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 most honest and unflamboyant fella you’ll ever meet. So there’s really no justification for accusing the man of corruption over this, as Eric Wynalda apparently did, from the front lines of his California living room.
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 to maintain my sanity with light reading, and sunny days on the back patio. This largely precludes the production of good (or even mediocre) writing. Further political catastrophes and World Cup drama could completely rule it out.
Despite that, there are several things which should appear here soon, plus a reading recommendation. Advice for further reading and different perspectives is always very welcome.
First, I’m working on a close reading of the latest US / West African drug arrests, this time focused on Liberia. Not to sound too paranoid, but these things never seem to hang together well when examined closely, and I’ve come to believe over the last few years that there is a commonality of interests between several right wing think tanks, a clutch of journalists and “terrorism experts”, UN Anti-Drug authorities, foreign governments, military, and local governments which play up the need for military and legal spectacle at the expense of actual work on development or ending corruption. While there is likely some real criminality going on in this case, I’m prepared to argue that this Liberian sting of aspiring West African drug runners serves more to allow these interests to further very specific political agendas.
Most important to me, I’ve finally thoroughly read Dutch historian Baz Lecocq‘s 2002 dissertation, “That Desert is Our Country’: Tuareg rebellions and Competing Nationalisms in Contemporary Mali (1946-1996).“ As it is available online, I had read later chapters when I’d seen it cited some time ago. But having stormed through from the start, I must say that it is the best thing written on the Malian Tuareg in English (easily) and arguably better than anything in French (to be fair, I’m thinking only of articles I’ve read by Georg Klute, the Bernuses, Claudot-Hawad, and Bourgeot. I haven’t read Pierre Boilley’s “Touaregs Kel Adagh”, let alone Georg Klute’s ”Die Rebellionen der Tuareg in Mali und Niger”, which I’ve only ever seen in German). With very few changes it could be produced as a very valuable book.
Lecocq’s basic premise – which he candidly admits was not the one he began with – is that French colonialism and the process of independence heightened a pre-existing “racial” prejudice between northern and southern communities in what is today Mali, even when outsiders might be unable to easily distinguish between these groups. Independence, as well as French and upper class Tuareg resistance to the form this independence, only deepened these divisions, reinforcing mistrust on all sides, keeping these communities at daggers drawn. This has played out through profound reordering in the structures and meanings of the notoriously complex and shifting Tuareg social/political order on one side. On the other, the brutality and hamfistedness of southern politicians and military has often exacerbated conflict, frustrating Malian society. Nine of ten Malian live in the south, and these communities, having paid dearly to create the imperfect economic development and political liberties they now enjoy, have little sympathy with Tuareg demands.
If you’re anglophone and interested in French colonialism in the Sahara, Mali’s first decades of independence, the current “Tuareg problem”, or even the more general history of cultural conflict along the interface of the Sahel, there’s tremendous value in this work. Admittedly, Lecocq really focuses on the history of “free” clans of Tuareg in (what is now) Kidal Region’s Adagh des Ifoughas, who make up only a portion of the population of even this limited area. But their politics and culture are central to the 1963, 1990, and 2006/7 rebellions, and all north south relations in Mali. Without understanding this, I’ve always found the causes of fighting there hard to understand, even in relation to the Nigerien Tuareg rebellions, which seem much more enmeshed in Niger’s politics and culture.
A herd, starved to death, in North Mali. These animals represent many years of saved wealth and future investment for Malian pastoralists.
Hopefully by now everyone knows that parts of West Africa, especially pockets of Chad and Niger, are struggling with the worst food shortages since 2005. Alex Thurston reports that international humanitarian agencies, as well as increasingly concerned governments, are now worried that this crisis is more generalized than first reported (last September), striking areas of Mauritania and Mali.
