<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Editorials</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/africa/editorials?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><description>Editorials</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[A Strongman's Test]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59556-2005Apr16.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59556-2005Apr16.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  SINCE HIS REBEL army seized power in Uganda 19 years ago, Yoweri Museveni has emerged as one of Africa's heroes. Intelligent, witty and supremely confident in his abilities, he has led a government that cut poverty by 40 percent in the 1990s, achieving East Asian-style progress, even though his small and landlocked nation borders unstable Sudan, Congo and Rwanda and faces a murderous insurgency in its north. But now Mr. Museveni is risking his legacy. He is pushing for a constitutional change that would allow him to run for another five-year term as president.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Doing Better by Darfur]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42670-2005Apr10.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42670-2005Apr10.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  LAST JUNE Secretary of State Colin L. Powell visited Sudan in an attempt to stop the Darfur genocide. Sudan's government rewarded him with promises to rein in its allies in the Janjaweed death squads; to stop impeding humanitarian access to Darfur; and to open political talks with Darfur's rebels. None of these concessions worked. The promise to rein in the Janjaweed turned out to be hollow. The improvement in humanitarian access was real but incomplete and impermanent. Negotiations between the government and rebels have gone nowhere. The upshot of Mr. Powell's visit was that mass killing continued, and Darfur's death toll is likely to be even more appalling this year than last.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Zimbabwe Votes]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11314-2005Mar29.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11314-2005Mar29.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  IT'S EASY TO SEE why Zimbabwe's Archbishop Pius Ncube calls for a "people power" uprising in his country. The parliamentary elections on Thursday  have been rigged so comprehensively that it's unlikely  President Robert Mugabe will be unseated no matter how much his 25 years in office have harmed his countrymen. At least  1 million of the 5.7 million names on Zimbabwe's voter rolls are thought to be fictitious; the ballot boxes are made of transparent plastic; the polling stations will be run by pro-Mugabe thugs from  his security forces. The campaign, though less violent than some previously, has featured brutal intimidation. People have been told that districts that support the opposition will be denied food distributions, a potent threat in a country where one-third of the population is on the verge of hunger. The main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has been forced to defend himself against treason charges, and   recently  more than 200 of his supporters were arrested after attending his rallies. "I hope that people get so disillusioned that they really organize against the government and kick him out by a nonviolent, popular, mass uprising," Archbishop Ncube told a South African newspaper over the weekend.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[An Opportunity in Darfur]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50360-2005Mar19.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50360-2005Mar19.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  DURING A VISIT to The Post on Tuesday, Sudan's U.S. ambassador, Khidir Ahmed, stated that his government wanted more African Union peacekeepers in the territory of Darfur, where some 300,000 civilians have perished. Moreover, he claimed, his government would be happy for this force to have a clearer mandate to protect civilians rather than being limited to monitoring the ostensible cease-fire in the province. These declarations stand in contrast to Sudan's previous policy of opposing a strong mandate, of hampering the African Union's movements by denying fuel for its helicopters and even of shooting at one of its aircraft in December. The United States and its allies should take Sudan's new position at face value and organize an expanded peacekeeping mission quickly.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Kifaya' in Egypt]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35379-2005Mar14.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35379-2005Mar14.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   AYMAN NOUR, the Egyptian opposition leader jailed in January while campaigning for democratic reform, is  free on bail. Having angered President Hosni Mubarak by calling for a democratic presidential election this year, Mr. Nour can now  launch his own candidacy under a constitutional reform the 76-year-old autocrat abruptly announced two weeks ago. It's too early, however, to anticipate a Cairo Spring. Mr. Mubarak's proposed reform, like his release of Mr. Nour, is an act of minimalism intended to deflect domestic and international pressure. The Bush administration, which played an important role in obtaining Mr. Nour's freedom, should join the Egyptian democrats who are telling the regime that its concessions aren't sufficient.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Increments That Kill]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22100-2005Mar9.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22100-2005Mar9.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   IT'S BEEN A YEAR since the world woke up to the mass killings in the  Darfur region of Sudan, and six months since the Bush administration termed them "genocide." Revulsion at the death toll, which stands at an estimated 300,000, has produced a humanitarian relief effort and the deployment of 1,900 armed cease-fire monitors by the African Union; both responses have saved lives. But Darfur's people still live in fear of rape, murder and starvation; perhaps 10,000 of them die monthly. And the worst of it all is the low-tech nature of this butchery. Sudan's government has armed a primitive militia that goes about on horses and camels; the government has supported the militia with rudimentary airpower, which NATO could cripple easily. So many lives could be saved with relatively little Western effort. But the killing continues.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mr. Mubarak's Concession]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58775-2005Feb27.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58775-2005Feb27.