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A brief history of the G-8

Walden Bello

2008-07-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/49322

The Group of Eight came into being in 1975 as the G7 at a time that the world was embroiled in deep economic crisis, much like today. Its main aim was to coordinate the macroeconomic policies of the rich countries at a time of stagflation as well as to forge a common strategy vis-a-vis the developing world, which had loosened its political and economic dependency on the First World during the heady days of decolonization, national liberation struggles, and the emergence of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as an economic power.

The G7 were not successful in coordinating their policies, with the US under Ronald Reagan aggressively pursuing a cheap dollar policy that brought on recession in Germany and Japan. They did, however, come together in a united front against the developing countries, putting their weight behind the neoliberal structural adjustment policies imposed by the World Bank and IMF on more than 90 developing and transition (post-socialist) economies. The structural adjustment programs rolled back the economic gains achieved by the South in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

In the 1990’s, the G7 became the main promoters of corporate-driven globalization, for which the road had been paved by the radical deregulation, radical liberalization, and radical privatization that took place in developing countries under structural adjustment. The G7 also provided strong support for the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the main agency for the process global trade and investment liberalization demanded by their corporations.

The late 1990’s, however, brought about, not the increasing prosperity for all promised by neoliberal, pro-market policies but rising absolute poverty, increasing inequality, and the consolidation of economic stagnation in the South. The collapse of the third ministerial of the WTO in Seattle in December 1999 marked the achievement of a critical mass by the forces of opposition created by the contradictions of globalization.

With the realities of globalization exposed, the summits of the G7—now G8 with the incorporation of Russia—became a lightning rod for the rising global opposition. At the G8 Summit in Genoa in June 2001, three hundred thousand people came together under the uncompromising program of “No to the G8.” The battle lines were clearly drawn, with the Italian police or carabineri contributing immensely to polarization by erupting in a riot that took the life of one activist and injured scores of others.

Elements within the G8 realized that the image of being a hegemonic directorate of globalization was not good for the future of the body. Led by the New Labor government of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in Britain, the G8 underwent a facelift. A new discourse was forged, the key substantive elements of which were debt forgiveness for the poorest countries, the raising of aid levels to 0.7 per cent of the GDP of the G8 countries, a massive aid package for Africa, making trade serve development, and tackling climate change. The new watchwords when it came to process were “partnership,” “consultation,” “global social integration,” and the “millennium development goals.” The battle was for the soul of global civil society. The high point of this new look was the Gleneagles Summit in 2005, which was choreographed by an alliance between the Labor Government, entertainment superstars Bob Geldof and Bono, and influential British NGO’s. Several hundred thousand people who journeyed to Scotland found themselves manipulated into becoming a chorus for the glittering Aid for Africa concerts that were staged simultaneously in different parts of the globe.

By the time 2007 came along, the glitter was gone. The idea of global civil society partnering with the G8 had soured as none of the G8 governments reached the 0.7 of GDP target, aid to Africa fell short of the $20 billion promised at Gleneagles, the “Doha Development Round” had become a big joke, and serious action on climate was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the G8 communique at the Heiligendamm or Rostock Summit emphasized techno-fixes for climate change, lectured developing countries about not restricting investment by transnational corporations, and issued a thinly veiled warning about China getting preferential access to raw materials in Africa. Under the leadership of civil society in Germany, militant denunciation and confrontation of the G8 was the preferred civil society response, with thousands of demonstrators trying to penetrate the site of the leaders’ meeting to shut it down. With the dominant cry being “G8—Get out of the way,” the Heiligendamm protests retrieved the militant tradition of Genoa that had been suppressed at Gleneagles.

So we come to the G8 Summit here in Hokkaido, Japan. We have not only in Bush, Sarkozy, Brown, and Fukuda a group of discredited leaders with very low ratings at the polls in their own countries. We have as well a G8 that is, more than ever, lacking in legitimacy as the typhoon unleashed by the project of globalization that it has promoted is wracking the globe in the form of the simultaneous crises of skyrocketing oil prices, rising food prices, global financial collapse, and worsening climate change. Against this backdrop, Japanese and Asian social movements are faced with the choice of taking either the Road of Genoa or the Road of Gleneagles—that is, to deepen the G8’s crisis of legitimacy or, as in Gleneagles, to salvage the G8 once again. The greatest gift that the Japanese movement can give to global civil society is by leading the struggle to make the Hokkaido Summit the final summit of the G8.


*Walden Bello is president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition and senior analyst of Focus on the Global South. This essay was first given as speech at the opening plenary of the People’s Summit, Sapporo Convention Center, Hokkaido, Japan, July 6, 2008.

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

G8 Hokkaido: An exercise in Escapism

John Samuel

2008-07-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/49362

The meeting of G8 leaders in Hokkaido, Japan, proved to be an exercise in escapism. The final communiqué of the G8 leaders is more of a recycled rhetoric of broken promises. This meeting, held in the midst of financial, fuel, food and climate crisis, failed to recognize the gravity of the crisis. The G8 leaders’ posturing of confidence will not help to solve these issues. This would further increase the legitimacy crisis of G8 as a credible forum to develop any viable solution for the ongoing problems of hunger and injustice- partly perpetuated by the corporate and institutional interests of G8 countries.

The original grouping of rich industrialized nations – G7- emerged in the context of the oil crisis of the 1970s. Now after almost thirty years, G8- that includes the co-opted Russia- face the challenge of being responsible to address the looming crisis of finance, fuel and food. The balance sheet of G8 in the last thirty years clearly shows that G8 as an institutionalized venue failed to provide any meaningful solution to the issues of poverty, war, inequities and injustice that confront the world. While they have managed to impose the neoliberal policy paradigm- with the strategic use of World Bank and IMF conditionality- on the developing world and poor nations of the world, they have not been able to do anything substantial to address trade inequities, aid diversion and debt trap. In fact, G8 leaders, instead of solving these issues, often used the Summits to push forward the interest of the rich countries, with lots of window dressing and rhetoric about poverty reduction, and more aid for the poor countries. In 2005, they promised to write off the debt and double the aid to Africa to address issues of poverty, disease and sustainable development. After three years, these leaders stand exposed in the graveyard of broken promises.

Though a new grouping of G5, countries, including India, China, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico, are being co-opted in to the periphery of the G8 Summits. The G5 Countries too have failed to influence the agenda or outcome of the G8 process. So it is high time for the G5 countries to ponder the very validity of being in the periphery of the G8 Summit- legitimizing the agenda setting role of the rich and powerful countries. Instead of playing the second fiddle to the rich American- European axis and a co-opted Japan, it is high time for G5 to explore the option of reviving the G20 process as an alternate option to discuss and to adopt collective measures to address the issues that confront humanity and the world. This requires a fresh imagination and political will from the part of the G5 leaders.
The Hokkaido summit is happening in the midst of international policy and political crisis. Though G8 leaders claim that it is the grouping of the democratic and developed nations of the world, the irony of G8 summit is that it is one of the most undemocratic of the global processes. The leaders neither discuss the key issues in their parliament nor involve citizens or civil society in deciding the agenda for the meeting. The public rating of many leaders, including George Bush and Fukuda, is at the lowest.

The fact that G8 summits are held in the far away luxury resorts, fearing citizens and peoples’ action show that they are insulated from the people and process of democratic culture. This year an estimated US$ 250 million was spent by Japan for security alone. The leaders addressed the press through video conferencing facilities rather than facing the journalists. Why should the “leaders of the world” be afraid of the people they represent? Such a situation seems to indicate their lack of democratic credentials and legitimacy to represent the peoples of their countries or to take decision on their behalf. Authority without accountability and transparency is essentially anti-democratic in its very content and form. So the G8 Summit itself failed to meet democratic standards or accountable governance.

Only three short years after G8 pledged to ‘make poverty history” at Gleneagles in 2005, the spiraling food and fuel prices is making poverty in historically large proportions. The G8 has done nothing to stop it. The ranks of the hungry have swelled in to 950 million this year and it is estimated that another 750 million are now at the risk of falling in to chronic hunger.

As many as 1.7 billion people, or one of every four persons in the world, may now lack basic food security. In fact the so-called food crisis is a symptom of a deeper crisis of finance capital and speculative commodity market. Over the last twenty years, most of the marginal farmers and small agricultural producers have been slowly poisoned through systematic withdrawal of support systems and subsidies, as a part of the neo-liberal structural adjustment Programmes imposed on the developing world and poor countries by the G8 force and WB /IMF.

The climate crisis was used as an opportunity to subsidize the rich farmers through Biofuel subsidies. The rising food price is driven partly due to new appetite for biofuel power to fuel their cars. The corn needed to fill up a car tank with ethanol could feed a hungry person for one year. This in effect makes Biofuel the new poison that can undermine the food security of million of people and steal their food and lives. It is imperative to stop all subsidies for Biofuel, primarily by the US. It is also important to declare a moratorium on the diversion of agricultural land for biofuel monocropping. However, it is appalling to see the evasive tactic of G8 leaders on the issue of biolfuel perpetuating food insecurity and crisis.

Though there has been lots of discussion about climate change, G8 leaders simply failed to walk their talk. The G8 countries’ failure to reduce green house gas emissions is already wreaking havoc on agriculture through severe floods, droughts and rising temperatures. The carbon dioxide emissions from G8 countries make up to 40 percent of the world’s total emission. And yet only 13% of the world population lives in G8 countries. Not only are G8 countries responsible for large-scale pollution, they are also failing to compensate poor countries that are bearing the brunt of the G8 Countries’ dirty emission.

Though G8 countries have promised that that will reduce emission by half by 2050, it is too far off and less of a commitment to meet the challenge of climate crisis. So the promise of 2050 is more of a stalling tactic, rather than real commitment to act. While the environmental and economic viability of nuclear power generation is increasingly questioned in their own countries, it seems the G8 is once again pedaling nuclear power generation as a response to climate crisis. When we locate this in the context of the proposed civil nuclear deal with India and the US, it is clear that many of the G8 countries are very keen to market their old nuclear reactors to emerging markets such as India.

Hence, the Hokkaido G8 summit is a more regressive step. The final communiqué thoroughly exposed the lack of policy or political imagination of the G8 leaders. The communiqué also signified their lack of political will and the deficit of moral and political legitimacy to act as the leaders of the world.

The pertinent question is whether the G8 is a part of the problem or part of the solution. The Hokkaido Summit seems to suggest that G8 is keener to remain as a part of the problem. The world requires more accountable, imaginative and multilateral processes to address the issues of injustice, poverty and environmental crisis. The answer should lie more in reforming the multilateral United Nations Process, rather than rely on the quasi-global governance posturing of the G8 leaders.


*John Samuel is a social activist and the International Director of Actionaid.

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

Between a political rock and an economic Hard Place

Horace Campbell

2008-07-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/49363

At the summit of the African Union in Ghana in July 2007, Robert Mugabe was given a standing ovation. Later he went outside the conference to deliver a roaring anti–imperialist speech at a huge public rally. At the Nkrumah square Mugabe was hailed as one of the most steadfast revolutionary leaders in Africa. One year later, at the African Union Conference in Cairo, Egypt, Robert Mugabe was shunned by most leaders and condemned by those who opposed the authoritarian and dictatorial methods of rule. One day prior to the conference Mugabe had been sworn in as President after a non-election where he was the only candidate. This was a far cry from his initial inauguration in April 1980 when he was sworn in as Prime Minister before a throng of hundreds of thousands. Bob Marley had led the popular anti-racist and anti-imperialist forces to this celebration and had sung, Africans a liberate Zimbabwe. By June 2008 Robert when Mugabe was sworn in his regime had degenerated from a party associated with the legacies of Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah to an organization associated with the militarism and repression of Mobutu Sese Seko and Hastings Banda. Working peoples all across the region led and inspired by the Congress of South African Trade Unions opposed the Mugabe government and called for its isolation. Nelson Mandela was moved to declare that one was witnessing a “tragic failure of leadership in Zimbabwe.”

It is this failure that needs to be contextualized not simply as a Zimbabwean phenomenon, but as one of the forms and content of politics and political engagement in an era of economic depression and discredited neo-liberalism. All over the African continent the poor and oppressed have borne the brunt of the food crisis, the energy crisis, the health pandemics, and the crisis of the financial markets. This is the cataclysm that is being termed the worst capitalist crisis since the depression of the 1930’s. While spokespersons for capitalism such as Alan Greenspan have noted the depth of the contradictions between capitalist wealth and the impoverishment of the peoples of the globe, the G8 discourse on increasing aid flows block serious analysis of the impact of the capitalist depression in Africa and other parts of the downtrodden world. Food riots and other forms of spontaneous expressions of resistance have been taking place in the absence of clear organizational forms to respond to this capitalist depression. It is in South Africa where the workers are organizing against the high food prices with marches.

Inside a country such as Zimbabwe the internal political contradictions and the dire economic conditions serve to compound the oppression of the Zimbabwean peoples. It is this oppression that calls for both clear analysis and action on the part of those who want support the oppressed and are not accessories to their oppression by overt and covert support for the Mugabe regime. The Zimbabwean working peoples have been well organized and it is in part the quality of their organization that exposed the Mugabe government and the ZANU-PF party. These organized workers and human rights activists exposed a clique of political careerists and militarists that represented itself as an anti-imperialist force in Africa. From among the ranks of the working peoples emerged various political organizations. The political party that emerged out of this alliance of working peoples is the Movement for Democratic Change. (MDC).
The MDC is only one section of the opposition to the government of Robert Mugabe which has been called illegitimate after the March 29, elections. There were organizations based on the workers themselves, organizations of small farmers, organizations of poor women, of students, of health professionals and patriotic intellectuals. Additionally there were organizations of human rights and NGO reformers. Some of these elements were merged into a continent wide organization called the Africa Social Forum. The local formation was called the Zimbabwe Social Forum. However, the section of the opposition that had the most access to financial resources was those human rights and NGO activists who were linked to the social democratic foundations from Western Europe that are called the “donor community.” These foundations along with the forward planners within the USA and Britain were most concerned about the potentialities of the workers in so far as in one of the strongest working class communities the electorate voted for a declared socialist in the 2002 elections. The Movement for Democratic Change had been formed as an alternative to the ruling party and since 1989 -1990 has used the elections as the main form of political engagement.

IMPERATIVE TO STUDY THE BACKGROUND TO THE ECONOMIC MELT DOWN

The present struggles in Zimbabwe comprise a classic struggle between those steeped in the politics of thuggery and violence and those who want a new mode of politics in Zimbabwe. In our earlier study of Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation, this author spelt out the social origins of the leaders who had emerged as the leaders of the liberation movement. Our task was to reinforce the warning of Frantz Fanon that exploitation can wear a black face as well as a white one. It is now essential that progressives go back and read the historical study by Michael West, The Rise of an African Middle Class: Colonial Zimbabwe, 1898-1965. West traces the growth and tactics of an African middle class which had the unenviable task of constructing itself during the early part of the 20th century and under white minority rule. While not directly topical to the present-day, it shows how the socialization of the same class which now occupies the government there and in many other places in and out of Africa could have affected the fate of the African masses. The bottom line was that this middle class wanted to occupy the positions of the former colonial overlords without fundamentally transforming the colonial economic relation.

Though the neo-liberal discourse on Africa seeks to suffocate those seeking to understand the political quagmire the struggles of the people have generated a rich corpus of literature on the challenges of post-liberation societies in Africa. Zimbabwean scholars who are linked to the working class movement have been most prolific in their analysis of the conditions of the people. Of these scholars, Brian Raftopoulos and Lloyd Sachikonye have been unflinching in their support for the working class forces. There are two studies worth recommending, (i) Striking Back: The Labour Movement and the Post-Colonial State in Zimbabwe 1980-2000, edited by Brian Raftopoulos; Lloyd Sachikonye , Weaver Press Harare, Zimbabwe 2001 and (ii) Lloyd M. Sachikonye, The Situation of Commercial Farm Workers after Land Reform in Zimbabwe, A Report for the Farm Community Trust of Zimbabwe, Harare, Zimbabwe, March 2003. These studies that start from the conditions of the working people can be distinguished from the prolific writings of writers such as Martin Meredith and other journalist who write from the point of view of the concern for the former white commercial farmers. In the book, Our Votes, Our Guns: Robert Mugabe and the Tragedy of Zimbabwe, Meredith bemoans the use of force and violence by the Mugabe regime. This book did not see the continuity between the violence of the Ian Smith regimes and the Mugabe regime.

Because of the levels of violence and oppression there are hundreds of books, articles and studies on contemporary Zimbabwe. From within the organized opposition there are different accounts but by far the most penetrating have come from the African feminists. Women activists such as Grace Kwinjeh, Mary Ndlovu and Elinor Sisulu stand out in terms of the clarity of their writings and the focus on the need for transformative politics.

Edgar Tekere, the former Secretary General of the ruling party has written his own account of the levels of violence unleashed by the party against opponents and even against members of the party itself. The book, A Lifetime of Struggle is instructive in so far as the evidence of the killings, accidents and poisoning came from an insider and not from international organs such as Human Rights Watch or the International Crisis Group.

HEIGHTENED INTEREST AFTER THE JUNE 27 ELECTIONS

The focus of the international attention on Zimbabwe after the March 29, 2008 elections brought out the depths to which the regime has sunk. Pan African platforms such as Pambazuka news sought to bring to a worldwide audience the fatal decline and the appalling rise of inhumanity in the name of anti-imperialism and revolution in Zimbabwe. Here was a government that had clearly lost the elections and spent one month before releasing the results of this election. While the ruling party was studying its options after the results showed hat it had lost the parliamentary and Presidential elections there was a reign of terror unleashed by forces within the military and security apparatus. Thabo Mbeki and the South African government were shamed into admitting that there was unprecedented violence against the people. Robert Mugabe declared war against the citizens of Zimbabwe and declared that only God could remove him from office.

This defiance from the government of Mugabe was reinforced by the organization of the run off elections on June 27. The violence, intimidation, murders and kidnapping of the opposition had reached such proportions that the leader of the opposition pulled out of the elections and sought refuge in a foreign embassy. The fact that the leader of the MDC sought refuge in the premises of the Dutch embassy and not an African legation was very problematic. However, this low point reflected in part the reality that most African governments had been willing to make excuses for the government of Zimbabwe. By the end of June the violence reached a point where the leaders of the Southern African Development Community condemned the violence and declared that there could be no free and fair elections in Zimbabwe on June 27. The fact that the Angolan government had broken with its past full support for the actions of Mugabe and the ZANU-PF was the most striking aspect of this condemnation. The Angolan/ Zimbabwean alliance had been forged in the wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 1998-2002. In a debate with Gerald Horne, he reminded the audience that Swaziland was a dictatorship and was in no position to critique the conditions in Zimbabwe. This author would only add that the struggles in Zimbabwe by the working peoples was brining attention to the struggles of working peoples all across Africa in so far as the conditions of oppression was one that faced all workers across the region. The reality that Robert Mugabe had declared war against the people meant that it was now necessary to condemn the violence and murder. Yet, in the midst of all of this there were nationalist and “anti-imperialists” in the United States who were defending the Mugabe regime. In reality these forces were now accessories to the war against the people of Zimbabwe.

WHO ARE THE FORCES IN ZIMBABWE?

