It doesn't happen too often that I wish I had been in a colleague's place, but watching BBC's Matt Frei interviewing US-president Bush on his country's African policy, I did. George W. Bush is visiting the African continent, all-in-all his second visit during his entire term of office, and the BBC interviewed him for the occasion. So many questions remained unposed. Bush painted a gloomy, one-sided picture of Africa as a place where people are 'suffering from disease and hunger and hopelessnes'. And Frei let him ramble on about the 'paternalistic effort of mercy' the American people are acquired to undertake, especially for Darfur. But why didn't he ask about the suffering people of Somalia who were plummeted back into lawlessnes after a US-backed Ethiopian attack to throw the Islamic courts out? Or about the role America's favourite African country Rwanda is playing in the ever lasting war in Eastern Congo? Why wasn't there any mention of Africom, the US military base that the Bush administration is trying to ram down Africa's throat? Because obviously there was no African policy to speak of before the United States realized that Africa could be, and had been, a hiding place for terrorists. I did talk about these issues when I was interviewed for Dutch national radio about Bush visiting Africa, but I would have loved to ask president Bush these questions myself...
Employees from out of town could not reach their jobs this morning and their colleagues who live closer by could hardly leave their offices anymore. The Mozambican capital of Maputo was on fire today and that even seemed to surprise the townspeople themselves. A fifty percent price raise for the chapa's, the minibuses that pass for public transport, caused the uprising. Monday was a Mosambican holiday and the fare rise was supposed to take effect the next day. But from early in the morning groups of young people blocked the main streets with burning car tyres or rubble and managed to put life in the town to a halt. The riots seemed to be well coordinated and are unprecedented in the Southern-African country that has known peace since over a decade. Shops and banks had to close their doors en according to the website of the Mozambican weekly O País at least three persons were killed. This very night the government gave in and reversed the measure. So rides within the city for now still cost five meticais (fifteen eurocent). Which in a country where minimum wage is not even a euro and a half a day is quite an amount to the average labourer.
How is Hanna doing, the Kikuyu-woman I once spent a whole afternoon with sitting on a stool in her kitchen? I've been wondering about that ever since violence broke out in Kenya after the controversial election results. Elderly Hanna lives in Rift Valley, epicentre of the trouble. Has she been able to stay on her farm whith arum flowers in front of it? Or was she forced to flee? Kenyan women these days find themselves in a hard spot. As always in times of impunity and violence they are victimised in more ways than one. One does not read a lot about it, but also in Kenya massive rapes have been a reality ever since the violence started. Hospitals in the capitol of Nairobi have seen the number of victims double, and they say it is a tip of the iceberg. It mainly concerns gang rapes by armed men. 85 percent of the refugees in the Eastern African country are women and children, extra vulnerable to abuse. And on top of everything else they are excluded from the talks that are supposed to put an end to the misery...
