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Africa: Africa Day Benefit Reception / Africa Vision Awards 2009

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/55928

Join Friends of Africa International (FAI) and dignitaries from the United Nations, country missions to the UN, NGO representatives, and members of the academia / corporate sector for the presentation of the Africa Vision Awards in celebration of Africa Day. This award is given to those who have demonstrated outstanding vision and rendered exceptional service.
"The Meaning of Africa Day from the Age of Nkrumah to the Dawn of Barack Obama."
Keynote Address by Renowned Africa Scholar, Prof. Ali. Mazrui

Special Invitation

Join Friends of Africa International (FAI) and dignitaries from the United Nations, country missions to the UN, NGO representatives, and members of the academia / corporate sector for the presentation of the Africa Vision Awards in celebration ofAfrica Day. This award is given to those who have demonstrated outstanding vision and rendered exceptional service.

The event promises to be a memorable night of light cocktail, tributes, Assorted African food, African fashion and a silent auction. All proceeds from this event will be used to support the work of FAI.

Keynote speaker - Professor Ali Mazrui (Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities / Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies Binghamton University, State University of New York).

Keynote Address - "The Meaning of Africa Day from the Age of Nkrumah to the Dawn of Barack Obama."

Event details:

Venue - William Bennett Gallery, 65 Greene St, New York NY 10012

Date & Time -- Thursday May 21, 2009. 6:30pm - 8:30pm.

Africa Day has been observed since 1963 as a way to express solidarity & freedom, & to highlight the dynamic cultural & social makeup of the various countries that compose the African continent. It is a day to reflect on the progress that has been made and to plan for the future. Friends of Africa International would like to take the opportunity to raise awareness about peace & security issues, the current global financial crisis and its implication for Africa & to promote support for its multi-faceted projects towards addressing these issues. To RSVP and to see the list of Africa Vision Award Honorees, please see next page. We look forward to receiving your confirmation of attendance.

Onyeka Obasi

President

Esteemed Recipients of the Africa Vision Award

(* Attendance confirmed; ** To be confirmed)


Ms. Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi

Executive Director, African Women Development Fund, Accra, Ghana*


Dr. Mohamed "Mo" Ibrahim

President, Mo Ibrahim Foundation**


Dr. Hanifa Mezoui

Chief of the NGO Unit of the United Nations, New York*


Dr. Adhiambo Odaga

Country Representative, Ford Foundation West Africa, Lagos, Nigeria*


Prof. Adebayo Olukoshi

Executive Secretary of Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa,

Dakar, Senegal*


His Excellency Jean Ping

African Union Commission Chairperson, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia**


President Mary Robinson

Former President of Ireland; President, Realizing Rights, The Ethical Globalization Initiative,

New York (represented by Heather Grady, Director of Policy & Strategy)*


Prof. Margaret Vogt

Deputy Director, Dept. of Political Affairs, United Nations, New York*

Who We Are

Friends of Africa International (FAI) is a 501(c) (3) non-governmental organization, founded in 2005 by Ms. Onyeka Obasi. Its programs focus on advocacy, training, and research-oriented policy advice to regional and international institutions through its multifaceted programs in Africa. FAI has facilitated the annual Pan-African Youth Leadership Forum which creates platform for young people to engage in development processes through dialogue and training workshops and use of the African Youth Charter. We are currently engaged in human rights and democracy projects in Sudan. For more information, please contact us at 917 213 8710 or email at info@fafrica.org

UNCTAD chief slams global casino economics

Government intervention needed to ensure financial sector serves real economy

Heinner Flassbeck

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/55985

cc flickr.comThe whole financial system has to be broken down and rebuilt so that finance serves the real economy – and if the private sector does not deliver this, then the government must intervene, Heinner Flassbeck, UNCTAD’s chief economist has said in a wide-ranging interview with Riaz K. Tayob. A recent report from UNCTAD calls for ‘much more regulation’ to avoid ‘excessive speculation’ which treats commodities as an asset class. Flassbeck slates the G20 for its ‘traditional’ approach, which he says does not go far enough to address the misallocation of resources caused by ‘overshooting’ currencies and commodity prices.

Riaz K. Tayob: UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) has recently issued a report on the financial crisis. Could you give us some of the key messages from the report?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: Well, the key message of the report is that what has driven the world economy into such a difficult situation was mainly what is sometimes called ‘casino games’ or ‘casino gambling’ on several markets. It was not just the subprime market, the famous housing market in the US, and the derivatives of that. It was much more, gambling in the commodity market and gambling with currencies, and this all has collapsed now and we see a huge amount of debt, outstanding debt and defaulting debt, because most of the players in these markets have indeed gambled with foreign money and not with their own money.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: When you say casino economy, most people think about the economy as something very complicated. Recently there has been talk about the ‘real economy’ and the ‘financial economy’, so is everything gambling?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: No, no, there is a real economy that is productive and that is producing goods and reasonable things that people need. But on top of that, in the last ten, twenty years, a huge casino was built, where gambling was the most important activity. And people really expected that they get a net effect, a net gain, a net income, out of this casino, but every reasonable person knows that that is not possible, casinos are what economists call ‘zero sum’ (games) – what one guy loses the other one wins, and the other way around. The fact that they played with commodities and currencies and houses gave them the illusion, for a time, that they really could get a net gain out of this casino game. But it is impossible and that has been shown now. After all the speculative pyramids collapsed, we see there is no net gain left.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: But these are financial markets that are regulated with oversight and have central banks. People put their trust in regulators to look after their pensions and investments on the stock exchange. What were the regulators doing?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: The regulators were ‘sleeping on their hands’, as some people say.
They did not realise what is going on. And they did not realise, mainly, how big the casino has grown over the last years – this virtual casino. And, so far, they did not see there were huge ‘systemic risks’. It is very simple to understand. If the oil price is driven up by speculators to a hundred and fifty dollars, at a certain point of time the normal people cannot afford oil anymore. And if house prices are expected to rise forever, we will see the ordinary people cannot buy houses anymore. And the same with currencies, if you drive up currencies, currencies get overvalued. Then at a certain point of time, the country has lost so much of its competitiveness that it is a running a huge current account deficit. It cannot export anymore and it has too many imports and it cannot afford these imports anymore, and the whole thing collapses.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: But besides regulators, there were also accountants who check the books of public companies and private companies. Should not the accountants have picked this up?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: They should, but what we see – we have the normal banking system which is regulated to a certain extent, but we have a ‘shadow banking system’ that consists of hedge funds and investment bankers – we see that there were ‘off-balance-sheet vehicles’, where banks engaged in gambling. And this was ‘off the screen’ of regulators to a certain part. But on the other hand, regulators did not fully understand what is going on, and in so far, regulators were overwhelmed by the huge amount of new and sophisticated complex structured products on these markets, which were all created, so to say, to disguise the character of gambling behind it.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: And the other safety net the people had is the media – to what extent did the media pick up on the issues and report on the risks?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: Yes, not enough obviously, but it is not only the media. The other ‘helping hand’ for the ordinary people should be economists, academics who look through the whole thing. But unfortunately there were too few who were warning, who saw the systemic risk, and most, the mainstream, of economics was enthusiastic about free flow of capital, and the efficient allocation of savings all around the world. There was a whole paradigm of economics that supported this sophisticated gambling, and so far it was difficult for the media and for journalists to understand what is going on.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: What do you mean by systemic risk?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: The systemic risk is as I said that normal people cannot afford things anymore, or the normal economy – the real economy, the productive part of the economy – cannot afford to pay the gamblers and the bankers anymore. In the US, the share of profits of the financial sector has dramatically increased in the last years up to a share of 40 per cent. So, at a certain point of time, if too many people are just going in the casino and are not working then the real world cannot afford to pay them anymore and this is the systemic risk and at that point the system…implodes.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: When people start talking about ‘recovery’ and ‘stimulus package’ to get the economy going, what do they mean?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: They mean that now the government has to step in, that the government has to compensate for the falling expenditure of the speculators, other people, the banks, the problem of investors to get credit. And so that all leads to downward spiral of cuts in spending and the more people cut spending the more the economy goes down. There is no self-healing, automatic, mechanism that will bring the economy to a recovery, and so far governments have to step in all over the place and in all countries of the world, to compensate for the fall of demand coming from the financial sector, and the next step coming from the demand for investment goods, and the big consumer items like automobiles.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: There’s a lot of talk about a recovery coming, and what are the signs of a recovery for you?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: At this moment in time, there are not yet any signs of recovery. We have no clear strong and reliable indicators that show that the slump is over, that the downswing is over, not yet.

The only thing we see is speculators are going back to casinos, are playing in stock markets and playing in commodity markets and currencies in the last two weeks – because they expect that the recovery is round the corner. But this is absolutely unreliable, nobody should believe this is a clear signal for a recovery. It is just the attempt of the speculators to gain if recovery would come. As a famous saying says, out of the last five recoveries, the stock markets have forecast twenty! This shows that they always try to forecast a recovery, but very rarely they (were) successful with that.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: What should ordinary people be pressing their governments to do given the mainstream of economics does not know what is happening?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: In all countries of the world, that finance should be a servant to the economy, not the master. So this whole idea about investment bankers being the ‘masters of the universe’ was flawed and has to be clearly abandoned in our thinking, and so the first thing is finance has to serve the real economy.

And that is very important for developing countries, not mainly – and in Africa – not mainly the question of too much casino gambling – there the private banks often has monopoly – there is not enough competition, lending rates are extremely high, are prohibitive for investment. The whole financial sector has to be fixed and has to be put back in the right order, which means indeed that finance should serve the real economy and if it is not delivered by the private banking and financial system, then the government has to engage directly and the government has to intervene, either by creating public banks as a competitor to private banks, or in other ways, by discretionary intervention to bring down lending rates for example.

I think for Africa that is the most important measure to be taken economically, but unfortunately it is not even discussed!

RIAZ K. TAYOB: Previously you said that wages were an important determinant, at one of your other presentations. What do you mean by wages? Is it just salaries?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: The second thing is that, we have to begin to understand, or ‘again to understand’ that wages increases, wages increasing with productivity is the most important by far, the most important driving force of any successful economy in the world. It is not just trade, exports, its not just investment without overall demand, its wages, salaries, for ordinary people, and the increase of these salaries wherever there is a productivity increase, the increase of the real salaries of the people with the productivity, that is a sustainable and best driver of any economy.

That is true for all levels of economies, true for least developed countries (LDCs), true for middle income and for the most developed economies, this we have to understand. The hype about the financial sector detracted us away from this fundamental idea that we need the mass income, the income of the masses has to rise, to support the economy through their demand. Their demand is the most important driver of the economy, not trade and not artificial investment and not foreign direct investment (FDI).

And too many countries in the world have been relying in the past based on the hype of financial markets and open markets and trade and FDI, have been relying on external sources. We all have to reconsider our own, our domestic sources of growth and of strength – this is the participation of the people in the progress of the economy – and this has been lacking in three quarters of the developing world in the last 20 years.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: Some media commentators have been asking for wage restraints, that unions in this time of uncertainty should not be pressing for wage increases. This seems to be directly in contradiction of what you are saying.

HEINNER FLASSBECK: That is exactly the opposite of the truth – if now wages are restrained then we will definitely fall into a deflationary trap. Anyway deflation is most important danger in the world economy right now. Not inflation as most people say. To talk now about inflation now is absolute nonsense in my opinion.

There is a deep deflationary danger for the world economy, because what we have to see is that with falling commodity prices, with trade falling, with demand falling, there is anyway a huge pressure on prices to go down. If this then accelerated by a fall in wages, everywhere, in most countries of the world, that would be absolutely disastrous. Then we would be very quickly in a deflation. That can hardly be healed by government action because then the additional domestic demand that governments have to produce and have to create to compensate for the fall of private demand is more or less impossible. That is going beyond the abilities of governments as we have seen in the second largest economy in the world in economic terms – Japan – in the 90s, the lost decade of Japan. Namely we had deflation and we had falling wages all over the place, and the Japanese economy was stuck in stagnation and recession.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: What do you mean by deflation and inflation?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: Inflation is a general increase in prices that is driven sometimes spiralling upward by rising prices first, then falling wages second and again rising prices, further and so on and so on.

This is not something that anybody should try to achieve. Inflation is dangerous, inflation should be avoided. But deflation, namely the general fall of prices, the fall of the price level is much more dangerous, for the reason that I mentioned. It is very difficult to stop demand from falling – because people are waiting till prices go further down, they do not advance their purchases of goods. But they do the opposite, they delay their purchases of goods and that is sending the economy down further into recession.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: The Europeans countries have been criticised for being too ‘hawkish’ on inflation, meaning they are trying to prevent inflation. Do you think some of these concerns valid?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: Yes absolutely. Europe is focused too much just on inflation.

Compare, for example, the mandate of the American Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the mandate of the European Central Bank. Then it is clear that the Federal Reserve always had a mandate that mentioned both targets namely, inflation and ‘employment and growth’, whereas in Europe the priority of the European Central Bank is the fight against inflation. And that is too simple a target. Because to fight inflation is a simple thing, you raise interest rates and so you fight inflation. And in the end the central bank will always win this fight, so that’s a very primitive solution. What is the ‘art of central banking’, or the difficult thing, is to keep inflation low and having high growth, and positive employment growth at the same time. This is the difficult thing, and in so far the mandate of the European Central Bank is not adequate.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: Ordinary people are wondering why there wasn’t enough money for health and education in government budgets, even in the US. Where is all this extra money coming from that wasn’t there for very necessary things?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: Yes. That shows that it would have been there but nobody was willing to take it. It is always in the capital markets and now with the pyramid of speculation collapsing in the capital markets, there are not many assets left that are attractive to the savers of the world. And clearly, the government offers rather riskless papers and offers not too high returns. But it offers stable returns, and in so far, government money is absolutely attractive and people are investing in it.

So far there has never been a problem for the government to raise money. It was just the ideology of not being too expansive, of not having too high government deficits, not having too high a share of government in the overall economy, that hindered governments to do reasonable things and now this all is gone. And suddenly it is possible to raise money, much more money than anybody could expect.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: In short government is going into debt and printing money?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: Yes, in part printing, which is necessary if you fight a deflation. You have to print money, that’s the opposite of inflation. If you fight inflation you destroy money. To fight deflation you print money. That is absolutely okay, there is no problem with that. That government debt is building up, is necessary because private debt is going down. There is always interdependence between government debt and private debt. If the private people are reducing their debt, the government has to increase its debt because otherwise the economy is collapsing.

There is always someone who has to be indebted and we cannot force the private sector to be in debt, so they reduce their debt. Or if they are over-indebted, already then the government has to step in. That is absolutely normal and that is not a problem and that increases the overall government debt into the future. So the debt ratio – the ‘debt to GDP (Gross Domestic Product)’ or other ratio or ‘debt to overall income’ increases. But that is not a disaster, that is something that can be healed once we go back into a normally expanding economy, which is driven by the expansion of private debt. And government debt can be reduced. That has happened many times in many countries.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: The printing of the money is done by central banks, and some central banks are now saying they are weak, that they do not have the instruments to deal with a crisis of this proportion. Who are the central banks and what is their role?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: The main problem that we have is a split between central banks of the big developed economies that central banks in developing countries cannot do – or are said they cannot do. Let me explain in a minute.

The point is indeed that the central banks of the big developed economy like the US and Europe are rather independent. They can act, they have the confidence of the market and their currencies are not a major problem because neither the dollar nor the euro will fall dramatically, because there are not many alternatives for people to go into rather safe havens – or money that is rather stable – there is no money from the moon or money from Venus. As long as this is the case – that there are only three currencies around – the rather stable yen, the dollar and euro, these currencies will not fall.

But for developing countries, it is different. They have currencies that can drop like a stone. In this case, it is very important to rethink the whole mechanism through which the currency is stabilised. We have written in our report that this is the most crucial question. And after the G20 meeting in London, it is even more crucial, because now the IMF (International Monetary Fund) is tasked with stabilising many more countries with much more money. And that means we have to rethink the mechanism.

The traditional mechanism is that whenever a currency is weak in a developing country or country in transition, then the IMF comes in. It gives an assistance package, which means credit to stabilise the economy. But for the IMF to be ‘credible’ – and ‘credible’ I say in inverted commas – the IMF says this to be ‘credible’, this has to be combined with an ‘austerity package’. Namely cutting government deficits, raising interest rates and cutting wages. This is exactly the opposite of (what) we consider to be the right approach. Because this is just an attempt to convince the markets, the speculative markets, that the currency should not drop further. This is in our opinion, UNCTAD’s opinion, absolutely the wrong approach. We should think about an international monetary system where we do not leave the currency to the speculation of the markets anymore. We see that all systems that we had in past, either absolute fixing or absolute floating, have failed. And so far the only solution is to have a government steered system, which is clearly a multilateral task. But in a system where the governments agree on certain rules of the countries involved, how exchange rates should follow the fundamentals of the countries involved. And if this were in place, you do not need all these assistance packages and you do not need the restrictive, the austerity, conditions that come on top of the assistance packages of the IMF.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: The IMF and World Bank in Africa are regarded as problematic because they imposed structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) that forced liberalisation of financial markets. Do you think NGOs (non-governmental organisations) that have criticised the IMF and World Bank have a point?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: Yes surely, there is surely a point. One point I mentioned already is that the IMF packages have been unnecessarily restrictive in the past. I very much hope that is going to change now – but as long as there is no global monetary system, it will be difficult for the IMF to change. The IMF is in objective difficulty. That has to be acknowledged. The other thing is this structural adjustment was not helpful. It was too much of a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Not all countries are the same, not all countries have the same institutions, traditions and other ‘rules of the game’, internally written and unwritten rules of the game. And so far, one has to give countries much more freedom to find their own way for an efficient system – and we have seen with the crisis in the financial markets, the financial services in the financial markets are not following the traditional view, the mainstream view of economics, and this has to be revised dramatically.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: What would be your advice to countries that have followed the mainstream view in terms of liberalising their exchange rate, current account or even their capital accounts? Do you think there is a need for a review or what should the approach be?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: There should be a big review, not only now in the crisis. We, in our (UNCTAD) trade and development reports, time and again have shown that the traditional approach is not very helpful and that more heterodox or unorthodox approaches like intervention in the financial markets, in the money markets, in the capital markets have been very successful in Asia. Take China. China never had a fully liberalised economy. Neither the external capital market has been liberalised, nor internal market. Internally China has always controlled the lending rates and the deposit rates of private banks.

And this is for many other developing countries one of the biggest problems. The margins are too large, so the spread between deposit rate and lending rate is huge. This is prohibitive for investment. It is very clear that in most countries that without government intervention, you cannot fix this problem. You cannot bring lending rates down to reasonable level so that normal, the common people, are able to take a loan, or invest in agriculture, or wherever they are engaged.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: When you say the margins are too large between the lending rate and the deposit rate, that means that ordinary people are paying far too much for their cars they bought on credit?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: Yes, absolutely.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: So who is making the extra money?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: The banks obviously. If you compare the spreads between deposit rates and lending rates and central bank rates and the lending rates of the private bank then you see, if you take five big regions in the world – for Africa, Latin America and eastern Europe, you find that these spreads are extremely high so that lending rates are really prohibitive to investment to real investment to fixed investment and fixed capital. And you find two regions where the spreads are normal, and that is Asia, which was extremely successful in developing its economies in the past, and the other one is the developed world. So in the developed world and Asia, we have normal spreads. And in all the rest of the world, we have extremely high spreads. We have shown that in our 2008 report. I think this is one of the most important findings for developing countries, that despite liberalisation of their financial markets, of their financial services, they have not delivered. And this is what is needed, they have to deliver the ‘right figures’, not just to be private.

In some African countries for example, you have a number of private banks – mostly coming from the North, coming from Western economies. So they are there, they have established themselves – but they are close to monopolies. And they are exploiting the system of not having enough competition. And in so far they (are) getting very high profits without doing anything. This cannot be just left aside, (saying) it’s done! The job is done, because financial services are liberalised. Well if they do not deliver, then the whole liberalisation did not mean anything, and ‘deliver’ can only mean reasonable interest rates for reasonable loans, and if this is not possible then who can fix it? Then only the government can step in and do something about it.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: At an earlier presentation you mentioned that there was a particular type of good bank, where you said they had a low appetite for risk, other factors. What are good banks, because people are worried about putting their money under the mattress or putting it in a bank?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: The example was the ‘3-6-3’ bankers. These are banks that take in the money, they pay an interest of 3 per cent for the deposits that they hold, they demand 6 per cent for the loans that they give, and at 3pm everyday, the director of the bank is on the golf course. That is ‘3-6-3’ banking. Which means that is normal banking without gambling, casino and everything. If you look at the Financial Times there was a nice article by Gillian Tett, who said exactly that. Bankers have to ‘relearn’ the old kind of banking – some people say ‘old fashioned banking’, traditional banking or ‘boring banking’. That is exactly what we need, banks that serve the real sector and if it is boring then it is boring. Then they have to engage elsewhere but not in gambling.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: Have there been banks that have survived this crisis using this model?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: Sure if you look at the German Spaarkassen, that’s quite famous, I am from Germany and it is very close to me. We have banks that are not quite state-run, they are organised with the participation of the communities, of the society at large, so to say. And they have done quite well, because they have not engaged very much in this casino and in gambling and so they are out of it, they have given loans to ordinary people and at reasonable terms. And this is exactly what we need.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: I ask the question because pensioners are very concerned about the loss of value of their money that they have. Would this be a model that you would advocate in terms of where do we now start putting money in investment decisions?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: Pensions are a big problem. Let me say like this. There are two models competing. One is called pay-as-you-go. That is the model where you give the government a certain contribution and you get a pension when you are old and it is going through the government. In the last 20 years, this was characterised as being old fashioned and being bad because the government is involved. And so the fashionable thing was a funded system, which means that you save your money on your personal account and you invest it. And the problem is where to invest it. The financial crisis reveals that it is not simple to invest it. And the financial crisis should reveal that it is not possible for a single person to move money into the future.

Its not possible because whatever money we save today, has to be taken by someone, a debtor. If we are a creditor, there has to be a debtor that takes the money and invests the money – and that we cannot control. We can’t just put the money in an account and hope that a reasonable person comes and invests it in productive activity. That is not guaranteed or warranted by anything and this is the problem.

We are not saving in terms of saving real things. We are not saving in kind, we are saving money. But this saving does not mean we are transporting this money into the future. We are giving this money to someone who owes it to us, and we just hope that this person uses it well. It is not transported into the future. This is a big misunderstanding and this misunderstanding was created by this idea of funded pensions. And many people that have based their retirement provision on such accounts are now seeing that nothing is left, and that is really bad. And then again the government has to step in to prevent the people from starving and dying. So the government did not get any contribution but government in the end gets the burden. And we see we have old age poverty in the many countries of the world – and mostly in countries where we had such funded systems, because too many people did not contribute and engage in the savings. In the end who is taking the burden? The governments again.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: If you had a message for trade unions who now participate as trustees on pension funds, what message would you give them about their allocation decisions to safeguard workers pensions?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: Safeguard workers pensions – they should rethink the model of pension funds. Pension funds are not the right way to do it. Pension funds were in many countries of the world the drivers of this casino capitalism. Because the pension funds were competing for high returns. And they all, for a time, believed that they could earn 10 or 15 or even 20 or 25 per cent, which is absolutely impossible. The real world economy is growing by say 3 per cent so by the end, everyone can get 3 percent increase, but not 25 percent. It is impossible that a big sector that is not productive at all takes such a huge slice out of the cake. So, what is needed is to rethink the whole model and to be sure that the people get something at the end. And I still think that this system that goes through the government (pay-as-you-go) is much more reliable than any other system that we know. We cannot transport this money, not productive(ly), into the future. We have to make a contract with the government and it gets a contribution and pays pensions now to old people and promises to pay to the then elderly again. This is the only way to do it reasonably well because all the private experiments have failed.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: The people who manage this money are taking huge bonuses, even as these funds collapse. What is your view on this? Is this crony capitalism?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: Yes, sure this is a form of crony capitalism. Because it is not competition and it is not a market result. The bonuses that they get is just their power to determine their own incomes, and their bonuses. And that it (is) all a big family that decides, so to say, that part of the family gets more at a certain point of time and the others the next time.

So this has nothing to do with the market and we should not stick to the fiction of having competition there, and having just wages or bonuses, there nothing like justice in it. It is just a power game and it is important that we have strong unions, and that unions fight for the workers right to have a share, always have a full share in the productivity increase. And there is no reason at all, not in the globalised economy, not due to globalisation, or anything else, that would prevent workers from getting their fair share and the others getting their fair share too.

The productivity, if it is rising by 3 percent, is available for all, for capital and for labour, and they should all get the 3 percent. But they cannot get 20 per cent, and not for a prolonged period. Only those with a really good idea, a productive idea, for a time, can get a bit more. But overall everybody can get only three.

But three is not bad. If you get 3 per cent for sometime, after thirty years your income has doubled. That is something, if it is possible. And in some countries, we have more than 3 per cent. Developing countries – look at Asia – they had 8 or 9 per cent increase of productivity over a longer period of time, and your income doubles in ten years and that is much better.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: Is this the only form of favouritism that is going on in the financial sector? We heard that AIG used its bailout money from the US government to pay out its friend Goldman Sachs. So when loans are given, are these given on a favouritism basis, as you have said the allocation system is inefficient?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: The system is opaque, it is not transparent. It is not showing who gets what under what conditions. And there are many other examples of favouritism in the system. As I said, it was a big family, and they all try to help each other and this has to be abandoned. It has to be broken down, the whole system. The system was based on the fiction of productivity and sophistication, but it was not productive at all in real terms, and so far, this we should say very clear.

And this is what I am missing in the G20 results. For example, they do not address the question of the casino, they do not address the question of the misallocation of resources due to overshooting currencies, and overshooting commodity prices. All these things are not addressed. They do it in a very traditional way. In my opinion, that is not going far enough.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: You mentioned the G20 and the position on commodities. This is very important for Africa. What do you think Africans should do about commodities that are traded on futures markets, on commodities exchanges? The derivatives problem is just a problem recently, but for Africa this has been going on since the 1980s.

HEINNER FLASSBECK: UNCTAD has been engaged in that question all the time. In our report we say we need much more regulation and we have to avoid ‘excessive speculation’ where commodities are treated as an asset class. Commodities is one of the asset classes, the other one is derivatives from the housing market, the other is stocks and currencies. These are all asset classes. This is not acceptable, because this drives, as we have seen very clearly, commodities up and down – absolutely unreliable for the producers of these commodities. So the producers have to stand up and have to say very clearly that we cannot accept that scheme, because we cannot invest anymore. We cannot rely on our revenues, we cannot educate our people based on revenues from commodities.

All these things are well known. But now it is much more clearer than ever before that they are driven by speculation. This should be taken by the developing countries that are producing commodities to claim, to ask for, to demand a new system where this overshooting, due to speculation, is not possible. Because it is not a market result and it is a not a good market result. If prices are driven far beyond the equilibrium prices – what economists call the equilibrium prices – then nobody can say this is a market result. No, it’s a pathological phenomenon. It is a market that should not exist in this way. We have to correct it and it can only be [done by] governments and can only be done by multilateral cooperation.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: You speak of regulation of commodities and this pathology. What form should regulation take and what should people ask their governments to do?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: There are two forms of regulation for the commodity markets. One is to look deeper into the kind of business that is taking place there and to identify the amount of financial investors engagement and then to say we need to redress that. To reduce the share of financial sector’s engagement by, say, putting higher capital requirements, or other measures, that reduce the return of these investors – ‘investors’ in inverted commas. The second is direct intervention in the markets. If prices are rising, governments should have a ‘war chest’ of certain crucial commodities and intervene and dramatically increase the risk for the financial speculators. If they do that then the whole business is less profitable, and this is exactly what we want.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: It is less profitable for who?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: The speculative investors.

RIAZ K. TAYOB: Finally, are there any economists that are interesting, not necessarily that you endorse, but who should people be listening to, and looking out for, besides UNCTAD reports that have predicted this crisis well before?

HEINNER FLASSBECK: UNCTAD reports are important. We work closely with Joseph Stiglitz, Jean Paul Fatoosi (phonetic) from France, and a number of other economists. Normally Paul Krugman is very reasonable, and a number of others.

But, indeed one has to listen very carefully. I can only recommend to the ordinary people, people who are not economists, to use their own brains and to think about it, and see whether there is logic and whether it makes sense to them what the people say. To understand that, the financial business is not a business in the traditional sense, but most of it, 89 per cent was indeed gambling – and everybody understands that gambling cannot be productive – and has to collapse if too many people are doing it, based not their own money but on debt. These are rather straightforward lessons that we have to learn and very much hope to convince more (people) to listen to us and to go in the right direction.

