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Vote for Black Looks

2008-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/46112

Many of you will know Sokari Ekine's excellent blogsite 'Black Looks' as well as her regular Blogs Roundup for Pambazuka News. Black Looks has been selected for the inclusion in the first round of the Best International Feminist Blog.

You can vote for Black Looks at:

http://acreativerevolution.ca/phpQ/fillsurvey.php?sid=5

Vote now (and vote often!)

By Inviting Bush We Are Dishonouring Ourselves

Hamza Mustafa Njozi

2008-02-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/46049

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men” – Abraham Lincoln

It would seem to me that there are certain moral limits beyond which no one can cross without forfeiting one’s honour and human dignity. Our seemingly voluntary decision to invite and to entertain a hated war criminal for four days in our beautiful land will probably go down in history as marking the darkest moment in our political history so far. I recall, not without pride, that in 2003 as members of the University of Dar es Salaam Academic Assembly [UDASA], we prevented the then U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania from visiting the Mlimani main campus. The university’s long-standing intellectual tradition was too noble to be soiled by a representative of a war criminal who was, and still is, butchering innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is as it should be. Intellectuals should keep the beacon of freedom and justice burning even during the darkest night of unbridled tyranny.

And now, Kwame Nkrumah’s worst fears have come to pass. Tanzania, a former Frontline State, is feverishly preparing itself to participate in a macabre dance with the deadliest twenty-first century harpy, “a monster who entices its victims with sweet music.” Tanzania is apparently following the footsteps of Uganda and Ethiopia. In whose interest? Let us begin by listening to the sweet music as performed by the U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania and sickeningly echoed by some of our leaders.

The Sweet Music of Economic Gain

According to the American Ambassador, Mr. Mark Green, President Bush’s visit to Tanzania will stimulate investment because for four days the world media would focus on Tanzania. Of course, Mr. Green dismissed claims about Bush’s keen interest to station AFRICOM in Tanzania. Instead, Bush’s noble intentions include intensifying the fight against malaria and Aids. To this end, Tanzania will receive $818.4 million to fight Aids. During the visit, Bush would also highlight his country’s commitment to improving health in Africa. In summary, the iron spine of the argument justifying Bush’s trip is economic gain, both, actual and prospective.

Unless if Tanzanians wish to fall prey to racist reasoning, Mr. Green’s story is nothing but an attempt to disguise ignoble motives beneath a glittering façade of altruism. Why should Mr. Bush be so concerned about improving the health condition of Tanzanians and at the same time use the most sophisticated weapons to kill and maim, with zest and ruthlessness, the Iraqis and Afghans and now the Somalis? Why? Is it because we are black and they are Arab? In his recent State of the Union Address, Mr. Bush, amid cheers from his sycophants, vowed to heighten his hawkish policies world wide. And yet, Mr. Bush is so kind and altruistic to Tanzanians. Why? Of course we know from history that even the sordid intentions of tyrants are always dressed up in glowing principles. Hitler occupied Czechoslovakia because he wanted to promote peace and social welfare for all; Mussolini invaded Ethiopia because he wanted to liberate the savages; Japan invaded China to create an earthly paradise; the US and UK invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction; and so on and so forth.

Thomas Jefferson on Profession of Noble Intent

Commenting on the famous claim by the British Imperialists that they were fighting for the liberation of mankind, Thomas Jefferson, wrote, as quoted in Noam Chomsky’s Hegemony or Survival, "We believe no more in Bonaparte’s fighting merely for the liberties of the seas, than in Great Britain’s fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth, and the resources of other nations."

“A century later,” writes Chomsky, “Woodrow Wilson’s secretary of state, Robert Lansing, commented scornfully on ‘how willing the British, French or Italians are to accept a mandate’ from the League of Nations, as long as ‘there are mines, oil fields, rich grain fields or railroads’ that will make it a profitable undertaking.’ These ‘unselfish governments’ declare the mandates must be accepted ‘for the good of mankind’: ‘they will do their proper share by administering the rich regions of Mesopotamia, Syria, & c.’ The proper assessment of these pretensions is ‘so manifest that it is almost an insult to state it’. (p. 48)

To their credit, American leaders saw through such pretensions, and dismissed them for what they were. They knew the real motive was to grab the wealth and resources of other nations. We should apply the same standard in assessing the noble intent of Mr. Bush.

The Transparency of American Motives

Since the Americans know that their real motive is to pillage and loot the wealth and resources of other nations, they have often demonstrated by their behaviour that they must have unhindered access to all resources of the world. To achieve this end, they have stationed military bases all over the world. The goal of their grand strategy is to prevent any challenge to the power, position, and prestige of the United States. Since securing the supplies of oil enables the Americans to have power over her rivals and competitors, successive US governments have bombed, occupied or controlled countries with rich oil deposits. According to a government daily newspaper Habari Leo of 21 July 2007, an American oil company Helvey International and Petronet International of South Africa have signed a $313 million oil exploration contract in Tanzania. In view of how American oil companies have fleeced other oil rich countries like Ecuador, this does not augur us well. No wonder, suddenly, Bush, loves Tanzanians! Why not invite the Chinese who need no military bases, who have invaded no country and who give the best offer? If what has befallen other countries is any barometer, the Americans will need a military base in Tanzania. Military presence is necessary to ensure total control of this vital resource as well as the continued pillage of our gold mines.

Of late USAID has increased its activities in Tanzania. Commenting on the role of USAID in promoting the American Empire, John Pilger notes in Freedom Next Time:

Illuminating how America exported ‘democracy to the world’, the head of USAID, Andrew Natsios, described ‘aid’ as ‘a key foreign policy instrument’. Wishing to leave no doubt about what he meant, he said, ‘Foreign assistance helps developing and transition nations move toward democratic systems and market economies; it helps nations prepare for participation in the global trading system and become better markets for U.S. exports. (p.265)

John Perkins has lent to the same verdict the weight of his considerable weight as a professional Economic Hit Man [EHM]. He says the job of an EHM is:

To encourage world leaders to become part of a vast network that promotes U.S. commercial interests. In the end, those leaders become ensnared in a web of debt that ensures their loyalty. We can draw on them whenever we desire – to satisfy our political, economic, or military needs.

Acccording to John Perkins, EHM “funnel money from the World Bank, UASID, and other foreign ‘aid’ organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources” (p. ix).

Bush’s Visit and AFRICOM

The U.S. Ambassador has repeatedly and vehemently dismissed the disquieting reports that one of the objectives of Bush’s visit to Tanzania is to persuade our leaders into accepting to host the hated AFRICOM. Still, the signs and portents are too consistent to brush aside. According to Assistant Secretary of Defence for African Affairs, Theresa Whalen, the mission of AFRICOM will be to promote diplomatic, economic and humanitarian aid for African countries. In recent months, the U.S. Ambassadors, Michael Retzer and Mark Green have conspicuously [ and somewhat undiplomatically] attempted to show the shiny face of the U.S. Army. On 20 July, 2007 the US Ambassador opened a primary school in Chake Chake, Pemba. The school was built with the support of the US military base in Djibouti. The U.S. Navy Captain Wright from the U.S. CJTF-HOA, and the Country Director of USAID attended this important humanitarian function! Mwananchi of 10 November 2006 reported about a Tshs. 3.2 billion U.S assistance to the police laboratory. Habari Leo of 28 November 2007 reported that our police force received 100 hand-cuffs, 50 tape-recorders, 2 laptops, and a camera. Mwananchi of 8 December 2007, reported about the U.S. pledge to increase military assistance to Tanzania to the tune of $70 million under the Acota programme. Mwananchi of 6 December 2007, the U.S. Ambassador addresses students of Kinondoni Secondary school who are under USAID’s Stay Alive programme. Mwananchi of 22 November, 2007 the U.S. Ambassador visits and assists an orphanage in Arusha. Mwananchi of 22 November 2007, the U.S. Army helps a Handeni Hospital with equipments worth Tshs. 6 million. The U.S. Army stationed in Tanga involves itself with helping in the repair and rehabilitation of schools, dispensaries, bore holes and other social activities. Mwananchi of 12 January 2008, an American Army officer distributes toys to school children of Mbagala. Mwananchi of 17 January 2008, USAID officials give academic prizes to outstanding science students. Mtanzania of 10 January 2008, USAID praises the educational achievements of Zanzibar. USAID was handing over text books for Zanzibar secondary schools published by the University of South Carolina. The ceremony was part of the celebrations to mark 44 years of the Zanzibar Revolution. The Zanzibar Minister of Education did not seem to notice the tragic irony of the entire ceremony!

It may be instructive to recall that on 6 November 1933, Hitler responded to his political opponents by saying, “Your child belongs to us already…What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.” Four years later he said, “This new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.” Yes, new textbooks were written and new curricula developed.

After 44 years of Independence we are delegating this role to USAID. And USAID has nothing but praise for us!

The Boomerang Effect of the Global Media

The prediction that Tanzania would benefit economically because for four days the world media would focus on Tanzania is nothing but a cruel hoax. If this claim were true, Bush himself would have been the first beneficiary. He enjoys the publicity of the world media throughout the year. Yet, he is probably the most hated leader alive today. He is so hated that he becomes a huge security risk wherever he goes. In their book, America Alone, Harper and Clarke note that America’s militarism has brought about such a rise in world-wide anti-American feeling that:

When the president travels, he must do so in a locked-down security bubble: eight hours here, sixteen hours there, never more than thirty minutes from an airport, no press conferences, no meeting the people, no seeing of the sights. American representative overseas tell us that in many small ways their jobs have become more difficult…(p. 311).

Tanzania under Mwalimu Nyerere received very negative publicity from Newsweek, Time, The Economist, and other leading Western magazines and newspapers. And yet, as a nation we commanded respect throughout the world. The U.S. print and electronic media had nothing but praises for Tony Blair. And yet, unlike the leaders of Germany and France who took a principled stand against America’s unprovoked military aggression in Iraq, Blair’s enduring political image is that of a contemptible poodle of Uncle Sam and his otherwise great country as the 51st State of America!

In 2001 the U.S. Congress passed a bill which directed the government to cut off military aid to all countries which ratified the International Criminal Court treaty, unless they pledged never to surrender American criminals to the International court. Tanzania took a principled stand. It refused to bow to American pressure. Uganda bowed to the U.S. Bush praised Museveni as a shining example of African statesmen. To the rest of the world, Museveni had metamorphosed from a revolutionary African leader to a docile American pupil. In this regard, for some of us, it is a huge embarrassment when the number one war criminal in the world, who should be facing charges in the Hague, showers praises on our leader. No amount of positive media coverage may possibly help Senator Obama win votes in the U.S. if he were for four days to dine and go sight-seeing with Osama bin Laden in the beautiful land of Afghanistan! The situation would certainly be far worse if Osama were to shower praises on him. Likewise, Tanzania will irreparably tarnish her image by allowing the blood-drenching Bush to land in Tanzania, let alone to entertain him for four dark days.

When Fidel Castro or Nelson Mandela visited Tanzania, the country virtually came to a standstill. Thousands upon thousands of Tanzanians braved the rain and the scorching sun to welcome them at the airport. The rest thronged the streets out of respect and admiration. What a contrast with the forthcoming visit of Mr. Bush. For the first time since Independence, a state visit by a foreign head of state is greeted with fierce debates about the wisdom of allowing him to come! His presence is not an asset but a political liability.

Ominous Signs on the Wall

One ominous result of our close association with the American Empire, which may not be intended but inevitable, is the radical shift in our foreign policy. You cannot unequivocally support the rights of the Palestinian people against the Zionist occupation of their land and at the same time win the praise of Mr. Bush as an exemplary statesman. America is backing Israel to the hilt. We used to support the Palestinian people. To this day there is in Sinza area a hospital named after Palestine. The Palestinian people provided us with their doctors in appreciation of our political solidarity with them. We have to make a choice. We either maintain our stance against oppression and foreign occupation and court the displeasure of Mr. Bush or join the oppressors and win the unqualified praise from Mr. Bush and his so-called world media. It seems we value the empty praises of Mr. Bush more. This is a political tragedy.

The clearest example of this shift was observed when in 2006, the Israelis with the open support of the U.S. and UK launched their ill-fated war against Hezbullah in Lebanon. Tanzania was at a loss. The incompatibility of running with the hare and hunting with the hound confronted us. As country after country issued statements to condemn Israel, Tanzania kept quiet. And when we could no longer keep quiet, we issued a feeble and disappointing statement which provoked the anger of most Tanzanians. For the first time, Tanzania spoke with an uncertain voice. We condemned both, the aggressor and the victim! Even that feeble statement was eclipsed in virtually all print and electronic media! The Americans were happy. We were on the side of oppressors. We qualified to send a peace-keeping force to Lebanon! This, again, is a very bad omen indeed.

On the question of Somalia, once again, Tanzania is supporting the war-lords who were recruited and funded by the U.S. The Somali people rejected and defeated them. Peace returned in Somalia. The U.S instructed Ethiopia to intervene militarily. As a result, the biggest humanitarian crisis now is not in Darfur but in Somalia. However, since the principal architect of the crisis in Somalia is America, the suffering of the Somali people is not covered in the so-called world media. Uganda has dutifully sent her army to Mogadishu to give political life support to the American puppets. Tanzania has accepted the role of training the police force of Bush’s henchmen in Mogadishu. We are allowing America to divide us. In whose interest?

In short, as we go closer and closer to the armpit of the U.S. we shall quite inevitably, recede further and further from our former Third world allies. Americans and Europeans are granted visa at the airport here in Dar es Salaam. Egyptians, our long-standing allies and fellow Africans have to apply for visa and await clearance before they can travel to Tanzania. We invite investors from America, and we organize the Sullivan meeting. We discourage investors from the Middle East. America does not like them. The president has made many trips abroad. I do not recall if he has visited Iran, where we do not even have an Embassy. And yet, Iran bailed us out at a very critical moment when the country had no fuel. When our president was in Cuba to attend the NAM conference, he did not pay a courtesy call to Fidel Castro! From Cuba he went to the U.S. These are ominous signs on our political wall.

The Hawk and the Pigeons

In the Fables of Aesop there is a story of the hawk and the pigeons which is worth recalling as we invite Bush in Tanzania:

Some pigeons had long lived in fear of a hawk, but since they had always kept on the alert and stayed near their dovecote, they had consistently managed to escape their enemy’s attacks. Finding his sallies unsuccessful, the hawk now sought to use cunning to trick the pigeons.
“Why,” he once said, “do you prefer this life of constant anxiety when I could keep you safe from any conceivable attack by the kites and falcons? All you have to do is to make me your king, and I won’t bother you anymore.”
Trusting his claims, the pigeons elected him to their throne, but no sooner was he installed than he began exercising his royal prerogative by devouring a pigeon a day.
“It serves us right,” said one poor pigeon whose turn was yet to come.

The moral of the story is that some remedies are worse than the disease itself.

Let me end as I began with a quotation:

“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”
--Abraham Lincoln.

*Hamza Mustafa Njozi is a Senior Lecturer in Literature and current Chair in the Department of Literature at the University of Dar es Salaam.

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

George Bush Visits Africa to promote the US Africa Command

Horace Campbell

2008-02-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/46103

Horace Campbell look at Bush's visit as an attempt to further militarize the continent and consolidate US holding.

One year after the announcement that he United States government was going to accelerate the militarization of Africa, President George Bush is embarking on a journey to Africa to coerce African societies to align themselves with the neo-conservative agenda of the present US administration. President George Bush will visit five African countries between February 15 -21. The countries are Benin, Ghana, Liberia, Rwanda and Tanzania. George Bush is a lame-duck President who cannot visit real global players so this visit to Africa is an effort to shore up the credentials of the neo-liberal forces in Africa while promoting the conservative ideas of abstinence as the basis of the fight against the HIV –AIDS pandemic.

Exactly one year ago, in February 2007, President Bush of the United States of America announced that the Defense Department would create a new Africa Command to coordinate U.S. government interests on the continent. Under this plan all governmental agencies of the US would fall under the military, i.e, USAID, State Department, US Department of Energy, Treasury, and Department of Education etc. Already within the US academic community, the interests of the Pentagon has been placed before all other interests.

In pursuance of the plans for the militarization of Africa, the US Department of Defense announced the appointment of General William “Kip” Ward (an African American) as Head of this new Military command. On September 28, 2007, Ward as confirmed as the head of this new imperial military structure and on October 1 2007, the new command was launched in Stuttgart, Germany. The major question that is being posed by African peace activists and by concerned citizens is, why now? Why is a lame duck President seeking to gain more support in Africa?

One answer may lay in the diminished power of the United States in the aftermath of the Fiasco in Iraq and Afghanistan. I will maintain in this reflection that it is urgent that peace activists who want reconstruction and transformation in Africa oppose the plans for the remilitarization of Africa under the guise of fighting terrorism in Africa.

Why Now?

At the end of World War II the United States had emerged as a leading political, economic and military force in world politics. It was in this period when the US established unified military command structures such as the European Command, the Pacific Command, the Southern Command, the Northern Command, and Central Command. Each command covers an area of responsibility (AOR). When this command structure was being refined, Africa was an after thought in so far as the United States had relegated the exploitation of Africa to the former European colonial exploiters. Hence, Africa fell under the European Command with its headquarters in Germany. Africa had not been included in the geographic combatant commands in so far as it was expected that France, Britain, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Portugal and other colonial powers would retain military forces to guarantee western ‘interests’ in Africa. The collapse of the Portuguese colonial forces in Mozambique, Angola, Guinea and Sao Tome and the collapse of the white racist military forces in Rhodesia gradually led to a rethinking by the US military. During this period the US had labeled all African freedom fighters as terrorists. When the US was allied with Osama Bin Laden and Jonas Savimbi, Nelson Mandela had been branded a terrorist.

Central Command

After the Iranian revolution in 1978-1979, the US established the Central Command. CENTCOM based in Florida, USA was responsible for the US military activities in East Africa and the Horn of Africa (Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia and the Sudan). The Pacific Command based in Hawaii was responsible for the Comoros, Diego Garcia, Madagascar and Mauritius. Added to these commands in six continents are the logistical command structures such as the Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), Space Command (SPACECOM), the Strategic Command (STRATCOM), the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the Transport Command (TRANSCOM).

At the end of the era of formal apartheid, the US military had established the Africa Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI) with the goal of supporting humanitarianism and ending genocide. It was this same US government that had lobbied the United Nations to withdraw troops from Rwanda in the midst of the fastest genocide in Africa. Two years later, the US supported the militarist forces in Burundi even while publicly renouncing the genocidal violence and the war in Burundi.

Throughout this period, the US military had been cautious about involvement in Africa in the aftermath of the experience in Mogadishu/Somalia in 1993. This caution changed after the events of September 2001. In the next year the USA updated its ACRI “plans” to organize the African Contingency Operations Training Assistance (ACOTA). Under ACOTA, African troops were supposed to be provided with offensive military weaponry, including rifles, machine guns, and mortars. The Africa Regional Peacekeeping Program (ARP) was also established in order to equip, train, and support troops from selected African countries that are involved in “peacekeeping” operations. Additionally, the US government launched a Pan Sahel anti-terrorism initiative (later called Trans Sahara Counter Terror Initiative). Behind these grand mutations lay one clear fact. The USA wanted to control the oil resources from Africa. Presently Africa supplies more petroleum to the USA than the Middle East and US corporations wanted the US military to guarantee the dominance of US oil conglomerates.

Exposing US militarism and the failures in the Middle East

After launching two major wars from the United States Central Command, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq pointed to the reality that high technology weapons cannot guarantee military superiority in battles. It was in the face of the quagmire that the US faced in Iraq when the United States government announced the formation of a new command structure called, Africom.

What did we learn from the visit of George Bush to the Middle East in January 2008? Even the friends and allies of the USA (such as the leadership of Saudi Arabia and Egypt) warned that the US could not get anywhere as long as the issue of the Israeli occupation of Palestine does not end. And, lo and behold, the people of Gaza took matters in their hands a few days after the visit of Bush to Egypt to bring home to the world the reality that there can be no peace in Palestine when there is illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands along with the expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestine. By breaking out of the blockade of Israel and breaking through the walls that divided Gaza from Egypt. The citizens of Gaza were literally breaking the silence in the international community over the crimes against the peoples of Palestine. In the process these citizens placed the Egyptian leadership on the defensive and clarified the true alliance between Israel, Egypt and the United States. In the face of the protracted struggles of the Palestinian peoples, the future of US domination in the Middle East remains unclear, hence the political leadership in the USA is seeking new bases of support in Africa to base US troops and to strengthen the US oil corporations. In other parts of North Africa there are leaders who proclaim support for the rights of the self determination of the peoples of Palestine yet, covertly and overtly work with the government of the USA.

