Current Issue

STOP the UNESCO-Obiang International Prize for the Life Sciences

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/action/62915

EG Justice Needs Your Help.

Sign the petition now to STOP the UNESCO-Obiang International Prize for the Life Sciences.

In 2008, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) created the UNESCO-Obiang International Prize for the Life Sciences, named for and financed by the autocratic and abusive president of the oil-rich West African country of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo.

The prize is said to recognize 'scientific achievements that improve the quality of human life.' Meanwhile, the quality of life in Equatorial Guinea today remains abysmal. In spite of having attained the highest GDP per capita in Sub-Saharan Africa, 60 per cent of Equatoguineans live on less than US$1 a day in conditions comparable to Haiti or Chad. President Obiang has neglected to invest available resources in basic social services, resulting in declining primary school attendance, poor health indicators, and needless poverty.

The UNESCO Obiang Prize is a cynical ploy to co-opt the worthy name and reputation of UNESCO to enhance the image of a notorious dictatorship. The prize amounts to international approval for this kleptocratic and abusive regime and it undermines UNESCO’s mission to promote education, science, culture, and human rights.

You can help, by signing this petition to UNESCO!

Let’s send a message to UNESCO that corruption and abuse should not be rewarded and that funds used to create this prize should be reinvested in the people of Equatorial Guinea.

Zimbabwe’s land reform is common sense

Grasian Mkodzongi

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62917

cc WikimediaZimbabwe’s land issue has generated unprecedented debate nationally and internationally, largely polarised between supporters of radical land reform and supporters of market-oriented reforms, writes Grasian Mkodzongi. While it is ‘undeniable’ that Mugabe used land reform ‘to boost his political legitimacy’, how can one ‘justify the continued existence of a dualistic land ownership structure decades after independence, in a country whose struggle for liberation crystallised around the land issue?’, Mkodzongi asks.

Zimbabwe’s land issue has generated unprecedented debates both within and outside the country. The debates, which followed the dramatic occupations of white farms by rural peasants in the late 1990s, are generally polarised between those who support radical land reform and those who support market-orientated reforms. The former stand accused of supporting Mugabe’s regime while the latter are generally maligned as neo-colonialists running a smear campaign against Zanu PF. An unfortunate outcome of these polarities has been the trivialisation of the land issue; land occupations have been depicted as simple acts of political gimmickry; landless peasants who occupied these farms have been branded as agents of agrarian and environmental destruction, and are often considered to be in service to the ‘evil’ regime of Robert Mugabe. Some academics have even gone as far as branding the whole process of land occupations, and the violence associated with it, as an apocalyptic end of modernity. In academia, supporters of radical land reform are generally in the minority; this has made it extremely difficult to challenge the current neo-liberal orthodoxy, which dominates land and agrarian reform policy making in many African countries. The few scholars, who have openly challenged the ‘hostile’ neo-liberal approach to argue for radical land reform, including Sam Moyo, Paris Yeros, and Mamood Mamdani, have often been accused of colluding with Mugabe’s undemocratic regime.

That Mugabe opportunistically used the land issue to boost his political legitimacy is an undeniable fact. Indeed, the country’s collective memory was conveniently manipulated to fit a set political agenda under guise of the ‘Third Chimurenga’ project. However, juxtaposed to Mugabe’s gerrymandering and manipulation of historical memory is a reality that many critics of Mugabe have so far failed to address. How can one justify the continued existence of a dualistic land ownership structure decades after independence, in a country whose struggle for liberation crystallised around the land issue? How could such an unjust and medieval property ownership structure be permanently sustained in a country where 60 per cent of the population depends on land for their livelihoods?

Another paradox of Zimbabwe’s independence is the extent to which white farmers emerged unscathed by the raging fires of the liberation struggle. Zimbabwe’s negotiated settlement, which led to independence in 1980, left white farmers constitutionally protected. Like Royal game, they held the entire nation at ransom thanks to Lord Carrington, who secured their private property and political rights before handing over a poisoned state to the blacks. Mugabe’s reconciliatory rhetoric that dominated the early years of independence led to the general belief among White Rhodesians that independence was ‘business as usual’, with many whites continuing to enjoy colonial era privileges and existing in white enclaves. In the so-called ‘new Zimbabwe’, white commercial farmers continued to dominate the commercial farming sector, a key strategic sector given the largely agrarian nature of Zimbabwe’s economy. This gave them leverage over government policy, which they used to secure their large estates from potential forceful acquisition. Above all, they voted for Ian Smith’s exclusively white Rhodesian Front political party; a mockery of the ideals of a ‘united nation’ propounded by Mugabe’s nationalist administration. On the other hand, the peasantry in remote rural locations continued to eke out a living on degraded patches of barren land, waiting for the ‘promised’ land that was at the core of the liberation struggle. However, such promises failed to materialise; macro-economic policies favoured landed capitalists and black elites based in cities that generally enjoyed the patronage of senior politicians. A result of the above was that most of the land ‘recovered’ by the government was diverted to Zanu PF loyalists through patronage networks.

Why then do many people decry the land invasions if history shows that peasants were the major losers at independence? Given Zimbabwe’s history, one wonders why white farmers were allowed to sell land back to the government after 1980 instead of helping to contribute to the land reform programme as a form of reparation for the violence and plunder suffered by many Africans during the colonial era. After all, most of the large farms were acquired under unjust and illegal terms. Justice would have been better served if after securing independence, Mugabe’s government had thrown away the 1979 Lancaster House Constitution in favour of a just constitution based on the country’s historical experiences. Why hang on to a constitution, which promoted the interests of the very people that supported the wanton destruction of African livelihoods, and the merciless bombing of civilians at Nyadzonya, which to this day have never been fully accounted for. This would have allowed an unfettered land reform programme that was cognisant of our past and righted the wrongful misdeeds of a few. Instead, a dithering elitist government failed to deliver one of the most precious prizes of our independence: The land. For if so many people died at Chimoio, Nyadzonya and in many operational zones, how could their souls rest in peace if independence only resulted in the perpetuation of the status quo? Why could we as a sovereign nation in the interest of morality and justice not say to Britain and other world nations that so many people died for this land, all they want is a fair share of their heritage?’ Is that not a modest demand given our history? Mugabe’s rhetoric on land should be given serious consideration, however he should also be held accountable for failing to stand up against neo-colonial tactics that led to unnecessary delays in recovering stolen property and for presiding over a patrimonial system which helped to marginalise a large section of the population. Much of the socialist rhetoric that appears in the country’s Transitional Development Plan (TDP) was never put into practice, instead an ahistorical Land Reform and Resettlement Programme (LRRP) was adopted. This policy was much influenced by Britain and other agents of western capitalism left too much leverage with white farmers who were able to dictate the pace of the land reform programme, and in the process, distort land markets to their advantage. The result was that the LRRP was too expensive to sustain for a postcolonial government with limited resources. Moreover, those who were ‘chosen’ for resettlement were given land unfavorable to agriculture with limited support in terms of infrastructure and farming inputs. Mugabe’s government, like its colonial predecessor, was reluctant to extend full property rights to the beneficiaries of the LRRP and instead opted to allow resettled farmers to occupy land under insecure permits while at the same time allowing white farmers to continue owning their land on a more secure freehold basis. This perpetuated a system of insecure property rights in communal areas that had been created during the colonial era within the so-called ‘communal tenure’ system.

An analysis of the arguments against radical land reform reveals a chronic failure by both journalists and academics to provide a balanced overview of the Zimbabwean land issue; the causal factors of landlessness steeped in the country’s history are often ignored. There is a tendency to confuse the land issue with Mugabe’s political expediency and in the process the baby is thrown away with the bath water. The genuine need for land, which is reflected in many rural areas across the country, is simply dismissed as Mugabe’s political posturing. What is often forgotten is that not very long ago millions of Africans were deliberately disenfranchised by a system of state managed repression, segregation and violence. It is these masses that sacrificed their lives and livelihoods to liberate the country and it is these masses that have the moral right to claim back their land. This legitimate need to right the historical wrongs should never be confused with Zanu PF’s attempts to manipulate history for its own selfish interests.

What is also deeply disturbing about those who have argued against land invasions is their total disregard for the views of the poor and marginalised peasants who invaded these farms. On the rare occasions when peasants are featured in short documentaries or academic articles, they are often depicted as barbaric savages attacking white farmers and ruining productive farms. In contrast, white farmers have generally been given positive media coverage in the west – sentimental testimonials telling stories of loss and ruin, agricultural equipment destroyed and wildlife poached. These stories are often accompanied by graphic images of dead wild animals, especially endangered species like rhinos, elephants etc. This ‘sadistic’ imagery has generated sympathy for white farmers, by portraying them as hard working people, who became victims of Robert Mugabe’s ‘evil regime’. The plight of many rural farmers who have struggled to survive since the country was liberated decades ago is generally overlooked. They have no one to tell their stories of survival to and local ‘native’ intellectuals, generally far removed from the village, have failed to inform the world about the peasant’s precarious existence: Landlessness, water shortages and disease. What is often suggested in the studies of fly past researchers is the notion that black peasants have an inherent lack of basic environmental knowledge and that they are incapable of feeding themselves. Across Europe, ignorance about the historical background to Zimbabwe’s land issue among ordinary people runs deep; remarks about how the Zimbabwe government allowed unskilled rural farmers to occupy farms are commonplace. The current food shortages facing the country are simply blamed on incompetent peasants taking over white farms.

It has become fashionable to project Zimbabwe as ‘a bread basket’ before the land invasions and a ‘basket case’ after land invasions. This has helped to support the assumption that without white farmers the country could not feed itself. What is often not mentioned is that the white farmer in Africa is generally an administrator; he does not physically grow crops himself. His black troops produce on his behalf. However he gets the lion’s share of the profits because he controls the means of production. Moreover, it is easily forgotten that in the early years of colonial occupation in the 1890s, European settlers in Rhodesia survived on grain produced by Africans until The British South Africa Company (BSAC) deliberately destroyed a booming African agriculture in favour of promoting European agriculture after the so called ‘gold rush’ proved to be largely false. Against all odds, Africans have been feeding themselves even during the depression years of the 1930s when the colonial government introduced the Maize Control Act, which helped to distort the grain market in order to protect European farmers.

Apart from the above, there is another argument based on neo-liberal thinking, which says that land reform was supposed to be carried out in an orderly way in order to harness ‘white skills’. This, it is argued, would protect the productive potential of these farms. The question is why didn’t these white farmers share their skills before the onset of the land invasions? How can one account for the poverty and dislocation of many farm workers who lost their livelihoods once a farmer decided they were no longer needed after many years of hard labour with minimum remuneration?

This argument is also based on a false assumption that black farmers cannot grow crops without white supervision. Most Large Scale Commercial Farms (LSCF) have historically relied on black labour. If LSCF are largely run by black workers who with time have acquired advanced technical skills to operate farm machinery, supervise the large scale growing of commercial crops including tobacco and wheat, why then can blacks fail to do the same for themselves if given the land and the support required to run successful agricultural enterprises?

The image of the black farmer as a permanent subsistence farmer has become part of the official discourse about land and agrarian reform simply because for many decades black farmers have not been given the chance to invest in productive agriculture. It’s a historical fact that white agricultural success was based on expensive state subsidies, access to cheap labour and extension services, which allowed them to make profits even during the difficult years of economic stagnation. Such services were not accessible to black farmers who had to make do with very little financial and technical support from central government.

While it is true that land invasions did impact on agricultural production; critics of the programme have based their arguments on emotions rather than facts. Since the land invasions took place, no significant longitudinal study based on empirical research has been carried out to justify these arguments. Nobody knows to what extent the land invasions have impacted on agricultural production across the country. Moreover in trying to access such impacts, one has to take into account climatic factors like recurring droughts, which have historically affected agricultural production. Simplistic arguments biased against the peasantry have led to the trivialisation of an issue that is of paramount importance to Zimbabwe culturally, historically and economically. For land is not only the resource we have in abundance, it’s the only resource that sustains three quarters of the Zimbabwean population.

Given the above, land invasions were inevitable and necessary to ensure peasants ‘got a piece of the cake’. Of course one cannot expect such a radical programme to take place without any form of disruption. While it’s painful in the short term, land invasions have helped a significant number of property-less peasants to not only recover land, but to enjoy a sense of restitution which has a healing effect given the country’s tortured history. They also helped to break the monopoly of white farmers in commercial agriculture by opening up this key sector to black farmers. Moreover recent research by World Bank economists has proven that large commercial farms are not very productive compared to family operated smallholder farms; they are also a source of political instability as our recent history has demonstrated. Breaking up large commercial farms in favour of more efficient smallholder entities makes economic sense and promotes political stability.

What the Zimbabwean government should do now is to stop dilly-dallying and extend full property rights to peasants settled under the A1 Scheme to provide security and incentives for agricultural investment. It should also offer financial and technical support for those farmers who want to venture into commercial farming. Such a process requires non-partisan support from all those who benefited from land reform. It also requires a mechanism to recover land from those who are hoarding unproductive farms. This could be achieved through a land audit and a policy restricting farm ownership to a ‘one person one farm’ basis. If the above measures were implemented, Zimbabwe would lead the way as the only country in postcolonial Africa to implement the most radical transfer of property in the 21st century. It would set an example for Zimbabwe’s neighbours, South Africa and Namibia, which are still slumbering under the stupor of market-driven land reform, with the inevitable risk of political instability as mobs of marginalised peasants are likely to resort to violence to recover land.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Grasian Mkodzongi is an ecologist and PhD candidate at the Centre of African Studies (University of Edinburgh).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

A long walk from Soweto to Sandown

Mphutlane wa Bofelo

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62919

cc WarrenskiNelson Mandela’s 1990 statement on nationalisation sparked uproar from big business, but there’s little sign of private sector anxiety following ANC Youth League President Julius Malema’s recent call for the formation of state-owned mines. There’s only one explanation for the ‘relatively muted response’, says Mphutlane wa Bofelo – that ‘after 15 years of ANC government, the owners of capital now know that the radical leftist terminology that the ANC uses is just a rhetorical spin to sell rightwing programmes'.

In the wake of media exposure of his lavish and opulent lifestyle as well as business interest mostly sustained by government tenders, South Africa’s ANC Youth League president, Julius ‘juju magic’ Malema has suddenly come out in the clear about what he and the ANC nationalists mean by nationalisation of the mines. The ANC Youth League chief recently told a press briefing that all his organisation is calling for is public-private partnerships: ‘We are saying the state must have a majority shareholding and we want the formation of a state-owned mining company… Some people call it public-private partnerships, we call it nationalisation’.

It is not a surprise that Malema’s call for nationalisation did not elicit from big capital the amount of consternation and uproar that followed Mandela’s statement on nationalisation upon his release in 1990. Then there was such a hue-cry that Mandela had to recant his pronouncement the day after he made it. Mandela was forced to reassure local and global capital by declaring that nationalisation has never been a policy of the ANC and will never be. But the ANC Youth League’s pro-nationalisation statement did not elicit the same level of anxiety from big business or any negative response from the almighty ‘markets’. There was no high-powered delegation of the captains of capital to the current president of the ANC. In the actual fact one mine owner, by the name of Patrick Motsepe, was quoted in the press saying he would have no problem if the ANC government chose to nationalise the mines.

I can only think of one explanation for the relatively muted response of big capital to the present calls for nationalisation within the ranks of the ANC. After 15 years of ANC government, the owners of capital now know that the radical leftist terminology that the ANC uses is just a rhetorical spin to sell rightwing programmes. In the past 15 years, most of the bourgeosie class and white racists in general have come to the realisation that they should in fact have backed-up and expedited the reformist negotiated settlement that saw the ANC in political office much earlier.

Elements within the ‘old’ National Party and the white liberal fraternity who called for negotiations much earlier were able to read and understand the bourgeosie nationalist undertones of the nationalisation clause and other clauses of the Freedom Charter. They had the insight and foresight to understand that white capitalist interests and global capitalist interests would be better served by capitalism without racialist fetters. They understood that the economic advancement of an African middle-class and the creation of a black bourgeosie would provide a buffer against black working class uprising, as the black governing and upper-classes would be more effective in getting the consent of the masses and in entrenching their legitimacy and hegemony.

If anyone had a problem in understanding that the Freedom Charter did not call for socialisation and public ownership of the mines but the transference of ownership from white and foreign bourgeosie to the African and local bourgeosie, Mandela’s lengthy explanation at the Rivonia Trial clarified this for them: ‘The most important political document ever adopted by the ANC is the “Freedom Charter”. It is by no means a blueprint for a socialist state. It calls for redistribution, but not nationalisation, of land; it provides for nationalisation of mines, banks, and monopoly industry, because big monopolies are owned by one race only, and without such nationalisation racial domination would be perpetuated despite the spread of political power. It would be a hollow gesture to repeal the Gold Law prohibitions against Africans when all gold mines are owned by European companies.’

Mandela made it succinctly clear that land will remain under private ownership and that nationalisation will be a tool of ‘de-racialising’ ownership of big monopolies and to give Africans and the local bourgeosie in general a stake in the mines and the banks. Mandela went on to reassure the Afrikaner that the congress movement’s version of nationalisation is akin the nationalist project pursued by the National Party to affirm and empower Afrikaner capitalists against foreign capital. ‘In this respect the ANC's policy corresponds with the old policy of the present Nationalist Party which, for many years, had as part of its programme the nationalisation of the gold mines which, at that time, were controlled by foreign capital.’ The chief architect of the current neo-apartheid, neo-colonial, neo-liberal capitalist dispensation went further to stress that ’under the Freedom Charter, nationalisation would take place in an economy based on private enterprise. The realisation of the Freedom Charter would open up fresh fields for a prosperous African population of all classes, including the middle class’.

It is very clear from Mandela’s pronouncements that the envisaged and expected outcome of the nationalisation project was not an egalitarian society, but a stratified society in which prosperity will continue to be hierarchical, albeit not along strictly racial lines. Madiba did not mince his words in asserting that the ANC stands for reform and not total overhaul of apartheid-capitalism. He ambiguously declared: ’The ANC has never at any period of its history advocated a revolutionary change in the economic structure of the country, nor has it, to the best of my recollection, ever condemned capitalist society.’

According to the best recollections of the most authoritative figure within and on the ANC, the ANC has never ever condemned capitalist society. Yet the root causes of the global economic depression, the massive inequalities and injustices, rampant corruption, individualistic greed and crass materialism, gluttonous consumerism and the moral decay and rot in society lie in capitalism. The opulent lifestyle of the propertied and the governing classes is an integral part of the traditions and culture of capitalism. The sweeteners and ‘gifts’ that corporate capital give to government officials and bureaucrats as well as the proverbial ‘drink’ public servants ask from citizens are part and parcel of capitalist culture/morality.

The rent-a- black face and ‘tenderpreneur’ trend and the phenomenon of senior and influential members of the ruling party doing business with government directly or through fronts are all corrupt practices that are sure to thrive in a capitalist society where the individual is placed above the collective. As long as we operate within the framework of capitalism, nationalisation and/or state ownership will invariably mean state capitalism, leading to the fattening of a narrow black middle-class which is dominant in the state and the well-connected scrounging local bourgeoisie. In the former Soviet Union, nationalisation and state ownership resulted in state capitalism and the emergence of the nomenklatura. This replicated itself in many countries going by the label socialist/communist, people’s republic or some variant thereof. Very often, it was the case of the state/party prescribing socialism for the masses and capitalism for itself.

Already the ANC Youth League is saying there’s nothing wrong with powerful and influential members of the tripartite alliance doing business with government. The point the league misses – deliberately - is that Malema and his ilk do not get the tenders because their companies surpass other contenders in service and expertise. Once the tender committee gets wind that company X belongs to the brother/sister who has the clout and power to decide the fate of government officials (and by extension the fate of the bureaucrats), it is more than likely to use its ‘commonsense’.

In defence of the right of Malema to do business through government tenders, the ANC Youth League’s treasurer, Pule Mabe, says ‘the best way to do business is through government tenders.’ Mabe’s comment gives you the idea that the middle-class and aspirant bourgeosie within the congress movement are calling for nationalisation so that they can (ab)use the colour of their skin, struggle credentials, office-power and political connections to get a foothold on the mines, the banks and big monopolies. Once this cream of the cream from the black population has made it to the top most of the capitalist society, the logic is that they should live/play the part and live as far as possible away from the masses, geographically/physically, socially and economically. After all, their entire dream is to be the ‘Black Diamonds’. They want to shine and glitter, far away from the Black Hole… the ghetto. They want to be like white kids, drive snazzy cars in the Northern suburbs, own villas in Europe, play golf, take up fishing as a sport, go as tourists to the township or as a campaigning entourage, under heavy protection and surveillance by the army and the police. (And don’t you dare point a middle-finger at the opulence and indifference to the suffering of the poor).

Just a message to the under-class black fellow who think that having black ownership of the mines, banks and big monopolies is for the collective pride and dignity of all black people. The logic of capitalism is that once you are rich you should stay as far as possible from the poor. If anyone holds the illusion that corporate and political elites brought about by the struggles of the poor and their utilisation of public office for corporate gain will be any different, Steven Ngobeni of the Youth League has a message for them: ‘Malema cannot have the lifestyle of the poor just because he champions the poor’. This is the logic of neo-liberal capitalism. We can all be free but with different degrees of freedom.

And Malema and his friends are not breaking any party tradition by operating within the capitalist framework of crass materialism, hoarding, and keeping a safe distance from the poor. The father of the nation has said it all ‘the ANC has never ever condemned capitalist society.’ Black artists of the calibre of Hugh Masekela struggle like hell to have five minutes with Mandela. It is a walk in the park for any American to have a full sitting with Madiba.

Seasoned black artists curtain-raise for American has-beens or wannabes at gigs organised by the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Just the other day John Kani was complaining about South African/Black artist never being offered a chance to play for Nelson Mandela and Winnie Mandela. Mr Kani, there is a long distance between Soweto and Houghton. Black workers, there’s a long walk and huge chasm between Seshego and Sandown. This is just a wake-up call for those who still hope that Malema and the ANC Youth League will propose practical ways of ensuring that state control is for public ownership and that there are mechanisms for the socialisation of the mineral wealth beyond formal state control. The hiss of a hyena is not laughter though it sounds like it.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Mphutlane wa Bofelo is a cultural worker and social critic.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Ethiopia: Licensed to steal

Alemayehu G. Mariam

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62918

cc SaccaTwo former leaders of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front have alleged in a BBC radio programme that the TPLF leadership – which included Meles Zenawi – used millions of dollars earmarked for famine relief in the 1980s to buy weapons and enrich themselves. ‘The facts are plain to see,’ writes Alemayehu G. Mariam, ‘We know now that these thieves did not stand for the people of Tigrai at the critical hour in 1984. They sure as hell do not stand for the people of Ethiopia today.’

If democracy is a government of the people, kleptocracy is a government of thieves.

Last week the secret world of Meles Zenawi’s kleptocracy, famine aid-sharking and money laundering in Ethiopia was exposed by two of his former comrades-in-arms in the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Gebremedhin Araya, a former treasurer and TPLF co-founder Dr Aregawi Berhe, detailed the scam used to swindle, hustle and con millions of dollars from international famine relief organisations in the mid-1980s. The two former top leaders accused the TPLF leadership, including Zenawi, of taking tens of millions of dollars earmarked for famine relief in the Tigrai region to buy weapons and enrich themselves. Gebremedhin said he personally handed cash payments and cheques in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to Zenawi and Sebhat Nega, the top two TPLF leaders who controlled the cash flow of the organisation. Although Gebremedhin was the treasurer, he said he was not privileged to know what happened to the money after he delivered it to Zenawi or Nega. The incriminatory evidence, (including a candid photograph of TPLF cadres counting and recording wads of cash handed over to them by a foreign aid worker from a large satchel on the floor), is shocking as it is damning and irrefutable.

In 1984/5, at the height of the catastrophic famine, nearly a quarter of a billion dollars were raised internationally for famine relief in Ethiopia. Michael Buerek of the BBC who visited the Tigrai region at the height of the famine in 1984 described the situation as ‘a biblical famine in the 20th Century’ and ‘the closest thing to hell on Earth’. [1]

According to the available evidence, normal delivery of emergency humanitarian aid to the Tigrai region in 1984 was virtually impossible because of rebel activity in the outlying areas and bombardment by the military junta. The road normally used to deliver aid supplies to the Tigrai region from the capital had become unusable because of rebel military activity. The various international famine relief non-governmental organisations (NGOs) had to find alternate routes to quickly deliver relief aid to victims in rebel-controlled areas. Many of these NGOs eventually set up shop in eastern Sudan close to the Tigrai border in an attempt to deliver aid quickly. The large concentration of NGOs and the publicity surrounding the enormous fundraising efforts by various international celebrities for Ethiopian famine victims caught the attention of the TPLF leaders, who saw a lucrative business opportunity for themselves delivering relief aid to victims in areas their controlled.

According to the former TPLF leaders, Zenawi and his top cadres hatched out and successfully executed a scam to use a front ‘humanitarian relief’ organisation called ‘Relief Society of Tigrai’ (REST) for aid delivery. The TPLF leaders managed to ‘convince’ the various NGOs operating out of the Sudan that REST was a genuine charity organisation completely separate from the TPLF, the declared military wing. In fact, REST was the other face of the TPLF coin.

The evidence further indicates that to magnify the severity and extremity of the famine situation for the NGOs, the TPLF leaders ordered the exodus of large numbers of victims into the Sudan creating a mushroom of refugee settlements in the Sudanese border areas overnight. Using different techniques and methods, the TPLF leaders stage-managed an elaborate marketing ‘drama’ for the NGOs to buy and deliver aid to the large famine-stricken population inside Tigrai. This was done principally by organising a small group of their most trusted and inner circle members to pose as ‘grain merchants’ and solicit business from the NGOs.

The deception games, or more accurately the famine aid-sharking scheme, played on the Western NGOs were varied. At the onset of the scam, they used a three-staged process. In stage one, one group of TPLF/REST officials masquerading as legitimate grain merchants would approach the myriad NGOs and offer to sell them substantial quantities of grain for quick delivery to the famine victims. At the time, the TPLF had acquired and stashed in secret warehouses grains from various sources, including NGOs, for use by its fighters. These secretly stashed grain stockpiles were in fact being offered for sale to the NGOs. The TPLF/REST ‘grain dealers’ would complete the sale transaction and return back to their hideouts with the payment from the NGOs. Gebremedhin said he delivered to Zenawi and Sebhat Nega the cash and cheque payments from the NGOs. He described the scam with mind-numbing simplicity:

‘I was given clothes to make me look like a Muslim merchant. The NGOs don't know me because my name was Mohammed. It was a trick assigned (created) by the top leaders for the NGOs. I received a great amount of money from the NGOs and the money was automatically taken by (the TPLF) leaders. The money, much of it, the leaders put it in their accounts in Western Europe. Some of it was used to buy weapons. The people did not get half a kilogram of maize.’

Once the purchase was made another group of TPLF/REST operatives would take over the responsibility of delivering the relief aid inside Tigrai. In the second stage, TPLF/REST officials would facilitate spot checks of grain stockpiles in their own secret warehouses. But the warehouses were tricked out. Gebremedhin said, ‘if you go there, half of the warehouse was stacked full of sand.’ The NGO representatives would perform visual inspections of the stockpiles, give their approval and cross back into the Sudan to conduct additional grain purchases.

In the third stage, the same or different group of TPLF/REST officials would go back to the NGOs and make a pitch for additional sales of grains for delivery in a different part of Tigrai. These offers did not involve any new or fresh supplies of grain. Instead, stockpiles of grain already in secret storage facilities in various locations throughout Tigrai were trucked around to new locations, giving the appearance to the NGOs that fresh supplies of grain were being bought in and delivered. Since the aid workers had no means of independently verifying the grain that was being shuttled from one location to another from completely fresh shipments, they would perform cursory inspections and make payments. In that manner, TPLF/REST was able to sell and resell multiple times the same previously acquired stockpile of grain (and sand) to the NGOs, generating millions of dollars in revenue. TPLF/REST used various ways and techniques in 1985 to maximise its business transactions with the NGOs and in selling grain shipments sent by donor countries.

