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Sign the petition for Mau Mau reparations

Kenya Human Rights Commission

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/action/56422

London-based solicitors, Leigh, Day & Co, have been instructed by the Kenya Human Rights Commission to issue a claim for compensation against the British government on behalf of the Mau Mau veterans. These now elderly Kenyans were assaulted, tortured and unlawfully imprisoned for a number of years during the brutal repression of the Mau Mau movement by the British government which took place in the 1950s and early 1960s.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission has now documented 40 cases of castration, severe sexual abuses and unlawful detention, which were carried out by officers of the British government. The actual number of Kenyans who suffered this barbaric treatment at the hands of British officers in fact runs into their thousands.

In recent years, following exhaustive research by historians, it has become clear that far from being the acts of a few rogue soldiers, the torture and inhuman and degrading treatment of Kenyans during the Emergency Period (1950s to early 1960s) resulted from policies which were sanctioned at the highest levels of government in London. It was only after the tireless work of campaigners over a number of years and the revelation of the massacre of 11 Kenyans at the Hola Detention Camp that Britain was forced to close its detention camps and cease the barbaric practices it had been employing with impunity for so many years.

It is ironic that at the time Britain was instrumental in the creation of the post war human rights treaties, conventions and institutions, it was violating basic human rights in Kenya on a breathtaking scale[1]. As President Barack Obama recently recalled, during the Second World War, Winston Churchill was adamant in his view that ‘Britain does not torture’ even when it seems expedient to do so. Indeed, Barack Obama’s own grandfather, Onyango Obama, was unlawfully and wrongfully detained for months as part of the British Government’s vicious crackdown on the Mau Mau movement.

Leigh, Day & Co will be issuing a claim on behalf of the Mau Mau veterans in London on 23 June 2009. They are men and women from different Kenyan communities who are representative of the wider community of Mau Mau veterans.

It is hoped that this will be an opportunity for the British government to come to terms with this stain on British history and to apologise to the Kenyan people for this historic wrong. Unless this happens, the sense of injustice arising out of Britain’s excessive response to the Mau Mau movement will continue to be deeply felt among all Kenyans for generations to come.


* Sign the petition in support of reparations for Mau Mau veterans.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

NOTES

[1] For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [1948] and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms [1950]

Imperial projects and the food crisis in the periphery

Ng’wanza Kamata

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/56412

cc flickr.comConsidering Tanzania's position in relation to food crises around the world, Ng’wanza Kamata laments the inability of Jakaya Kikwete's government to develop the 'agricultural revolution' it once promised. Highlighting that food production difficulties have over the years invariably been attributed to drought and peasant farmers' supposed laziness and poor agricultural methods, Kamata argues that the government should now begin to look in the mirror and acknowledge its own shortcomings. With the budget for agriculture consistently low despite the sector's support for around 80 per cent of Tanzania's total population, the author contends that the country's producers essentially remain subject to the same exploitative relations first imposed during the colonial period. In the face of contemporary political elites' willingness to embrace biofuel production methods, Kamata stresses that the touted agricultural revolution should prioritise the needs and role of the country's poor agricultural majority and not simply bend to the will of foreign corporations.

Last year the world's attention was focused on food and fuel, the prices of which were both soaring with no sign of any reprieve. Fuel prices have gone down since, coinciding with the global financial meltdown, but food prices have not. It was these prices together with food shortages in some countries around the world which received critical attention. There the people were hit hard. They could not take it anymore and took to the streets. Food-triggered demonstrations and riots occurred in countries such as Mexico, Indonesia, Yemen, the Philippines, Cambodia, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan, Guinea, Mauritania, Egypt, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Peru, Bolivia and Haiti. In Haiti demonstrators carried empty plates to demonstrate the depth of their plight.[1] Governments around the world responded to the crisis in different ways. In Haiti the prime minister resigned due to popular pressure. In Egypt the government resorted to subsidising food prices. This was an attempt to avert the violence and crime associated with food shortages. Countries such as Indonesia imposed a general ban on food exports, a solution which was seen as compounding global food problems.

While this was happening in much of the world, the crisis appeared remote in Tanzania. Around that time, the Tanzanian government gave its citizens assurances that the food situation was stable. To avert any fear of a food shortage, the minister responsible for food security and cooperatives maintained that 'the country’s food situation was stable and national reserves had enough food to feed the people in case of unexpected shortages'.[2] There was no serious talk on food prices despite the fact that they were obviously on the rise. Some reports suggest that between 2008 and 2009 the price of food in the country has gone up by 25 per cent.[3] This rise was also reflected in the increase in the rate of inflation.[4] A few months later a looming food shortage was reported.[5] The government and politicians started hammering people with scare statistics related to food shortages. Calls were made for people to grow drought-resistant crops because the government would not be able to feed everyone.[6]

Although an agricultural revolution has been promised by the Kikwete government, it has not materialised. The government does not appear to be committed to addressing the questions of food production and peasant farmers. The present approach is fundamentally no different from that of previous governments. Food production has never been given the attention it deserves; it has always been treated on an ad hoc basis. 'Divine intervention' has been left, over the years, to determine both the quantity and quality of agricultural and food production. The ‘hand hoe’ has been left to 'fend' for itself while the peasant bears the brunt of food shortages. And every time there is a food shortage, it is attributed to drought, laziness or bad farming methods of the peasant farmer. The peasant farmer has also been blamed for destroying the environment and causing low agricultural yields. Typically, the victim is turned into a villain. Solutions dished out from the top range from calls for hard work and environmental protection to the planting of drought-resistant crops. At no time has blame been apportioned to the government's shortcomings in its policies and how these policies have neglected the rural areas and the peasant farmer.

In the 1970s, for example, when hunger loomed over many parts of the country, President Julius Nyerere made a tour of the lake zone regions, in which he made three appeals to the peasants: plant more trees, increase cotton production and grow more drought-resistant crops such as millet. He also warned them against 'repeating previous mistakes of planting maize in areas where conditions were not suitable because of little rain.'[7] A similar call is made 34 years later by the minister for agriculture. From these experiences one thing is clear: the political elite (the bureaucratic bourgeoisie) cannot deal with food shortages. They would not assist the peasant farmer because that would put a dent on their share of conspicuous consumption.

This is illustrated by the neglect of the agricultural sector over the years. It is also reflected in budgetary allocations. In the 1970s and 1980s, for example, agriculture received 16 per cent of the budget while the industrial sector received 26 per cent. Then it could be argued that there was more emphasis on industrialisation than on agriculture. The situation has worsened even further during the neoliberal era. Between 2000–01 and 2007–08 the allocation for agriculture of the total budget fluctuated between 2.8 per cent and 6.2 per cent. Generally, 'the budget allocation to the agricultural sector is not commensurate to the sector’s contribution to the GDP, it is smaller and declining.'[8] It is also important to note that this neglected sector directly supports about 80 per cent of the population.

To understand this situation it is necessary to trace the root of the problem, which is structural and has its roots in imperial expansion, to the peripheries. In the imperial division of labour Tanganyika was a peasant colony, its major function being to produce colonial crops for export to Europe. The crops and their production were introduced and sustained through the use of naked force and extra-economic coercion. Thus the peasant farmers had to be coerced to reproduce themselves and produce surplus for expropriation at no cost to the expropriator, in this case the colonial state. This has not changed. Instead it has been internalised and reproduced by the post-colonial elites.

In more recent times this internalisation of the imperial equation in the agricultural sector has been seen in the way political elites have embraced biofuel projects. The world over, with the exception of those who want to profit from these projects, doubts have been expressed on the impact of biofuel projects on agriculture and food security.[9] The debate within Tanzania echoes such concerns. In a palaver held in October 2008 at the University of Dar es Salaam there was a general consensus that biofuels are not good for Tanzania and African countries.[10] It has been cautioned that biofuel crops will take arable land used for food production, that food prices will rise to levels unaffordable by the poor majority, that many people will lack adequate nutritional food owing to biofuel farming's emphasis on monoculturism, and that biofuel projects will unleash a new wave of land-grabbing in the rural areas. This will cause great uncertainty among peasant farmers and will have negative effects on food production. It was resolved that the country should concentrate more on food production and support for peasant farmers because it is this group of producers which has sustained the country for years. It was also resolved that biofuel projects are not intended to help us, but instead they are meant to resolve the problems of other countries, especially in Europe and the United States.[9] It was concluded that the country should focus on food production, and address the question of the nutritional value of food for a healthy population.

The government’s response to the debate on biofuel has been to attempt to allay fears that biofuel will cause serious problems to the country in relation to food prices. It has also claimed that Tanzania has plenty of arable land that cannot be destroyed by farming crops meant for the production of biofuels. As such it has continued to attract foreign investment in the agricultural sector, touting the idea that the country will benefit. The supposed benefits include increased income for smallholding farmers and thus the reduction of income poverty, the introduction of agro-processing industries, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and those from other pollutants, and access to modern technology.[12]

The question is, what is happening elsewhere in the world that does not suffice to dissuade political elites from their blind embrace of biofuel projects? Are they waiting for riots and demonstrations of people carrying empty plates to know what is likely to happen? Isn’t there historical evidence to draw lessons from so that mistakes of the past are not carried to the future? The political elites seem to ignore all this. They talk about an agricultural revolution to be brought about by large-scale farmers. They have no recollection that in favour of that very large-scale farming the state in the 1970s alienated huge tracts of land from the Barbaig of Hanang district. This was done by force because the people vigorously resisted the evictions. Today the Hanang wheat farms are no more. In the 1940s and 1950s the British government introduced a large-scale groundnut scheme in Nachingwea and Kongwa. These were to be the trendsetters for intensive groundnut production in the Tanganyika colony. The aim was to produce oil for lubricating machines in Europe. These schemes also failed. Of these gigantic projects none focused on the food needs of the majority. Instead they caused problems for the rural people. These problems is now being replicated. As its predecessor did, the present government is assisting foreign companies to grab the land of the poor in the rural areas, only this time it is for biofuel. Already in Tanzania foreign companies have started grabbing land. The frontrunners are the two companies of SEKAB and Sun Biofuel.

These projects, like the previous ones, will not be beneficial to Tanzania. If they succeed at all they will solve the problems of other countries and not those of the poor majority of Tanzanians. But these too are likely to collapse, at a cost which will accrue to the same groups who have always borne the burden of the elite. That is the logic of the imperial equation. Until we resolve it the majority will continue to go hungry or when they do eat they only fill their stomachs with the likes of improved Haitian pica. History is full of lessons and one important lesson is that progress is impossible if you do not begin by feeding your people first. If Nkrumah’s clarion call for independence was ‘seek ye the political kingdom’, our call now should be 'feed the people first and the rest will follow'. But an even bigger question must be resolved first: our production systems have to be overhauled so that they stop responding to the dictates of imperialism.

* Ng’wanza Kamata is with the Department of Political Science at the University of Dar es Salaam.
* This article first appeared in the maiden issue of CHEMCHEMI, Bulletin of the Mwalimu Nyerere Professorial Chair in Pan African Studies of the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the editorial board of CHEMCHEMI.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

NOTES
[1] Stephen Lendman. 'Global Food Crises Plague Haiti and the World' in Global Research (April 21, 2008) http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8712 (Downloaded on 15th February 2009).
[2] The Guardian, Tanzania., October 1, 2008.
[3] See Tanzania Daima. February 17, 2009.
[4] This is reflected in the official report on inflation rates which has been steadily increasing. It was 5.9% in June 2007, 9.3% in June 2008 and 12.3% in November 2008 (See Jakaya Kikwete’s New Year’s Eve Speech, 31st December 2008).
[5] Tanzania Daima, op.cit. reported that eleven regions were facing food shortage. The regions were Arusha, Kilimanjaro, Tanga, Coast, Morogoro, Mwanza, Mara, Lindi, Mtwara, Manyara, and Shinyanga.
[6] In his recent tour of Mara region the Minister for Food Security made such remarks after learning that Mara and another 10 regions in the country are facing food deficits because of a drought spell.
[7] See Ng’wanza Kamata. 'Environmental Change and the Politics of Control and Marginalisation in Tanzania: The Case of Sukumaland'. Unpublished Ph. D. Thesis, University of Dar es Salaam. 2005.
[8] See T. S. Nyoni. 'Implications of the 2007/8 Budget in the Development of the Agriculture Sector'. A Think Piece for The Policy Dialogue seminar on 'Post Budget (2007/08) Discussion Forum'; Economic and Social Research Foundation (ESRF). 19th June 2007. ESRF Conference Hall, Dar es Salaam.
[9] The State of Food and Agriculture (Biofuel: Prospects, Risks and Opportunities). FAO, Rome 2008.
[10] The Vice Chancellor’s Palaver is organised under the Mwalimu Nyerere Chair in Pan African Studies. The October 2008 Palaver was in Kiswahili ( Mbongi wa Makamu wa Chuo) on Food and Fuel Crisis.
[11] This concern iaddresses the aims of those who are heavily investing in biofuel in Tanzania. In its concept paper for a biofuel project in Tanzania, SEKAB states 'while Europe has a need for sustainable BioEthanol for fuel, East Africa has the potential to become a large scale net exporter in orders of magnitude currently exported from Brazil. (BioEnergy Investment in Tanzania: Concept Paper; SEKAB Bio Energy Tanzania. December 2008).
[12] See 'The Agrofuel Industry in Tanzania: A Critical Inquiry into Challenges and Opportunities'. A
report by HAKIARDHI, Dar es salaam 2008.

Some things we know about genocide

10 years, 10 lessons

Gerald Caplan

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/56411

cc David BlumeHaving been asked in 1998 to write a report on Rwanda's 1994 genocide by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), Gerald Caplan outlines a series of 10 broad lessons about genocide. Stressing his conviction that the ultimate purpose of knowing about genocide should be to have something to say about its prevention, the author argues that there should be no hierarchy when considering genocides committed around the world. Citing the ultimate conclusions of Primo Levi, a Jewish–Italian survivor of Auschwitz, Caplan underlines the troubling reality that rather than increasing the resolve not to see history repeated, the existence of one genocide merely affirms the possibility of future tragedy elsewhere in the world. While history suggests that there is ample reason for cynicism, Caplan concludes however that committed action on the part of the public and civil society represents a genuine means of forcing the UN Security Council to put the welfare of those suffering above its members' interests.

In 1998, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) appointed an International Panel of Eminent Persons to investigate the genocide that had occurred in Rwanda four years earlier. Several months later, the panel asked me to write their report. First conceptualised as a relatively brief statement, the report was subsequently published as a 300-page history of Rwanda from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st. In order that there be little ambiguity about its conclusions, the eminents agreed with my suggested title for the report. It was called 'Rwanda: The preventable genocide'.

I had previously shown what I imagine to be the conventional interest in the Holocaust, at least for a Jew, and had read as widely about the subject as my primary obligations permitted. For many years I made it a point to read at least a book a year about the Holocaust. But since histories, memoirs, novels and plays on the subject continue to pour off the printing presses with no apparent sign of slowing down, I never considered myself anything more than a casual browser in the grisly subject.

At the same time, I knew next to nothing about other genocides. I knew something about the German annihilation of the Hereros of South-West Africa in 1904 from my academic work on African history. So far as I can now recollect, I didn't have a clue about the Armenian genocide by the Young Turks; I can't even say I was aware it had happened. My longstanding interest in the way Joseph Stalin had betrayed the Russian Revolution introduced me to the famine in the Ukraine, but once again the issue of genocide was marginal at best. Despite perpetually trying to keep abreast of African matters, I had never heard a word about the anti-Tutsi pogroms unleashed by the new Hutu rulers of Rwanda in the 1960s, and certainly knew nothing whatsoever about the vast massacre in 1972 of educated Hutu by the Tutsi soldiers who ran Burundi, which some consider to be the first African-inflicted genocide.

