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 371: Challenges of democratic transitions in Africa
The authoritative electronic weekly newsletter and platform for social justice in Africa
Pambazuka News (English edition): ISSN 1753-6839
With nearly 500 contributors and an estimated 500,000 readers Pambazuka News is the authoritative pan African electronic weekly newsletter and platform for social justice in Africa providing cutting edge commentary and in-depth analysis on politics and current affairs, development, human rights, refugees, gender issues and culture in Africa.
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CONTENTS: 1. Features, 2. Announcements, 3. Comment & analysis, 4. Pan-African Postcard, 5. Letters, 6. Books & arts, 7. Blogging Africa, 8. Zimbabwe update, 9. African Union Monitor, 10. Women & gender, 11. Human rights, 12. Refugees & forced migration, 13. Social movements, 14. Elections & governance, 15. Africa & China, 16. Development, 17. Health & HIV/AIDS, 18. Education, 19. LGBTI, 20. Racism & xenophobia, 21. Environment, 22. Land & land rights, 23. Media & freedom of expression, 24. Social welfare, 25. News from the diaspora, 26. Conflict & emergencies, 27. Internet & technology, 28. Fundraising & useful resources, 29. Courses, seminars, & workshops, 30. World Social Forum 2007, 31. Jobs
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Highlights from this issue
FEATURES: Femi Falana on the challenges of democratic transitions and the role of civil society
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Africa Public Health 15% Campaign begins count down to AU Summit
COMMENTS AND ANALYSIS:
- Henning Melber looks at Namibia and Zimbabwe
- Patrick Bond on the structural forces behind Mbeki's AIDS policies
- Ian Angus on the food crisis in Haiti
- The government is under siege as it tries to resettle IDPs in Kenya says Joachim Omolo Ouko
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen rages against attempts to criminalise African languages
LETTERS: Readers' comments and announcements
BOOKS & ARTS: Izzy Birch reviews "Becoming Somaliland"
BLOGGING AFRICA: Dibussi Tande rounds up African blogs
AU MONITOR: African union weekly round upZIMBABWE UPDATE: political killings and abductions of MDC activists escalate
WOMEN AND GENDER: Is the political terrain too rough for women?
CONFLICT AD EMERGENCIES: Sudan government suspends rebel talks
HUMAN RIGHTS: Kenyan militia accused of torture
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: CEDAW4Change 3rd Universal Periodic Review
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Sahrawi refugee children in dire need of food
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: District creation and decentralization in Uganda
AFRICA AND CHINA: EU seeks to subdue Competitive China
DEVELOPMENT: Call for FAO to be scrapped
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: World Bank shifting gears on AIDS
EDUCATION: AUC supports Palestinian academics
LGBTI: New report on state-sponsored homophobia
RACISM AND XENOPHOBIA: SA townships tense after xenophobic attacks
ENVIRONMENT: China’s environmental footprint
LAND & LAND RIGHTS: 800,000 evicted in Abuja
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: Egyptian Facebook activist beaten
SOCIAL WELFARE: Death and Taxes – New Report
NEWS FROM THE DIASPORA: Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine petition
INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY: Call to support Free and Open standards
PLUS: e-Newsletters and Mailings Lists; Fundraising and Useful Resources; Courses, Seminars and Workshops, Jobs, and Books and Publications
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Features
Challenges of democratic transition in Africa
2008-05-15
Femi Falana
The challenges confronting Africa's democratic experiments are many and complex and include entrenching constitutionalism and the reconstruction of the postcolonial state, writes Femi Falana. To move Africa forward, emerging democratic governments would have to confront a legacy of poverty, illiteracy, militarization, and underdevelopment produced by incompetent or corrupt governments.
After several decades of colonialism, Zimbabwe became independent in 1980. Having regard to the progressive antecedent of the leaders of the liberation movement expectations were high that the country would witness rapid socio-economic transformation and political stability. Instead of facing the challenge of the development, President Robert Mugabe turned the country into a one party state. Human rights were suppressed whilst some of the colonial laws were refurbished and applied with ferocity. Many opposition figures were either jailed or driven to exile.
Farmlands, which had been illegally acquired under colonial rule, were violently seized by war veterans at the instance of the government when the national parliament controlled by the ZANU-PF could have promoted land redistribution through legislation. The mismanagement of the economy has led to the unemployment, poverty, deprivations and general dislocation, which has virtually brought the country to her, kneels. The silence of African leaders and connivance of the South African regime led the opposition to turn to the West. Ironically, Mugabe’s anti-imperialist rhetoric, in the circumstances, won him sympathy in many African countries. This development has divided government and even civil society groups with respect to taking a united stand against the misrule of President Mugabe.
Recent experiences from Kenya and Zimbabwe illustrate the difficult and daunting task of consolidating democracy on the continent. Available evidence indicates that many of the new democratic regimes remain fragile and some of the euphoria of the early 1990s had evaporated. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the authoritarianism and statism of the early post-independence years was in retreat, and, where it persisted, was vigorously contested in a context in which democratic aspirations were firmly implanted in popular consciousness and the pluralization of associational life was an integral part of the political landscape. It was indeed a mark of the changed times that, whereas previously development had been regarded as a prerequisite of democracy, now democracy is seen as indispensable for development.
The challenges confronting Africa's democratic experiments are many and complex and include entrenching constitutionalism and the reconstruction of the postcolonial state; ensuring that the armed forces are permanently kept out of politics, instituting structures for the effective management of natural resources; promoting sustainable development and political stability; nurturing effective leadership, and safeguarding human rights and the rule of law.
In Africa, as elsewhere, democratic government and respect for human rights are closely linked. Democracy is the best means the world has produced to protect and advance human rights, based on individual freedom and dignity. In turn, respect for human rights is the only means by which a democracy can sustain the individual freedom and dignity that enables it to endure.
Despite some improvements in some parts of the continent, Africa remains the site of very serious human rights problems. For example, in the Sudan, the armed conflict in Darfur continues and the dismal human rights situation shows no signs of improvement. Both government and rebels commit horrendous abuses. In Somalia, the civil war continues unabated and the human rights situation goes on deteriorating; the civilian population has been the ultimate victim, as recently reported by Amnesty International. Only a handful of countries that hold the regular multi-party elections in Africa are rated as free, and in line with international and regional standards.
In addition, most of the countries in Africa operate ‘semi-authoritarian regimes’ because they have the facade of democracy; that is, they have political systems, they have all the institutions of democratic political systems, they have elected parliaments, and they hold regular elections. They have nominally independent judiciaries. They have constitutions that are by and large completely acceptable as democratic institutions--but there are, at the same time, very serious problems in the functioning of the democratic system.
Semi-authoritarian regimes are very good at holding multi-party elections while at the same time making sure that the core power of the government is never going to be affected. In other words, they are going to hold elections, but they are not--the regime is not going to lose those elections. Semi-authoritarian regimes intimidate voters, as it happened in the recent elections in Zimbabwe. Semi-authoritarian regimes manipulate state institutions for self-ends—governments don’t respect the laws, and don’t work through institutions. Semi-authoritarian regimes amend constitutions anytime they want.
Semi-authoritarian regimes will not introduce fully participatory, competitive elections that may result in their loss of power, and some are even unsure of how far they really want to go toward political pluralism in their countries. African politics is generally speaking, a matter of personality, not programs. For example, during the Obasanjo administration the prevailing idea was that the president was the father of the nation, the big man, or Kabiyesi, that is, no one dared question him.
A strong and effective democratic process should be able to establish a functioning administrative structure; and address the issue of how leaders are chosen; the issue of how different institutions relate to each other; the issues of how officials should act, for example, how the judiciary should act, the independence of the judiciary from other branches of government, and the problem of how the decisions that are taken by these democratic institutions can be implemented.
To move Africa forward, emerging democratic governments would have to confront a legacy of poverty, illiteracy, militarization, and underdevelopment produced by incompetent or corrupt governments. The syndrome of personal dictatorships and the winner-take-all practice as we have in Zimbabwe for example would need to be addressed, and there must be full respect for human rights; constitutional government and the rule of law; transparency in the wielding of power, and accountability of those who exercise power.
The basic rule of the democracy game is that the winners do not forever dislodge the losers. It is important for the consolidation of democracy that losers believe in the system and think that they can get back into the game. African governments must create an enabling environment in which traditions and values of the constitution will be able to take root and where rights and duties are set out. In this process, the separation of powers must be facilitated. Government must allow institutions to work and must allow citizens to exercise their rights, to live in accordance with their religious beliefs and cultural values, without interference. The legal order must be based on human rights, societal awareness of the instrumental and intrinsic values of democracy, a competent state, and a culture of tolerance.
Democracy requires that those who have authority use it for the public good; a democratic system of government begins by recognizing that all members of society are equal. People should have equal say and equal participation in the affairs of government and decision making in society, because, in the final analysis, government exists to serve the people; the people do not exist to serve government. In other words, governments must enhance individual rights and not stifle their existence. Repressive laws on many African countries’ statute books against personal liberty and habeas corpus must be removed from the statute books.
In most African countries, a tremendous amount of information does not circulate beyond a small portion of the urban population, owing to illiteracy, language barriers, and costs. Because the individual ignorance of personal rights and understanding of what democracy means has encouraged authoritarianism in Africa, political education at the grass roots is necessary. If a genuine democracy is to become a reality in Africa, the participation of the masses has to be sought by politicians, and not bought by manipulators.
Politicians should try to understand what the masses know, because they sometimes lack the ability to articulate their interests and grievances. However, politicians also should be educated about human rights and respect for the constitution. Education is crucial to the development of a culture of tolerance, which, it is hoped, would contribute immensely to the creation of an enabling environment for democracy.
We must encourage citizens to learn the habits of civil disobedience on a massive scale. We must encourage people to go out and demonstrate, to show their opinion regarding issues, because we must eliminate the culture of fear.
Role of civil society
It is unrealistic to expect that African countries will suddenly reverse course without internal pressure from civil society groups and institutionalize stable democratic government. The significance of a strong and energetic civil society in the transition to democracy cannot be over-emphasised. Perhaps one reason that Africa has not crumbled into total absolutism is because civil society has managed to survive, providing a mode of expression against authoritarianism, despite systematic efforts by the state to destroy it.
It is incumbent upon civil society to promote socialization by moving people away from thinking about the state and encouraging them to think what they want without fear. The public must fully participate in the affairs of state, with the state protecting their rights to be recognized. In this context, the value of the role of citizens and civil society is to organize and articulate the interests of local communities and the grass roots to the highest levels—even bringing about the change of laws—by serving as effective pressure groups.
