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From anticolonial heroes to post-independence liabilities: morphing refugee categorizations in African geopolitics

Many colonies in Africa attained independence through negotiated settlements. However, several others engaged in armed liberation struggles, for example, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and the Portuguese colonies of Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe. Newly independent states provided liberation movements with bases on their territories and political, military, intellectual, ideological, material, and moral support. In West Africa, Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, a notable pan-Africanist, declared in his Independence Day speech in 1957, “Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent.” In East Africa, Julius Nyerere and Jomo Kenyatta, the first presidents of independent Tanzania and Kenya respectively, showed similar commitment to Pan-Africanism and anticolonialism by hosting refugees fleeing armed struggles in Southern Africa. Tanzania hosted the Organization of African Unity Liberation Committee supported anticolonial resistance and liberation movements. President Nyerere supported them for “challenging injustices of empire and apartheid” and declared, “I train freedom fighters”. He encouraged Tanzanians living around liberation movement camps to welcome these movements and their freedom fighters and also protect them from agents of colonial governments. Support also came from many other countries on the continent including Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Algeria. The latter provided sanctuary to representatives of liberation movements such as Nelson Mandela of the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa.

From anticolonial heroes to post-independence liabilities: morphing refugee categorizations in African geopolitics

Many colonies in Africa attained independence through negotiated settlements. However, several others engaged in armed liberation struggles, for example, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and the Portuguese colonies of Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe. Newly independent states provided liberation movements with bases on their territories and political, military, intellectual, ideological, material, and moral support. In West Africa, Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, a notable pan-Africanist, declared in his Independence Day speech in 1957, “Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent.” In East Africa, Julius Nyerere and Jomo Kenyatta, the first presidents of independent Tanzania and Kenya respectively, showed similar commitment to Pan-Africanism and anticolonialism by hosting refugees fleeing armed struggles in Southern Africa. Tanzania hosted the Organization of African Unity Liberation Committee supported anticolonial resistance and liberation movements. President Nyerere supported them for “challenging injustices of empire and apartheid” and declared, “I train freedom fighters”. He encouraged Tanzanians living around liberation movement camps to welcome these movements and their freedom fighters and also protect them from agents of colonial governments. Support also came from many other countries on the continent including Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Algeria. The latter provided sanctuary to representatives of liberation movements such as Nelson Mandela of the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa.

From anticolonial heroes to post-independence liabilities: morphing refugee categorizations in African geopolitics

Many colonies in Africa attained independence through negotiated settlements. However, several others engaged in armed liberation struggles, for example, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and the Portuguese colonies of Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe. Newly independent states provided liberation movements with bases on their territories and political, military, intellectual, ideological, material, and moral support. In West Africa, Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, a notable pan-Africanist, declared in his Independence Day speech in 1957, “Our independence is meaningless unless it is linked up with the total liberation of the African continent.” In East Africa, Julius Nyerere and Jomo Kenyatta, the first presidents of independent Tanzania and Kenya respectively, showed similar commitment to Pan-Africanism and anticolonialism by hosting refugees fleeing armed struggles in Southern Africa. Tanzania hosted the Organization of African Unity Liberation Committee supported anticolonial resistance and liberation movements. President Nyerere supported them for “challenging injustices of empire and apartheid” and declared, “I train freedom fighters”. He encouraged Tanzanians living around liberation movement camps to welcome these movements and their freedom fighters and also protect them from agents of colonial governments. Support also came from many other countries on the continent including Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Algeria. The latter provided sanctuary to representatives of liberation movements such as Nelson Mandela of the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa.

Théâtre : La trilogie de Belgrade

Courrier des Balkans / Serbie - Wed, 02/18/2026 - 23:59

Le Centre culturel de Serbie accueille le collectif Les Risiens pour deux représentations exceptionnelles de la pièce La Trilogie de Belgrade, le vendredi 6 février et le mercredi 18 février 2026 à 19h. L'entrée est libre, sans réservation, dans la limite des places disponibles. Joué en langue française. Composée de quatre courtes fables, La Trilogie de Belgrade de Biljana Srbljanović suit une génération marquée par la guerre des années 1990 et le désir d'exil. Les personnages, installés (…)

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Cinéma | Nora Seni : Et les dimanches ?

Courrier des Balkans - Sat, 02/07/2026 - 23:59

Réalisé et filmé par Nora Seni en 1976 ce docu-fiction de 26 minutes , tourné en 16 mm, noir et blanc s'attache aux pas d'un immigré turc, le jour de son repos dominical. Privé de famille et de sa langue, il erre dans une ville qui lui semble désertée de ses citadins qui se sont soit évadés au ski, à la montagne, soit calfeutrés chez eux. Le film met en scène la particularité de cette immigration turque des années soixante dix, d'hommes non-accompagnés de leur famille et que l'isolement (…)

