OCTOBER NEWS WRAP

In a month dominated by the conflict unfolding in Palestine, let’s not forget what’s been happening across Africa. Join us for a wrap of October’s biggest stories. We look at the French withdrawal from Niger, Nigeria being the Belt and Road Forum’s big winner and Burkina Faso agreeing to the construction of a nuclear power plant, among other important events.

The continent never sleeps. We invite you to join us again for another monthly wrap of news and events across Africa. In the meantime, share your thoughts on October’s big stories.

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ANOTHER HERO EXECUTED BY THE BRITISH

Kenyan streets, stadiums and universities are named after him. 103 years after his birth, we look at why the revolutionary Dedan Kimathi is revered and remembered.

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CLINTON: CEASEFIRE 'GIFT TO H@M@S’

It's reported that at least 8,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip in the last three weeks with over 3000 of them children. But despite the horrific loss of life there’s no need for a ceasefire, according to former US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In her view, that would only give H@m@s the chance to re-arm during the conflict with Israel. It's a position shared by the US and UK who've vetoed calls for a pause in fighting at the UN.
Clinton made the remarks during a guest speech at America’s Baker Institute think tank. But her complete disregard for the humanitarian catastrophe that’s unfolding shouldn’t surprise you.
In case you forgot, she’s backed almost every war going and grotesquely took credit for Gaddafi’s assassination in Libya.

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HISTORY OF INTERVENTIONS IN HAITI

A Kenyan court has temporarily halted the planned deployment of Kenyan police to Haiti, a move that is certainly welcome news for the predominately African state in the Caribbean Sea. Under the guise of tackling Haiti’s insecurity, Kenya, under US patronage to the tune of $200 million, announced it would have boots on the ground by the end of this year. Already, a small reconnaissance team was hosted at the US embassy in Haiti. African Stream hosted Kim Ives, editor at Haiti Liberté, to make sense of why Haiti is vehemently opposed to foreign forces on its shores.

Haiti’s history of foreign interventions is one replete with abuse and tragedy, and begins with a US occupation all the way to a UN deployment after the United States ousted democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Continued….In every single instance, Haitians have paid a hefty price: Killings, rape, pollution of a key water artery and countless other crimes.

Kenya’s police are well known for their brutality. More than 30 people were killed at recent demonstrations against the rising cost of living. Innocent bystanders have been killed minding their own, including children. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the killing of two young men for curfew violation was news for months. There is little to show a police deployment to Haiti would be different.

Let us know what you think.

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SPORTING HYPOCRISY ISRAEL V PALESTINE

In the world of sport there's a glaring double standard when it comes to political stances. If you support Ukraine or Israel, it's cool. If you back Palestine, your contract might be suspended and the media might even call you a friend of terrorism. African Stream's Ahmed Ghoneim looks at African football stars who've been caught up in the hypocrisy.

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ANGELA DAVIS DEFENDS PALESTINE

Angela Davis, the revolutionary scholar and activist, has long stood up in the United States for the liberation of Palestine. She understands the Palestinian freedom struggle is connected to the liberation of Africans in the United States and humanity as a whole. Davis became especially vocal in 2011, when she participated in a delegation and witnessed the horrors of Israeli occupation and settler colonialism.

In this 27 October clip, Davis spoke with African pro-Palestine activist, Marc Lamont Hill. She quoted African activist, June Jordan, who stood up for Palestine during the 1960s and 1970s, when so few in the United States did so. ‘Palestine,’ Davis said, ‘is a moral litmus test.’ Furthermore, she highlighted stark parallels between apartheid South Africa and occupied Palestine.

Continued….Israel had provided the apartheid state with various forms of support. In turn, the Zionist state learned from the South African method and perfected its violent methods. No wonder Davis also pointed out South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela’s vocal opposition to the Israeli oppression of Palestine.

Let us know if you agree with Davis.

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Zimbabwe has the largest lithium reserves in Africa and is among the top lithium producers in the world. Until recently, though, the nation hadn’t really been cashing in. Lithium exports have grown tremendously over the years, rising from $1.8 million in 2018 to $70 million in 2022 - and to a staggering $209 in the first nine months of 2023. Last December, the Zimbabwean government banned the export of raw lithium to encourage investment in local processing facilities.

It approved a lithium-ore policy to consolidate the country's beneficiation strategy, meant to push miners to agree to smelt their output on Zimbabwean soil rather than export raw material overseas. Chinese firms - including Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, Sinomine Resource Group, Chengxin Lithium Group, Yahua Group and Canmax Technologies - have spent more than $1 billion over the past two years on acquiring and developing lithium projects in the country.

Continued….Cash-strapped Zimbabwe has been buckling under the weight of Western sanctions but is increasingly looking to the mining sector, which contributes almost 20% to the country’s $66 billion GDP, to help solve its budgetary constraints. Lithium is set to become the nation’s third-biggest mineral export after gold and platinum, which registered $2.46 billion and $2.27 billion respectively in export receipts last year.

A decade ago, President Robert Mugabe made headlines by forcing the country’s platinum miners to refine their product in-country, rather than exporting raw material for processing in South Africa, in return for a sweetened deal on an indigenisation law that required mining firms to hand over a majority of their shares to Black Zimbabweans. It appears Zimbabwe is finally starting to live up to its potential.

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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GERMANY ISSUES APOLOGY FOR COLONIAL-ERA ABUSES

A day after the UK’s unelected head of state, King Charles, refused to apologise for Britain’s atrocities during his long-awaited trip to Kenya, Germany did the opposite in Tanzania. During a visit, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier extended apologies for colonial-era atrocities and to the descendants of local war hero Songea Mbano. He was hanged and beheaded, alongside his fighters, for staging the Maji-Maji rebellion against German forces in the early 1900s.