In Mali, there is a crisis in the north (mostly Kidal Region) right now, with press reports of huge numbers of animals lost to the mostly pastoralist residents. As in Niger, prices for forage have skyrocketed, prices for animals have plummeted, so that recent reports have talked of Malians trading female goats – the future of their herds – for a single bag of rice in Algerian border markets. Malian press reports talk of traveling through rural Kidal last week, counting corpse after corpse of starved livestock, the very source of pastoralist livelihoods. Those that can have moved south, increasing the pressure on pasture and farm land, surely also risking more communal tension. Kidal Region is already rife with armed unemployed men, competing smuggling rings, and simmering tribal vendettas. The overflow from this must add sparks to the already smoldering Tombuctu and Gao Regions, not to mention the areas south of the Niger where pastoralists head during the dry season. The tragic destruction of Gao market, north Mali’s largest commercial center, by fire last week has got to be a final nail in the coffin for some people, even if the rains have now started there.
The April-June 2010 food security conditions across West Africa, according to FEWS net.
So things in Mali, if they receive the international focus or not, are as bad as in areas of Niger.
In Niger many more farming communities were stricken by the start-stop rains of June 2009, and the pockets of Tillaberi, Tahoua, and Maradi Regions (mostly) have long reverted to crisis mode. Men are on extended “exode”, the dry season trips abroad for wage labor. Other communities have picked up en masse, fleeing to towns, other regions, or even to Hausa northern Nigeria, where some have trade or family contacts. Others still remain, depleting the last of their food stocks, and somehow making it on less and less each day.
"We are experiencing, like all the countries in the Sahel, a food crisis due to the poor harvest and the locust attacks of 2004," Mr Tandja said in 2005. "The people of Niger look well-fed, as you can see."
It’s important to differentiate between drought and famine (one may cause the other, or may not), and recognize that some places like parts of central Niger have suffered chronic seasonal malnutrition since the 1990s, and recurring drought caused famines since 1968. The causes are debated, and while climate change no doubt is happening, one should not discount the structural changes we have seen over the last 30 years. The IMF’s austerity policies which did such obvious damage to urban West Africa in the 1980s, and triggered much of the 1990-2 democratization wave thereafter, also had pernicious effects on rural areas. The “free trade” treaties of the 1990s — as Bill Clinton recently admitted in the case of Haitian farming — drove world commodity market forces into even the most protected rural communities. Subsidized western industrial agriculture can produce food and cash crops cheaper than most smallholders in the Sahel, but can also cause basic food prices to swing wildly on the back of market speculation, as we saw in 2008. As Marx famously said, in the face of commodification, structures, forms of productions, and traditions have no recourse. “All that is solid melts into air…”, and much of the rural economic structure of the developing worlds has so disintegrated in the last decades. Some areas might survive, sending farmers flooding into urban export driven production. For whatever reasons, Niger, like Haiti, never saw enough of this to absorb the mass of small farming which supports %80 of its people. They continue to literally scratch a living out of dusty millet fields, with less and less ability to turn to either community or markets when things go wrong.
FEWS net's projected food security situation (July-September 2010), Niger. We expect a normal harvest to come in September.
Some pastoralists in North Mali and Niger never really recovered from the loss of herds in the early 1970s. They starved in 1984 because of this, and (arguably) supported armed struggle in the 1990s in part because of this. [It's more complicated that this, with longstanding communities of grievance, and militants trained abroad, but the 72-74 drought can't be discounted]. These are as much political and economic/structural problems as environmental, and they need to be treated once this hungry season passes in September.
In Niger, as grim as this is, some things have improved. Then President Tandja (and current opposition leader Hama Amadou, as well as some “progressive” westerners, for the record) purposefully denied the food shortages and deaths in 2005 were “famine”. They were seeing severe seasonal malnutrition in limited areas, and most children were dying of malnutrition related disease rather than starvation. This is how people die in famines, but the “f” word has political connotations which were painful, and so it is better to try and trivialize the suffering of the rural poor, apparently. I hope there is a special ring of hell for such people. We are not hearing that this time, in part thanks to the Nigerien Junta.Salou Djibo can play on an oft repeated trope in Niger (1974 being the model) of military rule justified by food emergencies mishandled by corrupt civilians. I would hope those in Niamey recognizing this as famine would do the same if they had been in power last year. I also hope they target the structural causes that allow this to happen, after they face the monumentally complicated distribution of food aid.
