Zimbabwe's Crisis of Capacity

As Zimbabwe enters the 1990s, its government is being pulled in two directions. On the one hand, poor economic performance has led to enormous pressures to radically redesign economic policies.

Water and Politics

A former British colony surrounded by the Republic of South Africa, Lesotho is an extremely poor country with few marketable natural resources. The Lesotho Highlands Water Scheme was planned to develop its only valuable commodity in a drought-stricken southern Africa: water.

Treating the Wounds of War

I use these tin cans when I do my healing ceremonies. I take an empty can and put in some rocks and then seal it. I shake the can when I am working, and the rocks clatter - it makes quite a noise. This can with the rocks in it, that is what someone's head is like when they have been affected by war.

Toward Self-Sufficiency

In 1992, sever drought struck southern Africa, reducing harvests and causing enormous social difficulties. Chronic food shortages now threaten over a quarter of the region's population. In the past decade, the number of families in southern Africa unable to meet their basic needs has doubled.

The Unraveling Knot

Shambling with his four goats through the white dust of central Owambo in northern Namibia, Aaron Shipena cuts a sad and disheveled figure. With knapsack over his shoulder, this wizened man in ill-fitting clothes - older and wiser than an observer might guess - has set off on the long search for grazing space in a flat landscape devoid of grass and surface water.

The Homecoming of the Kagga Kamma Bushmen

"Our ancestors were here and now so are we," said Dawid Kruiper as his kin and following of 30-odd "stone-age huntergatheres" emerged from two minibuses, to the delight of journalists and photographers there to record the event. On January 15, 1991, after an absence of two centuries, the Bushmen had returned to the western Cape Province of South Africa.

Rule By Violence

Very much a product of the last decade, warlords have become a critical feature of the escalating violence in Natal, particularly in the KwaZulu homeland areas of the region, and other parts of South Africa.

Pipe Dreams: Can the Zambezi River supply the region's water needs?

A May 21, 1992, article in Johannesburg's The Star, "Zambezi Water Could Do the Trick," speculates that South Africa's industrial heartland will run out of water at some point in the next 12 to 30 years.

Native American Reservations in Africa?

The West's concern for sustainable development has influenced conservation policy in a number of African countries, but not always for the better. The concern often includes the imposition of Western fears and ideals at the expense of understanding local values, needs, and problems.

Is the Language Tide Turning in Canada?

"Our native language embodies a value system about how we ought to live and relate to each other... It gives a name to relations among kin, to roles and responsibilities among family members, to ties with the broader clan group.... There are no English words for these relationships....

Going Beyond Emergency Relief

As South Africa moves haltingly toward some form fo majority rule and its 40,000 refugees return home, prospects for genuine development are good. Yet decades of conflict throughout southern Africa - in which South africa's apartheid regime has played an instrumental role - have created a legacy that will plague South Africa's neighbors well into the next century.

Demarcation - And Then What? Brazil takes a step, but its commitment to protecting indigenous lands is not proven.

Demarcation-And Then What? Brazil takes a step, but its commitment to. protecting indigenous lands is not proven.

cs canada - 17.2

We Are All Crees

Conflict and Control in Malukazi

"THE PROBLEM STARTED IN 1990, when the ANC [African National Congress] started mobilizing before the release of their old man, [ANC leader Nelson] Mandela. When he was released, they came back from a rally and many people were killed on that day. After that they said that everyone should be ANC. All the people in the area became ANC in fear of children who were killing them.

briefly noted - 17.2

Ogohi Protest "Agents of Death" in Nigeria

Behind the Words

It's a common human tendency - sometimes a failing, sometimes a relief - to resort to certain phrases day after day as short-cuts. The speaker or writer apparently knows that the phrases mean; all too often others don't.

Behind the Headlines: Violence, Land, and People in a Changing Southern Africa

Behind the Headlines: Violence, Land, and People in a Changing Southern. Africa

"Now They Come With Respect"

In the remote, arid, northwestern corner of Namibia, a Himba headman and his councilors mete out a punishment to two young men who used an old rifle to shoot a gemsbok. The headman gives them a warning, and their fathers are fined two goats each. The community's game guard, Ngevi Tjikuta, had tracked and caught the two offenders a few weeks earlier.