Back Issues

This week's highlights

2007-04-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/highlights/41018

FEATURE: Ayesha Kajee – the political underbelly of Darfur
COMMENT AND ANALYSIS:-
- Robtel Pailey on Firestone plantation slavery
- Dikpak Naker on what's wrong with beating children
LETTERS: Congratulations on the 300th edition of Pambazuka News from contributors and readers
BLOGGING AFRICA: A round up of the African blogosphere
BOOKS AND ARTS: Review of South African Women in History by Sokari Ekine
AFRICAN UNION MONITOR: Interview with Roselynn Musa and commentary on African civil society

PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen asks what next after the Nigerian elections
WOMEN AND GENDER: Text message saves Burkinabe girl from forced marriage
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Government troops battle insurgents in Somalia
HUMAN RIGHTS: Zim activists denied bail
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Consultation on HIV and IDPs starts
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Woman candidate for Mali poll
AFRICA AND CHINA: China feels pressure after attacks
DEVELOPMENT: Africa does not need more western philanthropy
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: HIV puts malaria back in spotlight
EDUCATION: Manual for non-formal education in Tanzania
LGBTI: Media accused of libel and irresponsibility
ENVIRONMENT: Africa’s first wind park in Namibia
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Obasanjo 'ignores' FoI bill
NEWS FROM THE DIASPORA: In defence of the new diasporas and brain mobility
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Setting the digital pace in Nairobi’s suburbs
PLUS: e-Newsletters and Mailings Lists; Fundraising and Useful Resources; Courses, Seminars and Workshops and Jobs

*Pambazuka News now has a Del.icio.us page, where you can view the various websites that we visit to keep our fingers on the pulse of Africa! Visit http://del.icio.us/pambazuka_news

The Dirty Political Underbelly of the Darfur Conflict

Ayesha Kajee

2007-04-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/41002

Beyond the complex “ethnic, regional and tribal dimensions” to the conflict in Darfur there is also a national and international political aspect that is not always acknowledged particularly in the Western media. Ayesha Kajee explains some of the domestic influences and the role of resources such as oil in the conflict.

Despite a few laudable attempts by serious political analysts to defray the often naïve and sometimes infantile portrayals of the Darfur conflict in the mass media, lazy writers persist in defining the war in Sudan’s westernmost region purely as an ethnic cleansing of Africans by Arab pro-government militias. Some even go so far as to conflate the conflict with the North-South civil war that ended with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in January 2005. That conflict has also often been simplistically defined purely in terms of Muslim Northerners and Christian southerners. While there are complex ethnic, regional and tribal dimensions to the Darfur conflict, there has been minimal acknowledgement that, in appearance at least, all the combatants are Black Africans and almost all are Muslim.

Beyond that, the Darfur conflict has a great deal to do with politics, both domestic and international, an aspect that again, has been systematically ignored or downplayed in the mainstream media. Historically, Darfur has been both marginalised and politically manipulated by the power elites in Khartoum, resulting in severe underdevelopment. With poverty levels exacerbated by cyclical droughts and recurring famine over the past two decades, the nomadic pastoralist ‘Arabs’ in the region competed with the agrarian ‘Africans’ for land; marking the start of conflict between them.

It is worth noting that until the late 1960’s, ‘African’ and ‘Arab’ in Darfur were not ethnic designations but were primarily used to differentiate between the more settled agrarian farmers and the cattle-herding nomads. Generations of intermarriage have made physiognomic distinction between ‘African’ and ‘Arab’ Darfuris virtually impossible. Until politics intervened in 1968, both were equally despised by the Khartoum urbanites as ‘people of the West’, an appellation that stigmatised them as ill-educated, uncouth, poverty-stricken peasants. Organisations such as the Darfur Development Front (DDF) arose as regional bodies striving for socio-economic justice in Darfur.

Domestic Political influences

Although Darfuris contributed to the Ummah Party’s victory at Sudan’s independence in 1956, it was forgotten and neglected until the Ummah Party split before the 1968 elections. Needing a large voting bloc from the west, one faction courted the Darfuri ‘Africans’, including the DDF, while the other wooed Darfur’s ‘Arab’ vote. Electioneering included ethnicised blame games to encourage political allegiance, and promises of government appointments for Darfuri ‘Arabs’ by their rediscovered ‘brothers’ in the capital. Ever since, Darfur has been a pawn manipulated by successive Sudanese governments.

This is still true today. Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP), led by President Omar al-Bashir, is desperate to prevent the independence of the south, which will be decided by referendum in 2011. After all, Sudan’s oilfields, currently al-Bashir’s cash cows, lie in the south. Al-Bashir badly needs Darfur as part of the northern voting bloc in the next national elections, scheduled for 2009, a political consideration that partially explains his reluctance to allow United Nations peacekeepers into Darfur.

But his brutal scorched earth policy in Darfur has exploded out of NCP control and may backfire in a net loss of Darfuri support in 2009. Initially pre-occupied with the civil war between north and south, this government first ignored the rumblings of discontent in Darfur, as far back as the late 1990s. When attacks on government positions intensified, it recruited, mounted and armed disaffected ‘Arab’ militias to suppress the uprisings in Darfur through extreme violence and brutality. Many of these ‘Janjaweed’ militias have rampaged out of control and there are reports that some even operate as cross-border bandits in Chad.

The extreme brutality of the government’s retaliation is partially explained by its desire to eradicate political competition. In particular the NCP fears the influence of its former mentor and spiritual guru, Islamist cleric Hassan al-Turabi, who has been linked to one of Darfur’s three major insurgent groups, the Justic and Equality Movement (JEM). Al-Turabi’s large following not only in Darfur, but in other poor and marginalised regions such as Eastern Sudan, seriously threatens NCP hegemony.

The al-Bashir government’s image has been badly tarnished within Sudan by both the Darfur conflict and its many breaches of the peace agreement with the south. Even with repressive media rules and a widespread network of patronage and clientelism that could facilitate electoral fraud, it may have a tough time garnering the support it needs (from Darfur and other neglected areas) to retain control of government come 2009.

Regional and International Political Influences

Successive aspirant leaders from neighbouring Chad have historically abused Darfur as the staging ground for their power bids. In some cases this was welcomed by whichever regime was in power in Khartoum at the time. When politically expedient, Chadian uprisings initiated from Darfur have variously been supported by Libya, France and the USA respectively. Libyan involvement in Darfur served to heighten ethnic tensions in Darfur, since the Libyans espoused Arab Nationalism, favoured Darfuri ‘Arabs’ and were despised as ‘Arab foreigners’ by locals. During the Cold War, western countries paid Khartoum to use Darfur as a base for supporting Hissan Habre’s regime in Chad. Conversely, the military junta which seized power in 1985, bartered Darfur in exchange for Libyan support in both the 1986 election and the civil conflict with the south. Libya used Darfur to attack the US-supported Habre regime in Chad, which retaliated by arming the nascent Sudan Liberation Army, a rebel group in Darfur. Habre was eventually ousted by current Chadian president Idriss Deby in 1990, who, following the established tradition, used Darfur as his springboard to N’djamena.

The legacy of Darfur’s abuse as an insurgency base surfaced in the heightened ethnic tensions, distrust of foreigners and a proliferation of small arms in the region. This, combined with rising insurgency, provided fuel for the disastrous civil conflict that has displaced up to two million people and killed at least 200,000 others. Though the ready availability of weapons across porous borders has fed the growing appetite of both rebels and Janjaweed in Darfur, government supplies to the Janjaweed have heavily weighted the odds in favour of the latter.

From the start, refugees fleeing the Darfur war have sought refuge among Chadians with whom they share ethnic and economic ties. But recently the conflict has spread into both refugee camps and local villages in Chad and the Central African Republic, rocking the political stability of the entire region. March 2007 saw over 400 casualties from attacks ascribed to cross-border Janjaweed, and aid workers say the incidence and intensity of attacks are increasing.

The Politics of Resources

No consideration of the political underpinnings of the Darfur situation can be complete without a consideration of international interest in Sudan’s immense natural resource base and indeed, that of the region. Given the political environment in the Middle East and the insatiable demand for oil by nations such as the US and China, substantial oil reserves in both Chad and Sudan make them vulnerable to political manipulation from outside. Sudan’s Muglad Basin alone reportedly contains three billion barrels of crude. Both Chad and Sudan have used oil revenues to purchase arms that sustain conflicts within their countries and across borders, a factor that is ignored by most consumers of oil in the region.

The US and Malaysia are the major oil investors in Chad, while China, Russia, France, Malaysia, India and the UK all have interests in Sudan’s oil sector. In addition to oil, Sudan also has gold reserves and arable land suitable for commercial exploitation. Darfur possibly has undiscovered reserves of uranium, bauxite and copper. Geological surveys also imply that Darfur has unexploited oil reserves, which may go some way to explaining the intense and sustained global interest in Darfur over the past few years. There is indubitably a massive humanitarian disaster in Darfur, and the mobilisation of civil society around the globe is warranted and welcome. But it is worth questioning why this tragedy receives concentrated attention from the world’s media and why advocacy for multilateral intervention in Darfur has managed to mobilise millions, including celebrities from every sphere, when similar situations in northern Uganda or Central African Republic get far less coverage.

Politics Within Darfur

While initially the Darfur rebels were able to unite or act in tandem on the basis of common goals (such as socio-economic development for the region), the sustained conflict has led to the split of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) into two major factions. Led by Minni Minnawi and Abdel Wahid al-Nur respectivelty, these factions were split along mainly ethnic lines but often worked cooperatively. Abdel Wahid, an ethnic Fur, command widespread support among the Fur tribes who comprise about quarter of the region’s population. His faction has been pitted against Minnawi’s since Minnawi signed the May 2006 Abuja peace agreement and Abdel Wahid refused to do so. Minnawi, from the Zeghawa tribe, received a senior government position in Khartoum after signing the deal, which has drawn criticism from various rebel factions.

The third major rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) led by Khalil Ibrahim, was also not party to the Abuja agreement. JEM united with SLM splinter groups who were not at Abuja, to form the National Redemption Front (NRF) which continues to fight the government.

Thus, the peace agreement ironically exacerbated divisions among the rebels and in some areas caused intensified conflict between rebel forces, with many civilians caught in the crossfire. Consequently, the civilians who initially supported the rebels with shelter and provisions, now fear the rebel groups as well as the government-backed Janjaweed, particularly if the rebels are ethnically different from themselves.

The Abuja agreement has also been used by al-Bashir’s government as a pretext for bringing numerous police and army personnel and equipment into Darfur, ostensibly to implement the ceasefire provisions, which to date, have been observed in the breach. The government and Minnawi prevented non-signatories from full participation in the Darfur Ceasefire Commission, virtually guaranteeing that it would fail. Attempts by the African Union Mission in Darfur to comply with provisions of the Abuja deal, have compromised the perceived neutrality of the peacekeepers and increased distrust of them. In the last two months, seven peacekeepers have been killed in Darfur.

There is growing international pressure to persuade al-Bashir to allow the implementation of a 2006 United Nations Resolution that calls for a trebling of the under-equipped peacekeeping force, which would see it passing from AU to UN control. Although Khartoum, after much pontificating on Sudan’s sovereignty, agreed to the deployment of a hybrid AU-UN force in November 2006, they have balked at the details and thus far, no UN troops have been allowed into Darfur. This may be due to fears that senior Sudanese officials could be indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes perpetrated in Darfur. It could also be attributed to anxiety that Darfur would use the UN presence to secede, depriving al-Bashir of this constituency in the 2009 elections. Such a situation would likely result in the eventual independence of the south in 2011. That this would pave the way for foreign interests to invest in an independent south and in Darfur, should not be discounted.

Given the complex internal and external political implications of the Darfur conflict, the biggest losers are the Darfuris who have been killed, maimed and driven from their homes and livelihoods. They are the ‘dispensable’ pawns of political manipulators from within and outside Sudan. There is a crying need for multilateral intervention in Darfur, and an enhanced peacekeeping force with a strong mandate to protect citizens would bring much needed stability to the region as a whole. But the potential ramifications of such an intervention merit careful consideration as to the composition of the deployed force and its mandate.

Concomitant with the deployment of more peacekeepers, the international community should be obligated to continue support for a political solution that includes all the major players in Darfur. This is a conflict that requires sustained negotiation and dialogue across the political spectrum in order to produce a lasting peace. The track record of certain western governments with regard to human rights and ethics would render them unsuitable as the primary facilitators of such a dialogue. Therefore the most appropriate brokers would be respected Africans whose eminence inspires confidence in their integrity, leaders who truly care that those who are paying the price of this war are fellow Africans with the inalienable right to the most basic freedoms of peace and security.

* Ayesha Kajee: Programme Head: Democracy and Political Party Systems in Africa at the South African Institute of International Affairs

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org

De-legitimising violence against children

Dikpak Naker

2007-04-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/41000

“Your children are not your children
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself
They come through you but not from you you
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you”. [Khalil Gibran, The Prophet].Dikpak Naker on why it is not OK to beat your children.



