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Featured This Week

Pambazuka News Editors

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/highlights/37404

FEATURE:
- Pambazuka News releases audio and video content
- Lansana Gberie reviews Sierra Leone's Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration programme.
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:
- Ghana must go a step further and adopt measures to protect children from abuse through advocacy, community action and awareness of children’s rights, writes Afua Twum-Danso
- Mohammed T. Yusuf argues that so far, both the government and the LRA have adhered to the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement.
- Last year th ICC issued warrants of arrest for Kony and four other Lord’s Resistance Army commanders. Now, a year on, it finds itself at odds with Uganda's government. Joseph Yav Katshung reports.
- Listening online: the what and the where
LETTERS: Religion and Children in Armed Conflict
PAN AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen admonishes those who may be reluctant to celebrate Winnie Mandela's 70th birthday (and we celebrate Taju delivering on time for a change!)
BLOGGING AFRICA: This week, Sokari Ekine focuses on West African blogs.
BOOKS: African Languages Refuse to Die: A review of Ngugi wa Thiong’s lecture.
PODCASTS:
- Women's rights in rural South Africa
- Can African deliver on the Millennium Development Goals?
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Links to news on Sudan, Somalia, Uganda, Ivory Coast and Zimbabwe
HUMAN RIGHTS: In Africa 171 Million Children are Victims of Child Labour
WOMEN AND GENDER: Health Ministers Adopt Measures To Curb Maternal Death
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Kenya Braces For Influx of Somali Refugees as Violence Escalates
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Elected Parliament Inaugurated in the DRC
DEVELOPMENT: AID Should Be Channelled Through Special Fund
CORRUPTION: CAGE Asks ICPC To Investigate PTDF Fraud
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: In Zimbabwe It is Reported that There is HIV Prevalence Decline
EDUCATION: MAKERERE is Still a Reputable University
RACISM & XENOPHOBIA: Groundbreaking Lawsuit Challenges Racial Profiling by Police
ENVIRONMENT: The World’s ‘Septic Tank’
LAND AND LAND RIGHTS: Defiant Farmers To ‘Face The Music’
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: No End In Sight For Abuse Of Press Freedom
DIASPORA: White Race Riots of 1906
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Highway To Freedom
PLUS: e-Newsletters and Mailings Lists; Fundraising and Useful Resources; Courses, Seminars and Workshops; Jobs.

Pambazuka News: Audio and video now available

Pambazuka News Editors

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/37406

Press Release

Pambazuka News: Audio and video now available

Pambazuka News readers can now not only read about what’s going on in Africa, but also listen to the voices of Africa, with this week’s release of the first in a series of regular audio offerings.

Fahamu, the producers of Pambazuka News, are introducing the new feature as the first step to incorporating regular multimedia content on the Pambazuka News site, which will also include video through a partnership with Raised Voices, a collection of online testimonies of people from the global South.

The recordings, available as a podcast – the term used for a series of multimedia files distributed over the internet, will consist of interviews, readings and personal stories.

Firoze Manji, Fahamu Director, said: “We are launching this podcast because there has been an astounding growth in the distribution of multimedia files over the internet, but to a large extent the voice of Africa is missing from this dialogue. We believe it is important for these voices to be heard.”

This week’s launch consists of two episodes, now available from the Pambazuka News website at http://www.pambazuka.org/en/broadcasts/

The first episode consists of an interview with Sizani Ngubane of the Rural Women’s Movement in South Africa. The RWM represents 500 grassroots women’s organisations in Kwa-Zulu Natal that fight against the abuse of women and land evictions. In the interview, Ngubane talks about women in the new South Africa and how their rights have been eroded by unpopular economic policies.

The second release is a recording of Pan-African Movement Director Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem giving his views on the Millennium Development Goals. Abdul-Raheem has been a regular Pambazuka News columnist for the last few years and this is the first time his columns have been recorded live. Tajudeen poses the question: With the world economy rigged in favour of the rich nations, can Africa deliver on the MDGs?

The Raised Voices Link

Raised Voices is a sister project of Pambazuka News. It is a set of filmed testimonies from people in the global South and marginalised communities in the North talking about the social and environmental justice issues that affect them.

It's a unique set of statements coming directly from the people most impacted by issues such as land rights, climate change, oil exploitation, neoliberalism and more. These are the people most affected but least heard in decision-making. Raised Voices seeks to promote these voices injecting them into the public sphere where they can take their rightful place in directing discussion and shaping debate.

A selection of these testimonies will be available from the Pambazuka News website and are available in full from http://www.raisedvoices.net/

Listening Online

People wishing to listen to the episodes can do so from the Pambazuka News website using any MP3 software (such as QuickTime), or can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or other software.

The introduction of the feature is an experiment and as we are aware that many people may not be familiar with listening online, we have developed a Frequently Asked Question page at http://www.pambazuka.org/en/broadcasts/faqs.php

Here you can find answers to the questions:

- What is a podcast?
- Can I listen to the broadcasts without subscribing to the podcast?
- How can I subscribe to Pambazuka podcasts?
- Can I broadcast the Pambazuka podcasts on my radio station?
- The podcast sounds muffled – why is this?
- Can I copy the Pambazuka podcasts?

Contact multimedia@pambazuka.org for more information or if you have technical problems.

Calling All Podcasters and Filmmakers in Africa

Have you got audio or video on social justice issues that you want to reach a wider audience? Would you like to make podcasts and film but don't know where to start? Do you work in community radio or TV and want to get your work on the internet or are you looking for exciting programming from other sources? Get in touch with Pambazuka News and we can provide material, promote your work and in some cases help you to produce it.

Your work can be linked from our website and mentioned in our roundup of African multimedia. You could also create films and audio for the Pambazuka multimedia project. We're particularly interested in hearing from people who are non-professionals as we want to support media from the grassroots whose messages and voices are not being heard. Pambazuka News is also developing a set of resources for beginners to help you get started and techniques to make film and podcasts accessible for all parts of the community to learn to use. So if you're interested get in touch with our multimedia coordinator Heidi Bachram at multimedia@pambazuka.org for more information.

Heidi Bachram
Fahamu multimedia coordinator
multimedia@pambazuka.org

iTunes® and QuickTime® are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.

The production of the podcasts has been supported by a grant from HIVOS Netherlands.

Sierra Leone: Remembering A Difficult Disarmament Process

Lansana Gberie

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/37400

The Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration programme started in Sierra Leone in 1998. Among others, its objectives were to collect, register, disable and destroy all conventional weapons and munitions retrieved from combatants. But Lansana Gberie argues that DDR processes are “expensive, time-consuming, and often irritating. It challenges one’s sensibilities, for example, to come to terms with the idea that fighters who have been guilty of gross atrocities will be compensated and helped to resettle and reintegrate into society, while the millions of their victims, whose lives had been battered by the combatants, will remain derelict. “


The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) fighter was probably no more than sixteen, but he was already well-practiced in the front’s affecting sententiousness. “What we want,” he said, his voice sounding like some old recording, “is peace that does not leave us in pieces.” I was talking to him in the diamond-rich district of Kono, eastern Sierra Leone, in 2001. The disarmament process, thrown into chaos after the RUF abducted 500 peacekeepers in May 2000, had picked up again, and a large contingent of heavily-armed Pakistani troops were camped a couple of miles to the other side of the ravaged district. Many of the RUF fighters, some still with weapons, were digging for diamonds. Fatorma – for that was the RUF fighter’s name – said that his gun, an old AK 47, was all that he had in the world. It was a life and death matter for him. Without it he feared he would be killed. “This is what makes me a man,” he said. “Why should they ask me to give it up? It will be end of our Revolution.”

Fatorma was right. The RUF, which was almost entirely without political support, surviving only because it was armed, would cease to exist once its weapons were taken away. The UN, which was funding the process, did not seem very aware of this. They had also put in place an elaborate political programme which would allow the rebels to participate in elections that were to be held the following year, 2002. The psychology of the armed in an atmosphere of lawlessness has been commented on by many, but to face someone like Fatorma – very young, rootless, without any other skills, in an environment degraded by warfare in which he was a prime participant – is to add a new, totally frightening, meaning to the phenomenon. With their weapons – small, cheap, easy-to-hide guns – they have a feeling of real power and a stake in what goes on around them; and they can be highly destructive, especially when drugged (as is often the case). Without them they feel alienated and hopeless, but far less dangerous to overall society. It is the reason why the UN has made disarming of militias and their encampment and reintegration into the wider society a cardinal part of any process of transition from war to peace in every war-affected country that the organization has been involved with.

“A successful DDR/RRR process,” concludes the National Programme for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reinsertion, a 2004 document produced jointly by the Ivorian government and the UN mission in the country, ONUCI, “makes the difference between peace and a return to war.” Put so starkly, the question whether DDR (Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration) is a requirement for peace looks like a no-brainer. Can there be any question about the need for disarming combatants and having them completely demobilized and reintegrated, as civilians or into the professional military, in any transition from civil war to peace programme? In fact, DDR programmes have been such a core aspect of peace missions in the recent past that peace operations have become almost unthinkable without them.

It has not always been like that, however. The problem of dealing with unwanted combatants, or ex-combatants, is as old as warfare itself. The current policy of DDR is a distinctively UN strategy; its humanitarian provenance cannot be doubted. This, as we have noted, has not always been the case. As Marx noted, when Julius Caesar, the great Roman general, wanted to demobilize some unwanted Gallic soldiers who had, at various times, caused him serious problems, he had the right hand of hundreds of them cut off. This was not recreational cruelty in the manner of some of the neurotic indulgences of Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF); it was deadly rational business. The soldiers, if not put out of business, could have posed a grave danger to Caesar’s emerging dominion, and Caesar had no time for a protracted programme of a more humane nature – these were cruel and turbulent times. Napoleon, the French revolutionary leader and a child of the Enlightenment, would have found Caesar’s tactic too barbaric. So, as soon as he was sure of his own imperial ambitions, he had thousands of his own soldiers, suspected of Republicanism, shipped to Haiti, there to be killed by the revolutionary forces of Toussaint L’Overture and the plague.

The UN-monitored programmes of disarming and demobilising West African civil war combatants have involved essentially the same logic: most combatants in such wars were hastily recruited, sometimes forcefully, and although they always get coarsened by warfare, normal life for many of them can really only be found outside of the armed forces. Conventional militaries in any case cannot absorb many of the ex-combatants, who, increasingly, are children anyway.

Sierra Leone’s war began in March 1991 when a former army corporal and photographer, Foday Saybanah Sankoh, invaded the country from Liberia with a small band of Sierra Leonean dissidents and mercenaries from Liberia and Burkina Faso. In a very short time, the war engulfed the country with a destructive force. The war led to a complete normative collapse. It directly triggered three military coups - one in 1992, the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) coup led by Captain Valentine Strasser; another in 1996, a palace coup that led to Strasser's replacement by his deputy Brigadier Maada Bio; and the most destructive, in 1997, a bloody putsch that temporarily terminated the democratically elected government of Tejan Kabbah. By the end of 1996, upwards of 15,000 people had been killed and almost two-thirds of the country's population of 4.5 million displaced.

The economy collapsed, with a negative annual growth rate of minus 6.24 per cent between 1991 and 1995. By March 1996, an estimated 75 per cent of school-aged children were out of school, and 70 per cent of the country's educational facilities, already troubled by the time war started, were destroyed. Only 16 per cent of the country's health facilities were functioning by March 1996, and almost all of these were in the as yet untouched capital (untouched by war, that is). By the end of 1999, the casualty figure had risen, by most estimates, to upwards of 70,000, and Freetown had itself been partly destroyed in a devastating attack by the rebels and rogue government soldiers in January 1999. Thousands of civilians, including young babies, had their hands crudely amputated by the rebels in a campaign of insane terror.

Understanding why disarmament is so important in such a situation requires a mere examination of how difficult the whole process was. In May 2000, months into the process, the UN announced that it had disarmed 24,042 militia combatants, but that these combatants had turned in only 10,840 weapons. That same month, a RUF commander invaded one of the disarmament camps on grounds that the UN had disarmed some RUF combatants without first clearing it with him. He had some UN soldiers and military observers tied up, beaten and detained. That RUF commander is now in the custody of the UN-Sierra Leone Special Court, charged with crimes against humanity. It was a week after this incident that the RUF captured the 500 UN troops (of the Zambian contingent), precipitating one of the biggest crises in the UN’s peacekeeping history.

At the end of Sierra Leone’s disarmament process, about 70,000 combatants were disarmed and demobilized. They were mainly Revolutionary United Front guerrillas and their main nemesis, members of the Civil Defence Force (CDF). An interesting report on the aftermaths of the DDR process, entitled What the Fighters Say: A Survey of Ex-Combatants in Sierra Leone June-August 2003, makes a number of important comments on the motivations of the combatants in the two groups. The survey took place over a year after the disarmament process, and since it relies on the expressed views of the ex-combatants to draw its conclusions, these comments should be regarded with healthy skepticism. The report argues that “Overall, the data support the view that the fighters in the conflict were largely underprivileged individuals who had been failed by the Sierra Leonean state.” It states:

Over one-quarter of fighters came from households in which the father had passed away before the war; fully one third had lost at least one parent by the time the war started; and almost 10% had lost both parents at the start of the fighting…

Moreover, nearly 60% had been displaced from their homes before they joined a faction. These figures are much higher for the CDF – where more than three-quarters of the combatants had been forced from their homes [by RUF attacks] before they decided to join. Particularly for the CDF, the uprooting of their lives caused by the war was an important part of their story of participation.

The report argues that:

Across factions, both political and material motivations mattered for the recruitment of fighters. RUF combatants claimed that they fought to express dissatisfaction, to root out corruption, and to bring down the existing regime. CDF fighters argued that they aimed to defend their communities from the violence brought by the war. Political motivations notwithstanding, there were strong material incentives as well. RUF combatants were promised jobs, money, and women; during the war, they received women, drugs, and sometimes more valuable goods. [My emphasis] The CDF helped to meet the basic needs of the members and provided increased security for their families.

The issue of political motivation with respect to the RUF – that business of fighting to “root out corruption” – is seriously undermined by the fact that, as the report notes, “87% of RUF combatants reported being abducted [and forcefully inducted] into the faction and only 9% suggest they joined because they supported the group’s political goals.” On the other hand, the CDF, which was aggressively pro-government, had “62% of [its] combatants [reporting that they joined] because they supported the group’s political goals,” with only 2% suggesting they were “forcibly recruited.” The rest said they participated because they were “scared of what would happen if they did not join or to take revenge on the RUF.” There are other interesting set of statistics. With respect to corruption and governance, “more than half” of the ex-combatants “believe things are about the same or worse than before the war.” But “while members of different factions have found distinct ways of reintegrating, they tend to share a largely positive assessment of the progress made by the government in addressing fundamental economic and political challenges in the country,” with fully “83% of the respondents” [the survey interviewed 1000 ex-combatants] believing that “access to education is better now than it was before the war,” and 65 % believing that “access to medical care has substantially improved.”

How can one make sense of the apparent cognitive dissonance in these views? It probably reflects a profound issue at the heart of the war: most of the combatants, particularly those in the RUF, can hardly be expected to have a good idea of conditions before the war, because they were mainly children when they were recruited to fight. Now a good number of them are grown-up and are now facing the usual challenges of eking out a legitimate living in an impoverished country with few opportunities. What to do?

Francis Kai-Kai, who managed Sierra Leone’s DDR programme, recently told me that his National Committee on the DDR got the ex-combatants quickly through the Disarmament and Demobilisation phase – which included some technical training and a little cash support – and then had them integrated within the general ambience of poverty. “We didn’t want them to feel privileged for a long time,” he said, “that would pose problems in the future.” Now the Sierra Leone government is working on a Poverty Alleviation Scheme, with World Bank support, and with Kai-Kai as one of the key players. The success of this scheme would lead to a more general improvement in the living standards in the country, from which the ex-combatants will presumably benefit. It remains to be seen how this will play out. The reintegration aspect, in other words, is ongoing.