The governments of Morocco and Algeria, in particular, stand out as military allies of the USA while posturing that they oppose Israeli occupation. The government of Algeria is an accomplice in fabricating terrorism in the Sahel in order to justify its military alliance with the USA. Similarly, the government of Libya projects itself as a progressive government but is seeking to ingratiate itself with the neo-conservative forces in Washington. Both Algeria and Libya are important producers of petroleum and natural gas.

African Oil -The real objective

The invasion of Iraq, the instability on the border between Turkey and Iraq (with the threat of a Turkish invasion of Iraq), the stalemate over the future of Lebanon and the continued struggles for self determination in Palestine has sharpened the contradictions between imperialism and the peoples of the Middle East. In the face of this situation there are scholars who have argued and presented evidence that the government of the United States has been “fabricating terrorism” in Africa. This fabrication of terrorism carries with it racial stereotypes to support US military action in Africa. The hypocrisy of the US government in this region is manifest in the fact that while there is a major campaign against genocide and against genocidal violence in Darfur, the government of the USA cooperates with the government of the Sudan on the grounds of “intelligence sharing to fight terrorism.” It is in the Sudan where the neo-conservatives are stoking the fires of war in order to get access to the oil resources of the Sudan.

Under the guise of fighting terrorism the government of the US has been involved in many illegal activities such as kidnapping citizens in the so called extraordinary rendition.

Challenging the European Union and China in Africa

The changed realities in the Middle East and in Africa have been accompanied by a new activist posture of China in Africa. Outmaneuvered in Asia by China and challenged by the rising democratic forces in Latin America, the spaces for the accumulation of capital by US capitalists are dwindling.

In the past, when there was a crisis such as the period after the Vietnam War, the USA could transfer the crisis to other countries via the IMF. But the European Union has challenged this calculus and created the Euro as an alternative to the US dollar.
It will not be possible for the IMF to transfer the crisis to Asia, Europe, India, the Middle East or Latin America.
This means that there is only one area of the world where the US imperialists will have free rein. This is in Africa. It is also in Africa where there is a movement against the economic terrorism of neo-liberalism and the unjust conditionalities of the IMF and World Bank.

African responses

Thus far the majority of African states have refused to host the Africa Command. Despite the aggressive military and diplomatic efforts by the US government, not even the closest “partners’ of the imperialists have supported this call for the Africa Command. There is only one state (Liberia) that has openly called for the basing of the US Africa command on African soil. Though the United States has 5,458 “distinct and discreet military installations around the world there are pressures from the military-industrial and oil complex for the USA to have more effective resources in Africa to defend US capitalism.

For the past twenty years the US government had been building political assets in Kenya to pave the way for ‘security cooperation.” Kenya would have been one of the stops on this visit but the political struggles in Kenya made it impossible for George Bush to visit Kenya. It is this country that has participated in the so called extra-ordinary rendition.
More than 90 persons were captured with apparent U.S. involvement after they fled fighting in Somalia. The prisoners were rendered on a plane chartered by the Kenyan government into secret detention in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Uganda would have been another stop on the visit, but the continued war in the North and the clear dictatorial character of the Museveni government made this stop undesirable.

One other undesirable ally is Ethiopia. The government of Meles Zenawi has joined in the efforts to fabricate terrorism in Somalia and has invaded Somalia. Yet, despite this alliance, Bush and the planners in Washington did not deem it safe for Bush to visit Ethiopia.
Bush could not go to South Africa at this time because Jacob Zuma is the President of the ANC. He could not go to Nigeria because the Nigerians are opposed to the so called war on terror. So Bush had to find a country where he could go to. The US settled on Tanzania and Rwanda.

In West Africa, the US President is going to Benin, Liberia and Ghana. It will be the task of the political activists and democratic forces in these societies to demonstrate against the US and the plans for Africom in West Africa.

Peace loving citizens must oppose the militarization of Africa.

In 1980 when the US Central Command was being debated the citizens of the Middle East and North Africa did not sufficiently engage the full meaning of this new military structure. After the militarization of the Middle East, five major wars and millions dead, it is urgent that peace activists oppose the plans to bring Africa closer into this arc of warfare.

The quest for peace in Africa has been sharpened by the crude materialism of the present period and the intensified exploitation of Africans in the era of plunder and looting. Contemporary looting is hidden behind the discourses of liberalization, privatization, the freedom of markets and the Global war on terror. Racist images of war and “anarchy” and “failed states” are mobilized by the international media to justify the launch of the US military command structure for Africa. Those who support real cooperation, solidarity and anti racism must oppose the US Africa command.

We should remember the statement of the columnist of the New York Times, Thomas Friedman who had written, ‘The hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist – McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.’ [1]

[1] Thomas Friedman, ‘A Manifesto for the Fast World’, New York Times Magazine, March, 1989.

* Horace Campbell is Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University.

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

The Post-election Violence in Kenya:An overview of the underlying factors

Part one of Three

Antony Otieno Ong’ayo

2008-02-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/46094

Historical and political dimensions

Recent political problems that threaten to tear Kenya apart require analysis that goes beyond ethnicity as portrayed in the media and current analyses that attempt to explain the situation. More correctly, emphasis and focus should be placed on the interpenetration of historical and current political developments whose origins can be traced in the early stages of state formation in Kenya. In 19th century the area that became Kenya could be described as stateless, but was made up of various nationalities (currently considered sub-nationalities if seen from the eye of British Historians and ethnographers). Some commentators have claimed that peoples' civility, and ethnicity was shaped by their subsistence farming or herding, or some mixture of both".

However what ethnographers and Eurocentric commentators ignore is that there was clear territorial ownership of space by each “nation” even though at times there were conflicts over pasture and adventurer expeditions into the regions occupied by other groups. In the late 19th century most of the people of Kenya resisted British conquest, and land grabbing when white settlements began in the fertile highlands of Rift Valley and central province. Administrative structures were designed and to-date, have been effectively used as part of state machinery to impose illegitimate authority on the people. Besides land, there were conflicts over forced “labour” (basically Africans and latter Indians) and hut tax. These conflicts led to the 1923 Devonshire White paper, which stated that ‘Kenya is an African country and the interest of the natives must be paramount’. The Africans especially the Kikuyu in Central province, Masaai and Kalenjin in the Rift Valley, lost much of their best land to the white settlers and the growing population meant increasing land hunger and discontent. A new land redistribution scheme was introduced under Lyttleton constitution of 1954 followed by other constitutional changes however these scheme did not adequately address the land question.

Nationalism in Kenya begun as early as 1922. Violence and armed struggle was led by the Mau Mau and by 1955, 13,000 Africans had lost their lives (see Anderson, 2007). In the early 1960s, Moi, Muliro and Ngala of KADU supported regionalism against Kenyatta, Odinga and Mboya and KANU's nationalism (associated with the centralised system). By 1960, two national parties were formed (what could be described as the first multi party era in Kenya). These two parties were already divided over the type of system that would serve the African interests. Alliance by leadings lights from various groups which made up KADU and KANU respectively, also played out in the struggles for release of those in detention and efforts to form the first government. The British were forced to retreat from Kenya and subsequently, release Jomo Kenyatta from detention at Kapenguria.

When Kenya gained “independence” from Britain in 1963, it inherited non-democratic institutions and cultures, which later fell into the hands of corrupted politicians and governments. This exemplifies the de-colonization programme that retained the colonial apparatuses of security forces and political repression in the post-colony (see Anderson, 1998) and compromise over the land question. Post-colonial “officials” lavished themselves with political and economic favours in a pattern that has extended into the post-post-colonial era (Moi who was a member of KADU and later KANU, Kibaki who was technocrat in KANU from 1963, Michuki the Internal Security Minister, Njenga Karume, the Defence Minister among others). This process has been captured by some analysts who have pointed out that these developments mirrors what was a distinctly colonial view of the rule of law, which saw the British leave behind legal systems that facilitated tyranny, oppression and poverty rather than open, accountable government(Elkins, 2007/8)

Ethnic composition and competitive politics

While national level political competition in Kenya is often misunderstood and shallowly interpreted in terms of a competition between the Kikuyu and the Luo, most commentators on Kenya’s politics do ignore the position and role of the Kalenjin, Luhya, Kamba, Kisii, Coastal peoples (Mijikenda), Swahili, Arabs, Indians and Europeans who live in large farms/ranches and important urban areas in Kenya. Each of these groups subsumes a number of smaller ethnic units that become relevant bases of social identity in more localized settings. The groups hardly mentioned are the Ogieks, and the Jemps who are the original occupants of some parts of present Rift valley but have since been displaced or evicted to create room for current occupants. What is however neglected in the debate about Kenyan politics is the reality that all groups have a stake in the running of the Kenyan polity, but due to systematic exclusion of some groups from the national leadership, competitive politics in Kenya is bound to have an ethnic dimension

When Kenya became a one-party state in 1969 Kenyatta ruled the country with a clique around him mainly from his ethnic Kikuyu, who eventually alienated other groups in Kenya from the political and economic order for his entire reign (1963-1978). Although Kenyatta did not instigate ethnic clashes, he targeted eminent persons from ethnic groups that he felt were a threat to his leadership. Many people were assassinated including Pio Gama Pinto (Kenyan Indian), JM Kariuki (Kikuyu) Tom Mboya, D.O Makasembo, Arwgings Kodhek (all Luo) Ronald Ngala (Mijikenda of Coast), Seroney (Kalenjin) among others. This was a strategy that Moi also adopted at the height of his reign when prominent persons were assassinated or died in mysterious circumstances. They include, Robert Ouko, Owiti Ongili, Otieno Ambala, Hezekiah Oyugi (all Luo) Bishop Kipsang Muge, (Kalenjin), Adungosi and Muliro (all Luhya,). Many students, journalists, lecturers, and politicians like Raila Odinga, Charles Rubia, Keneth Matiba, Martin Shikuku, among others were also detained and tortured. What is also missing in most analyses is the role of other communities during the struggle for independence, while the Mau Mau has been presented as the epicentre of everything around impendence struggle, but historical facts point to other contributions but because this ignorance has been presented as the truth, coupled with arrogance and superiority complex, Kenyan liberation history has been constantly distorted.

The struggles for political ascendancy begun immediately after the postcolonial government were formed. While the first cabinet was quite representative of the face of Kenya, soon ideological difference, impact of cold war and betrayal on key issues cropped in, thus dividing the original personalities in the independence struggle; the Mau Mau veterans were sidelined and politics of exclusion and elimination begun with earnest, sometimes combined with assassinations. Electoral politics never took shape in a democratic sense since Kenyatta who ruled mainly through the provincial administration, outside the KANU framework, rendered the party system that could have rallied the people around issues and programmes meaningless. Fears of ethnic ascendancies, power-hungry ethnic political elites, undemocratic processes and institution, which are all hallmarks of today's Kenya, begun to play out; a confirmation of the undemocratic historical trajectory that Kenya has been moving along. The 2007 election fiasco has exposed the deliberate stoking of ethnic tension by power-hungry elites, feeble democratic traditions and institutions in Kenya, one that threatens to consume it if not adequately addressed.

Electoral politics

Electoral politics in Kenya can also be understood best by looking at the role of the process and institutions charged with overseeing such a process. The electoral system in Kenya is based on constituencies whose boundaries are congruent with the boundaries of tribal areas. These boundaries have been used to manipulate democratic outcomes. The constituencies are represented by a member of parliament and a number of local authority representatives at ward, town and urban council levels. Their election takes place at the same time as that of presidential and parliamentary ones. The boundaries are determined by the electoral commission if there is evidence that populations have outgrown the current demarcations. This decision is however made by the electoral commission without consulting the local communities and in most cases at the directive of the president. The president without parliamentary approval appoints the Commission. However the problem with numbers in Kenyan politics is that they are never correct or close to truth. This originates from history of manipulation of constituency population numbers during the single party era, but also lack of regular census and update of births and deaths records. It is therefore not surprising to see “ghost names” in voter registers (not deleted even after a whole five year preparation and multibillion investment in the process) or to see number of registered voters increase during presidential vote tallying contrary to the actual number at constituency level or previous attempt to create extra constituencies in the incumbent friendly regions in order to meet the 25% constitutional requirement for presidential eligibility.

But the problem with the electoral process did not start in recent years; the political competition that followed immediately after independence gave birth to the mechanisations, manipulation of the institutions responsible for electoral process and the blatant rape of the constitution to suit those in power. This begun with the erosion of the party system, when immediately after independence in 1963, the political alliances begun to fall apart with KADU joining KANU and internal struggles within KANU leading to the formation of KPU. Although the fall out between Kenyatta and Odinga has been described as ideological, the actual cause was the feeling that Kenyatta had betrayed his colleagues and the entire nation on three crucial promises at independence, namely eradication of poverty, illiteracy and disease. Kenyatta betrayed this cause by allocating huge parcels of land left by white settlers to himself and cronies, including large tracts in the present Rift Valley province.

Upon Kenyatta’s death in 1978, Daniel arap Moi, a member of the Kalenjin, assumed power in 1978. During his 24 year reign, Moi exploited the Kenyan diversity and politicised ethnicity to levels where he could instigate clashes in districts and provinces with mixed groups, a practice he perfected in the 90’s in order to discredit the onset of multiparty democracy in Kenya. Politically motivated ethnic clashes were used to disrupt and displace populations and groups that supported the opposition (mainly the Kikuyu in Rift Valley, Luo in the slums of Nairobi and Mombasa). He also used divide and rule tactics, pitting on group against another and at times bought politician through patronage in order to have more support in parliament. These tactics ensured that that the opposition lost the elections of 1992 and 1997. It was not until 2002, when his constitutional terms in office expired that he had no options, but also due to the unity of the opposition through NARC (Rainbow coalition of Kijana Wamalwa FORD- Kenya, Raila Odinga of LDP, Charity Ngilu and Kibaki of NAK/DP) got together and managed to defeated Moi’s preferred choice of successor, Uhuru Kenyatta (the son of Jomo Kenyatta). Moi was voted out of office in 2002, and Kibaki became president.

Anger against Kibaki’s leadership is real and genuine and it stems from the fact that Kibaki was elected on a platform of reform, in the sphere of constitutional change, end to corruption, tribalism and establishment of an equitable system that could uplift the living conditions of all Kenyans regardless of their ethnicity and other background factors. Kibaki’s failure to grasp these genuine concerns, self imprisonment from reasoning and lack of desire to leave a legacy in Kenya, caused a great anger in the majority of Kenyans whose hopes had been dashed by Kibaki’s conduct, corruption and arrogance of people around him. For instance People’s disgust with Kibaki’s regime was expressed at the 2005 referendum in which the Wako Draft (a diluted version of the Boma’s draft, which was a constitutional product of a people led process) was defeated. Seven provinces made up of diverse ethnic groups voted for “NO” while the Yes vote was only represented by central province. This outcome reflected the wishes of the majority and cannot be seen as a vote against the Kikuyu since the vote was for a devolved system or a unitary system. But then, one cannot lose sight to the ethnic dimension the vote took during the campaigns, when people of central province were told to vote for “Yes” because it meant protecting “their presidency”. This anger and frustration was captured in the 2007 elections in which Kibaki lost his close allies from his own backyard (central province) and high profile lieutenants from other regions who were rejected at grassroots level. The 2007 elections also saw a new trend of ethnic alliances, which were formed for political expediency, even though hidden behind critical issues. Some groups could however identify with each other in terms of political and economic marginalisation than others, thus the divide the has been reflected in the post ethic conflict even if some analysis attempt to reduce it to the work of political leaders as the ones behind the ethnic divide. In the current situation, old wounds have been revived but the degree of suffering under previous regimes differ from group to group, while frustration also exists within the groups themselves, whereby, Kalenjin rejected their own, in Moi and his sons, while the Kikuyu rejected the cabal that have surrounded Kibaki since 2002. The same was witnessed in Nyanza where Luo and Kisii Nyanza voted out MPs that they thought did not deserve another parliamentary mandate.

*Antony Otieno Ong’ayo is a researcher at the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam.

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

Alternative Financing for Development

Venezuela and ALBA

Alejandro Bendaña

2008-02-07

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/45988

Alejandro Bendaña argues that for every dollar of aid given to developing countries, ten dollars is lost as capital flight. He uses Venezuela to speak to this imbalance and offer an alternative.

If the goal is development—best defined as the sovereign democratic social transformation--then we must not speak of making the present “aid” modalities more effective, but of substituting present day aid and the system in which it unfolds. One begins by questioning the very nature of the larger international financial architecture, what it stands for, and who benefits primarily from it. “Development aid” as practiced by the North is part of a system that generates deepening inequality and dependence across and within countries. In this context, it is question of making aid less not more effective, of ending aid altogether, because on the whole it does more harm that good.

Think Outflows not Inflows. South to North. For every dollar of aid that goes into developing countries, ten dollars comes out as capital flight. Yet this is an issue which regularly gets sidelined in discussions on development. It is much more important to focus on how to stop the 9 going out than to keep the 1 coming in. It has been estimated that developing countries lose more than $500 billion every year in illegal outflows which are not reported to the authorities and on which no tax gets paid. In Latin America amounts extracted over the past 30 years may have reached some 950 billion dollars, according to figures provided by James Petras.

No amount of aid, foreign direct investment or even remittances is going to change the structural equation over the long run. If one is to speak of new inflows then we should conceive in the form of the payment of the real historical debt owed by the North to the South—not “aid” or charity or private philanthropy but reparations, restitutions, compensations, payment of the ecological debt to the people and environments of the South. There is a need to escape from a discourse and vision tightly linked to the preserverence of contemporary power structures, including the one upheld and practiced by governmental “aid” agencies. Of course there is a need for developing countries to retain much more of their own domestic resources, but we must also recognize that it is not simply a question of the often inexistent will of domestic financial elites but of internationally generated impediments that are upheld by so called free trade agreements, investment protection regimes, IMF conditionalities and the like that demand ever greater liberalization of the flow to capital and goods. Aid and loans are minuscule compared to the profits made at our expense through unfair trade, exploitation of our labor, appropriation of our resources, interests on loans, domination of our markets, privileges and incentives granted to multinational corporations. Add to that the cost of reparations and restitution.

How do you build an Alternative National and International Justice and Development Order?

First you must conceive it. If you believe there can be no alternative then there will be no alternative. This is difficult because it entails a paradigm shift.

Second reconceptualize and change the role of the market. Markets must take their subordinated space in the organization of a political economy. Markets and big capital cannot dictate engagement. Markets have to be embedded in society and therefore in relations of solidarity, not competition. A political approach to economics. As the President of the Constituent Assembly of Ecuador, Alberto Acosta stated Queremos un país en donde funcionen los mercados, entendidos como espacios de construcción social organizada en función de las necesidades del ser humano de hoy y de mañana. Queremos desbloquear el falso dilema entre mercado y Estado. No queremos un mercado descarnado que genera procesos de acumulación de riqueza en pocas manos, pero tampoco queremos un Estado ineficiente, que otorga prebendas y que transfiere recursos de todos y todas a los grupos de poder,
You must be clear about your indicators. If there is no improvement in the life conditions and dignity of people 50 miles outside Maputo, Managua or Manila, then it is no alternative. We can already report that thousands are benefitting from the new Venezuelan-led development support schemes outside of Managua in the form of clinics and eye operations.

That the alternative is constructed in changes, by the interplay of idea and politics. Ideas challenge the dominate paradigm and introduce the alternative but the goal is for the alternative paradigm to become hegemonic.

A New Dawn for the Americas.

The combination of ideas and political shifts is being witnessed today in Venezuelan led international collaboration scheme known as ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas).