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Cem Yıldız en tournée

Courrier des Balkans - Sat, 02/07/2026 - 23:59

Le shamane électro d'Anatolie Cem Yıldız entame une tournée dans trois villes de l'hexagone. Trois soirées bouillonnantes qui vont notamment marquer la rencontre de deux figures de la scène musiques du monde et électro : CEM YILDIZ & GUIDO MINISKY (Acid Arab).
“Shamane des temps modernes”, CEM YILDIZ fusionne saz électrifié, voix et machines pour réinventer les musiques populaires d'Anatolie à travers l'électro et les sonorités urbaines d'Istanbul. Présent sur les grandes scènes (…)

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Documentaire | La vente secrète des juifs de Roumanie

Courrier des Balkans - Thu, 02/05/2026 - 23:59

Le documentaire La vente secrète des juifs de Roumanie du réalisateur Pierre Goetschel sera projeté dans le cadre du Luchon Festival.
Le 5 février 2026 à 16 heures.
Renseignements : https://luchon-festival.com

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Myanmar: Five Years Since the Coup and No End in Sight To War

Africa - INTER PRESS SERVICE - 1 hour 56 min ago

Prosthetics marketed by I-Walk at an event marking resistance to Myanmar’s military coup of five years ago. The enterprise has a waiting list of over 3,000 people. Credit: Guy Dinmore/IPS

By Guy Dinmore
MYANMAR & THAILAND, Feb 4 2026 (IPS)

Five years of conflict since the military seized power have reduced Myanmar to a failed state and taken a huge toll of lives lost and destroyed. But with all sides seeking total victory, there is no end in sight.

Levels of medieval brutality enhanced by modern technology have enabled the military junta, with help from China, to swing the fortunes of war back in its favour, often through air strikes and drone attacks on civilian targets. Torched villages are deserted.

Kyaw Thurein Win, on the anniversary of the military’s February 1, 2021, coup against the elected civilian government, watched his village of Shut Pon burning in the southern region of Tanintharyi – through satellite imagery.

“Today my village is witnessing the cruelty of the military. They set the fires and ordered that they not be stopped. This is beyond inhuman and beyond cruel. Watching this happen from afar is unbearable,” he wrote on Facebook.

While the strength of anti-regime defiance and determination is undeniable among many in Myanmar, there is also a growing realisation – especially among former combatants — that the resistance will not win this war so soon, if at all.

“It is a stalemate. Nobody can win,” said one military defector, saying that cries of total victory by both the regime and the resistance ring hollow.

A young woman who runs a safe house for former child soldiers as young as 13 says she joined the People’s Defence Forces of the resistance that sprang up against military rule in 2021. But she soon came to realise that, for her at least, war was not the answer and started taking in children forced by poverty and displacement to become fighters against the regime.

She rails against the “whatever it takes” mentality and the toll it takes.

“The civilian suffering is ignored or exploited,” she says, attending a coup anniversary event – a mix of politics and culture and foodstalls –  organised by anti-regime civilian activists in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. She shares a picture of ‘Commando’ in uniform, armed to the teeth. He was 12 at the time.

Sayarma Suzanna, fundraising for her school in Kayin State, the Dr Thanbyah Christian Institute for displaced and local children, said she and her 97 students spent all of November hiding in the nearby forest because of air strikes.

“You have to understand that when the students don’t listen to you during lessons, it is because of their trauma,” she said, recounting how one student lost seven family members in air strikes on their village.

At a nearby stall, the manager of I-Walk displayed an array of quality prosthetic limbs made by his enterprise as affordable as possible. He has a waiting list of over 3,000 people.

Myanmar is the most landmined country in the world with the highest rate of casualties. It also ranks as the biggest producer of illicit opium and a major source of synthetic drugs. Networks of online scam centres run by criminal gangs and militia groups close to the regime have trafficked tens of thousands of people from multiple countries, scamming billions of dollars.

The UN says 5.2 million people have been displaced by conflict inside the country and across borders. Cuts by rich countries to aid budgets have had a crippling impact. Some clinics are reduced to dispensing just paracetamol.

This year’s coup anniversary coincided with the conclusion of parliamentary and regional elections tightly orchestrated by the regime over the scattered and sometimes totally isolated areas of territory it controls, which include all major cities.

The three-phase polls – endorsed by China and Russia but slammed by the UN and most democracies except notably the US – excluded the National League for Democracy, which won landslide election victories in 2015 and 2020.

NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been held in prison since the coup. There is speculation that Senior General Min Aung Hlaing might move her to better conditions of house arrest after the military’s Union Solidarity and Development Party, led by former senior officers, forms a nominally civilian government in April.

The USDP is cruising towards its managed landslide victory, according to almost complete results released last week.

The UN said it had reliable reports of at least 170 civilians killed in regime attacks during the month-long election period. Other estimates put the figure considerably higher.

One airstrike in Kachin State in northern Myanmar reportedly killed 50 civilians on January 22. Long-running attempts by the Kachin Independence Army and resistance forces to capture the nearby and heavily defended Bhamo town from the military have been costly. Some analysts ask, for what gain?’

Kachin State’s second biggest town is strategically located on a trade route to China but most of its 55,000 or so inhabitants have long since fled. The military would surely respond with heavy air strikes to any occupation by the resistance.