Dr Aregawi told the BBC that of the US$100 million that went through TPLF hands at the time, US$95 million was diverted for weapons purchases and other purposes not related to famine relief. He stated that the TPLF stage-managed ‘dramas’ to ‘fool the aid workers’. A recent BBC investigation identified a 1985 official CIA document which concluded: ‘Some funds that insurgent organisations are raising for relief operations, as a result of increased world publicity, are almost certainly being diverted for military purposes.’ Robert Houdek, a senior US diplomat in Ethiopia in the late 1980s, was quoted by the BBC saying that TPLF members at the time told him that some aid money was used to buy weapons. An aid worker named Max Peberdy stated that he had personally delivered to TPLF/REST officials US$500,000 in Ethiopian currency to purchase grain.

The prima facie evidence of massive relief aid diversion by the TPLF is compelling and damning.[2] Those accused of involvement in the wrongdoing have dismissed the evidence as ‘rubbish’; they have not called for a full fact-finding inquiry to clear their names of such serious and grave charges. Until such inquiry takes place, the evidence of aid-sharking and theft stands unchallenged and unrefuted. To be sure, very little of the famine aid money in 1984/5 channeled through the TPLF went to help the hungry, poor and dying in Tigrai. Nearly all of it (95 per cent) was diverted for military and other purposes. Bob Geldof who organised Live Aid/Band Aid in 1984 collecting tens of millions of dollars in donations recently threatened, ‘If there is any money missing I will sue the Ethiopian government.’

The systematic plunder and pillage of Ethiopia over the past two decades can now be put in clear perspective.

We now know:
- Why Ethiopia’s only outlet to the sea was signed, sealed and delivered, overriding contrary advice by international diplomats;
- What went down in the deal to hand over Badme to the aggressor in binding international arbitration following the aggressor’s decisive military defeat at the cost of over 80,000 Ethiopian lives;
- How the May 2005 elections were stolen in broad daylight;
- Why the missing millions of dollars worth of gold bars from the national bank in 2007 are still missing;
- Of the secret sweetheart deals that turned over the country’s gold mines to cronies at bargain-basement prices;
- How state enterprises were given out to family, friends and supporters for pittance in the name of privatisation;
- About the secret deals made to demarcate the border between the Sudan and Ethiopia;
- About the fire sale of millions of hectares of farmland to foreign ‘investors’;
- About the no-collateral bank loans in the millions of dollars to friends and supporters and the 1.7 billion birr ($141.6 million) loan to Messebo Cement Factory, one of the many companies owned by the ‘Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray’ (EFFORT a/k/a Zenawi, Inc.,), which sent the Development Bank of Ethiopia careening into insolvency);
- About the monopoly of the cement business by Zenawi, Inc./EFFORT;
- About the multi-million dollar child-trafficking business in the name of inter-country adoptions;
- About the secret deals to sole source the construction of the Gilgel Gibe dams to an Italian company;
- About the ‘genocide and interhamwe’ scare talk;
- About the corrupt procurement and contracting practices that direct state business to cronies, supporters and friends;
- About the rampant nepotism, patronage and clientelism;
- Why draconian ‘laws’ we enacted to criminalise NGOs and the independent press; and on and on and on.

We know because we now have the blueprint for the perfect kleptocracy!

One must grudgingly admire these con men for their sheer audacity, genius and creativity in ripping off so much money from the charities in the mid-1980s (and for the last two decades from the Ethiopian people). Even Ali Baba and his 40 thieves could not have pulled off such a brilliant scheme to sell and re-sell the NGOs the same sand as grain over and over again. Even Hermes, the Greek god of thieves, would not have been able to come up with such an exquisitely perfect plan to hoodwink and bamboozle gullible NGOs of millions of dollars. They truly deserve the title, ‘A New Breed of African Thieves’.

The facts are plain to see. We know now that these thieves did not stand for the people of Tigrai at the critical hour in 1984. They sure as hell do not stand for the people of Ethiopia today. They stand for themselves and no one else. They will try to cling to power by creating enmity and polarisation between the people of Tigrai and their brothers and sister in the rest of Ethiopia. That is the ONLY way they can stay in power. As an old Ethiopian saying teaches, disorder and chaos creates ideal conditions for thieves (Gir gir le leba yimechal.) The Ethiopian opposition today is in a state of gir-gir (disarray, discord and mess). When the core of opposition political activity revolves around ethnic bashing, finger pointing and finger wagging, the ideal conditions for thievery are created and maintained. But there is a way to deal with Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves:

Close ranks regardless of ethnicity or regionality; reaffirm our basic humanity in our Ethiopianity; renounce our old enmity; openly declare our steadfast unity and trumpet our Ethiopian nationality at every opportunity.

When we have done these things, we will have freed ourselves from domination and rule by a kleptocracy – a government of thieves, by thieves, for thieves!

We should all thank BBC's Africa Editor, Martin Plaut, for his extraordinary investigative work in this affair.

Fight crime. Say ‘No’ to thieves!

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article first appeared in the Huffington Post.
* Alemayehu G. Mariam is a professor of political science at California State University, San Bernardino, and an attorney based in Los Angeles.

NOTES
[1] See 1984 BBC video at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8321043.stm

[2] See details of the scam in excerpts from Gebremedin Araya's Amharic manuscript: Pt. 1, http://www.ethiomedia.com/course/telat_ena_ethiopia.pdf 
Pt. 2, http://www.ethiomedia.com/course/tplf_crimes_against_humanity.pdf

South Africa World Cup 2010: 100 days to what?

Azad Essa

2010-03-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62906

cc Paulk The press conference celebrating 100 days before the World Cup kick-off left the big question unanswered, argues Azad Essa: How will South Africans benefit from the World Cup? For Essa ‘only the dim-witted, government or FIFA communication officers walked away feeling that the World Cup was really about anything more than ending Afro-pessimism and stroking a couple of shiny suits'.

I don’t like press conferences.

Organised to propagate nothing more than a particular message, they are spaces where real questions are rarely asked because there is no place for real answers.

Everything is pre-empted, rehearsed and answers are a performed act, designed by media experts, advisers and prom queen mothers. Everyone knows that real answers to probing questions are found in the most unlikely of places: In the bar, on the golf course, in someone else’s bed.

The journalists who are forced to patronise press conferences merely rotate old rhetoric on a new piece of paper before they go outside to whisper sweet vulgarities at each other through grinding, cigarette-tainted teeth. ‘He didn’t answer anyone’s questions properly’; ‘This is such bull****’; or ‘This was pointless – again’ all loop through the vacant corridors like frustrating, broken records.

So any journalist who expected to receive substantial answers on anything other than the hackneyed ‘100 days to the World Cup’ comments from FIFA’s (International Federation of Association Football) big boys or representatives of the South African government at the press conference held at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on Tuesday, should have hit the beach instead. I knew I should have: It was a beautiful day to hit the surf.

Sepp Blatter entertained as he showcased some good humour and nicely packaged rhetoric about ‘FIFA giving back to Africa’, whilst deputy president Kgalema Mothlanthe charmed as he smiled, talking about wanting to put on his ‘boots and run on the pitch’.

And fair enough, this was a happy occasion that celebrated the winding route of a journey that started some 2000 days ago when South Africa first won the bid to host the event. The road has been long: Filled with international scepticism, with talk of imminent plan B and C and of long, hard, work in constructing multiple new stadiums, in upgrading roads, transport systems, stadium precincts. And now, just 100 days are left to the greatest show on earth.

But the World Cup was not sold on the back of a logic that simply promised feeling good about our selves. And unfortunately – whilst dignitaries answered eloquently on typically over-asked questions regarding what this World Cup would mean to the people of South Africa and Africa, in terms of nation building, self-esteem and pride – there was little attempt to address the legitimate concerns posed by some journalists interested in more than the glitz and glam.

With 100 days to go, there is a plethora of unanswered questions regarding what this event will actually do for the people of South Africa. A question posed about the thousands of construction workers, who had now lost their jobs following the completion of the stadiums, turned our beaming deputy president into a fumbling comedian, mumbling on about how the construction industry was the only sector that saw growth during the recession.

A question posed about what percentage of revenue made by FIFA would be put back into South African football and the country as a whole, saw a FIFA representative admitting that it was a difficult question, but then u-turning and assuring all that FIFA’s financial statements were completely transparent.

A question about the possible lack of professionalism in African football and the impact that this has on preparations for the World Cup following the recent sacking of the Ivory Coast and Nigerian managers, saw SAFA (South African Football Association) president, Kirsten Nematandani, go on a misdirected rant about how immensely prepared Bafana Bafana will be under Alberto Carlos Pereira.

In all three examples, none of the concerns were even addressed in the slightest. It didn’t help that eThekwini mayor, Obed Mlaba, looked constipated; KZN (KwaZulu Natal) premier, Zweli Mkhize, seemed disinterested and Local Organising Committee chairperson, Irvin Khoza, appeared pensive as they too collectively stuck to singing school hymns about the World Cup taking us closer to Jesus (and economic prosperity), rather than addressing the concerns of the ordinary.

For a country that has been sold the World Cup based on the positive spin-offs that the event will have on the economy and South African society, it was embarrassing to listen to South African leaders mumble awkwardly when it came to just about any question that actually posed the slightest challenge. They even looked, I dare say, incessantly unprepared.

It is unsurprising that at the same time, on the other side of town, the World Class Cities for All campaign (WCCA) were issuing their own press statements, commemorating the 100 days before kick-off with a completely different angle.

There was no talk about a grand wedding ceremony that would consummate the grand love affair between FIFA and South Africa, as described by Blatter. The focus of these statements rested on tangible impact on the urban poor and those whose lives have had to change as a result of the World Cup coming to our shores.

‘With 100 days to go before the games open, official action towards the urban poor fails to meet any standard of fair play,’ said Pat Horn, StreetNet International coordinator, in the statement. ‘We want to see African street culture, music and indigenous food, the ‘shisa nyama’, informal traders, as an integral part of a visitor’s experience of South Africa,’ she continued.

However, the opposite is happening. The host city by-laws ensure there is no trading near the stadium and FIFA copyright and agreements are firmly in the hands of big business. Worse still, in some of the fan parks such as Cape Town, the livelihoods of informal traders are under threat as existing trading sites will be taken over by official FIFA concessions.

The WCCA further allege that in Mbombela, the school that was destroyed to make way for a stadium, was replaced by a temporary structure. The commitment to replace the school has still not yet been met.

Furthermore, the statement says that in Cape Town, the popular Parade and Green Market Square have been declared off limits for informal traders after being declared an official fan-park. With less than a 100 days to go, the Informal Traders Association is still awaiting a reply from the city regarding their objection to the decision.

More than 900,000 jobs were lost in 2009 and with economic recovery yet to initiate a ripple-effect to the lowest strata of job creation, the informal economy is still the respite of most unemployed South Africans seeking work. The WCCA argues that the World Cup does little for this segment of society, except forcibly removes and creates further impediments in earning a living.

The irony of the press conference, held at the Moses Mabhida stadium, was that the harder dignitaries tried to elucidate that ‘time for scepticism had passed’, that ‘this really was Africa’s moment’ or campaigned ‘football for hope, development and good health’, the further they diverted from the real issues.

There are serious doubts that ordinary South Africans will benefit, but no one really wants to talk about that. Instead, FIFA and the South African government continue to brand this event as the ultimate intervention towards ending international pessimism about Africa.

So determined are they that they are willing to strip the rights of ‘poor Black Africans’ in a bid to get the multibillion audience to catch a glimpse of the other Africa: plush stadiums, uShaka, Gateway shopping mall, Soccer City and Kruger National Park. The ugly truth is that our government officials and leaders merely pitched up to this latest press conference to convey the ‘I was there’ chant.

There was a disinterest in dealing with any of the real issues: In fact, there wasn’t even the slightest hint that it would allude to be a people-focused event.

In so doing, only the dim-witted, government or FIFA communication officers walked away feeling that the World Cup was really about anything more than ending Afro-pessimism and stroking a couple of shiny suits.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article first appeared in Africa Report and thoughtleader.co.za on 4 March 2010.
* Azad Essa is a journalist based in Durban. He writes an award winning blog: Accidental Academic.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

A racism outside of language: Israel's apartheid

Saree Makdisi

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62928

cc HoyasmegWhile South Africa's apartheid may represent the closest historical precedent to Israel–Palestine, writes Saree Makdisi, the Israeli state's treatment of Palestinian people in many respects eclipses the suffering imposed by the South African apartheid government on 'non-white' people. Though its supporters worldwide refuse to countenance that any form of systematic racism is perpetrated by Israel, Makdisi stresses, the country's racism is one 'practised in practice rather than in language' and is rooted in treating Palestinians as not merely inferior, but subhuman.

Among the highlights of my recent trip to South Africa were a tour of the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg and a visit to the downtown neighbourhood of Fordsie with my close friends Hanif and Salim Vally (who grew up there during the apartheid years – an experience that committed them both to the cause of justice), as well as a walk through the nearby half-demolished neighbourhood of Fietas.

Like Sophiatown in Johannesburg and District Six in Cape Town, Fietas was largely cleared of its non-white population in the 1970s (some of its former residents were forcibly relocated to Lenasia, others to Eldorado Park) and then methodically demolished. Its eerie, grass-grown, open spaces today stand as stark reminders of the city’s violent past, as reminders that under certain circumstances town planning, charting and zoning are immediately violent activities. For all its apparent innocuousness, bureaucracy can be as destructive as any bomb. What happened in Fietas certainly testifies to that: whole families forced to move, a neighbourhood smashed to pieces, homes pulverised by bulldozers materially manifesting a racist bureaucracy’s notion of the appropriate distribution of people and ethnic identities in social space. The logic of racial separation is itself violent; horrendous as its implementation may be, the real crime is in the logic itself.

The violence of bureaucracy and of racist logic is of course one of the central themes in the Apartheid Museum. Of all the exhibits, the one that I found most striking was probably one of the most visually innocuous: a list, adorning one wall, of the various laws and regulations that constituted South Africa’s system of apartheid. That wall, and some of the other exhibits, really brought home to me the extent to which South African apartheid continually registered itself in the verbal and visual field through endless plaques, signs, words, laws, names, classifications – an endless series of binaries constructed around the ultimate 'blankes/nie blankes.' One of the most compelling facts about South African apartheid is that it was not just an invisible or inscrutable or anonymous logic, it dared to have a proper name. After all, it insisted on calling attention to itself in its system of explicit signs, labels, markers – on every bus, at the entrance to every bathroom.

There was, of course, no way for me to contemplate South African apartheid without contemplating its relevance for understanding the situation in Israel–Palestine today. For anyone who has been to Palestine, the grass-grown wasteland of Fietas looks familiar for good reason: it has its counterpart in every grass-covered ruin of every one of the hundreds of towns and villages in Palestine whose people were driven from their homes in 1948 because a racial logic dictated that they should not live in a space supposedly decreed (by God and the United Nations) to another people; in every wind-swept wasteland of Gaza where many of those same refugees’ homes were once again bulldozed by the Israeli army to clear lines of sight and make room for free-fire zones; and in every corner of occupied East Jerusalem where Israeli bulldozers have deliberately and methodically demolished Palestinian family homes in a vain attempt to maintain the ratio of Jews to non-Jews in the city’s population (72 to 28, if you are interested in the sordid details) that was determined by city planners in the 1970s – and has been sustained ever since by denying Palestinian residents of the city permits to build, bulldozing their homes when they build anyway, and stripping them of their residency status and expelling them from the city whenever possible. 2,162 Palestinian Jerusalemites have suffered this fate since 2003 alone, expelled to the West Bank suburbs and denied the right to return to the city of their birth, while Jewish arrivals from Moldova, London, Melbourne and Brooklyn who have never set eyes on Jerusalem take their place.

It has become commonplace to casually use the language of apartheid to refer to the forms of discrimination that Israel maintains in the occupied territories: two different transportation networks, two different housing systems, two different educational complexes, even two different legal and administrative systems for the two populations, Jewish and non-Jewish.

Exactly the same discriminatory logic is at work across the 1949–67 armistice line inside Israel itself, however. And for all the resistance that applying the term to the occupied territories generates, it is virtually impossible to stage a rational conversation about the system of apartheid at work inside pre-1967 Israel. Most of Israel’s supporters in Europe and America, and even some of its liberal critics – the ones who accept that the system of separation that Israel has imposed on the occupied territories may have crossed a certain line – adamantly refuse to countenance the possibility that there is any systematic form of racism in the would-be Jewish state. For them, the 1975 UN General Assembly resolution denouncing Zionism as a form of racism – the only UN resolution to have been subsequently annulled – was itself a vicious form of racism.

When it is levelled at Israel then, the charge of apartheid generates not counter-argument backed by counter-evidence, but rather walls of sheer stony denial, if not inarticulate eruptions of blind rage, as though either denial or sheer fury could permanently forestall argument. It is a stunning fact that, to this day, mainstream politicians, journalists and ordinary citizens in the US and elsewhere, even South Africa itself – I witnessed this myself while delivering my February 2010 lecture at Wits – refuse to engage in argument, evidence and facts on this issue; they cling stubbornly to the mantra-like recitation of long worn-out myths. 'The Jewish people know what it means to be oppressed, discriminated against, and even condemned to death because of their religion,' said Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, in a feeble attempt to contest the primary assertion of President Carter’s 2006 book 'Palestine: Peace not Apartheid' (which even explicitly exempted Israel within its pre-1967 borders from its analysis, restricting itself to the occupied territories). 'They have been leaders in the fight for human rights in the United States and throughout the world. It is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based oppression, and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously.' Such a refusal to enter into a rational argument, and to fall back on the equivalent of superstition – Jews are superhuman, incapable of evil – is not restricted to the US. 'If you’re going to label Israel as Apartheid, then you are also … attacking Canadian values,' said Canadian MP Peter Shurman in a recent angry denunciation of Canadian universities’ annual Israeli Apartheid Week, which was condemned by the parliament in Ottawa. 'The use of the phrase "Israeli Apartheid Week" is about as close to hate speech as one can get without being arrested, and I’m not certain it doesn’t actually cross over that line,' Shurman said.

Nor are such forms of denial restricted to politicians. Here, for example, is Roger Cohen, foreign editor of The New York Times, who has previously criticised Israeli policy in the occupied territories, writing in the Washington Post just the other day: 'The Israel of today and the South Africa of yesterday have almost nothing in common. In South Africa, the minority white population harshly ruled the majority black population. Nonwhites were denied civil rights, and in 1958, they were even deprived of citizenship. In contrast, Israeli Arabs, about one-fifth of the country, have the same civil and political rights as do Israeli Jews. Arabs sit in the Knesset and serve in the military, although most are exempt from the draft. Whatever this is – and it looks suspiciously like a liberal democracy – it cannot be apartheid.'

I have known for some time, of course, that, no matter how many times journalists like Cohen repeat the statement that 'Israeli Arabs' – i.e., Palestinian citizens of Israel – have the same civil and political rights as do Israeli Jews, that simply is not the case. Blind recitation may be comforting, but it doesn’t actually transform reality. What I learned from my trip to South Africa, however, is that the parallel between the two situations (South Africa on the one hand and the occupied territories and Israel on the other) is much more extensive than is normally admitted in public discourse, though there are also some notable differences.

One thing I learned on my trip is that every single major South African apartheid law that I saw on the wall of the Johannesburg museum has a direct equivalent in Israel today.

The notorious Population Registration Act of 1950, which assigned to every South African a racial identity according to which he or she had access to (or was denied) a varying range of rights, has a direct equivalent in the Israeli laws that assign to every citizen of the state a distinct national identity. According to Israeli law, there is no such thing as Israeli nationality. As the High Court put it in the 1970s, 'There is no Israeli nation separate from the Jewish people.' So Jewish citizens of the state are classified as having 'Jewish nationality', but non-Jews, although they can be citizens of the state, are explicitly not members of the 'nation' – i.e., Jews all over the world, whether they want to be affiliated with Israel or not, whose state Israel claims to be. As a result, the national identity of the Palestinian citizens of Israel – who constitute 20 per cent of the actual rather than merely the ideological population of the state – is denied and erased at every institutional level. Unlike Jewish citizens, who are recognised as having a national identity, Israeli law methodically strips Palestinian citizens of their national identity and reduces them to mere ethnicity, which is why the state invented the term 'Israeli Arabs' to refer to them. (That term is never used to refer to the Arab Jews who make up a considerable proportion of Israel’s Jewish population – the real Israeli Arabs – because of course in their case Israel wants to erase their Arab identity and absorb them as Jews, whereas in the case of Palestinian citizens the reverse holds true: they can’t be absorbed as Jews, so their indigestible Arabness is emphasised).

This verbal sleight of hand is very hard to dislodge. I have had several fruitless arguments with the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times about the paper’s use of the term 'Israeli Arabs' to refer to Israel’s Palestinian citizens. Well, not arguments, exactly – I argue, I present evidence to show the artificial and misleading constructedness of the term and the extent to which Palestinians inside Israel totally refuse it and call themselves Palestinians, but the paper’s editors shrug their shoulders and say that I may have a point, but …

Of course, this linguistic evasion serves a purpose: it is what enables otherwise perfectly rational people like Roger Cohen or the editors of the LA Times to come along and blithely use the state’s discourse to buy into Israel’s erasure of Palestinian identity in total and blissful unawareness that that is exactly what they are doing, and to come out at the other end miraculously saying that the state treats all its citizens equally: the act of discrimination is invisible because it is inscrutable. How, after all, can you acknowledge that Israel discriminates against its Palestinian population when there is no such thing? What Palestinians? There are no Palestinians inside Israel, only 'Israeli Arabs'. But that’s the point: the denial, the erasure, the act of discrimination, is already there before the utterance is made. There is no language for it; it cannot be uttered.

Indeed, this above all is what so markedly distinguishes Israeli apartheid from South African apartheid. Whereas the latter insisted on giving itself a name and drawing attention to itself through endless verbal and visual cues, the former completely elides and covers over the forms of racism that it embodies just as fully. Those who support racism in Israel can do so in total freedom from having to reckon with the fact that that is what they are doing. It is the ultimate example of what David Theo Goldberg has recently theorised as 'racism without racism'. This is, in short, the most brilliant use of interpellated denial and erasure that has ever been put into practice in the world, though, like so many things in Israel (e.g., building Independence Park on a Palestinian cemetery in Jerusalem, or inventing the legal category of the 'present absentees' to refer to Palestinians who were driven from their homes in 1948 but remained within the borders of the state, or landscaping the West Bank wall from the Israeli side so its true scale is obscured and diminished), it is a purely unintended brilliance, and hence not really brilliance at all, but rather yet one more instance of the mind-boggling forms of denial at which Israel and its admirers are so proficient, indeed, on which the liberal Western admiration of Israel depends for its very existence.

At the end of the day, the South African white, irrespective of her ideological position, had to look at the sign saying 'blankes/nie blankes' and affiliate herself accordingly – an awkwardness the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg re-enacts very effectively at its entrance. The Jewish Israeli, and the supporter of Israel overseas, is never forced into that confrontation, never has to make that choice – it’s done for him before language: the racism is pre-digested and rendered inscrutable. Jewish Israelis and admirers of the state can say that Israel treats all its citizens equally, not so much because they do not realise that discrimination operates at the level of nationality rather than at the secondary level of citizenship, but rather because, unlike white South Africans, they are spared from having to reckon with that realisation. They are allowed, and they allow themselves, to see right through it, to indulge in the misrecognition of an ugly reality that is actually staring them in the face, to continuously misrecognise the facts when someone else insists on tabulating, documenting and presenting them – and to erupt in blind resentful fury if the facts are pushed at them too insistently.

Stripping Palestinian citizens of their national identity is not only merely degrading, however. In Israel, various fundamental rights – access to land and housing, for example – are attendant upon national identity, not the lesser category of mere citizenship. Thus, Jews who are not citizens actually have more rights than citizens who are not Jewish; in no other country on earth do racially privileged non-citizens enjoy greater rights than citizens and residents.

Hence, the Group Areas Act of 1950, which assigned different areas of South Africa for the residential use of different racial groups, has a direct equivalent in the system of regulations that determine access to land inside Israel (and inside the occupied territories too, of course, but here I am talking about pre-1967 Israel). Palestinian citizens of the state are legally excluded from residing in officially designated 'Jewish community settlements' or 'Jewish rural settlements' organised into rural councils that control the vast majority of the land in Israel. Indeed, they are barred from living on state land or land held by 'national institutions' such as the Jewish National Fund (JNF), which compose 93 per cent of the land inside Israel, almost every square inch of it Palestinian property violently expropriated by the new state after the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948. Nowhere, in fact, is the extent and institutionalisation of this kind of discrimination more glaringly obvious than in the pronouncements of the JNF, which advertises itself as 'the caretaker of the land of Israel on behalf of its owners – Jewish people everywhere'. This institution not only acknowledges but proudly justifies its long-established record of discriminating against Palestinian citizens by pointing out that it 'is not a public body which acts on behalf of all the citizens of the state. Its loyalty is to the Jewish people and its responsibility is to it [i.e., the Jewish people] alone. As the owner of JNF land, the JNF does not have to act with equality towards all citizens of the state.' Moreover, it points out, 'Israel’s Knesset [i.e., parliament] and Israeli society have expressed their view that the distinction between Jews and non-Jews that is the basis for the Zionist vision is a distinction that is permitted,' and, indeed, that its allocation of land to Jews alone 'is in complete accord with the founding principles of the state of Israel as a Jewish state and that the value of equality, even if it applies to JNF lands, would retreat before this principle'.

As a result of all the forms of discrimination with which they must contend as non-Jews living in the would-be Jewish state (would-be in spite of the continuing non-Jewish, Palestinian presence), some 10 per cent of the Palestinian citizens of Israel live today in 'unrecognised villages' which predate the existence of the state by decades or centuries yet do not appear on any official maps. They are therefore not connected to the national power grid, the national water distribution system, the phone network or the mail system. They do not officially exist, other than the fact that all the homes in these villages are slated for demolition because they exist on land that the state retroactively zoned as agricultural, there being 'no residences' there, after all. Here again the same logic of profound denial of denial is at work: how can you deny the circumstances of life in villages that according to the state do not officially exist in the first place? There is literally nothing to deny!

The Black Education Act of 1953, which created a separate and unequal educational system for black South Africans, has a direct equivalent in the administrative procedures that have created separate and unequal educational systems for Jewish and non-Jewish citizens of the state of Israel (and again the same thing goes for the occupied territories too). The naked statistics say it all: the state provides 1,600 subsidised day-care centres, for example, but only 25 of those are in Palestinian towns. Only 4,200 of the 80,000 Israeli children under four years old who attend day-care are Palestinian, though had that number been in proportion to the actual population, it would have been over 20,000. After day-care, Israel invests more than three times as much on a per capita basis in a Jewish student than it does in a non-Jewish (i.e., Palestinian) one. The state’s current list of the 553 towns and villages granted top priority for education excluded all Palestinian towns inside Israel other than four villages. There are 25 special art schools for Jewish children, and none for Palestinian children – citizens of the state all. And at the higher levels of its school system, Israel opens far more curricular tracks to Jewish students than to Palestinian ones. As a result of all these forms of discrimination, and nakedly discriminatory entrance and matriculation procedures – and despite the fact that Palestinians traditionally place great emphasis on their children’s education, a fact attested to by the disproportionately large numbers of Palestinians among the Arab intelligentsia – a far greater proportion of Jewish students make it through high school, get accepted to university and graduate. Only 10 per cent of Israel’s university students are Palestinian, for example, though proportionately speaking it ought to be double that number. Only 3 per cent of its PhD students are Palestinian. Only 1 per cent of its university lecturers are Palestinian.

