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Chinese and African Perspectives on China in Africa

Call for Proposals

2008-10-09

The Chinese and African Perspectives on China in Africa is a research project initiated by FAHAMU, the network for social justice issues, with funding from OXFAM Novib and OSI. China’s engagement in Africa has expanded and intensified in recent years. But much of the current debates and research has been informed by a Northern perspective. Fahamu’s China in Africa programme therefore seeks to develop an African perspective by strengthening the civil society voice in the emerging Africa-China discourse.
CALL FOR PROPOSALS

FAHAMU
Collaborative Research Project on Chinese and African Perspectives on China in Africa

Terms of Reference for In-Depth Thematic Areas


Introduction

The Chinese and African Perspectives on China in Africa is a research project initiated by FAHAMU, the network for social justice issues, with funding from OXFAM Novib and OSI. China’s engagement in Africa has expanded and intensified in recent years. But much of the current debates and research has been informed by a Northern perspective. Fahamu’s China in Africa programme therefore seeks to develop an African perspective by strengthening the civil society voice in the emerging Africa-China discourse. It aims to achieve this by:

Enabling research to be undertaken on the political, social, economic and cultural effects of China's engagement with Africa,
Developing informed discussion and advocacy in China and in Africa about China's role in Africa, and
Enhancing long-term cooperation between researchers, academics, media and activists in China and Africa.

The Research themes

The primary purpose of this research project is to undertake a comprehensive analysis of Africa’s engagement with China by focusing on the following thematic areas:

China and de-industrialisation
The Chinese firm in Africa - how are the '9 principles' enforced? (See attached appendix)
The Chinese MNC – what is its modus operandi and how does it differ from the corporate behaviour of other ‘rising’ powers?
China, human rights and good governance
China and the environment
China’s comparative trade, aid and investment behaviour vis-à-vis other Asian and 'Southern' powers, and the older 'Northern' players
Agriculture and biotechnology as alternate sectors for mutual development
Chinese enclave communities and their sociological impact on African societies
The intention in each of these areas is to identify appropriate and sector-specific policy measures as well as development opportunities and challenges. This call for proposals therefore aims to:
Provide an in depth understanding of the impact of the specific research theme on the recipient African country
Evaluate how African governments are responding and ensuring a better co-ordinated response to the Chinese engagement within the specific research theme
Observe the effect this has for African societies - in particular how the Africa-China engagement helps or harms development at the grass roots.
Determine a set of recommendations that could be useful for strengthening the Africa-China engagement.

Call for Proposals

The FAHAMU China in Africa programme therefore invites interested African individuals and institutions to submit proposals in the above thematic areas. There are a total of six research grants to be awarded. Each proposal should include a brief review of the relevant literature in the thematic area relating to the China-Africa engagement, with particular reference to the relevant case study and where the research will be conducted. A clear outline of the methodology must be provided, including the type of data, availability of information and collection strategy.

Applicants are encouraged to form collaborations. Researcher teams must comprise at most three persons with one identified team leader and at least one female researcher.

This call for proposals is designed to strengthen the capacity and development of researchers and institutions working within their home countries. As a result, and given the total value of each grant, researchers are encouraged to submit proposals relating to their home countries and not apply to conduct research in third countries.

Finally all interested parties are encouraged not to duplicate existing studies. Instead the proposals are designed to assist researchers with seed funding for projects, which offer new insights into China’s African impact in each of the thematic areas. In addition, applicants are encouraged to develop their project proposals in line with the 2006 FOCAC commitments (see attached appendix) in order to assess their implementation since the research findings from the six projects will be aimed at feeding into the forthcoming FOCAC Summit to be held in Cairo, Egypt 2009.

Proposals designed along the guidelines specified below should be submitted to the attention of the Research Director of the China in Africa programme, FAHAMU, at the following email address: sanusha@fahamu.org The deadline for submitting proposals is 3rd November 2008.

Proposal requirements

Each proposal should include the following:

Background: The policy context of the proposed research.

Objective(s): A brief statement of the specific objectives based on the coverage of the scoping studies mentioned above.

Methodology: A statement detailing how the research objectives are to be achieved, i.e., hypotheses, methods, data collection, data analysis, etc.

Results: Anticipated results and how they might contribute to knowledge, future research and especially public policy.

Statement of qualification and current CVs

Work Programme and Timeline: The brief description of activities and timeline needed for each activity. Total duration of this study is 6-8 months.

Budget. Estimated expenditure by major line item, e.g., research time, in market travel etc. Total budget should not exceed GBP 5,000

Project leaders must at least fulfill all or some of the following criteria:

a. Completed at least one research project in the proposed thematic area of study;
b. Have a good publication record in the proposed thematic area of study;

Proposals should demonstrate a strong mentoring of young scholars engaged in the China-Africa discourse.

Concluding

It is envisaged that the successful applicants will conduct the research over a 6-8 month period starting in early 2009. All project reports must be finalized before the FOCAC 2009 Summit in Cairo so that they can be collated and published as policy papers as part of the African civil society contribution to the FOCAC process.


2006 FOCAC Commitments:
1. Double its 2006 aid commitments to the continent by 2009.
2. Provide US$3 billion in preferential loans and US$2 billion in preferential buyer’s credits over the next three years.
3. Set-up a China-Africa development fund that will reach US$5 billion, which would encourage and support Chinese companies to invest in Africa.
4. Cancel debt arising from all the interest-free government loans that matured at the end of 2005 owed by heavily indebted poor countries and the least developed countries in Africa that have diplomatic ties with China.
5. Further open up the Chinese market to African products by increasing from 190 to 440 the number of export items to China receiving zero-tariff treatment from the least developed countries in Africa that have relations with China.
6. Build a conference centre for the African Union to support African countries in their efforts to strengthen themselves through unity and to support the process of African integration.
7. Train 15,000 African professionals.
8. Send 100 senior agricultural experts to the continent.
9. Set up ten specific agricultural technology demonstration centres in Africa.
10. Build 30 hospitals.
11. Provide RMB 300 million grant for artemisinin and for the construction of 30 malaria prevention and treatment centres to fight malaria in Africa.
12. Dispatch 300 youth volunteers to the continent.
13. Build 100 schools across the continent.
14. Increase the number of Chinese government scholarships to African students from the current 2000 to 4000 annually.

More...

Mbeki, Zuma: a political earthquake

2008-10-09

William Gumede

Following the resignation of South African President Thabo Mbeki, William M. Gumede explores the future of the ANC and the likely consequences of a Jacob Zuma presidency. While suggesting that an elected Zuma would scarcely provoke an all-out political implosion in the short-term, Gumede concludes events to represent a genuine reconfiguration of South African politics.

The brutal ousting of South African President Thabo Mbeki by the 88-member national executive committee of the ruling African National Congress has unleashed political and economic turmoil, but it has also finally forced open the space to focus on how to bring fresh ideas, imagination and leadership to bear to renew a faltering democracy, mend a torn society, and foster more equitable development.

South Africa is stuck in a number of interlocking crises: broken families, communities and society; soaring poverty, unemployment and crime; a pervasive air of public corruption; rising racial animosity; battered democratic institutions; rapidly declining public confidence in government’s ability to deliver services; and looming economic problems ahead. The country must deal with these problems in an increasing complex, dangerous and economically volatile world. The ANC and South Africa need a less divisive and more unifying leader, with fresh ideas, to tackle imaginatively the country’s pressing problems. Mbeki and his group at the helm for over a decade now had clearly run out of ideas, direction and energy.

Yet, this is not why he was so vindictively forced out. It was also not because of ideological differences with the disparate coalition of his political enemies rallied around his rival ANC president Jacob Zuma: Mbeki’s centrist economic instincts against the leftist views of the trade unionists and communists or the virginity testing supporters on the traditionalist right. No, it was simply revenge. Those who fell under Mbeki’s sword saw an opening for an eye-for-an-eye retribution. They wanted to humble Mbeki, as they thought the president had humiliated them. But they also wanted to launch a pre-emptive strike, fearing that in his last days in office, Mbeki would use state resources to crush his enemies. They also feared he would set up a commission investigating corruption related to the controversial arms deal, in which Zuma is implicated, or recharge him. Zuma’s supporters are bragging about their triumph, and seeking to purge the government and the party of pro-Mbeki supporters. Anybody critical of Zuma is now increasingly labelled Mbeki loyalists. All the purges are going to destabilise the ANC and paralyse government further. South Africa now faces a leadership vacuum. Yet, Zuma is certainly not the answer.

The very obvious and most sensible solution to the African National Congress and now South Africa’s deepening crisis is to appoint Kgalema Motlanthe, the former trade unionist and deputy ANC leader, appointed as interim president until next year’s general election as the permanent presidential candidate of the ANC. Such is the political crisis that the only way to prevent an implosion of the ANC is to retire both Mbeki and Zuma, who are equally divisive. Zuma’s candidacy as South African president threatens to break up the ANC before it reaches 100 years in four years’ time. It is better to appoint a new leader with the necessary political gravitas, who is above both the Mbeki and Zuma political divisions, and who can rally significant groups in both camps. Right now the two ANC leaders that may be able to do this are most probably only Motlanthe and Mathews Phosa, the ANC Treasurer. The ANC could have prevented this destructive process if Mbeki had long ago stood aside for Motlanthe or any other of the younger talent, Phosa, Cyril Ramaphosa, Nelson Mandela’s preferred successor ahead of Mbeki, and Tokyo Sexwale, the former Gauteng Premier.

This is the obvious solution to unite the ANC and the country, which should have been done a long time before. In the end Mbeki’s selfish insistence to stand for a third term as party leader last year, rather then endorse either of these young Turks, because they criticised him in the past, meant that everybody opposed to Mbeki’s centralised, aloof and prickly reign, temporarily rallied around Zuma to dislodge the former president and his crew. Among the real reasons why many of the more reasonable on the ANC Left have embraced Zuma is the fear that any of the in-waiting, younger and more competent leaders may marginalise, as Mbeki did, not only the Left again, but also the pressing issues of the poor, of deepening democracy, of building stable families and communities and of inclusive nation building.

