Nov. 28, 2023

Christopher Shell (PHOTO: Sharon Farmer)

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Journal-isms

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - In a survey nearly three weeks after the Hamas terror attack against Israel, one in four Blacks said the U.S. should play no role in the conflict.  Forty-three percent of Black Americans were supporting some form of a cease-fire, versus 35 percent of White Americans. Ninety-five percent of Blacks rejected the idea of unwavering support for Israel while only 77 percent of Whites did.

After an international clamor, such a pause is now in effect. “Hamas released a second group of hostages on Saturday night, the Israeli military said, after an hourslong delay raised fears that a fragile truce in Gaza could collapse altogether. Israel was expected to release Palestinians prisoners within hours,” The New York Times reported Saturday evening, Nov. 25.

The figures on attitudes toward a cease-fire were part of a preview of a survey by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace presented Sunday, Nov. 26, at the Journal-isms Roundtable. They were delivered by Christopher Shell a fellow in Carnegie’s American Statecraft program, who introduced himself as having “done extensive surveys looking at Black American opinion on some pressing foreign policy issues like the war in Ukraine, looking at opinion on issues like US.-China relations, so on and so forth.”

At the end of the survey, taken Oct. 20-25 among 800 Black and 800 White respondents, was this question, Shell said: “How would you rate the media’s coverage” of the Israeli-Hamas conflict?

“And what’s quite interesting is equal shares of Black and white Americans. . . . 30% say that they’re not sure,” he continued. “They’re very unsure about how the media is covering the conflict. So I’m trying to think through this; whether it means that they don’t know they can trust the media and they don’t, maybe they’re not watching the media at all. . . .But what was also quite interesting as well was that Black Americans are more likely than white Americans to think that the media is providing fair coverage to both sides.

“So, 29 percent of Black Americans said the media is providing fair coverage of both sides. 19 percent of white Americans said so.”

However, the survey also showed, “Black Americans are slightly more likely, 35 percent, to believe that the media is providing more coverage in favor of Israel versus 31% of white Americans, and then, on the question of Palestine, only 7 percent of Black Americans think that the media is providing coverage favorable of Palestine versus 20 percent of white Americans.”

Forty people attended the Journal-isms Roundtable by Zoom, with 60 more having watched on Facebook by Thanksgiving day, and 85 more saw it on YouTube before the video was taken down temporarily on Tuesday for editing. 

Sunday’s primary speaker was Malcolm Nance, the former counterintelligence agent, author and former MSNBC commentator. Toasts were raised to the new NABJ-Philadelphia chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, and to Ashanti Blaize-Hopkins, new president of the Society of Professional Journalists, the first Black woman in the role. NABJ-Philadelphia was represented by chapter president Michael Days, vice president Melanie Burney and other chapter leaders.

In other survey findings, Shell said 24 percent of Black Americans told survey-takers that the United States should not be involved in any way in the Israeli conflict, versus about 19 percent of White Americans.

Also, 65 percent of Black Americans said, “I pretty much feel the same about [President] Biden,” after the president’s initially unequivocal support for Israel, but 20 percent of independent Black voters and young voters said they felt worse about Biden in the wake of the attack.

July 30, 2023

Ahmed Hussein-Suale Divela is still missing

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from Global Information Network

 (TriceEdneyWire.com/GIN) - It’s been over four years since assassins came to his neighborhood, waited for investigative journalist Ahmed Hussein-Suale Divela, and then shot him in his car.

“We heard the gunshot,” Kamilu Ibrahim Tahidu, Divela’s brother, recalled in a recent interview with the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). “Someone ran and said that they were killing our brother.”

Tahidu expressed frustration with the failure by Ghanaian authorities to apprehend those responsible. Certain political elites have not been sufficiently scrutinized, he said, and his speaking out about the murder had brought new threats.

In the year before his murder, Divela was publicly threatened by a politician now seeking to be Ghana’s president.

“If a journalist gets murdered and everyone is silent, nobody seems to take it up,” said a heart-broken Kamilu. “We know that whatever happens, our brother is not coming back. But something should have been done to make sure it never happens again and the only way is to find the people, punish them, and justice will have been served.”

Divela became a journalist out of dissatisfaction with the economic situation for average people in Ghana, his family told CPJ. He worked as a reporter with Tiger Eye Private Investigations, an investigative journalism group headed by Anas Aremeyaw Anas.

The identities of Tiger Eye PI members are not publicly known, as they operate largely undercover to document alleged wrongdoing by those in positions of power.

The year before the murder, Anas and Divela received public threats from Kennedy Agyapong, a prominent member of Ghana’s ruling party now seeking to be Ghana’s president.

The threats came ahead of the release of a Tiger Eye PI film exposing alleged corruption among African soccer officials, including then-president of the Ghana Football Association Kwesi Nyantakyi.

