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Trade Unions Congress

Support Zimbabwean trade unionists on trial!

2008-06-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/48925

Just days before the Presidential run-off election, Lovemore Matombo and Wellington Chibebe, President and General Secretary of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) will be in court to face charges of 'spreading falsehoods prejudicial to the state' - or rather, telling the truth about violence in Zimbabwe. As part of their bail conditions they have been banned from addressing political or public gatherings for almost the whole election campaign. These charges and bail conditions are clear breaches of free speech and freedom to associate.

We are urging people everywhere to protest at attempts to silence these men, and at the state-sponsored violence and intimidation which has intensified since the first round of elections in March.

If Lovemore and Wellington aren't able to address a public gathering themselves, you can help them to with this campaign action, but you'll need to hurry. We are making a giant photo mosaic of Lovemore and Wellington, using pictures of hundreds of their supporters from around the world - and we want to use your photo as one tiny part of it. We'll get this printed on a large banner as a focus for the London demonstration on 23 June, and will make the image available to other international demonstrations and to the media.

This is a last minute campaign, so we need to get your photos in immediately. There are two ways to do this:

Take a photo of yourself with your digital camera and email it to zim@tuc.org.uk Take a photo of yourself with your cameraphone and send it by MMS to 07546 229055 (0044 7546 229055 from outside the UK).

We'll do the work to make the photo mosaics and you'll be able to see the result here at the end of the week. If you're able, please take photos of your friends and colleagues as well, and send all of those to us in the same way - the more the merrier.

For more information, click here

Pan-Africanists: Our collective duty to Zimbabwe

Horace Campbell and Eusi Kwayana

2008-06-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/48919

Experiences in Guyana, in Kenya and in Zimbabwe have taught us that it is a mistake to adopt western standards of victory as our own, write Horace Campbell and Eusi Kwayana. Victory for us must mean reconciliation of divided populations. Reconciliation will fail utterly if it is imposed; or allows free rein to corruption, militarism or if it ignores the choices of the people in valid elections. We have responsibility as progressives and Pan-Africanists to Zimbabwe.
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Zimbabwe, a week before the run off elections for the Presidency, presents many progressive Pan Africanists with a conflict, be it in analysis or action.

There are four main competing interests in Zimbabwe, as it is today. First, but not in order of importance are the interests of the ruling party and its supporters. These are followed by those of the Opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and its supporters. Next are the vested interests of the white minority settlers supported heavily by the United Kingdom and the neo-conservatives of the Bush Administration in the United States. Finally, but first in rating, there are the interests of all the producers (workers, poor peasants, farm workers, traditional healers, cultural workers, students, traders, hawkers etc.) in Zimbabwe. This last group has been rendered poor and powerless by the present government of Robert Mugabe and the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union, Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF).

In the past weeks the state-run daily, The Herald, reported that President Mugabe has warned that he will take the country to war to keep the ruling party in power. The Herald quoted Mr. Mugabe as saying he will not let the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) take power. Mr. Mugabe on many occasions said that an opposition victory would be tantamount to giving the country back to its former colonial master. The president has repeatedly accused the MDC of being sponsored by Britain. Mugabe declared in a speech that:

“We fought for this country, and a lot of blood was shed…We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X. How can a ballpoint fight with a gun?”

This kind of talk is dangerous and should be condemned by pan Africanists and decent persons everywhere.

ZIMBABWE AND THE QUESTION OF IMPERIALISM

First, there should be an attempt to clear the landscape of certain obstacles. Zimbabwe was in growing trouble before the sanctions imposed by the governments of Britain and the United States. Still, the attempt to bully a small country’s ruler who was in turn bullying his compatriots draped Robert Mugabe in the role of a hero against imperialism. The attempt encouraged a blundering ruler to stay on course. The ZANU-PF forces and sympathizers have blamed the disastrous economic situation on the sanctions. Yet, the political leaders have accumulated wealth in such a conspicuous manner that their consumption of luxury goods stands out in a country where more than 80 per cent of the eligible workers are unemployed. Millions more Zimbabweans have been rendered as economic refugees in Africa and beyond.

Zimbabwe‘s situation has some striking parallels with that of the recent history of Guyana in the Caribbean, where rivalry between anti-colonial forces started long before independence and was only draped in flags at the moment of Uhuru, without serious attempts at a deep resolution of the difficulties. Once in power the Burnham regime did nothing to resolve the ethnic conflict but superimposed on it a parliamentary dictatorship. Forbes Burnham consolidated this dictatorship while brandishing non-alignment and support for African Liberation. Yet, Walter Rodney was assassinated by the regime of the Peoples National Congress in 1980 because he was part of a movement that wanted to transcend the politics of division and exploitation. It is this kind of anti imperialism that has been used by many dictators to cover up the repression of their own citizens.

In Africa, the home of Ubuntu, there was no thought of employing indigenous mechanism of conflict resolution. Instead the Zimbabwe maximum leader adopted methods of control patterned on the deformed systems of Eastern Europe. He ignored the option of applying Ubuntu (or its national expression - in Zimbabwe as hunhu) as a way of healing. As in Guyana there was a reliance on external forms and vanguardism. We did not learn, whether in Zimbabwe or Guyana, to surround universal science with our own ethos.

MANIPULATING ETHNIC AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCES

In 1987 the fusion of ZANU with the Patriotic Front led by Joshua Nkomo was done in such a way that the post-colonial world knew little about it, except that it led to the virtual silencing of the section of the liberation front that had been led by Joshua Nkomo. In the merger of the two wings of the national liberation movement there was also too much reliance placed on foreign tutelage, much of it from trusted allies of African liberation. This fusion had been orchestrated to end the divisions within the political leadership of Zimbabwe. One of the tragedies of the post liberation Zimbabwean society was the massacre of thousands of citizens of the Southwestern region of the country. Progressive Pan Africanists were silent when these massacres of the Ndebele took place in the early eighties. We, by and large, ignored these atrocities in the interests of solidarity with the dominant force in the country, and the need to not to make too much of small skirmishes, lest we “play into the hands of imperialism”

The best way for us (as African, Asian or Caribbean peoples) to keep the enemy at bay is to have a praxis of respect for all national forces and apply the highest principles of our culture as an indigenous method for the resolution of conflict.

Of late the western media and certain forces within the United Nations have been reporting the possibility of talks of power sharing, and the arrangement of some form of a transitional authority. While the spirit of these discussions may be guided by the search for social peace, it is urgent that these discussions between the various elements are not carried out behind the backs of the people and do nothing to undermine the political will of the people. But above all there must be an engagement by all to ensure that the elections and its aftermath does not deteriorate into the kind of violence and destruction that was witnessed in Kenya after the elections of December 27, 2007. At all costs, war must be avoided. The present leadership cannot expect to be supported when it terrorizes its own people and unleashes the very same Rhodesian military apparatus (the Joint Operation Command) against the opposition and unarmed civilians.

The present situation in Zimbabwe is confused by the circumstance that President Robert Mugabe has been a heroic figure in the continent of Africa, the Diaspora, among African observers and well-wishers. And he would have remained so, if the Pan African world had assisted Zimbabweans with friendly criticism of the government when the flaws began to show. Instead, the whole movement and the international left, including us, remained silent, some longer than others, hoping that such a well-resourced government would correct its own shortcomings. Earlier we had special cause to be partisan to Robert Mugabe, who had extended solidarity to our colleague Walter Rodney when he was being persecuted by the Guyana government.

It does not worry those who would defend the Zimbabwe government absolutely and in all circumstances that the imperialists have their embassies and observation posts and espionage networks in all of these places and are fully posted on developments in Zimbabwe. In this they have an advantage over those in the diaspora whose leaders think it is good policy to hide the truth from their constituencies about what is really going on in Zimbabwe. Those in the Global Pan African world who continue to defend Mugabe have in effect kept their constituencies in ignorance of information essential for human development in the name of solidarity. This is not the way to help the millions of working people learn how to govern.

ZIMBABWE AND LAND

Even in the ranks of those who feel compelled to defend Mr. Mugabe against British and US imperialists we feel bound to point out that it took twenty years after independence for the Zimbabwean government to heed the call of the peasantry for the reclamation of the land. Those who refuse to be critical of the Mugabe government repeat the claim that the Lancaster agreement had imposed constitutional constraints that prevented the redistribution of the land to the people. However, in 1992 the Parliament of Zimbabwe had unanimously passed the Land Acquisition Act that gave the government the power to redistribute the land. Instead, the government of Mugabe dithered and hedged seeking to conciliate international capital and the commercial farmers.

It was only after the massive opposition from the working people in 1997 and after the loss of the referendum of February 2000 that the ZANU leadership opportunistically launched the Fast Track Land reform process. This opportunism has only been surmounted by the fact that the best land went to the political elite who was not real farmers. Opportunism and cronyism exposed the reality that for land reform to be beneficial for the mass of the population, reform must involve the political empowerment of the poor, especially farm workers. The new black landowners did not treat the farm workers any better than the previous settlers. If anything, this experience exposed the reality that the issues of the health and safety of farm workers and their children are just as important as the question of land ownership. Farm workers whether working on farms owned by blacks or whites must be paid a living wage and must have adequate protection from pesticides. They must be accorded full political and economical rights instead of being forced to live in a semi-slavery state.

The experiences of land acquisition in Zimbabwe pointed to the reality that land reclamation by itself could not solve the problems of the Zimbabwean society. There had to be transformation of the credit, transportation, agricultural marketing, seed production, distribution of fertilizers, water management and all of the aspects of economic relations associated with agriculture. Workers and poor peasants in all parts of Southern Africa must strengthen their organizations so that land reform is not carried out in their names yet leave them in greater impoverishment.

TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

We want to go on record in saying that neither the government of Britain nor the government of the United States has the moral authority to oppose the present government of Zimbabwe. Imperialists and neo- conservatives have their own agenda when imposing sanctions and we are against sanctions in Zimbabwe. Progressive Pan Africanists must remain vigilant so that brutal oppression of the Zimbabwean peoples is not countenanced in the name of anti-imperialism.

These sanctions have not prevented the rulers of Zimbabwe from looting the Treasury and participating in the very same forms of speculative capitalism that is lauded by neo-liberals. Under the ZANU-PF leadership the Zimbabwe Stocks Exchange {ZSE} has ballooned to phenomenal levels as a result of the speculative activities of the rulers in Zimbabwe. In a country where the economic crisis has meant increased poverty for two years the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange offered investors the highest returns in Africa. For two years in a row, 2005 and 2006, the Africa Stock Exchanges Association (ASEA) reported that the ZSE was the best performing Stock Market in Africa.

Robert Mugabe and the ZANU-PF may be against imperialism but this group is not against capitalism or the looting of the assets of the society. The government of Cuba has been blockaded by the United States for more than forty years. Yet this government did not support a small class that looted and got rich while the majority of the population remained poor and terrorized.

Those who support the working peoples of Zimbabwe must insist on transparency in dealing with transnational corporations and the integrity of the ruling personnel in their day-to-day activities. This call for accountability is especially important in so far as though we are opposed to the threat of war coming from ZANU PF we are not encouraged by the policies and posture of the leadership of the MDC. These elements have displayed an amazing level of intellectual subservience to the West and to the ideas of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Zimbabwe needs leaders who place the interest of the working people first. It is proper that all progressives support the Stolen Assets Recovery Initiative of the United Nations so that corrupt leaders cannot stash away funds when the people suffer.

ENDING THE SILENCE OF PROGRESSIVE PAN AFRICANISTS

We should not remain silent when thousands of Zimbabwean women are arrested and disgraced as prostitutes, when, as elsewhere, virgins are despoiled by men in search of cures.

We should not be silent when homosexuals are subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment, student movements repressed, and when unarmed people are subject to a level of police and militia brutality none of us would ignore in our countries of residence.

One of the most despicable acts of the Mugabe regime was the forced removal of more than 700,000 poor people from the urban areas in 2005. When the apartheid regime used the same coercive forces to carry out forced removals we went up in arms against it. This brutal act by the ZANU-PF went without condemnation from the Pan African movement.

When we ponder the considerable diplomatic and political resources of the African continent, we find it is not impossible for a dual policy of conditional opposition to the sanctions to be combined with a policy of respect for all Zimbabweans, and their equal entitlement to human rights (regardless of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religious or political opinion).

Experiences in Guyana, in Kenya and in Zimbabwe have taught us that it is a mistake to adopt western standards of victory as our own. Victory for us must mean reconciliation of divided populations. This in each case may best be approached through widespread national conversation spelling out its purpose. Reconciliation will fail utterly if it is imposed; or allows free rein to corruption, militarism or if it ignores the choices of the people in valid elections.

The Republic of South Africa has one of the world’s most advanced constitutions, because after the experience of Apartheid, the people resolved to hold their democracy to the highest human standards. These aspirations are now being undermined by a political leadership that provides cover for the repression in Zimbabwe while remaining virtually silent in the face of xenophobic violence against Africans who believed in Pan Africanism.

In the USA millions of African American and Latino students are held back because too many educators implicitly believe in a Bell Curve and have low expectations of black and Latino students. We are aware of the embedded anti- people challenges imposed on African countries from outside affecting their competitiveness and ability to transform their societies. However, we recognize no Bell Curve regarding the leaders’ potential for setting examples of conduct and governance which rank among the best available.

In a few days Zimbabwe will hold a run -off election between the Zanu PF and the MDC. The first, the ruling party, has discredited itself. The challengers do not seem to be a party of Reconstruction, but it reflects popular discontent. Any thuggery and strong arm methods, arrest and harassment of opposition candidates, intimidation and other forms of bullying and repression must be seen as a deliberate attempt to once and for all disable Zimbabwe’s popular will. It will make the work of healing ten times more difficult.

* Horace Campbell is a Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University. He is the author of the well-known book, Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney. He is also the author of Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation.

* Eusi Kwayana is the veteran Pan African activist of Guyana and the Caribbean. His most recent book, the Morning After is a call for an end to the manipulation of racial insecurity in Guyana by those who promote inter ethnic violence in the name of liberation. His other books include, No Guilty Race and Scars of Bondage.

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

Death Spiral in Zimbabwe: Mediation, violence and the GNU

Grace Kwinjeh

2008-06-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/48924

Rather than deflect and defeat the likelihood of political violence, the construct of a Government of National Unity would formally integrate it into the lifeblood of the Zimbabwean democratic dispensation. For South Africans, this situation recalls the kind of power sharing arrangements that former South African President F W De Klerk had in mind at the start of the 1990s negotiation process, where the share of actual voter support would not determine power arrangements. This proposal was not acceptable in the new South Africa then, and it is not acceptable in the new Zimbabwe now, writes Grace Kwinjeh examining the upcoming Zimbabwe presidential elections rerun.
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In March 2008 Zimbabweans voted in the most peaceful election since independence, resulting in an unambiguous victory for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change led by Morgan Tsvangirai. Three months later, the country is hemorrhaging from a massive and rising tide of political violence not seen since the state sponsored terror of the early 1980s. The ruling party and its supporters are responsible for the vast majority of the current attacks [1]. As if to underscore his party’s public embrace of violence, President Mugabe now openly threatens to “wage war” beyond the June 27 Presidential run-off election, if his candidacy should be rejected by the people for a second time. Meanwhile the MDC government-elect, MDC party structures and much of the party’s leadership have been forced into hiding as they seek to convince voters of their right to select – and see installed in place – a president of their choice.

For SADC, the Zimbabwe conflagration has become the most comprehensive diplomatic failure in the region since the resumption of the Angolan war in the 1990s. But unlike Angola, the Zimbabwe crisis is one for which SADC, President Mbeki and the international community bear a central contributing responsibility. By pushing for secretly brokered power-sharing arrangements leading to a “government of national unity” (GNU), the international intervention in Zimbabwe has relegated hopes for a new democratic dispensation built on the foundations of the expressed popular will of Zimbabweans. By refusing to actively acknowledge the MDC’s electoral victory and insist on its recognition and acceptance by ZANU PF, regional leaders and the international community effectively ignored and silenced the democratic voice of the people. As a consequence, the MDC’s hard-won legitimate authority has been erased, and the way has been opened for ZANU PF to recover by the bullet the authority it had lost at the ballot box.

This violent outcome of a proposed GNU strategy should not have been unexpected. ZANU PF’s violent riposte is reminiscent of the period immediately prior to Independence around the Lancaster House Conference, and even more so of the party’s violent campaign before the 1987 “Unity Accord” with the ZAPU opposition: indeed, it is a tried and tested tactic of ZANU PF to threaten and deploy intense violence as a strategic bargaining tool. Since independence the party has singularly distinguished itself among Zimbabwean political parties by demonstrating a capacity for – and indeed claiming the right to wage – mass violence in defense of its “national” interests. No longer heading the majority party, Robert Mugabe now cynically portrays violence as a means for defending the people from their mistaken choice.

