African Media Coverage

April 1-15, 2008

Nigeria: Business Daily
“Palestine in Darfur”
Published: April 14, 2009

Our common humanity is indivisible at its core. When we summon that essence that defines our commonality as human beings, we cannot impose a particular logic in Gaza and enforce a different logic in Galilee. Every battle for human dignity, liberty, justice and equity in every part of the world is linked to that basic core of our common humanity. This is one thing that escapes the Arab world, particularly its leadership, since the second half of the 20th century.

The world has come to witness a long-drawn battle for justice and human dignity, not to talk of peace co-existence, in Palestine since the start of the second half of the 1940s, which subsists till now. There is no denying the fact that, at the core of one of the world's most famous and longest running territorial battles, is the idea of human dignity and the values of self-determination that is woven into that - in political terms. Blood has been shed, and blood is being shed as I type this, in that region of the world in what, for many, has become a fruitless search by either side define our common humanity in exclusionary terms.

Read the article here.

Rwanda: The New Times
“And then they came for me”
Published: April 9, 2009

Humankind is not a kind species. In fact, if we look at history, cruelty is more common than kindness. It is in our very nature to do evil and harder to do good, we are doomed to make the same mistakes over and over and every time we swear that we’ll never do it again, that we’ll learn from our mistakes but we never do.

There is a saying that “all it takes for wicked men to prosper is for the good to do nothing”.

15 years ago the ‘good’ of this world stood and did nothing as a million were slaughtered.

The Tutsi genocide of 1994 has the dubious distinction of being the first genocide carried out in full view of the global media; from the comfort of my sofa in UK I watched as channel 4 looped deliberately blurred images of children being hacked, of bloated bodies washing up on the sandy beaches of Uganda, of murderous thugs drunk on hate, and politicians openly inciting genocide.

The world stood numb as warning upon warning was given but they went unheeded; they sat still and convinced themselves that it wasn’t as bad as it looked, that this was just a tribal war and “normal” for Africa.

Read the article here.

Kenya: Daily Nation
“Time ripe for ICC to flex its muscle”
Published: April 6, 2009

Having started its first trial of a war crimes suspect just two months ago, the International Criminal Court is rather young. The court was created on July 1, 2002 and currently has 108 member states. But, with a budget of $134 million and a staff of 571, the court needs to flex some muscle.

So far, it has issued 13 warrants of arrest but has only five suspects in its cells while seven remain free. All the suespects under custody are from Africa. they are Thomas Lubanga, Germain Katanga, Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, Jean Pierre Bemba and ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor.

Among the most prominent suspects still on the loose is Uganda's Joseph Kony and Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir. President Bashir, whose warrant was issued on March 4, 2009 over war crimes in Darfur, may prove to be the court's main Achilles heel.

Read the article here.