Lansana Gberie

A necessary and mutually applauded security measure taken by Guinean forces during Sierra Leone’s brutal rebel war has escalated into a border dispute which threatens the stability of both states.

James Joyce was right that history is a nightmare, the African-American writer James Baldwin wrote, reflecting in a somnolent Swiss village on the racial tensions in his country: 'But it is a nightmare from which there is no awakening.

As soon as I saw the very exact note directing me from the plane through immigration and to the parking lot outside, I knew that even among the awkward spots in troubled Africa, the Congo still remained a special place.