This deeply cynical pathology is echoed more subtly in the GNU concept. Despite a clear rejection of ZANU PF under electoral conditions heavily tilted in that party’s favour, unity talks have been promoted as a means of bringing the former ruling party back into the centre of decision-making. Even though neither voters nor the MDC demanded this arrangement in March, the new government in waiting has come under enormous pressure to fall in line accordingly. Its leaders have repeatedly said that such an arrangement would deny the popular voice and reward anti-democratic, flagrantly illegal and often murderous behaviour – while only deferring, and certainly not solving, the problem of organising the transition to a new political order. It is indeed difficult to understand why those who previously promoted engagement with ZANU PF as a means of strengthening a deeply flawed electoral process, should now effectively reject that improved process and insist on power sharing terms with the author of electoral fraud and intimidation.

In contrast, it is clear that the promotion of a GNU is integral to the facilitation of an elite transfer of power which would vitiate the popular will of the electorate. This is why the idea of a GNU has been explicitly rejected by the leading membership-based civil society organisations in Zimbabwe, from the trade unions to human rights networks. These groups challenge the credibility and viability of a compromise that according to its proponents, would bring about some sort of “normalisation” of the political space without addressing the growing democratic deficit in Zimbabwe. For the Zimbabwean democratic movement, political normalisation requires before all else, recognition and acceptance of the expressed will of dominant social interests – not its circumvention through brokered elite ‘pacting’ carried out under the threat of violence.

In Zimbabwe, there is abiding consternation over why ZANU PF and its militia were given the opportunity by SADC and the international community to ignore the electoral results in the first place. What would have happened if the election results – deemed legitimate by observers – had been recognised and enforced? And what would happen if a similarly free and fair process were enforced in the current second round, by insisting on the disarming of ZANU PF and its militia, and the confinement of the security forces to base? Have those mediating and promoting mediation raised these issues – the clearest and most profound obstacles to democratic practice in Zimbabwe in the current moment?

It is widely acknowledged that demilitarisation is a central precondition needed to advance a democratic outcome and ensure its consolidation in the medium term. Yet, the perpetration of violence has been treated as a negotiable right – not as an act which invalidates claims to the process of a democratic transition. Remarkably, it took 10 weeks of deteriorating conditions for SADC’s official mediator Thabo Mbeki to publicly raise his concerns about the spiralling violence. But even then he avoided commentary on responsibility, despite ample documented evidence heavily implicating ZANU PF and state security forces in commanding the terror. His spokesperson claims he is precluded from doing so by virtue of his position as mediator. However this is a hollow rationale in the face of open and mounting ZANU PF belligerence.

For ZANU PF, with few political repercussions arising from the deployment of its violent supporters, there seems little incentive for abandoning this approach– and perhaps much to be gained from pursuing it. Robert Mugabe’s public declaration earlier this week that his party would go to war in the event of his defeat in the second round of voting was met with paralysing silence by Thabo Mbeki. The deployment of weapons and violence may be logistically difficult to confront: the deployment of words and threats is not.

THE ELECTION FIX: BACK TO THE FUTURE

By focusing on the GNU, rather than the actual election results, the SADC mediation has effectively allowed ZANU PF to return to the brokerage scenario it had anticipated in the post election period. This scenario, broadly shared by ZANU PF reformers, SA, some EU governments and others before the election, was premised on the belief that the MDC-Tsvangirai party’s support would be diminished by support for MDC-Mutambara and for Simba Makoni, the former Finance Minister and ZANU PF reformer who was a candidate for President. A split opposition vote would enable victory in the Presidential election and at least a plurality in Parliament. Moreover, the dispersion of opposition representation across three groupings would present options for developing a ‘Kenyan-style’ negotiation that could lead to a ZANU PF dominated GNU. Makoni – the “modernising” reform face of ZANU PF - could be parachuted in under Mugabe, to soon replace him as the consensus politician. And ZANU PF could argue that, if this kind of arrangement was acceptable for Kenya, why not in Zimbabwe? There was a lot of this kind of talk amongst MDC-M and Makoni supporters in advance of the election.

For ZANU PF this scenario both enabled the departure of Mugabe, a political liability whose presence would continue to block the party’s return to legitimacy and the resumption of desperately needed, stabilizing financial assistance for the world’s fastest-collapsing economy; and the retention and renewed consolidation of power by the ruling party. Confident of a mediated victory and needing a “legitimate” result to back its claims to rehabilitation, ZANU PF significantly loosened control over the electoral process in the first round of voting in March.

As it turned out, the party’s electoral assumptions were wildly naïve. At the election support for the MDC-M collapsed – and notably for its leadership, which was roundly defeated. Makoni was overwhelmingly rejected by voters, gaining perhaps just 10 percent of the vote. At the same time, ZANU PF’s traditional voters deserted the party by voting for the opposition or by boycotting the poll, as they had done in the benchmark defeat of the party in the 2000 Constitutional Referendum. In contrast, the MDC Tsvangirai party surged across the country, including in former rural strongholds of ZANU PF that for the first time ever had been rendered easily accessible to opposition campaigners – and to opposition polling agents and officials. This combination of factors meant there were too few votes to rig with, and that the conditions allowing the playing off of opposition forces within a prospective GNU did not materialize [2].

The shock of the election result and the resulting conundrum for the ruling party were quite literally written on its face. The headline of The Sunday Mail, the most slavishly loyal of the state-controlled newspapers, screamed the day after the election, “Anxiety Grips Zim.” Many other state media, including the country’s only radio and television broadcaster, ZBC, effectively fell silent, bewildered. No party leader of note addressed the nation for several days.

It was apparent that ZANU PF was reassessing its game plan. Over the next month it developed and then rolled this plan out, as SADC first patiently accommodated repeated inexplicable delays in the processing and announcement of results by ZEC, and then sat motionless as ZESN, the key civic election monitoring network, and MDC itself were raided by state officials in search of independently collected polling data that could be used to disprove manipulated official figures. Even after the long delay, only limited details of the presidential poll were eventually released [3].

Meanwhile, reports surfaced of remobilised war veterans and youth militias, and of the first violent penetrations by state security forces of “turncoat” former ruling party strongholds. ZANU PF aimed to create conditions that would make the run-off so difficult and dreaded that prospects of averting violence through some form of GNU and power sharing arrangement would be welcomed: a replay of the ZANU-ZAPU Unity Pact of 1987. ZANU PF’s transparently obvious “spin” on the violence –which has often been taken up by SADC leaders, and swallowed whole by much of the regional media as well – has been doubly damaging for Zimbabwean democrats. One the one hand, substantial evidence that the violence is disproportionately organised against the MDC has drawn muted criticism from SA, SADC and the GNU advocates like Makoni; on the other, the small amount of retaliatory violence attributed to the MDC is deemed to suggest a “crisis” and raise possibilities of “civil war” – reinforcing the need to avoid a run-off and the urgency for a negotiated solution [4].

African leaders have thus far studiously avoided apportioning responsibility for violence, in most instances couching reactions in terms of cautioning both sides and invoking dialogue. Widespread violations of SADC’s election ‘norms and standards’ have failed to elicit coherent responses from them. Neither has SADC cautioned or castigated the ZANU PF government for failing to ensure its constitutional responsibility for safety and security, despite overwhelming empirical evidence that the primary perpetrator is ZANU PF and its proxies.

Rather than address the issue of destabilizing violence and impose political censure for its deployment in this period of uncertainty, the SA government, SADC, some EU diplomats and the Makoni grouping actively talked up the need for a GNU – ostensibly as way to avert the threat of violence coming from ZANU PF. Indeed, independent and MDC reports demonstrated that increasing numbers from the MDC’s ranks were being beaten, tortured, abducted and murdered, the rationale for a GNU – and a political counter-attack to the wave of violence – was publicly reinforced by SA and SADC.

While mediation does not preclude processes of accountability, this approach appears to have been absent from the Mbeki initiative. As a result the SADC intervention has directly facilitated ZANU PF’s unfolding strategy for manipulating the conditions and issues that would have to be negotiated. SADC’s tentative response to the March vote allowed space and time for ZANU PF to regroup and ramp up the violence and threats of more of the same – both fuelling a defensive “demand for GNU”, and reasserting ZANU PF’s leading place in the setting of terms for any negotiations. The latter now focus on ending violence and averting civil war, rather than implementing the results of the peaceful election or ensuring that the next round of elections are conducted in a free and fair atmosphere – something that it appears can no longer be ensured.

THE GNU PROBLEM

If the GNU is primarily being proposed as a means to avoid a violent tragedy, rather than as a basis for a establishing a new inclusive democratic politics, skeptics are right to question the idea’s aims, objectives and predictable outcomes. Just as importantly, we need to pose a question for those advocating a non-democratic negotiated resolution to Zimbabwe’s election crisis: by what principle can the rights of the popular democratic will as expressed by voters be equated with, or rendered secondary to, the rights of discredited elites and perpetrators of violence? For this is precisely what the idea of a GNU proposes, in the name of an elusive, highly unstable and temporary peace.

Even if the MDC were able to extract considerable concessions from ZANU PF, it is highly unlikely that Robert Mugabe’s party would cede its effective control over its levers in the bureaucracy and particularly, in the security forces. Why would it: these are the instruments of war and obstruction that have enabled ZANU PF to climb out of the hole of electoral defeat on more than one occasion, to protect its networks of power. To suggest that these determinants of power would be given up willingly is to accept the notion that ZANU PF would be willing to abdicate. The last two months have exposed this view as profoundly delusional. Those who have put stock in the GNU have failed to assess their model of peace-making in light of ZANU PF’s strategic understanding that violence is a political asset and an effective substitute for popular legitimacy, which will not be negotiated away.

Rather than deflect and defeat the likelihood of political violence, the construct of a GNU would formally integrate it into the lifeblood of the Zimbabwean democratic dispensation. This is a remarkable solution to put before a political party that has just won an election based on its abiding commitment to non-violent democratic participation – and to the voting majority who supported it. For South Africans, this situation recalls the kind of power sharing arrangements that former South African President F W De Klerk had in mind at the start of the 1990s negotiation process, where the share of actual voter support would not determine power arrangements [5]. This proposal was not acceptable in the new South Africa then, and it is not acceptable in the new Zimbabwe now.
to the March election has facilitated a strong and violent response by ZANU PF.

For the time being, it seems increasingly likely that the GNU route will be not followed. This is not due to any lack of effort by the likes of Mbeki and many in SADC, or the distasteful posturing of the rejected Makoni, who cites rising violence as the need for inclusive negotiations without naming and condemning those – his erstwhile colleagues – who have created the unstable terrain on which he hopes to re-launch his ambitions. Rather, both the MDC and its supporters are wary of legitimizing the political role of those holding the gun to their heads and the torch to their homes. War is not something to be prevented: it is here already. And the only non-violent way to confront and defeat it is the ballot box, even if that option too is flawed.

If the current pressures for a GNU do indeed fail, all is not lost for ZANU PF: Makoni or another ZANU PF senior reformer could return to the forefront if Mugabe were to win the run-off, further destabilize the MDC and civil society, and then retire on his own terms – handing over power to a reformer to negotiate a new GNU from a position of regained legitimacy and strength. But this first requires another successfully manipulated election result, and a frontal assault on MDC and civil society resistance. The arrest on treason charges this past week of MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti does not bode well; neither does the relative weakness of the SADC response to this latest development. And is there any reason to think that additional ZANU PF manipulations during and after the second round of voting will not take place, given the success of such interventions in the first?

ACCEPTING RESPONSIBILITY, ACTING RESPONSIBLY

The options chosen by SADC and the international community for dealing with the March 2008 election have directly contributed to the options chosen by ZANU PF. It was a choice not to recognise the MDC victory and to allow the illegal charade over the recount to occur [6]. It is enough here to point out that the MDC won the Parliamentary elections, that Morgan Tsvangirai won the Presidential election, that nearly 3 million Zimbabweans did not vote, and consequently it is very clear that Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF do not enjoy the support of the vast majority of the population.

This set of circumstances allowed for an alternative political response; a recognition of and call for an MDC government to be accepted by ZANU PF. However, the failure to support this option has contributed directly to the current confusion between promoting conditions for a free and fair re-run and negotiations for a GNU. Despite a widespread acceptance that conditions cannot be free and fair for the June 27 poll, and calls for a GNU, the MDC is sticking to the electoral path and holding out prospects for an inclusive government of national healing in which it would play a lead role after the elections. This position, openly supported by SADC, will promote an elitist management of transitional arrangements under the auspices of a power sharing arrangement that will effectively insulate and protect those responsible for perpetrating violence and gross human rights abuses –as happened with previous election amnesties for party violence, and most seriously with the Unity Accord in 1987.

As regards the re-run, although it is no longer possible to create the conditions for a free and fair poll, with less than 10 days before the poll, there could and should be certain steps taken to remedy the most egregious violations and potential for destabilisation. This should include: deploying adequate numbers of election monitors, especially in areas where violence and intimidation has been reported, and playing a more active role in monitoring the activities and decision-making processes of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission; promoting an agenda of disarming ZANU PF and its militia/war veteran proxies hands; censuring the role of the security forces, censuring hate speech and talk of war by any political parties; commenting on access of candidates to state media; question and establishing a strategy with rewards and penalties for compliance/non-compliance with SADC election guidelines.

Thabo Mbeki did state ahead of the 2005 elections that there would be consequences if the SADC Principles and Guidelines were seriously violated, but this was said against the background of woefully inadequate provisions for monitoring on the ground [7]. Meanwhile, in June 2008, the corpses of MDC officials and suspected opposition supporters are accumulating, thousands have been displaced by the political violence, likely thousands more beaten and brutalised, hate speech fills the airwaves, and a discredited President threatens the majority with war – and still, there is no sign of serious electoral censure in the air.

It is time for fresh thinking and fresh action. In advance of the second round of presidential voting, problems need to be anticipated and prevented before they arise. Several critical questions emerge:

What would have happened if SA, SADC and the international community rejected the delays by ZEC and ZANU PF, demanded the transparent compilation and immediate release of results - and ensured that all parties abided by them?

What would have happened if all civil society organisations and democratic parties and politicians had stood firmly behind the MDC government-elect, rather than soliciting for all-inclusive extra-electoral GNU? If more support for the winning party MDC had been expressed, what options then would have remained for elite transitions?

Who, then, really enabled ZANU PF’s violent election strategy sending the defeated party, its leaders and violent supporters inside and outside the state all of the wrong signals in the immediate post-election period?

And consequently, whose responsibility is it now to end the violence by terminating discussions about an all-inclusive GNU, and insisting on a government of transition and renewal headed unambiguously by the party elected by the people: the MDC Tsvangirai.


* Grace Kwinjeh is an NEC member of the MDC and the Chairperson of the Global Zimbabwe Forum.

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

* For further notes, see below
[1] There is no credible evidence to suggest a conclusion other than ZANU PF’s direct culpability for the current wave of organised violence, as there is a large and growing body of documented evidence that substantiates this view; there is no comparable evidence suggesting that the MDC has either launched a parallel wave of attacks; that the MDC is capable of doing so; and that MDC leaders or party structures have called for such a strategy. As such, violence is an integral factor in – and not a product of – the current crisis.

[2] See the following for more detailed analyses of what happened in the March elections; SITO (2008), ZIMBABWE ELECTIONS 2008. Examining The Popular and Presidential Choice - Hiding or Run Off? IDASA: PRETORIA; SITO (2008), The Inconvenient Truth. A complete guide to the delay in releasing the results of Zimbabwe’s presidential poll. Prepared by Derek Matyszak of the Research and Advocacy Unit, Zimbabwe. IDASA: PRETORIA; SITO (2008).

THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH (PART II). A complete guide to the recount of votes in Zimbabwe’s “harmonised” elections. Derek Matyszak, Research and Advocacy Unit, Zimbabwe. IDASA: PRETORIA; SITO (2008), What happened in the Presidential election? Research & Advocacy Unit, Zimbabwe. IDASA:
PRETORIA.

[3] In the end, ZEC merely announced the result of the Presidential poll, which bore a suspicious resemblance to the ZESN “sample based observation” result. No detailed results were given for the Presidential poll, in complete contrast to the other three elections in these “harmonised” elections. See again SITO (2008), What happened in the Presidential election? Research & Advocacy Unit, Zimbabwe.
IDASA: PRETORIA

[4] The depiction of violence as equitable and the deliberate avoidance to engage with available empirical information that clearly demonstrates who are the primary perpetrators is chillingly reminiscent of the way in which violence in South Africa during the negotiations of the early 1990s was depicted as ‘black-on-black’, ‘tribal’, Zulu vs Xhosa, etc. These crude representations, adopted by significant sections of the media, analysts and so on fundamentally undermined efforts to secure accountability and remains to this day a major part of South Africa’s ‘unfinished business’ in terms of the dealing with its past.

[5] De Klerk has envisaged a ‘troika’ arrangement involving the NP, ANC and IFP, as a way of avoiding a democratic outcome to the negotiations.

