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DANA HUGHES

ABC News Reporter

Dana Hughes is an ABC News reporter covering Africa. She is based in Nairobi, Kenya. Before this position, she was an associate producer for the ABC News’ Investigative Unit. Hughes has documented corruption in Nigeria, human rights abuses in Africa and the Middle East, and prescription drug errors by one of the country’s largest pharmacy chains.

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Madonna’s Adoption Troubles a Mirror for Africa

April 03, 2009 5:33 PM

ABC News Digital's Dana Hughes reports from Nairobi:

Shock went around the world when a Malawian judge denied the petition of pop superstar Madonna to adopt a second child from the southern African country. Last week, the 50-year-old singer and her three children flew to Malawi, hoping to finalize the adoption of 4-year-old Mercy James, a little girl living in an orphanage. But there was just one problem. Malawi’s adoption laws are strict; international prospective parents must have resided in the country for 18 to 24 months prior to adopting. Madonna, who has donated millions of dollars to various causes in Malawi and even made a documentary about its children, still has never resided there. On those grounds, the judge in the case rejected her request today.

“Put simply, courts do not make law by the process of precedents and Miss Madonna may not be the only international person interested in adopting the so-called poor children of Malawi,” the judge stated. “By removing the very safeguard that is supposed to protect our children, the courts, by their pronouncements, could facilitate the trafficking of children by some unscrupulous individuals who would take advantage of the law of the land.”

Most Africans I’ve talked to don’t think letting Madonna adopt the girl will open the floodgates to children being trafficked out of Malawi; after all, she had the law waived when she adopted her son David Banda three years ago. But there is a sense of uneasiness. I keep hearing the questions: “This girl has a grandmother and uncles nearby. Why doesn’t she give money to the family so that they can raise her?” and “Why does she think she shouldn’t have to follow the law? Because she’s rich and American and this is Africa?”

Malawi’s adoption laws are actually quite similar to those in most African countries. In Kenya, for example, a family must reside in the country for at least a year before beginning adoption proceedings. I’ve interviewed an American family who actually spent more than a year here and nearly $100,000 to get through the bureaucracy of a Kenyan adoption only to be told they couldn’t adopt one child and had to take another.  In Rwanda, which has hundreds of thousands of orphans as a result of the country’s genocide and subsequent AIDS epidemic, some officials have said they do not want masses of foreigners adopting the orphaned children, calling the prospect “another form of genocide.” 

Even the idea of official adoption is a foreign concept to most African cultures where tradition dictates that children belong not to individual parents, but to entire villages. Here, if a parent dies, a grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin or family friend takes the child in. In the past, the idea of an orphan simply didn’t exist. But that was before AIDS and urbanization and long-standing brutal wars. Now, in many countries, there are more orphans than communities willing and able to care for them.

Malawi, devastated by the AIDS epidemic, has nearly 2 million orphaned children. Supporters of Madonna argue that the controversy shouldn’t be over her possibly skirting the adoption laws, but whether the laws are still in the best interest of the children or the country.  Those supporters include officials from the Malawian government.

“We can’t look after all [the orphans] as a country,” Women and Child Welfare Development Minister Anna Kachikho told the Associated Press. “If people like Madonna adopt even one such orphan, it’s one mouth less we have to feed.”

With tens of millions of orphans throughout the continent having no place to go and no one to care for them, the debate over Madonna’s efforts represents more than just a challenge to Malawi’s adoption laws. It speaks to fundamental African families value, and how they may be changing whether Africans like it or not.

April 3, 2009 in Dana Hughes | Permalink | User Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)

Even the President's Brother Can Get Cholera

March 27, 2009 11:55 AM

By DANA HUGHES, Digital Reporter, ABC News Nairobi

Earlier this week, Malik Obama, half-brother of U.S. President Barack Obama, checked into a local hospital in western Kenya with a possible case of cholera. He wouldn’t confirm to media that he had the disease, but a local source told me that Malik Obama had been treated in the cholera ward for the past three days and would be released today.

