Posts by: Alex DeWaal
Co-authored with Abdul Mohammed, this op-ed originally appeared on August 22, 2012 in the International Herald Tribune.
The death of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi deprives Ethiopia — and Africa as a whole — of an exceptional leader.
We both knew him from his days as a guerrilla in the mountains of Tigray, northern Ethiopia, [...]
Continue Reading →Just over a year ago, on July 9, 2011, South Sudan achieved its much-coveted independence. At the celebrations in Juba, alongside innumerable presidents, foreign minister and heads of international organizations, were Sepp Blatter, President of FIFA and Issa Hayatou, head of the Confederation of African Football. For the new country, admission to international sporting associations [...]
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Why have two signature international approaches to Somalia—installing a central government and military intervention—failed repeatedly? What explains the persistence of the international community in efforts that have so little hope of success?
Perhaps the root of the problem is a simple intellectual failure.
Continue Reading →Powerful nations still face the temptation of interpreting international law and norms in such a way that it suits their interests, and setting them aside when they don’t. I will argue that this is not only bad for international law and international security, but it is a particularly bad practice in Africa, because of the particularities of African history and contemporary African conflicts. These particularities include both the specific local details of African conflicts, which are best addressed by those in the neighbourhood who understand them best, and also the historically-grounded African distrust of outside interventions, which militates against the success of non-African initiatives.
Continue Reading →Whilst de Waal described the border committee as being “remarkably dysfunctional,” it eventually came up with a report that identified 4 disputed areas: Kafia Kingi, Abyei, Kaka and Jodha. A fifth area, Bahr al Arab, was added for political reasons. Crucially, related to events in the past weeks, Heglig – a region in to which SPLA troops have recently moved – was not in dispute.
Continue Reading →Time and again, from Washington, DC to London, from Baghdad to Pretoria, corruption accompanies armaments contracts. It has been this way for decades.
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