A Barrage of Links and selective commentary as I try to get back to a regular routine after all of the travel of late:
South African president Jacob Zuma is considering granting his economic development ministry greater powers but first needs to determine whether doing so would be constitutional. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) hopes that Zuma will push economic policy leftward. But the ANC has tended to steer a centrist course on economic matters, much to the chagrin of ANC alliance partners COSATU and the South African Communist Party (SACP). If Zuma veers leftward it may still not satisfy COSATU and the SACP and refusing to yield to their entreaties will further alienate the ANC’s leftist colleagues. It would be a grand irony if the ascension of Zuma, who was supposed to represent the ANC’s left flank far better than Thabo Mbeki did, proved to be the final stage in what I have long seen as the inevitable fracturing the Tripartite alliance. For years COSATU and the SACP have sacrificed ideology (and dogma) for the access to power. I continue to believe that it is a matter of when, rather than if, they choose to go their own way.
At The New Republic Ruth Franklin reviews the marvelous Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s new collection of stories, The Thing Around Your Neck. But the review is really an essay about Adichie’s entire oeuvre in which Franklin argues that Adichie uses Chinua Achebe as a model. Adichie could certainly do worse.
Somalia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Marine Resources Abdurahman Haji Aden Alias Ibbi has announced a new plan to defend Mogadishu’s coast from pirates and other predators. According to the arrangement, new sailors trained for the Transitional Federal Government will be responsible for the city’s northern coast while peacekeepers of the African Mission in Somalia, Amisom, will guard the southern coast of Mogadishu. Of course in Somalia all of the best plans in the world cannot compensate for an inability to execute them, and observers would be forgiven for questioning whether the government will be able to follow through on this strategy.
Earlier today Ugandan police arrested Idelphonse Niziyimana, who has been accused of being a central figure in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. Niziyamana has been under indictment since 2000 and had illegally crossed into Uganda, where he was staying in a resort hotel in Kampala.
It is time to start trying to pick up the pieces in Guinea after Conakry descended into chaos last week. On September 28, the government’s security forces opened fire on demonstrators at the capital city’s main stadium to protest against the prospect of junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara becoming a candidate for the country’s presidential election in January. With the backing of the European Union, Blaise Compaore, the president of Burkina Faso, is serving as a mediator for the crisis, which led to the deaths of 150 or more according to the most reliable estimates. Of course Camara denies any responsibility for last week’s violence and he continues to plan to run for office, so it seems to me that stalemate has set in, except that Camara has more guns than the opposition.
Kenya and Uganda have come to an agreement to build a railroad between Mombasa on the Indian Ocean coast and Kampala on the shores of Lake Victoria. In the words of Ugandan Transport Minister John Nasasira, “There has been a tendency to rely on the donor community when such projects are involved but this is fear that we as a region need to overcome for the benefit of regional economies. We cannot continue relying on the current outdated railway line and locomotives that move at 50 kilometres per hour.”
South African writer and noted recluse JM Coetzee is not going to break character for this year’s Booker Awards ceremony. He will not be attending this year’s award presentation despite the fact that he could win an unprecedented third Booker Prize for his latest book, Summertime. Coetzee, who lives in Australia, is not the favorite to win (Hilary Mantel is the leader according to the experts) though this plays absolutely no role in the South African expat’s absence.
Finally, happy 4000th post to Texas in Africa! May there be 4000 more, and another 4000 after that.
Comments (2)