Malik Obama was a guest at his brother’s inauguration in Washington, D.C., in January. But Kogelo, President Obama’s father’s birthplace and where Malik still resides, is a long way from the beltway, not just in distance but also economically.

I’ve been to Malik’s homestead. By Kenyan standards, it would be considered middle class -- there’s a television, make-shift electricity, running water. But the village is largely off the electric grid and women travel distances to get daily water.

The closest thing to health care Kogelo has is a dispensary – a little clinic stocked with few drugs and health workers who can refer patients to larger hospitals in nearby towns. And so this village of 5,000 is prone to outbreaks of a disease that is nearly nonexistent in the West.

Cholera is common on the subcontinent. It’s an intestinal disease, caused by drinking and eating contaminated water and food. An outbreak occurs when there’s a breakdown in sanitation conditions and a lack of safe drinking water.

The most prominent outbreak at the moment is in Zimbabwe where more than 60,000 people have been infected, and more than 3,000 have died. The disease is relatively easy to treat. Victims are given oral rehydration salts to replace the fluids lost through vomiting and diarrhea; in severe cases, fluids are injected intravenously. With proper care, most patients, like Malik Obama, are cured and discharged within a couple of days.

A look at the World Health Organization’s map of cholera outbreaks over the past two years shows that it is largely a poor man’s disease. It’s rampant in developing countries throughout Africa and Southeast Asia, and nearly nonexistent in the West, which has advanced water treatment systems. The last major cholera outbreak in the United States was in 1910. Kenya, on the other hand, is in the midst of at least two outbreaks.

Kenyans are very proud of the fact the President Obama has roots here, none likely more so than his own brother. “Yes we can” is a favorite saying here, often used by Kenyans to demand the same change in their government and infrastructure as the recent elections brought about in the United States.

But when the brother of the leader of the free world still lives in conditions in 2009 that leave him susceptible to a disease that the United States hasn’t seen in nearly a hundred years, it’s clear it will take more than a phrase and people power to bring health care here to a modern standard.

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March 27, 2009 in Dana Hughes | Permalink | User Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

What Awaits Zimbabwe's New Prime Minister?

February 11, 2009 4:36 PM

By DANA HUGHES, ABC News Digital Reporter, Nairobi

It’s no wonder that many Zimbabweans were overjoyed at Tsvangirai’s swearing-in ceremony. He promised to repair Zimbabwe’s economy; he promised to fix the country’s health care system; he promised that Zimbabwe might once again become Africa’s “bread basket” instead of the basket case the country is now considered. And archrival Mugabe, who for years has done everything in his power  --  short of  having Tsvangirai assassinated  --  to thwart all attempts at ending his nearly 30-year rule, stood next to him after swearing him in.

But behind today’s ceremony lies a nearly impossible task, a power-sharing agreement  in which the balance of power continues to favor Mugabe and his regime, after an election considered anything but free and fair by international standards. In fact, many Western donor countries, including the United States, are reportedly saying that they won’t  contribute to Zimbabwe’s reconstruction until they see that Tsvangirai is an equal partner in governing the country.

Zimbabwe might do well to look at Kenya, the last African country to have a flawed election ending in violence, which ultimately ended because of a power-sharing national accord.

One year on, Kenyans are feeling disillusioned about their coalition government. By having no true opposition, there is no system of checks and balances to curb corruption or to speak for the people. Infighting within the coalition has revealed rifts and inequality in the supposed partnership between the president and the prime minister.

In short, critics are now saying that the power-sharing agreement may have stopped the bloodshed in the short term, but may prove costly to the country’s democracy long-term.

Kenya was at least experiencing peace and economic growth before its post-election violence. Zimbabwe is considered, for all intents and purposes, a failed state. The hurdles for this coalition government to succeed seem almost insurmountable, but the cost of its failure could be catastrophic for a nation already teetering on complete collapse.

