Continued……This was followed by a visit from French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot to Algeria on 6 April, signalling a thaw in relations, but it seems that progress has now stalled.

Anti-French sentiment runs deep in Algeria, a country that endured a brutal war of independence against France from 1954 to 1962 that k*lled as many as 1.5 million Algerians. Relations soured significantly last July when Macron expressed support for Morocco’s claim over the contested Western Sahara territory, which angered Algeria and led to the recall of its ambassador to France.

Algeria says that 5.6 million of its citizens perished during 132 years of French colonial rule, along with those who suffered from injuries from landmines and radiation due to French nuclear tests in the Algerian desert.

Sources

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2y9dl5xzlo

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1vdl92zlzqo

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62xw575w9yo
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250413-algeria-protests-after-consular-official-indicted-in-france

https://www.dw.com/en/algeria-protests-to-france-over-detaining-consular-official/a-72230799

https://www.voanews.com/a/europe_report-frances-colonial-past-algeria-spurs-criticism-little-action/6202543.html

https://www.britannica.com/place/Algeria/Colonial-rule

https://www.newarab.com/news/algeria-says-56-million-died-under-french-colonialism

APARTHEID-ERA DEATHS OF LIBERATION FIGURES RE-EXAMINED

After decades of waiting, the families of two South African anti-apartheid activists might finally learn the truth about what happened to their loved ones. The country’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has decided to re-open inquests into the deaths of former African National Congress leader Chief Albert Luthuli and human-rights lawyer and ANC member Griffiths Mxenge.

Luthuli, who in 1960 won the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his campaign against apartheid, was discovered dead on 21 July 1967. An investigation, widely seen as a sham, claimed he had been killed by a train. However, the NPA now says there is evidence indicating that the regime killed the ANC leader and dumped his body next to the rail tracks as a cover-up.

Continued……In its opening submission at the inquest on 14 April, the NPA said different organs of the regime, such as the judiciary, health department and the police, colluded to hide key evidence that pointed to a murder and not an accident.

Despite the new inquest coming 58 years later, Luthuli’s family have welcomed it, saying it will allow the family, especially his two daughters, who are now in their 90s, potentially to find closure.

Meanwhile, an inquest into the 1981 killing of Mxenge has been moved to June after the NPA requested more time to prepare its witnesses. Mxenge, who, despite numerous threats to his life, defended many anti-apartheid activists, was kidnapped and brutally murdered in the city of Durban.

Sources

https://x.com/MYANC/status/1911411729004634176
https://www.ewn.co.za/2025/04/14/npa-says-several-organs-of-apartheid-govt-colluded-in-a-lie-about-chief-albert-luthulis-death
https://sundayworld.co.za/politics/cops-doctors-magistrate-colluded-to-cover-up-albert-luthulis-death/
https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/amp/news/2025-04-14-griffiths-mxenge-inquest-postponed-until-june-for-witness-preparation/

Continued……This is not a side story. This is a global emergency.

Swipe through to find out what's going on and why the world needs to step up its efforts to end this foreign-instigated crisis in the Congo that can trace its roots to Europe's 1884-85 Berlin conference that carved up Africa.

Sources

https://apnews.com/article/un-congo-humanitarian-sexual-violence-conflict-minerals-0f5ebeaccff39ab97c61e981f1a7a3cf

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/14/dozens-of-children-raped-by-armed-men-in-eastern-drc-unicef-says

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/dec/21/children-executed-and-women-raped-in-front-of-their-families-as-m23-militia-unleashes-fresh-terror-on-drc

https://www.euronews.com/2025/02/14/scores-of-children-raped-by-armed-fighters-in-eastern-dr-congo-unicef-says

https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/child-reported-raped-every-half-hour-eastern-drc-violence-rages-amid-growing-funding

On 16 April 1862, US President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the so-called District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, which outlawed slavery in the US capital.

From the name of the act, one might assume that the victims of slavery received some form of compensation. However, it was the total opposite. The US paid about 930 enslavers, who were loyal to the US government during the Civil War, $300 for each of the 2,989 freed enslaved people. In total, the US government doled out $896,700, the equivalent of $28.39 million in 2025.

The Africans, who, for centuries, had endured the most depraved and brutal form of labour ever known to humanity, were not compensated beyond a measly $100 each (or about $3,100 in today’s dollars) and only on the condition that they leave the US.

While some like to hail the act as having set the course for the eventual abolition of slavery across the US, it, in fact, established the blueprint for the country's continued refusal to pay reparations to the victims of slavery

Continued……. Countries such as Britain and France, which had abolished slavery years earlier, had also taken a similar path. For instance, the British began doling out £20 million in 1835 to enslavers in Britain and the Americas, or the equivalent of $17 billion in 2025. It was the largest bailout in British history until the 2008-09 financial crisis. The government even took out a loan to compensate enslavers. This loan was not repaid until 2015. France went as far as making Haiti pay the equivalent of between $20 billion and $30 billion in today's money for the 1804 revolution, when enslaved Africans drove out French enslavers.

It took Haiti more than 120 years to pay off the debt that historian Marlene Daut described as the ‘greatest heist in history.’ The effects of paying that illegal debt are still playing out in Haiti today as the country grapples with a security and socioeconomic crisis that Western countries have played a role in.

Now, centuries later, the countries that set up and benefitted from the European Slave Trade continue to refuse to pay reparations.

