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Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai injured and Susan killed in crash

2009-03-06

http://tinyurl.com/dn26ac

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was injured and his wife killed in a car crash today outside Harare, officials from his Movement for Democratic Change party said.

Tsvangirai was with his wife, Susan, a party official and a driver at the time of the crash, the prime minister’s spokesman, James Maridadi, said in a telephone interview from Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. His injuries aren’t believed to be critical, Maridadi said.

Headed for the grave

L. Muthoni Wanyeki

2009-03-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/54669

cc flickr.comI am shaken. I am shocked. And that is, apparently, the intent. For all of us to be shaken, for all of us to be shocked and for all of us to hear the threat and heed the warning implicit in last week’s assassinations of Oscar Kamau King’ara and John Paul Oulu of the Oscar Foundation.

Let me be clear about this. I had questions about the Oscar Foundation. Last year, it appeared to me to be one of human rights organisations partisan to the Party of National Unity (PNU). I did not understand when or why it had made the shift from children’s rights work to human rights work more generally. I had questions about the methodology through which it arrived at its figures of disappearances and extrajudicial executions of those supposedly associated with the Mungiki. I remember us all laughing when Professor Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, questioned them as to the sources of their funding, concerns apparently raised with him by the security services. For, unlike many of us within the human rights movement, the Oscar Foundation does not receive grants from the bilateral and multilateral donors or foundations.

But I found some of the ways they did their work innovative, such as running free mobile legal aid clinics in low-income areas; not just in urban areas, but also in rural areas. I knew too of the solid backgrounds of some of its staff and trusted that they – just as the rest of us – had information worth sharing with the UN special rapporteur as to the extent of disappearances and extrajudicial executions in Kenya. And I certainly never imagined – not in my wildest dreams – that their staff would pay the ultimate price for bringing that information forward: death.

I see now that I should have read the signs, the writing on the wall. We all must do so, for the build up was clear. Let me sketch the outline.

There are reports – many reports – from both national and international human rights organisations into the joint police–military operations against the Sabaot Land Defence Force in Mt Elgon. There are denials after denials after denials, and increasingly angrily ones. Finally, there are questions and pressure from governments with whom our government has security agreements and arrangements, and suddenly, a flurry of activity. There is a public propaganda campaign, with a state-sponsored documentary focused on the atrocities and crimes committed by the Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF), being aired repeatedly on almost all television channels over several weeks. There is also a parliamentary probe and a joint police–military investigation. What is the verdict? That nothing is wrong, that all the human rights organisations pointing accusing fingers are wrong, that their motivations are baseless and that they don’t care about the atrocities and crimes committed by the SLDF. The verdict is that they don’t care about the people; they simply did it to raise money.

Somehow, the issue dies down.

But then comes the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Post Election-Violence (CIPEV). It is brutal in its treatment of the failures of the state security agencies. It notes that the Administration Police and the Kenya Police Force used such extraordinary force that no less than a third of all deaths are attributed to them. It notes that they also committed crimes ranging from looting to rape. It issues a set of recommendations for security sector reform, including the fast-tracking of investigations into and prosecutions of individual members of the security services who have committed rape.

The response? Pre-emptively, a supposed police oversight body that is not worthy of the name is instituted, along with the creation of a task force to investigate claims of sexual violence, from which all women’s organisations co-opted in quickly resign. There’s silence, then the announcement by the minister of Internal Security of Kenya’s supposed security architecture, a plethora of new laws and policies supposedly addressing the CIPEV report’s recommendations. But not a word about either individual legal or collective political accountability, which the CIPEV report had stressed.

Again, somehow, the issue dies down, helped in no small measure by the clamour for individual accountability of politicians for the violence through the Special Tribunal and the International Criminal Court.

But then comes the report of the UN special rapporteur, which finds the Kenya Police Force and the military in Mt Elgon guilty of torture, forced disappearances and systematic extrajudicial executions. The response is predictable: Denial, denial, denial.

And there’s more. The dis/misinformation and propaganda begins. The vice chair and a staff member of the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) are accused of being on the Mungikis’ payroll. Then there’s the build up. Matatu operators accuse human rights organisations of not caring about citizens and businesses affected by the Mungikis’ extortion and protection rackets. We are informed that the Mungiki have decided to demonstrate in favour of the implementation of the special rapporteur’s recommendations. The media does not question this, despite the fact that the Mungiki’s spokesperson denies that they are involved and despite the fact that, strategically speaking, it would be ludicrous for the Mungiki to do so at this time. The demonstrations supposedly happen. The supposed government spokesperson parrots the claims, informing Kenya that the Oscar Foundation is raising money for Mungiki through the human rights organisations that support Mungiki. He blithely ignores the facts that: a) the Mungiki make so much money through their extortion and protection rackets that they hardly need external assistance and; b) the Oscar Foundation does not receive external funding. Hours after his statement, the two staff members of the Oscar Foundation are dead.

For the record, the human rights movement has consistently and repeatedly called for the disarming and demobilisation of all armed groups, criminal gangs and militia in this country as per Agenda Item One of the mediation process. It has also said, however, that disarmament and demobilisation will entail far more than a heavy-handed security response. And it has said that even that heavy-handed security response must be within the boundaries of the constitution and the law, not to mention the regional and international human rights instruments we are party to.

If armed groups, criminal gangs and militia still exist in this country, they do so because of their relationships, complex and ever-changing with the political powers that be and the security services that those political powers control. This is obvious. This is why disarmament and demobilisation is so difficult to achieve. And this is why it is simply ludicrous to claim that groups exist because of the ‘support’ they get from the human rights movement.

We are clearly in dangerous times. The Kenyatta and Moi regimes reserved assassinations for those among the political powers that be. Human rights defenders and other intellectuals contended instead with illegal detentions, torture and forced exile. In the Kibaki/Odinga regime, the goalposts have shifted, and shifted backwards. This does not portend well, for any of us.

To his credit, Odinga came out loud and clear following the assassinations, calling for independent, external investigations. We wait to see what Kibaki will do. And that will tell us whether we’re all headed to the grave.

* L. Muthoni Wanyeki is the executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Assassination of Kenya human rights defenders

Kenya National Commission for Human Rights and other Kenyan CSOs

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/54590

© Oscar FoundationThis evening, two leading human rights defenders, Mr. Oscar Kamau King’ara and Mr. John Paul Oulu (also known as GPO), both of Oscar Foundation, were executed in cold blood by a group of men in two vehicles. The two were driving to meet Mr. Kamanda Mucheke of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights at his office. Eyewitnesses have said that the assassins were policemen. In fact, the minibus driver was in police uniform.

An eyewitness at the scene was also shot in the leg and was later taken away from the scene by policemen. We are calling upon the police to reveal the whereabouts of this man since he might be the only one who can positively identify both the assassins and their vehicles. Therefore, we fear for his life.

Oscar was a trained lawyer and a human rights advocate who was the Chief Executive Officer of Oscar Foundation. He was a member of the Law Society of Kenya.

Mr. GPO Oulu was a former student leader, and an educationist who has worked for many human rights organizations, including the Youth Agenda. He left the Youth Agenda recently to join the Oscar Foundation as the Communications and Advocacy Officer.

Oscar Foundation is a registered charitable organization that offers free legal services to the poor. Some of its major projects include organizing caravans to offer free legal aid to the poor around the country. They have a strong track record researching corruption in the police force, the prisons, and police brutality against the urban poor. The latest activity was researching and documenting cases of enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings.

The Oscar Foundation has been a major source of information to Parliament on atrocities playing out against the poor in the country. On February 18, 2009, before Parliament debated the motion on extra-Judicial killings, he presented Oscar Foundation’s findings on ongoing extra judicial killings to Hon. Peter Mwathi, the motion’s mover. Their last engagement with Parliament was a presentation to the Kioni Committee investigating organized gangs a couple of days ago.

We believe they were killed because of the sensitive information they had shared with both the Prof. Philip Alston the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, and with the MPs.

Where we are in Kenya today is where the Jews were in Nazi Germany shortly before the Holocaust. The Nazis stage-managed a smear campaign that made the public hate the Jews and allow for their extermination.

During the Emergency the colonial government hired collaborators to commit atrocities which they blamed on the Mau Mau to give them a bad name so that they could exterminate them.

We hold the Government Spokesman Dr. Alfred Mutua complicit in the two murders for making wild allegations that the Oscar Foundation was a civil society front for Mungiki, and they were going to deal with it. What does he know about the assassinations? Was this what he meant by dealing with the Oscar Foundation?

As we condole with the families of the deceased, we assure them, and the nation that their deaths are not in vain.

Signed
Kenya National Commission for Human Rights and other Kenyan Civil Society Organisations

Kenya: The bomb waiting to go off ... again

L. Muthoni Wanyeki

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/54591

cc TeseumWe are a year away from the shocking events of last year — a Presidential elections whose results (we are told) can never be definitively known and the violence that followed the belated (and then hurried) announcement of the supposed results. The net effects we all now know—over 1,000 deaths, a third of which were at the hands of our security services, women (and some men) sexually violated by perpetrators of all forms of violence, over 300,000 internally displaced from no less than four provinces, the destruction of homes and livelihoods —and too, the base of economy and staple food supply. Land is a time bomb — not waiting to happen (as it has already happened), but waiting to re-explode. We cannot take another explosion. This second year of the Grand Coalition government needs to protect us from the same. And we need to all ensure that it does, writes L Muthoni Wanyeki.

A MODEL OF SUCCESS?

The mediation process guided by Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary General, at the behest of the African Union and with the support of many bilaterals under the UN, is credited with saving the day. But there are many Kenyans, here and abroad, known and unknown, who contributed to the mediation process’ success.

An as yet untold story—how the Kenya Red Cross, tasked by the government (such as it was at the time) with the tacit support of the heads of UN agencies involved in humanitarian work ensured the face and leadership of the relief effort was Kenyan. Preventing the kind of feeding frenzy too often witnessed in other conflict situations as international relief organisations run roughshod over national efforts, compromising national ownership and, more importantly, the balance between relief and what is required politically to ensure the move from relief to sustainable recovery.

And there are still many untold stories relating to the relief effort—not just all of the Kenyans who gave of their resources to support the Kenya Red Cross, but those who acted where the Kenya Red Cross could not initially go.

However, relief alone obviously was not enough. The causes needed as much attention as the symptoms. Another as yet untold story—the numerous coalitions of citizens who came together to demand a return to peace. The former diplomats who initiated the Citizens Coalition for Peace, shuttling back and forth between the protagonists, trying to lay the ground for negotiations. Kenyans for Peace with Truth and Justice, the National Civil Society Congress and the women’s bi-partisan initiative, who condemned both the elections and the violence, demonstrating there were national voices opposed to the pretence that life could go on as usual and helped up the domestic, regional and international pressure for negotiations to commence. The academics who worked with them to develop scenarios eventually considered by the mediation process on how to move forward. The private sector lobbies under the Kenya Association of Manufacturing and then ultimately the trade unions who used those scenarios to expand their own capacity for bringing domestic pressure to bear.

Individual African states as well as various mechanisms of the African Union—from the Forum of Retired African Presidents to the panel of eminent personalities and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights—who ensured regional engagement and pressure until a compromise was reached. With the full support of individual member states and mechanisms of the United Nations.

Kenya thus may have been a dramatically unexpected African failure. But we were also, in the end, an African success — we were lucky. That the violence ensued so fast and unexpectedly that many domestic points of leverage—individuals and institutions were still here, standing and able to play a role when the state proved itself incapable and unwilling to do so. That is not the case elsewhere — Zimbabwe is one example, where the haemorrhage of its human resources and institutions has been on-going for almost a decade. And while there is talk of our having provided a model for intervention in times of crisis—with the UN now having established the permanent capacity for mediation efforts of this kind—it is therefore not a model that is necessarily replicable. Not just because of the domestic aspects to our success—but also because the regional aspects to our success cannot be counted on in all instances — the AU’s determination to intervene constructively here was itself dependent on many factors, including not just our geo-political strategic importance to the region, but also the pan-African connections of domestic players at all levels and the awareness and knowledge of how to engage the AU’s mechanisms and processes.

MANY UNTOLD STORIES

But success in those terms is, evidently, not necessarily success at definitively resolving both symptoms and causes. And now, one year away, re-visiting the substantive content of the mediation process’ agreements is important. A package of actions and reforms was agreed to — in fact, the scenario initially placed on the table for resolution of the political impasse proposed a coalition government whose mandate and term would be limited and tied solely to achievement of those actions and reforms. Some progress has been made, to be sure — but progress on the most fundamental of actions and reforms remains to be seen. And, as we enter into the second year of the so-called Grand Coalition government, we must re-focus our attention on the same — even amidst all the drama. distraction and noise created by the lurching of the Grand Coalition government from one new crisis and scandal to another. Electoral terms end far sooner than we imagine — evidenced, astonishingly, by the emergence of succession debates as early as last year — and we simply cannot (cannot) afford to enter into another electoral process in four years without resolution of the actions and reforms agreed to.

To follow up on the actions and reforms agreed to by the mediation process, Annan has his own monitoring and evaluation framework, developed by Kenyan academics. The Grand Coalition government too has an M&E framework — with many actions and reforms tasked to the Ministry of Justice, National Cohesion and Constitutional Affairs and others finding reflection in Vision 2030. But M&E frameworks aside, I want to refer simply to the mediation process agreements themselves — which more than adequately outline the basics demanded of us.

AGENDA ITEM ONE: ENDING THE VIOLENCE

Agenda Item One had to do with ending the violence, including ensuring the security services acted within the bounds of the Constitution and the law and disarming and demobilising all armed groups.

The Commission of Inquiry into the Post Elections Violence has established, damningly, the full extent of the failure of our security services to act within the limits of the Constitution and the law during the crisis. The National Security and Intelligence Service is condemned for having interfered with the electoral process. The Kenya Police Force and the Administration Police stands accused of not just accounting for no less than a third of all deaths during the period, but also of having committed criminal acts including looting and sexual violence.

The CIPEV thus recommended a wide range of security sector reforms — including addressing questions of chain of command, merging the KPF and the AP under a new Police Commission, establishing civilian, statutorily backed oversight and fast-tracking investigations into and prosecutions of, in particular, all individual members of the security services accused of sexual violence. Importantly, while noting that training of the security services in human rights (including women’s rights) is on-going, the CIPEV also stressed that training without accountability—at all levels is, ultimately, irrelevant.

Since the CIPEV report’s release, the focus has largely been on investigations and prosecutions of those found by the CIPEV to bear greatest responsibility for the organised violence in the north Rift and the equally organised counter-attacks in Central, Nairobi and the south Rift. What has escaped notice is thus follow up with respect to security sector reform. The KPF did, it is true, establish what it called an oversight body with some civilian participation — but this effort was dismissed by the CIPEV as insufficient to assure accountability. And the KPF also established a task force to investigate claims of sexual violence by its members — but women’s organisations coopted into that task force have withdrawn from it given their lack of influence over its work, its failure to investigate in a manner that would ensure women both come forward and receive adequate attention to fears of reprisals for having done so. The broader questions of security sector reform remain obscure to the general public. The process needs to be opened up — and, in doing so, the general public must insist that the security services do not manage to focus attention solely on questions of capacity (equipment, numbers, resources and training) but also address substantively questions of approach (accountability).

Questions of justice remain pertinent — for all levels of perpetrators, civilian and security service, not just those with greatest responsibility. The fate of the proposed Special Tribunal to try the latter is now uncertain, following last week’s events in the House—and, even if eventually established, the question is whether all the safeguards on its independence and operational capacity proposed by the CIPEV will remain in place.

As for disarmament and demobilisation of all armed groups, very little appears to have happened. Yes, the armed forces seem to have addressed the armed group active in Mount Elgon—the Sabaot Land Defence Force — but did so in a manner inconsistent with human rights. More importantly, the SLDF was not a protagonist in the crisis. Attention needs to be played to what has happened with the armed group that become increasingly organised during the crisis in the north Rift — what happened to its structure, its alleged training areas, its allegedly increasingly modern weapons. This is particularly so in light of recent warnings that preparations for renewed violence are underway — tied to the parliamentary discussions of the bills establishing the Special Tribunal. Similarly, attention needs to be paid to the allegedly breakaway/parallel Mungiki that was active in the south Rift during the crisis—for which funds had been raised and arms procured.

It is true that there have been repeated reports of disruptions of Mungiki recruitment drives and meetings over the last couple of months — with arrests aplenty. Models for disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration exist aplenty from Africa’s other armed conflicts. But the fact is that the incentives to disarm and demobilise here simply do not yet exist — for Kenya’s mass of un/and underemployed young men, groups such as Mungiki provide not just a source of identity and common cause, but economic livelihoods from protection rackets that nothing else on offer yet rival as well as the means for political engagement — however ultimately fruitlessly—through their constantly shifting political alignments with individual politicians or groups of politicians. It is clear therefore that Agenda Item One is far from being conclusively addressed — and that doing so will require far more openness to ideas and input on the part of those responsible for our security than currently is the case.

AGENDA ITEM TWO: RESTORING FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS AND ADDRESSING THE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

Agenda Item Two dealt with the restoration of fundamental freedoms and the humanitarian crisis.

Critical limitations on fundamental freedoms — such as the ban on live broadcasts — addressed at the time obviously resurfaced in terms of the more obnoxious amendments passed to the Communications Act. What this shows — as does the fact that it has been virtually impossible to demonstrate peacefully in public since last year — is two things. First, it shows that the mindset that considers the enjoyment of our full range of human rights (including, notably, the rights to the freedoms of assembly, association and expression) an impediment to security persists. While this is not entirely surprising, given that our security is still precarious and the security services feel themselves to be on the defensive, it is unacceptable. It is also unstrategic as the more that people’s human rights are suppressed, the more motivation is provided for people to challenge security in more fundamental ways. Second, that there is an apparent dearth of ideas on how to achieve both — again, far more openness is required to help move forward.

As for the humanitarian crisis, yes, Operation Rudi Nyumbani has taken place. Yes, the initial, large and services camps for IDPs have been disbanded. But, a contested number of IDPs have simply moved into smaller, unserviced camps — in some documented cases, against their wills (and thus against regional and international standards for addressing internal displacement). And other IDPs have complained of both the insufficiency of the funds and resources provided for resettlement as well as corruption in the administration of the same.

Part of the problem has been conceptual. Not all IDPs were small scale farmers, with land to return to. Some of those who were — and were able to return — still find themselves unable to re-build and actually reside on their farms due to persistent security concerns, despite the additional police posts in the vicinity. But others, including many of those who were small and medium size business owners, renting both residential and business premises, cannot find landlords willing to rent to them again. Others were migrant workers on flower and tea farms in the south and north Rift, as well as Central respectively — and while some farms have individually taken responsibility to assure them of the safety to return, others have bowed to localised pressures to hire only those deems to be ‘indigenous’ to the locality. And while many community-based and provincial administration peacebuilding initiatives are underway, they have tended to focus only on the immediate — not the long-term grievances (such as land) among those considered now to be ‘host’ communities.

What is needed is a more careful categorisation of IDPs and their specific needs for resettlement—as well as a focus on the legitimate grievances of the so-called ‘host’ communities. Without the same, the resettlement process can only be tenuous.

AGENDA ITEM THREE: THE POLITICAL SETTLEMENT

Part of the political settlement was to be addressed by the Independent Review Commission. While ultimately unhelpful in terms of determining the specifics of what happened, the specifics of the effects of what happened in terms of supposed electoral outcomes at the presidential level and the specifics of all those individuals and institutions from whom accountability should be sought, the IREC’s report has been useful in terms of reiterating the need for fundamental electoral reform.

The Electoral Commission of Kenya having thus been made the sole scapegoat for the electoral farce, it has been disbanded with nothing short of alacrity. An interim ECK is now expected to be established, together with a commission tasked with the review of electoral boundaries. The latter will deal with one long standing electoral concern—the gerrymandering that has happened in the past that has ensured that one (wo)man’s vote is not the same as another (wo)man’s vote across the country.

While this is positive, it must be noted that the determination of new constituency boundaries is likely to be as politicised a process as all other elements of electoral reform expected to be addressed by the constitutional process—particularly that concerning moving away from a winner takes all electoral system.

The rest of the political settlement had to do with the establishment of the Grand Coalition government, about which there were three main fears. First, that the offices of the President and Prime Minister were equally weighted—which, as the tug of war between the PM and the Head of the Civil Service has shown, they are not. What this portends for the necessary constructive interplay between the Executive and the House with respect to reform is alarming—and needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.

Second, however, was the fear that with both sides in government (and such an unprecedentedly large government at that), we would lack an effective opposition. The obviously self-interested and unprincipled efforts at establishing a so-called ‘grand opposition’ notwithstanding, this is a fear that has clearly proven unfounded. Tensions persist between the two parties to the Grand Coalition government. Tensions also exist within both parties to the same—occasioned by succession concerns within the Party of National Unity and occasioned by differences between the PM and the Coast and Rift Valley blocks of the Orange Democratic Movement on matters ranging from justice to the Mau forest. What that means is that leverage exists between and within parties to the Grand Coalition government for issues normally brought forward by the official opposition to emerge—and that is a good thing—even if they emerge essentially to answer power plays of one kind or another rather than principle.

Third was the fear that the Grand Coalition government would not last. This fear too has proven unfounded — not a single parliamentarian has any intention of submitting to a new electoral process before her/his five year mandate. On the surface, therefore, we can expect the Grand Coalition government to last — however nominally. Below the surface, however, we can expect the configuration of the parties to the Grand Coalition government to be altered beyond recognition—an alteration in which the succession debates particularly within Central are likely to be most significant.

And that is our political settlement — amoral, unwieldy but likely to hold, if in new ways.

AGENDA ITEM FOUR: LONG TERM ISSUES

More than any other, Agenda Item Four was meant to address the root causes of the crisis through: transitional justice; constitutional reform; addressing inequality; land reform; and addressing the youth bulge.

Speaking to a Kenyan audience last year, Ugandan Professor Mahmood Mamdani of Columbia University noted that: ‘violence is not its own explanation.’ What he meant was that all the investigations into who committed violence and how did not necessarily always adequately account for why they did so. We have recognised that fact through the passing of the bill to establish (finally!) a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission as well as the passing of bills to (finally!) conclude our constitutional reform process. The acts are not without fault—negotiations on the same by the House were inevitably clouded by the tensions and self-interests referred to above.

But, however flawed the processes thus unrolled might be, what we need to focus on now is the substantive content brought to bear on the same. The devil is in the detail—resolving historical injustices will mean both retributive and restorative justice processes for survivors, victims and their families. Constitutional reform that matters has to address, at a minimum, Presidential powers, the separation of powers, checks and balances and our electoral system — as well as, importantly, ensuring constitutional enhancement of equality rights — for an expanded list of protected grounds, notable among which must be gender/sex and ethnicity.

So far, all we have done with respect to equality is pass the utterly inadequate Ethnic and Race Relations Act — which not only failed to define discrimination (direct and systemic) but failed to elaborate the ways in which the one protected ground it addressed (ethnicity/race) interplays with other protected grounds (through compounded/multiple discrimination). And failed too to propose the range of measures that can and must be taken when discrimination is found to exist. We do not have problems of an ethnic nature solely because we are ignorant and uneducated about ethnicity — for which public education would be a sufficient response. We have problems of an ethnic nature because direct and systemic discrimination against us has occurred in the past and continues to occur — for which no remedies were proposed. Issues of equality thus need to be taken up both in the constitutional reform process, as well as in all matters relating to national planning and service delivery through the national budgeting process.

But if we are as yet unprepared for the above, we are even less prepared it seems to address land reform and the increasingly urgent issue of youth bulge—and both taking gender and women’s human rights fully into account. For example, with respect to the latter, while it is a concern that an inordinate section of our population is demographically categorised as ‘young’ and un/underemployed, it is clear that with young women still bearing primary responsibility for reproductive and community labour, the problems associated with un/underemployment are different for them as compared to young men.

Meanwhile, on the first front — land reform — the draft land policy (which does take gender and women’s human rights into account) is still apparently inexplicably stuck at the Cabinet level. There seems to be no impetus to move it forward. And too, there appears to be no action on actually beginning to map out the different levels of legitimate claim to land that will need to be taken into account and addressed before any fundamental restructuring of land ownership and tenure patterns established under colonialism can take place. Neither has there been any evidence of movement to resuscitate and move on supra-shifts in land ownership and tenure occasioned by corruption—as well spelt out in various reports easily available to us, such as that of the Ndungu Commission.

As we have seen, land is a time bomb — not waiting to happen (as it has already happened), but waiting to re-explode.

We cannot take another explosion. This second year of the Grand Coalition government needs to protect us from the same. And we need to all ensure that it does.

* L. Muthoni Wanyeki is the Executive Director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) * Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

* A shorter version of this article appeared in the East African

Support the Mau Mau reparations campaign

Kenya Human Rights Commission

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/54582

© Magna VerseTHE NATURE OF THE MAU MAU CLAIM

The Kenya Land and Freedom Army (Mau Mau) claim relates to torture and the cruel and degrading treatment of detainees perpetrated by the Kenyan colonial government during the state of emergency (1952–60). It is a tortious claim based on negligence and will be instituted in the British High Court. The claimants are seeking compensation for personal injuries sustained while in detention camps of the Kenya Colonial Government which operated under the authority of Her Majesty’s Government (HMG). The proposed claims are based on the tort of negligence. It is alleged that HMG is liable not only because of actions of the Kenyan colonial government, but also for its failure to take any or adequate steps to prevent the widespread use of torture that it knew was being perpetrated in its name.

CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES

The campaign’s objectives are as follows:

- Institute proceedings against the HMG in the British High Court with a view to achieve a ruling compelling HMG to pay reparations to Mau Mau torture survivors
- Build local and global awareness on the Mau Mau claim for reparations
- Energise ongoing efforts for recognition of Kenyan heroes and heroines
- Implant the tools for comprehensive transitional justice in Kenya.

VISION OF THE KENYA HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION (KHRC)

The Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) will this year file a representative suit in the British High Court on behalf of the survivors of the Mau Mau struggle, seeking reparations from HMG for atrocities committed against the Mau Mau during the state of emergency period (1952–60).

The Mau Mau, an indigenous anti-colonial movement, struggled valiantly for Kenya’s independence, won from the British in 1963. The armed struggle raised the cost of colonisation, forcing the British to hand over power to Africans. During the armed struggle, atrocities were inflicted on the Mau Mau and the African communities that supported them. These atrocities have been well-documented by historians. Routine preventive detention, systematic denial of due process guarantees, summary killings, torture, beatings, rape, forced labour, destruction of property, forced evictions, villageisation, and other forms of pillage defined British policy against the Mau Mau during the emergency. It is estimated that perhaps 160,000 Kenyans passed through the ’moral rearmament’ corrective program (or ‘The Pipeline’), in order to renounce the Mau Mau oath, which was the stated justification of preventive detention.

The extent to which thousands upon thousands of Africans were killed, maimed or displaced during the emergency has only come to be appreciated in recent years. Despite the scale and severity of these atrocities, the British and successive African governments in Kenya, including the present government, have refused to either acknowledge these barbaric abuses or provide relief to the survivors. In fact, there has been a conspiracy of silence between the British and various Kenyan governments. Today, national amnesia threatens to bury the history of one of Africa’s most brilliant anti-colonial struggles.

The KHRC believes that the legacy of the Mau Mau is inextricably linked to the reform of the Kenyan state. In particular, the KHRC believes that the Mau Mau Reparations and Recognition Campaign will play a key role in addressing the long standing problems of impunity for past abuses, developing a basis for implanting the tools and instruments of transitional justice in Kenya, and buoying the efforts to litigate against the atrocities committed in the name of colonialism. It is not credible, nor is it defensible, to argue that the post-colonial Kenyan state can be reformed without a proper accounting for colonial atrocities, the most poignant of which involved the Mau Mau. Even the task force on a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) for Kenya, led by KHRC Chair Professor Makau Mutua recommended that a special investigation be conducted to establish culpability for abuses committed in the colonial period.

As a part of its transitional justice programme – looking into and seeking justice for past abuses –the KHRC established the Mau Mau Reparations and Recognition Campaign. It is clear to the KHRC that the recovery of the memory and honour of the Mau Mau would have enormous implications for human rights, social justice and democracy in Kenya and Africa as a whole. What is more, the Mau Mau reparations case provides an opportunity to broaden the debate on reparations for slavery and colonialism in general. This is critical at a time in which the West is focused on debt reduction and forgiveness, as though these cleanse the atrocities committed in Africa through slavery, colonialism and the Cold War.

The KHRC’s position is that reparations are due to Africa for these ills, and should not be viewed as charitable donations out of the kindness of the West. Reparations cannot be traded off for debt reduction or cancellation.

IMPORTANT CAMPAIGN MILESTONES

Objective 1: Institute proceedings in the British High Court with a view to achieving a ruling compelling HMG to pay reparations to Mau Mau torture survivors

On 4 October 2006, the KHRC and its United Kingdom-based legal team, Leigh Day & Co solicitors, submitted a letter of claim to Margaret Beckett, the British foreign secretary, formally presenting their intention to sue HMG for the torture it inflicted upon the Mau Mau. The letter, which outlined some of the evidence gathered so far, also requested that HMG accept responsibility for those atrocities. Subsequently, on 2 April 2007, HMG’s solicitors responded to the letter and stated that should proceedings be issued in court, and that it would defend itself against the claims on the grounds of (a) British limitation laws and (b) laws of state succession and related case law on who is the appropriate defendant. The nature of the response, and previous statements by the British High Commission in Nairobi, indicate that HMG will ‘defend itself vigorously’ in the matter of the Mau Mau claim.

Objective 2: Build local and global awareness on the Mau Mau claim for reparations

In June 2007, the KHRC sent a team of three human rights experts to the UK where they spent a week cultivating contacts in the British media and making logistical arrangements with the support of Kenyans and human rights organisations for the implementation of a programme of events originally planned for the Suit Filing Week in February 2008. In the UK, the KHRC has the support of Fahamu, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the Kenya Community Abroad (KCA) and Mobilization for Economic Growth (MEGA)-UK chapter among others.

In May 2006, the KHRC embarked on a campaign to directly influence opinion makers in both Kenya and the UK to bring pressure to bear on HMG to accept responsibility for the obvious atrocities it inflicted upon Kenyans during the state of emergency. Most of local media institutions were supportive and have partnered with the KHRC to bring the desired publicity to the suit. Some of the international media institutions that have reported on the campaign specifically, and the Mau Mau generally, include but are not limited to Associated Press, The Guardian, The Times, the Daily Telegraph, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Al Jazeera, British Sky Broadcasting and Reuters.

Objective 3: Energise ongoing efforts for recognition of Kenyan heroes

No law has been enacted or issued officially proclaiming any Kenyan figure as a national hero. But owing to their significant roles in the process of nation-building and contributions to history, there needs to be laws enacted and proclamations issued honouring these heroes and heroines. Towards this end, the KHRC continues to play an instrumental role in the work of the Task Force on National Heroes/Heroines, which is situated in the Ministry of National Heritage (office of the vice president) as well as the national museums of Kenya’s National Exhibition on Kenya’s Struggle for Independence Project.

Objective 4: Implant the tools for comprehensive transitional justice in Kenya

The KHRC has consistently maintained that the only way to address the atrocities by post-colonial Kenyan governments lies in looking into Kenya’s painful colonial history. The KHRC is aware that many of the problems in the post-colonial Kenyan state – impunity for public officials, despotism by government, atrocities by the police and security officials, the culture of corruption, landlessness, and steep gender inequities – are either a legacy of colonialism, or were exacerbated by it.

These problems were not confined to any one region or community or even one country. Indeed, a successful investigation and accounting of the Mau Mau question in addition to the atrocities of former European colonial powers would start the process of national healing and help consolidate quest for democratisation in Africa. Consequently, the KHRC is organising the Conference on Reparations for Colonial Injustices against African People, which will bring together historians, activists and media practitioners to share ideas on this complex issue.

THE ENVISIONED LEGAL PROCESS

Issue of proceedings: HMG is required to respond to the proceedings instituted as soon as these are issued. There are two possibilities for HMG, which would form part of the preliminary phase of any eventual, full hearing:
a) It may formally apply to the British High Court to file a defence based on existing limitation laws in Britain, or;
b) It may formally apply to the courts to file a defence based on the laws of state succession, namely, that the post-independence Kenyan state inherited the liabilities of the British colonial state and, therefore argue that the post-independence Kenyan State, and not HMG, should be held to account for colonial-era atrocities.

Preliminary hearings: Should the first option apply, the court may set a date for a preliminary hearing a few months from the time of issuing of proceedings. Some questions that may arise are:
- How will this hearing be conducted?
- Will the court require evidence from both sides at this stage?
- What kind of evidence will this be? Would expert witnesses appear at this stage?

Based on the court’s assessment of what is brought before it during the preliminary hearings, there could be two results:
1) The court may find that the matter came before the courts after a very long period of time and it would be prejudicial to HMG to defend itself, or;
2) The evidence may be so compelling as to cause the court to lift the limitation law and allow the case to come to trial some months after the preliminary phase.

