The News Review:
- … Jolie to Meet With Top Government Officials in Sierra Leone,…
- Geldof should learn from history: in Africa, aid does not bring relief
- SABCnews.com – africa/west_africa
… Jolie to Meet With Top Government Officials in Sierra Leone,…
Business Wire – Business Wire (press release) – May 6, 2005
org) to accompany the TRC report, at a gathering of civil society groups in the British Council auditorium in Freetown. Additionally, Jolie will be meeting with UNHCR officials and visiting local programs. It is 29-year-old Jolie’s second visit to Sierra Leone, where a devastating 11-year conflict came to an end in 2002. Millions of citizens lost their homes and families, and hundreds of thousands suffered rape, mutilation and torture at the hands of rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), dissident soldiers from the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and various pro-Government forces. In a traumatized and impoverished nation, over half a million children have been left orphaned. “Sierra Leone is still scarred by the war, but the people have invested a great deal of courage and hope in the truth and reconciliation process,” said Jolie. “It is vital that the Government acts on the TRC recommendations to ensure that history will not repeat itself…
Millions of citizens lost their homes and families, and hundreds of thousands suffered rape, mutilation and torture at the hands of rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), dissident soldiers from the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and various pro-Government forces. In a traumatized and impoverished nation, over half a million children have been left orphaned. “Sierra Leone is still scarred by the war, but the people have invested a great deal of courage and hope in the truth and reconciliation process,” said Jolie. “It is vital that the Government acts on the TRC recommendations to ensure that history will not repeat itself. ” Named Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Refugee Agency in August 2001, Jolie has visited refugee operations in the Balkans, Chad, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Cambodia, Thailand, Pakistan and Ecuador. She has been honored with the U.
Geldof should learn from history: in Africa, aid does not bring relief
Telegraph.co.uk – May 6, 2005
Pan-Africanism, which leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana favoured, is not a solution, either, because it is unlikely that what cannot be achieved on a small scale can be achieved on a vast one. Nor is a lack of trained and educated people the problem. Those countries, such as Sierra Leone, with a comparatively high level of education, have fared no better than those with a low level (the Congo, notoriously, had no graduates at independence). Education in Africa means, overwhelmingly, entry into government service, which is to say a position from which to obstruct and then to extort bribes from fellow citizens. When I worked in Tanzania, and later when I crossed Africa by public transport, I saw how money was extorted from ordinary Africans at every available opportunity. Even to keep a child at school meant a constant flow of bribes to officialdom. It is little wonder then that an increase in the number of educated people does nothing to increase the wealth of the country, quite the contrary.
SABCnews.com – africa/west_africa
SABC News – May 6, 2005
0 Tue Jul 15 21:45:59 2008 –> Annan wants UN mission in Sierra Leone phased out May 06, 2005, 05:15 The UN peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone should be phased out by the end of 2005 now that the West African nation is generally calm and secure, Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, said yesterday. In a report to the 15-nation UN security council, Annan recommended that a drawdown of UN troops begin in August. This, he said, should be “essentially completed” by December 31. The mission currently numbers about 3 400 UN troops and international police. Some 50 000 people were killed in a decade-long civil war in the impoverished but diamond-rich nation of about 5…
Security situation remains fragileAnnan said while the security situation remained fragile and the country still needed considerable international assistance, it could best be accomplished at this stage by the government with help from UN agencies and other countries, rather than a peacekeeping operation. He called on the government to “make full use of the unique window of opportunity” provided by the mission’s continuing presence to beef up the country’s military and police forces. The UN mission in Sierra Leone, established in October 1999, was once the world body’s biggest peacekeeping force, numbering more than 17 000 troops.