DDR processes are expensive, time-consuming, and often irritating. It challenges one’s sensibilities, for example, to come to terms with the idea that fighters who have been guilty of gross atrocities will be compensated and helped to resettle and reintegrate into society, while millions of their victims, whose lives have been battered by the combatants, will remain derelict. Patient work, however, can pay off. One of the more creative steps taken by the UN and the Sierra Leone government was the Community Arms collection initiative. Officials decided to go beyond the combatants and ex-combatants, and target various communities in Sierra Leone in an effort to induce ordinary people to give up deadly weapons. The initiative was so successful that since the war ended there have been fewer incidents of violent crime in Sierra Leone than even before the war started – which is to say, crime is very low in the country.

At the end of the disarmament process in Sierra Leone, the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan issued a statement welcoming the development. The statement noted that it was time for “the extension of State authority throughout the country, the restoration of ex-combatants, the restoration of the Government’s control over natural resources, and the resettlement of returning refugees and internally displaced persons, as well as forging national reconciliation, remain crucial tasks for the peace process which also requires generous support from the international community.” The very difficult and less dramatic task of governance and economic development, in other words, would now start. That task, like the reintegration process, is still ongoing; Sierra Leone’s future stability will depend on it. The jury is out on the whole process.

• Lansana Gberie, the author of “A Dirty War in West Africa”, is a Sierra Leonean researcher and journalist.
• Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Protecting Children's Rights

Afua Twum-Danso

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/37401

Like many other countries, Ghana, has taken the necessary steps to protect children from abuse and exploitation by ratifying the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on 5th February 1990, just three months after it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. In spite of this, the reality of children’s lives remains in stark opposition to the picture the legislation sought to draw. Afua Twum-Danso argues that Ghana must go a step further and adopt measures to protect children from abuse through advocacy, community action and awareness of children’s rights.


Ghanaians are fond of joking that their government is always one of the first, if not the first, to ratify international conventions, protocols and agreements. Therefore, they merely raise an eyebrow at the fact that the Government of Ghana was the first State Party to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on 5th February 1990, just three months after it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. To comply with this, the government reviewed its policies and domestic legislation quite rapidly compared with many other African countries.

The Children’s Act: In Focus

The Children’s Act led many to hope that there would be a turning point in the progress of children’s rights and welfare in the country. Yet, the yawning gap between policy and actions on the ground continues to widen. The Act, in and of itself, is a good comprehensive piece of legislation – one that, ironically, some countries look to as a best practice. Its provisions cover the protection of all children below the age of 18 in all aspects of their life.

The first part of the Act outlines the basic rights of the child, which are all in accordance with the CRC principles. These include the right to grow up with parents (unless it is not in the best interests of the child), the duties and responsibilities of parents towards a child, the right to parental property, the right to education and well being, right to social activity, right to be able to express an opinion and participate in decisions affecting his/her well-being and the right to protection from exploitative labour and torture.

Any contravention of this part of the Children’s Act is liable to a fine of not more than 5 million cedis or a term of imprisonment not beyond one year or both. Included in the second part of this section is the definition of what is meant by a child ‘in need of care and protection’, which covers children who are orphans, neglected or ill-treated, destitute, under the care of parents or guardians who are unfit to take care of the child or who is wandering and has no home and no visible means of subsistence. The second part outlines measures for the establishment and operations of Child Panels and Family Tribunals. The third part focuses on issues relating to parentage, custody, access and maintenance. The fourth part deals with adoption, and interestingly, fosterage, which for the first time is regulated. The fifth part provides some guidelines concerning child labour and apprenticeships.

The Children’s Act Viz A Viz Children’s Lives: A Stark Contrast

Despite the comprehensive nature of the Act, the reality of children’s lives eight years after its passage remains in stark opposition to the picture the legislation sought to draw. Highlighted below are a few examples of the situation of children viz à viz certain provisions of the Act.

- Although the Act stipulates that the Department of Social Welfare (DSW) is to be responsible for children ‘in need of care and protection’, thousands of children who are neglected, ill-treated, abandoned, orphaned and resort to begging on the streets remain outside the reach of DSW, mainly because people – be it children or adults – are still not reporting cases sufficiently and DSW does not have the resources or capacity to go in search of cases. Although in some cases, people rely on the extended family support system to look after such children, many people do not know to whom they must report cases. As a social worker based in one of the local DSW offices in Accra told me, ‘many people go to WAJU to report cases and then have to be referred back to us’.

- The Act clearly states that every child has ‘the right to education and well-being’. The introduction of the FCUBE (Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education) in 2005 illustrates the efforts of the government to enforce this aspect of the Act. However, many parents and children still do not know about the FCUBE and those who do, complain because they still need to provide for textbooks, shoes, uniforms, exam and printing fees etc, which costs more than the 30,000-cedi school fees that the government has taken upon itself to pay. Although substantial numbers of parents appreciate that they cannot expect the government to provide everything, they still maintain that this new deal leaves them bearing the greater weight of the financial costs of schooling, something which many cannot afford. Thus, for the poorest of the poor, the provisions of the FCUBE are not enough, meaning that a large proportion of children remain out of school and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future.

- The Children’s Act further stipulates that every parent has rights and responsibilities whether imposed by law or otherwise towards his child, which includes the duty to protect the child from neglect, discrimination, violence, abuse and exposure to physical and moral hazards and oppression. Although it is the belief of this writer that most Ghanaian parents want the best for their children and strive to obtain this – albeit sometimes in misguided ways – incidences of parental neglect are increasing. In interviews with over 200 children in Accra, one thing that they pointed to over and over again was the need for parents to show love to their children and pay them attention. In children’s minds, once a child has parental love and attention all else will follow, including food, shelter, medical attention, clothes and education.

The sexual abuse of children also seems to be increasing in our society – or maybe is the real increase is in reported cases of sexual abuse. In early February 2006 a 7-year-old girl in the Ashanti region of Ghana was raped? by her grandfather, a man in his late 60s, and later tested HIV positive. Approximately a week later the media reported that a 4-year-old girl had been raped? by an 81 year old man. These are just a couple of cases in a long series of abuses against children that have been reported to the police.

- The Act also stipulates that although children may be employed from the age of 15 and engage in light work from the age of 13 years (i.e. work that does not conflict with a child’s attendance at school and is not harmful to the health or development of the child), hazardous work should only be undertaken by those who are 18 years and over. This includes mining, porterage of heavy loads (i.e. kaya work), going to sea or fishing, mining and quarrying, working in manufacturing industries where chemicals are produced or used, places where machines are used, places such as bars, hotels and places of entertainment where a person may be exposed to immoral behaviour.

However, one does not need to go far to find evidence of children engaged in such work. Kayayes and kayahii (truck-pushers) can be identified at any urban market, sometimes carrying loads for those who are supposed to protect them: police officers. In the coastal areas of the Greater Accra and Central regions the use of children in fishing remains a big phenomenon. Here, people do not understand why their male children should not participate in a tradition that has been in their families for generations. This is particularly evident in Ga Mashie where fishermen are seen as warriors – a status that understandably all fathers want to pass on to their sons.

All the children that were interviewed by this writer were easily and very quickly able to identify places where children are engaged in mining and quarrying. Children could be found breaking stones at places such as Achimota and Kasoa. With regards to mining, they mentioned Boduase, Obuase and Prestea. That children are engaged in these hazardous occupations in their thousands is not hidden. In fact, you would have to be blind to miss it. Even then I wonder. Though any person who contravenes this section of the Children’s Act commits an offence and is liable to a fine of up to 10 million cedis or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or both, these phenomena continue unabated.

Sensitisation of Communities

The reasons behind the limited implementation of the Children’s Act and hence the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) are a mixture of lack of political will, lack of awareness and public dissemination and lack of resources. Research has proven that lack of awareness and understanding of the concept of children’s rights and the CRC are directly linked to the lack of political will, which, in turn reinforces the lack of resources available to ensure the implementation of children’s rights.

Despite the centrality of public awareness of children’s rights to the implementation of the CRC and domestic legislation, most members of the public and even policy-making bodies do not know about these legal instruments. In cases where they do have knowledge of them, they do not know much about them and their contents. In fact, there are some MPs who do not even know what is in the Children’s Act, which was enacted in 1998 and which many of them voted into passage. One Assemblyman from a community within the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) desperately crying out for children’s rights related interventions, confided in me that he had not read the Children’s Act and thus, did not know what it contained.

Not only do the majority of Ghanaians not know of or have very little knowledge of the Act, but also there seems to be a great deal of confusion surrounding the very concept of children’s rights. Many believe that it means children’s rights to empowerment only and thus they reject the idea sometimes quite angrily, as it attacks the very premise on which Ghanaian cultural values are based.

In one example, a senior community leader who is very well educated, possibly abroad, said to the writer, ‘Children’s rights? We have enough problems with children here without giving them their rights’. Instead, according to him, what the community needs is to focus on providing education, clothes and food for children - not rights. And this is where the problem lies.

Rights, in the eyes of many, are linked to the empowerment of children, whereas education, food and clothing are seen as basic needs that the community must provide for children. That these are also rights is not always clear. Thus, there needs to be clarification of what is meant by children’s rights and an explanation that it could range from basic needs such as food, clothes and education to more lofty ideas like asking children for their opinion and involving them in decision making.

Child Panels

The centrality of sensitising communities about the Children’s Act notwithstanding, it is important to consider another scenario where people know the provisions of the Act and still fail to report cases of abuse and exploitation. This could be because they fear the exorbitant financial fees that go along with the bureaucracy, long waiting periods and numerous adjournments that currently make up the Ghanaian judicial process. Added to this is the fear of being ostracised from the community in cases where the abuse was perpetrated by a fellow member of the community.

Therefore, an approach which takes into consideration the traditional arbitration process whereby all interested parties to a case are brought together to discuss the issue in informal surroundings with elders from that community as arbitrators, would be a vital asset to the modern legal framework. That the Children’s Act (Act 560) makes provisions for the establishment of Child Panels at the community level is an acknowledgement of the need for a more communal and traditional approach to complement the formal judicial system.

The Child Panel provision of the Children’s Act (Act 560) addresses the establishment of a quasi-judicial body that is charged with mediating minor civil and criminal matters at the community level. It is based on the belief that many families and communities would rather seek their own way to resolve problems than engage in a costly and lengthy judicial process. It is also the only legal structure at the community level charged with the socio-legal protection of children.

Therefore, it has the potential, when fully operationalised, to absorb not only the civil issues pertaining to non-maintenance of children, child labour, parental neglect or maltreatment, truancy/failure to send a child to school, but also minor crimes committed by children such as petty theft. Child Panels also have the capacity to engage in sensitization activities relating to children’s rights, facilitate counselling support for child victims of abuse where necessary, and facilitate reconciliation between a child offender and his/her victim. By dealing with minor offences committed by children, Child Panels can assure justice is meted out to the child without recourse to the main justice system which tends to be expensive and time consuming.

The benefits to the child and the wider society are evident. Firstly, it exposes children to non-violent ways of resolving conflicts. Secondly, as the deliberations of the Child Panel and its settings are informal, it is less intimidating for children and thus more child-friendly. Thirdly, the fact that Child Panels send out invitations to attend a session instead of issuing subpoenas or warrants and the fact that it makes proposals instead of judgments ensures that parties with a vested interest will be less apprehensive of attending a session of the panel.

Finally, its approach is participatory, not only because it allows children to participate effectively in matters that affect them, but also because it asks the interested parties if they have any proposal for the settlement of the matter.

Wider societal benefits include reducing the burden on the judicial system, which is already seriously overloaded. According to DOVISSU, between January and June 2005 it handled 7150 non-criminal cases in Accra alone, which the Child Panel system could have effectively managed if it was already in operation. This would allow DOVISSU and the judicial system to focus on more serious cases such as murder, armed robbery, rape, defilement, drug and people smuggling/trafficking, which appear to be on the increase. Moreover, as Child Panels undertake mediation and restitution functions at the family and community levels, the situation whereby children are put through the formal justice system can be avoided.

Therefore, they offer alternatives to prison for children who have committed minor crimes for which a prison sentence would be too harsh and only turn the child into a hardened criminal instead of a rehabilitated, responsible member of society. Finally, the nature of Child Panels will encourage more people to report crimes and civil matters and thereby allow the country to address some of the key problems facing children in Ghana today: parental neglect and non-maintenance, the exploitation of children’s labour and failure to send children, especially girl-children, to school.

• This article was written by Afua Twum-Danso, the Child Rights Programme Manager at the Centre for Community Development Initiatives (CCDI), an NGO based in the UK. For further information on CCDI and its work on children’s rights, please contact: aotd78@yahoo.co.uk
• Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Peace or Justice?

Mohammed T. Yusuf

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/37402

Recently, the Ugandan government’s chief negotiator said that the government would continue to respect a landmark truce with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) that expired Tuesday night (19 September 2006). Mohammed T. Yusuf argues that: “So far, both the government and the LRA have adhered to the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. It is in that spirit that I add my voice to the call for peace, and I urge all peace lovers to join the Civil Society fraternity in their struggle for peace in northern Uganda.”


The civil war in northern Uganda has been going on for the past two decades, and has had far reaching consequences in the region. The Acholi people have been the most affected. They have been kidnapped, raped, tortured and displaced.

Be that as it may, the victims of this civil war have not received sympathy and international solidarity like the victims of other wars. The attempts in 2004 to declare the area a disaster zone did not bear fruit.

The government of Uganda has always taken the initiative when it comes to the resolution of this conflict. The present peace negotiations (the Juba Peace Talks) are a result of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of Sudan and the leadership of southern Sudan. The Juba Peace Talks have brought the Lord Resistance Army/ movement (LRA/M) and the Government of Uganda to the negotiation table.

On the 30 August 2006, I attended two very important meetings in Kampala in support of the JUBA Peace Initiatives. The first was a Stakeholders Consultative Meeting on Juba Peace Talks, between the Government’s Peace Team and representatives from the Civil Society Organizations in Uganda.

The organizers (CSOPNU, UNAU, DENIVA and the MACOMBA Link Partnership) handled the issues with sensitivity and made sure that all stakeholders participated in the process.

One of these issues was the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) indictment of the five major commanders of the LRA, including Joseph Kony and his deputy Vincent Otti. This was seen as a stumbling block to the peace process.

On a recent KFM radio talk show, Vincent Otti pointed out that the only thing preventing him from being physically present in JUBA was the ICC’s indictment. He emphasised that as long as the ICC’s indictment remained valid, he would remain in hiding. Meanwhile, the people in northern Uganda have voiced their forgiveness to the entire LRA for the sake of peace in their region.

Otti admitted that he has done his fair share of wrong, and said in public that he is willing to go through the traditional conflict resolution court of the Acholi - the MOTOPUT - and ask for forgiveness if found guilty of any act.

According to Robert Kabushenga, the government is waiting for five major LRA commanders to submit proof that they will cease and desist from engaging in a destructive civil war. What makes Vincent Otti and the other four major commanders of the LRA nervous is what happened to Charles Taylor. Olusegun Obasanjo betrayed Taylor, and now that act of betrayal is indirectly affecting the Juba Peace Talks

The second issue discussed at the meeting was the role of women in the peace negotiations in Juba. It is clear that women play a great role in our societies as our mothers, and face many challenges in times of war or conflict. Therefore they should play a great role in peace making and building in this process. Women have made serious contributions in resolving conflicts in Africa and the world. The Honourable Betty Bigombe is one example of a woman who has attempted to resolve the civil war in northern Uganda.

There were continuous cautions against the presence of spoilers in the Juba Peace Initiatives, and the participants requested the chairperson of the government team to deal with them accordingly. Some of these spoilers are local people, but others from the international community. I am referring to people who pretend to love the country and the people of northern Uganda, but go behind our backs to support acts of violence.

The second meeting I attended was on Women and Conflict. This meeting brought together representatives from Women Organizations (UWONET, ISISWICCE), women refugees from Kampala, students and PADEAP partners like the Jesuit Refugee
Society, to discuss the role of women in conflict resolution.

The major issue here was the involvement of women in peace making and building. Women refugees requested that women’s groups like the UWONET, ISIS WICCE, AKINA MAMA W’AFRICA and others support them to handle better the role of peace building in their own communities.

