Category: Reportage

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Helga Dickow, Senior Researcher at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institut, Freiburg Germany, University of Freiburg

Chad held parliamentary elections in late December 2024. The final results released on 21 January 2025 gave the well-established former ruling party, the Movement Patriotique du Salut (MPS), 124 seats out of 188.

The election marked the end of a four-year transition in Chad following the death of former president Idriss Déby Itno in March 2021. Déby had ruled Chad since 1991. Mahamat Déby Itno assumed power on the death of his father.

The result has meant that Mahamat Déby has given himself a degree of legitimacy as president through elections. He can comfortably remain in power for at least another five or even ten years.

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Read more: Chad’s election outcome already seems set: 4 things Mahamat Déby has done to stay in power

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I have been following Chad’s politics from inside and outside the country for more than 15 years. In my view, Mahamat Déby’s actions during the transition, with the help of the transitional authorities and his late father’s old teams, were aimed at keeping him in power. The December 2024 parliamentary elections were a formality. The poll was not won on polling day. It was clear from the run-up that, as was the case with the May 2024 presidential elections, every effort was being made to minimise the success of the opposition.

Four factors stand out. They are the composition of the electoral authorities, lack of an up-to-date electoral register, violence against dissenting voices, and high costs of participation in the election.

In my view Chadians’ trust in the democratic process has ceased completely. This bodes ill for a country that ranks as one of the poorest. It is also one of the most corrupt. The consolidation of Mahamat Déby’s power could widen the social divide and lead to violent conflict between different groups in Chad, which is highly stratified along ethnic and religious lines.

Dissatisfaction with his decades of autocratic rule characterised Idriss Déby’s reign. Political-military movements challenged him regularly, and the last attack led to his death.

This dissatisfaction will continue and could once again lead to violent conflicts.

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Read more: Chad: promises of a new chapter fade as junta strengthens its hold ahead of elections

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Corruption of the process

Mahamat Déby and the Movement Patriotique du Salut took a number of steps to secure victory in the election.

Firstly, the presidents of the electoral authority ANGE (Agence Nationale de Gestion des Élections) and of the constitutional court nominated by Mahamat Déby were responsible for organising and for validating elections (and will continue to be responsible until 2031). Having been loyal to Idriss Déby and now to his son, they cannot be trusted to be objective and independent in their pronouncements and final decisions.

Secondly, the electoral register was last updated in August 2024. Therefore, young people who had just turned 18 could not vote. In Chad, the majority of the population is under 25. Young people in particular in the south support the opposition.

Thirdly, the transitional regime’s violent crackdown on opposing voices played a role in the final outcome of the election.

The transition was initially characterised by peace talks with the political-military movements and by expanding the security sector to secure its rule. In October 2022, several hundred mainly young people were killed by security forces while demonstrating against the extension of the transition and Mahamat Déby’s candidacy for presidency.

In the intervening period the state took various steps against opposition figures.

In February 2024 Yaya Dillo, a cousin of Mahamat Deby and a potential rival in the presidential elections, was shot dead by security forces.

In May 2024, Mahamat Déby was elected president. In December 2024 he took on the title of marshal – previously held only by his father.

The opposition was also hampered in participating in the poll for financial reasons. Taking part in the elections is expensive. Each candidate in the parliamentary election had to pay 500,000 CFA (US$785) to the treasury. Candidates for the provincial election paid 200,000 CFA (US$314). In poverty-stricken Chad, without regular funding for political parties, it was particularly difficult for smaller parties to meet these criteria.

The situation was different for the ruling party, founded by Idriss Déby. For decades it has benefited from state resources. It is the only party with a nationwide presence. Other parties are mainly active in the regions of their founders.

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Read more: Chad’s Mahamat Deby doubles down on authoritarian rule in wake of election victory

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Resistance

Opposition parties called for a boycott. The Groupe de Concertation des Acteurs Politiques, a coalition of nine parties, criticised the new electoral law and the lack of transparency of the count at the polling stations.

Succès Masra, leader of Les Transformateurs, a former prime minister who came second in the 2024 presidential elections, also called for a boycott. He accused the government of falsifying the results of the parliamentary election beforehand and of having the final lists saved in a computer. His party did not participate in the poll.

The results of the parliamentary elections presented on 11 January 2025 by Ahmed Barticheret, president of the electoral commission, and confirmed by the constitutional court on 21 January, therefore revealed no surprises.

Alongside the huge victory of the Movement Patriotique du Salut, two other parties not really in opposition won 12 and 7 seats respectively. The other successful parties won just one seat each. Chad has over 300 political parties, of which 38 are represented in the new parliament.

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Read more: Chad presidential election: assassination of main opposition figure casts doubt on country’s return to democracy

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Consequences

Movement Patriotique du Salut has an overwhelming majority in parliament. This means that there are no checks and balances. Like his father, Mahamat Déby can continue to rule without any parliamentary control.

He is already used to that. Since 2021, he has appointed members of the transitional parliament by presidential decree. The few voices of individual members of parliament belonging to the “real” opposition have no influence.