The documentary, “Number 12,” caused an uproar in Ghana’s soccer world when it aired in 2018, prompting Nyantakyi’s resignation and world governing body FIFA to ban him for life from football-related activities.

CPJ reached Nyantakyi by phone, but when asked about the police investigation into him after the killing, he said, “OK, thank you” and then the line disconnected. Follow-up calls rang unanswered.

In March, a Ghanaian judge dismissed Anas’ defamation suit brought in response to Agyapong’s comments.  A similar defamation suit filed in the U.S. is ongoing.

Ghana’s presidential election is scheduled for December 2024 and opposition candidate John Mahama recently committed to “speed up” the investigation into Divela’s January 2019 killing. But words from authorities have offered the family little clarity or comfort.

“They promised to get results very soon,” Tahidu said, recalling a conversation with Ghanaian Inspector General of Police George Akuffo Dampare following his appointment back in 2021. “Soon is yet to come.” 

June 27, 2023

Wagner Group soldiers in the Central African Republic

Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner Group

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from BlackMansStreet.Today

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The Wagner Group, a mercenary Army with business connections, nearly reached Moscow in what many believe was a coup attempt to oust Russian President Vladimir Putin before abruptly turning around last week.    

But the Wagner Group has been involved in several African countries since 2017, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. The council added that in January 2023, the U.S. government called Wagner Group a "transnational criminal organization.

The Wagner Group, which is led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, is active in the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, and Sudan. The Wagner Group has supported African governments in combatting rebel groups.

Approximately 1,000 troops in the Wagner Group are located in the Central African Republic to defend the government of President Faustim-Archange Touadera against rebel attacks in the capital city of Bangui. In return, Wagner has unrestricted logging rights and control of the Ndassima gold mine, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Wagner forces also fought the Libyan National Army during the 2019 Tripoli campaign during which they were accused of extrajudicial killing and planting land mines in civilian neighborhoods. In Mozambique in 2019, the Wagner Group fought against the self-proclaimed Islamic State in the northern Cabo Delgado province.

And in Sudan, Wagner is training troops to protect mineral deposits and to suppress dissent against President Omar al-Bashir.

The Wagner Group is involved in Africa to make money and to build diplomatic support the United Nations. The Wagner Group has an estimated 5,000 members in Africa. The mercenary group is made up of former Russian soldiers, convicts, and foreign nationals.

June 19, 2023

(TriceEdneyWire.com/GIN) - Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is struggling to defend his security forces that failed to block an attack on a secondary school where some 39 students were brutally murdered and others were abducted.

Museveni, who is also the commander in chief of armed forces, ordered the chief of defense forces to rush to Kasese district after the surprise attack by a known rebel group that escaped to the Democratic Republic of Congo across the border.

In November last year, Museveni praised his troops saying they had obliterated all threats by the ADF (Allied Democratic Forces), described as an Islamist militant group, to carry out attacks on Uganda.

The Friday night attack in Kasese comes days after U.S. citizens were warned against visiting or living in Uganda, warning of imminent terror attacks.

State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Henry Okello Oryem, reportedly laughed off the US travel warnings, saying Uganda had the capacity to deal with any security threat.

The horrific attack on the secondary school recalled terror attacks in Kampala in 2021 when the UK issued a warning for its citizens but Ugandan security said they were more than ready to counter insecurity incidents.

The assailants reportedly burned the school’s library, plundered a food store and kidnapped six students to carry the stolen loot.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) condemned the attack on the Mpondwe Lhubiriha school that took place on June 16 – coincidentally celebrated as the Day of the African Child. “We stand in solidarity with the students, the teaching staff, the school authorities, families of those impacted and the people of Uganda in this sad moment,” said Munir Safieldin, Unicef’s representative to Uganda.

“Schools are a safe place for all learners and must never be attacked.”

Friday’s attack, said Richard Moncrieff of the International Crisis Group, said that despite nearly two years of concentrated joint operations against the group, it still has significant capacity. “This attack shows that a wider strategy is needed than purely military.

President Museveni reportedly receives billions of dollars in development and military assistance from Western countries, including the U.N.

Gun violence has become a national topic of discussion, say Ugandan reporters with The Observer, despite the focus by the President’s office on the LGBTQ community which is under attack.

Last month, 54 Ugandan soldiers were killed and scores injured when al-Shabaab militants attacked their base in Somalia. Surviving soldiers said their troops mistook al-Shabaab militants for Somali farmers.

Museveni’s critics have been detained and in some cases tortured as reportedly occurred in the case of Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, author of “Greedy Barbarian”, a children’s book, and activist Stella Nyanzi, under the Computer Misuse Act which prohibited the use of electronic communication to “disturb the peace, quiet or right of privacy of any person with no purpose of legitimate communication.”

Both critics are said to be in exile at this time.