It is the poor in Zimbabwe who have borne the brunt of the thuggery and violence meted out by the Mugabe regime. The mass of the Zimbabwean peoples (workers, farmers, students, independent clergy, patriotic business persons, committed intelligentsia, and oppressed women) have suffered in numerous ways with the quality of the lives of the people deteriorating by geometric proportions. In 2005 when the party and government launched a military style operation against the poor in the urban areas, it called the people, filth. Thus far the electoral struggle has been one of the main forms of contestation in Zimbabwe. It must be restated that while the regime seeks to ride on its stature as the party of liberation, it will now be necessary to go back to understand the seeds of this political retrogression within the very tactics of fighting the liberation war. Not only has the regime discredited certain forms of armed actions but the violations and killings within the liberation camps and the divisions between the liberation movements will have to be re-visited. In the past, the female freedom fighters were the ones who had broken the silence on the authoritarianism and commandism within the ranks of the fighters.

In the face of the rush of Thabo Mbeki to establish a Government of National Unity, it is even more urgent to go back to this commandism and militarism to reflect on the experiences of Joshua Nkomo and ZAPU in the post independence era. After the forces of ZAPU were crushed militarily and ZAPU was humiliated, Nkomo joined a government of National Unity in 1987. Of the government of National Unity, Edgar Tekere remarked in his biography:

“As it turned out, ZAPU was indeed swallowed up by ZANU, leading to an effective one party state. Nkomo agreed to compromise to such an extent because he was afraid of another Gukurahundi which would wipe out the Ndebele people completely.” Page 153.

Nkomo was referring to the crimes against humanity that had been carried out in the immediate post independence period when it tens of thousands were killed by the regime. A full Truth and Reconciliation Commission is urgently needed in Zimbabwe to bring out the truth and to heal the society from the scars of these terror campaigns and mass murders that had been carried out in the name of African liberation.

Thabo Mbeki and the African Union are working hard on a government of National Unity but such a unity government cannot go forward without the demobilization of the military, security and intelligence forces that have unleashed terror against the people. Ibbo Mandaza, an insider within the ranks of the divided ZANU forces noted at the time of the launch of the Tekere book that militarism was endemic and central to the survival of the system. He had noted that the present political situation “reveals how that militarism of the liberation war has overflown into the current situation where we have violence of the state.”

It is this violence of the state that undermines the present actions of the Mbeki forces to establish a government of national unity without serious demilitarization of the society. There are two distinct proposals before the people after the illegitimate regime of Mugabe has been condemned by the SADC meeting of June 25. The first is the proposal being worked out by Mbeki for a government of National Unity. The second is for a the establishment of a transitional government, comprising both MDC and Zanu-PF representatives, to stabilize the country’s politics and economy and create conditions for peaceful, free and fair elections.

Brian Raftopoulos the Zimbabwean activist referred to above has stressed that this transitional government would not be the same as the government of national unity, which many Mbeki and the African Union are advocating. He noted, “The government of national unity would be a long-term entity whereas the transitional government would remain in power only long enough to stabilize the country.”

STABILIZING THE COUNTRY FOR WHOM?

The stabilization of the country so that the exploitation of the working people can continue without the full presence of the international media is urgent for both the present leaders of Zimbabwe and South Africa. For the Mbeki section of the ANC leadership the alliance between capitalists in Zimbabwe and South Africa can continue without the kind of scrutiny which should be brought to bear on the working conditions for workers on the mines and farms in South Africa and Zimbabwe. For the ZANU-PF leadership the competition for resources between the top factions of the illegitimate regime is so intense that there is need for more open relations with foreign capitalists. When the German company that printed the currency for the government signaled that it was going to stop printing the paper for the currency, this was one more blow. This is despite the fact that the currency is now so devalued that Zimbabweans need trillions of dollars to buy a loaf of bread.

The two military factions of the ZANU-PF (Munangagwa and Chiwenga on one side and Solomon Mujuru on the other) are in a death bed struggle not only to keep ZANU in power but to decide which faction should have access to the foreign exchange of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. Thus far, those closest to Mugabe and the Governor of the Bank, Gideon Gono are the ones with the forces with the most to lose from a transitional government that seeks to demilitarize the society. Reports after report have outlined the ways in which the Munangagwa and Chiwenga faction have mobilized the military to enhance their personal and financial fortunes in the name of liberation.

MILITARISM AND THE DOG EAT DOG STRUGGLES

After destroying the agricultural sector in Zimbabwe in the past ten years, the top elements of ministers, civil servants, military and intelligence officials have participated in a speculative orgy and made the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange one of the most profitable for those with links to power. All of the indices of extreme economic crisis exist in Zimbabwe: more than 80 per cent unemployment, hunger, food shortages, shortages of medicinal supplies, inflation of over 100,000 per cent and critical shortages of fuel, water and electricity. It is in the midst of this misery where the generals and party leaders are making huge profits from their control over the printing of money and speculating on scarce commodities. The USA and the European Union imposed limited sanctions on the leadership but because international capitalism is no longer monolithic, the Mugabe regime has been supported by capitalists from China, Malaysia, Libya, and sections of Europe.

British capitalists never left Zimbabwe. Standard Chartered and Barclays Bank are among the biggest British-owned banks operating inside Zimbabwe. British American Tobacco (BAT) continues with it near century old infrastructure inside of Zimbabwe and dominates what remains of the tobacco crop, while British Petroleum has a large slice of the fuel retail sector and Rio Tinto and Falgold are involved in gold mining.

The corporations with the biggest stake in Zimbabwe have been the South African capitalist classes. Because of the degree of interpenetration of the two economies over the past century many corporations can do business inside of Zimbabwe while no longer reflecting the performances of their Zimbabwean operations on their books. One report in the Mail and Guardian of South Africa listed, Anglo-American Corporation, which is by far one of the most powerful transnational corporations in Southern Africa as one company planning to invest over US $400m in the platinum mining sector. This company continues to hold large tracts of land and interests in agro-industry and mining. South African Standard Bank, whose Zimbabwean subsidiary is Stanbic, is also involved in the banking sector. Old Mutual another major South African corporation is involved in real estate and insurance. PPC Cement; Murray and Roberts; Truworths; Edcon, which owns the Edgars clothes retail chain is another South African companies.

Other South African companies include Hulett-Tongaat, which has a stake in Hippo Valley Sugar Estates; grocery chain Spar; and SAB Miller, which has a stake in Zimbabwe's Delta Beverages. Zimbabwe’s thriving mining sector is dominated by foreign companies that include South Africa's Impala Platinum and Mzi Khumalo's Metallon Gold. While the Mugabe government has been seizing land from commercial farmers this government has also been removing poor peasants from the land to make space for the mining companies. Metallon Gold, which owns five gold mines in the country, produced more than 50% of the country's revenue from gold production. It is not clear how much of the returns from these operations are channeled through official channels so that there are revenues for the Central Bank.

One of the byproducts of the repression in Zimbabwe has been the reality that the above named companies have been able to operate in Zimbabwe when workers did not have the protection of trade unions. As part of the crackdown on opponents of the regime the ZANU PF government has arrested and detained scores of trade union leaders. Thus in the expansion of the mining sector in the past eight years the workers in this mining sector now have even less protection than they had during the period of the anti colonial struggles. In the rush to offer new concessions to foreign mining companies who are profiting from the commodity boom, the ZANU government has trampled on the rights that the Zimbabwean workers won as a component of the independence struggles.

This alliance between Zimbabwean capitalists and South African capitalists is manifest in the support for Mugabe by Thabo Mbeki. It is this close connection between Zimbabwean capital and South African capital that partially accounts for the "quiet diplomacy" of Thabo Mbeki. The political leadership in Zimbabwe has degraded every principle of democracy, the right to collective bargaining, the rights of workers to health and safety conditions at work, the right to organize independently of employers, the right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of movement and freedom to participate in an open democratic political process. South African workers are defending the democratic rights of the Zimbabwean workers because they understand that ultimately they are also defending their own rights.

WHO ARE THE FORCES OF THE OPPOSITION?

Imperial forces are also at work within the ranks of the opposition. Because of the degree of the maturity of the Zimbabwean working peoples, imperialism has been very active within the ranks of the opposition to ensure that the primary means of political opposition to Mugabe by the workers is channeled into the MDC organization and does not develop into a more radicalized and politicized form of engagement. In its origins the MDC owes its political support to the support of the workers in the urban areas. At the outset the militancy of the workers and members of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions had defined the base of the party. From these beginnings the workers were joined by human rights groups, NGO elites and elements from the expropriated commercial farmer sector. There were therefore three identifiable factions of the MDC.

The first and most important was the workers, itinerant traders, unemployed from the townships, progressive clergy, students and progressive women. The second represented the human rights and lawyer types, middle class professionals, NGO elites and constitutional activists who had convened the National Constitutional Assembly. And The third faction represented elements from the commercial farmers and settler forces such as Eddie Cross, Ray Bennett and David Colart who joined the opposition to Mugabe. It is the presence of these elements, epitomized by the position of Eddie Cross, that hinders a clear position on the land question by the Movement for Democratic Change.

For a short period Munyaradzi Gwisai of the International Socialist Organization of Zimbabwe represented one of the voices calling for the MDC to adopt a more radical position. Gwisai had contested the seat of the Highfield Constituency as a socialist in the ranks of the MDC and won. He was expelled from the party in 2002.

Morgan Tsvangirai (the leader of the MDC) had survived the trade union movement in Zimbabwe to emerge as the head of the coalition of the different forces who were to form the MDC. Although his origins were with the workers the top echelons of the party was dominated by the NGO elites and those with close connection to German Social democrats. For a while Tsvangirai’s leadership was threatened by a break away faction. This was the faction led by Arthur Mutambara who was even more explicit about the need for ties with South African capital and western interests. Mutambara’s faction contested the 2008 elections as a separate party from the MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

None of the factions of the leadership of the MDC escaped the violence and brutality. Of the three factions of the original MDC, the one that faced the least brutality were the elements from the commercial and managerial classes. These were the ones with the resources to move back and fro to South Africa when the violence escalated. The ones who have faced the brunt of the brutality have been the leaders of the workers, and students. These elements have been beaten, killed and the women violated. One group of independent women who had formed the Women of Zimbabwe Arise group (WOZA) faced constant harassment. Other independent women leaders such as Grace Kwinjeh and Sekai Holland were beaten and forced into exile. See the analysis of Grace Kwinjeh on her blog.

The constitutionalists in the MDC were slowly eclipsed insofar as the Mugabe government made it clear after the referendum in February 2000 that the ruling party would use force and would not be open to petitions and changes in the constitution.

In the past five years it is group C those from the former commercial farmers and merchant elements that has held decisive influence over the leadership of the MDC. This group is clear that recovery in Zimbabwe is based on the massive inflow of capital from Britain and the USA. There is the mistaken belief as represented in the writings of Eddie Cross that there are resources in the West to aid Zimbabwe. This kind of thinking has not taken into account the financial crisis that has shaken western capitalism since the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the West. Economic recovery in Zimbabwe will necessitate long term investments in health education, the infrastructure and breaking down the colonial forms of accumulation in agriculture and mining. Mugabe has Africanized this structure and a government of National Unity cannot solve the economic problems.

While the MDC represents a political opposition to a Mugabe led government, it does not represent an opposition to capitalism in Zimbabwe. In many ways the MDC represents a "return" to a junior partner-master relationship between the Zimbabwe capitalist class and international capital. The MDC's economic plan to "rebuild the economy", is based on the neo-liberal thinking of the IMF and World Bank. Such thinking would perpetuate the orientation of the Zimbabwean economy towards the interests of global markets and investors, not the needs of the Zimbabwean people. Because of the imperialist penetration of the MDC, it has emphasized electoral engagement to oppose Mugabe, so as not to oppose capitalism.

Zimbabwe’s people need and deserve that the government be judged by its peers right there in the African continent and the African Union not by the world’s super powers.

Africans by and large do not regard the USA as a model human rights upholder. It’s own handling of elections and the right to vote, at another level, and its range of international violations, its present entanglements in the Middle East disqualify it as a champion of Zimbabweans, at this stage.

While the policy choices of Zanu-PF have clearly demonstrated an inability to help the Zimbabwean economy (her workers, farmers and students) to sustain them in today's global economy, the MDC does not represent a progressive alternative. The current position as articulated by the economic spokespersons of the MDC does not entail a transformation of the economy.

History has already demonstrated that the agricultural/mining model cannot support socioeconomic transformation in Zimbabwe. Progressives should note that the Zimbabwean people are between a political rock and an economic hard place between Zanu-Pf and the MDC Mass actions such as strikes, stay-aways and other forms of protests had been severely constrained by the wave of repression in Zimbabwe in the past five years. This repression intensified in 2006-2007 but did not prevent the opposition from mounting a credible electoral challenge. This yielded some benefits in the elections of March 29, 2008.

It was this election and its aftermath that exposed the reality that change in Zimbabwe will not be easy. Since the meeting of the African Union in Egypt and the G8 summit in Japan there are intensified efforts to establish a government of National Unity. It should be repeated that Mbeki has called for this government to end the possibility of a Civil War in Zimbabwe. Mbeki overlooked the fact that there is already a war against the people of Zimbabwe. Secondly, and more importantly, neither Mbeki nor the African Union has spelt out whether this government of Nation a Unity will be different from the previous government of National Unity that swallowed up the forces of Joshua Nkomo and ZAPU. Will those who carried out the murders, violations and kidnapping in Zimbabwe be allowed to participate in the GNU? Will this be another method of granting immunity to those who have been responsible for the most outrageous brutalities against the people since the end of formal apartheid?

MAKING A BREAK WITH REPRESSION AND VIOLENCE

Those elements from the opposition who are interested in political power will be entering into discussions on the government of National Unity. The forces from the ZANU leadership who want to break out of international isolation will also work for the GNU. However, neither of these forces is concerned about long term transformation of the politics and a break from the militaristic traditions that have been legitimized as liberation traditions. One service that the Mugabe regime has rendered for the history of African liberation is for the next generation to critically assess the whole experience of the liberation struggle to unearth the foundations of the present repression. In order to make a break with economic repression, militarism, patriarchy, masculinist violence, rape and homophobic oppression there needs to be a new political culture in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa.

This political culture is already emerging with the fission in the MDC between those interested in power and those interested in the conditions of the workers, poor farmers, poor women, students and hawkers. Western European social democrats who have bankrolled the NGO elites and fostered a spirit of intellectual subservience and dependence among the constitutionalists are working over time to ensure that there is a settlement that can bring together one set of capitalists within ZANU with the most pro-capitalist sections of the opposition. It is the kind of unity that will not prioritize the demilitarization of the society.

In the face of the repression within Zimbabwe it is the organized workers in South Africa that have come out as the most forthright opponent of the Zimbabwe repression. COSATU have called for the isolation of the Zimbabwe government and a blockade of the country. Earlier the workers at the ports blocked an arms shipment from China that was destined to be used to repress the workers. The opposition of the workers across Southern Africa will re ignite the cross border alliances that had been developed in the period of the anti-apartheid struggles. Inside South Africa itself, the struggles within the ANC has broken out into an open confrontation between populist forces and the neo-liberal forces around Thabo Mbeki. Jacob Zuma was able to ride on the populism to become the leader of the party. But Jacob Zuma cannot control this populism in so far as the economic conditions provide the incentive for independent organizing by the workers. The South African workers are being radicalized by the glaring disparities between the new black Bourgeoisie and the mass of the population. South African youths who support the Jacob Zuma faction should read the book of Edgar Tekere to learn how the militarism of former liberation leaders can turn into its opposite.

Governments of South Africa, of the USA and Britain as well as many of the leaders of the African Union are anxious to defuse what could develop into a revolutionary situation in Southern Africa. This is the situation where the political initiative is seized by COSATU inside South Africa in an alliance with workers in Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Malawi, Mozambique,, Zambia and Angola seek to develop a regional alliance to combat food prices, high energy costs and the absence of expenditures on health care.

In less than one generation the anti apartheid leaders have been discredited. Imperialism understands the force of prolonged popular struggle; hence there is urgency in reaching a deal in Zimbabwe before popular forms of protests develop across Southern Africa. More than twenty years ago peaceful protests brought down the regimes of Marcos in the Philippines and the Shah of Iran. Now, in the face of the world capitalist crisis, high energy prices, food prices and the health crisis in Africa, there is a struggle for life itself. It is this struggle that offers the potential for renewal. It is for the renewal of life, village renewal, community renewal and renewal of the confidence of the people that they can make history again.

UBUNTU AND REVOLUTIONARY POSSIBILITIES

Ubuntu and reparations anchors this renewal in so far as the poor and oppressed in the society want to be human beings. Desmond Tutu had articulated the ideas of ubuntu in the immediate period after the end of apartheid but the articulators of the African Renaissance sought to redefine Ubuntu to legitimize self enrichment. The manipulation of Ubuntu by Mbeki and the capitalists should not discredit Ubuntu. Just as how the activities of George Bush and the wars in the name of god has not discredited Christianity, so progressives must distinguish between the African renaissance of Mbeki and a genuine thrust for repair and healing. Reconciliation is one important component of healing.

Ubuntu is an understanding of the shared humanity of all who live in a society. It is clearer in Zimbabwe that the local capitalists do not care about the humanity of the mass of the sufferers. This is the same for the black and white capitalists in South Africa. Ubuntu contains the seeds of revolutionary ideas if these ideas are rooted in the capacities of the people for self activity and for creative forms of struggle to move Africa to the next stage in the recovery of independence and emancipation. Here the memories of the anti apartheid and anti colonial struggles provide an inspiration to remind the people that it is the organizational capabilities of the poor that will change society.

Change is not enough, however. There is need for renewal and this renewal must come with repair. The reparations movement has grown internationally. This movement has declared that apartheid, slavery and colonialism were crimes against humanity. African humanity cannot be renewed without repair. Imperialism understands the force of the claims for reparative justice. In the courts of the USA, progressives from South Africa are using the legal challenges to those capitalists who cooperated with the apartheid regime, to heighten the awareness of the need for reparative justice. The Mbeki government opposes these claims for reparations. The European Union and the USA do not want a generalized and educated campaign for reparative justice.

This then accounts for the intensity of the expenditures among the so-called NGO’s. European states will finance human rights NGO’s in Africa as long as they do not raise the questions of reparations. Traditional communist and socialists parties are also afraid of the reparative claims in so far as the reparations debate undermines one of the core ideas of the view that the capitalist mode of production represented a positive force in Africa. Both Mugabe and Mbeki have sought to cut off Africa from this reparations movement.

BEYOND ELECTIONS TO PROLONGED DEMOCRATIC STRUGGLES

At the age of 84, Mugabe may certainly get his wish that only God can remove him from office. Serious divisions exist within the ruling party over who will control the levers of plunder and repression. The challenge for the progressive African and for committed Zimbabwean patriots is to be able to support the short term struggles in Zimbabwe as well as the medium term struggles for profound political transformation beyond simply voting. As one Zimbabwean writer noted:

“What needs transformation are the political groupings that house our politicians and are the fertile grounds for an ideological framework that allows politics of retrogression. What also requires transformation is the economic environment that creates vast differences in resource allocation and plays into and cultivates the politics of ethnicity, gender and racial categorizations. The politics of retrogression does not define one individual; it defines the current characteristics of the post colonial African elite. That is why, in the majority of cases where there has been electoral transitioning of political power in Africa thus far, the condition of the people has not changed and the new leadership has not shown any marked changes from the actions of those they replaced.”

