ZIMBABWE Maize-meal for votes 14th May 2004 ZANU-PF strategists believe that a new plan to lock out foreign food aid and hold early elections will bring certain victory The government's order to a United Nations' crop assessment team to leave the country last weekend is part of its strategy to maintain tight political control over food supply and score a resounding win in the coming parliamentary elections. The order effectively blocks UN and European preparations to provide the food aid estimated to be needed by more than 5 million people this year. President Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front government didn't want the UN team to produce figures that show that this year's harvest would fall far short of Zimbabwe's food requirement. That would expose the failure of the land reform programme and lead to hundreds of UN and aid agency officials handing out food aid in the run-up to an election. So political insiders now believe that Mugabe's ruling clique has decided to bring forward the parliamentary elections to October, before the food runs out completely.
SUDAN Desperate Darfur 14th May 2004 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site The government continues to block humanitarian aid and a third of a million lives are at risk It was an operation typical of the one-two punch used in Darfur by the government's regular forces, hand in glove with the irregular forces known as Janjaweed. The...
SUDAN A rebel's story 14th May 2004 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site The commander of the Sudan Liberation Army's Messalit forces, Khamis Abdullah Abaker, was one of the first villagers to organise self-defence units. He described how in 1998-2003, he...
SUDAN Tragic contradictions 14th May 2004 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who on the anniversary of the start of Rwanda's genocide raised the possibility of military intervention in Darfur, has been trying to galvanise...
NAMIBIA Closer and closer 14th May 2004 The election for the ruling party's leadership looks increasingly tight Foreign Minister Hidipo Hamutenya remains the front-runner in an increasingly close and bitter contest to choose the next leader of the governing South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO)....
ZAMBIA Presidential prosecutions 14th May 2004 Busy days for judges as the President struggles to lock up his predecessor The two main suspects in President Levy Mwanawasa's anti-corruption campaign have gone missing. Former intelligence chief Xavier Chungu and former Ambassador Attan Shansonga have left the country, frustrating...
UGANDA The family khaki 14th May 2004 Despite his retirement from the army, President Museveni is closer to the military than ever When President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni retired from the army on 6 April, 18 years after his National Resistance Army seized power, his promotion to full general that day...
CÔTE D'IVOIRE Season of hate 14th May 2004 UN rapporteurs, peacekeepers and diplomats may hold the key to the crisis Few punches are pulled in a leaked United Nations report on the brutal suppression of a demonstration on 25 March. It concludes that the government used the opposition...
CONGO-KINSHASAUNITED KINGDOM Diamond defamation 14th May 2004 Oryx Natural Resources has finally lost the legal battle to clear its name and dropped its libel action against the London daily The Independent, which accused the company...
LESOTHO Dirty water 14th May 2004 Lesotho has scored a rare but convincing victory against corruption. The Maseru courts convicted three multinationals of bribing to secure contracts in the giant Highlands Water Project and...
EQUATORIAL GUINEA For show 14th May 2004 Parliamentary and local elections late last month produced an emphatic victory for supporters of the President, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. His Partido Democrático para la Guinea Ecuatorial (PDGE)...