Southern Africa Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. In March 2007, a group of NGOs filed a complaint in France against the ruling families of a handful of African countries, alleging that property and other assets they owned in France were obtained via corruption. A decade of legal wrangling later, the first trial in the so-called “biens mal acquis,” or ill-gotten gains, affair is now in full swing, with hearings unfolding in Paris in the case of Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, the vice president of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The United Nations used World Refugee Day to launch an appeal for $8 billion to address South Sudan’s refugee crisis, as news from inside South Sudan indicated there was no sign it would be letting up anytime soon. At a summit on Friday in Uganda that authorities hoped would raise $2 billion, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres praised that country’s “exemplary refugee policy,” under which refugees enjoy freedom of movement and are permitted to work. However, Uganda is currently hosting nearly […]

Last week, the political party of Thomas Thabane, a former prime minister of Lesotho, won the most seats in national elections and made plans to form a new coalition. Thabane has been a central figure in his Southern African country’s political turmoil in recent years, and he now faces a host of challenges, including trying to hold members of the security forces responsible for past crimes while striking a compromise on constitutional reforms. In an email interview, Samuel Severson, who is currently on a Fulbright-Hays fellowship in Lesotho and is pursuing a doctorate in history at Yale University, describes the […]