War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death ride in the world's imagination as the four horsemen of the African apocalypse.
Eritrea and Ethiopia fight each other even as another famine devastates the horn of Africa. Intractable civil wars rage in Angola and Sudan, and political unrest threatens the stability of Zimbabwe. The warring parties have re-joined the battle in Sierra Leone, kidnapping 500 UN Peacekeepers last week, and in the heart of Africa five of the neighbors have become parties in Congo's civil war.
This is the bad news that has upstaged the promise just a decade ago of Nelson Mandela's release from prison. Journalist Scott Peterson has covered the continent's horror stories: war in Somalia, genocide in Rwanda, civil war in Sudan.
Peterson says there was no unique African weakness at work; there were only the usual suspects to blame: human greed and folly, coupled with the world's indifference and ignorance.
Africa at war in this hour of The Connection. (Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
