AFRIKAN WORLDVIEW NEWS ROUND-UP
~ EBOLA OUTBREAK IN GUINEA
Over 100 people have passed away from an Ebola outbreak centred on the south-east of Guinea-Conakry but also affecting the capital and several of the neighbouring countries in the region. Ebola is spread by close contact and kills between 25% and 90% of victims. An infected person, who may not show symptoms for up to 21 days, can pass on the disease through direct contact. The tropical virus leads to haemorrhagic fever, causing muscle pain, weakness, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in severe cases, organ failure and unstoppable bleeding. Patients frequently become dehydrated and so they should drink solutions containing electrolytes or receive intravenous fluids. The disease has no known cure and no vaccine, so the main advice to people from health officials is to keep one’s environment clean and wash hands regularly. All homes now have bowls or buckets filled with disinfectant at their entrance for both inhabitants and visitors to wash their hands. Many health workers - including at least three doctors - were amongst the first victims. Funeral corteges are getting smaller due to a fear of infection by someone who has had contact with a corpse. The outbreak of Ebola which started in January had centred on Guinea’s remote south-eastern forest region of Nzerekore but the West Afrikan state has been battling to contain the outbreak after cases were reported in areas that are hundreds of kilometres apart.
Liberia has recorded a total of ten deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. Liberia’s Health Minister Walter Gwenigale warned people to stop having sex because the virus was spread via bodily fluids. This was in addition to existing advice to stop shaking hands and kissing. In the Liberian capital Monrovia many supermarket workers are wearing gloves as a precaution. Sierra Leone has reported five suspected cases, none of which have been confirmed yet. Travellers have to fill out a questionnaire and indicate if they have suffered from a fever, vomiting or diarrhoea in the last two weeks. The authorities have also banned relatives from bringing corpses into Sierra Leone from Guinea for burial.
The outbreak is also affecting business. In Senegal weekly markets near Guinea’s border have been suspended to prevent the spread of the disease and the land border with Guinea has been closed until further notice, Hundreds of people and their merchandise are stranded in vehicles on the Guinean side. Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour cancelled a concert in Conakry because of the outbreak saying he did not want to heighten the risk of infection in large crowds. Some flights have been affected as well: Air Mauritania has refused to fly Guinean passengers in transit in Dakar to Conakry due to the outbreak. Mali reported nine suspected cases but medical tests showed that two of them did not have Ebola.
In many countries of the region the governments have advised people not to consume bush meat but it has not been banned and is still on sale. Bats, a local delicacy in the south, are thought be carriers of the virus and their sale and consumption has been banned by health ministries. Saudi Arabia suspended visas for Muslim pilgrims from Guinea and Liberia. The preventive measure came at the request of the Saudi health ministry due to the danger of the disease and its highly contagious nature. At least seven patients infected with Ebola in Guinea have recovered from the virus and been allowed to return home.
Abubakar Shariff Ahmed (Makaburi)
~ KENYAN POLICE ROUND-UP AND DEPORT SOMALIS AFTER NAIROBI BLASTS
At least 4000 Somalis have been arrested and several deported from Kenya following explosions that killed six people. Police chief David Kimaiyo said about 200 of them were thought to be sympathisers of the Islamist group al-Shabab. The rest of those arrested were being screened to determine any possible terrorist links and their refugee status. Most of the arrests took place in the mainly Somali neighbourhood of Eastleigh in the capital Nairobi, which was hit by three blasts during rush-hour on the last Monday in March. The blasts targeted a clinic and two small restaurants in Eastleigh. Ugandans, South Sudanese, Ethiopians and Eritreans were also among those being held. The UNHCR has condemned the arrests.
A week earlier more than 100 people were arrested following an attack on a church near the coastal city of Mombasa when gunmen killed six people. Kenya’s government has ordered all Somali refugees living in towns to move into designated camps in a bid to end the attacks. President Uhuru Kenyatta has said Kenya’s tourism sector is on its knees because of the threat from Islamists. The day after the blasts a radical Muslim cleric, Abubakar Shariff Ahmed, was shot dead outside the coastal city of Mombasa. Mr Shariff, known as Makaburi (‘Graveyard’ in Swahili), had been sanctioned by the UN Security Council who considered the cleric ‘a leading facilitator and recruiter of young Kenyan Muslims for violent militant activity in Somalia’, a claim he always denied. He is the third Muslim cleric to be killed in Mombasa since 2012. Riots broke out in parts of the city as news of the cleric’s killing spread.
Meanwhile in Somalia two United Nations were shot dead inside Galkayo Airport after getting off a plane by an attacker dressed in a police uniform. The men were working for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the UN confirmed.
Somali fishermen have been issued with official ID cards to help distinguish them from pirates. At least 2,000 cards have been handed out to fishermen in the Puntland region of Somalia in the last two months by the Ministry for Fisheries and Marine Resources. About 4,000 fishermen in total should receive their identity cards by the end of April.
~ ICC SUMMONS RELUCTANT KENYAN WITNESSES
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has summoned reluctant witnesses to testify at the trial of Kenya’s Vice-President William Ruto. It said the Kenyan government had an obligation to serve ICC subpoenas on the eight witnesses. Mr Ruto denies charges of organising ethnic violence after the 2007 election in which around 1,200 people died. The withdrawal of witnesses has affected several other ICC cases related to the Kenya poll violence. Mr Ruto is currently the most senior serving government official to be tried by the ICC. He is on trial alongside Joshua arap Sanga, who as head of a Kalenjin-language radio station is accused of whipping up ethnic hatred in the aftermath of the election - a charge he denies. Last year, charges were dropped against Kenya’s former civil service head Francis Muthaura as some witnesses were too frightened to testify and another witness withdrew his testimony. Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta is also due to stand trial over allegations of orchestrating the post-election violence when 600,000 people were displaced. His trial had been delayed until October to allow the prosecution time to collect more evidence following the loss of two key witnesses. Mr Ruto and Mr Kenyatta were on opposite sides of the 2007 election, but formed an alliance for the 2013 election. The Kenyan government - backed by the African Union (AU) - has pushed for the cases to be dropped.
~ SOUTH SUDAN CONFLICT CONTINUES
South Sudan has sent reinforcements to the UN base at Bor after 58 people - both refugees and UN peacekeepers – were killed by attackers in ongoing fighting. The violence started last December between pro-government forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and soldiers backing former vice-president Riek Machar, President Kiir accused Mr Machar of plotting a coup, which he denies. A ceasefire was agreed between the two sides at the end of January, but they have accused each other of violating it. More than one million people have fled their homes since the conflict began, while nearly one-third of South Sudan’s population, about 3.7 million people, are at severe risk of starvation, according to the UN.
Rebel forces in South Sudan have recaptured the oil hub of Bentiu, the capital of Unity state, from the government and oil companies have been ordered to halt operations immediately and evacuate their staff within a week. Unity state is rich in oil, the main foreign exchange earner of South Sudan and production has dropped by 20% since the conflict began. China and Russia are among the major investors in South Sudan’s oil industry. A UN official in South Sudan, Joe Contreras, said Mongolian peacekeepers rescued 10 staff members from the Russian oil company Safinat north of Bentiu,
~ CAR IN CRISIS
Afrikan and European Union leaders held a summit in Brussels to resolve the conflict in the Central African Republic. The EU has already announced plans to send 1,000 troops to the country and said they would operate in CAR’s capital, Bangui, which is worst-affected by the conflict. The UN has warned that 19,000 Muslims face slaughter across the country. Around 8,000 African Union (AU) and French forces are battling to restore stability after more than a year of conflict since mainly Muslim rebels seized power. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned of ethno-religious cleansing with lynchings, decapitations and sexual violence all going unpunished. Meanwhile, his human rights chief Navi Pillay said during a recent visit to CAR, she was struck by the complete lack of any structures to support law and order in the country. The UN Security Council voted last week to send 12,000 troops to the country where about 1.3 million people - a quarter of the population - are in need of aid.
Chad’s entire contingent of peacekeepers has withdrawn from the CAR following accusations that Chad had aided Muslim rebels in CAR, a charge it denied. Chad had about 850 soldiers in a 6,000-strong AU force battling to end conflict between Christian and Muslim militias. Chad’s President Idriss Deby Itno ordered the pullout after a UN investigation found that Chadian troops opened fire on the population without any provocation in the capital, Bangui, on 29 March. Thirty people were killed and another 300 were injured in the shooting, according to the UN. Chad’s foreign ministry dismissed the findings as malicious and said Chadian troops were being blamed for all the suffering in CAR.
In the latest violence the anti-Balaka militia attacked Seleka positions in Dekoa, about 300km (180 miles) north of Bangui. They said that the fighting escalated when the Seleka called in reinforcements and went on for more than four hours. Most of the victims were civilians who were hit by stray bullets.
~ NIGERIAN ATTACKS
At least 15 civilians were killed in a suicide bombing by suspected Islamist militants in north-east Nigeria. Six of the attackers also died in the explosion, which took place on the outskirts of the city of Maiduguri. Authorities said the Boko Haram group was behind the assault. The explosion happened when a militant blew up a vehicle near a checkpoint in Borno state, the defence ministry said. The blast took place as soldiers were trying to foil the militants’ attempt to drive several vehicles with explosives into a petrol station. Three explosive-laden vehicles were demobilised by shots fired at them by soldiers at the checkpoint. But a fourth car exploded, apparently set off by one of the militants.
Gunmen, believed to be from Boko Haram, have killed 135 civilians in north east Nigeria since Wednesday. Borno state senator Ahmed Zannah said the killings took place in at least three separate attacks in the state. Senator Zannah said the attackers’ first target was a teacher training college in the town of Dikwa. They killed five people there and abducted several women. They burned down the college library before escaping. The militants then attacked two villages near the border with Cameroon killing a further 130 people.
More than 70 people have been killed during the morning rush-hour in a bomb blast at a crowded bus station on the outskirts of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. Eyewitnesses said there were dead bodies scattered around the area. Suspicion immediately fell on the Boko Haram Islamist militant group, which has staged previous attacks in Abuja. Officials earlier said two separate blasts had ripped through the terminal, but later said the damage may have been caused by just one bomb. The blast ripped a hole 4ft deep (1.2m) in the ground of Nyanya Motor Park, some 16km (10 miles) from the city centre causing secondary explosions as their fuel tanks ignited and burned with 16 luxury coaches and 24 minibuses destroyed.
The Nigerian military is joining the search for 99 teenage girls abducted from a school in the remote northeast. It is thought that Boko Haram took them to a forest near the Cameroonian border. The group has kidnapped civilians in the past - usually women to work as sex slaves. Gunmen arrived at the school in Chibok, in Borno state, late on Tuesday and ordered the teenagers who had been sleeping in their hostel on to lorries. Thirty students managed to escape. A local politician said about 50 soldiers were stationed near the school ahead of annual exams but were overpowered. Two members of the security forces were killed and 170 houses were burnt down during the attack.
At least 1,500 lives have been claimed in the restive north-eastern region this year, according to latest figures. Half of those killed were civilians, Amnesty International said in a report released on Monday.
The organisation blamed both ‘an increase in attacks by Boko Haram and uncontrolled reprisals by Nigeria’s security forces’ for the high death toll. A state of emergency has been in place since last year in the states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa in north-east Nigeria. Some 250,000 people have been forced to leave their homes because of the fighting, the Nigerian government’s relief agency said.
Seventy-nine people are said to have been killed in northern Nigeria, in an attack blamed by police on gunmen from the Fulani community. The attack targeted a meeting of community leaders and vigilante groups in Galadima village, Zamfara state. The meeting was discussing action against robbers and cattle rustlers. At least 100 villagers were killed in central Kaduna state last month in an attack that was also linked to a dispute between local farmers and the semi-nomadic Fulani herdsmen.
Nigeria has rebased its gross domestic product (GDP) data, which has pushed it above South Africa as the continent’s biggest economy. Nigerian GDP - which now includes previously uncounted industries such as telecoms, information technology, music, online sales, airlines and film production - for 2013 totalled 80.3 trillion naira (£307.6bn: $509.9bn), the Nigerian statistics office said. That compares with South Africa’s GDP of $370.3bn at the end of 2013. But Nigeria’s economic output is underperforming because at 170 million people, its population is three times larger than South Africa’s. Rebasing is carried out so that a nation’s GDP statistics give the most up-to-date picture of an economy as possible. Most countries do it at least every three years but Nigeria had not updated the components in its GDP base year since 1990. Then, the country had one telecoms operator with around 300,000 phone lines whereas now it has a whole mobile phone industry with tens of millions of subscribers.
~ GADDAFI LOYALISTS FACE TRIAL
A Libyan court has ruled that officials from the era of the late Colonel Gaddafi’s government can be tried via video-link. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who is still being held in Zintan by the militia that captured him, and 36 former officials face a mass trial for their alleged role in trying to repress Libya’s 2011 uprising. Saif and Libya’s former military intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, who is also on trial, have been separately indicted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges. The ICC ruled last year that Libya was able and willing to prosecute Mr al-Senussi, but it was still demanding the transfer of Mr Gadaffi to the Hague. The video-link decision, which only relates to the domestic case, will also apply to other defendants being held in the city of Misrata. There have also been moves by prosecutors for another of Gaddafi’s seven sons, Saadi Gaddafi, to be tried as part of this group. He is also accused of trying to stifle the uprising against his father’s rule. However, his case must first be reviewed by a pre-trial chamber, which will decide if he can be tried with the rest. Saad Gaddafi was recently extradited from Niger where he fled in 2011.
Last Sunday, Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni said he would step down after what he described as a cowardly attack on him and his family by a militia. He had only been appointed last month after his predecessor, Ali Zeidan, was dismissed by parliament for failing to improve security. Jordan’s ambassador to Libya has been abducted by masked gunmen in the capital, Tripoli. Assailants opened fire on Fawaz al-Itan’s vehicle, wounding the driver, as they left his house early on Tuesday. The kidnappers are said to have demanded the release of a Libyan Islamist militant, Mohamed Dersi, who was jailed for life in 2007 for plotting to blow up an airport in Jordan.