And the list goes on. South Africa’s Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 has its equivalent in the Israeli laws prohibiting Jews from marrying non-Jews (again, there is no proscription in language that announces this prohibition as such, but there is no institution of civil marriage in Israel, so Jews are only allowed to marry other Jews, and then only according to Orthodox religious law); the Natives (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act of 1945 and the Black (Native) Amendment Act of 1952 that required black South Africans to carry passes and regulated their access to urban areas have equivalents in the various Israeli laws regulating and controlling the movement of Palestinians – but not Jews – within the occupied territories and between and among the occupied territories, Jerusalem and Israel; the Public Safety Act of 1953 has an equivalent in the Israeli military regulations permitting the long-term detention without trial of Palestinians (but not Jews, who are protected by Israeli civil law) in the occupied territories – a cumulative total of 650,000 Palestinians have been held prisoner by Israel since 1967, about 20 per cent of the entire population; the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1952, which mandated greater official recognition of the Bantustans like Transkei, and the Bantu Homelands Constitution Act of 1971, have an equivalent in the Oslo Accords’ creation of a so-called Palestinian Authority to manage the affairs of Palestinian (but not Jewish) residents of the occupied territories.

Indeed, just as South Africa created Transkei, Ciskei and Bophuthatswana in order to artificially delete as many blacks as possible from South Africa’s own population registry, Israel maintains pockets of the West Bank and all of Gaza as holding pens for the land’s non-Jewish population while settling the rest of the territory with its own population in order to be able to have its cake and eat it too: to absorb the land (settling it) but not the people, and hence to maintain the claim that it is a Jewish state while keeping to a bare minimum the number of non-Jews who officially live within the state – and hence to perpetuate the fiction that it does not disenfranchise the majority of the land’s population that is Palestinian. Of course Israel disenfranchises the land’s Palestinian majority: there are today 11 million Palestinians and 5 million Israeli Jews. Israel’s manipulation of populations and territories, however, obscures as much as possible these material circumstances: 1 million Palestinians are citizens of Israel and linguistically disappeared into the category of 'Israeli Arabs', so they don’t count; 6 million Palestinians continue to live in the exile that was violently forced on them in 1948 by Israel, which continues to deny their legal and moral right of return, so they don’t count either. That leaves only the 4 million or so Palestinians in the occupied territories, and they have the blessings of an illusory autonomy (or at least the talk about one day having autonomy) and the collaborationist Palestinian Authority and its hopelessly compromised and politically bankrupt leadership. The fact that Israel has held – while stubbornly refusing to resolve the status of – the occupied territories for over four decades, or two thirds of its own existence as a state, belies the discursive provisionality of the territories’ status. Israel has colonised, planted and partially developed the West Bank and East Jerusalem; it has settled half a million of its own citizens there; it has extended its own laws there; it uses the aquifers and airspace there every single day. In practice, Israel has annexed the West Bank; only in name has it not done so. And the only reason it has not done so is because only the pretence that the West Bank (and Gaza) is exterior to the state allows Israel to maintain a fiction at the level of language that is belied by the material reality – which allows, for example, Roger Cohen to come along and say, well, yes, there may be discrimination in the West Bank, 'but it is not part of Israel proper', so it doesn’t really count, and anyway that territory will eventually be the 'heartland' of a Palestinian state (something that has been talked about for almost two decades, half as long as the West Bank has actually been occupied, without it making the slightest bit of difference on the ground – e.g., the colonist population has essentially tripled since the first so-called peace talks in 1991).

There are, of course, major differences between apartheid inside Israel and apartheid in South Africa.

I have already pointed out one of the major differences: the legibility of South African apartheid and the relative illegibility – inscrutability – of Israeli apartheid. Nowhere in Israel or the occupied territories is there a sign that baldly says 'Jews only'. The racism is practised in practice rather than in language. That’s what enables supporters of Israel to engage in the endless equivocation and hair-splitting to which they are so often reduced in defending a form of racism that denies that that is what it is. For example, to the charge that there are two different road networks in the West Bank, one for Jews (connecting colonies to each other and to Israel) and one for non-Jews, the retort – one that is routinely deployed by Israeli hasbara and propaganda outfits in the US and Europe, such as CAMERA, whose capacity for linguistic contortionism is so extreme that it is almost comical – is invariably to insist that one network is reserved for all Israeli citizens, not just Jewish ones. In the most narrowly literal sense – at the level of language that has ceased to function as language because it no longer conveys meaning, because it is not meant to – that’s true. On the other hand, only Jews live in the West Bank colonies (Palestinians, whether they are citizens of Israel or not, aren’t allowed to live there because they are not Jewish), so in practice if not in name one road network is set apart for Jews. Again, as with so many other things, what’s in play here is a form of denial that can’t bring itself to acknowledge itself for what it is. It is by staring so obsessively at language, not seeing the absent meanings because they are not conveyed in language – 'where does it say "Jews only"?' – that the supporters of Israel allow themselves to avoid recognising the material reality: there does not have to be a sign saying 'Jews only' in language in order for Jews only to use the road in practice. Unlike apartheid in South Africa, what we see in Israel is racism that avoids language; racism without a proper name, or, in Goldberg’s formulation, racism without racism. That doesn’t make it any less racist, however.

Another difference is that the system of apartheid inside South Africa, for all its violence and viciousness, was never as violent or as vicious as the system that obtains inside Israel and the occupied territories. The movement of blacks in South Africa was controlled, not banned altogether, as is the case, for example, with Gaza. The South African government dispatched Caspar armoured cars and soldiers with rifles into Soweto – not heavy tanks, Apache helicopters firing Hellfire missiles and F-16s dropping one-ton bombs on people. The Sharpeville Massacre was an exceptional event in South Africa; for Palestinians, it would – though this is of course not to diminish it – hardly stand out in a list of massacres extending from Deir Yassin and Tantra in the 1940s to Kufr Qassem, Rafah and Khan Younis in the 1950s to Sabra and Shatilia in the 1980s to Nablus and Jenin in the 2000s to Gaza in 2008–09. There is nothing like a precedent for Israel’s 2008–09 assault on Gaza in the entire history of apartheid in South Africa: the murder of one out of every thousand people; the destruction of tens of thousands of homes at one go; the cutting off of vital supplies of food, medicine, fuel and construction materials to a population composed – as Gaza’s is – largely of children, condemning them to malnourishment; the gloating in print, for all the world to see (though not for it to make a shred of difference), as the Israeli Harvard fellow Martin Kramer did recently, that the reduction of population by siege and malnourishment will also reduce the number of 'redundant young men', and hence reduce the threat that Gaza poses to Israel.

Veterans from the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa who visit Israel and the occupied territories consistently say the same thing. 'It is worse, worse, worse than everything we endured,' noted Mondli Makhanya, editor-in-chief of the Sunday Times of South Africa, after a recent visit to Palestine. 'The level of the apartheid, the racism and the brutality are worse than the worst period of apartheid. The apartheid regime viewed the blacks as inferior; I do not think the Israelis see the Palestinians as human beings at all.'

And that of course is the major substantive difference between South African apartheid and Israeli apartheid. There is a world of difference between inferiority and dehumanisation: it is the difference between exploitation and annihilation. As the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg makes very clear, in South Africa the system was designed to enable the exploitation of black labour, to use black people’s labour power to work in houses, offices and gold mines, but deny them equal rights – for the white elite to have its cake and eat it too. The Israeli system is not about exploitation of Palestinian labour; labour from the occupied territories is now totally irrelevant to the Israeli economy, having been made up for by recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union and the supply of cheap workers from southeast Asia enabled by global circuits of exchange. It is, as it has always been, about the removal of one population and its replacement by another, a process that began but did not end in 1948, and that continues to this day every time a Palestinian home is demolished in Jerusalem, every time a Palestinian family is expelled from the ghost town that is central Hebron, every time a Palestinian Jerusalemite is stripped of her residency papers and expelled from the city of her birth, every time a Palestinian family is shattered and broken because of an Israeli law that was instituted in 2003 that prevents a Palestinian in Israel or Jerusalem from marrying and living with a spouse from the occupied territories, even though of course a Jewish Israeli can marry a Jewish colonist from the West Bank and they can live together wherever they please (when a similar law was proposed at the peak of apartheid in South Africa in 1980, it was summarily dismissed by that country’s high court as an unacceptable violation of black people’s right to family; Israel’s high court upheld that country’s new law in 2006).

In a word, as I have put this in other contexts, South African apartheid was bio-political in nature, concerned with the management and administration of living black labour. Israel’s is, to borrow the phrase that Achille Mbembe has elaborated so effectively, necropolitical, concerned with the destruction and erasure of Palestinians, something that every Palestinian resists every single day, if only by the act of stubbornly continuing to exist.

This necropolitics depends crucially and absolutely, however, on the system of inscrutability and invisibility that allows Israelis and the supporters of Israel to go on practicing and endorsing a vulgar and violent form of racism without having to reckon with and acknowledge the fact that that is precisely what they are doing. I have argued in other contexts – most recently in my Critical Inquiry article about the construction of a so-called Museum of Tolerance (really a kind of shrine to Zionism) right on top of the ruins of the most important Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem – that there are two main forms of Zionism in practice today: a hardcore Zionism which we see at work in, for example, the pronouncements of Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s current foreign minister, who has made an open call for the expulsion of Israel’s Palestinian citizens the platform for his recent meteoric rise in Israeli politics, which involves a kind of brutal honesty; and a softcore Zionism – the dominant one still – whose adherents are, by virtue of the linguistic and historical and emotional short-circuits I have described here, spared from having to reckon with and honestly acknowledge that what they support is a racist enterprise; it is only on the basis of that very inscrutability, in fact, that they can go on supporting it. This is the kind of Zionist position that says, for example, in all innocence, that it is anti-Semitic to criticise Zionism because it only represents the Jewish people’s right to have a national homeland like every other people. In asking so insistently why Jews should be denied the same right that every other people have, the softcore Zionist depends on the emotional short-circuit I have discussed here to mis-recognise the very question she is asking, for the flip-side of the same question is not whether Jews have a right to a homeland, it’s whether that right cancels out the Palestinian people’s own right to a homeland (and the answer to that question is an absolute no). Only by concentrating so obsessively and self-absorbedly on the recto of the question does the softcore Zionist avoid having to deal with its hideous verso and with the indelible fact that there is not, there never was and there never will be a way to create a Jewish state in Palestine without denying or negating the Palestinian claim to the same land and the historical rights attendant on that claim. Rather than making the denial of Palestinian rights an explicit component of her ideological position – as the hardcore Zionist does – the softcore Zionist removes that denial from her field of vision, in effect denying that there is anything to deny to begin with. And as I said earlier, the great strength of Israel’s system of apartheid is that it is structured in such a way that it never ever makes the great mistake of South African apartheid by forcing people to confront the nakedness and vulgarity of its racism. So they can support it and go on thinking of themselves as virtuous, ethical and progressive, technologically chic, friendly to animals and kind to the environment.

Where does this leave Palestinians and those who advocate for their rights?

There are, I think, two immediate conclusions from this discussion. One point is this: the reason negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis so often seem so futile is that the whole point of the linguistic short-circuits and forms of denial of denial that I have been discussing here is to forestall negotiation, or at least to bypass and render unapproachable the core of the conflict between Zionism and the Palestinians. The great strength of a racism that exists outside of language – that exempts itself from language – is that it is also quite impervious to language: every attempt to point to it and say 'that’s the problem' will be met with the perfectly sincere reply 'what problem?' What racism? What villages? What road network? What Palestinians? This is a structural complex for which there is no resolution at the level of language and hence diplomatic negotiation (let alone negotiation between two totally unequal parties). Hence the manifest futility of the attempts to end this conflict by raising consciousness among Israelis or supporters of Israel around the world, or appealing to their better instincts, the sheer stubborn refusal to acknowledge reality is demonstrated every single time lectures on Palestinian rights around the world are met with that wearily familiar wall of solid denials and that total refusal to entertain facts, evidence, reason, laws, principles – if not actually eruptions of inarticulate fury – to which we have all grown so accustomed.

The second point is that it should be even more obvious than ever that, in view of the system of apartheid in place in Israel and the occupied territories – a system of apartheid that is inseparable from the project to create and maintain the pretence of a Jewish state in what is fact a profoundly heterogeneous land – there can be no peaceful and just resolution of the Zionist conflict with the Palestinians until the attempt to replace one people with another, to impose a monocultural identity on a multicultural country, is abandoned and its institutions completely dismantled. Creating a Palestinian statelet in the West Bank alongside an Israel whose claim to Jewishness would be reinforced in a two-state solution would do little for West Bankers, less for Gazans, nothing for the refugees and their descendants, and less than nothing for the Palestinian citizens of Israel, whose status as reviled non-Jews would become even worse. Only the creation of a democratic and secular state in all of historic Palestine, in which Israeli Jews and Palestinians – all of them, the ones now under occupation, the ones living as second-class citizens of Israel, and the refugees of 1948 and their descendants, whose right of return is absolutely beyond question – can live as equal citizens can resolve this conflict once and for all.

From these two conclusions a third follows as well. A just peace will not come about by merely pleading with or trying to persuade Israeli Jews to do the right thing and abandon and dismantle the racist system that endows them with privileges while denying fundamental Palestinian rights. All the closest historical precedents to this conflict – above all South Africa – remind us that privileged groups don’t abandon their privileges just because that’s the right thing to do or because they are made to feel bad about enjoying those privileges; they abandon them only when they have no other choice. This case is no different. A just peace fundamentally requires non-violent, outside pressure to be brought to bear on Israel, which is why for so many people of goodwill around the world, and for so many Palestinians themselves, the growing BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement is a source of such hope.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Saree Makdisi is a professor of English literature at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and the author of 'Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation' (W.W. Norton, New York, 2008).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

International Women’s Day: A long journey

Rosemary Okello-Orlale

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62939

cc C Y ChowThis 8 March marked 100 years since Clara Zetkin first proposed the annual International Women’s Day (IWD) at the International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, a motion unanimously approved by over 100 women from 17 countries, writes Rosemary Okello-Orlale. When IWD was honoured for the first time the following year, more than one million women and men attended rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination.

This 8 March marks 100 years since Clara Zetkin first proposed the annual International Women’s Day (IWD) at the International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, Denmark, a motion unanimously approved by over 100 women from 17 countries. When IWD was honoured for the first time the following year, more than one million women and men attended rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination.

This year also marks 15 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a global clarion call that recognised women’s issues as global and universal. This historic Platform for Action was a powerful agenda with carefully developed strategies for the empowerment of women. For the majority of women, it has been a long journey marked with struggles. Now, the current financial, energy and food crisis threatens to erode the meagre gains made over the past years.

The theme of this year’s IWD - 'Equal rights, equal opportunity: Progress for all' - is taking place when the women’s movement the world over is at a crossroads. Women attending the Beijing +15 review conference are in agreement, women have been missing from the decision-making table for too long. 'If you are missing at the table you are part of the menu, and women are saying enough is enough,' said a delegate from Zambia.

Though previous celebrations of IWD have usually been marked with pomp and ceremony, with women taking to the streets or holding powerful luncheons, this year seems to be marked with some soul searching among gender activists. 'We have realised that it is not business as usual, we need to start leveraging women’s issues into the wider world perspective,' says Deborah Okumu, a delegate from Kenya.

According to her, whatever happens in any part of the world affects women worldwide. She says women need to come up with strategies of re-influencing the Beijing Platform for Action and positioning it to make sense in the new world order debate. 'Equal opportunities have remained elusive for women for all these years, especially in countries which have experienced conflicts,' she says. 'Time has come for women to harness the gains we have realised and re-position the women’s issues at the table of decision-makers.'

As the conference enters its second week on this auspicious day, many women may feel the same way as Lena Lewis, a US socialist who in 1910 declared that it was not a time for celebrating, but a day to anticipate the struggles ahead. She envisaged a day when 'we may eventually and forever stamp out the last vestige of male egotism and his desire to dominate over women.'

For women in Africa, the struggle for women’s emancipation has been jeopardised by many challenges facing the region, such as the feminisation of poverty, conflicts and wars, HIV/AIDS, violence against women, and maternal mortality, among others. According Micheline Ravololonarisoa, chief of UNIFEM's Africa Section, these issues concern a majority of women, especially now as the UN is undergoing restructuring and a new UN agency for women is proposed. 'Women’s voices need to be heard loud and clear on the establishment of the new agency since time has come for governments to start investing on gender equality,' she said.

The Head of Chinese Delegation to 54th Session of the UN CSW Meng Xiaosi told a high level event to commemorate International Women’s Day at the UN last week that the women’s revolution might be the longest revolution ever known to humankind. According to her, gender equality is not a reality in many countries, even though studies show that countries who are not allowing women to be at the same level as men are poor, while those who have mainstreamed gender equality are rich.

'Unless the world start equating economic growth of countries with gender equality, we will continue witnessing many crises in years to come,' she said. According to her women and men are never born enemies, but equal partners. And women’s advancement not only brings integrity and happiness to women but also better life and joy to all and the International Women's Day not only belongs to women but also to all people of the world.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Rosemary Okello-Orlale is the executive director of the African Woman and Child Feature Service. This article is part of the Gender Links 'Opinion and commentary service', produced during Beijing +15.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Peace on earth, war in the home

Loveness Jambaya

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62940

cc The Advocacy ProjectAround the world on 8 March, thousands of women (and men!) worldwide celebrated International Women's Day by gathering on bridges from San Francisco to Congo to call for an end to war and demonstrate that women can build the bridges of peace and hope, writes Loveness Jambaya. This action, organised by Women to Women International, is just one of the actions by communities and organisations in the global campaign ‘Say NO UNiTE to End Violence Against Women’, initiated by the United Nations secretary general.

As of 2 March 2010, the UNiTE campaign announced that its website had registered 183,132 actions by communities and organisations from at least 190 countries around the world. Just three days later, this number had increased to 190,442 actions. This far surpasses the initial goal for Say NO of stimulating more than 100,000 actions by International Women’s Day.

At the international level, the campaign calls on governments, civil society, the private sector and the entire UN system to join forces in addressing this global pandemic. ‘Until the violence stops, we have no freedom and without each other they will be no freedom,’ said a participant at a Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 54) session.

On the sidelines of the CSW 54 Session, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) launched a Global Virtual Knowledge Centre to End Violence against Women and Girls. The web-based knowledge centre brings together lessons learned and recommended practices gleaned from initiatives on ending violence against women and girls, whether originating from the women’s movement, civil society organisations, governments, the United Nations system or other actors.

All these initiatives showcased at the CSW, together with the number of registered actions on the Say No website, demonstrate that the world is not resting on its laurels. Each action no matter how small counts when put together as a collective. Together, these initiatives weave a rich tapestry of solutions to one day end probably the most wide-spread human rights violation,’ said UNIFEM Deputy Executive Director Moez Doraid at an event that brought together global stakeholders to discuss solutions.

Governments are also actively involved in the campaign. Speaking at the same Say NO event at CSW, Eva-Britt Svensson, a member of the European Parliament, mentioned that she spearheaded a Declaration of the European Parliament that calls for a Year of Zero Tolerance on Violence against Women in the context of Say NO. The UN put together a Trust Fund where different UN agencies contribute to put resources into violence against women.

Young women are also gearing up with innovative strategies and new technologies that helps access the younger generation. ‘Girls worldwide say NO to violence against women. It is easy to work with Say NO-you can change your Facebook status to let others know about the campaign, you can organise in your own ways to Say NO to violence against women and girls!’ said Maria Jose Proano and Nefeli Themeli. These young delegates of the 10 million member World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts from Ecuador and Greece, announced their individual commitment to engage their peers from different countries through non-formal educational activities and a poster competition on violence against women and girls.

At an earlier Sixteen Days Campaign round table discussion on 4 March, the Global Centre for Women Leadership announced the possibility of a multiyear theme related to structures of violence and intersections between militarism and GBV, an issue relevant not only to countries experiencing armed conflict but also women living in countries that manufacture these arms. Women in these supply based countries need to campaign for manufacturers to shut down or any other actions that may prevent the proliferation of small arms into communities even in times of peace.

As one delegate from Mozambique, in reference to a book written in her country and the post conflict situation – ‘there is now peace in my country but continue to remember that women in many homes and private spaces are in war.’

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Loveness Jambaya is the assistant director of the Southern Africa Gender Protocol Alliance at Gender Links. This article is part of the GL Opinion and Commentary Service, produced during Beijing +15.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Haiti needs solidarity, not charity

Marilyn Langlois interviewed by Amanda Zivcic

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62924

In a revealing interview, Amanda Zivcic asks Marilyn Langlois of the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund (HERF) about the country's efforts at recovery following its devastating earthquake in January, the dubious practices of foreign organisations ostensibly operating in support of the Haitian people, and the debilitating historical and contemporary role played by US policy.

AMANDA ZIVCIC: How was the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund (HERF) formed, and how connected is the HERF to ordinary people in Haiti?

MARILYN LANGLOIS: The Haiti Emergency Relief Fund was formed shortly after the February 29 2004 coup d'état as an offshoot of our partner organisation Haiti Action Committee (both based in the San Francisco Bay area), which does political advocacy and consciousness raising about Haiti and has long-term relationships with several grassroots leaders in the Lavalas movement that represents the vast majority of Haiti's population.

Several Haiti Action Committee members have travelled extensively and lived in Haiti, and its co-founder, Pierre Labossiere, is a Haitian currently based in the US who has helped us develop close ties with a broad network of activists in Haiti who have been working for democracy and empowerment of the poor under the leadership of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The 2004 coup d'état, in which democratically elected President Aristide was kidnapped by US marines and the Lavalas government was dismantled with support from the US, France and Canada, ushered in a period of severe repression, during which our partners called on us for emergency support.

AMANDA ZIVCIC: What was the role of the HERF initially?

MARILYN LANGLOIS: In the aftermath of the 2004 coup, which was a kind of political earthquake, we realised that material assistance was urgently needed by many of our partners who became political prisoners, or were forced into hiding or exile by the extreme political repression of the coup government supported by the US marines and then the United Nations.

All Lavalas members who had been employed by the Aristide government lost their jobs and many social programmes, including a major adult literacy programme, were terminated after the coup. For that reason HERF was created as a fundraising organisation to provide support to numerous organisations, schools, women's groups and agricultural collectives to help meet the needs of people and families suffering under the coup government and UN occupation.

In the ensuing years, HERF was additionally called on for support during the major hurricanes that hit Haiti in late 2004 and 2008. The damage caused by those hurricanes was tragic, unnecessary and frustrating, because under the Aristide government from 2000 to February 2004, an extensive disaster preparedness system following the Cuban model had been put into place, but after the coup, that whole system was dismantled.

AMANDA ZIVCIC: What is its current role of HERF?

MARILYN LANGLOIS: The current role of HERF is essentially the same as it has always been, except that the scope of the need has grown exponentially, given the magnitude of the earthquake disaster. Again, it is very disheartening that six years of UN military occupation did nothing to re-establish the effective disaster-preparedness system that was dismantled after the coup.

Further exacerbating the situation is the fact that the US military has been controlling the Port-au-Prince airport and aid distribution since the earthquake, only allowing a relatively small amount to actually reach the people who need it most, while huge stockpiles of food and supplies remain under guard at the airport.

For this reason, HERF has been sending funds directly to our partners on the ground so that they can purchase food, water and basic supplies for people living in many encampments and who have organised themselves to share what little they have as effectively as possible. HERF has also facilitated bringing in some medical teams and medical supplies to Haiti to work alongside Haitian doctors in makeshift clinics. HERF is funding a mobile schools project of the Aristide Foundation for Democracy in Port-au-Prince that hires older Haitian youth from the communities to go to different encampments and teach the younger children for a few hours a day.

AMANDA ZIVCIC: How would you describe the current situation in Haiti?

MARILYN LANGLOIS: The reports we get are that people are traumatised and struggling to survive, and are doing so by and large peacefully, with much sharing and community building, despite indications to the contrary in the corporate media, which consistently fails to portray Haitian people with the respect and dignity they deserve.

The trauma is certainly taking a toll, and we have had requests for therapists to travel there, as Haitian therapists on the ground are overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of people needing assistance processing the psychological impacts of the disaster. Physically, the conditions continue to be deplorable, and will only get worse as the rains come.

AMANDA ZIVCIC: Have you had any indication from the people of Haiti as to what they think should be done post-quake, both in the short term and in the long term?

MARILYN LANGLOIS: What we hear is that for the short term, massive amounts of food, water and supplies, including tents, need to be made widely available to all neighbourhoods and encampments and Haitians be allowed to distribute this among themselves. Given the amount of money donated worldwide to the major NGOs and relief agencies (in the billions of dollars), there should be no problem filling all of these short-term needs. HERF is small and can only do so much. There are a few other groups doing good work, but the vast majority of aid is either not getting to the people at all, or is being distributed in a way that is demeaning and disempowering.

Haitians continue to call for the immediate return of Aristide, especially now in this time of crisis. Aristide has the trust of the people and with his skills as administrator and psychologist, he could do a great deal to help guide the nation through the recovery and rebuilding process. To date, the Haitian government, clearly under the thumb of the US State Department, has declined to issue him a passport, and he remains in forced exile in South Africa.

Haitians continue to call for an end to all military occupations, including that of the United Nations since 2004 and the current US de facto occupation. There has been massive resistance to the past six years of UN occupation, with often lethal consequences, as on multiple occasions blue-helmet-clad 'peacekeepers' invaded poor neighbourhoods populated by vocal demonstrators in pre-dawn hours, killing unarmed men, women and children with impunity.

Another thing grassroots groups in Haiti have called for, and continue to call for, is that the Haitian government and United Nations launch a comprehensive investigation into the disappearance of human rights advocate Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances on August 12 2007, just two weeks after he led a demonstration in front of the UN headquarters in Port-au-Prince calling for an end to the UN occupation and return of Aristide. Lovinsky is a co-founder of the Fondasyon Trant Septanm (September 30 Foundation), which supports the victims of the September 30 1991 coup d'etat, which ousted Aristide seven months after his first election to the presidency, and three years of brutal repression ensued. To date neither the Haitian government nor the UN occupying authorities have done anything to investigate the circumstances of his disappearance.

In the long term, Haitians want to re-establish their democracy and determine themselves how the re-building process will unfold. The Fanmi Lavalas party must be allowed to participate in elections again. The party was banned from parliamentary elections last spring, sparking a very successful election boycott in which only 3–10 per cent of voters went to the polls in two successive elections.

Haitians want to control their own natural resources and agriculture, and put an end to policies imposed by the wealthy elites in collusion with the US and other international big-money interests that rob the Haitian people of what is rightly theirs. It has been estimated that France owes Haiti about US$21 billion, today's equivalent of the obscene restitution Haiti was forced to pay to France from 1825 to 1946 to 'compensate' for the former slaveholders' losses following the Haitian revolution. With US$21 billion and a robust democracy, Haitians could do wonders with their country.

AMANDA ZIVCIC: How would you describe the current role of the US in Haiti?

MARILYN LANGLOIS: The US has had varying degrees of control over Haiti's affairs since its inception, beginning with its refusal to recognise the new republic in 1804 for fear that US slaves might be inspired to follow suit, to the outright US occupation of Haiti by marines from 1915–34, to the US support for the brutal Duvalier dictatorships under the guise of 'anti-communism', to the US support for two coups d'état ousting the democratically elected President Aristide in 1991 and 2004.

What is particularly shocking now is how the United States' immediate response to one of the worst humanitarian disasters ever was an entirely military one, with control and containment taking precedence over basic human caring and compassion. Numerous people in Haiti have told us how bizarre it is to see throngs of armed soldiers patrolling areas where sick, injured and hungry people are peacefully trying to do what they can for each other.

There are many reasons why the US is so intent on controlling Haiti and not allowing Haitians to do their own thing. In addition to some of the exploitive economic practices I'll address in a later question, the US and US corporations clearly have their eyes on large untapped reserves of a variety of mineral resources in Haiti and just offshore, including gold, oil and natural gas.

A further indication that the US has intentions to maintain significant control of Haiti is the fact that it recently constructed a huge new US embassy just outside Port-au-Prince. This new US embassy compound in Haiti is the fifth-largest US embassy in the world, in a very small country with a population of around 8 million.

AMANDA ZIVCIC: How would you describe the current role of NGOs (non-governmental organisations) operating in Haiti?

