Category: Africa
Africa
Nobel Peace Prize spotlights National Dialogue Quartet
National Catholic Reporter November 20, 2015 [Also in the Free Library]
The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize December 10 to a group of four Tunisian civil society groups that played a key role in their country’s transition to democracy is a reminder of how Arab peoples are quite capable of the difficult work of navigating their nation from dictatorship to democracy…
Hillary Clinton, phosphates, and the Western Sahara
National Catholic Reporter May 12, 2015 [Also by the Huffington Post]
For more than a half-century, a series of UN resolutions and rulings by the International Court of Justice have underscored the rights of inhabitants of countries under colonial rule or foreign military occupation. Among these is the right to “freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources,” which “must be based on the principles of equality and of the right of peoples and nations to self-determination”…
The contrasting fates of Tunisia and Libya
National Catholic Reporter June 8, 2015 [and Common Dreams]
The people of Libya and Tunisia both overthrew long-standing dictatorships in popular uprisings in 2011. Four years later, the political situation in these neighboring states could not be more different. The reason has much to do with how their regimes were overthrown…
Obama Ignores Morocco’s Illegal Occupation and Human Rights Abuses
Foreign Policy In Focus, December 20, 2013
Late last month, President Barack Obama met with Morocco’s King Mohammed VI in Washington for their first face-to-face meeting. The result was a bitter disappointment for supporters of human rights and international law.
Mandela’s utilitarianism and the struggle for liberation
Open Democracy, December 13, 2013
Republished by Huffington Post, International Center for Nonviolent Conflict, Scoop Independent News, New Zealand, and Dawson College Inspire Solutions Project.
While many western governments argued that the supposedly benevolent influence of western capital would lead to liberalization and an eventual end to South Africa’s apartheid system, and many on the left argued that liberation would come only through armed revolution, in fact it was largely unarmed resistance by the black majority and its supporters, both within South Africa and abroad, which proved decisive.
The Deteriorating Situation in Libya
On China Radio International October 22, 2013
The kidnapping and brief detention of the Libyan prime minister Ali Zeidan a couple of weeks back probably marked one of the lowest points for the civilian government in this vast country where, in the post-Gaddafi lawlessness, the situation seems to deteriorate by the week. It was also probably the point which showed the world just how prominent and daring these militias and various tribes are.
[The source link and recording for this item are
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Interview: “Blowback’s revenge” (video)
RT News September 27, 2013
Stephen Zunes joins a panel on CrossTalking that includes Kelley Vlahos, Richard Barrett to discuss whether the War on Terror actually generates more terrorists and victims. What are the lessons to be learned from the attack in Kenya? And, where is the logic in Washington indirectly backing Al-Qaeda in Syria and fighting terrorists elsewhere?
The Last Colony: Beyond Dominant Narratives on the Western Sahara Roundtable
Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI) June 3, 2013
[Republished by Dagsavisen.no, Jadaliyya.com, JADMAG, and Transnational.org]
Western Sahara is a sparsely-populated territory about the size of Italy, on the Atlantic coast in northwestern Africa, just south of Morocco. Traditionally inhabited by nomadic Arab tribes, collectively known as Sahrawis and famous for their long history of resistance to outside domination, the territory was occupied by Spain from the late 1800s through the mid-1970s. With Spain holding onto the territory well over a decade after most African countries had achieved their freedom from European colonialism, the nationalist Polisario Front launched an armed independence struggle against Spain in 1973. This (along with pressure from the United Nations) eventually forced Madrid to promise the people of what was then still known as the Spanish Sahara a referendum on the fate of the territory by the end of 1975. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) heard irredentist claims by Morocco and Mauritania and ruled in October of 1975 that (despite pledges of fealty to the Moroccan sultan back in the nineteenth century by some tribal leaders bordering the territory, and close ethnic ties between some Sahrawi and Mauritanian tribes) the right of self-determination was paramount. A special visiting mission from the United Nations engaged in an investigation of the situation in the territory that same year and reported that the vast majority of Sahrawis supported independence under the leadership of the Polisario, not integration with Morocco or Mauritania.