The other day I was talking to a colleague who is an activist for preventing violence against women. When I asked her if she beats her child, she responded, “I don’t batter him but if he gets out of line, I won’t hesitate to use a slap”. Her response astounded me and led me to start my own experiment of asking friends and colleagues the same question. The pattern continued. Most adults responded by saying that in moderation, beating children was a useful way of guiding their behaviour. Some added qualifiers such as, it has to be part of a larger disciplinary approach or only as a last resort. Nevertheless, many adults felt justified in using violence against children in the guise of controlling their behaviour. Even those that had seen the corrosive effect of the dynamics that lead to violence from a man to a woman, responded with a question of their own: what is wrong with beating children to teach them how to behave? Some asked in genuine bewilderment, while others simply because they couldn’t comprehend relationships with children that does not involve the adult asserting power over children.

Many of us have had years of experience in which we have learned that adults should control children around them and that in that enterprise, beating them is necessary. Most of us have witnessed children being slapped, shouted at and humiliated in the name of ‘discipline’. Perhaps you have survived a childhood where being beaten, silenced and intimidated was normalised and made acceptable by the prevailing value system. If that was the reality you grew up in, why would you come to think otherwise? Why would you abandon everything you have known, to learn a new way of relating with children? Why wouldn’t you ask, with genuine incomprehension, what is wrong with beating children to teach them how to behave?

If you are reading this, it is likely that you may have some personal or professional interest in the issue. Perhaps you work for a child-centric agency where all the literature or prevailing culture declares that beating children is wrong. You may have read the conclusions from the UN Global Study on Violence against Children or many other similar documents that conclude the same thing: that beating children, regardless of what you call it, is wrong. If you are not convinced by the rhetoric that you may have encountered in the usual documents or literature produced by civil society organizations, you are probably not alone. Maybe you do not want to risk your job or appear uncouth by articulating a dissenting point of view in certain circles. This piece is aimed at you. If you have been asked by people who live in your community about what is wrong with beating children, and not been fully sure what to think, this piece is aimed at you.

What I am about to argue is not new. However, what I hope may be compelling is that it emerged from children themselves. Ultimately if you are interested in creating a better world for children, who better to ask how to do that, than the children themselves and the adults who care about them?

We did exactly that in Uganda. We went to five diverse districts, from east to west, north to south. We asked 1400 children and 1100 adults, in many different ways about their thoughts, feelings and experience of violence against children. We asked boys and girls, younger and older, children who were in school and those who weren’t. We sought out children who were living in rural and urban areas, orphans as well as those living with their parents. They said many things about violence against children (see www.raisingvoices.org) but above all, unanimously they said two things; the violence against children was too much, and that it did not teach children anything except fear and shame.

Ninety eight percent of the children said they had experienced physical violence, a third of these children said they experience it at least once a week. Approximately one in eight said they experience violence on a regular basis from people that are supposed to take care of them; their parents, teachers, neighbours, older siblings, relatives and community members. When children were asked how this violence makes them feel, the response ranged from rage to resignation. In this confidential space, away from the watchful eyes of adults whose approval they needed, not a single child said being beaten filled her with pride or a sense of being loved or cared for.

That may surprise you. After all, have we not trained our children sufficiently to swallow what Alice Miller, the famous pro-child psychologist calls the ‘poisonous pedagogy’; that being beaten is for your own good? It was not unusual for some children to begin that defence in focus group discussions and soon abandon it when they found that we were not there to change their mind. We were there to simply listen and learn from their views. Once the ‘defence’ was deemed unnecessary, authentic feelings and thoughts emerged.

We learned many things about violence against children through this study. The first thing we learned is that children think of violence against them in a very different way than adults. Adults focus on the act while children focus on the experience. What that means is, when an adult is beating a child, they think of it as an isolated incident that is over when the physical act is over. But children learn the fear and the shame of the incident and how the act makes them feel about the person who commits it against them. They learn that people bigger than them can treat them unfairly without there being consequences for the abuser. In an important way, they learn about the nature of power in intimate relationships and that whoever has more of it, prevails. Children learn that the best way to protect themselves from the abuse is to have power over people. We are all familiar with the consequences of that lesson when these children become adults and acquire power.

Secondly, when adults were asked why they beat children, a majority said to guide children and to teach them how to behave. Yet rarely did the adult take the time to talk with the child, discuss what they had done wrong or explain their error. If they did, they are more likely to use an alternative to a beating as a form of punishment. When children are beaten for reasons beyond their comprehension, they rarely learn what was wrong with their behaviour and they certainly don’t learn how to behave better.

Thirdly, adults severely underestimate the emotional response their violence provokes in children. When children feel humiliated, their reaction can range from fury to depression. Because most children do not have the option of expressing their feelings, it ends up being stored within them, wreaking terrible havoc in storage. Children violated over a long period of time can victimise others, behave anti-socially or just withdraw from developing their identity. They may feel hopeless and some may become suicidal. It affects their performance at school and it affects their self-confidence. It affects who they are likely to become.

Fourthly, despite the fact that beating of children is common, more than half of the adults were not sure that beating was creating a desired change in behaviour. Many admitted that often they beat children out of frustration rather than a carefully thought out strategy to teach children something. Many times children are beaten because they are children rather than because of their actions.

Finally, when children’s dignity is routinely insulted they lose trust in adults who make them feel that way. They outwardly learn to fear and internally resent the adult who inflicts violence on them. They develop ways to cope with the violence rather than spend that energy developing their intelligence. They become much smaller individuals than what they could have been.

As we reflected on these things, it became clearer to us how diverse societies have come to legitimise violence against children. The only way we can sustain such patent injustice in our intimate relationship is by refusing to empathise with the child. How else could we live with another human being on a day-to-day basis, while deep in our hearts knowing that we regularly do them injustice? After all, that is the oldest trick in the book for dominating another group of people. We learned about other blatant ways in which adults ignore the evidence in front of their eyes. If beating taught anything to anyone, none would need to be beaten twice or at least repeatedly, and yet that is what continues to happen to children.

Most importantly, we learned from children that beating children is not a harmless vice that parents succumb to and we can turn a blind eye to. The violence has powerful short-term, and profound long-term consequences, not only for the child but also for the entire community (perhaps even entire countries). For these and many other reasons, beating a child is counter-productive. It does not achieve the aim of changing behaviour. It does not help the child learn what was wrong with their behaviour. It undermines their confidence and contributes towards the child learning to trust you less. If you are interested in helping children learn, beating them is the last thing you would want to do.

If you are still reading this, I presume that you are willing to ask the deeper questions. If I can be presumptuous, I would like to ask you the following. How might your possibilities as an adult be different, had you not been beaten and shamed as a child? I wonder what you might have been, had you not been humiliated as a child. Would you persist in believing that it has done you no harm or would you be honest enough to see the injury it might have caused you? Wait! Don’t answer just yet. Let it circle in your head and come back to it when you are about to fall asleep at night…just when you are entering that intimate space and maybe in deeper touch with your heart, and then, answer to yourself as honestly as you can.

* Dipak Naker, Co-Director, Raising Voices

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org

Slavery ain’t dead, it’s manufactured in Liberia’s rubber

Robtel Neajai Pailey

2007-04-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/40998

While England celebrates its 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, plantation workers in Liberia are trapped in a time warp of monumental proportions. They exist in the parallel universe of multinational corporate checkmate, where the prize goes to the highest exploiter. Robtel Neajai Pailey exposes the plantations of Firestone Rubber Company in Liberia.


Emmanuel B. is 30, a slender five foot three, and a slave whose piercing brown eyes tell unspeakable truths. He’s not the kind of slave we’ve seen in the collective imagination of 19th century plantations in the deep South of the United States. No, Emmanuel is a modern slave in 21st century post-conflict Liberia, and Firestone Rubber Company his unyielding master.

Like many workers on Firestone’s largest rubber plantation, Emmanuel was born in Harbel, has lived in Harbel all his life, and will most likely waste away in Harbel. Previously a student in Gbarnga, Emmanuel has ambitions to return to school, but those are pie in the sky dreams considering his family has no means of supporting him. As Westerners drive around in their heavy-duty SUVs propelled by another type of black gold—Firestone tires—Emmanuel wakes up at the crack of dawn to tap raw latex from 800 rubber trees daily. His clothes are tattered, and his shoulders covered in red puss-infected blisters from carrying buckets full of raw latex suspended from an iron pole to the Firestone processing plant two miles from his tapping site. For Emmanuel and his fellow tappers, a 5 a.m. start is the only means of filling their daily quota. Some have even begun to use their children to complete the herculean task.

Emmanuel sat perched like a statue, surrounded by green shrubbery and tall eerie splotched rubber trees one afternoon last December. He was taking a break, and had just finished tapping a record 800 trees when I spotted him while driving on a winding road on the Firestone plantation. He was gracious enough to demonstrate what a tapper does from sun-up to mid-morning. With a pitchfork suspended in the air, Emmanuel extended his long wiry arms to ease the raw latex out of the trees and into small red cups that catch the white liquid. The drip drip drip of the white coated liquid was almost as laborious to witness as Emmanuel’s daily task...another 799 trees to go and only five hours left. If workers don’t fill their quotas, their wages are reduced by half.

I visited the Firestone Rubber plantation for the very first time in December 2006 while on a research fact-finding mission for my dissertation. I decided to take a break from high browed academic work, and visit the sprawling modern day encampment I had heard so many horror stories about. It’s what I imagined the South to look like during the centuries of chattel slavery in the United States, with the hustle bustle activity of plantation life and the accompanying strokes of exploitation. As my brother-in-law, Christopher Pabai, and I pulled into the one million acre—and constantly expanding—plantation, we were welcomed by an ungodly stench, a stench I can only compare to the smell of rotten cheese. Not just ordinary rotten cheese, but the kind that has been drenched in burning oil, steamrolled on a conveyor belt, and neatly packaged for non-human consumption. That’s what raw latex smells like when it’s being processed. Rather than wearing masks to protect their noses from the assault, the plantation workers ingest the foul stench day in and day out. It took all my willpower not to retch all over Firestone’s perfectly manicured lawn or lush green golf course that senior management frequents while on hiatus from their back-breaking overseeing.

Believe it or not, the foul stench is the least of the workers’ worries.

While England celebrates its 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, plantation workers in Liberia are trapped in a time warp of monumental proportions. They exist in the parallel universe of multinational corporate checkmate, where the prize goes to the highest exploiter. Firestone has been playing the chess pieces of Liberia’s rubber slaves since the company signed a concession agreement with the Liberian government in 1926 to lease one million acres of land for six cents per acre—an abominable exchange given the astronomical dividends garnered from rubber sales then and now. In 2005, Liberia’s transitional government signed another concession agreement for an extra 37 years of rubber slavery. Rubber is Liberia’s largest export, and Firestone its largest international corporate exploiter, I mean employer, to date. The country and its people have paid a high price for the asymmetrical relationship.

In March 2007, the Firestone Rubber Company, a subsidiary of the Japan-based Bridgestone Corporation, won the Public Eye Global Ward for its social and ecological sins which demonstrate the shady side of pure profit-oriented globalization. The award was bestowed upon Firestone precisely because of the slave-like conditions on the plantation in Liberia. Workers live in dilapidated mud huts and are forced to seek the aid of their children in the strenuous and dangerous task of extracting latex from rubber trees. The deliberate and strategic use of children is against international laws including ILO Conventions, American and Liberian labour laws.

Since the plantation opened in 1926, company housing, mainly single room mud huts with no electricity, running water, or toilet facilities, has never been refurbished and updated to modern safety standards. Firestone’s plantation workers and their children toil under the same slave-like conditions they have endured for the past 80 years. The children’s labour usually includes cutting trees with sharp tools, applying pesticides by hand, and hauling two buckets on a pole, each filled with more than 30 kg of latex. Every day, these child laborers have to work long hours and are thus denied the right to basic education. Access to the company run schools is further impeded as parents must present a costly birth certificate in order to register their children.

Violation of child labour laws is only one among a long list of indictments against Firestone. According to Friends of the Earth USA, discharge from the company’s rubber processing plant has contaminated the adjacent Farmington River and other waterways, killing once vibrant ecosystems and polluting communities that depend on river water for drinking, bathing, and fishing. Furthermore, plantation workers are exposed to toxic chemicals and compounds on a daily basis while tapping. The merciless exploitation of Liberia’s people and natural resources by Firestone is directly linked to the nation’s impoverishment as the raw materials produced in Liberia are sent elsewhere for processing, thereby shutting out the possibility of added value. If a processing plant is built in Liberia, it could revolutionize the way rubber is used within a continent in dire need of manufactured goods such as condoms in the heyday of Bush’s conservative AIDS funding policies.

Clear violations of the law prompted a legal complaint filed in November 2005 against Bridgestone Corporation and Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire, LLC by the International labour Rights Fund (ILRF), a member of the Stop Firestone Campaign which is an advocacy coalition launched in 2005 to highlight Firestone’s exploitative undermining of Liberian labour laws. The 35 plaintiffs either have been or are currently child labourers on the company’s rubber plantation in Liberia. They describe their lives as “trapped in poverty and coercion.” The plaintiffs have brought their case to a U.S. court since Liberia’s legal system eroded during 15 + years of civil war and strife. The case is currently ongoing.

The ILRF, along with its Stop Firestone Coalition partners, demands that Firestone:
- provides workers with basic rights, including a living wage and the freedom of association;
- ends all child and forced labour and assigns achievable quotas;
- adopts health and safety standards; stops exposing workers to toxic compounds and chemicals;
- improves housing, schools, and health care centres to provide safe and comfortable facilities;
- ensures public disclosure of revenue and all types of foreign investment contracts;
- stops releasing chemicals into the environment and redresses all environmental damage; and
-publicly discloses the identity and quantity of all toxic compounds that it releases or transports.