(This is a full transcript of the interview, which has been edited for clarity in places)

* Riaz K. Tayob is a journalist with the Third World Network. He conducted this interview in his personal capacity.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Resisting degradations and divisions

Interviewed by Richard Pithouse

S’bu Zikode

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55955

© Abahlali baseMjondoloIn an interview with S’bu Zikode, Richard Pithouse questions the president of South Africa's Abahlali baseMjondolo shackdwellers’ movement about his understanding of a living politics and the considerable struggles faced by the movement. Zikode, the elected leader of the group, discusses the core importance of looking to ordinary people for political direction and beginning within the needs of your community as part of an inclusive approach which embraces debate and differences of opinion. As an antidote to the South African state's domination, Abahlali, Zikode explains, works to challenge the underlying greed advanced by the state's endeavour to sustain social divisions through empowering people to engage and shape the struggle in a way sensitive to the needs and roles of all.

S’bu Zikode is the elected president of Abahlali baseMjondolo, a radical and radically democratic shackdwellers’ movement in South Africa that has committed itself to waging its struggles independently from party-political and NGO control.[1]

Richard Pithouse: What is your understanding of a living politics?

S’bu Zikode: That is a simple one because we are all human beings and so our needs are all, one way or the other, similar. A living politics is not a politics that requires a formal education – a living politics is a politics that is easily understood because it arises from our daily lives and the daily challenges we face. It is a politics that every ordinary person can understand. It is a politics that knows that we have no water but that in fact we all deserve water. It is a politics that everyone must have electricity because it is required by our lives. That understanding – that there are no toilets but that in fact there should be toilets – is a living politics. It is not complicated; it does not require big books to find the information. It doesn’t have a hidden agenda – it is a politics of living that is just founded only on the nature of living. Every person can understand these kinds of demands and every person has to recognise that these demands are legitimate.

Of course sometimes we need formal expertise – we might need a lawyer if we have an eviction case, or a policy expert if we are negotiating with government. But then we only work with these people when they freely understand that their role is to become part of our living politics. They might bring a skill but the way forward, how we use that skill, if we use that skill, well, that comes out of a meeting, a meeting of the movement. By insisting on this we have found the right people to work with.

Richard Pithouse: You’ve also spoken about a living communism before.[2] Can you tell me what you meant by that?

S’bu Zikode: For me understanding communism starts with understanding community. You have to start with the situation of the community, the culture of the community. Once you understand the complete needs of the community you can develop demands that are fair to anyone; to everyone. Everyone must have equal treatment. And obviously all what needs to be shaped in the society must be shaped equally and fairly. And of course if everyone is able to shape the world, and if we should shape it fairly, that means that the world must be shared. That is my understanding. It means one community, one demand.

To be more simple a living communism is a living idea and a living practice of ordinary people. The idea is the full and real equality of everyone without exception. The practice, well, a community must collectively own or forcefully take collective ownership of natural resources – especially the water supply, land and food. Every community is rightfully entitled to these resources. After that we can think about the next steps. We are already taking electricity, building and running crèches, insisting that our children can access the schools. We just need to keep going.

Again I do not think we should be thinking away from ordinary people, having to learn complicated new ideas and ways of speaking. Instead we should approach the very ordinary people that are so often accused of lacking ideas, those who must always be taught or given a political direction. We need to ask these people a simple question: ‘What is needed for your life, for your safety, for your dignity?’ That simple question asked to ordinary people, well, it is a kind of social explosion. From that explosion your programme just develops on its own.

Of course a struggle always starts in one place, amongst people dealing with one part of the human reality. Maybe they are, like us, living like pigs in the mud, strange pigs that are also supposed to survive constant fires. Or maybe they are being taken to Lindela or maybe they are being attacked from the sky, being bombed.[3] You have to start with what is being done to you, with what is being denied to you.

But for me communism means a complete community. It does not mean a community that is complete because everyone in it thinks the same or because one kind of division has been overcome. It means a complete community that is complete because no one is excluded – a community that is open to all. It means a very active and proactive community – a community that thinks and debates and demands. It is the universal spirit of humanity. Obviously this starts with one human life. We know that if we do not value every human life then we would be deceiving ourselves if we say that there is a community at all.

We are communists here in the mud and fire but we are not communists because of the mud and fire. We are communists because we are human beings in the mud and fire. We are communists because we have decided to take our humanity seriously and to resist all degradations and divisions.

Richard Pithouse: You have suffered in this struggle. You have lost your job, you’ve been arrested, slandered, beaten. Why do you think that the state reacted so badly to the emergence of Abahlali baseMjondolo?

S’bu Zikode: I think that it is because the system is such that it makes it impossible for equality. It makes sure that it divides in order to retain the status quo. It has created its own empire for its own people that matter to it, that are accountable to it. The system itself makes other people to be less, to be not important, not to matter.

What I was trying to do was to invade their territory and to show that we all have the power to do it.

It is a capitalist system and it is also a political system in which the few dominate the many. So it has to make certain people better than others, to be privileged over others. If you want to join the winning team then you have to fight. And it’s not easy. They want us to think that we can never beat them and that the only hope is to join them. But the system makes these different layers and it makes it very difficult, almost completely impossible, for a certain layer to penetrate. That’s where the issue of blood and death first comes in. This is a very strong empire.

If you decide not to join the winning team, if as a poor person you decide to change the whole game, well, then you are invading their territory, territory that is too good for you. They will first ask, ‘Who the hell are you?’ That is always the first question – from the councillors, the police offers, the officials, the politicians, everyone. And if you have an answer, well, sometimes intelligence is not enough. Blood and death come in again. And when you are challenging the system rather than trying to get inside it there are still these layers. Even if you pass the first layer it will ensure that you do not reach the next layer where clever people belong, people who count. If you are born poor it is taken that you are born stupid. But if you invade their territory you don’t find clever people. You find that it is greedy people and ruthless people who seem to count. You find that they want to control the world. They will defend their greed. I am very clear that if you try to pass into the forbidden territory you will have to pass certain tests, certain difficulties.

I always wonder how the system can divide people. I always say that the strongest thing that the system can do is to be able to divide people which is why we all struggle in our own confined dark corners, separated from one another. At the end of the day we are the majority, not the system. But it is such that it manages to divide us, to divide our struggles. This is why the big question that most people ask is ‘How few hands can remote so many people?’ Those few people in the system are able to remote the world. How do they do this? How can hundreds of people remote millions? The answer is the division of our struggles. That is why I understand why Kennedy was such a big threat. The collectivity that we built, first within Kennedy, and then between the settlements that formed the movement – on its own it is a threat to the system.

It is interesting that we send comrades to this WSF [World Social Forum] with a clear message that another world is necessary, necessary as a matter of urgency. We hear that everyone agrees that another world is possible. This is good but no one has ever asked when this will happen, when we will all take a collective step towards this change.

I am not too sure at what stage our own intellectuals will understand the system and why ordinary people still don’t have a way of changing the society. I still wonder at what stage a new communism will become necessary. I don’t know when it will become clear that poor people themselves can and must come up with a new living, an autonomous life, a completely independent stance where a new order would be about alternative ways of living and working instead of trying to compete with each other or limiting our demands to the return of what is already stolen. But it is possible. Already the struggles of the poor have created a situation where everything is done in the name of the poor. The state, the NGOs, academics, the churches, the World Bank, all of them are saying that what they are doing they are doing for the poor. Now that the poor themselves are saying ‘not in our name’, now that we are saying that we will do things for ourselves, that we will think and speak for ourselves and that we will keep going until we find our own way out and a new society is born we have opened a real space for discussion. Our first duty is to keep this space wide open. Our second duty is to encourage as many people as possible to take their place in this new space.

Intellectuals are also called upon to serve our little world. It is difficult to analyse and change the world, to change its format, to turn it upside down. I always remember Bishop Rubin Philip’s speech when he said that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.[4] It is easy to say it, and it’s acceptable to most people, but it’s not easy to make it real. But to be realistic we must start from where we are, with what we have, from our families, by teaching our children, and then to our schools, to our little neighbourhoods and communities before we say anything at the world level like the WSF. We must not fool ourselves and produce ideas that are not grounded in any soil.

Richard Pithouse: For many people Abahlali is best known for the position that it took against xenophobia. How did the movement come to take the position that equality must be universal?

S’bu Zikode: This is a bigger question, a question of people who are in this world. But we’ve already talked about ubuntu, communism and what makes a complete society. It is true that this could be in the sense of belonging. But belonging where? It could be in one country but it could also be in the world, that it is acceptable for everyone in the world to live freely without any boundaries, without any colour or any other restrictions.

Obviously if you were to talk about a just society then it is the human culture, ubuntu, that makes a complete human being. The culture, where a person comes from, the colour – this does not count. Therefore it was clear for Abahlali that we have to take a very strong side in defending human life – any human life, every human life. It is acceptable and legitimate that one person protects another. It is as simple as that.

There are no boundaries to the human life. Therefore the attack on people born in other countries, the so-called foreign nationals – it was inhuman. It was very easy to take a position on this.

Obviously you have got to look at the perpetrators of this, at their intelligence, their conscience, their consciousness – their intelligence really. Whatever they say about their reasons for the attacks clearly shows how the world was corrupted. People breathe a poisonous air. They get caught up, in their whole life, in a way of living where you turn an eye to one another. It is a terrible situation. This is a very big challenge for South Africans who have lived most of their life during apartheid, whose teaching was about boundaries, segregations – that not everyone was a human being. At that stage only whites were considered to be human by the system. A proper opposition to that system would reject its segregations completely and insist that everyone is human. But some of the opposition to that system has been about fighting to take a place in that system, not doing away with it. So now black people have turned on other black people, against their brothers and sisters. It is a disgrace. This is one of the damages the past laws have installed in some people’s minds. A lot needs to be done to change the mindsets of those whose frustration is unsound.

Richard Pithouse: What has been the best thing about being involved in Abahlali?

S’bu Zikode: All the victories we have won. I don’t just mean victories in court, or evictions that have been stopped, or water and electricity connected. I am talking about seeing comrades becoming confident, being happy for knowing their power, knowing their rights in this world. Seeing comrades gaining a bit of respect, seeing people who have never counted being able to engage at the level at which they struggle is now fought. Young comrades are debating with government ministers on the radio and TV! Seeing the strength of the women comrades in the movement. Seeing poor people challenging the system, because it's not just about challenging Bheki Cele[5] or Mabuyakhulu, it’s about challenging the whole system, how it functions.

Richard Pithouse: Would you like to say a little more about the strength of the women comrades in the movement?

S’bu Zikode: Well I am very satisfied and proud to see how some of the Abahlali settlements are chaired and led by women. This is evident in Siyanda A, B and C sections in Newlands in Durban. This is also evident in Motala Heights in Pinetown, in Joe Slovo and other settlements. From the very beginning women have been elected to the high positions of leadership in the movement and it is impossible to imagine the movement without the strength of women comrades. The Abahlali office itself is headed by a young woman, Zodwa Nsibande, who has earned herself a high respect from both men and other women for her role in connecting the movement and the outside world. But there are also many projects that don’t get the same public attention and most of these projects, such as crèches, kitchens, sewing, bead work, gardening and poetry are run purely by women.

The strength of women comes from the fact that women are expected to carry our love, not only for their children and husbands but for the communities too. Women are raised to be sensitive and caring. We are all told that a home that has a woman is often warm with love and care. A person that is given responsibility for this love and care will fight like a lion to protect her home and her family. It is not surprising that women are often in the forefront of struggles against eviction, for toilets, for electricity and against the fires. Sometimes in Abahlali women feel that men are very slow and too compromising.

Over the years many women have faced arrest and police beatings. Women have confronted police officers, landlords, shack lords, BECs, councillors, NGOs, academics – everyone that has to be confronted in a struggle like this. The fact that Abahlali women have given away fear and decided to confront the reality of life tells us that there is something seriously wrong with our governing systems – that another world is necessary. Women don’t risk their safety when they have children to care for unless they have a very good reason for doing so. The fact that women have stood up to and faced the barrel of guns during our protests is an indication that indeed another world is possible, because without women nothing is possible and without courage nothing is possible. Our hopes are dependent on the courage of women.

We know that in the past that in times of any war women were never and under no circumstances touched by the physical pain associated with any war. But today poor women are shot by the same police who are meant to protect them by law. I wish to salute the role that our mothers are playing in not only raising us under these trying circumstances but in also having to face this violence from the state while fighting for a better world for us. Their motherly [contribution] does not count because they are not the wives of the politicians and of the rich.

But we know that their strength changes their subjectivity to vulnerability, putting them in the forefront of our struggle. We know by nature that their tears can never be ignored by a natural person forever and ever.

* S’bu Zikode is the president of Abahlali baseMjondolo.
* Richard Pithouse is an independent writer and researcher based in Durban.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

NOTES
[1] This is a short extract from a much longer interview. The full interview is available at Abahlali baseMjondolo website
[2] Zikode first made a public call for a living communism in an address to the Diakonia Council of Churches economic justice forum on 28 August 2008.
[3] Lindela is a notorious detention centre to which undocumented migrants are taken prior to deportation.
[4] Anglican Bishop Rubin Philip has been a longstanding supporter of Abahlali baseMjondolo. The speech referred to here was given at the Abahlali baseMjondolo UnFreedom Day event on 27 April 2008.
[5] Bheki Cele is the minister for security in the Province of KwaZulu-Natal.

Zionism: An endless river of blood?

Rabbi Weiss speaks to Riaz Tayob

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/56014

cc Amir Farshad EbrahimiZionism is the root cause of suffering, bloodshed and the rift between Arabs and Jews, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, spokesperson for Neturei Karta International – an organisation that represents anti-Zionist Orthodox Jews – has said. In an audio interview [mp3] with Riaz K. Tayob at the Durban Review Conference, Weiss said that Zionist movement transformed Judaism into ‘a materialistic, political, nationalistic goal’, which presented its critics as ‘anti-Semitic’ or ‘self-hating Jews.’ Speaking of his hopes too see the Palestine question addressed, he added that the Holocaust should not be used to further Zionist goals or to justify the oppression of another people.

* Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss is spokesperson for Neturei Karta International.
* Riaz K. Tayob is a journalist with the Third World Network. He conducted this interview in his personal capacity.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Is Judgment Day near for Omar al-Bashir?

Kwesi Kwaa Prah

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55953

cc Andrew HeavensIn response to Mahmood Mamdani's article 'Beware of human rights fundamentalism', Kwesi Kwaa Prah questions Mamdani's grasp of history. Taking issue with Mamdani's contention that 'Arabs never constituted a single racial group' in Sudan, Prah argues for the people of Southern Sudan's self-rule and a halt to the 'Arabisation' of Africans.

Mahmood Mamdani’s recent article Beware of human rights fundamentalism substantively goes through the reasoning the author has repeatedly made over the past few years regarding the Darfur imbroglio. This time he is offering gratuitous advice to former South African President Thabo Mbeki about the arguments he should make to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and interested parties on how to deal with the African Union's (AU) call for him to negotiate a postponement of the ICC’s indictment of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir.

Leading a panel and mandated by the AU, Mbeki has started work on a possible African-led resolution of the crisis in Darfur. The panel has been advised by AU members to call for a year’s deferment of the process of the ICC war crimes indictments against Sudan’s president. The eight-member panel includes three former African heads of state: South Africa's Thabo Mbeki, Burundi's Pierre Buyoya and Nigeria’s General Abdusalam Abubakar.

During the opening session of the exercise at AU headquarters in Addis Ababa various delegates argued that the ICC indictments against President al-Bashir will in effect undermine attempts to arrange peace in Darfur. The suggestion is that deferring the ICC indictments will allow time for African-led peace efforts in Darfur to take firm shape. Mbeki argued that the AU charter claims primary authority over African peace and security issues: 'The African Union has taken the clear and unequivocal decision the continent must act not only to end war and violent conflict in Africa, but also to ensure that where war does anyway break out, all belligerents must know that war crimes, crimes against humanity and other abuses will be punished resolutely, and that a culture of impunity will not be permitted to take root and entrench itself.'

There are certainly legions of problems with the self-appointment of the ICC to sit in judgment on all of us when we are neither all in agreement with the terms of the mandate or the moral credentials of the powers that be. These are general considerations. Its use cannot be ruled out however. Slobadan Milosevic, Charles Taylor and Thomas Lubanga are clear cases in point. In the specific instance of President Omar al-Bashir and his genocidal project in Darfur, is judgment day is near?

Taking a page from the book of the South African settlement which brought apartheid to a close, Mamdani’s plea on behalf of al-Bashir is that, 'The rationale was simple: where there was no victor, one would need the cooperation of the very leaders who would otherwise be charged with war crimes to end the fighting and initiate political reforms. The essence of Kempton Park can be summed up in a single phrase: forgive but do not forget. Forgive all past crimes – in plain words, immunity from prosecution – provided both sides agree to change the rules to assure political justice for the living.' In other words, the recommended course of action should be based more on political expediency than justice. There are many who would swallow this suggestion, in spite of the bad taste it leaves in the mouth. Some will also argue that in light of the history of Arab–African agreements from time immemorial in the Sudan, the peace, if it is so loosely structured, will degenerate into a 'practico-inert'. We must remember that the Kempton Park meetings formally ended apartheid. Will al-Bashir end his brutal and genocidal policies in Darfur? Kicking out humanitarian NGOs does not speak well for magnanimity and reconciliation. As Abel Alier, the Southern Sudanese former vice-president under Muhammad Ja'far Numeiri, put the case in his book with the same title, there have been 'too many agreements dishonored'.

Mamdani argues that, '[W]hen the justices of the ICC granted the prosecutor's application for a warrant to arrest the president of Sudan, they were not issuing a verdict of guilty. The justices were not meant to assess the facts put before them by the prosecutor, but to ask a different question: if those facts were assumed to be true, would the president of Sudan have a case to answer? Unlike court, which took the facts for granted at the pre-trial stage, we need to ask: to what extent are these facts true? And, to the extent they are true, are they the whole truth?' He then proceeds to present supposed historical facts, but which are in fact of impeachable standing. Mamdani writes that, 'The racialisation of identities in Darfur had its roots in the British colonial period. As early as the late 1920s, the British tried to organise two confederations in Darfur: one "Arab", the other "Zurga" or black.' This is incorrect. Zurga is Arabic for blacks (plural) in Darfur. Its singular version Azarek means blue. 'Green Arabs' is another term used to describe the black but slightly lighter Arabs mainly of the Reizigat and Messariya ethnic groups. In the south, blacks are described as Aswad (blue) or Sudd. All these racially-loaded words are Arabic in origin, not English. They existed long before Darfur was incorporated into the Sudan in 1916. The British simply built on usages which were societally current.

To suggest that 'Arabs never constituted a single racial group. Contemporary scholarship has shown that the Arab tribes of Sudan were not migrants from the Middle East but indigenous groups that became Arabs starting in the 18th century' is misleading. Regarding the people of Darfur, P.M. Holt and M.W. Daly, in their A History of the Sudan write that, 'The Arabization of the Northern Sudan resulted from the penetration of the region by tribes who had already migrated from Arabia to Upper Egypt… the Fur… [a]lthough surrounded by a flood of immigrant Arab tribes, … succeeded in establishing a dynastic Muslim state which was not finally extinguished until 1916.' In Darfur, as in other areas of Sudan, Arab and African cannot always be physically recognised. Most people are black, Arab or African. The difference is cultural and ethnic not racial, in much the same way as Jew and Arab, Pakistani and Indian, Protestant and Catholic in Ireland, and Japanese and Chinese are not visible differences. In Darfur both Arabs and Africans are overwhelmingly Muslims, but many Arabs regard the Africanist cultural influences in the Islam of the Africans as tainted. Furthermore, Africans have their own languages and do not have Arabic as a home-language or mother-tongue.

Much of the contestation is admittedly over resources. However, the use of rape, pillage, looting and scorched-earth policies to uproot the African ethnicities is now known to the whole world. The idea of lightening the colour of Africans through rape is common. Depopulated areas are then systematically resettled with Arab ethnicities, even non-Sudanese. The Sudan Tribune of 7 May 2008 reported that, 'There are around 120,000 of them who came from Niger to Wadi Saleh. This also occurred in north, west and south of Zalingi. They are building new villages for them in these areas. This is a serious matter. Khartoum clearly is continuing its policies of repopulating Darfur with tribes from other countries.' This is only the tip of the iceberg.

In the Wall Street Journal of 18 June 2008, Abdel Wahid al-Nur, leader of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), argued that, 'We must prevail to preserve the unity of Sudan. In a truly democratic and secular Sudan, neither the South, nor Darfur, nor any other region would be tempted to secede… We must prevail to stabilize the region and spread democracy. We must prevail to help Sudan return to its natural, legitimate geopolitical place – which is the African continent and not the Arab or Muslim world. At the same time, we must forge new alliances, no longer based upon race or religion, but upon shared values of freedom and democracy.' The sagacious course of action to right the wrongs wreaked on the people of Darfur is to give them back their dignity and a chance to shape and control their destiny. They must have regional autonomy and self-rule along the lines of the South and the Beja country. Most importantly the Arabisation of Africans must stop.

* Kwesi Kwaa Prah is the director of the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS) based in Cape Town, South Africa.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Why the West won't pay us reparations

Interviewed by Riaz Tayob

Roger Wareham

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/56015

cc Flickr.comAfricans and Africa suffer from planned underdevelopment, with colonialism and slavery providing economic benefits to one group at the expense of another, the International Association Against Torture’s Roger Wareham tells Riaz K. Tayob in an audio interview [mp3] at the Durban Review Conference. But the West won’t pay Africans reparations instead of aid, because then it couldn’t benefit from its ‘charity’, he adds. Wareham, ‘a black man who grew up in a racist country’, speaks about his lifelong commitment to the liberation of African people. International public opinion is important for influencing what happens on the ground as it isn’t possible to change a system from within, when its beneficiaries are also its gatekeepers.

* Roger Wareham is the international secretary-general of the International Association Against Torture.
* Riaz K. Tayob is a journalist with the Third World Network. He conducted this interview in his personal capacity.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

The man with the Mau Mau spirit

Remembering Bantu Mwaura

Shailja Patel

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55979

© Centre for Creative ArtsPoet and performer Shailja Patel celebrates the life of Bantu Mwaura (1969-2009) – Kenyan artist, activist and academic – through a series of reminiscences about what he meant to different people. Mwaura, husband of Susan and father of Makeba and Me Katilili, died on 26 April. ‘He was expression without hindrance; the way Africa used to be. He left behind power and energy; people speaking. In his dreadlocks and movements and smile and dress, Bantu carried an entire people.’

‘It's what we do at a very determined individual level that changes what happens in whatever field we work in.’
Bantu Mwaura, interviewed by Doreen Strauhs and David Paul Mavia, 2006

‘Nothing was usual about him. He stirred people to thought. You could not ignore his presence and sense of things. A level of responsibility of the highest order. A passionate desire to think clearly and to be useful to all. A certain level of service; when I saw him I felt things were being taken care of, in freedom and resistance so powerfully merged. You would be tempted to ask him, which goddess asked you to do things this way? We should follow her ways.’
Philo Ikonya, president, PEN (Kenya chapter)

‘See, Bantu was not just all argument; he was a complex human being with an even more complex personality that perhaps society saw too harshly, or chose to not to see at all, because what he said disturbed us.’
Mbugua wa-Mungai, Ohio State University, Centre For Folklore Studies

The first time I met Bantu Mwaura, a few years ago, he showed me, unprompted, his cellphone display: A photo of his wife, Susan, and two children. When he told me his daughters’ names: Makeba (after Miriam Makeba) and Me Katilili (Kenyan woman who led her Giriama people in armed struggle against the British in 1913), I teased him: ‘No pressure there, huh? No burdens of history on two gorgeous children?’
He laughed, his face alight with love and pride in his family.

The burdens of history caught up with Bantu Mwaura four days ago. We still do not have a definitive, trustworthy account of how he met his death. Kenyan press reports that his body was found on Monday morning, on a path of the Nairobi housing estate where he lived. An autopsy was carried out on Tuesday, where a pathologist from the Independent Medico-Legal Unit (a Kenyan human rights organisation) was present alongside the government pathologist. The certified cause of death was ‘chemical poisoning’. I am told that ‘investigations continue’ into how the poison was administered – and by whom.

Bantu's voice unspools in my head as I write this. With all his fierce righteousness, honest rage, passionate scholarship, loathing of hypocrisy, love of true art, uncompromising rigour of standards, commitment to making good work, activist power, courage of spirit, and largeness of heart.

‘He was expression without hindrance; the way Africa used to be. He left behind power and energy; people speaking. In his dreadlocks and movements and smile and dress, Bantu carried an entire people. He was not a thespian. He was theatre. Philo Ikonya, president of PEN (Kenya chapter)

ACADEMIA

Bantu held a PhD in Performance Studies from the New York University, a masters in Theatre Studies from Leeds University (UK), and another masters in African-American and African Studies from Ohio State University (USA). His research focused on the interface of performance theory with theatre practice in Africa; on how culture impacts and is impacted upon by real politics; and on the politics of performance space.

‘There is a stark difference between the way theatre is approached in Africa and the way it is approached in the West. So in Africa… theatre has never been, never used to be, that thing that you go to put up in some very specific well-established building somewhere and then everybody comes. We did our theatre, we engaged in performance, in everything that we did.’
Bantu Mwaura, interviewed by Doreen Strauhs and David Paul Mavia, 2006

Bantu’s essay on the aid industry in Africa, Dancing to the Donor's Tune, in Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits (ed. Rasna Warah, 2008), generated a one-hour programme on the BBC Swahili service, where he shared a panel with Professor Issa Shivji and Onyango Oloo.

His pedagogy was firmly grounded in radical politics and liberation struggles, the writings of Franz Fanon and Paulo Freire. He cared deeply about empowering students through awakening their faculties for critical thinking, for pride in their own history and cultural heritage. Stunned and grief-stricken responses flowed in from his students in as the news of his death spread through the Kenyan blogosphere.

And yet, most Kenyans who saw Bantu on stage, or went to the plays he directed, had no idea of his impressive CV as a scholar.

THEATRE

‘And every time I go and see a play at the French Cultural Centre, it is Heartstrings (Kenyan theatre troupe) doing these British comedies and bedroom farces. And it really annoys you. But you look at the audience and many a time they have full houses, and people are enjoying themselves. But they are enjoying themselves not because that's what they want, but because that's what they have. There is no alternative. If you gave them an alternative like Wahome Mutahi did, they'd pack those pubs, and I know people who went to see those Wahome plays every time they were performed - twice, thrice, four, five, ten times.’
Bantu Mwaura, interviewed by Doreen Strauhs and David Paul Mavia, 2006

‘His vibrancy was best expressed in shows he did. I recall most vividly one he performed with Oby Obyerodhiambo. They both played market women. There was Bantu "in drag", dressed to the teeth in kangas and scarves, with his dreads and his beard, flouting our imagination, making us giggle all the more at the absurdity of their roles. But the two guys played their parts to the max, and they won our applause. It was clear that both men loved to act, loved the stage, and loved sharing the spirit of the theatre with their audience.’
Margaretta wa Gacheru, scholar and theatre critic

‘I immediately saw what would draw Bantu and Wahome Mutahi together: Deep concern with questions of social justice, and exposing the structures and logic that undergird inequities. The passion of Bantu combined with Mutahi's humorous critique of power enable one to see many of the things that could be remedied about Kenya (and perhaps other lands as well) but which we choose not to! The commitment to the popular arts also showed us something else: That the search for knowledge of society might also be pursued in, and through, non- canonical spaces and creative practices.’
Mbugua wa-Mungai, Ohio State University, Centre For Folklore Studies

POETRY

‘We love the mystery and mischievousness in the poetry of Bantu Mwaura. But the mystery surrounding the circumstances of his death creates suspicion of another sort of mischief. We do not know the answers to this, but we do know that yet another strident voice is taken, a colourful figure gone from the cultural landscape of Africa.