Many governments are not willing to create an enabling environment. But by standing up, civil society organizations can insist and force governments to create a space. We must keep the culture of resistance alive and continue to question authoritarian rule especially on the important issues of human rights, constitutionalism and rule of law.
Political parties, human rights organizations and other civil society groups should mobilize the people to reject economic policies dictated to African governments by the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which have exacerbated poverty in Africa. The demand for participatory democracy should not be limited to conduct of free and fair elections only. It must also include the management of the economy in the interest of the people, otherwise, the fragile democratic process in bound to collapse.
With the pending elections in Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Guinea, civil society organizations in West Africa gathered in this forum should unite in sending a clear message to the ECOWAS and AU that the subversion of democracy under whatever guise. Following this meeting, our engagement should be to immediately commence sensitization and mobilization of the population against the manipulation of constitutions and electoral laws, as well as the electoral process.
* Femi Falana is President West African Bar Association
* This article is based on a presentation at the West African Bar Association held in Abuja, Nigeria, 13 May 2008. The final communique from thetwo-day regional dialogue on the political situation in Zimbabwe can be found at the link shown below
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
COMMUNIQUÉ ISSUED AT THE END OF A TWO-DAY WEST AFRICAN DIALOGUE ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN ZIMBABWE
We, the representatives of civil society organizations from 13 member states of the ECOWAS region, in addition to Cameroon, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, meeting under the auspices of the West African Bar Association (WABA), West African Human Rights Forum (WAHRF) and the West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF) working with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) at a two-day dialogue on the political situation in Zimbabwe under the theme “institutionalizing peaceful political transitions in Africa”;
Having considered and deliberated on the dire political situation in Zimbabwe exacerbated by the late release of the results of the Presidential elections of March 29th, 2008;
Concerned about the lingering and deteriorating socio-economic conditions in Zimbabwe;
Worried about the spate of attacks on opposition party supporters, professionals, trade unionists, civil society activists, and particularly, women and children;
Conscious of Zimbabwe’s commitments to a number of international and regional instruments which affirm the rights of people to democratically elect their leaders, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Bills of Rights;
Recognizing and welcoming the important role played by certain countries and people in attempting to resolve the political imbroglio in Zimbabwe;
Encouraged by the efforts and support of particular African Heads of State who recognized that the will and aspirations of the people of Zimbabwe is paramount and far above that of any individual;
And observing that:
- West Africans are desirous to call attention to the deplorable political situation in Zimbabwe;
- the elections of Saturday, 29th March 2008 represented a watershed in the annals of elections in Zimbabwe;
- the political parties have agreed to participate in the run-off elections;
- the ruling government has variously, and continues to, interfere in the statutory functions of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and thereby compromising its independence and credibility;
- the silence of some African countries exacerbates the Zimbabwean crises.
Wish to call on the Zimbabwean government to take urgent steps to
- create a conducive political environment that allows for unhindered exercise of fundamental human rights, particularly the right to vote and association .
- allow external observers not only to observe the Presidential runoff but also monitor the processes leading to the elections;
- allow unimpeded media access to all polling units before, during and after the runoff.
We also call on the ECOWAS, SADC, African Union and the United Nations to prevail on the government of Zimbabwe to ensure:
- that the run-off election is conducted in accordance with international standards
- an immediate end to violence and human rights violations.
Finally, we call on the governments and peoples of Africa to stand in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe in defence of their democratic rights.
Abuja, Tuesday, 13th May 2008.
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Announcements
Count down to AU Summit begins
2008-05-15
Africa Public Health 15% Campaign
The Africa Public Health 15% Now Campaign has launched a 30 day countdown to the mid year African Union summit which holds in Egypt from the 24th of June. The 30 day countdown which starts from the 15th of May to the 15th of June is aimed at mobilising national level and continental support for a civil society message to urge African Heads of States to restate their commitment to and urgently implement the Abuja 2001 pledge by African Heads of State to allocate 15% of national budgets to health.
The Africa Public Health 15% Now Campaign has launched a 30 day countdown to the mid year African Union summit which holds in Egypt from the 24th of June.
The 30 day countdown which starts from the 15th of May to the 15th of June is aimed at mobilising national level and continental support for a civil society message to urge African Heads of States to restate their commitment to and urgently implement the Abuja 2001 pledge by African Heads of State to allocate 15% of national budgets to health.
In a statement to launch the Countdown, 15% Now Campaign Coordinator Rotimi Sankore stated:
" The countdown to the coming African Union summit is an opportunity for Africans and friends of Africa of all persuasions to remind African Heads of State and government to meet their commitments to health development and financing. Unlike any other matter, disease and non disease issues affect every single person regardless of age, religion, race, gender or any other consideration."
He underlined that "African citizens unlike many leaders, do not have the options of going abroad to treat illnesses. Indeed it is a vote of no confidence in their own health systems, and lack of faith in their own governments ability to provide health care that leads many of our leaders to flee abroad at the slightest sign of ill health".
He called on African civil society and citizens to sign on to the message to the summit and the rolling 15% Now petition to the AU and member states stating that "the new Chair of the African Union Commission His Excellency Jean Ping of Gabon has an excellent opportunity to utilise the implementation of the Abuja 15% Pledge to actualise the implementation of the African Union Health Strategy and other health frameworks finalised last year by the AU Social Affairs Commission under the leadership of his predecessor Professor Alpha Konare.
The first phase of presentation of the message to African Heads of State will be done at the national levels on the 15th of June including public and media presentations. The presentation to the AU and the continental level media and public Presentation will be done in Egypt on the eve of the Summit. A series of solidarity and campaign events will be also organised at national levels during the countdown.
Organisations and citizens are urged to support the message by sending their names, organisation and country as applicable to - au-summitcountdown@africa15percentcampaign.org, and advocacy@africapublichealth.org
For details of the civil society message to the summit and heads of state, see below.
The Civil Society Message to Egypt AU Summit and Heads State and Government
To Heads of States and Governments of African Union Member States
Thru
His Excellency Jakaya Kikwete, Chairman of the African Union and President of the Republic of Tanzania
His Excellency Jean Ping, Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union
15 May 2008
Civil Society Message of Concern on Non-Implementation of the 2001 Pledge by African Governments to Allocate 15% of National Budgets to Health
Your Excellencies, we write to express our grave concern that 7 years after the Abuja April 2001 Pledge by African Heads of Sates and Governments to allocate 15% of national budgets to health, this pledge has not been met by most member states with only a hand full even moving towards or meeting the commitment.
Our serious concern is based on the fact that unlike some other pledges which may go unmet without instant and grievous consequences for citizens of our countries, the non implementation of the 15% pledge is rapidly devastating our populations and countries through the deaths of fellow African's on such a scale that annual deaths from both disease and non disease related health issues now exceed the populations of many African countries combined and also surpass the deaths from any combination of modern day wars and conflicts.
For Tuberculosis: African’s living with TB are currently estimated to be 4.2 million with 2.8 million new cases annually making TB one of Africa’s greatest Public Health threats. African TB deaths are now running at 639,089 per annum – the highest in the world (38.6% of global deaths). TB is also the biggest killer of HIV positive people an increasing number of which are women; Africa’s pivotal countries, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, DRC, South Africa have the continents highest overall TB prevalence levels; and a person with active TB can infect 10 to 15 persons a year. Latest Stop TB partnership / World Bank analysis indicates that the cost of not treating TB to Africa between 2006 and 2015 would be $519bn while TB can be controlled with $20bn in the same period.
For HIV: Latest statistics for 2007 indicate that HIV prevalence in Africa is 22.5 million of the global total of 33.2 million, with 1.7 million new infections annually; Annual AIDS related death figures for Africa are 1.6 million and Aids Orphans are estimated at 12 million; the 10 countries globally with highest HIV-TB co infection are African 9 being from SADC and the 10th Kenya.
For Malaria: Annual African deaths are estimated at 1,136,000 (89.3%) of the world total with an increasing impact on maternal, infant and child health. Malaria costs Africa more than $12bn in lost GDP annually although it can be controlled for a fraction of this sum.
For Maternal Mortality: Latest comparable global maternal death statistics indicate that of the 536,000 women that died in 2005 of childbirth related complications, about half or 261,000 were African women. The 2005 figures also indicate that Africa is the only region where maternal deaths have increased since 1990 up from 205,000. Maternal deaths which is almost 100% preventable dropped in every other continent over the same period.
For Child Mortality: Most worryingly for the future of Africa, an estimated 4.8 million children under the age of 5 years die annually. Just five diseases - pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, measles and AIDS - account for half of these deaths.
Often ignored environmental health issues, or neglected diseases such as river blindness or Onchocerciasis and Human African Trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness together affect around 60m people in 36 African countries - and in turn facilitate vulnerability to HIV, TB, malaria, maternal and child mortality.
This loss of over 8 million lives a year to preventable, treatable and manageable diseases and health conditions – is unacceptable and unsustainable.[1]
The above also constitutes an infringement on the right to health of African citizens as guaranteed in Article 16 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, Article 12 of the International Convention on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, The World Health Organisation constitution, and other instruments.
We Fully Acknowledge the efforts of African governments to address Africa’s enormous Public Health crisis through: the AU Abuja April 2001 declaration incorporating the pledge by member states to allocate at least 15% of the national budgets to health; the 2007 African Union Health Strategy and other African health frameworks such as the Maputo Plan on Reproductive and Sexual Health, the AU plan on HIV, TB and Malaria, the African Pharmaceutical Plan and the health based MDGs.
However current evidence indicates gravely that it is not just enough to make declarations. The landmark AU African Health Strategy and other Health Frameworks recently finalised by the African Union Commission must also be sustainably financed by our own governments if they are not to become yet another collection of reference papers on Africa's failed attempts to resolve its most serious development challenges.
Africa’s human capital is its greatest asset and that there can be no competing priorities more important than the lives of citizens – as other issues are meaningless if the people they are meant for are dead. Indeed no efforts at sustainable social and economic development can be successful when the average healthy life expectancy of African countries has now fallen to less than 40 years.
We therefore urge Excellencies to:
Restate their commitment to the Abuja 15% pledge and increasing overall per capita expenditure on health at the next AU Summit and to accelerate its implementation.
Take urgent steps to ensure that African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development begin immediately to work with Health Ministers through a joint meeting to develop the details for the implementation of the Africa Union Health Strategy and other Health Frame works.
Facilitate the African Union and UN-Economic Commission for Africa to implement the recommendations for the joint meeting of Finance and Health Ministers as adopted by the conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development organised by both AU and ECA in April 2008.