The core of the discussion revolved around the issue of peace in the region. Participants were enthusiastic and encouraged each other to be committed to peace. I quote Bishop Baker Ochola, the Treasurer of the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative:

“…Government of Uganda wants peace, the LRA wants peace, the CSOs want peace, the international community wants peace, and all stakeholders want peace. And this peace shall prevail in northern Uganda, in the whole Uganda, the Great Lakes Region, on the continent and the world at large”.

The two parties in the JUBA negotiations were commended for signing the Declaration for Cessation of Hostilities on 26th August 2006, and were given an assurance that they would receive full support in their endeavours to search for peace. The UN Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief, Ian Eageland, also added his voice recently in support for these negotiations. He requested the Security Council to offer their full support to the JUBA Peace Talks in order to save this region from the cruel acts of war that have been going on for the past 20 years.

So far, both the government and the LRA have adhered to the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement. It is in that spirit that I add my voice to the call for peace, and I urge all peace lovers to join the Civil Society fraternity in their struggle for peace in northern Uganda. It through peace that socio-economic development can be attained in Uganda.

• Mohammed T. Yusuf is a researcher with the Centre for Democratic Research and a Political Assistant for the Pan African Movement Secretariat Kampala.
• Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Mato Oput versus the International Criminal Court (ICC) In Uganda

Joseph Yav Katshung

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/37403

The Lord’s Resistance Army continues to demand that the indictments by the International Criminal Court against its leaders should be dropped. The Hague-based court had indicted Kony, Otti and fellow commanders Dominic Ongwen, Okot Odhiambo and Raska Lukwiya on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. According to IRIN news, last week Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said the indictments should not be rescinded until the rebel leaders signed a peace deal. Joseph Yav Katshung argues that “…Not everybody welcomed these arrest warrants. On the one hand, proponents of prosecution argue that individuals who commit crimes against humanity should be punished for the sake of justice. They say that it would be unprincipled - as well as sending a dangerous message worldwide - for the prosecutor to submit to the demands of armed thugs who have been maiming, raping and killing with impunity. On the other hand, opponents of prosecution argue that the ICC should give peace a chance, as it is more important to save civilians than to judge perpetrators.”


Very often, when a country wishes to move from war to peace, various options may be tried, including trials in an international or national court of law as well as other non-punitive approaches with various names. In recent years, there has been a growing demand around the world for transitional justice mechanisms, such as truth commissions. Tina Rosenberg suggests that “…a country’s decisions about how to deal with its past should depend on many things: the type of war endured, the type of crimes committed, the level of societal complicity, the nation’s political culture and history, the conditions necessary for war to reoccur, the abruptness of the transition, and the new democratic government’s power and resources.” [1]One may add national “interests”.

Last year in October the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued warrants of arrest for Kony and four other Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commanders - Vincent Otti, Raska Lukwiya, Dominic Ongwen and Okot Odhiambo - accusing them of carrying out massacres, mutilating their victims and kidnapping thousands of children to be used as fighters and sex slaves. Now, a year on, it finds itself at odds with Uganda's government, which first referred the case to it, but is now offering the rebels amnesty and protection if talks succeed. [2] This paper examines this dispute and seeks to locate the debate about peace and justice in Northern Uganda.

Defining Justice

Defining justice is a difficult task. Is it justice in the narrow sense of criminal justice, or justice in the broader, restorative, sense? Talking about “justice”, one should note that it is a flexible concept. Justice in situations of transition is not self-defining. It is about what is required and what is possible in a given situation. There are different kinds of justice: retributive justice, deterrent justice, compensatory justice, rehabilitative justice, exonerative justice and restorative justice. [3] Each has a time and a place in a given situation and no one model of justice covers all needs.

Mato Oput as Restorative Justice

It is important to note that restorative justice views crime essentially as a violation of people and relationships between people. Its primary objective is to correct such violations and to restore relationships. As such, it necessarily involves victims and survivors, perpetrators and the community, in the quest for a level of justice that promotes repair, trust building and reconciliation. It draws attention to the need to create a milieu within which all those implicated in crime come to realise the need to uphold the principles of the law, co-operating in an endeavour to discern the best way to achieve this. [4] In other words, restorative justice is concerned with resolving crime and conflicts. It focuses upon the end result (harmonious community relations) and it is characterised by community participation that involves both the victim and the perpetrator, with a view to restoring rights that have been abused.

In fact, Mato Oput, which in the Acholi language literally means "to drink a bitter potion made from the leaves of the ‘oput’ tree" is one of the mechanisms for forgiveness and reconciliation among the Acholi people in Northern Uganda. The drinking of this bitter herb means that the two conflicting parties accept the bitterness of the past and promise never to taste such bitterness again. The payment of compensation follows the ceremony. The victim or his/her family is compensated for the harm done, for example, in the form of cows or cash. Is such kind of compensation is enough to satisfy people? It is believed by many Acholi that Mato Oput "can bring true healing in a way that formal justice system cannot.” [5] It doesn't aim at establishing whether an individual is guilty or not, rather it seeks to restore marred social harmony in the affected community.

The question of using Mato Oput for gross violations of human rights: The Kony’s Case

The referral of the Northern Uganda conflict to the ICC in December 2003 and the subsequent issue of warrants of arrest for Joseph Kony and other four high-ranking LRA commanders, [6] have sparked considerable controversy in Uganda and in the international sphere.

Not everybody welcomed these arrest warrants. On the one hand, proponents of prosecution argue that individuals who commit crimes against humanity should be punished for the sake of justice. They say that it would be unprincipled - as well a dangerous message worldwide - for the prosecutor to submit to the demands of armed thugs who have been maiming, raping and killing with impunity. On the other hand, opponents of prosecution argue that the ICC should give peace a chance, as it is more important to save civilians than to judge perpetrators.

Moreover, withdrawal by the ICC would not mean the end of accountability, they argue, but the beginning of indigenous justice processes. This group prefers traditional justice to the ICC, and argues that modern justice will have a negative impact on the peace process in Northern Uganda. For them, the arrest warrants would make further peace negotiations impossible.

This is a typical case of balancing peace and justice as the trend in Uganda now, is how to use the traditional form of justice named Mato Oput instead of the ICC. Barney Afako (2002) states that:

“The unacceptably high costs of civil war have caused Ugandans to re-assess approaches to resolving conflict. Among the Acholi of northern Uganda, the bitter experience of unending conflict has generated a remarkable commitment to reconciliation and a peaceful settlement of the conflict rather than calling for retribution against the perpetrators of serious abuses… This call for amnesty was underpinned by their faith in the capacity of the community and cultural institutions to manage effective reconciliation even against the background of serious offences.

Many conflicts yield meaningful distinctions between victims and perpetrators. Yet the majority of Acholi recognize that most combatants in the LRA were forcibly abducted and have themselves been victims. This generates the realization that anyone could be subjected to the conditions that produced the perpetrators of the crimes experienced in the conflict. Combined with a profound weariness with the war and the suffering it has caused, this creates a moral empathy with the perpetrators and an acknowledgement that the formal justice system is not sufficiently nuanced to make the necessary distinctions between legal and moral guilt. As a result, most Acholi have decided to promote reconciliation through traditional mechanisms, rather than a retributive understanding of justice, to create conditions to end the war and reintegrate the community.” [7]

However, there are always tensions between the requirements of the criminal justice system and those of non-punitive approaches to gross and systematic human rights violations. Therefore, one could ask if the Mato Oput is an attempt by Uganda to justify or disguise impunity? Answering to this question one should test if this Mato Oput mechanism implies good faith.

That is true because restorative justice employs integral responses that focus upon redressing the harm to the victims, holding perpetrators accountable for their actions and engaging the community in a conflict resolution process. It is highly participative, is forward-looking and is based on values of respect for all participants and community empowerment. Is the Mato Oput designed to generate more truth, more justice, reparations, and genuine institutional reform? If the objective is to evade the State and society’s legal, ethical and political obligations to their people, it should be rejected. If not, someone could say that the purpose of this Mato Oput mechanism is just to shield some perpetrators (Kony and others). In this hypothesis, the process will violate international law and will not be in the interest of justice (society as a whole).

Therefore, the answer should be found in the design of the process itself, but also in the degree of participation, consultation, and transparency that surrounds this Mato Oput mechanism.

How to conclude?

We conclude with a quote from Juan Mendez that “We need to be careful to counter attempts to disguise impunity with fanciful adjectives. ‘Restorative justice,’ for example, is a concept that in its proper setting is valuable and does have its place in a transitional justice policy. [8] Often, however, the term ‘restorative justice’ is used to advocate some alternative to criminal justice, to honest truth telling and full investigation of abuses. When used in such a way it is no more than an attempt to justify or disguise impunity.” [9]

Suffice it to say that the paradox between peace and justice is an open question that we should all try to answer.

* Yav Katshung Joseph is a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo and an Advocate at the Lubumbashi Bar Association. He is the Executive Director of CERDH, and Coordinator of the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights, Peace, Conflict Resolution and Good governance. He has published numerous articles on human rights, law and transitional justice in scholarly journals. For contact: joseyav@justice.com or joyav22@yahoo.fr Cell: +27724342896

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org


[1] Tina Rosenberg, “Afterword: Confronting the Painful Past”, in Martin Meredith, Coming to Terms:South Africa’s Search for Truth, 1999, p 328

[2] The ICC has insisted that Kony and four other LRA leaders must face justice, but the Ugandan government says it will convince the Hague-based court to lift the indictment… See UGANDA: Balancing forgiveness with justice. At: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55425&SelectRegion=East_Africa

[3] Charles Villa-Vicencio, “Restorative Justice”, in Charles Villa-Vicencio and Erik Doxtader (Ed) 2004, Pieces of the Puzzle: keywords on reconciliation and transitional justice, Cape Town, p.33

[4] Ibid, p.35

[5] See Liu Institute for Global Issues and Gulu District NGO Forum, "Roco Wati Acoli: Restoring Relations in Acholi-land Traditional Approaches to Reintegration and Justice", September 2005, available: http://www.ligi.ubc.ca/admin/Information/543/Roco%20Wat%20I%20Acoli-20051.pdf
[6] See The International Criminal Court, "Warrant of Arrest Unsealed Against Five LRA Commanders," ICC-20051014-110-En, 14 October 2005, available:http://www.icccpi.int/pressrelease_details&id=114&l=en.html
They are accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Northern Uganda since July 2002

[7] Barney Afako, Reconciliation and justice: ‘Mato oput’ and the Amnesty Act (2002), at: http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/northern-uganda/reconciliation-justice.php

[8] Miriam J. Aukerman, “Extraordinary Evil, Ordinary Crime: A Framework for Understanding Transitional Justice,” Harvard Human Rights Journal 15 (2002): 39-97; Pablo de Greiff, “The Role of Apologies in National Reconciliation Processes: On Making Trustworthy Institutions Trusted,” in The Age of Apologies, Mark Gibney and Rhoda Howard-Hassmann, eds. (forthcoming).

[9] Juan E. Méndez, “How to Take Forward a Transitional Justice and Human Security Agenda: Policy Implications for the International Community”, Cape Town, April 1, 2005

The what and where of listening online

Patrick Burnett

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/37405

Ever heard of street soccer activism? In Zimbabwe, the Uhuru Collective is using soccer to fight for social justice, mobilizing residents and encouraging them to challenge their local council on rates fees.

The full story is featured on the website www.kubatana.net, a Zimbabwean portal on civil society, but it’s not only the use of street soccer for activism that is interesting, but the way in which Kubatana have integrated short audio recordings into the story. The result is not only a web-based story that provides context and background, but through the power of voice conveys the story first hand through those involved.

And so you can listen to Sam Farai Monro, the co-ordinator of the Uhuru Collective, talk about what they aim to achieve through soccer activism, how commentators at the matches highlight important social concerns, and why unfair social delivery needs to be challenged.

The spoken word is not new to storytelling or information dissemination, with radio being popular worldwide. But while the potential for distributing audio via the internet is a possibility that has existed since the first websites, it has only recently become more feasible due to developments that allow easy production and distribution.

Portable recording devices allow anyone to produce high quality sound. Easy editing and mixing – previously the domain of professional sound buffs – is made possible through software packages. Giant steps taken in the ease with which one can create a personal website and upload written, audio or video content makes it possible for anyone to be heard – theoretically speaking at least.

As a result mega-industries have sprung up and there are a growing number of internet search engines that specialize specifically in audio or video files. Even giants like Google [url]=http://video.google.com/[/url] have been forced to add video search functionality and hosting to their services.

The new craze has given rise to its own terminology - podcasting. As defined by Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, “Podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio or video programs, over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. The term podcast, like 'radio', can mean both the content and the method of delivery.”

Sadly, if you type Africa into any of the search engines listing podcasts, the returns are not very satisfactory. In Africa, low internet access and high access costs mean that in large parts even downloading email can be a problem and that’s if you even have access to a computer. Listening to audio distributed through the internet is a rarity. The podcast trend is driven by North American and Western European interest and voices.

This is not to say that it doesn’t have potential for Africa. The medium has the ability for people to get their voices heard without having to navigate the complex gate-keeping of mainstream media; it has the power to reach a global audience; and it has potential for networking and activism. Africa has made some strides in internet access and many countries are now rolling out broadband internet access – the real sweetener when it comes to internet audio and video.

Distribution of audio via the internet in Africa is in its infancy, but with growing number of broadband users and Africa’s huge Diaspora population the audience is out there. It remains to be seen whether all the factors needed for the growth of the technology will eventually lead to a culture of listening online.

If you want to start listening, here are some starting points. Broadcasting weekly out of Berkeley, California, is Walter Turner’s Africa Today programme (http://www.kpfa.org/1pro_bio/1b_afric.htm). One of his more interesting recent interviews is with the journalist Gary Younge, who is the correspondent for the London Guardian in the United States. You can hear Younge talking about his latest book ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’, being black in Britain, international solidarity and the oddness of living in America. “You see people walking around with cellphones and yet you still get the feeling that they think the world is flat,” Younge tells Turner.

Check out Indymedia South Africa southafrica.indymedia.org/ for audio and video content on what South Africa’s social movements are up to. The latest video content from the site is about a march to the Israeli embassy to protest against the recent war between Israel and Lebanon. The video shows the march with clips from speakers Sallim Vally from the Palestine Solidarity Committee and Willie Madisha of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). Also on the site are a series of audio files discussing the World Social Forum’s Bamako appeal, including an interesting speech from Samir Amin.

Further offerings can be found on the website of One World Radio Africa [url]=http://radioafrica.oneworld.net/[/url], which has a series of regularly updated files, the latest being a discussion on climate change. Democracy Radio [url]=http://www.idasa.org.za[/url], on the website of South Africa’s Idasa, includes a series of recordings on child poverty in South Africa, political party funding and the struggle for women’s rights. These recordings are dated from 2004/05 but are still worth a visit.

Africa Files produces a regular podcast called ‘Africa Files: The Pulse’, with Silence Genti as the host. You can access the programme by visiting http://www.rabble.ca/rpn/episode.shtml?x=49875 The latest programme covers the recent World Aids Conference that took place in Toronto, Canada, with a series of short interviews with an African perspective. There are many more sites to visit if you’re interested, including Inter-World Radio (http://www.interworldradio.org), Simbani Africa (http://simbani.amarc.org/) and even the established mainstream news sites such as BBC, which has regular audio material downloaded from their site. Several blogs are also starting to experiment with including audio and video.

As from today, Fahamu, the producers of Pambazuka News, will be adding to this selection with regular weekly podcasts available from the Pambazuka News website. The first two recordings involve an interview with Sizani Ngubane of the Rural Women’s Movement in South Africa and a recording of Tajudeen Abdul Raheem talking about the Millennium Development Goals.

Winnie Mandela at 70

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/37409

On September 26, a gorgeous African woman, about whom no one is indifferent, turned 70. She has lived more lives than the proverbial Cat of nine lives. But she still manages to retain her poise, grace and popular appeal through what we can all agree is more than a fair share of personal and political trials and tribulations. She was born Nomzamo Winifred Zanyiwe Madikizela in the Village of Bizana, Pondoland, South Africa,in 1936. She became more famously known world wide as Winnie Mandela after marrying (in 1960) a divorced upwardly mobile Black Lawyer, Nelson Mandela, who later became world famous for his political activities and incarceration. It was not a ‘normal’ marriage because politics interfered with any attempt by the couple to settle down. By 1962 the apartheid state had sentenced Mandela along with his comrades to either life or long term imprisonments. Mandela remained in prison for the next 28 years becoming the symbol of the yearnings of the oppressed Black people for freedom.

