Articles
Horror among S. African soldiers over armed ‘kids’in rebel ranks
Category: International Written by Courier Newsroom
A YOUNG SOLDIER
(Global International Network)—After a deadly confrontation that mismatched 200 soldiers with 3,000 rebel troops, South Africans sent to the Central African Republic counted their losses, the heaviest military loss since the end of apartheid in 1994.
Thirteen soldiers were killed in Bangui, the CAR capital, in clashes with Seleka rebels who toppled the dictatorial President Francois Bozize, now believed in hiding in nearby Benin.
Another 27 were wounded and flown back to South Africa.
But especially troubling to the South Africans was finding that among the Seleka rebels were children, some no older than 4th grade.
“They knew how to advance, put down suppressing fire, withdraw, use camouflage,” one troop member told the Sunday Times newspaper. “They knew we had no support…they had intelligence on us…they knew our movements, our numbers, our capabilities…everything about us.
“It was only after the firing stopped that we saw we had killed kids.
“We did not come here for this…It makes you sick. They were crying, calling for help…calling for [their] moms.”
A paratrooper said: “We were told to serve and protect, to ensure peace.” The mission, however, morphed from training CAR soldiers, to protecting South African property, and finally to protecting civilians around the capital.
“All along we were told they were a bunch of rag-tags, nothing to worry about. We were lied to straight out,” he said of the Seleka rebels. “They were well armed.”
The deployment of South African troops in a country over 2,000 miles away is now facing stiff criticism at home where some say it was prompted by mining interests of the ANC.
Opposition leader Helen Zille told a news conference that President Jacob Zuma had told an “untruth” to Parliament when he said the soldiers were being sent to the CAR for capacity building and training in terms of a memorandum of understanding with Mr Bozize.
“What makes this intervention even more disturbing is that the deployment was reportedly undertaken against expert military advice, allegedly to protect the business interests of a politically connected elite, both in South Africa and in the CAR.
“If this is so, President Zuma’s position—both as president of the republic and commander-in-chief of the armed forces—becomes untenable,” she said. The nation must know the truth.”
President Zuma meanwhile, has rebuffed the critics, calling the troops “heroes” sent to uphold South Africa’s foreign policy and protect a contingent of military trainers sent in 2007 under a military cooperation agreement.
“Let me emphasize that we reject any insinuation that these soldiers were sent to the CAR for any reason other than in pursuit of the national interest and the interests of the African continent,” he said at a memorial for the soldiers.
No decision has been made to withdraw fully from CAR. This will be “determined by a political process which is now unfolding,” said Defense Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula. Meanwhile, troop build-up has been reported in neighboring Uganda. A final decision about the CAR is expected shortly.
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 10 April 2013 10:15
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Beyonce, Jay-Z turn heads in Havana
Category: International Written by Associated Press
CELEBRATING ANNIVERSARY--Beyonce and her husband, rapper Jay-Z, are surrounded by body guards as they tour Old Havana in Cuba, April 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
by Andrea Rodriguez
HAVANA (AP) — Beyonce and Jay-Z caused a big stir in Havana as they marked their fifth wedding anniversary Thursday.
Last Updated on Friday, 05 April 2013 07:49
Hits: 629
Chinua Achebe, celebrated Nigerian novelist, dies
Category: International Written by Associated Press
ACCLAIMED NOVELIST DIES--Chinua Achebe, Nigerian-born novelist and poet poses his life at his home on the campus of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
NEW YORK (AP) — The opening sentence was as simple, declarative and revolutionary as a line out of Hemingway:
Last Updated on Sunday, 24 March 2013 14:14
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Western opposition to Kenyatta may have given him the edge
Category: International Written by Courier Newsroom
Uhuru Kenyatta supporters
(Kenya—Global Information Network)—Announced plans by an Amsterdam-based court to prosecute Uhuru Kenyatta for his role in the mayhem that convulsed Kenya in disputed polls in 2007, may have given him the edge to trounce his nearest rival, Raila Odinga, according to locally-based analysts.
Presidential candidate Kenyatta was proclaimed the winner of Kenya’s election with 50.07 percent of the March 4 vote.
Charges against Kenyatta by the International Criminal Court and warnings against his election by Johnnie Carson, U.S. Asst. Secretary of State, were widely viewed as interference in national affairs.
“They were the defining narrative” of the election,” said Aly-Khan Satchu, a Kenyan financier.
Also objectionable in the eyes of many Kenyans was the obsessive fixation of western media on outbreaks of violence. A recent piece by Cornell University professor Mukoma Wa Ngugi compared coverage in 2013 to the coverage of the air force-led coup attempt in Kenya in 1982.
At that time, he recalled, “we sat glued to our transistor radio listening to the BBC and Voice of America” The two services were “lifelines through which we learned what was happening in our country.” But in 2013, “I and many other Kenyans saw western media coverage of the elections as a joke, a caricature. Western journalists have been left behind by an Africa moving forward, not in a straight line… but forward nonetheless.”
Wa Ngugi cited descriptives such as “tribal blood-letting,” and “loyalists from rival tribes” (Reuters) and video images of five men playing warriors with homemade guns (CNN). “Very few Kenyans took it seriously,” he wrote. “Rather, it was slap your knee funny.”
A piece in The Daily Nation satirically titled “Foreign reporters armed and ready to attack Kenya” observed tongue in cheek – “The demand for clichés is outstripping supply.”
Wa Ngugi continued: “Africans are saying that (western) journalists are not representing the complex truth of the continent; that western journalists are not only misrepresenting the truth, but are in spirit working against the continent.
“When it comes to writing about Africa, journalists suddenly have to make a choice between extraordinary violence and ordinary life. It should not be a question of either the extreme violence or quiet happy times, but rather a question of telling the whole story… “
Elsewhere in Kenya, voters chose the country’s first female Maasai MP. Peris Pesi Tobiko was elected from the Maasai community, which is largely patriarchal and where women often struggle to be heard.
Last Updated on Wednesday, 03 April 2013 06:07
Hits: 1403
UN adopts plan to combat violence against women
Category: International Written by Associated Press
PROTEST--An Egyptian protester shouts slogans as she holds an anti-Muslim brotherhood poster during a protest in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, March 2. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
by Edith M. Lederer
Associated Press Writer
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Conservative Muslim and Roman Catholic countries and liberal Western nations approved a U.N. blueprint to combat violence against women and girls, ignoring strong objections from Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood that it clashed with Islamic principles and sought to destroy the family.
Last Updated on Sunday, 17 March 2013 13:09
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