The French press is reporting that a French tourist and an Algerian guide were kidnapped by armed men today in northern Niger, near the well at In-Abangaret. Also spelled Inabangaret, it’s a stopping place on the Azzouagh plain’s Tahoua/Assamakka/Tamanrasset road. This puts it relatively near the attack of several months ago on the Tahoua/Tillia road, and within reach of the band that carried out the attack on a Tillaberi army post last month. They were traced as far as the hills of west of Tin-Essako in Mali’s northern Gao Region. While In-Abangaret doesn’t come up in the news much, it is an important seasonal gathering point for some Tuareg communities (there is a “In-Abangaret Cross” in the famed Tuareg armorial tradition), as well as being in the midst a Berabiche transhumance zone. A hand grenade attack on Algerian truckers there in 1997 caused concern, with former members of one of the Arab rebel factions blamed for running a protection racket against long haul transport.
Update 2010-04-23: There are now severalpress accounts of this incident, mostly pointing to speculation by unnamed Nigerien military officials, most of whom point to Malian based AQIM/bandits. The military say they will “close the border” with Mali, which is good for a chuckle. Either army would be lucky to identify the imaginary line which runs through a thousand km of desert, let alone “close” it somehow.
The AFP picked up a report that blames a group around one “Taleb Abdoulkrim”, reputedly an associate of the AQIM group of Abu Yaya Amane, himself an offshoot of Abu Zeid’s AQIM faction. Honestly, the internal workings of these groups are beyond my ken. I suggest turning to moreinformedsources.
Regardless of source, the Nigeriens seem confident these men came from Mali, but depending on reports, the actual site of the kidnapping is getting farther from both Algeria and Mali. Reuters puts the attack between In-Abangaret and Teguidda-n-Tessoumt, the salt panning settlement connected to Ingal, and closer to Agadez than Tahoua. This is also near Azelik, where the Chinese owned Société des Mines d’Azelik S.A. (SOMINA) is facing local opposition. It would also put the kidnap on the RN 11 road (really a sand piste, but a international route none the less), not on a lonelier offshoot between In-Abangaret and Tahoua, which is closer the Malian border and a place AQIM bandits have attacked previously.
I would not discount the intensifying food and livestock crisis in pastoralist northern Mali and Niger in this. It is really the much larger story going on now in this area. A European in Kidal (or even Agadez) must start to look like a walking Dollar sign to a local who is rapidly loosing their livestock to starvation, and searching for a way to feed his family. Regardless, this is big business now, and there’s no way to know if the actual kidnappers are professional smugglers, Algerian jihadists, or unemployed former rebels looking for a meal.
Philomène Kaboré and her husband Sergio Cicala have given interviews regarding their captivity: she having been released some time ago, and he Friday the 16th. They were taken in Mauritania, near the border with Mali, on…
"Intelligence Online" reports that the French internal security agency, the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur (DCRI) carried out the negotiation with the AQIM for the release of French hostage Pierre Camatte, and sent Bernard…
Issikta blog republishes an urgent appeal from the mayors of Adielhoc and Tinzawaten communes in Kidal Region, northeast Mali. In a land where seasonally migrating animal herds are the economic foundation, there are reports of %40 of herds starving for…
The latest edition of the “Worldservice blog” features tracks by Salif Keita & Les Ambassadeurs du Motel, from the first years after he left the Rail Band. I never knew there were such hard feelings.
He quotes Salif Keita:
“With the Rail Band I learned nothing, we only played what we heard. Les Ambassadeurs were more experienced: we weren’t playing modernised folklore. Les Elephants Noirs were intellectuals. Arriving at the group I signed an apprenticeship contract to study music. We really played all kinds of music. We were like a real family, I really felt more at ease with Les Ambassadeurs. We rehearsed and studied the songs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and played them the same evening.”
