Cameroon: LGTB activist tortured and murdered

Eric Ohena Lembembe (pictured), journalist and LGTB activist, was murdered this weekend in Yaounde. His bloodied body was found in his home, apparently tortured to death: he showed signs of broken legs and neck, as well as burnings in face, hands and feet.

Eric was currently most active as director of the AIDS Foundation Cameroun (CAMFAIDS).

Neela Ghoshal (HRW) considered the government responsible for its inability to fight homophobia and hate crimes. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Nigeria's bloc wants to intervene against Azawad

I actually take it as a sign of the new sovereign state of Azawad (the state of Tuareg, Songhai and other Saharan peoples of what used to be Northern Mali) being rather consolidated for the Nigerian-led bloc ECOWAS to be pushing for intervention.

In any case, that is what the ECOWAS, in principle just an economic association, is planning to do: to build an international intervention force in Mali, to succor the transitional government (the product of a US-inspired coup that backfired) and eventually intervene against Azawad.

Meanwhile the Azawad authorities are being formed with full normality and they state that they will not surrender: Al Qaeda comes and goes but the Tuareg are bound to their land, they explain:

 

The Azawad government does not support Al Qaeda, and is actually feeling threatened by them. 

Source: Al Jazeera.

After Mali, Guinea-Bissau suffers pre-election coup

The military of the small West African state has taken over the capital and the media but issued no communication.

Unlike in Mali, Guinea-Bissau had suffered in the last years from military unrest. But, as in Mali, there are concerns about US-led efforts to control more and more directly the African continent by means of the imperial military region AFRICOM.

Unlike any other state on Earth, the USA has divided the planet in military regions:

However, other than Djibouti (and a very minor and unstable presence in Egypt) the USA lacks direct military presence in the African continent. Since NATO's intervention in Libya and US-backed recent disastrous coup in Mali there has been growing speculation about the imperial maneuvers in Africa. The similitude of the circumstances in Bissau as in Bamako (coup just before elections) makes the matter even more suspicious.

New sovereign state: Azawad

The Tuareg rebels from Northern Mali, who, following the stupidest coup ever (US-supported, of course), captured (or liberated) Timbuktu, Gao and other cities, have stopped military operations and proclaimed the independence of Azawad. 

It is almost the first Berber state since ancient times (with the occasional exception like the Rif Republic in the 1920s), although it also includes other ethnic groups besides Tuaregs, notably Songhai, the also nomadic Fulani, some Arab-speaking Moors and some presence of southern ethnicities like the Bozo and Mandinka.  

Approx. borders of the new state (tan) with mention of some ethnicities

Mali: the most idiotic coup ever

Touré was a popular president

As you know there was a coup in Mali a few weeks before elections and after a long period of stable formal democracy. 

Overnight and totally unexpected there was a coup lead by some unknown captain. Political program? Not a line. Complaints? One: they have not enough weapons (allegedly to crush the endemic Tuareg rebellion, going on for some 50 years). But can you rule a country from the mere viewpoint of the "needs" of military officers? That's absurd. 

I've been waiting trying to discern if there was something else going on. But found nothing. The Mali military coup is just a bunch of disgruntled petty military officers without anything that looks like a political program or any known social backing (most people could not care less about the Tuareg uprising out there in the Sahara desert: they may care about salaries, jobs or human rights but hardly about what happens out there in the dunes of the far north).

So I officially proclaim the military coup in Mali the stupidest coup ever.

They are bound to fail, I understand: the time of militarist petty tyrannies is over.


Update: Global Research argues that the USA is behind the coup:

Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo participated in the America’s International Military Education and Training program, sponsored by the US State Department, Public Affairs representative Patrick Barnes revealed to The Washington Post.  

...


Despite condemning the coup, the US is not planning to reconsider its $140-million aid program to Mali in 2012.

From the Net: 'Survival uncovers shocking human rights abuses in Ethiopia'

Survival has uncovered shocking new evidence of human rights abuses against tribes in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, as government efforts to develop lucrative sugar cane plantations in the region intensify.

Bulldozers are flattening land near a UNESCO World Heritage Site, destroying villages and forcing local communities to give up their pastoral way of life.

Fear is growing as violence becomes commonplace and reports of beatings, rapes and arrests spread among tribes close to the Omo River.

As recently as January 2012, Survival received reports of three Bodi men being beaten to death in an Ethiopian jail.

The forests and savannah of the Omo valley (L) are being cleared for plantations (R)

... full story at Survival International. Found via Pasado y Futuro[es].

Senegal rises up against attempts by president to perpetuate himself

Senegal has for long been considered a model democracy, a reference for Africa and the Muslim World. But nothing is perfect and certainly the former French colony has many issues including widespread poverty and lack of expectations, a common problem nowadays in most of the World but specially in Africa. 

What has triggered these riots was the attempt to reform the electoral aspects of the constitution, allowing a candidate for president to win in first round with as little as 25% of votes. Additionally it created the office of Vicepresident, which was suspected would end in the hands of the President's son.

The current President Abdoulaye Wade is 85 years old and seems to be thinking more in his son than in his country.

All this made the Senegalese People to go out to the streets to protest, chanting "Leave Wade" and "Don't touch my constitution", protests that were violently attacked by police forces:

Anyhow, part of the controversial law has already been dropped.

Sources: Al Jazeera, Protestation.org.

South Sudan breaks apart, North Sudan revolts against Bashir

I must welcome this exercise of self-determination by the people of South Sudan, which was put under Islamist and Arab Nationalist boot by the designs of the colonial powers and now, after decades of liberation war can finally exert their fundamental right to decide their own destiny.

While the country is often described in Western or even Arab press as "Christian and Pagan", the reality is that most people are not affiliated to any imperialist Yahvistic religion whatsoever. There do not seem to be more Christians in South Sudan than in, say, Egypt.

Referendum's story at BBC, Al Jazeera.

Uprising at Khartoum

While South Sudan heads for independence, North Sudan heads, it seems, for yet another revolution with clashes between protesters and security forces at Khartoum, clearly influenced by the nearby Egyptian Revolution. 

Full story at Al Jazeera.