As the low turnout – put at 40% on election day – shows, the majority of voters did not expect the election result to change the political situation. On the other hand, supporters of the ruling party continue to benefit from proximity to power and state resources.

As dissatisfaction continues, the possibility of renewed attacks by dissidents cannot be ruled out. If it is not a military attack, frustrated individuals might try to target the presidency or other symbols of the regime.

In early January 2025 a group of unidentified young people reportedly attacked the presidency. The incident was played down by the government spokesman, leaving plenty of room for speculation.

But it was a reminder that a peaceful future is not assured.

– Chad’s parliamentary election hands Mahamat Déby absolute control. Here’s why it’s dangerous
– https://theconversation.com/chads-parliamentary-election-hands-mahamat-deby-absolute-control-heres-why-its-dangerous-248342

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Awino Okech, Professor of Feminist and Security Studies, SOAS, University of London

Gender-based violence is a major challenge in Kenya, which has recorded a significant rise in deaths of women and girls in recent years.

In January 2024, a coalition of organisations across the east African nation organised multi-city public marches to call for government action against these deaths. A year later, President William Ruto established a 42-member taskforce to address gender-based violence. What is its potential to lead to real change for women and girls? Feminist and security studies professor Awino Okech explores the issue.

What do you make of the Kenyan government’s response to gender-based violence?

Language matters, in my view, so it is important to focus the attention on femicide, which is what triggered recent public conversation in Kenya and is the primary issue at hand.

Femicide is the specific act of men killing women because they are women. Gender-based violence focuses on the gender power relations that create conditions for violence. This does not always result in loss of life. Gender-based violence includes men killed by other men because of their sexuality, widows disenfranchised by property laws, female genital mutilation and forced marriage.

Unlike in the past, Kenya has seen increasing reports of women being murdered. The country doesn’t have a proper data management system for such incidences. Nevertheless, the numbers recorded by organisations such as Femicide Count show the scale of the problem. In 2023 it recorded 152 femicides based on cases reported in the media. Africa Uncensored, an investigative journalism media house, estimates that 500 women were killed between 2017 and 2024. Kenya’s law enforcement agencies recorded 97 cases of femicide between September and November 2024. Globally, UN Women reported that in 2023 alone, one woman was killed every 10 minutes in intimate partner and family-related murders.

What is the likelihood of the presidential working group’s success?

First, at face value, any public action taken by a government to illustrate that it is listening to its citizens is an important first step.

Second, the fact that it is called a “technical working group on gender-based violence” illustrates the potential it has to lose focus on the issue that catalysed its creation – femicide.

Third, there is a history in Kenya of setting up task forces with financial resources largely directed at remunerating members and conducting “consultations”, only to tell the country what was already known. Consultations are critical for legitimacy and a base for action. But there are more expedient ways to do this work.

This includes analysing existing reports, statements and recommendations offered by women’s rights organisation over the decades, including a 2024 statement on ending femicide. An insistence on a large task force in the light of the government’s austerity drive only raises questions about where limited resources should be directed.

Finally, I am concerned that some of the leading voices on femicide in the last 10 years are missing from this task force. It is the activism of the coalition of actors organising under EndFemicideKE that recentred the conversation on femicide with some of the organisations leading urgent response work in their communities. The task force must not ignore this expertise.

What steps should Kenya be taking to address femicide?

1. Invest in programmes that emphasise positive masculinities. This means raising a generation of men whose idea of manhood is not based on hatred of or violence against women. This work is an important counter measure to the growing “manosphere” in Kenya. The manosphere refers to websites, blogs and online forums focused on promoting misogyny and opposition to feminism. These online spaces have grown globally and are viewed as central to grooming men to commit femicide.

2. Increase resources to programmes aimed at women who are at risk of violence. The signs of violence predate the act of violence and murder. Providing resources to create safe physical and online spaces – such as hotlines for women to get the support they need to secure their lives, or effective investigative services – is key. Central to this action is the role of the police service in taking seriously and investigating any claims of potential threats of violence. People need to feel safe going to the police to report threats of harm and have trust in their capacity to deliver justice. This action requires trust building between communities and the police service.

3. Deal with the structural causes of femicide. At the heart of this targeted violence against women are the underlying patriarchal assumptions about how women should act relative to men in society. We cannot ignore the importance of building people’s consciousness about the deep biases they have been socialised to believe in. This work must be led by community champions who value the sanctity of human life.

What needs to be done to hold institutions accountable?

First, the relevant state institutions, such as public hospitals and clinics, the police and judiciary, need money and people with the right skills, so they can intervene in the root causes and symptoms of gender-based violence.

Second, Kenya needs to create a national database on femicide. This would indicate where and how to deploy resources.

Third, there needs to be an annual and public report on the state of gender-based violence that tracks where money has gone, and shows the relationship between actions and outcomes. An initial increase in cases might not indicate failure but rather heightened awareness. With the right interventions, numbers should drop over time.