He was not to see the outside of the prison walls till 1990. Two years after his release their unusual marriage ended in separation in 1992 and divorce by 1996.

Many of us grew up on Hugh Masekela’s famous tune “Bring back Nelson Mandela, bring him back home to Soweto, I want to see him walking hand in hand with Winnie Mandela……no more war”. It was never to be for long. We constructed a romantic canvass on the lives of these two people regardless of the empirical fact that they have lived apart for such a long time. At a human level it is daunting enough to catch up on almost four decades of separation let a lone such extraordinary lives lived in very public glare. Public and private disolves when it came to Winnie and Nelson.

There were those who had somehow expected that after those defiant fists that walked hand in hand with Mandela out of the Prison gates in 1990, Winnie was going to step aside, even go back to the kitchen and be ‘the good wife’. In the very public disagreements that visited their separation and divorce, Bishop Tutu famously chided her for not living up to this expectation suggesting in an unfortunate pre feminist choice of words that Mandela needed someone to bring his slippers.

It was a relationship in which everyone had an opinion and even more than a decade after the divorce opinions are still divided. Some people think it is an act of betrayal to admire Mandela and like Winnie and vice versa. But the issue cannot be that clear cut. Many struggle with admiring both and the inevitable contradictory emotions. The ambiguities are made more complicated by Mandela marrying, Graca Machel, the widow of another iconic man, Samora Machel.

Both Winnie and Graca share the double burden of being prominent in their own right but also for the men they married. It is a case of the chicken and the egg. There is an endless debate about whether these women would have been as prominent as they are if they had not married these great men. It is an argument from a reactionary ideology of patriarchy that does not value women in their own right but see them only in the shadows of men whether their fathers, uncles, brothers, husbands (or lovers) or even sons! But looking at the lives of both women they would have been prominent politically. Graca married Samora after his first wife Josina died and she was already active in the struggle for the liberation of Mozambique through FRELIMO. They married as comrades who met in the struggle.

The fact that most women married to, or in a relationship with famous men do not end up being famous should caution those who believe that Women can only be something under a man’s umbrella. Ironically those who argue this way do not argue the opposite as true. Why are Men married to famous women not famous by virtue of their sleeping arrangement too?

In the case of Winnie I doubt if anyone below the age of 50 years today would have known Nelson Mandela but for Winnie. She is the Mandela that kept Nelson in our consciousness. She did marry him young but she grew up politically mostly outside of his tentacles. By the time he came out of prison she was a political figure with a huge following in her own right. Men in general, even the greatest amongst us, consciously or unconsciously, find it difficult to adjust to famous partners. Things were not helped by the brutal battles for power within the liberation movements and the maneuvers around the transition. It was not just personal distance of many years that had to be faced but also salient political differences between a more reconciliatory Mandela and the more radical Mandela whose whole life had been shaped by confrontation with the apartheid state and also factional struggles within the movement and control of township militias.

The crux of the matter is that Winnie is generally judged by many people as a woman, wife and mother, not as a politician. How many men we greatly respect and admire and at the risk of heresy, Madiba himself, will still be standing if we apply the same gendered judgments? If the situation had been reversed and Winnie was inside and Mandela was outside would anyone had been surprised that he took interest in other Women? There is no doubt Winnie made many mistakes and made personal and political choices that are questionable. As she admitted at the prompting of Bishop Tutu in the famous encounter at the TRC: ‘Things went horribly wrong’. But who among the other liberation leaders has not made any mistake? She has been charged with everything imaginable both by the apartheid state and sadly even under the ANC government. The persecution complex is futher sttrenghtened by the ease with which previous pillars of apartheid slipped into post apartheid respectability without remorse, all in the name of National reconciliation! Without excusing Winnie’s serial lapse of judgment, it is difficult for many of her admirers including this writer not to conclude that she is being persecuted. But somehow she emerges triumphant, head unbowed. Even at 70 Winnie is neither down nor out. Perhaps her parents saw the future when they named her, Nomzano, which means ‘Trial’ in the Xhosa language. Happy birthday Mama Afrika!

* Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is General-Secretary of the Pan African Movement, Kampala (Uganda) and Co-Director of Justice Africa
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Sudan: Protect the people of Darfur

Sign a petition

2006-09-28

http://amnesty.textdriven.com/home/index_darfur.php?lang=ing

Amnesty International have started an online petition calling for a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur. You can add your name by clicking on the link provided.

Zimbabwe: no home, no work, no justice

2006-09-28

http://web.amnesty.org/pages/zwe-080906-action-eng

During May-July 2005, an estimated 700,000 people lost their homes, their livelihoods, or both when the Zimbabwe government forcibly evicted them and demolished their homes and businesses as part of Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out Rubbish). Visit this Amnesty International webpage to read more about the situation and to take action and demand justice.

Africa: Reinvigorating and Sustaining a Vibrant Women's Movement

2006-09-27

http://www.osisa.org/

The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) in collaboration with its partners the Women and Law in Southern Africa Research Trust (WLSA), the SADC Parliamentary Forum (SADC-PF), and HIVOS are convening a regional roundtable meeting on reinvigorating and sustaining a vibrant women’s movement in the SADC region.
Roundtable Meeting on Reinvigorating and Sustaining a Vibrant Women's Movement in the SADC Region

Press Release:

The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) in collaboration with its partners the Women and Law in Southern Africa Research Trust (WLSA), the SADC Parliamentary Forum (SADC-PF), and HIVOS are convening a regional roundtable meeting on reinvigorating and sustaining a vibrant women’s movement in the SADC region.

The meeting will explore, in depth, the dwindling vibrancy of the women’s movement in the SADC region – a diminished resource base, limited capacity and ability to effectively mobilise and organise around new challenges such as HIV and AIDS, among other issues – and provide a road map towards its reinvigoration, guided by recommendations from findings of a research commissioned by OSISA in
2005. Participants will engage with the situational analysis – examining the causes of the deteriorating vibrancy, proposing strategies and modalities to address this and collectively draw up an action plan with defined roles, responsibilities and timeframes for its implementation.

Key speakers will include Honourable Speaker Nthloi Motsamai of Lesotho, amongst other gender and women’s rights activists from across the region.

The roundtable meeting will bring together about 100 stakeholders from national, sub-regional and regional levels, individual activists, NGO coalitions, CBOs, government gender machineries, funding organisations, UN agencies, academics, among others in the SADC region and beyond.

The meeting is expected to come up with a regional plan of action that will not only seek to reinvigorate, but also sustain a vibrant women’s movement in Southern Africa.

The meeting will take place at the Kopanong Conference Centre in Johannesburg from 9-11 October 2006.

For more information on the meeting please contact: Alice Kanengoni or Thoko Budaza at: Tel: +27 11 403 3414 or email: alicek@osisa.org <mailto:alicek@osisa.org> or thokob@osisa.org <mailto:thokob@osisa.org> Thoko Budaza Media and Advocacy, HIV and AIDS Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa Tel. +27 11 403 3414 Fax.
+27 11 403 2708 www.osisa.org http://www.osisa.org

South Africa: People's Health Movement, South Africa

2006-09-26

http://www.phmovement.org/en/campaigns/righttohealth

People's Health Movement, South Africa, invites you to participate in a global campaign for the right to health. The organizations involved in various stages of drafting and reviewing it to date included SAMWU, NEHAWU, the Domestic Workers' Union, the Media Training Centre, the SA Council of Churches, Treatment Action Campaign, the Black Sash, the Children’s Resource Centre and the People's Health Movement [SA].
A Campaign for the Right to Health

People's Health Movement, South Africa, invites you to participate in a global campaign for the right to health.

The attached proposal explains the background, motivation, goals and objectives of the campaign and proposes a set of activities. The organizations involved in various stages of drafting and reviewing it to date included SAMWU, NEHAWU, the Domestic Workers' Union, the Media Training Centre, the SA Council of Churches, Treatment Action Campaign, the Black Sash, the Children’s Resource Centre and the People's Health Movement [SA].

In view of the importance of this issue we are asking your organisation not only to support and endorse the campaign but to be actively involved and committed in the planning and activities. Please can you let us know whether your organisation is willing to endorse and add it’s name to the attached proposal by the 20th October 2006

We invite you to attend or send dedicated delegates to the first planning meeting for the campaign:

When: 12 October 2006 at 4 pm

Where: SAMWU, Trade Union House, 8 Beverley St, Athlone

Yours in the struggle for health

Bridget Lloyd: On behalf of the PHM steering committee

bridgetl@mweb.co.za

Uganda: Targeting of lesbians must end

2006-09-26

http://www.amnestyusa.org/outfront/uganda.html

On September 8, the Ugandan newspaper Red Pepper published a list of 13 women they claim are lesbians. Homosexuality is a criminal offence in Uganda, and Amnesty International believes that making such allegations against these women may put them in danger. The article called for people to name other women suspected of being lesbians in order to ''rid our motherland of the deadly vice.''

The Steve Biko legacy and the Zimbabwean crisis

Roberta Tafadzwa Muropa

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/37394

12 September is a special day for all people across the world who believe in Black Consciousness and the concept of Ubuntu. This is the day when Africa lost one of its gallant sons of the soil, Steve Biko, who died in 1977 in a South African prison from ‘brain damage’. The truth of the matter is that his death emanated from continuous torture exerted on him by the South African apartheid government. As a young black African woman living in a society where freedom of expression and association is violated by the government of the day, Steve Biko has become my source of inspiration as a young man in his 30s, who was willing to sacrifice his own life for the freedom of the black people of South Africa.

When it comes to Steve Biko’s legacy within the Zimbabwean crisis, I personally believe that civil society in Zimbabwe should always mark this day, the 12th of September, as an important date in the history of Southern Africa. Young people should take up the challenge to emulate Steve Biko and his beliefs, for they can learn a lot from what he stood for, that is equality, freedom, respect for human life, and being proud to be a black person. Civil society and academics should organize public seminars and workshops on the life and history of Steve Biko on such occasions, so that people will not forget his dream and vision for a better Africa.

Next year will be the 30th anniversary of his death and I do hope that progressive movements in South Africa, Zimbabwe and the region as a whole will meet, reflect, share experiences, and take stock of what has been taking place in the region since Steve Biko’s death. Steve Biko made me realize the importance of being black and being proud to be a black African woman. Such ideals should be advocated for in our society, especially where the local and international media makes people believe that having a slim modeled body and straightened hair makes a person beautiful. This has led to many young people becoming disorientated and disrespecting the African way of life and its beauty. I do believe that the beauty of any person comes from within and not outside .I guess that’s what defines a human being at the end of the day!!

Viva Steve Biko, Viva!!
Amandla, people of Africa, amandla!!

Religion, Children and Armed Conflict

Andrew M Manyevere

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/37398

I am following up on the subject of small arms that was well debated in the article “The Role of Small Arms in African Civil Wars" http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/37270 This subject to me is at the center of whether or not Africa understands democracy and can successfully rule itself for prosperity.

Let me make my standpoint clear. I am of the belief that Africa should lead on matters of moral values and reduce tendencies towards a malcontented society.

There is an argument of convenience that asserts that religion is being used (there is no such phrase) to cushion resistance to, and acceptance for child soldiers. I find it hard to accept because even in the animal kingdom children are always protected under the wing of parental care. We cannot look at child soldier practices as merely exploitation. They are completely and totally below animal behaviour.

There are issues worth noting as they move hand in glove with tyrannical governments, such as the tendency to abuse human rights, and in particular the rights of young people. Armed Conflict sits on top of all priorities for a government disregarding human rights.

Many of our leaders are wayward characters from broken families or other strange historical backgrounds. They are shy to tell their childhood stories, aware that media would draw conclusions as to why they behave oddly. I am sorry to say we are forced to think that upper radicalism and hatred shown by many leaders in power comes from youthful backgrounds, which are either religious based or fundamentally atheistic and therefore animalism.

All the pictures we see of child soldiers give a clear indication that the government will be running away from good reasoning by cheating the young minds into savagery. The young are easy to instruct without causing a coup. The young do not plot subversive activities, which intrinsically and fundamentally come from lack of faith in leadership. More distressing is that young girls have been used as mistresses of top guys and this is done privately, but results in unwanted children and deaths through HIV/AIDS.

Ironically, to facilitate the agony of child exploitation, the government of the day must make sure that there is a definite collapse in the economy. This does not require too much intelligence apart from employing vanity and corruption.

It is these same rulers who, argue against freedom of the press and, seek to silence it so as to conceal their obscene deeds. Africa must make it a serious crime for anyone to do anything to a child. Africa must invoke tradition mixed with modernity in preserving the values of young persons.

If these values are less important to those we put in power, or to those who force themselves to power, the cry for morality among societies and communities will remain a cry in the wilderness. We have to look at our family concept and practices. We should revise these and then consider suitable leaders who will transmit these values without fear of being questioned on their moral standing. Africa needs to unite on child abuse, of any measure, as we aim to eradicate poverty. God bless Africa!

Africa's Public Health Crisis

Bryan Haddon

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/37395

In his article "How The Brain Drain To The West Worsens Africa's Public Health Crisis" http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/37062, Rotimi Sankore documents very well the devastating effect of the "brain drain" on Africa's health services, and the appalling cost to the continent of subsidising health services in rich countries. However, there is one measure which would address this problem very effectively, but which is rarely proposed, even though it is the key to Cuba's success in maintaining its high standards of health and doctor-population ratio of 1 to 165. This is for African countries to stop aiming for "equivalence" with the West in the training of health professionals.

At the moment most countries strive hard to maintain professional qualifications that are recognised in rich countries or provide a relatively easy stepping-stone to achieving registration there. Though there is much waffle about "maintaining standards", the real reason is so that the professionals who determine these qualifications (or their children) can readily leave Africa to work in rich countries. The training of doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists and other health workers should instead be focusing on African health needs, which differ greatly from those of rich countries. If African health qualifications didn't make it easy to get registered in the UK, Canada or the US, then much of the brain drain would stop.

African Languages Refuse to Die

Robtel Neajai Pailey and Melvin Kadiri Barrolle

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/37399

Squatting in a maximum security prison cell in Kenya in the 1970’s, Kenyan essayist, activist, scholar and teacher Ngugi wa Thiong’o [pronounced Goo-gi-wa-Tion-go] penned his very first novel on toilet paper.

It was written in Gikuyu, a language he grew up seeing, tasting, feeling, and owning in the hills and valleys of his homeland. Standing no more than 5-foot-5, with graying wisps of hair at the crown of his head, Ngugi is a giant among giants. His frame doesn’t do justice to his larger-than-life iconic persona.

He is the African world’s gift to language legitimacy, and he’s not backing down on his insistence that African languages hold the same importance as European languages on the continent of Africa and beyond.

“African languages refused to die,” said Ngugi two decades ago in his seminal volume of essays entitled “Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature.” He was defying the often unspoken sentiment that African languages are secondary, and therefore on the verge of annihilation.

During his whirlwind trip to Washington, D.C. last week—which included an exclusive interview with The Informer—Ngugi was adamant about why African languages should take center stage.

At a lecture sponsored by Howard University’s African Studies Department, Karibu Books, and TransAfrica Forum last Thursday, he said that Europe’s colonization of Africa was fueled by its attempt to “shred our base, while they secured theirs.” The apparent destruction of African languages and naming systems was the means of destabilizing the continent, said Ngugi. It has far-reaching implications even today.

Ngugi believes that when published materials from the continent are written in European languages, “you place it within a linguistic prison” in which the texts are not accessible to the people who matter most—Africans themselves.

To say that Ngugi’s insistence is revolutionary would be an understatement.

With the exception of Ethiopia, whose official language is Amharic, the official languages of most African countries are the vestiges of colonial rule—Portuguese in the former Portuguese colonies, French in the former French colonies, and English in the former English colonies.

Although some countries have attempted to reconcile this disparity by adopting African languages as national languages—Senegal has Wolof and Kenya has Swahili—European languages still seem to carry more influence. Ngugi insists that officially evoking European languages perpetuates a system of dependency already evident in the manner in which Africa engages with the West.