Germany’s colonisation of Tanganyika, the name of present-day Tanzania, was marked by the same level of depraved violence characteristic of European colonisation throughout Africa. During the Maji-Maji rebellion, for instance, Germany killed as many as 300,000 Africans, nearly a third of Tanganyika’s population. The German colonial government also forced indigenous people to work on plantations and in mines, often under dangerous conditions.

Continued…..Germany carried out mass executions of suspected rebels and dissidents and burned villages and crops.
However, Tanzanians speaking out on social media want more than an apology. They want cash to the families of those who suffered.
To compensate for the early 20th-century genocide in Namibia, where more than 100,000 Herero people and 10,000 Namaqua people were massacred, Germany promised to pay around $1.3 billion. But it will be spread across different projects over 30 years. The genocide of Jews during World War II, in comparison, has been compensated to the tune of more than $86 billion. Despite the genocide in Namibia occurring decades before the Jewish genocide, Namibia reparations were announced in 2021, while Jewish reparations were given nearly immediately after the war.

But is it a case with Tanzania and Namibia of better late than never? Let us know in the comments.

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CHARLIE WON’T SAY SORRY

The destructive legacy of Britain in Kenya has loomed large over King Charles’s four-day visit. But he’s again stopped short of giving an official apology for his country’s colonial crimes.

Countless voices have called for one together with reparations - pointing to land dispossession, murder, torture, and concentration camps at the hands of the British. However, as usual, London struggles to accept its history.

Maybe Charlie fears how much it could cost the country he rules over. An apology could open the floodgates to compensation claims everywhere. In Kenya, for example, Samburu elders are demanding tens of millions of dollars.

Continued….Then there’s the Caribbean where millions of Africans were shipped as part of the transatlantic slave trade (real name European slave trade). And we haven’t even mentioned India, where it’s estimated the British Empire syphoned trillions of dollars of wealth.

Interestingly, the king arrived in Nairobi on the birthday of Dedan Kimathi - the leader of the Mau Mau resistance movement which the British violently suppressed in the 1950s.

It should have been a fitting occasion to say the hardest word.

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BURKINA FASO NATIONALISES SUGAR

Burkina Faso appears to be having a relatively great year! For even more good news from this Sahelian state in west Africa, President Ibrahim Traoré’s administration has announced it will be nationalising the sugar sector. The SN SOSUCO sugar company, which was once state-owned, was privatised during the term of the counterrevolutionary president, Blaise Compaoré (1987-2014). Now, Burkina Faso’s largest employer will be back in the hands of the people, providing even more jobs and benefiting the local economy.

Let us know what you think of Burkina Faso’s latest move.

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ISRAELI POLICE ATTACK ULTRA-ORTHODOX JEWS

Watch the moment Israeli police attack ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem.

The incident occurred on November 1st, in the anti-Zionist Jewish neighbourhood of Mea Shearim. Israeli policemen were filmed knocking a resident to the ground and beating him, as well as hitting and shoving bystanders.

Police violence against ultra-Orthodox Jews is not new and tensions with the community are high. One reason is that they are against conscription, the illegal expansion of settlements and the far-right government’s war-mongering.

Continued…..Ultra-Orthodox Jews both inside and outside of Israel are often staunch supporters of Palestinian statehood, and anti-Zionist in principle - criticising their current government, as well as the actions that brought about the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

Despite the epicentre of Israel’s war being Gaza, tensions in the West Bank and Jerusalem have mounted, with videos and reports suggesting that Israel is arming extremist settlers and carrying out operations and alleged extra-judicial killings against Palestinians across the land.

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DO AFRICANS IN U.S. & GAZANS FACE SIMILAR RISKS?

Black nationalist and Nation of Islam chief Louis Farrakhan has warned that Africans in America are vulnerable in ways that Palestinians in Gaza are.

Speaking at the recent, virtually convened 9th Nubian Leadership Circle, the influential religious figure observed that African communities in America are not in control of basics like water and electricity.

This means that - if those communities are ever deemed a threat by the prevailing (White-centric) system - they can be denied access to these essentials, just as Tel Aviv has cut off Palestinians in Gaza.

He goes further: control of roads means control of food deliveries, so Black-majority cities like Jackson and Detroit could be starved like Gaza.

Continued…..Farrakhan even indicates that there is a risk of targeted poisonings - via the contamination of food and water supplies serving African communities in America - claiming that “death is what they want for you”!

There’s a lot in this clip, some of the claims perhaps more surprising than others. Which of his points do you agree with?

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BEHEADED BY THE BRITISH

King Charles is in Kenya, but won’t apologise for the many crimes committed there in his family’s name.

In the Rift Valley, as the British were constructing a railway to Uganda, they met stiff resistance from the Nandi community, led by Orkoiyot (chief) Koitalel Arap Samoei. They sprang a trap for him - inviting him to negotiations, only to kill and behead him when he came. His head was sent to London as a trophy.

His people have not forgotten, nor forgiven. As calls for a reckoning from other quarters of the independence struggle overshadow King Charles’ visit, Koitalel’s descendants too are calling for compensation and the return of his skull.

Britain is not willing to go that far, not even an apology. For now, the king says he feels regret - but claims there’s nothing he can do to change the past.

Do you think there’s nothing he can do?

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MONEY FOR ISRAEL, NOTHING FOR AFRICANS

Why does the United States give so much money to Israel while refusing to pay reparations to African people? The answer is simple: Supporting Israel advances US imperial interests, but the same cannot be said about reparations. African people kidnapped and trafficked to the United States during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (real name European slave) were not brought over to be made citizens. They were meant to be exploited. Time and time again. It's hard to put a figure on how much is owed on generations of exploitation, enslavement, and other impacts of white supremacy that Africans in the United States have survived.