Deposed president to return to office as Burkina coup leaders sign peace deal

Burkina Faso coup leaders agreed to return to their barracks and said they would restore the deposed president to power, signing a deal with the army that apparently defuses a tense standoff sparked by last week's putsch.

The breakthrough came late Tuesday after marathon talks in Nigeria's Abuja, where west African heads of state had sought to break the impasse fuelled by angry threats on both sides.

The deal was signed a day after troops entered Burkina's capital Ouagadougou, turning up the pressure on the elite presidential guards (RSP) who staged the coup.

Under its terms, the RSP agreed to stand down from the positions they had taken up in Ouagadougou, while the army also agreed to withdraw its troops and guarantee the safety of the RSP members as well as their families.

The deal was presented to the Mogho Naba, "king" of Burkina Faso's leading Mossi tribe, in front of the media early Wednesday.

Burkina Faso plunged into crisis last Wednesday when the powerful RSP detained the interim leaders who had been running the country since a popular uprising deposed iron-fisted president Blaise Compaore last October.

The elite unit of 1,300 men loyal to Compaore officially declared a coup Thursday and installed rebel leader General Gilbert Diendere, Compaore's former chief of staff, as the country's new leader.

The breakthrough came as Diendere told AFP that interim president Michel Kafando, who had been seized by presidential guards but later released, would be returned to office on Wednesday.

The return of "Kafando is already a done deal. The (African) heads of state arrive tomorrow to put him back in office," Diendere said late Tuesday.

Earlier, West African leaders from ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) had announced they would return to Ouagadougou to "restore" Kafando to power.

Fighting talk

The putsch came just weeks ahead of an election planned for October 11, with at least 10 people killed and more than 100 injured in the resulting unrest.

A round of talks mediated by Senegalese President Macky Sall focused on returning power to the interim government while granting the putschists an amnesty in return.

But the proposal was met with widespread scepticism before any final draft even saw the light.

Speaking to France's RFI radio, Kafando had warned he had "serious reservations" about the proposal, adding that he had not been invited to the talks in the Nigerian capital.

Residents too were furious at the suggestion of an amnesty for the coup ringleaders.

It was unclear early Wednesday if the amnesty had made it into the deal signed between the coup leaders and the army.

On Tuesday, Burkina Faso's military had warned coup leader Diendere it has the means to attack his elite forces.

"The national armed forces who arrived yesterday in Ouagadougou could have attacked the... RSP from the moment they entered, and they have the capacity and the means to do so," the army chiefs said in a statement.

Diendere had hit back, saying his men would defend themselves if the army attacked them.

"We do not want to fight but ultimately we will defend ourselves," Diendere had warned.

"We do not want to shed any blood to stay in power. There is no point in spilling blood or causing massacres."

On Monday night, cheering crowds greeted the regular army units as they marched to the capital to put pressure on Diendere to surrender.

The show of strength was the first public stance by the 11,000-strong army since the coup.

ECOWAS commission president Kadre Desire Ouedraogo said Tuesday that military and humanitarian observers from member states would be sent to Burkina Faso "to monitor respect for human rights".

The coup sparked global condemnation, with former colonial power France urging the leaders to surrender.

Burkina Faso coup: Michel Kafando 'back in charge

Image copyrightAFP

Image captionInterim President Michel Kafando said he had reservations about some aspects of the deal

Burkina Faso's interim President Michel Kafando has said he is back in charge and civilian rule restored after last week's military takeover.

His announcement came as coup leader Gen Gilbert Diendere went to welcome several African leaders arriving to oversee the transfer of power.

His presidential guard agreed to a deal overnight with the regular army to avoid violence.

They pledged to return to barracks and the army to withdraw from the capital.

South Africa appeal after 'genitals found in Danish man's freezer'

Image copyrightJørn Stjerneklar

Image captionThe police alleged that Peter Frederiksen is wanted by Danish police for illegal dealing in firearms

South Africa's police are appealing for information after arresting a Danish man alleged to have had suspected genitals from 21 women in his freezer.

Peter Frederiksen, who owns two gun shops in Bloemfontein, is facing charges including sexual assault, intimidation and domestic violence.

The 58-year-old allegedly sedated his victims before operating on them, the police said.

