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Sign the petition for Mumia Abu-Jamal and the global abolition of the death penalty

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/action/61996

Mumia Abu-Jamal and The Global Abolition of the Death Penalty

The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

WE THE UNDERSIGNED petition you to speak out against the death penalty for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and all the men, women and children facing execution around the world. This ultimate form of punishment is unacceptable in a civilized society and undermines human dignity. (U.N. General Assembly, Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty, Resolution 62/149, Dec. 18, 2007; reaffirmed, Resolution 63/168, Dec. 18, 2008.)

Mr. Abu-Jamal, a renowned black journalist and author, has been on Pennsylvania’s death row for nearly three decades. Even though you do not have direct control over his fate as a state death-row inmate, we ask that you as a moral leader on the world stage call for a global moratorium on the death penalty in his and all capital cases. Mr. Abu-Jamal has become a global symbol, the “Voice of the Voiceless”, in the struggle against capital punishment and human-rights abuses. There are over 20,000 awaiting execution around the globe, with over 3,000 on death rows in the United States.

The 1982 trial of Mr. Abu-Jamal was tainted by racism, and occurred in Philadelphia which has a history of police corruption and discrimination. Amnesty International, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, “determined that numerous aspects of this case clearly failed to meet international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings. [T]he interests of justice would best be served by the granting of a new trial to Mumia Abu-Jamal. The trial should fully comply with international standards of justice and should not allow for the reimposition of the death penalty.” (A Life In the Balance - The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, at 34, Amnesty Int’l, 2000; www. Amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/001/2000.)

Your consideration is appreciated.

Sincerely,

[Note: This petition is approved by Mumia Abu-Jamal and his lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, San Francisco.]

The new American imperialism in Africa

Michael Schmidt

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62008

cc US ArmyMichael Schmidt reveals the alarming extent of American military expansion in Africa. This article was written four years ago, but still holds strong relevance today in the context of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM). Schmidt describes three avenues that the US is taking to increase its military foothold in Africa in pursuit of its ‘War on Terror’: ‘piggybacking’ off already strong French military presence, creating an unofficial ‘School of the Africas’ in the guise of the African Centre for Strategic Studies, and with its Africa Contingency Operations Training Assistance (ACOTA) programme ‘aimed at integrating African armed forces into US strategic (imperialist) objectives’. Schmidt places blame beyond the US, however, and uncovers the role that African countries, particularly South Africa, are playing in strengthening US military presence through ‘secret pacts’. In light of all this, Schmidt concludes with a warning: ‘It would be naïve to think that bourgeois democracy… will protect the working class, peasantry and poor from state terrorism.’

AMERICA MUSCLES INTO ‘FRENCH TERRITORY’

Former colonial power, France, has maintained the largest foreign military presence in Africa since most countries attained sovereignty in the 1950s and 1960s. While France reduced its armed presence on the continent by two thirds at the end of the last century, it continues to intervene in a muscular and controversial fashion. For example, under a 1961 ‘mutual defence’ pact, French forces were allowed to be permanently stationed in Ivory Coast and the 500-strong 43rd Marine Infantry Battalion is still based at Port Bouet next to the Abidjan airport.

When the civil war erupted in Ivory Coast in September 2002, France added a ‘stabilisation force’, now numbering some 4,000 under Operation Licorne, which was augmented in 2003 by 1,500 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) ‘peacekeepers’ drawn from Senegal, Ghana, Benin, Togo and Nigeria. In January 2006, the United Nations extended the mandate of Operation Licorne until December 2006.

Piggybacking off the French military presence in Africa, however, are a series of new foreign military and policing initiatives by the United States and the European Union. It appears that the US has devised a new ‘Monroe Doctrine’ for Africa (the term has become a synonym for the doctrine of US interventions in what it saw as its Latin American ‘back yard’).

Under the George W. Bush regime’s War on Terror doctrine, the US has designated a swathe of territory – curving across the globe from Colombia and Venezuela in South America, through Africa’s Maghreb, Sahara and Sahel regions, and into the Middle East and Central Asia – as the ‘arc of instability’, where both real and supposed terrorists may find refuge and training.

In Africa, which falls under the US military’s European Command (EUCOM), the US has struck agreements with France to share its military bases. For example, there is now a US marine corps base in Djibouti at the French base of Camp Lemonier. More than 1,800 marines are stationed there, allegedly for ‘counter-terrorism’ operations in the Horn of Africa, the Middle East and East Africa, as well as for controlling the Red Sea shipping lanes.

But the US presence involves more than piggybacking off French bases. In 2003, US intelligence operatives began training spies for four unnamed North African countries. These are believed to be Morocco and Egypt and perhaps also Algeria and Tunisia.

It is also conducting training of the armed forces of countries such as Chad. In September 2005, Bush told the United Nations Security Council that the US would train 40,000 ‘African peace-keepers’ to ‘preserve justice and order in Africa’, over the following five years. The US Embassy in Pretoria said, at the time, that the US had already trained 20,000 ‘peace-keepers’ in 12 African countries in the use of ‘non-lethal equipment’.

And now, while the US is downscaling and dismantling military bases in Germany and South Korea, it is relocating these military resources to Africa and the Middle East in order to ‘combat terrorism’ and ‘protect oil resources’.

In Africa, new US bases are being built in Djibouti, Uganda, Senegal, and São Tomé & Príncipe. These ‘jumping-off points’ will station small, permanent forces, but with the ability to launch major regional military adventures, according to the US-based Associated Press. An existing US base at Entebbe in Uganda, under the one-party regime of US ally Yoweri Museveni, already ‘covers’ East Africa and the Great Lakes region. In Dakar, Senegal, the US is busy upgrading an airfield.

SOUTH AFRICA SECRETLY JOINS THE ‘WAR ON TERROR’

Governments with whom the US has concluded military pacts with include Gabon, Mauritania, Rwanda, Guinea and South Africa. The US also has a ‘second Guantanamo’ in the Indian Ocean, where alleged terror suspects who are kidnapped in Africa, the Middle East or Asia can be detained and interrogated without trial. This ‘second Guantanamo’ comprises of a detention camp, refuelling point and bomber base situated on the British-colonised Chagos Archipelago island of Diego Garcia, an island from which the indigenous inhabitants were forcibly removed to Mauritius.

In South Africa’s case, while it is unlikely that there will ever be US bases established – the strength of South Africa’s own military, SANDF, makes this unnecessary – in 2005, the country quietly signed on to the US’s Africa Contingency Operations Training Assistance (ACOTA) programme, which is aimed at integrating African armed forces into US strategic (imperialist) objectives.

South Africa, by signing on to ACOTA as the 13th African member, effectively joined the American War on Terror. ACOTA started life as a ‘humanitarian’ programme run by EUCOM out of Stuttgart, Germany, in 1996. After the 9/11 attacks, however, the Pentagon reorganised ACOTA and gave it more teeth.

Today, ACOTA’s makeup is more obviously aggressive than defensive. According to journalist Pierre Abromovici – writing, in the July 2004 edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, about rumours that South Africa was preparing to sign ACOTA a full year before it did so – ‘ACOTA includes offensive training, particularly for regular infantry units and small units modelled on special forces… In Washington, the talk is no longer of non-lethal weapons… the emphasis is on “offensive” co-operation’.

The real nature of ACOTA is perhaps indicated by the career of the man heading it up, Colonel Nestor Pino-Marina. He is, according to Abromovici, ‘a Cuban exile who took part in the 1961 failed US landing in the Bay of Pigs… He is also a former special forces officer who served in Vietnam and Laos. During the Reagan era he belonged to the Inter-American Defence Board, and, in the 1960s, he took part in clandestine operations against the Sandanistas. He was accused of involvement in drug-trafficking to fund arms sent to Central America’ to prop up pro-Washington right-wing dictatorships.

Clearly, Pino-Marina is a fervent ‘anti-communist’ – whether that means opposing rebellious states or popular insurrections. He also sits on the executive of a strange outfit within the US military called the Cuban-American Military council, which aims at installing itself as the government of Cuba should the US ever achieve a forcible ‘regime-change’ there.

The career of the US ambassador, Jendayi Fraser, who concluded the ACOTA pact with South Africa is also an indicator of US intentions. Fraser, Bush’s senior advisor on Africa, had no diplomatic experience. Instead, she once served as a politico-military planner with the joint chiefs of staff in the Department of Defence and as senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council. According to Fraser’s online biography, she ‘worked on African security issues with the State Department’s international military education training programmes’.

IS THERE A MURDEROUS ‘SCHOOL OF THE AFRICAS’?

The programmes that Fraser mentions include the ‘Next Generation of African Military Leaders’ course run by the shady African Centre for Strategic Studies based in Washington, which has ‘chapters’ in various African countries including South Africa. The Centre appears to be a sort of ‘School of the Africas’ similar to the infamous ‘School of the Americas’ based at Fort Benning in Georgia. In 2001, it was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).

Founded in 1946 in Panama, the School of the Americas has trained some 60,000 Latin American soldiers, including notorious neo-Nazi Bolivian dictator Hugo Banzer, infamous Panamanian dictator and drug czar Manuel Noriega, Argentine dictators Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola whose regime murdered 30,000 people between 1976 and 1983, numerous death-squad killers, and Efrain Vasquez and Ramirez Poveda who staged a failed US-backed coup in Venezuela in 2002.

Over the decades, graduates of the School have murdered and tortured hundreds of thousands of people across Latin America, specifically targeting trade union leaders, grassroots activists, students, guerrilla units, and political opponents. The murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero of Nicaragua, in 1980, and the ‘El Mozote’ massacre of 767 villagers in El Salvador, in 1981, were committed by graduates of the School. And yet the School of the Americas Watch, an organisation trying to shut WHINSEC down, is on an FBI ‘anti-terrorism’ watch-list.

So Africa should be concerned if the African Centre for Strategic Studies has similar objectives, even if the School of the Americas Watch cannot confirm these fears? There is more: we’ve all heard of the ‘Standby Force’ being devised by the African Union (AU), a coalition of Africa’s authoritarian neo-liberal regimes. But the AU has also set up, under the patronage of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe – which also covers North America, Russia and Central Asia – the African Centre for the Study and Research of Terrorism.

The Centre is based in Algiers in Algeria, at the heart of a murderous regime that has itself ‘made disappear’ some 3,000 people between 1992 and 2003 (according to Amnesty International this is equivalent to the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, but it is a fact ignored by the African left). The Centre’s director, Abdelhamid Boubazine told me that it would not only be a think-tank and trainer of ‘anti-terrorism’ judges, but that it would also have teeth and would provide training in ‘specific armed intervention’ to support the continent’s regimes.

Anneli Botha, the senior researcher on terrorism at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, said though, that only ten per cent of terrorist attacks in Africa were on armed forces, and only six per cent were on state figures and institutions, though the latter were ‘focused’. She warned that a major cause of African terrorism was ‘a growing void between government and security forces on the one hand, and local communities on the other’. Caught in the grip of misery and poverty, many people are recruited into rebel armies even though few of these offer any sort of real solution.

The Centre in Algiers operates under the AU’s ‘Algiers Convention on Terrorism’, which is notoriously vague on the definition of terrorism. This opens the door for a wide range of non-governmental, protest, grassroots, civic, and militant organisations to be targeted for elimination by the new counter-terrorism forces. It would be naïve to think that bourgeois democracy – which passed South Africa’s equally vaguely-defined Protection of Constitutional Democracy from Terrorism and Other Related Activities Act into law last year – will protect the working class, peasantry and poor from state terrorism.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Michael Schmidt is a Johannesburg-based journalist and political activist.
* This article was first published in three years ago in 'Zabalaza: a Journal of Southern African Revolutionary Anarchism', No. 8, November 2006. Zabalaza is the English-language sister journal of the French-language Afrique Sans Châines.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Deadlock in the Middle East and Western responsibility

Keeping silent over Israel’s crimes: A Western policy shaped by holocaust and religion

Mourad Bencheikh

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62003

cc I N EMourad Bencheikh looks at why the Middle East question – with the Palestinian problem at its core – is in deadlock, as Western “silence” on Israeli policy towards the occupied territories engenders mistrust and suspicion in the Muslim world. The wisest approach, says Bencheikh, would be ‘for Israel to build bridges and not walls’ between the Jewish and Palestinian communities. ‘They both know what suffering means, they are gifted, well-educated, hard working and should work hand in hand towards the stability, development and integration of the whole region.’

The German chancellor’s address to the American congress last November gives the exact measure of why the Middle East question – with the Palestinian problem at its core – is in such a deadlock. Reading the speech one is struck by the somewhat glaring omission of any similarity between the Soviet wall and the Israeli wall: Two very similar and comparable examples of brutal population segregation. One, the Soviet inspired and controlled the Berlin wall, which divided Germany for nearly half a century. The second and most pertinent, being the Israeli wall dividing what is left of the Palestinian territory (now 60 per cent of its size before the 1967 war) into plots of land isolated from one another, condemning their inhabitants to permanent house arrest. In addition, just like ‘the Iron Curtain’, humiliating police harassment and abuse leads to painful family separation. Loved ones are forced to live and work apart, separated by the ‘wall’: The latest glaring symbol of repression. This should leave no-one indifferent, especially in Germany where there is still a vivid memory of the terrible suffering experienced by the populace as a result of the enforced separation created by the ‘wall’.

The second point to note is that the paragraph devoted to human rights and which advocates zero tolerance to any deliberate violation thereof does not include any reference to the UN fact finding mission report on the Gaza conflict released on 15 September 2009. It should have since the report is extremely critical in every regard.

The blockade of the Gaza strip started in mid 2006 and brought about extensive damage to the physical and mental health of the people of Gaza, in particular the women and children who, even now, are suffering terrible ordeals as the blockade continues.

The air, sea and land attacks lasted from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009. The Israeli army used white phosphorous missiles causing severe and sometimes untreatable burns as well as depleted and non-depleted uranium shells. Hospitals, schools, mosques and shelters of terror-stricken civilians were targeted leaving about 1,500 dead. These needless deaths cannot be categorised as collateral damage in the pursuit of military objectives but rather as government sponsored murder.

After a comprehensive and thoroughly detailed investigation, Justice Goldstone and his two colleagues drew the conclusion that extensive and highly deliberate human rights abuses had occurred, the mass civilian death toll adding up to a crime against humanity.

Arguably, the German chancellor’s speech is a good example of how the Western countries through their ‘silence’ give tacit approval to the Jewish state’s repressive policy in the Palestinian occupied territories. As a case in point, the confinement and killings in Gaza did not give rise to the same emotional and indignant reactions as they would have if they had occurred somewhere else in the world. The reason is that the Western countries are still brooding on the past, feeling guilty for not having prevented the Nazi inspired holocaust. From all this it follows that they have based their Middle East policy on the myth that the Jewish people’s past suffering makes it quite impossible for them to resort to similar crimes

In addition to that, there is the US specificity – namely the existence in that country of a powerful fundamentalist trend strongly imbued with a word for word interpretation of the Old Testament and thus with the firm belief in the return to the promised land of a people claiming to be chosen by God. This trend is sometimes called Christian Zionism.

It is the reason why the Jewish lobby throughout the world and the friends of Israel, not least the Western countries, are mobilised whenever the myth is contradicted by facts. After the publication of the Goldstone report a new campaign, even harsher than the previous ones, was led against the Geneva-based UN council for human rights, challenging the credibility of some of its members. Richard Goldstone, who is South African of Jewish denomination, was not spared in spite of his moral stature. Justice Goldstone risked his life during apartheid by taking a strong stance against oppression and injustice. Last but not least the US administration pressured President Mahmoud Abbas to accept a six month postponement of the debate about the Goldstone report, which he eventually did.

The Arab countries then took the initiative in submitting the matter to the UN Security Council, keeping in mind however that the US will use their veto against any resolution referring the case to the International Criminal Court (ICC). In any case the ICC can exercise jurisdiction only if the accused are nationals of a state party. Unfortunately, Israel does not qualify since it has not ratified the Rome statute. It is abundantly clear then that the guilty, those behind and on the field alike, will escape justice and continue their brutality.

ISLAMOPHOBIA: ANOTHER GOOD REASON FOR THE WEST TO FEEL CLOSER TO ISRAEL

The strong prejudice in favour of Israel is also the side effect of rampant Islamophobia in the West. In the US, the perception of Islam is moulded by Bernard Lewis. According to this British orientalist, the Muslim countries are angry and crave revenge, because the West has overtaken them as the world’s leading civilisation.

In all instances, since 9/11 the common denominator of the many analyses dealing with Islam has been oversimplification. The third monotheist religion is generally equated with Islamism and Jihad with terrorism. Islamism, for instance, is a political line conceptualised by Mawdudi (1903-1979) in ‘Jihad in Islam’, which was published in Urdu in 1927. This book caused quite a stir because of its appeal for violence to protect Islam from the Western and Indian threats. Two of his most famous followers, both of whom were Egyptians, Hassan Al Banna (1906-1949) and Seyyid Qutb (1906-1966), focused their analyses on the Arab world. They were both convinced that the nationalist governments which came to power in the region in the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire collapse were not living up to the expectations of their people. Their main goal was to topple these governments and replace them with ones abiding by the Islamic rule or Sharia. Nowadays the goal remains unchanged. The only difference is that the Islamists try now to achieve it through legal means, namely by entering the political arena in their respective countries. A small minority continues with violent acts and interacts with the Salafists or fundamentalists who want to revive Islam as it was at the time of the Prophet. By definition, therefore, Islamism is not Islam. It is, rather, the exploitation of religion for political ends.

Most importantly Jihad, as put forward by Mawdudi and perceived by American public opinion, is a gross misconception. It is not, as normally defined, an Islamic holy war against unbelievers. Jihad, in reality, is a commandment compelling the faithful to defend their religion against any threat and a self defense known as ‘major Jihad’ against any temptation which could jeopardize their moral integrity. Far from being an offensive weapon targeting the Western countries, this precept is exclusively defensive.

To a large extent, the Middle East policy of the Bush administration was shaped according to this prevailing oversimplification about Islam and Jihad. At its core lies preventive action, namely the negation and destruction of any potential threat. Its objectives were the imposition of democracy or a democratic value system and the ‘encouragement’, forcibly or otherwise, of an Islamic adaptation to secular and modern standards. We all know about the disaster entailed by this policy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The current US president should be given credit for the conciliatory speech delivered in Cairo. But President Obama’s good intentions should be followed up by a concerted effort to create a less biased trend against Islam and the Muslims in ‘the hearts and minds’ of the American public.

So far, it does not seem that things are moving in the right direction. The neo conservatives are still wielding a great deal of influence. The teaching of Arab language and Islamic civilisation is given a low priority in the US education system. In all likelihood the American public for the foreseeable future will continue to believe in the inevitable clash with the Islamic world. Predictably any progress will continue to be stalled by strict adherence to the same old rhetoric.

Islamophobia in Europe is rampant and endemic from one generation to the other. It is rising dramatically due to the presence of significant Muslim minorities. It is now claimed, justified and exploited by some political parties and famous opinion shapers. The racial rantings of Oriana Fallaci or Michel Houellebecq and the outrageous drawings of a Danish sensationalist are prime examples of how Islam is perceived. The significance of this should not be minimised by their correspondence to similar sentiments expressed at a lecture given at the Ratisbonne in 2006 by the Pope. Benedict the XVI, the head of state, described as the ‘conscience of the world’ by a correspondent of the Lebanese newspaper L’Orient Le Jour declared that Islam is inseparable from violence. This presupposes that Christianity does not, since it has been imbued with Greek rationality. The lecture aroused great indignation in the Muslim world and was the cause of a still ongoing controversy.

Similarly there must be a link between an openly expressed Islamophobia and the clear-cut opposition to Turkey’s entry in the European Union in the name of Judeo-Christianity. These are but two good examples of how instinctive reactions against Islam are endorsed at the highest religious and political level. The appalling consequences of Islamophobia are visible by the creation of ‘ghettos’ in some suburbs in Europe and the open or latent discrimination against fully fledged naturalised citizens looking for a work or lodgings. In short, this type of exclusion forces those concerned to live together, in close proximity. This very fact is used as evidence of the lack of feasibility of a social integration policy. This leads to a vicious circle that the few advocates of a multicultural society seem unable or unwilling to break.

When all is said and done, the Western countries strong prejudice in favour of Israel stems from three reasons. The first and probably most fundamental is the perpetual feeling of guilt associated with the holocaust. The second reason is relates to ‘Christian Zionism’, which is specific to the US. American policy is influenced as always by religion when it comes to Middle East. The last is generated by a time immemorial perception that the Muslim world is a source of danger internationally and a cause of potential destabilisation at the national level. Against this background Israel is seen as a close partner who shares common values and common threats. In other words, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. For the Muslims in general and the Arabs in particular, this old saying is fraught with danger.

THE MUSLIM PERCEPTION: THE WEST IS NOT REJECTED FOR WHAT IT IS BUT FOR WHAT IT DOES

On all accounts it is indeed the opinion of the people often referred to as ‘the street’ by some Western opinion shapers who want to send the subliminal message of huge and unruly crowds. It is also the stance of all governments including those bound to comply with realpolitik requirements. Israel’s impunity is of great concern to the Muslim world because it implies a green light for further repression. Actually the prevailing opinion is that Israel and the Western countries are equally responsible for the present stalemate. Put in a historical perspective the West’s passivity is considered an extension of a series of aggressions against the Muslims since the Middle-Ages. This long list begins with the Catholic inspired massacres during the first crusade and the relentless re-conquest and eradication of Muslim territory in Spain by Isabel the Catholic and Gimenez.

Other telling examples are the wars of colonial conquest and occupation by some European countries, or the large scale bombing in Afghanistan and its extensive collateral damage. One has also to keep in mind the terrible suppression of the independence movement in Chechnya, the mass murder in Lebanon masterminded by a ‘butcher’ later appointed prime minister. In addition to that, we have to mention the double speak of the former occupying power and its proxy in Western Sahara. However the most burning issue for the Muslim world is certainly the crime against humanity ongoing in Palestine, which has been occupied for more than sixty years. Obviously this continuous occupation is a part of the ‘great Israel’ strategy claimed or suggested by all the Israeli governments from the inception of the Jewish state. In addition to that, there is the insidious propaganda war waged by Israel and its apologists to excuse – and cover up – Israeli excesses under the pretext of a war against terrorism.

The ‘rage and frustration’ allegedly branded into the Muslim psyche by the apparent loss of global influence to the advantage of Western civilisation is simply not the case. Rather, this real anger is the result of the ever lasting, brutal, arrogant and ruthless behaviour of the West. Far fetched as it may seem the latter’s explanation has some implications. One, the West likes to show itself in a good light. Two the intention is here to disguise its various crimes. Three, the objective is to claim that it is rejected for what it is and not for what it does. This gross falsification is the very foundation of the ‘clash of civilisation’ (coined for the record by Bernard Lewis and not by Samuel Huntington as often believed) that Western propaganda aims to make a self-fulfilling prophecy.

THE WEST’S SELF-DECEPTION: THE DEFENCE AND PROMOTION OF UNIVERSAL VALUES.

The Muslims have nothing against the age of Enlightenment. What is at stake is the West’s thirst for power, the haughty negation of its crimes during colonial times, its firm intention to expand its model on a global scale, its never ending inclination to preach, its aggressive design to force the Muslims into democracy and religious reform and, last but not least its alignment with Israel’s colonial policy.

The Western countries need to break with this kind of behaviour if they really want to establish long term and mutually beneficial relations with a region of critical strategic importance, as their own is, for the Muslim world. One confidence-building measure would be to accept responsibility for the past. To try to gain forgiveness for one’s crimes is not to belittle oneself. Rather to repent is to increase one’s stature, to help placate the victims sorrow and pave the way for a thorough reconciliation. The second should be a noninterventionist external policy. Democracy is not a universal panacea for all. Things must follow their natural course irrespective of any difficulty. Foreign meddling in this matter would have serious consequences. A third possible step should involve the Muslim European nationals. Whatever feelings the West may have about Islam, it should, in its own best interest, interact with them in an all-inclusive approach to pave the way for a much sought after integration. On the other hand, the West should avoid any attempt to influence the adaptation of religion in the Islamic world. The overwhelming majority of Muslims observe their faith in a peaceful way. They reject extremists as well as would-be reformers. They have to decide for themselves whether there is a need for reform and not under external pressure. They could if necessary consult some of Islam’s new thinkers. But the litmus test pertains to the Palestinian question. All Muslims – and first and foremost the Arabs – cannot understand why the West is so emotional about the Jews’ past suffering and so indifferent to the alarming plight of the Palestinians. The West and particularly the US should be committed to giving momentum to the peace process in accordance to the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

It seems however that the time is not ripe for such a dramatic change. Since the collapse of Communism in 1989, the Western countries have been more assertive than ever. They still claim that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was justified, conveniently ignoring the evidence that there were no weapons of mass destruction in that country. They are sending significant reinforcements to Afghanistan. They will make no apology for their crimes and offer no compensation for the damage. They are putting extreme pressures on Iran to prevent the production of nuclear warheads while turning a blind eye to Israel’s stockpile of atomic bombs. In other words, ignoring lessons of history, the West is adhering to power politics.

WHAT IS GOOD FOR ISRAEL IS GOOD FOR THE WEST: THE LAISSEZ FAIRE POLICY

In contrast the Western countries are neither willing nor able to adopt a stronger policy vis-à-vis Israel. This is self evident in the Middle East conflict. They, the West, feel closer ties to Israel for both historical and religious reasons. This is at the expense of Arabs who have embodied, since time immemorial, a threatening otherness. In addition, much like the proverbial ‘sorcerer’s apprentice’, the state that they have created is beyond their control and there is no stopping the inertia that is and continues to be built up.

There is no denying that the Israelis feel free to do whatever they want. One of the activists of Peace Now gave the following opinion in 2007: ‘If you look at what Israel does rather than what it says, the conclusion is that Israel is not willing to accept a Palestinian State’. The Jewish state’s policy of fait accompli is a clear confirmation of his statement. The plain truth is that Israel occupies 40 per cent of the Palestinian territory (as it was before 1967) including East Jerusalem The settlement policy is ongoing. One should note that its short-lived freeze appears with hindsight, as a confidence trick designed to focus attention on a so-called Israeli concession and divert global attention away from the settlement itself.

In any case, the creeping annexation of Palestinian territory is a clear indication of how the Jewish State continues towards its goal of a ‘greater Israel’. Alternatively the objective appears to be the occupation of the whole of Palestine and the concomitant expulsion of all Palestinians, including those having the Israeli nationality. Retrospectively one realises why Israel and the Western countries endorsed the UN Security Council Resolution 242 under the condition that the English version be the sole reference. The English version of the resolution ‘conveniently’ provides for the withdrawal of territories and not of the territories. It is an excellent ploy to facilitate further expansion as long as there is no solution. It is abundantly clear that there will be no settlement while the peace process is in permanent stasis.

NEW BLOOD WITHIN THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: A MANDATE FROM THE PEOPLE TO MAKE PEACE WITH ISRAEL

From all this it follows that the Palestinians find themselves caught between Israel’s constant obstruction of the peace process and the persistent Western warning against any attempt to jeopardise its resumption. It is exactly what the Palestinian Authority has been trying to comply with since the election of President Mahmoud Abbas.

The peace with Israel option was overwhelmingly endorsed in August 2009 by the Fatah 6th Congress. There is a new generation of leaders, honest, educated and born in the Gaza strip or the West Bank. Furthermore, they are democratically elected and trusted by the people. The head of government is a graduate from Texas University and was the IMF permanent representative in Gaza and Ramallah. He is a native son. Under his leadership internal Fatah quarrels have been settled, corruption is being dealt with, the economy is improving and investments are on the rise. Last, but not least, order is restored in cooperation with the Israeli security forces. Hamas militants are under continuous police harassment while their leaders are left alone with a view to bringing Fatah and Hamas together through negotiation.

In other words, the Israelis cannot argue anymore about the Palestinian authority’s lack of credibility for continually delaying the peace process. They now have a valid negotiator of stature, fully mandated by a sizeable part of the Palestinian people to make peace with Israel.

There is none so blind as them that won’t see. Israel’s ulterior motives: Total annexation or a mini state under control – in any case, genocide in Gaza.