Recent electoral struggles in Kenya and the politics of compromise exposed the reality that while multi-partyism is essential for parliamentary democracy and for ensuring democratic representation, its establishment as a system do not in itself ensure a New Democracy. There is no evidence from the power sharing in Kenya that there is a process underway for the creation and equitable distribution of the national wealth. A society of mass poverty, on the one hand, and massive wealth in the hands of a few, on the other, cannot develop the necessary conditions for the creation of the national wealth to its fullest potentiality, nor can it be democratic.

In contemporary Africa, where the economic depression is most deeply felt, there will be a greater reflex towards political repression by the leadership. In most parts of Africa the politics of retrogression. has become the norm, and the leadership has taken - to cultural proportions - the tendency to turn their backs on the people as soon as they take office, there is a need to create new institutions to strengthen popular participation and representation. Parliamentary democracy on its own is not enough; it must be supplemented with and strengthened by other popular institutions and associations such as the local governments, cooperative movements, independent workers, women, student and youth organizations, assemblies or organizations for the environmental concerns and for minority rights, and so forth. A new leadership must ensure that this is the dominant political culture, with enough flexibility to allow for changes when changes are needed to strengthen and further consolidate that culture.

“This new political culture will eventually shift power from the current corrupt and unrepresentative political groupings, to local communities whose chosen representatives will be accountable to the interests of these local communities first not those of a small center that monopolizes power in the national political groupings.”

The interconnection between the short term struggles for democratic spaces and democratic participation will require autonomous and independent organizing among the poor. For the moment the poor have thrown their support behind the MDC. This support will be squandered if the poor are not vigilant to ensure that their struggles against Mugabe do not end with an alliance between the reform elements of ZANU and the MDC without the working class base. While these negotiations are being orchestrated Africans in the Diaspora and progressives everywhere must engage the struggles n Zimbabwe in a way that will strengthen the cause of reparations, peace and justice in all parts of the world.

*Dr. Horace Campbell, PhD, is Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University in Syracuse New York. His book, Rasta and Resistance From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney is going through its fifth edition. He had contributed to many other edited books, most recently, "From Regional Military de-stabilization to Military Cooperation and Peace in South Africa" in Peace and Security in Southern Africa (State and Democracy Series) , edited by Ibbo Mandaza. He has published numerous articles in scholarly journals and is currently writing a book on the Wars against the Angolan peoples.

*This essay first appeared in www.BlackCommentator.com

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

Zimbabwe needs a political settlement

Mpho Ncube

2008-07-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/49323

ZANU-PF MACHINATIONS
It is common knowledge that the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) party won the parliamentary and presidential elections earlier this year. Based on its performance, it would therefore be fair to say that the MDC would probably have also won last week’s presidential run-off had it not pulled out at the last moment. Yet, despite these facts, Zanu-PF still remains in power today. Robert Mugabe has once again outmaneuvered his opponents in Zimbabwe and abroad.

No surprises there then, given that the government had set in motion a chain of events that were designed to pre-determine the outcome of the elections in its favour. Indeed, the MDC cited the systematic harassment, torture and murder of its supporters and leadership as the main reason for its withdrawal from the election.

Given this state of affairs and as the Pan-African parliament observer mission reported, the elections could not have been conducted in a free and fair environment. African leaders meeting in Egypt last week called for a government of national unity to be established in Zimbabwe, thereby conferring semi-legitimacy to Mugabe much to the dismay of the MDC and others who were hoping for outright condemnation and ostracisation.

However, the MDC was right to contest the elections in March even though it was faced with insurmountable odds. By participating in a contest they knew would be pre-determined and still registering more votes than the government, the party won a moral victory in the eyes of many Zimbabweans. That moral victory would have been enough to carry the MDC through last week’s presidential run-off election, which was also preceded by the same unfavourable conditions of the March election.
The people of Zimbabwe were denied their fundamental right to choose a leader of their own liking on June 27. This fact alone renders those elections null and void. That the results of both the March 29 elections and the recent one-candidate presidential run-off were allowed to stand is yet another reason, after the Gukurahundi massacres in Matabeleland in the 1980s, that we should not recognise the legitimacy of the Zanu PF government. It goes without saying that to want to hold Zanu PF to account for its actions is to invite accusations from its propagandists of being "an agent of the colonialists."

MDC IN DISSARRAY

Three months since the disputed March elections, the MDC seems to be in disarray. It doesn't appear as if the party has really mastered the art of opposition politics. It has not been able to translate its moral victories since 2000 into power. This, however, is hardly a surprise because having been founded on an anti-ZANU PF populist wave, the MDC will always be re-active rather than pro-active to the political situation in Zimbabwe. It appears to be looking to the masses for signals to act while becoming very good at telling us what we already know - that Zanu PF is now very unpopular and must be replaced.

As things stand, talk of Zanu PF demise is misplaced. The military junta or the Joint Operational Command (JOC) now running Zimbabwe will have been emboldened by the fissures and lack of a united position at the African Union and SADC. It is in this post-election period of disillusionment that all the major players in the Zimbabwe body politic need quiet reflection. I would like to think that the MDC is currently undergoing this process, otherwise how does one explain the series of strategic blunders by its leadership? I would like to see its leaders emerge from this ever-deepening crisis with more courage than they have shown so far.

There is undeniable thirst for a viable alternative to the present ZANU PF government, which once again, is holding the country hostage. Since independence in 1980, Zanu PF has been in open confrontation with the citizens of Zimbabwe - first it was the Ndebele and today it is everybody. For all its intellectual clout, ZANU PF cannot see, or if it does, refuses to accept that reforms both within its ranks and the country at large, are long overdue. Instead, it is gripped by paranoia, blaming everyone and everything but itself.

Zimbabwe is now a country in a state of siege equal to that of the 1980's. When the Fifth Brigade massacred thousands of civilians in Matabeleland and the Midlands, international opinion was focused on apartheid South Africa. Similarly today, world focus has shifted to the "war against terrorism" thereby relegating Zimbabwe to the sidelines. Robert Mugabe used apartheid South Africa as cover for his genocide in Matabeleland. Today he is hiding behind the international campaign against Al Qaeda to rape, maim and murder opponents of his government. He should not be allowed to get away with it again.

The ZANU PF government sees land re-distribution as the final act in its black empowerment programme. Judging by its preceding Affirmative Action Campaign, which started off as a well-intentioned plan to promote black economic empowerment but ended up as a vehicle for self-enrichment, it is no wonder that the so-called "Hondo yeminda" (war for land) has suffered a similar fate. Senior government, police and army officials have unashamedly helped themselves to the best farmland, evicting ordinary people already settled on these properties. While there is an undeniable need for land re-distribution in Zimbabwe, the politicisation of the process by Zanu PF has condemned millions of citizens to unemployment, starvation and death. The country has been set back a century. So, given this background and the fact that ZANU PF and MDC are now pitted against each other in a low-intensity civil war, what should be the way forward for Zimbabwe?

THE WAY FORWARD

The first thing to say is that the two main parties in Zimbabwe have to accept that a political settlement is now pre-requisite to any lasting solution and must therefore renew their efforts to talk to each other.

Second, both parties and the MDC in particular, must understand that the negotiation/talks process will be long and hard given their contrasting philosophies. ZANU PF is a party heavily steeped in liberation war politics and therefore reliant on violence, secrecy and war as policy instruments while the MDC is the exact opposite with its emphasis on diplomacy and openness.

Finally, Zanu PF must accept that the MDC is now an indelible part of the Zimbabwean political landscape while the MDC, on its part, will have to understand that no political settlement with ZANU PF will preclude violence. To therefore insist on the total cessation of hostilities, as a precondition for talks is not only unrealistic but also perpetuates the suffering of Zimbabweans because ZANU PF will always use violence as a policy or negotiating tool. It used violence prior and during negotiations with PF-ZAPU in the 1980s and so will have reckoned that the same strategy will work with the MDC this time around.

MDC leaders would therefore be wise to study settlements in South Africa, Northern Ireland or even Zimbabwe itself (Lancaster House Agreement and "Unity Talks/Accord"). In fairness to the MDC, the party has largely refrained from retaliation, instead insisting on democratic re-course to argue its case. This has undoubtedly won it many sympathisers at home and abroad, but how long will they continue to look the other way? We will have to wait and see. There needs to be a conducive platform to work from. The present confrontational and destructive situation does not provide conditions that will make it easy for Zimbabwe to get back on track.

A political settlement between the two main parties must be the starting point. Such a settlement is required to end the current state of siege and allow for the creation of a platform from which to institute a reform programme best suited to Zimbabwe. Solutions to the current crisis lie inside Zimbabwe itself, if only the politicians could cast aside personal ambition and seize the moment for the greater good of the country.

The shape and form of any political settlement is what the MDC and ZANU PF are most likely to be discussing behind the scenes at the moment. The sticking points are likely to be the way ZANU PF will want to cast itself as the senior party and therefore insist on setting the agenda for the negotiations. Indeed, the way ZANU PF is so enthusiastic about the proposed government of national unity (GNU) shows that the party has calculated that it would still emerge better-off were a GNU actually implemented. Remember, ZANU PF is well practised in this type of stand-off, it has the benefit of experience when it was engaged in a similar situation with Joshua Nkomo’s PF ZAPU party in the 1980s. Even though the political settlement which culminated in the signing of the Unity Accord in 1987 is largely considered as a hostile takeover of PF ZAPU, it will very likely be ZANU PF’s template for its negotiations with the MDC. ZANU PF negotiators will be on the lookout for potential “banana skins” in any settlement, which is why they are wary or suspicious of the MDC’s much preferred option of a gradualist, transitional government that emphasises the temporariness of Mugabe’s government. Of chief concern to ZANU PF will be the provisions for immunity from prosecution for crimes against humanity.

Even though a GNU does not mean that ZANU PF will hand over total power to the MDC, Mugabe and his henchmen/women will still want to cover all possible scenarios and buttress themselves against future prosecution. And herein lies the problems for the MDC, who will be under severe pressure, perhaps more than ZANU PF, to be pragmatic and give Mugabe the immunity he will demand in return for peace.

Will the MDC be bold enough in its demands or will it capitulate? That remains to be seen. And what about ordinary MDC supporters who have borne the brunt of ZANU PF brutality in the last 10 or so years? Will they be happy to let their leaders grant Mugabe and his henchmen/women immunity or as some people see it, impunity?

What about the thousands of Gukurahundi victims in Matabeleland, most of whom have voted for the MDC since its inception in 1999 - will they feel that their pain and sorrow counts for nothing when they have been crying out for justice all these years? The MDC has to conduct a fine balancing act to accommodate the sometimes conflicting wishes and expectations of its various membership. In order to do so successfully, it will have to consult widely and deeply within its membership because failure to do so will leave it open to yet more division.


*Mpho Ncube is the Director of Communications for the Mthwakazi Action Group on Genocide in Matebeleland & Midlands (MAGGEMM).

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

Kenya and Zimbabwe: Challenges and opportunities

Briggs Bomba

2008-07-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/49326

The world’s attention has been riveted in 2008, by election crises in Africa, first Kenya, and now Zimbabwe. In both cases, challenges remain in converting electoral victory to political power. Can a victorious opposition come to power in the face of an obstinate incumbent? This question is particularly relevant when the incumbent regime controls the coercive apparatus of the state and the opposition only has the ballot in its corner. In the battle of the ballot vs. the bullet, can there ever be a fair match?

Historically the answer has been no. But new developments on the democratic front in Africa in the last decade have strengthened election support and monitoring by key regional bodies, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU). In 2004, SADC adopted ‘Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections’ aimed at ‘enhancing the transparency and credibility of elections and democratic governance as well as ensuring the acceptance of election results by contesting parties”. The African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance adopted by the AU in 2007 to, among other things, ‘promote the holding of regular free and fair elections to institutionalize legitimate authority of representative government as well as democratic change of government”, consolidated gains on the electoral front. These developments have strengthened the electoral process on the continent, creating the space for opposition parties to compete fairly. At a minimum, international supervision through these protocols compels sitting governments to desist from outright repression and undemocratic practices.
VIBRANT CIVIL SOCIETY

Another significant development on the African continent is the emergence of a vibrant independent civil society focused on democracy, human rights and social justice. In fact, the SADC and AU protocols would not count for much if not for civil society pressure on African leaders to abide. In both the Zimbabwean and Kenyan election crises, civil society played a key role in documenting, exposing and transmitting human rights violations. In addition, the advent of the Internet and other modern communication tools shrinks time and space, making it possible to build instant global people to people communication and solidarity links. Consequently, incidents that would blow away unnoticed in the past, now invoke global outrage.

WEAK NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS

Both the cases of Kenya and Zimbabwe expose the weaknesses of national democratic institutions, particularly those mandated to oversee the conduct of elections. In Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, like its Kenyan counterpart was exposed as partisan in favor of the incumbent regime. In both countries the judiciary was no recourse as the judicial bench is routinely ‘staffed’ by government loyalists. A key challenge therefore is how to evolve robust democratic institutions as a lasting foundation for an enduring democracy and social stability. Key elements of a fully functioning democracy are an independent and impartial electoral commission, an independent judiciary, and a democratic constitution. Regrettably, these conditions don’t always hold in countries emerging from a colonial past.

Non-Partisan security forces are also critical elements of a democratic state where people choose their leaders freely. In Zimbabwe the army, the police and secret services merged seamlessly with the violent campaign machinery of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Unity Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF). In Kenya, the police stood in President Kibaki’s corner and brutally massacred hundreds of opposition activists in protests that followed the disputed election. The lessons of Kenya and Zimbabwe underscore the importance of professionalizing the army, police, prison services, and secret services so that the security forces are not party operatives. This is particularly daunting for countries like Zimbabwe, where former liberation movements are in power and their allied armed wings have been integrated into national security forces. There tends to be partisan loyalty amongst these ‘war veterans’, their allies, and affiliated parties.

INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION

Both Zimbabwe and Kenya raise the question of the role of the international community in resolving internal conflict. Clearly, in circumstances of weak democratic institutions, a victorious opposition must rely on more than the ballot to secure power. In the case of Kenya, unlike Zimbabwe, the opposition used mass mobilization and threats of total economic paralysis to leverage its power and ultimately compel the sitting government towards a negotiated settlement.

In Kenya, the U.S., Britain, the AU and other players in the international community played a key role in brokering the power-sharing deal that stopped Kenya from plunging into the abyss of political chaos. While the political settlement in Kenya succeeded in stopping violence, the key question remains unanswered - how to ensure the unhindered transfer of power to the true winners of the election. The deal currently holding Kenya together is an inferior solution that will only be meaningful if immediate steps are taken to ensure that the will of the people is respected in the next election.

International mediation in Kenya was made easier as key players in the international community had access to and leverage with both sides of the crisis; and the local actors were not irreparably polarized. This is a key difference with Zimbabwe, where political polarization is acute and Western powers have no diplomatic access to Mugabe. Mugabe’s response to Britain’s ‘school yard’ isolationist diplomacy has been to throw his toys and act like he just does not care.

The role that the U.S. can play in Zimbabwe is undermined by the Bush Administration’s lack of international credibility, partly because of the discredited Iraq war; and outright hypocrisy where the U.S. embraces favored dictators such as Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi and Pakistan’s Musharraf while preaching democracy in Zimbabwe. These discrepancies make statements about democracy in Zimbabwe ring hollow and provoke questions about the real motives of U.S. foreign policy.

SADC and the AU, equipped with relatively new principles and protocols, are limited in their actions by the poor human rights record and electoral practices of many of the present leaders. The precedent already set by failure to take a firm stance against members such as Sudan for gross human rights abuses and Ethiopia and Nigeria for outright electoral fraud, limits the extent of what African leaders can do now. Mugabe is already exploiting this Achilles’ heel and effectively paralyzing the AU by arguing that others have been allowed to get away with worse crimes. Thus, while there is a growing voice of ‘concern’ by African leaders, the response falls far short of the moral outrage conditions on the ground demand.

The 14-nation strong SADC is in the best position to influence developments in Zimbabwe. The region completely land locks Zimbabwe and as such wields a big economic muscle. But more importantly, SADC does have a history of direct intervention in trouble spots. In 1998 South Africa and Botswana sent troops to Lesotho as part of a SADC mission to crush a coup and ‘restore democracy’ following controversial elections in that country. In 1997, Mugabe, in a position then as SADC’s Chairman of the Organ on Security and Defense, led Angola and Namibia in a military intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The key question is how to balance intervention by all the international players - SADC, AU, UN and Western powers. The UN’s role is tough as it’s original mandate involved conflicts between and not within nations. Western powers, particularly the U.S. and Britain, have thrust themselves forward ahead of all the other players in Zimbabwe in ways that are not always helpful given the region’s colonial past and Western corporate interests. Unilateral actions by Western countries often compromise the position of democratic forces on the continent, as they face accusations of being Western puppets. African leaders in a new era of African renaissance do not want to appear to be taking orders from the West. This is not to say that the West has no role to play, international action must be directed through existing African institutions and the UN.

In countries like Zimbabwe and Kenya, bolstering African institutions and pressuring them to uphold their protocols on human rights, elections and good governance is the best path to democracy. A true solution to the current political crises in Zimbabwe and elsewhere on the continent is strengthening the ballot, and amplifying regional and continental peace making through the AU and SADC.


*Foreign Policy In Focus Contributor Briggs Bomba is Associate Director for Campaigns at Africa Action.

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

Transitional arrangements for Zimbabwe

SADC Council of NGOs

2008-07-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/49324

SADC Council of NGOs (SADC-CNGO), Southern African Trade Union Coordinating Council (SATUCC) & Fellowship of Christian Councils in Southern Africa (FOCISSA), representing broad membership in all SADC member states, are deeply concerned that the developments in Zimbabwe grossly undermines the regional community’s efforts to achieve regional integration and go against the spirit and objectives of the SADC Treaty.

Presidential run-off elections and their outcome are illegitimate and cannot be the basis for any solution for Zimbabwe. These elections took place under the conditions of politically motivated violence, arrests & detention, brutality and intimidation, which resulted in one party, ZANU-PF, contesting against itself, and subjecting citizens into submissiveness through repression, torture, murder, detention and destruction of property. Our leaders have allowed the Zimbabwean situation to deteriorate to where it is today, despite the fact that President Robert Mugabe and the ruling ZANU-PF party violated, and continue to violate fundamental values and principles of the SADC Founding Treaty, African Union’s Constitutive Act and United Nation’s Charter in that:
“Article 4 of the Treaty stipulates that “human rights, democracy and the rule of law” are principles guiding the acts of its members. Article 5 of the Treaty outlines the objectives of SADC, which commits Member States to “promote common political values and systems which are transmitted through institutions which are democratic, legitimate and effective. It also commits Member States to consolidate, defend and maintain democracy, peace, security and stability” in the region”;

Further, “the Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation provides that SADC shall “promote the development of democratic institutions and practices within the territories of State Parties and encourage the observance of universal human rights as provided for in the Charter and Conventions of African Union and the United Nations”;

The SADC Principles Governing Democratic Elections aims at enhancing the transparency and credibility of elections and democratic governance, as well as ensuring the acceptance of election results by all contesting parties”; and,

In addition, these guidelines are principally informed by legal and policy instruments emanating from the African Union Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa – AHG/DECL1 (XXXVIII). The government of Zimbabwe has grossly violated each one of these provisions even though it is a signatory to all of them, and we cannot afford to allow further violations and deepening of the present crisis.