Fourth, build trust between citizens and state institutions. In December 2024, a peaceful march in Nairobi held during the global 16 days of activism against gender-based violence campaign was teargassed by police. This happened two weeks after the Kenyan president publicly committed to addressing femicide.

The right to peaceful protest is enshrined in Kenya’s constitution. When the police respond with violence to peaceful women protesters talking about the murder of women, how can citizens trust officers’ ability to take dead women seriously?

– Femicide in Kenya: William Ruto has set up a task force – feminist scholar explains its flaws
– https://theconversation.com/femicide-in-kenya-william-ruto-has-set-up-a-task-force-feminist-scholar-explains-its-flaws-248313

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Research Associate, University of Oxford

South African poetry, rich with history, has long been an underappreciated cornerstone of the country’s cultural landscape. But a new free-to-access digital archive is helping change that.

Focused on the poets published by a small but important press in a town called Makhanda in the Eastern Cape province, the Deep South Books and Archive initiative seeks to elevate their voices by offering an archive of background information about their work and lives as well as extensive excerpts from their books. It’s a rare window into a vital but overlooked tradition of South African literature.

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Read more: Podcasts bring southern Africa’s liberation struggle to life – thanks to an innovative new audio archive

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Robert Berold, after spending a decade as editor for New Coin journal, set up Deep South in 1995. For decades he has had a quiet influence on the South African poetry scene. His impulse to publish emerged from a place of need and outrage that some of the talented young black poets he was publishing in New Coin couldn’t get their books published in the new, democratic South Africa.

Many of these poets had been using their words to fight for freedom, while a new generation of young poets was emerging with democracy. Ever since, Deep South has been an important arena where South African poets and their poems could speak to one another.

My work on African literary production shows the importance of small presses in creating local literary ecologies.

For Berold, the mission was always:

To publish what was considered to be innovative and risk-taking South African poetry, regardless of market limitations.

His many endeavours as a publisher, editor and teacher have been linked by the effort to rescue from oblivion, to supply context, to indicate points of continuity while insisting on the diversity of the South African experience.

After 30 years of publishing, Berold is now sharing a vast catalogue and archive that would otherwise remain unknown. Even though the African Poetry Digital Portal, hosted by the University of Nebraska in the US, was created as a resource for the study of the history of African poetry from antiquity to the present, it does not give direct reference to particular communities.

In bringing this archive to the internet, Berold is revealing the process and method of how contemporary South African poetry has been shaped into being.

Behind the poems

Much of the archive material is what Berold accumulated in dealing with the poets – correspondence, manuscripts, reviews. This is also physically deposited at the Amazwi South African Museum of Literature. He explains:

I got into correspondence with everyone who sent in poems, trying to give helpful criticism, recommending poets for them to read. There was a certain inappropriateness about this at times, and some arrogance too on my part, but mostly people appreciated the feedback.

The “difficult miracle of Black poetry”, as US poet June Jordan once remarked, is that it persists, published or not, loved or unloved. In racially segregated South Africa during apartheid, publishing spaces were few and far between.

Black poets were often censored, banned or exiled as their work confronted the injustices of a racist system. This digital archive recasts the story of South African poetry as insurgent, independent and driven to define a distinct aesthetic.

Deep South has, furthermore, made a particular impression by fostering a unique aesthetic in South African poetry through its investments in typography and design. As a small, independent press situated away from culture capitals – Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg – it has had the freedom to experiment.

Deep South Books and Archive is therefore a significant tribute to the persistence of South African poetry, despite many historical and structural inequalities. It is a catalogue and a digital archive that provides a unique entry point into modern South African poetry.

Inside the archive

The digital archive’s architecture is simple. The poets are indexed in alphabetical order. Some of the featured names are Vonani Bila, Mangaliso Buzani, Angifi Dladla, Mzwandile Matiwana, Isabella Motadinyane, Seitlhamo Motsapi, Khulile Nxumalo, Mxolisi Nyezwa, Lesego Rampolokeng, Mxolisi Dolla Sapeta, Dimakatso Sedite and Phillip Zhuwao.

Clicking through the carousel of finely designed book covers leads one to excerpts, book reviews, interviews available as PDF files, as well as links to other multimedia resources.

Rampolokeng’s work may be iconoclastic, experimental, unclassifiable but he found a home with this press. He has published several of his groundbreaking collections with them. Defying category, they bend and shift, and culminate into a remarkable linguistic virtuoso. His interviews are an extension of his art, reflexive, autobiographical, and works in themselves.

Unrecognised poets

Then there are poets like Motadinyane and Zhuwao who died far too early, leaving behind only single collections. Luckily, even if their portraits and writings are fragmentary, we’re at least witness to the poetic geniuses that might have been. This is the superpower of this archive, to serve as a memorial for a canon (or collection of literary texts) that wasn’t even close to being fully blossomed.

Historically, canon construction is the work of the few, foremost among them academics who edit anthologies and design syllabuses. Most of these poets do not feature in scholarly journals. As a result they almost exist in the underground, unremarked. Berold, now in his 70s and approaching retirement, has decided to do something about that with a digital archive that surfaces the voices of lesser-known poets.

