DON’T BLAME SLAVERY ON AFRICA

Who’s to blame for the European slave trade?Apparently, some Africans are blaming themselves and say their ancestors were the ones who sold slaves to the Europeans. Here, our sister outlines how and why the role of colonial powers in the appalling practice should never be forgotten. In the 1400s, Europeans scouted for land occupied by indigenous people and abducted, abused and enslaved around 13 million.

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DEL MONTE’S TRAIL OF AFRICAN BODIES

Guards at American food giant Del Monte’s large farm in Kenya are accused of culpability in a number of suspicious deaths. With families failing to find justice, some suspect outright murder and a cover-up. African Stream’s William Sakawa reports.

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GENOCIDE SURVIVORS EVICTED

​Rwanda is less than a tenth the size of the UK but is home to about 14-million people - that’s almost one-fifth of the UK’s population. However, the British government still wants to push ahead with a controversial scheme to deport asylum seekers to the East African country.

Despite a fierce backlash from rights groups, international agencies, Rwandan opposition politicians and even the UK Supreme Court - which has ruled the plan unlawful - the two governments are hellbent on implementing it. In Kigali, a hostel that has been housing survivors of the 1994 genocide for nearly three decades has had them evicted to make room for asylum seekers who arrive on England’s coast.

Continued….According to the UK’s National Audit Office, it will end up costing about 600-million pounds (760-million dollars) to deport the first 300 refugees. There is no cap on the number of migrants, and thousands could potentially pour into Kigali within the first five years of the plan. The only opposition party that ran against Rwandan President Paul Kagame in the last election, the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, is accusing the UK of violating its international obligations by shipping its unwanted migrants 4,000 miles away to Rwanda.

Check out our exclusive report from the ground in Rwanda, where we explore the devastating consequences that this policy is having in Rwanda itself. And please share your views and insights into this issue.

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VENEZUELA BLASTS KENYA’S U.S.-BACKED HAITI MISSION

In a twist of irony, while African countries are scrambling to enforce Western imperialism in Haiti through a planned deployment of Kenyan police, a country further south is standing up for the predominantly Black state.

In this 1 March clip, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro stated his opposition to the move, pointing to the failures of past foreign interventions.

In one of the most famous cases, UN occupation forces caused the deaths of at least 10,000 Haitians after they dumped sewerage in Haiti’s water supply. Extrajudicial killings and child rapes were rampant during previous deployments, too. During the US military occupation in the early 20th century, it conducted what may have been the first US aerial bombardment in Haiti.

Continued….With Haiti’s estimated $20 billion in precious metals, farmland, as well as its strategic location, some suspect the deployment is meant to aid Western looting. The same countries financing the operation are responsible for the dysfunction. For example, France forced Haiti to pay ‘reparations’ for winning freedom from enslavers. The United States has looted Haiti’s gold, deposed democratically elected leaders like Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and supported unpopular presidents like François’ Papa Doc’ Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude’ Baby Doc’ Duvalier.

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KAMALA HARRIS CALLS FOR 6-WEEK GAZA CEASEFIRE

Too little, too late? That’s the sentiment online after cheers emanated from the crowd as US Vice President Kamala Harris called on 3 March for an ‘immediate ceasefire’ in Gaza. A recent US poll shows 65 per cent of people support a comprehensive ceasefire; Harris touted one lasting six weeks.

Many see the 6-week duration as a way to entice Arabs and Muslims to support US President Joe Biden, given that the timeframe would coincide with the almost 5-week Muslim holy month of Ramadan. After weeks of mobilising Arab and Muslim communities in Michigan, more than 100,000 people cast ‘uncommitted’ ballots during the state’s Democratic Party primary held on 27 February. However, that did not prevent Biden from sweeping the majority of delegates as he continues on to other state primaries ahead of the November election.

Continued….The surge in action against the Democratic Party’s presumed presidential nominee has come as Israel has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians—more than 70 per cent of whom are women and children—since the 7 October escalation in the 75-year Palestine-Israel conflict. Despite this, Tel Aviv has continued to say the bombardments are meant to eliminate H*m*s militants.