Unafraid to speak out, Bantu's blend of humorous word-play and blunt directness in particular targeted injustice, political corruption, and the corporate hegemony of the West. We came to know and value him during the Poetry Africa programme at the World Social Forum in Nairobi in January 2007, and again at the Poetry Africa festival in Durban in 2008. May the flame of his work continue to light creative voices.’
Peter Rorvik, director, Centre for Creative Arts, University of KwaZulu-Natal

‘I had the privilege to edit his poems (published in Echoes Across the Valley edited by Livai and Makokha, 2000). He wrote with verve and imagination, brought a freshness of perspective and a freedom of language use that was both daring and original.’
Kwamchetsi Makokha

ACTIVISM

‘In our national politics, once something is seen as “left” nobody wants to deal with it. Even the most radical people, when they talk about it, they are, like: “Yeah, these lefties, you know.” …And many a times that ideological left that we don't want to deal with is actually where most of our solutions lie… the mainstream has been able to make the left sound as if it is abominable... So if you really want… to make people not think about it, just call it leftist. Then everybody will want to have arms-length.’ Bantu Mwaura, interviewed by Doreen Strauhs and David Paul Mavia, 2006

‘Bantu was a shining light insisting that the truth be told, and justice be done. If someone wanted to dampen the spirit of fellow Kenyans who believe in democracy, liberty, and the right to speak out, they might have targeted a man like Bantu. But whatever the circumstances of his passing, Bantu's spirit is too strong to be shut down, made invisible, or killed.’
Margaretta wa Gacheru, Evanston, IL. USA

‘He came to me as symbol of resistance at the Kencom Bus stage 2004, where Bunge La Mwananchi had open democratic debates. At that time we were still enjoying fresh breath from the Narc (National Rainbow Coalition) regime. I asked Bantu to bring his organic street theatre in the parliament of the people. But he had another project in Langata women’s prison. A comrade in struggle, who keeps watch when the lights grow dim, who lights a candle to inspire more resistance, before the bleak end. Bantu Mwaura, you remain a symbol of resistance. Mau Mau. Aluta Continua.’
Gacheke Gachihi, Bunge La Mwananchi (Kenya People’s Parliament)

JAHAZI

‘It's a journal on culture, arts and performance and the idea is to think outside the boxes.’
Bantu Mwaura, interviewed by Doreen Strauhs and David Paul Mavia, 2006

Two weeks ago, at the annual conference of the African Literature Association in Vermont, an eminent scholar and an eminent artist argued with outward goodwill but steely determination over which of them would take home my last remaining copy of the latest Jahazi, the journal founded by Bantu. The artist won. The scholar conceded gracefully. He could hardly do otherwise, since the artist was world-renowned Kenyan ceramicist, Magdalene Odundo, whose stunning pieces featured on the cover and in the pages of this issue of Jahazi. I dashed off an email to Bantu that evening, hoping the story would delight him as much as it did me.

‘In many meetings over the last four years… we reflected on the renewed enthusiasm in the arts and culture, the art festivals in the region, and the expanding performance spaces in Kenya. We talked about the democratic project, creativity and freedom of expression. The literary spirit was becoming vibrant again!

‘But we also noticed that except for the occasional newspaper reviews, there was no space for debates, documentation and archiving of the emerging art scene. There was no serious engagement between academicians and practitioners in the arts. We needed a theorising and a practice of the arts. We had to do something and yes! It would be Jahazi, the vessel. If you needed to know about the Kenyan artistic scene Jahazi would have it! We joked about the title: Jah has it? Jaha? zi! Jahazi!’
Kimani Njogu, director, Twaweza Productions, publisher of Jahazi

MOURNING SONGS

‘Bantu Mwaura was an artist to the core. He spoke his truth as he saw it, fearlessly and passionately, never afraid to offend when it was necessary, never shy to wade into intellectual conflicts if he thought they helped to deepen understanding. He was a generous friend, imbued with a giving spirit in his learning and worldly possessions, of which I was a great beneficiary. His death is our collective loss, but I feel the sting in a singular way.’
Kwamchetsi Makokha, Kenyans For Peace, Truth and Justice

‘I don't understand how an intellectual like Bantu Mwaura could disappear mysteriously only to be found dead after a few days near his home. I did not know him personally, but had earlier read about him and what he represented, which was the current crop of performance artists who are fearless and continue the legacy of the likes of Professor Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who were locked out and driven into exile for their steadfast criticism of former President Moi’s ills.’
Jared Odero, Sweden

‘It is so sad that people who want to protect the future of this country just die like this. It makes one to wonder where this country is heading to. R.I.P Bantu... The man with true Mau Mau spirit.
Chrispus Fwamba, Kenyan activist

‘Fearless intellectual who consistently sided with people denied dignity, human rights and place in our story. One of his favourite points: "Culture is ultimately political. In the minds of oppressed people, it has the capacity to awaken or dull their consciousness. We must choose which to promote". Asked what the epitaph for Bantu's grave should read, I would say, "Here stands Bantu Mwaura, cultural activist, pan Africanist, who lived life in struggle"’.
Irungu Houghton, Pan-Africa Director, Oxfam

‘I did not know Bantu personally but when I heard of his sad demise, in unclear circumstances, my heart melted away because I knew we have lost a precious jewel, yet again. For how long is this country going to bleed itself to death? May his soul rest in peace.’
Hamilton Ole Parseina, FONACON

‘Bantu was instrumental in bringing the David Koff trilogy for me and Mohinder Dhillon when he was in the US a year or two ago.[1] That series formed the basis of our eight- week long publicity project with the Citizen Group (to support the legal case for reparations for Mau Mau veterans). And Bantu gave us an hour of his time in a fantastic debate with George Morara on honouring our heroes and heroines. We shall certainly savour that recording. And now he is gone. Thank you, Bantu. It was an honour to work with you.’
Zahid Rajan, Solidarity Network Kenya

‘Kenya has lost a wonderful dramatist and human rights activist. He has gone the way of our sages but his life will inspire many of us to stand for what is right.’
Oriare Mbeke, RECESSPA & University of Nairobi

‘From the academy where our connection begun with a search for knowledge in canonical literary forms, to the bar where Bantu and I (and many other Kenyans) debate(d) emergent forms of knowledge and popular forms of knowing, one can only hope that even if our collective conscience appears numb, we remember Bantu's passion for what he believed in. It was not for nothing that as undergraduates we compared him to the incorruptible teacher in Ayi Kwei Armah's The Beautyful ones are not yet Born.’
Mbugua wa-Mungai, Ohio State University

‘I stare at the light of a foreign earth. Everywhere I go I plead with the land, the country, receive Kenyans well, we are of peace, do not let them see us as of war, our mother country hurts. Where will the people go? The confluence of the Nilotes and the Bantu? Will the Hamitics show the way? I did not see tribe in Bantu. I saw people. Hungry and betrayed.

‘He has walked where there is no path. We have to beat that path out with every step we take. And we must. With Bantu haunting us, we must keep moving.’
Philo Ikonya, president of PEN (Kenya chapter)

‘And so our hearts dip into the logic of silence, and meander into those quiet places where our friend has gone. Nothing to say, nothing to add. To you Bantu, an offering of all things left unsaid. To you Bantu, love. And thank you.’
Yvonne Adhiambo Awuor, Caine Prize winner

*Shailja Patel is a Kenyan poet, theatre artist and activist and the 2009 guest writer at the Nordic Africa Institute.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

NOTES
[1] The Black Man's Land Trilogy, award-winning documentary series by David Koff on Kenya’s liberation struggle]

Kibaki’s Vision 2030 is shortsighted

Mars Group Kenya

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55981

cc DEMOSHVision 2030 may be a good blueprint for Kenya’s development, but the government must remember that people are more important than plans, Mars Group writes. As politicians shilly-shally in parliament without implementing promised reforms – from civil liberties to the resettlement of IDPs – desperation is setting in among Kenyans too hungry to wait until 2030 for food and jobs.

It is well and good that Vision 2030 remains our blueprint, but it would be wrong to assume that the plan is more important than the people whose lives the plan is meant to improve. Discussions with our fellow Kenyans and particularly the youth tell us that 2030 as a vision is unreal to them. They look for news and plans for today – 2009 – and tomorrow and the day after that. They cannot wait until 2030 to have jobs or to eat, let alone until the end of this year.

Desperation is setting in as Kenyans see a political elite consumed by its own power struggles and personal comfort. They look at the ostentatious consumption of their elected representatives, and watch them aghast on live television – for those who have television – or listen to the radio broadcasts and hear members of parliament waste days at a time on nothing meaningful, such as who will be the leader of government business. Last week Kenyans watched members of parliament for three days argue about this point and fail to establish a house business committee.

Kenyans are telling their members of parliament that the first two sessions of the tenth parliament are regarded to have been wasted. Agenda 1 was to restore civil and political liberties to the people, to disarm militia, to stop intra-citizen violence, and to end official repression. What the people are saying to parliament is that this did not happen.

Kenyans will need to see concrete action taken during this session to ensure that militia and gang activity is curtailed and law and order re-established. In the mathira massacre, we also saw that the police was condoning the establishment of vigilante armed groups, which it appears have also turned rogue. It is incidents such as these, where law enforcers turn a blind eye to criminal activity, which give the country the image of an insecure country and which affect our economy.

But having said all that, this country and the grand coalition government have not addressed the issues raised by the UN special rapporteur on extra judicial killings, Dr Philip Alston. They have not embarked on any serious investigation of the murders of two prominent human rights defenders, Oscar Kingara and GPO Oulu, or indeed hundreds of other suspicious deaths and disappearances related to police activity.

There can be no hope of economic recovery if Kenya allows the fixing of the opinion expressed by Dr Alston that the police are a law unto themselves, killing with abandon. Tourists do not favour war zones. This session, the grand coalition government needs to satisfy Kenyans through parliament that it has a plan to end official impunity and to restore the rule of law.

Agenda 2 was to immediately resettle the IDPs (internally displaced persons) and to provide humanitarian assistance to Kenyans in immediate need. Out there, they are saying IDPs are still in the camps. Even though the president says 90 per cent have been resettled, citizens are asking in what circumstances have they been resettled – on the fringes of national parks? At points have they been resettled where there are no common services, water or sewage?

The government needs to explain to parliament and to the people why it has been unable to attract substantive support for its resettlement programme, because the perception is that the government has failed to attract such support because it is viewed as being corrupt and untrustworthy. And if we are honest that perception is very much grounded in how politicians have conducted business as a grand coalition – maize, Triton,Anglo Leasing in the budget – you name it, we have seen it. There actually is enough.

Ken Ren fertiliser payments to Bawag Bank of Austria amounted to over two hundred million shillings this year, yet parliament has never had a proper explanation as to why we as a country are sending money to a European bank for a fertiliser factory we do not have. During this session such an explanation must be provided. During the budget speech the minister for finance told parliament that Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania will build a fertiliser factory. Any update on this from the minister of finance will be appreciated.

Read full statement.

* Mars Group Kenya campaigns for accountability from Kenya's leadership and encourages Kenyans to hold to account those who have committed improprieties.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Tanzania: Beyond sectarian interests

Haroub Othman

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55984

cc WikipediaNo-one knows whether the 1964 union between Zanzibar and Tanganyika was dictated by cold war considerations first, with pan-African ideals of unity playing second fiddle to ideology and personal survival, writes Haroub Othman. But what is clear, Othman argues, is that despite Tanzania’s controversial history, the union brought peace and stability to the region, in contrast with the secessionism and violence seen elsewhere. While corrective measures – supported by the people – are required to ensure that it is fit for purpose, the union is a better option than breaking into a federal structure with Kenya and Uganda, says Othman.

Since the 1920s the countries of East Africa, namely Kenya, Tanganyika, Uganda and Zanzibar, had developed common services and joint institutions. Matters such as posts and telecommunications, harbours, railways and currency were run jointly. There was also a body to coordinate the development of Kiswahili. This, no doubt, was easy in view of the fact that all the four countries were neighbours and under one colonial power. The white settlers in Kenya had at one time pressed the British government for a federation of the East African countries on the lines of that of Central Africa. But people in Tanganyika and Uganda feared that if that was to happen it would throw their countries into the hands of white supremacists in Kenya, in the same way that the peoples of Central Africa found themselves under the white supremacists of Southern Rhodesia at the time of the Central African Federation. And so this idea was opposed at the time.

But as the countries were approaching independence and because of the close cooperation among the nationalist organisations, the idea of federation re-emerged. Nyerere, in a statement made in Addis Ababa when Tanganyika’s independence was imminent, said that he was prepared to delay his country’s independence if the four countries of East Africa could come to independence at the same time and form a federation. But with independence each country retreated into its own national shell, and what was agreed was the formation of the East African Common Services Organisation that later in December 1967 was transformed into the East African Community.

When, therefore on 26 April, 1964, the People’s Republic of Zanzibar and the Republic of Tanganyika announced that they had merged to form a union, the international community felt that Zanzibar and Tanganyika had succeeded where the four East African countries together had failed. But was it the ideals of Pan-Africanism that brought Zanzibar and Tanganyika together? Was the union the result of an African initiative or was it propelled by cold war rivalry? The circumstances in which the union was formed raised a lot of questions, many of which are still unanswered, and some have been at the centre of continuing debates and controversies in Tanzania in the last twenty years. Were the fears of ZNP (Zanzibar Nationalist Party) that Zanzibar would be ‘taken over’ by Tanganyika had been proven true? In later years, the union was to haunt the Zanzibar politicians for a long time, with each of them playing the ‘union card’ either for legitimacy on the mainland or for support at home.

Nyerere stated that he casually proposed the idea of the union to Karume when the latter visited him to discuss the fate of John Okello. According to Nyerere, Karume immediately agreed to the idea and suggested that Nyerere should be the president of such a union. In a New Year message to the nation on 2 January 1965, Nyerere implied that even if the ASP (Afro-Shirazi Party) had come into power through constitutional means and not as a result of a revolution, the union would still have taken place. But Amrit Wilson’s research has revealed that there was a very strong Western pressure, especially from the United States, for the Zanzibar revolution to be contained because it was felt that it held the threat of the spread of communism in the East African region. The Untied States, Britain and the then West Germany, which Tanganyika was heavily dependent on at the time, viewed the revolutionary government in Zanzibar as either a surrogate of the communist powers or dancing to their tune. The international press had already started to characterise Zanzibar as the ‘Cuba of Africa’, though to be fair to Duggan, he had referred to Zanzibar as ‘Tanganyika’s Cuba’ far back in July 1963 when he had interviewed Nyerere in Washington during the latter’s state visit to the US.

In a cable message to US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Nairobi and Kampala, the US Secretary of State Dean Rusk instructed his diplomats to urge Nyerere, Kenyatta and Obote to explain to Karume the dangers involved in his dependence on Babu and:

‘The danger Babu represents… to the security of Zanzibar and East Africa generally… they should recognise here that the big problem is that Karume himself has great confidence in and dependence on Babu… also that Nyerere has said that Karume needs Babu who, despite his background, can and must be worked with. Kenyatta and Joseph Murumbi on the other hand appear to regard Babu as undesirable and the chief threat to Karume. Would it be useful to raise with Nyerere, despite his previous objection, the idea of a Zanzibar-Tanganyika Federation as a possible way of strengthening Karume and reducing Babu’s influence? Such action at this time may also help Nyerere’s own position.’

In an interview with Amrit Wilson in 1986, Frank Carlucci, the US consul in Zanzibar at the time of the union who was later thrown out of Zanzibar because of CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) activities (and who later rose to become the director of CIA and US secretary of state for defence), confessed that there was United States’ pressure on Nyerere.

Susan Crouch in her book Western Responses to Tanzanian Socialism 1967-1983 reveals that:

‘To this end the American Central Intelligence Agency was active in trying to create the conditions for union, fanning antagonisms among Zanzibar’s revolutionary leaders, and creating a fear of Zanzibar as a communist threat among East African leaders.’

Was the union then, as is indicated in US state department papers, dictated by cold war considerations first and the questions of pan-African ideals of unity were secondary to ideological factors and questions of personal survival?

It has also been suggested that Karume wanted a union with Tanganyika as a means of warding off his marxist and left wing colleagues. What seems to be the case is that after the electoral defeat of July 1963, Karume’s leadership within the ASP parliamentary group was shaky. There was a schism in it, with Karume being challenged by Othman Shariff, and some of the party’s MPs calling for a government of national unity that would bring together in government all the political parties in parliament. After the revolution, Umma Party radical elements in the government (Babu, Khamis Abdalla Ameir, Ali Sultan Issa, Ali Mahfoudh, Salim Rashid, Badawi Qullatein, etc) were forging links with the ASP leftists (Abdallah Kassim Hanga. Abdulazizi Ali Twala, Hassan Nassor Moyo, etc.), and this might have scared Karume and other moderate elements within the regime. At the same time, the radical way in which the revolution was surging ahead might have alarmed the regime in Dar es Salaam. It should not be forgotten that within days of the revolution in Zanzibar, an army mutiny took place in Tanganyika (later repeated in Kenya and Uganda); and even though we know now that there was no link between the revolution and those mutinies, it was difficult to see it that way at the time.

As a result of the army mutiny in Dar es Salaam, Tabora and Nachingwea, there was virtually no government in Tanganyika for three days, anarchy prevailed, and Nyerere was forced to request British military intervention to bring the country back to normalcy.

The West, particularly the Untied States, perceived developments in Zanzibar in the context of East-West rivalry, and given the leftist credentials of the Umma Party and some of the ASP leaders that were prominent in the revolutionary council, it was assumed that a Cuba-type situation was evolving. The best way of averting it, short of direct military intervention a la Playa Giron (though this was thought of and preparations made), was to try an ‘African initiative’. And it worked.

QUESTIONS OF LEGITIMACY

Many questions continued to be raised regarding the legal basis of the union: Whether the two presidents on their own had the powers to sign such a union agreement; why the Zanzibar’s attorney-general, as the principal legal advisor to the government, was not consulted; why there was no referendum; and whether in joining such a union, Zanzibar was not in fact ‘swallowed’ and ‘annexed’ by Tanganyika.

Discussions on the union were conducted very secretively. From the archival materials and the statements of those who were in the ‘corridors of power’ at the time, it would appear that not many people in the Tanganyika government or the Zanzibar Revolutionary Council knew what was happening. Apart from Nyerere and Karume, the only other people who might have been privy to those discussions were Rashidi Kawawa, Oscar Kambona, Job Lusinde, Abdallah Kassim Hanga, Abdul-Aziz Ali Twala and Salim Rashidi.

When these discussions were at an advanced stage, Nyerere is said to have called in his attorney-general at the time, British expert Roland Brown, and asked him to draft a union agreement without anybody knowing. In the case of Zanzibar, the attorney-general, Wolf Dourado, is said to have been sent on a one-week ‘leave’ and instead a Ugandan lawyer, Dan Nabudere (according to his own account which was corroborated by Babu), was brought in to advise Karume on the draft submitted by Tanganyika. Both Brown and Nabudere were present in the Karume-Nyerere discussions. One can speculate that one reason why Dourado was not involved was because he was ‘inherited’ from the previous ZNP/ZPPP (Zanzibar Nationalist Party-Zanzibar and Pemba People's Party) regime and the revolutionary government was hesitant to involve him in such a sensitive matter.

Under both the 1962 Republic of Tanganyika constitution and the Zanzibar presidential decree No.5 quoted above, the two presidents had the powers to enter into international agreements on behalf of their governments. What is also important is that the union agreement was ratified by both the Tanganyika parliament and the Zanzibar Revolutionary Council. Contrary to what some writers have said, the Nyalali Commission was satisfied that the Revolutionary Council met to ratify the Articles of Union. Both Abdulrahman Babu and Khamis Abdallah Ameir, the two former Umma party leaders who were in the Revolutionary Council at the time, have confirmed that the matter was discussed in the council, and while there were reservations on the part of some members, these were ‘quashed’ by Abdallah Kassim Hanga who made an emotional intervention to support the union.

Once the Articles of Union had been ratified by the two legislative bodies in Tanganyika and Zanzibar, there was no further requirement in law to make them enforceable. The question of referendum would not have arisen because under the Commonwealth legal tradition, in which the two countries were brought up, the notion of a referendum was unknown. The referendum was introduced as a legal requirement under British law in the 1970s during the heated debate in the United Kingdom on the question of its entry into the European Economic Community. To have also expected the Zanzibar revolutionary government to call a referendum on the union, four months after it came into power through unconstitutional means, was like expecting the French revolutionaries of 1789 to have invited King Louis XVI for dinner after they had overthrown him. Should ASP have conducted a referendum to ask Zanzibaris whether or not to stage a revolution? In law, therefore, the Union Agreement, as both Prof Issa Shivji and Dr Kabudi have pointed out, is valid.

ARTICLES OF UNION: 1 + 1 = 3

The Union Agreement, signed by Karume and Nyerere in Zanzibar on 22 April 1964, is known as the Articles of Union. When this agreement was announced the following day, many people inside the two countries, and outside too, were taken by surprise. The strong feeling was that the West had won in their intention to containing the Zanzibar revolution; in fact there were military preparations by both Britain and the United States in case there was a violent reaction in Zanzibar against the union.

What the Tanganyika leadership wanted at the time was to play down the whole event. In a cable message of 23 April 1964 to the US secretary of state, the US ambassador in Dar es Salaam, William Leonhart, informed:

‘Mbwambo, chief protocol, has just telephoned a personal request… that, to the maximum extent, any US public statements on Tangovernment –Zanzibar union be avoided. Situation over the next few days in Zanzibar could be very critical and both the Soviet and Chinese reaction is undetermined.’

In an address later to the National Assembly requesting the ratification of the Articles of Union, Nyerere insisted that the move was inspired by the ideals for an African unity. ‘Unity in our continent does not have to come via Moscow or Washington’, he insisted.

The Articles of Union have been given different interpretations and characterised as federal, quasi-federal, an interim arrangement towards one government, etc. Some have seen the union as similar to the relationship between the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.

Those who were close to the scene at the time also differ as to what type of relationship it is. The US ambassador in Dar es Salaam, in a cable message to his government on 22 April 1964, the day the Articles of Union were signed by Karume and Nyerere, stated:

‘Like the relationship between Northern Ireland and Britain, the union of Zanzibar and Tanganyika gave the island limited regional administrative autonomy… but ensured overall power… was held by the centre at Dar es Salaam’. But Frank Calucci, reporting from Zanzibar the next day, said that Karume was ‘still under the impression that he is agreeing to a federation of two autonomous states, not a centralised union envisaged under the present articles’. Attwood, the U.S. Ambassador in Kenya at the time, says he was informed by Dustan Omari, Nyerere’s permanent secretary then, ‘that the major power would rest in the centre… but that Zanzibar would retain its own internal governmental affairs’.

While I have difficulty in accepting some of the assertions of some of the writers on the character of the union for reasons that I will advance later, I would only want to agree with the notion that the Articles of Union are the Grundnorm, the fundamental law of the United Republic, on which the Constitutions of Tanzania and Zanzibar, and other laws, have to be based and from which they derive their legitimacy. Like any supreme law in any other legal system, no other law or constitutional act can be in conflict with it.

Articles of Union provide for matters that would be under the union arrangement. From the original 11 items in 1964, the list has now expanded to 23. Some people question the validity of such an expansion, though one must admit that there was nothing that was added into the list unconstitutionally. The Articles of Union also provide for the existence of two governments: One for the whole United Republic for all union matters and for non-union matters in Tanganyika, which, under the 1977 Union Constitution is referred to as Tanzania mainland, and one for Zanzibar in all matters that are non-Union. According to Nyerere, Karume wanted a total union, but he (Nyerere) cautioned against it, saying that such a move might be construed by Zanzibaris and others as meaning that Zanzibar had been swallowed up, annexed, incorporated into or taken over by Tanganyika. He insisted that Zanzibar’s identity must be maintained.

There is no way one can construe the ‘Article of Union’ as a basis for a federal set-up. Nor can they be seen as an interim arrangement towards a one government. They intended to create a single state with two authorities, but with one of those authorities having a limited geographical jurisdiction. The intention was to retain the identity of the smaller unit. By this event, Tanganyika has not been lost; in fact it has been enlarged. Even if it is accepted that the union was a Western conspiracy against the Zanzibar revolution, the effect of the intention was to deny Zanzibar the capacity to be an international actor, not to interfere with what was happening inside the country. To be able to change the internal course of events would have entailed changing the regime. What might have confounded some of the law experts looking at the relationship between Zanzibar and mainland Tanzania was the fact that no such example existed in the Anglo-Saxon legal system. The closest they could think of then was that of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.

CONSOLIDATING THE UNION: POPULAR APPROVAL

At the time of the Union Zanzibar and Tanganyika were ruled by different political parties, ASP and TANU respectively. The Articles of Union did not require the formation of a single political party for the whole United Republic. Thus in the period 1964-1977 each party operated within its own geographical area, though at the approach of every general election, the two parties held a joint congress where they nominated a join presidential candidate for the elections. Only in 1977, after a national survey of members of both parties, did the two parties merge to form the Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) with authority over the whole country. But why did Zanzibaris agree to such a merger? Nyerere had always expressed surprise when recalling the radiant faces he saw and the jovial mood of the Zanzibaris the day CCM was proclaimed at the Amaan stadium in Zanzibar. The fact is that Zanzibaris were celebrating not only the birth of CCM but also the demise of ASP. By that time the general feeling in the islands was that the ASP had outlived its usefulness. The revolution which it had championed had stooped so low as to devour its own sons: Most of the leaders were busy amassing wealth; prison and death were the only options open to political dissent; and political thuggery was a virtue.

One matter that was added in 1984 to the list of union items was that of national security. This happened at the time when Ali Hassan Mwinyi was president and Seif Shariff Hamad the chief minister of Zanzibar in 1984-85, commonly known as the Third Phase government. Not having much confidence in the security personnel they inherited, who might have had personal allegiance to Jumbe and Seif Bakari, the new administration sought the extension of the National Security Act of the mainland to Zanzibar. In that case it was possible to transfer the security personnel in Zanzibar to the mainland and vice versa.

So from the above one can see the following: First, Zanzibaris wanted a merger of the parties, and for the united party to have authority all over the country, in the hope that it would rescue them from a regime that was no longer able to inspire confidence and instil enthusiasm; and second, a ‘consolidation’ of the union in this regard was necessary for one faction of the leadership to ward off any possible challenge by the other.

The long-term effect of the parties’ merger was to have matters that were entirely within Zanzibar’s jurisdiction, and that were not union matters, decided by a pan-territorial political party where Zanzibari representation was not decisive. This became clear in 1984 when Aboud Jumbe was forced to resign as Zanzibar president: It was the party’s NEC which appointed Ali Hassan Mwinyi as an interim president and later nominated him for election as the president of Zanzibar. Since NEC’s Zanzibari membership is no more than a third of the total, this means therefore that a Zanzibar president could be chosen by a forum, which is predominantly non-Zanzibari. And this was further evidenced with the nomination by CCM’s NEC of the present president of Zanzibar.

A number of other measures were taken to consolidate the union, particularly in the constitutional realm. A permanent constitution was put in place in 1977 instead of an interim one that had been in existence since 1964.

ZANZIBAR’S IDENTITY IN THE UNION

In the Articles of Union, Zanzibar is allowed to retain its autonomy and pursue its own policies in all matters other than those stipulated as Union matters. In this case, the power to decide is left to the Zanzibar organs such as the house of representatives, the revolutionary council and the president of Zanzibar and chairman of the revolutionary council. The union constitution stipulates that constitutional amendments require the approval of two-thirds of Zanzibaris sitting in the union parliament and the same proportion of mainlanders.

In order to avoid a clash in the legislative functions of the two sides of the union, it has been provided that if the house of representatives enacts any law which should be under the jurisdiction of the union parliament that law will be null and void, and also if the union parliament enacts a law on any matter under the jurisdiction of the house of representatives that law will be null and void.

The constitution also provides for effective Zanzibari representation in the union parliament. It also guarantees a separate judiciary system for Zanzibar which has jurisdiction over Zanzibar alone. Even though the court of appeal of the United Republic is a union organ, it has no power to decide on a case involving a dispute between the union government and the Zanzibar revolutionary government.

However one might view the circumstances that made Zanzibar merge with Tanganyika in 1964, the fact of the matter is that Zanzibar was not annexed or forcefully incorporated. It agreed on the union out of its own free will and as a result of decisions made by its own organs. The argument that within the union Tanganyika has lost its identity has no basis. If anything it has enlarged its territory. It is Zanzibar’s autonomy and identity that must be maintained lest, as Nyerere himself has pointed out several times, an impression is created that the larger and more populous Tanganyika has swallowed Zanzibar. Such a situation is not new even in the most centralised states. In China, despite the fact that the country has a centralised authority and no federal traces of any kind, yet because of certain historical, political or cultural reasons, certain areas are conferred autonomy, and are constitutionally given the status of autonomous regions. As will be pointed out later there are entities in present-day Europe that enjoy full autonomy within one state. To entertain the thought that the Articles of Union are a temporary arrangement, and that ultimately the intention should be to create one government is to manifest ‘big brother chauvinism’

DEBATES ON THE UNION: A POLLUTED ATMOSPHERE

In 1983/84 and 1990/92 extensive political and constitutional debates took place in the country that deeply probed the question of the union. The debates of 1983/84 resulted in major amendments to the 1977 union constitution and the formulation of a new Zanzibar constitution in 1984. But they also resulted in the forced resignation of Aboud Jumbe from all his state and party positions, the sacking of a Zanzibar chief minister and the serious warning given by the ruling party to a number of prominent Zanzibar figures. The debates of the 1990/92 period resulted in the Nyalali Commission making major recommendations on the structure of the Union. In between the two periods also another Zanzibar chief minister was sacked, and several leading Zanzibar politicians were dismissed form the ruling party.

