Anonymous – Operation Africa

#OpAfrica

One of the more interesting operation going on right now within Anonymous right now is OpAfrica. This operation has been launched on a number of fronts depending on the people in the countries involved. The Anons of the IRC are launching attacks to raise awareness over the lack of child labor laws these countries as well as human trafficking violations. Some are protesting to bring awareness to the corruption disproportion of resources governments have while their people suffer in poverty. Others are pleading for the world to intervene and bring an end ethnic cleansing and government sanctioned genocide in some areas. No other Anonymous operation has been in the headlines more than OpAfrica, and for good reason. These are very serious problems and people need to be held accountable. If you do not know more about the problems this operation brings to light please read the following articles for some in site into the scope of the operation.

2/16/16 – The most recent OpAfrica attack occurred in Tanzania when a state owned telecommunication firms data bases were hacked revealing the personal data of 64,000 workers: https://www.hackread.com/anonymous-opafrica-tanzanian-telecom-firm-hacked/

2/13/16 – Last week another attack exploited a leak in WebAfrica and allowed hackers to deface 2,532 South African web sites: http://news.softpedia.com/news/anonymous-members-goes-on-a-rampage-defaces-2-532-south-african-websites-500383.shtml?utm_content=bufferc6953&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

2/11/16 – The first hack against South Africa was initiated “released the data of 54 officials, who used their government-issued email to register on V-Report“: http://news.softpedia.com/news/anonymous-targets-south-african-government-employees-through-job-portal-hack-500269.shtml?utm_content=bufferdc1a9&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

One of the most popular articles within the last month here was “Its not all doom and gloom in Africa, its a misrepresentation of facts by the media” by Amando Flavio. This article goes to point out how parts of the continent are flourishing in modern times and how segments of the African market at actually at the forefront of the world in terms of economic growth/yield. But Africa is a large continent and things are not going as well in some countries as it is for others. OpAfrica aims to educate people around the world about some of the problems these people are facing right now, bring awareness tot he issue and do what we can to reverse the behavior.

Earlier this month the organizers of OpAfrica released a statement regarding the problems in the country and why we are doing what we are doing. You can read it strait from the group here: https://www.cyberguerrilla.org/blog/opafrica-engaged/

Prior to these most recent South African hack attacks, earlier this month there was a different hack the governments of Rwanda and Uganda. A portion of the hack leaked the names of “220 government employees, including stuff like their real names, emails, phone numbers, usernames, user level, and MD5 hashed passwords.” The hackers associated with the hack warned, South Africa is next. To no ones surprise then, did we see the events above.

Anonymous Attack on Rwanda & Uganda Goverment: http://news.softpedia.com/news/anonymous-turns-its-sights-to-africa-uganda-and-rwanda-targets-are-hit-first-500010.shtml?utm_content=buffer16e5f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Statistics From Rwanda

• 30% of children age 10-14 years of age old work in agricultural employment
• There are an estimated 400,000 child labor worked in Rwanda
• 120,000 of these 400,000 are ‘forced labor’ – slaves
• 40% of child prostitute trafficking victims came from families mother and father we both killed
• 41% of the population has never attended a classroom

Other Statistics

• There is an estimated 460,000 children labor/mine workers in Tanzania
• 1.5 million children ages 5-17 are working in child labor in Nigeria
• Only 3.2% of that 1.5 million workers had gone to high school
• There is an estimated 5 million child labor workers in Zimbabwe
• In western Africa alone it is estimate there is 35,000 sexual children trafficking victims.

Many of us talk about corruption in our countries and problems in our daily lives but for many people like me who live in the United States this is what we refer to as “first world problems“. There are third world problems and people really need more help then most of us give them. The crime occurs when governments worth billions of dollars rule over countries where people live in such poverty. It is absolutely unacceptable and people need to be held accountable. This is what OpAfrica fights for.

I applaud Softpedia and they work they do for Anonymous. But one small correction I have for them is that this operation did not begin this February as they claim in one of the articles above. Many people have been working on OpEthiopia and OpNigeria dating back to last November.

1/8/2016 – Hack on Nigerian Government exposed hundreds of billions of dollars embezzled/stolen funds from federal revenue: http://anonhq.com/anonymous-attacks-nigerian-government/

Last November, 2015 a few activists from Ethiopia joined people from anonboards.com to propose an operation OpEthiopia with us. In addition to consolidating a forum thread for them on December 18, 2015 we also set up a private chat room on chatbox to be handed out to people within that country to join, ask questions and learn how to secure/protect themselves from government intrusion. This is extremely important because if you are not aware hundreds of Ethiopian protesters have been killed recent months. Not rebels or militias or fighters, just people fundamentally protesters are being killed. They do not even have this right yet.

December16th, 2016 – 40 Ethiopians Have Been Killed While Protesting: http://www.voanews.com/content/opposition-party-more-than-forty-killed-in-ethiopia-protests/3105703.html

January 8th, 2016 – 140 Ethiopian Protesters Were slaughtered: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35261314

People are literally being killed and are coming to Anonymous to help. This is all happening right now and it is important for all of us to help however we can, even if it means just raising awareness wherever you live about these crimes. These people are being ignored and killed in their streets for simply demanding that rich governments with billions of dollars in resources be held accountable and do more for the people of their countries. In 2016 there are people still living in this world who are not protected by basic fundamental human rights. In a time in the world where we invest unfathomable amounts of money in defense spending and people still die of starvation it is a crime. Society needs to do more to invest less into War and Violence and more into Humanity.

If you did not watch the video in the Nigerian hack article please do. It speaks on the following petitions. A petition to the United Nations which will “Reject the Ceding of Ethiopian Territory to the Sudan” a move which would cut off a population of the country with which there has been racial tension. There people will be exiled and tens of thousands of peoples lives could be at stake.

Sign The Petition Here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/petition-letter-to-un-secretary-general-ethiopia

This article (OpAfrica) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article using a creative commons license with attribution to the author and AnonHQ. Join the conversation at www.anonboards.com