I was very much aware of the pathological reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, but that was related to my fury at US aggression against Vietnam and the secret bombings of Laos and Cambodia. I remain persuaded that Pol Pot and company would probably not have been able to seize control of the country without the destabilisation caused by American B-52s, and I still consider this to be among the many counts against Henry Kissinger that the International Criminal Court (ICC) should be warranting. But whether the Khmer were guilty of genocide according to the UN's 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was not my major concern.

The same was true of the 1965 massacres by the Indonesian army of perhaps half a million so-called communists, along with countless ethnic Chinese who ran much of the country's commerce – the opposite of communists. In other words, the American embassy in Jakarta was smack in the middle of that one too, giving the killers lists of alleged communists, whom they duly murdered. The slaughter of political rivals could be called 'politicide', though under Soviet pressure the 1948 convention had dropped the proposed use of that designation. I knew and wrote about this appalling tragedy, but it was the insidious role of the US that most troubled me. For some reason, I read long ago – and still own – Robert Payne's Massacre, a harrowing account of the vicious 1971 Pakistani attack on what was then East Pakistan which resulted in millions of Bengali deaths and countless rapes. Many Indians and Bangladeshi have always considered this a genocide. I'm less certain, and Payne didn't use the word, but concepts like 'politicide' and 'femicide' certainly seem to apply.

I acknowledge sheepishly but frankly that the genocide of Rwanda's Tutsi largely floated beyond my consciousness in 1994; I was immersed in reviewing the Ontario education system for the province's (New Democratic Party) NDP government and had eyes for little else. But I was quite aware of the Bosnian Serb massacre, now judged genocidal, of 8,000 Bosniak males a year later in Srebrenica. But I had also better concede that for much of the time I felt overwhelmed by the complexity of the decade-long Balkan crisis.

All this changed with the OAU panel. For my report I spent some time reading in the literature of genocide generally, most of which I never knew existed. Once the task was completed and the report released, it soon enough struck me that for a lifelong social and political activist, the real purpose of knowing something about genocide was to have something to say about genocide prevention, which is what in fact motivates most scholars in this gruesome field.

Besides beginning to throw myself into reading, writing, thinking and discussing these issues, I developed and spent the better part of two years running a virtual international organisation called Remembering Rwanda, which was devoted to gathering attention around the world for the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide in 2004. That experience too influenced my thinking about the subject, as did the tragic emergence in 2003 of the Darfur crisis, which former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan began describing as early as the following year as 'another Rwanda'. Towards the end of 2008, the decade-old crisis in eastern Congo had also won the dubious distinction of being described as potentially 'another Rwanda', even while Darfur continued to smoulder.

Whether or not either constituted a conventional genocide, both were horrific beyond words and demanded interventions that never materialised. Perhaps I should say 'that of course never materialised'.

Working through my experiences and new understandings over these past 10 years, I find 10 lessons that help me convey some of what I've learned.

1. ALL GENOCIDES ARE MORALLY EQUAL

There are some who would create a hierarchy among genocides. This is an unworthy and unhelpful exercise. It is inherently divisive, insulting those whose genocide is considered somehow less monumentally terrible than one's own. We need, as historian Peter Novick put it in his remarkable book The Holocaust in American Life, no Olympics of victimisation. Instead of demanding a gold medal in suffering, we should seek the solidarity of victims. Those who have been targeted for total annihilation share a singularly terrible place in history.

2. SURVIVORS OF GENOCIDE AND THEIR DESCENDANTS CARE PRIMARILY ABOUT THEIR OWN TRAGEDY

Generally, most genocides are remembered, commemorated and fought against by their own survivors. This is no doubt human nature. It is especially true of Jews and Armenians. Rwandans are far more interested in the Holocaust than Jews are in the genocide of the Tutsi. There are of course individual exceptions to this generalisation, and after largely ignoring the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, many Jewish organisations got active in seeking an end to the conflict in Darfur.

3. ALL OF US ARE CAPABLE, UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES, OF COMMITTING UNIMAGINABLE ACTS

Every genocide on record was carried out by a combination of some sadistic and psychotic leaders and plotters – mostly but not solely men – and a majority of ordinary people. Such people have been, and can be, found in every corner of the world. This includes the Europeans and Americans who decimated the native peoples of the Americas; the Europeans who ran the slave trade and the Americans who exploited those slaves (even without killing them all, slaves were by definition robbed of their humanity, thereby constituting genocide according to the 1948 convention); the German soldiers who forced the Herero people into the desert to die of thirst and the ones who later ran the death squads and death camps; the countless good citizens throughout central and eastern Europe who willingly became Nazi collaborators; the Hutu peasants who got caught up in their leaders' propaganda and slaughtered their own friends and neighbours; and the Sudanese pastoralists who have been killing Darfuri villagers.

4. NEVER TRUST ANYONE WHO VOWS 'NEVER AGAIN'

No one who has pledged 'never again' has ever lived up to the promise. The phrase has become the empty rhetoric of blowhard politicians and small-time dignitaries on solemn occasions. Often
these bloviations are repeated by those who have no capacity whatsoever to carry out the promise but who feel they are obligated to sound serious; instead, they just make themselves look ridiculous. Too often this solemn commitment is made by those who have real influence but have no intention to act on their vow. In practice, almost no potential genocide has ever been prevented in advance and no ongoing genocide (loosely defined) has been halted by outside intervention. This is true of Armenia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, and now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

5. THERE WILL BE MORE HOLOCAUSTS

Primo Levi, a Jewish–Italian survivor of Auschwitz, first believed, and wrote, that because the Holocaust had happened, it could not happen again. Later he understood the real logic of the Holocaust: precisely because it had happened, it could happen again. Rwanda happened. Darfur became 'another Rwanda'. The DR Congo may become 'another Rwanda' or – who knows? – perhaps another Darfur. There will be others, as sure as humans inhabit the globe.

6. GENOCIDES ARE NEVER JUST ABOUT THE KILLERS AND THEIR VICTIMS

Genocides always involve outsiders in certain ways, direct or indirect, immediate or historical. Rwanda is the most obvious example, given the role of the Catholic church and Belgium in exacerbating divisions between Hutu and Tutsi and France's close cooperation with insiders in the Habyarimana government who were plotting the genocide. In Congo, Mobutu Sese Seko, openly backed by the US and funded by the World Bank, was allowed to turn his mineral-rich country into an anarchic non-state where warlords and resource companies could conspire to plunder whatever the president left behind. When in 1994 France allowed unrepentant Rwandan genocide leaders to escape into the DR Congo, the scene was set for the subsequent central African wars that have never ended. America's secret bombing of Cambodia (and Laos) during the US invasion of Vietnam so destabilised the country that it allowed the Khmer Rouge to take over. In other words, more often than not the Western world shares responsibility for the tragedy. The imperative to intervene follows from that responsibility, not from our vaunted superior morality or our humanitarianism.

7. MOST ORDINARY PEOPLE WILL BE BYSTANDERS – ACTING RIGHTEOUSLY IN A DANGEROUS SITUATION IS MORE THAN WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO EXPECT FROM MOST PEOPLE

Activists too easily scorn ordinary people who simply want to live their own lives. Not being involved in the crises of others is the default position for most of the world, and nothing else can be expected. It is no doubt gratifying to look down on the majority as ignorant, indifferent or self-absorbed. It is more accurate to think of them as unaware, busy trying to cope with life's adversities, and having their own perfectly reasonable priorities. For most, coping with everyday life is hard enough. We should give praise to the minority who always emerge to join a campaign rather than being disappointed about and scornful of the majority who don't.

As for the righteous, the surprising thing is not how few there are but invariably how many. The gentile who saved Jews, the Hutu who saved Tutsi, the Congolese women who stand up to their rapists, the Zimbabwean human rights activists, these few show a courage unimaginable to most ordinary people. How many among us would risk 'doing the right thing' if it meant risking imprisonment, excruciating torture or even death? How many would give their lives to save another's? It helps nothing to have unreasonable expectations of others when most of us would not act any differently in the same circumstances.

8. DON'T EXPECT THOSE WITH THE MEANS TO INTERVENE SERIOUSLY

Ever since it was decided not to destroy the train tracks leading to the Nazi death camps, the powerful have always found good reasons not to intervene. Look at the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – those who really control most of the UN's agenda – during the Rwandan crisis. The Russians and Chinese didn't give a damn, the French had their usual diabolical political agenda, the British slavishly followed the US line, and the Clinton administration, for its own good partisan political reasons, was prepared to face any public humiliation and self-debasement rather than send reinforcements to bolster the existing puny UN mission.

For Darfur, all five once again had reasons of self-interest, persuasive to themselves, to oppose any attempt to force the Sudanese government to call off its armed forces and Janjaweed militia. China wants Sudan's oil and its weapons market. Russia too wants to sell oil-rich Sudan weapons to use against Darfuris. France plays its usual geopolitical games revolving around language. Britain is content to follow the US leader, and the US plays an astonishingly two-faced game. The Bush administration led the way in publicly declaring the Sudanese government to be guilty of genocide in Darfur, yet has worked actively and openly with the Sudanese intelligence and secret services on the 'war on terror'. The US State Department's 2007 annual report on state sponsors of terror notes: 'The Sudanese government was a strong partner in the War on Terror and aggressively pursued terrorist operations directly involving threats to US interests and personnel in Sudan.' Why then did we expect the Bush administration to seriously undermine that same government?

To add insult to injury, one of the states that has been most protective of the Sudanese government, both within the African Union and at the United Nations, is South Africa. Important recent business ties between the two countries apparently take precedence, in the eyes of the South African government, over the atrocities orchestrated by Sudan in Darfur.

9. WE DON'T NEED A FINDING OF GENOCIDE TO INTERVENE IN A HUMANITARIAN DISASTER

Determining a full-blown genocide along the lines of the 1948 convention can be very tricky and controversial. Even now there is disagreement over whether Darfur constitutes a genocide. Determining a crime against humanity is much less problematic or controversial. It is widely agreed that the Sudanese government is responsible for committing or orchestrating appalling crimes against the Darfuri people.

Strangely enough, an eloquent statement of this position was articulated by none other than Colin Powell. In 2004, Powell, as secretary of state, informed the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the US had decided, based on evidence it had commissioned, that genocide was taking place in western Sudan. But he then added the following critical sentences: 'Mr. Chairman … let us not be preoccupied with this designation of genocide. These people are in desperate need and we must help them. Call it a civil war. Call it ethnic cleansing. Call it genocide. Call it "none of the above". The reality is the same: there are people in Darfur who desperately need our help.'

Exactly. This is why the Responsibility to Protect doctrine is potentially more effective than the genocide convention. Assuming the political will to intervene – a huge assumption – it is far easier if actual genocide need not be proven or agreed on.

10. GENOCIDE CAN BE PREVENTED – THE PATTERN OF BETRAYAL CAN BE BROKEN

Way back in 1935, already distressed by the impunity with which Adolf Hitler was re-arming Germany, Winston Churchill shared his deep frustration with the British House of Commons. Human behaviour, he complained, demonstrated the 'long dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind'. Imagine what he'd say almost three-quarters of a century later. The record shows there is ample reason for great cynicism about the possibility of genocide prevention in the future, let alone ending the ongoing conflicts in Darfur or eastern DR Congo.

Heaven knows we have the tools, if anyone wants to use them: the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, the 2005 UN General Assembly Declaration on the Responsibility to Protect, the moral authority of Never Again, not to mention international outrage. But none of these tools is worth a Zimbabwean dollar if the major international actors lack the political will to invoke them. To date, national self-interest has always trumped all other humanitarian considerations. To complicate matters further, the American invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration, in the name of democracy and freedom, has significantly muddied the waters. It has become difficult to distinguish a genuine humanitarian invasion from an imperial adventure. The differing opinions on the Afghanistan conflict among women and men of goodwill are a fine example. These complications can't be dismissed.

Still, there are pretty clear-cut causes on the agenda at this very moment, eastern Congo and Zimbabwe being among the most obvious. Humans being their own worst enemies – 'I have seen the enemy and he is us' (Walt Kelly's Pogo) – we can be only too confident that others will present themselves momentarily. And then there is only one method of moving a recalcitrant or self-interested UN Security Council: public opinion, the weight of organised civil society making demands. We must put so much pressure on our own governments that they will make our concerns their own, and take them to the United Nations. Nothing else will work. It's never easy, but yes, we can too.

* Gerald Caplan is the author of The Betrayal of Africa.
* This article was originally published by AfricaFiles.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Speaking like Narkissos again?

Godwin Murunga

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/56415

cc Wikimedia CommonsIn the wake of Kenya and Uganda's confrontation over the small island of Migingo in Lake Victoria, Godwin Murunga argues that the actions of Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni are very much in keeping with an essentially paradoxical nature. While in broad agreement with Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem's contention that the Migingo conflict should be settled both legally and politically, Murunga stresses that the Ugandan president's default mode is invariably militaristic and rooted in a belief in 'individual destiny'. Suggesting that Museveni's essential narcissism and unerring faith in military solutions completely dominate his political approach, the author argues that it will be the extent to which the Kenyan leadership cares for Kenyans and Ugandans alike which will determine a settlement.

Writing in Africa Today (vol. 50, no. 3, 2004), Professor Joe Oloka-Onyango describes Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, as ‘a conundrum of paradoxes'. The latest spat between Uganda and Kenya over the little island of Migingo in Lake Victoria illustrates the never-ending bag of paradoxes that is Museveni.

For a start, the idea of an East African Community was largely mooted by the initiative of Museveni. Using the less threatening mediation of Benjamin Mkapa, then president of the United Republic of Tanzania, Museveni managed to get a suspicious and more astute Daniel arap Moi to commit and support this idea. The idea has grown and initiatives to fast-track integration are at an advanced stage. But just when the idea appeared to be coming to fruition, Museveni unleashed the Migingo controversy. If left unchecked, this controversy is set to roll back or undo the drive to regional integration in East Africa.

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem has counselled that ‘this conflict needs to be resolved through legal, diplomatic and political means’ and not militarily. Many Kenyans would agree with this counsel except for the fact that it is Museveni we are dealing with here. Museveni’s militaristic manners are the problem and they pervade every realm of his thinking and action. According to Joe Oloka-Onyango, Museveni ‘will recourse to the military in dealing with essentially political and economic affairs, such as elections, taxation, and smuggling’. Doesn’t this take away everything that Tajudeen counsels as the better route to peaceful coexistence?

Legal and diplomatic means do not exist or operate out of politics; in fact they are an integral part of politics. They require the political will of contending forces to facilitate the dialogue that is so essential to their success. Yet as Tajudeen notes, President Museveni and the National Resistance Army/Movement’s (NRA/M) style – a style well-known across the region – has historically 'prepared for war while talking peace'. And there is no reason to imagine it will be different this time.

There is no doubt that for reasons that reside in the weird leadership character of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, the legal, diplomatic and political means have already been given a chance to unfold. Not only has President Kibaki been strangely quiet about an issue of such national importance, but his ministers and negotiators have stood calm as Ugandan forces have occupied and hoisted the Ugandan flag on the island, harassed innocent citizens and adopted a bellicose posture every time Ugandan officials have trooped around the island. Kenyans on the island have not complained about Ugandan citizens, but they consistently complain about the Ugandan armed forces.