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February 11, 2009 in Dana Hughes | Permalink | User Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

With Zimbabwe's Survival at Stake, the Opposition Makes a Deal

January 30, 2009 2:37 PM

DANA HUGHES, ABC News, Nairobi

Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of Zimbabwe’s opposition party Movement for Democratic Change today announced that even though he and his party still don’t trust President Robert Mugabe and his ruling party Zanu-PF, they will enter into a unity government. The announcement has at least temporarily ended a political standoff since a power-sharing deal was first agreed to in September.

MDC members may have felt as if they didn’t have much of a choice. The situation in Zimbabwe was nearly untenable even before the original deal was made five months ago. Tsvangirai won the first round of presidential elections last March, but Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for nearly 30 years, declared that he was not going to lose.

"Only God" could make him step down he said as he began a systematic campaign against Tsvangirai and his supporters, who made up a good portion of the country. "Re-education camps" were reportedly set up across the country where people who'd voted for MDC were taken and tortured by members of Mugabe’s regime. Gangs of young men, largely believed to have been given drugs and food by Mugabe’s henchmen, roamed the streets chanting pro-Mugabe slogans and promptly beating people whom they deemed "disloyal."

By the time the final round of polls came around in June, Tsvangirai had decided to withdraw; he said the prospect of his winning seemed too risky for the people of Zimbabwe. He instead decided to continue to rely on the "quiet diplomacy" of South Africa and other regional leaders, who eventually got Mugabe to agree to a power-sharing deal. Problem was, Mugabe wasn’t into sharing any of the power. Tsvangirai was offered a prime minister position, largely ceremonial, with all executive powers and top Cabinet positions staying with Mugabe and his party.

But if the situation in Zimbabwe during the polls was horrid, it’s now dire. The country is literally imploding. The joke, "Zimbabwe is a country of billionaires" is no longer remotely funny. After recently issuing the first Zimbabwean trillion-dollar note, the equivalent of only a few U.S. cents, the Zimbabwean Treasury finally admitted what the world’s been saying for years: Zimbabwe’s economy is in collapse. Acting Finance Minister Patrick Chinimasa announced this week that Zimbabwean businesses could now legally accept other currencies, something most upscale and expat businesses were already doing, but now nobody would take the Zim dollar. International media outlets are strewn with stories of teachers, doctors, nurses and other professionals who cannot afford to go to work because while they are being paid in local currency -- even operators of public buses are demanding to be paid in dollars, euros or South African rand.

In an Al-Jazeera English report, a woman at a bus station unable to board her bus yells at the driver. "He’s saying heonly takes U.S. dollars, but I have only Zim dollars," she says. In exasperation she asks, "Where would I get U.S. dollars from? I’m Zimbabwean!"

Zimbabwe’s economy, ironically, is not the biggest problem the country has right now. The country is in the midst of a cholera epidemic so serious that World Health Organization officials are calling it "the worst case scenario." More than 3,000 people have died and more than 60,000 are infected. The disease is affecting nearly every province of Zimbabwe. Cholera is a highly treatable and preventable disease, but because Zimbabwe’s health care system has completely fallen apart and there is no sanitation or clean water, the country is ripe for infestation.

Unfortunately aid organizations fear that the situation will get worse before it gets better. The rainy season is approaching, a deadly environment for cholera to spread, and the World Food Program is warning that 7 million people, more than half of Zimbabwe’s population, will need food aid in the next two months. With the current political stalemate, even if the government could provide services, there are no permanent Cabinet members to determine policy, and foreign donors are unwilling to invest in Zimbabwe as long as Mugabe is solely in charge.

These are the circumstances under which Tsvagirai and his MDC party find themselves: thousands of people dead, starving and unable to support themselves, and a government unable and unwilling to help. When Tsvangirai withdrew from the presidential race in June he said he was doing it to "save the lives of his supporters." It may be now that by agreeing to share power with a man who’s been labeled one of the world’s worst dictators, he is again making that choice.

January 30, 2009 in Dana Hughes | Permalink | User Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Ethiopia's Withdrawal from Somalia: Move towards Peace...or Doom?