Two Libyan oil terminals have reopened, after rebels agreed partially to lift their oil blockade in a deal reached with the government. The terminals of Zueitina and Hariga in the east are now in government hands. Two other ports are due to reopen in the coming weeks. Oil exports have plummeted 80% in the past eight months after the closures of oil ports led by militiamen seeking greater regional autonomy. A failed attempt to sell oil illegally last month triggered the latest round of talks to lift the blockade. Libya’s Minister of Justice, Salah al-Marghani, confirmed the partial lifting of the oil blockades, at a news briefing in the eastern city of Benghazi. Potentially the two ports could increase Libya’s crude oil exports by about 200,000 barrels per day. Mr al-Marghani said the remaining two largest oil terminals in the east, Ras Lanuf and Sidra, would also reopen soon. Under the agreement, the government will pay compensation to the rebels, drop charges against them and reverse its threat of a military offensive.
~ EGYPT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SET FOR LATE MAY
The first round of Egypt’s presidential poll has been set for 26-27 May. Nominations closed on 20 April. The army chief Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, who led the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi in July, resigned and announced his candidature. He is likely to win the presidency, given his crackdown on opponents and the lack of any serious rivals. If he does not win more than 50% in the first round of voting, a second round will be held on 16-17 June. Another candidate is the Nasserist politician Hamdeen Sabahi, who came third in the last presidential elections in 2012. Since Mr Morsi’s overthrow nearly 2,000 people have been killed and thousands of members of Mr Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood have been detained by the coup plotters who have designated the Islamist movement a terrorist group. In the most recent attack a police officer was killed in a bombing in Lebanon Square in Cairo. The Al-Qaeda-linked group, Champions of Jerusalem, have claimed most of the recent bombings and an assassination attempt on Egypt’s Interior Minister although the Sisi regime continually blame most attacks on the Muslim Brotherhood.
A judge in Cairo has upheld three-year jail terms imposed on three major Egyptian activists from the 2011 uprising that led to the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma and Mohamed Adel were jailed in December 2013 for organising an unauthorised protest. They were arrested in November after protesting against a controversial new law that restricts demonstrations. Mr Maher and Mr Adel were founding members of the 6 April Youth Movement, which was prominent in protests to remove President Mubarak. The three were protesting outside the upper house of parliament in late November over a new law that public gatherings of more than 10 people must be authorised. The military government has defended the law, saying it is not intended to limit the right to demonstrate but to protect the rights of protesters. Opponents say the law replaced the recently expired state of emergency and is stricter than the measures in place during the Mubarak era.
~ MALI APPOINTS NEW PM AFTER ENTIRE GOVERNMENT QUITS
A new Prime Minister has been appointed in Mali to succeed Oumar Tatam Ly, who has resigned from office - along with his entire government. Mr Ly was elected last year after a French-led military intervention ended an Islamist takeover. His successor is a former presidential hopeful, Moussa Mara, who had also served as minister of town planning. Mr Mara had been calling for more action to be taken to curb persistent instability in the north. Security remains fragile in the north, the former base of the Islamist rebels who were driven back last year. President Ibrahim Boubakar Keita has been facing international pressure to commence peace talks that could help stability.
France is now winding down its troop presence in the country but says it will continue to deploy forces against pockets of militancy in the north. They were involved in the operation to free five aid workers who were kidnapped by MUJAO in the north of the country in February. Four of those captured worked for the Red Cross. The five were released in a raid near the northern town of Timbuktu and were in good health, the French and Malian presidents said in a joint statement. The two presidents vowed to continue fighting terrorism, organised crime and drug trafficking in the Sahel region of Africa.
~ AFRIKAN MIGRANTS STORM MELILLA-MOROCCO BORDER
On 20 February at least 300 African migrants have stormed a border fence in an attempt to cross into the Spanish territory of Melilla from Morocco, officials say. Morocco security forces clashed with the migrants, leaving 27 people wounded. Ninety-six migrants were arrested, while about 100 managed to cross over, the officials said. Melilla is a major crossing point for sub-Saharan Africans seeking work or asylum in Europe. Together with a second Spanish enclave, Ceuta, it is the European Union’s only land border with Africa. Many of those making the dangerous journey come from Eritrea and Somalia.
Thirteen security force members and 14 migrants were wounded in the clashes, it added in a statement.
A Spanish government spokeswoman said the migrants were “very violent” and had targeted two different sections of the border fence. About 150 African migrants made it into Melilla after a similar assault on the border fence on 17 February. At least 14 migrants drowned in Moroccan waters on 6 February while trying to enter Ceuta by sea. Spain’s interior ministry confirmed on Friday that police fired rubber bullets as the migrants swam into Spanish territory, but denied the shooting contributed to the drowning. Spain is reinforcing the fencing and has sent more policemen to Melilla. Spanish police call it a “human avalanche”. They say that the migrants have learnt to scale the series of border fences in less than a minute.
On 28 February more than 200 Afrikan migrants again scaled the border fence into the Melilla enclave
The migrants, many of whom said they were from Cameroon and Guinea, sang triumphantly as they made their way to the Melilla migrant reception centre. The reception centre is already overcrowded - built for 480, it now houses 1,900 people some in temporary, green, army-style canvas tents.
Apart from washing cars, parked on Melilla’s streets, there are no jobs. The authorities in Melilla say that although most of the migrants will be moved to the Spanish mainland, the majority will be eventually returned to their country of origin. Meanwhile, hundreds of migrants are waiting on a hill in Morocco overlooking Melilla. The migrants beg on the streets of Nador, the main Moroccan city nearby living on a diet of bread and often resort to killing cats and dogs for meat.
~ GUINEA-BISSAU PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
No candidate secured an outright victory in last Sunday’s presidential election in Guinea-Bissau. A run-off vote between the top two contenders will be held on 18 May. Jose Mario Vaz, an ex-finance minister from the main PAIGC party, will face Nuno Gomes Nabiam, a military-backed bureaucrat running as an independent. In the first round, Mr Vaz took 41% of the votes compared to 25% for Mr Nabiam. More than 80% of the electorate turned out to chose from 13 presidential candidates and 15 parties fielding candidates for parliament. In the parliamentary vote, the PAIGC party, which has dominated politics since independence, won 55 of the 102 seats. The Party for Social Renewal (PRS) of former President Kumba Yala, who died earlier this month, took 41 seats. The PAIGC majority in parliament means the leader of that party’s parliamentary list, Domingos Simoes Pereira, will become the next prime minister.
The general elections were the first since a coup in 2012, after which the EU and others suspended aid donations. Guinea-Bissau has a history of coups and no elected leader has served a full term since independence from Portugal in 1974. It is one of the poorest countries in the world and has been further destabilised by the booming trade in illegal drugs from Latin America, in which the country is used as a staging post for the European market. A year ago, the US charged 2012 coup leader Antonio Indjai with drug trafficking and seeking to sell surface-to-air missiles to Colombia’s Farc rebels, to shoot down US patrol helicopters. He has not been extradited.
~ KARIM WADE FACES CORRUPTION CHARGES
A Senegalese court has ruled that Karim Wade, the son of the ex-President Abdoulaye Wade, should stand trial on corruption charges. He was arrested in April 2013 following allegations that he illegally amassed about $1.4bn (£900m) during his father’s 12-year rule. Wade denies wrongdoing but remains in prison. Opposition leader Macky Sall vowed to curb corruption after he was elected president in 2012. Wade refused to answer questions from investigating judges, describing the charges as political and fanciful. During his father’s rule, Karim Wade held several ministerial posts simultaneously, including minister for infrastructure and air transportation. His large portfolio led to him being dubbed ‘the minister of the earth and the sky’ and he was alleged to have acquired several foreign firms by illicit means.
~ AFRIKANS OVERCHARGED ON REMITTANCE FEES
Afrikans are being charged higher fees by money transfer operators. Restricted competition has helped push up charges, according to research by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) who found that average fees of 12% to send $200 (£119) were twice the global average. Fees charged to Africans wishing to send money back amount to a super-tax that could be better spent on education or health, ODI said. Reducing charges to a 5% global target for 2014 set by the G20 would cut fees by $1.8bn (£1.08bn), the ODI said. Western Union and Moneygram account for about two-thirds of remittance payout locations in Africa. In addition, there is a lack of transparency over commercial agreements between money transfer operators (MTOs) and banks, and regulatory practices that restrict market entry, ODI added. When taken as a whole, the average percentage that Moneygram takes for money transfers to Africa from the UK is 5.1%, compared with a global average take of 4.9%. Siddo Deva of Comic Relief said: “Imposing such high remittance fees from hard-earned income is hurting the African diaspora and, more importantly, their families and communities in the countries of origin.”
~ RWANDAN MUSICIAN AND STATION OWNER ARRESTED
One of Rwanda’s best-known musicians - the singer Kizito Mihigo - and Cassien Ntamuhanga, the director of a Christian radio station, have been arrested and accused of links to the South Africa-based Rwanda National Congress (RNC) and Hutu rebels, based in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The RNC was co-founded by Patrick Karegeya, who was found dead in South Africa on New Year’s Day. His political allies, family and South Africa blame the Rwanda’s government which denies responsibility. The police accuse the pair, along with former soldier Jean Paul Dukuzumuremyi, of planning terrorist attacks with the aim of overthrowing the government, assassinating government officials and inciting violence. It is claimed they were working with the FDLR rebels, some of whose leaders took part in the 1994 genocide. Mr Mihigo used to be close to the governing Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and his arrest has come as a surprise to many Rwandans. The United Nations Security Council has heard a proposal to create a special medal for bravery for UN peacekeepers. It was proposed by Jordan’s ambassador to the UN, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, after watching a documentary about Capt Mbaye Diagne, a UN peacekeeper from Senegal who died while working in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. In the first two months of the killings he personally saved the lives of hundreds of Rwandans.
~ NEW YORK POLICE DISBAND MUSLIM ‘EAVESDROPPING’ UNIT
The New York Police Department has disbanded a secret programme designed to eavesdrop on Muslims to identify potential terrorism threats. The Demographics Unit - in operation since 2003 and later renamed the Zone Assessment Unit - dispatched plainclothes detectives to build files on places where Muslims worked, shopped, ate and prayed. The squad had been the subject of two federal lawsuits in the past. It sowed Muslim mistrust for law enforcement. The decision to stop the programme was reportedly made by new Police Commissioner William Bratton, and is viewed as a moving away from past intelligence gathering practices instituted after the 9/11 attacks.
~ NICKY JACOBS BEATS PC BLAKELOCK MURDER CASE
Nicholas Jacobs, 45, was cleared of the murder of PC Keith Blakelock during the Broadwater Farm uprising in October 1985. The case against Jacobs, who was 16 at the time, was so weak to be verging on non-existent. With no forensic evidence the police resorted to framing Mr Jacobs over a rap poem he wrote when he was 18 and giving immunity and paying unreliable informers who had deep and often unresolved psychological, substance abuse and criminal issues who themselves admitted that they took part in the killing of PC Blakelock. Mr Jacobs denounced his own cousin, known as Q, who was giving evidence against him and denied any relation to him in court. The Met arrested a total of 14 people in 2010 on suspicion of involvement in the murder of PC Keith Blakelock or attempted murder of PC Richard Coombes who was beaten unconscious during the rioting. Thirteen were released without charge. Nicky Jacobs is the seventh person to be cleared of the killing after Mark Braithwaite and Engin Raghip were released from prison in a miscarriage of justice case. Three juveniles had their cases discontinued and Winston Silcott received a total of £67,000 in compensation for wrongful conviction, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.
Given that the uprising started after the police assaulted an Afrikan mother Cynthia Jarrett in her own home leading to her demise we await the police pursuing her killers with equal vigour. The police have never apologised for this and should be condemned for their tactics then as now. After the uprising the police scraped up any youth they came across resulting in over 300 getting criminal records. The police locked down the estate for six months denying the residents even access to their postal services and they even took their harassment on to a cultural level banning the playing and curbing the distribution of Junior Delgado’s record ‘Broadwater Farm’. Luckily John Dread put out Al Campbell’s ‘Riot’ and Monty released ‘Tottenham’ to give the Afrikan community around Britain an expression of the real frustrations at police racism and abuse. Two police interrogators - former Det Ch Supt Graham Melvin and ex-Det Insp Maxwell Dingle – were charged and suspended from their jobs for fabricating evidence although they were cleared at the Old Bailey of perverting the course of justice.
~ MARK DUGGAN’S FAMILY TO CHALLENGE INQUEST VERDICT
An inquest verdict that Mark Duggan was lawfully killed when he was shot dead by police can be challenged, it has been ruled. Mr Duggan, 29, was shot in Tottenham, north London, in August 2011.
A judge has ruled that his mother Pamela Duggan has “an arguable case” that should be heard by the Divisional Court in London. Mr Justice Mitting said he was granting “limited permission” to apply for judicial review. A full hearing will take place at the High Court at a later date. The inquest jury concluded that Mr Duggan did not have a gun when he was shot by officers who surrounded a minicab he was travelling in. His aunt Carole Duggan said he had been “executed”.
~ MET CHIEF HOGAN-HOWE DEFENDS LAWRENCE SHREDDING PROBE
Twenty people have been interviewed about the shredding of documents relating to possible police corruption, the Metropolitan Police chief has said. But Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said previous Met commissioners had not been spoken to and it was right “to establish the facts” before they were.
Destruction of files was raised by the Mark Ellison QC in his review of the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation. Four bin bags of material were shredded in 2001. Mr Ellison’s report, published last month, found evidence of “mass shredding” of files relating to Operation Othona - a top-secret anti-corruption initiative within the Met. It also stated that an undercover officer had spied on the Lawrence family, and did not rule out that corruption may have compromised the investigation. Two former Commissioners Lord Stevens - who was commissioner between 2000 and 2005 - and Sir Ian Blair - who was in charge between 2005 and 2008 – have still not given their official accounts of what they knew and when.
