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Statement on closure of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Angola

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/48568

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Luanda was closed at the end of May 2008.

In light of this, a number of Angolan and international organizations (working with Angolan partners), wish to state the following:

- We support the concerns raised by numerous voices about the negative consequences of this decision in terms of its potential impact in particular on the human rights protection of the most vulnerable citizens and on human rights defenders in Angola, but also on the various Angolan Government institutions working on human rights programmes; and concretely. We are concerned about the significance of this act in the run-up to elections, a key moment in the country’s history. This process requires the consolidation of peace and democracy, which depend on the respect of human rights – for which international bodies such as the OHCHR make an important contribution;

- We believe that there is a contradiction between the reality of human rights violations in Angola, as identified by national and international bodies (and raised with the Angolan authorities, regional organisations, and international bodies) 1 & 2 and the Government’s position favouring the closure of the UN office;

- We refute the claims made by the government of the Republic of Angola that the UN Office had no legal status in the country. In 2003, the Angola authorities agreed to the continuation of the OCHCR field office (after the departure of the UN peacekeeping mission). In addition, this unilateral decision is in contradiction to the conditions laid out for Angola's membership of the United Nations Human Rights Council;

- We wish to call to the attention of the national and international bodies who represent the future interests of all citizens – in Angola, in those countries that have close bilateral relations with Angola, in Africa and in the world - that ignoring such contradictions and remaining silent when human rights are disrespected, ensuring that human rights issues are not addressed, will only result in future instability and crises. This will sooner or later increase the suffering of all citizens, but especially of the poorest and most vulnerable.

3 June 2008
Signatories:

Anne-Cécile Antoni, Présidente ACAT France
P. Jacinto Pio Wacussanga, Presidente, Associação Construindo Comunidades
Landu Kama, Coordenador, Coligação pela Reconciliação, Transparência e Cidadania
Andrew Croggon, Acting International Director, Christian Aid
Luís Samacumbi, Director Geral, Departamento de Assistência Social, Estudos e Projectos
Firoze Manji, Executive Director, Fahamu
Vincent Forest, Head of EU office, Front Line - the International Foundation for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Simon Taylor, Director, Global Witness
Maaike Blom, Head of Strategy & Policy, Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa,
José Patrocínio, Coordenador, Associação Omunga
Carlos Figueiredo, Representante, SNV Angola

Sources
1. “When Angola entered the UN Human Rights Council, it showed its desire to maintain an active engagement with the international human rights system, including cooperating with the Human Rights Office in Luanda, and this has always been the basis of my appeal to the [Angolan] Government.”
Vegard Bye, ex-Coordinator of the UN Human Rights Office in Angola (in an interview with Radio Ecclesia, April 2008, http://www.apostolado-angola.org/articleview.aspx?id=1557 and http://ww1.rtp.pt/noticias/index.php?article=340694&visual=26&rss=0).According to Bye, ex- Coordinator of the UN Human Rights Office in Angola, numerous human rights violations take place in Angola, the most flagrant of which are violations of economic and social rights. “The most important violation here in Angola and in Africa in general is the violation of socio-economic rights and above all the fact that Angola is the country with the highest economic growth in the world. This is in contrast to the fact that, for instance, Angola is the country with the second worst ranking in terms of infant mortality. This is the greatest challenge in terms of assuring the population’s basic rights in terms of health, education and social security.” In fact, Angola occupies the lowest position of any country the world in the Wealth and Survival Index, which compares infant mortality rates with national income per capita (source: UNDP and SCF 2008, http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/docs/saving-childrens-lives.pdf) This stark position summarizes, and results from, all the country’s other poor indicators of social and economic rights, for example:
Angola is ranked 170 out of 172 countries in terms of school attendance (“Combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio (%)” UNDP Human Development Statistics http://hdrstats.undp.org/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_AGO.html), and 42 out of 48 in the African Governance Index (Ibrahim Index of African Governance, 25 September 2007, http://www.moibrahimfoundation.org/index/index2.asp)

2. See for example the following briefings and press releases:
• Human Rights Watch Press Release, 25 May 2008. “Angola: Resume Negotiations with UN Rights Body - Government Seeks to Avoid Scrutiny Before Elections”,
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/05/23/angola18934.htm
• Letter from ACAT and other European NGOs to President Sarkozy ‘‘Défendre les associations angolaises de défense des droits de l’Homme’ , 15 May 2008,
http://www.acatfrance.fr/medias/actualites/doc/ACATCourrierAngolaElysee15mai2008.pdf
• Amnesty International Report 2008 – State of the World’s Human Rights: Angola
http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/regions/africa/angola
• Angola - US Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2007,
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2007/100465.htm
• Open Letter to the EU Presidency about the threats to Human Rights and Human Rights Defenders in Angola - Amnesty International (AI), the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), Christian Aid, Front Line Defenders, Global Witness, the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO), the Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa (NiZA) and Oxfam Novib. 31 July 2007. See Christian Aid Press Release of 1 August
2008: http://www.christianaid.org.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/200708/human_rights.aspx
• Report of the Working Group on Arbitary Detention of the United Nations Human Rights Council- Mission to Angola in September 2007
http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G08/111/22/PDF/G0811122.pdf?OpenEement
• Human Rights Watch/SOS Habitat “‘They Pushed Down the Houses’: Forced Evictions and Insecure Land Tenure for Luanda’s Urban Poor”, 15 May 2007,
http://hrw.org/reports/2007/angola0507/angola0507web.pdf
• Amnesty International “Angola: Lives in Ruins: forced evictions continue”, AFR
12/001/2007, 15 January 2007 (http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAFR120012007 ).
And “Above the Law: Police Accountability in Angola” Amnesty International USA,
September 2007 Ref: AFR 12/005/2007
http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGAFR120052007&lang=e )
• Reporters Without Borders press releases, November 12, 2007 and July 18, 2006,
http://www.rsf.org/country-36.php3?id_mot=537&Valider=OK

Peace with sexual violence is still war!

Stephen Lewis

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/48550

When my co-Director of AIDS-Free World, Paula Donovan, visited in November, and observed that the war being waged against women “may well be the most savage display of misogyny ever orchestrated in a conflict zone”, she was right. Terrible, unspeakable things have been done to the women of DR Congo, writes Stephen Lewis. It isn’t enough to stop the shooting when the raping continues apace. The only worthwhile armistice restores peace for the entire population, male and female. There can be no satisfaction in claiming a truce or a peace treaty which is soaked in the carnage of the women of the land. If all the peacekeepers were women, and the men of a country were under pervasive sexual assault, do you think the women would simply observe the carnage?
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Three days ago, I returned from Liberia. While in the country, I met with President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, with senior officials of the Ministry of Health, with the Minister of Gender, with the leadership of the Clinton Foundation, with the consultant who drafted the legislation for the special court to try sexual offences, with the UNICEF Representative and significant numbers of the UNICEF staff. Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to meet with UNMIL, but the UN Mission in Liberia and its peacekeeping forces were inevitably a part of every conversation.

The context of my discussions is encapsulated in the words of the Deputy UN Envoy for the Rule of Law in Liberia when she said, as recently as May 20th: “We cannot expect the future leaders of Liberia, the doctors, nurses, and engineers of Liberia to be brought up amongst men who are rapists and women who are angry, degraded, frightened, depressed, embarrassed and confused.”

She was speaking about the contagion of sexual violence that currently engulfs the country and causes such intense concern. The statistics are horrifying: a recent study by UNICEF indicated that more than fifty per cent of all reported rapes are brutal assaults on young girls between the ages of ten and fourteen. The gender advisor in UNICEF felt that the percentage was probably on the rise, and it’s feared that increases in the HIV rates among female youth will not be far behind. The Minister of Gender showed me figures for March, 2008, indicating that the majority of reported rapes in that month were committed against girls under the age of twelve, some under the age of five, and she narrated stories of gang rape so insensate and so depraved that it reminded me of exhibits in a Holocaust museum. A further survey, of all fifteen counties in the country, found that girls and boys were united in their conviction that young girls were the most endangered group in Liberia, and incredibly enough, that there was no place and no time of day or night where adolescent girls could be considered safe.

Predictably, President Johnson-Sirleaf is thunderstruck by the force of the sexual violence. In a very real sense she is staking the integrity of her tenure on her ability to confront and subdue the war on women.

But how did it come to this? UNMIL has been in the country since 2003 … it has a large contingent of women peacekeepers: it has an Office of the Gender Advisor and of the Advisor on HIV/AIDS; it has gender mainstreaming built into the mandate; both the UN Envoy and the Deputy UN Envoy are women; and the resolution of 2003 which constituted UNMIL incorporated Security Council Resolution 1325 which --- you will agree --- was supposed to guarantee the involvement of women in the peace-keeping processes, but more important, guarantee women protection and security from gender-based violence and violations of human rights.

Clearly all that hasn’t worked in Liberia, where things for women and girls are getting worse. Where did we go wrong?

My own view, and the view of the organization to which I belong --- AIDS-Free World --- is that peacekeepers and force commanders alike have to take sexual violence much more seriously. It is simply untenable to argue that the responsibility to keep the warring parties at bay transcends every other human imperative. It doesn’t. You may succeed in manufacturing a semblance of peace, but for the women of the country, the conflict continues in the most painful and eviscerating of ways.

In the case of Liberia, it isn’t a matter of a contentious mandate: as I said, Resolution 1325 is built into the obligations of peacekeeping. Anyone would argue that when a peacekeeper in the field knows of acts of sexual violence having been committed, or has reason to believe that acts of sexual violence have been or will be committed, then he or she has the obligation to intervene or, to use the language of the day, the ‘responsibility to protect’.

But let me be even clearer about this. Peacekeepers aren’t mere passive observers of the human family. Peacekeepers move into a country; they learn its social architecture; they watch the roiling political terrain on a day-to-day basis. They come to know the foibles, to know the extremes, to know the anomalies. More often than not, they can tell when trouble is brewing. They can intuit when men might hurtle out of control. They have the pulse of the culture. When it unravels, they’re there to bear witness. I’m saying that when patterns of sexual violence emerge, peacekeepers are rarely surprised. In some cases, they alone have anticipated the atrocities in the offing. And with that knowledge comes obligation. With that insight comes responsibility. It isn’t enough to stop the shooting when the raping continues apace. The only worthwhile armistice restores peace for the entire population, male and female. There can be no satisfaction in claiming a truce or a peace treaty which is soaked in the carnage of the women of the land.

Conventional wisdom says that it is the Security Council’s job to set policy, and the peacekeepers’ job to follow it. But that’s too easy. The Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and its military contingents in-country, should be hollering from the rooftops whenever they feel that their role is somehow constrained. If you need more troops, ask for them. If you need more training, ask for it. If you require a larger contingent of police officers, insist on it. If, in the field, you see sexual mayhem in place, then after intervening, take the names of individual soldiers and witnesses and seek investigation and indictments from the International Criminal Court. If the UN’s Member States won’t comply, then call a press conference and tell the world that women are being sacrificed on the altar of myopic parsimony, or perhaps more accurately, on the altar of Pavlovian sexism.

There is nothing facetious in this; I’m absolutely serious. The United Nations cannot allow the terrible assault on women to continue, while crouching behind the ambiguity of mandate. That, I remind you, is what the Department of Peacekeeping Operations did between January and April of 1994, in the perverse struggle with UN Force Commander General Romeo Dallaire over “rules of engagement”. And there followed the deaths of eight hundred thousand Rwandans and the start of the war in the Congo.

In the DR Congo, it is now estimated that 5.4 million people have died since the end of the Rwandan genocide. That conflict was finally supposed to have been resolved by a peace engagement of January last. To some extent, the battles stopped. But as always, just as in Liberia, the war never ends for women.

In the case of DR Congo, the role of peacekeepers could not be clearer. The words of the Security Council resolution of December 21st, 2007, extending the mandate of the UN Mission in the Congo, MONUC, were absolutely unequivocal: Paragraph 18 “Requests MONUC, in view of the scale and severity of sexual violence committed especially by armed elements in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to undertake a thorough review of its efforts to prevent and respond to sexual violence, and to pursue a mission-wide strategy, in close cooperation with the United Nations Country Team and other partners, to strengthen prevention, protection, and response to sexual violence, including through training of Congolese security forces in accordance with its mandate, and to regularly report, including in a separate annex if necessary, on actions taken in this regard, including factual data and trend analyses of the problem …”.

That sounds very much to me as though the Security Council knew full well that things were off the rails where sexual violence was concerned, and this was an explicit instruction to MONUC to get its act together. In that regard, it’s significant that the Security Council went even further: the final clause of the resolution requires the Secretary-General himself to report on the issues covered in Paragraph 18.

To be sure, I can’t pretend to know exactly what lay in the minds of the Security Council members, but these things I do know: Dr. Denis Mukwege, who heads the Panzi Hospital for survivors of rape and sexual violence in the Eastern city of Bukavu, told me when we met in New Orleans three weeks ago, that although the steady flow of raped women has slowed somewhat since the January accord, it continues in shocking numbers; the UNICEF staff in the field agree that things are still in the realm of nightmare for women, who live lives haunted by the fear of being violated, tortured, mutilated, infected with HIV. And who expected anything different, when the countless women who have suffered such demonic sexual violence were not sitting at the peace table last January, and were not signatories to the agreement … a direct violation of Resolution 1325? Who can claim to be surprised by reports from Congolese NGOs on the ground, who say that in the country’s so-called peacekeeping period, women are still too frightened to leave their homes?