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  IT'S NOT YET CLEAR whether Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak intends to allow a genuinely democratic election for president later this year. But the 76-year-old ruler's dramatic announcement Saturday of a constitutional reform demonstrated, at least, that democratic elections in Iraq and the Palestinian Authority, and pressure from President Bush, have delegitimized the usual routines of Arab autocracy. Until last week the Egyptian leader had been intent on granting himself another six years as president through an uncontested and unmonitored "referendum," a device he has used four times in his 24 years in office. Just last month Mr. Mubarak called proposals to change the system "futile" and jailed a leading proponent of them, Ayman Nour. But with an unprecedented protest movement still growing at home and mounting pressure from the Bush administration, the Egyptian president has been compelled to at least, to take a step toward a democratic system. Now it will be the challenge of Egypt's democracy advocates, and of the United States, to press for a change that will create democracy in substance and not just in name.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Egypt's Brutal Answer]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48688-2005Feb23.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48688-2005Feb23.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   ON MONDAY President Bush again called on Egypt to "lead the way" toward democratic change in the Middle East. Apparently Hosni Mubarak, the country's leader for the past 24 years, wasn't listening. Later that same day, Mr. Mubarak's agents renewed their "interrogation" of Ayman Nour, the imprisoned head of the liberal Tomorrow Party. Six hours later -- at 1 a.m. -- Mr. Nour, a diabetic with a history of heart trouble, was "sweating, vomiting and holding his left arm," his wife told the Reuters news agency. Authorities refused his doctor's request that he be hospitalized; instead, he was taken Tuesday to a prison clinic. The Egyptian Human Rights Organization has issued a statement warning that Mr. Nour's life is in danger. Mr. Mubarak's relationship with the United States, and the U.S. aid that props up his regime, should be in danger too.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hollow on Darfur]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33517-2005Feb17.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33517-2005Feb17.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THE BUSH administration has circulated a draft United Nations resolution on Sudan's conflict, aimed principally at underpinning the recent peace agreement between the government and rebels in the south. Given the sex crimes committed by U.N. peacekeepers in Congo, it's good that the proposed U.N. deployment in Sudan is coupled with a requirement that the United Nations monitor peacekeepers' conduct; the Congo scandal has damaged the United Nations' image in Africa as much as the oil-for-food scandal has damaged its  reputation in the United States. But the hard questions about the new resolution concern Darfur, Sudan's western province, where the Bush administration has determined that the government's policies amount to genocide. The draft resolution includes a useful call for targeted sanctions against suspected war criminals but sidesteps the most urgent challenge: to get a significant peacekeeping force into Darfur.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Africa's 'Huge Blot']]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30940-2005Feb16.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30940-2005Feb16.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   ROBERT MUGABE, Zimbabwe's 80-year-old dictator, refers to the U.S. secretary of state as a "girl" who ought to know that "the white man is not a friend."  He also regards Zimbabwe's long-suffering people as children who shouldn't be trusted with a say in their own country. He rigged elections in 2000 and 2002. The parliamentary election scheduled for March 31 looks likely  to be no better.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Egypt's Test for Mr. Bush]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55673-2005Feb1.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55673-2005Feb1.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   "DEMOCRATIC reformers facing repression, prison or exile can know: America sees you for who you are -- the future leaders of your free country," President Bush said in his inaugural address. "When you stand for your liberty we will stand with you." It didn't take long for that promise to be tested. On Saturday Egyptian police arrested and roughed up Ayman Nour, the dynamic young leader of a new opposition party calling for liberal democracy in that strategic Middle Eastern country. On Monday Mr. Nour was ordered to jail for 45 days on a patently bogus charge of forgery. To Egyptians, his real offense was obvious: offering a moderate democratic alternative to the corrupt dictatorship of President Hosni Mubarak.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA['For the Triumph of Evil']]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45973-2005Jan28.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45973-2005Jan28.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  N EXT WEEK the U.N.  Security Council will consider whether to refer the genocide in the Sudanese region of Darfur to international prosecutors. Many U.N. members would like to bring in the International Criminal Court (ICC), a fledgling institution whose authority they are keen to bolster. The Bush administration would prefer to create a new, ad hoc court, believing that the ICC is an unaccountable posse of lawyers who may one day seek to indict American service members. Neither side should let the dispute over the choice of court get in the way of the objective that both profess to share:  holding Sudan's war criminals accountable. But it's even more important that the prosecution of war crimes should not be mistaken for an adequate policy on Darfur.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Enough' in Egypt]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16727-2005Jan17.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16727-2005Jan17.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   JUST TWO DAYS after the Palestinian presidential election, in which multiple candidates freely competed for votes, an Egyptian official delivered a contrasting piece of news: The ruling party, he said, intended to nominate President Hosni Mubarak to run unopposed this fall for a sixth consecutive term. If confirmed, that would mean the perpetuation of the dictatorship that has ruled Egypt for more than 50 years,  nearly half of them under  Mr. Mubarak, who is now 76. Though they can hardly be surprised, Egyptians can only be frustrated by Mr. Mubarak's refusal to liberalize a political system that has brought them decades of economic stagnation and rampant corruption while nourishing Islamic extremists, including many of the leaders of al Qaeda.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Peace in Sudan]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5296-2005Jan12.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5296-2005Jan12.