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Take action to help refugees in Tanzania

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/action/63132

Burundian refugees in Mtabila refugee camp in Tanzania are being deprived of their basic human rights by the Tanzanian government. Some 37,000 men, women, and children are being denied access to needed medical care, primary education, and attending worship services in the camp.

Moreover, numerous reports coming from the camp state that Tanzanian officials routinely harass, threaten, and beat refugees who decline to return to Burundi.

The Tanzanian government is using these practices to create intolerable living conditions for these refugees so that they will be coerced to return to Burundi, even though these refugees continue to fear persecution if they return.

In addition, the Tanzanian military detained 79 Congolese asylum seekers, including several women who reportedly were raped just before they fled to Tanzania seeking safety. The military denied these human beings access to food, water, or medical care for over 24 hours, and then forcibly returned them to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Though Tanzania has long provided a safe haven for refugees fleeing war and persecution, these recent actions are alarming. As a signatory to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the Organization of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, Tanzania is failing to live up to its legal obligations with respect to refugees and asylum seekers.

Please take action today to help these refugees and remind Tanzanian officials that caring people like you around the world are watching. Please contact Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete and ask him to continue his country’s leadership in protecting refugees and act immediately to restore access to medical care, education, and freedom to worship for refugees in Mtabila camp and to stop forcibly returning asylum seekers.

Please take just five minutes to speak out on behalf of these vulnerable human beings. Show them that you won’t let them be forgotten.

Please take action today

Namibia at 20: The limits of liberation

Henning Melber

2010-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63149

cc CodaAs Namibia marks two decades of independence on 21 March, Henning Melber takes stock of what liberation has meant for the country’s socio-economic and political landscape. Namibia is still one of the most unequal societies in the world, writes Melber, and there’s little evidence of strong political will to improve the living standards of formerly marginalised people. With solidarity ‘only visible among the haves, aiming to protect their old and new privileges’, says Melber, not everyone will have reasons to celebrate this Sunday.

21 March 1990 marked Namibia’s Independence Day. When celebrating the long awaited moment of our hard won independence twenty years ago, most Namibians shared similar hopes and expectations. Two decades later, while treasuring our achievements, some at the same time look at the limits to liberation in a more somber way. Taking stock of the last twenty years does not, on balance – as painful as it is to say this – give reasons for uncritical enthusiasm.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC INEQUALITIES

There is no reason to approve of the socio-economic situation and the pertaining class structures. Namibia is still one of the most unequal societies in the world. Poverty has not been reduced considerably. According to economists associated with the Namibia office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), structurally embedded poverty has actually increased. Measured against the annual per capita income, Namibia has remained a lower middle income country. But it continues to have one of the highest discrepancies in the distribution of the economic wealth generated. Put differently, a minority shares the biggest part of the cake, while the majority remains hungry.

Although Namibia recorded positive economic growth rates for most of the years since independence, unemployment in 2010 has been estimated to be over 50 per cent for the first time. According to the annual UNDP human development report, Namibia is among the non-oil-producing countries with the biggest negative difference between its ranking in terms of per capita income and on the human development index. The latter measures, among others things, educational levels, health indicators and access to public goods such as water, electricity and other infrastructure. Due to the devastating effect of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and one of the highest prevalence rates in the world, the life expectancy of Namibians has dropped considerably since Independence.

Those who expected that independence would increase markedly the living standards of formerly marginalised people were disappointed. That goal is almost as remote as it was twenty years ago. There is little evidence of strong political will to change this as a matter of priority. For those who were privileged under settler colonial minority rule, in contrast, little has changed for the worse with respect to their material situation. Rather, ‘business as usual’ might, in their view, count in favour of the continued social stability.

The negotiated settlement between the liberation movement and the former colonial power as facilitated by external actors ended in a process of controlled change. It resulted in changed control. Decolonisation took the forms of an elite pact. National reconciliation was in the first place a reconciliation of class interests between the former haves and the nouveau riche of the new domestic order. The fat cats as the main beneficiaries of so-called affirmative action and black economic empowerment, were the parasites fed from the access to publicly controlled resources. The embezzlement of state funds for private enrichment schemes through quota allocation and concessions, excessive salaries, other fringe benefits and the awarding of tenders as political rewards has become almost chronic. Financial scandals and the misappropriation of other opportunities (such as stipends for studies) seem to have become the order of the day.

Redistribution of wealth does not seem to prioritise those most in need. The campaign for a Basic Income Grant (BIG) failed despite all noteworthy efforts and results in the pilot project to convince political office bearers that it was a necessary investment in social stability and peace, which might contribute to the emancipation of the needy by assisting them in their (self-)empowerment. The misery of the needy is not seen as a tragedy, requiring an urgent initiative from a responsible state and its political office bearers in a caring society with the welfare of the ordinary people as a guiding principle. During the struggle days we cultivated and benefited from a notion of solidarity. Twenty years into independence, such solidarity is only visible among the haves, aiming to protect their old and new privileges.

POLITICAL HEGEMONY

Those who gain from this aberration feel, without shame or fear, entitled to what they consider a legitimate compensation for their sacrifices and sufferings as activists during the struggle days. As if the struggle was about their individual career in the first place! The Johnny-come-latelys seek to compensate for their lack of struggle credentials with populist pseudo-revolutionary rhetoric, often bordering on hate speech. The self-service mentality thereby justified reflects the blatant class nature of the project called national sovereignty. It merges political control with economic gains from the declared liberators’ privileged access to the country’s public goods and resources.

While privatising public wealth, they feel entitled to such appetite – if not greed – given the continued political legitimacy bestowed by the overwhelming majority of voters upon the former liberation movement’s policy. Since independence, the political hegemony of the party executing political power and in control over the state apparatus has been consolidated and firmly entrenched in forms of a partocracy, which faces no fundamental challenges. But despite its claim to have liberated the people, it is a new form of rule, which does not translate into direct benefits for the majority of the people.

The fact that Swapo (the South West Africa People's Organisation) secured a two-third-majority of votes during the November 1994 elections for the second legislative period, and extended this popular endorsement of its political power to almost three-quarter of seats in the National Assembly since then, is in the first place evidence of the lack of alternatives – not testimony to its legitimacy based on achievements and performance. That disputes over election results have led to court cases after the last two national elections shows the increased contestation, but is not any reliable evidence for a lack of legitimacy for the party exercising exclusive political rule.

The obvious flaws in the conduct of the elections, however, offer no comfort. That the results of November 2009 were disputed in vain by a coalition of nine opposition parties testifies only to the incompetence of such political opposition. There was no verdict on the substance of the claimed irregularities as submitted to the court. The dismissal of the case, solely on the basis of a technical matter, should not be misunderstood as an endorsement of the results through a judgment based on examining the merits of the evidence presented. Hence the loser is not only a political opposition, which does not get its act together. The challenged Electoral Commission and the winning party have no reason to claim absolution, as the disputed results were not confirmed as proper and accurate. Triumphant celebrations are misplaced, especially since the biggest loser of all is Namibian democracy.

ARROGANCE OF POWER

Spectacular decisions by court testify to the independent judiciary as a fundamental ingredient to checks and balances. These verdicts aren’t always as welcome by those executing the political power of definition, as in the most recent case on the elections. One only needs to recollect the attacks on the Supreme Court ruling in the labour hire case, against the particular legislation as being unconstitutional. Representatives of the dominant political order did not shy away from abusive language, bordering on a dismissal of the judicial authority over legal affairs. But the rule of law is not supposed to be the law of the ruler. It is of no comfort that their disrespect for the authority vested in the independent judiciary as a necessary third pillar of a democratic, plural and accountable society was never rebuked or called to order by those representing the government and state.

Lack of internalised democratic rules, values and norms is also reflected in the absence of inner-party democracy among most, if not all, political organisations. There are factional divides not only within Swapo, but inside many other smaller parties too, an indication that it is less identification with the political programme than personal interest that guides political commitment and activity. The formation of a new party challenging the dominance of Swapo was the result of a power struggle over the succession to Nujoma, not over programmatic political issues. That the marginalised group, led by Nyamu and Hamutenya – and all suspected of being supporters and hibernators – were the victims of a political vendetta seeking to eliminate their influence in dominant politics does not make them a political alternative, or turn them into proponents of a different mindset.

The resulting polarisation during the last two years was indicative of the lack of plural democracy and its instilled values. Hate speech became the order of the day. Political contestation culminated in physical violence, harassment and the violation of fundamental democratic rules. Individuals were purged for the views ascribed to them and willingly exposed to all sorts of insults. Intolerance towards dissenting voices escalated and bordered on defamation campaigns. Name-calling substituted for political arguments.

Under such repressive circumstances, civil society remains fragile and is denied a constructive role in the consolidation of a legitimate political and social order. Those not guided by blind loyalty to the dominant party are accused of eroding stability and betraying the nation. As if a nation could be identical with one political organisation alone! Such a totalitarian view does not bode well for nation building guided by mutual respect and based on the slogan ‘unity in diversity’.

For many victims, national reconciliation has remained a hollow lip service. The several hundred returning Namibians, who as so-called ex-detainees survived the dungeons in Southern Angola, have demanded rehabilitation for twenty years in vain. No acknowledgement that they were exposed to suffering while not proven guilty, no support in their efforts to come to terms with their traumatic experiences, no other form of apology whatsoever and no remorse shown by those who were responsible for their ordeals.

Nor is there any sign of mercy to those who, as a result of the failed secessionist attempt in the Caprivi, have been incarcerated for the past decade. Despite constitutional demands for a trial without delays, they were under arrest for years before being brought to court for high treason. They were denied their fundamental rights, exposed to torture and left without legal representation. Most of them are not even implicated in the acts of violence and the murder of several people during the futile coup attempt in early August 1999. In the meantime, more of those not yet convicted of any crime have died during the ten years behind bars than there were victims as a result of the violent encounters. Namibia has more than a hundred political prisoners, suffering in custody for the last ten years.

Self-righteousness – as manifested by an arrogance of power – guides many of the political decisions. Foreign policy preferences are an indication. The new bonds of friendship with China, Russia, North Korea and Iran among others reveals the mindset of the ruling elite, through the foreign allies they feel comfortable with. The Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha hosted Namibia’s head of state for an official state visit at a time when his regime was already in complete isolation due to its ruthless violation of fundamental human rights. Namibia was one of the last countries visited by Indonesian dictator Suharto before he was ousted from office by the people. The friendship with Zimbabwe’s state terrorist Robert Mugabe is reaffirmed at every occasion. The Legal Assistance Centre’s director had to remind Namibia’s government only last year that its declaration that the Sudanese president Al-Bashir remains a welcome guest despite his indictment by the International Criminal Court is in contravention of the country’s ratification of the Rome Treaties.

While all these foreign policy elements are claimed to be at the genuine discretion of the elected government and not subject to any criticism, deviating policy orientations by others are dubbed as illegitimate efforts for regime change and part of an imperialist conspiracy. Contesting political party leaders are accused of suffering from a ‘Unita’ syndrome. Their contact with a German political foundation is considered as illegitimate subversion, tantamount to a plot. The foundation’s resident representative is singled out as a threat of political stability in the country. If this stability was indeed be at stake, it would be a serious reason for concern – not because of a single representative of a foreign organisation, but rather because of its seemingly fragile state.

Prime Minister Nahas Angua, who had made these accusations in February, shared more self-critical thoughts in early March, during a public lecture at the University of Namibia . He asked if progress had been sufficient since Independence. Depending on the viewer’s perspective, he suggested, the cup may be either half full or half empty and that Namibians might not agree on the level of progress made. Indeed not all might have reasons to celebrate when Namibia turns twenty.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Dr Henning Melber is executive director of The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala, Sweden. He joined Swapo in 1974. This article has been written for an Independence Supplement of the Windhoek-based daily The Namibian.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

The failures of Nigerian democracy

Moses Ochonu

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63116

cc B BThere’s an assumption that despite multiple deprivations, Nigerians can ‘take solace in the knowledge’ that they have democracy, writes Moses Ochonu. But the kind of democracy practised by Abuja has delivered neither improved standards of living nor abstract benefits such as press freedom or human rights, instead providing the perfect cover for ‘massive corruption’, says Ochonu. It is ‘not what Nigerians signed up for in 1999; if we do not act urgently, it will consume us all,’ Ochonu warns.

