Africa

Although the Kenya-based East African Standard, one of Africa’s oldest continuously published newspapers, marked its 100th anniversary in November, journalism remains a difficult profession on the continent, with adverse government policies and multifaceted economic woes still undermining the full development of African media.

On February 21, Angola’s government announced that its troops had killed Jonas Savimbi, who led the UNITA rebel group’s fight for power in oil-rich Angola for more than 30 years. That same day, state television ran a special news program featuring Savimbi’s corpse filmed from several angles with repeated close-ups of his neck, where the…

Though journalists and human rights observers generally consider the independent press in Botswana free, the government proved in 2002 that it is unwilling to tolerate negative coverage from state media.

2002 was a particularly tough year for President Blaise Compaoré, as accusations mounted that he is one of West Africa’s most corrupt leaders and supports insurrection in neighboring Ivory Coast. Members of the media covering the corruption have been harassed, while the December 1998 murder of journalist Norbert Zongo remains unsolved.

President Pierre Buyoya’s government remained wary of political opposition and critical press reports during 2002. Meanwhile, government attempts to identify war criminals following Burundi’s eight-year civil war between the Tutsi-led regime and the Hutu-backed opposition stalled when peace talks collapsed again on November 7, and the conflict continued intermittently.

On October 10, the International Court of Justice recognized Cameroon’s rights to Bakassi, a Gulf of Guinea peninsula whose sizable offshore oil deposits Nigeria has long claimed. Nevertheless, Nigeria continued to assert its prerogative, reviving fears of an armed conflict along the 1,000 mile (1,600 kilometer) border between the two countries.

A year after a failed coup, the government of President Ange-Félix Patassé lifted a nationwide curfew in May. Five months later, in October, several hundred soldiers and civilians were killed in another coup attempt, led by disgruntled army general François Bozize, paralyzing the country for weeks. The Patassé regime prevailed with the help of more…

After three years, Chad’s bloody civil war ended in January, when the government of President Idriss Déby signed a peace accord with the rebel Movement for Democracy and Justice (MDJT). A month later, Parliament adopted a law granting MDJT members amnesty.

In late December, warring parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) sealed a power-sharing deal, while the last foreign troops backing government or rebel groups prepared to withdraw from the vast, mineral-rich Central African nation. The latest agreement calls for a unity government, ending a four-year civil war that has ruined the country and…

Since President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo took control in a 1979 military coup, he and his ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea have governed one of Africa’s most repressive regimes. The country’s small press has been incessantly harassed and intimidated, while citizens have been fined for reading controversial publications. Obiang’s landslide re-election victory in December…