But who still believes that their plea will be taken into consideration? Firstly, the Israeli policy of slow, creeping expansion is working well. The routine violation weakens indignation and there is less and less reaction to the establishment of each new colony. Secondly, the US and the European Union have adamantly rejected a recent Palestinian proposal to come back to the UN framework. This rebuttal is a clear confirmation that even the English version of Resolution 242 is deemed irrelevant, even though it has the backing of all the Arab countries. Lastly, they have blacklisted Hamas, leaving no chance for the Palestinians to unify and create a stronger bargaining position. All the cards are on one side and Israel will play them as it wishes, so long as the West is neither willing nor able to intercede.

The wisest approach would be for Israel to build bridges and not walls between the two communities. They both know what suffering means, they are gifted, well-educated, hard working and should work hand in hand towards the stability, development and integration of the whole region.

Unfortunately, for all concerned, the heady allure of unbridled power will lead Israel to one of two alternatives, the worst scenario being a complete annexation of the Palestinian territory. The other would leave a tiny state with a capital other than East Jerusalem. A state created by the piecemeal exchange of Israeli settlements for equivalent plots of Palestinian land, with fully fledged sovereignty except for security matters under joint responsibility, and a wall to separate it from its neighbour.

Nobody has the right to decide for the Palestinians if such a cynical proposal should be discussed, least of all the members of a’ brotherhood’ ready to dispense good advice but never for action. As for Gaza, the Israeli approach is quite clear: Hamas must be wiped out, and since its popular support is obvious, then the people behind should also be wiped out. Yet another crime against humanity is waiting in the wings. It turns out to be once again a wall financed by the West at the initiative and under the control of the two nearest neighbours in the region. The wall will definitely curtail the smuggling of bare essentials to a population already under siege for nearly four years. The weapons of mass destruction in this instance are starvation and health care deprivation. Thousands of Gaza citizens, whose only mistake is their place of birth will suffer and perish. Is this then the triumph of the Israelis and their Western friends? No, it is but the beginning of their woes, because from generation to generation, until the end of the time, revenge, written in all languages of the world, will be engraved in the Palestinian collective memory.

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* Mourad Bencheikh is ambassador of Algeria to South Africa.The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Algerian government.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

The fateful geological prize called Haiti

F. William Engdahl

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62009

cc M I Geo‘Behind the smoke, rubble and unending drama of human tragedy in the hapless Caribbean country, a drama is in full play for control of what geophysicists believe may be one of the world’s richest zones for hydrocarbons-oil and gas outside the Middle East,’ writes F. William Engdahl. Engdahl adds ‘oil’ to Haiti’s story, highlighting the increasing evidence that behind the rescue mission in Haiti, there perhaps lies a stark ulterior, but familiar, motive.

Behind the smoke, rubble and unending drama of human tragedy in the hapless Caribbean country, a drama is in full play for control of what geophysicists believe may be one of the world’s richest zones for hydrocarbons-oil and gas outside the Middle East, possibly orders of magnitude greater than that of nearby Venezuela.

Haiti, and the larger island of Hispaniola of which it is a part, has the geological fate that it straddles one of the world’s most active geological zones, where the deepwater plates of three huge structures relentlessly rub against one another; the intersection of the North American, South American and Caribbean tectonic plates. Below the ocean and the waters of the Caribbean, these plates consist of an oceanic crust some three to six miles thick, floating atop an adjacent mantle. Haiti also lies at the edge of the region known as the Bermuda Triangle, a vast area in the Caribbean subject to bizarre and unexplained disturbances.

This vast mass of underwater plates is in constant motion; the plates rubbing against each other along lines analogous to cracks in a broken porcelain vase that has been re-glued. The earth’s tectonic plates typically move at a rate of 50 to 100 mm annually in relation to one another, and are the origin of earthquakes and volcanoes. The regions of convergence of such plates are also areas where vast volumes of oil and gas can be pushed upwards from the Earth’s mantle. The geophysics surrounding the convergence of the three plates that run more or less directly beneath Port-au-Prince make the region prone to earthquakes such as the one that struck Haiti with devastating ferocity on 12 January.

A RELEVANT TEXAS GEOLOGICAL PROJECT

Leaving aside the relevant question of how well in advance the Pentagon and US scientists knew the quake was about to occur, and what Pentagon plans were being laid before 12 January, another issue emerges around the events in Haiti that might help explain the bizarre behavior to date of the major ‘rescue’ players – the United States, France and Canada. Aside from being prone to violent earthquakes, Haiti also happens to lie in a zone that, due to the unusual geographical intersection of its three tectonic plates, might well be straddling one of the world’s largest unexplored zones of oil and gas, as well as of valuable, rare, strategic minerals.

The vast oil reserves of the Persian Gulf and of the region from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden are at a similar convergence zone of large tectonic plates, as are such oil-rich zones as Indonesia and the waters off the coast of California. In short, in terms of the physics of the earth, precisely such intersections of tectonic masses as run directly beneath Haiti have a remarkable tendency to be the sites of vast treasures of minerals, as well as oil and gas, throughout the world.

Notably, in 2005, a year after the Bush-Cheney Administration de facto deposed the democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a team of geologists from the Institute for Geophysics at the University of Texas began an ambitious and thorough two-phase mapping of all geological data of the Caribbean Basins. The project is due to be completed in 2011. Directed by Dr Paul Mann, it is called ‘Caribbean Basins, Tectonics and Hydrocarbons’. It is all about determining, as precisely as possible, the relation between tectonic plates in the Caribbean and the potential for hydrocarbons; oil and gas.

Notably, the sponsors of the multi-million dollar research project under Mann are the world’s largest oil companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, the Anglo-Dutch Shell and BHP Billiton.[1] Curiously enough, the project is the first comprehensive geological mapping of a region that, one would have thought, would have been a priority decades ago for the US oil majors. Given the immense, existing oil production off Mexico, Louisiana and the entire Caribbean, as well as its proximity to the United States – not to mention the US focus on its own energy security – it is surprising that the region had not been mapped earlier. Now it emerges that major oil companies were at least generally aware of the huge oil potential of the region long ago, but apparently decided to keep it quiet.

CUBA’S SUPER-GIANT FIND

Evidence that the US Administration may well have more in mind for Haiti than the improvement of the lot of the devastated Haitian people can be found in nearby waters off Cuba, directly across from Port-au-Prince. In October 2008 a consortium of oil companies led by Spain’s Repsol, together with Cuba's state oil company, Cubapetroleo, announced discovery of one of the world’s largest oilfields in the deep water off Cuba. It is what oil geologists call a ‘Super-giant’ field. Estimates are that the Cuban field contains as much as 20 billion barrels of oil, making it the twelfth Super-giant oilfield discovered since 1996. The discovery also likely makes Cuba a new high-priority target for Pentagon destabilisation and other nasty operations.

No doubt to the dismay of Washington, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev flew to Havana one month after the Cuban giant oil find to sign an agreement with acting-President Raul Castro for Russian oil companies to explore and develop Cuban oil.[2]

Medvedev’s Russia-Cuba oil agreements came only a week after the visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao to meet the recuperating Fidel Castro and his brother Raul. The Chinese President signed an agreement to modernise Cuban ports and discussed Chinese purchase of Cuban raw materials. No doubt the mammoth new Cuban oil discovery was high on the Chinese agenda with Cuba.[3] On November 5, 2008, just prior to the Chinese president’s trip to Cuba and other Latin American countries, the Chinese government issued their first ever policy paper on the future of China’s relations with Latin America and Caribbean nations, elevating these bilateral relations to a new level of strategic importance. [4]

The Cuba Super-giant oil find also leaves the advocates of ‘Peak Oil’ theory with more egg on the face. Shortly before the Bush-Blair decision to invade and occupy Iraq, a theory made the rounds of cyberspace, that sometime after 2010, the world would reach an absolute ‘peak’ in world oil production, initiating a period of decline with drastic social and economic implications. Its prominent spokesmen, including retired oil geologist Colin Campbell and Texas oil banker Matt Simmons, claimed that there had not been a single new Super-giant oil discovery since 1976, or thereabouts, and that new fields found over the past two decades had been ‘tiny’ compared with the earlier giant discoveries in Saudi Arabia, Prudhoe Bay, Daquing in China and elsewhere. [5]

It is critical to note that, more than half a century ago, a group of Russian and Ukrainian geophysicists, working in state secrecy, confirmed that hydrocarbons originated deep in the earth’s mantle under conditions similar to a giant burning cauldron at extreme temperature and pressure. They demonstrated that, contrary to US and accepted Western ‘mainstream’ geology, hydrocarbons were not the result of dead dinosaur detritus concentrated and compressed and somehow transformed into oil and gas millions of years ago, nor of algae or other biological material.[6]

The Russian and Ukrainian geophysicists then proved that the oil or gas produced in the earth’s mantle was pushed upwards along faults or cracks in the earth as close to the surface as pressures permitted. The process was analogous to the production of molten lava in volcanoes. It means that the ability to find oil is limited, relatively speaking, only by the ability to identify deep fissures and complex geological activity conducive to bringing the oil out from deep in the earth. It seems that the waters of the Caribbean, especially those off Cuba and its neighbour Haiti, are just such a region of concentrated hydrocarbons (oil and gas) that have found their way upwards close to the surface, perhaps in a magnitude comparable to a new Saudi Arabia.[7]

HAITI, A NEW SAUDI ARABIA?

The remarkable geography of Haiti and Cuba and the discovery of world-class oil reserves in the waters off Cuba lend credence to anecdotal accounts of major oil discoveries in several parts of Haitian territory. It also could explain why two Bush presidents and now special UN Haiti Envoy Bill Clinton have made Haiti such a priority. As well, it could explain why Washington and its NGOs moved so quickly to remove – twice – the democratically elected President Aristide, whose economic programme for Haiti included, among other items, proposals for developing Haitian natural resources for the benefit of the Haitian people.

In March 2004, some months before the University of Texas and American Big Oil launched their ambitious mapping of the hydrocarbon potentials of the Caribbean, a Haitian writer, Dr. Georges Michel, published online an article titled ‘Oil in Haiti.’ In it, Michel wrote,

‘…[I]t has been no secret that deep in the earthy bowels of the two states that share the island of Haiti and the surrounding waters that there are significant, still untapped deposits of oil. One knows not why they are still untapped. Since the early twentieth century, the physical and political map of the island of Haiti, erected in 1908 by Messrs. Alexander Poujol and Henry Thomasset, reported a major oil reservoir in Haiti near the source of the Rio Todo El Mondo, Tributary Right Artibonite River, better known today as the River Thomonde.’[8]

According to a June 2008 article by Roberson Alphonse in the Haitian paper, Le Nouvelliste en Haiti, ‘The signs, (indicators), justifying the explorations of oil (black gold) in Haiti are encouraging. In the middle of the oil shock, some four companies want official licenses from the Haitian State to drill for oil.’

At the time, oil prices were climbing above US$140 a barrel – on manipulations by various Wall Street banks. Alphonse’s article quoted Dieusuel Anglade, the Haitian State Director of the Office of Mining and Energy, telling the Haitian press: ‘We've received four requests for oil exploration permits…We have had encouraging indicators to justify the pursuit of the exploration of black gold (oil), which had stopped in 1979.’[9]

Alphonse reported the findings from a 1979 geological study in Haiti of 11 exploratory oil wells drilled at the Plaine du Cul-de-sac on the Plateau Central and at L'ile de La Gonaive: ‘Surface (tentative) indicators for oil were found at the Southern peninsula and on the North coast, explained the engineer Anglade, who strongly believes in the immediate commercial viability of these explorations.’[10]

Journalist Alphonse cites a 16 August 1979 memo by Haitian attorney Francois Lamothe, in which he noted that ‘five big wells were drilled’ down to depths of 9,000 feet and that a sample that ‘underwent a physical-chemical analysis in Munich, Germany’ had ‘revealed tracks of oil.’[11]

Despite the promising 1979 results in Haiti, Dr Georges Michel reported that, ‘the big multinational oil companies operating in Haiti pushed for the discovered deposits not to be exploited.’[12] Oil exploration in and offshore Haiti ground to a sudden halt as a result.

Similar if less precise reports claiming that Haitian oil reserves could be vastly larger than those of Venezuela have appeared in Haitian websites.[13] Then in 2010 the financial news site Bloomberg News carried the following:

‘The Jan. 12 earthquake was on a fault line that passes near potential gas reserves, said Stephen Pierce, a geologist who worked in the region for 30 years for companies that included the former Mobil Corp. The quake may have cracked rock formations along the fault, allowing gas or oil to temporarily seep toward the surface, he said Monday in a telephone interview. ‘A geologist, callous as it may seem, tracing that fault zone from Port-au-Prince to the border looking for gas and oil seeps, may find a structure that hasn't been drilled,’ said Pierce, exploration manager at Zion Oil & Gas Inc., a Dallas-based company that's drilling in Israel. [14]

In an interview with a Santo Domingo online paper, Leopoldo Espaillat Nanita, former head of the Dominican Petroleum Refinery (REFIDOMSA) stated, ‘there is a multinational conspiracy to illegally take the mineral resources of the Haitian people.’ [15] Haiti’s minerals include gold, the valuable strategic metal iridium and oil, apparently lots of it.

ARISTIDE’S DEVELOPMENT PLANS

Marguerite Laurent ('Ezili Dantò'), president of the Haitian Lawyers’ Leadership Network (HLLN) who served as attorney for the deposed Aristide, notes that when Aristide was President – up until his US-backed ouster during the Bush era in 2004 – he had developed and published in book form his national development plans. These plans included, for the first time, a detailed list of known sites where the resources of Haiti were located. The publication of the plan sparked a national debate over Haitian radio and in the media about the future of the country. Aristide’s plan was to implement a public-private partnership to ensure that the development of Haiti’s oil, gold and other valuable resources would benefit the national economy and the broader population, and not merely the five Haitian oligarchic families and their US backers, the so-called Chimeres or gangsters. [16]

Since the ouster of Aristide in 2004, Haiti has been an occupied country, with a dubiously-elected president, Rene Preval, a controversial follower of IMF privatisation mandates and reportedly tied to the Chimeres or Haitian oligarchs who backed the removal of Aristide. Notably, the US State Department refuses to permit the return of Aristide from South African exile.

Now, in the wake of the devastating earthquake of 12 January, the United States military has taken control of Haiti’s four airports and presently has some 20,000 troops in the country. Journalists and international aid organisations have accused the US military of being more concerned with imposing military control, which it prefers to call ‘security,’ than with bringing urgently needed water, food and medicine from the airport sites to the population.

A US military occupation of Haiti under the guise of earthquake disaster ‘relief’ would give Washington and private business interests tied to it a geopolitical prize of the first order. Prior to the 12 January quake, the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince was the fifth largest US embassy in the world, comparable to its embassies in such geopolitically strategic places as Berlin and Beijing.[17] With huge new oil finds off Cuba being exploited by Russian companies, with clear indications that Haiti contains similar vast untapped oil as well as gold, copper, uranium and iridium, with Hugo Chavez’ Venezuela as a neighbour to the south of Haiti, a return of Aristide or any popular leader committed to developing the resources for the people of Haiti – the poorest nation in the Americas – would constitute a devastating blow to the world’s sole Superpower. The fact that in the aftermath of the earthquake, UN Haiti Special Envoy Bill Clinton joined forces with Aristide foe George W. Bush to create something called the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund ought to give everyone pause.

According to Marguerite Laurent ('Ezili Dantò') of the Haitian Lawyers’ Leadership Network, under the guise of emergency relief work, the US, France and Canada are engaged in a balkanisation of the island for future mineral control. She reports rumours that Canada wants the North of Haiti where Canadian mining interests are already present. The US wants Port-au-Prince and the island of La Gonaive just offshore – an area identified in Aristide’s development book as having vast oil resources, and which is bitterly contested by France. She further states that China, with UN veto power over the de facto UN-occupied country, may have something to say against such a US-France-Canada carve up of the vast wealth of the nation. [18]

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* This article first appeared in Global Research.
* F. William Engdahl is a frequent contributor to [http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=listByAuthor&authorFirst=F. William&authorName=Engdahl]Global Research[/url].
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES:
[1] Paul Mann, ‘Caribbean Basins, Tectonic Plates & Hydrocarbons, Institute for Geophysics’, The University of Texas at Austin, accessed in
www.ig.utexas.edu/research/projects/cbth/.../ProposalCaribbean.pdf .
[2] Rory Carroll, ‘Medvedev and Castro meet to rebuild Russia-Cuba relations’, London Guardian, 28 November 2008 accessed in http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/28/cuba-russia
[3] Julian Gavaghan, ‘Comrades in arms: When China’s President Hu met a frail Fidel Castro’, London Daily Mail, 19 November 2008, accessed in http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1087485/Comrades-arms-When-Chinas-President-Hu-met-frail-Fidel-Castro.html
[4] Peoples’ Daily Online, ‘China issues first policy paper on Latin America’, Caribbean region, 5 November 2008, accessed in http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90776/90883/6527888.html .
[5] Matthew R. Simmons, ‘The World’s Giant Oilfields’, Simmons & Co. International, Houston, accessed in http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/giantoilfields.pdf .
[6 ]Anton Kolesnikov, et al, ‘Methane-derived hydrocarbons produced under upper-mantle conditions’, Nature Geoscience, 26 July 2009.
[7] F. William Engdahl, ‘War and Peak Oil—Confessions of an ‘ex’ Peak Oil believer’, Global Research, 26 September 2007, accessed in http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6880 .
[8] Dr Georges Michel, ‘Oil in Haiti’, English translation from French, ‘Pétrole en Haiti’, 27 March 2004, accessed in http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/oil_sites.html#oil_GeorgesMichelEnglish
[9] Roberson Alphonse, ‘Drill, and then pump the oil of Haiti! 4 oil companies request oil drilling permits’, translated from the original French, 27 June 2008, accessed in
http://www.bnvillage.co.uk/caribbean-news-village-beta/99691-drill-then-pump-oil-haiti-4-oil-companies-request-oil-drilling-permits.html
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid. The full text indicated that, ‘five big wells were drilled at Porto Suel (Maissade) of a depth of 9000 feet, at Bebernal, 9000 feet, at Bois-Carradeux (Ouest), at Dumornay, on the road Route Frare and close to the Chemin de Fer of Saint-Marc. A sample, a ‘carrot’ (oil reservoir) drilled up from the well of Saint-Marc in the Artibonite underwent a physical-chemical analysis in Munich, Germany, at the request of Mr. Broth. “The result of the analysis was returned on October 11, 1979 and revealed tracks of oil,” confided the engineer, Willy Clemens, who had gone to Germany.’
[12] Dr. Georges Michel, op. cit.
[13] Marguerite Laurent, ‘Haiti is full of oil, say Ginette and Daniel Mathurin’, Radio Metropole, 28 January 2008, accessed in
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/oil_sites.html#full_of_oil
[14] Jim Polson, ‘Haiti earthquake may have exposed gas, aiding economy’, Bloomberg News, 26 January 2010.
[15] ‘Espaillat Nanita revela en Haiti existen grandes recursos de oro y otros minerals’, Espacinsular.org, 17 November 2009, accessed in
http://www.espacinsular.org/spip.php?article8942 .
[16] The Aristide development plan was contained in the book published in Haiti in 2000, ‘Investir dans l’Human. Livre Blanc de Fanmi Lavalas sous la Direction de Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Port-au-Prince, Imprimerie Henri Deschamps, 2000’. It contained detailed maps, tables, graphics, and a national development plan for 2004 ‘covering agriculture, environment, commerce and industry, the financial sector, infrastructure, education, culture, health, women's issues, and issues in the public sector.’ In 2004, using NGOs and the UN and a vicious propaganda campaign to vilify Aristide, the Bush administration got rid of the elected president.
[17] Cynthia McKinney, ‘Haiti: An Unwelcome Katrina Redux’, Global Research, 19 January 2010, accessed in http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17063
[18] Marguerite Laurent (Ezili Danto), ‘Did mining and oil drilling trigger the Haiti earthquake?’, OpEd News.com, 23 January 23 2010, accessed in
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Did-mining-and-oil-drillin-by-Ezili-Danto-100123-329.html

DRC’s magic dust: Who benefits?

Khadija Sharife

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61992

cc G GKhadija Sharife looks at how commercial and political interests in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral and natural resources have shaped the country’s history, with devastating consequences for its people, wildlife and environment. Will a new concession with China enable the Congolese to ‘really feel what all that copper, cobalt and nickel is good for’, as President Joseph Kabila says, or will the country continue to be seen as ‘a resource-rich bargain bin, open for business’?

If the gorillas inhabiting the Kahuzi Biega National Park located in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a World Heritage site and ecological sanctuary, could read, the bible may have come handy. Not the bible of God, mind you, but that of the free marketers religion: The Wall Street Journal.

Then, sitting among the rare and inimitable forested landscape, they might have come across an article detailing the efforts of multinational Bechtel, a company as infamous for its engineering and construction services as the intelligence they have supplied to the CIA and US government.[1] As reported by Robert Block (Wall Street Journal, October 1997), Bechtel has helped map – free of charge – ‘the most complete mineralogical and geographical data of the former Zaire ever assembled, information worth a fortune to any prospective mining or oil firm.’

This inventory not only ‘commissioned and paid for US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellite studies of the country for infrared maps of its mineral potential,’ but also peeled back the skin of the forest and highlands to reveal its finite riches, chiefly coltan – the same magic dust used to develop the technologies underpinning the modernity of high-tech civilisation. Given that 80 per cent of the world’s coltan was located in Africa, and 82 per cent in the DRC, putting friends in high places remained a crucial tentacle of foreign policy.

In a report entitled, ‘The Business of War in the DRC’, research analyst for the World Policy Institute, Dena Montague, has shown how Bechtel executive Robert Stewart quickly became an important advisor and travelling companion of Laurent-Désiré Kabila (president of DRC 1997-2001), a friend of the US as opposed to the ousted notorious dictator, Mobutu Sese Mobutu, who had been a friend of France despite the US$400 million peddled by the US government during the Cold War. According to hearings instituted by US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in 2001 on ending the conflict in the Congo, the company also provided intelligence, reconnaissance and satellite data to track Mobutu’s troops. Montague’s report has also shown that under Kabila, American Mineral Fields, a small mining operation headed by Mike McMurrough, a close friend to Bill Clinton, secured a US$1 billion deal in May 1997, negotiated soon after Kabila’s army occupied Goma. US Special Forces, for instance, were spotted alongside Rwandan troops.

The gorillas would have seen this, but few remain. These days, almost 90 per cent of the Kahuzi Biega National Park is exploited by loggers, miners and settlers. Everything that lives is designated in ‘red zones,’ awash with weapons and subject to some sort of extractive violence or commercial trade – whether the bush meat trade, at times using pygmies as guides for professions hunters, or the illicit trade in minerals.

Yet in the DRC, the resource-rich fragmented underbelly of Central Africa and home to an estimated US$24 trillion in known mineral resources, the only gorilla that stands a chance of winning is the 800 pound gorilla – so named in Africa for the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The thrust of the IMF’s external intervention in the DRC’s political economy was evident as late as 2007, when, according to Congolese finance minister Athanase Matenda Kyelu, the state’s draft budget of US$2.4 billion (a similar value in gold is looted annually) was more or less formulated in line with the IMF’s agendas. This ensured that much as 50 per cent of state budget was earmarked for debt repayment – US$13.5 billion contracted by former French- backed dictator Mobutu, in the name of development. Among these lenders were two primary institutions: The IMF and World Bank. When the National Assembly acted against the IMF’s order by pushing up portions of the budget allocated for services on 14 June 2007, the IMF maximised pressure on select persons within the government to intervene. On 23 June – four days prior to the successful amendment – Congolese newspaper Le Potentiel reported that Kyelu ‘expected the Senate to amend the 2007 draft budget, in order to meet, in particular, the requirements of external partners, one of which being the IMF.’

What did the IMF – who, in conjunction with World Bank were, according to the Jubilee Debt Campaign, on the receiving end of some US$560 billion (in debt servicing of an outstanding US$2.9 trillion, 2006) – eviscerate from the state budget? Part of the ‘reform’ process imagining away unnecessary and excessive costs included education, infrastructure, police services and healthcare. For every one dollar expended on healthcare, four dollars were sent North via the ‘debt sustainability’ programme of the World Bank and IMF. In 2006, Professor Stanis Wembonyama, director of the main hospital in Lubumbashi, revealed to the BBC, ‘The hospital did not have a single thermometer, armed robbers had set up their base in some of the buildings and there was human excrement everywhere. Doctors and nurses had not been paid for five years.’ This, he stated, was an improvement from ‘how things were.’ For the DRC, possessing a landmass equivalent to that of Western Europe, the issue of medical care and food is critical: Of the near six million people considered collateral damage during the war, more than 90 per cent died from disease and lack of food, often deliberately deprived.

The DRC’s killing fields, the veiny patterns criss-crossing the East bordering Uganda and Rwanda, directly correspond to the billions in looted mineral resources, namely coltan, cobalt, gold and diamonds in addition to illegally logged timber, wildlife and human trafficking. More recently, the IMF’s intervention – to promote debt sustainability – has been the renegotiation of the September 2007 ‘development- for-resources’ Sino-Congolese deal, previously worth US$9 billion (with an estimated US$50 billion in minerals, chiefly cobalt ripe for the taking). Known as the ‘deal of the century,’ the two parties would exchange no actual funds, operating instead via China’s preferred ‘Africa policy,’ i.e.: The barter system where 32 per cent of shares would be held by the DRC’s state-owned mine, Gecamines, and 66 per cent by the Chinese, through three state-owned industries, including China’s policy bank China Exim (loans of which are not backed by the Chinese state, but are still subject to approval by the Ministry of Commerce).

A report in the Inter Press Service (28 October 2009) details how exploitation, primarily from new concessions, save for portions of Katanga Mining Ltd (reimbursed), would see US$3 billion in revenues from the tax exempt Sino-Congolese joint venture, Socomins, used to repay investment, and Gecamines providing US$100 million to finance operating and employment concerns. The following phase of the contract stipulated that 66 per cent of the profit would finance China’s infrastructural works – realised through China Railway Engineering Company (CREC) and Sinohydro, a company specialising in hydroelectric and hydraulic engineering projects. The cost of the projects will be determined in-house, potentially leaving the door open to corporate mispricing. The remaining 34 per cent of profits will be divided among shareholders. In the event that the mines are not as profitable as imagined, China has secured the rights to further mineral concessions. According to the September agreement, China retains the right to extract 626,619 tons of cobalt and 10.6 million tons of copper from the Katanga region, which is part of the copperbelt extending from Angola through to the DRC and Zambia.

China Exim’s loans will pass exclusively through Chinese hands, circumventing the possibility of illicit flight on the part of the Congolese state. Congolese President Joseph Kabila, son of former DRC President Laurent Kabila, described the deal as crucial to the development of the DRC, stating: ‘The Chinese banks are prepared to finance our Five Works (water, electricity, education, health, and transport). For the first time in our history, the Congolese will really feel what all that copper, cobalt and nickel is good for.’ These works include 145 health centres, 20,000 council flats, 31 hospitals, 49 water distribution centres as well as expanded water supplies, four universities and a parliament building. China has also pledged to build 4,000 kilometres of tarred road (prior to Chinese activities, just 200 kilometres existed) in addition to 3,200 kilometres of railway systems). Approximately 50 per cent of loans from China Exim were directed toward the continent, incentivising South- South trade and investment. For this reason, in addition to the necessity of a counterweight, China’s potential as a developing-country investor levels the playing field, shifting investment goals from ‘returns’ to that of ‘access.’ (Africa’s biggest investors however – at 20 per cent – are other African nations.) How well did the DRC and ‘system d’ regions – resource-rich regions located on the peripheries – fare under the conventional system?

The nature of the consequences differs from region to region. For instance, the East’s extractive violence rooted in the exploitation of coltan – a crucial component in the multi-trillion dollar world of high-tech goodies, from mobile phones to rocket shields – vastly differs from that of the industrial logging belt adjacent to the Congo River, where the bulk of timber is allegedly headed for Europe and China, as in the Congo, Gabon, Cameroon and other heavily-forested regions. But coltan exploitation and the violence that sparked following the 1994 spillover of Hutu refugees driven from Rwanda by the Rwandan Patriotic Front is almost strictly linked to the commercial and geopolitical sphere commonly known as the ‘West.’ ‘They aren’t here in the Congo to chase us, like they pretend. I have seen the gold and coltan mining they do here, we see how they rob the population. These are the reasons for their being here,’ stated an Interhamwe soldier to the ‘Report of UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the DRC’ in 2002. According to this UN report, ‘60-70 per cent of the coltan exported from eastern DRC was mined ‘under the direct surveillance’ of the Rwandan army,’ while more than 85 multinationals were involved.