I have sensed a disturbing complacency in our politicians and intellectuals as they try to enunciate democracy for the rest of us. They assume erroneously that democracy is its own justification – that simply being baptised with the moniker of democracy is sufficient. And that Nigerians, dispossessed they may be, will be satisfied with a political concept that, as currently practiced in Nigeria, stands empty of its substantive content.

This tragic misunderstanding troubles me personally because the assumption is that even as Nigerians groan under the weight of multiple deprivations, we can take solace in the knowledge that we have democracy and that democracy will soothe our pain. How wrong! The proper retort should be a classic Nigerian putdown: Na democracy we go chop? But let’s not trivialise an important issue.

My good friend, Ikhide Ikheloa, a literary critic and Next columnist, has been on a personal mission. His aim: To orchestrate the demise of our current ‘democracy’. He is so convinced that democracy is a mortal danger to Nigerians that he equates its dissolution to an epic struggle for political liberation; liberation from predation and legalised ‘democratic’ oppression.

For Ikhide, democracy has, far from doing Nigeria good, set the country back decades and provided a perfect alibi for the political class to bankrupt and bury the country once and for all. Tough words, but those who know Ikhide know that he can be unapologetically melodramatic and passionate in expressing his opinions.

Melodrama aside, what Ikhide is saying is the stuff of dinner table discussions and long-distance telephone and email conversations among Nigerians at home and abroad. Stripped of all provocative linguistic devices, what Ikhide is advancing is pretty basic: The democracy practised by Abuja is fractured beyond recognition; it is not what Nigerians signed up for in 1999; if we do not act urgently, it will consume us all.



Let me break it down through a process of crude itemisation:

A. The material promise of democracy, that is, the supposed correlation between democracy and improved standards of living, has yet to materialise for Nigerians in almost eleven unbroken years of ‘democracy’.

B. Even advertised abstract benefits like press freedom, human rights, the right to free political choice, and the right to make deliberative input in governance have all been denied Nigerians under this democracy. While we saw flickers of these benefits in the wake of military disengagement in 1999, today’s ‘democratic’ environment resembles the regimented, freedom-less days of military rule.

C. ‘Democracy’ has provided the perfect cover for corruption – massive corruption. ‘Democracy’ has – forgive the redundancy – democratised corruption. Under the military, corruption was a quasi-monopoly; it was tightly controlled by a small cohort. Under our ‘democracy,’ the need to cultivate political support and immunity means that the loot has to circulate. Democracy has also made corruption legitimate. In the days of the military, the zones of legal and illegal monetary appropriation were clearly demarcated, so we could tell easily when an act of corrupt self-enrichment had occurred. Not any more. Under our current ‘democratic’ practice, public officials steal legally. They only have to underwrite what they steal as a licit item in the budget bill. This can be done in a few choreographed, taxpayer-funded committee sittings and a hurried process of debate-less approval. Political office holders can even steal in anticipation, carefully documenting future thefts and including them as budgetary earmarks or exculpatory footnotes in legislations. And it’s all legal – and perfectly within the procedural norms of our ‘democracy.’ Where the law did not exist to legitimise the theft, our legislators have enacted or been goaded by executive carrots and sticks into enacting one-off bills to authorise acts of pillage deemed in the pecuniary interest of legislators and their executive partners. Democracy has licensed and unleashed novel evils on our country. Consider this: The Borno State House of Assembly recently passed a bill awarding stupendous severance perks worth tens of millions of naira annually to the governor and his deputy – for life! And it’s all legal and within the rules of our ‘democracy.’

D. The bill for this destructive ‘democracy’ is now being paid in the life and limbs of Nigerians. I’ll explain. A recent report confirmed what many Nigerians have suspected all along: Nigerian public office holders at all levels are the highest paid in the world. Together with their string of assistants and advisors (who also have their own paid advisors), our public officers gobble up at least half of our revenue and budgetary appropriations in legitimate rewards. And we have not accounted for the unbridled stealing that is now a legitimised staple of our patrimonial politics. Add that to the math and we may be talking of seventy percent of our revenue being spent on the maintenance of our ‘democratic’ personnel – on running our ‘democracy.’ This prohibitive overhead has left us with a smaller pool of funds than ever to invest in the things that matter to Nigerians: Roads, healthcare, school, water, electricity, and food. This odd financial state of low return on ‘democratic’ investment is unsustainable. Something has to give.

E. This ‘democracy’ has intensified our ethno-regional bickering while bequeathing an unfolding legacy of costly national political gridlocks. The quagmire occasioned by Yar’Adua’s health crisis is a perfect illustration. Try quantifying the financial and political cost of this long-running farce and you’ll see how expensive ‘democracy’ really is. A few weeks ago, the country teetered precariously because the ritualistic niceties of democracy stood in the way of pragmatic, decisive, patriotic action. This preference for process over productive outcomes is one reason why democracy is losing its appeal with many Nigerians. Most of our gridlocks are resolved quicker than the current one and at less political cost, but that is not much comfort either. For when routine political disagreements are settled, they often involve Ghana-must-go political solutions that are just as costly to Nigerians as prolonged impasses.

F. Elected officials often do not play by the rules that brought them to power; they seek instead to subvert laws and constitutions to secure longer tenures. Think Obasanjo, but also think Mamadou Tandja, Yahyah Jammeh, Yoweri Museveni, and many other African leaders whose fickle commitment to democracy has led them into tenure-extending adventures that have thrown their countries into costly political crises. The irritant for many Nigerians is that ‘democracy’ has been reduced in practice to – and accepted as being constituted by – only one of its many elements: †he ritualistic conduct of periodic, incumbent-rigged elections. Every other hyped benefit of democracy has eluded Nigerians.

G. In this ‘democracy’ every government action is conceived through the lens of politics, not of patriotism. Instead of asking if a policy or initiative is good for the Nigerian people elected officials ask if it would look good politically. Instead of asking how a policy might help Nigerians, officials ask how it would win them the next elections – how it would enrich campaign donors and party godfathers and how much it would generate for the election war chest. This permanent campaign culture is a costly drawback of democracy and has reached a head in the United States, the prototypical practitioner of the presidential system of government. The difference is that America ’s robust economy can absorb the cost; Nigeria ’s cannot.

DEMOCRATIC DISAPPOINTMENT

With such a low dividend on democracy, and with ‘democracy’ being so costly and toxic to the body politic, it is no surprise that many Nigerians have begun to question their loyalty to the received wisdom that democracy is superior to its alternatives.

For many Nigerians and Africans democracy has failed. It has failed to live up to its publicised benefits – tangible and intangible. So glaring is this failure and so painful are the betrayals of Africa’s ‘democrats’ that ten thousand Nigeriens recently poured into the streets of Niamey to rally in support of the new military regime there. Westerners may be scrambling to comprehend this dramatic reversal of public opinion from a craving for a democratic overthrow of a military dictatorship eleven years ago to an enthusiastic embrace of a military overthrow of a ‘democratic’ regime today. But this is something that people in neighbouring Nigeria can explain and understand. The exuberant Nigeriens at the rally were not expressing a preference for military autocracy. They were voicing their disillusionment with a failed democracy.

Nigeria’s democratic setbacks may not yet entitle us to reject democracy altogether or to be receptive to military rule. But we are at a crossroads, and if we continue with this charade, a Niger-like scenario of democratic disillusionment may be in the horizon. We cannot continue along this path: Abusing democracy, invoking it to legitimise all that is abhorrent but neglecting to fulfil its utilitarian promises to Nigerians.

America and the rest of the West have the luxury of evaluating democracy from a purely idealistic standpoint. They can afford the long wait necessary for democracy to register – the gestation period needed for democracy’s more visible benefits to trickle down and permeate society. They can comfortably absorb the overhead cost of democracy and the financial and political burdens of partisan gridlock. Their economy is big enough to soak up the imperfections and dysfunctions of democracy – which are many. Their political system is decentralised enough to withstand partisan and procedural impasse at the centre. Not Nigeria and Nigerians.

Our perception of democracy is a purely utilitarian one. Americans obsess intellectually about what democracy means; Nigerians ask what it can deliver to them. Nigerians evaluate democratic practice not in abstract or futuristic terms but in terms of its immediate benefits to their lives. Democracy will only be as popular as the results it delivers for Nigerians. Nigerians want democracy to deliver quantifiable gratifications, and they cannot wait too long for these. Eleven years is long enough.

It is not the fault of Nigerians either. The rhetoric of democratic advocacy in the military era made glib, enticing connections between Nigerians’ economic plight and the lack of democracy in their country. The suggestion was clear: Democracy brings development and improved living. Nigerians’ expectation of democracy rests on this promise. It is time they began to see some of the promised returns. If they don’t, they have a right to question the assumed connection between democracy and development and to become disillusioned.

It is unrealistic to expect that in a developmentally-challenged country where poverty is an inescapable companion, citizens would perceive democratic governance from a non-materialist perspective. Their needs are starkly material, so are their expectations from democracy. Nigerians should not be expected to muster the idealism and patience required for a long-drawn process of democratic maturity when their bellies are empty.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

There is no innate or sacred loyalty to democracy in Nigerians – or, for that matter, in any other people. The degree of Nigerians’ attachment to the concept corresponds to the benefits that they see it delivering or the damage it is doing to their lives. This is why democracy is suffering setbacks across Africa.

So what’s the alternative to a broken, dangerous democracy? It’s not so simple. Dambisa Moyo, the Oxford-educated Zambian author of Dead Aid, offers one of the most eloquent critiques of democratic practice in Africa. Democracy –multiparty democracy – prevents timely action that may be the difference between a life-saving economic initiative and life-taking inaction, gridlock, or disaster. Democracy fosters costly ethno-partisan impasses that stifle development and productive economic change. She climaxes her critique by prescribing ‘benevolent dictatorships’ as the practical model for Africa. At least dictatorships get things done – if they want to, and are capable of pushing needed reforms through without the costly and time-consuming observance of democratic rules and processes. The procedural red tape of democracy is an enemy of development, she argues.

It’s hard to disagree with Moyo’s critique of democracy in Africa. But it’s hard to sympathise with her prescription because benevolence and dictatorships rarely co-exist in Africa, or anywhere, and it takes a naive mind to assume that they could. Nonetheless, she deserves commendation for going against the grain of universal democratic orthodoxy – the unquestioned dogma that democracy can simply be transplanted to Africa in its Western form with its stifling multiparty squabbles, expensive electoral rituals, and costly, divisive deliberative quagmires.

Here is the bottom line: This democracy is fatally broken. We are headed for an implosion if we fail to do something. Ikheloa may be hyperbolic in his characterisation, but the disenchantment with democracy and its many failures is real. We ignore this reality at our collective peril.

Events in the last few weeks have underlined the anxieties that underpin this reflection on democracy. Yar’Adua’s sneaky re-entry into the country and the gale of confusion and scramble that it unleashed exposed the fragility and shallowness of our democracy.

The debate over the succession crisis devolved quickly and predictably into familiar North-South brickbats. The nation truly screeched to a frightening halt; a tepid shove would have taken us over the cliff.

So, again, much as we are inclined to defer the discussion and to toe the politically correct line of advancing democracy as its own cure, we are frequently being confronted with political crises that threaten the very foundation of the union. The question is: What is democracy worth if the way we practice it imperils our country and its people and widens the crevices that divide us? Would we rather preserve a pretentious democracy and lose the nation?

WHAT ARE THE CHOICES BEFORE NIGERIA?

Earlier, I introduced Dambisa Moyo’s prescription of ‘benevolent dictatorship.’ It’s not a new idea. It’s been around since the 1960s. It used to be called developmental dictatorship. The poster country of that model today is China. But China is China and Nigeria is Nigeria.

