You may remember Jay Lehr from an earlier comment on his use by CNN and other reputable news organization as a nuclear safety expert (“Unrequested fission surplus”: Kent Brockman, meet Jay Lehr 15 March 2011).  Jay made the rounds of some of America’s finest journalistic green rooms last year, bravely assuring us that there was [...]

When the rebel group MNLA launched its first attack on 17 January, their Parisian supporters made some rather extraordinary claims: that it had captured the large town of Menaka, that a number of Malian soldiers had been killed and vehicles had been destroyed. Press phone calls to residents of the town cast grave suspicions on [...]

I would rather be talking about real things. Since September 2011, northern Mali has been on tenterhooks, waiting to see which rumors of risings, rebellions, independence struggles or gang-war will pan out. Yet I am hesitant to even write anything on the situation. I see quite clearly how those living in Kidal and Tombouctou themselves [...]

  Today — the 10th of October — is World Mental Health Day. Take a moment to look through these photos from Niger, where Mahamadoul-kafi Djibrilla spoke at a community discussion of mental illness and treatment in Tahoua Region. Some might think that the least of rural Niger’s worries would be mental illness. But they’d [...]

OccupyWallStreet, a set on Flickr. For those who can’t make it, some photos and videos from Liberty Square as the marchers poured in.

Yep.  It was a trap.  I saw it myself (and was old and chicken enough to avoid it). But don’t fret.  Someone said that day that “the NYPD is doing PR for the protesters.”  I’m begining to believe this is bigger than the NYPD “can possibly imagine.” My report was posted with my photos below, [...]

20111001Brooklyn Bridge march reporting, a set on Flickr. My images, video & reportback from 20111001 Brooklyn Bridge march.

While the reliable press are reporting the location of Osama Bin Laden’s mansion in Abbottabad, they are so far way off. Not even close, in fact. Here are two examinations that are much more careful. Honestly, it’s people like this who give me hope for basic problem solving skills. The world press just chose the [...]

Glenn Greenwald is one of several “progressive” (USA-ian for “Social-Democratic”) commentators who have been debating Juan Cole on his tempestuous “Open Letter to the Left”.   Greenwald’s “Question of Juan Cole” takes what Cole says seriously, and applies serious criticism to the Professor’s unabashed endorsement of a U.S./NATO air war to oust Gadaffi.   The more [...]

Juan Cole, a smart and well-intentioned U.S. university professor, has just printed an “Open Letter to the Left“, describing objections to the U.S. taking charge of Libya’s revolution against Gadaffi as “isolationism” and knee-jerk “enemy of my enemy” ideology. Admittedly, there are those on the Left who are unable to see outside first world struggles [...]

The US press, even the left, seems to have taken as gospel the announced DoD budget cuts. This is largely smoke an mirrors. The BBC correctly points out that “The defence budget was more than $700bn last year – representing the largest portion of the US federal government‘s discretionary budget.” But their purported $178b cut [...]

The Cote d’Ivoire presidential elections drama, after decades of civil war and chicanery, has proven in its final act to be, well, dramatic. Even wire reports are saying that the vote totals are confirmed, with Alassane Ouattara (representing both the conservative parties heir to Félix Houphouët-Boigny and the marginalized Muslim north) taking between 53% and [...]

Image by Tomathon via Flickr In reading about the worrying and hopefully shortlived chaos attending the results of the Cote d’Ivoire elections, I was pleasantly surprised to see a photo of mine used for Radio France International’s article on Ivorian electoral history. Name’s spelled wrong in the mandatory Creative Common’s attribution, but their heart was [...]

I spent the evening with the new Journal of Modern African Studies (cause I’m just that fascinating) and I highly recommend Denis M. Tull’s “Troubled state-building in the DR Congo: the challenge from the margins”. Apart from learning things about Kongo kingdom relgio-nationality in the west of the DRC, what was most interesting was his [...]

Image via Wikipedia To the editors of the BBC, Your appalling “Muslim Brotherhood expands westward” by Magdi Abdelhadi  seems entirely based on two writers who have no academic qualifications or credibility and one of whom has a long history of extreme right-wing religious bigotry.  The premise, pushed by Steven Emerson and several extreme right organizations [...]

Sometimes you just need to hear that not everyone has lost their minds.

…by complaining about the officiating. Also see Koman Coulibaly’s Wikipedia Page Defaced Within Minutes of US Draw Poor Koman Coulibaly.  He had a tough match, and as much as I love Mali and Malian football, that was a goal he whistled off. I do find it interesting that he’s an anti-corruption investigator, and likely the [...]

Better choices for sunny afternoons: Outside the African Dance Fest in Brooklyn last week. It’s beautiful in New York, and the world if full of things to argue about. Here are three important issues I’ll have to get back to you on. While the world goes to hell in a handbasket, I have been trying [...]