Liberia’s Minister of Labour, Kofi Woods, a long-time human rights activist/lawyer and a major catalyst for the Stop Firestone Campaign, has been in rounds of renegotiation sessions with Firestone representatives recently in Washington, D.C. Because of his list of demands—which are reminiscent of the Stop Firestone Coalition demands—Firestone representatives stormed out of the meetings in March 2007. Go figure. Woods and his cohorts are what I imagine African legislators should be like, uncompromising and unyielding when it comes to corporate social and ethical responsibility. Liberia’s post-conflict reconstruction agenda will be null and void without a reconfiguration of the concession agreement with Firestone. After all, any post-war scheme involves a drastic revving up of the national economy, and given Firestone’s economic entrenchment in Liberia, it will need to refashion how it deals with Liberian workers, thereby increasing employee profit margins.

History challenges us to stay on a forward moving dialectic of change. The Firestone example shows us that an ironic distortion of that dialectic is taking place right under our noses. Slavery ain’t dead, it’s manufactured in the rubber we use daily. We owe it to Emmanuel and his comrades on the Firestone Rubber plantation to change the course of history, to make a clean break from modern-day slavery and its peculiar 21st century manifestations. We owe it to ourselves.

For more information on the Stop Firestone Campaign, visit www.stopfirestone.org

Listen to Robtel Pailey's interview with Liberian Minister of Labour Kofi Woods and activist Ezekiel Pajibo about the role of Firestone tyre company in Liberia in this weeks Pambazuka News Podcast

* Liberian native Robtel Neajai Pailey is a graduate student at the University of Oxford, and a multi-media producer for Fahamu/Pambazuka News.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org

Nigeria: What next after the stolen mandate?

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem

2007-04-27

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/41101

What sense can one make of the ‘result’ of the Presidential election in Nigeria?

Local and most foreign observers are united that the elections were ‘fundamentally flawed’. The Coalition of Domestic NGOs, CSOs and Think Tanks, under The Transition Monitoring Group, TMG, that deployed 50, 000 monitors across the country has not only condemned the widespread irregularities variously reported about the election it has gone further than any other group of monitors by categorically calling for a cancellation of the results and a rerun of the vote.

The two leading Opposition candidates, retired General Muhammadu Buhari (ANPP) and embattled Vice President Abubakar Atiku (AC) and other presidential candidates (there were 24 of them!) immediately rejected the results and have declared that a new president cannot be sworn in on May 29 based on the result announced on Monday because they believed the elections were massively rigged in favour of the ruling party’s and President Obasanjo’s anointed Successor, Alhaji Umar Musa Yar ‘Adua.

The losing candidates have left open their options for taking on the PDP and addressing their grievances including using the courts, public pressure, protests and international opinion.

On its part the PDP and President Obasanjo and the Electoral Commission have reacted not triumphantly but by conceding that there were ‘problems’ (understatement indeed!)with the conduct of the vote but they insist that the shortcomings were not sufficient to nullify the officially declared outcome.

So far there has not been much surprise in the reaction of the various interested parties including the sporadic violent reactions in opposition strongholds where voters felt that the declared result was not in accordance with their wishes. They burnt down houses, offices and other property belonging to members of the ruling party or suspected electoral officers or members of the public just caught up on the wrong side. Soon after the security forces move in and some calmness is restored. It is almost like the authorities were planning for a short period during which the frustrated voters can vent their spleen.

So what next? How long will these controversies last? And what long term impacts will they have on the body politic of the country?

In a game that will mostly be based on ‘wait and see’ the government has more time on its hand and can afford to wait. If the Opposition chooses to go to the courts the matter will definitely be bogged down in procedural issues that may not be decided by the 29th of May when the new President will be sworn in. As it happened after the last, also very controversial election in 2003, a final verdict on the election may drag on to the Supreme Court and probably take the next three years or more and it will not have any political impact or even a legal difference.

Should they choose to go on the streets it may not yield any immediate political benefits too but definitely create more chaos, destruction and even more deaths for their supporters and innocent members of the public?

They also have to consider the reality of the power relations. Opposition will only be able to get away with public disorder and impunity in areas where they are most popular. Why make ungovernable places that are already sympathetic to you like Lagos, Kano for example.

Would you not be inviting the government to declare state of emergency and Direct PDP rule in those pockets of places where the opposition is actually in power? How will that play out with elected opposition candidates from those `areas? The critical Niger Delta has been disenfranchised for a long time that stealing their mandate again is just routine. And now they can even claim one of them is finally in Aso Rock since the new Vice President is from the Niger Delta.

The last time Nigeria had a free and fair election was June 12 1993 and the Military dictator, the Gap-toothed fiendish General I.B. Babangida and his regime annulled the result. National protests and international isolation followed forcing IBB out of power but the winner, Chief MKO Abiola, never regained his victory. Instead another military regime even more brutal than IBBs followed and Abiola died in prison. When Abacha was aided to his death in leisure the same Generals organized Abiola’s`death in prison by choking on tea served to him in the presence of a ‘visiting’ (or was it supervising?) delegation of Senior US officials including Susan Rice`, Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of State for Africa., Susan Rice!

The June 12 struggle that was a national campaign became isolated as a Yoruba affair in spite of the fact that Abiola would have won even without votes from Yoruba Land. Obasanjo was one of the scheming Generals who denied Abiola his mandate. Other Generals rewarded his betrayal of democracy by making him President after Abacha. And they are all now complaining about him.

The situation is different now. Neither Buhari nor Atiku can claim the same National mandate and popularity as was claimed for Abiola. They are also unable to transform the frustration of the voters into a sustainable popular struggle. A military coup is more or less out of the picture. They cannot accuse Obasanjo of favoring his ethnic group or his religious faith. So all the fault lines of Nigeria's politics are safe.

Just as the Generals gave Nigeria a President who was Yoruba in 1999 but not necessarily the preferred candidate of the Yoruba people Obasanjo has given us a President who is Hausa-Fulani Muslim but cannot be Hausa-Fulani President.

The sadness of it all is that I believe that Yar’ Adua could still have won, may be not in such ridiculous margins. But the PDP has made it look like there were no good `reasons why many Nigerians would have voted for him given the limited choice they had of really effectively choosing between three candidates. One a former General and the other a former Custom Officer and Yar ‘Adua, the only civil civilian who also had a reputation for running a decent administration in his state and also one of only a handful of the 36 state governors not known or believed not to be corrupt.

Obasanjo has `helped` Yar Adua to the gate of Aso Rock he cannot cohabit with him in it. It will now depend on him how he shoulders on. It will take more than his initial reconciliatory statements to his ``worthy opponents`` for the controversies and the credibility deficit with which he was anointed to settle.

Obasanjo turned against those who facilitated his entrance into that bastion of power therefore he cannot expect that he would be driving Yar Adua from behind. Proxy politics like opposition ganging up have both never really worked in Nigeria. One of the first things Yar Adua has to do with immediate effect is to unlearn some of his benefactor’s worst ways of doing things. Politics is about persuasion not conquering your opponents.

The International Election tourists otherwise known as Observers or Monitors will already be on their way to the next election in some other country by now, cutting and pasting, on their high powered laptops, as they go. Democracy in any country can only be guaranteed by the peoples of that country not any group of outsiders no matter how well-meaning. EU, NDI, Madeline Albright, Common wealth and whoever can say all they will their governments are not about to impose sanctions on Nigeria (not while the oil is still flowing) and their businesses are not going to withdraw under Yar Adua (they bdid not under Abacha) so it is really up to Nigerians to fight to make their interests relevant to their political dispensation as they confront an undemocratic civilian government and equally non democratic opposition political parties whose only ideology is `its our turn to chop`

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya. He writes this article in his personal capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.

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

300th Edition of Pambazuka News

Charles Abugre

2007-04-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/40942

There is hardly anything like Pambazuka on Africa's development. It is my first point of call as a news sources and as a source for an alternative perspective. Whilst its articles have effectively reacted/contributed to the the development agenda set in the North, it is unique in pushing issues that matter to Africa even, and especially when, they are not at the centre of the Euro-American discourse about Africa or couched in the language of the dominant polemic. The resource pack is particularly valuable. I download and store them for reference. Nothing goes to waste. May I suggest that resources permitting, periods (say 2-4 times a year) be blocked for re-publishing selected articles (supplemented by a few new teasers) under thematic headings. This will allow resources to serve specific constituencies in a timeless way. Looking forward to your 300th annual birthday. I will be there, jaw-bones and all.

Charles Abugre

300th Edition of Pambazuka News

Jacques Depelchin

2007-04-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/40944

Dear comrades, Thank you very much to all of you from Firoze, whom I have met on a few occasions to all I have not met, but without whom the 300 mark might not have been reached, or might have been reached with greater pains and greater costs.

What could I say that you already do not know?

Pushing the enveloppe all the time, moving away from the pyramidal figure of the global society toward the sphere as suggested in Ayi Kwei Armah's KMT novel.

From now till 2011 there will be several 50th anniversaries. It is easy to be satisfied, but one should above all think, it seems to me, of the largest majorities and minorities on the Continent who have not benefitted anything, except for more suffering, more misery, more poverty from 50 years of so-called independent rule.

How does one combat a mindset which has treated our Continent and its people as ready made for any resources, physical and psychic, from human to natural, needed by the forces, internal and external, which have run our countries to where we are today.

In the face of the slogan :"globalize or else..." there is surely room for battling for something else. Why is it that we find it difficult to carry on from where, say, the resisters of the past (wherever they have given it all and all the way) had reached. Following in the footsteps of Haiti (1804) and Cuba (1959), is it not time to relink those who have been divided, split, tribalized, atomized ad infinitum?

Is it not time to think of Africa, its histories, its cultures beyond the geographical borders? Is it not time to move away from fission toward fusion? It is not difficult to talk about the (African) diaspora, but it is more difficult to connect with the diaspora of those who, like Africans (before and after slavery, colonial and post-colonial occupations), have resisted the imposition of the genocidal system on all sentient beings.

From the history of Africa, we have the unusual privilege of seeing things from, so to speak, the bottom. For lack of a better way of saying it, should we not, in the name of democratizing our history, share that privilege and not be afraid of saying what we see? For example, do we not see Hiroshima/Nagasaki as the modernization of Auschwitz? In evolutionary terms, the mindset (of discovery/oppression/exploitation/repression) which was born in 1492 has been confronted with resisters to it. Isn't there a link between the Palestinians, the Haitians, the Africans, the Native Americans, in short between all of the wretched of this world, who have been battling, generations after generations, against political and economic structures, leaders at the service of a genocidal system? A system which has now been scientifically described as on its way of making the inhabitants of the Planet globally homeless.

Ku-fahamisha. Sharing knowledge while producing and reproducing it. Yes, let people hear, in their own voices, for example, someone like Aristide, like So Ann, like Wamba dia Wamba converse on the Congolese who "were separated at birth". Get So Ann (from Haiti) to go and sing in South Africa and the Congo, along with Myriam Makeba.

Pambazuka News could explode, most peacefully indeed, the blinders which prevent us from seeing ourselves completely free from the shackling mindset. Of that I am confident Fahamu shall pambazuka us to a really different world.

300th Edition of Pambazuka News

Nnimmo Bassey

2007-04-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/40945

Pambazuka news is a reference point for those of us who need analytical presentation of news. It has become an indispensable tool for analysts and policy makers who want to know what the real issues are and what drives events and paves the way for a preferred future. One of the things that Makes Pambazuka stand out is the way issues are reported and treated holistically with all threads and linkages brought out to clarify situations. What surprises me is that the crew is able to put out reports of such depth and importance on a weekly basis.

The only thing I have not seen much of is a deliberate targeting of the younger audience. A section for youths as well as children will be a great addition

* Nnimmo Bassey is Director Environmental Rights Action (Nigeria)

300th Edition of Pambazuka News

Doreen Lwanga

2007-04-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/40946

Commemorating the 300th Issue of Pambazuka News I first came across Pambazuka News in/around 2003 when I was a graduate student in Boston, Massachusetts. After reading the first issue, I immediately subscribed and forwarded the web link to all students and scholars of Africa at my school. From time to time, I continue to forward specific articles to various people that I know are interested in listening to an African voice published in an African platform. I have never turned back since then.

Pambazuka News has given me a voice, a home, a reflection point and a reaffirmation that my thoughts and believes are not crazy but shared by many individuals in our world. The weekly articles give us a visual picture of “the African” activist through the style of communication that reflects expressions of reality rather than abstract or theoretical imagination of issues concerning civil society in Africa.

Occasionally, other social activists from outside Africa contribute to our discussions on international justice and its impact on Africa and other marginalized groups.

Indeed, Pambazuka News has established itself as an African mouthpiece for social justice for all of civil society. As we move toward the 301st issue, I ask Pambazuka News to help us begin a conversation with our national, sub-regional and regional political leaders. Civil society tends to monopolize concerns for social justice in Africa in Pambazuka News and the current publications in Pambazuka News tend to affirm this trend.

Most of the contributions are from people (myself without exemption) decrying or rebuking the government without an opportunity given to the government to respond in this forum. It cannot be true that there are no individuals within our national, sub-regional and African Union concerned about social justice in Africa. We in civil society do not hold a monopoly of concern for the welfare of Africa. We, therefore, need to make a concerted effort in working with our governments, providing them our ideas and accepting that them and us can richly contribute to shaping the growth and health of Africa and African Unity.