The lack of recognition for these poets is bothersome for him:

Why nobody in academe has registered the importance of these poets is beyond me. It really makes me wonder whether these professional literary people are able to read.

This is mostly an indictment of systems that undervalue black expression.

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Read more: How women’s untold histories shaped South Africa’s national poet

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This project may be for preservation, but there is another lesson: African literature demands constant acts of recovery. In this case, the internet serves as a kind of rear view mirror, which allows us a backward glance at poets and their works that have been overlooked or underappreciated, forgotten or misunderstood.

– South African poetry has a new digital archive – what’s behind the project
– https://theconversation.com/south-african-poetry-has-a-new-digital-archive-whats-behind-the-project-247599

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Lawrence O. Gostin, University Professor; Founding Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Global Health Law, Georgetown University

President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization (WHO) will be keenly felt across the globe, with profound implications for health in Africa.

In the executive order putting the withdrawal process in place, Trump also paused the transfer of US funds, support and resources to the WHO.

Trump’s executive order is his second attempt to pull the US out of the agency. He has also complained that the US financial contribution to the international organisation is “onerous”.

The biggest impacts will come from the loss of US funding. The US is by far the WHO’s largest state donor, contributing approximately 18% of the agency’s total funding.

The WHO’s funding is split into two tranches.

There are assessed contributions: countries’ membership fees, to which all WHO members agree and over which the WHO has full control. The US accounts for 22%, or US$264 million of these, for the current 2024/25 budget. The US is yet to pay the WHO its assessed contributions for 2024 and 2025. Withdrawing from the organisation without paying these fees would violate US law and must be challenged in the US courts.

Then there are voluntary contributions: donations by member countries, foundations and other sources, usually earmarked to that donor’s priorities. The US contributes 16%, or US$442 million, of all voluntary contributions.

In the case of the US, these priorities include HIV/AIDS, polio eradication and health emergencies.

As experts in global health law, we are deeply concerned about the impacts of this order, which will be far reaching.

The US withdrawal from the WHO threatens core health programmes in Africa. It will weaken the ability of African countries to respond to health emergencies, and could lead to increases in death and illness on the continent.

It will also have broader implications for leadership and governance in global health.

Impact on core programmes

Trump’s decision to withdraw comes at a time when the WHO’s health priorities in Africa were already underfunded. Eight of 12 areas were funded less than 50% earlier this year.

Twenty-seven percent of all US funding through the WHO for the African region goes to polio eradication, 20% supports improved access to quality essential health services, and much of the balance goes to pandemic preparedness and response.

The WHO/US partnership has long supported the HIV/AIDS response in Africa, but the redirection and reduction in funds could reduce the availability of prevention, testing and treatment programmes across the continent. This threatens progress to end AIDS by 2030.

The funding gap will also have an impact on programmes designed to increase access to quality essential health services, including the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis and malaria, and child and maternal health services.

If the WHO is forced to cut back on these services due to a lack of financing, it could lead to increases in mortality and morbidity in Africa.

European countries filled the financing gap in 2020 when Trump last withheld US funding from the WHO. But it is unlikely that they will be able to do so again, as countries across Europe are facing their own geopolitical and financial challenges.

The WHO’s budget was already thinly spread, and its mandate keeps growing.

Through its new investment round, the WHO raised US$1.7 billion in pledges, and is expecting another US$2.1 billion through partnerships and other agreements. Yet even before the US president’s executive order, this left a funding gap of approximately US$3.3 billion (or 47%) for the WHO’s 2025-2028 strategy.

If the gap left by the loss of US funding cannot be filled from other sources, it will fall to African nations to fund health programmes and services that are cut, placing a greater strain on governments reckoning with limited fiscal space.

Weakened response to health emergencies

Trump’s decision comes at a pivotal moment for health in Africa, which is experiencing major outbreaks.

The US has been a key actor supporting WHO-led emergency responses to outbreaks.

Last year, the US partnered with the WHO and Rwanda to rapidly bring a Marburg outbreak under control. The Marburg virus continues to threaten the continent. Tanzania has just confirmed an outbreak.

Earlier in August 2024, the WHO and Africa Centres for Disease Control each declared mpox on the continent to be a public health emergency.

The Biden administration delivered 60,000 vaccines, pledged 1 million more, and contributed over US$22 million to support capacity building and vaccination.

But now US health officials have been instructed to immediately stop working with the WHO, preventing US teams in Africa from responding to Marburg virus and mpox.

Even before these outbreaks, the US supported WHO-led emergency responses to COVID-19, Ebola and HIV/AIDS. The US withdrawal could lead to increased transmission, sickness and death in vulnerable regions.

Similarly, strong partnership between the WHO and the US has helped build health system capacities in Africa for public health emergencies.

US experts have supported nearly half of all WHO joint external evaluation missions to assess countries’ pandemic preparedness and response capacities under the International Health Regulations. This is a binding WHO agreement to help countries prepare for, detect and initially respond to health emergencies globally.