The Guardian had provided blow by blow coverage of the recent hatefest between two British historians of Russia, Orlando Figes and Robert Service. Figes, once touted as the “angry young man” for historians, is more accurately the spoiled brat. A real McCarthyite ax-grinder, who augments his live hatred of dead dictatorships with a holier-than thou [...]

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The French press initially reported midday Sunday (14 March, local time) that the Central African Republic government had foiled plans for a coup attempt, set to take place between the 15th and the 20th. No one does coups quite like Bangui, usually with the French government pulling the strings: they’ve had a lot of practice. Jules Bernard Ouanda, the Minister of National Security and Public Order, recorded an announcement for Radio Centrafrique, passed on to the press, and since confirmed.

Ouanda claims that on Friday, the government of President François Bozizé obtained a “Plan of Action” made by the coup plotters, whom they refused to name, but described as “several political and military figures.” Ouanda red from a detailed plan: a “special form” dated March 8, subtitled “Preparations for coup from the period from March 15 to 20.” The government notations on the plan describe it as (according to a brief glimpse by reporters) “hatched by elements KAMIKAZE commandos, mercenaries, militias and expatriates in the pay of former President Ange-Félix PATASSE” Ouanda repeatedly refused to name names, but did read a portion of the “plan” that included orders to “reinforcement elements in the home of AFP.”

Reporters also spoke with former President Ange-Félix Patassé who in his thirty years of political leadership has been more than once a coup plotter, like current President Bozizé who ousted the President Patassé on 15 March 2003. Patassé told reporters “I phoned the minister. He told me that it was not me” who was blamed for the coup plan. He added that he expected it still might be an attempt to “eliminate” him from the scheduled 12 and 23 April two round Presidential elections.

Another such rival, Charles Massi was a Minister under both Patassé and Bozizé, in 2008 left political life to become the respectable front on the northeastern CPJP. When I first saw report in the CAR expat press and on the CPJP website around Xmas saying he was “kidnapped in Chad and turned over to the CAR”, I assumed this was infighting or overreaction. I was wrong. Sometime around January 9, Massi was tortured to death by the CAR government in Bossembele prison, a fact which the government admitted last month.

Lord preserve the CAR from political leaders, near and far. It brings to mind a Brecht poem a friend of mind often repeats:

Empires collapse.
Gang leaders Are strutting about like statesmen. The peoples
Can no longer be seen under all these armaments.

See Also: Centrafrique: When a neocolony collapses (17 December 2009)

More:

• Call for CAR rebel torture probe (news.bbc.co.uk)
• CAR president confirms rebel leader’s death (af.reuters.com)
• Central African Republic: Keeping the Dialogue Alive (crisisgroup.org)
• Sunday Africa Blog Roundup: Sudan and the ICC, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, al Shabab and Somali Pirates, Nas and Damian Marley (sahelblog.wordpress.com)
• UPDATE 1-Central African Republic to hold April 25 elections (af.reuters.com)

I’ve warned that, given the poor harvests and pastures, we can expect many incidents of communal and ethnic tension across the Sahel this year. The end of the formal insurgencies in both Niger and Mali last year also leaves a residue of unemployed armed men and grudges between communities.

One example of these risks is reported in Agadez‘s “Aïr Info journal” n°108 dated this week. On page 5 is the story of an attack by armed youth from Tchi-n-Tiguit (“Tchitintagatte”, about 50km south of Arlit, coincidentally in the middle of the new AREVA Imouraren mining concession) on their neighbors at Sekkiret (“Sikirat”, about 30km west of the famous Dabous Giraffe carvings).

Earlier this week, armed young men arrived at Sekkiret, firing in the air and chasing women and children out of their homes, but left before anyone was hurt. Sekkiret youths having returned home to frightened families, set off for revenge. The paper reports it was only the intervention of two former ministers (one from each community) and the local chieftaincy which ensured security forces were quickly dispatched to calm the situation.

The cause: Sekkiret youths had reputedly harassed Tchi-n-Tiguit two years ago during the insurgency. There is no indication here of ethnicity, but that history, and the name Tchi-n-Tiguit, suggests a community of Tamasheq speakers some Tuareg caste, subgroup, or related community). Some towns in the area – like Ingall – are populated by Songhai speakers, dating back to the time when they were outposts of the Malian and Songhay Empires. Others are made up of former Tamasheq bonded communities who still bear grudges against some higher caste communities. These groups are normally peacefully intermixed, along with other groups, tribes, caste communities, and Tuareg confederations. But in times of stress, as we’ve seen from Sarajevo to Jos, people do find enemies even among neighbors.

Aïr Info concludes: “The inhabitants of these villages, brothers since time immemorial, have now become two blocs that risk, if we do not take care, of turning on each other! The state must quickly find a solution to this problem which has already gone on too long!”