As stated above, the question of Zanzibar being ‘sold’ to the mainland was an issue in pre-revolutionary Zanzibar. And if one remembers that the political parties were almost evenly divided, then one can assume that almost half of the Zanzibar population was already biased against the mainland even before the union. The post-revolution politics in the islands did not help matters much. Karume went into a union to save himself from his marxist and left-wing colleagues; and since Jumbe was not considered to be the ‘heir apparent’ before Karume’s assassination in 1972, he was not thought of as the natural successor when he took over. It has been speculated that the revolutionary council had Colonel Seif Bakari in mind, but Nyerere advised that since Karume was killed by an army officer, Seif Bakari taking over might be construed as a military coup. Jumbe, feeling that he had not much support within the revolutionary council, depended very much on Nyerere’s and mainland’s support. It is no wonder then that it was during his presidency that much of the consolidation of the union took place, with the most items added to the union list. It is significant too that the merger of the parties took place then. But this dependency on the mainland was costing him much popular support at home. Either as a way of outflanking his opponents or because of genuine problems he found in the union (after all he was for a long time a minister for union affairs before he became president of Zanzibar), he first raised the question of restructuring the union in a speech seven years before the 1983/84 debates.

Other politicians in Zanzibar too have used the mainland as a trump card either to crush their opponents or to climb the political ladder. Seif Shariff Hamad, Khatib Hassan, Shaaban Mloo and others accused Jumbe in 1984 of planning to break up the union, and thus forced Jumbe to resign from his political posts then. They in turn faced the same accusation from their opponents in 1988 and were dismissed from the party.

The issues that were raised in both the 1983/84 and 1990/92 debates centred on the following:

1. Whether the Articles of Union of 1964 provided for a federation, that is three governments (one of Tanganyika, the other of Zanzibar, and a third a federal one) or only two governments as presently existing;
2. As the union government is also the government for the mainland in non-union matters, does this not give the impression that mainland is the union?
3. Does Zanzibar get a fair share in the distribution of benefits coming form the union?
4. Is Zanzibar well represented in the diplomatic service?
5. Does it get a fair share of foreign aid coming to Tanzania?
6. Since the people of Zanzibar were not consulted at the time of the formation of the union, should there not be a referendum now to ascertain whether the people wanted the union or not?

Most of these questions, as can be seen, were coming from Zanzibar, and what surprised many people at the time of the 1983/84 debate, was that they were being aired in the state-owned-and-controlled official mass media.

No such strong feelings were voiced on the mainland during the debates. Many people who made submissions to the Nyalali Commission said hardly anything about the system of governments that the union should have. It was only after the opening up of the political system and the establishment of more political parties that one began hearing very strong views coming form the mainland on the question of the Union; some of those going even further than anybody in Zanzibar had ever contemplated.

THE NYALALI COMMISSION: AGREED TO DISAGREE

One of the major recommendations of the Nyalali Commission was for the replacement of the present union set-up with a federal one. This was one of the areas that bought about a very heated debate within the commission and which necessitated members of the commission having to vote. Later those who were opposed to the federal idea had to append their own dissenting opinion to the main report to explain their position. But the division in the commission on this issue almost came to a mainland/Zanzibar division.

Of the 11 members from Zanzibar, seven wanted the present union set-up, with some major changes, to remain; three wanted a federal and one was undecided. Of the same number from the Mainland, nine wanted a federal set-up and two wanted the present arrangement to continue. What is important is that both sides agreed that there were problems within the union. Even though at the time the complaints form the mainland were not so loud compared to Zanzibar, it would have been wise if those complaints were addressed and resolved. The majority of members of the commission felt that in a federal set-up, both Tanganyika and Zanzibar would retain their identity, federal areas would be clearly defined and the responsibilities of each would be understood, and the federal entity would be distinct from the national ones.

Those holding the minority opinion, on the other hand, were of the view that there was nothing in the Articles of Union to suggest that their framers had a federal set-up in mind; that a federation would be a step backward and might be a prelude to the dissolution of the union; that corrective measures could be taken, if there is political will, which would define union matters, list union institutions and apportion the responsibility of each side on those matters. Examples were provided from the two Scandinavian countries of Denmark and Finland where entities (Faroe Islands, Aaland Islands and Greenland) have full autonomy in a number of areas that they exercise within a non-federal state. The dissenting opinion in the Nyalali Report pointed out:

‘Greenland and Faroe Islands, both of which are part of Denmark, have full autonomy in many matters. For example, a parliament that is not subject to interference form the central government of Denmark, and all political and economic matters agreed upon and even in international relations. The islands of Faroe have their own flag hoisted in all government buildings and on ships registered in Faroe islands. Also Faroe Islands authority issues passports;

Denmark had agreed to join the European Economic Community. So did Greenland. But later, Greenland withdrew from the Community. Therefore, all EEC agreements and conditionality accepted in Denmark did not apply in Greenland. Similarly, the Islands of Faroe are not a member of the EU.

In regard to Finland, the islands of Aaland have their own parliament and government. The islands of Aaland also have their own ‘identity’ for persons born in the islands and who have not lived abroad consecutively for five years or more. The islands have their own flag, issue their own stamps and its citizens are not subject to military service. The islands of Aaland are a demilitarised zone. The Central Bank of Finland must consult the government of Aaland before it takes measures that might harm the economy of Aaland. This, despite the fact that they share a common currency;

The islands of Aaland, as is the case for Greenland and Faroe, are, on their own right, represented in the Nordic Council that consists of Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Iceland.’

WHITHER THE UNION?

As pointed out above, there have been historical links between Zanzibar and Tanganyika long before the coming of the colonialists in East Africa; and colonialism did not in fact stop such interactions from continuing. During the struggle for national independence, the two main political parties in the two countries cooperated – though there is nothing to suggest that the two parties were thinking of merging into a union of this kind after they came into power. What they had in mind was to form a federation with Kenya and Uganda. Until the elections of July 1963, ASP still thought that it would win power through the electoral process; and it would appear that their main supporters, TANU (Tanganyika African National Union), thought likewise.

Now the union is a fact. Despite a lot of problems, it has brought stability and peace in the region. It is difficult to speculate what would have happened to the Zanzibar revolution without the union: Whether Zanzibar would have advanced faster or whether a counter-revolutionary force would have taken over and embellished a dictatorship worse than anything the islands have actually experienced especially during the first phase government. What is clear though is that the union has brought the two peoples much closer together.

I do not believe that the unity of the two peoples can be strengthened by restructuring the present set-up into a federation. I see movement from the present set-up to a federation as a step towards the dismemberment of the union; and I do not think that that is to the short or long term benefit of the people of Tanzania. The present problems can be resolved if there is a strong political will on the part of our political class and if the people are told the truth about those problems.

Only when corrective measures are taken, would it be possible to sustain and strengthen the union. Otherwise if the difficulties inherent in the Articles of Union and the problems arising from implementation are only emphasised and not resolved, the tendency would be towards the withering away of the union.
In this era of multi-parties and openness, it is even more important that matters are discussed and solutions founded on popular will. Of all the political parties that have been established since the abolition of the one-party system, only one, the Democratic Party led by Reverend Mtikila, has come out strongly against the union and called for its dissolution. Others are prevaricating between ‘referendum’, ‘federation’ and modifications within the present set-up. The CCM and its governments which seemed earlier on to strongly accept the dissenting opinion in the Nyalali Report, now seems to be torn apart, with a strong group calling for a federal set-up.

The national language, the ethics of equality and human dignity, and the Union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar are what overcame the ethnic hatred, religious bigotry, regional parochialism and national differences and forged national cohesion and unity. It is these that have made Tanzania an example in a continent beset with secessionism, ethnic violence and religious pogroms. One hopes that there is capacity, honesty and patriotism within Tanzania that will look beyond the sectarian interests. The alternative is too horrendous to contemplate.

*A full version of this paper was published in 1993 by the Danish Centre for Development Research. It also appeared in the book Zanzibar and the Union Question, edited by Prof Chris Peter and Professor Haroub Othman
and published by the Zanzibar Legal Services Centre.

* Haroub Othman is a professor in development studies at the
University of Dar es Salaam.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Commemorating Haiti: A revolutionary history

Kimani Waweru

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55997

cc Robert MillerReflecting on Haiti’s current instability and tumultuous existence, Kimani Waweru provides an historical analysis of the Caribbean island, speculating that the root causes of problems affecting Haiti also transpire in Kenya and much of the developing world. By establishing a correlation between Haitian and Kenyan experiences, the author proposes a need for Kenya to learn from Haiti’s struggle. Despite its remarkable success in being the first Latin American country to gain independence, the first post-colonial nation with a black leadership, and the only country to have gained independence through a successful slave rebellion, Haitians have been subjected to unfathomable duress. Colonialism, slavery, exploitation, invasion, occupation, and corruption in politics have permeated Haiti’s historical landscape. Through the adoption of revolutionary ideology and the elimination of Western rhetoric, which fails to prioritise citizens’ interests, Waweru believes Kenyans can counter imperialism's strength and foster an arena for social justice.

I will try to relate Haiti’s experience to our own so as to learn from this country’s weaknesses and strengths. By doing this, we will be able to understand the root causes of problems bedevilling Kenya and the Third World. Knowing the cause of these problems will enable us to tackle and solve them.

Haiti has featured prominently in world news for a number of years, most of the time for negative reasons. A few months ago, a hurricane swept some parts of the country, causing great damage. Over 100 people lost their lives. As one of the poorest countries in the Caribbean – about 80 per cent of the population survives on less than two dollars a day, and a half of its population on less than a dollar a day – Haiti’s health facilities are in a pathetic state. A large percentage of the population is unable to feed its families. Nonetheless, one questions why a country blessed with a good climate and agricultural opportunities experiences such life-threatening issues. It is paramount to revisit Haiti’s historical trajectory in order to understand the nation’s current instability.

Before invasion by foreigners, Haiti belonged to a group of people called Taíno, meaning ‘men of the good’. Arriving from Spain, Christopher Columbus was the first foreigner to set foot on the island. It is frequently claimed that Columbus ‘discovered’ the island in 1492, indicating that the indigenous Taínos he encountered were not human beings. Columbus invited Spanish colonial settlers to exploit Haiti's wealth, particularly gold, enslaving Taínos within their own land. The Spanish colonialists proceeded to brutally exterminate the entire Taíno population, creating a shortage of human labour. Thus, in 1503 the colonialists brought black people from Spain to work in Haiti’s mines.

When the French arrived in Haiti in 1625, conflict arose between them and the Spaniards over Haiti’s wealth. The fight ended in the signing of the Ryswick Treaty in 1697. The treaty gave France control over Haiti, which was known as Saint-Domingue at the time. To exploit Haiti's wealth, France embarked on a mass importation of slaves from Africa. The slaves were forced to work under extreme conditions to produce wealth, which solely benefited the slave masters.

Black slaves did not sit around waiting for the messiah to save them or hoping to get sympathy from the slave masters, rather they demonstrated resistance in various ways. For example, some took to the mountains where they attacked and killed slave masters. This rebellion culminated in the rise of an inspirational leader called Toussaint L'Ouverture. L’Ouverture organised an army of slaves which terrorised French exploiters. Because of his leadership, slaves believed in themselves and were able to fight with determination.

To end the resistance, the French tricked L’Ouverture into agreeing a deal and subsequently arrested him in 1802. He was taken to prison in France, where he died of pneumonia. Haiti’s slave population did not despair; they continued with the fight.

By 1 January 1804, Haiti became the first black country, and the second in the world – after the United States – to regain independence, under the leadership of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who had taken over from L’Ouverture.

Upon taking over, Dessalines ordered the killing of Frenchmen who remained in Haiti. This action angered the international community, particularly the US and Western Europe, illustrated through a refusal to recognise this newly founded government.

Haiti assisted, and expressed solidarity with Latin American countries struggling for freedom. The great Latin American liberator, Simon Bolívar was once granted asylum in Haiti. In 1825, under the leadership of President Jean-Pierre Boyer, Haiti surrendered to France's demand of 150 million francs as compensation for controlling resources which purportedly belonged to French citizens following independence. The previous ruling regimes had refused France’s demand. This capitulation led to Haiti’s dependence on France. Boyer was eventually overthrown in 1843.

During the leadership of Jean Vibrun Guillaume Sam in 1915, the US invaded Haiti and occupied the country for 19 years, ostensibly because Vibrun had killed 167 political prisoners. Thereafter, the US ruled Haiti through proxies, and even pushed for the amendment of an article in Haiti’s constitution banning foreigners from owning Haitian land.

After the US left the country in 1934, there followed several leaders, with the election of François Duvalier in 1957 garnering the most attention due to the president’s infamous anti-people policies. Prior to his presidency, Duvalier excelled in articulating issues affecting common people. In 1963, he entrenched himself as the future of Haiti’s leadership by changing the constitution to ensure he maintained his presidential position for life. He died in 1971, and his son Jean-Claude Duvalier, whom he had designated as his heir, was made president at the age of 19.

As the younger Duvalier continued to operate according to policies implemented by his father, he failed to bring the change highly sought after by Haitians, leading many to become dissatisfied with the Duvalier dynasty and expressing a desire to depose it.

Under the leadership of a Catholic priest called Jean-Bertrand Aristide, peasants, urban workers and members of the petty bourgeoisie took to the street demanding Duvalier's resignation. Aristide was the leader of the Fanmi Lavalas, a movement which played a crucial role in the uprising.

On 7 February 1986, Jean-Claude Duvalier gave in to mounting pressure, resigned and fled the country, marking the conclusion of this loathed dynasty.

From 1986 to 1990, Haiti was ruled by provisional governments, which amended the constitution. In the first election under the new constitution held in 1990, Aristide emerged the victor with 67 per cent of the votes cast. This election was perceived as the first free and fair election in the history of Haiti. The US was uncomfortable with Aristide because of his combination of liberation theology and anti-capitalist rhetoric, thus the American government chose to support Aristide’s opponent, a former World Bank official, Marc Bazin.

The US approved of a death squad called FRAPH, implemented to destabilise the Aristide government. The destabilisation led to Aristide’s overthrow in September 1991 in which the US secretly backed a military coup. General Raoul Cedras, named chief of general staff of Haiti’s army by Aristide, did exactly what Joseph Mobutu had done to the Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba in the early 1960s, cooperating with the US to overthrow the country's leader. Poor people did not take this lightly and poured into the streets to protest. Their protests were mercilessly crushed by the military regime. It is estimated that under this military reign approximately 7,000 people were killed.

Because of the oppression and economic hardship that followed, many people fled to the US using motor boats. Most of them were deported back to Haiti. The US government had to encourage Haiti’s military regime to step down and let Aristide complete his term. The United Nations Security Council backed the removal of the military regime.

The US government set conditions which the Aristide government had to honour upon returning to power. These conditions included complying with IMF and World Bank conditionalities, co-opting former officials of the Duvalier dictatorship and accepting to complete the term without seeking re-election at its conclusion. Acceptance of these conditions made Aristide unpopular among his supporters, since his compliance affected them negatively. When Aristide’s term culminated in 1996, he persuaded his friend, Rene Preval, to run for president under the Lavalas party. Preval won the election with 88 per cent of votes.

Due to party differences there was a split between the two friends, which led to Aristide forming a breakaway movement called Lavalas Family. When the next election was held in 2000 and was boycotted by the opposition, Aristide emerged triumphantly with 90 per cent of votes.

To counter the Democratic Convergence coalition and Group 184 formed by the US and Haitian ruling classes to destabilise him, Aristide relied on in his Chimères security force, comprised of lumpenproletariat, namely, the impoverished from Haiti’s slums. This force attacked Aristide’s opponents, who in turn formed similar forces to counterattack. Knowing that they could not beat Aristide in a fair election, his opponents formulated excuses, suggesting that the 2000 elections were irregular. Aristide’s opponents were fully supported by the US and other Western countries, who suspended foreign aid to the Aristide government as a symbol of protest around unfair elections. The suspension of aid was meant to turn Haitians against Aristide.

By February things had turned from bad to worse; the US capitalised on this downturn, and facilitated another coup which involved abducting Aristide and his family then flying them to the Central African Republic (CAR). The US insisted that they were helping Aristide since he had resigned. Aristide was later given political asylum in South Africa where he resides to date. The chief justice of the Supreme Court, Boniface Alexandre, took over the government in accordance with Haiti’s constitution, and invited UN peacekeepers to participate in the governance of Haiti. Supporters of Aristide took to the streets to demand his reinstatement, but were confronted by the peacekeeping force. This confrontation continued for several years, costing many injuries and deaths.

The interim government finally held elections on February 2006; Preval won with 51 per cent of the vote, albeit amidst allegations that he had not in fact gathered the 50 per cent needed for one to be declared president. Preval remains in power today. His neoliberal policies are geared to satisfying the interests of the West, such as through privatisation.

It is in the best interests of Kenyans to learn from Haiti’s tumultuous history and present experiences.

Firstly, blindly following Western rhetoric can be catastrophic to people of any Third World country. Any government seeking to succeed must prioritise the interests of its own people, especially the poor majority. Looking at Haiti, we realise that the country’s problems are a result of its leaders playing as stooges of the West. Aristide tried to focus on his people's needs, but betrayed them upon his return after the first coup.

Secondly, imperialism survives through the exploitation of Third World countries – every means will be implemented to destroy a country which endeavours to follow an alternative way of production and distribution of wealth. In the case of Haiti, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) is purportedly used to maintain peace and the status quo.

Thirdly, in the struggle for social justice it is very important for people to differentiate between enemies and friends. Only then will they know the tactics to use against their enemies, and how to work effectively with friends. For example, when the imperialist US collaborated with the local ruling comprador class to remove Aristide, the Haitian president failed to improve the livelihoods of the poor, who represented the backbone of his support. Instead, Aristide allowed them to use the tactics used by lumpenproletariat against the people. He should have realised that unless you contribute to the development of the lumpen class it can be difficult to succeed. This class tends to waver between the exploiters and oppressed, because they have been dehumanised by the state and become ideologically bankrupt. Aristide failed to use the workers and the progressive petty bourgeoisie. In fighting for social justice, workers are key to any struggle and a failure to involve them will inevitably lead to defeat.

Lastly, organisation is critical. For any struggle to succeed it has to be led by an organised group of people. This is precisely the reason why Aristide used his Lavalas movement in dislodging the Duvalier dynasty from power. Another key element which coalesces with organisation is ideology: one may be organised but nevertheless fail to lead the struggle to total victory because of lack of clear ideology. One has to adopt a pro-poor or a revolutionary ideology. Such ideology states that things keep on changing, thus one must examine society the way it is, not the way we think it is.

In conclusion, I will return to the current situation of most Third World countries, including both Kenya and Haiti. Exploiters usually make us believe that we cannot change the status quo. Although wealth is socially produced, it ultimately ends up in the hands of a few people who own capital. However, if we adopt a revolutionary theory as a guide in our work we will realise that this is false. By applying revolutionary theory, the oppressed can liberate themselves from the chain of neocolonialism.

* Kimani Waweru is a receptionist with Release Political Prisoners (RPP) and a member of the Mau Mau Research Center (MMRC).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Haiti and We: Reflections from Kenya

Wangui Kimari

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55998

cc OLPCFollowing a community hall meeting held to commemorate Haiti’s revolutionary history and spirit, Wangui Kimari affirms that Kenyans and Haitians must connect with one another’s suffering and inspire each other in the struggle for social justice. While discussing Haiti, it became evident to Kimari and participants of this meeting that Kenyans share Haitians’ struggles. The agendas, policies, and governing forces responsible for creating injustice in Haiti are simultaneously compromising the livelihoods of Kenyans. Through the expression of solidarity, and awareness of persistent global inequality, social change may prevail.

One sunny Saturday morning in April this year, over 30 of us sat in a community hall in Mlango Kubwa, Mathare, listening and reflecting. From different homes, social classes and countries, we had come together to commemorate the revolutionary history of Haiti and most importantly to show our solidarity with the people of this land.

Certainly, there were many people in the room who did not have a sufficient morning meal. In addition, there were few of us with more than just basic knowledge of Haiti. Nonetheless, we were ready to listen, and the more we heard, watched and shared, the more we felt a swelling in our hearts, our eyes widening with sorrow. Could it be that there was such a relentless campaign to ignore the basic rights of the Haitian people? An unequivocal operation to negate the revolutionary spirit of this country?

Even with experiential knowledge of our own dismal living conditions (or dying conditions – however you may see them), it became evident that Haiti represents a place of dire inequality. Even so, we felt strongly and recognised incontrovertibly that our struggles are the same. This is because the forces that unceasingly mete out injustice on the people of this Caribbean island are equally persistent in their campaign against us.

Haiti is We, We are Haiti.

When we heard about Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the circumstances of his abduction, we remembered Dedan Kimathi, Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara and John Garang. When we heard that the IMF and the World Bank sadistically insisted that Haiti pay back US$1 million per month regardless of perpetual hunger and its exacerbation due to recent hurricanes, we smiled wryly, painfully. We too know the effects of the sinister and wilful mortgaging of our country to fictitiously altruistic institutions (with equally fictitious agendas), who make a holiday, conference, summit, or forum out of debating whether people should eat or not. We also recall these institutions when we remember the privatisation of water in our own country, and the neighbourhoods where it is indistinguishable from sewage.

Haiti, we too know what it feels like to pay back onerous debts that contribute to the fantastic and unsustainable implementation of a conjured agenda, while in national hospitals patients sleep three to a bed.

When we watch how the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) administers by coercion, our brother talks about the UN forces in Congo which guard the paths that lead to diamond mines while families look on in awe, wondering what the real purpose of these blue helmets may be. As we see images of those who have been killed and bodies drastically disfigured by the powerful weapons of this ‘peace force’, we remember our own experiences during the post-election violence that plagued our country. In particular, we remember when those who allegedly exist to offer ‘protection to all’ sought to wipe out generations – as they were and still are doing – in poor neighbourhoods all over the country.

Later on that same day we watched a documentary on Sierra Leone; in the countenance and action of many of those soldiers from the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), we also remembered the practices of MINUSTAH.

In one part of the documentary titled ‘What is going on in Haiti now’, made by the Haiti Solidarity Committee, Haitian human rights activist Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine spoke to us about the deaths of citizens killed by UN forces in his country.

We later discovered that Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine ‘disappeared’ almost two years ago.

We too have had many dedicated speakers who despite the known danger proceeded to ensure their voices were heard, as they believed there could be no other way to achieve social justice. Akin to this brave man Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, many of Kenya’s activists have also ‘disappeared’.

In this same documentary, we witnessed a young woman lose her unborn child after she was shot in the belly by MINUSTAH forces. In her posture, in her pained silence, we recognised our mothers who have lost many children to these government-sanctioned genocidal campaigns. I particularly remember one mother – her heart a deep well of sorrow – who has lost four children to the reckless guns of the Kenyan police force.

We observed the images of over 100,000 people demanding the return of their president, and concomitantly heard the downplaying of these enormous and inspirational protests by the international media. Oh Haiti, we relate to this as we remember how our fervent calls for a political alternative, lower food prices, and an end to Israel’s infliction of terror in Gaza were not considered. Our protests were also perceived as no more than the unruly noisemaking of unemployed troublemakers. The periodic mutterings from the street-based ‘cult of the careless’.

The same question was asked repeatedly both in our hearts and within that hall, ‘How could it be that this country, which achieved independence over 200 years ago through the only successful slave revolution in the world, can now be the poorest country in the Americas?’

No water, no food, high infant mortality, and a severe environmental crisis as over 90 per cent of the forest cover has been cut down.

Haiti, we share your woes.

And so we came to this room to remember you, because even in our own suffering (and because of our suffering) we recognise the need to connect with each other’s struggles. Moreover, we want to remember the unparalleled example that was set for us by the Haitian revolution. It is an inspiration to us, just as it was a significant catalyst for slave rebellions in many other countries such as Brazil and Colombia. We remember because for too long this continent has refused to acknowledge those who unwillingly went across the Atlantic, and in addition, to recognise that the ominous phenomenon that afflicts us all has the same origin and motivations, and as a consequence, the same transgressions of human dignity.

Haiti is We, We are Haiti.

In this community hall and in other spheres, we have encountered Haitian women preparing ‘dirt cakes’ to offer to their children as a meal. Our own novel delicacies – when we are not going hungry of course – are rats, lizards, and poisonous berries.

Our poverty, hunger and deforestation is all linked in a bond as tight as the veneer created by the forces that seek to deny this. Do not be lied to dear Kenya. If we keep forgetting each other, participating in our own denial, our fate is and will be the same. No food, no water, no land, and ultimately, the abduction of our leaders.

The numerous statistics that will continue to be manufactured in a quest to define our condition will keep many northern bureaucrats employed, fat and wealthy for more credit crunches to come.

Our commemoration began with a little geography lesson, as many of us had never heard of this little Caribbean island (as mentioned earlier, the campaign to forget Haiti has been waged very successfully). Nevertheless, soon after it began, it was hard to imagine Haiti as a very different place from Kenya.

None of those present had to be born on this Caribbean island to understand that Haiti is We and We are Haiti.

* Wangui Kimari is an Anthropology student and researcher in Nairobi.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Women's sex strike: G10 press statement

Kenya's G10

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55954

cc DEMOSHThoroughly dissatisfied with the persistent failure of Kenya's leadership to rise above its petty squabbles for the country's greater interest, a coalition of women's groups known as the G10 is calling for a one-week sex strike. In a bid to oblige President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to settle their differences once and for all and begin to effectively serve the nation they represent, the G10 will be delivering performance contracts to Kenya's leaders at the end of the week-long strike.

The G10 is a Kenyan national women’s movement currently steered by leading national women’s organisations – COVAW, CAUCUS, CREAW, FIDA-K, TCI, WILDAF, AWC, DTM, YWLI, Maendeleo Ya Wanawake and NCWK.[1] The G10 has cells across the country from the local to the national level. The G10 is driven by its vision of a society where women wield political power, and its mission seeks to connect women's voices and actions to leverage an expanded and redefined political space.

The women of this country are frustrated and most perturbed by the feuds, turns and twists of the coalition government, and particularly the lack of political leadership by its two principals – the president and the prime minister – who have continuously shown the Kenyan people the contempt card. This is demonstrated by their apparent lack of goodwill and commitment to the implementation of the National Accord, culminating in the current impasse in parliament over the leadership of the House Business Committee. While the speaker of the National Assembly effectively temporarily postponed the near constitutional crisis in his decision yesterday, he yet again missed the opportunity to show political leadership and instead chose to run away from his mandate by making a 'safe' decision at a time when the country needs tough, decisive action to move it forward on its reform agenda. The decision by the speaker undermines once more the spirit of the National Accord and instead played towards the gallery of those opposed to the common public good and safety and security of the nation.

This country cannot continue to hang on the brink of paralysis, uncertainty, indecisiveness, bad leadership and decisions conceived to preserve an insecure presidency instead of upholding the safety and security of a whole nation. The women of this country will not tolerate and or allow its political leadership to lead it back onto a slippery journey to the country’s deathbed, violence and absolute chaos! This is a journey oblivious to the realities of the nation at a time when Kenya is under attack from pirates in the east, the greedy and unabashed ambition of our neighbours in the west, Mungiki in the interior, and is faced with the hunger and disease of millions of its citizens and the general hopelessness of the rest of the country. Kenyans understand that the paralysis the nation is suffering through these gaffes and feuds will only guarantee renewed instability, violence, desperation and despair.

To the G10 and the women of Kenya, the above and following are early warning signs of a failed state and the imminent collapse of the grand coalition. The poor and woolly political leadership of the executive has led to:

- Bickering, feuds and uncertainty in the grand coalition government
- The brutal attacks and hacking to death of over 30 Kenyans in Karatina
- The elusive fundamental and stalled reforms under Agenda No. 4 and the lack of commitment towards the implementation of the National Accord and the Reconciliation Act
- The lack of an accountability mechanism to hold to account those implicated in the post-election violence, despite the fact that women suffered most through the sexual violence meted against them, among other ills through displacement and death
- Kenyans' considerable hunger, poverty, insecurity and continued desperation
- The controversy around Migingo Island, a controversy that touches on the sovereignty, space and impotence of the government in handling the issue.