Trial phase: It is instructive that if the court takes the second decision, it would effectively be declaring that the suit does indeed have merit. However, either side would have the right to appeal the High Court’s decision in the British Court of Appeal, should they be dissatisfied with the court’s decision about whether or not the case goes to trial.

ELOISE MUKAMI DEDAN KIMATHI AS THE LEADER OF MAU MAU DELEGATION TO BRITAIN

‘It is better to die on our feet that to live on our knees’
Dedan Kimathi

On 18 February 1957, having been charged and convicted as a terrorist, Mau Mau Field Marshall Dedan Kimathi was hanged, his remains buried in an unmarked grave, possibly at the Kamiti maximum prison near Nairobi. To this day, his remains are unaccounted for, though it is highly probable that HMG, which executed him and certainly disposed of his remains, is in possession of information that may enable their discovery. It is believed that HMG was attempting to avoid a situation in which Kimathi’s burial site would be turned into a shrine for the Mau Mau and Kenyans, hence the secrecy with which his execution and burial were carried out.

For almost 50 years now, the family of the late Kimathi and Kenyans have been denied the right to honour him by giving him a decent state burial, which he and they deserve. Though living in a condition of destitution, Mukami Kimathi, his widow, has worked tirelessly to support the cause of the Mau Mau for recognition while being involved in activism aimed at compelling the Kenyan and British authorities to disclose information about the whereabouts of Dedan Kimathi’s remains. Consequently, the KHRC has invited Kimathi and a member of her family to lead the Mau Mau delegation in London.

Between 2001 and 2003, the family of the late Kimathi and the Kimathi Movement held a series of meetings with political leaders and bureaucrats at the home, health and justice and constitutional affairs ministries seeking their intervention in the matter of the hero’s remains. However, these officials did not act, compelling the Kimathi Movement to approach the Nairobi-based British High Commission, which was equally unhelpful. Undeterred, the family of the late Kimathi and the Kimathi Movement continued to popularise its goals by celebrating Kimathi’s life and struggles each year on the anniversary of his execution, 18 February. While the Kimathi Movement no longer exists, the KHRC remains committed to carrying out the noble initiative and will support Kimathi’s goal to follow up the matter directly with the head of state of the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II.

PRINCIPAL PARTNERS IN THE CAMPAIGN

- The Mau Mau War Veterans’ Association (MMWVA) – the only officially registered Mau Mau advocacy group with the political clout, drive and capacity to pursue such a complex legal-political and historical affair such as the reparations suit and heroes’ recognition agenda
- Kenya Oral History Centre – offers expert advice on the history of the colonial government in Kenya and for making contacts with Mau Mau
- Awaaz – Kenya south Asians history magazine
- Paul Muite & Co advocates – lead counsel for Mau Mau reparations suit and link institution to Human Rights Matrix Chambers
- Mbugua Mureithi & Co advocates – offers expert advice on evidentiary matters such as development of claimants’ statements
- KCA-UK – a North America-based Kenyan diaspora umbrella group
- Fahamu – UK-based human rights organisation assisting with publicity and networking with progressive individuals and institutions
- Caroline Elkins, Faculty of African Studies, Harvard University – Mau Mau historian and advisor on colonial history, Kenyan heroes and reparations
- David Anderson, Oxford University – Mau Mau historian and advisor on colonial history, Kenyan heroes and reparations
- Leigh Day & Co advocates – lead counsel for Mau Mau reparations suit and link institutions to Human Rights Matrix Chambers.

* Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) is based in Nairobi. For more information about the Mau Mau reparations campaign, please contact L. Muthoni Wanyeki or Mikewa Ogada.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Campaigning for Mau Mau: Continuing resistance

Kenya Human Rights Commission

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/54576

cc WikipediaThe Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), in partnership with Royal Media Services, has embarked on a seven-week media blitz consisting of television, radio and print publicity beginning 24 February 2008.

The campaign is built on the platform of the programme Trilogy: Black Man’s Land: Images of Colonization and Independence produced and directed by Anthony Howarth and David Koff, written by David Koff and narrated by Msindo Mwinyipembe. KHRC will further support the series in screening its production of Itungati – the Mau Mau story, a production of Themescape Ltd.
CONTINUING MAU MAU RESISTANCE

The roots of the Mau Mau movement can be traced back to the arrival of British colonialism in the 1890s and its mission of conquering, subjugating and finally ruling over the disparate ethnic communities that happened to fall under the colonially-constructed political entity called Kenya. The Mau Mau movement played an important role in Kenya’s liberation struggle against British colonialism. It is worth noting that although the agitation for land and freedom came to a head in 1952, the Mau Mau movement was the culmination of many years of struggle for self-determination by various African communities against British colonial domination. Therefore, although most of the bloody struggle occurred in central Kenya, the Mau Mau movement was not merely a central Kenya or Kikuyu affair. The movement had a national character, and drew support even from outside Kenya. For example, India’s prime minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, and his government supported the movement.

The Mau Mau movement was a direct response to Britain’s brutal colonial regime in Kenya. Conceived in 1950, the movement sought to reject the socio-economic and political order prevailing at that time where five million Kenyan Africans suffered colonial domination under 29,000 European settlers with no meaningful socio-economic or political representation. Although the Kenyans who rose in rebellion against British colonial rule rightfully did so under the internationally recognised principle of self-determination, Britain’s response to the Mau Mau uprising proved a classic case of killing a fly using a sledge hammer.

Armed with bomb-dropping warplanes and Her Majesty’s well-equipped soldiers, Britain’s response against the villainously-labelled ‘Mau Mau terrorists’ was nothing but a sickening show of imperial ruthlessness and brute force. The skewed nature of the war is clearly captured in the statistics which indicate that, at the end of the war, only 32 Britons had died compared to an estimated 15,000 Kenyan Africans. What is more, new evidence gathered by world-renowned scholars and researchers shows that Britain’s response to the Mau Mau movement was characterised by murder, systematic torture, mass rape, castration and general acts of violence and terror.

JUSTIFICATION FOR THE MAU MAU SERIES

The Mau Mau series is justified based on three important reasons. First, as a country, we need to accord proper national recognition to those who have played heroic roles in the socio-economic and political making of our country. There can be no denying the fact that despite the gallant role played by millions of Kenyan women and men (either directly or indirectly) in the Mau Mau movement in the fight against British colonialism, the contribution made by this important movement in Kenya’s struggle for independence has not been properly recognised by successive independent Kenyan governments.

What is more, the crimes committed against the Kenyan Africans who participated in the Mau Mau movement remain the great, un-remedied, injustices of Kenya’s history under British colonialism. The Kenyans who suffered Britain’s murder, systematic torture, mass rape, castration and general acts of violence and terror during the Mau Mau movement are still calling for justice. The call for the rightful recognition of the Mau Mau movement in Kenya has oftentimes met with resistance from both colonial and post-colonial forces who fear that such recognition is likely to expose the levels of atrocities visited upon the Mau Mau during the colonial era, or challenge the legitimacy of those holding the reigns of political power in the post-colonial era under the false credentials of having been freedom fighters. Be that as it may, we remain confident that the Mau Mau series will help keep alive KHRC’s sustained demand for justice for the Mau Mau heroes and heroines who suffered acts of criminal atrocity during Britain’s suppression of the Mau Mau movement.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission has remained steadfast in its quest to have the Mau Mau movement’s rightful place in Kenya’s history and politics duly recognised. Since 1997, the KHRC has been at the forefront of the campaign in demanding that the government of Kenya accord the Mau Mau movement its rightful place in Kenya’s socio-economic and political consciousness. What is more, in this series, the KHRC will have the pleasure of partnering with Royal Media Services – through Citizen TV and Citizen Radio – to situate the issue of Mau Mau within a broader national context that examines both the historical and contemporary relevance of the Mau Mau movement within the Kenyan nation-state.

Second, this series plays an important role in reminding all Kenyans of our sacred duty to defend our hard-won freedom. The series cannot have come at a better time since, as a country, we recently witnessed the worst form of political – the so-called 2007 post-election violence – conflict, conflict which can be partly attributed to our collective failure to address the systemic socio-economic and political imbalances created in our body politic by years of colonial and post-colonial misrule. As we get ready to, nay, as we mark the first year of the political agreement dubbed the ‘Grand Coalition’, a shaky outfit which was formed as a compromise to end the mayhem witnessed after the 2007 general elections, the series will enable us to seriously probe the issues of democracy and governance and what we must do as a country if we are to move forward and attain our quest for a sustainable and inclusive nation.

Third and finally, as part of the efforts aimed at redressing Britain’s atrocities against the Mau Mau movement, plans are at an advanced stage within the Kenya Human Rights Commission to file a case against HRH Queen Elizabeth II’s government in London early this year. The case will seek compensation for the victims of Britain’s colonial atrocities committed in the period 1952 to 1960, when Britain declared a state of emergency in Kenya and resorted to a heavy-handed approach in its response to the Mau Mau movement.

ROLLING OUT THE MAU MAU SERIES

Royal Media Services, through its television and radio broadcast services, will run the Mau Mau series for a total of eight weeks of half-hour excerpts on Citizen TV. Seven of the eight weeks will be dedicated to half-hour TV slots for the series, while a longer slot will be dedicated for the final week. Furthermore, and in collaboration with KHRC community networks, Royal Media Services will run the series on its vernacular radio stations and where possible, send out film crews on the ground to record reactions and discussions, reactions which will form part of the final week’s presentation.

Each week, for both television and radio presentations, the Mau Mau series will be guided by a team of experts – the suggested number is four – drawn from a diverse pool who will take into account regional representation, communities’ diversity, gender balance as well as academic expertise on the Mau Mau movement. While every effort will be made not to lose the main goal of the series – raising public awareness on the Mau Mau movement and building public support for the Mau Mau suit in London – the series will provide an excellent forum for the KHRC to incorporate issues of transitional justice and democratic governance within the current political discourse in Kenya. To this end, the panel of experts will guide the overall seven-week presentation of the series, as well as its grand finale, along the following broad thematic areas:

- The Mau Mau movement: The focus will be on the origins of the movement and whether the movement was justified (especially within the context of international law) in rising up against British colonialism. Consequently, Britain’s response to the Mau Mau movement will be examined, both within the context of its domestic law as well as its international law obligations, as a way of establishing the basis for the Mau Mau suit against the British government.
- The politics of land: Under this theme, the contentious issue of land acquisition and land ownership both within the colonial and the post-colonial eras will be discussed.
- The politics of impunity: The colonial origins of the politics of impunity and the continuation of the same vein in independent Kenya will be examined.
- The quest for good governance and a human rights driven socio-economic and political order in Kenya: The focus here will be on the crisis of governance in Kenya and the relentless push by Kenyans for a more democratic society driven by, among others, the ethos of human rights.

SCHEDULE

The campaign runs as follows on Citizen TV:

- Tuesday 24 February 2009: White Man’s Country Part 1 – 9.45 pm
- Tuesday 3 March 2009: White Man’s Country Part 2 – 9.45 pm
- Tuesday 10 March 2009: Mau Mau Part 1 – 9.45 pm
- Tuesday 17 March 2009: Mau Mau Part 2 – 9.45 pm
- Tuesday 24 March 2009: Kenyatta Part 1 – 9.45 pm
- Tuesday 31 March 2009: Kenyatta Part 2 – 9.45 pm
- Tuesday 7 April 2009: Itungati – the Mau Mau Story – 9.45 pm

A series of interviews with historians, academics and Mau Mau veterans will take place both on Citizen TV and all 13 vernacular stations.

The series will also be supported by a series of articles in Pambazuka News.

An SMS Campaign in support of the campaign is up and running too. Please send an SMS to (Kenya) 4445 with the words ‘MASHUJAA’ or ‘HEROES’.

For more information contact the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC):
- Zahid Rajan – tel: (+254) 0722344900
- George Morara – tel: (+254) 3874998/9 or (+254) 0712288400

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

UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions in Kenya

Philip Alston

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/54574

cc Tom MarukoFollowing his mission in Kenya over the period 16–25 February, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Arbitrary or Summary Executions Philip Alston issued a press statement outlining his findings. Drawing attention to the entrenched impunity of the country’s police force, Alston questions the complete absence of an accountability mechanism around police killings and the force’s broad reluctance to engage with detailed and comprehensive civil society concerns. The rapporteur likewise underlines the concerted efforts to block his access to records around security force activities, and need for independent investigation around events in Mt Elgon. Alston also argues the lack of any form of witness protection programme to be a key factor in the persistence of a culture of impunity, and states that the government must move to providing adequate reparations for families left unable to meet their needs through the deaths of husbands and fathers.
I conducted a fact-finding mission to Kenya from 16 to 25 February 2009. The aim of my visit was to investigate allegations of unlawful killings, and I focused on three issues of critical importance to the people of Kenya: killings by the police; violence in the Mt Elgon district; and killings in the context of the post-election violence.

Let me begin by expressing my gratitude to the Kenyan government for having invited me to the country. This willingness to cooperate with the international community in its human rights endeavours is admirable and Kenya deserves full credit.

The biggest challenge for me has been to ascertain the facts in relation to each issue. In terms of post-election violence, the Waki Commission report has made my task much easier. In relation to police killings and Mt Elgon I have engaged in a painstaking and careful process of gathering information. There are, of course, competing accounts of what happened, along with various official denials that any human rights violations have occurred. My work began several months ago as I analysed all of the available government, parliamentary, police, and civil society reports on issues related to unlawful killings. Upon arrival in Kenya I held meetings in Nairobi, Rift Valley Province (Nakuru, Eldoret, and Kiambaa), Western Province (Bungoma and Mt Elgon), Nyanza Province (Kisumu), and Central Province (Nyeri). I met with government officials at all levels, including the prime minister, various ministers and assistant ministers, several permanent secretaries, the chief justice, the chief of general staff, the police commissioner and the heads of the Administration Police (AP), the General Service Unit (GSU) and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), as well as provincial and district commissioners, police and NSIS [National Security Intelligence Service] officers in the various provinces and districts. I also met with a wide range of members of parliament, members of the diplomatic and donor communities, and the UN country team. In addition, my team and I interviewed well over 100 witnesses and victims on an individual basis. They included victims of militia and gang violence, criminal violence, and police and military violence.

Before announcing my preliminary findings I wish to address several important preliminary issues relating to my mission.

It has already been suggested by some officials that I have been unduly influenced by human rights groups and other civil society organisations. But the breadth and diversity of my information sources belie this allegation. I would add that the quality of reporting and analysis by the leading human rights groups in this country is extremely high by international standards, and I have benefited from the comprehensiveness and professionalism of their work.

Undoubtedly the greatest obstacle to my efforts to obtain detailed information from all sources and perspectives has been the failure by the police in particular to provide me with virtually any of the information I have assiduously sought. I will return to this problem below.

Closely linked to this refusal to provide information is the argument, put to me by the police commissioner in particular, that allegations of human rights abuses by the police or the military should only be investigated if the relevant information meets the standards that would be required to secure a conviction in a court of law. This is a fundamental misconception of the nature of human rights reporting. It is also a convenient one since it would render it all but impossible for anyone without the resources of government at their disposal to meet such an artificial threshold and thus trigger the responsibility of government to investigate. In fact, the task of a human rights investigation is to obtain credible and well-founded information which is sufficient to give rise to an obligation on the part of the government to undertake its own comprehensive, impartial, and effective investigation of all such allegations. Human rights reports are not required to demonstrate as a prosecutor must, or judge as a court would. But that does not mean that their contents can be ignored by the police or other relevant government agencies.

Another important preliminary issue concerns the atrocities committed by militias, armed criminals and organised crime gangs in Kenya. There is no doubt in my mind that such criminal groups have committed the gravest of offences, and have terrorised the citizens of Kenya. This knowledge was reinforced in my many meetings with the victims of such criminal groups. But the existence of criminality does not explain or excuse killings by government forces. All governments have to deal with criminals, and it is one of the central duties of a government to protect its citizens from such persons. But a democratic government operating under the rule of law does not respond to terror with more terror. Surely we have moved beyond the point where it needs to be stated that the proper response to criminality is not to shoot a suspect in the back of the head and dump the body in a forest, but to investigate, arrest, and try the suspect in accordance with law.

KILLINGS BY POLICE

Perhaps the most surprising outcome of my visit was the extent to which I received overwhelming testimony of the existence of systematic, widespread, and carefully planned extrajudicial executions undertaken on a regular basis by the Kenyan police. The police commissioner in particular, along with various other senior officials, assured me that no such killings take place. But he and his colleagues appear to be the only people in the entire country who believe this claim.

I have received detailed and convincing reports of countless individual killings. It is clear from the many interviews that I conducted that the police are free to kill at will. Sometimes they do so for reasons of a private or personal nature. Sometimes they kill in the context of extortion, or of a ransom demand. Often they kill in the name of crime control, but in circumstances where they could readily make an arrest. My final report will review the evidence in some detail. One example will suffice here. I met with the father and brother of Dr James Ng'ang'a Kariuki Muiruri, a 29-year-old man with three law degrees from the United Kingdom and who had been teaching there. He was killed by police on 24 January 2009 in Nairobi. After a disagreement at a hotel, a police officer stopped the car James and his brother were in, and ordered James to handcuff himself. When he asked why he was being arrested, James was shot three times. The only exceptional things about the case were that James was the son of a former member of parliament, and the incident had been witnessed. Otherwise it followed a common pattern. The police officer responsible for the shooting filed a report that a bank robber and Mungiki member had been killed, thus invoking the magic formula designed to ensure that no one would question the need to shoot the suspect dead.

One only has to read the Kenyan newspapers to know that alleged robbers are shot and killed every day of the week by the police in Nairobi alone. Standard operating practice for police around the world would require comprehensive reporting of every such killing and a mechanism designed to ensure that an impartial investigation is undertaken whenever there is reason to suspect that the lethal use of force might have been unlawful. When I attempted to obtain from the police commissioner comprehensive data on how many such killings – whether justified or not – occur each year in Kenya, I was told that there was no central database for recording this information. Similarly, at the provincial level, my efforts to obtain such figures were largely stymied by flat denials of police killings, by the offering of partial or inconclusive data, or by referring me back to Nairobi. It is no exaggeration to say that I was stonewalled at each step by the police commissioner and those under his command. Even the answer to a basic and non-controversial question as to the numbers of police currently in Kenya was ‘Comment: not immediately available’. The answer to a question as to how many inquiries have been opened by police in response to complaints received against the police was simply to cite the legal provision requiring the opening of such inquiries.

Whenever a person is killed by the police it is essential that an inquiry be undertaken to ensure that the use of lethal force was justified in the circumstances. Under international law applicable in Kenya lethal force is only permissible as an act of self-defence or in defence of the life of another. Insofar as [article] 71 of the constitution of Kenya permits lethal force beyond this limited scope by allowing such force ‘for the defense of property’ or ‘for the purpose of suppressing a riot’, it violates clear international standards and should be amended.

POLICE DEATH SQUADS

In addition to these everyday police killings, there is compelling and detailed evidence that police death squads operate, primarily in Nairobi and Central Province, with an explicit mandate to exterminate suspected Mungiki members. These are not ‘rogue’ squads, but are police who are acting on the explicit orders of their superiors.

The Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) has carried out extensive investigations into police killings in 2007, and especially into those killings connected to the police death squads. Between June and October 2007, KNCHR documented approximately 500 people killed or disappeared by police. The response of the police – that the claims are ‘infantile’ – is typical of the failure of the police to engage with the substance of the serious and well-grounded allegations by human rights groups such as the KNCHR. Instead, they attack the qualifications, mandate, or expertise of their critics.

Yesterday, the KNCHR published an extraordinarily detailed and precise testimony by a police whistleblower who acted as a driver for one of the death squads. The whistleblower was murdered in October 2008. His testimony describes in lurid detail 24 separate occasions on which the police extrajudicially executed some 58 suspects whom they had arrested. The testimony clearly implicates a host of senior police officials, including the police commissioner. It is imperative that an independent investigation be opened immediately and that prosecutions be launched.

ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY FOR POLICE KILLINGS

There is no doubt that a number of killings by police would have occurred in circumstances where the use of force was lawful by international standards. But there is currently no way in Kenya for such an assessment to be accurately and impartially made.

First, there is zero internal accountability – the police who kill are the very same police who investigate police killings. There is no independent police internal affairs unit which could reliably assess the legality of the use of force. In some cases, ‘inquiries’ are opened which drag on interminably and usually to no effect. In other cases, police refuse to permit families of the deceased or witnesses to the killings to register complaints. Those who persevere are often threatened with violence and there are reports of whole families ‘disappearing’ after vigorously pressing for police investigations.

Second, external accountability exists on paper only: the Police Oversight Board gazetted in September 2008 has yet to start work, no money has been allocated for its operations, and it has no secretariat. In any event, it is set up in a manner that makes it little more than an extension of the police. It lacks the independence, powers, funding or staffing that would afford it credibility with the public. The Public Complaints Standing Committee receives complaints of killings by police, but police cooperation with the committee on these issues has been entirely unsatisfactory. Victims are thus left with only one option, which is to turn to civil society and especially to the KNCHR. This explains why the latter's reports are so detailed and perhaps why the police are so contemptuous of those reports.

In short, the Kenyan police are a law unto themselves and they kill often and with impunity, except in those rare instances where their actions are caught on film or otherwise recorded by outsiders in ways that cannot be dismissed.

THE BROADER CONTEXT

The justification is often given, either by the police themselves or by others, that the failures of the justice system leave the police with no alternative but to administer ‘justice’ directly by executing those who they ‘know’ to be guilty and who, if arrested, would either never be prosecuted or, if charged, would be acquitted. It is equally true, however, that the police themselves are major beneficiaries of the stunning inadequacies of the Kenyan legal system.

In my final report I will explain in detail the shortcomings of the two key component parts of the criminal justice system apart from the police. They are the Office of the Attorney-General and the judiciary. While I was unable to meet with the attorney-general I did meet with the director of public prosecutions. The exchange, reproduced in full in the Waki Commission report, between Justice Waki and Attorney-General Amos Wako, provides a vivid illustration of the latter's role as the chief obstacle to prosecuting anyone in authority for extrajudicial executions. He has presided for a great many years over a system that is clearly bankrupt in relation to dealing with police killings and has done nothing to ensure that the system is reformed. Public statements lamenting the system's shortcomings have been utterly unsupported by any real action. In brief, Mr Wako is the embodiment in Kenya of the phenomenon of impunity.

The judiciary is the other stumbling block in achieving justice both in relation to accused criminals and to police accused of killing unlawfully. While the chief justice was of the view that the courts are fundamentally sound and that any problems of corruption are being adequately dealt with, this view was not shared by the vast majority of Kenyans with whom I spoke. I was told on innumerable occasions that ‘justice’ can be bought by approaching a magistrate's or judge's ‘broker’ and paying a sum to fix the case. The current Judicial Service Commission has done little to improve the judiciary. The broad concerns, embodied in the Waki Commission's approach and shared by almost all observers, that the existing court system could not conceivably bring justice in relation to post-election violence matters stands as an extraordinary indictment of the bankruptcy of the judicial system as it currently stands. In the medium term there appears to be no alternative but to institute a root and branch reform of the judiciary, perhaps through the establishment of a constitutional court which would seek to lead and constrain the rest of the system.

MT ELGON

The residents of Mt Elgon district were terrorised by the Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF) militia for approximately two years (2006–2008). The government did very little to protect civilians during this period, despite the fact that the SLDF was engaging in widespread sexual violence, beatings, torture, and murder. Over 700 killings and 120 disappearances by the SLDF have to date been documented. Residents were killed by the SLDF for a range of reasons, including for refusing to pay the SLDF's forced levy, or if they were believed to be ‘collaborating’ with the government. The Mt Elgon District Security Committee informed me that they sent monthly minutes to the Provincial Security Committee, asking for security reinforcements to counter the SLDF. Their requests were largely ignored. Local and international civil society and humanitarian organisations called for action against the SLDF. They were also ignored. Within Mt Elgon, police all too often looked the other way in exchange for payments from the SLDF. I have also obtained credible evidence from local residents and a range of other sources that politicians and other officials were directly involved in supporting and funding the SLDF.

The government finally launched a major joint military–police operation in March 2008. Detailed reports by a wide range of observers estimate that hundreds of men were tortured and killed in that operation by the government's security forces. The number of persons killed or disappeared is conservatively estimated at over 200. According to these reports and the witnesses to whom I spoke these abuses were not carried out by undisciplined military/police units, acting outside of their command structures. Rather, they were systematic and organised. With the assistance of local informants, police and military cordoned villages detained and frequently beat the male residents, and took them to one of several temporary military bases, the largest of which was Kapkota military camp. There, men were stripped, tortured and interrogated. They were screened before local informants. Those identified as SLDF were taken to the local police station and charged, the others were let go. Those who died as a result of being tortured were dumped in the forests or taken to local mortuaries. The security forces kept detailed records of this operation, and have records on all the 3,265 people detained, as well as extensive photographic evidence of the occurrences at Kapkota camp. My efforts to obtain these records have, not surprisingly, been unsuccessful to date.

These abuses were documented by various local, national and international organisations, including Western Kenya Human Rights Watch (WKHRW), the KNCHR, the Independent Medico-Legal Unit, Medecins Sans Frontières, and Human Rights Watch. When police officials were asked to respond to these allegations they asserted to me that these organisations were biased and their allegations unfounded because they only documented military/police abuses, and failed to document SLDF abuses. This claim is simply untrue. A further government response was to cite the results of the police inquiry into the Mt Elgon violence, which purported that the civil society and humanitarian organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, ‘lack investigation ability, mandate, expertise and capacity’. The report fails to substantiate this claim, and actually noted that an ICRC report required ‘further thorough inquiry’ because of its serious allegations of torture and extrajudicial executions. I have read the police inquiry report closely, and my team held an extensive meeting with its authors. The investigation they conducted was limited and superficial, and the resulting report is a whitewash.

In contrast to the police inquiry, a report prepared by the parliamentary committees on Administration and National Security, and Defence and Foreign Relations found that ‘there are cases of human rights abuses by the security forces’. It recommended that such cases be further investigated. Unfortunately, no action has been taken.

The chief of general staff denied that the military had any involvement in any torture or unlawful killings at Kapkota camp or elsewhere. Military officials acknowledged that they lawfully killed eight SLDF members in the course of operations conducted by the Alpha Companies of the First Kenya Rifles and of the 20 Para Battalion. In response to my query about military involvement in abuses, I was informed, first, that most civilians are not able to tell the difference between police and military officers during such operations because their uniforms are so similar. This is likely true for many civilians. The inability of victims to identify perpetrators has also been hindered by the apparent practice, confirmed to me by many witnesses and also by the district commissioner of Mt Elgon, of the security forces failing to wear or display any form of individual identification on their uniforms. Nevertheless, I was provided with credible information, including from citizen informants who worked directly with the military to capture the SLDF, that members of the army were involved in the torture.

The military also informed me of a case in which a person who made claims in the media and in court alleging torture by the military had subsequently retracted his allegation. If correct, this would be a vindication of the military in that particular case. There is, however, no basis upon which to extrapolate from a single case and draw the conclusion that all allegations against the military are unfounded. Military officials also suggested that witness accounts I have received of police/military abuses may be fabrications by SLDF sympathisers. Why so many people would fabricate such claims when the immediate likely outcome for them is intimidation by officials is unclear to me. In any event, I certainly spoke with those who had been SLDF members and sympathisers. From them, I obtained extensive information on the two years of abuses committed by the SLDF. But I also spoke with many people who were victims of SLDF violence, and who actually offered their services to the police and military to help track down the SLDF. These are not people with a pre-existing bias against the police or military. In fact, they wanted the security forces to come and protect them from the SLDF. But they did not want to be complicit in torture or have their relatives killed in the process.

In light of the sheer quantity and quality of the evidence of serious wrongdoing, the Mt Elgon events must be independently investigated. An independent and credible investigation cannot be conducted either by the police or the military. An independent commission, with powers and composition modelled on the Waki Commission, should be immediately established. Its purview should include investigating government officials' involvement in the SLDF, the reasons for the government's delayed response to SLDF abuses, the conduct of the joint police/military operation including whether human rights abuses were committed and by whom, and an accounting of the remaining missing persons. Until such an investigation is undertaken, the involvement of Kenyan troops in international peacekeeping operations will remain under a cloud. Kenya's bilateral partners should also be pushing more for a review of the military's role in these events.

In the forests of Mt Elgon there are mass graves and sites where bodies were simply dumped on the forest floor. It is likely that both victims of the SLDF and the military/police are contained in those sites. Government authorities have made no systematic attempts to protect these sites or have them examined by independent forensic experts. NGOs who have attempted to study the sites have received veiled threats and been prevented from doing so. The district commissioner for Mt Elgon assured me that future attempts to study those sites would not be obstructed.

Finally, before, during and after my visit to Western Province, witnesses and civil society representatives were intimidated, harassed and threatened by police, military, and government officers. Individuals were told not to speak with me about police/military abuses, and only to mention abuses by the SLDF. To back up this injunction, residents at one IDP [internally displaced persons] camp were threatened that the food aid upon which they depended would be jeopardised if they were critical of the military. A number of specifically targeted individuals (including Job Bwonya Wahdalia, Eric Wambasi, Eliud Siyoi Tendet, and Taiga Wanyanja, from the Western Kenya Human Rights Watch and Muratikho Torture Survivor's Organisation), have since had to flee the area. Their families and colleagues have been harassed as to their whereabouts. I sought written assurances from the government that this conduct will cease. In return I received an official letter which denies all of the allegations and gives rise to even graver concerns about reprisals than I had initially. This conduct constitutes a grave violation by the government of the relevant rules and a formal diplomatic protest note will be lodged. The matter will also be drawn to the attention of the Human Rights Council and the situation will be kept under very careful review in the months ahead.

POST-ELECTION VIOLENCE

The Waki Commission report demonstrates clearly the multiple levels at which the state bears responsibility for the over 1,100 killings that occurred in December 2007 and January 2008. First, government agencies failed to prevent or adequately prepare for violence that ought to have been anticipated. Second, high-ranking government officials were directly involved in inciting, funding and organising violence. Third, police were directly responsible for shooting demonstrators and others, especially in Nyanza Province.

The Waki Commission recommended the creation of a special tribunal to undertake trials at the national level, and failing that arrangements were made to involve the International Criminal Court (ICC). Debates to date have treated these approaches as mutually exclusive. In fact, they need not be. A special tribunal is absolutely indispensable if justice is to be done and if the appropriate lessons are to be learned before the next elections. An international tribunal cannot possibly achieve justice on a broad scale in this regard. Civil society and the international community have, however, been remarkably passive in response to opportunistic efforts by politicians with a clear vested interest in promoting impunity to undermine the steps required to create the special tribunal. The time has now come for these actors to take a much firmer line in affirming that impunity on such a scale cannot be tolerated.

By the same token, there are powerful reasons for the ICC also to become involved. The ICC would, appropriately, only try the ‘big fish’, but that too is an essential part of the follow-up to a series of incidents that came perilously close to seeing Kenya descend into the abyss of ethnic warfare. The ICC could move quickly. Comparisons to the time taken in Darfur are entirely misplaced. There is already an impressive array of evidence available, ICC investigators would be able to work effectively in Kenya, and if the court is not able to deal effectively with a situation in which well over one thousand people were killed in partly-planned violence, its standing will be undermined.

These conclusions were strongly underscored by my various meetings in the Rift Valley and Nyanza Provinces. I heard detailed evidence from those who had been the subject of police violence involving gratuitous or indiscriminate shooting, with little or no relevance to the exigencies of controlling rioters or looters. When I asked Rift Valley provincial level officials what investigations they had conducted into these events I was first told that no inquests into police conduct were opened because no complaints had been received. I was then told that some inquests had been opened, and that they would provide me the records. To date, I have not been provided this information. When I met with district level officials in Eldoret, I was again first told that there were no cases of police killings. Further questioning revealed that two officers have in fact been charged with murder.

In Kisumu, I attempted to obtain information from Nyanza provincial police officials on the progress of their investigations into the 82 cases they had recorded of those killed by bullet wounds during the PEV [post-election violence]. They could tell me nothing, beyond the basic fact that they had conducted investigations, and sent 60 files to the attorney-general for assessment. And yet when it came to evidence of the looting that occurred in Nyanza after the election results were announced, they were able to produce for me extensive documentation.

WITNESS PROTECTION

There is no real witness protection programme in Kenya. This is a key cause of impunity. Witnesses to crimes by police, politicians and other powerful actors receive death threats. Some are forced to go into hiding in Kenya, or to seek safety in another country. Some are ‘disappeared’. Some are gunned down in the streets. Witnesses know that speaking out poses a very real threat to their safety. Even high-profile members of civil society are not safe. An effective witness protection programme, one that is trusted by witnesses and is independent from the very officials against whom the witness is testifying, is essential in the fight against impunity. In the absence of such a programme, no accountability measures – whether they be with respect to investigations in Mt Elgon or the setting up of a special tribunal – will be effective.

COMPENSATION

Much attention is paid to remedies in criminal law for the many killings that have taken place. These are essential. But it is also important that the government fulfil its responsibility to provide full reparations, including compensation, to the families of deceased victims. Throughout Kenya, I met widows and children of victims. Many of them were unable to meet their basic needs in the absence of their husbands or fathers.

PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Official acknowledgement: The president of Kenya should publicly acknowledge the widespread problem of extrajudicial executions in Kenya and the need for sweeping reforms to the policing sector. His silence to date is both conspicuous and problematic. Any serious commitment to ending the impunity that currently reigns in relation to the widespread and systematic killings by the police should begin with the immediate dismissal of the police commissioner. In the absence of such a step it will be impossible to conclude that there is a strong commitment at the very top to deal with this problem.

2. Orders: Clear orders should be provided to all members of the security forces that under no circumstances will unlawful killings by the law enforcement or security forces be tolerated.

3. External police oversight: A truly independent civilian police oversight body with sufficient resources and power to investigate and institute prosecutions against police responsible for abuses should be established, in line with Waki Commission recommendation for the police.

4. Recording of police killings: The records of police killings should be centralised at police headquarters in Nairobi. All police stations should be required to report such cases to headquarters as soon as they occur. The complete statistics of police killings should be made public by the police headquarters on a monthly basis, and the past records of police killings should be made publicly accessible.

5. Office of the Attorney-General: The resignation of the attorney-general is an essential first step to restoring the integrity of the office and ending its role in promoting impunity in Kenya. In order to ensure independent prosecutions, the prosecutorial powers held by the attorney-general should be removed, and an independent Department of Public Prosecutions created.

6. ICC and special tribunal: The government of Kenya should establish a constitutionally entrenched special tribunal, as recommended by the Waki Commission. In the meantime, the prosecutor of the ICC should immediately undertake, of his own volition, an investigation into the commission of crimes against humanity by certain individuals in the aftermath of the 2007 elections.

7. Police vetting: As part of an overall strategy to improve the police, across-the-board vetting of the current police force is necessary. This would need to be part of a comprehensive reform of the police, along the lines recommended by the Waki Commission and as reflected in Agenda 4. Those initiatives should not be held hostage to the debates over the special tribunal.

8. Independent commission for Mt Elgon: The government should immediately act to set up an independent commission for Mt Elgon, modelled on the Waki Commission, to investigate human rights abuses from 2005 to 2008.

9. Witness protection: The essential role of witness protection in countering impunity should be recognised. A well-funded witness protection programme independent from the security forces and from the attorney-general should be established as a matter of urgency.

10. Kenya National Commission on Human Rights: The reports of the KNCHR should be tabled in parliament as soon as practicable after they are presented by the KNCHR to the minister for justice. The government should provide an official and substantive response to all KNCHR reports.

11. Compensation: The government of Kenya should ensure that compensation is provided to the families of the victims of those unlawfully killed by police and other security forces.

* Philip Alston is the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and a professor at the New York University School of Law.
* This article comprises Alston’s press statement following his February visit to Kenya under the auspices of the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Kenyans want an end to impunity and corruption

Maina Kiai

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/54569

cc Tom MarukoWith Kenya continuing its recovery from its post-2008 election crisis, Maina Kiai asks whether the country’s political class has learnt its lessons or whether there has simply been a return to ‘business as usual’. Arguing for the strengths of the accountability mechanism set out in the Waki Report, Kiai suggests that the challenge remains to direct civil dissatisfaction and the momentum for change around Kenyan politics in a positive way representative of all Kenyans.
When the violence following Kenya’s flawed presidential elections of 27 December 2007 resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people and the displacement of more than 300,000 within a month, the country’s political fragility was exposed for all to see. The sectarian, ethnic and political polarisation that Kenya’s leaders had previously glossed over – hoping that the issues would resolve themselves or just disappear – was dramatically revealed to the world.

How has Kenya fared since then? Has it learnt the lessons or has it reverted to business as usual?

Sadly, the facts so far suggest that the morbid flirtation of the Kenyan political class with violence and chaos continues unabated, and that the lessons from the crisis seem to have been forgotten. The cocktail of impunity, corruption, self-serving leadership and negative ethnicity seems to have intoxicated the political class once again.

The road map resulting from the mediation of former-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan provided an in-depth process for a new democratic Kenya, but with one serious flaw: the permanent, rather than transitional, nature of the coalition government.

A transitional, time-bound coalition government would have forced a sense of urgency to reform and address the underlying issues before facing an electorate with memories of the crisis still fresh. Without this, the political class has reverted to its customary arrogance, working contrary to the public interest.

The road map led to both the Kriegler Report, which focused on the conduct of the elections that triggered the political crisis, and the Waki Report, on the post-election violence. Of the two, Waki’s is more significant for its boldness, thoroughness and creativity, especially in its recommendations. The Kriegler Report stopped short of looking into manipulation of the election results – a ‘see no evil’ approach that encouraged members of the Electoral Commission of Kenya to assert that its findings of incompetence against them were not sufficient cause for their resignation.

The genius of the Waki Report was that it did not give the political class a role in implementing its recommendations on the personal accountability of those with the greatest responsibility for the violence. Waki recommended that a special tribunal with significant international participation be set up to investigate, prosecute and judge, and it mandated a specific time frame for it to be formed. If the tribunal were not established, Kofi Annan was directed to hand over the report’s damning evidence to the International Criminal Court to take over the accountability process. This mechanism was formal recognition of the fact that Kenyan institutions, especially the criminal justice system, are broken and cannot, as established, be useful in the fight against impunity in Kenya.

Naturally, the political class, with support from ‘rent an analyst’ commentators, attempted to reject and misrepresent the Waki Report. But the level of support from Kenyans and the international community for Waki’s recommendations has been strong and unwavering, and that could be the straw that finally breaks the back of the camel of impunity.

The vast majority of ordinary Kenyans want a break with the past. Notwithstanding their ethnic or political affiliation, Kenyans are united on issues that really matter. They want a government that does not waste resources on opulence and ostentation, they want leaders who pay taxes and who earn salaries that make sense in Kenya’s economic reality, and they want an end to corruption, impunity and negative ethnicity.

The challenge now is how to harness this readiness for change (and anger at the political class) into avenues that are peaceful, effective and positive for Kenya. Kenyans have been motivated and fascinated by the rise to power of Barack Obama, whom they see as one of their own, and whose style and substance is so vastly different from the leaders they are used to. If the cards line up as they should, and if the organisation and hard work needed to channel the anger and frustrations of Kenyans are done well, then maybe, just maybe, there will yet be a silver lining to the dark cloud of the 2008 crisis.

* Maina Kiai is the former chair of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights. This article was originally published by The Africa Report.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Grand corruption is a crime against humanity

Gabriel Dolan

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/54572

cc Flickr.comHighlighting the importance of taking action on acts of large-scale theft and economic abuse, Gabriel Dolan argues that while corruption is certainly not restricted to the African continent, it is perhaps more apparent in the striking inequalities to be found between self-interested socio-political elites and impoverished masses. Criticising the tendency of human rights investigations to gloss over the role of social injustice and economic crimes in fuelling impunity and perpetuating corruption, Dolan states that Kenya’s Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) should fully acknowledge the plundering of the country’s resources by certain figures and ensure that recovered wealth is redistributed in the form of reparations for victims. With a view to enabling greater funding for educational initiatives, the author contends that the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) should throw its weight behind a campaign to have grand corruption recognised as a crime against humanity.
Three weeks ago the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced that they had discontinued an investigation into the US$750 million Anglo Leasing scandal fraud scandal. They cited the failure of Attorney General Amos Wako to cooperate with their inquiries and his reluctance to provide evidence as reasons for their withdrawal.

We could momentarily sympathise with the SFO in their frustration. That is until we recall that Prime Minister Tony Blair also halted their investigations in 2006 into the corruption scandal between Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia and British arms giant British Aerospace (BAE). Millions of dollars were paid by the Department of Defence as backhanders to the Saudi prince as part of a US$70 billion arms deal. Blair announced in parliament that investigations would have harmed the national interest.

There is a familiar ring about that pronouncement. Corruption is found everywhere and the African continent certainly does not have a monopoly on the vice. What is particular, however, about Kenyan corruption is that we can easily find a nexus between the rampant corruption and the endemic poverty, hardships and sufferings that most of our citizens are subjected to. Ours is not a poor country but one that has been impoverished by organised political theft. Without doubt there is a close relationship between the plunder of the nation and the pain of our brothers and sisters. That is what makes it so grotesque and enraging.

When families spend their lives in 10 x 10 feet rooms and take three weeks to raise funds to bury their loved ones; when your neighbours are deprived of antiretroviral treatment (ART) because of unaccounted billions from the Global Fund for Aids; when casual workers earn Sh300 for 14-hour days and spend two bob to watch the evening news relay how the grand coalition has robbed them today, then you know that grand corruption is a crime against humanity. When hundreds of thousands cannot access secondary education and the majority are condemned to an early grave then you know the heavens cry out for justice.

Believe it or not, Kiraitu Murungi was the first to declare that grand corruption was a crime against humanity. The venue was Seoul, South Korea, and the year 2003. That was just one year before the exposure on the Anglo Leasing scandal, three years before the John Githongo tapes, and long before the Triton Sh7.6 billion scandal.

Shamefully the Rome Statue does not define grand corruption as a crime against humanity. Primacy is given to civil and political rights in a hierarchal ladder of rights. Transitional justice therefore gives attention to traditional human rights abuses and leaves social injustice to the post-transitional reform era. This is shown by the fact that of 34 truth commissions held around the world between 1974 and 2005, only three recognised the intrinsic link between human rights violations and economic crimes. Yet corruption feeds and funds impunity and that is why despotic regimes have been both brutal and corrupt.

This fact was acknowledged by the East Timor Truth Commission, which calculated that 84,200 of the 102,800 victims in the country died of hunger and illness rather than being killed outright or forcefully disappeared during the Indonesian occupation. Should our own Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) not do a similar audit and count the number of victims who have died of hunger, poverty and the neglect caused by the looting of the nation’s wealth?

This requires that the commission provide an accurate and complete list of plunderers, data on the wealth amassed and make recommendations for recovering the looted wealth. In the process the commission must ensure that recovered wealth is used for reparations for victims, and rebuilding the nation. Article 79 of the Rome Statue states that victims can obtain reparations from the Trust Fund for Victims and allows for the forfeiture of proceeds, property and assets derived directly from crimes.

The TJRC could start by revisiting the Kroll Report, which gives accurate information on how Sh13 billion was looted and invested in banks and property in 28 countries. The Ndungu Report is another reliable source. Kenya Land Alliance has shown how 1,189 acres of Karura Forest lost the treasury Sh8 billion, while it would cost a mere Sh7.5 billion to employ the required 33,000 primary teachers in the nation’s primary schools.

Last week the head of state told us of plans to build 560 secondary schools before 2012. All of them could be completed with the Sh7.6 billion looted in the oil scandal. That money must be recovered, or will investigations be dropped and amnesty granted after another Damascus-like conversion by Bro ‘Peter’ Devani?

Perhaps most of us are not aware that the first revision of the ICC statute will take place this year. Would it not be appropriate that our national human rights commission, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), move a motion and campaign to have Article 7 amended to include grand corruption as a crime against humanity?

In Article 7 (i) (k) we are given the elements needed to prove a crime against humanity. These include when a perpetrator has inflicted great suffering or serious injury while being aware of the circumstances and acting in a systematic manner against civilians, all the while knowing the link between his crime and its consequences. In the case of grand corruption, all of these elements are met.

The Waki envelope contains one list of perpetrators of crimes against humanity. If the ICC statute is amended to include corruption as a crime against humanity, we could in the not-too-distant future be sending another list of names off to the ICC prosecutors. Do not be surprised, then, to discover that several names will appear on both lists.

* Father Gabriel Dolan is a human rights activist with Nairobi’s Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (CJPC).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Why does Kenya have a police force?

Police reforms needed to safeguard human rights

Mars Group

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/54580

cc DEMOSHStatistics on disappearances, petty corruption and killings all point to a Kenyan police force in need of reform, the Mars Group contends. Emphasising events during the 2007–08 post-election violence together with the fact that perpetrators have yet to be brought to trial, the authors underline the myriad inadequacies continuing to plague Kenya’s police. If the fundamental human rights of Kenyan citizens are to be upheld, the rule of law must prevail and for this, the Mars Group maintains, police reform must be a key priority.
All suspects were released last evening on a free bond. However, they are to report back to the Muthaiga police station on Tuesday and may face charges of being members of Mungiki. We believe this is a bogus frame-up of a case. Shame…

The Partnership for Change is alarmed by the number of arrests being made by the Kenyan police force of peaceful Kenyans when they are simply going about their daily business or exercising their fundamental human rights to petition government and to demand for the full implementation of the National Accord. Even today, George Nyongesa of Bunge La Mwananchi reports that Gacheke Gachihi – a Bunge la Mwananchi network leader in Huruma – was arrested along with 20 other people in a tea kiosk in Kiamaiko while having Sunday breakfast. Even the owner of the kiosk, Joel Kimani, was arrested. The police are now holding all of them at Muthaiga police station and they are to be charged tomorrow at Makadara Criminal Courts for membership of an unlawful movement, the Mkenya Solidarity Movement. This is a bogus charge because, first of all, the Mkenya Solidarity Movement is a registered political party headed by former MP G.G. Kariuki, and, second, none of the people arrested are members of it. They were having tea in a kiosk which was raided by the police. Apparently, they could have bought their freedom but, being poor, did not have the thirty thousand shillings they were each asked for.

These arrests indicate how derelict the government is in implementing agenda one of the National Accord, which requires the government to take immediate steps to restore civil and political liberties, including the freedom of expression and assembly. The minister for justice, Martha Karua, herself said at the Kenya We Want Conference that the backlog of cases in the judiciary is over 870,000. Is it right that the government should continue arresting peaceful Kenyans who are calling out for justice? Is it right that the police are carrying out swoop arrests, possibly for extortionate purposes?

The arrests remind all that there is still an unrepentant dictatorial police force operating in Kenya, quite out of step with the letter, intent and spirit of agenda one of the National Accord. At its head is Major General Hussein Ali who, as the police commissioner and very first witness to testify before the Waki Commission of Inquiry into the Post-Election Violence (CIPEV), said when asked by Justice Waki for his honest opinion on the police force’s actions and whether he had reflected on any possible acts or omissions by the Kenyan police during the two-month period that violence raged across Kenya, ‘I would do exactly what I did. I would not change a thing my Lords, and that is the honest truth.’

Clearly Major General Ali has no apologies to make to the victims of police bloodlust or to the Kenyan public for the use of deadly force against civilians in such circumstances as to suggest crimes against humanity. His unrepentant hard-line attitude and complete lack of empathy for the victims of his force’s excesses raises questions as to his suitability for the position he holds. And yet, he is still in office one year after the post-election violence, a major stumbling block and obstacle to the implementation of the Waki Commission’s report for reform of the police force. His tenure threatens the enjoyment of civil liberties in Kenya, and Kenyans lack confidence in his ability to ensure that the police force facilitates rather than inhibits civil liberties.

Since the signing of the National Accord one year ago the Kenyan press has carried over 1,000 articles on police brutality. The Oscar Foundation has documented 68 enforced disappearances after police arrests in 2009, and 122 extra judicial killings since 1 January 2009. Cumulatively, since 2007, the Oscar Foundation recorded 6,452 enforced disappearances, and 1,721 extra judicial killings by police officers. Its reports are derived from monitoring police activity and conducting a paralegal programme in major urban areas around Kenya. The state Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, the Independent Medico Legal Unit and the Release Political Prisoners pressure group carried out similar reports. These issues are the subject of questions in Kenya’s National Assembly, and have helped stimulate a recent enquiry by the United Nations special rapporteur Philip Alston on extra judicial killings. Despite all the evidence – one year after the National Accord and four months after the publication of the Waki–CIPEV report – police reform and personnel change have not started. Less than 10 police officers have been brought to account for the crimes described in this paragraph.

INTERNAL SECURITY FAILURE

Justice Waki’s Commission charged the police force with ‘failure’ in concert with its other internal security counterparts, the Provincial Administration and the Administration Police. Their collective failure to act on intelligence reports contributed to the violence. Justice Waki also condemns ‘indifferent’ state agencies such as the National Social Security Intelligence (NSIS), which possessed knowledge that apparently was not properly shared. Finally, the Waki–CIPEV report concludes that the effectiveness of the Kenyan police and the Administration Police was hampered by, inter alia, ‘political expediency’.

The report, which President Kibaki made public, recommends changes to the inter-agency coordination and joint operation structures of the Kenyan internal security apparatus. Among these are the merging of the Kenyan police with the Administration Police and the establishment of an independent police authority.

A FREE-FOR-ALL SITUATION

The post-election violence was not merely citizen-to-citizen attacks. It also consisted of systematic attacks against Kenyans based on ethnicity and political persuasion. The ability of the state’s internal security apparatus to protect Kenyans from violence is harshly questioned, and the CIPEV took note of the fact that in some cases attackers travelled long distances, unhindered, to attack their victims. The ‘free-for-all’ was made possible by the collapse of state security, which saw the police overwhelmed. This conclusion by Justice Waki must surely put the police commissioner, Major General Hussein Ali, on the spot. The CIPEV report also accused some state agents of being ‘guilty of acts of violence and in our finding in broad violation of the human rights of citizens’ and states that such were the results of a trend towards institutionalising violence against the public. It also stated that 1,133 Kenyans were killed (405 by gunshot wounds) during the two-month period.

The Waki report is clear as regards the conduct of state security agencies. They failed institutionally to anticipate, prepare for and contain the violence. Often individual members of the state security agencies were also guilty of acts of violence and gross violations of the human rights of citizens, including rape and murder.

WAKI RECOMMENDED A SPECIAL TRIBUNAL FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY

Justice Waki’s commission identifies Kenya’s constitutional framework as a causative factor in the 2007–08 violence, repeatedly raising the stakes in election after election with ethnic coalitions confronting each other. The commission specifically identified the concentration of power around the presidency as a contributing factor to the violence of 2007–08, and the flashpoint for what became an ethno-geographical power struggle between the Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) after the contentious announcement by the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) of Kibaki’s re-election.

In previous episodes of political violence (since the 1990s) militias have been active. Since the last episodes of violence in 2002, many such militias appear not to have been demobilised. In 2007 and early 2008, the militias were reactivated by ‘politicians and business leaders’ who tried to use violence to win the power struggle that followed the 2007 election announcement.

According to Justice Waki, CIPEV obtained evidence identifying prominent sponsors and perpetrators of violence (‘in politics, in government, in business and elsewhere’) and devised a means of anticipating and dealing with the problem of political impunity in Kenya, and the need to secure real witness protection for informants. The commission has recommended the creation of a special tribunal with a mandate to try persons for crimes against humanity committed during the post-election period.

To safeguard against political vested interests in Kenya, the CIPEV has recommended that the tribunal should have international members, as well as international prosecution and investigation staff. It expects that the proposed ‘Special Tribunal for Kenya’ will be set up in Kenya as a court and will try those with the greatest responsibility for crimes against humanity. Kenyans want to see the special tribunal start its work to root out the killers in our midst, and to end their impunity.

NON-PROSECUTION AMOUNTS TO CONTINUING HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

CIPEV completed its investigation into politically-motivated violence four months ago with a stinging indictment of institutional failure and complicity of Kenya’s internal security apparatus in gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity. The events it was investigating took place more than one year ago, and yet there have been no indictments of any of the main actors behind the post-election violence. Justice for victims has taken a back seat.

The commission’s report, delivered to the president of Kenya, charges that Kenyan security agencies ‘failed institutionally’ to contain and prevent the violence. Justice Waki also presented the final report to the Kofi Annan-led Panel of Eminent African Persons.

The names of the persons bearing the greatest responsibility for financing, organising or perpetrating the violence were placed in a sealed envelope and given to Kofi Annan pending establishment of the special tribunal for Kenya, which is expected to try those named. However, parliament appears to have failed in its first attempt to establish the special tribunal in Kenya, and Dr Annan now has to exercise his judgement and discretion as to how to proceed in ensuring that the Waki suspects are brought to justice as soon as possible. The Panel of Eminent African Personalities may decide to send the names of those bearing the greatest responsibility for crimes against humanity to the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor for investigation now that parliament has rejected the constitutional amendment bill that was to establish the special tribunal.

GRAND COALITION GOVERNMENT UNWILLING TO KEEP NATIONAL ACCORD PROMISE

Processions over the lack of food are not illegal as the people who are demonstrating speak on behalf of the many Kenyans going hungry today. It is ridiculous to see the kind of treatment the government is meting out to the defenders of fundamental human rights, rights such as the right to food and other very basic commodities essential to protecting the poor and hungry from starvation, starvation caused by an irresponsible government and corrupt members of parliament.

This government, through its law enforcement officers, has demonstrated that it is unable to handle the governance issues that it is responsible for creating and that it should step aside and pave the way for fresh elections to be held in order to offer alternative leadership for the country.

POLICEMEN AND POLICEWOMEN ARE OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS

By and large, the Partnership for Change recognises that most police officers are good, decent and honest Kenyans with a sense of public mission. Although Kenyans do not condone corruption, we know the poor pay and living conditions most police officers endure (as they do what can be dangerous work) exposes them to the temptation to engage in survival corruption, a temptation many succumb to. If the government were to use public funds properly, it would be possible to address the livelihoods of police officers. However, the real problem in the police force is at the top. Just like every other public institution in Kenya, the police force is in need of an immediate overhaul. Kenyans will have no confidence in the promises made under the National Accord if the people responsible for, or at the helm of, the force that gunned down and disappeared so many innocent Kenyans remain in office.

The citizens of Kenya must say no to dictatorial impunity in favour of democratic accountability. The rule of law must prevail in Kenya.

* Mars Group Kenya is a leadership, governance, accountability and media watchdog organisation.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Ruminations on President Obama's tenure and ‘acceptable punditry’

Cynthia McKinney

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/54577

cc Flickr.comCynthia McKinney, the 2008 Green Party US presidential nominee, calls for a ‘good dose of reality’ when evaluating the Obama administration’s first weeks in office. Lamenting the administration’s willingness to pull out of the ‘Durban II’ UN World Conference Against Racism in Geneva in April over concerns of potential anti-Semitism, McKinney argues that the conference represents a genuine opportunity for the US president to effectively engage with the plight of the world’s marginalised people.
I have played around with this idea for hours now, on whether or not to write this piece. But the events of the last few hours, I believe, mandate that I raise my voice once again.

I have read and re-read President Obama's Joint Congressional Address. All of the ‘acceptable punditry’ have spoken and given the president glowing reviews. And so, to them and the population that still believes in them, ‘All is right with the world.’ But for the rest of us, who refuse to swallow the pill that puts us into the Matrix, a good dose of reality is strongly called for.

But reality is not what we're getting, not even from one of the national columnists whom I've met, Maureen Dowd.

I think Maureen Dowd characterised it as ‘Spock at the Bridge’. Now, being the Trekkie that I am, that headline grabbed my attention. I nearly gagged, however, when I got to the line supposedly from President Obama calling President Bush to proclaim, ‘I’m ending your stupid war. Mission relinquished.’

Why write things like this now that it is clear that the Obama administration is continuing Bush’s policies for missile strikes inside Pakistan, torture, rendition for torture, public release of Bush administration emails, illegal wiretaps, status of prisoners at the US base in Bagram, Afghanistan, and workplace immigration raids?

For the record, President Obama is also pursuing Bush policies on Iran and Israel. As recently as yesterday, President Obama's chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, responded when asked whether Iran was capable of building an atom bomb. Admiral Mullen replied, ‘We think they [are], quite frankly.’

Dowd concludes her ‘Spock’ piece by imbuing the president with ‘a Vulcan-like logic and detachment’. But I think the detachment of ‘acceptable’ political punditry from the real world is what is totally lamentable. In the process, they render themselves irrelevant.

So, it's clear. I'm about to step into marshy soil here, by noting that I found 19 questionable Obama policies or statements in his Joint Congressional speech delivered three days before his announcement that upon the end of the US combat mission in Iraq, up to 50,000 US troops could remain through 2011, after the ‘pullout’.

And while various ‘mint’ operations are peddling Obama ‘Change’ coins for purchase, complete with a certificate of authenticity, I wade further into the muck by noting that the president continues the giveaway of our hard-earned coins to an economic team intent on keeping mismanagement structures in place and serving economic ends that do not constitute the common good. I would refer readers to the many statements that I issued during the final days of our Power to the People Green Party presidential campaign about re-creating an economic system truly and finally owned by the people, which operates in our interest. It is possible to do that. All it requires is enough political will.

But what forces me out into the open marshland of ‘non-mainstream’ political punditry has to do with the latest Obama ‘pullout’: the decision to withdraw from the April 2009 Geneva United Nations World Conference Against Racism, dubbed ‘Durban II’.

We heard the same palaver in 2001 from the same forces inside our country, basically that a discussion of Zionism, in the context of such a conference, would be anti-Semitic. Following this logic, all the world's dispossessed and marginalised people must continue to suffer and sacrifice while muting their grievances so that no discussion of Israel would take place on the world stage in this context.

Well, in 2001, upon hearing this line of reasoning, I went to the then Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) chairperson, Eddie Bernice Johnson, and asked if I could be appointed as the CBC task force chair on Durban. The non-participation argument was also a handy ‘peg on the track’ with the potential of derailing many conversations, including a real discussion about the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the issue of reparations. Respectful of the excellent preparatory work that had been done, I wanted to avoid that outcome.

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson made the appointment and I led a delegation of five members of Congress to Durban.

The current chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Barbara Lee, was a member of my delegation to Durban. From my position on the International Relations Committee, we successfully argued for US participation in that conference at a hearing designed to quash our effort. We not only met with then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, we also presented her with the untold story of COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) and the remaining unsolved deaths of its Black Panther Party member victims, commissioned by me and written by Kathleen Cleaver and Paul Wolf.

Our CBC chair made a beautiful statement of why it was imperative that the United States join with our Native American and latino brothers and sisters and with oppressed peoples all over the planet and not only make our statement of solidarity, but also institute policies at the congress that recognised their needs. It is incorrect to say that the United States was not present at Durban. We were there and only when the duties of congress pressed us to return to Washington, D.C., did the Bush administration make a big deal about anti-Semitism and then staged its phoney walk out. The United States delegation of Congressional Black Caucus Members was there to support the phenomenal work of US activists and the African and Caribbean delegations, in particular. I think everyone in Durban was moved by the plight of the Dalits in India and understood better the surging political power of Afro-Latinos.

Durban was a clear victory for the world's marginalised peoples, including those of us who reside inside the United States. But, when the congressional delegation returned to the US, there was no time for celebration because the tragedy of September 11 2001 unfolded.

What has happened in the interim has devastated the very people that Durban was designed to address, unfortunately, much of it due to US policy. Now is not the time for the United States to shrink from this call.

In order to prevail in Durban, I had to go toe to toe with the Anti-Defamation League and Members of Congress Tom Lantos and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen who, among many other members of congress, vociferously denounced Durban. This was something that I did because I felt it was the right thing to do. Given Israel's recent actions in Gaza that have brought upon it the world's opprobrium, I can imagine that this is the last point in time that Israel might want to revisit Durban. Israel has said that it will not attend the conference in Geneva.

Early last year, a government official announced Canada's decision to not attend Durban II after deeming the conference to be anti-Israel. Shortly afterwards, France followed suit with French President Nicolas Sarkozy stating that the ‘excesses of 2001’ transformed the conference ‘into an intolerable platform against the State of Israel’. I would note also that France must be particularly loath to discuss racism now with what is happening in Guadeloupe and Martinique as I write this piece. And remembering that Paris, itself, was literally on fire just a few years ago.

The UK, which has been under severe racial tests with Asians rebelling openly in the streets since Durban 2001, and the Netherlands have both threatened to withdraw their support for the conference if a ‘negative spiral’ of events takes place. Interestingly, these remarks came at the same time as the release of a European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance report which found that the tone of Dutch political and public debate on immigrant integration, racism, and other issues relevant to ethnic minorities, had experienced a ‘dramatic deterioration’.

So, we shouldn't be surprised that the racism stress test is revealing cracks and fissures in human relations. But the United States and President Obama should not shield them or this country from these stresses. This conference gives us the opportunity to get the issues out in the open and to deal with them. That's the way to put them to an end. The world might have changed because of events occurring in September 2001, but it wasn't because the United Nations successfully convened the World Conference Against Racism.

And now that I am as completely in the middle of the marsh as I was when my boat was rammed by the Israelis while I was in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea, let me make an observation about one aspect of marshes. I have witnessed the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets on the Savannah, Georgia, marshland. And the most beautiful rainbows. Being away from the glass and concrete can give one a better perspective.

I observed last year that I thought US voters went to the polls in large numbers to try and regain a bit of dignity lost during the eight years of outright banditry played out in our names, with our resources and against our interests. But I was reminded at the recently adjourned Transpartisan Alliance convention in Colorado that dignity will not come without first an acknowledgment of the truth. With truth we can have justice, and with justice we can have peace, and it is only with peace that we can truly have dignity. Something as easy as a vote, alone, is not going to be enough to wrest us from this mess that has been wrought.

On the morning of 4 March, I sent the following message to the White House:

‘Mr. President, it was with great disappointment that I read of your decision to pull out of Durban II. Even the Bush Administration, under pressure from the Congressional Black Caucus, provided some funding for the United Nations effort and sent staff to support the Congressional delegation that attended the Conference. I was there. I was head of the Congressional Black Caucus Task Force that negotiated Congressional and Administration engagement on this issue. There is still time for the US to participate. Your decision is not irrevocable. I would encourage you to please reconsider this decision and not only attend the Conference, but also provide funding to ensure its success.’

I implore the Members of the Congressional Black Caucus to spearhead the participation of the United States in the United Nation's World Conference Against Racism, to boldly go where we have gone before. Dr Martin Luther King reminded us that ‘the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.’ On this issue, President Obama has shown us his measure. I hope that the Congressional Black Caucus and the Progressive Caucus and the Democratic Caucus can show us, oh, so much more.

* Cynthia McKinney is a former United States representative and was the 2008 Green Party nominee for president of the United States.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Mothers should not die giving life

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/54573

cc Pierre HoltzReflecting on some of the troublesome statistics around maternal mortality for sub-Saharan Africa, Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem urges greater support for the continent’s women. Arguing that these statistics need to be humanised to fully illuminate their severity, Abdul-Raheem laments the lottery of geographical proximity in determining people’s access to effective healthcare, along with the tendency of the politically powerful to wholly ignore the needs of their citizens. Stressing that a bleak statistical picture is far more reflective of deficiencies in policy than an absence of resources, the author invites readers to join the UN’s Millennium Campaign.
The United Nations Millennium Campaign is launching a report this week on maternal mortality to coincide with International Women’s Day on 8 March. We are also joining with various national partners, UN agencies and governments in various countries across Africa in a month-long series of activities designed to draw attention to the alarming number of women who continue to die while giving birth or as a result of complications of pregnancies. Many of these deaths are preventable and their prevention is not costly in human and material terms to the families involved or society in general.

The paradox of the situation is that millions of children in Asia and Africa now have a better chance of living beyond the age of five. If more children are living, why are their mothers dying in such scandalous numbers? Who is going to nurture and care for these children with improved chances of living beyond the age of five, facilitating their universal access to education and greater opportunities beyond 2015?

Official statistics reveal a shocking trend of mothers dying in circumstances that are preventable. Despite the fact that some countries have invested in the provision of basic healthcare, in developing countries only 35 per cent of births are attended by skilled health workers.

In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman has a one in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth, compared to a one in 4,000 risk in a developed country. More than half a million women die in pregnancy and childbirth every year, and of these deaths, 99 per cent are in developing countries. Neonatal mortality accounts for almost 40 per cent of the estimated 9.7 million deaths of children under-five and for nearly 60 per cent of infant (under-one) deaths.

Niger is one of the poorest countries in Africa and the most dangerous place to give birth with women facing an astonishing one in seven chance of dying. Nigeria for its part makes up 2 per cent of the world’s population, but accounts for 10 per cent of its maternal deaths.

While statistics can educate and raise awareness, they remain statistics. We do not see human beings in them. Until they are humanised, we may not feel their impact directly.

I have been banging on about MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) for quite some time now. But it hit me directly recently. A young sister of mine, Asmau (better known as Talatua) aged 33, died two hours after delivering her second child, a boy, whom she never held.

Asmau was not an illiterate woman. She was a senior science teacher, while her husband is a college principal. Both fall far beyond the so called ‘ordinary man and woman’, as their income could ‘buy’ them better access to health facilities. My sister died in a ‘private’ clinic, one of many that have mushroomed in response to the crisis in the public health sector. Most of these ‘private’ clinics are owned by doctors and other medical staff ‘working’ in the public sector. So really the only dividing line between public and private is the ‘extra’ money that those who can afford pay in order to buy themselves extra care and time of overworked public professionals.

But it is all a game of chance because many of these ‘private’ clinics do not have the requisite facilities and often fallback on the privatised sections of public facilities. So the closer one is to better public hospitals and other medical establishments like dedicated gynaecological, paediatric and other specialist hospitals like teaching hospitals, the better are one’s chances of buying off a slice of the public service for one’s health. Consequently, regardless of your economic status, your access to better public or private health facilities is predetermined by location. If you are closer to the big cities, your chances are better.

