Back Issues

Call Firestone today!: World Day Against Child Labor

June 12th is WORLD Day Against Child Labor

2008-06-12

http://tinyurl.com/64wk2k

Take action today to stop child labor on the Firestone rubber plantation in Liberia by calling Bridgestone Americas CEO Mark Emkes at 615-937-1000 and tell him to switch from a quota pay system to a living daily wage for workers on his rubber plantation in Liberia. For 82 years, Firestone has operated a rubber plantation in Liberia where there is widespread child labor, abuse of workers’ rights and environmental destruction.

Shailja Patel named the 2009 Guest Writer, Nordic Africa Institute

2008-06-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/48752

Pambazuka contributor, Shailja Patel, has just been named the 2009 Guest Writer at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden.

http://www.nai.uu.se/scholarships/african/

The programme has previously hosted two guest writers, Ama Ata Aidoo from Ghana, and Gabeba Baderoon from South Africa.

The raison d'être behind the guest writer grant is the conviction that knowledge of Africa is not gained only from social science analysis and facts, and that literature can significantly add another language and meaning, and illustrate the diversity. The purpose of the grant is three-fold:

Firstly, to provide an opportunity to sit and write, away from daily chores, teaching or other (the Nordic Africa Institute is also not a teaching institution);

Secondly, to make possible readings to audiences in Sweden, and one or two other Nordic countries by visits to those countries

Thirdly, to add by their presence to the intellectual and cultural atmosphere of the Nordic Africa Institute with its researchers and other staff, guests, guest researchers and scholarship students.

The politics of fear and the fear of politics

Michael Neocosmos

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/48712

Xenophobia must be understood as a political discourse, the result of political ideologies and consciounesses, writes Michael Neocosmos, which have arisen, and have been allowed to arise in post-apartheid South Africa, as a result of a politics of fear prevalent in both state and society. To counter these politics, an active politics of peace is necessary, but for this to develop we need first to understand the politics of fear and the fear of politics which prevails in South Africa today.
====

Reflecting on the causes of the recent xenophobic pogroms in the country, it is striking how most commentators have stressed poverty and deprivation as the underlying causes of the events. Yet it requires little effort to see that economic factors, however real, cannot possibly account for why it was those deemed to be non-South Africans who bore the brunt of the vicious attacks. Poverty can be and has historically been the foundation for the whole range of political ideologies, from communism to fascism and anything in between. In actual fact, poverty can only account for the powerlessness, frustration and desperation of the perpetrators, but not for their target. After all why were not Whites or the rich or for that matter White foreigners in South Africa targeted instead? Of course it is a common occurrence that the powerless regularly take out their frustrations on the weakest: women, children, the elderly... and outsiders. Yet this will not suffice as an explanation. The systematic and concerted attacks on those deemed to be foreign according to popular stereotypes requires more of an explanation than powerlessness can provide, however important a factor that may have been.

In order to provide a more inclusive explanation one should first recall the observations of Frantz Fanon in the immediate post-independence period in Africa: “the working class of the towns, the masses of the unemployed, the small artisans and craftsmen ... line up behind this nationalist attitude; but in all justice let it be said, they only follow in the steps of their bourgeoisie. If the national bourgeoisie goes into competition with the Europeans, the artisans and craftsmen start a fight against non-national Africans...From nationalism we have passed to ultra-nationalism, to chauvinism, and finally to racism. These foreigners are called on to leave; their shops are burned, their street stalls are wrecked...” The collapse of nationalism into chauvinism, Fanon observed, was fundamentally occasioned by the new post-independence elites to grab the jobs and capital of the departing Europeans, while the popular classes only followed in their footsteps in attacking foreign Africans. This suggests that a politics of nationalism founded on stressing indigeneity lay at the root of post-colonial xenophobia. To what extent is Fanon’s account applicable to post-apartheid South Africa?

There is little doubt that the politics of grabbing and enrichment among the post-apartheid elite have been both brazen and extensive. So-called Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has enabled the development of a new class of so-called ‘black diamonds’ whose newly found wealth is not particularly geared towards national accumulation and development but primarily towards short term quick profits in a country where estimates put the poor at half the total population. Reports of corruption among state personnel from the national to the local levels abound and are obvious for all to see. Few get prosecuted let alone convicted in a hegemonic culture which extols the virtues of free-market capitalism, which equates private enrichment with the public good and quick profit with development. Corruption in the civil service we are told by one senior civil servant, cannot be eliminated; it can only be managed. Yet how do we logically move from this to scapegoating the ‘foreign other’? In order to provide an answer, we must shift our focus from economic to political hegemonic ideologies.

I have argued at length elsewhere that xenophobia must be understood as a political discourse, the result of political ideologies and consciounesses - in brief political subjectivities - which have arisen, and have been allowed to arise in post-apartheid South Africa, as a result of a politics of fear prevalent in both state and society. This politics of fear has at least three major components: a state discourse of xenophobia, a discourse of South African exceptionalism and a conception of citizenship founded exclusively on indigeneity. This politics of fear which finds its origins fundamentally within the apparatuses of power, has been complemented since the 1990s by a fear of politics, ie. the unwillingness or the inability of popular politics, with a few exceptions, to break away systematically from a state politics of fear.

There is a name for the kind of political activity which we have witnessed over the past few weeks: the politics of (ethnic) cleansing, made infamous in the ex-Yugoslavia of the 1990s and then repeated in several parts of the continent, Rwanda and more recently Kenya being the most infamous. The notion of ‘cleansing’ with all its dehumanising connotations of dirt and purification is a common leitmotif of all these politics irrespective of their historical specificities. The notion of ‘cleansing’ was also used in the recent South African pogroms by perpetrators. It should be clear that the term ‘cleansing’ is the name of a politics of fear, of violence, a politics of war against those who are seen to be different for whatever reason. To counter these politics, an active politics of peace is necessary, but for this to develop we need first to understand the politics of fear and the fear of politics which prevails in South Africa today.

A STATE DISCOURSE OF XENOPHOBIA

Government departments, parliamentarians, the police, the Lindela detention centre, the law itself have all been reinforcing a one way message since the 1990s: We are being invaded by illegal immigrants who are a threat to national stability, the RDP, development, our social services, the very fabric of our society. Moreover African migrants are fair game for making a fast buck by those with power, (police, state bureaucrats, employees at Lindela). Examples abound, but what is interesting from interviewing migrants from West Africa in 2003 is that while xenophobia from state agencies was consistent, that from the South African people was very contradictory. We can see that today in that many South Africans helped distressed foreigners in many ways. As a reminder for people, ex-home affairs minister Mangosotho Buthelezi who today cries tears for the victims of xenophobic violence, stated in 1998 that “if we as South Africans are going to compete for scarce resources with millions of aliens who are pouring into South Africa, then we can bid goodbye to our Reconstruction and Development Programme”. In fact Buthelezi developed quite a notoriety for his infamous xenophobic statements which included inter alia the suggestion that all Nigerian immigrants are criminals and drug traffickers. Not only Buthelezi but politicians of all shades of opinion asserted their politics of fear; by 1998 Human Rights Watch had concluded that: “in general, South Africa’s public culture has become increasingly xenophobic, and politicians often make unsubstantiated and inflammatory statements that the ‘deluge’ of migrants is responsible for the current crime wave, rising unemployment and even the spread of diseases.”

This political discourse has been supplemented by regular police crackdowns on ‘illegal immigrants’ and the setting up of regular extortion rackets by the police in places like Esselen Street in Pretoria. At one point in 2000, when the Human Rights Commission meekly ‘raised its concerns’ regarding “the ill-treatment of ‘illegal immigrants’ in recent police blitzes in Gauteng”, a government spokesperson was quoted as saying that the HRC “was creating the impression of being sympathetic towards illegal immigrants” continuing to state that the government wanted to hold regular meetings with the HRC to ensure that they do not work at “cross purposes”.

The police are particularly notorious, using their powers to avoid intervening to help foreign migrants when attacked by tsotsis, by raiding and beating up migrants in their sanctuaries, by tearing up official documents. All this is documented at length. Moreover, and this is less documented, there is evidence that on several occasions police and employees of various government departments have in the past encouraged members of communities to ‘uproot’ or round up ‘illegal immigrants’, leading to systematic xenophobic violence. It would be important to find out the extent to which there may have been evidence of this also this time. In other words, state institutions have, in the past, provided legitimacy for the kind of behaviour we have been seeing today. Although state institutions have never condoned violence against migrants and have regularly condemned it, they have provided an environment wherein such xenophobic violence has appeared as legitimised by the state. Incidentally it was reported to me that last week , ie one week after the worst of the violence, police i Johannesburg were arresting suspected ‘illegals’ and harassing seemingly ‘foreign’ people to produce documents.

I refrain from detailing migrants’ experiences at Lindela detention centre in detail, suffice it to note that this is not a prison and that the people held there have not been found guilty of any crime. Here are some of the statements from research on Lindela. The Human Rights Commission found in 1999 that “employees of the private Dyambu Trust (which runs Lindela) extort money from detainees under a wide variety of circumstances. These circumstances include requiring money for fingerprinting, for the use of public telephones, and in order to allow access of family and friends to the Facility...” Moreover, staff at Lindela also extorted amounts apparently for the final processing of those who are due to be deported: “at Lindela we were asked to pay an amount of R50.00 before being deported to Zimbabwe...yesterday we were supposed to go home but they asked for money to take us home. I didn’t have any money so I didn’t go.”

In other words people are kept in what amounts to detention - in conditions worse than prison according to the same reports - and not repatriated on time unless they pay bribes to officials. In fact at this centre, people’s rights are systematically denied and they seem to be regularly coerced, including through the use of physical violence for the simple reasons of maintaining control. People are denied a free phone call as required by law, they are not informed of their rights and they are detained regularly for longer than the stipulated maximum of 30 days. Another victim stated: “the security staff here at Lindela randomly abuse us. They assault us. They leave us alone in the Wall and we are not allowed to go to the loo unless given permission. But since they do not enquire as regularly as they should, people often go to the loo without asking. If such a person is caught he is usually assaulted by security officials”.

As has been observed on many occasions, the legislation which deals with issues of migration in South Afruica is founded on notions of exclusion and control and is founded on the assumption that people wish to abuse the system and come to South Africa to take and not provide anything. The idea behind the legislation, according to one author is to defend ‘Fortress South Africa” against “hordes of immigrants”. To do this, police officers and officials from the Department of Home Affairs are given such excessive powers over extremely vulnerable people that bribery, extortion and corruption become not only possible but regular practices.

The press has by and large also contributed to creating a climate of fear of migrants. A number of surveys of the press have been undertaken one remarking that “the general tenor running through English-language newspaper reportage on foreign migration issues is more negative, more unanalytical than critical”. Insofar as the content of the press coverage is concerned regular refrains concern the comment that “migrants ‘steal jobs’”, that migrants are mostly “illegal”, that they are “flooding into the country to find work” while a typical statement was that “foreigners are unacceptably encroaching on the informal sector and therefore on the livelihoods of our huge number of unemployed people”. Other xenophobic repetitions concern the supposed drain which migrants represent on the South African fiscus, the links between illegality and migration (occurring in 38 percent of the sample analysed) and the purported links between crime and immigrants such as in the statement in the Financial Mail of the 9th September 1994 that: “ the high rate of crime and violence - mainly gun-running, drug trafficking and armed robbery - is directly related to the rising number of illegals in SA”. One researcher put the facts straight, when she noted that “out of all the arrests made in 1998, South African citizens comprise an average of 98%”.

Under such conditions, it is not at all surprising that a public discourse of fear and xenophobia has become hegemonic in the public sphere. The politics associated with this discourse are invariably founded on the notion that migrants from Africa are here to take and not to give. After all they are so much more backward than we are! It should be noted that such xenophobic conceptions are also prevalent among professionals. One respondent who had a high position in the Gauteng Department of Health told me that every time a new appointment was made, his South African colleagues sent him a copy of the immigration legislation as if to say that they only wanted Black South Africans appointed.

THE DISCOURSE OF EXCEPTIONALISM

There is a hegemonic notion of exceptionalism in South African public culture (maintained by all and not only by Whites). The prevalent idea here is that our country is not really located in Africa and that our intellectual and cultural frame of reference is in the United States and Europe. Africa is the place of the other. Given that South Africa is industrialised, democratic, advanced in relation to other countries of the continent and also a paragon of reconciliation and political liberalism. It was thought until recently that what happened in Rwanda in 1994 or more recently Kenya could not possibly happen here. According to this perception, South Africa is somehow more akin to a Southern European or Latin American country given its relatively high levels of industrialization, and now increasingly of liberal democracy. To this must be added the view that South Africa must be celebrated as it is the envy of the world as it has managed a reconciliation process successfully. A corollary of this view is one that sees Africa as some kind of strange backward continent characterized by primitivism, corruption, authoritarianism, poverty and >failed states= so that its inhabitants wish only to partake of South African resources and wealth at the expense of its citizens. Africa is thus a continent to be guided, advised, developed and visited by tourists in search of authentic primitivism and wild animals. It is not a continent where we belong, only a place to be acted upon. This view is regularly upheld by the press which simply takes its cue from its European largely neo-colonial sources which are reproduced totally uncritically.

While such views are not universal, they are indeed dominant. This dominance has not been unconnected to a schizophrenia characteristic of the new Black ruling elite which, on the one hand, wishes to assert its Africanness vis-a-vis the old ruling elite of Whites, but which concurrently asserts stridently its adherence to a Western culture of neo-liberal economics and politics. Presumably its ability to become super-rich is predicated precisely on its acceptance in the global world of the new capitalist world order. Africa seems to be an embarrassment to the new elite as it seems to remind them of who they wish to forget, their poorer relatives; although simultaneously it is seen as a place where fortunes can be made, in extractive industries for example. The dominant South African discourse on Africa is thus undoubtedly neo-colonial in its essence.

THE DISCOURSE OF INDIGENEITY

The idea that we are not Africans is complimented by the dominant perception that indigeneity is the only way to acquire resources, jobs, and all the other goodies which should be reserved for ‘us’ only. This necessarily leads to a debate on who is more indigenous, and hence to nativism, the view that there is an essence of South Africanness which is to be found in ‘natives’. Hence the stress on the native (eg in Native Club) which itself leads to privileging the twin ideas of birth and phenotype (‘race’) as the essence of the indigenous. This is extremely dangerous. A recent letter to the Mail & Guardian newspaper argued that BEE deals should be restricted to the indigenous, by which the author meant that “Indians” and “Coloureds” being somehow less indigenous should be excluded. This is a common way of arguing in the public sphere. In fact historically, the only true indigenous in Southern Africa would be the San, all other groups having migrated from somewhere else at one time or other in history. Indigeneity then is never a historical fact nor indeed a natural one, it is always politically defined by those with power. The previous apartheid regime spent much intellectual time and effort trying to prove that there were no people living in South Africa before the White colonisers arrived, precisely to stress their indigeneity and hence to exclude. Most elites on the continent and elsewhere have done the same as they have organised citizenship rights around political indigeneity. Currently I am told, (DR) Congolese living in Angola are being brutally expelled by the Angolan state simply for being foreign; this is not being reported simply because of the current close ties between the two governments. Therefore the issue is not one that affects South Africa alone, but is arguably endemic in the whole continent where the post-colonial state has defined citizenship rights in terms of indigeneity.

In South Africa the post-apartheid state has continued to classify people according to apartheid groupings. This is a fundamental problem, as it stresses the thinking of politics through the lenses of racial and national stereotypes which are ‘naturalised’. Blackness is only stressed vis-a-vis Whites, not in relation to other Africans. In fact there has been a complete failure by the post-apartheid state to construct a nationalism which is firmly rooted in Africa. Nepad is simply the neo-liberal Western entry into the continent. Neither the ideas of the African Renaissance nor those of Ubuntu have been taken beyond the stage of being simply state slogans with little in terms of roots in the population at large.

BEYOND THE FEAR OF POLITICS

It can be seen then that xenophobia is a political discourse, a set of ideological parameters within which solutions to our pressing problems are being conceived. The terrible thing is that other than in a few instances, such a discourse has been unsuccessfully contested and has been allowed to become hegemonic. There is no doubt that many in the ANC in particular have spoken up against xenophobic utterances in the past, but these have been largely isolated voices and in any case they have not constituted an alternative political discourse founded on equality. They have themselves been largely equivocal. We do not like xenophobia but on the other hand how are our social services to cope under massive pressure from immigrants? It should be clear therefore that the recent wave of xenophobic pogroms, was entirely predictable given the political discourse briefly outlined above. The fact that quasi-fascist (a strong word perhaps but I can think of no other) politics has acquired a certain grip over large sections of the poor should come as no surprise. To use Malcolm X’s famous expression, “the chickens have come home to roost”.

The final point then must be one of confronting the fear and passivity, of putting across alternative discourses. Passive citizenship, the expectation of delivery from the state, the fear of criticism, self-censorship, the culture of uncritical celebration have all been noted at one time or another as obstacles to political thought. A fear of contesting authority, kowtowing to those in power, the politics of cramming ‘our people’ into positions, all this has lead not only to a demarcation between ethnic and other identities capable of ‘delivering’, but also to a politics of the exclusion of others as a standard/ normal practice. The exclusion of alternatives (economic, political or intellectual) constitutes the dominant practice. The fear of responding to the politics of fear in a critical and organised manner, to say no to treating people differently, to say yes to maintaining a firm point that all must be treated equally by power; the absence of all this constitutes the fear of politics, the fear of political agency by all of us. This is why those South Africans who risked their lives to help those foreigners being attacked in a myriad of ways should be saluted. Politics is too important a business to be left to politicians alone. A consistent political practice of peace must be systematically developed and sustained in the face of attack. If this becomes an outcome of the current events, it would be a very positive development. The demonstrations in Johannesburg and elsewhere a few week-ends ago were important beginnings, we need to pursue this and not lose the momentum. The alternative is to allow the current collapse into evil to degenerate even further into inter ethnic violence, which it easily could.