When Under Secretary-General John Holmes said the Congo was the worst place in the world for women, he was right. When Eve Ensler, the noted author of the Vagina Monologues wrote of the Congo that she had just ‘returned from hell’, she was right. When my co-Director of AIDS-Free World, Paula Donovan, visited in November, and observed that the war being waged against women “may well be the most savage display of misogyny ever orchestrated in a conflict zone”, she was right.

Terrible, unspeakable things have been done to the women of DR Congo. I want simply to argue that MONUC has it within its mandate to end the reign of terror. If it so chooses, MONUC can also have it within its power to end the reign of terror. Whatever MONUC feels it lacks to protect the women of the Congo --- numbers, police, equipment, training, time, leadership, resources --- let them demand it. And if those demands aren’t met, let them tell the world that madness is at work and it knows no end.

Normally, one would turn to the Secretary-General of the United Nations for help in this difficult situation. But how can we have trust?

The Secretary-General gets commendably engaged when it comes to Burma or the price of food, but where is the same sense of throbbing agitation when it comes to sexual violence? This is a Secretary-General who should be insisting on the invocation of the “Responsibility to Protect” in the Congo, but fails to do so. The defense and protection of the rights of women do not come instinctively to him. This is, after all, a Secretary-General who granted immunity to the former High Commissioner for Refugees, when a claim of sexual harassment against him reached a New York court. I remember that when the Secretary-General was first appointed, he told a group of NGOs that his learning curve on gender was virtually vertical. A year and a half later, the upward climb appears to have stalled at the bottom of the graph.

No, if we are to turn things around, with or without the help of the Secretary-General, the peacekeepers must lie at the heart of the transformation. How excellent that would be. Resolution 1325 would finally be liberated from the dustbins of the Security Council, and women, without fear, could take hold of their collective destiny. You can be sure there would be no vacillation.

If all the peacekeepers were women, and the men of a country were under pervasive sexual assault, do you think the women would simply observe the carnage? Not a chance. And they wouldn’t need a Security Council Resolution to tell them what to do.


*Stephen Lewis,is the co-Director of AIDS-Free World. These remarks were delivered delivered at the May, 2008 Wilton Park Conference: Women targeted or affected by armed conflict: What role for military peacekeepers?

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

Double jeopardy of women migrants

Romi Fuller

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/48552

Although often overlooked amidst the shocking images and stories emanating from the xenophobic attacks of the last two weeks, there is a gendered face of xenophobia, says Romi Fuller. Foreign women face the double jeopardy of belonging to and being at the intersection of two groups so vulnerable to exploitation, abuse and violence. This something the country must consider as it moves towards healing and responding to the needs of the injured and displaced.
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In the wave of xenophobic violence that swept across South Africa in the past weeks, more than 50 people have died, hundreds are injured, and thousands displaced. While media reports described the brutality of the attacks on foreign nationals – which have included people being beaten, stabbed, torched and dispossessed of their belongings and homes – there has been little consideration to the double jeopardy of being both foreign and female that renders women especially vulnerable in this deepening crisis.

While the perpetrators of the xenophobic violence in South Africa have not differentiated based on gender or age in their attacks on foreigners, there is a gender perspective to xenophobia getting lost in the midst of the horror.

Foreign women in the townships have been disproportionately affected by the recent xenophobia, not only because the violence has played out on the site of their bodies (through beatings and rape), but also because the violence has been directed towards their homes (through burning and looting).

At the same time, within South Africa’s undisputedly patriarchal society, women have also been thrust into the conflict as a real and potential source of violence between South African and foreign men. Again and again, we hear South African men accusing foreign nationals of “stealing our women.”

There have been reports of rape in the midst of the general perpetration of xenophobic violence. Systematic rape is often used as a weapon of war in “ethnic cleansing.” Although South Africa is not at war, it current situation could be considered a “conflict situation” and in a conflict situation, the sexual violation of women can erode the fabric of a community in a way that few weapons can.

Rape in conflict situations serves to dominate and tame not only the women survivors who are its immediate victims, but also all the men that are socially connected to them by delivering the message that they are not strong enough to protect their women. From this point of view, rape in war or conflict is a means of committing genocide, by destroying a particular group or nation’s identity.

In a country where sexual violence is pervasive in everyday life, it is difficult to distinguish rapes motivated by xenophobic attitudes from those perpetrated because the general atmosphere of violence and lawlessness has allowed for it. Rape can be a political tool of xenophobia; or an act of opportunistic criminal violence against a woman because of her gender, under the guise of xenophobia.

Unfortunately, though reported numbers of rape were not alarmingly high in the recent attacks, it is likely that many xenophobia-related rapes are unreported because foreign women are fearful of the police. Firstly, as foreigners in an environment where the police have a reputation for complicity in corruption, intimidation and abuse of foreigners they are mistrustful of law enforcement. Secondly, as women in a society where the victims of sexual violence are often treated with scepticism and suffer secondary victimisation, there is a general reluctance to disclose.

South African women marrying or dating foreigners may also be vulnerable to attack and sexual violence, based on xenophobia. Sexual violence is well documented in South Africa as a means to control and punish women. Men may rape South African women as a means of controlling them or curbing their agency in choosing foreign men, and as a punishment for their waywardness.

The affect in women is not just physical assault. Many foreign women have been responsible for protecting their young children from the violence, which has entailed displacement to temporary shelters or places of safety where there is insufficient access to food, blankets and sanitation.

“Woman’ (and the associated categories of wife, mother and daughter) is a social position that comes with a range of expectations and investments. Women are the traditional carers of their families, with the responsibility to feed, clothe and provide shelter for their families.

As such, xenophobia targets women and children because they are central to making settlement happen - while a host population may see migrant men as transitory, women and children denote a more permanent move and the laying down of roots.

Migrants are increasingly targeted as the scapegoats for all manner of domestic problems facing societies today, particularly unemployment, crime, and limited access to services. People perceive immigrant women – whom following gender roles tend to be responsible for their families’ well being –as taking jobs and “using and abusing” already stretched public services, such as hospitals and schools.

In reality, many migrant and refugee women in South Africa have limited employment opportunities and are often at the bottom of the labour market. Many of these women hold jobs in the informal economy or unregulated sectors. As such, their access to state services such as health, education and justice is also limited, especially if they are undocumented migrants or illegal immigrants.

Many foreign women are in South Africa after having fled conflict-zones, sexual and domestic violence, and political and/or economic repression in their home countries. The insecurity and violence they now face in South Africa compounds their trauma.

Interestingly, in her book Engendering Wartime Conflict: Women and War Trauma, Ingrid Palmary points out that women, and others, often do not see violations against women as part of political conflict, but instead tend to view them as personal or domestic violations. This means the very real possibility that leaders and service providers leave women out of reconciliation and justice mechanisms.

Although often overlooked amidst the shocking images and stories emanating from the xenophobic attacks of the last two weeks, that there is a gendered face of xenophobia is unmistakable. Foreign women face the double jeopardy of belonging to and being at the intersection of two groups so vulnerable to exploitation, abuse and violence. This something the country must consider as it moves towards healing and responding to the needs of the injured and displaced.


* Romi Fuller is the Project Manager of the Violence and Transition Project at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service that provides fresh views on everyday news.

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

Unspoken trauma of women in Zimbabwe

Miriam Madziwa

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/48557

In addition to the psychological trauma of sexual violence, Miriam Madziwa argues that the violence is likely to have an adverse effect on women's participation in politics into the future.
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There is haunting weariness in Precious Zhove's eyes as she recounts events leading to her fleeing her home in Mberengwa in Zimbabwe's southern region. Clutching at her 18-month-old baby, she relives the horror of the day war veterans, ZANU PF supporters, and soldiers descended on her homestead looking for her husband Joab Gumbo, who contested to be a councilor under a Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) ticket.

"I was trying to tell them I did not know where my husband was since it was in the afternoon. They grabbed my baby, this one here and tied a sack around her waist then one of them started swinging her while holding her by the legs.”

"They said she was an MDC baby so they were going to take her away from me. They said that way me and my husband would have another baby, a Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) baby this time, because they don't like MDC people, and they are sell-outs."

While she pauses to catch her breath, she sighs, "Oh not again," and shifts the baby on her lap. The baby has no nappy, so her skirt has become wet. She explains the baby has no nappies or warm clothing. "I didn't have time to pack anything. The moment my husband returned home we left."

Zhove’s story is just one of many I have listened to in recent weeks as more and more families in rural Matabeleland and Midlands flee from harassment, intimidation, and beatings characterising the post March 29 period in Zimbabwe.

Media show images of injuries caused by the brutal attacks. The footage and reports are frightening. Burnt buttocks, breasts severed, limbs broken, and backs festering with wounds from plastic burns. Stories of pregnant women having their stomachs cut open or men young enough to be their grandsons raping elderly women.

Yet, away from the cameras, audio recorders, and notebooks there is emotional and psychological trauma that victims endure in stoic silence. Zhove is lucky to be out of physical harm's way. However, she is in continuous emotional turmoil. Her conscience gnaws at her heart over the fate of her two school-going children left behind in Mberengwa.

"I don't know what they are eating. I don't know whether they are going to school. I'm not even sure if they are still alive. I pray all the time that they are safe and that I will see them again soon.”

“I wonder sometimes whether I should have stayed with my children. If the war vets came back and killed me, at least my children would know my fate. Right now they don't even know I am here."

Broken bones heal with time if the victims are fortunate enough to access medical treatment. The verbal abuse and the psychological impact of the beatings, sexual abuse, and public humiliation will haunt these women forever. It reminds me of the ditty: "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can hurt forever." The violence inflicts deep emotional wounds among victims, their relatives, and friends.

An added repercussion is the effect that the violence is likely to have on women's participation in politics. The post-election violence reinforces long held beliefs that "politics is a dirty and dangerous pursuit that only men can dabble in.” The violence gives politics a bad name and pushes women further onto the fringes of active politics.

The majority of women targeted are political activists who openly admit they are in politics to try to ensure a better future for their children. Women polling agents and candidates who contested in local council elections are key targets. Winning female councilors in rural areas are being hounded out of their homes and therefore, being denied the chance to work and help develop their communities.

Added to these politically active victims are hundreds of women who are killed, raped, harassed, humiliated and abused simply because they are mothers, wives, sisters and aunts of prominent MDC activists.

An elderly granny who had fled her home in Kezi tells of the shame she endured during a rally when “youthful war veterans” taunted her using abusive and vulgar language because her son is an MDC activist.

She confided that how unhappy she was to be living with her daughter in-law indefinitely. "I want to be home and not get in my daughter in-law's way. But I am too afraid to go back."

Mostly women carry the heavy responsibility of explaining the horrifying events to scared, confused and traumatised children. They also try to ensure life goes on as usual for the children amid all the upheaval and uncertainty.

Mothers have to answer questions of "Baba varipi? Ubaba ungaphi? (Where is daddy?)" from children whose fathers have fled their homes in the dead of night. These women have the daunting task of trying to make senseless reprisals make sense to their children.

Women are the people who have to make sure that even after houses and granaries are razed to the ground, children are clothed and fed. Moreover, these same women live with the unspoken scorn of close relatives for “allowing” themselves to be raped by war veterans.

Yet in communities where war veterans have set up the infamous “bases” everyone knows that women have no option but to “agree” to rape in desperate attempts to protect their families.

The true extent of humiliation that violated women are enduring became clear when a man from the Midlands narrated the extent of sexual abuse in his wife's presence.

"Every woman who is still young is being raped by these brutes who threaten to destroy homesteads if women do not give in to their demands. We men, know it's happening even though women don't talk about it. We know they are desperate to spare their husbands and families victimisation. We are going to be raising children that are not ours, but AIDS is the real threat in the community now."

While the man spoke, his wife was shaking her head silently, tears streaming down her cheeks. The effect of all these experiences is to traumatise Zimbabwean women into silence, and out of the political arena.

Ultimately, to quote writer Chenjerai Hove in Shebeen Tales, there is the long term danger that if the violence, harassment and abuse continues unabated, "women will remain of politics and not in politics." And that will do liitle to make sure their needs are cared for in the future.


*Miriam Madziwa is a freelance journalist based in Zimbabwe. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service that provides fresh views on everyday news.

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

Time Mbeki should step down

William Gumede

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/48553

The South African state is imploding in front of our eyes. Although there is not a moment to spare, we can still avoid the coming crash, if we act quickly enough, writes William Gumede. This is a nothing but national emergency, which calls for extraordinary steps. Parliament must be dissolved. Next year’s general election must be brought forward to give government a new mandate. Mbeki must step down as president immediately. The ANC must call a special national conference to make the leadership decision, rather than wait for the provincial conferences to be completed by spring or for a list conference thereafter.
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The cartoonist, aka, Brandon, could not have drawn the nation’s collective despair more accurately when he this week likened South Africa Inc to an aeroplane in flames, nosediving out of control, ever downwards to the envitable deadly crash.

The South African state is imploding in front of our eyes. Although there is not a moment to spare, we can still avoid the coming crash, if we act quickly enough. But firstly, there has to be an official acknowledgement that there is a crisis. Astonishingly, denial of the crisis remains the mainstay of President Thabo Mbeki and leading officials in his Pretoria bunker. The terrible xenophobic violence sweeping the country, is but one deadly symptom of the leadership vacuum, in the ANC, government and the country. The ANC is now almost functioning like two seperate parties: Mbeki in charge of government, and Jacob Zuma heading the party proper. But unless, the leadership in the ANC is sorted, there is little prospect of fixing the country’s mountain of problems.
Because of the failure of the state, whether to protect ordinary citizens against crime, provide electricity, or to help families living in desperate poverty, the very legitimacy of the state is now being undermined.

