Below I bring you four articles of today's news from the continent of Africa. I present them because you might have missed them in your busy world of responsibilities and duties. I do also, think these are important stories to keep an eye on as they develop and unfold. Skim if you must, but I saved the best for last.
We're catching up first with Sudan, where the International Criminal Court just issued an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir. We have have a post in the archives when the possibility of these proceedings was first made public, last year.
Next we go to Zimbabwe, another nation we've followed here, as Mugabe and his military have caused havoc on that once rich nation, in their refusal to allow the democratic process to be carried out. The old fool just won't go, so a compromise has been reached. Well...somewhat. Read the article, but the last line rather tells it all.
Tiny former Portuguese colony Guinea-Bissau was the site of the assassination of the president, and his opposition, the head of the military this weekend. The internationally popular British author Frederick Forsyth, happens to be in the country doing research for his next novel. The article is fascinating, in his descriptions one of the world's most wretched sites. Also interesting is how this man always seems to be right in the thick of things when Africa heats up.
Last, I bring you news of the coronation of a new African king. Do take time to read how tradition, the present and the future are showing up in a 36 year old Ethiopian monarch, that will serve his people for 8 years.
I ask you to forgive me that with the exception of the article on the Ethiopian king, I am mainly highlighting one side of what's going on in Africa today. Yet it's evident that the wisdom in some of the ways mentioned about the Borena culture, that Africans too, know how to 'get it right'. I recently saw a moving and awesome documentary film about women judges on the Continent, which I promise to bring to your attention in the next few days.
Always remember Beloveds, especially in these days when the media and talking heads are full of negative projections for our existence ~ whether it's violence in our communities, politicians ignoring the will of the people, global warming, the loss of species, or the collapse of the capitalist system, there is an effort afoot to hypnotize the public into despair.
A characteristic of our natural world is to express in forms of duality. Therefore, for every negative thing you hear, see or know about, there is unequivocally something that is as powerfully positive happening in our world. We just unfortunately live in a culture that is programmed to focus on that which is disturbing, negative to life, unpleasant and sensational. So we don't see the Good that's always present, and we tend to become warped, and think that that is the 'way Life is'. This is not true. We just aren't putting our attention on the Good sufficiently to become balanced in our understanding of how Life works.
When Bob sang, "Free yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds", this is what he was referring to. The mental slavery of only seeing, focusing and giving one's attention to the negative or to one side of a situation. Let us not allow ourselves to only think that idiots, despots and greedy power hungry mad men run the world, and Africa. I promise to continue to seek out balanced concepts and ideals, images and instances of Life to share with you. And you can help me do so, by continuing to send me emails of what you discover that is good, noteworthy and can be inspirational to us all.
Okay....take a deep breathe... Just so that you are informed, you're about to take a swim through some of the shit, that reeks of humanities' 'stinkin' thinkin!'
Court issues war crimes warrant for Sudan's Bashir
By MIKE CORDER
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant Wednesday for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. He is the first sitting head of state the court has ordered arrested.
The three-judge panel said there was insufficient evidence to support charges of genocide in a war in which up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes.
Al-Bashir's government denounced the warrant as part of a Western conspiracy aimed at destabilizing the vast oil-rich nation south of Egypt.
African and Arab nations fear the warrant will destabilize the whole region, bring even more conflict in Darfur and threaten the fragile peace deal that ended decades of civil war between northern and southern Sudan. China, which buys two-thirds of Sudan's oil, supports the African and Arab positions.
Some African nations reportedly threatened to pull out of the court in retaliation for a warrant. Thirty African countries are among the court's 108 member states.
In a show of defiance Tuesday in anticipation of the decision, al-Bashir told supporters at a rally, "We are telling them to immerse it in water and drink it," a common Arabic insult meant to show extreme disrespect.
Hundreds of Sudanese waving pictures of the president and denouncing the court quickly turned out in a rally at the Cabinet building in Khartoum. Security was increased around many embassies, and some diplomats and aid workers stayed home amid fears of retaliation against Westerners.
"He is suspected of being criminally responsible ... for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property," court spokeswoman Laurence Blairon said. If al-Bashir is brought to trial and prosecuted, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Blairon rejected accusations that the warrant was part of a political plot and said the decision was made purely on legal grounds.
Al-Bashir denies the war crimes accusations and refuses to deal with the court, and there is currently no international mechanism to arrest him. The main tool the court has is diplomatic pressure for countries to hand over suspects.
Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo suggested al-Bashir could be arrested if he flies out of Sudan.
"As soon as Mr. al-Bashir travels in international airspace, his plane could be intercepted and he could be arrested. That is what I expect," the prosecutor said.
"Like Slobodan Milosevic or Charles Taylor, Omar al-Bashir's destiny is to face justice," Moreno Ocampo said referring to the former presidents of Yugoslavia and Liberia who were indicted while in office and ended up on trial in The Hague.