He is the only continental author to write exclusively in an African language, forcing publishing houses to figure out the logistics of translation. And they have. Ngugi’s books have been translated in over 30 other languages. “What Gikuyu can do, any other African language can do,” said Ngugi, inadvertently encouraging other African writers to follow his lead.

His belief is that texts should be written in the language in which they are conceived, developed, and rendered. European languages, he said, should be additions and not substitutes to the already large body of African linguistic diversity.

In 1969, Ngugi and other professors at the University of Nairobi in Kenya questioned the primacy of the English language and even called for a shut-down of the English Literature Department in favor of positioning Black Literature—and by extension African languages—at the center of intellectual thought.

Thus began his activism on behalf of the struggles of Kenyans, and his increased ostracism from the political machinery. Thirty years ago, he openly criticized African authoritarian rule and economic dependency on Europe and his reward was exile.

Even today, the writer makes a point to step away from the language issue to scrutinize what he feels is of paramount concern to the continent of Africa—engaging with the West on equal footing. Ngugi believes that the West positioned itself as a giver and Africa as a beggar. “We must reject that conclusion altogether…The real crime is to refuse to stand up, the real aesthetic of resistance is to stand up, rise, and rise again.”

He says that Africa should not be a beggar considering its vast economic resources. “People are respected because of their strengths, not because of their weaknesses…We [Africans] have got to put our house in order before we can expect anyone to take us seriously.” This can be done through intra-continental travel, trade, and communication. “There has to be a greater, freer movement of goods, services, and people across our borders,” Ngugi stated.

Ngugi tested this notion in 2004 when he returned home after decades in exile. A distinguished professor of English and Comparative Literature and director of the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California at Irvine, Ngugi and his wife, Njeeri, went back to Kenya amidst a welcome fit for a prodigal son.

“We are determined that we are not hounded by those who were so keen on keeping us out in the first place,” said Ngugi, alluding to the genesis of his forced migration from a homeland so prominent in the texts he weaves eloquently.

Reflecting on the African Union’s proposed adoption of Swahili as its official language, Ngugi said that it was a step in the right direction, but he drew a cautionary line. “We shouldn’t go from English mono-lingualism to African mono-lingualism.” In other words, adopting Swahili should not negate the legitimacy of other African languages.

Eschewing political correctness, Ngugi is an advocate of Ebonics, which, he believes, is evidence of African languages holding ground in the U.S.

In the tradition of James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Toni Morrison, and others, Ngugi says that African Americans were able to maintain cultural traditions in language formulation. To even begin to understand African American English (Ebonics), he argues, one must first study its roots.

Those roots are planted firmly on African soil.

While it has become common to observe a wry smirk on the faces of those who deride Ebonics as “bad” or “deviant” English, it is exactly here they stumble, failing to realize the power dynamics that lie beneath the debate. It is precisely here that Ngugi has contributed the most insightful observations.

The relationship between power and language has undoubtedly been his strongest area of research. He stated emphatically, “As long as people persist in interpreting themselves through linguistic vehicles that are external to themselves, they are continuing in that ‘oppressive’ pattern.” To choose a language, he declares, is to choose a world.

This analysis also sheds light on how African Americans sought to own the English language. While they may have been forced to adopt the words of the English-speaking community, total acquiescence was impossible. They would borrow words, package their delivery defiantly in their own cadences and intonations, and completely transform the meanings of some, such as “cool.”

Ngugi sees this as a natural act of resistance by a human community. “The struggle of African people in the ‘New World’,” he said, “takes the form of creating new languages. [Their] conditions of life also mean a struggle to construct the world in their own terms.”

Indeed, Ebonics has played a strong role in American culture. While mainstream America has shunned incorporating it into the academy, they’ve embraced it culturally as evidenced in its boasted cultural forums like hip-hop. “Hip-hop,” Ngugi said to The Informer, “is a lyrical based extension of Ebonics.”

And the buck doesn’t stop there. “Ebonics has [also] had a major impact on the language of power [English],” he reminds us. According to Ngugi, American literary icons such as William Faulkner and Mark Twain generously used Ebonics in their texts. America’s denial of its impact and influence perhaps led Toni Morrison to charge it with “playing in the dark.”

Though a strong proponent of the new language African Americans created, Ngugi cautioned against embracing it exclusively. “Do not abandon Ebonics, but definitely learn the language of power,” he instructed. In a rapidly globalizing world, one must necessarily be multilingual.

Ngugi looks forward to a world in which the communication between African Americans and Africans are conducted directly, not through the medium of European languages.

He was pleasantly surprised to visit a community school in Michigan in which African Americans were speaking Ki-Swahili fluently with the same mannerisms of native Kenyans. “Black Americans should be learning African languages,” he stated resolutely in an interview with The Informer. “An African language of their choice would do more to integrate Diaspora Africans than anything else.”

A Ghanaian based in South Africa, Kwesi Kwaa Prah echoes this sentiment: "We need to disabuse ourselves of the idea that Africa is a Tower of Babel in which thousands of languages are spoken. The implication of the idea of Africa as a Tower of Babel is that there are too many languages for Africans to be able to work in their language, therefore they must work in colonial languages.”

Like Ngugi, Prah is an African languages enthusiast. He currently serves as director of the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS) based in Cape Town, South Africa. According to Prah, the “Tower of Babel” myth preserves “the cultural and linguistic hegemony of colonially introduced languages in Africa.” The work Prah and his colleagues are doing at CASAS demystifies the notion that African languages are too innumerable to catalogue, study, and appreciate.

He lauds Ngugi for being a pioneer in the deconstruction of European language supremacy on the continent and within the Diaspora.

Referring to his latest novel, “Wizard of the Crow,” Ngugi firmly believes that it will find a home in the consciousness of Black people because “they will find my books illuminate their experiences today.”

In “Wizard,” Aburiria is a fictional nation and it becomes a dystopia representing the all-too-real problems that many contemporary African nations faced in their post-independence societies. Ngugi said “post independent states have been headed by the wrong heads.”

“Wizard” is also about love and the struggle between the material and spiritual as well. It illuminates the lives of average Africans attempting to control their destinies in the midst of dictatorships and neo-colonial deprivation. “The colonial experience is part of the experience of the modern world…It’s not a matter of sentiment, it’s historical fact,” said Ngugi, who believes that “Economic modernity is founded on what was taken from Africa” in the form of natural resources such as gold, timber, rubber, coltan, and cobalt.

Ngugi said in jest that “Wizard” has all the answers to the world’s existential questions. Perhaps it has hidden in its lyricism the answers to the African world’s most potent dilemmas. For example, one of the characters in “Wizard” is on a perpetual search around the world for the source of Black people’s power, and he finds eventually that it’s in unity. This is the key to moving forward for Africans on both sides of the Atlantic, asserted Ngugi.

“We have been strongest in our heightened unity and weakest in our heightened disunity,” he told The Informer.

Ngugi has a keen interest in consolidating the economic and political resources of “the two halves of Africa.” He says this can be achieved through African leaders extending dual citizenship to Africans of the Diaspora. “You want to create bridges to the continent of Africa for Diaspora Africans to invest and visit” without impediments. The first major tourist destination for African Americans should be the continent of Africa, said Ngugi.

A special bond links Africans and African Americans, and though it has been frayed and stretched, hacked at, and even denied by some, it persists.

Responding to a question by The Informer concerning African/African American solidarity, Ngugi answered with the quiet detachment of an elder who has witnessed that bond strengthened through the efforts and labor of many, least of all, himself. “We’ve got a lot to learn from each other,” he said emphatically.

* This article first appeared in The Washington Informer http://www.washingtoninformer.com and is reproduced here with permission. The Informer's editorial for on the subject "Kudos to an African Icon" can be read at http://www.washingtoninformer.com/opinionseditorials.html Robtel Neajai Pailey is the Washington Informer Assistant Editor, and Melvin Kadiri Barrolle is the Washington Informer Contributing Writer.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Global: In the shadow of Darfur, a playright calls for action

2006-09-26

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=34870

As the horrific images of slaughter stream out of Darfur, Sudan, a playwright in New York has gathered experts, survivors, church leaders, diplomats and others to reflect on the tragic occurrence of genocide in our time.

Global: The 1st Annual Africa in Motion

2006-09-26

http://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/

Africa in Motion (AiM) will enchant audiences with screenings of more than two dozen African films from all over the continent at Filmhouse Cinema this October. The packed programme covers a variety of genres spanning six decades of filmmaking in Africa.

Review of African blogs - Focus on West Africa

Sokari Ekine

2006-09-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/37388

Over the next few weeks the blog roundup will have more of a regional focus. This week the focus is on West Africa.

‘Under the Acacias’ - Under the Acacias (http://www.voiceinthedesert.org.uk/keith/archives/2006/09/update_and_phot.html) is a blog by Keith Smith, a missionary worker in Burkina Faso who has been blogging for two years. This week Keith posts on the floods that have engulfed Gorom Gorom, on the edge of the Sahel. About 8000 people in the region have lost their homes. Keith explains:

“The disaster struck following a large rain, when 136cm (5.5")of rain fell (nearly half the normal year's rainfall) in 6 hours. A dam broke about 5 miles away, and a tide of water waist-high swept through the region. Several nearby villages were completely destroyed, as well as about half of the houses in Gorom-Gorom. Most houses are built of mud, and would have been simply washed away by the onslaught of water.”

The floods in the region from Burkina Faso through Nigeria and Niger have so far left up to 26000 people homeless. Keith’s blog provides information on short and long-term needs and photos of the disaster.

Cameroonian blog, 'Scribbles from the Den' - Scribbles from the Den (http://www.dibussi.com/2006/09/save_my_wife_2_.html) reports on a horrendous story from the New York Times of Prudence, a young woman who died in childbirth. Like so many women in the global south, Prudence died not from pregnancy but rather from general neglect of the very poor and a failure to provide even basic health care.

“Prudence, 24, was from a small village and already had three small children. As she was in labor to deliver her fourth, an untrained midwife didn’t realize she had a cervical blockage and sat on Prudence’s stomach to force the baby out — but instead her uterus ruptured and the fetus died.

"Prudence’s family carried her to the hospital on a motorcycle, but once she was there the doctor, Pascal Pipi, demanded $100 for a Caesarian to remove the fetus. The fetus was decomposing inside her, and an infection was raging in her abdomen — but her family had total savings of only $20, so she lay down in the maternity ward and began to die.”

The report also includes a video of Prudence’s last hours which, although I have not seen, I find offensive and unnecessary.

Gambian blog – 'Home of the Mandinmores' - Home of Mandinmores (http://gambian.blogspot.com/2006/09/yahya-jammeh-is-winner.html) reports on the Gambian elections won by incumbent Yahya Jammeh. Despite the huge margin of his victory, Mandinmores still believes that the people of Gambia will hold him to account should he fail to live up to expectations.

“The results were nothing political observer ever envisioned. Most Gambian political observers expect the incumbent to win especially after the opposition split, but the margin of victory that emerge from yesterdays poll has caught everyone by surprise. However unless someone can prove electoral mischief, I will venture to say that the Gambian people have spoken. They prefer the status quo to change. I don't agree with the decision, but I respect it. They are the masters of their country's destiny and have decreed with yesterdays vote that they like it the way it is. 65% is not a narrow margin. It is a whipping. Does this mean folks like yours truly will cut Yahya a slack when he trample on the rights of the citizenry....don't even think about it. He has a constitutional mandate to rule and we have a constitutional right to criticize his excesses.”

Senegalese blog, 'SEMEtt l’etincelle' - Semett (http://semet.blogspot.com/2006/09/france-ou-senegal-entre-immigration.html) comments on the visit to Senegal by France’s right wing Minister of the Interior and Presidential hopeful. The purpose of the visit was to sign an agreement with Senegal for selective recruitment of professionals. SEMEtt describes this as a new form of slavery at a time when the African population in France are subjected to marginalization in the French suburbs (translated from French)

Nigerian Literary blogger, 'Wordsbody' – a href="http://wordsbody.blogspot.com/2006/09/ifowodo-jazzhole.html">WordsBody</a> (http://wordsbody.blogspot.com/2006/09/ifowodo-jazzhole.html) has a short piece on Nigerian poet, Ogaga Ifowodo who is based in the US.

“Ifowodo is the author of 3 poetry collections: Homelands and other Poems (1998), Madiba (Solitude, 1999) and The Oil Lamp (Africa World Press, 2005). The Oil Lamp is a volume of poems on one theme only - environmental degradation in the Niger Delta.”

'Trials and Tribulations of a Freshly Arrived Denizen' - Freshly arrived denizen (http://ekbensahinghana.blogspot.com/2006/09/re-on-us-rappers-and-water.html) takes issue with the UN’s appointment of African American rapper, Jay-Z as Water ambassador and his forthcoming trip to Ghana.

“With the hype of Jay-Z coming to Ghana in October, worth reminding you of his connection to sweatshops, which he appears clueless over.”

On the water privatization issue, Jay-Z is quoted as saying "that's just bureaucracy, I don't have any expertise in that," adding that he's about raising awareness. Later he praised Coca-Cola for giving money for play pumps.

'Black Looks' - Black Looks ("http://www.blacklooks.org/2006/09/we_dont_want_a_real_black_woman_-_i_mean_nah_so_we_got_kate_mosss_and_painted_her_black_instead.htm) points to an article in the Guardian on the "black facing" of yet another white female celebrity - this time Kate Moss, in the UK Independent newspaper special on Africa.

* Sokari Ekine produces the blog Black Looks, www.blacklooks.org

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Women's rights in rural South Africa

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/podcasts/37407

For the first episode in our series on trade justice, Pambazuka News talks to Sizani Ngubane of the Rural's Women's Movement based in South Africa where women continue to be thrown off their lands when their husbands die and how this intersects with trade justice. See the broadcasts page for more details.

Can African deliver on the Millennium Development Goals?

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/podcasts/37408

Welcome to this week's Pan African Podcast where Tajudeen Adbul-Raheem poses the question: With the world economy rigged in favour of rich nations can Africa deliver on the Millennium Development Goals?


See the broadcasts page for more details.

Africa: Health Ministers Adopt Measures to Curb Maternal Death

2006-09-26

http://www.unfpa.org/news/news.cfm?ID=870&Language=1

Ministers of health and delegates from 48 African countries meeting in Maputo from 20-22 September unanimously agreed that the right to health is under serious threat in Africa, and that poor sexual and reproductive health is a leading killer.

Africa: From dawn to dusk, the struggle of women

2006-09-26

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article1655627.ece

It was still dark, not yet 4am. But outside Letenk'iel was moving already, rekindling the fire from the overnight embers. Inside the mud-walled hut, her husband Gebremariam coughed. Then as the first birds were heard, he swung his legs over the side of a bed made from rough rope strung across a wooden frame.

Africa: WHO collaborative prospective study in six African countries

2006-09-26

http://www.who.int/reproductive-health/fgm/index.html

This study examines the effect of different types of FGM on obstetric outcome. The study, which provides the first reliable evidence that female genital mutilation can adversely affect birth outcomes, was undertaken by African and international researchers. It involved 28,393 women in 28 obstetric centres in six countries: Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan.

Africa: Fight against Sexual and Gender Based Violence in Northern Uganda

2006-09-27

http://www.unifem-easternafrica.org/Newsroom.htm

Efforts to address sexual and gender-based violence in the conflict ridden northern Uganda have received a boost with the commencement this month of a joint project of the Government of Uganda, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
NEWS RELEASE

Fight against Sexual and Gender Based Violence in Northern Uganda gets Support


Kampala; Friday, September 27, 2006 – Efforts to address sexual and gender-based violence in the conflict ridden northern Uganda have received a boost with the commencement this month of a joint project of the Government of Uganda, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The pilot phase of the longer term project is worth USD 750,000 and is aimed at contributing to the creation of an environment that enables girls, boys and women in conflict and post-conflict districts realize their rights to protection from sexual violence and exploitation, and related HIV/AIDS, both in camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) and in the return areas.

“The dynamics of violent conflict, internal displacement, cultural practices and extreme poverty have rendered women and girls extremely vulnerable to sexual and gender-based violence from within the intimacy of the household, within the local communities and by conflicting parties to the conflict,” the joint partnership agreement asserts.