In 2004, the government of Venezuela took a political decision to use its massive oil reserves and earnings to assist other countries in the world with the clearly stated objective lessen their dependence on the dominant trading and financial international order. According to statistics from Chavez opposition sources who feel that he is giving away national wealth, 18 cooperation agreements signed by Venezuela last year alone total some 4.747 billion chiefly oil and refineries, but also infrastructure, health, agriculture, housing, debt cancellation, aluminum plants, and others. And it is mostly Latin America, but also Iran, the UK, China and even Burkina Fasso[i].

ALBA’s premise is that a new form of regional integration and indeed greater political unity is necessary for independent development to take place. It was born as an alternative to the USG’s Free Trade Agreement of the America—integration to reinforce sovereignty and just social relations, as opposed to liberalization and denationalization. Venezuela and Cuba signed the first series of bilateral agreements and in 2007 Nicaragua and Bolivia joined ALBA. “A new political and strategic project for a new world” said Chavez comprising cooperation in the fields of health, industry, food production and energy security, with more of a social criteria and than a mercantile one. Its founding charter calls for the establishment of Council of Ministers but also a Council of Social Movements to help inform decision-making.

In early 2008, the ALBA heads of State, now including the small island state of Dominica, announced the creation of the ALBA Bank with a capital of 1 billion dollars. Its stated aim was to boost industrial and agricultural production among its members, support social projects as well as multilateral cooperation agreements among its members, particularly in the energy field. The objective was to tackle natural counter the negative effects that neoliberal globalization, including finance and trade, was having on its members. It constitutes yet another piece in the construction of an alternative international economic order but unlike its predecessor, the Bank of the South composed by South American nations, the ALBA Bank is less influenced the by the interests of conservative Brazilian megacapitalists who play wield strong influence in the Bank of the South. One must however await the publishing of the constituent documents and the actual project financing procedures before rendering a final verdict.

Of greater importance to the Caribbean and Central American nations was the formation of Petrocaribe in 2007. 14 countries, chiefly of the Caribbean, along with Nicaragua and Honduras, have joined the scheme whereby Venezuela, through its oil company PDVSA, agrees to guarantee 100% of member country energy requirements, principally oil and derivatives, at market prices (Venezuela as a member of OPEC cannot do otherwise), with 40 to 50% payable within 90 days (terms vary slightly in the different bilateral accords) and the remainder at an average of 25 years with 2% interest and 2 to 3 years grace. Proceeds of the later, presumably accumulated by the respective state energy companies or a designated governmental agency, are to form part of a development fund for social and infrastructure spending. As in the case of the ALBA Bank, procedures are being worked out in practice by way of bilateral negotiations.

What are some of the Concerns around ALBA?

Obviously given the sheer novelty of ALBA, its Bank and Petrocaribe, along with the dozens of bilateral cooperation in various fields, including the cultural, makes it difficult to comprehensively asses the process underway. Nonetheless, as with the Bank of the South, Latin America’s social movements and regional networks are monitoring closely, and some concerns can, should and have been expressed but within a framework of general support for the initiative and its anti-imperialist dynamic. These concerns revolve around:

A predilection for Megaprojects, particularly the construction of refineries, pipe lines and transport infrastructure that are of concern to environmental groupings Insufficient attention to the need to contest the dominant oil-centered energy, possibly perpetuating dependence and consumption of oil
The fact that it PDVSA is the Venezuelan counterpart and apparently in charge of the key facets of the cooperation including financial and technical oversight
The difficulty encountered by civil society organizations in obtaining information about the specific bilateral agreements with corresponding transparency concerns

The stated decision of at least one government (Nicaragua) to privatize the cooperation handling it as a private commercial debt and therefore not subject to legislative budget scrutiny and reporting, prompting suspicions of partisan use of the funds escaping accountability

A lack of appreciation for the autonomy and working dynamics of movements and their regional networks who, as a matter of principle, reject the notion of being “convened” by any government or of allowing the governments to select which movements should form part of the Council
The absence of credibility of the Ortega government in Nicaragua which continues to pursue neoliberal and confessional policies and is opposed by the Nicaraguan and Latin American social movements, particularly its women’s contingents

What does this all mean in terms of the 2008 Aid Effectiveness Debate (Accra Conference) sponsored by OECD and the UN’s Financing for Development (Doha)?
From a social movement standpoint, including Jubilee South, the “Aid Effectiveness” debate is a non-starter. A contradiction in terms unless the effectiveness works to the benefit of finance capital and is an instrument for domination, a lubricant for corporate capital penetration. Nor can there be talk of effectiveness in the context of aid increasingly becoming an open instrument of security and foreign policy goals, including the so called War on Terror or simply tied to the acceptance of trade and financial liberalization (current EU Partnership Association schemes). Entering the aid debate in preparation for Accra can only be justified if the objective is to utilize that debate to explain and denounce how the institutional and historical foundations of the international aid regime, and that the emphasis should be on stopping the inflows of capital and wealth from the countries of the South.

Finance for Development is a more straightforward proposition. The objective should be to better identify and challenge the international impediments (including so called aid) that stand in the way of domestic accumulation and its domestic mobilization, including the behavior of domestic capitalists in shipping national wealth abroad, including its citizens expelled by the impoverishment that is linked to the enrichment of global elites. Finance for development should take the form of reparations and restitution due from the North to the South—the only real, legitimate debt—on account of centuries of looting and exploitation, including the wrecking of the environment. Under no circumstance should we be under the illusion that “aid” and “loans” by “donors”—the discourse needs to be rejected—are intended to “help” the people of the South. To actually believe that is either “tragic ignorance or unforgivable arrogance”, states Lidy Nacpil, International Coordinator of Jubilee South

Which way forward--? The Shift in Power is underway, but it is not complete by any means.

The first point to stress is that the way forward for development cannot be separated, and indeed forms part towards of the construction of emancipatory democracy.

Second to build critical consciousness, North and South, about the centuries old extraction of wealth from the South to the North, from poor to rich, within and among countries—and not as a policy or technical issue but a moral and political one: to address not simply poverty as a contemporary reality but as a process of historical process of enrichment.

Third to restate the importance of solidarity and international mobilization of that consciousness. To put the heat on the street. Without resistance there can be no alternative—resistance is alternatives in the making. To support for the right of a people and region to exercise the right of economic self-determination, part and parcel of real democracy—in the face of what will be the unremitting hostility of the USG and its allies. Cuba continues to build its alternative, Venezuela its own, and Bolivia too—and all are the objectives of USG led destabilization campaigns.

Fourth, to engage critically. While we support the greater emphasis on the State now being emphasized in ALBA and the Bank of the South, we do not wish to substitute the rule of one group of Northern capitalists by a group of Southern ones. Banks are problematic and as REDES and Jubilee South America have made public those concerns. Hopefully at least some of those concerns will be addressed in the new ALBA Bank configuration. But one should always keep in mind Bertold Brecht’s’ belief that it is a greater crime to create a Bank than to rob one.

Fifth, not to lose sight of the goal of shifting power—and that is as much a product to be attained in the future as a process that requires practice in the future. Not simply away from Bretton Woods and corporate capital’s domination to State-led ones, which must be coupled with a greater democratic shift, to transform the international reality we have to transform our national ones. We welcome Venezuela’s decisive leadership in breaking some rules of the game—this historically unprecedented mobilizing of one country’s resources for the benefit of the others—this sovereign debt to solidarity debt--but this is not an end but the beginning, whether the governments like it or not. Aid, banks and debt are instruments of social and political control.

The shift of power as a shift away from capitalist mentalities and paradigms, where
· People are considered not as consumers but as citizens
· Countries are not seen as markets but as nations
· Capital and governments serve people and not the other way around

Forging a new development model and development solidarity architecture is fundamentally a political and a social task. It is one expression of the larger big struggle for human rights and sovereignty, and that struggle must increasingly be more led by women and youth and less by white men. By social movements, by uncivil society, in our continent by the indigenous and the environmental and debt movements who demand –not aid effectiveness—but historical justice in the form of the payment of the social and ecological debt that has accumulated over the past 5 centuries.

Support for alternative development path means support for the right and ability of the poor to build their own independent movements and bring sustained political pressure from below. Advancing toward of “non-reformist reform” coalitions that can push state power to implement real development policies that are justice based. Support for and participation of movements that will struggle for solidarity economies, for national democratic governance and for changes in financial and economic policies, structures and systems that can allow alternatives to be built.

We need to bring more movements into the picture, as this struggle is certainly not technical but political and therefore alliances must be constructed. At this conference we could have benefitted from the presence of leaders of the native aboriginal communities in Canada who no doubt would have key things to say about development assistance. With your environmentalists and their fight against tar sands exploitation which is making the world poorer. With peace and justice advocates that contest the notion that Canadian troops are bringing development and peace to Afghanistan. Without the involvement of movements and their perspectives on alternatives the Accra and Doha will simply mean two more boring male-dominated meetings

In 1933, John Manyard Keynes wrote [Capitalism] is not a success. It is not intelligent, it is not beautiful, it is not just, it is not virtuous—and it doesn’t deliver the goods. In short, we dislike it, and we are beginning to despise it. But when we wonder what to put in its place, we are extremely perplexed.

Well in much of Latin America people are no longer perplexed and are beginning to put something in its place as did the Cubans some 50 years ago. Socialism or better stated socialisms in the plural for the 21st century are back on the drawing board—not following any model or purporting to invent any one model, but as a set of principles to guide human interaction in all its diversity and in its relation to nature.

Progress is being made although we don’t know where we will be at the end of the day, but in Latin America we are convinced that there is a new political dawn of certainty and decision that must be supported and extended.

*Presentation by Alejandro Bendaña at the Conference on “The Changing Face of Global Development Finance—Impacts and implications for aid, development, the South and the Bretton Woods Institutions,” Halifax Initiative, Ottawa, Canada, February 1-2, 2008.

[i] “Ayuda de Hugo Chávez en crisis”, La Prensa, (Managua), January 15, 2008. Figures by the opposition Centro de Investigaciones Económicas de Venezuela (CIECA)

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

The AU Audit Report: A Brief Note

Abdalla Bujr

2008-02-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/46093

Introduction

As part of the Grand Debate on the Union Government, the Accra Summit in July 2007 took two important decisions, among others. Firstly the Assembly set up a Ministerial Committee of ten to look into the different aspects of a possible Union Government; and Secondly the Assembly requested an Audit of the African Union. For this purpose, a High Level Panel of 13 Africans were appointed by the Chairperson of the African Union to conduct the Audit. Both the Committee and the Panel worked under severe time constrain . The Panel met four times between 10th September and 18th December 2007. The Audit Report was submitted to the President of the African Union President Kuofor of Ghana on 27th December after which copies were distributed to Heads of states and Governments. According to AU procedures, the Report was then put on the agenda of the Executive Council to meet on 29-30 January. The Council would then submit the Report with its recommendation/comments on the Report to the Assembly meeting on 31stJanuary and 1st February 2008.

After submission, the Audit Report (AR) became an instrument to be manipulated (opposed, delayed, supported etc) by different forces within the AU for their different agendas. The Panel had little or no say on the fate of the Report after its submission. The panel attended both the Executive Council as well as the Assembly Meetings. The chairperson of the Panel gave a lengthy briefing to the Foreign Ministers of the Executive Council. But the Council hardly discussed the AR on the grounds that they had no time to study it and therefore needed three months to study the report and then discuss it at an extraordinary meeting of the Council. This recommendation to the Assembly of Heads States was discussed very briefly and, in its wisdom, the Assembly decided to refer the AR to a Committee of twelve Heads of States set up mainly to discuss the issue of the Union Government.

The Panel was rather disappointed at this outcome – its expectation was that the AR will be discussed seriously by both the Ministers and Heads of States and Governments and at least some of the recommendations for immediate implementations would be approved. However in the AU culture, being referred to a Committee, is not a positive message.

The Panel’s disappointment was deepened by two happenings. Firstly the AU Commission ( the Secretariat of the AU) issued an unexpected written reaction to the AR while the Report was still being distributed to Governments. It disagreed with some important aspects of the Panel’s analyses and recommendations. This document was disseminated to the Ambassadors and Foreign Ministers and thus encouraged a negative reaction to the AR. This was a reaction to the Panel’s overall finding with regard to the Commission that it is characterized by internal institutional incoherence and disarray, with a dysfunctional working and managerial culture at all levels. In fact 40% of almost 160 recommendations of the AR are on the AU Commission. They are designed to rationalize, strengthen and improve the Commission. Clearly any critique from the Panel however constructive was not taken kindly.

Secondly, an important recommendation of the Panel designed to avoid the kind of problems besetting the AU Commission at the cabinet level, was that the January Assembly should elect the next President and his/her Deputy only and that the Commissioners be appointed by the President in July on the bases of their qualifications. It seems that this important recommendation was not well received and the Commission as well as the Executive Council proceeded to put on the agenda of the Assembly the election of all Commissioners. The election took place and four of the Commissioners were re-elected as a result of intense lobbying at all levels. Was this a message that changes in the Commissioned are not welcomed?

The Audit Report

The AR is about 225 pages and contains 159 recommendations. I will not try to summarize or attempt to describe the Report. I will however highlight what the Report refers to as “accelerators”. And the suggested Benchmarks. The Report suggests that if the accelerators are injected into the process of implementing the AR they will speed up and deepen the socio-economic and political transformation towards African Unity and eventual Union Government.

1. The accelerators are:

i. Free movement of people;
ii. Building inter regional and transcontinental infrastructures especially in the fields of transport, communications and energy;
iii. Promotion of African multinational private investment companies for financing integration projects including infrastructure, and;
iv. The early establishment of the financial institutions as provided for in the Constitutive Act. “To assure progress, there is need for constant and regular monitoring. Accordingly, eight broad but measurable benchmarks have been proposed. It is on these that the project of African unity, integration and transformation will stand or fall over the long run.

The benchmarks will, therefore, serve both as radars of hope and the barometers of progress towards a future Union Government and towards the United States of Africa”. The Benchmarks are. Institutional revamping so that the organs and institutions of the AU, particularly the Commission which has a central role, will accelerate the integration process, not only by prompting pro-pan-African policies, programmes and projects, but also in implementing them diligently and fully; Internalising the Values of Pan-Africanism by genuinely promoting pan-African consciousness through the values that are enshrined in Article 3 of the Constitutive Act; Engagement of the people by moving away from a unification and integration process that is driven from above by political leaders into one that is infused with energies from below and which is provided by the generality of the people – a kind of Public-Peoples-Partnership Paradigm; The free movement of the people.

The year 2010, which marks the golden jubilee of the independence of many of the countries of Africa, and the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the Constitutive Act, will be the symbolic occasion to commemorate the dismantling of all the restrictions on the free movement of the African citizens on the continent; Rationalisation, strengthening and dynamising the RECs with a view to achieving synergy among the 8 AU recognised RECs and between them and AU Commission; Creation of the African Common Market and the establishment of the African Economic Community, through an effective harmonisation of the integration process throughout the continent using the instruments outlined in the Abuja Treaty; Acceleration of monetary and financial integration through the establishment of continental, financial and monetary institutions, and; The mobilisation of African entrepreneurs to become engaged in investing in transcontinental and inter-regional infrastructure and pan-African enterprises, by providing them with favourable and enabling environment, thus freeing Africa from the capital shortage illusion which cultivated a culture of dependence on foreign capital and foreign aid.

All the recommendations – 40 per cent of which are on the AU Commission – are intended to rationalise, strengthen and improve the functioning of all organs and institutions directly involved in the integration process in the continent. These recommendations, if approved and fully implemented, will enable the AU to provide a higher level of service and thus pave the way for the achievement of the political and economic integration in the shortest time possible. Many of the recommendations have far reaching implications both in the short and medium run. There are, however, recommendations that require the urgent attention and decision of the Assembly. They are identified in the Report. The Panel strongly believed that their adoption in a form of decision by the Assembly would contribute to releasing the potential of our continental organisation for a better service to the peoples of Africa, their governments and to the continent as a whole in its stand in the world community. But alas! So far no such decision has been taken by the Assembly!

As I have intimated earlier, I personally doubt if there are strong enough forces (representative of States) in the AU which are committed to support drastic changes in the AU – changes which are likely to speed up the process towards African Unity. Hence I believe that significant pressure for change must come from the African people and those CSOs which represent them and fight for them. Such pressure for the implementation of the AR recommendations can be exerted on national governments and through ECOSOC and PAP. More importantly the African people if mobilized on this issue, will become a significant force in exerting pressure for change. For the Audit itself is entitled “Audit of the African Union: Towards a People-Centered Political and Socio-Economic Integration and Transformation of Africa”.

I sincerely believe that these pressures – from the CSOs and the people - will help the small but committed force within the AU struggling to bring about change in the AU as a step towards African unity. Once again I urge all those who are committed Pan-Africanists and who are also interested in the process and movement towards African unity, to read this important document carefully – the whole Report. The Report is not perfect and there are several areas on which, in my personal view, the Report is weak or silent. Nevertheless, given the time constraint, the Report’s analyses, findings and extensive recommendations, makes it the best document available on the AU. Indeed some people believe that this is a historic document in that it did carry out a serious and objective audit of the AU.

*Abdalla Bujra is Executive Director DPMF Member of the Audit Panel.

**For the full audit report, please visit titled "Towardfs a People-centered Political and Socio-economic Intergration and Transformation of Africa, please visit Fahamu's AU Monitor at www.pambazuka.org/aumonitor

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

A Basketful of Water

Pius Adesanmi

2008-02-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/46098

My good friend, Moses Ochonu, a Professor of African History at Vanderbilt, once penned an essay about the frustrations of offering balanced and optimistic perspectives on the Nigerian condition, even in the context of "considerably lowered" expectations. Prior to a trip to Nigeria, Ochonu had taken the precaution of fortifying his psyche against the trauma of disappointment by lowering his expectations in line with what he deemed would be the quality of the social contract between a tragically atrophied postcolony and her citizens. He tried not to expect good roads; he tried not to expect stable power supply; he tried not to expect water from the taps; he tried not to expect safety of life and property; he tried not to expect smooth delivery of any of those routine services the state renders to the citizen; he tried not to expect courtesy from public officials; he tried not to expect people not to demand bribe. In essence, he prepared himself mentally for a trip to, well maybe not exactly hell, but to the famed threshold between earth and hell in Yoruba mythology. Although not quite in hell, the inhabitants of this liminal zone are sufficiently close to feel the heat as we see in some of the novels of D. O. Fagunwa. To protect himself, Ochonu placed the bar of expectation so low as to bury it in the sand. Yet, Nigeria managed to burrow deep into Ochonu's sand, find that buried bar of expectation, and settle down comfortably below it. In the light of this situation, my friend agonized over the dilemma of teaching Africa positively in the North American classroom when quotidian details keep pulling the rug off the feet of even the most unrepentant Afro-optimist.

A few days after I read Ochonu's piece, pondering how brilliantly it mirrors my own experience, another colleague, a Francophone African national, phoned from the US. As he had just returned from a trip to Zimbabwe, we talked Africa. He had not read Ochonu's piece but what he had to say revealed an extraordinary convergence of opinions between him and Ochonu. He told me he'd perfected a "mental survival kit" for traveling in Africa. He watches the screened flight indicator very closely in the plane. Once he notices that the plane has entered the airspace of the African continent, he takes off what he calls his "toga of Western standards" and wears his danshiki of considerably diminished expectations. That way, he's never disappointed. On the contrary, he is even pleasantly surprised whenever things work. That's the only way this seasoned Afro-optimist maintains his sanity when crisscrossing the continent.

The normalization of the substandard in Africa, its osmotic seepage into the weft of continental modes of being, can sometimes provide material for Nobel-class comedy. Accused of organizing the worst election in human history, Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's immediate past president and current national joke, lashed out at the international community for criticizing an election that satisfied African standards! How can rational people expect an African election to measure up to international standards, Obasanjo fumed. His opinion was promptly supported by Lady Lynda Chalker, the talkative British leech who always arranges to be in the company of the most reactionary elements within the ruling cabal in Nigeria. The elections were indeed very successful by Nigerian and African standards, she crooned. Our humiliation was complete. Bless her soul! The old lady wasn't to blame. Our leaders delivered the mouth with which to abuse us to her on a platter of gold. I once took a taxi from Lomé to Kpalimé in Togo. It was a standard Peugeot 505 car meant for a driver and four passengers. As is customary in so many parts of the continent, the driver squeezed two passengers in front and sardined four in the back for a total of seven people in a car meant for five. When I drew attention to this, the driver laughed heartily and gave me a paternal response: "ca c'est pour les blancs" (those standards are for white people).