As my friend Chidi Odinkalu once said to me, “If Oxfam has an African Union Representative in Ethiopia, why not us, African organizations and civil society?” I fully agree that, rather than disengaging with our governments, this kind of engagement will help us achieve the transformations for Africa we expect from our leaders.

Politicians come from among civil society, some of whom have been activists before they are transformed into government officials. Let us, therefore, begin a conversation with our governments through Pambazuka News, and if possible, let Pambazuka News establish a regional desk in Ethiopia to capture proceedings as they unfold.

Thank you for the great service Pambazuka News and may you keep it up and strong!

300th Edition of Pambazuka News

Hakan Friman

2007-04-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/40947

Being a faithful reader, indeed since the very first issue, I must congratulate Pambazuka News and the dedicated team behind the newsletter to its incredibly successful work. Pambazuka News is still my major source of information concerning African affairs as it 'takes the temperature' of current issues. The broad coverage and sober, yet at times provocative, analysis make Pambazuka News a very rewarding read and I am truly looking forward to the next 300 issues.

All the best wishes
Hakan Friman
Sweden

300th Edition of Pambazuka News

Waltraut Trümper

2007-04-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/40948

CONGRATULATIONS --- Pambazuka is now a well established newsletter - always very informative and to the point - unbiased and it seems well researched. Keep up the excellent work. It is information worthwhile - seeing it covers the whole continent which is otherwise almost impossible. You - the editor and each and everyone contributing to the newsletter - can be proud of your achievements.
Kind regards

Waltraut Trümper - Namibia.

300th Edition of Pambazuka News

Cassiem Khan

2007-04-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/40949

Dear Firoze

We thank you as fellow Africans for bringing us perspectives, insights and courageous out of the box thinking on our continent.

Cassiem Khan
Country Director
Islamic Relief Worldwide - South Africa

300th Edition of Pambazuka News

Henning Melber

2007-04-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/40939

It seems like yesterday, that I discovered Pambazuka News. Since then, I've joined the family actively, met Patrick Burnett on several occasions in Cape Town (- actually: not only at Greenmarket Square but also in the coastal 'dorpies' Muizenberg and Fish Hoek, to be exact, since this makes a hell of a difference for a Kapie!), watched his family growing and himself developing further. Now he has matured to the extent that he is leaving the electronic periodical, to which he contributed so much, to pursue his own way further. - Have a good and safe journey, Patrick, and stay on track (I'm sure you will)… At the same time Pambazuka News presents its 300th issue, and again it seems like yesterday, that this weekly turned into a regular source of information, in the meantime even in an expanded version of two separate parts. Politically spot on analyses (though luckily not always 'politically correct'), stimulating and thought provoking debate articles and viewpoints and a wealth of further links to factual information and additional opinions - what asks one more, who has the African people and their struggle for dignity and survival against all odds at his/her heart? Pambazuka News has established itself as an authoritative source of information and remains at the same time an active and central part of a social movement, which mobilizes, reinforces and promotes commitments. It is an inspiration. To Firoze and his Fahamu team my best wishes for many more rewarding years with this project, which hopefully keep them as young and enthusiastic in their hearts and minds as they are!


Henning Melber, Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala

Assualt against women in Kano State, Nigeria

Saudatu Mahdi

2007-04-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/41053

On the Wednesday 25th April, 2007 a group of women numbering 300 plus were assaulted by members of the Police Force in Kano State, Tarauni Federal Constituency while staging a peaceful protest to express concern over the denial of the mandate they gave a female candidate (Saida Sa’ad) who contested the National Assembly elections on the platform of Action Congress (AC).

According to close associates the women comprising all ages and dispositions of women assembled at the Oando petroleum filling station in Tarauni off the Maiduguri highway from where they crossed over obstructed traffic. Just as they assembled a group of military men inquired on the mission of the women. Upon satisfactory explanations these military men volunteered to assist the women by offering protection and warding off youths and any unwanted intruders.

30 minutes into the protest, armed Police men arrived and started dispelling tear gas and shooting in the air hoping to disperse the procession. In the ensuing confusion and Saida attempted to get an explanation canisters of tear-gas were blown not too far from her position. Consequently, Saida who is asthmatic collapsed and was eventually rushed to hospital where she was placed on oxygen. She is still on admission. Other supporter numbering 6 were also adversely affected by the tear gas and rough handling by the Police.

The development was aired on the Hausa service of the BBC.

We will keep you posted on the subject

Breaking news (South Africa)

Khadija Heeger

2007-04-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/40996

When you seek to find a gliche in the system
When you feel al l the time that there’s something missing
When you turn around and the doors closed
and your belligerence shows
cause the politicians wearing emporer’s clothes

I’ve got news for you, you’re here too.

When we do the ‘they’
When we call it black or white or grey
When the headlines scream another dead child,
another oil slick,
another hard crime somebody else is doing the time
When you say your life depends on the other man’s outcome
oh there’s so much degradation
the government’s put us in this situation
It’s a black dream you scheme

I’ve got news for you, you’re here too.

When your sister’s raped and your brother’s drugged and the
streets aren’t clean and you look at it all and say, “We’re all headed for a hard fall.”
When you speak of lies
but don’t speak you truth
when can’t make it to the top
and it’s always somebody else’s fault that the ball’s dropped.

I’ve got news for you, you’re here too.

When your agitation is all you can spare
and your rhetoric’s got you all in a rage
when you can’t hold yourself when you fall
and you lay down love and pick up arms
and the silence cries
but your lips – still – don’t – move –
yet in your own living room you’re a prophet of doom

I’ve got news for you, you’re here too.

We tick the minutes spill the seconds
tick the minutes spill the seconds
talk judgement, economics and acid rain.

We tick the minutes spill the seconds
tick the minutes spill the seconds
talk memory, talk more pain.

We tick the minutes spill the seconds
talk of God
talk more, talk more
talk
more
we’re keeping score
and love a waiting at the door

When you move to Australia cause the countries a failure
when mending the situation calls for a band aid solution to put us in line with our constitution
when you can’t understand how ten years of democracy didn’t make it all fit
when you feel the urge to shout “Get over it!”
as if something outside yourself requires the shift
remember people we’re all in the same damn lift!
“Going up orrrrrr down!”

we tick the minutes spill the seconds
tick the minutes spill the seconds
time is a wasting while we’re cutting and pasting
and life is elsewhere
here or there?
outside’s a good place to count the cost
when you’re running that race from the inside
It’s better than dealing with the feeling of being lost,
displaced in your space…

I’ve got news for you
It doesn’t take an apocalypse to mend a century
It doesn’t take blame to alleviate pain
A simple step to the mirror is all it’ll take
A reflection on the reflection is the only thing that can free the present
from hate

Soooo put on your parachute, or strap on a seatbelt
the ride’s scary or sacred
could be heaven’s door or hell’s gate
all depends on your internal state
but unless you’re late, deceased or carried off in a crate
don’t berate the psychosis and add to the neurosis
simply take a look in the mirror at your own thriller
dispense with the polyfiller

I’ve got news for you
you’re here too.


Khadija-Tracey Heeger

Women in South African History : Book Review

Sokari Ekine

2007-04-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/40950

"Women in South African History by Nomboniso Gasa (Ed) published by HSRC Press, 2007.

Women in South African History traces the lives of South African women from the pre-colonial, pre-union period (mid 18th century) through to the post-apartheid beginnings and present day South Africa. It is written in four thematic parts: Women in the pre-colonial and pre-union periods; Women in early to mid-twentieth century South Africa; War: armed and mass struggle as gendered experiences; The 1990s and beyond: new identities, new victories, new struggles.

The book is a radical departure from the traditional history texts in that it uses a feminist analysis rather than the “more acceptable gender analysis” in it’s approach by examining “the ways in which gender intersects with race, culture, class and other forms of identity and location in South African history“. By including the present as part of history the book shows how the past and present are inextricably linked and thus better examines women’s experiences over the past 300 years. The experiences of women’s struggle and their continuing hazardous journeys towards liberation are expressed through the dual metaphors of “they move boulders” - challenges; and “they cross rivers” - dangers.

Women in South African History goes far beyond the many well known events and periods by feminizing those events and periods where women’s participation has never been acknowledged. In the chapter “Like three tongues in one mouth”: Tracing the elusive lives of slave women in (slavocratic) South Africa, Pumla Dineo Gqola, brings to life the slave women brought to South Africa from South East Asia, East Africa and Southern Africa. Despite the scarcity of historical and biographical narratives, Pumla is still able to document the lives of some slave women and more importantly the ways in which they resisted and revolted against their enslavement and their central role “to the historical constitution of Afrikaner society“. Other examples are women’s mass protests against carrying of passes in Bloemfontein and Potchefstroom in 1913; women’s involvement in the trade union movement during the 1930s; the participation of women in the ANC underground and military wing in the 1950s; township uprisings in the Eastern Cape in the 1970s and 1980s; naked women protests against lack of housing in Soweto in 1990; migrant women in Johannesburg and women learning to live with HIV/AIDS in present day South Africa.

The book concludes with a powerful essay by Yvette Abrahams in which she chronicles her experience of researching and writing on Sarah Bartman. Or rather searching for the REAL Sarah Bartman not the racialised sexualised object constructed by white male fantasies …

“a living specimen of barbaric savage races” one who according to Lindfors [Courting the Hottentot Venus] was willing to collaborate in her own degradation in order to earn more money… she allowed herself to be exhibited indecently to the European public, and she persisted in this tawdy occupation for more than five years….. She may have been the victim of the cruelist kind of predatory ruthlessness, but her collusion in her own victimisation was unmistakeable…."

he concludes

"To put it plainly, she may have engaged in prostitution as well as exhibitionism. Her degradation may have been complete.."

Abrahams tears these racist, sexist texts to pieces written not in the 1800s but in the 1980s. Men such as Lindfors were able to pass these lies off as academic text by so called intellectuals. Abrahams leads us through to the convincing conclusion that Sarah Bartman was a slave - a Khoekhoe slave woman. She does this by connecting her own personal herstory to that of the Khoekhoe. Born in the pre-colonial period of the 1780s, she must have had a Khoekhoe name and the only way she could have lost that name at that time was through slavery. Also the only way for her to move from her home in the Western Cape to England was as a slave. Sarah Bartman lied (that she willingly exhibited herself) because she was a slave and knew very well that her words would not be believed over that of a white man and the consequences of her telling the truth would have been too horrible to contemplate such as life imprisonment and even more degradation and abuse.

Abrahams again makes the absolute convincing statement without any hesitation or qualification that the “abuse and degradation” of Sarah Bartman was rape. Rape not only of Sarah but of the whole Khoekhoe nation. The white male racist, sexist texts she quotes in her essay are a form of “surrogate violence” against African women, Black women, Khoekhoe women and Sarah Bartman.

“Was it not rape of a symbolic sort to parade the degradation ad humiliation of auntie Sarah before me? Was it not a sexually violent act which expressed male power and my vulnerability to pain? Has not each male author I have brought before you been unable to resist the temptation of demonstrating their psychosexual power and auntie Sarah’s inability to resist?"

"In the place of false witness it is time to speak the truth. I name the posthumous abuse and degradation of auntie Sarah’s body, rape. The rape of her body is a rape of my mind."

As Abrahams writes, Sarah Bartman whose real name, real self was stolen like that of millions of other slaves and their descendants, is dead and therefore can no longer feel the pain. But she (Abrahams) feels it - I feel it and Black women throughout the world feel it. Every racist, sexist, misogynist text by whiteness against Black women is felt by me, by all of us. The symbolism of this sexual violence is explained by a more “refined and broader” definition of rape.

"…the element of sexual abuse are the violation of a person’s integrity by force and/or threat of physical violence, dishonouring the ethic of mutuality and care in relationships of domination, and an infraction of one’s psycho-spiritual-sexual integrity. Sexual abuse is sacrilege of God’s spirit in each of us [Eugene, TM “If you get there before I do: A womanist ethical response to sexual violence and abuse. In J Grant (ed) Perspectives on womanist theology”

In reviewing South African Women in History, I chose to focus on Yvette Abrahams essay because the story of Sarah Bartman speaks to the book as a whole and speaks to me personally. It is both the beginning - pre-colonial and the present, continued racism but always resistance. Sarah Bartman’s agency was expressed in her act of survival against all odds. For me Sarah Bartman, Khoekhoe woman represents the loss that came with slavery and colonialism as well as the struggle for liberation and emancipation.

Women in South African History is a “transdisciplinary” interrogation of events and periods in the history of South Africa from a feminist perspective. The narratives bring to life the daughters of Africa in their quest for emancipation, sometimes at great cost to themselves and their families, particularly their children. But always there is an unflinching determination - choices are laid bare and the choice is still emancipation.

Review of African Blogs

Sokari Ekine

2007-04-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/41017

Liquid Plastic Tanzanian blogger, Nasra Al Adawi who has been working with breast cancer survivors in Southern Africa posts an interview with “An Everyday Heroine” Rebecca Musi from Soweto, Johannesburg.

“When Rebecca was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of forty-nine, her mother became ill at the same time. “I never got a chance to tell her as I did not want to upset her”, said Rebecca. “This was just before I started my treatment, so I suspended treatment and looked after her.” Ironically her mother died four months later. She was ninety-five years old.