Because of Nigeria’s history of military rule and because of the strong elite unanimity in opposing non-representative political templates, this model would only heighten our crisis of governance and stifle development. In other words, it would be a dictatorship but it would be anything but developmental. Even if the contraption were possible in practice, its deficits would wipe out its benefits.

How about military rule? I have found that most Nigerians do not share the irreconcilable hostility of the schooled elite to military rule. Much of this hostility is founded on abstract, theoretical objections, not on crude or even enlightened interests. Most Nigerians are more pragmatic. They would prefer an effective military regime that consciously improves their lives to a ‘democratic’ regime that is preoccupied with a systematic violation of their lives and rights.

Nigerians are not the only ones who entertain episodic fantasies about the virtues of decisive autocracies during moments of democratic disappointments and stalemates. Even the Americans occasionally bemoan the problems of democracy and its elevation of bickering above action. Frustrated that some of his agendas were stuck in the traffic of congressional partisanship, former President George W. Bush famously remarked that ‘a dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier.’ He was joking, of course. But he was also expressing a genuine frustration at the slow pace of democracy – at the roadblocks that democratic rules and procedures place in the way of policy, initiative, and problem-solving. The frustrations of democracy are more intense, more burdensome, and more consequential in Nigeria than they are in America.

Nigeria’s intellectual and political elites are fond of saying that the worst democratic regime is better than the best military regime. This is at best elitist, out-of-touch rhetoric, a talking point of pro-democracy advocacy. Most Nigerians would reject this proposition outright. The poor, anguished farmer in my village who desires the positive physical presence of government in his life and community would disagree with it. So would the slum-dwelling day labourer in Kurmin Gwari, Kaduna. He would gladly accept a performing government of any stripe.

This is, of course, a false choice scenario. Most Nigerians would prefer the ideal: A democratic government that is also an effective governing machine, a prudent, fair, and humane allocator of resources. In the absence of the ideal however they would settle for a regime – any regime – that gives them the roads, schools, water, healthcare, electricity, and food security they crave.

A critique of democracy is not an endorsement of military rule. It need not be. The enlightened segments of Nigerian society are firm in their agreement that democracy is inherently better than military rule. Since these segments, not the brutalised and desperate masses, are the drivers of political paradigm shifts we can take the military rule option off the table.

But that does not mean that we have to engage in the fatalism of accepting the invidious, ‘democratic’ status quo. It means that we have to craft something in its place.

For starters, why can’t we modify this unwieldy American presidential system that is undermining our people and our country? Even the Americans, with all their wealth and strong institutions, are complaining about the financial cost (transaction cost, to use a chic political science jargon) of their democracy and its divisive, do-nothing hyper-partisan gridlocks. Our gridlocks are more costly because they are not just partisan; they are complicated by our ethno-religious and regional fissures.

Why do we need to have two legislative, money-guzzling legislative chambers instead of one lean, inexpensive one? Why, in the name of all that is good, do we have three senators from each state when we could have just one and spend a fraction of what we do now to maintain them and get them to actually work and earn their pay? The Americans that we ape have two senators representing each state, not three.

Many African cultures are authoritarian in nature. The figure of the big man who sits atop the political food chain with magisterial command, taking care of his subjects’ needs but demanding total subservience from them, is very seductive. When the American executive power system and this preexisting cultural reality converge you end up with the kind of vulgar abuses of power we are seeing from our executive office holders across the country. We don’t need a system that intensifies our authoritarian cultural disposition. We need a system that attenuates it. Such as a parliamentary system or any other arrangement that approximates its virtues.

These are just a few examples of how we can reform and customise our democratic practice to fit our peculiar needs, problems, and pocket. The choice is not between military rule and the unsustainable status quo.

Abuja will understandably oppose reforms that will reduce executive power and its abuse, shrink the stealing field, and expand the pool of resources available for developing the lives of Nigerians. Already, its answer to the problem of dwindling developmental revenue (caused by excessive democracy expenses and corruption) is to inflict more taxes and levies on Nigeria’s economically beleaguered middle and lower classes.

This is a welcome blunder. It should backfire with a positive outcome. With taxation comes the clamour for accountability, hostility to government recklessness, and demands for effective representation. With taxation comes citizen vigilance.

Maybe the failures of this democracy and Abuja’s frantic reaction to them will fertilise the ground for corrective action and for the installation of a true, concrete democracy.

The time to overhaul this democracy is now.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Moses Ochonu is an assistant professor of African history at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of Colonial Meltdown: Northern Nigeria in the Great Depression published by Ohio University Press (ISBN 978-0-8214-1890-1).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Nigeria: Goodluck Jonathan - business as usual?

Kola Ibrahim

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63110

cc B I FEfforts to portray Nigeria's Acting President Goodluck Jonathan as a positive alternative to Umaru Yar'Adua are strongly misplaced, writes Kola Ibrahim. While the current power tussle and political crisis have granted a range of players the opportunity to 'loot the nation blind', Ibrahim contends, the inclination of labour movement leaders to cuddle up to Jonathan in a mutually profitable alliance is deeply treacherous to the working people they purport to represent.

For the past three months now, Nigeria’s political stability has been on a cliff-edge as a result of the succession crisis occasioned by the illegal absence of the country's president, Umaru Yar’Adua, due to ill health. But political events since the emergence of the Yar’Adua government through the highly flawed and violently rigged elections in 2007 have further confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that the Nigerian capitalist ruling class, flowing from its neocolonial background, cannot move the country forward an inch, no matter its pretence to any form of civility. The events that have played out since then, up to the present appalling political situation, have shown that unless a genuine revolutionary, working and poor people political opposition is provided in answer to the rottenness called leadership in Nigeria to change the socio-economic and political fabrics of the country, no amount of piecemeal approaches can resolve the misery called 'governance' in Nigeria. Though nothing is wrong with protest against the ruling class's dangerous game, the fact that Nigeria’s pro-bourgeois commentators, their civil society allies (under the banner of the Save Nigeria Group and other platforms) and the labour leadership are sowing the illusion that there is shortcut to the problems facing Nigeria by appealing to and mobilising behind a section of the ruling class is both treacherous and dangerous for the working people over the coming period.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE POWER TUSSLE

Behind the entire antics of succession politics is massive looting officially and extra-officially. In addition to trillions of naira handed over to oil marketers and another trillion-plus naira to politicians annually as official salaries, the country has seen the continuation of anti-poor, pro-rich economic policies of privatisation (of Sheraton Hotels, oil blocks, planned PHCN (Power Holding Company of Nigeria) and refineries’ sale, and now the dubious NITEL (Nigeria Telecommunications Ltd) sale and public–private partnerships), commercialisation (education and healthcare) and retrenchment. Added to all this is the siphoning of state resources through over-bloated and duplicated contracts (over N500 billion (over US$3 billion) extra-budget for power generation with nothing to show for it) and the sharing of excess crude oil fund. In sum, despite the huge resources that have accrued to the state purse since 2007, the rich few are getting richer at the expense of impoverished countrymen and women. If there is anything new in Yar’Adua government, it is a re-arrangement of the looting class.

With this kind of arrangement, it is easy to imagine the deadly struggle that will ensue between different sections of the ruling-but-looting class at every attempt at changing the controlling hand over the spoils. Now, with federal budgets of almost N4.5 trillion for 2010, the Yar’Adua–Jonathan power tussle can only get messier. That this intra-class war has taken a current dangerous dimension that may possibly end in military intervention – and worse still a civil war – is a reflection of the absence of a genuine mass organisation of the working and poor people that could provide mass opposition to the rottenness called 'governance' in Nigeria. The bourgeois opposition parties are mere junior partners of the ruling party in terms of economic policies and politics. In fact, they are satisfied with their local dominance, which provides them with some form of economic survival, and at best seek for regional domination which they can use at the best of times to negotiate with any national government.

While the sidelined section of the capitalist ruling class have mobilised behind Goodluck Jonathan, relying on the moral problem of the Yar’Adua camp, the camp lining behind Yar’Adua’s politics comprising state governors, national assembly members, a major section of the federal executive, big business that have gained from huge government projects, and other politicians who have tailored their political and economic survival to the 2011 calculations are using their connection with the military to checkmate and hold back the new power section from emerging fully. The Jonathan group wants to break away from the prison imposed by the Yar’Adua groups, assert itself and build its own empire, but being itself a part of the so-called 'kitchen cabinet' cannot fully annihilate the Yar’Adua group because this will upset the whole political-cum-economic arrangements of the capitalist ruling class (which they jointly built) and may lead to their collective ruin.

Behind the scenes is the reliance on the military and mobilisation of base sentiments of ethnic and regional forces by each power camp. While the Yar’Adua camp is mobilising the military bureaucrats (who fear for their careers in a new arrangement) to ensure the thin thread tying Yar’Adua to power, the Jonathan emerging bloc is relying on intelligence forces and old military forces to sustain itself, as seen in the removal of Yar’Adua’s National Security Adviser. All this again knocks a big hole in the so-called commitment of Nigeria’s ruling class to democracy. Both camps are prepared to use military forces and ethnicity to avoid losing their grip of power. This reliance on the military is a recipe for military intervention when intra-class conflict gets critical, as seen in Niger now.

THE LAME DUCK LEGISLATURE

While the National Assembly’s criminally belated intervention in legitimising Jonathan is more of a game of self-preservation than national interest, the failure to bring to book all those who made nonsense of its resolutions reflects not only the lame duck character of this section of the bourgeois state but also their fear of losing economically and politically from the power game. Having seen the power play, they do not want a military coup which may at best put them out of power; neither do they want a situation that will place responsibilities of rescuing the capitalist state on them. This explains their acquiescence when the worst actions were carried out (exemplified by secrecy on Yar’Adua’s whereabouts and the semi-coup carried out to bring Yar’Adua back to power) to undermine the existence of the so-called legislature, the majority of whose members were rigged into office. Despite the fact that all officials and structures of the state have been ridiculed both within and outside the country, no action has been taken to at least put an end to the shenanigan by ending Yar’Adua’s rule, even when they have a pseudo-ally in the so-called civil society. This is not accidental; the National Assembly is aware that basing themselves on a very limited power of the civil society groups can open the floodgates to the massive movement of the poor that may consume them in the coming period. But the National Assembly, rather than saving itself with this posture, has sown the seed for its own destruction.

THE HYPOCRISY OF IMPERIALIST POWERS

More than ever before, the direct intervention of US and European capitalist governments in the current succession crisis reflects the very weak, neocolonial and pro-imperialist character of Nigeria’s ruling class. Moreover, political developments in Nigeria have also shown the perfidy of foreign imperialist interests despite their pretensions about democracy. The US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson, despite all his sermons about democracy and constitutionalism, did not see Aso Rock or the National Assembly as a first point of call for his visit but rather the Minna mansion of General Ibrahim Babangida (a symbol of Nigeria’s anti-democratic and anti-poor forces), possibly to negotiate a power arrangement and prevent any situation that may affect the US's economic interests. Already China has greater influence in Africa and indeed in Nigeria’s oil industry, with a Chinese oil cartel offering huge petrodollars for juicy oil fields formerly exclusively reserved for Western multinational oil companies. This has also given the Nigerian corrupt ruling class leverage to seek an increased share of the oil largesse and sell the whole oil industry to the highest bidder, as enshrined in Petroleum Industry Bill. Thus the present political crisis (as well as the terrorist blacklisting issue) provides an opportunity for Western imperialist powers to re-negotiate their economic interests in Nigeria.

Of course, the domino effect of instability in Nigeria on other African countries is a live question for US and European capitalist governments, but this itself is based on the survival of their imperialist interests in Africa rather than the continent's genuine stability. Western capitalist governments did not consider that just 10 per cent of the over US$2 trillion dollars spent to bail out a handful of financial sharks could lift hundreds of millions of poor Africans out of poverty and misery. Thus the US and European capitalist governments’ concern for democracy in Nigeria is underlined by the economic interests of their big capitalist sharks. This explains the ambiguity in their statements, trying to boost support for Jonathan and at the same time giving room for Yar’Adua’s comeback. We should not be surprised if they switch their support tomorrow. The latest example of Honduras, where US and European governments supported a military government that ousted a democratically elected president, gives a glimpse of the real interests of imperialism.

