Our February issue featured the story "Presidents in the Dock: An End to Africa's Reign of Impunity?" by Michael Fleshman, a reprint from the UN publication Africa Journal. Our February Exit Poll was: "Why are Africa's ex-dictators Charles Taylor (Liberia) and Hissène Habré (Chad) facing the dock, while Guatemala's equally genocidal ex-tyrant José Efraín Rios Montt is free to run for that country's congress? Extra Credit: How is it possible that Taylor and Habré face the dock, while the Darfur genocide continues and Sudan's Omar al-Bashir remains in power, raking in petro-dollars and aspiring to lead the African Union? Extra Extra Credit: Would it merely be juvenile to even bring up George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George H.W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Robert McNamara, etc.? And, oh yeah, Vladimir Putin?" We received two responses:

As the Darfur genocide enters its fifth year, and nearly two years after UN Security Council Resolution 1593 of March 2005 referred violations of international law in Darfur to the International Criminal Court (ICC), on Feb. 27 ICC prosecutors formally identified two of those responsible for slaughter—Janjaweed militia leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman (nom de guerre Ali Kushayb) and Sudan's Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ahmed Harun. Under Article 58 of the Rome Statute that created the ICC, evidence of crimes against humanity will now be submitted to the Pre-Trial Chamber, which will, in the words of the official summary of the Prosecutor's Application, “review the evidence submitted and decide how to proceed.”

Nancy Flores writes for Mexico's El Universal, Feb. 24 (links added):

NAIROBI - Native Maya seeds from Zapatista cornfields reached the hands of small farmers in Africa last month as a symbol of solidarity and hope.

The latest entry in the wave of dangerously specious terror cases is giving us deja vu. Like Jose Padilla, Daniel Maldonado is a Latino convert to Islam. Like John Walker Lindh in Afghanistan, he is accused of bearing arms for Islamist forces in Somalia, but seems to have not actually done any fighting. He is from small-town New Hampshire, of all places. Most tellingly, if his statements are to be believed, he is a case study in how extremist jihadism and the near-official climate of Islamophobia merely fuel each other in a vicious cycle. From the Eagle Tribune of North Andover, MA, Feb. 23:

The New York Times' increasingly questionable Michael R. Gordon has yet another report Feb. 23 (with Mark Mazzetti) based largely on anonymous sources. But this one, "U.S. Used Bases in Ethiopia to Hunt Al Qaeda in Africa," is just telling us what an astute reading-between-the-lines could have gleaned from previous reportage from the Horn of Africa. It does, however, have some vindicating tidbits for those of us who were prematurely correct in warning of a US proxy war in the Horn. Here are the relevant parts, emphasis and interjections added:

We noted that the current (Feb. 22) issue of The Economist has an uncharacteristically favorable article on Eritrea, saying it can "help or hinder progress in the Horn." The same issue has an equally uncharacteristic slap at the rival Ethiopian regime, asking "Should the West go on helping a repressive Ethiopia?" It starts out with an outline of aid projects in Ethiopia, as if "the West's" only interest in Africa was fighting poverty. Only at the very end does it mention the strategic struggle in Somalia which is driving the West's alliance with Addis Ababa. This is pretty indicting, but we smell empty hand-wringing—or, at best, a warning that Meles Zenawi may not prove to be a stable proxy in the long run... An excerpt from The Economist:

From Human Rights Watch via Reuters, Feb. 16:

Dakar — The Guinean government has failed to control security forces responsible for rapes, robberies and more than 110 killings since mid-January, Human Rights Watch said today. After the imposition of martial law on February 12, security forces committed numerous abuses during house-to-house searches for weapons earlier seized by a small group of violent protesters from police stations and other government installations. "Guinean security forces are using martial law as an excuse to terrorize ordinary Guineans," said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "Under the guise of reestablishing law and order, they're acting like common criminals, beating, robbing and brutalizing the population they're supposed to protect."

President Bush has approved plans to create a Pentagon command for Africa, a move that reflects increasing US strategic interests in the continent. Bush said in a Feb. 13 statement that he had asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to get the new "Africom" up and running by the end of September 2008. "This new command will strengthen our security cooperation with Africa and create new opportunities to bolster the capabilities of our partners in Africa," Bush said. "Africa Command will enhance our efforts to bring peace and security to the people of Africa and promote our common goals of development, health, education, democracy and economic growth in Africa." But Josh Rushing, al-Jazeera’s military analyst, told the network's Inside Story program that Africa Command came down to "following the oil." (Temoust, Niger, Feb. 13)