Furthermore, under Mbeki the democratic institutions have been undermined, ordinary citizens’ participation in policy and decision-making reduced and freedom of expression threatened. Judge Chris Nicholson in his judgement clearing Zuma of corruption charges was critical of the manipulation of public institutions for political ends under the Mbeki administration because the prosecutors did not follow the correct procedures; they did not interview Zuma before they charged him. Yet, in his campaign to quash the corruption charges against him, Zuma and his sometimes violent supporters have attacked the judiciary, democratic institutions, the media and critics to such an extent that the country’s not yet consolidated constitutional system, institutions and values are at the same risk as Mbeki’s previous manipulation of them. But the talent of all of South Africa’s people, whatever their ideology or colour, has also sadly been marginalised under the Mbeki presidency, who sideline even polite critics or different opinion, within the ANC as racists if white or handmaidens of whites if black. Yet, the Zuma camp is now purging everybody associated with Mbeki, and they now label everybody critical of Zuma as Mbeki loyalists. Zuma himself has sued a number of individuals, including this correspondent, in the biggest defamation to date in South Africa, following mild criticisms of his behaviour.

To make inroads into South Africa’s pressing problems will firstly need a less divisive and more unifying leader, and a clean break from the two factions – Mbeki and Zuma - currently paralysing the ANC, government and South Africa. Furthermore, any new leader must show a commitment to the deal with corruption, deepen democracy within the ANC and the country, be inclusive and tackle race and class inequality. The reality is, Zuma may be popular, and have a hardcore, loud and militant support base who are prepared to ‘die’ to have him president, but at the same time, a large proportion of the ANC’s membership disapprove of him with equal gusto. They are unlikely to vote for the ANC when he is the presidential candidate. Furthermore, such is the strength of the opposition against Zuma within the ANC that his administration is likely to be paralysed by log-jams, which will make it difficult to implement pro-poor policies. The lingering questions over Zuma’s involvement in alleged corruption if he does not answer the allegations fully in court will continue to paralyse government, erode public confidence and undermine the democracy. A new South African president will need to tackle a pervasive air of public corruption, which will demand honesty. Judge Nicholson rightly heavily criticised Mbeki and his government for routinely abusing public institutions to launch vendettas against critics. Zuma claimed he could see by the way a woman dresses and sits that she was looking for sex and that he should oblige. With violence against women reaching record levels, such views are not only unconstitutional, but it provides a legitimate cloak for sexist views. Outside the court house, Zuma’s supporters daily shouted abuse the accuser and stoned a woman they thought was her. He said nothing about this.

Zuma’s rape trial exposed the deep divide between the call for women’s equality in South Africa’s model constitution – which has priority to cultural considerations, the ANC, Cosatu and the SACP’s statutes and rhetoric and the archaic public attitudes to women. He gave his backing to traditionalists who want to introduce virginity testing for young girls. Throughout his rape trial and again during his corruption trial, Zuma played the ethnic card, speaking in Zulu in court, inventing new Zulu cultural norms to excuse his appalling sexist attitudes. South Africa is struggling with the consequences of broken, one-parent and child-headed families, caused by the combination of the legacies of apartheid, through its undermining of black male identity, the breaking-up of families because of the migrant work system, the militarisation of society by the apartheid state and the liberation movements violent response to it, the macho male identity culture among both black and white communities, and the consequences of poverty and HIV/Aids. Mbeki had failed to provide progressive leadership on this. Mbeki’s ally Trevor Manuel, the finance minister, said providing income support to vulnerable families will mean these families will spend it on alcohol.

It is hard to see Zuma presenting a progressive response to how to provide stable families, how to make gender equality as set out in the constitution real, and how to set a progressive example of male identity that aligns with the values of the constitution. With South Africa having among the highest HIV/Aids case loads in the world, Zuma believes that having a shower after unprotected sex with a HIV/Aids positive partner will stop infection. He has urged the police to shoot first and ask questions later to combat high crime levels. He will consider the death penalty. He is under fire from his own camp for flip-flopping on economic policy depending on the audience. Zuma has surrounded himself with hard-line demagogues. This will make it difficult for him to bring in new talent from across the colour, ideological and political divide, which is so necessary to energise the country, but which Mbeki has not done.

Under Mbeki, only a relatively small black middle classes benefited from affirmative action, and a dozen oligarchs from black economic empowerment. The white middle class, with the social capital, education and property acquired during apartheid and white business did well too. Yet the majority black poor and working class, and those eking out a living in the informal sector were marginalised. Many rightfully fear Zuma will be held hostage by the special interests, big black business oligarchs, such as the casino magnate Vivien Reddy, the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) moguls Don Makwanazi and the Shaik family, and arms companies like Thint, of which Zuma is alleged to have been bribed to shield them from prosecution.

Competent and decisive leadership is now required to lift the economy, not populism. Economic growth is slowing, inflation and costs are rising, and power shortages are undermining production, while high unemployment and poverty persist, service delivery remains poor, and ANC supporters are demanding urgent redistribution; all this amid the global financial disaster. Zuma has reassured the markets that the post-Mbeki government will steer the same economic path as Mbeki. President Motlanthe has been handed a new government report (Towards a 15-year Review) by his predecessor that concedes that in spite of growth levels averaging 5% the past years, not enough has been done to slash poverty and inequality, and to increase trust in government. Problems identified five years ago had proved more ‘deep-seated’ than previously recognised, Joel Netshitenzhe, head of policy coordination and advisory services, said: ‘Growth has exposed weaknesses ... the increase in the rate of growth does not necessarily result in a reduction in poverty.’ Nor had growth reduced inequality, but had rather created a bigger gap between the rich and poor, as Netshitenzhe outlined: ‘The state has had to learn new ways of doing things as it implemented, but not always have these been decisive and flexible enough.’

The Left’s backing for Zuma is not likely to give them much influence on economic policy. They may be consulted more regularly, of course, but will be told, as Mbeki told them before, that the government cannot risk unsettling the markets. Zuma will have to pay back other supporters – the BEE oligarchs, who were marginalised under Mbeki, but who are now sponsoring Zuma. Others who lost out on the gravy train will want their slice of the pie too. Cosatu and the SACP will have to compete with them for Zuma’s ear. The ANC’s allies, the SA Congress of Trade Unions and the SA Communist Party, are demanding to be upgraded as ‘full partners’ instead of junior partners as under Mbeki. Blade Nzimande of the SACP says it wants more of its members on the ANC's candidate list for the 2009 elections, and more appointed as national and provincial ministers, mayors and local councillors, with a 'deployment committee' to pick its people. It has just concluded a policy conference, ahead of an alliance summit with Cosatu and the SACP; Nzimande says the summit should veto government policy.

Instead of stopping the legal problems of Zuma, forcing out Mbeki has actually only increased Zuma’s legal woes. When announcing that Mbeki was ‘recalled’ as president, Gwede Mantashe, the ANC general secretary had said: ‘The National Prosecuting Authority’s decision to appeal the judgment has become a worry and a point of division for the ANC.’ The reality is that Zuma still has very real 16 charges of corruption against him. Judge Chris Nicholson, who cleared Zuma on a technicality – the prosecutors had followed the wrong procedure - emphasised he did not give a verdict on the charges, but proposed the prosecutors recharge Zuma, provided they do so by the book. To rescue their own credibility, the prosecutors have no other choice but to appeal and recharge Zuma.

Moreover, the prosecutors have been under such an attack from Zuma militants now that their very credibility may rest on successfully recharging Zuma. In any event, they know that if Zuma comes to power, the prosecuting unit may be broken up, with members of the team that have been prosecuting Zuma likely be ‘redeployed’ elsewhere, or simply put under pressure to resign. Furthermore, even if the prosecutors did bow under the pressure and did not prosecute, a number of private prosecutions against Zuma have been lined up – so it is difficult to see how Zuma is going to extricate himself out of this, which have already seen his former financial advisor sent to jail for 15 years. The National Prosecuting Authority has now confirmed that it had applied to appeal against the ruling that sprang Zuma free on a technicality. Mbeki has also formally approached the Constitutional Court to ask that Judge Nicholson's findings be declared unconstitutional and set aside; he says the judgement was ‘vexatious, scandalous and prejudicial’, cost him his job and damaged his good name and reputation. Zuma is opposing Mbeki’s bid to clear his name. If Mbeki won, his sacking by the ANC’s executive would be shown to be based on false assumptions, and therefore void.

Following Mbeki’s forced exit, the Zuma coalition, consisting of five distinctly different groups, who were all opposed to Mbeki, have lost the glue that hold them together – opposition to Mbeki. Furthermore, with Mbeki gone, all of them are now focusing on securing their own interests in the leadership vacuum. Within the Zuma coalition, not all are set on securing the presidency of South Africa for Zuma. Those who are, though include: the ANC youth league, the pro-Zuma black economic empowerment business oligarchs – both hoping to secure patronage; the Communist Party and the trade unionists, who nave no alternative presidential candidate of their own, think they can manipulate Zuma in power; and those ANC leaders who are being investigated by the National Prosecuting Authority for corruption, because, they argue that if Zuma’s case is quashed – especially when he comes to power, theirs will also. So, now the Zuma coalition are divided between those who want Zuma at all costs to become president, such as those seeking a pardon for corruption or patronage, versus those who are prepared to look for a unifying ANC leader that will be pro-poor, the latter include the more serious elements of Cosatu and the SACP. Yet, Zuma is not entirely in control of his own coalition. Ahead of Mbeki’s ouster, he opposed efforts to oust Mbeki, because he feared he will inherit a divided party, unprepared to run a general election. However, he was rudely overruled by his own militants.

