PLANE CRASHES THAT CLAIMED AFRICAN LEADERS

Iran held the public funeral today, 22 May, for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi (1960-2024), who died in a helicopter crash along with his foreign minister and their security on 19 May in northwestern Iran.

Many have speculated about what could have caused Sunday’s unfortunate event, which joins a list of controversial air crashes that have claimed the lives of leaders, including those from Africa.

For instance, John Garang, the then-vice president of Sudan and longtime leader of the movement for a united Sudan, died when the Ugandan presidential helicopter he was travelling in crashed on 31 July 2005, just three weeks after being sworn in as Sudan’s vice president.

Mozambique’s revolutionary president, Samora Machel, lost his life when his plane crashed in neighbouring South Africa in late 1986. 

Plus, Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi’s President Cyprien Ntaryamira were both killed in a plane crash in 1994.

‘FLYING PREZ’ STRIKES AGAIN: $1.5 MN ON PRIVATE JET TO U.S.!

Kenyans were already pretty angry about their ‘flying president’ clocking up air miles like there’s no tomorrow - at a huge cost to the country’s strained budget. Well, imagine how they reacted to the latest revelation about William Ruto’s extravagance on his travels. Apparently, he hired a private plane from Dubai’s RoyalJet for his visit to the US - for 1.5-million dollars!

It adds insult to injury for the millions of cost-of-living affected Kenyans he’s told need to start tightening their belts and living within their means - and on whom his administration intends to impose fresh taxes. And while Ruto flaunts it in front of his people, he’s also being put to shame by other leaders setting a far nobler example. For example, Iceland's Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson recently flew Kenya Airways for his visit to Malawi.

Continued….. You’d have thought an apology was the very least Ruto’s administration could offer after this latest scandal. Instead, it’s defended blowing all that money on a private-jet flight by saying all the contracts Ruto will sign in the US will more than make up for it in terms of economic benefits to Kenya.

Do you buy that excuse?

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PANDOR: STOP RAFAH MASSACRE

South Africa’s Foreign Minister, Naledi Pandor, made this emotional plea to the world to stop the slaughter in Gaza. She warns Rafah is the ‘last bastion of protection’ for the people of Palestine, as Israeli forces continue their assault on the southern city. Thousands are seeking refuge there and UN food deliveries to it have been suspended over supply shortages and security concerns. Across Gaza over a million people are thought to be on the brink of famine.

South Africa’s top diplomat gave the interview during a Palestinian solidarity protest in Cape Town. Her country’s leading a g*nocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. In January, the ICJ ruled Israel must take steps to avoid genocidal acts, but human rights groups say Tel Aviv is blatantly ignoring the order. Despite claiming its operation is designed to root out militant group H*m*s, Israel’s bombardment has killed at least 35,456 Gazans, mostly women and children.

WHO WAS THE 'LION OF THE DESERT'?

Have you heard of the Lion of the Desert? His name is Omar al-Mukhtar, a teacher turned general. He is a Libyan national hero and symbol of resistance against Italy's fascist-inspired colonialism. Mukhtar fought in two wars against the Italians in Libya, as well as against French colonisation in Chad and the British occupation of Egypt.

African Stream's Ahmed Ghoneim profiles Mukhtar, telling the story of this hero's struggle to free his native Libya and how, against all odds, he refused to give up.

As he once uttered, 'We do not surrender—we win or die… and I'll live more than my hanger.' Indeed, his legacy is revered today.

Let us know in the comments of other African revolutionary heroes you'd like to see us include in our new series, 'Decolonised Minds.'

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Same scenario, two different responses. Here’s another fine example of Western duplicity.

In March,2023, Burkina Faso suspended all broadcasts by France24 after the French TV station aired an interview with the head of al Qaeda’s North African wing. France24 quickly branded it an attack on press freedom and the free flow of information in the Sahelian state.

However, France24 did not express the same level of anger when Israel banned Al Jazeera for ‘incitement’. Nor has the mainstream media in general highlighted the plight of press freedom (or lack of) in Israel.

Continued…. Al Jazeera reports that in 214 days, 142 journalists were killed there, or 1 every 36 hours. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says at least 97 journalists have been killed in the line of duty in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

Funny how all press are free to report on those facts, but many don’t. Burkina Faso, on the other hand, is castigated for daring to kick out a news outlet of its former colonial master, for platforming a terrorist group.

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US President Joe Biden says he plans to visit Africa in February should he win a second term in the November election.

His announcement came as he welcomed Kenyan President William Ruto, who is in Washington for a two-day state visit, the first of a Kenyan leader in 21 years. The two will discuss trade, debt relief, and the way forward regarding conflicts in Haiti, Ukraine, Sudan, and other areas, according to reports.

