Martin Plaut

Martin Plaut is a producer in the BBC’s African Service.

South Africa’s Left

Martin Plaut, 8 March 1990

It was a hot day. The fluffy clouds overhead did nothing to shade the crowd. They paid little heed to the heat – intent on the task before them. They were burying their dead, probably victims of a Government hit-squad. This was Cradock, a small Eastern Cape town, on 19 July 1985.

With the exception of a brief threat to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, in November 2021, the war was only of interest to a few specialist staff at foreign ministries. The idea that there are ‘forgotten’...

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The Habit of War: Eritrea

Jeremy Harding, 20 July 2006

Eritrea’s war of independence, waged against its imperial neighbour Ethiopia, lasted 30 years and ended in 1991. Often, in the British media, the case against covering the conflict was that...

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