Furthermore, in the week when Mbeki detractors within the Zuma coalition moved to oust him, all the old presidential rivals of Mbeki, Cyril Ramaphosa, Mathews and Tokyo Sexwale, again took centre stage within the ANC, dwarfing Zuma, almost like a decade ago. Zuma initially wanted Baleka Mbete, the Speaker of Parliament, and the ANC’s chairwoman, a more pliable supporter, as caretaker president. However, he lost out on that. Until yesterday, the Zuma camp, in control of the ANC had planned to appoint Baleka Mbete, the Speaker of Parliament, as interim president, to smooth the way for Zuma and to create an environment for Zuma’s legal charges to be withdrawn. Motlanthe was the choice of those in the Zuma coalition, who are more interested in keeping the ANC united, and securing a pro-poor government focus, rather then putting Zuma into the presidency. They have long seen him as an alternative candidate for the presidency if Zuma stumbles over his legal hurdles. Motlanthe does things by the book. In this crisis, their may be openings for other Young Turks of Motlanthe’s generation. To contain the Young Turks – Motlanthe, Phosa, Sexwale and Ramaphosa, Zuma has promised to stay as president for one term only, and then allow a competitive election for the leadership between them. But Mothlante obviously now has the inside track, because he is already an MP, the others, including Zuma are not. He will be presiding president for six months, which is enough to show his credentials not only as a unifying figure, but a source of new ideas, energy and principle, and to contrast this to the divisive potential of a populist Zuma.

Under the Mbeki administration, corruption was often only selectively punished, depending on one’s closeness to Mbeki’s inner circle. A number of ANC leaders under investigation for corruption support Zuma’s attempts not to stand trial, on the basis that their cases will also be cleared. This week parliament has started winding down the National Prosecuting Authority's elite crime fighting unit, the Directorate of Special Operations, known as the Scorpions, which brought the corruption charges against Zuma. The Zuma dominated ANC leadership voted to have the Scorpions, South Africa’s most effective crime-busting disbanded, claiming it was used for political ends, when it investigated Zuma and other ANC leaders for corruption. With the country awash with crime, the best solution is not to close down the most effective crime fighting unit. A better solution would have been to expanded democratic oversight over the Scorpions, and intelligence, defence and security services. While, all eyes were focused on the transition from Mbeki to Motlanthe, the Zuma-dominated ANC parliamentary caucus slipped in a decision to cancel outstanding monies owned by individual ANC MPs who were defrauded parliament’s travel voucher scheme, dubbed ‘travelgate’, to stop outside civil actions against them to recover the money. Parliament had tasked liquidators to recover outstanding monies from MPs implicated in the travel voucher fraud, which amounted to R6 million. More than 100 MPs, including some ministers, who implicated in defrauding parliament’s travel scheme for MPs.

One worrying now also is that the division between the ruling party and the state is now increasingly blurred. In fact, South Africa is in danger now of becoming a party-state or ‘partocracy’ where there is no clear firewall between the executive, legislatures, and public institutions on the one hand, and the ruling ANC, on the other. Yet, the country constitutional democratic system demands a clear division between the party on the one hand, and the state and public institutions on the other. The problem is also that ANC leadership under Mbeki and now again under Zuma, assumes that they are the South African nation, or euphemistically, the ‘people’ itself, rather then its representatives. This means every decision taken by the ANC leadership is viewed as a good for the country, without consulting the wider nation. It also means that decisions that are often purely factional ones are seen as in the interest of the nation as a whole.

Of course there are many problems inherent in a party-state. The one is that if the party is paralysed by factional fights, tainted by corruption or run undemocratically, the country are also likely to be. Turning into party-states are one of the reasons why many African countries run by former independence or liberation movements have failed to institute broad-based democracy when they came to power. When the ruling independence or liberation movements became corrupt, undemocratic or divided into factions, or the leadership become personalised, their governments became so also, stunting a democratic, development and service delivery efforts. Can the worse effects of party-state or ‘parto-cracy’ be reversed?

The first thing is that the ANC must become more internally democratic. The truth, although the ANC’s Polokwane conference has made a call for greater internal democracy in the party, little has change. A case in point is the face that Zuma is currently explaining to ANC provinces, branches and ordinary members why Mbeki was so brutally pushed when he only had six months to go. The decision should have been canvassed among the membership, branches and provinces before. An integral part of becoming more internal democratic is to make the ANC’s internal elections more democratic. South Africa’s electoral system that allows the party bosses, rather than the ordinary people, to decide who should be candidates for parliament, provincial legislatures and local government should be scrapped. This means that the elected representatives are more accountable to the welfare of the party bosses rather than to the people and to defend the constitution – to which they pledged allegiance when elected.

It is even more urgent now that South Africa adopt a new electoral system, as already proposed in 2004 by the electoral task team headed by Frederick Van Zyl Slabbert, to give more say to ordinary people, rather than the party, and which make elected candidates are accountable to their constituencies and allow them to be recalled by their constituencies, if they fail to deliver. Secondly, democratic institutions, the judiciary, parliament and audit institutions must become more vigilant and assert to defend the democracy, constitution and its values. Thirdly, civil movements, non-governmental organisations and the media must do so also. Fourthly, ordinary citizens must also assert their rights more, and hold government and public institutions accountable.

Finally, South Africa’s opposition parties must get more serious, adopt more relevant policies, actually do the hard work of establishing proper and working branches and elect more competent leaders. Faced with the real prospect of Zuma likely to become president of South Africa, some ANC members have said they will form their own party, to challenge a Zuma-led ANC in next year’s general election. Mbeki’s 92-year old mother, Epainette, a struggle icon in her own right, has said she will support such a new breakaway party ‘100%’. This shows the extent of the dissatisfaction among the ANC rank-and-file. The absence of an effective and relevant opposition party in South Africa remains one of the biggest shortcomings of the country’s infant democracy.

The main reason why the ANC under Mbeki has been so complacent, and why Mbeki was ultimately forced out, is because the party had no opposition to fear it if messed up, that could dislodge it. Only when a ruling party faces the real prospect of losing an election, will South Africa’s politics be infused with the electoral dynamism the country so desperately needs to renew its faltering democracy and provide a better life for it’s people. Before the ANC’s Left components, the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party, in one last gamble in 2005, decided to rally behind Jacob Zuma, in an attempt to change the direction of the ANC, each of them had already resolved to combine forces and form a party of the Left. Both the memberships of Cosatu and the SACP resolved in 2005 to form a new party, if they could not sway the ANC to become more pro-poor. However, when Mbeki fired Zuma for corruption in 2005, the latter joined forces with the leaders of the unionists and communist party, and signed a pact that instead of them forming their own party, they should back him (Zuma) for the ANC presidency, and he would in turn make the ANC more pro-poor.

Whether a breakaway party will be formed depends on whether Zuma becomes the president of South Africa. If Motlanthe is given the job permanently, and unite the ANC, pursue a pro-poor agenda and deepen the democracy within the country and the ANC, the disaffected ANC members are more likely to stay. Or if they go, a new party may have less legitimacy. If Zuma becomes president of South Africa, the chances of a breakaway party being set up will increase. Ultimately, if it happens, the success of a breakaway party will also depend on the policies and leadership at the helm. It will only work if its leaders and reason of existence is genuinely pro-poor, for deepening democracy and for equitable redistribution. The current crop of opposition parties in South Africa are irrelevant because they don’t differ from the ANC on policies if they do the policies are on the right, rather than pro-poor or to deepen democracy, or on the unrealistic far-left or Africanist. The parties are often one-man or woman and a fax machine, no deep-rooted branches, credible policies. Yet, in the long-term it will be better for the democracy if the ruling ANC/SACP/Cosatu tripartite alliance is reconfigured – the forcing out of Mbeki will now bring that closer.

Ultimately, the best solution for South Africa is the breakaway of the ruling ANC tripartite alliance into centre-left faction, and its left faction, and the assortment of current opposition parties on the centre-right. Of course, if Zuma becomes president of South Africa, the country won’t implode, yet, but it will just plod along business as usual, democracy, protection and development for the well-off and politically well-connected, and pockets of wealth, service delivery and excellence, for the few, and continuing poverty and tyranny for the majority. Mbeki’s enforced early exit and the ANC leadership’s attempt to push Zuma into the South African presidency at all costs, and the inevitable backlash thereof, are providing the political earthquake South Africa needed to reconfigure its politics.


* William M. Gumede is author of Thabo Mbeki and the Battle for the Soul of the ANC. Zed Books ISBN: 9781842778487

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

Canada and Africa: The opportunity to make history

2008-10-09

Gerald Caplan

While underlining Canadian people’s best intentions for the African continent, Gerald Caplan argues that his country and the rest of the Western world should understand that many existing practices around trade, aid, lending, investment, and recruiting in relation to Africa cause far more harm than good. Without an approach that goes beyond mere compassionate humanitarianism, the author stresses that the efforts of millions of courageous African social activists will be in vain.
Millions of Canadians care deeply about Africa. Look at all those who belong to Darfur solidarity groups, contribute to the Stephen Lewis Foundation, and tell pollsters they favour much more generous foreign aid.

Yet this article may well be the only time in the entire election when the word is actually used, and I salute the Ottawa Citizen for commissioning it.

Of course all generalisations about Africa need to be handled with great care. The continent couldn't be further from a monolith. It includes 54 wildly diverse countries and a billion wildly diverse citizens. And it's absolutely true that Africa is not just a collection of bad news stories and that millions of Africans do lead normal, happy, vibrant, fulfilled, loving lives.

But the other truth is that Africa remains a continent of a million woes. It has more problems per square person than any other: poverty, conflict, genocide, corruption, hunger, disease (including HIV and AIDS), miserably mistreated girls and women, despicable leaders, giant slums, insufficient drinking water and sanitation, inadequate electricity, lousy schools, minimal health care, little infrastructure. What's worst, each of these harsh realities feeds on and exacerbates the other, so all must be dealt with at the same time, a superhuman task that has barely been begun.

Many Canadians feel deep sympathy for the plight of Africans and wish they could do more to help. Most Canadian governments have made the same claim. We want to be part of the solution to Africa's ills.

The trouble is, however, that we're actually part of the problem. We proudly see ourselves as some kind of noble missionaries—the dedicated white man or woman come to save the hapless blacks from their own failures. But the harsh reality is that for some 600 years we've consistently pursued policies and actions that have brought misery and suffering to the majority of Africans, especially those in sub-Saharan Africa. Almost all of us in the rich world continue to benefit from the exploitation of Africa that has been executed by our governments, the powerful multilateral financial institutions we support, and the private companies that our governments often promote.

