MOZAMBIQUE POST-ELECTION DEATH TOLL RISES

Two months into protests following a disputed presidential election, NGO Plataforma Eleitoral Decide estimates police detained over 3,400 people and caused 90 deaths and 293 gunshot injuries in the southern African state of Mozambique.

On 7 December, protesters surrounded two power plants, forcing Mozambican authorities to cut off power to southern Mozambique and shutting off a 300-megawatt supply to Zambia, limiting power to under seven hours daily. 

Continued……The national electoral body had declared ruling party FRELIMO (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique) candidate Daniel Chapo the winner in the 9 October poll with more than 70 per cent of the vote, while Venâncio Mondlane of PODEMOS (Mozambican Development Optimist Party) came in second with 20 per cent. Mondlane, now exiled in South Africa, and his party initially called for protests.

Video credits: @FreeMozambique (X), @allafrica (X), @bernardkavuli (X)

Sources

https://www.europapress.es/internacional/noticia-ong-eleva-90-muertos-represion-protestas-opositoras-mozambique-20241207214852.html?utm_campaign=smartclip_social&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter

If needed, translate into English
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/mozambiques-post-presidential-election-protests-continue-with-20-more-injured-2-state-buildings-set-on-fire/3417647

https://x.com/SensoCrtico1/status/1864978610790240452

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/mozambiques-post-presidential-election-protests-continue-with-20-more-injured-2-state-buildings-set-on-fire/3417647

https://www.news24.com/fin24/international/protest-driven-mozambique-power-cuts-spill-over-to-zambia-20241208

https://www.zambiamonitor.com/zambia-loses-300mw-of-power-imports-from-mozambique-zesco-restores-load-shedding-to-below-seven-hours/

https://www.europapress.es/internacional/noticia-ong-eleva-90-muertos-represion-protestas-opositoras-mozambique-20241207214852.html?utm_campaign=smartclip_social&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/24/mozambique-ruling-party-declared-winner-of-election-amid-fraud-claims

For some, the West Asian events are none of Africa’s business. For more than a year, Israel has killed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, giving rise to horrifying statistics such as Gaza having the highest number of child amputees per capita. Why should Africa care? Apart from the fact that solidarity is not transactional, events in Palestine carry a warning of precisely what the current global order thinks of Black and Brown lives: disposable. Additionally, Palestine’s current state could have been Africa had the plan to create Israel in what is now Uganda and Kenya gone through, not to mention Israel is also playing a nefarious role in our continent, and it is getting more ambitious by the day.

Join us for a live discussion with special guest Mariamtheugandan, who is vocal about issues in Africa and Palestine. As always, please share your thoughts, and we will read them during the live show.

AFRICAN STREAM VISITS THOMAS SANKARA PLAZA IN NIGER

Last month, African Stream had the opportunity to visit the new Thomas Sankara Plaza in Niamey, Niger, that many Pan-Africanists worldwide have been raving about. 

While we had covered the plaza’s inauguration on 15 October, the date of Sankara's assassination, we were able this time to see it first-hand and speak with Nigeriens and Burkinabé about what it means.

This move is just one of many in honour of revolutionary Pan-Africanist and socialist figures within the Sahel. Niger’s government recently honoured Djibo Bakary (1922-98), the great Nigerien socialist and Pan-Africanist leader whom African Stream produced a video about, by changing the name of Charles de Gaulle Avenue (in honour of a French coloniser) to Djibo Bakary Avenue.

Continued……. However, the changes in Niger are more than just symbolic. With Niger expelling French and US military forces and ending French mining giant Orano's contract, Niger is forging a path toward sovereignty that we suspect would make assassinated Burkina Faso President Thomas Sankara (1949-87) proud.

Over 100 people have been killed and hundreds injured by a Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) airstrike on a market in Kabkabiya, North Darfur, on 9 December. The town is about 180 km west of Darfur's capital El Fasher, which has been under the control of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary since May. According to a group of pro-democracy lawyers, "the airstrike took place on the town's weekly market day, for which residents from various nearby villages had gathered to shop, resulting in the death of more than 100 people, with hundreds injured, including women and children."

Civilians in numerous areas of Darfur are under attack. The same group of lawyers reportedly claims that, on the same day, "three neighbourhoods were hit with barrel bombs in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur." Meanwhile, Save The Children says “no place is safe now for children sheltering from ongoing conflict in North Darfur” - after the RSF shelled the large Zamzam refugee camp there.

Continued……. As the SAF and the UAE-backed RSF wrestle for control over territories, it’s the Sudanese people en masse that are suffering the brunt of the proxy-war that began in April 2023. The RSF faces the largest number of allegations of genocidal violence, but the SAF is also implicated in atrocities against civilians - as the Kabkabiya market strike would seem to confirm.

