Back Issues

Threat of military intervention in Zimbabwe

2008-12-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/action/52634

We, the undersigned African scholars, are greatly concerned about threats of military intervention in Zimbabwe, ostensibly in the name of human rights and for humanitarian purposes. We fully recognize the political impasse in Zimbabwe and the resultant prolonged suffering of its people. For that very reason, we appreciate the regional initiative taken by SADC to resolve this impasse politically. We are of the view that the political process must be given the space and the opportunity to be resolved in a peaceful and democratic way. The political process is the only way to allow the people of Zimbabwe to arrive at a sustainable solution. We condemn the use of violence to short cut the political process. We call upon the political actors in Zimbabwe to seek a solution that does not subject its people to suffer the consequences of violence. The duty of Africans and states is to facilitate this process in the spirit of Pan-Africanism as an act of solidarity with the Zimbabwean people.
Experience shows that the inevitable consequence of military intervention to resolve social and political conflicts has been endless wars, as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia clearly demonstrate. In all these military interventions millions of people have suffered. Women and children are the most affected. Military interventions exacerbate political and socio-economic crises and internal differences with profoundly detrimental and destructive regional implications. We recognize that threats of military intervention come from imperialist powers, and also through their African proxies. Its consequence will be continued domination of the African continent while dehumanizing its peoples.

Military intervention in Zimbabwe will militarise the whole of Southern Africa. In protesting against threats of military intervention in Africa we confirm the right of African peoples to a peaceful life and to social justice, and to self-determination, including the right to solve our own problems through peaceful means.

Signed by Professor Issa Shivji, Professor Samir Amin, and 200 other scholars attending the 12th Congress of CODESRIA.

Yaounde, Cameroon
10TH DECEMBER 2008

New Fahamu Books website opens

2008-12-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/52625

The new Fahamu Books website is open.

From the publisher of Pambazuka News, Fahamu Books is a list of progressive books that stimulate debate, discussion, analysis and engagement on human rights and social justice in Africa and the global South. They are aimed primarily at activists and a wider audience of academics, students and policy makers.

The website allows you to buy the books and CD-ROMs – and much more. You can look inside the books, read reviews, join online discussions and sign-up for updates.

As a publisher committed to social justice, Fahamu Books is committed to publishing books that address contemporary issues of importance in the building of a progressive pan-African movement. If you would like to submit a proposal for a book, please see our guidelines, or send an email to bookproposals@fahamu.org.

The global crisis of capitalism and its impact

Dani Nabudere

2008-12-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/52604

cc. Carlos SeoThe present financial crisis afflicting the global economy should not be seen from the narrow focus of the credit crunch and its relationship to the subprime mortgage crisis in the Western countries, especially the US. The crisis goes to the very foundations of the global capitalist system and it should be analysed from that angle. What is at the core of the crisis is the over-extension of credit on a narrow material production base. This is in a situation in which money has become increasingly detached from its material base of a money commodity that can measure its value such as gold.

The expansion of the world economy from 1945 onwards was based on the US providing some kind of link between money and the gold standard, which the US tried to maintain until its collapse in the 1970s. Increasingly the dollar became the global currency but without a backing to its currency from a money commodity. The over-expansion of credit that has taken place since then, especially with the globalisation of the world economy, has meant that a lot of paper money and monetary instruments in the form of derivatives and ‘future options’ have lost any relationship to the ‘fundamentals’ in the material production of the world economy.

That is why there has been a growing outcry that the growth of ‘speculative capital’ has over-run the growth of ‘productive capital’ with large amounts of money and credit circulating without the backing of any production at all. That is also why the relationship between the ‘fundamentals’ in the economy and the new credit instruments created on a daily basis in many cases from speculative ‘short-selling’ have become narrower and narrower over time. This is also why the present financial crisis is also a reflection of the energy and food crisis, because oil and food products such as wheat, rice and other commodities have been subjected to speculative trading to back up paper money many years in the future. The British Prime Minister, among the world leaders, is the only one who has seen this connection when he brought it up in the World Bank meeting a few months ago and also when he met the US Democratic Party Presidential candidate, Barrack Obama, when he visited Europe recently.

Thus the amount of credit floating around the world is ‘loose money’ completely run-wild, which claims a relationship with a narrow production base. This is in a situation when the US is increasingly unable to repay debts it has accumulated in its Treasury Bonds and Bills, in which the rest of the world have placed their reserves. Most African countries have millions of dollars in these US Treasury bills, which are held as the countries’ ‘reserves.’ China, India and Japan have trillions deposited in these ‘T’ bills and bonds This means that should the world economy collapse under pressure of ‘loose money’ wanting to be given a value (which they do not have) so that the holders of that ‘money’ can preserve their wealth, those holdings in US Treasury bills (or US debt to the rest of the world) will be lost forcing many weak economies to collapse along with it.

This is why it is wrong to conclude, like many people do that capitalism has the capacity, as it has shown over the years, to always reinvent itself by growing a new skin to resist the pangs of crisis inflicted on it by its own greed. That is a false conclusion. US and British capitalism are being put under pressure to stay a float only by nationalising a number of banks and the corporations that can no longer sustain their operations because of shortage of ‘liquid cash.’ These corporations and banks demand that the state should bail them out. The state is being forced to bail these enterprises out on condition that they shall sell the bulk of their shares to the state. This means that these capitalist states are being forced to move in the direction of central planning and management of the economy. For lack of space, we cannot go into this matter in greater detail.

In short, what Karl Marx called ‘the financial oligarchy’ is demanding that the state should take over their burdens and maintain the ‘value’ of their valueless credit instruments while insisting that the poor workers and the middle classes shall take care of themselves. In other world, the oligarchy demand communism for themselves while relegating socialism and capitalism for the middle class and the working class and the other poor strata of society because socialism and capitalism are the only ways through which the middle class and the working poor can ‘compete’ among themselves for survival. Remember that Marx defined communism as: ‘to each according to his needs’ and socialism as: ‘to each according to his capacities.” Capitalism can now better be defined as: ‘to each according to his own devices,’ which is a paradigm fit for the working poor.

THE CREDIT CRUNCH AND THE FOOD CRISIS

The economic crisis has also revealed the way credit over-expansion has affected food prices throughout the world. In fact when the credit crunch struck the world and the food crisis was announced, the crisis was recognised as a global food crisis. That is why the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank immediately held a special session of the Boards of Governors of their institutions to develop policies to deal with this crisis when it became clear that the food crisis was likely to stay with us until 2015 at the very least.

Immediately following the meetings of these multilateral institutions, the World Food Organisation-FAO held an urgent Food Summit on June 3-5 in Rome, in which the Summit called for an immediate response by governments. After the World Bank meeting, the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, wrote a letter to the Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who was at the time the chair of the G8, in which he asked the group to act with speed to address the soaring food prices. What was significant was that Gordon also recognised that the financial market-based risk management instruments, including derivatives, had to be considered as contributing to the food price volatilities. What did Gordon Brown mean by this statement? The real problem underlying currency instability and commodity price volatilities is the fact that the dollar, which acts as a global reserve currency, is not backed by any solid money commodity such as gold or silver. These money commodities were historically overwhelmed by the growth of capitalist wealth. As a result not all paper wealth that was held by economic actors could be changed into gold in periods of crisis when the demand for ‘real’ money became overwhelming. With the collapse of the gold standard in the US in the 1970s because of the outgrowth of Eurodollars, attempts were made to rely on other commodities such as platinum to back up the dollar, but this was a non-starter because the cost of storing platinum was too high to be borne by paper wealth holders. But financial instruments, especially future options and instruments called derivatives continued to grow in volume.

This is what led to the food commodities coming into the picture to back up future contracts and derivatives expressed in US dollars. The centre of the global commodity trade is the Chicago Board of Trade-CBOT. It is here that global trade in commodities is valued and undertaken together with other commodities markets. It is also here that all commodities, including food commodities, are ‘financialised’ in dollar financial instruments Wheat, oats, corn, rice and soybean are all agricultural products traded on various commodities exchanges, including the CBOT. Here the exchanges also trade the financial ‘products,’ as well as futures and options contracts on these and several derivative products such as bean oil. Coffee, cocoa, sugar, cotton and orange juice are all 'soft' commodities, many of which are traded on the CSCE (Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange). Interestingly, since 80% of the oranges grown in the U.S. are turned into frozen orange juice concentrate, it's the juice that is traded as a commodity, not the fruit.

An article that appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail of 31st May 2008 argued that it was the deregulation of financial markets and the systematic exploitation of US regulatory loopholes that had led to the upsurge of speculative investments in food commodity markets, much of it by institutional investors such as the managers of pension funds. "These funds", wrote the authors, "have ploughed tens of billions of dollars into agricultural commodities as a way of diversifying their assets and improve returns for their investors.”

According to the authors, the amount of fund money invested in commodity indexes had climbed from just $13-billion in 2003 to a staggering $260-billion in March 2008, according to calculations based on regulatory filings. There were warnings that this amount could easily quadruple to $1-trillion, if pension fund managers allocated a greater portion of their portfolio to commodities, as some consultants suggested they were poised to do. Thus, it was the progressive loosening of regulatory requirements, which made possible the enormous influx of money, much of it fleeing the meltdown in the market for mortgage-backed securities and the wider fallout, including big leveraged buyouts in banks.

Because agricultural markets are small - relative to stock markets - the amount of cash pouring into these markets gives these funds substantial clout. The authors observed that these big institutional investors controlled enough wheat in futures instruments, which could supply the needs of American consumers for the next two years. They blamed the "demand shock" from these recent entrants to the commodities markets as the primary factor behind the sudden soaring of food prices. They noted that if no immediate action was taken, food and energy prices were bound to rise still further leading to the catastrophic economic effects on millions of already stressed U.S. consumers and the possible starvation of millions of the worlds poor.

For instance, the Ontario Teachers' Pension fund, which began with a modest investment in food commodities in 1997, had by 2008 invested some 3 billion dollars in this market. With rising investor activity and increasing demand, prices began to rise. Between 2000 and 2007, the price of wheat increased 147 per cent on the Chicago Board of Trade. Over the same period, corn increased by 79 per cent and soybeans by 72 per cent. As more funds moved in to invest, speculators began clamour for more flexibility with trading limits and since there were no controls, the food commodity prices kept on rising.

It has been estimated that for every one percent increase in the price of food, there is an additional 16 million people who go hungry. In its briefing paper for the World Food Summit, the FAO Secretariat devoted two whole paragraphs to the influence of financial markets in pushing upwards the cost of staple food commodities in its assessment of recent developments. However, it had nothing to say about the matter when it came to recommending "policy options" for dealing with the problem. This was not accidental, but a reflection of the positions of the States.

This is why it was correct to conclude, as we have done above, that for the financial oligarchy who wield power in the States, the demand is that the State must guarantee them ‘communism’ (which can assure them their needs) while for the producing and middle classes the attitude of the State is only to guarantee them the conditions for ’free competition’ for the little the financial oligarchy is able to leave aside for the ‘markets’ (to compete over according to their abilities and devices). Financial markets in the global capitalist system, as well as global inter-governmental organisations such as FAO, it seems, have no ‘policy options’ to attend to the needs of the starving masses. There always are, however, ‘options’ for ‘bailing out’ the financial oligarchy while the masses are left to the devices of ‘the markets.’

THE WAY OUT OF THE CRISIS FOR AFRICA

It is clear from the above that agricultural production has become a victim of late capitalist crisis. This is as it has been because from its birth capitalism had always profited from agriculture as an ‘old industry’ in which this ‘industry’ provided the raw materials for its expanded reproduction at low cost. Capitalist crisis has therefore contributed greatly to the exploitation of agricultural workers and ultimately to its collapse. It did so first, by plundering the European peasantry and converting them into paupers through the enclosure system by using the proceeds for its ‘primitive accumulation’ of capital as one of the sources of its birth.

In so doing, it turned the peasants into workers and in its imperialist phase turned to the colonies for agricultural raw materials where the colonial peasant producers were paid prices below subsistence subsidised by female and child free labour working on land. Only after decolonisation and the establishment of the European Common Market did Europe develop a common agricultural policy to avoid being starved in case of wars in the post-colonial States.

Secondly, with the increasing securitisation of commodities, in which the central banks relied on a variety of commodities to give value to paper debt instruments, capitalists fell to agriculture in the post-colonial States of Africa to save their currencies from collapse. This as we saw above is what led to the escalation in the prices of food products leading to their destruction as commodities. The collapse of the dollar and other ‘hard currencies’ has meant a doom for those agricultural food products as their prices begun to plummet with the collapsing currencies.

This is what the economists are calling a ‘recession.’ But nobody knows when the recession will end although many of them now agree that it is already on in all the developed capitalist countries. So those who believed that with high food prices the peasant producers would earn high incomes had better rethink their arithmetic because they need to revise their knowledge of how capitalism operates in its old age. African agricultural and food production based on exports to the markets of the developed countries can no longer be assured and so the African farmer has to find a way out of this mess as quickly as possible.

What we have said above must already alert us as to what we have to do to get out of the mess. First, we have to look at how we can survive in terms of food availability. For the first time, we have to wake up to the reality that African countries need a food security policy as a matter of urgency about which leaders can no longer dilly-dally. That means African countries have first to focus on the home market followed by the regional market and finally the global market. With the home market becoming the focus for our production, we can create regional currencies because in that case we shall have no alternative but to create them to serve the regional markets, but operating under completely new conditions and principles. But we cannot develop a food security based on food crops of which people have very little knowledge, especially since with the currency crisis; we shall not have sufficient dollars to buy foreign food products with in the short and medium terms.

This means we have to rely more on indigenous food products as the basis of our food security, which we must quickly encourage the farmers to revive. Although many of our indigenous food crops were abandoned in favour of exotic products that could also be sold on the market, there is still a reservoir of knowledge about these crops in the rural communities. So reviving these crops would not be an uphill task if we have a policy that is driven with the same zeal as that of the current production for export. The African elites will have to content themselves with consuming indigenous crops since they can no longer depend on exotic foreign products.

Secondly, we have to consider the strategy of encouraging cooperative production because with the increasing population driven by poverty and the great fragmentation of land holding, it will not be possible to sustain families on the small farm-holdings. A cooperative policy also presupposes a sound credit policy that can enable farmers to borrow for their production and hence the need to hasten the creation of a regional currency that can inform the creation of new local credit systems drawing on the experiences of the ‘informal sector.’ We should learn what the people of Somaliland have done in this respect because they have managed to create a very strong local currency that is not pegged to any global currency.

The collapse of the global capitalist system will not mean the end of the world! On the contrary, it will release the bottled up energies of the people that have been suffocated by the collapsing capitalist system. We shall survive by burying the old system and creating a new one. Such a new system will have to be socialist-oriented since even the most developed capitalist countries have no alternative but to do so as we can already see with the whole sale nationalisation of banks throughout Europe and the US. Some countries such as Iceland have already gone bankrupt.

This means that even the political system has to change. The key to political rejuvenation will lie in the ‘deepening of democracy’ right from the family level, to the clan and to the traditional institutions level since the post-colonial state would have collapsed along with the dollar. New forms of political power will emerge at a local level unless new warlords try to occupy the political space. But the warlords are already doomed as the Somali situation already demonstrates. The local power structures will need a wider cooperative basis on the model of confederal or federal regional states and we should consider Southern, Eastern African or the Great Lakes region for such a partnership.

The development of local markets will need the backing of regional markets for wider exchange of commodities. Therefore, new forms of agricultural and industrial production will have to be tailored to local needs and tastes. Similarly, new local markets will emerge in other parts of the world calling for global exchanges of commodities with those consumers. Eventually a new global currency or currencies based on a basket of commodities will have to be created to facilitate these exchanges on a completely new basis not based on capitalist super-profits run by transnational corporations.

At a political level, we shall increasingly see the emergence of a global civil society along side the new global market. Hence, we can already envisage the emergence of a GLOCAL SOCIETY (a Global society based on local nationalities and global citizenship). Along side with these developments will eventually emerge a federated global State, which will be developed by the local powers. We can no longer return to the caves, we can only move forward to a new world. Yes, a New World is possible and it can now be said with certainty: A NEW WORLD IS INEVITABLE!

* Professor Dani W. Nabudere is the Executive Director of the Afrika Study Centre

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

Financial collapse, systemic crisis?

Illusory answers and necessary answers

Samir Amin

2008-12-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/52617

The violent explosion of this crisis did not surprise us; I mentioned it a few months ago while the conventional economists were ignoring its genesis and consequences, especially in Europe. In order to understand it we must get rid of the conventional definition of the system which qualifies it as "neo-liberal" and "global". This definition is superficial and masks the essential. The current capitalist system is dominated by a handful of oligopolies that control the basic decisions making of the world economy. These oligopolies are not solely financial; such as the banks or the insurance companies, but include enterprises involved in industrial production, services, transports and the like. The way they are financiarized is their chief characteristic. We must understand here that the main source of economic decisions has been transferred from the creation of surplus value in production towards the redistribution of profits between the oligopolies. To that effect the system needs the expansion of financial investments. In that respect the major market, the one which dominates all other markets, is precisely the monetary and financial market. This is my definition of the "financiarization" of the global system. Such a strategy is not the result of independent "decisions" of banks, it is rather that the choice of the "financiarized" groups. These oligopolies hence do not produce profits; they just swipe the monopolies'rent through financial investments.