Just the mere fact that citizens are taking the law into their own hands on such a scale as the horrific attacks against African immigrants, is an indication that although pockets of government are seemingly working, the state is quickly losing its authority. Even in the response to the xenophobic violence, it has been individuals, non-governmental organisations and civil groups that have quickly responded. The government has been paralysed. President Mbeki’s authority has long been eroded. The ANC’s hold on its members are also loosening fast. In the provinces, branches and affiliate structures of the ANC, ordinary differences have now turned into violent conflict. The ANC Youth League’s shamefully violent, chaotic conference, with its dodgy elections, early this year, where even the national ANC leadership present could not stamp their authority, is a case in point.

This is a nothing but national emergency, which calls for extraordinary steps. Parliament must be dissolved. Next year’s general election must be brought forward to give government a new mandate. Mbeki must step down as president immediately. The ANC must call a special national conference to make the leadership decision, rather than wait for the provincial conferences to be completed by spring or for a list conference thereafter. Because this is a national emergency, the ANC leadership must offer the job as South African President to ANC deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, who is since last week a Member of Parliament, making it a practical possibility. If not, the job must be given to ANC treasurer Mathews Phosa or ANC NEC member Cyril Ramaphosa, both who have been elected to the inner sanctum of the ANC at the party’s national conference last December. Zuma can remain president of the ANC. This will be an extraordinary step, but not an unprecedented one for the ANC. When the ANC was banished in the early 1960s, and its core leaders, such as Nelson Mandela sent to Robben Island Prison by the apartheid government, Oliver Tambo, was lifted into the presidency of the ANC. All three leaders, Motlanthe, Phosa and Ramaphosa, present not only a clear generational change, but a clean break from the two factions currently paralysing government and the ANC.

What cannot be disputed anymore is that South Africa has arrived at a ‘tipping point’ in its post-1994 history. The black majority has now reached the point where they want the democratic dividend of the democracy. Their much talked about patience has to come to an end. They are not prepared anymore to listen patiently to ANC leadership injunctions to wait for the benefits of the post-1994 economic growth spurt to trickle down to them, while comrades who are more politically connected flaunt their new found riches. They want jobs, food, affordable education, healthcare, electricity, public transport and other social services. They want it now.

The devastating cascading effects of high interest rates, rampant food and fuel inflation, combined with poor delivery of basic services and public corruption, is a ready catalyst for a volcanic eruption by those left out of the country’s prosperity, unless there is immediate action. Furthermore, the majority want their voices to be heard by government, democratic institutions and the ANC. This is the clear message from the wave of local protests against poor service delivery that has preceded the xenophobic violence. The terrible xenophobic violence is yet another outlet, if misguided, for the anger of the masses. So far, Mbeki and the government have ignored these voices. The signs from the Union Building are still not very encouraging. If government remains deaf, we must expect the crash of SA inc.

Yet, Mbeki and his leadership have remained astonishingly insular, arrogant and bullying. Only the other week Finance Minister Trevor Manuel stone-heartedly played down the real-life urgency of high food prices. Manuel astonishingly said the government is reluctant to provide emergency relief to families struggling desperately to make ends meet, because of the effects of the food, fuel and other crises, because the recipients will spent it on alcohol. We have lost our humanity.

The jumping ship of Mbeki’s key allies: deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, public enterprises minister Alec Erwin, minister in the presidency Essop Pahad, and director-general in the presidency, Frank Chikane, who have all announced the past weeks they are retiring, is a clear sign for the president, to rather than wait until his mandate expires next year, to leave now. If not, further crises looming on the horizon, combined with his lame-duck status, may bring a crash of SA inc closer.

In some circles, at home and abroad, many are now, understandingly, in sheer desperation, willing for Zuma to take over as quickly as possible. Yet, this will not end the leadership vacuum in the ANC and the country, but merely prolonging it. Whatever the reasons for Zuma’s election as president of the ANC in December, whether it was a protest vote against Mbeki or whether he is geniunely popular, is not the issue. What is more important, is that in spite of his popularity, the opposition within and outside the ANC against Zuma is intense. In spite of all his merits, it is difficult to imagine, a leader as morally compromised as Zuma, effectively leading the rejuvenation of democracy within the ANC and South Africa.

Even if Mbeki is gone, Zuma’s continuing legal battles, will continue to paralyse government, erode public confidence and undermine democratic institutions. Zuma, must now take his cue from Oskar Lafontaine, the former popular leader of the German Social Democrats, when he, although at the time the most widely supported among the party’s feuding factions, sacrificed himself for the sake of the country and the party, when he stepped aside, for a less divisive, and more unifying leader.

In the ANC’s near century of existence, the Left, have often come to the movement’s rescue whenever it’s morall compass went astray. Now, the Left itself appears to have no broader, comprehensive and imaginative vision for the totality of SA inc. The need for the rejuvenation of the country’s democracy, stagnant political culture and democratic institutions, demands for more imaginative ways, fresh ideas and leaders, to deal with poverty, unemployment and inequality. Zuma is too compromised, Mbeki too discredited. And the Left currently too consumed by capturing the ANC, seeking revenge and adolizing flawed leaders.


*William Gumede is the author of Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC - Published by Zed Books (http://zedbooks.co.uk). His latest book, 'The Democracy Gap - Africa's Wasted Years', will be published later this year.

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

Obama: US president or world president?

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/48569

Tajudeen walks us through the skepticism that initially greated the Obama candidacy, the pitfalls of the hubristic Clinton campaign and Obama's strengths but cautions us that Obama will be an American President who happens to be of African origin. He is never going to subordinate America’s interests to ours where they clash in a fundamental way.
====

I must confess that I am one of those pundits who did not give Barrack Obama a significant chance of winning the Democratic Party presidential nomination. For most of December as we witnessed the tragic conflicts in Kenya with two good Professors/comrades/Pan Africanists, Horace Campbell and Okello Oculi, I was most scathing about Obama, while Horace did his best (including giving me the two books of Obama) to educate me, with Okello playing partisan moderator.

Much as I tried I could not bring myself to understand what the man really stood for. He was, and still remains, all things to all kinds of people. Maybe that is his strength. But it all seemed like a David and Goliath duel between him and the well-oiled political and financial machine of the presumed front-runner for the Democratic nominations, Hilary Clinton.

Not a few of us thought that Obama was just another protest candidate who would have his few moments in the limelight and then fizzle away as Hilary romped home to certain victory. How wrong we were! Even the Clintons, the power couple, misread Obama’s strengths. They mistook the political hurricane for a storm in a teacup until it was too late. They threw their considerable weight at him but somehow, in a twist of fate, he became more than Bill Clinton and Hilary could manage. Obama is the Teflon candidate reminiscent of the first Clinton campaign. Nothing sticks as the Chicago senator just ran and ran.

Why did we get it wrong? One, we thought Obama was a Black candidate and believed that the USA was not ready for a Black president. Two, even his Blackness was doubted because he did not come from 'traditional' African American/ black backgrounds and his CV was too short as both a Black/African icon.

The enigma of Obama is in making his opponents and critics underestimate him while he builds a broad spectrum of popular support that eats away at the support base of his critics. He believed in the small ordinary people and organized them into an electoral movement built on hope.

Obama did not have to be a Black candidate. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have both done that. He did not have to revisit covered grounds hence he became the candidate who happens to be black. There is no way he could have become a serious contender if all he has was his skin colour. The initial ambiguities of many African American elite who were used to putting their faith in 'the good white liberal' like the Clintons raised the prospect of a Black candidate without a Black base which the Clintons already took for granted. But the initial disadvantage among the Blacks who thought he was not black enough actually made it possible for him to attract a broader section of White Americans.

Bush has so damaged Americans’ faith in themselves and made America even less loved if not universally hated that Americans consciously or unconsciously expect a messiah to make them feel good about themselves again - and if not instantly loved, at least less hated by the rest of the world.

It is that yearning for the ‘feel good’ aura that has led many to believe that Obama is the man of destiny and the harbinger of ‘Change you can believe in.’ You may not put your finger on it. It may not add up to a grand vision but it is uplifting enough to rouse America. The Clintons misjudged the moment and Hilary has had to fight in such a despicable way that discussing them now leaves a bad taste in the mouth of many former supporters who used to love ‘the lovable rogue’ Bill Clinton.

Though Bill Clinton was a ‘feel good’ president worshipped by many, his wife was not always endearing to many. Indeed Obama is more like Bill than Hilary. If Hilary had not been his opponent, Bill might have been one of the early democrat grandees that would have declared support for Obama. Spousal loyalty (nothing extraordinary considering the pains he has caused Hilary over the years) combined with the power couple’s delusion of themselves as the democrats’ counter to the dubious aristocracy to the Bushes, contributed greatly to their undoing.

In defence of his wife, Mr. Feel-Good became Mr. Sour grapes and a not so skin-deep liberal who thinks he is entitled to Black and poor white working people’s votes as a right and that such loyalty is transferable by osmosis to any Clinton.

Instead of quitting in a dignified way they have fought almost to the bitter end. Those who fight to the finish get finished. Are the Clintons so bitter in defeat that they would actually prefer McCain to Obama?

The next few days will tell. However, now that Obama is the candidate in waiting, attention will shift to whether he can beat McCain come November. Whether he wins or not he has already lifted the ceiling on the ambition of every Black person in America. There is already victory in the symbolic importance of his candidacy. The prospect of his victory, barring assassination (as it happened to Robert Kennedy before being elected or earlier John Kennedy, after being elected) is very real. His victory will see a repackaging of the American dream as a country where anyone can make it.

Initially support for Obama candidacy was most unanimous in Kenya (where many may not vote for a Luo President but are quite convinced that his nephew can be president of the US!), but it is now universally being prayed for all across the continent. If many Africans have their way they will voluntarily become proxy voters come November!

But while I recognize the mix of historical, socio-psychological, emotional and great expectations that Obama’s candidacy has inspired among Americans and also in Africa and in her diasporas, we should have no illusions that Obama will suddenly make America do right by Africa or the rest of the world, for that matter. He is going to be an American President who happens to be of African origin. He is never going to subordinate America’s interests to ours where they clash in a fundamental way but he may package them less arrogantly and may add more honey to the poisoned chalice that any super power dishes out to smaller states - that is unless those states are firm in the defence of their own interests so they can get a better, if not fairer deal.


*Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this column as a Pan Africanist.

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

Kenya: Ujamaa Center

2008-06-06

http://ujamaakenya.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=75&Itemid=48

The work of Ujamaa Center responds directly to the continuing exploitation and exclusion of coastal peoples by examining the inefficient and unsustainable exploitation of assets that should properly be owned and controlled by indigenous peoples. Through community mobilisers (CMs) recruited from and based in communities, it is possible to challenge the political construction that sustains inequality and give new meaning to ecology, politics, knowledge and democracy.

On Cuito Cuanavale

Kendrew Slater

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/48564

Great history review of Cuito Cuanavale to combat the propaganda of mainstream. I was in a discouraged state about information prior to reading the post.

on Lucia Matibenga

Brad Mazon

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/48566

All I know is that it is an honor to know Ms. Matibenga. Her spirit, words, and actions are inspiring to all she has met both inside and outside Zimbabwe. I hold her in the highest esteem, and know that her vision for lovely Zimbabwe will eventually become the reality.

Africa blogging roundup 4th June 2008

Sokari Ekine

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/48549

MentalAcrobatics

MentalAcrobatics reports back from Japan on the TICAD conference (4th International Conference on African Development) – Mental begins by stating the strange phenomena of holding African conferences in far off places.....
“So here we are at another conference on Africa, full of Africans, held outside Africa at an Asian economic powerhouse. This all sounds very familiar”.
However he then goes on to justify the familiar “talkshop Africa” and the cost of Africans meeting in this instance in Japan. Africa may need African solutions but Africa does not exist in a vacuum outside of the global community....

“These African solutions, however, cannot exist in isolation from the rest of the world. Rather active, positive and accountable engagement with partners is required. These partners may be development organisations such as the numerous UN bodies, these partners could be individual countries, such as Japan and China.”

Maybe he has a point but until we see the G8 meeting in Accra or Windhoek, I am not so sure.

Nigeria, What’s New

http://nigeriawhatisnew.blogspot.com/2008/05/53-nigerians-were-arrested-in-mlaga.html

Nigeria, What’s New reports that 53 Nigerians have been arrested in Malaga following the exposure of a Spanish lottery scam in which 25,000 letters were sent out every day around the world informing people they were winners. Apparently 2 out of every 1000 people responded making the scammers a cool €27million.

Nata Village Blog

http://natavillage.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/05/nata-gets-an-in.html

Nata Village announces the launch of an internet cafe....from small beginnings come great things and now the citizens of Nata village will soon be connected up to the big wide world - “Hallelujah!!! We are 120 miles from a bank and a grocery store but we're getting an internet cafe. Pictured above is the small addition to the Nata Post office. Thanks to Post Net, the government postal service in Botswana, we are getting 4 computers and access to the internet.”

Abagond

http://abagond.wordpress.com/2008/06/02/stereotype/

AbaGond has an interesting post on stereotypes on which xenophobia, racism and other prejudices are built....

“A stereotype is a picture you have in your head about people who belong to a certain race, religion, country or whatever. For example, “Asians work hard”, “Black women are loud-mouths”, “Rich people are stuck up” and so on..... Stereotypes are mostly applied to the sorts of people you barely know. Because if you knew them well enough you would know that the stereotypes are somewhere between useless and wrong”.

