Fate of Africa by Meredith
Ref: Martin Meredith (2011). The Fate of Africa: A History of the Continent since Independence. PublicAffairs Publishing.
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Summary
The Post-Colonial Geopolitical history of Africa.
By the time the Scramble for Africa was over, some 10,000 African polities had been amalgamated into 40 European colonies and protectorates. Thus, were born the modern states of Africa. Nearly one half of the new frontiers imposed on Africa were geometric lines, lines of latitude and longitude, other straight lines or arcs of circles; African societies were rent apart.
The most difficult task facing Africa’s new leaders was to weld into nations a variety of different peoples, speaking different languages and at different stages of political and social development. The new states of Africa were not ‘nations’. They possessed no ethnic, class or ideological cement to hold them together, no strong historical and social identities upon which to build.
At independence, all African leaders saw themselves as bastions of Western civilization, striving to uphold standards in a continent prone to strife and instability.
The root cause of many African conflicts was common: an ageing dictator, entrenched in power for decades, determined to maintain his grip whatever the cost.
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Africa Post Independence
Economics
There was a widespread view at independence that once new states focused on nation-building and economic development, ethnic loyalties would wither away under the pressure of modernization.
The favored economic route was industrialization hoping it would break colonial trading patterns and end dependence on a narrow range of commodity exports and manufactured imports. It would have a far more ‘modernizing’ impact than agriculture, providing higher productivity and creating urban employment.
The recommended form of industrialization was import-substituting industry; it would replace the need for imported goods by developing local manufacturing production for domestic markets, thereby improving the balance of payments position and saving foreign exchange. What was envisaged in essence was a shift from low-productivity agriculture to high-productivity manufacturing.
At independence, on average less than 10% of the African population at independence earned a wage.
Politics
Ideologically, most governments opted for African socialism, believing it held the potential for fast growth.
The sediment of colonial rule lay deep in African society. Traditions of autocratic governance, paternalism and dirigisme were embedded in the institutions the new leaders inherited.
Ethnicity provided the strongest political base. Politicians and voters alike came to rely on ethnic solidarity. For politicians it was the route to power. They became, in effect, ethnic entrepreneurs.
Population
Post-independence, in 35 African capitals, the population increased annually at 8.5%, doubling in size every ten years. Between 1950 and 1980, Africa’s population tripled.
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Trends in Post-Colonial African Governance
Politics
Pork-Barrel Projects & Grandstanding prioritizing the needs of politically important urban groups over attending to the interests of scattered rural populations.
Tribalism, patronage with patrimonial rule, and Inner-Circle Allegiance with leaders surrounded by sycophants and praised daily by the press; used for political messaging.
Prioritization of short-term political and physical survival, and deal-making over long-term recovery and nation building
Ill prepared leaders, resentful of criticism and Increasingly remote from the realities of crisis.
Suppression of political opposition with rigged and single- candidate elections.
Political debate as a matter of platitudes and praise-songs.
Deterioration of Multi-Party Politics to competition between tribal blocs and alliances.
Parliaments, government bureaucracies, trade unions, farmers organizations, press, and more, packed with supporters with prioritization given to family, tribe, and military, all chosen for obedience.
Regularly rotating and reshuffling of ministers to keep them off-balance and to prevent them from becoming a threat.
Donor Pressure and resentment towards interfering foreigners demanding austerity measures.
A push towards Socialism/Communism while maintaining a façade of democracy sufficient to obtain foreign aid; “as long as the state machine was able to afford distributing largesse, critics of the system remained muted.”
Economics
Government priorities Inconsistent with economic growth (or even recovery).
Massive population growth hindering economic growth and unemployment.
Nationalization of foreign owned enterprises without compensation, forcing emigration and economic collapse.
Rise of Black Markets.
Budget reduction focused on soft targets; preference to cut investment and maintenance outlays vice personal expenditures and sustaining patronage networks.
Prioritization of foreign aid as the main concept of development and as a substitute for government.
Donor Fatigue compounded by lack of progress.
Massive wealth gap between the rich elite living in plush villas, elegant apartment buildings and town houses, and the masses surviving in slums and bidonvilles on the fringes of towns.
Decline in Exports continent wide.
Overvalued exchange rates used to reduce the cost of food imports.
Farming as an increasingly unattractive occupation. Faced with low producer prices, inadequate marketing systems, poor extension services, lack of investment in rural areas and shortages of credit facilities, farmers deserted in droves, some heading for urban areas, some resorting to subsistence agriculture.
Pervasive Corruption
Predatory Politics of Ruling Elite seeking personal gain, often precipitating violence for their own ends.
Transnational smuggling of resources.
Bribery and Embezzlement; from politicians, tax collectors, customs officers, policemen, postal clerks and dispensary assistants, affecting everything from job applications to licenses, scholarships, foreign exchange and the location of factories.
Hierarchical, Authoritarian, and highly bureaucratic institutions leading to failure to perform essential tasks, to waste and inefficiency.
Government officials who tended to be unqualified or ill-qualified, idle, undisciplined, arrogant and above all corrupt, such that fraud as well as inefficiency abounded within the parastatal sector.’
Power
Military Dictatorships and Autocratic Governments.
Accumulation of positions of power, wealth, and status, over societal transformation.
Vicious Cycle of rising to power and moving to amass a fortune from public funds iot win the next election.
Recognition that holding power was pendent on the Army’s Loyalty.
Environmental
Desertification, Loss of Arable Land, Overgrazing, Deforestation, Soil Erosion and degradation due to subdivision of plots too small to sustain its occupants and forcing peasants to turn towards cultivating more and more marginal land, in areas of unreliable rainfall or on slopes. Between 1973 and 1988 Africa lost as much as 15 million acres of pasture.
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Geopolitical Solutions in Africa
Political Reform; honest government, rule of law, and political democracy, as essential conditions for Open Economic Reform.
Concerted Attack on Corruption from the highest to lowest levels.
Accountability by encouraging freedom of speech, freedom of press, and public debate.
Strict fiscal discipline, lower government deficits, privatization, trade liberalization and export-driven growth.
Fostering grassroots and NGOs such as farmers associations.
Industrialization as the key to Economic Development.
Devalue currencies, removal of subsidies, reduction of tariff barriers, raise in agricultural commodity prices, cutting back bloated bureaucracies, selling or closing state enterprises, deregulating prices, reducing budget deficits and public borrowing, and lifting restrictions on foreign investment.
Push governments to shift from consumption to investment.
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Development Aid and Macroeconomics
1980s: Africa ‘Lost Decade’ due to steep Economic Decline.
Africa was slipping into its own bleak category. Per capita income in black Africa, with a population of 450M, was lower than it had been in 1960. Growth per capita during the 1980s contracted by an annual rate of 2.2%. External debt tripled, reaching $160B, a sum exceeding gross national product. Debt service alone accounted for 25% of exports of goods and services. Only about half of the servicing payments due were actually paid, but even then, the outflow exceeded the inflow of foreign aid and investment. Government deficits were running at an average of more than 6% compared with 2% in 1980.
Measured in real terms, foreign aid doubled during the 1980s, growing from $7.6B a year to $15B. In addition, a total of $6B of debt was cancelled. But while public finances had become highly dependent on donor support, the lack of progress in Africa was precipitating ‘donor fatigue’.
During the 1980s some 36 governments in sub-Saharan Africa entered into stabilization agreements with the IMF or structural adjustment programmes with the World Bank. In all, a total of 243 loan agreements were made.
Africa, by the end of the 1980s, was renowned for its Big Men, dictators who strutted the stage, tolerating neither opposition nor dissent, rigging elections, emasculating the courts, cowing the press, stifling the universities, demanding abject servility and making themselves exceedingly rich.
By the end of the 1980s, not a single African head of state in three decades had allowed himself to be voted out of office. Of some 150 heads of state who had trodden the African stage, only six had voluntarily relinquished power, including Senegal’s Léopold Senghor, after 20 years in office; Cameroon’s Ahmadu Ahidjo, after 22 years in office; and Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, after 23 years in office.
The average interest rate for new commitments climbed from 5.5% in 1977 to 9.3% in 1981. Between 1970 and 1980, black Africa’s external debts rose from $6- $38B. When debt repayments from current earnings became more and more difficult, governments contracted new loans to repay debt in the hope that market conditions would improve. By 1982 external debts had reached $66B. A year later they were $86B.
Most states are effectively bankrupt, weighed down by debt, barely able to raise sufficient funds on their own account to provide a minimum of public services. By the late 1990s, more than half already relied on Western aid to fund as much as 50% of government budgets and 70% of public investment.
Determined to protect their own producers, industrialized countries operate a system of subsidies and tariff barriers that have a crippling effect on African producers. The total value of their agricultural subsidies amounts to more than $1B a day– $400B a year – nearly as much as the GDP of the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. Western surpluses produced at a fraction of their real cost are then dumped on African markets, undermining domestic producers. Simultaneously, African products face tariff barriers imposed by industrialized countries, effectively shutting them out of Western markets.
Production costs for Cotton in West Africa are about $.4 a pound. By comparison, production costs in the United States are more than twice as high. But the US provides its 25,000 cotton farmers with an annual subsidy of $3B– more than the value of the entire crop. US farmers have therefore been able to export cotton at one-third of what it costs them to produce. In addition to US subsidies, the EU supports its cotton producers with a subsidy amounting to about $1B a year. A World Bank study estimated that it would be three times cheaper for Europe to import cotton than to grow it in Spain or Greece, where the subsidy paid to farmers is far more than the market price of cotton. In similar fashion, African farmers have struggled to compete against a wide range of other subsidized agricultural products – European sugar, Asian rice, Italian tomatoes, Dutch onions; many have been forced out of business.
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European Colonization
Europeans knew Africa more as a coastline than a continent; their presence had been confined mainly to small, isolated enclaves on the coast used for trading purposes; only in Algeria and in southern Africa had more substantial European settlement taken root.
Colonial governments were concerned above all to make their territories financially self-supporting. Administration was thus kept to a minimum; education was placed in the hands of Christian missionaries; economic activity was left to commercial companies. The main functions of government were limited to maintaining law and order, raising taxation, and providing an infrastructure of roads and railways.
The whole of French Equatorial Africa in the mid-1930s was run by 206 administrative officers. French West Africa, comprising eight territories with a population of 15 million, was served by only 385 colonial administrators. The whole of British tropical Africa, where 43 million people lived, was governed by 1,200 administrators. Belgium ran the Congo in 1936 with 728 administrators.
African colonies became significant exporters of minerals and agricultural commodities such as groundnuts, palm oil, cotton, coffee, cocoa, and sisal.
Belgian Colonies: Zaire (DRC), Rwanda, Burundi
Politics: Not Permitted.
British Colonies: Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia.
Politics
System of indirect rule, using African authorities to keep order, collect taxes, and supply labor.
Development of Multi-racial societies.
Cautious move towards self-government with no shortcuts and long apprenticeship; estimated at 10-15 years minimum.
Major Development Programs in Agriculture, Transport, Education, and Health.
French Colonies: Algeria, Benin, Brazzaville, Burkina Faso, CAR, Chad, Cote D’Ivoire, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia.
Internal Autonomy; each territory acquired its own PM, cabinet, and assembly with control over budget, civil service, public works, and primary education.
Colonial control of foreign affairs, defense, and economics.
German Colonies: Tanganyika, Namibia.
Politics: Not Permitted.
Portuguese Colonies: Angola, Mozambique.
Politics: Not Permitted.
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Rise of Radical Islam
A growing movement sought to revive Islam, demanding stricter adherence to its tenets, believing that religion rather than secular ideology offered a solution to social, economic, and political problems.
Debate within the Islamic movement concerned the extent to which the sharia – Islamic law – should prevail over the workings of society. Some groups, taking a lead from Saudi Arabia, emphasized the need to apply Islamic law in such traditional areas as family and penal law. Other groups, influenced by Iran, stressed that it should extend to state institutions and economic policy. Moderate intellectuals aimed to ‘Islamize modernity’, by accepting the West’s technology and administrative skills while reforming its moral corruption in accordance with Islamic law and using Islamic institutions as the basis of government.
Islamist ideas took root in university circles among teachers resistant to Western models of political modernism. Many saw Islam as the only counterculture capable of confronting Western hegemony.
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China & Africa
While the West focuses upon good governance and democracy as being essential ingredients to progress, China undermines these efforts by setting up lucrative deals with dictators, despots and unsavory regimes, with no strings attached, helping them to remain in power while ignoring human-rights abuses. While Western interest in Africa has flagged, China has stepped into the breach with growing ambition, seeing vast opportunities emerging in what the Chinese had hitherto regarded as Europe’s backyard.
Critics accuse the Chinese of worsening the level of corruption, of violating labor laws, damaging the environment, and flooding markets with cheap products that ruin local industries.
Many African leaders welcome China’s pragmatic, business-first approach to Africa, preferring it to Western meddling and lectures about elections, corruption, transparency, and human rights.
1970s-1980s: China maintained a low-key approach to Africa, concentrating on aid projects in select countries and presenting itself as a poor but principled alternative to Cold War powers.
1990s: Zou Chuqu (‘go global’); China begins encouraging state corporations and private enterprises to find new export markets and expand their operations overseas. Chinese contractors originally involved in carrying out Chinese aid projects started bidding for other contracts in Africa. Joint ventures were established in the oil and mining sectors, in power generation, manufacturing and telecommunications. In exchange for deals over oil and mineral supplies needed to fuel its burgeoning industries, China undertook to build roads, railways, refineries, schools, hospitals, and football stadiums. Thousands of Chinese businessmen followed in the slipstream of major projects, establishing factories, buying property, investing in farms, retail outlets and restaurants. Chinese products and traders became a common feature in many African cities and rural towns. By 2000, some 42,000 Chinese engineers and skilled laborers were working in Africa; and two-way trade had reached $10B.
Lacking the economic resources to compete with Russia on trade and aid, the Chinese hoped to gain more by spreading revolutionary ideology. They focused on dissident groups, such as the Sawaba movement in Niger, Tutsi exiles in Burundi and opposition factions in Kenya. After setting up embassy quarters in a Greek-owned hotel in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, in 1964, they dabbled extensively in rebel activities in neighboring Congo, lending support to Lumumbist leaders like Gaston Soumialot in Kivu and Maniema and Pierre Mulele, a former Lumumbist minister who, after fifteen months’ training in Maoist teaching and guerrilla tactics in China in 1962 – 3, set up a revolutionary group in Kwilu province.
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Algeria
‘Secession would bring with it the most appalling poverty, terrible political chaos, widespread slaughter, and soon after the bellicose dictatorship of the Communists’. The most sensible course would be ‘association’.-de Gaulle on Algerian options.
‘It would be intolerable if men coming to power through democracy led us to dictatorship.’-Algerian Coup Leader General Khaled Nezzar, 1990.
‘You have only four options: you can remain unemployed and celibate because there are no jobs and no apartments to live in; you can work in the black market and risk being arrested; you can try to emigrate to France to sweep the streets of Paris or Marseilles; or you can join the FIS and vote for Islam.’-A young Algerian explaining his support for the FIS in 1990.
‘The FIS wanted to use democracy to destroy it.’-Boudiaf on the banning of Algeria’s FIS.
‘Democracy had been in jeopardy for the past four years. It died with the elections. The army only buried it.’-Army Chief of Staff on Nigerian Elections.
Chronology
1997-1998: The Algerian GIA massacre thousands of civilians.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1995: The Rome Platform is signed by Algeria’s FIS, FLN, and FFS as a 14 point agreement calling for multi-party democracy; an end to military intervention in politics; the release of political prisoners; and an end to the state of emergency imposed in 1992.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1993: The Extremist Groupe Islamique Armée (GIA) is formed in Algeria to achieve power through revolutionary violence under the slogan ‘no dialogue, no reconciliation, no truce’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
29 Jun, 1992: Assassination of Algerian FLN Founder Mohamed Boudiaf, by one of his bodyguards.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
12 Jan, 1992: Algerian elections are cancelled.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1992: The Algerian Generals set out to crush the FIS by banning all political activity at mosques and ordering the removal of imams at FIS mosques; violence erupts. In response the Generals declare a state of emergency and ban the FIS, interring thousands in Sahara prison camps, shutting down newspapers, and closing town halls. With the banning of the FIS, Algeria descended into a nightmare of violence. Islamist militants relaunched the Mouvement Islamique Armé and with other pro-FIS groups waged a campaign of assassination, bombing and sabotage, aiming to force the government to accept Islamist claims to power.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
11 Jan, 1992: Algerian Gen. Nezzar forces Chadli to resign, replacing it with a five-man collective presidency known as the Haut Comité d’État.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1992: Algerian Military Coup; Hizb França (‘Party of France’) led by Defense Minister General Khaled Nezzar takes power to deter the FIS from destroying democracy.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
26 Dec, 1991: Algerian Elections, the FIS rise to power winning 47% of the vote (the FLN win 23%).-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1990: The First Gulf War; Iraq invades Kuwait, leading to Western military intervention in the region, galvanizing public opinion in Algeria, and setting off a tidal wave of anti-Western fervor and forcing the FIS to adopt a more militant position.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1990: Algerian elections; the FIS gain control winning majorities in virtually all major cities.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1989: Formation of the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) aiming to reform Algeria as an Islamic Republic.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1988: Algerian President Chadli Benjedid agrees to separate the FLN from the state and ends the one-party system following riots that spread around the country sparked by protests in the working-class neighborhood of Bab el-Oued in Algiers over price rises and consumer shortages.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Late 1980’s: Algerian volunteers from the Soviet- Afghan Jihad return home, bringing with them militant ideas and a new form of dress.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1985: Formation of the Mouvement Islamique Algérien Armé (FIAA), an Islamic Militant group.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1980: The Berber Spring; an outburst of strikes and riots in Kabylia begins when the Algerian Government bans a conference on the use of the Berber language due to be held at the University of Tizi-Ouzou. Teachers and students took over the campus in protest. Comprising a fifth of the population, Berbers had been alienated by the FLN’s determination to promote a ‘national’ culture and identity by enforcing the use of Arabic at the expense of their own language and culture.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1976: An Algerian National Charter is drawn up by the FLN declaring socialism to be the ‘irreversible option’ and defining Islam as the state religion. By 1988 half of the population lived in towns afflicted by a desperate shortage of housing; rising crime; water rationing; and food shortages. Millions struggled to survive in wretched bidonvilles.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1962: Algeria attains Independence from France and is run as a one-party dictatorship controlled by a military hierarchy with a monopoly on public life.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1958: Algerian Oil is first tapped at Hassi-Messaoud in the Sahara.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 Nov, 1954- 9 Sep, 1962: The Algerian War (aka the Algerian War of Independence, Algerian Revolution) is fought between the FLN under Ahmed Ben Bella and France, and results in Algerian Independence in which half a million die, more than a million pieds noirs flee to France, and thousands of harkis (Muslims who had fought on France’s side are slaughtered by FLN groups in an orgy of revenge.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
18 Mar, 1962: The French sign a deal agreeing to Algerian Independence at Evian.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1961: de Gaulle agrees to peace talks with the FLN, concluding no other alternative.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1961: FLN assassinations and bombing continue. OAS terror was matched by counter-terror carried out both by French ‘barbouzes’ – underground government agents – and by the FLN.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1960: Barricades Week; Paramilitary ‘ultra’ groups take to the streets of Algiers, setting up barricades, to force de Gaulle to withdraw his offer of self-determination. The president stood firm, demanding obedience from the army, and the insurrection – and the protests petered out.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Sep, 1959: de Gaulle offers Algeria ‘self-determination’, setting out three possible options: 1) secession (independence) shorn of all French assistance, 2) total integration (françisation ), or 3) internal self-government in association with France, with the outcome decided by referendum to be held within four years after the restoration of peace.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 Jun, 1958: de Gaulle is made PM by the French National Assembly with full powers to rule by decree for six months and a mandate to draw up a new constitution for France. The FLN respond with intensified guerilla action, organizing terrorist raids in France and setting up a government-in-exile, based in Tunis, appointing as its figurehead the moderate Francophile Ferhat Abbas.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
14 May, 1958: French PM, Pierre Pflimlin, imposes a blockade of Algeria, severing communications links.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1958: An interim French government fails, leaving France once more without a government.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 1957: French President Guy Mollet is voted out of office, with not even an interim replacement.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1957: The Battle of Algiers; French Algerian Governor, Robert Lacoste, turns over the safety of Algiers to the French Military after an upsurge in FLN assassinations and bombings throughout the city.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1956: French PM, Guy Mollet, increases French forces in Algeria to 500,000 men to crush rebel forces.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1955: The Algerian war erupts after the FLN begins directly targeting white civilians.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Spring, 1955: The FLN Offensive continues; hundreds of Muslim officials are tortured, mutilated and murdered. The French pour in reinforcements, doubling their forces to 100,000 men.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Early, 1955: FLN Leader Ben Bella is captured and imprisoned for 5 years.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Winter, 1954: The FLN network in Algiers is crushed within two weeks, however the French continue to face resistance in the Aurès fighting the FLN; reduced to ~350 active maquisards.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 Nov, 1954 (French All Saints Day): The Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) led by Ben Bella launches a series of 70 coordinated attacks throughout Algeria targeting police posts, barracks, bridges, farm buildings and telephone lines, starting the Algerian War of Independence.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1947: The Organisation Spéciale, a prototype of the FLN, is formed by Ahmed Ben Bella and others as a militant Algerian nationalist group dedicated to armed struggle against French rule.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Angola
Warring Factions
UNITA (led by Savimbi); supported by the Ovimbundu, USA.
MPLA (led by Neto); supported by Cuba, USSR; wins the Angolan Civil War.
FNLA (led by Roberts); supported by the USA, Zaire, China.
Angola was part of President Reagan’s strategy of ‘bleeding’ Soviet resources by fueling insurgencies in countries he regarded as Soviet ‘client states’.
22% of government expenditure between 1996 and 2001 was ‘unexplained’; a further 16 % was listed as ‘extra-budgetary’ in Angola.-2002 IMF Reporting.
Between 1997 and 2002 an amount of $4.2B went ‘unaccounted for’ in Angola – an average of $700M a year, nearly 10% of GDP.-IMF Reporting.
Chronos
Dec, 1998- Feb, 2002: Angolan Civil War; the Angolan MPLA Government defeats UNITAs strongholds. Both sides use impressment, destroy villages, loot property, murder civilians and rape women and children.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 2002: Savimbi is trapped and killed in a firefight in the remote region of Luva near the Zambian border. UNITA asks for peace.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1999: UNITA loses control of Bailunda and his last remaining airfields and moves HQ to the E. province of Moxico, reverting to guerrilla strikes on government targets.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1998: dos Santos orders a military offensive against UNITAs strongholds in the central highlands.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1998: The UNSC orders a ban on the purchase of Angolan diamonds without official certificates of origin and a freeze on UNITAs bank accounts and other financial assets.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1997: The UNSC imposes sanctions on Angola’s UNITA, banning leading officials from international travel, closing UNITAs offices abroad and prohibiting all aircraft from flying into UNITA-controlled areas.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 1997: Collapse of Mobutu’s regime in the DRC deprives Savimbi of his last dependable foreign ally.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
4 Apr, 1997: A Angolan government of national unity, including UNITA ministers, is established. Savimbi maintains control of the diamond trade.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1994: Angolan MPLA forces recapture Huambo, forcing Savimbi to fall back on his home town of Bailundo. Eleven days later, for tactical reasons, UNITA agreed to a new peace deal at negotiations in Lusaka.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
31 Oct, 1994: The Lusaka Protocol is signed in Zambia hoping to end the Angolan Civil War; the protocol gave direct responsibility for overseeing the peace process to a 7000 UN troop contingent assigned to the tasks of assisting demobilization and the formation of a new national army.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan- Sep, 1994: Demobilization of Angola’s warring factions in preparation for elections.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Late, 1992-1994: The battle for Luanda was followed by the War of the Cities with similarly vicious contests for possession of other towns in which some 300,000 people die.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
31 Oct- 2 Nov, 1992: MPLA forces drive UNITA from the capital, destroying their offices, residences, and hotels. In what one senior UN official described as ‘wholesale butchery’, government ninjas and armed vigilantes from the musseques hunted down UNITA supporters in a ‘cleansing operation’ – limpeza – intended to eliminate them from Luanda. UNITA, having left Luanda, continued earning ~$300-500M annually from the diamond trade which were used to purchase arms. Mobutu provided Savimbi with end-user certificates for arms deals and allowed him to stockpile weapons in Zaire, in return for diamonds and cash.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
17 Oct, 1992: Angolan elections, dos Santos obtains 49.57% of the votes to Savimbi’s 40.07%. In Luanda the MPLA government began handing out weapons to its supporters in the musseques. Clashes broke out in several towns. UNITA troops attacked the radio and TV stations in Huambo and attempted to occupy the government’s palace.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
5 Oct, 1992: Savimbi orders UNITAs generals to withdraw from the new national army.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
3 Oct, 1992: Angola’s Savimbi (UNITA) broadcasts a ‘Message to the Angolan Nation’ on Vorgan radio, warning of violence if the MPLA was declared the winner.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Summer, 1991: The MPLA government forms a new ‘anti-riot’ police force, the ninjas, carrying AK47’s and Uzi Machine guns; infuriating UNITA. 1990: The Angolan MPLA formally abandon Marxism-Leninism in favor of economic reform. The MPLA’s policies had proved disastrous. For 15 years it had enforced a Soviet-inspired system of centralized planning and nationalization, causing the collapse of both industrial and agricultural production.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1975- 1991: Angolan Civil War; Savimbi’s UNITA forces gain control of much of Southern and Central Angola, spreading N. towards the Zairian Border and taking the Lunda region diamond fields. The MPLA counters UNITA with 50,000 Cuban troops and more than $3B in Soviet military aid. During the 1980’s, ~350K die and a million more are ‘descolados.’ By the 1990’s, a million had died with 5 million ‘descolados’ out of a population of 18M.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
31 May, 1991: Margaret’s Peace; The MPLA under dos Santos and UNITA under Savimbi sign a 60 pg package of agreements to bring an end to 16 years of civil war; a new national army, Forças Armadas Angolanas, is formed consisting of 8800 troops.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1988: South Africa agrees to withdraw troops from Angola and Namibia in return for the phased withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.1961-1976: The Angolan War of Independence begins as an uprising against the forced cultivation of cotton and becomes a multi-faction struggle for the control of Portuguese Angola. ~800K die with 4M displaced.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1976: The last FNLA stronghold, São Salvador, and the UNITA capital, Huambo, falls to the MPLA.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
20 Dec, 1975: The Clark Amendment is passed by the USG banning aid to private groups engaged in military and paramilitary operations in Angola.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
11 Nov, 1975: Angola attains independence from Portugal.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dawn, 10 Nov, 1975: South African artillery barrages and bombing raids force the MPLA into a route. An FNLA infantry attack that was due to follow was delayed by 1hr 40min because Roberto failed to show up on time.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
27 Oct, 1975: Cuban Combat Troops arrive in Angola to support the MPLA (~2000 by Nov, 1975).-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
14 Oct, 1975: S. African Operation Savannah; A ‘Zulu’ column crosses the border from SW Africa and advances rapidly up the Angolan coast, covering 500 miles and capturing the port of Benguela, before it was checked at the Queve River, north of Novo Redondo, about 120 miles short of Luanda.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
16 Jul, 1975: US President Ford authorizes US SECSTATE Kissinger to mount a major covert operation supplying arms to both the FNLA and UNITA.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1975: Strengthened by the influx of Russian weapons and supported by the Katangese, the MPLA drive the FNLA and UNITA out of Luanda and gain tentative control of other major towns, including the ports of Lobito, Benguela, Moçâmedes (Namibe), and the Cabinda exclave, where the oilfields lay. The transitional government duly collapsed.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1975: 230 Cuban instructors arrive in Angola to support the MPLA.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1975: The US CIA provides Roberto a $300K covert grant to acquire a TV station and newspaper in Luanda.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1975: Factional fighting in Angola; thousands of Portuguese civilians flee the country fearing imminent Civil War causing collapse of government services and the economy. In the following six months, ~300K whites left Angola, the largest exodus of whites from Africa since the Algerian War of Independence.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1975: Russia delivers military aid to the MPLA.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1975: FNLA forces are joined by Zairian troops.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1975: An Angolan Interim Government is formed by the OAU, FNLA, and UNITA under pressure from Portugal, agreeing to form an interim coalition government with the Portuguese and to hold elections before independence day, set for 11 Nov, 1975.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1974: The US CIA resumes covert funding for the FNLA.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1973: The PRC begins supporting the FNLA with military instructors and arms. By June, 1974, 120 PLA instructors arrive in Kinkuzu, the FNLA’s main military base in Zaire; PRC weapons followed.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1966: The Angolan União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA) is formed by Jonas Savimbi with the aim of Angolan Independence attracting a following among the Ovimbundu, Angola’s largest tribe.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1962: The UPA evolves into the Frente Nacionale de Libertação de Angola (FNLA).-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mid-Mar, 1961: Roving bands of Angolans armed with machetes, home-made muskets and other crude weapons attack ~50 European settlements killing several hundred whites, including women and children, and massacring African migrant workers.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb- Aug, 1961: The Angolan War of Independence begins after a UPA organized explosion of pro- independent violence occurs in N. Angola, for which the Portuguese are completely unprepared.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1957: The União das Populações de Angola (UPA) is formed in Leopoldville by Bangongo with the aim of driving the Portuguese out of Angola and restoring the old Kongo Kingdom.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1956: The Angolan Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) is founded by a group of radical intellectuals led by Neto with the aim of overthrowing Portuguese rule.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1605: Luanda, Angola is granted city status.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1575: Angola is founded as a Portuguese Colony following the arrival of Paulo Dias de Novais with 100 colonial families and 400 soldiers.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Benin (Dahomey)
6 Apr, 2006: Benin Presidential Elections; Thomas Boni Yayi is democratically elected.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1996: Benin Presidential Elections; Kérékou democratically regains the Presidency from Nicéphore Soglo.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1991: Benin Presidential Elections; Nicéphore Soglo is democratically elected, Kérékou steps down, apologizing for “deplorable and regrettable incidents” that occurred during his rule. Benin thus became the first African state in which the army was forced from power by civilians and the first in which an incumbent president was defeated at the polls.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1990: Benin’s National Conference turns into a searing indictment of the venality and corruption of Kérékou’s military regime. The 488 delegates, presided over by Archbishop Isodore de Souza, declared themselves to hold sovereign power, suspend the constitution, dissolve the national assembly, appoint a former World Bank official, Nicéphore Soglo, as PM of an interim government and lay down a schedule for elections. Kérékou stays on as interim president.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1989: Benin President Kérékou abandons Marxism-Leninism ideology and promises constitutional reform after he is denied Western Aid to pay his governments salaries.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1989: A student protest over unpaid grants in Benin grows into a general mobilization against Kérékou’s regime involving teachers, civil servants, workers and church groups.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1988: Collapse of three state-owned banks in Benin results in large unsecured loans awarded to members of Kérékou’s inner circle and the bogus companies they had set up, amounting to ~$500M (World Bank).-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
26 Oct, 1972: Benin Military Coup; Kérékou and his People’s Revolutionary Party of Benin take control of the country ousting Soglo.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
20 Dec, 1965: Benin Army COL Christophe Soglo assumes power in Dahomey and bans political activity after a period of strikes, demonstrations and political deadlock.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 Aug, 1960: Dahomey (later Benin) attains independence from France.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Botswana (Bechuanaland)
Botswana stands out as a unique example of an enduring multiparty democracy with a record of sound economic management, that has used its diamond riches for national advancement and maintained an administration free of corruption.