We therefore call on SADC Heads of State & Governments to prevail on the government of Zimbabwe and President Robert Mugabe to:

- Uphold regional and continental norms and protocols governing democratic elections;

- End state sponsored and politically motivated forms of violence, intimidation, arrests & detentions;

- Repeal repressive pieces of legislation such as the Access to Information Act (POSA), the Broadcasting Services Act, the Presidential and Temporary Measures Act, and the Miscellaneous Offences Act;

- Lift the suspension imposed on the operations of NGOs and other civic organizations;

- Put in place the transitional arrangements based on the outcome of the March 2008 elections that will usher in conditions necessary for democratic, free & fair Presidential Run-Off elections to take place within the next three months.

Further call on SADC Heads of State and Governments to:

- Declare presidential run-off elections and its outcome illegitimate and unacceptable;

- In concurrence with the African Union and United Nations, to send a peace-keeping force to Zimbabwe, confine Zimbabwean police and armed forces to the barracks, and disband ZANU-PF’s youth militia & war veterans and close their military base camps;

We believe that human rights, democracy, the rule of law and good governance, being the principles upon which SADC is founded should be strongly protected and that SADC Member States have an obligation to their citizens and the region to guarantee and protect these fundamental rights, and Zimbabwe has failed in all of these principles.

SADC has an obligation in terms of Article 2 (2) of the Protocol on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation to:

“Protect the people and safeguard the development of the Region against instability arising from the breakdown of law and order, intra-state conflict, inter-state conflict and aggression”;

“Prevent, contain and resolve inter-and intra-state conflict by peaceful means”; and

“Consider enforcement action in accordance with international law and as a matter of last resort where peaceful means have failed”;

We have reached a situation that, after almost ten years of mediation through “diplomatic means”, the situation in Zimbabwe has deteriorated, and we need to act now – intervention is truly a matter of our last resort - before it is too late.

We call for a consultative conference of Southern African civil society during July, in solidarity with Zimbabweans. The conference should explore concrete ways in which the Zimbabwean crisis can be ended, and given that mediations to date have failed to bear results, civil society has the responsibility to act.


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

Meeting the Abuja promise goes beyond the 15% target

Rene Loewenson and Di McIntyre

2008-07-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/49329

When the African Union (AU) Heads of State committed to allocating at least 15% of annual government budgets to their health sectors In Abuja, Nigeria in 2001, they also called on high income countries to fulfil their own commitment to devote at least 0.7% of their GNP as ODA to developing countries and to cancel Africa’s external debt in favour of increased investment in the social sector.

The Abuja target, thus, consists of three components; African countries should:

- mobilise domestic resources for health (15% now);

- unencumbered by debt servicing (Debt cancellation now); and

- be supported by ODA (0.7% GNP to ODA now).

After the significant fall in public sector funding of the health sector funding associated with structural adjustment programmes and market reforms, most African countries clearly need to increase public sector investment in health. Poorer groups have considerably worse health than the better off and economic growth and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the region is seriously undermined by the prevalence of HIV and AIDS, TB, Malaria and other diseases. Eleven of the 16 countries in east and southern Africa spend in their public sectors less than the US$34 needed for the most basic interventions for these conditions, let alone the US$80 needed for more comprehensive health services. Very few East and Southern African (ESA) countries have health care spending levels anywhere near this amount, and there are thus major unmet health needs. Ten of the sixteen countries in the region, if they met the Abuja target, would, however, increase their public financing to health above the level of US$34/capita needed for the basic health programmes.
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu stated this year:

"The AU Abuja 15% pledge is one of the most important commitments African leaders have made to health development and financing, and our Heads of State should strive to meet this pledge without further delay. The continued loss of millions of African lives annually which can be prevented is unacceptable and unsustainable. Our leaders know what they have to do. They have already pledged to do it. All they have to do now is actually do it. This is all we ask of them."

This call needs to make clear that countries are expected to spend 15% of their own funds on health, excluding external funding. As the Southern African Development Community (SADC) made clear in its regional conference on poverty this year, a public sector led response is vital to addressing the burden of ill health in the region, and for states to meet their obligations to health in Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESR) (1976). With 35% of the people living with HIV globally, the world’s worst TB infection rate, new epidemics of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), an estimated 30 million cases of malaria and 400 000 deaths from malaria, and high levels of maternal and child mortality, the demand for health care is high. without adequate domestic funding to the health sector, states will not meet ICESCR commitments for health facilities to be within safe physical reach for all sections of the population and for facilities to be affordable for all with payment based on the principle of equity.

This demand that the 15% pledge be met from national resources has not been made clearly enough. The lack of attention to this basic demand is reflected in the current monitoring of the Abuja commitment, which often combines domestic tax funding and donor funds in the category of ‘government expenditure’, including in the World Health Organisation National Health Accounts data. Tracking progress toward the Abuja target calls for accurate data on government health care expenditure from domestic funding sources to be made regularly available.

Meeting the 15% pledge is necessary, but also not sufficient:

- Unless government spending is also rising as a share of Gross Domestic product, with meaningful shares of progressive tax revenue, the 15% can be a small, and dwindling share of overall national economic resources;

- Unless governments also reprioritize spending towards district and primary health care services, with at least 50% of health spending directed to these levels, the health services that are used by the majority of poor people could continue to remain starved of resources, even as public spending begins to rise;

- Unless national spending is complemented by sustained predictable forms of global solidarity, even reaching the 15% will not be enough for many health sectors to provide adequate funding for health.

EQUINET research has shown that several countries in east and southern Africa (ESA), such as Malawi, Namibia, Zambia and Uganda, have made considerable progress in increasing domestic funding towards the Abuja target, shortly after the commitment was made. Yet ten out of sixteen ESA countries are trying to deliver health systems with public sector resources of less than $80 per capita and eight with resources below $34 per capita. Meeting the Abuja commitment would still not bring health spending above $34 per capita for six of these countries, and above $80 per capita for nine.

This is where global fairness and accountability becomes as important for health as the accountability of African states.

One reason for inadequate funding for heath is that government efforts to increase domestic funding of health services has been jeopardised by unviable debt burdens. Over the past three decades, ESA countries paid an average US$14 per capita annually in debt servicing, which in many countries is more than their average per capita spending on health. Cancelling debt is not simply a moral issue: By 2002 debt repayments from Africa had reached about four times the original 1980 debt, with a net outflow by 2000 of US$6.2 billion. The 2005 G8 summit setup the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative with a commitment to cancel 100% of outstanding multilateral debts of eligible HIPCs, with some implementation in 26 eligible countries in Africa. However this is not yet debt cancellation, and although Africa’s debt stock has fallen, total debt service obligations remained unchanged in 2006 due to rising interest rates and the debt burden continues to seriously constrain social spending. Cancelling all debt servicing obligations still remains an urgent message for those campaigning for the Abuja commitment.

Raising domestic resources for health is also limited by the significant net outflow of resources from Africa. Outflows through areas such as worsening terms of trade, outflows of skilled health workers, private finance outflows, or the depletion of natural sources, have left African in a position of net resource outflows. One form of reverse flow to health is through overseas development aid (ODA). Yet OECD countries have been slow to meet the commitment they made to contribute 0.7% of their GNP as ODA. A recent analysis of aid suggests that excluding debt relief for Nigeria, real levels of aid to sub-Saharan Africa rose by only 2% in 2006. Average contributions of 0.3% of GNP to ODA from OECD countries remained well below the 0.7% pledge, with only Sweden, Luxembourg, Norway, the Netherlands and Denmark meeting this in 2006. It is not only some African governments that are failing to meet their commitments. High income countries are, with some exceptions, also not meeting their agreed aid targets.

Meeting the Abuja promise is thus not just a call within Africa to meet the 15% target, but a call globally to cancel debt and meet the 0.7% target for ODA. Activism on the Abuja deceleration should thus be clear on all three fronts:

- African countries to mobilise domestic resources for health (15% now);

- unencumbered by debt servicing (Debt cancellation now); and

- supported by ODA (0.7% GNP to ODA now)!


*Rene Loewenson is the EQUINET Programme Manager and Di McIntyre is a Professor in the School of Public Health and Family Medicine at the University of Cape Town.

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

Zimbabwe: A good place as any to draw the line

Tajudeen Abdul Raheem

2008-07-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/49325

There has been a lot of opprobrium directed at African leaders for lacking the political will to put in check if not end Mugabe’s misrule. However I have a different take on the outcome of the recent Sharm El Sheikh Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the African Union.

Media reports and public reaction both in Africa and outside of Africa have been highly critical and dismissive of the AU resolution. For many, this was yet another unprincipled stand by the African leaders, many of whom have no better democratic credentials than those of Uncle Bob’s. So what would you expect from such a group the cynics ask? As understandable as this position is, it fails to take cognisance of the changing dynamics of intra-African diplomacy. For that failure those holding this view become unwitting allies of President Mugabe whose tainted and stale reading of Africa convince him that no African leader can criticise him.

Mugabe said this much soon after his one-man presidential run-off and his hurried ‘swearing in – just in time to rush off Egypt. He claimed that none of the leaders had cleaner hands than his, which are certainly bloody. In a sense he was daring those with cleaner hands to cast the first stone. It was desperate bravado from a man who has lost all claims to moral or political integrity. He exonerates himself not by proclaiming his innocence but declaring that he is not the only one guilty. No doubt his fellow riggers and robbers feel uncomfortable.
However it also provided opportunity for those who are not defensive about their legitimacy to speak out loudly. They did not have to have to lead big states to do so. Where President Yar’ Adua of Nigeria was silent, the newly elected President Koroma of Sierra Leone and the President of Liberia, Mrs Sir leaf Johnson, (ironically both countries enormously grateful for the role that Nigeria and the rest of ECOWAS played in restoring stability and democratisation to their countries), did not mince their words. The Vice President of Botswana, backed by Botswana’s long democratic stability remained unbowed by the deafening ‘quiet diplomacy’ of its equally democratic, potentially more influential but completely ineffectual neighbour, lame duck Thabo Mbeki’s South Africa. He spoke most forcefully and demanded that Mugabe should not be invited to future AU and forthcoming SADC meetings until there is a genuine political negotiation leading to a legitimate political transition. Again Botswana showed that you do not have to be a giant to stand up for democratic principles.

Kenya, influenced by its recent electoral theft controversies was also very open (especially PM Raila Odinga) in demanding that the AU take a more robust stance in favour of democracy. Even before the Summit countries as diverse as Rwanda, Mozambique, Angola, Kenya, and Uganda were quite open in drawing attention to the open rigging and one sided violence by the ZANU-PF government –in spite of their own internal challenges or contradictions

Even the Pan African Parliament’s Observer Mission, the normally sanguine SADC group of observers and other African Led Observers were unanimous in stating that the MUGAGE ONE MAN TANGO had set a new low standard for electoral decorum in Africa.

What does all these tell us? It means Africa, Africans and a growing number of African leaders are no longer prepared to be judged by the worst of their political culture but willing to stand up for and defend higher principles and values. A new sense of shame is again beginning to challenge us to do much better by ourselves. It is no longer enough to say others are also guilty. It is not convincing anymore to bemoan the hypocrisy of our leaders or those of the West. Bad behaviour is bad behaviour and it does not matter whether it is London, Washington, Brussels or Abuja, Pretoria, Nairobi or Kigali calling attention to it. Even among thieves there must be some rule of procedure - that is why the mafia has the iron law of ‘omerta’.

Zimbabwe and Mugabe has become the weakest link in transforming the way we relate to each other. In 1999, in of all places Algiers, the OAU leaders decided that enough was enough in regards to military coups even though some of them had come to power through such coups. Many did not think that the resolution against coups could be enforced but at Christmas time later that year, General Gueye in Ivory Coast dared Africa to act. We know what happened to him and all the other ambitious Gun Men since then.

Having outlawed coups the next step is to end the practice of undemocratic leaders perpetually remaining in office through election rigging, unconstitutional manipulations of political process and subversion of their country’s constitutions.

Where the line is drawn will be by necessity arbitrary and will invite all kinds of accusations of why now and not before. But the point is to raise the ceiling higher and establish new standards of behaviour. It is about moving forward, from an imperfect present and not looking back.

Mugabe’s extreme vulnerability makes this an ideal political opportunity to SAY NO: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. If African leaders isolate Mugabe he will have no choice but to agree to a negotiated settlement. Even in Kenya the PNU hawks initially thought that they could ride the storm and even insulted the efforts of OAU chairperson President Kuffour: But they had to bow to negotiations when they saw that both Africa and the rest of the international community were serious.

Do we have to wait until frustrated MDC and other opponents of the Mugabe dictatorship start retaliating with widespread violence before we act? It is good that no one has recognized Mugabe officially apart from that face of Africa’s inglorious past, Omar Bongo (in power for more than four decades!). Those states and leaders who have been courageous enough to openly criticise Mugabe’s vote grab should take the next step and refuse to recognise his election.

The AU and SADC must decide quickly what to do with Mugabe’s electoral theft otherwise no one will take their future observer missions seriously. No person of integrity will serve in such missions if those who send them will not accept their findings – and act on them. Tax payers, funders and other donors should demand a refund of their money or charge the officials of these organisations with misuse of public funds if they spend so much money observing ‘selections’ without any sanctions for defaulters.

Finally it is quite clear that Thabo Mbeki is incapable of being an honest broker for genuine negotiations in Zimbabwe. Mugabe has not given him much to work with and it is obvious that the MDC does not trust him. Mbeki does not even have the full support of his own party let alone South Africa. He has even less support amongst SADC countries. The AU needs to assume leadership of the process just as it did in Kenya when Museveni as EAC chairperson failed to make any headway due to his perceived bias.


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



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

Kenya: Release our civil society colleagues

Mars Group Kenya

2008-07-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/49331

We demand the unconditional release of our patriotic colleagues in the civil society who were brutally manhandled and arrested this morning as they exercised their constitutional rights to demand the resignation of Amos Kimunya as Finance Minister.

Their right to freedom of peaceable assembly was brutally violated by members of the Kenya Police. We demand their unconditional release for they have committed no crime. The Police officers who directed the assault on Ann Njogu and her colleagues must be subjected to appropriate discipline by the Commissioner of Police.

Kenya is not a Police State and Kenyans will not surrender their constitutional freedoms or their right to complain against wrongdoing, or to speak against grand corruption and impunity.

The arrested members of the civil society must be released. In any event the man they were protesting against, former Finance Minister Amos Kimunya has resigned his office and stepped aside to facilitate investigations into the subject matter of the protest of civil society.

In the spirit of a transparent enquiry into the role played by numerous public officers and institutions in the grand corruption saga that is the Grand Regency Hotel ‘handover’ and sale, it is morally and legally right that no one should be punished for speaking out for the Kenyan people in their time of need.

* For more information, please visit - www.marsgroupkenya.org

Mugabe is the puppet!

Lucky Moyo

2008-07-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/49333

As a Zimbabwean it is really encouraging to see and hear fellow Pan -Africanists differentiate between Mugabe 's ideals and his actions and the quest for freedoms for African peoples.

The article, Pan-Africanists: Our collective duty to Zimbabwe, is great but it really needed to show that cunning and foxy Mugabe only moves with the tide and does all this only to keep himself in power and for his own selfish interests. One only needs to look at the Mugabe who worked for and was a darling of Western interest soon after independence and went on killing not only the Ndebeles whose leadership was pro-Soviet Union at the times but also dumped every freedom fighter who fought for Zimbabwe' s independence.

He never attended any local cultural event but went into every cricket match and would go shopping in the UK I do not know how many times. It was only when the freedom fighters held him captive that he paid them the Z$50,000 gratuities. Even the land issue was not Mugabe idea but the freedom fighters. Mugabe only followed suit. Doing otherwise would have weakened him.

On Tsvangirai being labelled a puppet of the West, again Mugabe was always one good western puppet because he would come to the west to blackmail Nkomo and Zapu and accuse them being pro-communist and wanting to grab land. This is why Nkomo was called 'child of the soil.'

One would like to believe that is how Mugabe became a darling here and was awarded degrees and knighthoods. He then fell out with his western masters when he could not dance to their tunes and protect their interest. A close look at even the recent events would reveal some of Zanu' big financers are British.

So who is the really is a puppet here? Is Mugabe not just playing fox. Finally, liberators should not be sole owners of that liberation. Mugabe must understand that even my grandmother in Chipinge fought for the independence of Zimbabwe but she cannot hold on to it as if it is a private unlimited.

Pan -Africanist need a bigger, in depth discussion on such issues -otherwise the likes of Mugabe will hijack all this for their own selfish agenda. And to criticise or differ in views with Mugabe is still Pan African.

I stand to be corrected and if need be, to be humbled.

The African left and Mugabe

Tee Ngugi

2008-07-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/49332

In response to Zimbabwe: What are we saying?: In 1999, I wrote an article published in The Namibian newspaper calling the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe another chapter in Africa's narrative of dictatorship and murder. The others being the regimes of Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Kaunda, etc.

Leftist ideologues reacted with predictable horror. The problem why dictators like Mugabe will continue to thrive in Africa is because we make excuses for them. They are nationalists, socialists, or Africanists, etc. This kind of argumentation ridiculously suggests that it is okay for a leftist, nationalist or Africanist to murder and pillage. It is only wrong when the killing is done by an imperialist.

The Left, especially African Left, must reposition itself to help in creating Africa's future. As presently constituted, the Left has provided the philosophical and ideological justification for various murderous regimes.

Journalist in Senegal in danger - open letter

Committee to Protect Journalists

2008-07-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/49328

His Excellency Abdoulaye Wade
President of the Republic of Senegal
c/o Embassy of the Republic of Senegal to the United States
2112 Wyoming Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20008

Dear Mr. President,

Following the brutal beating of two Senegalese journalists by police after a soccer match on Saturday, we are writing to express our alarm at an increasing pattern of physical attacks and threats against independent journalists in the line of duty in recent weeks and months. Thorough, transparent police investigations or prosecutions of these abuses have seldom taken place. We are deeply concerned about an ongoing culture of impunity for crimes against journalists. Sports editor Babacar Kambel Dieng of Radio Futurs Médias (RFM) ad reporter Kara Thioune of bilingual station West Africa Democracy Radio, are still recovering from injuries inflicted by policemen following a World Cup soccer qualifier match against Liberia on Saturday evening.

Plainclothes officers from the police’s Multipurpose Intervention Brigade attacked Dieng and Thioune while they were interviewing Senegal defender Pape Malikou Diakhaté, according to local news reports. The journalists told CPJ the officers used tasers on them, then punched, kicked and handcuffed them after they refused to obey an order to immediately leave the area and proceed to a post-game conference hall. They were dragged to a secluded room, and further beaten while handcuffed, they told CPJ. Dieng’s voice recorder accidentally captured the sounds of the beating, which was later broadcast on a local radio station.
Dieng and Thioune were released nearly two hours later following negotiations between journalists and the police, according to editor Aliou Goloko, a member of Senegal’s sports press association. Goloko led a media boycott of the post-game press conference to protest the attack. RFM has filed a complaint with the police, editor in chief Alassane Diop told CPJ.

Reacting to the incident, Interior Ministry Cheikh Tidiane Sy announced the launch of an investigation into the matter, according to local media reports. “Proof must be established so that we can act according to the law,” state-run daily Le Soleil quoted him as saying. Information Minister Abdoul Aziz Sow told CPJ that the government would await the results of the investigation. The private daily Le Quotidien later quoted him as saying that “the safety of information and communication professionals remains an essential concern of the government, and chiefly of the head of state and the prime minister.”