Recognise that just as the global community urges the more industrialised countries to meet their own commitments to global health, that African governments are also expected to honour national commitments.
Ensure that regions, states, provinces and local governments within countries recognise that they have a responsibility to provide needs based primary health care services and as such must along with national governments allocate commensurate amounts of financing for health.
Work urgently with national, sub regional and continental parliaments to ensure implementation of the AU Abuja 15% commitment, combined with commensurate overall increase of per capita expenditure on health and implementation of the Africa Union Health Strategy and other African Health Frameworks.
Recognise the crucial role of health workers and professionals in delivering health care, and ensure strengthening of health systems to guarantee retention of health professionals and sustainable quality health care.
Through the African Union and UN-ECA work with civil society to ensure that a progress report on implementation of the 15% pledge is on the agenda of the January 2009 African Union Summit
Signatories [ to be added below]
Organisations and citizens are urged to support the message by sending their names, organisation and country as applicable to - au-summitcountdown@africa15percentcampaign.org , and advocacy@africapublichealth.org On line sign-ups will also soon be possible.
Africa Public Health – “15% Now!” Campaign: Background Note for Editors.
The Africa Public Health “15% Now!” campaign launched on December 10 2006 - International Human Rights Day - is the first to articulate Public Health for Africa as a Rights and Development issue across Africa and beyond. It brings together actors from various key sectors of civil society.
The Campaign is based on the premise that “we all have to be alive and well to exercise any other rights in any meaningful way” and therefore that Right to Health and to Healthcare is arguably the most crucial right of all as articulated by Article 16 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, the constitution of the World Health Organisation and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Current social development and health indicators from international and African institutions show that over 8 million African lives are lost annually to preventable, treatable and manageable health conditions and diseases mainly - Child Mortality, Maternal Mortality, HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and TB.
Any loss of life to disease is bad enough. The annual loss of populations equivalent to entire African countries - and over a few years greater than the losses from all modern day global wars and conflicts combined is both unacceptable and unsustainable, and brings Africa closer to the slippery slope to collapse of society and extinction. Public Health is not realisable without adequate and sustainable health financing. Meeting the Abuja 2001 by African leaders to allocate 15% or more of annual budgets to health is crucial to Public Health in Africa. Yet this pledge remains largely unmet with just two countries, Botswana and Seychelles demonstrating their commitment to the 15% pledge.
The key objective of the Africa Public Health 15% Now Campaign is to engage the African Union, sub-Regional Economic Communities such as the East African Community (EAC), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) etc, their institutions / member countries, and the African public towards: 1) Promoting greater awareness and understanding of African Health Issues 2) Actualisation of the AU African Health Strategy, other African Health Frameworks, Health based MDG's; and Universal Access Targets for Prevention, Treatment and Care; 3) Adopting Comprehensive Health Policies based on a Public Health Rights and Development philosophy - and mobilising the commitment of financial and other resources for sustainable implementation of health policies - including through meeting the 15% pledge.
The Public Health 15% Now Campaign will also engage global stake-holders and actors including donors, the UN, EU and their institutions, World Bank, IMF, and international Non-governmental Institutions and organisations especially those concerned with health, social and economic development.
=============================
Support the Africa Public Health Rights Alliance 15% Now Campaign for the Right to Health, Sustainable Health Development and Financing in Africa - www.africa15percentcampaign.org
Africa Office:
Africa Public Health “15% Now!” Campaign
11 Dideolu St, Ogba, Lagos, Nigeria
Tel: +23416611899 ;+234 703 6886 199; Tel/Fax: +2341492556
Int Office:
Africa Public Health “15% Now!” Campaign
AFA, 22 Highbury Grove, London N5 2DQ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7226 2933, Fax +44 (0)20 7226 2934
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Comment & analysis
Namibia and Zimbabwe - the second liberation
2008-05-13
Henning Melber
Henning Melber looks at the possibilities for a people-centred opposition and ultimately a true liberation in Namibia and Zimbabwe, after years of misrule by the liberation movements-turned-ruling parties.
‘There is a need for a healing of the nation. The process of national healing and reconciliation is unlikely to proceed as long as society is still polarised. In addition, without also addressing past crimes, corruption, marginalisation and poverty, it is unlikely that reconciliation can be achieved.’
This insight was contained in the Kenya mission report of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). It was submitted by the APRM panel of eminent persons to the continent’s heads of state at the African Union summit in July 2006.[1] One and a half years later, Kenyan society was traumatised by the worst violence since independence and its people more divided than ever. The (allegedly orchestrated) civil war-like situation erupted over disputed election results. It showed that, beneath the surface of a seemingly peaceful society, deep-rooted antagonisms could be mobilised to unleash blind hatred and massive destruction of property and lives between people who had hitherto lived in relative peace with each other. In such circumstances an assumed socio-political stability proved to be treacherous, fragile, and prone to easy manipulation.
Many societies in Africa are confronted with similar challenges. Since the mid-1990s national reconciliation initiatives have emerged in a series of African countries. These were inspired by the widely praised Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa, which symbolised the country’s collective effort to come to terms with a past that still dominated its present and could have a lasting impact on its future. Despite all its limitations, the TRC has been widely perceived as an encouraging initiative, as a lesson in bringing skeletons out of the closet and dealing publicly with the lasting effects of violence and counter-violence. Far from solving structurally rooted historical legacies and their daily impact on the lives of ordinary citizens, or ending discrimination, or bringing to task many of the perpetrators, it brought to the fore the need to address history in the present.[2] Similar initiatives were taken in other war-torn societies marred by organised repression and mass violence, which had left festering wounds and scars among people now longing for healing and seeking a common future.
Two former settler societies neighbouring South Africa are among the countries whose governments did not follow this trend and refused to seek national reconciliation by means of public debate and transitional forms of justice and reconciliation. Zimbabwe and Namibia achieved their independence through long anti-colonial struggles led by liberation movements. In both cases the final defeat of colonialism was not achieved through the barrel of a gun (although the military dimension had an important role in forcing the colonial power to the negotiating table) but through agreements reached between the parties for change. These provided a transitional framework which limited the space for social transformation and the redistribution of wealth.
As a result of this negotiated decolonisation, the former liberation movements (Zanu PF in Zimbabwe and SWAPO in Namibia) were elected as legitimate governments in 1980 and 1990 respectively and have held absolute political power and control over the state bureaucracy since then (although, as we can currently see in Zimbabwe, not for eternity). In contrast to South Africa’s democratically elected government under the ANC, the Zimbabwean and Namibian political leadership never pursued anything similar to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Instead, they proclaimed national reconciliation as some kind of pragmatic agreement which became effective with independence. Their policy was to leave the past behind, with no public debate or dialogue over the injustices committed (although selective reference to colonial crimes was made when needed and commemorated as part of the liberation gospel).
In both societies the justification for casting this kind of official smokescreen over the colonial past was rooted to some extent in the argument that the repressive machinery of colonial occupation had been staffed and executed by many who at independence could no longer be held accountable. This was either because of an amnesty declared for those on all sides of the conflict, or because some of the worst abusers of human rights had retreated to their British or South African countries of origin. National reconciliation was defined in terms of closing the colonial chapter without seeking justice through institutionalised hearings or other forms of coming to terms with the past. The cleansing process, which to some extent was initiated and implemented in the South African TRC, was conspicuously absent. Not so, however, the collective blame placed on colonialism for all subsequent failures in post-independence nation-building and re-structuring of society, which (despite some relevant aspects) was often used as an excuse to evade responsibility for ‘good governance’.
This seemingly pragmatic (and rather self-righteous) approach denied the need and missed the opportunity to deal with failures in the ranks of the liberation movements themselves. This had never been the main issue in the TRC, but was unavoidably brought to the fore when the excesses of the apartheid regime were laid open. Even though the degree of self-critical examination of human rights violations within the ANC was rather limited (and hampered the final process of publicising the TRC report’s findings), it nevertheless became an issue for which President Nelson Mandela apologised to the victims and their families. Having been imprisoned for almost three decades since the early 1960s, Madiba was a charismatic leader and moral role model who could apologise for failures in the exiled ANC, for which he was obviously not personally responsible, nor perhaps even aware. This sign of remorse and indirect moral responsibility only added to his aura.
In contrast, both Robert Mugabe of Zanu PF and Sam Nujoma of SWAPO were active leaders in exile, deeply involved in internal power struggles. They were not only an integral part of the authoritarian hierarchy but its personification. In ultimate charge of the command structures dominating their liberation movements, they were to some degree personally accountable for the abuses and malpractice within their ranks. As heads of state they were not inclined to address such issues. Instead, past injustices on all sides would be put to rest. By doing so, however, the liberation movements sacrificed the moral high ground they had been able to occupy vis-à-vis the oppressive colonial regimes. Their own failures remained unfinished business and left festering wounds within the new post-colonial societies. The dominant mindsets emerging at independence represented more of an old order than a new one and showed the limits to liberation.[3]
In Zimbabwe, violence within and between the liberation movements escalated soon after independence in organised massacres in Matabeleland (the western part of Zimbabwe occupied mostly by Ndebele-speakers considered in large part to be supporters of the Joshua Nkomo-led ZAPU, which competed with Zanu PF for power). Between early 1983 and late 1986, an estimated 20,000 people were killed in horrific acts of barbarism carried out by the Fifth Brigade of the Zimbabwe National Army, trained by North Korean military advisors. Although known and reported at the time, the massacres went largely ignored, even by the former colonial power. Described by Robert Mugabe as Gukurahundi (‘the rain that washes away the chaff before the summer rains’), this organised mass violence was a defining moment for his regime. The Catholic church in Zimbabwe was a lonely voice in revealing the scale of the atrocities.[4] Since then, the openly violent character of Mugabe’s rule has drawn worldwide attention. However, it only became a concern for the international community (represented by Western countries) when the so-called fast-track land reform process dispossessed most of the commercial farmers and portrayed the conflict (misleadingly so) as one between a remaining white settler minority and the government. This suggests a moral selectivity in Western perceptions, which the populist rhetoric of the despotic regime managed to exploit.
