Dorothy-Grace Guerrero and Firoze Manji (ed) (2008) China’s New Role in Africa and the South: A search for a new perspective. 
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Pambazuka News 349: Kenyans must seize democracy for themselves
The authoritative electronic weekly newsletter and platform for social justice in Africa
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Highlights from this issue
FEATURES:
- Pambazuka editors take on the Kenya power-sharing deal
- An interview with Wangui Wa Goro on the fragile nature of peace in Kenya
COMMENTS & ANALYSIS:
- Pius Adesanmi on the recent Raila Odinga visit to Nigeria
- Christopher Nizza and Dara Kell on their documentary 'Dear Mandela'
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Kangsen Feka Wakai on Cameroon's power drunk Paul Biya
OBITUARIES: Activist Johnnie Car dies
BOOKS & ARTS: Mildred Barya reviews Shimmer Chinodya's novel, Strife
BLOGGING AFRICA: A round-up of South African blogs
PODCASTS: An interview with Peter Hallward
AFRICAN UNION: AU Monitor weekly round-upZIMBABWE UPDATE: Civil groups in SA intensify protests at Zimbabwe embassy
WOMEN AND GENDER: Social Watch Gender Equity Index 2008
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Deadly violence rages in Cameroon capital
HUMAN RIGHTS: Campaign demands Darfur arrests
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Migrants' rights clinic forcibly shut down
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: Protests spread in Burkina Faso
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: Breakthrough in Kenya crisis
DEVELOPMENT: UN panel urges punishment for buyers of DRC rebel ore
HEALTH AND HIV/Aids: Insecurity hampers Chad HIV efforts
EDUCATION: Thousands of Darfur children not in school
LGBTI: Africa's lesbians demand change
RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA: Outcry over racist video in South Africa
ENVIRONMENT: EU exporting climate pollution
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: One year in prison for Egyptian blogger
NEWS FROM THE DIASPORA: On the Bicentenary of Haiti's independence
INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY: Solar energy for Zimbabwe computers
PLUS: e-newsletters and mailings lists; courses, seminars and workshops, and jobs
*Pambazuka News now has a Del.icio.us page, where you can view the various websites that we visit to keep our fingers on the pulse of Africa! Visit http://del.icio.us/pambazuka_news
Features
Kenyans must seize democracy for themselves
2008-02-28
Mukoma Wa Ngugi and Firoze Manji
It has taken over 1,500 Kenyan lives, hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people, a destroyed economy, and intensified mistrust between ethnicities that will last generations for both Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga to realize what everyone knew from the beginning: “Neither side can realistically govern the country without the other. There must be real power-sharing to move the country forward and begin the healing and reconciliation process”.
We applaud Kofi Annan for steering Kenya back to sanity. But we also have to understand that this peace deal is an emergency stopgap solution so that the wounds of rigged elections, mobilized militias, ethnic cleansing, and extra-judicial killings may not bleed the country to death.
The Kenyan people on whose backs this power sharing deal has been signed have to seize democracy for themselves if change is to be real and long lasting, and in service of the Kenyan people and not the competing politicians.
We applaud the deal for peace but also recognize the work for a democracy that serves the people and not the elite is just starting.
We have been offered the shell of democracy, but the struggle is for its content.
We call for a democracy with content of equal land redistribution because land was at the heart of this crisis.
We call for a democracy with the content of economic justice because it is our discontent with extreme poverty that was used against us by the same politicians we are going to reward with cabinet positions.
We call for a democracy with the content of justice. In 1963, our first authoritarian leader, Jomo Kenyatta, asked us to forgive but not forget British colonialism. What he meant was forgive and forget. Let justice be the keeper of our memory.
We call for a democracy that protects its citizens from the excesses of the state. The police killings of unarmed electoral protestors recalls the extra-judicial killings of hundreds of young men criminalized because they are poor in May to June, 2007.
The police force we inherited from British colonialism was trained to see the people as the enemy. We call not only for a retraining of the police, but also for the officers and politicians who gave the shoot-to-kill orders to be brought to justice
We call for a democracy that has the content of justice, if we are to end of cycle of violence and counter violence, revenge and counter-revenge.
We call for a systematic disarming of all militia and the bringing to justice all those responsible for killings, injuries and destabilization.
We call for guarantees of safe passage and return of those violently displaced from their homes. Those who have suffered loss need to be compensated.
We call on an immediate investigation on behalf of the victims of sexual violence and rape and the bringing to justice those responsible.
We call for an independent judicial inquiry into the allegations of election rigging that led to the current crisis.
We have been very good at forgetting – the February 25th anniversary of the Wagalla massacres of 1984 in which over a thousand Kenyan Somalis were killed by the Moi government just passed without as much as a murmur. The recent Eldoret Killings recall the Eldoret killings of 1992 in which over a thousand Kenyans lost their lives. We call for historical and present day crimes against the Kenyan people and humanity to be punished.
We welcome the calm that the agreement brings. But this must not be confused with peace: peace will only be possible through justice and the placing of the truth in the public arena and addressing injustice and inequality.
A process must begin now to consider whether the constitution as it exists, and as it will be amended by parliament shortly, is the constitution that can guarantee peace, or whether we need to establish one that reflects the vision and values of all citizens.
In short, we call for a democracy that serves the people, and not a democracy that dresses up thieves and political thugs in suits.
Let us make sure Kibaki and Raila do not forget that they are in power as a result of over 1,500 needless deaths and the thousands who have been displaced and the anxiety and fear of millions of Kenyans.
A true democracy is for the Kenyan people to win, or to lose.
*Mukoma Wa Ngugi and Firoze Manji are the editors of Pambazuka News.
**Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
The full text of the agreement signed by Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga is available at the link below.
Kenya: Agreement on the Principles of Partnership of the Coalition Government
Preamble:
The crisis triggered by the 2007 disputed presidential election has brought to the surface deep-seated and long-standing divisions within Kenyan society. If left unaddressed, these divisions threaten the very existence of Kenya as a unified country. The Kenyan people are now looking to their leaders to ensure that their country will not be lost.
Given the current situation, neither side can realistically govern the country without the other. There must be real power-sharing to move the country forward and begin the healing and reconciliation process.
With this agreement, we are stepping forward together, as political leaders, to overcome the current crisis and to set the country on a new path. As partners in a coalition government, we commit ourselves to work together in good faith as true partners, through constant consultation and willingness to compromise.
This agreement is designed to create an environment conducive to such a partnership and to build mutual trust and confidence. It is not about creating positions that reward individuals. It seeks to enable Kenya's political leaders to look beyond partisan considerations with a view to promoting the greater interests of the nation as a whole. It provides the means to implement a coherent and far-reaching reform agenda, to address the fundamental root causes of recurrent conflict, and to create a better, more secure, more prosperous Kenya for all.
To resolve the political crisis, and in the spirit of coalition and partnership, we have agreed to enact the National Accord and Reconciliation Act 2008, whose provisions have been agreed upon in their entirety by the parties hereto and a draft copy is appended hereto.
Its key points are:
* There will be a Prime Minister of the Government of Kenya, with authority to coordinate and supervise the execution of the functions and affairs of the Government of Kenya.
* The Prime Minister will be an elected member of the National Assembly and the parliamentary leader of the largest party in the National Assembly, or of a coalition, if the largest party does not command a majority.
* Each member of the coalition shall nominate one person from the National Assembly to be appointed a Deputy Prime Minister.
* The Cabinet will consist of the President, the Vice-President, the Prime Minister, the two Deputy Prime Ministers and the other Ministers. The removal of any Minister of the coalition will be subject to consultation and concurrence in writing by the leaders.
* The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Ministers can only be removed if the National Assembly passes a motion of no confidence with a majority vote.
* The composition of the coalition government will at all times take into account the principle of portfolio balance and will reflect their relative parliamentary strength.
* The coalition will be dissolved if the Tenth Parliament is dissolved; or if the parties agree in writing; or if one coalition partner withdraws from the coalition.
* The National Accord and Reconciliation Act shall be entrenched in the Constitution.
Having agreed on the critical issues above, we will now take this process to Parliament. It will be convened at the earliest moment to enact these agreements. This will be in the form of an Act of Parliament and the necessary amendment to the Constitution.
We believe by these steps we can together in the spirit of partnership bring peace and prosperity back to the people of Kenya who so richly deserve it.
More...
Kenya: Hanging on to a fragile peace
2008-02-28
Pambazuka Editors'
Pambazuka News spoke with Wangui Wa Goro, a public intellectual, writer, translator and academic and an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Human Rights and Social Justice at London Metropolitan University about the power sharing agreement reached by Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga on February 28, 2008. Pambazuka News readers will remember her for her incisive commentary on Kenya pre and post the crisis. We spoke about the implications of the peace-deal on the larger questions of peace and justice, the meaning of democracy itself, the continuing role of Civil Society Organizations and lessons for other African countries.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The power sharing deal has Raila Odinga as the Prime Minister and Mwai Kibaki remaining the President. We are not yet clear on exact day-to-day functioning of each – but what are your initial thoughts?
WANGUI WA GORO: I am glad that the parties have come to some agreement at the moment because it will ease the tension in the country. I am however wary because of the way in which we have witnessed the mediation process. I think that many Kenyans are skeptical about the goodwill of some in the process. As Kenyans, we are also aware of our capacity for duplicity and doubletalk ("ujanja").
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Both Kibaki and Raila formed a coalition government shortly after the 2002 elections that collapsed and in way, the violence we saw was a direct result of their inability to get along – do you a see a difference this time? Will it hold?
WANGUI WA GORO: I think the fact that the process is being witnessed nationally and internationally by all will place a huge burden on those who want to cheat unlike before when “Memorandums of Understanding” were agreed behind closed doors. This is a significant difference between 2002 and 2008.
I am however still concerned that the Kenyan people should know the outcome of the election that just took place. These agreements could undermine our confidence in the mechanisms of democracy and the institutions for this. We are bowing to the will of individuals rather than to the will of our nation and this is wrong. I hope, therefore, that this arrangement is a transitional one. We are rolling back our attainment of multipartism which should provide checks and balances.