In a continent where most of our peoples still live in rural areas, it is highly precarious that the health and lifespan of mothers and other citizens are based on such a random selection. It means that the majority of our peoples is condemned to inferior access to good medical facilities. Even in the capital cities, your residential area and economic wellbeing condition your access.

Our people try to cope with every calamity, many of them avoidable, preventable and human-made, by insisting that ‘it is God’s will’. Since God does not protest and has no instant rebuttal department, everything can be blamed on him.

It is not God’s will that children should be brought up without their mothers. It is the way in which we plan our society that leads to women being penalised for doing what is natural to womanhood.

It is unacceptable that governments that can find money for unjust wars, the private security of presidents and their wife, wives or concubines – not to even talk of ministers and other state officials – while ignoring the far greater needs of their citizens for these services. It is not about lack of resources, but lack of people-friendly public priorities. If the minister of health of a country goes abroad on the flimsiest of health reasons and the minister of education does not have any of his or her children in the educational services his or her ministry is providing, why should the public trust the services?

It is not possible for the majority of a country’s citizens to privatise their way out of public services, whether in health or education. Therefore citizens’ pressure must be placed on governments so that public policy responds positively towards the better provision of these services. Enough is enough!

While citizens must stand up and speak out to draw attention to the alarming number of women who continue to die while giving birth, governments in turn must develop national action plans for the reduction of maternal mortality that adopt a human rights approach supported by strong institutions, funding and accountability mechanisms. Special attention should be given to marginalised groups in health system strategies, and all efforts should be made to guarantee the meaningful participation of women and communities in the designing, development, implementation and monitoring of programmes and policies to combat maternal deaths.

Most importantly, developing innovative strategies to rapidly increase access to skilled health workers for emergency obstetric care and comprehensive reproductive health services – including the expansion of responsibilities (and corresponding enhanced compensation) and greatly increased numbers of nurses, midwives and non-physician clinicians – is one of the few ways in which governments can demonstrate political will aimed at reducing the alarming maternity mortality rates.

It is not morally or politically right and it cannot be acceptable that mothers die giving life. In memory of my mother who sacrificed everything for her ‘first child’ and other children, my grandmother who nurtured and loved me unconditionally, my great-grandmother whom I was privileged to know, my eight sisters who are now reduced to seven because of Asmau’s untimely death, and in honour of my two wonderful daughters, Aida and Ayesha and their mum, Mounira, and my numerous nieces, women cousins, sisters-in-law and all women, I have pledged myself to support the ‘Piga Debe’ campaign (‘to make noise’ or ‘to shout’ in Swahili) on women’s rights of the United Nations Millennium Campaign, with a particular focus on maternal health.

Mothers should not be dying giving life. Enough is enough, join the ‘Piga Debe’ campaign.

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the deputy director of the United Nations Millennium Campaign.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

The end of the capitalist error in east Africa?

Ronald Elly Wanda

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/54581

At the beginning of last year, whilst at a send-off party in London for a Ugandan friend who worked for Citigroup bank in New York, I remember a Morgan Stanley employee, so tipsy yet confident of his abilities and apparent access to capital, bragging that he would one day buy the Central Bank of Uganda. ‘This lot are mismanaging the tills in Uganda. I am going to sort these guys out!’ proclaimed the chubby banker amidst some hilarity. At that time the conversations revolved almost entirely on how good the times were.

On the eve of 2009, meeting the same east African expatriates in London, the mood is suddenly sombre and nervous. You can almost smell the fear. Collapse, catastrophe and calamity this time round seemed to dominate all subjects financial.

Recently, I was at Parker Macmillan’s in Barbican, where well-to-do east Africans in the diaspora were busy boozing under the auspices of celebrating all things Bantu. Amidst the sizzling passions and ostentations on display of the most striking legs in the diaspora, the question ‘will we survive?’ somehow managed to occupy centre stage. One Kenyan banker recently made redundant by the situation summed up the mood to me using Nairobian slang: ‘Mambo ni Mbaya jama! Kwahivyo sahi ni raundi mwenda tuu!’ (The going is tough my friend!), staggeringly pointing to his jug of ‘Dawa’, a cocktail drink that was specially served aplenty on the night. At nearby tables, punters seemed determined to discuss neither entrepreneurship nor new business ventures but to engorge enough nyama choma (grilled meat) and booze to put ancient Roman gluttons, the so-called godfathers of capitalism, to shame. ‘Is this it?’, I remember being asked by a Rwandese friend, a poet now based in London, as I sipped my chilled chardonnay. So I began.

If anything over the last few months has been demonstrated at all (even the staunchest defenders of the ‘free market’ philosophy are now agreeing with me) it is that the greed-driven neoliberal system that for so long has been forced upon us has lost its charm and is now both fiscally and intellectually bankrupt. Last October Nicholas Sarkozy, the French president, as if to substantiate what I mean, conceded that ‘the all-powerful market is finished’. At the same time the then US President George W. Bush faced mounting accusations from his fellow Republicans of being a ‘socialist’, charged (this time round) with the crime of nationalising his country’s distressed financial system.

The economic situation we are facing, according to a recent Observer editorial, ‘is as serious as a war’. The total UK personal debt stands at an eye-watering £1.4 trillion, making Rwanda’s US$1.4 billion external debt seem like a drop in the ocean. It has, however, led some analysts in the UK to start calling for a nationwide ‘credit card amnesty’. Britain’s living standards have already begun falling at a rate faster than any other OECD (Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development) member states: the GDP per capita of $35,243 (£23,913) – exactly twenty times that of Kenya ($1,800) and almost one hundred and twenty times that of Burundi ($300) – looks set to reduce significantly.

In east Africa, where our economies are directly pegged to the international financial system, financial breakdown has meant we are directly affected by the squeeze in international liquidity. Stock markets in the region are already coming under pressure because of the continuing withdrawal of international capital. According to Professor Njuguna Ndung’u, the governor of the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), ‘[P]rojections show that Africa’s real GDP growth rate is expected to decline from 6.2% to 4.6% in 2009, while in East Africa growth rate is projected to fall from 8.4% in 2008 to 6% this year.’

Furthermore, the UN has warned that remittances to Africa, worth US$40 billion a year (which is coincidentally the same amount that Africa receives in official development assistance) could be an early casualty of the ongoing European and American financial crisis. In Kenya, as is the case in other East African Community member states, remittances have been a powerful anchor for the economy. In 2007 alone, Kenya received US$1.3 billion in remittances. But the flow is already slowing down.

The decline in remittances has direct negative effects on household welfare given that, unlike other transfers, these remittances are directly used for covering basic needs, such as education, health and, more importantly, food. In August 2008, according to the CBK, Kenyans abroad managed to send home US$36.5 million compared to US$44 million which they’d sent in July, a difference of 38 per cent from what they had sent during the same period last year. The drop in remittances, and dollar inflow, says the CBK, has affected the Kenyan shilling, which is now trading at a three-year low.

Elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, where the average per capita income is around US$600–$700, in comparison to thousands of times over in the developed nations (for instance, $46,373 in the US, or US$41,531 in Germany), the majority of wanainchi (citizens) live on the bottom end of the economic pyramid. Therefore the options they have in the face of the current financial crisis (brought about by greedy European and American bankers), unlike their counterparts in OECD regions where the ‘welfare’ state protects, are not a question of giving up luxuries, they mean living in absolute poverty.

The decrease in demand for raw materials from Africa will result in the cutting-down of supply of finished goods from rich nations. This will in turn invariably increase the prices of products. Aid and assistance that the developed countries give to Africa will now also reduce because they are trying to bail out their economies, which means that HIPC (highly indebted poor countries) such as Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania in east Africa, whose budgets are heavily reliant upon aid, will suffer a lot more. Kenya, although not officially a HIPC, is import-dependent and still nursing the effects of the post-election crisis early last year that claimed the lives of 1,400 people and left hundreds of thousands internally displaced. Kenya has seen its inflation and food prices rise, partly because it relies heavily on the European, Asian and American economies for remittances, tourism and development aid and the sale of tea, coffee and horticulture exports.

A lot has been written, and undoubtedly will continue being written, about the current global financial crisis and indeed the state of capitalism. However, for me, the analyses and commentaries of two imminent social scientists, Professor Alex Callinicos and Professor Dani Nabudere have stimulated my interest. I first came across Professor Callinicos’s brilliant book Against the Third Way whilst an undergraduate in 2002. In the book, Callinicos, who is now professor of European Politics at Kings College, London, foretells the financial calamity that lay ahead. His simplifications of complex global politics, I have to say, makes him a master political theorist. He developed a fundamental critique of the ‘Third Way’ philosophy promoted by the likes of Tony Blair of Britain, Bill Clinton of the US and Gerhard Schröder of Germany in the last decade. In Africa, he links said philosophy to the likes of the former South African President Thabo Mbeki and, more recently, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. Callinicos argues that ‘Third Way’ governments have continued the neoliberal policies of their conservative predecessors by promoting the interests of multinationals through privatisation, thereby allowing social and economic inequalities to continue growing. Those who want to see ‘real’ change, argues Callinicos, should be challenging the logic of the market rather than, like Gordon Brown and George W. Bush, extending its domination.

In eastern Africa, mounting food deficits, a sharp decline in living standards and rising energy costs are all tell–tell signs that the impact of the ongoing global financial crisis has trickled down the east African political vein and is soon bound to also tickle labour unrest, especially given the World Food Summit’s latest worrisome estimation that for every 1 per cent increase in the price of food, there are an additional 16 million people who will go hungry. The European Union, Britain and the United States’ continued demand that African nations in the eastern region of the continent follow their purported ‘anti-terrorism’ and pro-capitalist agenda is exacerbating conditions for already poor wanainchis as well as farmers. During the recent G8 summit in Japan, the major preoccupation of these imperialist states was the total isolation of Zimbabwe and the deployment of more military forces to the Darfur region of Sudan, instead of dealing with what is already a desperate situation at hand.

As if to reiterate Callinicos’s contention, Dani Nabudere of the Afrika Study Centre in Mbale, eastern Uganda, has also argued that the current crisis lies at the very foundations of the global capitalist system and thus emphasises that 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’, argues Nabudere. According to the professor, this is 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. In Kenya, the largest economy in eastern Africa, the tourism sector has already seen a 30 per cent drop from KSh49.3 billion to KSh34.5 billion. Also, export produce such as tea, flowers and coffee have seen huge reductions in their demand, and given the government’s current budget deficit of KSh127 billion, the future looks bleak.

Meanwhile, at Parker Macmillan’s with my chardonnay at hand, ‘the future’, I told my poet friend, ‘remains anyone’s guess. One thing that I can perhaps say with certainty about the state of capitalism is that it will never be the same again.’

* Ronald Elly Wanda is a political scientist based in London.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Assassination of Kenyan activists

George Nyongesa

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/54589

We are deeply saddened by the demise of George Paul Oulu ( GPO) from the bullets of unknown assailants. GPO died in company of Kamau Kingara, Executive Director of OSCAR Foundation at around 6.30 pm on State House road. Important to note he was shot dead less than 1KM to Kenya's State House where the President of Kenya resides.

Eye witnesses, students from University of Nairobi, who saw the occurrence from the vantage point of their storeyed hostels say the killers were 2 men smartly dressed in suits and who did not seem to be in any hurrry over their mission. "They acosted them in the traffic jam and shot them point blank" said one eye witness.

GPO Oulu is a former University of Nairobi student's leader. Since he left university we have worked with him in grass root mobilization and we have never known him to have any criminal links. Like all of us in grass root mobilization activism, we knew him as a patriotic and law abiding citizen who frowned at social injustices and wished for another Kenya with no impunity.

Kenya has lost its gallant son, the heavens rejoices and he's happy to be in the company of fellow heroes Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi, Pio Gama Pinto and JM Kariuki with whom he shared the spirit of liberation.

Yes, Kenya mourns her son, the world will miss you, GPO OULU we know you are heaven smiling at us; we miss you and even though you are gone we are still a team!

Bunge la Mwananchi

Madagascar's political crisis

Liliana Mosca

2009-02-28

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/54548

I believe that the Malagasy should try to settle their political problems at the political level and without the intervention of the Churches or of the tradition i.e. fihavanana. It's time for them to judge the person in power on the basis of their political agenda. Otherwise the people will be always at the periphery of state and in the case of Madagascar this sounds like to go back to the French presence that established her power on the DIVIDE ET IMPERA.

No to a tribunal in Kenya: Letter to Ban Ki-moon

Isaac Newton Kinity

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/54570

To Secretary General Mr Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations

Dear Sir,

Re: Honour Kenyans, honour the Waki recommendations

Kenyans in one voice have said no to a Kenya Tribunal. They want the perpetrators of the post-election violence sent to the International Criminal Court (ICC). A motion tabled in the Kenyan parliament last month to allow for a tribunal in Kenya to prosecute the perpetrators of the post-election violence was defeated.

Mr Kofi Annan gave the Kenyan government an additional one week for debate, against the already set deadline by the Waki Commission which investigated the violence. After that additional week, again Kenyans, through their members of parliament, said no to a tribunal in Kenya. Now Mr Annan has again given the Kenyan government two months to set up a tribunal in Kenya.
In the year 1991, over 800 Kenyans were killed in similar circumstances as in 2008, and no action was taken by the Kenyan government to apprehend the killers. What convinces Mr Annan that the Kenyan government can this time be trusted at all in the prosecution of the perpetrators of the violence? In very simple language, Kenyans, through their members of parliament, are telling the world that setting a tribunal in Kenya to try the perpetrators of the post-election violence is a waste of valuable time and money. Furthermore, failure to hasten the prosecution of these killers at the Hague will give the Kenyan government enough time to organise internally state-sanctioned terrorism, allowing Kenyan politicians in authority use the police to kill Kenyans and foreigners in the guise of thugs.

The Kenya Government has failed to resolve many political murders and crimes. The political murders of the former assistant minister for tourism and wildlife, Mr J.M. Kariuki, the former minister for economic planning, Mr Tom Mboya, the former minister for foreign affairs, Dr Robert John Ouko, the former superintendent of police, Mr Patrick Shaw, Father John Kaiser of Minnesota, USA, Former Superintendent of Police Mr Ngangira, Former Superintendent of Police Mr Kahumbi, the former minister for lands and settlement, Mr Ronald Ngara, Mr Masinde Muriro, former university student, Mr Mururi, British tourist Ms Julie Ward, former secretary of the Release Political Prisoners (RPP) organisation, Mr Karimi Nduthu, Mr Pio Gamma Pinto, Bishop Alexander Kipsang arap Muge and many others remain unresolved up to this day.

Thousands of junior police officers have been killed for disobeying orders to kill the challengers of atrocities and the many crimes committed by those in authority. On the night of 25 December 1998, men driving cars bearing foreign registration number plates went to my house and demanded for the opening of the door. When the door was opened, they rushed in brandishing guns in one hand and walky-talkies on the other hand. Luckily I was away from my house that night.

When the newsmen asked Mr Andrew Kimeto, who was the assistant commissioner of police responsible for the town, whether he had sent anyone to enter my house, he said none of his staff had gone to my house on the night in question. When I read the news in the newspaper, I knew my death was eminent and that I was surely going to die because of challenging corruption [read the Kenyan Daily Nation newspaper of the 27 December 1998 under the title ‘Buglers attack priest while asleep’]. I fled Kenya that same day I read the newspaper. Not withstanding that on 7 of January 1998 I was pierced with an object which nearly killed me.

At the peak of the pressures for the introduction of the multiparty system of governance in Kenya, the wife of the former US ambassador to Kenya, Mr Smith Hempstone, was attacked at a highway in Kenya. Another US ambassador to Kenya, Ms Aurelia Brazil was harassed at Mai Mahiu in Naivasha. The last time Mr Tony Worthington of the Labour Party of London visited Kenya, he was insulted and called ugly names for denouncing poverty and the rampant corruption in Kenya.

Numerous commissions of inquiry established in Kenya over the last three decades remain unresolved. The Kenyan government has been unable to resolve so many corruption scandals. What is it that convinces Mr Kofi Annan and others who support the formation of a tribunal in Kenya that there would be judicial transparency in a Kenya tribunal? Who knows the Kenyan system better than the Kenyan members of parliament and ordinary Kenyans? The voice of the Kenyan members of parliament is the voice of the Kenyan people and the world should listen to it.

The perpetrators of the post-election violence should be taken to the Hague with immediate effect. Delay in the prosecution of the perpetrators of the post-election violence will sustain the government’s state-managed insecurity, an insecurity which has been common in Kenya whenever those in authority are identified and challenged over the atrocities and crimes they commit against ordinary Kenyans. This happened in the 1980s, when those in authority were identified with corruption and political murders. It also happened during the struggle for the multiparty system of governance.

Insecurity of the highest order is likely to be experienced in Kenya this time round. Many people are likely to be killed and many other frightening happenings such as car-jackings, attacks on highways and attacks in homes will occur. This will all be in a bid to divert the attention of Kenyans and the international community from the recommendations of the Waki Report in regard to the prosecution of those responsible for the post-election violence, some of whom may be high-ranking individuals in authority. Twice the Kenyan parliament has recommended the prosecution of the perpetrators of the post-election violence at the ICC at the Hague, the Netherlands. The Kenyan parliament has twice objected to the formation of a tribunal to try the perpetrators of the violence in Kenya.

A few months ago, Prime Minister Hon. Mr Raila Odinga and the Minister for Agriculture Hon. Mr Ruto aggressively demanded for a blanket amnesty for the perpetrators of the violence. The Waki Report recommended the prosecution of the perpetrators of the violence at the ICC or by tribunal in Kenya. The Waki Commission gave a deadline for the formation of the tribunal in Kenya. The Kenyan parliament objected to the formation of the tribunal when the matter was taken to the Kenyan parliament for the first time. Later, after the defeat of the bill in the Kenyan parliament, Hon. Raila Odinga incidentally met Mr Kofi Annan at the World Economic Forum meeting and discussed an extension of the deadline, in direct violation of the Waki recommendations. Kenyans living abroad and those at home have expressed their wish to have the perpetrators prosecuted at the Hague. Haste is necessary in the prosecution of those perpetrators.

Failure to prosecute the perpetrators of the post-election violence quickly and at the right place will cost Kenyans in the shape of the freedom of those perpetrators. The freedom of those perpetrators will mean a recurrence of similar killings in 2012, during the next Kenya general election. 2012 may be an extremely dangerous moment in Kenyan history, especially now that all power-hungry Kenyans know that the ticket and qualification for power sharing is to own a powerful secret militia that can cause enough havoc. Havoc that can command recognition and acceptance for governance and hence power sharing.

Stop diluting the Waki recommendations by providing new alternatives. Stop violating the Waki recommendations. The Waki recommendations are likely to be completely distorted and rendered useless if the ongoing trend of introducing new issues and making changes to them is entertained.

If Mr Kofi Annan continues to make changes which undermine the Waki recommendations, what will stop Kenya’s powerful corrupt politicians from making similar changes and corrections of the Waki recommendations in their favour? Wouldn't the Waki recommendations become a toothless bulldog in the end? Please go by the Waki recommendations. The Waki Commission was right in every aspect of the recommendations. Kenya was unable to prosecute anyone in 13 years of senseless killings. It failed to prosecute anyone for the 1991 killing of over 800 innocent and defenceless children and women lost their lives. It failed to prevent the killing of over 1,200 innocent mothers and their children in January 2008. Even now, nothing tangible should be expected from a Kenyan tribunal. The ICC in the Hague is the answer.

Sincerely,

Isaac Newton Kinity

Former Secretary General
Kenya Civil Servants Union

cc.
World leaders
UNO
UNHR
President Mwai Kibaki
Prime Minister Raila Odinga
Kenya Media
Kenya Standard
The Daily Nation [Kenya]
Kenya Human Rights Commission
Kenya National Commission of Human Rights
The Law Society Of Kenya
International media
Transparency
International human rights organisations

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

Review of Joseph Hanlon and Teresa Smart’s Do Bicycles Equal Development in Mozambique?

Lucy Corkin

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/54568

Behind the rather inane-sounding title lies an in-depth and complex investigation of the effects of Mozambique’s heavily aid-supported economic trajectory. Indeed, the image of bicycles and their presence in the country is used as a running theme throughout the book to illustrate the innate problems with the methods currently used to measure economic development and poverty alleviation, and to question their effectiveness. In the authors’ well-researched assessment, it is high time for a new approach.
The authors are acerbic in their analysis of the Bretton Woods institutions’ (BWI) treatment of Mozambique, asserting that the African country is a victim of rabid and dogmatically applied neoliberal ideology. It is a powerful strike for the left-leaning developmental economists’ camp, but might have been far too radical for others to contemplate were it not for the fact that we are currently contending with the effects of the most pronounced market failure since the Great Depression. Furthermore, the countries that look most likely to weather the storm and pull the rest from the morass, such as China, are those that have not relegated their governmental apparatus to being a ‘night watchman’ state. International financial institutions have long been overdue a re-evaluation, and the authors use a case study of one of the world’s most aid-dependent countries (despite being a ‘donor darling’) to bolster this argument.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is the integrated approach it takes in assessing Mozambique’s current situation. It draws in and explores the country’s political, war-ravaged history, the legacy of Frelimo rule, and Mozambique’s current geo-political context. Quantitative economic analysis is triangulated by several measures and interrogated thoroughly, while the argument is supported by several case studies on the constraints on economic development, ranging from provincial (Nampula and Manica) to national sector level (the now infamous collapse of the Mozambican cashew-nut industry). Thus is the scene set in order to underline the primary purpose of the book: to advocate a complete overhaul of the way in which development is conceived and the way in which it is treated by the donor community.

Particularly relevant in this context is the way the authors unpack the power relations that implicitly shape the concept of development’s meaning They, pointing to the fact that donors and Mozambique’s government, despite being melded together through budget-support mechanisms, do not necessarily see eye to eye on this issue.

The authors use the striking metaphor of the ‘cargo cult’, something which emerged in Melanesia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to illustrate the BWIs’ irrational ‘if you build it they will come’ approach to attracting foreign capital to Mozambique. Indeed, they question not just the success of this attitude but the very desirability of making foreign investors the driving force of economic development. It has become apparent that when these players do come they do not bring with them ‘pro-poor’ economic growth, to use the donor term. Fundamentally, on various levels, this emphasises the misguided nature of a supply-driven rather than a demand-driven approach to stimulating economic growth in the context of a country such as Mozambique.

The book comes at an auspicious time. It is not alone in pointing fingers at the attitude and methods of foreign aid and its agents. Yet until recently the impact of academic investigation into holding the aid agencies and international financial institutions to account – not just in terms of the outcomes of their programmes, but the very assumptions and the quality of the research on which their policies are premised – has had only a limited effect.

Significantly, while much of the blame for Mozambique’s underdevelopment is left at donors’ doors, the country’s political elite are not portrayed as being blameless. They have indeed profited and continue to do so. What is emphasised however is the donors’ complicity in creating and maintaining such structural inequalities so long as they serve theirs and these elites’ respective agendas.

The authors thus call for a radical overhaul of the current approach to development and provide the beginnings of possible alternative methodologies. It is difficult however to attempt such a paradigmatic shift in the donor framework approach within a single volume. This is illustrated by the fact that World Bank and IMF research and reports are referred to continually despite the suspicious light in which they have been cast by the authors themselves. Furthermore, while the book poses a set of very good questions, the answers that are offered do not seem equally robust, being vulnerable as they are to the same structural issues such as corruption, donor agenda-setting and in-fighting that have been identified in previous attempted solutions. Nevertheless, both authors have extensive experience of Mozambique, and a self-conscious effort is made to underline the complexities of the country’s current context. Indeed, their emphasis is more on changes in approach than on quick fixes. The gauntlet has been thrown down.

* Lucy Corkin is with the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
* Do Bicycles Equal Development in Mozambique? is published by James Currey.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Interview with Oliver Mtukudzi

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/54571

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: I requested this interview because music is such an integral part of life in Africa, the message we get from it affects the day to day life of people in Africa…

Oliver Mtukudzi: That is the purpose of singing a song actually, the message that people get. You do not sing if you have nothing to say.

ROLE OF ARTIST

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: What would you say then is the role of the artist in today’s Africa?

Oliver Mtukudzi: An artist is a cultural maintenance person, represents a culture and, the easiest form of the deliverance of messages. That is why in Africa we sing at funerals and weddings. The most important thing is to deliver the message.

TWISTING OF CULTURE

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: In one of your interviews, the one on San Francisco in 2000, whilst talking about ‘Paivepo’, two issues came up that I found very interesting. What I call ‘the bastardization of the word culture’ and ‘Kugarwa nhaka’.[1] You argue that instead of people following the way this practice is supposed to be, they are twisting it. Is this a prevalent problem in Africa now?

Oliver Mtukudzi: Yes. That is why I picked this issue for the song. Many people are taking advantage of the cultural laws, twisting them just to suit themselves. Inheritance does not mean taking over even the wife. It is taking over of the responsibility. If you are in love with your brother’s wife, then you have to propose afresh. It was a rule that was designed to mean well but because are twisting it to suit ourselves, we are taking advantage of women.

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: This is a very topical issue to discuss even here in Malawi. I would say one of the problems we are currently facing in various Malawian communities is the abuse of the word/concept ‘culture’ to further personal agendas and/or avoid confronting the problems we are facing.

Oliver Mtukudzi: Culture has nothing to do with your everyday living, tradition has. Our culture is not inferior to other cultures. The problem is the people who are twisting cultural and traditional laws to suit their needs of the day.

MAN AS HEAD OF THE FAMILY?

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: One of the issues you have dealt with in your songs is the ‘head’ of the family issue. Who is the head of the family to you and how do you define family?

Oliver Mtukudzi: I am trying to reassert our culture, the African culture. I hate to see the African culture die off and yet we have such a beautiful culture. The problems come because of the few who take advantage of the culture since there is no fine for those who violate it. In the African cultural sense, the man is the head of the family in the sense that, he takes care of everything.

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: Everything?

Oliver Mtukudzi: Yes, everything. But, men run away from that. They become bossy. A good leader is not bossy. He is a good listener, should listen to what the children are saying and come to terms with the conditions.

PARENTS AND AFRICAN PRIDE

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: In your show in Washington, D.C., in 2006 which I was fortunate to attend, you seemed to have come with an agenda for Africans in the diaspora to have pride in their identity; you had a clear cultural identity agenda. You had the poet from South Africa who eloquently attacked xenophobia, racism and sexism, pushing forth a case for Africans to be proud of who they are in America and wherever they are. Today’s media bombards our youth with messages that inscribe that America is the best; Africa stands for failure, backwardness and darkness…

Oliver Mtukudzi: The colour black is demonised.

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: Yes. How do you try to combat this problem in your songs? On television, that is all that they watch in America, Africa and globally. This feeling is so inscribed that when an African does something progressive, in Shona, it is common to hear people say, ‘uyu murungu’ (she or he is a white/English person). In Chichewa they will say ‘uyu ndimzungu’. How do you tackle this problem?

Oliver Mtukudzi: This is a problem but I do not blame the children as much. I would blame the parents. I am also a parent but I blame parents. Parents do not have time to know their children. They use a television to bring up their children whilst they are doing their own business. There are no more cultural structures like the ‘Tete’ (paternal aunt) for the girl child and ‘Sekuru’ (paternal uncle) for the boy child. All that is cancelled out. When I have my own PhD, that is what my children are going to be when they grow up, it is already decided. The children are made to feel inferior to me and aspire to be like me. It all comes from home. As parents, we do not realise that we are spoiling ourselves through our children. We believe we are busy and we have to attain our professional goals. But in the process, we forget that who we are is the best. No other person can be a Malawian besides the Malawian. Then we take these children to schools for the wrong reasons. We are sending them so that we have time to do what we want to do. If everyday they do well in their academics, we decide for them what they should be. We do not look at the child and see what she can be, but impose our failures on them. That alone is a challenge to our children. What are we doing for our children? Are we leading by example? Are we showing them who we are? Do they know who they are?

GRABBING PROPERTY FROM WIDOWS

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: In the 2003 interview, you are identified as one of the people who are giving messages of political resistance Zimbabwe. In my area of research, I have been fascinated by what you did in the Neria project, especially when one reads that project in line with other works of [Tsitsi] Dangarembga like Nervous Conditions (1988). What was the main message you were hoping to help send out to women in this project?

Oliver Mtukudzi: Neria had done very well throughout Africa and globally. I am humbled by how many times it is quoted in various discussions.

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: In fact, it is part of the course I will be teaching this fall in Binghamton University, New York, this semester.

Oliver Mtukudzi: That is very good. What I was interested in bringing out is the way we take advantage of being head of the family but we do not take the responsibility that comes with being head of the family. We are choosing what we will do and will not do. We say this is okay, I can do that but I do not want to do that. The idea of ‘Neria’ was about inheritance and how this should be done properly. What needs to be done by a responsible in a family? Having a good family makes a good community; a good community makes a good country. It is from that little space that things can be set right, if you are fair to the family. The plot of Neria is that the husband dies and the family turns against the widow. She is not loved but taken advantage of by the family. Whatever she and her husband had worked for is taken away. She and her husband worked so hard but now it is all taken away. That is very unfair.

OBJECTIFICATION OF WOMEN IN POPULAR SONGS

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: Recently, we have seen an increase of African music that objectifies women. We have always had music that portrays the dutiful wife, the long-suffering mother and subservient and obedient wife. Recently, music by artists like ‘Mr Nice’ of Tanzania, Maji Maji Rising of Kenya and the ‘Chimwendo Kulemera’ hit here in Malawi, just to name a few, have portrayed women as sex objects. Such songs go on to blame rape and the spread of hiv and aids[2] on women, giving them the task of curbing this disease. This trend is also prevalent in America amongst black American music. DSTV Channel O has a prevalence of near-naked women versus adequately dressed men. I have seen that your music videos do not show women in such disempowered and compromised positions. Is this intentional?

Oliver Mtukudzi: Yes. This is an issue that is very dear to me. This is the kind of media that is worrying not only your circles, that of academia, but everyone, the human circles too. We know that people are making money out of it. The spread of hiv/aids is should not be blamed on women. No. Culturally, it is men who go for women, not women going for men. So who do you think spreads the aids? It is them, not the women.

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: So what do you think when you hear songs that warn men ‘Chenjera akupatsa edzi!’ (Be careful she will give you aids)?

Oliver Mtukudzi: I would say: ‘Be careful there is aids’ not she will give you aids. After all, men will never be careful because of that warning.

MOTHERHOOD

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: Motherhood is one of the themes that is persistent in your music. You have shown how important your own mother is to you in several tracks. I know you have dedicated a good number to her. The issue of motherhood is important and has been taken on by many artists. However, there is often a tendency to venerate one’s biological mother and not see the mother in one’s own wife or daughter.

Oliver Mtukudzi: Yes. That is true. For example, there is mother’s day. I have observed that if your mother is dead, you [an African man] do not seem to have other mothers. Your own daughter is a mother. The word mother translates to women. If people can understand that, they will understand that that day was created for us to understand the importance of a woman in our lives. Culturally, my wife is my mother. That is why we say, ‘Eehe! Maita Amai. Dai pasina imimi ndaiita sei? Ndinoyamwa pamuri Eehee!’ (I am grateful to you mother. If you were not there, what would I do? I suckle from you). I am saying this to my wife, not my biological mother. My son will also say that to her, who is also saying the same thing to his wife. That is how it should be.

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: Listening to you, it seems you are convinced that a good part of the problems African men and women are having are because of a manipulation of a culture that had it right all along?

Oliver Mtukudzi: Yes. Yes. The problem is people who are misusing it. You see, just misusing it and only when it will [be] of advantage to them.

CONCLUSION

Jessie Kabwila Kapasula: Thank you for talking to me, especially because you have been one of my role models from a young age. I started watching you from the age of 10. I even attended your wedding at Gwanzura stadium in Harare, Zimbabwe. It is a pleasure to meet you in person and help bring the valuable message that your music has. All the best with the show you are having tonight.

Oliver Mtukudzi: Thank you for talking to me.

* Oliver Mtukudzi is a famous musician and cultural icon of Zimbabwean origin who was a leading figure in the production of Tsitsi Dangarembga’s ‘Neria’.
* Jessie Kabwila Kapasula is a Comparative Literature PhD student at Binghamton State University of New York.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

[1] Part of a Shona cultural practice around inheritance, where a brother takes over the family of a brother who has passed away. He takes over the looking after of the family, including the assets. Mtukudzi argues that the taking over of the widow is a manipulation of this practice. This practice is not limited to the Shona of Zimbabwe, it is also present in Mariama Ba’s So Long A Letter.
[2] This text does not capitalise the names of HIV and AIDS in a bid to emphasise that while hiv and aids is real in Africa, they do not define the people of Africa, who are living their lives heroically in the face of such a chronic disease. Life is going on and Africa is not the story of squalor, victimhood and dependency the Western media would have us believe. It is an attempt to combat the ‘worlding’ problem that Spivak (1997) ably argues discourses on Africa and other third world countries fall victim to when adopted in Western discourse.