Ruto has advocated a US-backed plan for a Kenyan police deployment in the Caribbean state of Haiti as being in line with Pan-Africanism. However, many Africans have disputed Ruto’s claim, given the West’s history of enslaving, occupying and interfering with Haiti.

Continued….. Amidst Western-backed political turmoil, Haiti, a predominantly Black republic, has no working national assembly to ratify agreements with other countries.

Last November, Biden spoke of making a state visit to Angola during a meeting with President João Lourenço, but it has yet to happen. While Biden, as president, has not visited an African country except for Egypt, his cabinet members have taken several trips to countries like Niger, where a military coup ousted a Western ally and subsequently tore up a military agreement with the US.

In December 2022, Biden hosted 49 out of 54 African countries, the African Union and civil society organisations at the US-Africa Leaders Summit. The last one had been held eight years prior. China and Russia’s role on the continent was a topic of discussion, and Biden attempted to distinguish the US by saying it is ‘partnering’ with African states. However, Rafiki Morris, a US-based Central Committee member of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party, criticised Biden’s summit by referring to it as the ‘Meeting of Uncle Tom and Uncle Sam.’ ‘Uncle Tom’ is a term Africans use to criticise Africans who appear to serve their colonial masters, while ‘Uncle Sam’ is a nickname for the United States.

Only nine US heads of state have made official visits to Africa.

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FRANCE’S NEW COLONIAL CRISIS

President Macron has just arrived in New Caledonia - a Pacific territory that is resisting French efforts to quash the island’s indigenous independence movement. Paris has sent in thousands of troops amid violent protests against a cunning bid to change voting rights, one that would allow more citizens who relocated to New Caledonia from mainland France - and who overwhelmingly favour union - to participate in island elections. The Macron administration is trying to sell it as a democratic amendment. But when you remember that this territory is rich in valuable minerals and very strategically located, it starts looking more like a neo-colonial one. Our man @ahmed.ghoneim.official breaks down what’s at stake in this (bumper!) edition of Africa in 90. Please share your thoughts after you’ve watched.

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GLITZY DINNER GUESTS CHOKE ON GAZA CHILD HUNGER PROTEST SPEECH

A fundraiser dinner attended by lots of wealthy influential high-society types is surely exactly the right place to plead for help for the children going hungry in Gaza. But apparently not - as South African-Canadian author Kagiso Lesego Molope found out when she did just that at the ‘Politics and the Pen’ gala in Ottawa. After she used her time on stage to warn the audience that future generations will condemn our inaction (receiving applause, but also many boos and heckles), security removed her from the plush premises (Chateau Laurier). As she was leaving the building, she told a journalist she didn’t want to stay anyway if the people inside didn’t care that children were dying.

Continued….. Shame on event organisers the Writers’ Trust. One in three children under the age of two in the north of Gaza is severely malnourished, according UNICEF. More than 35,000 Palestinians - many of them women and children - have been kill*d by relentless Israeli attacks since October 7th.

African Stream’s Wambura Mwai talks us through what happened. Let us know your reaction to Molope’s treatment in the comments.

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Many have described him as the 'most hated' White person by South Africa's apartheid regime

Joe Slovo was a communist and commander of the uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). He was born Yossel Mashel Slovo on this day in 1926 in Lithuania to Jewish parents before moving to South Africa when he was eight.

His political activism started in the 1940s when he served as a shop steward in the National Union of Distributive Workers (NUDW), founded by supporters of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA). In 1942, he joined the CPSA.

Inspired by the Soviet Red Army's fight against the N*zis, he joined the South African military, serving in North Africa and Italy. Upon his return to South Africa, he joined the multiracial radical military veterans' group, the Springbok Legion.

Slovo studied law alongside Mandela at Johannesburg's University of Witwatersrand, graduating in 1950.

Continued….. However, soon after graduating, the regime listed him and his wife, Ruth First, as communists under the Suppression of Communism Act. This designation curtailed their ability to participate in politics or for the press to quote them. The law also banned the CPSA, which re-emerged in 1953 as the South African Communist Party (SACP.)

Despite this, Slovo helped draft the Freedom Charter in 1955. In the late '50s and early '60s, the state detained him several times. 

In 1961, he helped found the MK, the ANC's armed wing, jointly formed by the ANC and SACP. He went into exile two years later, spending the next 27 years in Angola, Britain, Mozambique and Zambia. From there, he planned and coordinated military strikes, which led the regime to declare him 'public enemy number 1.' South African state media outlets routinely called him a 'traitor.' 