We cannot wait for elections to engage in politics for what is right. We need to maintain what the French philosopher Badiou calls an axiom of equality, namely the idea that every single person who lives in this country must count the same and must be treated the same. To remind you of the Freedom Charter: South Africa belongs to all who live in it. The only way to challenge xenophobia is to courageously fight the fear of politics and stand up for those ideas which challenge the politics of fear and discrimination. Some have already began doing this. It is noteworthy for example that in Durban in those shack settlements in which the popular movement Abahlali baseMjondolo has a strong presence, there were no incidences of xenophobic attacks. Abahlali released what I think was the most important statement on the xenophobic violence. It is particularly significant in that it has emanated from an organisation of poor shack-dwellers themselves. One of its main statements was: “An action can be illegal. A person cannot be illegal. A person is a person wherever they may find themselves”. It seems to me that holding on to the consequences of such an axiom is where an alternative politics of peace and equality should begin.


*Michael Neocosmos is professor of Sociology at the University of Pretoria.

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

Barack Obama and the New Afrikan “National Question”

Kali Akuno

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/48713

Kali Akuno looks at the limits and contradictions of Obama and argues that the progressives have to use a "combined “outside-inside” strategy that seeks to advance a coherent set of principle demands and push him and the forces he has mobilized sharply to the left."
====

Since the stunning Iowa victory of Senator Barack Obama in January, a great deal has been said and written about the declining or ongoing significance of “race” and “racial prejudice” in US society and the prospect of a person of Afrikan descent being its President as proof of its substantive social transformation. While this discussion must be regarded as an advance over the conservative moralistic and race-coded discussions that have dominated political debate in the US since the 1980’s, we must acknowledge its critical limitations.

In the main, these discussions individualize the issues and only engage the behavioral and subjective aspects of inequality and oppression. What is fundamentally missing is a critical discussion of the structural and systemic nature of oppression and exploitation within the US and how the Obama campaign “phenomenon” relates to these structures and dynamics.

This essay seeks to investigate the strategic relationship of the Obama campaign to the structural dynamics of oppression and exploitation within the US. In particular, it will focus on the question of New Afrikan [1] or Black national oppression within the US and how the Obama campaign addresses this oppression. It also seeks to address certain strategic questions that progressive forces within the national liberation and multi-national working class movements must struggle with over the course of the next six months in order to ensure that our demands and interests are advanced – regardless of whether Obama wins or loses the Presidential election in November.

Some of the strategic questions this paper seeks to address are:

- What is Obama’s organic relationship to the New Afrikan or Black nation?

- What class position, alignment and program does Obama represent?

- How does Obama’s campaign strategy and program relate to the historic interests and demands of the Black nation?

WHAT IS THE “NATIONAL QUESTION”?

In summary, from a dialectical materialist framework, the “national question” refers to a) the unequal structural relationship of colonized and oppressed peoples to international capital, oppressor nations, imperialism, and white supremacy and b) to the historic struggles of colonized and oppressed peoples to liberate themselves from these oppressive systems and forces, either in whole or in part (as not all of these “peoples” or “national liberation” struggles have sought to remove themselves from capitalist relations of production).

The inequalities between peoples produced by capitalism are historic. They are rooted in the development of the capitalist world system through the colonization and/or subjugation of the globe and its non-European peoples by the ruling classes of the western European states (i.e. Portugal, Spain, France, England, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and Italy) beginning in the 15th century.

In order to facilitate the process of capital accumulation they initiated on a world scale, the ruling classes of Europe developed a social system and ideology that divided world production along several lines, some of which predated capitalism, some of which developed specifically to suite capitals historic needs. The pre-capitalist social divisions that were exploited were religion, ethnicity, nationality and patriarchy. The new and fundamentally principal divisions developed by and with capitalism are race and state-bound nationality.

The purpose of exploiting and/or developing these inequalities is a) to facilitate the control of the land, labor, and (material and immaterial) resources of the subject and oppressed peoples and b) to foster competition between and amongst these peoples for the material and social rewards conferred by this exploitative and alienating system.

In the United States the “national question” specifically addresses the structural relationship of colonized, oppressed, and subject peoples to the European settler-colonial project and the imperial national-state apparatus that reinforces it. This project is premised on the genocide and dispossession of indigenous peoples (the First Nations); the enslavement and colonial subjugation of Afrikan peoples and their descendents; and the dispossession and colonial subjugation of Xicanas/os.

THE NEW AFRIKAN NATIONAL QUESTION

Throughout the history of the US settler-colonial project New Afrikans have fundamentally been concentrated in the southeastern portion of the projects possessions. The foundation of this concentration was historically premised on the utilization of enslaved Afrikan labor to produce cash-crops like tobacco, cotton, rice, dyes, and sugar, for international consumption. During the early mercantile stages of capitalist development the climatic conditions, soil quality, and strategic location of these possessions facilitated them being incorporated into the world-capitalist system as a zone of mono-crop commodity production. This population concentration and the relations of production exercised in this zone facilitated the formation of the New Afrikan people as a colonized diasporic Afrikan nation subject to will of the European settler-colonial project and its capitalist-imperialist regime between 1619 and 1865.

The mechanization of agriculture in the Southeastern portion of the settler-colonial state in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, combined with an intense program of labor control and repression during this period, displaced millions of New Afrikans. In the search for refuge and jobs, displaced New Afrikans re-concentrated in the urban industrial centers of the East Coast, Mid-West, and West Coast between the 1910’s – 1960’s. In the process of this resettlement, millions of New Afrikans joined the ranks of the industrial working class. However, they did so fundamentally on an unequal structural basis. Exploiting the subject status of New Afrikan people, capital, the labor bureaucracy, and the various European settler communities relegated New Afrikans to the lowest strata’s of the working class, where they were concentrated in the lowest paid and most hazardous occupations that restricted their ability to earn and accumulate. This process of development established the social and economic terms of New Afrikan national oppression throughout the entire expanse of the US settler-colonial project.

Simultaneously, the vast majority of New Afrikans who remained in the New Afrikan national territory (i.e. the Southeastern portion of the settler-colonial project) became subject to a new regime of accumulation and distorted national development. Reacting to the gains made in the industrial “north” by the multi-national working class movement between the 1930’s – 50’s, industrial capital “outsourced” production to New Afrika to exploit the subjugated status of the New Afrikan working class. Although the New Afrikan working class was kept from effectively organizing itself into labor unions, this development did expand the overall circuit of capital within the New Afrikan nation, which helped stimulate the rise of the civil rights movement and its petit bourgeois program of civil inclusion within the legalistic confines of the settler-colonial project.

The limited social and economic gains of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements set the present terms of national development for the New Afrikan nation. New Afrika, like all nations and nationalities, is a class stratified social formation. Like all the peoples and nations subjugated and colonized by the European colonial powers, capital and capitalist social relations have articulated New Afrika’s social development. Throughout it’s nearly 400 years of development, the overwhelming majority of New Afrikans have been and are members of the working classes (either as chattel slaves, peasants, or proletarians). However, a very limited New Afrikan bourgeoisie has existed since at least the mid-19th century. Throughout much of New Afrikan history, this extremely small, typically service based petit-bourgeoisie has tended politically to be more progressive than reactionary in its political outlook and program. In the main this bourgeois class has provided leadership to and support for the primary historical demands of the New Afrikan national liberation movement. In summary these demands have been and are:

- Land for self-determining or autonomous development and accumulation

- Equal treatment before the law of the settler-colonial state

- Equitable distribution of the social surplus distributed throughout the settler-colonial state

- Self-determining political power

- Self-reliant and self-sustaining economic development

- Reparations

However, the accumulation gains (meager as they were) of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements combined with major shifts in the relations of production on a worldwide scale, transformed the relationship of the New Afrikan bourgeoisie to the whole of the New Afrikan nation from the 1970’s to the present. The two dominant features of this process of transformation are a) the phenomenal rise of the comprador bourgeoisie in the 1970’s and 80’s, and b) the rapid transformation of this comprador bourgeoisie into a trans-national bourgeoisie from the 1980’s to the present. As will be argued throughout this paper, this transformation not only changed the overall structural composition of the New Afrikan bourgeoisie, it has forever altered its political worldview and program

INTERROGATING THE “NATIONAL” QUESTION

Barack Obama has asserted on several occasions a) that race doesn’t matter and b) that there is only “one” America.

The implication of these statements, even if only stated for strategic affect, is that the national contradictions within the US settler-colonial project have been negated and resolved. Even a cursory glance at the socio-economic inequalities between the various nationalities in the US reveals that these assertions are blatantly false. However, the unprecedented success of Obama’s campaign and the ground it has broke as it relates to a “Black” candidate appealing to white voters on a national level revels that something qualitative has changed in this country. The question is what is it?

I argue that the source of the qualitative change lies in the changing composition of class throughout the US settler-colonial project. The advance of global capital and its transformation of production and accumulation throughout the capitalist world-system generated this compositional shift. I posit that the process of transformation popularly called “globalization” has created a trans-national bourgeoisie and growing multi-national or “cosmopolitan” trans-national service and working classes. It is my position that Barack Obama is a member of and represents the political and economic interests of the trans-national bourgeoisie and the social interests of the growing trans-national classes. More specifically, Barack Obama is a product of the New Afrikan trans-national bourgeoisie, which emerged in the main from the comprador or neo-colonial sector of the New Afrikan bourgeois class between the 1970’s to the present.

The fundamental question regarding this new class composition for progressive and revolutionary forces within the New Afrikan national liberation movement is how to strategically relate to Barack Obama and this trans-national bourgeois class? Is this class (or class fraction) a friend or a foe of the New Afrikan national liberation movement? I argue three things:

- That the material basis for the traditional class collaboration theory of the united and/or national liberation front strategy of oppressed peoples and nations in general, and of its historic application to the New Afrikan national liberation movement in particular, no longer applies.

- That the left has not developed a general or particular theory of how to strategically relate to these new class forces.

- As a result, we are presently ill equipped theoretically and programmatically to address the Obama phenomenon and seize the historic opportunities it presents to advance the interests of the national liberation and multi-national working class movements.

How does the trans-national bourgeoisie differ from other bourgeoisie classes, particularly amongst oppressed nations like the New Afrikan nation? The general theory of national liberation maintains that there are two primary fractions of the capitalist or bourgeois class (that is the class that owns and controls the means of production). These are 1) the national, progressive, or “anti-imperialist” bourgeoisie and 2) the comprador or “sell-out”, “Uncle Tom”, or neo-colonial bourgeoisie.

The national or anti-imperialist bourgeoisie is theoretically a progressive force drawn from the organic, inner driven life of the oppressed nation that is materially compelled to promote the development of the productive forces of the nation for its own self-interests and to resist the incursion of imperialism and its suppression of this autonomous national development for these self-same interests.

The comprador or sell-out bourgeoisie is theoretically a reactionary force also drawn from the organic, inner driven life of the oppressed nation, which is conversely compelled to collaborate with imperialism to retard the autonomous or self-determining development of the oppressed nation.

The fundamental difference between these two bourgeois fractions and the transnational fraction is their organic relationship to the oppressed nation. The national and comprador bourgeoisies are dependent upon relations of production within the social and political life of the oppressed nation. Meaning they are both dependent on the working masses of the oppressed nation for their very existence, and hence can be held accountable to the working classes within it in various ways. The trans-national bourgeoisie on the other hand, even though it emerged primarily from the comprador fraction in New Afrika and elsewhere, is not dependent for its existence upon the oppressed nation and its relations of production. The trans-national bourgeoisie, as its name implies, is not a national or national-state bound entity. Its basis for existence lies in exploiting the peoples and working classes of the globe, and it is generally only accountable to or held in check by its fractional partners and rivals (largely through their financial control of various capital markets as exhibited by their deflation of various national-state markets like Mexico in the early-1990’s; Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South Korea in the late 1990’s; and Brazil and Argentina at the turn of this century).

Now, while I posit that this understanding of Obama’s positioning helps us to understand his relationship with the New Afrikan nation and its historic demands, I argue that we still do not completely understand at this point, how it relates to his mass appeal to white voters in many instances who are not part of this trans-national formation. This I argue, we as progressives and revolutionaries, have to interrogate further to gain a deeper understanding of its strategic potential.

INTERROGATING THE CAMPAIGN

Despite what one may personally think of Obama and the principle merits of his campaign, what we have to acknowledge is that his actions and his campaign are deeply rooted in a particular analysis of how to address national oppression in the US. This analysis is rooted in the “integrationist” and “beloved community” narratives of the New Afrikan petit bourgeois leadership of the Civil Rights Movement and its white liberal bourgeois patrons. The strategy behind this narrative appeal is to highlight the commonalities between the oppressor and oppressed peoples, rather than address their contradictions and differences.

This strategy is rooted in the reality that the road to victory goes through the white electorate and its sheer numerical strength. Based on this reality, I argue there are two historical dynamics that have fundamentally shaped the Obama campaign and its strategy:

1) No Democratic candidate has won a majority of white voters since 1964. For a Democratic candidate to win, they are going to have to win a sizeable portion of, if not the majority of, the white settler vote.

2) The Jesse Jackson campaigns of 1984 and 1988. These two campaigns serve as the primary negative examples for the Obama campaign. They illustrate what NOT to do as an Afrikan candidate running for President, which has determined key aspects of his strategy, particularly his methods of appeal to white and Jewish voters in particular.

Based on these realities, the Obama campaign made a deliberate and strategic choice NOT to base his candidacy in the institutions (like the Black church, civic organizations, unions, and the media) or historic demands (see demands) of the New Afrikan nation. In order to give himself the opportunity to win, Obama must avoid being viewed as a “Black” candidate buy any and all means. This explains in part, why he has distanced himself from the likes of Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, and Jeremiah Wright – the “traditional” representatives of the “progressive” New Afrikan bourgeoisie.

However, his campaign has also relied upon the staunch support of the Democratic Party by New Afrikan people. New Afrikans have been the most consistent base of support for the Democratic Party since the 1964 election of Lydon B. Johnson. In fact, New Afrikans have voted consistently for Democratic Presidential candidates in the range of 80 – 90% since 1956. This fact however, should not be surprising. Democratic candidates can and do take the New Afrikan vote for granted because in the main, New Afrikans have no other genuine political option to represent their interests. Knowing this, Obama and his campaign know that they have to make few special appeals to New Afrikans and most of the other oppressed peoples within the “traditional” Democratic Party coalition to garner their votes (certain “Latino” populations it can be argued might constitute exceptions).

INTERROGATING THE POPULAR FORCES

Regardless of how marginalized New Afrikan demands and institutions are to the Obama campaign, the fact is that since Obama’s Iowa victory in January, New Afrikans have turned out in near record numbers to support his campaign for the Democratic nomination. How do we explain this outpouring of support despite his lack of engagement with New Afrikan demands and institutions?

Further, how do we explain his victories in states like Iowa, Kansas, Oregon, Colorado, Connecticut, Nebraska, Vermont, and Wyoming where the vast majority of the electorate are white settlers who are not substantively incorporated into the trans-national nexus of production?

Part of the answer I believe lies in the trans-national class developments spoken of earlier. The other part of the answer I believe lies in the popular response to the last 7 years of the Bush regime. As a direct result of the failed occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the accumulation of unprecedented debt, the partisan management of the economy, the exposed lies and deceit, and the hostile, belligerent, and dictatorial “style” of management, this election is in many ways serving as a popular anti-Bush referendum.

The popular, multi-national, multi-class forces engaging the Obama campaign are clearly clamoring for a change of management. This was first evidenced in the elections of 2006 and has been further illustrated in several off-term Congressional elections in Illinois, Louisiana, and Mississippi where Democrats took elections in long-held Republican districts. Barack Obama, for reasons of personal history (including his newness to Capital Hill), style (particularly his cultivated charisma and flair for the optimal, however programmatically empty it may be), and strategy (including a tacit exploitation of cultural stereotypes about New Afrikan people being good listeners and empathizers) has thus far demonstrated that he would be a profoundly different manager than either of his remaining Democrat or Republican rivals.

What I think progressives and revolutionaries have to be clear on in relating to these popular forces is that a clamoring for a change of management does not equate to a clamoring for a fundamental change of program. It is on the question of program that I would argue that the national question strongly reenters the fry and could perhaps fracture the broad multi-national, multi-class alliance thus far mobilized by the Obama campaign.

For instance, the historic demands of New Afrikan people are not going to go away without a revolutionary transformation of the US settler-colonial state. In fact, as the mortgage crisis deepens over the course of the next 2 to 4 years, some of the demands, like economic development and reparations perhaps, are only going to become stronger.

Likewise, the trans-national capital interests supporting Obama’s campaign have no intentions of stopping their accumulation mission. Rather, they are trying to expand it through the application of a friendlier management approach of their primary regulating instruments – namely the US military, treasury, and Federal Reserve Bank. And further, many of the white service and working class voters who are supporting Obama are not demanding an end to imperialism and globalization, but a return to the high standards of living they are accustomed and feel entitled to as settlers, i.e. “Americans”.

INTERROGATING THE MOMENT

This is an extremely unique moment in human history, one that should not be slept on by progressives and revolutionaries anywhere, let alone in the US.