What threatens to undo all the goodwill that might heal this controversy is Museveni’s love for the military option coupled with his strong belief in ‘individual destiny’. The notion of ‘individual destiny’ does not frontally convey the political danger that Museveni’s political biography poses to the vision of regional integration. This is a political biography that is strongly narcissistic. Writing on this in ChemChemi: International Journal of Arts and Social Sciences of Kenyatta University (vol. 1, December 1999), the respected Kenyan historian Bethwell Ogot described Museveni as a ‘Ugandan Narkissos’ and aptly captured the variety of dangers rolled into this one character.

The word narcissism derives from the name of a Greek youth Narkissos, who fell in love with his own reflection in water. If we understand narcissism to mean ‘a tendency to self-worship, an absorption in one’s own personal perfection’ and we agree with Oloka-Onyango that Museveni shares with Idi Amin and Muammar Gaddafi 'an affection for matters military' and 'an unflagging belief in the efficacy of military action to solve virtually every political problem', then Kenyans have a right to be circumspect of every one of Museveni’s promises for an amicable solution to the Migingo issue. This view is justified. Since the Migingo controversy came to light, Museveni had promised to allow a proper survey to be undertaken so as to provide a scientific basis of resolving the controversy. The Kenyan team on this issue has been uncharacteristically calm even in the face of repeated provocation from Uganda and amateurish prodding in Kenya for a more robust response. But on Tuesday 12 May 2009, Museveni’s characteristic ‘fit of pique’ overwhelmed him. This happened only one day after the survey aimed at resolving the issue was launched.

Speaking to the BBC after a lecture at the University of Dar es Salaam, Museveni slammed the Wajalous (the Luos). 'The island is in Kenya, the water is in Uganda,' he argued:

'But the Wajaluos are mad, they want to fish here but this is Uganda … hii nchi uhuru [this is a sovereign country]. It is written here in English … from this point, the border will continue to go in a straight line to the most northern point of Suba Island. Mpaka inazunguka kisiwa [the border surrounds the island] … one foot into the water and you’re in Uganda.'

In response, Kenyans have gone ballistic and their MPs have declared Uganda an unfriendly country. In contrast, Ugandans know Museveni better and much of his verbiage has gone almost unnoticed. I inquired from a colleague in Kampala who closely follows regional politics what he thought about Museveni’s outburst. 'Outburst on what?', came the response, before he added that 'He [Museveni] is always bursting.'

Ugandans are only too aware of the military basis on which Museveni has built his profile, with serious negative consequences within. This has undermined opposition politics in the country as Museveni has assaulted political freedom and guaranteed an ‘absence of enduring peace’. In 2003, one Ugandan professor described him as the ‘revolutionary of the World Bank'. With this the professor captured the irony of ‘a market-reformed Marxist’.

An essentially 'militaristic and opportunistic vision of the process of integration' has blossomed under Museveni. He has loomed large in most conflicts in the region in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan. Kenya was among the first testing-ground for his military driven idea of regional integration in 1987. When it became clear that Moi would not be an easy adversary – especially after he firmly repulsed NRA soldiers at the Busia border and closed the border (thereby asphyxiating landlocked Uganda) – Museveni retreated. Henceforth, he went on an empty tirade seeking to find a solution out of Uganda’s landlocked trap. As far as I can tell, he has not yet solved this problem.

It is obvious that Museveni finds Kibaki an easier adversary and the Kenyan grand coalition mix-up as an opportunity. Prone to a hands-off style in which critical national crises spiral out of control before he acts, Kibaki’s style might be the reason why the Migingo controversy might escalate. Indeed, there is a sense that Museveni is acutely aware of the internal workings of Kenyan politics, workings which do not predispose Kibaki to act quickly and firmly on the Migingo issue.

In other words, both Kibaki and Museveni have a common nemesis in Kenya’s prime minister, Raila Odinga. They are deeply suspicious of him, Museveni for reasons that might relate to his regional aspirations and Kibaki largely for local political manoeuvring. One only needs to note Museveni’s shamefully rude reference to the Wajaluos which he intended as a denigrating and dismissive reference. For him, the issue is not about Kenya, it is about 'those Jaluos who were rioting... wanang’oa [uprooting] railway'. But Museveni is appropriating a language common in Kenya. The Luo are supposed to be riotous and unreasonable and do not enjoy any affinity with other Kenyans. This was and continues to be a common reference in sections of Kenya. In 2007, as in earlier electoral contests where a Luo candidate vied for the presidency, this reference was used to suggest that a Luo could never be elected as Kenya’s president. The more President Kibaki procrastinates on Migingo, the more obvious it becomes that he treats this as a problem of those 'riotous' Jaluos.

Those who understand Museveni, like Joe Oloka-Onyango or Andrew Mwenda, will acknowledge his display of ‘abusive and dismissive language’ in public. This is often accompanied by a tendency to disparage those who disagree with him. Keen observers would have noticed such rudeness towards Raila Odinga during the swearing-in of the cabinet in 2008. In the middle of a sentence, he cynically asked 'which is that Raila’s party?' Many people think that Museveni aspires to become the first head of an integrated East African Community. If this were the case, East Africans should be made aware of Museveni’s troubling ‘disdain for, and fear of, opposition politics'. In Kenya, in contrast, opposition politics has been the bedrock of an incipient movement to reform.

Kenyan politics shares one thing with Tanzanian politics. Both are anchored in civilian rule while Uganda’s is militaristic. Recently, Museveni upped the ante by going for militarised family rule. For a family that has 'no accomplishments of their own', Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda concludes, their ‘success’ rests in living off Museveni’s patronage. Thus, Janet Museveni is minister for Karamoja region, first lady, and MP for Ruhaama constituency, while his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba was last year elevated to the position of special force commander, the president's younger brother Salim Saleh (Caleb Akandwanaho) is a senior presidential advisor on defence and his daughter, Natasha Karugire, is a private secretary to the president. Even if one wished to give Museveni a chance in East Africa, militarised family rule must surely be outdated.

Does one need to wonder when Museveni’s love for the people dissipated? In December 1987, following protracted tension between Kenya and Uganda, Museveni held a press conference at which he accused Moi of 'trying to force me to fight Kenyans'. Equating this to 'trying to force me to fight my children, or my brothers, or my sisters', he concluded that the 'Uganda government knows that there is no cause for conflict between the people of Kenya and the people of Uganda.' 'I am talking about the people', he elaborated, 'They are not conflicting over land, they are not conflicting over water, so why should we conflict with the Kenyan people?'

Today, Museveni’s short memory and his over-extended military ego reflect an individual who cares less about the people of Kenya or Uganda. Indeed, one wonders if the Kenyan leadership cares for the people of Uganda or Kenya, but this must be the critical question as we strive for a quick and amicable end to the Migingo controversy.

* Godwin Murunga is the editor of Issa G. Shivji's Where is Uhuru?, published by Pambazuka Press.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Report on Gaza conflict: Audio interview

John Dugard

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/56416

cc flickr.comIn an audio interview [mp3] about an independent fact-finding report into the war in Gaza commissioned by the League of Arab States, John Dugard, the former special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories and the head of the investigation, discusses the findings of the report. Comprised of the contributions of individuals from six non-Arab countries, Dugard's report comes to the conclusion that the Israeli defence forces were responsible for a number of war crimes and crimes against humanity in their offensive earlier this year. This was a verdict also reached about the activities of Hamas forces, but the report regards those of Israeli to have been far more severe. While the report found potential suggestions of genocide on the part of the Israeli forces to be too strong, Dugard nevertheless emphasises Israeli's 'wish to impose collective punishment on the people of Gaza' and the minimal cooperation from the Israeli authorities his team received when investigating the actions of both sides.

* John Dugard is a professor of international law and the United Nations special rapporteur on the Israeli–Palestinian disputed territories.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

The fallacies of identity politics

Audrey Mbugua

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/56414

cc Liz HenryDeeply concerned about the profound discrimination experienced by Kenya's transgender community, Audrey Mbugua berates Kenyan society for its unjust treatment of a marginalised group. Rather than creating 'transgender rights' per se, Mbugua calls upon the country to view transgender people as human beings like any other group. Deeply scathing of Kenya's entrenched 'trans-phobia' and the divisive nature of different groups' competing for recognition, the author implores those marginalised to see themselves as part of a wider struggle for justice that transcends identity politics.

Identity politics refers to a political action to advance the interests of a group whose members perceive themselves to be oppressed by virtue of a shared and marginalised identity (such as race, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation).

Two weeks ago, a colleague of mine summoned me into his office and played a news clip dating back to August last year. It involves a Kenyan transgender girl been brutally beaten up in the streets by a group of women and men. Her face is swollen and her clothes torn. She begs for mercy but her pleading is drowned out by the laughter of women and children. She tries to cover her tiny breasts but a man uncovers them for the cameraman to capture it all. After this macabre footage, a female news anchor laughs before yapping about something else 'important' (probably the trauma of gender violence among abused women).

A week ago, I got hold of a collection of hallowing experiences that a group of Kenyan women went through during the infamous post-election violence.[1] One of the accounts reveals a woman who was raped by a group of 11 policemen as her son watched in horror. In the process, she was infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Another lady reveals that she had full-blown Aids and was bedridden when Kenya went to the elections in 2007. But this did not deter a group of Kenya’s General Service officers from raping her. She further revealed that her husband had died a year earlier and her health had deteriorated to the level of her giving up on anti-retroviral therapy. Apart from religious fanatics who believe everything happens for a purpose and God knows and plans everything, who would justify these horrendous acts? Who would want these things to happen to oneself whether there was any purpose or if God had planned them?

In all honesty, I can painfully admit that these are not unique cases. They are all connected by the fact that the mentality that gave direction to their purpose is rife in all facets of our communities and that we can’t simply wish them away. We only need to pick up a journal to read of a gang of men engaging in an orgy of massacre leaving 29 young men dead. We only need to watch the 7 o’clock news to see a young transgender woman being mercilessly beaten up and the news anchor laughing at such human rights violations. We only need a 26-year-old intelligent young man who has been ostracised by his community as a result of his HIV status knowingly spreading HIV in a college. The justification? He wasn’t born with HIV. A human being knowingly infected him and society rejected him for his condition. He will not die alone.

I will now delve into the problem of the violation of the human rights of Kenya’s transgender people. Four months ago, I was embroiled in a case where a transgender woman was attacked by members of the public. This woman was then arraigned in a law court and ultimately sentenced to a four-month prison term owing to being 'a public nuisance since she is a man wearing women’s clothes', as the police indicated in their occurrence book. While seeking to explain transgender identity to the police and probation officers (and the fallacies of their nebulous charges), a probation officer dismissed me and claimed that transgender people are not recognised by the government of Kenya. Well, I tried to correct him but his arrogance seems to have shut his mind for anything sensible.

Let me state something that I hope people will retain in their thick and tiny skulls: there is nothing about transgender rights or transgender people not being recognised in Kenya’s constitution. Transgender people in Kenya are human beings. The constitution of Kenya recognises us transsexual people by the mere fact that we are human beings. Transgender is an identity just like diabetic, disabled and comatose. The underlying argument this probation officer used was that the words 'transgender people' don’t appear in Kenya’s constitution. But let’s assume this probation officer has cancer (and I honestly hope he doesn’t get it). The words 'cancer patients' don’t appear in the constitution. Is it then okay that we go ahead and beat the crap out of the probation officer and have him incarcerated just because the constitution doesn’t 'recognise' cancer patients?

I will put it in a nutshell and I hope you people have some disk space left since your last Sunday service. If by any chance you deem it okay to make trans-people apologise for breathing the same air that Christians breathe, then cancer patients, tall, short, slim, myopic, diabetic, crazy, anaemic, impotent and fat people equally deserve to. Add to this list people infected with swine flu and any zoonotic diseases trans-phobic people catch in the process of fornicating with livestock. People have in a way come to accept that transsexual people have to be treated differently. The understanding nowadays is the parents of a 25-year-old transsexual woman need to send a 'no objection' letter to hospitals before transsexual people can access treatment. Why, people have not been educated on transsexualism and religious groups might sue hospitals! Please. Grow some nuts. I am not a walking transsexualism information machine. How many Christians understand the pathogenesis of cystic fibrosis? Almost zero. But does the public go around suing hospitals for treating cystic fibrosis? No. Then you people shouldn't try to convince me that ignorance is the problem. It’s malice and hatred.

You people create labels, brand people and obfuscate matters further by attaching the word 'rights' to the end of these labels, and since you know vague labels such as transgender with the word 'rights' are ultimately non-existent, you hope to engage in criminal activities and get away with it. It’s a paradigm close to what was done to women by patriarchy and even by privileged women. The liberation movement in Kenya in the late 1990s – and even as late as today – was focused on women’s rights. And the same oppressive system wants transsexual people to sit around the table with it and confer on transgender rights. No! This is not going to happen. There is nothing like transgender rights. But there are transgender people’s human rights. The same human rights other people, irrespective of their identities and diversity of any status, can invoke.

The irrational hatred of transsexual people can be viewed as tacit compensatory activity. Look at some Christian nut-heads busy roaming in our streets and subjecting our children to psychological torture by brainwashing them with stories of hellfire and God’s irrational vengeance for sinners. I could bet on one fact: this kind of people are the most wicked of the human species and to compensate for their guilty conscience, they have to create a particular class of people to act as the punching bag for their frustrations. Likewise, as a distraction from their overindulgence and greed. They don’t even have to plan for it, it comes out naturally. What a shame!

It’s a common practice for oppressed people to accept and respect condemnation from various quarters – and especially from the village pastor – just because the condemnation ends with a 'praise the Lord'. Well, I won’t be that respectful. I condemn rape whether it's done by Jesus, Muhammad, Hitler or by Satan himself. I also condemn rape whether it’s directed at a nun, a lesbian, an octogenarian, an infant, a pygmy, a sex worker or a bar hostess.

As we grow up, prejudice for particular communities or people incubates in our brains and with time hitting a transsexual person on her face for no particular reason becomes acceptable for non-transsexual people. Trans-phobia is not just a preserve of the airheads among us. The educated ones ain’t any better. In fact, it’s no wonder to hear an educated and sane adult asking whether it’s legal to treat transsexual people with sex-reassignment surgery. The starting premise here been transsexual people are an outlawed community. Wow! It’s as if the human brain has evolved to misunderstand transsexualism and transsexual people.

I once tried to create a collaboration between my organisation Transgender Education and Advocacy and a certain women’s organisation. I sent this organisation a general idea of transsexual identity and anti-transgender oppression and highlighted the striking similarities between the systems which oppress us. The coordinator declined my request, dismissing the transgender plight as a human rights issue and not a gender issue! This is one of the predicaments affecting liberation movements in Kenya. Michelle O’Brien (2003) discusses the deep intersection of our predicaments and the need for liberation movements to unite against all forms of oppression: 'The self-determination of trans people must rest on recognizing the deep interconnections of transphobia, patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism and all other systems of domination. Global wars of power play out within our bodies and consciousness, and our liberation is inseparable from all others. A transfeminist politics, like any substantive revolutionary politics, must move beyond ranking identities and competing over scarce resources, and instead lie in a vision of struggle and freedom that encompasses all people.'

I can bet on one other thing: the system that denies women reproductive rights is the same that will deny transsexual people access to healthcare. The system that plays sexist games by sidelining women during promotions and appointments is the same system that discriminates against transsexual people in Kenya’s labour market. Transgender and cisgender women need to focus on their collective and personal experiences and create a liberation movement that will change the lives of all people in this country. Let our universal goals bring us together out of our diversities and be the motivator for our struggle for justice within Kenya overall.

* 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/.

NOTES
[1] In the Shadow of Death; My trauma, my experience.