January 13, 2009 6:28 PM

DANA HUGHES is the ABC News Digital Reporter based in Nairobi

The news that Ethiopia is officially beginning its handover of security in Somalia was met with cheers by Somalis over the last few days. Some of the estimated 1 million people who have fled Mogadishu since the Ethiopian invasion two years ago are returning to their homes, feeling that they are now safe from the shelling and alleged human rights abuses committed by the Ethiopian forces and the Somali government soldiers fighting along side.

Ethiopia, backed by the United States and other Western countries, invaded its neighbor with the objectives of ousting the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), a government that was viewed as being radical and an al-Qaeda sympathizer, and bringing peace to a country that has been embroiled in conflict since 1991. The Ethiopian troops succeeded in ousting the ICU, but the cost has been high. In the last two years more than 10,000 civilians have been killed, the majority of the country is on the brink of famine, pirates rule the coastal waters, and aid groups have all pulled out their international workers calling the country “too dangerous” to fully operate in. Many analysts say Somalia is now in the worst shape it’s ever been. The United Nations has called the country “the worst humanitarian disaster in Africa.”

As Ethiopia pulls out of strategic bases in Mogadishu and continues to formally hand over security it is also not clear who the country’s handing it over to. There are reports that Western diplomats are hoping that the overall hatred of the Ethiopian troops, and subsequent happiness in their withdrawal, will help propel the general population to support a moderate Islamic government. But over the last two years a strong insurgency has emerged spawning many radical Islamic break-away groups who now control most of the country.

The most powerful, as well as one the most radical, is al-Shabab; a group on the U.S. terrorist list, and known for its brutal enforcement of Islamic sharia law.  I interviewed an undercover Kenyan journalist who witnessed al-Shabab leaders behead a young man for converting to Christianity. I also talked to a former al-Shabab fighter named Ali who claims he was forced to join the group. He told me that young men in Somalia are often given a choice: join us or die.

“Those who have been forced are many,” said Ali. “They say you are either supporting the Ethiopians or you support us. Or if not, we’ll kill you.”

Last year a 13-year-old girl was stoned to death for adultery after she reported being raped to the local al-Shabab authority. The group has also pledged it’s allegiance to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, developing techniques such as kidnapping, beheading and suicide bombings as means of warfare.

The Ethiopians are not the group’s only target. Ironically, it also fights some of the same Islamic leaders who were ousted by the Ethiopians two years ago. Many of those have signed a peace agreement last October with members of Somalia’s Ethiopia-backed transitional government. The deal is supposed to eventually lead to a power-sharing government.

But al-Shabab and other insurgent groups didn’t participate in the talks, and have refused to recognize the agreement. There are reports that yesterday an insurgent group had already overtaken one of the bases the Ethiopians withdrew from. One local journalist based in Mogadishu told me even before Ethiopia started the withdrawal process, he expected to see “the fall of Mogadishu” within the next few months.

Despite the allegations that the ICU government in 2006 was harboring and sympathetic to known terrorists, during its 6-month run, Somalia experienced relative stability. It’s unclear whether the country can experience the same under al-Shabab, but Ali doesn’t think so. When asked what he thinks will happen if al-Shabab takes over the country, he predicted, “Somalia now will be going under hell.”

The international community seems to be at a loss in dealing with the situation. The United States wants the United Nations to send in peace keepers, but the UN says at this point there is no peace to keep. Uganda and Burundi have committed peacekeeping troops through the African Union, but those troops have also been targeted and without more resources both countries have said their commitment is not sustainable.

I spoke with Vince Crawley the spokesman for Africom, the U.S. military Africa Command based in Germany, about Ethiopia’s withdrawal and what it means for the stability in Somalia. He says Africom “tends not to comment on the movement of other nations,” but that they’re “watching the situation closely because it affects insecurity in the area.”

When asked whether the U.S. military will take any action, Crawley says that “We would only take action in support of U.S. policy.” It remains to be seen how or if that policy will change once Ethiopia has pulled out fully and under a new Obama administration. 