GOODLUCK JONATHAN AND CIVIL SOCIETY INCONSISTENCY

It is thus naïve if not outright treacherous for our civil society and the media practitioners to portray Jonathan as a better alternative to Yar’Adua. In the real sense, Jonathan was part-and-parcel of Yar’Adua’s kitchen cabinet and participated in all policies and programmes of the Yar’Adua government, which have made lives more miserable for the working people and place the nation’s wealth in the pockets of a rich few. Jonathan was part of the process leading to the rejection of the Justice Uwais-led electoral reform committee’s recommendations. He participated in the cover-up around Yar’Adua’s health status. He chairs the National Council on Privatization (NCP) that has handed over public wealth to local and foreign capitalists at token prices while workers are retrenched en masse. Ironically, the same media and opposition who told us in 2007 that Jonathan was put in Yar’Adua’s cabinet as Olusegun Obasanjo’s lapdog are now vigorously seeking the presidency of Jonathan. What happens if some disgruntled elements are sponsored to campaign for Yar’Adua’s return as some pro-Yar’Adua groups are planning?

The whole shenanigan about the power tussle has provided each camp with the opportunity to loot the nation blind. And since his appointment as acting president, it has been more about privatisation (of NITEL under a dubious arrangement), the handout of billions to moneybags under the guise of Niger Delta development, the re-introduction of the official adoption of deregulation, and an invitation to the old economic plunderers and military supremacists like Theophilus Danjuma (who claimed recently to have gained over US$500 million from investment in oil block given him by Sani Abacha). This is the alternative that civil society, the media, opposition parties and the labour movement leadership is giving to working but poor Nigerians? Is there no alternative to this policy of lesser evil?

Flowing from the analyses above it is glaring that the various sections of the ruling class cannot resolve their own intra-class political crisis, much less talk of laying the basis for genuine democracy in Nigeria. If the ruling class can be so crude in struggling for power within their own arrangement, one can only guess what will happen when they are to lose power. Thus it is illusory for civil society and the labour movement to think that Jonathan can ensure free-and-fair elections or ‘reform’ the electoral system. No genuine election can exist under a weak, neocolonial, capitalist economic system where politics is the main source of privilege and wealth. While the positions of the so-called civil society groups and their leaders, whose businesses are tied to the capitalist economy, are understandable, the position of the labour leadership – the workers’ representatives – on this issue is frightening to say the least .

TREACHERY OF THE LABOUR LEADERSHIP

The NLC (Nigeria Labour Congress) and TUC (Trade Union Congress of Nigeria) leaderships' solidarity visits to Jonathan and subsequent comments sowing illusion in the government are both unprincipled and treacherous. Even when it was glaring that those behind Jonathan are the same old dark forces that the labour movement has opposed and fought against, the labour leadership still pretends as if Jonathan’s emergence is a ‘revolution’. The same labour leadership which claims to oppose deregulation has not organised a 'day of action' to compel the government to reverse artificial scarcity and the fuel prices hike at filling stations, but finds it convenient to join Jonathan’s deregulation committee to ‘iron out differences’ on deregulation, as if labour opposition is mere superficial. The NLC’s NEC position that it will accept deregulation if the government builds refineries and infrastructures is ridiculous as this tends to suggest that it was a 'slip of thought' that the government has not done this since 2007. While there is nothing wrong in demanding the ousting of the dubious chief electoral officer, Maurice Iwu, this can never get us anywhere unless the labour movement builds a revolutionary party to oust all capitalist politicians and the system they operate.

However, the NLC’s statement after its last NEC meeting stated the reason behind its lukewarm attitude toward the country’s political crises. It maintained that some anti-democratic forces want to use mass labour action to hijack power through the military. Does the NLC mean that its actions are a recipe for an anti-democratic takeover of power? Is this not a viable excuse for any repressive government that may emerge from this current muddy struggle for power to suspend labour movement and civil society activities? More importantly, how can a mass action of workers and other oppressed people, maintaining opposition to military rule and demanding a sovereign national conference, lead to the emergence of military rule? The NLC’s position only reflects its previously failed policy of political neutrality and collaboration with anti-poor governments, a version of policy of lesser evil-ism.

A GENUINE WORKING-CLASS PROGRAMME

Whichever direction the current ruinous political arrangement moves, it will be a fiasco for the working people both in the near and long term. Even if military rule is avoided, and any camp has a upper hand or the two cabals reach consensus on power sharing, this will only isolate the working and poor people, which may, aside from continuing neoliberal policies, lead to the development of a strong and repressive state meant to annihilate the masses from demanding political change as there will a serious and rabid quest to hold on to power and loot as 2011 approaches. In fact, with the current arrangement, the possibility of elections being held in 2011 is in doubt, while the emergence of a highly repressive state may result if elections are held at all. Only the dislodgement of the current rotten neocolonial capitalist socio-economic and political system, and the enthronement of a socialist Nigeria by the working masses, is the way out.

Rather than demand Jonathan’s enthronement (and thus the continuation of anti-poor economic policies), one expects the labour movement to demand at the minimum a truly democratic sovereign national conference that will determine the economic, political, social and cultural bases of Nigeria’s existence. Such a conference will be determined through the direct election of representatives of workers’ unions, pensioners’ associations, unemployed groups, professional organisations, students’ and youth movements, peasants’ and artisans’ organisations and ethnic nationalities. Aside from this demand for a sovereign national conference, there will be other demands such as a N52,000 minimum wage for workers without retrenchment; the reversal of deregulation policy; social security for the aged and the infirm; free and quality education and medical care at all levels; decent and secure jobs for all able-bodied citizens through massive public work programmes such as cheap, mass public housing; an integrated transport system (road, rail and water); poor peasant-based, mechanised agricultural; an agro-allied and food security system; and an environmentally sustainable energy and power system; among others. It will however be illusory to think that the capitalist political class can willingly subscribe to any of these demands without a mass movement threatening the capitalist system.

A PERMANENT REVOLUTIONARY ALTERNATIVE TO POLITICAL ROTTENNESS

Therefore, it will be necessary for the labour movement to mobilise other oppressed layers and the genuinely pro-labour, anti-capitalist civil society groups, radical and socialist organisations with a view to organising not only a series of mass actions against the capitalist ruling class economic policies, but also to build towards the sovereign national conference by forming a political platform to organise a national summit of working and oppressed people through the process outlined for the sovereign national conference. Such national summit can first be preceded by a national mobilisation and enlightenment campaign through press campaigns, the publication of educative materials and the organisation of revolutionary education classes and cells, symposia and rallies at local and state levels. Furthermore, struggle and implementation committees should be set up at local, state, regional and national levels which will organise mass summits at these levels. With this, a basis will be set for a revolutionary movement that will be strong enough to dethrone the current ruinous capitalist ruling class and enthrone a democratic socialist government that will put public resources under working and poor people’s democratic public control and management, to develop society on a truly egalitarian and sustainable basis.

As the nation drifts towards the brink of a serious political crisis, the need for the working class and youth activists and leaders, their organisations, the pro-labour civil societies, especially those under LASCO (Labour and Civil Society Coalition), to build a collective revolutionary political platform for this purpose is more important today than ever, either through the existing Labour Party (which was set up by the NLC but is now under the stranglehold of moneybag politicians) or through a new political formation, especially as 2011 is approaching. We need to link our today with the ultimate aim of building a democratic socialist Nigeria, as a basis for a socialist Africa and the world.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Kola Ibrahim is an activist based at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Enuwa, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Refugee news reporting project under threat

Briefing and background on KANERE situation

Bethany Ojalehto

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63143

© KANEREIn 2008 refugee journalists in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, set up KANERE, a news reporting project 'to counter the monopoly on information enjoyed by humanitarian organisations that largely control access to and information about refugee camps.' They believed that a refugee free press could ‘open up new spaces for public debate and action on refugee encampment.’ But KANERE’s unwillingness to allow aid agencies to play a role in the publication appears to be putting both the future of the project and the safety of its team in jeopardy, as this background note outlines.

OCTOBER 2008: KANERE LAUNCHED

Refugee journalists in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, began work on the Kakuma News Reflector (KANERE), a refugee news reporting project. The journalists launched the publication with the intention that it would be owned by refugees – not edited by humanitarian staff – and would reach an international audience. The goal of the news forum was not merely to inform, but also to counter the monopoly on information enjoyed by humanitarian organisations that largely control access to and information about refugee camps. They believed a refugee free press could potentially open new spaces for public debate and action on refugee encampment.

In collaboration with a US Fulbright scholar, Bethany Ojalehto, the journalists developed Kakuma News Reflector, an online news blog. While only one KANERE journalist has experience as a professional reporter, several writers hold advanced university degrees in related fields, while others studied journalism in their home countries before being interrupted by refugee flight. Together, the journalists established a monthly system of news reporting, pooling their skills for the investigation and reporting of events around the camp.

22 DECEMBER 2008: FIRST ISSUE PUBLISHED

The maiden issue of the Kakuma News Reflector was published online on 22 December 2008.

JANUARY 2009: UNHCR AND NGOS RAISE CONCERNS

Soon after online publication of the first KANERE issue, it became clear that local humanitarian agencies did not fully support the refugee free press. In meetings with KANERE during January 2009, local UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) officials cited concerns over confidentiality of information, protection of refugee identities, and ethical standards of reporting. In response to these concerns, KANERE deleted two sensitive articles from their first issue and ceased to use refugees’ real names or journalist bylines in their publication.

27 JANUARY 2009: REGISTRATION AS CBO HALTED

The district officer confiscated KANERE’s registration forms and refused to release them until KANERE brought a letter of support from UNHCR. The relationship between KANERE and humanitarian agencies grew tense when KANERE’s attempt to register as a community-based organisation was halted by local government officials.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009: INTERNATIONAL PUBLICITY

The news blog soon attracted international attention and received thousands of hits from viewers around the globe. The venture was profiled in a number of reports by human rights organisations and news media, and was highlighted at the ICVA Conference in January 2009.

This international attention raised the public profile of KANERE’s work and contributed to tensions with local humanitarian agencies, particularly when a sensitive article was published in Pambazuka News naming names of UNHCR officials, ’Report on KANERE’s progress and challenges’, February 2009).

FEBRUARY 2009: DR EKURU AUKOT VISITS KAKUMA

Dr Ekuru Aukot, a human rights lawyer and then director of Kenyan legal aid group Kituo Cha Sheria, travels to Kakuma to assist KANERE journalists in their struggle to establish the free press. At a joint meeting with KANERE and humanitarian agencies in February 2009, Dr Aukot affirmed that refugees have the right to exercise a free press and cannot be prevented from exercising this right for any reason except those under law. He later summarised this position in an article for KANERE’s news blog (Aukot, 2009).

At this meeting, humanitarian agencies resolved to support KANERE’s registration as a community-based organisation while reaffirming their desire that KANERE be held to the highest standards of ethical reporting. At a subsequent meeting, a UNHCR official invited KANERE to submit a proposal for material assistance from UNHCR and NGOs.

APRIL 2009: KANERE HOLDS ELECTIONS FOR EDITOR/EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

KANERE held elections for a new editor and executive director to take over KANERE in anticipation of Bethany's departure, enabling a smooth transition of editorial duties. An Ethiopian refugee and former second-year journalism student at Addis Ababa University was elected to serve as editor. A Rwandan refugee, school-teacher and distance-learning university student was elected to serve as executive director.

AUGUST 2009: UNHCR OFFICIALS STATE THEY CANNOT SUPPORT KANERE

On 11 August 2009, the KANERE editor met briefly with UNHCR director of the African Bureau, George Okoth-Obbo. This was followed by a meeting with local UNHCR officials on 13 August 2009. At this meeting, it was made clear that humanitarian agencies will only offer support to KANERE if they are allowed to play a role in the news publication. In a letter addressed on behalf of Kakuma humanitarian agencies, UNHCR head of Sub-Office Mohamed Qassim stated that UNHCR ‘cannot support the pure independence’ of a free press that receives the support of ‘relief funds.’

