Africa News Briefs

Mar. 6 (GIN) – An armory packed with shells, rockets, and other munitions exploded with an ear-splitting blast in a densely populated neighborhood of Brazzaville, the Congolese capital. At least 246 people were reported killed in the disaster. Firefighters fought the blaze for close to 48 hours.

  

The huge blast seen on national television showed the destruction of every single building within a 1.25 mile radius, including a tank regiment, three schools and two churches that had been conducting their Sunday services nearby.

 

Survivors in Brazzaville described the scene as 'apocalyptic' as twisted sheets of metal littered the streets while churches, hospitals and homes were left in ruins.

 

Congo’s director-general of health, Prof. Elira Dokekias, told AP that the capitals' hospitals were treating 1,340 injured people and that 60 were awaiting urgent surgery.

 

The fire appeared to threaten another depot just 100 yards away holding even more lethal weapons, which could also explode.

 

The spread of munitions stockpiled in residential areas was the subject of recent U.S. State Dept. fact sheet “Dangerous Depots: A Growing Humanitarian Problem”. Since 1990s, catastrophic explosions at arms storage facilities have increased around the world with some 218 known incidents resulting in more than 4,700 fatalities and nearly 5,700 injuries. The proliferation of weapons worldwide is likely to increase the problems of finding safe storage for dangerous arms.

 

Mar 6 (GIN) – New Jersey’s only black congressman, Donald Payne, was a singular voice for the cause of democracy in Africa, even in the face of opposition by American business interests and other Members of Congress.

 

He visited more African countries than most of his counterparts on the Hill. One tour of 12 days with President Bill Clinton in 1998 took him to Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa, Botswana and Senegal. It led to a new appreciation of African countries advancing toward democracy.

 

After a short battle with colon cancer, Congressman Payne passed away on Mar. 6. He was 77. His death was marked in a number of Nigerian newspapers and websites.

 

Still early in his career, Congressman Payne had drafted legislation urging a return to democracy after elections clearly won by the civilian Moshood Abiola were annulled by Nigeria’s military. The bill won 56 co-sponsors but ultimately failed to end the country’s spiral deeper into military rule and corruption.

 

He was among the first to label the killings in the Darfur region of Sudan as “genocide” and in 2009, on another trip to Africa, he narrowly escaped a mortar attack in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.

 

A government fellowship in the Congressman’s name was announced this week, modeled after the State Dept.’s Rangel Fellowship Program. It will provide support for graduate work for minority students and entry into the USAID’s foreign service.

 

Mar. 6 (GIN) – South African public service workers plan to occupy the streets country-wide to protest new road tolls and the use of labor brokers that lock workers into low wage temporary jobs.

 

Some 100,000 workers will join the protest, according to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), an umbrella labor group with over two million members.

 

“The combination of the proposed toll fees and spiraling increases in the price of food, fuel, electricity, transport costs and high interest rates heighten the anxiety of many people who are struggling to survive,” said Sarah Nicklin, a spokesperson for the Black Sash, a social justice group.

 

Other groups supporting this week’s action include the South African Democratic Nurses' Union and the Treatment Action Campaign which declared "war” on labor broking.

 

The National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa said: “Government and business must know that the future development of this country can never be on the basis of a race to the bottom by the working class in support of this backward primitive system of labor brokering.

 

"The ANC-led government must be about the fundamental transformation of the South Africa economy instead of trapping the country into perpetual brutal exploitation and marginalization of the working class and the poor.”

 

Government however appears to be digging in its heels. "This is a legal matter and Cabinet will not tolerate any disobedience to the law,” said cabinet member Jimmy Manyi. “If anyone is not obeying the law, then the law will take its course... People must not have any illusions ... the tolls are a reality," he said.

 

Drivers of e-tag vehicles will pay 30 cents a kilometer, down from 66 cents as originally planned.

 

 

Mar. 6 (GIN) – A gas fire that burned for 46 days off Nigeria’s coast has been extinguished according to the Chevron Corp of San Ramon, California, but a full clean up is far from over.

 

The oil company rig exploded Jan. 16, killing two people before it collapsed into the sea. The explosion started a fire on the ocean surface but the damage reached a village some six miles away.

 

Fishermen in Koluama complained of fumes, dead dolphins on their white sand shore. Drinking water and fish tasted like fuel, they said.

 

"The gas is inside the fish," said Bravely Salvage, youth chairman for the village. "After eating the fish you feel like somebody who drunk diesel, you feel dizzy."

 

"There are very clear ecological impacts, that are not hidden, that are very visible," said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of the environmental advocacy group, Friends of the Earth International. He cited dead fish and a beached whale. "If one whale dies, it means several thousands of smaller species have been impacted." The fire, he said, was “the worst in African history in terms of gas burned.”

 

Chevron said its tests hadn't found pollution in the air or water but that it would hire investigators from a nearby Nigerian university to conduct further studies.

 

The United Nations Environment Program in August estimated it would take 30 years and cost $1 billion to clean up oil spilled over decades into Nigeria's river deltas. Oil companies and Nigeria's government should share the cost, the U.N. group said.  w/pix of exposed oil pipes in Koluama

 

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NNIMMO BASSEY will be guest speaker at the opening of the LEFT FORUM, a three-day annual conference of progressives and activists at Pace University in New York City. The conference opens on Mar. 16, Friday, and runs until Sunday, Mar. 18. Mr. Bassey will speak at the Friday plenary and on Saturday at 3 p.m. For more information, visit www.leftforum.org