‘Many international corporations, such as Banro-Resources Corporation, Geologistics Hannover, Rwasibo-Butera, Eagleswings, Veen, Soger, Afrimex, Cogecom, Ventro Star, Raremet, Finiming Ltd, Union Transport, Specialty Metal and Finconcorde, among others, have imported coltan from the DRC via Rwanda for use in Europe, Asia and the US,’ stated Dena Montague, a researcher with the World Policy Institute.

Though 80 per cent of the world’s coltan is located in Africa, with 82 per cent of this found in the DRC (specifically in the ‘red zone’ controlled by the Rwandan army or, alternately, Rwandan-backed militias), the fluidity informing the legal and illegal nature of coltan largely depends on whether or not the ‘magic mud’ – named so for its close proximity to the surface – is purchased via legal entities abroad, and often, through ‘legally licensed’ comptoirs based in the Kivus and Goma.

In the case of coltan, the tentacles interlocking multinationals which geostrategically control the resources extends to stages one (exploration), two (detection) and five (treatment and commercialisation). Rwandan brokers are largely responsible for overseeing stages three (extraction, overseeing the extraction of coltan) and four (transportation). Some mines, such as the Nairobi mine, clearly refer to destination, while the bulk of coltan is processed through Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, en route to the ports of Mombassa, Kenya, or Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. Previously services such as SDV-Transitra, then, or Russian Antonovs, much later were used to ferry the goods to Kampala, Nairobi or Kigali.

According to the UN report, ‘In November 2000 in Kigali, the Panel was told that the illegal exploitation of resources and the financial gains of [the Rwandan Patriotic Army] RPA were justified as the repayment for the security that Rwanda provides...’ Halliburton subsidiary, Brown & Root, aided the process by building bases along the Congolese/Rwandan border where the Rwandan army trained.

The Rwandan Patriotic Front’s (RPF) training, since the late 1970s, was provided by the US via Fort Kansas while Paul Kagame (the current President of Rwanda) and other elites constituted crucial elements of Uganda’s army (with Kagame becoming Director of the National Resistance Army (NRA) in the same year that Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni became president of the country). The International Court of Justice (ICJ) would later claim that Uganda’s damage to the Eastern DRC was the equivalent of US$6-10 billion. According to the UN report, ‘The illegal exploitation of natural resources is facilitated by the administrative structures established by Uganda and Rwanda. Those countries’ leaders directly and indirectly appointed regional governors or local authorities or, more commonly, appointed or confirmed Congolese in these positions. With minor exceptions, the objective of [its] military activity is to secure access to mining sites or ensure a supply of captive labour.’ Circuitous routes included Museveni’s brother who operated three services flying resources out of the DRC and into Rwanda and Belgium airline SABENA operating between Kigali and Amsterdam. SABENA suspended operations, revealed researcher John Katunga, following the release of the UN’s report, only to be replaced by Martinair. A previous UN report documented as many as 64 planes leaving mineral-rich regions in an ordinary day.

Multinationals like Nokia at the time proclaimed to receive no coltan from the region. Yet, according to a revealing statement made by Nokia’s Communications Manager in 2001, ‘All you can do is ask, and if they say no, we believe it.’ Not much has changed. However, the process of certifying and fingerprinting resources is only difficult because of the lack of genuine political will and the commercial interests involved.

The truth appears to be that entities like Cabot, the second largest processor of its type (guided by Sam Bodman, former Secretary of Energy under Bush), and HC Starck, producing 50 per cent of the world’s tantalum stocks in 2001, cannot be monitored due to regulatory vacuums undermining any plausible pretences of accountability and transparency. A Starck press release merely asserts: ‘These trading companies have confirmed that HC Starck is not being supplied with material from the crisis areas of central Africa.’

For the DRC, ‘controlled’ by a fragmented and incoherent state, politically and physically distant from exploited territories, the situation – described by the 2002 UN Report as ‘the systematic and systemic exploitation of the DRC done in the name of resources’ – implies that humans born ‘rich’ in the DRC, are fast becoming as much an endangered species as the gorillas, elephants and other magnificent creatures gunned. Outside and alongside the DRC, in the contiguous world inhabited by ‘everyone else,’ accessorising life with mobile phones and computers and Sony PlayStations, we have become unwitting players in the system; spectators to a nation devoured by the terribly respectable white collar criminals, and their minions, rendering the DRC a large prison without walls, and the ‘unregulated’ free market, a religion of economic mercenaries. After half a century of prayer, the DRC has made into the desired image – a resource-rich bargain bin, open for business.

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* This article first appeared in The Thinker (Volume 12, 2010).
* Khadija Sharife is a journalist and a visiting scholar at the Centre for Civil Society (CCS) based in South Africa.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] There are myriad other examples related to Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iran, Syria and others. The revolving door has included people like Steven Bechtel (CIA liaison to the Business Council), George Schultz (former Bechtel President and Reagan’s Secretary of State), Richard Helm (former CIA Director under Nixon and later consultant to the company), and William Simon (Treasury Secretary under Nixon and consultant to Bechtel).

Africa, geology and the march of the development technocrats

Jason Hickel

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61998

cc J HarneisJason Hickel asks whether ‘environmental determinism’ – the theory that Africa’s development has been hindered as a result of ‘the environmental conditions that Africans inhabit’ – accurately explains Africa’s poverty. While he commends its attempt to stop blaming underdevelopment 'on the presumed genetic inferiority of black people’, he finds the theory and motives behind environmental determinism to be seriously lacking. Hickel asserts that environmental determinism is both ahistorical and apolitical: ‘Poverty is not a problem of nature, it is a problem of power.’ Furthermore, he argues that to tackle the real issues behind Africa’s slow development and poverty would mean to go against Western economic interests and to radically change the world system in which we exist. ‘The wealth of the West’, Hickel reminds us, ‘is intimately bound up with the poverty of Africa, and vice versa.’

'Development’, I’ve discovered, operates as a flagrantly racist discourse in some guises. Scrambling to explain the reasons for Africa’s perpetual poverty and apparently incurable misery, laypersons in the West point to Africans’ ‘savagery’ and alleged incapacity for civilisation. This is not just a fringe opinion; even among putatively educated individuals such nonsense recurs with disturbing frequency.

In an attempt to defend Africa and Africans against the cancerous ignorance that this model propagates, a collection of more thoughtful academics and development theorists – Jared Diamond and Jeffrey Sachs among them – have proposed an alternative, more liberal-minded approach to understanding Africa’s difficulties. Instead of blaming underdevelopment on the presumed genetic inferiority of black people, they insist instead that we cast our critical gaze on the environmental conditions that Africans inhabit.

In development circles the theory is known as ‘environmental determinism’, and it attempts to explain persistent poverty in Africa as the consequence of material forces outside the realm of human agency that have made it difficult for Africa to develop. In doing this, environmental determinism suggests that Africa’s climate, geology, and natural resource portfolio has ultimately determined its economic trajectory. Compared to the racist assumptions that infuse popular pontifications about African underdevelopment, environmental determinism seems like a breath of progressive, fresh air. But a closer look shows that it smuggles in a number of insidious claims that connive to direct attention away from the real issues at stake.

But before getting to the critique, let’s deal with the theory in its own terms. Environmental determinism looks as far back into the geological past as the break-up of Gondwana – the ancient super-continent – to show that plate tectonics conspired to grant Africa a coastline with few natural harbours and a gradient too steep to allow easy river transportation, making regional integration difficult. In addition, the relatively older age of Africa’s geological profile means that its top soils have been weathered to the point of deep depletion, rendering most ecological zones unsuitable for good agriculture.

The notorious Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) also makes a strong appearance in the arguments of environmental determinists. This unique weather pattern pits dry, continental winds against wet, oceanic winds to create an annual precipitation cycle that oscillates between two dramatically different seasons: rainy and dry. The rainy season is characterised by concentrated downpours, and the dry by often extreme drought. The result; flash floods, cutting erosion, and topsoil degeneration that further militates against sustained agricultural pursuits.

Furthermore, the ITCZ weather pattern produces an environment in which a number of tropical diseases flourish; among them malaria, sleeping sickness, river blindness, and schistosomiasis (bilharzia). As the pathogens responsible for these devastating diseases gravitate toward verdant, well-watered areas, they render some of the otherwise most arable land hostile to human settlement. The two-season weather cycle also militates against settled agriculture in certain regions, necessitating nomadism or regular migration to urban centres, rendering peasants vulnerable to the dictates of a violent labour market and creating ideal conditions for HIV transmission.

And so it goes; a litany of arguments that prove that Africa’s problems are not necessarily the fault of Africans, but the inevitable outcome of nature’s capricious designs. But while its observations are not untrue, as a standalone theory of underdevelopment, environmental determinism has some serious limitations.

First, the obvious objections. The correlation between environment and development is indeterminate; there are many regions in the world with hostile geological and climactic characteristics that have nonetheless managed to keep from descending into inveterate poverty. Second, the theory focuses on what Africa lacks rather than what Africa has, being – among other things – vast natural resource wealth in the form of unprecedented petroleum reserves and mineral deposits. The question should not be what to do in the absence of resources, but how existing resources get used, how they are distributed, and who pockets the profits.

In these terms, it becomes clear that environmental determinism completely elides both history and politics. It elides history by ignoring past European involvement with Africa through the slave trade, colonialism, and resource extraction. It elides politics in that it ignores the present relations of power – African, American, Chinese and European – that continue to develop the continent’s resources in the interests of some, while marginalizing others through debt-manipulation, structural adjustment, and neo-liberal trade arrangements

Because environmental determinism posits an ahistorical and apolitical analysis of the problem, it lends itself naturally to solutions that ignore how inequalities have been, and continue to be, generated out of the capitalist world system. We are led to believe, for example, that a massive infusion of aid and modern technology to improve agriculture, basic health, education, power and sanitation will help clear the hurdles posed by a hostile natural world. As Jeffrey Sachs (author of the popular messianic treatise ‘The End of Poverty’) and other development technocrats have it, the solution lies in the Western aid paradigm of the Monterrey Consensus and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Western development technocrats are not as calloused and blithely myopic as those who insist that Africans – now long independent of colonial rule – bear responsibility for their own problems and should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. They do, however, accomplish a similar shifting of blame – a sleight of hand – that directs attention away from the pathologies of power that lie behind the phenomenon of underdevelopment. They want us to imagine a world in which their two billion desperately poor neighbours can be raised up to decent middle-class living standards, without any restructuring of the capitalist world system and its inherently uneven division of labour, production, consumption, and emission.

Western development technocrats content themselves with ahistorical and apolitical solutions to poverty and underdevelopment in Africa, because to tackle the real issues at stake would be to run up against Western economic interests. It would mean deleting debt, promoting fairer international trade, eliminating agricultural dumping, and requiring multinational corporations to pay living wages. Instead, concerned Westerners want to feel good about helping, while maintaining the system that supports their lifestyles and refusing to face the fact that the wealth and privilege of their nations – and, ironically, the very presence of the surplus that they can dispense so liberally in aid – depend on a system of extraction and exploitation that necessarily generates inequality. As the dependency theorists have so long insisted, the wealth of the West is intimately bound up with the poverty of Africa, and vice versa. Neither our wealth nor their poverty is natural, as the development technocrats suggest. Poverty is not a problem of nature, it is a problem of power.

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* Jason Hickel is a researcher at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and an instructor and doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Virginia.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Gado's cartoons: 'Obama one year on' and 'Kenya's MPs and the constitution'

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62007

Putting Haiti into context

Andile Lungisa

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61979

cc US ArmyIn the wake of the Haitian earthquake, ANC Youth League Deputy President Andile Lungisa calls for the disaster to be seen within its broader historical context. Discussing Haiti's history as a nation long oppressed by external interests, Lungisa underlines the country's new vulnerability to forces concerned solely for profit in the aftermath of its tragedy.

A devastating earthquake, the worst in 200 years, struck Port-au-Prince on the 12 January, laying waste to the city and killed many thousands of people. The quake detonated more than 30 aftershocks throughout the night to the following morning.

It toppled houses, hotels, hospitals and even the capital city's main political buildings, including the presidential palace. The collapse of so many structures sent a giant cloud into the sky, which hovered over the city, raining dust down onto the wasteland below. An estimated 200,000 people have died in a metropolis of 2 million people, and those that survived are living in the streets, afraid to return inside any building that remains standing.

The immediate suffering in Haiti is the result of a natural disaster of biblical proportion. It is also compounded by political disasters of the past two centuries, and the considerable responsibility for those disasters lies not only with the political penury of Haitian elites but also with Western, particularly US, policy-makers. The media coverage of the earthquake is marked by an almost complete separation of the disaster from the social and political history of Haiti.

Haiti is seen as simply another 'failed state' to be pitied and in need of international intervention. Few people remember that Haiti has a glorious past.

Journalists have noted that a slave revolt led to the founding of an independent Haiti in 1804 and made a passing reference on how France’s subsequent demand for 'reparations' (to compensate the French for their loss of property and slaves) crippled Haiti economically for more than a century. Some journalists have even pointed out that while it was a slave society, the United States backed France in that cruel policy and didn’t recognise Haiti's independence until the Civil War.

Occasional references also have been made to the 1915 US invasion under the 'liberal' Woodrow Wilson and an occupation that lasted until 1934, and support the US government gave to the two brutal Duvalier dictatorships (the infamous 'Papa Doc' and 'Baby Doc') that ravaged the country from 1957–86. Today there’s little discussion of how the problems of contemporary Haiti can be traced to those policies. It is thus important that a brief history of the resilient nation of Haiti is offered in order to contextualise the unfolding tragedy.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Haiti, in those days Saint Domingue, was France's richest colony. Haiti's sugar plantations and Haiti's African slaves provided the economic backbone and renaissance of France. After the fall of the Bastille, which ushered the institutional domination of capital, both Haiti's white slave-owners and emancipated Haitian mulattoes sent representatives to the revolutionary convention in Paris. Haiti's slave and plantation owners were relieved that the French monarchy and French commercial controls had collapsed, which opened up an interesting new market in the neighbouring United States. Haiti's mulattoes were enthralled by French revolutionary principles. A Haitian mulatto leader, Lacombe, insisted that freedom, brotherhood and equality were principles which ought to be observed also in Haiti. He was immediately hanged by irate French slave-owners.

Haiti's popular majority, hundreds of thousands of African slaves, sent no representatives to revolutionary Paris. Instead they organised themselves, using the cover of voodoo sessions, which were tolerated by French plantation owners who thought their slaves were merely gathering to dance and worship their African gods. Haiti's slaves were modernised proletariats brought together by their work on the big plantations. And they too heard the rumours from France and the signals of the revolution.

The first Haitian slave rebellion took place in the month of August 1791. Twelve thousand slaves in the northern parts of Saint Domingue rose up, ransacked the plantations and hanged their oppressors on the nearest palm trees. And this is where Toussaint L'Ouverture, Haiti's revolutionary leader, enters world history. He was a literate, black supervisor on a slave plantation where his French master seems to have been fairly tolerant and was protected by Toussaint against rebellious slaves.

For a while Toussaint was seen as a benign slave collaborator, but he had realised that the slaves needed military organisation. He raised a black army and had the satisfaction of defeating two European invasions. First he defeated the troops sent out by revolutionary France to quell the slave rebellion. After that he defeated 100,000 British soldiers, dispatched by Prime Minister William Pitt 'the younger'. The invaders were thoroughly beaten by Haiti's African defenders and by yellow fever.

In France, the Jacobins especially showed a great deal of sympathy for revolutionary Haiti, and in 1793 slavery was banned. However, after assuming power, the first consul, Napoléon Bonaparte, decided to reintroduce slavery and, as he put it, 'rip the epaulettes off the shoulders of the Negroes'. Napoléon sent new invading forces. Haiti did survive as an independent nation but was under perpetual pressure from France, England, the United States and Spain. Toussaint L'Ouverture eventually died in a French dungeon.

Even more glaring is the absence of a discussion of more recent Haiti–US relations, especially US support for the two coups (1991 and 2004) against a democratically elected president. Jean-Bertrand Aristide won a stunning victory in 1990 by articulating the aspirations of Haiti’s poorest citizens, and his populist economic programme irritated both Haitian elites and US policy-makers.

The George H.W. Bush administration nominally condemned the 1991 military coup but gave tacit support to the generals. Subsequently, US President Bill Clinton eventually helped Aristide return to power in Haiti in 1994, but not until the Haitian leader had been forced to capitulate to business-friendly economic policies demanded by the United States.

When Aristide won another election in 2000, the George W. Bush administration blocked crucial loans to his government and supported the violent reactionary forces attacking Aristide’s party. The sad conclusion to that policy came in 2004 when the US military effectively kidnapped Aristide and flew him out of the country.

Aristide today is our guest in South Africa, blocked by the United States from returning to his country, where he still has many supporters and could help in the relief efforts.

Exactly two weeks after the disaster, government ministers, international bankers and aid agencies gathered in Montreal, Canada, to discuss plans for 'reconstructing' earthquake-ravaged Haiti, a project that the theorist Naomi Klein has prudently termed 'Disaster Capital'. At the heart of the proposal in Montreal is the re-colonisation of Haiti and the brutal exploitation of its people. Haiti is now being run by the US military which has deployed over 13,000 troops and unilaterally taken control of the country’s airport and port facilities.

The Pentagon dominates the provision of relief which it has subordinated to the number one priority of deploying combat-equipped US soldiers and Marines, much to the detriment of injured and hungry Haitians waiting for life-saving medical supplies and food. Behind the talk of Haiti's 'reconstruction', what is being discussed is a plan worked out in the months before the earthquake that is dictated by the profit interests of US banks and corporations, together with those of Haiti’s wealthy elite.

Speaking to reporters en route from Washington to Montreal, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to this plan, 'Disaster Capital', while praising the work of her husband, former president Bill Clinton, in seeking to implement it in his position as United Nations envoy to Haiti. 'He had just had a conference with 500 businesspeople', she said. 'They were signing contracts, they were making investments.'

She continued: 'So we have a plan. It is a legitimate plan. It was done in conjunction with other international donors, with the United Nations. And I don’t want to start from scratch, but we have to recognise the changed challenges we are now confronting.'

The plan, worked up at the behest of the UN last year, is aimed at expanding the Haitian economy through the development of free-trade zones based on garment sweatshops in which Haitian workers would be paid near-starvation wages. The initiative is based on a report prepared for the UN last year by Oxford University economics professor Paul Collier.

The report perversely cast Haiti’s poverty – the deepest in the Western hemisphere – as its number one asset in the global capitalist economy. 'Due to its poverty and relatively unregulated labour market, Haiti has labour costs that are fully competitive with China, which is the global benchmark', Collier wrote. This 'asset' is something that both Washington and Haiti’s parasitical ruling elite have jealously guarded.

Former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown twice – in 1991 and 2004 – in bloody coups orchestrated by the CIA in conjunction with Haitian factory owners, in large measure for proposing to raise the country’s minimum wage.

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* Andile Lungisa is the deputy president of the ANC Youth League and executive chairman of the National Youth Development Agency.
* This article was originally published by ANC Today.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Putting lipstick on a pig, Ethiopian style

Alemayehu G. Mariam

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61980

cc A F EbrahimiIn the wake of the Ethiopian government's objections to the conclusions of the 2010 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, Alemayehu G. Mariam argues 'You can put lipstick on dictatorship to make it look like a pretty democracy, but at the end of the day, it is still an ugly dictatorship!'

Last week, there was a great deal of teeth-gnashing, knuckle-cracking and gut-wrenching by Ethiopia’s dictators over Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) 2010 report. The dictators belched out much sound and fury that signified nothing. Their fury had to do with HRW’s conclusion that 'Ethiopia is on a deteriorating human rights trajectory as parliamentary elections approach in 2010.' In blunt and unequivocal language, HRW whipsawed the dictators with the facts:

'Broad patterns of government repression have prevented the emergence of organized opposition in most of the country. In December 2008 the government reimprisoned opposition leader Birtukan Midekssa for life after she made remarks that allegedly violated the terms of an earlier pardon. In 2009 the government passed two pieces of legislation that codify some of the worst aspects of the slide towards deeper repression and political intolerance. A civil society law passed in January is one of the most restrictive of its kind, and its provisions will make most independent human rights work impossible. A new counterterrorism law passed in July permits the government and security forces to prosecute political protesters and non-violent expressions of dissent as acts of terrorism. Ordinary citizens who criticize government policies or officials frequently face arrest on trumped-up accusations of belonging to illegal 'anti-peace' groups, including armed opposition movements. Officials sometimes bring criminal cases in a manner that appears to selectively target government critics…'

The dictators bellyached about HRW’s 'unfairness' and bitterly complained about its malicious and wilful blindness to the great strides and democratic achievements they have made over the past several years. 'How could HRW overlook our prized Code of Conduct for Political Parties negotiated by 65 political parties?', they lamented. How could they disregard a 'Code' that is so 'impressive, transparent, free, fair, peaceful, democratic, legitimate and acceptable to the voters?' To add insult to injury, they even overlooked the appointment 'by parliamentary acclamation' of a new human rights commissioner. No matter. All HRW cares about is carping about the 'civil society and anti-terrorist laws' and fabricating stories about human rights abuses in the Somali Regional State. Those cynical and contemptible rascals have 'no interest in, and no time for, any promising developments'. After all, they are just stooges and mouthpieces of the evil Ethiopian 'dissident' diaspora, whose sole aim is to discredit the 'democratic achievements' of the dictatorship.

When Democratic candidate Barack Obama ran for the US presidency, he used a folksy idiom to describe Republican candidate John McCain’s pretensions as a new force of change in Washington: 'That's not change. That's just calling the same thing something different. But you know, you can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change; it's still going to stink.'

Well, you can jazz up a bogus election in a one-man, one-party dictatorship with a 'Code of Conduct', but to all the world it is still a bogus election under a one-man, one-party dictatorship. You can appoint lackeys to issue a whitewash human rights report on 'allegations' of abuse in the Ogaden and call it an objective inquiry commission report, but it is still a whitewash. You can appoint a fox to guard the chicken coop and call it safeguarding human rights, but the sly fox will not spare the chickens. You can put lipstick on dictatorship to make it look like a pretty democracy, but at the end of the day, it is still an ugly dictatorship!

Ethiopia’s dictators think we are all damned fools. They want us to believe that a pig with lipstick is actually a swan floating on a placid lake, or a butterfly fluttering in the rose garden or even a lamb frolicking in the meadows. They think lipstick will make everything look pretty. Put some lipstick on hyperinflation and you have one of the 'fastest developing economies in the world'. Put lipstick on power outages, and the grids come alive with mega-wattage. Slap a little lipstick on famine, and voilà, Ethiopians are suffering from a slight case of 'severe malnutrition'. Adorn your atrocious human rights record by appointing a 'human rights' chief, and lo and behold, grievous government wrongs are transformed magically into robust human rights protections. Slam your opposition in jail, smother the independent press and criminalise civil society while applying dainty lipstick to a mannequin of democracy. The point is, 'You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper and call it "democracy" but after 20 years it stinks to high heaven!'

Of course, all the sound and fury is a calculated effort at misdirection. Instead of talking about the factual allegations in the HRW report, the dictators want to make Human Rights Watch the issue. But HRW is one human rights organisation that needs no lipstick to do its work, or to cover it up. HRW’s investigators do not work on a commission. They don’t get paid a penny for digging up mass graves in distant lands and conduct complex forensic studies. They make no money walking the scorching deserts for days and thumping the under brush in the tropical forests to interview remotely located civilian victims of war crimes and human rights abuse. HRW does not work for profit. They do their exceedingly difficult and dangerous work to prevent human rights abuse and to hold states, armed groups and others accountable for human rights violations. They receive their financial support largely from individual donations and gifts. HRW never takes sides in any conflict. To do their work, they do not make their own rules but use established international human rights conventions, treaties, domestic laws and resolutions of world bodies.

Vile accusations against HRW are not new. All governments and groups stung by HRW’s factual reports squeal like a stuck pig. They try to discredit HRW’s reports as methodologically flawed, unsubstantiated, speculative, slanted, unfair, biased and so on. They try to distract and misdirect public attention from the evidence of their criminality in the reports by attacking HRW as an antagonistic and politically vindictive organisation. In the past few years, HRW has been vilified by those on opposite ends of the same conflict. Egypt and Saudi Arabia have called HRW a 'Zionist' organisation. The Israeli government has accused HRW of being 'obsessed with Israel' and dubbed them 'supporters of terrorism'. But HRW is an organisation with the highest level of integrity. They will not back down from holding any government accountable, including the US. In its latest report, HRW praised President Obama for abolishing secret CIA prisons and banning all use of torture, but they clobbered him ferociously for 'adopting many of the Bush administration's most misguided policies' including the policy of 'indefinite detention without charge' of 'enemy combatants'.

There is no secret to HRW’s investigative work. They conduct extensive interviews of alleged victims of human rights abuse. They work with confidential informants in victims’ communities and gather evidence from other sources within a given country. They talk to officials and top political leaders and analyse government reports and any other relevant documentation and data. They conduct field investigations and their experts conduct forensic studies, perform ballistics tests and examine medical and autopsy reports. They always seek official permission to conduct their investigations, but most governments generally refuse or ignore the requests to enter their countries for such purposes. HRW has a rigorous system of checking and cross-checking facts. Before publication, HRW always presents its findings to the relevant governments for comment and feedback, and to incorporate changes and make corrections where appropriate. Often, regimes and governments remain silent and provide no feedback on the reports before publication. Once the reports are made public, governments sensitive to criticism unleash their spin-doctors to moan and groan about HRW in an attempt to capture media attention and deflect public scrutiny from the evidence in the reports that incriminate them.

'No one loves the messenger who brings bad news.' But attacking the messenger does not make a lie out of the message, just as putting lipstick on a pig does not make the pig a swan (perhaps a vulture).

Support Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other human rights organisations!

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* Alemayehu G. Mariam is professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles.
* This article was originally published by The Huffington Post.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

South Africa’s ‘bling’ culture is a disgrace

William Gumede

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/61991

cc Mauritz VA new ‘bling’ culture, pervasive among South Africa’s ruling political, business and public administration elite, which sees lavish lifestyles as the standard for achievement, is encouraging people to use shortcuts to get rich quickly rather than working or studying hard, writes William Gumede.

The socialite Khanyi Mbau, notorious for partying, fast cars and rich ‘sugar daddies’ is not an oddball. She represents the new ‘bling’ culture which has now thoroughly become a part of the new South Africa.

Even our political leadership has become a ‘bling’ leadership.

There is no difference really, between Mbau’s actions, and that of our ruling political, business and public administration elite.

It is one of getting rich quickly, using shortcuts. Once one has made it, one feels entitled to live lavishly – the ‘bling’ lifestyle. This ‘bling’ lifestyle has now become the new standard for achievement: A sign that one has made it.

These shortcuts could be attaching oneself to a sugar daddy, or in politics to a political party boss, or attaching oneself to a crime boss.

The more unfortunate, who do not have the connections or looks, try their luck by addictively playing the Lotto. They dream one lucky draw will bring fabulous wealth. Others resort to crime to reach their dream of ‘bling’.

Nobody needs to work or study hard anymore. Everyone is looking for a shortcut.

Black economic empowerment has also helped along this ‘bling’ culture. The downside of black economic empowerment as it is practiced now is that one does not need to build a business from scratch – which demands entrepreneurial acumen. One can secure a tender through political connections. This is possible even if one does not have a clue about how to deliver the services promised.

The unintended consequences of the African National Congress’s (ANC) policy of deployment also help along this ‘bling’ culture. By cosying up to the local ANC leadership, one can secure a lucrative ‘deployment’ to government, business or the party, a ticket to the ‘bling’ lifestyle.

Praise-singing the leadership even if they are wrong, supporting actions that clearly go against prudent values, or self-censorship, has now became the norm.

The ‘bling’ lifestyle is to throw lavish parties at exclusive venues. Leaders drive luxury cars worth than ZAR1 million. They wear ZAR250,000 watches, clothes worth as much as cars for ordinary people, live in Beverly Hills-style mansions and drink expensive whiskeys. The bonuses, perks and dizzy salaries state-owned companies pay their executives are part of this ‘bling’ culture.

