B+-+African+Nations+Gain+Independence+-+Struggles+in+Africa

=** African Nations Gain Independence **=

__Vocabulary__
__Savannas__- Grassland with scattered trees. __Kwame Nkrumah__- Led a independence movement in the Gold Coast. __Jomo Kenyatta__- Led a movement in Kenya. __Coup d'etat__- Is the forcible overthrow of a government. __Mobutu Seso Seko__- The dictator of Zaire. __Islamist__- Are people who want government policies to be based on teachings of Islam. __Katanga__- A province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with rich copper and diamond deposits that tried to gain independence from Congo in 1960. __Biafra__- Region of southern Nigeria that launched a failed bid for independence from Nigeria in 1966, launching a bloody war.

** African Colonies Gain Independence **
Africa is the worlds second largest continent. It's more than three times the size of the U.S. Tropical Rain forests cover central Africa's Congo Basin and coastal west Africa. Vast savannas make up interior west Africa.Kwame Nkruma, and Jomo Kenyatta both led independence in their countries. Political pressure was sometimes enough to win independence.This was the case for the British colonies that became Nigeria and Ghana and in France's many west African colonies. The liberation struggle turned violent, however, colonists had settled, such as Kenya and Algeria.

** Africans Build New Nations **
Most African nations gained independence with diverse languages and religions. Once freedom was won, many Africans felt their first loyalty was to their own ethnic group. One-party states became dictatorships. Dictators often used there positions to enrich themselves. When moving toward democracy, they allowed freedom of speech. During the cold war the Soviet Union and United States competed for military and strategic advantages through alliances with several African countries. During the 1970's the United States had alliances with several African countries.

** The Stories of Five African Nations **
__Ghana__- The first African nation south if Sahara to win freedom. In the 1940's, Kwame Nkrumah organized a movement for independence from Britain. In 1957, Gold Coast finally won independence. Thats when the nation took the name Ghana, after the west African kingdom. President Nkrumah advocated socialism and nationalized many businesses. His government built a massive dam for electrical power that created lake Volta, but left Ghana in massive debts. Gradually, his government became more dictatorial and corrupt. In 1966, he was overthrown by the first of several military coups in Ghana.

__Kenya__- In Kenya, freedom only came after armed struggle. White settlers had taken over land in the fertile highlands, where they displaced African farmers. Most of these farmers were Kikuyu. White settlers saw Kenya as their homeland and had passed laws to ensure their own domination. In the 1950s, more radical leaders turned to guerrilla warfare. They burned farms and attacked settlers and Africans who worked with the colonial rulers.The British called the guerrillas the Mau Mau. To stop the violence, the British arrested Kenyatta and killed thousands of Kikuyu. The rebels were crushed, but the movement lived on. President Kenyatta jailed opponents and outlawed opposition parties. Finally, in 2002, Kenya's first fair election removed the ruling party from office.

__Algeria__- In the 1800's, France had conquered Algeria after a brutal struggle. A million French people settled there over time. They were determined to keep the Algerian people from winning independence. Algerian nationalists set up National-Liberation Front. In 1954, this group turned guerrilla warfare to win freedom. France, which had just lost its Asian colony of Vietnam, sent half a million troops to maintain its possession of Algeria. France was especially reluctant to lose Algeria after oil and natural gas were discovered there in the 1950's. Hundreds of thousands of Algerians died during a long and costly war. Eventually public opinion in France turned against the war. Finally, in 1962, Algeria gained its freedom.

__Congo__- Covers a vast region of central Africa, a million square miles of rain forest and savanna centered in the Congo River basin. The huge country contains valuable natural resources, including diamonds and copper. Belgium wanted to take over these regions so they could ll have the natural resources that were there. In 1960, therefore, it rushed to declare the colony independent, though the Congolese were not prepared for self-government. They enabled Belgium mining companies to retain effective control of the province and its valuable minerals.

__Nigeria__- Nigeria stretches from the dry grasslands of the north to the moist rain forests of the south. It has the largest population in Africa. It's people belong to hundreds of ethnic groups, but three groups dominate. Regional, ethnic, and religious differences soon led to conflict. In 1996, Nigeria suffered the first of several military coups. during the 1970's and 1980's, a series of military rulers violently suppressed opposition and diverted much of the countries oil earnings for their own enrichment. Opposition to military rule increased during the 1990's. Finally in 1999, a military government allowed free elections. After the return of democracy, however, Nigeria's people faced an increased in crime. =** Struggles in Africa **=

__ Vocabulary __
__ Apartheid- __ Separation of congress. __ African National Congress (ANC)- __ The main organization that opposed apartheid and led the struggle for majority rule. __ Sharpeville- __ In 1960, police gunned down 69 men, women, and children during a peaceful demonstration in this town. __ Nelson Mandela- __ An ANC leader that had first mobilized young south Africans to peacefully resist apartheid laws. __ Desmond Tutu- __ A black South African bishop who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent opposition to apartheid. __ F.W. de Klerk- __ South African president during the early 1990's. __ Hutus- __ The majority group of the Rwanda people. __ Tutsis- __ The minority group of the Rwanda people. __ Darfur- __ Sudan's western region.