Sudan does not recognize its jurisdiction and refuses to arrest suspects. U.N. peacekeepers and other international agencies operating in Sudan have no mandate to implement the warrant, and Sudanese officials have warned them not to go outside their mandates.
Asked why judges, in a 2-1 split decision, did not issue the warrant for genocide, Blairon explained that genocide requires a clear intent to destroy in part or as a whole a specific group.
"In this particular case, the pretrial chamber has not been able to find there were reasonable grounds to establish a genocidal intent," she said.
She said prosecutors could ask again for genocide charges to be added to the warrant if they can produce new evidence. Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said he would study the ruling before deciding whether to keep pursuing genocide charges.
The war in Sudan's western Darfur region began in 2003, when rebel ethnic African groups, complaining of discrimination and neglect, took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum. In 2005, the U.N. Security Council asked Moreno Ocampo to investigate crimes in Darfur.
The Rome statute that set up the International Criminal Court allows the Security Council to vote to defer or suspend for a year the investigation or prosecution of a case. It also gives the council authority to renew such a resolution.
The 52-member countries of the African Union and 26 states of the Arab League make up about a third of U.N. member states and they have said they would call for such a suspension.
But the council is sharply divided on suspending the case and is unlikely to take any action.
Some African nations reportedly have threatened to pull out of the court in retaliation for the warrant. Thirty African countries are among the court's 108 member states.
The Sudanese ruling party leadership will meet later Wednesday to decide its course of action, al-Bashir's foreign affairs adviser Mustafa Osman Ismail told state TV after the court announcement.
"This decision was not a surprise to us, but all the mechanism of the state will react. We in the Cabinet will meet tomorrow to see what steps are to be taken," Ismail said.
Rights groups welcomed the decision.
"With this arrest warrant, the International Criminal Court has made Omar al-Bashir a wanted man," said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. "Not even presidents are guaranteed a free pass for horrific crimes. By ruling there is a case for President al-Bashir to answer for the horrors of Darfur, the warrant breaks through Khartoum's repeated denials of his responsibility."
Sudan's ruling party announced that it plans a "million man march" in Khartoum on Thursday to protest any warrant.
And in Zimbabwe~
Zimbabwe's premier makes first parliament address
By ANGUS SHAW
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Zimbabwe's former opposition leader called for an end to political oppression and police violence in his first address to parliament as prime minister Wednesday, saying donor countries won't help Zimbabwe unless its image improves.
Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai also called for greater freedom of assembly and the press and for more open governance - priorities likely to put him on a confrontation course with President Robert Mugabe.
"No donor country or institution is going to offer any meaningful assistance unless our new government projects a positive new image," Tsvangirai said in reference to his government's desperate appeals for foreign aid to save Zimbabwe from the economic abyss.
"Brutal suppression, wanton arrests and political persecution impede our ability to rebuild our economy, to generate wealth for all, to rebuild our hospitals and schools and to put a currency of value into our savings accounts."
Zimbabwe has the world's highest official inflation rate, a hunger crisis that has left most of its people dependent on foreign handouts and a cholera epidemic blamed on the collapse of a once-enviable health and sanitation system. Cholera has sickened more than 80,000 and killed more than 3,800 people since August.
The longtime opposition party blames Zimbabwe's economic collapse on mismanagement and corruption by Mugabe's party. Under pressure from southern African leaders, Tsvangirai joined a unity government with Mugabe earlier this year but it remains unclear how much authority he will wield as prime minister. He has so far proved powerless to secure the release of detained senior members of his party and Mugabe has made a string of unilateral appointments.
Members of Mugabe's party listened respectfully to Tsvangirai's parliamentary speech on Wednesday even though he was worlds apart from the president, especially on issues such as executive powers, security and land reform. Tsvangirai said there was no intention to reverse land redistribution but to control it and restore the farming sector to the "jewel of southern Africa."
Mugabe's seizure of white-owned farms starting in 2000 decimated agriculture and contributed to the economic collapse of Zimbabwe where about two-thirds of the population now need food aid. But he remains unrepentant and invasions of white owned farms have accelerated since the unity government was sworn in. At his lavish 85th birthday party last Saturday, Mugabe declared that the "few remaining white farmers should quickly vacate their farms as they have no place there."
Tsvangirai took a radically different approach: "All Zimbabweans ... shall be considered for allocation of land irrespective of race, gender, religion, ethnicity or political affiliation," he declared. He said the government would conduct a "comprehensive, transparent and nonpartisan land audit," and eliminate multiple farm ownership - this in apparent reference to Mugabe's cronies who have grabbed a string of prime farms for themselves.
But the limits of Tsvangirai's powers are illustrated by the continued detention of Roy Bennett, the party's nominee for deputy agriculture minister. Bennett was arrested Feb. 12, ostensibly on weapons charges, and has so far not been released on bail despite repeated court orders.
Bennett's lawyers had hoped he would be freed from detention Wednesday, after the High Court ruled Tuesday that the state had no right to oppose bail. But the local magistrates office claimed it had no authority to do this.