~ COCAINE PEAR JUICE DEATH: FIVE PEOPLE RELEASED WITHOUT CHARGE
Five people arrested in connection with the death of a man who accidentally drank pear juice laced with cocaine have been released, police have said. Joromie Lewis, 33, died on 5 December shortly after drinking the Caribbean-made juice at a Southampton warehouse. Two men and a woman from Southampton and two London men were arrested on suspicion of drug offences. No further action will be taken against them. Hampshire Police said its investigation was continuing. Laboratory analysis showed the bottle of Cole Cold Pear-D contained a lethal amount of cocaine. Officers previously said the bottle was part of a consignment manufactured in the Caribbean and brought into the country by the import-export company that Mr Lewis was working for. They described it as a known method used by drug-smugglers to bypass border checks. Mr Lewis, a Royal Navy veteran, lived in Gosport, Hampshire, and originally came from St Vincent and the Grenadines. Police previously described him as “wholly innocent.” A Food Standards Agency alert for shops to withdraw the drink if they find it remains in place.
~ TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO EX-LEADER ARTHUR ROBINSON DIES AT 87
Arthur Robinson, the former president and prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, has died at the age of 87. He was born in a village in Tobago in 1926 and went on to become an Oxford University graduate and a qualified lawyer. He first entered politics in 1958 as a member of parliament, and helped found the People’s National Movement party which led Trinidad and Tobago to independence from Britain in 1962.
As prime minister (1986-1991), he was held hostage and shot in the leg during a failed coup attempt in 1990. He was also beaten by his Islamist captors for ordering the security forces to attack them “with full force” instead of backing down. Twenty-four people died during the coup attempt - carried out by a little-known radical Muslim group, the Jamaat Al Muslimeen - the majority of them during looting that erupted in the Trinidadian capital, Port-of-Spain. Robinson came from a generation of West Indian intellectuals who were to change the course of the region’s history. Mr Robinson first proposed the idea of establishing the ICC during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 1989. He suggested the court should have jurisdiction to prosecute and punish individuals and entities who engage in the illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs across borders. The ICC was established in 2002 to prosecute and bring to justice those responsible for the worst crimes - genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes - committed anywhere in the world. Mr Robinson also served in the largely ceremonial role of president of the twin-island Caribbean country for six years, until March 2003.
~ ALKEBU-LAN REVIVALIST MOVEMENT APPEAL
Freedom Begins with the Freeing of the Mind and Soul
c/o 282 High Road, Leyton, London, E10 5PW
Tel: 020 8539 2154, 07908 814 152
The Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement continues to face financial challenges in these very tough economic times and the vultures of finance capital are hovering over their headquarters again, threatening repossession by 2 May 2014. They are determined to continue serving our community, with their range of Afrikan centred, life sustaining programmes - a Saturday school, Rites of Passage programme, Yoruba classes, cultural ceremonies, iNAPP nation building, etc. They also have concrete business plans, which require the full weight of community support. They need your kind financial support to raise £5,500 by Wed 30 Apr. No amount is too small or too large. So many centres, businesses and resources have been lost to our community in the past five years – Centreprise, D’Jed, St Agnes Place, Maarifa Books and more. Let us all pull together and save this vital community space. To arrange payments – a lump sum and / or small monthly contributions call Bro Omowale on 07939 292 720 or 020 8539 2154. Direct payments: Mama Afrika – Nat West PLC – Acc No: 23503351 – Sort Code: 56-00-17. As Papa Garvey says: Unite Organise Now or Perish! Rise You Mighty People!
FORTHCOMING NUBIART PROFILES
NUBIART: Focus on arts, business, education, health, political developments and the media.
APR PROMOS
~ ‘AFRO-COLOMBIAN SOUND MODERNIZERS’ – Son Palenque [Vampisoul – Out Now] A 20-track compilation from five albums by one of the mainstays of palenquera music. The music is a mix of Cuban son, Afrikan highlife, Cumbia, champeta, Afrobeat, lumbalu, kumina and other Afrikan retentions which reveals how the band moved Colombian music forward. All the tracks are from the mid-1980s albums – ‘Los Trotamundos del Sabor’, ‘La Arepa Asa’, ‘Ane Jue / Ellos Son’ and ‘Afric Erotic’ - apart from ‘Adios Batata’ from the 2012 album ‘Ma Kamajan Ri Musika Ri Palenque’. Every track here is an absolutely brilliant exposition of the life and culture of Afrikans living in Colombia and their links to the greats of Afrikan music from across the continent from Senegal to Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, DR Congo and Angola.
~ ‘GREGORY ISAACS REMIXED’ – Gregory Isaacs [Necessary Mayhem – Out Now] The last three years have been a hard time for us at Nubiart as we remember the good old days when since the early 1980s it was guaranteed that at least once a fortnight there would be a new Gregory Isaacs single or album to sate our appetite to be African Museum completists. With over 500 albums released combining various track selections, alternate takes and Gregory’s propensity to work with virtually every producer in the industry there was enough to keep us busy. It seems Curtis Lynch Jr shares our loss and here he remixes a selection of Gussie Clarke productions from the decade between 1983-1993. The mixes are close to the originals but with a different instrumental emphasis, additional keyboards from Lynch and a heavier bassline. Many of the tracks are in ‘showcase’ style so that the rhythm gets a good workout.
The album kicks off with ‘Jealousy’ which keeps the duet with Dennis Brown but adds a 70’s style DJ from Macka B which lifts the track to even greater heights. The track is revisited twice more with an additional mix and a dub. Which is fine by us as it was one of our favourites when it first dropped. We can never tire of it. ‘Report to Me’, Love Me or Leave Me’ and ‘Temporary Lover’ are also from that period when the late 80s turned into the 90s and Gussie’s Music Works Studio was the place to go as he had an in-house team of writers, musicians and engineers who could craft a song to fit any vocalist’s inflections so that it sounded as if the rhythm was made for them rather than the vocalist had just jumped on the current fashionable backing track with some off-key, meaningless lyrics purely for the purposes of hype and self-promotion without any recognition of their complete absence of talent or originality.
‘Disrespect’ featuring Shabba Ranks and Josey Wales gets two mixes and The Mighty Diamonds are kept up front in the vocals like on the original ‘Mind Yu Dis’. ‘Street Walker’ and ‘Innercity Lady’ have never got as much airplay as they deserved since their release back in 1984 so it’s good to see them show up here. ‘Let Off Supm’, ‘Private Beach Party’ and ‘Plant Some Love’ were from the following album ‘Private Beach Party’. The other track here is a reworking of ‘Night Nurse’ – we have quite a few versions of this already but given that it was Gregory’s most commercial hit we can always add another mix to our collection. This is an essential CD our only complaint is how can you touch Gussie Clarke productions and leave out the life-enhancing, all-conquering ‘Rumours’? We hope there’s more to come and its remixes are included in future releases - as Gregory would say ‘unfair game haffi play twice’.
NUBIART LIBRARY – APR MEDIA
We will only review books we have read and DVDs we have seen and that are available at reasonable prices online or in shops or libraries. However, given the nature and current state of Afrikan publishing and film production there may be books and films on this list that are worth the extra effort to track down.
~ ‘THE STUART HALL PROJECT: REVOLUTION, POLITICS, CULTURE AND THE NEW LEFT EXPERIENCE’. Dir: John Akomfrah [BFI & Smoking Dogs Films] This documentary is the overview of the life, works and impact of the colossus of intellectual thought, Stuart Hall who sadly passed away earlier this year. It is fitting that it should be directed by one of the men chronicling the lives of Afrikans in Britain, the rest of the diaspora and the continent through his work with the Black Audio Film Collective.
In his early childhood Stuart Hall was consistently reminded by his family that he was three shades darker than his immediate relatives in a Jamaican society that still suffers from shadism to this day. Having moved to Britain to study in 1951 this was one of the themes that runs throughout his life and inspired him to challenge oppression, prejudice, racism, imperialism and colonialism wherever he encountered it. From his days at the Universities and Left Review which merged with The New Reasoner to form the highly influential New Left Review through his days at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies to when most of us first encountered him on TV expounding with great eloquence and erudition on the issues of the day.
His first pivotal year was 1956, the year of the Anglo-French and Israeli imperialist plans to stop the Egyptian Gamal Nasser nationalising the Suez Canal so that it benefited the mass of the Egyptian, the invasion of Hungary, the rise of rock’n’roll and the growing impact of the teenager and youth culture. The film highlights other years of great significance to Afrikans such as 1958, 1963, 1968, 1976, 1979, 1981, 1984-85, and 1998. The documentary has a cut-off point of the year 2000 but as John Akomfrah says in one of the Q&A sessions many of the themes since then whether it be 9/11, the demonisation of Islam, imperial wars, protests over deaths in custody and the Arab Spring are just recurrences of topics Stuart Hall had already covered. Stuart Hall felt from early on in his adult life that Miles Davis put a finger on his soul and the soundtrack here is made up of 15 tracks that chronologically mirror Hall’s political and cultural development.
The extras include: ‘The Stuart Hall Project Q&A’ with John Akomfrah being interviewed by Lola Young where he points out that Stuart Hall moved analysis of the struggle in Britain on from what was considered an Atlanticist obsession where the American struggle against racism took priority. He also covers the dispute that arose between Stuart Hall and Salman Rushdie over BAFC’s ‘Handsworth Songs’; ‘John Akomfrah and Stuart Hall Q&A with Parminder Vir’ (one of the earliest people to fund BAFC’s work when she worked at the GLC). Akomfrah highlights the importance of archives to Afrikan people as they are our major ways of passing on knowledge especially in a land where we have few monuments; and Isaac Julien’s interview with John Akomfrah ‘Black and White in Colour Rushes’. Here Akomfrah points out the thinking behind BAFC which grew out of watching how the Black Arts Movement and other movements such as the Harlem Renaissance had defined a Black aesthetic that resonated among Afrikans across the globe. He also said that ‘collective working delivered durable ways of working around race’ which was not negated by the experience of individual Afrikans who had managed to gain employment in mainstream media. The growth of BAFC and similar projects, such as Ceddo, changed the focus of how the media interacted with Afrikans whereas before they had expected Afrikans to give up their life stories to a preset agenda now they were seen as agents of relevant insights. It allowed BAFC to highlight that not all Afrikan experiences are limited to only the immigrant experience.
~ ROYAL AFRICAN SOCIETY PRESENT ‘I WANT TO WORK IN AFRICA’. Speaker: Frances Mensah Williams, author & human resources consultant. Respondents: Onyekachi Wambu, Director, Engagement & Policy, AFFORD; and Ike Anya, co-founder, Nigeria Health Watch & TEDxEuston. Chair: John Battersby, UK Country Manager, Brand South Africa. In recent years there has been a remarkable turnaround in the Afrika story; from a negative portrayal to one that highlights Afrika’s potential as a land of opportunity. African countries offer a wealth of opportunities for a wide range of careers in diverse sectors. Frances Williams’ book, ‘I Want to Work in Africa’, is a practical step-by-step guide packed with invaluable information, personal stories and advice from human resources managers, executive recruiters and professionals who have successfully made the move to Africa. Copies of the book will be available to purchase at the event. On Wed 23 Apr at 6-8pm at Brunei Suite, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, London, WC1. Web: http://www.royalafricansociety.org/event/i-want-work-africa#sthash.KIUAqOp2.dpuf
~ THE LIGALI ORGANISATION PRESENT ‘BEAUTY IS...’ SCREENINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. This film by community educator and guerrilla film maker Toyin Agbetu asks “what is beauty? and examines the answer from a philosophical position through discussions on hair, skin shade, body image and character. “Every time you get a hair burn it is evidence of something going wrong, something getting into your skin” – Toyin Agbetu at ‘Beauty Is’ screening premiere. Web: www.ligali.org/beautyis Twitter: @beautyIs_film Facebook: facebook.com/beautyisfilm
- FP Comms present ‘A Filmmaker’s Evening With...Arthur Sempebwa and Toyin Agbetu’. On Fri 25 Apr at 6.30-8 pm at 20th Century Fox, Soho Square, London, W1D.
- ‘Beauty Is’ Screening and debate hosted by Dr Kwadwo Osei-Nyame Jnr. On Sat 26 Apr at 6-10pm at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) University, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG. Adm: £10.
- ‘Beauty Is’ Screening. On Mon 12 May at 7-9.30pm at Black History Studies, PCS Headquarters, Clapham Junction, 160 Falcon Road, London, SW11. Adm: £10. Tel / Fax: 020 8881 0660. Mobile: 07951 234 233. E-mail: info@blackhistorystudies.com Web: http://www.blackhistorystudies.com
~ SHIRI ACHU ART EXHIBITION ‘35INPRINT: LONDON’. The exhibition will largely consist of 35 Framed Signed Limited Edition ShiriAchuArt Prints. You will be able to purchase these limited edition signed prints at very affordable prices, from £135 and gift card packs of various sizes from £15. £35 of every print sold and proceeds from the raffle will be used to fund an exciting project in Cameroon. Details will be revealed at the exhibition. Until Fri 25 Apr at The Strand Gallery, 32 John Adam St, London, WC2N 6BP. E-mail: info@shiriachuart.com
~ AFRICAN ODYSSEYS PRESENTS THE SCREENING OF ‘COMRADE PRESIDENT’. Dir: Mosco Kamwendo. Samora Machel was killed in a plane crash in 1986. Cut down in his prime, he remains an intriguing figure in African liberation. While he was training to be a nurse, racist laws imposed by the Portuguese colonial government prompted him to join the liberation movement Frelimo, where he rose to become commander in 1970. He became Mozambique’s first President just five years later. Rebuilding the country along Marxist lines, Machel welcomed anti-apartheid revolutionaries fighting in neighbouring Rhodesia and South Africa. These regimes retaliated, and forced him to sign the controversial Nkomati Accord in 1984. This historical portrait provides insight into the complex challenge of leadership and the journey to freedom. On Sat 26 Apr at 2pm at BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XT. Adm: £6. Box Office: 020 7928 3232.
~ ‘THE POWER OF THE ELDER’ (CIMARRON LECTURE) SUPPORTED BY WASP. Is there a critical role for the Elder in our communities? This presentation is delivered by Eli Anderson, a Master storyteller, Poet and Narrative Coach. The lecture is designed to celebrate but also, raise the debate concerning the position of the Elder in our society. On Sat 26 Apr at 7-9.30pm at West Indian Ex-Servicemen Association, 161-167 Clapham Manor Street, Clapham, London, SW4 6DB.