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January 13, 2009 in Dana Hughes | Permalink | User Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Somalia Piracy: On Land and Sea

November 17, 2008 2:46 PM

By DANA HUGHES, ABC News Digital Reporter for Africa based in Nairobi

The Sirius Star, a Saudi-Arabian supertanker carrying 2 million barrels of oil is the latest, and the largest, in a long line of ships to be hijacked off the coast of Somalia this year. There are reports that while the 25 person crew is safe, the tanker is now among some 12 other foreign vessels being stored in Somalia coastal villages, waiting for ransom negotiations to be freed. The U.S. Navy is calling the capture of the Sirius Star especially alarming because of its size -- 1,080 feet long, weighing 318,000 tons -- and because it was captured 450 miles offshore. Classified as a Very Large Crude Carrier, there are reports that ship is carrying more than one-quarter of Saudi Arabia's daily output and that upon news of its capture, crude oil prices rose.

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for ships passing through the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean near Somalia. According to media reports and information from the International Maritime Bureau’s piracy reporting center in Malaysia, there have been at least five successful hijackings in less than 10 days, and that number doesn’t count attempted hijackings, foiled by the international community using military means to fight back. One attempted hijacking of a Danish ship last week failed after pirates opened fire using machine guns on two U.K. Royal Navy ships protecting the Danish vessel. The Navy ships fired back, killing three pirates. Over the weekend, there were reports that a Russian warship fired on pirates attempting to hijack another Saudi Arabian vessel.

Even though the increased presence of international Navies and NATO in the area has thwarted a fair amount of attacks in the past three months, pirates still enjoying a 31 percent success rate. The Combined Maritime Forces put out a statement today calling for shipping companies to start providing private security. Despite the international community’s best efforts, says Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, the commander of the CMF, piracy is too endemic for the CMF or any military force to fight alone. Beyond dealing with the seemingly endless amount of pirates waiting in the waters to attack, the geographical area needing patrolling is more than 1.1 million square miles, says the CMF.

The challenge is overwhelming. “Shipping companies have to understand that naval forces cannot be everywhere,” says Gortney. “Self-protection measures are the best way to protect their vessels, their crews and their cargo.”

Back on land in Somalia, a crisis is brewing that could potentially overwhelm the entire Horn of Africa. This weekend Somalia’s president, Adullahi Yusuf, admitted that Islamic insurgents now control nearly all of south Somalia, and are making advances to Mogadishu. These insurgents are not part of the Islamist government that was in control of the country in 2006; they are breakaway groups, the largest being Al-Shabab, recognized in the U.S. as a terrorist group with ties to al Qaeda. Al Shabab leaders want to impose Taliban-style sharia law in Somalia and have already given a taste of how they will rule in insurgent-controlled areas.

Last month, a 13-year-old girl was reportedly stoned to death for adultery after reporting to the authorities she'd been gang-raped. In another rebel-controlled town right outside Mogadishu, 32 people, mostly women, were publicly whipped this weekend for participating in a traditional dance the insurgents deemed “against Islam.” Since the Ethiopian invasion of the country in 2006, Islamic insurgents have targeted foreign and local aid workers, accusing them of being infidels and working with the fragile Western- and Ethiopian-backed transitional government, which has been accused of committing its own human rights abuses.

The result has been an estimated 10,000 civilians killed in the last two years, 1 million Somalis internally displaced and millions on the verge of famine. The crisis has a regional impact as well; thousands of Somalis brave shark-infested waters each year to flee to Yemen, Kenya is housing hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming over a border it has tried to keep closed, Ethiopia is pouring millions of dollars and troops into a war Prime Minister Meles Zenawi is largely considered wanting to get out of. Many Horn of Africa experts say that Somalia, which has not had an effective government since 1991, is in the worst shape it’s ever been in. In this year’s Failed States Index put out by Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace, Somalia beat out Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe and even Iraq and Afghanistan to become the world’s most unstable, violent-prone failed state.