MARILYN LANGLOIS: Most major NGOs in Haiti are not really meeting the needs of the people. They tend to be well connected with major big business and the US/UN occupiers, with well-paid staff and a carefully crafted image of doing a few projects here and there, as long as the recipients of their largesse don't get political and vocal about calling for the return of Aristide and Haitian democracy.

In the case of the Red Cross, we have heard reports that it has only earmarked about 20 per cent of the vast sums donated for earthquake relief in Haiti to that purpose, while the rest is being held for other things. Of the larger NGOs, two exceptions to these questionable practices that I am aware of and that are actually getting aid to people and supporting their needs as much as possible are Partners in Health and Doctors Without Borders. It's ironic, by the way, that immediately after the quake, a Doctors Without Borders airplane carrying a medical field hospital was denied landing at the Port-au-Prince airport five times by the US military.

AMANDA ZIVCIC: Can you make any comment on Haiti’s economy, or economic development? What effect have sweatshops, agriculture and tourism had on it? What has been the US part in this?

MARILYN LANGLOIS: As I've indicated above, a major challenge for the Haitian people is that they have not been allowed to fully control their own economic development in a way to meet their needs. Shortly after the successful revolution and establishment of the Republic of Haiti, the few wealthy elites remaining in the country were quickly co-opted by their counterparts abroad to thwart efforts to take the revolution to the next level and distribute resources more equitably among all the people.

Haitian popular movements have tried reversing this course many times, most recently and powerfully with the rise of the Lavalas movement from 1994–2004, when trade unions were strengthened, the minimum wage was raised and Aristide's government resisted heavy pressure to privatise state-owned utilities. In addition, Aristide implemented a massive adult literacy programme, expanded public education and built a medical school for the poor.

Prior to and during that time, the US did much to undermine equitable economic development, including dumping US-subsidised rice on the Haitian market which put Haitian rice farmers out of business, operating sweatshops for offshore assembly of items sold duty-free in the US, and denying payment of development loans that had been granted to Haiti for entirely bogus reasons. During the 1950s, a major dam was built in Haiti's central plateau to provide electricity for a wealthy few while displacing huge numbers of farmers and peasants who ended up relocating in Port-au-Prince, forming the still impoverished slums of La Saline and Cité Soleil.

The Associated Press reported on February 22 2010 that 'in the quest to rebuild Haiti, the international community and business leaders are dusting off a pre-quake plan to expand its low-wage garment assembly industry as a linchpin of recovery … All sides agree that garment-industry wages are too low to feed, clothe and house workers and their families. Even factory owners acknowledge that reality – though they deny running sweatshops…'!

AMANDA ZIVCIC: How important is Haiti’s history (like the first slave revolt and black republic) and more recent events (such as the election and then overthrow of Aristide) to its political and social development?

MARILYN LANGLOIS: Haiti's history has played a huge role in its current political and social development. What it boils down to is this: the enslaved people of France's most lucrative colony, Saint Domingue, had the audacity to do something they weren't supposed to do and no one thought they were capable of doing in an era when European white supremacy was the order of the day. They rose up and freed themselves, defeating three major European armies (of France, England and Spain), and asserting that they, too, were full human beings intent on participating fully in the course of their own destiny. This shocked and dismayed the powers that be of the day, and Haitians have been punished for it ever since.

Haitian revolutionaries stood up and challenged an entrenched and deeply racist social structure built on the notion that poor people of African descent are less than human, to be exploited economically in good times and to be feared in times of crisis. It is a structure designed to protect the wealth of a few, at the expense of our common humanity.

Sadly this racist structure is still intact, as is apparent from the US government's response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005 and again much more so after the January 12 2010 earthquake in Haiti. In both instances, available and urgently needed aid was deliberately withheld from poor black people by the so-called leaders of the 'free' world.

AMANDA ZIVCIC: Is there anything else you would like to add?

MARILYN LANGLOIS: HERF stands shoulder to shoulder with our sisters and brothers in Haiti in insisting that the resources of the Earth be shared equitably and that all people have a place at the table in deciding their future. To this end we engage in solidarity, not charity.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Marilyn Langlois, a board member of the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund, was interview by Amanda Zivcic for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal and Green Left Weekly.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Zuma says 'Drop Zimbabwe sanctions'; Kenyan parliament makes Obama offer

Gado

2010-03-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/62905

Gado's cartoons this week feature a trouser-dropping Jacob Zuma appealing for sanctions on Zimbabwe to be dropped, and the Kenyan parliament's offer to pass President Obama's healthcare bill – at a cost.




BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Pan-African Diary 2011: Call for entries

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/62912

Pambazuka Press is planning to publish a Pan-African activists' diary for 2011. The diary will be a handbook of key information about Pan-African history, quotations from thinkers and activists (women and men) in Africa and the diaspora, pictures of critical events in our past, information about key events during 2011, and lots more.

EVENTS

If you would like us to include events – meetings, conferences, festivals, actions, courses, publications etc - that your organisation is planning to hold in 2011, please send details to panafdiary [at] pambazuka [dot] org.

QUOTATIONS

If you would like to suggest quotations for publication in the diary, please send them to panafdiary [at] pambazuka [dot]org. Make sure you include the source of each quote so that those who want to read more will know where to find it.

SUGGESTIONS

If you have suggestions about information you would like to see in the diary, please send them to panafdiary[at] pambazuka [dot] org.

Help make this diary the essential handbook for all activists in Africa and the diaspora. Make sure you get your recommendations in to us by 14 April 2010. Don’t be left out – let us know what events you are planning for 2011.

We can’t guarantee that we will include everything you suggest, but we’ll do our best!

The 2011 Pan-African Diary: the essential tool for freedom and justice!

Comparative African Perspectives on China and other emerging powers in Africa

Call for Proposals

FAHAMU

2010-03-04

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/62769

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.
Comparative African Perspectives on China and other emerging powers in Africa

Call for Proposals

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 19 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 fulfil 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 19 March 2010. Research will commence following selection process and notification of successful applications. No applications received after 19 March 2010 will be accepted.

All Proposals MUST BE submitted in ENGLISH

‘Hallelujah’ moments: A small victory for women’s rights

Hope

Sokwanele

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/62926

cc Frerieke‘Please tell me how we address this patriarchal society and how we can reach a point where women are superior’ is what one young girl from an impoverished school in Zimbabwe replied when asked what she thought was standing in the way of her dreams of a trail-blazing career. ‘She’s going to need that kind of bull-headed feistiness to move herself forward in her life’, writes Sokwanele’s Hope, ‘especially if she stays in our country’. It is voices like those of this young girl, says Hope, that will help silence the few who seek to ‘preserve the status quo by denying rights to others'.

Today I was talking to a friend about women’s rights in the constitution. She told me this story about how she recently met a young girl from a very impoverished school in a high density area – the kind of school where there are hardly any text books and you expect the kids to battle their way through to exams, and then probably do badly despite their very best efforts and despite the huge lengths their parents go to to try and get them an education. This bright young woman is apparently dreaming of a trail-blazing career and my friend asked her what she thought was standing in her way.

The young woman replied: ‘Please tell me how we address this patriarchal society and how we can reach a point where women are superior?’

‘In those very words?!’ I asked, thinking it took university and many textbooks to ram that kind of language into my head.

My friend replied: ‘Ja! … Eish, I wanted to stand on a chair and yell “Hallelujah!”’

I know what she means, because I also smiled at the young woman’s aspirations to not be equal – forget that! – but to be superior. I smiled because she’s going to need that kind of bull-headed feistiness to move herself forward in her life, especially if she stays in our country.

Truth is, I’ve been stunned by some of the comments left along the theme of women’s rights on Sokwanele’s constitution resource, so I was ready to hear something about someone standing up to it. Some of the comments have left me with a very heavy heart, thinking that for all the language about oppression, and now all the talk of affirmative action, there is a certain element in male society in Zimbabwe that just doesn’t get it. It’s depressing to think the constitution offers so much potential for such good things, but backward-thinking people who want to hang onto their personal power-positions can’t see the light. I went back to the resource to remind myself (torture myself?) of the things that had been said – I wanted to read them thinking about this unknown bright young women my friend had just told me about.

I’m so glad I did, because today I found a comment left by a male visitor. His words were a response to someone else who was clearly not comfortable with women having certain rights and had argued that western norms and standards should not be imposed on Zimbabweans. The reply he left that struck a chord with me was this one:

‘It is true that we should preserve our norms. The fact is that we are greedy. When we find that western norms benefit us we go there, and we also take African norms when they benefit us. In this developing world we cannot live only on our cultures. We must interact with other people and copy from them what is right. If you look at yourself you are far much improved than your people of previous generations. We expect our children to develop better than us. I wouldn’t be happy to be better than my offspring.’

His words ‘The fact is that we are greedy’ really chimed with me; I’ve been stewing for some time now about how ‘culture’ and ‘tradition’ are words that seem to be invoked by some more out of a desire to protect a position of privilege, or to justify oppression.

Many, many years ago I encountered another amazing young woman from a high density area where most of the people had zero prospects of a positive future: I’d been invited to attend a workshop in South Africa (this was a little while before the ‘new’ South Africa was born). The workshop was on addressing violence in the area. I remember being very tired and disengaged from the discussion, until, that is, the talk moved to the issue of violence against women in particular.

My friend, who had asked me to come along to keep her company, was talking to the group about how language used by some men in relation to women was not cool and could lead to violence. Before she could fully finish, a young man at the back of the group stood up and almost exploded with rage: His face was twisted with anger and he was pointing at her while leaning forward aggressively shouting. His rage boiled down to this very simple premise: ‘Don’t tell us how we should behave towards women, it’s not your culture and in our culture we do things differently’.

I was fully alert at this point: The whole group had been stunned into silence and my friend, I could tell, was struggling to find the right appropriate words to say – words that effectively did the right thing in the context of the workshop, but also respected this man’s culture. I was alive with interest, wondering how on earth she was going to navigate this minefield of fundamental human rights colliding with right-on political correctness. She couldn’t find a thing to say; the guy’s argument had led her into a cul-de-sac: If she insisted his culture should change to respect the rights of others, she would in theory be proving his thesis that she didn’t respect his culture. And that’s why that argument seems to carry weight, not because its valid or true, but because it carries with it wheelbarrow-loads of emotional manipulation.

The heavy silence that ensued was eventually rescued by a black woman in the group who quietly stood up – with an air of drama – and walked slowly over to the still-angry man. She started talking very quietly, but loud enough for us all to hear:

‘I’m wondering which culture you are talking about?’ she asked rather ominously and slowly. Then she raised her voice: ‘… because in MY culture, everything you have just said is rubbish!’

It was an incredible moment: the women in the group started to smile, and the whole room descended into chaos as men shouted at women and women shouted at men. It was not exactly what was meant to happen at a workshop about anger and violence – and my friend felt she had failed – but I left that room a changed person and I think that many other women did too. I have never ever forgotten that woman and what she did that day.

As for the young Zimbabwean girl who had my friend nearly standing on a chair shrieking ‘hallelujah’ … I’m struck today by my sense of time shifting forwards. Here we are, many decades down the line – and there she stands, yet another amazing young women, fighting the same fight in a different country also on the brink of change.

I hope in my bones that she will be just as inspirational as that person I encountered in South Africa so many years ago. I hope she will change lives too. And I hope there are more men like the guy who left the comment on our resource who think just like him. I hope they will voice their thoughts and silence the few who are ‘greedy’ and seeking to preserve the status quo by denying rights to others.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article first appeared on Sokwanele.
* Hope is a blogger for Sokwanele.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Demands from Jos, Nigeria and the world: Invest in caring, not killing

Horace Campbell

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/62931

The details of the massacre of more than 100 defenceless poor and exploited persons – mostly women and children – in Nigeria came on 8 March International Women’s Day. It was striking that this news came when society should be spending time honouring the work and contribution of women. International Women’s Day is one day when the world stands with the self-affirmation of women. In all parts of the world, women have been organising against their oppression and subordination, and this day of respect and honour was despoiled by the news of the callous and brutal killings. Yet these killings and violence in Nigeria were only one reminder of the killings, murder, rape, violation and massive oppression that are faced by women everyday. It is for this reason that one group of women used the occasion of the International Women’s Day to call for a global strike. Our sisters from the Red Thread Movement have been at the forefront of the call to end militarism and invest in caring and not killing. They joined with the international peace petition to all governments stating, 'Invest in caring not killing!'

We, the people of the world, demand that:

- The ‘war with no end’, and the arms trade and genocide it imposes, be brought to an end
- The over US$900 billion now spent on military budgets worldwide be invested instead in the care and welfare of all the people and our planet
- All caring work, now done mainly by women, be valued and paid for, and a pension paid to all those whose decades of work have never been recognised
- Caring, and therefore the survival and enrichment of every life and of the planet, becomes the aim of every society and every economy.

It is appropriate that this statement be our postcard for this week. We have to honour the memory of the innocent women and children who were killed in Jos, Nigeria, and the memory of the millions of poor women whose lives are devalued everyday. As our elder Eusi Kwayana has stated in his missive to the wider community on International Women’s Day, the male problem is based on insecurity among us males accustomed to seeing women through religion and ideology as 'made for us'.

Kwayana then went on to see how the ideas of the subordination of women appeared in strange places, especially among those who were supposed to be at the forefront of liberation.

Today, the challenge of how to confront the male problem in Africa has been compounded by fundamentalists of all stripes who seek to hide behind religion to promote their insecurity. It is this insecurity that has been on display in Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, Uganda, Algeria and in every part of the planet where males fear the emergence of the rights of all, especially grassroots women. News reports of the killings continue to use language that inflames ranting about ethnic and religious clashes in Nigeria. In the media, officials cower by, stating that the killings in Jos were revenge killings. These fundamentalists have forgotten the ethic of Gandhi that, 'An eye for an eye makes every one blind.'

From the images, it is clear that a certain blindness has overtaken the ruling classes of Nigeria so that they can continue looting and plundering the country. Revenge begets revenge, so that the justification of the killings as being in revenge for the January massacres will only continue this recursion of butchery if there is no break in the culture of impunity for the organisers of this violence. These killings represent a serious indictment of the political class in Nigeria. For the past 50 years, the Nigerian ruling elements who revel in the relationship with Europe have been making a mockery of independence. These elements have been the beneficiaries of the divisions of the working peoples and they facilitate and enable the fundamentalists from all religious hues. From their rituals of subordination to the imperial cultures, these elements have stoked the fires of war, oppression, division and hate while salting away billions in their bank accounts in Europe, Asia and the Americas. After the millions who perished in the Nigerian civil war of 1967–70, one section of the Nigerian military vowed never to cripple the country with all-out warfare.

Yet even without this all-out warfare, the daily war and economic terrorism against the poor has reached such proportions that the flames of resistance and change now burn anew across Nigeria. The killings and inflammation of fundamentalist passions are meant to put out the flame of liberation that is coming from below in all regions of Nigeria. These flames of liberation are awaiting the moment when the fire will burn so that the politicians will have to pull their weight. The people are calculating very carefully because they understand the need for non-violent resistance to ensure that the militarists and their external supporters do not plunge the country into war. How could a country with an intelligence and security service stand by while the plotters enact their massacres?

The Ogas have exhausted their potential to be able to contribute to the transformation of Nigeria and Africa. From their cocktails at the polo club, the self-righteous purveyors of imperial rituals seek recourse to the divide-and-rule tactics of their mentors to halt the freedom on Nigeria. These elements who send their children to boarding schools to be educated in the best Oxbridge accents are behind the manipulation of religion, regionalism and religion. They despise African thinking, African knowledge systems, African agency and more importantly African life.The deaths in Jos are just another statistic. This is why they laugh when they hear of African fractals and will meet in seminars on 'conflict prevention and conflict resolution'. It is humorous to hear of the luminaries who this week held a meeting in Jos. They have no interest in the investment in caring. They have invested in killings and divisions in the same way that they have salted away billions of dollars in foreign bank accounts.

Our brother Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem wrote in many of his postcards about the resilience and the tenacity of the grassroots women of Nigeria. Reflecting on the callous and inhuman conditions in which the exploited live in Nigeria, Tajudeen had commented that African women should not die in childbirth. This was in reference to the death of his sister who died in the facilities in Nigeria that are supposed to be hospitals. Millions die in these conditions because the rich do not have to worry. They die in the hospitals and medical facilities in Europe and America. We do mourn the passing of Maryam Babangida, but is it not ironic that a wife of a head of state who had championed the Better Life Programme (BLP) should join the ancestors from a medical facility in the United States? Probably now is the moment for the truth to come out about the circumstances surrounding the assassination of Dele Giwa.

It was the Babangida enterprise that gave Nigerians the Better Life Programme which ended up 'making millionaires out of the BLP officials and friends'. As one author observed:

'The better life for rural women became the better life for rich women. The Nigerian poor did not know what hit them; before the poor could say "Food at last", the food was taken away from them, they were left gaping and hungry as usual.'

The evidence of the role of ruling-class women has been well-documented by Ifi Amadiume in her insights in 'Daughters of the Goddess, Daughters of Imperialism: African Women Struggle for Culture, Power and Democracy'. Amadiume was drawing a line between those who invested in caring and those who invested in killing and manipulation. The Babangida and the polo club's friends and children have shown that caring can be turned into another instrument of oppression.

As the aiders and abettors of the crimes against the Nigerian peoples shed crocodile tears about the killings in Jos, one cannot forget that elements such as the Pope, the British ambassador and Hilary Clinton – who have condemned these killings – have not condemned the daily looting of the country. Imperialists from time to time shed crocodile tears about corruption and violence in Nigeria, but these statements only serve to hide their partnership with the Nigerian hyenas who have despoiled the richest society in Africa. In 2007, at the launch of the UN Stolen Assets Recovery Initiative, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared that 'Corruption undermines democracy and the rule of law.' He went on to say that corruption even kills. Yet the UN, dominated as it were in the Security Council by the states who benefit from the investment in killing, cannot give teeth to the efforts to return the stolen billions from Nigeria.

On International Women’s Day, solidarity with the exploited men and women is being reinforced with solidarity for the women of Nigeria, who are calling for basic survival needs – clean accessible water, food security, healthcare, housing, education, safety from rape and other violence, and protection for our planet.

Nigeria is the richest country in Africa with the linguistic and cultural diversity that can lay the basis for a transformed Africa. Nigerian women from the grassroots have been at the forefront of the traditions of resistance. As Ifi Amadiume reminded us, there are three generations of women freedom fighters in Nigeria: first, the traditional African resistance matriarchs who fought the anti-colonial struggles; then, the daughters of the goddess who fought the nationalist and liberation struggles for independence; and finally the daughters of imperialism who inherited the post-independence successor state and are partners in corruption. She continued by noting, 'in the opinion of this Daughter of the Goddess, even the National Council of Women’s Societies (the umbrella organization for Nigerian women) has lost sight of its traditional objective of mass mobilization of women, to become "a glorified reception committee for those in power."'

Women all over Africa have witnessed the manipulation of the official women’s organisation to serve those who oppress men and women. Today, the issue raised in this call for ‘the recognition of caring work and against violence’ is a profound statement on the central concepts of liberation in the 21st century. The challenges of breaking the militarism, sexism, homophobia and warfare across the planet are more urgent than ever. A few years ago, we saw another possibility of the grassroots energy of Nigerians when women went on strike against the oil despoilers in the Niger Delta. Today on International Women’s Day we mourn those who were massacred, but we believe that the grassroots women of Nigeria will move again and when they move, they will amaze not only Nigeria but the world.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Horace Campbell is a peace activist who is working to realise the dream of the late Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem of building African unity by 2015.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

African CSO campaign against Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Lesbian and Gay Equality Project

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/62944

We have pasted below a statement, which your organisation is invited to endorse. Please also endeavour to secure the endorsements of prominent individuals, such as religious leaders, influential professional persons, heads of organizations and others with a respected public profile. The statement is self-explanatory. Kindly submit your endorsement on or before 12h00, Monday, 29 March (SA time). Please supply the full name of your organisation together with your full name, office address, telephone contact details and organisational website. Please also indicate in your email that you have been authorised by your organisation to endorse the statement.

Please send your endorsement to Ms Adila Hassim of the AIDS Law Project at hassima@alp.org.za Please copy your email to Ms Phumi Mtetwa of the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project at phumi@equality.org.za

Also pasted below is some background on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill as well as a link to Uganda's Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law which is coordinating opposition to the Bill within Uganda.

Please note that this campaign is open only to organisations with a physical presence on the African continent. With regard to prominent individuals, the campaign is only open to those persons who are from Africa. Aside from the Ugandan Parliament, the statement and list of endorsements will also be submitted to African Governments as well as the African Union.

Those behind the Bill have claimed that only international organisations and western bodies are against the Bill. We believe that this campaign will demonstrate that civil society organisations throughout the length and breadth of Africa will stand together as one for the human rights of all Africans.

STATEMENT BY AFRICAN CSOs

We, the individuals and organisations from African countries listed hereunder, recognise the universality of the human rights of all persons.

We affirm that the right of men and women to have same sex relationships is a fundamental human right.

We are further guided in the knowledge that all forms of discrimination, in particular against vulnerable groups, undermine the human dignity of all in Africa.

We are therefore profoundly disturbed by the nature, content and potential impact of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (“the Bill”) that was recently tabled in and is currently being considered by the Parliament of Uganda.

We believe that the Bill, if enacted, will cut deeply into the fabric of Ugandan society by:

- Violating the rights of an already vulnerable and severely stigmatised group of persons by attacking their dignity, privacy and other constitutionally protected rights;
- Disrupting family and community life by compelling everyone, by the threat of criminal sanction, to report those suspected of engaging in same-sex sexual activity;
- Seeking to withdraw Uganda from the family of nations by reneging on the country’s international law obligations;
- Undermining public health interventions such as HIV prevention, treatment, care and support;
- Promoting prejudice and hate and encouraging harmful and violent action to be taken against those engaging in same sex relations.
We respectfully call on the Parliament of Uganda to reject the Bill in its entirety.

We also call on African governments and the African Union to call on the President and Government of Uganda to withdraw the Bill and to respect the human rights of all in Uganda, without exception.

Endorsed by:


------------------------------------

Background

Uganda's Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law was established in October 2009 in response to the tabling of the notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill in the Ugandan Parliament. The membership of the Coalition stands at 28 Ugandan civil society organisations. Its initial campaign is to see the Bill dropped from the Parliament's agenda.

In the longer term the Coalition aims to tackle issues related to human rights and constitutional law in Uganda.The Coalition website can be found at: www.ugandans4rights.org The site provides the most up-to-date information on the Bill, including the perspectives of the many Ugandans who are opposed to this draconian legislation.


On the 14th of October 2009, Hon. Bahati tabled a Anti-Homosexuality Bill in the Ugandan Parliament. The Bill is currently before the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee. The stated objective of the Bill is to establish a comprehensive law to supposedly protect the traditional family by prohibiting any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex; and to penalise homosexual behavior, including a death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality", to prohibit ratification of any international treaties, conventions, protocols, agreements and declarations which are contrary or inconsistent with the provisions of this Act, and to prohibit the licensing of organizations which promote homosexuality. The Bill makes it an offence not to report homosexual practices to the authorities and even seeks to criminalize Ugandans who commit homosexual acts outside of Uganda.

According to the Coalition the Bill if it were to become law would represent one of the most serious violations of the Constitution of Uganda and the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution, including:

Article 20: Fundamental rights and freedoms are inherent and not granted by the State
Article 21: Right to Equality and Freedom from discrimination
Article 22: The Right to Life (the death penalty provisions)
Article 27: The Right to Privacy
Article 29: Right to freedom of conscience, expression, movement, religion, assembly and association (this includes freedom of speech, Academic freedom and media freedom)
Article 30: Right to Education
Article 32: Affirmative Action in favour of marginalised groups and
Article 36 on the Rights of Minorities

The Coalition points out that if the Bill becomes law it will place Uganda in direct violation of its international obligations in terms of:

- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
- The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its protocols;
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights;
- The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women;
- The Convention on the Rights of the Child, and
- The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights

Petition for release of GCAP Malawian activists

Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP)

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/62933

As members of CSO, we are guided by the principles behind the constitutive act of the African union which Malawi adopted with 52 African states. This enjoins all governments in Africa to promote the fundamental human rights and freedoms of its citizens. Additionally, the Constitution of the republic of Malawi provides for freedom of opinion and association under articles 34 and 37. “Every person shall have the right to freedom of opinion, including the right to hold opinions without interference to hold, receive and impart opinions.”

As CSOs in Africa, we believe that the Youth are the bedrock of the future development of any nation; hence, any attempt by young people to challenge the status quo and to offer constructive criticism must be applauded and accepted in good faith by our governments. We believe that youth deserve to be supported whether they be “for” or “against” status quo in any of their countries. We are fully against any political segregation of the youth in any country.

As Civil Society, we speak out as a voice for the voiceless, not with the intention of bringing about discord but with a united spirit to bring about an end to the inequalities we see around us. As CSO, we ask that our members be left to act not as enemies of the state but as people speaking out when others cannot..

In the wake of the above, the arrest and detention of the three youth activists will serve as a major setback to Malawi’s fledgling democracy and a taint on the image of Africa and that of the African Union.
As the Chairperson of African Union, the President is best placed to note that many African conflicts are rooted in competition over access to opportunities and resources that are regulated through policies and statements that encourage unfair distribution.

As Africans and Civil Society members, we still have some hope in our leaders. We therefore call upon Malawi’s President also the AU president to reverse his position on prioritizing any youth in the enterprise fund. We also call for the immediate release of Edward Chileka, Howard Jimu and Awonenji Chimera.

GCAP

US personalities demand visas for wives of Cuban five

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/62936

Coinciding with International Women's Day, a group of personalities from the United States have sent a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and to the Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, asking them to immediately grant humanitarian visas to two Cuban women so they can visit their husbands in US prisons.
For more than a decade the US government has continued to deny entry visas to Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez whose only purpose to come to the US is to visit their husbands in prison. Rene González and Gerardo Hernández respectively are two of the Cuban Five, who are serving long and unjust sentences in the United States.

The signers of the letter are US members of the International Commission for the Right of Family Visits that is comprised of more than 170 known figures from 27 countries. Recently, Argentinean members of the commission delivered a letter to the US embassy in Argentina. This letter was also sent to the US Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security.

The letter in the United States was signed by two religious personalities; former Bishop of Detroit Thomas Gumbleton and former General Secretary of the US Council of Churches Reverend Dr. Joan Brown Campbell. Also, union leaders such as the co-founder of the Farm Workers Union Dolores Huerta and the President of the ILWU Local 10 of San Francisco California Melvin MacKay.

In addition, others who added their name to the letter includes the following personalities and intellectuals: Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, the Mayor of Richmond, Gayle McLaughlin, former Congressman Esteban Torres, actor Danny Glover, writer and poet Alice Walker and Angela Davis professor of History in the University of Santa Cruz, California.

The letter also includes the former Chief of the US Embassy in Havana, Wayne Smith, as well as the Civil Rights activist Yury Kochiyama, and the President of the Media Freedom Foundation /Project Censored Peter Phillips.

The fourteen personalities sent the letter telling Clinton and Napolitano that the gesture of granting visas to Ms Salanueva and Perez "will show the world that we are represented by elected officials who want better relations with other nations and who have compassionate and humanitarian hearts."


LETTER

March 8, 2010

US Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton

US Secretary of Homeland Security
Janet Napolitano

c/c United Nations Human Rights Council
Rapporteur Against Torture
United Nations Group on Arbitrary Detentions
Amnesty International
Ombdusman


Dear Ms Clinton and Ms Napolitano:

We respectfully write to you to ask the State Department of the United States and the Department of Homeland Security to immediately grant HUMANITARIAN VISAS to two Cuban citizens, Adriana Pérez and Olga Salanueva, wives of prisoners Gerardo Hernández and René González respectively. They have been denied visits to their husbands in prison for 11 years.