Interview: Inside the Decades-Long Dispute over the Western Sahara (audio)
KBIA FM May 2, 2013: Panelists: Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies, University of San Francisco, and Luis de Vega, Reporter, ABC daily newspaper.
Western Sahara is nearly as big as its northern neighbor, Morocco, but in truth, this stretch of desert along the Atlantic Ocean may be Africa’s most overlooked territorial dispute…
Western Sahara is nearly as big as its northern neighbor, Morocco, but in truth, this stretch of desert along the Atlantic Ocean may be Africa’s most overlooked territorial dispute…
Interview: Egypt: Election and IMF Loan (audio)
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The Mali Blowback: More to Come?
Foreign Policy In Focus February 1, 2013
[Republished by Transnational.org & ZNetwork]
The French-led military offensive in its former colony of Mali has pushed back radical Islamists and allied militias from some of the country’s northern cities, freeing the local population from repressive Taliban-style totalitarian rule. However, despite these initial victories, it raises concerns as to what unforeseen consequences may lay down the road. Indeed, it was such Western intervention—also ostensibly on humanitarian grounds—that was largely responsible for the Malian crisis in the first place…
Interview: French Military Incursion in Mali (audio)
The Scott Horton Show January 18, 2013
Zunes discusses the French military incursion in Mali; the hostage disaster in Algeria; the cascading failure of interventions from Libya to Mali and Algeria; why the US favors the tyrannical government in Morocco instead of the pro-democracy protestors; and how a heavy-handed foreign policy bolsters the most radical opposition groups…
Interview: The Threat of Western Military Intervention in Mali (audio)
The Scott Horton Show January 11, 2013
In part 1, Zune discusses the threat of Western military intervention in Mali; the next generation of Islamic extremists motivated by Saudi-funded madrassas and the U.S. occupation of Iraq; and the non-governmental militias fighting for the spoils in Libya.
The Attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya and Anti-American Protests Sweeping the Middle East (audio)
Source is no longer available online. See related links.
Africa Today (audio)
Source is no longer available online. See related links.
The Reality of Western Sahara
Global Post August 2, 2012, by Stephen Zunes Earlier this year, Global Post ran an article by Jordan Paul, executive director of the Moroccan American Center for Policy, a registered foreign agent for the Moroccan government, which funds, supervises, and coordinates the group’s activities. The article contained a series of demonstrably false claims attempting to rationalize for Morocco’s illegal occupation of its southern neighbor, the country of Western Sahara. In 1975, the kingdom of Morocco conquered Western Sahara on the eve of its anticipated independence from Spain in defiance of a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a landmark 1975 decision by the International Court of Justice…
Divesting from All Occupations
Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies July 25, 2012.
Republished by Transnational.org et al.
In response to ongoing violations of international law and basic human rights by the rightist Israeli government of Benyamin Netanyahu in the occupied West Bank and elsewhere, there has been a growing call for divestment of stocks in corporations supporting the occupation… Still, the campaign has scored notable successes…
Interview: Libyan National Assembly Election (audio)
Source is no longer available online. See related links.
Sudan’s protests become civil insurrection
OpenDemocracy.net, July 6, 2012, by Stephen Zunes,
and CETRI Le Sud en mouvement (Belgium).
A growing anti-government movement consisting of nonviolent demonstrations as well as scattered rioting is beginning to threaten the Sudanese dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, an indicted war criminal, who has ruled this large North African nation for 23 years. Beginning as protests against strict austerity measures imposed three weeks ago, the chants of the protesters have escalated to “the people want to overthrow the regime,” the line heard in recent uprisings in other Arab countries, including Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and Syria. Could Sudan be the next Arab country in which an autocratic government is brought down in a largely nonviolent civil insurrection?