This doesn't mean that all Africans are simply the passive victims of white neo-colonialists; that's knee-jerk liberalism run amok. The opposite is true. Since formal colonial rule ended, country after country has suffered from a plague of malign leaders whose only interest has been to reward their own cliques while increasing the oppression of their citizens. In fact, it's this double jeopardy that has been the scourge of Africa; venal leaders at home and destructive intervention from outside. These twin afflictions are not unrelated.

Look at the list of Africa's ills. Virtually every one has been caused, or exacerbated, by Western influence in one form or another.

Almost without exception, Africa's ‘Big Men’, its despots and tyrants, have either been installed or propped up by a western power, usually the US, Britain or France. It began at the very dawn of African independence when the US initiated and the Belgians executed a plot to murder Patrice Lumumba, the Congo's first elected leader and, for the next 45 years, its only one. The Americans helped put Joseph Mobutu in power, who for 3 decades plundered his country and brutalised his people with the active and knowing participation of the US, France and the World Bank. The appalling war that has convulsed eastern Congo in recent years is a direct result of Mobutu's misrule and the decision of France to allow leaders of the genocide against Rwanda's Tutsi to escape into Congo. Africans kill, the West enables.

That 1994 genocide is another perfect storm of African elites and westerners colluding to cause incalculable harm. It was Catholic missionaries and Belgian colonialists who were most responsible for pitting Hutu and Tutsi against each other. A tiny greedy elite of Hutu extremists planned and executed the genocide, it's true, but it would not have succeeded without the active support of the French government and its military. The genocide might well have been stopped dead in its tracks but for the adamant refusal of the Clinton administration to send reinforcements to General Dallaire's puny UN force.

Even Africa's most notorious Big Man today, Robert Mugabe, might not have gained power had Britain stopped the illegal rebellion of a handful of white racists, and had it not then embraced good old President Bob in his first decade of murder and oppression.

Look at the terrible cost in lives and lost development opportunities caused by the apartheid state in South Africa before 1994. Besides its vicious internal policies, the apartheid government systematically raided and destabilised all the African-led governments of southern Africa. The US and Britain bolstered the white government as a so-called bulwark to communism in Africa. The tragic toll is still being paid.

Take corruption, an ugly phenomenon that has almost become synonymous with Africa itself. It's quite true that corruption is a deep-seated crisis for much of the continent. But there's corruption and then there’s corruption. Cops demand bribes from drivers to ratchet up their miserable salaries. But the big guys, the ones who steal millions of dollars and more, can only succeed with the aid of a sophisticated network of Western banks, lawyers, accountants, middlemen and tax havens. We never hear of this half of the dance, yet it takes two to tango. Let's have a Transparency International for rich countries that creates a dishonour roll for those that facilitate and profit from the hundreds of millions, even billions, they help steal from Africa.

Take the crises in education and healthcare. Believe it or not, policies imposed by the World bank and International Monetary Fund, on which so many African states depend for loans and legitimacy, actually put a ceiling on the number of teachers and health workers that government can employ, in order to keep the cost of government low. Questions of need were irrelevant. In fact, the West demanded that fees be imposed on both schooling and health care, which, to the apparent astonishment of the horde of PhDs who work for these institutions, led to a serious decline in school attendance and the use of health clinics.

This is only one example of how western policies and practices have contrived to worsen the burdens for many Africans. There are countless others. Many of them stem from the same ideology that led to school ad health fees for the poorest people in the world. Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz calls it ‘market fundamentalism’, the dogma that whatever the question, market nostrums are the answer: small government, privatization, the conviction that the private sector will bring growth that will trickle down and benefit all.

As report after report has documented, in Africa as in the much of the poor world these dogmas have palpably failed to create sustained growth while dramatically increasing inequality, in short a perfect failure.

Onerous conditions for receiving a loan - privatizing water supplies, for example, or grossly under funding higher education - were actually destructive of African economies. So were the loans themselves. Often provided to the most egregious of African leaders at exorbitant rates, many desperately poor countries have spent more repaying the interest on their loans to the affluent West than on their health and education budgets combined.

Instead of trade being profitable for Africa, the West has forced the continent to open its markets to western goods, all in the name of free trade, at least for the weak and poor. At the same time, European and North American farmers are subsidised to the tune of $1 billion a day or more. Incredibly enough, it costs Ghanaians more to buy a local chicken than one shipped from Europe. No country has developed without protecting its markets and industries until they were strong enough to be competitive. But we insist Africa, with all its burdens, be the first to try. It can't be done.

We promote more Western investment for Africa, but in reality most of it goes to a small number of oil-producing states. China is always blamed, half fairly, for its obsession with Africa's resources. But they've learned everything they know from us. Few western resource-extracting industries pay appropriate taxes, royalties or wages. Many pollute the environment and use bribes to get contracts. Western investors are in fact the source of much of Africa's corruption.

Finally, foreign aid is far from the generous contribution to Africa that we like to think it is. Not only isn't there enough of it, it often doesn't do the job intended. Under Canada’s current Prime Minister Stephen Harper, aid - already at record lows - has actually declined in the past two years. And a great deal of so-called aid rarely gets to where it's needed in any case. Much is tied to buying Canadian products, and large amounts end up going to Canadian consultants. What actually goes to alleviating poverty or helping development is never quite clear, but it's only a fraction of whatever amounts you hear.

The truth about the West's relationship with Africa is exactly the opposite of what most of us believe. The West exploits Africa far more than we help develop it. The reality is that over six centuries, from the slave trade to the brutal decades of colonialism right through to today, year after year the West drains off far more of Africa's resources than we invest or donate.

What should Canadians do? First, understand that we are not compassionate humanitarians or modern missionaries, but that in the name of justice we owe Africa an enormous debt for the way it’s been looted and plundered. Second, we need to make the rest of the Western world understand that many of our trade, aid, lending, investment, recruiting and other practices are causing far more harm than good. Otherwise, despite the best efforts of millions of courageous African social activists, their continent will remain a mess.


* Gerald Caplan, who has a PhD in African history, recently published The Betrayal of Africa.

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

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Northern Kenya: A legal-political scar

2008-10-09

Ekuru Aukot

This article offers a critical perspective on the making of the Kenya post-colony using the example of ‘The Kenya of the North’, a region that has been relegated to the periphery – politically, legally, economically, socially and culturally – in the building of a nation. Using northern Kenya as a case study, the paper asks whether Kenya has ever been inclusive of all its regions and peoples, and whether it has succeeded in building consensus on issues affecting all its citizens, especially in as far as the rule of law, democracy, human rights and their protection are concerned.
THE ‘FORMATION OF KENYA’ ERA

Kenya became a British protectorate in 1895 and a colony in 1920. The north was important only for securing Kenya’s territory and governmental authority. The Northern Frontier District (comprised of Turkana, Marsabit, Moyale, Wajir, Mandera, Ijara, Isiolo and Samburu) was contrasted with the colonial administration’s favoured area, the white highlands. Legislation was imposed to control and exploit the people and their region, which colonial officers had already declared to be of no economic value. These laws included the Northern Frontier Province Poll Tax, the Vagrancy Act, the Outlying Districts Act, and the Special Districts (Administration) Act that were only repealed as recently as 1997. Even alien laws such as the India Frontier Crimes Act were tried out in the north.

However, the indigenous inhabitants of the region had little or no sustained contact with the colonial administrator. This could be attributed to their way of life (nomadic pastoralism) or to the region’s rough terrain and harsh climate. This meant that northern Kenya did not experience the political impacts of colonialism that are sometimes held to be beneficial. In fact, the people of the north feel no difference between the colony and the post-colony.

The closed district policy and in particular the creation of the NFD excluded northern Kenya. For a time the region was watched for reasons of territorial control, but as soon as colonial rule had been consolidated, even the watching ceased. The north acquired the characteristics of a Siberia in old Russia, where political enemies and civil servants were banished to re-affirm their political allegiance, or to learn how to stay on the right side of the political law.(1)

The sentiments of colonial officials toward northern Kenya were summed up in the view that ‘there is only one way to treat the Northern Territories and that is to give them what protection one can under the British flag and, otherwise, to leave them to their own customs... Anything else is certainly uneconomic.’(2) ‘Two Kenyas’ became evident, as one district officer recalled in his memoirs:

‘Kenya, as we used to call it… is divided roughly into two halves, the southern half of which consists of what we call the settled area where the white people had their farms and the agricultural natives and plantations, and the northern area which extends from Lake Rudolf to the Somali border and consists of about a hundred thousand square miles of acacia scrub, laval desert and patches of sand desert, roughly twice the size of England. The administrators in the southern half of Kenya thought we were mad to live there at all…’(3)

The closed districts policy caused the two halves of Kenya to dislike each other. Dislike of the north by the south was founded in fear and prejudice. One district officer recalled:

‘The North had a bad name in certain sense; it was regarded by some people like joining the foreign legion and most officers couldn’t or didn’t want to stand more than eighteen months of it, after that they either got bored or their health gave way because of the heat, or they became nervous, so that was the average period during which an officer stayed in that territory. The result of course was that the Government in Nairobi used to have to send new officers fairly frequently, and very often there were not enough volunteers and so people used to be posted there and it was referred to sometimes as a sort of punishment station where you did your eighteen months and having got that over your name was erased from the list…’(4)

The cumulative effect of these attitudes entrenched the separation of the north from the ‘other Kenya’.

THE KENYA POST-COLONY ERA

Successive independent governments failed to unify the post-colony, pursuing differential treatment of regions in the style of the colonial administration. Post-colonial governments continued to neglect northern Kenya or give it minimal consideration. They only saw its relevance during election periods when it (subconsciously, perhaps) sustained the very regimes that distanced it from the rest of the country. The following are illustrations of the shortcomings of post-colonial administrations.