Blue-light brigades, huge entourages and being treated as a VIP are integral parts of this bling culture. Ministers going on meaningless foreign junkets, living in the most expensive hotels and holding their conferences there, when they can do so for less in their departments are part of this ‘bling’ culture.

The consequences of this ‘bling’ life-style of the political elite for the state, society and on individuals are devastating.

Scarce finances and resources are being plundered. State capacity is being eroded, which means the ability of deliver basic services is declining. There is no room for entrepreneurship, innovation and new ideas – which are absolutely necessary for economic prosperity.

This ‘bling’ culture will break down South Africa’s productive capacity. We are ‘eating’, but we are not building any new factories or plants that can create jobs.

In the midst of grinding poverty, this ‘bling’ culture is a disgrace.

This ‘bling’ culture encourages corruption, dishonesty, and builds a society based mostly on relationships of patronage. It corrupts our souls.

In fact, it undermines all the values that underpinned the struggle for liberation.

Moreover, the idea of service is now distant dream. Talent, skills and hard work is no longer valued.

As a society we are losing our bearings. We are on a downward spiral. No caring society was built on ‘bling’.

Only ridding ourselves from this destructive ‘bling’ culture can put our country back on a winning track. We need a new kind of leadership – not a ‘bling’ leadership.

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* This article first appeared in the Sowetan.
* William Gumede is co-editor (with Leslie Dikeni) of recently released The Poverty of Ideas.

Comparative African Perspectives on China and other emerging powers in Africa

Call for proposals - FAHAMU

2010-02-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/62024

Comparative African Perspectives on China and other emerging powers in Africa is a research project initiated by FAHAMU, the network for social justice issues. China’s deepening engagement with Africa is receiving increased attention from the global media, public- and private sectors as well as academic research. This should however not overshadow the activities of other emerging powers in Africa, including India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa. This call therefore seeks to develop an African perspective by strengthening the civil society voice in the discourse surrounding the engagement between Africa and these emerging powers.
CALL FOR PROPOSALS

FAHAMU

Collaborative Research Project on Comparative African Perspectives on China and other emerging powers in Africa

Terms of Reference for In-Depth Thematic Areas

1. Introduction

Comparative African Perspectives on China and other emerging powers in Africa is a research project initiated by FAHAMU, the network for social justice issues. China’s deepening engagement with Africa is receiving increased attention from the global media, public- and private sectors as well as academic research. This should however not overshadow the activities of other emerging powers in Africa, including India, Russia, Brazil and South Africa. This call therefore seeks to develop an African perspective by strengthening the civil society voice in the discourse surrounding the engagement between Africa and these emerging powers. This project aims to achieve this by:

* Enabling research to be undertaken on the political, social, economic and cultural effects of the emerging powers activities in Africa,
* Developing informed discussion and advocacy in Africa surrounding the role and nature of engagement between Africa and the various emerging powers in Africa,
* Enhancing long-term cooperation between researchers, academics, media and activists in Africa and the emerging powers.

2. The Research themes

The primary purpose of this research project is to undertake a comprehensive comparative analysis between one of the following emerging powers and China’s activities in a respective African country:

* India
* Brazil
* Russia
* South Africa

Applicants will choose one of the above countries and provide a comparative perspective with the activities of China in their respective African country. Focus will be placed on one of the following themes:

* Comparative study on trade and investment practices of Chinese TNC’s in Africa and the chosen emerging actor, including corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices,
* Comparative study of the Chinese Diaspora community in Africa with the Diaspora community of the chosen emerging actor in Africa, or migration patterns, and the African response,
* Comparative study of investment practices in one of the following:

1. The agricultural sector, and the effects on land tenure rights
2. The extractive industries, and its environmental and social impact
3. The manufacturing sector, and the effects on local employment

* Comparative study on China’s (changing) stance on human rights and non-interference in Africa and the differences/similarities with the conduct of the chosen emerging actor,

* Comparative study on China’s aid policy to Africa vis-à-vis other Asian and 'Southern' powers, and the older 'Northern' players, and the implications for debt sustainability.

The intention in each of these areas is to identify appropriate and sector-specific policy measures as well as develop opportunities and challenges. This call for proposals therefore aims to:

* Provide an in-depth understanding of the impact of the specific research theme on the recipient African country.
* Evaluate how African governments are responding and ensuring a better co-ordinated response to the engagement within the specific research theme.
* Observe the effect this has for African societies - in particular how Africa’s engagement with emerging powers helps or harms development at the grass roots level.
* Determine a set of recommendations that could be useful for strengthening bilateral and multilateral continental institutions (including the AU, Regional Economic Communities) in stimulating an African strategy in Africa’s engagement with emerging powers in Africa.

3. Call for Proposals

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

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

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

Finally all interested parties are encouraged not to duplicate existing studies. Instead the proposals are designed to assist researchers with seed funding for projects, which offer new insights into the impact of the selected emerging powers, and China, in Africa in each of the thematic areas.

Proposals designed along the guidelines specified below should be submitted to the attention of the Programme Officer, Ms Hayley Herman of the China/Emerging Powers in Africa Programme, FAHAMU, at the following email address: hayley@fahamu.org The deadline for submitting proposals is 05 March 2010.

4. Proposal requirements

Each proposal should include the following:

Background: The policy context of the proposed research.

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

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

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

Statement of qualification and current CVs

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

Budget. Estimated expenditure by major line item, e.g., research time, in market travel etc. Total budget should not exceed GBP£4000.

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

a. Completed at least one research project in the proposed thematic area of study;

b. Have a good publication record in the proposed thematic area of study;

Proposals should demonstrate a strong mentoring of young scholars engaged in the discourse surrounding emerging powers in Africa.

5. Conclusion

It is envisaged that the successful applicants will conduct the research over a 6 month period. The call for proposals will close on 5 March 2010 with research commencing in April 2010. No applications received after 5 March 2010 will be accepted.

Nelson Mandela: Twenty years of freedom

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/62006

South Africa’s forgotten intellectuals

Revisiting the struggle against apartheid

Marion Grammer

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/61989

cc A LynnMarion Grammer acknowledges the significant contribution made to the liberation struggle by the teachers, writers and intellectuals behind the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM), the first organisation in South Africa to adopt the principle of non-racialism, which debunked the myths about African ‘inferiority’ and administered ‘an antidote to the poisonous indoctrination of apartheid. It was ‘the politics of anti-imperialism and non-racialism learned from the Unity Movement’, says Grammer, that ‘provided the impetus that sent young people marching and protesting and fighting for democracy in the 1970s and 80s’.

The distortion of history by omission has occurred throughout the ages and nowhere has it been more evident than in the rewriting of South Africa’s recent post-apartheid history in school textbooks. During the Apartheid years, and even before, when the history taught in our schools was the version forced on us by our oppressors, there were those teachers – teachers in the true sense of the word – who took a world view of our human heritage in order to debunk the myths about African ‘inferiority’ and to administer an antidote to the poisonous indoctrination in our society.

These intellectuals and writers in the liberation movement were actively involved in the struggles in the educational and sporting arenas. However, in some supposedly reputable accounts of the history of South Africa’s recent past, reference to these movements are either suppressed completely or treated cursorily by academics and historians, who are either unaware of, or who have chosen to ignore the considerable contribution of bands of teachers in the schools of the oppressed from the mid-forties onwards in promoting non-racialism in the schools.

In school history textbooks for example, reference is made to the Freedom Charter of the ANC, by implication the first (and only?) programme of the liberation movement in South Africa. There is no mention of the Ten-Point Programme of the Non-European Unity Movement (NEUM), which preceded the Freedom Charter by twelve years (see later). It was the NEUM that in 1943 took the revolutionary step, in the South African context, of adopting the principle of non-racialism, which rejected the idea of the existence of different human races. Non-racialism also became the guiding principle of the Teachers League of South Africa (TLSA) and the Cape African Teachers’ Association.

History-teaching in the ‘schools of the struggle’, i.e. in academic institutions, in organisations, in the trade unions, in educational fellowships, in sports organisations, had to counter the myths underlying the poisonous racist policies at that time. These people, often at great personal cost, knew that only by knowing and understanding our true history could we acquire new meaning in the liberation struggle. One of the tasks of the liberation movement was to show that the concept of western civilisation was a fallacy, as Ben Kies’ seminal ‘The Contribution of the Non-European Peoples to World Civilisation’ so effectively illustrated. In this lecture (1953), Ben Kies also ‘exposes and demolishes the myth of race.’ (Livingstone Mqotsi: An Archaism and a Divisive Myth).

NEW ERA FELLOWSHIP

Ben Kies was one of the founders of the New Era Fellowship (NEF), which was formed in 1937 as a sophisticated socialist debating society where issues of imperialism and capitalism were connected to inequality and racism. It became the single most influential training ground for students and workers at the time. Goolam Gool was the chairman, Ben Kies the vice-chairman. The NEF viewed itself as both highly academic and political, and the general theme was solidarity of all oppressed non-Europeans throughout the world, not just South Africa.

Kies was also a founder of the Anti-Coloured Affairs Department (Anti-CAD) movement and the NEUM. He obtained a BA and MA degrees from the University of Cape Town, then taught for many years at Trafalgar High School. He edited The Education Journal, mouthpiece of the Teachers League of South Africa (TLSA). When he was fired from his teaching post in 1956 because of his political views and activities, he studied law and as a barrister became one of the best known human rights lawyers in South Africa. He was a man of formidable intellect and his influence was profound in these movements.

It was at the NEF that Richard Dudley, in 1941, and many others then and later, began their political awakening, influenced by speakers such as Goolam Gool, Jane Gool, Isaac Tabata and Allie Fataar. At the age of 20, Richard Dudley emerged from the University of Cape Town with a BSc, MSc and a teacher’s diploma. He taught at Livingstone High School for 39 years and his influence on countless students as a highly respected educator during that time is legendary. Banned in the early 1960s and prohibited from participating in political activities, in grudging recognition of his superb teaching abilities, he was never banned from the classroom.

During this period Isaac Tabata published ‘Education for Barbarism’ (Tabata, 1959) and Edgar Maurice wrote ‘The Colour Bar in Education’. (Maurice, 1957). Tabata’s central intellectual argument was the concept of the ‘slave mentality’. He wrote in 1947 that ‘the deception of the people is a strong weapon in the hands of those who govern, and men have to liberate their minds (his emphasis) and see through these deceptions before they can launch a determined struggle for liberation.’ (Tabata Papers – cited in ‘Education, Politics and Organisation’, Chisholm, Linda)

THE ANTI-COLOURED AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT (ANTI-CAD)

This organisation was also started in 1943, to counteract the government’s setting up of the Coloured Affairs Department. A conference of ‘Coloured’ organisations, including political bodies, sports clubs, community organisations, church groups and others, was convened. There were representatives from the TLSA, the NEF, the APO (African Peoples’ Organisation) etc.

The conference agreed on strategies to combat the Coloured Affairs Department. This department was a further means of segregating ‘Coloureds’, just as they had done to Africans, with legislation and the initiation of the Natives Representative Council. Frank Grammer, a senior Livingstone teacher was a leading member and organiser of the Anti-CAD. So too was Helen Kies, a teacher at Harold Cressy High School and a prominent member of the TLSA. She later became and still is, the editor of the Education Journal whose motto is: ‘Let us live for our children’.

THE NON-EUROPEAN UNITY MOVEMENT (NEUM)

From the Anti-CAD and the All African Convention in 1943 was born the NEUM, which totally transformed the political terrain. Probably for the first time it gave the continent of Africa an organisation with a clear political programme. The Ten-Point Programme encapsulated the minimum demands for participation in a democratic society. It included among others: The full franchise; free education at the age of sixteen; freedom of speech, press and movement; the right to own land; penal reform and the rights of workers to organise themselves. Non-collaboration – the refusal to participate in or work the instruments of their own oppression, became a cardinal feature of the movement.

By 1963 the state had stifled political organisation and silenced political work. A decade of political repression ensued and the unity Movement suffered from bannings, detention and other forms of harassment. A sustained assault was also mounted on teachers, but the grassroots struggle continued.

It has been argued that these organisations by 1976 had largely become irrelevant because of their rigid and dogmatic adherence to the principles of non-collaboration and non-racialism. That they had alienated themselves from large swathes of young people in the townships because of their unwillingness to engage in a more active way with the oppressors. That they were too elitist and highbrow for the ‘common’ man and woman.

However, there can be no doubt that the men and women of the liberation movement devoted their lives to opposing racialism and collaboration with their oppressors. They had a profound effect for more than three decades on the lives of many people during some of the darkest periods of South Africa’s history. They taught, above all, critical thinking, a refutation of the idea of white superiority and that there was just one race, the human race. There were accusations that they were too narrowly based, that they should have moved beyond education and ideas. Their uncompromising adherence to their principles brought criticism from some quarters; accusations that they only nurtured the best and the brightest, but this is a narrow view. There were many who did not go on to become active politically during the struggle, but who still felt that their lives had been profoundly changed by their contact with these teachers.

In spite of their emphasis on education for democracy rather than liberation before education, the politics of anti-imperialism and non-racialism learned from the Unity Movement provided the impetus that sent young people marching and protesting and fighting for democracy in the 1970s and 80s.

*

In 1984, Richard Dudley resigned from teaching and became president of the New Unity Movement (NUM), to intensify the struggle for non-racialism and non-collaboration. He did not let up after the negotiations of the early 1990s that led to the end of apartheid and the first democratic election of 1994. In 1993, Dudley’s one-time Unity Movement comrade, Dullah Omar (who became the Justice Minister in the ANC government) sent an emissary to sound him out about becoming the minister of Education, but he declined, citing, once again, non-collaboration, and his belief that the ANC historically did not represent or fight for a classless society.

He and his comrades did not support the discussions that began in 1985 between the ANC, National Party, Anglo American Corporation and selected members of the West. Within the boundaries of NUM’s anti-imperialist worldview, the only possible outcome of such talks was a capitalist country that adhered to the edicts of imperialism through the dictates of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Rightly or wrongly, Dudley and many of his comrades did not vote. They saw the African National Congress (ANC) government as selling out the progressive principles of the 1955 Freedom Charter.

In 1998 he was invited to lunch with President Nelson Mandela who hoped he might be willing to help persuade ‘coloured’ voters to vote for the ANC rather than for the National Party, their erstwhile oppressors. This is what he had to say to Mandela:

‘Now look, in the first place I am not a coloured person. I said that other people have classified me as that but I am not a coloured person. I am not a coloured leader. I said that I had for the past fifty years been associated with a political movement that does not accept these classifications, and has consistently fought to unify the people in this country and to establish a South Africa where such things are completely irrelevant … I said to him that I will never, never surrender the political position that I have been supporting for the past fifty years. I will never want people to vote as coloured persons … He (Mandela) said that he understood readily what I was telling him, and he was satisfied that I had spoken candidly in regard to this.’

(R.O. Dudley interview, 2003 cited in Wieder, Alan, ‘Teacher and comrade: Richard Dudley and the Fight for Democracy in South Africa’)

*

South Africa is described as a non-racial democracy, yet the concept of different ‘races’ is still widely accepted. Teachers are required to racially classify themselves and their pupils, according to their ‘perceptions’ of themselves! The ANC bases all policies on the firm belief that the South African population comprises four distinct ‘racial’ groups.

A quote from the writings of Ben Kies might be a fitting end. He wrote: ‘The deception of the people is an art of government which has been practiced by every ruling class since the dawn of society. Oppressors have used whips and chains; they have used torture, bullets and prisons. But their most important weapon has been the enslavement of the mind.’ (B.M. Kies: ‘Background of Segregation’) (Cited in ‘The Education Journal: July-September 2007’)

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* Marion Grammer was born in Cape Town, South Africa. She is an accountant and works for a Human Rights Advocacy Centre in Sydney, Australia.  She writes fiction and occasional social commentary.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

REFERENCES

Chisholm, Linda (1991) – Education, Politics and Organisation: The Educational Traditions and Legacies of the Non-European Unity Movement, 1943-1986 Transformation 15
Rassool, Joe (1997) – Notes on the History of the Non-European Unity Movement in South Africa and the role of Hosea Jaffe (Article)
Wieder, Allan (2008) – Teacher and Comrade: Richard Dudley and the Fight for Democracy in South Africa State University of New York Press
Education Journal: April - May 2003 (p. 8)
Education Journal: July - September 2006 (p.8)
Education Journal: April - June 2007 (p.5)
Education Journal:July - September 2007 (pp. 3,4,13)

Loving each other won’t cure ‘negative ethnicity’

L. Muthoni Wanyeki

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/61994

Following the violence of 2007/8 in Kenya, a host of initiatives, purporting to address what is wrongfully termed ‘negative ethnicity’, came into being. Parliament proceeded to pass the Ethnic and Race Relations Act, which established the National Cohesion and Integration Commission. It also established a new select committee on equality, originally intended to address gender inequality, but which now also address inequality in terms of ethnicity. The executive established a ministry to address the long-standing underdevelopment of the north of Kenya. And the Law Reform Commission of Kenya is sitting on another proposed piece of legislation, referred back to it by Cabinet, on equality and equal opportunities.

Citizens too have a host of initiatives of their own. One of the most interesting is ‘Kikuyus for Change’, which seeks both to understand why the rest of Kenya ‘hates’ Gikuyus, using inter-ethnic dialogues, as well as why Gikuyus (or rather, the Gikuyu economic and political establishment) are so adamant about the need to hold onto power, using intra-ethnic dialogue.

It joins a previous initiative of the Kenyan south Asian community, Awaaz, which seeks to do the same two things through the production of a magazine on the history of Kenyan south Asians in the country. Meanwhile, the groundbreaking statistical and analytical work done by the Society for International Development (SID) on gender, income and regional inequalities continues to be followed through by the Ministry of Planning.

All of these initiatives are potentially useful and well meaning. All, however, fail to get to the heart of the problem. What is missing, I think, is a clear understanding of what equality and non-discrimination actually mean and how, from independence on, the equality provisions in our current constitution have failed to be realised by both the public and the private sectors.

What all of these initiatives do, with the possible exceptions of those by Awaaz and SID, is address so-called negative ethnicity from the perspective of whether or not we like each other. Not that that does not need to be done. Prejudices and stereotypes abound here: Gikuyus are greedy; Asians treat Africans like dirt and are, like the Gikuyus, too dominant in the economy; Luos are uncircumcised and thus unfit to rule; Luhyas are, as one Luhya politician infamously put it, ‘cooks and watchmen’; Masaais (and all pastoralists) need to get with the modernisation agenda and settle down; Somalis are uncivilised and violent; Europeans are racist and treat their pets better than their workers and so on.

All these are, of course, untrue generalizations. And any initiatives that could begin to unravel just how they have evolved into common and strongly held belief systems about each other, should be encouraged. Indeed, the Kenya Institute of Education should probably be ensuring that this is done nationally, through an expansion of the existing human-rights education component of the national curriculum.

But addressing prejudice and stereotypes will not resolve the problem. We simply cannot regulate how people feel about other people. What we can do, however, is regulate whether and how those feelings translate into actions; into discrimination in the public and private sectors on the basis of those prejudices and stereotypes. And Kenyans discriminate, daily and routinely as a matter of course, in the public and private sectors. Although we, of course, don’t call preferential treatment of our families, our community members discrimination.

How do we advertise? Who do we hire, then train and promote? Who do we contract from? Who do we want living in our properties? Who do we ‘facilitate’ when it comes to access to public services or performance of public functions? And so on. Whether consciously or not, this is discrimination. Whether we accept it or not, the long-term consequence of this is inequality – both in opportunities as well as results.

The problem is that this sort of discrimination is so absolutely normalised that it doesn’t even occur to most of those who experience it to challenge it and seek legal redress. And, even if they did, the legal remedies that exist are weak. Not for a lack of laws – apart from our constitution’s equality rights section, we have a plethora of legislation dealing with different grounds on which discrimination can occur (from gender to HIV status), as well as the different areas in which it does (from education to employment) – but because we’re not aware of either the laws or of how to invoke them in a manner that expeditiously resolves the immediate situation at hand.

What this means is two things. First, our daily, routine experiences of discrimination become bitter, individual anecdotes, shared usually within our families and broader communities. And second, as soon as we get the chance, we repeat the same behaviour, but this time in favour of our ‘own’. We are, after all, only informally remedying what we should have been able to remedy formally. Our expectation of being treated badly by others translates into our doing exactly the same thing. Whether we accept it or not, it is this that has led to the tensions that exist within the country and not whether we like one another or not.

What we need – apart from the strengthened equality and non-discrimination provisions that we expect in our new constitution – is comprehensive legislation that doesn’t just harmonise what already exists, but that goes far farther to establish a workable complaints body with the power to effect real remedies for aggrieved individuals and groups, including systemic remedies. Will the bill pending at the Law Reform Commission of Kenya do this for us? We need to make sure that it will.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* L. Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC).
*This article was first published in the East African on 31 January 2010.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009

Statement from Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/61997

The Urgent Action Fund-Africa, a Pan-African women’s human rights organisation, notes with great concern Uganda’s draconian Anti-homosexuality Bill 2009, the ongoing parliamentary debates and the suggested amendments to the Bill. We acknowledge that people have different personal persuasions on the question of homosexuality. However, we are deeply concerned that by enacting this law, the State will set a precedent where anyone different from the mainstream can be legally demonized, stripped of their dignity and rights and persecuted, at a time when we seek to establish democratic societies of tolerance and equality. There will be no limit to a state’s tyranny and manipulation of laws to oppress any group of people considered different, dissenting or a minority. We underscore the fundamental principle that people are different in their beliefs, orientation and opinions YET equal in their rights, dignity and worth.

UAF-Africa asserts that all human rights are equal, inalienable, interdependent, and indivisible, and should be promoted, protected, and respected by all states. UAF-Africa holds further that the proposed Anti Homosexuality Bill 2009 is not only in contravention of, but violates Articles 3 (right to life, liberty and security of person), 5 (No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment), 11(presumption of innocence) and 19 (right to freedom of expression) of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. The Bill also violates Uganda’s Constitution, the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other international and regional human rights treaties to which Uganda is signatory.

In line with the work Urgent Action Fund-Africa has done over the past nine years to raise the visibility of the discrimination and marginalization faced by gays, lesbians, and bisexuals in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa, we stand in solidarity with the gay and lesbian community in Uganda, which is already marginalised since homosexuality is criminalised and punishable by a maximum sentence of life imprisonment (Uganda’s Penal Code 145). The proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill as it stands empowers the state to impose heavy fines, life imprisonment and death sentences based on an individual’s sexual orientation. The bill further criminalises relatives, counsellors, healthcare providers, religious leaders, and individuals for knowing and not reporting practitioners of homosexuality, imposing a fine of 5 to 7 years on any person who ‘aids, abets, counsels, or engages in the promotion of homosexuality’.

We are alarmed that the Bill proposes that Uganda withdraws from any international agreements to which the country already is a party, or file reservations to them, if they are re-interpreted to include protection for homosexual behaviour, or that promote same-sex marriage, or that call for the promotion or teaching about homosexuality as being healthy, normal, or an acceptable lifestyle choice, or that seek to establish sexual behaviour, sexual orientation, gender identity, or sexual minorities as legally protected categories of people. This is in contravention of international law which prohibits States from doing such a thing. Article 26 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties requires that “Every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith.”

We are greatly concerned that the Anti-homosexuality Bill in its current form or various amendments conflates personal values with state values, creating a never ending downward spiral in legislative practice. It will lead to widespread and unjust persecution of persons based on their sexual orientation, and will lead to widespread censorship among organizations, the media, and individuals, as they seek to avoid heavy fines or criminal prosecution. We are also alarmed by the Bill’s effect on Uganda’s HIV programming. Through stigmatizing a certain sector of Uganda’s society, the bill practically drives this sector underground, denying it the right to access health care and other public resources. This Bill will create an environment of intimidation, fear, and hostility, narrowing the spaces for private and public debate, as well as the principles of freedom of expression.

UAF-Africa is further concerned that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill demonstrates a growing trend in several African countries to enact retrogressive legislation that violates the human rights of minority groups in their countries, in contravention of Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Urgent Action Fund-Africa therefore calls upon:

* Hon. David Bahati, the architect of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, to promptly withdraw it from Parliament
* The Parliament of Uganda not to waste tax-payers’ money debating the bill; and certainly to ensure its defeat if debated, in the interests of safeguarding the values of democracy, tolerance and equality.
* The Parliament of Uganda to repeal the existing provision of ss.145 of the Uganda Penal Code that criminalizes homosexuality
* The Ugandan public to be open and debate sexuality issues with the view to understanding that people of different sexual orientations do exist, not only in Uganda, but in ALL communities and countries across the world
* All Ugandans to unite in publicly condemning this draconian Bill in the interests of their own democratic freedom
* The international community to stand in solidarity with this group of Ugandan citizens, and other such citizens in different African countries
* African states to cease drafting and passing similar draconian laws on homosexuality and stop discrimination against fellow citizens on grounds of sexual orientation.

Howard Zinn, activist historian

1922 - 2010

Shailja Patel

2010-01-29

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/obituary/61844

Thank you for your life, and your work.

Your 'Peoples History of the United States' taught me more than all the years of my degree in economics and politics. Gave me a lifelong set of tools to excavate the untold histories of my own country - and the world.

When I first saw the news yesterday, what rose in my mind was Denise Levertov's poem, September 1961: 'they have told us / the road leads to the sea / and given / the language into our hands'

September 1961

This is the year the old ones,
the old great ones
leave us alone on the road.

The road leads to the sea.
We have the words in our pockets,
obscure directions. The old ones

have taken away the light of their presence,
we see it moving away over a hill
off to one side.

They are not dying,
they are withdrawn
into a painful privacy

learning to live without words.
E. P. "It looks like dying"--Williams: "I can't
describe to you what has been

happening to me"--
H. D. "unable to speak."
The darkness

twists itself in the wind, the stars
are small, the horizon
ringed with confused urban light-haze.

They have told us
the road leads to the sea,
and given

the language into our hands.
We hear
our footsteps each time a truck

has dazzled past us and gone
leaving us new silence.
One can't reach

the sea on this endless
road to the sea unless
one turns aside at the end, it seems,

follows
the owl that silently glides above it
aslant, back and forth,

and away into deep woods.

But for us the road
unfurls itself, we count the
words in our pockets, we wonder

how it will be without them, we don't
stop walking, we know
there is far to go, sometimes

we think the night wind carries
a smell of the sea...

Howard Zinn: A tribute to the legendary historian with Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Naomi Klein and Anthony Arnove

1922-2010

Democracy Now

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/obituary/62004

_
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* Democracy Now is a daily TV/radio news programme ‘airing on over 800 stations, pioneering the largest community media collaboration in the U.S’.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Howard Zinn: A true American hero

1922-2010

Staff and Board at the Oakland Institute

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/obituary/62002

With the passing away of Howard Zinn on 27 January 2010, at the age of 87, the world has not only lost a legendary historian but an individual, whose commitment to social and economic justice, peace and internationalism, and passion for telling the truth, can be matched by few others.

While there are many qualities that made Howard Zinn so special, what made him very endearing to us was his generosity in putting those who met him for the first time at ease. He made everyone feel special, he paid attention to every word, replied personally to email requests; a tireless activist who made himself available for every good cause. In the process, he nurtured minds and hearts and souls around the world. Indeed the world has lost one of its best teachers.

In 2006, Howard authored the foreword of a report which was co-published by the Oakland Institute and Speak Out – Turning the Tide: Challenging the Right on Campus – where he called for the building of a broad-based and sustainable movement for progressive values on college campuses. He reminded the readers in his foreword that ‘far from being a haven from the outside world, the world of war, of famine, of racism and exploitation, the campus is an arena for ideological struggle, in which the stakes are far higher than grades and degrees and career choices. The crucial prize is the mind of the student, the values of the young, for on them depends the future of the nation, as the coming generation makes choices that decide life and death for not only people in our country, but men, women and children all over the world.’

While we mourn the loss of a friend, a dedicated activist and a superb human being, we at the Oakland Institute are committed to celebrating, sharing, and upholding all values and struggles that Howard Zinn stood for and believed in, as our tribute to America's true patriot and hero!

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* Howard Zinn, social activist, historian and playwright, passed away on 27 January 2010.
* This obituary was first published by the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank with a focus on increasing public participation and promoting fair debate on critical social, economic and environmental issues.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Solidarity for Haiti from Louisiana

Kwaku O. Kushindana

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/61993

Greetings!