Nowhere is this production of comedy out of monumental tragedy more palpable than in the impatience with which Africa's seems to replace one negative international headline with another. Darfur supplied endless materials for international headlines and gave value, sense, and meaning to the lives of Western actors operating in what I've called the Mercy Industrial Complex. While Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, and Bono were still shedding darfurized tears for international cameras, a jealous Zimbabwe drove Darfur out of the headlines. For a while, it looked like Zimbabwe was going to stay the course and spend some respectable time in the headlines but Nigeria had other ideas. Nigeria drove Zimbabwe out of international headlines with the joke she called elections in April 2007. As the giant of Africa, one would have expected other African countries to be deferential and allow Nigeria sufficient time in the sun but Kenya had other ideas. Kenya drove Nigeria out of the headlines with even worse elections, effectively confirming the seminal thesis of Professors Olusegun Obasanjo and Lynda Chalker on African elections. Before Nigerians could recover from the Kenyan affront, the shock of coming to terms with the fact that it is possible for any African country to offer a worse election scenario than Nigeria, South Africa drove Kenya out of the headlines with news of sporadic power cuts! News of power outage and rationing in South Africa got less than two weeks in the international headlines before our impatient friends in Chad drove South Africa out of the headlines. As I write, rebels have shot their way into the capital, displacing people and creating another potential refugee crisis. By now, the jet engines should be revving to move the Mercy Industrial Complex to N'djamena until another African theatre of the absurd drives Chad out of the headlines.

As a scholar paid to research and teach Africa in the West, Africa's generous production of negative headlines presents the most daunting professional challenge. You are a student of Eurocentrism. You are a student of the production of Africa in Western imagination. You are familiar with the image of Africa in the Western media. You know the tropes and metaphors of "the Africa that never was", as the title of one famous book very aptly puts it. In scholarly circuits, you are familiar with the history and discursive trajectory of Afro-pessimism. In fact, you are part of the postcolonial, dissident, and dissentient response machine to Western traducers of our past and our present. You prepare graduate seminars aimed at teaching your students how to approach Africa objectively; how not to pathologize Africa as eternal negation; how not to reduce the continent to a theatre Hobbesian self-abasement among "natives" and "tribes"; how to sift through Western sensationalism in order to arrive at objective intellectual insights. You teach them to be critical. You don't want them to wax positive when the facts are negative just to butter up their African professor. You help them to establish connections between things by placing developments in Africa in the context of broader global situations and their implications.

You do this, hoping and praying that by the time they come back to class next week, Africa would not have supplied another round of headlines that could make a mess of the entire basis of your seminar. You are aware that intellectual objectivity imposes the recognition of the supply side of things on you. The Western media may sensationalize Darfur, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Kenya but those countries supplied the material for sensationalization in the first place. Africa hardly ever disappoints. Every time they come to class, there is a fresh set of headlines to discuss briefly before class: they always google African news. "What's this thing about elections in Nigeria"? I try to give answers. "What do you make of the situation in Kenya"? I send them to The Zeleza Post to read analyses by Wandia Njoya and Paul Tiyambe Zeleza. As you answer the questions, you are boiling within. But you are not mad at them. You are in fact very happy that they take your seminar and Africa sufficiently seriously to do that extra reading in African current affairs. Deep down, you know you are mad at Africa for the endless supply of the macabre. At times you feel so empty and drained that you begin to wonder if your self-imposed task of Afro-optimism makes you look like that funny character in the Yoruba folk tale who spends his/her life trying to fill a basket with water. That proverb, I guess, is the answer of the Yoruba people to the myth of Sisyphus. Every time you give an Afro-optimist lecture, the continent supplies new headlines to puncture your optimism but you keep on pouring water into that basket. Stubbornly. Your love story with Africa keeps you going. Love, hope, and faith convince you that you may one day fill that basket.

* Pius Adesanmi is Associate Professor of English and Director, Project on New African Literatures at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Apart from his academic work, Dr. Adesanmi publishes opinion articles regularly in various internet fora. He runs a regular blog for The Zeleza Post where this article first appeared. He has contributed to Counterpunch, Slepton and Chimurenga online.

** Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org. This article first appeared at The Zeleza Post.

Abahlali baseMjondolo on South Africa's Notorious Slums Act

Abahlali baseMjondolo

2008-02-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/46100

Abahlali baseMjondolo Take the Provincial Government to Court Over the Notorious Slums Act
 
On Tuesday we lodged papers in the High Court requesting the Court to declare the notorious KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act unconstitutional. Today we can announce that the sheriff has just served those papers on the provincial government. They and our appeal to the court are now in the public domain.
 
The Slums Act is an attack on the poor that has been celebrated by estate agents and lamented by the poor. It is a clear return to the thinking and laws of colonialism (e.g. the 1934 Slums Act) and apartheid (e.g. the 1951 Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act). Today we are calling for a Housing Summit at which all democratic shack dwellers' organisations can negotiate a new partnership and a new Act with government. After years of protests around the country it is clear that we can not go on with failed policies.
 
We need an Act like the City Statute in Brazil or the Kaantabay sa Kauswagan Ordinance in Naga City in Thailand. We need an Act that will guarantee the Right to the City for the poor. We need an Act that will ensure that land in our cities is distributed according to human need and not the greed of the rich. We need an Act that will ensure that no shack dweller must face another year at constant risk of death from life without fire protection, toilets, refuse removal and floods as it is the case in Ash Road settlement in Pietermaritzburg. We need an Act that will ban government expenditure on theme parks and stadiums and newspaper adverts in which politicians promote themselves using the excuse of wishing us happy this and happy that while our children are being killed by rats and diarrhoea and fire. It is an insult to our humanity when money is wasted while people are dying from poverty. We need an Act that will ensure that our cities are safe for women – that the police will serve the people, that there will be lighting, safe toilets and proper public transport. We need an Act that will ensure that there is proper support for community run crèches in each settlement. We need an Act that will make it clear that putting three generations of a family in one room 30 kilometers out of the city is oppression and not a housing programme. We need an Act that will immediately provide subsidised transport, sports fields, clinics and libraries for all the innocent people who have already been forcibly removed out of the cities and sentenced to life in terrible places like Park Gate in Durban and France in Pietermartizburg. We need an Act that will end the top down system of government and NGO planning that has terrorized our people – an Act that will ensure that in each settlement development is planned by the people of that settlement through their organisations in partnership with the government. We need an Act that puts real power in the hands of the people.
 
On 28 September 2007 we marched against the Slums Act in our thousands. We were beaten and 14 of us were arrested.
 
On 21 June 2007 we sent a delegation to the provincial parliament to oppose the Slums Act there. We were denied the right to speak.
 
On 4 May 2007 hundreds of us crowded into the Kennedy Road Hall to tell the government that we are absolutely opposed to the Slums Act. We were ignored.
 
We are going to court because we know that in court we will not be beaten, arrested, denied the right to speak or ignored. 
 
When the Bill was first circulated we read it in small groups line by line. We developed a critique. It is on our website at http://abahlali.org/node/1629 We discussed the Bill and our critique in meetings across all our affiliated settlements and branches in Durban, Pinetown and Pietermartizburg. Eventually it was decided to issue a call for all people and organisations opposed to this return to apartheid to join us to plan a campaign against the Bill. By the time the Bill became an Act we had created a task team with one job to do – to eliminate the Slums Act. The Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) in Johannesburg was one of the organisations that responded to our call for solidarity against this Act. They took instruction from our movement at various meetings in the shacks and have developed the papers served today in constant discussion with us. They report to our Elimination of the Slums Act Task Team. The Task Team reports to the movement secretariat and the secretariat reports to all the thousands of Abahlali members across Durban, Pinetown and Pietermartizburg. When our lawyers step into court they will not only be carrying the hopes of thousands of people but they will also be guided by the thinking done in our communities. They have acted with us, not for us. We salute CALS for solidarity in action.
 
Despite all the arrests that we have suffered since 2005 not one of our members has ever been found guilty in a court. But we have never lost when we have taken the government to court. We have won many crucial court victories since 2005. We overturned Sutcliffe's illegal ban on our marches in 2006 and working with the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) and other pro bono lawyers we have won interdicts against illegal evictions every year since 2006. We also salute the LRC and the pro bono lawyers for solidarity in action.
 
This is a day of hope for our movement and on this day we note that we are not alone.
 
We reaffirm our full support for all shack dwellers struggling against the destruction of their communities in the name of 'slum clearance' across South Africa and especially the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign and their brave struggle against forced removal. They have been warned that their own Western Cape Slums Act is on the way. We also reaffirm our full support for their struggle for the right to think and lead their own struggle. We reaffirm our full support for all street traders struggling against harassment and eviction across the country. We reaffirm our full support for all families struggling against the eviction of poor children from schools. We reaffirm our full support for all rural people batting evictions from farms and the resilience of the Rural Network to be in solidarity with those families. In this instance, we will stand firm with our comrades from eNkwalini (between Eshowe and Melmoth) when we march together on Friday. We reaffirm our full support for our comrades in the Combined Harare Residents' Association and all the other organisations and people in Zimbabwe still reeling from Operation Murambatsvina. We reaffirm our full support for our comrades battling evictions and other forms of oppression in Turkey and in Haiti. We will be in support of Lavalas, the movement of the Haitian poor that became a flood that had to be dammed and damned by the rich, on the global day of action for Haiti on 29 February 2008.
 
Every person is a person. Every person is important and deserves safety and dignity. One billion of the six billion people in the world live in shacks. Another billion live in housing that is not much better than shacks. Let us no longer accept the unacceptable. Let us build a university of the poor in every city. Let us stop all evictions. Let us move forward to land and housing in the cities.
 
Our settlements are communities to be supported not 'slums' to be eliminated.
 
To hell with the Slums Act.
 
For further information and comment please contact:
 
Sibusiso Zikode, Abahlali baseMjondolo President: 0835470474
Lousia Motha, Abahlali baseMjondolo Co-ordinator: 0781760088


*The full court papers will be loaded onto to our website www.abahlali.org shortly.

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

Enough of Sectarian politics

Michael Neocosmos and 36 others

2008-02-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/46091

We the undersigned African intellectuals wish to add our collective voice to those who have been calling for an end to the slaughter currently taking place between our Kenyan brothers and sisters. Our continent continues to be ravaged by systematic exploitation of its natural and human resources by the new forms of Empire which still have scant regard for the welfare of our people. Our people have historically resisted such exploitation and oppression, yet there have always been some who have played the game of the ruling powers in our societies. Under colonialism it was the colonial power which fomented ethnic divisions which it named tribes and tribalism in order to divide and rule. Since independence it has been African politicians and elites who, schooled in the politics of their Western masters, have continued to foment ethnic divisions and wars. Nigeria, Uganda, Algeria, Cote D’Ivoire, Rwanda, South Africa are among the many countries which have experienced inter-ethnic turmoil since overthrowing the shackles of colonialism and apartheid. And now Kenya. The press and most academic analyses continue to insist on the tribal nature of Kenyan and African society much as the colonialists had done before. This racist argument must be rejected with contempt. African society is no more tribal or ethnic than Germany, the ex-Yugoslavia or Belgium. At the root of the problem in Africa is not ethnicity or nationality, but a form of politics in which "winner takes all", for which those who "win" electoral or other contests exclude the losers; where those who "capture" power exclude those who have not captured it and pack their supporters into government jobs and state committees. While this happens in most countries including in the USA, in Africa it is these jobs and posts on committees which enable access to resources and hence accumulation for the elite along with survival for the poor. The losers are left out, their elites survive on a reduced income and power, while their poor become destitute. Access to power then becomes a matter of survival, literally of life and death. It is this kind of politics and not ethnicity which must be condemned. Whether the political cleavages are organised around ethnic, religious, regional or party lines makes little difference. It is the sectarian and exclusionary politics on our continent, which African thinkers such as Franz Fanon condemned long ago, which constitute the main obstacle to economic progress and political unity, which must also be condemned and transformed today. A genuinely democratic politics can only be founded on a maxim of equality for which everyone without exception must be treated the same, by the state, by governments, by parties, by NGOs. Without the constructing of such a politics there will be many more Kenyas to come.
Michael Neocosmos, University of Pretoria, SA
Charles Puttergill, University of Pretoria, SA
Fred Hendricks, Rhodes University Grahamstown, SA
Teresa Cruz e Silva, Mozambique, President Codesria
Vishanthie Sewpaul, University of KwaZulu Natal, SA
Bert Olivier Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, SA
Steven Friedman, Independent Analyst, SA
Jackie Cock, University of the Witwatersrand, SA
Ben Cousins, University of the Western Cape, SA
Pedro Tabensky, Rhodes University Grahamstown, SA
Jimi Adesina, Rhodes University Grahamstown, SA
Andries du Toit, University of Western Cape, SA
Mafaniso Hara, University of the Western Cape, SA
Peter Alexander, University of Johannesburg, SA
Marjorie Mbilinyi, UDSM, TZ
Jacques Depelchin, Universidade de Bahia, Brazil
Ernest Wamba-dia-Wamba, DRC
Roger Southall, HSRC, SA
Tshepo Madlingozi, University of Pretoria, SA
Kammila Naidoo, University of Pretoria, SA
Charles Mironko, SA
Richard Pithouse, Rhodes University Grahamstown, SA
Bill Freund, (retired) UKZN, SA
Sakhela Buhlungu, University of the Witwatersrand, SA
Geci Karuri, HSRC, SA
Corinne Strydom, NorthWest University, SA
George Hadjivayannis, Tanzania
Kebede Kassa, Africa Union
Simon Mapadimeng, UKZN, SA
Jonathan Mafukidze, UP, SA
Dorothee Holscher, UKZN, SA
Graham Hayes, UKZN, SA
Sulaiman Adebowale, Codesria, Dakar
Ibrahima Amadou Niang, Codesria, Dakar, Senegal
Joel das Neves Tembe, Mozambique
Abebaw Minaye, Addis Ababa University
Matevha Azwihangwisi, HSRC, SA

Kenya: struggling for peace?

Andile Mngxitama

2008-02-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/46092

I have been a great admirer of the contemporary Kenyan literary and intellectual movement for sometime now, a movement personified in Kwani? amongst others. As a relatively young South African, I have searched with no success for an equivalent development here at home. I have been mesmerised by Wainaina’s imagination and masterly use of irony. Mukoma’s political insights which are many years older than him, I cant forget the dancing poetry of Shaila Patel. But when the election related bloodletting occurred, im afraid their wailing pens went flat. They have certainly written, they have initiated and joined the peace movement, but im afraid they haven’t said anything. Maybe that is the cost one pays for success and international glory.

Why would these great minds of our time, appear like many Desmond Tutus presiding over the TRC collective mourning ceremony? Why have they banished from their pens, incitement to liberation and the attack on the neo-colony and its degenerate democrazy (apologies Fela)?

Every time I read these idols of mine, I hear “peace”. What peace? I ask. The poor of Kibera are trapped in one of the most vicious structural violence known to humanity, every single day of their miserable existence. Haven’t we felt the bitter tears of the surviving mau mau fighters? When we were in Nairobi for the WSF last year, we were told stories of state sanctioned mass killings of the poor youth, they apparently shoot to kill even for stealing a cell phone. And we talk peace? Is it not a great miracle that some people born in Kibera reached the age of 25? But for the majority of Kenyans life after Uhuru has not been a bed of roses, we also know of the never ending killings for land and forests.

My gripe more than anything is predicated upon the spectacular failure to raise an alternative voice which is not hobbled by international NGO humanitarian discourses deeply trapped in liberal democratic appeal. I yearn for a voice which would confidently redirect the violence consuming the poor of all tribes, which is organised above by the democracy elites whose sole purpose is looting. Why I don’t hear someone talk about revolutionary violence? Why I don’t hear someone say death to Kibaki and Odinga! Unity amongst the poor! Why? Because we are now struggling for peace? Not even a little justice?

The people of Kenya has every right to chose who will rule over them, in short which elite group must come in and eat as they seat in the grand stand cheering on. That’s democracy ala our new colonisers. But surely we can warn them that they need not kill each other so that their respective leaders may eat. We have a responsibility to point out that the so called democracy is really not worth dying for, maybe we should point out that it’s a little better to die fighting for your own freedom against the tyranny of money now embodied in Kibaki and Odinga.

Please let’s stop the talk of peace, which is nothing but a call to return to the abnormal normalcy of elite rule predicated upon the perpetuation of structural violence against the poor. Here in SA, it was interesting to watch through eyes burning with tear gas and gun power, how the apartheid monster turned the terms of our liberation movement into a negotiations for peace after unleashing untold violence against the blacks using black hands like the Inkatha Freedom Party thugs (remember the misleading talk of black on black violence?). So we negotiated a peaceful transition which ensured the perpetuation of black suffering.

Am I losing my mind? It’s ok if I’m, because reading Wainaina’s latest missive in the mail and guardian about those bloody Tanzanians, I have good reason to believe I’m in good company…

Tony Hall - 3 June 1936 - 31 January 2008

A life lived from the hearty

2008-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/obituary/46121

Tony Hall lived his life from the heart. He had a heart that embraced a life-long commitment to human freedom, absorbed large doses of self-sacrifice and enveloped those whom he loved and respected. In some kind of serenely symbolic and beautifully poignant way it was his heart that chose to pronounce on a life well, and fully, lived. Tony Hall passed away peacefully in his sleep at his Mpumalanga home on 31st January.
A LIFE LIVED FROM THE HEART

TONY HALL (Born 3 June 1936; Died 31 January 2008)

By Dale T. McKinley (for the Mail & Guardian)

Tony Hall lived his life from the heart. He had a heart that embraced a life-long commitment to human freedom, absorbed large doses of self-sacrifice and enveloped those whom he loved and respected. In some kind of serenely symbolic and beautifully poignant way it was his heart that chose to pronounce on a life well, and fully, lived. Tony Hall passed away peacefully in his sleep at his Mpumalanga home on 31st January.

Tony was born in Pretoria on 3rd June 1936 into a family of note. His grandfather, Arthur Lewis Hall was a pioneering, world famous evolutionary geologist, while his Auntie Connie became the first woman lawyer in South Africa. His parents, John and Betty, raised him and his four other siblings (John, Mike, Geoff and Joan-Mary) while running the Spread Eagle Hotel in Eikenhof. After attending Pretoria Boys High, he graduated to Wits University where, in the course of his journalism studies, he met, and married, the true love of his life, Eve.

Tony’s first job was at the Star in 1959, but he quickly moved on to the Rand Daily Mail where his journalistic skills were promptly rewarded. An interview with Nelson Mandela and coverage of the Treason Trial followed, and so too did Tony’s politicisation. The day after the Sharpeville massacre, both he and Eve joined the Congress movement. In the ensuing years, they had three boys – Phil, and the two twins, Andy and Chris. Their house became a (secretly renowned) gathering place for movement leaders where serious politics mixed effortlessly with jazz beats and hot curries. By February 1964, the apartheid authorities had ‘listed’ Tony and Eve as members of a banned organisation. Rather than end up serving lengthy goal terms, they packed up their belongings and, along with the boys, headed into exile. It was to be 26 years before they would return home.

During those 26 years in Africa, India and the U.K., Tony perfected the art of activist journalism whilst simultaneously being a loving father and supportive partner to Eve. As the news and features editor of The Nation in Nairobi, Tony blazed a trial of independent, critical journalism at a time when it would have been much easier and safer to simply ‘to do the job’. After his drafting of the Manifesto for the opposition party, the K.P.U., was ‘found out’, Tony was expelled from the country – something which he always ‘wore’ as a badge of honour. And so to Tanzania, where he became the training editor of The Standard, opening up the Hall household as a haven for various liberation movement leaders/activists and doing voluntary work for the ANC, FRELIMO and MPLA.

Stints with Oxfam and the U.N. in India, Ethiopia, Somalia and the U.K. followed. Amongst his many achievements, Tony was the journalist who ‘broke the story’ to the world of the first Ethiopian famine in 1973. He later played a leading role in providing courageous and critical journalistic analysis/commentary on the volatile politics of the Middle East as well as pioneering similar coverage for Eastern and Southern Africa. Throughout, Tony always maintained his unwavering support for, and practical role in, the South African liberation struggle.

