Africa

Hannah Wood reviews Hotel Rwanda Hotel Rwanda tells the true story of Paul Rusesabagina (played by Don Cheadle), manager of the Hotel des Milles Collines in Kigali, Rwanda, at the time of the 1994 genocide. It is the story of one man’s personal courage and determination to save as many people as he could in the face of the horrors of genocidal massacres all around him. The role of Rusesabagina is powerfully and movingly portrayed by Cheadle and doubtless this film will bring the events of April-June 1994 in Rwanda to the attention of many, many people who paid little attention at the time...

By Paul Hampton The demand to “make poverty history” is winning wide resonance this year and nowhere is it more relevant than in Africa, where the majority of people subsist on $1 a day. But the Commission for Africa report published last week shows how little the ruling class are prepared to do to help the majority of Africans. The Commission for Africa was appointed last year by Tony Blair. When the G8 meets at Gleneagles in Scotland in July, Blair says he wants Africa on the agenda, with the report centre-stage. The Commission’s 460-page report published on 11 March is full of catchy sound...

Why are the G8 bothered about Africa? A report by the Council on Foreign Relations (a right-wing US think-tank) published last year sheds light on the real issues involved. The report, Freedom, Prosperity and Security, aptly sums up the interests of G8 governments and their business supporters. It says: “Africa’s poverty, marginalisation and security all impinge on the well being and security of the G8 countries”. Security is a primary motive. The report says: “Security concerns are becoming especially important in Africa”. It points to terrorist attacks in 1998 on US embassies in Nairobi and...

By Paul Hampton The Make Poverty History rally in Trafalgar Square on 3 February launched a year of campaigning on Africa. Make Poverty History is a coalition of over 200 charities, campaigns, trade unions and others that is calling for “trade justice, drop the debt and more and better aid”. The focus on Africa is important because the continent remains desperately poor. Despite over ten per cent of the world’s population living there, Africa is the only continent in the world where income per head has been in decline in the last twenty years and where nearly half its people live on less than...

A lot of people have been disturbed and sickened by the suffering from famine in Africa. Some rock stars have felt the same way. The have got together — under the name of Band Aid — to put out a record, “Feed the World”. All proceeds will go directly to the starving in Ethiopia. Steps have been taken to prevent a repetition of the Bangladesh fiasco when very little of the money raised by George Harrison got beyond embezzlement by state bureaucrats. A very good and well meaning idea. But the record itself is almost unbelievably bad. The lyrics are so inane as to be insulting. “Do they know it’s...

The media’s exclusive focus on the crisis on Sudan is no accident. When it’s an “Arab” militia involved it’s a bad genocide, when it’s puppet governments doing the genocide for the benefit of western corporations, no-one gets to know about it. Since 1997 the population of the Kalahari region of Botswana have been forcefully removed from their homes by the government and the remaining people have had their water supplies turned off. The eviction sites are known as “Places of Death”, alcoholism and AIDS is rife. As soon as the evictions had taken place the area was carved up for diamond...