The African People of Louisiana, a good percentage were brought in from Haiti...Thus, I and many of us here can really relate with what has happened to African People there in Haiti.

I was very happy to read ‘The hate and the quake’ by Hilary Beckles because it exposed a reality that the vast majority, and even African-Americans have no idea of… There is a so-called ‘progressive’ E. Eltherber Miller (Howard University) who is even calling for the US Military (I served six years in the US military!) to take over the effort in Haiti, totally ignoring the reality of what the US Military has done.

There is a show called ‘Flashpoints’ on Pacafica from California which told of the real-deal, ‘favourite’ charities are taking supplies, the US Army has imposed militarisation and the those who need it most (food) aren't getting it (Remember, Hurricane Katrina here in Louisiana).

I will be sure and book mark your publication and begin to read it on a regular basis.

Review: 'Closing the Distance: How Governments Strengthen Ties with their Diasporas'

Dovelyn R. Agunias, ed., Migration Policy Institute 2009

Onyekachi Wambu

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/61990

First it is important to declare an interest. The organisation I work with, the African Foundation for Development – AFFORD, has since 1994 been engaged in the issues at the heart of this book. Namely, enhancing and expanding the contributions that one particular diaspora – the African one – makes to development in their countries of origin.

The focus of the work has been threefold – first, making the diaspora themselves much more effective as agents of transformation. Second, engaging and integrating their efforts into the development policies of their host countries and other international agencies and finally, integrating their efforts into the programmes and policies of their countries of origin.

It is really this third area of AFFORD’s work that this extremely useful book expands on. Through four essays it explores how the resources of diasporas abroad are being harnessed by home governments around the world. The issue of diaspora engagement has jumped up the policy agenda for most home governments in response to the huge financial flows represented by remittances (for some governments the figure is between 10 and 40 per cent of GDP) and the importance of skills and knowledge transfer, given the loss of highly skilled people in the brain drain. However, the knowledge and research has not kept up with developments, remaining anecdotal, country specific or abstract.

Dovelyn Agunias’ essay kicks off the book with a much needed overview of how 30 developing countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Central and South America are institutionalising diaspora engagement within their governments. The definition of the 'scattered seeds' is wide, and includes temporary and permanent migrants. As you would expect, the approaches to institutionalising involvement are wide and diverse, from distinct diaspora ministries, institutions at all levels of government (including consulates and embassies abroad), to creating quasi-government institutions.

India, Syria, Haiti, Georgia, Bangladesh are amongst those which have dedicated ministries. The ministries aim to inform those abroad of conditions on the ground. For instance, the Ministry for Overseas Indian Affairs runs a three week 'Know India' internship programme among second and subsequent generations – to encourage investment, skills and knowledge sharing, and ultimately return and settlement.

Agunias’ research suggests that success or failure for the various interventions at whichever level depends on how seriously the governments have undertaken the initial research with their diasporas before setting up the agency (the process of building trust with diasporas is key); the resources that are committed (many of the initiatives have noble goals and ambitions but are under resourced); avoiding bureaucratic rivalries; and ensuring that diaspora engagement is linked and integrated into national development plans.

The next three essays move beyond an overview to case studies of specific countries written by insiders. Patricia Tomas, the former secretary of labour and employment and currently chairperson of the Development Bank of Philippines, considers the experience of Philippines in 'Protecting overseas Filipino workers: The government’s role in the contract labour migration cycle'. Dr Badara Macalou, who is minister for Malians abroad and African integration, reflects on 'Creating partnerships with diasporas – The Malian experience'. Finally, Carlos Gutierrez, consul general of Mexico in Sacramento, California and former executive director, Institute of Mexicans Abroad, looks at the important and ground breaking work of the 'The Institute of Mexicans Abroad: An effort to empower the diaspora'.

Since the 1970s the Philipines has been a pioneer in sending out temporary workers to the Middle East. Each year up to a million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are deployed (generating up 10 per cent of Gross National Product (GNP) from their remittances). The government's major effort is directed at ensuring the administrative structures to process these huge numbers and the safety and rights of the OFWs, in order to protect such an important sector of the economy. There is less focus on engaging or harnessing the resources of the broader diaspora of permanently settled Filipinos or their descendants – or indeed recognising migration as a development tool.

This latter approach is precisely what Mali has attempted to do since the return of democracy to the country in 1991, with permanently settled Malians and their descendants abroad being designated the ‘9th region of Mali’. Dr Badara Macalou notes that the vast majority of Malians abroad (over two million) live in neighbouring Cote D’Ivoire, with only three per cent living in Europe. However it is the latter group that send back three-quarters of the remittances, which sets up an interesting policy balancing act between the large numbers in neighbouring countries who are not as economically active, educated or skilled, compared to those in Europe, where special targeting delivers major rewards.

Through the High Council of Malians Abroad (HCME), members of the diaspora in over 50 countries can feed their ideas back to the Malian government (and into the ministry of Malians Abroad and African Integration. Dr Macalou stresses that the focus is on consultation and partnership (with nationals and international agencies) in driving forward delivery in areas such as bringing back skilled professionals for short periods, given the resource constraints of the Malian government.

Meanwhile the Mexican government has developed many of the most innovative programmes in this area as it engages with its 12 million Mexican born migrants in the US and their 19 million descendants. Carlos Gutierrez eloquently describes the working of the government’s Institute of Mexicans Abroad (IME), which focuses both on integration in the US as well as development in Mexico – all facilitated through the 50 consulates in the US. Communities are encouraged by the government to organise themselves frequently through their region of origin, to federate these grassroots bodies into larger bodies, which can then deliver major programmes such as the ‘Three-for-one-programme’ where a dollar generated by a diaspora organisation can attract matching dollars from the local, state, and federal government. It has meant that diaspora has been able to initiate major infrastructural projects, with their elected representatives present at the point delivery.

Comparing three very different approaches in ‘Closing the Distance’ demonstrates what has always been clear in this area – that while countries can learn from each other, it is their own national priorities and understanding of the needs of their migrants and diasporas that should drive policy. There are overarching principles that all need to take on board such as the need to for governments to build social capital and relationships of trust with their diasporas abroad. This means consulting widely with their diasporas and creating the durable and transparent structures that can allow for meaning engagement.

‘Closing the Distance’ has added a lot of really useful knowledge in our understanding of the issues migration and development.

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* Closing the Distance: How Governments Strengthen Ties with their Diasporas, Dovelyn R. Agunias, ed., Migration Policy Institute 2009, is published by Brookings Institution Press (ISBN 978-0-9742819-5-7).
* Onyekachi Wambu is information officer at the African Foundation for Development.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

A fake coup and the never-ending 'Chinese Invasion'

Dibussi Tande

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/61995

This is Africa comments on the arrest of sixteen Burundian soldiers for allegedly plotting to destabilize the country:

'While the dust has settled on the coup that wasn’t, opposition leaders here in Burundi are wondering if it’s just a matter of time before the other shoe falls.

'FRODEBU spokesman Pancrace Cimbaye, speaking to AFP, said, “We think the government is trying to create a chaotic situation, enabling it to sweep aside all the politicians in its way.”
MSD’s Alexis Sinduhije, who I spoke to on Sunday, and who has recently been accused by the government of plotting a rebellion in the Rubuvu National Park (an accusation that was dismantled at length in the local newspaper, Iwacu), said simply, “We are waiting.”

'AFP reported on Sunday that Friday night’s security sweep netted 16 conspirators who have been charged with plotting to “destabilize” the country. The arrests took place with great fanfare on a public beach here in Bujumbura, played out in front of cameras for the state-run TV station. (According to a man I spoke to today, at least one conspirator tried to swim to safety.) Burundians might not be able to stage a coup like they used to, but they sure know how to stage the disruption of a coup’s planning.'

The Chia Report complains that Cameroon is fast becoming a Chinese province due to the massive influx of Chinese goods and migrants into the country:

'A general consensus among the cross section of Cameroonians - especially the disenfranchised, economically dwarfed and disenchanted – is that the influx of Chinese and Chinese products on every street corner is overwhelming. Most people you talk to do not know how many Chinese there are, just that it is not commonsensical to have Chinese immigrants competing for jobs in the unregulated sector of the economy – such as frying puff-puff and street hawking everything in-between… In retail like in wholesale, the working poor can hardly compete with the experience, resources and resourcefulness of the Chinese…

'If Africans stand by and watch on as the Chinese Yuan floods their shores, it will not be long before I am fighting to preserve my grandfather’s tomb from a Chinese immigrant laying claim to the land. Africans will fall in the category of endangered species needing protection in our own backyard. This is not new in World History. Caucasians did same to Native Indians in the United States. The Indians are now found in special “Settlements” in New Mexico and some other Mid-Western States. This is not the fate we want for Africa. But when Chinese architecture begins to be the hallmark of our environments, we have to hit pause and go back to the drawing board.'

Denford Magora's Zimbabwe Blog assesses the Zimbabwe unity government on its first anniversary and concludes that President Mugabe now has Morgan Tsvangirai in a corner:

'In February 2009, Morgan Tsvangirai threw Robert Mugabe a lifeline, thereby assuring the loser of Zimbabwe's last credible presidential poll a continued stay in office.

Now Mugabe is using the very same lifeline given to him by Morgan Tsvangirai to strangle the MDC-Tsvangirai leader. Tsvangirai is feeling the heat… Zimbabwe's government-owned press and even newspapers in neighbouring countries have now openly turned against Tsvangirai, in stark contrast to the fake respect he has been accorded since he got into government. Local media says it is now time for Tsvangirai "to come clean on sanctions". Opinion pieces with dubious bylines in the same media is lambasting the MDC-T president for being dishonest and all efforts are being made to turn the population against Tsvangirai and the MDC for "causing the suffering of Zimbabweans" by calling for sanctions…

Mugabe is where he is today because Tsvangirai did not press home his advantage in March 2008, when he out-polled the veteran Zimbabwe president. Instead, he threw it all away and blamed everybody but himself for capitulating, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...'

Faustine’s Bazara argues that the African Union has lost its bearings and is no longer relevant:

'Could someone tell me in a simple language just one useful outcome from the recent heads of states meeting of the African Union?

'The African continent is faced with a number of challenges including governance issues, flawed elections, self-imposed despots, wars, hunger and poor health to mention just a few.

'I had expected heads of states would seriously discuss what they should do as a continent to address some of the challenges that I have outlined above. I had expected that they would discuss measures that would promote trade and bring peace and prosperity to the continent.

'In the current form, The AU has failed to do all these. It is seen by many of us as another African leaders’ get-together party and with plenty of photo op. They meet every year to party, feast and then shake hands with pledges to meet again next year.

'To the international community, the AU has become irrelevant and it will need to work very hard to change this perception. The AU has no one else to blame except itself and this is very sad indeed.'

Tgoose responds a recent article by Andry Rajoelina, leader of the transitional regime in Madagascar which appeared in the Wall Street Journal in which he blamed the international community for the country’s economic problems and for its transition problems:

'Regardless as to whether or not Andry Rajoelina’s intent was to transition the government quickly, the fact is that he had gained his new powers from the use of military force and not via political means. Therefore it would go without saying that the international community would not support him and his efforts because by doing so, they would be endorsing the coup d’etat itself…

'I am not surprised that Andry Rajoelina would take this almost sulky stance insinuating that he does not comprehend why the international community is reacting the way it is to his coup. Sanctions, restrictions and condemnation are the only tools that the international community has to push a country in the direction that it wants (generally toward a democratic solution) and are typically the only thing that forces change in a country aside from some form of military intervention. He alone is responsible for the current “economic chaos” as he puts it, and if he were truly concerned about his country he would have stepped aside, or agreed to whatever the AU/SADC were proposing.

'Unfortunately for the people of Madagascar, the principle of “consensual and inclusive” talks are clashing with Andry Rajoelina’s principles and the international community is well aware of the Malagasy reality, but cannot relent as this would also be endorsing the coup.'

Scribbles from the Den reviews the history of 'Sovereign Expenditures' ('that is, spending on defense, international diplomacy, government offices and forms of conspicuous consumption by state elites') in Africa in the last two decades:

'In the past quarter of a century, most African states have been under one form of internationally-imposed austerity program or the other (SAP, HIPC Initiative, etc.) which allowed Breton Woods institutions to virtually dictate economic policies to these African countries…

'The policies of the donor institutions resulted in significant cutbacks on social services and development projects. However, while the general population suffered under the weight of these austerity programs which virtually dismantled existing social safety nets that protected the most vulnerable in society, the state’s top elites remained virtually untouched by the crisis as they expanded the patrimonial state and rent-seeking practices. Thus, even at the height of the financial crisis of the l980 and 1990s, African regimes and elites were able to create opaque financial silos from where funds were extracted at their discretion to shore up their lavish lifestyles, promote rent-seeking practices, and consolidate political power while development goals were abandoned and basic social services left to rot.

'The ruling elite did this by creating no-go zones that fell under the heading of Sovereignty expenditures'.


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* Dibussi Tande, a writer and activist from Cameroon, produces the blog Scribbles from the Den.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Macau Forum January 2010

Lucy Corkin

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/61978

In December 2009, Macau marked the 10-year anniversary of the return to Chinese rule. As the one destination in China where gambling is legal, an influx of tourists from mainland China has ensured that Macau’s economic growth has soared in the past decade. This is been further assisted by Beijing’s dismantling of the local gambling cartel, formerly controlled by Stanley Ho. The territory’s reliance on gambling as its economic mainstay is not openly acknowledged in political fora however. Recently elected Fernando Chui, Macau’s chief executive, instead emphasised economic diversification and further regulation of the gambling industry in his inaugural speech. This is despite the gambling industry’s liberalisation having been the key to Macau’s economic rise.

As with the rest of China however, such rapid growth has not come without its cost, nor has it been balanced growth. Macau recently scored 130 out of 194 in the 2010 ‘Quality of Life Index’ conducted by International Living. Although some researchers argue that the assessment criteria of this index are biased and consequently present a skewed picture of Macau’s reality, the index resonated for some. Lawmaker Pereira Coutinho said that 'this comes to prove once again what we have been saying over the time, i.e. the gap between the rich and the poor has worsened, as well as the general quality of life for Macau residents. Macau has lost much of its quality of life, which has to do with a number of items, including the environment, the level of transparency and honesty in the government, medical care, which includes public hospitals and the guarantees of citizens rights.' A recent commentary in Macau Daily seems to agree with aspects of this view, pointing out the lack of communication between government departments and the mass media, making it difficult to keep the public informed.

Despite these concerns voiced locally, it seems that China’s central government is more focused on the strategic role Macau can play in China’s international outreach. 'Since its return to the motherland, Macau has played an unique and positive development regarding economic ties between the mainland and Portuguese-speaking countries,' Qin Gang, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated at the Macau 10-year celebrations. The International Institute of Macau (IIM) marked the 10-year anniversary by launching a book ‘Macau and China/Portuguese-speaking Countries Economic Relations: 1999–2009 – Ten Years of Growth’ complied by a group of journalists from the Macaulink media group in collaboration with Delta Edições. At the launch, an old chestnut, the so-called ‘China Development Model’ and its relevance to other countries’ development was hotly debated. This underlines the lack of clarity that exists broadly in terms of what China’s ‘development model’ is and whether it is in fact replicable.

On 19 November 2009, Chang Hexi was appointed the new secretary-general of the permanent office for the Forum for Economic and Trade Cooperation between China and the Portuguese-speaking Countries, also known as Forum Macau. Seconded from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), Chang has served at the Economic Counsellor’s desk of a variety of embassies in Portuguese countries, Angola being the most recent, and has been involved in Forum Macau since its inception. On 1–2 February, Chang Hexi, together with the accredited ambassadors from the rest of the Macau Forum members, will sit down to strategise future cooperation strategies at the forum’s fifth regular meeting of the Macau Forum Permanent Secretariat. Chief among these may be ways in which to deepen financial interactions between members. Xia Xiaoling, economic counsellor the Chinese Embassy in Portugal, had a few months earlier pointed to the underdeveloped nature of links between the banking sectors in Macau Forum member states. With this in mind, it appears that China Development Bank, taking advantage of the China–Portugal 2005 Strategic Partnership, has since visited Portugal to assess the feasibility of joint projects with its Portuguese counterparts.

The triennial Ministerial Meeting of Forum Macau, postponed due to Macau’s 10-year celebrations, will be held in May this year.

Closer ties are being developed between Portuguese-speaking countries generally. Angola looks set to expand its regional grasp. Sonangol, the Angolan state-owned oil company, in December began preparations for the upgrading of São Tomé e Príncipe’s port, with plans to expand the island state’s international airport to follow. Sonangol’s support for the refurbishment of Port Ana Chaves, to the value of US$2 million, is part of a memorandum signed at the beginning of 2009. Angola’s ambitions are largely funded by oil receipts. Angola remains an important source of oil for Beijing, logging in as the second-biggest supplier of oil to China in the first ten months of last year, behind Saudi Arabia, providing around 15 per cent of the Asian country’s oil imports. However, Angola is increasingly being seen as a promising investment destination as well. The Angolan Consulate in Macau in November announced its intention to petition for jurisdiction in Guangzhou, citing the increasing number of southern Chinese businessmen seeking opportunities to invest in Angola.

Brazilian investors are also looking to African countries with new eyes. A forum for the promotion of investments scheduled for 30 November to 1 December in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, aimed to develop partnerships between small and medium companies from Angola and Brazil's manufacturing industry and agriculture. Angola’s delegation was headed up by deputy Minister of Industry Kiala Gabriel. According to Brazilian investment agency APEX, Brazilian investors are increasingly aware of the potential of African markets, particularly where the Portuguese language is an advantage, such as Angola, Mozambique and Cape Verde. APEX is cognisant of Chinese investors’ success in these countries where Brazil should have a natural advantage and has recognised that ‘there is a lot to do’.

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* Lucy Corkin is the Macau Hub analyst for Fahamu's China in Africa programme and a research associate at the Africa Asia Centre, SOAS, University of London.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Vying for Africa: India needs to tap its diaspora to match China

Ishani Duttagupta

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/61985

Can India do a China in the continent of unlimited resources? China’s big foray into the African continent has grabbed global attention. But

there are many - such as Harvard professor Tarun Khanna - who believes that India has an edge in Africa because of its deep diaspora. “The fact that the Indian diaspora is deeply entrenched and spread across Africa and knows its way around is a big advantage,” feels Dr Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemann professor at the Harvard Business School, who has specialised in research on India and China.

Ask Nimisha Madhvani, the Ugandan high commissioner to India, who belongs to a family that owns and runs one of the biggest business conglomerates in East Africa. “The Indian government has not really focused on the Indians in Africa which is why many of the big Indian business groups of Indian origin in that continent do not look at putting their money in India but instead tap business opportunities in Europe and America.

However, if certain restrictions were eased and some steps taken by the government, India could attract a lot of investment from this segment,” she says. She also feels that in view of the historic ties between India and many of the African countries and the bridges that have been built by the diaspora over the years, India doesn’t really need to feel competitive about China’s plans in the neighbourhood.

And like her, the chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s Africa committee and chairman & MD of Kirloskar Brothers, Sanjay C Kirloskar, too believes that to take the India-Africa relationship to the next level, re-engaging with the diaspora is very important. “The engagement of Indian companies in the African continent is different from China because there’s local skills development involved and often transfer of technology.

India and Africa are natural allies because of a similar past and the influential people of Indian origin running businesses in Africa. Some of the important sectors where partnerships are possible include infrastructure, agriculture agro-processing, automotive and IT,” he says.

Similarly, N K Somani, CEO of one Nigeria’s most diversified business conglomerate Danote Group feels that even though there has been initiatives on both the sides to forge a strong business relationship, a lot needs to be done in terms of government measures. “A lot needs to be done on the promotional and incentives level by the Indian government, as Nigeria has a very high potential for trade with India,” he says. Referring to the recent visit of an Indian business delegation to Nigeria, Mr Somani said that initiatives taken should be seen through and concluded as soon as possible to ensure optimal utilization of resources in both sides.

There are big business houses from India such as the Tatas, Essar, Vedanta, and Kirloskar who have embarked on the African safari and in many cases engaged with the Indian diaspora there, including talented professionals of Indian origin. Says S. Kuppuswamy, advisor group finance and special projects of construction giant Shapoorji Pallonji and former chairman of CII’s task force on Africa: “In certain countries - such as Kenya - the Indian diaspora can play a more meaningful role if the Indian government taps them to strengthen its ties with Africa.”

He adds that in the area of skills enhancement, even small companies from India are now making a big impact in Africa. “As the engagement

increases there will also be a big movement of Indian professionals to different African countries,” he says. And that is already happening - from telecom experts in Ghana to healthcare workers in Uganada, the new generation of skilled Indian professionals too are now adding to the numbers of the Indian diaspora. “Traditionally, the Gujarati community has had a big presence in Africa - but now there are also professionals from states such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu who are moving to East Africa.

Most of them are very comfortable culturally and are choosing to settle down in the region,” says Nimisha Madhvani. Of course, prominent members of the Indian business community in Africa feel that there’s not enough being done on the part of the Indian government to engage with them, even as India reaches out to people of Indian origin in the West in a much bigger way.

Mayur M. Madhvani, senior director of the Madhvani group and joint MD, Kakira Sugar Works in Uganda, feels that India should take advantage of its deep diaspora in Africa and use it far more effectively as a platform to cement closer ties between the two regions. “There are opportunities that exist in Africa for Indian businesses. We are already seeing instances of business houses similar to ours strengthening ties with India through possible joint ventures and increased trade through purchase of plant, machinery and various equipment from India as well as giving opportunities to Indian expatriates, who provide valuable skills in our business,” he says.

Vimal Shah, CEO of Bidco Oil in Kenya, too, feels that the Indian government is not doing enough to gain an advantage through the Indian business community in Africa. “The Chinese government is far more engaged in different regions in Africa, while India seems to lack policy initiatives. The Indian high commissions, for instance, are usually not able to provide us with adequate information about doing business in India,” he says.

And echoing his thoughts, Indian diplomats, too, feel that a lot more could be done to tap into the vast knowledge and experience of the Indian business community in Africa. “The Indian community plays a prominent role in different African countries and should be tapped to build a foundation for us. In fact, India could be in a bigger league in the relationship with many African countries than China through sustained foreign policy,” says a senior Indian diplomat with many years of experience in the region.

A policy-led Indian foray into the African continent could well build on the ‘feel good factor’ that comes from the influential Indian diaspora not just in Africa but globally. “Many of the Indians in Africa immigrated to the West following the political upheaval in Uganda and some of them are very successful in UK, US and Canada. Some are back in Africa and also exploring opportunities in India. It is time to tap this segment and carry out confidence building measures,” says Sanmit Ahuja, chief executive of London-based g investments firm ETI Dynamics.

Dr Manu Chandaria, well-known Kenyan businessman and philanthropist, too underscores the need for confidence building measures on the part of the Indian government. “China is gaining in terms of infrastructure investments in the Africa thanks to its government policy initiatives. There’s a huge opportunity for the Indian financial services sector in eastern Africa which can be tapped with the help of initiatives on the part of the Indian government,” he says.

ndia can help in medical services

The Mehta Group which traces its history back to 1900 when its founder, Nanji Kalidas Mehta, set up a little trading post in the Ugandan village of Kamuli - today has a turnover of $500 million and is geared to achieve $1 billion in the next five years.

“My father, the founder of Mehta Group, Nanji Kalidas Mehta, had contributed a lot in developing Uganda. Starting with a duka (shop), he went into cotton growing and processing largely for the Indian and Japanese market. He then went into edible oil, sugar, tea, real estate development and into textile and subsequently cement in India,” Mahendra N. Mehta, chairman of the Mehta Group says. Today the group has a presence across the world in India, Kenya, Uganda, Europe, Bermuda, Canada and the US. Mr Mehta himself joined the family business way back in 1951 and took charge of African operations in 1954.

The real challenge for the family came when dictator Idi Amin expelled all non-indigenous people from Uganda in 1972. Mr Mehta had to leave the country with just two suitcases of personal belongings. However, he later became one of the first to again opt for Ugandan nationality after the dictatorship was overthrown in 1980 and was elected a member of Parliament in the first parliament of independent Uganda.

He now feels that in the last decade, lots of changes have taken place both in India and in the continent of Africa. “New regimes in Africa have realised that unless they encourage private foreign investment in their country, they cannot achieve the kind of economic growth required to eliminate poverty. India’s economy is liberalised and the private sector is looking at opportunities for investment in other parts of the world. Africa offers enormous opportunities in fields such as mining, agriculture development, food processing and IT,” he says.

Mr Mehta believes that like China, India too will have to look at the enormous resources available in the continent of Africa. “China has a policy for Africa. The government is going all out to provide financial assistance to various governments in Africa and in return is obtaining concessions on mining and mineral development. Chinese traders are also coming and establishing small business all over the African continent,” he says.

As for India, the few concessions which Indian private enterprises have obtained in Africa are entirely due to initiative taken by the business houses and not as a result of government support and its ability to influence African governments, he says. “Assistance by India in financial, technical, educational, medical and infrastructural development fields can go a long way in helping the development of the economies and at the same time earning goodwill and developing a spirit of partnership to enable Indian entrepreneurs avail better opportunities and concessions from governments in Africa,” Mr Mehta adds.

Right from the start, the group founder, N.K. Mehta, believed in giving back to his country of origin after setting up a successful business in Uganda. He invested in India in textile, cement and other ventures and contributed generously to a number of educational, religious and social institutions. Today, in India, group companies Saurashtra Cement and Gujarat Sidhee Cement produce 3 million tonnes of cement at two plants.

Need to build on historic ties

The Madhvani Group is the largest conglomerate in Uganda with a total asset base of over $200 million. The group has investments in Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, the Middle East, India and north America. “Ties between India and Africa have been historically in existence for over a century. Currently, there are over 2.5 million overseas Indian families that have settled in Africa and in the region of east Africa alone there are over 300,000 families,” says Mayur M. Madhvani, senior director, Madhvani Group and joint managing director, Kakira Sugar Works - which is the flagship of the group.

The Madhvani group is among the largest diversified enterprises in east Africa, with a turnover in Uganda of over $100 million. It has a presence in sectors such as agriculture and agro-processing, floriculture, packaging, steel, hotels & tourism, insurance, IT, construction and distribution of industrial products and consumer durables.

And now the group is looking at India for investment opportunities and tie-ups. “A group such as ours can definitely help India forge economic relations within the countries of Africa and the Indian private sector and government should take advantage of these opportunities. Meanwhile, our group is actively pursuing investment opportunities in India in the hospitality sector and we have already acquired land in several strategic areas and have commenced construction of the facilities.

We hope to launch our brand soon in various parts of the country,” says Mr Madhvani whose late father went to Africa in 1912. “His vision of seeing the early signs of potential that exist in Africa has resulted in our building our family business, to its current level, where we are one of the largest private sector investors in the country employing over 10,000 individuals and contributing substantially towards the GDP of Uganda,” he says.

Like other Indian business families in Uganda, the Madhvanis too were a victim of political unrest when Idi Amin expelled all Asians in 1972. “However, things are changing in the continent of Africa and democracy is slowly taking roots and as a result, the long term stability for business houses such as ours, is being assured. Trade barriers have been substantially reduced in many African countries and movement of capital and goods, is now extensively free,” says Mr Madhvani.

East Africa is a big market to be tapped

East Africa is a huge market that Indian companies can tap, feels Vimal Shah, the CEO of Bidco Oil Refineries, a leading manufacturer of edible oils, fats and hygiene products in the region. He adds that the local ground knowledge of companies such as Bidco in East Africa could be tapped by Indian players looking at partnerships in the region.

Bidco was started about 35 years ago in Kenya - and is often seen as the Unilever of Africa. The company sees itself as an African company, deeply rooted in East Africa, acting regionally but thinking globally. “We don’t have any plans to enter the Indian market just now, because we have huge expansion plans in the African continent.

However, culturally we are very connected to our country of origin. In Nairobi, we often celebrate festivals such as Holi and Diwali more traditionally than people in Mumbai,” says Shah, who was himself born in Africa. His father, who was among the early Gujaratis in Kenya, was the founder of Bidco, which entered the edible oils and fats business in 1991 in Kenya and is today in a leading position in the segment in East and Central Africa.

In Uganda, the company is creating a fully integrated edible oil business with an investment of over $130 m spread over five years. The company is also building a presence in Tanzania. “I travel to India very often and we source a lot of our equipment from there,” says Mr Shah. For him, the overseas citizenship of India (OCI) card that has been introduced by the ministry of overseas Indian affairs is a confidence building measure among the people of Indian origin in East Africa. “We all have the OCI cards now and it helps us to stay connected with India,” he says.