J M Kariuki

Philo Ikonya

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/54575

Memories of this day in 1975
still live on our streets, huts and streams.
Our books, hearts and thoughts,
in Kenya's womb.
Convinced our freedoms
Our country we revive,
Refusing to die inside,
We hope against hope,
And stem the tide,
and with freedom garlands,
the national spirit we invite:
To take freedom.
To live freedom.
To worship freedom.
To eat freedom.
To breathe freedom.
To pray freedom.
To hold her in awe.
For the poor and for the rich,
To make freedom thrive.

Mzalendo Kariuki thirty years later

Onyango Oloo

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/54579

they flung your carcass to
the hyenas of
ngong
not knowing that a
maasai mchungaji
known as musaita ole tunda
would retrieve your remains
and expose moi's brazen canard
about your mythical excursion to zambia
they bombed the otc buses in late february
to provide a
red herring
for the execution
they were planning, the sadistic festival they were plotting
not knowing that your blood was already crying out for justice
ndugu jm, even you know that what was killed
in march nineteen seventy five was not your populism from nyandarua
but the paralyzing fear of the red eyed devil known as mzee jomo kenyatta
dear jm thank you for your bloody sacrifice
for your death allowed our generation
to come up into political consciousness
we say ahsante to ben gethi, we say shukran to mark twist,
we say heko to benard hinga and pongezi to mbiyu koinange and his cohort mzee
for capturing you and for torturing you to death
not many of our people remember
that you were detained as a mau mau stalwart
how many of us have heard
the rare sound of your patriotic voice
defending your mau mau comrades

your death
signalled the beginning of the death of the kanu dictatorship
your death allowed the young seedlings of kenya's freedom forests
to sprout all over kenya
from wundanyi where ndugu mwandawiro was
cutting his teeth on patriotism and pan africanism
to bondo where adongo ogony
was beginning his apprenticeship in anti-imperialism
to mumias where kadima's older brother

was making sure the osundwas
were well represented among the ranks

of the unbwogable wazalendo from mumias
ndugu jm here you are
thirty years later
living through your children and your family
still very much alive in our memories,
in our dreams, in our thoughts, in our hopes
while your callous killer kenyatta is stiff and motionless
useless in that
overpriced mausoleum which should be smashed open
and his old thieving landgrabbing remains furiously ejected and rejected
by our people's unforgiving and relentless wrath
a wrath which is still seething and simmering under the surface
a wrath that they will one day wake up to see
consuming the entire kenyan countryside
as an unstoppable itungati revolutionary fire, burning bright
burning to cinders all these homungati, all these wagongaji
all these wasaliti, all these wauaji
all these wanyanganyi all these majambazi
mzalendo kariuki, all over kenya our mothers, our sisters,our aunties
our fathers, our brothers, our uncles are still naming their kids jm
but nobody remembers the homungati remnant called hinga
and nobody remembers the hired hitman called mark twist
and the only living thing
that can inherit patrick shaw's dastardly name
is a vicious canine trained in kiganjo
barking and leaping on a leash for utumishi kwa wote
kenya is now a nation of thirty multi-billionaires
and thirty million kenya mafukara hohe hahe

machochole na walala hoi
so we remember your admonitions
oh so ever ruefully
today in two thousand and five
we have more than one thousand nine hundred and seventy five kariukis
waiting to march against the inheritors of kenyatta and moi
today in two thousand and five

we have more than one thousand nine hundred and seventy five women
who are militant, who are defiant, who are determined to strike a blow for kenya's freedom
in your memory
today in two thousand and five

we have more than one thousand nine hundred and seventy five vijana
who are forever chanting the anthem of do klan revolution
singing in unison, vijana kwa vijana ni sisi kwa sisi
long live mzalendo kariuki long live!
mzalendo kariuki the young wazalendo called sinpare
are keeping your spirit alive with their song mabepari
hamba kahle mzalendo kariuki viva!

* Onyango Oloo is a Kenyan political activist and former political prisoner. This poem originally appeared on Oloo's blog.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Pambazuka Blog Review – March 5, 2009

Dibussi Tande

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/54566

Kimacho argues Western aid does not help Africa:

“Aid had done nothing but simply cripple the growth of Africa. Which country, which continent has ever grown rich from aid? I’m beginning to think that the world and even the people who think they are helping Africa are hell bent on ensuring that Africa does not make any head way.
If Africa was to improve in any way or form, imagine the people who will be out of jobs. All the NGOs, all the International organisations. Maybe that is why to some degree all the solutions that are given to us , simply seem to work on paper, because implementation of these solutions that people come up with, sure never seems to work. We sing, we raise money, yet no improvement… in the end I honestly believe the solution has to come from us, we have to say enough is enough.”

Rosebell’s Blog complains about the coverage of the LRA by the Ugandan media:

“Since the beginning of the joint operation against LRA in the DRC by Ugandan army, SPLM and Congolese Army, the information we have got is mainly from the army in Uganda. Usually the army in the past takes journalists at least from the government owned media to cover the wars but not this time. All information regarding the wounded, the captured, the ones about to surrender has been from the army spokesperson based in Dungu. While we can’t ignore the war, we must question the information and as journalists must not be trapped in the propaganda.
…
This kind of media coverage of events that affect thousands of families in the country reminds of the coverage of the war in Iraq from the beginning. It was good guy against bad guy but not much about what Iraqis wanted or were going through.”

Africaphonie is of the opinion that Africans should harness the power of telefilms to tell their own stories:

“The rampant closure of cinemas in most cities in Africa today… may open a window of opportunity to the new wave of television films (telefilms) now becoming a permanent feature in our cultural landscape…
With the waning interest in a reading culture, telefilms are now bound to play the role African Writers Series played in the wake of Independence by showcasing the values and virtues, lores and mores as well as the aesthetic diversity of traditional Africa.
With our educational system alienated from the lessons of our own tangible and intangible cultural heritage, telefilms have a great challenge to correct more than five decades of ahistorical dialogue and pervaded ideological interpretations…”

Scribbles from the Den traces Cameroon’s socio-economic and political problems to a gerontocracy which is systematically sidelining younger individuals who are better equipped to lead the country:

“In a recent interview with Eden Newspaper, Chris Fomunyoh of the NDIIA explained why leadership renewal is critical:

‘It is extremely important to frequently renew political leadership in every country so new leaders can bring a fresh perspective to global trends and developments, and help move their countries in ways that may differ from previously long held typical and traditional approaches.’

Cameroon has, unfortunately, not learned this lesson. The result, as we have seen, is political sclerosis, economic stagnation and rising insecurity within the country and at its borders. Today, Cameroon’s gerontocracy has not just sidelined an entire generation of active Cameroonians willing and able to contribute their quota to national development, but is dragging the country back into the 19th century. Making the leap back into the 21st may soon become a virtually impossible task if nothing is done to rectify the situation.”

Tim Hartman, a PCV in Cameroon explains how the West feeds on stereotypes about Africa, and argues that the deck is heavily stacked against Africa on a Eurocentric world stage:

“I occasionally hear some conspiracy theories about the white man trying to keep Africa down. I couldn’t disagree more with them, but we have to admit that we’re not playing on an even playing field. It is suited to those that are already ‘developed.’ We might not be cheating, but we did create the game. The idea of a capitalistic democracy was created by the West because it fit really well with our independent culture. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with it, but it is much harder to adapt, for example, in a collective culture like Cameroon’s. And now there is no longer a choice of whether or not to adapt it. It was decided by colonizing forces long ago and it is too late to go back. We’re stuck in this strange quandary with one puzzle piece left that doesn’t fit no matter how you force it. Cameroon and the rest of Africa, without outside influences, would have eventually developed into their own unique first-world identities. Sadly, we’ll never know what that image of Africa would have looked like.”

Jeremy Weate, a British expat in Nigeria writes about the “hideous conservatism” of Nigerian youths:

“The assumption in the West is that youth culture is all about rebellion, resistance and challenging the status quo set by the previous generation. Henceforth, irruptions of angst, malcontent, anger, extreme fun and quirkiness are expected in the music, art and words of the 18-30's. In Nigeria, things are quite different. Young people are often more conservative and prudish than their parents, avoiding any kind of experiment with life, whether it be sexual, hallucinogenic, expressive or otherwise, spending their free time in the church or the mosque or 'gisting'. How is a society expected to challenge its own assumptions without a Rocknrolla spirit amongst the youth? Fundamentalism and intolerance for difference takes root more readily in a soil that is both young and conservative. Who is there to challenge the elders and ask questions of what they have done?”

* 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/

Asian Footsteps in Africa

2009-03-06

http://tinyurl.com/dat5ub

Don't look now, but capitalism - maligned in these bailout-ridden recessionary days - is reshaping Africa inexorably. What is different today is that it is emanating from China and India, rather than from the conventional bastions of capitalist prowess. Devi Shetty, a celebrated cardiac surgeon in Bangalore, brings health relief to India's masses through his Narayana group of hospitals. Some years ago, I witnessed his early experiments with rural telemedicine, especially in the Indian states of Karnataka and West Bengal.

Canton Fair provides platform for promotion of Sino-South Africa trade

2009-03-06

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90883/6602222.html

The 105th Canton Fair, to be held between April and May 2009, has been formally introduced to South Africans in Johannesburg on Thursday by Zhang Zhigang, deputy director of the Committee for Economic Affairs of National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Zhang, also vice president of China Import and Export Fair and chairman of the Council of China Foreign Trade Center, told the meeting that China Import and Export Fair, also renowned as the Canton Fair, is held biannually in Guangzhou every spring and autumn.

China Outlines ambitious plan for stimulus

2009-03-06

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/world/asia/05china.html?_r=2&hp

Warning that China faces “unprecedented difficulties and challenges,” Prime Minister Wen Jiabao outlined a barrage of construction, increased subsidies and economic measures on Thursday aimed at continuing his nation’s modernization despite a world financial crisis.

China sails into uncharted waters

Stephen Marks

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/54578

The end of 2008 saw a Chinese fleet set sail for Africa – the first time since the 15th century – on modern China’s first-ever potential combat mission beyond its neighbouring waters.

Weeks later, China published a new Defence White Paper. While insisting on the peaceful and purely defensive nature of China’s military posturing, the paper also stresses what it describes as continuing ‘threats to China’s unity and security from “separatist forces” in Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang’.

‘China is faced with the superiority of developed countries economically, scientifically and technologically, as well as militarily’, the 95-page White Paper says. ‘It also faces strategic manoeuvres and containment from the outside while having to face disruption and sabotage by separatist and hostile forces from the inside.’

The paper gives details never previously revealed about the internal organisation of China’s military, and past trends in its defence spending. It confirms the official figure for 2007’s defence spending at US$52 billion. While the 2008 military budget has not been released, officials last year said total spending for the year would amount to US$61 billion, a 17 per cent increase. The Pentagon claims that this is a carefully massaged understatement of a real total which is perhaps nearly twice or even three times greater.

Does this presage a new Chinese military build-up? What are the implications for Africa as China’s role has, until now, been distinguished from that of the US and former colonial powers as a result of its lack of a military presence?

An alarmist reading would not be justified. To begin, the naval mission was China’s contribution – welcomed by the US – to the international naval anti-piracy patrol off the coast of Somalia.

The task of the UN-sanctioned international naval mission will be made easier by the regional agreement between Arab and African countries signed in Djibouti last month. This initiative will enable the implementation of an international monitoring centre similar to the successful Singapore-based body which works to counter piracy in the Straits of Malacca.

However, this is only the latest facet of China’s increasing participation in international peacekeeping efforts. According to a recent review from the authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China is the 14th largest contributor to UN peacekeeping operations, providing more troops, police, and observers than any other permanent member of the Security Council.

Of this total, some three quarters are located in Africa, and China plans further increases in its contributions to such conflict hot-spots as the DRC, Haiti, Liberia, and Sudan.

One advantage of this active role is the promotion of China’s image as a responsible member of the international community, enhancing its reputation as a ‘peace-loving’ power in contrast to the US and other Western actors. Moreover, it simultaneously serves as a quiet reminder of China’s growing role as a worldwide strategic player.

In addition, as the SIPRI paper points out, ‘it also appears that participation in peacekeeping activities abroad carries important military applications and lessons for the PLA [People’s Liberation Army]. According to the recently released Chinese defence white paper, more than 11 000 Chinese peacekeepers have been deployed to 18 UN operations. These contributions, including repeated deployments of engineering battalions and police units, provide useful and practical experiences for Chinese security forces and help improve their responsiveness, riot-control capabilities, coordination of military emergency command systems and ability to conduct MOOTW [military operations other than war] at home, a concept much touted in China’s recently released defence white paper. These benefits will be reinforced if, as expected, Chinese forces increasingly take on more dangerous and possibly combat missions as part of their expanded peacekeeping activities.’

Thus, China’s emphasis on peacekeeping could still be seen as a gradual edging towards a more independent and powerful military role. There are certainly pressures pointing in this direction as an inevitable consequence of China’s growing global commercial involvement and the subsequent need, as with all other and previous global trading nations, to demonstrate its ability to protect its nationals, safeguard its trade routes, and defend and advance its national interests.

All great imperial powers could be shown to have started from these seemingly innocent beginnings; a closer look at the Defence White Paper will certainly provide ammunition for this view. The paper’s implications for Africa are less clear, and depend in part on Africa’s own ability to define and act on its collective interests.

But just how large is China’s defence budget, and how significant is its recent increase? According to the New York Times:

‘China says its defense expenditure for 2007 was around $52 billion and while its 2008 defense budget has not been published, the total spend was announced last year to be $61 billion. However, the Pentagon says these figures are grossly underreported. In its annual report to Congress, it estimated China's total military-related spending for 2007 to be between $97 billion and $139 billion. China argues that its military budget was only 1.38 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007, while U.S. defense expenditure was 4.5 percent of GDP. Experts also point to the absolute size of the United States' defense budgets to show the asymmetric comparison. The 2008 U.S. defense budget was $ 481.4 billion plus $141.7 billion for the “Global War on Terror”.’

The White Paper itself puts recent increases into a historical context of previous relative decline, arguing that from 1978 to 1987 the average annual increase of defence expenditure was only 3.5 per cent, while GDP rose an average 14.1 per cent and state expenditure by an average 10.4 per cent. According to the report, China's annual defence expenditure, as a share of GDP and of state expenditure, dropped respectively from 4.6 per cent and 14.96 per cent in 1978 to 1.74 per cent and 9.27 per cent in 1987.

From 1988 to 1997, ‘to make up for the inadequacy of defense development and maintain national security and unity’, China gradually increased its defence expenditure. In this period, defence expenditure rose by an annual average of 14.5 per cent, while GDP rose by an average 20.7 per cent and state expenditure by 15.1 per cent. From 1998 to 2007, ‘to maintain national security and development and meet the requirements of the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) with Chinese characteristics’, the average annual increase in defence expenditure was 15.9 per cent, while GDP rose by an average 12.5 per cent and state expenditure by 18.4 per cent.

In comparison, US defence analyst Colonel Chet Richards has argued that using methods analogous to those employed to account for China’s ‘true’ rather than ‘official’ military spending, purportedly official US military spending of US$600 billion could be discredited, revealing a more accurate budget of at least US$863 billion, and if realistic estimates of future costs in Iraq and Afghanistan are included, military spending could reach as much as US$1 trillion.

Nonetheless, recent trends reflected in the White Paper, do indicate that China is moving towards a more pro-active military stance. Jonathan Holslag of the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies follows the writings of Chinese military analysts and has argued in the past against the more paranoid perceptions of a military ‘yellow peril’ emanating from certain circles in Washington. (For a particularly ripe example of this genre see Robert Kaplan’s ‘How we would fight China’).

However, in a recent study Holslag argues that ‘the question should no longer be whether the People’s Republic will extend the reach of its security policy, but how it considers doing this and what could be the options for new synergies… As China is transformed into a trading nation with global ambitions, its national security interests are becoming globalized too.’

‘China’s development has arrived at an important stage where its initial reluctance to project military force might make place for a more assertive use of military capabilities in its foreign policy… Thus far, China has given the impression that it will become the first great power that does not use military force to back its economic growth… Yet, this restraint is not unique and is definitely no guarantee for its future security strategy.’

Holslag points out that maritime powers as diverse as medieval Venice, 15th century Portugal, the US under Theodore Roosevelt, and Japan under the Meiji emperor ‘would all refer to open seas, free trade and higher moral ground as reasons to protect their national economic interests abroad with the use of force’ and ‘neither particular geographic features, nor the willingness to be perceived as a responsible power prevent security identities from changing’.

Initial aggressive intent is not necessarily the issue; it is in the nature of military competition that what one player sees as precautionary defensive measures against possible threats will be seen by other players as potential threats against which precautionary counter-measures are needed in turn. Some military professionals, though by no means all, will be predisposed to see military threats as requiring military solutions, and more generally to see all political and economic relations as ‘zero-sum’ contests amenable to military force.

The Taiwan Straits have long been a potential flash-point for this reason. China sees its determination to prevent Taiwanese independence as a legitimate defensive posture, and its declared position of seeking a peaceful resolution on the grounds of ‘one-country – two systems’ as a sign of its peaceful intent, in view of its self-evident right if it so wished to resolve the issue by force.

Chinese missiles pointing towards Taiwan and the nation’s estimated 300,000 troops on the coast opposite Taiwan are seen as a defensive deterrent against any possibility of the rebel province being used as a base for hostile attack, and as a disincentive to any potential move to independence. Nonetheless, for Taiwan and its US supporters, this posture is seen as a threat against which Taiwan should be able to defend itself by updating its US-supplied weaponry.

When the US announced a US$6.5 billion arms deal with Taiwan last year, China responded with strong protests and a suspension of military talks. Since then, the situation has cooled significantly after the return of the Kuomintang to power with the election of President Ma Ying-jeou.

Taiwan has announced cuts in troop numbers and China has called for military consultations leading to a formal armistice agreement, as well as a comprehensive economic treaty and the possibility of autonomous Taiwanese representation in international bodies such as the World Health Organization (WTO).

This decrease in tension leaves substantial concerns about the security of China’s sea lanes. As Holslag notes:

‘In 2005, President Hu Jintao promulgated the “Malacca dilemma” and warned that new strategies were needed to address the attempts of “certain major powers” that aim at controlling the strait under the pretext of combating piracy. The director of the National Defense University stressed the importance of the Indian Ocean as the main energy lifeline and called a major strategic task to protect strategic channels by building up deterrence and combat capacity. At the Maritime Conference in Qingdao, Liu Guangding, an advisor to CNOOC, stated that “resource security” should become China’s priority in its maritime power strategy and that China should watch the policies of other countries…

‘Beijing has approved an ambitious plan to boost its strategic lift platforms. “Mobility and flexibility are key for addressing new challenges”, Wang Hongshe writes in an article that was published in leading state-controlled media such as Liberation Army Daily and Xinhua. “A policy should be implemented to combine domestic development and acquisition of large military aircraft, transport helicopters and large landing ships to enhance our military’s three-dimensional mobility...it is likely that China will be able to deploy several battle groups in low-intensity conflicts abroad in 10 to 15 years”.’

As long as this solely relates to China extending its area of concern outwards from the Straits of Taiwan into the broader eastern and southern Pacific, it may seem to be of little relevance to Africa. Even this would be a mistaken view as the US perception of increased Chinese naval and military activity and potential, however legitimate and defensive, would feed the more paranoid US military circles which have already begun to alter their naval dispositions in order to deal with a perceived Chinese ‘menace’.

According to one west coast US press report:

‘[T]op Pentagon commanders are responding to China's strategies by shifting more surface ships, submarines and service members from the East Coast to the West Coast. Two attack submarines have been moved to the Point Loma Naval Base, the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson will join two other carriers next year at North Island Naval Air Station and the first batch of Littoral Combat Ships will be assigned to San Diego.’

However, the same report adds that ‘not everyone agrees that America needs to counter China's military build-up. Critics said Chinese naval and air forces would need decades to catch up to US ones in terms of technology. They also said the two nations' sizable nuclear arsenals make conventional warfare highly unlikely.’ . ‘It strikes me as fantasy’, said Chet Richards, an Atlanta-based defence analyst and retired Air Force Reserve colonel.

The current economic crisis reinforces the economic interdependence between China and the US, creating what Lawrence Summers, the chief economic adviser for President Barack Obama, has called the ‘balance of financial terror’.

However, closer economic ties and mounting military competition can go together and if mishandled can lead to disaster as the build-up to the First World War showed. China’s desire for a growing independent naval role in the Pacific will also leak into the Indian Ocean through concern over the Straits of Malacca.

This raises the potential for military competition with India. Holslag finds that:

‘Therefore, the Indian Ocean is the most important theater for China to show how far it will go in projecting naval power to defend its economic interests. Chinese defense analysts have become vociferous in stressing that the Chinese government should not be hesitant. In Liberation Army Daily, two navy officers claimed that the main national maritime interests were located along a belt of islands from Taiwan, via the Indonesian Archipelago, all the way to Diego Garcia, and that the Chinese navy consequently has to consider this corridor as its legitimate offshore defense perimeter. Most experts underline that the pressing need for resource security no longer allows Beijing’s policy of self-restraint towards the Indian Ocean region.’

Nor is China’s participation in the Somali naval taskforce purely disinterested. It is also based on a legitimate concern for China’s own nationals and its merchant fleet. ‘Around 1,265 Chinese commercial vessels passed the Gulf of Aden last year, including tankers carrying 60 per cent of China’s imported oil from the Middle East, as well as shipments of raw material from Africa. Also, Europe is now China’s largest trade partner, with many goods passing through the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.’

In December 2008 the Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Liu Jianchao said that Somali pirates had attacked one fifth of Chinese vessels passing through Somali waters from January to November last year, hijacking 15 vessels.

Holslag quotes an unidentified Chinese diplomat as stating that ‘India should get accustomed to a peaceful Chinese naval presence in Southern Asia’. No doubt it should, but given the nature of military rivalries some members of India’s military will see this as a threat to which they must respond.

This may seem absurd. How can a modest sea patrol or token task force signify a wish for military confrontation? Surely it is obvious that, as Holslag suggests:

‘China will not be able to safeguard its maritime lifelines if it enters into an open conflict with India, Russia or the United States… In addition, China’s economic interests are too dispersed to defend in case of a full-fledged competition with another rival. Burden sharing will be an evident option for a trading nation whose economic empire stretches across most of the globe.’

However, it is not only size that counts. China’s military modernisation is centred on the concept of ‘Revolution in Military Affairs [RMA] with Chinese Characteristics’ – a highly technological concept of asymmetrical warfare which includes advanced cyber-warfare techniques capable of disrupting an opponent’s electronic control systems and thus incapacitating a physically superior force. It is this which motivates American fears. The New York Times reports that:

‘…as part of this modernization agenda, China is acquiring advanced weapons systems from foreign suppliers as well as trying to develop its own. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, in a statement to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in January 2009, said the areas of greatest concern are cyber- and anti-satellite warfare, anti-air and anti-ship weaponry, submarines, and ballistic missiles.’ ‘Modernization in these areas could threaten America's primary means of projecting power and helping allies in the Pacific: our bases, air and sea assets, and the networks that support them’, he said.

In its November 2008 report to congress, the US–China Economic and Security Review Commission noted that cyberspace is a critical vulnerability of the US government and economy. The report warns ‘China is aggressively pursuing cyber warfare capabilities that may provide it with an asymmetric advantage against the United States. In a conflict situation, this advantage would reduce current U.S. conventional military dominance.’

These fears lie behind US embargoes on supply of militarily-relevant technology to China. Significantly, the Financial Times reported on 22 February that:

‘Think-tanks close to the government have been given the task of devising concessions that China can seek in recognition of its bigger role in international economic affairs. Zha Xiaogang, of the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, has published an “economic wish-list”, which includes a relaxation of US restrictions on exports of sophisticated technology to China.’

The destabilising effects of the RMA could therefore mean that despite China’s non-military African presence, and however modest and legitimate its presence in the Indian Ocean is, the objective logic of military competition could still lead the continent to feel the wake of a new round of military tension.

Can African states rise to the challenge, take collective control of their security and insist through the African Union on making Africa and its waters a ‘continent of peace’?

*Stephen Marks is a research associate with Fahamu’s China in Africa programme.
*Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

China says not pushing to expand farming overseas

2009-03-06

http://tinyurl.com/cxu59a

China is not pushing to expand overseas farming and Chinese companies are less active in their investment abroad because of concerns of potential political risks, a senior Agriculture Ministry official said on Wednesday. To meet a perennial shortfall in soybean supply, China, the world's largest soy importer, will continue to import from major growing countries such as the United States, the largest exporter, rather than seeking to buy up farmland outside China, said Qian Keming, market economics director at the ministry.

China to boost defence spending by 14.9%

2009-03-06

http://ceconomy.blogspot.com/

China announced its latest double-digit rise in defence spending on Wednesday but sought to soothe concerns in Asia and the United States by insisting its expanding military posed no threat. The defence budget will grow 14.9 percent for 2009, a parliament official said, maintaining a string of double-figure annual increases, despite a punishing slowdown in the Chinese economy as worldwide demand for its exports sags.

China to Proceed With $9 Billion Congo Plan

2009-03-06

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=aGh8yVIndUog&refer=africa

China plans to spend $9 billion on mining and infrastructure in the Democratic Republic of Congo and won’t bow to a demand from the International Monetary Fund to alter the accord, the Chinese ambassador to the country said. China’s biggest single investment in Africa will give Congo roads, railways, hospitals and schools in return for metals worth $50 billion at current prices.

China warns of unemployment risk

2009-03-06

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7915372.stm

The biggest challenge facing China is not slowing growth but unemployment, which could trigger social unrest, a Chinese government minister has said. Commerce Minister Chen Deming told the BBC that when economic growth slowed "the chances of possible social unrest increase as well".

Further Chinese funds for Mozambique national stadium

2009-03-06

http://allafrica.com/stories/200903030901.html

The Chinese government has pledged a further 2.5 million US dollars to finance work to remove soil from the site where the new Mozambican national stadium is being built. The schedule remains unchanged, that is, that the stadium will be complete before the football World Cup to be held in South Africa, in 2010.

Greater flexibility required as Chinese presence in Africa increases

2009-03-06

http://tinyurl.com/bbqp5k

The emergence of China as a force to be reckoned with on the African mining scene has altered the way contractors in the industry operate, with greater flexibility now required. Roger Dixon, a director and corporate consultant of SRK Consulting, says this was one of the observations that emerged at the Mining Indaba, which was held in Cape Town earlier this month.

India in Africa medical link-up

2009-03-06

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7915294.stm

India has launched a hi-tech project it says will provide medical education and better health care in Africa. Launched by Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee in Delhi, the project will at first connect 11 African countries with India. The services will include virtual classes for medical staff and online medical consultations.

India-South Africa trade set to soar to $12 billion by 2012

2009-03-06

http://www.khabrein.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20467&Itemid=59

"Trade between South Africa and India is projected to reach $12 billion by 2012 and South Africa is seeking cooperation with the Indian private sector to achieve this target", said South African Deputy Minister, Trade and Industry. While highlighting that the bilateral trade between both countries had risen exponentially from a negligible $ 45 million in 1993 to $ 6 billion mark in 2007-08, Elizabeth Thabethe, at an exclusive interaction and conference on South Africa: Trade and Investment Opportunities, organized by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with the Department of Trade and Industry, South Africa, Friday in Mumbai, remarked that various initiatives including establishment of the India-South Africa Joint Ministerial Commission had already been implemented.

Indian firm using stolen documents to claim Nigerian Steel?

2009-03-06

http://en.afrik.com/article15354.html

Even though the documents presented by the Indian firm to prove its acquisition of the Nigerian Steel Company was overlooked on Tuesday by the arbitrators that made up the London panel, the Nigerian government is furious at the Indian company over its possession of what is considered a classified document. According to Chief Michael Aondoakaa, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, "The Federal Government’s dispute with Global Steel over Ajaokuta had to do with what the government felt that the contract was entered not in conformity with our laws here.

Kenya- china to sign MOU on anti-piracy

2009-03-06

http://www.kbc.co.ke/story.asp?ID=55949

Kenya will sign an an MOU with the Chinese Government on anti-piracy measure which will entail a protocol on handing over of captured suspected pirates to the Kenya Government for prosecution purposes, Minister for Foreign Affairs Hon Moses Wetang'ula has said. The Minister also welcomed China's decision to send warships to patrol the Somali coast in an effort to combat piracy.

TAITRA opening trade bureau in Burkina Faso

2009-03-06

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/africa/2009/02/27/197891/TAITRA-opening.htm

Taiwan's trade promotion body has recently set up an office in Burkina Faso, the first in West Africa, in an effort to facilitate business exchanges with the African country as well as the nearby region, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) official has said.

Textile capital hobbled by downturn

2009-03-06

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/business/worldbusiness/28textile.html?_r=3

Not long ago, 20,000 textile and garment factories were bustling here, crowded with workers knitting and sewing for six, and sometimes seven, days a week to produce the wares sold at big American retailers like Gap and Wal-Mart. Now, demand is waning in the United States, and Shaoxing, a coastal city that is one of the world’s biggest textile centers, has fallen victim to the global downturn.

Tullow not distressed; African assets seen as prize

2009-03-06

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/8385762

Tullow Oil is the latest Africa-focused energy firm to draw Chinese takeover interest, but the $8 billion oil and gas independent, emboldened by its prospects, has snubbed potential buyers, dealmakers say. London-listed Tullow runs oil and gas projects in 23 countries across Africa, Europe, South Asia, and South America.

Sino-DRC contracts to thwart the return of Western patronage

Antoine Roger Lokongo

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/54567

cc Nick HobgoodThe DRC’s desire to choose its own mining trading partners, whether Chinese investors or Western corporations, calls the bluff of global financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank, writes Antoine Roger Lokongo. Negotiations the country has conducted reveal how these institutions are putting pressure on the DRC government to ditch the Socomin deal with China – a Beijing-based, joint-venture between the DRC’s Gécamines and a group of Chinese state-owned enterprises – as a condition to get its debt forgiven. That is clearly blackmail, Lokongo maintains, and is inconsistent with the spirit of free trade and globalisation.
Is the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on the verge of bankruptcy? Reuters reports that the DRC’s foreign reserves, which stood at over US$225 million last April 2008, fell to just US$36 million in early February 2009. The World Bank reacted quickly and Marie-Francoise Marie-Nelly, the DRC’s World Bank country director, announced that the bank has proposed lending the country US$100 million in emergency funds from early March to help offset the effects of dwindling mineral export revenues.

The World Bank proposal comes as the DRC’s government accelerates efforts to secure another US$200 million from the IMF’s ‘exogenous shocks facility’ as the country awaits a rebound in demand for its mineral exports.

How viable are these amounts compared with the US$20 billion that China is proposing to the DRC, a post-conflict country? Who can explain to us how the World Bank’s US$100 million loan and the IMF’s US$200 million loan to the DRC is not going to increase its debt burden? Why should we be worried about Chinese loans and not Western ones?

In September 2007 the DRC signed a historic mining agreement with China. The agreement was conducted between La Générale des Carrières des Mines (Gécamines), the DRC’s state-owned mining company, and a group of Chinese state-owned enterprises (a kind of public–private agreement). These include China’s Eximbank, the China Railway Engineering Company (CREC) and Sinohydro.

The agreement creates a mining joint-venture between Gécamines, CREC and Sinohydro in the form of a Beijing-based company called Socomin (a joint-venture), in which the Chinese hold 68 per cent of the shares and Gécamines 32 per cent. Eximbank entered with an investment of US$9 billion in Socomin, of which US$3.25 billion will be mining investment and the remaining US$6 billion earmarked for infrastructural development.

The loan is only the first instalment of a US$20 billion package of loans to be made available over the next three years. Of the US$9 billion, a third will be pumped into the DRC’s war-ravaged mines. The other US$6 billion will take the form of a soft loan (backed by some of the country’s best mineral deposits) to finance new infrastructure (roads, railways, hospitals, hydro-electric dams, airports and vocational training centres) to be built by Chinese construction companies. Changes to infrastructure will be made primarily with Chinese labour, though Congolese local companies will be sub-contracted.[1]

The Financial Times reported on 9 February 2009 that China’s biggest investment deal in Africa is faltering as Western donors create pressure to renegotiate a minerals-for-infrastructure contract in the DRC.[2] In public statements the IMF has ‘urged the [Congolese] authorities to take all actions to ensure that the final agreement [with China] is consistent with debt sustainability’, according to the report. In Kinshasa, the report said, the government is keen to listen to the concerns of Western donors but is, at the same time, eager to pursue the deal with the Chinese.

‘Changes will come’, Victor Kasongo, the DRC’s deputy minister of mines told the Financial Times, adding that the government was awaiting the results of a feasibility study, due by June, on the ‘robustness’ of the project. ‘Congo has chosen to carry on with the IMF and World Bank economic route and at the same time to pursue development with Chinese money’, he said.

Most Western donors have said they support the deal ‘in principle’ because it gives the DRC access to capital on a scale it could not receive from anywhere else. But, led by the Paris Club of creditors and the IMF, they have raised objections to specific provisions.