[6] That the recount was illegal has been covered in great detail. Here see again SITO (2008), The Inconvenient Truth. A complete guide to the delay in releasing the results of Zimbabwe’s presidential poll. Prepared by Derek Matyszak of the Research and Advocacy Unit,

Zimbabwe. IDASA: PRETORIA; SITO (2008), THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH (PART II). A complete guide to the recount of votes in Zimbabwe’s “harmonised” elections. Derek Matyszak, Research and Advocacy Unit, Zimbabwe. IDASA: PRETORIA.

[7] The 2005 elections were, in fact, seriously flawed, but nonetheless given a passing grade by South African and SADC. For an analysis of this election, see Reeler, A.P., & Chitsike, K.C (2005), Trick or Treat? The effects of the pre-election climate on the poll in the 2005 Zimbabwe Parliamentary Elections. June 2005. PRETORIA: IDASA.

Demand free and fair elections in Zimbabwe

Kofi Annan et al

2008-06-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/48923

Prominent African leaders from across civil society have issued a public call for an end to violence and intimidation in Zimbabwe ahead of the presidential run-off elections at the end of the month. In an open letter signed by former heads of state, business leaders, academics and leading campaigners, the group calls for appropriate conditions to be met so that the second round of the presidential election is conducted in a peaceful and transparent manner that allows the citizens of Zimbabwe to express freely their political will.
====

It is crucial for the interests of both Zimbabwe and Africa that the upcoming elections are free and fair.

Zimbabweans fought for liberation in order to be able to determine their own future. Great sacrifices were made during the liberation struggle. To live up to the aspirations of those who sacrificed, it is vital that nothing is done to deny the legitimate expression of the will of the people of Zimbabwe.

As Africans we consider the forthcoming elections to be critical. We are aware of the attention of the world. More significantly we are conscious of the huge number of Africans who want to see a stable, democratic and peaceful Zimbabwe.

Consequently, we are deeply troubled by the current reports of intimidation, harassment and violence. It is vital that the appropriate conditions are created so that the Presidential run-off is conducted in a peaceful, free and fair manner. Only then can the political parties conduct their election campaigning in a way that enables the citizens to express freely their political will.

In this context, we call for an end to the violence and intimidation, and the restoration of full access for humanitarian and aid agencies.

To this end it will be necessary to have an adequate number of independent electoral observers, both during the election process and to verify the results.

Whatever the outcome of the election, it will be vital for all Zimbabweans to come together in a spirit of reconciliation to secure Zimbabwe's future.

We further call upon African leaders at all levels - pan-African, regional and national - and their institutions to ensure the achievement of these objectives.


* Civil society groups and individual citizens are invited to counter-sign the letter by clicking here

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


*For the full list of signatories, please follow this link:
Abdusalami Alhaji Abubakar, Former President of Nigeria (1998-1999)

Kofi Annan, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations (1997-2007), Nobel Laureate and member of The Elders

Professor Kwame Appiah, Laurence S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University

Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations (1992-1997)

Lakhdar Brahimi, Former United Nations Special Representative for Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq and South Africa, member of The Elders

Pierre Buyoya, Former President of Burundi (1987-1993, 1996-2003)

Joaquim Chissano, Former President of Mozambique (1986-2005)

John Githongo, Former Permanent Secretary for Governance and Ethics in Kenya

Richard Goldstone, Former Judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa

Mo Ibrahim, Founder of Celtel International and Founder of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation

Sam Jonah, Former Chief Executive of the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation

Angelique Kidjo, Musician and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador

Wangari Maathai, Founder of the Green Belt Movement and Nobel Laureate

Graça Machel, President of the Foundation for Community Development and member of The Elders

Ketumile Masire, Former President of Botswana (1980-1998)

Moeletsi Mbeki, Deputy Chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs

Benjamin William Mkapa,,Former President of Tanzania (1995-2005)

Festus Mogae, Former President of Botswana (1998-2008)

António Mascarenhas Monteiro, Former President of Cape Verde (1991-2001)

Elson Bakili Muluzi, Former President of Malawi (1994-2004)

Ali Hassan Mwinyi, Former President of Tanzania (1985-1995)

Kumi Naidoo, Secretary General of CIVICUS

Babacar Ndiaye, Former President of the African Development Bank

Youssou N'Dour, Musician and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador

Njongonkulu Ndungane, Former Archbishop of Cape Town and Founder of the African Monitor

Moustapha Niasse, Former Prime Minister of Senegal (1983, 2000-2001)

Loyiso Nongxa, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand

Karl Offmann, Former President of Mauritius (2002-2003)

Mamphela Ramphele, Former Managing Director of the World Bank and former Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Town

Jerry John Rawlings, Former President of Ghana (1993-2001)

Johann Rupert, Chairman of Remgro Limited

Mohammed Sahnoun, Former UN/OAU Special Representative for the Great Lakes region of Africa and former Assistant Secretary-General of the OAU

Salim Ahmed Salim, Former Prime Minister of Tanzania (1994-1995) and former Secretary-General of the OAU (1989-2001)

John Sentamu, Archbishop of York

Nicéphore Dieudonné Soglo, Former President of Benin (1991-1996)

Miguel Trovoada, Former President of São Tomé and Príncipe (1991-2001)

Desmond Tutu, Nobel Laureate and Chairman of The Elders

Cassam Uteem, Former President of Mauritius (1992-2002)

Zwelinzima Vavi, General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions

Joseph Sinde Warioba, Former Prime Minister of Tanzania (1985-1990)

Zimbabwe: Stop the run-off

Feminist Political Education Project

2008-06-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/48880

The Feminist Political Education Project (FePEP) calls upon all political leaders to stop the 27th of June 2008 Presidential election run-off.

We refer to our position as Zimbabwean feminists, articulated through our previous statements that elections will not solve the crisis that faces Zimbabwe today. We have learnt from other countries that have experienced conflict that elections, alone, do not solve political governance crises. What Zimbabwe needs, is a negotiated settlement.

We are alarmed by the escalated levels of political violence, destabilisation, displacement of people and the continued deterioration of socio-economic conditions that the Zimbabwean people, especially women are subjected to.

It is clear, that the prevailing environment in Zimbabwe completely discredits any electoral process.

We therefore call for the cessation of the Presidential elections runoff and the immediate resumption of dialogue involving all political players.

We call upon both presidential candidates to step up to their responsibilities, take up humane political leadership and commit to dialogue that leads to long lasting solutions for Zimbabwe.

All Zimbabweans have an obligation to work towards the development of lasting solutions for our country. We thus urge all leaders to support this call.

We appeal to SADC, AU leaders and the international community, to use their influence to support political dialogue that resolves the Zimbabwean conflict.

Our position as FePEP reflects and amplifies the voices of many women from across the political divide and from all parts of the country.

The Presidential elections runoff must be called off!

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

Concerning the safe return of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine

Letter to the government of Brazil

Eusi Kwayana

2008-06-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/48922

His Excellency Mr. Antonio De Aguiar Patriota, Brazilian Ambassador to the United States 3006 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 90008

Her Excellency, Ms. Theresa Maria M. Quintella, Consul General of Brazil 8484 Wilshire Blvd. Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Your excellency,

It is time, after nine months of uneasy anxiety, that some authority charged in the name of the international community with responsibility for security in Haiti, advise the international community, that is, the international public, of its findings in regard to the scandalous kidnapping or disappearance of Haitian citizen and patriot, Mr. Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.

The date of Mr. Pierre-Antoine’s disappearance is well established. It is also known that he had been helping human rights delegations from two countries -the USA and Canada, countries with famous courts and parliaments.

Please do not misunderstand this appeal. It has great hope in the United Nations as a peacekeeping agency and much hope in the evolution of democracy in Brazil, which holds a leading position in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti. My disappointment is therefore considerable. Every son and daughter of Haiti deserves the protection of the law and of special international arrangements. Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine is a son of Haiti, one who is well-known in the region and is becoming better known in the world. His international reputation is a standard of judgment of the peacekeeping force. Their reputation will rise or fall with his fortunes. In the present day world, news of violations is highly saleable.

The world knows of no position by the official agencies in Haiti, whether domestic or international, on this important instance of inhumanity. When this matter was raised from the floor at a Conference on Haiti’s children at a University in San Diego, USA, the Ambassador of Haiti to the USA made a spirited response. Not only did he establish the non-involvement of the government of Haiti in the kidnapping of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, but he effectively defended the government, assuring the audience that it had no hand in the unfortunate affair. No one had even suggested that it had. He said that Mr Pierre-Antoine was probably a rival candidate of some other person and hinted that in such circumstances disappearances have sometimes occurred. I do not have a record of his statement before the gathering, and I am open to any correction he or any other party may wish to offer.

All the Ambassador was able to do was to vindicate the Haitian government. But Mr. Pierre-Antoine’s lawyer was present and rose to rebuke the government for its silence and its alleged failure to exercise its national responsibility.

The government of Haiti being ruled out as complicit in Mr. Pierre-Antoine’s absence, the hemisphere to which Haiti has always been central turns its searchlight on that multinational force considered to be of vital assistance to a historically crippled domestic government, and on the leadership of that force, the Republic of Brazil, a major hemispheric partner. Their presence there leads the uninformed to presume that they are there to supply the kind of expertise and clout which cannot be expected of the government in Haiti’s present circumstances. In these times of secretly employed but widely known intrusive surveillance, satellite observation on land, sea and air, clandestine wiretapping and other equipment useful in both offence and defense, there is a credibility gap. The public is not inclined to believe that a few thugs in Haiti have so completely baffled the human capacity of the leading States of the hemisphere.

This matter of the disappearance of Mr. Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine must therefore be taken to the bemused population of the hemisphere and the world at present waiting with impatience for some word of encouragement from the United Nations and its peacekeeping forces.

These forces must be aware of the kidnapping and disappearance of Haiti’s first Prime Minister, Toussaint L’ouverture. The French regime of that time, a regime of soldiers, treated TOUSSAINT’S fate with a silence similar to that with which Mr. Pierre-Antoine’s kidnapping is now being treated. Is this French model the model for the UN troops and its officials?

Questions rush to mind. The hemisphere certainly and the international community wish to know what task force has been set up to track the disappearance of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine and other persons, regardless of their political attachment, who may be less well-known but in similar circumstances.

It is possible to have wrong notions about what happened to LOVINSKY. It is possible to make statements and then find the need to revise them. Is it possible in an age such as this, known for invasive surveillance, for criminal secrets to be so well-kept?

In the military context of a peacekeeping force, silence for two weeks on the part of the Commanding Authority may be advisable, after it has made an initial statement of concern assuring the public of its active pursuit of the offenders. Silence for three weeks may be cause for concern, yet understandable if it had given the necessary assurances. Silence for nine months becomes its opposite, and is no longer silence but an eloquent confession of incapacity, or worse, lack of concern.

If a citizen of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine’s prominence and popularity can be “caught up in the air”: then the fate of the unknown citizen in Haiti under the aegis of the United Nation’s force is not an enviable one.

Questions persist: When did the authorities first hear of this kidnapping? What specific steps have they taken? Who is keeping PIERRE-ANTOINE’S wife and their children informed? Are there no suspects? Is the kidnapping seen as self-inflicted? Have the suspects, if any, evaded the UN’s multi-national capacity? Were there secret landings of aircraft unknown to the official guardians? Was he spirited away in a small boat and have all suspects been called in? Has Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine been rendered? Where are the international media, famous for increasing effectiveness? Have state and media conspired not to investigate the fate of this man? Is he held by the forces of law and order, and if so where are his rights? If he is held, on what allegations or reasonable suspicion? Was this man, who was well known for his committed to non-violence and aimed to become a senator, suspected of planning to blow up the parliament?

Your Excellency, Ms. Theresa Maria M. Quintella, I ask you to transmit this letter to your government in Brazil without delay. Out of respect for President Lula as an elected Head of State the author shall release it to the international media in the Region and in all continents not before the end of the second day of its dispatch to the Head Consulate Officer of Brazil in Los Angeles.

Yours sincerely,
Eusi Kwayana

Cc: United Nations Secretary-General
Congresswoman Maxine Waters
Amnesty International
Pax Christi
Global Women's Strike, Los Angeles
Haiti Action Committee

* For more information on the disappearance of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, see also: Haiti: The disapearance of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine and Letter from Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

* Eusi Kwayana is the veteran Pan African activist of Guyana and the Caribbean. He was central in bringing afro and indo people together in Guyana’s independence struggle. His most recent book, the Morning After is a call for an end to the manipulation of racial insecurity in Guyana by those who promote inter ethnic violence in the name of liberation. His other books include, No Guilty Race and Scars of Bondage.

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

On Obama and race

Reginald James

2008-06-17

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/48814

Excellent article. I think your two most telling points are: 1) the FACT, that had not the Black Democratic elite not jumped behind Clinton, then Obama would have been pigeon-holed as the Black candidate; and 2) He will be a President who happens to be Black. Recently, I've had discussions about Obama's origin's and his "Blackness."

First off, I never got into those discussions ever, and when I used to hear those (back when Rush Limbaugh called him a 'half-rican), I would avoid them. But an interesting point was raised: Since Obama is not a "descendant of slaves," his non-threatening demeanor and further prevents him from making whites feel guilty. Additionally, there has long been a different regard for Africans from the continent and "indigenous" North American Africans by whites.

Journalist Nasteh Dahir Farah

National Union of Somali Journalists

2008-06-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/obituary/48858

Nasteh Dahir Farah (in Somali language: Nasteex Daahir Faarax) was assassinated by two men armed with pistols in Fanole village of Kismayo district on Saturday, 7th June 2008. He was returning home, when killers, who were following him, called his name and as he turned, the hooded attackers started shoot him in the chest and stomach, leaving him dead.

Bullets mutilated his stomach and chest, according to his wife and doctor. The assailants escaped while his neighbours rushed him to the hospital.

Approximately 10 minutes after when he was admitted, medical staff declared Nasteh Dahir Farah dead due to heavy blood loss. So far the killers have not been identified and no arrests have been made. Kismayo is the third main city of Somalia. It is controlled by clan militias and armed groups loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts.

Hundreds of well-wishers of family members, journalists, intellectuals, clan elders, politicians, civil society members and religious leaders turned out to pay their last respects to the renowned journalist. All speakers at the funeral called for justice.

They spoke about late journalist’s performance and his personal and professional neutrality in the armed political conflict. The media in Kismayo was shut down to mark his funeral.

Nasteh Dahir Farah, who was born on 18 October 1980 in Abudwak district, left a wife and son. Nasteh’s wife Idil Abdi Ahmed is six months pregnant. His son Mohammed-Deq Nasteh Dahir Farah is 10-months old. Nasteh’s father died in Abudwak in February 2008. His mother Asili Farah Nur lives in Abudwak with Nasteh’s brothers and sisters of more than 15.

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

Portrait

Juliet Maruru

2008-06-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/48869

I look at the portrait in my mind and hope that every parent, every caregiver, every teacher can acknowledge that every child growing up is a human being, has an ethnic, physical, mental, psychological and sexual identity all rolled up and intermingled with each other, and that the education of that child needs to equip him or her to explore all aspects of it all while learning restraint and respect for social boundaries and respect for other people's choices and boundaries.
====

Bryan was my brother, ten years older than me and a paint artist. He left home when I was 8 and for a while the distance and age gap pulled us apart. After a particularly bad period of my life, Bryan made special effort to be a big brother. I needed that and still count it as one of the reasons I am still alive today.

At first, all Bryan could do was be there for me. At times, even that had to be at a distance. His work as a paint artist allowed him a few respites especially after a good exhibition sale at a gallery somewhere. Then he would take time off to come to the tiny village town where I spent my teens. While there he would ask me to pose as his subject for a painting. I recall breezy mornings on grassy green with palm trees and flowers in the background and me with a book. Then there were humid afternoons on sandy white with the jade blue ocean as our setting and yes, me with a book.

Bryan was tough, not very loud but potentially boorish after a few beers and in the company of his macho friends and cousins. When he was painting, he would be quiet and intense, listening to strange music that I have since discovered to be modern classical compositions, or alternatively asking me to read from poetry and classical books. During my career as his art subject, I read poetry from Homer's Iliad to Sara Teasdale's Peace(Sadly my own attempts at poetry are, well, deplorable!). I read Ernest Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea and children's classics like The Snow white Queen and Cinderella, the Kenyan legends like Mekatilili and Luanda Magere.

The last time I posed for Bryan's work (It can't be a pose exactly because I was allowed to sit and required to move around) I was 19 years old. I had to read both Mekatilili and Cinderella. I sneaked a few glances at the boys playing soccer further down the beach and wished to join them. I stared quite openly at the lovers covertly attending to each other hidden by the jade blue. A light skinned girl about 3 or 4 squealed with delight as her father, a foreigner, tickled her then let her run up to the edge of the water before scooping her and carrying her back to his black wife. And I wondered what Bryan's finished work would look like and if it would fetch him a bit of cash.