As always, the Dutch DJ behind “WrldServ” provides background you’ll find few other places, as well as rare tracks, and in this case, rarer video. Check it out.
Jeune Afrique reports sightings of the AQIM men who attacked the Nigerien army post at Tiloa, in the far north of Tillaberi last week. Apparently the Army knew there was a chance of attack somewhere in the area, having asked for reinforcements two days…
It has been 6 days since (on 10 March) the a variety of formal and informal unions of Malian inter-city truck drivers went on strike, shutting down the transport of people and goods. While Bamako/Koulikoro and points northwest are served by rail from Dakar…
Philomena Kabour, the Burkina-Italian wife of Sergio Cicala, kidnapped near in Mauritania was released, along with Alicia Gamez, one of three Catalan aid workers kidnapped north of Nouakchott. All appear to have been taken to a AQIM camp in the remote Saharan north of Mali. Roque Pascual and Albert Vilalta (the Catalans kidnapped November 29) and Cicala (kidnapped December 18) remain hostage. There is no word on what was exchanged. Burkina authorities were the intermediaries for Kabour's release.
AFP re-reports the allegations of two Catalan journalists, now safely home. They say that they were threatened with kidnapping and delivery to Al-qaeda by the Mayor of Gao, Sadou Harouna Diallo (don’t ask me why AFP put an extra “a” in his name).
Diallo is a well know character, the owner of the successful Tizimizi hotel chain, business man, and regular kingpin on the Commune urbaine de Gao. He ran his 2009 campaign on the slogan “Yes We Can,” while never missing an opportunity to associate himself with the American soldiers in town to train Mali special forces.
He’s also the one that the Malians arrested by the US in November for drug-running named as their “connection” for transit (not drugs) in the region. He famously caused a big stink in the area in 2009 when he abandoned his post as SG of the ADEMA-PASJ ruling party, then ran his slate to victory in 7 0f the 10 seats of the local council as independents linked to the “Mouvement Cityoen”: a group that hopes to underwrite more power for the “non-partisan” President of Mali.
I can’t imagine he’d have anything to hide from nosiy foreign reporters. Or have anything to do with people disappearing.
Unidentified armed men attacked a truck carrying goods and passengers on the Niger river road from Gao to Ansago on Monday. The truck’s driver was killed, several wounded, and the bandits made off with cash and property. This was somewhere between 100 and 200 km west northwest of the attack on a Nigerien military post that same morning, and more than 300 km south of the carjacking of two aid workers near Kidal last week. See my comments on the carjacking for a summary of what I think is going on (short answer guns + poverty + demobed insurgency + corruption = crime). Please leave your Bin Laden fantasies at the door.
Follow up: (2010-03-13)
An anonymous commentator on the Kidal.info message board poses these details: “The attack is locally attributed to Peul individuals. The truck is owned by Ely Ould Hennoun an Arab trader who resides in Bamako. A young Arab died (the driver) and a Tuareg who accompanied him was seriously wounded in the head. … The killers stole two Thuraya satellite phones and the small sum of about 25,000 FCFA [~ 38 Euros]… This at the cost of two lives.”
I haven’t the vaguest clue if the ethnic insinuations are true, and it would be sad should the Gao-ites be overly concerned about ethnic identity in this sort of crime. But it speaks to the general insecurity and the desperate straits of northern Mali, that someone would kill for a handful of goods. It certainly doesn’t suggest that everyone there is flush with drug money.
Médecins du Monde Belgium reports that three of their health workers were carjacked in the desert north of Youwarou Cercle, Kidal Region on 2 March. Men armed with AK-47s stole a landrover and abandoned the workers in the desert. The MMB workers were part of a anti-Dracunculiasis (Guinea Worm) clinic in Youwarou. Sadly, such car robberies are not unknown, especially after the wave of weapons that flooded the region during the 2007-2008 insurgency. Similar robberies from aid agencies were reported after the 1990s and the 2006 violence, with cars taken across the border to Mauritania or as far away as Morocco to be sold. While I'm sure someone will blame "terrorists" it seems clear if you give young men guns and no jobs, especially in a region with a centuries old tradition of trade / smuggling, you'll get car robberies. I would hope government might deal with these issues before calling in AFRICOM with their missiles and bombs.