1966: S. Rhodesia gains independence as Botswana (Bechuanaland) from the British.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Burkina Faso (Upper Volta)
2 Jan, 1966: Colonel Sangoulé Lamizana seizes power in Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) removing President Maurice Yaméogo, after crowds of demonstrators in Ouagadougou implores the army to intervene.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
5 Aug, 1960: Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso) attains independence from France.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Burundi
6 Apr, 1994: Assassination of Rwandan Hutu President Habyarimana, seven senior members of the Rwandan Government, and the new Burundi President on approach into Kigali airport at 2015. The plane was struck by two missiles and crashed in the grounds of the presidential palace killing all on board. The prime suspects were members of the Akazu clique determined to wreck any prospect that the Arusha Accords might be implemented, ending their hold on power.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
21 Oct, 1993: Kidnapping and Murder of Burundi Hutu President Ndadaye by extremist Tutsi army officers. His death set off massive killings of both Hutu and Tutsi in which ~150K die with ~300K Hutu’s fleeing into S. Rwanda, spreading tales of massacre and torture. The murder of Ndadaye was taken as irrefutable proof by Hutu supremacists in Rwanda that the Tutsi were bent on total domination.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1993: Burundi Presidential Elections; Hutu Melchior Ndadaye is elected and names a Tutsi economist from the opposition as PM and approves a politically and ethnically balanced cabinet.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1972: Selective Genocide against Hutus is perpetrated by Burundi Coup President Micombero. Faced with a Hutu uprising, the Tutsi government rounds up and kills Hutus with any kind of education – teachers, church leaders, bank clerks, nurses, traders, civil servants. ~200K deaths with another ~200K fleeing to Rwanda.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1966: Burundi Army Coup; Tutsi Officer Captain Michel Micombero takes control purging the government and army of Hutu members and executing thousands.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1965: The Burundi Hutu Army mutinies, leading to terrible reprisals against Hutu leaders.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 Jul, 1962: Burundi attains independence from Belgium under a Tutsi Monarchy; seven governments come and go in quick succession with two of the first three PM’s assassinated.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1922-1962: Rwanda and Burundi are administered jointly under Belgian rule as the Ruanda-Urundi Colony.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1899: Rwanda & Burundi are colonized by the German Empire.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Cameroon (Kamerun)
May, 1991: Operation Villes Mortes (Operation Ghost town); a coalition of opposition groups launch a campaign of strikes and civil disobedience intended to shut down commerce from Monday to Friday.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1990: Cameroon President Biya allows the formation of opposition parties, but tries to crush opposition activity by repression, using the security forces and other means to intimidate activists.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1884-1916: Kamerun (Cameroon) is a German Colony.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Central African Rep.
1992: CAR Presidential elections; President General André Kolingba is forced to concede the presidency after France withdraws economic and military assistance following Kolingba’s abrupt termination of the election process (reporting indicated he was running fourth of five candidates, with as little as 2% of the vote).-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1980: CAR Trial of ex-emperor Bokassa (in absentia); Bokassa is sentenced to death for murder, embezzlement, and cannibalism. In 1986, Bokassa return to the CAR where he was put on trial and sentenced to death. The sentence was subsequently commuted, first to life imprisonment, then to twenty years forced labor. In prison he turned to religion, constantly read the Bible and considered himself an apostle of Christ. After seven years’ imprisonment he was released and spent his last years in Bangui in the Villa Nasser, surviving on a French army pension.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
20 Sep, 1979: CAR Military coup; French forces take control of CAR while Bokassa is on a visit to Libya, reinstalling Dacko as president. While searching his residences, French troops discover several chests full of diamonds, mutilated bodies in a refrigerator, and dozens of victims killed by crocodile.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1979: Further protests in Bangui; scores of students are rounded up, imprisoned, and murdered. Some massacres were carried out with Bokassa’ personal participation.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
19 Jan, 1979: Bangui, CAR Student demonstrations protesting an imperial edict that all pupils buy and wear new school uniforms, which were manufactured by companies owned by the Bokassa. The demonstrations were joined by crowds of unemployed youths and quickly turned into riots, which are brutally suppressed by the Imperial Guard; strikes by teachers, students and civil servants continue.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
31 Dec, 1965: CAR Coup; Jean- Bedel Bokassa seizes power from his cousin David Dacko (who is placed in solitary confinement for three years) and rules the country as an autocrat, declaring himself emperor.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
13 Aug, 1960: The Central African Republic (CAR) attains independence from France.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Chad
The French treated Chad as a country of two halves: the south they called le Tchad-utile; the north, considered inutile, was known as le pays des sultans.
Both Chadian conflicts stemmed from ancient hostility between northerners and southerners, dating from the days when Muslim chieftains raided the south for slaves.
Chad Chronos
18 Dec, 2005- 15 Jan, 2010: Chadian Civil War;
1996: Chadian National Elections; Idris Déby is elected President.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1994: Gadaffi loses his claim to the Aozou Strip at the International Court of Justice.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1990: Chadian President Hissein Habré is ousted by Idris Déby, a former military commander, who, under pressure from France and other Western powers, establishes a multi-party system, and convenes a national conference.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1978-1987: Libyan-Chadian War;-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1986: Chadian Habré deploys his forces northwards across the sixteenth parallel, overwhelming a major Libyan garrison at Fada. Over the next three months they succeeded in chasing the Libyans out of nearly all of northern Chad south of the Aozou Strip, inflicting a devastating defeat at their base at Ouadi Doum.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1986: Libyan-supported incursions across the sixteenth parallel began again, obliging the French to return. As part of its wider campaign against Gaddafi, the US join in with increased assistance to Habré’s forces.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1984: France and Libya agree to withdraw their forces from Chad. While the French leave, the Libyans stay, constructing military bases at Ouadi Doum, Fada and Faya-Largeau, occupied the principal Saharan oases south of the Aozou Strip, and issue their own ID cards.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1983: Gaddafi resumed his offensive in Chad. Goukouni’s forces, supported by the Libyans, advanced on N’Djamena once more. In response to Habré’s appeals for help, French troops and aircraft were sent to Chad to act as a buffer between the two sides, holding a line against northern incursions on the sixteenth parallel.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1980: Libyan troops, backed by tanks, heavy artillery and units of the Islamic Legion, combined with Goukouni’s forces to drive Habré’s fighters out of the capital, forcing Habré to seek refuge in Sudan. After a year’s occupation, Gaddafi withdraw his troops from N’Djamena. As the Libyans withdrew, Habré’s forces, which had regrouped in Sudan and obtained the support of Egypt and the United States, crossed the eastern frontier, occupied eastern Chad and then took the capital, forcing Goukouni to flee to Libya.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1978: In a joint offensive, Goukouni’s forces and the Volcan army, supported by Libyan troops, make a rapid thrust towards N’Djamena. To stave off defeat, Chadian General Malloum calls for help from France. A thousand French troops and combat aircraft were thrown into battle and rout rebel forces on the road to N’Djamena.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 Nov, 1965- 1979: The Chadian Civil War is fought by several rebel factions against Chadian President Tombalbaye resulting in his overthrow, and the subsequent overthrow of Felix Malloum.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1979: The First Battle of N’Djamena; Habré’s forces and Malloum’s national army fought for supremacy, precipitating communal violence between northerners and southerners in which thousands died. Within a matter of weeks, the bloody struggle for power was resumed. Habré’s forces clashed with pro-Libyan factions. Sporadic fighting continued for months. Half of the population fled to neighbouring Cameroon, leaving N’Djamena a ghost city.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1975: Chadian Military Coup; President Tombalbaye is killed during an army coup after attempting to purge the army officer corps of suspected opponents. Chad’s new military leader, General Félix Malloum, a southern officer whom Tombalbaye had imprisoned two years previously, empties the jails of political prisoners and pursues a more conciliatory course.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1973: Libya’s Gaddafi deploys troops to the Aozou Strip, claiming that it rightfully belonged to Libya on the basis of an unratified agreement between France and Italy in 1935. Gaddafi’s occupation of the Aozou Strip caused a deep rift among northerners in Chad.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1971: Libya’s Gaddafi begins a campaign to infiltrate the Aozou Strip, an elongated stretch of desert about 450 miles long and 90 miles wide extending the full length of the border between Libya and Chad.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1966: The Front pour la Libération du Tchad (FROLINAT) is formed by Muslim politicians living in exile in Sudan, with the aim of coordinating rebels in the field.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1965: Revolt breaks out in Malgamé in central Chad when Muslim peasants rioting against tax collectors were fired on by government troops. The rebellion spread eastwards, to the Batha, Ouaddai and Salamat regions. Bands of Muslim dissidents roamed about the countryside, attacking administrative and military posts, murdering government officials and local collaborators, stealing cattle and burning crops.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
11 Aug, 1960: Chad attains Independence from France with the south gaining control of the central government in Fort Lamy (N’Djamena), which precipitates revolt by northerners.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Congo-Brazzaville (Rep. of the Congo)
5 Jun, 1997- 29 Dec, 1999: Congo-Brazzaville civil war.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
15 Aug, 1960: Congo- Brazzaville attains independence from France.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Cote D’Ivoire
2010- 2011: Côte d’Ivoire Civil War (aka Ivorian crisis) is sparked by Northerners under Outarra after Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept his defeat in an election and summoned the army and youth militias in Abidjan to keep him in office.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 2010: Côte d’Ivoire National Elections; the nation splits after Gbagbo continues ruling despite clear victory of Northern politician Alassane Ouattara.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1990: Côte d’Ivoire’s President Houphouët-Boigny’s officially recognizes opposition parties, then moved swiftly to hold elections before they could organize a united front against him.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1990: Strikes and demonstrations in Côte d’Ivoire’s against austerity measures challenge the rule of President Houphouët-Boigny’s.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
7 Aug, 1960: Côte d’Ivoire attains independence from France. President Houphouët pursues Economic growth.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
9 Apr, 1946: Côte d’Ivoire’s Houphouët passes the Loi Houphouët-Boigny law establishing himself as national leader and turning his Parti Démocratique de la Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI) into the first mass political party in black Africa.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1944: The Syndicat Agricole Africain is formed as the first agricultural trade union for African Cocoa farmers in opposition to the French policy of discriminating in favor of French planters in Côte d’Ivoire.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Democratic Rep. of the Congo (Zaire)
The risks involved in Congo Independence were enormous. Except at a local level, no Congolese had acquired any experience of government or parliamentary life. No national or even provincial elections had ever been held. The lack of skilled personnel was acute. In the top ranks of the civil service no more than three Congolese out of an establishment of 1,400 held posts and two of those were recent appointments. By 1960 the sum of university graduates was 30. Indeed, the largest complement of trained manpower were priests: of those there were more than six hundred. At the end of the 1959 – 60 academic year, only 136 children completed secondary education. There were no Congolese doctors, no secondary school teachers, no army officers.
The madness of greed and violence that engulfed Belgian King Léopold’s Congo Free State trading in Ivory and Rubber was immortalized by Joseph Conrad in his novel Heart of Darkness, which he wrote after working as a river-boat captain on the Congo for some six months. Villagers who failed to fulfil their quotas were flogged, imprisoned, and even mutilated; their hands cut off.
The vicious cycle of war: Coltan permitted the Rwandan army to sustain its presence in the DRC. The army provided protection and security to the individuals and companies extracting the mineral. These have made money which is shared with the army, which in turn continues to provide the enabling environment to continue the exploitation.-On the Second Congo War.
‘To say Zaire has a government today would be a gross exaggeration. A small group of military and civilian associates of President Mobutu, all from the same ethnic group, control the city of Kinshasa by virtue of the loyalty of the 5,000-man Presidential Guard known as the DSP. This same group also controls the central bank which provides both the foreign and local currency needed to keep the DSP loyal. While the ruling group has intelligence information about what is going on in the rest of Zaire, there is no real government authority outside the capital city.’-Herman Cohen, Former US Assistant SecState for Africa, Oct 1993.
‘There was, and there still is, one sole obstacle that negates all prospect: the corruption of the team in power.’-On Mobutu.
‘My long years of struggle were like spreading fertilizer on a field. But now it is time to harvest.’-Laurent Kabila.
‘Nyama tembo kula hawezi kumaliza (KiSwahili)’ – ‘You never finish eating the meat of an elephant.’
It was estimated that two-thirds of the DRC’s 400,000 civil servants were fictitious; their wages were merely pocketed by senior officials.-IMF Reporting.
‘Use a machete, a spear, an arrow, a hoe, spades, rakes, nails, truncheons, electric irons, barbed wire . . . to kill the Rwandan Tutsi’.-Congo State Radio during the Second Congo War.
Chronos
31 Jan, 2015- Present: DRC’s Kivu Conflict Third Phase.
4 Apr, 2012- 7 Nov, 2013: DRC’s Kivu Conflict Second Phase.
2004-2009: DRC’s Kivu conflict First Phase.
16 Jan, 2001: Assassination of DRC President Laurent Kabila; shot in his palace by a member of his bodyguard who was subsequently executed on the spot by Chief of Staff Colonel Eddy Kapend, Kabila’s cousin. Kapend was convicted as the leader of the coup attempt and killed the assassin to silence him. Kabila’s son Joseph rises to power, lifts the ban on political parties and supports an ‘inter-Congolese dialogue.’-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2 Aug, 1998- 18 Jul, 2003: The Second Congo War is fought between the DRC Armed Forces (previously the AFDL) with Angolan, Zimbabwean, Namibian, and Chadian support against Rwandan aligned militias with Burundi, Rwandan, and Ugandan support and results in a stalemate and the formation of a unified, multi-party government in Congo headed by Kabila. In four years of civil war more than 3M people died, mostly from starvation and disease, the largest toll of any conflict in African history.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May-Jun, 2000: Rwanda and Uganda fight for control of Kisangani and its diamond trade.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1999-2000: The Congo Desk, Rwandan Patriotic Army’s (RPA) led exploitation of eastern Congo’s trade in Coltan- a tantalum ore used by high-technology industries, earns ~$250million.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1998: The Mouvement pour la Libération du Congo is formed with the support of Uganda and led by Jean-Pierre Bemba, opening up a new front in Northern DRC.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1998: The RCD, formed by Rwanda as a front for overthrowing Kabila, splinters into rival factions, some backed by Rwanda, some by Uganda. The entire region becomes a battleground for competing armies and militias, looting, raping and killing at will.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1998: The Armée de Libération du Rwanda (ALIR) is formed by Interahamwe and ex-FAR militias with Zimbabwean support to fight the RPA. The Rwandan army based in Congo and its RCD allies retaliated with coercion, torture and massacres. Hutu rebel groups were trained by Zimbabwe troops in Katanga to attack Burundi from bases in Kivu. Burundi rebels served as mercenaries in Kabila’s army, along with large contingents of Interahamwe and ex-FAR soldiers, to help defend strategic towns like Mbuji-Mayi and Lubumbashi. Banyamulenge fighters split into separate factions, some opposing Rwanda’s occupation. Local Mayi Mayi militias were embroiled in mini-wars, some fighting against the Rwandans and their Congolese allies, others against the Interahamwe.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1998: Angolan and Zimbabwean Intervention save Kabila from defeat; Angola sought to prevent a power vacuum in the Congo that would allow UNITA forces to renew their offensive while Zimbabwe’s Mugabe sought resource concessions and aspired to become a regional power broker. By the end of August Congo was split in half, with Angola and Zimbabwe propping up Kabila in Kinshasa and Rwanda and Uganda in control of the NE.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1998: A joint Rwanda-Congolese force move into Matadi seizing control of the Inga Hydro-electric plant supplying power to Kinshasa and much of the Congo. The advance precipitates a wave of attacks on Tutsis living in Kinshasa which Kabila openly encouraged; thousands of Banyamulenge are killed in pogroms in Kinshasa and Lubumbashi.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1998: The Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD) is formed in the Eastern DRC with support of the Rwandan government. Its military chiefs included Congolese defectors from Kabila’s army. Involved in the rebellion were a hotchpotch of former Mobutu politicians and army officers; Congolese Tutsis; Banyamulenge; and former AFDL leaders who had participated in the first rebellion but had since been squeezed out of Kabila’s inner circle.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
17 May, 1997: Laurent Kabila is sworn in as president of Zaire, renaming the country the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Despite the change of regime in Kinshasa, Interahamwe and ex-FAR militias continued to use Congo as a base from which to launch attacks on Rwanda. In Kampala, Museveni had similar complaints: anti-Museveni groups continued to raid Uganda from eastern Congo. Fearing a coup attempt, Kabila decided to recruit Interahamwe and ex-FAR militias – génocidaires – to support him.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
24 Oct, 1996- 16 May, 1997: The First Congo War (aka Africa’s First World War); the AFDL led by Laurent Kabila decisively defeat the Mobutu Regime. Kabila renames Zaire the DRC.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 1997: The AFDL capture Kinshasa.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
o 4 May, 1997: Mobutu flees Zaire; exhausted and bewildered, he escapes on board an Ilyushin cargo plane owned by Jonas Savimbi, with bullets ripping into the fuselage as it took off. He died 4 months later in exile in Morocco.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
o May, 1997: Mbuji Mayi, the diamond capital, and Lubumbashi, the copper capital, are captured by the AFDL. Mobutu’s FAZ retreat to Kinshasa, with only UNITA rebels and Rwandan Interahamwe keeping up the fight.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
o Mar, 1997: Kisangani, Zaire falls to the AFDL.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
o 13 Nov, 1996: AFDL attacks the ex-FAR headquarters at Lac Vert and the defensive positions around Mugunga. The génocidaires broke and ran. Released from their grip, the bulk of the refugees – some 600,000 people – set out on foot to return to Rwanda.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
o Nov, 1996: AFDL forces advance from Goma, recruiting child soldiers (kadogo) along the way. E. Zaire became a quagmire of violence. Génocidaires and troops from Mobutu’s ramshackle army fled in all directions, taking camp followers with them, killing and looting as they went. Caught up in the retreat were an estimated 500,000 Hutu refugees, desperate for sanctuary. Tens of thousands, perhaps as many as 200,000, were massacred in genocidal attacks by AFDL forces. Local militias joined the fray, some fighting alongside the AFDL, some against it.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
o 1 Nov, 1996: The AFDL reach Goma, Zaire near one of the main Hutu refugee camps at Mugunga- crowded with nearly a million people and surrounded by a ring of ex-FAR and Interahamwe militias.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
o 30 Oct, 1996: The AFDL take the Provincial capital of Bukavu, Zaire. A tidal wave of Hutu flee N.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
o 24 Oct, 1996: The AFDL take Uvira, Zaire.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
18 Oct, 1996: The Alliance des Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Congo-Zaire (AFDL) is formed under the leadership of Laurent Kabila and backed by Rwandan and Ugandan Forces with the aim of ousting Zaire’s President Mobutu. The AFDL is known to have targeted refugee camps along the Zaire- Rwanda border, killing hundreds of thousands of Hutu Civilians.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
8 Oct, 1996: Deputy governor of South Kivu, Lwasi Ngabo Lwabanji, orders all Banyamulenge (Kivu Tutsi) to leave Zaire within a week or be ‘exterminated and expelled’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1994: Médecins Sans Frontières, withdraws from E. Zaire. ‘The situation has deteriorated to such an extent that it is now ethically impossible for MSF to continue aiding and abetting the perpetrators of genocide.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Sep, 1994-1995: Hutu ex-FAR launch sporadic attacks aiming to retake Rwanda and exterminate Tutsi groups living in Zaire.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1994-1996: Zairian Hutu Militants join with Rwandan Interahamwe in N. Kivu to attack Zaiarian Tutsi, killing thousands. Hutu militias drove autochtones from their farms in Masisi killing hundreds of Hunde and Nyanga and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee. In retaliation, two autochtone militias, Mayi-Mayi and Bangilima, with a long history of warfare against Mobutu’s regime, entered the fray, attacking not only Banyarwanda – Hutu and Tutsi alike – but resuming the fight against Mobutu’s army, Forces Armées Zairoises (FAZ).-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1994: The former Rwandan now refugee Hutu Army, the Forces Armées Rwandaise (ex-FAR) establish HQ at Lac Vert, 10 miles W. of Goma, regrouping in military camps, organizing recruitment and training programs and ordering weapons supplies from abroad. Its ranks grew from 30,000 to 50,000. Heavy weapons originally confiscated by French forces in the ‘safe zone’ and handed over to Zaire were sold back to the ex-FAR by Zairian officers. In their new base in Zaire, supported unwittingly by the international aid effort, the génocidaires regrouped and planned their return. The same clique of Hutu politicians, préfets, bourgmestres and military officers who had organized the genocide now used their control of the refugee camps and food distribution there to raise funds and buy arms for a new offensive.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1994: ~1.5M Rwandan refugees cross into DRC’s E. Region of Kivu as the RPF advance throughout Rwanda. In two days about a million people crossed into Zaire. Many prominent génocidaires, including Colonel Bagosora, passed through the French ‘safe-haven’ but the French made no attempt to arrest them. With the blessing of Mobutu and the support of a refugee aid budget totaling $800M over 12 months, Rwanda’s génocidaires carved out a mini-state in Kivu, setting up their own administration, finances and system of control. More than two-thirds of all the foreign assistance provided for Rwanda went not to reconstruction efforts but to the camps of ‘Hutuland’ and their genocidal bosses.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1993: The French ambassador and hundreds of civilians are killed in Kinshasa.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1993: The Hunde and Nyanga of North Kivu organize local militias to cleanse the fertile Masisi region of both Hutu and Tutsi Banyarwanda, killing thousands in Walikale and forcing some 350K from their homes. North Kivu was already seething with ethnic tension when a million Hutu descended on Goma, bringing with them their virulent brand of ethnic hatred.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1993: Zairian President Mobutu abandons any further pretense at reform, revives the old constitution and reconvenes the old parliament.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1993: Zaire’s Inflation rate reaches 8828%.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1992: Zaire’s Inflation rates reaches 5000%. In December, Mobutu orders the central bank to issue a new high-denomination banknote – five million zaires, worth about US$3 at the time.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1991: Assembly of the Conférence Nationale Souveraine (CNS) are disrupted by an outbreak of looting and violence started by Mobutu’s soldiers protesting over low pay that spread from Kinshasa to other towns. One estimate was that the looting destroyed 90% of what remained of the ‘modern’ economy.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1991: Zaire’s inflation rate reaches 3000%.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1990: Zairian President Mobutu bows to pressure to replace his one-party system that had been in place for 23 years with multi-party politics.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1978: Foreign creditors force Zaire’s Mobutu to agree to a series of corrective measures.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1977-1978: Rebels invade Katanga from Angola and are defeated by Mobutu’s forces with US, French, and Belgian aid.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1976: Mobutu reverses his ‘revolution’ and invites back foreign owners, few return.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1974-1976: Zaire is beset by an onrush of massive inflation, fuel shortages, falling revenues and huge debts, as well as severe disruption to commerce and agriculture caused by Mobutu’s seizure of foreign-owned businesses. In 1975 the government fell into arrears on repayments of its foreign debts, which by then amounted to $3B.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1974: Zaire hosts the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ World Heavyweight Boxing Championship between Muhammad Ali and George Freeman, as a sign of the countries development.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1974: American and European financiers heavily invest in the Congo, committing more than $2B.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1973: Mobutu orders the seizure, without compensation, of ~2000 foreign-owned enterprises- farms, plantations, ranches, factories, wholesale firms, and retail shops, citing the need to give Zaire greater economic independence. The enterprises were handed out to individuals as private property. The main beneficiaries were Mobutu and members of his family.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
20 May, 1967: The Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution (MPR) is formed by Mobutu as its sole guide and mentor, with the ‘Mobutuism’ ideology to which everyone was instructed to adhere.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1965: Guevarra and the PLA retreat to Lake Kigoma after 7 months of harassment by the Congolese army and white mercenaries.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
24 Apr, 1965: Cuban Revolutionary Che Guevaro arrives in the Eastern Congo. After working with the PLA, Guevara noted that ‘it was a parasite army; it did not work, did not train, did not fight, and demanded provisions and labour from the population, sometimes with extreme harshness.’ Guevara dismissed Kabila as a man lacking in ‘revolutionary seriousness’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1965: Encouraged by the Algerians, Fidel Castro deploys an expeditionary force to the E. Congo to assist rebel groups operating there. The expedition was intended to be part of what was called an ‘International Proletarian Army’, an alliance of revolutionary groups aimed at confronting ‘imperialism’ around the world, notably American imperialism. A team of 120 Cuban fighters was recruited for the eastern Congo mission, all volunteers and virtually all black. Their leader was the legendary Argentinian revolutionary, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, who had become bored with life as a minister in Castro’s government and was eager for a new adventure.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1965: Zairian Army Commander Mobutu assumes the presidency for a 2nd time, suspending all political activity.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1964: Zairian Military Coup; Army Commander Mobutu takes power ousting President Kasa-Vubu.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1964: The Peoples Rep. of the Congo (PRC) is formed in Stanleyville by former Lumumba supporters leading to the deaths of over 1M people in the E. Congo. The PRC orders the mass executions of clerks, teachers, civil servants, merchants – men deemed to be ‘counter-revolutionaries’ or ‘intellectuals’; at least 20,000 Congolese died, many of them executed with appalling cruelty in public at the foot of monuments to Lumumba. Support for the Stanleyville regime came from China, Cuba, Algeria and Egypt.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1964: Pierre Mulele is tortured and executed after leading a rebellion in Kwilu province under the false pretense of amnesty.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1963: Katanga is returned to the Congo by UN mandate. -Fate of Africa by Meredith.