Despite these encouraging public statements, we are deeply concerned about the incident and a series of recent verbal and physical attacks on independent journalists by top officials, security forces, and influential religious authorities. In fact, Dieng and Thioune were not the first journalists to be brutalized by security forces this year. Riot police used tasers on Walf TV reporter Ousmane Mangane on March 30 as he was attempting to interview an opposition member of parliament, Mously Diakhaté, on live television during an anti-government demonstration in Dakar.

On June 3, during an international conference on World Food Security in Rome, you threatened editor Yakham Mbaye of the daily Le Populaire in front of several reporters, according to Senegalese journalists who were present at the scene and recorded your words: “You there, don’t ask me any questions. Leave me alone. I don’t answers questions from you. If you ask me a question, you’ll see. Let this be the last time you try to ask me a question.” Le Populaire is known for its critical coverage of the government, according to local journalists.

Last year, three members of the former government, namely Hydraulics Minister Adama Sall, former Transport Minister Farba Senghor, and ruling party politician Moustapha Cissé Lô, threatened journalists over critical coverage, but none were ever publicly held accountable or questioned by police despite complaints filed against them, according to CPJ research. Sall sent a threatening note to the offices of the private weekly magazine Weekend; Senghor threatened over a newsroom speakerphone to “beat up” private daily Walf Grand-Place’s reporter Pape Sambaré Ndour, after calling the journalist a “bastard;” and Lô threatened to harm any journalist of Radio Disso FM who would mention his name in response to a critical broadcast, and he warned that he would “send vandals to ransack your radio.”

Journalists covering the activities of Senegal’s politically influential Mouride Muslim brotherhood have also been attacked or threatened. Reporter Babou Birame Faye of the weekly magazine Weekend was punched on June 13 by Serigne Bara Mbacké, the Mouride leader, or caliph, while seeking to interview him in the town of Mbacké, east of Dakar, according to news reports and local journalists. Faye was not injured and the caliph apologized, according to local journalists. The incident came after Weekend Publisher Madiambal Diagne filed a complaint in April reporting death threats from Mouride followers over an interview with a wife of the caliph, according to media reports. Police allegedly dismissed Diagne’s claims as “distractions,” he told CPJ.

We are concerned that a number of complaints filed by several journalists in connection with these incidents have never been thoroughly and transparently investigated, and that the responsible officials and security forces have not been held publicly accountable for their actions. For instance, a complaint filed by RFM reporter Pape Cheikh Fall, who was attacked in May 2006 by Mouride disciples armed with metal cables over a report criticizing the group’s aggressive support of your administration, has never been investigated either, according to local journalists.

In a telephone interview with CPJ this week, Senegalese Information Minister Sow acknowledged that investigations of attacks against journalists were not thoroughly conducted, but declared that the government had committed itself to mediation to amicably resolve disputes. As an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting our colleagues worldwide, we are calling on you to use your influence to ensure that those intimidating journalists are brought to justice within the framework of the legal system.

In this environment of threats and intimidation, we are very concerned that you made a personal threat against journalist Yakham Mbaye. We respectfully ask that you refrain from such behavior and instead use your influence to ensure that anyone who harasses and attacks journalists is brought to justice within the framework of the legal system.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter. We await your reply.

Sincerely,
Joel Simon
Executive Director

CC:
H.E. Abdoul Aziz Sow, Minister of Information of the Republic of Senegal
H.E. Paul Badji, Permanent Representative of Senegal to the United Nations
H.E. Amadou Lamine Ba, Ambassador of Senegal to the United States
H.E. Jay Thomas Smith, U.S. Chargé d’affaires a.i. to the Republic of Senegal
H.E. Jean-Christophe Rufin, Ambassador of France to the Republic of Senegal
Rama Yade, French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights
Faith Pansy Tlakula, African Commission Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression
Reine Alapini-Gansou, African Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders
Media Foundation of West Africa
West Africa Journalists Association
American Society of Newspaper Editors
Amnesty International
Article 19 (United Kingdom)
Artikel 19 (The Netherlands)
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
Freedom of Expression and Democracy Unit, UNESCO
Freedom Forum
Freedom House
Human Rights Watch
Index on Censorship
International Center for Journalists
International Federation of Journalists
International PEN
International Press Institute
David J. Kramer, U.S. Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
The Newspaper Guild
The North American Broadcasters Association
Overseas Press Club

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

Biko Lives!

2008-07-12

http://www.palgrave-usa.com/catalog/product.aspx?isbn=0230606490

This collection looks at the on-going significance of Black Consciousness, situating it in a global frame, examining the legacy of Steve Biko, the current state of post-apartheid South African politics, and the culture and history of the anti-apartheid movements.

The Story of Priya Ramrakha, Forgotten Kenyan Photojournalist

2008-07-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/49365

African Lens,The Story of Priya Ramrakha commemorates the work of a remarkable photographer who defined his career by embracing the people and events of Africa as a personal subject. One of Africa's first international photojournalists, Ramrakha traveled the continent, documenting the lives of ordinary people for the world press.
AFRICAN LENS: THE STORY OF PRIYA RAMRAKHA
(55 minutes)
a film by Shravan Vidyarthi

Zanzibar International Film Festival
July 14th, 2008 at 11:15 AM
House of Wonders
Stone Town
Zanzibar

African Lens,The Story of Priya Ramrakha commemorates the work of a remarkable photographer who defined his career by embracing the people and events of Africa as a personal subject. One of Africa's first international photojournalists, Ramrakha traveled the continent, documenting the lives of ordinary people for the world press.

In 1968, Priya was killed while on assignment for Life magazine, covering the civil war in Biafra, Nigeria. He was 33 years old.

Since his death, Priya's work has never been displayed. His stunning portraits of African life were never exhibited. His photographs for Life magazine were never republished. Until now, his story has never been told.

The film features rare archival images and newsreels from 1950's and 1960's Africa, as well as interviews with various photographers, journalists and historians, including Morley Safer (CBS News), Dr. Ali Mazrui (African Studies scholar), the late Achieng Oneko (Editor of Ramogi Newspaper), Chester Higgins Junior (New York Times photographer), Paul Theroux (author), and Peter Sissons, (former ITN correspondent.)

Trailer:

http://www.priyaphoto.com/AfricanLensTrailer.mov

For further information please contact Shravan Vidyarthi: vidyarts@yahoo.com

African Blog Review, July 9, 2008

Dibussi Tande

2008-07-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/49351

Kumekucha comments on the resignation of Kenyan Finance Minister, Amos Kimunya, following allegations of financial impropriety in the sale of the Grand Regency Hotel in Nairobi:

“… it is important to understand that history was made yesterday. Never in the history of the nation has parliament on its own volition or initiative caused the resignation of a cabinet minister in defiance of the executive… In the often quoted case of former Vice President and now deceased, Dr Josephat Karanja, the plot to censure him was hatched in State House as crafty former President Moi wanted to get rid of his VP without risking a fallout amongst the powerful Kikuyus whom Moi greatly feared throughout his reign. So he got some MP to move the motion in parliament and gave the necessary instructions through the house which was then a mere rubber stamp of the executive.

This was not the case this time. In fact, if truth be told, the house was packed yesterday because members were expecting fireworks. Kimunya’s hurried resignation just before parliament’s first session of the week in the afternoon was no coincidence. The timing speaks volumes and tells me that State house is getting a little anxious. And the main reason has more to do with the naming of certain names that State House does not want to see named in connection to the Grand Regency.

But Kenyans need to be even more vigilant now. Will we get to the bottom of the Grand Regency saga? That should be the top priority that we must pursue now with all diligence.

To answer that question, there is an ominous sign to look out for. That sign is who gets appointed to replace Kimunya... If the new Finance Minister is from the ODM arm of the Grand coalition government then Kenyans will need to head to the hills because that will be a ‘grand bribe’ to ‘maliza hio maneno ya Grand Regency’. We can breathe a wee bit easier if Kimunya’s replacement is from PNU.”


Expose Uganda Genocide
Reacting to praise heaped on Uganda’s national policy on the displaced by Mukirya Nyanduga, Commissioner for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Africa, Expose Uganda Genocide argues that the camps for IDPs in Uganda have caused more deaths than the LRA, and describes the Commissioner’s statement as “Aiding and Abetting Genocide” and “Distorting History of IDPs”:

“In a stunning pronouncement this week, a visiting diplomat has hailed the IDP policy created by government officials.

In reality, an extreme lack of water, sanitation and health care has cultivated disease epidemics, caused thousands of preventable deaths and produced thousands of highly malnourished children unable to enjoy their right to protection, health and education.

Conditions in these camps have caused the most deaths in the long-running civil war been the Ugandan Government and the Lord's Resistance Army.”


Constitutionally Speaking comments on the ban by South Africa’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of an advert for Peach Mobile depicting President Robert Mugabe as a caged gorilla. According to the ASA, the ad demeans and lowers Mugabe’s dignity and “portrays the president of a country, as a gorilla”:

“I agree that the advert is beyond the pale. In the context of deeply entrenched racism and xenophobia in South Africa the depiction of a black man as a gorilla must surely be offensive to any decent and right thinking person. It perpetuates deeply offensive and dangerous stereotypes about Africans as animals.

But I must say I find the reasoning of ASA as reported in The Times quite absurd.
The problem is not that the advert lowers the dignity of Mugabe, or that it lowers the dignity of a ‘President’…

The advert is offensive because it perpetrates stereotypes of Africans in general. Its only redeeming feature is that it might lower the dignity of Mugabe as a person and might offend him. And the fact that he is the ‘President’ of another country should also really not be relevant. In a country based on the Rule of Law, Presidents do not have more right to dignity than the rest of us because we are all equal before the law.

Mugabe is a dictator and it should be perfectly acceptable in an open and democratic society to make fun of or ridicule - even in quite a harsh manner - the murderous dictator of another country. An advert showing Mugabe with blood dripping from his hands, for example, will lower his dignity, but should surely be acceptable as long as the subtext of the advert is not that all or many Africans share the murderous inclinations of the ‘President’ up North…

It all depends on the context in which the mocking is done. Mocking a dictator in a way that merely perpetuates stereotypes about Africa or Africans is therefore beyond the pale. It is sad that ASA cannot see this distinction.”


Palapala Magazine a recent addition to the African blogosphere, interviews Abidemi Olowonira, a Houston-based Nigerian visual artist, about the role of artists in reviving and preserving collective memory in Africa. According to Olowonira,

“Remembrance has always been a binding factor in African societies. A lot of Africans are named after their ancestors and events that occurred around the time the child was born. So, as the child grows, he or she becomes a walking reminder of a particular incident or a particular ancestor. In contrast to the West where everything is fast, Africa retains its past.

When you consider the trauma of slavery and colonialism on Africa it is very difficult for the African artist not to make remembrance an aspect of their work. Personally, even though I address 'in-the-moment' experiences, I still pull a lot of inspiration from my childhood experiences and my parents experiences, retained through stories. In fact, I also get inspiration from my grandmother's experiences. For instance, I use the 'bush lamp' in my paintings as a symbol from a parable my grandmother shared with me: ‘The person who turns on the light is a hero but the one who turns it off is the villain.’ At night in African markets, people use the 'bush lamp' to sell their wares. I think it is a way for us to retain our humanity in spite of our circumstances. Light becomes a significant symbol in our experience. When you see a bush lamp at night it symbolizes life, security and hope. So, if those lights are extinguished, they'll be chaos because that is the only way people can identify a path on which they can walk. I use light in my paintings to illustrate its importance in the African experience.”


Scribbles from the Den reviews a new documentary by George Ngwane about Kuva Likenye, King of the Bakweri ethnic group of Buea (Cameroon) whose ragtag army defeated a German-led force in the little-known battle of Buea of 1891, and as a result, slowed down German colonial designs on Cameroon.

“Over a century after Kuva imposed his veto on German penetration of Bakweriland, Cameroonian historians have still not fully grasped the significance of that veto whose importance on the German colonial enterprise was immense. As Edwin Ardener points out in Kingdom on Mount Cameroon:

‘… the waste of [the German] expedition had serious repercussions. It should have been used to go far into the interior to counteract French movements. In March 1894, Germany signed an agreement with France that fixed the eastern boundary of Kamerun far more narrowly than once had been hoped for. The official memorandum on the treaty contained a withering catalogue of the ineffectiveness of German colonial expeditions compared to those of the French. The home negotiators had, as a result, no serious territorial claims in north and east to offer. The Zingraff and Granvenreuth expeditions were singled out as failures in this respect…

Kuva’s case is of more than local interest. This remote and ideologically merely intuitive tribesman held up the march of events, by an unexpected veto on the foreign economic exploitation of the mountain. The veto only ended with his death. During its existence, it revealed serious weaknesses in German Colonial administrative and military practice… the resistance of the mountain people provided one of the important shocks of the early colonial system in Kamerun. As a resistance movement, it was before its time…’

Unfortunately… Kuva’s story is largely confined to books written by European historians and missionaries. It is this theme of erased collective memory and historical amnesia that sociologist Daniel Matute addresses in the documentary as he laments that there is no statue, not even a commemorative plaque, to remember Kuva Likenye…

With this documentary, Ngwane joins a growing list of African writers, cinematographers, etc., who are determined to tell their stories from their own perspective rather than leaving it up to non-Africans to do so…”


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

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

AU resolution on Zimbabwe

2008-07-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/49356

The African Union Assembly, meeting in its 11th Ordinary Session held on June 30 to July 1, 2008 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt,
DEEPLY CONCERNED with the prevailing situation in Zimbabwe;
DEEPLY CONCERNED with the negative reports of SADC, the African Union and the Pan-African Parliament observers on the Zimbabwean Presidential run-off election held on June 27, 2008;
DEEPLY CONCERNED about the violence and the loss of life that has occurred in Zimbabwe...
AU SUMMIT RESOLUTION ON ZIMBABWE
The African Union Assembly, meeting in its 11th Ordinary Session held on June 30 to July 1, 2008 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt,
DEEPLY CONCERNED with the prevailing situation in Zimbabwe;
DEEPLY CONCERNED with the negative reports of SADC, the African Union and the Pan-African Parliament observers on the Zimbabwean Presidential run-off election held on June 27, 2008;
DEEPLY CONCERNED about the violence and the loss of life that has occurred in Zimbabwe.
CONSIDERING the urgent need to prevent further worsening of the situation and with a view to avoid spread of conflict with the consequential negative impact on the country and the sub-region;
FURTHER CONSIDERING the need to create an environment conducive for democracy, as well as the development of the people of Zimbabwe;
EXPRESSING its appreciation to SADC, and its Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation, as well as the Facilitator of the intra-Zimbabwe dialogue, His Excellency Thabo Mbeki, President of the Republic of South Africa, and His Excellency Jean Ping, Chairperson of the African Union Commission for the ongoing work aimed at reconciling the political parties;
RECOGNISING the complexity of the situation in Zimbabwe;
NOTING the willingness of the political leaders of Zimbabwe to enter into negotiations to establish a Government of National Unity;
NOTING FURTHER the preparatory discussions on this matter had already started, under SADC facilitation;
Hereby decide:
1. TO ENCOURAGE President Robert Mugabe and the leader of the MDC Party Mr Morgan Tsvangirai to honour their commitment to initiate dialogue with a view to promoting peace, stability, democracy and the reconciliation of the Zimbabwean people;
2. TO SUPPORT the call, for the creation of a Government of National Unity;
3. TO SUPPORT the SADC Facilitation, and to recommend that SADC mediation efforts should be continued in order to resolve the problems they are facing. In this regard SADC should establish a mechanism on the ground in order to seize the momentum for a negotiated solution;
4. TO APPEAL to states and all parties concerned to refrain from any action that may negatively impact on the climate of dialogue;
5. In the spirit of all SADC initiatives, the AU remains convinced that the people of Zimbabwe will be able to resolve their differences and work together once again as one Nation, provided they receive undivided support from SADC, the AU and the world at large.

Pan-African Campaign of Solidarity for Zimbabwe

Launch: Saturday 12 July 2008

2008-07-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/49360

On Saturday 12 July 2008, following a call by CIVICUS: World Alliance For Citizen Participation, Amnesty International and the Global Call for Action Against Poverty (GCAP), citizens of Africa will unite to express their solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe who are suffering persistent violations of their rights. Saturday represents the launch of a Pan-African Campaign of Solidarity for Zimbabwe, and will be followed by events continent-wide.
Pan-African Campaign of Solidarity for Zimbabwe

Launch: Saturday 12 July 2008


On Saturday 12 July 2008, following a call by CIVICUS: World Alliance For Citizen Participation, Amnesty International and the Global Call for Action Against Poverty (GCAP), citizens of Africa will unite to express their solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe who are suffering persistent violations of their rights. Saturday represents the launch of a Pan-African Campaign of Solidarity for Zimbabwe, and will be followed by events continent-wide.

The widespread killings, torture and intimidation of the political opposition that characterised the presidential election run-off on June 27 cannot be condoned under any circumstances. “By flagrantly and consistently violating the values upon which present day Africa is premised, Mr Mugabe has done great disservice to the people of Zimbabwe and the continent. We believe it is the responsibility of all Africans to urgently put a stop to Mr Mugabe’s anti-democratic activities” said Kumi Naidoo Honorary President of CIVICUS.

“The widespread killings, torture and assault of perceived opposition supporters must come to an end in Zimbabwe. Concrete action is long overdue and African leaders must end their silent acquiescence,” said Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

In this hour of crisis, the people of Africa stand together with the people of Zimbabwe. “We urge African leaders to call for space to be opened up so that civil society can play a role in tackling Zimbabwe’s current crisis – we are needed now more than ever as millions of people face hunger through growing food insecurity brought on by mis-governance.” said Adelaide Sosseh, GCAP Co-chair based in The Gambia.

Saturday’s Pan-African events will express the concern of people continent-wide for the situation in Zimbabwe, and demonstrate the unity with which Africans stand against the violations committed against Zimbabwe’s people. It represents the beginning of an Africa-wide campaign at the grassroots level, allowing African voices to speak out about injustice in Zimbabwe.






Campaign Resources:

There are a growing number of African voices speaking out against the suffering in Zimbabwe and demanding action from the African Union, the Southern African Development Community and individual African governments. The types of action that they are calling for include:

* Appointment of an independent commission of inquiry to look into the recent human rights violations and abuses
* Posting of human rights monitors to report on the current situation
* Urge a solution to the present political crisis and deep divisions amongst the people of Zimbabwe in the spirit of reconciliation and dialogue
* Restoration of the independence of the judiciary and accountability of security forces and law enforcement agencies



There will be a range of activities taking place across the African continent on Saturday 12 July 2008, organised by local civil society organisations and concerned citizens. The expressions of solidarity that they will be making include:

* Organising vigils outside the Zimbabwean embassies
* Assembling outside government buildings or Houses of Parliament urging national governments to play a more active role on Zimbabwe
* Meetings with heads of state, parliamentarians or local governments to urge action on Zimbabwe
* Publishing articles or letters in the national or local press on violations of human and people’s rights in Zimbabwe
* Organising press conferences with civil society representatives, government representatives and other experts on Zimbabwe
* Issuing a press releases urging action on Zimbabwe
* Directing people to sign a petition or take an e-action
* Presenting memorandums or submissions to the African Union, Southern African Development Community and national governments

Security Councils fails to adopt sanctions

2008-07-12

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MUMA-7GG48Z?OpenDocument

A Security Council measure intended to impose sanctions against Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe failed when two of the 15-member body's permanent members –- China and the Russian Federation –- voted against a draft resolution that would also have imposed an arms embargo on the country, as well as a travel ban and financial freeze against the President and 13 senior Government and security officials considered most responsible for the violent crisis there.