~ FIND YOUR VOICE PROUDLY PRESENTS THE TRUTH ABOUT CANCER. Looking at the works of Dr Llaila Afrika and others there will be a panel discussion with experienced health practitioners and networking. On Sat 26 Apr at 4.30–7pm at Park View Academy, West Green Road, London, N15 3RB. Adm: £5. Tel: Douglas – 07960 239 493 / 07882 403 871. E-mail: findyourvoice@hotmail.co.uk
~ THE MOSAIC ROOMS PRESENT ‘MOGADISHU – LOST MODERNS’. Exhibition exploring Mogadishu through its architecture and urban environment, narrating the story of Somalia’s journey from traditional Afrikan nation via colonisation and post colonialism to emergent independent state. Challenging familiar mainstream images that depict the city solely as a place of conflict and destruction, Somali-British architect Rashid Ali and British photographer Andrew Cross offer a unique account of what remains of the city’s urban fabric and key modernist symbols after two decades of civil conflict. These specially commissioned photographs are presented alongside rare archival photographs, not yet presented to the public, which document the city’s architecture under Italian colonial rule. Due to the destruction of much of its architecture, infrastructure and any historical archives associated with it, there has been a dearth of literature and discourse on the cultural development of Mogadishu through its architecture and built form. Rashid Ali and Andrew Cross’ exceptional work, resulting from their trip to Mogadishu in the summer of 2013, provides a framework to better understand and explore this development. This timely exhibition offers a space for reflection on the value of civic architecture and heritage preservation. It also presents a unique perspective of a city in conflict, and an opportunity to promote new thinking on the broader discourse of urbanism in Africa and the Arab world. Open Tues – Sat at 11am–6pm until Sat 26 Apr at The Mosaic Rooms, A.M. Qattan Foundation, Tower House, 226 Cromwell Road, London, SW5 0SW. Adm: Free. Tel: 020 7370 9990. E-mail: info@mosaicrooms.org
~ ‘EVEN THIS WILL PASS’ EXHIBITION BY AIDA SILVESTRI. ‘Even This Will Pass’ tells the journeys of Eritrean refugees in their exoduses to find better stability and hope in the United Kingdom. With a unique and conceptual approach that preserves the dignity of her sitters, Silvestri blurs the portraits, upon which she hand-stitches their routes graphically in coloured thread. Their corresponding paths are amalgamated together on a large map, highlighting the diverse and encumbered journeys they faced.
Silvestri’s project aims to raise awareness of human trafficking in an emotive tribute to her sitters and to the plights of these refugees whose voices too often remain unheard. Until Sat 26 Apr at Roman Road Project Space, 69 Roman Road, London, E2 0QN.
~ BLACK HISTORY WALKS EVENTS
- Elephant & Castle. On Sat 26 Apr at 11am.
Special War to Windrush walks in Elephant and Castle can be arranged. This walk links the Imperial War Museum with the Cuming Museum. Both museums have excellent collections on the Afrikan presence in WW2 totally relevant to the national curriculum and adult education. The Cuming Museum also has ancient Egyptian items. This walk links the two venues and illustrates the black history of more than 200 years in the SE1 area. Web: www.iwm.org.uk
Cost: £7 – adults / £3 - children. Group bookings possible. E-mail: info@blackhistorywalks.co.uk with number of places required. You will then receive confirmation and joining instructions.
- ‘The X Men’. On Sun 27 Apr at 3-5.45pm at Cottons Caribbean Restaurant, 70 Exmouth Market, Islington, London, EC1. Adm: £8. The new X Men movie, Days of Future Past, will be out soon and people have been demanding an X Men breakdown since we did Blade, Superman, Django and Planet of the Apes. With the introduction of a new Afrikan superhero this X-tra special breakdown over two days will delve deep into the black history of The X men comics and movies. We will cover: Race and metaphor. Malcolm X and Robert Williams; Disney’s record on diversity; Hollywood propaganda; How ‘liberal’ media reinforces the status quo they claim to oppose; The role of the Afrikan superhero. Where are the Afrikan superheroes?; The reason there will be no Black Panther movie; and Afrikan and world politics in disguise.
For all events e-mail: info@blackhistorywalks.co.uk Web: blackhistorywalks.co.uk
~ KWAME NKRUMAH MEMORIAL LECTURES, AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY AND STREET PARLIAMENTS
- Kilombo Centre For Citizens’ Rights And Conflict Resolution Memorial Lecture to mark the 42nd anniversary of the passing of President Kwame Nkrumah. Topic: ‘President Kwame Nkrumah’s Vision and the Way Forward For Ghana and Africa’. Speaker: Explo Nani-Kofi, Initiator and Coordinator of Kilombo International Network and Director, Kilombo Centre For Citizens’ Rights and Conflict Resolution, Peki / London. On Sun 27 Apr at 2.30pm at Lorenz Wolf E.P. Church, Peki Blengo.
- African Liberation Day Street Parliament. On Sun 25 May at Peki Adzokoe New Town, Ghana.
~ ‘ONE HUMANITY’ PREMIERE. On the 20th anniversary of democracy in South Africa ‘One Humanity’, is a documentary film which looks at how the two Nelson Mandela tribute concerts elevated worldwide consciousness of the anti-apartheid movement. ‘One Humanity’ will have simultaneous screenings in London and Pretoria. On Sun 27 Apr at BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9LN. Tel: 020 7734 0022 / 07802 166 594. E-mail: bridget@sarahharveypublicity.co.uk
~ CEZANNE BOOK SIGNING & DISCUSSION OF HER NOVEL ’SINGLE, SPIRITUAL...AND SEXUAL!’ On Sun 27 Apr at 4-6pm at Marcus Garvey Library, Tottenham Green Centre, 1 Phillip Lane, Tottenham, London, N15 4JA. Adm: Free. Tel: 07944 244 116. Web: www.cezannepoetess.com/events
Blog: ‘Black Sex & Spirituality’ http://wp.me/p4aX5h-1i
~ BBM / BMC, AKOBEN AWARDS, BTWSC & TAOBQ (THE AFRICAN OR BLACK QUESTION) PRESENT TALKING MARCUS GARVEY / UNIA @ 100. Facilitated by Akoben Award’s Kwaku, and hosted by Harrow Mayor Cllr Nana Asante.
- Session 8 – ‘The London Years: The Impact of The City on African and African Caribbean Political Thinkers (Brother Omowale). On Mon 28 Apr at 6.30-8.30pm.
- Session 9 – ‘African British Civil Rights: The Remixed Documentaries’ (Kwaku). On Mon 12 May at 6.30-8.30pm.
- Session 10 – ‘Exploring London’s Black Music History (tbc)’. On Mon 26 May at 6.30-8.30pm.
All events at the Mayor’s Parlour in Harrow Civic Centre 1, Station Road, Harrow, HA1 2XY. Adm: Free.
Dress code: Smart casual. No trainers, track suit or leggings. Booking: www.XtraHistory and eventbrite.com booking page.
- ‘The Look How Far We’ve Come: Getting Racism Back on the Agenda’ Conference’. On Thurs 8 May at 6-9pm at The Abbey Centre, Westminster, London, SW1. E-mail: btwsc@hotmail.com or editor@BritishBlackMusic.com Web: www.BritishBlackMusic.com
~ FILM AFRICA 2014 PRESENT BASIL DAVIDSON’S ‘AFRICA: A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY’ SCREENING + Q&A. On Tues 29 Apr at 7-9pm at SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, London, WC1.
~ KING’S COLLEGE LONDON, THE AHRC, AUTOGRAPH ABP, THE ROYAL AFRICAN SOCIETY, SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL & AFRICAN STUDIES AND SURVIVORS FUND (SURF) PRESENT ‘RWANDA IN PHOTOGRAPHS’. Commemorating 20 years since the Rwandan genocide this April, Rwanda in Photographs is the first international group show of work by professional Rwandan photographers. Rwanda is a country of contrasts: from the rising skyscrapers of central Kigali with their promise of economic growth to the rural hills of Musanze where people are pulling themselves out of poverty but life remains a struggle. Rwandans have seen peace within their borders but still live with the memories of 1994. Combined with the work of Nigerian photographer Andrew Esiebo, these photographs bring you moments of life in Rwanda today, seen through Rwandan eyes. Exhibition runs until 30 Apr at Indigo Rooms, Somerset House, London, WC2R 2LS.
~ ROYAL AFRICAN SOCIETY PRESENTS WOLE SOYINKA @ 80. Marking his 80th birthday, Soyinka joins editor and critic Margaret Busby to reflect on his large body of work and the relationship between culture and politics, exploring how literature and the arts speak to the contemporary African experience. On Thurs 8 May at 6.30pm at British Library Conference Centre, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB. Contact Sheila Ruiz, RAS Programme Manager. Tel: 020 3073 8337. Web: sheila.ruiz@soas.ac.uk.
~ BLACK HISTORY STUDIES IN ASSOCIATION WITH CHANYA CULTURE PROMOTIONS PRESENTS ‘THE BIRTH OF THE BLUES’ BY COREY HARRIS. American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and bandleader Corey Harris will speak about the birth and evolution of the blues, relating it closely to the history that led to its formation. As a musician rooted firmly in the traditional blues styles of the early twentieth century, he will also perform both original and traditional compositions to demonstrate. The presentation will highlight the individual art of playing, singing and composing the blues and how the blues is a language that different players and instruments can use to create a collaborative performance. Corey will demonstrate a concept of the blues that includes other types of Black music (reggae, ska, jazz) in the west that originated in Afrika. On the night, Corey Harris will introduce and do a book signing of his new book ‘Jahtigui: The Life and Music of Ali Farka Toure’ which examines the life and music of the Malian music legend through the eyes of those who knew him best. Compiled from both interviews and first hand experiences with the guitar master in his desert home in Niafunke, northern Mali. On Wed 14 May at 7-9pm at the PCS Headquarters, 160 Falcon Road, Clapham Junction, London, SW11 2LN, Adm: £5 / Under-16s - Free. Tel / Fax: 020 8881 0660. Mobile: 07951 234 233. E-mail: info@blackhistorystudies.com Web: http://www.blackhistorystudies.com
~ ‘A FUSION OF WORLDS: ANCIENT EGYPT, AFRICAN ART AND IDENTITY IN MODERNIST BRITAIN’ EXHIBITION. An exploration of the ways in which modernist artists – Jacob Epstein, Edna Manley and Ronald Moody – have been inspired by Ancient Egypt. The exhibition places these artists’ reworking of Egyptian art in context of their political, spiritual and gendered expressions of identity. Drawing on the influence of the Harlem Renaissance and ‘discovering’ African Art, this display repositions the work of artists, such as Jamaican born Ronald Moody, in the public memory. Until Sat 24 May at 1-5pm (Tues-Sat) at Petrie Museum, UCL, Malet Place, London, WC1. Tel: 020 7679 4138. Adm: Free. E-mail: events.petrie@ucl.ac.uk
~ PAN-AFRICAN CONGRESS MOVEMENT ALD 2014. The theme is ‘Africa, the Issue of Culture’, & ‘UNIA 100th Year Anniversary’. Speakers include: Prof James Small, Ekua ‘Esther’ Stanford-Xosei, Petronilla Mwakatuma, Cecil Gutzmore, Tafadzwa ShakaRa Mbandaka, Dr Makeddah Idawah and Chipo Sibanda and Clarrie Roots. Sun 25-Mon 26 May at the Light House, 100 Alma Way, Aston, Birmingham, B19 2LN. Tel: 0121 554 2747 / 07940 709 311. E-mail: ald.birmingham2014@gmail.com
~ LEIGHTON HOUSE PRESENTS FROM ‘JAMAICA TO NOTTING HILL, RUDI PATTERSON’S VISIONS IN COLOUR’. For over forty years, following a career as an international model and actor, Rudi Patterson dedicated himself to painting. From the three successive council flats he lived in around Notting Hill he produced a vast body of work, exhibiting widely in London, the UK and internationally – from New York to Melbourne - throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Following his death last year, this exhibition explores a single theme; Rudi’s extraordinarily potent and vivid representations of his native Jamaica. Including many works never previously exhibited these depictions of mountain landscapes, plantation villages, luxuriant tropical vegetation, rivers and beaches conjure a compelling sense of place, intuitively made from the vantage point of a West London window. Until Fri 13 June at Leighton House Museum, 12 Holland Park Road, London, W8.
~ BUNDU DIA KONGO (BDK). Afrikan cultural and spiritual group working towards the spiritual and psychological growth and development of Afrikans all over the world. Let us make a positive change now. Learn about Afrikan prophets, Afrikan history and Afrikan spiritual practices at our weekly Zikua.
- Sun at 1.30–4.30pm at Chestnuts Community & Arts Centre, 280 St Ann’s Road, Tottenham, London, N15 5BN. Tel: Makaba - 07951 059 853.
- Sun at 12.30–3.15pm at Malika House, 81 George Street, Lozells, Birmingham, B19 1Sl. Tel: Mbuta Mayala – 07404 789 329.
~ THE AUSAR AUSET SOCIETY GI GONG CLASSES. Every Monday at 7.30–9pm at Hazel Road Community Centre, Hazel Road, Kensal Green, London, NW10 5PP. Adm: £5 per class. Tel: 07951- 252-427. E-mail: Tauinetwork.europe@gmail.com
~ EXHIBITION APPEAL: RETIRED CARIBBEAN NURSES IN HACKNEY / NEWHAM / EAST LONDON. Hackney Museum is working with Black Women in the Arts Project on an exhibition about Retired Caribbean Nurses to take place in Sep 2014 at Hackney Museum. Do you know of any retired Caribbean Nurses in Hackney / Newham / East London area? Contact: Cheryl Bowen, Community Education Manager, Health and Well Being, Hackney Museum Technology and Learning Centre, 1 Reading Lane, London, E8 1GQ. Tel: 020 8356 2658 / 2545. E-mail: cheryl.bowen@hackney.gov.uk
Web: www.hackney.gov.uk/hackneymuseum
You can hear Afrikan Worldview on the last Sunday of the month in London starting on Sun 26 Apr at 12-6am on Roots 95.4FM. Web: www.UKrootsfm.com Contact: Kubara Zamani, Afrikan Quest International, PO Box 35165, London, SE5 8WU. Tel: 07811 494 969. E-mail: afrikanquest@hotmail.com NB: Nubiart Diary can also be read at www.ligali.org
~ EBOLA OUTBREAK IN GUINEA
Over 100 people have passed away from an Ebola outbreak centred on the south-east of Guinea-Conakry but also affecting the capital and several of the neighbouring countries in the region. Ebola is spread by close contact and kills between 25% and 90% of victims. An infected person, who may not show symptoms for up to 21 days, can pass on the disease through direct contact. The tropical virus leads to haemorrhagic fever, causing muscle pain, weakness, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in severe cases, organ failure and unstoppable bleeding. Patients frequently become dehydrated and so they should drink solutions containing electrolytes or receive intravenous fluids. The disease has no known cure and no vaccine, so the main advice to people from health officials is to keep one’s environment clean and wash hands regularly. All homes now have bowls or buckets filled with disinfectant at their entrance for both inhabitants and visitors to wash their hands. Many health workers - including at least three doctors - were amongst the first victims. Funeral corteges are getting smaller due to a fear of infection by someone who has had contact with a corpse. The outbreak of Ebola which started in January had centred on Guinea’s remote south-eastern forest region of Nzerekore but the West Afrikan state has been battling to contain the outbreak after cases were reported in areas that are hundreds of kilometres apart.