17 Jan, 1961: Torture and Assassination of Lumumba and two colleagues.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
13 Jan, 1961: Troops at the Thysville army camp where Lumumba was imprisoned, mutiny demanding higher pay.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 Dec, 1960: Lumumba is arrested in Kasai province, tortured, and imprisoned at Thysville.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1960: The Free Rep. of the Congo is established in Kivu by Lumumba supporters in Stanleyville and led by Antoine Gizenga.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1960: The UN recognizes Kasa-Vubu’s new administration. Lumumba heads for Stanleyville, his main political base, to set up a rival regime there.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
14 Sep, 1960: Congo Military Coup; Lepolodville Army commander Colonel Joseph Mobutu (with encouragement from the CIA and the UN) takes control, declaring that he was neutralizing all politicians until the end of the year and expelling all Russian and Czech personnel. Mobutu forms an interim government, retaining Kasa-Vubu as president but excludes all Lumumba’s supporters.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
5 Sep, 1960: Kasa-Vubu announces the revocation of Lumumba’s appointment as PM in a Radio broadcast, accusing him of governing arbitrarily and plunging the Congo into civil war.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
18 Aug, 1960: US Pres. IKE authorizes the CIA to ‘eliminate’ Lumumba at a meeting of the US NSC after being told he was trying to expel UN forces.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
15 Aug, 1960: Lumumba requests Soviet assistance to secure military victory in Katanga and Kasai.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
17 Jul, 1960: Lumumba threatens to invite Soviet intervention if Belgian troops aren’t removed from the Congo by the UN. US officials feared a Communist takeover that would provide the UUSR with a base in the heart of Africa.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
11 Jul, 1960: Katanga is declared an independent state by Moise Tshombe.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
30 Jun, 1960: The Congo attains independence from Belgium and is administered under PM Patrice Lumumba.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1960: Congo Army Chief of Staff Lumumba orders the officer corps replaced with Congolese, appointing Victor Lundula as Commander and personal aide Joseph Mobutu as Chief of Staff. Despite these changes, the mutiny spread. In scores of incidents, whites were humiliated, beaten and raped; priests and nuns were singled out for special insults. Seized by panic, the white population fled in thousands. The Belgian government at first tried to persuade Lumumba to permit Belgian troops stationed in the Congo to restore order, but when Lumumba refused, it unilaterally ordered Belgian forces into action and arranged to fly in reinforcements. As Belgian troops took control of key points like Léopoldville airport, Lumumba became convinced that Belgium was trying to reimpose its rule. He broke off diplomatic relations and declared that, as far as he was concerned, the Congo was now at war with Belgium.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
4 Jun, 1960: Mutiny of the Congo Army following an incident of indiscipline at an Army barracks in Leopoldville; a protest meeting of soldiers held in the army camp that night demands the dismissal of Force Publique Commander General Janssens and ends in a riot. Troops at another garrison were ordered to intervene, but mutinied and went on the rampage attacking European civilians.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1960: Belgian Conference on Congo Independence; a united front of Congolese delegates demand immediate elections and independence on 1 June 1960. Belgium agrees to the independence of the Congo on 30 June.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1959-1961: Rwanda’s Hutu Revolution; ~150K Rwandan Tutsi flee to Kivu. Most went initially into refugee camps in Masisi, Walikale and Kalehe, then merged into existing communities. More follow in 1963-1964.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1959: Léopoldville riots following a decision by the local authorities to refuse permission for Abako to hold a scheduled Sunday afternoon meeting. Belgian investigations showed that unemployment, overcrowding and discrimination had produced a groundswell of frustration and discontent.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1958: The Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) led by Lumumba is formed seeking political representation for the Kongo people.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1955: ABAKO is formed by Bakongo leaders under Joseph Kasa-Vubu to promote the use of the Kikongo Language and reunification of the Bakongo peoples.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1910: Coastal Railways reach Katanga from Eastern Africa.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1908: Control of the Congo Free State is relinquished by Belgian King Léopold to the Belgian government after public furor. The colonial state that replaced it was rigidly controlled by a small management group in Brussels representing an alliance between the government, the Catholic Church and the giant mining and business corporations, whose activities were virtually exempt from outside scrutiny. In essence, the government provided administration, the Church attended to education and moral welfare, and the mining corporations produced the revenue to support the whole enterprise.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1885: The Congo Free State is formed by Belgian King Léopold. It was an area of nearly 1M mi2, 75x the size of Belgium and 1/13 of the African continent. It included a web of interconnecting rivers, navigable by steamboat, running deep into the interior and a wealth of resources such as ivory, palm oil, timber and copper.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1878: Henry Morton Stanley is hired by Belgian King Leopold to carve out a territory for him along the Congo river. Over a period of five years, Stanley signed ‘treaties’ with more than 400 African chiefs, persuading them to give up their sovereignty, and proceeded to establish a network of outposts in the equatorial forests of the Congo basin on Léopold’s behalf.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Equatorial Guinea
Sep, 1979: Trial of Equatorial Guinea’s President Nguema. The charges included genocide, paralysis of the economy and embezzlement of public funds. Out of a total of 80,000 murders listed in the original indictment, Nguema was found guilty on 500 counts.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
3 Aug, 1979: Equatorial Guinea Coup; Obiang leads a coup against Nguema (his uncle) taking control of the country.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1979: Six Equatorial Guinea officers of the National Guard who travelled to Mongomo to ask Nguema to pay salaries several months in arrears are shot.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1976: Equatorial Guinea; The last remaining senior civil servants, handpicked by Nguema to replace those he had previously murdered, sent him a mass petition asking for a relaxation of the country’s total isolationism, hoping there would be safety in numbers. Every one of the 114 petitioners were arrested and tortured, many never to be seen again. No proper administration survived. The only people to be paid regularly were the president, the army, the police and the militia. Most ministries – including those dealing with education, agriculture, construction and natural resources – had no budgets at all and their offices in Malabo were shut. The central bank too was closed after the director was publicly executed in 1976. Nigerian plantation workers on contract were treated like slave labour and left in droves. To replace them, Nguema ordered the forced recruitment of 2,500 males from each of the country’s ten districts, causing an exodus of tens of thousands to neighboring Gabon and Cameroon. Out of a population of 300,000, at least 50,000 had been killed and 125,000 had fled into exile. Hardly a single intellectual remained in the country; fewer than a dozen technical school graduates survived.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1974-1975: A series of edicts bans all religious meetings in Equatorial Guinea, funerals and sermons and forbid the use of Christian names. Christian worship became a crime.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1969: Equatorial Guinea President Nguema incites violence against the Spanish after discovering a Spanish Flag flying in Bata; thousands of Spanish flee. Foreign minister, Ndongo Miyone, seeking to defuse the crisis, spoke to Nguema, who refused to listen. Ndongo was tortured and murdered. By the end of March most of the Spanish population of 7,000, including civil administrators, teachers, technicians, professionals and shopkeepers had fled, abandoning their businesses, property and prosperous cocoa and coffee plantations.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1968: Equatorial Guinea attains independence from Portugal under a coalition government led by Francisco Nguema, who appoints his family in most key positions and rules the country as an autocrat killing off rivals including the husbands and boyfriends of mistresses and potential mistresses.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Egypt
‘The sound of shots, followed immediately by the piercing cries of women, the whimpering of a child, shouts for help, haunted me all the way to my bed and kept me awake all night, a kind of remorse filled my heart . . . I stammered, “If only he does not die.” By dawn I had arrived at the point where I prayed for the life of the man I had tried to kill – how great was my joy when, feverishly searching the morning newspaper, I discovered that the man had not succumbed.’- Nasser in ‘Philosophy of Revolution.’
Chronology
17 Dec- 2010- Dec, 2012: The Arab Spring develops across Islamic North Africa as a series of protests against years of pent-up grievances: over poverty, unemployment, police brutality, rising prices, the greed of the ruling elite and the crippling lack of freedom.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
11 Feb, 2012: Resignation of Egyptian PM Mubarak after 18 days of protests. Mubarak had unleashed the riot police, however the Army, the ultimate arbiter of power, withdrew its support.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 2012: Anti-Gaddafi protests in Benghazi & Tripoli; Gaddafi fails to crush the demonstrations, using riot police, and killing indiscriminately. Deploying tanks, air strikes and African mercenaries, Gaddafi ordered massive reprisals against opposition towns. As his tanks advanced on Benghazi, the UNSC, fearing an imminent massacre there, intervened, authorizing a ‘no-fly zone’ and ‘all necessary measures’ to be taken to protect civilians. Within hours, Western military jets went into action in Libya, attacking Gaddafi’s tanks and artillery and enabling poorly equipped rebel forces to survive. What had started out four weeks before as a peaceful anti-government demonstration had turned into another African war.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
14 Jan, 2012: Tunisian PM Ben Ali flees into exile after 29 days of protests.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
17 Dec, 2010: Self-Immolation of Tunisian Street trader Mohamed Bouazizi outside a government building in Sidi Bouzid in protest against municipal officials who had confiscated his merchandise after accusing him of trading without a license. Within hours, crowds gathered demonstrating against Ben Ali’s regime; their protests spread across Tunisia fueled by social media and years of pent-up grievances. Police attempts at repression failed; and the army refused to intervene on the government’s behalf.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1997: 58 foreign tourists are massacred while visiting the Temple of Queen Hatsheput in the Valley of the Kings by Gamaa gunmen- students from the U. of Asyut– who hunt them down for nearly an hour.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1996: Nine German tourists are killed outside the Egyptian Museum in Cairo by Gamaa Islamiyya.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1996: 17 Greek pilgrims are killed outside the Europa hotel in Cairo; Gamaa Islamiyya apologized, saying that they had been mistaken for Israeli tourists.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1995: Attempted assassination of Egypt’s Pres Hosni Mubarak while in Ethiopia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1990s: Egypt’s Islamist Insurgency is initiated by Afghan veterans who form Gamaa Islamiyya and Jamaat al-Jihad.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1989: Soviet forces withdraw from Afghanistan; Islamic Veterans return home from spreading revolutionary fervor and jihad.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
6 Oct, 1981: Assassination of Egyptian PM Anwar Sadat as he was reviewing a military parade by army members of Jamaat al-Jihad. Their leader, a 24-year-old lieutenant, cried out: ‘I am Khalid Islambuli! I have killed Pharaoh!-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Sep, 1981: Egyptian President Sadat orders the arrest of more than 1,500 people from across the political spectrum – Islamic activists, lawyers, doctors, journalists, university professors and political opponents.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1978-1979: Israel- Egypt Peace Accords; though winning Sadat great praise in the West and a Nobel Peace Prize, was commonly regarded by Muslims in Egypt as an opportunistic capitulation to Israel and the US.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
28 Sep, 1970: Egyptian PM Gamal Abdel Nasser dies of a heart attack at the age of 52 and is succeeded by Anwar Sadat.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
28 Sep, 1962- 1 Dec, 1970: North Yemen Civil War is fought between partisans of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom and supporters of the Yemen Arab Republic.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1962-1967: Egypt deploys a military expedition to sort out the Yemeni civil war but intervention was ruinous and tied down a third of the Egyptian army for five years.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1961: Egypt makes it a criminal offence to ‘show disrespect to the person and dignity of the Head of State’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1958: Egypt’s Nasser concludes a deal with the USSR enabling the Aswan Dam project to proceed.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1958: The Preventive Detention Act is passed in Egypt’s Nkrumah allowing the government to detain anyone without trial for up to five years.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1956- Mar, 1957: The Suez Crisis (aka 2nd Arab-Israeli War, Tripartite Aggression, Sinai War); the invasion of Egypt by Israel, UK, and France.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1956: Nasser sinks 47 ships in the Suez Canal, blocking traffic and cutting off oil SLOCs to Europe.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
6 Nov, 1956: British PM Eden calls a halt to the invasion of British-French forces in Egypt under scrutiny from the US and UN.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
29 Oct, 1956: Israeli forces cross into Sinai enroute the Suez canal. On the pretext of trying to separate the combatants, Britain and France issued an ultimatum to Egypt to withdraw its forces west of the canal. When Nasser rejected the ultimatum, Britain and France launched their own attack, bombing Egyptian airfields to destroy Nasser’s air force, landing troops at Port Said and dropping leaflets on Cairo urging Egyptians to overthrow their government. Nasser responds sinking 47 ships in the Suez Canal, blocking traffic and cutting off oil SLOCs to Europe.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1956: Convinced that Britain’s entire commercial stake in the Middle East, including its oil resources, was at risk, British PM Eden orders his military chiefs to prepare to seize the canal by force.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
26 Jul, 1956: The Suez Canal Company is nationalized by Egyptian PM Nasser (the companies concession was due to continue until 1968) with future revenues diverted toward the High Dam.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1956: The US withdraws their offer to help finance the Aswan High Dam, citing economic weakness and political instability. The UK followed.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 1956: Egypt establishes diplomatic relations with ‘Red China’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
28 Feb, 1955: Israeli Operation Black Arrow (aka the Gaza Raid) is launched as a sudden strike on three Egyptian army camps in the Gaza Strip. Nasser saw the attack as part of a concerted Western conspiracy to destroy his government and approached the USSR, signing a deal for fighter aircraft, bombers and tanks paid in exchange for Egyptian cotton.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1954: Britain agrees to withdraw all British troops from the Canal Zone by 18 June 1956; for the first time in twenty-five centuries, it would have complete national sovereignty.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1953: The RCC abolishes the monarchy and proclaims Egypt a republic, launching their own political movement, the Liberation Rally, led by Colonel Nasser.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1952: The Free Officers evolve into the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) and begin consolidating power.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
26 Jul, 1952: Abdication of the Egyptian King and an end to the 140-yr Turkish Dynasty founded by Farouk’s great-great-grandfather Mohammed Ali.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
0700, 23 Jul, 1952: The Free Officers issue their first communiqué announcing that the army had seized power in order to purge itself and the country of ‘traitors and weaklings’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
23 Jul, 1952: The Egyptian Revolution; Nasser and his companions of the Free Officers Society storm army HQ. After token resistance the generals surrendered and the Free Officers were in control of the radio station, the telegraph office, police posts and government buildings.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
The ‘six principles’ they drew up included: ‘the liquidation of colonialism and the Egyptian traitors who supported it’; ‘the liquidation of feudalism’; ‘an end to the domination of power by capital’; the formation of ‘a powerful popular army’; and the need to establish ‘social equality’ and ‘a healthy domestic life’. In a final underground leaflet which they distributed just before the coup, the Free Officers declared: ‘The army’s task is to win the country’s independence.’-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
9 Jan, 1952: Nasser and two fellow officers ambush the car of Egyptian Army COS General Hussein Sirri Amer, outside his house.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1948: The Free Officers Movement (Dhobat el-Ahrar) is formed under Abdel Moneim Abdel Raouf and Gamal Abdel Nasser as a clandestine network within the army determined to establish a new political order, embittered by the incompetence of Farouk’s command which he blamed for Egypt’s humiliating defeat in the Arab- Israeli conflict. Organized by Nasser into cells of 4-5 members, unknown to each other, the Free Officers comprised no more than a 100 men in all.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1948: Arab-Israel Conflict.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1922: Egypt attains independence from the British.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1882: The British first occupy Egypt.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1866: The Suez Canal is completed and administered under the Suez Canal Company between Egypt, France, and the UK.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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eSwatini (Swaziland)
1968: Swaziland (eSwatini) attains independence from Britain.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Ethiopia
“If the revolution is good for the people then I too will support it.”-Halie Selassie on his dethronement.
‘Food is a major element in our strategy against the secessionists.’-Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tibebu Bekele during the Ethiopian Famine of 1983.
‘The guerrillas operating in many of these areas do so with great help from the population. The people are like the sea and the guerrillas are like fish swimming in that sea. Without the sea there will be no fish. We have to drain the sea, or if we cannot completely drain it, we must bring it to a level where they will lack room to move at will, and their movements will be easily restricted.’-Mengistu on Resettlement during the Ethiopian Famine.
‘Ethiopia Tikdem: Ethiopia First’
‘Let nature take its toll – just don’t let it out in the open. We need a façade for the outside world, so make it look like we’re doing something.’-Ethiopian leadership on the 1983 Famine.
‘Agencies are tired of helping a government that seemed to do so little to help itself.’-Tony Vaux, Oxfam Official on the 1980s Ethiopian Famine.
Drivers of the Ethiopian Famine (1983-1985)
More than half of Ethiopia’s Budget was directed towards maintaining an Army of 300K in the field.
Media suppression; no mention was made in Ethiopia of the famine deaths in Tigray and Wollo.
Government Mandated Food Quotas with Government set pricing.
Overpopulation, desertification, over-cultivation, deforestation, soil erosion, land degradation.
Ongoing Ethnic conflict.
Chronology
2016: The Battle of Tsorona is fought between Ethiopia and Eritrea as part of the Eritrean-Ethiopian Border Conflict.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
6 May, 1998-18 Jun, 2000: Eritrean- Ethiopian War is fought over disputed border regions between both nations.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
6 May, 1998: The Ethiopian-Eritrean War begins after Ethiopian forces attack an Eritrean Patrol killing 5 officers of the Eritrean Defense Force (EDF) in Badme.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1993: Eritrea attains Independence, bringing 30 years of warfare to a close.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1991: A national conference of Ethiopian leaders agrees to hold a referendum under UN auspices to determine the future of Eritrea.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
28 May, 1991: The EPRDF take Addis Ababa, establishing a new democratic government composed of representatives from the major ethnic groups and political organizations.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
23 May, 1991: The Ethiopian Army surrenders in Asmara to the EPLF, giving Eritrea de facto independence.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
21 May, 1991: Ethiopia President Mengistu is driven out of power by a joint army of Eritrean and Tigrayan rebels and flees into exile.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1990: The ELPF cease Massawa.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1989-1991: The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) evolves from a coalition of TPLF and other resistant forces and takes control of the countryside over the ensuing two years, slowly advancing on Addis.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1988: Ethiopia’s Mengistu renounces Marxism-Leninism and embraces a multi-party system after being turned down for Aid by Soviet Premier Gorbachev, who tells him that he needs to reach a negotiated settlement to the wars in Eritrea and Tigray.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1988: The TPLF and EPLF begin coordinating activities.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1988: Ethiopia’s Mengistu renounces Marxism-Leninism and embraces a multi-party system after being turned down for Aid by Soviet Premier Gorbachev, who tells him that he needs to reach a negotiated settlement to the wars in Eritrea and Tigray.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1986: The Ethiopian resettlement campaign is stopped; some 600,000 people had been moved; an estimated 50,000 had died in the upheaval.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1985: Ethiopia’s Mengistu launches the 8th Offensive in Tigray, bringing yet more devastation.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1984: The Workers Party of Ethiopia is formed by Mengistu at an elaborate $150M ceremony commemorating the 10 year anniversary of the DERG coup.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1983-1985: Ethiopian Famine, centered in Wollo and Tigray, results in an estimated 1M deaths and prompts the greatest single peace-time mobilization of the international community in the 20th century.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
13 Jul, 1985: Live Aid, a day-long rock concert, staged jointly in Britain and the US, raises more than $100M.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1984: Ethiopia’s Mengistu announces the planned resettlement of 300K families comprising 1.5M people in drought stricken areas to more fertile regions in SE Ethiopia. Mengistu’s motives were more to drive establishment of new collective farms in the south while depopulating areas of rebel activity. Resettlement fails utterly killing ~50K of 600K; hundreds of thousands take refuge in Sudan.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
23 Oct, 1984: A short film on Ethiopia’s famine is released by Amin on the BBC. Governments and politicians scrambled to respond, pledging aid and dispatching air force transport planes.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1984: The RRC records that 10K people were dying in shelters each week; in March it put the figure at 16,000. In all, it estimated that 5M people were at risk.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1983-1984: Failure of the Belg rains, the short rainy season that usually produced 10% of the annual crop. Scorching drought, combined with the effects of years of military repression, left Tigray and northern Wollo devastated. Desperate to raise money for food and to meet food quotas, thousands of farmers sold their livestock, farm equipment and household goods, abandoning their farms and heading with their families towards relief centers in the hope of staying alive. The AMC still insisted on food quotas.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1983: The Ethiopian Military launches a 7th offensive began against the TPLF in W. Tigray; nearly half a million flee. In addition to outright destruction, the army requisitioned food and enforced blockades of food and people. Food was routinely used as a weapon of war.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1980- Mar, 1981: The Ethiopian Military launches a 6th offensive against the TPLF in Tigray and Wollo causing massive disruption. Using scorched-earth tactics, the army destroyed grain stores and houses, burned crops and pastures, killed livestock and displaced about 80,000 farmers.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
12 Jul, 1977- 15 Mar, 1978: The Ogaden War; Somalia invades the Ethiopian Ogaden hoping to reconquer lost territory and is defeated by an alliance of Ethiopian, Cuban, and Soviet forces.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1978: Ethiopian, Cuban, and Soviet forces recapture Jijiga and SNA held territory in the Ogaden forcing the Somali’s to withdrawal.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1978: Led by Cuban armor, the Ethiopians launched their counter-offensive in the Ogaden.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1977: Soviet Airlift/Sealift to Ethiopia provides tanks, fighter aircraft, artillery, APCs and military advisers. A Cuban combat force numbering 17,000 joined them.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1977- Jan, 1978: Battle of Harar; 40,000 Ethiopians with Cuban troops and Soviet supplies/advisors (who had recently changed sides) hold off SNA forces.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
12 Jul, 1977: The Somali National Army (SNA) invades Ogaden in Eastern Ethiopia taking advantage of Mengistu’s war in Eritrea. By Sep, Somalis had taken most of the Ogaden.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1977: US President Carter condemns the Ethiopian Government and suspends military aid. Ethiopia turns to the Soviet Union for assistance, who is eager to help.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1977: Mengistu assumes sole control of the Ethiopian Government, having all his rivals killed.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1976: Mengistu proclaim Marxism-Leninism as Ethiopia’s official ideology.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
18 Feb, 1975: The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is formed in Dedebit by Debretsion Gebremichael, as a large guerilla force with the help of Eritrea.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1974-Mar, 1975: The Ethiopian DERG announces a program of Ethiopian Socialism including nationalization of industries, the closing of schools and universities, land reform, bank and insurance company nationalization, industry, commercial companies, and all rural land, abolishing private ownership. The latter freed peasants from debt and the need to pay rents. Peasants were forced to accept low prices dictated by officials from the state-run Agricultural Marketing Corporation (AMC), directly reducing output per capita and making Ethiopia increasingly dependent on food imports. The prices set by AMC were so low that many farmers declined to sell. Peasants were forced to deliver grain quotas to state officials, regardless of their circumstance. If they failed to do so, they could be imprisoned or have their assets confiscated. In many cases, peasants had to delve into their own food reserves or sell assets to buy grain on the open market to resell to the AMC at a loss.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
23 Nov, 1974: The DERG executes 60 prominent prisoners including two former PM’s and the Emperor’s grandson. The key figure behind this decision was a young officer, Major Mengistu Haile Mariam.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
12 Sep, 1974- 4 Jun, 1991: Ethiopian Civil War; The Ethiopian Military launches five major offenses against the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in Tigray and Northern Wollo Provinces, and prosecutes a war in Eritrea, that they steadily lose to guerillas and rebel groups. By mid-1977, the Ethiopian army in Eritrea had lost most major towns and controlled little more than Asmara and the ports of Massawa and Assab.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Sep, 1974: The Hidden Famine, a British Documentary, is released as an exposé examining how thousands had been allowed to starve in Wollo, Ethiopia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
12 Sep, 1974: Ethiopia’s Haile Selassie is dethroned by the DERG and with his family, imprisoned. Selassie later dies in prison on 27 Aug, 1975.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
25 Aug, 1974: Ethiopia’s Jubilee Palace is nationalized and renamed the National Palace.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul- Aug, 1974: The DERG dismantles the Ethiopian government wholesale, condemning Selassie’s ancient regime for corruption and exploitation, and abolishing imperial institutions included the Ministry of the Pen; the Crown Council; the Chelot; the emperor’s private exchequer.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
4 Jul, 1974: The DERG pledges loyalty to the emperor, giving its main goals as the upholding of the Crown and the smooth functioning of civilian government. The slogan adopted – ‘Ethiopia Tikdem’, ‘Ethiopia First’ – was suitably vague.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1974: The DERG (committee) is formed by a radical group of junior officers in Addis Ababa comprising 108 representatives chosen by units of the armed forces to run the country.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan- Mar, 1974: Strikes and Demonstrations throughout Ethiopia and Eritrea against corruption, low pay, education reform, fuel price increases, discrimination against Islam, demands for separation of church and state, food price increases, union rights, and more.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
12 Jan, 1974: Ethiopian military mutiny; enlisted men at an army outpost in Neghelle mutiny against their officers in protest against poor food and a shortage of water. The soldiers’ water pump had broken down; when officers refused to allow them the use of their own well, they were imprisoned. The mutineers sent a petition to the emperor asking for their grievances to be redressed. News of the Neghelle mutiny spread through the army’s network to every unit in the country.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1973: The WSLF is revived with assistance from Somalia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1973: Ethiopia’s Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) is formed with assistance from Somalia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1973: The Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) is establishing in the aftermath of the 1973 drought.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1973: Drought and famine in Wollo, Ethiopia claims the lives of tens of thousands of peasants.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1967: An Ethiopian Civil Code is passed dictating that tenant farmers (75% of farmers) are required to pay 75% of their produce to landlords and provide free labor, transport, firewood, domestic services including cooks and guards, and construction to landlords. Tenants lived in perpetual fear of eviction.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1966: Famine in Ethiopia kills tens of thousands.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1964: Ethiopia-Somali Border War; Ethiopia quickly defeats Somalia in a war over the Ogaden.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1963: The Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) is formed aiming to restore Somali sovereignty to Ethiopia’s Ogaden.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1962: The Eritrean assembly was persuaded to vote for the dissolution of the federation and its own existence in favour of annexation by Ethiopia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1959: Ethiopian law code is extended to Eritrea; political parties are banned; the labour movement destroyed; censorship was introduced; and Amharic replaced Tigrinya and Arabic as the official language.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1958: Ethiopia discards the Eritrean flag.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1958: Famine in Ethiopia kills tens of thousands.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1941: Britain assumes control of Italian territories in Africa following Italy’s defeat in WWII, encouraging political parties, labour unions, and free press; harboring a sense of Eritrean identity despite Ethiopian historical claims to Massawa and Eritrea. Although Arab countries proposed Eritrea as an independent state, the UN formed a federation where the Ethiopian government was given control of foreign affairs, defence, finance, commerce and ports, while Eritrea was allowed its own elected government and assembly to deal with local affairs. Eritrea was also permitted to have its own flag and official languages, Tigrinya and Arabic. The various freedoms which Eritreans had briefly enjoyed – political rights, trade unions and an independent press – all were whittled away by Ethiopia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
3 Oct, 1935- 19 Feb, 1937: Second Italo-Ethiopian War; Emperor Haile Selassie and Ethiopia’s defiant stand against Mussolini’s Italian Invasion.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1930s: Rastafarianism emerges in Jamaica, taking its title from Haile Selassie’s original title, Ras Tafari.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
15 Dec, 1894- 23 Oct, 1896: First Italo-Ethiopian War after dispute over the Treaty of Wuchale, which claimed Ethiopia as an Italian protectorate. Italy invades Ethiopia with 10,000 troops from Massawa, and are routed by Emperor Menelik and his forces. The Italians were thus forced to confine themselves to occupying Eritrea.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1892: Ras Tafari, General Makonnen’s son, is born in Harar, Ethiopia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
10 Mar, 1889- 12 Dec, 1913: Reign of Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1887: Ras Makonnen, one of Menelik’s Ethiopian generals, occupies the ancient Muslim city of Harar; laying claim to the Ogaden and Oromo for Ethiopia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Gabon
Jan, 1990: Gabon General strikes, demonstrations, and protests are ignited following a student protest at the Omar Bongo University. Bongo responds by establishing a special commission on democracy within the ruling Parti Démocratique Gabonais (PDG) which recommends a five-year transition to a multi-party system.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
17 Aug, 1960: Gabon attains independence from France.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Ghana
‘The circle of poverty can only be broken by a massively planned industrial undertaking.’-Kwame Nkrumah.
‘We prefer self-government with danger to servitude in tranquility.’-Kwame Nkrumah.
‘We are acknowledging the historic debt of the whole nation to the farmer, and have thus repudiated the monstrous injustice of a past in which we virtually ran the machinery of the state on the tired backs of rural producers and provided little for their basic needs.’-Ghanian Pres. Rawlings.
Chronos
May, 1992: The Ghanaian President lifts the 11-yr-old ban on political parties, giving them only six months to prepare for an election and then took full advantage of government resources – money, vehicles, helicopters and the state-owned media – to boost his own campaign.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1990: A Ghanaian opposition movement surfaces in Accra.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1983: With the support of the IMF/World Bank, Ghanaian President Rawlings embarked on wholesale reform, accepting market disciplines and a reduced role for the state.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1982: Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings assumes the presidency of Ghana for the second time.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1979: The Ghana Junior Officers Coup; A group of junior officers led by 32-year-old air force officer Flight-Lt Jerry Rawlings, seize power executing 8 senior officers, including three former heads of state, by firing squad; traders accused of profiteering were publicly flogged; the main market in Accra was razed to the ground; and impromptu People’s Courts were set up to deal with scores of army officers and businessmen accused of corruption and malpractice. Rawlings then handed power over to the politicians.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1967: Ghana Coup; 27-year-old Ghanaian army Lt Sam Arthur seizes power while in temporary command of an armored car unit.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
24 Feb, 1966: The Ghanaian Army coup; the Ghana Army assumes power while Nkrumah was in Asia attempting to mediate in the Vietnam War, large crowds gathered to welcome the soldiers.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1965: Ghanaian general election; all CPP candidates are returned unopposed without even the formality of a vote.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
6 Mar, 1957: Ghana attains Independence from Britain.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1956: Nkrumah and the CCP win the majority of seats in Congress after a general election is held by the British in response to outbreaks of violence between the NLM and CPP.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1954: The Ghana National Liberation Movement (NLM) is formed to convey Asante interests, primarily in opposition to governmentally fixed coca pricing at a level less than one-third of ruling world prices.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1953: Ghana’s Nkrumah introduces a motion demanding full self-government without delay.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
8 Feb, 1952: Kwame Nkrumah (while in prison) is elected Ghana PM; his CPP take the majority of seats in Congress. Arden-Clarke ordered his release, describing it as ‘an act of grace’. After 14 months’ imprisonment, Nkrumah walked out of James Fort at midday on 12 February.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1949: The Convention People’s Party (CCP) is formed in Ghana under the leadership of Kwame Nkrumah demanding ‘Self-Government Now.’-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Guinea
Resources: Bauxite, Aluminum (comprising most exports and a third of GDP).
Touré used plots as a pretext for liquidating his opponents, whether there was evidence against them or not. Discovering plots became an instrument of government, a device to deal not only with critics and dissenters but ordinary people at times of economic crisis. His regime became notorious for show trials, public executions, arbitrary imprisonment and the use of torture.
‘We prefer poverty in freedom to riches in slavery.’-Touré.
Chronos
26 Mar, 1984: Death of Guinea President Ahmed Sekou Touré while undergoing a heart operations in the USA.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1977: A Guinea government decree closes all village markets – a major feature of life in Guinea – and accorded state enterprises, run by local party and government officials, a total monopoly on local trade. All farmers were required to deliver their crops to these enterprises. This decree and other grievances over the shortage of goods and the rough treatment dealt out by Touré’s ‘economic police’ led to protest demonstrations by market women, which began in rural centres, then spread to provincial towns and finally erupted in the capital. When market women in Conakry marched on the presidential palace, government troops are instructed to fire on them.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1965: Guinea President Touré arrests and condemns to death a group of traders who tried to form an opposition party and nominated a candidate to stand in the presidential election. Touré extends state control to every sector of the economy. The result was a string of state corporations that were badly managed, heavily in debt, rife with corruption and crippled by low production.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1961: Guinea President Touré announces the discovery of a ‘teachers’ plot’ after teachers had demanded equal pay for equal work and criticized government policies; prominent teachers and intellectuals were detained, and the Soviet ambassador was summarily expelled, accused of meddling in Guinea’s affairs.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1960: Fria, a foreign company, commences production of Guinea’s Bauxite Mines. Within a year, the mines provide almost three-quarters of total exports and foreign exchange earnings.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1960: Guinea President Touré, using plots as a pretext for liquidating his opponents, announces the discovery of a conspiracy by French nationals and Guinean dissidents to assassinate him, arresting scores of people; some died under torture.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2 Oct, 1958: Guinea attains Independence from France; Touré turned to the USSR and other communist countries for assistance.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
28 Sep, 1958: Guinea Independence Referendum; 95% vote ‘non’ in a referendum to remain as a colony of France.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1958: Guinea attains independence under Toure. About one fifth of Guinea’s population emigrated to neighbouring African countries, mostly to escape his harsh domestic policies.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1957: Guinea elections; Touré becomes Guineas PM and the PDG wins 56 out of 60 seats.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1947: The Parti Démocratique de Guinée (PDG) is formed in Guinea under the leadership of Touré.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Guinea-Bissau
Sep, 1974: Guinea Bissau attains independence from Portugal.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
25 Apr, 1974: The Carnation Revolution; a military coup in Portugal overthrows authoritarian Estado Novo Regime and ends Portuguese Colonial Wars granting independence to Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea- Bissau, Mozambique, and Sao Tome and Principe.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
23 Jan, 1964- 10 Sep, 1974: The Guinea- Bissau War of Independence is fought to a standstill by Portugal and the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC). Portuguese forces are unable to neutralize the PAIG and withdraw following the 1974 Portugal Carnation Revolution.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1963: Guerrilla wars break out in Guinea-Bissau.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
19 Sep, 1956: The Partido da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) in Guinea-Bissau is formed under the leadership of Domingos Simoes Pereira as a nationalist movement fighting for Independence from the Portuguese.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Kenya
‘We do not want a Kenya of ten millionaires and ten million beggars.’-Jomo Kenyatta.