When Tony and Eve were finally ‘unbanned’ in 1990, they had no hesitation in immediately returning home. Tony was ecstatic at the possibilities of a new, free South Africa. Still full of energy and passion, he continued with his journalistic and political work, first in Johannesburg and later in the semi-rural confines of his and Eve’s bush ‘retirement’ paradise (Matumi) near Nelspruit. Tony deserved Matumi, a stunningly gorgeous place where that big heart of his found both rest and inspiration, where he lavished love on an ailing Eve (who passed away at Matumi last October), provided a second home for his sons, their wives and his ten grand-children and played gracious host to comrades and friends.

Until his death, Tony never stopped dreaming. In what proved to be his last major piece of writing, he penned a document last year entitled, ‘A 2020 Vision for Southern Africa’, which, in his own words, presents “a quixotic mix of policy guidelines and practical measures to remind us that there are alternatives … there is a way … to promote and complete the emancipation and cooperation of the people of South Africa, and the region”. Practical, passionate and true to his heart … that’s a life worth living.

Hamba Kahle Tony. You will forever remain in our heart and souls.

Black August: Bringing George Jackson's life to the screen

2008-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/46117

If it's true that the less costly straight-to-DVD journey of any historically rooted drama is potentially bolder and more truthful, by more effectively bypassing the profit-driven political censorship of Hollywood, then Black August is certainly a striking example of this promising trend. The searing drama is an earnest and reverential biopic delving into the tragic, short life of the late George Jackson, sixties US political prisoner, LA Black Panther spiritual and intellectual guiding force, and fierce leader within the Black prison movement at San Quentin.
Black August: Bringing George Jackson's Life to the Screen

By PRAIRIE MILLER

CounterPunch February 8 / 10, 2008

If it's true that the less costly straight-to-DVD journey of any historically rooted drama is potentially bolder and more truthful, by more effectively bypassing the profit-driven political censorship of Hollywood, then Black August is certainly a striking example of this promising trend. The searing drama is an earnest and reverential biopic delving into the tragic, short life of the late George Jackson, sixties US political prisoner, LA Black Panther spiritual and intellectual guiding force, and fierce leader within the Black prison movement at San Quentin.

Filmmaker and screenwriter TCinque Sampson (co-directing with Samm Styles), himself spent 22 years behind bars, including part of his sentence spent in a cell next to the one Jackson had occupied at Quentin years earlier. And the vigor and intensity of Sampson's narrative casts an uncompromising gaze on the oppressiveness and brutality of life behind bars. George Jackson was imprisoned at the age of eighteen for the rest of his life, for a 75 dollar gas station robbery, until he was gunned down during a prison riot and attempted escape. And it was his eloquent indignation against injustice and racism, a soaring intellect and profound understanding of class warfare, the human urge to revolutionary struggle, and his subversive political charisma that all contributed to sealing his fate.

Embracing the teachings of Marx, Lenin and Che in prison, Jackson's gift as a lightening rod for inmate rage made him a target for institutional brutality and long gestating execution by the authorities. The film Black August touches on his final days and unwavering political defiance to the end. And his evolving relationship with and impact on David Drye, played by Darren Bridgett, the editor of Soledad Brother, Jackson's historic bestselling collection of letters from prison.

Gary Dourdan of the TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, ignites the screen with a magnificent performance as the imploding, mesermizing, and paradoxically streetwise and gifted intellectual Jackson, and he gets it just right. Though a number of key aspects defining that politically incendiary time are barely touched upon, including the potent Panther teachings and ideological roots that inspired and transformed Jackson early on, as well as his complex relationship with professor and revolutionary Angela Davis. And the COINTELPRO elaborate domestic espionage FBI operation of informants and orchestrated illegal infiltration and sabotage that ultimately contributed to destruction the left in this country, makes a significant appearance in the film, though in a much too offhanded and minimalist way. Black August is nevertheless a devastating portrait of the life and times of one of America's most courageous anti-racist people's soldiers in the ongoing battle for political justice and economic equality.

Director TCinque Sampson said he wanted to bring the story of the tremendously influential life of George Jackson to the screen upon his own release from prison. "People have heard about George Jackson and Angela Davis, but they don't know much about them or their work," Sampson said. "George Jackson was a man who believed that human life is meaningless if it is not accompanied by the power to determine its quality. And he knew those in control never concede anything, unless it is demanded of them."

Sampson met to talk with me about Black August, in conjunction with its direct-to-DVD release on Warner Home Video for Black History Month How did such a remarkable film not get a run in theaters, and go straight to DVD?

TCINQUE SAMPSON: Well, I have not given up hope. But the important thing, is that this story is out there.

What is it about George Jackson and that turbulent historical period, that inspired this film?

TS: The first and foremost thing that moved me, is that George Jackson has been a mentor for me. And it is the dichotomy in this country of Black America, that caused me to juxtapose George Jackson's struggle, with the underclass struggle today.

And I had written down a lot things in prison, never thinking that it would turn into a film. And then I thought that those looking at this piece about George Jackson, and those yet to be born, would find inspiration in his journey. And the circumstances of his death, are moving people even today.

So making this film was very easy for me, my own situation and being in captivity. George Jackson's writing was like the bible for me. Soledad Brother, and eventually Blood In My Eye. And I think it's the same experience and inspiration that gave me to take my education to a higher level. And we wanted to capture how George's struggle and his life, touched others.

How did you go about condensing and approaching all the material at hand?

TS: I wrote from sitting in circles that George Jackson himself had sat in, and with some of the same people that had survived the onslaught of COINTELPRO activities. There was that plethora of information, but it was made easy just by juxtaposing my own walk.

And myself, doing time in the same beast's belly, I knew reading and testing George's theories, that there was a lot of correctness in the directions he had taken. So with that, I had to basically put myself in George's shoes - if I so dare.

But believe me, everyone in captivity is George Jackson. They just don't know it yet. And what I focused on, was the last twenty months of his life. Because like many others who went in there, his first revolutionary act was probably criminal. But this aggression turned into something constructive.

So I pick up on his life when he opened himself up to others, and in like circumstances. And when he brought their attention to people's suffering. And we take it from there to the time of him writing his books, and expressing himself to the world.

How did you end up in prison?

TS: I was a drug dealer. I was a predator. I was a product of an environment from which I sprung. And George and myself, we came up in like circumstances. We both came out of Chicago, and Catholicism was in our lives. Altar boy, catechism, I did the whole thing.

And my father was a Chicago police officer. And somewhere along the way, I think it was because I was a Vietnam veteran, my first encounter with racism was when I was in the military. And that left a permanent impression on me.

I eventually served 22 years in prison. I could have gotten out a lot sooner. But once I embraced the teachings and the mentorships of individuals like George Jackson, and Black liberation struggles, the Black Panther Party, anyone who stepped out of the range of omnipotent administrative behavior, I was put in security housing and given an indeterminant amount of time to serve there.

And today, there are so many that I've left behind. And that's what makes this film so beautiful, because this was not made for profit, this was made for pride. Because we continue to let people frame us in the light they want us seen, and we have had no voice.

George Jackson only needed to deny his ideological precepts, and he would have been freed from his one year to life sentence. And that's the beauty, what he did was for the people's struggle.

What do you feel is George Jackson's legacy, and what do you hope your film conveys to the younger generations of color?

TS: I think George will always be known as the greatest prison organizer in this country. And a human rights activist for all prisoners, black and white.

And he was a great inspirator for those prisoners who made it back into the free world, to turn their criminal passion into responsibility towards their communities. And as the real maintainers, providers and protectors.

And the younger generation must come to understand that new truths disturb the old power relationships, and power defends itself. There's the power of the police who terrorize their communities, and the mental kind, the propaganda.

So the underclass youth in this country, need to know that they must stand up for their lives. And life is next to useless, if it is not accompanied by the tools that determine its quality. And in our grand designs, we must achieve something other than new forms of the old miseries.

One remarkable aspect of Black August, is that you speak your mind without worrying about controversy, and that's a rare truthfulness whether we're talking about filmmakers or politicians more concerned about their careers. What led you to take that risk with your film?

TS: Well imagine, someone like me labeled a subversive in this society, I went to a basketball player who saw some of his own life in this story, and he gave me the money to put this film together.

But you're right, it was very difficult with this story, as it's been told, nobody else wanted to touch it. They would give me their cordial dialogue, but it never came into fruition. And I do applaud Warner Home Video, for taking that chance.

Now that's a big studio. Were they ever nervous, or not willing to let you go as far as you wanted to go with this story?

TS: No. They invited me in. But it was like going into Fort Knox, there was so much security. There were fifteen of them from Warner Brothers on one side of the table, and I was on the other.

And they said, what are your intentions for Black August. And they allowed us to speak. But this is actually the eleventh year that the hip-hop generation, and Mos Def, are commemorating Black August. So there was already a music movement behind this. And now this is going to be the first visual commemoration.

And I am so proud to bring George Jackson into a greater manifestation. He was a real person, and it could have been any one of us taking that step, and put on the path that George Jackson ended up on.

What about those problems you had with the local authorities, who ran interference against your filming in some of the original locations?

TS: Well, it was a matter of the establishment versus everyday people, not a color line. Many, black and white, wanted to see this film made. And even after thirty years at San Quentin where these situations took place, the wounds were still fresh.

And people there were actually angry that we were claiming history. We weren't creating a story, we just wanted to tell the story. So we had to bring complaints to the state for differential treatment from other filmmakers that had come in before us.

And when San Quentin finally agreed, they made it a catch 22 situation. We would have to unload and reload our trucks every day. And anyone who knows about film, knows they were trying to blow us out of the water with our budget. They could kill our budget in one week, just with having to load and unload our trucks every day.

So we passed on that. And then we were invited out to Nevada, to a state prison there. And we were treated really well. Some of those guards appear in the film, and all the inmates you see are real inmates. They're not actors, except for Gary Dourdan. And myself, I make a brief appearance.

However, when it came to filming at the site of the Marin Courthous Courthouse shootout on August 7th, 1970, they pulled our permit. And we had to take them to federal court to get a cease and desist. And then we were allowed to shoot out shots there, except for inside the courtroom.

But speaking of what we went through, there was this off-duty police officer who came on the set with a weapon. He had been at the Marin County Courthouse on the day of the shootout. And he had to be removed, restrained and arrested by the Marin County sheriff's department.

What was he doing on the set?

TS: He was trying to impede our filming. And when he heard that we prevailed in federal court to shoot there, he decided that he was not going to let that happen.

What was your approach to depicting COINTELPRO, and questioning that official record of events?

TS: I relied on my own research of COINTELPRO activities. Of course, you could wait for years for release of documents, if you were to just ask for them. And our real message with all the spying and wiretapping we depict - and it was all true and proven at the trials of the remaining Soledad Brothers - was that a lot of the deaths didn't have to happen.

We suggest and we stand behind this in the film, that everything that happened was preventable. And that these people will allow deadly events to take place, to propagate them for their own ends. So that's the story, the way we tell it. And we don't back off from it.

Now, what led you to become a filmmaker after 22 years in prison?

TS: I see myself less a filmmaker, than someone who has internalized the stories of great men in captivity who inspired me to pick up books. Forgotten men, in like circumstances.

And all those years, my writing style came from reading western novels. And I did that to get away now and then from the academic surge in my body. And those novels helped me look at something, and see a little more. Like the point of view of a wagon crossing the prairies, that sees from there everything around it.

And that was only because I had the desire to see, and to understand. And I've been blessed with the ability to convey other people's thoughts. So that was so important to me. Because my time in prison was spent as well, as a prison organizer and activist. And part of that involvement was keeping the prison struggle going. Because that struggle is meteoric.

What do you feel you brought to Black August, that someone who had never been in prison couldn't capture or comprehend?

TS: As soon as I walked on the set and saw how everything was being set up, I said no, this is not real life. It's not the story I'm telling. And I started throwing things off the tier and telling them, no. We will not cover up the conditions under which George Jackson lived.

And that means the way he lived, how he lived. And how he was treated every day. And it was more important than anything, that this story be people-rich. And if I did this correctly, and those who are yet to be born and follow can understand it, then that makes it all worth it.

Gary Dourdan is amazing as George Jackson in the movie. What led you to choose him for the part?

TS: I needed someone who could show me that radicalism, and that militancy. And he showed the depth of George Jackson.

How do you feel prison politicized you, and changed you as a person?

TS: Let me put it like this. Prison has made me a better person to struggle on, and help those in struggle like myself. And not be afraid to stand up for my convictions that I believe in.

And I think the best thing for me to do, is be a filmmaker. Because I cannot be silenced or censored. My first job when I got out of prison, I got my paralegal license and I was working for a firm, they gave me a chance.

I even got a chance to lecture at Hastings School of Law in San Francisco, talking to attorneys and federal judges about the prison snitch programs that the federal government maintains in its sentencing process. And it's ironic, because I was speaking to these people who are supposed to protect lives.

And me being an ex-prisoner, an ex-slave, what have you, it was like I was telling them something that they had no idea about. But when you know the truth, you have to act on it.

And it's not only Al Qaeda and the Taliban that they torture. They do it right here, in these prisons. Those stories have yet to be told, and must be told.

Black August is available from Netflix and Amazon.com .

Prairie Miller is a WBAI film critic, and host and executive producer of The WBAI Arts Magazine. She can be reached at: pmiller@wbai.org

GenerationKenya 45

2008-02-15

http://kenya.africancolours.net/content/15680

An innovative project to celebrate Kenyan success has taken on a new relevance and urgency in the light of continuing troubles caused by the 2007 disputed elections. GenerationKenya 45, which will document outstanding contributions by a nominated selection of Kenyans, will ensure it takes into account the needs of national healing and reconciliation necessary to resolve the current crisis.

Mozambique: Video Art Workshop - Imaginary Lines

2008-02-15

http://mozambique.africancolours.net/content/15701

Multiple ideas would well articulate a constantly changing world’s vision and open Imaginary Lines to individual experiences in which the validation of the individual emotional and creative spaces can be reclaimed and legitimised within a collective public environment. This, however, would be based on the principle that cultural pluralism promotes tolerance, acceptance and mutual respect.

An unorthodox update on Zimbabwe’s voters roll (poem)

Isabella Matambanadzo

2008-02-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/46101

I dressed for the occasion.
Put my cute fanny in lace nickers,
Gave my breasts some serious gravity (EJ Win always
says wear new, matching underwear on important days,
that’s why she got me stuff from Bravissimo).
I was already sizzling
Rainbows around my waist, beads, and beads, and beads
of them from Codou and Roses in Dakar.
She’s also sent me incense. Intoxication is critical.
I wasn’t just sizzling, I was leaving a most musky trail.
Layering: Vanila bath what what from Sisonke, coconut
oil something wafting.
Slipped my pink pedicured feet into slinky sandals.
Shells on the rim.
A trade we did with Alice from Rwanda in Zanzibar,
plotting Feminism
Needed some bling. Hooked in amber and silver earrings,
Muthoni Wanyeki style. Off of Biashara
street in Nairobi, necklace from Hope Chigudu, a
talisman from Thailand — Awid, Bangkok, Massage - Men
in our movements, masquerading comradeship, turning our
voice to footnotes.
Pulled back the dreadlocks. One side like Sylvia.
Now the war paint. Eyes the way Jessica Horn taught me -
intense, serious, sparkling. Mac to the Lips - pout,
shimmer, shine: Pat Made put this in my purse (need
to text Thoko Matshe to stop by the counter next time
she’s in London - I got to have another one).
Stand tall like Bisi, this is an election year after
all:
But my name was not there: Not on the voters roll,
where it had been 5 years ago. Vanished. Disappeared.
My name was not there.
Who took my name? I hollered, vagina twitching with
rage. I said - who took my name? Ziii no answer other
than stares of intimidation from some twobit cop
representative of rigging. Txt message to Teresa
Mugadza - most kicking lawyer in Town. Woman wrote
Domestic Violence Legislation surely this is a
piece of cake for her!
Someone took my name Tere I howl, mad as ever. So get
it back girl, she croons. Get it back. You know you
got to vote. Right?
Zimbabwe: hurting and burning. Rage.
Straight up. I am taking it back. And today I am going
back. War clothes and all. This V is my Day.

*To read more of Isabella Matambanadzo, please visit www.kubatana.net where this poem was first posted.

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

Kenyan women targets of violence

Simiyu Barasa

2008-02-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/46097

Many thought her bravado was pure madness, that unknown young woman on the television screen. “Why do we have to keep on being tear-gassed because of you? We want to work!” She screamed at the leaders of the opposition party outside Nairobi’s Stanley Hotel as they prepared for a banned protest march against the disputed victory of the Mwai Kibaki’s presidency.

“Ask Kibaki!” William Ruto and Najib Balala retorted. “No! Don’t tell me about Kibaki! I am tired of being chased around. I want to go on with my life…”

“Ask Kibaki!” A crowd of men shoved the poor woman to the ground, and she had to run away, as they slapped and threw kicks at her. A few moments later, paramilitary police rendered the city of Nairobi un-inhabitable.

That moment symbolises the situation of our mothers, our sisters, of women in Kenya during these ethnic cleansing sanitised as “post election violence.”

“800 people dead, and over 250,000 people displaced in their own country” drone international news channels. Cold statistical figures that do not show how Kenyan women are suffering rapes, murders, lack of food for themselves and their family, and loss of property.

Kenyan women have been stoic despite patriarchal inhibitions of our society. They head families; they kick off their husbands from illicit brew dens, and hawk vegetables and foodstuffs to feed us. They vie for political posts despite the violence and intimidation. But now, they are the envelopes upon which messages of hate are delivered to enemy camps.

How else can you explain 1 January 2008? Location: Kenya Assemblies of God Church, Kiambaa, Eldoret Town. Scene: a group of people runs into the church under attack from their neighbours, only to be locked in, and burnt alive. Fade out on charred remains of 35 people, mostly women and children, including the smoldering wheel chair of an ailing woman whose sons had taken here there in the hope of sheltering her from the violence.

It is neither a film, nor a reality television. It is real news.

As the violence entered the capital city guarded by hundreds of paramilitary police, the gender based violence that had characterised the pre-election period where women political leaders and voters suffered assault now exponentially spiraled out of control.

Nairobi Women’s Hospital issued an alert that the reported number of rapes had more than doubled, from an average of four rape cases per day to more than ten. News abounds of young girls, under the age of 18, to women over 70 years old, being gang raped as they flee conflict areas.

Most of the quarter a million displaced people lucky enough to flee have been hurdled in refugee camps in football fields, police stations, churches and schools. Reproductive health facilities here are not readily available, and for the pregnant women childbirth is a matter of life and death. The Rift Valley Provincial Hospital reported at least six women arriving there for delivery within the first week of the camp being set up.

Sanitary towels are not available. There is no money to buy from the surrounding shopping centres as the refugees have nothing. Leading supermarkets already post appeals for well-wishers to buy sanitary towels and deposit in special bins for donation to refugee camps.

Food has fast become an issue. The Red Cross is having problems reaching some refugee camps as rowdy youth barricade roads, and at one time even overwhelmed relief trucks and looted the food. Even when the food does get to the camp, the women and children have to wrestle and jostle in the queues.

In “safer” residential areas, women now fear to go out to buy food for fear of police and violent demonstrators. Towns like Nakuru and Naivasha towns are under a 7 p.m to 7 a.m curfew. Food prices have rocketed countrywide. Sukuma Wiki, a staple vegetable, now costs ten shillings a small bunch up from five shillings.

In the low-income housing estates of Nairobi’s Huruma and Mathare, women landlords went to collect rent from their tenants, only to be told by rival tribesmen that “the building now has its owners, we are the landlords.”

A pregnant woman was flung from the fifth floor of her own block to her death. As one of the women put it, “it’s unbelievable that there are people living in the comfort of my houses while I am a refugee being rained on in a Police Station’s yard.”

Tired of it all, some 200 women refugees evicted from Kibera slums decided to go back to their homes and appeal for peace across tribes. Just like the unknown young woman who dared stand up to the political leaders and ask if there is any justification to this violence and chaos, they too ask WHY Kenya has succumbed to this anarchy and breakdown of order.

However, Mr. Politicians do not want to hear them, or do not care. Women are invisible to the political class, but very visible to the aggressors seeking targets.