I think the loss of life and displacements we have witnessed should act as a wake up call for all of us and the world and if the two leaders are serious and actually work together, this may work. I still believe that the civil society, other political players and the international community should continue pressing for the delivery of the agreement in order for the transitional process and justice to take place. The hard work now has a framework as does the chance for a new constitution. Kenyans will have to work hard to heal the nation and to continue to seek peace, truth and justice. I hope that these processes can heal the nation. I pray that for this alone, that peace will hold.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Do you see a continuing role for the international community? Should there be a difference between African and Western pressure?
WANGUI WA GORO: No. I think that what should matter the most is what Kenyans want and the African and international pressure should reflect that will of the Kenyan people. I see a continued role of the international community in "supervising" the agreement and ensuring that Kenya does not slide into anarchy. This they can do by using the agreement to hold individuals and their parties to account.
I hope that The Kofi Annan Team remains with Kenyans for the duration of the Transitional Period in an advisory or consultative role to ensure that we remain within the spirit and letter of the agreements. I hope that Parliament will also take responsibility for running the affairs of the country and that Kenyans find mechanisms for engaging constructively with their leaders, particularly the civil society in an organized form. We have never been here in our history.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The civil society organizations have been agitating for an arrangement that would make peace possible. What should their role be in the post-peace deal period?
WANGUI WA GORO: The role of the civil society is now more crucial than ever. They will have to be the domestic monitors of the agreement and further, because of their knowledge and the way in which they have conducted themselves over the last two months, they will find an important role as a lobby which is not entrenched in the processes. They can engage constructively and this will be very important for the country. We have also seen the importance of their vanguard role in this process. There are many lessons to be learned here and I hope that unlike 2002, they do not let up.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: A short question- Where are the people in this deal?
WANGUI WA GORO: That is precisely the point! I believe that the discussions with Dr. Kofi Annan are continuing on the longer-term issues this coming Friday. We should wait and see what is agreed then.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Moving forward - The Kenyan society has been divided in ways we have not seen before- probably not since the end of British colonialism. More than 1,500 dead, hundreds of thousands of refugees, not to speak of an economy in tatters – how do we repair the torn fabric?
WANGUI WA GORO: On the Kenyan society being divided for the first time, this is not correct. Divide and rule tactics were part of British colonial rule. Kenya has also had very difficult moments in its history such as the assassination of Tom Mboya when the so called differences amongst ethnicities were supposed to be very high. People were very hurt then.
And many other terrible things have happened to people like Pio Gama Pinto, Bishop Muge, JM Kariuki, Robert Ouko etc. and Kenyans can see patterns here which are not ethnically driven. Some of these leaders were asking fundamental questions about injustice and inequality. We have also had a coup d'etat in 1982 when many people died, and in 1984 many Kenyans were killed in the Wagalla Massacre. In 1992 many Kenyans were displaced from the Rift Valley and many were also killed - over 1500. And between 1982 to 1990 many Kenyans were jailed, tortured, killed and exiled. These traumas have continued since independence. I hope that this disregard for life and for Kenyans stops for once and for all. All of us are important and our lives are precious in equal measure.
You will also know that those who fought for freedom have died in abject poverty and without recognition until recently. We have to have a broader understanding of our history and not allow the distortions of "ethnicism" to blind us to the class dimension, corruption, poverty and disenfranchisement of the majority Kenyans of all ethnicities, cultures and religions.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can we reflect on the role of Western democracy on historical legacies? Does the Kenya crisis suggest there is something wrong with Western democracy? What does African democracy look like?
WANGUI WA GORO: I think that there is a difference between the cultures of practice of "democracy" and what we understand as democratic principals. Democracies are built over time through good practice over years. There must be some of the values of what is called a "good society" which people seem to understand to be in the contract for democracy such as accountability, representation, transparency and the institutions and mechanism for delivering these such as the rule of law, independent institutions such as Parliament and the Judiciary which remove entrenched power from parties or individuals..
Now, I don't think we have seen African Democracy working at its best in Kenya or much of Africa because of the kinds of legacies and traditions and practices we adopted after Independence. You will know we inherited the Constitution and some of the practices from colonial rule, in our case from Britain. For instance, the police force was used to defend the state from the people and this culture has continued. We did not have a moment of reflection of the kind of nation state we might want for ourselves. This question of regional representation and distribution of resources for instance is one;, it was raised for debate but then shelved and ignored, and is at the heart of some of the difficulties we have today.
The philosophy of forgive and forget is another. Another is the power of the presidency which grew and grew since Kenyatta and became entrenched in the constitution because people became so frightened of him and the Presidency. This continued under Moi and in 1982, Kenya moved from a de facto one party state to a de jure one party state which really entrenched Moi's dictatorship.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Is it all about what the rulers want, not what citizens want…So we need constitutional reforms that speaks to the Kenyan political reality, for example?
WANGUI WA GORO: I think that is what has come out as a most over riding desire of the Kenyan people. But as you know, fine constitutions can be written, and in fact, the first Kenyan one was not that bad. It is having it implemented that is a problem. Britain for instance does not have a written tradition but it evolves rules and values through Acts of Parliament and the law. Kenyans can use this opportunity to enshrine the kind of nation they want and BOMAS began to address this issue. I think a new constitution will be very good for Kenya because KENYANS will feel that they own it.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What does equality mean to democracy? It is a word that is assumed to be already contained in democracy, yet we see nations with vicious inequalities call themselves democratic - your thoughts?
WANGUI WA GORO: On paper, Kenya has a Bill of Rights which recognises equality. But in reality, we have seen the day to day treatment of women, people with disabilities, people of "other" religions or "ethnicities" treated badly. In public, it is difficult to pass bills against violence against women such as rape. There are no policies on the aged and it is only recently that the rights of the child have come on board.
Words are meaningless if people do not feel protected from their historic and cultural vulnerabilities. Our laws have been couched in ambiguous terms such as both recognising civil law and common law. We are not aware of what these issues mean in a diverse nation state of different ethnicities and religious persuasions so you will have one Kenyan treated differently than another because of common law which recognises the different cultures. We also do not know about each others cultures so we are limited in our arguments for Kenyan universal values. Our democracy will be most tested and beneficial when we address these issues because they lie at the heart of our current disquiet over disenfranchisement from power and lack of self-determination.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Wangui, the question of whether Kenya should be a federal state has come up quite a bit - those for it argue that resources will be distributed better - those against it that it will entrench ethnic tension. Your take?
WANGUI WA GORO: I think that a federal state would be premature. I think that if local government was strong and there was less corruption, such a system could work. As it is now, some regions have been marginalised eternally in punitive ways and naturally they will want to have federal states. Our local government has also not been representative in the political sense or professional enough, similar to the public institutions which remain in a colonial and postcolonial time warp. They need to modernize to reflect the modern Kenyan and global world. Then we have this parallel system of administration of Provincial and District Officers who are powerful but not locally accountable. I think that these arrangements cannot foster democratic engagement when power is distributed through patronage. Appointment to senior positions has also been problematic as has been corruption and the allocation of resources.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: How do we develop and implement a people's agenda?
WANGUI WA GORO: I think that the local issues matter a great deal to people. Their day-to-day lives. Having power and control over their own immediate destiny -which cannot be done by some centralized remote, and often middleclass or bourgeois administration. There needs to be genuine engagement with governance by the people, ways of holding their elected leaders to account and ways for having their voices heard and acted upon. As we have lived in Kenya, it has been hard in the past to have access to your elected leader and people are frightened of these people whom they elected. That is my recollection of Kenya as I knew it then.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Finally Wangui, what can countries like Zimbabwe and South Africa learn from Kenya? Or countries like Uganda or Ethiopia where Museveni or Meles might point to Kenya as a warning for playing around with the fire of democracy? Are there lessons to be gleaned across the board?
WANGUI WA GORO: I think we need to start thinking outside the box. I think the whole of Africa can learn from itself. There are lessons that point to the failures of the post colonial states from the North to the South. You can see the upheaval everywhere. There are particularities about each of our countries, such as the resilience of the pro-people cultures and their continuities. There are also longer traditions of institutionalization in some places like South Africa and the economic power of Apartheid is very deeply entrenched.
So we need to learn from all our cultures and see how we can improve on the particular. The cultures we cultivate are also important, such as the cultures of struggle, the cultures of fear, the cultures of solidarity. What has amazed me in these last few weeks is the strength of individuals and organizations in the civil society and the pro-people movements and their willingness to defend "the good of society".
I hope that Kenyans and our leaders are willing to give peace, truth, justice and reconciliation a try. It will be very difficult to heal our nation now that blood has flown. There is no turning back the clock and these hurts remain for a very long time. We must learn from the holocausts in our continent and elsewhere. Kenya is and can be a wonderful place.
*Wangui Wa Goro, a public intellectual, writer, translator and academic and an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Human Rights and Social Justice at London Metropolitan University.
**Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Comment & analysis
Raila Odinga and his Nigerian Forty Thieves
2008-02-28
Pius Adesanmi
Pius Adesamni looks at the recent Raila Odinga visit with Obasanjo and argues that African ruling classes are so prodigious in the production of political farce that all one needs to do is read African newspapers for absurd realities that no African writer has as yet to match.
Give it to politicians, the military, and other professional hijackers of the state in Africa! They are able to squeeze the juice of comedy out of the stone of unspeakable tragedies they routinely visit on their people and the continent. The most unfortunate victim of the inexhaustible creativity of the African political class, their cynical mastery of the resources of the proscenium, is African fiction. The political class in Africa constitutes the most potent threat to the health of African literature. Simply put, our politicians are driving our writers out of business.
Why do I need to spend my hard-earned money on Wizard of the Crow and Petals of Blood when Raila Odinga and Mwai Kibaki have manufactured realities in Kenya that Ngugi wa Thiongo’o’s brilliant imagination simply cannot match? All I need is regular internet access to Kenyan newspapers to avail myself of a direct taste of Kenya according to her politicians.