‘A stable social order cannot be built on the poverty of millions. Frustrations born of poverty breed turmoil and violence.’-Jomo Kenyatta.
‘The colonial powers should now reverse the Scramble for Africa. Your time is past, Africa must be free. Scram from Africa.’-Tom Mboya.
Almost half of Kenya’s judges and more than one-third of magistrates were corrupt. It revealed that the cost of bribery ranged from up to $190,000 for an Appeal Court judge to $20,000 for a High Court judge to $2,000 for a magistrate. As little as $500 would quash a murder conviction, while $250 would secure acquittal on a rape charge. One judge estimated that at least 20 % of prison inmates were wrongfully imprisoned because they could not afford to pay a bribe.-Post Moi era Investigative reporting.
In 2010, the losses to corruption in Kenya were calculated at nearly $4B a year – one-third of the national budget.-Kenyan Finance Ministry Officials Reporting.
Chronos
Dec, 2007- Jan, 2008: Kenyan Crisis; Kibaki is declared winner in Kenyan elections despite having clearly lost to opposite candidate Odinga. In response, Kalenjin leaders in the Rift Valley unleash tribal militias to attack and drive out Kikuyu residents. Kikuyu leaders responded in kind, licensing paramilitary police and a Kikuyu criminal gang known as Mungiki to take revenge and enforce repression. In thirty days of horrifying violence, more than 1,100 people were killed, and 3,000 injured; 650K were forced from their homes; and Kenya was left divided into hostile tribal camps. After a protracted series of talks, Kibaki and Odinga worked out a compromise: Kibaki would remain president, Odinga would become prime minister of a coalition government.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Late, 2002: Mwai Kibaki replaces Daniel Arap Moi as Kenyan President after Moi is forced to step down.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2 Dec, 1991: Kenya’s Moi lifts the ban on opposition parties and agrees to hold multi-party elections.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
25 Nov, 1991: Western Donors at a meeting in Paris agree to suspend development aid to Kenya for six months to Moi’s corrupt and repressive regime.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1991: The Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) is formed in Kenya by a small band of lawyers and political activists. At a series of political rallies, ministers told their supporters that they should regard the Rift Valley as an exclusive zone for the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU).-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1990: Murder of church critic, Bishop Alexander Muge, who had spoken out against corruption in Kenya.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
7 Jul, 1990: Matiba and Rubia’s supporters gather at the Kamukunji grounds, but are dispersed by riot police with batons and tear gas, igniting three days of rioting in the poorer quarters of Nairobi and violence elsewhere in Kikuyuland and the Rift Valley.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 1990: Kikuyu businessmen, Kenneth Matiba and Charles Rubia, both former ministers who had been ousted in rigged elections in 1988, demand an end to the single-party system. Moi denounced them as ‘traitors’ and ‘tribalists’, insisting that a multi-party system would divide Kenya along tribal lines. Matiba and Rubia called for a rally at Nairobi’s Kamukunji Stadium to state the case for a multi-party system. Their application was refused and they were arrested and detained for nearly a year.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1990: The murder of Kenyan foreign minister, Robert Ouko, who had recently compiled a dossier on high-level corruption, set off riots in Nairobi.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 Jan, 1990: In a New Year’s Day sermon in Nairobi, Presbyterian Reverend Timothy Njoya, speaks to the ‘detentions, imprisonments, torture, oppression and deprivations’ suffered by Kenyans and suggests that unless the government tackles injustice, corruption and abuse of power, Kenya was heading for a major disaster.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1982: Kenya’s Moi orders Kenya into a one-party state by law, establishes a party disciplinary committee to bar from electoral politics any individual who criticized his policies and abandons the secret ballot in primary elections, replacing it with a ‘queuing’ system under which voters were required to line up behind the agents of candidates holding pictures of each contestant.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
23 Aug, 1978: Death of Kenyan President Jomo Kenyatta; who is succeeded by Daniel Arap Moi.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2 Mar, 1975: Kenyan Socialist Politician Kariuki is murdered and his body is dumped at the foot of the Ngong Hills outside Nairobi.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 Mar, 1975: Nairobi Bus Bombing; a bomb explodes on a crowded bus in central Nairobi killing 27 and injuring 90.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1963: Kenya gains independence from the British.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1961: Kenyatta is released from prison.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1957: Kenya’s first African elections; 8 Africans are elected to the legislative council.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1952-1960: The Mau Mau Uprising (aka the Mau Mau Rebellion, the Kenya Emergency, the Mau Mau Revolt) is fought between the British Government supported by the Kikuyu, and the Kenyan Land and Freedom Army (KLFA) led by Mau Mau. The rebellion grew out of anger and resentment at the mass expulsion of Kikuyu peasants from the White Highlands, an area of 12,000 square miles of the best agricultural land in the country.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1959: Kenya’s White Highlands are formally opened to all races.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1952: British Governor of Kenya Sir Evelyn Baring declares a state of emergency and orders the detention of Kenyatta and 150 other members of the KAU, a move taken by Mau Mau activists as tantamount to a declaration of war. In growing panic, white farmers in the Rift Valley expelled some 100,000 squatters, providing Mau Mau with a massive influx of recruits.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Sep, 1946: Jomo Kenyatta assumes command of the KAU.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1945-1948: ~8000 White immigrants arrive in Kenya (bringing the total to 40,000), escaping postwar austerity in Europe, to farm a quarter of a million acres in the White Highlands that the British government had set aside. Kikuyu squatters who had been kicked out of the areas reach ~250,000, a quarter of the Kikuyu people.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1944: The Kenya African Union (KAU) is formed as a nationalist group campaigning for African rights.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1929: Jomo Kenyatta represents the KCA in London bearing a petition on land grievances in Kenya.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1924: The Kikuyu Central Association (KCA) is formed in Kenya.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1901: East African coastal railways reach Lake Victoria.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Lesotho (Basutoland)
1966: Lesotho (Basutoland) attains independence from Britain.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Liberia
Liberia possesses only two ships of its own but allows more than 2,500 vessels plying the seas to fly Liberia’s flag of convenience without the bother of inspection, for a suitable fee.
‘He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him.’-Taylor’s 1997 Liberia Election Slogan.
Chronos
11 Aug, 2003: Taylor steps down as President of Liberia after W. governments had imposed an arms embargo and trade sanctions on Liberia and a travel ban on government officials. Taylor himself was labelled a pariah.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
18 Jul- 14 Aug, 2003: Siege of Monrovia; The Armed Forces of Liberia are defeated by LURD Rebels forcing Liberian President Taylor into exile. For weeks, child soldiers roamed the streets, dressed in bizarre outfits, high on ‘Blue Blue’ barbiturates and marijuana, sometimes carrying AK-47s in one hand and toys in the other.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 2003: Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) advance on Monrovia, looting, raping and abducting children as they go. A second rebel group, the Movement for Democracy and Elections in Liberia (MODEL) gains control of the S and E of Monrovia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1997: Liberian Presidential Elections; Charles Taylor and his National Patriotic Party (NPP) gain a decisive victory. Taylor had made it clear that if he did not win, he would resume the war.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
24 Dec, 1989- 2 Aug, 1997: First Liberian Civil War; ~250K die as the NPLF under Charles Taylor ousts Doe’s from power.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1996: Liberia’s warlords assembled in Abuja and sign a new peace accord – the 14th.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1996: The Third Battle for Monrovia is fought between Taylor’s NPLF and Krahn factions. Both sides engage in cannibalism, ripping out hearts and eating them. One group known as the ‘Butt Naked Brigade’ fought naked in the belief that this would protect them against bullets. ECOMOG soldiers joined in a looting spree. Aid workers and other foreigners fled. Once more, Monrovia was reduced to a wrecked city.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1995: The Abuja Agreement is signed by 8 Liberian faction leaders; Liberia was to be run for an interim period before elections by a Council of State consisting of six members, including Taylor representing the NPFL, and two other warlords.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1992: The Second Battle of Monrovia; Taylor sieges Monrovia with mortar and rocket fire, and comes close to capturing ECOMOG HQ until the Nigerians poured in reinforcements driving them back. The setbacks persuaded Taylor that he would never attain power through military means alone and set out to reach accommodation with ECOMOG.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 1991: The United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia (ULIMO) is formed by Krahn soldiers and dispossessed Mandingo traders.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Sep, 1990: An interim government headed by Amos Sawyer (the same U. Professor imprisoned by Doe in 1985) is formed in Monrovia while the city is defended by ECOMOG. Taylor refused to participate in the interim arrangements and fought on, attacking ECOMOG positions in the E. suburbs, who retaliates with air raids on Taylor’s positions, joining the war as yet another faction in it. Like other factions, ECOMOG was heavily involved in looting, arms trading and contraband. So notorious did ECOMOG’s dealings in cars, consumer goods and scrap metal become that Liberians dubbed it as standing for ‘Every Car Or Moving Object Gone’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
9 Sep, 1990: Death of General Doe, tortured, mutilated, and killed by Johnson’s Rebel Group after being captured following a shootout enroute ECOMOG headquarters. Stripped down to his underpants, Doe stares up at his tormentors, his face bruised and bloody. A strand of protective amulets encircles his waist. ‘I want to say something, if you will listen to me,’ he says. ‘You untie my hands and I will talk . . . I never ordered anybody’s execution.’ Johnson sits calmly behind a desk, drinking beer. ‘Cut off one ear,’ he says in a soft voice. Doe is held down flat. A knife slices through an ear. Doe screams. The film shows Johnson holding the ear high above his mouth and then chewing it. The other ear is sliced off. Doe is taken into the garden and questioned further. How much money had he stolen? What did he do with it? Doe refuses to say. The knife comes out again. Doe is told to repeat after his interrogator: ‘I, Samuel Kanyon Doe, declare that the government is overthrown. I’m therefore asking the armed forces to surrender to Field Marshal Prince Johnson.’ The following day Doe’s mutilated body was paraded through the streets in a wheelbarrow.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
23 Aug, 1990: Advanced parties of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) led by Nigeria arrive in Monrovia, setting up HQ in Freeport and prepare to assist in Liberia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1990: A ceasefire is arranged between Doe’s Krahn and Taylor’s NPLF.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1990: The First Battle of Monrovia; the NPLF siege on Monrovia, from the E. by Taylor and from the W. by a second rebel group led by Prince Johnson, a former Nimba Army Officer. The city had no power and no water supplies. Unable to escape, short of food, residents ate cats and dogs, then began to starve. As Doe’s ministers fled, Krahn soldiers took control, rampaging through the streets screaming ‘No Doe. No Liberia’ and looting and executing residents at will. The battle for the city swayed back and forth, leaving it in ruins. Amid the anarchy, Doe remained holed up in the Executive Mansion, refusing all pleas for him to go into exile.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 1990: The NPLF reach the port of Buchanan, 150 km SE of Monrovia and move up the coast towards the capital, capturing the Firestone estate and Robertsfield airport, using it to ferry in arms from Burkina Faso.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Early, 1990: Taylor and the NPLF surge through Liberia; prisoners were recruited, orphans were organized into ‘Small Boys Units’. Bolstered by cane spirit, marijuana and cheap amphetamines, youths and boy soldiers evolved into psychopathic killers, adorning themselves with women’s wigs, dresses, fright masks and enemy bones and smearing their faces with white clay and make-up in the belief that this gave them supernatural protection.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1990: Doe dispatches a Krahn force to Nimba County to crush Taylor’s NPLF; Doe’s army unleashes a campaign of terror killing, raping, looting, burning villages, and driving tens of thousands of Gios and Manos from their homes. Doe also sent Krahn death squads in Monrovia to eliminate prominent opposition figures. The repression provided Taylor with an army of raw recruits, mainly illiterate teenagers and boys bent on revenge. ‘As the NPFL came in,’ Taylor recalled, ‘we didn’t even have to act. People came to us and said: “Give me a gun. How can I kill the man who killed my mother?”’-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
24 Dec, 1989: 100 insurgents from the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPLF) led by Liberian Exile, Charles Taylor, cross the border into Liberia from Côte d’Ivoire commencing rebellion in Nimba County and gaining support from Gio and Mano tribesmen who had suffered terrible repression after Quiwonkpa’s failed coup in 1985.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
12 Nov, 1985: Failed Liberian Coup; Doe’s former Army Commander, Thomas Quiwonkpa, crosses into Liberia from Sierra Leone, seize the main military barracks and the government’s radio station and broadcast a recorded message promising free elections. With military support, Doe regains control. Quiwonkpa was found by Krahn soldiers hiding in a house outside Monrovia. His body, kicked and pummeled beyond recognition, was taken to downtown Monrovia, and castrated, dismembered, and eaten, as hundreds of traders and shoppers looked on. Krahn soldiers then rounded up hundreds of Gio and Mano soldiers and civilians and took them to the grounds of the Executive Mansion and Barclay barracks where they were killed.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
15 Oct, 1985: Liberian Presidential Elections (the first in Liberia based on universal suffrage). The vote is suspended, and an illegal hand-picked re-count committee is appointed after preliminary vote counts show that Doe had decisively lost the presidential election. After two weeks sequestered in a Monrovia hotel, Doe’s re-count committee announce that he had won the election with 50.9% of the vote.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1984: Liberia’s LPRC issues Decree 88a making it a criminal offence to ‘create disharmony, spread rumors, lies and disinformation’, effectively outlawing criticism of the government. Newspapers were shut down and journalists arrested. The arrest of Johnson-Sirleaf prompted the Reagan administration to suspend $25M in aid. Doe duly released the prisoners and collected $25M in return.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1984: Doe has Liberian University professor, Amos Sawyer, and 15 others are arrested, claiming they were plotting a coup. When students protested, Doe sent a detachment of 200 soldiers to the campus, who open fire indiscriminately, extort, strip, flog, beat, and rape students, killing more than 50 and causing an estimated $2M in damage. Doe then fired the entire university administration and teaching staff.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1984: Liberian President Doe lifts the ban on political activity.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1980: MSgt Samuel Doe takes control of Liberia, forms the People’s Redemption Council, suspends the constitution, bans political activity, declares martial law, and gives patronage exclusively to his Krahn tribal group.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Night, 12 Apr, 1980: Liberian Military Coup; 17 dissident soldiers led by 28yo MSgt Samuel Doe attack the Presidential Palace killing 27 people including President Tolbert in his bedroom, shooting him in the head, gouging out his right eye, and disemboweling him. Ministers and officials were rounded up, taken before a military tribunal and sentenced to death. The group held grievances over poor living conditions in army barracks and possessed no political objectives, no policy ambitions, no guiding ideology, other than power.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1979: Protests in Liberia following a 50% increase in the price of rice.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1970: Firestone and the Liberian Iron Mining Company are providing the government with 50% of revenues.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1931: An international commission on Liberia finds senior government officials guilty of involvement in organized slavery.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1926: Firestone Tyre and Rubber Company leases a million acres from Liberia for 99 years at $.06/acre to meet the demand for car tires.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1877-1980: The True Whig Party governs Liberia under a one-party system, controlled by an elite group who held office continuously, dispensing patronage, deciding public appointments, and retaining a monopoly on power. Election determined which family- the Barclays, the Kings, or the Tubmans, would emerge on top. Despite their origins as descendants of slaves from the Deep South, they regarded the 2M black Liberians as an inferior race, fit only for exploitation.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1931: An international commission on Liberia finds senior government officials guilty of involvement in organized slavery.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1926: Firestone Tyre and Rubber Company leases a million acres from Liberia for 99 years at $.06/acre to meet the demand for car tires.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
26 Jul, 1847: Liberia is established as an independent republic by ~300 Black settler families.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Libya
17 Dec- 2010- Dec, 2012: The Arab Spring develops across Islamic North Africa as a series of protests against years of pent-up grievances: over poverty, unemployment, police brutality, rising prices, the greed of the ruling elite and the crippling lack of freedom.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
11 Feb, 2012: Resignation of Egyptian PM Mubarak after 18 days of protests. Mubarak had unleashed the riot police, however the Army, the ultimate arbiter of power, withdrew its support.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 2012: Anti-Gaddafi protests in Benghazi & Tripoli; Gaddafi fails to crush the demonstrations, using riot police, and killing indiscriminately. Deploying tanks, air strikes and African mercenaries, Gaddafi ordered massive reprisals against opposition towns. As his tanks advanced on Benghazi, the UNSC, fearing an imminent massacre there, intervened, authorizing a ‘no-fly zone’ and ‘all necessary measures’ to be taken to protect civilians. Within hours, Western military jets went into action in Libya, attacking Gaddafi’s tanks and artillery and enabling poorly equipped rebel forces to survive. What had started out four weeks before as a peaceful anti-government demonstration had turned into another African war. The root cause was a common phenomenon: an ageing dictator, entrenched in power for decades, determined to maintain his grip whatever the cost.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
14 Jan, 2012: Tunisian PM Ben Ali flees into exile after 29 days of protests.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
17 Dec, 2010: Self-Immolation of Tunisian Street trader Mohamed Bouazizi outside a government building in Sidi Bouzid in protest against municipal officials who had confiscated his merchandise after accusing him of trading without a license. Within hours, crowds gathered demonstrating against Ben Ali’s regime; their protests spread across Tunisia fueled by social media and years of pent-up grievances. Police attempts at repression failed; and the army refused to intervene on the government’s behalf.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1994: Gadaffi loses his claim to the Aozou Strip at the International Court of Justice.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1993: Attempted assassination of Libyan President Gaddafi.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1979: Libya’s Gaddafi deploys an expeditionary force to Uganda to assist Amin’s Army; ends in a humiliating defeat.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1978-1987: Chadian-Libyan Conflict; Chad reganis control of the Aouzou Strip.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1986- Mar, 1987: Chadian forces under Habré deploy north across the 16th parallel, overwhelming a major Libyan garrison at Fada. Over the next three months they succeeded in chasing the Libyans out of nearly all of northern Chad south of the Aozou Strip, inflicting a devastating defeat at their base at Ouadi Doum.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1986: Libyan-supported incursions across the 16th parallel began again, obliging the French to return. As part of its wider campaign against Gaddafi, the US joins increasing assistance to Habré’s Chadian forces.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1984: France and Libya agree to withdraw forces; although the French leave, the Libyans remain constructing military bases at Ouadi Doum, Fada, and Faya- Largeaum.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1983: Gaddafi resumes his offensive in Chad; Goukouni’s Libyan supported forces advanced on N’Djamena. French troops deploy as a buffer between the two and hold a line against northern incursions on the 16th parallel.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1981: Gaddafi announces intentions to merge Chad and Libya as an Islamic Rep. of the Sahel, prompting regional government to denounce Gaddafi’s expansionist schemes.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1981: After a year occupation, Gaddafi removes his troops from N’Djamena. Chadian forces led by Habré with US and Egyptian support, cross the E. Border from Sudan and retake N’Djamena forcing Goukouni to fleet to Libya.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1980: Libyan troops, backed by tanks, heavy artillery and units of the Islamic Legion, combined with Goukouni’s forces to drive Habré’s Chadian fighters out of the capital.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1979: The First Battle of N’Djamena; Habré’s Chadian forces and Malloum’s Libyan Supported army fought for supremacy. Sporadic fighting continued for months. Thousands die while half of the population fled to neighbouring Cameroon, leaving N’Djamena a ghost city.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1978: In a joint offensive, Libyan supported Chadian rebel groups under Goukouni and the Volcan army, deploy towards N’Djamena. To stave off defeat, the French deploy a thousand troops and aircraft that rout rebel forces enroute N’Djamena.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
21-24 Jul, 1977: The Libyan- Egyptian Border War is fought to a ceasefire.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1976: Sudan’s Numeiri accuses Libya’s Gaddafi of involvement in a bloody coup attempt in Khartoum diagnosing Gaddafi as ‘a split personality – both evil’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1974: The Djerba Treaty is signed linking Libya and Bourguiba’s Tunisia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1973: Libya’s Gaddafi deploys troops to the Aozou Strip, claiming that it belonged to Libya on the basis of an unratified 1935 agreement between France and Italy.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1973: The Hassi Messaoud Accords are signed linking Libya and Boumedienne’s Algeria.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1971: Libya’s Gaddafi begins a campaign to infiltrate the Aozou Strip on the Chadian border.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1971: The Benghazi Treaty is signed linking Libya, Egypt, and Syria.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1969: Libyan Military Coup; Muammar Gaddafi, a 27yo signals officer, takes power, removing British and US Military bases, nationalizing foreign-owned property and business interests, including oil, imposed socialism, and revised the legal code to conform to sharia law, banning alcohol, prostitution, nightclubs and Christian churches.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Madagascar
26 Mar, 1960: Madagascar attains independence from France under the Presidency of Philibert Tsiranana.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
14 Oct, 1958: The Malagasy Rep. (Madagascar) becomes an autonomous state within the French Community.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Malawi (Nyasaland)
1994: Malawi Presidential elections; Muslim Businessman Bakili Muluzi is elected, defeating Banda who had held power for 30 years.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1992: Malawi’s President Banda concedes to multi-party politics.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
13 May, 1992: Malawi Donor governments suspend all non-humanitarian aid for six months in response to mass arrests, police violence, and human rights abuses.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1992: Malawi General Strikes lead to violence and rioting after 8 Malawi Catholic Bishops write a Pastoral letter condemning endemic corruption, inequality, poverty, censorship, inadequate healthcare, lack of freedom, the need for a system of justice, and political repression, all commonplace under Banda’s regime.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1971: Malawi’s President Banda appoints himself President for life and uses his secret police and paramilitary young pioneers to incarcerate thousands of potential dissenters and opponents.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1964: Nyasaland gains independence as Malawi from the British.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Mali
26 Mar, 1991: Mali Military coup; Col. Amadou Toumani Touré, Commander of Traore’s Presidential Guard, takes control of the government, arresting Traore.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
22 Mar, 1991: General Protests in Mali against the rule of Traore are quelled violently with ~300 deaths.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1990: The National Congress for Democratic initiative (CNID) is formed by Mountanga Tall to contest Traore’s rule.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
19 Nov, 1968: Mali Military Coup; Lt. Moussa Traore takes control of Mali’s government from Modibo Keita.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1960: Senegal withdraws from the Mali Federation as an independent sovereign nation. The Sudanese Rep. henceforth becomes Mali.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
20 Jun, 1960: The Mali Federation comprised of the Sudanese Rep. (Mali) & Senegal attain independence from France. Mali is led by President Modibo Keita.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Mozambique
1989: Mozambique’s FRELIMO government abandons Marxism-Leninism after years of economic failure and civil war and declares itself a multi-party democracy.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1977- 4 Oct, 1992: Mozambican Civil War is fought between the FRELIMO led Government and RENAMO rebels.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
4 Oct, 1992: Rome Peace Deal (aka the General Peace Accords) is signed between the government of Mozambique and RENAMO, ending the Mozambican Civil War. RENAMO agreed to disband its army, transform itself into a political party and compete in an electoral contest.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
25 Jun, 1975: Mozambique attains independence from Portugal. Using Marxism-Leninism as an ideological blueprint, FRELIMO nationalizes plantations and businesses; introduces central economic planning; orders collective agricultural production; and attempts to implement a policy of ‘villagisation’ similar to Tanzania’s ujamaa programme. Machel’s policies provoked widespread discontent that eventually helped fuel civil war.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
25 Apr, 1974: The Carnation Revolution; a military coup in Portugal overthrows authoritarian Estado Novo Regime and ends Portuguese Colonial Wars granting independence to Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea- Bissau, Mozambique, and Sao Tome and Principe.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1974: Mozambican Deputy Chief of the General Staff Spínola publishes “Portugal and the Future” stating that military victory is not possible.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
25 Sep, 1964- 8 Sep, 1974: The Mozambican War of Independence; Guerilla Wars break out in Mozambique centered in the two N. provinces of Cabo Delgado and Niassa; FRELIMO is pushed North across the border into Tanzania by Portuguese counter-insurgency measures –airborne assaults, building airstrips and roads in remote regions, and constructing fortified villages (aldeamentos) to deprive guerrillas of contact with the local population.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Sep, 1974: Portugal agrees to hand over power exclusively to FRELIMO after a nine-month transition period. Within hours, right-wing whites launched an abortive revolt while the white exodus gathered pace (some 200,000).-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1974: Portuguese troops withdraw from Mozambique, allowing FRELIMO to pour guerrillas into central Mozambique unopposed.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
25 Jun, 1962: The Frente Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO) is formed in Mozambique under the leadership of Filipe Nyusi as a nationalist movement fighting for Independence from the Portuguese.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Namibia
21 Mar, 1990: Namibia attains independence from South Africa.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Niger
1974: Niger Military Coup; Colonel Seyni Kountché takes control of the government ousting PM Hamani Diori’s corrupt regime in Niger.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
3 Aug, 1960: Niger attains independence from France and is led by PM Hamani Diori.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Nigeria
‘We are not asking for the moon, but the bare necessities of life – water, electricity, roads, education and a right to self-determination so that we can be responsible for our resources and our environment.’-Nigerian MOSOP President Garrick Leton, Jan, 1993.
‘Political recruitment and subsequent political support which are based on tribal, religious and linguistic sentiments contributed largely to our past misfortune. They must not be allowed to spring up again. Those negative political attitudes like hatred, falsehood, intolerance and acrimony also contributed to our national tragedy in the past: they must not be continued.’-Nigerian Acting President General Obasanjo.
Our enemies are the political profiteers, the swindlers, the men in the high and low places that seek bribes and demand 10%; those that seek to keep the country divided permanently so that they can remain in office as ministers and VIPs of waste; the tribalists, the nepotists; those that made the country look big-for-nothing before the international circles; those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian political calendar back by their words and deeds.-The Young Majors Coup.
People
Northern Nigeria (Hausa & Fulani): ¾ of Nigeria’s territory with half the population, largely Muslim and Hausa speaking, accustomed to a feudal system of government run by the Fulani ruling class. Both Hausa and Fulani looked disdainfully on the people of the South. Northern Muslims were taught to regard Southerners as ‘pagans’ and ‘infidels’ and forbidden on both religious and administrative grounds to associate with Southerners. ~1% of Nigerian officials in higher executive posts were Northerners. A constant fear in the North was that its own traditions and conservative way of life would be undermined by Southern encroachment.
Western Nigeria (Yoruba): Includes Lagos, was dominated by the Yoruba, who traditionally had been organized into several states ruled by kingly chiefs. Because of their early contact with Europeans and long experience of city life, the Yoruba had progressed far in education, commerce and administration and absorbed a high degree of Western skills.
Eastern Nigeria (Igbo): E. side of the Niger river, the Igbo, occupying the poorest, most densely populated region of Nigeria, had become the best educated population, swarming out of their homeland to find work elsewhere as clerks, artisans, traders and labourers, forming sizeable minority groups in towns across the country. Their growing presence there created ethnic tensions both in the North and among the Yoruba in the West. Unlike the Hausa-Fulani and the Yoruba, the Igbo possessed no political kingdom and central authority but functioned on the basis of autonomous village societies, accustomed to a high degree of individual assertion and achievement.
Other Nigeria: There were some 250 ethnic minority groups, each with its own language, occupying distinct territories, amounting in total to one-third of the population.