*Simiyu Barasa is a Kenyan filmmaker and writer. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service that provides fresh views on everyday news.

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

Review of African Blogs

Sokari Ekine

2008-02-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/46104

The Moor Next Door discusses the Arabic language and how it influences “Arabic political and cultural discourse” and considers whether the “explosiveness and poetic” nature of the language leads to “radical Islam”.
..... This [those educated in classical Arabic] in no way led to the creation of radical ideologies or ideologies; but it did influence the way in which those ideologues express themselves. And the themes expressed in much classical literature likely make it all the more unacceptable for such a set to accept being ruled by aliens (or those under alien influence).

This is my thinking. I could be reaching too far back, as is Dr. Lewis when he explains that the roots of modern terrorism lay in some back room Anglo-Ottoman-French-Austrian-Icelandic treaty or in the conduct of the 18th and 19th century corsairs. Or when someone tells us that the the Arabic language itself leads to "radical Islam".

Wordsbody comments on Obamamania and takes us through his celebrtory supporters and detractors from Spike Lee and Toni Morrison on the one hand and Maya Angelou and Whoopie Goldberg on the other. The split within the Black community is obvious – one of the choices being do you vote on racial lines or because you sincerely think Obama is the man?
“Uncomfortable as I am with the role of the great O in this campaign, I actually welcomed her statement above. Because the converse is also true. I am free as a black person to support Hillary Clinton if I want.”

African Renaissance: A Revolution of the Mind? poses some thoughts on the question of borders in Africa which cut through linguistic and ethnic groups as a way of controlling the “natives”.
“This got me wondering about how borders have exclusified languages or dialects...I hope there is such a word as exclusify, but what I mean is if a Shona person spoke Kalanga with a Shona accent in Botswana they would probably get flak for it, and if I as a Kalanga speaker have taken flak for speaking Shona ''funny.'' Shona and Kalanga are in some respects like Texan English and the English one would find in Wales, so they are not completely dissimilar. Once upon a time, they were the same language but a border ran through it and now it lives between them.”

Chippla’s Weblog reports on recent talks between the Russian gas multinational, Gazprom and the Nigerian government on the development of gas fields.

“What about Gazprom? What does it have to offer? The Financial Times report (referred to in the first paragraph of this write up) provides next to nothing on this, though it quotes a Nigerian government official as saying:
"What Gazprom is proposing is mind boggling. They are talking tough and saying the west has taken advantage of us in the last 50 years and they're offering us a better deal."
Until such a deal is made public (should the talks between Gazprom and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation bear fruit) this blogger remains deeply skeptical. Gazprom, like any other energy conglomerate, is simply strategically positioning itself for global growth beyond the shores of Eurasia. Already a key player in the European gas market, in addition to being 'the' key player in the Russian gas market, it now has its eyes set on a region of the world in need of exponential growth”

Sotho links to the 25 most important films on race and the lack of recognition of Black actors by Hollywood.
“Look around, and you’ll see how African Americans have emerged as the big screen’s most reliable stars. Will Smith is the one demonstrable megastar. Morgan Freeman’s quiet dignity gets him designated as the face of God and the soul of humanity. ...........And the achievements of blacks are regularly honored by Hollywood. In the past seven years, blacks have won Academy Awards in every acting category. Halle Berry took Best Actress for Monster’s Ball, Freeman Best Supporting Actor for Million Dollar Baby, Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls.”

Cairo Freeze, an Egyptian weekly cartoon editorial, posts a cartoon on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent speech suggesting that aspects of the Sharia Law to be officially recognised in the UK.



No Longer At Ease has an excellent series of updates on the fighting in Chad between the government and rebels. The updates are very informative in this very difficult to understand conflict.
“The rebels took off just five days ago from the East of the country, near the Sudanese borders. Chad and Sudan have been exchanging accusations that each is supporting the others' rebels. Chad supported and armed rebels in Darfur and so did Sudan with Chadian rebels. In 2006, the rebels reached the outskirts of the capital N'Djamena but they were pushed back with the help of the French troops. There is no doubt that Sudan will be delighted with a change of leadership in Chad.

It also seems that the EU, and particularly France, sees president Idris Deby as a liability; he has presided over fraudulent elections and changed the constitution so he can have a third term. His ongoing rivalry with the Sudanese government is also making the deployment of UN troops in Eastern Chad and Darfur much more difficult.

The African Union, already overloaded with the crisis in Kenya, Darfur and Somalia, has said that Chad will be suspended from the organization if president Deby is deposed and "until normalcy and democratic rule is restored in that country".

Kubatana Blogs points to the hypocrisy of the British government in calling for a ban against the Zimbabwean cricket team touring England this summer and at the same time insisting that British athletes sign a “gagging order” not to criticise human rights in China during the Olympics.
“The British government stands accused of out and out hypocrisy and should be held accountable for their fair weather concern for justice. Clearly its a case of trade before fair play when it comes to the Olympic Games in China. Makes you wonder - if Zimbabwe was a strong trading partner of Britain whether Flash Gordon would be kissing Bob’s bum?”

Black Looks reports on the link between the Israeli billionaire and settlement magnate, Lev Leviev’s diamond mining in Angola and building of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
“New York and Londoner’s campaign to boycott the jewellery stores of Israeli billionaire and settlement magnate, Lev Leviev on Madison Ave and Bond Street. Leviev is a major constructor of Israeli settlements on Occupied Palestinian land in violation of international law. He owns Alluvial diamond mines in Angola where thousands work in dangerous conditions, largely unregulated and often digging with their bare hands standing in dirty muddy water. [Alluvial diamonds are cheap to mine because the diamonds are just below the surface. ]”

* Sokari Ekine blogs at Black Looks and www.africanwomenblogs.com

Interviews with women in south Kivu

2008-02-14

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

In this series of interviews, Rwanda's Contact FM radio talks to activists in south Kivu fighting for justice for the women of Congo.
Christine Schuler Descrivers works closely with Panzi hospital in Bukavu and a leading campaigner against the sexual terrorism of women.
Dr. Denis Mukwege is chief gyneacologist at Bukavu’s Panzi hospital and a specialist in reparative surgery for women mutilated by sexual terrorism.

* Venancie Bisimanabintou is executive secretary of the womens’ network for the defence of human rights and peace also based in Bukavu.

* Picture: Rehdda Jahnaitka
http://s190.photobucket.com/albums/z133/jahnaitka/

China/African trade up $74 billion

2008-02-15

http://www.sabcnews.com/economy/business/0,2172,164102,00.html

The value of trade between China and Africa had increased by 24% to $74 billion between 1995 and 2007 according to figures released by the Trade Law Centre of Southern Africa (Tralac). A researcher at Tralac, Taku Fundira, says Chinese imports from Africa increased by 27% over the review period while Chinese exports to Africa increased slower at 23%. "This resulted in a small trade deficit of $1.1 billion for China with Africa in 2007.

Prices skyrocket as official inflation shoots up to 66,000 percent

2008-02-15

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news140208/prices140208.htm

Prices of basic goods shot up to an all time high on Wednesday as the country’s world-record hyperinflation spun further out of control. The Central Statistical Office, which has failed to release inflation figures since September last year, sent a statement to banks Wednesday confirming inflation has soared to a new high of over 66,000 percent, based on December figures. This marked a gain of over 39,000 percentage points on the November rate of over 26,000 percent.

Students beaten and arrested at demos in Harare and Bulawayo

2008-02-15

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news140208/students140208.htm

Riot police are reported to have used violence to break up peaceful demonstrations by students in Bulawayo and Harare on Wednesday. Several student leaders, who were briefly detained in both cities, say they were brutalised by police while in custody. The group detained in Bulawayo included Privilege Mutanga, the ZINASU Gender and Human Rights Secretary, who is 9 months pregnant. She suffered a broken hand and a twisted ankle during the assaults and was rushed to Harare for treatment on Thursday.

Zimbabwean newspaper claims Makoni was part of Mbeki plan

2008-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/46149

The Zimbabwean newspaper has published a story claiming South African President Thabo Mbeki is supportive of Simba Makoni’s bid to run for president. Editor Wilf Mbanga said their reporter picked up the story in South Africa and confirmed it with officials from Mbeki’s government. He says they have also run it by Makoni’s people, who confirmed Mbeki had hoped for a change of leadership within Zanu PF at their special congress in December last year.

Burundi: Violence against women - OMCT press release

2008-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/46111

On 1st February 2008, as its 40th session came to an end, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) adopted its concluding observations, having examined the combined second, third and fourth periodic report of Burundi regarding the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
PRESS RELEASE

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN BURUNDI:
THE UN CONFIRMS CONCERNS OF OMCT AND ACAT Burundi
Geneva-Bujumbura, 7th February 2008

On 1st February 2008, as its 40th session came to an end, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) adopted its concluding observations, having examined the combined second, third and fourth periodic report of Burundi regarding the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

In early January 2008, the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) submitted a shadow report to CEDAW in collaboration with the Burundian Christians’ Association for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT) to be considered alongside the State report. CEDAW received this alternative report warmly and adopted many of its observations and recommendations.

This OMCT/ACAT report denounces serious violations of women’s rights in Burundi. It emphasises that women are consistently victims of different forms of violence and that the end of the armed conflict has not changed this situation. The perpetrators of these crimes enjoy impunity before all state authorities. The report proposes a series of measures to fight this impunity and bring to an end the strong discrimination against women that is institutionalised in both Burundian laws and customs.

As the report from OMCT and ACAT underlines, gender-based violence is mostly sexual in nature. The Committee “urges the State party to adopt a comprehensive strategy to combat all forms of violence against women” and to that effect “make use of general recommendation 19”. It calls on the State to “train the judiciary, law enforcement officials, legal professionals, social workers and health providers” to ensure that crimes against women are prosecuted and perpetrators sanctioned and to provide appropriate support to victims. Moreover, the Committee emphasizes that a law on domestic violence must be passed.

The Committee echoes the joint report of OMCT and ACAT in urging the State party “to ensure that women in detention are systematically separated from men and supervised by gender-sensitive prison staff “. The State is also called on to undertake studies on trafficking of women and “to strengthen measures to combat and prevent trafficking in women and girls”. Furthermore, the Committee calls for an amendment of the new draft Penal code with regard to the criminalisation of prostitution.

The Committee further echoes OMCT and ACAT’s concern regarding a number of legislative provisions that are discriminatory toward women and prevent them from enjoying their fundamental rights. The Committee calls on the Government “to ensure the effective implementation of laws and policies that provide for de jure equality and seek to eliminate discrimination against women” especially pointing at provisions of the family code, the nationality code, the criminal code and certain labour regulations concerning pregnant women in particular. The Committee also expresses concern about “the persistence of patriarchal attitudes and deep rooted stereotypes regarding the roles and responsibilities of men and women”. It urges the State to take measures to eliminate such cultural practices and stereotypes with the cooperation of civil society organizations, women’s groups, community leaders, teachers and the media. It also calls on the State party “to implement training programmes on the Convention for prosecutors, judges, and lawyers so as to establish a culture supportive of gender equality” and “to remove the impediments that women may face in gaining access to justice”.

Reiterating concerns expressed by OMCT and ACAT on the lack of national policies to promote gender equality, the Committee welcomes the adoption of the National Gender Policy and recommends that the State put in place the planned mechanisms without delay.

OMCT and ACAT Burundi greatly appreciate the concluding observations and recommendations of the Committee and call on the Burundian Government, and especially the people’s elected representatives at the local and national level, to fully implement the recommendations without delay so that they comply with Burundi’s international obligations. For further information:
· Shadow report on violence against women in Burundi: http://www.omct.org/pdf/VAW/2008/CEDAW40th_Rep_alt_Burundi_fr.pdf http://www.omct.org/pdf/VAW/2008/CEDAW40th_Rep_alt_Burundi_eng_summary.pdf)

· Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) on Burundi, 40th session, 1st February 2008: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/co/CEDAW.C.BDI.CO.4.pdf · Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women:
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cedaw.htm · Recommendation no19 of the CEDAW: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/recommendations/recomm.htm#recom19 Contacts:
OMCT: Mariana Duarte, md@omct.org ACAT Burundi: Lucie Nizigama, nizigama_lu@yahoo.com

Global: Inviting submissions on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV)

2008-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/46107

UNHCR's Policy Development and Evaluation Service (PDES) has commissioned an independent evaluation of the organization's role in preventing and responding to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in situations of forced displacement. In order to ensure that the evaluation has a global focus, and to ensure that all stakeholders have an opportunity to contribute to this evaluation, PDES is inviting all interested parties, including NGOs, human rights organizations and independent researchers, to make written and confidential submissions to Health Focus, providing their perspective and experience in relation to UNHCR's performance in preventing and responding to SGBV.
UNHCR's Policy Development and Evaluation Service (PDES) has commissioned an independent evaluation of the organization's role in preventing and responding to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in situations of forced displacement. In order to ensure that the evaluation has a global focus, and to ensure that all stakeholders have an opportunity to contribute to this evaluation, PDES is inviting all interested parties, including NGOs, human rights organizations and independent researchers, to make written and confidential submissions to Health Focus, providing their perspective and experience in relation to UNHCR's performance in preventing and responding to SGBV.

Ideally, such submissions should address the issues set out in the Terms of Reference for the evaluation, which can be accessed at: http://www.unhcr.org/research/RESEARCH/47a7356d2.pdf

Submissions, which can be of any length and format, should be sent to Julian Poluda, Poluda@health-focus.de Any enquiries with respect to these submissions and to the evaluation in general should be sent to Maria Riiskjaer,riiskjaer@unhcr.org.

Global: UNFPA scales up efforts to save millions of women

2008-02-15

http://www.unfpa.org/news/news.cfm?ID=1098

A new thematic fund for maternal health has been created to boost global efforts to reduce the number of women dying in pregnancy and childbirth. The fund, established by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, will also encourage developed countries and private sponsors to contribute more to saving women’s lives. Every minute a woman dies due to complications in pregnancy or childbirth, adding up to half a million women dying every year. Another 10-15 million women suffer serious or long-lasting illnesses or disabilities.

Morocco: Society unmoved by the plight of rape victims

2008-02-15

http://tinyurl.com/yqkuug

Rape remains a taboo subject within Moroccan society, despite increased media coverage in recent years. Instead of receiving moral support and encouragement from their families, rape victims are often rejected. Parents see the rape of a daughter as a dishonour which must be concealed at all costs.

Namibia: Women robbed of motherhood

2008-02-15

http://www.newera.com.na/archives.php?id=19419&date=2008-02-12

Some young women have, unknowingly and forcibly, been sterilised because of their HIV status, New Era has learnt. At a workshop in Windhoek last month, which brought together 30 young women living with HIV, three participants from the Khomas, Karas and Oshikoto regions said they were forcibly sterilised. New Era spoke to two of the women who chose to remain anonymous for fear of stigmatisation. A 25-year-old Khomas woman was sterilised without her consent on October 15, 2003 at Windhoek Central Hospital after giving birth by Caesarian section.

Nigeria: Senate Bill on indecent dressing - Press release

2008-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/46109

In a recent publication, a member of the Nigerian Senate and Committee Chairperson on Women and Youth, Senator Eme Ufot Ekaette, admitted that she has presented to the National Assembly for discussion and eventual ratification into law a Bill against indecent dressing in the country. She spoke to the press recently noting that indecent dressing amongst Nigerians has continued to promote all manner of vices in the society. She claims that the Bill she is proposing will address issues of indecency and immorality and that she aims for the preservation of cultural norms and values.
PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Nigeria Feminist Forum (NFF) co-hosted by Alliances for Africa and BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights.
Contact email: afa@alliancesforafrica.org and baobab@baobabwomen.org

In a recent publication, a member of the Nigerian Senate and Committee Chairperson on Women and Youth, Senator Eme Ufot Ekaette, admitted that she has presented to the National Assembly for discussion and eventual ratification into law a Bill against indecent dressing in the country.

She spoke to the press recently noting that indecent dressing amongst Nigerians has continued to promote all manner of vices in the society. She claims that the Bill she is proposing will address issues of indecency and immorality and that she aims for the preservation of cultural norms and values. According to her, we are seeing a lot of moral decadence in the society today. See the Sun, editorial page, January 25th, 2008.

For the record, the Nigerian Feminists Forum is rather concerned that the Chairperson of such an important Committee in the Senate is trivialising women’s concerns and issues by laying emphasis on dress code while ignoring critical and life threatening issues affecting women which needs urgent and immediate attention. Nigeria has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world with infant mortality rate; at a total of 95.52 deaths/1,000 live births. With a breakdown of male: 102.44 deaths/1,000 live births and female: 88.38 deaths/1,000 live births (2007 est.)[1] According to the National HIV/Syphilis sero-prevalence survey conducted by the Ministry of Health and the Futures Group Aim Model, there are 3,906,752 people living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria and 27,243 new cases every day.

Nigeria has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world, there are between 10,000 and 15,000 deaths out of 100,000 births annually. With limited and unaffordable medical facilities and maternal care services, women are at the receiving end due to the poor attention given to maternal and reproductive health concerns. The rampant issues on rape of infants and the aged women as well as other issues of sexual harassment of girls in primary, secondary and university environment, issues of female genital mutilation, violence against women in all it’s ramifications, girl-child marriages, child trafficking and its attendant problems, amongst others.This calls for a critical reflection from the highest legislature on the plight of women in Nigeria.
What substantial and commendable efforts has the Committee shown in protecting the rights of women vis a vis these vices? What collaborative effort has the Committee initiated in working with stakeholders in these areas?
What is the Committee doing to ensure the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) seeing that Nigeria is far from achieving these goals?

A concerted effort by all including the Senate Committee on Women and Youth is required to develop clear and strategic responses to these critical and life threatening issues.

The Nigerian Feminists Forum is of the view that a Bill on indecent dressing with an attendant jail term of six months for a female offender (bearing in mind that there is a high violence record against female prisoners in our current prisons) is a gross violation on the fundamental human rights of citizens and is not the most effective way to curb moral decadence in the society. This is not the most urgent and critical social problem that confront women and young persons in Nigeria today. It is a ‘non- issue’ taking cognisance of the fact that women and young persons are worst affected by poverty and lack of sustainable development: a major threat to the right to life and a sustainable livelihood.

The Nigerian Feminists Forum calls on the Committee to engage itself with more concrete issues such as budgetary allocation advocacy to provide services and information for girls and women and their families to ensure quality health as defined by the World Health Organisation; repealing discriminatory laws against women, amend the legal provision on rape, ensure women’s access to safe reproductive health and the whole debate around women’s “choices”; access to economic credit to alleviate poverty; access to safe medical care; access to decision making positions on issues that directly affect their lives in their communities; research to provide the data much of which is already available, to understand what the most challenges of Nigerian girls’ and women are so that the committee can address these fatal challenges that women face and the list is endless.

The Nigerian Feminists Forum as a strategic partner, advocating for the liberation of women from gender based oppression will not hesitate in providing useful focal areas to be considered by the Committee in the interest of women when called upon to do so. We hereby call on all stakeholders and partners to begin the campaign to kick against such a Bill and its attendant jail term. Whose young women are we going to jail, are we speaking of our daughters, sisters, nieces and cousins. Whose CHILD do we want to jail? What happens to female prisoners in jail? The Government has questions to answer.

Iheoma Obibi Executive Director & ASHOKA Fellow

South Africa: The One Man Can campaign

2008-02-15

http://www.genderjustice.org.za/onemancan/

The One Man Can Campaign supports men and boys to take action to end domestic and sexual violence and to promote healthy, equitable relationships that men and women can enjoy - passionately, respectfully and fully. The One Man Can Campaign promotes the idea that each one of us has a role to play, that each one of us can create a better, more equitable and more just world. At the same time, the campaign encourages men to work together with other men and with women to take action - to build a movement, to demand justice, to claim our rights and to change the world.

Sudan: Rape: Ever-present danger for Darfur's women

2008-02-15

http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/rape-ever-present-danger-darfurs-women

At least 2.3 million people have been displaced by the conflict in Darfur. Most of those driven from their homes and communities are now living in more than 65 camps dotted around Darfur. Hundreds of thousands of people were driven from their home in 2003-4 in attacks that were accompanied not only by killing, but also by rape of women on an unprecedented scale.