Why do I need Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People and T.M. Aluko’s One Man, One Matchet in my seminar room when the blood and flesh versions of Chief Nanga and Benjamin Benjamin in Abuja have turned Achebe and Aluko into dwarves in the business of fiction? The Nigerian ruling class is so prodigious in the production of political farce that all I need do is read Nigerian newspapers for quotidian realities that no Nigerian writer has the imagination to match.
That African politicians are constantly and permanently ahead of hapless African writers was brought home by two recent events. Ogaga Ifowodo, one of Nigeria’s best poets, wrote an essay in which he imagined a meeting between Mwai Kibaki and Umaru Yar’Adua. What did Yar’Adua tell Kibaki, Ifowodo asked? To create his hypothetical situation, Ifowodo deployed the full arsenal of his trade: sarcasm, hyperbole, allusions, and the like. At the end of the essay, Ifowodo was sure he had delivered his message effectively and unambiguously: the Nigerian presidency is so diseased, so morally compromised, that the possibility of the Nigerian government having a say in the Kenyan debacle can only exist in the realms of fiction and the most outrageous imagination. Given the rotten political pedigree of the people in charge in Abuja, Nigeria’s involvement was so improbable that Ifowodo treated it as fiction, something better left as material for the exclusive use of the African writer.
As is sadly often the case in Africa, Odinga, the politician, was miles ahead of Ifowodo, the writer. Odinga did not wait for Ifowodo’s ink to dry before hopping on a flight to Nigeria last week. His mission? Wait for it: to consult with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria’s immediate past president) and persuade him to convince Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua, current president and Obasanjo’s puppet, that it was time Nigeria got involved in fashioning an African solution to Kenya’s political impasse! It has taken Ogaga Ifowodo more than twenty years of sustained production of brilliant poetry to establish his reputation as one of Africa’s leading users of the imagination. Raila Odinga and his Nigerian hosts have eclipsed this record in a couple of hours.
When I read about Odinga’s trip to Nigeria, I had a tough choice between laughing and crying. I settled for the former. To grasp the tragedy in all its unpleasant ramifications, one has to unpack Odinga’s company in Nigeria: Obasanjo and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) machinery. Of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the least said the better. Writing about Obasanjo here would turn this piece into an exposé on unbridled corruption and the defoliation of Nigeria’s destiny in two tragic installments: 1976 – 1979, and 1999 – 2007. Whenever tails are mentioned in a discussion, the toad hurriedly suggests changing the topic and moving on to other issues! So, let’s leave Obasanjo and move on to Yar’Adua and the PDP.
History’s final verdict on African political parties would be hard pressed not to record the PDP as the most vicious, most corrupt, and most visionless political organization ever to bestride the Nigerian – and African political landscape. It would be sheer travesty of justice if the National Party of Henrik Verwoerd and Pieter Botha fared worse than Nigeria’s PDP in the reckoning of history. Ever since its unfortunate formation, the PDP has been home to the worst elements of Nigerian humanity. Although it loves to delude itself as Africa’s largest political party, the truth is that the PDP is Africa’s largest assembly of funny characters with zero moral capital. Excellence in political thuggery, treasury looting, and election rigging are key attributes of membership and upward mobility in party ranks. It is significant that in a supposedly democratic dispensation, the PDP has surpassed Sani Abacha’s record of unresolved political assassinations. The rate of intra-party assassinations became so breathtaking at a point that the inimitable Wole Soyinka baptized the PDP as a “nest of killers”. Soyinka forgot to add that the PDP is also a lair of Africa’s most gifted thieves. To go through the list of party leaders – Party Chieftains in Nigerian parlance – is to be in stark contemplation of the tragedy of modern Nigeria: Olusegun Obasanjo (self-appointed Father of modern Nigeria), Olabode George, Ahmadu Ali, Lamidi Adedibu (stark illiterate, recently designated Father of the PDP!), Andy Uba, Chris Uba, and thousands of other birds of similar feather, looting the state dry in rigged political positions.
That these low-quality characters and their scions have hijacked the Nigerian state is a precise indication of the abysmally low depths to which Nigeria has fallen. Among the many sins of this dishonorable cabal and their dishonorable party, the 2007 election pretty much takes the cake. Nigerians are in agreement with the international community that the PDP’s 2007 electoral heist ranks among the worst in human history. It is unnecessary to rehash the details here. Suffice it to assert that Umaru Yar’Adua, Nigeria’s current president, is the morally compromised custodian of a purloined mandate who has been unable to rise above the debased values of his cabal and do the right thing. Rather, he has ignored the festering leprosy his diseased party has foisted on Nigeria while hypocritically making a show of his determination to cure negligible ringworm infections.
This is a snapshot of the kind of company Raila Odinga went to keep in Nigeria. The story of Nigeria’s sorry pass in the gangrened grip of the PDP cartel is globally ubiquitous: not even a blind and deaf kindergarten pupil in Siberia can claim ignorance of the Nigerian situation. What part of this narrative did Raila Odinga not understand? The ways of the African politician are truly perplexing! How did Raila Odinga arrive at the conclusion that Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and his PDP government, morally compromised perpetrators of the worst electoral heist in human history, are in any position to advise him on the way forward in Kenya? How did he determine that Nigeria’s forty thieves deserve a place at the table of serious African conversations on credible elections, good governance, and democracy? Who are Odinga’s handlers in Kenya? How could all of them have missed the fact that the people he was going to consult in Nigeria practice a version of democracy that consists in assassinating your opponent or rigging your way to political office? Do we need to translate “nest of killers” to Swahili before Mwalimu Odinga can understand that simple expression? By going to consult the worst Nigeria has to offer, Odinga has spat on the graves of the Kenyans who have lost their lives so far and added to our frustration and helplessness as ordinary Nigerians.
Nigerians are in a particularly sensitive phase of their national life. We are a beautiful country of beautiful people who have had the extraordinary misfortune of being held hostage by the worst among us. Although we once contributed exemplary characters to Africa’s leadership pool during the nationalist and immediate post-nationalist eras, we have never known democracy in any real sense. The closest we came to it was on June 12, 1993 when ‘we, the people’ voted in the only free and fair election we have ever known. Our hopes and aspirations were quashed by the same vicious enemy-cabal that aborted our dreams of post-independence nationhood and have held us hostage ever since. Sometimes, this cabal comes in army fatigues; sometimes it wears flowing civilian robes but it is the same rotten organism that perpetually recycles itself. When people who should know better invite the worst we have to offer to the table, the wound cuts deep in the Nigerian psyche. It reminds us painfully of Frostian roads not taken. And in this case, we are much more certain than Frost of what could have been had the right people taken the roads not taken.
It bears repeating: the Nigerian state, currently held hostage by a dishonorable cabal and a bloodthirsty, kleptocratic political party, does not qualify to be consulted or invited to the table when good governance and credible elections in Africa are in the agenda. If Raila Odinga was so desperate for Nigerian advice, all he needed do was ask and we would have supplied him names of Nigerians who qualify to be at the table. Nigeria has more that a hundred million names that could have given Odinga advice from an eminently moral high ground since members of the dishonorable enemy-cabal are, thankfully, in the minority and in no way represent what we have to offer as a people. If Odinga had consulted serious people before embarking on his worthless trip to Nigeria, one would have given him such meritorious names as Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Gani Fawehinmi, Patrick Utomi, Edwin Madunagu, Odia Ofeimun, Okey Ndibe, Omoyele Sowore, just to mention a few. These are among our very best, the kinds of people who still make it possible for Nigerians to defy the rape of their humanity by the jokers in the PDP and identify proudly with their nation.
If, however, Mwalimu Odinga insists on getting his advice on how to move Kenya forward from discredited African sources, we can also help him. Let him return to Nigeria and consult with all the corrupt PDP governors currently facing embezzlement charges. On his way back home, he may want to stop over in Libreville and Yaounde for consultations on credible democracy with Omar Bongo and Paul Biya. A stopover with Eugene Terreblanche in South Africa will spice up things nicely. He may then return to Nairobi and tell Kofi Annan that he has received superior advice from more credible sons of Africa!
* 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.
Christopher Nizza and Dara Kell talk about their documentary 'Dear Mandela'
2008-02-27
Pambazuka Editors
Pambazuka News is pleased to bring you this interview with the directors of the documentary 'Dear Mandela', Christopher Nizza and Dara Kell. 'Dear Mandela' deals with the growing contradictions in post-Apartheid South Africa where the majority black poor continue to be victimized by the state through measures such as forced evictions. Abahlali baseMjondolo, a new social movement of shackdwellers is challenging the conditions as well as the state of democracy itself in the country - what one the respondents in the documentary calls "new apartheid". You can see a clip of this important and timely documentary at "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZWIZX_8ub8.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The first question is on the title - Why 'Dear Mandela' and not Mbeki?
CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL: ‘Dear Mandela’ examines how the lives of the poorest South Africans – those who had the most hope when Apartheid officially ended in 1994 – have changed in the 17 years since Mandela was released from prison. . Again and again, we heard appreciation for what Mandela did – that he sacrificed twenty-seven years of his freedom for the freedom of South Africans. The name ‘Dear Mandela’ emerged after spending time with shack dwellers who told us they saw Nelson Mandela as a ‘second Jesus Christ’. For many South Africans, when Mandela was released from prison, a ‘better life for all’, which became the rallying cry for the newly elected ANC government – finally seemed possible. The people we interviewed often wondered how Mandela would feel if he was allowed to visit the informal settlements, if he saw that conditions have not only failed to improve since the end of Apartheid, they have worsened. Mandela seemed to many of the people we spoke to, to be the one person who could change things, and so this short film almost takes the form of a plea – not just to Mandela, but to the world – to see what has been deliberately kept from view by a current South African government intent on creating ‘world class cities’ in preparation for the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can you talk to PZN about the evictions? How are they reminiscent of the apartheid government? Or is that too much of a stretch?
CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL: While we were filming in Durban with Abahlali baseMjondolo, we spoke to many shack dwellers who were facing eviction. Zamise Hohlo, a sixteen-year-old girl who was born and still lives in the Shannon Drive informal settlement, told us that municipal workers came and demolished her shack while she was at work. Sitting amidst the wreckage, she told us that she was at a crossroads: she could rebuild her shack, but the municipal workers had informed her that if she rebuilt, they would just come and tear it down again.
We have found that there are stereotypes about shack dwellers that go against all of our experience in the time we spent with them. These stereotypes make it easier for the public to turn a blind eye to what is happening them, and make it easier for municipal workers to do their job of ‘clearing the slums’. One of the reasons we want to make this film is because by letting the shack dwellers speak for themselves, their dignity is respected, and our hope is that viewers will be able to see the shack dwellers not as illegal squatters who should be pushed out of the city, but as citizens of South Africa who have the same rights to housing under the Constitution.
Yes, in some ways the evictions are reminiscent of evictions during the Apartheid era. The notorious new ‘Slums Act’ certainly evokes the Native Land Act of 1913, The Group Areas Act of 1950, The Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act of 1951- acts which remove people from their communities and place them far away from the city, away from work, school, clinics. Some shack dwellers told us that what they are experiencing is a ‘New Apartheid’ between the rich and poor. Indeed, several people we interviewed said that life was better under Apartheid. The statistics suggest that life for the poorest of the poor was better under Apartheid - a UN study showed that the number of people living on less that $1 a day has doubled since 1994. These charges are sure to stir controversy and that is one of the motivations we have to continue on this project, to illuminate the rarely told story of post-apartheid South Africa’s most marginalized.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Can you talk about the role of film in bringing about change?
CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL: In much of the world, the way we communicate is visual. The visual medium is a language that everyone understands from advertisements on the street to television to a growing use of the Internet. While we are working towards a longer film, we posted the 6-minute version of ‘Dear Mandela’ on YouTube and were able to share the insights and struggles of South African shack dwellers instantaneously. Within days, hundreds of people had watched the film. In an age where the gap between rich and poor is increasing globally, there is a need for stories which show not just the plight of the poor, but the fight that they are engaged in. This is one of the main ideas behind Sleeping Giant, our media collective/production company. The corporate media and even some prominent left academics tend to stereotype the world’s poor as being this unruly mass of dangerous, lazy, uneducated people unable to contribute to discussions about issues affecting them most. Through film and video projects produced involving groups like Abahlali we hope to smash those stereotypes by providing a space for people to tell the story of their plight and fight thus projecting a more realistic portrayal.
Those who are struggling to survive while organizing for a better life need our encouragement and support. The film is a celebration of the work of Abahlali as well – of the almost sacred meeting space they have created, where old and young are welcomed and respected; of their refusal to accept the broken promises of the government; of their continuing to march in peaceful protest in the face of intimidating police brutality. And so while many of the stories in ‘Dear Mandela’ are disheartening, what we want to portray is a community that is figuring out the real meaning of democracy – democracy that is a far cry from ‘one man, one vote’ – it’s what Abahlali calls a ‘living politics.’
We’ve done research, and some preliminary filming, and the six-minute film ‘Dear Mandela’ is the culmination of that effort, but we intend to return for a much longer time, where we aim to interview government officials and other relevant players, to show many more sides of a very complex situation
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What other films have you made/are making?
CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL This is our first venture into the world of feature documentary filmmaking. We have both worked as editors on other documentaries, like the Academy Award-nominated Jesus Camp, State of Fear, and others. We have also led filmmaking workshops for community leaders, to both encourage the use of media in their political work and transfer the skills required to produce media.
PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What can other Africans and international friends do to help out?
CHRISTOPHER NIZZA AND DARA KELL: From what we could see a major problem for Abahlali is lack of resources. We witnessed how they maximize literally every rusted nail and every tattered piece of wood. This goes on to money that is raised as all funds are decided by collective how to be spent. We saw this as some money came in following the tragic Christmas night shack fires at the Foreman Road. Very careful and respectful consideration goes into how all monies are spent. It is much different then donating money to an NGO where the people living in struggle are more often not the ones making decisions. People interesting in supporting can get some ideas here (http://www.abahlali.org/node/269) on the Abahlali website. The website is also extremely rich with days worth of wonderful reading for anyone interested in this extremely important and courageous work.
*Dara Kell is a South African documentary filmmaker. She divides her time between South Africa and New York, where she edits documentaries and leads grassroots video-making workshops.
**Christopher Nizza is a New York born, bred and based director and editor. He also has worked on a project in the U.S. called the University of the Poor which works to provide education and exchange in a variety of disciplines to organizations working in the struggle to end poverty forever.
***Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Pan-African Postcard
Of Monarchs and the Power Drunk in Cameroon
2008-02-27
Kangsen Feka Wakai
This is the problem with Cameroon: All power in the country rests in the hands of one man, the President - Paul Biya.
He is the commander-in-chief-of the armed forces, the Fon of Fons [Chief Monarch amongst all monarchs], the chief magistrate of the land, head treasurer and of course chief legislator.
Truth be told, most of those passing for legitimate legislators and representatives of the people, and they know it, owe their seats to his benevolence. To say the least, Cameroon is a one sophisticated scheme of a neo-colonial entity.
In Cameroon, the president decides when elections are held and who participates in them. He initiates, writes and executes the rules of the contest. And as the sole architect of Cameroon’s nascent democracy, he has the executive privilege of appointing an impartial electoral commission to run the elections. During presidential elections he funds his own campaign and those of his rivals. His appointees declare and certify election results. By the way, in his 25 years in power, he has never lost an election. His party has never lost an election either. Besides, he is his party. His youthful image adorns party uniforms. He is his party's official mascot.
One of the problems facing Cameroon today is that the President has too much power. He knows he has too much power and like most rulers of his inclination uses that power to his utmost advantage with impunity. Biya is accountable to no one and uses that twist of misfortune as a means to serve his ends even if it means drowning an entire nation of over 16 million people in the process.
He is drunk with power but skillful and tactful in his execution of it. And like any effective dictator employs a team of illusionists and reality crafters to perpetuate the lie that has is his reign. The national radio, television and press corps combined form the core of his personal public relations firm. They are a much disciplined regiment and have been loyal to their paymaster.
In Cameroon, the national media is not an instrument of nation building. Its sole purpose is to glorify and celebrate a man whose sole preoccupation has been his own entrenchment in power. The idea of building a viable nation that can compete with other nations in the global economic and political realm is frightening to such a man. It is alien in his worldview and counterproductive to his motives.
So, every decree and decision is meant to tighten his grip on his subjects. The thought of a citizenry confident enough to demand what is theirs by right: freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not compatible with the Biya agenda. The idea of empowering Cameroonians threatens his reign; it is a thought that renders him sleepless. It is a pebble in his shoes.
This is where the issue of fear comes into play in the rusty machinery that runs Cameron. For Biya and his cohorts, fear is a reliable ally in their scheme to impose themselves on the country. It has become their weapon of choice in their assault on the collective psyche of Cameroonians. They employ it will face no judge or jury. In Cameroon, the men and women in uniform are above the law. In fact, they are the law. They arrest, judge, prosecute and execute.
Earlier this year, another instance of the brutality and excesses of the Cameroon police took place in Limbe, South West Province. A Cameroonian citizen but a resident in Germany was visiting relatives when one day he had an encounter with the local police. It would be his last encounter with anyone. A few minutes after a few words were exchanged he was lying in his own pool of blood, murdered. He had been beaten to death on the side of the road in broad daylight. No one intervened. No one can intervene. No one was held accountable and no one will. That is Biya’s Cameroon.
In Biya’s Cameroon riot police shoot live bullets at peaceful protesters.
In Biya’s Cameroon let it be noted for the record that in 2008, civilians can still be detained and beaten to death for verbal infractions with the police. How is this possible in this haven of peace and stability? It is possible because the man who has preponderance of power over all levels of power, Biya, has created the kind of police officer and soldier that serves his and only his interest, not the interest of the citizens they are supposed to serve and protect. The role of the soldier in Cameroon is to serve and protect the President’s interest. The military perpetuate his misrule and are paid generously. They are the first and last lines of defense against freedom in the battlefield of opinions and ideas in Cameroon.
It is their role, the military, to stuff the leechlike gods lording over Cameroon with the carcasses of protesting youth in this season of feasting. Their belches can be heard resonating from the damned walls of Etoudi across a landscape blighted with abuse of power, brutality, corruption, intolerance, lies, misrule and tyranny. They carry the laughter of the remorseless tyrant and his cohorts.
Their laughter is demented and nightmarish, one that rewards evil and celebrates vice. It is making exiles of a people. It is making beggars of a people. It is making thugs of a people. The stench of their vices is putrid. It is nauseating to the human soul. In their shortsightedness, the rulers of Cameroon pollute an entire people’s collective future as a compliment to an already tainted and bloodied past.
Geo-politically, Cameroon is within the French sphere of influence and enjoys some of the privileges that come with being a member of that unenviable fraternity. Biya has friends in high places. He owes his survival to those friends in high places. Like his brother, Idriss Derby in Chad and Omar Bongo in Gabon, he knows if push comes to shove, his friends at the United Nations Security Council will come to his aid—a booster in his toxic tonic.
Therefore it comes as no surprise that recently in Douala, forces of law and order in keeping with their oath reacted with brute force at peaceful protesters demonstrating against unjustified fuel price hikes, the banning of a popular radio stations and against an unpopular government bent on imposing itself on yet another generation of Cameroonians.
Between Saturday, February 23rd and Monday the 25th, five people have been killed in Douala and scores have been wounded. According to news reports, there was widespread looting and chaos in certain parts of the port city.