When I did see the finished work, I reeled in shocked surprise. In all his previous works he depicted me as an impish tomboy, caught between innocence and adulthood, hardly developed but not quite a child. One particular painting had me standing on the edge of a crag ready to dive into the ocean and obviously relishing the attention of the awed boys below. (That episode earned me a few slaps from a brother who was certain I had narrowly missed cracking my skull on jagged rock underwater.)

The portrait was nothing like that. Last I heard someone bought it for a hundred dollars (a good price then!)  and if you are reading this I will buy it back please. I might need to mow your lawn and do your laundry to get the sum together.

In the portrait, the person depicted (me surely?) is young, gentle, feminine, a woman... She looks at another person who is hidden by shadows, vague, male, not my brother. Her eyes know. Her mouth is full, sensuous, determined. Her body shocks me because it is relaxed, accepting of its own sexuality. The feminine curves are defined, the soft swell of a breast, the gentle roll of a hip just covered by the bright coloured fabric of a leso that might have flapped with the wind.

I wasn't shocked that my brother had drawn me, his own sister, in the form of a woman, and a sensuous one at that (!!!). I was more than shocked even repulsed at the idea of my being a woman, and a sexual being.

Perhaps this was the final lesson my brother wanted to teach me, because he was killed soon after this. As I stood there that day, shaking to the pit of my stomach, he asked me, "Wambui, you are who you are. But who are you? And what do you want to be?" The thing that has bothered me since then is the way he asked those questions. I am who I am, but who am I? What did I want to be?

It's taken me time, but I am slowly unravelling it in my mind. There have been times when I have chosen to ruminate over it, and times when I have chosen to skirt past it. However, I chose to be a teacher and a writer. As a teacher, I am in daily contact with young children and teenagers who are struggling to discover their personal identities. As a writer, I have to write about social issues and that almost always brings me back to the topic of identity.

Identity has been wrapped in issues of ethnicity, nationality and gender. Sexual identity forums almost always spiral into debates about gender roles and homosexuality versus heterosexuality. Generally, most people confuse, and lose, their own personal identities in the roles that they have to assume or that are imposed on them through the life cycle. I keep thinking, I am ME. I am a teacher, a writer, a sister, a Kenyan...I should still be ME if I chose not to teach anymore or to change citizenship. I should still be ME if I take on the roles of motherhood or say, uh..., wifehood.

Old African culture dictated the sequence of life role changes. It also provided support and symbolic rites which included a measure of educative processes that I believe helped shape and reinforce a person's individual identity for the good of the existing society. I cite the Agikuyu initiation rites which were accompanied by education from the elders and subsequent freedom to attend activities such as ngweko (a form of dating with sexual activity that was not limited to one partner but that did not allow penetration) which made it possible for a person to explore sexuality within limits. The subsequent ascension through the leadership roles with accompanying education and rites formed a kind of reinforcing system.

Times have inevitably changed. Historical developments, introduction of 'un-African' religion for example have changed the socio-cultural structures. Granted, some of the cultural traditions were shrouded in illogical shades and at times clearly violated the rights of a human being. However, it is my personal belief that the socio-cultural texture of many of the old African traditions did promote and contribute to the well being of individuals and societies as a whole. At the time.

I am not surprised then that more and more African peoples are going back to being as African as possible in this modern world. More and more people are choosing to learn, and have their children learn, at least one if not two or three ethnic Kenyan languages. Parents are choosing to have their children go through modernized forms of traditional initiation rites. For the boys, they may comprise in some cultures a 'cut' at the clinic followed by group setting counselling usually provided by a church based organization. For the girls, the counselling might be accompanied by basic skills teaching in housekeeping, social skills and so on, but eliminating female circumcision.

I think the effort is commendable. In fact I wish that I might have gone through a similar rite of passage to define the moment I passed from being a child to being a woman. As it is, life chose a very different and much more painful rite of passage for me.

That said, I must state at this point that I am very much disturbed by the manner in which we handle the development of a child into adulthood. We, African Society, chose to deny certain aspects of development (don't get me wrong here, we do pretend to talk about it) and in effect negate very important parts of the human identity, more often than not creating maladjusted individuals and therefore even more unhealthy societies.

Sexuality. As far as I know, 'counselling' in the context of the rites of passage ceremonies involves telling the youth to abstain. Abstain? From what? Sex and sexuality are deliberately and inadvertently portrayed as 'sinful' and shameful. So shameful that we cannot acknowledge that sex is part of who we are, so shameful that we in effect fail to teach the youth about boundaries and safe living. So shameful...and this in a society where a man will defile a ten year old and dare claim in his defence that she provoked him.

Back to the portrait. I am not sure what my brother was thinking when he painted the portrait. I do not know what you are thinking not, either. What I know is that it made me realize that I was a human being, with my very own identity, which does constitute a sexual component and is not at all anything shameful, even if I chose not to flaunt it. It just is.

I have though quite hard about the point I want to make with this article. I look at the portrait in my mind and hope that every parent, every caregiver, every teacher can acknowledge that every child growing up is a human being, has an ethnic, physical, mental, psychological and sexual identity all rolled up and intermingled with each other, and that the education of that child needs to equip him or her to explore all aspects of it all while learning restraint and respect for social boundaries and respect for other people's choices and boundaries.

I do not think it is easy to change the mind-set that now dictates our society today. But that is all it is; a mind-set. It can be reset. The reset, however, requires that we all accept 3 things:

-It is human to be sexual, just as there is nothing wrong with accepting our cultural and psychological identities, and that there is nothing wrong with accepting our own sexuality.

-Times will continue to change, therefore education systems within and without the family must evolve while encompassing the human development.

-A child does have a sexual identity, but there is nothing at all acceptable about an adult exploring or exploiting a child's sexuality. (I suppose we are now going to be debating about who is a child, but the boundaries for that are limited, too.)

So who am I? I still need to think about that for a while longer. I do know that I am well on the way of accepting myself for who I am.


*Juliet Maruru is a Kenyan writer.

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

*

Africa blogging roundup 17th June 2008

Sokari Ekine

2008-06-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/48845

Kameelah Writes

http://kameelahwrites.blogspot.com/2008/06/chimurenga-library.html

Kameelah Writes points to the Chimurenga Library, “curated by contributors to the African cultural and literary magazine, Chimurenga – www.chimurenga.org [You know the one you love to read but never know what the heck they are talking about – OK maybe YOU do, but I’m honest and for all but the odd “piece” haven’t a clue]
“The aim of the Chimurenga Library is not to produce a comprehensive bibliography of periodicals published in Africa; our approach is purely subjective. These are simply objects we read and admire, and which have in one form or another, influenced publishing and editorial choices at Chimurenga.

Some of these periodicals are deep in the postcolonial canon, others smaller and obscure, virtual even. All these projects built on the work of Drum, Presence Africaine, Transition, Black Orpheus and so on but are also alternatives to those monuments. It’s a sort of archipelago of counter-culture platforms that impacted on our concept of the paper-periodical, the publishable even.”
Whilst you are at Kameelah’s blog, take the time to enjoy a photographic experience on her flickr site @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/foojoygreentea/
African Loft
http://www.africanloft.com/mbilia-bel-the-first-transcontinental-african-diva/
African Loft introduces Mbilia Bel, the “Queen of Rumba and musical diva from Congo. For those with reasonable broadband you can watch a short video from YouTube....

“Mbilia joined Tabu Ley in 1981 and definitely brought in the Mbilia Bel flavor and therefore turning Tabu Ley concerts (who was a success in his own right) into a must attend one for many Africans. Her popularity with Tabu Ley helped when she decided to embark on a solo career in 1987. This decision was born out of Tabu Ley’s choice to recruit Faya Tess who was another female artist. After she left the group, Tabu Ley sold fewer albums and accumulated less awards. Mbilia Bel became the most famous member of Tabu Ley’s group. Her most recent cd is called Bellisimo. I think it is her best cd so far.”

Nigerian Curiosity

http://www.nigeriancuriosity.com/2008/06/rewriting-abachas-history.html
Nigerian Curiosity comments on the recent statements by previous Nigerian military dictators on the anniversary of the death of General Sani Abacha, claiming he never looted the Nigerian treasury.

BUHARI & IBB ON ABACHA’S LOOTING HISTORY
“So, as I read statements from former dictators General Buhari and Ibrahim Babangida, I realized that I would have to spend some time pulling up some facts that would contradict their statements. Particularly, their comments regarding Abacha and stolen Nigerian funds. Now, Babangida is quoted as saying,
“...it is not true that he looted public treasury. I knew who Abacha was because I was close to him”
Hmm, like Nigerian Curiosity, I did not know Abacha personally but this goes beyond the realms of fantastic fiction to outrageous ehh “Nigerians must be fools”. Just as the media were discussing the did he, didn’t he steal $millions, the government of Switzerland announced......(and yes, Like NC I am inclined to believe the Swiss government in this instance rather than former fellow Military Dictator Ibrahim Babangida
“A member of the Swiss diplomatic corps assigned to Abuja gave a specific breakdown of looted monies that were returned. The money was returned in instalments and looks as follows -
1. $290 million was transferred on September 1, 2005,
2. $168 million was transferred on December 19, 2005,
3. $40 million transferred at the end of January 2006.
4. $7 million was transferred into a ‘blocked account’ in Nigeria, as the Swiss government could not identify its origin, this money remains in the blocked account.”

Ijebuman’s Diary

http://naijaman.cfmxdeveloper.co.uk/diary/2008/06/finally-godfather-passes-on.html
Ijebuman’s Diary also comments on a Nigerian politician, Mr. Lamidi Adedibu whose death like that of General Sani Abacha, brought people into the streets dancing and cheering
“As expected, Adedibu’s death has elicited widespread jubilation in Ibadan, a city where the late gadfly sharpened and practiced his thuggish brand of politics. One observer told Sahara reporters that people were seen in different parts of the city rejoicing over Mr. Adedibu’s demise.

YA Blogs ZA

http://128.241.192.81/2008/06/reintegration-and-politics-of-death.html
Ya Blogs ZA posts on the announcement by President Mbeki that 24th June will be a national day of mourning for murdered foreigners” in South Africa. He comments on the contradictions between the government’s hollow promises and the realities on the streets....
“However, as many citizens and NGOs pretend a ‘return to normal’, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the eMzantsi Ubuntu Coalition and several other organizations have opposed the nakedly racist motives of the city in forcing traumatized refugees back to townships they fled in fear of their lives. ..............By denying the refugees inner-city shelter, the city and province are actively pursuing apartheid-era policies to divide and rule the desperate, disparate, and disconnected groups of foreigners. Very few community or church halls have been opened in Cape Town’s predominantly white southern suburbs..........Earlier this week, with the assistance of the TAC, several hundred belonging to the ‘Caledon Square Group’ managed to infiltrate and enforce their right to shelter and protection in the Cape Town Civic Centre, a stone’s throw from the ‘Culemborg Group’. “

Black Looks

http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/06/we_are_not_all_like_that_the_monster_bares_its_fangs_.html
Black Looks Andile Mngxitama writes on the recent acts of xenophobic violence in South Africa and provides an excellent analysis of a complex set of events and socioeconomic and political structures that underpins the violence in the townships and shacks of South Africa.

* Sokari Ekine blogs at www.blacklooks.org

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

Charles Taylor and the assasination of Sankara

2008-06-19

http://tinyurl.com/6fnjqj

This radio interview addresses the question of Charles Taylor's possible involvement in the assassination of Thomas Sankara.

The situation in Zimbabwe

2008-06-19

http://tinyurl.com/68hpso

FAMEDEV is deeply concerned by the situation in Zimbabwe. As a result of this concern, FAMEDEV dedicated 35 minutes in their online radio to Zimbabwe and its current social, economic and political events. On this programme which was aired under our Assignment programme, they engaged John Masuku, veteran Zimbabwean broadcaster and Lucy Makaza, a renowned Zimbabwean Civil Rights Activist, on the current issues in the country.

Sudan: China steps up pressure over Darfur

2008-06-19

http://tinyurl.com/3smt4m

President Hu Jintao strongly urged Sudan to cooperate in the swift deployment of international peacekeeping forces and to help end humanitarian abuses in the country's embattled Darfur region, the official Communist Party newspaper said Thursday. The Chinese leader, in a meeting with visiting Sudanese Vice President Ali Uthman Muhammad Taha, used unusually frank language in calling on the Khartoum government to try harder to settle the conflict along Sudan's western border and "allow people there to reconstruct their homeland," according to the People's Daily.

Mapping terror in Zimbabwe: Political violence & elections 2008

2008-06-18

http://www.sokwanele.com/map/electionviolence/howto

On March 29th 2008 Zimbabweans went to the polls and changed history. For the first time since Independence in 1980, the Zanu PF party lost its majority in parliament and Robert Mugabe lost the Presidential vote. The regime immediately embarked on a campaign of violence and reprisal attacks against the civilian population. This map aims to convey some sense of the scale of the violence and it also tries to locate responsibility in relation to key perpetrator groups.

Stop the runoff! - FePEP statement

2008-06-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/48905

The Feminist Political Education Project (FePEP) calls upon all political leaders to stop the 27th of June 2008 Presidential election off. We refer to our position as Zimbabwean feminists, articulated through our previous statements that elections will not solve the crisis that faces Zimbabwe today. We have learnt from other countries that have experienced conflict that elections, alone, do not solve political governance crises. What Zimbabwe needs, is a negotiated settlement.
The Feminist Political Education Project (FePEP) calls upon all political leaders to stop the 27th of June 2008 Presidential election off.

We refer to our position as Zimbabwean feminists, articulated through our previous statements that elections will not solve the crisis that faces Zimbabwe today. We have learnt from other countries that have experienced conflict that elections, alone, do not solve political governance crises. What Zimbabwe needs, is a negotiated settlement.

We are alarmed by the escalated levels of political violence, destabilization, displacement of people and the continued deterioration of socio-economic conditions that the Zimbabwean people, especially women are subjected to.

It is clear, that the prevailing environment in Zimbabwe completely discredits any electoral process.

We therefore call for the cessation of the Presidential elections runoff and the immediate resumption of dialogue involving all political players.

We call upon both presidential candidates to step up to their responsibilities, take up humane political leadership and commit to dialogue that leads to long lasting solutions for Zimbabwe.

All Zimbabweans have an obligation to work towards the development of lasting solutions for our country. We thus urge all leaders to support this call.

We appeal to SADC, AU leaders and the international community, to use their influence to support political dialogue that resolves the Zimbabwean conflict.

Our position as FePEP reflects and amplifies the voices of many women from across the political divide and from all parts of the country.

The Presidential elections runoff must be called off!

Two MDC activists shot dead in front of election observers

2008-06-20

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news190608/mdcactivistsshot190608.htm

The level of the Zanu-PF sense of impunity reached new heights on Tuesday when two MDC activists were shot dead, separately, in front of SADC observer teams. This comes as more African leaders join a growing list of world and regional leaders calling on Mugabe to stop the violence against the opposition. In the strongest regional condemnation yet of pre-poll violence perpetrated by the regime, the Tanzanian Foreign Minister Bernard Membe said the presidential run-off on June 27 is very unlikely to be free and fair.

Victims tortured to death

2008-06-20

http://tinyurl.com/6bhlh4

Amnesty International revealed on Thursday that 12 bodies have been found in various areas of Zimbabwe. Most of the victims appear to have been tortured to death by their abductors. They were allegedly abducted by ZANU-PF supporters who, in some instances, were accompanied by armed men believed to be government agents.

WOZA members released from remand

2008-06-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/48888

Eleven of the 14 WOZA members arrested on 28th May 2008 were finally released from remand prison on bail on Friday evening (13th June) after 17 days in custody. Three members, including Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu, remain in custody in Chikurubi Female Prison.
Eleven of the 14 WOZA members arrested on 28th May 2008 were finally released from remand prison on bail on Friday evening (13th June) after 17 days in custody. Three members, including Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu, remain in custody in Chikurubi Female Prison.

Williams and Mahlangu have been denied bail because the State claims that they will organise Kenya-style violence around the election period. The third woman was detained further because the names on her identity documents were different. Her family has now produced her marriage certificate and it is hoped that her release will be secured on June 18, 2008.

Other than suffering from colds, stomach ailments and lice, those that have been released are fine and in good spirits. All 14 are due to appear on remand in Harare Magistrate’s Court on Friday 20th June.

There is great concern at the continued detention of Williams and Mahlangu who have now been designated as ‘prisoners of conscience’ by Amnesty International.

Although the defence is trying to appeal tothe Supreme Court against the denial of bail, it is clear that the State is trying to keep them in custody until after the 27th June presidential run-off and perhaps much longer. As some prisoners at Chikurubi Female Prison have been on remand for several years without appearing on trial, these fears are not ungrounded.

Conditions in the prison are also not ideal. There is no running water at Chikurubi, meaning that all water has to be carried in by bucket from a near-by pond. Cells, blankets and all conditions are therefore very dirty due to the lack of adequate water. It is also extremely cold but attempts are being made to ensure that Williams and Mahlangu receive regulation jerseys, which are unavailable, hence must knitted by friends or relatives.

