Media Review for August 27, 2012

By Africa Center for Strategic Studies
Updated: 08/27/2012

Please note: The following news items are presented here for informational purposes. The views expressed within them are those of the authors and/or individuals quoted, not those of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the National Defense University, or the Department of Defense.

Today’s News

China’s arms exports flooding sub-Saharan Africa
China’s arms exports have surged over the past decade, flooding sub-Saharan Africa with a new source of cheap assault rifles and ammunition and exposing Beijing to international scrutiny as its lethal wares wind up in conflict zones in violation of U.N. sanctions. Weapons from China have surfaced in a string of U.N. investigations in war zones stretching from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Ivory Coast, Somalia and Sudan. The Washington Post

SA Army: Too few troops to go around
There are currently too few soldiers available to carry out all the tasks assigned to the South African Army. Chief of the Army Lieutenant General Vusumuzi Masondo says he provides two 850-person infantry battalions twice a year for peacekeeping duty and 11 infantry companies (about 165 people) on a continuous basis for border safeguarding duty. DefenceWeb

After South Africa’s Mine Massacre, Will the ANC’s Grip on Power Unravel?
Politics and labor organizing were always tightly intertwined in South Africa, ever since a series of militant strikes in the late 1980s helped make the country ungovernable, forcing the country’s white regime into negotiations that would eventually lead to the end of white minority rule. Given this history, it was no surprise that the police killing of 34 wildcat strikers last Thursday—the worst mass slaughter of protesters by police since the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994—should set off such a sustained political firestorm. The slaughter at the platinum mine in Marikana may mark the dawn of a new era of labor unrest in what’s still a young democracy. Time

Why young South Africans are turning away from Mandela and ANC
They are known to their countrymen as the ‘born free’ generation who grew up after apartheid. But in the wake of the shocking Lonmin mine shootings, South Africa’s youth are frustrated and angry about the state of the rainbow nation. The Guardian

Public Diplomacy’s Role in Troubled Africa
Americans’ attention rarely strays beyond domestic discontents these days, and when it does extend overseas it is most likely to settle on the endless war in Afghanistan or the challenging puzzle that is China. Meanwhile, as has almost always been the case, events in Africa receive little notice. This is a particularly perilous time there. To cite just one of many hotspots, Mali, it is increasingly clear that conflict on the continent is becoming more pervasive and bloodier, with political repercussions that extend far beyond Africa. The Huffington Post

Thousands march against government in Togo’s capital
Thousands of opposition supporters marched through Lome on Saturday but faced no resistance from security services, after two days of rallies earlier this week when protesters and officers clashed. Radio Netherlands

Dozens dead in Sudan’s S. Kordofan: rebels
Sustained fighting in Sudan’s South Kordofan state has killed several dozen government troops and five rebels, the insurgents claimed on Sunday after the army said it repulsed them. The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) said “fighting is still continuing inside Al Moreib,” a village in Rashad district of northeastern South Kordofan. Daily Star

Gbagbo party’s secretary general arrested in ICoast
The secretary general of Laurent Gbagbo’s party was arrested Sunday, the third key aide of Ivory Coast’s former president to be detained recently, party and security sources said. “Laurent Akoun was arrested by the police in the early afternoon in Adzope,” said Sylvain Miaka Oureto, president of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), referring to a town 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Abidjan. AFP

Nigeria in talks with Islamists via “back channels”
Nigeria’s government is reaching out to radical Islamist sect Boko Haram, talking with some of its members via “back room channels” as it seeks a peaceful way out of the north’s conflict, the president’s spokesman said on Sunday. Reuters

Ethiopia: Obama Urges New Leader to Promote Human Rights, Security
US president, Barack Obama, has spoken with Ethiopia’s acting prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, who has become nation’s new leader following the death of his predecessor on 21 August. According to statement by the US embassy in Addis Ababa, Obama has urged the new Ethiopian leader to promote regional security, democracy and human rights. During their phone conversation on Thursday, Obama pledged the US’s continued commitment to partnership with Ethiopia, mainly on security areas. Sudan Tribune on allAfrica

Ethiopia After Meles
The death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who had not been seen in public for several months, was announced on 20 August 2012 by Ethiopian state television. The passing of the man who has been Ethiopia’s epicentre for 21 years will have profound national and regional consequences. Meles engineered one-party rule in effect for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and his Tigrayan inner circle, with the complicity of other ethnic elites that were co-opted into the ruling alliance, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The Front promised freedom, democracy and ethnic devolution but is highly centralised, tightly controls the economy and suppresses political, social, ethnic and religious liberties. International Crisis Group

