Tag Archives: Africa

News

How President George W. Bush helped to create South Sudan

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New Map of Africa including South Sudan
New Map of Africa including South Sudan

From Investors Business Daily. (H/T Muddling Towards Maturity)

Excerpt:

As South Sudan joyfully celebrated its independence from Sudan, President Obama hailed it as the fruit of partnership, togetherness, hope and unity. South Sudanese, however, hailed President Bush.

Proudly wearing the black cowboy hat given to him by President Bush, South Sudan’s new president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, couldn’t have made a stronger statement about who made his country’s independence possible after 50 years of warfare.

“It was George Bush and the Christian fundamentalists who heard the cry of South Sudan,” affirmed a South Sudanese man quoted by the Los Angeles Times.

[…]In 2005, President Bush put South Sudan at the top of the U.S. foreign policy agenda. Knocking heads, he forced the murderous Islamofascist government of Sudan to negotiate with the South Sudan rebels, including their right to secede. That hard work led to today’s result — and with it, the first chance South Sudan has ever had to break free of its oppression.

No President since Reagan cared more about the freedom of people in other countries than George W. Bush. And a lot of that is owing to his evangelical Christian convictions – he cared about the freedom of other people.

News

France dispatches carrier battle group to Libya

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French Rafale Fighter
French Rafale Fighter

From the Times of India.

Excerpt:

France on Sunday sent its Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier to Libya to bolster the West’s air campaign against Muammar Gaddafi’s forces.

The French Navy’s flagship set off from the southern naval port of Toulon at 1210 GMT, with 20 warplanes, most them Rafale and older Super Etendard combat jets, as well as helicopters and two E-2 Hawkeye surveillance aircraft.

Tugs pulled it from the wharf as dozens of onlookers watched it depart.

“The aircraft carrier is 24 hours by sea from the Libyan coast but will take 36 to 48 hours to get there, to take the time to load on the fighter jets that will participate in the operations and to hold some landing exercises,” a military source said.

The aircraft carrier was to be escorted by three frigates — the anti-submarine Duplex, the anti-air Forbin and the multi-mission stealth Aconit — and the oil tanker La Meuse, military officials said.

The French naval group was to be protected by a nuclear attack submarine, they added.

French warplanes also continued sorties over Libya early Sunday as part the West’s biggest intervention in the Arab world since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

Saturday, French jets spearheaded the West’s assault with four air strikes in Libya, destroying several armoured vehicles of forces loyal to the embattled Libyan strongman.

Sarkozy is, of course, the leader of the French conservatives. And of the free world? France started combat operations in Libya on March 10th!

Learn more about the French Rafale fighters here (they are fairly new), and the Charles de Gaulle here. It is a CVN, not a CV. Extremely capable, and fairly new.

News

Over 99 percent of people in southern Sudan vote for succession

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Map of Africa
Map of Africa

Great news in Sudan. (H/T Muddling Towards Maturity)

Excerpt:

More than 99 percent of Southern Sudanese voted to secede from the north, a referendum official said Sunday in the first official preliminary result announcement.

“The vote for separation was 99.57 percent,” said Chan Reek Madut, the deputy head of the commission that organized the referendum, to a crowd in the South’s capital of Juba, according to Reuters.

Voter turnout in the South was 99 percent, Madut said. And over 60 percent of Southern Sudanese living in the north turned out to vote, with 58 percent voting to secede, he stated.

Mohamed Ibrahim Khalil, chairman of the Southern Sudan Referendum Commission, said 99 percent of the Southern Sudanese diaspora in eight nations also voted to secede.

After decades of civil war and ongoing tension between the northern and southern governments, it looks like the south will finally become its own country. The weeklong referendum, which began on Jan. 9, is called for by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended more than two decades of civil war.

[…]Southern Sudan President Salva Kiir, who is expected to lead the independent South, has called for Southern Sudanese to forgive the North for the years of violence during the civil war. Some 1.9 million people died during the war between the North and South and more than 500 churches were destroyed in the South.

“For our deceased brothers and sisters, particularly those who have fallen during the time of struggle, may God bless them with eternal peace,” said Kiir at Catholic Cathedral in Juba on Jan. 16.

“And,” he continued, “may we, like Jesus Christ on the cross, forgive those who have forcefully caused their deaths.”

Southern Sudan is the more Christian part of Sudan, so this is good news for Sudanese Christians.

Here’s a close up of southern Sudan:

Map of Southern Sudan
Map of Southern Sudan

Muddling linked to an interesting post providing more historical context for the referendum.

I’m still very worried about what is going on in Egypt and Pakistan. I am still trying to catch up on Egypt but the two posts linked by Gateway Pundit are the two best that I’ve seen.