Today, Rebecca Musi is a breast cancer survivor, and she travels around the world supporting other breast cancer survivors. She works for Breast Health Foundation (BHF) in Johannesburg. She is also a participant in the Avon Foundation initiatives for cancer awareness. Avon has launched a campaign called the “Global Connection Ribbon Tour”. This tour links survivors from one country to another.”

Scribbles from a Den comments on the first round of the French elections in which right wing candidate, Nicholas Sarkozy is ahead with 31% of the vote. In the Cinq estates around Paris there was an incredible 80%+ turn out of voters against Sarkozy. Sarkozy is not good for the non-white population of France as Dubussi writes…

“Sarkozy's own pronouncements about minority groups are provocative to say the least. Any French president whose right-wing policies promise the perpetual maltreatment of a section of the population, should be rejected. He cannot be a president that unites the present deeply fragmented society.
Ségolène must win this decisive second ballot. She needs only appeal to the centrist voters of François Bayrou to give her about 43.57% over Sarkozy and his racist votes from the Nationalists of 41.75%. If she could manage to mop up the votes of the undecided voter, she will emerge the winner.

France needs a political ideology which favours social responsibility. There is a culture of contempt from the immigrant population due to the institutionalized discrimination that continuously keep them out of the concours of national issues. The only way individuals could become responsible would be by giving them the power to control their own lives, by a widespread socialist agenda. This means jobs and social integration. That is what their so-called NATIONAL IDENTITY IS, a gateway to economic revolution”

One good thing is that the far right party of Le Pen has been completely ignored but that could be partly because of the centre right choice of Sarkozy rather than a rejection of the far right itself knowing that Sarkozy has a far better chance of winning that Le Pen ever would.

Addax reports on the attack on Spanish patrol boats in the waters just off the coast of Mauritania by prospective immigrants to spain.
“African would-be immigrants travelling to Spain by boat attacked a Spanish police vessel with petrol bombs, preventing the officers on board from detaining them, the daily El Pais reported Tuesday.

"The boat was taking 57 migrants from Mauritania in West Africa to the Canary Islands, when a Spanish patrol boat based in Mauritania attempted to intercept it.The immigrants hurled petrol bombs and other objects at the vessel and tried to puncture a rubber dinghy which was sent to accost it.”

Some months ago the Senegalese government agreed to allow the Spanish navy coastal guard to patrol Senegalese waters in the hope of stemming the flow of immigrants to Spain and Europe but clearly the boats are still managing to get through and people are finding different routes by sea and by land to reach Europe such is the desperation for a better life and the ability to support families back home.

Thoughts from Southern Nigeria reports from Southern Nigeria on last weekends Nigerian elections.

“For this reporter and other journalists who went round the state on the Election Day, it was war that was fought on that day and not an election. The trip was without hitches from the INEC office in Warri South local government, where people thronged the office as early as 8.30 am, creating an atmosphere of insecurity for officials of the Commission. Between 9.00 am and 9.30 am, voting materials had not left the office but some people alleged that the ballot papers had been thumb-printed the night before. It was difficult to confirm the allegation but the same chaotic situation prevailed as we passed through Effurun, Enerhen and Ovwian-Aladja areas. According to reports, voting materials came later in the day but while some voted, others could not. ..At the Uvwie local government secretariat, some people were already spitting fire, threatening to go on rampage, as at 10.00 am, saying that there was no voting, but as it was later learnt, the INEC encountered some logistic problems earlier in the day, and so materials could not be distributed as scheduled in some areas. However, as far as the groups of protesters, mainly DPP members were concerned, there was no logistic problem; it was a calculated design by the PDP and their collaborators in INEC. There were pockets of demonstrations and bonfires everywhere, forcing the state government to slam a curfew on the local government.......The situation was not different same at Otu-Jeremi in Ughelli South local government, where a presiding officer told Sunday Vanguard that the voting materials were hijacked earlier in the day by thugs but another source said the INEC officials were working out the distribution arrangement in the office and that voting would commence after the distribution.”

In many parts of the Niger Delta especially in Bayelsa and Rivers State, voting did not take place at all. Polling booths were closed and even the few that did open had a very low turn out of voters.

Ethiopundit explains how “How Meles, Museveni, the Donors Group, the IMF, the World Bank, and even North Korea, all got together to create The Greater East Africa Co-Prosperity Sphere”

“In a dictatorship, however, getting along with the natives means getting along with the government, however nasty and brutish it may be. Getting along with the government in the guise of the people then takes on a life of its own and become is own justification. We are not talking about appreciating foreign cultures here or respecting other ways of life.

What we are talking about is convincing oneself to appreciate foreign dictatorships and to respect the ways of dictators because without some measure of approval by the regime there is always the threat of expulsion, rejection of projects or paperwork and bad reviews from one’s superiors back in Washington or Brussels or any media HQ etc. Occasionally when it happens, rebellious ferenjis can feel justifiably brave and good but ultimately for national or international or N.G.O. bureaucrats or reporters it is not a realistic agenda to follow.

Not getting along with the native thugs is career suicide and even institutional suicide because whoever is paying for it all wants something or the appearance of something in exchange for all those dollars, euros and yen. Part of that approval has to come from the native thugs who might not get with the program if their own despotic interests are threatened - no matter what harm comes to the people themselves.”

Moroccan literary blogger, Laila Lalami comments on the racialisation and Islamisation of the Virginia Tech massacre.

“The focus on the murderer's background was not restricted to his nationality; there was also the religious angle. The New York Post quickly speculated that the words "Ismail Ax," which were scrawled on the gunman's arm, were a reference to the Qur'anic account of Abraham's sacrifice of Ismail, or possibly also to Abraham's destruction of pagan idols, also in the Qur'anic tradition. The fact that the document sent by Cho to NBC contained such bizarre claims as "Thanks to you I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people" did not seem to merit the kind of religious exegesis that the New York Post was so keen on doing earlier in the week. People look for intrinsic reasons for Cho's acts, when the simpler explanation--to the extent that such a horrendous act can ever be explained--is that Cho was a mentally ill young man, who should never have had access to guns.”

Whilst I agree with Laila on the racialisation of the act, I do believe it is too easy to dismiss the murders as simply an act of a “mentally ill young man”. Surely there must have been something that drove this young man to madness? Could it have been racism? Bullying? Exclusion that his classmates because he was “un-cool”, different? It is important to ask these questions and find answers rather than simply say he was a coward and mad.

Gukira Recently returned Kenyan blogger Keguro echoes my thoughts albeit far more eloquently..

“What if we were to understand the social as a site of perpetual wounding? Not to say that the “strange” kid in class does not know how to socialize, but to examine how the very ways we socialize may always contain a kernel of violence. A long time ago, a professor opened class by saying, “we are all middle class here.” Ostensibly a gesture of inclusion, it inevitably produced failure and fracture.”

And quoting Charles Chesnutt …

“While social and racial integration offer the preeminent American social myths, assimilation remains one of the deepest sources of anxiety in the American psyche. That is, while integration promises a socionational dream, assimilation as its cultural corollary catches all the material and immaterial anxieties inadmissible to that promise. Today, Asian Americans present one of the most charged contemporary focuses for the mainstream culture’s idealization and fear of assimilation”

* Sokari Ekine is editor of Pambazuka News and author of Black Looks blog

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org

Firestone in Liberia

Kofi Woods and Ezekiel Pajibo

2007-04-26

http://www.pambazuka.org/en/broadcasts/podcasts.php

Ezekiel Pajibo and Kofi Woods speak to Robtel Pailey from Pambazuka News about the role of Firestone Rubber Company in Liberia.

Firestone has operated in Liberia since the 1920s and been accused of using forced labour, polluting water sources and tax evasion by activists. The new administration in Liberia is currently embroiled in a difficult process of renegotiating the contract with Firestone.

In this podcast, Liberian Minister of Labour Kofi Woods and activist Ezekiel Pajibo explore the role of Firestone in Liberia and what is being done to redress the asymmetrical relationship between the company and the people. You can find out more about the struggle against Firestone by going to the Stop Firestone Campaign website at www.stopfirestone.org

See also the Pambazuka News article 'Slavery ain’t dead, it’s manufactured in Liberia’s rubber' by Robtel Neajai Pailey.

Africa: China in Africa:

Clarence Ellis

2007-04-24

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/40977

The Chinese are at present in the driver's seat. They are steering to Beijing. Africa has to take charge of the steering wheel and steer internally to Nairobi and Dar-es-Salam and Lagos and Accra and Johannesburg. Then they will allow the steering to Beijing when African needs are met. That is what China did to America. At present Chinese imports are destroying African manufactures. Africa should not be afraid to impose tariffs on those imports. WTO rules allow tariffs in those circumstances.
The report reflecting the discussions at the World Social Forum is an extremely serious one. I have seen in Africa the less than serious attention that Africans gave to their own problems and the eagerness with which the Chinese have taken to the tasks that the Africans have been indifferent about. No country , and one should emphasize the "no", has developed if ,as Chinweizu says, it does not have a theory to inspire its development.

A country must know what it wants in respect of development. It must then approach development agents to fill gaps in its own resources and capabilities. If there is not that clear plan, IT WILL BE RAPED. There are no development angels who will not exploit you to their heart's content if you are not alert. China is not an angel. It will be less exploitative than Exxon or BP because it is coming from a developing country experience and because China wants allies in the struggle against America. But the Chinese will rape Africa if Africa goes to sleep on its development goals.

Africa needs to come together at the AU and begin to think in terms of a development plan for a United Africa. There are more mineral resources in Africa than in any other continent. Africa has more hydro-power potential than perhaps any other continent. Africa has abundant oil and coal resources. Energy should therefore be cheap. Combined with its mineral resources, manufacturing should be pursued. There is , of course, tremendous potential in agriculture but it needs to harness its water resources to halt the drift of the desert. But I stop there because the Africans have to draw up their plans themselves.

Africans have to stop feeling inferior to other people. Their traditional governance systems have been destroyed by Europeans. Their links to the greatest civilisation of all times in Egypt have been challenged with the concept that the Egyptians were not Negro. The relics of the heroic deeds of the Kushite warrior champions are in great measure buried by Nasser when he drowned them in the Aswan Dam. Arabs and Europeans have been cruel to Africans. And yet, Islam is perhaps the fastest growing religion in Africa. Benin has recently returned to its voodoo tradition. That regeneration should be spread throughout Africa in respect of indigenous religions. As Eusi Kwayana said to me, the beliefs are there. Strengthening them will return confidence to the Africans . Not a single Muslim state has denounced Sudan in respect of Darfur. Mubarak is opposed to a United Nations force in Darfur. Chinweizu and Kwesi Prah Prah and others of their persuasion should be given every opportunity to propagate theories of African development that will challenge the corruption of the bulk of African leaders. The theories should be spread to the African universities and institutes and be used to inspire the development options and to put in place the mechanisms for technology transfers. The Latin Americans are pursuing their grand design pushed by Chavez. A similar visionary approach should come out of South Africa and Nigeria and Namibia and Botswana. Why do all the diamonds have to be cut in Europe when the Indians have expert diamond cutters that can impart those skills to Africans?

It is in this kind of context that we should address China's presence in Africa. The Chinese are at present in the driver's seat. They are steering to Beijing. Africa has to take charge of the steering wheel and steer internally to Nairobi and Dar-es-Salam and Lagos and Accra and Johannesburg. Then they will allow the steering to Beijing when African needs are met. That is what China did to America. At present Chinese imports are destroying African manufactures. Africa should not be afraid to impose tariffs on those imports. WTO rules allow tariffs in those circumstances.

We are all Africans. That is one thing of which we are certain. It is not too late to get hold of the steering wheel now under the control of China.

Africa: China reiterates committment to Africa

2007-04-26

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=305925

China said on Thursday it remained fully committed to investing in Africa, despite a recent spate of violence against Chinese interests there, including the deaths of nine Chinese among the slaughter of 77 people in Ethiopia. "China supports trans-national trade and investment between China and other countries, including those in Africa. This is our set policy, it will not change," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Liu Jianchao told reporters.

Ethiopia: China feels rising cost of interest in Africa

2007-04-25

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/world.aspx?ID=BD4A446766

A deadly attack by rebels on a Chinese-run oil field in Ethiopia that left more than 70 dead is the latest example of the human and political cost of China’s growing energy interests in Africa. Tuesday’s attack by rebel gunmen on the facility left 65 Ethiopians dead as well as nine workers from China, making it the deadliest in a recent spate of killings and kidnappings aimed at Chinese firms in Africa.

Zimbabwe: China is Zimbabwe's number one fan

2007-04-25

http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=&fArticleId=3796340

China is now the biggest investor in Zimbabwe with at least 35 companies operating in the southern African country and more investors eyeing opportunities there, according to a top ruling party official.

A Fine Idea, Let’s Prioritise Peace, Women’s Rights And Health!

Interview with Roselynn Musa, African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET)

2007-04-25

http://www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/index.php/AUMONITOR/comments/peoples_voices_interview2/

Roselynn Musa is Nigerian based in Kenya working with African Women’s Development and Communications Network, FEMNET. In March, Saloman Kebede interviewed her on the upcoming “Grand Debate on the Union Government” to be held at the June 2007 summit of the African Union. This interview is part of a series of interviews, to be published in AU-Monitor, of African citizens and civil society leaders on the AU proposal for Continental Government. Emily Mghanga of Oxfam’s Pan Africa Programme edited this interview.

Saloman Kebede: Why is continental integration important to African Citizens?