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   AFTER 22 YEARS of war and an estimated 2 million deaths, Sudan's Islamic government signed a peace deal on Sunday with the country's southern rebels. The agreement represents a concession, on paper at least, by the government. It has dropped its policy of imposing <em>sharia </em>law on the Christian and animist peoples of the south. It has agreed that southerners should hold a referendum, to be conducted in 2011, on whether to secede or remain part of the country. It has promised the south 50 percent of the nation's oil revenue and a measure of regional autonomy; it has awarded the rebel leader, John Garang, the title of vice president. Reports from Juba, the southern capital, describe delighted crowds cheering their erstwhile enemy, President Omar Hassan Bashir, who visited to celebrate the peace deal Monday. Some 4 million displaced people may now get the option to return home. One of the world's most destructive conflicts may finally have ended.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Shift on Darfur]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28008-2004Dec26.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28008-2004Dec26.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THE BUSH administration signaled a new course on Sudan last week, and none too soon. A month ago it made the mistake of turning the diplomatic spotlight away from Darfur, where Sudan's government is perpetrating genocide, to peace talks between the government and rebels in the south. But now Stuart Holliday, the administration's third-ranking representative at the United Nations, has suggested that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan should visit Darfur to refocus the world's attention on the genocide. Mr. Holliday and Mr. Annan have also revived discussion of U.N. sanctions on Sudan's government.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Straight Talk]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A96-2004Dec14.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A96-2004Dec14.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  MOVEMENT TOWARD economic and political liberalization has slowed in much of the Arab Middle East. Saudi Arabia, awash in tens of billions of dollars thanks to high oil prices, has watered down or frozen the reform programs its spokesmen were promoting a year ago; some would-be reformers are in jail. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has appeased the Bush administration by casting himself as a champion of Palestinian accommodation to Israel instead of Egyptian accommodation to a free press or elections. The violence in Iraq has hardly been an advertisement for Western-style democracy,  and the Bush administration itself has been modest in its efforts, dedicating far less funding to its Broader Middle East and North Africa  Initiative than to more prosaic aid programs elsewhere.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Failure in Congo]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60144-2004Dec12.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60144-2004Dec12.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  ONE OF THE MOST costly wars  of  the past half-century is on the brink of resuming: There are reports of heavy fighting around eastern towns in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some say the army of neighboring Rwanda has again invaded, as its government threatened it would do last month. Congo's government is sending its own troops to the area; refugees are once again on the move. Last week the U.N. Security Council  issued a stern warning to Rwanda and threatened unspecified "further actions" if it did not withdraw. Yet if Congo once again becomes a regional battleground, the United Nations will have mainly itself to blame.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Middle East Stirrings]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58248-2004Dec11.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58248-2004Dec11.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THE MONTH since Yasser Arafat's death has seen an encouraging flurry of movement on all sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinians have scheduled elections for president next month, and polls show a surge of support for the moderate leadership that succeeded Mr. Arafat. The Israeli government quickly agreed to facilitate the elections, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon won approval from his Likud Party to form a centrist government to implement his proposed withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Violence has tapered off, though not ceased, and there are reports that Egyptian efforts to broker a formal cease-fire by Palestinian militants may at last succeed. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and other Arab leaders have signaled an intent to promote a settlement more actively than before. Remarkably, Mr. Mubarak launched a frontal attack on the Arab world's conventional wisdom by publicly endorsing Mr. Sharon's "ability to move along the peace process."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Inaction's Consequence]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49802-2004Dec8.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49802-2004Dec8.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   LAST MONTH the United States and its allies signaled a change in Sudan policy. Rather than pressuring Sudan's government to halt its genocidal attacks against civilians in the western province of Darfur, they switched to pushing for a peace deal between the government and southern rebels. This change in  priorities was a mistake. Although the north-south war has killed an estimated 2 million people over the past two decades, it is now in abeyance; by contrast, Darfur's conflict, pitting the government against three semi-organized rebel factions, is fueling malnutrition, disease and violence that are claiming thousands of lives each month. By emphasizing north-south talks, the United States risked sending a signal that the genocide in Darfur might be tolerated.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Controlling Diamonds]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18821-2004Nov28.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18821-2004Nov28.html?nav=rss_world/africa/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:18:49 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   AT THE START of 2003, an impressive effort to govern globalization got underway: The international diamond trade, which had fueled civil wars and international crime, became subject to a regulatory system backed by the United Nations and known as the Kimberley Process. An unlikely alliance of governments, the diamond industry and constructive nongovernmental organizations united behind two simple ideas: Freshly mined diamonds should be sealed in registered containers that certify their country of origin, and diamond importers should not accept unregistered gems that might profit insurgents or criminals. Diamonds from conflict areas have sustained guerrillas in Liberia, Congo, Angola and Sierra Leone; they are thought to form part of terrorist financial networks.]]></description><author></author></item></channel></rss>