Despite the notable achievements and progress on women’s rights in decision-making and response to SGBV and HIV/AIDS in Uganda, not enough attention is paid to the violations of the rights of women in northern Uganda both at a policy and programming level.

In this regard, UNIFEM is urging the parties to the on-going Juba Peace Talks on northern Uganda to place at the centre, issues of women’s rights to protection and women’s participation in defining how their rights can be protected.

“This is the spirit of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 of 2000,” says Ms. Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, UNIFEM Regional Programme Director in East Africa. “Only with peace in northern Uganda can women and their children have security and space to contribute to their nation.”

Ms Jane Mpagi, Director for Gender in the Ugandan Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, echoed these sentiments earlier, following her visit to Opit IDP camp in Gulu and to an IDP return area in Abunga sub-county in Lira district in the company of the UNIFEM Chief of Africa, Ms Micheline Ravololonarisoa. She noted that the country has policies and legislation for women’s rights protection, but these must be translated to the realities of the day-to-day life of women in northern Uganda.

The joint initiative on sexual and gender-based violence is part of the UN development assistance support to Uganda. Sida (Swedish International Development Aid) and the Government of Norway have provided more financial support through their Great Lakes Initiative.

# # # #
Issued by:
UNIFEM Uganda Office

For further information, please contact:
Signe Allimadi (signe.allimadi@undp.org)
Programme Manager,Communications Officer
UNIFEM, Uganda, UNDP Uganda
15B Clement Hill Road
P.O. Box 7184, Kampala
Tel: 041-233440/1/2/5
Fax: 041-344801

Or Simon Omoding (simon.omoding@undp.org
15B Clement Hill Road
P.O. Box 7184, Kampala
Tel: 041-233440/1/2/5
Fax: 041-344801

Uganda: Bravo women MPs

2006-09-26

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609250378.html

The election of 100 women among the 321 members of Parliament in Uganda is something to celebrate. Possibly even more significant, an all time high of 18m represent counties where women competed with men. Affirmative action has worked though women remain in the difficult position of meeting conflicting expectations and loyalties.

Zimbabwe: Women plead for curbs on violence

2006-09-26

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L21234931.htm

Zimbabwe women call for stiffer penalties for domestic violence offenders. With 90% of Zimbabwe's domestic violence targeting women, women groups have been pressuring their government to enact The Domestic Violence Bill, first dismissed 10 years ago.

Africa: 171 Million Children Victims of Child Labour

2006-09-26

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609260676.html

An estimated 171 million children, with 111 million of them under 15, are working in hazardous conditions, and a roughly estimated 8.4 million children are involved in the worst forms of child labour. ARLAC Executive Director Sammy T. Nyambari said forced and bonded labour, armed conflict, prostitution and pornography, and other forms of illicit activities are the worst forms of labour the children are involved in.

Burundi: A high price to pay

2006-09-26

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/09/07/burund14126.htm

Burundian state hospitals routinely detain patients who are unable to pay their hospital bills, Human Rights Watch and the Burundian Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detained Persons said in a new report released. The patients can be detained for weeks or even months in abysmal conditions.

Liberia: April trial date for Taylor

2006-09-26

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55710

The war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor has been tentatively set for 2 April next year at The Hague. Trial Judge Julia Sebutinde said on Friday that it was necessary to have a fixed date for his trial to avoid continuous delays.

Rwanda: UN court starts trial of Rwandan ex-prosecutor

2006-09-26

http://www.boston.com/news/world/africa/articles/2006/09/25/un_court_starts_trial_of_rwandan_ex_prosecutor/

Trial began on Monday (September 25) for a former deputy prosecutor accused of ordering the deaths of Tutsis during Rwanda's 1994 genocide and providing weapons to men at roadblocks set up to facilitate the slaughter. The Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) charged Simeon Nchamihigo, a former deputy prosecutor in Cyangugu prefecture, with genocide, extermination, and violation of the Geneva conventions protecting civilians during conflict.

South Africa: Cape Town gangs seek out children

2006-09-26

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-gangs25sep25,1,186603.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true

With overmatched police giving them free rein, the gangs in Cape Town's poor neighborhoods have grown in brutality and sophistication since the end of South Africa's apartheid era. They're better armed, have moved into lucrative rackets such as drug dealing — and increasingly seek out children as members.

Tunsia: Ban on NGO conference

2006-09-26

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=34757

The Tunisian government is under fire for its last minute ban of an international NGO conference to have been held in Tunis Sep. 8-9. Tunisian authorities sabotaged the 'International Conference on Employment and the Right to Work in the Euro-Mediterranean Region', the Finnish EU presidency, Spain, Germany and the Euromed NGO Platform are expected to tell the Euromed Committee of senior officials of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership meeting in Brussels.

Global: Vote to follow basic principles of refugee protection

2006-09-26

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/09/21/switze14246.htm

At a time when asylum applications are falling worldwide, the Swiss government is seeking to raise the obstacles faced by people seeking a country of safe refuge from persecution at home. By rendering access to this landlocked country more difficult, Switzerland is failing not only those fleeing persecution and mortal danger, but is also shifting the burden of their initial reception to its Mediterranean neighbours on the periphery of the European Union.

Global: Protecting persons affected by natural disasters

2006-09-26

http://www.brookings.edu/fp/projects/idp/2006_IASC_NaturalDisasterGuidelines.pdf

The RSG/Project has developed Operational Guidelines on Human Rights and Natural Disasters, in consultation with UN agencies. The UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) adopted them in June 2006. By publishing them, the Project hopes to assist the UN in providing the people on the front lines of disaster response with the guidance they need on how to ensure that the rights of people affected by natural disasters are better protected.

Kenya: Kenya braces for influx of Somali refugees as violence escalates

2006-09-26

http://www.nationmedia.com/EastAfrican/Current/News/News25092006.htm

Kenya may be forced to set up an additional refuge camp in Dadaab to cater for a new influx of Somali refugees as the instability in the neighbouring country starts to bite. In a conversation with The EastAfrican, the spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Emmanuel Nyabera, said that although the camps had the capacity to handle the influx at 300 refugees per day being experienced currently, the situation was likely to worsen with the escalation of the conflict in the country.

Nigeria: Heightened risk of violence and displacement ahead of 2007 elections

2006-09-26

http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004CE90B/(httpCountrySummaries)/3F353A1815525AFBC12571EA0043B389?OpenDocument&count=10000

The high death toll and internal displacement resulting from a wave of sectarian violence across the country triggered by Danish caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in February 2006, coinciding with a dramatic increase in militant violence in the oil-rich Delta region, were clear warning signs that once violence erupts it can quickly take on a momentum of its own.

Senegal: New fighting threatens return of remaining IDPs

2006-09-26

http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004CE90B/(httpCountrySummaries)/AE46A373632B0D48C12571F400303D27?OpenDocument&count=10000

Despite the scarcity of information on the numbers, it is estimated that during 2005 more than 65% of the people displaced from their homes in the southern region of Casamance were able to return. This followed the signing in December 2004 of a peace agreement between the Senegalese government and the rebel group Mouvement des Forces Démocratiques de Casamance (MFDC) to end a conflict that started in 1982. However, increasing insecurity along the region's northwest border with the Gambia may have prevented some 12,400 other internally displaced people (IDPs) from going home.

Somalia: UNHCR seeks to ease harsh conditions for IDPs in Somalia's Puntland

2006-09-26

http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/news/opendoc.htm?tbl=NEWS&id=4517f8e64

Along with other agencies, UNHCR has on several occasions this year drawn attention to the poor conditions for the thousands of displaced people who have made their way to Bosaso in Somalia's Puntland region, and urged the authorities to take steps to improve things.

Uganda: Invisibly displaced persons in Adjumani district

2006-09-26

http://www.refugeelawproject.org/papers/workingpapers/RLP.WP19.pdf

The following report presents a situational analysis of the conditions of internally displaced persons living in Adjumani district. Located in Northern Uganda, Adjumani district has suffered from the effects of sporadic violence and armed conflict for several decades.

DRC: Elected parliament inaugurated

2006-09-26

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55687

A new national assembly was inaugurated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the first such body to be democratically elected in the country in more than 20 years. "The new parliament can only lead to peace," Jean-Pierre Nemoyato, one of the newly inaugurated parliamentarians, said.

Ghana: Who's got to get power in NPP?

2006-09-26

http://www.afrika.no/noop/page.php?p=Detailed/12838.html&d=1

President John Agyekum Kufuor’s expected exit from the political scene is bringing tumultuous change to the New Patriotic Party (NPP). With campaign 2007 heating up, some old faces are in retreat, as new figures stake their claim to the NPP leadership. Hackman Owusu, Nana Akuffu-Addo, Osafo Marfo, Apraku, Dr. Addo Kuffour, Effah- Dartey, Kwabene Agyepong, and others, are all gunning for the post of presidential candidate of the NPP.

South Africa: Cosatu needs more women

2006-09-26

http://www.afrika.no/noop/page.php?p=Detailed/12840.html&d=1

Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has decried the inadequate representation of women within the leadership of the trade union federation and its affiliates. Speaking at Cosatu's 9th national congress in Midrand, he said: "We have not done very well when it comes to women.

Swaziland: Pro-democracy groups challenge executive monarchy in court

2006-09-26

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55669

A pro-democracy movement is challenging the assertion in Swaziland's new constitution that the people want to be governed by an executive monarch in a court action demanding that the government back its claim by publishing the evidence.

Zambia: EISA Regional Observer Mission to the Zambia 2006 Tripartite Elections

2006-09-26

http://www.eisa.org.za/EISA/pr20060926.htm

EISA is pleased to announce the official launch of its Election Observer Mission to the 2006 Tripartite Elections in Zambia scheduled for Thursday 28 September 2006. The Mission, which is led by Mr Abel Leshele Thoahlane, Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission of Lesotho and of the EISA Board of Directors, is in the country at the invitation of the Electoral Commission of Zambia.

Zimbabwe: International Day of Trade Union Action

2006-09-26

http://www.icftu.org/displaydocument.asp?Index=991225054&Language=EN

The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the World Confederation of Labour (WCL) and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) express their firm support for the leaders and members of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).

Zimbabwe: Ruling party floats proposal to extend Mugabe's term to 2010

2006-09-26

http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/Zimbabwe/2006-09-25-voa42.cfm

A spokesman for Zimbabwe’s ruling party confirmed Monday (September 25) that ZANU-PF intends to extend the term of President Robert Mugabe by postponing the presidential elections due in 2008 to 2010. ZANU-PF information chief Nathan Shamuyarira said this would save money by consolidating presidential voting with parliamentary elections.

Africa: Discontent Grows Among Donor States Over Aid to Continent

2006-09-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609260049.html

A fundamental rethink of Western aid to sub-Saharan Africa is underway following increasing discontent among donor nations over the way the World Bank and IMF run their operations on the continent. Following last week's World Bank meetings in Washington, where Britain's Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn won a symbolic victory over World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz's policy with regard to linking aid to corruption in Africa, the United Nation Conference on Trade and Development has also weighed in with some forthright criticisms.

Africa: Assembly Report Says Cross-Border Trade Far From Free

2006-09-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609260039.html

The one-and-half year old East African Community Customs Union faces serious problems according to a report compiled by a special committee of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA). The report, the result of a two-week tour of border towns by a team led by EALA legislator Dr George Nangale, has disclosed a number of critical problems impeding the smooth functioning of the Customs union.

Kenya: How the elite raked in millions from forestland

2006-09-26

http://www.eastandard.net/archives/cl/hm_news/news.php?articleid=1143958720&date=25/9/2006

Just like Karura Forest, the bulk of Ngong Forest was irregularly allocated in the 1990’s. The report compiled by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights says the taxpayer lost over Sh9 billion worth of prime land to crooked individuals who received and sold the land to third parties.

Nigeria: CAGE Asks ICPC To Investigate PTDF Fraud

2006-09-27

http://www.ind-advocacy-project.org/

Campaign for Accountable Governance through Elections, (CAGE) has urged the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to urgently investigate the ‘disappearance’ of $500million from the coffers of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) and publish the outcome of such investigation.
CAGE ASKS ICPC TO
INVESTIGATE PTDF FRAUD

Lagos, 27 September 2006: Campaign for Accountable Governance through Elections, (CAGE) has urged the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to urgently investigate the ‘disappearance’ of $500million from the coffers of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) and publish the outcome of such investigation. The money allegedly stolen from the PTDF may to find its way into the political process, thus undermining the Commission’s ability to achieve its objectives, said CAGE in a petition addressed to the Commission’s chairman, Justice Emmanuel Olayinka Ayoola.

CAGE is seriously concerned that corrupt politicians may be using stolen money to perpetrate political violence in the country; while continuing violence in the context of the 2007 elections may undermine voters’ interest, trust and confidence in the electoral process. ‘These allegations pose a grave threat to the forthcoming elections and other democratic processes towards 2007,’ says Gbenga Ogundare, a spokesman of Independent Advocacy Project (IAP), a member of the coalition’s Steering Committee.

Of the about $700 million realized during the 2002/2003 bidding rounds, said CAGE in the petition, only about $145 is known to have been transferred to PTDF account. There are also allegations that the National Chairman of the People Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ahmadu Ali received N5 million from the PTDF account for the endowment of a public health and comparative medicine at the University of Agriculture, Makurdi.

CAGE said allegations of impropriety at the PTDF are grave breaches of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Act of 2000; and the UN Convention against Corruption (UNAC) which Nigeria recently ratified. Specifically, Sections 9, 10, 17 and 22 of the Corrupt Practices Act would appear to have been violated in the above mentioned case. Section 9 prohibits corrupt offers to public officers; Section 10 prohibits corrupt demand by any persons; Section 17 prohibits gratification by and through agents; while Section 22 prohibits bribery for ‘giving assistance in regards to contracts.’

‘Addressing these allegations would help to achieve a corruption-free electoral process ahead of 2007, and contribute to the restoration of transparency, accountability, good governance and the rule of law in the next democratic dispensation,’ said Adetokunbo Mumuni executive director of Socio-Economic Rights & Accountability Project (SERAP), and National Secretary of CAGE.

Specifically, CAGE urged ICPC to work closely together with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to:

•Immediately begin a thorough and efficient investigation into the allegations of corruption in the PTDF mentioned above and other unreported acts of corruption that may have occurred in the accounts of the PTDF
•Bring to justice anyone suspected to be responsible for acts of corruption highlighted above, as well as other acts of corruption that may be occurring within the PTDF
•Collaborate with the National Electoral Commission to ensure that those who are suspected to be responsible for acts of corruption highlighted above, as well as other acts of corruption that may be occurring within the PTDF are excluded from the 2007 electoral process.

‘The intervention of the Commission in cases like this would lend momentum to the anti-corruption fight in Nigeria; and contribute to ensuring that the 2007 elections are conducted on the basis of international standards relating to transparency, accountability and fairness,’ added Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, executive director of Women Advocates Research & Documentation Centre (WARDC) and National Coordinator of CAGE.

CAGE is a coalition of civil society organizations established early 2006 to promote and advocate for human rights and transparency-driven elections in Nigeria. The coalition seeks to promote human rights reforms through and in – the electoral and related processes. It aims to engage, encourage and motivate the citizens to use their voting rights to demand human rights reforms and accountability from political parties, candidates standing for elections, and current and any future governments.

Africa: Aid should be channelled through special fund - UN

2006-09-26

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55680

To make the best use of the promised doubling of aid to Africa, it should be distributed multilaterally, possibly by a United Nations fund "independent of political pressures", according to a report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

Global: Milking It - Small Farmers and International Trade

2006-09-26

http://www.comminit.com/links/linksngos/links-1980.html

Offered by Oxfam, this website explores dilemmas that farmers face at the beginning of the 21st century, development issues associated with trade, and ways in which trade affects the food we eat.

Global: MDGs, Taxpayers and Aid Effectiveness

2006-09-26

http://www.comminit.com/strategicthinking/st2005/thinking-1466.html

In this policy overview produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Centre, the authors propose that greater public awareness and concern about development issues could put MDG-related issues on domestic political agendas and thereby protect official development assistance (ODA) commitments.