The State appears to be deliberately frustrating the work of the lawyers of these nonviolent human rights defenders. Most recently the office of Judge Ben Hlatshwayo who heard the appeal, is claiming that the matter cannot be further appealed to the Supreme Court because it originated in the Magistrate’s Court. Defence lawyers are currently trying to clarify what options are now available the correct legal position.

The release of the 11 members was also only secured after several suspected delaying tactics by the State. The 14 were first taken to court at 4.30 pm on Friday 30th May, several hours after the maximum 48-hour period allowed, and obviously too late for a meaningful court hearing. The group was then remanded in custody until Saturday 31st May for a bail hearing. On the 31st, Magistrate Rusinahama granted the group bail - Jenni Williams at ZWD 10 billion and the other 13 at ZWD 5 billion each - and remanded them to 6th June. The Prosecutor, Public Mpofu, immediately indicated his intention to appeal against the Magistrate’s decision and the group was further remanded in custody pending the appeal hearing.

Despite Mpofu’s assurance to the group that he was only following orders and would lodge the appeal immediately, the notice of intent to appeal was only lodged on the 5th June.

The date of the appeal to the High Court was set for Tuesday 10th June. Nonetheless, the State only provided the defence with their arguments at 4pm on Monday 9th June meaning that the defence was unable to submit its replies to Judge Hlatshwayo in time. The judge therefore postponed his ruling until Wednesday 11th June. On the 11th, Judge Hlatshwayo dismissed the State’s appeal against 11 of the members but ordered that Williams and Mahlangu remain in custody. The State had argued that they would organise violence during the election period, and in light of the State’s zero-tolerance attitude towards pre and post-election violence (sic), they should be remanded in custody until trial.

When WOZA’s lawyer and several supporters attempted to go to Chikurubi on Wednesday afternoon to inform the group of the ruling, war veterans in a ZANU PF vehicle prevented them from entering the prison complex. The supporters were told that they would only be allowed to see the WOZA prisoners ‘when they were dead’. The war veterans then tried to force them to accompany them to the provincial ZANU PF headquarters in the city centre, a renowned torture base. Fortunately the WOZA vehicle eventually managed to evade their pursuers in the traffic, after a prolonged chase. Shaken by their ordeal, the WOZA supporters tried to pay bail on Thursday morning only to be informed that the rules had changed that very day and now it was necessary to obtain a bail form from the prison authorities before being able to pay bail at the Magistrate’s Court. Upon requesting the bail forms at Harare Remand Prison and Chikurubi Female Prison, the officers-in-charge at both prisons insisted that they could not understand the High Court document ordering the release of the 11 prisoners. The officer-in-charge at Chikurubi insisted that the High Court produce different documents that she could understand.

Having finally obtained the different High Court documents and bail forms from the two prisons, when the WOZA supporters tried to paybail on Friday afternoon, they were informed that the WOZA file had been locked away. It was only with great difficulty that the bail could be paid for 11 of the WOZA group. As mentioned previously, bail could not be paid for the 12th member as she uses her maiden name but the passport she was forced to surrender is in her married name.

More news will be given as it becomes available.

Peace and Security in Africa

Weekly Roundup: Issue 141, 2008

Yves Niyiragira

2008-06-19

http://www.aumonitor.org

The Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU) expressed their deep concern over the confrontation between the armed forces of Eritrea and Djibouti that began on June 10. The PSC urged the two countries to commence dialogue to resolve the dispute and to withdraw all forces, that have been positioned since February 4, from the border. The PSC also thanked Djibouti for their cooperation with the AU mission and requested that Eritrea do so. Further, an AU team led by former Sierra Leonean President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah will be sent to Zimbabwe to observe the presidential run-off election due to be held June 27. The AU expressed concern over violence and intimidation during the electoral preparations and called for effective measures to address the situation. In addition, prominent African leaders, including former heads of state, business leaders, academics and leading campaigners, have also called for an end to violence and intimidation in Zimbabwe. They stressed the need for every citizen to be able freely express their political choice in a peaceful and transparent manner. Still in peace related news, the AU has been called to intervene in Darfur by sending between 5000 to 10000 troops instead of the 3000 present there in order to stop an apparent genocide.

The People’s Republic of China, one of Africa’s newer investors, has reiterated its stance that it has no intention of colonizing or exploiting Africa as is being speculated by western countries. According to Ms. Wang Ke, Counsellor of the African Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China considers ‘African countries as friends and wants to build partnership based on trust, sincerity, equality, mutual support and common development’. Despite China’s energy-reliant and booming economy, the country holds under two percent of Africa’s oil. Also in economic news, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) seeks to create a pan-African board to attract more investors in Africa but its main peers, the Nigeria Stock Exchange and Nairobi Stock Exchange have responded unenthusiastically calling the decision politically unsound.

In development news, African environmental ministers called on the AU to adopt a common position on climate change at its 13th summit in 2009, ahead of the Copenhagen climate change summit in December that year. The ministers agreed that a common strategy on climate change will help persuade developed countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by between 25 to 40 percent by 2020. One of the consequences of climate change is the current food crisis in the world. In East Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have announced budgetary measures to alleviate some of the burden of soaring food prices on their respective populations.

African experts on slavery are meeting in Banjul, Gambia in an effort to create a common position on slavery. During the transatlantic slave trade, more than 13 million Africans were captured and enslaved and four million other killed in the transit. Also in human rights related news, a draft proposal for the merger of the African Human Rights Court and the African Court of Justice will be presented during the AU Summit in Egypt.

Finally, while welcoming partnership with Europe, Libyan president Col. Muammar Gaddafi has opposed plans for a Mediterranean Union saying that it would harm efforts towards Arab and African unity.

Africa: 25th FAO Africa Conference- African Women's Statement

2008-06-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/48914

We, women representatives from different organisations in Africa, representing farmer’s, Community Based Organisations, Landless Peoples Movements, Pastoralists and Youth, from Western, Southern and Eastern Africa, meeting in Nairobi from June 16-18, 2008, to share our diverse experiences on women’s access, control and ownership of land/natural and productive resources in Africa and governments’ extent of implementation of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) Declaration in Africa and the current food crisis.
African Women’s Statement on Land/Natural and Productive Resources, 25th FAO African Regional Conference (ARC) June 16-20, 2008, Nairobi, Kenya

Mr. Chairman, Honourable Delegates;

We, women representatives from different organisations in Africa, representing farmer’s, Community Based Organisations, Landless Peoples Movements, Pastoralists and Youth, from Western, Southern and Eastern Africa, meeting in Nairobi from June 16-18, 2008, to share our diverse experiences on women’s access, control and ownership of land/natural and productive resources in Africa and governments’ extent of implementation of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) Declaration in Africa and the current food crisis.

It is widely acknowledged that improved women’s access, control and ownership of land/natural and productive resources, is a key factor in eradicating hunger and rural poverty. This has been restated in the framework of international commitments at World Food Summit 1996 and its Plan of Action; in the Voluntary Guidelines on the Implementation of the Right to Food unanimously adopted by FAO Council; and most recently at the FAO’s 32nd Committee on Food Security in October 2006. However there has not been a concerted international action to address the question of women’s access, control and ownership of land/natural and productive resources in Africa.

“The overall situation is that in the face of increased competition and conflict over land rights for mining, development, logging and other economic activities and as a result of trends towards market-based land reforms, and environmental and health disasters, African women are fast losing their already precarious access to land and resources. HIV-positive women or widows and children orphaned by HIV and AIDS risk losing all claims to family land and natural resources”, notes Annette Mukiga from Rwanda Women’s Network”.

We note that the world is in a food crisis that is linked to a record increase in prices of 83% -a situation not seen in the last fifty (50) years. For years, African governments, advised by international financial institutions and donors, have dismantled public support to agriculture and neglected the small farmers, particularly women farmers, who feed their people.

As Isabella Wandati of Butere Focus on Women’s Development, Kenya, notes,
“The targets and goals to eradicate hunger and achieve food security will not be attained unless governments and international organisations take specific action to end the persistent discrimination against women in matters of access to, ownership and control over land and natural resources in Africa. Because women produce up to 80% of the food in developing countries, yet now comprise 60% of those suffering from hunger”.

We are cognisant of the fact that the ICARRD Declaration in Africa will be implemented through the African Union’s (AU), United Nation’s Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the Africa Development Bank (ADB) led Africa Land Policy and Land Reform Framework and Guidelines currently being developed to: ensure secure land rights; increase productivity; improve livelihoods; enhance natural resource management, and; contribute to a broad-based economic growth.
As Fatou Bah from the National Youth Association for Food Security in The Gambia points out:
“Improved women’s access, control and ownership of land/natural and productive resources are key to the achievements of these aims. The process and content of the above Africa Framework and Guidelines must fully adhere to African governments commitments in the ICARRD Declaration 2006 and the African Union’s Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa 2003 on women’s rights to land and natural resources to realize its aims”.

Recommendations:
1. To FAO and African Governments on implementation of ICARRD
To implement existing commitments as part of the follow up to the ICARRD Declaration March 2006 at continental, regional and national levels through concrete measures:

Uphold equal citizenship rights for both women and men by eliminating all discriminatory cultural, religious and traditional laws on succession and inheritance included in statutory law at national level that exclude African women from citizenship on an equal footing with African men, as a first step to ensuring women’s access, control and ownership of land/natural and productive resources in Africa;

Support the establishment of a reporting, monitoring and evaluation mechanism for member states managed collaboratively by FAO, the African Union and regional economic communities regarding the implementation of ICARRD follow up;

Fund agrarian reform and agricultural development through the development of long-term strategies linking all concerned ministries at national level-Agriculture, Land, Environment, Livestock and Natural Resources;

Support establishment of gender disaggregated data-base, at national, regional and continental levels, to measure the ICARRD Declaration’s implementation progress in order to inform policies, programmes and processes for women’s access, control and ownership of land/natural and productive resources in Africa.
2. To FAO and African Governments to implement the measures below in the implementation of ICARRD in Africa through the African Land Policy and Land Reform Framework and Guidelines:

Convene a continental round table on women’s access, control and ownership of land/natural and productive resources in Africa in 2008 to develop indicators and benchmarks for the AU Land Framework and Guidelines before their adoption by the AU Heads of States Summit in 2009. Problems of women’s access, control and ownership of land/natural and productive resources in Africa are in many national contexts complex and sensitive issues. There is a need for policy makers and governments and civil society (particularly organisations of rural women farmers) in Africa to come together to assess the extent of the challenges and share possible ways forward at the sub-regional level and resolve collective action;

Mainstream women’s rights in the Draft AU Land Framework and Guidelines. Women’s access, control and ownership over land/natural and productive resources need to be treated comprehensively in each of the aspects of the land question in line with government commitments on women’s rights including the ICARRD Declaration 2006 and the African Union’s Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa 2003.

Conclusion
Women’s access, control and ownership of land/natural and productive resources in Africa intersect with other problems such as discriminatory inheritance patterns, agriculture and food insecurity, violence against women, the appropriation and privatization of communal and indigenous lands and other natural resources, as well as gendered control over economic resources and the right to work. This inter-sectionality highlights the need for governments to secure women’s rights to access, control and own land/natural and productive resources, in order to lessen the threat of discrimination, different forms of violence and HIV/AIDS, denial of political participation, and other violations of their economic and human rights. There is also need to ensure gender responsive land and environmental law to facilitate women’s access to resources. The measures we have recommended above will be key to securing those rights.


Coast Women’s Rights (COWER), Kenya
Rwanda Women’s Network(RWN), Rwanda
Plateforme Sous Regionale Des Organisations Paysannes D’Afrique Central (PROPAC), Cameroon
National Youth Association for Food Security (NYAFS)/IFSN, The Gambia
Kenya Food Security Network (KEFOSPAN), Kenya
Kenya Land Alliance (KLA)
Eastern African Farmers Federation(EAFF), Tanzania
National Women’s Farmers Association (NAWFA), The Gambia
Network of Ethiopian Women’s Associations (NEWA), Ethiopia
Uganda Land Alliance (ULA), Uganda
Community Land and Development Foundation (COLANDEF), Ghana
La Via Campesina, South Africa
Network of Organisations Working on Food Sovereignty (ROSA), Mozambique
Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers Forum(ESAFF), Zambia
Shelter Forum, Kenya
Food Rights Alliance-Uganda
Volunteer Efforts for Development Concerns, Uganda
ACORD International
ActionAid International
Spokespersons’ Contacts
Rita Aciro
Tel: +256 77 2468041
Uganda Land Alliance (ULA), Uganda

Annete Mireille (French and English Interviews)
Tel: +254 713 839942
Plateforme Sous Regionale Des Organisations Paysannes D’Afrique Central (PROPAC), Cameroon

Annette Mukiga
Tel: +250 84 88884

Mary Wandia +254 733 860036- ActionAid International Africa

Africa: Looking for Africa's women in science

2008-06-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/48909

A Women in Science competition is now being held to identify and recognise women scientists in sub-Saharan Africa who are engaged in innovative and pioneering research and communicating the outputs—knowledge, technologies, approaches—for enhancing agricultural performance in sub-Saharan Africa. It also targets women who are repackaging and communicating existing knowledge to improve agricultural productivity and livelihoods of rural communities. The deadline for entries is 15 August 2008.
Looking for Africa’s Women in Science

Competition seeks winners with great impact on agriculture

A Women in Science competition is now being held to identify and recognise women scientists in sub-Saharan Africa who are engaged in innovative and pioneering research and communicating the outputs—knowledge, technologies, approaches—for enhancing agricultural performance in sub-Saharan Africa.

It also targets women who are repackaging and communicating existing knowledge to improve agricultural productivity and livelihoods of rural communities.

Women scientists who are advocating for policy change to optimise the benefits of scientific and technological developments are also targeted.

The deadline for entries is 15 August 2008.

Who can participate?
Women scientists, researchers, educators, extension workers, agro-entrepreneurs and farmers are encouraged to participate. Individual and group entries will be accepted.
Entries should demonstrate the pursuit, documentation and dissemination of scientific and technical knowledge including technologies and approaches and effective partnerships with peers and/or rural communities, policymakers, farmers and agro-entrepreneurs.

What is the scope?
Entries can include existing or ongoing research work and projects or programmes undertaken within the last five years that show measurable impact (potential or demonstrated) on agricultural development and/or rural livelihoods of African communities, especially women farmers.

Entries should include gender responsive strategies that incorporate a strong element of communication and outreach.

Guidelines for entries
Entrants must submit a two page (A4) abstract (1500 – 2000 words) that clearly details the objectives, methodology, results and conclusion of the successful project/programme including the information and communication strategy and tools, and impact on agriculture and/or rural livelihoods.
Entries must include full contact details; name, mailing address, telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address on submissions.

Abstracts should be emailed to info@atpsnet.org and copied toladuke@atpsnet.org The deadline is 15 August 2008. Abstracts received after the deadline will not be considered.

Evaluation and announcement of winners
Abstracts will be evaluated by a panel of experts including scientists, gender specialists and information and communication technologies (ICT) experts.
Successful entrants will be invited to submit full papers of not more than 4 – 6 pages by 30 September 2008 in keeping with competition guidelines.

Women scientists whose full papers are received by 30 September 2008 and approved by the panel will be supported to attend the Ministerial Meeting on Higher Education, which will be held in Lusaka, Zambia from 22-31 October 2008. The top five winners will be announced and prizes awarded at the Ministerial Forum.

Competition organisers
The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (ACP-EU), the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) and the African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS).




WIGSAT - Women, knowledge, technology
204 Ventress Road
Brighton, Ontario K0K 1H0 Canada
shuyer@wigsat.org
www.wigsat.org

DRC: Appeal to UN Security Council to help end sexual violence

2008-06-20

http://friendsofthecongo.org/pressreleases/sexual_violence.php

We, the 71 Congolese organizations representing the women of DRC, would like to take this opportunity to express our grave concerns about the tragedy sexual violence has inflicted on women and young girls in our country, particularly in the east.

Global: International Women’s Program (IWP) - Equality and justice under the rule of law

Call for proposals 2008

2008-06-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/48911

The mission of IWP is to use grant-making and programmatic efforts to promote and protect the rights of women and girls in priority areas around the globe where the principles of good governance and respect for the rule of law are absent or destroyed because of conflict. IWP seeks to promote the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality in law and practice, and the empowerment of women to ensure participation in the democratic processes.
International Women’s Program (IWP)

Call for proposals 2008

~ Equality and justice under the rule of law ~
The mission of IWP is to use grant-making and programmatic efforts to promote and protect the rights of women and girls in priority areas around the globe where the principles of good governance and respect for the rule of law are absent or destroyed because of conflict. IWP seeks to promote the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality in law and practice, and the empowerment of women to ensure participation in the democratic processes.