The focus of concern, according to Western diplomats in Kinshasa, is that the deal would give the Chinese consortium unprecedented state financial guarantees, including some that earmark government revenues and make China a privileged creditor.

But Wu Zexian, China’s ambassador to the DRC, indicated that it would not be so easy. ‘They [Western institutions] are wrong to ask Congo to remove the state guarantee. That is blackmail’, he said. ‘This is a poor country that needs to develop. Why force the country to modify the clause? We cannot accept that. It’s discriminatory.’

On this occasion I think the Chinese ambassador has a point. The DRC was not frogmarched into a deal with China. It signed the deal in complete independence as a sovereign country. If there are clauses that need to be revised, they must be done so in that same spirit. The Western world, the IMF and the World Bank bankrolled Mobutu’s kleptocratic regime for 32 years. They lent him a lot of money which he put in Swiss banks.

The DRC has inherited US$14 billion worth of debt incurred by the Mobutu regime and various transitional governments after President Laurent Kabila was gunned down. During his short 44 month-long tenure of office, Kabila left the country with no debt, not even a penny!

One of the reasons Kabila was killed is because he refused to reimburse all the debts that Mobutu had incurred, arguing that he did not see any works that that money had done in his country. ‘If you lend money to a thief, expect not to be repaid one day’, Kabila told the IMF and the World Bank.

Now the same IMF and World Bank are putting pressure on the DRC government to ditch the deal with China as a condition to get its debt forgiven. That is clearly blackmail. The US$100 million the World Bank has proposed is just a drop in the ocean given the huge challenges the DRC faces. Any suggestion that such a drop in the ocean is actually a foretaste of a US$1 billion loan, provided the DRC ditches the deal with China, is unacceptable.

At this age of globalisation, if the DRC has no freedom to diversify its trading partners, it is still a Belgian colony, a ‘free trade zone’ as it was defined at the Berlin Conference under the trusteeship of King Leopold II.

If the DRC government tries to flex its muscles, it invites trouble. After asking, in vain, the IMF and the World Bank to forgive Congo’s US$14 billion debt inherited from Mobutu and various transitional governments, the DRC turned to China because Kinshasa was told it must abide by ‘the principle of the continuity of the state’ and pay its due. As a consequence, the government of Joseph Kabila is paying US$800 million a year just to service the debt. At the same time, the interim American government set up in Baghdad trampled the same principle and refused to respect the oil contracts Saddam Hussein had signed with France, China and Russia, let alone recognise the debts of the former Iraqi dictator!

The DRC’s deal with China must go ahead. The DRC should be allowed to exercise freedom of choice in the globalised market economy. China will help the DRC break free from the stranglehold of neocolonialism.

How does one explain Rwanda’s cyclic wars in the eastern DRC? Simple. The Tutsi insurgents are encouraged by the ‘return of the white patronage’ over the mineral-rich central African country. We have Albrecht Conze, the former political chief of MONUC (Mission des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo – the UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC), and now the German ambassador to Zimbabwe’s words for it. In an interview given to the Spiegel Online on 17 August 2006, Conze predicted the return of the white patronage in a country that was a Belgian colony until 1960 in the following terms: ‘It is like the West being Congo’s foster parents’ he said, ‘but it won’t be easy.’ According to Conze’s theory, support will come from a black ‘council of advisors’, another idea hatched by Western governments. ‘The plan is for well-known African politicians such as Joaquim Chissano, Mozambique’s former president, [and] Nicephore Soglo, his colleague from Benin, to make policies crafted overseas more palatable to Congo’s citizens’, he said.[3]

The project’s success ultimately depends on ‘Western states and institutions acting in a unified way’. But that is a somewhat shaky foundation. The US government’s interest in rebuilding the DRC is limited, for example. After all, the deeply Catholic country ‘contains neither oil nor terrorists’, Conze pointed out.

Conze concluded by saying, ‘By contrast, Congo’s former colonial ruler Belgium fears losing lucrative business opportunities to European competitors the moment the situation in the country becomes more transparent. The rising world power China could cause trouble too – by providing billions of dollars in loans without imposing conditions or controls in return for access to the country’s valuable natural resources. Beijing has already used this method in neighbouring Angola, where it now controls much of the oil production.’

Good heralding Mr Conze! This is one the reasons why, all of a sudden, we have another cycle of war in eastern Congo. In fact, the Financial Times reported on 31 October 2008 that the evangelical Christian Tutsi warlord Laurent Nkunda, alias Nkundabatware, who has grabbed all the headlines in credit-crunch hit Western countries, is very much against the agreement the DRC signed with China to provide US$9 billion worth of investment in rebuilding infrastructure in exchange for the country’s natural resources. This is a clear sign that Nkundabatware is being used. But who gives him the mandate to veto an agreement signed by a sovereign, legitimate and democratically-elected government with a partner of its free choice?

Nkundabatware is a proxy for Rwandan interests in the DRC, and the West is using the presidency of Paul Kagame of Rwanda to weaken the DRC completely.

At a recent meeting convened by the Royal Commonwealth Society to discuss whether Rwanda should be admitted or not as a member of the Commonwealth, one of the speakers, Andrew Mitchell, a Conservative MP and former shadow minister for international development, said that ‘he likes Kagame because he is a man of actions who has shown exceptional leadership and who is working with India to thwart China’s breakthrough in Africa.’ He meant to say the DRC, because Kagame has so far only invaded the DRC, which has signed the biggest minerals-for-infrastructure contract with China valued at US$9 billion (€6.9 billion, UK£6 billion).

The Chinese deal is an ‘infrastructure development resources-backed finance (IDRF)’ deal, a kind of barter trade which will not leave the DRC saddled with debts. It will have an impact on the infrastructure sector as well as on the agriculture sector. It will benefit Western investors, especially in the mining sector. How can you kick-start the development of the DRC after 15 years of a war of aggression without basic infrastructures? Clearly, this is where you start. China is ready to put a larger amount of money into the DRC than any other.

The mining contracts the DRC signed with Western partners were founded on the West keeping 75 per cent of the stakes. There is no single contract where the DRC gets more than 25 per cent. Is that acceptable? Take Freeport MacMoran, which wants to exploit the biggest reserve of copper and cobalt in the world situated in Tenke Fungurume, Katanga. It insists that the Congolese state should be content with a 5 per cent stake, as originally agreed, and should not revise it. Companies such as Banro hold private gold concessions – wholly owned – in South Kivu and Maniema,[4] and First Quantum wholly owns copper concessions in Lonshi and Frontier Project, formerly known as Lufua, Katanga.[5] ‘Où est le sérieux?’ as the French say.

The DRC has, more or less, adopted the liberal market economy, the fundamental principle of which is ‘you go where you get a better deal’. If it gets a better deal from China, why not put China first? Similarly, if it gets a better deal from America, Belgium, France or Britain, why not privilege such partnerships first?

* Antoine Roger Lokongo is a London-based Congolese journalist.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

[1] ‘DRC Unveils Its $9 billion minerals-for-infrastructures with China, Government Press Release, Ministry of Public Works, 9 May 2008.
[2] ‘Donors Press Congo Over $9 Bln China Minerals Deal’, Financial Times, London, 9 February 2009.
[3] See, Keith Harmon Snow, ‘Over Five Million Dead in Congo? Fifteen Hundred People Daily? Behind the Numbers Redux: How Truth is Hidden, Even When it Seems to Be Told’, Global Research, 30 January 2008.
[4] ‘Banro closes US$14 million financing’, PRNewswire-FirstCall, Toronto, 19 February 2009.
[5] First Quantum Minerals Receives Court Approval for Plan of Arrangement With Scandinavian Minerals’, Market Wires, Vancouver, British Colombia, 17 June 2008; See also: ‘First Quantum Minerals Announces Resource At Lufua Project; One Million Tonnes of Contained Copper’, CCNMatthews via COMTEX, Vancouver, British Colombia, 1 June 2004.

Botswana denies bailout plan for Zimbabwe

2009-03-06

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/africa/-/1066/542494/-/13qnqpmz/-/index.html

The Botswana government has denied reports that it has a bailout plan for crisis-torn Zimbabwe. Botswana Finance Minister, Mr Baledzi Gaolathe told the weekly Echo newspaper that reports that his country, South Africa, Mozambique and Zambia have agreed to give emergency funding to bankroll Zimbabwe’s coalition government are false.

Five WOZA activists released on US $50 bail after 6 days in custody

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/54587

The four women and one man arrested in Harare on Wednesday finally appeared in Harare Magistrate’s Court this morning on charges under Section 37 (1) (a) (i) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act – “disturbing the peace, security or order of the public”. They were released on bail of US $50 each by Magistrate Olivia Mariga and remanded out of custody to 19th March. They also have to report to their nearest police station every Friday.
News update from WOZA
2nd March – 4pm

5 WOZA activists released on US $50 bail after 6 days in custody
The four women and one man arrested in Harare on Wednesday finally appeared in Harare Magistrate’s Court this morning on charges under Section 37 (1) (a) (i) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act – “disturbing the peace, security or order of the public”. They were released on bail of US $50 each by Magistrate Olivia Mariga and remanded out of custody to 19th March. They also have to report to their nearest police station every Friday. The state prosecutor also tried to insist on an early trial but the docket was not ready. They were brought to court by law and order officer, Phiri.
The investigating officer Detective Sergeant Kahora is the man responsible for ensuring that the group were unlawfully detained, spending six days in custody, well over the 48-hours allowed for by law.
WOZA would like to salute the courage and determination of these parents in enduring beatings, arrest and detention in horrific conditions to ensure that their concerns about their children’s education were brought to the attention of the Minister of Education. The extended and unlawful detention, the extortionate bail demanded and the reporting conditions imposed also show that the inception of an unity government has done nothing to change the way democracy and social justice activists are treated by a hostile and repressive state.

Jestina Mukoko released

2009-03-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/54628

Human rights activist Jestina Mukoko was released on bail following three months of incarceration in Zimbabwe prisons. Africa Action welcomes this development and wishes to extend appreciation to hundreds of activists who responded to our calls over the last 3 months to take action demanding Jestina’s release. Jestina is ‘free’ today due to the collective efforts of people of good conscience all over the world who stood in solidarity with her during months of unlawful incarceration.
AFRICA ACTION WELCOMES JESTINA MUKOKO’S RELEASE
Yesterday, human rights activist Jestina Mukoko was released on bail following three months of incarceration in Zimbabwe prisons. Africa Action welcomes this development and wishes to extend appreciation to hundreds of activists who responded to our calls over the last 3 months to take action demanding Jestina’s release. Jestina is ‘free’ today due to the collective efforts of people of good conscience all over the world who stood in solidarity with her during months of unlawful incarceration. It is this outcry that made the government of Zimbabwe realize that the world is not just watching but is in fact, utterly outraged by cases of gross human rights violations.

As we welcome Jestina’s release, we note with dismay that fabricated charges against her are still in place. We believe that these charges should be dropped immediately and Jestina must be allowed to go back to her life of civic activism without any intimidation or hindrance.

Of great concern too is the fact that the government of Zimbabwe continues to hold other political prisoners. If the new inclusive government of Zimbabwe is serious, and wants to be taken seriously by the world its human rights, governance and democratic record must improve and that includes immediate release of all political prisoners. A notable case is that of Roy Bennett, the designate Deputy Minister for Agriculture in the inclusive government who has been in prison for almost a month now. Despite the fact that Roy Bennett was granted bail by the courts, he remains incarcerated because the government of Zimbabwe continues to manipulate the judicial system.

All political detainees in Zimbabwe have told stories of torture and other forms of abuse at the hands of state agents. Jestina Mukoko had to be released to a hospital because of serious health problems from torture and horrible prison conditions. In the interest of justice, we believe that those responsible for torture and abuse must be brought to book. The culture of impunity by Zimbabwe’s police and other security agents must stop immediately if the inclusive government is to be taken seriously.

Police arrest magistrate over Bennett bail

2009-03-06

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=5361

Police in Zimbabwe have arrested a magistrate who allowed MDC ministerial nominee Roy Bennett to post bail. Other magistrates in the town of Mutare have gone on strike in solidarity with Livingstone Chipadze, officials say. "It is frightening if a magistrate is arrested because he has passed a judgment that is not popular with the state," Mr Bennett's lawyer said. Mr Bennett remains in custody. He was seized on the day MDC ministers joined a power-sharing government.

The IRC ramps up its effort to battle cholera

2009-03-06

http://tinyurl.com/bzhwlv

As the death toll from Zimbabwe’s cholera outbreak continues to climb, the International Rescue Committee is ramping up its emergency programs to combat the epidemic. “As devastating as a cholera outbreak can be, it’s actually fairly easily avoided and treated,” said Eric James, coordinator of the IRC’s emergency response team in Zimbabwe. “But only about half of the country’s cholera treatment facilities have electricity, so it's very difficult if not impossible to treat people at night requiring things like intravenous lines.”

Zimbabwe inclusive government watch

2009-03-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/zimbabwe/54600

On 11 February at a ceremony at State House in Harare, presided over by President Robert Mugabe, the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, and the two Deputy Prime Ministers, Thokozani Khupe and Arthur Mutambara, were sworn in. Addressing the small audience of invited guests, President Mugabe said: “I offer my hand of friendship and co-operation, warm co-operation and solidarity in the service of our great country Zimbabwe. If yesterday we were adversaries ... today we stand in unity. It's a victory for Zimbabwe.”
Zimbabwe Inclusive Government Watch : Issue 3
Sokwanele : 4 March 2009

On 11 February at a ceremony at State House in Harare, presided over by President Robert Mugabe, the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, and the two Deputy Prime Ministers, Thokozani Khupe and Arthur Mutambara, were sworn in.

Addressing the small audience of invited guests, President Mugabe said: “I offer my hand of friendship and co-operation, warm co-operation and solidarity in the service of our great country Zimbabwe. If yesterday we were adversaries ... today we stand in unity. It's a victory for Zimbabwe.”

Despite these conciliatory words, President Mugabe chose the excommunicated former Bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kungona, to give the opening reading and to lead the prayers during the swearing in of Prime Minister Tsvangirai.

Objections from the MDC to Kunonga’s invitation are reported to have been ignored. The disgraced bishop still faces charges, including incitement to murder.

Timed to coincide with the ceremony, the old government’s propaganda machine kept rolling, with state radio reminding listeners that the collapse of the economy and world record hyper-inflation was the fault of Britain.

The final curtain had fallen on President Mugabe’s 29-year monopoly on power, but it was an uneasy start.

Later at a rally, Prime Minister Tsvangirai received a hero’s welcome from the jubilant crowd. Contrary to the spirit of the unity agreement, the MDC came in for criticism prior to the event when they said that no party regalia would be allowed at Tsvangirai’s inauguration.

The following day President Mugabe prepared to re-appoint the same cabinet he recently described as the worst he had ever seen. “They look at themselves. They are unreliable,” he said.

According to the Global Political Agreement (GPA), the Cabinet was to comprise a total of 31 ministers: 15 from Zanu-PF, 16 from the MDC-T and 3 from the MDC-M. However, on 19 February, under pressure from Mugabe, five additional Ministers of State not covered by the GPA were sworn in. In total, an extra 30 ministers were added to the 31 agreed by Zanu-PF and the MDC.

Despite these concessions from the MDC, Mugabe refused to fire Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Gideon Gono and Attorney General Johannes Tomana, both of whom were improperly appointed in violation of the power-sharing agreement. Under the agreement, all appointments of senior officials by Mugabe have to be made in consultation with the prime minister. Gono is blamed for ruining Zimbabwe’s economy through his policies at the central bank. Tomana, an avowed Zanu-PF supporter, is accused of blocking the release of opposition activists.

A week before the inauguration, Zimbabweans were appalled to learn that the new government – which had committed itself to giving priority to the restoration of economic stability - was spending US$2 million on imported vehicles for the country’s legislators.

The NGO Veritas noted in Bill Watch Issue 7 of 28 February that there were procedural problems with Constitution Amendment No.19 as the gazetted Act does not contain all the Schedules that were in the Bill. Veritas pointed out that it needed to be considered “whether or not the gazetted Constitution of Zimbabwe (No. 19) Act truly reflects the Bill that was passed by Parliament. The gazetted Act does not contain all the Schedules that were in the Bill.”

The introduction of the office of the Prime Minister, as envisaged by the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 19) agreed draft, has the net effect of diluting and mitigating the hitherto imperial powers of the President.

Throughout the transition, the issue of the detainees, their torture, the denial of medical treatment and the appalling conditions under which they have been held has continued to dominate the political landscape. Three of the most seriously ill were Civic leader Jestina Mukoko, Tsvangirai's former aide Ghandi Mudzingwa, and 72-year old MDC activist Fidelis Chiramba.

Roy Bennett, Deputy Minister of Agriculture-designate, who was detained two days after the inauguration, was finally granted bail by a High Court Judge on 24 February. This was blocked by the Attorney General’s office which invoked an act allowing them seven days to appeal the ruling.

While in jail, Bennett has sought to publicise the inhumane conditions under which prisoners are held. A statement released by the MDC reported that prisoners were literally starving to death. Bennett and inmates spent an entire day with a corpse in their cell.

As the spectre of a Truth and Justice Commission looms, Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri has ordered the police to drop all cases relating to murders committed during the run-up to last year’s June 27 Presidential election.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has as yet made no funding commitments to Zimbabwe, despite the country’s request for a US$2-billion economic rescue package. SADC’s reticence is predictable given that a R300-million donation from South Africa for agricultural aid to Zimbabwe has been misused by senior people in Zanu-PF.

The agricultural sector remains in crisis, with Mugabe’s leading henchmen mounting a final offensive to drive the remaining white commercial farmers off the land - a direct challenge to the new unity government. These actions are also in direct contravention and contempt of the SADC Tribunal ruling that Zimbabwe’s government violated the SADC Treaty by trying to seize white-owned farms.

Although the GPA insists that the public media provides balanced and fair coverage to all political parties, the MDC is still being denied coverage by Zimbabwe Broadcast Holdings. The state-owned Herald and Chronicle newspapers refused to carry an advertisement submitted by Zimbabwe Democracy Now.

An MDC rally due to take place on the eve of a regional summit on Zimbabwe’s political crisis was banned by the police.

While the country remains mired in political problems, Physicians for Human Rights warns that malnutrition is set to be a major health issue over the next several months.

Africa: FEMNET at 53rd Commission on the status of Women

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/54585

Representatives of UN Member States, UN entities and ECOSOC-accredited non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from all over the world are attending the 53rd Commission on the status of Women which is being held at the United Nations headquarters in New York from 2 to 13 March 2009. The session is being convened under the theme:” The equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including care giving in the context of HIV/AIDS”
PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

March 4th 2009
Representatives of UN Member States, UN entities and ECOSOC-accredited non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from all over the world are attending the 53rd Commission on the status of Women which is being held at the United Nations headquarters in New York from 2 to 13 March 2009. The session is being convened under the theme:” The equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including care giving in the context of HIV/AIDS”

Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), dedicated exclusively to gender equality. It is held annually to deliberate and come up with way forwards on gender related issues.

The African Women’s Development and communication Network (FEMNET) will be participating in the CSW proceedings and will also be coordinating parallel meetings under the African Women Caucus which comprises regional NGOs representing the African women.

FEMNET Executive Director Norah Matovu Winyi is optimistic that the 2009 CSW will present a unique opportunity for African women to present their concerns to the UN governing council.

“The theme for the CSW 53rd Session is very critical for all those who are working on programs that aim at achieving gender equality and women's empowerment. Unless we can address the causes of gender inequality between men and women it is very hard to imagine how equal responsibility between men and women can be achieved”. Said Ms Matovu.

The African Women’s caucus will be held on Tuesday 3rd March @ 10:00am-12:00pm at UN Conference Room B

For Further Information Contact:
Carlyn Hambuba Communication Officer:
Tel: + (254)20.2712971/2 or + (254)20.2341516/7 (Wireless)
Cell: + (254)725.766932
Norah Matovu 917 370 7255. (New York)
communication@femnet.or.ke

DRC: Treating the sexually abused in South Kivu

2009-03-06

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/ASAZ-7PUJY3?OpenDocument

In Bukavu, the main town in South Kivu Province of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Panzi referral hospital receives six to eight women daily who have experienced sexual violence. "At least 60 percent of the women have been sexually violated, probably as sex slaves, through gang rape or through domestic violence," Maria Bard, manager of the hospital's Victims of Sexual Violence Project, said.

Global: Global gender pay gap bigger than previously thought - New report

2009-03-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/54610

A new report released by the ITUC for March 8, International Women’s Day, has revealed that the pay gap between men and women worldwide may be much higher than official government figures. The report, “Gender (in)Equality in the Labour Market”, is based on survey results of some 300,000 women and men in 20 countries. It puts the global pay gap at up to 22%, rather than the 16.5% figure taken from official government figures and released by the ITUC on March 8 last year.
Study also covers the impact of the economic crisis on women’s jobs and incomes and reveals costs of violence against women

Brussels, 5 March 2009 (ITUC OnLine): A new report released by the ITUC for March 8, International Women’s Day, has revealed that the pay gap between men and women worldwide may be much higher than official government figures. The report, “Gender (in)Equality in the Labour Market”, is based on survey results of some 300,000 women and men in 20 countries. It puts the global pay gap at up to 22%, rather than the 16.5% figure taken from official government figures and released by the ITUC on March 8 last year.

The report also confirms previous findings that union membership, and particularly the inclusion of women in collective bargaining agreements, leads to much better incomes for both women and men, as well as better pay for women relative to their male co-workers. The study, which follows the March 8 ITUC Global Gender Pay Gap report, was written by London-based pay specialists Incomes Data Services and is based on internet surveys conducted in industrialised and developing countries in 2008 by the WageIndicator Foundation.

“This report clearly confirms the advantage which men and women workers gain from union membership, which is all the more important in the current global economic crisis when jobs and living standards for millions of workers are under severe threat,” said Guy Ryder, ITUC general secretary.

Other key findings in the report include confirmation that women with higher educational qualifications actually experience a larger income gap compared to males with similar qualifications, that the pay gap is less in the public sector than in private employment, and that the pay gap increases with age.

“There are a number of reasons why women still earn so much less than men, including overt as well as subtle discrimination against women in the labour market and in the workplace, the way that employers, especially in the private sector, handle promotions to better-paid jobs, and lack of maternity protection for women and parenting leave that both men and women can access,” said Sharan Burrow, president of the ITUC and of the Australian Trade Union Centre ACTU.

A special new ITUC video on maternity protection aims to bring public attention to the problems faced by women workers in balancing work and activities at home and in the community.

Impact of Economic Crisis on Women

The report also examines the impact of economic recession on women’s access to employment and incomes. Previous downturns have had a particularly negative effect on women in developing countries working in export industries and agriculture. Any reductions in government spending on health, social protection and education also often hit women hardest. Special attention must be given to the impacts of policy responses on women in the context of government action taken to tackle the current crisis.

“The global trend towards regular employment being replaced by contract labour and agency employment has had a particular effect on women, and these precarious jobs are the first to go as employers reduce their payrolls in this global recession. Millions upon millions of women working in domestic service and as migrant workers are facing unemployment or have already lost their jobs, and already-struggling households around the world are being hit hard because of this,” said Ryder.

A special chapter in the report also tackles the appalling human and economic cost of violence against women, taking a close look at the impact of violence against women at home, in society and at work. The report cites WHO figures indicting that in some countries a majority of women experience physical assault and psychological intimidation, while a global average of some one-third of women suffer from violence at some stage in their lives. Along with the lasting physical and mental damage caused by violence against women, the report advances clear evidence of its economic effects on women’s employment and economic situation. Examples are given of the total economic cost of violence against women in several countries indicating that the total global cost is likely to be in the tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars.

“Unions around the world are working to stop violence against women, through government action, raising awareness and also action in workplaces. We are calling on governments to work together to build a complete picture of the causes and effects, including analysis of the huge economic costs which add to the impacts on women themselves and on society,” said Burrow.



Video link:
High Definition: http://vimeo.com/3482351 Standard Definition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG96fEi6WrU

To see the full report: http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/GAP-09_EN.pdf

This report is produced as part of the Global Unions ‘Decent Work, Decent Life for Women’ Campaign


The ITUC represents 170 million workers in 312 affiliated national organisations from 157 countries. http://www.ituc-csi.org http://www.youtube.com/ITUCCSI

For more information please contact the ITUC Press Department on +32 2 224 0204 or +32 476 621 018.

Global: Time has come for a New U.N. women's agency

2009-03-06

http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/5439.html

For over 80 years, the relationship between women and international organisations has barely existed in historical records and has been scarcely promoted by the media. Well before the Charter of the United Nations was approved in 1945, and already at the League of Nations, women fought and participated to include demands against discrimination, promoting the legal and social progress of women around the world. The international movement of women that took part in the creation of the United Nations – these “founding mothers” – should get the credit they deserve.

Kenya: Disabled women are vulnerable to sexual violence

2009-03-06

http://www.awcfs.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=554&Itemid=1

A recent study by the Federation of Women Lawyers in Kenya (FIDA-K) - a women’s rights advocacy organization that works for gender equality through legal aid - reveals that disabled women are up to three times more likely to be victims of physical and sexual abuse than their non-disabled counterparts.

Liberia: AWDF to attend colloquium

2009-03-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/54596

The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) will be participating in the International Colloquium on Women’s Empowerment, Leadership Development, International Peace & Security in Monrovia Liberia, 7th – 8th March, 2009. This event is co-hosted by President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson of Liberia and President Tarja Halonen of Finland. AWDF is proud to be a co-funder and thematic lead for this innovative leadership colloquium. As part of our support for this event, AWDF will be convening a number of activities before and during the International Colloquium, as well as supporting African women leaders from around the continent to attend the Forum.
THE AFRICAN WOMEN’S DEVELOPMENT FUND AT THE INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM IN LIBERIA CO-HOSTED BY PRESIDENT SIRLEAF-JOHNSON OF LIBERIA AND PRESIDENT HALONEN OF FINLAND

The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) will be participating in the International Colloquium on Women’s Empowerment, Leadership Development, International Peace & Security in Monrovia Liberia, 7th – 8th March, 2009. This event is co-hosted by President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson of Liberia and President Tarja Halonen of Finland. AWDF is proud to be a co-funder and thematic lead for this innovative leadership colloquium. As part of our support for this event, AWDF will be convening a number of activities before and during the International Colloquium, as well as supporting African women leaders from around the continent to attend the Forum.

As part of our ongoing commitment to ensuring adequate resources for women’s rights organisations in Liberia, AWDF will convene a Resource Mobilisation workshop and Donor Forum on Friday the 6th of March, at PA’s Rib House, Monrovia. On Saturday 7th March, Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, Executive Director of AWDF will moderate The Great Debate, “We Have Wasted Our Time Pushing for More Women in Decision Making Positions, They Are Indifferent to the Concerns of Women”. Speakers for the Motion are Thelma Ekiyor (West Africa Civil Society Institute), Dr Thelma Awori (Institute for Social Transformation, Uganda) Dr Abena Busia (University Professor/Member of AWDF USA board). Speakers against the motion are Honourable Varbah Gayflor (Minister for Gender & Development, Liberia), Honourable Zeinab Bangura (Member of Parliament, Sierra Leone) and Honourable Margaret Dongo (Former Member of Parliament, Zimbabwe). Respondents are Honourable Catharine Mabobori (Member of Parliament, Burundi), Nemata Majeks-Walker (Founder, The 50:50 Group) and Salimata Porguet (Former Member of Parliament, Ivory Coast)

AWDF in association with President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson will also launch “The Compendium of Key Instruments for African Women’s Human Rights” on Sunday the 8th of March. Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, Executive Director of AWDF states “In a time of global crisis and challenges, supporting women’s transformational leadership and political participation is more important now than it has ever been. AWDF is proud to support the International Colloquium which seeks to bring together women leaders to promote women’s leadership on peace and security”



ENDS

The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) is a grant-making foundation which supports local, national and regional organizations in Africa working towards women’s empowerment. AWDF through institutional capacity building and program development seeks to build a culture of learning and partnerships within the African women’s movement.

The vision of AWDF is for African women to live in a world in which there is social justice, equality and respect for women’s human rights. To this end, our mission is to mobilize financial resources to support local, national and regional initiatives led by women, which will lead to the achievement of this vision.

Press Enquiries

Nana Sekyiamah – Programme Officer (Fundraising & Communications)

Tel: + 233 21 521257

Fax: +233 21 521257

Email: nana@awdf.org

Websites: www.awdf.org

Global: New report on Responsibility to Protect

2009-03-06

http://tinyurl.com/c96kf4

In a new report Yes we can? Options and barriers to broadening the scope of the Responsibility to Protect to include cases of economic, social and cultural rights abuse, the One World Trust explores the environment of human rights standards from which the R2P has in part emerged, and which are necessary to understand its potential of development.

Global: The politics of ending impunity

2009-03-05

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5941&l=1

The pursuit of international justice for perpetrators of atrocity crimes necessarily has political implications – from shifting the balance of power within a country, to requiring other states to cooperate when doing so may adversely affect their own interests, to confronting both international and domestic actors with the undesirable task of weighing the benefits of peace against the costs of impunity.

Kenya: Extra-judicial executions

2009-03-06

http://marsgroupkenya.org/pages/stories/UN_Report/index.php

This is a full video confession by a Kenyan Police Officer who witnessed extra-judicial killings of 58 suspects by his colleagues under orders from their superiors. The confessions was taken by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights on June 25th 2008. The officer, Bernard Kirrinya was shot dead in Nairobi on October 16th 2008.

Kenya: KPTJ Statement on extra-judicial killings report

2009-03-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/54551

We, the organisations united in the search for truth and justice, welcome the report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extra Judicial Executions, Prof Philip Alston. We praise it for its clarity and candour, perceptiveness and precision as well as its bold recommendations. The mountain of evidence in the report is only a confirmation of what our membership that is engaged in human rights work have known and condemned for a long time – that sections of the security forces have been turned into killer squads with no respect for human life; they have become a law unto themselves.
PRESS RELEASE

Nairobi, Friday, February 27, 2008

We, the organisations united in the search for truth and justice, welcome the report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extra Judicial Executions, Prof Philip Alston.
We praise it for its clarity and candour, perceptiveness and precision as well as its bold recommendations. The mountain of evidence in the report is only a confirmation of what our membership that is engaged in human rights work have known and condemned for a long time – that sections of the security forces have been turned into killer squads with no respect for human life; they have become a law unto themselves.

These findings, though shocking, are not new to the Government. They have been presented to it in numerous reports here and abroad.
For example, last year, in September, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights released its report on extra-judicial killings and disappearances, ‘Cry of Blood’ which was received with derision and open dismissal by the police and other official circles. Earlier, the KNCHR had released its report about the excesses of the security forces in Mt Elgon District in the report, ‘Mountain of Terror’. The Independent Medico-Legal Unit followed this with the release of ‘Double Tragedy’, a report with similar findings, and was supported by the international Human Rights Watch report, ‘All the Men Have Gone: War Crimes in Kenya’s Mt Elgon District’.

Later last year, at the 41st session of the United Nations Committee Against Torture, the Kenya Government delegation acknowledged the occurrence of extra-judicial killings – including those carried out by agents of the State.
Prof Alston’s unmasking of Kenya’s security forces and the complicit inaction of the Attorney General should catalyse the Government to take urgent measures to punish those who sanctioned and committed these violations, reform the institutions that housed the perpetrators, and make reparations to the victims.

The issues that the human rights community in Kenya has been raising cannot be wished away by denials and diversionary tactics. In this regard, we take great exception to the statement by the police purporting to deny the statements of the murdered whistleblower, Bernard Kiriinya. The police have chosen to evade the serious indictments made in the late Mr Kiriinya’s confession and instead singled out the vice-chairman of the Kenya National Commission on human Rights, Mr Hassan Omar, and commission staff for intimidation through threats and dirty-tricks propaganda. The entire human rights movement, and civil society in general, stand with the commission on the probity and accuracy of their reports. And it unreservedly supports and endorses the findings and recommendations of the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Executions. It is the police in the dock, and they cannot turn accuser now.

The UN Special Rapporteur’s report cannot be denied or wished away either. It echoes much of what the Commission of Inquiry into the Post-Election Violence, chaired by Justice Philip Waki found: That the security forces are culpable for gross human rights violations, including crimes against humanity, for which justice can be obtained at the International Criminal Court – if it is not locally forthcoming.
Prof Alston’s report is an opportunity for the Government to radically reform the security services and inculcate in those who serve in them a respect for human life and rights, while securing justice for the victims of its agents’ actions.

In light to this the undersigned organizations hereby demand that the government takes all necessary measures to:-


Forthwith retract their ill-advised dismissal of the UN Special rapporteur’s report and acknowledge the widespread of state perpetrated executions.

1. Immediately Seize perpetrating the misconception that the Special Rapporteurs report is based on a mere ten day visit, because the rappoteur requested for this visit in October 2007 and has been in constant communication on the same and conducted background research on the matter prior to his visit.