DRC: ICC Prosecutor leaves unfinished business in Ituri

2008-02-15

http://tinyurl.com/3amfds

With the third DRC war crimes suspect now at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the ICC Prosecutor has signalled that his work in Ituri is done. According to the Prosecutor, the arrest of Mathieu Ngudjolo now closes the first phase of investigations in the DRC. He is now turning his attention to the ongoing atrocities in the Kivus, just south of Ituri.

Egypt: 'Re-Conversion' decision is a welcome step

2008-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/46120

The recent ruling by Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court allowing 12 Christian converts to Islam to "re-convert" back to Christianity is a welcomed rejection to the government's policy of religious discrimination, Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) said today. The two organizations urged the government to take immediate steps to correct its systematic policy of forcing converts from Islam to accept a religious identity that was not their own in order to obtain essential identification documents.
The recent ruling by Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court allowing 12 Christian converts to Islam to "re-convert" back to Christianity is a welcomed rejection to the government's policy of religious discrimination, Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) said today. The two organizations urged the government to take immediate steps to correct its systematic policy of forcing converts from Islam to accept a religious identity that was not their own in order to obtain essential identification documents.

"The judges' decision marks a happy ending to an absurd and unnecessary court fight," said EIPR director Hossam Bahgat. "It was only the stubborn insistence of Interior Ministry officials to place their prejudice above the law that made it necessary to go to court at all."

In yesterday's ruling, the Supreme Administrative Court granted the 12 individuals' request to obtain new documents identifying them as Christians, but noted that the new documents should refer to their previous conversion to Islam. Human Rights Watch and the EIPR warned the government that any such public reference could subject converts to social stigma and discrimination.

The ruling overturned an April 2007 lower court decision which upheld the government policy of refusing to reflect in mandatory national identification cards the conversion back to Christianity of citizens who had earlier converted to Islam. The policy is not based on any Egyptian law, but on what government officials understand to be the Shari`a, or Islamic law, prohibition against apostasy. National ID cards are necessary for education, employment and the most basic financial and administrative transactions.

In a joint report issued in November 2007, Human Rights Watch and the EIPR documented 211 similar lawsuits that went before Egypt's administrative judiciary in Cairo since April 2004. In all of these cases, the plaintiffs were challenging the policy of the Interior Ministry's Civil Status Department to misidentify them as "Muslim" in official records, forcing them to be subject to Muslim family law and predetermining the religious affiliation of their children and the mandatory religious education they will receive in public schools.

The report, titled "Prohibited Identities: State Interference with Religious Freedom," also documents how the government automatically "converts" Christian children to Islam if one of their parents, usually the father, converted to Islam, without regard to their wishes and often without their knowledge. Muslim-born converts to Christianity are similarly denied identification documents reflecting their conversion and are often subject to official and social harassment, detention, and sometimes even torture by security officers.

"The state should not be in the business of controlling traffic between religions," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Yesterday's court decision will have repercussions that apply to all Egyptians wishing to change their faith without facing administrative or criminal punishment."

The EIPR had intervened in the 12 cases in support of the plaintiffs and submitted a brief outlining the government's obligation under Egyptian and international human rights law to respect freedom of religion, including the right to change one's religion.

"There may be situations where there is a need to reconcile Shari`a and international human rights standards, but this is not one of them," Bahgat said. "There is no agreement among Islamic jurists that there should be any worldly punishment for leaving Islam."

To view the Human Rights Watch and Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights report, "Prohibited Identities: State Interference with Religious Freedom,"please visit:
http://hrw.org/reports/2007/egypt1107/ For more information, please contact:
In Washington, DC, Joe Stork (English): +1- 202-299-4925 (mobile)
In Cairo, Hossam Bahgat (Arabic, English): +20-10-628-8928 (mobile)
In Cairo, Gasser Abdel-Razek (Arabic, English): +20-2-2-794-5036; or +20-10-502-9999 (mobile)

Rwanda: Spanish court orders detention of 40 Rwandan officers for genocide

2008-02-15

http://tinyurl.com/yr767b

Spain's National Court on Thursday ordered the detention of 40 Rwandan military officers on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and terrorism in connection with the deaths of more than four million people in the 1990s. The victims also included six Spanish missionaries and three aid workers, who were killed in refugee camps where they worked between 1994 and 2000.

Rwanda: Investigator accused of manufacturing evidence appears at UN tribunal

2008-02-15

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25591

A Rwandan defence investigator accused of trying to fabricate evidence for the appeal in the genocide trial of the country’s former higher education minister has made his first appearance in his own case before the United Nations tribunal set up to deal with the mass killings that engulfed the small African nation in 1994.

DRC: UNHCR distributes non-food items to 55,000 people in Katanga

2008-02-15

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/47b469e06.html

The UN refugee agency has launched a final distribution of aid for a large group of displaced people who have returned to their homes in the southern province of Katanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). "This intervention is being carried out as part of UNHCR's programme of assistance and protection for people displaced in northern and central Katanga," said Roger Hollo, a protection officer in the provincial capital, Lubumbashi.

had: UN says gunmen in Chad block Darfur refugees

2008-02-15

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN548581.html

Gunmen in eastern Chad have prevented the United Nations from moving newly-arrived refugees from Sudan's Darfur region away from a volatile border area and into camps, the world body said on Friday. U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said armed men stopped a group of families from boarding its trucks in the Birak border area this week and other refugees due to be collected had moved away for fear of attacks by Sudanese militias.

Kenya: Backlog at customs affects UNHCR missions

2008-02-15

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/47b467a94.html

Three years ago, Bengt-Ake Johansson faced a risky road journey through rebel-infiltrated territory in northern Uganda as he prepared to set out from Kenya to deliver a gift of trucks from Sweden to UNHCR in South Sudan. He needed a police escort to get through.Last week, Johansson returned to Kenya with other colleagues from the Swedish Rescue Services Agency (SRSA) to lead another convoy of trucks from Mombasa to South Sudan, some 2,000 kilometres away. This time the danger came from inside Kenya, where post-election violence has plagued parts of the country since the beginning of the year.

Kenya: Many displaced are on the move again, says UN

2008-02-15

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25599

With the security situation easing after a wave of violence tore through Kenya following last December’s contested elections, the United Nations reported that large numbers of displaced are returning to their “ancestral homes,” potentially straining resources in the nation’s western region. The movement of internally displaced persons (IDPs) is mainly occurring from central to western areas of the country, and its impact is already being felt in Western and Nyanza provinces where educational and health systems are overextended, according to the UN Country Team.

Sudan: UN refugee agency seeks $63 million to help southern Sudanese return home

2008-02-15

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25592

The United Nations refugee agency has launched an appeal for $63 million to help it administer the voluntary return and reintegration of 80,000 Sudanese still living in neighbouring countries as a result of the north-south civil war that ended in early 2005. The appeal by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), unveiled in Geneva, aims to ensure that the agency’s voluntary repatriation scheme would be able to continue.

Zambia: Refugees receive the skills to be self-sufficient

2008-02-15

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/47b2f4422.html

Three days each week a group of refugees, including men, women and older children, gather in a classroom in Meheba to learn ways to improve their agriculture and small businesses. With most refugees who wanted to repatriate now gone home to Angola, UNHCR and the Zambian government are working – through programmes such as the formation of agricultural cooperatives and a micro-credit scheme – to ensure that remaining refugees are gaining the knowledge and skills to become self-sufficient.

Chad: Government probes missing politicians

2008-02-15

http://www.afrol.com/articles/28015

A judicial inquiry has opened into the disappearances of three key opposition figures detained in the Chadian capital N'Djamena on 4 February, the Interior Minister Ahmat Mahamat announced. The whereabouts of the three politicians - Lol Mahamat Choua, Ibni Oumar Mahamat Saleh and Ngarlejy Yorongar - were not known

Kenya: Parties agree to independent poll probe

2008-02-15

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN525181.html

Kenya's feuding political parties have agreed to set up an independent review of the disputed December 27 presidential election, mediator Kofi Annan said on Friday. Annan, reporting on progress at this week's talks, also said it was essential for the parties to form a "broad coalition" to agree on constitutional and electoral reforms going forward.

Zambia: Ex-president Chiluba to face graft trial

2008-02-15

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN548417.html

Zambian former president Frederick Chiluba must stand trial on charges of stealing almost half a million dollars from the southern African country while he was its leader, a court ruled on Friday. Magistrate Jones Chinyama set the trial date for Chiluba, who stands charged of theft of public funds with two Lusaka businessmen, for May 5. Chiluba denies any wrongdoing.

Zimbabwe: Registration and verification of voters’ roll ends one day early

2008-02-15

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news140208/regvot140208.htm

There was confusion at most voter registration and verification centres when people rushing to make last minute checks were told the exercise finished on Wednesday. Our Harare correspondent Simon Muchemwa said the exercise ended at 7pm Wednesday despite notices in the official state media that it was going to end Thursday.

South Africa: Government to shut anti-crime agency

2008-02-15

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EEE14737-B7F9-40D3-9E4F-246D810CE731.htm

South Africa's elite crime-fighting unit, the Scorpions, is to be disbanded in what comes as a blow to Thabo Mbeki, the country's president, who defended the FBI-style organisation. Charles Nqakula, South Africa's safety and security minister, told parliament on Tuesday that the organisation would be dissolved and a new unit set up.

Africa: Bank President reiterates support for agriculture at AU summit

2008-02-15

http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.3673.aspx

Robert Zoellick told Africa's leaders the World Bank wanted to expand its "efforts to help countries produce their own food, instead of relying on imports.” This would represent a complete reversal of Bank policy which has focused thus far on encouraging Africa to devote more land and resources to growing commodities, and to rely on international markets to purchase the food they were no longer growing.

Guinea: Illegal international fishing impoverishes local fishermen

2008-02-15

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76723

The livelihoods of local fishermen are increasingly threatened by the many industrial trawlers from Europe, China, Korea and Russia, which often operate illegally in Guinea's once-abundant waters. "The exclusive zones that are reserved for local fishing should be recognised by the industrial boats and they should stay away from them because their presence is causing a lot of economic and social problems,” Souba Camara, a government port official in Conakry told IRIN.

Zambia: Government to revise “unfair and unbalanced” mining tax rates set by World Bank

2008-02-15

http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.3672.aspx

Agence-France Presse (AFP) reports that during an address to Zambia’s parliament last month, President Levy Mwanawasa announced the cancellation of tax breaks for mining companies operating in the country’s lucrative copper sector. Calling the present rates “unfair and unbalanced,” the president proposed a new tax regime “in order to bring about equitable distribution of the mineral wealth.” While Zambia’s major copper companies are yet to comment on the new tax regime, AFP reports that the new corporate tax rate is “still lower than the level in other copper producing countries.”

South Africa: Updated PMTCT guidelines still lag behind international standards

2008-02-15

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/661A51A1-08E6-47E1-9D08-6B57B3B81C45.asp

The South African Department of Health this week published new guidelines for prevention of mother to child transmission in South Africa. However activists and doctors say they still leave South Africa out of step with poorer and less well resourced nations. South Africa will not adopt the regimen described as `more efficacious` by World Health Organization guidelines issued in August 2006 - seven days of AZT and 3TC for mothers after single dose nevirapine at the time of delivery – but instead use AZT alone for the infant - but not the mother - in the week after delivery.

Uganda: Married people should be primary target for HIV prevention - study

2008-02-15

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/643CE621-B9FD-48A6-B452-2977FF533683.asp

Uganda has undergone a striking change in the profile of people becoming newly infected, with older and married individuals now making up the vast majority of new infections, according to findings from a national study of HIV incidence conducted in 2004-5 and presented last week at the Fifteenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Boston.

North Africa: World Bank report: education progress needed in Maghreb

2008-02-15

http://tinyurl.com/38zvyu

A World Bank study issued last week says Arab countries must improve education to combat unemployment and close what it calls the "education gap" with other regions. Under the title, "The Road Not Traveled: Education Reform in the Middle East and North Africa", the report called on countries in the Maghreb region to "reform their educational systems so as to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive world, and to benefit from the potentials and capabilities of the already big, and still growing" youth population

Global: GM crops increase pesticide use says report

2008-02-15

http://www.foei.org/en/media/archive/2008/gm-crops-increase-pesticides

A new report released on February 13th shows that planting genetically modified (GM) crops is causing an increased use of harmful pesticides in major biotech crop producing countries. The 2008 edition of the Friends of the Earth International “Who Benefits from GM crops?” report series is titled “The Rise in Pesticide Use” and concludes that GM crops on the market today have on the whole caused an increase rather than a decrease in toxic pesticides use, and have failed to tackle hunger and poverty.

Southern Africa: SADC region on high alert as more flooding is forecast

2008-02-15

http://www.sardc.net/Editorial/Newsfeature/08060208.htm

Southern Africa has been warned to brace for more and heavier rains as the peak of the rainfall season approaches. The rainfall season in most of southern Africa stretches from October to March with a peak in late February. A forecast for the period January to March 2008 issued by the SADC Drought Monitoring Centre warns of heavy rainfall across most parts of mainland SADC and Madagascar.

Swaziland: the myth of sustainable plantations

2008-02-15

http://www.eldis.org/go/country-profiles&id=35384&type=Document

Swaziland’s timber plantations have been held up as a model of sustainable forestry management, where other plantations around the world are considered to have had negative environmental and social impacts. However, the authors of this report argue that these plantations are sustainable in the narrowest sense of the term, that of “long-term productivity” rather than “sustainability” as it is understood in a development context.

Ethiopia: Assessing the impacts of land registration and certification on women

2008-02-15

http://www.eldis.org/go/country-profiles&id=35321&type=Document

Land certification has been implemented in Ethiopia since 1998 and over 5 million certificates have been delivered. This is the largest delivery of non-freehold rights in such a short time period in Sub Saharan Africa. The new federal and regional land proclamations that form the basis for this land reform, aim to increase tenure security and strengthen women’s rights to land as to ensure more sustainable use of land resources. This study, conducted in the Oromiya region (OR) and the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples region (SNNPR) of Ethiopia, aims to assess the early impacts of land registration and certification that has been implemented there since 2004.

Gambia : Tortured Sierra Leonean journalist flees persecution

2008-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/46133

Muhamed Oury Bah, freelance Sierra Leonean journalist and former reporter of banned Banjul-based The Independent newspaper has fled The Gambia in the face of persecution by agents of the notoriously feared National Intelligence Agency (NIA). Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) sources reported that Bah and his family fled The Gambia on January 20, 2008 following repeated physical attacks, and threats against his life.
The Gambia ALERT: Tortured Sierra Leonean journalist flees persecution

Muhamed Oury Bah, freelance Sierra Leonean journalist and former reporter of banned Banjul-based The Independent newspaper has fled The Gambia in the face of persecution by agents of the notoriously feared National Intelligence Agency (NIA). Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) sources reported that Bah and his family fled The Gambia on January 20, 2008 following repeated physical attacks, and threats against his life.

The journalist who until he fled, was a refugee working as freelancer told MFWA sources that the last straw that broke the camel’s back was on October 17, 2007 when he was physically attacked by people he suspected to be agents of the NIA at Serrekunda, The Gambia’s largest city.

Bah said his assailants told him: “You are responsible for your own problem…because you are a stupid journalist who writes stupid things about The Gambia.” He was one of the journalists of The Independent who were arrested and briefly detained by the Gambian police, immediately after the newspaper was illegally closed down on March 28, 2006.

Again, on June 3, 2006 Bah was arrested and detained at the NIA headquarters on his return to the country, following an interview he granted a newspaper in Guinea about the deteriorating press freedom situation in The Gambia.

Bah said one of the agents told him: “we have warned you several times to stop popping your nose into our affairs, but you remained adamant”. As a result of torture meted out to him, Bah lost one of his teeth.

Previously, Bah had been arbitrarily detained and tortured in home country, Sierra Leone. He was a victim of the military regime of Johnny Paul Koroma that overthrew former President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah’s administration in 1997.

Since 1994, the Gambian government has systematically attacked members of the media. Frequent raids, harassment and deportation of foreign journalists have created a timid working environment in most media houses. In addition, violence, arson, detention and long hours of interrogations by the NIA have forced journalists to flee the country.

Prof. Kwame Karikari
Executive Director MFWA
Tel: 233 21 242470
Fax: 233 21 221084
Email : mfwa@africaonline.com.gh
Website : www.mediafound.org

Mauritania: Appeal court upholds prison sentence for newspaper editor

2008-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/46128

An appeal court in Nouakchott confirmed the one-year imprisonment sentence imposed on Abdel Fettah Ould Abeidna, managing editor of the Al-Aqsa newspaper, for defaming businessman Mohamed Ould Bouammatou, on February 11, 2008. The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent reported that the court also set aside the initial 300 million ouguiyas (approximately US $1,204,577) damages awarded against the journalist, pending the determination of befitting damages to Bouammatou.
Mauritania UPDATE: Appeal court upholds prison sentence for newspaper editor

An appeal court in Nouakchott confirmed the one-year imprisonment sentence imposed on Abdel Fettah Ould Abeidna, managing editor of the Al-Aqsa newspaper, for defaming businessman Mohamed Ould Bouammatou, on February 11, 2008.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)’s correspondent reported that the court also set aside the initial 300 million ouguiyas (approximately US $1,204,577) damages awarded against the journalist, pending the determination of befitting damages to Bouammatou.

The correspondent said the court is expected to invite an expert for the determination on March 8, 2008. On November 7, 2007 Abeidna was sentenced to one year in prison, a fine of 50,000 ouguiyas (about US$200) and the 300 million ouguiyas in damages and interest. The journalist who was out of the country filed an appeal.

On May 16, 2007, Al-Aqsa, a daily Arabic-language newspaper, published an article linking Bouammatou to a drug scandal. Unhappy about the publication, the businessman filed a complaint to the authorities, following which Abeidna was arrested and subsequently detained on May 24, 2007 under a court order.

The journalist was granted bail May 28, 2007, after four days in detention. He was initially charged with "defamation" under the press law but the Supreme Court changed it to "false accusation" under the criminal code.

Prof. Kwame Karikari
Executive Director MFWA
Tel: 233 21 242470
Fax: 233 21 221084
Email : mfwa@africaonline.com.gh
Website : www.mediafound.org

Mauritania: Appeal court upholds prison sentence for newspaper editor

2008-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/46132

An appeal court in Nouakchott confirmed the one-year imprisonment sentence imposed on Abdel Fettah Ould Abeidna, managing editor of the Al-Aqsa newspaper, for defaming businessman Mohamed Ould Bouammatou, on February 11, 2008. The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)'s correspondent reported that the court also set aside the initial 300 million ouguiyas (approximately US $1,204,577) damages awarded against the journalist, pending the determination of befitting damages to Bouammatou.
Mauritania UPDATE: Appeal court upholds prison sentence for newspaper editor

An appeal court in Nouakchott confirmed the one-year imprisonment sentence imposed on Abdel Fettah Ould Abeidna, managing editor of the Al-Aqsa newspaper, for defaming businessman Mohamed Ould Bouammatou, on February 11, 2008.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)'s correspondent reported that the court also set aside the initial 300 million ouguiyas (approximately US $1,204,577) damages awarded against the journalist, pending the determination of befitting damages to Bouammatou. The correspondent said the court is expected to invite an expert for the determination on March 8, 2008. On November 7, 2007 Abeidna was sentenced to one year in prison, a fine of 50,000 ouguiyas (about US$200) and the 300 million ouguiyas in damages and interest. The journalist who was out of the country filed an appeal.

On May 16, 2007, Al-Aqsa, a daily Arabic-language newspaper, published an article linking Bouammatou to a drug scandal. Unhappy about the publication, the businessman filed a complaint to the authorities, following which Abeidna was arrested and subsequently detained on May 24, 2007 under a court order.

The journalist was granted bail May 28, 2007, after four days in detention. He was initially charged with "defamation" under the press law but the Supreme Court changed it to "false accusation" under the criminal code.