This time around no one is being fooled. Cameroonians are very familiar and intimate with the Biya agenda. They are fed up with it. Kenya is branded in their consciousness. They know that no constitutional reform in Cameroon could be intended to strengthen non-existent democratic values or institutions. They are not blind. They also know that reforms initiated by an unscrupulous regime could not be in their interest. They know it is only meant to keep Paul Biya and his cohorts in power. They are not numb and will react appropriately.
It is time for the Paul Biya era to be vanquished from our collective memory!
*Kangsen Feka Wakai is a Houston based writer and journalist. He is the author of Fragmented Melodies, a collection of poems available on www.amazon.com
**Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Obituaries
Civil Rights Activist Johnnie Carr Dies
2008-02-27
http://tinyurl.com/2rlrj7
Johnnie Carr, who joined childhood friend Rosa Parks in the historic Montgomery bus boycott and became a prominent civil rights activist over the past half century, has died. She was 97. Baptist Health hospital spokeswoman Melody Ragland said Carr died Friday night. She had been hospitalized after suffering a stroke Feb. 11. Carr succeeded the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association in 1967, a post she held at her death.
Books & arts
Review of Shimmer Chinodya's Strife
2008-02-27
Mildred Kiconco Barya
Strife is a novel laden with, yes, strife! It is at once a family story, a national one and eventually a borderless one. The author, Shimmer Chinodya, through the Gwanangara family takes on the task of interpreting and explaining happening events first by revisiting the past to deal with the upturning, unresolved business. The spirits start talking through Kelvin Gwanangara:
‘I am Mhokoshi! I want my weapons back!’
‘I am Njiki!’ Kelvin snarls, in an old woman’s voice. ‘My spirit is roaming the forest.’ ‘I am Sabastin.’ Now a strange young man’s thin breaking voice. ‘I need rest.’
‘I am Zevezeve the porcupine. You shat and spat on me when I visited you.’
‘I am Edgar Tekere. I’m back from the war. I see blood everywhere.’
Dunge Gwanangara, after many years of living as a Christian is challenged to put aside Christianity and consult n’angas. He ends up making mistakes for he doesn’t really know how to, he’s been busy being a strict Christian. The unresolved issues only grow larger. More misfortune strikes members of his family. One of his sons becomes epileptic, another schizophrenic. Dunge’s wife—the moon huntress— hears voices. Eventually, it turns out that no one thing really works, and no one solution will come from Christianity or tradition, modernity or education, science or destiny. The past no longer holds together and science fails to offer a cure to the Gwanangara afflictions. Conflict heightens as one value weighs against another and the realization that choosing one path is no longer practical. The characters in the novel fumble about, grappling for the ‘way.’ In the words of the author, ‘Everything that can go wrong goes wrong…’ And what’s supposed to happen doesn’t happen.
The book has selfless characters who sacrifice themselves for others, and also selfish individuals who only want to depend on others, and even blame others for their misfortunes.
The most refreshing part of the novel is when the author exposes migrations and relations that link various people across Africa, rendering the current borders meaningless. The ordinary person is well integrated, it’s the elite who are confused and divided by national borders. The young, rural people have no ‘crossing’ problems, leaving Zimbabwe to go and work in Mozambique or Malawi, learn the languages there and speak them. An old woman is at ease to cross from Zambia and visit her relatives in Zimbabwe, (without papers) but the educated are lost in the legal requirements and the consequences of crossing borders without visas.
The Gwanangara family has relatives across borders and occasionally exchange visits. The sad aspect is that these visits are mostly triggered by moments of crisis; strange illnesses and death. Most of the characters are courageous and they strive to overcome the obstacles that try to pull them down.
Towards the end of the story there is a sense of ease, a mellowness softening the rough edges of strife. The Gwanangara family starts to bond, openly talking about themselves and each other without hiding behind masks. They bail each other out and hear each other out. Also, they discover the joy of involving themselves earnestly in other people’s lives. They attend the funerals, graduation parties and weddings with genuine concern and discover that some of their relatives are not as bad as they had seemed to be. ‘In fact, none of the Chivi people seem half as bad as we were made to think they were. Perhaps we should make a fresh start.’ There is a new understanding amongst relatives giving hope to open friendship and genuine love.
At the end of the narrative, Strife is not only portrayed as a family saga or a single community affair but an African one. Utilizing the drama form to conclude his story, Chinodya seems to suggest that almost every African no matter where the geographical divide must make choices as to what will work in the future and question the belief invested in science, bones or Bibles. There will be several schools of thought for influence and inspiration: education, medicine, destiny, tradition... But before arriving at a lasting solution, the past will keep calling, making coping in the present moment alone nothing but full of strife!
Weaver Press, Harare, 2006, pp 223
* Mildred K Barya is Writer-in-Residence at TrustAfrica (www.trustafrica.org)
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
UK: "Son of Man" releases in the UK
2008-02-27
A bold new film from Golden Bear winning director, Mark Dornford May (“U-Carmen eKhayelitsha” – Golden Bear Berlin, 2005) is being released countrywide from the 7th of March. “Son of Man” is a revolutionary film that explores an interpretation of the Jesus Christ story in a contemporary African context and should spark lively debate about its portrayal both of Christ and of Africa. Released by Spier distribution the film will begin its run at the Rich Mix Centre in Bethnal Green before branching out to sites in Bristol, Edinburgh, Cambridge and elsewhere in the UK.
Press release
“Son of Man”
www.sonofmanmovie.com
Son of Man releases in the UK
A bold new film from Golden Bear winning director, Mark Dornford May (“U-Carmen eKhayelitsha” – Golden Bear Berlin, 2005) is being released countrywide from the 7th of March. “Son of Man” is a revolutionary film that explores an interpretation of the Jesus Christ story in a contemporary African context and should spark lively debate about its portrayal both of Christ and of Africa. Released by Spier distribution the film will begin its run at the Rich Mix Centre in Bethnal Green before branching out to sites in Bristol, Edinburgh, Cambridge and elsewhere in the UK.
“Son of Man” is the second product of the collaboration between Mark Dornford-May and the performing arts group Dimpho di Kopane meaning “combined talents” and backed by Nando’s Arts and the Spier group in South Africa. Dimpho di Kopane are a talented group of performers from the townships around Cape Town who have, under the direction of Mark Dornford May, performed the stage versions of “U-Carmen eKhayelitsha” and “The Mysteries” around the world to huge acclaim.
On the back of the theatrical performances it was decided to make these stage performances into films. The initiative met with great success in the first film “U-Carmen eKhayelitsha” being awarded the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2005 and going on to critical and commercial success thereafter. The second film “Son of Man” had a great outing at the Sundance Festival and received rave reviews from Roger Ebert who called it “extraordinary and powerful”. The Seattle Weekly described it as “More moving than the Last Temptation of Christ and smarter than Mel Gibsons Passion.” Spier Distribution have chosen to launch the film at the Rich Mix Cultural Centre because of its situation at the intersection of a varied cultural milieu who will all find the film appealing. As one would expect from such a film portraying the life of Christ in Africa, there are some strong themes, like the overcoming of violence through passive resistance, which should appeal to all audiences. “Son of Man” releases on the 7th of March at the Rich Mix Cultural Centre, 47 Bethnal Green Road, Bethnal Green E1 6LA and other screening times and venues can be found at www.sonofmanmovie.com
More...
Blogging Africa
Roundup of South African Bloggers
2008-02-26
Sokari Ekine
My Haven by Matuba Mahlatjie.
Matuba Mahlatjie is a gay blogger living in Pretoria. He comments on the possibility of Jacob Zuma becoming the next President of South Africa. He is particularly concerned over the recent acceptance by Zuma to attend a luncheon by Black Journalists Forum in South Africa.
“This forum of black journalists is so anti democracy and transparency. I listened to all their excuses for barring white journalists and they did not make any sense. The truth is they are making us look like uneducated savages who are comfortable with being repellers of change.
It is unfortunate that the people (Journalists) who are supposed to help the nation eradicate the evil spirit of racism - are the ones who are painting the country black and white. All media houses in South Africa have black journalists, but I like the fact that Talk Radio 702 and e.tv deliberately sent white journalist to expose the devil that possess the Black Journalist Forum here in South Africa.”
Lesbian Rules by Madra Butler
South African ministers have taken to suggesting various alternative remedies for curing ailments and making pronouncements on why rape is so widespread.
“So there you have it ladies and gentlemen.
To be cured from aids, eat garlic and beetroot.
If you don’t want aids, take a shower, and
All we have to do to stop the electricity crisis is to go to bed early so we can grow and be cleverer and rapes only occur because people don’t have access to prostitutes.”
Bandwidth by Charl Norman is a technology blog focusing on new start ups and technology innovations in South Africa. This week he introduces 5 South African blogging platforms: My Digital Life, Amagama, iBlog (see Lesbian Rules) Blog 247 and 24 Blogs.
“Blogging in SA has really taken off with thousands of South Africans looking to their blogs to express themselves. Testament to this is the success of Amatomu.com which is responsible to sorting the SA blogosphere and Afrigator.com which indexed the thousands of blog post in a social media aggregator and directory.”
Despite South Africa having the highest numbers of bloggers in the continent the fact remains that by far the majority are white and male.
The Fish Bowl comments on an article by Dr Steven Friedman on the political and economic realities of the ANC
“The article summarises what I have been trying to push for some time. We keep trying to look at the ANC through Western prisms, when the leader of the ANC party is not usually the decision-maker. Mbeki was the ultimate decision-maker in his cabinet, but it is this type of leadership that has sparked the current "revolution" in voter sentiment. There are many players in the NEC and the NWC who hold vast business interests, the it is much more likely that a third way scenarion will occur.”
YblogZA uses the total eclipse of the moon as a metaphor for the downward spiral of South Africa largely due to the ANC.
Moeletsi Mbeki, brother of President Thabo Mbeki, told the Cape Argus that South Africans had to face the fact the rest of the world had reason to be "very concerned" about the direction in which the country was moving.
