Wrong! Even when they cover it, they do it wrong!
As you are reading these, ask yourself what America's role (via the CIA station and its covert ops) is in the affected country's mess.
You wouldn't expect the obfuscating AmeriKan MSM to tell you, would you?
"Event revived to aid Darfur renewal; Buoy tribal chiefs' left on sidelines" by Stephanie McCrummen, Washington Post | July 6, 2008
EL DAIEN, Sudan - The glory days of Darfur's traditional leaders have been in decline for decades, with government institutions usurping tribal authorities and five years of conflict further undermining this region's old social order, leaving a vacuum for other forces to fill.
Darfur has been rearranged by the Arab-led government's campaign against ethnic African villagers and rebels, and by the more recent fragmentation of society into dozens of rebel and militia factions. Specialists estimate that 450,000 people have died and more than 2.5 million have been displaced.
As foreign diplomacy fails to resolve the Darfur conflict, some Sudanese academics and activists are advocating a return to the cast-off tribal potentates to help repair this riven society. Thus the three-day festival was revived.
The leaders and other elites assembled - prominent businessmen, professors, a couple of newspaper editors - said they saw through the Sudanese government's attempt to use Arab nationalism as a way to rally the Janjaweed militias against ethnic African Darfurians.
"The problem is between Darfurians and the government - this is not between Arabs and Africans," said Abdel Majid Ibrahim Mohamed, a prominent leader of the ethnically African Fur tribe, among the most heavily targeted by the government. "It's the government that is cooking these things up. I don't believe in this Arab and non-Arab description. There are Fur married to Arabs, so there's a social interlocking between them."
"This is not a tribal conflict or ethnic conflict," the nazir concurred. "It's a conflict of interests. And we've been living together for 400 years."
Uh-oh!!! Now I am REALLY SUSPICIOUS!!!!
This is just like the alleged "Sunni/Shia" split!!!
And I'm sorry, world, but I'M NOT BUYING ANYMORE!!
Ask yourself one question: CUI BONO?
Since the Darfur conflict erupted, such views have rarely been expressed publicly by traditional Arab leaders, some of whom blame themselves for being sidelined. Some said they believed they would be arrested or killed if they spoke out against a government that expected Arab backing. Others were co-opted. Others were perhaps convinced that they were powerless."
--MORE--"
And there is MORE Africa, can you believe it?
What, a dung beetle get up the Globe's ass -- or are they reading me?
:-)
"Coalition government inspires little confidence in Kenya; Critics: Leaders in denial, ignore nation's problems" by Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times | July 6, 2008
NAIROBI - Six months after postelection clashes brought this country to its knees, life in Kenya appears back to normal - for better and for worse.
Ethnic fighting that killed more than 1,000 people has subsided. Political enemies are working together in a coalition government. Kenyans have returned to work and school.
But in the push to get the country back on a path of peace and prosperity, critics allege, Kenya's leaders are papering over deep-seated social and economic problems exposed by the Dec. 27 presidential vote, and reverting to old patterns of denial, political payoffs, and short-term fixes.
Sounds like the U.S. political system.
"We're slipping back into trivia while the central issues are not being addressed," said Richard Leakey, chairman of the Kenya branch of Transparency International, a government watchdog group. "We have not gone very far in addressing the fundamental problems. The government isn't showing any realism."
A fragile coalition government, cobbled together by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, has inspired little confidence.
Gee, and that was trumpeted as such a success at the time.
The bloated, 93-member Cabinet is the most expensive in Kenyan history, and critics accuse parliament members of being more concerned with preserving their tax-free $10,000-a-month pay packages than the plight of their constituents.
Sounds like the U.S. political system.
Relations between President Mwai Kibaki and his rival, Prime Minister Raila Odinga, are sometimes so frosty that their security guards nearly came to blows at a government rally in June. Meanwhile, Odinga and the vice president are fighting over which man comes second in the pecking order, resulting in tiffs over who should speak first and whose motorcade has the right of way.
Yeah, those Africans can't get together on anything, 'eh, racist Zionist-controlled MSM?
Hopes that the painful clashes might usher in overdue reforms and encourage Kenyans to tackle longstanding historical grievances and tribal tensions are fading.
"It would seem, then, that these politicians had finally got what they wanted: power, or, to be precise, a share of it," read a recent front-page editorial in the Standard newspaper. "Other matters were quickly relegated to the bottom of their priorities agenda."
Even Kenya's controversial electoral commission, which was widely criticized by local and international observers for failing to prevent vote fraud, remains intact and recently oversaw another round of polling for parliament members.
Why does that remind me of U.S. elections, folks?
The government's first test was coping with an estimated 350,000 displaced Kenyans living in squalid camps after postelection violence drove them from their homes. Riots engulfed much of the country after the electoral commission, handpicked by Kibaki, ignored evidence of tallying fraud after the election and hastily declared him the victor.
Violence quickly turned into ethnic warfare as Kenya's tribes vented longstanding frustrations over competition for land, jobs, and political power. Entire villages were burned to the ground.
But Kenya is an ally, so all that stuff slips away from the press coverage.
Now, if this was Mugabe....
In May, the government announced a campaign to resettle Kenyans, sometimes by force, in their villages. Government officials say nearly 200,000 people returned home.
But in reality, very few have returned to the homes they fled, aid workers say. Most have simply shifted to new, smaller camps, moved in with relatives, returned to ancestral homelands, or are squatting on empty land or church grounds.
Critics say the government not only failed to provide the promised monetary compensation to help victims rebuild homes, but it also ignored the most crucial component: reconciliation.
As a result, many displaced people say they remain too afraid or too angry to go home.
Virginia Wangari, 62, a divorced mother of eight, said she was persuaded by government officials to leave a displacement camp in May and return to her Rift Valley village.
She said she was promised tents, food, and other supplies and told that local officials would be waiting to welcome her.
Instead, she and other returnees found no one to greet them and spent their first night on a bus. In the morning, local officials told her she was on her own."--MORE--"
So when is the next time Kenya makes an appearance in the Globe, readers?
Two months from now?
Have you heard anything about Somalia recently from them?
If you had, I would have posted it!