There are three general things that make this moment particularly unique:

- The rapid collapse of the ecological systems that support human civilization as a direct consequence of the capitalist world-systems need for constant growth and expansion and its dependence on a petro-chemical driven system of mass industrial production to stimulate and sustain this growth.

- The declining hegemony (in both its geo-political and Gramscian connotations) of the US imperial state and the shift to a multi-polar geo-political world order.

- The comparative weakening of the US national economy and the deepening of trans-national production and accumulation.

In order to be properly contextualized, the Obama campaign and corresponding “phenomenon” must be situated as a direct response to this unique moment in history. As has been argued earlier, his campaign is clearly a factional response, one fundamentally serving the interests of the trans-national bourgeoisie and its means and instruments of accumulation and rule. The two fundamental questions stemming from this assessment are: is this class and the alliance of forces it has amassed strong enough to contain the contradictions it has unleashed AND can it continue its accumulation program and political project without a major transformation away from petro-chemical dependent production?

I argue that the answer to both questions is emphatically, NO. Returning to our focus of analyzing the Obama campaign in relation to the New Afrikan national question, there are several examples that clearly illustrate why.

The trans-national program of accumulation is fundamentally driven by a finance driven post-Fordist, intelligence dominated system of production. The intense mechanization of this production regime is rapidly dislocating millions, if not billions, of workers, worldwide. The New Afrikan working class was one of the first and most devastated sectors of the international proletariat hit by this accumulation regime. Since the 1970’s, millions of New Afrikans have been economically dislocated and physically displaced by this transformation, which is only set to worsen with the crisis of finance (witnessed with the mortgage crisis that robbed millions of New Afrikans of their merge capital equity) and the deepening of global production. What is also clear is that the options of absorbing this surplus labor into the low-wage service economy or warehousing (i.e. incarcerating) it, is reaching its political and financial limits. The likely outcomes of the escalating crisis are:

- More intense economic dislocation

- More intense physical displacement and forced relocation (New Orleans being a clear precedent)

- More intense and concentrated New Afrikan resistance

An escalation of the demands made on the state and capital by New Afrikans

As a representative of the trans-national bourgeoisie, its production regime, and the US imperial state, how would Obama be compelled to address these contradictions? I argue that he would fundamentally have to exercise the Nixon option as it related to the New Afrikan nation (and other oppressed nations within and beyond US national-state boarders). Plainly stated the Nixon option is the calculated employment of “carrot and the stick” stratagems. Obama’s carrot would be to ameliorate or buy off a sectors of the New Afrikan bourgeoisie and working class by offering a set of concessions, primarily in the realm of loan forgiveness (for the mortgage crisis) and job training programs (more than likely for “Green Jobs” and the like). The stick would be the strategic application of state repression against resistant and non-compliant forces within the New Afrikan working class. The purpose of the Nixon option now, as during his Presidency in the late 60’s and early 70’s, would be to fracture the political unity of the New Afrikan nation against the trans-national bourgeoisie and its program.

Staying with our analysis, it is also clear that the Green transformation option is a dead end for the trans-national bourgeoisie and its program. Although elements of the trans-national bourgeoisie are clearly leading the charge for the development of “green” capitalism, it is not, and in fact cannot, advocate for the transformation of scale needed to curb the production of greenhouse gases to stall or reverse climate change without bankrupting itself. As a result, it cannot and will not generate enough “Green Jobs” to reincorporate the millions of New Afrikans that have been economically dislocated by trans-national production.

Yet in still, what we can posit with confidence at this moment is that capital is going to go to extreme lengths to extend its life and barbaric domination over human civilization. Conversely, as the events of the last 7 years have illustrated, we should also expect to see an escalation and diversification of resistance.

OUTLINING A FRAMEWORK TO SEIZE THE MOMENT

So, how should the New Afrikan and multi-national liberation and working class movements strategically engage this historic campaign and critical moment?

One of the first priorities of engagement is theoretical development. One of the principle things the New Afrikan and multi-national left movements must figure out is how to engage to the trans-national bourgeoisie. As stated earlier, as of now, our movements do not have a general, let alone united, perspective on this question. In fact, I would argue that most of our forces are still utilizing the traditional united or national liberation front theory to determine their positions and courses of action.

I argue that because the trans-national bourgeoisie cannot be easily pressured by the national liberation and working class movements within the US setter-colonial project, these movements should not invest the majority of their time and energy engaging an “inside” strategy of critical engagement with the Obama campaign. I argue that thinking strategically, these forces should concentrate their energy on building autonomous political movements and institutions (like the Reconstruction Party) within the US national-state that seek to build a broad multi-national united front of oppressed peoples and workers that makes a principle of building strategic links and alliances with the autonomous national liberation, international working class, global justice, and environmental movements throughout the world. As the trans-national bourgeoisie thinks and acts globally, we must also think and act globally to advance our own interests.

However, as the vast majority of our peoples and forces are going to support the Obama campaign and potential Presidency, in the short-term we tactically have to invest a critical degree of time and energy engaging them, if only to try an win a considerable portion of these forces to a left perspective and program. And it is here that we need theoretical clarity. How do we offer a radical critic of Obama, his class position, interests, and program without alienating ourselves from the popular masses? How do we move these forces to engage in autonomous self-determining action outside of the Democratic Party? How do we educate and move the white settler forces mobilized by Obama to actively engage an anti-racist, anti-imperialist perspective and program?

To these ends, a hard-pressed counter campaign against Obama I would argue is not the most effective or productive way to engage these popular forces from this point forward. Rather, I think the multi-national left must seek to highlight the contradictions of Obama’s campaign and program through a combined “outside-inside” strategy that seeks to advance a coherent set of principle demands and push him and the forces he has mobilized sharply to the left. Again, I think the formation of an autonomous “outside” political force should be primary. However, what is perhaps most tactically critical is that both the “outside” and “inside” forces aggressively promote and propagate these common demands; vigorously dialogue and debate in a principled, non-sectarian manner; and openly communicate and collaborate whenever and wherever possible.

Some of the primary strategic demands that must be raised are drawn from the historic demands of oppressed peoples, particularly New Afrikans, combined with the demands of the multi-national working class, women’s, and environmental justice movements. The combination of these demands will expose not only the limits of the trans-national bourgeoisie and its production regime, but of US imperialism itself and its inability to make good on its democratic promises, either at “home” or abroad. Some of the most critical of these demands include [2]:

1. The full and immediately ending of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

2. The full and unqualified support for Palestinian self-determination and the Right to Return.

3. The full and immediate Right of Return for the more than 250,000 New Afrikans displaced from their homelands in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

4. The repeal of the “war on drugs” and mandatory minimum sentencing that has resulted in the imprisonment of more than 2.5 million people, the vast majority of whom are New Afrikans.

5. The full support for the rights of women and the LGBTQ communities, including full support for initiatives like the Equal Rights Amendment and “gay” marriage.

6. The full and immediate repeal of the various Patriot Acts and other undemocratic anti-terror laws and Executive Orders.

7. The full, complete, and unconditional amnesty for the millions of migrant and displaced workers in the US.

8. The full and unqualified commitment to reduce the carbon imprint of the US by 80% or more by 2016 to stem the production of climate changing greenhouse gases.

9. The commitment to the public financing of alternative solar, wind, aquatic, and organic energy to sustain the economy, and the elimination of all nuclear energy and hard metal extraction.

10. Reparations for Indigenous, New Afrikan, Xicano, Puerto Rican, Hawaiian and other peoples and nations colonized by the US (including Guam, Alaskan natives, etc.).

BY WAY OF CONCLUSION

Although the road ahead may not be clear, and the outcome of our actions far from certain, the New Afrikan national liberation movement, and the movements of all oppressed and exploited peoples, must seize this critical moment. The survival of humanity demands that we must act, and act in our own interests. Barack Obama nor any other bourgeois messiah is not going to liberate us. We must liberate ourselves.


*Kali Akuno is an organizer with the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM). He wrote this essay to honor the 83rd Birthday of Malcolm X and the clarity he brought to the New Afrikan revolutionary movement.

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

*For further notes please follow this link:
[1] A New Afrikan is a person of Afrikan descent, particularly those historically enslaved and colonized in the Southeastern portion of the North American continent, that presently live under the colonial subjugation of the United States government. New Afrikan is the connotation of the national identity of this Afrikan people that recognizes their political aspirations for self-determination and independence.

[2] See also the demands articulated in the “Draft Manifesto for a Reconstruction Party” by the National Organizing Committee for a Reconstruction Party and “Hillary and McCain: the White Block that must be stopped” by Eric Mann.

Reference Materials and Resources

1. “The New Imperialism: Crisis and Contradictions in North/South Relations”, by Robert Biel. Zed Books, 2000.

2. “Saviors or Sellouts: The Promise and Peril of Black Conservatism, from Booker T. Washington to Condoleezza Rice”, by Christopher Alan Bracey. Beacon Press, 2008.

3. “We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century”, by Rod Bush. New York University Press, 1999.

4. “Locked in Place: State-building and late industrialization in India”, by Vivek Chibber. Princeton University Press, 2003.

5. “Reviving the Developmental State? The Myth of the ‘National Bourgeoisie’”, by Vivek Chibber. Printed in Socialist Register 2005, edited by Leo Panitch and Colin Leys. Published by Monthly Review Press, 2004.

6. “A Brief History of Neoliberalism”, by David Harvey. Oxford University Press, 2005.

7. “Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics”, by Cedric Johnson. University of Minnesota Press, 2007.

8. “Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice: Foreign Policy, Race, and the New American Century”, by Clarence Lusane. Praeger Press, 2006.

9. “The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World”, by Vijay Prashad. The New York Press, 2007.

10. “A Theory of Global Capitalism: Production, Class, and State in a Transnational World”, by William I. Robinson. John Hopkins University Press, 2004.

11. “Transnational Conflicts: Central America, Social Change, and Globalization”, by William I. Robinson. Published by Verso, 2003.

12. “Global Capitalism: the New Leviathan”, by Robert J. S. Ross and Kent, C. Trachte. State University of New York Press, 1990.

13. “The Transnational Capitalist Class”, by Leslie Sklair. Blackwell Publishers, 2001.

14. “Double Trouble: Black Mayors, Black Communities, and the Call for a Deep Democracy”, by J. Phillip Thompson, III. Oxford University Press, 2006.

15. “A Nation within a Nation: Amiri Baraka and Black Power Politics”, by Komozi Woodard. University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

African leadership, denial and arrogance of power

Shailja Patel

2008-06-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/48554

Shailja Patel shares with Pambazuka News readers her correspondences with Samuel Kivuitu, Chair of the Electoral Commission of Kenya who was at the center of the country's spiral into violence. Kivuiti's reply captures the arrogance that characterizes African leadership throughout the continent.
====

At the beginning of this year, I wrote an Open Letter to Samuel Kivuitu, Chair of the Electoral Commission of Kenya. It was picked up by a number of sources, online and off, within and outside Kenya, and widely distributed, forwarded, and republished.

On May 14th, Samuel Kivuitu spoke, for the first time since "The Crisis", at a forum on Post-Election Violence in Nairobi. I arrived early at the venue, and slipped a paper copy of my Open Letter under the blotter where he was going to sit. I'd abridged and updated the letter to reflect our current Kenyan reality. It ends with a plea:

It's not too late, Mr. Kivuitu. To recover your own humanity. To open your eyes to the suffering and longing of this nation. To admit that something went terribly wrong. If you could only rise to the desperate need of this turning point in Kenya's history, you could redeem yourself with the simplest of words:

"I'm sorry."

Those words might be the most revolutionary ever spoken on this continent. They might open the floodgates for every leader, every public servant, to acknowledge their own deep fear, grief, and remorse. To admit fallibility. To take responsibility.

We are still waiting, Mr. Kivuitu, for you to speak.

During the forum, I watched Mr. Kivuitu bluster, blame, deny all culpability for the stolen election that took Kenya to the brink of civil war. In the plenary, I stood up, heart pounding, and said:

Mr Kivuitu, the whole country, from IDPs (internally displaced persons) in camps to affluent residents of Karen and Mountain View, are waiting for the tiniest expression of remorse, regret, from the Electoral Commission of Kenya. As a human being, a Kenyan, can you find it in your heart to offer just three words: "We are sorry," to the people of Kenya?

He couldn't.

Five days later, this arrived in my inbox. It is posted here, and for public distribution, with Mr. Kivuitu's permission.

To: Shailja Patel shailja@shailja.com

From: S. M. Kivuitu skivuitu@nbnet.co.ke

Date: 19 May 2008

Dear Madam,

I thank you for your letter dated 14 May 2008 and the concerns you expressed therein.

The Holy Bible has taught me to leave judgment of others to God the Almighty. I do not know if you are the Almighty God or not but you did not seem to be Him when I saw you on 14 May 2008.

You are all the same entitled to your views. I however humbly deny any wrong doing. The laws require that I declare the winner of the presidential elections once the Commission determines the candidate who scored highest, and led 25% of votes cast in his/her favour in 5 provinces. That is all I did. And there was no other candidate or his/her agent seeking me to hold on and re tally – no. After announcing the results a fellow appeared before me and requested me to hand over to him the president's certificate. I told him that that is only done to the winner personally and directly.

The fellow then informed me that Hon. Kibaki was awaiting to be sworn as the President and the Chief Justice was present, duly robed, for the assignment. He requested me to take the certificate there. I had no business retaining the certificate. It was not mine. The law says it be given at the place the President is to be sworn. I obeyed the law and took it there. Commissioners do not count votes.

Commissioners do not tally counted results. They simply verify these. They do this through the Commissioners' senior officers whose competence and integrity you seem to recognize. Commissioners announce the results as presented to them by these officers. Or what else do you suggest they should have done?

My conscience is absolutely clear. I know how dangerous it is to delay announcing the results. There are several interests in the results and all are equally important. I was hurt in 2002 for not announcing results which I had not yet received. I am not a seer, like you seem to be, to be sure that there would have not been deaths if I postponed the announcement of the results.

With my humblest view I do not share the view that people killed others, or destroyed the properties belonging to others, on account of my announcement of the winner. I believe that irrespective of whoever of the two top candidates won, there was going to be violence. That environment was created by the politicians themselves. You seem however to worship them as deities. Secondly, I respectfully believe the killers, who had been already charged with rhetoric, reasoned thus – why did Kibaki or Kalonzo get these votes in our areas? They looked round and saw Kikuyus, Kambas and other "madoadoas" (1)(as they had been told to call them). They reasoned these where the ones who voted thus and they must eliminate them.

Even in poor Coast, suspected "wrong" voters were ordered to pronounce certain words. Once they did not do so like the locals, they were violently evicted and robbed of their properties and raped. Thus the genesis of the tragedy is in our dirty politics and negative ethnicity. It is bad luck we have kind people like you who are too naïve to realize the depth of our malaise. No wonder facile and dishonest assignments that Hassan Omar (2)advanced thrilled some of you. This confirms Kenya is in for hard time for a long while to come.

Have a nice day Ms. Patel.

S. M. Kivuitu (1) Madoadoa - spots (Kiswahili) (2) Hassan Omar Hassan, Commissioner of the Kenya National Commission for Human Rights, condemned Kivuitu and the Electoral Commission of Kenya as delinquent in their duties, at the May 14th forum on Post-Election Violence.


*Kenyan poet, playwright, theatre artist, Shailja Patel, is a member of Kenyans for Peace With Truth and Justice. Visit her at http://www.shailja.com

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

The golden glitter of South Africa is gone

Akwete Sande

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/48715

"As for Malawians, talk of regional integration is merely a joke as they visit the holding centre in Blantyre, to see if their relations are among the returnees." Akwete Sande gives a Malawian perspective on the xenophobic violence in South Africa.
====

The recent xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals in South Africa particularly Malawians, Zimbabweans and Mozambiquans have taught several lessons to leaders of Southern Africa.

The first lesson is that their so-called regional integration is an empty message that helps nobody. The people on the ground are hardly affected by their lofty goals of uniting the region, says Joseph Ndhlovu 27, a Johannesburg high school teacher who was among the returnees in the first of the seven buses evacuating over 15,000 Malawians from South African two weeks ago.

Ndhlovu is a second generation resident, born in South Africa of Malawian parents and has never been to Malawi.

“I went to school in Zimbabwe and moved back to South Africa 8 years ago. My parents are buried in South Africa. I don’t know anyone in Malawi,” he says.

According to social welfare officials who are running a temporary holding centre for the returnees in the commercial city Blantyre, people like Ndhlovu will need long term assistance while trying to locate their kin. That means that the government which has already spent a fortune transporting them from South Africa will have to dig deeper into its coffers.

There are many like Ndhlovu among the bitter returnees because Malawi, one the poorest of colonial Africa, used to be the source of cheap labour for the more affluent colonies in Southern Africa. Zimbabwe and South Africa were the favoured destinations due to their better economies.

Mozambiquans and Malawians have until recently have been credited for hard work and honesty. In fact, the first president of Malawi, Hastings Banda, worked in the Johannesburg mines in the 1920s before embarking on a long educational career in the USA and UK

According to the ministry of labour, organized recruitment of Malawians to work in the mines was a source of revenue not only for the illiterate Malawians most of whom managed to build decent houses upon return but for government also.

These organized recruitment ended in the 1980’s after most of the Malawians were accused of spreading HIV to South African nationals because as migrant labourers they were not allowed to bring their spouses.

But the trek Southwards was never been curbed, many Malawians continued to go South and in some cases professionals disappointed with poor working conditions at home made South Africa their new home.

Mary a mother of 3 who arrived home with a small bag of clothes narrates her ordeal.