On December 18, 2009 the Department of Homeland Security denied a humanitarian visa to Olga Salanueva. Without any explanation, they denied this elementary recourse to come to the US with the sole purpose to see her husband, René González, unjustly sentenced to 15 years in prison.

At the time of her husband's arrest, Olga Salanueva was living with him and their two daughters; the youngest daughter is US born as well as Rene Gonzalez himself. After the arrest of her husband Ms Salanueva was detained with the purpose of pressuring her husband to collaborate with the prosecutors assuming a crime that he never committed. Three months later in December 2000, Olga was deported to Cuba. After 10 years since the deportation, the US government continues to punish this woman. There has not been any accusation or legal process against her. Additionally her status of being a mother and a wife of US citizens makes a compelling connection to the United States.

In the case of Adriana Perez; in July 2002, she traveled to the United States to visit her husband Gerardo Hernández, unjustly serving two life sentences plus 15 years in US prison. But upon her arrival, she was detained in the Houston Airport, photographed, finger printed, interrogated for 11 hours, prevented from speaking to a lawyer or Cuban diplomats and subsequently sent back to Cuba, cruelly preventing Adriana to see her husband. That was the last time that she was granted a visa to see him during the 11 years he has been imprisoned.

The last visa denial for Adriana was on July 15, 2009, the day of their 21st wedding anniversary. Four months later, on November 2, Gerardo Hernandez's mother died. Not even on a sad event like this in the life of any human being was Adriana Perez allowed to visit her husband to console him.

The applications for humanitarian visas for Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez are supported by an important number of religious, legal and human rights institutions. From the World Council of Churches to the US Council of Christian Churches, the Cuban Council of Churches, the Association of American Jurists, Amnesty International, 170 personalities including several Nobel Prize winners, parliamentarians, elected officials, and intellectuals from all over the world.

Until the Cuban Five are freed, the below signatories demand the immediate granting of HUMANITARIAN VISAS to ADRIANA PÉREZ and OlGA SALANUEVA and MULTIPLE VISAS TO ALL THE FAMILY OF THE CUBAN FIVE.

This gesture will show the world that we are represented by elected officials who want better relations with other nations and who have compassion and humanitarian hearts.

Sincerely,

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton - Former Catholic Bishop of Detroit

Reverend Dr. Joan Brown Campbell - Former Secretary General of the National Council of Churches of the United States

Dolores Huerta - Co-Founder of the United Farm Workers Union

Melvin MacKay - President of ILWU Local 10, San Francisco, California

Danny Glover - Actor

Gayle McLaughlin - Mayor of Richmond, California

Alice Walker - Writer

Noam Chomsky - Linguist and Writer

Howard Zinn - Historian and Writer (Honorary Member)

Esteban Torres - Former US Congressman

Wayne Smith - Former Chief of the US Interest Section in Cuba

Michael Parenti - Author

Angela Davis - Professor of History, California University, Santa Cruz

Yury Kochiyama - Civil Right activist

Peter Phillips - President of Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored

Don’t let aspiring rulers get hold of this!

A review of ‘The ten commandments of Nigerian politics (or how to hook the Naija Mugu)’

Firoze Manji

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/62929

Possibly the most dangerous pamphlet to come out of Nigeria, this is the definitive manual of how to hoodwink citizens or ‘Mugus’ (people who fall for a scam), take the elections and stay in power. It’s one thing to have a secret manual for the Nigerian rulers, but quite another to have one that provides the recipe for class rule by the rogues and rascals that roam the rest of the continent. This short pamphlet should have been banned long ago.

Inadvertently left in the toilet of a plane approaching Abuja airport, the manual was likely to have been penned by a Nigerian godfather who has long practiced the arts described within. It presents the ten commandments in a precise and unashamed way. Loath though I am to promote these commandments, I feel I can only explain their perilous nature through a brief summary.

First, the manual urges, don’t hit the big people, hit the little ones. Why? ‘Last year, 19 billion dollars entered the federal account of 140 million Nigerians. Go and multiply that. …The year before they budgeted 4 trillion Naira to take care of this same 140 million little people. … Your job as a politician is to position yourself between that money and the 140 million mugus that own it.’

Next, clinch the nomination: Find the biggest party, find its godfather, and over six or so months make sure you become one of the top five donors at every relative’s birthday, naming ceremony, graduations and so on. If you share enough of the contents of your Ghana-mus’-go bags, and perhaps even carry out some heinous crime on his behalf, your godfather is sure to notice you.

Once you are the candidate of the right party, you need to win the elections. You should start ‘wetting all the ground around you’. Think ahead, and befriend with generous contributions those at the top echelons of power. But so long as you have chosen the right party, you can’t really lose.

Giving your victory speech is key, but be careful not to mention your godfather. The way to thank him is to make sure that you provide every weekend a share of your Ghana-mus’-go bag.

Then there is advice on eating the money (eating well, but don't be greedy); how to deal with things when the Naija Mugus get angry; and if that doesn’t work, how to apply shock therapy: ‘A very reliable shock therapy is The Serious Fuel Shortage. It has saved so many Nigerian governments, you won’t believe it.’ But staying in power needs additional tools: The manual takes you through how to play the ethnic card, dropping the ethnic firebomb, and finally how to manage the occasional, and inevitable, police problem.

This is essential reading for all activists (and it's available for free – just don't tell anyone). Some of you may burst your seams laughing, but don’t be fooled: this isn't just a bit of humour. Make sure that none of your aspiring rulers gets hold of this manual. The consequences could be dire – we’ll all be Nigerians then.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* The ten commandments of Nigerian politics (or how to hook the Naija Mugu) by Chuma Nwokolo is available for free from Chuma Nwokolo’s website.
* Firoze Manji is editor-in-chief of Pambazuka News.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Probing the free-market 'house of cards'

Review of 'The Value of Nothing'

Jamie Pitman

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/62923

A year ago it appeared that the house of cards created by the financial elite had tumbled for the last time. Bastions of free-market ideology were pilloried for their blind devotion to complex mathematical models and a rather more selective blindness to human ‘externalities’. Capitalism seemed to have imploded in on itself, a victim of its own rapaciousness. We watched the anguished faces of the traders as they decoded the tragedies ahead from the strew of numbers flashing over their monitors. We watched supposed doyens like Alan Greenspan crumple in full view of a congressional committee and the world’s media. Greenspan’s apology amounted to this: he was mistaken. You would have thought that this unforgivable understatement would mark the epochal passing of the free market. Yet we have all just paid for the costliest kiss of life in history and it appears the cards have been picked up, ready to be dealt all over again.

Raj Patel’s second book, ‘The Value of Nothing’, exposes Western society’s collective and consumer-driven myopia as effectively as it refutes the fundamental principles of market ideology. Approximately the first half of the book is given over to the dissection and discarding of the principle tenets of global capitalism. Patel follows a well-trodden polemical path as he re-appropriates Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’, references J.M. Keynes and Karl Marx and continues to tick off all the old ‘landmarks’ – Iraq and Afghanistan, Ronald Reagan and each successive administration, Microsoft and McDonald's, George Soros and Jeffrey Sachs. Yet the author skilfully avoids rehashing the likes of Naomi Klein, Matt Taibbi or Joseph Stiglitz (although he cites all three) with his uniquely engaging metaphors and examples. It is hard to imagine a more disparate selection of reference points than Patel’s. Pop culture is jig-sawed into place alongside literary classics, hidden histories are used to expose modern lies and the likes of Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau share page space with Oscar Wilde, the The Price is Right TV show and a battle of wits between Volkswagen and Porsche. With some clever literary alchemy, the book's eclecticism keeps you turning its pages.

You might be sceptical at this point. As the likes of Borders (a major UK book retailer) close as casualties of the financial collapse, the bargain bins are engorged with similar diatribes. Where ‘The Value of Nothing’ might most successfully argue for a reprieve from the cut-price sticker gun is in its second half. Whilst the conclusions of previous authors tackling this subject often leave one wanting to book a place at a Swiss euthanasia clinic (John Gray is a fine exponent of the dystopian conclusion), Patel offers some rays of hope.

If ‘The Value of Nothing’ ended with its first act, the ‘dissection and discarding’ we mentioned earlier, then I would be writing a review of an excellently written, passionate and engaging piece that had earned its shelf space between hundreds of similar, excellently written, passionate and engaging treatise. Yet this is not the case. Patel chooses to bolt on a 50 per cent addendum that offers up alternative utopias to the status quo (mostly in the form of grassroots movements underway in the global South). Personally, I find Patel’s shift from assertion to hypothesis commendable and brave, but it is also the weaker part of the book. I feel the entrenchment of capitalism renders a simulacrum model of Second and Third World mobilisations as wishful thinking. Patel uses Bhutan as an example of globalisation's negative effects early in the book. Once the people of Bhutan were considered to be the happiest in the world indexically, yet the introduction of satellite television and the subsequent spillage of Western values on Bhutan’s indigenous people saw the country slip steadily down the happiness index. While both true and revealing, it would not make an attempt to remove the satellite dishes any easier, therefore, how can we apply this to the West where we have grown so used to such technologies we almost view their presence as inalienable.

It is, of course, unreasonable to criticise ‘The Value of Nothing’ for not offering a better solution to the world’s ills. Post-market society rhetoric will always be at its loudest post-financial collapse, as will a more widespread resurrection of Marxian dialogue. The dichotomy for a reviewer of ‘The Value of Nothing’ is that while the remedies Patel proffers seem at best naïve (Buddhist economics, anyone?), their sum total is the previously stated excellently written, passionate and engaging book. The founding fathers of economics all warned against the completely unfettered market. Keynes actively fought against it, and it is approaching 30 years since Stiglitz dismantled the ‘efficient market hypothesis’. Despite all this, the house of cards remains, at once towering higher, yet paradoxically more precarious than ever. ‘The Value of Nothing’ is not going to change that – indeed, I doubt any literature ever will (as compared to mass engagement and mobilisation) – but I cannot deny it will crystallise many readers' suspicions surrounding our market mania. And that cannot be a bad thing.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* 'The Value of Nothing' by Raj Patel (ISBN: 9781846272172, 2009) is published by Portobello Books, London.
* Jamie Pitman politics and economics student at Ruskin College, Oxford. In what seems like a previous life he was a docker and then a carpenter.

Hiding behind homophobic rhetoric

A response to ‘Homophobia is the problem, not homosexuality’

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/62921

Very enlightening to know the various perspectives from the continent on the charged homophobic rhetoric spewing forth from Africa's 'leaders'. Homophobia is definitely the problem, and during these tough economic times, it is easy and convenient to pick on those considered the 'other' instead of focusing on how to make life better for the collective.

Per Zuma, I confess that words fail me. While I am strongly against polygamy, I recognise the rights of adults to willingly participate in it, particularly as it is legal in many places. I just can't get over the fact that given the HIV/AIDS rates in South Africa, his last court case (which involved allegations of unprotected sex with a young girl) and his current position as president, he would have the time to have an affair with a woman other than his many wives and even produce another child. Where does he find the time?

The first crime committed is colonisation

A response to ‘Staggering from pillar to post: Zimbabwe’s "unity" government'

Lloyd Whitefield Butler, Jr

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/62922

Staggering from pillar to post is well written. Thank you. Ms Mary Ndlovu, I did not find in your article root causes of the present Zimbabwe crisis; I am sure the troublemakers are just waiting to be uncovered. Would you be kind enough to refer me or cite what international law, or non-colonial precedence, gives Western nations authority, permission, and/or the unmitigating gall to sanction, embargo, and colonise any nation given their (the West) past imperial criminal record whereby millions of native inhabitants were exterminated and their land forcefully seized under their watchful eye?

The first crime committed here is Western colonisation. Or do you recognise it as a crime against humanity? The West illegally extracted trillions of dollars from Zimbabwe and South Africa by way of forced labor and land seizure by warfare. Not a single Western government has faced a day in court or paid reparations. Now comes the emergence of the oppressed masses who liberate themselves by the threat of war and the oppressor wants to now dictate the ways and means one is to avenge and demand economic justice from the same dehumanisers and land swindlers.

If Western nations demand ‘democracy’ as a legitimate system of government why is all crimes committed not ‘on the table’ of Justice when the subject of law violations past and present are discussed.

Is there a statute of limitations on crimes of colonialism, apartheid, and slavery? If so, where is the citation? I noticed in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that for hundreds of years of brute Nazi oppression by white Europeans the Commission concluded by reducing their findings to a local ‘Police Brutality’ case. Did I misread the Commissions results? Can Zimbabwe expect a similar outcome for their active Rhodesian-Apartheid-related-crimes-against-humanity counter oppression measures of Land Securement and promoting Unity in Defence of Natural Resources, Cultural Values, and Economic Empowerment?

Ode on a beat generation

To Kenyans born post-1969

J.K.S. Makokha

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/62920

* J.K.S. Makokha is the Kenyan author of 'Reading M. G. Vassanji: A Contextual Approach to Asian African Fiction' (2009). He teaches courses in African and South Asian literatures at the Institut für Englische Philologie at Freie Universität Berlin in Germany.

* J.K.S. Makokha copyright © 2010

The saga of the invisible president

Sokari Ekine

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/62930

Nigeria continues to dominate the headlines between the three month-old saga of the invisible president to this week’s renewed religious/ethnic violence in Plateau State. Despite his return to Nigeria two weeks ago, no one has yet seen the president – or if they have, they are not saying. Rumours abound on Yar’Adua’s condition, possible military coups, political coups and counter coups, as various camps try to assert their power.

Elombah reports that a motion to debate the health of the president was squashed by senate president David Mark, and it appears most of the Nigerian leadership has decided to sweep the president and his illness under the table and continue with the status quo:

‘Yet, all the state institutions, politicians and other powerful members of the society have resolved to let sleeping dogs lie with regards to Umaru Yar’adua.

‘A serving senator of the Federal Republic said “since we have an acting president, it serves no use to continue asking after the whereabouts of our president”.

‘Similarly at the Federal Executive Council, reports say Jonathan Goodluck – who has never seen the sick president has been cowed into submission, he has even resolved to keep all the Ministers he inherited from his boss- whether you are pro-Yar’Adua or pro-Jonathan, it doesn’t matter anymore!

‘What this means is as summed up by Reuben Abati: “the political competition in Abuja has been neatly resolved in favour of the Yar’adua’s: a sick man gets to keep his office and the privileges attached thereto, his wife remains First Lady and exercises influence on behalf of a husband who is no longer serving the people due to incapacitation, and it is a status quo that will subsist because individual interests have become supreme."

Addressing the renewed outbreak of ethnic and religious violence has to some extent superseded concerns over the President’s absence.’


Grandiose Palor traces the violence from 2004 to the present which he believes is due to the deep seated inequalities within Nigerian society and Jos’s geographic location as the ‘de facto fault line’ separating Muslims and Christians:




cc Osun Defender

‘It is ironic that this extent of bloody encounters have occurred in Jos, a city which is an acronym for “Jesus our Savior”. Perhaps, the origins of the Jos — a former enclave for colonial missionaries, and its geographic location — aptly described by some as a “de facto fault line separating Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north from its mainly Christian south”, is partly responsible for the mishaps. The tensions between the Muslims and Christians blocs have been well demonstrated in regions north of the Niger river. However, the fact remains that the gory events in Jos can be reproduced almost anywhere in Nigeria.

'Nigeria is a nation of natives and settlers; the Nigerian constitution even empowers this ethnic affiliation by giving credence to the of “state of origin” status. Any official job posting, local or federal, asks applicants for their states of origin, likewise, political appointments are based on ethnic and state of origins.’


Max Siollun’s post ‘Another day, and yet more violence in Jos’ avoids the easy explanation which bases itself on religious tensions and provides a deeper understanding of the conflict and it’s origins:

‘The city has a mixed ethnicity population. However there has been tension between settlers and indigenes. The indigenes are the mainly Christian Birom ethnic group and other Christian groups. The settlers are Hausa or Fulani Muslims, who migrated to Jos from further north.

‘Settlers have limited rights to state facilities such as education, scholarships, bank loans and employment. Being an indigene is a key that unlocks full entitlement to such benefits. Thus settlers are aggrieved because they feel excluded, and some indigenes regard settlers as encroaching on their land.

‘These differences are amplified by political disputes in Plateau State. The Plateau State Governor, Air Commodore (retired) Jonah David Jang, is a Birom Christian, and a member of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. His political rivals are the mainly Muslim All Nigeria People’s Party.Thus political rivalry in the state also takes on an ethnic and religious dimension.’

For the past three years, the Egyptian government has been guilty of shooting African migrants along the Sinai Israeli border.


Bikya Masr reports that a group of 14 NGOs have issued a statement supporting the UNHCR criticism of Cairo at the continued shootings:

‘“I know of no other country where so many unarmed migrants and asylum-seekers appear to have been deliberately killed in this way by government forces,” Pillay said in a statement issued by his office on Tuesday.

‘“It is a deplorable state of affairs, and the sheer number of victims suggests that at least some Egyptian security officials have been operating a shoot-to-kill policy,” Pillay noted, adding the death toll could “hardly be an accident.”

‘The majority of those killed come from Sub-Saharan African nations, the UN said, and the shootings have taken place after an agreement between Egypt and Israel was brokered in 2007 to toughen border controls along the Sinai desert.”’


Ethiopian blog, Abbay Media comments on the ongoing argument between the BBC and Bob Geldof. The BBC claim that large sums of the aid monies from the Bob Geldof famine campaign of 1985 were diverted into the hands of rebels and used to buy weapons:

‘Geldof, awarded an honorary knighthood for his fundraising efforts, said that while he could speak only for Band Aid, he had no reason to believe that any money had been “diverted in any sense”.

‘He also accused Berhe of bias and challenged the BBC to substantiate its claims. “Produce one shred of evidence; one iota of evidence – not some dissident, exiled malcontent,” he said. “Produce me one shred of evidence and I promise you I will properly investigate it,” he said. “I will properly report it and if there is any money missing, I will sue the Ethiopian government – who are the rebels who were fighting the war in Tigray – for that money back now and I will spend it on aid.”

‘Geldof’s defiance was echoed by five other charities, many of whom pointed out that they were well-versed in making sure that aid money got to those in dire need even in the most difficult circumstances.

‘“The British public who in good faith donated money to help distressed, starving people need to know that these allegations are preposterous,” said Phil Bloomer, Oxfam’s campaigns and policy director.’


Mo’Dernity, Mo’Problems comments on the campaign by ‘celebrity-whisperer John Prendergast’ to raise consumer consciousness over the mining of cobalt and its impact on the war in the DRC. He points out that coltan unlike diamonds is not a luxury item and furthermore there is no substitute for it’s super conductor properties found in all technologies:

‘Consumers can’t voice their power over industry by opting-out of the market. Prendergast isn’t going to stop making cell phone calls because he can’t and because he can’t, consumer activism becomes mere tokenism.

‘Compounding the inability to make consumer activism credible is the fact that coltan is alluvial. Mining coltan does not require intensive industry. Rather, small shops can set up fairly profitable extractive rings, which are mobile and require little capital. Regulating these types of industries effectively is like playing the whac-a-mol game – as soon as one provider is regulated, he’ll be forced to leave in order to compete with other providers.’

One huge environmental problem across Africa is what to do with the millions of discarded plastic bags littering the streets.


Timbuktu Chronicles reports on a recycling scheme in Ghana which uses the bags to make new more durable plastic bags with interesting designs. The scheme is also income generating both for those who collect the bags and those who sew and sell them on.




Sokwanele has something uplifting to write about Zimbabwe:

‘So incredibly exciting! A film about a Zimbabwean band has made it onto this year’s Oscar nomination list, in the ‘Best Documentary Short Subject’ category.

‘Music by Prudence’ tells the story of Prudence Mabhena, the lead singer of Bulawayo band Liyana.

‘Zimbabwean singer songwriter Prudence Mabhena, age twenty-one, was born severely disabled into a society where disabilities carry the taint of witchcraft; she is more likely to spend her life hidden away in a tiny hut than on a stage in the centre of a city. Her story is the story of many of the disabled kids of Africa, a story of abandonment and abuse. But Prudence and her seven young band members, all disabled, have managed to overcome stereotypes and inspire the same people that once saw them as a curse.’


Finally Black Looks introduces African contemporary dance and performance art by publishing an essay by Nigerian dancer and acrobat, Qudus Onikeku.

Qudus writes a critique of the bi-annual ‘African and Indian Ocean Choreography Encounters’ festival of dance calling for African performers to take ‘ownership’ of the festival and for African dance to be seen within both local and global contexts.


Meanwhile, in commemoration of International Women of Colour Day on Monday 1 March check out Black Looks on Haitian activist Rea Dol, and K FAKTOR’s comments on International Women’s Day, on Monday 8 March.

Trilateral cooperation or bilateral collusion?

Africa–China–US tripartite meetings

Adams Bodomo

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/62925

This article is a short reflection and personal reaction to the recently held trilateral meeting between Africa, China and the US on 'Corporate social responsibility' in Monrovia, Liberia, from the 24 to 25 February 2010.

The first time I heard about the idea of 'tripartite' or 'trilateral' meetings was during an October 2009 conference meeting in Beijing organised by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. After more than 13 years of experience giving lectures in China, I am aware that in Chinese academic discourse one is not expected to come out swinging bluntly and wildly in an academic counter-argument, especially if one is an invited lecturer (otherwise you would not get invited again), so I chose more subtle ways to convey my Chinese colleagues that the idea of convening meetings between the US and China to discuss Africa sounded disrespectful to Africa as a sovereign, volitional, decision-making entity.

I am therefore perplexed to hear that the above-mentioned meeting went ahead and am eager to hear the opinions of readers, especially those that follow the debates on Africa–China relations and more broadly on the 'Emerging powers in Africa' dialogue, along with similar kinds of so-called Africa–China–US tripartite meetings initiated by companies and foundations. On the surface, it looks like a good idea. The most developed country on earth and the fastest developing country globally – China – could team up to give life-support to a helpless Africa. However, upon deeper reflection, I am uncomfortable with it and think that there is more to it than meets the eye.

Here is why I propose that Africa should not try to be party to such 'tripartite' meetings.

First of all, the whole idea is poorly conceived. What would be the rationale? We are told in the announcement about the above-mentioned meeting that it is to 'discuss how companies can contribute to economic and social development in Africa'. This is not convincing, in the least. Here one must read between the lines!

For this rationale to have a real tangible, honest truth-value we need a multinational, UN-style meeting, not a tripartite meeting. After all, social development (especially for a whole continent) is a very comprehensive concept that is best discussed in the environment of more international and necessarily multilateral expertise, rather than in the confines of top-notch economic and investment technocrats whose primordial aim is to make as much money as possible, rather than any truly altruistic preoccupations.

On the contrary, I see the whole arrangement as a euphemism for a number of scenarios that go to serve mainly Chinese and American interests and very few African interests, if any all.

One, it looks like it is meant for Chinese companies to learn the 'game' of doing business in Africa. This would be the main Chinese interest. These Chinese companies are new in Africa as far as doing business is concerned, and therefore need to learn the ropes in how best to exploit Africa to the same degree, if not more, as the Western companies have been doing throughout the decades. As an example, look at what is happening with Shell in the Niger Delta in Nigeria, which has led to massive protests and even rebellion by indigenous people of that part of Africa.

Two, it would be an occasion for American and Chinese companies to find 'common ground' in, bluntly put, fixing prices, especially on issues of bidding for contracts. Western companies are hurting a lot with Chinese competitive bidding and seem eager to say, 'Hey, let us fix prices here! Please, be careful not to bid too low!' As a concrete example about cut-throat bidding, currently there is stiff competitive bidding and negotiation on Ghana's newly found oilfields between Western and Chinese companies. Ghana and other African countries would be better off in such competitive bidding situations, all things being equal.

These trilateral meetings are obviously then meant to serve Chinese and American companies. One might say that, after all, these companies are doing what they should be doing: taking measures to make more profits. However, note that the groupings that are facilitating these meetings are governmental and quasi-governmental Chinese and American bodies, so both the Chinese and American governments are directly or indirectly involved, while all we have on the African side are recycled, retired leaders like the former Ghanaian president, John Kufuor, whose stint as head of state was tainted with corruption.

I am still wondering what Africa has or will get out of this meeting, but surely Chinese and American companies would have carved out a lot out of this meeting.

So, in reality, it is a bilateral conference on Africa by China and the USA. This is not a trilateral conference. In any case, only one African business seemed to have been involved.

More importantly, Africa will never gain anything from bilateral conferences by two competing rivals on how to do business in Africa. Note that these trilateral meetings are taking place at a time when Sino-US relations are at one of their lowest ebbs in recent times, so the whole enterprise therefore raises eyebrows. Yet these two rivals are seeking common ground in Africa. Therefore, we should be asking ourselves, why is Africa the place for such consensus?

Africa would be better off and can gain much more by dealing with each side separately and on its own terms. If Africa wants an international forum to discuss business investments, it is best to do it from multilateral perspectives, under the aegis of multilateral, global bodies like the UN, UNESCO and the WTO (World Trade Organisation), and not at such so-called trilateral conferences. And what about the African Union?

Given the above arguments, it is therefore my hope that more of such bilateral China–US conferences to discuss Africa will not take place in the future. Africa is not a sick agency in need of special emergency bilateral conferences (disguised as trilateral) to 'discuss how companies can contribute to economic and social development in Africa'. As mentioned above, it is ironical and rather suspiciously harmonious for two competing superpowers, with their relations at one of their lowest ebbs, to try to find common ground around how best to do business in Africa.

Some people may be convinced that such tripartite Africa–China–US meetings are win–win–win cases for all but I would like to claim that these are mostly win–win–loss cases against Africa. Africa must strive hard to be a master of its own economic growth and socio-political renaissance agendas!

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Adams Bodomo is associate professor and chair of the Department of Linguistics, School of Humanities, University of Hong Kong.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Pambazuka News 137: Le Ghana face à la 'malédiction' du pétrole

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/summaryfr/62943

US Secretary of State honours Jestina Mukoko

2010-03-12

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news110310/mukoko110310.htm

Jestina Mukoko, the Director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, has been honoured by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the annual International Women of Courage Award ceremony. The Secretary of State said: “We are honoring women from around the world who have endured isolation and intimidation, violence and imprisonment.”

Zuma expected to resolve political rift

2010-03-12

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=6497&cat=1

South African President Jacob Zuma is expected in Zimbabwe next week amid reports that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC has written to his office saying they want a deadlock to be declared.

Africa: Africa's success stories in gender empowerment

2010-03-12

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50625

Whenever gender empowerment is a vibrant topic of discussion internationally, some of the countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America are invariably singled out for their success stories in politics, education, health care or civil liberties even as Africa is mostly left out of political reckoning - and wrongly so.

Global: 10 facts on obstetric fistula

2010-03-10

http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/obstetric_fistula/en/index.html

Each year between 50 000 to 100 000 women worldwide are affected by obstetric fistula, a hole in the birth canal. The development of obstetric fistula is directly linked to one of the major causes of maternal mortality: obstructed labour.

Global: International Women's Day 2010 - Rights and recognition for domestic workers

2010-03-11

http://cms.iuf.org/?q=node/287

Domestic workers around the world are organizing to challenge the harsh, abusive, often slave-like conditions in which they work. They are organizing unions and support networks, and they are mobilizing in support of an international Convention that will finally recognize them as workers and establish their rights in international law.

Global: Why is Violence Against Women not on the HIV funding agenda - yet?

2010-03-11

http://tinyurl.com/ykzttoa

This International Women's Day, we not only mark the 3 year anniversary of the Women WON'T wait. End HIV and Violence Against Women. NOW. campaign, but also reflect on where we are since the historic 4th World Conference on Women in 1995. The Beijing Platform of Action contained milestone commitments to the world’s women, such as the possibility of a future where it was possible to end all forms of violence against women; women’s poverty and our unequal share of caring work within and outside the home; as well as socio-cultural discrimination, sexual disciplining, and political exclusions of various categories of people, including women.

Nigeria: Women protest at Jos killings

2010-03-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8562961.stm

Hundreds of women have taken to the streets of Nigeria's capital, Abuja, and the central city of Jos in rallies against Sunday's massacre near Jos. The women, mostly dressed in black, demanded that the government protect women and children better.