A) UNDEMOCRATIC PARLIAMENT AT INDEPENDENCE

The post-colony parliament was not sufficiently representative. In the immediate aftermath of independence, those attempting to represent a constituency or sections of the population that had been relegated or ignored faced serious consequences. This is demonstrated by the political assassinations of Pio Gama Pinto in 1965 (who was perceived to represent the Asians), J.M. Kariuki in 1975 (who, despite coming from the populous and ruling Kikuyu elite, represented wider principles of inclusion and advocated for the interests of the disadvantaged), and Tom Mboya in 1969 (popular as a nationalist and unionist). Democratic representation was seen as undermining state leadership. The early post-colonial era defined Kenya’s political path, which was followed until the last decade of the 20th century when section 2(1) of the 1963 independence constitution was repealed to pave the way for multi-party democracy in Kenya.

B) RETENTION OF THE COLONIAL LEGACY

This was apparent at two levels. The first was the retention of the colonial structures of government, represented by the unelected provincial/district administration, which was answerable only to the executive.(5) The second was the retention of colonial legislation. (Most laws affecting the north prior to independence were called Ordinances. The post-colonial government simply changed the name from ‘Ordinances’ to ‘Acts of Parliament’.) For example, land in Northern Kenya is even now conceptualised around legal notions of Trust Land, introduced by the colonial administration and accepted by its post-colonial successors.(6) Different land law regimes, such as the Registered Lands Act,(7) applied to the white highlands and other parts of the country. In essence, the law deprived the peoples of northern Kenya from owning the very land on which they were born. Instead, the government held it in trust for them.

C) NEGATIVE ETHNICITY

One notable aspect of post-colonial administrations is the instrumental role played by the tribe. Each president used the tribe for political purposes and to develop his geographical area. Kenyatta used the Kikuyu while Moi used the Kalenjin, and with the Kibaki administration it is back to the Kikuyu. It is tempting to conclude that tribes whose representatives will never be presidents will always be relegated to the backwaters of state affairs. Consequently, multiple nationalisms based on ethnicity have emerged.

D) PARTY POLITICS

Another blunder of the post-colony government was its emphasis on party politics rather than on the development of one Kenya. Moi would often state that only those in a Kenya African National Union (KANU) region or constituency would realise development. However, this was not true, because although election statistics show that northern Kenya supported KANU, it never really received any benefits. So the tribe played a bigger role than the party. The tribe-party axis with respect to leadership effectively relegated other ethnicities, including those from the north.

E) UNDERDEVELOPMENT

Development is to all intents and purposes a measure of inclusion. Northern Kenya has the poorest infrastructure in the country, which means that government services cannot be delivered or guaranteed. Moreover, civil servants posted to the region perceive their assignment as punishment. These negative perceptions have over time forced the people of the north to fight social exclusion and prejudice. Even at the earliest inception of the Kenyan state, they were never integrated into the idea of an independent Kenya. They always believed – and by policy were encouraged to believe – that they were different. They are the people at the periphery, the victims of socio-economic and political injustice.

NATION WITHIN A NATION?

The way in which the Kenya post-colony developed, through the exclusion of many groups within its boundaries, contradicted the nationalism of the anti-colonial struggle. The development of the post-colony was marked by the growth of nations within a nation. It appears that the differential treatment of regions has re-awakened characteristics of nationhood. In a recent regional conference organised by the Northern Frontier Districts Centre for Human Rights and Research (NFD-CHR), over 135 participants asserted their strong roots in northern Kenya and their belief that their way of life distinguishes them from the majority of Kenyans in political, social and economic terms. The question is, has there been a government policy that responds to their way of life as there has been for those in other regions of Kenya?

This raises a number of issues: first, the need to question and reflect on the factors that contributed to the creation of the Kenya of the North, as discussed above; second, the geographical location of northern Kenya which has distanced its people from centralised opportunities; third, the differential treatment of the region in relation to the rest of the country, as demonstrated by successive post-colonial governments; and lastly, the fact that the creation of the Kenya post-colony proceeded without the integration of an integral part of its existence – the north. The government encouraged northern Kenyans to see their region as outside Kenya’s main territory (hence the phrase ‘going to Kenya’). This attitude is reinforced by the striking differences in development and services, especially in security matters, partly fostered by the quality of political representation in the region.

Although Kenya is a democracy in which the representation of the north should be felt, this is hardly the case. The region’s blind and weak political leadership has been unresponsive to its constituents’ problems. Between 1963 and 1982 the ruling KANU transformed Kenya into a de facto one-party state, despite the existence of the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) until 1964 and the emergence of the Kenya People’s Union (KPU) in 1969. The entrenchment of KANU had strong roots in the north. Northerners accepted how they were governed, despite the myriad problems affecting them. Political leaders were rewarded with ministerial positions until they were blinded to the way in which the region they purportedly represented was being systematically relegated. This paved the way for politicians from other parts of Kenya to take advantage of that blindness, further impoverishing the people of the north.

For example, political leaders have repeatedly failed to question development projects which have had negative or minimal impacts. One example of many is the Turkwel Gorge project on the border of West Pokot and Turkana districts, which is associated with powerful down-country politicians and which has blocked the Turkwel waters, on which the Turkana have relied for generations and now cannot reach. Political leaders in the north became the stooges of the national ruling elite and the enemy of their own people simply by aligning with the ruling regime. They fostered the region’s disenfranchisement from mainstream Kenya. Even they do not feel part of the north – the region is only relevant to them in the same way it was relevant to the colonialists. When NFD-CHR invited the Pastoralist Parliamentary Group (PPG) to a regional symposium entitled ‘The Kenya of the North Revisited’, all the MPs from the region were absent, their excuse being that Marsabit, the venue, was too far away.

In the post-colony era there has been little government presence in the north. The government decided to arm people through home guards, despite a huge military capability that could protect its citizens but is often idle. Partly as a result, northern Kenya has experienced more internal conflict than any other part of the country. It has also been affected by its proximity to other nations in conflict. The region is the crucible of human rights violations and a zone where conflict is perpetrated with impunity. Under such circumstances the state’s absence is very evident. The fundamental obligation of any state is the protection of its citizens from internal or external aggression. This is lacking in the North. Recent atrocities have taken place with impunity, including those perpetrated by the government.

FUTURE PROSPECTS FOR THE KENYA OF THE NORTH

Before examining the future prospects for the north, a few comparative points need to be made regarding the eras of the colony and the post-colony, and the way in which the region was treated in each.

Of the two eras, which was better for the residents of northern Kenya? The colonial era set in place the character of what was to become the Kenya post-colony, but the independence administration perfected and enforced colonialism’s injurious and divisive policies. Colonialism’s intent was not good; it was discriminatory and selfish in nature, concerned solely with resources. But the colonialist at least made it his duty to know everything in his district and took measures to remedy undesirable situations. In newly independent Kenya the North was ignored.

Besides knowing the people, the colonialist took a keen interest in the land and natural resource base and how best to make this beneficial to both the residents and the administration. This is something that post-colonial administrations have failed to do. The degree of knowledge displayed by the colonial administration is a challenge to the present day administration. Additionally, budgetary allocations in the Kenya post-colony have always treated regions in the north the same as those in central Kenya, despite the differences in land mass, distances and hardships.

Post-colonial governments underestimated the importance of the volatile regimes along the northern borders. The colonial administration took these seriously in a way that post-colonial administrations have not. Moreover, post-colonial governments have demonstrated suspicion of some northern residents, doubting their nationality and citizenship.(8) The post-colony should have embarked at an early stage on the equal treatment of all its regions and citizens, regardless of origin. Sadly, the era of the post-colony produced more second-class citizens than that of the colony.

Future prospects for northern Kenya, and for a united Kenya in general, must take into account the history that created the divide that is evident in the post-colony today. Perhaps one of the vehicles to that unity lies in the draft constitution, if it comes to pass. There is still an opportunity to bring the Kenya of the North into the mainstream of Kenya’s politics as an equal partner in one Kenya. The end game and emphasis should be on how to reform the post-colony in order to forge a new path for its development. This could be spearheaded by the political leadership taking advantage of things like the Constituency Development Fund and the Pastoral Parliamentary Group. It could also be supported by investments in areas such as mobile education, the livestock industry, food security, judicial institutions and empowerment of the female children.

CONCLUSION

The ‘Kenya of the North’ reflects both historical and current realities, but it may also be a projection of the future if drastic political and legal measures are not taken. In the aftermath of colonialism, and during the era of President Moi, the North was only recognised in the language of ‘quota system[s]’ and ‘affirmative action’. Mercy and pity reigned, not equality.

What unites northern Kenya today appears to be little more than its marginalisation and difficult terrain. Now is the time to look beyond this. Political unity should facilitate the growth of social movements that seek respect for and promotion of human rights, democracy and good governance. This is the ultimate path to the formation and development of a new Kenya.


* Ekuru Aukot is Advocate of the High Court of Kenya and the Executive Director at Kituo Cha Sheria, an organization dedicated to the fight for the rights of the marginalised specifically in areas of housing, Land, Labour and governance (http://www.kituochasheria.or.ke).

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


Notes:

(1) Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first President, was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment and hard labour at Lokitaung prison in Turkana and was then put under house arrest in Lodwar. The colonialists wanted to remand Kenyatta to a place where nationalistic views did not exist and which did not matter to the colony.

(2) Sir Geoffrey Archer, officer in charge of the NFD in 1920, cited in Harden, B. (1993) Africa: Dispatches from a Fragile Continent, p.193.

(3) Allen, C. (1979) Tales from the Dark Continent, p.112-113.

(4) Ibid, p.115.

(5) Executive power is the bone of contention that is threatening the whole process of constitution-making today. Retention of an executive president goes against the views of Kenyans as articulated in the Bomas draft constitution.

(6) See chapter nine of the constitution (ss.114-120).

(7) See chapter 300 of the Laws of Kenya.

(8) For example, several residents of Wajir district revealed to the author in a recent legal aid clinic that they are still required to prove before the General Service Unit police manning the roadblocks between Mandera and Garissa that they are indeed Kenyans of Somali origin and not from Somalia.