The UN's IRIN news has a piece well worth reading in full: "NIGER: Food pressures spread north" along with the a portrait of a southern Niger farmer ("Mariama Adao, 'We help each other… but it is hard'") whose crop failures have driven her to seek work in the equally troubled north. The two paint a more subtle picture of the problems facing a third of Niger's population, all most all of whom depend on small scale farms or pastoralism just to get by. A recent FEWS report from neighboring Mali stresses how the stop and start rains of last June have done in the northern seasonal pastures upon which local pastoralists rely, causing a cascade of pressure as they move south into well producing farms. In pockets of Niger's south we had the same effect: crops withered after spotty rains. Mariama Adao from Matameye migrated early looking for farm work in Agadez to find that floods there had halved the work available. This is how in a poor society any mixed harvest could become a disaster.
One doesn’t see much film, let alone color film, of African football under colonial rule. So you can imagine my delight when I stumbled across clips of a French colonial propaganda newsreel featuring the my favorite African club side wining a colonial cup final from 1956. The person selling old newsreel films has uploaded two parts of the color highlights of Jeanne d’Arc Bamako (since 1960 known as Stade Malien de Bamako) defeating Abidjan side ASEC, now the giants of Ivorian football, ASEC Mimosas. In one clip – the third frame reproduced below – you can see Cheikh Oumar Diallo for Bamako, scoring his second goal in the 75th minute with a flying deflection from the left post, right under the keeper. This was Jeanne d’Arc Bamako’s second French West Africa Cup (Coupe d’AOF), one of the high points for the young club, who might be best known as the 2009 champions of the CAF Confederation Cup.
AOF Coupe Final May 6, 1956; Parc Municipal des Sports, Dakar; att: 10,000
ASE: Théophile Lawson; François Nianzan, Marc Aka, Augustin Kodio, Ernest Achy, Fabre Guy, François Adékoua, Gaston Zakoua, Benjamin Akouaté, Ignace Ouégnin, Pierre Anoh;
ref: Anianboussou (Dahomey)
While its sometimes hard to keep up with African football abroad, one of the spin offs of technology is that it is easier now than ever. ASEC has a world class website (http://www.asec.ci/), and you can read match highlights from Bamako in half a dozen online papers. Here’s a music video of highlights of Stade 2009 Caf campaign from just one Malian football website. There’s even a Facebook group for Stade Malien supporters. But whatever else changes, he beauty of a ball hitting the back of a net, as you can see from these movies, is timeless.
Thursday evening was Maoulid (Mawlid) the celebration of the Prophet's birth that is a carnival like holiday across West Africa. Sadly, construction barriers near Timbuktu's famous Djingareyber mosque caused crowds that resulted in a panic and stampede. Police say 15 people, including two children, were killed and that another 41 people were injured. "Every year for Maouloud people come to the grand mosque, but this year construction blocked some of the roads," said Imam Abdramane ben Effayouti. "People took to narrow alleys, there was jostling, and the tragedy occurred." Very sad.
In a press appearance in Bamako Peter Camatte, the French-Malian NGO head who was held by the AQIM described his captors as "fanatics". His description of the Algerian Abdelhamid Abou Zeïd's group was "Fanatics, who thought no one but them were real Muslims". He said the group was %70-%80 youths, with whom he could communicate with only a few broken English, because most didn't speak any French. He said they sat in the desert, baking, in "unhygienic" conditions, with the only water "absolutely disgusting". These men didn't kidnap him, but he was "sold" to them by a Malian criminal gang. I'm going to go out on a limb (again): it's Algeria's problem with terrorists (who seem to have a lot of cash, via Western government's ransoms) meeting impoverished, armed Malian smugglers. So just which one is dumping the problem of their failed politics on the other?