Roselynn Musa: In unity lies strength! Continental Union will allow greater coordination and mobilization of our resources, which is fundamental for growth and development in Africa. It also gives better opportunities for economy of scale.

Saloman Kebede: Should it be adopted in Accra in July 2007, what would you like to see the African Union Commission achieve within the first phase (2007-2009)?

Roselynn Musa: The most pressing needs in Africa are the issues of peace and security as well as HIV/AIDS and malaria. Women and children are the most affected. It is crucial that they focus on the economic empowerment of women as a way of addressing most of our societal ills. Let the AU commission set priorities in these areas.

Saloman Kebede: How could states and non-states ensure that continental union efforts are transparent, participatory and driven by an appreciation of political and economic rights?

Roselynn Musa: The AU-NEPAD peer review mechanism is an important tool for transparency if implemented as planned. We need to put our own house in order so as to be able to hold others accountable. We should practice what we preach.

Saloman Kebede: What obstacle must the AU overcome for the continental union to be successful?

Roselynn Musa: Conflict and human insecurity. If there is no peace, it is difficult to unite either individually or continentally. A positive way to start could be to address those issues that have been generating conflict in our continent.

Development and Communications Network, FEMNET. In March, Saloman Kebede interviewed her on the upcoming “Grand Debate on the Union Government” to be held at the June 2007 summit of the African Union. This interview is part of a series of interviews, to be published in AU-Monitor, of African citizens and civil society leaders on the AU proposal for Continental Government. Emily Mghanga of Oxfam’s Pan Africa Programme edited this interview.

Saloman Kebede: Why is continental integration important to African Citizens?

Roselynn Musa: In unity lies strength! Continental Union will allow greater coordination and mobilization of our resources, which is fundamental for growth and development in Africa. It also gives better opportunities for economy of scale.

Saloman Kebede: Should it be adopted in Accra in July 2007, what would you like to see the African Union Commission achieve within the first phase (2007-2009)?

Roselynn Musa: The most pressing needs in Africa are the issues of peace and security as well as HIV/AIDS and malaria. Women and children are the most affected. It is crucial that they focus on the economic empowerment of women as a way of addressing most of our societal ills. Let the AU commission set priorities in these areas.

Saloman Kebede: How could states and non-states ensure that continental union efforts are transparent, participatory and driven by an appreciation of political and economic rights?

Roselynn Musa: The AU-NEPAD peer review mechanism is an important tool for transparency if implemented as planned. We need to put our own house in order so as to be able to hold others accountable. We should practice what we preach.

Saloman Kebede: In what policy area, would you like to see greater convergence and unity across Africa and why?

Roselynn Musa: Peace and security, but also health and women’s economic empowerment.

The views expressed here are the perspectives of the interviewee. Roselynn Musa can be reached at: advocacy at femnet.or.ke or musarose_ng at yahoo.com

Civil Society Organisations Welcome the Adoption of the African Health Strategy

Eve Odete

2007-04-25

http://www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/index.php/AUMONITOR/comments/cso_welcome_african_health_strategy/

Fifteen national, continental and international civil society organisations hailed the AU Conference of African Health Ministers meeting in Johannesburg South Africa for adopting the Africa Health Strategy: 2007-2015 (AFRICA_HEALTH_STRATEGY_FINAL.pdf). Meeting on the margins of the Conference, the CSO groups commended the ministers for their commitment to a vision of a “prosperous Africa free of its heavy burden of disease, disability and premature death” and to the goal of ensuring “access to essential health care for all Africans, especially the poorest and most marginalized”. They welcomed the recognition of health as a human right, and the need to advance women’s rights and equality, as women not only bear the greatest disease burden but are also primary care givers. The organisations welcomed the recognition that civil society organisations have been given in continental debates and as key players in delivery of health at all levels. ‘We look forward to actions that will turn these fine statements into reality’, they said.

In an unprecedented move, the commissioner for Social Affairs of the African Union, Adv. Bience Gawanas announced in plenary that the AU commission had received a petition from 1000 strong civil society march on the precincts of the conference led by the Treatment for Action Campaign (TAC) and addressed by partners from Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique. The petition called on African governments to move fast to implement the Abuja Declaration on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria. Commissioner Gawanas urged the ministers to take into consideration the civil society concerns on the implementation.

In their closing statement on the Conference, the organisations however expressed their regret that the Strategy was silent on the urgent need for rolling out Anti-Retroviral Therapies (ARTs) to all who need them. It is estimated that less than 4% of Africans who need ARTs receive them and most of these are due to the effort of donors rather than governments. An African health strategy, they said, must include at least the:
• Urgent roll out of ARTs to all who need them;
• Right of survivors of sexual violence to Post Exposure Prophylaxis (This was proposed by the Minister of Health from Burundi for inclusion in the strategy document, but it is not clear if this will be in the final text); and
• Right of all pregnant women who are HIV positive to prevention of Mother To Child Transmission (PMTCT) therapies (PMTCT is mentioned in the strategy as part of the instruments needed, but not confirmed as a right).

The organisations committed to cooperate with African governments and the African Union to ensure the realization of the right of health for all Africans.

For the final CSO communique please visit www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/index.php/AUMONITOR/comments/cso_welcome_african_health_strategy/

The fifteen civil society organisations are: AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA), AIDS Law Project (ALP), Mozambican Treatment Access Movement (MATRAM), International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW), network of Zimbabwean Positive Women (NZPW), Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), Southern Africa Treatment Access Movement (SATAMO), Swaziland Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (SWANEPWA), Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), Treatment Advocacy and Literacy Campaign (TALC), Zimbabwe Activists against HIV/AIDS ( ZAHA), and Zimbabwe National Network of People living with HIV/AIDS (ZNNP)

Continental Union Is Viable, But Only With Commitment And Practice

Interview with Pastor Peter Omoragbon, Executive Director of Nurses Across The Borders

2007-04-25

http://www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/index.php/AUMONITOR/comments/peoples_voices_interview4/

Pastor Peter Omoragbon is a Nigerian working on disaster management and ICT. Saloman Kebede interviewed him on the upcoming “Grand Debate on the Union Government” to be held at the June 2007 summit of the African Union. The interview is part of a series of interviews, to be published in AU-Monitor, of African citizens and civil society leaders on the AU proposal for Continental Government. The interviews were conducted by the Pan Africa Programme of Oxfam in the corridors of a civil society meeting organized by UN-CONGO and FEMNET in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in the week of the 13th March 2007. Emily Mghanga of Oxfam’s Pan Africa Programme edited this interview.

Saloman Kebede: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the current proposal?

Pastor Peter Omoragbon: It is a workable proposal. A United States of Africa will mean Africa standing together with one voice, strength and unity. However, let us not have the United States of Africa in name only but in practice as well.

Saloman Kebede: Should it be adopted in Accra in July 2007, what would you like to see the African Union Commission achieve within the first phase (2007-2009)?

Pastor Peter Omoragbon: I would like to see all the structures and regulations set up and all heads of states fully committed to this process.

Saloman Kebede: And why would this form of continental union be important to African citizens, particularly the poor and marginalized?

Pastor Peter Omoragbon: It is an attempt to bring us together despite the existence of diverse backgrounds across the continent. There will be greater unity when we capitalize on what unites us other than our differences. It will allow us to eliminate the mind-set that other countries are better or lesser than others. All African countries will stand with one voice!

Saloman Kebede: How could states and non-states ensure that continental union efforts are transparent, participatory and driven by an appreciation of political and economic rights?

Pastor Peter Omoragbon: That is the work of the civil society. We need to monitor and keep the governments accountable to this and other commitments.

Saloman Kebede: What obstacles must the AU overcome for the continental union to be successful?

Pastor Peter Omoragbon: There is the need to put an end to internal conflicts within member-states. We also need to overcome bad policies that do not make decisions in the interests of marginalized people in every African country.

The views expressed here are the perspectives of the interviewee. Pastor Peter Omoragbon can be reached at Email: nursesacrosstheborders at yahoo.com

Give Room for Civil Society Participation Before Adoption

Interview with Sanusi Ibraheem, The Intellectual Group, Nigeria

2007-04-25

http://www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor/index.php/AUMONITOR/comments/peoples_voices_interview3/

Sanusi Ibraheem is the Ag. Executive Director, The Intellectual Group based in Ogbomoso, Nigeria and working on issues around youth development. Saloman Kebede interviewed him on the upcoming “Grand Debate on the Union Government” to be held at the June 2007 summit of the African Union. The interview is part of a series of interviews, to be published in AU-Monitor, of African citizens and civil society leaders on the AU proposal for Continental Government. The interviews were conducted by the Pan Africa Programme of Oxfam in the corridors of a civil society meeting organized by UN-CONGO and FEMNET in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in the week of the 13th March 2007. Emily Mghanga of Oxfam’s Pan Africa Programme edited this interview.

Saloman Kebede: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the current proposal?

Sanusi Ibraheem: The strength of the proposal is the fact that Africans will for the first time be uniting, very similar to the European Union. There will be free movement across the continent. Weakness- I hope we will not have weak institutional structures right from the start. That may give room for some lapses, which at the end of the day become too cumbersome. For instance we may be discussing things on the ground that we cannot accommodate.

Saloman Kebede: Should it be adopted in Accra in July 2007, what would you like to see the African Union Commission achieve within the first phase (2007-2009)?

Sanusi Ibraheem: Give room for Civil Society participation in the process before the final adoption. If the reason the government is uniting structures is for the unity of the people of Africa, then the civil society most especially young people should be involved in the process. I hope that the first phase will be able to achieve the resolution of various crises in Africa especially, Sudan, Somalia/Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Congo etc. If we are able to solve these crises, we will have taken the first and most important steps to economic emancipation.

Saloman Kebede: And why would this form of continental union be important to African citizens, particularly the poor and marginalized?

Sanusi Ibraheem: When we adopt freedom of movement, for instance, we benefit from free information exchange and best practices that could be learnt more easily and replicated in various other individual state. This will help us understand that, we are one and not northern African, western African, central African or southern African. The peer review mechanism is a good system to improve on a government weakness. A Continental Union will bring coherency and stability in our countries which is good for our economies and will consequently increase export, and impart more on local production and increase foreign exchange flows into Africa and ultimately will contribute to reducing the number of poor people living in Africa.

Saloman Kebede: How could states and non-states ensure that continental union efforts are transparent, participatory and driven by an appreciation of political and economic rights?

Sanusi Ibraheem: Civil society organizations should be involved and consultations carried out widely across all segments of society. Each State should be encouraged to carry out sensitization workshops on the Union Government Proposal and ensure that all segments of the society buys into it. This will bring a sense of ownership to all Africans and will see that it’s a collective responsibility. While involving all segments of the society in the process encourages the “buy in” needed to drive the process, it will also offer checks and balances on the other hand.

Saloman Kebede: What obstacles must the AU overcome for the continental union to be successful?

Sanusi Ibraheem: Let us do away with the afro-pessimistic attitude in our midst. Many of us strongly doubt the possibility of such a structure working out. Secondly, the intra-region crises should be curtailed if the process must succeed. With the right attitude and a safe environment to operate, there is no limit to Africa’s progress.

Saloman Kebede: In what policy area, would you like to see greater convergence and unity across Africa and why?

Sanusi Ibraheem: The economy. The strength of the economy is vital in the provision of basic needs to our people. We also need to change the political face, particularly in leadership and policy making.

The views expressed here are the perspectives of the interviewee. Sanusi Ibraheem can be reached at Email: Ibghandi2001 at gmail.com

Algeria: Activists bemoan slow integration of women into workforce

2007-04-25

http://tinyurl.com/3x9jve

Political activists gathered in Algiers to discuss women in the workplace, to identify the issues they face and develop responses and solutions to improve their status and overall integration into the nation's workforce.

Burkina Faso: Text message saves girl from forced marriage

2007-04-26

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71759

Kadidiatou Korsaga, director of Burkina Faso’s department for girls’ education promotion, despairs when asked about the recent case of a 15-year-old girl kidnapped from her school classroom and dragged off for an arranged marriage with an older man.

Kenya: Seminar series on gender, governance and human rights held in Kenya

2007-04-26

http://www.unifem.org/news_events/story_detail.php?StoryID=589

"A government without true representation of women is incomplete, undemocratic and unaccountable," stressed Dr. Jacinta Muteshi, Chair of the Kenyan National Commission on Gender and Development. She was speaking at the High-Level Seminar on Gender and Transformational Leadership in Politics: Re-Positioning Women's Agenda for Effective Participation in Elective Politics in 2007, held on 20 April 2007 in Nairobi.

Rwanda: training for police on gender-based violence

2007-04-26

http://www.unifem.org/gender_issues/voices_from_the_field/story.php?StoryID=588

"GBV Offices" reads a small sign on a door of the Rwandan National Police Headquarters. These three letters hold great significance, designating the Gender Based Violence Desk Office, where police personnel are specifically trained to address sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).

Swaziland: AIDS activists call for death penalty for HIV infection by rape

2007-04-26

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71762

A rising incidence of rape in Swaziland, coupled with the world's highest level of HIV-infection, is fuelling a national debate on what punishment should be meted out to rapists, especially if the victims of sex crimes become infected with the disease. "Giving a little girl HIV is like giving her a death sentence," Nonhlanhla Dlamini, director of the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA), told IRIN.