There’s lack of policy level engagement

Dr Manu Chandaria, the chairman and patriarch of the Kenya-based Chandaria group, a family business that operates across 45 countries worldwide, is today more concerned over philanthropy and building value in the social sector in countries where his group runs businesses. The family’s Comcraft group produces steel, plastics, and aluminium products in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, and outside of Africa as well. It also manufactures and markets various consumer and building products.

“We are a privately held group, but we believe in professionally run group companies globally. As promoters, we like to keep a low profile and leave the management affairs to the managers. We put in maximum effort in building up the social sector and supporting the building up of communities in countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and Ethiopia, where we have operations,” says Dr Chandaria, who is also the chairman of the family’s Chandaria Foundation and a recipient of the Pravasi Samman given by the Indian government.

He also received the Order of the British Empire in 2006 in recognition for his work in the community and his promotion of Kenyan-British economic interest in Kenya. The group has investments in India and China as well and prefers to maintain a low-profile as far as day to day operations of the companies are concerned. “Our group companies in India include Aegis Logistics and Toonz Animation. In China, too, we employ a large local workforce,” says Mr Chandaria, whose father started the family business in Nairobi with a corner store in 1916.

“Besides social service, big businesses can also contribute towards the local economy through building stronger foundations for business and by promoting corporate governance values,” says Dr Chandaria. He adds that the Indian government and Indian businesses need to put in more efforts to take the ties between India and the African countries to the next level. “There are many Indian business groups operating across the continent from Ethiopia to South Africa. But somehow the broader links are not yet being built and there seems to be a lack of policy level engagement by the Indian government in Africa,” he says.

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* This article was originally published in the Economic Times on January 31, 2010.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

If you want exposure to the BRIC countries invest in South Africa

Richard Lapper

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/61988

In 1979, when Standard Bank published Pioneer Bank in a Pioneer Land , the title of the corporate history had a distinctly nostalgic feel. South Africa's largest bank - then an offshoot of Standard Chartered of the UK - might have spent much of its early days breaking new ground as it followed Cecil Rhodes and other gold diggers around Africa. But by the end of the 1970s it was on the defensive, labouring under economic sanctions and heavily reliant on its domestic market.

It took another decade before F.W. de Klerk told the white parliament, 20 years ago tomorrow, that its days of domination were over. But with democratic South Africa now more open to the rest of the world, the pioneer label is once again appropriate for Standard, which is increasingly orienting itself to the resource-rich African continent and big emerging markets, in particular the "Brics" - Brazil, Russia, India and China.

The bank's shift in strategy is just part of a growing trend in South African business. This period of expansion abroad embraces not only mining companies, which have traditionally had a more international focus, but sectors ranging from finance to retailing, telecommunications and consumer goods and services.

"It is an orthodoxy," says Jacko Maree, Standard's chief executive, who in the past three years has orchestrated multibillion-dollar deals with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Troika, Russia's second-largest investment bank. "When [South African companies] expand they look at emerging markets." Standard sold a 20 per cent stake to ICBC in 2007 and acquired one-third of Troika last year.

Bric investment into South Africa is less pronounced than in some other parts of the continent - indeed, $5.5bn (£3.4bn, €4bn) of China's $7bn investment is accounted for by the Standard deal. But trade connections are strengthening. Last year, China established itself as the country's biggest trading partner, displacing Germany.

Barred from doing business in most of Africa during the apartheid era, South African companies are meanwhile making up for lost time in their own continent. Links with other emerging markets - themselves interested in Africa's resources and high-growth consumer markets - are growing quickly. The economic momentum is also giving substance to a foreign policy that since the end of apartheid has favoured links with Asia, Latin America and Africa in an effort to reduce a historical dependence on Europe and the US.

"South Africa is becoming the corporate captain of Africa because it has more pan-African companies than any other country in Africa and this gives it a seat at the table of the Brics," says Michael Power at Investec Asset Management in Cape Town.

Growing connections with emerging markets in part reflect the long-term shift of an economy that remains heavily dependent on whoever is demanding its raw materials exports - and the way in which the global crisis has hobbled Europe and the US, while the east and south have been less affected. Mineral and raw material exporters have seen rising Chinese demand for their products help compensate for the slide elsewhere.

Coal and iron ore exporters - often part of big international groups such as Anglo American - have been particular beneficiaries. So have platinum miners. In 2008, about two-thirds of the platinum dug out of the ground was used to make catalytic converters, a component that makes vehicle exhaust emissions cleaner. Last year, the motor industry downturn led to a sharp fall in sales - but platinum producers were able to sell huge quantities of the metal to jewellery producers in China, where demand for the so-called white gold is strong.

In addition, though, companies in other sectors have been stepping up their expansion. Standard itself has been busy expanding in Africa, recently obtaining a licence in Angola. These arrangements have enhanced its capacity to negotiate project finance, mining deals and trade facilities, often - as in the case of a power station being built by the Chinese in Botswana - with a partner from one of the Brics.

For financial services groups, exchange controls and tight regulation meant the sector has emerged little scathed from the crisis and well placed to move forward. Last June, for example, FirstRand announced it would refocus activities on Africa and the region's growing trade and investment links with India and China, agreeing a month later a strategic alliance with China Construction Bank. Like ICBC, CCB ranks among the big four Chinese banks.

The trend is also visible among consumer companies. SAB Miller, the brewer, invested in China as long ago as 1994 and is now stepping up its drive into Africa. MTN, the telecommunications group that has sought and failed in the past few years to merge with India's Bharti Airtel (on two occasions) and Reliance (on one), has nonetheless made headway expanding in Africa and in the Middle East. It commands an average 38 per cent share of 10 markets ranging from Nigeria and Ivory Coast to Afghanistan and Syria, has more than 100m subscribers and generates 60 per cent of its revenues outside South Africa.

Even companies that were formerly bastions of apartheid have been joining the throng. Naspers, a publishing group of Afrikaner origins, has been picking up media, communications and especially internet businesses in Brazil, China, Russia and other high-growth markets - last September buying Brazil's BuscaPé, a profitable electronic commerce company, for $342m. Naspers also owns a stake in Tencent, a big Chinese internet portal.

Sasol, which under white rule developed technology to convert coal into oil to mitigate the impact of the international block on sales of crude to South Africa, has struck agreements within the past two years to develop plants in countries including China, India, Uzbekistan and Indonesia.

South African companies have been able to take advantage of these trends for several reasons. Perhaps most important is the country's business culture. South African managers are seen as less risk-averse than their counterparts in Europe and the US. The country's ethnic diversity and tumultuous recent history means they also tend to be open to different cultures and less dogmatic about business methods. Companies have become adept at working with local partners, influencing the course of a venture even though they might not have total control.

The very isolation of the apartheid era forced business to be creative, but post-apartheid trends have helped, too. Black economic empowerment, a policy introduced in the 1990s under which an elite of black managers was created and billions of dollars of corporate equity transferred to black business, has made South African companies more acceptable in Africa and other emerging markets. Companies have meanwhile acquired experience in selling their products to South Africa's own emerging black middle class and low-income groups, arming them to operate in similar markets further afield. "South African business isn't as afraid of Africa as its competitors. They know what does and does not work and I think proximity helps as well," says Mr Power.

Size is another factor. With a population of less than 50m, South Africa's domestic market is far smaller than the giant emerging economies, forcing companies to be flexible rather than focus on volume. Yet local capital markets are relatively large compared with economic output, allowing companies to get hold of funds more easily than some of their developing country competitors. Capitalisation of the Johannesburg stock market is roughly twice gross domestic product, whereas in many countries the value of listed companies is smaller than the yearly output of the overall economy.

The country also has sophisticated debt markets on which companies can raise long-term funds. "South Africa has by far the most sophisticated capital market compared to [other developing economies]. You had an ability to fund yourself that was disproportionate to the size of the home base," says Standard's Mr Maree.

On top of all that, companies have been urged by their government to do business in emerging markets. Since the mid-1990s the governing African National Congress has wanted to promote a southern axis, linking the big emerging nations and Africa. In part, that is to keep US political domination in check by strengthening multilateral institutions.

Seven years ago, South Africa joined Brazil and India to form the G3, also known as Ibsa. Although its economy is by far the smallest of the three, the country's influence within Africa gives South Africa disproportionate weight, making it an attractive partner for the Brics when they seek to exercise diplomatic muscle. That influence was visible late last year in Copenhagen when South Africa - alongside Brazil, India and China - took an active role in climate change negotiations, giving birth to the so-called Basic group.

It will take time for these connections to develop. The government is wary of a high degree of dependence on any country and insists national interests have to be taken into account, with leaders warning about the dangers of a new colonial relationship. Indeed, the government imposed temporary quotas on Chinese textile imports in 2007 and 2008. In the eventually unsuccessful negotiations about merging MTN and Bharti Airtel, South Africa jealously defended the idea that the new entity should be listed in Johannesburg as well as Mumbai, in spite of the greater scale of the Indian undertaking.

No longer is it likely that globalising South African companies will be allowed to list their shares and move their headquarters abroad, as groups including Anglo American and SAB did in the late 1990s by relocating to London. But even so, say analysts, the country's corporate sector offers investors keen on the potential of the Brics a different way to access those markets. Because South African companies tend to be more transparent and better governed than many of their emerging market counterparts, it could also be a safer way to benefit.

Ayanda Ntsaluba, director general at the foreign ministry in Pretoria, says the government regularly holds discussions with companies such as Standard and MTN, and lends particular backing to co-operation between these businesses and Chinese, Indian or Brazilian counterparts. "We are encouraging more South African companies to establish themselves in the emerging world," he adds.

Brewer with a recipe that can vary to suit its markets

SAB Miller, the brewer listed in London since 1999, started South Africa's corporate move into emerging markets and has become something of a role model. Heavily dependent on its domestic market until 1990, the company now derives 80 per cent of its profits from Asia, Latin America, eastern Europe and the rest of Africa, an achievement that has made it the subject of close attention among South African businesspeople.

In part, SAB has been simply been faster than its competitors, buying into China - where it owns Snow, the best-selling local beer brand - as long ago as the mid-1990s. More recently, it expanded into eastern Europe, acquiring Pilsner Urquell of the Czech Republic under the noses of European competitors such as Heineken and Carlsberg. "This really was a coup," says Rob Forsyth at Investec Asset Management in Cape Town. The Colombia-based Bavaria has meanwhile given it significant exposure in Latin America.

All this means SAB Miller is well embedded in markets that have more growth potential than the US and Europe. Beer consumption in Africa is a fraction of that in other developing markets, with many still preferring the home brews offered in shacks and backroom bars.

There are other elements to the company's success. It has worked effectively with local partners, sometimes in situations where it does not own a majority stake. Mr Forsyth says that the group is in many ways a "beer consultancy", prepared to adapt its methods to local conditions. "One of their abilities is to work with people. They are open to different cultures and not too proscriptive."

SAB Miller has been innovative in its approach to operations. In African markets, for example, the group has built smaller breweries nearer to population centres. That helps cope with potholed roads and weak or non-existent rail links, reducing distribution costs. "Africa requires a different business model," says Mark Bowman, managing director of the group's business in the region. Breweries "have to be closer to the market".

* This article was originally published by JackW on February 1, 2010.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

India steps up scramble with China for African energy

Louise Redvers.

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/61982

India has stepped up its efforts to gain an economic foothold in Africa in a new scramble with China for the continent's resources, signing energy deals with top oil producers Angola and Nigeria.

India has lagged behind China's aggressive courting of African nations to secure rights to energy as well as raw materials.

Beijing is using its deep pockets to build roads, railways, even a new parliament building in Malawi, to win favour across Africa, deploying at least half a million Chinese workers to labour on projects around the continent.

India's democratic system and often lumbering bureaucracy have left it slower to make inroads and less likely to fund big projects, since government must account for all spending to parliament.

But this month India deployed two high-level missions to the continent, with Oil Minister Murli Deora last week leading a delegation of top energy executives through Sudan, Nigeria, Angola and Uganda.

India's state Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) left with deals for 359 million dollars worth of investments in Nigeria and an agreement for joint exploration and refining projects with Angola, seen as a precursor to a broader future deal.

Deora also tried to patch up a dispute over payments on oil deals in Sudan while discussing major new oil finds in Uganda.

Nigeria is already India's largest African trading partner, at about 10 billion dollars annually, and Deora said in Lagos that his country wants to see that figure grow.

India's flagship gas company GAIL has expressed an interest in liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects in Angola and Nigeria, Africa's two top oil producers.

India also offered to invest billions in building and refurbishing refineries in Angola and Nigeria, which cannot process enough crude to meet their fuel needs.

"India has been trying to get its foot into Angola for a long time so this is a significant development," said Edward George, Africa-China specialist the Economist Intelligence Unit in London. "The key will be the next licensing rounds to see if ONGC can win oil blocks," he said.

India had lost out on previous attempts to win contracts in Angola, much in part to Chinese competition, but GAIL chairman Shri BC Tripathi played down rivalry between the growing giants.

"We don't see China as a direct competitor but we know they are like us and have a growing economy so need to source oil," he said in Luanda.

India's ambassador to Angola, AR Ghanashyam, believes the latest deal is just the start of co-operation with India and pointed out that ONGC was already working with Sonangol in Iran. Trade between the two nations is expected to exceed two billion dollars this year, up from 1.3 billion dollars in 2007/8 and from 300 million dollars the year before, mostly in oil exports to India. Trade with China last year totalled more than 25 billion dollars, however, as Angola became the country's fifth-largest supplier of oil.

China has granted Angola an estimated 10 billion dollars in loans, compared to around 70 million dollars in Indian loans, mainly for rebuilding a railway in southern provinces. In practical terms as well, China has a larger physical presence in Angola, with more than 40,000 workers, compared to 1,500 Indians.

"We are a much smaller country that China," Ghanashyam said. "We have half their GDP and cover one third of the area but give us 20 years and we will catch them up."

Analysts said Africa could benefit from increased competition.

"It's very good for Africa to have another investor to compete with China because it will drive competition and hopefully bring benefits in terms of quality and delivery," George said.

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* This article was first published in Trade Africa on 31 January 31, 2010.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Emerging markets: The new drivers of global growth

Janine Mace

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/61983

Times are definitely changing. Although emerging markets enthusiasts are always telling anyone who will listen these countries are where the future is, this time it looks like they might be right.

While economic growth in developed markets is only now starting to slowly recover from the battering it took during the global financial crisis (GFC), emerging markets have been powering ahead.

This divergence in performance looks set to continue into 2010, with Morgan Stanley predicting a 1.9 per cent gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the advanced G10 economies but 6.0 per cent for emerging economies.

Some emerging markets will do even better. The Morgan Stanley forecast has 2010 Chinese GDP growth at 10 per cent, India at 8.0 per cent, Russia at 5.3 per cent and Brazil growing 4.8 per cent.

This "tale of two worlds", as Morgan Stanley calls it, reflects some major structural changes in the global economy and underpins the arguments in favour of emerging market investments.

Many investors have already been lured by the better economic performance and outlook for emerging market economies, with the MSCI Emerging Markets Index rallying 73 per cent last year and developing nations taking the honours for the 10 best performing markets.

So the question now is whether the time for emerging markets has come and whether their strong run can continue.

Where to now?

Emerging markets guru Mark Mobius, the executive chairman of Templeton Asset Management, is one of the leading bulls on their prospects.

In a television interview with CNBC in late December, he says emerging markets still have the potential to rise further. "I am looking forward to a very good 2010, with of course corrections along the way," Mobius says.

HSBC Australia head of global investments Charles Genocchio agrees the outlook is positive.

"Emerging markets have gone up spectacularly this year. 2010 will be a year of consolidation for the developed world and more growth in emerging markets," he says.

To correctly assess the prospects for emerging markets, Aberdeen Asset Management senior investment specialist Stuart James believes investors need to consider the background to their recent stellar performance.

"The rally in 2009 started in 2008 when emerging markets were oversold and some of the rally is due to them being oversold. When people are risk averse, they sell off investments and tend to repatriate profits, which is what they did in 2008," he says.

Genocchio agrees much of last year’s big rally could be explained by the dramatic sell-off during the GFC.

"Emerging markets have had a spectacular comeback, but it is important to remember they had a spectacular decline to start with, and this means they came off a lower base than developed markets," he says.

Despite this, James believes emerging markets have a good chance of doing well this year.

"Emerging markets have come out of the crisis fairly well. The outlook is fairly positive, although they look fair value now rather than very cheap as they did at the beginning of 2008," he says.

This tallies with the view of Mobius, who claims emerging markets are currently at the middle of their valuation range.

"At a low point in the last 10 years it was one times book [value]. At the high point, it was three times the book value, now it’s about two times. So we are more or less in the middle of the valuation range," he said.

Looking at the fundamentals

Schroders’ UK-based head of emerging market equities, Allan Conway, is another who believes the emerging market rally still has legs.

"Despite the strong performance of emerging markets this year, we believe the rally has further to go," he says.

Even under a variety of economic scenarios, the Schroders economics team is predicting a good performance. "Under all of our scenarios, double-dip, V-shaped recovery or slump, we forecast that emerging economies will outperform developed economies," Conway says.

To support their positive view on emerging markets, the experts point to their better fundamentals compared to developed markets.

"If you look at emerging markets, they have no structural banking issues and they have trade surpluses and not too aggressive fiscal policies," Genocchio says.

"This makes them more attractive than developed markets, especially the US and UK."

Conway agrees with this assessment: "Economic fundamentals are much more robust in the emerging world, the prospects for earnings growth are very strong and emerging markets are trading at a discount to developed markets. These advantages, coupled with favourable liquidity conditions, add up to a very positive outlook for these markets on a 12 to 18-month view."

These conditions are in stark contrast to those in developed markets.

"Most emerging markets have net positive balance sheets. The structural problems are in developed markets," James says.

Genocchio agrees it is developed markets rather than emerging markets that face difficulties.

"Asian markets went through their banking crisis in 1997-98 and this scared people, but they have really fixed up their banking systems and they are now very strong," he says.

Who’s driving global growth?

Increasingly, economists around the world are highlighting the ebbing dominance of traditional developed markets when it comes to global economic growth.

"Investors are increasingly recognising the structural change that has occurred in the global economy – it is the emerging and not the developed economies that are now driving global growth," Conway says.

"Over the last 10 years emerging economies have strengthened and have moved up to growing 3 per cent to 5 per cent faster than the developed economies every single year. As a result, emerging markets’ share of global GDP growth has been increasing over time."

While the GFC may have made this trend more pronounced, economic recovery is unlikely to see it unwind.

"Even with a recovery in the developed world, emerging markets will account for 70 per cent to 75 per cent of global growth every year for the foreseeable future. This is a major structural change, certainly as significant as the Industrial Revolution in the 19th Century, perhaps more so," Conway said.

"In the past, the global economy was driven by the developed economies and emerging markets relied on developed world demand for their exports – the reverse is now the case."

According to HSBC’s Hong Kong-based senior Asia economist, Frederic Neumann, Australia’s economy is a good example of how a developed economy is now relying on an emerging market for its export market. In October 2009, China took over the position as Australia’s largest export market, highlighting the changing global economic pattern.

"The continued demand for raw materials from emerging markets will help underpin Australia’s ongoing export boom, providing a critical boost to the overall economy," Neumann says.

Demographics and demand

Another factor assisting emerging markets to become the key drivers of global economic growth is their youthful populations.

"This is a really important issue for emerging markets," Genocchio says.

"Demographics in emerging markets are so much more advantageous than in the developed world. There they need to increase taxes to pay for pensions and this is a great problem for Europe."

James agrees investors need to consider this issue when assessing the future growth prospects for emerging market companies.

"Four billion people around the world live in emerging markets and they tend to be very young populations, so they are the workers and consumers of the future," he says.

These demographics are creating strong internal markets in emerging markets, which is allowing them to slowly move away from their traditional reliance on exports – and the economic cycle in developed countries.

"In India, only 23 per cent of GDP is export focused, so it is not so influenced by global growth," James says.

There is also growing intra-regional trade flows, according to Conway.

"Trade between emerging economies is also becoming increasingly important. China now accounts for a larger share of exports from emerging markets than the US. China also exports more to emerging countries than it does to the whole of the G7," he says.

Dangers from abroad

Despite this lessening reliance on developed markets, they remain the most likely source of future problems for emerging markets.

"The problems will come from the developed world, not internal emerging market problems," Genocchio says.

James agrees external shocks are more likely to cause problems for emerging markets than internal factors and he admits there could be nasty surprises ahead.

"The global economy is not completely out of the woods yet. Greece and Eastern Europe have the potential to create problems. In Eastern Europe there are high debt levels and I would not be surprised if problems emerge from there this year," he says.

The dependence of developed market recovery on government stimulus packages also has the potential to create problems.

"In developed markets, the removal of the government stimulus will be very delicate and if something goes wrong, we could see a replay of 2008, when emerging markets were sold off due to problems in developed markets," James says.

"In 2010, developed markets are likely to have a really difficult time turning things into sustainable economic growth. It will not take much to disappoint the markets, so it will be a delicate balance."

Conway believes this is a real possibility. "We would not be surprised to see a setback in emerging markets, with the trigger for this likely to be the factoring in of a double-dip scenario for the global economy," he says.

However, the setback is unlikely to be more than 10 per cent to 15 per cent and "short and sharp, as investors are likely to buy on the dips".

Even the strength of Chinese growth has the potential to create problems, according to James.

"China has bounced back, but when you have stimulated the economy so much and ordered banks to lend, you are going to have payback from that level of stimulus," he warned.

However, he believes any market dips could provide good entry points for investors who recognise emerging markets are at least a five to seven-year investment.

"2010 may offer some good buying opportunities if there are problems in the markets," James says.

"Emerging markets are a long-term story, although there will be speed humps along the way."

Asian markets calling

For investors looking to take the plunge, there are several areas of opportunity within the emerging markets universe, although the Asian markets seem to be the top pick.

"We don’t like Eastern Europe, but when you look at Latin America and Eastern Asia, they are the most positive countries you can find," Genocchio says.

"I am a big fan of emerging Asia. Some of the valuations are getting high, but they are still attractive. You can access them through an Asian fund or an emerging market fund where the potential impact of problems in areas like Eastern Europe will be small."

Aberdeen takes a bottom up approach to its emerging markets portfolio and picks good companies with strong balance sheets, according to James. "It is easy to be seduced by the macro hype, but investing needs to be about good companies. You really need to know the company and be company focused."

When it comes to specific sectors, James is keen on domestically-based emerging market companies rather than exporters.

"We are overweight banks. Banks in emerging markets kept their noses clean during the crisis. They tend to be in countries with very high savings rates and fast rising incomes and they have a simple structure of earning a margin on deposits so they are easy to understand. It is very different to Western investment banks," he says.

Aberdeen is also keen on companies providing consumer staples such as Hindustan Unilever (the Indian subsidiary of Unilever) and Massmart in South Africa (the African version of Wal-Mart). The firm also has investments in Hero Honda, a joint venture between Honda and a major Indian manufacturer which is building a new scooter every 18 seconds.

James believes the key to emerging markets investing is to focus on the future. "The long-term story is rosy but there will be problems along the way."

Warning: currency trouble ahead?

While the prospects for emerging markets are generally positive, one area investors need to watch is exchange rates.

The decline in the US dollar is putting pressure on the currencies of many emerging market countries and making their exports less competitive.

Tensions are growing over the issue, with China increasingly in the firing line over its continuing policy of pegging its currency to the weak US dollar.

China’s export competitors are becoming concerned, according to HSBC Australia’s Charles Genocchio.

"A weak US dollar leads to a weak renminbi and this leads to the problem of China being too competitive for other emerging markets – especially Asian markets," he says.

Countries without currencies pegged to the US dollar, such as Brazil and Taiwan, have already taken steps to limit the damage.

"Some emerging market countries not linked to the US dollar have put foreign exchange controls in place as they are sick of having their currencies caught by the impact of the decline in the US dollar. It is killing their manufacturing sector," Genocchio says.

With the European Union’s new trade chief, Karel De Gucht, calling China’s policy of keeping its currency at a low level against the US dollar and the euro "a major problem", the question of exchange rates looks set to become a hotspot.


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* This article was first published in Money Management on February 1, 2010.

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Pambazuka News 132 : De l'assassinat d'Habyarimana au génocide rwandais

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/summaryfr/61977

AU again urges lifting of sanctions

2010-02-05

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=6394&cat=1

The African Union has weighed in again on the vexed question of Western targeted sanctions on Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and other officials of his former Zanu PF administration, Harare sources said.

Farmers warn of huge grain deficit

2010-02-05

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=6383&cat=2

Zimbabwe may have to import over half the maize it needs this year to cover a deficit after drought has destroyed crops and left the country facing a severe food shortage, a farmers' group has said. The former regional bread basket has relied on food aid and imports since 2001, after President Robert Mugabe's government seized commercial farms from whites to resettle landless blacks, most of whom were poorly equipped and underfunded.

Fresh power struggle rocks power Zimbabwe coalition

2010-02-05

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=6395&cat=2

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister (PM) Morgan Tsvangirai are locked in a fresh power struggle after the former instructed government ministers to report to his two vice-presidents by-passing the Premier – a clear breach of the former foes' power-sharing agreement.

Mugabe factor hits Zimbabwe hopes of ending sanctions

2010-02-04

http://tinyurl.com/ycybsmu

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is pressing the world to end sanctions on his country as it climbs out of a political and economic abyss but wherever he goes the shadow of Robert Mugabe follows.

Student beaten after arrest of 11 on UZ campus

2010-02-05

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news040210/student040210.htm

The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) is demanding the arrest of a security guard from the University of Zimbabwe, after a student leader was ‘severely’ beaten in a crackdown by police and security guards on a public students meeting.

Africa: Eritrea allowed to appoint AU envoy after bitter protest

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/yfbghgt

The African Union Commission Chief Jean Ping, has informed Eritrea to send an ambassador to represent it in Addis Ababa, the seat of the African Union (AU), despite Eritrea's frosty relations with hosts, Ethiopia.

Malawi to assume AU presidency

2010-02-05

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/01/2010131134548948692.html

The president of Malawi has been chosen to assume the rotating presidency of the African Union, Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader and the body's outgoing chairman, has said.

Burkina Faso: Dying from discrimination

2010-02-05

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87930

Too many obstacles still stand between women and safe childbirth in Burkina Faso, with discrimination against women at the heart of the problem, Amnesty International says. Females' low social status fuels maternal deaths, with early marriage and women's lack of control over family planning major contributors, Amnesty says in a report released on 27 January.

Burundi: Female ex-combatants picking up the pieces

2010-02-05

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88006

By age 15, Annonciata Nduwimana was an accomplished fighter for Burundi's opposition Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) and knew how to kill in battle. "My father was killed, accused of sheltering rebels. We [her mother and two elder brothers] then fled to Bujumbura to seek safe haven," she said.

Global: EU faults U.N. for slowdown in gender empowerment

2010-02-05

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50226

Against the backdrop of continued widespread gender discrimination worldwide, the European Union (EU) has urged Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to "urgently" speed up the creation of the proposed new U.N. agency for women.

Globl: Women | Tools | Technology: Building opportunities & economic power

2010-02-05

http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/view/478/1/

Join Ashoka's Changemakers, ExxonMobil, and The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) in this global Women | Tools | Technology: Building Opportunities & Economic Power challenge! Share your innovations which enable women to access and use the power of tools and technology to expand their opportunities for economic advancement. For more information, visit also ICRW's Bridging the Gender Divide in Technology.

Kenya: Victory for anti-abortion lobby

2010-02-05

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=50197

The threat by influential Christian leaders to mobilise a vote against Kenya's draft constitution if it does not explicitly prevent any expansion of abortion rights appears to have succeeded.

Mauritania: Fatwa alone will not stop FGM/C

2010-02-04

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87928

A recent fatwa banning female genital mutilation/cutting in Mauritania will help reduce the practice only if religious leaders take the message to the people, scholars and anti-FGM/C activists say.

Mauritius: Women demand greater political voice

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/yaptmxz

Women human rights activists in Mauritius, under the umbrella Women in Politics (WIP), have asked political parties to field women as one-third of their candidates in the next general elections. They said one woman should be among the three candidates that each party shall field in each of the 20 constituencies of the island.