This system is extremely profitable for dominating sectors of the capital. Thus, the system should not be qualified as a "market economy" (which is an empty ideological qualification) but as a capitalism of financiarized oligopolies. However, financial investment could not continue indefinitely, while the productive basis was growing at a slower rate. Consequently, we have the logic of a "financial bubble", the sheer translation of the financial investments system. The gross amount of financial transactions amounts to two thousand trillion dollars, while the world GDP is only 44 thousand trillion . Quite a huge multiple! Thirty years ago, the relative volume of such transactions was not so large. As a matter of fact, those transactions were directed in general and specifically to cover the operations linked to production, and internal and external trade. The overall outlook of this financed oligopolies system was - as I said previously- the Achilles' heel of that capitalist structure. The crisis was doomed to be initiated by a financial collapse.

BEHIND THE FINANCIAL CRISIS, THE SYSTEMIC CRISIS OF THE AGING CAPITALISM

To focus on the financial collapse is not enough. Behind it, a crisis of real economy is standing out, since the financial drift was continuously asphyxiating the growth of the production basis. Solutions brought to the financial crisis can just lead to a crisis of the real economy, i.e. a relative stagnation of the production with its side effects: shrinking wages, growth of unemployment, increased uncertainty and exacerbation of poverty in the South. We should be talking about a depression rather than a recession.

Behind this crisis, looms a systemic crisis of capitalism. The pursuit of a model based on the growth of the real economy -as we know it- and of the consumption attached to it, has become, for the first time in history a real threat for the future of humankind and the planet.

The key factor in this systemic crisis relates to the earth's natural resources, now less abundant than half a century ago. The North-South conflict constitutes for that reason the central axis of coming struggles and conflicts.

The production and consumption-waste system at the moment constrains access to the world's natural resources for the majority of the planet's inhabitants, i.e. the peoples of the South. Previously, an emergent country could take its share of these resources without questioning the privileges of the affluent countries.

But today, it is no more the case. The population of opulent countries -15% of the planet's population- has to monopolize for its own consumption and waste 85% of the world resources, and denies the rest access to these resources, since this would threaten the living standards of the wealthy.

If the USA has formulated an objective of military control of the planet, it is because, without it, they cannot secure the exclusive access to these resources. As we know: China, India and the South as a whole need them as well for their development. For the USA, they must limit the access and ultimately, there is only one means: war.

On the other hand, to preserve fossil fuels, USA, Europe and others develop production of bio-fuel projects on a large scale, to the detriment of food production, causing a further rise in prices.

ILLUSORY ANSWERS OF THE GOVERNING POWERS

Governing powers, under the rule of financial oligopolies, do not have any other aim other than to preserve the current system. However, their success is not impossible, if they can inject enough liquidity to restore the credibility of the financial investments, and if the reactions of the victims -working classes and nations of the South- remain limited. But, in this case, the system steps back to better jump and a new financial collapse, still deeper, is unavoidable, since the "adjustments" for the management of financial and monetary markets are not wide enough, because they do not question the power of oligopolies.

Furthermore, responding to the financial crisis by injecting phenomenal public funds to re-establish the security of the financial markets is amusing: first, profits were privatized, if they are jeopardized, the losses are socialised! Heads I win, Tails, you lose.

CONDITIONS FOR A GENUINE POSITIVE ANSWER TO THE CHALLENGES

To say that the state interventions may change the rules of the game, lessen the drifts, is not enough. We must define the logic of that intervention and its social purpose. Of course, we could come back in theory to the formulas associating public and private sectors, to a mix economy as it existed during the glorious thirties in Europe and at the time of Bandung in Asia and in Africa, when state capitalism was largely dominant, accompanied by strong social policies. But this kind of State intervention is not on the agenda. Also, are the progressive social forces able to impose such a transformation? Not yet to my viewpoint.

The other choice is the toppling of the oligopolies' exclusive powers, unthinkable without, finally, their nationalisation leading progressively to the socialisation of their management. End of capitalism? I do not think so. Yet, I submit that changes in classes' relations are possible, imposing adjustment to the capital, in answer to the demands of working classes and peoples. The conditions for such an evolution to occur imply the progress of social struggles, still fragmented and on the defensive position altogether, moving towards a political coherent alternative. In that perspective, the long transition from capitalism to socialism becomes possible. The advances in this direction are obviously always uneven from one country to the other and from one phase to the other.

The dimensions of this desirable and possible alternative are numerous and concern all aspects of economical social and political life. I will recall here the general lines of this necessary answer: (i) The re invention by the working people of adequate organizations allowing the construction of their unity, bypassing the fragmentation due to the forms of exploitation (unemployment, precariousness and "informal"). (ii) The awakening of theory and practice for democracy associated to social progress and respect of people's sovereignty, not dissociated from them. (iii) The emancipation from the liberal virus based on the myth that the "individual" has already become the subject of history. Frequent rejects of ways of living associated to capitalism (multiple alienations, patriarchal relations, consumerism and destruction of the planet) signal the possibility of this emancipation. (iv) To get rid of atlantism (NATO) and militarism, associated to it, aiming at the organization of the planet on the basis of apartheid on the world scale.

In the countries of the North, the challenge is to avoid a situation where the general opinion adopts a consensus in support of privileges unacceptable by the peoples of the South. The necessary internationalism goes through anti imperialism and not the "humanitarian".

In the countries of the South, the strategy of the world oligopolies is to transfer the weight of the crisis on these peoples (devaluation of money reserves, fall of the export raw resources prices and rise of import ones). In counterpoint the crisis presents the opportunity for the renewal of national, popular, democratic alliance of working classes, and on that basis the move from a pattern of capitalist dependent development with growing exclusion of majorities towards an alternative pattern of inclusive development, in other words "delinking". This involves:

(i) The national control of monetary and financial market (moving away from the integrated global monetary and financial "market").

(ii) The control of modern technologies, accessible now (defeating the exclusive monopoly of the North, overprotected by WTO rules on industrial property).

(iii) The recuperation of the use of natural resources.

(iv) The defeating of global management, dominated by the oligopolies (WTO) and the military control of the planet by the USA and their allies.

(v) The liberation from the illusions of an autonomous national capitalism system as well as of passeist myths (para religious or para ethnic).

(vi) The agrarian question lies at the heart of decisive choices in Third world countries. An inclusive pattern of development needs a radical agrarian reform, that is a political strategy based on the access to land for all peasants (half of humankind). Conversely, the solutions proposed by the dominant powers -to accelerate the privatization of arable soil, and its transformation into merchandise- lead to massive rural disintegration. The industrial development of the concerned countries being not able to absorb this overabundant manpower, this one crowds together in shantytowns or risks its life trying to escape in dugouts via the Atlantic Ocean. There is a direct link between the suppression of access to the soil and the migratory pressures.

(vii) Can regional integration, while encouraging the emergence of new development poles, constitute a resistance and an alternative? Regionalisation is necessary, maybe not for giants such as China, India or even Brazil, but certainly for many other regions in South-East Asia, in Africa or Latin America. Venezuela has rightly chosen to create ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean's) and the Bank of the South (BANCOSUR), long before the crisis. But ALBA -an economical and political integration project- has not yet received the support of Brazil or even Argentina. However, BANCOSUR, whose aim is to promote another development, gathers these two countries, even though they still have a conventional conception about the role of this bank.

Progresses either direction, North and South, the basis of workers and peoples internationalism, constitute the only guarantees for the reconstruction of a better, multipolar democratic world, the only alternative to the barbarism of the aging capitalism. More than ever, the struggle for the 21st century socialism is on the agenda.

* Samir Amin has been Director of IDEP (the United Nations African Institute for Planning), the Director of the Third World Forum in Dakar, Senegal; and a co-founder of the World Forum for Alternatives.

* This paper was written for the inroduction of The World Forum for Alternatives in Caracas, October, 2008. It was translated from French by Daniel Paquet for Investig'Action and revised by Samir Amin

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

Mumbai Attacks - Coming soon to a 5-star hotel near you

Shailja Patel

2008-12-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/52620

It will be Johannesburg next. Or Lagos. Or Nairobi. Any urban centre where the interests of global capital converge, meet local power brokers, to do business. Any spot where the “creamy layer”, (journalist Mira Kamdar’s term for Mumbai’s upper classes) gathers to celebrate the international fraternity of the $3 latte.

I looked a long time at the photo of the young attacker in Mumbai, in the Versace t-shirt, cradling his gun. I wondered if he might be a survivor of India’s anti-Muslim pogroms of the early 90s. Or the Gujarat massacres of 2002, that killed over 2000 Muslims, left over 50,000 displaced.

Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujurat, who sanctioned that carnage, was re-elected in 2007. Never one to lose a PR opportunity, he rushed to the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai on November 27th, the day after the siege ended, and offered a reward of 10 million rupees ($203, 000) for the 14 Indian police officers killed during the attacks.

In the aftermath of the 2002 Gujurat massacres, the official compensation from the Indian government for each Muslim killed was exactly half the amount previously offered for murdered Hindus.

In Nairobi, the target locations are obvious. The Serena Hotel, where heads of agri-business multinationals lunch with board members of AGRA. The Israeli-owned Fairview hotel, where contracts are signed for the supply of bullets, teargas, water cannons, to the Ministry of Internal Security. Directly across the road from the Israeli embassy. Which demonstrates its blatant contempt for Kenyan sovereignty by erecting its own “checkpoint” on a public road.

And who will the attackers be? The children of the Kenyans “disappeared” by their own government, in extraordinary renditions demanded by the US? Survivors from the back alleys of Huruma and Dandora, who watched their fellow street kids shot or beaten to death by the police? Siblings of the 500 young Kenyan men murdered by the Kibaki administration, their bodies dumped in forests for children to stumble upon?

It’s been a good week for the Israeli security industry. As Naomi Klein points out in her book, “The Shock Doctrine”, Israel’s exports in counter-terrorism-related products and services netted $1.2 billion in 2007 (an increase of 20% from the previous year). As the wards of Mumbai’s hospitals overflow with the casualties of the attacks (bloody rather than creamy), executives of Israeli security firms are on the spot. Shaking hands and clinching deals at record speed in the back rooms of India’s parliament and ministries. Surveillance systems, security scanners, coastline patrol weaponry. Call it market solidarity.

Sanjana Kapur, former director of Mumbai’s acclaimed Prithvi Theatre, said on NDTV: “We need to have confidence that we can live without fear.”

With all sympathy for Ms. Kapur, who also spoke out strongly against the calls for war on Pakistan - why? The poor of Mumbai, Nairobi, Shanghai, face violence and brutality on a daily basis. Villagers in Afghanistan and Pakistan live with the constant terror of US bombardment, of sudden inexplicable death and devastation from the sky. 1.5 million Palestinians slowly starve to death under Israel’s blockade of Gaza, in defiance of all international law. In a world where war is the corporate strategy to open markets, why should the privileged classes of any society be exempt from fear?

* Shailja Patel is a Kenyan poet , playwright and theatre artist

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

The UN Genocide Convention at 60

Henning Melber

2008-12-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/52621

On 9 December 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the ‘Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’. This was a response to the hitherto unprecedented scale of targeted mass extinction of defined groups of people by the German Nazi regime, which Winston Churchill had termed in a broadcast speech of 1941 ‘a crime without a name’. Only in 1944 did the lawyer Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish Polish refugee – after a long odyssey ending up in the United States – coin the term ‘genocide’ in his book ‘Axis Rule in Occupied Europe’. He had worked relentlessly to find an international legal response to the emerging Nazi doctrine and its terror. Due to this one individual’s lasting commitment, the concept of genocide and its condemnation by means of a normative framework entered the UN system.

It was on the initiative of Lemkin that on 11 December 1946 the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted Resolution 96(1). It states categorically that ‘genocide is a crime under international law which the civilised world condemns – and for the commission of which principals and accomplices, whether private individuals, public officials or statesmen, and whether the crime is committed on religious, racial, political or any other grounds – are punishable’. It took more lobbying and several compromises before essentials of this Resolution were finally adopted two years later as the Genocide Convention. It went into force three years later. The Convention defined genocide as ‘acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group’, and it made genocide a punishable crime under international law. Since then, as Robert Orr, the assistant secretary- general for policy planning in the Executive Office of the UN secretary-general summarised in 2006, ‘governments could take action under the United Nations Charter to prevent genocide. The United Nations second Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld said the United Nations’ spare job was not to take us to Heaven but to keep us from Hell. Genocide is the ultimate Hell.’

Unfortunately, little followed the adoption of the Convention in 1948 that showed that the hell called genocide was prevented by actions on the part of the UN system. Half a century later the renowned scholar William Schabas undertook a sobering stock taking overview of ‘The Genocide Convention at Fifty’. As he concluded: ‘The Genocide Convention was the first modern human rights treaty. It was adopted only one day earlier than the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which set the common standard of achievement for human civilisation. Some must have believed, in 1948, that the unthinkable crime of genocide would never recur. Perhaps the gaps in the convention are only the oversights of optimistic negotiators, mistaken in the belief that they were erecting a monument to the past rather than a weapon to police the future. Their naiveté may be forgiven. A failure to learn the lessons of the fifty years since its adoption cannot.’

Indeed, the sobering if not sad lesson since then is that ‘never again’ had been wishful thinking instead of a sustainable reality resulting from the trauma of the Holocaust. Neither have forms of organised mass violence ceased, nor the intention to annihilate groups of people on the basis of common characteristics ascribed to them. The Convention of 1948 had declared the intention to establish a genuine and universal international criminal court to act in the spirit of the Convention. It took another 50 years until this was created in June/July 1998 at the Rome Diplomatic Conference – and only with further compromises and deviating views refusing full recognition of the Court and its jurisdiction.

Since then, several steps have taken the international system closer to the possibility both of pursuing and preventing crimes committed in violation of the Genocide Convention in a more coherent and consequent way – provided that the political will among member states permits it to do so: A special advisor on the prevention of genocide was for the first time appointed by the UN secretary-general in 2004; the Human Rights Council replaced the former Commission on Human Rights, with the intention to reinforce its mandate; the International Criminal Court as well as separate tribunals (for Rwanda and Yugoslavia) and hybrid national/international courts (in Sierra Leone and Cambodia) have taken action on genocide and brought perpetrators to trial; the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) was adopted as another normative parameter, which allows for preventative action.

The 2004 report of the United Nations High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change recommended acceptance of R2P as an ‘emerging norm’. The 2005 Report of the UN Secretary-General submitted to the World Summit session of the UN General Assembly recommended endorsement of the R2P principle as put forward by the UN High Level Panel. The Summit subsequently endorsed the R2P concept, albeit dropping the references to failure to protect citizens from avoidable catastrophes such as deliberate starvation and exposure to disease. In April 2006, R2P acquired the status of international law when the UN Security Council reaffirmed the references in the 2005 World Summit Outcome document (resolution 1674). In August 2006, the Security Council applied R2P for the first time in calling for the deployment of UN peacekeepers to Darfur (resolution 1706).

As Robert Orr stated: ‘In order to prevent genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, we still face tremendous challenges. But nothing is inevitable. Genocide is indeed preventable. Sixty years ago, we didn’t even have a name for this evil. Now, we not only can name it, we have legal mechanisms obligating all to act to stop it, and increasing experience at trying to stop it. We now have the knowledge, we have the United Nations institution to help organise our response, and the political, economic, and military tools to prevent it. The question is, “Will we use them?”’ – And if so, when do we use them for whose interest and to protect whom?

* Henning Melber is the Executive Director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala/Sweden. This is an excerpt from his Introduction to the volume “Revisiting the heart of darkness – Explorations into genocide and other forms of mass violence”, published by the Foundation as “Development Dialogue” no. 50. The book is accessible on the Foundation’s website.

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

The Waki Report: Impunity dying hard in Kenya

Nico' Gnecchi

2008-12-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/52636

Nearly a year on since the post-election crisis shook the very foundations of Kenya's current establishment, what lessons have been learnt?

As part of the National Accord brokered in February 2008 to allow a power sharing agreement between Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, a veteran judge by the name of Justice Philip Waki was given the mandate to head a team to investigate the violence which followed the rigged 2007 presidential elections.

And he did just that. The results published by the Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence (CIPEV) in mid October in a whooping 529 page report are a scathing indictment of Kenya's political culture of impunity and endemic violence from top to bottom.

Kenyan civil society, notably the Kenyans for Peace Truth and Justice (KPTJ) network played a significant role in assisting the CIPEV's investigations and have since been ferociously active in raising critical awareness on Waki's findings. But nearly two months on since it was revealed, Kenyans still wait to hear how the government intends to implement the Waki Report's recommendations.

The Waki Report is a historic document that illustrates how violence has become institutionalised since the re-introduction of multi-party politics in 1991 and is part and parcel of competing for political and economic privilege under a highly powerful and personalised presidential system.

It charges that the Kenyan security agencies "failed institutionally" to contain and prevent the violence and were also complicit in gross acts of violence and human rights violations. The state security agencies contributing to a third of the total deaths during the post election crisis. Precisely 405 out of 1133 people killed, died of gunshot wound, often defenceless in what could count as extra judicial killings as the director of the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, Muthoni Wanyeki affirms:

"Many of those deaths by gunshots had happened while people were around their homes or showing bullets in their backs and would therefore qualify to be classified as extra-judicial executions," she said in an interview.
"So apart from saying that the security services were uncoordinated and unprepared, it also points to the fact that they contributed significantly to the violence."

Very significantly the Waki Report devotes an entire section to sexual and gender based violence during the crisis, providing bone chilling testimonies of women who were victims of gang rape either by security forces or by militias. This serves as a reminder that women bore the brunt of Kenya's post-election crisis and speaks milestones for the need to narrate this dark episode in Kenya's history in terms beyond the simple frames of tribal politics.

Other than just pointing at state complicity and failure to protect the Waki Report also shows that whereas in Kisumu and Nairobi violence tended to be largely a spontaneous reaction to the election result, in the North and South Rift Valley it was more deeply organised, often with the complicity of "political and business leaders".

