FARAI CHIDEYA, host:
From NPR News, this is NEWS & NOTES. I'm Farai Chideya.
Today, we're looking back at the year in Africa. The conflict in Sudan's Darfur region has dominated the news this year from the continent. And while the threat of an armed clash hangs over the Horn of Africa, some Central and Western nations are recovering from their own wars.
There had been continent-wide battles against AIDS and malaria this year as Africa faces more potential disaster from climate change. The African political climate has been mixed this year, with troubled leadership and promising elections.
Joining me now to look back at the year in Africa and see what's ahead are NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton in Dakar, Senegal; NPR's Gwen Thompkins in Nairobi, Kenya; and our regular Africa update guest, NPR's special Africa correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Now, it is a great honor to be on with all of you wonderful correspondents, and let's take it away.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: My pleasure.
OFEIBEA QUIST-ARCTON: Thank you and greetings from Dakar, a city I don't see enough of.
CHIDEYA: Let's start with Darfur. The conflict there might lead to a regional war between Sudan, the Central African Republic, and Chad. Ofeibea, you've just left Chad; tell me how the Darfur situation is spilling over into that country.
QUIST-ARCTON: Very, very badly. You've got an explosion of violence, as well as Janjaweed Arab militiamen, bandits, rebels, arms - everything tumbling over the border in this toxic cocktail of violence. And add to that poisonous mix, of course, hostility, hatred and ethnic strife, dating back years; and the main reason for the Darfur conflict, which was a conflict over land and water, or lack of both.
CHIDEYA: Charlayne, how has the region been affected by this conflict?
HUNTER-GAULT: Well, everybody is nervous about it because as we've been talking over the months, this area is one of the most volatile, and one that threatens this new attitude, this new effort towards the democratic dispensation on the continent.
CHIDEYA: Gwen, from your perspective in Nairobi, Kenya, climate change may threaten Kenya, and there was recently a human climate change conference. Give us a little insight on that.
GWEN THOMPKINS: Organizers for the U.N. conference on climate change very cleverly set this conference in Africa. They wanted to draw the world's attention to the fact that Africa actually contributes very little by way of greenhouse gas emissions. But at the same time, the continent is also bearing many of the ills that are often attendant with changes in climate that have been linked to greenhouse gas emissions.
Here in Kenya, there are certain areas where it's believed that temperatures have actually increased by more than three degree Celsius over the past 20 years. There's also a sense here that fresh water outlets are drying up, the lakes are drying up, that weather patterns have become far more erratic, which, of course, affects agriculture, industry.
We're reaching the tail end of the rainy season, the short rainy season here in East Africa. And it has been a very dramatic one. There's been incredible flooding that people are still experiencing as we speak - in East Kenya, in Ethiopia, in Somalia.
This week, the U.N. is actually going to begin dropping food aid to people in Somalia, as well as to many in Northern Kenya - 160,000, actually, in Northern Kenya, who are experiencing the exact same flood conditions.
CHIDEYA: I want to turn to Charlayne. And you know, we've just been talking with Gwen about natural disasters and climate change, but there's also the human disaster of malaria and AIDS on the continent. There has been some good news and some progress. Charlayne, can you tell us about that?
HUNTER-GAULT: Well, here in South Africa, there's been a lot of cheering about what many see as a government turnaround. You know, there was criticism that the South African government was being slow in its response to the HIV and AIDS pandemic, slow to give anti-retrovirals to poor people who couldn't otherwise afford them, which meant for them a death sentence if they had HIV.
And also the mixed messages that the government sent for a long time. The minister of health often talked about how the African potato, beet root and garlic, olive oil and so forth were good immune boosters, and more or less touted those over anti-retrovirals, which she talked about as being toxic.
Well, recently, the health minister has been on sick leave, and her deputy has taken over the public leadership, along with the deputy president; as a result, the whole atmosphere has changed. It's committing more resources than it has in the past.
But I think the critical thing is that there is public leadership from the government on this and more work with the private sector, with the civil society, working together with government, as opposed to knocking heads, as they've done in the past.
The other good news on AIDS just in the past few days is - has been that men who are circumcised are less likely to contract AIDS than men who are not.
CHIDEYA: Very important medical research, and you mentioned leadership overall, especially the leadership of this female minister of health on AIDS. I want to turn to the larger question of leadership, democracy, governance and even immigration.
Let's start with you, Ofeibea. What has been going on in Senegal with immigration?
