assassination - The African Mirror

Mar

2024

Chad presidential election: assassination of main opposition figure casts doubt on country’s return to democracy

THE assassination of Chad’s main opposition leader, Yaya Dillo, is hanging heavy over presidential elections due in early May. Dillo was killed on 28 February when the headquarters of the opposition Party Socialiste sans Frontières (Party of Socialists without Borders) in the Chadian capital N'Djamena was besieged by the newly formed Rapid Reaction Force. It’s not the first violence meted out to the opposition. In October 2022 Chadian security forces killed hundreds of protesters. They were protesting the extension of the transition to democracy from 18 to 36 months and the decision of transitional president Mahamat Idriss Déby to stand…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

The Plot to Save South Africa: masterful account of an assassination that nearly derailed efforts to end apartheid

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

I was about to set off to the airport on the morning of 10 April 1993 to cover the great American boxer Muhammad Ali’s arrival in Johannesburg when the news came through: Chris Hani had been murdered. Of all the African National Congress (ANC) leaders I’d met during a decade of underground membership during the 1980s, the one who impressed me the most was Hani. Author GAVIN EVANS, Lecturer, Culture and Media Department, Birkbeck, University of London From 1987 to 1992 Hani was chief of staff of the movement’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, and leader of the South African…

Jul

2022

By The African Mirror

Analysis: The 2.5 seconds of security lapses that sealed Shinzo Abe’s fate

WORLD

SATOSHI SUGIYAMA, SAM NUSSEY and JU-MIN PARK BODYGUARDS could have saved Shinzo Abe if they shielded him or removed him from the line of fire in the 2.5 seconds between a missed first shot and a second round of gunfire that fatally wounded him, according to eight security experts who reviewed footage of the former Japanese leader's assassination. The failure to protect Abe from the second shot followed what appeared to be a series of security lapses in the lead-up to the assassination of Japan's longest-serving prime minister on July 8, the Japanese and international experts said. Abe's killing in…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Protests break out at Haiti president’s funeral, guests run for cover

WORLD

DAVE GRAHAM and ANDRE PAULTRE THE funeral of assassinated Haitian president Jovenel Moise yesterday was disrupted by shots fired nearby and riot gas used on protesters, prompting a high-level U.S. delegation to abruptly leave and other dignitaries to duck into vehicles for safety. The state funeral in the northern city of Cap-Haitien was intended to foster national unity, but the disturbances reflected deep division over the June 7 atrocity, in which foreign gunmen walked apparently unchallenged into the presidential residence and shot Moise multiple times, also injuring his wife. Few answers have emerged about who planned the killing, or why.…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Former DEA informant arrested in Haiti assassination identified -sources

WORLD

MARK HOSENBALL TWO U.S. government sources have identified the former Drug Enforcement Administration informant accused of taking part in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise as Joseph Vincent, 55, of Florida. Vincent and a second Haitian-American Florida resident, James Solages, 35, have been arrested by Haitian officials and charged with taking part in last week's attack. The men told investigators they had been hired to serve as interpreters on a team dominated by 26 Colombians, another source said. A third Haitian-American, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, was arrested on Sunday by Haitian authorities, who accused him of being a mastermind of…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Rival Haitian leaders battle for power after president’s assassination

WORLD

ANDRE PAULTRE and SARAH MARSH A power struggle is brewing in Haiti as the man appointed prime minister shortly before the assassination of Haiti's president this week said he - not the acting premier - should lead the Caribbean nation and was forming a government to that effect. Ariel Henry, a neurosurgeon who was named prime minister by President Jovenel Moise on Monday, two days before Moise was killed by a squad of gunmen in his home in the capital, Port-au-Prince, said he was now the highest authority in Haiti, not interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph. "After the president's assassination,…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

U.S. probing American ties to assassination of Haitian president

WORLD

BRAD BROOKS and MARK HOSENBALL U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies are probing American connections to this week's assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, three sources said, the day after two Haitian-American men were arrested on charges of participating in it. Haitian police identified the two as James Solages, 35, and Joseph Vincent, 55, saying that they were part of a heavily armed commando unit comprised mostly of 26 Colombians, who sources in the Colombian army said entered Haiti from the neighbouring Dominican Republic. Two law enforcement sources, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an active investigation, said that…

May

2021

By The African Mirror

Now there’s a chance of justice for Thomas Sankara, it’s useful to review what got him killed

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

EARLIER this month a court in Burkina Faso’s capital indicted former President Blaise Compaoré for his role in the murder of his comrade, Thomas Sankara, on 15 October 1987. LEO ZEILIG, Senior Visiting Fellow, University of London The military court detailed Compaoré’s “complicity in the assassination”, the first time a court in the country has made such an accusation. Compaoré ruled the country until 2014, when he was forced to flee for neighbouring Cote D’Ivoire during a mass uprising. The decision to try the former leader has been called a landmark moment. Sankara’s family has pursued justice for almost 34…

Apr

2021

By The African Mirror

‘Murder in Paris’ puts fresh focus on assassination

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

ON the morning of 29 March 1988, Dulcie September, the 52-year-old representative of the ANC for France, Luxembourg and Switzerland, was killed by five bullets fired at point blank range from a .22-calibre pistol fitted with a silencer. She died outside the door of the ANC offices on the fourth floor of the building located at 28 Rue des Petites-Écuries in Paris. September’s death sparked international outrage, particularly in France, where tens of thousands of people lined the streets of the capital for her funeral on 9 April 1988. Almost immediately following what would prove to be the most high-profile…