17 mei 2012. China heeft een volgend middel ontdekt om Afrika mee op te vrijen: de televisie. Staatszender cctv verslaat sinds januari Afrikaans en internationaal nieuws speciaal voor kijkers in Oost-Afrika. Een verrijking van het medialandschap of een oefening in propaganda?

CCTV Africa opereert vanuit de Keniaanse hoofdstad Nairobi. Inwoners van Oost-Afrika kunnen dagelijks kijken naar Africa Live, een zestig minuten durend nieuwsprogramma gepresenteerd door prominente anchors die zijn weggekocht bij Keniaanse stations. Op zaterdagen is er Talk Africa, een praatprogramma, en op zondagen Faces of Africa, met documentaires. CCTV Africa lanceerde ook de mobiele applicatie I love Africa - Afrikanen hebben vaker een mobiele telefoon dan een tv. De zender met Afrikaanse correspondenten in meer dan tien Afrikaanse landen wil vanaf 2015 een 24-uursprogrammering verzorgen à la bbc en cnn.

In Oeganda is de grootste olievondst van subSaharaans Afrika gedaan. Wordt het land er beter van? Of werkt oliegeld corruptie in de hand? (PDF-versie uit het FD hier)

Buliisa/Kampala, 5 mei 2012. De Heer in de hemel prees hij altijd al, maar tegenwoordig looft Innocent Byenkya ook de olie onder zijn voeten. ‘Meer dan tienduizend bewoners rond de oliebronnen hier hebben dankzij de exploratie werk gekregen als chauffeur, bouwvakker of drager’, jubelt Byenkya. ‘Zelfs een van mijn eigen huishouders kon koeien kopen en zijn kinderen naar school sturen.’

Byenkya is de pastoor van Buliisa, een verzameling hutten van modder en riet aan de oevers van het Albertmeer in Oeganda, een van de grootste meren in Afrika. In 2006 werd rond het Albertmeer olie aangeboord door Tullow Oil, de Ierse firma die vooropgaat in het exploratieproces dat van Oeganda Afrika’s nieuwste olieproducent maakt. Een strook winkels verrees langs de rode stofweg die Buliisa verbindt met de buitenwereld. Zeven panden dragen het felgele logo van de Zuid-Afrikaanse telecom gigant MTN. Buliisa kreeg zijn eerste bank, tankstation en ziekenhuis. Byenkya kreeg van Tullow een zonnepaneel. De pastoor in de binnenlanden van Afrika kijkt dankzij de bodemrijkdom tegenwoordig televisie.

Oeganda gaat ingrijpende veranderingen tegemoet. Zijn reserves van 2,5 miljard vaten vormen de grootste olievondst op het vasteland van sub-Saharaans Afrika in 25 jaar. Voorlopig zijn 1 miljard vaten winbaar, genoeg om Oeganda te veranderen in een middeninkomenland. Nu leven volgens de Wereldbank ruim drie op de tien Oegandezen van minder dan $ 1,25 per dag. Oeganda’s belangrijkste exportproducten nu zijn koffie en vis.

April 30, 2012. British colleague-journalist Pete Jones and I have come up with news about American ngo Invisible Children that was published in Uganda's independent newspaper Daily Monitor and by Radio Netherlands Worldwide. We established that Invisible Children allows government soldiers in Congo to access its Early Warning Radio Network,  a system meant to warn villagers in remote areas about movements of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Independent researchers called the army's usage of the radios problematic, given the Congolese army's trackrecord of brutalities against civilians. Read the articles from the Daily Monitor and Radio Netherlands Worldwide.  

Liberiaanse ex-president Charles Taylor hoort vandaag of hij moet boeten voor wandaden in Sierra Leone (pdf-versie uit het FD hier)

26 april 2012. Toen The Economist in mei 2000 een omslagverhaal publiceerde over Afrika als ‘het hopeloze continent’, had het Britse weekblad bovenal Sierra Leone voor ogen. dit West-Afrikaanse staatje, schreef The Economist, vertoont alle slechte eigenschappen van het continent. In de jaren waarin Afrika gekenmerkt werd door gewapende conflicten, overtrof Sierra Leone zelfs de rest in wreedheid. Verkrachting, kannibalisme en amputaties waren aan de orde van de dag.

Charles Taylor (64) hoort vandaag of hij veroordeeld wordt voor betrokkenheid bij de burgeroorlog in Sierra Leone. Hij stond de afgelopen vier jaar terecht voor een dependance van het Speciale Hof voor Sierra Leone in Den Haag en Leidschendam. Als president van Liberia tussen 1997 en 2003 zou hij opstandelingen in buurland Sierra Leone wapens hebben geleverd in ruil voor ‘bloeddiamanten’. Taylor ontkent.

Last month, Kampala witnessed the introduction of 100 big, bright orange buses meant to decongest the notoriously busy city. Riders are enthusiastic about their low fares and swifter routes. But will the new fleet actually lighten traffic?

By Mark Schenkel, Kampala

April 25, 2012. For Marion Najjingo, life in Uganda’s hectic capital has become less stressful. The 21 year old commutes six days a week between her home in suburban Luzira and downtown Kampala, where she works as a cashier in a supermarket. That 11-kilometer distance once demanded a lot of patience and money.