QUIST-ARCTON: Young men, especially young men - because it has been mostly young men - say they can't find jobs. They feel they have no future in their own country, so they have been climbing onto what here are called pirogue.
They're fisherman canoes, a little larger than a canoe, and sometimes souped up with an outboard motor. And they head out onto the high seas - destination the Spanish Canary Islands.
They feel that if they can get to Europe, they'll have a better future. But of course on the way they can lose their lives. And we're now talking about unknown numbers, but hundreds of young Senegalese men drowning at sea. There was a dramatic story about one pirogue ending up in the Caribbean months later, and all they found were whitewashed bones and a note from one of the Senegalese to his family saying, I tried; I've only got this small amount of money; please forgive me.
It is a dramatic story. The government says it's trying to deal with the problem, but unless they find jobs for these young men, the problem will continue.
TOMPKINS: Well, I'm actually riveted by what Ofeibea is saying in terms of people who are on the move, you know, on this continent more than others, perhaps, I can't be sure, but I suspect. There are vast numbers of people who are on the move for one reason or another, looking for economic opportunity, looking for political safe harbor, for a little peace of mind, actually. Particularly here, you know, in East Africa, on the Horn of Africa. The situation in Somalia is destabilizing. There's a terrible expectation of impending war between the transitional government and the Union of Islamic Courts.
So there have been refugees who have been moving across the border like gangbusters. In Kenya alone, 30,000 Somali refuges have come over the border in this past year. More than 20,000 Somalis have gone to Yemen. And it appears to be getting more serious everyday.
CHIDEYA: Let me turn to Charlayne, because in the southern African region there's actually been kind of a reverse of people on the move, people trying to stay where they are - a victory for the Bushmen in Botswana. Tell us about that.
HUNTER-GAULT: The Bushmen had been arguing that they did not want to be removed from their ancestral land. They wanted to stay where they have been for the past 20,000 years. You know, they're Africa's first people. The government insisted that they needed to be moved because they couldn't earn a living. Many of them were, in fact, unemployed. Some of the women were turning to prostitution.
Now, the Bushmen were very suspicious of this because they say that the reason the Botswana government wants to remove them from their ancestral lands is so that they can dig for diamonds. A three-person court, two in favor of the Bushmen remaining, prevailed, and the Bushmen were allowed to remain. Those who had been removed - I think it's something like 2,000 or so had been removed - could return.
But the flipside of it is that the government now says it cannot provide services. And the days of - where they used to survive on hunting and gathering - you know, they were hunters and gatherers - are numbered.
CHIDEYA: We've seen a lot of major moves in leadership and democracy. What do you look ahead to in 2007? I'll start with you, Gwen?
THOMPKINS: Well, it - that's a very difficult question to - in the end to predict, particularly in this region, because people here - security experts, diplomats, regional leaders, they're all concerned about the stability of the region in 2007.
So I think that a mark of leadership for the coming days, much less the coming months, will be seen in terms of understanding the commitment that leaders have toward a peace process, toward peace talks for Somalia. Now, 2007 will also be quite interesting in Kenya itself because there are presidential elections that are coming up at the end of the year. So I'm very eager to see what's going to happen in the next several months.
CHIDEYA: Charlayne, from the southern Africa region, what do you see ahead?
HUNTER-GAULT: There's going to be a new leadership for the ruling African National Congress in December, 2007. And there's a huge cacophony now going on, big debate, a lot of it raucous and raunchy and a lot of it looking at the whole soul of the African National Congress, which has been described as a broad church.
But this is vibrant democracy. I think that we sometimes judge Africa by different standards, but look at America's election this last time around. So let's hope that the debate that's going on and the intensity will in fact make for stronger rather than weaker democracies.
CHIDEYA: Okay. Ofeibea, what do you see coming in the year ahead?
QUIST-ARCTON: This has not just been a year of pain. Of course, there's also been some good stories, and especially the Democratic Republic of Congo managing to hold its first democratic elections in 40 years. And I think as Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary-general, leaves and everybody wonders where the Africa will be on the U.N. radar, that is - although there was violence, perhaps, a positive note to end the year on.
CHIDEYA: That was NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton in Dakar, Senegal; NPR's Gwen Thompkins in Nairobi, Kenya; and NPR's special Africa correspondent Charlayne Hunter-Gault in Johannesburg, South Africa. Thank you so much.
HUNTER-GAULT: Thank you, Farai, and happy holidays and Happy New Year.
THOMPKINS: My pleasure.
QUIST-ARCTON: Thank you and Happy New Year.
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