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Open cast mining in South Africa will ruin livelihoods

2008-10-09

Azad Essa

Sustaining South Africa’s Wild Coast (SWC) campaign, a loose coalition of organisations continue to lobby the government to overturn the decision to permit open cast dune mining in the Pondoland Wild Coast region. The SWC argue that not only was the decision-making process flawed but mining in the region would have grave consequences for its ecology. But the campaign continues to face a number of obstacles, from stakeholders with different agendas to accusations of the campaign being ‘a white elitist concern’, to approving authorities lacking sufficient clout to make a difference. Azad Essa speaks to the SWC communications officer, Val Payn, to get a better understanding of the issue.
Azad Essa: The SWC is a collection of organisations and individuals opposing the proposed open cast mining of the Wild Coast. Can you briefly outline the issue at hand?

Val Payn: [The] SWC is a registered Section 21 NGO. However, we collaborate and cooperate with, and lend support too and are supported by, a large number of organisations and individuals who are opposed to the mining, including the communities along the Wild Coast who will be directly affected by the mining.

AE: Is it a local consortium?

VP: Under the Xoobeni Sands Dune Mining proposal, Australian Mining Company, Mineral Resources Commodities LTD (MRC) and its local subsidiary, Transworld Energy and Mineral Resources and Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) associate Xolco (26% shareholding) have ambitions to mine some 346 million tons of minerals in a lease area known as the Xolobeni Mineral Sands. Mining over the entire area is estimated to last for 22 years. To date they have been given authority to mine, by DME , the centrally placed Kwanyana block, one of the four blocks demarcated for mining over an approximately 22km stretch of coastal dune in the heart of the Pondoland Centre of Plant Endemism.

AE: Is it an issue that a foreign mining company together with a BEE partner has the contract, or is it the mining per se?

In SWC opinion both of these are issues. The mining is not part of the original Wild Coast SDI proposal for this region, which had proposed community based tourism as the appropriate driver of development. Also, studies undertaken as part of the Wild Coast Conservation and Sustainable Development Plan showed that, in the long term, the development of community based eco-tourism and sustainable livelihoods projects would bring far greater socio-economic benefits to a broader range of people than the mining. That is, most of the benefits that mining brings are unlikely to be benefits to people who live in the area, and any benefits, such as jobs, will be of short duration for the 22 years lifespan of the mine. On the other hand the social and environmental upheaval that the mining is likely to create for those who occupy the land earmarked for mining is likely to be immense. It is questionable whether any so-called 'benefits' will outweigh these negative impacts. That a foreign mining company will be the greatest beneficiary of this proposal simply compounds the issue.

KEY AREAS OF CONCERN

Fundamental human rights enshrined in the South African Constitution have been violated by the mining company and its supporters.

The public participation process for the conduct of the EIA was grossly biased in failing to ensure those residents most affected by the mining proposal were capacitated to participate meaningfully.

Relevant authorities have not been in full compliance with the relevant statutes: the Mineral and Petroleum Resources' Development Act (MPDRA), the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA), and the Interim Protection of Indigenous Land Rights Act (IPILRA).

Major contradictions exist between DEAT and DME interests. For example, the DEAT report has advised that: 'The mining is a short-term economic activity with long-term negative impacts whereas the ecotourism in the area has an unlimited life span,' concluding with a strong recommendation that the mining license should not be awarded, given available information.

The mining venture will destroy the local resource base upon which community based sustainable development is dependent.

The mining venture is in conflict with several of South Africa's agreed international obligations to sustainably conserve and manage our biodiversity and ensure benefit-sharing from such use, including under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Suggested mitigations of environmental impacts are not viable or possible (given the available data and information on which they are based), which will therefore result in the destruction of a unique, internationally recognised centre of endemism, with the risk that this will push a number of threatened (red data) endemic species to extinction due to their restricted ranges within the centre of endemism.

AE: Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica admitted a few days back that the consultation process with the local community was flawed. Has there been any indication to suggest the mining permit will be revoked?

VP: The minister has indicated that she will not execute the mining right on 31 October in light of the appeal, but will hold an appeal hearing in due course.

AE: Is this a battle being fought by concerned citizens, or has the issue been taken up by traditional leadership and/or local government in the region?

VP: Traditional leadership in the region, right up to the level of the king and queen is very concerned about the issue, and has sought legal advice. Local Wild Coast communities have also elected a representative delegation from local community leaders, the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC), to voice opposition to the mining agenda. With the support of the Legal Resources Centre in Grahamstown, the ACC have lodged an appeal against the DME decision. They have also sought the advice of human rights lawyer Richard Spoor, in order to protect community interests.

As far as SWC are aware, local government has been very reserved about the issue, with the exception of Mayoress Capa of O.R. Tambo District, who is a vocal supporter of the mining.

AE: Who are the winners and losers of this deal? If a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) is completed, and a sustainable industry is assured with long-term jobs, will this be acceptable?

VP: Unfortunately [given] the way an SIA is conducted in terms of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources development Act (MPRDA), this seems to leave little room for democratic consultation processes. If one is talking of democratic development processes as being driven by a community having a say in the way that development unfolds, then the processes outlined in the MPRDA leave much to be desired.

Under MPRDA processes, an SIA is simply a way to 'mitigate' any undesirable social effects that might be caused by the mining. It does not raise the 'grassroots' issue of whether the mining is the best development option for affected communities in the first place, but merely imposes a 'solution' on the community after the decision to mine has already been made. The power of the community to thus determine what type of development would be in their best interest is totally undermined. An SIA under MPRDA processes does not allow the option to prevent the mining should the social impacts be deemed unreasonable, but merely seeks to alleviate these. But the means by which they are 'alleviated' are at the discretion of the mining company, which basically sets the rule book.

The EIA indicates that only about 80 jobs for unskilled workers would be created by the mining. The rest, about 200 jobs, would be for skilled and semi-skilled labour. As the population of the region is largely illiterate and unskilled, the benefits of jobs for local populations [are] negligible. On the other hand, many families that are dependent upon subsistence agriculture would be deprived of their means of livelihood for the duration of the mining.

AE: Some critics have labeled this an elite 'white' concern for the environment when there are poor communities desperate for jobs. How did 'race' get tangled into this issue?

VP: The issue of race seems to have been raised by BEE supporters of the mining agenda, such as the Chair of Xolco (the BEE partner), Madiba Qunya, as well as by various politicians who are in favour of the mining proposal, such as Minister Sonjica and Mayoress Capa.

AE: If eco-tourism is the more logical and sustainable industry for the region, why is it proving so hard to convince the necessary authorities?

VP: I am not sure that it is so much a case of convincing the necessary authorities, as of different rules applying to different authorities, and of different authorities having different conflicting agendas. The development of tourism, under DEAT, has to fulfil the requirements of Environmental Impact Assessment's (EIAs) which fall under NEMA, as well as comply with LEDs. These are more strident in their conditions, and thus take more time to comply with in order to ensure that development is indeed 'sustainable' than the DME requirements to get a mining license under MPRDA. The approval for mining is thus easier to come by, as it is not conditional on the project being put to the scrutiny of an EIA. The EIA process under MPRDA is merely a 'benchmark' from which a mining company has to indicate that it will comply to address 'mitigations', it does not necessarily judge the effectiveness of stated 'mitigations' or the broader socio-economic impacts of the proposal. In this case the project also seems to have been rushed through.

The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) have voiced their disapproval of the mining, but do not seem to have the 'legislative 'teeth' to prevent it under current policies at this stage.

AE: The SWC lobbies for ‘ecologically sensitive economic solutions for the Wild Coast region.’ What are these solutions if economic development is to take place?

VP: Any 'sustainable' solutions for development would have to achieve a balance between economic, social and environmental considerations. The Wild Coast Conservation and Sustainable Development Plan ha[ve] already outlined a process that would allow leeway for development in an 'ecologically sensitive' manner, but this seems to have seen little action.

Whether this is due to government indifference, government 'bungling', or government incapacity is a matter of debate.

AE: Where to from here? If the mining goes ahead in October, how does the SWC plan on tackling it thereon?

VP: SWC are preparing to take the matter to court of lodged appeals fail. However, in this we would be lead by the wishes of those Wild Coast communities who will be most directly affected by the mining.


* Azad Essa is a journalist, lecturer and an aspiring filmmaker.


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

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The Mugabe-Tsvangirai rotten alliance

2008-10-09

Kola Ibrahim

Denouncing the implications of the Mugabe-Tsvangirai alliance, Kola Ibrahim assesses the consequences of a pro-capitalist union for the Zimbabwean working masses. Emphasising the MDC’s and ZANU-PF’s moral bankruptcy, the author concludes that unless the country’s labour movement is resurrected to take a lead in forthcoming struggles, its future will be doomed.
Events postdating the political stalemate that precipitated the unilateral elections in Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe was the sole contestant could hardly be described as respite for the working but poor masses of Zimbabwe. News had it that Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC) Morgan Tsvangirai concluded an agreement for negotiation with the possibility of forming a unity government (as witnessed in Kenya and as advocated by Nigeria's Umar Yar'Adua). This is coming at a time when inflation in the country has skyrocketed to over 2 million percent; a sign of an unprecedented plummeting in the standard of living with over 80 percent of the population officially poor. The increase in living wage is linear while the inflation (which was 200,000 percent about three months ago) is increasing geometrically. The situation is so terrible that the government had to give free food to the masses. It is under these conditions that the opposition - that should serve as the beacon of hope and a platform for struggle for better living - is in reality forging an alliance with the rotten, anti-poor and dictatorial Mugabe government. This clearly reveals the real quagmire in which the poor masses of Zimbabwe find themselves, a quagmire overseen by a rotten government with practically no platform of hope and change.

