Two recent posts on Côte d’Ivoire provide a depressing counterpoint to the good news from Egypt and Tunisia. Gbagbo and Gaddafi appear to be following the Mugabe lead: once you’re committed there cannot be any turning back, ever. Ben Ali and Mubarak blinked and were gone. In Côte d’Ivoire it seems it is the international community that has blinked. Meanwhile, in Kenya, politicians are writhing like snakes trying to get out from under the ICC’s indictment.
Institutions like the ICC are a good start, and we are presumably stumbling very slowly towards some more serious notions of global governance than currently represented by the UN. In the meantime, it seems that impunity is still alive and well in many (but not all) countries in Africa.
Update 11/03/11: Also see John Campbell’s post linking Gbagbo, Gaddafi and Mugabe.
Bottom Up Thinking 