I spoke to a Somali journalist based in Mogadishu who has been in Nairobi the past two weeks trying to get journalists interested in visiting the large refugee camp on the Kenyan border to which more than 60,000 Somalis have fled, mostly from Mogadishu, this year. He’s even offered to provide protection for journalists wanting to visit the volatile capital, but he’s going back without having drummed up much interest. “There was the U.S. election and then the crisis in Congo,” he told me. “But I’m used to it. It’s very easy for the world to forget about Somalia. They always do.”

With the chaos in the country reaching a boiling point and spilling over on both land and sea, the issue may become not whether the world forgets about Somalia, but whether we can afford to.

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November 17, 2008 in Dana Hughes | Permalink | User Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)

From Babies to Beer: Kenyans Find Unique Ways to Pay Tribute to Obama

November 06, 2008 2:48 PM

DANA HUGHES is the ABC News Digital Reporter for Africa based in Nairobi

The moment the U.S. presidential race was declared for Sen. Barack Obama, Kenyans across the country erupted into spontaneous celebrations. But now, a day later, their tributes have become a bit more organized – and for some immensely personal.

In Western Kenya, the area Obama’s family is from, people are naming their children after the next first couple.  There are media reports that in one hospital, more than half the babies born yesterday were named either Michelle or Barack Obama. One woman had fraternal twins and named the boy Barack and the girl Michelle. In interviews, many of the mothers said they hoped that by naming their kids after the senator and his wife, their children would grow up to have some of the same traits and success as the future first couple. Naming children after important figures or events is a tribal tradition of the Luos, the tribe Barack Obama’s father is from. When Obama was elected senator in 2006, little Luo babies started popping up named Barack Obama, and even Senator Barack. Now that Senator Obama will be the 44th president of the United States, it’s likely that he’ll have thousands of namesakes running around Western Kenya; some might even have the name “President.”

Obama’s win also has East African Breweries, the largest liquor manufacturer and distributor in East Africa, paying tribute by renaming their popular “Senator” brand beer “President.” The beer, which is widely distributed throughout Kenya, is particularly popular because after 2006, Kenyans started referring to the brew as “Obama” beer. Now that he’ll no longer be a senator, the company says it’s only fitting to change the brand name to fit his new title.

Street naming has also already begun. In the coastal town of Mombasa today, it was announced that a street nearing completion would be named President Barack Obama Street. It might be the first street in Kenya to bestow the honor, but most Kenyans expect that it won’t be the last. But perhaps the biggest, most symbolic tribute bestowed upon President-elect Obama was to give him his own day. Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki declared today a national public holiday, in honor of Obama’s win. Kenyan children got the day off from school, most businesses were closed and hotels across the country took the day to start preparing for a weekend of Obama-themed parties. Said President Kibaki in an address to the nation, “Your victory is not only an inspiration to millions of people all over the world but it has special resonance with us here in Kenya.”

November 6, 2008 in Dana Hughes | Permalink | User Comments (17) | TrackBack (0)

In Congo, Keeping Peace on the Verge of War

October 30, 2008 3:21 PM

DANA HUGHES is the ABC News Digital Reporter for Africa, based in Nairobi

When I first arrived in Nairobi a year ago, I met with several NGOs and humanitarian organizations, many of them based here. I remember speaking with one U.N. official and asking him, “What’s the story everyone is missing? Where’s the most serious crisis in East Africa?” I expected him to say Somalia or Darfur, but instead he said, “Eastern Congo. It keeps me up at night.” He said the situation was already extremely tenuous -- more than 1 million displaced people, routine rape as a weapon of war, child soldiers, rivaling rebel groups -- but that it very well could get worse and blow up.