During the presidential run off, Tsvangirai had predicated his withdrawal from election based on widespread violence against the opposition members which he rightly claimed could snowball into serious crisis if the contest should continue. Inasmuch as one cannot deny the reality of Mugabe's brazen violence, the retreat of Tsvangirai and his party in the election is a reflection of the political frustration that has beset the working poor. How else could one describe a situation where the masses who voted out the Mugabe dictatorship, (despite unprecedented campaign of violence) would back off from defending their choice at the run off, even if it includes taking arms against the regime? The main reason is that Tsvangirai and his MDC party do not represent any beacon of hope for the masses; they possess no clear-cut economic programme to take the country's economy out of the woods or any plan to challenge imperialism. A glance through the MDC's website clearly reveals its pro-rich, pro-imperialism neoliberal economic orientation that will further economically disenfranchise the working poor. In its normal messianic nature, the opposition did not reveal how it intends to resolve the land problem (which in the real sense affects the poor Zimbabwean farmers than the much-touted white farmers). Maybe he is taking after Nigerian crooked politicians who conceal their ignorance-cum-hypocrisy with the argument that they do not want the other party to steal (or maybe loot) their programme when they are really the same birds flocking in different camps. This is coupled with the fact that Tsvangirai himself was formerly part of Mugabe's dictatorship – his former official physician – just as many of the MDC stalwarts are former staunch members of Mugabe's ZANU-PF.

The fact that Tsvangirai and the opposition do not pose any genuine alternative to the masses is clearly manifested in the manner in which Tsvangirai reacted to the violence initiated by the Mugabe's shock troopers. Rather than appeal to the working masses and youth to organise and resist the fascist troops (who are in reality in minority), he is fond of calling on the ‘international’ community (note his definition of international community means the imperialist nations of the US and Europe) to use military actions and sanctions against Mugabe. The implication of this is that he has contempt for the masses for which he claims to be 'fighting'. Any international action by any imperialist country will not be in the interest of the working poor of Zimbabwe and will either boost Mugabe's status as an anti-imperialist - which he never was - or help imperialism establish a military and economic base in the country (and turn the country into another Iraq – where a ‘liberation’ war overseen by the US and Europe has turned into war over oil and occupation). This has further intensified the skepticism felt by the Zimbabwean poor attitude towards him, something which in the process has unfortunately given the Mugabe regime another lease of life.

A possible calculation of Tsvangirai is that reliance on the working masses could inspire a mass movement that may push him to the left. This will definitely undermine his capitalist neoliberal economic programmes. This will definitely also diminish his status to govern on behalf of big business. Having realised that imperialism had more in its hands than the problems facing Zimbabwe, and fearful of the consequences of a mass movement to dislodge Mugabe on his political interests, Tsvangirai resorted to negotiation with a regime he has decried as dictatorial. He was even reported to have renounced all his critical statements on Mugabe's dictatorship. This treachery of Tsvangirai is not unexpected because - as I had earlier stated in my previous commentaries on Zimbabwe and Kenya (published in many newspapers and websites) - as a pro-capitalist politician, he is bound to limit his struggle for power within the precinct of capitalism and not raise the masses to their feet. The era of progressive capitalism is long gone, and the current neoliberal capitalism is not favourable to mass movement, even one that would give it a ‘human face.’

It is vital to stress that the treachery and the pro-imperialist, anti-masses character of Tsvangirai (and his MDC) should not bolster any latent credibility for Mugabe's autocratic regime. As against the claim of many commentators that Mugabe is an anti-imperialist, anti-apartheid hero, he actually emerged from imperialism, even during the apartheid struggle. Of course, like every other nationalist petty bourgeois and in the spirit of the mass anger against imperialism during the period, he was against apartheid, but he was also used by British imperialism to maintain its presence in Zimbabwe. It is noteworthy to state that the same Mugabe who claims to be fighting white rule did not take white big farms during the anti-apartheid victory, when the movement was raging, but rather negotiated with British imperialism. But having lost control of the economy through subjugation of the nation to the poisonous neoliberal pills of commercialisation of social services, privatisation of public corporations and trade liberalisation (which led to the loss of over 25,000 jobs in 1996 alone and a slashing of wages by 25 percent in 1995, among other terrible results) and looking for a shortcut, resorted to anti-imperialism slogans. Ridiculously, the land distribution could only benefit just a thousand of rich black farmers (out of millions of poor and landless farmers) most of whom have stakes in his ruling ZANU-PF party. Therefore, it is a miscarriage of logic to present Mugabe as fighting imperialism. The economic woes witnessed in Zimbabwe are a product of the anti-poor neoliberal policies of imperialism implemented by Mugabe in the 1990s and not a result of economic sabotage of western imperialism as some people claim. While of course the role of western imperialism, which in actual fact benefited from the neoliberal policies implemented by Mugabe (and subsequently left the economy in ruins), should not be underemphasised, this should not be done to bestow credibility on the Mugabe regime.

This also brings to focus the role and hypocrisy of imperialism in the crisis facing Zimbabwe. Aside from the fact that imperialism contributed to the country's economic woes, western imperialism's reactions again reflect a certain hypocrisy. It will be recalled that while these nations (especially the US and the United Kingdom) were condemning the Mugabe regime, they did not mention their roles in the economic crisis. No relief package was given to the poor people of Zimbabwe who are groaning under economic woes that had provided unprecedented wealth to capitalist corporations. Rather, imperialist nations in the UN Security Council prefer to place sanctions – including in economic and military form – which will further the sufferings of the Zimbabwean poor, who represent anywhere up to 80 percent of the country’s population. Though sanctions were vetoed by China and Russia, this does not portray any section of imperialism in any good light. The fact is that it is sheer selfish capitalist interests that drive foreign policy and international politics.

Russia's and China's vetoes are not a product of sympathy for the Zimbabwean poor, but an attempt to boost their capitalist economic agendas. For instance, Russia has been boosting markets in Third World countries for its economy, especially its gas industry. Furthermore, Russia has been trying to stand on its feet in the committee of imperialist nations after the collapse of Stalinism (a grotesque caricature of genuine socialism), something reflected in the recent nationalism campaign begun by Vladimir Putin, a policy meant to mask the glaring failure of capitalism in Russia. The only way for Russia to stand therefore is by posing as an alternative to US and British imperialism, all the while pursuing the same capitalist and imperialist policies (Chechnya as an example) in the eyes of Third World countries with the central aim of boosting its outreach economic status.

As to China, it is a known fact that the Asia country's recent economic boom coupled with its importance to the world (and US especially) economy has boosted its international status, something which has further reinforced its struggle for resources and markets to sustain its economic boom. Failure in this regard will spell political doom for the fragile ruling class of China, and as a result, the international economy. This informs its international politics and indeed the veto. As against the thinking that the veto is meant to protect Africa's interests or liberate countries of the Third World, it is worth recalling the terrible role of China in sustaining Sudan's terror and its direct repression in Tibet.

In the much the same vein, the US and the UK's pro-sanction vote shows no concern for human rights. The historic record of the two countries has been one of sustaining tyrannical governments: in its arming of strategic supporters in Chile, Panama, Morocco and; in supporting armed forces against popular governments like Cuba (since the 1960s), Nicaragua (in the 1970s), and Venezuela (since 2002). Even the role of US and other section of imperialism in recent events in Africa have confirmed the treacherous policy of imperialism. For instance, despite the brazen manner of election-rigging in Nigeria and Kenya, the US (and later the UK) was the first country to congratulate the beneficiary of the rigging, even when people rejected the election. Therefore, the crisis in Zimbabwe is also a clear failure of international capitalist politics which tailored its political agenda according to the interests of profit of the big capitalist classes of each country, especially the imperialist ones. The latest reports indicate that the European Union has endorsed the negotiation between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, and has in fact commended South Africa's government, the new face of imperialism in Africa. Definitely, this recognition of the negotiation will give a new lease of life to Mugabe, yet the same EU had earlier strongly condemned Mugabe's sit-tight rule!

More horrible is the reaction of most African countries to what amounts to political barbarism in Zimbabwe. Aside most African leaders who maintained criminal silence, those that claim to have spoken out – like Angola's Dos Santos and Nigeria's Umar Yar'Adua – are little different from Mugabe in their manner of emergence, repressive activities and economic policies, and their comments have been evasive, mostly in the attempy to boost their image while avoiding confrontation with Mugabe. In fact, to show the level of Africa's political doom, Mugabe even threatened to expose any African leader who criticises his government. However, Thabo Mbeki went a mile further by not only giving surreptitious support to Mugabe but also organizing a power deal between Mugabe and the opposition MDC to stabilise Mugabe's government and give him international recognition. Aside from the moral burden of most African rulers, the fear of a mass revolt in Zimbabwe, which can set the masses of other lands in motion, is a dangerous sore that made many African leaders keen to maintain a notorious deafening silence. It is this same silence that was maintained during the Kenyan election standoff. Most African leaders are lapdogs of capitalist imperialism, who fear losing their status as apron strings of imperialism through mass movement. Gone and never to return is the old era of petty bourgeois nationalism of many African leaders. The crisis in Zimbabwe has manifested the ‘primer faecal’ (apologies to Wole Soyinka) nature of capitalism and imperialism, and the terrible stench is suffocating the working poor of Africa and the world at large.

What is the future of Zimbabwe, and the implications of the present situation for the poor people of Africa? As has been said earlier, the major reason the poor masses had not come to the centre stage of the struggle to chase away Mugabe is the fact that they see no alternative to the rotten Mugabe regime, as represented by Tsvangirai and MDC. However, the political alliance being forged between Mugabe and Tsvangirai will further deem the future of the working poor of Zimbabwe. As against the position of some commentators that the deal will restore sanity to Zimbabwe, the reality is that the deal will further deem any hope of respite for the masses who have been suffocated by the economic strangulation. It should be noted that the simple majority gained by Tsvangirai in the first round is a sign that the masses are in need of change but do not have trust in the capitalist economic policy of MDC and Tsvangirai. This coupled with the political bankruptcy of the MDC further alienated the Zimbabweans who prefer to stand aloof rather than shed blood on behalf of one capitalist politician, who stand for nothing clear. Therefore, the political alliance between Mugabe and Tsvangirai will further frustrate the masses – some of whom still nurse some illusion in Tsvangirai – who will now feel totally insecure. Expected economic failure that will result from this rotten collaboration will further estrange the masses, who may, in the absence of clear cut working class leadership, resort to self-help through sectarian means as witnessed in the Kenya election crisis, something which is only the first phase of the simmering discontent.