“Both my husband and I were working. We were in South Africa for 9 years, and built our own house. In the fateful day, my husband was working night shift and I was alone with our three kids. I heard a nock and when I opened the door I found five people armed, they were my neighbours but they ordered me out, told me to run away or else they would kill me. I pleaded with them to allow me stay for the night but they refused. I managed to take my children out and run to the nearest Police station. For three days we had no food until social workers came to our rescue. I have not heard from my husband. I don’t know what happened to him,” she laments.

Unlike Ndhlovu Mary had relatives who came to pick her up and took her back to Zomba, about 100 Km from Blantyre.

The Chairperson of Malawi Human Rights Consultative Committee, Undule Mwakasungura and the Director of Malawi Human Rights Commission, Dorothy Nyasulu issued statements condemning the attacks. They also organized a demonstration against the xenophobic attacks and petitioned the South African ambassador to compensate the victims.

The South African ambassador described the events in her country as embarrassing.

The media reports that over 60 lives have been lost and 250000 displaced but Malawians are not sure how many of their kin have died. The initial figure was five, but it is unclear how many lost their lives.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it has no figures accounting for the number of Malawians living in South Africa because most of them do not register with the embassy.

A human rights activist who once worked at the Malawi embassy in Pretoria says Malawians never report to the embassy because they have bitter memories from when security agents used to harass them and accuse them of working with rebels during the regime of Kamuzu Banda. He says most of Malawian embassies back then were full of security personnel and hence people stayed away. “At one time we had four police officers at the embassy, we didn’t know their work nor did we interact with them. This was true of all Malawian embassies” he said.

The South African media has blamed the country’s security chiefs for failing to notice that there was growing tension in the townships. The South Africans accuse foreigners of taking their jobs, fueling crime, taking their women and of prospering at their expense. Some have blamed Thabo Mbeki for fueling these sentiments through his policy of quiet diplomacy over the economic and political problems in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

An editorial in a local Malawian daily paper argued that careless statements by Mbeki did not help matters because one wonders - if indeed there is no crisis in Zimbabwe why would 3 million Zimbabweans flock to South Africa?

The media argues too that the huge influx of Zimbabweans in South Africa was bound to create problems and that regional leaders are to blame for the mayhem.

Andrew Phiri, a Malawian who has lived in both South Africa and Botswana [another country renowned for anti-foreign sentiments] says these kind of attacks have always happened but on a smaller scale but usually targeted at Zimbabweans.

“There have been sporadic attacks but not to the level we have seen today. Our leaders need to resolve the Zimbabwean problem or else the region remains sitting on a time bomb. South Africans cannot expect to prosper when neighbours are suffering. What if the nationals of neighbouring countries seek revenge? South Africa has huge investments in the region and its nationals are there - will they be safe if there are revenge attacks?” he argues.

While the economy of Malawi appears to be flourishing, unemployment is said to be high. Little manufacturing is taking place as the country continues to be a huge market for imports. This means that for considerable amount of time, the country’s youths will continue to pursue greener pastures abroad. South Africa, despite the current problems will still be an attractive destination.

“I will wait for some time but I will be going there again. Malawians gardeners, cooks and tailors are always in demand there. Even if I worked hard here I can never dream of buying a TV and subscribing to DStv [a satellite television]. What has happened should be regarded as an accident,” says, Francis who refused to disclose his last name.

Francis has lived in the most volatile township - Alexandra in Johannesburg. He too blames president Mbeki for the current problems. He discloses that tension started when Mbeki said there was no crisis in Zimbabwe. The locals started telling Zimbabweans and others to go back to their countries since there was no crisis.

“Though it appears they targeted Malawians, Mozambiquans and Zimbabweans, it should be known that there are other nationals that speak the same languages as South Africans while others from Kenya, Nigeria etc live in big suburbs away from the poverty” he says.

Some employers have hinted that foreign workers are hardworking and they hope the situation will return to normal and the foreigners will return. But such sentiments are usually discounted by union leaders who feel some employers want foreign staff purely to exploit them because they are desperate to have food and shelter and they don’t bargain for better terms.

As for Malawians, talk of regional integration is merely a joke as they visit the holding centre in Blantyre, to see if their relations are among the returnees.

*Akwete Sande is a freelance journalist based in Blantyre, Malawi.

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

Obama's challenge to Africans

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/48716

For Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, "Obama’s nomination and his eventual victory should make us reexamine our legal, political, cultural and social attitudes about citizenship and stop using it as a means of exclusion and marginalisation."
====

There is a carnivalesque celebration across Africa greeting Senator Barrack Obama historic presidential campaign. The excitement is such that one would be forgiven to think that Obama was about to be sworn in. No where is this excitement more infectious than in Kenya, the homeland of Obama’s father.

Even Kenyans who in the closely fought Presidential elections of last year swore that Raila would never be president, not because of anything other than his being Luo, without any sense of irony, are part of the Obamamania. A 100% Luo is not good enough for them as President of Kenya but they are supporting a 5O% Luo to be president of the USA!

Kenyans are not alone in these contradictory responses. I am not sure how many of the millions of Africans celebrating Obama’s possible victory would as enthusiastic were Obama running for office in their countries. Can you imagine an Obama as a presidential candidate in Ivory Coast? Would he not be reminded that he is not African enough? How could he pass the ‘ivorite’ test when even a former Prime Minister of the country born in the country was disqualified? If Obama had run in the Nigerian election would he have generated the same mass adulation?

This a continent in which a former President (Kenneth Kaunda), who was founding father of the country, a man who served as President for 25 years had his citizenship stripped off him by his successor because his parents allegedly came from a neighbouring country, The former President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa, had the citizenship of a number of Tanzanians annulled just because they disagreed or he suspected that they did not agree with him politically. One of them was a serving High Commissioner and the other a former member of Parliament and leading member of the ruling party. As part of his campaign of prolonging his gerontocracy President Mugabe stripped some Zimbabweans of their citizenship. The journalist, Trevor Ncube, was declared a Malawian but his siblings who were not considered sympathisers of the opposition remained Zimbabweans. Ethiopia and Eritrea shamelessly engaged in tit for tat denationalisation of innocent citizens because of the senseless war between the two leaders. There are so many extremely bad examples of routine denial of citizenship across Africa.

The ease with which political opponents are foreignised across Africa would never have given any hope for an Obama to even dream of becoming a local councilor let alone aspire to the Presidency.

Even within the same country claims of who is an indigene, a settler, a resident, etc are used to disempower fellow citizens. And if you are a woman who married across ethnic or national boundaries you are doubly disempowered. You may not be fully accepted by the Man’s group or country and your group/country will disown you for marrying out.

Obama’s nomination and his eventual victory should make us reexamine our legal, political, cultural and social attitudes about citizenship and stop using it as a means of exclusion and marginalisation. Obama did not have to hide his African and non-African origins and heritage and both are not considered to be disadvantages to his political ascendancy. Instead he is celebrating and using them as a political selling point saying that the diversity of his heritage and upbringing equip him to lead a multi cultural America in an even more diverse world. Without stating it directly he challenges the WASP (White Anglo –Saxon Protestant) hegemony with a global cosmopolitanism that makes the provincialism of the likes of Bush antithetical to the wider interests of the US in the world. When he says he understands the world and could make the world understand America, it is more believable coming from him than from any of his opponents.

Obama’s victory should open the doors of opportunity for the enjoyment of full citizenship rights to all Africans wherever they may be from Cape Town to Cairo and lift the veil from the injustices that continue to surround citizenship across the continent. If we can be happily anticipate an Obama victory in the US elections we should be equally prepared to accept that a Munyarwanda raised in Uganda can be president of Uganda; A Nigerian of Ghanaian or Togolese extraction can be President of Nigeria; an immigrant from Zimbabwe or Mozambique who are targets of negrophobic attacks in South Africa today or their descendants can aspire to be president of South Africa in our life-time.

If we cannot accept this we should stop the hypocrisy. If an Obama is good for America he or she should be good for Africa too. Show that you really care about Obama’s promised brave new world of tolerance and inclusion by recognising the many Obamas near you.


*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/

Africa: Deaf television in Zimbabwe

2008-06-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/48753

CHIPAWO Media is the only media house in Zimbabwe that produces television for
and with the Deaf in Sign Language. This grew out of the arts education and performance work that CHIPAWO began doing with Emerald Hill School for the Deaf, in Harare, back in 1994, supported by World University Service (WUS) Canada.
DEAF TELEVISION IN ZIMBABWE
CHIPAWO Media is the only media house in Zimbabwe that produces television for and with the Deaf in Sign Language.
This grew out of the arts education and performance work that CHIPAWO began doing with Emerald Hill School for the Deaf, in Harare, back in 1994, supported by World University Service (WUS) Canada.

‘HANDSPEAK’
The first television programme CHIPAWO Media did with the deaf was the trail-blazing 13 episode series, Handspeak, the first series on Zimbabwe television in Sign Language. Launched on 5 June, 2005, Handspeak was a weekly magazine programme in Sign Language for and by the deaf, There were sub-titles so hearing viewers were able to follow what was being said. Each episode featured a short lesson on Sign Language, news about and for the deaf, a drama on the topic of the week followed by a discussion with guests on the programme and the Window of Hope - a profile of deaf persons who have, despite the odds, have made something of their lives.

The series featured topics such as Love and Marriage, Careers for deaf people, HIV/AIDS, Education, Communication with others in the community and Entertainment as well as Relaxation and Entertainment.

Nyasha Nyamwanza, the Coordinator of the Programme, and herself deaf, said the main aim of the programme was to change people’s attitudes towards the deaf. “The aim of the programme is to change the way deaf people are perceived in the society by showing that the deaf are just like hearing people” she said. She also said that the programme also seeks to show the problems that the deaf face in Zimbabwe and therefore try to call for action to help the deaf and that there’s need to teach Sign Language in order to make communication between the hearing and deaf easier.’ Nyasha died tragically during the making of the series.

Though there are television programmes for the deaf in other countries, there are not many in Africa. According to the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) Report 10 percent of the content on the national television broadcaster, Zimbabwe Television, is expected to cater for the hearing impaired. As there was virtually nothing before, except for certain news programmes in Sign Language, Handspeak went a long way towards filling the gap.
DEAF DIALOGUES
The sequel to Handspeak was long in coming, owing to the lack of funds. However something was done when in May this year CHIPAWO Media included a four episode mini-series in its Onstage television series - a series that presents performance filmed on stage for television. This mini-series included ‘Give Us a Chance’, a documentary based on a Handicap Advocacy Arts Festival featuring performance and discussion on issues relating to the handicapped involving handicapped and other children. Then the small dramas that had been featured in Handspeak were gathered into two episodes of drama in Sign Language entitled ‘Dialogues of the Deaf’. The fourth in the mini-series was ‘Cry Thinking’.
CRY THINKING
What is it like to grow up knowing that you are not like other people? You are deaf.
This is the question that was put to the young deaf actors at Emerald Hill School for the Deaf when they began preparing their play. One of the children wrote in her response to the question that ‘every night I used to cry, thinking that I was the only deaf person in the world’. And so the play that they came up with was called ‘Cry Thinking’.
An interesting theatrical device is the way in which the play tells the story in two parallel streams. There is the realistic portrayal of how everyone is so happy when Rumbi is born but then one day her mother discovers that she cannot hear. This prompts her husband’s sisters to blame her and urge him to drive her away. Rumbi is taken to a doctor and to an n’anga but there seems little hope as they all proclaim her incurably deaf. The story goes on to show how she manages to partly transcend her condition and lead, with her family, a more normal life.
In the other stream, the experience is shown not realistically but through mime. Deafness is conceived of as a box. The mimers first discover the box then explore it and try to break out. They see people but the people cannot help them. Eventually they find a way out and they try to talk to each other and others but as they are deaf, they find they cannot do this either. Finally they are taught Sign Language and this gives them the power to communicate - with each other but not with the rest of the world as they cannot speak their language. The play is a powerful argument for the teaching of Sign Language to the hearing.
Of the actors, one of them, the principal mimer, has subsequently become famous. This is Audrey Chakara, who recently represented Zimbabwe in an international deaf beauty competition in Eaurope. After ‘Cry Thinking’ she went on to be a presenter in CHPAWO Media’s Sign Language television series, ‘Handspeak’.
“Cry Thinking’ was first performed at the Reps Theatre, where it was also filmed for television. It subsequently went to Germany to participate in the 7th World Festival of Children’s Theatre, Lingen, in July 2002.
ACTION POWER
Now at last the sequel to Handspeak is nearing the finishing line. With a small grant from the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe, work began on the new series at the beginning of 2008. Unfortunately hyperinflation rapidly turned the budget into peanuts and production stalled. The Fund then came up with some additional funding in April.

Though the same thing has happened to the budget - as inflation is now far worse than it was at the beginning of the year - CHIPAWO Media and Emerald Hill School for the Deaf are determined to press on and complete the series no matter what. It should be in the can by the end of this week (13th June) and hit the small screen in October, 2008.
Action Power is basically a magazine programme similar to Handspeak. Learning from that experience the new series has been simplified and made a little less ambitious. It consists of three segments - Action Art, Action Speak and Action Issues.

Action Art is an opportunity to meet a deaf artist or craftsperson. A work of art or craft such as painting, sculpture, dance, hair design, pottery, basketry etc. is presented to the viewers and discussed then the artist comes on to the show.

The artist and his or her work is introduced and he or she gives the viewers an idea as to how they became to be artists, what they experience, their challenges and their aspirations.

Action Speak is a continuation of the lessons in Sign Language for the hearing but this time more advanced signs are included for the deaf.

Action Issues features discussion by children, youth, parents, teachers and government on Education and Careers for the deaf in Zimbabwe.

DVDS AVAILABLE
All CHIPAWO Media television p[rogrammes and documentaries are available on
DVD. Price US$15 excluding postage.
Contact CHIPAWO:
www.chipawo.co.zw
chipawo@mango.zw

Righteous outrage against violence against women

Jacques Depelchin

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/48717

I have followed your righteous outrage against the violence being perpetrated against women - see Stephen Lewis's article in Pambazuka News. I almost reacted the first time around. It was after the news on what happened to the women of Panzi.

I entirely agree with your outrage. However for this outrage to become effective, there are a few things which need to be addressed by trying to step beyond the usual frames of prevailing historical narratives. I cannot address all of them here. At one point you ask where did we go wrong? Your focus in the reply to that question is on the UN and its institutions. And then you add, again quite rightly, that for things to change, the UN and all of its institutions must take sexual violence more seriously.

My sense is that one keeps interrogating history only up to a point, especially, but not only, when it comes to African history and the histories of women and children. The violence suffered by women has NEVER been taken seriously, by this I mean in a way which could/should have led to a complete and total change of the dominant mindset. The currently dominant mindset says simply that the best way to run an economy (i.e. the world) is through competition, if necessary, to death. The dominant mindset has taken centuries to build. The violence against women and children has been going on with impunity for even a longer period in the history of Humanity, but it is in the last few centuries with the canonization/nobelization of capitalism that the violence against the weakest has been accepted as more or less ok. It is easy to speak of crimes against humanity. So easy, in fact, that the boundary such words are supposed to elicit no longer seems to be taken seriously. Why are certain crimes easily accepted as crimes against humanity and others , e.g. the violence against women (and children) not so easily accepted? Aren't women and children part of humanity?

Could it be that, historically speaking, when a particular trespassing against a segment of humanity takes place with impunity, then, through that trespassing a license is given to carry on. Punishment if, and when it happens, will then take place selectively. And so, so to speak, from trespassing to trespassing, one has arrived at this juncture. It has been a long process. There is not one particular point at which things did go wrong.

AFTER WWII, the UN was constructed to prevent self-destruction of the most advanced countries/economies, by extension, through a charitable approach, other problems were dealt with. Again, in a selective manner, depending on power relations. To this day, the UN deals with women, children and the so-called developing economies in a manner dominated by the mindset of charity. What I read in your outrage is a call for a change of mindsets: the one which led to globalization (a variant of globall apartheid) based on competition to death, occasionally relieved by charitable gestures.

The currently dominant economic system (a crucial part of the mindset) was born out of a twin genocide. Those who most suffered from it and their descendants have been kept at where they were left. Given the absence of impunity, the system has carried on, reproducing itself in the manner it has modernized/refined itself. It has done so through violence and seduction and all the means in between.

What I got from Eve Ensler's movie and the words of Dr. Denis Mukwege is that the violence is not taken seriously because no effort has been done to really tell what happens to a person who survives after having been destroyed at his/her most sensitive, his/her most vulnerable point, physically and psychically. To survive from such an onslaught is not the same as living. Especially through a continuing dominant charitable mindset. A person who has gone through such horrendous terror cannot find the words to relate what has occurred. Among them some manage to heal thanks to people who, like Dr. Denis Mukwege and others we never hear about, think and live a life based on solidarity.

Capitalism and solidarity are antagonic mindsets. Capitalism loves charity. Capitalism does accept the UN as long as it can function as a sort of charitable organization on a world scale. What would be the point of healing from capitalism if, at the same time, there is a visceral refusal (individual and collective) to heal from the violence inflicted on women/children? The responsibility to transform the mindset belongs to all human beings. One would hope that those who have leadership positions would work the hardest at changing the mindset which thinks that the violence against women/children is an acceptable collateral damage. In these long histories of Africa and Africans, we have been convinced that the dominant mindset is the best one to follow and adapt to. One day, not too long, there shall be a leadership which will determine that any form of violence against the weakest members of society, women, children, the sick, the poor, etc. shall not be tolerated, at all. For far too long what has been described as collateral damage is actually the destruction of what is substantial to humanity.