IWP invites proposals from local, national, regional or international organizations which focus on one or more of the following objectives:
1) Reducing discrimination and violence against women IWP seeks to support initiatives that improve the status of women by:
- Strengthening legal frameworks and enforcement mechanisms that focus on women’s rights
- Strengthening civil society’s capacity to hold governments accountable to implement laws
- Increasing women’s capacity to understand and claim rights

2) Strengthening women’s access to justice
IWP seeks to support initiatives that strengthen judicial response to women and reduce the obstacles to access by ensuring:
- Legal aid, counsel and assistance is available and resourced
- Judges, lawyers and prosecutors understand and apply gender justice
- Transitional justice mechanisms are equitable and inclusive of women

3) Increasing women’s role as decision-makers and leaders*
IWP seeks to support initiatives that encourage and increase women’s role as decision-makers in a number of arenas including the following:
- Peace and reconciliation processes
- Electoral and legislative processes
- Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR), Security Sector Reform (SSR) and reconstruction programs

Grant support
Organizations can apply for general support grant or support for a specific project. ‘General support’ grants are intended for organizations which focus on one or more of the listed objectives. A general support grant supports unspecified organizational costs. Such a grant is not awarded for any particular project or purpose. The review process for this grant type will be exceptionally selective. The ‘project support’ grants are intended to fund targeted initiatives related to one or more of the listed objectives.

Preference is given to:
- Organizations managed and led by women
- Organizations that have a five-year plus track record and demonstrate sustainability
- Organizations that forge partnerships with other civil society groups working on similar issues
- Local/indigenous independent non-governmental organizations or initiatives that link local and international organizations

Proposals must benefit populations in one of the following countries only:
Africa:
Democratic Republic of Congo
Liberia
Sierra Leone
Uganda
Zimbabwe

Asia:
Burma
Cambodia
Nepal
Tajikistan

Middle East and North Africa:
Algeria
Iraq (including refugees in region)
Lebanon
Occupied Palestinian Territories
Latin America:
Guatemala
Europe:
Bosnia & Herzegovina
Proposals benefiting populations in other countries will NOT be considered at this time.

Grant amount & funding timeframe
Organizations can apply for one to three year grants ranging from $25,000 to $200,000. Please note multi-year proposals will require an annual assessment report prior to releasing the subsequent trench of funds.

Timeline
Proposals must be received in English by email (preferred), fax or mail on or by July 7, 2008. Incomplete proposals or proposals received July 8 or later will NOT be considered under any circumstances.

Please email completed proposals to: women@sorosny.org (please write ‘proposal call 2008’ in the subject line of your email)

If your organization does not have email access, please fax or mail application to:
International Women’s Program / Open Society Institute
400 West 59th Street
New York, NY 10019, USA
(Fax) 1.646.557.2601

Organizations will receive notification of decision by the first week of October 2008. For those awarded grants, funding will be allocated by December 2008.

General support proposal guidelines

Title page
1. Organization name
2. Amount requested
3. Proposed effective dates of grant period (calendar year, or organization’s fiscal year)
4. Contact information (mailing address, street address, telephone, fax, email, website) of organization
5. Contact person(s), including the executive director or signatory of the grant letter and the proposal contact

Requirements
1. A description of the organization, its mission, goals, history and capacity to carry out the work.
2. Statement of need for the organization’s work and its relevance to the mission and mandate of theOSI International Women’s Program.
3. General overview of the previous year’s activities
4. Detailed explanation of expected activities in the year for which the organization is seeking support, related timelines, and methodologies.
5. Explanation of how organization’s outcomes and impacts will be measured.
6. Bios or C.V.’s of the organization’s executive director and key staff members working on the project and a list of the Board of Directors or other managing body, if applicable.
7. Annual organizational budget, noting all sources of funding received or anticipated from other donors. Include all aspects of organization’s budget, including salaries, overhead (e.g., rent), communications, specific project costs, etc.


project support proposal guidelines
Title page
1. Organization name
2. Amount requested
3. Proposed effective dates of grant period
4. Contact information (mailing address, street address, telephone, fax, email, website) of organization
5. Contact person(s), including the executive director or signatory of the grant letter and the proposal contact

Requirements
1. A description of the organization, its mission, history and capacity to carry out the work.
2. Statement of need for the organization’s work and its relevance to the mission and mandate of theOSI International Women’s Program.
3. Detailed explanation of project activities and objectives, related timelines, and methodologies.
4. Explanation of how organization’s outcomes and impacts will be measured.
5. Bios or C.V.’s of the organization’s executive director and key staff members working on the project and a list of the Board of Directors or other managing body, if applicable.
6. An organizational budget and project budget, noting funding request to OSI, and additional sources of funding received or anticipated from other donors. Include those donor names.


• Please note that OSI cannot provide funding for electoral purposes

Global: Invisible agents: Women in service delivery reforms

2008-06-20

http://www.gsdrc.org/go/display&type=Document&id=3007

Overwhelmingly it is women who access and use public services to meet household needs. New Public Management (NPM) emphasises empowering end-users as agents of accountability, and has influenced public service delivery reforms. This Institute of Development Studies (IDS) paper argues that the generic notion of end-users of public services found in NPM-inspired reforms is mistaken. It hides the constraints women face when accessing services, which can limit their efficacy as agents of accountability.

Global: New Security Council resolution on sexual violence

2008-06-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/48882

On June 19, the United Nations Security Council is set to debate the relevance of sexual violence in conflict to its work. The debate may result in the adoption of a historic resolution which would require the Council to analyze and address the occurrence of sexual violence in all conflict-affected situations on its agenda.
Press Advisory

On June 19, the United Nations Security Council is set to debate the relevance of sexual violence in conflict to its work. The debate may result in the adoption of a historic resolution which would require the Council to analyze and address the occurrence of sexual violence in all conflict-affected situations on its agenda. Until now, the Council’s record on raising concerns on this issue has been inconsistent, only recently issuing strong statements on the appalling levels of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—a conflict that has been marred by unconscionable violence for years—and hardly any mention of rape and other forms of sexual abuse in Cote d’Ivoire, where nongovernmental and humanitarian organizations systematically have documented continued use of such violence by all sides of the conflict.

The Security Council is mandated by the UN Charter to address situations that threaten international peace and security, including violations of international law (such as rape) that raise to this level. The Council consists of 15 member states, all of whom would have to agree to the proposed resolution on sexual violence for it to pass. The Council is composed of China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States--the five permanent members and Belgium, Burkina Faso, Costa Rica, Croatia, Indonesia, Italy, Libya, Panama, South Africa and Vietnam--the non-permanent members.

[enter locally relevant para here including something like this: “XXNAME OF PERSONXX from XXNAME OF ORGANIZATIONXX, an NGO specializing in XXMANDATEXX, is available to talk to the press on the need for stronger international action to prevent and punish sexual violence.”]

Global: UN classifies rape a 'war tactic'

2008-06-20

http://tinyurl.com/6ofk56

The UN Security Council has voted unanimously in favour of a resolution classifying rape as a weapon of war. The document describes the deliberate use of rape as a tactic in war and a threat to international security. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said violence against women had reached "unspeakable proportions" in some societies recovering from conflict. The UN is also setting up an inquiry to report next June on how widespread the practice is and how to tackle it.

Namibia: National Assembly achieves 30% women target

2008-06-20

http://www.sardc.net/Editorial/Newsfeature/08360608.htm

Namibia has become the fourth country in the region to achieve 30 percent female representation in political and decision-making positions. Three more women were appointed to parliament in Namibia in May, bringing to 24 the number of women out of a total 78 members in the National Assembly.

Sudan: Rape a way of life for Darfur's women

2008-06-20

http://tinyurl.com/4vo2rk

Sudan's Darfur crisis has exploded on many fronts violence, hunger, displacement and looting but United Nations peacekeepers say the biggest issue now affecting the region is the systematic rape of women and children. Thousands of women, as young as four are caught in the middle of the struggle between rebel forces and government-backed militias have become victims of rape, they say, with some aid groups claiming it is being used as a weapon of ethnic cleansing.

Uganda: Petition on violence against women and girls

2008-06-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/48918

Imagine a Uganda where bruises and broken bones don’t keep mothers away from caring for their children
Imagine a Uganda where women walk the streets and paths at night without looking over their shoulders
Imagine a Uganda in which girls live a life free of violence from their teachers, relatives, strangers, etc.
Imagine a Uganda where perpetrators of violence against women and girls face the full rigour of the law
Imagine a Uganda Without Violence Against Women and Girls…
PETITION ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS

Imagine a Uganda where bruises and broken bones don’t keep mothers away from caring for their children
Imagine a Uganda where women walk the streets and paths at night without looking over their shoulders
Imagine a Uganda in which girls live a life free of violence from their teachers, relatives, strangers, etc.
Imagine a Uganda where perpetrators of violence against women and girls face the full rigour of the law
Imagine a Uganda Without Violence Against Women and Girls…

We, the undersigned organizations—

Recognizing that the bodies of our daughters, mothers, wives, sisters, aunts, nieces and grandmothers have increasingly become the targets of assault, rape, defilement and harassment;

Deeply concerned that the assault on women’s bodies continues through various forms of violence including, but not limited to: rape, marital rape, domestic violence, trafficking, harmful customary and traditional practices, violence and torture during conflict, forced marriages and early marriages. These forms of violence take place: within homes, at work, in schools, in clinics and hospitals, at police stations and many other places at an alarming rate;

Aware that violence against women and girls has far-reaching costs and dire consequences for national development and on strategies such as those on HIV/AIDS, agriculture, industrialization, and so forth;

Fully Cognizant of commitments that government has made through regional and international agreements on women’s human rights, in particular, the Convention on Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) (1979); Vienna Declaration on Human Rights (1993); Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), All the African Regional Conferences on Women; The Millennium Declaration (2000); and The Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa (2004) amongst others;

Regretting that despite all these undertakings and efforts by the women’s movement in Uganda to combat this heinous crime, impunity continues to reign with most crimes going unpunished amidst state inaction and inertia; and

Believing that the final achievement of democracy and development for our country hinges on the attainment of women’s full and equal rights.

Against this background, we demand the following: -

1. That government prioritizes the elimination of violence against women in our society and protects them from cruel and degrading treatment, preserving their health, dignity, self-worth and respect.

2. That government passes all pending bills that address violence against women and girls, including the bills on Domestic Violence, on Sexual Offences, on Trafficking of Women and on Domestic Relations.

3. That government immediately ratifies the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.

4. That government funds programmes that prevent violence and respond to the various types of abuse (physical, sexual and emotional) of women and girls.

5. That government supports efforts to help survivors of violence recover their dignity, health, livelihood and families.

6. That the National AIDS Commission and other related organisations address gender-based violence in their HIV/AIDS programming, messages and service-delivery.

7. That the judiciary, prosecutors and law enforcement agencies intervene in cases of violence against women and girls with gender-sensitivity and awareness.

8. That the Media refrain from legitimating violence against women through sensentionalized reporting and the demeaning use of sexist stereotypes.

9. That violence against women and girls in Uganda be approached as a community issue, as an issue of public health and as a human rights crisis involving community members, health providers, law makers and implementers.



10. That an end be brought to impunity for violence against women and girls.



“SAY NO TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS!”

Signed by:
FIDA-UGANDA STRAIGHT TALK

WORLD VISION ACTION AID-UGANDA

ISIS-WICCE AKINA MAMA WA AFRIKA

RAISING VOICES ACTION FOR DEVELOPMENT

UGANDA WOMEN’S NETWORK INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS

FORUM FOR WOMEN IN DEMOCRACY HUMAN RIGHTS AND PEACE CENTRE

PLATFORM FOR LABOUR ACTION WOMEN OF UGANDA NETWORK

MAKERERE UNIVERSITY, FACULTY OF LAW

FOUNDATION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS INITIATIVE

CENTRE FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PREVENTION

EAST AFRICA SUB-REGIONAL SUPPORT INITIATIVE

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN ORGANISATIONS IN UGANDA

Africa: Social protection in southern Africa

2008-06-20

http://www.eldis.org/go/country-profiles&id=37803&type=Document

This series of briefs provides a regional synthesis of findings of 12 thematic studies and 20 individual case studies of social transfer schemes undertaken by the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme (RHVP) in southern Africa. The briefs aim to provide a wide-ranging set of policy-oriented findings on core hunger and vulnerability issues identified by the many stakeholders consulted during the planning process.

Algeria: Christian converts' trial postponed

2008-06-20

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=342235

The trial of two Algerian Christian converts accused of proselytising has been postponed for a week, the head of the country's Protestant Church said on Wednesday. The prosecution is the third to be brought against Christian converts in the mostly Muslim country since a controversial law was passed in February 2006 demanding non-Muslim congregations seek permits from regional authorities.

DRC: All sides continue to violate human rights

2008-06-20

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27077

Government troops, national police, foreign groups and local militia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continue to contribute to deteriorating human rights conditions, the United Nations peacekeeping mission to the country (MONUC) has said in a report.

Global: New optional rights protocol adopted

2008-06-20

http://tinyurl.com/5chtdw

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour congratulated today the Human Rights Council on its adoption of an important new human rights instrument to strengthen the protection of economic, social and cultural rights. "This is a highly significant achievement", she said. "The Protocol will provide an important platform to expose abuses that are often linked to poverty, discrimination and neglect, and that victims frequently endure in silence and helplessness.

Uganda: UN Council should help end fresh abuses by LRA

2008-06-19

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/06/19/uganda19154.htm

The UN Security Council should adopt a resolution or presidential statement supporting efforts to rein in the capacity of the Lord’s Resistance Army to attack civilians and to ensure justice for the most serious crimes committed during the northern Uganda conflict, Human Rights Watch said in a letter released to council members.

Zimbabwe: Political violence or crimes against humanity?

2008-06-19

http://www.idasa.org.za/

There is dispute over whether the violence of the past nine years in Zimbabwe is a reflection of political violence, or crimes against humanity. This paper examines aspects of this debate in the wake of the 29 March 2008 election results and the ensuing violence that has left thousands displaced and many activists dead and injured. The paper also discusses the role of the international community in the current debacle.

Africa: Dozens dead after migrant boat sinks off Libya

2008-06-20

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=342127

At least 40 people drowned and about 100 are missing after a boat carrying illegal immigrants from Libya to Italy capsized, an Egyptian security official said on Monday. Forty bodies have been recovered after the boat sank shortly after leaving the port of Zuwarah, about 100km west of Tripoli, on June 7, the official said, citing a report from the Egyptian embassy in Libya.

Global: World Refugee Day: Call for action

2008-06-20

http://tinyurl.com/5oq579

In this, the 60th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on World Refugee Day, Amnesty International calls on states to reaffirm everyone’s right to seek and to enjoy asylum from persecution, as recognized in the words of article 14 of the UDHR.

Global: World Refugee Day: Giving refugees a hand on Facebook

2008-06-20

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/485a75072.html

The UN refugee agency is embracing new media with a vengeance, launching on Thursday a pioneering Facebook application to raise funds and awareness about refugee protection. UNHCR is already using other popular social networking sites such as YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, Deli.cio.us and Reddit to reach the massive online community and inform people about its work helping millions of uprooted people around the world.

Kenya: World Refugee Day: UNHCR chief meets refugees, IDPs

2008-06-20

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/485a77332.html

On the eve of World Refugee Day, UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres on Thursday concluded a mission to one of the world's largest refugee camps and then met with a group of internally displaced Kenyans who were uprooted in post-election violence earlier this year. He told both groups – Somali refugees in the sprawling Dadaab camp on the Kenya-Somalia border and displaced Kenyans in the town of Naivasha – that his hope is for all of them to be able to go home soon.

Somalia: Northern Mogadishu IDPs at the mercy of the elements

2008-06-20

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78837

Exposure to the elements after heavy rains washed away shelters, and lack of adequate food, have hit many Somalis who fled the capital, Mogadishu, to seek refuge in the northern outskirts, local and civil society leaders said. "At least nine people, including a pregnant woman and two children have died in the last two weeks," Abikar Sheekhay, a medical doctor who visits the camps, told IRIN.

Somalia: World Refugee Day: Guterres highlights plight of Somali refugees

2008-06-20

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/485935d12.html

Describing it as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, UN refugee agency chief António Guterres on Wednesday urged the international community to make peace in Somalia a priority and acknowledged that UNHCR had to do more to help those uprooted by the 17-year conflict.

South Africa: Grant temporary status to all Zimbabweans

2008-06-19

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/06/19/safric19152.htm

The South African government should recognize that political repression and economic deprivation have forced Zimbabweans to flee their country and immediately stop deporting them, Human Rights Watch has said in a new report. Human Rights Watch called on the government to grant Zimbabweans in South Africa temporary status and work rights.

Southern Africa: Zimbabweans seeking refuge in South Africa

2008-06-19

http://hrw.org/reports/2008/southafrica0608/

This 119-page report examines South Africa’s decision to treat Zimbabweans merely as voluntary economic migrants and its failure to respond effectively to stop the human rights abuses and economic deprivation in Zimbabwe that cause their flight and to address their needs in South Africa. Human Rights Watch spoke to almost 100 Zimbabweans in South Africa about their plight.