Africa: Leaders call for end to political detentions

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/yeajcb6

African leaders have called for an end to detention of political opponents and reiterated the need to end an African era dominated by the grabbing of political power. African Union (AU) Chairman, President Bingu wa Mutharika of Malawi, said key among the decisions reached during the Addis Ababa Summit which ended Tuesday was to call for an end to the political crises in Guinea, Madagascar and an end to illegal takeover of power in Africa.

Morocco: Human Rights Watch report draws fire

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/yj4nzhn

Morocco has strongly criticised a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, and the response to the document in Moroccan civil society has been divided. Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia were among 15 North African and Middle Eastern countries, and over 90 countries worldwide, discussed in the 612-page World Report 2010, HRW's 20th annual review of human rights around the globe.

Sourth Africa: A crisis of dignity - 5 humiliating years later

2010-02-05

http://www.abahlali.org/node/6246

The humiliating ritual has become a way of life for the 19-year-old, who lives in a shack with her parents in a section of the sprawling township of Khayelitsha in Cape Town. There are no toilets for the hundreds of families crammed into the shantytown known as QQ section.

Sudan: Bashir may face genocide charges

2010-02-05

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50208

The International Criminal Court is to review its earlier decision not to add genocide to the charges against Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir. "It was a legal error to reject the genocide charges against President al-Bashir," said prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo in a press statement.

Zimbabwe: Blood diamond

2010-02-05

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/02/04/blood-diamond

When people buy diamond jewellery, they often want to convey love or commitment to someone dear and special. But, this jewellery, if it contains diamonds from the Marange diamond fields in eastern Zimbabwe, could have a bloody past signifying mistreatment and abuse.

DRC: Of fish wars and displacement

2010-02-05

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87961

Rival ethnic communities in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo have clashed many times over the years, but most recently over fish, observers say. More than 200 people have died and another 150,000 have fled to the neighbouring Republic of Congo (ROC) since October 2009, when fighting erupted between the Lobala and Boba clans in Dongo, Equateur Province.

Egypt: Police kill two black migrants

2010-02-05

http://www.africanews.com/site/Egypt_Police_kill_two_black_migrants/list_messages/29874

Egyptian border police shot dead two African migrants who tried to escape into Israel through the Sinai border, bringing the number of migrants killed this week to four. Police sources say they refused orders to stop. They were a 26-year-old Eritrean and a 27-year-old migrant of unknown nationality.

Global: Italian village welcomes refugees with open arms

2010-02-05

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,675772,00.html

An Italian village is hoping to reverse its population decline by welcoming refugees from around the world. The immigrants get free room and board and are expected to work and learn Italian in return. The project is proving highly successful - but the local Mafia aren't happy.

Somalia: Violence uproots 80,000 in January alone

2010-02-05

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33646

The United Nations refugee agency has reported that a sharp rise in violence in Somalia in January left nearly 260 civilians dead, in addition to uprooting over 80,000 and causing widespread destruction. According to local sources, intense clashes between Government forces and militia groups fighting in the strife-torn central regions have also left 253 civilians wounded.

Sudan: Darfur rebel infighting drives 10,000 from their homes

2010-02-05

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE61408B20100205

Infighting in one of Darfur's rebel groups has driven at least 10,000 people from their homes in the restive Jabel Marra area, deepening the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's west, officials said. Darfur's rebels have fractured into dozens of groups since their rebellion began in early 2003, hindering peace efforts and increasing insecurity in Sudan's west, where the United Nations estimates a humanitarian crisis has claimed 300,000 lives.

Interface – A journal for and about social movements

Call for papers – Issue 4:

2010-02-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/socialmovements/62018

Interface is a new journal produced twice yearly by activists and academics around the world in response to the development and increased visibility of social movements in the last few years – and the immense amount of knowledge generated in this process.
Voices of Dissent. Activists Engagements in the Creation of Alternative, Autonomous, Radical and Independent Media.

Interface is a new journal produced twice yearly by activists and academics around the world in response to the development and increased visibility of social movements in the last few years – and the immense amount of knowledge generated in this process. This knowledge is created across the globe, and in many contexts and a variety of ways, and it constitutes an incredibly valuable resource for the further development of social movements. Interface responds to this need, as a tool to help our movements learn from each other’s struggles, by developing analyses and knowledge that allow lessons to be learned from specific movement processes and experiences and translated into a form useful for other movements.

We welcome contributions by movement participants and academics who are developing movement-relevant theory and research. Our goal is to include material that can be used in a range of ways by movements – in terms of its content, its language, its purpose and its form. We are seeking work in a range of different formats, such as conventional articles, review essays, facilitated discussions and interviews, action notes, teaching notes, key documents and analysis, book reviews – and beyond. Both activist and academic peers review research contributions, and other material is sympathetically edited by peers. The editorial process generally will be geared towards assisting authors to find ways of expressing their understanding, so that we all can be heard across

geographical, social and political distances.

Our fourth issue, to be published in November 2010, will have space for general articles on all aspects of understanding social movements, as well as a special themed section on Voices of Dissent. Activists Engagements in the Creation of Alternative, Autonomous, Radical and Independent Media.

In the last decades, there has been a considerable amount of both activist and academic publications on alternative, radical, autonomous, and independent media. Keeping in mind the broad range of alternative, radical, autonomous and independent sites of media production and consumption, this issue of Interface intends to engage critical knowledge about media practices developed in social movement contexts all around the world. The primary goal of our journal is to contribute to the development of knowledge "from and for" social movements and encourage dialogue between movement participants and outside researchers. Thus we ask for contributions which are able to cross the separation between the movement and academic milieu when addressing the topic of alternative media in contemporary societies, underlining both theoretical and practical challenges that developing alternative media pose nowadays. In particular, we encourage contributions that explore some crucial questions which can further develop activist and academic literature about alternative, independent, radical and autonomous media.

A crucial topic is related, for instance, to the symbolic and material places and sites of the media environment where alternative media develop today: for instance, what is the nature of the interactions between a profit-oriented online platform such as Facebook and the alternative media messages which are sometime spread though it? This and other similar questions in the field remain unanswered. The proliferation of cheap and easy-to-use technological devices make it easy for everyone taking part in a demonstration to record and then spread the demonstration itself. It would be interesting to explore how these increasingly common practices impact the idea and the role of ‘media-activism’. With the flourishing and spread of information and communication technologies in particular many activist media practitioners and progressive academics have focused on the use of such new technologies in social movements. Alternative, radical, autonomous and independent media messages, however, are still produced and diffused using a variety of different technologies - from the press to the internet to rudimentary broadcast stations. There are community radios and radical magazines, street televisions and alternative stickers. They often intertwine and produce hybrid spaces of communication which are worth continuing to explore worldwide. In short, some of the questions we would like to address are:

* What are the places and sites in the media environment where alternative media develop today?
* Does it still make sense to speak about ‘media activists’ in a technology-saturated environment? Who are today’s media activists and, more broadly speaking, who are the alternative media practitioners and how are they connected to different social movements?
* How are traditional media (radio, magazines, television, print) used as alternative means of communication nowadays? Are there instances of media convergence in this respect? What effects does this have on the communication practices of existing social movements?
* What are the challenges, problems and issues that alternative media have raised and still raise within the social movement milieu?
* Do alternative media present a gender-neutral context? Or, are alternative media practices embedded in the same patriarchal discourse that envelops mainstream media?
* Do technical criteria and the logics of media production necessarily win out in the long run over questions of alternative production processes and attempts to treat media as the voice of people in struggle?

We particularly encourage the submission of articles originated from practical-critical activity and engagement with movement media. We welcome especially "action notes", "teaching notes", activist interviews and good practice pieces which can help media activists learn from each other's struggles. This list of questions is not exhaustive, but it is merely meant as a set of potential topics. Other perspectives on alternative media are welcome and encouraged.

For more details on Interface, please see our website at www.interfacejournal.net, particularly the "Guidelines for contributors". The deadline for initial submissions to this issue (vol. 2 no. 2, to be published Nov 1st 2010) is May 1st 2010."

Egypt: Minimum wage not enough

2010-02-05

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=50218

A stalemate between labour unions and business associations is preventing Egyptian authorities from setting a minimum wage that could improve the lot of millions of citizens living in poverty.

Ethiopia: AU staff want new chairperson to address workers' welfare

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/yfdawcm

Employees of the African Union (AU) have demanded that the new AU Chairperson should address outstanding demands for benefit and security. The staff urged the new AU Chair, Malawian President Bingu Wa Mutharika, who would be presiding over the 53-member continental organization for the next 12 months, to make sure that they would be beneficiaries of attractive benefit packages.

Africa: Africa continues to draw inspiration

2010-02-04

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50141

Global apartheid refers to the divergence in the economic and social development of a white North, industrialised world and a brown South in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The author concludes that the same kind of worldwide solidarity that helped bring down apartheid is necessary to free the global South from economic domination.

Africa: A search for allies in a hostile world

Iran and Israel in Africa

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/ykmw2p3

Arriving at the airport in Senegal’s capital, Dakar, you have a fair chance that the newish-looking taxi taking you into town will not be the usual French or Japanese model, but Iranian. And it will not have been imported, as most cars in Africa are, but assembled in nearby Thiès.

Africa: South Africa and the New World Order

2010-02-04

http://sacsis.org.za/site/News/detail.asp?iChannel=1&nChannel=News&iCat=250&iData=421

South Africans are inclined to moan about so much…the fact that things don’t seem to function, the corruption, the crude avarice of the new elite, the poor performance of Bafana Bafana, the crime. Add to this Julius Malema, Jacob Zuma's polygamy and the scandal of the mismanagement of our parastatals and you have a picture that evokes images of imminent collapse for the chattering classes.

Emerging powers news roundup

Compiled by Anna Lena Wachter

2010-02-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/62070

Emerging Actors

China & Africa

'What is bad about it'? Top African Banker Defends Investment from China More

'Africa is proud of relations with China' More

China works hard to implement eight new measures on China-Africa cooperation More

China get a 'Mozam-peek' at Africa- Chinese citizens can now look forward to enjoying a developed tourism industry in Mozambique More

China is building the edifice that will house the continent's political headquarters for decades to come. More

China willing to further strengthen cooperation with Africa in meeting challenges posed by climate change More

Egypt welcomes Chinese investment in ICTs sector More

Ivorian rubber to boom on Chinese demand More

China-Africa policy coordinator doubts the legitimacy of widely-held claims that Chinese investments in Africa are a ploy for the Asian nation to take away Africa's natural resources. More

'MagIndustries' inks accord with China National for Congo potash project More

Zambian opposition heavily criticises Chinese and other Asian mining firms in the country More

'Cosatu' heavily criticises China for importing labour More

AfDB High-Level Delegation Led by President Kaberuka in China More

World Bank May ‘Co-Invest’ With China in Africa More. Additional source

Chinese exchange policy effects emerging market countries the hardest More

China to partner with Uganda in development programmes More

China favours Australian and Canadian mining sectors over Africa More

Ethiopia and China pledged to promote friendly ties between the two countries More

'Africa, China Need Each Other', says Gabonese President More

China to help fight Somali piracy More

China values ICTs cooperation with Africa More

UIT chief hails China's dynamism in ICT development More

China-Africa Economic and Technology Cooperation Committee of CESC founded in Beijing More

World Cup company vows China 'sweatshop' probe More

Rwandan Ecobank signs agreement with Bank of China More

Chamber urges Nigerian businessmen to document trade with China More

India & Africa

Vying for Africa: India needs to tap its diaspora to match China More

Oil India may buy fields in Africa, Latin America, Australia More

India steps up scramble with China for African energy More

Ethiopia seeks India's help in rail link with Djibouti More

India asks G-77 to stay united over climate change talks More

Shoprite selling India hypermarket to Future-paper More

Indian firms warned over Tendaho Sugar inaction More

Bilateral Relations

Senior CPC official pledges to improve relations with Lesotho, said Wang Gang, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, when meeting with Mothetjoa Metsing, general secretary of the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) and Minister of Communications, Science and Technology More

Gabonese President Terms Relations with Iran Important More

Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Ebrahim Ebrahim, met with Yemeni Ambassador Ali Al-Ghaffari in Pretoria on Tuesday to discuss the political conditions in that country. More

Investment

SABMiller is creating a new market for cassava crops with a cassava beer brewery in Angola that could change the lives of hundreds of subsistence farmers More

Tanzania: Buyout of 25-Year Rites Lease - IFC must give the green light More

Resources boosts Nigeria's software base, signing MoU with 'Prodapt India' More

Japan Joins Fight Against Measles in Zimbabwe More

Direct flights from Turkey to Dar es Salaam to boost tourism More

Influx of IDPs And Refugees in Yemen Strains Local Economies More

MIDROC adds plastic bag businesses in Ethiopia More

Abu Dhabi fund to woo Asian Investors to Middle East, Africa More

Weak infrastructure plans limit Africa financing More

Investors spurn Africa and Middle East despite growth url=http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE60R1E520100128/] More[/url]


Proposed Guarantee for Africa Juice Tibila Share Company Project in Ethiopia More

Zimbabwe stocks may advance 31% in 2010, RenCap Says- spurred by bilateral investment promotion and protection agreement between Zimbabwe and South Africa More

IOCs Sell Oil Fields to Nigerian-led Consortium [url=http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=165369
Latest Investment Opportunities in Africa
]http://www.chairmanking.com/latest-investment-opportunities-in-africa-21-20100121/] More[/url]


'Rio Tinto' criticises South Africa for Coega power pull-out More

Uganda and Iran discuss investment opportunities More

A Cairo-based private equity firm, Citadel Capital, has announced plans to invest between 200 and 400 million US Dollars in East Africa More

Asian imports of West African crude dips in February More


General

Making up for lost time- South African companies aim to become the continent's corporate captain More

Brussels-based organisation to organise 1st Africa-India agricultural Economic Mission More

Saudi to host Gulf-Africa Investment Forum in April More

Secret airstrip built at Zimbabwe diamond field More

The arrival of new actors in the donor community is presenting new challenges to development co-operation and developing countries More

Nigeria- Africa's most optimistic market More

World economic giants wrestle to gain a tight grasp on Africa’s resources bounty with oil licensing deals very fiercely contested More

StanChart to allow Chinese nationals withdraw cash More

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Anna Lena Wachter is an intern with the China/Emerging Powers in Africa Programme, based with Fahamu in South Africa.

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

Angola: President dos Santos reshuffles cabinet

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/ykkqz3h

Angolan head of state, José Eduardo dos Santos, formed a new government marked by the creation of the post of Vice-president of the Republic which will be occupied by the incumbent speaker of the National Assembly, Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos "Nando", according to official sources.

Kenya: PSC draft constitution 'lacks adequate checks and balances on the executive'

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/yjpg7y4

The spirit in which Parliamentary Service Commissions in democratic countries exist is that of providing parliamentarians with the requisite support and resources to undertake their duty to citizens. The history of the Parliamentary Service Commission in Kenya is replete with impropriety in resource utilisation, reports Transparency International.

Nigeria: Political impasse may end soon

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/y9h4mh3

Nigeria's long-drawn political impasse, caused by the failure of President Umaru Yar'Adua to transfer power to his deputy while on a prolonged medical treatment in Saudi Ara bia, may soon be over, if assurances given Thursday by one of his aides are anything to go by.

Nigeria: State poll tests depth of electoral reform

2010-02-05

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE61408X20100205

One of Nigeria's most politically turbulent states goes to the polls on Saturday to elect a new governor in a vote seen as a test of the country's ability to hold credible national elections in 2011. vThe governorship vote in southeastern Anambra state is the first in a cycle of state and federal polls culminating in presidential elections next year.

Sudan: Threat of new strife stalks poll

2010-02-05

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cadd9be4-0f5f-11df-a450-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1

A surprise intervention at the weekend by Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations secretary-general, has drawn warnings from senior officials in south Sudan that any outside efforts to influence a referendum next year could lead to further conflict. Mr Ban told an African Union summit at the weekend that he would “work hard” to avoid the secession of south Sudan following the referendum.

Global: Preventing corruption in humanitarian operations

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/y8awyg5

Preventing Corruption in Humanitarian Operations: A Handbook of Good Practices is a timely, practical guide to help aid organisations deal with corruption in day-to-day operations. When people donate money to aid agencies they expect it to reach people in need.

US: Adopt anti-corruption proposals

2010-02-05

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/02/04/us-adopt-corruption-proposals

The Obama administration should adopt recommendations in a report issued to help stop the flow of stolen money into the United States, Human Rights Watch said.

Global: Capital flows to developing countries declining

2010-02-05

http://www.afrol.com/articles/35251

Net capital flows to developing countries fell to $780 billion in 2008, reversing an upward trend that began in 2003 and peaked at $1,222 billion in 2007, according to a new report from the World Bank. The report states that particularly hard hit were private capital flows, which fell by almost 40 percent, adding that all developing regions were affected, with emerging market economies in Europe and Central Asia experiencing the sharpest downturn.

Global: Global employment trends January 2010

2010-02-05

http://www.eldis.org/go/country-profiles&id=50323&type=Document

Even though the global economy appeared to start growing again during the closing months of 2009, labour markets showed little sign of improving. The number of unemployed persons is estimated at 212 million in 2009, representing an increase of almost 34 million over the number of unemployed in 2007, with the bulk of this increase occurred in 2009. This issue of Global Employment Trends analyses the impact of the global economic crisis on labour markets worldwide.

Kenya: Bumper maize harvest in coast and southeast

2010-02-05

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87986

Kenya's coastal and southeastern regions will harvest a bumper maize crop from mid-February following El Nino-enhanced rains that fell in December, according to experts. "The most likely situation between January and March points to significant improvements in food security, especially in the southeastern marginal agricultural livelihood areas," the Kenya Food Security Steering Group (KFSSG) said in a report.

West Africa: Mali approved for more IMF disbursements

2010-02-05

http://www.afrol.com/articles/35247

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has completed the second review of Mali’s economic performance under a programme supported by the Extended Credit Facility (ECF). The decision also allows the government to request a further disbursement amounting to about US$3.1 million, which would bring total disbursements to Mali to SDR 21.99 million (about US$34.1 million).

Africa: Gates gives massive boost to tobacco control

2010-02-05

http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032637

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given a grant of $7 million over five years to the American Cancer Society to lead and coordinate the African Tobacco Control Consortium, a global coalition of public health-oriented organizations focusing on using evidence-based approaches to stem the tobacco epidemic in Africa.

Africa: Leaders join forces to help achieve UN goal for malaria prevention

2010-02-05

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33642

Dozens of African leaders met in Ethiopia to tackle the challenges facing the continent in the effort to meet the United Nations target of ensuring universal access to malaria control measures by the end of this year. Some 26 heads of State convened the first working session of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (ALMA) during the annual African Union (AU) summit, which got under way in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.

Africa: Making the case against counterfeit drugs

2010-02-05

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88003

The fight against fake medicines requires a united public-private front to overcome people's resistance to health warnings and to dismantle increasingly sophisticated trafficking networks, medical professionals said at a meeting in the Togolese capital Lomé.

Global: Breakthrough could create better ARVs

2010-02-05

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87951

Scientists have finally discovered the structure of a key enzyme found in HIV and similar viruses, a breakthrough that has crucial implications for HIV treatment.

Global: Poor nations face cancer burden

2010-02-05

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/02/20102495010829528.html

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that around one-third of cancer deaths are preventable, through education programmes, better detection and treatment. As a result, the disease hits hardest in developing countries, where such programmes are rudimentary, if they exist at all.

Global: World Cancer Day: 40% cancer cases preventable, says WHO

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/yadcpdv

Cancer control programmes - Up to 40 per cent of all cancers could be prevented through changes in lifestyle and improved prevention and screening policies, the WHO Regional Office for Europe said ahead of the World Cancer Day on 4 February.

South Africa: World’s most famous polygamist snubs safe sex

Oliver Meth

2010-02-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/62016

Twenty kids, five weddings (and more to come?) and a whole lot of polygamous loving going on, marital and extra-marital. Some say it is a private matter, but like it or not, just as with any celebrity, Zuma’s sexual behaviour is not private.
wenty kids, five weddings (and more to come?) and a whole lot of polygamous loving going on, marital and extra-marital. Some say it is a private matter, but like it or not, just as with any celebrity, Zuma’s sexual behaviour is not private.

This is even truer with a political figure. The people of a country elect a representative with the hopes he or she will lead them in the direction they want their country to go. Zuma’s sexual life speaks volumes about his commitment to achieving an HIV-free, single-partner, sexual culture. As far as I can see, he is not committed at all.

President Jacob Zuma has multiple wives, and many say that is his culture, but he also has multiple partners. The latest baby’s mother, Sonona Khoza, is daughter of powerful soccer businessman, Irvin Khoza, and is not married to him.

In 2005, Zuma admittedly knowingly had sex with an HIV-positive woman (she opened a case of rape) spawning not children, but the infamous shower above his head in Zapiro cartoons. He’s 67, not exactly in his sexual prime, but like the energizer bunny, this man ain’t stopping.

Zuma had been criticised for his polygamy just last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, prompting him to hit back at accusations that the practice was insulting to women. He said, "People interpret cultures in different ways, some think that their culture is superior to others, that's a problem we have in the world."

He went on, "we follow a policy that says you must respect the cultures of others. That's my culture. It does not take anything from me, from my political beliefs and everything, including the belief on the equality of women."



However, his latest child brought even more attention to his sex life, some even comparing him to Tiger Woods, and suggesting treatment for sex addiction. Helen Zille, Premier of the Western Cape and opposition leader of the Democratic Alliance, said that Zuma's behavior directly contradicts the government's campaign against multiple sexual partners and the inherent AIDS risk in having unprotected sex.

Zille added in a widely reported e-mail statement that "there are some people who may argue that Jacob Zuma's sex life is a matter of private morality or culture, but this is not so. His personal behavior has profound public consequences."

He is obviously not keen on using condoms, despite the fact that condom use is South Africa’s primary strategy to stop the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The fact that he is often in pursuit of women young enough to be his daughters could be associated with the broader South African problem of “sugar daddies.” One of the major contributors to the spread of HIV among young women is a culture that encourages them to have sex with much older men, in pursuit of the benefits of financial security that come with it.

Unfortunately, the older the man, the more likely he is to have had multiple sexual partners, and the more likely he is (especially if he doesn’t use condoms) to have contracted an STI or many STIs. (In his 2006 trial, Zuma testified that he tested HIV-negative.)

In addition, there is a huge power imbalance between old men and younger women, and that power imbalance is further strengthened when the old man is the president. There is nearly a 30-year age gap between him and the mother of his 20th child. His behaviour represents the acceptance of a dangerous sexual culture.

He has multiple concurrent partners, which is, again, a major contributor to the spread of HIV. Any person with limited mathematical ability will tell you that the more people you have unprotected sex with, the more likely you are to contract something or share what you have with many other people. And unlike chocolates, these are things that you should not be sharing.

In the past, critics suggested Zuma was portraying the wrong image through multiple marriages. Local AIDS activists have said that having several partners sent a poor message in a country with the world’s highest HIV caseload. Some South Africans argued that polygamy did not fit well with a modern society. Some questioned how he could keep such a large household on a state salary. What state support do the wives and children receive, in any case?

While the immediate spread of HIV relates to behaviors such as unprotected sexual intercourse, multiple sexual partners and some biological factors such as STIs, the fundamental drivers of this epidemic in South Africa are the more deep-rooted institutional problems of poverty, underdevelopment and the low status of women, including gender-based violence, and cultural practices such as polygamy. Poverty has worsened since Zuma inherited an economic recession; no improvement can be discerned in the other factors thanks to Zuma’s policies.

However, until now, Zuma’s respect for tradition has endeared him to many rural South Africans. Even in the flourishing suburbs, the middle classes have increasingly taken to a president who has so far maintained stable policies and the number of his marriages – a right enshrined in South Africa’s constitution - does not bother them.

Will that change, now? Will ordinary people shake their head at Zuma’s hypocrisy, given that the state tells us to practice safe sex and maintain loyal, stable relationships?

Zuma, whom I label as the world’s most famous polygamist, has said in previous media reports, that instead of hiding his mistresses and illegitimate children like politicians who pretend to be monogamous, he has honoured the women in his life by marrying them. But the ANC’s response to criticism about Zuma was to hide away the hypocrisy factor as well as ignore the danger Zuma presents to HIV-AIDS education.

Now I understand what Zuma meant when he said "2010, pregnant with possibilities.” It is time for Zuma to answer for his actions without his trademark laugh. It is time to be serious about his responsibility as a leader and a role model. If he doesn’t, I’m scared for the type of future South Africa will have.

* Oliver Meth is based at the University of KwaZulu Natal Centre for Civil Society. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service

Sudan: Positive networks fight HIV in the south

2010-02-05

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88000

Networks of people living with HIV in southern Sudan are trying to overcome deficiencies in the limping health system and broken infrastructure by spreading information about the pandemic and reducing stigma and denial.

Tanzania: TB vaccine for HIV shows promise

2010-02-05

http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032633

Researchers have reported results of a clinical trial showing that a new vaccine - Mycobacterium vaccae (MV) - is effective in preventing tuberculosis in people with HIV infection. The DarDar Health Study, named for Dartmouth and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, found that MV immunization reduced the rate of definite tuberculosis by 39 percent among 2,000 HIV-infected patients in Tanzania.

Uganda: Early diagnosis still elusive

2010-02-05

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=50224

HIV-positive Justine Kirumira* is a mother torn between doing what is right for her daughters and her own fear of HIV/AIDS. She suspects that her eight and 12-year-old daughters may also have the virus. But she may never know the truth of their status because she refuses have them tested.

Kenya: Living in the shadows

2010-02-05

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=kenya&id=2474

A documentary reflecting the issues of ‘Being gay in Kenya’ is in the pipeline and with it, producers say they want to break the myth that gays and lesbians do not exist in the country, as believed by some members of society. Comprising of first hand experiences of gay Kenyans, the documentary reveals issues of homophobia, stereotyping and stigma in a society in which the majority feel that homosexuality is unAfrican and unbiblical.

Malawi: Constitutional court to decide fate of detained gay couple

2010-02-05

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=allafrica&id=2476

All eyes are on the February 5 court appearance of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, where the Malawian constitutional court is expected to consider the legality of the country’s anti-gay laws and the validity of their prosecution. Meanwhile gay rights groups are appealing against the human rights violations and laws criminalising homosexuality, to be repealed in Malawi and Uganda.

South Africa: Government delivers an ominous message by sending Qwelane to Uganda

Raymond Suttner

2010-02-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/lgbti/62023

At the moment Jon Qwelane is in the middle of controversy for being appointed Ambassador to Uganda. Before focusing on the present, let us rewind to the 1980s when Qwelane was a reporter for the Star. At that time a fake priest, Ebenezer Maqina, purporting to represent the Azanian People's Organisation (Azapo), who later disowned him, repeatedly claimed attacks by United Democratic Front (UDF) supporters. He was awarded honours by cities and similar recognition.
At the moment Jon Qwelane is in the middle of controversy for being appointed Ambassador to Uganda.

Before focusing on the present, let us rewind to the 1980s when Qwelane was a reporter for the Star. At that time a fake priest, Ebenezer Maqina, purporting to represent the Azanian People's Organisation (Azapo), who later disowned him, repeatedly claimed attacks by United Democratic Front (UDF) supporters. He was awarded honours by cities and similar recognition.

He was exposed in the 1980s and later it was found by the TRC that Maqina had been a SADF agent and had incited the abduction of then trade unionist, Dennis Neer and journalist Mona Badela. He had also instigated killings.

In the meantime, Maqina's false claims had been popularised and never scrutinised by one Qwelane.

He has never returned to the subject, where he misled the public and spread lies on the word of Maqina. I do not claim that there were no misdeeds by UDF. I merely point to an element of Qwelane's past that has receded into the memory of a few who were politically active then.

The response of ANC spokesman, Jackson Mthembu, to objections to a self-confessed homophobe being sent to a country which has strong backing for legislation to hang gays/lesbians, is "bring the proof". Now Mthembu seems to confuse his role. He forgets that he is not a government spokesman and it is Foreign Affairs or the Presidency which ought to answer.

But the question shows his ignorance of what homophobia is. It's all over the media that Qwelane compared the constitutional right to same-sex marriages and freedom of choice in sexual orientation to bestiality. Is this not homophobia? Or does the ANC spokesman not read the press? Or does he not see anything offensive in Qwelane's writings?