REFERENCES
Boas J. 1996. We are Witnesses. Scholastic Inc.
Okello R. 2008. In the Shadow of Death. African Woman and Child.
O’Brien M. 2003. Trans Liberation and Feminism. Self determination, health care and revolutionary struggle. http://www.deadletters.biz/feminism.html
Wikipedia 2008 Identity Politics, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_politics

Forcible repatriation threat for Burundian refugees

Leave or 'be beaten and forced to run empty-handed to Burundi'

Zachary Lomo

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/56419

cc AnduzeAround 40,000 Burundian refugees face involuntary repatriation when Tanzania’s Mtabila refugee camp is closed at the end of June, writes Zachary Lomo. Officials have told refugees that ‘if they are still in the camp after 30 June, they will be beaten and forced to run empty-handed to Burundi’. Although the camp schools have been closed and the markets destroyed, very few refugees have registered to return home. There is no longer fighting in Burundi but many refugees fear the reprisal killing of anyone suspected of supporting opposition groups, as well as disputes over property. Tanzanian field officers claim they have no plans to force the refugees to return to Burundi and will negotiate the integration and naturalisation of those unwilling or unable to go back with the Tanzanian government.

Mtabila refugee camp, home to some 40,000 Burundian refugees, is reportedly to be closed by the end of June and all of inhabitants are threatened with involuntary repatriation.

On 8 May I received the first telephone call of several here in Cambridge from a desperate refugee whom I had met last November in Mtabila. He said a Tanzanian official has told them that if 30 June elapses and they are still in the camp, they will be beaten and forced to run, empty-handed to Burundi; they had better heed the last and final call and register and get a ‘dignified’ chance to return to their country. Despite such threat, he said very few had registered to return. Nevertheless, secondary schools have been closed and the markets have been destroyed. He also said that security had been beefed up as more police were being brought into the camp. Although no refugee is allowed to leave the camp, according to my caller, some people are managing to escape, fleeing towards Uganda and Kenya.

Apparently the Burundians’ fate was already sealed in 2007 when the UNHCR and the Tanzanian and Burundi governments signed a Tripartite Agreement under the Cessation Clause, a provision of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which stipulates six conditions when refugee status ceases. The Cessation clause can be invoked if any of the six conditions has occurred. Under the fifth condition (Article 1 C (5), often shortened to ‘ceased circumstances’ clause, and upon which the repatriation agreement was based, a person ceases to be a refugee if the causes of flight in the home country have dramatically changed for the better. Even then, the same provision of Article 1 C (5) stipulates that a refugee can ‘invoke compelling reasons arising out of previous persecution for refusing to avail him of the protection of the country of nationality…’ In other words, the cessation clause does not apply to automatically; a refugee who has reason to fear persecution – reprisals, revenge killings, including deprivation of his or her land – in his country of origin, cannot be forced to return to that country.

When I was conducting research in Mtabila in November 2008, rumours of camp closure and forced repatriation were rife. In fact, this was the main concern of refugees I interviewed. They feared Tanzania would use the army as they did back in 1996. Refugees acknowledge there is no fighting in Burundi, but they still fear continuing reprisal killing that will affect anyone suspected of supporting any of the myriad opposition groups. They also fear the disputes that will arise over their property; disputes that are inevitable in an overcrowded country where all unoccupied houses or land gets taken over by those who get there first. Those who have most to fear are the descendants of the 1972 expulsion from Burundi. Not having been born in Burundi, they have nothing to return to. One man who had made a brief visit to Burundi said he would never take his family of five children back because they might all die in one swoop of a grenade attack. He had seen his relatives who were killed and their houses destroyed by grenades.

Last November, I also met with the head of the Field Office in Kasula, Tanzania and he reassured me that they were not planning to force the Burundians to return. They would ‘screen’ those who were unwilling or unable to go back and negotiate with the Tanzanian government concerning their integration and naturalization. Apparently such precautions have not been taken if the refugee who called me is an example.

Government officers were less accessible, but when I managed to meet one junior officer, he did admit that there were problems that arose because those involved in making tripartite agreements ‘were not conversant with issues on the ground’ and that ‘for UNHCR repatriation was a priority’. He admitted that his office had been ‘directed that no more new arrivals will be accepted because it undermines the current repatriation programme.’

Kasulu, and the Kigoma region – the location of most refugees in Tanzania – are too far away from the capital for any journalist to report on. I can only hope that this mobile phone call will be sufficient alert.


* Zachary Lomo is currently reading for his doctorate in international law and refugees at the University of Cambridge.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Kenya: An unprecedented state of violence

ACHPR urged to take action on human rights violations

Kenya Human Rights Commission

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/56424

cc flickr.comThe Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) has urged the ACHPR to adopt a resolution to address the Kenyan government on its obligations to protect and promote the rights of all people and its duty to hold violators to account through criminal prosecution. The criminalisation of peaceful demonstrations and the rise in extra-judicial killings are evidence of the government’s failure to act on recommendations made by commissions of inquiry into the presidential elections and post election violence, say KHRC. The body also wants ACHPR to send a fact-finding mission to Kenya including special rapporteurs on human rights and human rights defenders, women, freedom of information and refugees; and to ‘address and inform the AU summit on the factual situation and risks in Kenya’.

PRESENTATION TO THE 45th ORDINARY SESSION OF ACHPR, BANJUL (14 MAY 2009)

THE HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS’ SITUATION IN KENYA

Following the bungled presidential elections in Kenya in 2007, Kenya faced an unprecedented state of violence and unrest that has continued albeit subtly. In spite of the political settlement that was reached with skilful midwifery by his excellency Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations, Kenya’s human rights record has continued to deteriorate. It is important to note that the Kofi Annan obtained his mandate from the African Union.

The Annan negotiations concluded inter alia that the problems that Kenya faced emanated from longstanding impunity alongside systemic human rights violations by the state and politicians. As a result, the mediation agreement known as the National Accord recommended several actions, including the establishment of two key commissions of inquiry – one to inquire into the bungled presidential elections and the other to investigate the post election violence. The commission investigating the elections recommended, inter alia, the disbandment of the Electoral Commission and establishment of a lean professional one with professional staff.

The one investigating the post election violence recommended among other things the following:
1) The establishment of a special tribunal for Kenya to investigate and prosecute those named in the report suspected for bearing the greatest responsibility.
2) In event that the tribunal is either not set up or if set up is frustrated or cannot effectively discharge its mandate, then the list be handed to the ICC (International Criminal Court).
3) Specific radical reforms of the security sector.
4) Immediate prosecution of those people, including police officers, suspected to have perpetrated gender based sexual violence.

To date, no prosecution under 4) above has been undertaken despite the documentation of vital evidence recorded by the commission mentioned above.
The general population has continued to suffer the indignity of human rights violations by being denied the right to associate and assemble freely. Peaceful demonstrations – even over the state of insecurity – have been criminalised.

Extra-judicial killings are commonplace without any or successful investigations by the state. Human rights defenders have been forced to seek refuge both within and outside of Kenya. Indeed currently there are about nineteen human rights defenders (HRDs) that are under protection. The Kenya police has not taken steps to protect the HRDs, neither has it investigated the sources of their credible risks.

In February 2009, two well-known HRDs were assassinated while a university student was killed in the cause of agitation and concern over the killings. To date no one has been arrested nor charged over these gross killings.

The Commission of inquiry into post elections violence (CIPEV) report shows that about one thousand three hundred and thirty-three people were killed during the crisis. Of these about one third are recorded to have been killed by the police. Civil society organisations reckon that more people were actually killed and thousands more affected.

In addition, there were about six hundred thousand internally displaced persons (IDPs) who had to seek refuge in camps provided by the Red Cross. Some have been resettled but as of now we do have more than one hundred thousand still languishing in squalid conditions without resettlement. The government seems to have surrendered in its duty to provide protection and lifeline services to them.

Following the inquiry into the post election violence in Kenya, the Commission of inquiry into post elections violence (CIPEV) made various recommendations for reforms in a series of public institutions including the police force. These recommendations, especially the security sector reforms, have not been implemented credibly in the spirit of the report.

Kenya has ratified the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. Your commission has reaffirmed that state parties have an obligation, among other things, to provide, protect, and promote the human rights of all persons including human rights defenders.

Your commission ought to take steps regarding Kenya more urgently now because the politicians and political leaders in the country have resorted to engaging themselves in positioning towards the political transition expected with the 2012 general elections rather than engage in reforms that would move the country forward in regard to human rights and development. In addition, the government recently enacted retrogressive media control laws while refusing to repeal the Official Secrets Act which promotes impunity.

We emphasise urgency because, without preparation for violence, 1333 people lost their lives. Imagine the carnage in the election if nothing corrective is made.

We respectfully address the commission hoping that you will adopt a resolution in order to do the following:

a) Directly address the Government of Kenya on its obligations to protect and promote the rights of all people and particularly the duty to hold violators to account through criminal prosecution.
b) To send a fact-finding mission to Kenya which should include special rapporteurs for the following:
- Human rights
- Human rights defenders
- Women
- Freedom of information
- Refugees
who should report to your commission in the next ordinary session.
c) To address and inform the AU summit on the factual situation and risks in Kenya.

We thank you.

Kenya Human Rights Commission
on behalf of Kenyans for Peace with Truth and Justice

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

Should aid to Africa come to an end?

Dambisa Moyo's Dead Aid has caused a stir but its argument is incorrect

Ronald Elly Wanda

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/56420

cc Alessandro PucciDambisa Moyo’s argument that aid is detrimental to Africa’s development has made her a star on the literary and academic circuit, writes Ronald Elly Wanda, but it isn’t true. Moyo’s recent book Dead Aid, Wanda says, makes no ‘correlation between Africa’s development and its accompanying social and historical conditions’ nor does it explore the possibility that ‘exogenous factors have and continue to hamper development in Africa’. If Moyo’s argument that Africa’s culture of dependency is to blame for its woes was true, writes Wanda, the economies of countries which have received virtually no foreign aid – such as Eritrea, Mauritania and Somalia – should have improved notably, which is not the case. The real problem, Wanda argues, is not aid itself but the way in which it is structured and delivered.

‘Stars come and go,’ said William Goldman in Adventures in the Screen Trade. And Goldman was right. Lately in the African literary and development circle, Dambisa Moyo with her new book Dead Aid: Why aid is not working and how there is a better way for Africa, has become one such a 'star'. The book, not to my surprise, has received a very warm welcome within the western academic circuit that is usually unreceptive to African intellectual contributions.

For instance, one Oxford University don (Moyo’s former tutor both at Oxford and Harvard) reviewing for the Independent wrote: ‘Dambisa Moyo is to aid what Ayaan Hirsi Ali is to Islam. Here is an African woman, articulate, smart, glamorous, delivering a message of brazen political incorrectness: “cut aid to Africa”’. Another well-placed British reviewer continues the flattery: ‘Moyo cannot be dismissed as a crank. Educated at Harvard and Oxford, she heads the Africa strategy of a major bank. Nor can she be dismissed as a renegade who has rejected her roots. She is deeply wounded by the lack of development in Zambia, her home country’.

Michela Wrong, (a former FT reporter) whose recent book-launch I attended at SOAS, also thinks Moyo is right. Her book It’s Our Turn to Eat: the story of a Kenyan Whistleblower is based on narratives of her friend John Githongo, the former Kenyan anti-corruption tsar who sought sanctuary in Britain in 2005 after uncovering high-level corruption in the post-Moi regime. Since its publication, Kenyan bookshops have refused to stock or distribute it, citing fears of persecution and prosecution by the incumbent Kibaki administration. Reviewing for The Spectator (a right-wing publication) Wrong said: ‘The assumption that foreign aid is an unalloyed good runs so deep in the guilt- ridden, post-colonial West, people are often shocked to discover that many Africans, far from showing appropriate gratitude or begging for more, regard these contributions with both distrust and suspicion’. Concluding: ‘No wonder this book is causing a stir’. But should Moyo be branded a star simply for causing a stir? Having read her submission, forgive me, I think not.

Truth, reality and objectivity, it is often argued, mark out the straight road of knowledge and put us on our guard against all deviations. As an analyst with a Pan-African posture, whenever reading socio-political texts on Africa, I often ponder on whether the writer managed to make a correlation between Africa’s development and its accompanying social and historical conditions. Thus Dead Aid was no exception. In spite of her ‘impressive’ statistics, Moyo makes no attempt to either mention or entertain the possibilities, as did Dr Walter Rodney in his classic How Europe underdeveloped Africa, that exogenous factors have and continue to hamper development in Africa. For instance the conditionalities imposed on the so called ‘aid’ given to Africa; the culture of protectionism practiced by US and EU and safeguarded by the World Trade Organisation (WTO); the ongoing core (Western world) and periphery (Africa) relations that constantly disadvantage Africa; and last but certainly not least, the subsequent mind-set of International Financial Institutions (IFIs) that subordinates Africa.

For many Africans, particularly women, children and those working in the informal sector, the social impact of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) has been excruciatingly felt. Designed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB), they have been the frame-work for economic and social policy in Africa since the early 1980s. Instead of reducing poverty, they have impoverished already poor ‘wanainchi’(Africans) both in the rural and urban areas. The donor community’s insistence that African countries liberalise their markets through privatisation of public enterprises and downsizing of the civil services have made corruption endemic in Africa. According to a recent UN report, Western business interests are at the heart of corruption in Africa, the report estimated that government supported companies pay bribes worth $80 billion a year in order to secure long and short-term contracts and other concessions from African governments and at the expense of the voiceless and already poor ‘mwanainchi’.

With recent British broadsheets biblically citing Dead Aid and continually amplifying statements such as: ‘…having received almost a US$1 trillion in the past 60 years in foreign aid, yet Africans are still worse off than they were during the independence years…’, one somehow gets the impression that Dead Aid has become a fitting kit for the West to justify aid reduction to Africa.

Moyo’s prime argument that Africa’s culture of dependency is to blame for its woes (although explicable) is simply not true. Because were we to reverse that argument then one should expect the economies of countries such as Eritrea, Mauritania, and for the last 18 years anarchic Somalia, which have received virtually no foreign aid at all, to have improved notably. This, needless to say, has not been the case. Therefore aid in my view is not the problem. The way in which it is structured and delivered is the real problem. The conditions imposed on the aid are so many and in most cases not the right ones. That said, aid alone cannot solve Africa’s many problems, it must go hand in hand with reforms of international trade and financial rules in order to ensure that wanainchi have a fair chance of benefiting from the wealth of resources that Africa has aplenty.

The timing of Dead Aid is, to say the least, neglectful, especially given the recent US and EU banking systems collapse and the inevitable global financial crisis that has followed, the severity of which will be felt more by nearly 40 million poor wanainchi as they swell the ranks of abject poverty. According to Action Aid, the crisis is likely to cost Africa US$400 billion in the next three years alone. It is this reason amongst others that drove most of us at a recent alternative G20 Summit in London under the banner ‘Real Financial Fairness’, to call on richer Western nations to maintain their pledge to increase aid to 0.7 per cent of their respective Gross national incomes (GNIs) as agreed by the UN, (instead of the current 0.2 per cent that they occasionally give) in order to help poor wanainchi in Africa cope with the impact of the current economic crisis. After all, how about the immeasurable capital flight that has left and continues to leave Africa everyday? Under the current circumstances, Samir Amin’s ‘de-linking’ hypothesis becomes more and more relevant and appealing. African leaders ought to start entertaining this possibility with a degree of seriousness if African economies are to become truly independent of aid.

