Gabon, Cote d'Ivoir, Dijibouti, Sudan, Zimbabwe

[the_future_modernes]

Reposting this link:In search of an African revolution: International media is following protests across the 'Arab world' but ignoring those in Africa. Let me point out that a great deal of the "Arab World" is IN Africa.




GABON

Gabon: The forgotten protests, the blinkered media by Ethan Zuckeman who started Global Voices

But not all revolutions are blessed with this level of attention. The West African nation of Gabon is experiencing a popular revolt against the rule of Ali Bongo Ondimba, son of long-time strongman Omar Bongo, president since October 2009. Thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets of the nation's capital Libreville, on 29 January, and faced violent suppression from Ali Bongo’s troops. Protests have spread to other cities, and the crackdown against them has become increasingly fierce. Protests planned for 5 and 8 February were both suppressed with tear gas. At this point, it’s unclear whether protesters will be able to continue pressuring the government, or whether the crackdown has driven dissent underground.

The protests in Egypt and Tunisia have focused attention on autocratic governments with a history of corruption. In Egypt, the possibility of a Mubarak dynasty moving from Hosni to Gamal Mubarak helped stoke dissent. Gabonese are familiar with these types of problems. Omar Bongo is widely believed to have systematically looted the Gabonese treasury for his personal benefit. A suit brought in France by Transparency International against the governments of Gabon, Congo and Equatorial Guinea, accuses Bongo of depositing 8.5% of the national budget into a personal account at Citibank, siphoning more than $100 million from the country between 1985 and 1997. When Bongo finally died in a Barcelona hospital in 2009, a controversial election ended up selecting Bongo’s son as a new leader amid widespread accusations of voter fraud. And while Gabon, blessed with oil wealth, has a very high gross domestic product per capita by sub-Saharan African standards, little of that wealth reaches the Gabonese people, one third of which live in poverty.


... I’m starting to see an uncomfortable pattern in the coverage of people’s protests around the world. Some revolutions are easily understood and reported on – it was easy to predict that the Green Movement’s actions against the Ahmedinejad government in Iran would be enthusiastically received by American and European audiences. A struggle like that of the yellow shirts and red shirts in Thailand is much harder for global audiences to understand, and it’s less obvious which side will experience solidarity from interested audiences in the US and Europe. And revolutions in far-off and little-known nationals like Madagascar often fail to register at all, even when profound political changes are afoot.

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New media technologies – not just online media, but satellite television, which has been critically important in covering (and perhaps inspiring) protests in Egypt and Tunisia – offer the promise of covering breaking events in much greater depth than in a broadcast world.... But I worry that these technologies aren’t broadening the set of stories covered internationally – in many cases, we seem to be covering a narrower range of stories than in years past, though in far greater depth.

The danger of ignoring Gabon’s revolution isn’t just that opposition forces will be arrested or worse. It’s that we fail to understand the profound shifts underway across the world that change the nature of popular revolution.MORE

Cameroonian reporter Julie Owono is following the story on Global Voices.


COTE D'IVOIRE


GLobal Voices: Cote d'Ivoir

Interesting how African dictators sometimes use Pan-Africanism as rhetoric for their power grabs. Côte d’Ivoire : About Gbagbo's Pan-Africanism.



CôTE D'IVOIRE


Cote d'Ivoire Crisis Page

Cote d'Ivoire Crisis Drags On Amid African Ferment

With the world's attention focusing on mass mobilization and historic shifts of power in Tunis and Cairo, the crisis in Côte d'Ivoire has faded into the background but remains completely unresolved. A series of briefings by the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

African Leaders head for Cote d'Ivoire

South Africa has announced that President Jacob Zuma will join other heads of state this weekend in a bid to resolve the Ivorian crisis, while a naval vessel which could serve as a venue for talks stands by off the West African coast.MORE

Ivorian Crisis Threatens West Africa

With the African Union intensifying efforts to resolve the ongoing political stalemate, concern is growing about the widening impact of the crisis.MORE

Radio France Internationale (Paris)Côte d'Ivoire: Clashes As African Leaders Arrive

Fresh clashes erupted between supporters of Côte d'Ivoire's rival presidents Monday, as four African leaders launched a new bid to break the impasse. A man was shot dead by the army during clashes with protesters.

