The Congo Series was first broadcast on AfroBeatRadio on WBAI between April and May, 2009. In that series, we examined various aspects of the conflict in the DR Congo by talking to activists, scholars, and Congolese citizens.

This is a record of our conversation with Dr. Georges Nzogola-Ntalaja, Professor of African Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He discusses the history of the Congo, the Atlantic Slave trade of the 16th to 19th century, the 19th century Indian ocean slave trade, King Leopold’s Congo and the Belgian Congo, US strategic interests, and DRC’s difficult search for democracy.

Tunisia’s President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali has been forced out of office by a mass movement characterized by widespread protests and anti-government demonstrations. Ben Ali is only the second Tunisian president since the country won independence from France and has been in office for 23 years.  Until recently, Tunisia was considered a beacon of stability in the Maghreb, but a state of emergency was declared in the midst of nationwide protests over unemployment, rising food and housing prices, corruption, and authoritarianism.
The official death toll in almost a month of violence …

Abdul Azziz Billow Ali, AfrobeatRadio East Africa correspondent sends in images of South Sudanese voters in Kenya.

Are peace and self-determination possible for the Sudanese people, despite troops amassing in both north and south, and vast oil wealth, concentrated in the South and coveted by competitive foreign powers?
Ann Garrison reports on Sudan Referendum January Sat 8, on WBAI 99.5 FM NY, streaming live @ WBAI.Org at 4:00 PM EST. Guests: Mugume D. Rwakaringi, Rev. Dr. Nikita Imani, Peter Erlinder, Milton Allimadi.

On New Year’s Eve, I spoke to Olara Otunnu for KPFA News about children in armed conflict regions, as the holiday season closed. Olara is a Ugandan lawyer and human rights advocate, who served as President of the International Peace Academy from 1990-1998, as UN Under-Secretary General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict  from 1997 to 2005, then as President of the LBL Foundation for Children based in New York City.
This is the complete conversation, not only about children in armed conflict regions, but also about Uganda, Uganda’s …

This post began as an online collection of Christmas and New Yeer’s wishes for Rwandan opposition leaders Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza and Bernard Ntaganda, and for the Rwandan people, and African people of the wider region, who have suffered such brutal dictatorship and exploitation for so long. We’ve transferred it to Afrobeat to encourage everyone to continue sending their wishes, thoughts and plans to Victoire and Bernard here, for as long as they remain behind bars.

The international Chief prosecutor based in The Hague has issued in a press briefing from Netherlands the names of six prominent people behind the post poll violence that rocked Kenya in 2007. They include Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta, currently Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance; former Higher education minister William Ruto; Henry Kiprono Kosgey, currently minister of Industrialization; Francis Kirimi Muthaura, Head of the Public Service and Secretary to the Cabinet and Chairman of the National Security Advisory Committee; Mohamed Hussein Ali, currently Chief Executive of the Postal Corporation of Kenya; and Joshua Arap Sang, currently Head of Operations, KASS FM.

Ever since the death of Bob Marley, reggae music has found itself in a downward spiral musically and lyrically as it transformed itself into dancehall. Where once there was melody and harmony, there is now aggressive, rhythmic monotony. Where once there were odes to pan-African unity and universal love, there are now sexually vulgar lyrics and incitement to murder, specifically of gays.
Things have started to turn around. It began with boycotts and protests of the “artists” who attempted to tour in North America and Europe. Human rights groups such as Outrage, J-Flag and the Black Gay Men’s Advisory Group …

Now Congo has an anti-gay bill on the table, proposed less than 30 days after release of the UN Mapping Report on war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Congo, 1993-2003, ongoing crimes because of impunity. I.e., ongoing because the perpetrators have never been prosecuted, never been “brought to book.”
This may be the most ridiculous distraction from the report yet, even more ridiculous even than Rwanda’s charges against Peter Erlinder, Paul Rusesabagina, and Victoire Ingabire, who now sits in Kigali’s infamous 1930 Prison, in pink prison garb, with her head shaved …

President Paul Kagame made international headlines as a mass murderer after the UN report accused his forces of Hutu mass massacres in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And some of his former officers including Col. Patrick Karegeya and Major Alphonse Furuma have recently accused him of mass killings during the 1990-94 war, and for assassinating opposition politicians abroad. But the world has more to learn.