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…
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…
Eritrea was Africa’s foremost jailer of journalists in 2002. The crackdown began in the summer of 2001 after a dozen senior officials and other members of the ruling elite signed public letters criticizing President Isaias Afewerki’s dictatorial rule. The letters, which were leaked to the press, prompted a slew of editorials about human rights, democracy,…
In early December, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi surprised his detractors by inviting them to a series of debates on government policies and the future of the country. The organizer of the unprecedented forum, an independent association known as the Inter Africa Group, said the goal was to foster “the exchange of views between the government…
President Omar Bongo maintained his solid grip on power in this small West African nation. Opposition and pro-democracy movements remained weak, while independent journalists, fearful of losing their jobs, softened their criticism of Bongo, who cultivates a cult of personality and uses widespread official bribery to secure his rule.
The Gambia’s ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) won a landslide victory in mid-January parliamentary elections, capturing 52 of 55 seats in the National Assembly and cementing President Yahya Jammeh’s rule. The main opposition parties boycotted the poll, alleging electoral fraud. Jammeh and the APRC used their renewed power to silence opposition voices…
One year after President John Agyekum Kufuor’s media-friendly government repealed Ghana’s criminal defamation law, the state imposed controls on reporting about interclan clashes in March, after a local tribal king and several of his supporters were killed during a feud between rival clans in the northern Dagbon region. Kufuor declared a state of emergency, which…
On June 30, almost three-quarters of voters cast ballots in parliamentary elections, which landed the ruling Unity and Progress Party 85 out of the National Assembly’s 114 seats and further strengthened President Lassana Conté’s long-standing hold on power. The country’s usually feisty opposition leaders refrained from blaming their losses on voter manipulation, but some journalists…