When Laurent Gbagbo’s endgame seemed imminent, the U.N. peacekeeping director Alain Le Roy hastily declared that the “war is over” in the western African nation of Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), a headline that was splashed across TV screens, newspapers, news radio stations, and social networks around the world. But it turned out that Laurent Gbagbo, […]
The situation in Cote d’Ivoire qualifies as one in which the best options are the least bad options. Once Laurent Gbagbo decided not to step down peacefully or even with a nudge after refusing to yield after his opponent, Alassane Ouattara, clearly won last November’s presidential election there was bound to be violence that turned […]
Libyan officials aren’t the only ones seeking to defect to neighboring countries these days. Like the Qadaffi clan in Tripoli, the regime of Cote D’Ivoire’s Laurent Gbagbo has come under international pressure as violence between the incumbent and the opposition escalates. Top level officials, including the head of the country’s armed forces, are apparently seeking […]
The UN here says that the “war in Cote D’ivoire is over”, and apparently Gbagbo is hiding in the basement, negotiating his terms of surrender. What this political exist entail remains to be seen. But it is clear that Gbagbo would probably want a political pact that would protect him and his cronies from being […]
It seems like the Southern African Development Committee is finally getting it as the regional body toughens with Zimbabwe’s Mugabe! In an unusual move, the Southern African leaders issued a communiqué late Thursday, scolding the ZANU-PF government for political violence and the failure to adhere to the 2008 Global Political Agreement for power sharing. One […]
Many are familiar with the origin of Somalia’s protracted conflict in the fall of Said Barre’s regime in 1991 and the resulting competition for political control among warring clans. Yet the conditions of warfare in Somalia have evolved dramatically since that time as the impact of the conflict upon the local geography, the role of […]
Goodluck Jonathan is likely to win this month’s elections in Nigeria. And that outcome is almost certain to be controversial. Already one can anticipate that the opposition will decry the results of the elections as illegitimate. The four main opposition candidates pulled out of last week’s televised presidential debate a week after Jonathan had failed […]
Last Sunday voters in the Central African Republic went to the polls and overwhelmingly gave President Francois Bozize’s party a large majority. Well, some voters did. The problem is that the opposition called for a boycott of the polling to protest the first round of voting in January. According to reports: “The opposition has condemned […]
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and his country’s largely powerless prime Minister, has appealed to South African President Jacob Zuma in hopes that South Africa will finally intervene to prevent Robert Mugabe from stepping up violence and other dirty tricks prior to Zim’s upcoming but as-yet unscheduled elections. […]
The writing that Ivory Coast is headed for catastrophe is clearly on the wall! According to the International Red Cross, approximately 800″ people were massacred in one city alone in earlier this week. The West African regional block Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) has made u-turn with regard to their bluff to use […]
As African Union peacekeepers continue to come under attack in Somalia, the mission there, known as AMISOM, received two pieces of good news this week. First off, Uganda and Burundi, offered to send 4,000 more troops to the mission. The two countries account for a majority of what will now be a 12,000-strong force aimed […]
I’m afraid I do not get the rationale behind the University of Johannesburg’s recent decision to sever ties with Israel’s Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Of all of the boycotts to conduct, deciding to target the very institutions where some of the most vibrant dissent against Israeli policy is likely to occur seems counterproductive. […]
Despite past disagreements with the Libyan leader over the pace of African integration and the awkward fact that Qaddafi provided support for Uganda’s murderous former leader, Idi Amin, Ugandan President Yoweri Musevini is highly critical of the Western intervention in Libya in an article printed by Foreign Policy magazine. While Musevini acknowledges some of the […]
An ad-hoc panel of leaders from African Union countries is set to meet with European Union and Arab League officials tomorrow to discuss the way forward in Libya. The panel, which includes heads of state from South Africa, Uganda, Mali, Mauritania and Congo, along with AU Commission President Jean Ping and current AU Chairman Teodore […]
My latest piece, “Zimbabwe: New Verse, Same as the First,” has been posted for ISN Insights. Here is the abstract: The renewed crackdown against the political opposition in Zimbabwe sparked by fears of an Arab-style uprising illustrates how the illusion of a power-sharing government has merely served as plaster over a gushing wound. I hope […]