Sirleaf urges leaders to sanction Mugabe

2008-07-12

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/19412

Africa's only female President Liberian Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has urged world leaders to back targeted sanctions against members of Zimbabwe ZANU-PF Government. President Sirleaf was speaking to reporters in South Africa during her short visit to attend the 6th Nelson Mandela annual lecture at Walter Sisulu square in Kliptown, Soweto.

Africa and the G8

Issue 143, 2008 - Weekly Roundup of AU Monitor

2008-07-10

http://www.aumonitor.org

The African Union (AU) chairman, President Jakaya Kikwete led a team of seven African presidents to the G8 summit in Japan that had food and oil crises, climate change and attainment of Millennium Development Goals on the top of their agenda. Kikwete urged the G8, group of eight most industrialised countries, ‘to nurture and fulfil their promises if they were really concerned about Africa’s development’. ‘The G8 has been accused by activists of reneging on the promise made at its 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, to double aid by 2010 to $50 billion, half of which would go to Africa’. Meanwhile, a momentous plan of action, initiated by the United Nations (UN), estimated at $72 billion a year in external funding to help Africa win the battle against poverty and invest in agriculture, education, health and infrastructure, has been launched at the just concluded AU summit. The AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping said ‘African leaders were looking to the Group of Eight to turn their existing promises into act’ to help the plan initiated by the UN and other partners work.

On the other hand, the AU Commission Chair Jean Ping and President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa are expected in Zimbabwe to initiate dialogue between the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe. African leaders attending the G8 summit have expressed their concern about the move, spearheaded by western leaders, to sanction Zimbabwe through the UN Security Council. Speaking at the summit, President Kikwete said that ‘although many leaders in Africa had expressed their dissatisfaction at the way things happened in Zimbabwe’, they differed with G8 leaders ‘on the way forward’. Furthermore, the AU Chairman will hold talks with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about the crisis in Zimbabwe. Possible agenda items for the discussion will be the replacement of President Thabo Mbeki as chief mediator. Potential candidates include former UN Chief Kofi Annan, former Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano or Ghanaian president John Kufour.

In business related news, Cameroon is hosting Africa’s International Economic Forum with the theme: ‘Investments and Industrial Partnerships in Africa: Assessment and Perspectives’. The forum is expected to promote investment in Africa as well as to improve the level of technology transfer in the continent. Cameroon will also seat the headquarters of the African Monetary Fund established with ‘the sole aim of promoting trade within the African continent’ by achieving ‘African economic autonomy’ and ‘setting achievable economic objectives’. Meanwhile, a report commissioned by the French government has strongly criticised the economic partnership agreements between the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. Christiane Taubira, a member of the French parliament who authored the report, recommended greater emphasis on social and economic development within the agreements. Hans Herren, of the U.S.-based Millennium Institute, has called for ‘caution to be exercised in developing African food production to avoid long-term social and environmental harm’. He expressed his fear that ‘the whole crisis around food and food prices will just promote quick fixes that are not really dealing with the causes’.

Finally, AU has endorsed Uganda as non-permanent member to the UN Security Council for 2009/2010. Still, Uganda needs to win the support from the 5 permanent members of the Security Council. Uganda was also endorsed to host the AU summit in 2010.

From the AU Summit

Special Issue: AU Monitor Weekly

2008-07-08

http://www.aumonitor.org

The Permanent Representatives Committee (PRC) met between June 24-25 in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, ahead of the Executive Council (EC) that was to take major decisions ‘to breath fresh life into several organs of the continental body, and remove doubts over its efficiency’. According to the PRC Chairman, Tanzanian Ambassador Mohamed Maundi, the PRC meeting accepted 19 recommendations on the Audit reported, rejected 22 recommendations and referred 52 of them to the AU Commission. The President of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, expressing himself at the opening of the Assembly of heads of state and government, outlined major reforms he intends to undertake to improve his institution. He mentioned the importance of taking into consideration the recommendations suggested in the AU Audit report and giving priority to the values of competence, experience, efficiency and justice, as well as devotion to the AU.

The Peace and Security Council (PSC) presented their report on the security situation in Africa to the Assembly. Within the report were mixed findings on the progress of peace and security on the continent: countries like Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, Central African Republic and Comoros showing improvements and, yet, new tensions arising in countries such Sudan, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo, with ‘persistent deadlock’ being recorded between Ethiopia and Eritrea. ‘On Kenya, the report said the post-election crisis in the country was overcome with the signing, on 28 February, of the national accord and the reconciliation law.’

The Eleventh summit of the heads of state and government was overshadowed by the presence of the Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe recently sworn in after a one man presidential run-off election. The chairperson of the AU, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, appealed to the international community to work with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the search for a solution to the crisis in Zimbabwe. The UN Deputy Secretary General Asha-Rose Migiro also echoed his sentiment by urging the leaders to seek a negotiated solution. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch called for African leaders to impose sanctions against Mugabe and refuse to recognise his legitimacy while the United States urged the AU to denounce President Robert Mugabe’s inauguration. The US also strongly condemn ‘the actions of the Mugabe regime, which continues to reject the will of the Zimbabwean people, abuse their human rights, and deny them humanitarian assistance’. Stronger calls to intervene in the Zimbabwe situation came from two legal opinions commissioned by the Southern African Litigation Centre, based in Johannesburg. The opinions declared the run-off election unconstitutional. While ‘a case can be made for an AU intervention under the “Declaration on the Framework for an OAU Response to Unconstitutional Changes of Government,” signed in Lomé, Togo in 2000 and endorsed by the Zimbabwe Government’, ‘the role of SADC leaders will be paramount in supporting an AU intervention’. However, the 15-member PSC failed to reach a decision and referred the ‘thorny issue of how to deal with Mugabe’ to the Assembly of heads of state and government.

African leaders were divided on Zimbabwe and refrained from criticising Mugabe outrightly. Nevertheless, some leaders openly criticised Mugabe, such as Kenyan Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, and Vice President Mompati Merafhe of Botswana who said that allowing him to participate in the AU summit gave "unqualified legitimacy to a process which cannot be considered legitimate." Others such as South African President Thabo Mbeki opted for continued dialogue. The AU eventually reached a compromise decision calling on Zimbabwe’s political parties to initiate a dialogue aimed at establishing a government of national unity. Suggesting the Kenyan model to solve the electoral crisis of Zimbabwe, the AU Chairperson and president of Tanzanian led others in praising the Kenyan President and Prime Minister for having put the country’s welfare before their personal interests in forming a coalition government. Leaders also expressed ‘caution that conflicts arising from disputed elections were on the rise and a mechanism for reducing or avoiding such incidents should be developed at the continental level’.

In other news from the summit, the Senegal’s senior Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, a key advocate of the Union Government said some fifteen AU member states or so that are ready for the establishment of a Union Government should be allowed to go ahead stating that the failure to act now would hinder Africa’s unity. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade echoed his minister saying that ‘the African federal government will be set up next January by those countries that are ready to do so’. His announcement followed a compromise by the heads of state and government who directed the chairman of the AU Commission, Jean Ping, to draw up a report on the road map and mechanism for the establishment of a continental government. Ping is expected to present his report during the January 2009 summit.

Side meetings of the summit also included the African Peer Review Mechanism, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee and the Organization of African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS, among others. Finally, AU leaders paid tribute to the late Aimé Césaire, a poet and humanist from Martinique, who died on 17 April last at the age of 94.

Global summit told of billions needed for mothers

2008-07-12

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3659/context/cover/

Governments and advocacy groups rallied to lobby leaders of of the G8 for billions of dollars to help prevent maternal deaths, the leading killer of women of childbearing age in developing nations. The G-8 economic summit of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States convened for three days beginning July 7 in Hokkaido Toyako, Japan.

Kenya: Mothers point to police as sons go missing

2008-07-12

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3665

For Kenya's police force--struggling to keep the peace in a nation traumatized by post-election violence that tore open ethnic fault lines--a handful of middle-aged mothers from the slums of Nairobi make a strange sort of target. "We are Kenya's four most wanted," said a 43-year-old woman who sells traditional wrap skirts for a living. She called herself Mary, saying the police would come for her if she gave her real name.

Kenya: Stopping sexual violence against women need practical approches

2008-07-12

http://www.awcfs.org/content/view/450/1/

The Launch of the Gender-Based Violence Recovery Centre by Kenyatta National Hospital and other stakeholders is a milestone for Kenyan women who have been suffering silently without knowing where to seek suport and treatment after sexual violation. The establishment of the centre is very unique, as it is the first of its kind that offers a comprehensive approach to the management of women and girls who have been sexually violated.

Mozambique: Men's talk about "Women's Matters"

2008-07-11

http://www.comminit.com/en/node/219916/38

This study investigates the role of men in reproductive and contraceptive changes in urban Mozambique by analysing man-to-man communication on family planning issues. According to the author, the literature on issues related to family planning in sub-Saharan Africa does indeed recognise male partners' opinions and choices as an important factor in shaping couple's reproductive and contraceptive practices.

Zambia: Court reaches landmark decision in teacher rape case

2008-07-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/49364

On 30 June 2008, the High Court of Zambia reached a groundbreaking decision in favor of a girl known as R.M. who was raped by her teacher at age 13. International human rights organization Equality Now has been actively involved in advocacy on behalf of R.M. The organization commends Judge Phillip Musonda for his landmark decision, which will have far-reaching implications in ensuring protection for girls from teacher rape and justice for girls who are raped by their teachers, a phenomenon not uncommon in Zambia and other countries.
Zambian court reaches landmark decision in teacher rape case
Girl prevails in suit against teacher winning K45 million ($14,000). Judge also calls for action by ministry of education and refers case to public prosecutor

On 30 June 2008, the High Court of Zambia reached a groundbreaking decision in favor of a girl known as R.M. who was raped by her teacher at age 13. International human rights organization Equality Now has been actively involved in advocacy on behalf of R.M. The organization commends Judge Phillip Musonda for his landmark decision, which will have far-reaching implications in ensuring protection for girls from teacher rape and justice for girls who are raped by their teachers, a phenomenon not uncommon in Zambia and other countries.

In February 2006, R.M., aged 13, had requested her school papers from her teacher Edward Hakasenke. Hakasenke did not bring the papers to school despite reminders on three separate occasions, then inviting R.M. to collect the papers in his home where he raped her. R.M. was afraid to talk about the incident with anyone at first. She later developed a sexually transmitted infection as a result of the rape and needed help. She confided in two teachers who informed her aunt, who then brought the matter to the attention of the Headmaster. Hakasenke told the Headmaster that R.M. was his “girlfriend.” He later went into hiding and was subsequently detained by the police but only briefly and has not been charged with a criminal offense. At the meeting, the Headmaster told Hakasenke that he had been warned before, referring to a prior relationship with another girl in the school.

In March 2006, through her guardian (aunt), Petronella Mwamba and represented by pro bono counsel Kelvin Bwalya, R.M. filed a historic civil suit in Zambia. She called for accountability not just from the rapist but also from her school and from the Ministry of Education. R.M. claimed damages from Hakasenke for personal injury and emotional distress. She also demanded that the school be held accountable for negligence noting that the Headmaster knew that Hakasenke had a history of sexually abusing his students in the school yet had not taken steps to prevent further incidents and effectively protect the girls. R.M. had wanted her case to set a legal precedent so that girls in Zambia will have protection and girls raped by their teachers will have meaningful recourse. To this end her lawsuit called on the Ministry of Education to issue preventive guidelines.

On 30 June 2008, Judge Philip Musonda of the High Court in Lusaka issued his decision awarding R.M. damages worth K45, 000,000. Calling the failure of the police to prosecute Hakasenke “a dereliction of duty,” the judge also referred the case to the Director of Public Prosecutions for a possible criminal prosecution. He further urged the Ministry of Education to set “regulations, which may stem such acts.”
Expanding on the national significance of this case Faiza Jama Mohamed, Equality Now’s Africa Regional Director explained, “Although student rape by teachers is common not only in Zambia but regionally, it is still not acknowledged as an issue of wide public concern. We hope this remarkable decision will raise much needed awareness and generate action. We urge the Director of Public Prosecutions to advance a criminal case against Hakasenke. These steps would prove that the Zambian government will no longer tolerate the rape of students by their teachers.” Another noteworthy element in this decision is that it cites and incorporates the standards set in the African Union’s Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, which Zambia ratified on 2 May 2006.

Eritrea: EU cautioned over aid

2008-07-12

http://www.ipsterraviva.net/europe/article.aspx?id=6283

Led by President Isaias Afewerki since gaining independence from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, Eritrea has, by some indicators, one of the worst human rights records in the world. The organisation Reporters Without Borders (known by its French acronym RSF), for example, has documented how dozens of journalists have been detained incommunicado since 2001, with several of those believed to have died in custody. According to RSF's latest annual report, Eritrea "deserves to be at the bottom" of a league table for press freedom.

Global: ICC: Good progress amid missteps in first 5 years

2008-07-12

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/07/11/global19330.htm

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has made notable progress in bringing justice for the worst crimes despite mistakes in policy and practice, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today that assesses the court’s first five years. Human Rights Watch urged greater international support of the ICC to meet the political and financial challenges ahead.

Sudan: President 'likely to be indicted' for war crimes in Darfur

2008-07-12

http://tinyurl.com/563s8w

Aid agencies in Sudan have been tightening security and preparing for a violent backlash if, as expected, the International Criminal Court indicts Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity on Monday.

Uganda: Death penalty Supreme Court appeal

2008-07-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/49359

On Thursday the 3rd of July the Supreme Court of Uganda finally heard the constitutional appeal concerning the imposition of the death penalty in Uganda, three years after the constitutional court gave its original judgement on the case.
Susan Kigula and 416 others v AG: Constitutional Appeal finally heard at Uganda’s Supreme Court.

On Thursday the 3rd of July the Supreme Court of Uganda finally heard the constitutional appeal concerning the imposition of the death penalty in Uganda, three years after the constitutional court gave its original judgement on the case.

The Attorney General was appealing the court’s 2005 decision that made the following declarations (1) that the mandatory death penalty is unconstitutional and (2) that a delay on death row for more than 3 years was unconstitutional. In turn the petitioners, supported by the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative challenged in their cross-appeal the constitutional court’s decision that retained the death penalty as being constitutional and hanging as an appropriate and therefore constitutional mode of carrying out executions.

The case was heard by a panel of seven judges: Chief Justice of Uganda Bejamin Odoki, Justice John Wilson Tsekooko, Justice Joseph Mulenga, Justice George William Kanyeihamba, Justice Bart Katureebe, Lady Justice Christine Kitumba and Justice Fred Egonda-Ntende. The Attorney General was represented by Ms Angela Kiryabwire-Kanyima whilst Katende Ssempebwa and Company represented the petitioners, supported by the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative and the Death Penalty Project UK.

Also present in court were four representatives of the 417 petitioners, two men and two women including Susan Kigula, whose name headed the original petition. The case has been widely reported by a number of media houses in print and on radio and television. The judgement will be delivered on notice and will be eagerly anticipated not just by the 417 prisoners who brought the original case, but by all of the estimated 900 inmates now resident on death row.

Africa: 15 die on drifting migrant boat to Spain

2008-07-12

http://www.afrol.com/articles/29776

At least 15 African migrants, most of which are children died of hunger and thirst aboard an overcrowded boat trying to reach southern Spain, Spanish officials have said. The migrants were aboard a small craft that was attempting to make crossing from Africa to Spain. Spanish police said of the 15 reported deaths, at least nine were children, aged from nine months to four years, according to rescued survivors.

South Africa: Destitute, cold, hungry - and beaten up

2008-07-12

http://tinyurl.com/5s7yqf

A pregnant Congolese woman was beaten by private security guards hired by the eThekwini municipality on Thursday evening as foreign nationals displaced by xenophobia staged a sit-in on the steps of Durban's City Hall.

South Africa: Zimbabweans face uphill struggle

2008-07-12

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/48776e934.html

The UN refugee agency said on Friday it was concerned that people fleeing political violence in Zimbabwe were not being properly screened at the South Africa border, raising fears that people with a genuine fear of persecution could be deported.

Kenya: GenerationKenya launches the search for Kenyan heroes

2008-07-10

http://generationkenya.co.ke/main/nominate

Finally the nomination process in the search for Kenyan heroes has been launched. The debut nomination form was published in The Daily Nation on 4th July 2008 and in Taifa Leo on the same day. You can also nominate your Kenyan hero.

Mauritania: PM snubs targeted opposition

2008-07-12

http://www.afrol.com/articles/29767

The newly appointed Mauritanian Prime Minister has ruled out the inclusion of selected opposition parties in his new cabinet line-up. Yayha Ould Ahmed El Waghf, who had recently lost the parliament's confidence, learnt bitter lessons for giving excessive powers to the minority parties. A no-confidence motion against his government has to do with his inclusion of political kingpins associated with the former President Maaouya Ould Taya in the government.

Southern Africa: Is Mbeki changing views on Zimbabwe?

2008-07-12

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/19396

South African President and SADC mediator on the Zimbabwean crisis, Thabo Mbeki has been quoted by media as admitting that President Mugabe who won the one man presidential race boycotted by the opposition MDC party is an illegitimate leader and that is why a government of national unity was necessary.

West Africa: Equatorial Guinea gets new Prime Minister

2008-07-12

http://www.afrol.com/articles/29750

Ignacio Milam Tang, until now Equatoguinean Ambassador in Spain, has been named new Prime Minister of Equatorial Guinea, according to government sources in Malabo. He replaces what the President has called the "worst government ever" in the country.

Kenya: Hotel sale based on illegal law

2008-07-10

http://blog.marsgroupkenya.org/?p=114

Kamlesh Pattni, the architect of the Goldenberg scandal, and 16 accomplices were given immunity from pursuit by the Kenya Anti Corruption Commission and the Central Bank of Kenya on April 9th 2008. The settlement agreement was registered in court on the same day by the Assistant Director of the KACC, Fatuma Sichale, and it was stated that the settlement was pursuant to section 56B of the Anti Corruption and Economic Crimes Act. The trouble is; there is no section 56B of the Anti Corruption and Economic Crimes Act.

Kenya: Only 15% of tax for development

2008-07-12

http://blog.marsgroupkenya.org/?p=119

Only 15% of Kenyan tax money goes into the Kenyan Development Budget; a country where 80% of the population is poor by United Nations standards.

Africa: Tenth annual meeting of AIMES - position statement

2008-07-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/49371

We, 39 members of the Africa Initiative on Mining, Environment and Society (AIMES) from Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and our partners from Canada, the United Kingdom and United States of America participating in its tenth Annual Strategy meeting call upon African governments to put in place alternative mining regime, contracts and investment standards for the mining sector in Africa in order to optimise national benefits including integrated national development, protection of community rights and the environment.
POSITION STATEMENT

Tenth annual strategy meeting of the Africa initiative on mining, environment and society (AIMES)

JUNE 24-26TH, ACCRA, GHANA
Introduction


We, 39 members of the Africa Initiative on Mining, Environment and Society (AIMES) from Burkina Faso, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and our partners from Canada, the United Kingdom and United States of America participating in its tenth Annual Strategy meeting call upon African governments to put in place alternative mining regime, contracts and investment standards for the mining sector in Africa in order to optimise national benefits including integrated national development, protection of community rights and the environment. The meeting which was hosted by Third World Network-Africa took place from June 24-26th, 2008, in Accra, Ghana



Purpose

Conceived as a platform for analysis, dialogue and information sharing, the objective of this annual strategy meeting was to analyse developments in the mining sector, investment standards and mining contracts and the challenges they present for Africa’s development. On the basis of the analysis, the meeting offered alternative positions for a mining regime and a better framework for investment agreements/contracts and taxation in Africa. Through a reflection of the consequences of mining sector liberalisation which have rocked Africa over the past three decades and analysis of the constraints and challenges posed for an execution of alternatives and legitimate views the meeting adopted a collective advocacy agenda for and in Africa’s extractive sector.