Most Kenyans are aware that the election-related violence in the Rift Valley goes back to the tenure of former president Daniel arap Moi during the 1990's, when the hiring of gangs to intimidate, kill and displace potential opposition voters became a common tactic.

The audacity of Moi being broadcast on KTN this week playing the elderly statesman at a recent rally (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=e2b3WfcGZuo&eurl=http://www.eastandard.net/?), and blaming Africa's economic woes on greedy leadership, simply drives home the extent to which political impunity is entrenched in Kenya.

Although the ethnic contours of political parties and candidates changed in 2007, the highly personalised nature of presidential power under a still largely authoritarian constitution has created a climate of fear which politicians easily exploit and use to mobilise violence.

To his effect, many violent gangs such as Mungiki, Taliban, Chinkororo and others originally formed to substitute a lack of public security in more marginalised areas, continue to play a political role especially during elections.

Furthermore, historical land grievances exacerbated by political land grabbing, ethnic and regional inequalities, widespread youth unemployment and the failure of Kibaki's first government to prosecute previous perpetrators of political violence; has simply added fuel to the fire. Waki himself concludes:

"Currently Kenya is at a critical juncture. Violence is endemic, out of control, is used routinely to resolve political differences, and threatens the future of the nation. Because of the ethnic nature of the post-election violence, ethnic fears and hatred have been elevated in importance and could turn violent again even more easily than has happened in the past. What is required...is political will and some basic decisions to change the way politics is conducted, as well as to address its intersection with other issues related to land marginalisation and inequality and youth."

The Commission has called for the establishment of a Special Tribunal for Kenya, a hybrid court of Kenyan and International judges to try those bearing the greatest responsibility for crimes relating to the 2007 general elections. The tribunal is to be put into effect by a signed agreement between Kibaki and Odinga and a statute enacted into law within 60 days of the presentation of the Waki Report. These have yet to be realised as we approach the deadline currently set for the 17th of December 2008.

Should this condition not be met, a list of names of those suspected to bear greatest responsibility in the post-election violence, which reportedly includes several cabinet ministers and a senior police chief, will be sent to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. At the moment only Kofi Annan is in possession of the secret list in his role as Chairman of the African Eminent Personalities and chief mediator.

However the Waki Report recommends a series of institutional reforms that the political class have been too self absorbed to notice. These include a complete revamping of the state security apparatus to include a modern code of conduct, civilian oversight and integrating the notorious Administration Police under a single command structure amongst other things. Alongside this it also recommends serious a reform in the whole criminal justice system, a fast tracking of an international crimes bill and a witness protection act to facilitate the tribunal. No small task by all means.

While Kenyan civil society has hailed the Waki Report as a watershed in condemning the deep seated culture of impunity at the heart of Kenyan politics, the report's findings have yet to made available to a large portion of Kenyans who can't access the report let alone read it. Nonetheless judging on past experience, many remain cynical on how committed the government is to implementing its recommendations.

George Nyongesa is a grass roots organiser working with Bunge la Mwanainchi, a grass roots organisation dedicated to the new awakening among the Kenyan citizenry (http://www.bulamwa.co.ke/). Members of Bunge were arrested in September after leading a series of protests over the rising food prices which have been impacting the countries poorest, an example in George's words of the highest ends of impunity. He expressed to me his doubts:

"Waki has come to be a semblance of hope for Kenyans who for so long have suffered in the heavy hands of injustices from the ruling class. But a majority of Kenyans still do not understand the content of the Waki Report, least how it should be implemented. In fact right now the mood on the ground is that Kenyans are not confident of a local tribunal. The reason is that we have a history of broken promises and miscarriages on justice so Kenyans would prefer to see these perpetrators be tried at The Hague."

The predicament expressed here is not unusual.

Not only have the previous inquiries over electoral 'clashes' such as the Akiwumi Commission been shelved without minimal effort to bring the perpetrators to justice; how does one go about implementing a report which targets political impunity when the same people who may be liable remain in important public offices? Concerns seem to be directed towards those implicated members of the security services who currently enjoy greatest impunity.

Given benefit of the doubt, the Waki Report has thought through these issues an sought to provide safeguards to prevent the reoccurrence of what happened with the Akiwumi. Certainly the choice not to publicise the names of those suspected of highest responsibility was a smart move. To this extent Judge Waki truly understands the extent the U.N textbook definition of impunity fits Kenya.

"Impunity is the impossibility, de jure or de facto, of bringing the perpetrators of violations to account - whether in criminal, civil, administrative or disciplinary proceedings - since they are not subject to any inquiry that might lead to their being accused, arrested, tried and, if found guilty sentenced to appropriate penalties, and to making reparations to their victims."

However it is to be seen whether a hybrid court including a mix of international judges and staff which can operate above and beyond Kenyan law will sufficiently guard off political manipulation. Muthoni Wanyeki has pointed out possible problems with advocating international law as the crimes enumerated in the Rome such as genocide or ethnic cleansing may not correspond to what went on in Kenya. She has also voiced the urgent need for implementing a witness protection act.

"There is critical need for witness protection. People were very brave and very courageous and came forward to give CIPEV what they knew about the forms of organised violence, on both sides. It is very clear that those people are being targeted now, and the capacity of the state to protect them is dubious given that the state itself was involved."

KPTJ have also expressed an appeal to the International Community asking them not to be complacent or call this a Kenyan problem which requires a Kenyan solution. But the question of a foreign legal intervention is a contentious one and Kenya should certainly attempt to learn from both the South African and the Rwandan tribunals.

Onyango Oloo, a former political prisoner and exile and currently the Secretary General of the Social Democratic Party as well as being an active member in civil society argues that Kenya rightly or wrongly has been caught up in the politics of globalisation. Political actors have become increasingly savvy at disguising global interests in local level politics and conversely dressing local issues as global imperatives. Over all of this there is an urgent need for Kenyans to reclaim the agenda.

"What i am saying is that Kenyans have to reclaim the agenda. The Kofi Annan led forces, and the voices of the various envoys may not be guided by the principles of social justice or democracy. They may be talking about geo-politics, stability, their ideological interests in trying to say; Ok Kenya seems to be a bulwark against this and that, we want to set up Africom, we want to establish another market in East and Central Africa therefore we need a Kenyan stability for that reason'...they may not care a little bit about what we as Kenyans have been fighting for the last 50 years, in terms of a new Kenya with democracy."

His words echo the call for civil society to re-connect with the Kenyan masses and begin acting as the channel rather than the chaperone for grass roots communities, through which diverse communities can articulate their struggles whether concerning gender violence in the slums or food scarcity in the remote rural areas. Only this way can Kenya's culture of impunity really be challenged from bellow.

As I write various initiatives are actively underway in disseminating information in through innovative technologies, organising public forums and civic education programmes in more remote communities. For example the Partnership for Change initiative by Mars Group Kenya and the Kenya Network of Grass Roots Organisations (KENGO) have been advancing strategic use of non-violent action in calling for an end to impunity and restoring democratic accountability and ending dictatorships in Kenya. Their position is the following:

"To advocate and educate Kenyans on the need for full implementation of all aspects of the National Accord of February 28th 2008 and particularly the full implementation of the Commission of Inquiries into post-election-violence (Waki), into the electoral process (Kriegler), the proposed Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission and the National Ethnic and Race Relations Commission. Our position is that failure to implement the National Accord constitutes grounds for a fresh election of a Parliament and Executive for Kenya."

(http://marsgroupkenya.org/partnershipforchange/agenda.php)

As Kenya approaches Jamhuri Day, the most important national holiday to commemorate both the date of independence and it's establishment as a Republic on the 12 December 1964, many Kenyans will find it tough conjure their famed celebratory spirit.

With many Kenyans tightening their belts following a near doubling of basic commodities prices such as maize flour and kerosene, the current grand coalition Government shows no signs of tightening expenditure budgets over the lavish state festivities which will inevitably follow the Presidents annual state-of-the-nation address.

Whether renewed state-of-the-nation promises will fill empty belly's remains to be seen.

* Nico' Gnecchi is currently studying at St Antony's, Oxford University

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

Violence, Crime and the Hip-Hop Identity

Sudanese Youth in Cairo, Egypt

Natalie I. Forcier

2008-12-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/52624

The youth of the Sudanese refugee community in Cairo, Egypt have transformed their identities in response to the structural barriers they face and their displacement experience. Some of these transformations have been positive – creating social peer networks and forging a new individual identity that rejects the refugee stereotype of poverty. However, other transformations are negative -- creating violent rivalries between two groups (the Outlaws in areas of northern Cairo and the Lost Boys in areas of southern Cairo) whose attacks and retaliation have caused countless severe injuries to both rival group members and other refugees. In addition, some of these youth have begun to rely on criminal activity as a livelihood strategy, capitalizing on an intimidating identity resulting from the violence perpetuated by Sudanese youth.


Violence and criminal activity among youth are the result of underlying social and economic issues, which in this case have been compounded by marginalization and an inability to integrate within Egyptian society. In the case of the Outlaws and Lost Boys, these underlying problems are lack of access to education as well as other structured activities, programs, and opportunity and deprivation of traditional sources of identity, respect, and masculinity.


The groups, the Outlaws and Lost Boys, play positive roles in the lives of these young men. They support each other emotionally and financially, assisting one another in finding housing and work opportunities. They also ensure that if one member is in the hospital that he has access to food, clothing and money as necessary. Young men frequently pool their money together to help out a member who may be going through a particularly rough time. In addition, both groups plan structured recreational activities such as football tournaments, parties, Nile cruises, and trips to the beach.


On an individual level, these young men have chosen to adopt a physical manifestation of the hip-hop identity (style of dress, external mannerisms). This manifestation is not an attempt to mimic African-American culture, but rather is a rejection of the proscribed refugee identity characterized by poverty and lack of opportunity in favor of an identity that emphasizes material wealth and financial success. In being excluded from mainstream society, they have chosen to redefine individuals who warrant respect, and have identified these individuals as non-white men who confront the system, overcome obstacles and promote an African/black identity, most notably hip-hop artists and African-American sports stars, but the most prominent and revered figure being Bob Marley.


The style of dress associated with the hip-hop identity is characterized by designer labels, jewelry, and an overall look that (due to globalization) represents wealth. To a certain extent, this physical manifestation is not a farce, as the clothing they wear is more expensive than the traditional alternatives available in Cairo. However, their distinct choices to have two sets of pants and three shirts of a certain style versus three times as many of a traditional style, indicates a desire to project an alternative self-image.. Although the style of dress is hip-hop, the style of music is more commonly reggae or reggaeton, further showing that the values of honor and respect are being reassigned to non-white men who have defined societal constraints or “the system” at large, not simply African-American rap artists.


In addition to the social support and activities offered by the groups, the Outlaws and Lost Boys offer young men a sense of belonging and group identity of which they have otherwise been deprived. These young men have separated themselves from the conflicts and group identity markers traditionally associated with being Sudanese (geographic politics, tribal affiliation, religion) and therefore do not belong to any type of traditional, coherent, structured group. Some members view this as a positive aspect, noting that “We have 200 men from two different religions and seven different tribes and we live together and eat together in peace.” Unfortunately however, a new conflict has been manufactured that perpetuates inter-group violence. Another young man explained, “The things that happen in Sudan, those aren’t our problems anymore. Our problems are here. North, South, tribes, religion, that is not who we are. We are Outlaws. We are Lost Boys.”


The violent acts committed by the Outlaws and Lost Boys are brutal. Attackers many times target knees and elbows with the intent to permanently disable the victims. The final blow is a machete to the forehead. These types of attacks do not comprise the majority, but occur frequently enough to be well known. The majority of attacks are cuts on the arms resulting from alley fights while trying to obtain money, mobile phones, or jewelry. The inflictions on the arms are the result of the victim attempting to shield himself from the machete when being swung towards his head. It is important to note however that the majority of members of the Outlaws and Lost Boys do not own machetes or weapons of any kind. Of those who do, the primary reason noted for owning or carrying weapons is protection, and an only a smaller subset (approximately 20-30 individuals) routinely engage in violent activities.


In many ways, the Outlaws and Lost Boys have recreated the civil conflict in Sudan, positioning themselves as soldiers fighting for a cause rather than armed youth engaging in randomized violence. This is exhibited through: (1) accused affiliations pitting the two groups against each other because of support from the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army/Government of South Sudan (SPLA/GoSS) and the Khartoum government; (2) the strategic, mission-like character of a majority of the attacks; and (3) the language used by the young men when speaking about the reasons behind the violence and the injuries inflicted upon others.
The power of purported political alliances does not lie in any truth they may have, but rather in the fact that many individuals believe them to be true. A geographical conflict between two groups, fueled by allegiances with different sides of an independence movement, allows some to “justify” their violent actions on a political basis, at least in the moment. At several points members from both groups accused the other of receiving support, whether financially or through assistance in working with Egyptian authorities, from the SPLA/GoSS or the Khartoum government. Individual members would make these assertions of the other group, although the allegiances were never consistent (both groups were accused of receiving support from SPLA/GoSS and the Khartoum government). When questioned about this, it was always denied and refuted, although individuals also were quick to characterize the entire situation as “political.” While both sides vehemently denied ever having contact with government authorities, they were convinced of the political affiliation of the other group.

Although some of the acts of violence committed by young men have been spontaneous, all indicate that a majority of them are extremely well planned and executed with targets, maps, exit strategies, and contingency plans. Individuals from both the Lost Boys and the Outlaws were able to detail the different strategies used by their group as well as the others in attacks they had witnessed. Many times attacks had been planned days in advance, sometimes even with advance warning to the other group. Both groups referenced intelligence-gathering mechanisms employed prior to attacks, most commonly through female counterparts, although noted that these were rare as such activities were extremely difficult and dangerous.

The language of depersonalization indicates that young men truly view members of the rival group as “the enemy” rather than as individuals. One group used the word “mission” to describe the violent activities, while the other group used the word “campaign.” To correspond with this terminology, all attempts to stop the violence were referred to as “peace treaties” or “peace agreements,” which are drafted in rounds of “negotiations.”

During several occasions, non-group members have been injured during attacks by attempting to stop the violence. Many young men explained this by saying that the only reason people they are not targeting may be hurt is because sometimes “civilians get involved.” The word “civilian” was used on several occasions to describe bystanders to violent attacks. When I asked a young man to clarify what he meant by “civilian” he said, “A civilian is someone not involved in the conflict – like a normal person.” This in turn implies that they view themselves as the opposite of civilians, individuals who are involved in “the conflict” -- soldiers.

There are a separate set of reasons that perpetuate the violence and cause it to continue beyond initial incidents: acts of disrespect, retaliation, and gossip. It is worth discussing each of these in turn and how they cause the violence to continue.

Many acts of retaliatory violence occur as the result of members of the rival group simply being present in their territories. Many will travel to rival group areas to visit family members or girlfriends, and leave without engaging in criminal or violent acts. Nonetheless, merely “stepping foot” in the area is considered a severe transgression. Benard (1986) notes that “[t]he kind of acts of violence most common among refugees [are]…quarrels over the allocation of goods but also over quite trivial matters, escalating into violence in a manner that has been described as infantile” (627, emphasis added). However, this “infantilization” of refugees in displacement that causes violence also fits into a larger framework as a psychological defense mechanism in response to “their dependency, their dubious legal status, and the arbitrary nature of the power and the rules they are subjected to” (Benard 1986: 627).

Retaliation is a strong impetus for causing attacks to occur between groups. Retaliatory justice is highly integrated with informal codes of behavior associated with informal networks resulting from marginalization from mainstream society, including situations where police protection or legal justice may not be feasible. Police authorities are rarely, if ever, engaged in these situations for three reasons: (1) to involve the authorities would label the victim or bystanders as a “snitch,” one of the worst titles possible in street culture; (2) many of the young men do not have legal refugee status or visas; and (3) the areas in which the young men live lack police protection in general, and as such even if the police were called, there is no guarantee they would come. The only perceived available option, retaliation, reiterates the concept of an equal punishment for an equal offense, and “rough justice” as practiced by these young men is viewed as holding a higher level of justice since those wronged are entitled to claim their rights directly.

Many retaliatory attacks target individuals that were not involved in violence. On several occasions victims would name the same three individuals from the rival group as the perpetrators. This became problematic when the individuals accused would have an alibi for their whereabouts that I could personally corroborate. When explored further, it was found that not only is blame quickly assigned many times incorrectly, but also that this information is used to fuel retaliatory attacks and for police reports. Young women play a particularly key role in perpetuating the gossip, as they maintain friendships and relationships with young men in both groups and on several occasions have invented stories about being attacked or robbed in order to use the rival group to carry out personal vendettas.

Acts of disrespect, retaliation and gossip can be viewed as the fuel that ensures the continuance of violence between the two groups. In the struggle for masculinity, respect and legitimacy, violence is both the means for obtaining these values and the way in which they are deprived. Being the victim of a violent attack is considered an emasculating act of disrespect, while being the attacker embodies the opposite values.

Ignoring the violence and its underlying causes will not stop the problem. Groups will continue to grow as younger generations age and begin to face the same structural barriers as these young men. In order to stop the violence, the underlying problems causing youth to assert themselves in this manner must be addressed. Programs aiming to broker peace agreements between the two groups by working with leadership have been unsuccessful in the past and the anger resulting from failed peace agreements can actually spike violence. Instead, programs should focus on addressing the underlying issues of lack of structured activities and limited access to educational and skill training opportunities in order to quell the violence.

Work Cited:

Benard, C. 1986. "Politics and the Refugee Experience." Political Science Quarterly 101 (4): 39-62.