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

In praise of brotherhood – and sisterhood too

Wandia Njoya

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/56421

cc flickr.comIt is ‘not enough for men to plead that they are not as bad as some of their brothers’, writes Wandia Njoya in reply to Godwin Murunga’s response to her ‘tirade on Kenyan masculinity’. Of course there are exceptions to the men I describe, says Njoya, ‘I simply used the male callers as icons of values I know to be still entrenched in Kenyan society after a century of colonialist, traditionalist and racist patriarchy.’ Airing Kenyan men’s dirty linen on an international stage may have been inappropriate but some sort of ‘collective responsibility for what some do in the name of an identity that includes many’ is necessary, Njoya argues. Concerns with ‘personal righteousness’ are largely irrelevant when talking about ‘structuralised oppression’, says Njoya. ‘Men who believe they treat women responsibly and humanely must tell their brothers and teach their sons to do the same.’
After reading Godwin Murunga's response to my tirade on Kenyan masculinity, I could not help but remark that I find it uninteresting that Murunga's arguments depend on the exception to the rule rather than the sequence of reasoning that he seeks to refute. He used the same strategy in responding to Keguro Macharia's assessment of Kenyan academic culture by simply providing exceptions to Macharia's concerns without discussing the issues that Macharia raises (see my analysis African Universities should aim to be ivory towers, and proud of it).

I expected Murunga to exercise some good faith by trusting my intellectual capacity to know that of course, there are exceptions to the men I describe. In fact I do mention them in the longer entry on this site which was a revised version of what was posted at Pambazuka News. But even then, the exceptions do not refute the fundamental flaws and values of Kenya that I deplore.

In addition, suggesting that I based my argument on a handful of callers suggests that prior and exterior to the radio show all Kenyan men – without exception – are gentlemen, if not angels. Again, he should have exercised some good faith in assuming that I would not be so careless as to make an assessment based on an isolated radio show. I simply used the male callers as icons of values I know to be still entrenched in Kenyan society after a century of colonialist, traditionalist and racist patriarchy.

If Murunga is criticising my apparent lack of patriotism and airing Kenyan men's dirty linen on the international stage, I am willing to concede that I may have been inappropriate. I am even willing to accept that with the reputation of Kenyan and African men distorted by global racism, my outburst was careless and, as he says, smacked of intellectual laziness.

If such is the case, the tone and argument of his article reflect the typical expectation of African and black women to hold on to their questions about gender equity and support the men first until the ‘larger’ issues of liberation, or in this case democracy, are obtained.

Finally, as I mentioned in the revised edition of my comment on Kenyan masculinity, I believe in some form of collective responsibility. I referred to the 20 or so men (the number was not that high) as a sample, or even as a symbol, of dominant patriarchal values in Kenya. The response I expect from men who believe they treat women responsibly and humanely is to tell their brothers and teach their sons to do the same, as groups of men for gender equality do. That was what the Million Man March was all about – assuming collective responsibility for what some do in the name of an identity that includes many. It is not enough for men to plead that they are not as bad as some of their brothers. That is a trite – if not bourgeois – concern with personal righteousness that is largely irrelevant when we are talking about structuralised oppression. In any case, surely I was not expected to wait until the ten or so million Kenyan men are interviewed before I could voice an opinion!

As Murunga insinuates, I am an elite – just as much as he is, by the way – and I may not have suffered what the majority of Kenyan women suffer. But that does not make me so inhuman as not to empathise with the sufferings of fellow women, no matter their nationality. More than that, I am the product of struggle of many women and men before me, and so I bear that legacy with pride and I am not ashamed. Many women, including my grandmother, would have loved to go to school like I did. It would be a disservice to them if I just shut up; they did not work hard just for me to keep quiet. In any case, must I suffer gender oppression to identify it as such? And what will other women leaders before me have struggled for if I have to go through the same thing? I am simply picking the baton from them – I am not starting the race they started. To do so would negate their history and the brilliant work they have already done. Expecting me to go through the same oppression they triumphantly struggled against in order to justify myself as an ‘authentic’ African non-feminist woman would be like saying that doctors can only treat malaria if they suffered from the disease, because by doing so they qualify by knowing what it feels like to have malaria.

And isn't it interesting that the question of elitism often crops up when addressing educated African women, but rarely is it used to distinguish the different backgrounds of African men? Raila Odinga is seen as a man of the people despite riding on the waves of family history. He is not considered the elitist, born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-the-mouth German-trained engineer that he is. But come Wangari Maathai – she has to explain the fact that she is not representative of most Kenyan women.

Long story short, Murunga's analysis was a defence based on a critique of what I did not say, rather than an actual engagement of what I actually said.

All the same, I acknowledge Murunga's rebuke and praise all those Kenyan brothers who know there is no joy in oppressing a fellow human being just because she is a woman. From my father and brother whom I boast about in another article Quiet Days and Loving Nights, to my male colleagues with whom I enjoy conversations and whose ideas were actually incorporated in the article, I say: may God bless you. Incidentally, my article was not inspired by feminists as Murunga suggests. As I said, I did not even think much of the sex boycott by the women leaders, who might also not be open to the feminist label as he suggests. I was, in fact, inspired by Professor Amuka's brilliant article Fundamentalism and the search for human(e) order, in which he examines tolerance across the gender divide, among others. It is he who said: ‘It should also be noted that Kenya is a male-dominated and unashamedly male-ruled country. The struggle for power at the political level is thus largely a male affair replete with phallic symbolism...Other phallic symbols than the gun include arrows, spears, knives and pangas. But perhaps the most potent one is the male organ. Many Kenyans circumcise men in childhood, a few do not. Quite a few male politicians are known to use such differences to rally their ethnic subjects against other communities.’

Now, that incisiveness is well spoken from the depths of true brotherhood. I would like to spread it throughout Kenya to the ends of the earth.

* This article first appeared in The Zeleza Post.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

The barbarity of wage-slavery

The workers at this hotel have no working hours, they work from dawn until 'there is no business'

Mphutlane wa Bofelo

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/56418

cc Alvise ForcelliniMphutlane wa Bofelo comments on the ‘barbarity of wage-slavery’, after confronting working conditions at a hotel in Mauritania, where staff work long hours for meagre wages. This situation prevails in the restaurant and hotel industry throughout the world, writes wa Bofelo, with big South African companies ‘paying their workers as little as three hundred rand per month and some who do not give a salary at all, paying their labourers with the tips from their clients’. Wa Bofelo is disturbed that ‘even Muslim-owned businesses have resorted to this… practice of employing people without a salary’. Halaal certification, wa Bofelo argues, should take into account labour-relations practices, labour rights and human rights culture, not just whether a enterprise is Muslim-owned or has prayer facilities.

‘The choice is no longer between socialism and capitalism. It is between capitalism and barbarism.’

I recalled Claude Ake’s poignant statement on my recent trip to Mauritania where I had gone for the annual Maulud-Nabi celebrations organised by the Tripoli-based World Islamic Call Society. The working-hours and conditions of the workers at the hotel where I stayed reflected in very brute terms the barbarity of wage-slavery. It also captured the horrendous way in which capitalism de-personalises the human being, not only by turning labour (and therefore the labourer) into a commodity, but by also making labourers the property of the propertied.

The workers at this hotel have no working hours, they work from dawn until ‘there is no business’ – which can be until dawn, as was the case for the duration of our stay at that hotel. These workers left their homes from as early as three o’clock to four o’clock in the morning and worked the whole day, without any break and knocked off only when there was no longer any customer to serve. As there were hundreds of us from various parts of the world, for the entire week we were there, the knock-off time was most of the time one o’clock to three o’clock in the morning.

This means that in most instances the workers did not even get the time to go to their homes. Chatting to these workers, mostly from Senegal and other neighbouring countries, it was clear to me that their remuneration is a pittance. In the actual fact, these labourers rely heavily on the generosity of the clients in the form of tips given for their services.

This situation prevails in the restaurant and hotel industry throughout the world. In South Africa, you have big companies paying their workers as little as three hundred rand per month and some who do not give a salary at all, paying their labourers with the tips from their clients. The tragic thing for me as a Muslim is that even Muslim-owned businesses have resorted to this barbaric practice of employing people without a salary. In some of these restaurants, none of the staff are officially employed, there are no terms of employment, and no clear job-descriptions. The workers derive their salary only from the tips given by the clients. As a result of the fact that these workers are there only on the basis of a vague verbal agreement. You cannot even call them casual workers. These are simply people who are at the mercy of shrewd and heartless capitalists because of the desperate situation they find themselves in.

The unfortunate reality is that these exploiters and oppressors thrive on the liberalisation of trade and labour regimes by a government led by former freedom-fighters, including lip-service communists. The irony of the matter is that government institutions and public enterprises were the first to practice the casualisation of labour, by outsourcing some of their labourers to private capital. We have a situation where cleaning in public hospitals and the security at some police stations has been outsourced to secondary employers. This is just a nice way denying the workers all the rights that full-time employment accords them, and the smartest way of making it difficult for workers to be unionised and to have bargaining power.

But the million-dollar question for me is how is it possible for restaurants who use unpaid labour and have no working-hours for these unpaid labourers to still pass off as ‘halaal’ restaurants? Is being Muslim-owned and having salaah (prayer) facilities in the restaurant the only criterion for an enterprise to be declared halaal? What about its labour-relations practices, labour rights and human rights culture? Are these small matters not considered by the Shariah? Is the Jacob Zuma administration going to do anything about casualisation of labour as it promised in its manifesto? We wait with baited breath.

* Mphutlane wa Bofelo is a writer-activist with a passion for using creative education, literature and theatre as tools for transformation and development.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Congolese have no ‘common vision’

Secession is the best option for people of DRC

Digital Congo

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/56426

The very beginning of your article ‘Give us a fighting chance to live up to our potential’ exemplifies exactly the very problem of Congolese people and why they do not have what it takes to be one nation.

There is no where else in the world where people who have had a history of oppression, exploitation and all the terrible things that have happened in the Congo since independence, and despite that would not have the capacity and the willingness to fight for their country's development, rule of law, and good governance.

It is only the Congolese people who can continue to look up to the same powers that have contributed to their oppression, exploitation, and misery to help them and give them the chance to live up to their potentials! Is it because those people, and powers do not know that what they have been doing is flat and dead wrong? Will they suddenly wake up one day and feel compelled to liberate Congo and its people by giving up their interests? Or is it only in Congo where such oppressive and exploitative powers have had a vested interests to do the worst of human behaviour of greed and selfishness?

The rest of the former colonised and current neo-colonised world is just a living example of such indifference and hypocrisy. They chant ‘human rights’ while living on its violation. They have build their very unchanging lifestyle and inspiration of it on the eternal misery of the weakest part of the globe, exploiting to the last degree the weakest and ill-equipped people for centuries. The only language these greedy powers and powerfully corrupted minds understand is fighting and liberation movements of the enlightened oppressed people.

This has been the fact of all the people who have ever liberated themselves from the Western powers, be it the slave struggle movement to anti-colonialism. This is why, asking for ‘a fighting chance to live up to [their] potential’ is not only wishful thinking, but a pathetic statement.

Mr. Malau has undoubtedly, made many very good arguments on unfair treatment of Congo and its people by the Western powers, but he miserably failed to acknowledge the sad reality that, not only those same western powers are and will remain eternally be unwilling to grant the ‘chance’ to Congolese people, but also the Congolese people are unfortunately incapable to govern their country and live up to their potentials simply for the fact that they do not have what it takes to be one nation because they never had and will never have it.

As a ‘people’ we do not share common interest, common history, and common vision of our future. Most people in most parts of Congo identify themselves with nations in the neighbouring countries where they have a common culture, aspiration and blood ties. This is the case in Katanga province, Bas-Congo, Kivu, Kisangani etc. These people would rather fight for neighbouring countries rather than their own simply because they feel allegiance and a sense of belonging to those countries than they do in Congo.

This is why you have never had Congolese politicians really and truly devoted for the well-being of his country. They rather feed their stomach and prepare to happily retire to the countries of origin if need be. There is never a shared and common sense of belonging worthy dying for in the deep mind of many Congolese. That is a cold and harsh truth and fact. This is obviously rarely admitted by any Congolese because it is not safe and politically incorrect to admit such a thought, but that does not prevent it to be the fact.

The evidence of it is the mere fact of aspiring and deep desire for secession and bring up from the so-called ‘Congo’ by many Congolese who will dare admit the obvious. While there is a general lack of courage to admit and demand for the secession, there is however, an awareness that under the current state of things, where the actual Congo will remain the State under which all Congolese will be required to live and governed as one ‘nation’, all Congolese people will never live up to their potentials.

Not all the 200 plus ethnic/tribal groups will feel fully integrated and included, not all provinces will benefit from the development that all Congolese people in all provinces deserve and have the rights to enjoy. At the risk of being labelled whatever name, as a Congolese I must admit that the only solution that will ensure the equality of opportunity, the development and sustainable governance in Congo, the disintegration of the current State or an independent political entity is the only better option. As harder and nearly impossible as it looks, it is the only viable solution for Congo and its people.

Each province should be given the opportunity to become a separate independent State in order to deliver its people from the eternal misery and leadership chaos. Obviously the independence of each province does not mean a magic bullet to prosperity and good governance, but it is a realistic political framework of governing a reasonable and manageable territory for people with limited leadership experience.

This hardly sounds realistic or even acceptable to even suggest. I know that this is too hard to swallow for those who do not share the same view for whatever reasons, but this is nonetheless the only option left to explore and worthy fighting for. It is this kind of fight that Congolese will soon or later have to fight and win with or without the support of external powers of greedy western nations. Having said that, I am obviously mindful of short-sighted and short minded Congolese people who instinctively think that only Tutsis hold on this hypothesis, instead of looking at the harsh reality in fact and admit the proven ungovernable and unmanageable nature of the vast Congolese territory by the proven unskilled, and incapable political knowledge of a vast number of Congolese.

Should we simple succumb to a notion of a fictitious nation state proven over and over to be ungovernable? Should we continue to punish ourselves by relying on the good benevolence of a fictitious benevolent and generous international community with our best interest in mind, when we know for sure that they crave on our perpetual mess and misery, not to mention their gigantic responsibility and contribution to the historical and current political and economical crises of Congo? It is time that Congolese people and those who claim to be ‘friends’ of Congo to wake up to the realisation that another approach is needed whatever the cost.

Keep inspiring us with mind-provoking writing

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/56427

You can beat and kill civilians or put them in jail, but justice will prevail, writes a reader from Ethiopia.

Oloo Otieno is inspired by Njonjo Mue’s 'mind provoking writings' to ‘do what is permitted in the realm of law to stop these thieving, overbearing and old despots’.

‘Living in harmony as a nation does not have to be through love for one another, but out of respect for the contract we have signed to define ourselves as Kenyans’, writes Caspar

The absence of rabid nationalism amongst our Kenyan brothers and sisters may be a virtue under certain conditions, says Naigzy Gebremedhin. But if the country is to avoid descending towards civil war, more Kenyans need to assume a nationalistic rather than a tribalistic posture. Njonjo's essay will surely nurture that process and should be required reading.

Awori challenges the African intelligentsia and civil society to establish an ‘African citizens’ commission on peace and stability in the Congo’ through the African Union. If we resolve the crisis in the Congo says Awori, sub-Saharan Africa could become the engine of the world by 2030.

Private Citizen is surprised by ANC and Cuban claims of victory in the Cuito Cuanavale battles, when his own family and friends involved in the fighting talk privately of the horror of seeing the ‘decimation of whole Cuban and Fapla divisions, vehicles abandoned in terror, so quickly that the engines were left still running’.

And finally Amon, a Pan-Africanist from Uganda, speaks of his support for black liberation activist, Assata Shakur.