Reports coming out of Eastern Congo seem to confirm his fear. The United Nations estimates that more than 30,000 people have fled their homes in the last few days as the Tutsi rebel group continues to advance and “capture” villages. New refugees are overflowing camps already home to hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by the ongoing conflict. Many humanitarian agencies, including the World Food Program, have had to suspend much of their activities – leaving some of the most vulnerable civilians without food or aid. A spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders told me that the organization continues to work in the rebel-controlled areas, although the situation changes “hour by hour.” Humanitarian organizations are used to the continuous low-level violence and tension in the region, but the latest round seems on the verge of all-out civil war.

War is nothing new to the DRC; it took nearly 40 years before the country held its first democratic elections. As the largest country in Africa, roughly the size of Western Europe, the DRC borders the countries that make up Southern Africa, West Africa and East Africa and it often gets caught up in regional wars. The situation in Eastern Congo is the latest example. Today’s conflict can be traced to 1994, as a direct result of the genocidal war in Rwanda. Many of the Hutu perpetrators of the genocide fled across the border to Eastern Congo and formed a militia group. The rebels advancing today are led by Gen. Laurent Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi who says he is protecting the minority Tutsi community in Eastern Congo from the Hutu milita. Nkunda signed a peace agreement in January, but now says his rebels will continue to fight until the Hutu militia disarms. Throw in an under-paid, rogue military force that both the Hutu and the Tutsi militias accuse of conspiring with the other, and you have a situation where it’s the civilians paying the price.

The United Nations estimates that there are currently more than 1 million people who are displaced. Eastern Congo is also synonymous with mass rape as a weapon of war. In January the International Rescue Committee published a study estimating that from 1998-2003, 5.4 million civilians had died because of the conflict, many from starvation and disease, as well as violence. The study pointed out that the ongoing conflict has had more fatalities than World War II. But the United Nations, along with international humanitarian organizations, is trying to help create peace in the region. There are 17,000 U.N. peacekeepers in the DRC, the largest number in the world, mostly concentrated in the east. But in this recent wave of violence, for the first time, MONUC, the U.N. mission in Congo, has found itself under attack. Rebels fired on a peacekeeping convoy last weekend, causing the peacekeeping force to resort to military action. The peacekeeping force had to disperse helicopter gun ships to fire on rebel areas in order to keep them from advancing into Goma, the provincial capital of Eastern Congo, home to around 1 million people.

Michael Bonnardeaux, the spokesman for MONUC, told me that the United Nations “has always made it clear that we will use all available means at our disposal to protect urban centers.” But even within Goma, there were violent demonstrations at MONUC compounds with civilians frustrated at what they view is a lack of protection by the peacekeepers from the rebels. For its part the United Nations says it’s completely overwhelmed, peacekeeping missions are there to keep the peace, it’s why they don’t go into a region until after a war is more or less over. But as the situation in Eastern Congo continues to deteriorate, U.N. officials, humanitarian organizations and world leaders may be forced to face the question once again of what to do when there’s no peace to keep?

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October 30, 2008 in Dana Hughes | Permalink | User Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

Modern-Day Piracy Is Anything but Glamorous

October 24, 2008 2:00 PM

DANA HUGHES is the ABC News Digital Reporter for Africa based in Nairobi

Pirates are usually associated with movies, cartoons and phrases like “Ay ay, matey!” Portrayed primarily as villains in tales from hundreds of years ago, pirates are making a modern-day comeback; still villains, but hardly entertaining.

The Gulf of Aden, in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Somalia, has become infested with hijackers of the sea. In this year alone, more than 70 ships have been taken over by Somali pirates, with at least 11 still being held along with 200 crew members. The pirates don’t discriminate; ships from all over the world have been hijacked, from cargo ships from the Philippines to a French yacht. Last month a Ukranian ship, the MV Faina, reportedly en route to Kenya carrying tanks, ammunition and small weaponry, was taken over. The fear of such explosive booty being unloaded in the war-torn country prompted the U.S. Navy to dispatch several vessels to “babysit” the Faina. A spokesman for the Fifth Fleet continues to maintain that the U.S. has no plans to storm the ship – as long as the cargo stays onboard.