South Africa: Gender loses out in basic education crisis

2010-03-12

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50633

With the 15th-year review of the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women taking place at the ongoing Commission on the Status of Women in New York, South African teachers and education experts say they fear that a special focus on the advancement of girls is getting lost amidst the growing levels of poverty in the country.

Tanzania: Pregnant teens forced out of school

2010-03-12

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50623

Pregnancy is the leading cause of dropouts for school girls in Tanzania. And a national law forbidding young mothers to return to school after giving birth did not make it any easier for them to continue their education. But thanks to pressure from the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), the Tanzania government has now adopted a new law that allows young mothers to continue their education at their former schools.

Global conversations on women

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/62927

Featuring Norah Matovu-Winyi, Monica Amollo and Pollyne Owoko, the following is a recording of a United Nations 'global conversation' video-stream on women's rights, gender equality and maternal health. Drawing on their experiences as gender activists, the participants discuss the women's movement, meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the future challenges for achieving sexual equality in Kenya.

Arica: Plan of action for the advancement of right to information

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/62937

Participants from the African Regional Conference on the Right of Access to Information have released the Regional Findings and Plan of Action to advance the right in Africa. The conference found that while access to information is a fundamental human right, political and institutional constraints in Africa have limited the opportunities to exercise the right. Taking into account the realities of Africa, the regional document serves as an annex to the global Atlanta Declaration and Plan of Action.
"Facing historical and unique challenges, African nations have found it particularly difficult to advance the right of access to information,” said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who chaired the opening day of the conference that took place Feb. 7-9, 2010, in Accra, Ghana. “Unlike in other regions of the world, there has not been a wave of countries passing and implementing access to information laws. In Africa, only five countries have passed laws, and this number includes Zimbabwe, which many have argued uses its law to repress rather than provide information."

The conference was organized and hosted by The Carter Center in collaboration with the special rapporteur for freedom of expression and access to information in Africa, the Media Foundation of West Africa, and Open Democracy Advice Centre.

The conference gathered more than 130 participants from 18 countries in the region representing government, civil society, media, private sector, regional intergovernmental organizations, international and regional financial institutions, and donors to consider the main obstacles and potential solutions to advance the right of access to information in Africa.

The African regional plan provides a blueprint for the regional and international community, states, and non-state actors to establish, develop, and nurture the right of access to information and calls on them to commit to the plan in furtherance of our common objective. On the final day of the conference, participants met in country working groups to identify specific next steps to advance the right in their nation.

To read the full African Regional Findings and Plan of Action, Country Working Group Plans, and the Atlanta Declaration for the Advancement of the Right of Access to Information, please here.

Botswana: Britain’s Foreign Office criticized for misleading public

2010-03-12

http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/5641

A London barrister has criticized the UK’s Foreign Office for failing to acknowledge on its website that the Botswana government illegally and forcibly removed Gana and Gwi Bushmen from their ancestral lands.

Chad: Inside a dictator's secret police

2010-03-12

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/03/10/chad-inside-dictators-secret-police

For the two decades that he has been free, Souleymane Guengueng has constantly relived the two years he spent in a Chadian prison, where he watched hundreds of cellmates die from torture and disease. Thrown in jail in 1988 for still-unknown reasons, the deeply religious civil servant took an oath before God: If he ever got out alive, he would bring his tormentors to justice.

East Africa: IRC increases efforts to reduce child labor in Northern Uganda

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/ygd8mz5

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is building on initial success to reduce child labor in northern Uganda by launching a new program to further tackle the underlying poverty that forces many families to send their children out to work.

Global: Online dialogue on documenting violations: Choosing the right approach

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/62934

The on-line dialogue Documenting Violations: Choosing the Right Approach, organised by New Tactics, took place from 27 January to 2 February 2010. The dialogue featured practitioners that have developed database systems to document human rights violations, organisations on the ground documenting violations, and those that are training practitioners on how to choose the right approach and system for their documentation. We looked at options for ways to collect, store and share your human rights data safely and effectively.
The on-line dialogue Documenting Violations: Choosing the Right Approach, organised by New Tactics, took place from 27 January to 2 February 2010. The complete dialogue and a summary of the discussions are available here.

The dialogue featured practitioners that have developed database systems to document human rights violations, organisations on the ground documenting violations, and those that are training practitioners on how to choose the right approach and system for their documentation. We looked at options for ways to collect, store and share your human rights data safely and effectively.

No less than 15 resource persons (including Daniel D'Esposito and Bert Verstappen from HURIDOCS) and various other participants discussed the range of methods that can be used to thoroughly document human rights violations, and utilize them to motivate a response. Participants shared a myriad of powerful examples from their own work, proving the importance and vast range of impact that documentation has.

Documentation is defined as a process of strategic and systematic gathering of quantitative or qualitative data. Once organised, this data can then be transferred to different types of software, such as Martus or OpenEvsys. Documentation in an organised fashion permits its contents to be easily shared and understood through a Metadata system. Metadata is a set of structured data or content types that characterize an information object and can be used to compile data from multiple databases.

Discussions also dealt with the kind of data that can be collected. The summary concludes with the discussion of quantitative vs. qualitative documentation and touches upon the emergence of economic, social, and cultural rights documentation.

Challenges for the future are listed, and links given to several relevant resources.

Horn of Africa: US report accuses Eritrea of systematic abuses

2010-03-12

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE62B0BP20100312

The United States has intensified its criticism of Eritrea, saying the Red Sea state systematically abuses human rights and is a destabilising influence in the Horn of Africa

Kenya: Ann Njogu: Courage, and heart, on behalf of Kenya's women

2010-03-12

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/03/10/courage-and-heart-behalf-kenyas-women

This week, the US State Department is honoring Ann with the 2010 International Women of Courage Award. With this award the US government pays tribute to outstanding women leaders worldwide, recognizing the courage they've shown as they struggle for social justice and human rights. In over a decade as a women's rights activist, nobody deserves this award more than Ann Njogu, writes Janet Walsh.

Kenya: Crimes resulted from a policy by identifiable leaders - ICC Prosecutor

2010-03-11

http://tinyurl.com/yf597q4

In response to the request by ICC Judges of 18 February 2010, the Prosecutor has clarified that senior political and business leaders associated with the main political parties, the PNU which was in the government at the time of the violence and the ODM which was the main opposition party at the time, organized, enticed and/or financed attacks against the civilian population on account of their perceived ethnic and/or political affiliation pursuant to or on furtherance of a State and/or organizational policy.

Malawi: CIVICUS condemns detention of civil society activists

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/yb3l96w

The Johannesburg-based World Alliance for Citizen Participation (CIVICUS) has condemned the continued detention of three members of the Malawian civil soc iety organisation. CIVICUS said it found no evidence to suggest any incitement of violence against members of the ruling party as alleged by the authorities in Malawi.

Nigeria: Investigate massacre, step up patrols

2010-03-12

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/03/08/nigeria-investigate-massacre-step-patrols

Nigeria's acting president should make sure that the massacre of at least 200 Christian villagers in central Nigeria on March 7, 2010, is thoroughly and promptly investigated and that those responsible are prosecuted, Human Rights Watch has said.

Burundi: 155,000 Burundian refugees granted Tanzanian citizenship

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/ylgqjs4

About 155,000 Burundian refugees, seeking Tanzanian citizenship, have had their requests granted, according to a communiqué from the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), published on Thursday in Bujumbura, the Burundi capital.

Egypt: 14 Egyptian NGOs demand a halt of migrant killings on Israel borders

2010-03-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/62961

Fourteen Egyptian human rights groups have expressed their full support of the statement issued by the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights which condemned the Egyptian security forces for killing up to 60 migrants on the Egyptian side of the borders with Israeli since mid 2007.
Following the Statement of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights:
14 Egyptian NGOs Demand a Halt of Migrant Killings on Israel Borders

Fourteen Egyptian human rights groups have expressed their full support of the statement issued by the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights which condemned the Egyptian security forces for killing up to 60 migrants on the Egyptian side of the borders with Israeli since mid 2007.

The NGOs strongly condemned the statement made by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which pointed that the fatalities “did not exceed 2% in 2008 and 4% in 2009 of the total number of illegal crossers”. The NGOs considered the government’s acknowledgement of such a high number of killings calls for an immediate investigation into the circumstances of their murder. The NGOs stated that the understatement of such a high percentage of fatalities is a reason for serious concern.

In her statement issued on 2 March, the High Commissioner Ms. Navi Pillay (a renowned international judge from South Africa) expressed her astonishment at the high number of fatalities on the borders when there is no indication that any of the killed migrants were armed or that they opened fire at the Egyptian security forces:

“I know of no other country where so many unarmed migrants and asylum seekers appear to have been deliberately killed in this way by government forces… the sheer number of victims suggests that at least some Egyptian security officials have been operating a shoot-to-kill policy. It is unlikely that so many killings would occur otherwise. Sixty killings can hardly be an accident.”

The high commissioner urged the government to order an immediate halt of the use of “lethal force” against migrants, and to open an independent and credible investigation into the killings that have occurred in the past 30 months.

The statement of the High Commissioner noted that most of the killings occurred after the Egyptian government agreed with Israel on tightening the security measures of securing the borders, and that most of the victims were sub-Saharan African migrants including a number of women and at least one child. She added:


“There needs to be clarity about what has occurred, what policies have been applied to migrants trying to cross this border, and what specific orders have been given to security forces patrolling the area … The fact that this is a very sensitive border, and a restricted military zone, is no excuse. Security forces are only permitted to use lethal force when it is strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.”

In preemption to the High Commissioner’s statement, the Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for International Organizations issued a statement on 1 March defending the behavior of the Egyptian security forces. The government statement deliberately confused African migrants and organized armed gangs which exchange fire with the Egyptian border security across the border. The government statement acknowledged that Egyptian security forces killed 56 immigrants in less than 18 months (from the beginning of 2008 until 1 June 2009) without providing any details on the circumstances of their deaths or if those responsible for their shooting where ever investigated.

Among the recommendations that the Egyptian government accepted and pledged to implement during the consideration of Egypt under the Universal Periodic Review mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council on 19 February 2010 was to “require that the police act with restraint when not directly threatened.” (Recommendation 118). At least one African migrant was killed since the endorsement of this recommendation, which brings the number of killings to at least 9 migrants since the beginning of this year.

The 14 NGOs called on the Egyptian government to immediately stop the killing of migrant and to open a serious and independent investigation to determine the reasons for the high number of fatalities and to prosecute those responsible for them.

Signatories
1. Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights
2. Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
3. Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
4. Group for Human Rights Legal Aid
5. Nadim Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence
6. Egyptian Association for the Enhancement of Community Participation
7. Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners
8. Arab Penal Reform Organization
9. Land Center for Human Rights
10. Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression
11. Arab Network for Human Rights Information
12. Center for Trade Unions and Workers Services
13. Andalus Institute for Tolerance and Non-Violence Studies
14. Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights

Egypt: CMRS Short Courses June 2010

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/ycwdogh

The Center for Migration and Refugee Studies (CMRS) at the American University in Cairo AUC is offering two short courses on refugee issues in June 2010. The first course on "Meeting the Psychosocial Needs of Refugees" will be offered from 9:30 a.m to 4:30 p.m. from June 6- 10 and will be taught by Dr. Nancy Baron. The second course on "Introduction to International Refugee Law" will be offered from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. from June 20-24 & 26 (with the exception of Friday June 25) and will be taught by Mr. Martin Jones

Uganda: Aid workers battle to help "forgotten" refugees

2010-03-11

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88379

With at least 67,000 refugees in southwest Uganda, the government and aid workers are still battling inadequate resources in what a UN official described as a "silent emergency". "We can hardly meet international standards of indicators such as water, health and food," Nemia Temporal, deputy representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Uganda, told IRIN on 8 March. "For instance, we are delivering 15 litres [of water] per person per day instead of the standard 20l."

Uganda: One doctor for 16,200 refugees

2010-03-12

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88396

Inadequate healthcare is just one of many challenges facing the 16,200 refugees in this sprawling camp in western Uganda, which is served by a single doctor. Among those waiting in one of the camp’s two health centres when IRIN visited was Mirian, 30, whose child was shivering with fever, most likely caused by malaria.

Mauritius: UK Chagos Support Association March update

2010-03-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/socialmovements/62958

On March 10th MPs discussed the Chagos islands as the subject of a Westminster Hall debate, with the overwhelming message from parliamentarians being that the Government should resolve its legal dispute with the Chagossians and restore their right to return. The debate was initiated by Chairman of the Chagos Islands APPG Jeremy Corbyn, who urged the Government to reach a friendly settlement to the impending European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case.
Wednesday March 10th MPs discussed the Chagos islands as the subject of a Westminster Hall debate, with the overwhelming message from parliamentarians being that the Government should resolve its legal dispute with the Chagossians and restore their right to return. This report is by Peter Harris:
The debate was initiated by Chairman of the Chagos Islands APPG Jeremy Corbyn, who urged the Government to reach a friendly settlement to the impending European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case. The debate was extraordinarily well attended for a Westminster Hall debate, with around a dozen MPs taking part.
Notably, the FCO chose to be represented in the debate by Ivan Lewis instead of its Minister for Overseas Territories, Chris Bryant. It’s possible that Mr Lewis’s background with the Department for International Development, coupled his current responsibility for migration issues, played a role in shaping his remarks.
Whilst Mr Lewis outlined the reasons for the Government contesting the Chagossians’ right of return in the courts, he was at pains to stress that there was a difference between (a) the UK’s “moral obligation” and (b) its “legal obligations” towards the islanders, suggesting that much more than the bare legal minimum could and should be done to assist the islanders. The Minister cited this moral obligation no less than five times during his speech.
Responding to a question from Mr Corbyn, the Minister also conceded that the only way the UK Government could ignore a ECtHR ruling in favour of the Chagossians would be through passing primary legislation via the Houses of Parliament, a measure that would be unlikely to succeed in either chamber given the level of parliamentary support that exists for the Chagossians’ rights.
However, on the key issue of restoring the Chagossians’ right of return, Mr Lewis repeated the prevailing FCO line of “no right of return.” On this, he was pressed by the cross-party group of MPs assembled, including Mr Corbyn and Liberal Democrat Shadow Foreign Minister Jo Swinson, who castigated the Government for spending millions defending what amounted to “a stain on Britain’s reputation.”
Welcome remarks were also forthcoming from the Conservatives’ Shadow Foreign Minister Keith Simpson, who demanded that the FCO prove its assertion that a resettlement of the Outer islands would jeopardise the security of Diego Garcia. He also underlined the absolute imperative of the UK working with the Chagossians and Mauritius in order to ensure the longevity and workability of any MPA, stating that an incoming Conservative government would look at the Chagos islands with an “open mind.”
Laura Moffatt, whose Crawley constituency contains a sizable community of Chagossians, made a long and eloquent speech about the Chagossians’ campaign for justice and their wellbeing within the UK. Ms Moffatt’s speech is well worth reading in its entirety, as it highlights many of the complexities that are often lost in the discussion over the future of the Chagos islands.
Elsewhere, Conservative MP Peter Bottomley called the Government’s position on resettlement “impractical” and short-sighted, suggesting that, actually, the US authorities were not opposed to resettlement. Meanwhile, Bill Cash criticised the way that the Government had used the Royal Prerogative to exile the islanders in 2004.
For Labour, David Drew called it “colonialism gone mad” that the Government seemed to be presuming that the Chagossians wanted to “destroy their own environment,” whilst his parliamentary colleague John Grogan echoed the Mauritian Prime Minister in questioning how Government could protect coral and fish whilst violating the rights of the archipelago’s indigenous population.
Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George pointed out the absurdity of recognising the Chagossians as “stakeholders” in the Chagos environment, but not allowing them to return to it.
A poignant moment in the debate was when the DUP’s Gregory Campbell summed up the FCO’s predicament as having “gotten themselves on the hook of not wanting to resolve the issue,” to which Mr Corbyn replied that it was the job of parliamentarians to assist the FCO in wriggling off this hook.
Now that the FCO’s consultation process has finished, the Government can expect to come under increasing pressure to act with decency and foresight when deciding upon the future of the Chagos islands.
Mr Lewis was absolutely right when he said that the Government had a moral obligation towards the islanders: it should let them return, and do it this year. As evidenced by the contributions to today's debate, this door is well and truly open to them.

The Chagos Islands All-Party Parliamentary Group held its 11th meeting on 9 February:
The Group considered the FCO replies to 7 PQs and Questions recently tabled in both Houses. Although most of the replies side-stepped the questions and simply reiterated standard positions, the Group considered that it should continue to press FCO Ministers for direct answers especially as it seemed less likely that time would be found for adjournment debates in both Houses before the dissolution. Five more Questions had already been tabled in the Lords by members. Contacts had been established with Number Ten and it was hoped that, as requested in a letter from the Chairman, the Prime Minister would find time to meet members of the Group. The Chairman reported that Mr Hague was happy to meet the Group but a date had yet to be fixed.
The Group considered a letter, published by The Times on 26 January ('Don't forget the role of Chagos Islanders'), concerning the proposed MPA, from the Chairman and six members and the results of a scientific workshop held at Royal Holloway on 7 January. They went on to discuss the controversy surrounding the public consultation on the proposed MPA. The substance of a response to the consultation from the Group was agreed by members present, following an exchange of letters between the Chairman and the Foreign Secretary. This would be sent in time for the 12 February deadline. The Group were informed about the proceedings in Strasbourg. It was hoped that the Court would give its verdict before the summer recess although there was no impediment to HMG settling out of Court.

The 12th APPG meeting was on 9th March, the last meeting before the election:
At his request the High Commissioner of Mauritius, accompanied by the DHC, addressed the meeting.The High Commissioner expressed the thanks and appreciation of his Prime Minister and Government for all the work that the Group had been doing to help resolve the issues concerning the Chagossian people and the Chagos Islands. His Government fully supported the right of the Chagossians to return and wished to have discussions on resettlement and future arrangements over sovereignty. The High Commissioner noted that the Foreign Secretary had just visited Crawley where he had met members of the Diego Garcia Society. He was concerned by the circulation of offensive emails concerning the Prime Minister of Mauritius from the Leader of that Group. This had been drawn to the attention of the FCO.
The Group went on to discuss correspondence with the PM and the EU and a meeting with the US Embassy with which members had been involved. The Group considered the large number of questions which MPs and Peers had tabled in both Houses and noted that so far answers seemed to restate existing positions. The Chairman drew attention to the 90 minute debate on Chagos to take place the next morning,10 March at 930am.
The Group discussed the FCO consultation on the proposed MPA and concluded that if nothing else the consultation had raised the worldwide profile of both the plight of the Chagossians and the need for conservation of the marine environment. It seemed unlikely that, in view of the number of submissions and petitions received, a conclusion could be reached before the election.
The Group discussed how the Group was to be re-formed in the next Parliament
David Snoxell
Coordinator.

Thank you to all who signed the Marine Education Trust petition (more on this later) and to those who have asked their MP to sign Early Day Motion 960 Chagos Islands – there is still time for this so please contact your elected representative.

Parliamentary Questions:

Thank you to all who signed the Marine Education Trust petition (more on this later) and to those who have asked their MP to sign Early Day Motion 960 Chagos Islands – there is still time for this so please contact your elected representative.
10th Feb. Lord Wallace (Lib Dem) asked when the Government last held bilateral discussions with the government of Mauritius on the future sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory.
Baroness Kinnock replied: While the UK has no doubt about its sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), my right honourable friend the Prime Minister agreed with the Mauritian Prime Minister, Dr Navinchandra Ramgoolam, to establish a dialogue between officials. A meeting between UK and Mauritian officials was held at the FCO on 14 January 2009, and a further one in Port Louis on 21 July.
The delegations discussed the latest legal and policy developments relating to BIOT. Both delegations set out their respective positions on sovereignty and the UK also set out how the UK needed to bear in mind its treaty obligations with the US and our ongoing need of the British Indian Ocean Territory for defence purposes. There was mutual discussion of fishing rights, the environment, continental shelf and future visits to the Territory by Chagossians.

22nd Feb. Richard Spring (Conservative) what recent discussions had been held with the government of Mauritius on the creation of a Marine protected Area around the Chagos Archipelago.
Chris Bryant (Under-Sec. FCO) replied: Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials discussed environmental protection and the possible creation of a marine protected area with Mauritian officials in bilateral talks on the British Indian Ocean Territory on 14 January 2009 and on 21 July 2009.
My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary also discussed the proposal with the Mauritian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister in November 2009.

22nd Feb. Hugh Bayley (Labour) asked what consideration the FCO had given to pursuing the Marine Protected Area project as a joint initiative with the government of Mauritius.
Chris Bryant’s reply did not actually answer the question but just gave the dates of last year’s talks, as in the answer above.

22nd Feb. Richard Spring (Conservative) asked when Ministers and officials of the FCO had last met the Mauritian government to discuss bilateral issues.
Ivan Lewis (Min of State FCO) replied: My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary met the Mauritian Foreign Minister, Dr. Arvin Boolell, on 28 November 2009 during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago. Officials met representatives of the Mauritian Government on 14 January 2009 and 21 July 2009 for bilateral talks on the British Indian Ocean Territory. And our high commissioner to Mauritius maintains regular contact with his host Government and meets Mauritian Government Ministers and officials on a weekly basis.

22nd Feb. Lord Wallace asked whether the declaration of a Marine protected Area in the British Indian Ocean Territory would impose limits on the operation of the United States/UK base on Diego Garcia.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Min. Of State FCO) replied:A decision on whether to establish a Marine Protected Area the British Indian Ocean Territory has not yet been taken.
The use of the facility on Diego Garcia is governed by a series of Exchange of Notes between the UK and US and imposes treaty obligations on both parties. Because of these treaty obligations, we have been discussing the possible creation of a marine protected area with the US. Neither we nor the US would want the creation of a marine protected area to have any impact on the operational capability of the base on Diego Garcia. For this reason, and as has been set out in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office public consultation document, it may be necessary to consider the exclusion of Diego Garcia and its three-mile territorial waters from any marine protected area.

Shall we pause and read that last sentence again? A proposal for a Marine Preservation Area that does not want to allow resettled islanders to fish in order to feed themselves, might exclude a massive military/nuclear base with thousands of personnel and continual movement in and out of ships and aircraft from this Area? And for three miles around its “territorial” waters? A base which required much blasting and crushing of coral to make its runways?

It’s good to note politicians from all the major parties asking questions on this issue.
The Green Party has made a very positive statement supporting the Chagossians: The Green Party has very strong policy on the rights of indigenous people. As this applies to the Chagossians, the Green Party remains totally committed to their right to return and to the principle that they must have control over any decisions that affect the future of the islands and the islanders.
Returning to the issue of UK/Mauritius relationships as touched on in PQs: Arvin Boolell, Minister of Foreign Affairs in Mauritius does not appear as happy about relations with the UK as British Ministers seem to be. He told L’Express: Since there is an on- going bilateral Mauritius/ UK mechanism for talks and consultations on issues relating to the Chagos Archipelago, it is inappropriate for the British Government to pursue consultations globally on the proposal for the establishment of a ‘ Marine Protected Area’ ( MPA) around the Chagos Archipelago outside this bilateral framework. This position was brought to the attention of the British Government by way of Notes Verbales issued by my Ministry to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The public consultations were launched in total disregard of the discussions at the second round of bilateral talks during which it was agreed that a team of experts would examine all the implications of the UK proposal so as to inform the next round of talks.
Mauritius is not averse to pursuing bilateral talks with the UK, but this can only be done if the trust between the two sides is restored, especially in the light of the undertaking given by the British Prime Minister to our Prime Minister. Mauritius is not being treated as an equal partner by the UK and the Government believes that the legitimate interests of Mauritius should not be taken lightly. The third round of bilateral talks, scheduled for early 2010, has indeed been called off because Mauritius has expressed its displeasure at the ongoing public consultations on the MPA outside the bilateral framework.......Under the guise of environment protection, the UK is eager to allow eco- imperialism to rule over justice and basic human rights. There can be no legitimacy to any MPA project without the issues of sovereignty and resettlement being addressed to our satisfaction. Mauritius is a small country, but also a great little nation. The history of the Chagos is one of unfinished decolonisation and of how imperial objectives of powerful nations flout the very notion of peace and humanity in their actions.

Maldives has joined Mauritius in opposing UK plans for an MPA

The Republic of Maldives has joined Mauritius in opposing any unilateral move by the UK Government to establish a marine protected area (MPA) in the Chagos islands, according to the African Press Agency. The same article reports that the Mauritian foreign minister has been busily briefing the Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Nations, Kamalesh Sharma, who is said to be "closely following the tug of war between Mauritius and Britain."
The cooperation of neighbouring states will be sorely required for the effective implementation and monitoring of an MPA in Chagos, which makes it extremely worrying that the UK Government failed to build the necessary coalition of support before publishing its consultation document. If plans for environmental conservation in Chagos are to succeed, then the FCO would be wise to engage more effectively with those who will be affected by the proposals - including the Maldives, Mauritius and, of
course, the Chagossians.( From UKCSA Blog)

Marine Preservation Area proposal continued.

As you know, the Government extended the unreasonably short time given for views and thoughts on the proposed MPA and the new deadline has also passed. The general consensus amongst Chagossians and their supporters is that conserving the environment is good (that is what they did when they lived there), but this can go hand-in-hand with respecting the human rights of indigenous people. UKCSA has been privileged to read copies of many of the submissions made to the FCO.

The Chagossians seem like David in this fight with the Goliath of UK/US /Chagos Environment Network interests. The CEN petition has had enormous success gathering thousands of signatures. Indeed, if you did not know the true history of Chagos, why wouldn’t you sign? Unfortunately, it made no mention of the exiled islanders, their up-coming case at the European Court of Human Rights and their need to be able to fish in order to eat. The CEN favoured option of a “no-take” fishing ban is yet another stumbling block to prevent their return.

As the Marine Education Trust’s Director, Tara Hooper, said to the Guardian (and Feb Update): A petition which asks the public to endorse a campaign but fails to fully inform them of the issue involved is misleading, to say the least, and cannot be considered an accurate reflection of the view they would have expressed had they been fully informed.

Unfortunately, the disingenuous petition misled other groups such as Greenpeace who had not taken on board how the MPA would affect islanders whose rights they have always supported. One of their own captains, Pete Bouquet, made a special trip to London with UKCSA Secretary, Hengride Permal, to discuss the issue with them and they have added something to their website. In the meantime, however, many, many more had signed up!
A member of the Chagos Conservation Trust (part of the CEN) wrote to that organisation saying that the petition had misled the public. He also reminded them that their own Chair, William Marsden, wrote in the Times a year ago: Proposals for a Chagos Archipelago Conservation Area are being discussed within the Chagos Environment Network ..... Drawing on best practice in other great sites, the aim would be to protect nature, including fish stocks; benefit science and support action against damaging climate change; be compatible with security; be financially sustainable; and provide good employment opportunities for Chagossian and other people.
Note that last phrase.