Liberia has recorded a total of ten deaths, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. Liberia’s Health Minister Walter Gwenigale warned people to stop having sex because the virus was spread via bodily fluids. This was in addition to existing advice to stop shaking hands and kissing. In the Liberian capital Monrovia many supermarket workers are wearing gloves as a precaution. Sierra Leone has reported five suspected cases, none of which have been confirmed yet. Travellers have to fill out a questionnaire and indicate if they have suffered from a fever, vomiting or diarrhoea in the last two weeks. The authorities have also banned relatives from bringing corpses into Sierra Leone from Guinea for burial.
The outbreak is also affecting business. In Senegal weekly markets near Guinea’s border have been suspended to prevent the spread of the disease and the land border with Guinea has been closed until further notice, Hundreds of people and their merchandise are stranded in vehicles on the Guinean side. Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour cancelled a concert in Conakry because of the outbreak saying he did not want to heighten the risk of infection in large crowds. Some flights have been affected as well: Air Mauritania has refused to fly Guinean passengers in transit in Dakar to Conakry due to the outbreak. Mali reported nine suspected cases but medical tests showed that two of them did not have Ebola.
In many countries of the region the governments have advised people not to consume bush meat but it has not been banned and is still on sale. Bats, a local delicacy in the south, are thought be carriers of the virus and their sale and consumption has been banned by health ministries. Saudi Arabia suspended visas for Muslim pilgrims from Guinea and Liberia. The preventive measure came at the request of the Saudi health ministry due to the danger of the disease and its highly contagious nature. At least seven patients infected with Ebola in Guinea have recovered from the virus and been allowed to return home.
Abubakar Shariff Ahmed (Makaburi)
~ KENYAN POLICE ROUND-UP AND DEPORT SOMALIS AFTER NAIROBI BLASTS
At least 4000 Somalis have been arrested and several deported from Kenya following explosions that killed six people. Police chief David Kimaiyo said about 200 of them were thought to be sympathisers of the Islamist group al-Shabab. The rest of those arrested were being screened to determine any possible terrorist links and their refugee status. Most of the arrests took place in the mainly Somali neighbourhood of Eastleigh in the capital Nairobi, which was hit by three blasts during rush-hour on the last Monday in March. The blasts targeted a clinic and two small restaurants in Eastleigh. Ugandans, South Sudanese, Ethiopians and Eritreans were also among those being held. The UNHCR has condemned the arrests.
A week earlier more than 100 people were arrested following an attack on a church near the coastal city of Mombasa when gunmen killed six people. Kenya’s government has ordered all Somali refugees living in towns to move into designated camps in a bid to end the attacks. President Uhuru Kenyatta has said Kenya’s tourism sector is on its knees because of the threat from Islamists. The day after the blasts a radical Muslim cleric, Abubakar Shariff Ahmed, was shot dead outside the coastal city of Mombasa. Mr Shariff, known as Makaburi (‘Graveyard’ in Swahili), had been sanctioned by the UN Security Council who considered the cleric ‘a leading facilitator and recruiter of young Kenyan Muslims for violent militant activity in Somalia’, a claim he always denied. He is the third Muslim cleric to be killed in Mombasa since 2012. Riots broke out in parts of the city as news of the cleric’s killing spread.
Meanwhile in Somalia two United Nations were shot dead inside Galkayo Airport after getting off a plane by an attacker dressed in a police uniform. The men were working for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the UN confirmed.
Somali fishermen have been issued with official ID cards to help distinguish them from pirates. At least 2,000 cards have been handed out to fishermen in the Puntland region of Somalia in the last two months by the Ministry for Fisheries and Marine Resources. About 4,000 fishermen in total should receive their identity cards by the end of April.
~ ICC SUMMONS RELUCTANT KENYAN WITNESSES
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has summoned reluctant witnesses to testify at the trial of Kenya’s Vice-President William Ruto. It said the Kenyan government had an obligation to serve ICC subpoenas on the eight witnesses. Mr Ruto denies charges of organising ethnic violence after the 2007 election in which around 1,200 people died. The withdrawal of witnesses has affected several other ICC cases related to the Kenya poll violence. Mr Ruto is currently the most senior serving government official to be tried by the ICC. He is on trial alongside Joshua arap Sanga, who as head of a Kalenjin-language radio station is accused of whipping up ethnic hatred in the aftermath of the election - a charge he denies. Last year, charges were dropped against Kenya’s former civil service head Francis Muthaura as some witnesses were too frightened to testify and another witness withdrew his testimony. Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta is also due to stand trial over allegations of orchestrating the post-election violence when 600,000 people were displaced. His trial had been delayed until October to allow the prosecution time to collect more evidence following the loss of two key witnesses. Mr Ruto and Mr Kenyatta were on opposite sides of the 2007 election, but formed an alliance for the 2013 election. The Kenyan government - backed by the African Union (AU) - has pushed for the cases to be dropped.
~ SOUTH SUDAN CONFLICT CONTINUES
South Sudan has sent reinforcements to the UN base at Bor after 58 people - both refugees and UN peacekeepers – were killed by attackers in ongoing fighting. The violence started last December between pro-government forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and soldiers backing former vice-president Riek Machar, President Kiir accused Mr Machar of plotting a coup, which he denies. A ceasefire was agreed between the two sides at the end of January, but they have accused each other of violating it. More than one million people have fled their homes since the conflict began, while nearly one-third of South Sudan’s population, about 3.7 million people, are at severe risk of starvation, according to the UN.
Rebel forces in South Sudan have recaptured the oil hub of Bentiu, the capital of Unity state, from the government and oil companies have been ordered to halt operations immediately and evacuate their staff within a week. Unity state is rich in oil, the main foreign exchange earner of South Sudan and production has dropped by 20% since the conflict began. China and Russia are among the major investors in South Sudan’s oil industry. A UN official in South Sudan, Joe Contreras, said Mongolian peacekeepers rescued 10 staff members from the Russian oil company Safinat north of Bentiu,
~ CAR IN CRISIS
Afrikan and European Union leaders held a summit in Brussels to resolve the conflict in the Central African Republic. The EU has already announced plans to send 1,000 troops to the country and said they would operate in CAR’s capital, Bangui, which is worst-affected by the conflict. The UN has warned that 19,000 Muslims face slaughter across the country. Around 8,000 African Union (AU) and French forces are battling to restore stability after more than a year of conflict since mainly Muslim rebels seized power. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has warned of ethno-religious cleansing with lynchings, decapitations and sexual violence all going unpunished. Meanwhile, his human rights chief Navi Pillay said during a recent visit to CAR, she was struck by the complete lack of any structures to support law and order in the country. The UN Security Council voted last week to send 12,000 troops to the country where about 1.3 million people - a quarter of the population - are in need of aid.
Chad’s entire contingent of peacekeepers has withdrawn from the CAR following accusations that Chad had aided Muslim rebels in CAR, a charge it denied. Chad had about 850 soldiers in a 6,000-strong AU force battling to end conflict between Christian and Muslim militias. Chad’s President Idriss Deby Itno ordered the pullout after a UN investigation found that Chadian troops opened fire on the population without any provocation in the capital, Bangui, on 29 March. Thirty people were killed and another 300 were injured in the shooting, according to the UN. Chad’s foreign ministry dismissed the findings as malicious and said Chadian troops were being blamed for all the suffering in CAR.
In the latest violence the anti-Balaka militia attacked Seleka positions in Dekoa, about 300km (180 miles) north of Bangui. They said that the fighting escalated when the Seleka called in reinforcements and went on for more than four hours. Most of the victims were civilians who were hit by stray bullets.
~ NIGERIAN ATTACKS
At least 15 civilians were killed in a suicide bombing by suspected Islamist militants in north-east Nigeria. Six of the attackers also died in the explosion, which took place on the outskirts of the city of Maiduguri. Authorities said the Boko Haram group was behind the assault. The explosion happened when a militant blew up a vehicle near a checkpoint in Borno state, the defence ministry said. The blast took place as soldiers were trying to foil the militants’ attempt to drive several vehicles with explosives into a petrol station. Three explosive-laden vehicles were demobilised by shots fired at them by soldiers at the checkpoint. But a fourth car exploded, apparently set off by one of the militants.
Gunmen, believed to be from Boko Haram, have killed 135 civilians in north east Nigeria since Wednesday. Borno state senator Ahmed Zannah said the killings took place in at least three separate attacks in the state. Senator Zannah said the attackers’ first target was a teacher training college in the town of Dikwa. They killed five people there and abducted several women. They burned down the college library before escaping. The militants then attacked two villages near the border with Cameroon killing a further 130 people.
More than 70 people have been killed during the morning rush-hour in a bomb blast at a crowded bus station on the outskirts of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. Eyewitnesses said there were dead bodies scattered around the area. Suspicion immediately fell on the Boko Haram Islamist militant group, which has staged previous attacks in Abuja. Officials earlier said two separate blasts had ripped through the terminal, but later said the damage may have been caused by just one bomb. The blast ripped a hole 4ft deep (1.2m) in the ground of Nyanya Motor Park, some 16km (10 miles) from the city centre causing secondary explosions as their fuel tanks ignited and burned with 16 luxury coaches and 24 minibuses destroyed.
The Nigerian military is joining the search for 99 teenage girls abducted from a school in the remote northeast. It is thought that Boko Haram took them to a forest near the Cameroonian border. The group has kidnapped civilians in the past - usually women to work as sex slaves. Gunmen arrived at the school in Chibok, in Borno state, late on Tuesday and ordered the teenagers who had been sleeping in their hostel on to lorries. Thirty students managed to escape. A local politician said about 50 soldiers were stationed near the school ahead of annual exams but were overpowered. Two members of the security forces were killed and 170 houses were burnt down during the attack.
At least 1,500 lives have been claimed in the restive north-eastern region this year, according to latest figures. Half of those killed were civilians, Amnesty International said in a report released on Monday.
The organisation blamed both ‘an increase in attacks by Boko Haram and uncontrolled reprisals by Nigeria’s security forces’ for the high death toll. A state of emergency has been in place since last year in the states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa in north-east Nigeria. Some 250,000 people have been forced to leave their homes because of the fighting, the Nigerian government’s relief agency said.
Seventy-nine people are said to have been killed in northern Nigeria, in an attack blamed by police on gunmen from the Fulani community. The attack targeted a meeting of community leaders and vigilante groups in Galadima village, Zamfara state. The meeting was discussing action against robbers and cattle rustlers. At least 100 villagers were killed in central Kaduna state last month in an attack that was also linked to a dispute between local farmers and the semi-nomadic Fulani herdsmen.
Nigeria has rebased its gross domestic product (GDP) data, which has pushed it above South Africa as the continent’s biggest economy. Nigerian GDP - which now includes previously uncounted industries such as telecoms, information technology, music, online sales, airlines and film production - for 2013 totalled 80.3 trillion naira (£307.6bn: $509.9bn), the Nigerian statistics office said. That compares with South Africa’s GDP of $370.3bn at the end of 2013. But Nigeria’s economic output is underperforming because at 170 million people, its population is three times larger than South Africa’s. Rebasing is carried out so that a nation’s GDP statistics give the most up-to-date picture of an economy as possible. Most countries do it at least every three years but Nigeria had not updated the components in its GDP base year since 1990. Then, the country had one telecoms operator with around 300,000 phone lines whereas now it has a whole mobile phone industry with tens of millions of subscribers.
~ GADDAFI LOYALISTS FACE TRIAL
A Libyan court has ruled that officials from the era of the late Colonel Gaddafi’s government can be tried via video-link. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who is still being held in Zintan by the militia that captured him, and 36 former officials face a mass trial for their alleged role in trying to repress Libya’s 2011 uprising. Saif and Libya’s former military intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, who is also on trial, have been separately indicted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges. The ICC ruled last year that Libya was able and willing to prosecute Mr al-Senussi, but it was still demanding the transfer of Mr Gadaffi to the Hague. The video-link decision, which only relates to the domestic case, will also apply to other defendants being held in the city of Misrata. There have also been moves by prosecutors for another of Gaddafi’s seven sons, Saadi Gaddafi, to be tried as part of this group. He is also accused of trying to stifle the uprising against his father’s rule. However, his case must first be reviewed by a pre-trial chamber, which will decide if he can be tried with the rest. Saad Gaddafi was recently extradited from Niger where he fled in 2011.
Last Sunday, Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni said he would step down after what he described as a cowardly attack on him and his family by a militia. He had only been appointed last month after his predecessor, Ali Zeidan, was dismissed by parliament for failing to improve security. Jordan’s ambassador to Libya has been abducted by masked gunmen in the capital, Tripoli. Assailants opened fire on Fawaz al-Itan’s vehicle, wounding the driver, as they left his house early on Tuesday. The kidnappers are said to have demanded the release of a Libyan Islamist militant, Mohamed Dersi, who was jailed for life in 2007 for plotting to blow up an airport in Jordan.