Malawi: President suspends parliament as feud stalls budget

2008-06-20

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN040680.html

Malawi's President Bingu wa Mutharika has suspended parliament until opposition legislators give him guarantees that they will adopt the 2008/09 budget, stalled over a political feud. The opposition alliance of United Democratic Front (UDF) and Malawi Congress Party say that under the constitution, wa Mutharika's Democratic Progressive Party should lose 60 legislators they accuse him of poaching when he quit the UDF.

North Africa: Egypt's Muslim brothers

2008-06-19

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5487&l=1

The latest report from the International Crisis Group examines the ruling National Democratic Party’s (NDP) hard-line stance and the Muslim Brothers’ ambiguous approach to political participation. At a time of political uncertainty surrounding the presidential succession and serious socio-economic unrest, it offers an alternative to the current short-term thinking that carries very uncertain longer-term returns.

Zimbabwe: Kenya toughens on Mugabe

2008-06-20

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/19032

After a protracted silence and a non-interference stance on Zimbabwe, the Kenyan government has finally broken its silence, calling on president Robert Mugabe to respect the tenets of democracy ahead of the June 27 presidential run-off elections.

Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai mulls abandoning run-off

2008-06-20

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN024360.html

Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is considering whether to pull out of the June 27 presidential run-off election due to fears it will be a charade, a spokesman said on Friday. A growing number of African nations, the United States and former colonial power Britain have said they do not believe the poll would be free and fair because of violence that the opposition blames on veteran President Robert Mugabe.

Africa: Call for action on food crisis

2008-06-19

http://www.africaprogresspanel.org/english/ourwork.php

The Africa Progress Panel, chaired by Kofi Annan, is demanding international action to deal with the urgent threat of world food prices, while also calling for G8 leaders to take immediate steps to get their commitments to Africa back on target. The Africa Progress Panel’s report, being launched today by Kofi Annan, Michel Camdessus and Tidjane Thiam in London, states that the world food crisis ”threatens to destroy years, if not decades, of economic progress” as “100 million people are being pushed back into absolute poverty”.

Africa: Increasing international financial and technical cooperation for development

2008-06-20

http://www.afrodad.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=293&Itemid=38

Increasing international financial and technical cooperation for development is key if poor countries are to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Currently bilateral aid comprises of over 70 per cent of the total official development assistance placing them at the centre of financing for development debate.

Africa: The urgent need for financial reform to mobilise savings

2008-06-20

http://www.eldis.org/go/country-profiles&id=37905&type=Document

A highly unsatisfactory mobilisation of savings by the liberalised financial systems of Sub-Saharan Africa has severely constrained investment and growth in the region. To a large degree, Sub-Saharan savings are directed towards non-financial assets and the informal financial sector.

Congo: Gunning for biofuels

2008-06-20

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78824

The Republic of Congo plans to set aside part of its arable land for biofuel production, even as a debate rages over the part played by biofuels in the current global food crisis. Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Rigobert Maboundou, reckons biofuels have been overly maligned of late.

Kenya: 2008 budget and its investment implications

2008-06-20

http://www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/articles.php?article=3241

Staple foods such as bread, milk, rice, flour will be zero-rated. This implies that the cost of living will decrease as food prices will cease to escalate. This will increase investing rate as Kenyans will have more disposable income to save and invest. Displaced Kenyans are to receive 500 million shillings in favor of resettling them.

Nigeria: Russian, Chinese oil firms jostle for Ogoni

2008-06-18

http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=114276

Russian oil giant, Gazprom, is among several foreign companies jostling to replace Royal Dutch Shell in Ogoniland following Federal Government’s decision to award the oil fields to another company. It is also reported that many Chinese companies have indicated interest in the oil fields, which hold proven reserves of over 10 trillion cubic metres of gas – one of the world’s largest.

Africa: AIDS activists urge major funding push for G-8

2008-06-20

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=42874

AIDS and global health activists are calling on the U.S. Senate leadership to urgently approve a record five-year, 50-billion-dollar bill to fight AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis primarily in Africa so that President George W. Bush can take it with him when he meets with other western leaders at next month's Group of Eight (G-8) summit in Japan.

Nigeria: Fresh outbreak of polio emerges

2008-06-20

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=27095

An outbreak of polio has hit northern Nigeria again and started spreading into neighbouring countries, the United Nations health agency says, warning of a potential international outbreak on the scale of the one that struck 20 countries between 2003 and 2006.

South Africa: It's all over for Rath

2008-06-20

http://tinyurl.com/6hkjjr

The Cape High Court landed the final nail in the coffin of vitamin salesman Matthias Rath’s South African operations and delivered a blow to organisations peddling untested remedies when it ruled that the German doctor’s clinical trials were unlawful.

Zambia: Women hiding their HIV status for fear of being battered

2008-06-20

http://tinyurl.com/6n3xln

According to the Joint UN Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), there are 33.2 million people worldwide living with HIV. Of those, 15.4 million are women. In Africa, women account for between 59 and 61 per cent of all adults living with HIV. Gender violence is one factor that makes women more vulnerable to infection, and it also hampers treatment.

Africa: Is Africa's education system self destructing?

2008-06-20

http://www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/articles.php?article=3242

Many impositions on young people masquerade as concern for their welfare but have tragic consequences. In 2005, a matriculation student from Manxele High School in Eshowe hanged himself after receiving news that he had failed the final examination for a second time. He obviously believed, as many young people are led to do, that without a matriculation certificate he had no future

Global: Social exclusion and the gender gap in education

2008-06-20

http://www.gsdrc.org/go/display&type=Document&id=3029

Why does an educational gender gap remain in some countries? This policy research paper for the World Bank Human Development Network Chief Economists Office reviews gender in education and tests the relevance of ethno-linguistic fractionalisation (ELF) in explaining cross-country differences in learning and school attainment.

Mauritania: Teachers' strike adds to bac candidates' nerves

2008-06-20

http://tinyurl.com/43sdaz

Mauritanian media is buzzing with news about the upcoming baccalaureate exams. Both parents and students are apprehensive about the bac, hoping and praying for good results. This year's stress level is even higher due to a teachers' strike which may cause the exams to be postponed.

Global: Homosexuality continues to split anglican communion

2008-06-20

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=nigeria&id=1893

Anglican conservatives have finally declared dissolution of the Anglican Communion in a 94-page document titled The Way, the Truth and the Life. The conservatives concede that they will not associate themselves with liberals who tolerate homosexuality and ordination of women in the communion.

Uganda: Sexual minorities' rights defenders facing prosecution

2008-06-20

http://www.humanrightshouse.org/dllvis5.asp?id=6711

The three Ugandan LGBT/HIV human rights defenders that were arrested and detained on the 4th of June 2008 and charged with criminal trespass faced prosecution at 9 am on Friday, the 20th of June 2008 at the Magistrate's court in Kampala.

South Africa: KZN gives R1m to help foreign nationals return home

2008-06-20

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/racism/48971

KwaZulu-Natal has coughed up at least R1 million in transport costs to repatriate foreign nationals in the province to their countries of origin.vBetween 700 and 800 refugees had already been sent home, mainly to Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, said the head of the eThekwini Municipality’s international and governance relations, Eric Apelgren.
KZN gives R1m to help foreign nationals return home
June 18, 2008
Wendy Jasson da Costa
KwaZulu-Natal has coughed up at least R1 million in transport costs to repatriate foreign nationals in the province to their countries of origin.

Between 700 and 800 refugees had already been sent home, mainly to Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, said the head of the eThekwini Municipality’s international and governance relations, Eric Apelgren.

He said the provincial government, the municipality, religious organisations and NGOs had all contributed towards the transport costs.

Two weeks ago a special technical committee set up by the KZN government had visited sites where foreigners were being housed. More than 60% of them had said they no longer wanted to remain in the country.

Apelgren said the KZN government had asked the Mozambican, Zimbabwean, Tanzanian, Malawian and the Congolese embassies for help.

According to Apelgren, most of the foreigners were provided with transport from Durban to Johannesburg, after which their respective countries assumed the responsibility of getting them home.

However, the foreign affairs department had been asked to speak to representatives of the Tanzanian government because there had been no help from them so far. There were almost 100 Tanzanians in Durban who wanted to return home.

However, about 400 other foreigners did not want to leave Durban and had formed part of the reintegration programme, said Apelgren.

Meanwhile, police Dir Phindile Radebe said 71 people had been arrested in connection with xenophobic attacks and had appeared in courts in and around Durban.

Staff at Clairwood Hospital have started a collection of clothes and food to donate to the Red Cross to help foreigners.

Hospital spokesman Mbuso Khuboni said the goods collected would be taken to foreigners living in Cato Manor.

Madagascar: New eco-deals protect unique forests

2008-06-20

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78826

Madagascar has signed a series of environment agreements to protect unique forests and support local communities as part of a commitment by the government to ramp up environmental protection on the Indian Ocean island. In its largest ever debt-for-nature swap, Madagascar signed a deal with France this month, in which US$20 million of debt owed to the former colonial power was put into a conservation fund, the Foundation for Protected Areas and Biodiversity (FPAB).

Liberia: Senator charged over deadly land dispute

2008-06-20

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=342234

Fourteen people, including a senator, have been charged with murder following a deadly land dispute that left at least 14 people dead in Liberia, the Solicitor General of Liberia said on Wednesday. "Senator Roland Kahn and 13 others were charged last night," Tiawon Gongloe said via telephone.

Nigeria: Oil delta militants scoff at plan for peace summit

2008-06-19

http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4460144

Nigerian militants responsible for the bombing of oil pipelines and the kidnapping of foreign workers in the Niger delta said yesterday they would not take part in a peace summit called by the government. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, whose campaign of violent sabotage against Nigeria's oil industry has helped push world oil prices to record highs, said next month's summit was bound to fail.

Gambia: ECOWAS acknowledges the illegal detention of Chief Manneh

2008-06-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/48863

In a landmark decision delivered on June 5, 2008, The Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja, Nigeria declared the arrest and detention of Chief Ebrima Manneh illegal and ordered the Gambian authorities to immediately release him.
In a landmark decision delivered on June 5, 2008, The Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja, Nigeria declared the arrest and detention of Chief Ebrima Manneh illegal and ordered the Gambian authorities to immediately release him.

By this decision the ECOWAS court dismisses the claims from the Gambian side that Manneh was never in their custody.

The court ruled that the three judges presiding over the case also awarded damages in the sum of US$ 100,000 in favour of Manneh against the Gambian government.

The ECOWAS court stated that it “has found that the applicant [Manneh] was arrested on July 11, 2006 by the Police Force of The Gambia and has since been detained incommunicado, and without being charged”.

The court therefore ordered “that the Republic of the Gambia releases Chief Ebrima Manneh from unlawful detention without any further delay” and that “the Republic of The Gambia pay the plaintiff the sum of US$ 100,000 as damages”.

Manneh, a former reporter of the pro-government Banjul-based Daily Observer newspaper was arrested at the Daily Observer premises in the presence of his colleagues. He has since been sighted several times in the custody of state security personnel.

The regime of President Yahya Jammeh has consistently denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of the journalist, and has demonstrated gross disrespect for the ECOWAS court by refusing to appear throughout the proceedings. The judgement was therefore given without the testimonies of five state agents who failed to make an appearance before the court on March 11, 2008.

The testimonies of the three plaintiff witnesses, two Gambian journalists and Professor Kwame Karikari from MFWA, were consequently left uncontested.

A complaint was filed on behalf of Manneh by MFWA in June, 2007. The MFWA’s was represented by a member of its Legal Defence Network, namely, a Nigerian prominent human rights lawyer, Femi Falana

The complaint was filed to compel the Government of The Gambia to produce Manneh and to answer for his arrest and subsequent disappearance.

MFWA welcomes this decision by the ECOWAS court. We therefore call on The Gambia to respect and enforce the judgement in accordance with laid down procedures.

We also on other human rights advocacy organisations to demand of The Gambia government to adhere to the court’s decision.



Prof. Kwame Karikari
Executive Director
MFWA
Accra
Tel: 233 21 24 24 70
Fax : 233 21 221084

Gambia: Opposition newspaper journalist detained overnight

2008-06-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/48865

Saikou Ceesay, a reporter with the Banjul-based opposition Foroyaa newspaper was on June 15, 2008 arrested and detained overnight in Kotu Police Station in Kombo province, about 11 kilometres South/West of Banjul ,capital of Ghana.
Gambia ALERT: Opposition newspaper journalist detained overnight

Saikou Ceesay, a reporter with the Banjul-based opposition Foroyaa newspaper was on June 15, 2008 arrested and detained overnight in Kotu Police Station in Kombo province, about 11 kilometres South/West of Banjul ,capital of Ghana.

Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) sources reported that Ceesay was arrested at the police station while investigating the arrest and detention of pro-government Daily Observer managing director, Dida Halake.

The sources said the journalist was taken to the Serious Crime Unit at the police headquarters in Banjul the following day, where he was interrogated before being released on bail.

Even though he has not been charged with any offence, Ceesay had been asked to report to the police on June 17.

Ceesay was reported to have been harassed and insulted while in detention.

Meanwhile the Daily Observer’s managing director had also been granted bail.



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

Global: PCMLP Moot Court competition

2008-06-19

http://pricemootcourt.socleg.ox.ac.uk/

The Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, OxfordUniversity is pleased to announce the second edition of the Monroe E Price International Media Law Moot Court Competition. The goal of this competition is to encourage interest in international standards of protection of media freedom and to encourage interest in media defence work among students worldwide. The case is scheduled to be announced in September 2008, and the finals of the competition will take place inOxford in March 2009.

Zimbabwe: Drivers jailed for transporting news equipment

2008-06-20

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=27303

Reporters Without Borders condemns the six-month prison sentences that a court in the southwestern city of Bulawayo passed on three South African drivers on 2 June for “unauthorised possession of TV broadcast equipment” and urges the judicial authorities to release them.

Zimbabwe: Fact finding mission of African Media Organisations

2008-06-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/48847

From June 8 to13 a Mission made up of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ Africa Office based in Senegal), Southern Africa Editors’ Forum (SAEF), Southern Africa Journalists Association (SAJA), the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Regional Office and the Network of African Freedom of Expression Organisations (NAFEO) visited Zimbabwe on a fact finding mission to ascertain the conditions of media and freedom of expression in Zimbabwe in the light of the arrests of journalists, both local and foreign and the deteriorating freedom of expression environment.
Statement of the Zimbabwe Fact Finding Mission of African Media Organisations: 13 June 2008. Harare, Zimbabwe

From June 8 to13 a Mission made up of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ Africa Office based in Senegal), Southern Africa Editors’ Forum (SAEF), Southern Africa Journalists Association (SAJA), the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Regional Office and the Network of African Freedom of Expression Organisations (NAFEO) visited Zimbabwe on a fact finding mission to ascertain the conditions of media and freedom of expression in Zimbabwe in the light of the arrests of journalists, both local and foreign and the deteriorating freedom of expression environment. This mission also comes in the context of the forthcoming Presidential election run off slated for 27 June 2008.

The mission notes that Zimbabwe is going through serious political violence perpetrated by the party in power, ZANU PF. This violence is also taking place in a context of major economic challenges that the country faces where inflation is estimated to be greater than 1 million percent. There have also been food shortages, which are further exacerbated through the banning of humanitarian food distribution by NGOs by the government.

The mission met a number of Zimbabwean journalists, editors and media owners working in urban, peri-urban and rural areas and a cross section of representative’s of local civic organisations working countrywide. The mission expresses its shock at the level of fear pervading the Zimbabwe media and society at large. The mission talked to journalists who had been arrested on flimsy charges, beaten and had their property confiscated and in some cases destroyed.

Journalists operate under the constant fear of being abducted, arrested, detained or beaten up for doing their work. At the time of this fact finding visit, the mission notes that there are three foreign media workers in state prison on charges of breaching broadcasting and telecommunication laws. At the same time, workers of a media monitoring and advocacy organisation were arrested and released after four days for allegedly organising an “illegal meeting”. Some of these organisations were also being raided and threatened with closure for allegedly working with the media against the government.

In interviews with various players in the media as well as civic organisations, it is clear that Zimbabwe’s media is operating under tremendous pressure from the state and security agents, as well as non-state actors such as youth militia, ZANU PF supporters and war veterans. Almost all those interviewed, especially freelance journalists tell of harrowing and saddening stories of arrests, beatings and intimidation. Zimbabwean journalists face a difficult operating environment in which they are not only expected to be licensed by a government appointed Media and Information Commission (MIC) but have to brave political violence and the challenges of a failing economy. Those journalists working for the state media live in fear of being fired or suspended for not showing sufficient enthusiasm for the reporting and coverage of the party in power.

Laws that include the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) are being used with impunity to narrow the operating space for journalists. The mission was told that unlicensed journalists face a daily task of avoiding arrest. More so, the licensed journalists cannot travel outside the city centres to cover rural areas because of fear of security agents and militia who have set up base in rural areas. The combined effect is that Zimbabweans in general lack access to election related information to empower them to make informed choices.