Mr Frederiksen was not asked to plead at his first court hearing on Monday.

Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi, from South Africa's special Hawks police investigation unit, told the BBC the suspect would remain in custody until he was able to apply for bail next Monday.

• Africa Live: BBC News updates

Police believe most of his alleged victims may have come from neighbouring Lesotho.

The BBC's Milton Nkosi in Johannesburg says Mr Frederiksen was arrested last week following a tip-off.

The suspected genital parts were found in his freezer, all neatly labelled in plastic bags with a date, the name of a woman and where she was from, he says.

Anaesthetic drugs and a surgical doctor's operating equipment were also found at his house, police say.

Brigadier Mulaudzi said police wanted alleged victims to come forward to help with investigations.

Officers want to establish how the women were lured to South Africa, as well as the man's motives, he said.

According to the police statement, Mr Frederiksen is wanted by police in Denmark for alleged illegal dealing in firearms.

West African delegation calls for all sides to refrain from violence

Burkina Faso coup leader Gilbert Diendéré told FRANCE 24 he would abide by the decisions of the ECOWAS regional block, which called on all sides late Tuesday to refrain from violence and said it was dispatching a delegation to mediate the crisis.

General Gilbert Diendéré said he was still in charge despite the passing of a deadline set by loyalist troops, who entered the capital, Ouagadougou, late on Monday vowing to reinstate the country's interim government.

"I'm not stalling for time. I'm within the time allotted to me," he told a news conference. "I am still the president of the National Democratic Council (junta)."

In an exclusive interview with FRANCE 24 on Tuesday, Diendéré called for calm and urged that all sides accept the outcome of mediation efforts by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

“I’m asking that everyone remain calm and I’m asking that everyone accepts whatever decision ECOWAS makes so that we can move on,” he said.

Media reports said that despite seeking a peaceful solution to the crisis, Diendéré warned that his troops would respond if attacked. "We do not want to fight but ultimately we will defend ourselves," he said.

The head of Burkina Faso’s army, Pingrenoma Zagré, told FRANCE 24 on Tuesday that he also wanted “to avoid confrontation”.

ECOWAS leaders met in closed-door talks in Nigeria's capital of Abuja on Tuesday to discuss a 12-point plan presented last weekend by the body's current president, Macky Sall of Senegal.

"They have decided to dispatch tomorrow (Wednesday) a delegation of heads of state to go to Ouagadougou to re-establish Michel Kafando in his function as president of the transition of Burkina Faso," said ECOWAS commission president Kadre Desire Ouedraogo.

The delegation will come from Nigeria, Niger, Togo, Ghana, Benin and Senegal, Ouedraogo said.

Ouedraogo, a former Burkinabe prime minister before becoming ECOWAS commission president, said the heads of state "called on the presidential guards to disarm and demanded the other unit of the army not to use force” to avoid loss of human lives.

Military and humanitarian observers from member states would be sent to Burkina Faso "to monitor respect for human rights", Ouedraogo said.

Few people ventured out onto the streets of the capital on Tuesday, as Diendéré's forces held the presidential palace while troops opposing the coup deployed at most other strategic points.

Military sources said negotiations between army chiefs and coup leaders had resumed after breaking down earlier in the day.

But the head of Burkina Faso’s transitional parliament, Moumina Cheriff Sy, who has declared himself interim leader, later issued a decree dissolving the elite presidential guard, which carried out a coup last week.

“The interim president of the transition ... decrees ... the Presidential Security Regiment is dissolved,” read the decree.

The coup derailed a transition in the landlocked West African country, which had been preparing for an election on October 11. The vote was designed to restore democracy nearly a year after an uprising toppled longtime President Blaise Compaoré.

Prime minister released

Diendéré has said he will step aside once the regional leaders endorse a peace plan that includes an amnesty for coup plotters.

In an apparent olive branch, he ordered the release of interim prime minister Isaac Zida, who had been held hostage since the revolt began.

A former spy chief, Diendéré and his elite presidential guard rebelled last Wednesday, raiding a cabinet meeting and detaining the government.

At least 10 people were killed and more than 100 injured in protests sparked by the coup, ahead of what would have been the first elections since Compaoré was ousted in a popular revolt last October after trying to extend his 27-year grip on power.

