ETHIOPIA PRESIDENT MAY BE UNABLE TO RESUME POST, WORRYING REGIONAL LEADERS
Jul. 31 (GIN) - Though the Ethiopian government has denied reports that the country’s leader has been admitted to a Belgian hospital, or that he has gone into a coma, there is little doubt that Zenawi is not well, the Kenya-based Africa Review is reporting.
ETHIOPIA PRESIDENT MAY BE UNABLE TO RESUME POST, WORRYING REGIONAL LEADERS
Jul. 31 (GIN) - Though the Ethiopian government has denied reports that the country’s leader has been admitted to a Belgian hospital, or that he has gone into a coma, there is little doubt that Zenawi is not well, the Kenya-based Africa Review is reporting.
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“East African leaders need to start worrying about what his impending exit will mean for the region,” a recent editorial warns.
“Ethiopia is not just an important country in the greater Horn of Africa but also in the rest of Africa and the world,” said Abdillahi Jama, a member of the Independent Federal Constitutional Commission of Somalia.
Pres. Zenawi’s hand has been in numerous national projects – from the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Project, the Nile River Basin Co-operative Framework, to the controversial Gibe III dam that will generate power for export to Kenya, Sudan, and Djibouti, among others.
But he is most internationally regarded for his support of western security initiatives. Since 2000, Ethiopia has collaborated closely with the US in covert missions against radical Islamists in Somalia, carrying out large-scale military operations with an occupation force still in place.
Ethiopia has the largest number of troops in the greater Horn of East Africa, and is the fourth most powerful military on the continent after South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt.
Meles' entrenched one-party rule in Ethiopia has caused resentment in his homeland, Tigray, and among the Amhara elite, the ethnic minority who previously ruled Ethiopia. The Oromo, who represent nearly a third of Ethiopia’s close to 90 million population, have been seeking greater freedom, while the Amhara, at nearly 20 million and traditional rulers for most of the 3,000 years of Ethiopian history, have been locked out of power.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front is another group fighting for independence since 1984.
If Zenawi passes, the cohesion of this security and political structure could be at serious risk. w/pix of Pres. Zenawi
SOUTH AFRICA'S 'DYLAN' - FROM DETROIT - FINDS NEW FAME AND A FILM
Jul 31 (GIN) – Singer-songwriter Sixto Diaz Rodriguez was said to have died onstage, set himself on fire, or was a lifer who wrote all his music in jail.
In fact, he was a Mexican-American, born and bred in Detroit, who could play guitar. A bootleg copy of his record “Cold Fact” wound up in South Africa, drawing a huge number of fans. It was the early ’70s, and the lyrics expressed a generation’s discontents: “Garbage ain't collected, women ain't protected, Politicians using, people they're abusing, The mafia's getting bigger, like pollution in the river, And you tell me that this is where it's at…”
“Cold Fact” bombed in the U.S. but was a smash hit overseas.
After a brief African tour, he returned to the U.S., never knowing he had become a major star with a mythical ending – his presumed death. But rumors of his survival brought a record store owner from Cape Town to his door and soon the artist would learn of his fame and a film of his amazing life's journey would be made.
“Rodriquez was as big as Dylan or Lennon or Hendrix to us growing up under Apartheid South Africa, but his words resonated more," wrote a blogger after the film's premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. "He is a profound lyricist and I truly hope that the rest of the world discovers this diamond of a soul.”
“Searching for Sugar Man” – after the title of a Rodriguez song – was filmed by first-time Stockholm-based documentarian Malik Bendjelloul. It has opened in New York and Los Angeles. A website www.sugarman.org will provide updates on other screenings. w/pix of S. Rodriguez
CRASH THAT KILLED 3 U.S. ARMY COMMANDOS AND 3 PROSTITUTES IN MALI STILL A PUZZLE
Jul. 31 (GIN) – Questions continue to be raised about the three U.S. Army Commanders killed alongside three women alleged to be prostitutes after their rented Toyota Land Cruiser went off the Martyr’s Bridge in Bamako, Mali, West Africa, last April.
