Africa's Dysfunction
Africa, that vast continent of over 50 nations, all seemingly struggling to enter the 21st Century as responsible countries, governed by authorities ostensibly invested in looking to the welfare of their citizens, remains entangled and motivated by tribal and religious animosities. Some of these countries are rarely heard from, managing to motivate themselves to fair and just governance representing all their disparate-origined populations.Others consistently fail. Inter-regional disputes, nation-to-nation hostilities, territorial greed and cross-border claims of natural resources all serve to further cause strife. From Indigenous religion, animist to Christian to Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist and even Judaic traditions, there is more than ample cause for disagreements in that vast continent.
Sierra Leone, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Mali, Algeria, Sudan, Zimbabwe, are all known as countries where human rights abuses are rampant, where slaughters take place between members of different tribes and religions, and where there are institutionalized levels of human rights abuses against women. In many of the countries of North Africa where Arab Muslims live alongside the black Africans conflict takes on a deeper tone.
Sudan is well known in the annals of human desperation and degradation of having suffered enormously when the governing Arab Muslims led by Khartoum enacted a war of mass slaughter, mass rape, and wholesale uprooting of black Muslims from the Darfur region, still ongoing. The situation so dreadful that the International Criminal Court found Darfur's president, Omar al-Bashir, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
He is still president of Sudan, remains an honoured and protected member of the Arab League, and in November of 2012 Sudan was elected by the United Nations to its 54-member Economic and Social Council, a top United Nations body regulating human rights groups, shaping the composition of key UN women's rights groups, adopting resolutions on issues from Internet freedom to female genital mutilation.
This is Africa. This is the United Nations, the world body that represents peace among nations, and equality among human beings. The United Nations has undertaken to ensure that human rights remain at the top of the agenda for all its agencies. And now it appears as though the world will be seeing yet another African nation with a president who has been charged at the International Criminal Court with crimes against humanity.
Kenya's election results were posted by the country's election commission overnight, in the hopes that the results would not cause violence. It has declared the country's Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, son the founder of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, and its first Prime Minister and President, as having won election of the country's presidential position. He ran against his opponent Raila Odinga, in a reprise of the 2007 election that caused tribal tensions leading to murder.
Two months of tribal violence ensued from that 2007 election. And Uhuru Kenyatta was found indisputably guilty of having inspired much of the violence, urging his political party followers to kill their political opponents, resulting in over one thousand deaths. His running mate on the presidential ticket, William Ruto, faces similar charges.
This is a situation that does not sit well with the international community. With the West, in any event. The symbolism is stark; Kenya, considered at one time to have been the cradle of civilization thanks to the paleological early-hominid discoveries of the Leakey family, has turned its back on the future and faces the past, with its tribal vengeances and violent clashes.
The United States and Britain have indicated they would, if Uhuru Kenyatta assumed the presidency of Kenya, confine themselves to only essential contact with the Kenyan government. Raila Odinga's camp feels entitled to legally challenge the vote result on the basis of acknowledged break-down and errors in the counting process.
Labels: Africa, Conflict, Controversy, Corruption, Crime, Democracy, Human Relations, Human Rights, Sexism
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, March 09, 2013
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