The putsch sparked international uproar, with former colonial power France urging coup leaders to surrender and an African delegation attempting to mediate in the crisis.

French President François Hollande demanded "all those involved in the putsch to immediately lay down their arms and hand over power to the legitimate authorities – or face the consequences". France also suspended all financial and military aid to the country until the return of civilian rule.

A similar call was also issued by the presidents of Niger and Chad, who called on the renegade soldiers to "return to the barracks" and hand back power to the transitional administration.

Protesters slam amnesty plan

The draft deal provided for presidential and parliamentary elections to be held by November 22 at the latest, and crucially allowed for pro-Compaoré candidates to take part after they complained about being excluded from the October vote.

ECOWAS mediators said the fate of Diendéré's presidential guard should be decided by a future Burkinabe leader.

They have also proposed an amnesty for those behind the coup – a suggestion that has sparked widespread anger on the streets.

But civil society activists who played a major role in the uprising that toppled Compaoré have condemned the ECOWAS proposals, with the main Balai Citoyen (Civic Broom) group branding the deal "shameful".

"We cannot accept the amnesty. There are comrades who have fallen and ECOWAS is telling us to extend an amnesty," said Mady Ouedraogo, a spokesman for Balai Citoyen.

Two bombs rock Cameroon town already attacked by Boko Haram

Two bomb blasts hit a village in northern Cameroon on Thursday that was attacked in February by Boko Haram Islamist militants from neighbouring Nigeria, military and local government officials said.

The attacks targeted Kerawa in the Far North region of the country, where Cameroon’s army is struggling to contain the overflow of violence from Boko Haram’s northern Nigeria strongholds.

“The first (explosion) was just after 9 o’clock (0800 GMT) in the market in Kerawa and the other around 200 metres (yards) from the (military) infantry camp. For the moment we don’t have a death toll,” an army officer based in the north told Reuters.

One local government official confirmed the attacks and said he had been told that the attacks had been carried out by female bombers and was travelling to the scene of the blasts to verify exactly what happened.

Boko Haram fighters were blamed for a series of suicide bombings in the town of Maroua, also in the Far North, that killed dozens of people in July.

(REUTERS)

Date created : 2015-09-03

Al Shabaab militants attack African Union base in Somalia

Al Shabaab militants attacked an African Union (AU) base in southern Somalia early on Tuesday, the Islamist group and residents said, and said they had killed dozens of soldiers.

The al Qaeda-aligned militants said one of their fighters rammed a car bomb into the base and then gunmen poured inside the facility run by the AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia, AMISOM.
Al Shabaab said 50 peacekeepers were killed in the attack on Janale base, about 90 km (55 miles) south of the capital, Mogadishu. In the past, the group has exaggerated the number of troops it has killed and officials have played down losses.
“Now Janale base of AMISOM is under our control,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, Al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, told Reuters.
AMISOM disputed al Shabaab’s claims that the militants had routed its peacekeepers.
“AMISOM can confirm that the base is still under AMISOM control. Reports that the base has been taken over and our weapons captured are false,” the AU peacekeeping force said on its Twitter feed, without giving details on casaulties.
Captain Bilow Idow, a Somali military officer based in a town near Janale, said the base was effectively cut off as the militants had destroyed a nearby bridge.
“No reinforcement can reach there,” Idow said. “There is much death and damage.”
Government officials could not be reached for comment.
“After morning prayers we heard a big explosion followed by heavy gunfire in the AMISOM base. We do not have further details as we are indoors,” Janale resident Ahmed Olow told Reuters.
Al Shabaab, which wants to topple a Western-backed government and impose its own strict interpretation of Islam on Somalia, has also carried out attacks against neighbouring countries such as Kenya and Uganda to retaliate for troops being sent to Somalia as part of the AU peacekeeping force.

Green Africa: Solar lamps to empower the poor

The young entrepreneur Evans Wadongo, 29, who helps light rural homes in Kenya with solar-powered LED lanterns, received a prize for his innovative project at the New York Forum Africa in Gabon.

Wadongo won the second prize for the African start-up award, provided by the New York Forum African in Libreville, Gabon.

Wadongo co-founded Greenwize to give rural families in Kenya a means of replacing the smoky kerosene and firelight with solar power, for free. He also hopes his invention will improve education and reduce poverty.