* Natalie I. Forcier is with the Centre for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University, Cairo

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

Global: Zed Books wins Pandora Award

2008-12-12

http://www.zed-books.blogspot.com/

Zed Books was this week announced as the winner of the prestigious 2008 Pandora Award from Women in Publishing, for ‘a significant and valuable contribution to publishing’. The Pandora Award has been presented since 1981 to an individual or organization for promoting positive images of women in publishing, bookselling and related trades.

Review of African Blogs – December 11, 2008

Dibussi Tande

2008-12-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/52576

Two major topics on the African blogosphere this week have been the presidential elections in Ghana and the growing Cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe.

White African shares the general sense of satisfaction and even elation at the conduct and outcome of the elections in Ghana:

“There’s lots to feel proud of in this election thus far. Former Botswana president Ketumile Masire, monitoring the election with the Carter Center, noted, “Ghana is becoming a model of democracy in the region and abroad.” Nana Oye Lithur, a Ghanaian gender activist, argues that a divided, “discerning” electorate is the sign of something that’s especially powerful in Ghana, a free, diverse and energetic press. Everyone who cares about this country, and the continent as a whole, is holding their breath that the next round of the election is as free, fair, smooth and peaceful.”

David Ajao writes about another aspect of the Ghanaian elections which has been the subject of numerous commentaries – the general absence of coverage of the elections in the Western media:

“The Ghana 2008 Presidential/Parliamentary elections has been over since about 12 hours ago and I find it interesting that many of the leading Western media outlets have not made a mention of Ghana 2008 Elections. Perhaps, Ghana does not exist on their radar screen. Ghana, like the rest of black Africa will only pop-up on their monitoring screens when over 1,000 people have butchered themselves or over 300,000 people are dying of starvation, or over 500,000 people are displaced by a civil war…

The Elections have been very peaceful and so I reckon CNN has nothing to report. Had 100 people lost their lives due to the elections, Ghana will be in their leading news headlines. For now, Ghana does not exist to them.”

The western media again draw the ire of Muigwithania 2.0 regarding their coverage of the Cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe:

“The manner in which the European and British media have reported how cholera is spreading in Zimbabwe not only reveals they enjoy watching a people whom they cannot intimidate and control suffer, but even, more importantly, it is clearly a masquerade by supposedly compassionate human beings who have nothing to do with the problem.

The Zimbabwean Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr David Parirenyatwa, and his staff deserve ultimate praise, not only for their tireless efforts to maintain Zimbabwe’s broken health infrastructure, but for having the courage and integrity to inform the world that the sanctions — and not negligence or bad governance — are the root cause for problems with the country’s health delivery system.

While the cholera problem is tragic and deserves our immediate attention, the British government and its supporters (Raila Odinga and Co), obsessed with illegal regime change in Zimbabwe, should be the last ones allowed to pass moral judgment on how President Mugabe and Zanu-PF deal with this matter.”

Constitutionally Speaking compares the arrest of KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Health Minister Neliswa Nkonyeni on charges of corruption to that of Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich who is accused of trying to sell Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder:

“Both countries have a Bill of Rights which guarantees accused persons the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But in the USA, the arrest of the Governor immediately led politicians - across party lines - to call for his resignation despite him not having being convicted of any crime.

In South Africa, the arrested politicians (Zuma, Nkonyeni, Yengeni) become heroes despite facing serious charges. This is the difference between a country with a developed sense of public morality and a country where public morality is completely absent from the body politic. In the USA Mr. Zuma could never have become the leader of the ANC. In South Africa, Mr. Zuma will become the next President of South Africa…”

Reinventing Africa writes about a trip to the Central African Republic to conduct an assessment of the humanitarian situation in that country:

“I find it ridiculous, though unsurprising, that many people we meet are surprised that two Cameroonian women are conducting an assessment of the situation in CAR… I don’t see why anyone should be surprised that Cameroonians are concerned about the humanitarian situation in a neighboring country, considering the conflict has directly affected Cameroon...

Too often we expect and wait for Western powers to come to our aid, and as neighbors [we] are not as concerned as we should be for our welfare. In fairness, the countries of Central Africa have come together and formed a peacekeeping force for the Central African Republic. And many countries, including Cameroon and Chad, have opened their doors to refugees from the Central African Republic. This being said, we need to be as proactive as possible in helping one another solve problems within the continent… I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “If we don’t save ourselves, who will?”

Scribbles from the Den publishes a memo by Cameroonians in the Diaspora in reaction to a recent presidential decree on decentralization:

“The centerpiece of the new decree is a name change: the country’s ten provinces have been transformed into ten regions, and a few districts would be upgraded to sub-divisions. Nothing else is new....Nothing in this pathetic game of cards has anything to do with the welfare of citizens in Cameroon. All the governors and their regional underlings represent and report to our very detached and always-traveling President...

This devolution of power is not rocket science. It is the means by which responsible governments give their citizens the opportunity to set their own development priorities, choose their leaders at the local level and hold them accountable for the faithful implementation of their development desires…

It is hard to figure out what’s next for Cameroon. Decentralization is certainly not in the works. Certainly not until provincial (regional) governors become accountable to citizens and the ballot box replaces the presidential decree as the means for determining who governs and to whom governors are accountable!”

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

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

China and the great global landgrab

Stephen Marks

2008-12-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/52635

It seemed unbelievable. An area of Madagascar half the size of Belgium, and equal to half the country’s cultivable land, would be leased for 99 years to a South Korean company to farm maize and palm oil. And the company, Daewoo Logistics, said it expected to pay nothing for the concession. Madagascar would get nothing from the deal except some employment - and according to earlier reports, not much of that, with labour being imported from South Africa.

Sure enough, the backtracking started straight away. Madagascar denied reaching any agreement with the Korean firm. "The contract which we signed in July with Daewoo Logistics concerns only the facilitation of a land search. We were to help them look for land," a Madagascar official said. And the talks concerned only 100,000 hectares, not the 1.5 million originally reported.

But the reports - and the denials - fit into a growing pattern of a global grab for agricultural land. In a process accelerating since March this year, Saudi Arabia, Japan, India, Korea, Libya and Egypt, as well as China, have all been among the countries reported to be snapping up farmland, both to secure their own food supplies and to cash in on rising food prices, which make agricultural land appear a secure investment in a time of global economic turmoil.

Earlier this month the Gulf state of Qatarwas reported to have asked Kenya to lease it 40,000 hectares of land to grow crops as part of a package which would include in return funding for a new £2.4bn port on the tourist island of Lamu.

A leading official from the neighbouring state of Bahrain has set out an ambitious programme, seeing Africa as the future breadbasket for the entire Gulf region. "Food price inflation constitutes a major strategic challenge for the GCC countries as they have rapidly growing populations, but a declining agriculture due to lack of water and arable land," Bahrain Export Development Society chairman Dr Yousef Mashall told a forum on Gulf-African co-operation earlier this month. "

"Countries such as Sudan, South Africa, Mozambique, Senegal and Tanzania are rich in water and land," said Dr Mashal.

"A lot of joint ventures can be investigated in agriculture and Bahrain investors can look at buying land and farming it, producing goods, canning or freezing them and importing to Bahrain.

And at the same time as the Madagascar deal was hitting the headlines, China was involved in a similar-seeming deal in the Philipines. A Chinese company was reported to have been given a lease on some million acres of agricultural land under what were criticised as ‘vague terms’. The area covered by the deal was said to represent about a tenth of all Philippine agricultural land.

Concerns were raised about the terms of the deal, about the effect on local food security, and on the potential conflict with the country’s constitution. But here, as in Madagascar, officials were swift to play down the implications. There was no agreement, they said, only an outline ‘memorandum of understanding’ with the details to be negotiated later. And Philippine senators have since been told that the deal has been delayed “for deeper consultation with all possible stakeholders to come up with an acceptable mechanism.”

Small wonder then that Jacques Diouf, director -general of the Food and Agricultural Organisation [FAO] has warned that ‘The race by food importing countries to secure farmland overseas to improve their food security risks creating a neo-colonial system’.

But how far does this analysis fit China's involvement in African farming? Certainly the incentive is there for an overseas land grab to secure future food supply. With some 20% of the world’s population, China has only 7 per cent of its arable land.

And that is already being whittled down by erosion and environmental degradation, according to a recent survey.

‘Almost 100 million people in south-west China will lose the land they live on within 35 years if soil erosion continues at its current rate, a nationwide survey has found.

Crops and water supplies are suffering serious damage as earth is washed and blown away across a third of the country, according to the largest-scale study for 60 years.

Harvests in the north-east, known as China's breadbasket, will fall 40% within half a century on current trends, even as the 1.3 billion population continues to grow.

While experts cited farming and forestry as the main causes, contributing to over a third of the area affected, the research team said erosion was damaging industrial areas and cities as well as remote rural land. About 4.5bn tonnes of soil are scoured away each year, at an estimated cost of 200bn yuan (£20bn) in this decade alone’ [The Guardian].

At the same time China’s rapid economic development is increasing the strain on the available land. According to the recent comprehensive report on China’s overseas farming policy from the Brussels Institute for Contemporary Chinese Studies [BICCS] China now accounts for 22 per cent of worldwide rubber consumption, and its demand for cotton tripled between 1998 and 2007. In 2008 only 7 million tons of that demand is expected to be met from domestic production with 27.5m tons imported - an estimated 45% of it from Africa.

The higher incomes of China’s citizens also leads to a more varied diet, with higher meat consumption. In 2007 China’s citizens consumed five kilos more pork per head and two kilos more vegetable oil than in 1998. China’s import demand for agricultural products has been projected to grow at double-digit rates for the next 25 years. True, at present Africa only accounts for four per cent of China’s agricultural imports. But as the BICCS report points out ‘Even a relatively small change in China’s food consumption pattern may have a major influence on the global agricultural commodities market’ - and all the more so therefore on individual African countries.

So it is not surprising that China’s overseas agricultural deals are seen in this context, which is clearly also that in which many Chinese policymakers also see them. Thus a recent survey of the global trend for ‘landgrabbing’ to secure food supplies [‘Seized! The 2008 land grab for food and financial security’] concludes that;

‘As many farmers’ leaders and activists in south-east Asia know, Beijing has been gradually outsourcing part of its food production since well before the global food crisis broke out in 2007. Through China’s new geopolitical diplomacy, and the government’s aggressive “Go Abroad” outward investment strategy, some 30 agricultural cooperation deals have been sealed in recent years to give Chinese firms access to “friendly country” farmland in exchange for Chinese technologies, training and infrastructure development funds. This is happening not only in Asia but all over Africa as well...with Chinese companies leasing or buying up land, setting up large farms,flying in farmers, scientists and extension workers, and getting down to the work of crop production’.

However some exaggeration inevitably creeps in when these general strategic pressures and trends are translated directly into the analysis of specific Chinese interventions. Thus the ‘Grain’ report also claims, citing a Liberian press report, that:

‘The Chinese government recently announced a commitment of US$5bn for Chinese corporations to invest in African agriculture over the next 50 years through the new China–Africa Development Fund.’

But in fact US$5bn is the figure for the ultimate intended size of the entire fund, not to be reached for several years and according to a Xinhua report, most of it will not be invested in natural resources.

Indeed, according to the BICCS report, agriculture accounted for only 0.9% of China’s total outward investment in 2006.

So instead of translating China’s mounting agricultural constraints directly into an interpretation of trade and investment deals with specific countries, it might be better to look at what specific empirical work has been done on the nature and role of existing Chinese farm investments and their role and impact on the local economy.

Two researchers engaged in doing just that gave presentations to a recent conference in London on the contribution of China’s commodities trade to economic development in Africa. James Keeley of the International Institute for Environment and Development [IED] has been studying the growing number of Chinese farms in Zambia. Now totalling 23, representing a total investment of $10m, he finds that to date they are all providing for the local food market, not for export - for example, they currently provide 15% of all Lusaka’s eggs.

He finds the Chinese farms appear poorly connected into any wider strategy and have a positive local role as agricultural demonstration centres, able to disseminate the experiences gained by China’s own network of over 100 agricultural academies and research institutes, with a useful ability to do low-cost research geared to poor farmers.

According to Keeley "The argument that China is setting up farms to feed itself does not hold water. A lot of the evidence is a bit scant and there is no rapid land grab going on".

A similar conclusion is drawn by Yahia Mahmud of Sweden’s Lund University, on the basis of his research into long-established Chinese-owned farms in West Africa, particularly the M’Pourie farm in southern Mauritania. He also finds no sign of a ‘breadbasket’ approach, and the older Chinese machines used on the farms - models no longer made in China - are preferred by local people to more modern French machines.

However, it could be argued that both of these examples concern farms established some time ago in an earlier phase of China’s African engagement. China’s more recent involvement in the rich Zambezi valley area of Mozambique might be a better pointer to the future - though it could still be seen as being potentially as much of a ‘win-win’ engagement as a ‘neo-colonial land-grab’.

In 2006 China’s Eximbank granted $2bn in soft loans to the Mozambique government to build a mega-dam on the Zambezi river in Tete province. According to Loro Horta ‘In addition to the Mpanda Nkua dam, China has offered to finance three other dams along the Zambezi and two more along the Limpopo river, while also building new roads and modernizing the Guelimane and Nacala harbors in Zambezia and Nampula provinces respectively. This investment in infrastructure is clearly designed to maximize production and facilitate the rapid export of foodstuffs to China while also giving lucrative contracts to Chinese companies’.

Early this year China also pledged to invest $800m in modernising Mozambique’s agriculture, with the aim of increasing rice production over the next five years from 100,000 to 500,000 tons. China is also reported to be funding an Advanced Crop Research Institute and other smaller agricultural schools, and over 100 Chinese agricutlrual specialists are said to be working in the country, on projects including numerous irrigation and canal networks in the Zambezi valley.

As Horta points out, ‘Mozambique’s increased rice production is clearly destined for export to the Chinese market, since the staple accounts for just a tiny fraction of the Mozambican diet and is primarily consumed in the big cities by the wealthy. Over 90 percent of the country’s population relies on mandioca (cassava) and shima (cassava flower), maize, and peanuts for its diet’.

China is also said to be linking further work on these and other crucial infrastructure investments to Mozambique conceding satisfactory terms on land leases for Chinese rice farms. But there has been a Chinese climb-down on the reported initial intention to settle large numbers of Chinese in Zambezia and Tete provinces to run mega-farms and cattle ranches.

According to Horta; ‘A memorandum of understanding was reported to have been signed in June 2007, allowing an initial 3,000 Chinese settlers to move to Zambezia and Tete provinces to run farms along the valley. A Mozambican official said the number could eventually grow to up to 10,000. However, the reports of this deal caused such an uproar that the Mozambique government was forced to dismiss the whole story as false’.

Current plans by contrast appear to envisage Chinese managers and technicians with local labour, and ownership by joint ventures with Mozambican participation. But this leaves unsettled the question of land rights and the position of existing cultivators.

As Horta concludes;

‘While the Zambezi valley may offer China productive farmland and other opportunities, Beijing must be sensitive to local concerns lest its dreams for the valley turn into a public relations debacle that would damage China’s image on the continent. ...Instead of trying to induce officials in Maputo to allow them entry into the valley, China would be better advised to listen to and negotiate with the people actually living there, since it is their land that China is banking on for its future food security.

If implemented with sensitivity, China’s agricultural plans could bring tremendous benefits for both sides...Through the centuries of Portuguese rule the fierce peoples of the valley showed that they don’t take it kindly being pushed off their land – something both Beijing and Maputo should keep in mind’.

The apparent shift in China’s Mozambique policy reflects a broader debate within China’s agriculture ministry and top leadership which came to a head earlier this year. China’s Ministry of Agriculture [MOA] was reported to be about to adopt a draft policy making support for offshore land acquisition by Chinese agricultural companies a central state policy, in order to guarantee food security. [‘China eyes overseas land in food push’ Financial Times May 8 2008]

But despite lobbying for the policy by private firms senior officials opposed the plan which was officially disowned. According to Xue Guoli, a senior official in the MOA’s agricultural trade promotion centre;

"It is not realistic to grow grains overseas, particularly in Africa or South America. There are so many people starving in Africa, can you ship the grains back to China? The cost will be very high as well as the risk."

Apart from shipping costs, officials were reported to be concerned about sensitivities in most countries to foreigners owning land, and consequent vulnerability to nationalisation and labour disputes - all of which, they argued, meant that it might be both cheaper and more secure to source China’s future import needs on the world market.

Nonetheless the debate continues. The Economic Observer reported in July that the MOA was still drafting policies to encourage overseas land purchase. But the critics were continuing to put their case:

‘"Given high freight costs, food produced overseas would not necessarily be sold back to China. Whether it will help improve domestic food reserve is still a question," said Gu Yingchun, research fellow of Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences.

China Agricultural University principal He Bingsheng voiced his concern: "Many countries would limit exports once food price rises. For example, Argentina levies a 44% tax on soy bean exports, and some others even ban soy bean exports."

Scholar Hou Shuyi believed China should first improve its own land use and take full advantage of it before spending massive capital on buying land abroad’.

All of which should serve as yet another warning against the easy view of China as a monolith, overlooking both the continuous policy debates within the Chinese leadership and policy community; and also the considerable independence of Chinese firms - state owned as well as private - in pursuing their own economic interests.

Regardless of China’s governmental policy on food security, agricultural land will continue to be an increasingly attractive investment, and Chinese firms are likely to continue to want to have a slice of the action, along with all the other investors and operators in the global market place. And they will continue to be able to count on sympathetic elements among policy-makers by playing the ‘food security’ card.