The US withdrawal from the WHO risks eroding these efforts, though it may also accelerate a regionalisation of health security already underway in Africa, led by the African Union through the Africa CDC.

Restructuring of governance

The US was instrumental in establishing the WHO and shaping WHO norms and standards, in particular driving amendments to the International Health Regulations adopted in June 2024. This included improved obligations to facilitate the rapid sharing of information between the WHO and countries.

The US has also been a key figure in ongoing negotiations for a new international treaty, a Pandemic Agreement. This would create new rights and obligations to prevent, prepare for and respond to pandemics with elements that go beyond the International Health Regulations. These include obligations on the equitable sharing of vaccines.

Trump’s executive order would prevent these instruments from being implemented or enforced in the US.

This would only entrench inequitable dynamics when the next global health emergency breaks out, given the concentration of global pharmaceutical companies in the US.

The order also pulls the US out of the Pandemic Agreement negotiations. This will inevitably create new diplomatic dynamics. Optimistically, this could provide enhanced opportunities for African nations to strengthen their position on equity.

The US departure from the WHO will create a leadership vacuum, ushering in a restructuring of power and alliances for global health.

This vacuum could cede influence to US adversaries, opening the door to even greater Chinese influence on the African continent.

But it also presents opportunities for greater African leadership in global health, which could strengthen African self-reliance.

Trump has directed the US to find “credible and transparent” partners to assume the activities the WHO would have performed. And yet there is no substitute for the WHO, with its worldwide reach and stature.

For more than 75 years, the WHO has been, and remains, the only global health organisation with the membership, authority, expertise and credibility to protect and promote health for the world’s population.

For this reason, the African Union, among scores of other bodies and leaders, has already urged Trump to reconsider.

It is now time for the global community to stand up for the WHO and ensure its vital health work in Africa and beyond can thrive.

– WHO in Africa: three ways the continent stands to lose from Trump’s decision to pull out
– https://theconversation.com/who-in-africa-three-ways-the-continent-stands-to-lose-from-trumps-decision-to-pull-out-248237

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Gerrit Kurtz, Peace and Conflict Researcher, German Institute for International and Security Affairs

Intense fighting has ravaged Sudan since 15 April 2023. The war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and its erstwhile comrades-in-arms, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, has created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Famine, displacement and mass atrocities are wreaking havoc in the country.

International mediation efforts have been lacklustre and fruitless. The United Nations security council has been preoccupied with other crises and blocked by its own divisions. The African Union has created diplomatic groups, a high-level panel and a presidential committee, none of which has been particularly active. It has been very slow in tackling the political process it wanted to lead.

The US and Saudi Arabia convened several rounds of talks, first in Jeddah, then in Switzerland. The Sudanese Armed Forces delegation failed to turn up in Switzerland. The Rapid Support Forces expressed willingness to talk peace, while simultaneously committing sexual and gender-based violence on a massive scale. The Biden administration only lately slapped sanctions on the top leaders of both forces, Abdelfattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (also known as Hemedti).

I have studied civil wars, mediation and peacebuilding for more than 12 years, with a focus on Sudan, including regular visits to the country and the region in the past five years. Based on this experience I have identified five reasons why mediation has failed. These are: the resistance of the conflict parties based on the dynamic nature of the war; continued military and financial aid by their external sponsors; as well as mediation attempts that were too narrow, not viewed as impartial, and lacking in coherence.

Clearly, a new approach to mediation is needed, not simply a new mediator. Turkey has recently offered to lead talks between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the United Arab Emirates, the main backer of the Rapid Support Forces, but Egypt, Kenya and several multilateral organisations also keep looking for opportunities.

Any new initiative will have to have certain components if it’s going to succeed:

• political parameters, ideally set by a parallel civilian political process, of what might come next for Sudan should guide mediators

• negotiations should take place in secret so that trust can be established

• back channel communications networks must be established with potential spoilers without ceding undue legitimacy to them

• a gender- and youth-inclusive approach

• more effective international coordination

• consistent pressure on the conflict parties and their external backers.

Why previous mediation efforts failed

Firstly, neither the Sudanese Armed Forces nor the Rapid Support Forces have shown significant willingness to stop hostilities.

The military fortunes of the two sides has waxed and waned. As long as either side feels successful militarily, they are unlikely to commit to sincere negotiations. Outright military victory leading to control of the whole territory (and its borders) remains out of reach for all.

Secondly, their respective allies have not shown any particular interest in peace.

External actors have provided military support to the warring parties, and helped finance them. The UAE is the main sponsor of the Rapid Support Forces. The Sudanese Armed Forces cooperates with Egypt, Eritrea, Iran and Russia, for arms deliveries and training. The UAE promised the US to stop supporting the Rapid Support Forces, but the arms flows continued.