'We have the support of the army,' Burkina coup leader tells FRANCE 24

Speaking to FRANCE 24 on Thursday, General Gilbert Diendéré said that the coup in Burkina Faso had the support of the army and that those leaders seized in the coup would be freed.

Acting President Michel Kafando and Prime Minister Isaac Zida were detained along with two ministers when members of the Presidential Security Regiment (RSP) burst into a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Guinea-Bissau's prime minister announced his resignation on Wednesday, just two days after his government was sworn in, plunging the chronically unstable African nation deeper into a simmering political crisis.

Baciro Dja's decision came after the country's Supreme Court declared that his unpopular appointment by President Jose Mario Vaz by presidential decree just weeks earlier had violated the constitution.

"The president of the republic has just informed me the Supreme Court has declared my appointment as prime minister unconstitutional," Dja told journalists after meeting the head of state.

"Consequently, I resign the office. I'm going to my office to formalise my decision."

In a 15-page ruling backed by eight of a 12-judge panel, the country's most powerful legal institution said Dja's nomination on August 20 had not met certain legal criteria.

These included not properly consulting the ruling party and listening to the opinions of other parties in parliament, it said.

Vaz appointed former minister Dja, 39, a week after firing Domingos Simoes Pereira over a series of disputes, including the naming of a new army chief.

The move put the head of state at loggerheads with his ruling African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which denounced it as a "constitutional coup".

While all three men belong to the PAIGC, the bloc quickly fell in line behind Pereira, their leader, and renominated him as their candidate, to no avail.

Referring the decision to the Supreme Court, the PAIGC said in a statement it "would never accept a constitutional coup d'etat".

Drug trafficking hub

"Neither the party nor the people of Guinea-Bissau will accept the nomination of Baciro Dja," it vowed.

The presidential decree promised constitutional formalities such as consultation with political parties in parliament would be honoured, although it announced that Dja would in any case replace Pereira.

Among Dja's first actions was to sack the chiefs of the state-owned radio and television services for what he described as their "biased treatment of the political crisis".

He also condemned state media outlets for broadcasting parliamentary debates live during the crisis, saying they "had not respected the guidance given regarding the maintenance of a climate of peace".

Dja was defence minister in the government of Carlos Gomes Junior, who was overthrown in 2012 in the latest in a long line of military coups to plunge Guinea-Bissau into chaos.

The country had barely begun to recover from the mutiny after the elections in July last year.

Dja became a minister and government spokesman for Pereira, but resigned after a dispute between the two men came to blows in June.

The altercation led to Dja being suspended from the PAIGC in August.

Vaz said his fallout with Pereira stemmed partly from the appointment of a new armed forces chief, a key post in the small nation known as a hub in drug trafficking between South America and Europe.

In March 2009, political veteran Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira, who had led the country on and off since 1980, was assassinated by soldiers in apparent revenge for the killing of the then army chief.

Vaz also raised the closure of the border with Guinea over an Ebola outbreak and cited problems of corruption and nepotism, a lack of transparency in public procurement and alleged obstruction of the judiciary.

The PAIGC party, which fought for independence from Portugal, has a slender majority in the national assembly with 57 of 102 lawmakers.

Vaz had only just issued a decree on Monday announcing key cabinet jobs in a new government led by Dja, to be sworn in at the presidency later that day.

(AFP)

Date created : 2015-09-09

Ugandan entrepreneur uses briquettes to tackle gender and development issues

The Ugandan entrepreneur Betty Ikalany uses agricultural waste such as maize and ground husks to make charcoal briquettes in Uganda. She is one of the four laureates of the African Start-up Award at the New York Forum Africa in Libreville, Gabon.

The banks would not give her a loan, so Ikalany sold her father's cow to finance her first project. She wanted to help women use cheaper and cleaner energy.

With her new business, "Appropriate Energy Saving Technologies", she makes improved cook stoves for sale to households and institutions at an affordable price. The stoves use less fuel than traditional metallic stoves, thus cooking more efficiently and saving energy. Women are not her only targets however. She wants to address gender along with development issues using clean energy and new technologies.

Burkina Faso on Thursday barred its former foreign minister and former sports minister from contesting next month’s presidential election on the grounds that they had backed ex-president Blaise Compaore’s failed bid to cling to power last year.