The BICCS report quotes from the official guidelines on outward investment, which specifically list as sectors in which investment will receive government support ‘those that can obtain resources or raw materials that are lacking within China and which the development of the national economy urgently requires’.

These would include agricultural projects. But it appears that to date the main project to be supported by the China-Africa Development Fund is the establishment of ten demonstration farms in Africa.

Agricultural investment to ensure China’s security of supply, as well as the commercial interests of the firms involved, is certainly under way in the Philipines, Brazil, and in China’s neighbours such as Laos and Burma. But even there, and especially in Africa, there is still a policy debate with those well aware of the reputational risks of too overbearing an approach.

It should be in the interests of Africa’s farmers as well as campaigners concerned with issues of food sovereignty and sustainability, to make common cause with China’s more far-sighted policymakers. The aim must be to ensure that China’s agricultural involvement in Africa takes place within a policy framework that maximises a long-termist ‘win-win’ approach including technology transfer, infrastructure investment, and increased food security and sustainability for both parties.

For details of the Foreign Policy Centre/Open University [url=http://fpc.org.uk/events/177/]Conference[/url ‘Going for Growth: Can Commodities Transform Development in Africa and China?’ are available on the Centre website.

The BICCS report ‘China’s foreign farming policy’ by Duncan Freeman, Jonathan Holslag and Steffi Weil is available for download.

∗ Stephen Marks is a research associate with Fahamu’s China in Africa programme.

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

China to train 15,000 African personnel

2008-12-12

http://www.cctv.com/english/20081207/102691.shtml

China has promised to train 15,000 African personnel in the next three years to strengthen the cooperation in human resources development between China and Africa. This is a classroom to train for Ethiopia telecommunication engineers. The teachers and the equipment worth more than 10 million US dollars are all from a Chinese telecom company.

Japan, China, S Korea to hold first meeting on Africa policy

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/593njk

Japan, China and South Korea will hold their first trilateral senior working level meeting in Tokyo on Friday to discuss respective foreign policies toward Africa, such as financial assistance and economic relations, Foreign Ministry Press Secretary Kazuo Kodama said Tuesday.

Nigeria: Goverment assures investors of infrastructure

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/6jv2rq

The Federal Government has reiterated its resolve to ensure the availability of basic infrastructure facilities for the proposed Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos. A statement from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry yesterday revealed that Subervising Minister of Commerce and Industry, Dr. Idi Hong, gave the assurances on behalf when a team from the China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) visited him in Abuja.

Nigeria: Nigeria as a dumping ground

2008-12-12

http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=130413

In recent years, Nigeria has become an importer of almost everything under the sun and exporter of almost nothing (except oil and gas). This has resulted in very sharp unfavourable balance of trade with many countries.
That explains why Nigeria has become what the Ministry of Commerce and Industries described as "dumping ground" for stronger economies in the world: Automobiles, furniture, leather, canned food, drinks, and even refined petroleum products.

South Africa: SARS seizes 60 tonnes of illegal Chinese imports

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/65cpvx

Officials from the South African Revenue Service (SARS) seized 60 tonnes of clothing from a warehouse in Sasolburg last week that were illegally imported from China and shipped through Botswana. According to SARS spokesman Adrian Lackay on Friday, the goods were to be sent to three large retailers. Although they are believed to be listed companies, SARS would not disclose the value of the seized goods nor the names of the retailers.

US, China work together to aid global trade

2008-12-12

http://ictsd.net/i/news/bridgesweekly/35964/

The US and China will provide US$ 20 billion in loans to finance trade in a coordinated effort to help ease the economic crisis. The agreement was made with developing countries in mind, and “to contain and curb the spread of the financial contagion and avoid a global recession,” according to Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan.

ANC says Mugabe fears prosecution if he steps down

2008-12-12

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news111208/anc111208.htm

African National Congress secretary general Gwede Mantashe, claimed on Thursday that Robert Mugabe had ‘real fears’ of being hauled before the International Criminal Court in the Hague, if he were to relinquish power. Mantashe made the claim in the coastal city of Durban during a breakfast meeting with journalists and editors. He revealed that the higher structures of the ANC had discussed Mugabe’s reasons for wanting to stay in power and that he was afraid of being arrested and charged with war crimes like former Liberian President Charles Taylor.

Government looking for land for mass burial, after killing 78 miners

2008-12-12

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news111208/massburial111208.htm

After issuing statements denying that scores of people were murdered in the Chiadzwa diamond fields in Manicaland province, the truth finally came out on Thursday when the District Administrator for Mutare appealed to the City Council for land to bury 83 people. The Deputy Mayor for Mutare, Admire Mukovera, confirmed receiving a phone call from the DA Mr Mashava, requesting land for a mass burial.

Mugabe claims cholera has been contained

2008-12-12

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=5070

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe said Thursday a cholera epidemic has ended, even as the United Nations said more people have died and South Africa declared a disaster on its border because of the disease. "I am happy to say our doctors have been assisted by others, and WHO (the World Health Organization) and they have now arrested cholera," he said in a nationally broadcast speech.

Mugabe: 'Tsvangirai is a political prostitute'

2008-12-12

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/22120

Zimbabwe's President Mugabe has called MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai a political prostitute and said that British premier Gordon Brown must undergo mental examination. He was addressing mourners gathered at the national burial shrine, for the burial of ZANU PF political commissar Eliot Manyika.

Police ignore court order over Mukoko abduction

2008-12-12

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news111208/policeignore111208.htm

The 22 abducted political and civic activists, including Zimbabwe Peace Project director Jestina Mukoko, are still missing. We were not able to contact Alec Muchadehama, the lawyer representing the missing MDC activists, but lawyers representing Mukoko say the police are completely ignoring a court order. The courts had ordered the police to thoroughly investigate Mukoko’s abduction, report at 10am at the High Court every day with an update on their investigations, and put advertisements in both the electronic and print media. But none of this has happened.

South Africa declares Beit Bridge diasater area

2008-12-12

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=5071

South Africa has declared the border with Zimbabwe a disaster area due to a cholera epidemic that has killed nearly 800 people. Mogale Nchabeleng, a spokesman for the Limpopo provincial government in South Africa, said: "The whole of the Vhembe district has been declared a disaster. Extraordinary measures are needed to deal with the situation."

WOZA AND MOZA commemorate Human Rights Day

2008-12-12

http://wozazimbabwe.org/

Over 1,000 members of WOZA marched through the streets of central Bulawayo today to the offices of the state-owned Chronicle newspaper. The peaceful group distributed flyers calling on the so-called government to stand aside to allow the United Nations to deal with the humanitarian crisis. Other flyers distributed by the group demanded the immediate release of Jestina Mukoko, Violet Mupfuranhehwe and her two-year old baby and the other pro-democracy activists abducted in the last few weeks.

Summit on Burundi's peace process

AU Monitor Weekly Roundup: Issue 161, 2008

2008-12-11

http://www.aumonitor.org

The Regional Peace Initiative chaired by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni held a summit on Burundi’s peace process, which has included over twenty summits resulting the surrender of six of the country’s seven former rebel movements. Future meetings are expected to take drastic measures should the PALIPEHUTU-FNL, the one armed group that has yet to join the regional peace initiative, should they not meet the 31 December deadline to implement the comprehensive ceasefire accord. Meanwhile, the African Union (AU) observer mission to the Ghanaian presidential and parliamentary elections has praised the country’s political maturity and advised political parties to exercise restraint while waiting for the electoral commission to announce official results. Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga has called on the chairperson of the AU, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, to oust President Robert Mugabe and end the humanitarian catastrophe, political stalemate and economic meltdown perpetrated against the Zimbabwean people.

The AU, worried about gender disparity in its member States, is planning to adopt a new gender policy that aims to promote women’s access to and control over resources, knowledge, information, land and business ownership and to achieve the enforcement of human rights, gender equality and women’s empowerment at international, continental and national level. A new report released by the International Labour Organisation concludes that African women are not benefiting from the continent’s economic boom because of low-wages and a lack of social protection. “Women have little choice but to work...but nonetheless, poverty persists, implying a grave malfunction of the labour market”, says the report. In other economic news, the AU vice president called on African governments to allow farmers to engage in viable business ventures without interference, thus avoiding over-regulation, and announced that the organisation has a comprehensive agricultural policy to ensure food security in Africa. Further, it is suggested that Africa could be the breadbasket for the Gulf Cooperation Council providing valuable water and food supplies to the entire region as it is already suffering from rising food prices, caused by inflation in exporting countries.

In other news, kings, princes, dignitaries and traditional chiefs of Africa called on African leaders to establish a Union Government to help lift the continent from poverty, disease and hunger. AU chairperson Jean Ping, in an interview with NEWSWEEK’s Jason McLure, also stated his belief in the United States of Africa, be it a confederation, a federation, or a centralised government, to help establish peace and stability in the continent. Finally, members of parliament from the Southern Africa Development Community member States, during their plenary assembly, called for the forum to be turned into a fully functional regional parliament with legislative powers.

Global: Global Fund adopts new gender equality strategy

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/67a888

At its meeting last month, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria Board adopted a new Gender Equality Strategy, the full title of which is "The Global Fund's Strategy for Ensuring Gender Equality in the Response to HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Liberia: The women who ended a war

2008-12-12

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=45074

One night, in a country swept up in a long and harrowing armed conflict, Liberian social worker Leymah Gbowee dreamt that she gathered women together to pray for peace. Her dream was realised in 2003 at St. Peters Lutheran Church in Monrovia, when women of all walks of life gathered there to demand peace, a peace that Liberia hadn't seen in years. In the months that followed, Gbowee's dream would gain momentum.

Southern Africa: Sex workers demand rights, not rescue

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/58pszr

On the 17th of December we will be commemorating the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, a day when all of the globe, sex worker rights organisations will be staging actions and vigils to raise awareness about violence that is commonly committed against sex workers. To coincide with this event, the Open Society Institute releases a report which finds that sex workers in Southern Africa experience widespread human rights abuses.

Sudan: Women's-only agribusiness fights hunger

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/55h6rj

About 3,000 people gathered in Rumbek, South Sudan, to celebrate the official launch of an ambitious commercially integrated farming initiative (CIFI). The program will train and enable 3,000 women over a period of three years to grow and market a variety of crops on community land that was formerly unused. At a ribbon-cutting ceremony the deputy governor of Lake State, Awan Guol Riak donated a vehicle to the organization that will help the women to bring their crops to markets in town.

Africa: Celebrating 60 years of human rights?

Karen Williams

2008-12-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/52660

This 10 December marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, it is more than a global birthday. The anniversary is a pertinent way to take stock of what the Declaration and the movement for human rights in general has meant for African women. At the time of the Declaration’s founding the notion of a common humanity – and with presumed, unqualified rights – was unheard of. Now, on its 60th birthday, Africa has its first female president.
This 10 December marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, it is more than a global birthday. The anniversary is a pertinent way to take stock of what the Declaration and the movement for human rights in general has meant for African women.

The year of its founding, 1948, is itself significant for human rights: that year saw the establishment of the apartheid state in South Africa, as well as the declaration of Israel as a country. The premise that every person is a human being is still a revolutionary and unfulfilled notion in many quarters of the world – through either poverty, dispossession, or the historically non-human status accorded to non-white people.

African women have the anomaly of being a majority population group in many countries, but with the status, dispossession and stigma of an oppressed minority. Accesses to resources play a key role in the self-empowerment that can guarantee women’s rights.

At the time of the Declaration’s founding the notion of a common humanity – and with presumed, unqualified rights – was unheard of. Now, on its 60th birthday, Africa has its first female president. Female deputy presidents are not unheard of and a significant number of women serve in top government posts (with Rwanda having the largest number of female parliamentarians in the world).

The 60-year walk of the Declaration can also be seen in the life of Nevanathem Pillay, the recently appointed United Nations (UN) Rapporteur on Human Rights, the highest-profile international human rights post in the world. Pillay’s life tells the other side of the African human rights movement – as the first black woman to open a legal practice in apartheid South Africa, she made her name as a human rights lawyer defending detainees.

Pillay went on to head the UN Court trying the masterminds of Rwanda’s genocide, where she was instrumental in securing judgments that gave the world the first legal tests for rape as a crime against humanity and act of genocide. Her life is a fitting example of how the struggle for equal rights for African women has direct implications on women’s lives.

With the Declaration’s plain-language talk of “inherent dignity” and “equal and inalienable rights,” the promise of human rights often represents a way of organising civic and public life – in other words, an appeal to government to guard the rights of the citizenry.

The Declaration deals with a range of rights - marriage, property ownership, citizenship, free speech, freedom of movement, equal treatment and freedom from fear. For many women these rights are not about their relations with the outside world, but the oppression they encounter daily within their own homes.

The history of the Declaration invokes the nostalgia of the golden age of African leadership and the towering presence of the progressive fathers of the independence era: Kwame Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral, Patrice Lumumba, Nelson Mandela, Augustinho Neto and Frantz Fanon.

Their ideas of freedom – and by extension the freedom of women – is regularly invoked, but often as a way to bestow legitimacy on African leaders who are decidedly anti-progressive, anti-women, and often recalling the worst of colonialism in how they treat their citizens. However, it is the core of progressive and leftist African political thought that needs to be built, if there is to be any progress for African women.

Human rights and rights for women do not happen in a vacuum. Fundamental to ensuring progressive, positive change, is access to resources for ordinary people and the fair allocation in resource distribution.

Access to resources, provision of resources, the deliberate withholding and skewed distribution of resources, is fundamentally linked to issues of conflict. Uneven distribution of resources and looting of country’s wealth has been at the heart of modern African wars and conflicts – and women have consistently been its most visible, brutalised victims.

In recent years, there have been significant finds of resources in Africa – particularly oil. Notwithstanding the neo-colonialism and exploitation of big companies who work in the resource industry, African governments have consistently refused to use their newfound wealth to benefit their local population, instead seeing governance as a way to display their corruption and venality.

At the same time, there is little organised local pressure on African governments to behave better – or to call them to account. Articulating clear political programmes and progressive campaigns is often absent from the heart of African electioneering in its contests to gain positions which will facilitate personal campaigns of thieving of the country’s resources.

This has direct relevance to ensuring equal treatment of women in a country. Women’s rights do not happen without ensuring other rights being. That is why women’s rights – and human rights in general - will never truly be a reality when so many African leaders (and religious figures and African populations in general) proudly flaunt their despicable anti-gay hate speech.

Women’s rights can never be guaranteed if parliament is a shortstop to grand theft – and there is no infrastructure to support women’s health programmes, literacy and practical medical needs (including reproductive health and access to abortions).

Women’s rights can never be spoken of unless there are real education programmes – which allow people to know more about their world, have better economic circumstances and have the space to make better, more informed choices for their lives.

There will never be human rights as long as women are unable to access support and services that help them to own property, seek credit, leave abusive situations, care for their health, and the whole range of options that men are often able to easily access, while women are not. And this means government commitments to making resources available to do so – financing programmes and strategies designed to empower women.

For centuries, Africans have struggled against racism, slavery and colonialism. It’s now time for African governments to start seeing their own populations as human with the rights inherent to being a human being – and the easiest place to judge them would be how they treat the majority section of their citizens - women.

* Karen Williams is a journalist who works in Africa and Asia. This article is part of a series produced by the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service for the Sixteen Days of Activism

Africa: Elder abuse: the Nigerian experience

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/5zcl8f

There is a ‘secret-cult’ silence on the issue of abuse of the elderly in Nigeria, argues the author of this paper. The victims of abuse and others are reluctant to talk about it, and there is constant denial by victims and abusers. Acts of abuse are usually regarded as normal behaviour within society. What can ordinary Nigerians, the government, families and communities do to assist the abused and abusers in prevention and intervention strategies that will benefit the elderly in Nigeria?

Angola: End torture and unfair trials in Cabinda

2008-12-12

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/12/05/angola-end-torture-and-unfair-trials-cabinda

The Angolan government should urgently end torture and unfair trials in state security cases, Human Rights Watch has said. Fourteen civilians who were arbitrarily detained and tortured in military custody are currently being held on security charges in the Angolan enclave of Cabinda.

DRC: Warlord trial gives victims hope

2008-12-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7767902.stm

Marie trembles as she tells me about the day when Jean-Pierre Bemba's Congolese troops came to her town. "We heard gun-shots as they went from house to house," she says in Bossangoa in the Central African Republic. She struggles to contain her emotions as she recounts how she and her husband cowered next to their children as the awful sounds outside their home drew closer.

Global: Defending the defenders: Ethical commitment for Human Rights

2008-12-12

http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1449.html

Human rights as we know them today are based on the principles of equality, liberty and solidarity which emerged during the French Revolution and were embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While all human rights must be interpreted taking into account all three of these guiding principles, due to historical reasons, each principle has in turn generated a different set of rights.

Global: What image opened your eyes to human rights?

2008-12-12

http://hub.witness.org/udhr60

For 16 years, WITNESS has harnessed the power of video to advance human rights. In honor of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10th, we've put together this short video with different WITNESS staff talking about images that opened their eyes to human rights abuses around the world.

Kenya: Court case on child support responsibility

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/66b5f4

The case reveals the shortcoming of Section 24(1) of the Children Act, which relieved fathers from an immediate parental obligation to support their children born out of wedlock. The High Court held that such a law is discriminatory against children born out of wedlock and called for the legislature to consider amending the law. Advocates may utilize the Court’s position to challenge that Section and insist upon the amendment of the law.

Rwanda: France blocks extradition

2008-12-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7777129.stm

A Paris appeals court has rejected an extradition request for a man accused of a role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide. A Rwandan court sentenced Isaac Kamali in his absence in 2003 to death for his alleged participation in the massacre. Mr Kamali, a mathematics professor, who also holds French nationality, was detained at a Paris airport in 2007.