According to the current KANERE editor, ‘I see that UNHCR will want to control our publication and cannot support KANERE's independence.’ Although UNHCR officials have not stated in writing exactly how they intend to be involved in KANERE's publications, the editor reports that in verbal discussions UNHCR officials have mentioned ‘editing our work’ or ‘going through the articles’ before making print copies available for distribution.

10 NOVEMBER 2009: KANERE EDITOR ASSAULTED AND HIS HOUSE DESTROYED

KANERE’s editor was assaulted by his neighbor at around 2:20pm local time at his home. As reported in a Pambazuka News article: ‘On 10 November 2009, I was assaulted by three men known to me in the same community and this case came as turning point when I produced my camera and was taking photos of my burning fence that was stretching towards the house and if it were not for my family friends my house could have been destroyed completely.’

He sustained injuries in the chest, both legs, face and on the neck. The KANERE executive director witnessed the destruction of the editor’s house and the burning ashes of his fence soon after the assault. The case was reported immediately to Kenyan police. The Editor lost his personal video camera, 10,000 Kenya shillings, and his mobile phone was damaged. After the editor finished reporting the incident he returned home, where he was again assaulted by the same group of people. He was taken to camp main hospital by ambulance and police.

The editor believes that the attackers were motivated by issues related to KANERE. He wrote: ‘I just came to learn that the attackers were very aware of our (KANERE's) hostility with NGOs in Kakuma. They stated to me that by writing from the camp, we are blocking their resettlement opportunities! This is strong opposition. They would like to show UNHCR that their community is not supportive of KANERE and me or other journalists, as Jerome (KANERE's executive director) was also harassed for working with me. They stated to me those words, and it clearly looks like a back-up underground as to why the government officials and police did not arrest the perpetrators...These are real life happenings. It indicates that this community is not appreciative of our work for them and for refugees' humanity. They tend to fabricate things here and there in all corners. What is going on now is a very different issue from before. This is the aftermath of strong opposition towards KANERE in the whole of Kakuma Camp.’

The executive director also shared his perspective on the event via email: ‘I am much concerned of the Kanere's integrity and how we go about the challenges. We hear some few individual refugees expressing their negative attitudes towards Kanere in terms of resettlement. Although some UNHCR officer have in some occasions used refugees to destabilise communities, more light should be shed to what happened to Kanere's editor when he was assaulted by his community members. However as we are very limited in investigations so far we cannot tell who motivates them behaving in such manner. There is a need of external investigation to clarify the situation of Kanere as it stands now. One thing that is sure is that UNHCR does not support our reporting operations and they have been having intention to curtail our activities. From my point of view 'Kanere legal papers can unveil the hidden stands of local NGOs/UNHCR.’

11 MARCH 2010: KANERE EDITOR CALLED FOR MEETING WITH LWF SECURITY AND GOVERNMENT OF KENYA

The KANERE editor received a call from the Ethiopian community leader in the afternoon saying he was urgently needed for a meeting with LWF Security and the Kenyan government. The Ethiopian community leader would not explain why the editor was needed, but did say that the atmosphere in the LWF Security Office was tense and the officers seemed angry. The editor requested that the individuals requesting the meeting contact him directly by phone and explain the purpose of the meeting.

The Editor sent this SMS by email to supporters: ‘I received a call that LWF security officer needed Kanere leaders and that the Gov't also have concerns? So were on their bad plans again! Cyber Cafe was closed for now a wk. in fear!’

Shortly afterward, the editor received a phone call from a man who refused to identify himself. He commanded him to come for a meeting at once in the LWF Security Office or the community meeting spot. The editor did not continue the conversation after the man refused to identify himself. He called back twice again but the editor did not pick up.

Later that evening, the Ethiopian community leader told KANERE’s executive director that LWF Security had informed them to use the local refugee community security guards to bring in the Editor by force, if necessary.

The situation remains unclear. We do not know what motivated LWF Security and the government of Kenya to demand this urgent meeting while refusing to inform the editor of the people involved or their reasons for meeting.

17 MARCH 2010: CURRENT SITUATION AND PROBLEMS

1) LACK OF LEGAL PROTECTION/FOLLOW-UP ON INDIVIDUAL CASES WITH KENYAN POLICE:

The editor was assaulted and his house was destroyed due to false beliefs among refugees re: KANERE and resettlement. Although UNHCR is well aware of the situation, they did not follow up on the case. The perpetrators have not been apprehended; they move about freely in the community; AND they continue to harass KANERE staff. Staff cannot frequent their old neighborhood or even attempt to set foot near their old home. When the editor did so recently, the very same perpetrators chased him and again attempted to assault him. The editor was then compelled to file another case of insecurity with the police; but both cases have languished with the government of Kenya police records and nothing has been done.

2) COMMUNITY INSECURITY ARISING FROM RUMORS OF UNHCR RESETTLEMENT:

The false beliefs among refugees about UNHCR relations with KANERE (in particular, their bearing on other refugees' resettlement claims) need to be actively addressed by UNHCR; especially as these false beliefs are creating conditions of insecurity for individual refugees living in the camp.

3) KANERE'S LEGAL REGISTRATION AS CBO:

Although head of Sub-Office Mohamed Qassim verbally agreed to write a letter of support on KANERE's behalf to local government officials in KANERE’s joint meeting with Dr Aukot, this was never done. Qassim later provided the letter of explanation for why UNHCR could not support a ‘fully independent’ refugee press. The continued limbo of KANERE's non-registered status (while legally irrelevant, as refugees do have the right to exercise a free press) puts the journalists at risk of heightened misperceptions among refugee communities; it also engenders perpetual conflict between KANERE and NGOs/UNHCR who claim they cannot work with an ‘underground operation.’ More urgently, it may place KANERE editor in a compromised position with local police who are attempting to ‘meet with him’ and have insinuated that they will use force to bring him to their meetings.

LINKS TO PREVIOUS ARTICLES ON THIS ISSUE:

- January 2009, Pambazuka News: Support KANERE for an independent refugee press.
- Feb 2009, Pambazuka: Report on KANERE’s progress and challenges
- Oct 2009, SID: Refugee free press struggling to remain afloat and independent

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Bethany Ojalehto helped develop the Kakuma News Reflector.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

The high cost of the right to the city

Abahlali baseMjondolo

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63126

© AbahlaliSolidarity from churches in Germany has made it possible for South African shackdwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo to elect a delegation to attend the World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro, the theme of which is ‘the right to the city’. In a preparatory meeting for the forum, Abahlali notes that 'if there is a "right to the city", it is a very difficult right to actually get. And it is we, the poor who struggle for it, who are paying the price for this right… For the right to the city to be real what will have to count will be people and not money.’

The forthcoming World Urban Forum provides an opportunity for the shackdwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo to meet with other poor people's movements from Rio and around the world. The document below comes out of a University of Abahlali base Mjondolo seminar held to discuss ‘the right to the city’ in advance of the meeting in Rio:

NOTES FROM A MEETING OF ABAHLALI BASEMJONDOLO IN PREPARATION FOR THE WORLD URBAN FORUM (WUF): ‘THE RIGHT TO THE CITY’

It is our usual practice when we send delegates to other people's meetings that we get together as a movement and discuss our collective view so that our delegates can take a mandate that is based on our 'home-made' politics. In this case there will be chances for our comrades to connect with other movements from around the world as well, so it is all the more important to be clear on our own home-cooked politics of Abahlalism – our 'living politics'.

Our movement's 'living politics' is the politics of the daily life and thinking of shackdwellers in South Africa who fight for truth and for justice. It is quite simply living out in the real world the practical meaning of the basic idea that 'everybody counts'. In our discussion we think through the connections between our 'living politics' and the theme of the WUF: 'the Right to the City'. If 'everyone counts', then surely there should be a right to the city! In fact, that theme sounds very much like a slogan of people's struggles for justice in cities around the world – but we know that the slogans of people's struggles often get taken and tamed by the powerful and rich; and we know that when that happens, the real politics at the heart of the struggles is usually lost. Some of the ways that the militant slogan of the 'right to the city' can get taken and tamed are when:

- It can be reduced to a 'technical' issue of working out how the state system can 'deliver' services and amenities to the people
- It can be turned into a legalistic issue of 'human rights' fought over in the courts of law between lawyers
- It presents the only possible solutions in terms of 'participation' in 'good governance' as defined by the power-players in the system of the state and the political parties.

In our own struggles as Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) we have taken up all of these avenues and issues to fight for justice for shack-dwellers – but our living politics and our total struggle does not start and end in these limited definitions and confined spaces.

In the systems of the government and the political parties it happens again and again that the things the people have fought hard for are taken by those who claim to be leaders and given back to the people as 'delivery'. The people have their muscles and their thinking – but they do not have control over the money and resources like government and parties have. The politicians, and especially the local councillors, use this power and then claim that they were the ones who worked so hard to achieve these things! The systems of municipalities and councillors are against our living politics. They are an oppressive burden on us, keeping us down. No-matter how we try to deal with them, they know they have certain kinds of power and resources to take our issues and 'deliver' to the communities. When they do this, they even make us look like we who struggle are actually working for the councillors! We know that the councillors in the local governments and municipalities come from the political parties. That means that they will always try to do their homework and find out what the people at the grassroots are struggling for because they will want to come with a strong agenda for the party to look like they are the ones who can 'deliver' what the people want. As deployees of the political parties, they are intent on crushing us politically and taking our issues over to their agenda. This is a huge challenge, and we must and we will fight harder against it because we know that municipalities are a problem – and that the solution is in the struggles of the people, with their muscles and their thinking.

It is a kind of theft – to take away the valuable things of the people and to put them to work in a system that is against the people but in favour of the powerful and the rich. Not only the municipalities and the politicians but also many of the NGOs and 'civil society' structures and activists are guilty of playing a part in this ongoing theft against the people. It can make you feel like your struggle was useless. You fight for justice – for equality and for the world to be shared – and you end up with the promise of ‘service delivery’.

Against this theft and oppression, it is important that our struggle remains always our own and that we hold on to our autonomy. When we look at the official letters from the WUF we see that the government of Brazil and its President Lula is also inviting and hosting us – this is a surprise for us as a movement. We know that some of the movements there get funding from the government. For us, this should be debated and it makes us wonder what is the motive for having this event in Brazil. The poor people’s movements in Brazil are very strong in rural areas and in the cities. They occupy land and city buildings to appropriate housing and shelter for the poor. But then some of them also get funding from the government! Is the agenda behind this WUF to push the idea that government and the social movements can or must work together? For us as Abahlali, although we are not aiming to overthrow our government, it is very clear that we have different ideas from the government. Our government gives us a very hard time and we are in conflict with them. So is there really such a big difference between our government in South Africa and the government of Brazil? What we do know is that almost all politicians claim to speak for the poor, claim to be concerned about the poor. So invitations like these are really because they like our tears. When they can show our tears to the world, they can carry on with their plans and carry on saying that the tears of the poor justify their plans. We don't trust that government of Brazil, nor our government in South Africa, nor any other government. We remember that Presidents Lula and Zuma met each other and agreed that their plans were just the same. Anyway, going to the WUF is more important as a chance to meet and talk with other movements of poor people from cities around the world and to strengthen each other's struggles.

The Department of Human Settlements from our government will also be at the WUF and presenting some papers – but we will be there too and we will tell a different story. The Department will pick and choose what they present about the situation of land and housing in our cities. They will display to the world the good things they can show to create the impression that South Africa is a great place to live. Our task is to tell the truth against this lie.

Truthfully speaking, is there any 'right to the city'? Is the life we are living really giving us a 'right to the city'? If there is a real 'right to the city', why are we facing evictions on such a massive scale? Why must we beg to the courts for our rights? Why are our rights to organise, speak and march so violently repressed?