Compaore was driven from power in October by street protests after he tried to change the constitution to allow him to extend his 27-year rule. The Oct. 11 election will return the country to democratic rule after a year-long transition.

Thursday’s decision by the Constitutional Council was based on an April revision of the electoral law that excluded any candidate who supported Compaore’s effort to extend his rule.

It reduces the number of candidates for next month’s presidential vote to 14.

The council excluded former foreign minister Djibril Bassole, regarded as one of the front-runners, and former sports minister Yacouba Ouedraogo.

They were barred after three other candidates complained that the men took part in an Oct. 21, 2014 cabinet meeting to draft a law that would have removed a term limit from Burkina’s constitution.

Attempts to pass that law in parliament led to massive street demonstrations on Oct. 30, 2014 which toppled Compaore from power.

Former prime minister Roch Marc Kabore, a long-time stalwart of Compaore’s government who split away last year to found the opposition People’s Movement for Progress (MPP), is widely regarded as a front-runner for the vote, alongside former finance minister Zephirin Diabre.

The regional court for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has ruled that the change to the electoral law contravened democratic rights, but Burkina Faso’s constitutional council has ignored its ruling.

While ECOWAS is the highest appeal tribunal in the region, it lacks the power to enforce its decisions.

(REUTERS)

Coup fears as Burkina Faso interim president ‘detained’

Soldiers from Burkina Faso’s powerful presidential guard interrupted a cabinet meeting on Wednesday and detained the interim President Michel Kafando, the prime minister and two cabinet members, military and government sources said.

“Members of the presidential guard burst into the room of the cabinet of ministers at around 14:30 and took hostage the president of Burkina Faso, the head of state, Michel Kafando, the Prime Minister Yacouba Isaac Zida, and the minister of public administration ... and the minister of housing,” Moumina Cheriff Sy, the head of the transitional parliament, said in a statement.

Violent clashes erupt ahead of Ivory Coast election

One person was killed as protesters torched vehicles and clashed with police in several Ivory Coast towns on Thursday, witnesses said, in the first major outbreak of trouble ahead of next month’s presidential election.

The protests were called by part of the opposition a day after the release by the Constitutional Council of the official list of 10 contenders running in the October 25 poll, including incumbent Alassane Ouattara.
Opposition groups urged anti-Ouattara marches on the grounds that both of his parents were not Ivorian—the same objection cited ahead of deadly unrest in 2010-2011 that left more than 3,000 dead following a presidential poll.
Then president Laurent Gbagbo, who is to stand trial for crimes against humanity in November in The Hague over the unrest, had refused to step down and acknowledge Ouattara’s victory at the ballot box.
The worst clashes took place in the western village of Logouata between rival groups armed with knives, clubs and rocks, local sources told AFP.
One elderly man was killed in the unrest and several houses were set on fire, witnesses said. A number of injured people were taken to hospital in the nearby town of Sinfra.
There were also violent scenes in Gbagbo’s western hometown Gagnoa where protesters erected barricades and set fire to tyres, local residents and a security source told AFP.
In Bonoua, hometown of his wife Simone Gbagbo, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for her role in the post-poll unrest, a security source said police used teargas when clashes broke out between southerners and northerners.
In the Yopougon district of the capital, Abidjan, protesters set fire to a bus and stoned another, AFP reporters said.

Guinea Bissau leader dissolves cabinet after judgement

President Jose Mario Vaz dismisses two-day-old cabinet after court rules his appointment of new PM was unconstitutional.


Dja, who replaced Pereira in August, resigned as prime minister on Wednesday [AFP]
Guinea Bissau's President Jose Mario Vaz has dismissed his two-day-old cabinet after the Supreme Court ruled that his appointment of a new prime minister was unconstitutional, a presidential decree has said.

Some 22 of the Ghanaian judges allegedly caught on camera asking for bribes have been shown the videos at the start of the investigation, judicial sources have told the BBC.

The hearing has been held behind closed doors at the Supreme Court; the judges' responses have not been made public.

A total of 34 judges and magistrates have been accused after a two-year investigation by a local journalist.

It is the biggest scandal in the history of Ghana's judiciary.
BBC Africa Live: News updates

The BBC's Sammy Darko reports from Accra that a total of 180 court officials are facing dismissal procedures, in a case that has gripped the attention of Ghanaians.