The three military men were Special Operations Forces.
“What were the men doing in the impoverished country of Mali?” wrote Washington Post staffer Craig Whitlock in a recent piece. “And why were they still there a month after the United States suspended military relations with its government? ... This is at the crux of a mystery that officials have not fully explained even 10 weeks later.”
Whitlock covers the Pentagon and national security for the DC paper.
According to the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the accident is “currently under investigation.”
The story raises anew the troubling image of a fast-growing U.S. military presence on the continent, as affirmed by the head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Europe, Asia and Africa section.
Africa is "the new frontier in terms of counterterrorism and counternarcotics," said the DEA's Jeffrey P. Breeden. “It’s a place that we need to get ahead of — we’re already behind the curve in some ways, and we need to catch up.”
In an editorial this week in the Washington Examiner, columnist Gene Healy observed: “Four years ago, few would have predicted that one of President Obama's legacies would be increased militarization of U.S. policy toward Africa -- but that seems to be the case.”
Meanwhile, Mali’s interim president ended his treatment in France for injuries sustained in an attack by opponents and has returned to Mali to put the final touches on a unity government, on the eve of a deadline set by foreign partners. w/pix of Malian in Africom training
DRUG TRAFFICKING EXPLODES IN ‘COUP-PRONE’ GUINEA BISSAU
Jul. 31 (GIN) – A massive drug trade in the West African coastal nation of Guinea Bissau is worrying world leaders at the United Nations. An international summit is being considered to see how democratic rule could be restored to the coup-prone nation.
Military officers overthrew the last president, Raimundo Pereira, on April 12.
About a quarter to two-thirds of the cocaine from South America to Europe passes through West African countries, specifically Cape Verde, Mali, Benin, Togo and Nigeria, Guinea-Bissau, and Ghana. As reported by the World Drug Report, "The cocaine found in Africa originates mainly in Colombia and Peru and frequently transits through Brazil.”
Francisco Thoumi, a Colombian economist, noted that: “profitable illegal economic activity requires not only profitability, but also weak social and state controls on individual behavior… a society where government laws are easily evaded and social norms tolerate such evasion.”
Much like the deadly Mexican drug trade, traffickers pay for their safety by recruiting policemen, army officers and cabinet ministers to cooperate in the business.
“West Africa is changing more and more from being just a stockpiling place into a hub where cocaine is traded,” said Antonio Mazzitelli, regional representative for the U.N.
Still, multinational corporations find reasons to do business in the notorious drug trade hub. Angola, a major investor, has a $500 million project to develop a bauxite mine and a deep-water port, among other projects. Contracts for the nascent offshore oil, gold and phosphate sector are held by Swiss, Chinese and Canadian companies.
MUCH-LOVED FUNK AND SOUL ARTIST IS ‘OVER THE MOON’ WITH NEW HIGH SCHOOL DEGREE
Jul. 31 (GIN) - Forty-four years after he dropped out of school, Sipho “Hotstix” Mabuse has gone back to the classroom and passed the exams he missed.
His efforts won praise from South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma and prompted the 60 year old artist to say: "I'm elated! ... I'm just over the moon. I had set out to do this thing and the joy is indescribable. I really wanted to do it for myself and my late parents. They would be pleased, wherever they are."
From his days with the African soul group the Beaters in the mid-1970s, Mabuse took his band “Harari” – after a tour in Zimbabwe – into a new direction, drawing from American-style funk, soul, and pop music, sung in Zulu and Sotho as well as English. He recorded and produced for, among others, Miriam Makeba, Hugh Masekela, Ray Phiri and Sibongile Khumalo.
Mabuse recorded "Burn Out" in the early 1980s and "Jive Soweto"with saxophonist West Nkosi, which became an unofficial anthem of the anti-apartheid movement.
A leading force in the political group, South African Musicians Against Apartheid, in 1986, Mabuse currently works with the South African Musician's Alliance.
Mabuse said his six children encouraged him. "They said you can't expect us to be educated when you're not. I felt I had to lead by example and they're very proud of me." w/pix of Sipho "Hotstix" Mabuse
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