Darfur has witnessed atrocities against its population in all previous wars in Sudan - predominantly carried out by the Janjaweed militia on behalf of the Sudanese government. Today’s RSF consists primarily of former Janjaweed fighters and, prior to the current war, the paramilitary and the Sudanese army - now at odds - were allies who colluded in the systematic ethnic cleansing of Darfur's non-Arab populace.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/10/airstrike-north-darfur-market-kills-people-sudan

https://www.newarab.com/news/air-strike-north-darfur-market-kills-more-100

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/16/sudan-unrest-what-is-the-rapid-support-forces

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wlp15400eo

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sudan-army-air-strikes-kills-over-100-north-darfur-market

'IMPERIALISTS WANT TO KEEP US ENSLAVED'

Year after year, Burkina Faso, like so many African countries, would celebrate independence days without knowing true independence. Today, with the new people-backed revolutionary government in place, Burkinabé have a real reason to honour the self-determining path that they have embarked upon.

On 10 November, Burkina Faso President Ibrahim Traoré delivered a speech for the independence holiday that falls on 11 November. His message to the people, the Burkinabé military, and the world at large was that Burkina Faso will never surrender to those who wish to keep the country enslaved.

Independence starts with controlling natural resources, which @capitaineib226 (X) began implementing upon taking office following the 30 September 2022 coup d’état that ousted a Western-aligned leader.

Continued…. Since then, the country has started nationalising gold mines. However, Traoré also recognises that the work to manufacture and refine gold and other raw materials must start at home. That is why the government has opened a gold refinery, a mining-waste processing plant and other facilities.

As Traoré and the great revolutionaries before him have put it, ‘The homeland or death, we will succeed!’

On the campaign trail, Ghana's newly-elected president, John Dramani Mahama, criticised outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo for cozying up to the West instead of working closer with neighbouring Burkina Faso to curb security threats. In particular, he slammed Accra’s sharing of intel with the US and other allies on Ouagadougou’s security partnership with the Russian Wagner Group. He seemed to be hinting that, as president, he would seek to forge better relations with the trio of nations forming the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) - Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

Mahama, who has already been president once before of oil-, gold- and cocoa-rich Ghana, faced criticism during his first term (which came to an end in 2017) for putting the nation further in debt, with the export industry also suffering. During his tenure, the West African nation’s debt stock rose by nearly $6 billion. In 2022, under Akufo-Addo, Ghana defaulted on most of its $30 billion in external debt, according to Reuters.

Continued……Mahama said he plans to renegotiate IMF debt and seek additional loans to resume repayments. This would seem to be incompatible with closer ties to the AES, which, with its revolutionary, anti-imperialist agenda, is actively seeking to break away from dependency on predatory loans from western institutions such as the IMF.

What do you think Ghana’s course will be under Mahama - in particular, regarding relations with the AES and tackling neo-colonialism? Let us know by taking part in the poll below - and in the comments!

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/live/BRwhqP5gutU?t=5148s

https://www.fact-checkghana.com/this-is-how-much-npp-and-ndc-governments-have-borrowed-in-ghanas-name/

https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/The-GH-742-Billion-National-Debt-How-we-got-here-what-the-data-shows-1942268

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/ghanas-mahama-would-renegotiate-imf-deal-if-he-regains-presidency-2024-07-31/

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda will meet during a 15 December summit in Luanda, Angola, following both countries signing a four-point peace deal in November via Angola’s mediation. This agreement came about after the DRC filed a lawsuit in September against Rwanda at the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) for violating sovereignty, committing atrocities against civilians and breaking international law. The lawsuit was the first ever filed with the EACJ between partner states of the East African Community.

Kigali stands accused of backing the M23 rebel group, which has carried out atrocities against civilians in North Kivu province in eastern DRC. 

DRC's Deputy Minister of Justice and Legal Affairs, Samuel Mbemba, called the launch of the lawsuit a landmark moment after ‘decades of aggression against [DRC], the pillaging of [Congo's] minerals, the rape of [Congolese] children and women and the massacres of [Congolese] people.’

Continued……A 4 June 2024 UN Security Council report said that in January 2024, at least 1,000 Rwandan troops entered the DRC through various border crossings east of Kibumba, Rutshuru territory, reinforcing M23 positions and helping the group seize territory. The UN experts estimated that Rwanda had sent 3,000 to 4,000 troops in May while the report was in drafts.

A vicious three-decade resource war pitting more than 120 militia groups has k*lled more than 6 million Congolese and resulted in numerous s*xual abuses, with Doctors Without Borders (MSF in French) stating one in ten Congolese women in refugee camps reporting being r*ped between November 2023 and April 2024. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) estimates the DRC holds $24 trillion in untapped minerals, attracting powerful foreign entities keen to extract Congo's wealth to develop their industries.