It would be good if Pbn ran a regular discussion on how this could be carried out. I do not believe the leadership will come from institutions like the UN. Thank you Stephen for pushing.

The Juba peace process - The end of the road

Alison Jones, Resolve Uganda

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/48702

The Juba Peace Process, the two-year negotiations aimed at ending the war in Uganda, has ended with rebel leader Joseph Kony refusing to sign the final agreement. Though we've made incredible progress in the past two years, It appears that we have reached the end of the road for this process.

It is now more important than ever that we keep up the pressure on our leaders to end this war. These peace talks produced a surge of helpful attention from our leaders, and they will be tempted to now turn their attention elsewhere. Returning to the neglect and indifference of the past would have catastrophic consequences for the people of northern Uganda.

We cannot afford to have that happen. The stakes are too high.

Even though they failed to achieve a signed final agreement, significant progress was still made. What had been been labeled as one of the worst and most neglected humanitarian crises in the world just a few years ago has seen transformation. Nearly a million people began to leave displacement camps and return home and children were no longer forced to commute at night to stay safe. These gains must be sustained and consolidated.

Despite this progress in northern Uganda, the Lord's Resistance Army is now operating in the border regions between three countries: the Congo, Sudan and the Central African Republic. Abductions of young children are once again occurring, and we have good reason to believe they will only increase in the coming weeks.

As the rebel group prepares to return to war, we must urge our leaders to fight harder than ever to achieve peace.

For those of you who have worked so hard to help achieve peace in Uganda, I know that this news is extremely discouraging. But with so much progress made and so much still hanging in the balance, now is not the time to give up hope. Successful peace processes require long-term vision and persistence. Together, we can be the factor that prevents history from repeating itself. We can keep the attention of our leaders on this issue and keep pushing them to do everything they can for peace.

There are no alternatives.

Obama will need our help

Kwabena Lumumba

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/48709

I love this this article. It snatches the reader from the symbolism of Obama. I say this as a supporter and even someone encouraged by his message. This article seems aimed at Africans in the diaspora, but it clearly represents a reality for African Americans too. Sen. Obama has had to detach himself for almost all things black to become the democratic candidate. Therefore, how can we expect him to address our issues directly once he's in office. In fact, for politically expediency he most likely will have to apply himself less than White presidents before him.

With this in mind, I think we are going to have to take it to the streets, boardrooms, etc. to get our issues addressed. I think he will appreciate this action, because then when he does respond to us, again it will be for "political expediency", he's addressing a demand of the public of its government. Man he's going to need our help!

Aluta continua!

Amengeo

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/48710

Informative and timely article . I have met Cubans in Cuba who fought in Angola who have a clearer understanding of the significance of these battles than most africa leaders. The African Revolution is still unfinished.

African Blog Review June 12, 2008

Dibussi Tande

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/48701

George Ngwane
http://www.gngwane.com/2008/06/between-a-state.html

George Ngwane comments on the failures of “State-centric” PanAfricanism which has so far been characterized by “dialectically opposing ideologies and procedural battles on the methodology and ownership of its dividends…”According to Ngwane,

“With the attainment of political Independence by most African countries in the 60s the pendulum oscillitated between an atavist pseudo-nationalist group that held tenaciously to national sovereignty and an economic-integrative bloc that favoured the clustering of sub regions resulting in the Lagos Plan of Action (1980) and the Abuja Economic Treaty (1991). Muammar Gaddafi’s convening of forty Heads of State to Sirte Libya on September 9th 1999 was an acknowledgement of the flawed Pan African promises since 1900 and a resolve to rekindle the Casablanca dream through the transformation of a moribund O.A.U to a fast track African Union. Unfortunately the launching of the African Union on 9th July 2002 in Durban, South Africa, stalled the Sirte revolution and in its place erected a Durban evolution…

Until the ownership of PanAfricanism is citizen-oriented through the concrete establishment of common economic values, shared social identities, a consensual political front and a more authoritative African Union Commission, pan Africanism shall continue to stay at the level of futile state-centric theses and reactionary anti-theses and the result shall be the ubiquitous power jockey among a rent seeking political elite, the scramble for depleted resources among the emasculated masses and the stereotype image of a continent that has erroneously earned the stigma of “a scar on the conscience of humanity”.


Clement Nyirenda’s blog world
http://nthambazale.com/?p=224

Clement Nyirenda revisits Malawi’s participation in the African fair in Yokohama, Japan, which was organized during fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Develeopment (TICAD IV):

“Most African countries had their stands at this fair but we could not manage to visit them because we got stuck on the Malawi stand...

The team manning the Malawi stand was overwhelmed by the interest shown by the Japanese people… This is a good development for our country. As a blogger based here in Japan, I am very impressed. My advice to fellow Malawians is that we must seize these opportunities vigorously and make sure that the country gains a lot out of this fair. There is a very good impression here about Malawi.My only concern is that some companies in Malawi did not put their contact details (phone number, fax, email) in the Fair guide book.This will make it difficult for people interested in their products to contact them. Let me also point out that it is high time that Malawian companies maintained their own websites. It is not expensive to maintain a website today. The benefits of having a company website are enormous. With time, you will notice that what you gain by having a company website outweighs the costs of doing so by far.”


Ray Hartely
http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/hartley/2008/06/12/tutu-is-right-to-call-for-a-sports-boycott-of-zimbabwe/

Ray Hartely commends Archbishop Desmond Tutu's for callling on cricketers to boycott Zimbabwe and condemns South Africa's continued tepid response to the situation in Zimbabwe:

“South Africa’s response to Zimbabwe has continue to be cautious and muted even as pre-election violence escalates ahead of the June 27 run-off election between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai...

This soft approach fails to acknowledge the role played by the sports boycott in dampening the global image of the apartheid state.

Such boycotts send a powerful signal that a government is a pariah and can hasten change by providing the oppressed with evidence that the outside world is in solidarity with them.
South Africa’s struggle leaders should know this better than most because many were at the forefront of the apartheid government’s international isolation.

By carrying on a normal sporting, diplomatic and commercial relationship, we are saying that we accept the Zimbabwean government’s legitimacy, even as it blatantly attacks democracy.”


Virtual Africa
http://virtualafrica.co.za/travel/robben-island-virtual-tour/

The Virtual Africa blog presents an life-like virtual tour of Robben island, particularly Nelson Mandela’s prison pell and the famous cave at the limestone quarry where Mandela and others held meetings. Virtual Africa reveals that the virtual tour project began about a year ago at the behest of South African Tourism:

“This virtual tour was included in the official SA Tourism Google Earth layer and we thought we’d share it with you here.

Robben Island has a unique and colourful history: Leper Colony, World War II fortress, Prison and now …. a museum, a place of remembrance.

You can read the history books and look at the pictures as much as you like, but it simply won’t prepare you for the experience of actually being there.

When you step off that ferry for the first time, you know you’ve arrived at a place of significance.

Walking the halls of the prison, peering into the cells, visiting the quarries where the prisoners had to work and listening to the stories of ex political prisoners is hugely educational, deeply depressing and wonderfully uplifting - all at the same time.”


Sociolingo’s Africa
http://sociolingo.wordpress.com/2008/06/08/coca-cola-speaks-out-about-democracy-in-africa/


Sociolingo’s Africa reprints excerpts of a recent interview by Neville Isdell, the world-wide head of The Coca-Cola Company who argues that economic growth is posssible in non-democratic systems:

“Oppressive societies – that is always a problem. You don't get good growth out of those. Where you have a deficit of democracy as defined today by Western elites, you can still have very good growth because they're putting in place sound policies. Not just economic policies – educating their people, having good rule of law, building infrastructure.

I think the real qualifier for democracy to be not just a vote once, but really to take root is a functioning middle class. That is the democratic stabilizer. There's a little bit of a chicken-and-egg situation here. You do not get a functioning middle class unless you have got a growing economy, unless you've got the right economic policies, and those can be put in by governments which don't meet the current Western democratic norm.”


Addis Journal
http://arefe.wordpress.com/2008/06/10/desperation-as-hunger-grow-bbc/

Addis Journal produces excepts of what it describes as an “appalling” BBC report about hunger in Ethiopia:

“It is a strange and unsettling ride west from the Ethiopian town of Shashamene. The fields are vibrant green. There is water in the creeks. The soil is a deep rich burgundy.However, the people here speak of a ‘green drought’.

It is the time when the land is full of new shoots but there is no food. It happens because the last rains failed and few crops were planted.”


* Dibussi Tande, a writer and activist from Cameroon, produces the blog Scribbles from the Den

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

African dignitaries call for free Zimbabwe vote

2008-06-13

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L13205530.htm

Fourteen former presidents and African dignitaries including former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan have called for Zimbabwean authorities to allow a free and fair vote on June 27 overseen by independent observers. Zimbabweans will go to the polls to decide the second round of a hard-fought presidential contest later this month after opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai beat incumbent Robert Mugabe in the first round in March

Mbeki, Kaunda and Makoni in bid to cancel run-off

2008-06-13

http://www.swradioafrica.com/News120608/Mbeki120608.htm

South African President Thabo Mbeki, former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda and losing presidential candidate Simba Makoni have all ganged up to help Robert Mugabe avoid the June 27 presidential election run-off. With Mugabe entering the election as a first time underdog, the trio are being accused of trying to help him by supporting the cancellation of the run-off and establishing Mugabe as head of a government of national unity. The suggestion is that Tsvangirai takes the post of Prime Minister, much the same way as happened in Kenya.

Mugabe invokes threat of violence over run-off

2008-06-13

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=18966

President Robert Mugabe has warned that veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s liberation war are prepared to take up arms again rather than see the opposition win a June 27 election, state media said Friday. "They came to my office after the (first round of) elections and asked me: 'Can we take up arms?'," Mugabe was quoted by the Herald newspaper as telling a rally in Murehwa, to the northeast of Harare on Thursday.

SADC observers should go to Zimbabwe immediately

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/48707

The Centre for Human Rights, at the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, calls on President Mwanawasa, in his capacity as Chairperson of SADC, and on President Mbeki, in his capacity as SADC mediator on Zimbabwe, to take all possible measures to ensure the immediate and extensive deployment of SADC observers in Zimbabwe.
SADC election observers should go to Zimbabwe immediately

Release date: 10 June 2008

The Centre for Human Rights, at the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, calls on President Mwanawasa, in his capacity as Chairperson of SADC, and on President Mbeki, in his capacity as SADC mediator on Zimbabwe, to take all possible measures to ensure the immediate and extensive deployment of SADC observers in Zimbabwe.

It is encouraging that President Mbeki has already voiced his support for the deployment of SADC observers, and that he reminded member states to make the necessary resources available for this purpose. However, these observers should not focus primarily on monitoring the polls on voting day, but should be put in place as soon as possible to cover the period leading up to the elections and a reasonable period thereafter. These observers should also be representative of SADC as a whole.

An election is a process, consisting of three main phases: (1) the pre-election period;
(2) the voting day itself; and
(3) the period between voting and the release of results.

If election observers focus on what happens on voting day only, the important determinants of a free and fair election prior to and after voting day would not be taken into account. At the moment, there are clear indications that the pre-election conditions are not only making a free and fair election impossible, but are skewed in favour of the candidacy of President Mugabe. Even if people are allowed to go to the polls on voting day, free and fair elections are impossible due to the harassment, arrest, detention and even disappearance of activists and leaders; restrictions on the media; and fear and intimidation of the population and non-governmental organisations.

According to SADC’s own ‘Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections’, the SADC election observation mission should be deployed ‘at least two weeks before the voting day’ (para 4.1.10). Under the specific circumstances prevailing in Zimbabwe, the ‘normal’ period of two weeks should be increased as much as possible. It is imperative that all efforts should be made to get as many observers into place, covering as extensive an area as possible, as soon as possible. The elections, scheduled to take place on 27 June, is just 16 days away. Observers should be on the ground now, and should stay at least until election results are announced.

Observers should insist on the full compliance with the SADC Principles and Guidelines, which includes the following:

* The government must safeguard the human rights and adequate security of all stakeholders and parties (para 7.4; 7.5).
* The observers must have unimpeded and unrestricted access to all polling stations and counting centres (para 7.19).

Once deployed, SADC observers must submit regular reports, so that matters requiring urgent attention may be dealt with by the appropriate SADC organ.

To ensure a credible election, as many observers as possible should be allowed into the country. Presidents Mwanawasa and Mbeki should insist that Zimbabwe allows other observers, in line with the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights’ ‘Resolution on the Forthcoming Run-off Election in Zimbabwe’, adopted in May at its 43rd ordinary session. In this resolution, the African Commission requests that the Zimbabwean government allows ‘both national and international election observers to observe the entire electoral process, so as to enhance the credibility of the electoral process, and acceptance of the results of the elections by all contesting parties’.

The Centre for Human Rights further urges Presidents Mwanawasa and Mbeki to exert all possible pressure on President Mugabe to halt violence, intimidation, and selective use of to law stifle opposition, and to abide by the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections and the Zimbabwean Constitution and Electoral Act.

For more detail, please contact:
Frans Viljoen,
Director of the Centre for Human Rights,
Faculty of Law,
University of Pretoria,
frans.viljoen@up.ac.za;
tel: 012 4203228;
cell: 073 393 4181

SOAWR Statement on Zimbabwe

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/48704

On 29th March 2008, Zimbabwe went to the polls to elect its next government. Results of the Presidential elections were announced a month later and people in Zimbabwe maintained peace. Reports from Zimbabwean civil society organizations (CSO) [names are with held for security reasons] indicate that from 2 April 2008, the government organised a retribution campaign to target those who allegedly voted for the opposition and “since then there has been terror in mostly rural Zimbabwe with youth militia under the command of the army and police confirmed to have gone on to unleash terror in a campaign to teach the rural people how to correctly vote as the country gears up for a presidential run-off on the 27th June 2008.”
SOLIDARITY FOR AFRICAN WOMEN’S RIGHTS (SOAWR) COALITION STATEMENT ON ZIMBABWE

STOP THE VIOLENCE IN ZIMBABWE NOW!

An Open Letter to:
H.E. Jakaya Kikwete, President of the Republic of Tanzanian and Chairman of the African Union
H.E. Commissioner Jean Ping, Chairperson of the African Union Commission
Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations
Members of the United Nations Security Council
Members of the African Union Peace and Security Council
H.E. Sir Katumile Masire, President of the Republic of Botswana and Chairman of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC)
The Executive Secretary of the SADC Secretariat



PREAMBLE

On 29th March 2008, Zimbabwe went to the polls to elect its next government. Results of the Presidential elections were announced a month later and people in Zimbabwe maintained peace. Reports from Zimbabwean civil society organizations (CSO) [names are with held for security reasons] indicate that from 2 April 2008, the government organised a retribution campaign to target those who allegedly voted for the opposition and “since then there has been terror in mostly rural Zimbabwe with youth militia under the command of the army and police confirmed to have gone on to unleash terror in a campaign to teach the rural people how to correctly vote as the country gears up for a presidential run-off on the 27th June 2008.”

No election observers are yet in the country, despite the urgent calls, appeals and pleas of the Zimbabweans to the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU) and the United Nations.

The world is watching as a silent genocide of the poor and the powerless goes on as a result of politically induced murders, criminal actions, and the collapse of basic services. Most of the affected are women and children.

According to reports received from concerned CSO from Zimbabwe:

The post election murders, burnings, lootings and intimidation have mostly affected women and girls since 80% of women live in rural areas which is the epicenter of the violence.

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 or are squatters with relatives. Displaced children 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 and together with her pregnant mother, forced to lie down and beaten on the breasts and buttocks. Just as 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 week due to AIDS, and life expectancy is 34 years for women.

Unemployment is 80% and inflation is 165 000 %, the highest in the world.

Over 200 000 women were made homeless and jobless by the government 2005 Operation Murambatsviina.

Over 3 million Zimbabweans are immigrants in South Africa where they are facing xenophobic attacks.

The Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SOAWR) Coalition joins the Zimbabwean women and women of Africa in calling for your urgent attention to and action on the following:

COGNISANT of the obligations of the Zimbabwean government to protect, promote and fulfill the human rights of its people under international and regional Human Rights frameworks such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Beijing Platform for Action, the Millennium Declaration, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the Optional Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, the African Union Constitutive Act and the AU Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality.

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.

CONCERNED by the 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 peacefully and in large numbers on 29th March 2008. The media reports on the party political position adopted by the law enforcement, which should ordinarily maintain neutrality, and the recent purchase of military weapons adds to this fear.

DEMAND cessation of organized and targeted intimidation against the citizens, particularly the use of women and girls as weapons of ‘war’, evidenced by the physical torture 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 and sexual abuse.

REQUEST the Leadership of the African Union, SADC and the United Nations to demand that the ZANU PF government stop using violence against its people and TAKE TANGIBLE actions to foster a violence-free election.

Request all the officials and organs addressed in this open letter to:

Establish a programme of engagement with Zimbabwe for the protection of human rights especially for women, girls and children. The AU must deploy human rights monitors and observers during the run-up to the Presidential Elections and whose presence must be maintained until the announcement of the next President to ensure that there is no repeat of the pattern of violence witnessed so far. There should be gender parity within the observers including women’s rights activists as provided for in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, and the AU Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality.

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

Engage with the Zimbabwe government and authorities to stop the violence and intimidation which has far reaching consequences to restricting the future participation and representation of women in decision making, which is essential in a democratic society and is part of the international and regional human rights frameworks.

Encourage and support humanitarian assistance to Zimbabwe, especially in support of food, health and education for rural communities and the displaced. Health services should include reproductive health services of women and girls.

