Truth be Told? Debating the Human Rights records of Southern Africa's Liberation Movements in Exile
Duration: 1 hour 59 mins 23 secs
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| Description: |
On the eve of celebrating the twentieth anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, the Centre of Governance and Human Rights (CG+HR) hosted a roundtable discussion at King's College, Cambridge, with leading academics on Southern Africa - Stephen Ellis, Saul Dubow and Jocelyn Alexander - and Paul Trewhela, the author of a provocative new book 'Inside Quatro' on the human rights records of the ANC and SWAPO in exile. Chaired by the BBC World Service's Africa Editor, Martin Plaut.
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| Created: | 2010-02-11 14:40 | ||||||
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| Collection: |
Centre of Governance and Human Rights
Centre of Governance and Human Rights |
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| Publisher: | University of Cambridge | ||||||
| Copyright: | S. Srinivasan | ||||||
| Language: | eng (English) | ||||||
| Keywords: | Quatro; liberation; exile; human-rights; ANC; SWAPO; MK; Angola; South; Africa; Namibia; Zimbabwe; ZAPU; Trewhela; Ellis; Dubow; Alexander; Plaut; | ||||||
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| Abstract: | Truth be told? Debating the Human Rights Records of Southern Africa’s Exile Liberation Movements
Hosted by the Cambridge Centre of Governance and Human Rights (http://www.polis.cam.ac.uk/cghr), the Centre of African Studies (http://www.african.cam.ac.uk) and the Centre of International Studies (http://www.polis.cam.ac.uk/cis/). Professor Stephen Ellis (African Studies Centre, Leiden & Free University Amsterdam), Professor Saul Dubow (University of Sussex) & Professor Jocelyn Alexander (University of Oxford) with Paul Trewhela, author of Inside Quatro: Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and SWAPO (Jacana, 2009) Chair: Martin Plaut, Africa Editor, BBC World Service News. The Keynes Lecture Theatre, King's College, Cambridge Quatro, the ANC’s secretive detention centre in Angola in the 1980s, was designed to incarcerate infiltrators and rehabilitate its own dissidents. However, in the eyes of some, Quatro and other such facilities in the region became sites of gross human rights violations. With his book Trewhela suggests that the ANC never came fully to terms with Quatro after the end of apartheid. And he lays out a similar disquieting history of abuses by SWAPO, Namibia's liberation movement also exiled in Angola during this period. Published in late 2009, Inside Quatro's revelations have spurred vehement responses from the highest echelons of the ANC, including Gwede Mantashe, the ANC’s Secretary General. The Cambridge seminar took place at an important moment for reflection, exactly twenty years after the unbanning of the ANC and Nelson Mandela’s release from prison. |
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