But these pirates today aren’t really interested in booty -- they are 21st Century pirates, and what they want is a handsomely paid ransom. The designated spokesman for the pirates (another modern upgrade to the centuries-old industry) has said in interviews with the Associated Press, Reuters and the New York Times that they don’t want the weapons. “We just want money,” he says -- $35 million to be exact. There have been reports of  a negotiated settlement of anywhere from $8 million to $20 million, but for right now the Faina continues to sit outside of the pirates' “village” in Somalia. The U.K. think- tank Chatham House estimates that as much as $30 million in ransom has been paid to Somali pirates already this year, threatening global business.

It’s not just businesses suffering from piracy who lose; the impoverished Somali people are also paying a price. For the last few years, the favorite targets of pirates were United Nations World Food Program ships carrying tons of food aid to the war-torn country. The problem became so widespread that this year governments around the world offered their naval ships to escort the WFP ships to Somalia. NATO is now getting involved in policing the waters, agreeing today to send warships to the Gulf of Aden, with the idea of forming a sub-fleet to carry out escort duties with WFP ships carrying humanitarian aid from Mombassa, Kenya, to Mogadishu.

While pirates today continue to capture the imagination and interest of the public, the glamorous swashbuckling myth from the days of yore is far from the new reality. These days the booty being hijacked from food aid ships could lead to nearly 3 million starving people, and the millions of dollars in ransom could be used by Islamic insurgents with ties to al Qaeda. Today’s pirates aren’t some Somali versions of Captain Hook or Jack Sparrow, but are the product of a failed state whose poverty and war is spilling beyond its borders and into the ocean.

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October 24, 2008 in Dana Hughes | Permalink | User Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)

Diamonds are Africa's Best Friend (or Worst Enemy)

September 22, 2008 5:05 PM

DANA HUGHES is the ABC News Digital Reporter for Africa based in Nairobi.

What could be the largest, polished, round-stone diamond ever in history has been discovered in the tiny southern African country of Lesotho.  Its 478 carats, with what industry experts  call  “outstanding" clarity.

A spokesman for Gem Diamonds, the mining group in control of the Letseng mine where the diamond was found, said in a statement that "Preliminary examination of this remarkable diamond indicates that it will yield a record-breaking polished stone of the very best color and clarity."

It’s not clear yet how much the diamond will go for, but a similar diamond found in the same mine in 2006 was bought by Graff Jewelers in London for more than $12 million. That diamond has since been cut from 603 rough, unpolished carats into 26 small pieces and turned into a necklace, the Lesotho Promise, valued at more than $50 million. The necklace, and the diamond mine in Lesotho,  have  been featured in fashion and luxury magazines such as W and Vanity Fair.

Diamond mining is a billion-dollar industry in Africa, with the continent exporting at least 65 percent of the world's diamonds. Many brutal wars have been fought over control of the diamond industry. The most famous being in Sierra Leone (think “Blood Diamonds”).  After years of international outcry, and the threat of forced international regulations, the industry agreed to become more transparent and regulate itself.

All mining and diamond trading companies have agreed to the Kimberly Process, a program designed to trace and certify a diamond from its origins in a mine to the purchase by a consumer anywhere in the world. And while there are still some countries in Africa, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the political situation remains too unstable for real conflict diamond oversight, countries like Lesotho, South Africa and Botswana are working with private mine companies to bring in legitimate revenue for the country. Seventy percent of Letseng is owned by Gem Diamonds, while the other 30 percent is owned by the government.

The majority of miners at Letseng are from Lesotho and are paid one of the higher wages  for miners in the region, but the country is still extremely poor with estimates of unemployment reaching as high as 45 percent and an HIV/AIDS rate that has devastated the population. One of the main reasons for the high HIV/AIDS rate? Male miners traveling to South Africa to live and work in mining towns. As Lesotho continues to develop its own mines, like Letseng, the hope is that producing world-class diamonds won’t be the only result, but that a renewal of the economy will occur as well.

To see pictures of the nearly 500 carat diamond click here:
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September 22, 2008 in Dana Hughes | Permalink | User Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)