Robert Rotberg

Robert Rotberg is a professor of political science and history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a contributor to the Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times, and the author of books on the political history of Africa and the Caribbean.

‘Our objective,’ said President Botha of South Africa on 9 September of the aims of his National Party-dominated government, ‘is peaceful reform. Reform can only be retarded by outside attempts to interfere.’ Both statements are false, and calculated to mislead. But they may well flow from a genuine failure on the part of South Africa’s ruling oligarchy to understand the depth and breadth of that country’s continuing crisis.

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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