Review of Wangari Maathai's ‘The Challenge for Africa'

Helen Mukholi

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/56413

In her new book Nobel Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai is on a journey of rediscovering the wealth of Africa; its people and culture, flora and fauna and the challenges of responsible stewardship.

Maathai laments that many African countries 'fall short of genuine democracy'. She uses the apt example of the traditional three-legged stool to outline the prerequisites of good governance: respect for what each and every person thinks; respect for the environment; and a general, positive and respectful disposition contributing to a culture of peace.

While placing the blame on African leaders who are best placed to effect change and set goals for the future, Maathai acknowledges the problems they face in being fully accountable to the people they represent. She notes a 'reluctance to embrace the concepts of accountability and transparency' in many leaders, but points out that 'it is in no one’s interest to have governments threatened by guns, or coups, or civil wars.' Instead she suggests, they should be ‘threatened by votes, cast in free and fair elections'.

Maathai struggles with the question of the appropriateness of Western goodwill, something which often masks opportunism and a new scramble for African resources. While 'Soviet trawlers off the Angola coast' are busy fishing, 'Nigeria’s economy has been almost wholly reliant on oil' exports. While acknowledging that ‘multinational corporations reap huge benefits', the author also lets us know what became of the Chinese arms destined for Zimbabwe.

Maathai also explores the deep psychological impact of cultural dislocation felt by many Africans. Much of this has to do with painful memories passed down from ancestors who had to adjust to living under colonial rule. The colonial administrator – by means of the gun – organised the settlement of European farmers and the relocation of whole African communities. Missionaries, who often worked under the protection of these administrators and held a monopoly on education, brought a 'colonization of the mind'. They taught Africans that 'their societies were backward, their religious traditions sinful, their agricultural practices primitive, their systems of governance irrelevant and their cultural norms barbaric'.

Ever hopeful, Maathai retraces her own journey of self-discovery and encourages a re-embracing of African-ness and community. With such common ground we can strengthen our identity, she contends, and pass on to future generations something they can hold onto as they take their place on the world stage. This is the beginning of self-determination.

While most of what Maathai says has a familiar ring, it is every bit of as relevant today as before. The question is one of alternatives. Do they exist? Is there a commonsense approach to counter the fear that gives rise to corruption, ethnic tensions and poor governance? Is there an alternative model for the relationship between Africa and the West, one which affirms Africa’s cultural identity and yet enables the equitable sharing of resources? Maathai creates tension as she explores these difficult questions, offering some suggestions, but mainly encouraging a reframing of problems and solutions.

I encourage everyone to get hold of this book and take the journey of ‘Who am I?’, ‘Where have I come from?’ and ‘What next?’ with Wangari Maathai.

* Wangari Maathai's ‘The Challenge for Africa: a New Vision for an Emerging Continent' is published by Pantheon Books.
* Helen Mukholi is Pambazuka's picture researcher.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Deliberately excluded, deliberately oppressed

Sokari Ekine

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/56417

Abahlali baseMjondolo present a series of blog posts on their challenge to the KwaZulu-Natal Prevention and Elimination of Slums Act [PDF] at the Constitutional Court. The shackdwellers argue that the Slums Act is a return to apartheid and ‘a clear attack on the poor’. Watch the video here.

‘It is an attempt to give legal support to the transit camps and to evictions and to criminalise our movements. It is an attempt to turn the forgotten people into the deliberately excluded and deliberately oppressed people. We cannot accept this’.



Zeleza’s Wandia Njoya continues an ongoing discussion (argument) between herself and Godwin Murunga, writing in Pambazuka News, on the question of the former’s criticism of Kenyan masculinity. Murunga accuses Njoya of ‘intellectual laziness’ and ignoring the gender balance equity gains of the past few years.

The discussion is worth following as it speaks to the very point Njoya is making which is the notion of ‘collective responsibility’ and it is unfortunate that her piece was interpreted as a kind of sweeping generalisation based on the few.

‘Finally, as I mentioned in the revised edition of my comment on Kenyan masculinity, I believe in some form of collective responsibility. I referred to the 20 or so men (the number was not that high) as a sample or even as a symbol of dominant patriarchal values in Kenya. The response I expect from men who believe they treat women responsibly and humanely is to tell their brothers and teach their sons to do the same, as groups of men for gender equality do. That was what the Million Man March was all about - assuming collective responsibility for what some do in the name of an identity that includes many. It is not enough for men to plead that they are not as bad as some of their brothers. That is a trite – if not bourgeois – concern with personal righteousness which is largely irrelevant in when we are talking about structuralised oppression. In any case, surely I was not expected to wait until the 10 or so million Kenyan men are interviewed before I could voice an opinion!’


Naijablog posts a great interview with Fela’s son, Seun Kuti on Vimeo.com. They discuss his father and music and the gift of herbs.


Africa Unchained is a blog which seeks to promote the ideas of George Ayittey in his book Africa Unchained. In this post, the author (Emeka Okafor) reports on two book reviews by Francis Fukuyama – Wangari Maathai's The Challenge for Africa and Zambian Dambisa Moyo's Dead Aid. Fukuyama argues that both women see Africa’s fundamental problem as bad government.

‘Far too many regimes in Africa have become patronage machines in which political power is sought by ‘big men’ for the sole purpose of acquiring resources – resources that are funnelled either back to the networks of supporters who helped a particular leader come to power or else into the proverbial Swiss bank account. There is no concept of public good; politics has devolved instead into a zero-sum struggle to appropriate the state and whatever assets it can control.’

I believe he does have a very good point.

The Entrepreneur discusses the issue of condoms in Africa following the statement by the Pope on his recent visit to the continent calling for people not to use them. Apparently the House of Assembly in Belgium is calling on their government to condemn the statement. I strongly disagree with The Entrepreneur who sees it differently:

‘As pointed out by the director of an African AIDS centre in Kampala, Rose Busingye (director, Meeting Point Kampala), those who are condemning the statement of the Holy Father, lack the full comprehension of the situation in Africa. She then stated that: "The Pope is doing nothing else but defending and supporting precisely that which will be useful for helping these people: Affirming the meaning of life and the dignity of the human being". (ZENIT March 25, 2009)

‘As rightly pointed out by the Holy Father, without priority attention to moral and educational aspects, the battle against AIDS is futile. The Church cannot abandon her commitment to morality, upholding the truth and the protection of human dignity in Africa because of opposition from a few angles. That is exactly what Pope Benedict XVI has done when he came to Africa. And Africans have shown their appreciation to the Holy Father in this perspective.’

Nigerian Curiosity reports on the new developments in the Nigerian Halliburton bribery scandal. More arrests have taken place, with huge sums of money being bandied about. As Nigerian Curiosity points out the Halliburton scandal is only one of many taking place in the country:

‘This Halliburton scandal is one of many ongoing corruption scandals that the Nigerian government is yet to adequately address. These new arrests, while encouraging, unfortunately do not mean that justice will prevail particularly when viewed within the context of Nigeria's punishment problem. With regard to the current administration, President Yar'Adua failed to compel the arrest and prosecution of those involved in the nation's decrepit power situation despite very public investigations and probes carried out by the National Assembly last year. Additionally, the health-care corruption scandal, which brought down former health minister Adenike Grange, and led to the temporary disappearance of Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, appears to have stalled while Obasanjo-Bello has resumed her duties in the National Assembly. There also remains the Siemens AG corruption scandal, in which five Nigerians have already been fingered for their role by German courts.

I get the feeling that this is being dragged out as those involved try to find an ‘escape route’. This scandal goes to the very heart of Nigerian politics over the past ten years and possibly beyond that.

Oro a technology related blog by Gbenga Sesan, comments on Nigeria’s digital lifestyle:

‘Nigerian internet users have grown from 200,000 in 2001 to 10 million in 2007.’

However what interests Gbenga is not just the number of users but the lengths people will take to get online:

‘They have had to stay back at work, visit cyber cafes at odd hours, endure plug-and-pray services and spend a large part of their monthly income on expensive access. Also, many have found a way around the problem of electrical power instability.’

There is presently a survey taking place on internet usage in Nigeria, if readers are interested.

BlackLooks posts an interview with Kenyan activist and performance poet, Shailja Patel. The post is part of a series of weekly interviews with poets from across the African diaspora by Rethabile.

Black Looks also has a series of posts on the Niger Delta leading up to the 26 May Wiwa v Shell trial which will take place in New York.

* Sokari Ekine blogs at Black Looks.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

China- Africa watch news roundup

2009-05-22

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/56488

Sanusha Naidu compiles a list of the top stories on Sino-African relations.
Buying Farmland Abroad: Outsourcing’s third wave
Increasing American investments into Africa - US study
China in Africa – South-South Exploitation?
China looks to British experience for African expansion
Sudanese-Chinese consortium signs deal to explores gold
Brazil leader leaves China with deals under belt
Mozambique gets $3m in Chinese military aid
Mozambique to start building $2 billion dam in 2010
Brazil wants African allies in seabed mining quest
New Strategies for China's Energy Quest
Africa urged to work with China in pushing for UN reform
China, Brazil to offer satellite data to Africa
China to build two dams in Sierre Leone
Sarkozy:Lucrative in Africa
Museveni woos Iranian investors
Brazil Turns to China to Help Finance Oil Projects
Wary of U.S. debt, China shifts gears on investment
China Jobs Slump Makes Graduates Swap Dreams for Civil Service
Asia needs to ditch its growth model
Zim-China scholars meet
Kenya, Qatar land deal questioned
China's engagement with Africa transforms continent's strategic landscape
Beijing’s stimulus measures questioned
China gives $13.4 mln of int'l humanitarian aid to 10 countries this year
Ethiopia to get $400 mln loan from China – report
India: East Africa’s 21st century ally?
India-East African bonds need to be strengthened
China, UN providing rainwater harvesting education for African nations
German Foreign Minister Opposes Taking Uighur Guantanamo Inmates
Setting Up International Nonprofit Organizations in China

Consolidating a 'look east' policy under President Zuma?

Sanusha Naidu

2009-05-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/56433

Now that the adrenalin rush has reached manageable levels, most observers and commentators have cast their eyes towards the new cabinet of President Zuma. As anticipated, President Zuma has crafted a mixed cabinet. This is one which undoubtedly balances a strong centre in the form of the newly constituted National Planning Commission – under the leadership of Minister Trevor Manuel – and a developmental state agenda that dovetails with realigning ministries to become more focused on the micro-perspective of effective governance and efficient socio-economic service delivery as the primary goals. The new cabinet, indeed, reinforces what most observers have argued, namely that President Zuma will not be a foreign policy president like his predecessor but rather one who emphasises a more inward-looking focus on domestic challenges. After all, it was the bread-and-butter issues of the majority of the electorate that gave the African National Congress (ANC) its overwhelming mandate at the polls.

SO WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE SOUTH AFRICA’S FOREIGN POLICY UNDER THE ZUMA PRESIDENCY?

Well, some may argue that it is in a state of increased obscurity, starting with a minister who is not a political heavyweight and who cannot boast the same kudos as her predecessors. Maybe, but perhaps this is being slightly unfair to the new minister who is yet to demonstrate her diplomatic capabilities and is even more unfavourable to a foreign policy, one which under Mbeki was caught between platitudes, lofty ideals and what Professor Gerrit Olivier notes as a kind of ‘supermarket [with] lots of action, global and regional in reach, complex agendas, a bit of everything, but no real thrust and achievement, no cutting edge, no lasting legacy’.

One thing is certain: there is no substantive uncertainty in South Africa’s foreign policy under President Zuma. As the new Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane indicated in her first press conference:

‘We will continue to prioritise Africa because we are in Africa. We will continue to engage with African countries, including Zimbabwe, in pursuit of Africa's development… In pursuit of these objectives, South Africa recognises that its destiny is inextricably linked to that of the developing world in general and to the African continent in particular.'

And so it is clear that South Africa’s foreign policy identity will remain the same, with Africa as the pivot and consolidating South–South cooperation as the framework through which a developmental agenda will be pursued based on strategic and mutual development cooperation .

IT WOULD SEEM THAT WE HEARD THIS ALL BEFORE. SO WHAT WILL BE DIFFERENT THIS TIME?

From a cursory level it would seem not much. Yet developments over the past few days seems to indicate that consolidating South–South dialogue entails a more focused 'look east' policy.

Harnessing South–South cooperation, and in particularly, strengthening ties with southern heavy weights like China and India is a strategic pulse in Pretoria’s global agenda. This is no surprise as President Zuma visited China and India as part of his presidential endorsement. In geo-political terms this was a strategic diplomatic play by President Zuma and a clear indication that South Africa’s foreign policy will be calibrating and entrenching a look east policy.

Of course some opponents among us would be quick to point out that pushing for a greater alignment with Beijing and New Delhi is not surprising since it was rumoured that the ruling governments in both countries had financially backed the ANC’s election campaign. While it may seem like President Zuma now has to put his money where his mouth is (even if he has emphatically said that he doesn't owes anybody anything), it cannot be denied that China and India are going to be significant actors in the type of development agenda the Zuma presidency wants to pursue.

For a start President Zuma has a mammoth task at home to deliver the right kind of policy mix, one which will have to be underscored by a durable focus on socio-economic reconstruction and which aims at creating opportunities for decent work and a better skilled base economy. The Zuma administration’s enhanced strategic linkages with China and India will therefore be focused towards attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) from China and India in whatever form, especially considering the current global uncertainty surrounding the credit crisis.

And so the recent Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) US$50 million loan from the China Construction Bank is perhaps a step in this direction. As much as the loan will be to recapitalise the IDC’s lending book, it is also a way for money to be pumped into South Africa’s domestic infrastructure market as well as its continental projects.

But this loan must be seen in the context of the fact that China probably wants to diversify its risk portfolio. By lending to the IDC the Chinese government is probably very aware that this could be another way to indirectly fund projects in the continent. In this way, supporting the financial packages of state-led agencies like the IDC and the Development Bank of Southern Africa not only enables the Zuma presidency to see some of that money being invested into South Africa’s domestic environment, but also assists in tying the agenda of the developmental state to broader development priorities in Africa.

Second, with China’s global prowess and influence being interpreted in certain policy quarters as superpower qualities, it would be easy to assert that in this look east policy China may be the preferred partner, one which will enjoy the status of most favoured nation. As much as China will push its engagement with South Africa and vice versa, the Zuma presidency, hopefully, will be much more strategic and pursue rational choices in its assessment.

In this regard India’s experience in science and technology, small, medium and micro enterprises, its alternative pharmaceutical industry and IT, as well as the commercial experience that South African and Indian initiatives can gain within research & development (R&D), will surely be much more valuable for reversing South Africa’s domestic development challenges. And here is India’s comparative advantage over China.

But India can also become a hunting ground for South African corporates. Already we have seen that one of South Africa’s four big banks, FirstRand, has surged ahead and opened its first office in Mumbai. Probably not to be outdone by the Standard Bank – ICBC Deal, FirstRand will want to tap into India’s commercial banking sector to become an important intermediary for an Indian private sector seeking to push ahead with investments in the African continent.

And so 'looking east' does hold benefits for the Zuma presidency and especially for business elites from all three countries. This would certainly be reflected as South African, Chinese and Indian corporates seek to consolidate their interests across the continent.

Already MTN, one of South Africa’s biggest cellular service providers in Africa, is investing US$700 million in the submarine cable system, the European-India Gateway (EIG), while China’s Huawei Technologies is laying the fibre-optic cables for the Zambian telecommunication company Zamtel to connect six southern African countries, which is linked to the eastern African submarine cable system and also links up to the EIG.

