military contractor Pratt & Whitney has been arguing that America doesn’t need to spend $485 million to develop a second engine for the F-35 jet fighter. It’s a compelling argument. We’re in a serious economic crisis, so why on earth would we build another jet engine when the first one is sufficient?
The Court of Last Resort
The United States has a chance to bring war criminals to justice – if it supports the International Criminal Court at the upcoming review conference in Kampala.
Building Africa: Where’s The United States?
Dar es Salaam hosted the World Economic Forum on Africa on May 5. This event — which brought together 11 heads of state with a thousand participants from 85 countries — offered a counter-narrative to the political and economic disorder described by policy pundits like Robert Kaplan that have long distorted U.S. appraisals of the region’s strategic importance. Western media often overlook the continent’s many success stories. With the Wall Street Journal opening an Africa bureau in late 2009, Africa’s increasing economic and political significance is only just beginning to be noticed in the West.