Urge the State to immediately reinstate the operations of non-governmental organizations to continue with their important services to the needy people of Zimbabwe.

Issued on 6 June 2008

Tsvangirai back in jail

2008-06-13

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/18881

Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his campaign team have been detained in Kwekwe and are currently at Kwekwe police station. MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said that Tsvangirai and his team were on a victory tour early Thursday.

Agricultural Revolution

Weekly Roundup: Issue 140, 2008

Yves Niyiragira

2008-06-12

http://www.aumonitor.org

During the World Economic Forum on Africa that took place in South Africa, the host president expressed his confidence that Africa can overcome its challenges. His sentiments were echoed by Mr Borge Brende, WEF managing director, who noted the tremendous progress and many opportunities that Africa can capitalise on to triumph over the seemingly complex challenges it faces. Prior to the WEF, other African presidents attended the 8th Leon H.Sullivan Summit in Arusha, Tanzania. In his remarks, the Tanzanian president, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, underlined the need for Africa to invest adequately in infrastructure development. However, the Worldwide Fund for Nature, in its reports, warned that many African countries are running out of natural resources in the marathon of industrialisation and with the rapid growth of its population. The report says that the global average footprint of 2.2 hectares per person will need two planets by 2050.

President Kagame of Rwanda, this week, blamed corruption and unnecessary cross-border checks as frustrating development efforts. President Kagame further emphasised the need for African countries to put in place effective and speedy integration measures so as to increase trade volume within Africa and with the international community. While the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has endorsed a proposal on joint border posts expected to facilitate border crossing and enable conditions for a borderless region, an important step towards regional integration.

Further, the African Union (AU) president, President Kikwete reiterated the need for Africa and its partner to address challenges of climate change, water, sanitation and the oil and food crisis. Meanwhile, The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group and the World Bank jointly organised, in Dakar, a fourth regional consultation on their respective strategies on climate change. The main objective of the consultation was to brainstorm and seek solutions to strengthen collaboration between African institutions and development partners to address climate change. The World Bank Director of Operations in Senegal, Madani Tall, said that the AfDB-World Bank consultation proved that climate change had a real impact on the continent.

Still in development related news, the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) launched a 50 million U.S. dollar private sector fund to assist the continent’s rural poor, enabling the private sector to invest in new business projects in the agricultural and financial sectors that provide development opportunities for the communities in which they operate. Despite huge pledges for short-term solutions to the food crisis made during the World Food summit, world leaders did little to enhance the capacity of growers in Africa. According to a study by the US Congress research agency, today’s food crisis might have been avoided had rich countries done more to promote agricultural development in Africa and other impoverished regions. The African Development Bank (AfDB) claims that “a smallholder agricultural revolution” in Africa is required to address the food crisis and turn farming into a business, rather than a means of subsistence, for African farmers.

In peace and security news, the AU has welcomed the agreement reached by the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia and the opposition Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia. It calls on other parties to join the negotiation table and commit themselves to the peaceful and negotiated settlement of the conflict in Somalia.

Civil society representatives expressed their disappointment at the lack of funding commitments and political will to tackle HIV/AIDS during the launch of a United Nations report. Since 2000, 14 million Africans have died of AIDS and an additional 17 million have been infected with HIV, says the report, which civil society says “did not pay enough attention to gender equality and violence against women as key aspects of the pandemic”.

Global: Empower peacekeepers to stop rape -UN

2008-06-12

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/06/10/global19094.htm

The United Nations Security Council should effectively address sexual violence in conflict as a weapon of war and its destabilizing impact on communities, Human Rights Watch and the International Women’s Tribune Center has said. On June 11, 2008, high-ranking military officials from countries involved in peacekeeping missions and women from war-torn countries will make recommendations to the UN Security Council on how to stop sexual violence in war.

Guinea: FGM survivors get asylum

2008-06-13

http://www.afrol.com/articles/29357

A decision by a federal appeals court in New York has come as a saviour for many asylum seeking African women in the United States. The court ruled that three Guinean women, claiming to be victims of female genital mutilation (FGM), should not be sent back to their home country, saying there were obvious errors in denying them asylum.

Uganda: Apac women crying for "a dog that can work"

2008-06-13

http://tinyurl.com/6gkjup

Margaret Olero, 46, is choking with the burden of looking after her 7 children, her husband, in addition to undertaking all the daily domestic chores, while her husband leaves everything to her as he has done for the past 24 years. Olero says her husband, just like many in Aminamong village, Akokoro sub-county in Apac is waiting for a dog that can work (go to the garden and earn money for the family) before he can get convinced to start working for himself and family.

Uganda: WOUGNET soars high in the use of SMS

2008-06-13

http://tinyurl.com/3p45mp

WOUGNET has explored the use of SMS in information sharing and carrying out SMS campaigns around different themes. The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, an international SMS campaign from 25/Nov – 10Dec 2007, with over 170 participants drawn from 13 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, was used as a strategy to call for the elimination of all forms of violence against women.

Ethiopia: Army commits executions, torture, and rape in Ogaden

2008-06-12

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/06/12/ethiop19029.htm

In its battle against rebels in eastern Ethiopia’s Somali Region, Ethiopia's army has subjected civilians to executions, torture, and rape, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released on Thursday 12 June. The widespread violence, part of a vicious counterinsurgency campaign that amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity, has contributed to a looming humanitarian crisis, threatening the survival of thousands of ethnic Somali nomads.

Global: US Supreme Court extends protection to foreign detainees

2008-06-13

http://www.hrea.org/index.php?base_id=2&language_id=1&headline_id=7370

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, welcomed Thursday's decision by the United States Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush that the U.S. Constitution extends to foreign detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and that they have the right to challenge their detention by habeas corpus in the civilian courts.

Somalia: Children’s rights violations high

2008-06-13

http://www.afrol.com/articles/29355

United Nations new report has revealed shocking children rights violations perpetrated by Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and insurgents. A report shows that children rights violations ranges from murder and rape to their recruitment as child soldiers and also denial of humanitarian access to those in need.

Somalia: Grave violations against children increasing, UN report says

2008-06-13

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=26982

The number of grave human rights violations against children in Somalia, from acts of murder and rape to the recruitment of child soldiers to the denial of humanitarian access to those in need, have all increased in the past year, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a new report to the Security Council.

Southern Africa: ACHPR denounces human rights violations

2008-06-13

http://www.fidh.org/spip.php?article5618

Considering the multiplication of assassinations, arbitrary arrests and detentions of political opponents as the run-off of presidential elections in Zimbabwe draws near, as well as threats, intimidations, and numerous hindrances to the human rights defenders’ work, the ACHPR condemned the human rights violations perpetrated in this country, urged the authorities to ensure the free access for candidates to the media.

Uganda: 3 million minors risked forced labour

2008-06-13

http://www.afrol.com/articles/29349

Close to three million Ugandan minors risked forced labour either by parents or poor economic living conditions, Uganda's Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Syda Bbumba, revealed. Minister Bbumba said the revelations were contained in the recent study conducted in the country. Most of Uganda's child labour victims fall between 5 and 17 years.

Africa: Internally displaced need a strong convention

2008-06-13

http://www.fidh.org/spip.php?article5600

Organisations have called upon the African Union (AU) to revise and swiftly adopt its draft Convention for the Prevention of Internal Displacement and the Protection of and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons in Africa.

CAR: 1,400 villagers displaced by bandits - UN

2008-06-13

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=26985

About 1,400 displaced people are living in the village of Kamba Kota in the north of the Central African Republic in terrible health and security conditions after fleeing attacks by armed bandits on their villages, according to a report from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

DRC: Working against confrontation in North Kivu

2008-06-13

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/484d4a112.html

Relative stability in the border province of South Kivu is encouraging Congolese refugees to return home, but some face problems once they get back – especially over land. Land is at the heart of many disputes and confrontation between returnees and those who never fled, as well as between returnees, be they refugees or internally displaced people.

North Africa: Sudanese refugees face dilemma of return

2008-06-13

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78641

Many Sudanese refugees are pushed into considering voluntary repatriation if only because surviving in Egypt is tough. Mideng Mebai, waiting at the Waqf Culture Centre for Sudanese refugees in Ain Shams, is one of them. According to the Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA), an NGO promoting the legal protection of asylum seekers and refugees, Egypt hosts the fifth-largest urban refugee population in the world, mainly concentrated in Cairo and Alexandria.

Somalia: Thousands displaced in renewed fighting

2008-06-13

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78643

An estimated 100 people were killed and thousands fled their homes in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, over the weekend following renewed fighting between Ethiopian troops and insurgents, local sources told IRIN. Another 200 people were reportedly wounded in the clashes, which started on
19 April, hospital sources said.

South Africa: Suicide scam to scare authorities

2008-06-13

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78650

Foreign nationals displaced by xenophobic violence and sheltering in a temporary camp near Cape Town, South Africa, have threatened mass suicide to draw attention to their plight. Soetwater camp, 30 km south of Cape Town, has become home to over 4,000 foreign nationals displaced by the violence that has driven tens of thousands from their homes and left over 60 dead.

Kenya: plans to sue security minister and the police commissioner

2008-06-12

http://tinyurl.com/6b463m

On 31st May, 2008 Kenyans under the umbrella of Bunge La Mwananchi and Starehe Social Forum got together in a solidarity march for the poor to dramatise the frustrations of the urban poor occasioned by the unchecked rising food prices.

Working Class and Trade Union Studies Association of Nigeria

2008-06-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/socialmovements/48751

The 1st Annual Conference of the Working Class and Trade Union Studies Association of Nigeria (WCTUSAN) was convened and held at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan on 30 - 31st May 2008. Participants were drawn from the trade unions, academics, labour NGO’s, youths and students from different geo-political zones of Nigeria. The Key- note Address on the theme: ‘Towards A Liberating Self-understanding of The Working Class By The Working Class: The Case of Industrial Relations’ was delivered by the socialist former National President of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Dr. Festus Iyayi.
Working Class And Trade Union Studies Association Of Nigeria

C/o department of business administration and management studies, the polytechnic, Ibadan, Oyo State

Communiqué issued at the end of the 1st annual conference and formal inauguration of working class & trade union studies association of Nigeria held at the institute of African studies, University of Ibadan 30 - 31st may 2008

Introduction
The 1st Annual Conference of the Working Class and Trade Union Studies Association of Nigeria (WCTUSAN) was convened and held at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan on 30 - 31st May 2008. Participants were drawn from the trade unions, academics, labour NGO’s, youths and students from different geo-political zones of Nigeria. The Key- note Address on the theme: ‘Towards A Liberating Self-understanding of The Working Class By The Working Class: The Case of Industrial Relations’ was delivered by the socialist former National President of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Dr. Festus Iyayi while goodwill messages were received from the main Central Labour Organizations in the country, namely the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) and Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).

In all, thirteen papers were presented for deliberation at the Conference. The Conference formally inaugurated the Working Class and Trade Unions Studies Association of Nigeria and elected a 6-person Steering Committee.

Observations
In its discussions and deliberations, the Conference noted as follows:

(1) The theoretical foundation of Industrial Relations Practice in Nigeria has for too long rested on unscientific appreciation of the place of the country in the world capitalist system, thereby leading to distorted pictures of relations between workers, employers and the state.
(2) The trade unions are relevant vehicles to fight, not only against class oppression in the industry but also against economic, social and political exclusion in the larger society.
(3) The factors of male domination, gender discrimination, unequal opportunities, backward socio-cultural practices and societal mores, among others, undermine women participation in trade union activities and general public life.
(4) The existing Labour Laws in the country are predominantly pro-capitalist and focused on protecting the unequal relations of exploitation and oppression.
(5) The repeated efforts to further integrate Nigeria as an inferior partner into the global capitalist economy through neo-liberal reforms, particularly in the banking industry, oil and gas, public services, etc, have further impoverished the working people, thereby posing critical and urgent challenges before the trade unions and other organizations of the poor strata.

Recommendations
Based on the foregoing observations, the Conference made the following recommendations:

1. That the inauguration of Working Class and Trade Union Studies Association of Nigeria (WCTUSAN) is long overdue. Those who subscribe to the idea of a liberating social science school of thought should embrace and support the WCTUSAN in order to provide non-capitalist oriented versions of the essence, concerns, interests and prospects of the working class and trade unions in Nigeria.
2. That there is a need for trade unions to intensify and deepen mass workers education at all levels. In this regard, a labour college independently owned and controlled by trade unions and pro-labour organizations is an imperative.
3. That to strengthen trade unions, internal trade union democracy should be promoted.
4. While striving for promulgation of more favourable legislation, the trade unions should carry out mass struggles to ensure compliance and enforcement of existing pro-labour laws.
5. In particular, the labour movement should fight against the inadequacies of the existing Pension Act.
6. Trade unions should take advantage of advances in information technology such as mobile phones, Internet, etc, to strengthen trade union communication and struggles.
7. While commending the trade union movement in resisting labour casualisation, the Conference called on labour to challenge the neo-liberal policies which are responsible for the widespread practices of casualisation in both the private and public sectors of the economy.
8. In order to ameliorate the conditions of the working class, the conference called on trade unions to struggle for increased union representation in national labour institutions such as the Industrial Courts, Health & Safety, and Productivity and Incomes Boards.

Femi Aborisade
For and on Behalf of WCTUSAN

Kenya: ODM captures three seats

2008-06-13

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=341856

Prime Minister Raila Odinga's party won three parliamentary seats on Thursday after by-elections that went peacefully despite fears of a repeat of violence seen in the crisis after Kenya's presidential poll. The party of President Mwai Kibaki, which formed a coalition government with Odinga in April to end the crisis after December's vote, won two seats after five by-elections on Wednesday, a statement from Kibaki's office said.

North Africa: Gaddafi rejects Mediterranean bloc

2008-06-13

http://tinyurl.com/4gr3ke

Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has opposed the proposal of a so-called Mediterranean Union. Gaddafi said at a mini-summit of North African and Syrian leaders on Tuesday that it would harm efforts to achieve Arab and African unity. "We are member states of the Arab League and also the African Union and we will not take any chances with damaging Arab or African Unity," he said.

Southern Africa: Call for case studies in the field of elections

2008-06-13

http://www.eisa.org.za/EISA/pr20080610.htm

EISA, the ACE Regional Electoral Resource Centre for Southern Africa, is calling for case studies that touch upon interesting and regionally relevant issues in the field of elections. The case studies in question will be featured on the ACE Regional and Country pages, ACE Regional Newsletter and other sections of the ACE website.

Tanzania: Local autonomy and citizen participation

2008-06-13

http://tinyurl.com/5unrfg

Citizen participation in local government matters encourages transparency and accountability by local government, and their participation in the local decision-making process is a precondition for good governance. REPOA’s Special Paper 08.26 by Amon Chaligha analyses local autonomy and citizen participation in six councils in Tanzania. This study covers: good governance; accountability and transparency of the local leaders to the community; local government autonomy and citizen participation; bottom-up planning, participation in local elections, and recommendations to improve citizens’ participation.

Africa: World Bank backs contentious director

2008-06-13

http://tinyurl.com/648for

Colin Bruce, the World Bank country director at the centre of a storm of controversy during Kenya’s post-election crisis, has been named as director of operations and strategy for Africa. Officials said the appointment was not technically a promotion but it allowed Mr Bruce to influence funding decisions for the continent as a whole.

Africa: Informal sector also needs skills training

2008-06-13

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=42741

Bringing basic skills training programmes to workers in the informal sector can help to bring down poverty and unemployment levels, while improving economic growth. This emerged at the World Bank’s Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE) held in Cape Town, South Africa. The theme is ‘‘People, Politics, and Globalisation’’.

Africa: The material and political bases of lived poverty

2008-06-13

http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/poverty&id=37484&type=Document

The Afrobarometer has developed an experiential measure of lived poverty called the Lived Poverty Index (LPI). It measures how frequently people go without basic necessities during the course of a year. This is a portion of the central core of the concept of poverty not captured by existing objective or subjective measures.

North Africa: Oil price helps Libya extract better terms from Eni

2008-06-13

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/19e84b72-38e2-11dd-8aed-0000779fd2ac.html

Eni, Italy's biggest energy group has rewritten all of its contracts in Libya, setting the tone for the rest of the industry by accepting worse terms in return for another 35 years of access to one of the world's most important hydrocarbon reserves.

Togo: Paris Club agrees to cancel $347 mln debt

2008-06-13

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN330556.html

The Paris Club of creditor nations said on Thursday it had reached an agreement with Togo to cancel $347 million of the country's debt. The accord followed the International Monetary Fund's approval in April of a new lending programme to support economic development.

Global: Heed expert women advice, leaders urged

2008-06-13

http://www.unfpa.org/news/news.cfm?ID=1144

World leaders attending a high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS should pay more attention to women and youth, especially those living with HIV and AIDS, and seek their expert advice in responding to the epidemic. In addition, interventions addressing AIDS and sexual and reproductive health should be integrated in order to become mutually reinforcing, according to UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

Guinea: Volunteers reach out to neighbours in need

2008-06-13

http://www.unfpa.org/news/news.cfm?ID=1138

For the better part of two decades, Guinea’s forest region has absorbed massive influxes of displaced people. Several hundred thousand refugees crossed into the area during civil war and unrest in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire. At the peak of the influx, refugees comprised half of the population in the area surrounding N’zérékoré, according to the United Nations Joint Programme. Host communities do not always welcome the presence of refugees, and conflict has occasionally erupted. But the departure of refugees is not always wholly beneficial either.