In January, the International Court of Justice slapped provisional measures against Israel, saying its actions were ‘plausibly’ in violation of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention.

The vice president was speaking in Selma, Alabama, during the commemoration of ‘Bloody Sunday.’ That is when Alabama state troopers and a common-law posse used batons and tear gas to attack about 600 primarily Black civil-rights marchers 59 years ago on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

What do you think of Harris’ call for a ceasefire? Let us know in the comments.

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The United States has sanctioned Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa; his wife, Auxillia; nine government officials and three companies for alleged human rights violations and corruption. In a twist, the US lifted 2003 sanctions imposed in response to late President Robert Mugabe's 2000-01 land redistribution campaign.

US Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo announced the fresh sanctions on 4 March, saying they were meant to punish the 'criminal network' around Mnangagwa. However, Zimbabwean spokesperson Nick Mangwana doubted the country's pain would dissipate, saying on X, 'We are all under sanctions.'

Continued….Some online have asked why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not being sanctioned for overseeing a five-month military operation in Gaza, despite the International Court of Justice imposing provisional measures in January to stop what it has referred to as 'plausibly' genocidal acts. Further, the United Nations has alleged that US-aligned Rwandan President Paul Kagame backs militant group M23, whose attacks have been blamed for displacing millions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Let us know if you think the new 'targeted sanctions' will ease Zimbabwe's economic crisis.

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NETANYAHU: A TERRORIST BY HIS OWN DEFINITION?

A much younger Benjamin Netanyahu once defined ‘terrorism’ as “the murder, maiming and menacing of civilians for political goals.”

Speaking in 1986 about his book ‘Terrorism - How the West Can Win,’ the then-36-year-old Permanent Israeli Ambassador to the UN added that those who use terrorism as part of their policy end up becoming “masters of terrorist states.”

Continued….Now 74, Netanyahu has overseen a brutal five-month campaign to purportedly eliminate H*m*s in Gaza, killing over 30,000 Palestinians, 21,000 of them women and children. The International Court of Justice ruled in a case brought by South Africa against Israel that Tel Aviv’s actions in Gaza are plausibly genocidal. The blockade of Gaza - beginning in 2007 and intensified since October 7th, 2023 - has harmed thousands of innocent children through hunger and lack of medicine. And the World Food Programme is warning that Gazans are now on the brink of famine.

Has Prime Minister Netanyahu - and the State of Israel - become an example of his own, almost-40-year-old definition of ‘terrorism’?

Let us know in the comments.

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U.S. SANCTIONS AGONIZE ZIMBABWEANS

On 4 March, the US government announced it had lifted sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe more than two decades ago. According to a US Treasury press release, the discarded measures are being replaced with ‘targeted’ measures that purportedly only affect President Emmerson Mnangagwa, his wife, nine officials and three entities.

Some see a long struggle bearing fruit. For years, African leaders and activists had been calling for 2003 sanctions to be done away with because they had been hurting ordinary Zimbabweans and causing migration into neighbouring countries. However, one Zimbabwean official doubted the country’s pain would dissipate with targeted sanctions. “We are all under sanctions,” government spokesperson Nick Mangwana reiterated on X.

African Stream published an exclusive interview in October with Xavier Zavare, chairperson for the United Kingdom district of the ruling party, Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).

Continued….He broke down the history of sanctions and how they detrimentally affect ordinary Zimbabweans.

Officially known as the ‘Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act’ (Zidera), they were put in place to ‘support the people of Zimbabwe in their struggle to effect peaceful, democratic change.’ However, many see the sanctions as retribution for the country’s land reform program that was carried out in the late 1990s to redress British settlers seizing more than two-thirds of Zimbabwean land, despite making up less than 4 per cent of the population. Land reform was a key part of the 1979 Lancaster House Agreement that led to the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980. During the talks, the British and US governments committed to help fund a program to ensure equitable land distribution in the southern African nation. However, they later reneged on their promise, forcing the government of Zimbabwe to go it alone.

According to a US-based group called Sanctions Kill, 39 countries—or one-third of humanity—suffer under some form of US sanctions. The group says 19 sanctioned countries are in Africa.

