In the last year, to visit Sudan has been to undertake an exercise in schizophrenia. In the run-up to a referendum in January on whether to split Africa’s largest country in two, the mostly Christian south was – against all odds – about to pull off a peaceful and credible referendum on independence, despite medieval poverty and barely …
Sudan
Abyei: The Flashpoint of a Sudanese Maelstrom
By mid-January, the world heaved a massive sigh of relief when a hotly anticipated referendum over the secession of southern Sudan passed with minimal violence. In July, South Sudan is set to formally become an independent state, sundering in half Africa’s biggest country. But as more high-profile conflicts raged in the Ivory Coast, …
African Dictators: Paranoid Much?
Will North Africa’s tide of revolution sweep across the Sahara into southern Africa? It’s a question much on the mind of African analysts and, possibly, not a few African dictators. Consistent reports, and videos and photographs, have shown unidentified well-disciplined African soldiers patrolling the Libyan capital Tripoli. …