Several other former opposition officials also remain in detention, including Tsvangirai's security chief. Tsvangirai said this smacked of "political persecution."
"This will not be tolerated under our new government. Justice must be done and must be seen to be done now."
"The days of the police wantonly and violently breaking up peaceful demonstrations and gatherings and needlessly imprisoning innocent Zimbabweans must now come to an end," he continued, warning that those responsible would be prosecuted.
Tsvangirai long held out for control of the Home Affairs Ministry, which is responsible for the police. But in the end he agreed to joint control with Mugabe's party and he remains deeply mistrusted by security chiefs.
The prime minister also said the government would restore freedom of the press by allowing registration of media houses. Draconian media laws wiped out most independent journalists in recent years and accredited media have to pay exorbitant fees.
He told parliament that in the new unity government, "executive authority rests with the President, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet," and that there could be "no difference, dissent or debate" on the power-sharing agreement.
At his birthday party, Mugabe had a different take:
"I am still in control and hold executive authority, so nothing much has changed."
From Guinea-Bissau~
Thriller king Forsyth stumbles into Africa mayhem
Mar 4, 1:22 PM (ET)
By TODD PITMAN
BISSAU, Guinea-Bissau (AP) - It could have been a scene right out of one of his own thrillers. And when his next novel is published, it may very well be.
British author Frederick ("The Day of the Jackal") Forsyth jetted into coup-prone, cocaine-plagued Guinea-Bissau this week to research his latest novel, and found real life trumping fiction.
Hours before he touched down in the West African nation, a bomb hidden under a staircase blew apart the armed forces chief. Hours later the president was gunned down, and according to Forsyth, hacked to pieces.
The double assassination of President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira and his military rival, Gen. Batiste Tagme na Waie, shocked Guinea-Bissau and clouded this sweaty equatorial capital in the kind of mystery and intrigue often detailed in Forsyth's own fiction about assassins, spies and coups.
Forsyth's presence here inevitably raised the association with his hit novel, "The Dogs of War," about mercenaries trying to stage a coup in a mineral-rich, African backwater.
"I didn't come for a coup d'etat or regime change, but that's what I ran into," Forsyth said over coffee at his hotel, where The Associated Press found him.
He said he couldn't sleep and was in his hotel bed reading when he heard a boom before dawn Monday and thought, "that wasn't a car door slamming." The explosion was blocks away at Vieira's modest downtown villa - the beginning of the president's end.
Forsyth went out that day and saw army troops patrolling the streets. They left him alone.
That night, he had dinner with the Dutch pathologist who autopsied Vieira and had spent the morning "trying to put the president back together again."
According to Forsyth's sources, the 71-year-old ruler survived an initial rocket attack, got up, was shot four times, then was "slung into the back of a pickup truck ... and cut to pieces with machetes" by soldiers bent on avenging their own chief's death.
Forsyth said he came here for "the flavor, the odor, of a pretty washed up, impoverished, failed West African mangrove swamp."
"I thought, what is the most disastrous part of West Africa, and by a mile, it's Guinea-Bissau," he said. "If you drive around you'll see why: one wrecked building after another, one mountain of garbage after another. A navy with no ships, an air force with no airplanes. No infrastructure, no electricity. Everything is purchasable."
Forsyth was a Royal Air Force pilot in the late 1950s, then spent 12 years as a foreign correspondent for the Reuters news agency and the BBC.
His first attempt at fiction, "The Day of the Jackal," was about a plot to assassinate President Charles de Gaulle of France. Published in 1971, it was an international best-seller.
In 1974 came "The Dogs of War," set in the fictional nation of "Zangoro," which he said was modeled after the oil-rich Central African dictatorship of Equatorial Guinea, some 1,700 miles southeast of Guinea-Bissau.
Forsyth's next novel, which he expects to publish next year, will be set in Guinea-Bissau.
He said he has stopped inventing fictional places "because the world is so weird and so scary, you might as well use the real ones."
Forsyth was long rumored to have financed a 1973 attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea. But he dismissed the claims as "imaginary fantasies" spurred by people who saw him interviewing mercenaries for "The Dogs of War" around the same time.
Dressed in khaki pants and a loose white shirt, the sprightly, 70-year-old author said he always works the same way: story idea, then research, travel and interviews with people who have experienced the things he wants to write about.
He spent much of his three days in Bissau talking with expatriates, who he said can speak more freely than government officials and see the nation's history "from an outsider's point of view."
At 10 pages a day, he figures it will take him October and November to write the novel.
It will be another "international thriller involving the usual mix of forces of law and order, criminality, special forces, U.S. Green Berets, a coup d'etat, and a lot of money," Forsyth said. "But there will be surprises. It's not going to be what you just read about in the news."
Asked if he misses the life of a foreign correspondent, Forsyth said: "Investigative journalism is like a drug. When you write, it's very hard to walk way."
"If push comes to shove I could still cover a story. But in Guinea-Bissau, there is no need to exaggerate," he said. "This place is for real."
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