Burundi army chief 'escapes assassination attempt'

Burundi's deputy police chief says General Prime Niyongabo was unharmed but seven other officers killed in Bujumbura.

A senior police official said the attack appeared to have been "meticulously prepared" [UN Photo/Abdi Dakan]
The head of Burundi's armed forces has survived an assassination attempt in the capital Bujumbura, police said, adding that at least seven other people were killed in the attack.

Nigeria bomb blast hits Yola camp for Boko Haram refugees

Nigeria bomb blast hits Yola camp for Boko Haram refugees
25 minutes ago
 From the section Africa
Map of Yola in Nigeria
Boko Haram

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Who are Nigeria's Boko Haram Islamists?
A bomb has exploded at a camp in north-eastern Nigeria for people who have fled their homes because of the Boko Haram Islamist insurgency.
Emergency services told the AFP news agency that at least three people were killed in the blast caused by an improvised explosive device.
It occurred at the Malkohi camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) on the outskirts of Yola in Adamawa state.
Yola has been seen as a relative safe place for those fleeing the violence.
Africa Live: News updates
Two million people have been forced from their homes since the militant Islamist group Boko Haram launched its insurgency in northern-eastern Nigeria in 2009.
According to Amnesty International, at least 17,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
Although the militants lost their strongholds this year, they are still active and there has been an upsurge in suicide attacks since President Muhammadu Buhari took office in May.

Burundi army chief Gen Niyongabo survives assassination bid

 From the section Africa

The capital has experienced political unrest since April

Burundi's army chief of staff has survived an assassination attempt on a busy road in the capital, Bujumbura.

General Prime Niyongabo was heading to his office in the morning when armed men attacked his motorcade.
Burundi's deputy police chief Gen Godefroid Bizimana told the AFP news agency the army chief was unharmed.
Burundi has suffered serious unrest since April, when President Pierre Nkurunziza said he would seek a third term in elections he later won.
In May he survived a coup attempt.
A senior army general and close aide to the president, Adolphe Nshimirimana, was killed last month in similar circumstances.
Earlier this week the spokesman for a party opposed to President Nkurunziza's third term was shot dead in Bujumbura.

The Gullah Geechee's fight against 'cultural genocide'

How some descendants of slaves are challenging the assumption their African culture was lost during the slave trade.

Allison Griner | 04 Sep 2015 10:55 GMT | Magazine, Racism, US, Civil Rights, Politics

Queen Quet Marquetta Goodwine is the queen mother, chieftess and spokesperson of the the Gullah Geechee Nation in the southeast United States [Allison Griner]

The cicadas' song is rising with the midday heat, and Queen Quet Marquetta Goodwine flits from one canopy tent to the next. The fish fry is well under way. There are guests to greet, conversations to be had, and help to offer.

Tall, with a head crowned with cowry shells and robes that flow to the ground, Goodwine looks every bit like a head of state. And that is in part because she is one. The Gullah Geechee Nation in the southeast United States elected her as its head pun de bodee: its queen mother, chieftess and spokesperson.

A self-declared "nation within a nation," the Gullah Geechee people are the descendants of African slaves, isolated on the coastal islands stretching from north Florida to North Carolina.

 

Their ancestors combined west and central African traditions to create a culture entirely of their own. The language they speak is the only African American creole created in the United States, a mash-up of English and African languages like Krio, Mende and Vai.

But as Goodwine settles beneath the shade of an oak tree, she recalls the scepticism the Gullah Geechee face. "We don't really know if they have a real culture," she remembers hearing.

The misconceptions worry Goodwine. She fears her culture is in danger of being lost and forgotten, especially as black identity is reduced to what she calls a "monolith".

When African American studies first began, there was a prevailing assumption that slavery had destroyed any culture the slaves had brought from Africa. What could have possibly survived more than two centuries of brutality and oppression?

Some academics concluded that blacks in the US had no culture "independent of general American culture". That view was championed by Swedish Nobel laureate Karl Gunnar Myrdal in a searing study of the institutional barriers facing African Americans.