Context

The tenth annual strategy meeting took place at a time there are a number of developments and shift of positions with consequences for the mining sector of Africa. Mineral resources have strategic place in the social and economic development of many countries in Africa. In recent times, the price of various minerals is experiencing a rise to unprecedented historic high levels fuelled by a number of factors including increased demand by new entrance like China and India, the US foreign policy shift, in particular the War on Terror, corporate hegemony, and global market speculation. While the price surge provides a unique opportunity for mineral endowed African countries to capture windfalls from the price boom, in reality African governments and their people are losing out the benefits due to poor policy, contractual terms and fiscal arrangement. The lack of benefits from the price boom clearly reflects in the numerous calls by several governments of Africa for review of specific mining contracts and fiscal arrangements.

In addition to the mineral price surge and the calls for contract reviews, a number of policy reform processes targeted specifically at the mining sector of Africa are taking place on the realisation that Africa has not benefited from its rich mineral potentials. The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UN-ECA) is currently coordinating a process aimed at reviewing the mining regime and policy framework for Africa. The Africa Mining Partnership (AMP) a platform of African Energy and Mines Ministers and their policy officials in February this year proposed to develop a regional mining programme and a sustainable development charter for Africa. These processes go along side existing regional processes of mining policy harmonisation at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). The World Bank Group the main architects of the current mining regime through its Africa Regional Portfolio the Africa Development Bank (AfDB) is also initiating processes for the reforms of the mining sector in Africa.

All these have consequences for the overall contribution of the sector to national development, the environment and community interest. The meeting was therefore organised both in response to the new shifts and also to put forward alternative policy proposals consistent with the developmental aspirations of the continent and its people, in particular local communities affected by mining.



Observations

This meeting was the tenth since the inception of AIMES in 1998 organised to review some of the challenges confronting the mining sector in Africa and to offer alternative proposals for their resolution. The theme of the meeting was “Resistance and Policy Alternatives: Mining Contracts and Investment Standards in Africa”. In the context of geopolitics and realities on the ground, and in pursuit of the collective agenda of participating members the meeting discussed trends and developments in the mining sector, the mineral price surge and the challenges for Africa’s development. The meeting also critically analysed current models of mining contracts and investment standards, and mining taxation in Africa; and proceeded to offer alternative positions and inventory of issues for continuing resistance to the plunder of Africa’s mineral resources, while promoting social, economic and environmental justice, in particular for communities affected by mining. On the back of these issues the meeting made a number of observations as follows:

The last few decades have witnessed major reforms and rapid liberalisation of the mining sector in Africa. These reforms included among others revised fiscal terms, provision of incentives, and the creation of new institutions with the aim of attracting foreign exchange earnings, generating employment, increasing government revenue and technology transfer, and improving the quality of life.

After a partial success of attracting foreign capital into the mining sector and increasing mineral production and output in several countries, the experiment in liberalisation quickly revealed that the dream of achieving the objectives of the reforms has been much more complex and difficult than was imagined or expected. Going hand in hand with the narrowing of the role of the state and the public space, the efforts at increased government revenue, foreign exchange earnings, employment generation, and technology transfer through liberalisation of the mining sector has not yielded the results that were sought. Instead, the process of liberalisation has translated into serious economic deprivation, environmental destruction and restrictions in the rights of citizens, in particular people in communities where mines and mine facilities are located.

Despite massive reforms resulting in increased foreign direct investment and output of various minerals in Africa of the 1990s and 2000s coupled with the recent global mineral price surge, most African governments remain incapable of deriving any anticipated benefits and indeed windfall from the price surge. To this end, decades of mining and oil production in Africa have spurned national development. The situation in local communities affected by large mines and oil projects and their installations best illustrates how huge investments by transnational mining and oil companies in Africa’s extractive sector have failed to translate into development while angling out thousands of people from their livelihood sources.

In addition to the economic deprivation, decades of mining and oil production in Africa have resulted in environmental disasters, social conflicts and impoverishment of the continent. In spite of the rhetoric of corporate social responsibility and calls for the protection of the environment and human rights, governments and transnational mining companies have failed to prevent or adequately address the negative consequences of mining on the environment and society. They have also failed to address the numerous legitimate concerns of local communities and small-scale mining.

In recent years, there has been an increase in alleged cases of violence and human rights abuses perpetrated against small-scale and artisanal miners and people living in communities affected by mining and oil projects by State security, and private security of mining companies. In many cases, violent actions by the State and mining companies towards local communities and small scale miners become the privileged mode of resolving legitimate concerns.

Women are particularly affected by mining because of their multiple roles and their subordinated status in most African societies. Moreover, the replacement of the subsistence economy by cash economy on which communities and women within them have no control at all have resulted in the marginalisation of women as food producers; an increased burden on them as water providers, care-givers and nurturers; a decrease in their productivity and incomes due to environmental destruction; and their increased involvement and containment in the informal economy to find alternative sources of incomes for sustaining their families.

The failure of African governments to optimise the benefits of mining and to respond to the needs and concerns of citizens is a failure in policy, law and institutional practice. The regime under which mining operates in Africa is a regime that creates and perpetuates a system of inequalities as well as imbalances in mineral trade and investment. It is also a regime that legalises mineral resource capture, ecological destruction and human rights violations.

In addition to the huge incentives and stiff protection offered to transnational mining companies by national mining laws, African governments have entered into contractual arrangements with specific mining companies. These contracts not only lock in governments denying them any opportunity of flexibility but also the terms and conditions of the contracts set very low standards, unbalanced relationship in terms of rights and obligations of each party, and deprive governments and citizens of any opportunity of optimising the benefits of mining.

We observed with great concern that despite the emerging democratic culture and new doctrines of participatory planning and development on the continent, most of investment agreements (mining contracts) took place in very untransparent processes, under unacceptable conditions (especially during times of conflicts when citizens participation is almost impossible), and with influence and sometimes am-twisting by mining companies, their home governments and national elites. Some of the contracts in Democratic Republic of Congo, the Mittal Steel Holdings in Liberia and the West African Gas Pipeline Project involving Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana are examples of the bigger picture on the continent.

Also, the failure to optimise the benefits of mining is also due to failure on the part of African governments to conceive of national development strategy without a significant role of foreign direct investment. This notion of the centrality of foreign direct investment isolates the mining sector from a holistic national development strategy and offers it an undeserving priority which results in enclavity and an extroversion of the national economy. While this failure may be partly due to capacity constraints it is largely the result of external pressure and policy prescriptions for the continent without due cognisance of the peculiar circumstances in time and space.

Flowing from the narrow conception of national development strategy there has not been a proper placement of the real and potential contribution of small-scale and artisanal mining as well as linkages to other sectors and small scale producers in the national economy. At the same time African governments price offer their mineral sector to transnational mining and oil companies by giving them special dispensations and subsidies in the form of tax breaks, unwarranted custom and excise duty exemptions on tall mining list. This results in narrowing not only the tax net but also employment opportunities while encouraging capital flight.

In the midst of this plethora of challenges transnational mining companies continue to consolidate their position with support from their home governments and Multilateral Institutions such as the World Bank Group (WBG) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) by adopting cross-national strategies for natural resource extraction, typically within sub-regional economic frameworks; by launching special initiatives; and by demanding further protection through negotiation of investment agreements or contracts between it and individual countries.

These strategies not only serve as smokescreens to bad legacies but also collectively and cumulatively undermine national development efforts. In the area of taxation, corporate strategy through such measures as mergers, acquisitions, and hedging contribute to tax evasion and tax avoidance thereby diminishing real and potential government revenue accruing from mining. The inability of African governments to effectively increase tax collection, negotiate, monitor contracts and implement even the minimal policies and laws is often time compounded by such unethical corporate practice and behaviour as well as the erosion of the role of the state in planning and general governance of the mining and oil sector in Africa.

Alternative proposals

In light of the foregoing we make the following demands and recommendations:

* That there must be a paradigm shift on the concept of investment and its approach and application. We proposed a new conception of investment that prioritises a balance between profitability and strong ethics, and which favours development with redistribution, equity, justice and fairness rather than corporate profit.



* That African governments should put in place an alternative mining regime, contracts, and investment standards that optimise national benefits including integrated national development, protection of community rights and the environment.



* We call for coherence in the current processes of mining sector reforms and harmonisation in Africa. Such coherence and harmonisation must of necessity end the current race to the bottom, provide for a framework for strong state intervention, and a clear strategy for optimising benefits without compromising the interest of other sectors and future generations, and also take into account the peculiar circumstances of some African countries, particularly those emerging from conflicts as well as those who are relatively new to mining.



* We particularly recommend that the processes of reforms and harmonisation should provide opportunity for exploring and putting forward policy options that go beyond the familiar centrality of foreign direct investment in Africa as a whole and in the mining sector in particular.



* Existing mining contracts must be reviewed in a fully participatory and transparent manner to reflect tangible benefits to African countries and mining communities while taking cognisance of the need for environmental protection and human rights observance. In particular Civil Society and mining communities must be involved in the processes. Any new mining contracts must adhere to the above standards.



* Governments, mining companies and multilateral and bilateral actors must all commit to public disclose of information and early notification of all processes and activities in the extractive sector to all persons, especially affected communities and women’s organisations. To this end we demand the removal of all confidentiality clauses on environmental audit reports and urge all governments to expedite action on the passage of freedom of information and whistle blowing bills into laws.



* That the public disclosure must be backed by conscious commitment to promoting and ensuring accountability and participatory decision-making through the provision of systems, mechanisms and benchmarks for equal opportunities, collective ownership, detection of abuse of power and feedback.



* All pressures and policy prescriptions for Africa and African governments must cease forth with so as to allow African governments and people to enjoy the right to policy choices, review their laws and mining contracts without any limitation.



* In relation to the above, we demand the unconditional abolition of all stability clauses as legal provisions in national mining codes.



* African governments must make an effort to improve the technical capacity of their institutions within the framework of regional integration to facilitate the diffusion of knowledge and skills.



Conclusion

We concluded the meeting with understanding and commitment to work together in collaboration and solidarity with communities affected by mining, African civil society organisations, partners from the global north and south to:

+ End mineral resource plunders in Africa.
+ Promote and ensure that Africa optimises the benefits of its mineral potentials in ways that guarantee national economic development, human rights, environmental sustainability and promote community interest.
+ Resist any further lowering of national mining standards
+ Building pressure for the adoption of our collective positions that advance the development of Africa

We call on the media to echo our demands and recommendations


Third World Network-Africa is secretariat of AIMES. For further information please contact Abdulai Darimani or Lindlyn Amang Tamufor on +233-21-500419/503669 Email: environment@twnafrica.org

Endorsed by:



1. Akpobari Celestine

National Administrator

Ogoni Solidarity Forum

Social Action Complex

33 Oromineke Layout

b/Line Portharcourt, River State

Nigeria

Cell: +234-803-273-3965

Email: ogoniadvancement@yahoo.com

2. Amani Mustafa Mhinda

Coordinator

Tanzania Mineworkers Development Organisation

P.O. Box 12536

Arusha, Tanzania

Tel.: +255-255-5666

Cell: +255-78-440-8819

Fax: +255-255-5666

Email: t9@justice.com

3. Asaah Sumaila Mohammed

Legislative Advocacy Programme Officer

Centre for Public Interest Law (CEPIL)

Accra

Cell: +233-24-268-4285

Email: mohammedasaah@yahoo.com

4. Samira Dauod

Regional Coordinator

Panos Institute, West Africa

6 rue Caluetter

BP 21132, Dakar Pouty

Dakar, Senegal

Tel.: +221-77-732-1697

Cell: +221-33-843-1666

Fax: +221-33-822-1761

Email: sdaoud@panos-ao.org

5. Abu A. Brima

Executive Director

Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD)

29 Main Motor Road

Freetown, Sierra Leone

Tel.: +232-02-345-3073 / 077251698

6. Suna Kumba Bundu

Programme Officer

Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD)

29 Main Motor Road

Freetown, Sierra Leone

Tel.: +232-02-345-3073 / 077251698

Email: sunabundu@yahoo.co.uk

7. Noah Zimba

Citizens for Better Environment (CBE)

Afcom House (HQ)

c/o Regional Office

P.O. Box KL6

Lusaka, Zambia

8. Nii Adjetey-Kofi Mensah

Executive Director

Artisanal Mining Network

P.O. Box 81, Tarkwa, Ghana

Tel.: 233-036-222574

Cell: +233-20-816-1636

Email: artisanalmining@yahoo.com

adjeteykofinii@yahoo.com

9. Roger Moody

Mines and Communities

41A Thornhill Square, London

Tel/Fax: +44 20 77 00 6189

Email: partisans@gn.apc.org

10. Nnee Neeka Nornu

Programme Officer

Institute of Human Rights & Humanitarian Law (IHRHL)

2B Railway Close, D/Line

Portharcourt, Nigeria

Email: ihrhl@ihrhl.org

11. Wilson Kipsang Kipkazi

Secretary/Programmes Director

Endoris Welfare Council

P.O. Box 15801-00200

Nakuru, Kenya

Tel.:+254-020-214-0886

Cell:+254-053-206-1107

Email: kipkaziwk@gmail.com

12. Bennet Mwika Simbeye

Reporter

Times of Zambia

P.O. Box 20682

Kitwe, Zambia

Tel.: +260-21-222-3563

Cell: +260-97-743-5767

Fax: +260-21-222-2251

Email: mwikabm@yahoo.com

13. Kabinet Cisse

Change de Programme Resource Naturelle

CECIDE, BP 3768, Conakry, Guinea

Tel.: +224-60586697 / 30467035

Cell: +224-6058-6697

Email: cecideomc@yahoo.fr

14. Makanatsa Makonese

Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (ZELA)

Number 6 London Derry Road, Eastlea, Harare, Zimbabwe

Tele/Fax: (00263-4) 252093/253381/250971

Email: zela@mweb.co.zw

15. Salum Nwalim Juma

Journalist, Channel Ten

19045 Dar es Salem, Tanzania

Tel.: +255-71-325-6172

Cell: +255-022-211-6341

Email: mwalims@yahoo.com

16. Idrisa Sako

Journalist, Les Echoes

BP 2043, Avenue Cheick

Zayed Bamako, Hamdallaye

Tel.: +223-229-6289

Cell: +223-647-5472

Fax: +223-229-7639

Email: idisac2002@yahoo.fr

17. Ferrial Adam

SADC Mining Research Coordinator

Bench Marks, Johannesburg, South Africa

Tel.: +27-11-832-1759

Cell: ++27-74-181-3197

Email: feradam@gmail.com

18. Vivian Bellonwu

Programmes Officer

Social Action, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Tel.: +234-70-393-7306

vivianbello@yahoo.co.uk

19. Richard Adjei-Poku

Executive Director

Livelihood & Environment Ghana

P.O. Box 88, Ahafo, Kenyasi

Cell: + 233-24-338-8299/+233-27-553-7802

Email: leg2004ah@yahoo.com

20. Moses K. Kambou

Executive Director

ORCADE

09 BP 675, Ouagadougou 09, Burkina Faso

Tel.: +226-5-036-2089

Cell: +226-7-027-9673

Email: moskam@orcade.org

21. Wole Olalaye

Actionaid,

P.O. Box 554-00606, Nairobi, Kenya

Tel.: +254-20-425-0000

Cell: +254-71-060-7379

Email: WOLE.OLALEYE@ACITONAID.ORG

22. Jamie Kneen

Communications & Outreach Coordinator

Miningwatch, Canada

508-250, City Centre Ave, Ottawa, ON K1R 5R2, Canada

Tel.: +1-613-569-3439

Cell: +1-613-761-2273

Fax: +1-613-569-5138

Email: Jamie@miningwatch.ca

23. Richard Ellimah

Programme Officer

Wassa Association of Communities Affected by Mining (WACAM)

P.O. Box 26 Obuasi, Ghana

Tel.: +233-2-220-0858

Cell: ++233-24-451-4559

Fax: +233-2-220-0858

Email: richellimah@yahoo.com

24. Jean-Luc Muke

Member, Avocats Verts Org

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

Tel.: +243-81-812-8219/+243-89-951-0451

Email: jeanlucmuke@yahoo.fr

25. Joshua Klemm

Program Associate, Africa

Bank Information Center

1100 H Street, NW, Suite 650

Washington, DC, 20005

Tel: +1 202 624-0630

Email: jklemm@bicusa.org

Skype: klemmjd

26. Kato Lambrechts

Christian Aid

35 Lower Marsh, London SE1 7RL

Email: KLambrechts@christian-aid.org

27. Alvin Mosioma

Coordinator

Tax Justice Network for Africa (TJN-A)

Mbaruk Road, Mucai Drive, off Ngong Road P. O. Box. 25112 – 00100

Nairobi- Kenya

Tel: 254-20-2721076, 2721655, 2725743

Fax: 254 20 2725171

Mobile:+254722571614

28. Kyeretwie Opoku

Civic Response

37 New Town Loop

D-T-D Accra North

kyeretwie@civicresponse.org

29. Abdulai Darimani

Third World Network – Africa

P.O. Box AN19452

Accra-North

Tel.: +233-21-511189

Email: environment@twnafrica.org

30. Lindlyn Tamufor

Third World Network – Africa

P.O. Box AN19452

Accra-North

Tel.: +233-21-511189

Email: environment@twnafrica.org

31. Thomas Akabzaa

Department of Geology

University of Ghana, Legon, Accra , Ghana

Email: takabzaa@ug.edu.gh

32. Anna Antwi

Right to Food Policy Advisor

ActionAid Ghana

Tel: +233 (21) 764931/2

Anna.Antwi@actionaid.org

www.actionaid.org/ghana

33. Stephen Donkor

Teleku-Bukaazo/Anwia Community

Nzema East District Western Region of Ghana

34. John Adza John Adza

Executive Director

The African Challenge

Accra

Tel: 0277534980

Email: africh2002@yahoo.com

35. Emmanuel Bensah

Third World Network – Africa

P.O. Box AN19452

Accra-North

Tel.: +233-21-511189

Email: webjournalist@twnafrica.org

36. Noble Wadzah

Friends of the Earth Ghana

Cell: +233-24 225 79 72

Email: kowadzah9@yahoo.com

37. Kwesi Wrekon-Obeng

Third World Network – Africa

P.O. Box AN19452

Accra-North

Tel.: +233-21-511189

Email: africanagenda@twnafrica.org

38. Yao Graham

Third World Network – Africa

P.O. Box AN19452

Accra-North

Tel.: +233-21-511189

Email: twnafrica@twnafrica.org

39. Pauline Vande-Pallen

Third World Network – Africa

P.O. Box AN19452

Global: Buying Power : Aid, governance and public procurement

2008-07-12

http://www.southcentre.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=649&Itemid=67

This South Centre Analytical Note looks at the donor-driven agenda in the reform of public procurement – the rules that guide government purchasing of goods, works and services – as one of major components in the good governance agenda being incorporated by donors into their aid programmes. It further stresses that such an agenda vis-à-vis government procurement not only restricts the flexibility of developing country governments to use public procurement as a policy tool for development, but also has significant consequences for local firms that rely on government contracts.