“[Moeletsi] Mbeki also criticised new ANC president Jacob Zuma for "bad-mouthing" his own country's political and justice system in a foreign country. Zuma claimed in court papers in Mauritius this week that fraud charges against him were part of a political move against him. Moeletsi Mbeki, who is deputy chairperson of the SA Institute of International Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, said: "Here we have the president of the ANC, the possible future president of the country, claiming that the 16 charges of fraud against him are part of a political campaign to keep him out of office.”
Khanya has a philosophical discussion on “political and spiritual identity and personal values” and the separation of the church and state.
“Earlier today I got a message from another blogger about the liberation struggle in South Africa and its spiritual basis. Here are some preliminary thoughts, linked to the example above. I was a member of the Liberal Party, and while the humanist student in the example I gave was not, there were several others with views similar to his. The student whose banning we were protesting against was, however, both a Christian and a member of the Liberal Party. And one of the interesting things was that people with radically different religious backgrounds and worldviews were able to work together in a political party for common political goals. Christians, atheists, humanists, agnostics, Jews, Muslims and Hindus worked together for a common political goal of a democratic nonracial South Africa. Their reasons for pursuing that goal may have been very different, and almost opposite. But no matter what the reasons, they were able to agree on a political goal and a political programme.”
Abahlali baseMjondolo is the blog of the Durban Shackdweller Movement. The members living in Motala Heights being subjected to ongoing illegal evictions, dumping of toxic waste and threats of arson. In Cape Town Delft location 1600 residents were evicted and three children were shot by the police.
“Police have started shooting people at close range in Delft. There is pandemonium and brutality. Following yesterday’s ruling in the High Court which uphold’s Thubelisha Homes and the state’s eviction order against the community, the residents decided to appeal at the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein. The lawyers worked through the night doing the paperwork for this appeal.
Right now, Ashraf Cassiem, Anti-Eviction Campaign Legal Co-ordinator is still finalising the paperwork for the case to go to the Supreme Court of Appeal but the police decided to proceed with the evictions anyway. All the Anti-Eviction Campaign co-ordinators have advised the police that there is another legal case pending and they have no authority to evict until the legal process is exhausted but they are doing it anyway. This is unlawful.”
Black Looks has another report on the diamond empire of Israeli billionaire, Lev Leviev whose diamond mines in Angola have been cited for human rights violations and which fund illegal settlements in the West Bank and his real estate business in New York using underpaid workers in hazardous conditions.
“Leviev’s wealth was built while trading with a business that was a huge pillar of the South African apartheid regime. He then went on to use the proceeds to construct an apartheid reality in the West Bank.”
* Sokari Ekine blogs at Black Looks and www.africanwomenblogs.com
Podcasts
Interview with Peter Hallward
2008-02-28
Peter Hallward
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/broadcasts/podcasts.php
Peter Hallward, author of Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment, talks over the phone with Jacques Depelchin from the Ota Benga Alliance for Peace Healing and Dignity, and visiting Professor at the Centre for Afro-Oriental Studies at the Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil, and Firoze Manji, founder and co-editor of Pambazuka News, about his book and the lessons of Haiti.
Peter Hallward's book “Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment”, published by Verso Press in 2007, is likely to become a classic reference on the most recent history of Haiti, thanks especially, to a fascinating and informative analysis of the clash between mass-based and elite driven politics. In the fierce battle over and around which ideological lens should one use to look at and make sense of Haiti's most recent history, including the overthrow and kidnapping of President Jean Bertrand Aristide, Peter Hallward's book is a welcome counterbalance to those offered by both mainstream journalism and books such as Alex Dupuy's “Prophet and Power: Jean-Bertrand Ariside, the International Community and Haiti” published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2007.
Zimbabwe update
Civil groups in South Africa intensify protests at Zimbabwe embassy
2008-02-29
http://www.swradioafrica.com/news260208/sacivilgroups260208.htm
The Zimbabwe Youth Network (ZYN) and the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) have announced that there will be a huge demonstration at the Zimbabwe Consulate in Jo'burg on Wednesday, one day before another protest is due at the same location on Thursday. The Wednesday protest is being supported by numerous Zimbabwean groups, including the Crisis Coalition, Zimbabwe Political Victims Organisation (Zipovo), Civil Service Organisations Forum and both formations of the MDC.
African Union Monitor
AU Monitor Weekly Roundup
Issue 126, 2008
2008-02-27
http://www.aumonitor.org/
This week’s AU Monitor brings you analysis of the AU audit report from Dolphine Ndeda who urges that the report be popularised and implemented immediately. She notes that “one general finding of the Panel was that the AU commission is characterised by internal institutional incoherence and disarray” and calls on the incoming Chairperson and Commissioners to prioritize management and outreach reform without delay.
In economic development news, Abdoulie Janneh, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa, explains that Africa’s improved economic growth has been “underpinned by better governance, improved macroeconomic management and increased global demand for Africa’s commodities” but notes that the improvement is insufficient to achieve the AU vision of development or commitments under the Millennium Development Goals. As a means to improve food security and household income on the Continent, Nepad’s Dr. Maria Wanzala, advocates for increased use of fertilisers suggesting that this could lead to agricultural growth of six per cent by 2015. Further, ahead of the Accra high-level forum on Aid Effectiveness in September, Governance Director of the African Development Bank, Gabriel Negatu, explains the Strategic Partnership for Africa (SPA). “The SPA is important as it serves as a forum for donors and recipient countries to reflect on the changing nature of the international aid environment, based on the principles of ‘ownership’ and ‘partnership’. It has therefore been instrumental in fostering the implementation of the Paris Declaration on aid harmonization.” Also addressing regional development imperatives, the Southern African Development Community will hold its International Consultative Conference on Poverty and Development under the theme “Regional Economic Integration: A Strategy for Poverty Eradication towards Sustainable Development” between 18 - 20 April 2008 in Mauritius.
The Peace and Security Council of the African Union issued reports from the Chairperson on the situations in Chad and Somalia. Providing an update on the situation in Somalia and the implementation of the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) mandate, the report outlines the need for contingency planning for a possible United Nations operation. The report notes with concern the continued lack of troops with only two Ugandan battalions and the very recent deployment of the main body of the first of the two battalions pledged by Burundi. The report on Somalia concludes “more than ever before, swift and collective action is needed (…). Failure to effectively address the crisis in Somalia will leave a legacy of unfulfilled promises towards the Somali people, damage the credibility of the international community, as well as further undermine the prospects of peace in the country and compound efforts to promote regional stability.”
The Chairperson’s report on Chad provides an update on the situation and welcomes the initiative of the Congo and Libya to send a delegation of senior officials to Chad for consultations with the parties to the conflict. In addition, Henri Boshoff of the Institute for Security Studies emphasizes that “it is clear that if the international community, through the United Nations and the European Union, do not response more urgently, the situation in Chad, Darfur and CAR could well worsen.”
Lastly, newly elected AU Commission Chairperson Jean Ping visited Kenya on Friday. Following talks with the parties and mediation team, he expressed optimism that a power-sharing deal “is just within reach”. However, since his visit, the AU led mediation talks have been suspended.
Women & gender
Global: Social Watch Gender Equity Index 2008
2008-02-29
http://www.socialwatch.org/en/avancesyRetrocesos/IEG_2008/tablas/SWGEI.htm
More than half the women in the world live in countries that have made no progress in gender equity in recent years. This is the main conclusion of the Social Watch 2008 Gender Equity Index (GEI) which, for the first time, shows recent evolution and trends in bridging the gap between men and women in education, the economy and empowerment.
Zimbabwe: UNICEF helps launch campaign against surging child rape rates
2008-02-29
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25796
With the number of reported cases of children raped in Zimbabwe surging more than 40 per cent in the last three years, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has joined with the Government and religious groups in an awareness campaign to fight the scourge. The Zimbabwean Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, the National Faith Based Council of Zimbabwe, and UNICEF have launched their Stand Up and Speak Out campaign against child abuse, aiming to reach more than six million of the African country’s citizens.
Human rights
Sudan: Campaign demands Darfur arrests
2008-02-29
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7266243.stm
A new campaign is being launched calling on the UN to push for the immediate arrest of two men accused of war crimes in Sudan's Darfur region. Some 45 organisations have signed up to the Wanted for War Crimes campaign. The International Criminal Court named Humanitarian Affairs Minister Ahmed Haroun and militia leader Ali Kushayb as suspects a year ago.
Kenya: Crisis leads to more child abuse - aid group
2008-02-29
http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN856491.html
Kenya's children run increasing risk of physical and sexual assault and face worsening food shortages in the aftermath of recent bloodshed, aid agency Save the Children said on Thursday. A disputed December 27 election sparked widespread violence that killed 1,000 people and displaced some 300,000. The aid group said over half of those were likely to be children, who were by far the most vulnerable.
Liberia: War crimes trial held up so Charles Taylor can rest
2008-02-29
http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN924151.html
Charles Taylor's war crimes trial was adjourned on Thursday until Monday so the former Liberian President can rest on doctor's advice, a spokesman for the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone said. "He wasn't feeling well a few days back," the spokesman said on Thursday. "The doctor said it wasn't serious but he needed some rest. He came to court yesterday and today but the defence counsel asked for an adjournment so he could rest on doctor's advice."
Nigeria: Government denies oil rebel access to lawyers - group
2008-02-29
http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN931396.html
A Nigerian rebel group from the oil producing Niger Delta accused the government on Friday of denying their detained leader access to lawyers and relatives despite a court order that he should be allowed to see them. Henry Okah of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) was arrested in Angola on September 3 and handed over to Nigeria on February 14. His detention in a secret location by Nigerian authorities has raised tensions in the delta.
Somalia: Impunity “the root cause of crisis”
2008-02-29
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76993
A culture of impunity is the root cause of Somalia's humanitarian and political crisis and unless the world urgently addresses it, war crimes and crimes against humanity will continue unabated, a civil society activist has told IRIN. "No one has ever been held accountable for these crimes," Marian Hussein Awreeye, chairwoman of the Isma'il Jimale Human Rights Centre, said.
