A backgrounder written as part of an AllAfrica’s coverage of peacebuilding efforts across the continent.

In January 2011 the people of South Sudan voted in a referendum to secede from Sudan, putting behind them two civil wars which had consumed 39 of the 55 years of Sudanese independence. Six months later, they joyfully celebrated their independence.

Ten years on, the South Sudanese are still struggling to establish peace, deal with human rights abuses committed since independence, write an inclusive constitution, and focus on developing their country.

Read on: https://allafrica.com/stories/202111180383.html

Amid the explosive cocktail of ingredients which contributed to the outbreak of looting and burning in South Africa this week, new fault-lines running through a society divided by class as well as by race were on display as never before. The unrest may have been triggered by the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma and exacerbated by factors ranging from orchestrated incitement by pro-Zuma forces, to hardships caused by Covid-19 job losses, to wanton criminality. But as rioting spread from Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal to the economic heartland of Gauteng, the effects of extreme economic inequality in post-apartheid South Africa became apparent.

Read on: https://allafrica.com/stories/202107161081.html

South Africa’s top court gave the country’s former president, Jacob Zuma, a verbal tongue-lashing on Tuesday for his defiance of the law and ordered him to report to police within five days to serve a 15-month prison sentence for contempt of court. In a judgement delivered at the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg, Justice Sisi Khampepe, the acting deputy chief justice, accused Zuma of “outlandish” behaviour when he refused to obey a court order to appear before a commission of inquiry into high-level government and private sector corruption.

Read on: https://allafrica.com/stories/202106290714.html

A backgrounder written as part of an AllAfrica’s coverage of peacebuilding efforts across the continent.

The toxic mix of factors which threaten the cohesion of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation include:

• insurgencies generated by government neglect and corruption;
• exploitation of discontent by armed bands of religious supremacists claiming to represent Islam;
• increasing insecurity and violence;
• climate change that is causing competition for scarce resources of land;
• lack of health care that is exacerbated by the Covid19 pandemic; and
• brutal state oppression.

Read on: https://allafrica.com/stories/202105300035.html

A backgrounder for AllAfrica’s online discussion with scholars and peace practitioners.

https://allafrica.com/stories/202104090638.html