In 1982, apartheid operatives shipped a mail bomb that killed his wife, Ruth, in Mozambique. He and Ruth had three daughters.

Despite all this, Slovo began in 1990 to participate in negotiations to end the apartheid state. After its fall, he began serving in 1994 as a Minister for Housing in Nelson Mandela's cabinet. Just a few months later, he succumbed to cancer on 6 January 1995.

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MAKE WAY FOR THE RICH! ABIDJAN’S POOR LOSE HOMES

For the past few months, Ivory Coast’s Abidjan - deemed West Africa’s economic capital - has been kicking poorer residents out of their homes. The plan is to build even more luxury hotels and shopping malls. The city is famous for its gorgeous infrastructure and surface-level development. But this has come at a grim cost: the brutal neglect of Abidjan’s working-class majority.

From its first decade of independence through the present era, Ivory Coast has had especially close ties to France and the West. More than any other West African country, it’s supported France’s position on nearly every major foreign-policy decision.

Continued….. Ivory Coast’s first president, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, was a staunch anti-communist and opponent of Pan-Africanism. He positioned himself in firm opposition to leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Ahmed Sékou Touré and, later, Thomas Sankara. Today, the current president of Ivory Coast continues that legacy by staunchly opposing the Alliance of Sahel States (consisting of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger), which has shown France the door. But the country’s hyper-conservatism is not only hurting neighbouring states.

Writing about the inequality in, and European neo-colonial development of, Abidjan, Peter Schwab, the author of ‘Designing West Africa’ states the following:

“Abidjan, the commercial centre of the Ivory Coast and until some years ago its capital, is the focus of Ivorian elites, and was where the French ensconced themselves… the metropolis is, in fact, largely divided into an African quarter, Treichville, and a European one, Cocody. In the French quarter sits the Hotel Ivoire, once the outstanding jewel of Ivorian elites, French expatriates and foreign tourists... It stood as a symbol of what Ivorian elites subscribed to, and how European culture impressed itself on Africa.”

The question is: when will the Ivorian working-class see the benefits of the country’s proclaimed economic development? Your insights in the comments are appreciated.

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CHEVRON’S LAGOS TAKEOVER

US oil giant Chevron has a long, chequered history in Nigeria dating back to the 1960s. But apart from huge oil fields, it’s also built one the biggest neighbourhoods in Lagos for its workers. The thing is, it’s named it after itself. Another example of shameless imperialism, or just harmless self-promotion?

African Stream’s Poloum David takes to the streets of the country’s biggest city to find out.

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UK CAMPUS EXPELS CASH-STRAPPED NIGERIAN STUDENTS

Nigerian students in the UK are facing deportation. Teesside University expelled them after they fell behind on fee payments caused by the plummeting naira, their home country’s national currency. The institution reported the distressed students to the Home Office, citing their failure to pay fees as a breach of visa-sponsorship requirements. They’ve been ordered to leave the UK and denied the right to appeal against the decision.

Nigeria’s worsening economic crisis is impacting students abroad as the collapsing naira eats away at their savings. Runaway inflation is more than 30% one year after President Bola Tinubu scrapped a fuel subsidy to shore up the government’s finances.

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BURKINA COUP SCARE MOBILISES LOCALS

There were fears of another coup In Burkina Faso last week, after gunshots were heard near the presidential palace. Reports say an individual tried to attack a guard to gain entry.

Nothing serious transpired, but the response from locals was eye-catching. Dozens ran onto the streets ready to defend their leader Ibrahim Traoré .

African Stream’s Inem Richardson was also there and witnessed the spontaneous show of support.

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PALESTINE AND AFRICA UNITED BY ADVERSITY

Ok, so many of you keep asking why African Stream backs the Palestinian cause and why it’s relevant to Africans? Well, here’s your answer. In this clip @aaprp organiser Ahjamu Umi explains how both share a common fight against Zionist and Western imperialism. And it’s been that way for decades.

There’s a long and rich history of solidarity and collaboration between the African and Palestinian freedom movements. Thomas Sankara, Nelson Mandela, Samora Machel, and Julius Nyerere are just a few revolutionary African heads of state who had a great relationship with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). Black revolutionaries of the diaspora, including Huey P. Newton and Malcolm X, also worked with and learned from Palestinians. Even in more recent times, Palestinians have taught Black Lives Matter protesters how to stay safe from tear gas and other dangers tied to protesting.

Continued.....
However, according to Ahjamu, it’s not down to friendship. Even if Palestinians disliked Africans (which they don’t) he’d still support their struggle as it weakens the common enemy of imperialism. To him it’s logical. Do you see it that way too?

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