As part of the Namibian independence process, several hundred members of SWAPO in exile, who were accused of being South African agents, were released and repatriated in mid-1989. Known as ‘ex-detainees’, they shared their plight with the Namibian public at home. Since the early 1980s several thousand were thought to have been imprisoned, tortured and raped in camps in southern Angola. Many did not survive the ordeal; others remain missing. Ever since their return, these ex-detainees have asked for rehabilitation and an apology from SWAPO for the human rights violations committed.[5] But the liberation movement in power has applied a policy of denial, on the grounds that this would open wounds and thereby put peace and stability at risk. Moreover, SWAPO argued, the atrocities by the South African regime and its local collaborators would also need to be scrutinised in return, which would undermine national reconciliation. Instead, and similar to the official narratives cultivated by Zanu PF in Zimbabwe, SWAPO started a ‘nation-building project’ guided by what has been termed ‘patriotic history’, which cultivates the gospel of an organisation and its leaders as the morally impeccable liberators of the people.[6]
In both Zimbabwe and Namibia the former liberation movements in political power were also granted the power of defining the national interest. But the political and ideological hegemony assumed at independence is now deteriorating, with governments failing to maintain control over the one-dimensional collective identity constructed and imposed earlier on. This has been evident since the turn of the century in Zimbabwe, with the emergence of the MDC as a meaningful political opposition, suggesting that the liberation gospel has an expiry date. The coerced legitimacy of the government has been eroded, provoking intimidation, an ever-growing culture of fear, and ultimately rule based on state terror. As we know from history, these kinds of dictatorial regimes sooner or later come to an end through the same popular movements that they intimidated and oppressed for so long.
In Namibia, an opposition emerged towards the end of 2007 from within the belly of the beast. Former high-ranking SWAPO officials formed the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) to challenge the undisputed dominance of the former liberation movement. The next presidential and parliamentary elections, scheduled for the end of 2009, could result in SWAPO’s loss of its two-thirds majority in parliament, and hence absolute control over the country’s political and legal decision-making process. Nervousness is mounting. Leading office-bearers in the Namibian government warn of a Kenyan situation and blame the new opposition for fuelling ethnic rivalries. This is an argument which resorts to the culture of fear rather than seeks reconciliation and common ground; it names and shames others rather than identifies common denominators as Namibians. Such a knee-jerk response to political challenge also suggests an inability to deal with one’s own shortcomings and failures.
Leaders of the Namibian Lutheran churches have responded to the growing polarisation by means of a pastoral letter read out during sermons on 23 March 2008 and later published. In light of the violence that erupted between the two main rival parties, triggered by a local election campaign, the bishops of the three churches expressed their fear that the country is moving backwards rather than forwards in terms of freedom and democracy. The bishops wrote in their letter of ‘intolerance, verbal and physical attacks and counter attacks’. They warned that ‘failure to redress this situation now can lead to mass loss of lives country wide’. ‘What we say as leaders… is the seed which bears the consequential behaviour for violence and peace… Political opponents are not enemies, but participants in a democratic set-up.’[7] This is the first time since independence that the church has commented on the country’s politics in this way. Alarm bells are ringing, but Namibians still have the opportunity to learn from the sad lessons in Kenya and elsewhere – not least in neighbouring Zimbabwe, which in many respects is so close to home.
*Henning Melber is Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala, Sweden. A son of German immigrants to Namibia, he joined SWAPO in 1974. This text is a contribution to 'New Routes – A Journal of Peace Research and Action' vol. 13, no. 2, 2008, to be published by the Life & Peace Institute.
**Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
For additional votes, please follow this link:
1. Manby, B. (2008) 'African Peer Review Mechanism: Lessons from Kenya', Pambazuka News, no. 362, 16 April 2008.
2. For a stock-taking exercise on the TRC see the essay by Villa-Vicencio, C. (2007) 'South Africa: dealing with the past, heading for the future'. New Routes, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 9-12.
3. See the various contributions to Melber, H. (ed.) (2003) 'Limits to Liberation in Southern Africa. The Unfinished Business of Democratic Consolidation'. Cape Town, HSRC Press.
4. Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace and Legal Resources Foundation (1997) 'Breaking the Silence. Building True Peace. A Report on the Disturbances in Matabeleland and the Midlands 1980 to 1988'. Harare, Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace and Legal Resources Foundation.
5. Saul, J. and Leys, C. (2003) 'Truth, Reconciliation, Amnesia. The “ex-Detainees” Fight for Justice', in Melber, H. (ed.) 'Re-examining Liberation in Namibia. Political Culture since Independence'. Uppsala, The Nordic Africa Institute, pp. 69-86.
6. Saunders, C. (2007) 'History and the Armed Struggle. From Anti-colonial Propaganda to "Patriotic History"’? In, Melber, H. (ed.) 'Transitions in Namibia. Which Changes for Whom?' Uppsala, The Nordic Africa Institute, pp. 13-28.
7. Weidlich, B. (2008) 'Namibia: Churches Disturbed by Intolerance'. The Namibian, 2 April.
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The structural forces behind Mbeki's AIDS policy
2008-05-13
Patrick Bond
In response to the recent extract from William Gumede's book "Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC" published by Zed Books (http://zedbooks.co.uk), Patrick Bond suggests that there is a need to go beyond the individual reasons and look at the structural forces that have informed Mbeki's AIDS policy such as international and domestic financial markets, pharmaceutical manufacturers and a large reserve army of labour.
With millions of South Africans dying early because of AIDS, the battle against the disease would become one of the most crucial tests of the post-apartheid government. Its systematic failure to address AIDS, and especially its ongoing sabotage of medicinal treatment for HIV+ patients, led to periodic charges of ‘genocide’ by authoritative figures such as the heads of the Medical Research Council (Malegapuru William Makgoba), SA Medical Association (Kgosi Letlape), and Pan Africanist Congress health desk (Costa Gazi), as well as leading public intellectual Sipho Seepe.
Aside from Mbeki, Pretoria’s main saboteurs were health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and trade minister Erwin; the latter two were accused by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) of culpable homicide during a March 2003 civil disobedience campaign. Even in the weeks before the 2004 election, Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang continued to practice denialism, obfuscation, delays, bureaucratic manoeuvres, and withdrawal of resources for treatment. Educational campaigns like LoveLife’s were based upon fatuous marketing to hip-hop youth, and there was virtually nothing done to combat domestic violence, rape, multiple partners and patriarchy. Across Africa more generally, the ‘ABCs’ of abstinence, being loyal and condoms were particularly ineffectual within the confines of male-dominated marriage, leading to the tragedy that young women’s infection rate was twice as high as that of men.[1]
A great deal has been written about Pretoria’s malfeasance.[2] The point of revisiting it here while documenting South Africa’s elite transition is to provide a structural explanation for the crisis. Beyond the oft-cited peculiarities of the president himself, there are three deeper reasons why local and global power relationships mean that the battle against AIDS has to date mainly been lost.[3]
One reason is the pressure exerted by international and domestic financial markets to keep Pretoria’s state budget deficit to three per cent of GDP. Recall the telling remark of the late Parks Mankahlana, Mbeki’s main spokesperson, who in March 2000 justified to Science magazine why the government refused to provide relatively inexpensive antiretrovirals (ARVs) like Nevirapine to pregnant, HIV-positive women: ‘That mother is going to die and that HIV-negative child will be an orphan. That child must be brought up. Who is going to bring the child up? It’s the state, the state. That’s resources, you see.’[4] Instead of saving lives, Mbeki’s finance ministry adopted higher priorities: slashing corporate taxes, redeploying state resources to purchase high-tech arms, and repaying roughly $25 billion of apartheid-era foreign debt and a bit more in apartheid domestic debt, which could have been declared ‘odious’ in legal terms. Local and international bankers generally approved such examples of fiscal laxity, in contrast to expanding state health spending and other social budgets, which they have explicitly not supported.
The second structural reason is the residual power of pharmaceutical manufacturers to defend their rights to ‘intellectual property’, i.e. monopoly patents on life-saving medicines. This pressure did not end in April 2001 when the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association withdrew their notorious lawsuit against the South African Medicines Act of 1997. That Act allows for parallel import or local production, via ‘compulsory licences’, of generic substitutes for brand-name antiretroviral medicines. Big Pharma’s power was felt in the debate over essential drugs for public health emergencies at the November 2001 Doha World Trade Organisation summit, and ever since.
The third structural reason for the ongoing HIV/AIDS holocaust in South Africa is the vast size of the reserve army of labour, for this feature of capitalism allows companies to replace sick workers with desperate, unemployed people instead of providing them with treatment. The latter point deserves elaboration, simply because so many lives are at immediate risk, and so much evidence has mounted that corporate South Africa’s preferred approach has been, in essence, mass murder by denial of medical benefits.
This was the initial conclusion reached after a year of study at Africa’s largest company, Anglo American Corporation. Anglo has 160,000 employees, of whom 21 per cent are estimated to be HIV-positive. Once Big Pharma appeared to retreat from its lawsuit, the company announced that it would provide antiretroviral medicines to its workforce, which meant literally tens of thousands of lives might be saved in the short term. But in June 2001, the Financial Times reported on Anglo’s ‘plans to make special payments to miners suffering from HIV/AIDS, on condition they take voluntary retirement.’ However, in addition to bribing workers to go home and die, Anglo told the Financial Times, ‘treatment of employees with antiretrovirals can be cheaper than the costs incurred by leaving them untreated.’ In August, Anglo’s vice president for medicine, Brian Brink, bragged in Business Day about a ‘strategy [which] involved offering wellness programmes, including access to antiretroviral treatment.’ According to that report, ‘The company believed that the cost of its programmes would eventually be outweighed by the benefits its received in gradual gains in productivity, [Brink] concluded. Although it was indeed a risky strategy, it was the only one Anglo could pursue in the face of such human suffering.’
Then in October 2001, Anglo simply retracted its promise, once cost-benefit analysis showed that 146,000 workers just weren’t worth saving. According to the Financial Times, Brink ‘said the company’s 14,000 senior staff would receive antiretroviral treatment as part of their medical insurance, but that the provision of drug treatment for lower income employees was too expensive.’ Brink explained the criteria for the fatal analysis: ‘[Antiretrovirals] could save on absenteeism and improved productivity. The saving you achieve can be substantial, but we really don’t know how it will stack up. We feel that the cost will be greater than the saving.’ As the Wall Street Journal recorded:
‘In a controversial move that could have wide ramifications for how companies in poor countries handle AIDS, mining giant Anglo American PLC has put on hold a feasibility study to provide AIDS drugs to its African work force, according to people familiar with the situation. When it disclosed its plans for the study a year ago, Anglo garnered wide praise because it was one of the first major corporations to reveal measures aimed at treating AIDS cases among its rank and file African employees.’[5]
A few months later Anglo changed its mind once again, as AIDS ravaged the middle layer of the workforce, and the multi-class TAC raised consciousness sufficiently high as to get trades union support for members’ treatment. Indeed, in the cases of both Anglo and Coca Cola, the other factor that appeared in 2002 was the spectre of consumer protest over the firms’ refusal to treat employees. I was reliably informed by insiders that for Anglo, the prospect of demonstrators at the August 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development dragging up many other bits of dirty laundry intimidated the company’s executives into taking pre-emptive action on the AIDS front. Coke’s main bottler in South Africa had also failed to insure two-thirds of its 4,000-strong workforce at a sufficient level to allow the HIV-positive workers access to ARVs, and was subject to international protest over African AIDS policies.