Regrets Only, An African Journal

http://reporterregrets.blogspot.com/2008/05/us-counterterrorism-training-program.html

Regrets Only, An African Journal reports that the US counter terrorism programme which targets the Sahel region is finally under way. The initiative is part of the US’s obsession with terrorism on the one hand and policy to find any excuse to have US troops and security personnel stationed in Africa.
“The initiative is a multimillion dollar security training and equipment program to assist Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger in countering terrorist operations.

The program, funded by the State Department and carried out by the Pentagon, got under way this month in Mali and will continue in the other three countries over the next several months.”

* Sokari Ekine blogs at www.blacklooks.org

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

How China delivers development assistance to Africa

2008-06-06

http://www.ccs.org.za/index.html

China's "new foray" into Africa is attracting wide international attention and contentious debate. China is seemingly engaging Africa on new terms – terms that are not shaped by traditional powers or perhaps not even by Africans themselves. The Centre for Chinese Studies at Stellenbosch University embarked on this research project, supported by the Department for International Development UK (DFID), to gather information and gain insight into China's aid policies vis-à-vis Africa. The research is intended to inform both Chinese and traditional donor efforts toward the continent.

American and British diplomats attacked by state agents in Bindura

2008-06-06

http://www.swradioafrica.com/News050608/US050608.htm

Another diplomatic incident has been reported in Zimbabwe, this time in the town of Bindura. According to Mark Weinberg, an official at the American Embassy in Harare, a convoy of American and British diplomats on a fact finding trip to Bindura on Thursday were stopped by a gang of state agents that included police, intelligence agents and war veterans. They were told to go to the local police station, but they refused.

Currency fails

2008-06-06

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/18712

Things are moving from bad to worse in Zimbabwe as on Thursday its currency plunged to a new record low, trading at an average 1 billion to the US dollar on a recently introduced interbank market. And this has triggered massive price increases. For instance, a loaf of bread, which cost about Z$15 million before the polls, now costs about Z$600 million.

EU demands Zimbabwe lift aid ban immediately

2008-06-06

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN623241.html

The European Union demanded on Friday the immediate lifting of a ban on work by aid groups in Zimbabwe, saying hundreds of thousands of people in the country depended on such assistance for their survival. President Robert Mugabe's government suspended all work by aid groups on Thursday nearly a week after banning some from distributing food, accusing them of campaigning for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in March 29 elections.

MDC officials and activists living in an ‘atmosphere of fear’

2008-06-06

http://www.swradioafrica.com/News050608/MDC050608.htm

A top official of the MDC disclosed on Thursday that most of it’s members were living in fear of being abducted and murdered, as state sponsored violence wreaks havoc in rural areas. Professor Elphas Mukonoweshuro said the situation in the rural areas resembled a war zone, with the movement of armed bands across the whole of the country.

Namibian petition against arms transfers to Zimbabwe

2008-06-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/48573

We, Namibian civil society actors, congratulate and credit you on your role in not allowing and or preventing the Chinese ship, the "An Yue Jiang", from delivering its lethal cargo intended for Zimbabwe via Namibian territory. This is a significant achievement. Had this transfer gone ahead, it risked exacerbating an already volatile situation in that SADC country.
NAMIBIAN PETITION AGAINST ARMS TRANSFERS TO ZIMBABWE


Windhoek, Namibia, June 5 2008


Your Excellency President Lucas Hifikepunye Pohamba:


SUBJ: PETITION AGAINST ARMS TRANSFERS TO ZIMBABWE


We, Namibian civil society actors, congratulate and credit you on your role in not allowing and or preventing the Chinese ship, the "An Yue Jiang", from delivering its lethal cargo intended for Zimbabwe via Namibian territory. This is a significant achievement. Had this transfer gone ahead, it risked exacerbating an already volatile situation in that SADC country.

Although there are conflicting statements about whether or not the lethal cargo had eventually reached Zimbabwe, we are also told and hence we sincerely hope that the ship has now turned back.
Nevertheless, politically motivated violence is escalating in Zimbabwe under the shadow of armed force and there is still a real danger that any further arms shipments to Zimbabwe will only aggravate the human security situation there. We therefore urge you to build on your achievement and go a step further by declaring an immediate moratorium on the transfer of any and all military, paramilitary, police and security equipment destined for Zimbabwe that can be used in internal repression. Over 110,000 people worldwide, including over 150 Namibian citizens, have signed the petition in support of a moratorium. A sample of that petition, containing 9 486 signatures, is enclosed. The full version of the petition will be available at www.avaaz.org <http://www.avaaz.org/>
or www.iansa.org <http://www.iansa.org/> .

The facts concerning systematic and widespread political violence show that the government of Zimbabwe is prepared to use weapons it receives against its citizens and that since the election in March2008 the armed forces in that country are becoming increasingly involved with the militia and youth gangs in organising and perpetrating gross human rights violations. Very disturbing reports-- about evictions, abductions, arbitrary arrests, assaults, torture, looting and general intimidation against those who are perceived to opposed the government--are widespread in Zimbabwe.

Under international law, weapons and munitions should not be authorized by governments to reach Zimbabwe, whether by air, sea, rail or road, while there is a clear risk that such arms will be used for the current wave of systematic human rights violations and state-sponsored violence in that country. SADC countries should closely and vigorously monitor their airspace and other transport links to prevent attempts to deliver weapons or munitions to Zimbabwe. Several legal and political instruments are already in place on arms transfers in the SADC region.

The SADC Firearms Protocol, which entered into force in 2004, explicitly recognises the harmful effects of poorly regulated arms transfers and the dangers they pose to the well being of people in the sub-region, including their social and economic development and their rights to live in peace. The Firearms Protocol commits the community "to prevent, combat, and eradicate the illicit manufacturing of, excessive and destabilising use and accumulation of, trafficking in, possession and use of, firearms, ammunition and other related materials" and to promote and facilitate regional cooperation to this end. Also, the SADC Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security says that "State Parties shall manage and seek to resolve any dispute between two or more of them by peaceful means” and "shall seek to manage and resolve inter- and intra-state conflict by peaceful means." Furthermore, SADC states have obligations under international human rights law and standards.

The risks that arms transfers pose to the human rights of the people of Zimbabwe also highlights the urgent need for a robust, legally-binding global Arms Trade Treaty, based on international human rights and humanitarian law. A strong treaty would prevent arms sales, which are likely to be used to abuse people's rights and fuel conflict. It is clear that this treaty is needed urgently.

The African campaign to stop the "An Yue Jiang" reaching Zimbabwe has been lead by citizens and civil society organizations, backed by their counterparts worldwide. In particular, the Durban dockworkers who refused to unload the Chinese ship and religious and civil society organisations all over southern Africa have taken a moral stand. Several regional leaders have supported them.

We therefore call upon you, President Pohamba, to act immediately to freeze arms supplies to Zimbabwe and encourage respect for human rights in that country.


On behalf of the national and international signatories to this
Petition,


Yours faithfully



1. National Society for Human Rights

2. Legal Assistance Centre

3. Breaking the Wall of Silence

4. International Action Network on Small Arms

5. Gun Free Namibia

Police detain Tsvangirai again

2008-06-06

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN636631.html

Zimbabwean police on Friday detained opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai for the second time this week after blocking him from reaching a campaign rally for the June 27 presidential run-off vote. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change accuses President Robert Mugabe of trying to sabotage Tsvangirai's campaign in order to preserve his 28-year hold on power.

Women's statement on Zimbabwe

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/48556

We, the Zimbabwean women and women worldwide, urgently call for stopping of violence in Zimbabwe and protection of women and girls, in this post election catastrophe. This is an emergency as the country gears up for a presidential run-off on the 27th of June 2008.The violence persists and is real. No election observers are yet in the country, despite our calls, appeals, cries to Southern Africa Development Community, (SADC), African Union (AU) and the United Nations. Zimbabwe is a full signatory to CEDAW.
WOMEN’S STATEMENT ON ZIMBABWE

IT’S AN EMERGENCY
STOP THE VIOLENCE AND PROTECT WOMEN AND GILRS NOW

Presented to:

Human Rights Council, June 2008 Session
Geneva, Switzerland

30 May 2008

We, the Zimbabwean women and women worldwide, urgently call for stopping of violence in Zimbabwe and protection of women and girls, in this post election catastrophe. This is an emergency as the country gears up for a presidential run-off on the 27th of June 2008.The violence persists and is real. No election observers are yet in the country, despite our calls, appeals, cries to Southern Africa Development Community, (SADC), African Union (AU) and the United Nations. Zimbabwe is a full signatory to CEDAW.

We are watching a silent genocide of the poor and powerless, due to political induced murders, criminal actions, and collapse of basic services resulting in deaths due to lack of health care, food, shelter for the displaced, especially after the March 29th, 2008 elections. Most of the affected are women and children.

• The post election murders, burnings, lootings and intimidation have most affected women and girls since its rural targeted and 80% of women live in rural areas.
• Over 800 homes have been burnt down, making it traumatic for mothers who have to feed the children and care for the sick
• Over 10 000 people have fled their homes, are displaced and squatters with relatives and with fear of going back home. Children displaced are not in schools
• Over 50 people have been murdered in cold blood, and mostly from the opposition.
• An estimated 7000 teachers have fled their schools as a number have been beaten in the eyes of parents and pupils.
• Doctors for human Rights report that over 2000 serious cases of physical torture and beatings have passed through their hands and a lot of those they treated have suffered serious fractures to an extent that most are permanently handicapped.
• The oldest victim of the post election violence is an old woman with 12 grandchildren all of them orphaned and whose son is alleged to have campaigned for the opposition.
• The youngest female victim is a 15-year-old girl who was stripped naked together with her pregnant mother forced to lie down and beaten on the breasts and buttocks, just many women have been so battered.
• Several girls and women are feared raped. The youngest child seriously assaulted is only 3 years.
• More than 3,000 Zimbabweans die every weak due to AIDS, and their life expectancy is 34 years for women.
• Unemployment is 80% and inflation is 165 000 % and the highest in the world.
• 200 000 women made homeless and jobless by the government 2005 Operation Murambatsviina. Women’s church gatherings are disrupted, women beaten up and abused while at prayer.
• Over 3 million Zimbabweans are in South Africa where they are facing xenophobic attacks
This situation is an extra-ordinary emergency for women and girls. Every person and institution must do everything in their power to stop the violence, restore rule of law, and allow Zimbabweans to exercise their right to vote and live in peace.
We, as Zimbabwean women and women worldwide:

Re-iterate the long-standing position of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) that the failure by government and law enforcement, such as police and army to respect the rights of all citizens is the greatest threat to peace, democracy and development in Zimbabwe.

Really concerned by a real danger of civil strife catalyzed by the growing humanitarian crisis. We are witnessing increasing levels of tension and political polarization among the population, which turned out to vote on March 29. The media reports on the party political position adopted by the law enforcement, which should ordinarily maintain neutrality. The recent purchase of military weapons adds to this fear.

Call for immediate cessation of organized and targeted intimidation against the citizens, particularly the use of women and girls as weapons of ‘war’, evidenced by the brutal battering of women’s buttocks, rape and sexual abuse.

Demand the immediate disbanding of the militias, comprised of youths, security agents and one terror group code named Chipangano, which have caused terror and havoc in the rural and urban areas exacerbating the humanitarian situation by creating internal refugees. We demand the disbanding of torture bases where gross abuses of women are taking place including forced labor (cooking and cleaning) and sexual abuse.

Request the Leadership of SADC, the African Union and the United Nations to effectively engage with the ZANU PF government to stop using violence against its people and take tangible actions if the violence continues.

Request especially the Human Rights Council to:
I. Establish programme of engagement with Zimbabwe for protection of human rights especially for women, girls and children. The UN must deploy human rights monitors during the run-up to the Presidential Elections.

II. Mandate and support UN Special Rapportuer on Violence Against Women must do a fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe and support the efforts of community, grassroots and other organisations living in a culture of fear, survivors of violence and abuse.

III. Mandate and support UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders must put in place ways of ensuring safety and protection for women human rights advocates and activists, who find themselves in fear of life and who ability to engage publicly is compromised.

IV. Engage with Zimbabwe government and authorities and stop the violence, and demand the state to protect ordinary people’s lives.

V. Encourage and support for humanitarian assistance to Zimbabwe, especially in support of food, health and education for rural communities and mostly the displaced.

Organizations and Individuals are encouraged to sign on this statement, and submit to coalition@zol.co.zw (Zimbabwe Women’s Coalition) or worldoffice@worldywca.org; or athenainitiative@gmail.com or dakotareed07@gmail.com

SIGNED
Zimbabwe Women’s Coalition
World YWCA
ATHENA
Girl Child Network
Rozaria Memorial Trust

Africa's food crisis

Issue 139, 2008 - Weekly Roundup

2008-06-04

http://www.aumonitor.org

As the world food summit wraps up in Rome, civil society organisations call on policy makers to investigate the role of “commodity speculators in causing the current food price crisis and stop them profiting from hunger”. Speculative investment in commodity futures has “made prices more volatile and divorced prices from what is actually being produced on the ground”. In fact, the African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) recently concluded a workshop to “identify food price induced needs and propose practical solutions to the crisis”. Under the framework of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme the workshop aimed to strengthen coordinated African agriculture and a food and nutrition security response. The AU and Nepad urged states “to honour their commitment to the Maputo Declaration of allocating 10% of their national budgets to agricultural and rural development”. The workshop also proposed concrete short and long-term responses to the food crisis and follow up actions for various stakeholders, which the AU is charged with monitoring. In addition, the African Development Bank (AfDB) has underlined the threat posed by the rise in food prices on Africa’s economic growth rate. With increases in prices of basic food and fertilisers, the AfDB is implementing measures, such as the African Fertiliser Financing Scheme, to ensure agricultural productivity. AfDB has also proposed that Africa entice and support private financing of agriculture, strengthen ministries of agriculture and implement policies that favour women.