No, if there is a 'right to the city', it is a very difficult right to actually get. And it is we, the poor who struggle for it, who are paying the price for this right – and it is a very high price to pay to access any meaningful and broader idea of our right to the city. Just look at the cost of the attacks on our movement in Kennedy Road last year. The price is still being paid by people who have been made homeless refugees in their own country, and by the comrades still being held in prison without trial since those attacks. The world must see and hear from us what the price of the fight for a real right to the city is. The world must know that those who voice out the truth are attacked, silenced, slandered, threatened and imprisoned. The world must know that there is no real difference between the apartheid government and this one we have now.

Mega-events to entertain the elites like the FIFA World Cup also show clearly that for the poor, there are no real rights to the city. To put on their games in the way the rich want them, means that poor people have to be swept away, and poor traders forced off the pavements – all this simply to make sure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We see the same things when we look at the growing number of golf-courses and golf-estates that are mushrooming. Poor people are squashed together in crowded settlements or are without housing, and some are forced out of their places to make way for these elite play areas. In the world as it is now, what counts is not that everyone is a person – what counts is whether you have money. In our cities, the powerful and rich elites chase their dream of a 'world class city', and in their 'world class city' what counts is money. For the right to the city to be real what will have to count will be people and not money.

If the right to the city has such a high price, is there any hope then? Yes – in the movements of the poor that are organising; in the work of our delegation that will go to Brazil; in all of our work to really transform the world as it is. Even through the work of our shack dwellers’ movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, we have won important victories – like defeating the Slums Act in the Constitutional Court. But since that victory, the attacks against us have shown that we have to carry on, we have to organise and build the movement even more, and we have to work twice as hard as ever before. There is really no such thing as a 'right' that can be given to you by a government or NGO. As the poor we have to organise ourselves to increase our power and to decrease the power of the rich and the politicians. The only way to succeed in making the right to the city a living reality for everyone instead of a slogan which repressive governments can hide behind is to democratise our cities from below.

Uyishayile!

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

'Silent and lethal': World Bank on 'quiet corruption'

Stephen Marks

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63113

cc W SWhile the data within the World Bank's latest 'Africa Development Indicators' report is certainly rich in highlighting the poor standard of living endured by many in Africa, its focus on the 'quiet corruption' of absentee public officials belies the damaging historical effects of its own structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), writes Stephen Marks.

'Quiet corruption' – the failure of public servants to deliver goods or services paid for by governments – is pervasive and widespread across Africa and has a disproportionate effect on the poor, with long-term consequences for development, according to a new report from the World Bank.

But the report, 'Africa Development Indicators 2010', has nothing to say on how the World Bank's own policies have contributed to the weakness of African states, policies that enable 'quiet corruption' to continue.

The report notes that most studies on corruption focus on an exchange of money – bribes to powerful political designees or kickbacks to public officials. This report instead focuses on the way 'quiet corruption' leads to an increasingly negative expectation of service delivery systems, causing families to ignore the system.

Quiet corruption, although smaller in monetary terms, is particularly harmful for the poor, who are more vulnerable and more reliant on government services and public systems to satisfy their most basic needs, the report says.

The report features data and research on quiet corruption in the health, education and agriculture sectors. For example:

- A 2004 report found that 20 per cent of teachers in rural western Kenyan primary schools could not be found during school hours, while in Uganda, two surveys found teacher absentee rates of 27 per cent in 2002 and 20 per cent in 2007.
- Poor controls at the producer and wholesaler levels resulted in 43 per cent of the analysed fertilizers sold in West Africa in the 1990s lacking the expected nutrients, meaning that they were basically ineffective.
- More than 50 per cent of drugs sold in drugstores in Nigeria in the 1990s were counterfeit, according to some studies.
- In a direct observation survey of Ugandan healthcare providers, there was a 37 per cent absenteeism rate in 2002 and 33 per cent in 2003.

The World Bank report stresses the long-term effects. 'A child denied a proper education because of absentee teachers will suffer in adulthood with low cognitive skills and weak health. The absence of drugs and doctors means unwanted deaths from malaria and other diseases. Farmers used to receiving diluted fertilizers may choose to stop using them altogether, leaving them in low-productivity agriculture.'

This is all true enough. But among the economic indicators, tables and other materials explaining why quiet corruption is such a hindrance to achieving long- and short-term development goals, there is no mention of the impact, at least as great if not far greater, of the World Bank's own structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) which have denied education, drugs and medical care, and the benefits of improved agricultural techniques through slashing state education and health budgets, and forcing the closure of state-funded agricultural development centres.

However, in addition to the 'quiet corruption study', the 'Africa Development Indicators' report also provides what it claims, no doubt rightly, is the most detailed collection of data on Africa available in one volume, providing invaluable material for a more radical analysis than the World Bank itself might provide.

The report contains more than 450 macroeconomic, sectoral and social indicators, covering 53 African countries. Data points include:

- In sub-Saharan Africa the number of people living on less than $2 a day nearly doubled from 292 million in 1981 to 555 million in 2005
- In the decade 1997–2007 Rwanda and Sierra Leone made the greatest gains in life expectancy – 11 and 8 years respectively. But life expectancy fell by 13 years in Lesotho and 10 years in South Africa and Swaziland in the same period.
- In 2007 Zimbabwe had the highest adult literacy rate in Africa at 91.2 per cent. Mali and Burkina Faso had the lowest, at 28.7 per cent.
- South Africa uses the most electric power per person (4,809.0kW/h); Ethiopia uses the least (38.4kW/h).
- In Mauritius there are 22 children per primary school teacher as against 91 in the Central African Republic (CAR).

The 'Africa Development Indicators 2010' also have an online data visualisation tool that can be used to build charts and graphs using the indicators available. This can be found at www.worldbank.org/adi (registration required).



BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Along with Axel Harneit-Sievers and Sanusha Naidu, Stephen Marks is the editor of 'Chinese and African Perspectives on China in Africa', forthcoming from Pambazuka Press.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

The hate and the quake: Part II

Hilary Beckles

2010-03-17

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63104

cc WikimediaContinuing on from his first article, ‘The hate and the quake’, Hilary Beckles portrays in detail the crimes that have been committed on Haiti by Western imperial powers. In so doing, Beckles produces a new lens through which Haiti’s history must be told. He tells of a Haiti punished for its pioneering efforts at freedom and democracy. For Beckles, ‘Never before has a nation done so much good and in turn received so much evil. Never before in history have a people given so much liberty and freedom to the world, for which it should live in credit, but has been driven to dwell for decades in the deep despair of debt.’ The recent earthquake, Beckles argues, has served to turn the world’s eyes onto Haiti and expose the history that has been covered up for centuries.

When the Americans defeated the British and declared national independence, it was done by way of advancing the emerging spirit of democracy. Thirty years later, when the Haitians, following the Americans, defeated Napoleon’s mighty army, repelled Spanish and British military invasions and declared, on 1 January 1804, the second nation state in the hemisphere, the new advocate of democracy was isolated and coldly strangled by forces acting in the interest of democracy.

The Americans built but half a democracy. They retained slavery as the core of their nation. The Haitians went all the way. They stated in their independence constitution that slavery and slave trading were crimes. Universal freedom was proclaimed. But that was not all. This constitution stood up for blacks in every society by providing, in Article 44, for any black person or indigenous native who arrived on the shores of Haiti to be immediately declared free and a citizen of the republic.

The Americans, British, French, Dutch and Spanish, clinging to black and native slavery as the model of development, condemned the Haitians for this deep, democratic constitutional stance. Haiti, in bold print and audacious policy, established itself as the centre of world democracy and the only nation in the western world where all inhabitants were invested with the status of legal freedom and constitutional citizenship. It became the only society where working class people joined the privileged classes in running the government and shaping the framework of nation-building. Haiti gave the world this gift of universal freedom and democratic participation. The Americans and Europeans were talking about this in theory, while the Haitians set out to craft it in reality.

‘Crush the infamy and kill the infant’ became the motto of Europe and America. Never before has a nation done so much good and in turn received so much evil. Never before in history have a people given so much liberty and freedom to the world, for which it should live in credit, but has been driven to dwell for decades in the deep despair of debt.

Never before in the history of civilisation has the political, constitutional and philosophical contribution of a people and nation been erased from the record with such persistent precision, leaving subsequent generations to ponder their plight in pity. These are crimes greater than slavery. The theft of Haitian intellectual property, as the source of modern democracy, continues to be overlooked by academics schooled in the idea that ancient Rome and Greece, both slave societies, are the ancestral homes of the idea of democracy.

The Americans turned their backs on Haiti, their kindred spirit in nation-building. Haiti ’s call for support and solidarity was rejected. The French were comforted by this, and on the 21st anniversary of Haiti’s independence, while children were dancing in the streets of Port-au-Prince, French gun boats pulled into the harbour, discreetly backed-up at a distance by the American navy. Independence celebrations took placed against the background of a pending joint French-American invasion to ‘crush the infamy and kill the infant’. This would not be the first time that the Americans would support the French in a military operation in Haiti. This is how President Aristide was kidnapped and removed from office in 2004.

French gun to his head and American bayonet to his back, the brilliant distinguished President Boyer of Haiti signed the treaty to pay France 150 million gold francs in reparation for their freedom. 100,000 persons had died in the battle for freedom. The land of sugar ran in blood as slavery was overthrown. The payment of reparation on top of the death of 25 per cent of the population, women and children accounting for 40 per cent of this, was merciless to say the least. But the nation wished to join the community of nations. It was the death knell of the young, fledging nation. King Charles of France signed his 10th decree and the blood money began to flow royally out of Port-au-Prince into Paris: It continued uninterrupted until 1922, then resumed again until 1947.

As the Haitian nation buckled under debt and the threat of joint French-American military invasions, the consequences of a crippled country began to evolve into the world now wrecked by the quake. Nothing on earth but a quake could focus the world’s attention on a crime long committed and gone covered up, buried by the power of the West to tell the world how to see and think.

Toussaint L’Ouverture led the holy grail of freedom. Betrayed by France as he offered to give diplomacy a chance, he was imprisoned in France, beheaded and buried in secret. Today, the nation of Haiti knows not where the head of its first head of state is buried. The French know and will not tell. The beheading of L’Ouverture and the hiding of his head was France ’s first step in beheading the young nation. ‘Kill the first born’, a king once said. Haiti was the Western world’s first born.

Then came the quake: Another example of nature unearthing that which has been concealed by man.

Economic strangulation led to financial chaos. It served to ignite and sustain the ethnic conflict between blacks and coloured that racked national politics and became a way of life. The coloureds believed the blacks were less fit to rule and the blacks did not trust their willingness to ally with France. The peasants, meanwhile, wanted their class independence from the state that insisted upon being an integral part of the world economy. Peasants fought to delink from global trade; elites oppressed them to deepen the link. The coup and assassination became common means by which governments changed. A culture of bloody, political conflict ripped at the spine of the nation in much the same way and for the same reasons that France had executed its aristocracy, England beheaded its king, and America shot its greatest president at an earlier time.

As the nation collapsed into conflict, the distance between rich and poor, peasants and property holders grew wider. The elite borrowed to sustain the government as peasants intensified their preference for less exposure to the world economy. The weight of the national debt grew larger as the payment of reparations proved impossible to sustain. Port-au-Prince borrowed more from Paris to pay Paris; then Main Street added Wall Street to the list, which eventually led to the American invasion in 1915.

The Americans seized all financial and revenue sources, including the customs and all excise departments. It held onto these until 1947 when the well had been sucked dry. Popular rebellion against the Americans led to the rise of the Duvaliers: ‘Papa Doc’ and ‘Baby Doc’. The Haitians jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. Debt and death danced to the sound of the scream that was once a dream. ‘Domesticate the hate’ joined ‘crush the infamy’ as the revised mantra: Together they bore witness to the quake.