Myrdal's work was so powerful that it was cited in the decision to desegregate American schools – but his assertion that "American Negro culture" was merely a "distorted development, or an unhealthy condition, of American culture" continues to ignite debate. Was every speck of African culture lost in the trans-Atlantic slave trade? Is America's history of discrimination the single defining aspect of African American culture?

Goodwine bristles at the idea. After all, the Gullah Geechee Nation continues traditions born in Africa, long before white colonisers arrived. The sweetgrass baskets they weave mirror the shukublay baskets of Sierra Leone; the food they eat follows recipes found in Africa's 'rice coast' region.

One of the biggest battles Goodwine faces is "just letting people know we even exist," she says, brushing gnats away from her face. Clouds of insects are rising from the nearby salt marshes, where vast stretches of water and grass separate Goodwine's home, St. Helena Island, from the rest of South Carolina.

For years, those marshes helped shield Gullah Geechee culture from the pressures to assimilate, keeping its traditions intact. It is only in recent decades that many of these islands have become accessible from the mainland.

"We're not shocked when African Americans, regular Americans, people from around the world say, 'We thought all black people in America lost all their cultural traditions,'" Goodwine says. She believes that perception arises from a systematic devaluation of black people, starting with slavery. "That was the plan: to programme you to believe you never had a culture, that you never came from rich kingdoms, from people who created math systems and science systems."

A memorial by the Emanuel AME Church, where nine African Americans were shot during Bible study [Allison Griner]

Goodwine is attending the fish fry to toast the five-year anniversary of the Gullah/Geechee Fishing Association. It is a blindingly bright day, and over her shoulder, volunteers ladle crisp, fresh fish onto beds of warm red rice. But as the cookout wears on, Goodwine's thoughts turn to heavier matters.

In June, 21-year-old Dylann Roof casually walked into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, just 50 miles to the north in Charleston, South Carolina. There, in the midst of Bible study, he shot nine African American worshippers in a massacre believed to be racially motivated.

For Goodwine, this shooting was not just a hate crime. It was part of a continuing trend of 'cultural genocide' against her people.

The Emanuel A.M.E. Church is situated along the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, a region designated for protection by the US Congress. Its history is deeply entwined with the Gullah Geechee community that grew around it. And Clementa Pinckney, the pastor singled out by the gunman, had fought on behalf of Gullah Geechee cultural preservation during his time as a state senator.

"The word genocide is one that a lot of people can't handle me using," Goodwine says. "Because so many people in the world don't realise that those were Gullah Geechee people that were massacred. Those were Gullah Geechee people whose rights were being violated."

It is a complicated issue, as Goodwine explains, and one that plays into a long-term struggle for the Gullah Geechee Nation. Their homeland is being threatened by gentrification. Their lifestyle is eroding. And all the while, very few people are aware that they are anything other than 'black'.

"That's a colour. That's not a culture," Goodwine says. "That's a way to make sure people think we're legend, and that we're something of the past, that you only find Gullah Geechee in a history book."

Disappearing under dollars and cents

Cornelia Bailey is concerned that Gullah Geechee life is fading away and hopes younger generations, like her great grandnephew, can keep it alive [Allison Griner]

A state away, on Sapelo Island, Georgia, Cornelia Bailey shares the concern that Gullah Geechee life is fading away. She is a local tour guide, historian and author of God, Dr. Buzzard, and the Bolito Man, a memoir of her life as a Saltwater Geechee woman.

Before the 1950s, Gullah Geechee communities like hers were thriving in the isolation of the Sea Islands. Now, Sapelo Island is one of the few with no bridges connecting it to the mainland. It claims the distinction of having the last intact sea island Gullah Geechee community in the United States, untouched by large-scale development.

"I always say, 'Lord, when there came air conditioning, we were in trouble,'" Bailey says. She has witnessed nearby St. Simons Island grow into a tourist destination during her lifetime. Vacation homes and hotels have flourished, and property prices have risen. "There was a time when most people didn't want these areas because they said it was infested with mosquitos. And now, everybody wants it."

Even in Hog Hammock, the town in Sapelo Island where Bailey lives, she gets offers to sell her land. The pressures make Bailey grim about the Gullah Geechee's future. "We will disappear in golf courses and condos. We will disappear under the dollars and cents," she warns.

Now in her 70s, Bailey has seen many of the traditions she grew up with disappear. As she sits in the shadows of her dining room, she remembers the days when she had to drive horses as well as cars.