Chronology
2001: ~3000 die in religious clashes between Christian and Muslim groups in Jos, Nigeria.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 2000: A Christian protest against Sharia Law in Kaduna, Nigeria results in bloody clashes with hundreds of deaths. Entire neighborhoods were ‘religiously cleansed’ with many Igbo victims. In revenge, Igbo vigilante groups in southern Nigeria – including the Bakassi Boys – kill hundreds of Hausa migrants from the north living there.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1999: N. Nigeria’s Zamfara state governor, Ahmed Sani, announcing the adoption of Sharia law as its only legal system starting in Jan, 2000, claiming that it would only affect the Muslim population. 12 other N. Nigerian states follow.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Summer, 1999: Nigeria’s Bakassi Boys vigilante force is formed by traders in the market town of Aba in Abia State, gaining a reputation for ‘jungle justice.’ Within weeks they succeeded in ‘cleaning’ the entire Abia state of criminal gangs, executing some 3000 people in Anamabra over 18 months with a dramatic impact on crime levels.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Summer, 1999: Ethnic violence in Nigeria between the Yoruba and the Hausa flares following the election of Obsanjo (Yoruba). The violence in Ketu, Nigeria prompted Hausa to set up the Arewa People’s Congress as a counterpart to the OPC. Militia groups in the east were equally active including the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) with an armed wing known as the Niger Delta Volunteer Force (aka Egbesu Boys). A more extreme group – the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra – agitated for a separate Igbo state in the East.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 1999: Nigerian Elections; Obasanjo (Yoruba) and his People’s Democratic Party (PDP) assume control of Nigeria ending 16 years of military rule.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
8 Jun, 1998: Nigerian President Abacha dies and is succeeded by General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who frees scores of prisoners, including General Obasanjo, human rights activists, oil union chiefs and Ogoni dissidents, and declares his intention to return Nigeria to civilian rule.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
11 Jun, 1995: S. Nigerian (and democratically elected) Abiola declares himself president and is ‘sworn in’ in at a brief ceremony in Lagos. Abiola is subsequently captured and imprisoned.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 1995: The National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), a loose alliance of mainly southern groups, issues an ‘ultimatum’ to Abacha to hand over power to Abiola by the end of the month.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1994: Nigerian Military Ruler Abacha faces rising public clamor for him to step down.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
10 Nov, 1994: Execution of Nigeria’s Ogoni Nine.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 1994: The Nigerian Ogoni movements ends after four conservative leaders meeting in Gokana are killed by a local mob. More than 1,000 Ogonis were killed and some 30,000 are left homeless.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1993: Nigerian Military Coup; N. Nigerian General Sani Abacha takes power, abrogates the constitution, and demolishes all democratic institutions.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1993: Nigerian President Babangida resigns. and is replaced by N. Nigerian General Sani Abacha.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
15-23 Jun, 1993: The Nigerian ABN obtain a court injunction from a northern court restraining the National Electoral Commission (NEC) from announcing official results. 8 days later, the Nigerian ABN annul the election results under the guise of stopping ‘judicial anarchy. Babangida’s northern military clique had acted to forestall the election of a southern politician who could threaten their interests. Nigeria descends into violence.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
12 Jun, 1993: Nigerian Elections; the Social Democratic Party (SDP) led by S. Nigerian Abiola rise to power.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1992: Nigeria’s MOSOP demands $6B for accumulated rent and royalties, $4B for environmental damages, and negotiations over future terms from Shell, Chevron, and Nigeria’s state owned National Petroleum Corp.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1992: Hundreds die in religious violence over a land dispute in Kaduna, Nigeria between Christian Katafs and Muslim Hausas.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1991: Riots break out in Kano, Nigeria when a German Christian evangelist attempts to stage a revivalist rally.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1990: The Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) is founded demanding political autonomy for Ogoniland; they draw up an Ogoni bill of rights for local control of economic resources and protection from further environmental degradation. The main grievance was that oil revenues produced by the Delta were used largely to benefit ethnic-majority areas of the country while their own region suffered from neglect. Moreover, the Delta had to contend with the burden of environmental degradation: oil spills from pipelines polluted the land and waterways; gas flaring polluted the air; fishing and farming were contaminated, destroying the livelihood of farmers and fishermen.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1989: Nigerian President General Babangida lifts the ban on political parties.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1987: Scores of churches and mosques are destroyed in a quarrel between Christian & Muslim students in Southern Kaduna, Nigeria.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1986: Nigerian President Babangida announces that Nigeria would join the Organisation of Islamic Conference as a full member.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1985: Nigerian military Coup; General Ibrahim Babangida takes control.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1982: Violence erupts in Kano, Nigeria spreading from Muslim anger at reconstruction work on a church sited close to a mosque.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1979: Nigerian Presidential Elections reinstate civilian rule (after 13 years under military rule).Under a new constitution, Nigeria is divided into a federation of 19 states with the new federal structure consisting of four predominantly Hausa-Fulani states, four Yoruba, two Igbo and nine ethnic minority states.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1976-1979: Obasanjo is acting President of Nigeria.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
30 May, 1967- Jan, 1970: Nigerian Civil War; following E. Nigeria’s proclamation of independence as Biafra the Nigerian Military slowly surrounds and embattles Biafra, resulting in nearly a million deaths.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1970: Biafra formally surrenders ending the Nigerian Civil War.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1968: Biafra has lost half of its territory, all its major towns and airports, its seaports, its oil refinery and most oilfields. Igbo Biafran President Ojukwu was only able to continue financing the war through relief aid.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Summer, 1967: Biafra (Igbo E. Nigeria) is encircled by an army of 100,000 men and embattled daily by Nigeria’s air force.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
30 May, 1967: E. Nigeria’s Ojukwu (Igbo) proclaims independence as the new state of Biafra.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1967: Nigeria’s oilfields provide ~20% of federal revenue (expected to double within a few years). Control of Nigeria’s oilfields became a key goal, propelling the country towards civil war.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1966: Massacre, persecution, and exodus of Igbo’s living in N. Nigeria to the East after Ironsi is killed and N. Nigeria return to power; all combined to push the East towards secession, which was played out by the Eastern Premier and by government radio.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1966: N. Nigerian Counter-Coup led by Northern Officers; President Ironsi and scores of Eastern military are killed, demanding Northern secession. Army COS, opposed to the dissolution, takes control, and rescinds Decree No. 34.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
24 May, 1966: Nigerian Coup President Ironsi issues Decree No. 34 forming a new constitution, abolish the federation, and proclaiming Nigeria a united state. The reaction in the North came swiftly. Civil servants and students staged anti-government demonstrations which soon flared into popular riots against Igbos living in the sabon garis, the strangers’ quarters sited outside the walls of Northern towns. Several hundred Igbos were killed. ‘Araba!’ was the battlecry in the North – ‘Let us part!’-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Late Jan, 1966: Without evidence, Northern Nigerians slowly become ever more convinced that the majors’ coup, far from being an attempt to rid Nigeria of a corrupt regime, was an Igbo conspiracy to gain control.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
15 Jan, 1966: ‘The Young Majors’ coup in Nigeria; a group of young army officers (almost all Igbo) execute top political leaders including PM, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa in Lagos, Northern Region Premier Sardauna of Sokoto in Kaduna, Western region premier Chief Ladoke Akintola in Ibadan, federal finance minister Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, and several senior army officers.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1964: Nigerian Federal elections; NPC allied with Akintola’s Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) against an alliance of the East’s NCNC and West’s WAG.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1960: Nigeria attains Independence from Britain.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1959: Nigerian federal election; out of 312 seats, the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) takes 134, the East’s National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) takes 89, and the West’s Action Group (WAG) take 73.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1959: Northern (Hausa and Fulani) Nigeria attains self- government.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1958: Oil Production in Eastern (Igbo) Nigeria begins.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1957: Western (Yoruba) and Eastern (Igbo) Nigeria attain self- government.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1954: The Nigerian constitution gives each region its own government, assembly, and public service, allowing them to move separately towards self-government.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1912: West African coastal railways reach Kano in N. Nigeria.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Morocco
Mar, 1956: Morocco attains independence from France under Sultan Ben Youssef.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1955: Ben Youssef returns from exile to the throne in Morocco.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
20 Aug, 1953: Moroccan Sultan Mohammed V is deposed by the French.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1912: Morocco becomes a colony of France after the sultan surrenders control of external affairs but not internal sovereignty.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1911: The Agadir Crisis; France and Germany clash over the possession of Morocco.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
4 Nov, 1911: The Treaty of Fez; France cedes part of the French Congo in Kamerun (Cameroon) to Germany in exchange for German recognition of France’s rights to Morocco.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Rwanda
Rwanda (‘the land of a thousand hills’): Divided into 11 préfectures led by préfets; 145 communes led by bourgmestres; 1,600 secteurs led by conseillers; and tens of thousands of sous-secteurs comprising small groups of households.
Banyarwanda: People of Rwanda.
Rwanda and Burundi were both occupied by a Hutu majority and a Tutsi minority, speaking the same language, sharing the same customs and living intermingled on the same hillsides.
Uburetwa: Bonded labor service required by Hutu in Rwanda (Tutsi were exempt); discrimination between Tutsi and Hutu was part of everyday life.
‘Tutsi domination is the origin of all the evil the Hutu have suffered since the beginning of time. It is comparable to a termite mound teeming with every cruelty known to man.’-1972 Ruling Party Pamphlet.
‘The graves are not yet quite full, who is going to do the good work and help us finish them completely?’-Radio Mille Collines, Rwanda.
“There is nothing I can do for you. All you can do is prepare to die, for your time has come.”-Rwandan Church President President Ntakirutimana.
A US State Department spokeswoman replied: ‘We have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred.’ ‘How many “acts of genocide” does it take to make a genocide?’ a reporter asked.-Rwandan Genocide.
‘We have not a single wounded Hutu here, just massacred Tutsi, we have been deceived. This is not what we were led to believe. We were told the Tutsis were killing Hutus. We thought the Hutus were the good guys and the victims.’-Unk French SGM on Opération Turquoise.
‘Know that the person whose throat you do not cut now will be the one who will cut yours.’-Political Messaging in Rwanda.
Rwanda Genocide
The genocide was caused not by ancient ethnic antagonism but by a fanatical elite engaged in a modern struggle for power and wealth using ethnic antagonism as their principal weapon.
There was considerable confusion about what lay behind the violence. Hutu extremists in the government portrayed the killing as a spontaneous reaction by Hutu to the murder of their president by Tutsi assassins. Western press reports blamed ‘the chaos and anarchy’ on ancient tribal feuds. UN officials in New York interpreted the killing as a resumption of civil war, about which they could do little.
Riverbanks became a common location for execution, convenient for getting rid of bodies. Some 40,000 bodies washed down the Akagera river into Lake Victoria.
Doctors in the country, men as well as women – including surgeons, physicians, paediatricians, gynaecologists, anaesthetists, public health specialists and hospital administrators – participated in the murder of their own Tutsi colleagues, patients, the wounded and terrified refugees who had sought shelter in their hospitals.’
Teachers commonly denounced students to militia groups or killed students themselves.
Human rights activists were similarly involved. The chairman of one human rights Organisation, Innocent Mazimpaka, along with his younger brother, the bourgmestre of Gatare, was subsequently charged with responsibility for the slaughter of 12,200 Tutsis in Gatare commune .
The UN went to extraordinary lengths to avoid using the word ‘genocide’ for fear that, under the terms of the UN Genocide Convention of 1948, it would create a legal obligation for them to intervene.
According to Human Rights Watch, arms shipments from the French government or French companies operating under government licence were delivered to the Rwandan army at the Zaire border town of Goma on five occasions between May and June.
The entire country had been laid to waste. Hospitals and schools had been destroyed or ransacked, government offices looted; there were no police; the treasury was empty; public utilities such as electricity, water and phone services had collapsed; a year’s harvest had been lost. Everywhere there were ditches filled with rotting bodies. Nearly 2 million people inside the country were refugees, uprooted from their homes. According to the World Bank, the genocide had left Rwanda the poorest country on earth.
Chronos
Summer, 1994: The Hutu génocidaires ‘Interim Government’ regroup in Zaire taking control of the refugee camps and food distribution, raising funds for a new offensive.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
18 Jul, 1994: The last Hutu Power stronghold falls to the RPF; Kagame declares the civil war over.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1994: Having largely ignored the genocide, the international aid community, prompted by TV pictures of the Hutu exodus, rushed to assist the mass of Hutu ‘refugees’ crammed into disease-ridden camps along the Zaire border, without food or shelter. Joining the bandwagon, President Clinton described the ‘refugee’ camps as the worst humanitarian crisis in a generation. The UN, unable to mount an operation to prevent genocide, now found no difficulty in raising $1M a day to spend on a refugee crisis organized by génocidaires for their own purposes.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
6 Apr-4 Jul, 1994: The Rwandan Genocide; 800,000 die (almost all Tutsi) in the space of 100 days, perpetrated by Hutu génocidaires; Gangs armed with clubs, machetes and knives went from door to door searching for Tutsi victims. Thousands were caught at roadblocks by militiamen demanding ID cards, killing Tutsis they found on the spot. Thousands of Hutus responded, jogging through the streets of Kigali chanting, ‘Let’s exterminate them all.’-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
4 Jul, 1994: The French draw a line in the sand at Gikongoro against the RPF. Having failed to reach Kigali, the French opted to set up a ‘secure humanitarian zone’ encompassing the southwestern quadrant of Rwanda, abandoning the NW and the ‘interim government’ in Gisenyi. As the scale of the atrocities in Rwanda became ever more apparent, the French gambit came to an ignominious end. French troops on the ground, disgusted by the evidence of massacres they found, felt betrayed.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
4 July, 1994: The RPF take Kigali bringing an end to the genocide. In the space of 100 days some 800,000 people had been slaughtered – about three-quarters of the Tutsi population. More people had been killed more quickly than in any other mass killing in recorded history.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1994: Rwandan Hutu génocidaires organize mass exodus into Zaire as the RPF advance throughout Rwanda. The roads to Zaire were choked with hundreds of thousands of fleeing Hutu. In two days about a million people crossed into Zaire. Many prominent génocidaires, including Colonel Bagosora, passed through the French ‘safe-haven’ but the French made no attempt to arrest them.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
23 Jun, 1994: French forces cross into Rwanda from Bukavu, Zaire and are greeted by the Hutu population and the Interahamwe as heroes. Banners proclaimed ‘Vive la France’ and praised Mitterrand.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
22 Jun, 1994: The UNSC endorses Opération Turquoise.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
14 Jun, 1994: French Humanitarian Opération Turquoise is authorized by French President Mitterrand with 2,500 troops, including commando units and special forces, heavy mortars, one hundred armored vehicles, ten helicopters, four ground-attack planes and four reconnaissance jet planes. Military officers in Paris talked openly of ‘breaking the back of the RPF’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
12 Jun, 1994: The RPF capture Gitarama; the Hutu ‘Interim Govt’ fleet to Gisenyi.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Late May, 1994: The RPF gain control of most of Kigali, including the airport, and more than half the country while the Hutu ‘Interim Government’ establishes HQ in Gitarama, taking with them the entirety of the national treasury with gold reserves and foreign currency.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
17 May, 1994: UNAMIR 2 with 5500 troops is authorized by the UNSC after further evidence of genocide (while still managing to eschew the word ‘genocide’). The is officially authorized on 8 Jun, 1994.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
29 Apr, 1994: The UNSC proposes reinforcing UNAMIR.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
April, 1994: RPF converge on Kigali, taking control of E. areas of the country. The Hutu population in their path flees en masse into neighboring Tanzania, fearing revenge for the Tutsi massacres. A quarter of a million people flee over the border at Rusumo Falls bridge, leaving huge piles of machetes, knives and spears by the roadside. The plight of these displaced Hutu attracted far more attention in the outside world than the genocide in which many of them had participated. A massive relief operation was soon under way. UNAMIR General Dallaire, endeavoring to find a way through the mire, went to see the RPF leader Paul Kagame, carrying a ceasefire proposal from the ‘interim government’. Kagame was scathing. The ‘interim government’, he retorted, was no more than ‘a clique of murderers’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
21 Apr, 1994: The UNSC passes a resolution withdrawing the majority of UN peacekeepers and leaving behind a token force of 270 men with the remit to help secure a ceasefire between the government and the RPF and to assist humanitarian relief operations ‘to the extent possible’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
15 Apr, 1994: ~2000 Tutsi seeking refuge in a Mugonero hospital under Church president Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana are slaughtered by presidential guard and militiamen soldiers. Across Rwanda, church buildings where Tutsis desperately sought sanctuary became the scene of one massacre after another. More people were killed there than anywhere else. Those awaiting death had their Achilles’ tendons cut to prevent them from escaping.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
12 Apr, 1994: The Belgian government, facing domestic uproar over the death of 10 Belgian peacekeepers, announces its intention to pull its contingent out of UNAMIR. Belgian peacekeepers abandon thousands of civilians seeking their protection, leaving them defenseless against attacks by the army and militiamen. 2000 Tutsi’s sheltering at the Ecole Technique Officielle in the Kigali suburb of Gatonga were slaughtered shortly after the Belgian departure.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
10 Apr, 1994: 50 wounded Tutsi’s waiting in the ER at Kigali Hospital are dragged away and killed.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
8 Apr, 1994: The RPF under Kagame directs his northern army to advance on Kigali.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
6 Apr, 1994: Rwandan Hutu Colonel Bagosora takes control, implementing operations. The first victims were carefully selected and killed by Presidential Guard and Interahamwe soldiers; moderate Hutu politicians, senior government officials, lawyers, teachers, human rights activists and independent journalists. Belgian peacekeepers were sent to provide the Tutsi PM with an escort and were fired upon when they reach her home and are unable to withdraw. After three hours underfire, the PM and her husband fled over a garden wall. They were caught and killed later that day. The ten Belgians were taken prisoner, driven to a military camp, beaten up, tortured and killed. Within two weeks of Habyarimana’s death, the génocidaires had gained effective control of the country’s administration and its network of préfets, bourgmestres and conseillers. A new ‘interim government’ was announced consisting entirely of Hutu Power zealots.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
6 Apr, 1994: Assassination of Rwandan Hutu President Habyarimana, seven senior members of the Rwandan Government, and the new Burundi President on approach into Kigali airport at 8:15 pm. The plane was struck by two missiles and crashed in the grounds of the presidential palace killing all on board. The prime suspects were members of the akazu clique determined to wreck any prospect that the Arusha Accords might be implemented, ending their hold on power.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
6 Jan, 1994: UNAMIR Commander Dallaire reports to UN HQ: “The manner in which they were conducted, in their execution, in their coordination, in their cover-up, and in their political motives lead us to firmly believe that the perpetrators of these evil deeds were well-organised, well-informed, well-motivated and prepared to conduct premeditated murder.”-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1994: A CIA analysis predicts failure of the Arusha Accords, leading to hostilities in which at least half a million people would die.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
21 Oct, 1993: Murder of Burundi Hutu President Ndadaye by extremist Tutsi army officers; Ndadaye is kidnapped and murdered. His death set off massive killings of both Hutu and Tutsi. Some 150,000 died; some 300,000 Hutu fled to southern Rwanda, spreading tales of massacre and torture. The murder of Ndadaye was taken as irrefutable proof by Hutu supremacists in Rwanda that the Tutsi were bent on total domination.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
5 Oct, 1993: The UNSC authorizes the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) consisting of 2,548 personnel and led by Canadian General Dallaire. By December, Dallaire had assembled a force of 1,300 peacekeepers in Rwanda including 400 Belgian paracommandos and Bangaldeshi troops.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1993: The Arusha Accords are signed established a broad-based transitional government to include Habyarimana and his allies, opposition parties and the RPF, that would remain in place for no more than 22 months until elections were held and a democratically elected government was installed.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Early, 1993: Rwandan radio station Akazu- Radio-Télévision Libres des Mille Collines- is launched with a mixture of pop music, gossip, rumor and phone-ins, but in reality, to prepare Rwandan Hutu for genocide.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Early, 1993: Paramilitary self-defense units are established in Rwandan Communes by Hutu Army Commander Bagosora, who arranged for the distribution of firearms and huge quantities of machetes. Between January 1993 and March 1994 Rwanda imported more than 500,000 machetes, By the end of 1993 there were hidden stockpiles of firearms, grenades, machetes and axes in most communes.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1992: Resignation of Rwandan Christophe Mfizi, Head of the national information service and a senior official in the MRND for 15 years, warning of ‘zero network’ activities.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1992: Ceasefire between the RPF and Rwandan Hutu Government. Under international pressure, Habyarimana agrees to participate in peace talks in Arusha in Tanzania.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1992: Interahamwe organized killings in Bugesera; Interahamwe, gendarmerie and Hutu peasants launch an attack on Tutsi homesteads; killing, burning, looting, and raping at random. Peasants were told to ‘clear the bush’; the slaughter of woman and children was called ‘pulling out the roots of the bad weeds’. An estimated 300 people died; more than 3,000 fled the area.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1992: The Coalition pour le Défence de la Republique (CDR) is formed with the political aim of attacking the Rwanda Government’s ‘soft’ attitude towards Tutsis and their ‘collaborators’. The CDR formed its own youth milia- Impuzamugambi (those with a single purpose) and receive arms and training from the Rwandan Amasusu, a secret society within the Army.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1992: Rwanda’s Hutu Habyarimana forms a coalition government, giving control of key ministries to his own party, but conceding other cabinet positions to opposition parties, including the post of PM.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Spring, 1992: The Belgian ambassador to Rwanda reports to Brussels: ‘This secret group (the Interahamwe) is planning the extermination of the Tutsi of Rwanda to resolve once and for all, in their own way, the ethnic problem and to crush internal Hutu opposition.’-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1992: Rwanda’s Interahamwe (Kinyarwanda- those who work together) is formed as a youth militia in the MRND and receive arms and training from the Rwandan Amasusu, a secret society within the Army.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1990: European ambassadors warn: ‘The rapid deterioration of the relations between the Hutu and the Tutsi, runs the imminent risk of terrible consequences for Rwanda and the entire region.’-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1990: Rwandan Hutu Editor Hassan Ngeze, publishes an article laying out a doctrine of Hutu purity, listing what he called ‘The Hutu Ten Commandments’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1990: Following defeat, the RPF retreats to the Virunga mountains, regrouping under Paul Kagame. By the end of 1991, the RPF was a disciplined guerrilla force of 5,000 men.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1990: Rwandan Hutu President Habyarimana stages a fake attack by enemy Tutsi troops on Kigali, prompting the French ambassador to report ‘heavy fighting’ in the capital. Using the fake attack as pretext, Habyarimana orders the detention of ~13,000 people without charge. Many were tortured; dozens died. One of his ministers declared that Tutsis were ibyitso (Kinyarwanda- Accomplices). Between Oct, 1990 to 1991, the Hutu triple their Army from 9K to 28K with French training and supplies.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
4 Oct, 1990: The first contingent of French troops arrive in Kigali from their base in the CAR, ostensibly to protect French expatriates and organize their evacuation.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 Oct, 1990: A 4000 man army of Rwandan Tutsi exiles desert the Ugandan Army and cross the N. border from Uganda. The invasion in October was a disaster. Nothing went according to plan. Rwigyema was killed on the second day, leaving fellow officers shocked and demoralized.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1990: Two Rwandan Elite dissidents flee to Kampala, bearing tales of how Habyarimana’s regime was on the edge of collapse, split between north and south and drained by corruption; Rwigyema became convinced that the time was right to try to topple it.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1990: Rwandan Catholic bishops issue a pastoral letter condemning nepotism, regionalism and corruption.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1987: The Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) is formed in Kampala aiming for political reform in Rwanda.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1986: As a reward for Tutsi support, Ugandan President Museveni announces that Rwandans who had been resident in Uganda for more than ten years would automatically be entitled to Ugandan citizenship.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1986: The Ugandan National Resistance Army (NRA) led by Museveni take Kampala by force; 1/4 of his army – some 3,000 men – were Tutsi fighters, including Rwandan refugee Paul Kagame.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1973: Rwandan Military Coup; Rwandan President Kayibanda is ousted by Army Commander General Juvénal Habyarimana. Kayibanda dies shortly after of starvation in prison. Habyarimana installs a one-party dictatorship subjecting the entire population to more rigid control than ever before and requiring everyone to carry an identity card specifying their ethnic group and their place of residence.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1963: Rwandan Hutu Ethnic Cleansing of the Tutsi commences after 200 Tutsi refugees, armed with bows, arrows and home-made rifles, cross the border from Burundi, link up with local Tutsi, attack a military camp, seize weapons and vehicles and head for Kigali. Though the invaders were quickly routed, President Kayibanda took the opportunity to crush Tutsi opposition. 20 prominent Tutsi politicians were executed, radio Kigali broadcast warnings that Tutsi terrorists were seeking to reimpose their rule, and local officials were instructed to organise ‘self-defence’ groups. In Gikongoro, Hutu vigilantes, armed with machetes, spears and clubs, set out to kill every Tutsi in sight – men, women and children; some 5,000 Tutsi died. In the aftermath, some 10,000 Tutsi’s were killed, tens of thousands more fled into exile.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 Jul, 1962: Rwanda attains independence from Belgium under a Rep. government led by Grégoire Kayibanda. Tutsi’s are restricted to an ethnic quota of 9% for schools, the university, the civil service and every sector of employment, including private businesses.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1961: Rwandan Legal Coup; Rwanda’s newly elected bourgmestres (mayors) and councillors are summoned to a meeting at Gitarama, the birthplace of the Hutu leader, Grégoire Kayibanda, where they declared the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun-Jul, 1960: The all-Hutu Parti du Mouvement de l’Emancipation Hutu (Parmehutu) gain dominant positions in almost every Rwandan commune.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Early, 1960: Hutu’s replace Tutsi’s in political positions; the new chiefs immediately organized the persecution of Tutsis in districts they controlled, precipitating a mass exodus; some 130,000 Rwandan Tutsi sought refuge in the Congo, Burundi, Uganda and Tanganyika.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1959: Rwanda’s ‘Winds of Destruction’; Roving bands of Hutu attack Tutsi authorities, homes, property after a Hutu subchief is beaten up by a band of Tutsi militants. Hundreds of Tutsi were killed; thousands fled into exile. The terminology used by Hutu extremists for the killing was ‘work’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1959- 1960: Rwanda’s Hutu Revolution; Hutu’s gain power precipitating the migration of 130,000 Tutsi’s to Burundi, Uganda, Congo, and Tanganyika. Tutsi exiles form small insurgent groups, Inyenzi (Kinyarwanda for Cockroach), with the aim of restoring the Tutsi monarchy.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1957: The BaHutu Manifesto is published, written by a group of nine Hutu intellectuals, challenging the entire administrative and economic system in Rwanda. The authors noted the ‘central problem’ was the political and thus social and economic monopoly of the Tutsi.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1922-1962: Rwanda and Burundi are administered jointly under Belgian rule as the Ruanda-Urundi Colony.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1920’s: The Belgians introduced a system of identity cards in Rwanda specifying the tribe to which a holder belonged. By the late 1930s, ethnicity was a defining feature of life in Rwanda and Burundi.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1899: Rwanda & Burundi are colonized by the German Empire, who identifies Hutu and Tutsi as distinct and separate ethnic groups, and with little staff, rely on the Tutsi as the ruling aristocracy to enforce control, enabling them to extend their hegemony over the Hutu.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Senegal
Mar, 2000: Senegalese Presidential Elections; President Abdou Diouf accepts defeat in democratic elections, the fourth African president to do so in four decades.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1981: Senegal President Diouf legalizes all political parties.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1980: Senghor resigns as Senegal President in favor of his protégé, Abdou Diouf.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1979: Senegal receives a structural adjustment loan from the World Bank; Africa’s first.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1976: Senegalese President Senghor authorizes the establishment of three political parties, each of which was given a defined ideological framework. Senghor’s Union Progressiste Sénégalaise occupied the central position as a ‘socialist and democratic’ party, leaving allocated spaces to its right for a ‘liberal and democratic’ party and to its left for a ‘Marxist-Leninist or communist’ party.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1966: Senegalese President Senghor hosts the first World Festival of African Arts and Culture in Dakar, bringing writers, musicians, sculptors, artisans and griots – traditional storytellers – from every corner of Africa for two weeks of performances, celebrations, lectures and debates.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
20 Aug, 1960: Senegal attains independence from France.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1948: The Bloc Démocratique Sénégalaise (BDS) is formed by Senghor as a Senegalese Nationalist Movement.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Sierra Leone
For three decades, diamonds had provided the government in Freetown with more than half of its revenue.
Diamond production during the war years was smuggled through Liberia and handled by traders acting on Taylor’s behalf. In addition to Sierra Leone’s diamonds, Monrovia acted as a major center for laundering diamonds from other African conflicts such as Angola.
Chronology
Jan, 2002: Sierra Leone President Kabbah formally declares the war over. Over 11 years, 50K die, 20K were mutilated, and three quarters of the population were displaced.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 2000: Ceasefire in Sierra Leone is signed; UNAMSIL deploys throughout the country.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 2000: Britain deploys a fully armed expeditionary force into Sierra Leone to support UNAMSIL and disarm the RUF.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 2000: UNAMSIL increases to 18,000 personnel after the RUF seizes 500 Kenyan and Zambian peacekeepers in retaliation for UNAMSIL’s announced intention to move into Sierra Leone’s diamond fields.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1999: A Peace agreement is signed by Kabbah and Sankoh in Lomé, Togo; Sankoh is appointed VP and given charge of the Strategic Minerals Resources Commission – the diamond mines in exchange for promising to demobilize and disarm to a new UN force (UNAMSIL); the country remains divided between areas under Nigerian (ECOMOG) control and RUF control.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1999: The Third Battle for Freetown; In a period of four days the RUF capture the city, massacring ~6000 civilians, amputating hands and feet at random, destroying hundreds of buildings and thousands of homes, and bringing the Nigerians to the brink of defeat before retreating, taking hundreds of captured children with them. In the aftermath of the RUF assault, both sides agree to conduct ceasefire negotiations; Kabbah offers Sankoh a power-sharing deal with full amnesty for war crimes.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1998: ‘Operation No Living Thing’ is launched by the RUF, massacring and mutilating civilians and abducting children en masse. Resupplied from Liberia and Burkina Faso, RUF forces advanced once again on Freetown.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1998: Sierra Leone’s RUF Leader Sankoh is convicted of treason and sentenced to death.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1998: Sierra Leone President Kabbah returns from exile in Guinea to a ruined city and attempts to restore some semblance of government.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1998: The Second Battle for Freetown; Nigerian forces supported by the British security firm, Sandline, advanced on the city center. After several days of heavy fighting the AFRC/RUF abandoned the capital, destroying houses, killing civilians, and looting as they retreated.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1997- Jan, 1998: First Battle for Freetown; the city remains in the hands of the AFRC and the RUF, subjected to blockades by air and sea imposed by Nigerian forces.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 Jun, 1997: Nigeria intervenes in Sierra’s Leones internecine warfare bombing Freetown.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
25 May, 1997: The Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) is formed in Sierra Leone after 20 soldiers storm Freetown’s Pademba Road Prison, release Major Johnny Paul Koroma, a dissident officer being held in connection with a coup plot. Kromoa’s main grievance concerned the army’s low status and the precedence that Kabbah accorded to the Kamajors tribal militias. The AFRC begins dealing with Sankoh’s rebels.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1996: Sierra Leone Elections; Ahmed Tejan Kabbah is elected and, under IMF pressure, terminates the services of Executive Outcomes and its mercenary force in exchange for aid. Deprived of reliable defences, he turned increasingly to the Kamajor militias for help with security, arousing discontent in the army.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1996: In anticipation of upcoming elections, the RUF attack villages in the N. and E. indiscriminately hacking off hands, arms and legs of helpless villagers, as a warning to the civilian population to steer clear of the polls.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1996: Sierra Leone Coup; General Julius Maada takes power deposing President Strasser.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1994-1995: Sierra Leone President Strasser hires South African Security Firm, Executive Outcomes, in exchange for diamond mine concessions. Within a week, they cleared the Freetown area of rebels and began retraining army units, integrating them into operations. By Aug, 1995, the diamond fields were back under Freetown’s control.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1994: The RUF overrun bauxite and Ti mines, cutting off the Sierra Leone government from its last reliable source of income.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1992: Sierra Leone Military Coup; A group of dissident Sierra Leone junior officers led by 27-year-old captain, Valentine Strasser, drive to Freetown to make their grievances known and ended up seizing power.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
23 Mar, 1991: The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) led by Foday Sankoh crosses into Sierra Leone from ‘Greater Liberia’ with ~100 fighters, armed and financed by Taylor, and capture several border villages. To destroy the existing system of authority, the RUF seized and executed chiefs, village elders, traders, agricultural project workers and other government employees. Sankoh forcibly recruited children, abducting them during raids on villages. The children were subjected to a period of indoctrination, provided with drugs and trained to kill. In some cases, even their own parents and relatives. Girls were frequently forced to become ‘soldiers’ wives’. It was estimated that at one stage half of all RUF combatants were in the age range of eight to fourteen years.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Late, 1990: Taylor establishes ‘Greater Liberia’ after failing to take Monrovia, setting up a commercial empire trading in gold, diamonds, iron ore and timber with various countries and companies. Taylor set his sights on the Kono diamond fields in neighboring Sierra Leone whose government had provided ECOMOG with a rear base at Lungi airport.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1985: Retirement of Sierra Leone’s President Stevens; Army commander, Joseph Momoh assumes power. Momoh’s government stops paying teachers collapsing the education system. Thousands of unemployed youths- ‘rarray boys’ roam the streets of Freetown committing petty crime, unpaid civil servants ransacked their offices, and much of the professional collapse emigrates to Europe and the US.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1971: A coup attempt fails to overthrow Sierra Leone President Siaka Stevens.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1961: Sierra Leone gains independence from the British.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Somalia
In the 19th century, the Somali nation was carved up into five separate territories:
Somaliland (French): A bleak enclave of lava-strewn desert surrounding the port of Djibouti at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, used initially as a coaling station.