Kenya: Anger at biofuel approval

2008-07-10

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7484964.stm

Kenyan environmentalists have told the BBC that the government should revoke a decision to allow a controversial biofuels project to go ahead. The project involves growing sugarcane for biofuels in coastal wetlands.

Mozambique: Portugal cancels debt

2008-07-12

http://www.afrodad.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=305&Itemid=38

Portugal has cancelled $393.4 million of Mozambique’s debt. An additional loan agreement of $148 million was promptly signed. Mozambique gained its independence in 1975, after 500 years of Portuguese colonisation. The new government inherited an economy that was under-developed and poor, with 90% of its population illiterate. To reverse this situation, the government embarked on ambitious development programmes with the view to reducing poverty and developing the economy.

Nigeria: Government dumps IMF policy support instrument

2008-07-12

http://allafrica.com/stories/200807080006.html

The Federal Government has announced the suspension of the Policy Support Instrument (PSI) designed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), for the government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo for poverty reduction.

Tanzania: Evaluating participation

2008-07-12

http://www.eldis.org/go/country-profiles&id=38182&type=Document

Participation has now become an established orthodoxy in development thinking and practice. But what exactly is it and how best should be pursued in development interventions to improve the livelihoods of the poor remains contestable. This document outlines two studies conducted in two World Vision rural development programmes in Central Tanzania to analyse the effectiveness of participatory development processes.

Guinea-Bissau: Cholera epidemic reaches capital, Bissau

2008-07-12

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79188

Cholera which first broke out in Guinea Bissau in May in the southern region of Tombali has now broken out in the capital Bissau killing four people and infecting 214, according to Daniel Kertesz, representative of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Kenya: Woman wins landmark wrongful dismissal case

2008-07-12

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/C0EE9C59-967E-4CAB-948E-9A716BA02C3F.asp

An HIV-positive former waitress has won a precedent-setting case in the Kenyan High Court, after suing her doctor for unlawful disclosure of her HIV status and her employers for dismissing her based on that information. The case is remarkable because Kenya's constitution does not specifically prohibit HIV-related discrimination.

South Africa: Government does well with new approach, but too many still dying - study

2008-07-12

http://tinyurl.com/6bvsqc

South Africa’s more standardized HIV treatment approach in the public sector is as effective as the more individualized approach in Switzerland a comparative study has shown. However, the study, published in Plos Medicine this week, did find that more patients died in South Africa than in Switzerland, particularly during the first three months of therapy. This is mainly due to HIV patients not being able to access treatment when needed or trying to access help when they are already desperately ill.

South Africa: Outcry as ANC demand apology from rape victim

2008-07-12

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=southafrica&id=1908

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) supporters of Khwezi*, slammed the recent call by the African National Congress (ANC) leadership, requesting Khwezi to apologise for her rape allegations against the ruling party president, Jacob Zuma.

South Africa: Refugees dumped at Albert Park

2008-07-12

http://tinyurl.com/55ruvg

Somewhere in the dark in Albert Park are about 120 refugees, mostly women and young children. These are not young jobseekers from Mozambique and Malawi, doing the African renaissance equivalent of a post-degree work holiday in London. These are documented refugees from the worst civil war of the last decade - a war that has already claimed 4 million lives. A war, as Human Rights Watch has already documented, funded in part by South African mining companies paying warlords in the Congo for the right to plunder the local mineral wealth.

South Africa: Showdown at Durban city hall

2008-07-12

http://www.tios.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4502243

Metro Police on Firday arrested and forcibly removed more than 190 foreign refugees who had camped at the back entrance of Durban City Hall for two days. The group, which was made up predominantly of children with their mothers, had been trying to get some sort of assistance from the council but after a last warning to disperse, some began handing themselves over to police. Others were forcibly removed and all were taken away in Metro Police vans.

Africa: 'Wall of trees' gets underway

2008-07-12

http://tinyurl.com/6awqv9

Three years after it was first proposed, preparations for an African 'wall of trees' to slow down the southwards spread of the Sahara desert are finally getting underway. The 'Great Green Wall' will involve several stretches of trees from Mauritania in the west to Djibouti in the east, to protect the semi-arid savannah region of the Sahel — and its agricultural land — from desertification

Ethiopia: Participatory forest management

2008-07-12

http://www.eldis.org/go/country-profiles&id=38344&type=Document

Participatory Forest Management (PFM) describes systems in which communities (forest users and managers) and government services (forest departments) work together to define rights of forest resource use, identify and develop forest management responsibilities, and agree on how forest benefits will be shared. This manual describes the key elements of PFM in the Ethiopian context. It is aimed at both community forest managers and forestry professionals and can be used as a training manual and field guide.

Global: Heed forest experts, World Bank told

2008-07-12

http://uk.oneworld.net/article/view/160802/1/5795

An emerging initiative could pave the way for fundamental change in the way forests are managed, boosting efforts to fight both poverty and climate change, says research published today by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Southern Africa: Climate changes Zambians' livelihood

2008-07-12

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/19404

Villagers that have lived in Southern Zambia for over 50 years did not expect to experience 13 straight days of rainfall. In the village of Magoye, houses, food, crop and livestock were all washed away by the floods.

Uganda: Bujagali dam seriously flawed, say inspectors

2008-07-12

http://internationalrivers.org/node/3138

The Bujagali Dam, now under construction on the Nile River in Uganda, racked up at least 22 violations of key African Development Bank (AfDB) policies, according to a new report by the Bank's internal investigative panel.

Angola: Government suspends independent radio station’s broadcasts

2008-07-12

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=27807

Reporters Without Borders condemns the government’s decision on 8 July to suspend independent Radio Despertar’s broadcasts for 180 days on the grounds that their current range, 400 km, is much more the 50 km stipulated in its licence. The suspension comes just one month before an election campaign is due to begin on 5 August.

Botswana: Journalists cry foul over media Bill

2008-07-12

http://tinyurl.com/5p8y47

Journalists in Botswana are up in arms over the draft Media Practitioners Bill. Quietly published in the Government Gazette on June 27, the Bill would give the government greater control over the media. Botswana’s media bodies say the news media are already regulating themselves through the Press Council, which was established six years ago, and that the government is seeking to impose itself on the media sector.

Gambia: Illegal imprisonment of Ebrima Manneh reaches second year

2008-07-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/49352

On July 7, 2008 Chief Ebrima Manneh, a Gambian journalist, will be spending 730 days in detention in an undisclosed location in Gambia. The continued detention demands that his family, colleagues and human rights advocates continue to pressure the Gambian authorities about his whereabouts. The disappearance of the 30 year-old journalist has left his mother and father in a state of hopeless devastation and continues to put fear in journalists and other citizens of the Gambia.
On July 7, 2008 Chief Ebrima Manneh, a Gambian journalist, will be spending 730 days in detention in an undisclosed location in Gambia. The continued detention demands that his family, colleagues and human rights advocates continue to pressure the Gambian authorities about his whereabouts. The disappearance of the 30 year-old journalist has left his mother and father in a state of hopeless devastation and continues to put fear in journalists and other citizens of the Gambia.

All this is giving credence to increasing rumor that Manneh has been either murdered, or been so brutally tortured that his captors fear releasing him would only provide evidence of their brutalities.

On July 7, 2006 two plainclothes operatives of National Intelligence Agency (NIA) entered the premises of the pro-government Daily Observer and publicly arrested Manneh in the presence of his colleagues. Since then, he has “disappeared”.

Manneh has been sighted variously in the company of security agents.

Yet the Gambian government continues to deny the fact that he was arrested and is being held. The NIA has yet to give any official reason for the actions taken against Manneh.

The only formal response of an official nature was issued by Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Ebrima Bah in a press statement eight months after Manneh’s arrest, saying, “Manneh was not detained at any station”.

Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) is not surprised about this development as these actions have become the hallmark of the government of President Yahya Jammeh and its agents. Several journalists and individuals have suffered a similar fate.

On June 5, 2008 the Community Court of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) ruled that the Gambian authorities should release Manneh and pay him an amount of US$100,000 as compensation. Despite the ruling, the administration of President Jammeh has refused to offer any explanation. The administration showed disrespect to the court by refusing to appear before it.

MFWA is urging human rights organisations in West Africa to put pressure on their governments to ensure that ECOWAS implements the decision of the court to free Chief Manneh.

Issued by the MFWA, Accra on July 6, 2008.

Chad: Aid work halted in eastern village after violence

2008-07-12

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L11185034.htm

International aid workers have temporarily suspended their work at a village in eastern Chad following attacks on their compounds and ethnic violence, British aid agency Oxfam said on Friday.

Nigeria: Brown’s help to Nigeria infuriates rebels

2008-07-12

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/19385

Niger Delta Militant group has threatened to end its two weeks cease fire on Saturday midnight in the region following a statement made by the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the just concluded G8 summit in Japan that he would end violence in the region.

Sudan: South army claims complete withdrawal from Abyei

2008-07-12

http://africa.reuters.com/top/news/usnBAN246658.html

South Sudan's army said on Saturday it had finished pulling out of the oil-rich Abyei area where southern troops clashed with Khartoum's forces in May, but accused the northern army of foot-dragging on its own pullout.

West Africa: Cameroon strangles Equatorial Guinea

2008-07-12

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/19389

Cameroon has blocked all exportation of foodstuff to Equatorial Guinea and closed all its borders with neighbours following a directive by the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation, Marafa Hamidou Yaya. Security officials say it's a security measure.

Botswana: Fear surrounds sim-card registration

2008-07-12

http://www.afrol.com/articles/29785

Amid mounting fears of phone surveillance by state security agents, Botswana Telecommunications Authority (BTA) remains adamant with going ahead with the registration of all prepaid mobile phone sim-cards on 15 September 2008.

Global: 5th European Symposium on Gender & ICT

2008-07-10

http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/frautec/gict2009/page/home.html

The 5th European Gender and ICT Symposium will take a closer look at the complex interdependences between gender and ICT. Analyses of current ICT use and education on a global level and under various local conditions will be presented and new constructive approaches to gender-aware software design will be identified at the conference. Innovative solutions to overcome the barriers, to encourage participation, and to equally empower women and men by means of Information Technology will be discussed.

Sierra Leone: Solar-powered computer centre opens

2008-07-12

http://www.worldpress.org/Africa/3180.cfm

Computer literacy is a prerequisite for many jobs today, but students in Sierra Leone often have to seek out computer schools to gain the necessary skills. There are many issues that can inhibit the opening of a computer center in a school here, not the least of which is funding.

Global: Call for proposals - OSI International women's program

2008-07-10

http://www.soros.org/initiatives/women/news/call_20080616

International Women's Programs invites proposals from local, national, regional or international organizations that reduce discrimination and violence against women, strengthen women's access to justice, and increase women's role as decision-makers and leaders.

Africa: Blogs for African Women seeks blogging mentors

2008-07-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/49374

Are you a blogger interested in encouraging more people to blog? Do you enjoy working with young women?
Fahamu is looking for mentors to participate in its Blogs for African Women (BAWo) project, which is for young African women who are new to blogging, from July to August 2008. The project is targeted at young Kenyan women.
Opportunity to Nurture Women Bloggers!
Are you a blogger interested in encouraging more people to blog? Do you enjoy working with young women?
Fahamu is looking for mentors to participate in its Blogs for African Women (BAWo) project, which is for young African women who are new to blogging, from July to August 2008. The project is targeted at young Kenyan women.

What is this project about?
BAWo is a project for African women who want to start blogging or who are new to blogging. The young bloggers will post each week on an assigned topic. They will also be expected to comment on each other’s posts as well as the mentors’.

What do you have to do?
Each mentor is assigned a week to post. You will post once at the start of the week. Your post will provide the young bloggers with ideas and guidance for their own posts.
You will comment on the young women’s posts. You are also encouraged to comment on the other mentors’ posts during their assigned weeks.
We will work with you to come up with suitable topics for the young women.

What qualities should a mentor have?
We welcome all bloggers who are culturally and gender sensitive and who are interested in working with young women. We particularly encourage Kenyan-based women bloggers to participate in this project.
Why this project?
Internet use in the African continent, although growing, is still fairly low due to many factors which discourage Africans from using the Internet and other Communication Technologies (ICTs) such as no or limited access to the Internet, erratic electricity supply, and low literacy levels.
Women’s Internet use (and consequently blogging) continues to be very low. A cursory browse of the African blogosphere will show that male bloggers make up the majority of African bloggers, with many residing outside of the African continent.
While this project cannot remove many of the barriers to ICT use, it aims to introduce Kenyan women to blogging as a tool for self-expression within a nurturing environment, and in the long-run encourage an active engagement with technology.
The objectives of this project are:
To encourage Kenyan women who want to start blogging and support
those who recently started blogging
To help balance gender disparity in blogging
To encourage Kenyan women to report their own stories as an
alternative to mainstream media
To increase the amount of locally-relevant content available on the
Internet
To encourage a love for writing and reading
To promote weblogs as a method of democratic expression
To encourage more Kenyan women to think about how to incorporate
other technology tools into their lives

What do you do next?
If you are interested in becoming a mentor or know someone who is, please contact Stella Chege at stella@fahamu.org Please write a few lines about yourself and your interest in this project, including your blog URL.

Africa: Jobs at Gender Links

2008-07-11

http://www.genderlinks.org.za/page.php?p_id=309

Gender Links, a dynamic Southern African NGO that promotes gender equality through its media, justice and governance programmes, seeks to fill the following senior posts: Research manager, Training manager and Gender and media diversity centre manager.

Egypt: Call for Editorial Assistant - Journal of Muslim Mental Health

2008-07-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/49361

The Journal of Muslim Mental Health is seeking an Editorial Assistant in Cairo, Egypt who can offer approximately 10-12 hours weekly of professional service to the journal in close collaboration with the Editor-in-Chief starting August 1st, 2008 for a period of one year.
CALL FOR EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

The Journal of Muslim Mental Health is seeking an Editorial Assistant in Cairo, Egypt who can offer approximately 10-12 hours weekly of professional service to the journal in close collaboration with the Editor-in-Chief starting August 1st, 2008 for a period of one year.

JMMH is an international, interdisciplinary, refereed journal published by Taylor & Francis/Routledge, one of the oldest and most prestigious distributors of academic journals worldwide. It is the only journal that focuses on socio-cultural aspects of mental health for Muslim minorities and communities residing in predominantly Muslim countries. The journal has published leading studies on discrimination and mental health post 9/11, Iraqi mental health service policy within the context of the war, service utilization among Muslim minorities, and culturally-sensitive measure development. As a result of this cutting-edge work, the Journal has been featured in the New York Times and USA Today.

Only in its third year of publication, JMMH has already been approved for abstract/indexing in Scopus (the largest citation database worldwide), PsycINFO, EBSCO, ASSIA, and other databases. The journal rejects approximately 65-70% of submitted manuscripts. With an international focus, studies have been published by researchers from different parts of the globe including North America, Europe, Middle East, Asia, and Australia. The official website is:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/15564908.asp

THE EDITORIAL ASSISTANT would work closely with the Editor-in-Chief in tasks such as:

* Generating topics for thematic issues and coordinating special issues with invited guest editors [NOTE: Upcoming issues focus on Substance Abuse, and Refugees/Forced Migrants]
* Identifying and following up with peer reviewers; developing editorial decisions
* Coordinating internal copy editing and publisher proofs
* Soliciting manuscripts
* Developing promotion/marketing materials and plans in association with the Publisher
* Ensuring compliance with legal regulations and forms
* Responding to letters of inquiry and other journal correspondence
* Developing a standard copy editing protocol
* Coordinating editorial/authorship supports for authors from economically disadvantaged regions
* Communicating with the international Editorial Board and Advisory Board
* Engaging in journal process evaluation and journal development

The editorial assistant will become intimately familiar with the workings of a new and rapidly expanding peer-review journal, including issues related to finances, legalities, indexing, peer-review, editing, formal publishing, and marketing. Additionally, this is an excellent opportunity to be exposed to academic writing and qualitative & quantitative research designs, develop networks with professionals and graduate students around the world, and develop leadership and management skills.

*** The Editorial Assisant will be listed on most promotional materials as well as the inside flap of the Journal cover along with the names of the editorial board. This is also a rare opportunity that can be listed on the candidate\'s CV and highlighted in a recommendation letter ***

The ideal candidate would have the following characteristics:

* located in Cairo and can meet with the Editor-in-Chief at the AUC New Cairo campus
* motivated, reliable, energetic, creative, and takes initiative
* open-minded and tolerant of interdisciplinary perspectives (sociology, psychology, nursing, medicine, public policy, etc.)
* interested in cross-cultural and multicultural issues
* masters degree, advanced graduate studies, or previous work with some research (or previous publications)
* excellent interpersonal and networking skills
* excellent English writing skills
* excellent skills in navigating Internet and e-mail systems
* excellent skills in computer word processing and spreadsheets

Additionally, the following characteristics are preferred but not necessary:

* basic knowledge on mental health issues
* bilingual or multilingual written skills (especially Arabic, Urdu, or Farsi)
* computer skills in advanced database programs (e.g., MS Access)
* Website development skills

INTERESTED APPLICANTS should send: a) CV, b) paragraph statement of interest, and c) list of two references including the names, phone #s, and emails at monaamer75@gmail.com Feel free to contact me with any questions.

*** THE DEADLINE TO EXPRESS INTEREST IS JULY 20TH, 2008.***

Pan-Africa Head of Economic Justice (Oxfam GB)

Dakar, Senegal

2008-07-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/49313

Global awareness about economic injustice in Africa is growing. Great news, except that change isn’t happening fast enough. To make matters worse, the effects of climate change are starting to have a serious effect across the continent.
Starting GBP £24,100 net per annum

Be challenged
Debt. Unfair trade. Climate change. Somehow, the world’s poorest people get stuck paying the price. Each poses a serious threat to the lives of millions of Africans. And we’ll look to you to come up with the strategies to bring about real change – right now. It won’t be easy. But by targeting influential decision makers and policy-making institutions, you’ll put economic justice on the top of their agendas. A consistent and coordinated approach across all of our country programmes will be key to changing continental policies. Which is why you’ll need to work closely with the rest of the Oxfam International team.

Be involved
53 countries. 30,221,532 km2. More than 920 million people. Responsibilities don’t come much bigger, which is why we’re looking for someone with a practical understanding of economic justice issues and experience building strategic relationships on a regional, national and Pan-African level. A thorough knowledge of campaigning is essential, as is the ability to lead and coordinate multiple teams from a distance. And with superb negotiation skills and fluency in French or English, you’ll have the tools needed to influence the way the media, government officials and other key decision makers respond to economic justice issues.

Be Oxfam
A simple, inescapable truth underlines everything we do at Oxfam. There’s enough wealth in this world to go around. It’s not unfortunate that people live in poverty. It’s unjustifiable. It’s not just their problem. It’s ours too. And with the right support, we can beat poverty and injustice. More than 8,000 people already commit their time and talents to our campaigning, humanitarian and long-term development projects. Now we’re looking for yours.

To find out more about this role and to apply, visit www.oxfam.org.uk/jobs and quote ref: INT2825.
Closing date: 21 July 2008.

Fahamu