However, even though the costs of HIV/AIDS - absenteeism, declining productivity, payouts for early death - soared to as high as 25 per cent of payroll by 2003, according to the Financial Times, most employers are still hesitant to provide ARVs:
‘Untreated, HIV typically takes four to five years to manifest itself as full-blown AIDS, and companies are reluctant to pay for a risk that they cannot see… Persuading managers to part with fees [AIDS treatment programmes] today for costs that will hit company earnings years down the line has been a hard sell.’[6]
In sum, no matter the effectiveness of activism against government, Big Pharma and the corporate employers, all three structural factors are still deterrents to the provision of treatment. By late 2003, each was slightly mitigated, however, and that led to an ostensible change of policy by Pretoria. The budget deficit was projected to climb from just over one per cent of GDP during the early 2000s to nearly three per cent in 2004-05, allowing extra leeway for AIDS spending. Pharmacorps were cooperating more closely with the World Health Organisation, the Global Fund, the Clinton Foundation and governments to lower prices for Africa. Canada’s former prime minister Jean Chretien - spurred by the dynamic, outspoken UN advisor Stephen Lewis - even introduced path-breaking legislation to promote generics (although a sabotage clause was later included in the draft law to support patent rights, in turn attracting a new round of solidarity protests). And employers began waking up, in part because of the dramatic rise of AIDS-related disability claims as a percentage of all disability claims, from 18 per cent in 2001 to 31 per cent in 2002.
These factors converged in a November 2003 cabinet statement, finally endorsing a roll-out of antiretrovirals. Pretoria cited factors which included:
‘a fall in the prices of drugs over the past two years…new medicines and international and local experience in managing the utilisation of ARVs… [sufficient] health workers and scientists with skills and understanding… and the availability of fiscal resources to expand social expenditure in general, as a consequence of the prudent macro economic policies pursued by government.’
However, these factors were minor compared to intensive activist pressure, which Pretoria did not dare mention lest it encourage further protests. TAC’s victory statement was explicit: ‘The combination of the Constitutional Court decision on mother to child transmission prevention, the Stand Up for Our Lives march [of 15,000 people on parliament] in February, the civil disobedience campaign and the international protests around the world have convinced Cabinet to develop and implement an ARV roll-out plan.’
Another factor, of course, was the 2004 presidential election, which Mbeki would win easily but which would be characterised by high levels of apathy and no-vote campaigning by the Landless Peoples Movement. An AC Nielsen survey in November 2003 confirmed that Mbeki’s AIDS policy was hurting the chances of the ruling African National Congress of turning out the vote. The cabinet statement promised that ‘within a year, there will be at least one service point in every health district across the country and, within five years, one service point in every local municipality.’ In addition to medicines, the state would provide an education and community mobilisation programme, promotion of good nutrition and traditional health treatments such as herbal remedies, support for families affected by HIV and AIDS, and funds for upgrading health infrastructure. The health system was already massively overextended, with far too few essential medicines, much less ARVs, available in South Africa’s under-funded rural clinics.
As TAC was the first to concede, ARV availability could generate negative unintended consequences. One would be non-compliance with treatment regimes by poor people, and the concomitant emergence of drug-resistant strains. Another would be the black market smuggling of cheap drugs to Europe and North America which would reduce access in Africa. Another would be that, although stigmatisation would decline given the availability of hope-giving drugs, so too might the practice of safe sex. These would remain major challenges to TAC and other health-sector groups, although the Khayelitsha operation of Médecins Sans Frontières was already proving high levels of treatment compliance.
Moreover, the conflict between neo-liberalism and life, so explicit in the case of access to AIDS medicines, was severely compounded by patriarchy, traditional and modern sexual practices such as multiple partners for men, and domestic violence against women. Rape continued at scandalous levels.
But the primary contradiction involved the regime in Pretoria. In February 2004, TAC attacked President Thabo Mbeki in the wake of more government prevarication on AIDS treatment.[7] Claiming that Mbeki ‘misrepresented facts and once again caused confusion on HIV/AIDS’ on national television, TAC’s Zackie Achmat accused him of ‘denialism.’ Moreover, Pretoria had originally promised to distribute AIDS medicines to at least 50,000 people within a year, and to reach everyone in need of treatment within five years. Tshabalala-Msimang blamed slow drug procurement – Pretoria’s own fault – and the lack of qualified health personnel. TAC strategist Mark Heywood commented, ‘Many hospitals have the capacity, they just don’t have the medicines.’ The finance ministry also cut the budget dramatically for medicine purchases in February 2004.
At the same time, Tshabalala-Msimang suggested that while HIV-positive people waited for medicines, a diet of lemons, beetroot, (extremely expensive), olive oil and garlic would improve the body’s immune system. A week earlier, the minister had come under fire by the SA Medical Association, whose chairperson Dr Kgosi Letlape accused her of ‘dividing the profession when we have gone to great lengths to unite it.’ The minister unsuccessfully attempted to halt a protest march of 2,000 medics against poor conditions in public health facilities by implying that the demonstrating doctors were white, whereas black medics supported the government.
Mbeki continued supporting his minister, no matter how outrageous this became. He told the SA Broadcasting Corporation on 8 February 2004 that the major problem was inaccurate mortality statistics, which made it impossible to know whether AIDS was as fatal as claimed. According to Mbeki, his doctors informed him that diabetes is also an epidemic, and he questioned why no-one talks about diabetes. Achmat replied:
‘Drugs for treating diabetes are heavily overpriced; there should be a campaign for their reduction. But unlike HIV until November 2003, diabetes is treated in the public health sector. However, the President should be aware that according to an initial investigation into the burden of disease estimates in South Africa released in 2003 by the Medical Research Council, AIDS was responsible for 39 per cent of lost life-years in 2000 - more than the next 10 worst diseases. Diabetes is the 12th worst disease and is responsible for slightly more than one per cent of lost life-years. The two diseases are incomparable in scale.’
Achmat also ridiculed Mbeki’s claim that ‘few countries can hold a candle to South Africa’s HIV/AIDS programme.’ Achmat replied:
‘A number of developing countries do much better than South Africa when it comes to HIV prevention and treatment, often with far fewer resources. Currently, South Africa treats approximately 1,500 people in its public sector, who are not on drug trials, paying for their own medicines or being sponsored. By contrast, Brazil’s government treats over 100,000 people and has less than a quarter of South Africa’s HIV infections. Botswana is treating approximately 15,000 and Cameroon approximately 7,000 people.’
In March 2004 the need to harass Pretoria to ensure roll-out was confirmed again, when TAC was forced to threaten an urgent court interdict in order to permit the urgent acquisition of antiretroviral medicines consistent with the November 2003 cabinet decision. Tshabalala-Msimang was sufficiently threatened by yet more embarrassing court proceedings that she finally agreed, just before a deadline provided by TAC lawyers. TAC declared victory, though remarked that ‘by implementing the interim procurement mechanism and thereby avoiding a three-month delay of the treatment programme, approximately 6,000 excess deaths could be avoided.’ [8]
What is the way forward, given persistent presidential denial, state bureaucratic sabotage, and structural factors that mitigate against access to treatment? One major stumbling block would probably emerge in subsequent months and years: the nature of political alliances within South African politics. TAC had been effective in attracting support from the most forward-looking trades unions, the SA Communist Party, churches, NGO activists and technical supporters (lawyers, health workers, academics, journalists). Yet these alliances did not stray far from the ANC. Would TAC forge sufficient linkages to non-ANC communities, especially those devoted to building the new independent left? In coming years, would the myriad of problems that cause opportunistic infections, especially dirty water and air (thanks to coal/wood/paraffin), also be addressed? At a time that the South African government was disconnecting water and electricity at a lethal rate, alongside evictions for those who could not afford expensive rental and mortgage bond payments, the need to address the links between AIDS and the diseases of poverty/homelessness was obvious.
Moreover, would TAC and its allies make the case that access to ARVs is a human right and that people should not pay user-fees or partial cost-recovery for the medicines? By 2004 they were taking this position, but only in the event that people were too poor to pay for medicines. Yet means-testing of black South Africans with irregular informal incomes is notoriously difficult. In contrast, a more explicit ‘free lifeline’ strategy would parallel the demands of the water and electricity campaigners.
Nevertheless, whether or not TAC continues to tackle the three structural impediments to ARV access – neo-liberal fiscal policy, pharmacorps and corporate control of health perks - the immediate victory of November 2003 will potentially make a huge difference. For the half million South Africans who are symptomatic with AIDS or who have a CD4 blood count less than 200, there was suddenly hope. Across the world, for three million people who die each year of AIDS, and for 40 million others infected, the treatment activists and their international allies deserve a standing ovation.
* Patrick Bond directs the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. This article is an extract from his book 'Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa'.
**Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
For additional notes, please follow this link:
1. See the excellent anti-patriarchal arguments in Lewis, S. (2004) ‘Keynote Lecture at the 11th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections,’ San Francisco, 8 February.
2. One of the best surveys is in Lodge, T. (2002) 'Politics in South Africa', Cape Town, David Philip.
3. I have earlier made this case in three articles for ZNet commentaries (http://www.zmag.org), in The International Journal of Health Services (vol. 29, no. 4, 1999), and in two prior books ('Against Global Apartheid', Chapters 8 and 9; 'Unsustainable South Africa', Chapter 7).
4. Mail & Guardian, 21 July 2000.
5. Wall Street Journal, 16 April 2002.
6. Financial Times, 18 September 2003.
7. The following quotes are from Treatment Action Campaign (2004), ‘President Mbeki misrepresents facts and once again causes confusion on HIV/AIDS,’ Cape Town, 11 February.
8. Treatment Action Campaign (2004) ‘TAC electronic newsletter,’ Cape Town, 25 March.
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The food crisis and the failure of capitalism
2008-05-15
Ian Angus
Ian Angus looks at the various forces behind the food crisis in Haiti. During previous waves of food price inflation the poor often had at least some access to food they grew themselves, or to food that was grown locally and available at locally set prices. Today, in many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, that is just not possible. Global markets now determine local prices, and often the only food available must be imported from far away. Food is not just another commodity, he argues. It is absolutely essential for human survival. The very least that humanity should expect from any government or social system is that it tries to prevent starvation, and above all that it does not promote policies that deny food to hungry people.