For 200 years the debt had driven Haitian life under the rubble where, today, life survives as a miracle. The infant and the elderly were pulled to safety only to die before the world’s eyes that had been closed without a care. The quake shook those eyes wide awake, but the debt remains. The French know only too well of the crime committed. While, in spite, they succeeded in starving a young nation, the US $21 billion owed cannot be removed from its imperial balance sheet simply by removing President Aristide. Puppet Prime Minister Latortue, placed by France and America in the palace now lying ruin, might have withdrawn Aristide’s demand upon the French, but the people of Haiti and all freedom loving citizens the world over are resolved that France has no chance of turning this fact into fiction.

Only a Marshall plan, European style, will do. The rebuilding of Haiti must begin with the digging up of the truth about a nation buried under 200 years of lies and hate. The ‘West’ owes Haiti for standing up for freedom when all around was slavery and human denigration. Haiti pulled the modern world out of the pit into which it fell by its global embrace of slavery as an instrument of modernity. The debt to Haiti is more than the US $21 billion stolen by the French. After 1804, the boat people were dying to get into Port-au-Prince. Thousands fled from Jamaica, the Bahamas, down through Florida Keys, up through the islands from the south into Central and South America. Haiti was the haven.

France will never be able to repay the Haitians for its crimes against them – nor will the Americans for their complicity – but it must begin with acceptance and atonement. Great nations need humility. The Haitians have shown this to be true. It is now France ’s turn to turn the page of its sordid sojourn amongst the dying, and dig itself out from under the rubble in Port-au-Prince.

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* Sir Hilary Beckles is pro-vice-chancellor and principal of the Cave Hill Campus, University of the West Indies.
* This article first appeared in The Gleaner on 31 January 2010.
* Read part I of ‘The hate and the quake’.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Grow up, Bob Geldof!

Alemayehu G. Mariam

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63118

cc H D SSir Bob Geldof may not wish to believe recent BBC reports alleging the misuse of famine relief funds in Ethopia in 1984, but, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam, he needs to ‘face the truth’ that ‘aid is stolen and diverted for…corrupt purposes in Africa everyday’. The famine that needs to be cured, argues Mariam, is the ‘famine of democracy, justice, accountability, transparency, rule of law and human rights.’

Sir Bob Geldof told Meles Zenawi to ‘Grow up!’ when he found out that security forces directly under the control and command of Zenawi had massacred hundreds of unarmed protesters following the 2005 elections. It looks like Sir Bob may have to take his own advice and do a little growing up. In the days after the BBC reported its findings some ten days ago on a scam that diverted US$95 million from famine relief to weapons purchases by Zenawi’s rebel group in Ethiopia in 1984, Sir Bob has been throwing temper tantrums on the talk show circuits.

Before Bob became ‘Sir’ Bob in 1986, and ‘Saint Bob’ before that for his work in famine relief in Ethiopia in 1984/5, he was well known (as a vocalist in the Irish group Boomtown Rats) for his brash and abrasive personality in the British and Irish rock music scene. When he toured the talk show circuit last week in the brewing Live Aid-gate scandal in Ethiopia, he showed his true colours once again. He tongue-lashed, chewed out and raked over the coals the BBC, its investigative reporters and editors and the two former high-level rebel group leaders-turned-whistleblowers who brought international attention to the scandal. Sir Bob was literally frothing at the mouth. He was furious, combative, huffy and testy. He was affronted, exasperated and totally rattled by the BBC report. Sir Bob was pissed off big time, not at the fingered criminals but at the journalists who dug up the evidence and the whistleblowers who spilled the secret beans. In his interviews, Sir Bob confused the issues and mischaracterised the report.[1]

Sir Bob was categorical in his claim that no Live/Band Aid money went to purchase weapons for the rebels at any time:

‘Not a single penny went on armaments. Not one. Not a pound; not a penny. Let me be clear on that. And I've also spoken to some of the others, including the Red Cross, who say it is absolute rubbish that any of their money could have possibly gone on arms.’

He said the two individuals who were interviewed for the report by the BBC have an axe to grind, and should be disbelieved because their intention was to embarrass Zenawi as the so-called May election draws near:

‘The Ethiopians say that he [Aregawi] wasn't even in the country at the time. This is a dissident political exile whose specific enemy, of which he has a track record of spinning against, is Meles Zenawi, the prime minister of Ethiopia, who has a general election coming up. He is not a credible voice whatsoever.’

Sir Bob challenged the BBC or anyone else to come up with a ‘shred’ of evidence of misuse of any of the money he raised, and offered to personally investigate and initiate a lawsuit to recoup any stolen money:

‘Produce, produce one shred of evidence, one iota of evidence – not some dissident exile malcontent in Holland. Produce me one shred of evidence and I promise you I will professionally investigate it, I will professionally 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 again on aid. There is not… a single shred of evidence that Band Aid or Live Aid money was diverted in any sense. It could not have been.

However, beneath the veneer of public outrage, Sir Bob was downright aghast and forlorn about what the scandal could do to his image and legacy in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa:

‘[Live Aid] did influence the entire debate about Africa and development and poverty. It really did have a huge political impact that resonates to today… Twenty-five … I was in Tigray just before Christmas and I saw what we began twenty-five years ago. Valleys, which were moonscapes, now verdant and lush and giving life and jobs and eighteen thousand Birr a year to the farmers of that neighbourhood. That's what we started. We built dams. There's our names on them. Not in armaments. We started that. Today, according to the Economist, Ethiopia is the fifth fastest growing economy in the planet in the year of the African World Cup. Isn't that the story, or part of the story?’

In short, Saint Bob saved Ethiopia! The Live/Band Aid-gate 2010 could seriously endanger his divine mission to save the rest of Africa! Right now, it is time for Sir Bob to save Sir Bob.

But why so much sound and fury from Sir Bob?

One wonders. Could it be that he finally got a definitive answer to the question he posed in his trademark song (one of the best selling singles of all time) in 1984: ‘Do they know it is Christmas?’

Sir Bob seems to be having great difficulty handling the truth now that he knows it. Whatever failings the two former high ranking members of Zenawi’s rebel group may have, they are telling it like it was:

Yep! We knew it was Christmas! It was the best Christmas ever. Thank you, Sir Bob (or should we say Saint Bob [Santa Claus?]) for stuffing the stockings with goodies and for the millions of dollars under the Christmas tree. Tell ya what Bobby? Since them good old days back in ’84, for some of the big boys in the gang, every day has been Christmas day!

The fact of the matter is that despite Sir Bob’s histrionics and temper tantrums, famine relief and aid is stolen and diverted for weapons purchases and other corrupt purposes in Africa everyday.

On 10 March 2010, the New York Times citing a UN report stated that US$240 million in famine relief aid was stolen in 2009 by Somali rebel groups and local contractors and UN staff:

As much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors, radical Islamist militants and local United Nations staff members, according to a new Security Council report. The [UN report] outlines a host of problems so grave that it recommends that Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon open an independent investigation into the World Food Program’s Somalia operations. It suggests that the program rebuild the food distribution system – which serves at least 2.5 million people and whose aid was worth about $485 million in 2009 – from scratch to break what it describes as a corrupt cartel of Somali distributors… American officials believe that some American aid may have fallen into the hands of Al Shababa, the most militant of Somalia’s insurgent groups.’[2]

For Sir Bob to categorically claim that ‘not a penny’ of the relief money was taken by Zenawi’s rebel group flies in the face of the inescapable African reality of corruption, fraud, waste, abuse and outright theft of not just humanitarian aid, but all kinds of international economic aid and loans. If Somali ‘contractors, radical Islamist militants and local United Nations staff members’ could steal US$240 million in food aid in 2009 with all the sophisticated and ‘best practices’ monitoring and auditing mechanisms of the UN in place, why does Sir Bob tenaciously hold the childish belief that Zenawi’s rebel group could not have taken a ‘penny’ from the aid money he raised in 1984? Sir Bob does not want to face the truth so he has chosen to bury his head, like the proverbial ostrich, in the sands of denial.

Dr Aregawi Berhe, one of the eyewitnesses to the scam, was a commander in the rebel army. Gebremedhin was a senior finance officer of the rebel group. Just because they have been critical of the Zenawi regime does not mean they are fabricating lies. As the Independent newspaper which interviewed Sir Bob noted: ‘That does not mean they are wrong, but it sets up reasonable doubts.’

That is indeed a fair place to begin establishing the truth. Let Gebremedhin, Dr Aregawi and many others with first hand knowledge of the facts (including all the principals implicated in the wrongdoing and the NGO bagmen who carried cash to pay the rebels) be called to testify publicly before an independent international inquiry commission. Regardless, as percipient witnesses any evidence given by Gebremedhin and Dr Aregawi to date is admissible in any court of law in the world, except kangaroo court.

Zenawi, speaking for the first time on the issue last week said he met with Sir Bob in Nairobi who expressed deep disappointment over the BBC report. Amazingly, Zenawi neither confirmed nor denied the central allegation in the report that he and/ or other members of his rebel group diverted relief money in 1984 for military purchases or any other purposes. [3] It was a brilliant anticipatory legal manoeuvre stonewalling on the central issue as Zenawi leaves no potentially incriminatory statement which could later be used to impeach (show prior inconsistent statement) him. Naturally, one would have expected an impassioned denial and condemnation of the purportedly vile and scurrilous accusations. But not a word. Instead, Zenawi savagely attacked the integrity and professionalism of Martin Plaut, the BBC reporter who broke the story, as a former Eritrean stooge experienced in distortions and lies (elsewhere known as ‘yellow journalism’). He accused others who had commented on the matter as being driven by ‘blind hatred.’

Sir Bob should know better. In fact, he does. After he learned of the shooting of innocent protesters following the May 2005 elections, Sir Bob told Channel 4 News on June 9, 2005[4] what kind of a man Zenawi really is:

‘Spare me, what are they doing? It is pathetic. I despair, I really despair. No doubt, I'll get a briefing from the Ethiopian embassy: “it wasn't like this, it was like that”. Grow up, they make me puke. I know those people, Meles Zanawi is a seriously clever man, what is he doing? What is he doing closing down radio stations, and journalists and that, it's a disgrace. Behave.’

Whatever disagreements we may have with Sir Bob on the BBC report, we share his despair fully. We really despair with him. We agree with him wholeheartedly that it is a shame and a disgrace to shoot down innocent unarmed protesters in the streets, shut down the independent press, jail opposition political leaders and engage in gross violations of human rights. We share his belief that it is a disgrace and a crime to misuse a single penny earmarked for bread and butter for the hungry to buy guns and bullets for a rebel army. Unfortunately, the fact is that the world is menaced by ‘seriously clever men’ who will stop at nothing – even stealing food from the mouths of babes. That makes all of us puke with disgust, not just Sir Bob. Because one believes in a noble cause, it does not follow that those with whom one comes in contact are also noble.

It is a great thing Sir Bob did in Live Aid back in 1984 and thereafter. But there is new thinking and evidence on the horizon. As Dambisa Moyo’s new book ‘Dead Aid’ shows, the influx of aid, including humanitarian aid, is at great risk of both being corruptly diverted and of exacerbating existing endemic corruption in Africa. It may be hard for Sir Bob and the rest of us naive Ethiopian utopians to open our eyes in Africa’s new Age of Kleptocracy and see ‘seriously clever men’ and con artists lining up to cannibalise their people for their last bowls of rice and handful of pennies.

The fact remains that there is still famine of the worst kind in Ethiopia and Africa that no Live Aid, Band Aid or Dead Aid can cure. It is a famine of democracy, justice, accountability, transparency, rule of law and human rights.

In the final analysis, the BBC report is not about Sir Bob’s reputation or legacy in Ethiopia or his future humanitarian work in Africa. It is about the truth; and if Sir Bob is truly committed to finding out the truth, let’s come together, relentlessly pursue it and let the chips fall where they may. We believe the truth shall make us all free!