Refugees & forced migration
Global: Migrant rights clinic forcibly shut
2008-02-27
The Legal Clinic for Refugees and Immigrants (LCRI), which provides legal aid to refugees and immigrants from a number of countries, was forcibly deprived of its office space in the Faculty of Law at Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria, on January 17, 2008. The LCRI serves a number of African clients, most recently including individuals and families from: Algeria, Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, Western Sahara, and Zambia.
Legal Clinic for refugees & immigrants
PRESS RELEASE: MIGRANT RIGHTS CLINIC FORCIBLY SHUT
For Immediate Release
February 16, 2008 - Further Information: lcribg@gmail.com
The Legal Clinic for Refugees and Immigrants (LCRI), which provides legal aid to refugees and immigrants from a number of countries, was forcibly deprived of its office space in the Faculty of Law at Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria, on January 17, 2008. The LCRI serves a number of African clients, most recently including individuals and families from: Algeria, Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, Somalia, Tanzania, Western Sahara, and Zambia. Many have been in Bulgaria for some time and all face significant hardship in terms of discrimination, access to basic rights, and potential detention and deportation.
The closure was made by officials of the University during client-receiving hours and was not precipitated by advance warning. The Clinic was provided only two hours to vacate the room, and no satisfactory explanation for the action was (or has since been) provided. The abrupt closure demonstrates a brazen lack of regard for the very serious human consequences resulting, let alone the privacy of clients, the sensitivity of stored information, incoming case-support faxes and mail, the extensive and long-term efforts of student volunteers, and the constant necessity for member and client access to the collection of many years-worth of case related documents.
The university administration has refused to provide substantive information or to engage in constructive debate in shameful disregard for dramatic student body mobilization and the submission of many hundreds of student petition signatures to the Law Faculty Dean.
While the LCRI struggles to function without a centralized office, the actions of the administration - designed to close the human rights organization without opportunity for broader attention or outcry - have severely crippled the capabilities of the clinic, threatening the imminent demise of the only organization in Bulgaria providing practical training in Refugee, Migration, and Human Rights Law to students.
The consequence of the office closure on the immigrant community is devastating. While the LCRI maintains asylum seeker detention cases against Bulgaria before the European Court of Human Rights and continues to advocate before the national courts, the lack of a centralized office has severely hampered opportunities for clients, potential clients, and others to access legal counsel, obtain critical basic rights information, and operate within a safe space.
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CAR: Thousands hiding in the bush
2008-02-29
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=25790
A major portion of the 200,000 people internally displaced within the Central African Republic (CAR) – due to fear of armed groups – are hiding in the bush not far from their homes and international assistance must reach them there, a United Nations humanitarian official has said.
Africa: NGO calls for new MDGs
2008-02-27
Speaking ahead of the World Bank/ International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2008 spring meeting in Washington, United States of America in April 2008. Africa IDP Voice said it was now vital to introduce a new United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) requiring governments to prevent and reduce prevalence of Internal Displacement and put in place national , regional and international legal, policy and institutional frameworks for their protection and assistance as an indispensable part of the fight against poverty.
PRESS RELEASE 24th February 2008: WORLD BANK/IMF 2008 SPRING MEETING.
African NGO calls for new millennium development goal on Internal Displacement.
Internal Displacement is one of the biggest humanitarian, human rights and security problems facing the world’s poor today and must be given equal prominence alongside other anti poverty measures taken by governments and civil society groups, Africa Internally Displaced Persons Voice( Africa IDP Voice).
Speaking ahead of the World Bank/ International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2008 spring meeting in Washington, United States of America in April 2008.
Africa IDP Voice said it was now vital to introduce a new United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) requiring governments to prevent and reduce prevalence of Internal Displacement and put in place national , regional and international legal, policy and institutional frameworks for their protection and assistance as an indispensable part of the fight against poverty. We wish to support the concern raised by the United Nations Secretary General Ban Kin-Moon that the majority of the countries on the continent are not on track to achieve the eight goals set by 2015. Africa IDP Voice attributes this largely to World Bank supported large scale development projects and support for land reforms that undermine customary land rights in Africa, says Joseph Chilengi Executive Director of Africa IDP Voice.
Everyday, in Africa, thousands of people are being forcibly displaced from their homes and Land as a result of large scale development projects and insensitive land reforms financed and supported by the World Bank and other international financial institutions. There has been recently a sharp increase of massive forced displacements caused by World Bank driven investment and land policy reforms across Africa. World Bank supported large scale development projects all in the name of investment and infrastructure development have encouraged forced evictions, land speculation and threatened Land rights of the majority of citizens in Africa who depend on Land for their survival, said Chilengi.
Joseph Chilengi who will again be attending this years World Bank/IMF 2008 Spring meeting in Washington said ‘ the World Bank supported large scale infrastructure development programmes in Africa have lamentably failed to balance between large scale infrastructure development and internal displacement, a phenomenon that has upset African peoples achievements in the last ten years..the majority of the people in Africa have become victims instead of beneficiaries of development.
Internal displacement shatters lives and undermines human security, in particular by breaking up families and communities, terminating employment relationships, halting formal education opportunities, depriving people of adequate food and shelter and making displaced populations especially vulnerable to acts of violence and attacks. IDPs are perhaps the most vulnerable, yet least protected of the region’s’ populations with increased cases of child labour, gender based violence, child prostitution and HIV/AIDS. World Bank is creating a category people forced by circumstances beyond their control into consideration where, because of the way the society is organized, they become the responsibility of others. Others take over and handle both the broad circumstances and the small details of their lives. The development of new IDP situations and the deterioration of others over the past years therefore have created an increased need to strengthen the capacity of local and national authorities to provide sufficient protection and assistance to IDPs, an area the Bank and its partners has failed the continent in their policies Protection and assistance measures of IDPs seek to prevent, minimize and lighten the suffering of the displaced by ensuring continued enjoyment of their human rights and freedom.
“We must recognize that deteriorating situation of internal displacement are already undermining any hope of meeting the existing eight Millennium Development Goals on poverty. It is impossible to target poverty without targeting protecting the internally displaced and therefore illogical not to have a stand-alone goal calling on the States to prevent or reduce incidences of internal displacement. It is high time that an Internal Displacement Millennium Development Goal now takes its rightful place alongside the existing eight other anti-poverty pledges,” said Joseph Chilengi, “If the first aim of the Millennium Development Goals is to halve poverty by 2015, we cannot ignore Internal Displacement which is wrecking poor peoples’ lives on a daily basis,’ said Mr Chilengi.
In a recent report, Africa IDP Voice revealed that by the end of the century Internal Displacement could be responsible for the problem of more than 100 million poor people in sub Saharan Africa from human rights violations, poverty, deaths and increased diseases. “We should used this year’s World/IMF 2008 Spring meeting to highlight all the injustices perpetrated on the world’s poorest people through internal displacement. To enshrine a clear commitment by the rich countries to provide resources to address the deteriorating situation of internal displacement would have made a significant start,” Mr Chilengi added. Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are the most vulnerable of the world’s population and yet the least protected. Mr Chilengi said he is taking the same message to the World/ IMF 2008 Spring meeting.
The current eight Millennium Development Goals are:
1)Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty
2)Achieve universal primary education
3)Promote gender equality and empower women
4)Reduce child mortality
5)Improve maternal health
6)Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7)Ensure environmental sustainability
8)Develop a global partnership for development
Despite increased international attention in recent years Chilengi noted, the overall response to IDPs’ urgent protection and assistance needs remain largely inadequate. While national governments have the prime responsibility to protect and assist IDPs, in practice, they are often unwilling or unable to do so. Even when Governments are dedicated to assisting and protecting displaced people, limited resources often complicates the task. The World Bank has an obligation to actively address the problem and support solutions for IDP across the region. Clearly, more needs to be done, said Chilengi.
Joseph Chilengi
Executive Director Africa
Internally Displaced Persons Voice (Africa IDP Voice)
IDP House
18 Bauhinia Avenue, Avondale P.O. Box 32368 Lusaka.
Zambia.
Email: joseph.chilengi@africaidp.org Mobile: +260-97-773258
Based and headquartered in Lusaka, Zambia, Africa Internally Displaced Persons Voice (Africa IDP Voice) works to raise awareness of the assistance, protection and development plight of IDPs and promotes their effective protection in Africa. www.africaidp.org
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Global: Why is Israel still in denial over African refugees?
2008-02-27
http://tinyurl.com/345n6u
The underground bomb shelter in Levinsky Park near Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station has, in recent months, turned into a squalid, staggeringly overcrowded little refugee camp. Some 200 African men, mainly from Eritrea, sleep crammed into every possible nook and cranny in two airless, low-ceilinged rooms and a corridor. The dirty concrete floor is heaped with mattresses and blankets, and scattered with scraps of food and debris. Hanging from the walls are plastic bags stuffed with clothing.
Sudan: New site for displaced people opened in West Darfur
2008-02-29
http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/47c451bf2.html
The UN refugee agency and its partners have established a new site in the West Darfur region of Sudan to accommodate up to 6,000 internally displaced people (IDP). A first group of 143 families, or about 500 people, are expected to move in on Wednesday.
Uganda: Many Kenyan refugees too scared to return
2008-02-29
http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/47c423834.html
The security situation may have improved in areas of Kenya hit by post-election violence, but many of the thousands of refugees who fled to Uganda are still too scared to return.
Social movements
Burkina Faso: Protests on price rises spread to the capital
2008-02-29
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=77033
Violence spread to the capital, Ouagadougou, early on 28 February as demonstrators took to the streets to denounce the high price of food and fuel. Shops and petrol stations were shut down. The unrest took place throughout the day with young men burning tyres and igniting fires, using hit-and run tactics despite a heavy police presence. “The choice is to demonstrate or to die of hunger,” a demonstrator, who asked not to be named, told IRIN. “We have chosen to get our voice heard and I think we are succeeding.”