Burkina Faso: Burkinabe reggae king's life under threat

2007-04-25

http://www.afrol.com/articles/25209

Right activists in Burkina Faso have been raising concerns over the safety of the West African country’s young talented reggae king, Sam Samsk le Jah, who receives anonymous death threats. The revolutionary singer who anchors a music programme on Radio Ouaga FM is warned to either “stop your silly things on the radio or risk being killed.”

Central Africa: Indigenous communities fight discrimination

2007-04-26

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71750

From the day he started school, François Ababehu-Utauta's short stature made him a laughing stock among other children, but still he persevered with his studies. Ababehu-Utauta is a member of the Mbuti community, sometimes known as pygmies, who live in the tropical rainforests of central Africa. He originally came from Oriental province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Guinea: Report says free rein to security forces fuels violence

2007-04-25

http://hrw.org/reports/2007/guinea0407/guinea0407web.pdf

In responding to nationwide demonstrations, Guinean security forces murdered, assaulted, and robbed the citizens they are entrusted to protect, Human Rights Watch has said in a new report. The new government must take concrete measures to hold those responsible to account.

Zimbabwe: Activists denied bail

2007-04-26

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=16497

Four MDC activists facing charges of allegedly petrol-bombing several targets in the country have been denied bail by a Harare magistrate. Bertha Chikururama, Friday Mleya, Raymond Baki and Washaya have been in police custody for the last four weeks. MDC MP for Budiriro, Emmanuel Chisvuure, said the four were denied bail when they appeared before a Harare magistrate on Monday.

Zimbabwe: WOZA protestors and babies arrested

2007-04-26

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=16489

There were warning shots and arrests in Harare’s Kuwadzana high-density area when riot police used force to disperse a WOZA protest on Monday. About 60 people from the Women of Zimbabwe Arise and Men of Zimbabwe Arise were arrested as the pressure group continued with demonstrations demanding ‘power to the people’ at the offices of the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa). WOZA said 36 women, 20 men and 10 babies were arrested.

DRC: Civilians fleeing fighting in east forced into makeshift camps

2007-04-26

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71795

Civilians fleeing fighting between Congolese government troops and rebel militias in North Kivu Province have been forced to shelter in makeshift camps 100km from Goma town, aid workers said.Thousands of others are living in the bush, hiding during the day and going to their fields at night.

Global: First global consultation on HIV and IDPs starts in Geneva

2007-04-25

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/462e20dd4.html

The first global consultation on HIV and internally displaced people started Tuesday in Geneva bringing together some 45 experts from governments, United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations and the academic world, to discuss ways of addressing the effects of HIV on internally displaced populations.

Somalia: Thousands of desperate Somalis fleeing Mogadishu

2007-04-25

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/462cd71d2.html

UNHCR and its partners on Monday resumed distribution of urgent aid supplies to thousands of Somalis fleeing a sixth day of heavy fighting in Mogadishu. Describing a scene of growing chaos, a UNHCR staff member in Afgooye, 30 kms west of Mogadishu, said a road linking the two areas had reopened on Monday morning and was filled with a continuous flow of displaced people.

West Africa: 91 Illegal African migrants off to Senegal

2007-04-25

http://www.afrol.com/articles/25224

Senegalese authorities had agreed to allow a Spanish hospital ship, Esperanza del Mar, which has 91 illegal African migrants on borad, to disembark in the port of the capital Dakar on Thursday. Mauritanian authorities had earlier refused the Spanish request to allow the ship to disembark in their country on humanitarian grounds, arguing that the rescue mission took place within the maritime area of Senegal.

Zimbabwe: Neighbours remain mute amid flood of refugees

2007-04-25

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=37447

The rattling sound of galvanized tins has become characteristic of Patience's* daily routine which starts at 4 am every day. Patience (43), a single mother, is one of the many who rush in the early morning to the Zimbabwean capital's Mbare Musika market to buy fruit and vegetables to hawk.

DRC: Bemba party ends boycott of parliament

2007-04-26

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN623437.html

Congo's largest opposition party allied to ex-warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba said on Wednesday its deputies were returning to parliament after walking out this month to demand government guarantees for their safety. Bemba, the defeated contender in last year's elections won by President Joseph Kabila, left Democratic Republic of Congo on April 11 for medical treatment in Portugal following the rout of his militiamen by government troops in fighting in Kinshasa.

Mali: Presidential election that breaks with tradition

2007-04-25

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=37475

When Malians queue to cast ballots in presidential elections Sunday, they will be participating in a poll with a difference: for the first time ever, a woman will be amongst the candidates.

Nigeria: opposition in poll protest

2007-04-25

http://tinyurl.com/3xj24g

Al-Jazeera reports that Nigeria's political opposition is preparing for mass protests against flawed elections that gave the ruling party a landslide win.Rights groups called the vote that saw Umaru Yar'Adua of the People's Democratic party (PDP) declared president-elect a "charade", asking for the result to be cancelled and new elections to be held.

Nigeria: Ruling party candidate wins contorversial poll

2007-04-26

http://www.afrol.com/articles/25181

The Nigerian electoral commission has declared the candidate of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Umaru Yar’Adua, as the winner of the weekend’s controversial Presidential polls. The 56-year-old Governor of northern sate of Katsina, polled 70 percent of the votes. The former Nigerian military ruler, Muhammadu Buhari, and the Vice President Atiku Abubakar ranked second and third respectively.

Africa does not need more Western philanthropy

Mukoma Wa Ngugi

2007-04-24

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=12641

In the last few months we have seen Bush and Blair bragging about how much they have helped Africa, but a closer analysis reveals that for every dollar Africa receives in Aid, the West gets two dollars back through unequal trade. We have also seen an increase in save the African child foundations and celebrate adoption of African orphans etc. On the other hand, we have become so dependent that practically all African governments as part of the national budget include anticipated foreign aid.

Africa: Working poor to increase by 20 percent - ILO

2007-04-26

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71775

The number of people working in extreme poverty in Africa would increase by 20 percent by 2015, Juan Somavia, Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO), said at the opening of the 11th regional meeting in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. "Most of the work in Africa is of a near-subsistence nature, with more than eight out of 10 workers in the informal economy [operating] with low pay, low productivity and low protection," said Somavia.

Kenya: Farmers ask Germany to intervene in EPAs

2007-04-25

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37451

Fears are high among Kenyan farmers that a new trade regime following a forthcoming deal between developing countries and the European Union (EU) may drive them deeper into poverty. The deal, expected to kick in at the beginning of next year, is one of six economic partnership agreements (EPAs) between the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

South Africa: Biofuels vs food crops?

2007-04-25

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37448

While South Africa is planning on increasing bio-fuels production some experts warn the move may hurt subsistence farmers and cause more hunger in impoverished areas of the country. Proponents in the United States and Brazil say bio-fuels such as maize-based ethanol is a clean energy alternative that comes from resources that are renewable.

South Africa: South Africa lures foreign experts

2007-04-25

http://www.afrol.com/articles/25225

South Africa has designed a package to lure 35,000 foreign skilled professionals in the coming year to fill the vacuum of skill labour in the country. South African Home Affairs Minister, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, has disclosed that there are 34,825 quota work permits available in 53 occupations where career professionals are needed.

Tanzania: MDGs a ''bright idea'' or scam of the rich?

2007-04-25

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37446

While the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a "bright idea", the "hidden agenda" of western countries makes it impossible for African states like Tanzania to achieve the goals, expounds actor Rashid Mkwinda. He is one of the people whose thoughts IPS canvassed in the streets of Dar es Salaam in a series of random interviews about the MDGs.

Africa: Microfinance tackles AIDS head on

2007-04-25

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=37456

With two-thirds of the world's HIV/AIDS victims living in sub-Saharan Africa, sickness and death is too often a part of doing business in the region. But now micro-finance institutions have found ways to reduce financial risk while attacking new infections.

Africa: HIV puts Malaria back in spotlight

2007-04-26

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71802

Malaria is reclaiming the world's attention after years of playing second fiddle to HIV. Experts are now convinced that the disease plays a greater role in the AIDS pandemic than was previously thought. "The disease has for too long been considered a separate health concern to HIV... it is high time that malaria was shown the same global dedication as HIV/AIDS," Malama Muleba, executive director of the Zambia Malaria Foundation (ZMF), told IRIN/PlusNews.

East Africa: Region unveils tougher measures to fight malaria

2007-04-26

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71804

East African countries on Wednesday marked Africa Malaria Day by announcing a review of control strategies, ranging from the use of more effective drugs to indoor spraying with DDT. In Tanzania, the government launched an anti-malaria combination drug, artemether-lumefantrine, at a ceremony in Bukoba in the country's northwestern region of Kagera.

Global: Medicine and public health in "dark times"

2007-04-25

http://tinyurl.com/239h58

The ethical practice of medical and public-health professionals is increasingly tested by situations of war and conflict. The result – from Rwanda to Abu Ghraib to Libya – can be the violation of medical neutrality. OpenDemocracy's Michel Thieren considers what can be done to uphold professional and humane standards in "dark times".

Mali: Truth hurts for children living with HIV/AIDS

2007-04-26

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71785

For almost 13 years Maimouna only knew that her parents died of a “blood disease” when she was young. But three months ago she learned that disease was HIV/AIDS - and she is infected too. “I can’t tell my friends. Only my grandmother knows,” the tall, thin girl said after one of her regular check-ups at the Gabriel Toure Hospital in the Malian capital, Bamako.

Uganda: Difficult access to treatment for AIDS patients

2007-04-25

http://www.afrol.com/articles/25207

A new comprehensive report by the the International Organization for Migration (IOM)has established that carriers of HIV/AIDS in Uganda’s northern war zone are facing significant difficulties in accessing assistance such as counselling, treatment and support.

Uganda: Safe sex messages missing HIV-positive youth

2007-04-26

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71782

HIV-positive youth in Uganda are not receiving the support and education they need to avoid risky sexual behaviours that could lead to the infection of others, a new study has found. The adolescent sexuality study, released last week, was conducted by Uganda's Makerere University, in conjunction with the Paediatric Infectious Diseases Clinic (PIDC) at Mulago Hospital in the capital, Kampala, the country's largest referral facility.

Africa: No knowledge hub without early childhood care

2007-04-26

http://www.lexpress.mu/display_article_sup.php?news_id=85051

A world-class education cannot neglect the basics. This is the main reason why the Mauritius ministry of Education has endorsed an international workshop on early childhood care and education held from 18th to 26th of April. Representatives of the educational sector of Sub-Saharan Africa are in Mauritius to try and make Africa move forward in the inclusion of every young child in education.

Kenya: government urged to hire more teachers

2007-04-26

http://tinyurl.com/22drkc

The Kenya Government is facing renewed pressure to employ more teachers and increase their salaries to improve education standards. Lobby groups from the education sector yesterday said the Government should also plan for an overwhelming demand for secondary education due to the high number of pupils benefiting from free primary education.

Namibia: Education is a right

2007-04-26

http://www.newera.com.na/archives.php?id=15695

There are children in Namibia who are out of school for one reason or another, even though education is a human right. This is the view of the Deputy Minister of Education, Dr Becky Ndjoze-Ojo, who was the keynote speaker at the opening on Monday of the Education for All Global Week at the UN Plaza. Hundreds of learners from schools in the capital Windhoek attended the event, which is celebrated in more than 100 countries worldwide.

Tanzania: Delivering and practicing Non-Formal Education in Tanzania

2007-04-25

http://www.crin.org/docs/mkombozi_practice_handbook_nfe.pdf

A new document produced by Mkombozi serves as a manual for educators delivering Non-Formal Education (NFE) in Tanzania. Mkombozi is a child-focussed agency based in the north of the country. The authors argue that the Mkombozi NFE principles and practice would be applicable in a schools based context and would be of value to the Tanzanian education system.

Uganda: Not ashamed of her sexuality

2007-04-25

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=uganda&id=1558

While gays have been accepted in many countries, like South Africa which legalised same-sex marriages recently, homosexuals are still frowned upon in Ugandan society. However, a Ugandan lesbian is making news around the continent for being outspoken about her sexuality and other people like her. She was among the delegates who discussed gay issues at the recent World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya.

Zimbabwe: Organization accuses media of libel and irresponsibility

2007-04-25

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=zimbabwe&id=1560

The Director of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) Keith Goddard has accused a Zimbabwean daily newspaper, ZimDaily, of irresponsible journalism. This comes in the wake of a string of stories published about the organisation a week ago, first with the newspaper’s reporter Fikile Mapala writing about the sacking of Dumisani Dube, the Information and Publications Manager of GALZ.

Kenya: Plan to rehabilitate forests launched

2007-04-26

http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=1&newsid=96783

Kenya Forestry Service plans to rehabilitate an approximate 2,700 hectares of indigenous forests through an ambitious afforestation programme.The campaign targets water catchment areas within Mount Kenya region, Aberdares, Mau Forest, Cherang’any Hills, Mt Elgon and Western Kenya region, which have in the past been destroyed by illegal loggers.

Malawi: Small farmers hit by changes in the climate

2007-04-26

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71726

Small-scale farmers in Malawi are becoming aware that they are bearing the brunt of climate change, which has been adversely affecting productivity, according to a new study by an international aid agency. "Changing rainfall patterns and higher temperatures have forced farmers to shorten the growing season and switch to more expensive hybrid crops," said a report based on the study, 'Climate change and smallholder farmers in Malawi', by Action Aid International.