Malawi: Good but uneven harvest leaves pockets of hunger

2006-09-26

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55670

A bumper harvest has pushed the number of needy Malawians down to the lowest level in four years, but pockets of hunger are still a cause for concern, a crop assessment official has warned. Malawi has recorded its biggest ever harvest of 2.6 million mt of maize, at least half-a-million more than its annual requirement of 2 million mt.

South Africa: From the margins of society, to centre field

2006-09-26

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=34855

Nelson Mandela delivered his first speech there after leaving prison. The square has also been the scene of anti-apartheid protests and military parades. This coming week (beginning September 30), however, Cape Town's Grand Parade will be a venue for something entirely different: street soccer matches played during the 2006 Homeless World Cup (HWC).

Africa: Laying strong foundations for HIV protection and prevention

2006-09-26

http://www.actionaid.org.uk/100520/press_release.html

Girls educated to secondary and tertiary levels are more likely to wait before having sex, are much more likely to use condoms when they do have sex, and are therefore at much less risk of contracting HIV, according to a new report out today. One of the latest trends in the development of Aids in Africa is its increasing feminisation.

Africa: Bringing Traditional Birth Attendants Into the Mainstream

2006-09-26

http://ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=34846

In an ideal world, all of Africa's women would have access to clinics, nurses, obstetricians, medicines: the panoply of staff and equipment needed to make the process of giving birth as safe as possible. Failing that, what can be done to lessen the risks that come with delivering babies? For one, improve the skills of traditional birth attendants (TBAs), say delegates who met this week in Mozambique at an African Union (AU) gathering on sexual and reproductive health care.

Africa: Progress promised on drugs for tropical diseases

2006-09-26

http://www.scidev.net/gateways/index.cfm?fuseaction=readitem&rgwid=4&item=News&itemid=3116&language=1

More than 200 scientists from 23 countries pledged last week to boost efforts to develop drugs for diseases afflicting the poor in developing countries. The researchers had gathered in Nairobi, Kenya on 21-22 September for the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) conference.

Niger: Cholera epidemic follows floods

2006-09-27

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55730

Cholera has claimed 21 lives among 206 infected people in Niger following seasonal rains that have flooded communities and left them unable to cope with a health crisis. The United Nations has sent emergency aid to Niger following the flooding, which has affected 43,000 people.

Uganda: USAID's Malaria Control Plan Risks Public Disapproval

2006-09-26

http://ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=34871

U.S. President George W. Bush's malaria control initiative launched in June 2005 in Angola, Tanzania and Uganda by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has targeted Kabale district in South-west Uganda where a population explosion in the highlands has turned fertile wetlands into breeding grounds for malarial mosquitoes

Zimbabwe: HIV prevalence decline - will it last?

2006-09-26

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55711

News of Zimbabwe's declining HIV prevalence rates have been met with scepticism and confusion, particularly in view of the country's economic and political climate. Can this good news be attributed to behavioural change or skewed statistics?

Africa: The Teacher Versus the Teacher

2006-09-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609260234.html

The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has appealed to its members nationwide to refrain from embarking on a strike action for better conditions of service, since it has not declared a strike. That, according to the Association, was due to the fact that the Association had already negotiated for 2006 and was presenting its inputs on behalf of all teachers to Government for inclusion in the 2007 budget for consequent negotiations.

Global: UNICEF Executive Director speaks up for girls education

2006-09-26

http://www.ungei.org/infobycountry/247_1130.html

More than half of all children who do not go to school are girls. Achieving universal primary education is a Millennium Development Goal and one of UNICEF’s primary objectives. At a panel discussion organized by the US Mission to the United Nations in New York, UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman gave a keynote address on the vital importance of educating girls in the developing world.

Nigeria: Enugu state Recruits 140 Principals for Universal Basic Education

2006-09-26

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609260556.html

About 140 school principals have been appointed in Enugu State to handle the newly introduced Junior Secondary School programme of the Universal Basic Education (UBE) in various post-primary schools in the state.

Uganda: Makerere Still a Reputable University

2006-09-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609260716.html

There have been a lot of misguided reports about Makerere University, most of which cannot pass a factual test. However, the recent attack by Ugandan's leading journalists Charles Onyango-Obbo, that appeared in The East African (September 4-10 2006), left a dark image of this great institution. Although it is true that the standards of the university cannot be compared with those of its heyday the 1960s, the writer was overly critical and biased in his assessment of the state of affairs at the institution.

Zimbabwe: Campaign Launched

2006-09-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609260093.html

The Girl Guides Association of Zimbabwe (GGAZ) will next term introduce an HIV/Aids awareness campaign in children's homes and primary schools countrywide. The project was launched at Chinyaradzo Children's Home and president of the association, Mrs Maria Chaniwa, said this would help in reducing the Aids scourge.

Spain: Groundbreaking lawsuit challenges racial profiling by police

2006-09-26

http://www.justiceinitiative.org/db/resource2?res_id=103402

In the first-ever legal challenge to racial profiling filed with an international human rights tribunal, a coalition of advocacy groups have submitted an application to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, seeking to halt racial profiling by police.

Global: It doesn't have to be this way, says Christian Aid

2006-09-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/environment/37393

Christian Aid is predicting that tens of millions of the world's poorest people face death and devastation, and risk of losing their homes and means of making a living due to climate-induced floods, drought and conflict. But on the eve of the UN's 6th World Habitat Day, the charity says it doesn't have to be this way.
CHRISTIAN AID PROPOSES NEW WAY OF LIVING TO HELP SURVIVE CLIMATE CHANGE WORLD HABITAT DAY 2ND OCTOBER

Christian Aid press release: For immediate release, pictures and case studies available Christian Aid is predicting that tens of millions of the world's poorest people face death and devastation, and risk of losing their homes and means of making a living due to climate-induced floods, drought and conflict. But on the eve of the UN's 6th World Habitat Day, the charity says it doesn't have to be this way.

Christian Aid is working across the world on ground-breaking initiatives to combat climate change. These new projects are being showcased in a dramatic exhibition at the Grand Designs Live show at the Birmingham's NEC 6-8 Oct, where visitors will see how climate change hits some of the world's poorest communities – but by adapting their ways of living thousands of lives can be saved.

In Christian Aid's recent report The Climate of Poverty, published earlier this year, the charity outlined how 182 million people in sub-Saharan Africa could die of disease directly attributable to climate change by the end of the century and millions more would be left homeless and no livelihoods. The exhibition at Grand Designs is highlighting how these problems are being tackled.

TV garden expert Diarmuid Gavin, is designing the garden and has recently visited Kenya with Christian Aid to see examples of life-saving climate-adaptation projects in action.

Diarmuid Gavin said: 'This is one of the most exciting and challenging projects I've undertaken. The idea of sustainable living is becoming more important, both here and around the world. This is a message that simple solutions work. It was a real joy to see projects like the multi-storey garden which conserves soil and water. In a country like Kenya, where droughts are a real issue, it makes me hopeful that people are using agriculture to take on changes to the climate in ways that are going to work.' Professor Susan Roaf, a leading authority on 'future proofing' the way we live in order to stave off the worst excesses of climate change and soaring energy costs, praised the Christian Aid project:

'It seems so unfair that we, who are the richest people in the world and create the greenhouse gases that are driving climate change, will be among the last to suffer from it, while those who use so little energy in the developing world are on the front line. We have to change the way we live and even now we are discovering that no one is immune from the changes ahead.' Visitors to the display will how people in Honduras, Central America, are building houses in preparation for a predicted increase in the intensity and frequency of hurricanes and tropical storms.

The Bangladesh and Indonesia sections show how poor people are copying with rising sea levels in their countries while in Africa the focus is on preparing for potential drought and food crisis in Kenya and Malawi.

Christian Aid is encouraging people to take action on climate change by reducing their own carbon emissions and pressing governments to take action to stop global warming. Our homes and transport are responsible for about a third of the UK and Ireland's carbon emissions. The UK section of the display will demonstrate easy measures and tips that individuals can take to live more sustainably.

People will also be able to support Christian Aid's work by 'purchasing' a virtual Present Aid gift, some of which are featured in the home, including tree saplings, disaster-survival kits and solar panels. These are gifts that keep on giving by helping people in developing countries to prepare for the challenges of the future.

- ends -

For press information, pictures or case studies, please contact Kati Dshedshorov kdshedshorov@christian-aid.org 020 7523 2452 For more information on Christian Aid, and this project, please visit www.christianaid.org.uk/ecohouse Tickets to Grand Designs Live, which runs 6-8 October at the NEC, Birmingham cost £16 on the day, £12 in advance and can be obtained by calling the 24-hour box office on 0870 166 0437 or by visiting www.granddesignslive.com Notes to Editors
1.Christian Aid works in some of the world's poorest communities in more than 50 countries. We act where the need is greatest, regardless of religion, helping people build the life they deserve
2.Christian Aid's climate change work: Poor people are on the frontline of climate change and are already feeling its effects.
Christian Aid is working to help them adapt as their climate changes.
But action is needed in rich countries to cut carbon emissions in order to avoid future climate chaos, which could kill millions across the world. Christian Aid is calling on the UK government to reduce Britain's carbon emissions by three per cent each year by setting a 'carbon budget' alongside its financial budget. The agency is also challenging people in Britain to take action to curb their own emissions by saving energy and switching to renewables.

3.Christian Aid is a member of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition and supports its aim to build a massive movement that will create an irresistible public mandate for political action to stop human-induced climate change.

4.Christian Aid's Present Aid gift scheme. When you buy one of the items in the Present Aid catalogue the money doesn't necessarily buy that item. In order to make sure your gift has the maximum impact, our partners and Christian Aid choose the gifts most needed by poor communities across the world. But we guarantee your financial gift will be put straight into one of the following closely related funds: energy, emergencies and disaster preparedness, agriculture and livestock, health including HIV, water and environment, education, training and campaigning on behalf and throughout the developing world.

5.Grand Designs Live is based on the talkbackTHAMES series for Channel 4, which is presented by design guru Kevin McCloud. The event, which has evolved into a spectacularly vibrant show and changed the face of the interiors exhibition industry forever, aims to inform, excite and inspire visitors to create their own 'grand design' – with everything they need from around the world available to purchase under one roof.

6.GRAND DESIGNS LIVE – whether you're buying a cushion or building a home, it's a Grand Design! Grand Designs Live is made up of five sections: GRANDBuild, GRANDGardens, GRANDInteriors, GRANDKitchens+Bathrooms and DESIGN Shopping Arcade – catering for a broad spectrum of visitor requirements.

Where: Hall 5, National Exhibition Centre (NEC) Birmingham.

When: Friday 6 October 2006 – 10am-7pm; Saturday 7 October 2006 –
10am-7pm; Sunday 8 October 2006 – 10am-6pm For further information visit www.granddesignslive.com Donate to Christian Aid's Middle East crisis appeal:

http://www.christianaid.org.uk/middle_east Thousands of people are suffering and years of development work is at risk of being undone in the latest humanitarian crisis to hit the Middle East.

Donate online to our Middle East crisis appeal.

Africa: The world's 'septic tank'

2006-09-27

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=284851

"We talk of globalisation, of the global village, but here in Africa, we are under the impression of being that village's septic tank," says Senegalese ecologist Haidar al-Ali in an article appearing in South Africa's Mail and Guardian.

Namibia: Green groups slate plans to build hydro power plant

2006-09-26

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55696

Environmentalists have opposed attempts to revive plans to build a controversial hydro power project on the Kunene River in northwest Namibia. Following an international outcry, the construction of the proposed Epupa Dam was halted eight years ago as the resultant flooding would have destroyed the livelihood of the semi-nomadic Ovahimba ethnic group.

Nigeria: Chevron Gives Conditions On 2008 Gas Flare

2006-09-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609260555.html

In an effort to meet up with the 2008 zero flare target of the Federal Government, Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) has stated its readiness to meet the set date even as it stated conditions to enable it achieve this aim.

Nigeria: Expert Faults Nigerian Environment

2006-09-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609260380.html

President, Consumer Rights Advocacy League (CRAL), Mrs Cordel Okafor, has described as life threatening, the general environmental conditions under which the Nigerian consumers carry on. Stating this yesterday at the organisation's 6th Annual Workshop/Awards in Lagos, Okafor said a recent inspection carried out by CRAL in Lagos, indicated poor environmental condition under which food are served to consumers.

Botswana: The San, the diamonds and Leonardo DiCaprio

2006-09-26

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55663

Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio has inadvertently been thrust to the forefront of the San people's fight to return to their ancestral lands after the Botswana government removed them. According to Survival International, an advocacy group supporting the San's opposition of their eviction from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), San leader Roy Sesana told DiCaprio in a letter: "Friends have told us that you are in a film, The Blood Diamond, which shows how badly diamonds can hurt. We know this - when we were chased off our land, officials told us it was because of the diamond finds."

Zimbabwe: Defiant farmers to 'face the music'

2006-09-27

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=285058

Two white Zimbabwean farmers are to be charged for refusing to vacate their land, ZimOnline reported. Another 50 white landowners across the country had meanwhile been ordered to surrender their properties, the Commercial Farmers Union said. Vice-president Trevor Gifford said the two farmers would appear in the magistrate's court in the farming town of Karoi in the Mashonaland West province.

Africa: Ok, You're Black, But Do You Have the Identity of an African?

2006-09-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609260703.html

A critical conversation was the theme of the International Media Summit held in Accra, Ghana, recently. If a conference with that theme had taken place in East Africa, half the participants would have bemoaned the fact that Africa is portrayed unfairly by the Western media as a continent of famine, wars, poverty, corruption, and insane rulers.

Africa: Journalists say it's not all bad news in Africa

2006-09-27

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=284823

The Western media is portraying Africa in a negative light and fails to cover positive economic and democratic developments, according to some of the continent's top journalists. Africa has traditionally made the news for all the wrong reasons with reports on famine, civil war or the blight of HIV/Aids dominating international news coverage from the world's poorest continent.

Gambia: Journalist Dodou Sanneh arrested

2006-09-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/37283

On 8 September 2006, Dodou Sanneh, a journalist working with the state-owned Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS), was arrested and detained at a secret location by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) for alleged biased reporting.According to a MFWA-Gambia source, on 13 September Sanneh was released and also relieved of his post.
IFEX - News from the international freedom of expression community

UPDATE - THE GAMBIA

21 September 2006 Journalist, previously detained for "biased reporting" and removed from his post, reinstated SOURCE: Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Accra

**Updates IFEX alerts of 15 and 12 September 2006**

(MFWA/IFEX) - On 8 September 2006, Dodou Sanneh, a journalist working with the state-owned Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS), was arrested and detained at a secret location by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) for alleged biased reporting.

According to a MFWA-Gambia source, on 13 September Sanneh was released and also relieved of his post.

The source said Sanneh was arrested while covering the election campaigns of the opposition United Democratic Party (UDP), the National Reconciliation Party (NRP), and the Gambia People's Democratic Party Alliance.

Meanwhile, the pro-government "Daily Observer" newspaper has reported Sanneh's reinstatement at the GRTS.

The rules of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) governing the elections require contending parties be given airtime on the national broadcaster on a daily basis. As a result, reporters from both the national radio and television stations were dispatched to cover the campaigns of the three candidates vying for the presidency.

Sanneh is the third journalist to be arrested in recent times by the NIA. "Chief" Ebrima B. Manneh of the pro-government "Daily Observer" has been in detention since July 11 (see IFEX alerts of 19 and 17 July 2006) while Malick Mboob, formerly of the "Daily Observer", has been in the NIA's custody since May 26 (see IFEX alerts of 11 July and 30 May 2006).

Since March, the press freedom situation in The Gambia has deteriorated.

The government has forcibly shut down the Banjul-based bi-weekly newspaper "The Independent", arrested and tried one of its reporters, detained at least 10 other journalists and forced some into exile (see IFEX alerts of 4 September, 1 August, 20, 19, 18, 17 July 2006 and others).

For further information, contact Jeannette Quarcoopome, Media Foundation for West Africa, 30 Duade Street, Kokomlemle, P.O. Box LG 730, Legon, Ghana, tel: +233 21 24 24 70, fax: +231 21 22 10 84, e-mail: events@mfwaonline.org <mailto:events@mfwaonline.org>, Internet: <http://www.mfwaonline.org> The information contained in this update is the sole responsibility of MFWA. In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please credit MFWA.