At least a dozen people were injured in clashes in Abidjan between forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara, witnesses said.

Three Ouattara supporters were killed in violence in the city on Saturday, while security forces loyal to Gbagbo announced Monday that they lost three men in the past two weeks.

Soldiers loyal to Gbagbo fired live rounds Monday to disperse young Ouattara supporters who had set up barricades of tables and burning tyres in Abidjan, residents said.

A civilian man crossing the road was shot dead, they said.

Ouattara supporters have called for an Egypt-style revolution.MORE

Ivory Coast Braces for More Violence Amid Protests and Financial Collapse

Ivory Coast’s residents are bracing for more violence after the West African nation’s financial system came to a halt and troops fired on demonstrators in the commercial capital, Abidjan.
Security forces killed 12 people during protests by supporters of Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of the Nov. 28 presidential election, in the neighborhoods of Koumassi, Youpougon and Treichville yesterday, according to an e-mailed statement from the opposition coalition, known as RHDP.


The renewed violence in the world’s top cocoa producer comes after a month of relative calm, during which Ouattara tried to prevent funds from reaching rival Laurent Gbagbo, who has refused the resign the presidency. Ouattara called on cocoa and coffee exporters to halt shipments, told residents to stop paying taxes to Gbagbo’s administration and convinced the regional central bank to cut ties with the incumbent.
Koumassi and Treichville, located in south Abidjan, are mixed in terms of their political affiliations. Ouattara won 61,429 votes in Koumassi, while Gbagbo took 56,000; in Treichville, Ouattara received 24,008 and Gbagbo 15,686, according to the country’s electoral commission.MORE

DIJIBOUTI

Global Voices: Dijibouti

DJIBOUTI: ‘Guelleh step down and Somalia remove your police’ – opposition statement

BOSTON — The Djibouti opposition party Movement for Democratic Renewal and Development (MRD) has today issued a press release from their Brussels office in which they condemned the violent crack down of peaceful protesters by President Ismail Omar Guelleh.

A statement received by Somalilandpress in the French language said:
“After decades of opposition struggle, civil war, party formations and opposition mergers, the people of Djibouti have resolutely stood up to regain their freedom and dignity. Admittedly, Djiboutians did not wait for the revolutionary wind blowing across the Arab world. Extra electoral mobilization has grown from strength to strength in recent years but no doubt Djiboutians have managed to nurture popular victories against dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and the battles that continue to spread.

“Thus, Friday, February 18, 2011; a nation-wide mobilization called by the UAD (MRD, ARD and UDJ) party and supported by the NDP and DP as well as all other democratic and social forces began as planned against the dictatorship rule in Djibouti.”

The statement adds the protests led by the main opposition Union for a Democratic Alternative (UAD), civil society movements and unofficial unions attracted 40,000 people in the capital, a city with a population of 60,000.

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The Union for a Democratic Alternative also known as Union for Democratic Mix (UAD) is an umbrella group that comprises of three political parties: Movement for Democratic Renewal and Development (MRD), Union for Democracy and Justice (UDJ) and Republican Alliance for Development (ARD).

The MRD statement signed by chairman Daher Ahmed Farah continues: “They marched through the long stretched open level ground of the National Soccer Stadium located less than a mile away from the Presidential Palace. The regime panicked and threw his most repressive apparatus against them. Around 6pm, at the time of the penultimate day of prayer, the dictator Guelleh launched his policemen, gendarmes (police officers), soldiers of the Republican Guard as well as army units against the demonstrators.