Sources

https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/dc-emancipation-act

https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1862?amount=900000
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/articles/z67dbdm

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/compensated-emancipation-act

https://haitiantimes.com/2020/06/30/when-france-extorted-haiti-the-greatest-heist-in-history

https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1862?amount=896700

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/10/05/1042518732/-the-greatest-heist-in-history-how-haiti-was-forced-to-pay-reparations-for-freed

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/30/fact-check-u-k-paid-off-debts-slave-owning-families-2015/3283908001

https://taxjustice.net/2020/06/09/slavery-compensation-uk-questions

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/12/british-history-slavery-buried-scale-revealed

CASH-STRAPPED ZIMBABWE ‘COMPENSATES’ SETTLER FARMERS

The decision by the Zimbabwean government to spend billions of dollars on compensating White settler farmers whose land was expropriated during the country’s land-reform programme in the early 2000s has sharply divided opinion. According to the country’s finance minister, Mthuli Ncube, $3.5 billion will be paid out by 2028.

Critics say the billions could instead be used to address the many challenges the country is currently facing, mainly due to the sanctions that the West imposed on the country as retribution for the land-reform programme. They say it does not make sense to spend money to appease the beneficiaries of colonialism at a time when the country’s hospitals lack basic drugs and equipment. Some also add that the payments amount to capitulation to bullying by the West, which for years has demanded that Harare pay the farmers.

Continued…….. However, those who support the decision say that the government is simply trying to end the pain of Western-imposed sanctions and has few options on the table with which to bargain. They argue that the country’s economy will continue to bleed as long as the sanctions remain.

What do you think? If someone steals your watch and you manage to take it back a few year later, should you pay them for the loss of a watch?

Hear Us Roar: https://news.1rj.ru/str/AfricanStream

UK foreign minister David Lammy’s hypocrisy has been unmasked with a short but sweet tweet from British independent MP (and former Labour Party colleague) Zarah Sultana.

On 12 April, Lammy took to X to decry attacks by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary that had killed civilians. The RSF is, of course, bankrolled and armed by the United Arab Emirates - to whom London happily exports its weapons. In her reply, Sultana simply told Lammy to stop this trade.

In 2023, UK arms export licences to the UAE were valued at £56.5 million, according to data from the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT). Lammy’s shock at the RSF’s violence in Sudan can, therefore, only be performative - and Sultana rightly picks him up on it.

Continued……
Emirati passports recovered from the battlefields in Omdurman in July 2024 suggest the UAE may even have had covert boots on the ground supporting RSF operations. Also, in September last year, a New York Times investigation revealed through satellite images that the UAE was disguising its arms shipments to the RSF through the Chadian border as aid using the Red Crescent emblem.

The war in Sudan, which has just entered its third year, has created the world’s worst displacement crisis - with over 14-million people fleeing their homes. London is fully aware that its business partner Abu Dhabi is keeping the devastating proxy war going by supplying kit to the RSF, which has been accused of g*nocide.

As ever, British profits prevail over human rights.

Sources

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/04/1162096

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2025/4/14/animated-maps-show-two-years-of-war-in-sudan#

https://2021-2025.state.gov/genocide-determination-in-sudan-and-imposing-accountability-measures/

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jul/25/smoking-gun-evidence-points-to-uae-involvement-in-sudan-civil-war

https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/evidence-points-to-uae-involvement-in-sudan-civil-war

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/21/world/africa/uae-sudan-civil-war.html

https://adf-magazine.com/2025/01/evidence-of-uae-supplying-rsf-continues-to-mount/

https://caat.org.uk/app/uploads/2025/03/CAAT-Arms-Exports-2023-WEB.pdf

Continued……. Neighbouring countries such as Chad, Cameroon and Niger have also been affected by the increase in t*rror attacks, particularly around the Lake Chad Basin, which runs through their borders.

The resurgence of Boko Haram comes after US Congressman Scott Perry’s allegations in February that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has funded t*rrorist organisations, including Boko Haram. This revelation prompted Nigeria’s House of Representatives to investigate the activities of non-governmental organisations in Nigeria, focusing on their real identities, sources of funding and how they use their funds.

What do you make of this situation? Let us know in the comments.

Sources

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0kxxg5jy0ro

https://www.dni.gov/nctc/ftos/boko_haram_fto.html#:~:text=OVERVIEW&text=Boko%20Haram%2C%20which%20aims%20to,it%20was%20established%20in%202002.

https://von.gov.ng/house-set-to-probe-terrorism-allegations-against-usaid

https://archive.ph/5AJuy#selection-1299.43-1299.134

https://acleddata.com/2024/04/16/a-decade-after-chibok-assessing-nigerias-regional-response-to-boko-haram

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/01/nigeria-boko-haram-must-end-vicious-killing-spree

https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/surrendered-terrorists-evade-official-rehabilitation-programme-reinfiltrate-nigerian

https://www.dw.com/en/nigerias-ex-boko-haram-fighters-weigh-return-to-conflict/a-68449555

https://archive.ph/5AJuy

https://www.un.org/counterterrorism/es/node/13829

https://trainingforpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/EPON_MNJTF.pdf

THE MOTHER OF ALL KARENS

You’re probably familiar with the concept of a Karen (an ennoscriptd, excessively demanding White woman who weaponises her privilege), and have seen one in action, at least online. But have you heard of the ‘ultimate’ Karen?

We’re talking about Karen Blixen, whose birthday it is today. However, there’s little to celebrate about this Danish author and aristocrat who once owned a sprawling 6,000-acre coffee plantation at the base of the Ngong Hills during Kenya’s colonial period. She employed a large staff of servants who worked tirelessly to cater to her every need. The land she occupied was originally owned by the local Maasai people, who were forcibly displaced to accommodate colonisers such as herself.

Her literary works reflected racist attitudes and a White-saviour mentality. Despite this, Nairobi continues to honour her legacy with a suburb named after her, a place that still carries an air of colonial elitism and snobbery. African Stream’s Wambura Mwai paid a visit.