N. Somaliland (British): Acquired initially to ensure that the British garrison at Aden was kept regularly supplied with meat.
Somalia (Italian): capital at Mogadishu.
S. Somalia (British): Somali communities were incorporated within the boundaries of Britain’s Kenya.
Ogaden Plateau (Ethiopia): The Ogaden plateau, after Emperor Menelik extended the borders of his empire.
Greater Somalia: The ambition of Somali nationalists; reuniting Somali communities in the ‘lost lands’ of Kenya’s Northern Frontier District, the Ogaden and Djibouti. This desire for Somali unification is enshrined in the Somali constitution and emblazoned on the Somali flag, which bears as its emblem a five-point star representing the five segments of the Somali people.
Somalis give political allegiance first to their immediate family, then to their immediate lineage, then to the clan of their lineage, then to a clan-family that embraced several clans and ultimately to a confederacy of five clan-families – the Darod, the Hawiye, the Isaq, the Dir and the Digil-Mirifleh.
(Because of the action UNITAF had taken in) ‘plucking the bird’, militia leaders could no longer ‘fly’ – ‘You take one feather at a time and the bird doesn’t think there’s anything terrible going on. Then one day he finds he can’t fly.’-Robert Oakley on UNITAF.
Chronology
7 Feb, 2009: Former ICU Chairman, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, is elected Pres. of a United Somali Government.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
20 Dec, 2006- 30 Jan, 2009: Somali War (aka Ethiopian Invasion and Occupation of Somalia) is fought between Ethiopia, Somalia’s TFG, and Puntland forces against the ICU and associated militias which become aS.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
26 Jan, 2009: aS capture Baidoa, seat of the TFG Parliament. The TFG collapse.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
25 Jan, 2009: Ethiopian Troops withdraw from Somalia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2008: The Djiboutian Peace Process is signed by the TFG and the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) and include political representation of both opposition groups, expansion of the cabinet, and deployment of a UN stabilization force comprised of friendly countries.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 May, 2008: aS leader Aden Hashi Eyrow and another senior commander are killed in Dhusamreb by a US airstrike.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
15 Jul- 30 Aug, 2007: A SNRC is held in Mogadishu following the defeat of the Islamic Courts Union.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
21 Feb, 2007: The UNSC authorizes the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) as a peacekeeping force comprised of friendly neighboring countries, supporting a national reconciliation congress.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 Jan, 2007: Ethiopian and TFG forces take Kismayo without a fight.-Fate of Africa by Meredith
o 31 Dec, 2006: The Battle of Jilib; Ethiopian and TFG forces oust ICU associated Militias from Jilib.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
29 Dec, 2006: Ethiopian and TFG troops enter Mogadishu unopposed, Ethiopia states it will withdraw “within a few weeks.”-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Late Dec, 2006: al-Shabaab (Harakat aS al-Mujahideen, HSM) is formed as a splinter group of the ICU to fight Ethiopian and TGF and regain control of Somalia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
27 Dec, 2006: Somalia’s ICU is disbanded and its leaders peacefully resign.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
23 Dec, 2006: The Battle of Bandiradley; Puntland and Ethiopian forces defeat ICU militias defending Bandiradley.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
25 Aug, 2006: The Mogadishu Port (closed since 1995) is opened by the ICU.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
15 Jul, 2006: Mogadishu Intl Airport (closed since 1995) is opened by the ICU.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May- Jul, 2006: Battle of Mogadishu; the ICU defeats a coalition of warlords (supported by the US) trying to take control of Mogadishu.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
9-24 Jan, 2004: The Nairobi Conference is held to further develop the Somalia TFG scheduling elections for President and PM.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Sep, 2003: The 15th Somali National Reconciliation Conference (SNRC) is held in Nairobi, Kenya reconciling the TNG and the SRRC and creating a united movement subsequently developed, dubbed the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the adoption of a Federal Transitional Charter.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 2002: The Somalia Reconciliation Conference is held to reconcile the TNG and the SRRC and produces a ceasefire agreement signed by 24 faction leaders.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2000: Somalia’s TNG, led by Abdiqasim Hassan Salad, assumes control.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
20 Apr- 5 May, 2000: The Arta Declaration is signed at the Somalia National Peace Conference (SNPC) in Djibouti and forms a Transitional National Government (TNG), which is opposed by a rival pan-Somalia governmental movement known as the Somalia Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC).-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1996- Jan, 1997: The Somali National Salvation Council (SNSC) is held in Sodere, Ethiopia, creating a 41 member National Salvation Council (NSC) charged with organizing a transitional government.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1994: The Islamic Courts Union (ICU) is established in Somalia to ensure peace and justice from the anarchic rule of warlords.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1991- Mar, 1994: Early Somali Civil War; UNOSOM, UNITFA, UNOSOM II, Black Hawk Down.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1994: UNOSOM II ends; after spending $4B in the hope of rebuilding Somalia, the UN departs, handing Mogadishu over to its warring factions.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1993: US Pres. Clinton terminates US involvement in Somalia amid public uproar in the US. All American forces were to be withdrawn by 31 Mar, 1994. Most other government follow; UNOSOM II falls apart.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
3 Oct, 1993: Black Hawk Down (aka the Battle of Mogadishu aka Malinti Rangers- ‘the day of the rangers’); while attempting to capture Aideed, an air/ground combat element comprised of 16 helicopters with 8 black hawks and a strike force of 160 rangers and delta operators strike a meeting house on Hawlwadig Road near Bakara Market in Mogadishu. Thousands poured on to the street, grabbing weapons, throwing up barricades and engulfing US positions in firefights. Bursting into the target house, snatch squads managed to round up 24 Somalis, including Aideed’s close associates. First, one Black Hawk helicopter was shot down, then another. Two more, badly damaged, managed to limp back to safety. A convoy, carrying prisoners, lost its way in the maze of alleyways and was shredded by gunfire, block after block. Rescue convoys failed to break through the blizzard of gunfire and the barricades, leaving nearly 100 soldiers, many wounded and dying, stranded for the night in shacks and buildings where they had taken refuge, surrounded by gunmen and running low of ammunition. 18 US soldiers died and 73 were wounded while thousands of Somalis die.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Summer, 1993: UNOSOM II and Aideed’s militias fought running battles and intelligence duels inside a labyrinth of narrow alleys and markets with a death toll running into thousands.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
11 Jul, 1993: While attempting to capture Aideed, US Cobra Helicopters attack and destroy a building during an assembly of a large group of Habar Gidir eleders, intellectuals, and other senior figures meeting to discuss proposals to open a dialogue with UNOSOM II resulting in 54 deaths including 90 year old Supreme Elder of the Habar Gidir, Sheikh Haji Mohamed Iman Aden.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1993: UNSCR 837 is passed authorizing Boutros-Ghali to take ‘all necessary measures against all those responsible for the armed attacks . . . to secure the investigation of their actions and their arrest and detention for prosecution, trial and punishment’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
5 Jun, 1993: 26 Pakistani UNOSOM II soldiers are killed during an inspection of one of Aideed’s weapon storage sites in Mogadishu. The storage compound also housed ‘Radio Aideed.’ A second UNOSOM patrol was attacked and a third incident occurred at a food distribution center, where a soldier, trying to calm a growing mob, was pulled into the crowd and dismembered. Many of the bodies were mutilated, with their eyes gouged out.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
4 May, 1993: UNOSOM II takes over control of Mogadishu.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1993: UN Operations in Somalia II (UNOSOM II) is authorized by UNSCR 814 with the task of establishing a new government, a new police force and a new justice system, along with rebuilding the economy. UNOSOM’s security mandate included ‘peace enforcement’ in which militias would be required to disarm. In place of UNITAF, a new multinational force was set up with 20K troops, 8K log staff, and ~3K civilians from 23 nations; included as part of the force was a US Special Forces contingent and a QRF, for use in emergencies.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1993: The Addis Ababa Agreement is signed by Somali clans at a Conference on National Reconciliation, committing to ‘complete’ disarmament. Fighting continues and the agreement falls apart.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1993: UNITAF troops allow the Darod militia to occupy Kismayu ousting a pro-Aideed militia. Aideed sees it as a partisan move by the UN against him.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
11 Dec, 1992: Chief US Envoy, Robert Oakley, a former ambassador to Somalia, engineers a public rapprochement between Aideed and Mahdi.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
9 Dec, 1992: The first US troops arrive in Somalia; both Aideed and Mahdi accepted the American presence as a fait accompli, hoping they could use them to their advantage. No attempt was made to round up heavy weapons, let alone disarm the militias.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
8 Dec, 1992: Boutros-Ghali writes to US President Bush that disarmament of the militias was essential: ‘Without this I do not believe that it will be possible to establish the secure environment called for by the Security Council.’ The Pentagon, however, was determined to avoid casualties and had no intention of disarming the militias.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
3 Dec, 1992: US led Unified Task Force (UNITFA) (aka Operation Restore Hope) is authorized by the UNSC to use ‘all necessary means to establish a secure environment for humanitarian relief operations in Somalia’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1992: Famine in Somalia results in nearly a quarter of a million deaths. Looting accounts for a quarter of all food aid and the UNSC reports that Somalia was no longer ‘susceptible to the peacekeeping treatment.’-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
24 Apr, 1992: UN Operations in Somalia (UNOSOM) is established under the direction of Mohamed Sahnoun to observe the ceasefire in Mogadishu.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1992: ceasefire in Mogadishu is declared between USC Factions Aideed and Mahdi; Mogadishu remains a lawless city with ‘naked anarchy’ and total collapse of social, economic, and political, structure, ruled by groups of gunmen riding around in ‘technicals’ – stolen pick-up trucks converted into battlewagons – habitually high on khat, a narcotic leaf.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 1991: The SNM establishes a Government in Somaliland and declares Independence.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1991: The SSDF under the Majerteyn seize control of Puntland, establishing an independent administration.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1991: Siyad and Aideed fight for control of the Digil-Mirifleh region, the fertile agricultural belt lying between the Jubba and Shebelle rivers that served as the breadbasket of southern Somalia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1991: The SPM and USC take Mogadishu driving out Siyad’s Army. A protracted struggle for power breaks out within the USC between the Hawiye military and political Hawiye leaders; Aideed and Abgal. Their rivalry split the capital into two armed camps, engulfing it in months of conflict that left an estimated 14,000 dead and 40,000 wounded.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1989: The Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM) is formed by Ogadeenis of the Darod to contest Siyad’s rule.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1988-1989: The US suspends military aid (1988) and economic aid (1989) to Somalia; many nations follow. Lacking support, Somalia began to disintegrate, fragmenting into a patchwork of rival fiefdoms controlled by clan chiefs, all armed to the hilt. The army splintered into rival factions. Banditry, extortion and lawlessness became.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.commonplace.
1988: Somalia and Ethiopia agree to cease support for each other’s opponents allowing Mengistu to move troops from the Somali border to country rebels in Tigray and Eritrea giving Siyad the opportunity to crush the SNM in N. Somalia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1987: The United Somali Congress (USC) is formed by the Hawiye and led by General Muhammed Farah ‘Aideed’ (‘one who does not take insults lying down’) to contest Siyad’s rule.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
6 Apr, 1981: The Somali National Movement (SNM) is founded by Ahmed Ismail Abdi ‘Duksi’ to overthrow Siyad.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1980’s: The US and Italy provide aid, $800M and $1B, respectively, to Somalia in return for military access to ports and airfields. The value of foreign aid was equivalent to half the GDP, helping to prop up Siyad’s regime. Somalia increasingly became dependent on imported food.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1978: The Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) is formed as a guerilla movement by Officers from the Majerteyn clan of the Darod after fleeing to Ethiopia following a failed attempt to overthrow Siyad.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
12 Jul, 1977- 15 Mar, 1978: The Ogaden War; Somalia invades the Ethiopian Ogaden hoping to reconquer lost territory and is defeated by an alliance of Ethiopian, Cuban, and Soviet forces.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1978: Ethiopian, Cuban, and Soviet forces recapture Jijiga and SNA held territory in the Ogaden forcing the Somali’s to withdrawal.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1978: Led by Cuban armor, the Ethiopians launched their counter-offensive in the Ogaden.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1977: Soviet Airlift/Sealift to Ethiopia provides tanks, fighter aircraft, artillery, APCs and military advisers. A Cuban combat force numbering 17,000 joined them.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1977- Jan, 1978: Battle of Harar; 40,000 Ethiopians with Cuban troops and Soviet supplies/advisors (who had recently changed sides) hold off SNA forces.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
12 Jul, 1977: The Somali National Army (SNA) invades Ogaden in Eastern Ethiopia taking advantage of Mengistu’s war in Eritrea. By Sep, Somalis had taken most of the Ogaden.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1972: Somali- Soviet relations grow; USSR provides military aid in exchange for usage of the Berbera Port. By 1977, Somalia had an army of 37,000, artillery and a modern air force with jet fighters.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1969: Somalia Military coup; General Mohammed Siyad Barre takes control, proclaiming Marxism and embarking on a nationalization campaign with increasing Soviet support.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1964: The Somalia Ethiopia War ends quickly in Ethiopian Victory.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1963: Somalia works with the USSR to establish a 10,000-man army with a small air force.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1960: The Somali Rep. attains independence as a unified British Somaliland and Italian Somalia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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South Africa
‘Either the white man dominates, or the black man takes over, the only way the Europeans can maintain supremacy is by domination . . . And the only way they can maintain domination is by withholding the vote from Non-Europeans.’-S. African PM Hans Strijdom, 1956.
‘You cannot find reconciliation between blacks and whites in a situation in which poverty and prosperity continue to be defined in racial terms, if you want reconciliation between black and white, you need to transform society. If we have an economy that is geared to benefit the whites and disadvantage the black majority, and you do not address that, you will not have reconciliation.’-South African President Thabo Mbeki.
‘Reconciliation is not about being cozy; it is not about pretending that things were other than they were. Reconciliation based on falsehood, on not facing up to reality, is not true reconciliation and will not last.’ Though truth might not always lead to reconciliation, there could be no genuine reconciliation without truth.-Nelson Mandela on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee.
‘The ANC had been engaged in a ‘just war’ against an evil system of government. It would be morally wrong and legally incorrect, to equate resistance to apartheid with defense of it.’-Thabo Mbeki on the ANC.
‘What is the use of teaching a Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice, there is no place for him in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour.’-South African President Verwoerd.
‘It is time for us to break out of the cycle of violence and break through to peace and reconciliation.’-S. African Pres de Clerk, 1990.
‘The government literally does not have the money to meet the demands that are being advanced. Mass action of any kind will not create resources that the government does not have. All of us must rid ourselves of the wrong notion that the government has a big bag full of money. The government does not have such riches. We must rid ourselves of the culture of entitlement which leads to the expectation that the government must promptly deliver whatever it is we demand.’-Nelson Mandela.
‘We must face the matter squarely that where there is something wrong in how we govern ourselves, it must be said that the fault is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are ill-governed.’-Nelson Mandela.
I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.-Nelson Mandela.
‘Human rights are human rights and they are of universal validity or they are nothing.’-Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Umkhonto we Sizwe with the warning: ‘The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices: submit or fight. That time has now come.’
‘We can’t assume that yesterday’s oppressed will not become tomorrow’s oppressors.-Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
‘At the end of my term, I’ll be 81, I don’t think it’s wise that a robust country like South Africa should be led by an octogenarian. You need younger men who can shake and move this country.’-Nelson Mandela.
‘There is a heavy responsibility for a leader elected unopposed. He may use that powerful position to settle scores with his detractors, to marginalize or get rid of them and surround themselves with yes-men and yes-women. His first duty is to allay the concerns of his colleagues to enable them to discuss freely without fear within internal structures.’-Nelson Mandela.
A man of destiny knows that beyond this hill lies another and another.-Nelson Mandela.
Merely to absorb the annual number of new entrants into the S. African labour market required an annual growth rate of 6%. To make any inroads into the rate of unemployment required a growth rate of between 8-10%.
Apartheid
Black townships in ‘white’ South Africa were kept as unattractive as possible. Few urban amenities were ever provided. Black businessmen were prevented by government restrictions from expanding their enterprises there. No African was allowed to carry on more than one business. Businesses were confined to providing ‘daily essential necessities’, like wood, coal, milk and vegetables. No banks or clothing stores or supermarkets were permitted. Restrictions were even placed on dry-cleaners, garages and petrol stations. Nor were Africans allowed to establish companies or partnerships in urban areas, or to construct their own buildings. These had to be leased from the local authority. Black housing was rudimentary, consisting of rows of identical ‘matchbox’ houses. Only a small proportion had electricity or adequate plumbing. Overcrowding was commonplace.
Africans were barred by law from skilled work, from forming registered unions, and from taking strike action. In industrial disputes, armed police were often called in by white employers to deal with the workforce. If Africans lost their job, they faced the possibility of deportation. A considerable proportion of the workforce received wages which fell short of providing the costs of family subsistence; an employers’ organisation, the Associated Chambers of Commerce, calculated in 1970 that the average industrial wage was 30% below the minimum monthly budget needed for a Soweto family of five.
Already overcrowded and impoverished, homelands had to cope with an endless flow of displaced Africans – labor tenants, squatters, redundant farm laborer’s, urban dwellers – ‘superfluous’ people, as they were described, all scrabbling for survival.
What was needed, said Biko, was a massive effort to reverse the negative image that blacks held of themselves and to replace it with a more positive identity. Black oppression was first and foremost a psychological problem. It could be countered by promoting black awareness, black pride, black capabilities, and black achievement. The term ‘black’ was used to include coloureds and Indians equally with Africans as victims of racial oppression. No help was wanted from white liberals or any other white sympathizers. The slogan used was: ‘Black man, you are on your own’.
Chronos
2008: South African Energy Crisis causes long-term economic disruption.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2007: S. African Elections; Zuma assumes the presidency democratically defeating Mbeki.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 2002: The South African Constitutional Court orders the government to provide nevirapine to all HIV+ pregnant mothers at all public hospitals free of charge ‘without delay.’-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 2001: ‘The Treatment Action Campaign’ begins legal proceedings aimed at forcing the South African government to provide nevirapine to help reduce mother-to baby transmission.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1999: Thabo Mbeki assumes the President of S. Africa from Nelson Mandela. Mbeki feared the ‘mounting rage’ of millions of blacks denied the opportunity of advancement and pursued affirmative action programs (regardless of merit and qualification) of ‘black economic and political empowerment’ encouraging white owned corporations to sell off stakes to blacks. Thousands of skilled whites are cleared out of government service and parastatal posts precipitating the exodus of ~750K whites over ten years for opportunities abroad, citing affirmative action, high crime rates and deteriorating public services.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1998: South Africa’s health minister, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, announced that anti-retroviral drug, Azidothymidine (AZT), which tests had shown could cut transmission from infected mothers to babies by 50%, would not be made available due to cost, even though AZT’s manufacturer had drastically cut the price.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1996: 5 former members of a police death squad based in northern Transvaal, fearful of prosecution as investigators closed in, asked for amnesty for a tally of sixty murders. The TRC found it possible to probe higher and higher up the chain of command, reaching the highest levels of government. At the apex of the security establishment was the State Security Council, where senior generals and key politicians met regularly to decide what action to take to crush opposition both at home and abroad.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1995: South Africa hosts the Rugby World Cup.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1995-1998: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, is formed to investigate gross violations of human rights – murder, abduction and the use of torture between 1960-1994, starting with the massacre at Sharpeville. TRC was given powers of subpoena and of search and seizure and it was supported by its own investigative unit. It was required to pay as much attention to violations committed by liberation movements as by the security police. Its aim was not so much to reach a judgement about culpability as to establish a process of disclosure. In exchange for telling the truth, perpetrators who came forward were to be granted amnesty from prosecution on an individual basis provided the commission was satisfied that they had made full disclosure of their crimes and that their actions had been carried out with a political objective. If they failed to come forward, they would remain at risk of prosecution.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1998: The TRC presents its 5-vol. report to Mandela concluding that Botha’s government in the late 1970’s had entered ‘the realm of criminal misconduct’ (whereas previous governments ruled by repression) guilty of killing opponents, torture, abduction, arson, and sabotage, and criticized de Klerk for failing to tackle the activities of the ‘third force’ – the network of security force members and right-wing groups seeking to wreck any transition that would lead to an ANC government.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1996: 5 former members of a police death squad based in northern Transvaal, fearful of prosecution as investigators closed in, asked for amnesty for a tally of sixty murders. The TRC found it possible to probe higher and higher up the chain of command, reaching the highest levels of government. At the apex of the security establishment was the State Security Council, where senior generals and key politicians met regularly to decide what action to take to crush opposition both at home and abroad.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
10-19 May, 1994: South Africa Elections; Nelson Mandela is democratically elected president and begins building a ‘rainbow nation.’-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
21 Mar, 1990: Namibia attains independence from South Africa.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
11 Feb, 1990: Nelson Mandela walks through the gates of Victor Verster prison, hand in hand with his wife, Winnie, towards a waiting crowd of supporters and the ranks of the world’s media.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2 Feb, 1990: S. African President de Klerk lifts the ban on the ANC and announces the release of Mandela.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Sep, 1989: South African Elections; F.W. de Klerk succeeds PW Botha as President and begins a reassessment of South Africa’s prospects.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
5 Jul, 1989: Mandela meets with S. African President Botha in secret.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1988: Cuba and S. Africa agree to withdraw forces from Angola and recognize the independence of Namibia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1986: S. Africa declares a state of emergency; the army surrounds whole townships and moves into schools, imprisoning community leaders, trade unionists, church workers, and anti-apartheid activists.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1986: HIV+ cases are reported among South African migrant mineworkers from Malawi employed on Rand Gold Mines. By 1990 the adult HIV infection rate, measured in an ante-natal survey, stood at 0.7%; by 1992 it had trebled to 2.2%.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1984-1986: The townships revolt (aka the Township uprising); General strikes, protests, and boycotts are organized by the ANC in exile as a ‘people’s war’ to make the townships ungovernable. The daily spectacle of violent protest and government repression provoked a chorus of international condemnation and calls for action to undertake major reform. Foreign investors begin unloading S. African shares and American banks stopped rolling over loans sending S. Africa into a severe financial crisis.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1984: The ‘good-neighborliness’ agreement is signed by Mozambique President Machel and S. African President Botha. S. Africa promises to withhold support for RENAMO and Mozambique for the ANC.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1984: Angola and South Africa sign a ceasefire agreement; S. Africa promises to withdraw its forces from Angola while the Angolan government undertook to prevent SWAPO guerrillas from crossing the border into Namibia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1983: The United Democratic Front (UDF) is formed by a coalition of more than 300 organizations, church groups, civic associations, trade unions and student bodies, to oppose South Africa constitutional changes, in what amounted to the broadest display of public opposition to apartheid in nearly thirty years.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1983: Lesotho and Mozambique agree to expel ANC members.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1983: S. African ANC detonates a VBIED outside a military building in Pretoria killing 16 and wounding 200- the most serious sabotage attack in South Africa’s history.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1982: Swaziland signs a secret security agreement with Pretoria, undertaking to expel ANC from its territory.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1981: The S. African independent state of Ciskei’s signs a security agreement with Pretoria, undertaking to expel ANC personnel from its territory.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1980: The Soweto newspaper ‘The Post’ begins a campaign demanding the release of Mandela with the banner headline FREE MANDELA!-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1980: RENAMO, with S. African arms, begins a sabotage campaign from their bases in the Transvaal against ANC infrastructure in Mozambique, destroying bridges, railways, agricultural projects, schools and clinics and terrorizing the local populace.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1980: S. African ANC guerillas increase their sabotage campaign, destroying fuel storage tanks at industrial plants, firing rockets into a military base, and bombing equipment at a nuclear power station.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1978: S. Africa Elections; PW Botha is elected as South Africa’s new PM.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1977: A UN arms embargo is placed on South Africa.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1977: S. African ANC guerrillas began a low-level sabotage campaign selecting targets mainly with a high propaganda value including police stations, administrative buildings, railway lines, and electricity substations.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1977: Bophuthatswana is made independent (despite evident opposition); in all some 1.8 million Tswana lose their South African citizenship.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
16 Jun, 1976: The Soweto Revolt; in response to S. African government mandated schooling in Afrikaans and English at the expense of Bantu and traditional African languages, students in Soweto denounce Afrikaans as the language of the oppressor, boycott classes in Afrikaans, organize school strikes and lead a mass demonstration. They are met by armed police who kill a 13-yo schoolboy. ~14K Black Youth join the ANC in Maputo.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1976-1981: An estimated 8 million Africans lost their South African citizenship.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1976: The Transkei is pronounced an ‘independent state’. Overnight 1.6 million Xhosas living there and 1.3 million Xhosas living in ‘white’ areas lost their S. African citizenship.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Early, 1976: S. African troops withdraw from Angola, failing prevent the Marxist MPLA from gaining power.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1973: S. African BPC Lead Biko issued with banning orders. Biko is restricted to King William’s Town, forbidden to speak in public, write for publication, or to be present with more than one person at a time.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1972: The Black Peoples Convention (BPC) is formed in S. Africa by Bantu Stephen Biko to promote Black Consciousness.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1966: Assassination of S. African President Hendrik Verwoerd, the driving force behind grand apartheid. John Forster assumes the presidency.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1963- Jun, 1964: The trial of Mandela and other leading conspirators. They were charged under the Sabotage Act which carried the death penalty. On 12 Jun, 1964, Mandela, 45-yo, was sentenced to life imprisonment at Robben Island.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
11 Jul, 1963: S. African Police raid Lilliesleaf farm, acquiring a massive haul of documents relating to arms production, guerrilla recruitment and training, contacts with China and the Soviet bloc, and evidence about the involvement of Mandela.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
16 Dec, 1961-1963: MK’s Sabotage Campaign in S. Africa; in response to a limited campaign of sabotage targeting government installations, the S. African Government bans the ANC and PAC, security police are given virtually unlimited powers of arrest and detention. Scores of men and women vanished into prison, to be subjected to solitary confinement and prolonged interrogation. When interrogation methods failed, the security police resorted to physical assaults and torture.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1961: Umkhonto we Sizwe ‘Spear of the Nation’ (MK) is formed in the wake of the Sharpesville Massacre as an armed wing of S. Africa’s ANC under the leadership of Nelson Mandela with HQ’s at Lilliesleaf. It was essentially a joint venture between the ANC and the Communist Party, a small but elite group with access to all the Communist Party’s resources and its international connections.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1961: S. Africa’s ANC agrees to remain committed to non-violence, but would not stand in the way of members who wanted to establish separate and independent military Organisation.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
21 Mar, 1960: S. African police in Sharpeville open fire indiscriminately on a crowd of PAC demonstrators, killing 69 and wounding 186. The massacre became a symbol of the brutality of the apartheid regime.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1959: S. African President Verwoerd unveils plans for a multinational state with separate homelands for 8 black nations.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 1959: The ANC is banned by the S. African government on the grounds that it was inciting the black population to defy the law and ridicule government authority.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1959: The Pan- Africanist Congress (PAC) is formed as a breakout group from the ANC, demanding ‘government of the Africans, by the Africans, for the Africans’ and promising militant action to achieve it.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1958: Death of S. African President Hans Strijdom. Hendrik Verwoerd assumes power and puts apartheid into full scale practice.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1955: The ‘Freedom Charter’ is adopted by S. Africa’s ANC as a guide to a multiracial society.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1952: ‘Defiance Campaign’ is organized by the ANC in S. Africa in protest against Apartheid; volunteers deliberately contravene selected laws and regulations and are imprisoned. In five months more than 8,000 people are imprisoned and 35 organizers, including Mandela, are convicted of promoting communism.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1949: S. African ANC radicals oust the moderate old guard, announcing a ‘Programme of Action’ including civil disobedience, boycotts and ‘stay-at-home’ strikes on a mass scale.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1948: Apartheid begins in S. Africa; Afrikaner Nationalists subject non-white populations to a vast array of government controls with ubiquitous segregation, regulating every facet of their life to keep them in a subordinate role – residence, employment, education, public amenities and politics.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1946: African mineworkers launch the largest strike in S. Africa’s history in protest against pay and conditions.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1943: ‘African Claims’ is presented by the ANC to the S. African government demanding full citizenship rights and an end to all discriminatory laws.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1936: Black S. Africans are barred from voting in Cape Province.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
8 Jan, 1912: The African National Congress (ANC) is formed to politically represent black S. Africans.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1910: South Africa attains independence under white minority rule as the richest state in Africa with the world’s largest deposits of gold. 87% of land is declared “white land.”-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
11 Oct, 1889- 31 May, 1902: The Second Boar War; The British Empire defeats and assumes control of two independent Boer states; the South African Republic and the Orange Free State under the Treaty of Vereeniging.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
20 Dec, 1880- 23 Mar, 1881: The First Boer War (aka Transvaal War); the British are decisively defeated and agree to complete Boer self-government in the Transvaal under the Pretoria Convention (treaty).-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
16 Dec, 1838: The Day of the Covenant; S. African’s defeat the Zulu King Dingane at the Battle of the Blood River.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Sudan
Northern (Muslim): Relatively Advanced, Hot, Dry, Partly Desert, Arabic, containing ¾ of the populations. Northerners referred to Southerners as abid (slaves).
Southern (African): Green, Fertile with high rainfall, populated by diverse black tribes, speaking many languages and adhering to mostly traditional religions. The South was plundered by the North for slaves and ivory.