‘If the government cannot lower the cost of living it simply has to leave. If the police and UN troops want to shoot at us, that's OK, because in the end, if we are not killed by bullets, we'll die of hunger.’ (A demonstrator in Port-au-Prince, Haiti)
In Haiti, where most people get 22 per cent fewer calories than the minimum needed for good health, some are staving off their hunger pangs by eating ‘mud biscuits’ made by mixing clay and water with a bit of vegetable oil and salt.[1]
Meanwhile, in Canada, the federal government is currently paying $225 for each pig killed in a mass cull of breeding swine, as part of a plan to reduce hog production. Hog farmers, squeezed by low hog prices and high feed costs, have responded so enthusiastically that the kill will likely use up all the allocated funds before the programme ends in September. Some of the slaughtered hogs may be given to local food banks, but most will be destroyed or made into pet food. None will go to Haiti.
This is the brutal world of capitalist agriculture, a world where some people destroy food because prices are too low, and others literally eat dirt because food prices are too high.
Record prices for staple foods
We are in the midst of an unprecedented worldwide food price inflation that has driven prices to their highest levels in decades. The increases affect most kinds of food, but in particular the most important staples: wheat, corn, and rice.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation says that between March 2007 and March 2008 prices of cereals increased 88 per cent, oils and fats 106 per cent, and dairy 48 per cent. The FAO food price index as a whole rose 57 per cent in one year; most of the increase occurred in the past few months.
Another source, the World Bank, says that that in the 36 months ending February 2008, global wheat prices rose 181 per cent and overall global food prices increased by 83 per cent. The Bank expects most food prices to remain well above 2004 levels until at least 2015. The most popular grade of Thailand rice sold for $198 per tonne five years ago and $323 per tonne a year ago. On 24 April the price hit $1,000.
Increases are even greater on local markets. In Haiti, the market price of a 50kg bag of rice doubled in one week at the end of March. These increases are catastrophic for the 2.6 billion people around the world who live on less than US$2 a day and spend 60 to 80 per cent of their incomes on food. Hundreds of millions cannot afford to eat. This month, the hungry fought back.
Taking to the streets
On 3 April demonstrators in Haiti’s southern city of Les Cayes built barricades, stopped trucks carrying rice and distributed the food, and tried to burn a UN compound. The protests quickly spread to the capital, Port-au-Prince, where thousands marched on the presidential palace chanting ‘We are hungry!’ Many called for the withdrawal of UN troops and the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the exiled president whose government was overthrown by foreign powers in 2004.
President René Préval, who initially said that nothing could be done, has announced a 16 per cent cut in the wholesale price of rice. This is at best a stop-gap measure, since the reduction is for one month only and retailers are not obligated to cut their prices.
The actions in Haiti paralleled similar protests by hungry people in more than twenty other countries. In Burkino Faso, a two-day general strike by unions and shopkeepers demanded ‘significant and effective’ reductions in the price of rice and other staple foods. In Bangladesh, over 20,000 workers from textile factories in Fatullah went on strike to demand lower prices and higher wages. They hurled bricks and stones at police, who fired tear gas into the crowd. The Egyptian government sent thousands of troops into the Mahalla textile complex in the Nile Delta to prevent a general strike demanding higher wages, an independent union, and lower prices. Two people were killed and over 600 have been jailed. In Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, police used tear gas against women who had set up barricades, burned tires and closed major roads. Thousands marched to the President's home, chanting ‘We are hungry’, and ‘Life is too expensive, you are killing us.’ In Pakistan and Thailand, armed soldiers have been deployed to prevent the poor from seizing food from fields and warehouses.
Similar protests have taken place in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Honduras, Indonesia, Madagascar, Mauritania, Niger, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, Thailand, Uzbekistan, and Zambia. On 2 April the president of the World Bank told a meeting in Washington that there are 33 countries where price hikes could cause social unrest.
A Senior Editor of Time magazine warned:
‘The idea of the starving masses driven by their desperation to take to the streets and overthrow the ancien regime has seemed impossibly quaint since capitalism triumphed so decisively in the Cold War.... And yet, the headlines of the past month suggest that skyrocketing food prices are threatening the stability of a growing number of governments around the world. .... when circumstances render it impossible to feed their hungry children, normally passive citizens can very quickly become militants with nothing to lose.’[2]
What’s driving the food inflation?
Since the 1970s, food production has become increasingly globalised and concentrated. A handful of countries dominate the global trade in staple foods. 80 per cent of wheat exports come from six exporters, as does 85 per cent of rice. Three countries produce 70 per cent of exported corn. This leaves the world's poorest countries, the ones that must import food to survive, at the mercy of economic trends and policies in those few exporting countries. When the global food trade system stops delivering, it's the poor who pay the price.
For several years, the global trade in staple foods has been heading towards a crisis. Four related trends have slowed production growth and pushed prices up.
a) The end of the Green Revolution. In the 1960s and 1970s, in an effort to counter peasant discontent in south and south-east Asia, the US poured money and technical support into agricultural development in India and other countries. The ‘green revolution’ — new seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, agricultural techniques and infrastructure — led to spectacular increases in food production, particularly rice. Yield per hectare continued expanding until the 1990s.
Today, it is not fashionable for governments to help poor people grow food for other poor people, because ‘the market’ is supposed to take care of all problems. The Economist reports that ‘spending on farming as a share of total public spending in developing countries fell by half between 1980 and 2004.’[3] Subsidies and R&D money have dried up, and production growth has stalled.
As a result, in seven of the past eight years the world consumed more grain than it produced, which means that rice was being removed from the inventories that governments and dealers normally hold as insurance against bad harvests. World grain stocks are now at their lowest point ever, leaving very little cushion for bad times.
b) Climate change. Scientists say that climate change could cut food production in parts of the world by 50 per cent in the next 12 years. But that isn't just a matter for the future. Australia is normally the world's second-largest exporter of grain, but a savage multi-year drought has reduced the wheat crop by 60 per cent and rice production has been completely wiped out. In Bangladesh in November, one of the strongest cyclones in decades wiped out a million tonnes of rice and severely damaged the wheat crop, making this huge country even more dependent on imported food. Other examples abound. It is clear that the global climate crisis is already here, and that it is affecting food.
c) Agrofuels. It is now official policy in the US, Canada and Europe to convert food into fuel. US vehicles burn enough corn to cover the entire import needs of the poorest 82 countries.[4]
Ethanol and bio-diesel are very heavily subsidised, which means, inevitably, that crops like corn (maize) are being diverted out of the food chain and into gas tanks, and that new agricultural investment worldwide is being directed towards palm, soy, canola and other oil-producing plants. The demand for agrofuels increases the prices of those crops directly, and indirectly boosts the price of other grains by encouraging growers to switch to agrofuel. As Canadian hog producers have found, it also drives up the cost of producing meat, since corn is the main ingredient in North American animal feed.
d) Oil prices. The price of food is linked to the price of oil because food can be made into a substitute for oil. But rising oil prices also affect the cost of producing food. Fertiliser and pesticides are made from petroleum and natural gas. Gas and diesel fuel are used in planting, harvesting and shipping.[5] It has been estimated that 80 per cent of the costs of growing corn are fossil fuel costs, so it is no accident that food prices rise when oil prices rise.
By the end of 2007, reduced investment in third world agriculture, rising oil prices, and climate change meant that production growth was slowing and prices were rising. Good harvests and strong export growth might have staved off a crisis — but that isn't what happened. The trigger was rice, the staple food of three billion people.
Early this year, India announced that it was suspending most rice exports in order to rebuild its reserves. A few weeks later, Vietnam, whose rice crop was hit by a major insect infestation during the harvest, announced a four-month suspension of exports to ensure that enough would be available for its domestic market.
India and Vietnam together normally account for 30 per cent of all rice exports, so their announcements were enough to push the already tight global rice market over the edge. Rice buyers immediately started buying up available stocks, hoarding whatever rice they could get in the expectation of future price increases, and bidding up the price for future crops. Prices soared. By mid-April, news reports described ‘panic buying’ of rice futures on the Chicago Board of Trade, and there were rice shortages even on supermarket shelves in Canada and the US.
Why the rebellion?
There have been food price spikes before. Indeed, if we take inflation into account, global prices for staple foods were higher in the 1970s than they are today. So why has this inflationary explosion provoked mass protests around the world?
The answer is that since the 1970s the richest countries in the world, aided by the international agencies they control, have systematically undermined the poorest countries' ability to feed their populations and protect themselves in a crisis like this. Haiti is a powerful and appalling example.
Rice has been grown in Haiti for centuries, and until 20 years ago Haitian farmers produced about 170,000 tonnes of rice a year, enough to cover 95 per cent of domestic consumption. Rice farmers received no government subsidies, but, as in every other rice-producing country at the time, their access to local markets was protected by import tariffs. In 1995, as a condition of providing a desperately needed loan, the International Monetary Fund required Haiti to cut its tariff on imported rice from 35 per cent to 3 per cent, the lowest in the Caribbean. The result was a massive influx of US rice that sold for half the price of Haitian-grown rice. Thousands of rice farmers lost their lands and livelihoods, and today three-quarters of the rice eaten in Haiti comes from the US.[6]
US rice didn't take over the Haitian market because it tastes better, or because US rice growers are more efficient. It won out because rice exports are heavily subsidised by the US government. In 2003, US rice growers received $1.7 billion in government subsidies, an average of $232 per hectare of rice grown.[7] That money, most of which went to a handful of very large landowners and agribusiness corporations, allowed US exporters to sell rice at 30 to 50 per cent below their real production costs. In short, Haiti was forced to abandon government protection of domestic agriculture, and the US then used its government protection schemes to take over the market.
There have been many variations on this theme, with rich countries of the north imposing ‘liberalisation’ policies on poor and debt-ridden southern countries and then taking advantage of that liberalisation to capture the market. Government subsidies account for 30 per cent of farm revenue in the world's 30 richest countries, a total of US$280 billion a year,[8] an unbeatable advantage in a ‘free’ market where the rich write the rules. The global food trade game is rigged, and the poor have been left with reduced crops and no protections.
In addition, for several decades the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have refused to advance loans to poor countries unless they agree to ‘Structural Adjustment Programmes’ (SAP) that require the loan recipients to devalue their currencies, cut taxes, privatise utilities, and reduce or eliminate support programmes for farmers. All this was done with the promise that the market would produce economic growth and prosperity. Instead, poverty increased and support for agriculture was eliminated.
