Comment & analysis

The land dispossession of the African indigenous majority was the primary contradiction of the liberation struggle against colonialism. At the negotiations table with the apartheid regime, land dispossession of the African people vanished like mist and became a taboo.

Recently I posed several questions to my countrymen living in the diaspora as to whether or not they are considering relocating back to Kenya. The reasons for their extended stays are varied but the typical response is at best some version of an unsure and forlorn affirmative.

Swaziland's elections have started, elections that many people in the small absolute monarchy jokingly refer to as “selections”, not elections.

When seven Tanzanian peacekeepers in Darfur, western Sudan, were killed and 17 seriously wounded in an ambush by gunmen, the incident sent shockwaves throughout the country.

Recently I was invited to a youth dialogue by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation in partnership with the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory to discuss ‘social cohesion’. I left that dialogue unimpressed.

We must support the subordination of the military and police to civilian political and economic control and the stripping of the military and police of their stranglehold on the commanding heights of the national economy of Egypt.

The Rwandan Genocide was 19 years ago. Though the genocide ended in 1994, its consequences are still deeply felt today. For myself and other survivors, those memories are ever present. We have never forgotten the horrors we lived through as unimaginable violence overtook our country.

August 8, 2013

The Hon. John F. Kerry
Secretary of State of the United States of America
2201 C Street, NW
Washington DC, 20520

Sir,

“Organization is the weapon of the oppressed.” – Kwame Ture (aka Stokely Carmichael)

Needless to say, a huge victory such as one claimed by ZANU/PF last week, should have seen the streets of Harare and other metropolises bursting with excitement by ZANU zealots. This has not been the case to date. What accounts for the ‘muted joy’?