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PT. 1: WILL BLACK VOTERS FALL FOR TRUMP’S GOLDEN SNEAKERS?

Republican frontrunner and former President Donald Trump’s $399 golden sneakers are apparently all it takes to win Black people’s confidence at election polls. These recent comments from a Fox News presenter set off a firestorm of social media posts.

African Stream’s journalists sat down to deconstruct the US mainstream perception of the Black vote, which could swing a presidential election.

Continued….Black people’s votes helped put US President Joe Biden in the White House in 2020. The 81-year-old president has not kept his promises and is now presiding over a struggling economy. Many fear his foreign policy risks starting World War III, between the Russia-Ukraine proxy war and his administration’s continued support for Israel as it bombards the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and neighbouring countries. Plus, other US-enabled conflicts, such as in Sudan and Yemen, among others, have destabilised whole regions.

Today, the stakes couldn’t be higher, with the November election fast approaching.

Have a watch on our official YouTube channel and share your thoughts.

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THE SIDE OF AFRICA WESTERN MEDIA WANTS YOU TO SEE

The Western narrative on Africa, particularly when it comes to the media, is always a recurrent illustration of poverty, disease-stricken and rural areas. These two brothers brilliantly illustrated what many of us have been thinking for a long time. It isn’t by accident, but rather by design. As illustrated in this satirical clip, it is not that the Western media don’t know any better but instead have a vested interest in keeping Africa portrayed this way.

Why do you think so many Western media outlets often only show a negative side of Africa?

Leave your thoughts below.

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Italy has become increasingly anti-refugee and anti-migrant under the leadership of Giorgi Meloni’s far-right government - but rights groups have expressed relief after the country’s top court ruled that it is illegal to return seaborne newcomers to Libya. Activists say it’s implicit recognition that Libya is too dangerous - and that those fleeing the country for Europe should be offered shelter and support.

One serious danger is human traffickers who operate along Libya’s coast. The gangs round up migrants and torture and rape them in makeshift prisons, demanding ransom from families. Libyan coastguards are accused of being in cahoots with the traffickers. Captured migrants who die from the abuse are dumped in the desert.

Incidentely, Italy has funnelled millions into the Libyan maritime authority in a bid to stop migrants from leaving.

Do you think the high-court ruling will change how newcomers are treated in Italy?

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NKRUMAH’S AMAZING DEEDS

As the clock struck midnight on 6th March, 1956, the British Union Jack flag was lowered at Accra’s polo grounds and replaced with a new flag consisting of red, green and yellow horizontal strips and a black star in the centre. This ceremony, which was witnessed by multitudes of excited Africans, marked the end of British colonialism in what was then-known as the Gold Coast - and the birth of a new nation known as Ghana. It was a momentous occasion, not just for the people of the new nation but for the entire continent, as it indicated that the winds of freedom that had first gathered in the northern part of Africa were sweeping southwards.

Continued….Ghana’s story can never be fully told without mention of the man who raised the new flag on that day 68 years ago. That man was Kwame Nkrumah - the country’s first post-independence leader. He lived an incredible life, dedicated to the liberation of African people at home and abroad. His accomplishments aren’t as well known as they should be - so, as part of marking the country’s Independence Day, we’ve collected together some of the main ones.

Share, and let us know your favourite Nkrumah facts in the comments… perhaps we can build a Kwame encyclopaedia there!

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A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS!

A video of a security officer training his gun on US airman Aaron Bushnell as he lies burning on the ground during his self-immolation protest in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC has gone viral - and judging by the comments, for many, it represents the twisted priorities that have led to the awful war in Gaza: placing security even before humanity. Many drew parallels to the treatment of Palestinians by Israel and its allies.

Out of respect, we have chosen to blur only to show a still - but it remains a powerful, disturbing image.

The unnamed officer, who could be an American policeman or an Israeli embassy guard, chose protocol over human empathy and kept his firearm aimed at Bushnell. Another security officer in the video can be heard shouting, “I need fire extinguishers, not guns!”