‘The investment in improved agricultural input packages and extension support tapered and eventually disappeared in most rural areas of Africa under SAP. Concern for boosting smallholders' productivity was abandoned. Not only were governments rolled back, foreign aid to agriculture dwindled. World Bank funding for agriculture itself declined markedly from 32 per cent of total lending in 1976-8 to 11.7 per cent in 1997-9.’[9]
During previous waves of food price inflation the poor often had at least some access to food they grew themselves, or to food that was grown locally and available at locally set prices. Today, in many countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, that is just not possible. Global markets now determine local prices, and often the only food available must be imported from far away.
Food is not just another commodity. It is absolutely essential for human survival. The very least that humanity should expect from any government or social system is that it tries to prevent starvation, and above all that it does not promote policies that deny food to hungry people.
That is why Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez was absolutely correct on 24 April in describing the food crisis as ‘the greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model.’
*Ian Angus is the editor of 'Climate and Capitalism'. This article first appeared at www.zmag.org
** Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
For additional notes, please follow this link:
[1] Pina, K. 'Mud Cookie Economics in Haiti.' Haiti Action Network, 10 February http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/2_10_8/2_10_8.html
[2] Karon, T. 'How Hunger Could Topple Regimes.' Time, 11 April http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1730107,00.html
[3] The Economist (2008) 'The New Face of Hunger', 19 April
[4] Lynas, M. (2008) 'How the Rich Starved the World.' New Statesman, 17 April http://www.newstatesman.com/200804170025
[5] Pfeiffer, D.A. (2006) 'Eating Fossil Fuels'. Gabriola Island BC, New Society Publishers
[6] Oxfam International (2005) 'Kicking Down the Door' http://www.oxfam.org/en/files/bp72_rice.pdf
[7] Ibid.
[8] OECD Background Note: Agricultural Policy and Trade Reform. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/52/23/36896656.pdf
[9] Havnevik, K., Bryceson, D., Birgegård, L.E., Matondi, P. and Beyene, A. 'African Agriculture and the World Bank: Development or Impoverishment?' Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, http://www.links.org.au/node/328
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Government undersiege as they forcefully resettle IDPs
2008-05-15
Joachim Omolo Ouko
When the Government of Kenya began resettling more than 10,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) on Monday, thousands of them who have been camping at the Nakuru Agricultural Society of Kenya (ASK) show ground, some displaced persons said the Government should have reconciled them with the neighbouring communities first instead of rushing to resettle them.
Mzee Ibrahim Githatwa, 76, was among the IDPs who vowed never to go back to Keringet in Kuresoi where he had lived since the 1942 but was forcefully told to leave the premises. This is where he left when their houses were burnt in January with all the properties destroyed.
Mzee Githatwa is not only a widower, but also a father of 13 children some of whom are still depending on him. This is the man who has suffered a great deal under Moi regime and now Kibaki. During Moi he lost seven houses in the 1992 ethnic violence. Even after he could manage, together with some of his children to built five houses, they again got burnt down in January during the pos-election violence.
Even 13 farms where some of them are going to be resettled which include Sirikwa, Kiambogo, Githirika, Muthenji, Nyota, Kangawa and Lagwenda, Sasumua, Willa, Muchorwe, Karirikania, Kadonye and Nyaruai have history of violence every five years when they have general elections.
These are some of the areas that have been the scene of periodic violence since 1992. Since then fighting has not only intensified during general election years – held in 1992, 1997, 2002 and 2007 - and in 2005, when the national referendum on the country's constitution was held, but also leading to loss of properties worth million of shillings, deaths and turmoils.
The lad dispute around these areas, especially in Molo and Kuresoi is between the Kalenjin, Kikuyu and Kisii - against one another. Not forgetting that last year’s violence, in the run up to the 27 December elections intensified in affecting the Kuresoi divisions Keringet, Kuresoi, Kamara and Olenguruone as opposed to other years.
The government is forcing them back when high-ranking politicians who have been consistently implicated in organizing political violence since the 1990s have never been brought to book and continue to operate with impunity.
According to the annexes to the Ndung'u land dispute report released in 2004 the families of former presidents Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi feature prominently in the list of prominent high ranking politicians and people who matter in Kenya government as those who have grabbed public land that was recommended for repossession.
Mr Moi and five of his children, Mzee Kenyatta's widow Mama Ngina and scores of MPs, top civil servants, military officers, High Court judges and former Cabinet ministers featured in the report now and then.
Then Lands and Housing minister Amos Kimunya who releasing the report on grabbed land compiled by the Paul Ndung'u Committee without the names, can tell a lot why the issue of lad in Kenya will always remain a big problem even after forcing the displaced to go back to their disputed lands.
The report contained in the two massive volumes is measuring 10 centimetres, of which at 2,017 pages are thicker than two telephone directories. The reports were released by the Government Printer and since then no action has been taken by the government to repossess the lands.
If the government were to take action it would mean that names of all those who have been irregularly allocated public land in urban areas, settlement schemes, forests and reserves, with Moi alone owning 937 hectare farm in Narok hived off Trans Mara Forest be repossessed, then this would at least solve some of the land problems in the country.
According to the report, among President Moi's children who were illegally allocated land includes former Baringo Central MP Mr Gideon Moi and his wife Zahra, Raymond Kiprotich, Doris Choge and Jonathan Toroitich.
The problem would even be more resolved if the government were to go by the Ndungu recommendation that allocation of various parcels to Mama Ngina Kenyatta be revoked. It includes 38 hectares hived off the Kikuyu Escarpment Forest in Kiambu District in 1965, including another 36 hectares in Thika District from the same Kikuyu Escarpment forest allocated to her in 1980 for farming, which Ndungu also recommended to be reclaimed, as well as another 24 hectare parcel allocated in 1993.
Among the cabinet ministers, judges and top soldiers listed to be among beneficiaries of settlement schemes carved out of Agricultural Development Corporation farms include then minister of State William ole Ntimama (now ODM minister of Heritage), assistant minister Kipkalya Kones (now ODM minister for Roads), Court of Appeal Judge Emmanuel O'Kubasu and deputy chief of general staff, Lt Gen Nick Leshan.
Mr Ntimama who claims to be the spokesman of the Maasai communities, also human right activists, was allocated 34 acres of Moi Ndabi Farm where Mr Leshan got 233 acres. Mr Kones got 145 acres in the Agricultural Development Corporation Sirikwa scheme where the average allocations were five acres, according to the report. While Mr Justice O'Kubasu got 40 acres of ADC Jabali also in Nakuru, his land in the ADC Sirikwa scheme in Nakuru District, a public figure that got more than the average that is, Mr Justice William Tuiyot who has since died got 85 acres in the ADC Sirikwa scheme.
Other according to the report include retired Judge Mbito who was also allocated 50 acres of the ADC Zea, while a former commissioner of prisons, Mr Edward Lokopoyit got 90 acres of the land.
According to Daily Nation, December 17, 2004, story by David Okwemba ad Mburu Mwangi, former MPs Joseph Kimkung (Mt Elgon) and Jesse Maizs got 30 and 15 acres respectively in the ADC ZEA area. Former Principal Immigration Officer Henry ole Ndiema got 50 acres and a house in the same area.
A former permanent secretary, Mr William Kimalat got 80 acres of ADC Jabali, while a former top policeman Stanley Manyinya got 130 acres in the same area. Former PC Ishmael Chelang'a (since dead) got 90 acres.
Former MPs G. G. Mokku, Japheth Ekidor, Immanuel Imana, Mr David Sudi, Boaz Kaino and Francis Mutwol also benefited. Mr Kaino got 50 acres, Mr Imana 25, Mr Ekidor 20, Mr Mutwol 10 and Mr Sudi 20 from the ADC Milimani land.
The report also implicates many top soldiers and also clerics as among those listed as having been allocated the land. Most of the Moi Ndabi land was allocated by the director of lands.
Another prominent figure in the list is Kerio Central MP Nicholas Biwott who if could lose the 161 hectares in Kaptagat forest allocated to him in 1994 for the Maria Soti Education Trust was going to benefit thousands of landless people.
Other prominent politicians whom Ngungu recommended that their illegally acquired lad could be repossessed included former minister, a former head of the civil service and a former permanent secretary who stood to lose about 1,170 hectares of land hived off South Nandi Forest in 1999.
The three, Mr Henry Kosgey (the ODM chairman and minister), Dr Sally Kosgei (also ODM minister of Higher Education) and Mr Zakayo Cheruiyot were to exchange the land with farmers on a hilly terrain, even though according to the report there was conflict in the exchange as the Ngerek community, which was supposed to benefit, was left out.
The family of former Lands and Settlement minister Jackson Angaine, was expected to lose more than 900 hectares of land hived off from Mount Kenya forest in 1975 and 1977 if the recommendations were to be taken seriously by the government.
Former Limuru MP Mr Kuria Kanyingi was also named as the beneficiary of a 24 hectare farm carved out of Kiambu Forest in 1984. The report also noted that a title deed was issued for only 15 hectares to Kama Agencies in 1995. It recommends that the allocation to the MP should be revoked.
Those allocated parts of the Ngong forest and Karura Forest in the 1990s that Ndung'u Committee recommended that should all be revoked included former Mathioya MP Joseph Kamotho, former Cooperative Bank of Kenya chairman, Hosea Kiplagat, former Commissioner of Police Shedrack Kiruki and Maj-Gen Humphrey Njoroge.
Also named in the report was former Comptroller of State House John Lokorio who appeared as a beneficiary in settlement schemes in Nakuru District including the Nakuru/Olenguruone/Kiptagich extension.
Also in the same scheme is Mr Kiplagat, Mr Samson Cheramboss who once headed President Moi's security detail, former nominated MP Mr Mark Too, former Moi aide Joshua Kulei and former head of Presidential Press Service Lee Njiru.
Others named include former CID boss Mr Francis Sang, former managing director of Telkom KenyaMr Augustine Cheserem, former minister William Morogo and Eldama Ravine MP Mr Musa Sirma and his wife.
Former MD of the National Cereals and Produce Board Major (Rtd) Wilson Koitaba, former land commissioner Mr Sammy Mwaita received 10 plots and the deputy governor of the Central bank Dr Edward Sambili was allocated 7 hectares. Mr Gideon Moi and his wife got the biggest chunk of 44 hectares.