Sources:

https://www.africanews.com/2024/12/05/drc-launches-case-against-rwanda-to-the-african-court-of-human-and-peoples-rights

https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n24/118/80/pdf/n2411880.pdf

https://www.eacj.org/?news=court-hears-applications-arising-from-case-filed-by-drc-against-rwanda-over-alleged-conflicts-in-north-kivu-region#

https://www.africanews.com/2024/08/30/drc-to-take-rwanda-to-east-african-court-over-alleged-violations

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/4/rwanda-backing-m23-rebels-in-drc-un-experts

https://www.usaid.gov/democratic-republic-congo/fact-sheet/responsible-minerals-trade

AES AFRICANS FIND PAN-AFRICAN CONNECTIONS WITH CUBA, PT. 2

Representatives of revolutionary countries travelled to Cuba between 8-15 November as a delegation from the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), a confederation of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, all of which ousted Western-aligned leaders in recent years. The three African countries have forged their revolutionary path and declared self-determination, but they will need allies, comrades, supporters and guides worldwide to help them.

That is why the delegation aimed to learn about the Cuban socialist model and the island's six-decade-long fight against US imperialism. Cuba may be one of the best states with which the AES can collaborate, not only because it is revolutionary and anti-imperialist, but as the delegates point out in this video, it is also profoundly African! Cuba may not be in Africa, but delegates found many aspects of African culture deeply embedded in Cuba due to its decolonial process.

Continued……In this video, delegates share what they most appreciated during their week-long immersive educational experience. 

The Thomas Sankara Centre in Burkina Faso (@burkinabooks on Instagram) organised the delegation, with participation from the Union of Nigerien Students (USN) based out of Niger (@union_des_scolaires_nigeriens on Instagram) and the Headquarters of the Revolution based out of Mali (Quartier Général de la Révolution on Facebook. @siempreconcuba and @cubamistad hosted the delegation throughout the country.

Ethiopia and Somalia have agreed to bury their differences over the breakaway Somaliland region and its port deal with Addis Ababa. It’s a diplomatic coup for Turkey, which hosted the talks between Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

The Horn of Africa neighbours’ dispute dates back to January, when Addis Ababa struck a deal with the self-declared republic of Somaliland for a 50-year lease on a 20-kilometre (12-mile) stretch of its coastline for an Ethiopian port and naval base. This enraged Mogadishu, as it still considers Somaliland, which declared its secession from Somalia in 1991, part of its territory.

Egypt, which has a long-standing dispute with Ethiopia over the Grand Renaissance Dam, was also drawn into the row. Cairo responded to the port deal by shipping two military weaponry caches, including anti-aircraft guns and artillery, to Mogadishu.

Continued……Landlocked Ethiopia lost access to the sea in 1993, when Eritrea gained independence after 30 years of struggle, taking with it the entire coastline on the Gulf Aden, thereby putting the Indian Ocean out of Addis Ababa’s immediate reach.

Turkey's mediation in the Ethiopia-Somalia dispute suggests Erdogan's policy of fostering diplomatic, commercial and military clout in Africa is paying dividends. In 2017, Ankara opened its biggest overseas military base in Mogadishu. Turkey also provides training to Somali military and police. In February, Ankara and Mogadishu signed a defence pact that was later expanded to include the maritime sector. In September, Bloomberg reported that Turkey wants to build a ballistic-missile testing-range and spacecraft launch-pad in Somalia.

NIGERIEN REVOLUTIONARY FALMATA: 'THEY' CREATED THE TERRORISTS

Last month, people from about 30 countries flocked to Niger's capital, Niamey, for the historic Conference in Solidarity with the Peoples of the Sahel. During the three days, one special Nigerien panellist attracted attention for questioning the West’s role in spreading terrorism in the arid region south of the Sahara Desert. Her name is Falmata Moctar Taya, and she is the treasurer of the Movement M62.

Movement M62's official name is M62: Sacred Union for the Safeguard of the Sovereignty and Dignity of the People. The coalition of civil society organisations formed in 2022 to oppose French military occupation in Niger around the time that anti-imperialist President Assimi Goïta came to power in neighbouring Mali. The coalition is most known for playing its role in the 2023 revolution, which brought to power Nigerien President Abdourahamane Tiani and the revolutionary government, the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP). 

Continued…….. Movement M62 was at the forefront of the effort that pushed Niger to expel French and US military bases across the country, making the coalition the civilian face of Niger's anti-imperialist revolution.

Visit Movement 62's website (https://m62.reppad.org) and its Facebook page: facebook.com/mouvement62

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M62_Movement

https://m62.reppad.org/

S. SUDAN TEEN THE NEXT
USAIN BOLT?

Meet the world’s fastest 16-year-old: South Sudanese-Australian Gout Gout (pronounced 'Gwot Gwot').

Hailing from a nation often associated with war and suffering in mainstream media, Gout joins in the ranks of those reshaping the narrative of South Sudan, shining a different spotlight on the world’s youngest country.

At the Australian All-Schools Championships in Brisbane on 7 December, Gout delivered a record-breaking performance, securing two historic noscripts.