Mohamed Vall

A measure of anger in the Libya war

I've always felt there's some something unusual about the Nato war in Libya. A war with cool nerves? A bureaucratic war?

A sort of boring, over calculated "humanitarian" operation just like anything UN?

The Korean War was UN-mandated but US-driven. The threat of communism engulfing Asia was enough provocation.

But in Libya: no.

And there perhaps lies the secret.

Unlike even recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Western intervention in Libya lacked three vital factors that usually drive wars: anger, fear and hatred.

In Afghanistan those three elements were at play. The September 11 attacks rocked America with fear in its own usually secure cradle. The anger and hatred generated by those attacks were enough fuel for a sustained war if not a series of wars.

In fact, Iraq was part of the aftermath of that situation. But Iraq was more about fear than anger. Behind the scenes Israel was afraid of a potentially powerful Iraq.

Khartoum's southerners face new realities

"Sudan is four countries ... No, no Sudan should be just one...," the voice of the local singer in a southern language came loud and noisy from the old tape recorder next to Sonta as she sat sweating in the searing sun at the make shift bus-station in Amarat district in southern Khartoum.

The 20-year-old woman from Warrap state and her cousin were sitting on a heap of old furniture along with hundreds of other southerners, waiting to be transported to southern Sudan.

They have left their homes around Khartoum and they have been here for nearly a week waiting for the buses to come.

A one-year-old baby girl with a dusty face and shabby clothes was nibbling at a poorly baked portion of flour soaked in meat sauce.

It's very clear that these people have been suffering for years and that they are now taking serious troubles to go back to their ancestral homeland.

Cote D'Ivoire on the brink

"What do you know about Cote D'Ivoire? You don't know anything!," was how President Laurent Gbagbo responded to my tough question about his foot dragging on the holding of elections. 

I tried to smile and keep my calm.

But he went on: "We don't ask this type of questions in Cote D'Ivoire". I knew that before he told me. But we were in Doha, not in Abidjan!

The half hour interview included maybe a dozen insults on my person.

My producer, Katie Turner, had a tough task on her hands to clean up the interview of Gbagbo's insulting words.

But when I read more on the man I learnt how he was known for his bullish behavior with "arrogant journalists".

Gbagbo came across to me as an African third world dictator, not a polished democratic leader.

Actually I have to mention how he swept into the room when we were still fixing the lighting and setting up the camera frame.

Conflict solutions in Mauritania

Mauritania is a tiny nation on the margins of the modern world. It’s been through several coups. Most of them not bloody. But there’s a really new trend that started to emerge since last year, one of peaceful dialogue.

The former ruling junta finally sat around the negotiation table with the opposition. The deposed civilian president gave up his democratically earned chair. And so did the head of the military junta who accepted the taking over by a new government to oversee the elections. Half of that government’s members including the interior ministry were chosen from among the opposition. Elections were organised and the opposition accepted the results whereby the former military ruler won the ballot.

So a dangerous standoff that could have mired the country in bloodshed was averted via peaceful dialogue.