Request for information: Does anyone know how much it costs to be a sponsored link on Google? The CEN have one for their petition that sometimes pops up alongside when you are checking out “Chagos”. The Marine Education Trust was scientifically independent, almost cost-free (just admin charges) and it stood for common sense and common decency. Invaluable.
Press Coverage. Too much this month to cover in one Update but to mention a few:

1. A balanced article in the Independent by Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor, on 10th February entitled Man versus marine in the Chagos Islands.
2. An excellent article by Dr. Sean Carey for new Statesman on 11th February entitled “Gordon Brown must let the Chagos Islanders go home” which gives chapter and verse on successful conservation sites where the indigenous population is involved. History has proved Douglas right. According to Mark Dowie and others, the old model of conservation which falsely opposed nature (good) and culture (bad) is being replaced with something much more dynamic, a new transnational conservation paradigm. A younger generation of scientists recognise that properly engaged indigenous and traditional peoples have a vital role to play in preserving fragile ecosystems.
3. Fred Pearce wrote, on 17th Feb for New Scientist condemning the marine protection plan as unethical: This week the world's foremost conservation science body, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), was in ferment after announcing support for the plan in spite of warnings from its own lawyers that the scheme was unethical.
4. There are, of course, other articles in major papers supporting the MPA which have not troubled to look beyond what the FCO and CEN have told them. (You can easily find these via your favourite search engine.) However, a lesser known periodical, Science in Parliament, had an article by Professor Charles Sheppard (CEN, CCT and one of the begetters of the scheme) which you may not have seen. Usual pro MPA line but two rather interesting points:
a) Why has he used a prestigious parliamentary journal to lobby in favour of keeping Chagos “as it is”, off-limits to its native population, when the CEN claims not to have a policy against resettlement. (Although, as we know, the exiled population were not mentioned in their petition.)
b) He says: According to a recent survey carried out by a prominent Chagossian supporter only about a dozen individuals were identified who say they wish to return permanently. Most Chagossians live on Mauritius and Seychelles and they know nothing of this “survey”. Professor Sheppard has been asked about this “survey” but has declined to answer. Who is the mystery “prominent Chagossian supporter”? This is poor scientific practice. Science in Parliament published a letter from Olivier Bancoult, leader of the CRG in Mauritius, in the following edition, correcting a few of Prof Sheppard’s wilder assertions about community participation and Chagossian numbers wishing to resettle.
The Zoological Society of London had an evening of talks and discussion on 3rd March about the MPA. No FCO and few CCT people attended but several Chagossians made the effort: The Question and Answer section was taken up mainly with Chagossian interventions: Hengride Permal, Sabrina Jean, Marie-France and an Australian lady. David Snoxell, spoke as Chairman of the Marine Education Trust to set the MPA in the political context (resettlement, sovereignty and option four –which would allow the Chagossians to fish). Many people attending had been beguiled by the slick Care2 hard-sell petition of the FCO/CEN and had not known the full story.
The report on the Workshop at the Royal Holloway, University of London (organised by the MET) is available via e-mail or on the website www.chagossupport.org.uk
UKCSA Chair, Roch Evenor, attended the 40th Anniversary event of the Minority Rights Group at Foyle’s bookshop last month and met with interesting people. Minority Rights Group has been very supportive of the Chagossians for several decades for which we are very grateful.
News from the groups:
Chagos Refugee Group in Mauritius had an exciting day on Wednesday March 3rd when they inaugurated their Training and Resource Centre. Those present included Dr. The Hon. Navinchandra Ramgoolam, Prime Minister of Mauritius, The leader of the opposition and many other ministers, former president Cassam Uteem many members of the CRG. A good day was had by all. A big thank you was said to all who helped this dream come true.
Still in Mauritius, Arista Naraina, Fiona Corneille and Will Piron are grateful for help in weatherproofing their homes. Even small donations help buy the necessary corrugated iron sheets and nails.
Chagos Island Community Association held a peaceful demonstration outside the Mauritian High Commission on 24th February where they handed in a letter to the High Commissioner. They have also sent a letter to the Foreign Secretary expressing their disappointment at not being included in the discussions about an MPA. As Chagossians, they have the right to be involved and their needs considered.
CICA has also been talking to immigration solicitors about what can be done to stop the divisions in Chagossian families when some have British citizenship and others do not.
CICA also reminds us that the Chagos Island Football Team won the West Sussex tournament last year but they are in urgent need of kit and equipment. Any help would be much appreciated.
Marie France is president of Chagossian Elderly of West Sussex The group was formed last October and they have around twenty members who meet up on alternate Saturdays. Donations would be very welcome for this group, too.
Crawley News reported a visit by some of the Diego Garcian Society to their homeland in February. This is the second trip for Allen Vincatassin and some of his members. Mrs Modliar, of Southbrook, was among seven islanders who visited Diego Garcia last month, only the second group to return since they were evicted.
She said: "When I arrived in Diego Garcia I was so happy. I visited my house and I still remember life there when I was a child. I will never forget about this visit until I die."
David Miliband visits Crawley March 4th
Yes, the Foreign Secretary made a pre-election visit to Crawley where he was accompanied by local MP Laura Moffatt. He spent time with various local groups and a school before speaking to Chagossians. Mr Vincatassin saw this as a visit to his group, the Diego Garcian Society (which fully backs the FCO/CEN Marine Preservation plan with a “no-take” fishing zone and has had two trips to Diego Garcia. See his website). Laura Moffatt MP was surprised to see Chagossians from other groups (who had got wind of the event) waiting outside. Members of CICA and CRG explained they were not wanted inside and Ms Moffatt took them in with her. The venue was only a quarter full. Had all the groups been informed of the visit and not just DGS, it would have been overflowing as they had plenty to say about the lack of communication re the MPA and the “no-take” fishing zone. UKCSA does not know who was responsible for this singular lack of communication.
A final comment from a supporter: I had to smile the other day when I heard Gordon Brown apologising to the poor people who had been sent to Australia as children whether they wanted to go or not. How adept we are at sending people away from their homelands without the Government having to face the consequences. Has anyone ever apologised publicly to the Chagossians? It seems to me that the Government only apologises when it is too late to do anything about it and to apologise now to the Chagossians might involve them in actually having to let them go back.
As usual, thank you for your support.
Celia Whittaker (Update compiler)

Nigeria: ERA accuses Shell, alleges tax evasion bid

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/yftqmxm

Foremost environmental rights advocacy organization in Nigeria, Environmental Rights Action (ERA), has accused the Anglo-Dutch oil and gas major, Shell, of not being a good corporate citizen in the country. ERA claimed in a statement that the warning by Shell that Nigeria’s declining oil output will be aggravated if the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) is passed into law was an attempt to frustrate the move by the country to bring sanity into the sector and recover some level of sovereignty in relation to the resource.

South Africa: Mike Sutcliffe bans another Abahlali baseMjondolo march

2010-03-12

http://www.abahlali.org/node/6346

The notorious Mike Sutcliffe has banned another Abahlali baseMjondolo march. We have, as always, scrupulously followed the laws that govern protest and we have informed the City in good time that we intend to march on Jacob Zuma on 22 March 2010. Yesterday the march convenor, Troy Morrow from the Hillary AbM branch, was verbally informed that permission to march has been denied. The excuse that has been given this time is that the City does not have enough police officers to be able to ensure security at our march.

South Africa: Traders furious as cops dismantle their stalls

Western Cape Anti-eviction Campaign

2010-03-10

http://tinyurl.com/yg6vgl8

Informal traders in central Mitchells Plain have clashed with police over permits. Chaos erupted in the town centre yesterday morning when nearly 100 traders reacted angrily to the arrival of metro police who said they had been instructed by city officials to remove any structures which blocked the walkways.Many traders were unsure why they were being moved, and started swearing at police as they tried desperately to hold on to their goods and belongings.

Zimbabwe: ZIMCODD takes the HIPC debate to the people

2010-03-12

http://www.zimcodd.org.zw/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=62

The Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) has launched the second edition of a grassroots training manual on public debt. The booklet was unveiled in Harare at a reflective meeting held for ZIMCODD members, on debt sustainability measures for Zimbabwe. The launch coincided with the tenth anniversary of the social and economic justice coalition, which was established in year 2000.

Emergeing Powers new roundup

2010-03-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/62962

General News

Africa needs an accelerated investment in agribusiness and agro industries to the tune of $15bilion annually between now and 2015, to achieve food security in the continent More

An investor in generic based pharmaceutical companies manufacturing within developing nations, has provided an initial investment into a private generic pharmaceutical company located in West Africa More

World Bank's online game isn't a Real-World solution, critics say More

East Africa new frontier for oil exploration More

China & Africa

World Cup mascot row is political football More

FirstRand, South Africa's third-biggest bank, had completed several "significant transactions" following the signing of an agreement with China Construction Bank (CCB) More

China assesses its gold strategy More

Export-Import Bank of China (China Eximbank) will continue to invest in Africa More

Commodity-related investments will remain a crucial avenue to gain exposure to the China story More

New Global Sources show scheduled to be held in the 4th quarter of 2010 in Hong Kong, Singapore and Johannesburg More

China is benefiting from trade with Africa More

Energy and chemicals group Sasol would make an investment decision on what could be a $10-billion coal-to-liquids (CTL) project in China More

Africa needs strategy to engage China More

Zimbabwe's look east policy: Healthy? More

An African Union (AU) official hailed the friendly cooperation between China and Africa More

Standard Chartered Nigeria has launched a Premium Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) China Africa network More

China keen to invest in South African mines More

Personnel of the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) had an interactive meeting with Chinese nationals More

Truworths Limited is targeting importing fabric and finished products directly from China to reduce costs More

Chinese factory halts World Cup toy production More

India and China together took 2.4 million tonnes of South African coal in February - some 50 percent of South Africa's 4.9 million tonnes of coal exports for the month and a record proportion More

China buys up African rhinos ‘to farm for horn’ More

China congratulates Ghana on Independence More

Zambian traditional leader has expressed happiness with the intended investment by a Chinese mining company in his area More

Closed Sino-Zambia textile mill to reopen More

China will provide Zimbabwe with a US$2,9 million grant to finance development projects More

Chinese visit pays off for Zambia More

Somaliland draws Chinese investors More

South Africa is continuing to export raw chrome ore to China in higher quantities and at comparatively low prices, despite government objections More

China now South Africa's largest trade partner More

Chinese trade offensive hurts local industry in Nigeria More

Egypt looks east for foreign investment More

Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi answers questions from domestic and overseas journalists on China's Foreign Policy More

IMF chief says Chinese investment must benefit Zambia More

African textile industry overwhelmed by Chinese imports More


India & Africa
South Africa and India in race for UN climate chief job More

India- Africa project partnership conclave will discuss business projects worth $9 billion at a three-day conclave starting March 14 in New Delhi More

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Relations of the Kingdom of Lesotho is visiting India during March More

Nigeria offers huge incentives to attract Indian investments More

Two years after their first summit, India and Africa launched an ambitious action plan for closer cooperation More

Ethiopia keen to replicate Indian Amul brand model More

Zambia's Walubita seeks economic partnership from India More

India is not in any competition with other countries in Africa, Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor said More

Indian company is competing against four Chinese firms for an 80-million dollar contract for the construction of a cement factory in Ethiopia More

Tata Communications is increasing its investment in Africa, with a specific focus on SA in light of the upcoming soccer Fifa Soccer World Cup More

Thanks to Indian investment, for the first time in more than a quarter of a century, passenger and goods trains can now take a reliable train in Mozambique
More

At a three-day interactive conference with the African continent next week in New Delhi, ministers, businessmen and experts from both sides will discuss 145 business projects worth $9 billion More

India and Africa unveil action plan to boost ties More

India eyes SA textile industry More

Other Emerging Actors in Africa

North African private equity firm Citadel Capital is launching a new $150m co-investment fund for Africa, according to reports More

Brazil-Africa ‘Biofuels Diplomacy’ More

South Africa is reportedly exploring for coal mining opportunities in Zimbabwe More

Angola seeks youth training and integration cooperation in Brazil
More

In Other News...
Japan finances Nampula-Cuamba road in Mozambique More
Japan-Backed Mombasa Cement rocks local industry in Kenya More
Japan groups creep into Africa More

Iranians leave uranium-rich Niger More

Darfur conflict is on the backburner, Russian envoy say More

Commentaries and Interviews
China has a Congo copper headache More

Kofi Annan talks to Aljazeera about China-African relations, African land sales, eradication of poverty and the Millenium Development Goals More

China, capitalist accumulation and the world crisis More

Justifiable Concerns over Ethiopia’s Reckless Farmland Deals More

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS


* Compiled by Anna Lena Wachter, intern based with the Emerging Powers in Africa programme.

Grave concerns over Rwanda’s elections

Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/elections/62932

On Commonwealth day, 8 March 2010, CHRI once again brings to the notice of the Commonwealth Secretary General the growing number of concerns surrounding political freedoms in Rwanda. Despite grave representations by CHRI and others about the appropriateness of Rwanda’s readiness for membership, given its record on human rights and its questionable role in the conflict in the Congo, Rwanda was unconditionally admitted to the Commonwealth as its newest member at the Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago last November.

Rwanda’s membership requires that it honours and complies with the Commonwealth’s fundamental political principles, which include respect for civil society and human rights. The Chair of a new opposition party, United Democratic Forces (UDF) has written to the Secretary General of the Commonwealth alleging state orchestrated harassment, describing violence against herself and colleagues as well as outlining the restrictive environment facing opposition parties in their electoral challenge to the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Under Article 13 of the Rwandan constitution it is an offence to engage in “revisionism” or “negationism” (denial of the genocide).

These are so broadly defined to include anyone who disagrees with the ruling RPF’s account of the Genocide. On the 25th of February the Ministry for Security in Rwanda issued a statement saying that any politician who “slanders the country” or is “against public unity” would be punished. In addition the Minister for Local Government has reportedly threatened to crackdown on unregistered political parties who are members of the Permanent Consultative Council of Opposition Parties. Further opposition parties have alleged that the government is making it hard to register by continually changing registration rules; the members of the RPF control the National Electoral Commission, which regulates these matters. A number of opposition parties have also complained that they face repeated harassment from government officials and the members of the RPF. It is imperative that the Government of Rwanda thoroughly investigates, in a manner satisfactory to opposition parties, the many incidents of intimidation and bring those responsible to justice. It should also ensure that its electoral processes are consistent with UN and Commonwealth standards for free and fair elections. CHRI urges the Commonwealth Secretary General to insist that the Rwandan government makes every effort to create genuine democratic political atmosphere in the country prior August 2010 elections.

We call upon the Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma, in his meetings this week with President Kagame, to urge him to ensure that in these first Rwanda elections as a Commonwealth member, the standards are patently free and fair and in compliance with Commonwealth values.
Maja Daruwala
Director, CHRI

Guinea: AU calls for change of voting rules before elections

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/yzs3g7a

The African Union (AU) has called for minor const itutional amendments in Guinea, a review of the voting rules and the extension of the voters' registration exercise, to accommodate thousands of other Guineans in exile across West Africa.

Niger: African Union issues six-month ultimatum for elections

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/yh8qsu5

The African Union (AU) has demanded an urgent election timetable, leading to the return to constitutional order in Niger following the ousting of President Mamadou Tandja in a coup on 18 February in the West African nation.

Nigeria: Eectoral body to release timetable for 2011 elections

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/y9vzzmg

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Nigeria, Professor Maurice Iwu, announced here Thursday that the commission would release the comprehensive time-table for the conduct of the 201 1 general elections on Tuesday.

DRC: Ex-rebels accused of extortion in mines

2010-03-12

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8561330.stm

Former rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo who now serve in the army are running mafia-style extortion rackets in the mines, campaigners say. The country has some of the world's richest mines, which provide minerals to the global electronics industry.

Global: Africa to crack down on illicit diamond trade

2010-03-12

http://www.afrol.com/articles/35621

A new project in 16 sub-Saharan African countries producing and dealing in diamonds, gold, and precious minerals is to strengthen their defences against money laundering, smuggling, and terrorist financing.

Global: Decisive moment for global transparency effort

2010-03-12

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/03/08/decisive-moment-global-transparency-effort

An international initiative that seeks to promote more openness about how countries profit from their oil, gas, and mining resources should not weaken its modest membership standards because governments are unable or unwilling to meet them, Human Rights Watch has said.

Malawi: Britain reduces aid over presidential jet

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/ydszzen

Britain, Malawi’s main bilateral donor, has cut aid to the southern African nation this year after Malawi bought a $13.26 million presidential jet last year, a senior British diplomat has said. Malawi’s finance minister told parliament recently that the government had made some payments towards the purchase of the 2 billion Malawi kwacha ($13.26 million, Sh1 billion) jet.

South Africa: ANC chief's fat-cat deals

2010-03-12

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=6&art_id=vn20100312042526674C372809

The chairperson of the ANC's biggest and most influential region in KwaZulu-Natal, John Mchunu, has been awarded tenders worth at least R40-million by the eThekwini municipality. Mchunu recently made headlines for allegedly vetoing the completion of a R1.5m elephant sculpture project for the new Warwick Avenue interchange, apparently because it was the symbol of the IFP.

Southern Africa: How Nchindo and De Beers ripped Botswana off

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/ygfm6xn

Former Debswana Managing Director, Louis Nchindo, and seven other De Beers executives, among them Gary Ralfe and Nicky Oppenheimer, pocketed millions of Pulas in bonus schemes that ripped the government of Botswana off – a confidential report has revealed.

Uganda: ARTICLE 19 lauds whistleblowers bill

2010-03-11

http://tinyurl.com/yjjm33w

ARTICLE 19 welcomes the recent bold move by the Uganda Parliament to pass the Whistleblowers Bill, a critical milestone in the country's efforts to stem corruption and embrace transparency and accountability. The Bill, approved by Parliament on 3 March 2010 in Kampala aims to create an enabling environment for citizens to freely disclose information on corrupt or improper conduct, both in the public and private sectors. In enacting the law, Uganda is the third country in Africa to adopt such a comprehensive law.

Burkina Faso: Government stops water, electricity privatisation

2010-03-12

http://www.afrol.com/articles/35615

In a landmark decision, the government of Burkina Faso has decided to remove its water and electricity utilities from the list of state companies to be privatised. Defying the IMF, government rather decided it would be enough to restructure the companies' management.

Global: Move to block Canadian mining accountability

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/yhxfspt

Anti-C-300' pamphlets, buttons and large signs are everywhere at this year's the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada's (PDAC's) annual convention, as Canadian mining industry groups turn the heat up in efforts to block the controversial legislation. Bill C-300, if approved, would allow Canada's government to investigate complaints about Canadian resources firms operating in foreign countries and withhold taxpayer-funded financing, such as from Export Development Canada, from transgressors.

Mozambique: Donors on strike

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/62941

Budget support donors are on strike. No budget support money has been released to government since mid-December. Donors are demanding promises from government for action this year on electoral reform, corruption and conflict of interest, and on the growing role of the Frelimo party inside the state apparatus.
Budget support donors are on strike. No budget support money has been released to government since mid-December. Donors are demanding promises from government for action this year on electoral reform, corruption and conflict of interest, and on the growing role of the Frelimo party inside the state apparatus.

So far, both sides are taking hard lines, but further negotiations are expected this week. Neither side is totally unified, but the 19 donors in the budget support group are facing a particularly wide range of conflicts and pressures, both in Maputo and at home.

The G19 budget support group is being extremely secretive, refusing even off-the-record briefings, claiming they do not want to be seen to be putting pressure on government. In practice donors seem to be searching for a minimum promise from government which will provide a face-saving solution, and allow the G19 to stay together.

But the government has become increasingly public on this issue. Finance Minister Manuel Chang on Friday told journalists that if the strike continues it may be necessary to revise the state budget, and his statement was published on the front page of Noticias on Friday 6 March.

The government response to the donors, from Development and Planning Minister Aiuba Cuerenia (who is the main government negotiator with the donors), has been widely circulated, and is posted on my website: http://www.tinyurl.com/mozamb

Donors have pledged $472 million for budget support for 2010, about $40 million per month. Before the strike started, the World Bank and the European Union, the largest and third budget support donors, released big tranches of money early. So the lack of budget support is only starting to bite now.

Government ministries are already reported to be making small initial spending cuts, in areas like transport and lunches.

Donor position

The G19 over several years has become increasingly frustrated at the government’s unwillingness to make concessions on issues around justice, corruption, and conflict of interest. Donors accuse government of agreeing in general to what the donors demand, but then dragging their feet, for example always being very late in providing promised information.

Last year, two issues brought this simmering discontent to the boil. The exclusion of the MDM from standing for parliament in most provinces, by a National Elections Commission (CNE) seen as biased in favour of Frelimo, led to accusations of a lack of a level playing field. The election also brought to the fore the growing role of Frelimo in the state apparatus, including preference given for jobs and grants to Frelimo members. During the campaign, state employees were pressured to attend Frelimo rallies and support the Frelimo campaign, and state cars and other state facilities were used by the party.

The G19 took a very strong position against the exclusion of the MDM, issuing a statement on 17 September (http://www.pap.org.mz) and then successfully demanding urgent meetings with President Armando Guebuza and CNE President João Leopoldo da Costa. Donors believe they delivered a strong message to Guebuza making clear that budget support now depends on electoral and governance reform.

Donors also accuse the government of arrogance, both the way that Dr João Leopoldo responded to criticism, and then Planning Minister Cuereneia’s letter to donors which made no concessions.

Government position

Government, in turn, sees donors as arrogant, for example the way they demanded immediate meetings in September, having paid no attention to the process of passing electoral laws in 2007 and early 2009. Indeed, in 2007 donors told me that elections were not part of the G19 remit because they were not in the memorandum of understanding with the government. And donors did not replace staff linked to elections when they finished their terms in Maputo. So government is annoyed that having not played a constructive role earlier, donors suddenly made angry public statements just before the election.

Furthermore, the timing of the donor strike seems strange. It started in December, after the elections, but without waiting for the new government to take office. These issues could have been delayed until early this year when there is the normal round of negotiations with the budget support donors.

This occurs in a context in which Mozambique’s donors are widely seen as more arrogant and more powerful than donors in most other developing countries, even those with budget support. In exchange, Mozambique receives more money per capita than neighbouring countries, but since 2005 President Guebuza has been trying to reduce the overweening power of the donors. Government recognition that in a decade mineral revenues are likely to replace budget support also strengthens the government’s will to try to take some power back from donors.

Two donor letters and meetings between donors and Cuereneia in December may have seemed to government like a pre-emptive strike by donors to show the new government who was boss. Not surprisingly, the government responded in kind.

On 5 February 2010, Planning and Development Minister Aiuba Cuereneia sent the G19 an 18 page letter (http://www.tinyurl.com/mozamb) in which he stressed what government was already doing in the areas of electoral reform and governance. It emphasized that as part of open governance President Guebuza had met the G19 and many other social and political forces and the media. He underlined Mozambique’s participation in the African Peer Review Mechanism as well as the decentralization now taking place. The election law will be dealt with by parliament, he said, which will take into account all the comments that have been made.

Government has successfully been promoting rapid economic growth and poverty reduction, Cuereneia stressed, and has been satisfying the donors in these areas. Under a heading “conflict of interest” he cited only new laws on minerals and public-private-partnerships. Existing laws are largely adequate to govern public enterprises, but a new law is being drafted. Reforms are in process for public procurement. A crackdown on corruption is already under way, and new laws will be proposed this year.

Donor confusion

Most donors reject the Cuereneia letter for not promising further quick action. In particular, they want the government, not parliament or civil society, to take the lead and draft a new electoral law and present it to parliament in September.

But the G19 faces an unprecedented set of pressures. First are a range of divisions within. Italy and Portugal, both very small budget support donors ($5 mn and $2 mn), have openly backed the government, while the World Bank does not want to be involved in this sort of political debate.

On the other hand, some of the big budget support donors, who include some of the oldest and most loyal backers of Mozambique, are taking the strongest line on the lack of a level playing field in elections and are most fed up with government foot dragging on governance reform.

At the same time, the European Union in Brussels is saying that the 2000 Cotonou agreement between the EU and developing countries means that political discussions between EU members and recipient governments must go through the EU system and not any other forum. In Maputo, this is interpreted to mean that any debate on election reform and governance should go through the EU and not the G19 – which if accepted would make the donor strike invalid because the G19 could not negotiate with government on this.

Several big budget support donors face elections or have had recent changes of government, and some countries are facing budget pressure due to the economic crisis, which adds a high degree of uncertainty. Donor officials in Maputo are afraid that if one big donor publicly withdraws from budget support, it would create a flood – media questions in other capitals, particularly those facing elections or budget cuts, could lead other development ministers to cut budget support without even consulting their Maputo office.

Finally, large aid flows have been justified by claims of huge falls in poverty. Recent data suggests that any recent declines in poverty have been small. Will aid ministers ask: Where did the money go?

Donor officials in Maputo have a strong vested interest in keeping the money flowing, and Mozambique clearly needs the cash. So there is a mutual interest in finding some kind of face-saying agreement with vague promises of action. Donor representatives in Maputo seem to be increasingly out on a limb. Having taken a possibly unwise stand, they face the stony face of Mozambique and uncertain responses from their capitals. Will a deal be reached before one of the big donors formally ends budget support?

* By Joseph Hanlon

West Africa: Borderless Trade Campaign launched

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/yhmauzh

A campaign dubbed "Borderless Trade", which is aimed at fighting against hindrances to the free movement of people and goods in West Africa, was launched on Wednesday in Krak', at the border between Benin and Nigeria.

West Africa: Farmers receive boost from UN organic food exporting initiative

2010-03-12

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34018

Some 5,000 West African farmers are reaping the rewards from a United Nations scheme aimed at helping them export produce to the growing organic food market in the industrialized world. The $2.4 million UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) project has helped farmers in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal and Sierra Leone to meet the necessary certification and adapt to the required methods to grow and sell organic products, according to a FAO news release.

Africa: Strengthening pharmaceutical innovation in Africa

2010-03-10

http://tinyurl.com/ykl6zcl

This is a statement prepared by participants at the special meeting of the African Union s Extended Technical Committee on the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plan for Africa in Pretoria, February 18-20. The Statement reflects the views of participants, on how to move forward with approaches national and regional strategies for country-driven pharmaceutical innovation and access to medicines.

Global: Pressure growing on wealthy nations for clear signal on long-term funds for HIV

2010-03-12

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/60570861-8584-4800-B571-3D485F5BA5F2.asp

Pressure is building on governments of wealthy nations to make clear where they stand on funding their promises to achieve universal access to HIV treatment, care and prevention, following a meeting of ministers and civil society advocates from countries with high HIV burdens in London this week.

South Africa: Delayed drug registrations hard to swallow

2010-03-12

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/AB796611-5892-456F-9BEA-7B105AA96D30.asp

Delays in registering antiretroviral (ARV) medication may keep cheaper, more patient-friendly drugs out of reach as South Africa prepares to launch the world's largest tender for medicines. In a letter to Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, the Minister of Health, the South African HIV Clinicians Society called on the country's drug registration body, the Medicines Control Council (MCC), to fast-track the approval of certain ARVs, the generic versions of others, and fixed-dose ARV combinations that combine multiple ARVs into a single pill.

Zimbabwe: Deadly TB hits Epworth amid worsening health crises

2010-03-12

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news110310/tb110310.htm

A deadly strain of tuberculosis has reportedly hit Epworth, amid a rapidly worsening health crisis and critical shortages of food across the country. One case of the deadly multi-drug resistant TB strain has been confirmed in the high density area of Epworth and two more people in the same area are suspected to be infected. Zakaria Mwatia, from Epworth Clinic, confirmed the cases to local press, explain how the disease attacks those with already weakened immune systems.

Africa: Best new queer African short fiction

2010-03-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/lgbti/62948

Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action, the pioneering, highly regarded South African gay and lesbian archives, invites African writers to submit stories on a queer African theme for publishing in a ground-breaking anthology. Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action intends the anthology to query stereotypes, show that there are many ways of being queer in Africa, and encourage queer artistic expression and appreciation. Literary merit and an insightful response to the complexities of African queerness will guide the selection.
Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action, the pioneering, highly regarded South African gay and lesbian archives, invites African writers to submit stories on a queer African theme for publishing in a ground-breaking anthology. Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action intends the anthology to query stereotypes, show that there are many ways of being queer in Africa, and encourage queer artistic expression and appreciation. Literary merit and an insightful response to the complexities of African queerness will guide the selection.

Submit your unpublished short fiction of between 1,000 and 5,000 words to queerafricanfiction@gmail.com by 30 June 2010. Provide a covering page with the title of the story, your first name and surname, your email address and a contact telephone number, and a bio of not more than 100 words. All submissions will be acknowledged.

The selection will be made by 30 September 2010, and writers will work with an editor to refine their stories for publishing in June 2011. The anthology will be launched at the 2011 Cape Town Book Fair and will be distributed locally, in Africa and internationally. With writers’ permissions, all submissions will be archived by Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action and will be accessible to the archives’ many local and international users.