Elections & governance
Kenya: Breakthrough in crisis
2008-02-29
http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/16102
Kenyan leaders have agreed to work in a coalition government starting Thursday evening, chief mediator Kofi Annan has announced. The leaders are expected to sign documents of the historic agreement. This is the long awaited goods news after a period of uncertainty. Kenya sighed with relief as the two key protagonists President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga finally settled to a coalition government with a pledge to build a stronger country.
Egypt: Strikes shake US ally
2008-02-28
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=14239
Workers at the Ghazl el-Mahalla textile mill in Egypt staged a mass demonstration last Sunday, calling for the end of the US-backed regime of Hosni Mubarak. The textile mill is the biggest in the Middle East. Its 27,000-strong workforce has been instrumental in forcing the regime into making economic concessions.
Nigeria: Poll petitions dismissed
2008-02-29
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7263534.stm
A Nigerian tribunal has dismissed both opposition petitions asking that President Umaru Yar'Adua's election last year be annulled. The panel of five judges unanimously rejected them, saying they did not contain enough evidence. Lawyers for both losing presidential candidates, Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar, say they will take their cases to the Supreme Court.
Cameroon: Strike actions in five provinces
2008-02-29
http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/16130
Five of Cameroon's ten provinces are currently under severe and massive strike actions called Monday, February 25 by the Syndicate of transporters in Cameroon. These provinces include; Centre (hosting the capital city Yaounde), Southwest, Northwest, Littoral, host of Cameroon's economic capital, Douala and West.
Zimbabwe: ZEC declines to investigate Zanu-PF voter registration fraud
2008-02-29
http://www.swradioafrica.com/news270208/zecdeclines270208.htm
The provincial elections officer for Manicaland has declined to institute an investigation into reports that a Zanu-PF legislator has allegedly helped ‘illegal aliens’ to register as voters. The MDC on Tuesday approached the head of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) in Mutare, Colonel Moffat Masabeya, and informed him of reports that Zanu-PF MP for Chipinge south Enock Porusingazi, was involved in voter registration fraud.
Zimbabwe: Prisons head orders officers to vote Mugabe
2008-02-29
http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN930928.html
The head of Zimbabwe's prison service has ordered his officers to vote for President Robert Mugabe and said he would resign if the opposition won next month's election, official media reported on Friday. The southern African country holds joint presidential, parliamentary and council elections on March 29 in which Mugabe faces former ally Simba Makoni and long-time rival Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Development
DRC: Punish buyers of rebel ore, UN panel says
2008-02-29
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=333635
Buyers of minerals from rebel areas of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) should be punished under a United Nations arms embargo, a group of experts has told the Security Council. A five-year war in the vast Central African nation that ended in 2003 has left much of DRC's eastern borderlands a volatile patchwork of rebel fiefdoms and militia-controlled zones.
Global: UN tool to help nations balance food-fuel equation
2008-02-26
http://www.ethanolproducer.com/article.jsp?article_id=3756
Will governments worried about national food supplies begin restricting land available to grow feedstock for biofuels? If they do, it may be after using a new United Nations tool to analyze their countries’ food-versus-fuel balance. The instrument, now available in a test version, is from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.
Africa: Africa Trade Network: Declaration of civil society organisations
2008-02-26
We, civil society organisations, including farmers, workers, women's, faith-based and students' groups and organisations, call on our people to redouble their efforts to stop the self-serving free trade agreements, misleading designated as 'Economic Partnership Agreements' that Europe seeks to impose on African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, and which will destroy the economies of these countries.
CALL TO ACTION AGAINST EUROPE'S AGGRESSIVE ECONOMIC AGENDA IN AFRICA
Declaration of civil society organisations at the meeting of the Africa Trade Network, Cape Town, South Africa 22nd February 2008
We, civil society organisations, including farmers, workers, women's, faith-based and students' groups and organisations, call on our people to redouble their efforts to stop the self-serving free trade agreements, misleading designated as 'Economic Partnership Agreements' that Europe seeks to impose on African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, and which will destroy the economies of these countries.
At our meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, from 20-23 February 2008, under the umbrella of the Africa Trade Network, to review the latest developments in the EPA negotiations, we reaffirm our unequivocal opposition these agreements When the EPA negotiations were launched, civil society organisations from all over Africa, the Caribbean, the Pacific and Europe warned that the EPAs were profoundly anti-developmental. We pointed out that the EPAs posed a threat not only specifically to government revenue, local producers and industries, food sovereignty, essential public services, and the regional integration of African countries; but also to the right and capacity in general of African countries to develop their economies according to the needs of their people and their own national, regional and continental priorities.
The latest developments in these negotiations have exposed even more sharply the fundamental outrage represented by the EPAs.
At the end of 2007, Europe deployed manipulative and heavy-handed tactics in an attempt to force African governments into so-called 'interim' agreements. When it became clear that no African regional bloc would agree to its demands, the European Commission, with the active support of its member states, resorted to blatant divide-and-rule tactics. Europe capitalised on the fact that, for historical reasons, a few export sectors in Africa are largely dependent on the European market. By threatening to close access to these markets and throw export sectors into chaos, Europe rode roughshod over the regional negotiating processes and instigated bilateral deals with individual countries.
The more vulnerable African governments were forced to concede to Europe's demand for 'interim' trade deals, and in the process, completely undermined regional negotiating positions.
These Interim Economic Partnership Agreements reveal Europe's true face. The deals are classical free trade agreements that clearly serve Europe's commercial and geo-economic interests. All the claims about supporting Africa's development and regional integration have been exposed as false.
Merely to secure a level of market access that is remarkably similar to previous levels, ACP countries involved in the interim agreements have had to concede to opening up their economies to historically unprecedented levels even beyond the commitments required at the multilateral level.
In addition, Europe took advantage of the circumstances to insert clauses in the interim agreements that were not even part of earlier negotiations. These include the 'most favoured nation' clause, a standstill clause that forbids countries from ever raising tariffs on imports from Europe, and restrictions and even outright prohibitions on export taxes. These provisions only serve to lock in further these countries into Europe's agenda, and prevent them from exploring other options and relations within the changing global order. This will take away their space for autonomous policy to create jobs, secure livelihoods and pursue equitable economic development and regional integration.
Throughout the negotiating process, aid has been used as a bait to lure African governments into long and protracted debates, which have diverted attention from the fundamental economic issues at stake and misled them into taking on onerous commitments. As the 'Interim' deals make abundantly clear, promises of additional financing are illusory.
The negotiating agenda for 2008 aims to deepen the above processes. Europe intends to lock in the 'interim' agreements with all their outrageous provisions as quickly as possible. This is a clear breach of the understanding on which they were provisionally initialled - namely that the deals were merely a means to avoid possible retaliation at the WTO and that any contentious elements would be renegotiated.
In addition, Europe is exerting high levels of pressure on African governments to expand the negotiations to open up the services sector and to include binding rules on investment, competition policy, and government procurement. Such rules will take away the right of African governments to manage investment and investors in ways that serve Africa's own development. The inclusion of such issues is not necessary at the multilateral level and against the expressed wishes and declarations of Africa's governments and peoples.
Today it is clear more than ever, that the EPAs are Europe's means of locking-in the fundamentally unequal relationships between Africa and Europe. Viewed from Africa, this is nothing less than re-colonisation.
It is more urgent now, than ever, that Africa's people and their allies unite in action to defeat this agenda.
To this end, We demand that:
* The 'interim' agreements that have been entered into are nullified; and, to avoid threats of trade disruption, options such as enhanced GSP Plus and Everything But Arms are utilised;
* There must be no negotiations on services, investment, intellectual property, competition, government procurement and any other new issues in order to ensure that all sovereignty on these issues is retained at the national and regional levels;
* There must be a return to our own development agendas based on national priorities within consolidated regional communities in Africa;
* Any relationship between Africa and Europe must be based on our development agenda and recognise the principles of non-reciprocity, the right to protect our domestic and regional markets, and our economic sovereignty. We salute the majority of African Governments that have so far-resisted any form of agreement with Europe. We call on these governments to work with the more vulnerable countries in order to reverse the 'interim' arrangements. We further call on the governments that have initialled agreements not to sign and for parliaments to refuse to ratify them in case they are signed.
We commit ourselves to work with our governments in the quest to achieve more equitable relationships with Europe that protect our sovereignty and autonomous developmental options.
We call on civil society organisations and other citizens groups in Europe and other parts of the world who are also resisting European free trade agreements to strengthen their active solidarity with our campaign to Stop the EPAs.
Stop EPAs!
Stop the re-colonisation of Africa!
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Guinea Bissau: How to avoid a food crisis again this year
2008-02-29
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=77042
According to the government’s current estimates, donors will need to provide 20,000 tonnes of food aid to compensate for expected production shortfalls in 2008. Aid experts in Bissau, however, said that if the government had better policies, and if the rains came at the right time, the country should be able to feed itself with current levels of international assistance.
Health & HIV/AIDS
Chad: Insecurity hampers HIV efforts
2008-02-29
http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=76967
People living with HIV in Chad risk becoming victims of the explosion of violence in the capital, N'Djamena, in early February. During clashes between the army and groups of rebels from the east of the country, health services were damaged and many organisations working to fight the epidemic were looted.
Global: Anti-HIV gel proven safe and tolerable for women
2008-02-28
http://tinyurl.com/24jh2r
A gel using anti-HIV drug tenofovir to shield women from AIDS has been proven safe for daily use and acceptable to women, study findings showed Tuesday. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the University of Pittsburgh to test the gel's safety, involved 200 sexually active HIV-negative women aging from 19 to 50, of whom 64 percent were married.
Africa: Home-based programmes cut AIDS deaths - study
2008-02-29
http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN923764.html
Providing HIV drug cocktails to people in their homes can cut AIDS-related deaths substantially in poor, rural areas of Africa, researchers said on Friday. A study in Uganda showed that hiring local health workers to help people stick to a strict regimen of drugs cut the