Unless the labour movement in Zimbabwe is resurrected to take a lead the oncoming political and economic struggle of the working masses for change, the future is doomed. The labour movement and working class activists in Zimbabwe must start to build a political alternative that will genuinely defend the interest of the poor Zimbabweans. Such movement must incorporate the working class with other oppressed strata including the peasants and youth (most of whom are unemployed and thus pose a serious challenge to the social stability of the country) by linking their demands together.

With the clear manifestation of the political bankruptcy of the opposition MDC and Tsvangirai, the stage is set for a social revolution by the working and poor people of Zimbabwe to bring back the economy in the interest of the working poor of the country, and to restore sanity to the polity. This is the central task of the labour movement and the working class movement in not only Zimbabwe but the whole African continent. It is unfortunate that the Zimbabwe Trade Union Congress (ZTUC) has played an insignificant role in the whole political development to provide a serious political hope for the Zimbabwean poor. Genuine pro-working class organisations in both Zimbabwe and the whole African continent must start the process of building a working-class mass movement in Zimbabwe as a stepping stone towards forming a pan-African working-class movement that will bring back the fighting spirit of the African poor for genuine socialism where the vast but mismanaged and plundered resources of the continent (human, material, natural and monetary) will be nationalised and democratically run by the working and poor people themselves. This will mean that the huge agricultural resources of Zimbabwe (and other African countries), rather than being struggled over by the both imperialism and local moneybags, will be used to develop a vast, environmentally friendly agro-based economy that will employ the majority of the country while providing the resources to develop the country – provide basic social infrastructures along with free, qualitative education, healthcare, cheap, efficient and environment-friendly transport, agriculture and communication system, and a developed industrialised economy – which cannot be achieved within the framework of neo-colonial, neoliberal capitalism. This transformation cannot be achieved without working class solidarity, and the elimination of decadent capitalism in Africa.

It is unfortunate that most labour leaders in Africa did not take a practical action in support of the working poor of Zimbabwe, with most of them either supporting one section of the bourgeoisie or the other. This clearly shows the pro-capitalist orientation of most of the central labour leaders in Africa, since the collapse of the Stalinist Soviet Union. One would have expected the labour movements in Africa to declare solidarity with mass action in support of the Zimbabwean poor but for the pro-business character of the labour leadership. This is not to say that the working poor are not ready for change. On the contrary, the mass movement that greeted the recent capitalist-induced food crisis is a sign that the masses are ready for social change, but for the character of the pro-capitalist labour leadership. The spirit of solidarity of the African poor is clearly manifested in the heroic actions of South African dockworkers, who refused to ship arms meant for Mugabe to implement a form of fully fledged fascism. The lesson to be learnt from the present Zimbabwean issue is the need for a political platform of the working poor in each and every African country to lay the basis for social revolution to enthrone a socialist society in the continent to prevent total descent to barbarism. This is the challenge before the labour movement and pro-working class activists in Africa to build a change-seeking, fighting, mass-based, democratic working class organisation and movement as a basis for a mass socialist political alternative.


* Kola Ibrahim is a member of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

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

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Zimbabwe’s ‘gender neutral’ agreement blind to women

2008-10-09

Pumla Dineo Gqola

Highlighting women’s conspicuous absence in the media coverage, negotiations, and resolutions during the Zimbabwe crisis, Pumla Dineo Gqola outlines the extent to which we have grown accustomed to the near total elision of women’s lives, contributions and agency from significant political events. Drawing upon her recent experiences with a group of South African women on a feminist solidarity trip to Zimbabwe, the author concludes the Mugabe-Tsvangirai power-sharing agreement and its ‘gender neutral’ language to be blind to women’s struggles.
Over the last week, news of the agreement signed by Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara has received repeated airplay. As well it should. Indeed, radio station listeners have been calling in to comment on the perceived vindication of the now former South African president in the eyes of the international community now that there has been success in Zimbabwe. All of this has been seen as further evidence that African solutions work best for African problems. Significantly, this narrative has continued to permeate the contributions of even those callers who are more critical of Mbeki’s other stances. We have, therefore, been reminded that although there may be solutions in Zimbabwe, and maybe next in Darfur, problems at home abound.

As I listened to the live coverage of the signing, I was struck by consistent absences in the reporting as well as in what could not comfortably be used in the interest of the celebrated moment. One reporter, live outside the venue in Harare, noted that even as the ink was drying on the paperwork, a group of MDC women approached him to say they had been attacked by ZANU-PF male youths moments before. I was somewhat relieved that this was a radio, rather than a television broadcast because I did not want to see more brutalised bodies. I could not help noticing that this information was quickly passed over.

I recoil from the sight of more bruised and bloodied bodies not because of what Gail Smith has called ‘compassion fatigue in relation to the crisis in Zimbabwe,’ but because there are other ways to make sense of our continent. A.C. Fick insists that when we privilege particular forms of evidence over others ‘we run the risk of giving the former more power than they already have in our world.’ Therefore, we trap ourselves in a certain cycle, since ‘we are educated to understand the world in particular terms.’ Furthermore, we remain so accustomed to our particular view that we completely miss the presence of other events and ‘critical languages’ in the very same moment in which we attempt to understand. Part of what we have grown accustomed to is the near total elision of women’s lives, contributions and agency from large political events.

Consequently, I turned away from the coverage I had been obsessively following in between teaching, and reflected on what was unfolding through other events I have access to. Sometimes it helps to turn away in order to better make sense of what we are in the midst of. This is the approach I brought to my reading of the text of the power-sharing agreement signed on Monday 15 September.

In August, I formed part of a group of South African women who went on a feminist solidarity trip to Zimbabwe. The excursion was coordinated by activist and international relations and development expert Bunie Matlanyane Sexwale, and divided into a group that went to Harare and one that flew to Bulawayo. My group, the Harare group, included the essayist Gail Smith, as well as poets Lebogang Mashile and Gertrude Fester. We went to have conversations with a variety of women’s and civil society groups; unionists, students, health activists, law and human rights activists and so on. This trip clarified many of the niggling questions that had been plaguing me in previous years. The Johannesburg office of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition had made the trip possible, also offering us insights into what we might encounter upon arrival. Among us, Bunie was the only feminist who was personally familiar with the different Zimbabwean epochs.

To the extent that it had been impossible to live in South Africa without reflecting on Zimbabwe constantly, the trip followed numerous conversations with people more familiar than I with the crisis in Zimbabwe. Two artist friends, one a filmmaker and the second a novelist, who had grown up in Zimbabwe as South Africans in exile, noted upon returning from visits recently that this was a different Zimbabwe from the one they knew. There was sadness in one’s eyes and anger etched onto the face of the other. My child’s day-mother, herself Zimbabwean, had remarked upon return from an earlier trip that her homeland made her despair. Colleagues commented on how fatigued they were at being asked to comment about their home country at every turn. I was careful to listen to information volunteered, but not to pry and further exhaust them. Only one said ‘things are not the worst they have ever been.’

I had questions raised by other areas of information as well. Where were the women in all the coverage of Zimbabwe, in the negotiations, in the interviews broadcast, among the experts explaining and helping the continent and the world make sense of the crisis? I know from reading, watching and from interactions with feminists from the continent over the years that Zimbabwe has a very strong women’s movement. How is it that I was hearing so little about what women were doing, when they were not being brutalised, inside Zimbabwe?

The trip was to help me grapple better with some of these struggles.

Unfortunately, it also raised many more. Very few of the new questions are addressed in the resolution we are all invited to celebrate. The Harare we arrived in at the end of August brought different worlds into collision. In a very public sense, it was the Harare in which the (Women of Zimbabwe Arise) WOZA 14 trial was scheduled to start, after many postponements. These are women considered so dangerous that the Zimbabwean State imagines their varied activism treasonous. This was also the Harare which staged the opening of the new parliament, during which MDC leaders, among them the leader of Senate Sekai Holland, shouted for Mugabe to go back to the talks so much that he was visibly flustered as he tried to open parliament.

When Holland agreed to meet us in a public place, with unionist and former MDC Women’s Assembly Chair, Lucia Matibenga, the disbelief was palpable on the faces of many young Zimbabweans in the Harare CBD location where we met. There was no question that both women were recognised. As they explained to us, it was unusual for powerful Zimbabwean politicians to be seen in a food court. Holland and Matibenga had both been driven underground by the physical and other attacks instigated by ZANU-PF and other agents of state sanctioned violence. They shared some of these experiences with us. But more so, and interspaced with a wicked sense of humour shared by both, they articulated a very clear vision for a new Zimbabwe. These were women who demonstrated what Pregs Govender has called ‘insubordinated spirit’, in their actions, incisive analysis of power and in rising after being personally attacked. I was saddened by the fact that as powerful and active as they have been, even these women’s names were often lost in the reporting of what occurs in Zimbabwe.

I wonder how much of such voices we will hear in the future, given the bizarre half-protected freedom of speech as articulated in Article 19 of the agreement signed on Monday. Recognising the necessity for freedom of speech in Zimbabwe, the article nonetheless opens doors for dismissing certain media outlets if they are ‘foreign government funded external radio stations broadcasting into Zimbabwe’ since these ‘are not in Zimbabwe’s national interest.’ What about radio stations operated by Zimbabweans in exile as one of the few ways to contest state-controlled media outlets? So what if another government or its agencies fund them? What if that government is Botswana’s? How will the stated desire to ensure ‘the opening up of the airwaves and ensuring the operation of as many media houses as possible’ translate in a context where ZANU-PF youths allegedly attack people outside the signing?

Further down the same srticle, I had to laugh as I read ‘the public and private media shall refrain from using abusive language that may incite hostility, political intolerance and ethnic hatred or that unfairly undermines political parties and other organisations.’ Perhaps there is hope for the Zimbabwean Broadcasting Corporation, whose evening television bulletins were peppered with Mugabe pronouncing on the immaturity of MDC MPs, their unsuitability to lead, and on this being the worst parliament he had ever presided over.

However, that was the end of August when we watched aghast, and everything had changed now that it was September and the agreement had been signed.

What would that change mean, when Article 18 of the agreement, which focuses on the security of persons and prevention of violence, conflates state-sanctioned brutality against citizens after the elections with violence by unarmed people? Ther