For more information visit the Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action website at www.gala.co.za <http://www.gala.co.za> , or email queerafricanfiction@gmail.com <mailto:queerafricanfiction@gmail.com> . And find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Best-new-queer-African-short-fiction <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Best-new-queer-African-short-fiction> .

Senegal: Activists criticize for anti-gay persecution

2010-03-12

http://ilga.org/ilga/en/article/mkkJCGF1ar

While gay rights are slowly expanding around the world, including in Africa, human rights activists note some political, media and religious leaders are leading sometimes violent campaigns in the opposite direction. Activists say they feel the tradition of tolerance no longer applies to homosexuals in that West African nation.

Zambia: New constitution forbids same-sex marriages

2010-03-12

http://ilga.org/ilga/en/article/mk9qk911hK

While Zambia undergoes a Constitution Review Process, the gay community in that country has been dealt a severe blow by the National Constitutional Conference (NCC)’s decision to adopt a clause that prohibits marriage between people of the same sex.

Brazil: Government license for the Belo Monte Dam provokes international outcry

2010-03-12

http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/node/5160

A coalition of 140 international organizations has sent a letter to Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to demand that he immediately halt plans to build Belo Monte Dam on the Amazon's Xingu River due to its immense social and environmental impacts, and instead consider alternatives.

Commodity Fetishism in Climate Science and Policy

2010-03-12

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/summary.shtml?x=565990

The concept of commodity fetishism helps explain where today's climate policies have gone wrong. In classic fetishistic fashion, "cost-saving" institutional practices have helped entrench many dangerous equivalences across society: equivalences among molecules, places, technologies and times; equivalences between offsets and emissions reductions, between biotic and fossil carbon, between hypothetical and real reductions, between fines and fees, between uncertainty and probability and so on. This illustrated powerpoint presentation diagnoses 12 examples of climate fetishism currently shaping the thoughts and behaviour of research institutions, UN climate negotiators, national governments, large corporations, physical scientists, traders and others.

Africa: How food and water are driving a 21st-century land grab

2010-03-12

http://farmlandgrab.org/11514

An Observer investigation reveals how rich countries faced by a global food shortage now farm an area double the size of the UK to guarantee supplies for their citizens

Glboal: The foreign land grab part 1: Food insecurity

2010-03-12

http://farmlandgrab.org/11525

Many are saying food is becoming the new oil. In the past two years there has been a remarkable increase in purchases of large-scale farmland by foreigners throughout Africa, Latin America, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Africa: Africa still hungry despite annual $3 billion of aid and $33 billion of food imports – UN

2010-03-12

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34050

One in three Africans is chronically hungry, despite $3 billion spent on food aid for the continent annually and $33 billion in food imports, the director of the food security at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) has warned.

Global: GM contamination of corn is a “crime against humanity”

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/yzexfq9

GM contamination of corn is a “crime against humanity”, according to organizations. This conflict will be solved at international courts. The authorization of GM corn crops in Mexico and the attempt by the FAO to legitimize this practice are strongly questioned by tens of organizations meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico, in the parallel activities to the Conference on Agriculture Biotechnologies in Developing Countries (where the world´s most important seed companies are gathered).

Ethiopia: IFJ denounces ‘punitive’ fines against media houses

2010-03-12

http://africa.ifj.org/en/articles/ifj-denounces-punitive-fines-against-media-houses-in-ethiopia

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the ruling of Monday, 8 March by the Ethiopian Supreme Court which reinstated the hefty fines which had been imposed by the country’s High Court against four publishing houses which had successfully appealed a judgment of the High Court following the infamous treason trial of 2005.

Global: World Day against Cyber Censorship

2010-03-12

http://www.rsf.org/World-Day-Against-Cyber-Censorship.html

Reporters Without Borders celebrates World Day Against Cyber Censorship on 12 March. This event is intended to rally everyone in support of a single Internet that is unrestricted and accessible to all. It is also meant to draw attention to the fact that, by creating new spaces for exchanging ideas and information, the Internet is a force for freedom. However, more and more governments have realised this and are reacting by trying to control the Internet.

Morocco: Parliament commission considers media reforms

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/y8ec8mz

A parliamentary commission hopes to reconcile tensions between the government and the media with specific recommendations, commission co-ordinator Jamal Eddine Naji said on March 9th at a press conference in Rabat. Parliament launched the commission March 1st to spur a national debate about the press between media representatives, members of parliament, political figure, the government and the public.

North Africa: Egypt releases blogger facing trial by military court

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/yff349k

Amnesty International has welcomed the release of an Egyptian blogger, who was facing jail after he published a post alleging nepotism within the armed forces. The organization said it remains concerned that the release of Ahmed Mostafa was conditional on him agreeing to apologise and on removing the March 2009 posting from his Matha Assabaka ya Watan (What happened to you, oh nation?) blog.

Rwanda: "Mbariza Ntore” - inform us so that we can vote

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/62938

Mbariza Ntore” (Kirundi for “inform us so that we can vote”) is a media support project of the Dutch NGO, La Benevolencija, set up with a total of 18 different media houses (radio, print press, TV, Internet and news agency) in Burundi. The project enhances the capacity of citizens to better understand the conditions in which they are being invited to fulfill their political rights.
Assuring political space, avoiding political hostilities and making elections understandable to citizens


“Mbariza Ntore” (Kirundi for “inform us so that we can vote”) is a media support project of the Dutch NGO, La Benevolencija, set up with a total of 18 different media houses (radio, print press, TV, Internet and news agency) in Burundi. The project enhances the capacity of citizens to better understand the conditions in which they are being invited to fulfill their political rights.

This within a post-conflict context that is dominated by political manipulation and fear. In low income, post-conflict dominated countries, voters have in general little knowledge about the important choices they face. On top of it, the past performances of elected leaders are rarely visible or understandable, since rarely impact studies have been made available to a larger public, creating know-how at citizens’ level. The political question remains on how ignorant masses will make judgments on good or bad performances of their leaders? And within a post-conflict context like Burundi, where most often ethnic/religious/regional rivalries are not forgotten, it seems more obvious that these identities remain the key choice in the ballot boxes, or at least, remain the key factor to manipulation based on the abuse of fear.

Resulting from this short analysis above, “Mbariza Ntore” recommends to take a pragmatic approach by working with combined media houses, by following up preelection peace pledges and by tracking and avoiding violent incidents.

Electoral processes in war-prone societies present particular problems and, certainly, provide core opportunities for change, for participation in governance. However, the campaign, the voting and the proclamation phases of the elections are frequently accompanied by violence, like recently witnessed in the DR Congo and Kenya. In this process, the national and local media fulfilled an important, if not the most crucial, role. Therefore, “Mbariza Ntore” focuses on their role in the electoral process: from contribution to responsibility. To invest wisely in the media, Benevolencija presents a support model that is based on practice, experience, and impact in one country, Burundi, but that shows solidity, strength, and impact - from stronger media scenes to more robust, open, and inclusive political processes.

Mbariza Ntore creates and facilitates a “pool” of media specialists

In Burundi, journalists and media proprietors face immense commercial and political constraints which are limiting constraining their journalistic independence, their integrity, but also there practical and logistical capacity in analysing the political context. Lack of time and means limits each media outlet to have a selected, but well trained and informed pool of specialists, able to cover the elections correctly. The content debate that must be elaborated, discussed and disputed among journalists therefore limits itself often to what some might call the “personality” cult of some political leaders. The issues at stake are rarely, correctly addressed (i.e. the needs of the population as such). Through this project, Benevolencija suggests a more appropriate content debate that should enhance political leaders and factions to engage them into developing more accountability and program development.

Benevolencija has put in place a “pool” of sixteen journalists, each from most radio and print media, to facilitate investigation and production work on a common and regular basis. Among the priorities of this “pool” is the production of a common outlet (a weekly radio program/newspaper dossier) that is a source of credible information for the population. Having access to information in forms that people can understand, in their own (Kirundi) language, seems to be a basic democratic necessity in the pre-electoral phase. Together with other media stakeholders that are all unified under a PACAM umbrella, the pool of journalists will also be involved in pre-electoral debates among all political parties. Early warning – Early reaction: the challenge for the electoral and post-electoral phase is to develop a communication content that can help audiences “immediately” in helping to understand the situation better and to help them change their attitudes and behaviour, in staying or becoming non violent citizens. The main focus here in on the “bystander in transition to becoming an average potential perpetrator”. People in danger of joining a negative group and arming themselves, should be challenged by asking them questions that seek to create small “critical moments”, leading them into reflection before engaging upon violent behaviour.

Partners are: The National Radio of Burundi, The National Television of Burundi,
Radio Isanganiro, Radio Renaissance, Radio Rema FM, Radio Bonesha FM, Radio CCIB
FM +, Radio Umuco, Radio Star FM, Radio RPA, Radio Salama, Iwacu, Renouveau, Ubumwe, Arc en Ciel, Burundi Tribune, Net Press and Agence Burundaise de Presse.

More information: labenevolencija@gmail.com

South Africa: On protest hotspots and analytical blind spots

2010-03-12

http://www.sacsis.org.za/site/article/439.1

Oukasie, Sharpville, Orange Farm, Siyathemba: images of violent protest action against poor service delivery have dominated the news in the past few weeks, signalling growing frustration with the Jacob Zuma administration’s failure to address the implosion of services in parts of South Africa. But all too often, media coverage does not help us to understand the complex forces that gave rise to such protests, writes Jane Duncan.

DRC: Displaced civilians in DRC trapped by conflict

2010-03-12

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/ASAZ-83FGZL?OpenDocument

The medical humanitarian organization Mèdecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is deeply concerned by the rapidly worsening situation in the isolated area of Hauts Plateaux in the region of Uvira, South Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Nigeria: 200 held over killings

2010-03-12

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/200-held-over-nigeria-killings-1920123.html

Police in Nigeria have arrested around 200 people following weekend attacks on three Christian villages in which hundreds of people were thought to have been killed. The central city of Jos, at the crossroads of Nigeria's Muslim north and Christian south, has been tense since Sunday's attacks, blamed on northern settlers, on the villages of Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Ratsat just south of the Plateau state capital.

Somalia: Death toll hits 54 in fighting

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/yjvt23u

The death toll from two days of fighting in Somalia’s capital between government forces and al Shabaab rebels has risen to 54, ambulance services said as clashes subsided with both sides claiming successes.

Southern Africa: UN aid agencies on alert for potential floods

2010-03-12

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34057

The United Nations is gathering supplies for some 130,000 people in southern Africa on alert for potential evacuation from flood-risk zones following weeks of torrential rains in northern Mozambique and neighbouring Angola, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Normal to above normal rains have swollen rivers, forcing authorities to discharge water from the Kariba Dam in Zimbabwe and the Cahora Bassa Dam in Mozambique, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported.

Sudan: IGAD leaders call for full implementation of peace accord

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/yddsn32

IGAD Heads of State and Government have urged parties to the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) to remain committed to the implementation of outstanding issues in the agreement. The IGAD leaders, meeting in Nairobi Tuesday, asked the parties to the CPA to particularly move towards completing the North-South Abyei border demarcation and redeployment of forces.

Africa: Burundi carriers form first national infrastructure consortium to develop fibre backbone

2010-03-12

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

One of Africa’s smallest countries is pioneering the use of a carriers’ consortium to develop its national fibre backbone and international links with help from the World Bank. Burundi Backbone Systems will oversee the development of a 1,200 kms backbone and several new international fibre links connecting the country to its neighbours in the next 18 months.

Global: Feminist Tech Exchange reboots

http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/view/490/1/

2010-03-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/internet/63013

In celebration of International Women's Day, 8 March 2010, the Feminist Tech Exchange (FTX) is launching its new website - http://ftx.apcwomen.org/ The FTX is both a training initiative for women's rights advocates and a community of feminist and technology activists. The FTX was developed by the Association for Progressive Communications Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP) in response to calls from feminist and women's rights movements for greater understanding of emerging technologies, their potential and impact on the rights and lives of women.

Kenya: Mobile phones bring insurance to farmers

2010-03-12

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE62502R.htm

Kenyan farmers can now insure some of the costs of growing crops against bad weather by using mobile phone technology that links solar-powered weather stations to an insurance company.

South Africa: New life for e-government

2010-03-12

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

E-government will be renewed and handled with more vigour, because of its future importance to service delivery, says deputy public service and administration minister Roy Padayachie.

Africa: Remittances update

AfricaFocus Bulletin Mar 10, 2010 (100310)

2010-03-12

http://www.africafocus.org/docs10/rem1003.php

A 2009 report from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) notes that some 30 million African workers outside their countries send home approximately $40 billion a year in remittances. But with only as many "payout" locations on the continent as in one Latin American country (Mexico), the process is expensive and dominated by two large money transfer companies which work primarily with banks.

"Alternative Research Methodologies" - Philippines from 18 - 29 October 2010

2010-03-12

http://www.seasrepfoundation.org/ARM%20workshop4.pdf

The fourth SEASREP-Sephis training workshop on Alternative Research Methodologies will take place in the Philippines on 18-29 October 2010. The workshop aims to provide PhD students from the South an opportunity to strengthen the theoretical and methodological quality of their work under the guidance of experienced researchers from the South. Two weeks of lectures and discussions, knowledge building, and individual tutorials on research proposals will enable the participants to redesign their research project, improve their proposal and enhance their research capabilities.

Africa and China in the 21st Century: The search for a mutually beneficial relationship

April 8-10, Syracuse University

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/62913

The Africa Initiative of Syracuse University, recognizes the need for the debate on Africa-China relations to transcend the emerging Sino-phobic scholarship and analyses that conceptualize Africa-China relations only through the limited lens of exploitation, new imperialism and anti-democracy. Towards this end, the Africa Initiative will host a select group of distinguished scholars to assess and deliberate on the nature and future of Sino-African relations and cooperation. This special symposium will be held from 8th-10th April 2010 in the main campus of Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.
SPECIAL SYMPOSIUM ON AFRICA AND CHINA
Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York
8th-10th April 2010

Africa and China in the 21st Century: The Search for a Mutually Beneficial Relationship

China’s continued thrust into the realms of formidable global power brokers has raised hope and admiration as well as uncertainty and trepidation. Consequently, this painstaking but systematic rise has drawn its fair share of a vibrant debate among established geopolitical experts and post-Berlin Wall students of international affairs. These jitters and apprehensions may be attributed to the fact that many academies, staffed by Cold Warriors, rolled out graduates long resigned to the realization that the emergent post-1989 unipolar world was here to stay, and therefore whose training failed to factor in the possibility of an alternative global power structure, and not in the least the possibility that such a power would rise elsewhere away from the historical dominance of transatlantic paradigms in international affairs. However, by 2005, it had become evident that China’s rise was not only unstoppable, but also irreversible. This thesis by Martin Jacques in the book, When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World, has provoked a healthy debate in Western Academic circles.

Massive investments in health, education, roads and related infrastructure have been matched only by the quantity of raw materials, natural resources and other forms of extractive industries exported to China from African countries. This pre-eminent moment of Africa-China relations was formally launched in the 2006 China-Africa Summit that saw 48 African heads of state and government attend what was the largest international meeting ever to be held in Beijing. It is here that the Chinese sought to clearly rebrand their new relationship with the continent, calling it a ‘win-win situation’ based on ‘mutual respect and common development.’ This relationship has come under scrutiny, praise and critique from diverse constituencies. African publics, economists and civil societies in Africa have been involved in discussing the nature and implications of this renewed relationship. African scholars and researchers have engaged this debate with their own grasp of the implications of the rise of China.
One such engagement is reflected in the collected essays, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Africa and China, edited by Kweku Ampiah and Sanusha Naidu.

This book along with the two publications of Fahamu has sought to open windows of scholarly research on the Chinese engagement with Africa.
There is increasing need for a sustained debate focused on how Africa-China relations can be harnessed for the good of the African peoples in ways that break away from the models of exploitation that have characterized the continent’s relationship with traditional powers and institutions that have – for decades - dominated the economic and political landscape of the continent. At the Africa Initiative of Syracuse University, we recognize the need for this debate to transcend the emerging Sino-phobic scholarship and analyses that conceptualizes Africa-China relations only through the limited lens of exploitation, new imperialism and anti-democracy. Towards this end, the Africa Initiative will host a select group of distinguished scholars to assess and deliberate on the nature and future of Sino-African relations and cooperation.

This special symposium will be held from 8th-10th April 2010 in the main campus of Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. The symposium conveniently comes in the wake of one hosted by Fahamu Networks for Social Justice in Nairobi in November 2009 and which focused mainly on the role of the civil society in shaping the contours of Africa relations.

As such we believe that by targeting the voice of progressive intellectuals from North America, China and Africa, the Syracuse University meeting will provide much-needed space to not only further the debate in the United States, but more importantly to carry out such discussion from a perspective that aims to strengthen the relationship for the betterment of the African continent and the People’s Republic of China.

At the start of the FOCAC process, President Jiang Zemin, in his letter of 1999 to heads of states spelt out two main goals:
“How to promote the building of a new international political and economic order so as to safeguard the common interests of developing countries in the 21st century” and
“How to further China-Africa cooperation in trade and economy in the new situation.”
The symposium at Syracuse University seeks to raise several leading questions among them:
1. After ten years, what are the defining characteristics of the new relationship?
2. How can we ensure and evaluate the tenets of ‘sincerity, political equality and mutual trust, economic win-win cooperation and common development… ’ are realized as encapsulated in Beijing’s official policy on development cooperation especially in the context of the past five years of Africa-China cooperation
3. What kind of scholarly output can break the old realist understanding of the new South-South relationship
4. In light of the breakdown of the Copenhagen summit what are the implications of the FOCAC 2009 target of China-Africa partnership in addressing climate change
5. Can people to people relationships develop at the scholarly level to reflect the spirit of Bandung?
6. Beyond leaders and governments, how can this pre-eminent phase of Sino-African relations be strengthened?
7. How can this cooperation be harnessed while at the same time be weaned of potential negative trends and legacies associated with Africa’s traditional development partners
8. How can Africa and African institutions position themselves for a fruitful engagement with China and Chinese institutions
9. What should be the role of the African Union vis-à-vis individual states and regional economic blocs
10. Can the economic and future political integration of the continent help in formulating a coherent “African Policy Towards China?”
11. How can Africans seize the moment to outmaneuver those international institutions that have tied their relationship with Africans to the foreign policy interests of economic forces that have historically sabotaged the prospects of a continent?
12. How do we distinguish the new Chinese emphasis on “human resources, development and education” from the neo-liberal conceptions of development?
13. What is the impact of the ‘Chinese model’ on democratic transformation in the continent?
14. To what extent is there an authentic ‘Chinese model’ of transformation that Africans can look up to?

Intended Outputs:
1. A publication of select papers
2. Short audio-visual materials from the symposium
3. A working group on Africa-China relations coordinated from Syracuse University but bringing together scholars and practitioners from Africa, China and USA
4. Develop a concrete substantive mutual collaboration between Africa Initiative of Syracuse University and Fahamu Networks on China and other emerging actors in Africa

Sponsors: The Africa Initiative of Syracuse University AND Fahamu Networks for Social Justice
Co-Sponsors: International Relations Program at the Maxwell School. The African Students Union.

Asia dynamics initiative conference

2010-03-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/62963

This workshop explores the notion of ‘difference’ – as identity, opposition and even resemblance – in its multiple meanings and settings, and the ways in which it plays out in the social-political landscape. Moving away from the idea of difference as essential or natural, we explore how difference is constructed, manifested and obscured in socially uneven societies, particularly those fueled by neoliberal economic growth in the recent years.
Asia Dynamics Initiative Conference
Copenhagen, 11-13th November 2010
Governing Difference

Explorations in Identity, Inequity and Inequality in the Global South
This workshop explores the notion of ‘difference’ – as identity, opposition and even resemblance – in its multiple meanings and settings, and the ways in which it plays out in the social-political landscape. Moving away from the idea of difference as essential or natural, we explore how difference is constructed, manifested and obscured in socially uneven societies, particularly those fuelled by neoliberal economic growth in the recent years. Consider the following: nations like India and China struggle to govern tumultuous differences within – inequities and inequalities constitutive of the socio-economic and political terrain; rich/poor; urban/rural; cosmopolitan/vernacular – accentuated by the neoliberal market reforms, even as they seek to project outside a unified ‘national difference’ that can compete profitably with other nations on a global scale. Difference, here, at once, is a desirable condition in relation to the concept of ‘global nation’ as well as a challenge that threatens to unravel the very weave of the nation. A case in point is the making of nation brand-identities in the postcolonial context specifically targeted at the global markets, and the social-political tensions, often violent, underpinning these seemingly smooth processes. The uneven economic growth, the rise of an expansive middle class and a similarly burgeoning, though less spectacular, demography of the poor within the emerging powers in the global south suggest a landscape that has not yet been fully explored. How is difference articulated, desired, levelled, governed and even subverted in such a landscape? What role do state agencies play as they mediate between their own populations and global standards of development and governance? How, and if, political forms and frames – for example, popular comparisons of a democratic India and an authoritarian China - affect the ways in which difference is governed by the state authorities? The suggested themes, though not limited to, are:
- technologies of governance (state policies, global standardization)
- new identity formations
- mediation and representation of difference
- political contestations
- subversion of national difference
The workshop invites original contributions, both theoretical and empirical in nature -based on extensive archival and/or ethnographic fieldwork from as varied fields as history, development studies, anthropology and sociology. Comparative contributions from Asia, Africa and Latin America are particularly encouraged.
Abstracts no longer than 300 words should be submitted to: Dr. Ravinder Kaur (rkaur@hum.ku.dk)

Capitalism in crisis: The 2010 ILRIG-Rosa Luxemburg Cape partners' conference

Community House, Salt River, Cape Town - 10am to 5 pm on 9 and 10 April 2010

2010-03-12

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/473/lux.jpg

Have we seen a response so far from the capitalists and their governments that suggest that they are going to change from neo-liberal globalisation? Will they look once again to the kind of Keynesian capitalism that worked so well for them in the 40's, 50's and 60's and regulate capital flows, invest in public services and seek to grow capitalism by stimulating demand and providing full employment? Or are they still wedded to the same system of mobile capital, speculation and the privatisation of public goods?

Conference will be a space for activists and analysts to debate the underlying causes of the global crisis, the responses of states, including South Africa and the response of the dominated classes to the global crisis and possibilities for alternatives to capitalism.

An Expression of Interest form is available here

Let us know if you are coming.

Contact the organisers
ilrigrlfconference2010@gmail.com

Chevening Scholarships - For Trade Unionists and Labour Activists from around the world

2010-03-12

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/62987

* One year Certificate/Diploma of Higher Education/ BA degree.
* One year MA
* One term full time course
Ruskin has a long association with educating trade union men and women. So we are very pleased to have developed the Chevening Scholarship programme for union activists from around the developing world. Two types of scholarship are available to study on Ruskin’s new International Labour and Trade Union Studies programmes.

* One year Certificate/Diploma of Higher Education/ BA degree.
* One year MA in International Labour and Trade Union Studies. These are full time, residential courses, October to July.
* One term full time course: Comparative Labour Studies and Law, residential study at Ruskin in the summer term, April to July.

Criteria for both Chevening Scholarships are:

* A record of active participation in the trade union movement
* Capacity to benefit from studying at Ruskin College at the appropriate level
* The expectation that scholars will return to their home country in order to play a larger role there in their union movement or the community
* Fluency in written and spoken English
* Age limit: 45

In keeping with Ruskin’s equal opportunities policy, we are keen to ensure a good balance between men and women and take students from a diversity of ethnic groups.

While at Ruskin, scholars will be required to keep in touch with their sponsoring UK union, visiting the union, attending/speaking at conferences, preparing short reports/articles for union journals etc. They will make presentations about economic, social, political and industrial relations in their country, contribute to debates about labour movements worldwide, and also write a short final report for Ruskin on their Chevening Scholarship experience.

The one year programmes are aimed at mid-career union officials who can spare a year away from their work. They are full time courses, and scholarship students join with other Ruskin students at the College in Oxford.

* Certificate / Diploma of Higher Education

Students take two modules each term. Students will study International Labour and Trade Union Studies, through modules on Labour Relations, Theory and Practice of Negotiation, Comparative Labour Relations, Labour Law, Anti-Discrimination law. On the undergraduate programme each module is worth 20 CATS (Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme) points. On successful completion of each level the student will have gained 120 CATS points.

* MA

Full time 12-month course is at post graduate level. Part 1, the taught course has 3 modules: 1. International labour relations and the globalisation of labour, 2: Crisis and renewal: labour movement organisational democracy, leadership and change, 3: engage research; theory into practice, philosophy, methodology and research methods. Part 2: Dissertation, 15-20,000 words.

The UK Open University Validation Services accredits the programme to ensure it meets the required academic standards.

The one term programme of study Comparative Labour Studies, is also part of the International Labour and Trade Union Studies programme.

Chevening Scholarship Application Form: One Term / One Year At Ruskin

Chevening Scholarship Application Form: MA International Labour and Trade Union Studies

Contacts

MA Academic Coordinator: Sue Ledwith Tel: 00 44 +1865 517806.
email: sledwith@ruskin.ac.uk

BA Administrator: Liz Mathews Tel: 00 44 +186 517820.
Email: lmathews@ruskin.ac.uk
Fax No: 01856 554372.

Please do contact either of the above for further information. Liz and Sue have both studied and written about women's issues in unions and Sue runs six-monthly Round Table for trade union activists. She researches and publishes in the field and has also worked on union education programmes in the UK and abroad.

Global: FAO-UOC Joint Certificate in Food Security:

2010-03-10

http://tinyurl.com/ybyttee

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya's (UOC) Department of Food Systems, Culture and Society are partnering to offer a fully accredited, online certificate in Food Security: Assessment and Action.

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: House of Hunger poetry slam

2010-02-12

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/473/Hoh.jpg

Venue - Alliance Francaise, 17 Lower Park Drive/Kerry Road, Zoo Lake, Parkview
Time - 2-5pm
Date - 20 March 2010
Guest Artist - Thobile Magagula for Swaziland
The WINNER will TRAVEL to the House of Hunger Poetry Slam, Zimbabwe!
For more info call Linda: 073 081 5194

Africa: Freedom of Information (FOI) & Women’s rights in Africa

2010-03-11

http://tinyurl.com/ykeaew8

UNESCO and the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) are organizing a roundtable discussion during which the book Freedom of Information (FOI) and Women’s Rights in Africa will be launched. The meeting will take place at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on 16 March 2010 to explore the links between enhanced information flows, women’s empowerment and gender equality, and to promote stronger involvement by women organizations in advancing freedom of information in Africa.

Interface – A Journal for and about social movements

Call for papers – Issue 4

2010-03-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/publications/62908

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.
Interface – A Journal For and About Social Movements

Call for papers – Issue 4:

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."

Upsetting the Offset

2010-03-12

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/summary.shtml?x=565834

"Anyone concerned about the future of the planet," writes Professor Ted Benton of the University of Essex, "should read this book. The contributors give powerful evidence and argument to show that the carbon trading regimes favoured by the world's elites will not work -- and are, indeed, set to make things worse. But the message is not negative. There are alternatives, both effective and desirable."

ANSA-Africa is seeking 3 Executive Committee members

2010-03-12

http://tinyurl.com/yzkbooh

The Affiliated Network for Social Accountability (ANSA) in Africa, hosted by the Economic Governance Programme of Idasa, is currently seeking three new Executive Committee members to guide the work of the ANSA-Africa Network.

Project Manager, Programme Research and Admin Officer - International Awards

2010-03-12

Http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/473/DofEjob.pdf

The International Awards is accepting applications for the position of Project Manager (new position) and Programme Research and Admin Officer (new position), based at the International Award. To apply for either of these positions, please email CV along with a detailed statement, which outlines your suitability for the position, to jay.sandhu@DofE.org The deadline for applications for the Project Manager role is Thursday 11th March 2010 – by 3pm. Interviews will be taking place at the Award House on Monday 15th March. The deadline for applications for the Programme Research and Admin Officer is Monday 29thMarch 2010 by 12 noon with interviews being held at the Award House w/c 5th April.

Fahamu