No one sews fishing nets like they used to. And why bother with subsistence hunting when there is a grocery store on the mainland? Instead of rowing through a maze of wetlands, Sapelo's Gullah Geechee population can now wait for a ferry to come three times a day.

More and more, the Gullah Geechee are boarding the ferry to leave, while outsiders ride the ferry in, Bailey explains. She sees the population around her "aging and moving". There are no schools on the island, and few jobs.

The Sapelo Island's visitor centre, run by the state of Georgia, advertises a local Gullah Geechee community of 75, but Bailey says the number has actually tumbled down to around 50. "We just like that big number," she adds playfully. "It makes us sound good."

At that, she pauses. Her eyes linger around her single-storey house, its walls covered with memories. Newspaper clippings and family photos are framed on the wall behind her. A child's craft project - a paper plate transformed into a spider with googly eyes and pipe cleaner legs – hangs from the ceiling above her fridge.

There has been some hope for Hog Hammock's aging population, including the one-and-a-half-year-old great grandnephew that Bailey helps to take care of. As he blusters past the dining room table, Bailey quickly scoops him onto her lap, interrupting him mid-rampage. "The terrible twos came early," she says with a laugh, rubbing the child's tummy. He has already broken into a cupboard this morning and ravaged a box of Fruit Loops.

"If you don't have children in your community, you don't have a community," Bailey says. "You can't have a community of senior citizens. That's a retirement community. You have to have children to make a community grow."

In recent years, Sapelo Island has garnered national attention for its drastic rise in property taxes. Gullah Geechee feared they could lose their land, land passed down since emancipation, to tax auctions.

"It was like we went to bed one night and it was $300, and the next day it was $3,000. We were like, 'What's going on here?'" Bailey explains. Many of the tax hikes have been appealed and overturned, but the question of punitive taxation haunts many on the Gullah Geechee corridor.

Selling baskets, not pain

"What you see when you come to Charleston is sweetgrass baskets," says Benjamin Dennis. "It's an easy sell. Anybody can sell that. But can you sell the pain? Do you want to tell that story?" [Allison Griner] 

Gullah Geechee chef Benjamin Dennis IV decided early on to keep his family's property by any means necessary. Distant relatives had sold off their shares, and his late grandfather had received offers for what little remains.

"My granddaddy always said, 'My own grandfather worked hard for this, so keep it in the family,'" Dennis says. "There's no amount of money in the world that could compensate for owning your own land."

Dennis has carved a niche in Charleston's culinary scene, sharing his Gullah Geechee background through food. "I call it culture through food. It's a history lesson on the meaning of Gullah food, which is almost a lost art," he explains.

It is a gastronomic tradition rich with the smells of his grandmother's okra soup, her apple dumplings, her rice with shrimp caught straight from the local creeks, fried in rich bacon fat on a cast iron skillet.

 

But when Dennis works at student kitchens as a mentor chef, he meets high schoolers who live far from food markets with fresh produce, in what is known as 'food deserts'. The only stores close by sell liquor and potato chips, he says.

It is just another way Dennis sees the descendants of Gullah Geechee people drifting away from their fresh, subsistence-based lifestyle. "Some can't even afford to eat stuff that culturally their ancestors brought here. It baffles me," he says.

Dennis agrees that the Gullah Geechee may be facing a 'cultural genocide'. A big part of the problem, he says, is the lop-sided history. When he walks through the old-time grandeur of downtown Charleston, he sees monuments to white America and its complex relationship with race. But Dennis does not see the same complexity afforded to black history.

Instead, all he passes are stalls of souvenirs - prominent among them, the Gullah Geechee sweetgrass baskets sold for hundreds of dollars to the tourist hordes.

With black identity so simplified, so underrepresented, Dennis says it is "easy" to understand why a massacre would happen here.

He believes Charleston would not be Charleston without the Gullah Geechee presence, period. But as long as the "true story" of that culture goes unacknowledged, racism will continue to fester.

"What you see when you come to Charleston is sweetgrass baskets. It's an easy sell. Anybody can sell that," he concludes. "But can you sell the pain? Do you want to tell that story? I think it needs to be told, but they don't want to tell it. They don't want to ruffle feathers."