This Algerian paper has an interesting piece on the current "AQIM problem" in the Sahel, if only as an elucidation of a Algerian nationalist perspective. The US and other are continually hammering on about the Sahel becoming the next Afghanistan or Somalia, but more as an attempt to justify the intrusion of AFRICOM and the "War on Terror" into Africa (so far, true in my view). The states in the region have "refused to blindly embark on the American global war", but many have internal weaknesses (smuggling, regionalism). True, but now it gets fishy. Mali, he says, had the 'excuse' of the Tuareg insurgency not to govern the north. Now Algeria has solved that problem for them, and yet they still "do nothing". Mali has "betrayed" Algeria, releasing the AQIM under the "interferences" of the west, hints that the Mali govt. has a finger in the hostage business. But Mali is "fated to return, sooner or later, the path of cooperation." No mention that the AQIM come from Algeria, of course.
Pierre Camatte, seized by a gang near his home in Menaka and shopped to the AQIM in the desert, has returned to Bamako. Will he ever be able to go back to his longtime home? The Malians released four AQIM prisoners in exchange, we can assume under French pressure. What else each side got from France or other western nations we will likely never know. Algeria and Mauritania have withdrawn their ambassadors to Mali in protest. Mali has its problems, but in this case, it just seems everyone else's festering problems, which would cost them too much to fix at home, come to northern Mali out of convenience. The very least Algeria, Mauritania, and the west can do for Mali is is to make it harder for their proxy warriors to end up in Gao. But that's wishful thinking, I'm sure. No word on the other hostages.
Popular sound systems blend traditional sounds with DJ beats, and keep people across Bamako on their feet. But will Mali‘s capitol ban the “Balani Show” dance parties?
As I noted on the 10th of March, the CSRD junta in Niger has replaced all the civilian Region Governors with military men to administer local affairs during the transition. We now have the full list, and while I for one hate to see any military governing, a careful look at the men (all men) coming and going in Niger's Regions gives us an opportunity to examine what's going on behind the scenes, and what it augurs for the future.
More ...
Nigeriens were - are - undoubtedly pleased that the army stepped in to end a newly installed dictatorship. But criticisms of this so called "good coup" are beginning to appear even amongst its strongest supporters. With many months of transitional rule ahead, these whispers give us some idea of the problems the junta will soon face.
One doesn't see much film, let alone color film, of colonial era African football. So you can imagine my delight when I stumbled across clips of a French colonial propaganda newsreel featuring the my favorite African club side wining a colonial cup final from 1956.
The new military Junta in Niger has released their first real vision of their promised return to democracy. Niger's expectations, a redux of recent history, are being played to by the soldiers.
After a day of confusion, President Tandja and his supporters are under arrest by the military. I have maintained the live updates from the 18th, and added an in depth analysis of the new CSRD junta.
The US government will make much of the arrests of three Malians who they say were part of a West African criminal network, devoted to drug smuggling and Osama Bin Laden. So far all we have is hype and what looks like the entrapment of low level criminals.
The December 18th anniversary of the Nigerien Republic begins a series of dates which may bring the political crisis to a boil, just as mediators think they've made a breakthrough.
A brief look, if one is possible, at the simmering crisis in the northeast Central African Republic. As commentators try to come to grips with this often ignored nation, here is some recommended reading for Anglophones interested in the République centrafricaine.
Niger's rulers would have expected this to be wrapped up by now, with the previous legal deadline for a new president to pass on the 22nd with a shrug. But fears (or hopes) remain that some of those most loyal to the project are looking to abandon their President
Join the second march on the UN by Guineans and their allies in New York City, Thursday December 8th. If you can't make it, there are ways to get involved, so please do!
As the "Abuja I" talks begin with ECOWAS, President Tandja of Niger is increasingly backed into a political and financial corner. Will his "6th Republic" be sacrificed as a way out?