Similarly, at a Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) meeting of Ministers of Agriculture, Trade and Finance, it was agreed that the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development will provide 100 million dollars annually to support agricultural productivity in the region and invest four billion dollars over two years to boost agricultural productivity, mostly in the form of input support for small family farms. “The ministers said the elimination of existing obstacles to intra-regional movement of persons and goods would also contribute towards easing the prevailing spiralling cost of foodstuffs by ensuring easier access of Community citizens to commodities produced in the region”. This sentiment echoed that of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers, meeting earlier in the week, which called on states to effectively implement the Protocol relating to the Free Movement of Persons, Right of Residence and Establishment.

Also in West Africa, a pay dispute within the Guinean army escalated into violence, claiming at least three lives. The AU Commission (AUC) called on Guinean military personnel to “refrain from the use of arms” and urged state institutions to immediately initiate dialogue and consultation with all the stakeholders, while President Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso, the Chairman of ECOWAS, held consultations on the situation on the margins of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). “The meeting expressed great concern about reported unrest by elements of the Armed Forces of Guinea which put at risk the safety and security of the civilian population and poses a grave threat to the fragile peace in the entire Mano River Union area.”

As African leaders return from the TICAD this week, the Group of African Ambassadors in Russia called for more development oriented policies during a series of high level meetings with Russian government officials and suggested that Moscow hold an international conference to discuss ways of enhancing economic partnership and cooperation. Regarding this global courting of Africa, Ken Kamoche recognizes Africa’s strategic global position, but notes that despite the fact that “Africa is more powerful than it realises” “it lacks vision and political instability remains a stumbling block” to effectively use this position for its own benefit. Further noting that the lack of unity in Africa has created a situation where, despite Africa’s potential political power, African leaders are opening their economies for promises of aid that recreate a disempowering asymmetry between the continent and the rest of the world. Muthoni Wanyeki adds “I almost no longer care about the G8’s side of the bargain — to address historical and structural problems with development financing for Africa not just through ODA, but also through debt, investment and trade. What I do care about, however, is our own side of the bargain — to address our governance problems.” Taking examples from Kenya, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and others, she notes that the recent gains in civil and political rights are fraying as African leaders attempt to compensate for limitations on basic freedoms with increased economic growth – a situation Pheroze Nowrojee has described as Africans being primed for fascism.

Finally, the United Nations special representative on the human rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs) commended the AU this week for the draft convention for the protection and assistance of IDPs. While the xenophobic violence that has engulfed South Africa prompt Gwen Lister to question the viability of a union government which she claims “would be meaningless unless Africans are able to treat one another with the respect and dignity they deserve, especially when it comes to refugee communities”.

Africa: The first casualties in wartime happen to be women

2008-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/6hqcof

Truth is often said to be the first casualty in wartime. But if the real truth is told, it is women who are the first casualties. In conflict zones, the United Nations children's agency UNICEF recently observed, sexual violence usually spreads like an epidemic. Whether it is civil war, pogroms, or other armed conflicts, all too often women's bodies become part of the battlefield. The victims of large-scale sexual atrocities range from baby girls to old women.

Gambia: Parents detained over daughters' FGM

2008-06-06

http://www.afrol.com/articles/29251

The parents of five daughters of Gambian descent have been detained in Oslo, Norway, after a human rights group revealed all the girls had been subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) in The Gambia. The youngest girl, aged five, has been taken away from parents, while the elder four are with family in The Gambia.

Global: Spanish Government Signs onto UNIFEM’s Say NO to Violence against Women Campaign

2008-06-05

http://www.unifem.org/news_events/story_detail.php?StoryID=686

Spain has signed on to UNIFEM’s Say NO to Violence against Women campaign (www.SayNOtoViolence.org). Today, during a ceremony in Madrid, Bibiana Aído, Minister of Equality, added her name on behalf of the Spanish Government in the presence of UNIFEM Executive Director Inés Alberdi. UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman, who is the spokesperson of the campaign, joined the ceremony live via satellite link from Nashville.

Global: State of the world's girls 2008

2008-06-06

http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/6322.html

The protection of children's rights was first brought up on the international agenda in the first half of the twentieth century due to child labor and its hazardous working conditions, trafficking and sexual exploitation (UNICEF 2005). One of the first key instruments in the development of children’s rights legislation was the proclamation of the 1924 declaration of the Rights of the Child by the League of Nations. However, children’s rights as we know them today emerged from the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1989 which came to replace the former declaration.

Global: UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women issues annual call for proposals

2008-06-05

http://www.unifem.org/news_events/story_detail.php?StoryID=678

The United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, managed by UNIFEM on behalf of the UN system, issued its 2008 global annual call for proposals to support national and local initiatives working to end violence against women in the developing world and countries in transition on 28 April 2008.

Tanzania: President signs UNIFEM’s Say NO to Violence against Women Campaign

2008-06-05

http://www.unifem.org/news_events/story_detail.php?StoryID=684

President of the United Republic of Tanzania H.E. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete signed UNIFEM’s Say NO to Violence against Women campaign on Saturday 24 May 2008 in Dar es Salaam. At a colourful ceremony at Mnazi Mmoja Grounds, the president led more than 2,000 people from government ministries and institutions, universities, schools, women’s organizations, unions, the UN, and development partners to add their names to the campaign.

Uganda: Rights treaty snags on 'African Values'

2008-06-06

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3619

Uganda signed the Maputo Protocol--a key women's rights treaty in Africa--in 2003. Since then the landmark treaty has run into religious arguments against Western influence and abortion. Fifth in a series on African women and the rule of law.

Egypt: Recommendation on human rights in Egypt - FIDH & OMCT

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/48558

In view of the meeting of the Sub-committee on political matters: human rights and democracy, international and regional issues between the EU and Egypt to be held on 2-3 June 2008, the Euro Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) are deeply concerned about the deterioration of the human rights situation since the adoption of the European Neighbourhood Policy action plan in March 2007.
May 2008
RECOMMMENDATIONS ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN EGYPT
In view of the Sub-committee on political matters: human rights and democracy, international and regional issues between the EU and Egypt

2-3 June 2008
In view of the meeting of the Sub-committee on political matters: human rights and democracy, international and regional issues between the EU and Egypt to be held on 2-3 June 2008, the Euro Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) are deeply concerned about the deterioration of the human rights situation since the adoption of the European Neighbourhood Policy action plan in March 2007. The Egyptian government has not shown political will to implement its commitments. Furthermore it has adopted tough new measures that contradict with the human rights chapter in the action plan.

While the constitutional framework in Egypt allows the exercise of fundamental freedoms, in practice, with the maintenance of the state of emergency, it has remained rather restrictive.
Indeed, in April 2006, the Government extended twenty-two years of continuous emergency rule for another two years. The state of emergency has been facilitating serious human rights violations like prolonged detention without charge, torture and ill-treatment, undue restriction on freedoms of speech, association and assembly, and unfair trials before military courts and State Security Courts.

We are deeply concerned by the recent renewal of the state of emergency until 2010. The proposed draft law on anti-terrorism will replicate the abusive provisions of the emergency legislation. The Government has been using the state of emergency and anti-terrorism policies to harass peaceful opposition, civil society and restrict freedom of expression. The
Government amendment of the constitution in the beginning of 2007 further devalued the rights and freedoms chapter for the sake of the coming anti-terror law expanding the use of military court to try civilians. These courts represent a severe abuse of the right to fair trial and its judgments cannot be appealed. Recently 25 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood were sentenced to up to 10 years in prison by an Egyptian military court. We reckon that this trial may have been politically motivated as those cases were transferred to the military court according to a Presidential decree after a regular criminal court had acquitted some of the defendants of all charges.

The Egyptian government has multiplied restrictive measures on freedom of association during the previous months1 and the decision ordering the registration of the Center for Trade
Union and Workers Services (CTUWS) has not been implemented yet. A lot of other NGOs and particularly rights groups have been facing systematic security intervention in their activities and internal affairs. Furthermore, the Government is preparing a new amendment to the association law that is expected to enforce administrative and security restrictions on NGOs.

The continuous harassment of private media was once again demonstrated through the consecutive indictment of tens of journalists and the ongoing prosecution of others for publications offences. In most of these cases the government uses ambiguous and unclear provisions from the penal law to muzzle freedom of expression. These articles criminalize publishing what the Government calls “false news, statements or rumors likely to disturb public order" or "criticizing public figures".

Torture and other ill-treatments are systematic in places of detention in Egypt, including police stations, premises run by SSI services (State Security Investigation) and prisons and perpetrators are rarely brought to justice2. Arbitrary arrests followed by incommunicado and secret detention are a persistent feature linked to the state of emergency and anti terrorism laws. Many cases were documented in 2007. No measures have been taken to bring justice for victims or to hold the perpetrators to account leading to a culture of impunity. To the contrary, very recently two doctors of the El Nadim Centre for Psychological Management and Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence have been assaulted and intimidated immediately before they were to appear in Court to testify in a torture case.

Several cases of killings, by Egyptian security forces, of migrants and asylum seekers, at the border area between Egypt and Israel were reported. The Egyptian authorities have not announced that these crimes would be investigated. Furthermore, no concrete action has been taken in order to ensure that such acts do not repeat themselves again in the future. It is also to be recalled that the killings, by Egyptian security forces, of 27 Sudanese asylum seekers, during a demonstration in Cairo in December 2005, still remain unpunished. The enquiry was closed without any clarifications by the Public prosecutor.
The failure to respect basic economic, social and cultural rights in Egypt and in particular the rights of farmers that represent over 50% of the country’s population is well documented. The resulting wide spread poverty and dislocation has lead to the farmers and their families, as well as others, being subjected to violence on a wide scale, including torture and other forms of ill-treatment perpetrated by state and non-state actors. Unfortunately, certain negative effects of the implementation of the agricultural provisions of the EU Association Agreement have been identified as exacerbating the situation.5 The EU Egypt dialogue can help address this situation by identifying the positive and negative impacts of the implementation of all the elements of the Association Agreement and the ENP Action Plan on the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights and identifying ways in which the Egyptian Authorities can move to effectively ensure the enjoyments of those rights.

Despite the amended nationality law no. 154 year 2004, a large number of Egyptian women married to Palestinian husbands are prevented from passing their nationality to their children.
Due to unjust exceptions put by the Ministry of Interior and the claim that the Egyptian government is applying a recommendation of the Arab League issued in 1959 prohibiting giving Palestinians other nationalities to preserve their Palestinian identity. In fact, representative of Palestinian State in the Arab League has sent official letter to the Egyptian immigration department asking them to end the suffering of those women, enabling them to pass on their Egyptian nationality to their children. Furthermore, Egyptian Department of passport and immigration refused to execute judicial rulings of Egyptian courts, which gave children of Egyptian women married to Palestinian husbands Egyptian nationality.

Many Egyptian women suffered sexual harassment and were beaten badly in streets while they were participating in peaceful demonstrations and in public events in the presence of the
Egyptian Police.

We are deeply concerned and disappointed by the negative developments mentioned above.

We stress that the credibility of the ENP action plan with Egypt is dependent on prioritizing human rights issues discussions between the EU and the Egyptian government. The efficiency of the action plan strongly requires concrete measures and a concrete timetable to fulfill the human rights section.

We welcome the convening of the present subcommittee which contributes to the reinforcement of the dialogue on human rights between Egypt and the EU. This subcommittee represents a major opportunity to monitor the situation of human rights and reforms. It should hold regular and systematic consultations with civil society to seek its assessment of the evolution of the human rights situation in Egypt.

In view of the meeting of the EU-Egypt Sub-committee, we urge that the following points be included in the agenda as essential issues to be discussed. We call upon the EU to urge the
Egyptian authorities to:

International human rights standards
Respect their commitment to abide by relevant international standards. International human rights law should be the main reference and should outweigh any national provision invoked.

The State of Emergency
Repeal the emergency legislation used to justify practices and abuses that deny or illegally restrict freedoms, in particular freedoms of expression, assembly and association as well as safeguards for fair trial, prompt access to lawyers and the ban of using evidence extracted under torture, and that facilitates human rights violations such as arbitrary and incommunicado detentions, torture and other ill-treatments.
Put an end to the use of provisions of the laws on the state of emergency and against terrorism, and all other security-related legislation, as a basis for criminalising or imposing arbitrary restrictions on the peaceful activities and freedom of expression of civil society organisations

Torture
Ensure that the practice of torture and ill-treatment is stopped by making the necessary legal changes into the domestic legislation and by ensuring accountability for acts of torture. Egypt should abide by its commitments under the UN Convention against Torture (CAT) whose provisions must be incorporated into domestic legislation by amending the definition of torture to bring it in line with the UN CAT definition.

Indeed, according to the Egyptian Penal Code, torture is limited to physical abuse and it occurs only when the victim is “an accused” and when it is used to obtain a confession. This implies that cases against other individuals, mental or psychological abuses or torture for other purposes than obtaining a confession fell outside the definition of torture, contrary to the definition of torture of CAT.

Ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) and respond positively to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture visit request which is pending since 1996.

The Egyptian authorities should take significant steps in providing safeguards during detention and interrogation, in promptly, effectively and impartially investigating allegations of torture and in prosecuting those responsible.

Justice
Respect the role of the judiciary as the cornerstone in the process of democratic reform and the development of the Rule of Law and the main safeguard for human rights and fundamental freedoms

Ensure and strengthen the independence of the judiciary by amending or repealing all legal provisions that infringe or do not sufficiently guarantee that independence. In particular, all appointments to the highest positions within the judiciary, including at the High Judicial Council and High Constitutional Court, should be made without the discretionary interference of the Executive

Respect and protect the freedom of association and expression of judges in accordance with Articles 8 and 9 of the UN Basic Principles on the Independence of the Judiciary.

Put an immediate end to all defamation campaigns in public media, harassment measures and abusive disciplinary proceedings against judges who resort to their freedoms of expression or association

Abolish the possibility to refer civilians to martial courts and amend the Law on martial courts No. 25 of 1966 in order to limit these courts’ jurisdiction to the trial of military officers accused of committing martial crimes and crimes committed within military units and barracks only

Freedom of expression, association
Urge the Government to implement the recent decision ordering the registration under the association law of the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS)

Undertake a review of the code to disallow criminal prosecution for defamation and other offences violating the right to free expression

Put an end to illegitimate interferences of the security services at all stages in the life of associations and in all their activities

Put an end to harassment measures, including judicial measures, taken against human rights defenders and the members of organisations seen as hostile to the government, such as the Centre for Trade Union and Workers' Services and the Association for Human Rights Legal Aid (AHRLA)

Adopt a genuinely participative approach towards civil society organisations and ensure, through an adequate consultative mechanism, that they will contribute to decision-making related to public policy

Rights of Human rights defenders
Ensure in all circumstances the integrity and safety of human rights defenders. The government should investigate the recent physical harassment against prominent women human rights defenders, such as the director of Nadim Center for victims of torture harassed while she was in a human rights mission and publish its conclusions.

Put an end to all forms of harassment against all human rights defenders in Egypt.

Ensure the free use of the internet and put an end to any harassment and arrest against internet activists and persons involved in the on line advocacy of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Put an end to and conduct impartial investigation into latest violence and harassment against democratic movement activists and protesting movements

Conform to the provisions of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1998, and, more generally, ensure in all circumstances respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with international human rights standards and international instruments ratified by Egypt.
Rights of minorities
Allow all citizens to use their actual religious identity when required to list religion on government documents and abstain from resorting to discriminatory practice, directed in particular at Baha’is, by which converts from Islam are prevented from listing their true belief

Women’s rights
Lifting all exceptions made by the Egyptian Passport and Immigration Department to the execution of the amended nationality law no. 154 year 2004, which prohibit Egyptian women married to Palestinian husbands from passing their nationality to their children. Ending these discriminatory measures which make those women and their families suffer, ensuring their full enjoyment of their citizenship rights and equal status with other Egyptian women married to non Egyptians who can pass their nationality to their children.

Executing Egyptian courts judicial rulings which gave children of Egyptian women married to Palestinian husbands Egyptian nationality.

Take all necessary measures to end physical and sexual harassment of women while participating in demonstrations and public events, in streets and elsewhere ensuring respecting their human rights to safety and body integrity.

Withdraw its reservations on the International Convention against all Forms of Discrimination against Women (articles 2 &16) and ratify the Optional Protocol on filing complaints

Protect women from all forms of physical, psychological and sexual violence, and enact legislations which explicitly criminalize domestic violence

Allocate financial resources from the State's budget to activities related to the elimination of violence against women, and increase the penalties for crimes classified as violence against women, such as beating and forced abortion.

Ensure promotion of gender equality in its policies and programs on all levels and all areas of work.

Rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers
Fully implement the principles of the Conventions, through its national legislation, to which Egypt is Party i.e. the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (and its Optional Protocol 1967) and the 1969 OAU Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, as well as the InternationalConvention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrants Workers and Members of their Family in 1993 (entered into force in 2003).

Deliver residency documents, work permits or other similar documents, in order to enable all recognised refugees to fully access their rights, notably work, health care and education.

Reopen the investigations on the killing of the 27 Sudanese asylum seekers in December 2005, as requested by the UN Committee on the rights of Migrant Workers, in its concluding remarks to Egypt;

Open independent investigations on the killings and ill treatments of migrants and refugees; more particularly, investigate the killings by Egyptian security forces ofmigrants and refugees crossing the Egyptian borders toward Israel, in an attempt to seek asylum in the later country; Ensure that these crimes do not remain unpunished and no more occur in the future. Fully apply article 3 of the UN Convention against Torture (CAT) and thus restrain itself from forcibly returning any migrant and/or refugee to a country where she/he may face mistreatments; Make the necessary investigation concerning the alleged forcible return to their country of origin of a group of migrants and refugees, arrested after attempting to cross to Israel; Ensure that such acts no more take place in the future; Make public the information about the whereabouts of those who may still be detained and enable local civil society organisations to have access to them and provide them with the necessary assistance.

The government should clarify the legal status of Sudanese migrants in Egypt, including by undertaking legislative and administrative measures aimed at the effective implementation of the ‘Four Freedoms’ Agreement6. The government should promote awareness among employers and the public at large of the status enjoyed by Sudanese migrants in Egypt under the ‘Four Freedoms’ Agreement.

Egypt should amend the Labor Code in order to extend legal protection to domestic workers. Complaints of psychological or physical violence should be impartially and promptly investigated and their perpetrators prosecuted and punished. The fact for “anyone, other than a public official duly authorized by law, to confiscate, destroy or attempt to destroy identity documents, documents authorizing entry to or stay, residence or establishment in the national territory or work permits” (art.21) should be expressly prohibited under domestic law.

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
The European Union and Egypt should agree to give priority consideration to ensuring respect for the economic, social and cultural rights of the country’s population and in particular farmers and their families. Focus should be given to those measures that can reduce the vulnerability of farmers and their families to violence. A working group should be set up, open to the participation of civil society organisations, that would be charged with identifying specific measures to be taken by the EU and Egypt to further respect economic, social and cultural rights, identifying relevant indicators and monitoring and evaluating progress.

Sudan : Government ignores ICC extradition call

2008-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/6nc3db

Sudan will not surrender any individuals accused of war crimes in the country's Darfur region to the International Criminal Court, Sudan's UN ambassador has said. Abdalmahmood Mohamad said on Wednesday that Khartoum would not extradite any Sudanese to The Hague, a day after Sudan was accused of complicity in crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Zimbabwe: Reverse ban on food aid to rural areas

2008-06-06

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/06/04/zimbab19022.htm

The government should immediately reverse its decision to ban aid agencies from distributing food to hundreds of thousands of hungry people in rural areas, Human Rights Watch has said. On May 29, 2008, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Social Welfare, Nicolas Goche, issued a directive prohibiting a major international aid agency from distributing food in Masvingo province.

DRC: Deadly attack on IDP camp

2008-06-06

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EGUA-7FBQD6?OpenDocument

The UN refugee agency on Thursday condemned a rebel attack on a makeshift camp in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that left at least nine people dead, including two children, and scores wounded. UNHCR said it was evacuating staff and temporarily suspending operations in the Rutshuru area of North Kivu province after Wednesday's raid on Kinyandoni camp, which shelters some 5,000 internally displaced people (IDP).

DRC: Rise in spontaneous IDP sites worrying

2008-06-06

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78436

The humanitarian community in North Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has expressed concern over the proliferation of the number of "spontaneous" sites for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the province, hosting at least 857,000 IDPs. "These spontaneous sites are quite new in North Kivu and they are mainly linked to reduced capacities of host families to accommodate the displaced, Caroline Draveny, the public information officer for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told IRIN. "We are working on ways of assisting the affected IDPs as well as the host families themselves."

South Africa: Migrants sent to camps

2008-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/4m96tu

The South African authorities have begun moving nearly 10,000 immigrants, forced out by xenophobic violence, into camps on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Dozens of buses provided by the UN's refugee agency began transporting immigrants into relief camps after they had spent up to three weeks in community centres, churches and shelters.

Africa: ZCTU Vice President elected into the ILO

2008-06-05

http://tinyurl.com/43oafc

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) 1st Vice-President, Ms Lucia Gladys Matibenga has been elected into the Governing body of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) at the ongoing ILO Annual Conference in Geneva, Switzerland.
Ms Matibenga was elected on 2 June 2008, after receiving 107 votes from the delegates.

Egypt: Egyptian CSOs ready to engage the AU

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/socialmovements/48559

On May 24th and 25th 2008, the Centre for Citizens Participation in the African Union (CCP-AU) in collaboration the Egyptian Business Women Association (EBWA), Cairo Institute of Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), Fahamu, Federation Internationale des Droits de l”Homme (FIDH) and Oxfam Liaison Office with the African Union, organized a training workshop for Egyptian and other North African CSOs on the African Union under the title “Understanding the African Union and Seizing Opportunities for Change” in Cairo, Egypt.
Egyptian CSOs ready to engage the AU
40 Activists get trained by the CCP-AU

Cairo, Addis Ababa – 30 May 2008 -- On May 24th and 25th 2008, the Centre for Citizens Participation in the African Union (CCP-AU) in collaboration the Egyptian Business Women Association (EBWA), Cairo Institute of Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), Fahamu, Federation Internationale des Droits de l”Homme (FIDH) and Oxfam Liaison Office with the African Union, organized a training workshop for Egyptian and other North African CSOs on the African Union under the title “Understanding the African Union and Seizing Opportunities for Change” in Cairo, Egypt.

Forty participants drawn from Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia attended the training in Cairo, which is a continuation from the last two training workshops held in Accra, Ghana and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ahead of the June 2007 and January 2008 African Union Summits.

Opening the training workshop, Dr. Mohammed Naimi representing the African Union Commission, commended CCP-AU’s initiative to build the North African CSO capacity on the African Union. In his remarks, he said, “this training is in line with the vision and the mission of the African Union, which has clearly stated in its strategic plan, to actively involve African citizens at large and members of the Diaspora in the process of building continental integration”.

The objective of the training was for the participants to have a clear understanding of the African Union with its key organs and the decision making process that will help them identify key opportunities to engage with this continental body.

Resourced by experts from the African Union Commission, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and CSOs, the training was conducted on the following areas:

Background of the African Union and the transition from the OAU to the AU
The vision, mission and mandates
Key organs of the AU including the Commission, the Pan-African parliament, the peace and security council, the human rights court, the citizens directorate and ECOSOCC
Decision making processes at the AU
Importance of collaboration between African CSOs and the AU
Importance of African citizens participation in African union affairs including Egyptian and other North African CSOs

This training workshop successfully built the capacity of Egyptian and other North African CSOs and hence created a way for the CSOs to engage in the upcoming African Union Summit to be held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt from 24 June to 1 July 2008.

The training ended with the participants agreeing to engage with the AU and to take part in the upcoming CSO Continental Conference to be held in Sharm El Sheikh from June 22-23rd, 2008. This conference will gather African citizens from all parts of the continent and the Diaspora, CSOs and other concerned bodies to discuss the pertinent issues on the Summit agenda as well as key issues within the continent.

Contact: Centre for Citizens’ Participation in the African Union (CCP-AU)
aucitizens@yahoo.com
+251- 911-450822

Africa: The institutionalisation of political power

2008-06-06

http://www.eldis.org/go/country-profiles&id=37141&type=Document

This paper argues that African politics needs to be viewed through a lens that recognises the formal constraints on executives and rejects the assumption that African leaders simply get what they want. Citing a series of recent cases in which African rulers are forced to accept something other than their preferred outcomes, the authors say that across sub-Saharan Africa, formal institutional rules are coming to matter much more than they used to and displace violence as the primary source of constraints on executive behaviour.

Africa: U.S. Africa Command trims its aspirations

2008-06-05

http://tinyurl.com/3mprad

The U.S. Africa Command, designed to boost America's image and prevent terrorist inroads on the continent, has scaled back its ambitions after African governments refused to host it and aid groups protested plans to expand the military's role in economic development in the region.

Kenya: Post-poll coalition wobbles over amnesty

2008-06-06

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=341029

Kenya's prime minister openly dissented with the president on Tuesday in a row over amnesty for post-election crimes, showing the fragility of the coalition running East Africa's largest economy. In another sign of the lack of unity in the government, newspapers splashed pictures of the pair's security guards scuffling in an embarrassing dispute on a national holiday.

Cameroon: Government urged to end intimidation of journalists reporting on corruption scandals

2008-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/67czfa

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has urged the Cameroonian government to end the intimidation of journalists reporting on corruption scandals in the country after at least five journalists and media industry leaders have been interrogated by police in connection with the publication of articles on a defective aircraft bought for President Paul Biya.

Nigeria: Senate approves new anti-graft chief

2008-06-06

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN636059.html

Nigeria's Senate has approved a former top police officer to head the country's anti-corruption agency, rejecting opposition and rights campaigners' concerns that President Umaru Yar'Adua disregarded the law in naming her. Senators voted unanimously on Thursday in support of the appointment of Farida Waziri, a retired high-ranking police officer chosen by Yar'Adua last month to head the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Africa: 'Africa must invest in infrastructure' - Kikwete

2008-06-06

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/18685

African presidents attending the 8th Leon H.Sullivan Summit in Arusha, Tanzania, have cited corruption and poor infrastructure as major obstacle in efforts to raise the quality of life the continent's people. The six presidents are Mwai Kibaki of Kenya, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Armando Gebuza of Mozambique, Mohamed Abdulaziz of Sahrawi, Omar al Bashir of Sudan and their host President Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania.

