African Media Coverage

March 16-31, 2008

KENYA: The East African
Darfur diaspora champions peace agenda for Sudan
Published: March 17, 2008

Diaspora community can often prove invaluable in finding solutions to conflicts in their home countries, a US peace institute has said.

The US Institute of Peace (USIP) says in its latest peace briefing, Engaging the Darfur Diaspora for Peace, that in general, diaspora communities have not been formally engaged as a constituency in official negotiations to resolve conflicts in their home country.

“However, there is increasing acknowledgement of the ways in which diaspora communities are directly affected by and impact conflict dynamics back home,” says Susan Hayward, the briefing’s author.

Read the full article here (scanned article from newspaper).

UGANDA: Daily Monitor
Kofi Annan will not mediate Darfur crisis
Published: March 22, 2008

Former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan dismissed suggestions on Thrusday he might take on the job of mediating in the Dafur crisis in Sudan.

A Darfur rebel group, the Justice and EqualityMovement (JEM), on Sunday demanded direct peace talks with the Sudanese government and said Annan should mediate.

Read the full article here (scanned article from newspaper).

SOUTH AFRICA: IOL
Egyptian police kill Sudanese woman
Published: March 18, 2008

Egyptian police have fatally shot a Sudanese woman and arrested a second one who was with an infant as they tried to cross into Israel.

A police official says on Tuesday's shooting took place a few kilometres south of the Rafah border crossing point. He says the Sudanese women were from the war-torn Darfur and refused to surrender when Egyptian police warned them.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he isn't allowed to talk to the media, says the police failed to capture the traffickers. The women paid about $500 (about R4 062,80) each for shelter and passage from Cairo across Egypt's Sinai Peninsula to the Israeli border.

Hundreds of African refugees hope to make it to Israel to seek political asylum and jobs.

KENYA: The Daily Nation
How the US lost Sudan to China by playing the role of reluctant suitor
Published: March 21, 2008

Last month, United States President George W. Bush visited Benin, Ghana, Liberia, Rwanda and Tanzania but skipped southern Sudan – the archetypal Africa of the pre-colonial era where insurgency smothered the infrastructure initially left behind by the British.

Southern Sudan is that Africa where children still go to school in torn uniforms; where families eat from a single plate and where tribal fights still follow century-old patterns.

Yet, it’s hard to think of a region that is so deceptive because southern Sudan’s forests, wildlife and oil (the world’s most desired commodity at the moment) hold the key to the gateway for a dream economy.

A Bush visit to Southern Sudan, or even to the entire Sudan, would have changed the mindset of the people in ways few other foreign policy trump card can.  This is because this is a region where the US still excites.

Read the full article here (scanned article from newspaper).