Two Libyan oil terminals have reopened, after rebels agreed partially to lift their oil blockade in a deal reached with the government. The terminals of Zueitina and Hariga in the east are now in government hands. Two other ports are due to reopen in the coming weeks. Oil exports have plummeted 80% in the past eight months after the closures of oil ports led by militiamen seeking greater regional autonomy. A failed attempt to sell oil illegally last month triggered the latest round of talks to lift the blockade. Libya’s Minister of Justice, Salah al-Marghani, confirmed the partial lifting of the oil blockades, at a news briefing in the eastern city of Benghazi. Potentially the two ports could increase Libya’s crude oil exports by about 200,000 barrels per day. Mr al-Marghani said the remaining two largest oil terminals in the east, Ras Lanuf and Sidra, would also reopen soon. Under the agreement, the government will pay compensation to the rebels, drop charges against them and reverse its threat of a military offensive.
~ EGYPT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SET FOR LATE MAY
The first round of Egypt’s presidential poll has been set for 26-27 May. Nominations closed on 20 April. The army chief Field Marshal Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, who led the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi in July, resigned and announced his candidature. He is likely to win the presidency, given his crackdown on opponents and the lack of any serious rivals. If he does not win more than 50% in the first round of voting, a second round will be held on 16-17 June. Another candidate is the Nasserist politician Hamdeen Sabahi, who came third in the last presidential elections in 2012. Since Mr Morsi’s overthrow nearly 2,000 people have been killed and thousands of members of Mr Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood have been detained by the coup plotters who have designated the Islamist movement a terrorist group. In the most recent attack a police officer was killed in a bombing in Lebanon Square in Cairo. The Al-Qaeda-linked group, Champions of Jerusalem, have claimed most of the recent bombings and an assassination attempt on Egypt’s Interior Minister although the Sisi regime continually blame most attacks on the Muslim Brotherhood.
A judge in Cairo has upheld three-year jail terms imposed on three major Egyptian activists from the 2011 uprising that led to the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. Ahmed Maher, Ahmed Douma and Mohamed Adel were jailed in December 2013 for organising an unauthorised protest. They were arrested in November after protesting against a controversial new law that restricts demonstrations. Mr Maher and Mr Adel were founding members of the 6 April Youth Movement, which was prominent in protests to remove President Mubarak. The three were protesting outside the upper house of parliament in late November over a new law that public gatherings of more than 10 people must be authorised. The military government has defended the law, saying it is not intended to limit the right to demonstrate but to protect the rights of protesters. Opponents say the law replaced the recently expired state of emergency and is stricter than the measures in place during the Mubarak era.
~ MALI APPOINTS NEW PM AFTER ENTIRE GOVERNMENT QUITS
A new Prime Minister has been appointed in Mali to succeed Oumar Tatam Ly, who has resigned from office - along with his entire government. Mr Ly was elected last year after a French-led military intervention ended an Islamist takeover. His successor is a former presidential hopeful, Moussa Mara, who had also served as minister of town planning. Mr Mara had been calling for more action to be taken to curb persistent instability in the north. Security remains fragile in the north, the former base of the Islamist rebels who were driven back last year. President Ibrahim Boubakar Keita has been facing international pressure to commence peace talks that could help stability.
France is now winding down its troop presence in the country but says it will continue to deploy forces against pockets of militancy in the north. They were involved in the operation to free five aid workers who were kidnapped by MUJAO in the north of the country in February. Four of those captured worked for the Red Cross. The five were released in a raid near the northern town of Timbuktu and were in good health, the French and Malian presidents said in a joint statement. The two presidents vowed to continue fighting terrorism, organised crime and drug trafficking in the Sahel region of Africa.
~ AFRIKAN MIGRANTS STORM MELILLA-MOROCCO BORDER
On 20 February at least 300 African migrants have stormed a border fence in an attempt to cross into the Spanish territory of Melilla from Morocco, officials say. Morocco security forces clashed with the migrants, leaving 27 people wounded. Ninety-six migrants were arrested, while about 100 managed to cross over, the officials said. Melilla is a major crossing point for sub-Saharan Africans seeking work or asylum in Europe. Together with a second Spanish enclave, Ceuta, it is the European Union’s only land border with Africa. Many of those making the dangerous journey come from Eritrea and Somalia.
Thirteen security force members and 14 migrants were wounded in the clashes, it added in a statement.
A Spanish government spokeswoman said the migrants were “very violent” and had targeted two different sections of the border fence. About 150 African migrants made it into Melilla after a similar assault on the border fence on 17 February. At least 14 migrants drowned in Moroccan waters on 6 February while trying to enter Ceuta by sea. Spain’s interior ministry confirmed on Friday that police fired rubber bullets as the migrants swam into Spanish territory, but denied the shooting contributed to the drowning. Spain is reinforcing the fencing and has sent more policemen to Melilla. Spanish police call it a “human avalanche”. They say that the migrants have learnt to scale the series of border fences in less than a minute.
On 28 February more than 200 Afrikan migrants again scaled the border fence into the Melilla enclave
The migrants, many of whom said they were from Cameroon and Guinea, sang triumphantly as they made their way to the Melilla migrant reception centre. The reception centre is already overcrowded - built for 480, it now houses 1,900 people some in temporary, green, army-style canvas tents.
Apart from washing cars, parked on Melilla’s streets, there are no jobs. The authorities in Melilla say that although most of the migrants will be moved to the Spanish mainland, the majority will be eventually returned to their country of origin. Meanwhile, hundreds of migrants are waiting on a hill in Morocco overlooking Melilla. The migrants beg on the streets of Nador, the main Moroccan city nearby living on a diet of bread and often resort to killing cats and dogs for meat.
~ GUINEA-BISSAU PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
No candidate secured an outright victory in last Sunday’s presidential election in Guinea-Bissau. A run-off vote between the top two contenders will be held on 18 May. Jose Mario Vaz, an ex-finance minister from the main PAIGC party, will face Nuno Gomes Nabiam, a military-backed bureaucrat running as an independent. In the first round, Mr Vaz took 41% of the votes compared to 25% for Mr Nabiam. More than 80% of the electorate turned out to chose from 13 presidential candidates and 15 parties fielding candidates for parliament. In the parliamentary vote, the PAIGC party, which has dominated politics since independence, won 55 of the 102 seats. The Party for Social Renewal (PRS) of former President Kumba Yala, who died earlier this month, took 41 seats. The PAIGC majority in parliament means the leader of that party’s parliamentary list, Domingos Simoes Pereira, will become the next prime minister.
The general elections were the first since a coup in 2012, after which the EU and others suspended aid donations. Guinea-Bissau has a history of coups and no elected leader has served a full term since independence from Portugal in 1974. It is one of the poorest countries in the world and has been further destabilised by the booming trade in illegal drugs from Latin America, in which the country is used as a staging post for the European market. A year ago, the US charged 2012 coup leader Antonio Indjai with drug trafficking and seeking to sell surface-to-air missiles to Colombia’s Farc rebels, to shoot down US patrol helicopters. He has not been extradited.
~ KARIM WADE FACES CORRUPTION CHARGES
A Senegalese court has ruled that Karim Wade, the son of the ex-President Abdoulaye Wade, should stand trial on corruption charges. He was arrested in April 2013 following allegations that he illegally amassed about $1.4bn (£900m) during his father’s 12-year rule. Wade denies wrongdoing but remains in prison. Opposition leader Macky Sall vowed to curb corruption after he was elected president in 2012. Wade refused to answer questions from investigating judges, describing the charges as political and fanciful. During his father’s rule, Karim Wade held several ministerial posts simultaneously, including minister for infrastructure and air transportation. His large portfolio led to him being dubbed ‘the minister of the earth and the sky’ and he was alleged to have acquired several foreign firms by illicit means.
~ AFRIKANS OVERCHARGED ON REMITTANCE FEES
Afrikans are being charged higher fees by money transfer operators. Restricted competition has helped push up charges, according to research by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) who found that average fees of 12% to send $200 (£119) were twice the global average. Fees charged to Africans wishing to send money back amount to a super-tax that could be better spent on education or health, ODI said. Reducing charges to a 5% global target for 2014 set by the G20 would cut fees by $1.8bn (£1.08bn), the ODI said. Western Union and Moneygram account for about two-thirds of remittance payout locations in Africa. In addition, there is a lack of transparency over commercial agreements between money transfer operators (MTOs) and banks, and regulatory practices that restrict market entry, ODI added. When taken as a whole, the average percentage that Moneygram takes for money transfers to Africa from the UK is 5.1%, compared with a global average take of 4.9%. Siddo Deva of Comic Relief said: “Imposing such high remittance fees from hard-earned income is hurting the African diaspora and, more importantly, their families and communities in the countries of origin.”
~ RWANDAN MUSICIAN AND STATION OWNER ARRESTED
One of Rwanda’s best-known musicians - the singer Kizito Mihigo - and Cassien Ntamuhanga, the director of a Christian radio station, have been arrested and accused of links to the South Africa-based Rwanda National Congress (RNC) and Hutu rebels, based in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The RNC was co-founded by Patrick Karegeya, who was found dead in South Africa on New Year’s Day. His political allies, family and South Africa blame the Rwanda’s government which denies responsibility. The police accuse the pair, along with former soldier Jean Paul Dukuzumuremyi, of planning terrorist attacks with the aim of overthrowing the government, assassinating government officials and inciting violence. It is claimed they were working with the FDLR rebels, some of whose leaders took part in the 1994 genocide. Mr Mihigo used to be close to the governing Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and his arrest has come as a surprise to many Rwandans. The United Nations Security Council has heard a proposal to create a special medal for bravery for UN peacekeepers. It was proposed by Jordan’s ambassador to the UN, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, after watching a documentary about Capt Mbaye Diagne, a UN peacekeeper from Senegal who died while working in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. In the first two months of the killings he personally saved the lives of hundreds of Rwandans.
~ NEW YORK POLICE DISBAND MUSLIM ‘EAVESDROPPING’ UNIT
The New York Police Department has disbanded a secret programme designed to eavesdrop on Muslims to identify potential terrorism threats. The Demographics Unit - in operation since 2003 and later renamed the Zone Assessment Unit - dispatched plainclothes detectives to build files on places where Muslims worked, shopped, ate and prayed. The squad had been the subject of two federal lawsuits in the past. It sowed Muslim mistrust for law enforcement. The decision to stop the programme was reportedly made by new Police Commissioner William Bratton, and is viewed as a moving away from past intelligence gathering practices instituted after the 9/11 attacks.
~ NICKY JACOBS BEATS PC BLAKELOCK MURDER CASE
Nicholas Jacobs, 45, was cleared of the murder of PC Keith Blakelock during the Broadwater Farm uprising in October 1985. The case against Jacobs, who was 16 at the time, was so weak to be verging on non-existent. With no forensic evidence the police resorted to framing Mr Jacobs over a rap poem he wrote when he was 18 and giving immunity and paying unreliable informers who had deep and often unresolved psychological, substance abuse and criminal issues who themselves admitted that they took part in the killing of PC Blakelock. Mr Jacobs denounced his own cousin, known as Q, who was giving evidence against him and denied any relation to him in court. The Met arrested a total of 14 people in 2010 on suspicion of involvement in the murder of PC Keith Blakelock or attempted murder of PC Richard Coombes who was beaten unconscious during the rioting. Thirteen were released without charge. Nicky Jacobs is the seventh person to be cleared of the killing after Mark Braithwaite and Engin Raghip were released from prison in a miscarriage of justice case. Three juveniles had their cases discontinued and Winston Silcott received a total of £67,000 in compensation for wrongful conviction, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.
Given that the uprising started after the police assaulted an Afrikan mother Cynthia Jarrett in her own home leading to her demise we await the police pursuing her killers with equal vigour. The police have never apologised for this and should be condemned for their tactics then as now. After the uprising the police scraped up any youth they came across resulting in over 300 getting criminal records. The police locked down the estate for six months denying the residents even access to their postal services and they even took their harassment on to a cultural level banning the playing and curbing the distribution of Junior Delgado’s record ‘Broadwater Farm’. Luckily John Dread put out Al Campbell’s ‘Riot’ and Monty released ‘Tottenham’ to give the Afrikan community around Britain an expression of the real frustrations at police racism and abuse. Two police interrogators - former Det Ch Supt Graham Melvin and ex-Det Insp Maxwell Dingle – were charged and suspended from their jobs for fabricating evidence although they were cleared at the Old Bailey of perverting the course of justice.
~ MARK DUGGAN’S FAMILY TO CHALLENGE INQUEST VERDICT
An inquest verdict that Mark Duggan was lawfully killed when he was shot dead by police can be challenged, it has been ruled. Mr Duggan, 29, was shot in Tottenham, north London, in August 2011.
A judge has ruled that his mother Pamela Duggan has “an arguable case” that should be heard by the Divisional Court in London. Mr Justice Mitting said he was granting “limited permission” to apply for judicial review. A full hearing will take place at the High Court at a later date. The inquest jury concluded that Mr Duggan did not have a gun when he was shot by officers who surrounded a minicab he was travelling in. His aunt Carole Duggan said he had been “executed”.
~ MET CHIEF HOGAN-HOWE DEFENDS LAWRENCE SHREDDING PROBE
Twenty people have been interviewed about the shredding of documents relating to possible police corruption, the Metropolitan Police chief has said. But Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said previous Met commissioners had not been spoken to and it was right “to establish the facts” before they were.
Destruction of files was raised by the Mark Ellison QC in his review of the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation. Four bin bags of material were shredded in 2001. Mr Ellison’s report, published last month, found evidence of “mass shredding” of files relating to Operation Othona - a top-secret anti-corruption initiative within the Met. It also stated that an undercover officer had spied on the Lawrence family, and did not rule out that corruption may have compromised the investigation. Two former Commissioners Lord Stevens - who was commissioner between 2000 and 2005 - and Sir Ian Blair - who was in charge between 2005 and 2008 – have still not given their official accounts of what they knew and when.
~ COCAINE PEAR JUICE DEATH: FIVE PEOPLE RELEASED WITHOUT CHARGE
Five people arrested in connection with the death of a man who accidentally drank pear juice laced with cocaine have been released, police have said. Joromie Lewis, 33, died on 5 December shortly after drinking the Caribbean-made juice at a Southampton warehouse. Two men and a woman from Southampton and two London men were arrested on suspicion of drug offences. No further action will be taken against them. Hampshire Police said its investigation was continuing. Laboratory analysis showed the bottle of Cole Cold Pear-D contained a lethal amount of cocaine. Officers previously said the bottle was part of a consignment manufactured in the Caribbean and brought into the country by the import-export company that Mr Lewis was working for. They described it as a known method used by drug-smugglers to bypass border checks. Mr Lewis, a Royal Navy veteran, lived in Gosport, Hampshire, and originally came from St Vincent and the Grenadines. Police previously described him as “wholly innocent.” A Food Standards Agency alert for shops to withdraw the drink if they find it remains in place.
~ TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO EX-LEADER ARTHUR ROBINSON DIES AT 87
Arthur Robinson, the former president and prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, has died at the age of 87. He was born in a village in Tobago in 1926 and went on to become an Oxford University graduate and a qualified lawyer. He first entered politics in 1958 as a member of parliament, and helped found the People’s National Movement party which led Trinidad and Tobago to independence from Britain in 1962.
As prime minister (1986-1991), he was held hostage and shot in the leg during a failed coup attempt in 1990. He was also beaten by his Islamist captors for ordering the security forces to attack them “with full force” instead of backing down. Twenty-four people died during the coup attempt - carried out by a little-known radical Muslim group, the Jamaat Al Muslimeen - the majority of them during looting that erupted in the Trinidadian capital, Port-of-Spain. Robinson came from a generation of West Indian intellectuals who were to change the course of the region’s history. Mr Robinson first proposed the idea of establishing the ICC during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 1989. He suggested the court should have jurisdiction to prosecute and punish individuals and entities who engage in the illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs across borders. The ICC was established in 2002 to prosecute and bring to justice those responsible for the worst crimes - genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes - committed anywhere in the world. Mr Robinson also served in the largely ceremonial role of president of the twin-island Caribbean country for six years, until March 2003.
~ ALKEBU-LAN REVIVALIST MOVEMENT APPEAL
Freedom Begins with the Freeing of the Mind and Soul
c/o 282 High Road, Leyton, London, E10 5PW
Tel: 020 8539 2154, 07908 814 152
The Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement continues to face financial challenges in these very tough economic times and the vultures of finance capital are hovering over their headquarters again, threatening repossession by 2 May 2014. They are determined to continue serving our community, with their range of Afrikan centred, life sustaining programmes - a Saturday school, Rites of Passage programme, Yoruba classes, cultural ceremonies, iNAPP nation building, etc. They also have concrete business plans, which require the full weight of community support. They need your kind financial support to raise £5,500 by Wed 30 Apr. No amount is too small or too large. So many centres, businesses and resources have been lost to our community in the past five years – Centreprise, D’Jed, St Agnes Place, Maarifa Books and more. Let us all pull together and save this vital community space. To arrange payments – a lump sum and / or small monthly contributions call Bro Omowale on 07939 292 720 or 020 8539 2154. Direct payments: Mama Afrika – Nat West PLC – Acc No: 23503351 – Sort Code: 56-00-17. As Papa Garvey says: Unite Organise Now or Perish! Rise You Mighty People!
FORTHCOMING NUBIART PROFILES
NUBIART: Focus on arts, business, education, health, political developments and the media.
APR PROMOS
~ ‘AFRO-COLOMBIAN SOUND MODERNIZERS’ – Son Palenque [Vampisoul – Out Now] A 20-track compilation from five albums by one of the mainstays of palenquera music. The music is a mix of Cuban son, Afrikan highlife, Cumbia, champeta, Afrobeat, lumbalu, kumina and other Afrikan retentions which reveals how the band moved Colombian music forward. All the tracks are from the mid-1980s albums – ‘Los Trotamundos del Sabor’, ‘La Arepa Asa’, ‘Ane Jue / Ellos Son’ and ‘Afric Erotic’ - apart from ‘Adios Batata’ from the 2012 album ‘Ma Kamajan Ri Musika Ri Palenque’. Every track here is an absolutely brilliant exposition of the life and culture of Afrikans living in Colombia and their links to the greats of Afrikan music from across the continent from Senegal to Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, DR Congo and Angola.
~ ‘GREGORY ISAACS REMIXED’ – Gregory Isaacs [Necessary Mayhem – Out Now] The last three years have been a hard time for us at Nubiart as we remember the good old days when since the early 1980s it was guaranteed that at least once a fortnight there would be a new Gregory Isaacs single or album to sate our appetite to be African Museum completists. With over 500 albums released combining various track selections, alternate takes and Gregory’s propensity to work with virtually every producer in the industry there was enough to keep us busy. It seems Curtis Lynch Jr shares our loss and here he remixes a selection of Gussie Clarke productions from the decade between 1983-1993. The mixes are close to the originals but with a different instrumental emphasis, additional keyboards from Lynch and a heavier bassline. Many of the tracks are in ‘showcase’ style so that the rhythm gets a good workout.
The album kicks off with ‘Jealousy’ which keeps the duet with Dennis Brown but adds a 70’s style DJ from Macka B which lifts the track to even greater heights. The track is revisited twice more with an additional mix and a dub. Which is fine by us as it was one of our favourites when it first dropped. We can never tire of it. ‘Report to Me’, Love Me or Leave Me’ and ‘Temporary Lover’ are also from that period when the late 80s turned into the 90s and Gussie’s Music Works Studio was the place to go as he had an in-house team of writers, musicians and engineers who could craft a song to fit any vocalist’s inflections so that it sounded as if the rhythm was made for them rather than the vocalist had just jumped on the current fashionable backing track with some off-key, meaningless lyrics purely for the purposes of hype and self-promotion without any recognition of their complete absence of talent or originality.
‘Disrespect’ featuring Shabba Ranks and Josey Wales gets two mixes and The Mighty Diamonds are kept up front in the vocals like on the original ‘Mind Yu Dis’. ‘Street Walker’ and ‘Innercity Lady’ have never got as much airplay as they deserved since their release back in 1984 so it’s good to see them show up here. ‘Let Off Supm’, ‘Private Beach Party’ and ‘Plant Some Love’ were from the following album ‘Private Beach Party’. The other track here is a reworking of ‘Night Nurse’ – we have quite a few versions of this already but given that it was Gregory’s most commercial hit we can always add another mix to our collection. This is an essential CD our only complaint is how can you touch Gussie Clarke productions and leave out the life-enhancing, all-conquering ‘Rumours’? We hope there’s more to come and its remixes are included in future releases - as Gregory would say ‘unfair game haffi play twice’.
NUBIART LIBRARY – APR MEDIA
We will only review books we have read and DVDs we have seen and that are available at reasonable prices online or in shops or libraries. However, given the nature and current state of Afrikan publishing and film production there may be books and films on this list that are worth the extra effort to track down.
~ ‘THE STUART HALL PROJECT: REVOLUTION, POLITICS, CULTURE AND THE NEW LEFT EXPERIENCE’. Dir: John Akomfrah [BFI & Smoking Dogs Films] This documentary is the overview of the life, works and impact of the colossus of intellectual thought, Stuart Hall who sadly passed away earlier this year. It is fitting that it should be directed by one of the men chronicling the lives of Afrikans in Britain, the rest of the diaspora and the continent through his work with the Black Audio Film Collective.
In his early childhood Stuart Hall was consistently reminded by his family that he was three shades darker than his immediate relatives in a Jamaican society that still suffers from shadism to this day. Having moved to Britain to study in 1951 this was one of the themes that runs throughout his life and inspired him to challenge oppression, prejudice, racism, imperialism and colonialism wherever he encountered it. From his days at the Universities and Left Review which merged with The New Reasoner to form the highly influential New Left Review through his days at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies to when most of us first encountered him on TV expounding with great eloquence and erudition on the issues of the day.
His first pivotal year was 1956, the year of the Anglo-French and Israeli imperialist plans to stop the Egyptian Gamal Nasser nationalising the Suez Canal so that it benefited the mass of the Egyptian, the invasion of Hungary, the rise of rock’n’roll and the growing impact of the teenager and youth culture. The film highlights other years of great significance to Afrikans such as 1958, 1963, 1968, 1976, 1979, 1981, 1984-85, and 1998. The documentary has a cut-off point of the year 2000 but as John Akomfrah says in one of the Q&A sessions many of the themes since then whether it be 9/11, the demonisation of Islam, imperial wars, protests over deaths in custody and the Arab Spring are just recurrences of topics Stuart Hall had already covered. Stuart Hall felt from early on in his adult life that Miles Davis put a finger on his soul and the soundtrack here is made up of 15 tracks that chronologically mirror Hall’s political and cultural development.
The extras include: ‘The Stuart Hall Project Q&A’ with John Akomfrah being interviewed by Lola Young where he points out that Stuart Hall moved analysis of the struggle in Britain on from what was considered an Atlanticist obsession where the American struggle against racism took priority. He also covers the dispute that arose between Stuart Hall and Salman Rushdie over BAFC’s ‘Handsworth Songs’; ‘John Akomfrah and Stuart Hall Q&A with Parminder Vir’ (one of the earliest people to fund BAFC’s work when she worked at the GLC). Akomfrah highlights the importance of archives to Afrikan people as they are our major ways of passing on knowledge especially in a land where we have few monuments; and Isaac Julien’s interview with John Akomfrah ‘Black and White in Colour Rushes’. Here Akomfrah points out the thinking behind BAFC which grew out of watching how the Black Arts Movement and other movements such as the Harlem Renaissance had defined a Black aesthetic that resonated among Afrikans across the globe. He also said that ‘collective working delivered durable ways of working around race’ which was not negated by the experience of individual Afrikans who had managed to gain employment in mainstream media. The growth of BAFC and similar projects, such as Ceddo, changed the focus of how the media interacted with Afrikans whereas before they had expected Afrikans to give up their life stories to a preset agenda now they were seen as agents of relevant insights. It allowed BAFC to highlight that not all Afrikan experiences are limited to only the immigrant experience.
Nubiart Diary
~ ROYAL AFRICAN SOCIETY PRESENT ‘I WANT TO WORK IN AFRICA’. Speaker: Frances Mensah Williams, author & human resources consultant. Respondents: Onyekachi Wambu, Director, Engagement & Policy, AFFORD; and Ike Anya, co-founder, Nigeria Health Watch & TEDxEuston. Chair: John Battersby, UK Country Manager, Brand South Africa. In recent years there has been a remarkable turnaround in the Afrika story; from a negative portrayal to one that highlights Afrika’s potential as a land of opportunity. African countries offer a wealth of opportunities for a wide range of careers in diverse sectors. Frances Williams’ book, ‘I Want to Work in Africa’, is a practical step-by-step guide packed with invaluable information, personal stories and advice from human resources managers, executive recruiters and professionals who have successfully made the move to Africa. Copies of the book will be available to purchase at the event. On Wed 23 Apr at 6-8pm at Brunei Suite, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, London, WC1. Web: http://www.royalafricansociety.org/event/i-want-work-africa#sthash.KIUAqOp2.dpuf~ THE LIGALI ORGANISATION PRESENT ‘BEAUTY IS...’ SCREENINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. This film by community educator and guerrilla film maker Toyin Agbetu asks “what is beauty? and examines the answer from a philosophical position through discussions on hair, skin shade, body image and character. “Every time you get a hair burn it is evidence of something going wrong, something getting into your skin” – Toyin Agbetu at ‘Beauty Is’ screening premiere. Web: www.ligali.org/beautyis Twitter: @beautyIs_film Facebook: facebook.com/beautyisfilm
- FP Comms present ‘A Filmmaker’s Evening With...Arthur Sempebwa and Toyin Agbetu’. On Fri 25 Apr at 6.30-8 pm at 20th Century Fox, Soho Square, London, W1D.
- ‘Beauty Is’ Screening and debate hosted by Dr Kwadwo Osei-Nyame Jnr. On Sat 26 Apr at 6-10pm at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) University, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG. Adm: £10.
- ‘Beauty Is’ Screening. On Mon 12 May at 7-9.30pm at Black History Studies, PCS Headquarters, Clapham Junction, 160 Falcon Road, London, SW11. Adm: £10. Tel / Fax: 020 8881 0660. Mobile: 07951 234 233. E-mail: info@blackhistorystudies.com Web: http://www.blackhistorystudies.com
~ SHIRI ACHU ART EXHIBITION ‘35INPRINT: LONDON’. The exhibition will largely consist of 35 Framed Signed Limited Edition ShiriAchuArt Prints. You will be able to purchase these limited edition signed prints at very affordable prices, from £135 and gift card packs of various sizes from £15. £35 of every print sold and proceeds from the raffle will be used to fund an exciting project in Cameroon. Details will be revealed at the exhibition. Until Fri 25 Apr at The Strand Gallery, 32 John Adam St, London, WC2N 6BP. E-mail: info@shiriachuart.com
~ AFRICAN ODYSSEYS PRESENTS THE SCREENING OF ‘COMRADE PRESIDENT’. Dir: Mosco Kamwendo. Samora Machel was killed in a plane crash in 1986. Cut down in his prime, he remains an intriguing figure in African liberation. While he was training to be a nurse, racist laws imposed by the Portuguese colonial government prompted him to join the liberation movement Frelimo, where he rose to become commander in 1970. He became Mozambique’s first President just five years later. Rebuilding the country along Marxist lines, Machel welcomed anti-apartheid revolutionaries fighting in neighbouring Rhodesia and South Africa. These regimes retaliated, and forced him to sign the controversial Nkomati Accord in 1984. This historical portrait provides insight into the complex challenge of leadership and the journey to freedom. On Sat 26 Apr at 2pm at BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XT. Adm: £6. Box Office: 020 7928 3232.
~ ‘THE POWER OF THE ELDER’ (CIMARRON LECTURE) SUPPORTED BY WASP. Is there a critical role for the Elder in our communities? This presentation is delivered by Eli Anderson, a Master storyteller, Poet and Narrative Coach. The lecture is designed to celebrate but also, raise the debate concerning the position of the Elder in our society. On Sat 26 Apr at 7-9.30pm at West Indian Ex-Servicemen Association, 161-167 Clapham Manor Street, Clapham, London, SW4 6DB.