Other beneficiaries are former PS Dr Nehemiah Ng'eno, Dr Julius Rotich who had been named as one of the anti-corruption authority assistant directors, another former PS Mr Mark Bor, Cooperatives PS Mr Solomon Boit, Deputy police commissioner Mr David Kimaiyo and the chaplain of Kabarak high school Rev Jones Kaleli.
Baringo North MP William Boit, director of Motor Licensing Simon Kirgotty, director of survey Mr H. H. Nyapola, security intelligence deputy director Mr Shukri Baramade and Administration Police commandant Kinuthia Mbugua also got land illegally.
Even after former Kitale Catholic Justice and Peace Commission Director, Father Gabriel Dolan, a year later told the Government to implement the recommendations of the Ndung’u Land Report, nothing has ever happened since.
Dolan was quoted by the Standard Newspaper (March 5, 2005) as saying the Government had promised to effect the proposals by the end of February, but this did not happen.
His suggestion that the Government should restore the faith of its citizens by immediately acting on the findings of the land report landed on the deaf ears. He wanted all grabbed and illegally allocated land should be repossessed and re-distributed to the landless instead of a few people managing all the land resources in the country when the larger population is landless.
* Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ, People for Peace in Africa (PPA), http://www.peopleforpeaceinafrica.org
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/
Pan-African Postcard
Don't criminalise African Languages
2008-05-15
Tajudeen Abdul Raheem
Tajudeen rages against the attempts in Kenya to criminalise African language media. The state should be making laws to protest society and be willing to sanction those who use the media to exacerbate ethnic tensions rather than seeking to ban them.
African Languages should not be criminalised. In this column last week I wrote about the demonisation of the media in Kenya as Kenyans tried to exorcise themselves of their recent ghostly past.
The media is not without its faults but to blame it for the hatred, violence, wanton destruction of property, neighbours killing one another and communities turning against themselves is simply finding a scapegoat. Such a convenient foil will make it possible to let off all the other culprits and in this case the grand architects of the mayhem, the politicians, the political class, and Kenyan ruling class in general who whip up these sentiments and manipulate the genuine grievances of the masses in pursuit of their own personal and class interests.
As the grand coalition government that is increasingly exposing itself as lacking many grand people, struggles to take off the politicians who were only a few weeks ago sprouting all kinds of extremist statements are uniting against everybody else , becoming holier than thou in preaching national reconciliation, peace and trying to outshine one another as ‘the patriotic Kenyan’! Everyone else is guilty except the political leaders.
The Nairobi Star (Saturday May 10) reported on ‘radical proposals’ emerging from the recent bonding retreat of the new government : ‘vernacular radio stations should be closed down, cabinet ministers agreed …’ . The decision according to the report ‘… followed discussions on what role the media played in the post election period…’.
Really? I do not speak nor understand any of the languages of the 42 officially recognised ethnic groups in Kenya. My understanding of the more widely spoken National language, Kiswahili, is still very much ‘kidogo kidogo’ (i.e. little), yet I am acutely aware of the crass hostilities between different communities, charges of ethnic discrimination and allegations of ethnic monopoly of this or that by one group or the other. So which media is poisoning my mind?
The Kenya ruling elite have been quite successful, until recently, in living in grand denial about the injustices, social, economic and political that have made them one of the most prosperous middle classes in Africa but also one of the most unequal societies in the world. The tragic violence on the back of the disputed elections finally punctured deep holes in this class/crass delusion.
Even a casual familiarity with Kenya’s colonial and post colonial history will reveal the extreme violence perpetrated by the British, well thought to the independence elite who perfected their rule through the same divide and conquer of the British and turned Uhuru (independence) into a permanent burden to the masses. Yet somehow the elite swallowed their own propaganda that Kenya is an oasis of peace and stability. They took comfort in the disintegration of their neighbours and somehow believe that civil wars, genocide, military coups, economic meltdown, etc were things that happen to their neighbours, not in Kenya, the country known internationally as the destination of all exotic safari complacent to the tune of ‘Kenya Yetu, Hakuna Matata’!
The decades of violence from independence including ethnic clashes, ethnic cleansing and high level unsolved political murders were minor details conveniently airbrushed from the official self image of the country, until December 2007.
Now that the ideologically manufactured innocence has finally been exposed the rulers are looking for scapegoats for the troubled paradise, a paradise that has always excluded the majority of its peoples whatever their ethnicity, religion or race.
By making the media broadcasting in indigenous languages the enemy the political elite is only showing itself up as the local settler colonial masters that they have always been. In that colonial mindset the majority of the people, their culture, traditions and their languages become objects of attack and persecution.
The colonialists justified their predatory adventures, oppression and exploitation of the colonised as ‘white man’s burden’ to bring civilisation and God to the natives. The post colonial elite continues the same attack on their own peoples in the name of modernisation which culturally translates as westernisation and uncritically aping the language and cultures of wazungu (Europeans) . That’s why our indigenous languages are referred to as ‘vernacular’ and our children are made to feel ashamed of speaking their mother tongues at school and even punished for speaking them!
The current attack on indigenous language media in Kenya is not unique to Kenya. It is not limited to the media but wholesale attack on Africaness. It takes different forms in many other countries but relentless, all the same.
It is not just about freedom of expression but part of a long attack on the mind of the masses that must be resisted. The English language media are no less guilty of xenophobia, ethnic hatred or distortions, misrepresentation or disinformation. So why pick on the indigenous language stations? Is it because English phobias and ideological biases are preferable to indigenous ones?
In the UK, the Welsh are proud to use their local language and insist on having signposts in Wales in Welsh and have mandatory broadcast in their language. In Britain in general ethnic minorities are not ashamed to reclaim and retain their culture including their languages while being part of a vibrant multi cultural society.
And yet in Kenya the politicians want to legislate against ethnic media! Just imagine the ridiculousness of it all. A kikuyu, Luo, Luhya or any of the numerous diaspora of Kenyan communities in the UK can establish a radio station or any other media in their mother tongue, sometimes even with government support but back home in Kenya, if the politicians have their way, such endeavour would be criminalised!
I am very much aware of the role which the media especially radio (which is still the most influential media across Africa because it is virtually accessible to everyone) can play both negatively and positively in our societies. Radio Mille Coline in Rwanda was both orchestrator and perpetrator for genocidaire elements and genocide. But the solution in post genocide Rwanda was not to ban Radio in Kiyarwanda but to change the laws, criminalise hatred broadcast and publications and reorient the content of programmes in a wider public education programme of continuous fight against the ideology from which genocide springs.
The state should make laws that protect the whole of society and be willing to sanction those who violate them whether in the media or politicians or academics instead of blaming indigenous languages. In blaming the language rather than those who instigate these sentiments Kenyan politicians are behaving like the proverbial ostrich man in the Yoruba saying : O fi ete sile on pa lapa lapa (i.e. someone who is suffering from leprosy is busy seeking medicines for eczema!).
*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.
**Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org
Letters
Mauritania - more to the picture
2008-05-15
David Seddon
I cannot agree with Armele Choplin that "Mauritania is awash with Maghrebin extremists whose influence continues to grow" (Mauritania: Between Islamism and terrorrism; http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/48058 ). The attack on French tourists in December 2007 was claimed as the work of organised terrorists operating from Algeria, but this was never proven.
There is much alarmist talk of Al Qaeda in the Sahel, which has been used to justify a significant US presence and involvement in the region. It was, incidentally, a supposed fear of links with Al Qaeda that led the US to promote and support the invasion of Somalia, to crush the Islamic Courts Union there.
Certainly, the continued poverty of the ordinary Mauritanian people, in the face of growing oil revenues and a government which so far, despite its promises, has failed to ensure any significant re-distribution of wealth or mprovement in basic welfare, has led to a degree of radicalisation. So-called 'food riots' reveal how far ordinary people are angered by the failure of the new elected government to assure its people's well being, as well as being hard hit by rising food prices and continued poverty.
The implied 'social contract' in a democracy - that the people elect the government to ensure their wellbeing - has been broken yet again. Islam offers hope to young people, especially, as Armell Choplin rightly points out, to young harratin, and it also focuses the anger and disappointment. But this has nothing to do with terrorism and more to do with popular protest at government failure.
Why South Africa will never be like Zimbabwe
Dora Brow
2008-05-15
As long as the legacy of Apartheid has not been fully erased, and the playing field levelled so that ALL South Africans benefit from the alleged Independence and the end of apartheid, I would say, Jeremy Cronin - Why South Africa will never be like Zimbabwe; http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/47873 better believe that the Jewish saying, "from your mouth to God's ear," is in place.
I am always fascinated by those who regard the current state of South Africa as being the best that can be, for the masses of black and brown South Africans. I even went to a lecture at an American graduate school, where a white American had gone and used a pool of 1000 different people. He came back to give a talk on how South Africans of color are wishing apartheid would return, since things were better for them. I also find alot of skilled black South Africans still in exile, or in the diaspora, because they are being told that dual citizenship is the problem or some other excuse. I see nothing in the quality of life of the majority of South Africans of color to make me believe that their patience with the "Tommorrow" that even one of my siblings used to describe the slow changes will continue indefinitely.
There is also something else, the world is getting very hostile to those of a different hue, setting up Fortress Europe, and the Fence along the US border, etc. etc. It becomes harder and harder to accept that we, Africans, who have been exploited and abused for so long, and even after the alleged dismantling of apartheid, will continue to tolerate the stories that come out, throwing the kaffir to the lions, abuse on farms, forcing workers to eat...
We read about South Africans being used as laboratory animals for experimental drugs, and then read about the disasters created by this. We read and hear about South Africa being turned into a place where Brazilians are brought for the their organs to be harvested for a market that is not in South Africa, and knowing the legacy of apartheid; this is just a small part of what is really happening.
We see the disasters that are happening in the mines, and the fact that many miners where let go to a bleak future whilst DeBeers moved its trading to the UK and now has a huge flagship store in New York...
The only constant is change, and South Africa still has the chance to avoid a Zimbabwe, but from what one hears and sees, Apartheid is still alive and well, and doing a brisk business. So, I do not see anyone forcing the redressing of wrongs, whites never give up what they deem theirs by some right of skin, or belief in a god that has made the earth theirs. I do not see or hear anything from South Africa that shows that the "droit de seigneur" that whites feel has changed. Instead, one sees the slow attempts to continue the 'cape to cairo' fantasy of Rhodes and the other imperialists. The recolonization of Africa that is now being implemented.
My parents gave up alot in leaving their homeland, and took us with them. I was born a month before Apartheid became the law, and saw what it did to ALL of us of color. I was also in Zimbabwe when the Federation of Rhodesias and Nyasaland was dismantled, and the Ian Sm