We note with sadness that the fights and tussles around each party's attempts to dominate the other within the coalition inhibit the resolution of the critical issues that we face as a nation. It is also obvious that the two principals have no common vision for this country and have instead sacrificed the public good at the altar of a narrow and selfish agenda. For us women, it is not lost on us that this deadlock could easily lead to the collapse of the coalition. Seeing as it is us who continue to pay the highest price for the failed political leadership during the post-election violence in 2008, we condemn the disharmony and selfishness and demand the following:

- That the two principals respect the people and nation of Kenya by ending forthwith the little power games that undermine the dignity, safety and democratic spaces of our country
- That the president and prime minister give respect, full intent, interpretation and observation to the spirit and letter of the National Accord and reconciliation
- That the two principals show commitment, good faith, and leadership in the implementation of the accord by making the interests of the nation paramount
- A responsive, sensitive and people-driven leadership and coalition government that is decisive, clear about the country’s priorities, willing to sacrifice individual ambition for the greater good of the nation and which represents a force that inspires confidence among the country’s people
- That the reform agenda be fast tracked and given priority over all else
- That Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka step aside and refuse to allow himself be used to defeat the good intentions of the National Accord.

CALL TO ACTION

The G10 will in the next seven days deliver for signature performance contracts to the president and prime minister outlining our expectations as women and as equal shareholders of Kenya. Failure by the two to sign will be seen as confirmation of the presumed lack of commitment, bad faith and contempt for the people of Kenya of these principals.

Indeed, extra ordinary situations call for extra ordinary measures and the G10 call upon the women of Kenya to go on a sex boycott in order to protest against poor and woolly leadership and to demand that the two principals take control and lead this country to its desired destiny. Such a sex boycott is to take place with effect from today – 29 April 2009 – and to continue for the next seven days.

Signed by:

Patricia Nyaundi – executive director, FIDA
Debra Okumu – executive director, Caucus
Carol Angengo – executive director, TCI
Rukia Subow – national chairperson, Maendeleo Ya Wanawake
Faith Kasiva – GMI
Jelioth Karuri – vice chairperson, Maendeleo Ya Wanawake
Ann Njogu – executive director, CREAW
Rosemary Okello – executive director, AWC
Fatma – National Council Women of Kenya
Tabitha Njoroge – executive director, WILDAF
Mary Njeri – executive director, COVAW
Kathambi Kinoti – Young Women Leadership Institute

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

NOTES
[1] The Coalition of Violence Against Women (COVAW), CAUCUS for Women Political Leadership (CAUCUS), Centre for Rights Education and Awareness (CREAW), Federation of Women Lawyers Kenya (FIDA-K), Tomorrow’s Child Initiative (TCI), Women in Law and Development (WILDAF), African Women and Child Features (AWC), Development Through Media (DTM), Young Women Leadership Institute (YWLI), Maendeleo Ya Wanawake and the National Council of Women in Kenya (NCWK).

Anti-transsexual discrimination in Kenyan medical services

Audrey Mbugua

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55956

cc Irina SlutskyFollowing the director of Kenya's largest referral hospital's blocking of an operation for a transsexual person, Audrey Mbugua argues that the director's actions constitute a basic infringement of a person's human rights. Denouncing the insistence on a 'no objection letter' from the 25-year-old individual's parents as 'insane and barbaric', Mgubua underlines that one does not have to be transsexual to understand the injustices transsexuals face. With anecdotal reports indicating a 97 per cent success rate for male-to-female reassignments and gender-identity disorder well-established within international psychological knowledge, Mgubua emphasises the underlying ignorance informing the director's actions.

We have an insidious form of cancer in Kenyan society. I would like us to examine an incident that took place a month ago and encompassed human rights violations against a pre-op male-to-female transsexual person in Kenya. I will call her Barricade. Barricade was set to have her sex-reassignment surgery in Kenya’s largest referral hospital on 17 March but the director of the hospital came to know about it from the minister of medical services. He went ahead and cancelled the operation on 16 March, requesting that Barricade tell her parents to send a 'no objection letter' to him stating that they would not sue the hospital if the doctors provided their daughter with medical services. The director also said that he had not been consulted when all these were going on. With the director having cruelly blocked Barricade's right to healthcare (safe in the knowledge that he can get away with violating the human rights of 'a transsexual prostitute' while threatening doctors if they assist her), I would like to put some of the falsehoods he has spewed forth under the knife.

First, the nonsense that Barricade should have her parents sending a 'no objection letter' to the director indicating that they would not sue the hospital for respecting Barricade’s human right to access healthcare is absurd and thoughtless. Barricade is 25 years old, a fact that seems not to register in the director’s thick and small skull. Additionally, forcing her to get a no objection letter from her parents means she is obligated to reveal her medical history to her parents. This goes against her right to privacy, but then the director seems to be in need of a number of classes to educate him on human rights.

Well, Barricade talked to her parents – who reside some thousands of miles away from Kenya – and her mother pointed out that the request for a no objection letter is not valid and she should not be forced to intrude into anyone’s medical history. Well, she is right and may our loving God bless her immensely for that, but then she is bitter that the director is forcing 'un-Christian and un-African stuff' on her. Transsexualism is anathema to her and she feels she should not be subjected to such issues, especially when it’s not necessary since she believes Barricade can make responsible decisions in her life and not just in matters of gender-identity disorder. She dismissed the whole no objection letter, affair claiming she needs time to think about it.

The director’s actions aren’t any different from those of people who kill fellow humans in the name of Allah or due to allegations of witchcraft. The impact and ruthlessness of 'transphobia' is alike to that of defiling a two-year-old. A sane and civil human will not demand for a no objection letter from the parents of a depressed adult in need of treatment. A sane and civil human being will not demand for a no objection letter from a woman in labour before assisting her deliver her baby. An insane and barbaric human will however request for a no objection letter from a TB patient before treatment is offered, and an insane and barbaric human will request for a no objection letter before treating a transsexual person. Period.

On top of his glaring transphobia, it’s evident he has bought into the assumption that sex-reassignment surgery is not part of medical regimen in the treatment of gender-identity disorder. How can an educated Kenyan swallow such a fallacy, hook, line and sinker? I won’t answer that one but I hope the excuse is not ignorance of gender-identity disorder. We cannot go around justifying hateful action with a stupid line such as, 'Oh, I don’t know anything about transsexualism. We live in a complicated world.'

Shame on all you who use this line to justify your hatred for minorities. How many of you know the pathogenesis of cholera, pneumonia, meningitis, gonorrhoea and chlamydia? Do you go around beating and hating people with cholera and chlamydia? If the director knows the pathogenesis of all the diseases that people get to be treated for at Kenyatta National Hospital how by chance does he not know the aetiology or a single fact about transsexualism? Your guess is as good as mine and any civil human being needs to question and challenge this kind of irrationality and hatred.

You don’t have to be a transsexual person to understand the injustices transsexual people get subjected to. I don’t have to be a woman desperate for abortion services to know the pain of feeling helpless and desperate. You don’t have to be HIV-positive to know that stigma kills. I don’t need to have kidney failure to realise appropriate resources need to be invested in procuring and repairing our dialysis machines and making them accessible in all corners of Kenya. Yes, there is money for all these but it’s used by our politicians and political leaders and their fan clubs to travel to the USA for Obama’s inauguration – and maybe even for the christening of Obama’s dog Bo. It’s also used to buy them Mercedes Kompressors and pay for the stupid retreats they are so fond of going to following cat fights with tribal kings from other 'enemy tribes'.

This spiteful director also seems to be out of touch with what happens in his office. Barricade presented a letter recommending her for surgery and hormone therapy from the team of psychiatrists who evaluated her. She presented it to the secretary and after Barricade followed up her case, she was directed to a team of doctors who did an evaluation on her for several months. The doctors followed an accepted protocol – and additionally give it a chance to change Barricade’s short fuse – in handling her case, yet the director felt he wasn’t consulted.

Did he want to be the one who made the first cut or the one to anaesthetise her? This is pure malice. I will let you readers in on a 'top secret' in the trans-community. I refer it to as a top secret since very few healthcare providers seem to be aware of it – not just the walking cabbages in the streets. Sorry for the digression. Gender-identity disorder – commonly known as transsexualism – is a psychological disorder with a diagnostic criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual – 4th edition (DSM-IV), the manual all psychiatrists use to treat psychological disorders. The International Classification of Diseases also stipulates a diagnostic criteria almost identical to that in the DSM-IV. On top of these, there are the standards of care (SOC) laid down back in 1979 by psychiatrists led by Dr Harry Benjamin, which have undergone a number of amendments to accommodate advances in healthcare delivery to transsexual people and reports on the successes of gender-reassignment therapy.

Why, with all these structures, would anyone claim that transsexual people should not access medical care in Kenya? Does the director want to lay down the law that no transsexual person will ever be treated in Kenya, and in particular at Kenyatta National Hospital? Anecdotal reports indicate success rates of up to 97 per cent among male-to-female reassignments. But then the director is ignorant of these facts and therefore should not be made to face the music. No. That’s not the way this should be handled. Humans, let's put an end to these atrocities. We are all aware of what happens when we let similar hateful actions happen without the masses saying 'no'. It happened between 1939 to 1945. During this era six million humans lost their lives (and not in combat) just because a crackpot somewhere hated their origin and what they had supposedly done to Jesus some centuries ago. Surprisingly, a president somewhere in the North claims this is a myth. How far from logic and reality can any human be to make such a claim? Or was he desperate for attention? Let’s do the right thing. It’s starts with you, Barricade and me. We can do away with religious beliefs, culture and any irrational source of common impetus to torture humans.

* Audrey Mbugua is a member of Transgender Education and Advocacy, a Kenyan organisation formed to address social injustices committed against the country's transgender community.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

AFRICOM: Making peace or fuelling war

Part 2 of a two-part essay

Daniel Volman and William Minter

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55952

cc Soldiers Media CenterIn the second of a two-part article exploring the implications of the US AFRICOM (the United States Africa Command) programme, Daniel Volman and William Minter continue their discussion of the increasing prominence of the African continent within US strategic interests. Underlining the US' need to prioritise dialogue with African governments and civil society groups over merely assisting repressive regimes and emphasising military-to-military relationships, Volman and Minter argue that AFRICOM's activities should be fully integrated within overall US policy. While Africa's serious conflict-related problems will ultimately not be resolved by external interests, the authors contend, the US needs to take its responsibilities around not inflaming conflict seriously, responsibilities which can only be sustainably fulfilled through genuinely supporting measures to improve African livelihoods.

CONTINUITY OR CHANGE

Will the Obama administration seriously re-examine the Africa policy it has inherited from its predecessors? Or will continuity be the watchword? The few indications we have so far, from campaign statements and Obama's choice of top officials, point to continuity. Yet the critical tests will be in practice as African crises force their way onto the agenda even while the administration's energies are primarily focused on more prominent domestic and international challenges.

PATTERNS FROM THE PAST

During his presidential bid, Senator Barack Obama's statements signalled continuity with Bush administration policies on Africa, including security issues. Paralleling his prominent remarks on Afghanistan, the candidate's reply to a questionnaire from the Leon Sullivan Foundation in September 2007 noted that 'there will be situations that require the United States to work with its partners in Africa to fight terrorism with lethal force', leaving open the door for attacks on Somalia. In an article written for AllAfrica.com in September 2008, Witney Schneidman, deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Clinton administration and adviser on Africa to the Obama campaign, said the new administration 'will create a Shared Partnership Program to build the infrastructure to deliver effective counter-terrorism training, and to create a strong foundation for coordinated action against al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Africa and elsewhere.' He added that the programme 'will provide assistance with information sharing, operations, border security, anti-corruption programs, technology, and the targeting of terrorist financing'. Schneidman further argued that 'in the Niger Delta, we should become more engaged not only in maritime security, but in working with the Nigerian government, the European Union, the African Union, and other stakeholders to stabilize the region.'

Even more significant a signal was Obama's choice of General James Jones as his national security advisor. As commander of NATO and EUCOM from 2003 through 2006, General Jones was an enthusiastic advocate of AFRICOM. US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who is well-placed to be an advocate for multilateral approaches to peace in Africa, is nevertheless on record as having endorsed Bush administration air strikes on Somalia at the time of the Ethiopian invasion. And she has been a prominent advocate of direct bilateral US military action in Darfur.

On 9 February 2009, acting Assistant Secretary of State Phil Carter, speaking at the Pentagon's Africa Center for Strategic Studies, opened his remarks with the claim that 'the one foreign policy success of the previous administration is Africa'. He outlined four priorities, beginning with 'providing security assistance programs' to African partners, followed by promoting 'democratic systems and practices', 'sustainable and broad-based market-led economic growth' and 'health and social development'. Although he prefaced his list of priorities with a reference to support for ending conflict in Africa and 'African solutions to African problems', it's telling that the description of the security priority includes military capacity-building and AFRICOM operations, but no mention at all of diplomacy.

Such indications do not give great confidence in any major shift in security strategy. Nevertheless, there are also signals that US officials, including some in the military and intelligence community, do recognise the need to give greater emphasis to diplomacy and development. The initial US welcome to the election of moderate Islamist Sheikh Sharif Ahmed as president of Somalia is potentially an indicator of a new approach to that complex crisis. Incoming Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the Senate in his first annual threat assessment that 'the primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis.' Blair's survey covered traditional security threats, including 'extremist groups using terrorism', but also stressed the need for the United States to not only deal with 'regions, regimes, and crises' but also to participate in developing new multilateral systems.

CHANGING PRIORITIES

For Africa in particular, realities call for a different ordering of priorities, recognising the significance of less conventional threats and the inadequacy of narrow military responses. In a report released in February this year, TransAfrica Forum called for a new policy framework based on 'inclusive human security'. Such a framework would require fundamental shifts in thinking, stressing multilateral cooperation over unilateral initiatives, a broad range of threats than only those from violent enemies, and investment in basic economic and social rights over blind trust in the market.

US Africa policy based on such a framework would look very different than that outlined by Assistant Secretary of State Carter as the inheritance from the Bush administration, even if containing many of the same elements. In the economic and development arena, it should build on the example of the response to AIDS, both multilateral and bilateral, to address African needs in health, education, food, economic infrastructure and the environment, with all countries paying their fair share. The United States should open a genuine dialogue about trade and development policy, instead of imposing rigid free-market policies that are systematically biased in favour of rich countries. And the administration should draw on the insights and contributions of the large community of recent African immigrants to the U. S., many of whom are engaged in family and community projects to help their countries.

Within the arena of traditional security issues, the United States should minimise bilateral military involvement with Africa, which risks sucking the US into local conflicts, in favour of multilateral diplomacy and peacekeeping, including paying US peacekeeping arrears at the UN. It should take care not to aid repressive regimes or to prioritise military-to-military relationships, in favour of dialogue not only with incumbent governments but also civil society. In short, it should shift from an emphasis on counter-insurgency and building Washington-centred networks of influence with African military establishments to an emphasis on US participation in multilateral efforts to enhance African security.

In theory, AFRICOM's activities, as well as the related peacekeeping training programmes administered by the Department of State, should be integrated within overall US policy, including diplomatic action on African crises and collaboration with African, European and United Nations partners in peacekeeping operations. In practice, as the Henry L. Stimson Center's Victoria Holt and Michael McKinnon have said, the United States has been ambivalent about multilateral action, under both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Democrats and Republicans alike have approved and supported United Nations and African Union peacekeeping missions. But the United States is still regularly from US$700 million to US$1.5 billion in arrears on peacekeeping dues owed the United Nations. And it failed to respond even to urgent requests for essential logistical support, such as helicopters for the mission in Darfur. Coordination of diplomacy with support for peacekeeping has been weak even within the US government, while the US military remains opposed to US participation in multilateral operations that are not commanded by US officers.

The most innovative US programme to support multilateral peacekeeping has been Africa Contingency Operations and Assistance (ACOTA), administered by the State Department and part of the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI) decided by G8 leaders in 2004. This programme has trained some 45,000 African peacekeepers since 2004, with a training package and 'train-the-trainer' components that are said to be based on UN standards. Yet there is no evidence that this programme is integrated into a broader strategy of US diplomatic priorities in Africa or capacity building in collaboration with the United Nations. As a bilateral training programme under exclusive US management, when the United States is also engaged in bilateral counter-insurgency training and operations with many of the same countries, it inevitably raises questions about the real priorities in military-to-military relationships.

The United States does have resources, particularly logistical and financial, that are relevant for peacekeeping operations, and has the responsibility to make its fair contribution as a leading member of the international community. But ensuring that these actually contribute to peace requires a new framework, giving priority to multilateral diplomacy and peacekeeping over bilateral programmes.

ELEMENTS OF A NEW SECURITY FRAMEWORK

Moving to a new framework isn't a matter of finding new formulas to replace the inherited emphasis on building counter-insurgency capacity against terrorism and threats to natural resources. There's no one prescription for those countries now facing violent conflicts, much less for the wide range of issues faced by over 50 African countries. Africa's serious problems, moreover, will not be solved from outside, either by the United States or by the 'international community'.

Nevertheless, it's important to ensure that US Africa policy does no harm and that the United States makes a significant contribution to diminishing the real security threats on the continent. Once one recognises that US national security also depends on the human security of Africans, some essential elements of such a framework do become clear. To what extent they can be embodied into practice will depend not only on the internal deliberations of the new administration in Washington, but also on whether Africans working for peace and justice on the continent can themselves chart new directions and make their voices heard.

Prioritize long-term inclusive human security

At a global level, National Intelligence Director Blair's threat assessment echoed the growing recognition that economic, environmental and other 'non-military' threats can only be ignored at our peril. The implications for Africa policy should be clear. The optimistic assumption that developing regions could be 'de-linked' from the global economic crisis has quickly been abandoned. While there may be no direct link between hardships deriving from economic, health and environmental threats and the threats of violent conflict, ignoring such broader threats is a sure recipe for disaster. Investment in sustainable development, preserving the environment, democratic accountability and broad access to basic rights to health, education and housing between and within countries is not charity. It's only prudent. And solutions in Africa and in the United States are interconnected.

Take an example from only one sector: energy and global warming. The development of alternative energy sources in the United States can reduce the demand for oil, thus reducing the presumed need to support oil-producing regimes regardless of their human rights records. It's also essential to slow global warming, which is already having severe consequences for the environment in Africa, even though Africa produces only a small fraction of world's greenhouse gases. At the same time, the United States should support efforts to make both oil companies and governments accountable for the use of oil revenue, investing it both to benefit their citizens and to foster development sectors not so vulnerable to the boom and bust of the oil economy.

None of these measures are easy, of course. Nor are they a substitute for resolving open conflict in critical oil-producing regions such as the Niger Delta in Nigeria. But the fact is no other approach has a chance of being sustainable. Prioritising counter-insurgency provides no shortcut. In such a context, providing US military assistance is only to add fuel to the flames.

More generally, US policy toward each region of the continent – including strategic countries such as South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo – must feature cooperation and dialogue on a wide range of issues affecting human security, rather than prioritising military-to-military relationships. As noted below, it is critical to foster new opportunities for both societies and governments to dialogue about solutions to common problems of human security.

Pay attention to crises, but avoid 'one size fits all' approaches

Governments don't have the luxury, however, of paying attention only to long-term structural issues. Immediate crises demand responses. Violent conflicts or failed states have consequences not only for the lives lost and the countries directly involved, but also for surrounding regions and for the continent as a whole. The costs of humanitarian response from the international community multiply in proportion to the delays in acting. And, as the surge of piracy in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Guinea has recently reminded the world, the consequences are economic as well as humanitarian. Within conflict zones, personal and collective investments in health, education and infrastructure can be wiped out in a matter of months.

The list of Africa's hottest crises is familiar: Sudan (including but not limited to Darfur), Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zimbabwe. Others fester as well, out of the spotlight of the world's media: Chad, Côte d'Ivoire and Uganda, to name only a few. In each case, it's not only the countries and their immediate neighbours that are involved. Other stakeholders, including regional African organisations, the African Union, the United Nations and global powers such as the United States are called on to respond. And the responses – or failures to respond – matter. But no 'one size fits all' response can possibly make sense, and certainly not the AFRICOM model focusing on building counter-insurgency capacity for Africa's armies.

In shaping the mix of diplomacy, pressures, humanitarian, and peacekeeping actions that have the best chances for success in any particular case, a unilateral US approach is sure to be ineffective or counterproductive. But simply advocating 'African solutions for African problems' is a rhetorical gimmick rather than a real alternative. African political leaders must be part of the solution, and, with very few exceptions, diplomacy must engage all parties to a conflict, including those most guilty of aggression or human rights abuses. But those states closest to the crises, and prominent in regional organisations, also have their own interests. Even when there is a consensus, such as with the creation of the African Union mission to Darfur, the resources may be lacking, setting up such a solution for failure in advance.

And while the institutional capacity of the African Union for peacemaking is growing, like the United Nations its effectiveness depends on member states and on the political compromises among its leaders. The selection of Muammar Gaddafi of Libya as chair of the African Union for 2009, for instance, isn't likely to signal increased capacity for peacemaking.

But the time has long passed for anyone to take current African heads of state as the only spokespeople for the continent, or to focus hopes for change on replacing one leader with another. Finding the best way forward in responding to crises or to Africa's structural problems must go beyond the top. Africa's resources for change and for leadership are also found in civil society, among respected retired leaders and other elders, and among professionals working both in governments and in multilateral organisations, including both diplomats and military professionals. The challenge for US policy is to engage actively and productively in responding to crises, bringing US resources to bear without assuming that it is either possible or wise for the United States to dominate.

Build institutional capacity for multilateral peacemaking and peacekeeping

In contrast to the emphasis on building bilateral US military ties with Africa being institutionalised in AFRICOM, US security policy toward Africa should instead concentrate on building institutional capacity within the United Nations, as well as coordinating US relationships with African regional institutions with United Nations capacity-building programmes. At the same time, it should work to ensure that both US and United Nations policies and operations with respect to African crises are transparent and open to review by legislative bodies and civil society groups in Africa, in the United States and in other countries that are involved.

This proposal for a new direction isn't based on any assumption that the United Nations has the answer to Africa's crises. On the contrary. In a statement on 23 February, Under-Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, Alain Le Roy, told the Security Council that the organisation's peacekeeping efforts are overstretched and in several cases at risk of 'mission failure'. Missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Sudan have mandates that far exceed their capacity, and the Security Council has just voted two new mandates for forces in Chad and in Somalia. 'We face operational overstretch and, I would argue, political overstretch too', he added. 'There is a constant strain now between mandates and resources, between expectations and our capacity to deliver.'

Nevertheless, even governments as congenitally opposed to multilateralism as the outgoing Bush administration have found United Nations peacekeeping to be an essential resource. UN actions will always be dependent on the willingness of member governments to cooperate, and vulnerable to indecision and bureaucratic delay. But it's long past time to strengthen the institution's capacity for peacemaking and peacekeeping. Public opinion around the world, and in the United States, has long favoured increased responsibility and resources for the United Nations. Polls in late 2006 in 14 countries in different regions, for example, showed that majorities of 64 per cent favoured 'having a standing UN peacekeeping force selected, trained, and commanded by the United Nations'. In the same poll, 72 per cent of US respondents approved this option. While the stereotype persists among US policymakers that the public is sceptical about the United Nations, polls consistently show strong public support, including for payment of dues in full (see Benjamin Page and Marshall Bouton, The Foreign Policy Disconnect, University of Chicago Press, 2006).

Building United Nations peacekeeping capacity implies not only financial resources of course, but also internal and external oversight to check possibilities for corruption and abuses, just as would be the case for governments in Africa or in the United States. The framework for inclusive human security released by TransAfrica Forum in February, for example, calls for new mechanisms to ensure civil society and legislative input and review of both US government and multilateral agencies.

Despite the expectations for change, it is likely that shifts by the Obama administration in security policy toward Africa will only emerge piecemeal, if at all, after the appointment of new mid-level personnel and policy reviews reportedly under way in every agency. The new president's popularity and the range of domestic and global problems he faces are likely to give the administration a large window of opportunity before disillusionment sets in. But events on the ground will not allow indefinite delay. It will soon become apparent, in Somalia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and perhaps in other crises not now predictable, to what extent African hopes placed in President Obama will find answers in changes that make a difference for Africa.

* This article was originally published by Foreign Policy In Focus.
* Daniel Volman is the director of the African Security Research Project and a member of the board of directors of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars. William Minter is the editor of AfricaFocus Bulletin and co-editor with Gail Hovey and Charles Cobb, Jr. of No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950–2000 (Africa World Press, 2007).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Resisting another June 12 in Nigeria

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/55951

It is difficult to persuade Kenyans, exasperated by the shenanigans of their Grand Coalition – which many regard as the Grand Confusion – government, that there is anything good in electoral democracy. However, the recent rescue of the country from political implosion by the speaker of the national parliament has also rescued parliamentary democracy. Kenyans are much better off than many other African citizens. One important area where Kenyans are better off is the fact that their vote now matters. They have made the cost of rigging, denying or robbing them of their vote so high that politicians are more circumspect and fearful of the wrath of the electorate.

Nigerians do not have such illusions about voting. The masses have not lost hope that one day their vote will count, but the politicians have no such hope. They fight the election as you would fight a war, both during the nominations inside their party and actual elections against other parties’ candidates.

Nothing illustrates this point better than the recent re-election taking place in Ekiti State.

On 17 February 2009 the Court of Appeal ordered a re-run of the governorship election in 65 wards in 10 local governments of Ekiti State. The effect of that order was that the ruling PDP (People's Democratic Party) governor of the state, Olusegun Oni, had his election annulled. Dr Kayode Fayemi of the opposition, Action Congress (AC), was the appellant. In the undisputed result, Oni had a majority of the votes. He is believed to have won the April 2007 election outright, but the appeal court ruled that there were irregularities in the specified wards, hence the re-run in place of giving him his mandate back outright.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conducted the re-run election on 25 April 2009. As I write, the result of five local governments had been released and the two candidates were still neck-and-neck, but Kayode is leading if all the votes are put together. The re-run in one of the 10 local governments had been postponed due to violence, making it impossible for the election to take place.

No party is innocent of election violence or the threat of it, but the power balance is often tipped in favour of the ruling party owing to its control of the formal instruments of coercion and control around administrative and judicial machinery.

The build-up to the election was anything but peaceful as both leading parties and their supporters engaged in ‘do or die’ efforts to get their candidate elected. There were all kinds of allegations and counter-allegations around who was preparing for or orchestrating threats and stockpiling weapons, as well as accusations about the partiality of the security establishment.

To guarantee the integrity of the process the INEC decided not to use its Ekiti State staff for the re-run election. There was national interest in the re-run, largely because of the great expectation by many that the PDP's near-monopoly of political power through unfair means would be dealt a blow in the state, as had happened recently through judicial decisions in two other states, Edo and Ondo.

The other factor is the fact that Fayemi has been a very active leader in civil society and the pro-democracy movement against the military. He is one of very few CSO (civil society organisation) activists to venture into partisan politics and therefore has a lot of goodwill from his former colleagues within Nigeria's civil society. Over 800 election monitors from different CSO groups across the country, the National Human Rights Commission and other election monitors were in Ekiti State for the election. The state is very small and the election was not even taking place in the whole state, meaning the monitors were more than sufficient to cover all the wards and polling stations. If any of the parties or their supporters wanted to violate the law, they had to do it in the presence of all these observers.

And this is what happened. According to a press release by Dr Jibrin Ibrahim, Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD):

'In the afternoon of 25th April, political thugs from the PDP attacked civil society observers monitoring the gubernatorial election re-run. They were attacked at Ifaki ward of Ido-Osi Local Government Area of Ekiti State, the home town of Olusegun Oni, former PDP Governor of the State. They were en route to the capital, Ado Ekiti. They are:

1) Dr. Abubakar Momoh, Associate Professor of Political Science, Lagos State University and Centre for Democracy and Development;
2) Dr. Azeez Olaniyan, Lecturer, Department of Political Science, Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti;
3) Wahab Oyedokun, a lawyer on the staff of the National Human Rights Commission;
4) Bimbo Olaniyan, Programme Officer with Action Aid;
5) Babatunde Awodehinde from the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR);
6) Olusoga Olusegun from the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR);
7) Foudad Oki from the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR).

The assault took place at a police check point where four armed policemen watched in amusement while the political thugs attacked the observers with machetes, broken bottles, sticks and clubs. Dr Abubakar Momoh was beaten to a pulp and received numerous cuts from broken bottles. The Police watched as they put used tyre around Wahab Oyedokun’s neck and were looking for fuel to burn him alive.'