Gambia: No end in sight for abuse of press freedom

2006-09-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/37375

On 23 September 2006, Gambian president Yahya Jammeh repeated one of his long standing anti-press statements, hinting that he would be more ruthless in dealing with journalists and the media in his third five-year term of office.
IFEX - News from the international freedom of expression community

http://www.mfwaonline.org/en/home.php

ALERT - THE GAMBIA

26 September 2006 No end in sight for abuse of press freedom as newly re-elected president intimidates media SOURCE: Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Accra (MFWA/IFEX) - On 23 September 2006, Gambian president Yahya Jammeh repeated one of his long standing anti-press statements, hinting that he would be more ruthless in dealing with journalists and the media in his third five-year term of office.

According to a Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) - Gambia source, President Jammeh gave the hint in response to a question during his first news conference after being announced winner of the 22 September presidential election.

The source said President Jammeh swore to selected local and foreign journalists with the Holy Qu'ran saying: "Let me tell you one thing. The whole world can go to hell. If I want to ban any newspaper, I will, with good reason."

President Jammeh, whose administration never ceased to harass and intimidate journalists, emphasized: "This is Africa and this is the Gambia, a country where we have very strong African moral values. . . If you write 'Yahya is a thief', you should be ready to prove it in a court of law. If that constitutes lack of press freedom, then I don't care."

The source said some Gambians have expressed worry over the inaction of the international community in their plight, which has allowed President Jammeh to openly declare "Let me tell you one thing. The whole world can go to hell. If I want to ban any newspaper, I will, with good reason".

President Jammeh, who supervises one of the most repressive regimes in Africa, said: "I don't believe in killing people. I believe in locking you up for the rest of your life. Then maybe at some point we say, 'oh, he is too old to be fed by the state', we release him and let him become destitute. Then everybody will learn a lesson from him."

Under his administration, Deyda Hydara, managing editor of "The Point" newspaper and a critic of his regime, was brutally murdered in December 2004.

Officials regularly detain, threaten or otherwise harass journalists and media organizations. The office of the bi-weekly newspaper, "The Independent" has been closed for the past five months, following a police raid in March. All its staff members were arrested, including reporter Lamin Fatty, and illegally detained for 63 days. He is currently on trial for allegedly publishing "false information". The wave of arrests is linked to an alleged coup attempt in March.

"The Independent'''s closure follows the disappearance of "Citizen Newspaper" from the newsstands when its publisher, Babucar Gaye, was arrested in 1998. Its sister radio station, Citizen FM, has been forcibly shut down since 2002 on authority of an archaic 1913 colonial law.

Former president of the Gambia Press Union, Demba Jawo, and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Banjul correspondent, Ebrima Sillah, received death threats from a pro-Jammeh group calling itself the "Green Boys".

In the last four months, seven journalists have been either arbitrarily detained or have fled the country. Malick Mboob, and Chief Ebrima B. Manneh, former staff members of the "Daily Observer", have been languishing in detention without charge at the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) since May. Both detainees have been held incommunicado since their arrest.

Sulayman Makalo, assistant editor of the banned "The Independent" newspaper, and Omar Bah, news editor of the "Daily Observer", went into hiding in July shortly after receiving information that they were targets of arrest by the NIA.

Since the spate of arrests began in April-May, more than 60 people, including military, security personnel, lawyers, the speaker of the Gambia's Parliament, and ordinary citizens, have been picked up and arbitrarily detained.

For further information, contact Jeannette Quarcoopome, Media Foundation for West Africa, 30 Duade Street, Kokomlemle, P.O. Box LG 730, Legon, Ghana, tel: +233 21 24 24 70, fax: +231 21 22 10 84, e-mail: events@mfwaonline.org <mailto:events@mfwaonline.org>, Internet: <http://www.mfwaonline.org> The information contained in this alert is the sole responsibility of MFWA. In citing this material for broadcast or publication, please credit MFWA.

DRC: Media Fanning Election Violence

2006-09-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609260044.html

As Congo waits for the final leg of its presidential elections, new lessons have been learnt about how a partisan press can be detrimental to peaceful electioneering. Indeed, the Congo elections have given new insight into what happens in an environment where most of the media outlets are owned by players in the same elections.

South Africa: Court rejects Shaik broadcasting appeal

2006-09-27

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609251118.html

"The FXI is disappointed with today's judgment of the Constitutional Court (CC) dismissing an appeal by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to broadcast the appeals of Schabir Shaik and others in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). The FXI has read the judgment and considers it to be retrogressive for media freedom and open justice in South Africa."

Global: White Race Riots of 1906

2006-09-25

http://www.blackcommentator.com/198/198_cover_1906_atlanta_race_riots.html

The riots that broke out in Atlanta, Georgia between 1898 and 1906 were part of a pattern of anti-black violence that included several hundred lynchings each year. September 22-24, 1906 is the 100th anniversary of the Atlanta Race Riot. In Atlanta, the Coalition to Remember the 1906 Atlanta Race Riot has planned a series of initiatives and events to increase public awareness of this shameful episode in the city’s history and inspire Atlantans to appreciate differences as opportunities to build community.

Angola: Unresolved issues pose risk to new democracy, warn NGOs

2006-09-26

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55698

Although Angola is benefiting from a post-war economic boom, far more needs to be done to ensure the benefits are felt by all Angolans, warn humanitarian workers. The 27-year conflict killed one million people and took a massive toll on human development.

Côte d’Ivoire: Call for departure of French peacekeepers

2006-09-26

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55713

The ruling party of Cote d'Ivoire has called for the departure of French peacekeepers and the dissolution of a group of mediators ahead of a visit of South African President Thabo Mbeki on Monday (September 25). The Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) "demands the departure of all military French forces" monitoring the cease-fire between rebels in the north and government troops in the south, chairman Pascal Affi N'Guessan said in a statement read on state television late Friday.

DRC: Presidential Hopefuls Agree to Disarm for Next Election

2006-09-26

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609250581.html

Senior aides to the two candidates running for president in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have agreed to make Kinshasa a weapons-free zone to ensure that the fighting that followed the first-round results in August is not repeated.

Nigeria: Living in fear as tensions rise

2006-09-26

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55729

The town of Dutse in northern Nigeria was recovering on Tuesday (September 25) after 1,000 people fled their homes in the latest in a series of inter-communal flare-ups that analysts warn could escalate in the coming months. The violence that erupted in Dutse, capital of Jigawa state and close to the border with Niger, last week was sparked by rumours that a Christian market trader had blasphemed against the Prophet Mohammed.

Somalia: PM wants international help in fighting terrorists

2006-09-26

http://www.garoweonline.com/stories/publish/article_5177.shtml

Somalia's interim prime minister appealed to the international community for assistance to combat what he termed "terrorists" who are expanding inside the country. Premier Ali Muhammad Gedi's comments to the media came after Islamic Courts militias took over Kismayo, the last port city in southern Somalia that was previously outside their influence.

Sudan: Darfur peace accord on verge of collapse – UN envoy

2006-09-26

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=55662

A top United Nations envoy warned that the Darfur peace agreement was on the verge of collapse and lambasted the Darfur Ceasefire Commission (CFC), which is responsible for monitoring and implementing the accord.

Sudan: Extension of AU peacekeeping mission only first step

2006-09-26

http://www.amnesty.org

Reacting to today's (September 21) news that the Sudanese government has agreed to an extension of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Sudan, Amnesty International said that today's development is a first step towards the protection of civilians in Darfur but must be followed by the deployment of UN peacekeepers.

Sudan: Nigeria threatens troop withdrawal

2006-09-26

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609260500.html

President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday (September 25) threatened to withdraw Nigerian troops from Darfur if the United Nations does not replace them within months. Other countries that contributed troops to the African Union (AU), Peace-keeping force in Sudan's Darfur region may also withdraw their contingents if the UN is not allowed in by December, the president said in New York yesterday.

Africa: Highway to freedom

2006-09-26

http://www.scidev.net/Opinions/index.cfm?fuseaction=readOpinions&itemid=521&language=1

To vanquish poverty, Africa needs a new cadre of policy researchers with expertise in the role of science and technology in development, argues Osita Ogbu. Few people inside or outside African government fully understand the importance of science and technology policy. As a result, the continent lacks capacity in the field.

Global: Village phone - a tool for empowerment

2006-09-26

http://www.grameenfoundation.org/pubdownload/~pubid=25

In an increasingly interconnected world, the ability to efficiently access and share information can have dramatic implications for social and economic development. As worldwide demand for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services grows, so does the potential for these services to improve the lives of the poor.

Global: Causal relationship between ICT and foreign direct investment

2006-09-26

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9701.2006.00757.x

The authors of this paper investigate the causal relationship between information and communication technology (ICT) investments and foreign direct investment (FDI) flows, with regard to the relationship's implications on economic growth.

Global: ICT and least developed countries

2006-09-26

http://www.itu.int/newsroom/press_releases/2006/16.html

The ITU report was unveiled during a special session on "Integrating Least Developed Countries (LDCs) into the world economy through telecommunications/ICT" in New York. According to the report, teledensity has more than doubled in the majority of least developed countries since 2000 with some of them boosting connectivity by as much as 20 times.

Global: UNESCO perspectives on ICT for development

2006-09-26

http://www.unesco.org/webworld/telematics/uncstd.htm

This report was prepared to provide an input in UNESCO's fields of competence to the Working Group of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) on Information Technology for Development and to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Development Study Group 1.

Global: ICT Global Trends and Policies

2006-09-26

http://www.comminit.com/baseline/baseline2006/baseline-505.html

Between 1980 and 2005, the number of telephone subscribers in developing countries rose 30 times. In 1980, developing countries accounted for only 20% of the world's telephone lines; by 2005, 60% of the world's phones were in developing countries.

Africa: Second Issue of ICC-Africa

2006-09-26

http://www.iccnow.org/index.php?mod=iccafrica

ICC-Africa is a bi-monthly newsletter focused on ICC developments in relation to Africa. ICC-Africa is an information tool that is meant to be especially useful for those interested in ICC-related activities that take place within Africa, but it also aims to serve as a forum for local organizations in Africa to share their insights regarding ICC developments.

Africa: New section on Africa in e-journal

2006-09-26

http://www.rrh.org.au/afro/defaultnew.asp

The e-journal Rural and Remote Health (RRH) is pleased to announce the launch of an African section of the journal. The journal provides free access to readers after registration, as well as free publication for authors. It is committed both to maintaining its standards as a Medline-listed journal and to supporting aspirant and more experienced authors from Africa to publish their work.

Global: HRH Global Resource Center

2006-09-26

http://www.hrhresourcecenter.org/

The HRH Global Resource Center, a digital library devoted to human resources for health (HRH), now offers an electronic newsletter that provides information on the latest HRH resources, improvements and news. It will be emailed to subscribers once a month.

Global: Short Story Writing Contest

2006-09-26

http://www.penknifepress.com/

Only one week left to submit a story to the first annual Penknife Press Short Story Writing Contest.

Global: Call For Applications For Small Grants

2006-09-26

http://wikis.bellanet.org/harambee/index.php/SGF_Call_for_Applicants

The Harambee Project, conceived by the Association for Progressive Communications, Bellanet and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, and funded by Connectivity Africa hosted by IDRC and Hivos, is designed to support increased capacity among both the project’s initiators and a range of Africa-based networks and communities to coordinate and facilitate the interactions of their respective constituencies.

Global: UNICEF calls for entries for UNICEF/OneWorld Radio Prize

2006-09-26

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_33705.html

The theme for the 2006 UNICEF/OneWorld Radio contest is UNITE FOR CHILDREN. UNITE AGAINST AIDS. Entries should be about HIV and AIDS - prevention, education, the scope of the pandemic and youth action to address it. Prizes are offered for two categories - Public Service Announcements and Features.

Global: Human Rights Video Hub Pilot

2006-09-26

http://globalvoicesonline.org/-/human-rights-video/

WITNESS is pleased to announce the launch of the Human Rights Video Hub Pilot, in collaboration with Global Voices Online. The Human Rights Video Hub Pilot is the first initiative of its kind – a curated forum that amplifies and gives context to human rights-related video footage uploaded to the Internet by concerned citizens around the world.

Global: Annual Global Learning Programme on Human Rights in Development

2006-09-25

http://www.dignityinternational.org/dg/RC/Dignitydocs/2006/2006_HRD_global.pdf

The Learning programme will be based on the rich development experience of the participants themselves. Participants will be placed in a non-formal, participatory, people centred and process oriented learning framework. Participants will explore together the meaning of human rights in development work and how integration of human rights into development work translates into concrete strategies and development programming at the grassroots and international levels.

Global: African Youth Foundation (AYF) meeting

2006-09-26

http://www.ayf.de/events/events.html

Registrations are still going on for the open forum. If you are interested in the theme and haven’t registered yet, try to register soon. Your contribution may bring a change to both continents.

Global: The Human Rights Advocates Program

2006-09-26

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/humanrights/training/adv/hradv_pgm.htm

The Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP) at Columbia University is designed to prepare proven human rights leaders from the Global South and marginalized communities in the U.S. to participate in national and international policy debates on globalization by building their skills, knowledge, and contacts.

Botswana: THETA ICT Discussion Forum

2006-09-26

http://www.sangonet.org.za/thetha

SANGONeT's Thetha Forums provide NGOs with the opportunity to discuss information communication technology (ICT), including challenges facing the NGO sector, highlighting and promoting practical benefits, opportunities and lessons learned. The forums highlight ICT policy issues and promote practical applications, and form part of SANGONeT's broader objective to increase the use and awareness of ICTs within the NGO sector in Southern Africa.

Ghana: Job Vacancy at KAIPTC

2006-09-28

http://www.kaiptc.org/aboutus/news.asp?nav=7&news_id=30

The Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, (KAIPTC), will be situated in Accra Ghana, where it will be West Africa’s Operational Level Focus on Conflict Prevention and Peace Studies. Delivering courses to Military and Civilian Personnel involved on Peace Support Operations throughout the world, it will lead original and challenging research into the causes and subsequent management of Conflict and the promotion of sustainable Peace.

Global: Director of the DEA

2006-09-26

http://www.dea.org.uk/dea/director.html

The DEA is looking for a new Director to lead and inspire the organisation during a period of expanding interest in global perspectives within education. For further information, click on the link.

Benin: Advisor, Rural Economic Development

SNV

2006-09-26

http://www.snvworld.org

The rural society in Benin is involved in a number of important dynamics: decentralisation, privatisation and the transfer of central state functions to local authorities and the private sector, including farmer's organisations. Other ongoing changes are the search for an adequate access to and delivery of basic services, a better and equitable access to economic markets, migration to urban and coastal areas, increasing pressure on natural resources.

Côte d’Ivoire: West Africa Regional Gender-Based Violence Manager

The International Rescue Committee

2006-09-26

http://www.IRCjobs.org.

The International Rescue Committee seeks a Regional Gender Based Violence Program Manager for its West Africa programs, to be based in Abdijan, Cote d'Ivoire.

Mali: Technical Advisor

Population Services International

2006-09-26

http://www.psi.org/employment

PSI seeks experienced, dynamic candidates for the position of Technical Advisor for its Mali program. The Technical Advisor will be responsible for managing PSI/Mali's behavior change communication efforts in the areas of HIV/AIDS, family planning, malaria, diarrheal disease, and female genital mutilation and providing technical assistance in social marketing.

South Africa: Senior Researcher

The South African Institute for International Affairs

2006-09-26

http://www.comminit.com/vacancy2852.html

The post holder will be expected to conduct research, facilitate workshops and training sessions, and develop networks with civil society groups and research institutions in Africa. S/he must have strong writing and networking skills.

Uganda: Executive Director

African Network for Strategic Communication in Health & Development

2006-09-26

http://www.comminit.com/vacancy2841.html

The post holder will head the organisation's Secretariat, and will be answerable to a Board of Directors drawn from countries across Africa. S/he will provide leadership, advocate for strategic communication as critical to effectiveness of health and development programming and strengthen the credibility and visibility of the organisation.

Fahamu