Rwanda: Kenya pressed on genocide suspect

2008-12-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7779353.stm

Kenya must step up its efforts to track down a Rwandan genocide suspect, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) says. The ICTR chief prosecutor is expected to tell the UN Security Council he is not satisfied with the level of cooperation and assistance from Kenya.

Togo: Government to abolish death penalty

2008-12-12

http://www.afrol.com/articles/31979

The Togolese cabinet has presented a bill that will abolish capital penalty in a nation plagued with human rights violations. Human rights groups are delighted by the news.On 10 December, the symbolic day of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Togolese government presented a bill that will abolish the death penalty in the country, if approved of by the Lomé parliament.

Chad: Insecurity leaves thousands at risk of waterborne disease, aid workers say

2008-12-12

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81914

Diarrhoea and other deadly waterborne illnesses threaten some 28,000 Chadians in an eastern town, after armed attacks – including the theft of a water pump – forced out the last aid workers running already scaled-down operations. UN aid officials fear that people will begin to flee the area – Dogdore – if aid operations do not resume there soon, thus further complicating humanitarian efforts in Chad's volatile east. About 24,500 displaced Chadians live in Dogdore, along with some 4,000 local residents, according to the UN.

DRC: Concerns at Kibati camp as transfers continue - UNHCR

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/6zyngf

We remain extremely concerned for the safety of the displaced Congolese population in Kibati as the civilian character of these two UNHCR-run camps north of Goma is continually violated. In another incident early this morning, two young girls were shot. A 5-year-old died and a 7-year-old girl is fighting for her life in a local hospital. Our staff also reported this morning that another woman was raped by armed men in the vicinity of Kibati camp yesterday evening.

Global: UNHCR meeting seeks solutions to end long-term exile of millions of refugees

2008-12-12

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/493fe0a42.html

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres on Wednesday opened a two-day international dialogue aimed at seeking solutions for millions of people caught up in the limbo of so-called "protracted refugee situations" in which they spend years in exile with no end in sight. Guterres told some 300 representatives of more than 50 governments and governmental and non-governmental organizations in Geneva's Palais des Nations that the world must do more to resolve the seemingly endless plight of nearly 6 million refugees who have spent years, and sometimes decades, in exile.

Nigeria: Unresolved conflicts cause ongoing displacement

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/5amzxo

With a complex range of ethnic, religious and linguistic groups competing for access to resources, outbreaks of violence leading to significant situations of short-term internal displacement are frequent in Nigeria. Many internally displaced people (IDPs) seek refuge with family and friends while waiting for the violence to subside so they can return to their homes.

South Africa: Government weighs "managing" influx of Zimbabweans

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/67jjee

The South African government is considering "managing" the influx of Zimbabweans, said a government spokesman after its border area with Zimbabwe was declared a cholera disaster area. "We are looking into the issue," Themba Maseko responded to a question on whether the country would control the number of possibly infected Zimbabweans entering South Africa.

Zimbabwe: Statement on abduction and detention of Jestina Mukoko

2008-12-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/socialmovements/52653

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), learnt with deep shock and dismay the violent abduction and secret detention of the ZPP Executive Director and ZESN Board member Ms Jestina Mukoko. ZESN joins the long list of organisations and concerned individuals who have expressed their grave concern and condemnation of the abduction of Ms Mukoko.
ZESN STATEMENT ON ABDUCTION AND CONTINUED SECRET DETENTION OF JESTINA MUKOKO

Harare - 6December 2008 - The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), learnt with deep shock and dismay the violent abduction and secret detention of the ZPP Executive Director and ZESN Board member Ms Jestina Mukoko. ZESN joins the long list of organisations and concerned individuals who have expressed their grave concern and condemnation of the abduction of Ms Mukoko.

It is distressing to note that Ms Mukoko, a defenceless woman was forcibly taken by 15 armed men from her home in the early hours of the morning of 3 December 2008, a time when the world in general and Zimbabwe in particular was commemorating 16 Days of Gender Activism. ZESN is gravely concerned by the health, welfare and safety of Ms Mukoko and demands not only her safe return but also that the law enforcement authorities and judiciary act responsibly to protect her rights, particularly the right to life and bodily integrity.

It is sad to note that the state authorities continue to say and do nothing in the face of these targeted abductions. ZESN will join other organisations to hold the authorities responsible for any harm she may suffer as the duty of ensuring her safe return lies squarely on the authorities.

We also condemn the reported action of certain unnamed members of the judiciary who have refused to take up the matter, and those who only set the matter down for hearing on Monday despite its urgency and the implications of Ms Mukoko's continuedincommunicado detention. The judiciary is supposed to comply with the oath of office and constitutionally enshrined mandate to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of all citizens of Zimbabwe without fear or favour.

In addition we urge the government of Zimbabwe to uphold by the principles that the country is a signatory and part to which includes the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which recognizes the protection to life and physical integrity of a person and detest against the arbitrary depravation if liberty. ZESN therefore reiterates that the authorities maintain law and order and protect individual human rights and bear full responsibility for any harm that may befall Ms Mukoko.

Ms Mukoko has been working consistently and lawfully for the advancement of peace in Zimbabwean communities.

We kindly ask people to continue to pray for her safety, health and demand her immediate return.


Tinoziva Bere
ZESN BOARD CHAIRPERSON

Ghana: Elections to go to a run-off

2008-12-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7775789.stm

Ghana's presidential election must be decided in a second-round vote, the electoral commission has announced. Governing party candidate Nana Akufo-Addo won 49.13% of the vote, against 47.92% for his rival, John Atta Mills, the commission said. But neither reached the 50% threshold needed for an outright win and a run-off will be held on 28 December.

Guinea-Bissau: Need for strong international support

2008-12-12

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29275

The United Nations Security Council has underscored the need for continued international support for Guinea-Bissau, while voicing their concern over security in the West African country which faced an unsuccessful coup attempt last month by elements of the military. Renegade military elements launched an armed attack on the residence of President João Bernardo Vieira in the capital, Bissau, on 23 November.

Nigeria: Poll challenge dismissed

2008-12-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7778990.stm

Nigeria's Supreme Court has rejected the final challenge to last year's election of President Umaru Yar'Adua. Opposition leaders had asked the court to annul the election, saying there had had been violence and fraud.

Somalia: Return of opposition leader welcomed

2008-12-12

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29249

The top United Nations envoy to Somalia has welcomed the return of an opposition leader, who took part in reconciliation talks with the strife-torn Horn of Africa nation’s Government, to the capital Mogadishu. The Secretary-General’s Special Representative, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, characterized the return after a nearly two-year absence of Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, who heads the Alliance of the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), as “a most welcome development.”

South Africa: ANC rebels win name change ruling

2008-12-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7779282.stm

A breakaway group of South Africa's governing party has won the right to use the name Congress of the People. The High Court ruling comes ahead of the new party's official launch and a day after it took a third of seats in the Western Cape by-elections.

Tunisia: Presidential hopefuls use Facebook

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/5os7rk

In a bid to lure votes and increase their exposure, presidential candidates in Tunisia are taking their campaigns to the pages of popular social networking website Facebook. At least two candidates, Mohamed Bouchiha of the People's Unity Party (PUP) and Ahmed Nejib Chebbi of the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), have created their own pages on the website to campaign in the October 2009 elections.

Cameroon: Government bribes divert funds from food amid riots

2008-12-12

http://www.thefrontiertelegraph.com/?p=154

Cameroon has budgeted $309 million for the military in 2009 and $105 million for the president’s office and services to the presidency, compared with $106 million for agriculture, which employs 70 percent of its people… In smaller villages, such as Mvomeka’a in the South Province, most Cameroonians live in shacks made of mud bricks and sticks. Only 20 percent of Cameroon’s households have electricity.

Nigeria: “Remove immunity clause”

2008-12-12

http://www.africanews.com/site/list_messages/22132

Nigeria's president Yar'Adua has appealed for the repealing of laws that protect politicians from prosecution whiles in office. His appeal came while marking this year's international anti-corruption day. He also launched a new campaign to encourage Nigerians to report corrupt practices.

Africa: Idea for Pan-African science fund gains ground

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/6a8etc

The African Union (AU) is hoping to set up a communal fund to pay for education, science and technology programmes on the continent. The fund would be held by the African Development Bank (ADB), and be open to contributions from international donors as well as from African governments.

Africa: SA companies unlock Sub-Saharan Africa

2008-12-11

http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/08_50/b4112052173000.htm

Name a global economic woe, and chances are Charles Needham is dealing with it. Market turmoil has knocked 80% off the shares of South Africa's Metorex, the mining company he runs. The plunge in global commodities is slamming prices for the copper, cobalt, and other minerals Metorex unearths across Africa. The credit crisis makes it harder to raise money. And fighting has again broken out in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Metorex has a mine and several projects in development.

Africa: Universities agree to support 'homegrown' research solutions

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/62q8jz

African universities have rallied behind a scheme to integrate community-guided environmental initiatives into their teaching and research agendas. The African Association of Universities (AAU), a confederation of 212 universities, stated its support for the Mainstreaming Environment and Sustainability in African Universities (MESA) Partnership during the 1st MESA International Conference held at the UN Environment Programme headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, last week (24–28 November).

DRC: Mining crisis in Katanga

2008-12-12

http://www.afrol.com/articles/31985

The close-down of several copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) southern Katanga Province has now developed into "an economic crisis", according to UN sources. According to the UN's peacekeeping mission in the DRC, MONUC, has expressed its concern over "the current economic crisis in south-eastern DR Congo’s Katanga province, which has led several mining companies to stop their operations."

Global: The Doha Round is the problem, NOT the solution

An Open Letter to Our Governments

2008-12-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/52754

We, representatives of peasant organizations, women, migrants, workers, consumers, urban and rural poor, fisherfolks, social movements and civil society organizations are writing to express our alarm that efforts are being made to conclude the Doha “Development” Round of negotiations.
An Open Letter to Our Governments

The Doha Round is the problem, NOT the solution

We, representatives of peasant organizations, women, migrants, workers, consumers, urban and rural poor, fisherfolks, social movements and civil society organizations are writing to express our alarm that efforts are being made to conclude the Doha “Development” Round of negotiations.

Mr. Lamy is using the current financial crisis as the justification for the need to urgently conclude the Doha Round. He argues that the conclusion of the Round would be the solution to the crisis. The recent G20 declaration last November 15 in Washington DC also called for the conclusion of the Doha Round as a way to solve the current financial crisis. We disagree with Mr. Lamy and the G20 and in fact cite as an example the current commitments made under the General Agreement in Trade and Services (GATS) which has prevented countries from being able to respond to the current financial crisis and so we see the whole system of the WTO as the problem and cannot be part of the solution.

The Doha “Development” Round of negotiations, launched in 2001 in Doha, Qatar, was supposed to be about development for the developing countries. However, as years passed and several texts have been produced, it has become evident that the Round is about protecting and promoting the interests of the developed countries and their transnational corporations.

This was evident in the previous Mini-Ministerial last July 2008 in Geneva where due to the intransigence of developed countries to agree to demands of developing countries to protect their small farmers, negotiations collapsed. In those negotiations and proposed texts, majority of the proposals of the developed countries were about further opening up developing countries’ markets for agricultural and industrial goods and services. There is no sign now to show that the proposals and demands of the developed countries have changed.

To say that the Doha Round or the further opening up of developing countries’ markets will solve the current crisis is a false claim. We have seen in the Asian financial crisis and in the current financial crisis that years of trade liberalization have left countries vulnerable to the volatility of the markets and that it has prevented countries from putting in place measures to protect their people and their livelihoods.

We call on our governments to reject the attempts to conclude the Doha “Development” Round and instead work with their people in building an alternative trade model that ensures sustainable development, which puts people, their livelihoods and the environment before the interests of the transnational corporations.

We commit to mobilize at the national, regional and international levels to stop the revival of the Doha “Development” Round. This is part of our ongoing struggles against the neoliberal model, free trade liberalization and its instruments such as the WTO. We call on other movements, peoples’ organizations and civil society groups to join the efforts for a world without the WTO.

Globalize hope, globalize the struggle!


Signed:

BKU (Bhartiya Kisan Union), India

Ecologistas en Accion (Spain)

EU-ASEAN Network

Focus on the Global South

GRAIN, International

Hemispheric Social Alliance

Jubilee South-Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JS-APMDD)

KAU (Anti-Debt Coalition), Indonesia

KMP (Peasant Movement of the Philippines)

Korea Alliance against the FTAs

Korea Alliance of Progressive Movements

Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU)

Korean Peasants League

Korean Women Peasants Association

Mexican Action Network on Free Trade

Migrant Forum in Asia

NOUMINREN (Japan Family Farmers Movement)

PKMP (National Unity of the Peasants in the Philippines)

Seattle to Brussels Network

SHOKKENREN (The National Coalition of Workers, Farmers and Consumers for Safe food and health), Japan

Southeast and East Asia La Via Campesina

SPI (Indonesian Peasants Union), Indonesia

Stop the New Round! Coalition, Philippines

Transnational Institute

Solidarity of Filipino Worker(Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino)

Liberia: President's efforts honoured

2008-12-12

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29226

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has bestowed this year's Ceres Medal to Liberian President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson for her work in promoting food security and agricultural development. At the 6 December ceremony in the northern Liberian town of Voinjama, Jacques Diouf, FAO Director-General, the West African nation has prioritized bolstering agriculture as part of its development efforts, despite the degradation of the farming sector following two wars.

Rwanda: Growth could reach 10%

2008-12-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7741254.stm

Rwanda's booming manufacturing and farming sectors could push growth in the country to 10% this year, according to the Rwandan central bank governor. Agriculture is particularly strong and is growing at a minimum rate of 10%, said Francois Kanimba.

Sudan: China grants $3m for north-south unity

2008-12-11

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?page=imprimable&id_article=29447

The government of ِChina has extended a grant aid of 20 million Chinese Yuan (3 million US dollars) to Sudan for strengthening north-south unity. The Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng pointed out that the Chinese donation comes in the framework of the partnership between the Chinese and Sudanese people. While the Sudanese Finance Minister Awad Al-Jaz said the money will be used in the program of unity between the north and south.

Africa: Ignoring the facts on AIDS and disability

2008-12-12

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81862

The exclusion of disabled people living with HIV in Africa is so entrenched that they were even marginalised at the latest international conference on the disease, according to disabled rights activists. Rights groups claim that many of their members were shut out of the opening ceremony of the 15th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) held in Dakar, Senegal, last week, because they could not access the room. The only entrance to the amphitheatre that did not have stairs was reserved for the President of Senegal.

Botswana: Is the ARV programme sustainable?

2008-12-12

http://www.iolhivaids.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=1591&fArticleId=4747724

Botswana's President Ian Khama has said that the number of HIV-positive people accessing antiretroviral therapy in the country is expected to nearly double over the next eight years, Mmegi/AllAfrica.com reports. If current HIV and Aids rates continue, the number of HIV-positive people accessing the drugs could increase to 220 600, up from an estimated 145 000 currently, according to Khama.

Congo: Red Cross sets sights on cholera

2008-12-12

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81934

The lack of clean drinking water and proper hygiene fuelled the spread of cholera in the south and southwest of the Republic of Congo, says the Congolese Red Cross, which has just completed a campaign to teach people how to recognise and stem the spread of the disease. It said the cholera outbreak began in the Boeunza region in February 2008 and that by the end of November 127 cases of the disease and three deaths had been registered.

Global: Call for removal of HIV related travel regulations

2008-12-12

http://www.ilga.org/news_results.asp?LanguageID=1&FileID=1201

Civil society calls for action to remove HIV related travel and residence regulations for people living with HIV in time for the Vienna World Aids Conference in 2010. States should do whatever possible to insure that legal discrimination of people with HIV ceases to exist. People with HIV should have the same rights than others.

Kenya: Testing of mothers and babies saves lives

2008-12-12

http://www.iolhivaids.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=1591&fArticleId=4746538

Maurine Kamau* lost her first child immediately after birth but did not discover why the baby had died until she fell pregnant a second time and tested positive for HIV at the Nazareth Mission Hospital, on the outskirts of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. She received counselling at the hospital's prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) unit and her second child tested negative for HIV. Now four months old, the baby is doing well and has regular checkups at the hospital.

Mozambique: ARVs stolen and sold

2008-12-12

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=81886

Lino Matope, 23, is lying on a mangy cotton mattress in a tiny shack made of corrugated iron sheets at the Feira market in Chimoio, capital of central Mozambique's Manica Province, receiving his fourth illegal injection of benzatinic penicillin. "The injection is giving me muscle cramps," he says, kicking his legs. "But I have to continue taking them to cure the gonorrhoea I picked up."

South Africa: Fears of cholera spread

2008-12-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7771643.stm

There are not many refugee camps where money litters the floor, but you do not have to look far at the showground in the border town of Musina. Fragments of worthless 50,000 and 100,000 Zimbabwe dollar notes are everywhere, constant reminders of the hyper-inflation which has accompanied the country's collapse.

South Africa: Getting high on HIV drugs

2008-12-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7768059.stm

Anti-retroviral drugs used to treat HIV/Aids are being bought and smoked by teenagers in South Africa to get high. Reports suggest that the drugs are being sold by patients and even healthcare staff for money. Schoolchildren have been spotted smoking the drugs, which are ground into powder and sometimes mixed with painkillers or marijuana.

South Africa: Measuring the health of a nation

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/5gf57v

Despite improvements in living conditions over the past decade, the health of South Africans has worsened, according to the SA Health Review 2008 which was launched last night (Dec 10) in Pretoria. “There have been clear improvements in access to water and sanitation, services that are essential for good health,” reports researcher Debbie Bradshaw.

