■"West Africa Wins Again, With Twist: Togo's Neighbors Bring Pressure to Restore a Constitution," by Lydia Polgreen, New York Times, 27 February 2005, p. A10.
■"Women's Voices Rise as Rwanda Reinvents Itself: But Numbers in Office Do Not Mean an End to Their Suffering," by Marc Lacey, New York Times,
26 February 2005, p. A1.
Two very encouraging articles on Africa. First one is about Togo, where not too long ago the military tried to install the son of the long-time strongman running the country as his presidential successor, defying the constitution. Well, neighboring states made a big deal out of the move, and apparently talked the military leadership of Togo to dethrone the son.
See, not every effort requires the U.S. military and not every effort requires bloodshed. Most will leave willingly if the right pressure is applied. Of course, it helps when we're talking a smaller state, which West Africa is full of. It's those big states elsewhere in Africa where getting the Big Man to leave is much harder—like Zimbabwe.
The other story is about how women have stepped into unprecedented political roles in Rwanda as that government continues to put itself back together following the genocidal period of the early 1990s. Part of it is just sheer practicality: the killing was conducted overwhelming by males against males (in the 98-percent range), leaving a 7-to-1 ratio of females to males, according to the highest estimates. Now, women make up roughly half of the lower house of the Parliament, an unprecedented number in human history, by all accounts. It doesn't mean everything works out nicely now for Rwanda, but if there can be an upside to the ethnic killing spree that occurred, surely this is it.
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