Thirdly, some conflict management efforts were based on a flawed conflict analysis. There were attempts to organise a face-to-face meeting between Hemedti and Burhan, by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the African Union. But the war is not primarily a contest of “two generals”. Neither Hemedti nor Burhan has full control of their forces. Nor is a renewed military government acceptable to large parts of Sudan’s vibrant civil society.

Fourth, mediation efforts suffered because some of the parties saw them as lacking impartiality. Sudanese Armed Forces leaders don’t trust Kenya, whose President William Ruto is closely aligned with the UAE and has, until recently, allowed the Rapid Support Forces to conduct meetings and a press conference in Nairobi. Kenya was supposed to lead the Intergovernmental Authority on Development quartet of mediators, which never really got off the ground. Similarly, Sudan remains suspended from the African Union.

Finally, there was a competition of mediation platforms, allowing the warring parties to shop for the most convenient forum for them.

What a path to a ceasefire might look like

International attention is currently focused on Turkish president Recep Erdogan, who has offered to mediate between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the UAE. The Sudanese Armed Forces has harshly criticised the UAE for its support to the Rapid Support Forces. The offer, then, is based on the assumption the UAE might actually cease that support.

Any new approach should differ from previous efforts.

• Mediators should provide a broad sense of political parameters for a post-war (interim) order, ideally with strong input from Sudan’s civilian groups. Those could include a conditional amnesty as well as assurances of personal safety for the top military leaders and of some stake in a transitional period, without promising any blanket impunity or renewed power-sharing.

But international mediators should grant the warring parties political recognition and legitimacy only in exchange for feasible concessions.

• Negotiations should take place in secret, allowing confidential exchanges between declared enemies. This is particularly important for the Sudanese Armed Forces given the rivalry among its leadership.

• Back channel communications should be established to all actors with real constituencies in Sudan, without empowering them unnecessarily. Turkey is well-placed to reach out to senior members of the previous (Bashir) regime who have found exile there. They control large parts of the fighting forces on the side of Sudanese Armed Forces and could prove to be a major spoiler. The armed groups in the so-called “joint forces” would also need to feel somewhat included.

• Mediators should find ways to include a broad array of civilian actors, in particular women and youth groups. Instead of only targeting “men with guns”, a peace process should be gender-inclusive.

• Any lead mediator should keep other interested parties such as the EU, the UK, Norway, and the other countries and organisations already mentioned, informed and engaged.

• Pressure should be kept up by the US, UK and EU on external backers of the two main warring parties, and target both military and financial flows. Policies, including further targeted sanctions, should be as aligned as possible.

Preparing for a window of opportunity

There’s no guarantee that the violence would cease even if these conditions were met. The main belligerents are likely to continue their current offensives. The Sudanese Armed Forces will try to oust the Rapid Support Forces from central Khartoum completely. The Rapid Support Forces will keep trying to take El Fasher, the only capital in Darfur not under their control.

The impending re-capture of Khartoum by the Sudanese Armed Forces may provide an opportunity for a new round of talks, if it comes with consistent international pressure. Mediators should be ready to push for an end to the fighting.

– Peace in Sudan: a fresh mediation effort is needed – how it could work
– https://theconversation.com/peace-in-sudan-a-fresh-mediation-effort-is-needed-how-it-could-work-248330

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Julius A. Amin, Professor of History, University of Dayton

What began in late 2016 as a peaceful protest by lawyers and teachers in Cameroon’s North West and South West regions quickly turned violent and developed into what’s become known as Cameroon’s anglophone crisis.

The protest was instigated by perceived marginalisation of Cameroon’s anglophone region, which makes up 20% of the nation’s 29 million people.

The conflict has resulted in immense destruction and casualties. Cameroon’s military responded to the protest with arrests and torture. Voices that called for complete secession of the anglophone regions from the Republic of Cameroon gained momentum.

They created a virtual Ambazonia Republic and an interim government in exile, and vowed to fight back. They formed a military wing, Ambazonia Self-Defence Force, which attacked and disrupted economic and social services in the region.

As of October 2024, over 1.8 million people have needed humanitarian assistance. Over 584,000 have been internally displaced. Over 73,000 have become refugees in next-door Nigeria. Over 6,500 have been killed.

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Read more: Cameroon: how language plunged a country into deadly conflict with no end in sight

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And the conflict still rages.

One possible avenue that could be pursued to end the impasse is mediation, with help from other countries. But the Cameroonian government has repeatedly rebuffed intervention from organisations such as the African Union, arguing that the conflict is an internal affair.

It also ended a government-sponsored mediation by the Swiss in 2022.

It is clear to me, as a historian who has studied Cameroon foreign policy for the past three decades, that Cameroon’s leadership will not look to external actors to help solve their crisis.

Founding leader Ahmadou Ahidjo, and later his successor Paul Biya, did not respond to external pressure to address issues. Cameroon’s diplomatic relations are based on respect of national sovereignty and nonintervention in each other’s internal affairs.

My research shows that the Cameroonian leadership rejects outside intervention on issues it regards as within its sovereignty and internal affairs.