Prof. Kwame Karikari
Executive Director MFWA
Tel: 233 21 242470
Fax: 233 21 221084
Email : mfwa@africaonline.com.gh
Website : www.mediafound.org

Niger: One journalist granted bail, another still in detention

2008-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/46119

Ibrahim Manzo Diallo, managing editor of Air Info, a bi-monthly newspaper was on February 6, 2008 granted bail by an Appeal court in Zinder, Niger's second largest city , after one hundred and twenty one days in detention for allegedly conspiring with a movement to undermine national security. The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)'s correspondent reported that the Court's decision followed a request filed by Diallo's counsel, Moussa Coulibaly, seeking his release, because the prosecution had failed to provide evidence, to warrant his continued stay in prison.
Niger UPDATE: One journalist granted bail, another still in detention

Ibrahim Manzo Diallo, managing editor of Air Info, a bi-monthly newspaper was on February 6, 2008 granted bail by an Appeal court in Zinder, Niger's second largest city , after one hundred and twenty one days in detention for allegedly conspiring with a movement to undermine national security. The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)'s correspondent reported that the Court's decision followed a request filed by Diallo's counsel, Moussa Coulibaly, seeking his release, because the prosecution had failed to provide evidence, to warrant his continued stay in prison. Following a complaint filed by the Nigerien authorities, Diallo was arrested on October 9, 2007 at his home in the northern town of Ingall. He was sent to the Agadez Civil Prison where he was detained. He has since been charged with "Criminal Conspiracy". In early 2007, a Tuareg armed group, Mouvement des Nigériens pour la Justice "MNJ" (the Niger Movement for Justice) launched a rebellion in the country.
The government outlawed the group and banned the media from covering its activities. Several journalists were arrested for flouting the government's order.

With the release of Diallo, Moussa Kaka, a correspondent of Radio France International (RFI), remains the only journalist in Prison in Niger. Kaka was arrested on September 20, 2007 and held incommunicado for several days, before being charged with undermining national security. An Appeal Court in Niamey is expected to hear his case on February 12, 2008.

The Air Info newspaper was earlier suspended for three months and its annual subsidy frozen for covering the activities of the group. Three other newspapers were also warned severely for the same reasons and RFI's FM broadcast in Niger was also suspended for a month.
Prof. Kwame Karikari
Executive Director MFWA
Tel: 233 21 242470
Fax: 233 21 221084
Email: mfwa@africaonline.com.gh
Website: www.mediafound.org

Nigeria: CPJ urges Yar’Adua to unravel cases of murdered journalists

2008-02-15

http://mediarightsagenda.org/mrmonitor/Jan_2008/cpjyaradua.html

The New York based freedom of expression group, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has written to President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua urging him to probe and unravel the deaths and disappearances of five Nigerian journalists since 1986. The letter signed by CPJ’s Executive Director, Joel Simon, listed Godwin Agbroko, Omololu Falobi, Bagauda Kaltho, Chinedu Offoaro, and Dele Giwa as the cases it wants the President to get the police to unravel.

Nigeria: FOI Bill moves ahead in the senate

2008-02-15

http://mediarightsagenda.org/mrmonitor/Jan_2008/foibsen2nd.html

The Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill scaled through its second reading at the Senate on January 30, 2008 with most Senators expressing their support for the proposed Law. At the commencement of proceedings, Senator Teslim Folarin, the Senate Leader, introduced the Bill on the floor of the Senate and asked that Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN), the lead sponsor of the Bill be allowed to lead the debates on the Bill.

Haiti: Feb 29 Haiti Solidarity Day Call to action

2008-02-15

http://www.haitisolidarity.net/article.php?id=217

Four years after the Feb. 29, 2004 coup d’etat that overthrew the democratically-elected government of President Aristide… Four years after US Special Forces kidnapped the President at gunpoint from his home, late at night, and flew him on a military plane to exile in Africa… Four years after US Marines seized control of Haiti’s capital and installed a US-appointed coup regime…
Add your city’s name to this growing circle of solidarity, by joining this 3rd International Day in Solidarity with the Haitian People on February 29, 2008.

Chad: Captured rebels include children

2008-02-15

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76745

Around 135 rebels captured when they attacked the Chadian capital N’djamena in early February were displayed by Chadian police on 13 February, some of whom were identified as children. "Among these prisoners there are minors,” Interior Minister Ahmat Mahamat Bachir, said during a press conference.

Chad: Government declares state of emergency

2008-02-15

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/AB6062DB-CC2B-45B2-B90C-98F82FE92EFD.htm

Chad's president has declared a nationwide state of emergency, telling his citizens that tightened controls were needed to restore order after recent attacks by an opposition alliance. Idriss Deby made the announcement in a speech broadcast on national radio and television on Thursday.

DRC: Rebels await repatriation

2008-02-15

http://www.afrol.com/articles/28014

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has taken steps to get rid of foreign rebel militia in the country. This was evidenced by a presidential order, authorising the formation of a pilot committee for the purpose. Coordinated by Congo's Foreign Affairs Minister, Antipas Mbusa Nyamwisi, the committee is expected to get backing from the UN peacekeeping mission [MONUC] in the country to monitor and coordinate disarmament, demobilisation and repatriation activities of foreign fighters to their respective countries.

Somalia: Violence puts some 2 million people at risk, says UN

2008-02-15

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25608

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that there are up to 2 million vulnerable people in need of humanitarian aid in war-wracked Somalia, which has not had a functioning government since 1991 and where fighting has intensified in recent months. In the capital Mogadishu, the number of people escaping the city to the poorest areas of the Horn of Africa nation has doubled to 700,000 in the last six months.

Sudan: Armed attacks by unidentified group in the south concern UN officials

2008-02-15

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25606

Members of an unidentified armed group have launched a series of violent attacks against locals in southern Sudan’s Central Equatoria state over the past month, prompting United Nations officials to organize the distribution of basic relief supplies to the affected population in the already impoverished region. The UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) reports that the attacks have taken place across three counties in Central Equatoria, which borders Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), since mid-January.

African Tobacco Situational Analyses (ATSA) - Call for letters of intent

2008-02-15

http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-119375-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

Research for International Tobacco Control (RITC) of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is pleased to announce a Call for Letters of Intent for the African Tobacco Situational Analyses (ATSA). This competition is a joint initiative of RITC/IDRC and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The competition is administered by RITC/IDRC. The Call is available in English and French. A Portuguese translation will also be available shortly. The deadline for receipt of Letters of Intent is March 17, 2008 and will be accepted in English and French.

Africa: CODESRIA scholarly writing and research methodology workshop

2008-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/46108

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce its programme of training for scholarly writing and research methodologies targeted at postgraduate students and younger members of the teaching staff of the Universities of Sierra Leone, The Gambia and Monrovia. The writing and methodology training workshop is scheduled to take place in Freetown, Sierra Leone, from 12 – 16 May, 2008 on the campus of the University of Sierra Leone.
CODESRIA

Programme Announcement: Scholarly Writing and Research Methodology Workshop

Special Session for Mano River Area: Sierra Leone, Liberia & the Gambia

Date: 12 – 16 May, 2008

Venue: University of Sierra Leone Campus, Freetown

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce its programme of training for scholarly writing and research methodologies targeted at postgraduate students and younger members of the teaching staff of the Universities of Sierra Leone, The Gambia and Monrovia. The writing and methodology training workshop is scheduled to take place in Freetown, Sierra Leone, from 12 – 16 May, 2008 on the campus of the University of Sierra Leone. The workshop will be conducted as part of the CODESRIA Annual Writing Workshop Series. It will be accompanied by a special session for the dissemination of recent publications by CODESRIA, especially those of direct relevance to West Africa and the Mano River countries.

Since the early 1980s, African universities have increasingly faced pressing challenges to imbue the younger generation of academic staff and research students that populate them with the methodological and writing skills they need to excel in their learning, teaching and research. The Universities of Sierra Leone and Monrovia have been particularly affected, especially following years of war that have depleted financial resources, intensified the brain drain, dislocated infrastructure, and crippled higher education significantly. Created in 1999, the University of The Gambia is amongst the youngest higher education institutions in Africa. It faces pressing challenges to imbue its largely young and fledgling staff and student body with the methodological and writing skills they need to excel in their teaching, learning and scholarship.

The proposed workshop, intended as a follow up to two initial workshops organised in The Gambia and Sierra Leone in October 2005 and 2006 respectively, is designed as a modest response from a pan-African network of social researchers to attend to the challenges faced by junior faculty and post-graduate students in a university struggling to recover from prolonged crises, and also to share with students and staff of the Universities of Sierra Leone, The Gambia and Monrovia the results of research that CODESRIA has funded in the past that are relevant to their countries and disciplines.

As an institution with a long track record in scholarly publishing, CODESRIA has increasingly been concerned with the difficulties experienced by the third and fourth generations of African social scientists and scholars active in the social sciences and humanities effectively to communicate the results of their work to a wider community of peers within and outside Africa. Linked to this problem are the methodological deficiencies that are increasingly in evidence in the work of younger scholars and students at a time of overall decline in the investments made by universities in training in research methods. This desperate situation, which in the case of the Mano River countries has been exacerbated by the ravages of war, demands urgent and sustained attention. The CODESRIA Annual Writing Workshop Series is designed to fill the observed gaps in university-level training that have affected the capacities of younger researchers to muster a written argument, project an informed point of view, develop a presentational/analytic style, cite references correctly, and adequately document manuscripts submitted for consideration for publication.

In addition to the training opportunity which it will offer, the workshop will also afford staff and students of the universities concerned a chance to become more familiar with CODESRIA and its activities. It will feature presentations and practical demonstrations by a team of four seasoned scholars under whose guidance and mentorship a selected group of postgraduate students and younger scholars will be exposed to the key steps that are required for scholarly research, writing and publishing. Exercises will be offered to demonstrate different approaches to:
1) Choosing and designing a research project;
2) Determining the methods and data collection techniques to be used;
3) Operationalising the project;
4) Analysing the data;
5) Presenting findings, including a full documentation of sources and citation of references; and
6) Dissemination of findings. All staff and postgraduate students of the Universities of Sierra Leone, The Gambia and Monrovia (the faculties of Social Sciences and Humanities in particular) wishing to participate in the workshop are invited to send a letter of application registering their interest to the address below. The letter should include the bio-data of the applicant, their disciplines, the research areas in which they are interested, and information on any experience they may have had in scholarly writing and publishing. The deadline for the receipt of applications for the workshop is 31 March, 2008. Admission to participate in the workshop will be limited to 30 persons.
All applications should be addressed to:
CODESRIA
2008 Annual Writing Workshop, BP 3304, Dakar, Senegal.
Tel.:+221-33 825 98 22/23 Fax: +221-33 824 12 89 E-mail: Writing.Workshop@codesria.sn Web Site : http://www.codesria.org

Africa: Certificate course on Gender Development

February 17th – March 29th 2008

2008-02-15

http://justicegroup.org/training/application.htm#GD

This course is designed to prompt an exploration of common behaviours and attitudes towards gender differences. It will present facts and figures about the situation of women and men in our society today ― and references from key documents that highlight policies formulated to address gender concerns. Recent events have shown that if governments are serious about achieving the Millennium Development Goals, MDG’s, it is essential that gender be taken into account for all the goals. Deadline for applications: February 14th, 2008

Africa: CODESRIA Workshop on writing for scholarly publishing: Call for applications

2008-02-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/46118

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce the 2008 edition of its Annual Writing Workshop for Scholarly Publishing. Three sessions of the workshop have been scheduled, one to be held in English, another in French and the third one in Portuguese. The English language edition is planned to take place in Kampala, Uganda, on the campus of Makerere University from 13 – 17 October, 2008. It will bring together, 30 participants from across Africa who research in the English language.
CODESRIA
Workshop on Writing for Scholarly Publishing: Call for Applications
Date: 13 – 17 October, 2008
Venue: Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce the 2008 edition of its Annual Writing Workshop for Scholarly Publishing. Three sessions of the workshop have been scheduled, one to be held in English, another in French and the third one in Portuguese. The English language edition is planned to take place in Kampala, Uganda, on the campus of Makerere University from 13 – 17 October, 2008. It will bring together, 30 participants from across Africa who research in the English language. Scholarly writing and publishing among younger African researchers have been under considerable strain for some time now. The reasons for this state of affairs are multifaceted but are uniformly connected to the prolonged crises which the continent’s higher education system has been experiencing for the last two decades. Remedying the problem has become urgent in order to ensure that the presence of the African voice in the production of knowledge about the continent and other regions of the world is assured at the highest level of quality. As an institution with a long track record in scholarly publishing, and which has a mandate to project African voices through a variety of programmes, CODESRIA has increasingly been concerned with the deterioration of the quality of academic writing among the younger generation of scholars who have borne the brunt of the crises of the last two decades in African higher education. The Council has been particularly well-placed to track the magnitude of the problem through the regular assessment it carries out of contributions received from across Africa for consideration for publication in any one of the nine journals in its stable, the applications that are submitted for consideration for admission into its various training programmes, the regular feedback it solicits from sister institutions on the strengths and weaknesses of scholarly essays which they have occasion regularly to review, and the gaps in foundational training in the university system that currently affect capacities to muster a written argument, project an informed point of view, develop a presentational/analytic style, cite references correctly, and adequately prepare manuscripts for consideration for publication in scholarly outlets. It was with a view to remedying this situation that CODESRIA decided to launch its scholarly writing programme targeted at younger third and fourth generation African scholars.

The workshop will feature presentations and practical demonstrations by seasoned scholars under whose mentorship, groups of advanced postgraduate students and younger scholars who are admitted to participate in the programme will be supported to upgrade the quality of their writing and publishing. Exercises will be offered to demonstrate different approaches to scholarly writing and publishing as follows:

a) Scholarly Writing:
i. Presenting participants with the skills and requirements needed to write effectively taking full cognisance of the expectations of the scholarly community; ii. Familiarising participants with how to critically appraise the theoretical assumptions that underpin the related research on which they draw to inform their own research and writing; iii. Demonstrating familiarity with related scholarly literature and debates; iv. Determining and critically relating to methodologies employed in scholarly research and writing:
v. Determining and critically relating to the arguments of authors on whose work participants draw to make their own arguments; and vi. Determining the contribution to knowledge of a piece of scholarly writing.

b) Scholarly Publishing:
i. Building a proper understanding of the publishing process with a view to ensuring that manuscripts are prepared and presented in a manner that facilitates the publishing process and which, in so doing, improves their chances for selection in scholarly publishing outlets. Attention will be drawn to a variety of issues ranging from adherence to style guidelines to choosing which work is best fitted to a particular scholarly publishing format, as well as suggestions on how to revise theses and dissertations into publishable manuscripts; ii. Presentations on how to document a manuscript for publication, including especially different methods of referencing, the use of quotations, and the presentation of source materials used; and iii. Presentations on the interface between the style adopted for a written scholarly work and the audience that is targeted for its consumption. Here, attention will also be given to the best approaches to disseminating and promoting a scientific publication using both the author’s and publisher’s networks (review outlets, conferences, symposium and book dissemination forums, teaching curriculum, electronic and print forums etc.) in order to generate debate and promote sales.

Workshop Framework

The workshop will be organised over a period of five working and will involve a series of lectures and practical work interspersed with open discussions on the key issues in scholarly publishing. The programme will be coordinated by a designated director assisted by invited resource persons with a track record in scholarly publishing. A post-workshop monitoring exercise will provide participants an opportunity to have their work reviewed and assessed by identified resource persons for a predetermined length of time after the workshop.

Target Population

The following category of younger researchers are encouraged to apply for participation in the workshop:
• Advanced postgraduates working on their dissertations or theses in an African university; • Researchers who completed their postgraduate studies at any time during the last five years and are presently pursuing a teaching and/or research career in an African university or research centre; and • Former laureates of CODESRIA institutes and methodological workshops interested in updating their skills.

The CODESRIA Secretariat will also actively identify potential participants from among the pool of promising younger scholars who have recently submitted papers for consideration in CODESRIA journals but whose articles were not accepted for publication after being peer-reviewed.

Prospective participants are required to submit an application letter which should be accompanied by the bio-data of the applicant, their discipline, the research areas in which they are interested, and information on any experience they have had in scholarly writing and publishing, and an attestation by their departmental head, dean or director of their institutional affiliation. Once selected, participants will be invited to submit written samples of current unpublished work before the workshops begin in order to enable the workshop resources persons to better identify key areas of strength that should be reinforced and areas of weakness that need to address.

The deadline for the receipt of applications for the workshop is 15 July, 2008. Admission to participate in the workshop will be limited to 30 persons to allow for an intensive session.

All applications should be addressed to:
CODESRIA
2008 Annual Writing Workshop, BP 3304, Dakar, Senegal.
Tel.:+221-33 825 98 22/23 Fax: +221-33 824 12 89 E-mail: Writing.Workshop@codesria.sn Web Site: http:// www.codesria.org

Sudan: Darfur and the Crisis of Governance in SudanAn International Conference

An International Conference, Feb. 21-22, 2008

2008-02-15

http://www.asrc.cornell.edu/darfur08/

"Darfur and the Crisis of Governance in Sudan" is an international conference that will bring together leading scholars, civil society members, and activists who are involved in proactively addressing the situation in Darfur and Sudan more generally. In conjunction with the forthcoming edited volume, Darfur and the Crisis of Governance in Sudan: A Critical Reader, this conference consists of a broad range of presentations that explore and analyze the historical, geo-political, military, social, environmental, and economic roots of the conflict, and reflect on the contemporary realities that shape the experiences of those living in the region.

Constructive Engagement?

Chester Crocker & American Policy in South Africa,

2008-02-15

http://tinyurl.com/349pd5

The idea of 'constructive engagement' is forwarded by governments as a method whereby pressure can be brought to bear on these countries to improve their record on human rights, while diplomatic and economic contacts can be maintained. But does this approach achieve positive outcomes? To-answer this question, this book written by Joanne Davies, and published by James Currey Publishers, offers a critical evaluation of one of the best known examples of constructive engagement - the Reagan administration's policy towards South Africa.

Cyril Ramaphosa

2008-02-15

http://tinyurl.com/25crwd

Will Cyril Ramaphosa run for President at the end of 2008? He is one of the most popular political figures in South Africa, admired both within the ANC and outside. He came to prominence as the general secretary of the mineworkers' union in the 1980s and then as secretary general of the ANC after its unbanning. This commanding biography by Anthony Butler and published by James Currey Publishers tells the story of his life so far.

Slavery in The Great Lakes Region of East Africa

2008-02-15

http://tinyurl.com/25x9ay

This new book from James Currey publishers looks at the perceptions of one of the main themes of African history: slavery. There was no single form of slavery and the line between enslaved and non-slave labour was fine. This book challenges the assertion that domestic slavery increased in Africa as the result of the international trade.

War in Pre-colonial Eastern Africa

2008-02-15

http://tinyurl.com/2zjtj4

This new title from James Currey publishers examines the nature and objectives of violence in the region in the 19th century. It is particularly concerned with highland Ethiopia and the Great Lakes. It will be of interest to those interested in pre-colonial African history, military history, and anyone involved in modern development and conflict resolution seeking to understand the deeper historical roots of African warfare.

Director of Capacity Building Programs - CSHR

2008-02-15

http://www.idealist.org/en/job/256340-2

Reporting to the Associate Director, the incumbent is primarily responsible for all capacity building activities administered by CSHR. The incumbent manages and oversees the planning, organizing, and day-to-day operations of the Human Rights Advocates Program, an annual four-month training program for human rights activists from around the world. The incumbent is also responsible for overseeing the administration of the Third Millennium Foundation Fellowships, which CSHR has been contracted to coordinate.

Global: Associate Director - CSHR

2008-02-15

https://jobs.columbia.edu/applicants/jsp/shared/frameset/Frameset.jsp?time=1203080838700

Established in 1978 at Columbia University, the Center for the Study of Human Rights is committed to three core goals of providing excellent human rights education to Columbia students, fostering innovative interdisciplinary academic research, and offering its expertise in capacity building to human rights leaders, organizations, and universities around the world. CSHR is seeking applications for the post of Associate Director.

Grant Writer - CSHR

2008-02-15

http://www.idealist.org/en/job/264520-203

The Center for the Study of Human Rights seeks to hire a part-time grantwriter as a consultant beginning immediately. The grantwriter will be responsible for writing letters of inquiry, proposals, and other funding documents for a variety of programs, including the Human Rights Advocates Program, a capacity-building program for human rights activists. The incumbent will also be responsible for researching new sources of funding and working with Columbia University faculty on research grants. The workload will constitute approximately 10-15 hours a week.

Fahamu