Data gathered by ACLED, a nonprofit organisation that analyses data on political violence, indicates over 90,000 total conflict-related deaths since the coup. The military, reliant on forced conscription, has borne the brunt of casualties, but civilian deaths are estimated at over 16,000.

“The military has carried out air strikes, indiscriminately or deliberately attacking civilians in their homes, hospitals, and schools,” said Nicholas Koumjian, head of the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, adding that there is evidence that civilians have endured atrocities amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes since the military takeover.

The IIMM is also investigating a growing number of allegations of atrocities committed by opposition armed groups, over which the parallel National Unity Government set up by lawmakers ousted in the coup has little or no control.

Former combatants say rogue People’s Defence Forces are also extorting money from local populations and holding people to ransom.

“Myanmar remains mired in an existential crisis – measured both in human security and the state’s shrinking sovereignty as rival centres of power harden on the ground,” the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar, a think-tank, stated in its recent annual review.

“The regime is meanwhile trying to break the current stalemate by accelerating counter-offensives on three fronts: military, diplomatic and political,” it said. The military-staged elections of 2010 led to a process of political and economic reforms but this time the regime intended to impose its own terms, the think tank said.

It warned of the risk that ethnic armed groups controlling swathes of border territories with Bangladesh, India, China and Thailand would end up – not for the first time – negotiating bilateral ceasefires and “rent sharing arrangements” with the regime. These would “consolidate the power of armed elites and reinforce central control rather than advance democracy, human rights or the rule of law.”

On Sunday, a panel discussion featuring anti-regime politicians and activists hosted by Chiang Mai University reinforced the sense of an opposition fragmented along ethnic and geographical lines, even if speakers upheld the principles behind their shared goal of a democratic federal union.

There was the customary rhetoric of “taking down this junta” and “whatever it takes”, but barely a mention of the National Unity Government that is struggling to knit together these diverse forces under the umbrella of a “Federal Supreme Council”.

On the panel, Debbie Stothard, a Malaysian democracy and women’s rights activist long involved with Myanmar, said the resistance needed two more years for victory, as the generals had “bought” one more year with their sham elections.

“Hang in there. We have to keep on going for at least two more years,” she said.

But in the big cities where the regime is starting to try and foster a sense of normality against a dire economic backdrop, the mood on the street appears more of resignation than defiance.

“When we started protesting against the regime in the streets in 2021, I told my husband we would defeat the military in three months,” an elderly Chin activist told IPS in Yangon, the former capital. “He replied it would take five years. Now I am afraid it will take another five years,” she said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

 


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Categories: Africa, Afrique

Bonatiro livre ses prévisions : les Algériens débuteront le jeûne du Ramadan 2026 à cette date

Algérie 360 - 1 hour 59 min ago

L’astronome algérien Loth Bonatiro s’est prononcé sur la date probable du premier jour du mois sacré de Ramadan pour l’année 2026, en se basant sur […]

L’article Bonatiro livre ses prévisions : les Algériens débuteront le jeûne du Ramadan 2026 à cette date est apparu en premier sur .

Categories: Africa, Afrique

Médecine : les universités bulgares aussi attirent les étudiants étrangers

Courrier des Balkans - 3 hours 7 min ago

Dans l'ombre de la Roumanie voisine, beaucoup d'étudiants étrangers viennent faire médecine en Bulgarie, pour trouver des formations de qualité à des coûts très compétitifs. Reportage à Pleven, où ces étudiants étrangers ont sauvé la faculté de la banqueroute et redynamisé le centre-ville.

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Centres de retour contre remboursement

Euractiv.fr - 3 hours 11 min ago

Dans l'édition de mercredi : sanctions contre la Russie, retraite des commissaires, accord commercial UE-États-Unis, États-Unis-Inde, Mercosur

The post Centres de retour contre remboursement appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Categories: Afrique, Union européenne

Bosnie-Herzégovine : rien n'affecte la vieille tradition d'amitié avec l'Iran

Courrier des Balkans - 4 hours 24 min ago

L'Iran a beaucoup soutenu la Bosnie-Herzégovine durant la guerre, et Sarajevo est toujours jumelée avec Téhéran. Pas une voix officielle ni dans la société civile ne s'élève pour dénoncer la répression. Une école salue même toujours la mémoire du général Qassem Soleimani, l'ancien chef de la force d'élite du Corps des gardiens de la révolution islamique.

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Press release - EU survey: rising concerns push demand for more European action

European Parliament (News) - 5 hours 9 min ago
At a time of heightened geopolitical tensions, citizens are increasingly anxious about their future and want the EU to act with unity and ambition.

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Sajtóközlemény - EU-felmérés: a növekvő aggodalmak miatt fokozottabb európai fellépést sürgetnek

Európa Parlament hírei - 5 hours 9 min ago
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Forrás : © Európai Unió, 2026 - EP

Media advisory - Informal video conference of the ministers responsible for housing of 3 February 2026

European Council - 7 hours 49 min ago
Main agenda items, approximate timing, public sessions and press opportunities.
Categories: European Union, Swiss News

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