My guess is that the answer lies in a deeper problem, the high tolerance and level of violent masculinities, what one scholar describes as an "epidemic of domestic violence", the murders, especially of African lesbians. This is linked to hate speech of the Qwelane type.

We know that President Jacob Zuma's heart lies in homophobic thinking. While he apologised for reminiscing on his youthful gay bashing, he now has alliances with a range of forces that want to reverse laws that prevent patriarchal violence, entrench gender equality and secure the rights of those who do not choose the norms of heterosexuality.

Most ominous of these is with the National Interfaith Leadership Council (displacing anti-apartheid ally, the South African Council of Churches), a range of charismatic churches led by Rhema's Ray McCauley. Their mission statement says nothing about the Lord but a lot about helping with delivery, ie tenders. Whatever other reasons for this link, they and the unelected chiefs (a term that is open to contestation), make no secret of their desire to push back laws on homosexuality, freedom of choice over abortion and a range of others.

Sending Qwelane, who is not a fit and proper journalist or fit for many other tasks, as an ambassador to a country which is currently wrestling over potential legislation providing for the death penalty for homosexual activities, is a message.

It signifies that our answer to the internal policies of Uganda is not merely to "respect their sovereignty" by not interfering.

We send a person who is a kindred spirit to those who are wishing to impose the supreme penalty for what has long been practised in Africa. Marc Epprecht, in Heterosexual Africa? writes that "while heterosexual marriage with a gendered hierarchy of power are widely held up as ideals...throughout Africa south of the Sahara, same-sex sexuality is also... substantively documented in scores of scholarly books, articles, and dissertations in a range of academic disciplines, in unpublished archival document like court records and commissions of enquiry, in art, literature and film, and in oral history from all over the continent..."

Its being "unnatural" is to assume that the patriarchally based norm of heterosexuality continues as a way of policing both heterosexual and homosexual behaviour, for it is not only against gays/lesbians, but "saving" all from temptation to do what is "abnormal".

Intolerance of the Other is not a characteristic of any group of people and can in fact be found in all situations of dominance and hostility to democratic institutions. Nazi propagandists applauded when homosexuals together with Jews and Romanies (gypsies) were sent to their death.

In appointing Qwelane the Zuma government is showing its unstated objectives, the danger it represents not only to homosexuals but for all who sought and wish to establish a democratic, emancipatory constitution.

* Suttner is a former leader in the UDF, ANC and SACP, currently politically inactive. He is a Research Professor at Unisa.
* This article was frist published by the Cape Times on February 4,2010.

Uganda: Gay bill 'will be changed'

2010-02-05

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8499798.stm

Uganda's controversial Anti-Homosexuality Bill is likely to be changed, according to Deputy Foreign Minister Henry Okello Oryem. However, he did not give details of how he thought the final bill would be different to the current proposals.

Zimbabwe: UNDP study targets sexual minorities

2010-02-05

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=zimbabwe&id=2477

Rights of Zimbabwean sexual minorities to HIV treatment and prevention could see light as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is currently coordinating a study that will characterise sexual minorities, their association to HIV and identify opportunities for intervention.

Africa: Biodiversity loss matters, and communication is crucial

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/yzqwzqg

Communicating why biodiversity loss matters for people is essential for reversing it. The failed UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December could hardly have been a less promising prelude to the International Year of Biodiversity, which opened last month (January).

East Africa: Defending Lake Turkana

2010-02-05

http://www.internationalrivers.org/node/5024

The Gibe 3 Dam, now under construction on the Omo River in Ethiopia, is already fanning tensions over natural resources, all the way downstream to Kenya. By dramatically changing water flows in the river, the dam will wreak ecological and social havoc for half a million people living downstream of it, including Kenyan communities around Lake Turkana, which gets virtually all of its water flow from the Omo.

Africa: Egypt leases land in Uganda to ensure food security

2010-02-05

http://farmlandgrab.org/10888

The Egyptian government has announced that it would be sending a committee to assess farmland in Uganda to grow wheat to then import back into Egypt. Egypt is the leader in wheat consumption and has historically relied mostly on imports. According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, Egypt consumes 14 million tons of wheat a year but is only able to produce 8 million tons.

Ethiopia: Land grabbing and the emergence of ‘cereal republics’

2010-02-05

http://farmlandgrab.org/10882

Ethiopia’s recent history is punctuated by famine. Severe droughts, on-going conflicts and stagnating agricultural growth have been reproducing widespread food insecurities for decades. Compounded by cereal prices doubling over the last year, many people are struggling to meet even their most basic food needs. Concurrently the World Food Programme has had to reduce emergency food rations due to the high global food prices.

Kenya: Landmark ruling on indigenous land rights

2010-02-05

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/02/04/kenya-landmark-ruling-indigenous-land-rights

A ruling by the African Commission on Human and People's Rights condemning the expulsion of the Endorois people from their land in Kenya is a major victory for indigenous peoples across Africa, Human Rights Watch, WITNESS, and the Endorois' lawyers have said.

Kenya: Slow sale process delays plan for land bank

2010-02-05

http://farmlandgrab.org/10879

The government seeks to create a land bank which businesses and investors can tap into and has sent out a second appeal to Kenyans to offer their property for sale. The move follows investors’ growing appetite for land to build houses, warehouses and put up businesses.

East Africa: Ethiopia jails editor whose paper challenged the prime minister

2010-02-05

http://www.ifex.org/ethiopia/2010/02/01/ezedin_mohamed_sentenced/

Ethiopian judge sentenced a journalist to prison on Friday in connection with a January 2008 column that criticized Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's statements about religious affairs in Ethiopia, according to local journalists. Federal High Court Judge Mohammed Omar sentenced Editor Ezedin Mohamed of the Muslim-oriented newspaper Al-Quds to one year in prison.

Ethiopia: Court jails editor whose paper challenged Meles Zenawi

2010-02-05

http://humanrightshouse.org/Articles/13268.html

An Ethiopian judge sentenced a journalist to prison on Friday in connection with a January 2008 column that criticized Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s statements about religious affairs in Ethiopia, according to local journalists.

Ghana: Court drops 'defamation suit' against cartoonist

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/ybn9r5t

A Ghana High Court, sitting in Accra, has dropped a four-year-old defamation suit brought against 'Akosua', a cartoonist with the privately-owned Accra-based Daily Guide newspaper.

Libya: Unblock websites - HRW

2010-02-05

http://www.afrol.com/articles/35257

Human Rights Watch has urged the Libyan authorities to stop blocking the internet sites. The country has blocked access to YouTube and at least seven independent websites claiming it was a disturbing step away from press freedom.

Nigeria: IFJ condemns harassment and intimidation of broadcasters

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/y8hteaq

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned today the continued harassment and intimidation of the reporters of the Plateau Radio and Television Corporation (PRTVC) by soldiers in Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria. Three reporters of the media house were molested by soldiers in Jos on Thursday, January 21, 2010, while on Sunday, January 24 PRTVC reporters were again repeatedly manhandled by soldiers in the exercise of their duties.

Uganda: Two journalists arrested

2010-02-05

http://www.africanews.com/site/Uganda_Two_journalists_arrested/list_messages/29859

Two Ugandan journalists with the Daily Monitor newspaper - Henry Ochieng, editor and Angelo Izama, a staff writer - were yesterday charged with criminal libel at the Makindye Chief Magistrates Court over an article the State claims defamed President Museveni.

Africa: World Bank joins push for conflict-free Africa

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/yhm2eqn

The World Bank has joined the push to make 2010 a conflict-free year for the African continent, Bank President Robert Zoellick, has said here.'We recognize the pioneering role African regional organizations have played in managing conflict across the continent and we can learn from them,' said Zoellick, who led America's trade diplomacy before moving to the World Bank as President.

Ethiopia: Food insecurity, water shortages persist particularly in east

2010-02-05

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MUMA-82D3A9?OpenDocument

An estimated 5.23 million people will require emergency food assistance up to December 2010 with the net food requirement including TSF needs being 290,271 MT estimated to cost around USD 231.3 million according to the Joint Government and Humanitarian Partners' Humanitarian Requirement Document released on 2 February 2010

Hornof Africa: The Horn of Conflict: Scenarios for 2010-2011

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/yzlvuhj

The Horn of African region remains the locus of some of the long-running wars and local conflicts which are becoming sources of domestic turmoil and regional instability. Specially, the years 2010-12 will be extremely critical for the sub-region.

Nigeria: No oil company will know peace in the creeks

2010-02-05

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50176

Three flow stations in the oil-rich Niger Delta have had to be closed after a pipeline was sabotaged, according to Royal Dutch Shell. The company said the Jan. 30 leak on the Trans Ramos oil pipeline was due to sabotage, but no group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack. A represnetative of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta told a Nigerian newspaper at the end of January that it was ending a truce agreed in October 2009.

Sudan: Time running out for "powder keg" - former diplomats

2010-02-05

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87945

The peace agreement which ended years of war between north and south Sudan could unravel unless immediate steps are taken to salvage it, two key former diplomats say. "Today, five years after the historic Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed between North and South Sudan, there is a real threat of an all-out war returning to Sudan and still no permanent resolution to the Darfur conflict," Lt-Gen Lazarus Sumbeiwyo and John Danforth warned.

Sudan: UN report says 4.3 million in southern Sudan in need of food

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/ylcq5og

A UN report sys the number of people in southern Sudan in need of food quadrupled during the past year. "The conflicts and drought have increased the number of southerners in need of food aid from 1 million in 2009 to 4.3 million at the beginning of 2010," the report released by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday, said.

Africa: eLearning Africa launches online photography competition

How ICTs are changing the way we live

2010-02-05

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

Berlin, Germany. Lusaka, Zambia. How have mobile phones, the Internet and computers changed people's lives on the African continent? To find out, eLearning Africa has launched an online photography contest. The organisers are inviting people from Africa to submit images that show how they live, learn and work with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

Kenya: National survey shows Internet market heading towards “critical mass”

2010-02-05

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

The latest national survey from market research company Synovate shows Kenya’s Internet market is growing fast and on the basis of this growth will soon reach “critical mass”. The growth in users is coming from both urban and rural areas and is predominantly amongst the young and well educated.

Uganda: Third Lango forum on e – agriculture

2010-02-05

http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/view/481/1/

Women of Uganda Network with support from the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP – EU (CTA), holds a bi-annual event called the Lango Forum on e-agriculture. This event is held twice a year in Apac District, Northern Uganda. This year the third Lango forum on e–agriculture will be held on the 18th February 2010.

Africa: Africa's Haiti debt in context

AfricaFocus Bulletin Feb 2, 2010 (100202)

2010-02-05

http://www.africafocus.org/docs10/hai1002b.php

This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains a letter from 80 U.S. organizations to U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner calling for cancellation of Haiti's debt, a background paper on Haiti's debt by Jubilee USA, and a brief description by historian Alex von Tunzelmann on the historical origin of Haiti's debt.

54th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)

Calling for Contributions

2010-02-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/62005

In March 2010, the 54th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will undertake a fifteen-year review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcomes of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly. Gender Links, the African Woman and Child Feature Service, Gender and Media Southern Africa and the Gender and Media Diversity Centre will be collaborating to produce a conference newspaper for the event.
In March 2010, the 54th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will undertake a fifteen-year review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcomes of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly. Emphasis will be placed on the sharing of experiences and good practices, with a view to overcoming remaining obstacles and new challenges, including those related to the Millennium Development Goals.

Gender Links, the African Woman and Child Feature Service, Gender and Media Southern Africa and the Gender and Media Diversity Centre will be collaborating to produce a conference newspaper for the event. To complement the daily news items to be produced on site, we are commissioning pieces from Africa based on the following themes.

· Gender and Soccer 2010 – opportunities and challenges, etc.

· Gender Based Violence – how far have we come, measuring GBV, new initiatives, legal issues, prevention, etc.

· Gender and the Media – breaking glass ceilings, media monitoring, new media, media diversity, reaching diverse communities, etc.

· Governance – 50/50, women in politics, profiles, achievements, challenges, etc.

· Climate Change – adaptation, action on the ground, impact, etc.

We are looking for fresh perspectives that offer an African view to the worldwide audience attending CSW 54.

· +/- 750 word pieces (shorter news pieces or profiles also accepted)

· Well-captioned photos that include the name of the person photographed, place, date appreciated.

Interested contributors should please send their ideas to the editor Deborah Walter editor@genderlinks.org.za as soon as possible. All commissioned pieces must be submitted by: 10 February.

Editor will discuss rates and final word count.

East Africa: Second feminist leadership and movement building institute

2010-02-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/62014

The Second Feminist Leadership and Movement Building Institute is a week-long course designed to strengthen feminist leadership, strategies and collective power for social transformation in Africa. The Institute which will take place in Kampala, Uganda from 10 – 15 April 2010, and is the second institute convened by CREA and Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA). The first institute took place in Entebbe, Uganda in 2008.
The Second Feminist Leadership and Movement Building Institute is a week-long course designed to strengthen feminist leadership, strategies and collective power for social transformation in Africa. The Institute which will take place in Kampala, Uganda from 10 – 15 April 2010, and is the second institute convened by CREA and Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA). The first institute took place in Entebbe, Uganda in 2008.

About the Institute

The institute will combine reflection on the current political landscape as well as past organizing strategies for women's rights in Africa by using a trans-movement building approach. Looking at diverse movements in Africa and globally, participants will be able to relate some of the experiences and lessons from these movements to their own contexts, countries, and regions.

The movement building approach challenges groups to critically assess how they have organized themselves to achieve their social justice goals. In particular it enables participants to explore their political agenda, involvement of constituents and strategies for collective action underpinned by reflection.

Using a movement building lens, the process will allow participants to build their knowledge on the theoretical underpinnings of movement building synthesized from analyses of global movements. Additionally, participants will identify the different intersections, interactions, common spaces and challenges that social movements encounter when collaborating on issues of women’s human rights. From this, they will critically assess pre-existing resources of the women’s movement in Africa and identify and explore concrete strategies to strengthen links between movements to advance women’s human rights more collectively. The institute will cover the following topics:

* Social Movements and Power: Concepts and Theory
* Movements, Organisations and Leadership
* Introduction to Women’s Rights and Feminist Movements in Africa
* Assessing our impact: Approaches and Tools


The institute will foreground reflection at the personal and institutional level that will both enable and challenge participants to strengthen their leadership skills and strategies to effect real change for women’s rights and social justice in Africa.

Activists and academics from the global South will teach the course using classroom instruction, group work, case studies, simulation exercises and films. Resource persons will include Srilatha Batliwala (India) and African feminists such as Solome Kimbugwe (Uganda) and Zaynab El Sawi (Sudan) among others.

Participants
To participate you must:

* Be a woman between 25 and 45 years of age;
* Reside or work in East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia, Somaliland, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Burundi and Rwanda);
* Have a minimum of 3 years experience working on gender issues, women’s rights, development and/or youth activism (voluntary or employment);
* Be able to demonstrate how you will use what you learn at the Institute in your work and how you will continue to participate in follow-up activities;
* Have a working knowledge of the English language and/or be bilingual if French speaking.


Cost

Tuition, accommodation and meals for the duration of the Institute will be covered by the organizers. Participants will be required to pay a registration fee of US$50. Participants must cover their own travel expenses. A limited number of travel scholarships are available on a need basis.

Organizers

CREA (Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action) is a feminist human rights organization based in New Delhi, India, and led by women from the global South. CREA promotes, protects, and advances women’s human rights and the sexual rights of all people by building leadership capacities; strengthening organizations and social movements; creating new information, knowledge, and resources; and influencing social and policy environments. CREA envisions a just world, free of poverty, violence, discrimination, and inequality, where the human rights of all people–especially women, young people, and sexual minorities―are realized.

Based in Uganda, Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) is a Pan-African International Development NGO providing solidarity, support, awareness and training to African women in order to influence policy and decision-making. AMwA also provides a research forum on African women's issues and actively supports movement building in Africa. AMwA also co-ordinates an African Women’s Leadership Institute (AWLI) that provides training for African Women aged 25-45 years in critical strategic thinking on feminist praxis and analysis at personal, organizational and movement levels. The goal of the AWLI is to encourage and train significant numbers of young women for leadership positions that will ultimately promote a progressive African women’s development agenda. In addition to the AWLI, AMwA provides strategic and programmatic support to members of the AWLI alumni network.

Applications are due on or before 12 February 2010. Applications received after the due date will not be considered. Please send your applications to Sushma Luthra at sluthra@creaworld.org or fax to +91 11 2437 7708.

ISHR training course on treaty monitoring bodies and the UPR

Call for applications

2010-02-04

http://tinyurl.com/y8wtyek

From 3 to 14 May 2010, the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) will organise a training course on the treaty monitoring bodies and the universal periodic review (UPR). The course will be conducted in parallel to the 44th sessions of the Committee against Torture (CAT), the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the 8th session of the UPR.

Kenya: 2010 Peace Festival and Conference

Call for papers

2010-02-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/62012

On September 19-25, 2010, a festival and conference promoting peace and conflict resolution will be held in Nairobi, Kenya. A two-day conference will be accompanied by seven days of artistic performances featuring traditional and popular music, oral narrative, and drama. Organized by the Drum Café, the event seeks to bring together practitioners and researchers working in areas related to the arts and/or conflict resolution in and out of Kenya.
On September 19-25, 2010, a festival and conference promoting peace and conflict resolution will be held in Nairobi, Kenya. A two-day conference will be accompanied by seven days of artistic performances featuring traditional and popular music, oral narrative, and drama. Organized by the Drum Café, the event seeks to bring together practitioners and researchers working in areas related to the arts and/or conflict resolution in and out of Kenya.

Presentations and performances will be held in three slum areas around Nairobi and in the city centre. Participants will benefit not only from the events of the festival and conference, but also from the vibrant Nairobi city life and easy access to tourist attractions such as the nearby Nairobi National Park.


2010 Peace Festival and Conference, Nairobi, Kenya

At the end of December 2007, the Kenyan presidential election was marked by bloody confrontation during which 1,500 persons were killed and over 350,000 were displaced. Some media spoke of ethnic hatred, while others concentrated on the political and economic causes of the crisis. The conflict in Kenya is only one recent example of the type of unrest which has marked communities and nations around the world since the beginning of time. Such unrest has caused upheaval within communities and the loss of millions of lives. In such times of conflict, cultural practitioners and producers can play important peace-making roles. During the recent unrest in Kenya, for example, musicians of different ethnicities joined together to present concerts promoting peace. When crises emerge, or when repressive governments take control, artists may operate within a relatively safe space and offer a strong voice within communities. Furthermore, recognition and acceptance of cultural diversity, including through innovative use of media and the arts, can promote dialogue, respect, and understanding within and between communities and cultures.

The 2010 Peace Festival and Conference seek to promote peace, conflict resolution, and the arts, with particular attention to how these topics impact upon each other. Specific sessions will be dedicated to the following issues, though papers and performances on other topics are also welcome:

(1) Role of world citizens in conflict resolutions;

(2) Age, gender and professionalism perspectives in peace development;

(3) Cultural and artistic interventions, practices and experiences in peace creation;

(4) Promoting dialogue, respect, and understanding within communities and cultures;

(5) Acceptance and recognition of cultural diversity through innovative uses of media and arts as key elements in developing sustainable peace;

(6) Investing in art and culture as a social tool for community development, empowerment and peaceful co-existence and integration.

Participants are welcome from any discipline or practice. Papers should be 20 minutes long. Performances may vary in length (please stipulate length in your proposal). Please send proposals, maximum length one page, to Dr. Tom M. Olali at olali@hotmail.com by 30 June 2010. Please include all details of all AV needs.

For further information, including on registration and accommodation, please see the festival website: http://thedrumcafe.viviti.com/

Contacts:

Edward Kabuye, Festival Organizer, Drum Café, Nairobi, Kenya, drumcafe2010@gmail.com

Dr. Tom M. Olali, Lecturer, Department of Linguistics and Languages, Nairobi University, Nairobi, Kenya, olali@hotmail.com

Dr. Kathleen Van Buren, Lecturer, Department of Music, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom, k.j.vanburen@sheffield.ac.uk

South Africa: SASA 2010 call for papers

Sport, Leisure and Development in the 21st Century: Opportunities and Challenges.

2010-02-04

http://www.sasaonline.org.za/2010-sasa-conference.html

This is a call for the forthcoming South African Sociological Association (SASA) Congress, hosted by the University of Fort Hare, 13-16 June, in East London. Papers should be related to the theme is “Sport, Leisure, and Development in the 21st century: Opportunities and Challenges”; however, if you have a paper idea that doesn’t exactly fit, please go ahead and submit it to me or one of the other working group conveners. If your abstract is accepted we WILL find a space for it.

Uganda: FOWODE leadership training camp

2010-02-05

http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/view/476/1/

Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE) invites young women aged between 21 - 25 years who completed their university or any tertiary institution and are interested in Leadership to apply for a Leadership Training Camp scheduled for March 2010. The camp runs for three weeks and is residential.

UNICEF - GPIA 2010 International Conference

Deadline extended - February 7

2010-02-05

http://tinyurl.com/ygj24wn

UNICEF and the Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA) at The New School will host an international conference on adolescent girls in April 2010. With an emphasis on reviewing existing evidence and policies, the conference will focus on the role and potential agency of adolescent girls in meeting emerging global challenges.

Program Officer, SHARP/LAHI - OSI

2010-02-05

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/62020

The Open Society Institute (OSI) seeks a full-time Program Officer in its New York office to work jointly with the Sexual Health and Rights Project (SHARP) and the Law and Health Initiative (LAHI).
The Open Society Institute works to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. Open societies are characterized by the rule of law; respect for human rights, minorities, and a diversity of opinions; democratically elected governments; market economies in which business and government are separate; and a civil society that helps keep government power in check. To achieve its mission, OSI seeks to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. On a local level, OSI implements a range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, OSI builds alliances across borders and continents on issues such as corruption and freedom of information. OSI places high priority on protecting and improving the lives of marginalized people and communities.

Investor and philanthropist George Soros in 1993 created OSI as a private operating and grantmaking foundation to support his foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Those foundations were established, starting in 1984, to help countries make the transition from communism. OSI has expanded the activities of the Soros foundations network to encompass the United States and more than 60 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Each national foundation relies on the expertise of boards composed of eminent citizens who determine individual agendas based on local priorities.

The Open Society Institute’s Public Health Program (PHP) aims to promote health policies based on scientific evidence, social inclusion, human rights, and justice. Broadly, the program works with civil society organizations within two fields: promoting the participation of socially marginalized groups in public health policy and fostering greater government accountability and transparency through civil society monitoring efforts. Program areas focus on addressing the human rights and health needs of marginalized groups, facilitating citizen access to health information, and advocating for a strong civil society role in public health policy and practice.

For further information on the Public Health Program, please visit our website: http://www.soros.org/health

The Open Society Institute (OSI) seeks a full-time Program Officer in its New York office to work jointly with the Sexual Health and Rights Project (SHARP) and the Law and Health Initiative (LAHI).

In April 2005, PHP launched the Sexual Health and Rights Project (SHARP) to develop and implement a global strategy to improve the health and rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons, men who have sex with men (MSM) and sex workers. SHARP seeks to ensure that those marginalized because of their sexual practices, sexual orientation, and/ or gender identity have access to quality health and social services and can effectively advocate for their rights. Through a combination of grantmaking and operational efforts, SHARP supports capacity building, education, advocacy activities and development of innovative service models. Its geographic mandate includes East and Southern Africa, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the former Soviet Union (fSU), and Southeast Asia (SEA).

For further information on the Sexual Health and Rights Project, please visit our website: http://www.soros.org/initiatives/health/focus/sharp

The PHP’s Law and Health Initiative (LAHI) promotes legal action to advance public health goals worldwide. LAHI supports legal assistance, litigation, and law reform efforts on a range of health issues, including patient care, HIV and AIDS, harm reduction, palliative care, sexual health, mental health, and Roma health. LAHI’s priorities include integrating legal services into health programs, strengthening human rights protections within health settings, and developing training and education programs in law and health. A special focus is on supporting organizations and advocacy campaigns dedicated to ending human rights abuses linked to the global AIDS epidemic. By bringing together legal, public health, and human rights organizations, LAHI seeks to build a broad movement for law-based approaches to health and for the human rights of society’s most marginalized groups.

For further information on the Law and Health Initiative, please visit our website: http://www.soros.org/initiatives/health/focus/law

Responsibilities:

The Program Officer will undertake joint work with the Law and Health Initiative (LAHI) and the Sexual Health and Rights Project (SHARP), reporting to the LAHI and SHARP Project Directors in New York. Some time may be devoted to supporting general LAHI or SHARP activities.

Primary responsibilities include:

* Decriminalization of sex work: conceptualizing a funding, advocacy, and convening strategy to promote the removal of punitive laws essential for HIV prevention for sex workers. This will be part of a larger decriminalization and HIV prevention strategy that involves the following programs: SHARP, LAHI, International Harm Reduction Development Program (IHRD), and LGBTI Initiative.
* Improving sex workers’ health through legal services: managing a grantmaking and operational research portfolio to document and disseminate the positive effects on access to health services by providing comprehensive legal services to sex workers.
* Documentation of rights violations against sex workers: providing technical assistance to the monitoring and management of an initiative to document rights violations against sex workers, and taking a lead in the projects that advance strategic litigation strategies.
* UN human rights mechanisms and sex work: conceptualizing a funding, direct advocacy, and convening strategy to promote the use of UN human rights mechanisms by civil society actors to advance the human rights and health of sex workers.
* Legal issues in transgender health: conceptualizing a funding, advocacy, and convening strategy to advance transgender health by addressing the issues of legal gender status change and transgender torture in detention and healthcare settings.
* Other issues in HIV/AIDS and human rights: supporting the Law and Health Initiative on other emerging issues related to HIV and human rights, such as human rights in HIV/tuberculosis co-infection and engagement with United Nations agencies and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
* Human rights in patient care: supporting the Law and Health Initiative on law reform efforts related to human rights in patient care in countries of the former Soviet Union

The geographic scope of this work will be the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Southeast Asia, and East and Southern Africa.

The tools the Program Officer will use to undertake the responsibilities listed above include:

· Grantmaking: the program officer will oversee a portfolio of grants, which may include soliciting and evaluating proposals, preparing documentation, corresponding with grantees, and overseeing program monitoring and evaluation.

· Capacity building: the program officer will coordinate, where appropriate, technical assistance to grantees such as training, coaching, peer-to-peer learning, and work with external consultants

· Advocacy: in cases where OSI is uniquely positioned to conduct advocacy on legal and human rights issues related to sexual health and rights, the program officer will work with grantees on designing and implementing advocacy materials and campaigns targeting government officials, donors, and the media.

· Convening: the program officer will, as appropriate, convene meetings and seminars at a national, regional, and/or international level that promote legal and human rights issues related to sexual health and rights.

Additional responsibilities may include:

· Tracking and managing budgets for the above work.

· Recruiting and managing external consultants to assist with the above work as needed.

· Traveling to relevant meetings and representing OSI as appropriate.

· Preparing background papers, literature reviews, and information searches.



Qualifications:

· Law degree.

· Demonstrated commitment to using law progressively to advance public health and human rights objectives.

· Experience working in one or more of the following regions: East and Southern Africa, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the former Soviet Union (fSU), and Southeast Asia (SEA).

· Excellent written and oral communication skills in English.

· Ability to work efficiently under pressure and on a wide range of tasks.

· Strong organizational skills and attention to detail.

· Willingness to travel extensively.

· Commitment to working as a member of a team.

· Ability to listen and communicate clearly and effectively with people from diverse cultures and backgrounds.

· Discretion and ability to handle confidential issues.

Salary: Commensurate with experience, abilities. Excellent benefit package

To Apply

Please email resume and cover letter with salary requirements before March 5, 2010 to: humanresources@sorosny.org

*You must include job code in subject line: PO-LAHI/SHARP

OR

Open Society Institute
Human Resources – Code PO-LAHI/SHARP
400 West 59th Street
New York, New York 10019

FAX: 212.548.4675

No phone calls, please. The Open Society Institute is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Sierra Leone: Country director - SPW

2010-02-05

http://www.spw.org/press.php#93

Students Partnership Worldwide (SPW) demonstrates and promotes a youth-led approach to development, implementing internationally recognised programmes across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. SPW is looking for a Country Director with relevant professional experience and a passion for SPW’s mission to place young people at the forefront of change and development. Closing date for applications: 18th February 2010, 5pm GMT (UK time)

Fahamu