Only on account of the chance arrival and intervention of a senior police officer, CSP Samuel Etaifo Erale of Mopol (Mobile Police), was the brutalisation of the observers stopped. As if the assault was not enough the police then proceeded to arrest the victims instead of the perpetrators! They were locked in police cells and eventually driven to Abuja where they were released on bail on Monday evening after more than 48 hours of unnecessary suffering and gratuitous violence from PDP thugs and the police.

Those with a memory will remember the politics of the 1992 annulment of the election of Chief Mko Abiola, famously known as 'June 12'. It is a sad irony that Kayode actually became ‘state enemy no. 1’ for his role in bringing about the June 12 mandate. He is now facing a state level, June 12 conspiracy!

When IBB (Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida) and the other generals saw that a chief whom they did not want to succeed them was winning they halted the announcement and confiscated the mandate, subsequently jailing the winner, who never came out of prison alive.

What is happening in Ekiti is June 12 at the state level.

The issue is not whether one favours one candidate or the other but the sanctity of the freely expressed electoral choice of the citizens of that state. President Umaru Yar’ Adua did not promise Nigerians any miracles on his assumption of office as the beneficiary of a stolen mandate. He made two tangible promises: to lead by example as a ‘servant leader’ and follow the rule of law. What is happening in Ekiti State contradicts both. The guilty fingers are pointed at his party, his government and as president, the buck stops at his table.

* Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem writes this syndicated column in his capacity as a concerned pan-Africanist.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at www.pambazuka.org/.

Letters to Pambazuka News

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/56028

Overcoming tension around Migingo Island

Kintu Nyago

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/55950

In his latest syndicated column entitled 'The Migingo dispute: Will diplomacy work?', Ugandan-Nigerian Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem unfairly blames Kampala for the warmongering brewing over Migingo Island. Though he has most probably been away too long from his Kampala home to ably assess the actual reality on the ground, his error was inexcusable bearing in mind his innumerable securocrat and foreign service acquaintances, whom he should have consulted for the purposes of clarity on Migingo (which apparently means an uninhabited rock in Luo).

This controversy has only one warmongering jingoist side: a handful Nyanza-based Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) cheap populists (and fortunately not simply all Kenyans), a case in point being Kenya’s minister for land, James Orengo. Orengo is quite a character, for he nearly dampened the painstaking Kenya–Uganda joint effort to peacefully resolve the Migingo impasse. For Orengo abused his Ugandan ministerial counterparts to their faces, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Mzee[1] 'K.K.' Kirunda Kivejinja, by referring to them as 'hyenas' in Luo!

All this amidst a rowdy rented mob, intoxicated, through design, with local brew. In his arrogant rashness, Orengo failed to realise that Luo is also a Ugandan language. In fact Uganda has more Luos than Kenya. Even Uganda’s area member of parliament for the Migingo area, one youthful Henry Ocheing, is a Luo representing a Bantu-dominated area. This is not surprising in contemporary Uganda, a country deliberately striving to create a united but diverse society.

The tension around Migingo was worsened by sections of the Kenyan media, notably the Daily Nation and the East African Standard, blatantly abusing the principle of press freedom through churning out partisan and inciting falsehoods. Take, for example, the instance of the story of Uganda’s placing a (fictitious) UPDF (Ugandan People's Defence Force) Brigadier Echoti on one acre of Migingo.

Appreciation should be shown to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Kenyan President Mzee Mwai Kibaki for their rational and cool-headed approach while handling the Migingo affair. This is the only viable alternative for both brotherly countries, who stand to lose in equal measure if violence erupts, as is advocated by Orengo and his jingoist puppeteers. These figures further encouraged the lumpens of Kibera slum to disrupt the rail system that supplies most of the Great Lakes region and South Sudan.

Surprisingly, soon after his unfortunate outbursts Orengo was in Kampala’s Imperial Royale Hotel, appearing as cool as a cucumber and attending an East African Community meeting. Such jingoists should appreciate that Uganda’s rational approach is a strength and not a sign of weakness. It is Kampala’s leadership and political maturity on Migingo that has guided domestic public opinion, hence the sober manner in which this matter is being debated in our press.

To my mind Ugandans and their government regard Kenyans as their relatives, neighbours and strategic economic partners, and under the Museveni administration’s policy of openness, Uganda hosts possibly around a million Kenyans, most without any documentation. Many Kenyans freely attend our Universal Primary Education (UPE) programme, while others are secondary and university students. In fact one or two of our universities host more Kenyans than Ugandans. Uganda also houses many post-elections refugees at Kiryandongo. This is in addition to many professionals in key service sectors and the majority of informal sector jua kali operators, fishmongers and fishermen. Indeed, many of the people residing on the shorelines and on our 200 or so islands in the Lake Victoria districts of Bugiri, Mayuge, Mukono, Wakiso and Kalangala are actually Jaluo from Nyanza. Many are even local authority leaders. And to the best of my knowledge, Kenya has never offered such privileges of free residence without molestation to Ugandans, or allowed them to access elective leadership positions, either now or in the past.

It would be foolhardy for any jingoist neighbour to attack Uganda. Our state and polity are no longer of the Idi Amin variety. We have painstakingly rebuilt our state and a cohesive and legitimate polity is in place. Those who failed to read these signs of the times and attempted to destabilise us, since the NRM (National Resistance Movement) assumed power, about 20 or so years ago, paid dearly for their offence.

But that’s just part of the story. For when Abdul-Raheem mentions Uganda’s conflict with Mobutu’s Zaire, Hassan al-Turabi and Omar al-Bashir’s Sudan and Juvénal Habyarimana’s Rwanda in light of his decade or so of experience as secretary general of the Kampala-based Pan-African Movement, it would be disingenuous for him to claim to have been an impartial observer amidst the conflict behind these pan-Africanist geopolitical configurations.

However, even if he was, there is need to contextualise these figures. In the early 1990s Mobutu’s Zaire, together with al-Turabi’s Sudan, helped to establish a fanatical Islamic organisation called the Allied Democratic Front (ADF), which launched a jihad against the state and people of Uganda with the objective of imposing a Sharia state. Based in Zaire, the ADF actively destabilised Uganda’s Mountain Rwenzori region to the extent that in 1998 they burnt to death 100 students of Kichwamba College. It’s this callous act that prompted Uganda’s invasion of Zaire, an act which contributed to the removal of the Mobuto kleptocracy.

Earlier Sudan, right from October 1986 when it armed and flagged off the rebel Uganda Democratic People’s Army (UPDA) at the Bibia border post, began supporting rebels in northern Uganda, including later Joseph Kony’s Christian fundamentalist and murderous Lords Resistance Army (LRA). It’s this which led to Uganda’s support for our brotherly neighbours in South Sudan, organised under the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M). The effect was the forcing of the al-Bashir supremacist regime to sign the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) with the SPLM. This offered the people of South Sudan self-determination. Concerning Rwanda, the UPDF’s decisive intervention into that country in 1994 helped to stop the genocide, when the rest of the world stood passively by.

From a political-economic perspective, the creation of a new order in the region has helped to boost regional trade, a development that is currently assisting Uganda and Kenya to better survive the global recession.

The way forward on Migingo is not through Nazi-style intimidation, ultimatums and stampeding, but rather through rational dialogue and the application of modern surveying methods to determine where this tiny rock is located.

* Kintu Nyago is the executive director of the Forum for Promoting Democratic Constitutionalism, Kampala, Uganda.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

NOTES
[1] Kiswahili for 'wise old man'.

Some words about Bantu's work with prisons

Alice Nderitu

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/56026

I wish to say a few words about Bantu. Specifically on Bantu's, Ndungi Githuku's and their dedicated team's role in drama therapy at Langata womens prison. Bantu and team embraced the open door policy of the prisons by pioneering the use of drama therapy to bring the prisoners and staff to a level where they could live together by accepting that in addressing their pasts and presents they could see in each other not just prisoners and prison officers but women whose only difference was the colour of the uniform they wore.
The drama therapy involved a process of walking the prisoners through an examination and acceptance of the crimes that brought them to prison, a critical look at the shortcomings of the criminal justice system in Kenya, a reflection on how they were received into prison - the beatings by the staff and the bullying by the other prisoners - an assessment of what the prison reforms and open door policy meant for them and how best to safeguard the gains of the prison reform programmes.

The prison officers in turn went through a similar process - they examined the reasons they joined the prisons as staff, how they were received and inducted into the prison - the bullying by the older staff and the induction that a prisoner was subhuman and should be treated as such - an assessment of the prison reforms and why the staff resented the open door policy and felt the prisoners were getting all the "attention" from Moody.

Bantu and Ndungi were a sight to behold - in a women's prison which men previously men could not access were these dreadlocked men animatedly drawing out the prisons dark secrets that no one had talked about before; all the hate, malice, injustice, the occasional flashes of a humane touch,mercy, empathy. Bantu crafted the stories into a script as Ndungi recorded the documentary with his multiple cameras. When the actresses, who were, in the real sense playing themselves got onto stage and acted out their roles the prison began to heal and emotion flowed. Prisoners were able to walk up to officers and tell them you did not have to do that to me and officers told prisoners how difficult it was to show humanity when they themselves felt undignified in the shacks that they shared. It was not all hugs and kisses all round though. Some of the staff were genuinely angry at the project and the painful processes involved.

Wanini Kireri was then officer in charge of Langata. ( she is now in in charge of the Shimo la tewa maximum mens prison) Many prison officers warned her that she would not be able to handle what Bantu, Ndungi and team left behind in terms of " living happily ever after" expectations of the staff and prisoners. After all nothing had changed, no new staff houses or lessened sentences for the prisoners. But the psychological and emotional barriers had been broken; it worked and Langata became a role model for reform through coordinated prisoner and staff teamwork. The prisoners and staff were to act out this script for many different audiences, including lots of people from civil society and faith based organizations, Maina Kiai then Chair KNCHR and Tirop then Commissioner KNCHR, Rebecca Nabutola, Koigi Wamwere and of course Moody Awori. The then Commissioner Kamakil shed tears when he watched it - it was that real.

Just before Moody left we organized ( then as KNCHR) a meeting for all senior officers in the Prisons to assess the impact of the prison reforms from a human rights perspective with a team from IED, LRF, RWI and Bantu. Our evaluation was based on what impact we had from a knowledge, skills and attitude change perspective. When Bantu rose to speak he asked them to admit him as a prisoner and through this process addressed their biases towards prisoners based on their looks and poor backgrounds. They told him they would treat him badly because of his dreadlocks, strange name, funny shirt and dusty sandals. They were shocked when we told them he had a PHD - he used his own example to explain how so much of what is needed in prison reform was about attitude change and that it costed nothing.

The last time I met Bantu at the National theatre I teased him that his "fans"at the prison were missing him and we talked about the possibility of creating more "fan bases" particularly in the mens prisons. We left it at that. Wanini called me on Monday - telling me that Bantu had passed on and that she had asked the staff in Langata to break the news to the prisoners gently. This morning I told her I was going to send in something to this listserv and she said "tell them that Bantu gave us hope - he let us tell our story and he achieved so much change. He never made us feel that he was imposing his own ideas, he was so humble. As a result of the drama therapy It became really 'uncool' for officers to beat prisoners or for prisoners to treat staff with disrespect. He made us realise how much we needed each other as staff and prisoners - how we completed each other. I personally will always be grateful to Bantu and his team for making all of us in Langata realize that we can be the change we want to see in the prison"

* Alice Nderitu is Director of Fahamu's Education for Social Justice programme

Kenya: Cut Off My Tongue

Sarakasi Fund Building - 30 April 2009

2009-04-30

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=72667734212

Cut Off My Tongue explores the truths that shape us as Kenyans - our beliefs, the way we behave and why. It is no ordinary reading of poetry, but a spirited invocation to Africans to colonize and mold their own history. It is a show about land, about tribe, about personal discovery, about identity and relationships. The show makes you think and laugh at the same time. It rants, sweats, breaks into song and dance!

An interview with Petina Gappah

Conversations with Writers

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/55957

In an interview with Conversations with Writers, the Zimbabwean author Petina Gappah talks about the influences behind her work and the pressure she feels in being published by Faber.

Conversations with Writers: When did you start writing?

Petina Gappah: Like most writers, I started writing as a child.

I was not, however, as precocious as some that I have read about who started writing at age 5 or 3 or even before they were born. I started writing at about 10 or 11, and my first published anything was a story in the St. Dominic’s Secondary School magazine when I was 14.

I started writing seriously in May 2006. I joined the Zoetrope Virtual Studio, a story I posted there caught the attention of an editor at the online journal Per Contra, I entered some stories in competitions, I did well in one competition, and when I was sufficiently confident, I looked for an agent who looked for a publisher on my behalf.

Becoming a published writer was not so much a decision as it was the consequence of my writing.

Conversations with Writers: How would you describe your writing?

Petina Gappah: I write literary fiction. There are various kinds of writing within this broad genre, for instance, I recently came across the term hysterical realism, which I thought was a wonderfully apt description for a certain type of contemporary fiction. I will leave it to critics and others to further categorise my writing within literary fiction, but I am disappointed to say it is not hysterical realism.

Conversations with Writers: Which authors influenced you most?

Petina Gappah: I never really know how to answer the question about influences, so I will say I have enjoyed reading many writers, and have been influenced by any number you can think of in different ways, from David Lodge to Charles Mungoshi, from J. M. Coetzee to Ian McEwan, from Toni Morrison to Paul Auster.

What writers write is as important to me as how writers live, the writers that I am trying to emulate are those who manage to combine writing with a full-time, unrelated occupation, writers like John Mortimer who very sadly died recently, and P. D. James.

Conversations with Writers: How have your personal experiences influenced your writing?

Petina Gappah: Most of what I write is based on something that happened to me, to someone I know, or something I overheard or read.

Conversations with Writers: What are your main concerns as a writer?

Petina Gappah: My main concern, which is probably not as lofty as this question assumes, is to write everyday, to finish whatever I am working on at the time, and to find time and space for the next bit of writing.

As I have a full-time job as a lawyer, and I also have a young son, my biggest challenge is to find time to write. The solution I have found is to sleep as little as I possibly can.

Conversations with Writers: Do you write everyday?

Petina Gappah: I try to write every morning before I go to work, I stop when I have to get my son up and prepare him and myself for school and work.

I work directly on my computer, sometimes transcribing from notebooks. When I revise, I find it easier to do so in longhand.

Conversations with Writers: How many books have you written so far?

Petina Gappah: I have written one book, An Elegy for Easterly, which is published by Faber in April 2009 in the UK and the Commonwealth and June 2009 in the United States.

It will also be published in France, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

Easterly is a short story collection about what it has meant to be a Zimbabwean in recent times, it attempts to particularise through the stories of ordinary people what it has meant, on a day-to-day basis, to be part of a crisis that has gripped the attention of the world.

Conversations with Writers: How long did it take you to write the book? And, how did you find a publisher for it?

Petina Gappah: I wrote the stories over a period of about one and a half years. They were written at different times; I had no idea I was writing a book, I was busy working on my novel. Then my wonderful agent Clare sent out the stories together with some chapters of the novel, Lee Brackstone and Mitzi Angel, two editors at Faber absolutely loved them, so the decision was made to go with them before the novel.

Why Faber? When they made the offer, I had no hesitation. In fact, I felt more than a little dizzy at the prospect of being a Faber author: Faber is just about the last of the great independent literary houses.

I received a very warm welcome from Stephen Page, Faber’s publisher, and the whole team has just been absolutely fantastic. The most wonderful thing about being published by Faber has been working with my two editors who are both committed, gifted and brilliant. If my stories hummed before, they sing operatic arias now.

The only disadvantage is that Faber is the house of T. S. Eliot and William Golding, of Ted Hughes and Ezra Pound, of Paul Auster and Orhan Pamuk. To paraphrase Stephen Page, the weight of the ghosts of Faber’s past is more than a little daunting. I can only hope that I will not disappoint.

Conversations with Writers: What sets An Elegy for Easterly apart from other things you've written?

Petina Gappah: This is the first book that I have published, so unlike the other 'novels' and book ideas in my head, notebooks or computer, it is word made solid, corporeal, concrete.

Conversations with Writers: What will the next one be about?

Petina Gappah: My next book is called The Book of Memory. If all goes well, it will be published in August 2010. It is set in Salisbury/Harare between 1960 and 2000.

That is as much as I will say as I do not want to jinx it by waxing lyrical prematurely. The last novel I talked about enthusiastically died from all the exposure.

Conversations with Writers: Who is your target audience?

Petina Gappah: I do not have a target audience. My work is for anyone who enjoys reading.

Conversations with Writers: What would you say has been your most significant achievement as a writer?

Petina Gappah: I would say it is being published by Faber. Oh, and being read, and approved, by J. M. Coetzee. That is a huge achievement.

* Petina Gappah is a Zimbabwean lawyer and author. Her works include An Elegy for Easterly and Laughing Now.
* This interview was originally published by Conversations with Writers.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Review of the African Blogosphere – April 30, 2009

Dibussi Tande

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/55921

Shoot condemns the complacency of South Africa towards the Swine Flu outbreak:
“Gauteng seems to me to be far too complacent. The media, the government, the authorities. If a Phase 5 is announced (and it's probably imminent) we are going to see a lot of people rushing around for food and facemasks. Even the news bulletins are only now putting Swine Flu first up. There needs to be a lot of heads-up information, and people should start to think about stocking up in case of a global lockdown. When there is one single swine flu case in South Africa there is likely to be an unprecedented response. Local authorities ought to behave with the sort of urgency as though this had already happened.

The topic needs to be openly discussed and regularly updated.”



Using the Bird Flu outbreak of a couple of years ago as a reference, Aloysius Agendia, in the article Upstation Station Mountain Club, warns not against complacency, but against misinformation and overzealousness in dealing with the Swine Flu:
“Two years ago, the government of Cameroon without carefully examining the causes and the most adequate methods of preventing any bird flu quickly raised a terrible alarm which sent poultry farmers panicking. The press private press was no better because of the irrational relay of information on the disease from various western and other media organs. These media organs presented Africa as too vulnerable...
In Lebialem, a village in the Southwest province of Cameroon, the divisional officer… called on villagers to kill all their live stock so as to prevent any epidemic. It was a pity...
Poultry firms lost billions. Thousand of trays of eggs were destroyed, same as chicken. Some poultry firms went bankrupt. Many employees were laid off... All this because information on the disease was not well managed. Instead of embarking on prevention/ education measures, government and a badly equipped press in Cameroon disseminated information which caused more harm than good.”

A Nairobian's Perspective! revisits last year's killing and maiming of albinos in Tanzania:
“It was indeed sad to see the killings were being done under mistaken advice by witchdoctors that magic portions made from skins of persons impaired by albinism could make one rich. The clamour to get rich fueled the trade and even persons impaired by Albinism in Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi even came under threat from the "lucrative" trade!

…While it is true that the killings and murders have abated and that the Tanzanian Government was firm and took stern actions against suspected perpetrators... the truth is that the issue is a social problem that affects many Countries within the East African region. It is sad that in so many ways persons with certain disabilities continued to be discriminated against or even ignored by the Governments.
As we look back at that spate of killings it is imperative to ask what can be done to ensure that a repeat attack or an underground trade in human body parts of albino impaired persons does not flourish? You and I have a part to play no matter where we live or originate from!”

In Welcome to Kumasi Enoch Darfah Frimpong comments on the floods that have inundated Kumasi in recent weeks:

“Last week, residents were at the receiving end of yet another torrential rainfall, which caused serious damages to properties amounting to thousands of cedis, as a result of poor planning and the bad drainage system of the city… Kumasi was not prepared for the floods…

Residents have meanwhile blamed city authorities for allocating lands on waterways to private developers, thereby preventing rivers from flowing freely anytime there is a heavy downpour.

The National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), have in the past warned residents in the metropolis about the devastating effects of rains and cautioned against building on waterways…”

Inari Media wonders whether Kenyan bloggers can earn a living out of blogging:

“The Kenyan blogosphere is both international and local. The most popular blogs are written not just by those in the country but also in the Diaspora… This presents a problem when looking for advertising. Although a blogger may be willing to gamble that their audience is primarily Kenyan, there’s also the question of where the audience is reading from. Should they sign up to an ad network that caters to a Western or Kenyan audience?

I’ve noticed quite a few Kenyan blogs running on the Blogger platform that take advantage of AdSense with no overhead, and there are also those who run Google ads on their own domains. At the same time, other Kenyan blogs run “local” (Kenyan based) ads, while others still seem to prefer the sponsored post option. Are they making any money from their blogs? I can’t say. What I do know is that there isn’t likely to be any real opportunity for Kenyans to earn money from blogging until there is an ad network that can take advantage of the dual-aspect market that Kenyan bloggers cater to.”


Scribbles from the Den publishes excerpts of a recent interview by Cameroon's Minister of Communications who is under investigation after he deposited funds meant for the media coverage of the Pope's visit into his personal bank account:

“It is February 26, 2009… That afternoon, I was expecting a treasury check [from the Minister of Finance]…. Instead of the treasury check, three brawny fellows delivered a bag containing 250 millions Francs CFA to my office...

I freak out at the thought of having that much money in my office. My desire is to get that money out of my office and to secure it as quickly as possible…

Where the hell did they want me to put this money? If I wanted to embezzle the money, I would have hidden it in my village…

I am serene. I did not kill anyone. Perhaps I committed a management error... but I have explained what I did with the money, and people saw the results. I am untroubled… if the legal system of my country considers that I have committed a crime, I am right here.”

* 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/

Authorities continue persecution of political activists

2009-04-30

http://tinyurl.com/c3yjyn

The authorities in Zimbabwe have continued their persecution of two officials of the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Gandhi Mudzingwa and Kisimusi Dhlamini have been detained under armed police guard in a Harare hospital since 20 April, despite having been released on bail on 17 April.

Gono sponsors Herald ad admitting he stole money from farmers

2009-04-30

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news290409/gonoad290409.htm

Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, battling to block an investigation into his alleged illegal activities at the bank, has splashed out cash to sponsor a 20 page supplement in the state owned Herald newspaper on Monday. In the advert Gono, who is accused by Finance Minister Tendai Biti of running a parallel government structure, admitted raiding US$18 million that was meant to go into the accounts of tobacco farmers. This he did without their authority. On top of owing wheat farmers US$2 million the governor has already admitted taking more than US$30 million from accounts belonging to the country’s gold mines.

IMF to offer 'technical assistance' to Zimbabwe

2009-04-30

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/pages/imf44.19735.html

The board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was meeting on Monday to discuss Zimbabwe, an official said. The IMF’s Africa Department Director Antoinette Sayeh added that the financial institution is satisfied with the progress made so far by the inclusive government and as such it would offer “small, technical assistance” in due course and encouraged other donors to follow suit.

Mugabe agrees to swear in Bennett but only after court acquittal

2009-04-30

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=20724

The three principals in the unity government, Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, have met five times recently to discuss the controversies surrounding the implementation of the Global Political Agreement, but they have still failed to come up with a solution. Observers say this ‘dilly-dallying’ has been part of Zanu PF's strategy to wear the MDC down while not addressing the fundamental issues.

Urban residents left behind by dollarization

2009-04-30

http://www.ipsterraviva.net/europe/article.aspx?id=7310

Cash-strapped residents of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city are digging in their heels and refusing to pay utility bills despite the municipality teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. At the heart of the dispute are dismal service delivery and the conundrum of using multiple currencies in an economy that boasts world record inflation.

Who should write Zimbabwe’s constitution?

2009-04-30

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news290409/zimcons290409.htm

The making of a new constitution is slowly turning into one big fight. That our country needs to revitalise itself is in no doubt, and the fact that it needs a constitutional overhaul is also a well known fact. But the road to constitutional reform is full of landmines, and more will be planted if threats by the National Constitutional Assembly and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions are to be taken seriously.

Zimbabwe assets face seizure after tribunal rules for farmers

2009-04-30

http://tinyurl.com/dj6gps

The decision by the Washington-based International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) came after a six-year legal battle between a group of Dutch farmers and President Robert Mugabe's government. It finally ruled last week that Mr Mugabe's government had broken a bilateral investment treaty with the Netherlands and awarded the group more than £14 million in compensation.

Africa: Akina Mama wa Afrika launches 3-year project

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/55936

On 29th April 2009, Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA), a Pan-African International non-governmental organization based in Kampala, Uganda launched a 3-year project on “The Power of Women’s Leadership and Movement Building: Gender Based Violence and Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Conflict and Post Conflict Africa”. This regional project will be implemented in Central Africa (Democratic Republic of Congo) and Western Africa (Sierra Leone) and is supported by a grant from the MDG3 Fund, an initiative of the Netherlands Government.
AKINA MAMA wa AFRIKA

PRESS RELEASE

Regional Consultative Meeting:

The Power of Women’s Leadership and Movement Building:
Gender Based Violence and Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Conflict and Post Conflict Africa
28th- 29th April, 2009

On 29th April 2009, Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA), a Pan-African International non-governmental organization based in Kampala, Uganda will launch a 3-year project on “The Power of Women’s Leadership and Movement Building: Gender Based Violence and Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Conflict and Post Conflict Africa”. This regional project will be implemented in Central Africa (Democratic Republic ofCongo) and Western Africa (Sierra Leone) and is supported by a grant from the MDG3 Fund, an initiative of the Netherlands Government. The overall objective of project is to contribute to improved formulation and implementation of gender responsive policies at national and regional levels that reflect African women’s experiences in conflict situations.

The project will be launched by the Netherlands Ambassador to Uganda at a Reception Dinner on 29th April 2009 at 6.30pm. The project launch will be the climax of a Regional Consultative Meeting hosted by AMwA and attended by over 30 partners from over 5 countries in Africa who will be gathered at Munyonyo Commonwealth Speke Resort from 28th – 29th April 2009 to deliberate on women’s leadership in the context of gender based violence and sexual and reproductive rights in conflict and post-conflict countries in Africa.

“AMwA is proud to be a recipient of the Millennium Development Goal3 Fund, which is a long-awaited initiative that heeds the calls from women’s movements across the world for the scaling up of funding for women’s empowerment and gender equality. In this time of financial crisis, women still continue to face violence and we – governments, donors and NGOs - need to direct all our resources to addressing and eliminating violence against women”, says Solome Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe, Executive Director, Akina Mama wa Afrika.

In several African countries, women’s sexuality and sexual and reproductive health and rights are controlled and subjugated by men under the pretext of culture, norms, morality and religion. Armed conflict worsens the violations of women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. These violations include physical, gynaecological, psychological/emotional trauma and other complications such as: unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, prolonged tears, urinary fistula, faecal fistula, chronic sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS, rejection/stigma from their families and communities, post traumatic stress disorders, depression and suicidal attempts. In most post-conflict countries, many reconstruction, peace building and rehabilitation initiatives hardly address the women's sexual and reproductive health and rights.

When it comes to women’s peace and security, Africa’s current leadership is lagging behind in its accountability to women. In spite of the effects of armed conflict on women as victims and perpetrators, they have not meaningfully been involved in decision-making around peace-building, rehabilitation and reconstruction. It is therefore imperative that women are equipped with leaderships skills to enable them to ensure that government policies, programs and budgets protect women’s rights, particularly in the context of peace and security as stipulated in national, regional and international human rights standards such as UN Resolution 1325; UN Resolution 1820 the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Protocol), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Beijing Platform for Action.

For more information, please contact Solome Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe, Executive Director, AMwA at solome@amwa-ea.org / amwa@amwa-ea.org; Tel: +256414543681 /0752 463154

Angola: No law to stop domestic violence

2009-04-30

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=46672

Teresa Barros’ problems started last year with the death of her baby. "Our youngest daughter died," Barros (38) explained. "My husband blames me, and now he drinks a lot and picks fights and makes confusion." "My family won’t do anything. They said my other children need their father, and I must stay with him. But it’s desperate, I can’t go on like this," she added.

Malawi: Group sues government over abortion rights

2009-04-30

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=46671

An influential women rights organisation in Malawi, Women in Law in Southern Africa-Malawi (WILSA-Malawi), is suing the government of Malawi for preventing women from accessing safe abortion. Malawian law prohibits abortion - Section 149 of the country’s penal code says any person who administers abortion shall be liable to imprisonment for 14 years, while Section 150 indicates that any woman who solicits abortion is liable to seven years imprisonment.