Darfur Crisis: The crisis began as an age-old conflict over land disputes between nomadic Arab pastoralists and settled ‘African’ agriculturalists that intensified during the 1980s as a result of drought and increasing desertification. Arab pastoralists moving southwards from the arid north of Darfur into areas occupied by black Muslim tribes – the Fur, Masaalit and Zaghawa – were involved in a series of violent clashes. Rather than working to defuse tensions, the Khartoum government sided with the Arab pastoralists, providing them with arms.
‘Aktul al-abid bil abid’ (Arabic): Kill the slave through the slave.
The SPLM, for its part, was a Dinka-led organisation dominated by Garang but riven by shifting rivalries. It aimed to establish a united secular state but otherwise lacked an ideological base.
The lesson they have learned is that if you keep fighting, the West will keep feeding you.’-Unk on Sudanese Civil War amidst widespread Famine.
Chronos
Jul, 2011: South Sudan attains independence from Sudan.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 2011: Referendum on S. Sudan; 3.8 million southerners (99%) vote for secession.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
26 Feb, 2003- Present: The Darfur Crisis (aka Genocide); The systematic killing of ethnic Darfuri (Fur, Masaalit, Zaghawa) by the Sudanese government and Sudanese armed militias. The air force bombed villages; the army launched ground attacks; and Arab militias known as Janjaweed were licensed to kill, loot and rape at will. They burned to the ground hundreds of villages, killed thousands of tribesmen, raped women en masse, abducted children and stole cattle. By 2010, it was estimated that 300,000 had died, 3 million were homeless, and more than a million flee to neighboring Chad.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2008: ICC Prosecutors at the Hague accuse Bashir of 10 charges of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 2003- Early, 2004: Darfur Genocide; peak of violence.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
26 Feb, 2003: The rebel Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA), and later the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), launch an insurgency against the Khartoum government for its neglect of the Darfur regions development and failure to provide protection against Arab raiders. Khartoum reacted with a savage campaign of ethnic cleansing intended to drive out the local population and replace it with Arab settlers.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2001: Turabi is arrested in Sudan.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2000: The US Commission for International Religious Freedom is formed as a new government agency.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1999: The first exports of Sudanese crude oil begin with revenues comprising more than 40% of the government’s total revenue. Bashir drastically increases defense spending.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1998: al-Qaeda ‘sleeper’ cells bomb American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 263 people and injuring more than 5,000. US President Clinton retaliates by ordering a missile strike against a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, claiming it was being used to manufacture chemical weapons.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1997: The Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company is formed in Sudan – involving state-owned companies from China and Malaysia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1996: Osama bin Laden and his followers are forced to leave Sudan for Afghanistan.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1996: Sudan introduces regulations that separate men and women on public transport, in theatres, cinemas, parties and picnics; Religion became in effect a method of repression.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1996: Sheikh Omar is convicted of seditious conspiracy to wage ‘a war of urban terrorism against the US.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1993: Sheikh Omar (a friend of Sudan’s Turabi) is implicated in the bombing of the WTC in New York; 6 of those convicted in the plot were Sudanese.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1992: A fatwa is issued by religious scholars in Sudan against all who oppose the government.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1991: New Sudanese Islamic decrees limit women’s activity and mandates public hanging or crucifixion for armed robbery; execution by stoning for adultery; and death for apostasy (all enforced by the NIF’s Guardians of Morality and Advocates of the Good).-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1991: Osama Bin Laden arrives in Sudan and begins building al Qaeda.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1991: Sudanese President Bashir establishes the Popular Arab and Islamic Conference (PAIC) in Khartoum as a pan-Islamic front to resist America’s ‘recolonization of the Islamic world’. A throng of militant groups were invited to inaugural conferences in Khartoum, effectively marking the start of the ‘war on America’ and its allies. Islamist activists from Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt were offered sanctuary and provided with diplomatic passports.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait. Despite offers from Sudan’s Bashir to mobilize 10,000 mujahidin to defend the Saudi kingdom, the Saudi’s turned to the US for protection, inviting US troops to establish bases on Saudi soil.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1983-2005: The Second Sudanese Civil War is fought between S. Sudan’s SPLM and N. Sudan’s Islamic forces; The SPLM was supported by Mengistu’s Ethiopia (in retaliation for Sudan’s support of Eritrean successionists and Tigrayan rebels), Ghaddafi’s Libya (in retaliation for Numeiri’s support of Anti-Ghaddafi Libyan group, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya which had offices in Khartoum) while N. Sudan was supported by the US (who saw Numeiri as a counterweight to Ghaddafi and Mengistu). All factions sought to destroy communities presumed to be supporting their opponents. In far-flung, scorched-earth sweeps, heavily armed fighters torched villages, stole livestock and food, planted land mines, conscripted boys and raped women and girls. By 2002 ~2M had died with ~4M displaced.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 2002: The Machakos Protocol is signed by the NIF and SPLM. Later finalized in 2004, the south was accorded the right to self-determination. After a six-year interim period beginning in January 2005 when a final peace settlement was signed, southerners would choose in a referendum whether to remain in a united Sudan or set up an independent state.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 2002: 24 Civilians are killed at a World Food Programme (WFP) center in Bieh, Sudan after being attacked by helicopter gunship.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 2002: Sudan’s NIF and S. Sudan’s SPLM sign a ceasefire on fighting in the Nuba mountains.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2001: The Sudan Peace Act is signed by US President Bush; if, after six months, the US President certified that the Sudanese government was not negotiating in good faith or was obstructing humanitarian relief efforts, he was empowered to impose sanctions on Khartoum and give assistance to the SPLM.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1991: S. Sudan Civil War following an attempted Coup; Nuer guerrilla commander, Riek Machar, attempts to seize control of the SPLM from Dinka leader John Garang. Machar wanted independence for the south rather than a united secular Sudan favoured by Garang. Their struggle for power brought about a tribal split between Dinka and Nuer that kills hundreds of thousands and lasts for years.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
30 Jun, 1989: Sudan Military Coup led by General Omar al-Bashir; shortly before al-Mahdi is to meet SPLM Garang in Addis Ababa, a group of militant officers take control, scuppering the peace negotiations, imposing Islamic rule, and forming an Islamic Militia- the People’s Defense Force (PDF).-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1989: al-Mahdi enters into negotiations with the SPLM agreeing to freeze the implementation of Islamic Law as part of a peace process.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1988: The most severe famine in Sudanese History; both the South and the North use food as a weapon. An estimated quarter of a million southerners died in 1988 as a result of war-related famine; some three million were displaced, many of them fleeing to the slums of Khartoum.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1987: In revenge for an SPLM attack on a Rizeigat militia group, Rizeigat survivors attacked Dinka men, women and children in the town of Al Diein in southern Darfur, setting fire to six railway carriages where they were sheltering, killing more than 1,000.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1985: Sudanese President Numeiri is ousted by Sadiq al-Mahdi, leader of the Umma Party, as Sudanese PM. Al-Mahdi fully commits to building an Islamic State.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1985: The SPLM demands a constitutional convention. Al-Mahdi responds by arming Baggara Arab militias in W. Sudan (Murahalin), licensing them to raid and plunder at will. Dinka and Nuer villages were attacked and burned, their livestock stolen, their wells poisoned; men, women and children were killed or abducted and taken back to the north where they were traded or kept as slaves.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1983: The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) is formed under the leadership of Colonel John Garang de Mabior with the aim of Southern Sudanese Independence.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1983: Sudan’s Islamic Revolution is declared by Numeiri; Sudan was to be an Islamic republic governed by Islamic law. Numeiri dissolved the southern regional government and decreed the division of the south into three smaller regions, corresponding to the old provinces under which the south had been governed before 1972, in effect terminating the constitutional arrangements of the peace agreement. Sudan descends into a second civil war.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1983-1985: Drought and Famine in Sudan kill an estimated quarter of a million people.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1978: Oil is discovered in Southern Sudan’s Upper Nile Province (Nuer and Dinka territory) by Chevron, who had spent ~$1B on exploration locating two large deposits at Unity and Heglig. To protect the area from rebel attacks, the government initiated a campaign of ethnic cleansing, using the army and Baggara militias to drive out the local population and establish a cordon around the oilfields while construction of an oil refinery in the North and a pipeline to the Red Sea begins, effectively removing the South of the economic benefits of their resource.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1973: Sudan is established as a secular state by a new Sudanese constitution. A secular law governed civilians in civil and criminal matters, while personal and family matters were covered by sharia law for Muslims and customary law for rural populations in the south.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1963-1972: The First Sudanese Civil War; half a million die.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1972: Peace negotiations with the Southern Sudan Liberation Movement (SSLM); Numeiri agrees to allow the south a wide measure of local autonomy. The three southern provinces were linked together as a separate region endowed with its own elected assembly and executive authority, while Anyanya guerrillas were accepted into the ranks of the Sudanese army.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1970: The Mahdist Uprising; Imam al-Hadi’s Ansar forces are crushed by Numeiri’s army and the Imam himself was killed as he tried to escape to Ethiopia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1969: Sudan Military Coup; Gaafar Numeiri takes control implementing a Revolutionary Command Council determined to sweep aside religion-based political groups and advocating for regional (North/South) self government.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1964: N. Sudanese President Abboud resigns and is replaced by N. Politicians seeking the establishment of an Islamic state.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1963: Guerilla attacks are launched by Anyanya (a name derived from a poison concocted from snake and rotten beans).-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1963: The Sudan African Nationalist Union (SANU) is formed in Uganda by a group of Southern Sudanese Politicians with the aim of independence for S. Sudan. The group had fled into exile after Southern protests met increasing repression.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1958: Sudan Army Coup; Army Generals take control citing the need for ‘stable and clean administration’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1956: Sudan attains independence from the British; northerners gain control of the central government in Khartoum, eventually precipitating a revolt by southerners.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1955: The Southern Corps of the Sudanese army mutinies.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
12 Feb, 1953: Britain sets Sudan on the road to independence, scheduled for 1956 after a 3-yr transitional period.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1951: Egyptian King Farouk proclaims himself ‘King of Sudan’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1899: British take control of Sudan and administer it jointly between them and Egypt.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1898: Sudanese Fashoda Village Incident; British forces prevent a French expedition from establishing a band of French territory running eastwards from Dakar to Djibouti.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1885-1898: Mahdi and his Ansar warriors rule Sudan as an Islamic State.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1885: Mahdi’s Ansar warriors, seeking to rid Sudan of the Egyptian Military, capture Khartoum killing British General Charles Gordon, on the steps of the governor’s residence.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1819: Egyptian Mohammed Ali’s forces capture Sudan and its capital; Khartoum, lying at the confluence of the Blue Nile and the White Nile, which had originally been founded as an Egyptian army outpost.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Tanzania
‘Although some economic progress was being made, and although we were still talking in terms of a socialist objective, the nation was in fact drifting without any sense of direction. On balance we were drifting away from our basic socialist goals of human equality, human dignity and government by the whole people.’-Julius Nyerere.
Many leaders of the independence struggle were not against capitalism; they simply wanted its fruits and saw independence as the means to that end. Indeed, many of the most active fighters in the independence movement were motivated – consciously or unconsciously – by the belief that only with independence could they attain that ideal of individual wealth which their education or their experience in the modern sector had established as a worthwhile goal.-Julius Nyerere.
Chronology
5 Nov, 1985: Ali Hassan Mwinyi assumes the Tanzanian Presidency on the resignation of Nyerere. Mwinyi abandons the Arusha Declaration, the 23-year blueprint for socialist development.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1979-1980: ~90% of Tanzania peasants had been moved into Ujamaa villages with a mere 5% of agricultural output came from communal plots. By 1980, Exports covered only 40% of the value of imports; its foreign debt had soared. A shortage of basic commodities like soap, sugar and cooking oil and other consumer goods produced black markets, petty corruption and smuggling (Magendo- KiSwahili). The average standard of living between 1975 and 1983 fell by nearly 50%. Primary school enrolment increased from one-quarter of the school-age population to 95%; adult literacy from 10-75%; four in ten villages were provided with clean tap water, three in ten had clinics; life expectancy increased from 41 to 51 years. Most progress was financed largely by foreign aid.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
30 Oct, 1978- 11 Apr, 1979: Uganda- Tanzania War (aka Kagera War, 1979 Liberation War); Uganda is defeated by Tanzania leading to the overthrow of Ugandan President Idi Amin (who settles in Saudi Arabia). ~250K Die.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1979: Tanzania invades Uganda with 45,000 men in its counterattack to drive back Idi Amin’s army.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
30 Oct, 1978: Uganda’s Amin orders the invasion of the Kagera Salient in Northern Tanzania.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1974-1977: The Tanzanian deficit recorded in cereals was more than 1 million tons. Drought compounded the problem. The shortfall was made up with food imports, exhausting the country’s foreign exchange reserves. By 1975, the Tanzanian government had to be rescued by grants, loans and special facilities arranged with the assistance of the IMF and the World Bank and more than 200,000 tons of food aid.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1973- 1977: ~11 million Tanzanians are placed in Ujamaa villages, the largest mass movement in Africa’s history.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1973: Tanzanian President Nyerere announces the compulsory resettlement of the entire remaining rural population within three years.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
7 Apr, 1972: Assassination of Zanzibar President Karume, shot by an army officer bearing a personal grudge.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
7 Feb, 1967: The Arusha Declaration is issued as a socialist reform strategy by Tanzanian President Nyerere calling for national self-reliance, economic development, and state control of all means of production and exchange, including all forms of real estate- commercial buildings, apartments, and even houses. Rural populations were forced into Ujamaa villages, hoping to raise agricultural productivity.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
26 Apr, 1964- 7 Apr, 1972: Presidency of Abeid Karume, first president of Zanzibar. Karume’s revolutionary council acted to crush the Arab community ordering arrests, imprisoning without trial, torturing, and executing at will, seizing property, and forcibly deporting thousands in unseaworthy dhows to the Arabian Gulf. Karume banned contraceptives; forced ‘volunteers’ to undertake farm work; closed private clubs and abolished private business and trading enterprises. He expelled staff from the WHO and suspended malaria-control programmes on the grounds that Africans were ‘malaria-proof ’, precipitating a huge surge in malaria.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1964: Articles of Union; Zanzibar and Tanganyika are unified as Tanzania. Nyerere was worried by the prospect of Zanzibar being drawn into the Cold War.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1964: Armed gangs rebel against the Arab ruling elite in Zanzibar, forcing the sultan to flee in his yacht. ~5,000 Arabs are killed, thousands more interned, their houses, property and possessions seized at will.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1963: Zanzibar gains independence from the British.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
9 Dec, 1961: Tanganyika gains independence from the British.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1914: British Coastal Railways reach Lake Tanganyika.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1 Jul, 1890: The Heligoland- Zanzibar Treaty is signed; Britain trades the North Sea island of Heligoland with the Germans for Zanzibar.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Togo
1993: Togo Elections; Eyadéma wins 98% of the vote in presidential elections, standing as sole candidate after an electoral commission disqualified his principal rival, Gilchrist Olympio, a son of Togo’s first president, Sylvanus Olympio, whom Eyadéma had assassinated in 1963.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1991: Togo Military Coup; The Army takes control, imprisoning Togo PM Koffigoh, who is eventually allowed to remain as PM but he increasingly defers to Eyadéma.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1991: Togo President Eyadéma yields to demands for a national conference. Defying Eyadéma’s authority, delegates then declared the conference to be sovereign, appointed a High Council of the Republic under the leadership of a Catholic bishop to draft a new constitution, chose a well-known human-rights lawyer, Kokou Koffigoh, as prime minister and scheduled elections for June 1992.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1963: Assassination of Togo’s president, Sylvanus Olympio, who was shot dead in Lomé by a group of ex-servicemen led by a 25-year-old sergeant, Etienne Eyadéma, in revenge for refusing to employ them in the Togolese army.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Tunisia
17 Dec- 2010- Dec, 2012: The Arab Spring develops across Islamic North Africa as a series of protests against years of pent-up grievances: over poverty, unemployment, police brutality, rising prices, the greed of the ruling elite and the crippling lack of freedom.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
11 Feb, 2012: Resignation of Egyptian PM Mubarak after 18 days of protests. Mubarak had unleashed the riot police, however the Army, the ultimate arbiter of power, withdrew its support.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Feb, 2012: Anti-Gaddafi protests in Benghazi & Tripoli; Gaddafi fails to crush the demonstrations, using riot police, and killing indiscriminately. Deploying tanks, air strikes and African mercenaries, Gaddafi ordered massive reprisals against opposition towns. As his tanks advanced on Benghazi, the UNSC, fearing an imminent massacre there, intervened, authorizing a ‘no-fly zone’ and ‘all necessary measures’ to be taken to protect civilians. Within hours, Western military jets went into action in Libya, attacking Gaddafi’s tanks and artillery and enabling poorly equipped rebel forces to survive. What had started out four weeks before as a peaceful anti-government demonstration had turned into another African war. The root cause was a common phenomenon: an ageing dictator, entrenched in power for decades, determined to maintain his grip whatever the cost.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
14 Jan, 2012: Tunisian PM Ben Ali flees into exile after 29 days of protests.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
17 Dec, 2010: Self-Immolation of Tunisian Street trader Mohamed Bouazizi outside a government building in Sidi Bouzid in protest against municipal officials who had confiscated his merchandise after accusing him of trading without a license. Within hours, crowds gathered demonstrating against Ben Ali’s regime; their protests spread across Tunisia fueled by social media and years of pent-up grievances. Police attempts at repression failed; and the army refused to intervene on the government’s behalf.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1956: Tunisia attains independence from France.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1950: France signs measures moving Tunisia towards internal autonomy.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1934: The Néo-Destur party is formed in Tunisia by Habib Bourguiba (who is immediately arrested) demanding ‘the replacement of the despotic regime by a constitutional regime permitting the people to participate in power’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1881: Tunisia is occupied by France.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Uganda
‘Because Uganda was a rural society composed predominantly of peasants with essentially the same economic interests, the only tactics available to political parties to gain support in the past had been to exploit ethnic, regional and religious loyalties, resulting in strife and distracting attention from real issues. ‘Tribalism, religion, or regionalism becomes the basis for intense partisanship.’-Yoweri Museveni on Uganda’s No Party System.
‘Tribal and factional groupings tended to threaten the stability of the country and that a one-party state was needed to forge a sense of national unity.’-Ugandan PM Obote on a one party state.
‘If you go into a field and see an anthill full of holes, and then you put your hand into a hole and you are bitten by a snake, whose fault is it?’-Museveni on AIDS.
‘Acha Inwe Dogedoge Siachi (KiSwahili): ‘Let it (AIDS) kill me; I shall never abandon the young ladies.’
‘Love carefully, practice monogamy, or ‘zero-grazing.’-Museveni on AIDS.
Chronology
1996: Ugandan elections (the countries first); Museveni secures 75% of the vote.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1987: The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is formed in Uganda by Joseph Kony’s as an atavistic cult, murdering and abducting in Acholiland and enslaving thousands of children in its cause each year.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1986: As a reward for Tutsi support, Ugandan President Museveni announces that Rwandans who had been resident in Uganda for more than ten years would automatically be entitled to Ugandan citizenship.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1986: Yoweri Museveni rules Uganda establishing a no party system.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1981-1986: Ugandan Civil War (aka the Ugandan Bush War); ~300K civilians die. Obote is ousted by the NRM led by Yoweri Museveni.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1986: The Ugandan National Resistance Army (NRA) led by Museveni take Kampala by force; 1/4 of his army – some 3,000 men – were Tutsi fighters, including Rwandan refugee Paul Kagame.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1980: Ugandan elections; Former President Obote regains power in disputed elections, plunging Uganda into civil war; his Northern Army responsible for the deaths of some 300K civilians.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
30 Oct, 1978- 11 Apr, 1979: Uganda- Tanzania War (aka Kagera War, 1979 Liberation War); Uganda is defeated by Tanzania leading to the overthrow of Ugandan President Idi Amin (who settles in Saudi Arabia). ~250K Die.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1979: Tanzania invades Uganda with 45,000 men in its counterattack to drive back Idi Amin’s army.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
30 Oct, 1978: Uganda’s Amin orders the invasion of the Kagera Salient in Northern Tanzania.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1971: ~50,000 Asians, the cornerstone of Ugandan industry, depart; factories broke down, trade was severely disrputed, and entire economic sectors of enterprise collapse. Government revenues were cut by nearly 40 %.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1971: Ugandan Military Coup; Army Commander Amin takes power with little resistance while Obote is on travel for a Commonwealth conference. Fearing a counter-attack by Obote supporters, Amin organised death squads to hunt down and kill scores of suspected opposition including the mass killing of Northern Acholi and Langi.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1967: Ugandan President Obote abolishes the kingdom of Buganda, carving it up into four administrative districts.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1966: Uganda’s Obote publishes a new constitution installing himself as president and appoints Amin as Army Commander. Ugandan President Kabaka managed to escape after climbing a high perimeter fence.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1962: Uganda attains independence from the British. Ugandan PM Obote establishes a one-party state seeking to unite the disparate ethnic groups- the Bantu in the South (Baganda and Nilotic) and the Sudanic groups in the North (Acholi and Langi).-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Zambia (Loziland aka N. Rhodesia)
Party competition would constitute a return to ‘stone-age politics.’-Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda.
Chronology
Oct, 1991: Zambian Presidential elections result in an overwhelming victory for the MMD.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1991: The Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) led by Chiluba is launched as a political party in Zambia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1990: Zambia’s Kaunda Monument in Lusaka is set ablaze by protestors.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Zimbabwe (S. Rhodesia)
‘It makes absolute nonsense of our history as an African country that most of our arable and ranching land is still in the hands of our erstwhile colonizers, while the majority of our peasant community still live like squatters in their God-given land.’-Mugabe on his 1988 land redistribution program.
‘I cannot see in my lifetime that the Africans will be sufficiently mature and reasonable to take over.’-Rhodesian President Smith, Apr, 1964.
‘Government violence can do only one thing and that is to breed counter-violence.’-Joshua Nkomo, Rhodesian NDP Leader.
The wrongs of the past must now stand forgiven and forgotten. If ever we look to the past, let us do so for the lesson the past has taught us, namely that oppression and racism are inequalities that must never find scope in our political and social system. If yesterday I fought you as an enemy, today you have become a friend and ally with the same national interest, loyalty, rights and duties as myself.-Robert Mugabe on Reconcilliation, 18 Apr, 1980.
‘We will never accept an MDC victory… and would go to war to prevent it. We are not going to give up our country because of a mere “X”. How can a ballpoint fight with a gun?’-Robert Mugabe on the 2007 Elections.
Rhodesian Whites comprised ~6000 in all, owning nearly 40 % of all agricultural land and two-thirds of the best land. Their role was regarded as crucial to the economic welfare of Zimbabwe.
Chronology
2008: Zimbabwe President Mugabe launches Operation Hakudzokwi (‘No Return’) deploying the military into Chiadzwa to evict diamond diggers by force; helicopter gunships opened fire indiscriminately, killing scores of them; many more were beaten, raped, tear-gassed and mauled by dogs. Independent investigators subsequently reported that the military were using forced labour to mine for diamonds.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 2007: Zimbabwe Elections; Mugabe is elected president of Zimbabwe; The national currency was worthless with inflation reaching 5 hextillion, and prices doubled at least daily. In July, the central bank issued a banknote with a value of 100B dollars, but it could buy no more than half a loaf of bread. Six months later, the bank issued a new banknote of 100T dollars. About 90% of the population was unemployed. Foreign food aid was needed to keep 5M people alive. After eight months of negotiations, Mugabe conceds to Tsvangirai the post of PM.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 2007: Five days before voting was due to start, Tsvangirai decided to pull out of the election. ‘We cannot ask [people] to cast their vote . . . when that vote could cost their lives,’ he said. ‘We will no longer participate in this violent, illegitimate sham of an election. Mugabe has declared war and we will not be part of that war.’-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 2007: Zimbabwe President Mugabe launches Operation Mavhoterapapi’ – ‘Whom Did You Vote For? (known as chidudu- fear, by locals)’. Villagers are beaten en masse and told ‘vote Mugabe next time or you will die’. Relief food supplies for millions of needy Zimbabweans were used as a weapon to coerce their votes. Scores of MDC organizers are abducted and murdered; hundreds are tortured; rape, arson attacks and false arrests are commonplace. Some 200,000 people were forced to flee their homes.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
4 Apr, 2007: ZANU-PF’s ruling politburo fixes the election results at 47.9% for Tsvangirai and 43.2% for Mugabe, necessitating a second round of voting.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 2007: The ‘Save Zimbabwe Campaign’ is violently suppressed by local police after a coalition of civic organisations, labor unions and opposition groups in Zimbabwe arranged to hold a ‘prayer meeting’ on a sports ground in the Harare suburb of Highfield.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2006: A rich diamond field is discovered in the Chiadzwa district of eastern Zimbabwe, triggering a chaotic rush by thousands of diggers.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 2005: Zimbabwe President Mugabe launches Operation Murambatsvina (chiShona for ‘Drive out the Rubbish’) targeting the mass of disaffected Zimbabweans living in slums and shantytowns on the fringes of urban centres under the pretext that slums and shantytowns were a haven for criminals. Some 700,000 people lost either their homes or their source of livelihood or both; nearly 100,000 homes and more than 32,000 businesses were destroyed; and a further 2.4 million people (a fifth the population) were affected indirectly.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Summer, 2000: Zimbabwe’s ZANU-PF under Mugabe begin a campaign of repression against opposition activists and voters.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 2000: Zimbabwe Presidential Elections; Mugabe retains power after a sustained campaign of terror against the MDC, white farm owners, and opposition supporters– crushing political opponents, packing his Supreme Court, violating the courts, trampling on property rights, rigging elections, suppressing the independent press and freedom of speech (making it illegal to criticize the president), banning political rallies, killing rivals, and precipitating economic collapse. MDC officials were abducted, beaten, tortured and sometimes murdered; rallies were disrupted; party offices attacked. ZANU-PF won 48% of the votes cast and 62 seats in parliament. The MDC, with 47%, won 57 seats.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
May, 2000: Mugabe’s fast track land resettlement program; ~3,000 Zimbabwean white farmers (the bulk of those remaining), are given 45 days to stop all production and a further 45 days to vacate their properties without compensation or face imprisonment. By August, the farm seizures spelt the end of commercial agriculture as a major industry. Hundreds of thousands of farm workers and their families were left destitute; many were driven off the land by ZANU-PF youth militias. The impact on food supplies was calamitous, compounding the effects of drought. With 7M people at risk of starvation – half of the population – Mugabe turned food into a political weapon to coerce support for ZANU-PF, just as he had done in Matabeleland in the 1980s.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Sep, 1999: The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Morgan Tsvangirai, is launched by an alliance of trade unions, lawyers and civic groups to oust ZANU-PF at the next parliamentary elections scheduled for 2000.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1998: Mugabe deploys an expeditionary force of thousands of troops, combat aircraft and armoured vehicles to Congo to prop up the tottering regime of Laurent Kabila.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1997: The Zimbabwe government publishes a list of 1,503 farms covering 12M acres for expropriation; half the country’s commercial farmland. The stock exchange, where more than a third of companies listed were heavily dependent on agriculture, plummeted.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1997: Zimbabwe War veterans, once considered the most loyal of Mugabe’s supporters, take to the streets in a series of demonstrations. Mugabe capitulated to their demands, promising a package of benefits valued at some $400M including land for resettlement, money the government did not have. When Mugabe announced in November that the war veterans would be paid out by Christmas the value of the Zimbabwe dollar plunged.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1993: The Zimbabwe government designates an additional ~70 farms for acquisition.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1992: Zimbabwe’s Mugabe Government, without warning or consultation, ‘designate’ for acquisition thirteen farms totaling 17,000 acres.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1988: Zimbabwe Parliament passes a constitutional amendment empowering the government to confiscate land, fix the price it paid and deny the right to appeal to courts for fair compensation. Mugabe’s land plans provokes a storm of protest from white farmers, the US, Britain, The World Bank, the IMF, all outraged by the idea of a land grab without fair payment. Many white farmers – nearly half of them – had purchased their farms since independence, obtaining government approval to do so.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1988: Zimbabwe President Mugabe announces a program to redistribute some 13M acres (> half the remaining white owned land)- to peasant farmers.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
30 Dec, 1987: Zimbabwe President Mugabe is declared executive president by parliament at a ceremony accompanied by the refrain You Are The Only One. His new powers combined the roles of head of state, head of government and commander-in-chief, with powers to dissolve parliament, declare martial law, and the right to run for an unlimited number of terms of office.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
27 Dec, 1987: Zimbabwe President Mugabe and Nkomo sign a Unity Accord, merging ZAPU and ZANU-PF into a single party which was henceforth known as ZANU-PF, and led by Mugabe.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1985: Zimbabwe Elections; ZANU-PF and Mugabe retain control of Zimbabwe in democratic elections.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1984: In the run-up to elections, ZANU-PF Youth Brigades, modelled on China’s Red Guards, were unleashed on the local Matabeleland population, coercing them into buying party cards, forcing thousands to attend party rallies and beating anyone who stood in their way. Some 400 ZAPU officials were abducted and killed.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1984: Mugabe’s Gukurahundi campaign in Zimbabwe is extended to Matabeleland South, whose 400K population was suffering a third year of drought. Government forces closed all stores, halted all food deliveries, enforced a blanked curfew, and restricted all movement leading to widespread starvation.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1983: Mugabe’s Gukurahundi are deployed in Matabeleland North, Zimbabwe waging a campaign of violence deliberately targeted at the civilian population. The initial targets were former ZIPRA soldiers and ZAPU officials but were broadened to include random men, women, and children. In the space of six weeks at least 2,000 civilians were killed, hundreds of homesteads destroyed, and tens of thousands of civilians beaten.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1981: Mugabe broadens Gukurahundi attacks in Zimbabwe to the white community as a whole following an IED strike on ZANU-PF HQ. “Their monopoly on economic power must be broken.”-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1981: Mugabe’s ‘5’ Brigade (aka Gukurahundi: chiShona for rain that blows away the chaff before the spring rains) in Zimbabwe violently suppresses ZIPRA rebel forces (ZAPU Soldiers) throughout Matabeleland.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
8-12 Feb, 1981: The Entumbane uprising (aka Battle of Bulawayo); Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) guerilla uprising is defeated by the newly formed Zimbabwe National Army; some 300 die and large numbers of ZIPRA soldiers desert.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1980: Zimbabwe President Mugabe begins making deals with North Korea, a brutal communist dictatorship, for assistance in training a new army brigade with the specific remit to deal with internal dissidents.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
4 Mar, 1980: Rhodesian Elections; Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF are elected in Rhodesia with 63% of the national vote. Nkomo becomes VP and both armies are combined to form a national army. Mugabe immediately sets out to establish a one party state; the white population flees en masse.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Spring, 1980: Rhodesia Elections are fought with ferocious intent. British officials judge all three main parties- Mugabe’s ZANU, Nkomo’s ZAPU, and Muzorewa’s United African National Council as guilty of using intimidation and violence, but considered ZANU-PF to be the worst culprit by far.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1966: S. Rhodesia gains independence as Botswana from the British.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
11 Nov, 1965: Rhodesia under Smith proclaims independence.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1964: Rhodesia’s ZAPU (now the PCC) and ZANU are banned after months of internecine warfare in the name of law and order. Nkomo, Sithole, Mugabe and hundreds of others are sent to detention camps.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
4 Jul, 1964- 12 Dec, 1979: Rhodesian Bush War (aka the Second Chimurenga War aka the Zimbabwe War of Liberation) is fought between the unrecognized country of Rhodesia, ZANU, and ZAPU, and results in the rise of ZANU and Robert Mugabe, the fall of Smith’s government, and the independence of Zimbabwe.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
31 May, 1979: The last day of White Rule in Rhodesia; Smith and the Rhodesian Front leave office.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Apr, 1979: Rhodesian Elections; Muzorewa assumes power; Nkomo and Mugabe dismissed him as a ‘puppet’ and fight on.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
March 1978: The Rhodesian warring factions reach a ceasefire agreement; although Mugabe denounces the ceasefire, he is warned that that unless he signs the agreement, he could no longer count on using Mozambique as a base for operations.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Sep, 1976: At a meeting in Pretoria, US SECSTATE Kissinger hands Smith a typed list of five points MUST be used as the basis for a Rhodesian settlement including “Rhodesia agrees to black majority rule within two years.’ Smith looked around the room and said: ‘You want me to sign my own suicide note.’-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1976: ZAPU guerilla’s in Western Rhodesia along the Zambia and Botswana borders join the war after peace talks between Nkomo and Smith falter.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Early, 1976: ZANU Guerrilla’s infiltrate into eastern Rhodesia, attacking white homesteads, robbing stores, planting landmines, and subverting the local population.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1974: Rhodesia’s Nationalist leaders Nkomo (ZAPU) and Mugabe (ZANU) are released from prison (after a decade). Nkomo begins negotiations with the Rhodesian government while Mugabe begins secretly organizing recruits for the ZANU Guerilla army.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
25 Apr, 1974: The Carnation Revolution; a military coup in Portugal overthrows authoritarian Estado Novo Regime and ends Portuguese Colonial Wars granting independence to Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea- Bissau, Mozambique, and Sao Tome and Principe, depriving Rhodesia of its Mozambican ally, and opening up its 760 mile long border to ZANU infiltration from guerillas operating from Tete.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1972: Rhodesia’s ZANU launches a guerilla war from Tete Province in Mozambique.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Aug, 1964: Rhodesia’s ZAPU (now the PCC) and ZANU are banned after months of internecine warfare in the name of law and order. Nkomo, Sithole, Mugabe and hundreds of others are sent to detention camps.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1963: Rhodesia’s ZAPU splits into the People’s Caretaker Council (PCC) led by Nkomo and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) led by Ndabaningi Sithole with Robert Mugabe as Secretary-General; both advocating for majority rule with support of the British Government and establishing guerilla training centers outside the country. As each group tried to assert itself, their rivalry developed into internecine warfare. Gang raids, petrol bombing, arson, stoning and assaults became commonplace.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1962: Rhodesian Elections; The Rhodsian Front is elected with support by white farmers and white workers worried about land and employment rights.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Sep, 1962: Rhodesia’s ZAPU is banned and its officials are placed under restriction.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1962: The Rhodesian Front is launched promising to deal ruthlessly with the nationalist menace (NDP, ZAPU, ANC) and to entrench white control.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 1962: Rhodesian NDP President Joshua Nkomo, is captured and sentenced to 5 years imprisonment.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Dec, 1961: The Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) is formed a week after the Rhodesian government bans the NDP.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jan, 1960: The National Democratic Party (NDP) is launched by Joshua Nkomo as a radical platform against white minority rule in Rhodesia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1957: Rhodesia’s ANC Chapter is formed by Joshua Nkomo as the first major nationalist organization. The central theme of its platform was non-racialism and economic progress; aiming for abolition of discriminatory laws and land reform.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1931: Half of the land in Southern Rhodesia is stipulated for the use of the country’s 2500 white farmers.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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Disease
Sleeping Sickness (aka African trypanosomiasis)
Type: Parasite.