Kenya: Dodgy drugs hamper fight against malaria

2008-06-13

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78723

The presence of large quantities of ineffective or counterfeit anti-malarial drugs on the Kenyan market is hampering efforts to fight the disease, according to health officials. "Some of the counterfeit drugs are substandard and usually do not have the active ingredients required to treat malaria," according to Dorothy Otieno, an officer in the Ministry of Medical Services' malarial control division.

South Africa: Doctor fights for the right to be guided by his conscience

2008-06-13

http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031981

Seven years after effectively being dismissed by the Mpumalanga health department for supporting the dispensing of anti-retrovirals for rape survivors, Dr Malcolm Naude is fighting for the rights of all public service doctors and nurses to follow their conscience when treating patients.

South Africa: Water and sanitation undermines health efforts

2008-06-13

http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20031982

South African health officials have failed to advocate for more free water while efforts to improve sanitation have been undermined by lack of funds, resulting in high levels of disease and mortality mainly among the poor. This is according to Professor David Sanders, head of the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape and one of the world’s public health leading experts.

Uganda: Good anti-HIV treatment outcomes for children in conflict zones

2008-06-13

http://tinyurl.com/5nho4b

Displaced HIV-positive children who start antiretroviral therapy can do as well as children who start anti-HIV drugs in politically stable settings, according to a small study conducted in northern Uganda and published in the May 31st edition of AIDS. But the investigators note that maintaining good outcomes in their population is likely to be challenging, particularly because of population movement.

Zimbabwe: Aid ban 'leaves HIV patients at risk'

2008-06-12

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gnQx9c0KeU3FMr04eFyaQAwJDJKw

Zimbabwe's suspension of aid work before a presidential run-off will especially hurt HIV patients in the country, which has been hard hit by AIDS, a national association of NGOs said Sunday. "One cruel direct impact of the ban will be that people living with HIV/AIDS will increasingly die since many NGOs provide assistance in form of home-based care and anti-retroviral medication to them," said the National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO).

Africa: HIV/AIDS reduces children’s education chances

2008-06-13

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=42763

Children who live in communities with an HIV prevalence rate of 10 percent or more have half a year of schooling less than children in other communities. In this way the negative consequences of HIV/AIDS are felt beyond the families that are directly affected. These facts were presented at a World Bank conference in South Africa by Robert Greener, senior economic adviser at the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Ghana: School feeding programme mired in corruption

2008-06-13

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78707

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has been successfully running school feeding programmes around the world for years. But in Ghana the lead partners are the Ghanaian government and the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), not the international community or non-governmental organisations.

Gllobal: Greater access to education key to combating child labour – UN

2008-06-13

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=26994

The United Nations is urging improved access to education as the right response to address the plight of the estimated 165 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 worldwide who are involved in child labour. “Despite global progress in many areas, it is unacceptable that so many children must still work for their survival and that of their families,” Juan Somavia, Director-General of the UN International Labour Organization (ILO), said on the occasion of the World Day Against Child Labour.

Mali: Teacher strikes may mean ‘blank’ school year

2008-06-13

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78679

In Mali the most important exams come last: the baccalaureate at the end of June. But this year, with secondary-school teachers in their seventh straight month of strikes, the exam risks going unmarked, meaning students may face a blank school year. That is making many of them angry.

Gambia: President should disavow reported homophobic threats

2008-06-12

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/06/10/gambia19089.htm

President Yahya Jammeh’s reported threats to expel or kill lesbian and gay people not only encourage hatred, but also contribute to a climate in which basic rights can be assaulted with impunity, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to the president. Human Rights Watch called on Jammeh to completely disavow all such statements, and to work toward repealing the country’s colonial-era sodomy law, which allows arbitrary and discriminatory arrests and invasion of privacy.

Uganda: Arrest of LGBT activists - Letter to the authorities

2008-06-12

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/06/10/uganda19087.htm

On June 3, 2008, national police in Kampala arrested the three activists during a peaceful protest organized by local LGBT organizations. Demonstrators carried signs demanding attention to HIV/AIDS vulnerability among members of the LGBT community. The demonstration came in response to a statement by the Chairman of the Uganda AIDS Commission, Kihumuro Apuuli. On June 2, during the HIV/AIDS Implementers Meeting in Kampala, he declared that “gays are one of the drivers of HIV in Uganda, but because of meager resources we cannot direct our programmes at them at this time.”

South Africa: Government declares day of healing

2008-06-12

http://www.buanews.gov.za/view.php?ID=08061216151003&coll=buanew08

Government is considering declaring a national day of healing to enable the nation to pay its respects to all those who lost their lives during the recent attacks on people from other countries. The day will not be a public holiday, but a normal working day.

South Africa: Government takes stock of xenophobia crisis

2008-06-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/racism/48758

At least 21 of the 62 people who died in the recent xenophobic violence were South African citizens, government communications head Themba Maseko said on Thursday.
The inter-ministerial task team had reported to Cabinet at its meeting on Wednesday, and indicated that 62 people lost their lives during the senseless violence, he told a media briefing at Parliament.
At least 21 of the 62 people who died in the recent xenophobic violence were South African citizens, government communications head Themba Maseko said on Thursday.

The inter-ministerial task team had reported to Cabinet at its meeting on Wednesday, and indicated that 62 people lost their lives during the senseless violence, he told a media briefing at Parliament.

Of these, 21 were South Africans, and indications were that 11 were Mozambican, five Zimbabwean and three Somali. About 22 bodies had yet to be identified.
Maseko said 53 of the 62 deaths occurred in Gauteng.

The government was also considering the possibility of declaring a “national day of healing” to enable the nation to pay its respects to those who died.
It would not be a public holiday and further details would be announced at a later date.

Maseko also dispelled any possibility of the refugees being moved to a third country, saying the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) had excluded this.
“The option of an alternative country is out of the question at this stage ... the UNHCR itself has said they will not consider that option.”

A substantial number of those displaced during the violence had already left South Africa to return to their countries of origin.

The reintegration process of those wanting to remain in South Africa was quite advanced in the Western Cape, involving professional mediators and conflict-resolution specialists.

On the future, he said the government’s view was that “there will be an end state, and that end state will be the removal of the shelters” currently housing the refugees after a two-month period.

The government was aware that there were a number of Somalis who were refusing reintegration and who wanted to be evacuated to Europe.
“We are in consultation with the UNHCR, who have indicated that they have no plans to evacuate anybody from South Africa.
“Therefore, reintegration is supported by the international agencies.
“So the Somalis are going to have to be part of the process of reintegration because these shelters are not going to be a permanent feature of South African society. So they’re going to have to agree to reintegration,” he said.
However, the process of reintegration should not be “romanticised”.

“It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to require a lot of hard work, a lot of dialogue between the [parties concerned] ... and the issue of security will be one of the major issues.

“But ultimately, we believe that with enough work being put into this, and especially looking at the model implemented in the Western Cape ... we think that, in fact, an environment will be created for communities to say ‘we want to welcome the foreign nationals back to our communities’.”
Maseko also made it clear that no compensation for the victims was being considered at this stage.

Meanwhile, the Western Cape provincial government has backed down on its high court bid to force the City of Cape Town to accommodate refugees at community halls.

Premier Ebrahim Rasool was on Monday night granted an interim order obliging the city to open up 18 community halls to displaced victims of xenophobia.

However, legal teams for province and city appeared before acting Cape Judge President Jeanette Traverso on Thursday, where counsel for the province announced that the parties had “reached agreement” and the application was being withdrawn.
Each side would pay its own costs.—Sapa

Southern Africa: Xenophobia impacts on Mozambique

2008-06-13

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=42784

A month ago, 47-year-old Catarina Manungo was the owner of a two-bedroom house in Boksburg, where she lived with her four children and a grand-daughter. A few short weeks later, Manungo and her two youngest children find themselves living in a tent in the Maputo neighbourhood of Matola Garre.

Africa: Nature laid waste: The destruction of Africa

2008-06-13

http://tinyurl.com/4gs5o7

The massive scale of environmental devastation across the continent has been fully revealed for the first time in an atlas compiled by UN geographers. Using "before and after" satellite photos, taken in all 53 countries, UN geographers have constructed an African atlas of environmental change over the past four decades – the vast majority of it for the worse.

Africa: Seeking a common position on climate change

2008-06-13

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=42774

The Twelfth African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCEN) ended five days of deliberations today with governments and civil society agreed -- separately -- on the importance of developing a common position for Africa at next year's climate change talks in Copenhagen.

Cameroon: Six journalists briefly arrested

2008-06-13

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=27403

Reporters Without Borders warns the Cameroonian authorities of the dangers of allowing relations between the privately-owned press and government to deteriorate after a total of six journalists were briefly arrested last week for referring to a sensitive issue involving the president and a TV programme was cut short while being broadcast for the same reason two days ago.

Eastern Africa: Media freedom: Paradoxes - and severe suppression

2008-06-13

http://www.humanrightshouse.org/dllvis5.asp?id=6679

Most countries in the East and Horn of Africa have constitutions guaranteeing the freedom of the media. In real life, however, the same countries ignore or sidestep their own legislation. In addition, they have a frighteningly impressive repertoir of direct and discret, brutal or subtle means of repression.

Gambia: Regional court orders government to release journalist

2008-06-13

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=27384

Reporters Without Borders welcomes a regional court ruling ordering Gambia to release Chief Ebrima Manneh, a reporter who was arrested by the National Intelligence Agency on 7 July 2006 and has been missing ever since. The ruling, issued on 5 June by the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community Of West African States (ECOWAS), is the first of its kind concerning a journalist.

Burundi: Parties sign Magaliesberg Communiqué for peace

2008-06-12

http://www.buanews.gov.za/view.php?ID=08061213151002&coll=buanew08

The Burundi government and the rebel Palipehutu-FNL on Wednesday committed themselves to lasting peace through the Magaliesberg Communique, on the Burundi Peace Process. The Group of Special Envoys on Burundi, with Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula heading the facilitation team, welcomed the commitment of both parties to build confidence and move the peace process forward.

Chad: Rebels announce new offensive

2008-06-13

http://tinyurl.com/5wx4ud

Rebel fighters in Chad say they have launched a new offensive in the east of the country and called on European powers to press Idriss Deby, the president, for a political settlement. The fighters intend to march on the capital Ndjamena, Abderaman Koulamallah, a spokesman for the National Alliance, said on Thursday.

Ethiopia: UN agencies drastically revise appeal as drought intensifies

2008-06-13

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27012

United Nations relief agencies and the Ethiopian Government have drastically increased their appeal for funding to help people caught up in the country’s drought and the resulting widespread crop failures as the number of Ethiopians affected by the crisis continues to soar.

Horn of Africa: Eritrea condemned over Djibouti border clashes

2008-06-13

http://www.afrol.com/articles/29350

The international community has condemned the military aggression and use of arms in this week's border clashes between Eritrea and Djibouti, which killed nine Djiboutian soldiers and wounded over 60 in three days. Increasingly isolated Eritrea is blamed for the aggression. The United States' State Department this night condemned the violence, saying the hostilities represent an additional threat to peace and security in the already unstable Horn of Africa.

Sudan: Rivals agree on Abyei plan

2008-06-13

http://tinyurl.com/53uxyd

Rival Sudanese leaders have signed a "road map" to defuse a conflict over oil-rich Abyei region, agreeing for the first time to international arbitration to draw borders. Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, and Salva Kiir, the country's first vice-president, leaders respectively of north and south Sudan, signed the agreement on Sunday. The new plan includes setting up an interim administration for the region and the return of people displaced by the conflict.

Africa: Botswana, Cape Verde join ranks of real VoIP legalisers

2008-06-13

http://www.balancingact-africa.com/news/back/balancing-act_405.html

The Agencia Nacional de Communicacoes of Cape Verde has signalled intention to legalise VoIP. It will licence international VoIP service providers offering cheap calling and offer two classes of numbering. It has also licensed another Triple Play operator which will take advantage of the change in regulation to offer IP-TV, Internet and voice services. It joins the last real legaliser Botswana’s BTA which also opened the door to international VoIP service providers at the end of last year.

CODESRIA: African economic and political integration

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/48703

CODESRIA is pleased to announce that it is organising a high level research meeting on African Economic and Political Integration and Alternatives to the EU-ACP economic and partnership Agreements (EPAs). The initiative is being undertaken as a contribution from the African social research community to the raging debate on Africa’s integration and development in general, and the EPAs in particular. The meeting will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 9-11 June 2008.
CODESRIA

African Economic and Political Integration and Alternatives to the EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements

A Research Meeting

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 9-11 June 2008

Programme Announcement

CODESRIA is pleased to announce that it is organising a high level research meeting on African Economic and Political Integration and Alternatives to the EU-ACP economic and partnership Agreements (EPAs). The initiative is being undertaken as a contribution from the African social research community to the raging debate on Africa’s integration and development in general, and the EPAs in particular.

The two major challenges facing Africa today are the economic integration and political unification of the continent. On these challenges there is unanimity among Africans across the board, and Africans are speaking with one voice. Whatever disagreements there may be, they are about the modalities for effectively integrating the continent economically and unifying it politically, not about the importance of these issues, for the key to our collective freedom and dignity as a people and the development of our continent is in the economic integration and political unification of Africa.

The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)
The obstacles in the way to African unity and development are numerous. Over the past twelve months or so, huge pressure has been brought to bear on African governments to force them to sign Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union (EU). The EPAs are a follow up to the ACP-EEC/EU Lome Conventions and the Cotonou Accord, and their main aim is to create a “free trade zone” covering Africa and Europe. Signing the EPAs would mean endorsing the “free trade zone” concept among partners with vastly unequal economic positions in the international system. The consequences for African economies are too many to contemplate. The likely consequences of the full exposure of African agriculture, industries and service sectors to competition from European firms are very serious.

The reasons why the African Union Commission, ECOWAS and many individual African governments, civil society and the business sector have been opposed to the EPAs include the following:

• The Lome Conventions and the Cotonou Accord signed between the ACP and EU countries have, over the years, yielded very limited benefits for the development of Africa; the EPAs are even less developmental in their design than the Lome Conventions and the Cotonou Accords were; they are therefore not likely to lead to an acceleration of Africa’s development process.
• After many years of forced structural adjustment at high cost but with limited positive outcomes, what Africa needs are certainly not EPAs that are meant to entrench neo-liberalism in Africa and jeopardise our continent’s agricultural and industrial development efforts by opening all sectors of these economies to severe and often unfair competition from Europe and elsewhere; Africa needs to find alternatives to neo-liberalism and develop a relationship with the Europe and other regions of the world that would favour the development of our economies and the freedom and well-being of our communities.
• The elimination of taxes on goods from the EU as is required by the EPAs will make African governments lose a significant part of the fiscal revenues that currently come from taxes on trade.
• The pressure that the EU is exerting on individual African countries in order to make them agree to signing the EPAs regardless of what the positions of the AU and the sub-regional organisations are makes it very difficult for Africa to collectively explore alternatives to the EPAs.

There are a lot more reasons why African governments and governments of other regions of the South are extremely reluctant to sign trade agreements that force their markets open to competition from the much stronger economies of Europe.

Responses and Alternatives to the EPAs
The AU Commission and ECOWAS are both opposed to the EPAs. African business executives, organisations of workers and farmers, and other civil society organisations have also declared their opposition to the EPAs. Similar positions have been expressed in Asia and Latin America.

The position of the AU Commission, ECOWAS and the majority of African governments is, therefore, very courageous, and it is inline with what African civil society and the private sector of Africa have been calling for: putting a stop to the EPAs. African civil society is also supported in its opposition to the EPAs by international NGOs such as Oxfam and Action Aid. The questions are: how long can individual African countries, the AU Commission and the sub-regional organisations hold out? How will partly individualized EPAs, signed under extreme pressure, impact on African economies and African efforts at regional integration? What are the possible alternatives to the EPAs? How can we concretely move faster towards the realization of the pan African economic integration and political unification project? These are some of the questions that African intellectuals, top African statesmen and women, leading patriotic and pan African business executives, and civil society should together find answers to. African intellectuals are invited to rise to the occasion and lead the formulation of collective responses to the challenges posed by the EPAs to the continent’s development, integration and unity.

Our collective responses to the EPAs must take several forms that would include a firm rebuttal of the EPAs as they are currently conceptualised, based on solid scientific facts, as well as sound counter proposals for more socially inclusive and democratic development models within the continent, and more equitable and just relationships between Europe and Africa that would favour the economic and social development of Africa. The best definitive response to the EPAs, however, is the economic integration and political unification of Africa so as to pool our intellectual, human and other resources and strengths to address the problems of poverty and development, and assert the dignity and presence Africans in the world of the 21st century.

Meeting Objectives and Format
The main objective of the meeting is to formulate counter-proposals to the EPAs, and adopt a common position in relation to the historic debates raging across the African continent and its Diasporas on the unification project in general, and a union government in particular. It will discuss the two main challenges for Africa today referred to above: Africa’s economic integration and political unification, as well as the EPAs and the implications that signing them will have for African development. Beyond the EPAs, the meeting will seek to make a case for, and draw the outline of, a more socially inclusive and democratic development model for the continent, and propose more equitable and just relationships between Europe and Africa that would favour the economic and social development of Africa.

The meeting will be a high level gathering of 25 to 30 researchers, including leading scholars on the EPAs, trade and regional integration, and policy-makers, trade unionists and civil society activists. The conclusions of the meeting will be discussed in a major conference of African intellectuals to be held later this year; they will also be presented to the African Union Summit.