The local elections are odd enough. But "Claude Levi-Strauss" is the 4th most popular search on Yahoo? Right between "Dancing With The Stars" and "H1N1 Symptoms".
I know all the debates about voting not changing anything, and while I tend to agree, I'm not asking you to overthrow capitalism with a vote. It won't do that. But it is a splendid soapbox.... So Vote Reverend Billy for NYC Mayor, Greg Pason for NJ Governor, and Debbie Rose for City Council.
Popular sound systems blend traditional sounds with DJ beats, and keep people across Bamako on their feet. But will Mali's capitol ban the "Balani Show" dance parties?
As I noted on the 10th of March, the CSRD junta in Niger has replaced all the civilian Region Governors with military men to administer local affairs during the transition. We now have the full list, and while I for one hate to see any military governing, a careful look at the men (all men) coming and going in Niger's Regions gives us an opportunity to examine what's going on behind the scenes, and what it augurs for the future.
More ...
Nigeriens were - are - undoubtedly pleased that the army stepped in to end a newly installed dictatorship. But criticisms of this so called "good coup" are beginning to appear even amongst its strongest supporters. With many months of transitional rule ahead, these whispers give us some idea of the problems the junta will soon face. 
One doesn't see much film, let alone color film, of colonial era African football. So you can imagine my delight when I stumbled across clips of a French colonial propaganda newsreel featuring the my favorite African club side wining a colonial cup final from 1956. 
The new military Junta in Niger has released their first real vision of their promised return to democracy. Niger's expectations, a redux of recent history, are being played to by the soldiers.
After a day of confusion, President Tandja and his supporters are under arrest by the military. I have maintained the live updates from the 18th, and added an in depth analysis of the new CSRD junta.
"Poets are feared by those in power that use violence, who are prosperous at the expense of the collective suffering." - Adamou Idé 
a dinosaur comic about about potable water conservation in sub-Saharan Africa?
The US government will make much of the arrests of three Malians who they say were part of a West African criminal network, devoted to drug smuggling and Osama Bin Laden. So far all we have is hype and what looks like the entrapment of low level criminals. 
The December 18th anniversary of the Nigerien Republic begins a series of dates which may bring the political crisis to a boil, just as mediators think they've made a breakthrough.
A brief look, if one is possible, at the simmering crisis in the northeast Central African Republic. As commentators try to come to grips with this often ignored nation, here is some recommended reading for Anglophones interested in the République centrafricaine.
Niger's rulers would have expected this to be wrapped up by now, with the previous legal deadline for a new president to pass on the 22nd with a shrug. But fears (or hopes) remain that some of those most loyal to the project are looking to abandon their President
Join the second march on the UN by Guineans and their allies in New York City, Thursday December 8th. If you can't make it, there are ways to get involved, so please do!
"If you watch it frame by frame you can pinpoint the exact moment his heart rips in half..."
Anti-fascist activist Ivan "Bonecrusher" Khutorskoy was murdered in Moscow this Monday. 
As the "Abuja I" talks begin with ECOWAS, President Tandja of Niger is increasingly backed into a political and financial corner. Will his "6th Republic" be sacrificed as a way out?
The local elections are odd enough. But "Claude Levi-Strauss" is the 4th most popular search on Yahoo? Right between "Dancing With The Stars" and "H1N1 Symptoms". 
I know all the debates about voting not changing anything, and while I tend to agree, I'm not asking you to overthrow capitalism with a vote. It won't do that. But it is a splendid soapbox.... So Vote Reverend Billy for NYC Mayor, Greg Pason for NJ Governor, and Debbie Rose for City Council. 
Popular sound systems blend traditional sounds with DJ beats, and keep people across Bamako on their feet. But will Mali's capitol ban the "Balani Show" dance parties?
A recent seizure of US arms in Nigeria highlights the profit and loss of small arms supplied to West Africa.
Blood on the streets of Conakry is a price the Junta is willing to pay for power.