Africa: Intellectual property in Africa can alleviate poverty - WEF

2008-06-06

http://www.buanews.gov.za/view.php?ID=08060610151002&coll=buanew08

A key report on intellectual property in Africa, which can show how African firms can retain profits, was launched at the World Economic Forum on Africa on Thursday. Called "Distinctive values in African Exports: How intellectual property can raise export income and alleviate poverty", it was produced by an organisation called Light Years and funded by the Department for International Development in the United Kingdom.

Egypt: Falling wages, high prices and the failure

2008-06-05

http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet111.html#continue

In April 2008, after a wave of protests over low wages and high food prices, including an attempt to generate a general strike by many workers and social activists on April 6 and led by workers in the state-run textile industry, the Egyptian government suspended its export of rice and cement in order to meet local demand. This suspension of exports is a response to the failure of the export-oriented economy that the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) prescribed for Egypt in 1991.

Global: Food summit aggrees on greater liberalization

2008-06-06

http://www.ipsterraviva.net/europe/article.aspx?id=6165

The three-day world summit called by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation to respond to the food crisis ended with plans and pledges – and a new push to liberalisation. The plan of action, agreed by some 183 countries at the end of the meeting Thursday, does not seek any binding commitment from governments. Its formulation is similar to some declarations on food security issued by the United Nations over the last ten years.

Global: Macroeconomic consequences of remittances

2008-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/4g6b5q

A paper recently issued by the IMF examines the macro-economic impact of the aggregated remittance flows on the economies that receive them. The paper addresses two main issues: how to manage the remittance macroeconomic effects, and how to harness their development potential. The findings yield a number of important caveats and policy considerations, however, that have largely been overlooked. The main challenge for policymakers in countries that receive significant flows of remittances is to design policies that promote remittances and increase their benefits while mitigating adverse side effects.

Africa: Armies grapple with HIV among troops

2008-06-06

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78601

After years of dragging their feet over HIV/AIDS in their ranks, African armies are slowly making strides in curbing the spread of the pandemic, senior military officers at the fourth HIV Implementer's meeting in Kampala, Uganda, admitted this week. Since its formation in the mid-1980s, and all through the 1990s, the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF) lost thousands of soldiers to HIV. President Yoweri Museveni declared HIV a threat to national security as early as 1987.

Global: Anti-HIV treatment provided to 3 million in poorer countries by end of 2007

2008-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/46dlk4

An estimated 3 million HIV-positive patients in low- and middle-income countries were receiving antiretroviral therapy at the end of 2007, according to a report released today. Although this is being praised as a “remarkable” public health achievement it means that less than a third of the 9 million-plus patients in need of anti-HIV drugs in the world’s poorer countries are actually being treated with them.

Global: General Assembly should reverse ban on human rights and sexual health groups

2008-06-06

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/06/05/zimbab19027.htm

The United Nations General Assembly should reverse its decision to exclude three human rights and sexual health nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from its June 10 high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS, a coalition of human rights groups and international AIDS organizations has said.

Nigeria: Extensive resistance common in patients failing antiretroviral therapy

2008-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/3qo4ay

Just over half of a sample of Nigerian patients on failing antiretroviral therapy had extensive cross-resistance to all nucleoside analogues, including tenofovir, according to findings from Nigeria’s national treatment programme presented on Wednesday at the 2008 HIV Implementers’ meeting in Kampala, Uganda.

South Africa: Current HIV treatment models not good enough

2008-06-06

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78545

More than 400,000 HIV-positive South Africans have begun antiretroviral treatment (ART) since the government launched its programme in 2004. But this impressive-sounding figure still only represents one third of the estimated number of people in need of treatment, and that number is expanding by an additional half a million people every year.

South Africa: HIV a factor behind obesity?

2008-06-06

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78569

While public health experts in South Africa spent much of the last decade focusing on controlling infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and eradicating malnutrition, the growth of another public health crisis has gone almost unnoticed. High obesity levels, which have given rise to a virtual epidemic of non-communicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension, are finally grabbing attention.

Uganda: Activists arrested during attempt to highlight neglect of HIV prevention for MSM

2008-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/5b9owj

Three gay, lesbian and transgender individuals have been arrested in Uganda after peacefully protesting about an announcement from the Ugandan AIDS Commission that no resources would be directed to HIV programmes targeting gay men and other men who have sex with men. The arrests happened at the HIV/AIDS Implementers’ Meeting which is currently taking place in Uganda.

Global: Global Education Fund textbooks and teacher training programs

2008-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/6mluf6

Schools that serve poor students in developing countries often lack even the most basic infrastructure. Students sit at simple desks, which in many cases must be purchased by the students themselves. Classrooms lack textbooks so students must copy all material off of a chalkboard. Teachers are often poorly trained and unprepared to teach their overflowing classes.

Kenya: Students pour in, teachers drain away

2008-06-06

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=42667

Six hundred teachers have left classrooms in Kenyan schools for better paying jobs elsewhere in just the past six months, according to the Head Teachers Association and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT). That is about three teachers leaving the service every day.

Kenya: Teenage mothers denied education

2008-06-06

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=42487

At 17, Julia Metito* (*not her real name) should be in her final year in secondary school in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, but three years ago she had to leave school to give birth and then nurse a child. Today, she finds herself in Class Seven with 13-year-olds. 13,000 girls leave school every year in Kenya due to pregnancy, according to research released at the beginning of May by the Centre for the Study of Adolescence, a non-governmental organisation that works on reproductive health, gender and social policy for teenagers.

East Africa: Ugandan gays take centre stage after arrest of colleagues

2008-06-06

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=uganda&id=1882

Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), which is an umbrella body of gay organisations in Uganda and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) are demanding immediate release of three lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) activists arrested yesterday 4 June. They were apprehended at the 2008 HIV/AIDS Implementers Meeting taking place in that country currently.

Uganda: Church steps farther away over gays

2008-06-06

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=allafrica&id=1879

The fallout over the ordination of gay priests as bishops in the worldwide Anglican Communion reaches a critical point next month when the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) kicks off in Israel. Gafcon brings together the more conservative bishops, several of whom have said they are boycotting the Lambeth Conference that takes place a month later in July. Archbishop Luke Orombi of the Church of Uganda is one of the primates who will not be attending Lambeth but will be in Jerusalem at Gafcon, which some have christened the "alternative Lambeth".

Africa: Farmers 'adjusting to climate change'

2008-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/4trbwt

Rural African farmers are already adapting to climate change, according to case studies in Benin, Kenya and Malawi. The studies, carried out by local environmental groups for the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), found that farmers are using locally-relevant methods to adjust to their unpredictable environments.

Africa: Sahel stands at ‘ground zero’ of climate change, top UN adviser warns

2008-06-06

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=26878

Africa’s Sahel region is “ground zero” for countries trying to cope with climate change, but sufficient investment in adaptation measures and greater cooperation between neighbouring States means this does not have to lead to conflict, a senior United Nations official has said. Jan Egeland, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser, held talks with officials in Burkina Faso, the first stop on a five-day, three-country mission aimed at spotlighting the effects of climate change, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons and other challenges facing the countries of the Sahel.

DRC: Congolese groups denounce disinformation campaign by industrial logging industry

2008-06-06

http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.3785.aspx

During the French environment minister's recent visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Congolese civil society organizations released a statement drawing attention to the alarming situation in the Congo forests and the destructive activities of logging companies.

Kenya: Months after dump scare, problems persist

2008-06-06

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=42343

Every day, the Dandora dumpsite in the eastern part of Nairobi receives 2,000 tonnes of rubbish -- about half of the waste generated daily by the capital's 4.5 million people. The 12-hectare site is a low mountain of smouldering trash. Vultures and marabou storks circle overhead in anticipation of a meal.

Kenya: Courting Disaster: Why Kenyans must stop Oloolua nuclear waste plant

2008-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/62472f

Kenya is a few days away from hosting the first ever dreaded and less understood radioactive waste processing facility at Oloolua, located at the institute of primate research in Kajiado district. If the facility is allowed to proceed, Kenyans will without doubt pay dearly, in the same way history is certain to harshly judge the current generation. Why?

Kenya: Maasai women tackle drought

2008-06-06

http://www.panos.org.uk/?lid=23018

The Maasai are struggling with frequent water shortages which is threatening their way of life. But one women's group is taking action. Day in and day out from the months of March through to June, grey and white clouds float across the blue skies above Kajiado, southern Kenya. But each passing day, the rain they promise frequently fails to show up.

Tanzania: Govt urged to have law to curb pollution of marine resources

2008-06-06

http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2008/06/03/115693.html

The government has been challenged to enact a law that would spell out stringent punishment against individuals found polluting marine resources. Students in a special `Roots and Shoots` programme of the Jane Goodall Institute suggested on Saturday that, among other penalties, those involved in the acts should be fined.

Nigeria: Ogoni hope Shell ouster brings prosperity

2008-06-06

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN625160.html

The planned removal of oil giant Shell from southern Nigeria's Ogoniland will finally give the impoverished region a chance to develop, the son of executed activist Ken Saro-Wiwa said on Thursday. Saro-Wiwa was hanged in 1995 by Nigeria's then-military government for leading protests against Royal Dutch Shell over pollution and a lack of development, provoking an international outcry and turning Nigeria into a pariah state.

Africa: 'Professionalism in media can tame conflicts'

2008-06-06

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/18730

The media needs to observe high professionalism standards that will pave way for balanced news that carries the truth to the public. Training of professional journalists should be a prerequisite in the media companies if the truth is to be told.

Gambia:Final judgement in the case of Chief Manneh on June 5

2008-06-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/48570

The Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja, Nigeria, will on June 5, 2008, deliver its verdict in the case of the "disappeared" Gambian journalist, Chief Ebrima Manneh. The Government of The Gambia, which is the defendant in the case, has throughout the proceedings refused to cooperate with the ECOWAS Court, and the judgement will therefore be given without the testimonies of five state agents, who failed to make an appearance before the court on March 11, 2008.
Press Statement: Judgement in the case of Chief Manneh on June 5

The Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja, Nigeria, will on June 5, 2008, deliver its verdict in the case of the "disappeared" Gambian journalist, Chief Ebrima Manneh.

The Government of The Gambia, which is the defendant in the case, has throughout the proceedings refused to cooperate with the ECOWAS Court, and the judgement will therefore be given without the testimonies of five state agents, who failed to make an appearance before the court on March 11, 2008.

Manneh, a former reporter of the pro-government Banjul-based Daily Observer newspaper, has been missing since July 2006. He was reportedly arrested by Gambian security personnel, but was never arraigned before any court, nor was he charged with any offence.

The regime of President Yahya Jammeh has consistently denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of the journalist, even though Manneh was arrested at the Daily Observer premises in the presence of his colleagues. He has since been sighted several times in the custody of state security personnel.

The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) in June, 2007, filed a complaint at the ECOWAS court to compel the government of President Jammeh to produce Manneh and to answer for his arrest and subsequent disappearance.


MFWA
Accra
Tel: 233 21 24 24 70
Fax : 233 21 221084
Website : www.mediafound.org
Email : mfwa@africaonline.com.gh

Ghana: Journalists' union demands investigation into assault on reporter

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/48551

The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has issued a release stating their intention to follow through the case of Joe Okyere, a reporter with the state-owned newspaper Daily Graphic, who was beaten on May 25, 2008 at the residence of Isaac Edumadze, Member of Parliament for Ajumako-Eyan-Essiam Constituency of the Central Region of Ghana.
Ghana UPDATE: Journalists' union demands investigation into assault on reporter

The Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) has issued a release stating their intertion to follow through the case of Joe Okyere, a reporter with the state-owned newspaper Daily Graphic, who was beaten on May 25, 2008 at the residence of Isaac Edumadze, Member of Parliament for Ajumako-Eyan-Essiam Constituency of the Central Region of Ghana.

Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)'s correspondent reported that the GJA has decided to petition the Speaker of Parliament, Ebenezer Begyina Sekyi-Hughes to request an investigation into the matter.

On May 25 Okyere and Philip Baidoo, a reporter of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), went to the MP's residence to interview him about his defeat in his party's primaries earlier the same day. When Edumadze saw Okyere he became infuriated because the journalist allegedly had been critical of the MP in his articles.

The assault was witnessed by Baidoo who told MFWA that Edumadze's security guards beat Okyere on the orders of the MP. In an article in the Daily Graphic on May 27, Okyere however claimed that the MP himself also physically assaulted him.

The GJA also intends to seek audiences with the Attorney-General and the Minister of Justice to ensure that the case receives speedy and just attention.

Prof. Kwame Karikari
Executive Director
MFWA
Accra

Tel: 233 21 24 24 70
Fax : 233 21 221084
Website : www.mediafound.org
Email : mfwa@africaonline.com.gh

Ghana: Police assaults journalist

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/48567

Samuel Ebo Bartels, Sports reporter of Citi FM, an Accra-based independent radio station was on June 1, 2008, violently attacked by a group of policemen deployed at the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi, Ghana's second largest city.
Ghana ALERT: Police assaults journalist

Samuel Ebo Bartels, Sports reporter of Citi FM, an Accra-based independent radio station was on June 1, 2008, violently attacked by a group of policemen deployed at the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi, Ghana's second largest city.