CODESRIA: Putting African scholarly journals online

Dakar, Senegal, 6-7 October, 2008 - "NEW DEADLINE: 20 JUNE 2008"

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/48706

Among the numerous challenges facing social research in Africa is the lack of visibility for research output. Traditionally, research findings are presented in conferences through conference papers which are subsequently published as articles in scholarly journals, and eventually as books. In the light of this situation and its challenges, CODESRIA has deemed it useful to encourage African social scientists actively involved in research, publishers who disseminate the results of such research, and the information professionals who collect, indicate and promote the research, to debate and discuss the different issues raised around electronic journals, in order to better promote their knowledge and development.
“The deadline for the submission of abstracts has been moved to 20 June 2008”

CODESRIA Conference Announcement
Theme: “Putting African Scholarly Journals Online: Opportunities, Implications and Challenges”
Venue: Dakar, Senegal;
Date: 6-7 October, 2008

Among the numerous challenges facing social research in Africa is the lack of visibility for research output. Traditionally, research findings are presented in conferences through conference papers which are subsequently published as articles in scholarly journals, and eventually as books. Presently, it is extremely difficult for researchers in the various social science disciplines to publish in African journals, either because such journals do not exist in their fields, or because those that exist are published very irregularly or have discontinued publication. Rare are African social science journals that are regular, and very few that manage to be published benefit from good dissemination.

The reasons for this situation are first related to a chronic lack of financial resources in higher education and research institutions, and in the professional associations that publish journals, in a context where there are very few commercial scholarly publishers. When these journals manage to be published somehow, only a few copies are produced. Even then, the journals published do not benefit from efficient distribution networks and, besides, suffer from the slow and unreliable African mail systems, resulting in limited distribution that seldom goes beyond the borders of the countries in which the journals are published.

The consequences of such a situation are manifold. Apart from depriving African social research of the means to enhance its visibility nationally and internationally, the situation results in major hindrances to the promotion of African academics and researchers. In fact, owing in particular to the lack or irregularity of these publications, African higher education and research institutions tend to put in place teacher and researcher evaluation systems that privilege publications in scholarly journals published in developed countries. The limited number of articles published by African researchers in so-called “International Journals” is what is taken into account by evaluation tools such as the Sciences Citations Index for measuring the quality and importance of African social research, giving of course a picture that is not in tune with reality.

With the advent of electronic journals since the beginning of the 1990s, new publication opportunities have arisen. Produced and disseminated using ICT facilities readily available today to many African higher education and research institutions, electronic journals offer clear advantages in that they do not involve significant production costs, are not limited in terms of number of pages or use of colours for illustrations, do not entail forwarding costs because they are published on the Web and, besides, are available instantly and at any time wherever there is Internet access. Further more, with the many specialised or non-specialised search engines that index the Web, they are widely referenced and therefore, easy to view, which increases significantly their dissemination and their impact.

Today, very few institutions of higher education and research in Africa currently take advantage of the opportunities offered by electronic journals. For examples, the African Journals Online (AJOL) project only offers 271 titles on-line –including five (5) published by CODESRIA, namely the CODESRIA Bulletin, Africa Development, Afrika Zamani, Identity, Culture and Politics: An Afro-Asian Dialogue and the African Sociological Review – of which 67% come from two countries, Nigeria (125) and South Africa (56). Reasons for the low number and poor knowledge of electronic journals in Africa include ignorance, distrust, defiance, resistance, lack of skills and lack of equipment.

In the light of this situation and its challenges, CODESRIA has deemed it useful to encourage African social scientists actively involved in research, publishers who disseminate the results of such research, and the information professionals who collect, indicate and promote the research, to debate and discuss the different issues raised around electronic journals, in order to better promote their knowledge and development. To that end, the four sub-themes below have been identified:

(1) Strategic, scientific, individual and institutional considerations: migration from paper to digital forms vs creation of new journals; fully on-line editorial process vs putting on-line the final content; proprietary software vs free software; trust/distrust/defiance towards electronic journals, taking into account vs rejection for the evaluation of researchers, validation process and scientific quality, attitudes, behaviours and motivation of researchers, etc.
(2) Dissemination and storage methods: complementarity/substitution with paper format, free, restricted or paying access, per case vs subscription-based access, dissemination format (HTML, PDF, XML, etc), referencing (description and indexation), support and sustainability of archiving (paper, CDROM, etc), etc;
(3) Economy of electronic journals: implications in terms of human resources, cost of technical devices, commercial viability, intellectual property and copyrights, alternative copyright (Creative Commons and Copyleft Licences, Design Science License, etc), information as universal public good, publishing market vs knowledge market, etc.
(4) Experience feedback and projects: experience sharing, comparative studies, lessons drawn from successes and failures, projects, etc.

Researchers with an active interest in issues pertaining to the use of information and communication technologies in higher education and research in Africa who wish to be part of the conference are invited to send their abstracts of the papers they wish to present to CODESRIA by a deadline of 20 June, 2008. Authors of abstracts will be notified of the outcome of the selection exercise by 21 July, 2008. Full papers from abstracts that are selected must reach the CODESRIA Secretariat by 7 September, 2008. The participation costs of those whose papers are accepted for presentation at the conference will be covered fully or partly by CODESRIA. All abstracts and papers should be addressed to:

CODESRIA
(Conference on electronic publishing and diffusion),
BP 3304, Dakar CP 18524, Senegal.
Tel.: +221-33 825 98 22/23
Fax: +221-33 824 12 89
E-mail: electronic.publishing@codesria.sn
Website: http://www.codesria.org/

East & Southern Africa: Regional Masters in Women's Law

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/48711

Applications are invited for the Regional Masters in Women’s Law which will be offered by Southern and Eastern African Regional Centre for Women’s Law (SEARCWL), University of Zimbabwe, in January 2009.
UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE
SOUTHERN AND EASTERN AFRICAN REGIONAL CENTRE FOR WOMEN’S LAW (SEARCWL)
FACULTY OF LAW
MASTER’S IN WOMEN’S LAW (2009-2010)

Applications are invited for the Regional Masters in Women’s Law which will be offered by Southern and Eastern African Regional Centre for Women’s Law (SEARCWL), University of Zimbabwe, in January 2009.

The Masters will consist of three semesters over a period of 18 months and will run as follows;
First Semester January 19 to 30 April 2009
Second Semester June 15 to September 25 2009
Third Semester 12 October to 26 March 2010 (Field Research and Dissertations)
(Residential at UZ 7/8 February to 26/27March 2010)

The first semester will cover Theories and Perspectives in Women’s Law, Research methodologies and a Practical Paper. In the second semester candidates will choose two courses from a list of options. In the third semester, candidates will carry out field research in their own home country for their dissertation and receive field supervision. The write up of the dissertation will take place at the SEARCWL, University of Zimbabwe between February and March.

Qualifications
A candidate must normally have a first degree in law in the second division or above. However, candidates with a lower academic ranking who have proven work and research experience in the field of women’s law and related issues, may be considered. Candidates with first degrees in other disciplines may also be considered if they have achieved the appropriate academic standard and have relevant post-graduate experience in areas related to women and the law.

All applicants are required to submit, with their applications, a 500 word outline of how they believe the Masters in Women’s Law will assist them in their work or national outreach activities.

Successful candidates are expected to make their own leave arrangements. Basic subsistence level scholarships may be provided to successful applicants. The closing date for the receipt of applications is Wednesday 30th July 2008. No late applications will be accepted.

For Application Forms and More Information Contact
Ms. Rudo Bonzo / Ms. Blessing Tsomondo
SEARCWL-UZ
30 Mount Pleasant Drive
Mount Pleasant
Harare
Zimbabwe
Tel: + 263-4 – 745366
Fax: + 263- 4- 745348
Cell: +263 91 2 243 936 / +263 91 2 243 940
Email: rudo@law.uz.ac.zw / tsomondo@law.uz.ac.zw

Application forms can be downloaded on http:/www.uz.ac.zw/admini

Kenya: Ending impunity on sexual and gender-based violence

21-23 July 2008

2008-06-13

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/48780

The extreme violence/poverty/exclusion that women suffer during conflict and emergencies does not arise solely out of these abnormal conditions but are directly related to the unequal power relations between men and women in a normal society. Africa has suffered a high incidence of conflict and emergencies over the last three decades. Many African countries are emerging from civil strife, armed conflict or some form of natural or man made disasters.
ENDING IMPUNITY ON SEXUAL AND GENDER BASED VIOLENCE

A PAN AFRICAN CONFERENCE
21ST — 23RD JULY 2008

VENUE : THE PANAFRIC HOTEL, NAIROBI, KENYA
Why This Conference: Time to Move from Establishing Frameworks and Norms on SGBV to Action

The extreme violence/poverty/exclusion that women suffer during conflict and emergencies does not arise solely out of these abnormal conditions but are directly related to the unequal power relations between men and women in a normal society. Africa has suffered a high incidence of conflict and emergencies over the last three decades. Many African countries are emerging from civil strife, armed conflict or some form of natural or man made disasters. These different disparate situations have often led to death, disruption of life, and massive violations of women’s and girls’ human rights. During conflict, women and girls experience violence at the hands of different groups: armed groups, government officials, aid workers, civilian authorities and their own families. They are physically and economically forced into prostitution in exchange for food, shelter, safe passage. Their bodies are commodified in transactions to acquire necessities of life or at worst they become battle ground over which opposing forces struggle through rape to humiliate the men they are related to. Violations of women’s rights escalate the rate of HIV infections throughout the continent. Women and girls become more vulnerable to violence and HIV/AIDS - at a time where health services and means of preventing infection often become scarce or unavailable. Long term effects of conflict create a culture of violence that renders women and girls vulnerable when institutions of governance are weakened and social fragmentation is pronounced. As state security and legal infrastructure is rebuilt, African women experience the rule of aggression rather than the rule of law.

Even when peace comes, the scars left by conflict such as HIV/AIDS infection continue to impede women’s progress. Often, the end of war does not signal the end of violations against women. In the post-conflict period, many women confront discrimination in reconstruction programs, violence in refugee camps, violence due to their HIV status, and violence when they attempt to return to their homes. There are glaring gaps in women’s protection due to lack of political will, resources and oversight capacity by states. This has led to failures of the humanitarian, peace and security community to reach women and girls and address their specific needs particularly in relation to violence, conflict and HIV and AIDS. This also makes processes of transitional justice incapable of effectively addressing women’s needs.

A cursory examination of transitional justice processes in Africa suggests that they have been inadequate in addressing the following issues: justice and rehabilitation needs of victims, comprehensively dealing with conflict related violations against women and girls and dealing comprehensively with crimes of a sexual nature as a sui generic category of violations. These inadequacies might, in part, be related to the mechanism that is agreed for collective evidence and processing it. There are broader systemic issues that might serve to explain why many women and girls do not come forward to report the violations committed against them. But even in those instances where women and girls have been forthcoming there are hardly any institutions or comprehensive systems/processes to attend to their psycho-social needs as well as justice needs. Partly this is because there is still a measure of difficulty in the thinking regarding how we quantify damages of a sexual nature (such as rape). The reality though is that this ambivalence is rife and the accompanying misogyny is on the rise.

Partners:
ACORD in alliance with Action Aid International-Africa, African Women’s Development Fund, Amani Forum, The Kenya Human Rights Commission, Coalition on Violence against Women, International Planned Parenthood Federation and Urgent Action Fund - Africa.

Participants
Parliamentarians, policy makers, police, legislative officials, Judiciary, Commissioners of TRC’s, Gender machineries and civil society organizations who work at a national, regional and pan African level and representatives REC’s, AU, NEPAD.

Conference Objectives
• To influence national, regional and Pan African institutions to establish effective mechanisms of prosecuting perpetrators of SGBV.
• To strengthen national legal and judicial mechanisms to provide compensation and protection for survivors of SGBV.
• To reinforce national and regional accountability frameworks to monitor and report sexual violence in conflict and post conflict settings.
Outcomes
• Proposals on mechanisms for protection and resource mobilization strategies for survivors of SGBV.
• Guidelines on structures, systems and policies on restitution and reparations for survivors .
• The development of key messages and advocacy plans on SGBV survivors in conflict and post conflict societies.
• Re-commitment on the political will and resources to address SGBV based on prior commitments Beijing, AU Protocol and CEDAW.

A MOVE TO ACTION
Key Themes
• Regional and International instruments on SGBV.
• Legal and transitional justice frameworks: Negotiating the terrain
• Parliamentary & CSO interventions
• Lobbying and advocacy; strategies,
Opportunities and partnerships

• Strengthening advocacy initiatives: strategies and developing partnerships.


For More Information
Visit: www.acordinternational.org
Email: awino.okech@acordinternational.org
Tel:+ 254 (02) 2721172, 2721185/6
Fax: + 254 (02) 2721166
Design & Print: C.O.O. 20 2721172

Key Note Speakers, Invited Speakers, Resource Persons

Hon. Baleka Mbete — (TBC)- Speaker South African National Assembly Hon. Martha Karua — Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs (Kenya)- (TBC)Prof. Makau Mutua — Dean, Buffalo Law School at the State University of New York
Bernadette Lahai — Member of Parliament, Sierra Leone
Una Thompson — Women of Liberia Peace Network
Fatuma Ndangiza - Executive Secretary - National Unity Reconciliation Commission -Rwanda
Sarah Mukasa – African Women’s Development Fund — Ghana
Njoki Ndung’u – Former MP– Kenya/ CLICK
Dawn Cavanagh – FEW — South Africa
Kaari B. Murungi – Urgent Action Fund-
Africa

Egypt: Research assistant - CMRS/AUC/Terre des Hommes

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/48719

The research assistant will work on a qualitative research project on child domestic labor in Egypt. This research is part of a collaborative project between CMRS/AUC and the NGO, Terre des Hommes. The Assistant will work closely with and under the direction of the principle investigator of the study (Dr Ray Jureidini). The appointment period is 6 months with possible renewal for a year.
Research Assistant Job Description

The research assistant will work on a qualitative research project on child domestic labor in Egypt. This research is part of a collaborative project between CMRS/AUC and the NGO, Terre des Hommes. The Assistant will work closely with and under the direction of the principle investigator of the study (Dr Ray Jureidini). The appointment period is 6 months with possible renewal for a year.
Requirements:
• Masters Degree in Social Sciences or related field
• Excellent research and writing skills
• Excellent English and Arabic competency

Salary:

Negotiable in accordance with the funding budget

Job Description:
Assist in:
• Preparatory reading and local contextual and historical analysis including translation of Arabic documents and articles into English
• Writing of literature review
• The construction of the interview guide
• Arranging interviews
• Conducting in-depth interviews and focus groups
• Regular reports to Principle Investigator
• Regular budgetary reports to Principle Investigator
• Analysis of data
• Writing of draft report
• Writing of article for conference/workshop presentation

Applications should be sent by the 15th of July to Eman Samir (eman_m@aucegypt.edu)

South Africa: Project Manager: Girls’Net

2008-06-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/48720

Women’sNet, a feminist organisation, is looking for a youthful and energetic woman to join our hard working team. The incumbent will manage the Girls’Net project, and will therefore need to have a combination of project management skills, content development skills and interpersonal skills suitable to working with girls. The position is based at Women’sNet’s office in Newtown, Johannesburg.
Position: Project Manager: Girls’Net

Women’sNet, a feminist organisation, is looking for a youthful and energetic woman to join our hard working team. The incumbent will manage the Girls’Net project, and will therefore need to have a combination of project management skills, content development skills and interpersonal skills suitable to working with girls. The position is based at Women’sNet’s office in Newtown, Johannesburg.
The Girls’Net project is a one-of-a-kind project that empowers and nurtures girls for their self expression and development – using information and communication tools to do so. We target girls between the ages of 12 -20, and we work nationally, using a Girls’Net methodology and approach.
Applicants:
• Must be able to speak more than 1 South African language
• Must have proven project management experience of at least 1 year (this includes report writing, budgeting, planning and implementation)
• Must have worked in the NGO sector for at least 4 years
• Must be knowledgeable about gender (demonstrated by an academic qualification or relevant experience) and passionate about girls and the issues that face them
• Must be knowledgeable about information and communications technologies and their potential to address developmental challenges
• Must be available to travel within South Africa
• Some experience in dealing with girls and young women as a mentor, counsellor or facilitator will be an advantage
• a drivers license will be an advantage

The Key performance areas of the job are:
1. Develop and maintain partnerships that enable girls’ and young women’s participation in the project, through negotiation andcollaboration with possible providers of access to the internet, meeting spaces, training and other opportunities.
2. Ensure a lively, relevant and up to date website is maintained through appropriate management of the site and continuous input of content from girls.
3. Ensure that training for girls and young women is provided on a regular basis, is relevant to their needs and is delivered in a professional and constructive environment.
4. Ensure development and production of training manuals for participating girls and adult facilitators.
5. Ensure that reports are produced on a timely basis and within deadline.
6. Ensure the operational budget for the Girls’Net project is adhered to, and keep expenditure within budget.
7. Ensure that contact is maintained on a monthly basis with Girls’Net participants and partners, and Women’sNet’s media and information team.
8. Add to Women’sNet’s knowledge creation through recording meetings, speeches, conferences attended and contact details of participants
9. Produce publicity materials relating to Girls’Net and ensure that the Girls’Net project is highlighted in relevant media
10. Participate in planning, fundraising and the development of the Girls’Net project.
How to apply:
Send a cover letter, explaining why you are applying for the position, and your relevant experience, as well as your CV to:
sallys@womensnet.org.za <mailto:sallys@womensnet.org.za>
Deadline: 20th June 2008 (more: http://womensnet.org.za
<http://womensnet.org.za/>) We reserve the right not to make an
appointment.

Fahamu