In the past five years, four newspapers were banned. A few weeks ago 60,000 copies and a truck belonging to The Zimbabwean newspaper printed outside the country were petrol-bombed by unknown assailants. This situation is worsened by the imposition of a punitive duty on all foreign publications. This situation is worsened by the harassment, arrests and threats on human rights defenders including media and human rights lawyers. Media lawyers have been arrested and others have fled the country fearing for their lives.

The few remaining independent newspapers in Zimbabwe face the challenge of surviving a harsh economic environment in which almost all inputs are imported. Apart from the shortages of equipment, print consumables and newsprint, the government imposes price restrictions on newspapers and other publications through the National Incomes and Pricing Commission. Independent newspapers in Zimbabwe, which do not have government subsidies, are therefore struggling to break even. The economic challenges that the independent media are facing, combined with the arrests, threats and harassment has meant that this media is barely surviving and their impact as alternative sources of information severely curtailed.

The mission noted that the accreditation of foreign journalists and media organisations is at the discretion of the MIC and in this election the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC). Consequently a number of local and foreign journalists have been denied accreditation to cover elections.

The mission observed that the state media is under severe control by the party in power as an exclusive campaign tool. A simple media monitoring of the content of the state owned newspapers and broadcast news bulletins over the period of the visit show a biased reporting embedded in hate language. The state media is thus contributing to the heightening of political tensions in Zimbabwe through its reportage, especially making allegations of political violence allegedly being perpetrated by the opposition without conclusive police investigations. The mission also noted that harassment of journalists at the state media is meant to inculcate fear and an unquestioning loyalty within the journalists. At the time of our visit seven journalists were under suspension and the Zimbabwean Broadcast Corporation (ZBC) CEO had recently been fired. The purge of the state media is meant to remove any form of professionalism and create a compliant and unquestioning reporter.

This takes place in a situation where no non-state radio and television channels have license to operate in Zimbabwe, and only short and media-wave radios produced outside the country provide an alternative to the state radio and television under ZBC. These signals of these external broadcasts are frequently being jammed.
The mission came to the conclusion that the media and freedom of expression environment is severely constrained. The mission further notes that no proper and professional media work can take place in Zimbabwe under the circumstances to allow for free and fair elections. The mission takes note and congratulates brave Zimbabwean journalists and independent newspapers who still express interest of continuing with their work despite all these daunting challenges.

In light of the media and freedom of expression environment in Zimbabwe, the mission recommends that:
- Regional and International Community monitor the situation of journalists and independent media and ensure that this issue is maintained on the regional and international public agenda.
- Regional and international organisations make preparations to assist Zimbabwean journalists and media who might be forced into either leaving the country or seeking medical or legal assistance.
- Pressure be maintained on the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) by the regional and international community to resolve the deepening political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe that affects the ability of the media to perform their duties in informing the Zimbabwe people.
- The SADC and AU observer missions prevail upon the government of Zimbabwe to allow greater observance and monitoring of the election process by the international community and ensure the security and freedoms of journalists and the media in Zimbabwe.



The full report of the mission will be available within a week. More information and queries can be obtained by contacting:
Gabriel Baglo, IFJ Africa Director – Telephone +221 77 644 2361
Rob Jamieson, SAEF Chairperson – Telephone +265 9 913 457

Haiti: Lula visit prompts protests in Brazil, Mexico and San Francisco

2008-06-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/diaspora/48910

Demonstrators in many Brazilian cities and San Francisco denounced Brazil's brutal 4-year military occupation of Haiti -- on the occasion of the May 28th visit to Haiti by Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva, marking the 4th anniversary of the arrival of Brazilian U.N. troops in Haiti. Organized labor played a key role in coordinating the actions in Brazil.
Demonstrators in many Brazilian cities and San Francisco denounced Brazil's brutal 4-year military occupation of Haiti -- on the occasion of the May 28th visit to Haiti by Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva, marking the 4th anniversary of the arrival of Brazilian U.N. troops in Haiti. Organized labor played a key role in coordinating the actions in Brazil.

In Mexico City on May 30th, a high-level Mexican labor delegation, responding to the call of their colleagues in Brazil, met at the Brazilian embassy to demand withdrawal of Brazil's troops from Haiti and respect for Haitian sovereignty.

In Brazil, the National Campaign for Brazilian Troops Out of Haiti organized actions as part of the May 28th national day of struggle by the CUT trade union federation, seeking a 40-hour workweek. The banner "Brazilian Soldiers Out of Haiti" flew at rallies and marches in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Recife, Salvador and state capitals throughout Brazil. Speakers connected the money squandered on the Haiti occupation, with the pressing but unmet needs of people back home in Brazil.

Leading forces in the Troops-Out-of-Haiti campaign include the Unified Black Movement (MNU) and Black Youth Network, along with significant elements of Lula's own Workers Party (PT), the Landless Peasants Movement (MST), and the CUT labor federation. They collected some 6,000 petition signatures, to be presented to President Lula by PT Federal Deputy Fernando Ferro.

San Francisco rallied May 28th at the Brazilian consulate, in solidarity with the demonstrations in Brazil. Speakers cried out against the attack in Port-au-Prince earlier that day, when CIMO special police roughed up participants in the weekly vigil for disappeared human rights leader Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine at the Place des Martyrs and threw their placards to the ground.

The San Francisco rally, called by Haiti Action Committee with participation by the anti-war group ANSWER, San Francisco Labor Council, Global Women's Strike and Gabriela Network, denounced the UN mission in Haiti as having been installed, under Brazilian command, to legitimize the 2004 coup against the democratically-elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

UN forces arrived in Haiti as a proxy force, 3 months after US troops kidnapped President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29, 2004 and installed a coup regime. In the aftermath of the coup, more than 8,000 Aristide supporters were killed and thousands more 'disappeared', exiled or thrown into prison, where most remain locked up to this day. The entire government apparatus, down to the village level, was 'cleansed' of Aristide supporters during the coup..

Brazil's legacy in Haiti - Massacres in the poor neighborhoods

Brazil commands the 9,000-strong UN 'peacekeeping' force in Haiti, which committed massacres in poor working-class neighborhoods on July 6, 2005, on December 22, 2006, February 2007 and many other occasions -- attacking the civilians who are the base of support for President Aristide and his widely popular Lavalas political movement. Scores of women, children and men were killed in these massive, day-long raids involving as many as 400 troops, tanks and helicopter gunships. UN troops have also been caught committing rapes, sexual abuse of children and running prostitution rings in the poor neighborhoods.


State repression continues as a daily fact of life in Haiti:

- A thousand pro-Aristide political prisoners are still crammed into Haiti's jails and prisons, most being held for many months or years without charges and without ever seeing a judge. Many were arrested by UN soldiers on suspicion of being Aristide sympathizers and turned over to Haitian police.

- On April 11th, UN soldiers smashed up an open-air market in the capital, assaulting street vendors, killing at least three and torching the stalls with flamethrowers.

- On May 28th, as UN troops and National Police massed in the streets of the Haitian capital for Lula's visit, black-uniformed CIMO special police attacked the peaceful weekly vigil for Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine at the Place des Martyrs, roughing up seven of the vigilers and throwing their placards and banners to the ground.

The mobilization for Pierre-Antoine's safe return continues: in the U.S. Congress; on the streets (weekly vigils in Haiti, as well as at Brazil's embassy in London and Los Angeles consulate), and on the internet (Petition to Save Lovinsky). For information go to http://www.globalwomenstrike.net/Haiti/HaitiIndex.htm#Lovinskylink To read the powerful new letter to the Brazilian government from the distinguished independence leader and elder from Guyana, Mr. Eusi Kwayana, demanding action to ensure the safe return of Brother Lovinsky, go to http://www.haitisolidarity.net/article.php?id=248


Lula's troops "not leaving anytime soon" - despite rising protests in Brazil & Haiti

The Miami Herald quoted Lula's foreign ministry as saying "the main purpose" of Lula's trip to Haiti "will be to figure out what role Brazil and the...U.N. Stabilization Mission, known by its French acronym MINUSTAH, can play in the 'restoration of democracy' in Haiti." This may be a tall order, given the blue helmets' sordid history of rapes and massacres of the poor in the Haitian capital -- and their role in consolidating the coup d'etat that overthrew Haiti's democratically elected government in 2004.

Lula, meeting with President Rene Preval, said Minustah was "succeeding in their mission" (Reuters), while Lula's Defense Minister Nelson Jobim promised to deploy 100 additional Brazilian soldiers (AP). While giving a pep talk to Brazilian troops, Lula compared the UN mission in Haiti to "a soccer game that has only reached halftime," adding that "the second half is a time to take the initiative," according to Associated Press.

But persistent protests in both Brazil and Haiti are demanding Minustah's departure. Miami Herald pointed out that "like his Chilean and Argentine counterparts, Lula is facing domestic pressure to pull his troops out of Haiti." In Haiti, thousands rallied against the U.N. in April during militant mass demonstrations over the soaring cost of food, shouting for the blue helmets to leave Haiti.

The movement is building in Brazil. In Paraná the Coalition of Social Movements (CMS) of Paraná, which includes the CUT labor federation, the landless peasant movement and student groups, announced that a rally would be held in June to demand troops out of Haiti. In Salvador, a debate was being organized on the same theme.

On April 30th in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia, a delegation including Fernando Ferro, federal deputy from Lula's Workers Party (PT) and Markus Sokol, member of the PT National Executive Board, met in Planalto Palace with Lula's chief of staff, Gilberto Carvalho. They delivered a letter to Lula demanding withdrawal of all Brazilian military forces from Haiti. The letter was signed by 16 prominent Brazilian members of Parliament, trade union officials, and representatives of peasant, student and women's organizations. The delegation delivered an Open Letter from a Haitian American, David Josue, describing in graphic detail the July 6, 2005 massacre of innocent Haitian women, children and men by UN troops under Brazilian command, and appealing to Lula to put an end to the brutal foreign occupation of Haiti.

The anger of Brazilian unionists and peace activists was heightened when it was announced that more than 464 million Reais (US$290 million) have been spent over the past four years -- funds desperately needed for people's needs in Brazil -- to attack the sovereignty of the Haitian people.

However, a Brazilian foreign ministry spokesperson told the Miami Herald: "At this moment, the Brazilian position has been to renew our work with MINUSTAH. We don't have the intention of leaving."

The Miami Herald reported: "Rubens Barbosa, a Brazil-based consultant who served as Brazil's ambassador to the United States from 1999 to 2004, said that while he believes Brazil should end its mission in Haiti because of the costs, he sees the South American nation staying involved [in Haiti] for the foreseeable future."

Nevertheless, Brazil is feeling growing pressure to withdraw its troops. In Mexico City on May 30th, a delegation of Mexican trade unionists met to dialogue with officials at the Brazilian Embassy in Mexico City, joining their Brazilian comrades in calling for Brazil's military to leave Haiti now. The delegation included Salome Herber Aguilar, a leader of the Miners and Metal Workers Union (SNT-MMSRM ); Nivardo Rodriguez Morales and Fernando Mendoza, leaders of Section 22 of the SNTE-CNTE; and Armando Pasos Cabrera, from SITUAM. Like the Brazilians, they presented an Open Letter to President Lula raising the Troops Out Now demand.

Africa: Chad accuses Sudan of attacking eastern border

2008-06-20

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=342166

Chad accused Sudan's army of attacking a town on its eastern border on Tuesday and blamed its neighbour for Chadian rebel raids that have disrupted international aid operations to help thousands of refugees. The Chadian accusation showed tensions flaring again between the two oil-producing neighbours, who often accuse each other of supporting cross-border rebel attacks over their frontier running along Sudan's violence-torn Darfur region.

Chad: Rebels deny military defeat

2008-06-20

http://tinyurl.com/5b52d8

Rebel forces fighting the Chadian government have rejected claims that they were "totally destroyed" in fighting on Wednesday. Ali Gueddei, a spokesman for the rebel National Alliance, said on Thursday that his group had lost just 27 fighters, rather than the more than 160 claimed by the government, in fighting in Am Zoer.

Cote d'Ivoire: Ex-rebel uprising threatens disarmament process

2008-06-20

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=78834

Former rebels taking part in a demobilisation process in northern Cote d’Ivoire went on the rampage on 18 June in the former rebel stronghold Bouake, demanding that cash and benefits promised to them be expedited. “We did not have the intention to jeopardise the whole process. We still have every intention of integrating into normal civilian life.

Horn of Africa: Beyond the fragile peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea

2008-06-19

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5490&l=1

This report from the International Crisis Group, analyses the frozen border conflict between two states who fought a major war in 1998-2000 and recommends an approach to overcome the stalemate. Following Ethiopia’s refusal to accept virtual demarcation of the border by the now defunct Ethiopia-Eritrea Boundary Commission (EEBC), Asmara unilaterally implemented it and forced out the UN peacekeeping mission (UNMEE), significantly raising the stakes and shattering the status quo.

Somalia: Battles kill 38 since Djibouti "peace pact"

2008-06-20

http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL20073825.html

Overnight violence in Somalia pushed the death toll on Friday to 38 in the days since a peace deal was signed in Djibouti last week. The June 10 agreement between Somalia's interim government and some opposition figures was rejected outright by hardline Islamists in exile and the insurgents on the ground, and experts had warned it was likely to have little impact on the violence.

Africa: Why Africans are banking on the mobile phone

2008-06-19

http://tinyurl.com/3nbgk3

For consumers in developed markets, using a mobile phone for banking services is a smart add-on to a bank's branch network. But to people in the developing world, the arrival of mobile banking - or m-banking - is potentially revolutionary. If money is an economy's lifeblood, improving its circulation plays a critical role. Many Africans living in rural areas, for instance, rely on money sent home by members of their family who work in towns and cities. But getting that cash to a village that could be hundreds of miles away is a tricky business.

Global: The Disability Rights Fund - Open grantmaking: Namibia, Ghana, Uganda

2008-06-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/fundraising/48913

The Disability Rights Fund—a groundbreaking grant making collaborative supporting the human rights of people with disabilities—has announced its first grants competition. The broad objective of the Fund -- which was launched by the Open Society Institute, The Sigrid Rausing Trust, the United Kingdom Department for International Development, and an anonymous donor on the first anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) -- is to empower disabled persons organizations in the developing world and Eastern Europe/former Soviet Union to effectively implement and monitor the CPRD.
The Disability Rights Fund—a groundbreaking grant making collaborative supporting the human rights of people with disabilities—today announced its first grants competition.

The broad objective of the Fund -- which was launched by the Open Society Institute, The Sigrid Rausing Trust, the United Kingdom Department for International Development, and an anonymous donor on the first anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) -- is to empower disabled persons organizations in the developing world and Eastern Europe/former Soviet Union to effectively implement and monitor the CPRD.

In 2008, the Fund plans to give out a total of USD $700,000 in one-year grants ranging from USD $5000 - $50,000 and aimed at awareness-raising, strengthening coalitions and networks, and rights advocacy.

To be eligible for this year’s grants program, applicant organizations must be based in and conduct the majority of their activities in the following seven countries: in Africa, Ghana, Namibia and Uganda; in Latin America,Ecuador, Nicaragua and Peru; in Asia, Bangladesh. In these countries, the Fund will support Disabled Persons’ Organizations activities that advance the human rights of persons with disabilities at country-level.

Interested organizations are urged to review the full eligibility criteria and application details posted at the Fund’s website,www.disabilityrightsfund.org. Any questions on the proposal process should be directed to info@disabilityrightsfund.org by July 15. The deadline for applications is August 15.

Disability Rights Fund Steering Committee Co-Chair, William Rowland, President of the World Blind Union, stated "The Disability Rights Fund heralds an innovative partnership between donors and persons with disabilities. The flow of new resources to support our struggle for rights is a development of major significance."

Africa: AWARD Fellowships

2008-06-19

http://www.genderdiversity.cgiar.org/resource/award.asp

The Gender & Diversity program invites applications for the first round of fellowships under the AWARD Program. The fellowship will support African agricultural women scientists from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia with PhD degrees, including those in post-doctoral positions, and women scientists with MA/MSc/MPhil/BA/BSc degrees.

International Conference on GBV and Sexual and Reproductive Health

2008-06-19

http://tinyurl.com/4lller

The International Conference on Gender-based Violence and Sexual and Reproductive Health To be held February 15-18, 2009 in Mumbai India invites researchers, activists and practitioners to attend and present at an international conference dedicated to providing insight into the how gender-based violence is compromising the sexual and reproductive health of women, men and adolescents.

Global: Post-doctoral fellow -IFPRI

2008-06-19

http://careers.ifpri.org/DetailIFPRI.asp?ifpri08-121

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) seeks a Postdoctoral Fellow (PDF) for its Environment, Production and Technology Division. Under the supervision of the Division Director and guided by the Research Fellow and Senior Scientist leading the Global Change research theme of IFPRI, and in close collaboration with other staff as appropriate, the successful post-doctoral fellow will conduct research and analysis on land use patterns and shifts under alternative scenarios of global environmental and economic change.

Fahamu