"He even used the five hundred trained Somali police officers in Djibouti on behalf of the National Transitional Government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed. MORE

Djibouti's Government Says It Encourages Protests, Must Remain Within Law

Djibouti’s government said it believes rallies by political parties are a pre-requisite for free and fair elections and that a violent demonstration last week by opponents of the state was hijacked by “trouble-makers.”

One policeman died and nine other people were injured in the Feb. 18 protests by opponents of President Ismail Guelleh, Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Yousef said by phone from the capital city, Djibouti, yesterday. Opposition parties are meeting this week to decide when to hold their next demonstration.

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The U.S. has had a military base in Djibouti since 2001, while former colonial power France has 3,000 troops stationed in the country, which is smaller than the U.S. state of Massachusetts. The republic borders the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and is seen as a strategic location in the U.S.-led fight against terrorism and piracy.
Djibouti ranks 148th out of 169 countries in the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Index, which measures life expectancy, education and living standards.
An investigation is under way to determine whether opposition leaders will be prosecuted for the violence at least week’s protest, Yousef said.MORE

Pro-democracy protests reach Djibouti Actually, they've actually been going on for a while.

Ismael Guedi Hared, an opposition leader who was arrested and released with two others on Saturday, told the Financial Times that protests have continued in seven towns throughout the tiny state of 850,000 people and that more organised demonstrations will go ahead soon.

“The people are protesting against dictatorship, bad governance, lack of democracy and dynastic succession,” Mr Hared told the FT. “The opposition has formed a coalition and we have decided to do everything to make sure the protests continue.”

State television broadcast scenes of tear gas exploding outside the national stadium in the capital on Friday, alongside riot police, burnt trucks, hospitalised police and hundreds of protesters, some armed with batons.MORE

Djibouti Opposition Parties to Meet to Plan More Anti-Government Protests

Opposition groups in Djibouti, the Horn of Africa nation that hosts the only U.S. military base on the continent, plan to hold more anti-government protests after a demonstration last week ended in violence.
Opponents of President Ismail Guelleh will meet over the next two days to discuss a new date for the next protest, Mohamed Daoud Chehem, head of the Djibouti Party for Development said by phone from the capital city today.
“We will have another protest for sure,” he said.

At least four demonstrators died and 50 were injured in a protest on Feb. 18 that led to clashes with police, according to the opposition National Democratic Party. Government reports say one demonstrator and one police officer have been killed.

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In Djibouti, Guelleh’s People’s Rally for Progress party has ruled since independence in 1977. The 63- year-old leader, first elected in 1999, amended the constitution in March to allow him to extend his rule by two more six-year terms. Chehem said 20 members of his party, the National Democratic Party led by Aden Robleh Awaleh and Ismael Guedi Hared’s Union for a Democratic Alternative were sent to Gabode Prison today after being detained by the authorities since the start of the protests. Fifteen political activists from the Movement for Democratic Renewal are also in the jail, he said.MORE

SUDAN

Global Voices: Sudan A People's Revolution in the Making?

Feb 11, In Sudan, protests met with violent government response

The violent government response to peaceful protests in Sudan last week is an alarming reminder that without external engagement, the Sudanese government is likely to continue a ruling strategy that has so far led to more conflict than peace in the country’s history.


Youth-led protests, triggered by economic and political frustrations, took place across major cities beginning last weekend, but were quickly shut down by the week’s end. The number of demonstrators was relatively small compared to protests in neighboring Egypt; initially, thousands turned out, and then the number of participants dropped into the hundreds late last week.

According to numerous news reports, Sudanese security forces responded to the largely peaceful protests with tear gas and beatings with water pipes and sticks, reportedly causing one student’s death. A handful of human rights groups have also reported on a large number of arrests – 113 at one point, according to the Africa Center for Justice and Peace Studies. More alarming are the many individuals that remain in detention, with no communication to the outside and no rights guaranteed under Sudanese law.MORE

ZIMBABWE


Zimbabwe Arrests 46 for Watching Videos of Middle Eastern Protests