Removing Cameroon from aid programmes such as the United States Agency for International Development programme and the African Growth and Opportunity Act has not deterred its leaders.

An understanding of this background is crucial in the search for solutions to the ongoing anglophone crisis.

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Read more: Cameroon spends 90% of Chinese development loans on its French region: this could deepen the country’s divisions

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Use of force

In the 1960s, Ahidjo used brutal force against a nationalist organisation called the Maquisard. His presidency was characterised by murders, imprisonments and torture.

Political rivals were imprisoned or forced to go into exile. Biya, who served in Ahidjo’s government, learned that repressive measures work. As president, he used similar tactics against rivals and the opposition.

But the use of force as a response to the anglophone protest was a miscalculation. The Biya regime failed to see the crisis in its context of changing times, misunderstood the sources of the conflict, and misread the role of social media in protest activities in the 21st century.

The crisis originated from a series of grievances: poverty, unemployment, political and economic neglect of the anglophone region, failure to treat French and English as equal languages in the country, and disrespect and disregard of English-speaking Cameroonians.

At the beginning protesters were generally peaceful, but things changed in 2017. Biya stated that Cameroon was being hijacked by “terrorists masking as secessionists” and vowed to eliminate them.

To anglophone leaders it was a formal declaration of war, and the message spread quickly on social media. The Biya team did little to slow or stop its spread, and anglophones inside and outside the country accepted the message as fact. It mobilised the region. And few took the time to read the full text of his remarks.

The brutality of the war on both sides intensified. Everything had all happened so quickly, and most did not anticipate the intensity of the violence.

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Read more: Cameroon after Paul Biya: poverty, uncertainty and a precarious succession battle

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Resistance to outside intervention

In its diplomatic relations, Cameroon has a long history of protecting what it sees as its own business.

One example was in 1992, after the US administration criticised Biya for electoral fraud. The Cameroon government fired back. Biya withdrew Cameroon’s ambassador from Washington DC, and informed the US ambassador that America should stay clear of Cameroon’s internal affairs.

In 2008, tension erupted again when Biya changed Cameroon’s constitution to eliminate presidential term limits. The US ambassador criticised the move in the Cameroonian press. Again, Cameroonian officials pushed back, asking the ambassador not to interfere in the nation’s internal politics.

America’s disposition towards the anglophone crisis has been one of non-interference. Other major powers have responded similarly, asking both sides to end the violence.

The Cameroon government has rebuffed initiatives from Switzerland and Canada, both friendly to the country, publicly stating it asked no nation to mediate.

The rejection of the Swiss initiative was surprising, given that Biya spends much time in that country. Unlike the Swiss plan, in which conversations began, the Canadian initiative did not even take off.

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Read more: Cameroon’s rebels may not achieve their goal of creating the Ambazonian state – but they’re still a threat to stability

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Looking ahead

Measurable indicators show that the Biya regime is failing to end the anglophone crisis. The killings – including those of law enforcement officers – kidnaps, brutality and ransom demands are now normalised in the anglophone region, especially in rural areas.

Biya’s Grand National Dialogue and National Commission for the Promotion of Bilingualism and Multiculturalism have failed to address the sources of the crisis. Locals dismiss them as a joke.

People are exasperated by public service announcements about what the government has achieved. Their condition remains much worse than it was in the pre-crisis period.

Ordinary people are focused on bread-and-butter issues and the desire for dignity and respect. But they don’t see it.

Young Cameroonians need to see both anglophone and francophone residents at every level of government, on every rung of the business ladder, in every management position, at every school — even on every billboard advertisement.

Only such a widespread and visible approach can convincingly challenge Cameroon’s pattern of discrimination and exclusion.

The Biya regime must commit to doing that and not be distracted by supporters urging him to be a candidate in the upcoming presidential election.

It is important to track and bring to justice the apparent sponsors of the killings in the country. This must be done while government keeps its promises to make things right for those living in the anglophone regions.

Finally, given China’s investment in Cameroon, it can do more to engage the Biya regime on the anglophone crisis. Like Cameroon, China’s policy also stipulates a policy of nonintervention, but it has repeatedly changed course when its strategic interests are threatened.

Major power status demands major responsibilities, and showing the will to stop chronic human rights violations remains an important obligation.

– Cameroon could do with some foreign help to solve anglophone crisis – but the state doesn’t want it
– https://theconversation.com/cameroon-could-do-with-some-foreign-help-to-solve-anglophone-crisis-but-the-state-doesnt-want-it-244770

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Caroline Fowler, Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program, Clark Art Institute, and lecturer in Art History, Williams College

The so-called golden age of Dutch painting in the 1600s coincided with an economic boom that had a lot to do with the transatlantic slave trade. But how did the slave trade shape the art market in the Netherlands? And how is it reflected in the paintings of the time?

This is the subject of a new book called Slavery and the Invention of Dutch Art by art historian Caroline Fowler. We asked about her study.

What was Dutch art about before slavery and what was the golden age?