Vector: Tsetse fly.
At Risk: Effects humans and cattle.
Notes: Prevents ~10M km2 of potentially productive land from being utilized effectively for livestock and mixed agriculture.
River blindness (onchocerciasis)
Type: Parasite.
Vector: Worm (Onchocerca volvulus).
At Risk: ~1M people in W. Africa Riverine Areas.
Bilharzia (schistosomiasis)
Type: Parasite.
Vector: Schistosomes Flatworm.
At Risk: Humans IVO nearly every water area below ~1000M in continental Africa.
HIV (-1/2)
Type: Virus
Vector: Blood (Various)
At Risk: Humans.
Notes
Originated as SIV carried by chimpanzees and sooty mangabey monkeys.
The epidemic overwhelmed health services, impoverished families, disrupted farm work, undermined business, reduced productivity, and eroded the capacity of governments to provide public services.
S. African Anti-apartheid activists claimed the programmes were a government plot to control population growth by convincing black people to have less sex and produce fewer babies and thereby check the advance of African liberation.
The UN Aids agency estimated that 250,000 people in South Africa died of Aids in 2000. The WHO estimated that one in five South African adults in 2000 was HIV+. A study by the Medical Research Council concluded that, in the period from 1999 to mid-2001, AIDS was the leading cause of death. In 2000, 40% of deaths among those aged 15-49, and 25% of total deaths, including children, were from AIDS-related illnesses.
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People
Ernesto “Che” Guevarra (1928-1967): Argentine Marxist Revolutionary.
Misc: Nasser warned Guevara not to become ‘another Tarzan, a white man among black men, leading them and protecting them’. He shook his head sadly: ‘It can’t be done.’ The group that Guevara chose to support operated in the mountains along the western shore of Lake Tanganyika. It was led by Laurent Kabila.
Francisco Macias Nguema (1924-1979): First President of Equatorial Guinea from 1968-1979.
Nguema appointed his family in most key positions and ruled the country as an autocrat. His nephew, Colonel Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbosogo, became commander of the National Guard, military commander of Fernando Po, secretary-general of the ministry of defense and head of prisons. Other nephews were appointed to senior security posts; one simultaneously held the portfolios of finance, trade, information, security, and state enterprises; a cousin ran foreign affairs.
When the director of statistics published a demographic estimate that Nguema considered too low, he was dismembered to ‘help him learn to count’.
In two documented cases he ordered the execution of all former lovers of his current mistresses. He also ordered the murder of husbands of women he coveted.
In long, rambling and incoherent speeches, Nguema fulminated against his pet bugbears – education, intellectuals and foreign culture. He closed all libraries in the country, prohibited newspapers and printing presses and even banned the use of the word ‘intellectual’. All formal education came to an end in 1974 when Catholic mission schools were told to close. Children from then on were taught only political slogans.
He ordered church sermons to include references to him as ‘The Only Miracle’ and decreed that his portrait be displayed in all churches. Under threat of immediate arrest, priests were forced to reiterate slogans such as, ‘There is no God other than Macías’, and ‘God created Equatorial Guinea thanks to Papa Macías. Without Macías, Equatorial Guinea would not exist.’
At his home in Mongomo he built up a huge collection of human skulls to demonstrate his power.
Haile Selassie I (1892-1975): Ethiopian Emperor from 1930-1974.
Legacy: Held absolute power for longer than any other figure in contemporary history.
Idi Amin ‘Butcher of Uganda’ (1925-2003): Ugandan President from 1971-1979.
Background
Virtually illiterate, with no schooling and limited intelligence, was recruited in 1946 to serve as a trainee cook in the King’s African Rifles. A man of huge physique, he had gained attention by excelling at sport and marksmanship and by displaying qualities of stamina and loyalty which British officers admired. For nine years he held the national title of heavyweight boxing champion.
While participating in a military operation in Kenya’s Northern Frontier District, Amin was accused of murdering three Turkana tribesmen. British officials in Nairobi dealing with the case wanted criminal charges brought against Lt. Amin, but the Governor of Uganda, Sir Walter Coutts, argued that to put on trial for murder one of only two African officers in Uganda shortly before independence would be politically disastrous. He asked instead that Amin should be returned to Uganda to face a court martial or other proceeding. Obote recommended that Amin should merely be reprimanded. Thus reprieved, Amin continued his climb to the top. In 1964 he was promoted to the rank of LTC, given command of his own BATT. and appointed deputy commander of the army.
Misc
One of Amin’s former wives was found with her limbs dismembered in the boot of a car. When Kyemba reported the matter, Amin expressed no surprise and ordered him to have the dismembered parts sewn back on to the torso and then arrange for Amin to view the body together with their children.
‘On several occasions when I was Minister of Health, Amin insisted on being left alone with his victims’ bodies,’ he wrote from exile. ‘There is of course no evidence for what he does in private, but it is universally believed in Uganda that he engages in blood rituals.’ On other occasions, Kyemba witnessed Amin boasting that he had eaten human flesh.
Amin claimed he was ‘the true heir to the throne of Scotland’.
Amin praised the action of Palestinian guerrillas who had murdered Israeli participants at the Olympic Games, and he went on to extol Hitler’s extermination of the Jews. ‘Hitler and all German people knew that the Israelis are not people who are working in the interests of people of the world and that is why they burnt over six million Jews alive with gas on the soil of Germany.’
Jean-Bedel Bokassa (1921-1996): Central African Rep. President from 1966-1976.
Combined not only extreme greed and personal violence but delusions of grandeur unsurpassed by any other African leader. His excesses included seventeen wives, a score of mistresses and an official brood of fifty-five children. He was prone to towering rages as well as outbursts of sentimentality; and he also gained a reputation for cannibalism.
At the end of a state banquet, Bokassa turned to Galley and whispered, ‘You never noticed, but you ate human flesh’, a remark that prompted his reputation for cannibalism.
The list of Bokassa’s victims at Ngaragba grew ever longer. ‘From 1976 to 1979,’ the prison director subsequently testified, ‘I executed dozens of officers, soldiers, diverse personages, thieves, students – under instructions from Bokassa.’ Some were beaten to death with hammers and chains. Bokassa was also said to hold kangaroo courts in the gardens of the Villa Kolongo, sentencing men to be killed by lions or crocodiles he kept there.
Julius Nyerere (1922-1999): Tanzanian President from 1964-1985.
Character Traits: His intellectual energy was formidable. Articulating his socialist ideals with great clarity, he became the most influential thinker and writer in Africa of his time.
Leopold Sedar Senghor(1906-2001): First President of Senegal from 1960-1980.
Misc: The first African leader since independence to give up power voluntarily.
Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (1930-1997): Zaire President from 1965-1997.
In Washington terminology, Mobutu was a ‘friendly tyrant’, a faithful ally who could be relied upon to support Western interests regardless. The perceived wisdom about Zaire was that the choice was either ‘Mobutu or chaos’, a theme that Mobutu himself skillfully advanced.
In an endeavor to create an ‘authentic’ national spirit, he ordered a wide variety of names to be changed. The Congo became Zaire, a name derived by the Portuguese from a Kikongo word, Nzadi, meaning ‘vast river’. Mobutu took the name Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga. In his own Ngbendu translation, it meant: ‘The warrior who knows no defeat because of his endurance and inflexible will and is all powerful, leaving fire in his wake as he goes from conquest to conquest.’ The more succinct Tshiluba translation meant: ‘Invincible warrior; cock who leaves no chick intact.’
Mobutu remained on the CIA’s payroll for some time and received regular briefings from Larry Devlin, the CIA station chief in Léopoldville. On successive visits to Washington, he was accorded star status, promised support, and constantly flattered.
Nelson Mandela (1918-2013): South African President from 1994-1999.
Prison: Prisoner #466/64, spent his time laboring in the island’s lime quarry, collecting seaweed for fertilizer and studying Afrikaans.
Legacy
Ensured that statues, monuments, and streets names commemorating events and heroes from Afrikaner history remained untouched.
Managed both to sustain his popularity among the black population and to retain the respect and admiration of the white community.
Extremism: The failure of general strikes in S. Africa convinced Mandela there was nothing further to be gained from continuing with protest action, and that the only alternative available was to resort to violence. Years of demonstrations, boycotts, strikes and civil disobedience had achieved nothing. Each occasion had been met with government reprisals. Mandela believed that a limited campaign of sabotage would scare off foreign investors, disrupt trade and cause sufficient damage to force the white electorate and the government to change course.
O(U)sama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (1957-2011): al-Qaeda founder.
Extremism: Bin Laden was inspired, like Sudan Politician Turabi, by the idea of establishing an ‘Islamist International’. For ten years bin Laden had been involved in the jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, first as a fundraiser in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, then as an organizer based in Peshawar on the Pakistan border. Together with a Palestinian academic, Abdullah Azzam, he had established the Maktab al-Khidamat or Afghan Service Bureau, overseeing the recruitment and training of foreign mujahidin (guerrilla fighters). Turabi promised to give bin Laden all the help he needed and to provide him with an office and security guards. His construction company was involved in building a new highway from Khartoum to Port Sudan; a new airport outside Port Sudan; and several other government projects. He also built and equipped at his own expense twenty-three training camps in Sudan. By the summer of 1994 at least 5,000 mujahidin had been trained in Sudan, often while working on bin Laden’s construction and agricultural projects.
Patrice Emery Lumumba (1925-1961): First PM of the DRC from Jun- Sep, 1960.
Death: Lumumba and his two colleagues were collected by Nendaka from the army camp at Thysville. They were taken to an airfield at Moanda, accompanied by three Baluba soldiers from Kasai, specially chosen for their hatred of Lumumba. On the six-hour flight to Elisabethville the prisoners were savagely beaten by their guards. Their clothes torn and bloodstained, they were met at the airport by a large contingent of Belgian officers and Katangese soldiers, hit with rifle butts, thrown into the back of a truck and taken to an empty house two miles from the airport, guarded by troops and police under the command of a Belgian officer. Held in the bathroom, they were repeatedly beaten and tortured. Tshombe and other Katangese ministers came by to taunt them, joining in the savagery. When Tshombe returned to his official residence, he was, according to his butler, ‘covered in blood’. At about 10 p.m., according to an authoritative account by the Dutch journalist Ludo de Witte, the three prisoners were taken in a convoy of vehicles to a remote clearing in the bush thirty miles away. Their graves had already been dug. The prisoners were barefoot and dressed only in their trousers and vests. As he was led to the graves, Lumumba spoke to Verscheure: ‘You’re going to kill us, aren’t you?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ replied Verscheure. Lumumba was the last to die, shot by a firing squad under the command of a Belgian officer. The following night two Belgians and their African assistants dug up the corpses, transported them to Kasenga, 120 miles north-east of Elisabethville, hacked them into pieces and threw the pieces into a barrel of sulphuric acid. Then they ground up the skulls and scattered the bones and teeth during the return journey, so that no trace of Lumumba and his companions would ever be found.
Thabo Mbeki (1942- Present): South African President from 1999-2008.
Character Traits: A tendency to react to criticism with accusations of racial malice.
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Terminology
Banyamulenge: Rwandan Tutsi emigrants who settled on South Kivu grazing lands in Mulenge in the 19th century (in order to distinguish themselves from Tutsi refugees who arrived after the 1959 massacres).
Beni- Oui- Oui: Derogatory term for Algerian Government collaborators.
Bey: Indigenous ruler of Tunisia.
Casbah: The old fortress-palace of Algiers.
Dar al-Harb (Arabic): The Abode of War; and Muslim lands that hampered the practice of Islam or failed to apply Sharia Law.
‘Detonator’ theory of revolution: the idea that armed action on its own would create a momentum among the population (Che Guevara).
Eritrea (Latin): Red Sea (Mare Erythraeum).
Force Publique: An army of white officers and African auxiliaries, notorious for its brutal conduct in Belgium’s Congo Free State.
Harambee (KiSwahili): Pull together.
Hittistes (Algeria): ‘those who lean against the walls’, whiling away the day in streets and alleyways.
‘Kalashnikov lifestyle’: Troops who move into a village. They take everything and kill and rape. They stay a couple of weeks and then move on.’ (On Liberia’s Civil War).
‘La Diète Noire’ (French): A drawn-out form of execution which consisted of depriving a prisoner of food and water until he died.
Maghreb (Arabic): Land of the setting sun; NW Africa.
Mwalimu (KiSwahili): Teacher.
Nasserism (Egypt): Nasser’s autocratic rule of Egypt with total personal control.
Négritude (Senegal): A black consciousness asserting the unique contributions, values and characteristics of black people and black civilization; an intellectual precursor to nationalism.
Nkrumahism: The ideology for the New Africa, independent and absolutely free from imperialism, organized on a continental scale, founded upon the conception of One and United Africa, drawing its strength from modern science and technology and from the traditional African belief that the free development of each is conditioned by the free development of all.
Ujamaa (KiSwahili): Familyhood.
Ujamaa Village: A voluntary association of people who decide of their own free will to live together and work together for their common good; a staple of Tanzanian Communism.
U. of the Toilers of the East: Moscow’s special revolutionary institute for colonial candidates.
Umma (Arabic): The universal community of believers.
Zaire (Portuguese): ‘Vast River’ (Nzadi in Kikongo).
Zou Chuqu: Chinese plan to ‘go global.’
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Misc Quotes
Ex Africa semper aliquid novi: Out of Africa always something new.-Pliney the Elder.
“Independence is a sort of elementary psychological disposition.’-French Pres. Charles de Gaulle.
Kissinger was particularly alert to the dangers of how nationalist guerrilla wars could widen the circle of conflict, drawing in neighboring countries and providing the Soviet bloc with opportunities for intervention.
‘Give them parliament and keep the banks.’-Old British Colonial Adage on Africa.
‘I did not put the book down until the last page, when it was already dawn. As I closed it, I understood that a coup d’état, the approach of which I had felt for months, was now inevitable.’-Portuguese Caetano after reading Spinola’s “Portugal and the Future.”
‘The wind of change is blowing through the continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact and national policies must take account of it.’-British PM Harold Macmillan (Jan, 1960).
‘Like laying down a track in front of an oncoming express.’-British official on African Independence.
‘By coming and going a bird builds a nest. We will come and go and do all we can to help you build a new Africa.’- Bill Clinton.
The ‘prison graduate cap’ became a possession admired and respected.-Unk.
‘Let us be careful not to mistake hope for achievement.’-UN SecGen Kofi Annan.
A 2010 UN report forecasts that by 2030 half of Africa’s projected population, ~760 million people, would be based in urban areas.
When a government is the direct beneficiary of a centrally controlled major revenue stream and is therefore not reliant on domestic taxation or a diversified economy to function, those who rule the state have unique opportunities for self-enrichment and corruption, particularly if there is no transparency in the management of revenues. Because achieving political power often becomes the primary avenue for achieving wealth, the incentive to seize power and hold on to it indefinitely is great. This dynamic has a corrosive effect on governance and, ultimately, respect for human rights. Instead of bringing prosperity, rule of law and respect for rights, the existence of a centrally controlled revenue stream – such as oil revenue – can serve to reinforce and exacerbate an undemocratic or otherwise unaccountable ruler’s or governing elite’s worst tendencies and enrich itself without any corresponding accountability.
People need freedom to realize individual and collective potential.-World Bank President Barber Conable.
There were many arguments used to justify one-party systems. New states facing so many challenges, it was said, needed strong governments which were best served by concentrating authority with a single, nation-wide party. Only a disciplined mass party, centrally directed, was an effective means to overcome tribal divisions, to inspire a sense of nationhood and to mobilise the population for economic development. Some proponents of one-party systems held an ideological conviction that an elite political party was the supreme instrument of society.
Violence alone, violence committed by the people, violence organized and educated by its leaders, makes it possible for the masses to understand social truths and gives the key to them. Without that struggle, without that knowledge of the practice of action, there’s nothing but a fancy-dress parade and the blare of trumpets. There’s nothing save a minimum of readaptation, a few reforms at the top, a flag waving; and down there at the bottom an undivided mass, still living in the Middle Ages, endlessly marking time.-Fanon, Les Damnés de la Terre.
‘To give the African colonies their independence would be like giving a child a latch-key, a bank account and a shot-gun’.-British Labour Politician Herbert Morrison.
Africa’s military rulers generally turned out to be no more competent, no more immune to the temptation of corruption, and no more willing to give up power than the regimes they had overthrown.
Coup leaders invariably stressed the strictly temporary nature of military rule. All they required, they said, was sufficient time to clear up the morass of corruption, mismanagement, tribalism, nepotism and other assorted malpractices they claimed had prompted them to intervene and restore honest and efficient government and national integrity.
Opposition parties regarded as violent traitors by the majority; In twenty-nine countries, over the course of 150 elections held between 1960 and 1989, opposition parties were never allowed to win a single seat. Only three countries – Senegal, the tiny state of Gambia and Botswana – sustained multi-party politics.
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Misc Chronology
2006: China’s FOCAC Summit outlines plans for a new ‘strategic partnership’. Over the next three years, China would double its aid to Africa, provide more concessional finance for trade and infrastructure, allow duty-free entry for many African exports and build more schools and hospitals.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2005: A Commission for Africa is established by British PM Tony Blair (who had been promoted by Irish Pop Singer Bob Geldof), asking experts to devise a new agenda for change, warning that ‘the scale of the problem is growing’. In a 450-page report, the Commission recommended a familiar package of measures: more debt relief; more Western aid; and Western trade reform.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jul, 2002: The Inaugural Conference of the African Union (AU) is attended by the leaders of 53 African states in Durban.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2002: An AU report estimates that corruption costs Africa $148B annually – more than a quarter of the continent’s entire GDP.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2001: The New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) is launched as “Better Africa, Better World”; 15 governments pledged themselves to promote democratic principles, popular participation, good governance and sound economic management. They agreed to set up an African peer review mechanism to monitor their performance and punish defaulters. In exchange for an improved package of trade, investment, aid and debt relief measures, particularly in dismantling trade barriers.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2000: The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are adopted by the UN, focused on social development in poverty reduction, improved access to education, and combatting diseases such as AIDS and malaria by 2015. Debt relief schemes were put in place for highly indebted countries. Western governments undertook to raise their spending on aid to 0.7% of national income.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
2000: China launches the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) pledging an array of new programmes on debt relief, investment and training.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Mar, 1998: US Pres Clinton embarks on the most comprehensive tour of Africa ever undertaken by a sitting American president – a ten-day trip covering six nations starting with Ghana.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Oct, 1993: In the wake of Black Hawk Down, US President Clinton issues a presidential directive setting strict conditions on any US involvement in UN peacekeeping operations. Henceforth, before offering any military support to the UN, the US had to be satisfied that a vital national interest was at stake; that the mission was clearly defined in size, scope and duration; that a working ceasefire among all local parties was fully evident; and that there was both sufficient political will behind the mission and an identifiable ‘exit strategy’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1992: An Agenda for Peace is published by Boutros-Ghali, advocating that national sovereignty should be overridden by the UNSC in cases where it was deemed necessary for peace enforcement.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1990: At a Franco-African summit at La Baule, attended by thirty-three African delegations, twenty-two of which were led by heads of state, President Mitterrand stated that French aid would henceforth be dependent on efforts towards liberalization. ‘French eagerness to offer development aid is bound to cool off in the case of authoritarian regimes which fail to heed the need for democratization while regimes prepared to embark on the courageous path of democracy will continue to have our enthusiastic support’-.Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Jun, 1990: Britain declared that the distribution of its aid program would henceforth favor countries ‘tending towards pluralism, public accountability, respect for the rule of law, human rights and market principles’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1989: Fall of the Berlin War; an outbreak of mass street demonstrations in Eastern Europe culminates in the fall of the Berlin Wall.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1986-1987: A Ugandan survey at Lyantonde, a truck stop in Rakai district lying astride a major route to Rwanda, Burundi and eastern Zaire, found that 67% of the bargirls and 17% of pregnant women in the town were HIV+.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
9 Dec, 1985: AIDS in Africa is first recognized in Lusaka Zambia by Dr Anne Bayley, professor of surgery at the University Teaching Hospital, after noticing a rise in the number of patients with Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) .-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1985: Mikhail Gorbachev becomes the Eighth and last leader of the USSR; making it clear his intention of disentangling the USSR from regional conflicts.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1984: HIV reporting concludes ‘Urban activity, a reasonable standard of living, heterosexual promiscuity and contact with prostitutes could be risk factors for African AIDS’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1984: HIV arrives in Kampala, spread there in part by Tanzanian troops during their northwards advance against Amin’s army. It moved rapidly along the arterial highways of Uganda, carried by truck drivers and crews stopping off in the bars.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1981: AIDS is first identified in the USA.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1979: Iran- Iraq War begins; the price of oil rises from $19 a barrel in April 1979 to $38 in early 1981.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1979: The Iran Revolution; fall of the Pahlavi Monarchy and rise of Ayatollah Komeini.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
25 Apr, 1974: The Carnation Revolution; a military coup in Portugal, overthrows the authoritarian Estado Novo Regime, ends the Portuguese Colonial Wars granting independence to Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea- Bissau, Mozambique, and Sao Tome and Principe.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1973: Arab – Israeli war; Crude oil prices increased from about $3 a barrel at the beginning of 1973 to more than $12 in 1974.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1973: Omar Abdel Rahman, Professor of Egyptian Theology, begins promoting the teachings of Sayyid Qutb, emphasizing the need for jihad and martyrdom in driving out infidels. He soon acquired a radical following in university circles and emerged as the spiritual mentor of a network of underground revolutionary organisations, including Gamaa Islamiyya and Jamaat al-Jihad, that sought to establish an Islamic republic. Rahman’s 2000 page dissertation was an exposition of a Koranic verse entitled ‘Repentance’, in which the Prophet Muhammed exhorts his followers to wage war on non-Muslim tribes – he described ‘the violence and persecution’ the Prophet suffered at the hands of ‘infidels’, concluding that jihad was ‘the only way to vanquish the enemies of Islam’.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1968-1973: Prolonged drought in the Sahel Region, a thin strip of semi-arid land south of the Sahara desert stretching across parts of Niger, Mali, Chad, Mauritania, Senegal, Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) and Nigeria. By 1972 Mali lost 40 % of its cattle and 40 % of its food production. In the northern region of Nigeria, where groundnuts were the staple crop, official production dropped from 765,000 tons in 1968-1969 to 25,000 tons in 1972-1973. Lake Chad shrank to a fraction of its previous size.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1967: The Six Day War; Israel defeats a coalition of Arab states and occupies the Sinai, leading to a resurgence of radical Islamism.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1965: Execution of Sayyid Qutb, the principal architect of Jihad Ideology, following the attempted assassination of Nasser by the Muslim Brotherhood. Accused in 1954 of involvement in a failed attempt to assassinate Nasser, he spent ten years in a concentration camp, developing a revolutionary ideology that rejected not only the West but governments and societies in the Muslim world. Qutb divided Muslim societies into two diametrically opposed camps: those belonging to the party of God and those belonging to the party of Satan. There was no middle ground. He argued that because of the repressive nature of un-Islamic regimes, no attempt to change them from within by using existing political systems would succeed. Hence the only way to implement a new Islamic order was through jihad.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1965: Gambia gains independence from the British.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1964: Northern Rhodesia gains independence as Zambia from the British.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1963: The Organization of African Unity (OAU) is formed by representatives of 31 African governments in the hope that it would provide Africa with a powerful independent voice in world affairs.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1961: Les Damnés de la Terre ‘the Wretched of the Earth’ is published by Fanon as a polemic for revolutionary enthusiasts around the Third World; Fanon argues that Africa had achieved only a ‘false decolonization’, leaving real power in the hands of foreigners and their ‘agents’ among the ruling elites. What was needed was a violent overthrow of the entire system.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1961: A precipitous drop in the world price for cocoa forces many African governments to introduce new and severe taxes.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1961: Lake Chad and Lake Victoria reach their highest water levels in the 20th century.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
Nov, 1960: Mauritania attains independence from France.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
15 Aug, 1960: The French Congo (Brazzaville) attains independence from France.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1959: An Australopithecine skull is discovered in the Olduvai Gorge in N. Tanganyika by Cambridge Archaeologists Louis and Mary Leaky; australopithecine is a hominid ancestor whose remains have been found only in Africa. Officially known as Zinjanthropus boisei, but referred to as Dear Boy, it was immediately acclaimed the earliest known tool-making ancestor of mankind, about 1.8 million years old.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
28 Sep, 1958: French African Colonial referendum on membership in an African-French community.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1958: Collapse of the French Fourth Republic and re-assumption of Charles de Gaulle to power in France. De Gaulle advocates a political federation between France and Africa.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1955: The Bandung conference of non-aligned states on colonial independence is held in Indonesia.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1948: Communists seize power in Prague.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1948: UN Convention on Genocide.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1941: The Atlantic Charter is drawn up by Churchill and Roosevelt, supporting the right of all peoples to choose their own government, Churchill had in mind self-determination only for the conquered nations of Europe, not for British territories. But Roosevelt was adamant that postwar objectives should include self-determination for all colonial peoples.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1930-1933: Africa suffers a major drought.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1918: Following Germany’s defeat in WWI, Tanganyika is handed over to Britain; South West Africa to South Africa; the tiny territories of Rwanda-Burundi to Belgium; and Togoland and Cameroon were divided up between Britain and France. As a reward for Italian support in the First World War, Britain gave Jubaland to Italy to form part of Italian Somaliland, moving the border of Kenya westwards.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
1913-1914: Africa suffers a major drought.-Fate of Africa by Meredith.
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