Southern Africa: Government 'need to work harder on treatment scale-up'

2008-12-12

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/13200B82-2704-4958-A0F3-BABE2F66C5E3.asp

Governments in southern Africa are still failing to honour their own commitments to scale up access to antiretroviral therapy despite the growing availability of international donor support to do so, according to a new report from the Southern Africa Treatment Access Movement (SATAMo). The Southern African Treatment Access Movement, a network of community-based activists in eleven countries, is calling on regional leaders to keep the promises they made towards provision of HIV treatment by committing the necessary resources.

Zimbabwe: Shady dealings with ARVs

2008-12-12

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=45086

The current political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe is dealing a blow to the provision of free treatment and care to people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs). While there has been a significant decline in the country’s HIV prevalence rate from 18.1 percent in 2005 to 15.6 percent in 2007, activists believe this has been "the most difficult year" for HIV-positive persons.

Kenya: Knowledge and the Kenyan University

Kegoro Macharia

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/5v5an5

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education demonstrates that African universities face a crisis in hiring and retaining new Ph.D. holders, many of whom choose to go into industry or NGOs. Fewer than half of University-based academics have doctorates in their respective disciplines. As the piece points out, "most institutions have focused on raising student numbers rather than on improving the quality of education and research."

South Africa: OBE education - is the experiment going to work?

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/63tw63

This year is the first that school students – or learners as they are now known - are to matriculate under the new Outcomes Based Educational system. OBE was adopted as one of the first major policy innovations under the newly democratic government in South Africa, under the ideological guidance of the first minister of education, Sibusiso Bengu.

Global: General Assembly to address sexual orientation

2008-12-12

http://www.ilga.org/news_results.asp?LanguageID=1&FileID=1206

As the world celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the UN General Assembly will hear a statement in mid-December endorsed by more than 50 countries across the globe calling for an end to rights abuses based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

South Africa: Nkonyana’s case kick-starts as witnesses take stand

2008-12-12

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=southafrica&id=2020

The murder trial of Zoliswa Nkonyana was finally heard last Friday at the Khayelitsha Regional Court following an array of postponements. The trial began last week Friday, 5 December, three years after the brutal murder of this Khyelitsha lesbian, killed because of her sexual orientation. Phindiswa Magxala, a witness who was present on the day of Nkonyana’s murder, told the court how, on 4 February 2006, they were attacked by more than 14 people, four of whom were women, in front of Nkonyana’s step father Gcinumuzi Madondo just meters away from her home.

South Africa: South Africans ‘still think homosexuality is wrong’

2008-12-12

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=southafrica&id=2018

South Africans are still prejudiced about homosexuals despite having some of the most progressive legislation in the world, with 80% of the population believing that sex between lesbians or gay men is wrong, according to a study commissioned by the Human Sciences Research Council. This is in line with another comparative study, which examined the attitudes of 40 countries to homosexuality, according to researchers Benjamin Roberts and Prof Vasu Reddy.

Africa: African leaders signal commitment to financing gender equality

Rosemary Okello

2008-12-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/16days/52578

With Sixteen Days of Activism now in full swing, organisations and governments are focusing significant attention on gender violence and the gender inequalities that play a large role in its prevalence in Africa. In assessing how far we have come over the last year, and what we need to do next, it is important to remember what is at the heart of making it all happen – money.
With Sixteen Days of Activism now in full swing, organisations and governments are focusing significant attention on gender violence and the gender inequalities that play a large role in its prevalence in Africa. In assessing how far we have come over the last year, and what we need to do next, it is important to remember what is at the heart of making it all happen – money.

Held just prior to the launch of Sixteen Days, the Sixth African Development Forum (ADF) at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa signaled a commitment by Africa’s leaders to prioritise financing for gender equality. After all, without financing, the best-intentioned programmes and plans will not succeed.

Setting the tone from the very beginning of ADF, Ethiopian President Ato Girma Woldegiorgis reminded the delegates, “We need to produce achievable plans and real results. We are running out of time and we must now be practical. If this forum fails to agree on a workable and practical agenda with proper priorities, failure will stare us in the face.”

Abdoulie Janneh, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Secretary of ECA, recognised that despite legislation aimed at promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment, implementation is weak. “We must emphasise the adoption of an innovative and well thought out Action Plan that will ensure a transformational intervention in all our three subthemes, namely action on gender equality, women empowerment and ending violence against women in Africa.”

The African Union (AU) Chairperson Jean Ping cited provisions of the Constitutive Act, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights to the Rights of Women in African and the Solemn Declaration on Gender equality in Africa as examples of the AU’s commitment to advancing women’s rights. Currently 26 member states have either signed or ratified the Protocol on Women’s Rights.

However, he acknowledges that the new challenges of food insecurity, climate change, migration, and water and energy shortages threaten the fragile gains made. “Although these issues affect both sexes, their impact on women and children are more catastrophic,” said Ping.

Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development Bank, the third partner in the conference, urged the delegates to speak loud and clear to the G20 as they seek solutions to the current global financial crisis. “This is a world crisis and they must open their doors to other countries to be part of the discussions,” he said. “The majority of those who are currently affected by the crisis are poor women, the majority of whom are women in Africa.”

Financing for gender equality, Tornaes stressed, goes far beyond securing specific budget allocations for women ministries. Calling for a paradigm shift under which partner countries and donors collaborate to promote gender equality, she said, “The starting point is the implementation of the Paris Declaration principles on New Aid Modality to promote gender equality.”

Much could be achieved, the minister added, if donors aligned and harmonised their and partner country objectives and strategies at national and sector level, for example conducting joint analysis based on sex-disaggregated data, developing indicators for achieving partner country objectives and building capacity of women ministries and that of the civil societies.

Gender equality, she said, “is an effective means to reduce poverty, increase economic growth and accelerate the achievement of all the Millennium Development Goals.”

The conference closed with an urgent plea by over thirty ministers backgrounds to their governments to make good on the 2004 decision by the African Union (AU) to set up a special fund for fighting violence against women (VAW). The provision is part of the Protocol on the Rights of Women that accompanies the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights as well as the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality signed in Maputo, Mozambique in 2004.

The ministers from different parts of Africa said that the time has come for the government to start dealing with VAW as a national calamity. Giving the example on how her country dealt with the HIV and AIDS pandemic, Ugandan Minister of National Solidarity and Social Development Syda Bumba said the time had come to launch curative and preventive measure against violence.

“We have legislation, we have signed international conventions and protocols and also have institutions in place, but we have gone nowhere,” noted Gambian Vice President Aisatou Gaye. “We have focused only on creating awareness instead of making women understand their legal rights.”

She castigated her fellow government colleagues for leaving the fight against gender violence to non-governmental organisations,“We are suspicious of them, instead of working with them to eradicate VAW in our society. We think that we cannot bring ourselves to their level so we do not give them the support they require.”

“The governments should show leadership in VAW by expediting the establishment of the fund,” said Bisi Adeye Afeyemi, the Executive Director of African Women’s Development Fund. According to the co-chair of the conference and AU Commissioner Bience Gawanas, the mechanics of the fund were left to the AU Secretariat which

is in the process of making this a reality after completing a feasibility study.

The ministers urged that the Plan of Action to be adopted by the delegates include the allocation of a specific percentage of the budget to support all line ministries for promoting the rights of women and girls as recommended by the AU.

Dr. Jacinta Muteshi, an expert on financing for gender equality, cautioned that there is need to be careful about prescribing a percentage of the budget for fighting gender violence to avoid “interim mechanisms.” The Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Population and Development in Botswana Ronald Ridge challenged legislatures to take up the task of monitoring and evaluation.

Although it now remains to be seen if all of the talk will result in action and funds for gender equality, the increasing dialogue on the topic is encouraging.

* Rosemary Okello-Orlale is the Executive Director of the African Women and Child Feature Service. This article is part of a series produced by the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service as part of a Financing for Gender Equality Campaign.

DRC: Legacy of War: An epidemic of sexual violence

2008-12-12

http://www.unfpa.org/news/news.cfm?ID=1230

Forty year-old Angelique reveals a gunshot wound in her back to women in the Keyshero Medical centre, while her six-year-old daughter reaches up to touch it. Angelique (her name has been changed) and her family were attacked in their village in November 2007 when men dressed in police uniforms broke into their house at night, looted it, and forced her family into the forest.

Global: Good practices in legislation on violence against women - UN Report

2008-12-12

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2008/wom1704.doc.htm

A report issued by the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime offers good practices and lessons learned designed to assist States in enhancing existing legislation and developing new laws to address violence against women. Based on an expert group meeting held in Vienna, Austria, from 26 to 28 May 2008, the report - “Good practices in legislation on violence against women” - provides guidelines and a model framework for legislation on violence against women, including detailed recommendations, commentaries and examples of good practices.

Global: Violence against women perpetrated by State and its agents

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/5d4p4s

Despite the obligation of the states to act with due diligence to prevent violence against women - violence against women and girls in many societies is met with governmental silence or apathy or lack of interest. The violence against women by agents of the state goes largely unreported and unscrutinized. Women continue to face violence at the hands of state agents.

South Africa: Political change threatening gender commitments?

Susan Tolmay

2008-12-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/16days/52579

While South Africa has made all the right moves towards reaching the Southern African Development Community (SADC) target of 50% of women in all areas of decision-making by 2015, it has still failed to achieve parity in any area of political decision-making. Though SADC leaders reaffirmed the 50% commitment this past August when they signed the regional Protocol on Gender and Development, progress remains slow.
While South Africa has made all the right moves towards reaching the Southern African Development Community (SADC) target of 50% of women in all areas of decision-making by 2015, it has still failed to achieve parity in any area of political decision-making. Though SADC leaders reaffirmed the 50% commitment this past August when they signed the regional Protocol on Gender and Development, progress remains slow.

If South Africa is to honour this commitment, the next two elections must see a large increase (18%) in women’s representation. With trends showing only a 3.9% increase since the first democratic elections 14 years ago in 1994, it seems apparent that there is a need for drastic measures.

Recent events in South Africa have seen some substantial shifts in the political arena. While the African National Congress (ANC) has been the best performer to date in terms of women’s representation in all areas of decision-making, there are some worrying trends.

National progress towards the 50% target largely results from the ANC’s voluntary adoption of the 50/50 principal in all elected structures within the party, and the large majority they hold. If this majority is lost, in the absence of commitment from other parties to parity or a legislated quota, there is a high probability that women’s representation will decrease.

Calls from the new ANC splinter party for electoral reform to move from the proportional representation (PR) to the constituency based electoral system is an additional factor that could see the gains of the past decade lost.

Election results in the region and across the globe show that the constituency system, also known as first-past-the-post (FPTP), is far more hostile to getting women elected. The PR system is more conducive to increasing women’s representation because the electorate votes for political parties, which are then allocated seats in parliament according to the percentage of vote they received, as opposed to FPTP where citizens vote for candidates, who represent the party in a constituency.

Four of the five SADC countries (Angola, Mozambique, South Africa and Namibia) that have achieved or exceeded 30 percent representation of women in parliament follow the PR electoral system; they also all have voluntary party quotas implemented by the ruling parties. Tanzania is the exception to this rule as it has a FPTP system, but the country has a 30% legislated quota. The remaining SADC countries, which follow the FPTP system, have failed to achieve 30% women in the legislature.

At 32.3%, South Africa ranks 17th in the world and 3rd in the SADC region in terms of women’s representation in parliament. No other political party in South Africa has adopted a quota; in fact, most opposition parties publicly oppose quotas, citing that they are undemocratic.

However, the Lesotho Court of Appeal set a precedent when it upheld a High Court Ruling that a temporary and rotating quota was not unconstitutional. The ruling found that, in fact, quotas were reasonably justifiable in circumstances where it is an indisputable fact that women have been disadvantaged and marginalised socially, economically and politically.

While there has been a small 7% increase in combined opposition women members of parliament (MPs) from 15.1% in 1999 to 22.3% in 2008, this is far from parity. While the ANC accounts for the majority of women parliamentarians, there has been no progression over the past 14 years with the party having maintained 35% women MPs.

In fact, there have been decreases in women’s representation in all areas of political decision-making between the period 2004 and 2008, ranging from 0.8% in the National Assembly to 5.6% in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP.) The combined parliament has seen a 1.3% decline while the cabinet reshuffle by incoming President Kgalema Motlanthe shows a 3.3% decrease in women ministers and deputies.

While these drops may seem marginal, they are a cause for concern in a country where we should be seeing progressive increases as opposed to any kind of regression. A further concern is the fact the ANC Women’s League (ANCWL) failed to put forward a woman candidate for the top position in government ahead of the parties’ national conference in December last year, despite the presence of a number of strong and likely women candidates within the party.

The question is can we leave the required increases - ranging from 10% in local government and cabinet to 18% in parliament - over the next two elections to the whims of political parties? Or do we need something more binding which applies to all political parties and which can be enforced?

Political parties are the gatekeepers for women’s entry into politics because they control the nomination process. They therefore play an integral role in ensuring women’s representation in all of their structures and at all levels. Members of the South Africa 50/50 campaign are proposing a legislated quota requiring all political parties to have equal numbers of women and men on their party lists, which would carry sanctions for non-compliance.

However, there is the danger of legitimising patriarchy by focussing only the numbers. It is important that any discourse around quotas should also take into account qualitative factors. If any real, legitimate change is to take place, the institutions in which women have to function (which still remain largely patriarchal) need to change to become more enabling structures for women. It is also crucial that an informed electorate know how and what they should be holding their elected representatives accountable for.

The current changing political climate, political turmoil within the ANC, and the formation of a splinter party all point to a need for commitment from all parties to gender equality. Formalising this commitment through legislation will ensure that even where political parties change, the commitment to equal representation of women will remain.

* Susan Tolmay is the Gender and Governance Manager and Gender Links. This article is part of the GL Opinion and Commentary Service that offers fresh views on everyday news.

South Africa: Taxis driving message home on gender violence

Deborah Walter

2008-12-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/16days/52577

If you jump into a combi during the next couple of weeks, you may just be greeted with something a bit different from the usual fare of thumping Kwaito and house beats. Launched 4 December at Ekurhuleni Municipality, Tjoon’in is an audio CD designed specifically for playing in public transport as part of 16 Days of Activism, to raise awareness among taxi drivers and passengers about gender violence.
If you jump into a combi during the next couple of weeks, you may just be greeted with something a bit different from the usual fare of thumping Kwaito and house beats. Launched 4 December at Ekurhuleni Municipality, Tjoon’in is an audio CD designed specifically for playing in public transport as part of 16 Days of Activism, to raise awareness among taxi drivers and passengers about gender violence.

The CD is an entertaining mix of music, feature reports, interviews, testimonials from survivors of violence, and radio spots highlighting various 16 Days themes, particularly domestic violence, xenophobia, human trafficking, and men as partners. Produced partially during a series of workshops with transport stakeholders, Ekurhuleni councilors and survivors of violence, the CD features the energetic voices of YFM’s Dineo Lusenga and Hlayisanani “TC” Salani talking about everything from gun free zones to music and soccer, and how these all fit in with 16 Days of Peace.

An innovative project by Gender Links (GL) in partnership with Ekurhuleni Municipality and the Gauteng Women in Transport, produced with assistance from CMFD Productions, the CD is being distributed free of charge to taxis and radio stations. As part of the launch, Ekurhuleni Municipality will be hosting a panel discussion around gender violence in public transport.

Few will forget when in February 2008, South African media, gender organisations, and the public transport sector itself responded to reports of first one young woman, and then several, being sexually assaulted for wearing a mini skirt at the Noord Street taxi rank in busy central Johannesburg. Discussing the incident on her show, Radio 702 talk show host Redi Direko broke down and cried as she remembered the daily humiliation she suffered as a teenager taking taxis.

As the phone calls poured into radio talk shows, callers confirmed that harassment is an every day experience for South African women. Participants at a meeting convened soon after the incident by Gauteng MEC for Community Safety Firoz Cachalia, which included taxi associations, government representatives, police services, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), unanimously condemned the violent attack as a violation of human rights and dignity.

“Tjoon’in is a tangible outcome of the challenge put by MEC Firoz Cachalia to taxi associations and NGOs to turn the Noord Street taxi rank incident into a positive force for change,” said GL Director Colleen Lowe Morna. “Taxis reach and serve millions of South Africans every day. If they can literally become a vehicle for change then we will really be going somewhere.”

The increasing awareness of the taxi industry of the need to address gender violence, especially ahead of World Cup 2010, inspired the project. Many of the radio spots included are short dramas set in a taxi, and incorporate such issues as discrimination and disability. The Johannesburg-based organisation Gun Free, also talks about their initiative to launch taxi ranks as “gun-free zones.”

Men as partners feature strongly on the CD. Kaya FM DJ TBose offers his words of wisdom on the importance of men supporting women. “Imagine if every woman…knowing that her man, her brother, her father is supporting her. The confidence she will have is the same confidence she will teach her children.”

Gugu Mofekeng, who told her story of surviving violence in Gender Links “I” Story project and presents the Domestic Violence feature report found on the CD, echoes this sentiment. "It is reassuring to know that men are starting to be included in the fight against gender violence,” she says. “It is only by including both men and women that we can hope to curb, and one day end the violence.”

The CD also highlights xenophobia and gender violence in migrant communities. An interview with Donald Ambe of EngenderHealth shares information about how soccer can bring communities together; a sentiment shared by soccer plays interviewed who all agree – when it comes to soccer, everyone is welcome.