The earliest paintings that would be called Dutch were predominantly religious. They were made for Christian devotion. In the 1500s, major divisions in the church led to a fragmentation of Christianity called the Reformation.

In this new religious climate, artists began to create new types of paintings, studying the world around them. They included landscapes, seascapes, still lifes, and interior scenes of their homes. Instead of working for the church, many painters began to work within an art market. There was a rising middle class that could afford to buy paintings.

Historically, this period in Dutch economic prosperity has been called the “golden age”. This is when many of the most famous Dutch painters worked, such as Rembrandt van Rijn and Johannes Vermeer.

Their work was made possible by a strong Dutch economy built on global trade networks. This included the transatlantic slave trade and the rise of the middle class. Although artists did not directly paint the transatlantic slave trade, in my book I argue that it is central to understanding the paintings produced in the 1600s as it made the economic market possible.

In turn, many of the types of painting that developed, like maritime scenes and interior scenes, are often obliquely or directly about international trade. The slave trade is a haunting presence in these images.

How did this play out within Dutch colonialism?

The new “middle class” consisted of economically prosperous merchants, artisans, lawyers and doctors. For many of the wealthiest merchants, their prosperity was fuelled by their investments in trade overseas. In land and plantations, and also commodities such as sugar, salt, mace and nutmeg.

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Read more: Slavery, tax evasion, resistance: the story of 11 Africans in South America’s gold mines in the 1500s

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Slavery was illegal within the boundaries of the Dutch Republic on the European continent. But it was widely practised within Dutch colonies around the world. Slavery was central to their trade overseas – from the inter-Asian slave network that made possible their domination in the export of nutmeg, to the use of enslaved labour on plantations in the Americas. It also contributed in less visible ways to Dutch economic prosperity, like the development of maritime insurance.

What was the relationship between artists and Dutch colonies?

In the new school of painting, artists would sometimes travel to the Dutch colonies. For example, Frans Post travelled to Dutch Brazil and painted the sugar plantations and mills. Another artist named Maria Sibylla Merian went to Dutch Suriname, where she studied butterflies and plants on the Dutch sugar plantations.

Both depict landscapes and the natural world but don’t directly engage with the profound dehumanisation of slavery, and an economic system dependent on enslaved labour. But this doesn’t mean that it’s absent in their sanitised renditions.

Among the sources that I used to think about the presence of the transatlantic slave trade in a culture that did not overtly depict it were inventories of paintings and early museum collections. Often the language in these sources differed from the painting in important ways. They demonstrate how the violence of the system emerges in unexpected places.

One inventory that describes paintings by Frans Post, for example, also narrates the physical punishment meted out if the enslaved tried to run away from the Dutch sugar plantations. This isn’t depicted in the painting, but it is part of the inventory that travelled beside the painting.

These moments reveal the profound presence of this system within Dutch painting, and point to the ways in which artists negotiated making this structure invisible in their paintings although they were not able to completely erase its presence.

How do you discuss Rembrandt’s paintings in your book?

Historically, studies of the transatlantic slave trade in early modern painting (about 1400-1700) have looked at paintings that directly depict either enslaved or Black individuals.

One of the points of this book is that this limits our understanding of the transatlantic slave trade in Dutch painting. A focus on blackness, for example, precludes understanding how whiteness is constructed at the same time. It fails to recognise the ways in which artists sought to diminish the presence of the slave trade in their sanitised rendition of Dutch society.

One painting that I use to think about this is Rembrandt van Rijn’s very famous work called Syndics of the Draper’s Guild. It’s a group portrait of wealthy, white merchants gathered around a table looking at a book of fabric samples.

Although there aren’t enslaved or black individuals depicted, this painting would be impossible without the transatlantic slave trade. Cloth from the Netherlands was often exchanged for enslaved people in west Africa, for example.

In my book, I draw attention to these understudied histories to understand how certain assumptions around whiteness, privilege, and wealth developed in tandem with an emerging visual vocabulary around blackness and the transformation of individual lives into chattel property.

What do you hope readers will take away from the book?

I hope that readers will think about how many of our ideas about freedom, the middle class, art markets, and economic prosperity began in the 17th-century Dutch Republic. As this book demonstrates, a central part of this narrative that has been overlooked was the transatlantic slave trade in building this fantasy.

This is in many ways an invention that traces back to the paintings of overt consumption and wealth produced in the Dutch Republic – like Vermeer’s interiors of Dutch homes.

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Read more: How we proved a Rembrandt painting owned by the University of Pretoria was a fake

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My aim with this book is to present not only a more complex view of Dutch painting but also a reconsideration of certain dogmas today around prosperity and the art market. The rise of our current financial system, art markets and visible celebration of landscapes, seascapes and interior scenes are all inseparable from the transformation of individual lives into property. We live with this legacy today in our systems built on racial, economic and gendered inequalities.

– Rereading Rembrandt: how the slave trade helped establish the golden age of Dutch painting
– https://theconversation.com/rereading-rembrandt-how-the-slave-trade-helped-establish-the-golden-age-of-dutch-painting-247918