Like tens of thousands of fellow riders, Najjingo can’t afford her own car. She had to depend on a matatu, the 14-seater taxi bus that is the standard mode of transport for many Ugandans.

The matatu has a dubious reputation. For one, passengers must wait until the vehicle fills up before it departs. Along the way, there are frequent stops to drop off and pick up passengers. Complaints about reckless driving and unfriendly customer service abound. What’s more, matatus – given their near monopoly – sometimes raise tariffs unannounced.

For Najjingo, these worries belong to the past.

Uganda’s opposition vows to continue its ‘walk to work’ protests despite a government ban. Critics say the one-year-old protests will not bring about the hoped-for change – or will they? “People should realize that there is not really an alternative strategy.”

By Mark Schenkel, Kampala

April 6, 2012. The stakes of Uganda’s opposition politics have been raised significantly this week. The coming period will have to prove whether opposition leader Kizza Besigye will manage to maintain his momentum, or that his attention-gripping street protests will diminish.

Besigye on Thursday vowed to continue the ‘walk to work’ protests that were launched exactly a year ago, after President Yoweri Museveni – who had already been in power for 25 years – had won the elections. Besigye made his pledge during the last rally in Kampala that was officially allowed. On Wednesday, Uganda’s Attorney General Peter Nyombi had outlawed Activists for Change (A4C), the opposition-aligned pressure group that coordinates much of the walk-to-work protests.

Will oil become a boon or a curse for Uganda? With full-scale production drawing nearer, signs of what may lay ahead can be seen in rural Buliisa.

By Mark Schenkel, Buliisa

March 29, 2012. Innocent Byenkya can finally watch TV without the fear of power outages. Byenkya is the Catholic priest of Buliisa, a collection of thatched huts near the shores of Lake Albert in western Uganda. Byenkya was about the only one in these remote surroundings who already had electricity, but his supply was irregular. The matter was solved recently when he was given a solar panel by Tullow, the Irish firm that is completing test drillings in the area. “Tullow also provided electricity to the dormitories of our students,” says Byenkya while pointing out the lit-up school buildings opposite his parish house. “Now the children can study in the evening.”

Compared to the vociferous campaign against Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony, the silence surrounding the only LRA trial to date is deafening. Things are much quieter around Thomas Kwoyelo since his first court appearance in the town of Gulu in northern Uganda in July 2011.

By Mark Schenkel, Kampala

March 28, 2012. Arrested three years ago in the DR Congo, Kwoyelo, a former LRA member, remains in detention, awaiting the outcome of a legal battle which will determine whether his trial will continue. In the meantime, Kwoyelo’s case is fuelling debate among local and international activists about a central question of transitional justice: how to reconcile the demands of both prosecution and amnesty?

Kwoyelo is the first to be tried before the International War Crimes Division (ICD) of the Uganda High Court, set up in 2008 to deal with LRA militants. Accused of serious crimes as a senior commander, he might still benefit from the Amnesty Act of 2000, just like 16,000 other LRA fighters. Uganda needs to streamline the parallel, partially conflicting mechanisms if it wants to prevent this sort of confusion in future.

Jacob Acaye, the main Ugandan character in “Kony 2012”, fully backs the heavily criticised movie. “I don’t see a reason why anything should be changed.”

By Mark Schenkel, Kampala

March 27, 2012. Jacob Acaye would reproduce “Kony 2012” without changing a single thing. According to Acaye, critics of the video should re-watch it to realise they are “mistaken”. He and other supporters of the work of Invisible Children consider the film as already being “perfect”.

Acaye is the main Ugandan character in “Kony 2012”, the disputed movie through which the American NGO, Invisible Children, wants to raise awareness about the atrocities committed by Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The movie contains scenes from 2003 in which Acaye, then aged 11 or 12, explains how he was abducted by the militants and witnessed the murder of his brother. Acaye managed to escape and, later, went to school with the help of Invisible Children.

Acaye is now 22 and studies law at Makerere University in Kampala. He shares his thoughts about “Kony 2012” at the Kampala office of Invisible Children, the organisation that for him “became like a parent”.

With this blog post, I want to draw attention to an unexplainable, incurable illness that has claimed the lives of at least 170 children and has affected at least 3.000 more in northern Uganda. It is called 'nodding disease', after the nodding of the head shown by its victims. Their brain is affected, just like their body growth and ability to speak. Even if they survive, they risk remaining handicaped for the rest of their lives.

I met Nancy, the girl in the picture, after northern Uganda took centre stage in the world news in early March following the release of the controversial video 'Kony 2012' by American ngo Invisible Children. 'Kony 2012' advocates for a solution to the suffering caused by Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA was active in northern Uganda for  many years. People in the region told me they do not understand why anyone cares to talk about Kony anymore though. The most recent LRA-attack here took place six years ago. Nowadays, they explained, the threat to our children is called 'nodding disease'.

You can read some of my reports here and here (in Dutch) and here (in English). I have also added more pictures of Nancy - her father Michael Odongkora has agreed to the publicity. The images show us how desperate the parents of sick children are: fearing that their handicaped children will wander off into a river of a wildfire while they themselves are out working on the fields, they tie them to trees. Nancy is certainly not the only child in northern Uganda to 'live' like this.

Donations for the victims can be made to, amongst others, the Red Cross.