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Published 19th July 1996

Vol 37 No 15


Burundi

Hutu guerrillas

Hutu militias are confusing. They often split and often share members. The most significant is the Parti pour la Libération du Peuple Hutu founded, eight years after the 1972 slaughter of Hutu people, by Rémi Gahutu. He died in 1990 in a Tanzanian gaol. Now led by Etienne Karatasi from his Danish exile, Palipehutu’ s programme, like that of Rwanda's Mouvement Républicain National pour la Démocratie et le Développement of the late President Juvénal Habyarimana, is to establish ethnic quotas based on an unreliable Belgian census of the 1930s. Palipehutu attacked Bujumbura in November 1991, while President Pierre Buyoya was in Paris for a secret meeting with Karatasi, arranged by Belgian political scientist Filip Reyntjens.


Bullet proof

Image courtesy of Panos Pictures

View site

Eldoret gets so much largesse that the President's home-boys call it 'Moi town'

Revelations that the government has been discreetly building an ammunition factory in Eldoret have again focused attention on the rapid growth of this Rift-Valley town. President Daniel arap...


Soldiers for sale

Their critics call them mercenaries but some regimes find they cannot do without them

Africa's private armies are growing in power and influence. Hired guns are intervening in almost every conflict on the continent, in some cases supplanting, rather than just assisting,...


We split, they split

President Muluzi's coalition has broken up and so have the rival parties

Car crashes, corruption and conspiracies: President Bakili Muluzi's brave new Malawi looks too much like Kamuzu Hastings Banda's old one. Conspiracy theorists rarely allow politicians to die in...


Holy days

A row over public holidays is being exploited by politicians and religious leaders

A bitter religious controversy has erupted as Mozambique's newly assertive Muslims flex their political muscles. President Joachim Chissano appears to be trying to delay signing a bill, passed...



Pointers

Missing Mandela

Burundi dominated a surprisingly well attended Organisation of African Unity summit in Yaoundé on 8-10 July: 31 heads of state turned up. Next on the agenda was the...


Radio controlled

A campaign against plans to bring the BBC's much praised World Service under the centralised control of its domestic programme managers has won support from hundreds of British...


Café assassins

Two men casually ate breakfast in an Addis Ababa café on 8 July as they waited for the highest ranking Muslim in the federal government, Transport and Communications...