East African News

Here are some links to current events in East Africa: Kenya will hold national elections this December. Peace may be coming to Northern Uganda. Fighting has raged between a rebel group, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan Government for nearly two decades, with civilians caught in the middle. The documentary Invisible Children shows the plight of thousands of children in Northern Uganda as the attempt to avoid being kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers or sex slaves. An article from the Seattle Times reports on the benefits of technology for the rural poor. The situation in the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to deteriorate. The region has been unstable since the mid 1990's after many of the Hutu perpetrators of the Rwandan Genocide fled to the region to hide. Fighting between various Hutu and Tutsi groups have in turn destabilized the region. Fighting has intensified since the end of August and has caused about 200,000 internally displaced refugees with an additional 13,000 refugees fleeing to Uganda. For an in depth look go here. The US has recently stated that it will begin to train the DRC army. An article from the BBC about the non-governmental response to the violence and an overview of the issues.