Best of the NI web
On the Editors’ blog
Travis Beard has been keeping a close eye on the aftermath of the Afghan election:
The number of deaths varies between 26 and 30. But no matter how many people died on the day of elections – not to mention the 40 or so dead in Kandahar the following day – most Afghans didn’t flinch or even comment on the fatalities of the elections. The most over-used sentence in this country is: ‘After 30 years of war…’ But I think in this instance we have to use it. After 30 years of war, Afghans have become quite complacent and ‘matter of fact’ about death and high death tolls in their country.
http://blog.newint.org/editors/2009/08/27/numbers-games-in-afghanistans-elections/
On the Majority World blog
Ghosts of the past may come back to haunt Sierra Leone, writes our correspondent Sulakshana Gupta:
The acronym RUF conjures horrific images of violence and a decadelong civil war. The rebel group led by the notorious Foday Sankoh decimated villages, captured and brainwashed children into killing machines, raped and amputated indiscriminately. Now, they’re regrouping to contest the 2012 presidential elections as a political entity, the RUFP (Revolutionary United Front Party). Can they win the hearts of people who celebrated on the streets when Sankoh was finally arrested?
http://blog.newint.org/majority/2009/08/23/rebel-politics/
This article is from
the October 2009 issue
of New Internationalist.
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