** South Africa Stuggles for Freedom **
In the 1950's and 1960's, many new nations won independence in Africa. National unity, however, was hard to achive. In South Africa, the struggle for freedom was different from that elsewhere in Africa. In 1910, South Africa achieved self-rule from Britain. Freedom, however, was limited to white settlers. After 1948, the government expanded the existing system of racial segregation, creating what was known as apartheid. The African National Congress was the main organization that opposed apartheid and led the struggle for majority rule. In 1960, police gunned down 69 men, women, and childern during a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville. The Sharpeville massacre and crackdown pushed the ANC to shift from nonviolent protest to armed struggle. Outside pressure and protest at home finally convinced South African president F. W. de Klerk to end apartheid.

** South Africa's Neighbors Face Long Conflicts **
Most African nations gained independence through peaceful mans during the 1950's and 1960's. In southern Africa, however, the road to freedom was much longer and more violent. As Britain and France gave up their African possessions, Portugal clung tightly to its colonies in Angola and Mozambique. In response, national movements turned to guerrilla warfare. In 1975, after 15 years of fighting Angola and Mozambique celebrated independence. However, bitter civil wars, fueled by Cold War rivalries, raged for years. South Africa and the United States saw the new nations as threats because some new leaders had ties to the Soviet Union or the ANC. The United Stated and South Africa aided rebel groups fighting the new governments of Angola and Mozambique. The fighting did not stop until 1992 in Mozambique and 2002 in Angola.

** Ethnic Conflicts Kill Millions **
The small nation of Rwanda, in Central Africa, faced one of Africa's deadliest civil wars. The Rwandan people included two main groups. Hutus were the majority group, but the minority Tutsis had long dominated Rwanda. Most of the Rwandan population belong to the Hutu ethnic group, traditionally crop-growers. For many centuries Rwanda attracted Tutsis - traditionally herdsmen - from northern Africa. For 600 years the two groups shared the business of farming, essential for survival, between them. They have also shared their language, their culture, and their nationality. There have been many intermarriages. A wedge was driven between them when the European colonists moved in. It was the practice of colonial administrators to select a group to be privileged and educated. The Belgians chose the Tutsis: landowners, tall, and to European eyes the more aristocratic in appearance. This thoughtless introduction of class consciousness unsettled the stability of Rwandan society. Some Tutsis began to behave like aristocrats, and the Hutu to feel treated like peasants. Tensions worsened in the early 1990's. On April 6th, 1994, a plane carrying President Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down. Violence began almost immediately after that. Under the cover of war, Hutu extremists launched their plans to destroy the entire Tutsi civilian population. In 1994, extremist Hutu officials urged civilians to kill their Tutsi and moderate Hutu neighbors. Political leaders who might have been able to take charge of the situation and other high profile opponents of the Hutu extremist plans were killed immediately. Tutsi and people suspected of being Tutsi were killed in their homes and as they tried to flee at roadblocks set up across the country during the genocide. Entire families were killed at a time. Women were systematically and brutally raped. Around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered. Another 3 million of Rwanda's 8 million people lost their homes to destructive mobs. The neighboring nation of Burundi has a similar population and history. As in Rwanda, tensions between Tutsis and Hutus led to civil war during the 1990's. The fighting did not lead to a genocide like that in Rwanda, but guerrilla groups fought for much longer in Burundi. After independence, Sudan, soon turned toward civil war between the Arab Muslim north and non-Arab, non-Muslim south. Arab led governments enacted laws and policies that discriminated against non-Muslims and other ethnic groups. For decades, rebel groups in the south battled northern domination. War, drought, and famine caused millions of deaths and forced many more to flee their homes in Sudan. In 2004 southern rebels signed a peace agreement with Sudan's government to end the fighting and give south limited self-government. However, in 2004 ethnic conflict had also spread to Sudan's western region of Darfur. Arab militias, backed by the government, unleashed terror on the non-Arab Muslim people of Darfur. They burned villages and drove hundreds of thousands of farmers off the land that fed them and into refugee camps, where they faced the threat of starvation.