Mystery surrounds Zim’s gems revenue
Massive production of diamonds has not translated into improved living standards for ordinary Zimbabweans because proceeds from the sale of the gems have been benefitMpofu shifting goalposts, says Maguwuing a few politically-connected individuals and financing covert security operations, analysts have said. The Standard

Simmering border disputes in battle to control oil, gas
The discovery of oil and gas in the East African region could mark the beginning of long-drawn-out diplomatic dramas triggered by territorial disputes over control of resources. Kenya, Somalia, Tanzania, Zanzibar, South Sudan and Uganda are all engaged in arguments over border, which have intensified with the discovery of minerals. As East Africa becomes a hotspot for oil, gas and mineral exploration, the past three years have seen multimillion-dollar foreign investments in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Sudan and Mozambique. The East African

Authoritarian radicals: How Meles and the ‘new breed’ changed Africa
Meles Zenawi is the first to die of the quartet of former rebels whom the West in the late 1990s branded “a new breed” of African leaders. The term suggested they were different in style and substance from the leaders they had overthrown and their seniors on the continent. With the benefit of hindsight, the term also signalled the capture of a new generation of radical African leaders by the West. The East African

Reports of Gambian ‘Executions’ Conflicting
There are now conflicting accounts whether authorities in The Gambia have executed nine prisoners, as reported by Amnesty International. Amnesty said Friday that according to “reliable sources,” nine death-row inmates were taken from their cells the night before and executed. A group called the Civil Society Associations of Gambia says on its website that it confirmed the executions, and that on Friday morning the bodies were seen lying in the yard of the Mile Two Central Prison. VOA

Egypt, Gulf States strengthen their ties
During the Egyptian revolution, the Gulf States distanced themselves from Egypt. But ties are improving again now in accordance with an old rule: Good relationships are based on mutual benefits. Deutsche Welle

Arms, drugs, and human trafficking: What does the future hold for northern Mali?
A new unity government was formed in Mali this week, though it remains unclear whether it will be successful in restoring constitutional rule in the Tuareg-held north. CS Monitor

UN official says Somalia transition is too slow
The U.N. representative to Somalia said he is “deeply concerned by the ongoing delays” in choosing all the 275 members of parliament who will select a new Somali president. Somali elders must select the legislators ahead of the planned election on Aug. 28 of a speaker and a deputy, U.N. Special Representative Augustine Mahiga said on Saturday. Stars and Stripes

Niger floods cause widespread devastation
Heavy flooding in Niger over the past few weeks has killed up to 65 people and left 125,000 homeless. After appeals from the country’s president for international aid, the first supplies, donated by Ireland to Plan International, have now arrived. The southern Dosso region has been worst affected, with over 10,000 homes destroyed according to the UN. BBC

World Bank to help Senegal probe for ill-gotten gains
The World Bank has signed on to help Senegal recover ill-gotten gains, as the country’s new government questions members of the former regime for fraud, an official at the lender said Saturday. Senegal asked the Washington-based lender in June to help recover public assets moved abroad under the presidency of Abdoulaye Wade, who lost a reelection bid in March to current President Macky Sall after 12 years in office. AFP

Our image of Africa is hopelessly obsolete
Think of Ethiopia and what do you see. Perhaps a starving child, flies in her eyes and belly distended. Painfully thin adults in raggedy clothes, staring balefully at the camera in a fetid refugee camp. Or possibly a famous self-declared saviour from the west, striding purposefully past the decaying corpse of an animal beside a dusty road. Think again. See, instead, a booming capital city, its cafes filled with graduates and cranes lining the horizon. A nation that is one of the world’s largest livestock producers and recently became the second country to take delivery of Boeing’s new 787 passenger jet. An economy that doubled in size this century and is growing at 7.5%. The Guardian

Africa innovations: 15 ideas helping to transform a continent
Bright ideas: A cellphone database for dairy farmers and a strain of sweet potato that can help fight child blindness. Mail and Guardian

From farming to films: how the web is changing Africa
[...] Technology started to influence the way Africa develops in a big way with the introduction of GSM services in the late 1990s. A mobile revolution has positioned Africa as the fastest growing region on Earth for the telecoms industry, and with it has come a significant shift – a recognition among African governments and people that an opportunity exists to leap the development gap through the implementation of technological solutions to some of the challenges facing the continent. The Guardian

Ham to Seek More National Guard Partnerships in Africa
As the North Carolina National Guard builds on successes of the Southern Accord 12 exercise that wrapped up last week with Botswana, the commander of U.S. Africa Command said he’ll press to expand the State Partnership Program on the continent. Army General Carter F. Ham, who calls himself “a big fan” of the National Guard program, said he hopes to increase the number of partnerships in Africa to as many as a dozen within the next two years. U.S. Africa Command

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