The need to ensure safety and address gender violence is not unique to South Africa, or to the transport sector. Women across the region, and worldwide, recount experiences of gender violence both in private and public spaces, everywhere from schools to shops, as well as public transport.

Region-wide, the taxi industry remains one of the least gender aware in the country. Men constitute the overwhelming majority in the tax industry, from drivers to owners, and heads of associations. Women experience harassment on a daily basis, yet there is no clear mechanisms for reporting. While Tjoon’in is a first step, there is a need to continually create innovative campaigns to sensitise drivers and passengers.

At the same time, there is a need for government led initiatives to hold the industry accountable, to ensure that the industry is in line with provincial and national commitments to reducing gender violence. Just this past August, leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) signed the Protocol on Gender and Development, which, among other obligations, commits governments to halving levels of gender violence by 2015.

Safety on public transport is a vital part achieving gender equality. Safe transport helps keep girls in school, and workers need public transport for employment opportunities. As such, increased attention and action to put in place strategies to protect women and girls on public transport is urgent.

* Deborah Walter is the editor of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service and coordinator of the Tjoon’in CD. This article is part of a series produced by the GL Opinion and Commentary Service for the Sixteen Days of Activism

Global: 'Don't leave it to the World Bank'

2008-12-12

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45050

Leading environment groups have opposed plans to hand over financing to check climate change to the World Bank. Industrialised countries may be required to provide more than 100 billion dollars for developing countries to build low-carbon economies, according to unofficial estimates. This money should not be handled by the World Bank, 142 organisations fighting for climate justice said in a joint statement Tuesday (Dec. 9) at the UN climate talks under way in the Polish city Poznan.

Global: Climate change - And now a Green New Deal?

2008-12-12

http://www.ipsterraviva.net/europe/article.aspx?id=6850

The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for a Green New Deal that would work for all nations, rich as well as poor, in the face of two crises: climate change and the global economy. Addressing the high-level segment of the gathering of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that kicked off Thursday, Ban pleaded for "global solidarity on climate change".

Global: Climate change talks standstill: a human rights threat

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/5vpnvs

Marking the United Nations Human Rights Day, Friends of the Earth International has warned that industrialized nations' inaction on climate change at the UN climate talks flies in the face of international human rights obligations.

Global: Forests debate dominates talks

2008-12-12

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=45028

The debate over reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation is dominating the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Poznan, Poland, Dec. 1-12. At issue is the best way to deal with the 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation.

Global: OneWorld invites you to the UN Climate in Poznan, Poland

2008-12-12

http://www.oneclimate.net/poznan

Almost eleven thousand participants, hundreds of thousands of hours spent in meetings and countless tonnes of carbon released into the atmosphere travelling there. The UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland, is happening this week. Want to get all the unmissable news from this hugely important event *without* contributing to the problem?

Somalia: EU firms should stop toxic dumping

2008-12-12

http://euobserver.com/9/27244?print=1

The European Union's defence ministers launched on 10 November 2008 an anti-piracy mission called "Atalanta" off the coast of Somalia. The bloc claims that the goal of the enterprise is "to escort the World Food Programme's humanitarian convoys to Somalia and to contribute to the improvement of maritime security off the Somali coast as part of the European Union's overall action to stabilise Somalia."

Botswana: Diamond mine on Bushman land approved

2008-12-12

http://www.survival-international.org/news/4007

The Botswana government has given its approval to a controversial diamond mine on the land of the Kalahari Bushmen – on the condition that the mining company Gem Diamonds does not provide the Bushmen with water. The government has, however, reserved the right to use water boreholes drilled by Gem for wildlife.

Botswana: President calls Bushman way of life ‘archaic fantasy’

2008-12-12

http://www.survival-international.org/news/4017

Two years after the historic court victory that affirmed the Kalahari Bushmen’s right to live and hunt on their land, Botswana’s President Ian Khama has told the Bushmen that their hunting way of life is an ‘archaic fantasy’. Botswana’s High Court affirmed on 13 December 2006 that the government’s eviction of the Bushmen was ‘unlawful and unconstitutional’, and that they have the right to live on their ancestral land inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR).

DRC: Journalists murdered near Police stations

2008-12-12

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=45060

Since the November 2004 murder of Frank Kangundu, journalist with the Congolese daily ‘La Référence Plus’, and his wife, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has entered a sad cycle of killings of media professionals. The most recent target was Didace Namujimbo, a journalist with Radio Okapi, who was shot in the head by unidentified assailants near his home in Ndendere, in South Kivu’s Ibanda county (eastern DRC) on Nov. 22, 2008.

Gabon: Satirical weekly journalist assaulted

2008-12-12

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29643

Habib Papy Boubendji, also known as Habib Bibalou, a journalist with the satirical weekly Le Nganga, was badly beaten by soldiers inside the presidential compound in Libreville on the night of 5 December, Reporters Without Borders has learned from several sources. “This incident could easily have ended tragically, with one more name being added to the grim list of journalists who have ‘disappeared’ after falling into the clutches of an African president’s bodyguards”, the press freedom organisation said.

Kenya: Government defends new 'media gag' law

2008-12-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7777484.stm

The Kenyan government has defended a contentious media bill which critics say is intended to gag the press. The Kenya Communications Amendment Bill, which was passed by parliament, gives the state power to raid media houses and control broadcast content.

Kenya: President asked to reject Bill

2008-12-12

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/501172/-/u0l06p/-/index.html

Media owners on Thursday urged President Kibaki to withhold his signature from the controversial Kenya Communications (Amendment) Bill, describing it as the “most draconian Bill on the media since Independence” that was passed “out of revenge.”

Southern Africa: Cardoso murder: Assassin rearrested

2008-12-11

http://allafrica.com/stories/200812090562.html

The Mozambican police have re-arrested Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anibalzinho"), the man who led the death squad that murdered top investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso in November 1980. Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo). Anibalzinho escaped from the cells in the Maputo City Police Command on Sunday morning, with two other murderers, Samuel Chavengueza ("Samito") and Custodio Luis de Jesus ("Todinho").

Tanzania: Lessons to learn from a social pensions and cash transfer scheme

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/6ksdqz

Cash transfers have become an increasingly popular way of providing social protection in low-income African countries. This study aims to find out more about the impact of social pensions for older people and the combination with child benefits in older people headed households, and what can be learnt from the experiences with this approach in the Kwa Wazee project in Tanzania.

Haiti: Open Letter to Barack Obama - pre-election

From Unions, Political and Grassroots Organizations in Haiti

2008-12-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/diaspora/52662

We - citizens of Haiti, political militants and unionists of the grassroots movement for democracy in our country - solemnly address ourselves to you on the eve of the election that will most likely make you the next president of the United States.
Open Letter to Barack Obama

From Unions, Political and Grassroots Organizations in Haiti

Dear Mr. Obama,

We -- citizens of Haiti, political militants and unionists of the grassroots movement for democracy in our country -- solemnly address ourselves to you on the eve of the election that will most likely make you the next president of the United States.

The millions of workers and youth, and great majority of Blacks, in voting for you will express their demand for a change from the policies pursued over the past many years that have plunged millions of workers into misery and increased social differences -- including those of race -- making the United States appear to be an enemy of all peoples of the world.

In Haiti today, these policies are having the following results: 60% unemployment rate of the active population; 80% of the population lives below the poverty level; life expectancy has fallen below 50 years; and, the infant mortality rate is 80 per 1000, while on the neighboring island of Cuba it is only 7 per 1000.
Our people, in addition to facing low salaries, privatizations, quasi-absence of public services, jobs cuts, etc., must also see the meager resources of their country pillaged by the IMF and World Bank. These organizations demand the payment of the external debt, a debt incurred by Duvalier and other dictators: the Haitian state will pay US$58.2 million in 2008 and $50 million in 2009 -- that is, $1 million a week that disappears in smoke while people are dying of hunger.

Our country is living through an extraordinary catastrophe. According to official reports, Haiti is the poorest country of the continent. In fact, however, it is not true that our country is poor; it has been impoverished by the policies followed for the past many decades by the various governments acting against the interests of the nation.

Our country has been even further humiliated by another military invasion over the past four years. Last April these soldiers, which the UN says are sent in peace, opened fire on people protesting the brutal increase in the prices of products for basic needs, leaving six dead and 190 wounded.
On top of all this, we must add the consequences of four hurricanes that have plunged the country into a state of misery and unimaginable destitution -- while the MINUSTAH troops occupying our country and controlling the wheels of the administration and police say that they are not there for humanitarian purposes.

Any Haitian citizen can answer that the result of four years of MINUSTAH occupation is a considerable retreat in terms of national sovereignty, most notably from the point of view of reconstruction of the State institutions that would allow Haitians to live a secure life with the possibility of a future.

Not long ago Président Préval accused the U.S. occupation of 1915-1935 and colonialism itself of being responsible for the situation in Haiti.

Dear Mr. Obama,
We are Haitians. Our country is part of the Great Antilles of the Caribbean. It was the first country to liberate itself from slavery and to have proclaimed itself, on January 1, 1804, to be the first Black Republic.

You understand that we cannot be indifferent to the fact that a Black man might become president of the United States. We have had a large Haitian community in the United States since 1960, and we estimate that there are now more than 1 million Haitian immigrants in the United States, constituting a social, economic and electoral force. Many of them, like thousands of young people and workers, in voting for you will be expressing their desire for the policy change vis-à-vis our country that you announced in your electoral campaign. Still to this day the cases of violence perpetrated by the MINUSTAH troops are known, public and indexed, and on October 14 the UN Security Council renewed the MINUSTAH's mandate.

Dear Mr. Obama,
In the coming weeks, you will most likely take over the reins of the State. You have just declared that the policies of the U.S. government must change towards Haiti. The U.S. government sits as a permanent member of the Security Council, with the right of veto. You therefore have the enormous responsibility of having the power to modify the policies of the previous administrations.

The Haitian people, strong in their traditions and in their struggle for sovereignty, are steadfast supporters of the establishment of relationships based on equality and of cooperation between nations. Relationships based on submission can only lead to more conflicts and wars.

We -- the undersigned citizens and militants, all of us supporters of democracy, the sovereignty of nations, and the establishment of a world without oppression or exploitation where peoples and nations can cooperate in peace and equality -- are paying close attention to the changes under way in the United States.

With this letter we inform you that on December 12 and 13 we are organizing in our country, in Port-au-Prince, a conference of militants and citizens of our country to discuss together the ways and means for us to recover the sovereignty of our country -- which is incompatible, in our eyes, with the maintenance of MINUSTAH troops.

We are launching a veritable emergency appeal to re-establish cooperation between peoples.

We thank you, Mr. Obama, for the attention you will give to this issue.

October 31, 2008

The following Haitian organizations have endorsed this Open Letter to Barack Obama (names and acronyms listed in French original):

CATH : Centrale autonome des travailleurs haïtiens, Louis Fignolé St Cyr, Secrétaire Général
POS : Parti ouvrier socialiste haïtien, Marc Antoine Poinson, Secrétaire à l'organisation des départements
FESTREDH : Fédération syndicale de l'électricité d'Haïti, Dukens Raphaél, Porte parole
KORTA : Fednel Monchery, Coordinateur Général
GIEL : Groupe d'Initiative des enseignants de lycées, Léonel Pierre, Secrétaire Général
ADFEMTRAH : Section des femmes de la CATH, Julie Génélus, Secrétaire Générale
GRAHLIB : Grand rassemblement pour une Haïti libre et démocratique, Ludy Lapointe Coordonateur Général
FOS : Fédération des ouvriers syndiqués, Raymond Dalvius, Responsable des relations publiques
GRAMA : Groupe de réflexion en action pour une meilleure alternative, Coordinateur général, Joseph Varnel
KONOSPOL : Kolektif oganizasyon sosyopolitik , Lukem Royel
CONAFTAV : Coalition nationale des femmes travailleuses, D. Benoit
KJKFF : Konbit Jen K. fou fey, Jonh Laurenvil
Zafé Fanm : Darline Sensuel
KOSEFANM : Elisabeth Augustin
KOPDA : Konbit peyizan pou developman, Ansajo Réginal Legerme
FANM GRAMA : Caroline Gaspard
AJAM/A : Association des jeunes avancés de Marmelade, Fénélus Sinel, Trésorier général
CONAREM : Coordination nationale citoyenne pour la revendication de masse, Jean Lesly Préval, Secrétaire à l'organisation
ANAMMAPME : Jean Oscalhome Florvil
MPPG : Jean Phalière Rezil

Burundi: Fresh threat of conflict as impasse deepens

2008-12-12

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29276

Although Burundi has made commendable advances in key areas for peace consolidation, an impasse between the Government and the last major rebel holdout is deepening and the risks of renewed confrontation are intensifying, according to a United Nations report being discussed by the Security Council.

CAR: Untangling the political dialogue

2008-12-12

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5800&l=1

This latest report from the International Crisis Group, argues that the danger of a humanitarian catastrophe and new instability in the country and the wider region is high because both the regime and the main opposition forces see armed conflict as the ultimate way out of the long crisis.

DRC: Belgium finds no support for deployment

2008-12-12

http://euobserver.com/13/27263

Belgian foreign minister Karel de Gucht failed to secure the support of his EU counterparts for the deployment an EU mission to Congo until UN reinforcements can arrive. The ministerial meeting on Monday (8 December) ended with no commitments for a so-called bridging mission, despite UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling on the EU to send troops until 3,000 additional soldiers can take their place and under a UN mandate.

DRC: Rebels 'stalling talks'

2008-12-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7776990.stm

Talks aimed at ending the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are encountering serious difficulties, the UN mediator says. Olusegun Obasanjo said this was because Gen Laurent Nkunda's rebel negotiators lacked the authority to make decisions.

Somalia: AU troops to pull out

2008-12-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7778246.stm

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has told parliament African Union peacekeepers in Somalia want to leave. He said Ethiopian troops, due to pull out of Somalia at the end of the month, would cover their withdrawal. The AU force, from Uganda and Burundi, had been expected to stay and even beef up its presence to make up for the planned Ethiopian pull-out.

Sudan: Charity donates to Darfur health services

2008-12-12

http://www.theirc.org/news/irc-notonourwatch-darfur1211.html

Not On Our Watch, founded by Don Cheadle, George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Jerry Weintraub and David Pressman, has awarded the International Rescue Committee $260,000 to support critical health services at seven clinics in North Darfur. “As the conflict in Darfur continues, victims of violence remain desperately in need of basic support services,” says Matt Damon.

Uganda: The road to peace, with or without Kony

2008-12-12

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5804&l=1

This latest report from the International Crisis Group, concludes that completion of the peace process that started in June 2006 requires the government to genuinely address the marginalisation of Northern communities which cannot be satisfied with the vague promises in the Juba protocols. If the violence is to end, Joseph Kony, the reclusive leader of the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency, and his commanders must also both be put under increased pressure and given credible incentives to disarm. Additional talks under a new format are needed, as a military solution to the conflict is not a realistic option.

Africa: Bringing East African perspectives

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/6rfvww

Alice Munyua, of APC Member Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) spoke at the IGF opening ceremony. In her speech, she highlighted the East African Internet Governance Forum (EAIGF) held in early November as the first of its kind in the African region. “[The EAIFG] was initiated from the realisation that there was a need to address very limited participation by Africa stakeholders in not only the Internet Governance Forum but also in other global ICT policy processes.”

Africa: Observations on sustaining ICTs

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/69n56u

This study commissioned by APC and written by wireless expert Ian Howard explores sustainable ICT and the need for wireless internet access for development (W4D). Intended to serve as a guide to members of the W4D community involved in African initiatives, Howard draws conclusions based on his observations of two telecentres in Tanzania with very different business models.

DRC: Web tool maps conflict

2008-12-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7773648.stm

A web-based reporting tool is allowing Africans caught up in political unrest to report incidents of killing, violence and displacement. The website is called Ushahidi, which means ''testimony'' in Swahili and was first developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout. Ushahidi is now being used in the Democratic Republic of Congo, to report on the war that has torn the country apart for the last 15 years.

Kenya: Mobile money transfer service grows

2008-12-12

http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto120820081853546837

The rise of the mobile phone as a bank account substitute in Africa was reinforced as Vodafone announced the launch of a cross-border mobile money transfer service between the UK and Kenya.

Nigeria: Kano makes ICT training compulsory

2008-12-12

http://www.balancingact-africa.com/news/current1.html#computing

Kano State government has said it would make the teaching of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) mandatory at all levels of education and that it had commenced the training of teachers on its use, as well as upgrading libraries to digital ones.

South Africa: Final launch date set for satellite

2008-12-11

http://tinyurl.com/69h5ph

South Africa’s Sumbandila microsatellite is scheduled for launch on March 25 next year, which will be a Wednesday. The launch will be on a Soyuz launch vehicle of the Russian Roscosmos space agency, from the renowned Russian-operated Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. SumbandilaSat will form a secondary payload for the rocket, the primary being a Russian Meteor M weather satellite.

Africa: Front Line Internship at the ACHPR - Front Line defenders

2008-12-12

http://www.frontlinedefenders.org/achpr

The purpose of the Internship is to support the work of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders at the African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR). It is a 12 month position based in Cotonou, Benin. Candidates should be able to work in English and French. Front Line will prioritise the recruitment of interns who have experience as a human rights defender in Africa.

Africa: Researcher - Special focus on Rwanda and Burundi - Amnesty International

2008-12-12

http://tinyurl.com/5cp9ws

You will play a leading role in defining our strategy in the Africa region, assessing where we will have an impact and how we can make a difference. You will engage with people on the ground, government officials and other relevant national and international organisations. You will have worked or lived in the area and have a broad understanding of the political and social factors affecting the region.

Fahamu