2. Dismiss from office and Institute criminal proceedings against the well known Police officers perpetrating the on-going systematic executions and the superiors issuing orders for execution..
3. Establish an independent police oversight body as recommended by the Waki commission, the UN committee against torture and the UN Special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings.
4. Fast track the recommendations of the Waki commission, which included the urgent, overlooked radical reforms in the security forces in Kenya.
5. Immediately effect the removal from office of the Commissioner of police Major. General Hussein Ali and the Attorney General Hon. Amos Wako on account of their evident incompetence in curbing increasing cases of extra-judicial Killings.


Independent Medico-Legal Unit
Kenya Human Rights Commission
International Commission of Jurists- Kenyan Section
Africa Center for open Governance
Release Political prisoners trust
Haki Focus
Law Society of Kenya
Christian Legal Education Aid and Research
Amnesty International-Kenyan section.
Legal Resources Foundation
Kituo cha Sheria
Kenyans for Peace Truth and Justice

Kenya: Outrage at assassinations

2009-03-06

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7927873.stm

A UN investigator of extra-judicial killings in Kenya has called for an international inquiry into the murder of two human rights activists. Oscar Kamau Kingara was shot dead along with a colleague hours after a government spokesman accused their group of aiding a criminal gang. A consortium of human rights groups in Kenya says it holds the government responsible for the death.

Nigeris: Court denies new trial in Chevron case

2009-03-06

http://www.theirc.org/news/the-irc-ramps-efforts-cholera-zimbabwe0302.html

A U.S. federal court has denied a request by Nigerian victims of human rights abuses for a new trial against Chevron, which was found not liable for aiding and abetting those abuses after a jury trial last December. The plaintiffs in Bowoto v. Chevron had argued that a new trial was warranted due to insufficient evidence for the defense verdict, erroneous legal rulings, and prejudicial misconduct by Chevron’s lawyers. Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California disagreed, letting the verdict stand.

Sudan: The complexities behind the al-Bashir case

2009-03-06

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,611614,00.html

The arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is a victory for the court's top prosecutor. But the chances that the case will ever come to trial are slim. The international arrest warrant issued for Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court is without question a feather in the cap of its top prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

DRC: Refugees returning to North Kivu, despite violence

2009-03-06

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=83334

Civilians are slowly returning to their homes in the North Kivu region of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), despite continuing violence and displacement due to militia activities, sources said. "While we are seeing tentative returns in some areas, we are also seeing new displacement due to ongoing rape, killings and looting," Bob Kitchen, country director for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), said in Goma.

Global: “Transit” Migration in Africa: Local and global dynamics, politics and experiences

10-12 December 2009. Call for papers

2009-03-06

http://www.unice.fr/urmis/spip.php?article310&lang=en

This conference will mainly seek to develop a vocabulary to make sense of new forms of mobility and chart an agenda for their study. Often labelled as “transit migration”, new forms of multi-directional and flexible mobility reflect inherent tensions between movement and containment. In some instances, such movements are shaped by longstanding labour migration patterns towards Europe but are not determined by them. Elsewhere, migrants are marooned for years where their journeys are interrupted and reshaped through their interactions with transnational traders, political exiles, migrant workers, and students.

Kenya: Do refugees in Kenya have the right to a free press?

2009-03-04

http://tinyurl.com/ct7chl

Free press or the right to free expression is a human right duly recognized by international human rights law as well as under Kenya’s domestic law. In the context of Kenya, refugees reside in the urban and rural locations of Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, and Kakuma and Dadaab refugee camps respectively.

Kenya: UNHCR field posts and refugee protection

2009-03-04

http://tinyurl.com/clbvup

Field posts serve as a point of direct contact between refugees and UNHCR staff in airing complaints and rights claims. They serve to monitor the treatment of refugees and ensure that their rights are upheld. But many refugees claim that the system is failing in its critical protection function.

Somalia: Merka IDPs virtually out of food

2009-03-06

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/JBRN-7PVG9W?OpenDocument

Three months after aid deliveries to the south Somali coastal town of Merka stopped, several thousand displaced people are facing a food and water crisis, sources said. "What little food we had is gone; we have had no help in almost three months," Zeinab Sheikh Hassan told IRIN. "We are in a desperate situation and we need help now."

South Africa: More chaos for Zimbabweans as home affairs displaces Musina refugees

2009-03-06

http://tinyurl.com/cs88km

Thousands of Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa have been displaced after an order by the Department of Home of Affairs for them to vacate a field in Musina where they have been living for several months. The order has seen some of the refugees leave the large open makeshift living quarters, known as “The Showground”, which Government claimed had become infested with germs and disease.

Sudan: Darfurians demonstrate over shooting

2009-03-04

http://tinyurl.com/bdj43g

“It has long been said that security begins with you,” states a Darfurian man in the midst of a crowd demonstrating at the UNHCR Compound on 2 Februrary 2009 after a fellow refugee and security personnel was shot. Darfurians demonstrated at the main gate of the UNHCR compound to express their grievances to the official bodies responsible for protecting refugees against attack and insecurity. They addressed their concerns to UNHCR, implementing NGO agencies, and the Kenyan Government.

Global: African Socialist International to demonstrate at French Embassy in DC

2009-03-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/socialmovements/54604

In Guadeloupe and Martinique Africans have been protesting the colonial conditions imposed on them by the French government. These protests turned into rebellions in response to the French military occupation and deployment of troops to contain the people's struggle. The resistance involving more then 2.5 million people, which has been going on for over a month, has not stopped.
AFRICAN REVOLUTION SAYS FRANCE OUT OF GUADELOUPE & MARTINIQUE!!
If you touch one African in Guadeloupe and Martinique, Africans will rise up in Washington DC!

What: Press Conference and Demonstration
When: Friday, March 6th, 2009, 12:00 p.m.
Where: French Embassy 4101 Reservoir Rd NW Washington, DC 20007
Contact: Asafo Yerodin, 240-338-6590 or email apsp.dc@gmail.com

On Friday, March 6th, 2009 the African Socialist International (ASI) will be leading a demonstration in solidarity with the struggles of African people in Guadeloupe and Martinique at the French Embassy in Washington. The demonstration will start at 12 noon.

In Guadeloupe and Martinique Africans have been protesting the colonial conditions imposed on them by the French government. These protests turned into rebellions in response to the French military occupation and deployment of troops to contain the people's struggle. The resistance involving more then 2.5 million people, which has been going on for over a month, has not stopped.

The ASI believes that the struggles of African people in Guadeloupe and Martinique must be part of one international struggle to unify and liberate Africa and African people worldwide and that when there is resistance in one part of the world, Africans must respond everywhere else. The ASI will state its demands at the press conference.

The protest will also be part of the process the ASI is leading to build African Liberation Day on May 22nd-24th in Washington DC, which will serve as the conference to build the North American Regional Conference of the ASI.


Forward

South Africa: Appeal against landmark water case concludes

2009-03-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/socialmovements/54549

For three days (Monday 23rd – Wednesday 25th February) the appeal against the historic High Court judgement on the rights of poor communities to equitable, adequate and affordable access to, and enjoyment of, water was heard in front of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein. On the first day of the hearing, the small court over-flowed with residents of affected communities in Gauteng and the Free State, under the banner of CAWP. Also present throughout the hearing were two of the original complainants in the case – Jennifer Makotsoane and Grace Munyai.
COALITION AGAINST WATER PRIVATISATION
PUBLIC STATEMENT

Thursday 26thFebruary 2009

APPEAL AGAINST LANDMARK HIGH COURT WATER CASE JUDGEMENT CONCLUDES AT SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL (SCA)

THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES!

For three days (Monday 23rd – Wednesday 25th February) the appeal against the historic High Court judgement on the rights of poor communities to equitable, adequate and affordable access to, and enjoyment of, water was heard in front of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein. On the first day of the hearing, the small court over-flowed with residents of affected communities in Gauteng and the Free State, under the banner of CAWP. Also present throughout the hearing were two of the original complainants in the case – Jennifer Makotsoane and Grace Munyai.

The appellants - the City of Johannesburg, Johannesburg Water and the Department of Water Affairs & Forestry – brought nothing new to the case, repeating the same old and discredited arguments. As had been the case in the High Court, the appellants tried to convince the SCA that there was no need for an increased free water allocation because of their indigent/social ‘packages’ for the poor and that pre-paid water meters were perfectly legal, non-discriminatory and popularly accepted mechanisms of water delivery that have no negative impact on the rights and lives of poor communities.

Our legal team (i.e. for the ‘respondents’ in this hearing) alongside the amicus curiae of the Centre for Housing Rights & Education reiterated and expanded on, the core arguments made to the High Court. In particular, the immediate need for practical relief and affirmation of the constitutional right to water access – through the courts - was highlighted, specifically given the length of the case and the continued deprivation of rights.

It is expected that the SCA will deliver its judgement within the next 4-6 weeks. While we wait once again for the slow wheels of the justice system to move along, the struggle on the ground continues.

WATER IS LIFE!

For further comment and/or information please contact:

CAWP organiser - Patrick “Patra” Sindane @ 073 052 7005;
Legal Team: Jackie Dugard at Centre for Applied Legal Studies @ 084 240 6187

Zimbabwe: Findings from ADF Solidarity Mission to Zimbabwe

2009-03-06

http://www.africandemocracyforum.org/

The Africa Democracy Forum (ADF), a network of over 450 democracy and human rights organizations throughout Africa, expresses its solidarity with courageous civil society groups in Zimbabwe as a number of political, social, economic, and humanitarian challenges still face the country’s critical transitional period.

Africa: Electoral systems and institutions; Political asset or liabilities?

Call for papers

2009-03-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/54602

The Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya) and the Konrad Adenaur Foundation invite contributions to be published in a Special Issue on Electoral Systems Reform in Sub Saharan Africa.
CALL FOR PAPERS MARCH 2009

ELECTORAL REFORM IN SUBSAHARAN AFRICA

electoral systems and institutions; Political asset or liabilities?

Deadline: 30th March 2009

The Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya) and the Konrad Adenaur Foundation invite contributions to be published in a Special Issue on Electoral Systems Reform in Sub Saharan Africa

Background

The quality of an election constitutes one of the determinants for deepening democratic governance. Although elections play a critical role for the sustainability of democratic governance, democracy cannot be reduced purely to elections. Various other political processes play an equally important role for democracy to exist and be sustained including respect for human rights, citizen participation, constitutionalism, and rule of law, separation of powers and checks and balances and more so, equal distribution of national wealth.

It is increasingly becoming a trend in Africa, that, whilst elections are supposed to anchor and ensure sustainable growth in democracies, in countries such as Kenya and Zimbabwe, elections have become a liability. Instead of institutionalising democracy, they have fueled political instability. Consequently, the essential question is: to what extend do electoral systems and institutions in Sub Saharan Africa turn into political assets and / or liabilities?

It is important to bear in mind that most of the electoral systems, laws, institutions and Constitutions that govern elections in Sub Saharan African countries were inherited from colonialism. Where limited changes have been introduced, in most cases they were partial and cosmetic rather than being comprehensive and substantive. This therefore calls for an amendment to these electoral processes in order to reflect the present realities in the region as well as adhere to international best practice standards.

It is contended that if an electoral system is to add value to democracy, it must enhance the accountability of the elected representatives to their constituency whilst at the same time ensure broader representation of key political forces in the representative bodies. In this way a political system becomes more inclusive, participatory and accords the rulers legitimacy to govern.

In sum, this special issue seeks to focus on the challenges facing the African continent in realising the reform of electoral systems and institutions whilst promoting and protecting the Rule of Law and Democracy in sub Saharan Africa. Best practices from the region, where these have emerged, will be highlighted and reviewed and will form the basis for recommendations on reforms aimed at improving electoral systems.

The under-representation of women and the youth in electoral processes in Africa is increasing seen as a significant failure in the electoral systems. At the same time, reforms have not sufficiently appreciated that this is a problem that needs to be give as much attention as, for example, efforts to improve the administrative efficiency of electoral systems. There is therefore little agreement on what measures are necessary to enhance the participation of women and children in electoral processes. In some countries, the creation of special seats in legislatures for women and the youth has been the preferred intervention to address this problem. In others, in the absence of official recognition of the problem of under-inclusion of women and children, there have been attempts to establish social movements that will generate support of women candidates in elections as well as motivate women and children to both offer themselves as candidates and to vote, including for their own.

This publication will welcome the exploration of ways in which electoral reforms can increase the participation of women and youth in politics, as a means of enhancing the democratic process.

Electoral violence has gained increasing prominence on the continent. As witnessed in Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe, the proliferation of electoral violence is a direct threat to the conduct of free and fair elections and a threat to the very statehood of African countries. It will be of special interest to this publication to explore the causes and effects of electoral violence as well as ways in which this can be checked.

The above criterion is neither meant to be prescriptive nor suggestive. Granted, each Sub Saharan African country has its own peculiar historical, socio-economic and political contexts. Therefore individual application must bear in mind the foregoing factors. This will play a critical role in choosing which primary criterion is suitable to propel the electoral reform agenda. It would however be reasonable and only fair to propose that many countries need to undergo electoral reforms taking the relevant and objective criteria into account. Such a process will then guide each country hence embedding democratic governance.

We will therefore prioritize articles which address the following topics:

1. An exposition and critical analysis of a Sub Saharan Africa country’s electoral legal frameworks to identify weakness in the systems and structures.
2. An examination of questions on the theory of election engineering
3. case studies of electoral systems reforms efforts in Sub Saharan Africa
4. An analysis of the proper conduct by political parties, electoral commissions, supporters at pre election, polling day and post-election phases;
5. Addressing the cost of elections and assess sustainability of elections given internal and external resources available to the election management bodies (EMBs);
6. An evaluation of the degree of citizen participation in elections and share strategies for increasing public education, interest and participation in elections, with a special focus on women, youth, ethnic minorities, citizens with disabilities, language minorities, internally displaced persons and refugees.
7. The promotion of a culture of constructive management of election disputes for purposes of maintaining political stability and peace



The topics listed are mere guidelines and suggestions of some of the challenging issues related to subjects of the special issue. Interested contributors are encouraged to address related questions within the broad outline of the study.

Format

All submissions should be in written in English and submitted in soft copy/electronic form (MS Word format) to info@icj-kenya.org / elsy.sainna@icj-kenya.org.They should conform to the following general guidelines:

* Academic citation standards i.e. concise footnotes, end notes and bibliography
* Between 7,000 and 10,000 words.
* Short biography of author (maximum of 50 words).
* Date when the paper was written.

The submissions of abstracts and full article must include;

1. The Author’s full names and contacts
2. A declaration of originality
3. A statement as to whether the work has been previously published in any other publications and where this is in case , the names of the publications and the date of publication Exceptionally, however, relevant contributions already published elsewhere may be accepted, provided that the required authorizations are granted. Please inform if, where and when the paper has been published before.

Interested contributors are requested to submit 350 words Abstract of their papers before proceeding to write the full paper.

Only Abstract submissions received by 30th March 2009 will be considered for this publication. Accepted abstracts will be advised shortly thereafter.

Remuneration

Contributors to the Publication will receive an Honorarium of Kshs. 100,000.

Guinea Bissau: PM advocates dialogue with military

2009-03-06

http://tinyurl.com/cwckvn

Guinea Bissau's Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior said on Thursday that his government would pursue dialogue with the military and “display a conciliatory overture” to restore peace and stability in the country in the wake of the assassinations of the armed forces chief of staff General Batista Tagm Na Wai and President Bernardo Joao Vieira.

Guinea: The transition has only just begun

2009-03-06

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5960&l=1

This latest policy briefing from the International Crisis Group, says the junta that took control on 23 December 2008, hours after the long-time, authoritarian President Lansana Conté died, is in danger of resorting to repressive measures of its own, as its popular support dives along with the economy. Since there is also a risk of a counter-coup from dissatisfied army elements, a democratic transition at best faces a long and difficult road.

Madagascar: Government in bid to snuff out protests

2009-03-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/54607

Madagascan riot police fired tear gas on Wednesday to disperse protesters gathering for a banned rally in the capital as the island's president vowed tougher measures to counter a drive to unseat him. The police action prevented supporters of opposition leader Andry Rajoelina from gathering in Antananarivo's main thoroughfare, but drew a hail of stones from angry youths.
ANTANANARIVO, MADAGASCAR Mar 04 2009 14:54

Madagascan riot police fired tear gas on Wednesday to disperse protesters gathering for a banned rally in the capital as the island's president vowed tougher measures to counter a drive to unseat him.

The police action prevented supporters of opposition leader Andry Rajoelina from gathering in Antananarivo's main thoroughfare, but drew a hail of stones from angry youths.

Police responded by firing warning shots, an AFP correspondent reported. Witnesses said similar scuffles erupted in other parts of the city.

The rally had been banned by President Marc Ravalomanana who warned of tougher measures against Rajoelina's clan, saying he had "decided to restore order" on the Indian Ocean island.

It was the first time Ravalomanana's regime had banned an opposition protest since his row with former Antananarivo mayor Rajoelina escalated late last year.

"The security forces will take their responsibilities, courts will enforce the law," the president told the pro-government Radio Mada.

Rajoelina launched an appeal on February 28 for Madagascans to join a labour strike in protest at the regime but the move received little support and most administrations have continued to operate.

The 34-year-old Rajoelina last week walked out on talks with Ravalomanana, accusing his rival of playing down his camp's grievances and pledging to revert to mass street action.

The United Nations and African Union have dispatched envoys in a bid to defuse the political crisis and prevent a resumption of violent clashes that have already killed close to 100 since the start of the year.

Nigeria: Ex-governor is arrested

2009-03-06

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7926000.stm

A former state governor in Nigeria, Olusegun Agagu, has been arrested by anti-corruption investigators. Mr Agagu is a leading member of the governing People's Democratic Party. He is suspected of embezzling millions of dollars of public funds, say officials at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Zambia: Tough war against corruption

2009-03-06

http://tinyurl.com/6t7wwo

Zambia is to intensify its corruption fight which is aimed at prosecuting all those who plundered and mismanaged public funds. Vice president George Kunda who is also justice minister said Zambia is governed by tenets of laws and that no person whether in the private or public sector is above the law.

Algeria: Government to write off farmers' debts

2009-03-06

http://tinyurl.com/9loxvd

Algeria will write off 41 billion dinars in money owed banks by farmers and livestock breeders, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced Saturday (February 28th) at an agricultural conference in Biskra. The announcement is a real lifeline for an Algerian farming community on the verge of collapse. Starting this week, banks will cease any proceedings to recover their debts.

Zimbabwe: Middle-aged women keeping economy afloat

2009-03-06

http://www.ipsterraviva.net/europe/article.aspx?id=7126

Her small tattered book is full of lists of orders for goods such as beer, maize-meal and chemicals. On another page are addresses and phone numbers of store managers while, on another, a list of names has been jotted down along with corresponding amounts. "This is my accounting book. It has my orders for goods that I am supposed to go and buy for my clients in Botswana, as well as a list of people who have paid and also those who haven't, plus those goods that are in short supply," Amai Towe, a Harare-based cross-border trader, told IPS with a satisfied tone.

Ethiopia: ARV roll-out has reduced adult AIDS deaths by 50% in capital

2009-03-06

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/7F86E7FD-EE0E-4DFE-8942-347C28DFB9CC.asp

The roll-out of antiretroviral therapy has led to a decline of about 50% in adult AIDS deaths in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, over a period of five years, according the findings of a study published in the February 20th edition of the journal AIDS.

Global: HIV incidence rising in 50+ age group

2009-03-06

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=83270

The number of older people with HIV may be increasing worldwide, but doctors seldom consider screening them for HIV, thus delaying diagnosis, according to an article in the World Health Organisation's March Bulletin. These individuals are also less likely to practise safe sex, and the older the individual, the faster the progression from HIV infection to AIDS.

Global: HIV prevention with especially vulnerable young people

2009-03-06

http://www.safepassages.soton.ac.uk/pdfs/evyp_casestudies.pdf

This new resource from the DFID- and WHO- supported Safe Passages to Adulthood programme shows how projects in Africa, Latin America, South East Asia and the Middle East are working with young people in contexts of special vulnerability to prevent HIV. Building on the five core principles and three areas of action outlined in A Framework for Action - HIV/AIDS prevention and care among especially vulnerable young people (April 2004), each case study describes an innovative approach to working with young people who are homeless, using drugs, selling sex or living in deprived communities. Case studies come from Argentina, India, Iran, Kenya and Nigeria.

Nigeria: Meningitis, Lassa fever kill 338

2009-03-06

http://tinyurl.com/csejcd

The total death toll from the outbreak of cerebro-spinal meningitis and lassa fever in Nigeria has risen from 300 last month to 338, according to the Minister of Health, Babatunde Osotimehin. The Minister told journalists in the capital city of Abuja on Wednesday that 333 people have died from meningitis, which has broken out in 22 of the country's 36 states, while five persons have died from the 12 cases of lassa fever.

South Africa: Sexy new prevention campaign for gays

2009-03-06

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=83322

Dance music pumps from large speakers while a half dozen shirtless young men serve drinks at a bar bathed in pink light. It is the last weekend of Gay Pride in Cape Town, South Africa, and men of all ages have come to a "fetish party" to launch a safe-sex campaign, "Play Nice", targeting men who have sex with men (MSM).

Tanzania: Injections, alcohol, major risk factors for HIV infection in women

2009-03-06

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/98F530E6-692D-48A6-9311-EA4A39FD750E.asp

Receiving injections outside clinic settings and increased alcohol use emerged as major risk factors for HIV infection among women taking part in an HIV prevention trial in Tanzania, according to the findings of a study published in the January 28th edition of AIDS. The study was a prospective randomised trial conducted in Tanzania. It was done to evaluate the impact of herpes treatment on HIV incidence among women in high-risk settings and was led by Dr Deborah Watson-Jones of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Kenya: National exam results cancelled

2009-03-06

http://tinyurl.com/8sez2s

732 students from 70 schools will not receive their results for the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examinations done last year. The results were released on Wednesday by the Minister for Education Prof Sam Ongeri. Their results are held over cases on cheating.

Ethiopia: Troubled life of a gay Ethiopian

2009-03-06

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=HumanRightsMonitor&id=2060

I was born in the capital city of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. I and my nephew were raised by my aunt. The story that I heard from my family was that a few weeks before my dad passed away he gave me to my aunt. I never knew my biological mother but I heard that she died of the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. As I went to school, from elementary to high school everybody used to tell me that something was different about me.

Senegal: Government denies persecuting homosexuals

2009-03-06

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=HumanRightsMonitor&id=2059

United Nations’ member states have urged Senegal to repeal its Penal Code which criminalises homosexual conduct. This was proposed at the UN Universal Periodic Review held in Geneva from 11-13 February 2009. The United Kingdom, Canada and Netherlands cited that the code violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. ”On the other hand, Senegalese representatives denied that their country prosecutes homosexuals, a statement that directly contradicts the provisions of that country’s penal code.

Uganda: Activists blame seminar for encouraging gay hatred

2009-03-06

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=HumanRightsMonitor&id=2062

Gay rights groups have lashed out at Family Life Network (FLN) for organising a three day seminar aiming to explore possible prevention and cure for homosexuality, saying the gathering is just another way of encouraging hatred and abuse against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Uganda, under the cloak of religion.

Africa: Farmers & environmentalists speak out against a New Green Revolution in Africa

2009-03-06

http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/?q=/node/view/502

A new report from the Oakland Institute, Voices from Africa: African Farmers & Environmentalists Speak Out Against a New Green Revolution in Africa, issues a direct challenge to Western-led plans for a genetically engineered revolution in African agriculture, particularly the recent misguided philanthropic efforts of the Gates Foundation's Alliance for a New Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), and presents African resistance and solutions rooted in first-hand knowledge of what Africans need.

Africa: African forests reducing rate of climate change

2009-03-04

http://tinyurl.com/cjjsrp

A team of scientists has discovered that Africa’s rainforest trees are getting bigger and storing more carbon from the atmosphere in their trunks, which has significantly reduced the rate of climate change. Trees and plants use carbon dioxide (CO2) to produce food thus ridding the earth from the harmful effects of the gas.

Africa: The CASCADe Programme

2009-03-05

http://tinyurl.com/cp74tl

This UNEP Programme aims at enhancing expertise to generate carbon credits in land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) as well as bioenergy activities in Sub-Saharan African countries. The programme will provide a hands-on, learning by doing approach in which local developers are given the opportunity to develop and prepare Project Idea Notes (PINs), Carbon Finance Documents (CFDs), and/or Project Design Documents (PDDs) through direct technical assistance and capacity building to pilot projects.

East Africa: Kenyan indigenous groups file complaint with AfDB on Ethiopian dam

2009-03-06

http://www.bicusa.org/en/Article.11057.aspx

On February 4, Friends of Lake Turkana, a Kenyan organization representing indigenous groups in northwestern Kenya whose livelihoods are linked to Lake Turkana, filed a formal request with the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) Compliance Review & Mediation Unit (CRMU) - the AfDB's internal accountability mechanism - to investigate and intervene in the Bank’s plans to finance the Gilgel Gibe III hydroelectric project in Ethiopia.

Global: Analysing the food crisis: key ways of improving food security

2009-03-06

http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/food-security&id=42309&type=Document

This report provides the first summary by the UN of how climate change, water stress, invasive pests and land degradation may impact world food security, food prices and how we may be able to feed the world in a more sustainable manner. The report examines the need to get smart and more creative about recycling food wastes. While major efforts have gone into increasing efficiency in the traditional energy sector, food energy efficiency has received too little attention.

Uganda: Climate change does not wait for recessions

2009-03-06

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=45957

Lack of money and technical know-how makes it difficult for poor farmers to participate in the Kyoto Protocol’s carbon trading mechanism aimed at reversing global warming. Meanwhile, the global economic crisis may further undermine investment in carbon trade in African countries. The Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, allows for carbon trade which involves industrialised countries lowering their greenhouse gas emissions by financing emission reduction projects in developing countries where investment is cheaper. This is called the clean development mechanism (CDM).

Africa: Mauritians also competing for land in Africa

2009-03-04

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45915

Soaring food prices and lack of land have forced Mauritius, a net food importing country, to launch an ambitious initiative. The island state is starting to grow its food in other African states where land is lying fallow and labour is cheap. Mauritian agro-entrepreneurs Murveen Ragobur and Gansham Boodhram are back from Mozambique where they cultivated rice on a trial basis last year, as well as potatoes and onions for the local market.

Botswana: 112 mining licences granted on Bushman land since evictions

2009-03-06

http://www.survival-international.org/news/4286

Since the Bushmen were forced off their land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in 2002, the Botswana government has granted 112 mining licenses for mining companies to explore in the reserve. 16 licenses have been awarded for uranium exploration and 40 for coal. It is just over six years since the government evicted more than 600 Bushmen from the reserve, although it has always denied any connection between mining and the evictions.

Mauritians also competing for land in Africa

2009-03-06

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45915

Soaring food prices and lack of land have forced Mauritius, a net food importing country, to launch an ambitious initiative. The island state is starting to grow its food in other African states where land is lying fallow and labour is cheap. Mauritian agro-entrepreneurs Murveen Ragobur and Gansham Boodhram are back from Mozambique where they cultivated rice on a trial basis last year, as well as potatoes and onions for the local market.

South Africa: Idle farmers face losing land

2009-03-06

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7924584.stm

South Africa says it will take over any land allocated to black farmers which is not being used effectively under a land redistribution programme. The measure, which takes immediate effect, was announced by Agriculture Minister Lulu Xingwana, who warned farmers should "use it or lose it".

Eritrea: Government arrests dozens of journalists in crack-down

2009-03-06

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE5250GU20090306

Eritrea has arrested up to 54 journalists in a crackdown on media in the Red Sea state, the press watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Friday. The Paris-based body also asked the European Union not to hand over 122 million euros worth of aid due to worsening conditions for political prisoners. "The authorities on 22 February 2009 ordered a raid on the premises of Radio Bana, a small station in the heart of the capital that puts out educational programmes under the sponsorship of the Education Ministry. Its entire staff of around 50 journalists were arrested," RSF said.

Ghana: Unusual bedfellows push for change

2009-03-06

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=46004

There has been a clamour to tighten up oversight and regulation of Ghana’s broadcasters from unusual bedfellows - the state-sponsored National Media Commission (NMC) and the Ghana Journalists" Association (GJA). The bodies have, in separate initiatives, slammed attempts to "privatise" the state-owned Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) and have railed against the practices of commercial radio stations. The trigger for this rare convergence was "unsubstantiated" news reports by two commercial stations, Radio Gold and Oman FM, that publicly backed rival political parties in the run up to the Dec. 7, 2008 national elections.

Kenya: Open letter to the Nation and the Standard

2009-03-05

http://tinyurl.com/befthc

As one amongst millions of Kenyans that support your business, I am rather disappointed in you. Actually, I am disgusted. I know that in the past you have often submitted to eating a piece of the stolen pie but I was under the impression that it was all over after you realised that those strange feelings of guilt and sleepless nights caused by your willingness to give money precedence of morality were just not worth it.

Morocco: Activists demand journalist's release

2009-03-06

http://tinyurl.com/9loxvd

Civil society organisations and human rights activists in Morocco continue to demand the release of human rights activist and journalist Chekib El-Khiari, detained since February 17th on charges of "collaborating with foreign entities" and smearing Morocco's reputation. On Thursday (February 26th), political figures, human rights activists, unionists and journalists met at the Charif Idrissi Cultural Centre in Al Hoceima to discuss the latest developments in the case.

DRC: UN helps demobilize 880 children

2009-03-06

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30087

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has demobilized 880 children associated with armed groups in the volatile eastern province of North Kivu between 30 January and 2 March. Madnodje Mounoubai, spokesperson for the mission, known by its French acronym MONUC, told a news conference in Kinshasa that the great majority of the 839 boys and 41 girls are Congolese, but there are also 31 Rwandans, two Burundians and two Ugandans.

Sudan: Darfur rebel backs ICC despite loss of aid groups

2009-03-06

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE5250HH20090306

The arrest warrant issued against the president of Sudan offers new hope to the people of Darfur because it will dissuade attacks, even though the immediate consequences are dire, a Darfur rebel leader said on Friday. The International Criminal Court issued the warrant on Wednesday for Omar Hassan al-Bashir to face charges of war crimes in Darfur, and Khartoum responded by expelling 13 foreign humanitarian organisations from Sudan.

Sudan: Darfur: No Peace without Justice

2009-03-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/54606

Pre-Trial Chamber I at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant against Marshal Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir, the military ruler of Sudan for his role in escalating violence and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Western Sudan. He was accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur since 2003.
Today, Pre-Trial Chamber I at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant against Marshal Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir, the military ruler of Sudan for his role in escalating violence and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Western Sudan. He was accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur since 2003.

A savage scorched-earth campaign has been continuing against civilian populations in Darfur during the last six years. The government army and its proxy militia groups known as the Janjaweed are responsible for the most serious crimes of rape, mass killing, pillaging and burning of villages inhabited by indigenous Africans in the region. About 300,000 civilians were killed as a result of violence or because of wa induced famine; lack of basic needs such medicine, potable water and shelter since the conflict was triggered in 2003. About 3 million civilians were forced to leave their villages and live in miserable camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) or forced to leave the country as refugees into eastern Chad and other neighbouring countries.

Efforts of the Joint African Union/United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) to protect civilians are facing many impediments but mainly the government objections to the participation of troops from certain countries as well as delays in issuing the necessary permissions to facilitate their work.

Violence and aggressive administrative measures by the government have forced many aid workers and relief organisations to leave the country or to reduce their capacity to a minimum.

Shrinking humanitarian assistance to the needy people in Darfur is causing severe hardship especially among the IDPs.

On March 31, 2005 the UN Security Council reaffirmed that the situation in Darfur represents a threat to international peace and security and adopted resolution 1593 (2005) which referred the situation in Darfur to the ICC. On July 14th 2008 and because of his leading role in the violence prevailing in Darfur, the ICC Chief Prosecutor charged Marshal Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir with genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and requested the Pre-Trial Chamber I to issue an arrest warrant against him. Justice done and seen to be done is one of the main demands of the victims of the armed conflict in Darfur.

Fundamental justice that overarches the suffering of the victims of the conflict in Darfur commands that all individuals responsible for authorising, organising or executing the massive crimes committed against these victims should be held accountable.

We, the undersigned civil society organizations from Darfur fully support the decision of the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I to issue an arrest warrant against Marshal Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir. This measure which was long overdue would send a decisive signal to all individuals who participated in the crimes committed in Darfur that they are longer immune from prosecution. This decision also put to test the world resolve to protect civilians in need and to combat impunity. It is thus morally and legally binding upon all states member of the United Nations organisation to cooperate with the ICC in implementing its mandate and prosecute the perpetrators of the crimes committed in Darfur.
Signed:
1. Darfur Call – The Netherlands
2. Darfur Relief and Documentation Centre – Switzerland
3. Darfur Peace and Justice Organisation – Belgium
4. Darfur Peace and Development Organisation – USA
5. Darfur Centre for Human Rights and Development – UK
6. Darfur Displaced Peoples and Refugees Association – UK
7. Darfur Solidarity Ireland - Dublin.
8. Darfur Association in Germany

Sudan: Getting the fighters out of uniform

2009-03-06

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=83286

Three weeks after disarmament was officially launched in the border region of Ed Damazin in Blue Nile State, Sudanese officials have discovered that raising money is tough and getting ex-combatants to hand in arms even tougher. The disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programme requires US$430 million. A 16 February donor roundtable in Juba, the Southern capital, received pledges for $91 million.