The incident occurred after a World Cup qualifying game between the Ghanaian national football team and their Libyan counterparts.

Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)'s correspondent reported that the policemen also prevented a number of journalists who had gone to the inner perimeter of the stadium from conducting interviews after the game.

Bartels told MFWA that he was shocked at the decision of the policemen and therefore queried them about it since he had accreditation to enter any department of the stadium.

The journalist said the policemen, numbering about four, charged on him and beat him mercilessly.

MFWA has learned that a photojournalist of the Ghana Football Association was also violently attacked by the policemen after photographing the attack on Bartels.
In the process Bartels lost his cellular phone.

Prof. Kwame Karikari
Executive Director
MFWA
Accra

Tel: 233 21 24 24 70
Fax : 233 21 221084
Website : www.mediafound.org
Email : mfwa@africaonline.com.gh

Nigeria: House of Representatives again throws out FOI bill

2008-06-06

http://mediarightsagenda.org/repsthrow.html

Nigeria’s lower legislative chamber, the House of Representatives on June 3, 2008, for the seventh time, refused to take the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill at the Committee of the Whole (Third Reading). This came barely 24 hours after the upper chambers, the Senate, held a Public Hearing on the Bill.

Rwanda: From propaganda to peace

2008-06-06

http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/feature_articles/from_propaganda_to_peace

Radio was used to incite hatred in the build up to the genocide in Rwanda. But today the medium promotes messages of reconciliation and peace to those still traumatized by the violence. The radio station Radio Mille Collines (RTLM) played a significant role in instigating and organizing the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Its broadcasts followed the methods seen in almost every other genocide.

Rwanda: Reducing intergroup prejudice and conflict with the media

2008-06-06

http://www.cid.harvard.edu/neudc07/docs/neudc07_s3_p10_paluck.pdf

Can the media reduce prejudice and conflict? Understanding the mass media´s role in shaping prejudiced beliefs, norms and behaviours is very limited. A year-long field experiment in Rwanda tested the impact of a radio soap opera about two Rwandan communities in conflict, which featured messages about reducing intergroup prejudice, violence, and trauma.

Somalia: Beleaguered journalists recognized for courage

2008-06-06

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/06/02/somali19000.htm

Three Somali journalists have been awarded the prestigious Hellmann/Hammett award in recognition for their journalism while risking their lives and suffering terrible hardships in the midst of Somalia’s worsening armed conflict, Human Rights Watch has said.

Central Africa: Envoy welcomes release of child soldiers

2008-06-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/48589

Chad has agreed to release all former child combatants held in detention, while armed rebel groups in the Central African Republic (CAR) have also committed to freeing any children in their ranks, a top United Nations envoy announced after a six day trip to the two countries. “I have been given assurances that parties involved in conflict have agreed to free children in both countries,” the UN’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy said in a statement. “The next challenge will be to reintegrate the children with their families and communities,” she added.

DRC: A small step towards peace in the east

2008-06-06

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78597

A disarmament pledge by two minor Rwandan Hutu rebel groups in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a welcome, if small, step to restoring peace in the devastated region, according to the government and analysts. Rwandan insurgents are one of the key elements in a complex web of armed groups in a region where violence, especially sexual violence against women, is still widespread five years after the official end of DRC's last civil war.

Guinea: Talks held to end revolt

2008-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/3rze42

Lansana Conte, Guinea's president, has met his troops in a bid to end an escalating crisis over unpaid wages that saw soldiers go on the rampage in the capital, a military source said. The meeting on Friday is the first since the start of the pay protest, which has since grown to include other demands, including the departure of senior generals.

North Africa: Mauritania denies shifting side in Sahara conflict

2008-06-06

http://www.afrol.com/articles/29255

Mauritanian officials have emphasised they are not shifting sides towards Morocco in the conflict over Western Sahara, contrasting media reports originating in Morocco. Mauritania's relatively new government confirms it is to stay neutral in the conflict and maintain its recognition of the exiled Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

Sudan: Abyei aflame

2008-06-06

http://www.enoughproject.org/reports/abyei_update_may08

Five weeks after ENOUGH issued its report “Sounding the Alarm on Abyei” the town of Abyei has ceased to exist. Brigade 31 of the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, has displaced the entire civilian population and burned Abyei’s market and housing to the ground. These events were predicted, and absent effective word and action, they became inevitable.

Sudan: Ban urges government to cooperate with prosecutors probing Darfur war crimes

2008-06-06

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=26921

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged Sudan to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) to ensure justice for the victims of crimes committed in the war-torn Darfur region after the Court’s Prosecutor reported that the country is “deliberately” attacking civilians. In a statement issued by his spokesperson, Mr. Ban said he was “deeply concerned about the reported lack of cooperation” of the Sudanese Government with prosecutors at the ICC, which is based in The Hague.

Uganda: Talks with LRA 'fail'

2008-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/6mv6hz

The government of Uganda has said peace talks to end a two decades of conflict with the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have failed. Yoweri Museveni, Uganda's president, on Thursday announced an agreement with neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan to fight the rebel group, led by Joseph Kony.

Africa: Campaigning against conflict

2008-06-06

http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/feature_articles/campaigning_against_conflict

Frustrated by the lack of mainstream media attention, international human rights organizations are using the internet to maintain focus on the conflict in Darfur. ‘When the plane came I was five months pregnant. I lost my baby because of the bombing. When the plane bombed I was outside the house, I saw that my husband was inside. I ran to the house. The smoke from the bomb made me cough, then I lost blood and my child. My body still hurts and my stomach is still big despite the fact that I lost the baby.’

Africa: E-learning 'needs human capacity building'

2008-06-06

http://tinyurl.com/6jnhx3

A survey on learning via technology (e-learning) in Africa suggests that expertise and management skills of the practitioners, not just advancing infrastructure and hardware, are key to the success of e-learning on the continent. The survey of people involved in e-learning in 42 African countries was released at the eLearning Africa conference in Accra, Ghana, from 28–30 May.

Uganda: ICTs for IDP camps

2008-06-06

http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/feature_articles/window_to_the_world

The war in northern Uganda has driven thousands of people from their homes to live in camps. Now, after a lot of trial an error, BOSCO Uganda has brought the internet and low-cost phone calls to the camps, giving the people a chance to tell their own story.

Tunakataa! We say no!

New publication from Vita Books for 2008

2008-06-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/publications/48575

In history, people reach a stage when they say “no” to oppression and exploitation. During the colonial period in Kenya, the Mau Mau liberation movement developed appropriate strategies and tactics of saying “no” to colonialism”. Besides armed struggle, it developed songs, dance and other cultural activities that clearly embodied the message of people’s struggle. Once again under neo-colonialist and globalised phase of imperialism, the same tradition of resistance is emerging in Kenya. Tunakataa! We say no! is a collection of resistance poetry and artwork written by Kauli Raiya (“People’s opinion”) a group of Kenyans who remain anonymous. Kauli Raiya, whose other “Kiswahili underground workers’ organ” was Upande mwingine (“the other side”) were also active in documenting resistance activities of “workers, peasants, progressive intelligentsia and all the patriotic Kenyans fighting for the interests of the oppressed and exploited majority” and its documentation was used by Mwakenya-December Twelve Movement in its publication “Kenya: Register of resistance, 1986” (Nairobi: 1987 – the quotations are from this underground publication).
Kauli Raiya

Tunakataa! We say no!

New publication from Vita Books for 2008

In history, people reach a stage when they say “no” to oppression and exploitation. During the colonial period in Kenya, the Mau Mau liberation movement developed appropriate strategies and tactics of saying “no” to colonialism”. Besides armed struggle, it developed songs, dance and other cultural activities that clearly embodied the message of people’s struggle.


Once again under neo-colonialist and globalised phase of imperialism, the same tradition of resistance is emerging in Kenya. Tunakataa! We say no! is a collection of resistance poetry and artwork written by Kauli Raiya (“People’s opinion”) a group of Kenyans who remain anonymous. Kauli Raiya, whose other “Kiswahili underground workers’ organ” was Upande mwingine (“the other side”) were also active in documenting resistance activities of “workers, peasants, progressive intelligentsia and all the patriotic Kenyans fighting for the interests of the oppressed and exploited majority” and its documentation was used by Mwakenya-December Twelve Movement in its publication “Kenya: Register of resistance, 1986” (Nairobi: 1987 – the quotations are from this underground publication).


These poems in reality reflect the everyday reality of the lives of Kenyan people today. They clearly reflect the sufferings, the hopes, and the strength of the working class in Kenya in the 1980s when the poems were written.


Here for the first time is shown the demands of workers and peasants. The poems show their total awareness of the forces in society that have moulded their lives. They also reveal the internationalist awareness that their own particular struggles and those of South Africa, Palestine nad Nicaragua are different regional aspects of the same struggle against imperialism.


Here is the voice of the people saying “no” to imperialism in its most vicious form. In that sense Tunakataa! We say no! is the voice of all people in the world struggling against imperialist exploitation.


Time has not lessened the relevance of the voice of the oppressed working people as they struggle daily against forces that seek to suppress them in the interest of foreign and local capitalist interests.






Vita Books

P.O. Box 2908

London N17 6YY England

http://shirazdurrani.googlepages.com/home

Office Manager - Tanzania Media Fund

2008-06-02

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/48539

The recently established Tanzania Media Fund (TMF) seeks to promote media independence and quality, with a particular focus on expanding investigative journalism. TMF will support media houses, editors and journalists to deepen their work and foster innovative learning. The Fund is funded by a multi-donor group and hosted by Hivos Tanzania. TMF seeks Tanzanians for the post of Office Manager, who will play a key role in forming the leadership nucleus and setting up the TMF. Competitive remuneration and a challenging and creative work environment that promotes learning will be offered to the successful candidates.
Hivos/TMF has particular values and expectations of its staff. We look for
(a) commitment to social justice, human rights and critical media;
(b) ability to be creative and imaginative;
(c) desire to take initiative, reflect, learn and ask questions;
(d) self-organizer and willingness to take on responsibilities; and
(e) zero tolerance for corruption and adherence to the highest ethical standards.


Responsibilities:

Reporting to the Executive Manager, you will be responsible for the management of human resources, office functioning, procurement, security, utilities, filing and documentation, and all other logistical issues. You will also assist the Executive Manager in key tasks. This is a hands-on get-things-done job. You will ensure that it is done in an effective, efficient and user-friendly manner, ensuring high accountability without becoming overly bureaucratic. Initially you will also contribute to development of administrative systems, policies, procedures and manuals.

Qualifications:

(a) At least a first degree or advanced diploma in administration,
(b) At least three years experience in your area of responsibility,
(c) Excellent planning and management skills,
(d) Ability to manage, support and motivate support staff, (e) Computer literacy,
(f) Impeccable, corruption-free references.

The Application Process

Please send ALL of the following:
(a) a cover letter clearly stating in 200 words or less why you want this job and consider yourself suited for it,
(b) your salary history,
(c) 2-3 letters of reference from non-relatives,
(d) an updated CV which includes your complete contact details,
(e) for Program Manager only a copy of something you have previously written (paper, article, etc) of 6-10 pages.

Women and people with disabilities are particularly encouraged to apply.

All applications must be received by 23 June 2008. Interviews for short-listed candidates will take place in late June.

Send applications to: Executive Fund Manager, Hivos/TMF, P. O. Box 38266, Dar es Salaam or by email to eai@cats-net.com

Programme Manager - Tanzania Media Fund

2008-06-02

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/48538

The recently established Tanzania Media Fund (TMF) seeks to promote media independence and quality, with a particular focus on expanding investigative journalism. TMF will support media houses, editors and journalists to deepen their work and foster innovative learning. The Fund is funded by a multi-donor group and hosted by Hivos Tanzania. TMF seeks Tanzanians for the post of Programme Manager, who will play a key role in forming the leadership nucleus and setting up the TMF. Competitive remuneration and a challenging and creative work environment that promotes learning will be offered to the successful candidates.
Hivos/TMF has particular values and expectations of its staff. We look for
(a) commitment to social justice, human rights and critical media;
(b) ability to be creative and imaginative;
(c) desire to take initiative, reflect, learn and ask questions;
(d) self-organizer and willingness to take on responsibilities; and
(e) zero tolerance for corruption and adherence to the highest ethical standards.

Responsibilities:

Reporting to the Executive Manager, you will be responsible for the effective, timely and efficient development and implementation of the TMF grant-making component. You will contribute to vision and strategy development and its communication, and be responsible for grant management and administration, fostering learning and capacity development, managing and motivating staff, and cultivating effective relationships with key stakeholders.

Qualifications:

(a) A master’s university degree (preferred) or at least a first degree in a relevant field,
(b) At least ten years experience in areas related to your responsibilities.
(c) Good knowledge of media and general development/human rights,
(d) Strong management skills, including human resources and financial management;
(e) Effective writing, communication and networking abilities in English and Swahili, and
(f) Computer proficiency.

The Application Process

Please send ALL of the following:
(a) a cover letter clearly stating in 200 words or less why you want this job and consider yourself suited for it,
(b) your salary history,
(c) 2-3 letters of reference from non-relatives,
(d) an updated CV which includes your complete contact details,
(e) for Program Manager only a copy of something you have previously written (paper, article, etc) of 6-10 pages.

Women and people with disabilities are particularly encouraged to apply.

All applications must be received by 23 June 2008. Interviews for short-listed candidates will take place in late June.

Send applications to: Executive Fund Manager, Hivos/TMF, P. O. Box 38266, Dar es Salaam or by email to eai@cats-net.com

Fahamu