But these interests need to intersect with more than just a business focus. As was revealed at the recent African Development Bank annual meeting in Senegal, while increased trade and investment with China and India have the ‘potential to follow a commodities based industrialization path’, it was agreed that there needs to be a more coherent and transparent African strategy which pushes for a rules-based system of engagement around investment practices and development impacts.

Similarly for the Zuma presidency, while China and India may be seen as viable partners, this has to endure a much more open system regarding what this engagement entails and better communication around what impulses inform the greater synergy with Beijing and New Delhi.

We have already had the new minister make a u-turn on the Dalai Lama fiasco. But it is not clear how the Disney-style cultural amusement park which the Chinese company Huaqiang Holdings, in cooperation with the China Development Bank, China-Africa Development Fund and the Industrial Development Coporation, wants to build in South Africa at a cost of US$250 million will actually address South Africa’s development challenges. Perhaps the new minister and her renamed ministry along with the Department of Trade and Industry can explain the development impact this project would have.

Therefore as President Zuma’s consolidates his foreign policy outlook in Africa, China and India will be seen as strategic partners, especially in post-conflict reconstruction societies like Zimbabwe and with those countries with their own look east policy. While President Zuma will consider this critical for Pretoria’s renewed interest in pushing a peace, stability and development identity in Africa, it will be significant to see what type of relations the Zuma presiency achieves with countries like Russia that are beginning to reassert themselves in Africa, and more specifically within the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

* Sanusha Naidu is the research director of Fahamu's China in Africa programme.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.

Gono accuses Biti of corruption

2009-05-22

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news210509/gono210509.htm

The controversial Governor of the Reserve Bank, Gideon Gono wrote a blistering letter to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai last week, in which he accused Finance Minister Tendai Biti of victimising him and of corruption. Gono claims, in the letter which was leaked to the media this week, that Honey and Blankenberg, a law firm in which the Minister was a senior partner, externalised more than US$1 million in foreign currency in contravention of Exchange Control regulations. Gono said this happened between October 2005 and May 2006.

Government silence on land attacks continues

2009-05-22

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news210509/govtsil210509.htm

The deafening silence from the unity government on the ongoing and increasingly violent land invasions has continued, despite promises by government leaders that the rule of law will be respected in Zimbabwe. The Prime Minister’s media conference on Thursday, to provide details about agreements reached during talks about the Global Political Agreement, was an ideal platform to denounce the ongoing attacks.

Mugabe, Tsvangirai on course to overcome key hurdles

2009-05-22

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=5622

Zimbabwe's power-sharing government has resolved most disagreements but remains deadlocked on the appointments of the central bank governor and the attorney general, the Prime Minster said on Thursday. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said the regional Southern African Development Community (SADC) would be approached to mediate over the disputed posts.

DRC: Growing number of women falling victim to rape, reports UN

2009-05-22

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30865

The United Nations humanitarian wing is urging greater protection for civilians in the South Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has witnessed a surge in sexual violence since the beginning of this year. Some 463 women were raped in the first quarter of 2009, more than half of the total number of violations registered for the whole of last year, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

South Africa: The grass beneath the fighting elephants

Colleen Lowe Morna

2009-05-22

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/56522

There is an African saying that when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. In South Africa lately, the elephants have been the two biggest winners in the April elections-the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA). The grass is democracy and women’s rights.
There is an African saying that when elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. In South Africa lately, the elephants have been the two biggest winners in the April elections-the African National Congress (ANC) and the Democratic Alliance (DA). The grass is democracy and women’s rights.

The Star hit the nail on the head when it called the sexist slurs traded across parties as “South Africa’s dirtiest gutter fight.” After President Jacob Zuma’s conciliatory remarks at his inauguration on 9 May, the DA sunk from a robust but loyal opposition to – in the ANC’s words - “enemy number one.”

While the underlying issues no doubt concern power, its loss or gain in the Western Cape, the political football that is being tossed around and the real victim in all this is women’s rights.

At the centre of the storm is Helen Zille’s appointment of an all male, 75% white cabinet in the province, the only one out of nine where the ANC is not in control.

While it is true that Zuma behaved in a highly irresponsible manner by having unprotected sex with an HIV positive woman and claiming that he could not leave a woman in a kanga “in that state” during the rape case against him in 2006, using attack as a form of defense for her cabinet as Zille did is lame and inexcusable.

Zille is correct that jobs for the girls do not, on their own equate gender equality. But she is wrong that having a cabinet so out of step with current day realities in South Africa is acceptable.

One woman at the top of the party means little when only 29% of the members of parliament from the DA are female (down from 35% in the last parliament led by Tony Leon). The numbers are even more paltry for the DA’s representation in the National Council of Provinces (20%) and a mere 9% (Zille herself) in the Western Cape cabinet, compared to 64% in Gauteng; 55% in Limpopo and Northwest (led by ANC women).

Indeed, the overall impressive figures of 44% women in parliament; 41% in the national and provincial cabinets; and 38% in the NCOP have come about almost entirely as a result of the ANC’s 50/50 quota. The question is whether South Africa can or should be edging towards gender parity in decision-making, as required by the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development by 2015, on the back of one political party.

The DA’s performance gives grease to the 50/50 campaigners’ call for a legislated quota obliging all parties, including the DA that is vehemently opposed to quotas, to shape up or ship out. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) should indeed be adding this to its arsenal of arguments before the Equality Court and Human Rights Commission.

The Commission on Gender Equality (CGE), the specific body established by the Constitution for “promoting and protecting gender equality” should be at the forefront of such a campaign instead of being mired in petty politics.

The fact that as a woman Zille argues so belligerently in favour of her all male cabinet has already led to the term “the Zille effect” being coined in gender circles to denote “women who behave worse than men” in political decision-making. Other than the lack of specific qualifications for their tasks of the men appointed, which has already extensively been commented upon, one wonders how qualified these men are to address the kinds of issues that Zille says are her priorities, such as drugs and teenage pregnancies.

The argument for gender balance in decision-making goes beyond numbers. It is premised on volumes of research that show that having all interest groups represented in decision-making is critical for transparency, responsiveness and good governance. The most basic demographic of any society, the Western Cape included, is that society comprises women and men.

Following on from the “who feels it knows it” principle, one must ask Zille what her all male cabinet knows about the experiences of women, especially poor back women, in the Western Cape and how “fit they are for the purpose” of addressing the needs of half the population.

Zille’s cabinet opens her to accusations of racism and sexism, in exactly the same way as she is now accusing Zuma of being “a self confessed womanizer with deeply sexist views.” It should also be remembered that she opened the sexist slinging match with ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema by calling him an uncircumcised man.

It is, however, equally unacceptable for the ANC Youth League to refer to Zille as a “girl” who “appointed an all male cabinet of useless people, the majority of whom are her boyfriends and concubines so that she can continue to sleep around with them.”

Umkhontho we Sizwe Miltary Veterans Association has now also entered the fray, accusing Zille of “sleeping with more than her fair share of white males.” In all the mudslinging that takes place between male politicians, one has never heard these men accused of sleeping around with other women. It’s precisely this kind of “gutter” language applied to women politicians that results, the world over, in women shying away from politics.

Fortunately, Luthuli House has distanced itself from utterances that make a mockery of the Constitution and of the ANC’s proud history of fighting racism and sexism. The DA is apparently similarly calling Zille into line, and needs to do so more vocally and vigorously.

Both parties need to get back to the real issues, which are that women constitute the majority of the poor; the dispossessed and the unemployed; they are not yet equally represented in politics and they are heavily under represented in other spheres of decision-making including the private sector; the judiciary; the media; academia and law enforcement agencies.

The majority of women in this country are governed by a dual legal system that gives them rights through the Constitution and takes them away through customary law. The net effect is that many women remain minors all their lives: under their fathers, husbands, brothers-in-laws and even their sons.

South Africa has among the highest levels of gender violence in the world, exacerbated by the high levels of HIV and AIDS that are both a cause and consequence of gender violence. An estimated one in nine women never report these violations for fear of reprisals by family and because the legal system is at best unresponsive, at worst dismissive of their suffering.

It does not help matters that Zuma failed to silence those who bayed for the blood of his rape accuser and that, after losing her case, she now lives in exile, stripped of her citizenship because she chose to exercise her rights. Nor is it encouraging that the Office on the Status of Women that used to reside in the President’s Office has been relegated to a Ministry of Women, Youth, Children and Disability; and that the CGE is in such a toothless tiger.

While the DA needs to understand that you cannot have gender equality without having jobs for the girls the ANC needs to understand that gender equality is a lot more than jobs for the girls. These are the real issues. Let’s get back to them.

* Colleen Lowe Morna is Executive Director of Gender Links. This article is part of the GL Opinion and Commentary Service that offers fresh views on every day news. A full analysis on gender and the 2009 elections can be found on www.genderlinks.org.za

Burundi: Albino murders denied

2009-05-22

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8057956.stm

The trial has begun in Burundi of 11 defendants accused of attacking and killing 12 albino people, starting with the murder of a young girl. It is thought to be the first trial linked to the recent spate of albino killings in East Africa, which has claimed more than 50 lives.

DRC: Hold army to account for war crimes

2009-05-22

http://tinyurl.com/obj9re

The United Nations Security Council should vigorously condemn war crimes by Congolese army soldiers in the eastern part of the country, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch urged the Security Council to condition UN support for Congolese military operations on the removal of known human rights abusers from command positions.

Chad: Insecurity hampers access to refugees, displaced in east

2009-05-22

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84493

Growing insecurity in eastern Chad is limiting aid workers’ access to refugees and displaced Chadians, aid workers say. Rebels and government troops recently clashed in eastern Chad and armed banditry – long a problem in the region – is on the rise, including the fatal shooting of a UN-trained national policeman on 13 May.

DRC: Security Council team visits camp for internally displaced

2009-05-22

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30833

A Security Council delegation on a week-long visit to Africa met with internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today to assess efforts by the Government and the United Nations to consolidate peace and security in the area, a spokesperson for the world body said.

East Africa: UNHCR steps up efforts to stem Gulf of Aden crossings as numbers mount

2009-05-22

http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/4a1668642.html

Months have passed since Hoda's husband paid smugglers to take him from this port town in northern Somalia across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen, but she has not heard a word from him. She now believes he probably drowned at sea. Despite such a vivid lesson in the risks of the Gulf crossing, Hoda plans to make the journey herself, leaving her youngest children in the care of her eldest daughter, who is just ten.

Kenya: 'Exiled for life' in Somali camp

2009-05-22

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8046870.stm

Dadaab, in north-eastern Kenya, is the world's biggest refugee camp, home to 260,000 people. It was built in 1991 for Somalis fleeing the fighting that erupted with the collapse of Siad Barre's military regime. Eighteen years on, conflict is still raging and Somalis continue to seek safety there.

Somalia: Number of displaced in Somali capital reaches 45,000 – UN

2009-05-22

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30859

Despite a lull in clashes between Government forces and insurgents in the Somali capital, the number of people who have fled Mogadishu in the past 12 days has climbed to 45,000, the United Nations refugee agency has reported.

Somalia: UNHCR says 45,000 flee Mogadishu fighting

2009-05-22

http://tinyurl.com/rd9hqs

The UN refugee agency says the number of people fleeing the Somali capital in the last 12 days has now risen to 45,000 despite the lull in fighting in the war-ravaged nation. A statement from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Wednesday said a significant proportion of the displaced are heading towards the Afgooye corridor, southwest of Mogadishu.

Côte d’Ivoire: UN mission urges prompt resumption of voter registration

2009-05-22

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30885

The United Nations Mission in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) has called for a prompt resumption of voter registration to allow for broad participation in the November presidential elections. UNOCI spokesman Hamadoun Toure told reporters in Abidjan that the Mission “stresses the importance of a strong commitment to expedite the remaining tasks for organizing free, fair and transparent elections in the country.”

Gabon: Fear of military takeover

2009-05-22

http://www.afrol.com/articles/33331

As the very grave health condition of the 73 years old Gabonese President Omar Bongo is confirmed, speculations over his succession are growing in numbers. Will it be a family affair as in Togo, or will it be a coup like in Guinea?

Guinea-Bissau: 13 cleared to contest presidential election

2009-05-22

http://tinyurl.com/oeq699

Guinea-Bissau's Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared Pedro Nfanda to contest the 28 June presidential election. This brings to 13 the number of candidates who want to succeed President Joao Bernardo “Nino” Vieira, who was assassinated on 2 March. The candidacy of Pedro Nfanda, a lawyer, had initially been rejected by the Supr eme Court because the policy-making committee of the Environmental Protection League (LIFE), on whose ticket he was standing, had not taken action to replace the governing body of the party after its chairman had died

Malawi: Results of Malawi elections delayed – Electoral Commission

2009-05-22

http://tinyurl.com/omcxuw

The Malawi Electoral Commission on Wednesday said declaration of results of the general elections had delayed because of confusion about where to send the final results, according to its chairman, Supreme Court judge, Justice Anastazia Msosa. She said returning officers from the constituency levels were sending the results directly to the Commission's tally centre instead of the constituency centres.

Mauritania: 'Presidential election will not be postponed'

2009-05-22

http://tinyurl.com/rddl77

General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, former leader of the ruling military junta in Mauritania, who is contesting the controversial 6 June election, says the vote would not be postponed. General Aziz, who resigned his position as President on 15 April to contest the election, told a press conference in Nouakchott that the 6 June date “is a choic e made by the Mauritanian people at the end of the ‘nationwide days for concerted action’ held in December 2008 and January 2009”.

Global: Auditing aid providers - how do they fare?

2009-05-22

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84489

Aid agencies are far more accountable to disaster affected people than they were a decade ago, says the latest Humanitarian Accountability Report, but problems remain in transparency about interventions, communication with aid recipients, monitoring and reporting on sexual abuse and eliminating corruption

Kenya: Youth Fund chief fired

2009-05-22

http://tinyurl.com/p7fves

Kenyan authorities Wednesday sacked the Chief Executive Officer of the Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF), Umuro Wario, citing graft. But insiders were quick to point out that Wario was a victim of boardroom politics. Wario’s sacking was effected by the Fund’s Board on 11 May, as various arms of government continued with investigations into allegations of mismanagement.

Nigeria: $450m of Abacha's loot missing

2009-05-22

http://www.africanews.com/site/Nigeria_450m_of_Abachas_loot_missing/list_messages/24993

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has declared in Abuja that about $450 million out of the over $3 billion alleged to have been stolen by the late Head of State of Nigeria, General Sani Abacha, could not be traced.

Africa: African finance ministers to discuss impact of economic crisis

2009-05-22

http://tinyurl.com/pk2ujo

African ministers of finance, planning and economic development have scheduled a meeting in Cairo, Egypt, 6-7 June to discuss measures required to deal with the global economic crisis, a UN think-tank said here. The Addis Ababa-based UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) said on Thursday the meeting would explore ways of dealing with the effects of the global economic crisis through enhanced fiscal planning and ways of raising funds internally with in Africa.

Sierra Leone: After war, creating jobs for peace

2009-05-22

http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/newrels/creating-jobs-09.html

It was just a small loan worth the equivalent of $100, from a local microfinance bank. But it enabled Mojamah who had just come back to her home in Kenema, Sierra Leone, after the country’s civil war, to set up a dressmaking business to support her family of six. In neighbouring Liberia, Amelia, a single mother with five children, got a loan of $83 to help expand her work crushing rocks used to build roads. The loan worked so well she applied for another, worth $200, so she could hire workers to help meet the growing demand for roading material, as Liberia rebuilt itself after the war.