South Africa: Election coverage through a gender lens

Colleen Lowe Morna

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/55983

World Press Freedom Day on 3 May comes just a few days after the dust has settled on the 22 April South African elections. While some have bemoaned the lack of depth in media coverage, the elections and media coverage have - by and large - been certified as free and fair. But how true is that when viewed through a gender lens? We start from the premise that freedom of expression means that all views and voices are heard.
South Africa: Election coverage through a gender lens

By Colleen Lowe Morna

30 April, Johannesburg; World Press Freedom Day on 3 May comes just a few days after the dust has settled on the 22 April South African elections. While some have bemoaned the lack of depth in media coverage, the elections and media coverage have - by and large - been certified as free and fair.

But how true is that when viewed through a gender lens? We start from the premise that freedom of expression means that all views and voices are heard. Formal censorship is but one way in which certain voices are silenced. A far more pervasive and worrying form of silencing is when the views and voices of certain segments of the society are persistently and systematically excluded from the media. That is more often than not the case with gender.

Gender Links in partnership with Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) is continuing monitoring of election coverage until 15 May and will conduct a debate on the findings with key editors and stakeholders before releasing a comprehensive report at the end of this month.

But the trends are fairly clear. On the plus side, while women constituted only 10 percent of all sources in the 1994 elections, that figure has risen to 24%. That is higher than the global average of 21% women news sources in the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) of 2005. But considering that women now constitute 45% of members of parliament, and 52% of society, the inescapable conclusion is that we are only half way to where we need to be.

The stock response from editors to these kinds of numbers is that they report that which is newsworthy. Sure, most political parties are led by men. But the official opposition Democratic Alliance is led by Helen Zille. And the ruling African National Congress (ANC) spokesperson Jesse Duarte is a woman.

What about the voters? How often were their views consulted? Was coverage shaped around hot button issues like poverty, education, crime, gender violence, HIV and AIDS? If it were, surely the voices of women would have rung loud and clear, had anyone bothered to consult them.

Qualitative monitoring conducted by GL has yielded several examples of blatant gender stereotypes such as the prominent coverage given to Zille admitting that she used Botox (Sunday Times, 28 December); references to Zille as the “poster girl” and references to COPE leader Mbalima Shilowa’s wife Wendy Luhabe as the “Sugar behind Shikota” (Mail and Guardian, 31 October).

The male dominance of politics has been underscored by several articles bearing the headline “all the President’s Men” (for example the 28 August cover of Financial Times; and an article in The Star on 7 April). Several other articles bearing the title “all the presidents’ women” such as the Sunday Independent on 25 January and The Star on 26 January referred to rumours and allegations concerning a young woman said to be carrying the baby of President Kgalema Motlanthe, who is separated from his wife.

Media watchdogs such as the Freedom of Expression Institute have bemoaned the lack of depth and issue coverage in the elections; this also reflects in the coverage of gender issues which constituted a mere 2.4% of election coverage. For example, much of the media focus on President-elect Jacob Zuma’s polygamous life style centred on who would be the first lady and what it would cost tax payers to have such an extensive first family rather than what this reflects about his views on the Constitution and women’s rights.

To its credit the Mail and Guardian ran an opinion piece by Gender Links on the subject that prompted several on-line responses. SABC International hosted a debate on the subject with two for and two against, in front of a regional audience and with questions phoned in by viewers across Africa.

Sexist comments like ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema’s offside on women who are raped not asking for taxi money in the morning prompted spirited debate and a well positioned piece in the Mail and Guardian (30 January). This in turn prompted a debate on whether or not the personal is political.

The Mail and Guardian Critical Thinking Forum partnered with Gender Links, the Human Rights Commission and Constitution Hill in posing this question to a panel of all the political parties, providing the substance for a special supplement on Gender and the Elections by the Mail and Guardian (20 March). Throughout the period GL ran Gender and Leadership debates that resulted in a checklist of transformative leadership to be circulated shortly.

Several newspapers ran lengthy profiles of prominent women in politics, including new and emerging leaders in opposition parties. Examples include “Copes eager new girl on the block (Lynda Odendaal) in the Sunday Independent on 21 December; “Woman with her heals on the ground” (Wendy Luhabe) in the Sunday Independent of 9 November; “The love of my country has guided me” (COPE’s Lyndal Shope) in The Star 7 November; “On the campaign with superwoman” (Helen Zille) in the Saturday Star of 18 April and “Die-hard had to eat her words” (former Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka) in the Sunday Independent of 29 April.

While white male commentators and analysts predominated in all media, the Mail and Guardian is to be congratulated for its frequent use of black female experts and opinion shapers like Nikiwe Bikitsha and Phumla Gobodo-Madikizela who shed refreshing views on the issues (like the Sunday lunch disputes in Bikitsha’s home over whether to vote COPE or ANC).

The Mail and Guardian also consistently consulted “ordinary” women and men in equal numbers for their views on the elections. The newspaper’s election cover, showing Zuma and Zille, and flagging a supplement on women’s economic empowerment, is an example of the gender balance that GL and media partners who promote gender equality in and through the media hope will be achieved in future coverage. If women constitute half the population, it’s not too much to ask that they be equally seen and heard in the news!

* Colleen Lowe Morna is executive director of Gender Links. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service.

Sudan: New initiative to empower and protect Darfur women

2009-04-30

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30637

Ensuring gender equality and promoting the participation of women in the search for peace in Darfur are among the aims of a new initiative launched by the United Nations in the strife-torn Sudanese region. Under a cooperation agreement announced today, police serving with the joint African Union-UN hybrid operation in Darfur (UNAMID) will team up with the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) to support innovative measures to boost the standing of women in the region.

Guinea: Rein in soldiers

2009-04-30

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/04/27/guinea-rein-soldiers

Guinean soldiers have been implicated in regular acts of theft and violence against businesspeople and ordinary citizens since a new government took power in a military coup in December 2008, Human Rights Watch has said. The new government should put a stop to these attacks and make certain that the police, gendarmerie, and judiciary carry out independent investigations and prosecute implicated soldiers.

Kenya: Govenrment cannot fail to prosecute extra-judicial killings

2009-04-30

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=46636

When stock is taken of the Kenyan coalition government’s first year in office no marks will be awarded to its handling of extra-judicial killings in the country. Human rights activists claim that the police have murdered about 500 people in the past 16 months. The government, constituted after a mediation process between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s parties following a disputed presidential poll in December 2007, has dithered on its pledge that it would address the killings.

Kenya: Human rights activist Bantu Mwaura found dead

2009-04-30

http://www.eastandard.net/InsidePage.php?id=1144012682&cid=418

Police are investigating the death of a human rights activist and university lecturer Bantu Mwaura, whose body was found outside his gate at Sunlight estate in Nairobi’s Lang’ata area, on Monday morning. Sources said that family members of Bantu, who was also a renowned thespian, director, poet and storyteller, had reported him missing on Friday. Bantu was a respected poet whose work in English, Kiswahili and Gikuyu has been published in several journals.

Nigeria: ‘ShellGuilty’ Campaign launched as Shell trial date confirmed

2009-04-30

http://tinyurl.com/cvkc5n

Days after a judge confirmed Shell Oil will stand trial here May 26 on charges it was complicit in the murders of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Nigerian activists, environmental and human rights groups announced they have formed a global campaign to hold Shell accountable and demand that it stop gas flaring in Nigeria.

Sierra Leone: Special court wraps up - Justice done?

2009-04-30

http://www.ipsterraviva.net/europe/article.aspx?id=7311

On April 8, the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone passed sentences on three former commanders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), bringing to an end the trials of militia leaders deemed responsible for atrocities committed during the country's bloody civil war, fought from 1991 to 2002. Issa Sesay, the interim leader of the RUF after the death of its founder Foday Sankoh, field commander Morris Kallon and chief of security Augustine Gbao were found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and serious violations of international humanitarian law. The three were slammed with a total of 117 years in prison.

Southern Africa: Shelters struggle with rising food costs

Cindy Dzanya

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/55960

Most people across Southern Africa, and globally, are feeling the pinch of the current economic crisis. For many families, the escalating cost of food means fewer trips to the grocery store. Yet for social service organisations with many mouths to feed, such as shelters for children or places of safety for women and girls, the economic crisis has hit even harder.
Shelters struggle with rising food costs

By Cindy Dzanya

Most people across Southern Africa, and globally, are feeling the pinch of the current economic crisis. For many families, the escalating cost of food means fewer trips to the grocery store. Yet for social service organisations with many mouths to feed, such as shelters for children or places of safety for women and girls, the economic crisis has hit even harder.

The rising food prices affect most countries, but strike the poorest and most vulnerable people in developing countries hardest. Consumers are now spending more than they used to before, for the same products. This holds true for organisations. To make matters worse, with less disposable income for almost everyone, donations are also drying up.

Like many across the region, organisations in Johannesburg are finding their cash stretched to the limit. For example, According to Janine Delange from Ikhaya Lethemba, place of safety for women and children, they shelter used to spend R4000 on food, but now they are spending R6000 which is “excessively too much” on their tight budget. Themba Mahlobo of the Strathyre Home for Girls concurs, “It has been difficult for us as we are now spending much more than we used to.”

Organisations are finding they need to spend more, with less support. According to Nicole Tiny, a volunteer at Christ Church Christian Care Centre, as a non-profit, the organisation depends heavily on donations, which tend to dry up in difficult times. “If people around the world are tightening their belts, then it’s going to affect us in terms of financial donations,” said Tiny. “Funders, such as organisations and companies, are saying they cannot afford to give as much as they used to.”

The shelter provides a lifeline for children who would otherwise face abandonment and neglect, often living on the streets. The children are given accommodation, access to education and food; some stay in care until they are grown and independent, through tertiary education, until they gain employment.

Stephanie Burnet CEO and Co-founder of Jabulani Khakibos Kids said in an interview that some funders who were helping them before have said they could not help anymore. This, along with a cut in their school grant from the Department of Social Welfare means it is very tight with no money for food in the budget.

Burnet is thankful that many generous people have stepped in to help, despite their own financial difficulties. “Somebody is helping us now with fruits and vegetables,” she says, “and now we praying asking the lord to help us find someone who gives us meat, which will be fabulous.”

According to Director Narisha Govender of The Johannesburg Children’s Home, the economic crisis hugely affects their operations. Though they receive subsidies from the Department of Social Welfare, as well as some corporate donors, they have noticed a decline in terms of donations received for the home.

Govender states that though everyone is suffering from the economic changes, it is particularly difficult for charities and non-governmental organisations. This has meant changes in the way they operate. Though they struggle with the financial and food crisis, this has not stopped such organisations from welcoming more women and children. Rather, they are being a bit more creative about how they use what they have.

“We have been educating our staff in terms of the recession and how we have to learn to cut back,” explains Govender. “We can’t afford to waste, so we have been trying to cut back on things. We have introduced new menus in the kitchen, especially with food. We have also introduced quite a bit of traditional meals with the kids.”

For Gugu Mofoteng, a survivor of domestic violence and volunteer at People Opposing Women Abuse (POWA), her dream of opening a shelter for abused women has been shattered by the current crisis. “I cannot open a shelter for abused women as I had planned to do because of financial problem and food prices have gone too high, laments Mofoteng.

Although most of us are finding the financial crisis quite hard, there are still many others spending lots of money and still able to afford such luxuries as eating in expensive places. Perhaps everyone needs to care about what things cost. Prices vary on different products, and maybe be comparing prices before buying, those who can save a little bit, and pass along to people who are struggling, especially the shelters and homes that house so many people.

* Cindy Dzanya is a project assistant with CMFD Productions in Johannesburg. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service that provides fresh views on everyday news.

Sudan: Death sentences rise to 82

2009-04-30

http://tinyurl.com/dnyfro

A special court in Sudan sentenced a further 11 men to death on Sunday. The alleged members of the Darfur-based armed opposition group, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), were found guilty of involvement in an attack against the Sudanese government in Khartoum on 10 May 2008. The attack is reported to have killed over 220 people.

Tanzania: Over 2,000 Isles children rescued from child labour

2009-04-30

http://www.dailynews.co.tz/home/?n=1457

At least 2,400 children have been rescued from ‘hazardous’ work in Zanzibar; the Isles Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Employment, Youths, Children, and Women Ms Rahma Mshangama, has revealed. Officiating at celebration to mark 90 years of International Labour Organization (ILO) at Bwawani Hotel, Ms Mshangama said the children included those engaged in fishing and seaweed farming.

Uganda: Open secret

Illegal Detention and Torture by the Joint Anti-terrorism Task Force in Uganda

2009-04-30

http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/04/08/open-secret-0

This 89-page report documents the task force's abusive response to alleged rebel and terrorist activity by unlawfully detaining and brutally torturing suspects.Human Rights Watch found that agents of JATT, as it is known, carry out arrests wearing civilian clothes with no identifying insignia and do not inform suspects of the reasons for their arrest. The agents force suspects into unmarked cars, blindfolded and handcuffed, and take them to JATT's headquarters in Kololo, a rich suburb of Kampala. Many are then taken to military intelligence headquarters in Kitante for further brutal interrogations.

Mauritania: More than 10,000 return home from Senegal

2009-04-30

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30634

The number of Mauritanian refugees that have returned home from years of exile in Senegal under a programme launched by the United Nations refugee agency last year has now topped 10,000. Amath Thioye was named the 10,000th returnee and was part of a convoy carrying 360 Mauritanians that arrived in the town of Boghé in southwest Brakna province last week, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

South Africa: Stop deporting Zimbabweans

2009-04-30

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/04/30/south-africa-stop-deporting-zimbabweans

The South African government should immediately halt detaining and deporting Zimbabweans from South Africa in violation of the government's recently announced moratorium, Human Rights Watch has said. Police in the town of Musina, close to the Zimbabwean border, continue to detain Zimbabweans at a military base and then deport them.

Morocco: Workers set to air grievances on Labour Day

2009-04-30

http://tinyurl.com/cfah89

Trade unions are preparing to mobilise in force for this year's Labour Day activities in Morocco. The holiday falls in the run-up to union elections scheduled for May 14th-19th. During the pre-campaign period, regional union branches are making banners and recruiting people for the annual parades that will take place across the country on Friday (May 1st), especially in the major cities.

Tanzania: Police ban demonstration in Zanzibar

2009-04-30

http://www.dailynews.co.tz/home/?n=1542

Police in Zanzibar have banned a Muslim group from demonstrating in the islands in support of the recent move by Zanzibar legislators to demand ‘oil and natural gas’ be removed from the list of union matters. The Association for Islamic Mobilisation and Propagation (JUMUKI) had notified the police of their plan to demonstrate Friday in what they termed as “to show our support to Zanzibar government and legislators on ‘oil and natural gas’ issue.”

Cote d'Ivoire: Polls 'by December'

2009-04-30

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8024506.stm

Ivory Coast's ambassador to the United Nations has said his country's much-postponed presidential election will take place by the end of this year. Ilahiri Djedje told the UN Security Council the vote, due since President Laurent Gbagbo's mandate ran out in 2005, would be held by 6 December. Efforts have been continuing to reunify the country after a civil war that left half of it in rebel hands.

Africa: Three Africa leaders to account for wealth in France

2009-04-30

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/africa/-/1066/592374/-/13nl33az/-/index.html

Presidents of oil-producing African countries who are close allies of France are not used to questions being asked about their luxury cars or their homes in chic parts of Paris, but that is changing fast. French anti-corruption activists are trying to prod the justice system into questioning how the leaders of Gabon, Congo Republic and Equatorial Guinea and their families could afford to acquire assets worth tens of millions of euros in France.

Zimbabwe: Zanu PF in currency scandal

2009-04-30

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=20723

In every country, bank notes carry unique serial numbers which are never reapeated, except, it seems, in Zimbabwe. Dealers in the USA, Germany and South Africa who sell pristine-quality paper money to collectors are turning up Zimbabwe dollar notes with duplicate numbers, especially on the $100bn "Agro-cheques" that were released last year.

Africa: African countries urge rich nations to put early end to financial crisis

2009-04-30

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-04/26/content_11257801.htm

African countries are mostly victims of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression in the 1930s, and the developed countries, which are responsible for the current global financial crisis, should take necessary steps to make the crisis duration as short as possible, several African finance ministers have said.

Africa: Somalia wins over $200m in Brussels donors' conference

2009-04-30

http://euobserver.com/13/28001

Somalia won pledges of over $200 million from international donors on Thursday,23 April, to support increased security within the country.A total of $213 million (€165m) was committed at a joint United-Nations, European Union and African Union donors' conference in Brussels, with the European Commission pledging €72 million of the figure.

Africa: WTO members pledge to assist poor countries in crisis

2009-04-30

http://tinyurl.com/daoaqk

Poor countries, including Kenya, are to receive financial support to develop and diversify exports when the ongoing trade negotiations under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are concluded. WTO members have pledged to assist Least Developed Country (LDC) members in addressing their supply side capacity constraints, as well as the challenges that will occur due to increased competition as tariff rates used to protect their economies drop, once the Doha Round is concluded.

East Africa: Leaders for crucial talks

2009-04-30

http://www.dailynews.co.tz/business/?n=1592&cat=business

The five East African Community (EAC) partner presidents from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi are scheduled to meet in Arusha to peep into what has so far been achieved in the negotiations for the establishment of the EA Common Market Protocol, envisaged to commence early next year. The EAC Deputy Secretary General (projects and programmes), Ambassador Julius Onen, who has been at the forefront of the negotiations, was optimistic that the talks so far have been encouraging since the first session in November 2008 in Uganda.

Global: Can the IMF now feed the world?

2009-04-30

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/26/imf-g20-lending-global/print

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the dapper former French finance minister who runs the International Monetary Fund, is finding it hard to conceal a certain swagger in Washington this weekend. If there is one big winner from the wrenching financial crisis of the past year, and the scramble by shell-shocked governments to tackle the turmoil, it is the IMF.

Kenya: Northen Kenya: A new approach

Social cohesion and social change: building bridges of understanding

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/55930

The Ministry of State for Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands is tasked with addressing the ‘unique challenges’ facing its area of responsibility. These challenges have their roots deep in Kenya’s past, and specifically in the creation of the Northern Frontier District by the colonial regime.
Social cohesion and social change: building bridges of understanding


The Ministry of State for Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands is tasked with addressing the ‘unique challenges’ facing its area of responsibility. These challenges have their roots deep in Kenya’s past, and specifically in the creation of the Northern Frontier District by the colonial regime. This set in motion a pattern of uneven and separate development which resulted in significant inequalities in the enjoyment of basic rights between those in the north of country and those elsewhere, as well as a gulf in understanding between different Kenyan communities.


The Ministry is concerned not just with improving the material conditions of life in Northern Kenya but with tackling the underlying causes of impoverishment and exclusion. This will only be possible when there is greater understanding and empathy between social groups in Kenya, and when this understanding and empathy in turn shapes public policy choices. The violence which followed the 2007 elections showed the risks of ignoring inequality and social fragmentation, and the significance of these issues to the future of the nation. Organisations such as the Centre for Multi-Party Democracy are already implementing programmes which address this central concern.


The Ministry intends to lead and facilitate a process whereby diverse citizens’ groups, civil society networks, private sector organisations and communication professionals, as well as the people of Northern Kenya, can come together to debate these issues and to design and deliver a long-term strategy that will enhance social cohesion. While government leadership is critical, these are not issues in which government has a core competence, hence the intention to work in partnership with others.

Africa: Africa's disease burden could conceal swine flu cases

2009-04-30

http://tinyurl.com/d9elmo

Researchers in Africa fear they may not be able to identify swine flu cases swiftly enough to prevent the spread of infection because there are so many diseases around with similar symptoms. Although swine flu has spread from Mexico to several other continents it has not yet been reported in Africa and in some respects the continent is well prepared, say researchers. Rapid response teams are accustomed to reacting to diseases such as meningitis and Rift Valley fever, as well as completely unknown new infections.

Global: Economic downturn puts treatment of millions at risk

2009-04-30

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84171

After months of speculation about how the global economic downturn might affect HIV/AIDS programmes, a new World Bank report details the projected aftermath of the crisis and how it could place the treatment of more than 1.7 million at risk by year's end. Drug shortages, treatment interruptions and higher burdens of AIDS-related diseases are just some of the grim predictions for developing countries, laid out in a recently released report, Averting a Human Crisis During the Global Downturn: Policy Options from the World Bank's Human Development Network.

Global: Swine Flu: WHO raises pandemic status

2009-04-30

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/AMMF-7RKSM7?OpenDocument

Based on assessment of all available information, and following several expert consultations, it has been decided to raise the current level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5. Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world.

Global: World Bank: Financial crisis threatens HIV treatment for 1.7 million

2009-04-30

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/5C5851A4-C7AD-4A6E-85A7-111661B4CC2E.asp

Up to 1.7 million people in Africa, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and Asia are at risk of antiretroviral treatment interruption due to the global financial downturn, according to a survey published by the World Bank.The World Bank report Averting a human crisis during the global downturn was published in advance of the World Bank’s spring meeting in Washington DC.

Tanzania: Zanzibar medics want proper malaria diagnosis

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/55927

Zanzibar marks the International Malaria Day this week with a remarkable record of combating the disease in the isles, as medical authorities put emphasis on ‘proper malaria diagnosis before treatment or using medicine.” “Some people including medical practitioners prescribe malaria treatment before diagnosis,” medical practitioners said here yesterday at one-day workshop on “updating journalists about malaria in Zanzibar. Malaria prevalence in Zanzibar has dropped from 40 per cent in 2004 to one per cent or less in 2007, according to Zanzibar Malaria Control Programme (ZMCP) statistics.

Global: World Bank doubles education spending

2009-04-30

http://www.afrol.com/articles/33112

The World Bank has announced it was doubling its education financing this year in low- and middle-income countries to $4.09 billion to help poor countries battle threats to their education systems during the global economic crisis. The announcement came as the Bank released a new report that describes how developing countries are increasingly using private education organizations - such as faith-based organisations, local communities, NGOs, private for-profit institutions, and not-for profit schools - to help deliver education services.

Zimbabwe: Teachers threaten to strike over pay

2009-04-30

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=5557

Zimbabwe's teachers have vowed to go on strike when the new school term begins next week after government reneged on a pledge to increase their salaries. "There has not been any concrete response to address the issue of teachers salaries," Tendai Chikowore, president of the Zimbabwe Teachers' Association told AFP. "We issued an ultimatum to the minister to say if the issues of remuneration of teachers are not addressed before schools open, teachers will not report for work."

Kenya: Update on the assault against Faith Onyimbo

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/lgbti/55931

The accused, Constance Rukia, was taken to court on Monday and charged with assault causing bodily harm (under section 251 of the Penal Code). The case will be mentioned on Monday April 27 at the Chief Magistrate’s Court. So far, COVAW and KHRC are the only organizations that have officially agreed to watch brief for the case and several activists have written statements of support on internet listservs in reaction to the hate crime that happened last week. We would like to see a bigger show of solidarity particularly from within civil society
Update on the assault against Faith Onyimbo

The accused, Constance Rukia, was taken to court on Monday and charged with assault causing bodily harm (under section 251 of the Penal Code). The case will be mentioned on Monday April 27 at the Chief Magistrate’s Court.

So far, COVAW and KHRC are the only organizations that have officially agreed to watch brief for the case and several activists have written statements of support on internet listservs in reaction to the hate crime that happened last week. We would like to see a bigger show of solidarity particularly from within civil society

We also want to acknowledge the support of the 2 police officers involved in the case that have taken the violent incident seriously and promised to apprehend the two bouncers involved in this case.

The principal witness in the case identified one of the men who was holding Faith when she got hit on the head by the accused, and who tried to help her escape. We gave his name to the police this morning, and they have promised to apprehend the bouncer and bring him into the station within the next few days. We are waiting to see the two men brought to justice soon.

Faith left the hospital on Tuesday April 21 with a few stitches on her forehead and a badly bruised eye and was re-admitted in Nairobi Hospital yesterday after experiencing dizzy spells and black out sessions. Her condition is being monitored over the weekend and she will hopefully be discharged on Monday April 27th.

We are currently drafting an online petition that we will release on Friday May 1st in preparation for the commemoration of The International Day Against Homophobia on May 17th, this petition will call for laws criminalizing queerness and same sex acts to be repealed and we will present the petition and signatures to the AG chambers on Monday May18th.

Ways that you can support:

1. Come to the courts on Monday April 27th from 9am in solidarity.
2. Sign the online petition and circulate it widely: We urge all members of the community, friends and allies, organizations working within civil society for social justice and human rights and all our supporters in the cause to sign the petition and circulate it widely.
3. We need to make a public stand in the defense of ALL African people’s liberation and queer/trans rights. We need to make it consistently known that we will not condone violence against women & trans people and that we will not stand to see any of our sisters and brothers having their rights violated, while we are quiet or complacent.

Join us in the struggle. Africa Huru!

For further information:

Alix Mukonambi – MWA
Molisa.bwisa@gmail.com

Pouline Kimani – MWA/GALCK
Poul85@gmail.com

Global: Anti-racism conference winds down amid NGO expulsions

2009-04-30

http://www.hrea.org/index.php?base_id=2&language_id=1&headline_id=9078

The United Nations anti-racism conference in Geneva concluded its general debate after hearing statements on new forms of racist discrimination and expelling three non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for disruptive behaviour. A number of the UN agencies spoke at the five-day Durban Review Conference, which comes to a close tomorrow, including the International Labour Organization (ILO), which warned that saying no to racism in the work is key to promoting respect, tolerance and inclusiveness.

Africa: Two African projects named winners of climate grants

2009-04-30

http://www.afrol.com/articles/33110

A Mozambican green community project and a Kenyan forest project have today been named as winners in the climate grants awards. Together with a third winner from Peru, the Nhambita Community Carbon Project, Mozambique and the Kakamega Forest Again Project, Kenya would each get a US$ 35,000 grant that will help them spur the forest-based carbon offset projects.

West Africa: UN gathers experts to help farmers cope with climate change

2009-04-30

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30623

A United Nations-backed workshop aimed at identifying ways for West African farmers to limit the damaging effect climate change has on their livelihoods has kicked off in Burkina Faso. West Africa, home to 43 per cent of the total population of sub-Saharan Africa, is one of the most vulnerable regions to climate change in the world.

Global: EC provides €394 food security package for world's poor

2009-04-30

http://www.afrol.com/articles/33111

Four Southern African states will be covered in the new financing decision by the European Commission, under the food facility package for developing countries. Lesotho, Madagascar, Mozambique and Zambia will be among the 23 developing countries that will benefit from a support valued at € 194 million to projects and programmes aimed at boosting agriculture and improving the food security situation in the selected countries.

Africa: African journalists facing threats - FAJ

2009-04-30

http://tinyurl.com/cluk7d

Omar Faruk Osman, President FAJ Tuesday 21 April told a gathering of Human Rights Defenders in Kampala, Uganda, that journalists and media workers in Africa face series of threats ranging from safety and security, repressive laws, oppressive regimes, monopolies, bad labour practices and unfair competition.

Egypt: Blogger detained since October 2008

2009-04-30

http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/102679/

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) expressed its strong condemnation and dismay at the continued detention since 3 October 2008 of the Christian blogger, Hani Nazeer, by state security. His arrest was carried out in coordination with the Church in Naga Hammadi, his hometown in Qena Governorate. Nazeer is the author of the "Karz elhob".

Freedom for Dawit Isaak - Petition

2009-04-30

http://www.petitiononline.com/D_Isaak/

Dawit Isaak, a journalist,writer and playwright born 1964 in Eritrea came to Sweden as a refugee from the war in 1987 and became a Swedish citizen in 1992. When Eritrea gained independence, Dawit Isaak returned to his native country and became a part-owner of the country's first independent newspaper, Setit. Dawit Isaak was taken into custody on 23 september 2001. He has not been either charged formally or given a fair trial. Neither his family nor Swedish authorities nor international human rights organizations, International Journalist Association or International PEN have been allowed to visit him.

Mozambique: Journalist detained, another threatened

2009-04-30

http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/102689/

On 15 April 2009, MISA-Mozambique denounced the intimidation of two radio journalists in the northern province of Niassa, one of whom was illegally detained by the police. Felismino Jamissone is a producer for a community radio station in the Niassa district of Mecanhelas. He produces a programme on human rights, which has frequently interviewed Mecanhelas citizens who are severely critical of the police.

Nigeria: Radio station fined

2009-04-30

http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/102713/

On 27 April 2009, Nigeria's broadcast regulator, the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), fined private radio station Adaba FM 500,000 Naira (approx. US$3,350) for allegedly transmitting on 25 April "materials that were capable of inciting members of the public to violence and consequently leading to breakdown of law and order", while covering the re-run of the governorship elections in Ekiti State in the southwest.

