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The finale…

Ten posts down and not a one left to do.  Anyways, i noticed in my google reader account again another piece of fraud going on in Africa.  This time the location was Algeria.  The problem, possible discrepencies in voting turnout and percentages.  We have talked in class a bit about the problems that the nations in Africa face, we have read about them in Ishmael Beah’s book Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, and now there is this article.  It seems to be a never ending cycle of corruption and decipt and the people are the victims.

“[There was] a real tsunami of massive fraud which reached an industrial scale,” the Front of Socialist Forces, which boycotted the election, said in a statement.  Former head of Algeria’s human rights league Ali Yehya Abdel-Nour told the BBC the official voter turnout figures had been exaggerated.”

The Algeria we know today is much more peaceful than that of its past.  It did go through a similar run just as the country of Sierra Leone did.  It seems to have been happening since the Europeans decided to colonize Africa, try to exploit it, then draw boundries which gave these people area to fight about.

“Algeria is slowly recovering from the 1990s civil war which left up to 150,000 people dead.  The conflict was triggered when the military intervened in a parliamentary poll in 1991 to stop an Islamist victory.”

It is hard here in the United States to get a real clear idea, without media bias, about what goes on in the countries over there and which side is right.  The only thing that we can do is read some news source that is deemed impartial.  Or we can read books like Ishmael Beah’s story of why he is fighting and which side is right.  To be educated is the best way of understanding this crazy world.  It will never make complete sense, but to not try is to not care.  I care, so I read and try to understand.

Ishmael Beah Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

BBC News Landslide Win for Algerian Leader

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