African Media Coverage

July 16-31, 2009

allAfrica
Darfur “Genocide” Lies Unraveling
Published: July 16, 2009

Stopping genocide is apolitical, purely a matter of conscience and goodwill. At least, that's what the Save Darfur campaign would have us believe, says Bruce A. Dixon. While Save Darfur's good-vs-evil battle has consistently touted a total figure of 400,000 dead in Darfur, sources on the ground indicate that there were actually around 1,500 deaths last year. That people are dying is not to be minimised or downplayed, Dixon contends, but the notion that the US's global might is needed to slay a unified evil is increasingly revealing itself as purely a means to establish domestic consent for military intervention in Africa.

 Read the article here.

Kenya: Daily Nation
Ruling on Sudan Oil-Rich Area of Abyei Sets Stage for Next Contest
Published: July 24, 2009

In the aftermath of the ruling on Sudan’s oil-rich area of Abyei, things are beginning to feel more like the proverbial elephant as felt by the blind men. Each of the men reckons they know the shape of the elephant, depending on which part their fingers are holding.

So it was, hours after the ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.

“The verdict is out,” the Government of Southern Sudan minister for SPLA Affairs, Nhial Deng Nhial, declared to cheers at a public gathering to pray for Abyei, “and we have won the case.”

On the other hand, the agent for the Government of National Unity, Dirdiri Mohammed was saying they were ready to go to the Constitutional Court if SPLM so wished as to drag them there.

Inference: You lost. We won. Appeal if you may. With those analogous reactions, it became hard to know what constitutes a win. Or, even, a loss.

Read the article here.

Kenya: The East African
Museveni’s Bashir Arrest Dilemma and the ICC
Published: July 27, 2009

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir decision not to come to Kampala to attend the Smart Partnership Conference on July 26 gave Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni a way out of a situation that can only be described as the Devil’s Alternative.

He would have been damned if he arrested Bashir, and damned if he didn’t.

Despite the African Union’s position on his indictment by the International Criminal Court, sensing that not all of its leaders will stand by him all the way, Bashir has limited his travels to countries not party to the Rome State under which the ICC was created.

In all honesty, one has to have the eccentricity of Libya’s Muamar Gaddafi or the “international acceptance” of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak to dine with Bashir now.

When Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC’s chief prosecutor, came to Kampala and insisted at a news conference at the Uganda Media Centre that Uganda had a legal obligation to arrest President Bashir if he came to Kampala, he might as well have added that it had a moral and historical obligation as well.

Read the article here.