Zimbabwe: Long road to water sustainability

2009-05-22

http://www.ipsterraviva.net/europe/article.aspx?id=7389

As funds begin trickling in for Zimbabwe"s reconstruction efforts, the rebuilding of infrastructure battered by years of neglect is set to gobble a huge chunk. As Zimbabwe's national unity government approaches 100 days in office, Finance Minister Tendai Biti - tasked with wooing donors to pour resources into support for the fragile coalition - has said it will take some time for the country to return to 1996 standards, before what was once southern Africa"s second largest economy went into a tailspin.

Keny: HIV slowly creeping into a community still in denial

2009-05-22

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/56487

Life has not been the same since she lost her parents four years ago and the little property they owned grabbed by her immediate relatives. For her, every day has meant living for herself and her two younger sisters. With no property and or education, Fatima Hassan took her best friend’s advice, Amina Ahmed, and together they begun a journey that has forever transformed her life. Their names have been changed though because if known to the community, their lifestyle could lead to dire consequences, even death.

Lesotho: Cultural beliefs threaten PMTCT

2009-05-22

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=46933

A health centre in one of Lesotho’s poorest districts has scored significant success in implementing a prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) programme, but health experts warn that a number of factors, including cultural beliefs and stigma, threaten to derail it. "It was the most difficult decision to make in my life, but I knew that I had to do it for the sake of my unborn child. The pre-testing counselling we received also helped a great deal," recalled 24-year-old Nthabiseng Rannyali who decided to undergo HIV testing to protect her unborn child.

Rwanda: HIV-positive women have high prevalence of high-risk cervical HPV infection

2009-05-22

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/76D397B8-E9E1-467E-BB13-17D5F3BDAEBA.asp

Many HIV-positive women in Rwanda are infected with strains of human papilloma virus associated with a high risk of cervical cancer, investigators report in an article published in the online edition of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Their study also showed that women with cancer-associated strains of human papilloma virus who had a low CD4 cell count were more likely to have cancerous or pre-cancerous cell changes in the cervix.

Uganda: MPs recommend slashing ARV budget allocation

2009-05-22

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84498

Ugandan HIV activists have expressed concern over a recommendation by parliament's budget committee that the allocation for antiretroviral (ARV) drugs be cut. The national budget for 2008/09 allocated 76 billion shillings (US$38 million) to purchasing ARVs, the first such allocation in the country's history, but this week the house standing committee recommended that the amount be cut to 40 billion shillings in the 2009/2010 budget.

Botswana: Government to meet homosexuals in court

2009-05-22

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=botswana&id=2141

As the country prepares for its presidential elections in October, government has agreed to meet two members of Lesbian, Gays and Bisexuals of Botswana (LEGABIBO) in court on their demand to have section 164 of the Penal Code, which criminalises homosexual conduct, declared unconstitutional. Prisca Mogapi, a transman and Caine Youngman who is gay, through their representative Uyapo Ndadi, served the Registry of Society department with a statutory notice last month.

Global: 2009 report on state-sponsored homophobia

2009-05-22

http://www.ilga.org/news_results.asp?LanguageID=1&FileID=1251

ILGA, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association publishes the third edition of its report and map on State Sponsored Homophobia based on research by Daniel Ottosson. The report is a collection of legislation criminalising consensual sexual acts between persons of the same sex in private over the age of consent.

Global: Homosexuality knows no borders

2009-05-22

http://www.ilga.org/news_results.asp?LanguageID=1&FileID=1260

Since its first edition in 2003, the International Day Against Homophobia has grown larger year by year. With this, May 17 has become the prime moment to remember that homophobia still exists and that we must combat it. The proposed goal for the 2009 Campaign is to make the general population and, more specifically, ethno-cultural communities of all backgrounds more aware of gay and lesbian issues, and sexual diversity. Ethno-cultural communities occupy an increasingly significant place in our societies. What’s more, contributions by these communities are invaluable to our country.

Global: International day agianst transphobia and homophobia

2009-05-22

http://www.ilga.org/news_results.asp?LanguageID=1&FileID=1256

Every day, almost everywhere around the world, Transexual, Transgender, Intersex people face violence, abuse, rape, torture and hate crimes. The only motive : they are not conforming to social stereotypes about the way they should appear and behave in society as men or women. Be it out of ignorance, prejudice, fear or hate, Trans people overwhelmingly face daily discrimination, which results in social exclusion, poverty and poor health care, with little prospects for employment.

Kenya: Boshop slams homosexuality as unbiblical, unafrican

2009-05-22

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=nigeria&id=2140

A senior Catholic bishop has denounced homosexuality, stating that it is against both African culture and biblical teaching.Archbishop Zacchaeus Okoth of Kisumu, who is also the chairman of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, made the remarks while addressing an international seminar on the role of universities in peace building at the Catholic University of East Africa (CUEA) last week. The conference was organised by CUEA’s Centre for Social Justice and Ethics.

Africa: Coastal populations at risk as climate changes

2009-05-22

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=84464

Several large African cities are at risk from rising sea levels and intense storms, experts warn. Poor neighbourhoods and slums in Bugama and Okrika in Nigeria, Freetown in Sierra Leone, Bathurst in the Gambia and Tanga in Tanzania, are especially vulnerable.

Botswana: Government renews assault on Bushmen

2009-05-22

http://www.survival-international.org/news/4582

Botswana’s government sent trucks full of police and wildlife scouts into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) to confiscate goats from Bushmen who have returned to their ancestral homes. The Bushmen, whose goats had been confiscated in 2002 when they were unlawfully evicted from the reserve, only received their livestock back in recent weeks.

Kenya: UN agency makes first local food purchase from small-scale Kenyan farmers

2009-05-22

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=30847

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has for the first time bought food from small-scale farmers in Kenya under a new initiative aimed at boosting agriculture by connecting farmers to markets. Under ‘Purchase for Progress’ (P4P), WFP has a committed policy to buy from low-income farmers, allowing them to invest profits to boost production and increase food security, according to a news release issued by the agency.

Uganda: Biotechnology debate rages on

2009-05-22

http://tinyurl.com/qxvlph

Amid concerns on the safety of genetically-modified cro ps and the cost of acquiring GM seeds by the largely peasant African farmers, the debate over the acceptability of biotechnology continues to rage in Uganda, just it does in most parts of Africa. Supporters of biotechnology said it offered Africa the best chance of guarding against food insecurity because it enhances agricultural productions.

Kenya: Triumph for journalists as government agrees to amend media law

2009-05-22

http://www.ifex.org/kenya/2009/05/20/govt_to_amend_law/

Following a concerted campaign, the Kenyan government has published amendments to the Communications Act, which will delete a controversial clause that allows the government to raid broadcasting stations, report the Africa Free Media Foundation, the Media Institute and local news reports.

Malawi: Radio shut down and staff arrested for election coverage

2009-05-22

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=31401

Reporters Without Borders expressed its concern after the closure of privately owned opposition Joy Radio and the arrest of four staff, two of them journalists, accused of breaking election rules. The director of the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA), James Chimera, ruled that satirical programme, Chilungamo Chili Kuti? (Is there any justice?), broadcast at 2am after the closure of the official election campaign, had violated the law banning endorsement or ridicule of a candidate.

Sierra Leone: President’s men target two journalists for attack

2009-05-22

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=31397

Reporters Without Borders has voiced its concern for journalist Sylvia Blyden, forced into hiding after receiving death threats, and for Umaru Sitta Turay, who suffered a vicious knife attack. Both journalists were targeted for attack because they had allegedly “libelled” Sierra Leone’s president, the worldwide press freedom organisation said, urging the head of state to call off the “witch-hunt” against them.

Tunisia: Journalists union crisis threatens national press

2009-05-22

http://tinyurl.com/o2rjjt

Discord continued for a second week between the leadership of the National Union of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT) and other union members over recent allegations of poor representation, raising concerns that the conflict would negatively affect the country's press industry if left unresolved.

Zimbabwe: IFJ condemns arrest of journalists over abduction revelations

2009-05-22

http://tinyurl.com/qbokkj

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the arrest of two senior independent journalists by police in Harare over a story about the alleged involvement of state security agents in the abduction and torture last year of human rights activists, journalists and members of the opposition.

Zimbabwe: No movement on media reform despite government pledges

2009-05-22

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news210509/nomovement210509.htm

Repeated promises by the unity government to reform the repressive media environment in Zimbabwe are proving hollow, with no evidence of any action being taken to ensure media freedom. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Thursday said there have been “significant improvements in media freedom in the country,” during an announcement on the outstanding issues of the Global Political Agreement. But improvements, in the form of pledges, are not translating into action.

East Africa: Ethiopia troops 'back in Somalia'

2009-05-22

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8057115.stm

Ethiopian military forces have crossed back into Somalia, four months after leaving, witnesses told the BBC. Their reported return comes as Islamist militants continue to seize towns from the fragile Western-backed government. One resident said he saw Ethiopian troops digging trenches in Kalabeyr, a town 22km (14 miles) from the Somali-Ethiopian border.

Nigeria: Militants vow reprisals as Niger Delta fighting continues

2009-05-22

http://tinyurl.com/prfckl

Nigeria's oil militants, routed from some of their key bases in the oil producing Niger Delta, have vowed to strike back at the military as well as the oil industry as the military offensive in the region continued Thursday. Against allegations that the offensive, launched on Friday, has targeted innocent civilians and razed palaces and traditional shrines, the region's largest militant group - Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) - said: ''We promise to pay back the oil industry and the government the same measure of destruction that was meted out to the innocent civilians by this cowardly act.''

Sudan: Prevent recurrence of violence in southern town

2009-05-22

http://tinyurl.com/qadrko

Sudan's Government of National Unity should act to prevent a recurrence of clashes by military units and ensure justice for abuses committed in the Southern Sudanese town of Malakal in February 2009, Human Rights Watch has said in a letter to President Omar al-Bashir and First Vice President Salva Kiir. The government's Joint Defense Board, which commands the military units that clashed in Malakal, is scheduled to meet in the last week of May.

Africa: Africa lags behind in use of free software

2009-05-22

http://www.afrol.com/articles/33319

While Asia and Latin America are seeing a boom in the use of free software, now taking the global lead, Africa is still lagging behind, depending largely on expensive programmes and pirate copies. Researchers from the University of Seville, Spain, have carried out a report mapping the use of free software around the world, concluding that the use of free software in South America and Asia will be around 70 percent in 2010, with a special relevance in the education sector.

Africa: Massive Africa update on Google Maps

2009-05-22

http://whiteafrican.com/2009/05/21/massive-africa-update-on-google-maps/

The Map-the-World and Map-Maker teams at Google have been making some major, and much needed, additions for Africa. With a large data push yesterday, Google Maps has one of the most impressive sets of maps on Africa that you can find. There are now 27 more African countries that now have detailed maps.

Africa: Putting the local into African services and applications

2009-05-22

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

2009 is the year of the Big Change. Cheaper and more abundant international fibre capacity will come to East Africa and 2010 will see the same happen in West Africa. New cross-border fibre connections will tie more countries together: two announcements are in the news sections below. But Africa is in danger of getting all the pipes and hardware in place and missing out on thinking about the user and the services and applications they might use.

West Africa: Ghana and Burkina Faso sign fibre optic networks agreement

2009-05-22

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

The Ghanaian government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the interconnection of fibre optic networks with Burkina Faso to enhance communications between the two west African neighbours. The Ghanaian communications minister has said the signing of the MOU is in line with the commitment of ECOWAS member states to foster economic integration.

Zimbabwe: 100 Days Plus

AfricaFocus Bulletin May 20, 2009 (090520)

2009-05-22

http://www.africafocus.org/docs09/zim0905.php

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains excerpts from an interview by Violet Gonda with Zimbabwean analysts Raftopoulos and Alex Magaisa, reflecting on the first 100 days of the unity government in Zimbabwe, passed earlier this month. Results continued ambiguous this week, as the MDC headed by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai formally appealed to the African Union and the Southern African Development Community to intervene to resolve remaining roadblocks to implementation of the Global Political Agreement.

African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development (AJSTID)

2009-05-22

http://www.adonisandabbey.com/about_journal.php?jid=14

AJSTID is a multi-disciplinary and refereed international journal with a special focus on science, technology, and innovation in developing economies, with a special reference to Africa. It has been established on the basis of the recognized role of innovation in the development of economies and on the relative absence of research in the area, particularly in the case of Africa.

Global: World Social Forum Video Exchange

2009-05-22

http://www.wsftv.net/

Wsftv.net was created especially to showcase videos featuring activities from the World Social Forum Global Day of Action on 26th january 2008. Wsftv.net has also continued to collect and promote videos related to WSF themes and principles charts.

Global: Senior programs officer - LGEP

2009-05-22

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/56524

The Lesbian and Gay Equality Project (LGEP) – formerly the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality - is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation that works towards achieving full legal and social freedom, dignity and equality for lesbian, transgender, gay and bisexual (LGBT) people in South Africa. As part of implementing the strategic plan, the LGEP is now seeking to employ a Senior Programmes Officer.
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS:

SENIOR PROGRAMMES OFFICER

The Lesbian and Gay Equality Project (LGEP) – formerly the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality - is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation that works towards achieving full legal and social freedom, dignity and equality for lesbian, transgender, gay and bisexual (LGBT) people in South Africa.

The LGEP’s vision is that of a just and democratic South Africa, free from all forms of social oppression, discrimination and exclusion, in which all citizens and popular forces are engaged democratic participants, able to claim their full citizenship and rights. We envisage a South Africa, in which there is full social liberation, and equality, characterised by a vibrant and self-sustaining popular democracy.



Since mid-2008, the organisation has been engaged in a year-long strategic reorientation process. The process will be completed in July 2009. Out of this process, the organisation is consolidating a long-term strategic plan. This strategic plan repositions the purpose, vision, strategy and programmes of the organisation in light of the broader national and global social, economic and political contexts.

As part of implementing the strategic plan, the LGEP is now seeking to employ a Senior Programmes Officer whose main responsibilities will be:

· Providing high-level strategic and programmatic support to the Executive Director;

· Development, coordination and resourcing of programmes and workplans in terms of the organisation's new strategic plan;

· Coordination and integration of current programmes and activities (community-based social mobilisation, activist support and training, lobbying and advocacy, campaigns) into the organisation's new strategic plan;

· Public representation of the organisation in the media and relevant networks; and

· Effective documentation of organisational processes and activities.

REQUIREMENTS:

· Relevant professional and activist experience and qualifications;

· Strong ability and experience in strategic planning, programme management, fundraising, reporting, monitoring and evaluation;

· Three to five years work experience in social movements and/or NGOs;

· Must have progressive and critical knowledge of current social, political and economic challenges facing the country and LGBT people;

· Excellent computer literacy skills and experience (Email, Internet, MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Publisher);

· Proficient in written English; Zulu and/or Sotho proficiency will be an advantage; and

· A valid driver's licence

The incumbent, who will report to the Executive Director, must possess good inter-personal skills; be self-motivated and work well as part of a team, able to deal with pressure.

We offer an attractive salary package that is negotiable depending on qualifications and experience.

SUBMITTING APPLICATIONS

Please send your comprehensive CV along with a motivating covering letter, as well as the names and contact details of 3 references. Applicants may submit their applications by post, hand delivery, email or fax as below.

Attention:

The Executive Director, Lesbian and Gay Equality Project
Postal address: P O Box 27811, Yeoville, 2143
Physical address: 36 Grafton Road, corner Hopkins, Yeoville
Fax: 086 652 9523
Email: phumi@equality.org.za


Closing date: 17h00, 01 June 2009.

Fahamu