~ FIND YOUR VOICE PROUDLY PRESENTS THE TRUTH ABOUT CANCER. Looking at the works of Dr Llaila Afrika and others there will be a panel discussion with experienced health practitioners and networking. On Sat 26 Apr at 4.30–7pm at Park View Academy, West Green Road, London, N15 3RB. Adm: £5. Tel: Douglas – 07960 239 493 / 07882 403 871. E-mail: findyourvoice@hotmail.co.uk
~ THE MOSAIC ROOMS PRESENT ‘MOGADISHU – LOST MODERNS’. Exhibition exploring Mogadishu through its architecture and urban environment, narrating the story of Somalia’s journey from traditional Afrikan nation via colonisation and post colonialism to emergent independent state. Challenging familiar mainstream images that depict the city solely as a place of conflict and destruction, Somali-British architect Rashid Ali and British photographer Andrew Cross offer a unique account of what remains of the city’s urban fabric and key modernist symbols after two decades of civil conflict. These specially commissioned photographs are presented alongside rare archival photographs, not yet presented to the public, which document the city’s architecture under Italian colonial rule. Due to the destruction of much of its architecture, infrastructure and any historical archives associated with it, there has been a dearth of literature and discourse on the cultural development of Mogadishu through its architecture and built form. Rashid Ali and Andrew Cross’ exceptional work, resulting from their trip to Mogadishu in the summer of 2013, provides a framework to better understand and explore this development. This timely exhibition offers a space for reflection on the value of civic architecture and heritage preservation. It also presents a unique perspective of a city in conflict, and an opportunity to promote new thinking on the broader discourse of urbanism in Africa and the Arab world. Open Tues – Sat at 11am–6pm until Sat 26 Apr at The Mosaic Rooms, A.M. Qattan Foundation, Tower House, 226 Cromwell Road, London, SW5 0SW. Adm: Free. Tel: 020 7370 9990. E-mail: info@mosaicrooms.org
~ ‘EVEN THIS WILL PASS’ EXHIBITION BY AIDA SILVESTRI. ‘Even This Will Pass’ tells the journeys of Eritrean refugees in their exoduses to find better stability and hope in the United Kingdom. With a unique and conceptual approach that preserves the dignity of her sitters, Silvestri blurs the portraits, upon which she hand-stitches their routes graphically in coloured thread. Their corresponding paths are amalgamated together on a large map, highlighting the diverse and encumbered journeys they faced.
Silvestri’s project aims to raise awareness of human trafficking in an emotive tribute to her sitters and to the plights of these refugees whose voices too often remain unheard. Until Sat 26 Apr at Roman Road Project Space, 69 Roman Road, London, E2 0QN.
~ BLACK HISTORY WALKS EVENTS
- Elephant & Castle. On Sat 26 Apr at 11am.
Special War to Windrush walks in Elephant and Castle can be arranged. This walk links the Imperial War Museum with the Cuming Museum. Both museums have excellent collections on the Afrikan presence in WW2 totally relevant to the national curriculum and adult education. The Cuming Museum also has ancient Egyptian items. This walk links the two venues and illustrates the black history of more than 200 years in the SE1 area. Web: www.iwm.org.uk
Cost: £7 – adults / £3 - children. Group bookings possible. E-mail: info@blackhistorywalks.co.uk with number of places required. You will then receive confirmation and joining instructions.
- ‘The X Men’. On Sun 27 Apr at 3-5.45pm at Cottons Caribbean Restaurant, 70 Exmouth Market, Islington, London, EC1. Adm: £8. The new X Men movie, Days of Future Past, will be out soon and people have been demanding an X Men breakdown since we did Blade, Superman, Django and Planet of the Apes. With the introduction of a new Afrikan superhero this X-tra special breakdown over two days will delve deep into the black history of The X men comics and movies. We will cover: Race and metaphor. Malcolm X and Robert Williams; Disney’s record on diversity; Hollywood propaganda; How ‘liberal’ media reinforces the status quo they claim to oppose; The role of the Afrikan superhero. Where are the Afrikan superheroes?; The reason there will be no Black Panther movie; and Afrikan and world politics in disguise.
For all events e-mail: info@blackhistorywalks.co.uk Web: blackhistorywalks.co.uk
~ KWAME NKRUMAH MEMORIAL LECTURES, AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY AND STREET PARLIAMENTS
- Kilombo Centre For Citizens’ Rights And Conflict Resolution Memorial Lecture to mark the 42nd anniversary of the passing of President Kwame Nkrumah. Topic: ‘President Kwame Nkrumah’s Vision and the Way Forward For Ghana and Africa’. Speaker: Explo Nani-Kofi, Initiator and Coordinator of Kilombo International Network and Director, Kilombo Centre For Citizens’ Rights and Conflict Resolution, Peki / London. On Sun 27 Apr at 2.30pm at Lorenz Wolf E.P. Church, Peki Blengo.
- African Liberation Day Street Parliament. On Sun 25 May at Peki Adzokoe New Town, Ghana.
~ ‘ONE HUMANITY’ PREMIERE. On the 20th anniversary of democracy in South Africa ‘One Humanity’, is a documentary film which looks at how the two Nelson Mandela tribute concerts elevated worldwide consciousness of the anti-apartheid movement. ‘One Humanity’ will have simultaneous screenings in London and Pretoria. On Sun 27 Apr at BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9LN. Tel: 020 7734 0022 / 07802 166 594. E-mail: bridget@sarahharveypublicity.co.uk
~ CEZANNE BOOK SIGNING & DISCUSSION OF HER NOVEL ’SINGLE, SPIRITUAL...AND SEXUAL!’ On Sun 27 Apr at 4-6pm at Marcus Garvey Library, Tottenham Green Centre, 1 Phillip Lane, Tottenham, London, N15 4JA. Adm: Free. Tel: 07944 244 116. Web: www.cezannepoetess.com/events
Blog: ‘Black Sex & Spirituality’ http://wp.me/p4aX5h-1i
~ BBM / BMC, AKOBEN AWARDS, BTWSC & TAOBQ (THE AFRICAN OR BLACK QUESTION) PRESENT TALKING MARCUS GARVEY / UNIA @ 100. Facilitated by Akoben Award’s Kwaku, and hosted by Harrow Mayor Cllr Nana Asante.
- Session 8 – ‘The London Years: The Impact of The City on African and African Caribbean Political Thinkers (Brother Omowale). On Mon 28 Apr at 6.30-8.30pm.
- Session 9 – ‘African British Civil Rights: The Remixed Documentaries’ (Kwaku). On Mon 12 May at 6.30-8.30pm.
- Session 10 – ‘Exploring London’s Black Music History (tbc)’. On Mon 26 May at 6.30-8.30pm.
All events at the Mayor’s Parlour in Harrow Civic Centre 1, Station Road, Harrow, HA1 2XY. Adm: Free.
Dress code: Smart casual. No trainers, track suit or leggings. Booking: www.XtraHistory and eventbrite.com booking page.
- ‘The Look How Far We’ve Come: Getting Racism Back on the Agenda’ Conference’. On Thurs 8 May at 6-9pm at The Abbey Centre, Westminster, London, SW1. E-mail: btwsc@hotmail.com or editor@BritishBlackMusic.com Web: www.BritishBlackMusic.com
~ FILM AFRICA 2014 PRESENT BASIL DAVIDSON’S ‘AFRICA: A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY’ SCREENING + Q&A. On Tues 29 Apr at 7-9pm at SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, London, WC1.
~ KING’S COLLEGE LONDON, THE AHRC, AUTOGRAPH ABP, THE ROYAL AFRICAN SOCIETY, SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL & AFRICAN STUDIES AND SURVIVORS FUND (SURF) PRESENT ‘RWANDA IN PHOTOGRAPHS’. Commemorating 20 years since the Rwandan genocide this April, Rwanda in Photographs is the first international group show of work by professional Rwandan photographers. Rwanda is a country of contrasts: from the rising skyscrapers of central Kigali with their promise of economic growth to the rural hills of Musanze where people are pulling themselves out of poverty but life remains a struggle. Rwandans have seen peace within their borders but still live with the memories of 1994. Combined with the work of Nigerian photographer Andrew Esiebo, these photographs bring you moments of life in Rwanda today, seen through Rwandan eyes. Exhibition runs until 30 Apr at Indigo Rooms, Somerset House, London, WC2R 2LS.
~ ROYAL AFRICAN SOCIETY PRESENTS WOLE SOYINKA @ 80. Marking his 80th birthday, Soyinka joins editor and critic Margaret Busby to reflect on his large body of work and the relationship between culture and politics, exploring how literature and the arts speak to the contemporary African experience. On Thurs 8 May at 6.30pm at British Library Conference Centre, 96 Euston Road, London, NW1 2DB. Contact Sheila Ruiz, RAS Programme Manager. Tel: 020 3073 8337. Web: sheila.ruiz@soas.ac.uk.
~ BLACK HISTORY STUDIES IN ASSOCIATION WITH CHANYA CULTURE PROMOTIONS PRESENTS ‘THE BIRTH OF THE BLUES’ BY COREY HARRIS. American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and bandleader Corey Harris will speak about the birth and evolution of the blues, relating it closely to the history that led to its formation. As a musician rooted firmly in the traditional blues styles of the early twentieth century, he will also perform both original and traditional compositions to demonstrate. The presentation will highlight the individual art of playing, singing and composing the blues and how the blues is a language that different players and instruments can use to create a collaborative performance. Corey will demonstrate a concept of the blues that includes other types of Black music (reggae, ska, jazz) in the west that originated in Afrika. On the night, Corey Harris will introduce and do a book signing of his new book ‘Jahtigui: The Life and Music of Ali Farka Toure’ which examines the life and music of the Malian music legend through the eyes of those who knew him best. Compiled from both interviews and first hand experiences with the guitar master in his desert home in Niafunke, northern Mali. On Wed 14 May at 7-9pm at the PCS Headquarters, 160 Falcon Road, Clapham Junction, London, SW11 2LN, Adm: £5 / Under-16s - Free. Tel / Fax: 020 8881 0660. Mobile: 07951 234 233. E-mail: info@blackhistorystudies.com Web: http://www.blackhistorystudies.com
~ ‘A FUSION OF WORLDS: ANCIENT EGYPT, AFRICAN ART AND IDENTITY IN MODERNIST BRITAIN’ EXHIBITION. An exploration of the ways in which modernist artists – Jacob Epstein, Edna Manley and Ronald Moody – have been inspired by Ancient Egypt. The exhibition places these artists’ reworking of Egyptian art in context of their political, spiritual and gendered expressions of identity. Drawing on the influence of the Harlem Renaissance and ‘discovering’ African Art, this display repositions the work of artists, such as Jamaican born Ronald Moody, in the public memory. Until Sat 24 May at 1-5pm (Tues-Sat) at Petrie Museum, UCL, Malet Place, London, WC1. Tel: 020 7679 4138. Adm: Free. E-mail: events.petrie@ucl.ac.uk
~ PAN-AFRICAN CONGRESS MOVEMENT ALD 2014. The theme is ‘Africa, the Issue of Culture’, & ‘UNIA 100th Year Anniversary’. Speakers include: Prof James Small, Ekua ‘Esther’ Stanford-Xosei, Petronilla Mwakatuma, Cecil Gutzmore, Tafadzwa ShakaRa Mbandaka, Dr Makeddah Idawah and Chipo Sibanda and Clarrie Roots. Sun 25-Mon 26 May at the Light House, 100 Alma Way, Aston, Birmingham, B19 2LN. Tel: 0121 554 2747 / 07940 709 311. E-mail: ald.birmingham2014@gmail.com
~ LEIGHTON HOUSE PRESENTS FROM ‘JAMAICA TO NOTTING HILL, RUDI PATTERSON’S VISIONS IN COLOUR’. For over forty years, following a career as an international model and actor, Rudi Patterson dedicated himself to painting. From the three successive council flats he lived in around Notting Hill he produced a vast body of work, exhibiting widely in London, the UK and internationally – from New York to Melbourne - throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Following his death last year, this exhibition explores a single theme; Rudi’s extraordinarily potent and vivid representations of his native Jamaica. Including many works never previously exhibited these depictions of mountain landscapes, plantation villages, luxuriant tropical vegetation, rivers and beaches conjure a compelling sense of place, intuitively made from the vantage point of a West London window. Until Fri 13 June at Leighton House Museum, 12 Holland Park Road, London, W8.
~ BUNDU DIA KONGO (BDK). Afrikan cultural and spiritual group working towards the spiritual and psychological growth and development of Afrikans all over the world. Let us make a positive change now. Learn about Afrikan prophets, Afrikan history and Afrikan spiritual practices at our weekly Zikua.
- Sun at 1.30–4.30pm at Chestnuts Community & Arts Centre, 280 St Ann’s Road, Tottenham, London, N15 5BN. Tel: Makaba - 07951 059 853.
- Sun at 12.30–3.15pm at Malika House, 81 George Street, Lozells, Birmingham, B19 1Sl. Tel: Mbuta Mayala – 07404 789 329.
~ THE AUSAR AUSET SOCIETY GI GONG CLASSES. Every Monday at 7.30–9pm at Hazel Road Community Centre, Hazel Road, Kensal Green, London, NW10 5PP. Adm: £5 per class. Tel: 07951- 252-427. E-mail: Tauinetwork.europe@gmail.com
~ EXHIBITION APPEAL: RETIRED CARIBBEAN NURSES IN HACKNEY / NEWHAM / EAST LONDON. Hackney Museum is working with Black Women in the Arts Project on an exhibition about Retired Caribbean Nurses to take place in Sep 2014 at Hackney Museum. Do you know of any retired Caribbean Nurses in Hackney / Newham / East London area? Contact: Cheryl Bowen, Community Education Manager, Health and Well Being, Hackney Museum Technology and Learning Centre, 1 Reading Lane, London, E8 1GQ. Tel: 020 8356 2658 / 2545. E-mail: cheryl.bowen@hackney.gov.uk
Web: www.hackney.gov.uk/hackneymuseum
You can hear Afrikan Worldview on the last Sunday of the month in London starting on Sun 26 Apr at 12-6am on Roots 95.4FM. Web: www.UKrootsfm.com Contact: Kubara Zamani, Afrikan Quest International, PO Box 35165, London, SE5 8WU. Tel: 07811 494 969. E-mail: afrikanquest@hotmail.com NB: Nubiart Diary can also be read at www.ligali.org
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