Namibia: Licence granted for Africa's frist wind park

2007-04-26

http://www.namibian.com.na/

History was made in the energy sector when a licence was granted to investors for the erection of a large wind-power project that could eventually generate 25 per cent of Namibia's electricity supply. This makes Namibia the first African country to embark on large-scale wind-power generation.

South Africa: Political sins continue to scar the land

2007-04-25

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=37460

While South Africa's "homelands" -- areas formerly set aside for blacks -- have been relegated to the dustbin of history for more than a decade, their legacy lives on in the form of land degradation, and even desertification in northern and eastern parts of the country.

South Africa: Wake up and smell the carbon

2007-04-26

http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/TarkArticle.aspx?ID=2662894

In February, the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) issued its fourth assessment report on the state of emissions and climate change. According to the world’s leading scientists, there is a 90% likelihood that the global warming we are experiencing is linked to human-induced causes. In essence, it stems from burning fossil fuels. South African industry must become much more serious about its emissions, writes Karen Alsfine for Business Day.

DRC: Journalist released after five months without hearing

2007-04-26

http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/82748/

Papy Tembe Moroni, a cameraman and reporter with the privately-owned Canal Congo Television (CCTV), has been released after being detained for 132 days in the cells of Kinshasa's Secret Service Police and at the Centre pénitentiaire et de rééducation de Kinshasa (CPRK), Kinshasa's main prison. The "provisional" release is part of an action undertaken by new Justice Minister Minsayi Booka that would see detainees who have served at least a quarter of their sentence or who were irregularly detained released in order to free up space in the country's overcrowded jails.

Namibia: Editor threatened with defamation suits for alleging mafia connections

2007-04-26

http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/82809/

On 25 April 2007, "The Namibian" newspaper reported that its editor, Gwen Lister, and The Free Press of Namibia, the company that owns and publishes "The Namibian", were instructed to pay N$7 million (approximately US$1 million) to the Palazzolo family, or face legal action in the form of five defamation suits. The family is threatening to sue "The Namibian" especially in connection with a front-page story published under the headline "Mafia linked to Namibian gems" on 23 March.

Nigeria: President "ignores" Freedom of Information bill

2007-04-26

http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/82794/

In the aftermath of what observers called "seriously flawed" presidential elections in Nigeria, President Olusegun Obasanjo failed to sign into law a bill that would have strengthened his battle against corruption, reports Media Rights Agenda (MRA). President Obasanjo had 30 days to sign into law the much anticipated Freedom of Information Bill, which has been with Parliament since 1999 and was finally passed by both houses of the National Assembly this February.

Rwanda: Woman editor gets a year in prison for article about ethnic discrimination

2007-04-25

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=20399

A Kigali court has imposed a one-year sentence on Agnès Nkusi Uwimana, the editor of the fortnightly Umurabyo, after she pleaded guilty to charges of “creating divisions,” “sectarianism” and “defamation.” Uwimana had been held since 12 January for writing a column headlined “You have problems if you kill a Tutsi, but you go free if you kill a Hutu.” She recognised in court “the gravity of my writings” and promised to “publish a correction.”

Senegal: Ruling party politician bursts into radio station, threatens to kill staff

2007-04-25

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=21862

On April 18, politician Moustapha Cissé Lô burst into the studios of radio Disso FM, accompanied by thugs, and threatened to kill the station’s staff because his inclusion on the ruling party’s parliamentary candidate list had just been criticised on the air by a listener.

Africa: In defense of the new diasporas and brain mobility

Paul T Zeleza

2007-04-25

http://tinyurl.com/266cc6

Africa has had a troubled relationship with global migrations rooted in the horrific memories of the Atlantic slave trade, which set the foundations of the asymmetrical relations between the continent and Euroamerica subsequently reproduced and reinforced by colonialism and neocolonialism. Today, many worry about the brain drain, how Africa is apparently losing its best and brightest to the global North, a phenomenon that has accelerated since the lost developmental decades of the 1980s and 1990s.

Somalia: Ethiopian-Somali troops step up offensive on rebels

2007-04-26

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN622166.html

Ethiopian tanks supporting the Somali interim government pounded insurgent positions in Mogadishu on Thursday, intensifying an offensive that has emptied half the city of its people. "We are under heavy artillery and tank shelling. The Ethiopians are using whatever forces and material they have," said a fighter belonging to the capital's dominant Hawiye clan. "This is the heaviest attack we've seen since the war started."

Somalia: Government and insurgents battle

2007-04-25

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L24105783.htm

A car bomb killed four civilians in Mogadishu and a suicide attacker struck at Ethiopian soldiers on Tuesday as battles between government forces and Islamist insurgents raged for a seventh day.Nearly 300 people have died in the week of artillery duels and gun battles between allied Somali-Ethiopian forces and rebels frustrating the government's bid to restore central rule in the Horn of Africa country for the first time in 16 years.

Sudan: Aid groups halt work in Darfur town

2007-04-25

http://tinyurl.com/2s6rpk

Several international aid agencies say they are suspending their work in the town of Um Dukhun in Sudan's Darfur region because of attacks on them. The agencies, which include the UK group Oxfam, Save the Children Spain and the US-based Mercy Corps, said on Monday the decision would disrupt services to 100,000 people, according to a report by Al Jazeera..

Sudan: Government holding up Darfur-bound food aid

2007-04-26

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N25256564.htm

Sudanese authorities are holding up to 100,000 tonnes of sorghum meant for Darfur, alleging that it is genetically modified, the U.N. food agency said on Wednesday. The sorghum, which comes from the United States, is being held up at Port Sudan, a World Food Program spokeswoman in Rome said, adding that laboratory tests had shown it was not genetically modified.

Africa: Battery advances and low laptop prices to spur Africa’s growth

2007-04-25

http://www.balancingact-africa.com/news/current1.html#head

Two developments look set to spur growth of computer use in Africa the medium term. With funding from the US military, there are now two sets of different of battery technologies that have a direct relevance to African conditions. On the computing front, several large global brands are both co-operating and competing to open up low-cost lap-tops for the education market.

Kenya: Internet costs set to drop as fibre optics plan rolls out

2007-04-26

http://bdafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=690&Itemid=3094

The cost of telephony and Internet connections is expected to drop by 80 per cent in 24 months thanks to an ambitious information technology project that aims to position Kenya as one of the most wired countries on the continent.

Kenya: Setting digital pace in Nairobi's suburbs

2007-04-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/internet/41086

When Dr Bitange Ndemo, Information and Communication Permanent Secretary (PS) asked Collin Bruce and his team to visit Eastlands in Nairobi, everybody was eager. Eager because the PS had sang praises about Kimathi Information Centre (KIC) and how it had used Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) to uplift the lives of the youth in the area.
Highway Africa News Agency

Report by Rebecca Wanjiku

When Dr Bitange Ndemo, Information and Communication Permanent Secretary (PS) asked Collin Bruce and his team to visit Eastlands, everybody was eager.

Eager because the PS had sang praises about Kimathi Information Centre (KIC) and how it had used Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) to uplift the lives of the youth in the area.

As the PS and his team snaked through the streets of Maringo, Jerusalem, Bahati and Uhuru, the team of youth at KIC was putting final touches to the presentation. The KIC team is comprised of Catherine Atieno Agallo {21}, Jose Njuki-Imwe Ngunjiri {26} and Lillian Gloria Okumu {28).

Before welcoming the visitors, the KIC team and the volunteers had to ensure that all the work due to the local schools had been delivered and any other pending jobs were finalized. This was their day to show what the youth could do.

The PS has been so impressed by KIC's digital innovation and integration to the community that every visitor to Ndemo's office is referred to the centre for examples of how Kenya has embraced ICTs.

Bruce, the World Bank country director was not disappointed at what he saw. He witnessed how youths in the area had worked with meagre resources to improve living conditions in the area.

"We have received tremendous support from Dr. Ndemo. It has motivated us to keep exploring our potential," said Ngunjiri.

He was speaking at the Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) monthly forum, where innovators in ICTs showcase their achievements to other industry players as well as the public.

So why was KIC started?

According to Ngunjiri, they teamed up in December 2005 and decided to come up with innovative practical solutions to the problems of unemployed youth in the area. KIC serves Eastland's community in Kimathi, Bahati, Jerusalem, Maringo and Uhuru.

Apart from unemployment, the youth in the area lack proper skills to search for jobs, lack job interview skills and some have been unable to secure attachment opportunities after university.

Armed with their findings and suggested solutions, the trio approached Computer for Schools Kenya and the International Development Research Council (IDRC) for assistance.

Impressed by the innovation, the two organizations donated 13 computers and agreed that the trio would train and equip the youth and the whole communities in the area.

"I think they have done an excellent job that can be shared with others," said Edith Adera from IDRC.

Ngunjiri told KICTANet members how that partnership has improved ICT knowledge, reduced crime rate, unemployment and ignorance among the youth.

"We have tried to ensure that the community owns the project, they give collective security and our equipment has never been stolen. The youth who would have been out mugging people is now working behind computers," Ngunjiri added.

KIC works with neighbouring schools to provide computer services if needed. For instance, at the end of the term, the teachers forward the scores for tallying and grading instead of doing it manually.

"It is now easier and time saving for teachers to grade the students. Once they mark the exams, we send one volunteer to get the data, organised according to instructions then send back to the school. A minimal cost is charged," said Ngunjiri.

KIC has tried to integrate everybody into the project provided they show interest in learning. Those with skills they can share with others are encouraged to visit the centre and benefit the others.

Working with university graduates, KIC goes beyond ICTs skills and teaches accounting and small business management skills to those aspiring to start businesses.

Other services offered include- research and study centre, library centre through e-learning, data base centre for small business entrepreneurs, security pay point for Kimathi estate, networking centre, web design training for teenagers under the Mtandao Africa initiative.

Out of the activities, the centre raises money to sustain itself and pay minimal wages to the workers. The priority now is to ensure the community fully embraces ICTs before they can pursue profits.

To fulfill their social responsibility, Ngunjiri told KICTANet forum how KIC supports Shelter of Hope Centre- the local children’s home. The home houses sixty orphans in the neighboring Kiambiu slum.

Because the space at KIC is limited, two trainers from the children’s home have been trained with the expectation that they will impart the orphans with ICT knowledge. Every Sunday, they have a volunteer from KIC who teaches 5 students from the children’s centre on computer packages and any advanced skills needed.

The progress of KIC has not gone unnoticed by the corporate sector; Popote wireless gave thirty volunteers a chance to market the company’s products.

The library and research centre expects to train many students and enter competition for international awards including the Bill and Melinda gate Foundation Program.

Uganda: Shared phone use in emerging markets

2007-04-26

http://www.janchipchase.com/sharedphoneuse

Much of the growth in the telecommunications industry is coming from emerging markets - places like India and Africa and for many new consumers their first mobile phone experience is a shared one. This essay by Jan Chipchase uses the term sharing in the sense of primary usage orientated around borrowing and lending rather than 'let me show you the photos I took at last night's party'.

East Africa: Third East African Telecentre Leaders Forum

2007-04-26

http://www.ken-tel.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=1

The East African Telecentre Leaders Forum (EA-TLF) is around the corner. This third of its kind will be co-hosted in Kenya by UgaBYTES and Kenya Network of Telecentres – KenTel in Kenya Siaya District on 4th/5th June, 2007. The theme of this year's event is "Promoting ICT for rural development: Meeting movement challenges". Telecentre Visit: 6th June, 2007 Deadline for express of interest: 11th May 2007

Ghana: Ghana@50 - Saluting Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah

2007-04-26

http://www.nkrumahconference.com/

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana 1 Jul 2007 - 6 Jul 2007. The conference aims "To provide an intellectual forum to debate Nkrumah's socio-political philosophy and action that changed the political landscape of Africa , as his geo-political paradigm altered the balance of power in global diplomacy."

Ghana: Pan African Youth Leadership Forum

2007-04-25

http://www.fafrica.org/youthleadership.htm

The Pan-African Youth Leadership Forum will be a one-week program to be held in Accra, Ghana from 18–25 June 2007. Participation will be limited to 106 delegates drawn from as many as Africa’s 53 countries as possible.

South Africa: 2007 Congress of the African Sociological Association

2007-04-26

http://www.afsanet.org/AfSA2007.html

The African Sociological Association announces its 1st Congress which is scheduled to hold in Grahamstown-iRhini, South Africa, from 15-18 July 2007. The African Sociological Association was formally constituted in December 2000 on the back of the 10th General Assembly of CODESRIA, in Kampala, Uganda.

South Africa: Media literacy course - Gender Links

2007-04-25

http://www.genderlinks.org.za/page.php?p_id=242

Following the successful run of its first ever gender and media literacy course that took place in June-August 2006, Gender Links will be conducting another Media Literacy Training Course from 3 May - 2 August 2007. The course material has been developed by Gender Links (GL), a Southern African NGO that specialises in gender, governance and communication. The tool kit being used draws from research and training material developed over a number of years on gender and the Southern African media.

Global: Policy and campaigns officer - Jubille Debt Campaign

2007-04-25

http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/jobs

Jubilee Debt Campaign is seeking a Policy and Campaigns Officer or Senior Policy and Campaigns Officer to be based at their central London Secretariat (near Old Street). This is a vital, demanding and rewarding role, requiring a deep understanding of the issues and power structures and the ability to persuade and enthuse people. The closing time for receipt of completed application forms is 2pm, Tuesday 8th May, 2007.

Fahamu