Sudan: Government expels aid agencies in Darfur

2009-03-06

http://tinyurl.com/cwx6wg

The Sudanese government has ordered some aid agencies to leave the country after an arrest warrant was issued for the country's president, a UN official said. UN spokesperson, Michele Montas, who confirmed the development Thursday, said: " Sudan told up to 10 humanitarian groups to leave the country's Darfur region or cut back on services provided, as well as seized their assets''.

Sudan: The ICC indictment of Bashir: A turning point for Sudan?

2009-03-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/conflict/54601

The International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudanese President Omar Bashir for atrocity crimes in Darfur provides an opportunity for Sudan and the international community to both fight impunity and bring peace to the country. In an extended statement, The ICC Indictment of Bashir: A Turning Point for Sudan?, Crisis Group examines the consequences of his indictment for crimes against humanity and war crimes, both for Sudan and for the international community.

Africa: Call for AWARD Fellowship Round two

2009-03-04

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

The CGIAR Gender & Diversity Program warmly invites applications from qualified African agricultural women scientists for this innovative and exciting fellowship program. Available to women agricultural scientists from: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia. AWARD offers specially tailored two-year career development fellowships, available at three levels: post-Bachelors, post- Masters and post-doctorate. The deadline for all applications: Monday March 30, 2009

Global: Introducing ‘International NGO Journal (INGOJ)’

2009-03-06

http://www.academicjournals.org/INGOJ/About.htm

International NGO Journal (INGOJ) publishes high-quality solicited and unsolicited articles, in English, in all areas of Non Governmental Organization (NGO) activities. INGOJ is founded to publish proposals, appraisals and reports of NGO projects. The aim is to have centralized information for NGO activities where stakeholders including beneficiaries of NGO services can find useful information about ongoing projects and where to obtain particular assistance. Also prospective donors will easily find information about different NGOs and decide which to fund on specific projects.

Africa: CODESRIA at FESPACO 2009: New Directions in African Cinema

2009-03-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/54605

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), in partnership with the Pan African Film and Television Festival (FESPACO ), is pleased to announce a two day workshop on “New Directions in African Cinema” that it is organising in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on 4th-5th March 2009. FESPACO is a biannual event which was founded in 1969 to promote the development of the African cinema industry by providing a venue to reflect on, showcase and celebrate achievements in the industry.
CODESRIA at FESPACO 2009: New Directions in African Cinema

Date: 4th-5th March, 2009
Venue: Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), in partnership with the Pan African Film and Television Festival (FESPACO ), is pleased to announce a two day workshop on “New Directions in African Cinema” that it is organising in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on 4th-5th March 2009. FESPACO is a biannual event which was founded in 1969 to promote the development of the African cinema industry by providing a venue to reflect on, showcase and celebrate achievements in the industry. FESPACO seeks to contribute African voices and perspectives to the global cinema movement. The 2009 edition of FESPACO began in Ouagadougou on 28th February, and will end on 7th March 2009.

The theme for the 2009 FESPACO, which is the 21st edition of the festival, coinciding with its40th Anniversary, and the 20th Anniversary for the African Film Library of Ouagadougou, is “African Cinema, Tourism and Cultural Patrimony”. The festival features a wide range of activities to celebrate the anniversaries including itinerant exhibitions on the years of FESPACO and African cinema, film screenings, conferences on FESPACO and the FESPACO Foundation. The 2009 edition will pay tribute to Ousmane Sembène, doyen of African filmmakers and pioneer of FESPACO, who passed away on 9 June 2007.

The CODESRIA workshop will be held at the Splendide Hotel in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Participants include the Executive Secretary of CODESRIA, Adebayo Olukoshi, Kofi Anyidoho, Convenor of the CODESRIA Pan African Humanities Institute Programme at theUniversity of Ghana Legon, Manthia Diawara, Mbye Cham, Maguèye Kassé, Antoinette Tidjani Alou, Pinkie Mekgwe, Fani-Kayode Omoregie and Africanus Aveh. The workshop, facilitated by Kofi Anyidoho, Manthia Diawara and Pinkie Mekgwe, is structured around four panel discussions on the following themes:

- Writing Africa’s Visual History
- The Pan African Cinematic Frame
- Innovations: Projecting Africa’s Future
- Beyond Four Decades of FESPACO: the Place and Space for Visual Arts in Africa’s Development

Curatorial Statement
In the curatorial statement prepared by Manthia Diawara on behalf of the CODESRIA Humanities Institute Programme, the intention is to use the platform provided by FESPACO to produce a coherent theory of the aims of the new African cinemas. One may even speak of new paradigm shifts in African cinema made possible by the emergence, in the last twenty years or so, of new structures of film and video production, especially in South Africa and Nigeria. Clearly, there are more diverse African cinemas today than 25 years ago, when most of the productions were enabled only by the French Bureau du Cinema. Several policy changes have also intervened at the level of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs--from the Fonds Sud/CNC to ARTE/France and the European Union funds in Brussels to the sponsorship of FESPACO--to lead us to speculate beyond the monolithic offering of African films as provided by art houses and festivals. At the very least, no serious scholar can any longer afford to ignore the industrial and cinematic success of Nollywood videos.

Contemporary African cinemas have assumed the role that African literature used to play in the 1960s. Just as the writings of Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Wole Soyinka and others depicted the movements of decolonization and the utopia of independence, today, African filmmakers concern themselves with postcolonial desires in the political, economic and cultural regimes imposed by globalization.

What is fascinating about the new African cinemas is the manner in which they give voice to Africans to communicate trans-nationally to citizens in other public spheres. The films reveal to us different points of views on such global themes as the end of the nationalist utopia in Africa, the impact of structural adjustment, migration, war, identity politics and environmental and health issues.

The primary intention behind this workshop and programming of African films at FESPACO is to draw attention to new directions and creative visions in contemporary African cinema. CODESRIA is of the view that there are new, contending and often conflicting film languages and critical stances coming out of Africa today that have remained invisible largely because of a monolithic and politically correct definition of African cinema by Western art houses and festivals.

The workshop will aim to unveil the diversity of African film languages, and the different creative and political visions behind them. CODESRIA believes that the best way to reveal these diverse film languages—from Djibril Diop Mambety, to John Akomfrah, Abderrhamane Sissako, Balufu Bakupa Kayinda, Jean-Pierre Bekolo and the Nollywood videos—is through a curatorial vision that emphasizes not only the difference between African cinema and cinema in the West, but also the diversity of film languages and political engagements in Africa.

Africa: CODESRIA: Gender in higher education in Africa

2009-03-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/54609

Each year, since 1994, CODESRIA has organised a Gender Institute which brings together 12 to 15 researchers for between four to six weeks of concentrated debate, experience-sharing and knowledge-building. During the first few years of the existence of the Institute, its main objective centred on the promotion of a generalised gender awareness in the African social research community.
CODESRIA Gender Institute 2009
Theme: Gender in Higher Education in Africa
June 1st -26th 2009 - Venue: Dakar, Senegal

Call for Applications

Each year, since 1994, CODESRIA has organised a Gender Institute which brings together 12 to 15 researchers for between four to six weeks of concentrated debate, experience-sharing and knowledge-building. During the first few years of the existence of the Institute, its main objective centred on the promotion of a generalised gender awareness in the African social research community. The Institute has subsequently been organised around specific themes designed to strengthen the use of gender as an analytic category that is integral both to the output of African social researchers and the emergence of a networked community of scholars versed in the field of Gender Studies. The theme that has been selected for the 2009 Institute is: Gender in Higher Education in Africa.

The struggle for social equality between men and women remains an area of continuing relevance to any quest for a holistic understanding of economy, society, culture and politics in contemporary Africa – as, indeed, in every other region of the world. In fact, it can be argued that it is an arena whose construction is a permanent work in progress. And yet, the general, instinctive but misleading assumption has persisted, even in otherwise knowledgeable circles, that any reference to gender is little more than a code word for raising narrow, even parochial concerns that are specific to the interests of women only. In a bid to correct this erroneous instinct and, in so doing, open new frontiers of reflection on gender issues among African social researchers, CODESRIA has decided for the strategic plan period 2007 – 2011 to continue to build on its tradition of critical and innovative gender research by strategically focusing its annual Gender Institute on themes that will both contribute to an erosion of stereotypes about gender studies, and advance the frontiers of gendered knowledge as knowledge that is holistic.

Education at all levels in Africa is gendered terrain and gender disparities are even more pronounced in higher education. Although some strides have been made in terms of the participation of women in African higher education as evidenced by increasing female student numbers and a significant number of females completing undergraduate and graduate degrees, Amina Mama’s statement that “patriarchal knowledge is still coded into everyday practices” is still relevant in the discourse on higher education. For example, fewer women compared to men proceed to establish careers and to occupy senior positions at African universities. In addition, the structures of many Africa Universities remain deliberately masculine, in terms of their representational structure, decision making procedures and the culture of their members. Women continue to be minorities in higher education and those involved in these institutions are fragmented and isolated for various social, economic, cultural and psychological reasons.

Within CODESRIA, the gendered nature of higher education was recently bought to the fore in December 2008 at the Dean’s conference, held in Yaoundé as part of the General Assembly. Nineteen deans from different African countries representing the faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences took part in the conference. Of these, only one was a woman. The absence of female deans at the conference was because the pool of female deans in African Universities is small. In addition to be a quantitative minority, these women face tremendous gender related challenges at personal and professional levels which affect their freedom of movement to attend conferences. The problem of gender in higher education is a global one, though more acute inAfrica. This has wider implications on the production of gender sensitive knowledge at a global level.

The challenge involved in levelling the gender terrain in higher education involves coming up with strategies that bring about re-organisation and transformation of African Higher education Institutions in a permanent way that opens up opportunities for career development and career advancement for women while recognising their multiple gender specific roles.

To this end, the 2009 CODESRIA Gender Institute will focus the attention of laureates on the understanding of factors that influence and impede women from fully participating in higher education as well as understanding the gendered nature of the structures and character of the higher education environment in Africa. Laureates will also be encouraged and expected to come up with new and innovative studies/findings that address transformative strategies linked to research, curriculum design, management and decision making. These strategies should challenge laureates to think of ways of deconstructing the complex dynamics of injustice and post colonial inequality in African higher education, while taking cognisance of the challenging environment that confronts African higher education institutions in the 21st Century.

The objectives of the 2009 Gender Institute are to:
1) Provide a platform to African scholars with an interest in undertaking theoretical and empirical research on gender relations in African higher education;
2) Familiarise researchers with the latest literature in the field and through this help consolidate an African perspective on the theoretical debates taking place on gender relations and/in education;
3) Sharpen researchers’ gender analytic skills, as well as promote an African feminist methodology in the understanding and assessment of decision making in African higher education institutions and understanding that gender disparities that go beyond quantitative to qualitative inequalities;
4) Encourage African knowledge production on the gender relations that underpin education and institutional building, in so doing, contribute to the emergence of a critical mass of networked intellectuals with an active research interest in deepening research on this theme.
5) Encourage researchers to come up with transformative strategies that challenge past and current gender and other injustices in African higher education systems.

Organisation
The activities of all CODESRIA Institutes centre on presentations made by resident researchers, visiting resource persons and the participants whose applications for admission as laureates are successful. The sessions are led by a scientific director who with the help of invited resource persons ensures that the laureates are exposed to a wide range of research and policy issues generated by or arising from the theme of the Institute for which they are responsible. Open discussions drawing on books and articles relevant to the theme of a particular institute or a specific topic within the theme are also encouraged. Each participant selected to participate in any of the Council’s institutes as a laureate is required to prepare a research paper to be presented during the course of the particular institute they attend. Laureates are expected to produce a revised version of their research papers for consideration for publication by CODESRIA. For each Institute, CODESRIA Documentation and Information Centre (CODICE) prepares a comprehensive bibliography on the theme of the year. Access is also facilitated to a number of documentation centers in and around Dakar.

Why is the topic of women’s participation in higher education relevant?
1. Senior academics, deans, professors, vice chancellors, registrars, leaders of teachers’ unions play a very critical role in institution building. Their contribution to the design of gender sensitive institutions is invaluable at many different levels.

2. The visibility of women in senior positions acts as catalyst that motivates younger women to play a more influential role in institutions of higher learning thereby changing persistent post colonial injustices.

3. Although the number of women obtaining higher degrees in African universities has increased with time, very few women are retained within institutions of higher learning and even less of them progress to senior positions of decision making.

4. Most institutions of learning have old and patriarchal ways of operating. It is difficult to challenge these structures from lecture rooms only. For real change to occur, it is necessary to address gender issues at the highest levels of institutions by involving women in decision making in teaching, management and union activities.

5. The persistent lack of senior female academics is a reflection of serious gender disparities at all levels of education in Africa. There is a systematic bottleneck, based on gender which needs to be understood, addressed and changed.

The 2009 CODESRIA Gender Institute calls for papers from potential directors, resource persons and laureates addressing some of the following topics
i. Historical overview of women’s participation in higher education
ii. Time trends and levels of women’s participation in decision making in universities
iii. Factors influencing women’s participation in institutions of higher learning (papers can address sociological; cultural; psychological; economic factors; political etc.etc) .
iv. Country studies and statistics on current status of women’s participation in institutions of higher education
v. Future prospects, opportunities and challenges towards equal participation of females in decision making positions in African universities.
vi. Transformative studies challenging post colonial injustices in institutions of higher learning.

Eligibility and Selection
Director
For every session, CODESRIA appoints an external scholar to provide the intellectual leadership of the Institute. Directors are senior scholars known for their expertise on the topic of the year and for the originality of their thinking on it. They are recruited on the basis of a proposal and course outline covering a total of up to forty five days during which they are expected to:
- participate in the selection of laureates;
- assist with the identification of appropriate resource persons;
- design the course for the session, with specifications of sub-themes;
- deliver a set of lectures and provide a critique of the papers presented by the resource persons and the laureates; and
- submit a written scientific report on the session.
In addition, the Director is expected to (co)edit the revised versions of the papers presented by the resource persons with a view to submitting them for publication in one of CODESRIA’s collections. The Director also assists CODESRIA in assessing the papers presented by laureates for publication as a special issue of Africa Development or as monographs.

Resource Persons
Lectures delivered at the Gender Institute are not introductory courses, but critical think-pieces that are meant to help advance the reflections of participants on the main topic of the year, and on their own research topics. Resource Persons are, therefore, senior scholars or scholars in their mid-career who have published extensively on the topic, and who have a significant contribution to make to the debates on it.

Once selected, resource persons must:
- submit a copy of their lectures for reproduction and distribution to participants
not later than one week before the lecture begins;
- deliver their lectures, participate in debates, and comment on the research proposals of
the laureates
- review and submit the revised version of their research work for publication by
CODESRIA not later than two months following their presentation.

Laureates
African social scientists who have a minimum qualification of a Masters’ degree, with a proven research capacity and who are currently engaged in teaching and/or research activities are invited to send in their applications for consideration for admission into the Institute. The selection of laureates is done by an independent committee of renowned scholars.

Application
Applicants for the position of Director should submit:
- an application letter ;
- a proposal providing a detailed course outline, spelling out the issues to be covered under each sub-theme, and showing how the course would be original or responsive to the needs of prospective laureates;
- a curriculum vitae ;
- three writing samples.

Applicants for the position of Resource Person should submit:
- an application letter ;
- two writing samples ;
- a curriculum vitae and ;
- a two-pages abstract of their proposed lecture.

Applicants wishing to be invited as Laureates should submit:
- an application letter;
- a curriculum vitae ;
- a letter indicating institutional or organisational affiliation ;
- a research proposal (two copies and not more than 10 pages) indicating a descriptive analysis, outlining the theoretical interest of the theme chosen by the applicant, and its relation to the problematic and concerns of the theme of the 2009 Institute and ;
- two reference letters from scholars and/or researchers known for their competence and expertise in the candidate’s research area, including their names, addresses and telephone, e-mail, fax numbers.

The deadline for the submission of applications is set for 10th May, 2009. The Institute will be held from 1st to 26th June, 2009 in Dakar, Senegal.
Applications should be sent to:

The CODESRIA Gender Institute,
Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop X Canal IV,
B.P. 3304, CP 18524,
Dakar, SENEGAL.
Tel. (221) 33 825 98 21/22/23
Fax: (221) 33 824 12 89
E-mail : gender.institute@codesria.sn
Website: http://www.codesria.org

Africa: eLearning Africa

2009-03-04

http://www.elearning-africa.com/

eLearning Africa is delighted to announce that this year’s conference, the fourth in the highly successful series of pan-African gatherings, will take place in Senegal. In May 2009, the Continent’s largest annual assembly of eLearning and education professionals from Africa and beyond will convene in the capital, Dakar.

Global: 19th World Congress for Sexual Health

2009-03-06

http://www.sexo-goteborg-2009.com/

The conference theme, Sexual Health & Rights: A Global Challenge, reflects the 8 priorities of the WAS Declaration for the Millennium and echoes the urgent need for action to ensure sexual health and rights for all. The WAS Congress is held every two years, and brings together the outstanding clinicians, researchers, educators, activists and policy makers from around the globe to share knowledge on the diverse and often controversial issues of contemporary sexual health. Sweden has always played a pioneering role in promoting sexual education, health and equality.

Global: Fahamu courses: Conflict Prevention

2009-03-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/54565

This course is designed to enable participants to develop effective conflict prevention strategies that can allow constructive dialogue between contending views without the need to resort to the use of violence. It is designed to strengthen the capacity of individuals and organizations to engage in conflict prevention, including early warning systems.
Course Length: Residential – 3 weeks/Distance – 16 weeks
Deadline for application: 4th May 2009/10th August 2009
FAHAMU COURSES

(www.fahamu.org) For enquiries please write to info@fahamu.org

Fahamu provides training, develops training materials and runs courses including by distance learning to strengthen the capacity of organizations and individuals. Since 2005, over 300 organisations have assigned staff to participate in Fahamu’s courses, including human rights organisations, churches, grassroots women’s organisations, development organisations, Kenyan police and prison officers, the Rwandan military, UN agencies, youth organisations and private sector organisations from 51 countries including Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Our courses have been developed in collaboration with the University of Oxford, the United Nations office of the High Commission for Human Rights, UN-affiliated University for Peace and Article 19. Participants receive certificates from the University of Oxford and Fahamu on completion of the courses.

The courses are offered by distance learning (with training modules on CD ROM) but are also available (especially as group packages) as residential face-to-face courses on prior request. The courses are based on the provision of well-designed interactive training materials on CDROM with a tutor facilitating the course through email discussions. Once assignments are completed, participants are brought together in a face-to-face conventional workshop (this is optional and depends on the participants needs) and in the final phase undertake a practical project as part of transferring learning from the course to the work place.

Conflict Prevention

Dates: 18th May 2009 to 4th September 2009/24th August to 11th December 2009
Focus: Conflict - and especially violent conflict - is common in many parts of the world. Violent conflict not only hinders human development and security, it also reverses many of the gains that society may have achieved over many years. Taking action before conflict has become violent is generally more effective than taking action during violent conflict. But to prevent the development of violent conflict means addressing the underlying causes - both immediate and structural.

This course is designed to enable participants to develop effective conflict prevention strategies that can allow constructive dialogue between contending views without the need to resort to the use of violence. It is designed to strengthen the capacity of individuals and organizations to engage in conflict prevention, including early warning systems.

Course Length: Residential – 3 weeks/Distance – 16 weeks

Deadline for application: 4th May 2009/10th August 2009

Global: Fahamu courses: Introduction to human rights

2009-03-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/54563

This short introductory course provides grounding in the basic principles of human rights and human rights based approaches to development. It also introduces participants to the international and regional conventions and instruments, which encode human rights.
Course Length: Residential - 1 week/Distance – 5 weeks
Dates: Ongoing throughout the year – available on request
FAHAMU COURSES

(www.fahamu.org) For enquiries please write to info@fahamu.org

Fahamu provides training, develops training materials and runs courses including by distance learning to strengthen the capacity of organizations and individuals. Since 2005, over 300 organisations have assigned staff to participate in Fahamu’s courses, including human rights organisations, churches, grassroots women’s organisations, development organisations, Kenyan police and prison officers, the Rwandan military, UN agencies, youth organisations and private sector organisations from 51 countries including Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Our courses have been developed in collaboration with the University of Oxford, the United Nations office of the High Commission for Human Rights, UN-affiliated University for Peace and Article 19. Participants receive certificates from the University of Oxford and Fahamu on completion of the courses.

The courses are offered by distance learning (with training modules on CD ROM) but are also available (especially as group packages) as residential face-to-face courses on prior request. The courses are based on the provision of well-designed interactive training materials on CDROM with a tutor facilitating the course through email discussions. Once assignments are completed, participants are brought together in a face-to-face conventional workshop (this is optional and depends on the participants needs) and in the final phase undertake a practical project as part of transferring learning from the course to the work place.


Introduction to Human Rights

Dates: Ongoing throughout the year – available on request

This short introductory course provides grounding in the basic principles of human rights and human rights based approaches to development. It also introduces participants to the international and regional conventions and instruments, which encode human rights.
Course Length: Residential - 1 week/Distance – 5 weeks

Global: Fahamu courses: Investigating, Monitoring and Reporting on Human Rights

Dates: 23rd March to 7th August 2009/13th July to 27th November 2009

2009-03-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/54564

This course aims to develop the skills of conducting and reporting impartial and accurate research into human rights abuses.
Course Length – 5 weeks face to face /Distance learning – 20 weeks
Deadline for application: 9th March 2009/29th June 2009
FAHAMU COURSES

(www.fahamu.org) For enquiries please write to info@fahamu.org

Fahamu provides training, develops training materials and runs courses including by distance learning to strengthen the capacity of organizations and individuals. Since 2005, over 300 organisations have assigned staff to participate in Fahamu’s courses, including human rights organisations, churches, grassroots women’s organisations, development organisations, Kenyan police and prison officers, the Rwandan military, UN agencies, youth organisations and private sector organisations from 51 countries including Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Our courses have been developed in collaboration with the University of Oxford, the United Nations office of the High Commission for Human Rights, UN-affiliated University for Peace and Article 19. Participants receive certificates from the University of Oxford and Fahamu on completion of the courses.

The courses are offered by distance learning (with training modules on CD ROM) but are also available (especially as group packages) as residential face-to-face courses on prior request. The courses are based on the provision of well-designed interactive training materials on CDROM with a tutor facilitating the course through email discussions. Once assignments are completed, participants are brought together in a face-to-face conventional workshop (this is optional and depends on the participants needs) and in the final phase undertake a practical project as part of transferring learning from the course to the work place.


Investigating, Monitoring and Reporting on Human Rights

Dates: 23rd March to 7th August 2009/13th July to 27th November 2009
This course aims to develop the skills of conducting and reporting impartial and accurate research into human rights abuses.

Course Length – 5 weeks face to face /Distance learning – 20 weeks

Deadline for application: 9th March 2009/29th June 2009

Kenya: Mango training courses

2009-03-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/54588

Mango provides practical financial management training for NGO staff and board members working in development and humanitarian aid. Mango’s courses are carefully designed to meet the real needs of staff working in the field and behind the scenes at head office. This March we’re coming to Nairobi, Kenya. Our courses have been professionally developed over years, using interactive, lively and highly effective techniques. They are based on real experience of NGO work.
Be inspired on a Mango training course

Our courses are specifically designed for NGOs. Here are 3 reasons to attend our courses.

1. Our training transforms staff’s skills and confidence
2. Our training is interesting, relevant and fun
3. Our training avoids confusing jargon and boring lectures

For details of our highly acclaimed courses taking place in Nairobi, Kenya please visit http://www.mango.org.uk/training/ or contact fsimmonds@mango.org.uk for more information.

Reserve your place today

Don’t delay as these courses are filling up fast. You can make a booking here.

Mango Training
Taking the Fear out of Finance
www.mango.org.uk

Mango is a registered charity, no: 1081406 and a limited company registered in England and Wales, no: 3986178. Registered Office: Chester House, George St, Oxford, OX1 2AU, UK

South Africa: The 3rd International IDIA Conference

Call for papers

2009-03-04

http://www.developmentinformatics.org/conferences/2009/3rd.html

The 3rd International IDIA Conference will be held in Africa in order to make it easier for interested parties of this continent to participate. The conference is aimed at researchers, policy-makers and reflective practitioners. It will be managed by the School of Information Technology, Monash South Africa (Johannesburg). Monash University is seeking to accelerate its engagement internationally, and this conference reflects this commitment.

HIV/AIDS, Human Rights and Law

Network for Justice and Democracy

2009-03-04

http://www.justiceanddemocracy.org/publication.htm

The Network for Justice and Democracy, a Nigerian based NGO dedicated promoting and defending reproductive rights, gender equality and advancing the cause of democracy through advocacy, education and research, is pleased to announce its publication titled "HIV/AIDs, Human Rights and Law". The book is a treatise of 10 chapters of 217 pages containing basic facts on HIV/AIDs, impact of the disease, prevention, treatment care and control of HIV/AIDs, strategies to combact the HIV/AIDs pandemic, vulnerability of girls, women and youths to HIV/AIDs, Gender and HIV, HIV/AIDs and Human Rights, Case laws and legislations on HIV/AIDs world wide.

International Perspectives and Nigerian Laws on Human Trafficking

Network for Justice and Democracy

2009-03-04

http://www.justiceanddemocracy.org/publication.htm

The book is intended to serve as a practical aid to the understanding of the problem of trafficking in persons and aims to encourage effective actions taken by the various international, regional and national initiatives to curb the menace of human trafficking. It also contains an exhaustive list of Appendices on international conventions, treaties and national legislation on human trafficking to serve as useful reference materials for research.
Price of book is $20.

Reproductive Health and Rights (African Perspectives and Legal Issues in Nigeria)

Network for Justice and Democracy

2009-03-04

http://www.justiceanddemocracy.org/publication.htm

This book is produced on behalf of the Network for Justice and Democracy, a non-governmental organization that is dedicated to the promotion of reproductive rights, women empowerment, advancing the cause of democracy and access of women to justice in Nigeria. The book documents laws and policies, which impact women's
reproductive health and rights and shape their reproductive choices. An exhaustive list of Appendices has been added to serve as a compendium of treaties, statutes and legislation in this novel area of law.

Africa: French Reporter/ Translator - Behind the Mask

2009-03-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/54561

Behind the Mask is inviting applications for the French Reporter/ Translator Position. This position is more suitable for people who are of African descent and who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Intersex (LGBTI) but not exclusive to heterosexual people. Closing date for applications is Wednesday, 25 March 2009. Please forward your applications to director@mask.org.za Telephone enquiries can be made by calling +27 11 403 5566. For more information on the organisation, please visit www.mask.org.za
Behind the Mask is inviting applications for the French Reporter/ Translator Position

Job spec:

* Translating (from English to French) selected articles currently on the BTM website
* Developing and co-ordinating an instantaneous translation service system
* Developing new articles in French
* Sourcing contacts from Francophone countries
* Building and training a cadre of French-speaking correspondents producing articles
* Conducting outreach to mainstream media



Requirements

* Tertiary qualification (preferably French language and writing training) e.g. Bachelors Degree in Journalism / Communication
* Knowledge of Human Rights issues in the continent particularly LGBTI issues
* Proficiency in both reading and writing in English and French
* Excellent writing skills
* Good conceptual skills
* Good interpersonal skills
* Creativity
* Computer skills
* Willingness to travel regionally



NOTE: This position is more suitable for people who are of African descent and who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender & Intersex (LGBTI) but not exclusive to heterosexual people.

NO CHANCERS PLEASE!!!!

Closing date for applications is Wednesday, 25 March 2009. Please forward your applications to director@mask.org.za Telephone enquiries can be made by calling +27 11 403 5566. For more information on the organisation, please visit www.mask.org.za

Egypt: Network Coordinator - Tadamon

2009-03-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/54595

Tadamon- The Egyptian Refugee Council is seeking a qualified individual for the position of Network Coordinator. The Network Coordinator is mainly responsible for the overall coordination of all Council initiated activities in Egypt and ensures that the Council's mission, objectives and principles are followed and achieved. Interested candidates are kindly requested to send their updated CVs along with a one page statement (400 words max) to tadamon.coordinator@gmail.com Deadline for applications is March 20th, 2009. Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.
Tadamon- The Egyptian Refugee Council is seeking a qualified individual for the position of Network Coordinator. The Network Coordinator is mainly responsible for the overall coordination of all Council initiated activities in Egypt and ensures that the Council's mission, objectives and principles are followed and achieved. Interested candidates are kindly requested to send their updated CVs along with a one page statement (400 words max) to tadamon.coordinator@gmail.com Deadline for applications is March 20th, 2009. Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted.

Job description: Network Coordinator
Tadamon- The Egyptian Refugee Multicultural Council

Job title: Network Coordinator

Location: Based in Cairo / mobility in Egypt and Middle East

Supervisor: Chairman of Tadamon Executive Committee

Supervises:
- Community Outreach Coordinator
- Communication Officer
- Administrator

Working partners:
- Tadamon Network members
- Egyptian Authorities
- International sister organizations
- Partners
- Donors

Position Description
The Coordinator is appointed by selected body of the Steering Committee of the Council. The job of the coordinator is a full-time position under the supervision of the Steering Committee and is directly accountable to the Chair. S/he is responsible for the overall coordination of all Council initiated activities in Egypt and ensures that the Council's mission, objectives and principles are achieved and acts as a focal point for liaison with international sister organizations. S/he is responsible for the day-to-day management of the office.

Duties:

To implement Tadamon strategy

1. To lead the participative elaboration of the Tadamon strategy.
2. To ensure the implementation of Tadamon strategic plan.
3. To elaborate the annual working plan and budget and submit those to Tadamon Executive Committee

To ensure the sustainability of the Council office through fundraising.

To represent Tadamon in Egypt and abroad
1. To ensure overall Tadamon coordination with the authorities in Egypt including information sharing and reporting.
2. To attend or delegate attendance to appropriate external meetings related to Tadamon's mission.
3. To represent the Council, in consultation with the Chair, with the media and at relevant meetings, conferences and so forth.
4. Act as a focal point for liaison with international sister organizations.
5. Coordinate with academic institutions in order to take advantage of their research, suggest research topics, and to access their libraries for information vital to the Council.

To advocate Tadamon position on issues related to multiculturalism, refugees and migrants
1. In coordination with Executive Board and Tadamon members, identify advocacy issue and develop accordingly an advocacy strategy.
2. In coordination with Communication Officer, ensure the dissemination of Tadamon advocacy message.

To elaborate, fundraise and supervise implementation of Tadamon's projects

1. To initiate projects related to Tadamon mission and fundraise accordingly
2. To take overall responsibility for the implementation of all Tadamon's projects and supervise and monitor their developments

To ensure the effective participation of Tadamon's members in support of the Community Outreach Coordinator

1. To ensure full participation of Tadamon members in its network initiatives.
2. To liaise with the member of the Council and other stakeholders
3. To assess on a regular basis the development needs of the Council\'s member organizations.
4. To identify new potential members of the Council and to liaise with the board.

To report to the Council's bodies
1. To assist the Chair, in preparing and organising the Executive Committee, Board Meeting, General Assembly meeting, ensure minutes are taken, and distributed efficiently.
2. Coordinate Steering Committee member's contributions to the work of the Council office.
3. To report to the different Council's bodies.
4. To ensure the Council registration in coordination with the board.
Finance and procurement

With the Administrator,
1. To ensure the appropriateness of the financial systems in place, monitor their use and make recommendations for change as necessary
2. To ensure standards of professionalism in financial practice are institutionalised throughout Tadamon operations
3. To review the budgets and financial performance and to work with the administrator on budgeting, accounting and auditing, as required

Human Resources

1. To manage the Council's employees
2. To assist the Executive Committee in staff resource planning: job descriptions, recruitment, induction and training for all staff as appropriate.
3. To comply with all relevant Council policies and procedures and the Egyptian labour law

Post Requirements

- To have the legal right to work in Egypt.
- Education and working experience
- A first degree in an appropriate discipline.
- 5 to 10 years working experience with at least 2 years experience in network/platform organisation
- Knowledge of NGOs in Egypt

Technical skills

- Experience in management
- Skills and experience in project/programme development, monitoring, review and evaluation
- Knowledge of refugee and migration issues in Egypt would be a plus
- Personality skills
- Ability and an interest in working in a multi-cultural environment.
- Ability to work with different teams
- Strong organisation skills
- Autonomy
- Language and computer skills
- Excellent communication skills in Arabic and English (oral and written)
- Computer skills (word, excel, internet, power point)
- Geographic mobility
- Ability to travel throughout Egypt and abroad

Application Procedures

- Applicants should send their CVs along with a one page statement (400 words max) to tadamon.coordinator@gmail.com

Deadline for applications is March 20th 2009.

Fahamu