Somalia: IFJ demands release of journalists, reopening of station

2009-04-30

http://tinyurl.com/cc5fyq

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called for the release of three journalists and the reopening of the private radio Jubbaa in Baidoa, Somalia. “The attacks on press freedom are becoming worse and worse in this country, especially with the Al Shabaab militia who have being doing everything to stifle the media” said Gabriel Baglo, Director of IFJ Africa Office, “the new government should take the necessary measures to protect journalists in order to guarantee press freedom and freedom of expression”.

CAR: Soldiers blamed for killings

2009-04-30

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8026123.stm

Army troops in the Central African Republic killed up to 30 civilians in February in the Ndele region, a BBC investigation has found. Witnesses say the government soldiers shot dead 21 people in the village of Sokumba, about 70km (44 miles) from the border with Chad. Other human rights abuses committed by both the national army and rebels have been reported in the area.

DRC: 100,000 civilians at risk of attack

2009-04-30

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/04/29/dr-congo-100000-civilians-risk-attack

More than 100,000 displaced civilians in Lubero territory in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo desperately need protection from further attacks by Rwandan militias and Congolese forces, Human Rights Watch has said. Human Rights Watch called on the United Nations peacekeeping force and humanitarian agencies to take urgent steps to increase protection and assistance to the civilians at risk.

Kenya: Poor rains to trigger 'severe' crisis

2009-04-30

http://tinyurl.com/c2g7u4

Fears are being expressed that another poor rainy season could lead to a 'severe' humanitarian crisis in Kenya. The Kenya meteorological department is predicting the long rains will be poorly distributed and too little. It follows an appeal from the government for food aid for up to ten million people.

Nigeria: Seizing the moment in the Niger Delta

2009-04-30

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6080&l=1

This latest policy briefing from the International Crisis Group, argues that the Technical Committee report submitted on 1 December 2008 represents the most promising effort to develop a coherent strategy in the Delta. It urges the government to seize the opportunity for ending armed conflict and beginning longer-term development in the oil-rich region.

Tanzania: Deadly blasts rock city

2009-04-30

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8024656.stm

An ammunition dump on the outskirts of the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam has exploded killing at least three people. The BBC's Vicky Ntetema in Dar es Salaam says hundreds of people have been injured as they fled in panic. Police say several buildings in the area were set alight by debris from the blasts at Mbagala army base.

East Afria: TEAMs begins laying cable as deadline looms

2009-04-30

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

Laying of the Sh10.4 billion ($130 million) undersea fibre optic cable -the East Africa Marine System (TEAMs)- started on Friday and is expected to take two months in a race to beat the June deadline. This follows inspection of the manufactured cables, trenching equipment and commissioning of the shore-end cable at the Fujairah port by board members of the TEAMs project in United Arab Emirates.

East Africa: Sembuse: East Africa’s first mobile social network

2009-04-30

http://whiteafrican.com/2009/04/26/sembuse-east-africas-first-mobile-social-network/

For 15% of the cost of a normal 160 character SMS message in Kenya you can now send one with 1000 characters in it. Sembuse is a mobile social network. It’s a way for East Africans to connect with each other via short messaging, cheaper than normal SMS messages (much like it’s counterpart Mxit in South Africa). It’s a new release by Symbiotic, a Kenyan firm that specializes in making mobile phone related applications.

Global: 'Quick 'n' Easy Guide to Online Advocacy'

2009-04-30

http://onlineadvocacy.tacticaltech.org/

This guide presents advocates with a collection of popular online services that can be used for advocacy quickly with little to no technical support. There are services for publishing photographs and video, for setting up a campaign blog or for using mobiles to communicate in a group. An amazing amount of functionality and tools are available simply by connecting to the Internet and opening up a web-browser. You don't need to have a lot of technical expertise to try some of these. You also don't need much money, these services are offered at low- to no-cost.

Global: KnowledgeTree pushes out new community edition

2009-04-30

http://www.tectonic.co.za/?p=4696

Open source document manager, KnowledgeTree, has released a new community edition of its application with a new text extraction engine and stability improvements. This latest release of the application, version 3.6 Community Edition, also includes a new core API and RESTful interface to improve application integration

Global: Mobiles in-a-box: Tools and tactics for mobile advocacy

2009-04-30

http://mobiles.tacticaltech.org/

Mobiles in-a-box from the Tactical Technology Collective is a collection of tools, tactics, how-to guides and case studies designed to help advocacy and activist organisations use mobile technology in their work. Mobiles in-a-box is designed to inspire you, to present possibilities for the use of mobile telephony in your work and to introduce you to some tools which may help you. After reading the material in this toolkit you can expect to be able to design and implement a mobile advocacy strategy for your organisation. >>

Global: Security in-a-box: Tools and tactics for your digital security

2009-04-30

http://security.ngoinabox.org/

Security in-a-box is a collaborative effort of the Tactical Technology Collective and Front Line. It was created to meet the digital security and privacy needs of advocates and human rights defenders. Security in-a-box includes a How-to Booklet, which addresses a number of important digital security issues.

Uganda: Network assists in forming ICT Consumer Protection Association

2009-04-30

http://tinyurl.com/crn5oc

I-Network, the IICD-supported national Information and Communication Network in Uganda assisted in forming a protection association for Ugandan Information and Communication Technology (ICT) consumers. The association was officially launched on March 20 in Kampala.

Africa: Education on the Brink - AfricaFocus Bulletin

2009-04-30

http://www.africafocus.org/docs09/ed0904.php

With the International Monetary Fund gaining new prominence and new resources following last month G20 summit in London, debate is intensifying on to what extent promises for reform in the institution are illusory. In a report released last week, the Global Campaign for Education looked at the implications for education, concluding that so far policy changes by the Fund in response to the global recession are more cosmetic than substantive. This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a press release and excerpts from the full report, which provides a detailed analysis of the impact of IMF policy mandates on the education sector in developing countries.

Africa: Progress on Malaria - AfricaFocus Bulletin

2009-04-30

http://www.africafocus.org/docs09/mal0904.php

This AfricaFocus Bulletins contains excerpts from two World Malaria Day articles on recent initiatives against malaria, one by Sue Mbaya, Africa Advocacy Coordinator for World Vision, based in Nairobi and one by UNICEF on Children & Malaria. And, from http://allafrica.com, an article about the UN Foundation's "Nothing but Nets" initiative to mobilize individual contributors for supplying bednets.

Global: 4strugglemag

2009-04-30

http://www.4strugglemag.org/

4strugglemag is an independent non-sectarian revolutionary voice. We are unapologetically anti-imperialist and solidly in support of progressive National Liberation, especially the struggles of New African/Black, Mexicano/Chicano, Puerto Rican and Native American Nations presently controlled by U.S. imperialism. Reflecting the work and principles of political prisoners held by the United States, 4strugglemag advocates for Justice, Equality, Freedom, Socialism, Protection of our Mother Earth, Human Rights and Peace.

Global: 2009 Women Peace Makers program

Call for applications

2009-04-30

http://peace.sandiego.edu/programs/women.html

Made possible through a generous grant from the Fred J. Hansen Foundation, the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice's (IPJ) Women PeaceMakers Program invites four women from around the world who have been locally involved in human rights and peacemaking efforts. Women accepted into this program are seeking ways to further their peacemaking efforts in their home countries.

Global: Diploma in Refugee Studies

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/55944

Diploma in Refugee Studies (RS) is a one-year programme of study and practical work experience. The first five months of academic training in Prague and Krakow are followed by six months of working at partner institutions in non-industrialized countries and Central Europe.
DIPLOMA IN REFUGEE STUDIES
JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY, KRAKOW
DARTMORE INSTITUTE FOR CENTRAL EUROPEAN STUDIES, PRAGUE

Diploma in Refugee Studies (RS) is a one-year programme of study and practical work experience. The first five months of academic training in Prague and Krakow are followed by six months of working at partner institutions in non-industrialized countries and Central Europe.

RS provides the only multidisciplinary academic training in the forced migration and refugee field in Central and Eastern Europe. The main idea behind this programme is to link high quality innovative research with improving the conditions, rights and lives of the ever-growing number of refugees and other forced migrants. We aim to achieve this via rigorous academic training and relevant practical internships leading to first-hand experience and networking. The programme is attractive to a wide range of students, academics, policy makers and professionals engaged in reform regarding issues relating to forced migration and refugees.

PROGRAMME OBJECTIVES
RS aims to offer high-quality training in the field of refugee studies through an interdisciplinary approach and first-hand access to refugee communities worldwide via practical training, as well as co-operation with other renowned academic institutions and links with their diploma programmes.

PROGRAMME STRUCTURE
The RS programme is a one-year course organized around two semesters, which encompass two mutually interlinked founding pillars of the studies: ACADEMIC STUDIES and PRACTICAL PLACEMENT. The first semester lasts five months and focuses on obtaining the necessary theoretical background in the mandatory fields. In the second semester, students
undertake six-month-long practical work placements at establishments of partner institutions in non-industrialized countries.

ACADEMIC STUDIES
The academic part of the programme takes place in Prague, the Czech Republic. It is organized into three mutually interconnected parts.
1. All students receive an introduction to refugee studies and insight into the contemporary issues in forced migration, a grounding in psycho-social consequences of forced migration, and substantive knowledge of refugee law and human rights issues related to refugees.
2. In addition, students select two elective courses from a list prepared and approved by the Academic Advisory Board for each academic year. They can choose one elective course from the category of regional studies/country of origin information and one course from the general category of electives.
3. Finally, all students are trained in skills crucial to all workers in the field of refugees and forced migration, such as the art of interviewing, working with interpreters, taking testimony, researching country of origin, and developing legal argumentation skills in the Clinics: Practice of Refugee Law course.



CURRICULUM
REQUIRED COURSES
Students are required to take the following courses:
R1 Introduction to Refugee Studies
R2 Contemporary Issues in Forced Migration
R3 Psycho-Social Consequences of Forced Migration
R4 Refugee in International Law
R5 Human Rights and Refugees
P1 Clinics: Practice of Refugee Law

ELECTIVE COURSES
The following courses are currently recognized as electives:
E1 Anthropology
E2 Introduction to Development
E3 Public International Law
E4 Humanitarian Emergencies
C1 Caucasus Studies
C2 Middle East Studies
C3 Sub-Saharan African Studies
C4 Southeast Asian Studies

PRACTICAL PLACEMENTS
The purpose of this programme component is to provide students with practical experience which complements their studies, enhance their professional development and – at the same time – benefits partner institutions in non-industrialized countries and Central Europe active in the refugee problem, whilst ensuring much-needed dissemination of knowledge and information regarding refugee and forced migration issues.
The mandatory internship approach promotes a better understanding of major global problems confronting the contemporary world among the students, while giving them an insight into the workings of the partner institutions, and exposing them to some of the most efficient policies and programmes in this field.
At the same time the students represent a pool of qualified interns whose work addresses some of the most pressing problems faced by the partner institutions in non-industrialized countries, such as a severe lack of human resources, an expanding workload, insufficient research resources and limited access to information and training.
Finally, the dissemination of refugee and forced migration related information in CEE countries is enhanced due to the emergence of a well-informed and knowledgeable group of graduates who are motivated through the connections and networking made during their practical traineeships.

ABOUT THE STAFF
Barbara Harrell-Bond (DPhil, Oxford University) is an anthropologist of law with many years of research experience in West Africa prior to her founding the Refugee Studies Programme (now the Refugee Studies Centre) at the University of Oxford. She directed the Centre between 1982-96. In 2004, Barbara Harrell-Bond was elected as an Honorary Fellow at Lady Margaret Oxford College Hall for her contribution to the field of refugee studies. In 2005, she was listed on the Queen Elizabeth’s Honours list as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for her services to refugee and forced migration studies.
"The raison d’etre of the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford was not only to establish refugee studies as an academic field, but to stimulate the development of similar academic programmes in other countries that were the hosts of refugees and with significant success. Today the list of countries where refugee studies has been established is extensive, but there are no such programmes in Central and Eastern Europe and only a few in the non-industrialized ’south‘… I strongly support the Refugee and Forced Migration Study Programme initiated in the Czech Republic and I indicate my sincere interest in providing any assistance in seeing it through to its fruition."

Richard Wilson is a tenured Professor of Law and Director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at American University’s Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. Richard Wilson has been a law school teacher for more than 20 years, and has directed the Clinic, one of the oldest in the United States dealing with human rights issues, since its founding in 1990. The clinic, which is one of the largest human rights law firms in the United States, provides pro bono legal services in a wide range of human rights and refugee issues.
"I have been involved in the rapidly expanding area of clinical legal education and forced migration in Central and Eastern Europe for more than a decade. One of the key components of the Forced Migration Academy is its inclusion of empirical and practice dimensions to accompany the theoretical aspects covered in the academic curriculum. I believe that such a component is absolutely essential to the training of lawyers and other advocates in this rapidly expanding and multidisciplinary field."

Petra Levrincova (LL.M., Central European University, Budapest) - after working for the Refugee Legal Aid Project in Cairo (now Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance - AMERA) in 2002 and 2003, and completing a legal internship at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, Petra returned to Prague and started doctoral studies at Charles University, where she also lectures in public international law and international refugee law on the International Economic and Political Studies Programme. She also works as a lawyer at the Czech Development Agency.
"I was privileged enough to obtain a solid educational as well as practical experience in the field of international and refugee law, and at the same time meet people who were committed to the professional development of young academics and practitioners. I have noticed that combining advanced higher education with high-level practical training can bring changes. By setting up RS in Prague I hope I can honour the debt."

ADMISSIONS
RS programme commences in SEPTEMBER 2009
Tuition fees for the 2009 academic year are 4 900 €
Students may wish to seek sponsorship from donor organizations or employers.
Please note that the fees do not include living expenses and travel to/from the place of internships.

General Eligibility Requirements
Applicants must have already earned at least a first degree from a recognized university or institution of higher education, or provide documentation indicating that they will earn their first degree from such a university or institution by the time of enrolment on the RS.


REFUGEE STUDIES CONTACT INFORMATION:
Dartmore Institute for Central European Studies
National Gallery, Museum of Modern Art
Dukelskych Hrdinu 47,
170 00 Prague 7
Czech Republic
Should you like to discuss any aspect of the programme please contact:
Petra Levrincova, email: levrincova@dartmore.cz
WWW.RSPRAGUE.ORG

South Africa: 100th anniversary of the death of Yusuf Dadoo

Call for papers

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/55943

South African History Online and the Centre for Sociological Research at the University of Johannesburg issues a call for papers for a conference to be held in September 2009 in Johannesburg South Africa. We are committed to critically engaging with Dadoo's legacy, interrogating impulses of the time that might have been written out of history and crucially wanting to ask if the solutions that Dadoo and his generation sought in building non racialism and socialism have anything to say to the present generation and the striving to build a democracy in the context globally the contemporary configuration of economic and political power relations and locally the legacies of apartheid.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Abstracts should be submitted to Omar Badsha at omar@sahistory.org.za

CONFERENCE TO MARK THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF YUSUF DADOO
Hosted by the Centre for Sociological Research-University of Johannesburg and South African History Online.
September 4th - 6th 2009
Yusuf Dadoo: 1909- 2009 ­ Marxism, Non Racialism and the shaping of
the South African Liberation Struggle
The conference forms part of a series of events to mark the 100th year of Dadoo¹s birth.
Yusuf Dadoo left a formidable political legacy. This covers a number of fields spanning the relationship between transnational identity, racial identity, national liberation, socialism, non-racialism and internationalism.
Today we are challenged by the imperatives of globalization and the power of the nation-state, by neo-liberalism and the struggle for socialism, non-racialism and xenophobia. The labels might be different and the political conjuncture significantly changed but the challenges that animated Dadoo and his generation are similar. Dadoo and the liberation movements were concerned with the creation of a progressive global movement that would advance the interests of the oppressed and marginalized in the era of globalization. It is especially opportune then on this the 100th anniversary of Dadoo¹s death to critically engage with the issues of this liberation struggle legacy.
With this in mind, South African History Online and the Centre for Sociological Research at the University of Johannesburg issues a call for papers for a conference to be held in September 2009 in Johannesburg South Africa. We are committed to critically engaging with Dadoo¹s legacy, interrogating impulses of the time that might have been written out of history and crucially wanting to ask if the solutions that Dadoo and his generation sought in building non racialism and socialism have anything to say to the present generation and the striving to build a democracy in the context globally the contemporary configuration of economic and political power relations and locally the legacies of apartheid.. We envisage sharp intellectual engagement over a two-day period. We will allow sufficient time between the deadline for submission and the conference to give participants the opportunity to read the papers so that they can engage more meaningfully in dialogue. We hope too that this conference by focusing on the life and times of a leader who played such a major role in shaping our notion of an inclusive nationhood and whose personal integrity and sacrifice inspired generations of activists will in turn inspire new research and interpretations of the liberation struggle.

CONFERENCE THEMES
'He dedicated his life to the course of national liberation, socialism
and world peace'-inscription on Dadoo's tombstone

THEME 1: Transnationalism: Indians in South African Politics and anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles.

Our concern here is not with the 'Indian Problem' but with the creation of a new community arising out of the disparate class, language and regional groups that came from the Indian sub continent. We hope to explore the role played by Gandhi and the Indian Congress in the forging of a new Indian and South African identity and the struggles of immigrant communities for citizenship. We invite papers that respond to the following issues:

What was the nature of the relationship between the Indian elite and nationalism in South African and India?

How did this relationship inform or inhibit the emergence of the South African identity? How did Dadoo address this central issue in forging a common struggle?
Dadoo and his contemporaries received their early schooling in India - how did this shape their understanding of the use of non violence as a strategy in the anti-colonial struggle.

THEME 2: Dadoo in search of a United Front: Passive Resistance, ethnic
mobilisation, and the forging of multi racial alliance politics
The period 1939 and 1959 witnessed sea changes in the economic and political landscape both locally and globally. The coming to power of the National Party saw the inauguration of apartheid. The dominated classes responded with the building of the Congress Alliance and the launching of the Freedom Charter. Dadoo was central to these developments which saw the cementing of ties between communists and nationalists.

The period also saw the independence of India. India was at the forefront of the struggle to isolate the apartheid regime and the building of the non-aligned movement. Dadoo¹s relationship with Gandhi withstood the antipathy between Communists and the Congress Party in India and this relationship was consolidated under Nehru¹s leadership of India.

We are particularly keen to solicit papers on three themes
1). The debate in the 1940s over issues of class and race, non-racialism/multi-racialism, a single organization and separate organizations of the oppressed and disenfranchised. 2). The nature of the local Indian Congresses relationship with the Indian liberation struggle 3). The politics of the Congress Alliance and the search for a fighting non-racialism 4). Did Marxism inform the debates over political strategy and organizational form?

THEME 3: Dadoo, and the Armed Struggle
Dadoo through the 40s and 50s was committed to non-violent resistance. He like so many others of his generation embraced armed struggle. How do we explain this change in approach? How was the armed struggle conceptualized? What role did the Party play in this debate? How significant was the fact that MK was non-racial while the ANC was still limited to Africans?
These are among the themes we hope to solicit papers on.

THEME 4 : Dadoo, Tambo, exile and the liberation struggle in the Era of Cold War Politics.
Here we are particularly interested in the politics of exile. How did the Alliance reconstitute itself? How did the Alliance manage the Cold War divide? What was the SACP/ANC relationship with the Soviet Union? What was the relationship of the Alliance with the broader anti-apartheid movement? What was the relationship between the Party and the ANC? How did the Alliance react to revelations of the Stalin period?

THEME 5: Dadoo, Morogoro and the turn to the Left.
What was the significance of Morogoro? What was Dadoo¹s role? Can the conference be conceptualized as a turn to the left? How did the Alliance respond to internal developments like the rise of the Black Consciousness Movement and the trade unions.

THEME 6: The Politics of writing biographies
Post-apartheid South Africa has seen a slew of political biographies. We want to have papers that debate the pros and cons of biography for the writing of political history.

Theme 7 We invite potential contributors to suggest additional topics that fall within the broad theme of the conference.

SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS
Deadline for abstracts: Date 15th June 2009
Format of submissions:
- Presenters¹ details (name, postal address, telephone and fax numbers, email address)
- Title and organisational/institutional affiliation (if any)
- Title of paper
- Abstract of a maximum of 300 words in Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format € Indicate to which conference theme(s) the paper is linked.
Abstracts should be submitted to Omar Badsha at omar@sahistory.org.za
CONFERENCE INFORMATION
This will be a conference covering two days and two nights. The venue for the conference is the University of Johannesburg.
The conference fee will be R400, which will include, food and conference documentation. A 10% discount will be offered for early registration and requests for subsidisation will be considered. The organizers will also endorse letters to funders requesting that they meet the travel costs of those whose abstracts which have been accepted.
Special efforts will be made to accommodate student and representatives of former liberation Organisations and Trade Unions. We are also putting out a call for assistance to compile an online archive of documents, photographs on Dadoo, the TIC, SACP and the ANC to form part of SA history liberation history and the Dadoo feature on SAHO website:
http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/special%20projects/dadoo-yusuf/inde
x.htm

Africa: Gender Justice and Local Government - Gender Links

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/55941

Gender Links, a dynamic Southern African NGO based in Johannesburg that promotes gender equality and justice through its media, justice and governance programmes seeks to fill the post of Gender Justice and Local Government Manager on an initial two year contract basis.
JOB ADVERISEMENT:

GENDER JUSTICE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT MANAGER

Gender Links, a dynamic Southern African NGO based in Johannesburg that promotes gender equality and justice through its media, justice and governance programmes seeks to fill the post of Gender Justice and Local Government Manager on an initial two year contract basis.

Tasks:

* Designing materials and gathering examples of local action plans and campaigns for ending gender violence.
* Training and managing a team of local facilitators in several Southern African countries to support the development of local action plans to end gender violence.
* Designing tools for gathering best practices and evidence of strategies that make a difference.
* Organising an annual Gender Justice and Local Government summit for the sharing of best practices and administering of awards adjudicated by independent panellists.
* Documenting this process and designing monitoring and evaluation tools for tracking over time how concerted local campaigns to end gender violence can make a difference.

Skills:

* At least a bachelors degree in a relevant social science field.
* At least five years experience managing gender justice advocacy campaigns.
* Knowledge of local government and how it works in the Southern African region. Previous experience of working with local government associations would be an advantage.
* Excellent facilitation, team building and training skills.
* Excellent media, communication and IT skills.
* Excellent administrative, logistic and management skills.

General conditions:

GL is an equal opportunity employer and encourages applications from the SADC region. Competitive remuneration packages will be offered, commensurate with silks and experience. More detailed information on these posts can be found on www.genderlinks.org.za or by phoning Vivien Bakainanga on 011-622-2877. Please submit a CV, references, and at least two samples of your work to hrandadmin@genderlinks.org.za or fax 011 622 4732 by 8 May 2009. Late applications will not be considered. Only short listed candidates will be contacted for interviews.

Africa: Knowledge and training manager - Gender Links

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/55939

Gender Links, a dynamic Southern African NGO that promotes gender equality through its media, justice and governance programmes, seeks to fill the post of knowledge and training manager for an initial three year period.
JOB ADVERTISEMENT: KNOWLEDGE AND TRAINING MANAGER

Gender Links, a dynamic Southern African NGO that promotes gender equality through its media, justice and governance programmes, seeks to fill the post of knowledge and training manager for an initial three year period.

Tasks:

The successful candidate will be expected to:

* Design training projects.
* Facilitate training workshops in media houses; with gender NGOs and in any other settings that programmes may require.
* Monitor and evaluate the impact of training and use this in refining future strategies.
* Oversee media literacy training programmes across Southern Africa in partnership with media NGOs and knowledge institutions.
* Work with media education institutions in mainstreaming gender in their curricula.
* Oversee GL’s Virtual Resource Centre, photo library and other knowledge products that foster gender equality and greater diversity in the media.

Skills:

The successful candidate will be expected to have:

* A Masters Degree in a relevant social science discipline;
* At least ten years experience as a trainer in gender and/or media related fields and preferably both;
* A thorough knowledge of the Southern African region;
* Excellent verbal, written and management skills;
* Flexibility to travel.
# Knowledge management training and experience;
# Excellent IT skills;
# Links with knowledge and training institutions across Southern Africa and globally;
# A thorough grounding in gender, media and diversity issues;
# Excellent networking and management skills.
# Experience in conducting monitoring and evaluation of major training projects would be an advantage.

GL is an equal opportunity employer and encourages applications from the SADC region. Competitive remuneration packages will be offered, commensurate with silks and experience. More detailed information on these posts can be found on www.genderlinks.org.za or by phoning Vivien Bakainanga on 011-622-2877. Please submit a CV, references, and at least two samples of your work to hrandadmin@genderlinks.org.za or fax 011 622 4732 by 8 May 2009. Late applications will not be considered. Only short listed candidates will be contacted for interviews.

Africa: Research manager - Gender Links

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/55940

Gender Links, a dynamic Southern African NGO based in Johannesburg that promotes gender equality and justice through its media, justice and governance programmes seeks to fill the post of Research Manager on an initial three year contract basis.
JOB ADVERTISEMENT: RESEARCH MANAGER

Gender Links, a dynamic Southern African NGO based in Johannesburg that promotes gender equality and justice through its media, justice and governance programmes seeks to fill the post of Research Manager on an initial three year contract basis.

Tasks

The successful candidate will be expected to:

* Manage major research projects including implementation and financial accounting. The first of these concerns the development of indicators for measuring gender violence.
* Assist in conceptualising and fund raising for future research.
* Contribute to the development of high quality publications.
* Participate in seminars, debates and knowledge creation on gender and the media in the region.

Skills required

* Masters degree in media studies or equivalent qualification.
* At least ten years experience in relevant work areas, especially on gender justice issues.
* Knowledge/working experience of the SADC region.
* Track record of commitment to gender equality and diversity.
* Excellent research, writing and presentation skills.
* Excellent programme management skills.
* Excellent IT skills and knowledge of how to use this tool to disseminate research.

GL is an equal opportunity employer and encourages applications from the SADC region. Competitive remuneration packages will be offered, commensurate with silks and experience. More detailed information on these posts can be found on www.genderlinks.org.za or by phoning Vivien Bakainanga on 011-622-2877. Please submit a CV, references, and at least two samples of your work to hrandadmin@genderlinks.org.za or fax 011 622 4732 by 8 May 2009. Late applications will not be considered. Only short listed candidates will be contacted for interviews.

Southern Africa: Field officers - gender justice and governance programme - Gender Links

2009-04-30

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/55942

Gender Links, a Southern African NGO based in Johannesburg specialising in gender, media, women’s rights and governance, seeks the services of experienced individuals in SADC countries (Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe,) to serve as field officers for its gender justice and governance programme. The main task of the incumbent, each of whom will be based in their home countries, will be to work with local councils, partners and stakeholders to develop gender and gender violence (GBV) action plans for local government at the district level as well as providing backstopping and support.
JOB ADVERISEMENT: GENDER AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT FIELD OFFICERS

Gender Links, a Southern African NGO based in Johannesburg specialising in gender, media, women’s rights and governance, seeks the services of experienced individuals in SADC countries (Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe,) to serve as field officers for its gender justice and governance programme. The main task of the incumbent, each of whom will be based in their home countries, will be to work with local councils, partners and stakeholders to develop gender and gender violence (GBV) action plans for local government at the district level as well as providing backstopping and support.

Tasks:

* Receiving training in and serving as local facilitator for local government gender and GBV action plan work;
* Arranging logistics and managing budgets for district level workshops;
* Facilitating district level workshops;
* Developing actions plans for local councils;
* Providing backstopping and ongoing support to local councils;
* Collecting best practices in ending gender violence for the Gender and Local Government GBV Awards and Summit;
* Monitoring and evaluating the success of the country programme.

Skills:

* Social science academic qualification or relevant work experience;
* A strong grounding in community work or work at the local government level;
* The ability to organise and mobilise at the local government level;
* Strong networking skills;
* Good training, facilitation, management and report writing skills;
* Good administrative and inter personal skills;
* IT proficiency;
* Flexibility to travel extensively in country;
* At least ten years working experience;
* Proficiency in local languages would be an advantage;
* A background in NGO, gender and advocacy work would be an advantage.

General conditions:

The above post is for an initial period of two years, based in your home country. Competitive remuneration packages will be offered, commensurate with the qualifications and experience of the successful candidates. Applications, including a sample of written work and a reference from a local/ community based organisation, must be submitted by close of business COB 8 May 2009.

A letter of motivation, CVs and references should be sent to: hrandadmin@genderlinks.org.za or fax 27 (0) 11-622 4732. For further enquiries phone Vivien Bakainanga on 27 (0) 11 622 2877. Only short listed and successful candidates will be contacted.

Fahamu