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article was originally published by 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.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] Audio: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8554298.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/8547405.stm
Video: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8554117.stm
Transcription: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/andrew_marr_show/8554269.stm
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/world/africa/10somalia.html
[3] http://ethioforum.org/audio/march2010/Meles_vs_bbc_food_aid_031010.mp3
[4] http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/grow%20up%20geldof%20tells%20ethiopian%20leader/108395

South Africa: Progressive constitution, conservative country

Dale T. McKinley

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63117

cc B L RAs much as those who identify themselves as social progressives would like to believe otherwise, writes Dale McKinley, ‘the reality is that South Africa is a bastion of social conservatism'. One of the most glaring contradictions of South Africa’s post-apartheid ‘transition’, says McKinley, ‘is that the widely acknowledged – and regularly celebrated – social progressiveness of the country’s constitution is, in large part, at fundamental odds with the beliefs and views of the majority of South Africans themselves'.

Until a few years ago South Africa's social conservatism was one of our best-kept ‘secrets’. If the heady ‘rainbow nation’ days of the early-mid 1990s served to largely obscure the political and economic fissures in South African society, then they positively buried many of the underlying realities of majoritarian social norms and values. While some of the ‘colours’ of that rainbow began to fade fairly quickly thereafter as increasing economic inequality and accompanying class struggle came to the fore, it has taken several more years for the divided, social heart and soul of South Africa to be exposed.

As could be expected, given South Africa’s apartheid past, some of the earlier signs of this exposure appeared on the racial front. Whether it was ex-President Mbeki’s playing of the race card to cover up and rationalise his own government’s developmental failures and accumulation of power and privilege by a small black elite or the increasing cacophony of racist attitudes and incidences of racist attacks by whites, there was ample evidence to suggest that the constructed social unity of the ‘rainbow nation’ was rapidly unravelling. Nationalist chauvinism and xenophobia soon came out of the closet as hundreds of thousands of assorted ‘foreigners’ were deported, regular media headlines about trouble-causing ‘aliens’ blared forth and physical attacks on immigrants spread out across the country (foreshadowing the xenophobic pogroms of 2008).

Besides the consistent defence of narrow-minded patriarchal social relations and ongoing displays of general indifference to the epidemic of violence against women, in more recent times the most publicly visible and propagated form of social intolerance has been homophobia. It was none other than Jacob Zuma who got the ball really rolling back in 2006 when, at a public function, he proudly stated that, ‘When I was growing up “ungqingili”(gay men) would not have stood in front of me. I would knock him out.’ Although he later apologised, his complimentary remark that, ‘same-sex marriage is a disgrace to the nation and to God’, and the positive reception such a view received from sizeable numbers of South Africans, gave firm indication of a deep seated and widely held social conservatism.

Empirical confirmation of this was clearly revealed in the Human Sciences Research Council’s 2008 Pride and prejudice: public attitudes toward homosexuality. The study, using a national representative sample of respondents aged 16 and older found that between 2003 and 2007 over 80 per cent of the population across various age groups ‘consistently felt that sex between two men or two women was always wrong.’ Further, it found that ‘gays and lesbians were characterised as ‘un-African’ and that intolerance towards homosexuality was prevalent.’ One of the study’s authors, Vasu Reddy, accurately described these dominant views as, ‘an attempt to tell African gays and lesbians to “go back into the closet” because you’re a “disgrace” to African culture,’ an attitude he said represented a view of homosexuality as ‘something that colonisers brought with them to contaminate African culture.’

Tragically but predictably, such views have been brutally translated over the last few years into the unprecedented levels of violence against black lesbians in particular, which has seen over 30 murdered and countless others physically and emotionally abused. In 2006, the young life of 19-year-old lesbian Zoliswa Nkonyana of Khayelitsha was cut short by a gang of marauding male youths. In 2007, Sizakele Sigasa an outreach co-ordinator for the Positive Women’s Network, a lesbian rights organisation and her friend Salome Masooa were tortured, raped and brutally murdered in Soweto and Thokozane Qwabe was murdered in Ladysmith. In 2008, a string of hate crimes in Kwathema township against black lesbians saw Girly Nkosi murdered and former Banyana Banyana midfielder Eudy Simelane gang raped and stabbed over 20 times. In the same year, open drag queen Daisy Dube was brazenly gunned down in Yeoville by a group of men who had earlier heckled Daisy as “izitabane”.

The socially conservative rhetorical incubation for such crimes of hate reaches through the sinews of every level of South African society. Well-known journalist, publisher and wannabe cultural icon, Jon Qwelane, spewed out hate filled epitaphs at lesbians and gays in a 2008 column –‘Call me names, but gay is not ok’ – in the nation’s largest daily circulation newspaper, the Daily Sun. Two years later and he has been given a diplomatic posting to Uganda, whose parliament is presently ‘debating’ an Anti-Homosexuality Bill that would give life imprisonment for ‘touch[ing] another person with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.’

Last year, Zehir Omar, a lawyer for the ‘Society for the Protection of the Constitution’, told the Judicial Services Commission that because High Court Judge Kathy Satchwell was a lesbian, ‘the majority of South Africans are God-fearing and will not be able to identify with the learned judge since there is no religion that condones homosexuality.’ Not to be outdone, the PAC Youth League in a January 2010 statement targeting a homosexual relationship on the SABC TV’s, ‘Generations’, claimed that the soapie had ‘declared war with the African cultures and practices.’ They went on to opine that this constituted being ‘part of officiating homosexuality and indoctrinated (sic) Africans with nonsense’ and called for ‘the abolishment of homosexuality practices’.

Most recently, Minister of Arts and Culture Lulu Xingwana walked out of artist and lesbian activist Zanele Muholi’s exhibition that featured pictures of semi-naked black women embracing each other, describing the exhibition as ‘immoral, offensive and against nation building.’ No doubt, arch-homophobes Robert Mugabe and Sam Nujoma were applauding loudly in neighbouring Zimbabwe and Namibia respectively as was Zambia’s Southern Province Minister Daniel Munkombwe, who not long ago likened homosexuals to animals.

All of this is overlaid by the widening public propagation and political embracing of more socially reactionary versions of various religions and ‘cultural practices’. Whether it be church and/or ‘culturally’ enforced patriarchy, the self-constructed moralising against ‘unnatural’ social relations, the hypocritical repression of sex and sexuality or the exclusionary politics of racial, ethnic and national chauvinism, it all adds up to the same thing; ‘they’ are not ‘we’, and ‘we’ is what ‘we’ say ‘we’ are.

Beware.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article first appeared in The South African Civil Society Information Service.
* Dale T. McKinley is an independent writer, researcher, lecturer and political activist based in Johannesburg.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

South Africa's doomed youth

The 'Malemarisation' of public discourse

Mphutlane wa Bofelo

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63114

cc I PhilipMphutlane wa Bofelo mourns a South Africa in which critical thinking, thoughtful strategy and creative minds are marginalised. What is reified instead, he argues, is thoughtless action, the dismissal of theory and analysis and ‘the racist, sexist, violent-peddling hate-talk of Julius Malema’. Wa Bofelo holds that the lionisation of rash and unthinking youths in the past has led to a culture of crime and violence, disrespect for life and intolerance for dissent in South Africa. The media and academia, he states, have played a large role in this: They have always placed spectacle well above cautious and calculated action. Wa Bofelo believes that the youth of South Africa is not ‘the lost generation’, but ‘the generation in search of role models’. He concludes that ‘glorifying mediocrity, recklessness, violence and idiocy today is investing in the doom and damnation of the future… Malema’s is [as such] a serious act of injustice against the youth and posterity.’

The tendency to project the racist, sexist, violent-peddling hate-talk of Julius Malema as just a normal expression of the fervour, overzealousness and recklessness of youth, is a deliberate attempt to take focus away from sober, critical, vigilant, intellectual, innovative and creative voices and faces among the youth. Unfortunately the glorification of thoughtless action, the ‘dismissal’ of theory and the marginalisation of analytical minds have had dire and ghastly consequences for South Africa. The problems that the country has – with regard to the violent nature of crime, apathetically low levels of respect of life, lack of appreciation of the self and indifference to parental guidance – could be traced to the era in our history when we lionised youths, who acted without first getting theoretical clarity of the situation facing them and weighing critically the strategic and tactical choices available to them.

Even at that time, there were voices among youths that appealed for action rooted in the clarity of vision regarding the future. But the media and academia chose to give prominence to youth outfits which availed them the opportunity to cover dramatic incidents of empty classrooms, principals running for their lives, children making their mothers and fathers drink Jik and eat Sunlight soap, youngsters administering justice with petrol-fire and kerosene. To the media and academia the clamour of ‘liberation first, education after’ was catchier than the erudite call of ‘educate to liberate’. Indefinite school boycotts made more spectacle sense than cautious, restrained calculation of how much damage a boycott inflicted on the system and how much loss it incurred on the students.

Now that the problems, accrued from the culture of more toi-toi and less think-think, continue to bedevil our school system, none of the adults are willing to own the role they played in taking the struggle from the streets into the classrooms, as opposed to the black consciousness-inspired youths of 1976, who took the struggle out of the classrooms into the streets, and towards the system. Today, we can only give prominence to Malema and ilk and marginalise young people with critical, creative, innovative minds at our own peril. Once the culture of violence, disrespect for life, intolerance for dissent, disdain of theory and analysis and dismissal of thinking and reflection has set in, it will take centuries to do away with. It is, therefore, regretful to notice the governing party and sections of academia and the media tacitly promoting the Malemarisation of youth politics and public discourse in general.

In the mid-eighties, when youths were at the centre of rebelling against the regime and regiments of apartheid-capitalism, there were tragically also excesses and extremes in the manner in which young people – at the behest of the adults and with the involvement of many of their elders in political parties - went about the project of rendering South Africa ungovernable and apartheid-capitalism untenable. There were ghastly instances of blood-thirsty necklacing, witch-hunting of sell-outs and indiscriminate killing of people with dissenting political opinions.

In that ghostly climate of intolerance of dissent, there was an official vilification of theory and analysis in some quarters, glorifying action and deifying recklessness as being gallant. People and organisations who engaged in critical and thoughtful thinking on strategy and tactics, were cautious with regard to the tactics of academic and consumer boycotts and strike-action. They spoke against the ‘necklace’ and were branded as agents of the system. This led to bloody scenes of internecine violence between 1983 and 1999. The apartheid regime also took advantage of this and fermented more violence through police brutality, vigilante groups and the so-called third force in the 1990s, as well as various sly ways of setting anti-apartheid groups against each other. The gangsters were also infiltrated and used by the agents of the system to escalate violence and proliferate lethal drugs such as mandrax, cocaine and heroine in the townships.

The situation worsened in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. We saw scenes of youths operating in street committees, defence units and the so-called people’s courts, mediating with the whip and ‘necklace’ in domestic and neighbourhood conflicts. The street committee members would go on house-to-house raids, forcefully taking young people, including young girls to go on street-patrols. There were then many reports of sexual abuse and rape, of young girls being taken to certain hide-outs and camps and being raped. As a result of fear of the comrades and cynicism towards the apartheid police these cases were never reported. There was no chance of these instances being dealt with by the people’s courts because members were themselves culprits in some instances. Some neighbours, including business people started abusing the street committees and defence units to settle old scores and pursue personal agendas. This was aided by the corruptible nature of members of these outfits who often took bribery and ended up as being sort of hired assassins or hired lynch mobs, in some instances.

The rot had set it. Suddenly lawlessness and disorder became the norm in schools. The culture of teaching and learning declined. The schools became the dens of drugs and alcohol and sex. Gang-rape spilled from the schools into the streets and fire-arms became toys. The gangsters became the coolest cats and heroes of the townships. Car-hijackings, house-breaking and heists became sport for young people growing up in South Africa. People started talking of the degeneration of morals amongst the youth. The media and academia coined the term ‘lost generation’ to refer to the youth of this generation. None of the old people who celebrated the recklessness of the young lion are now owning up to the role they played in elevating thoughtless, reckless, theory-less action, which has led to a culture of disrespect for reasoning; has fostered the culture of acting without thinking; and has spawned the comrade-tsotsis, the jackrallers, the trigger-happy, gun-totting gangsters and the adventurously kleptomaniac men and women who govern our lives today.

Generalising about the youths and collectively referring to them as ‘the lost generation’, became a convenient way of running from the fact that the system, our political parties, civil society organisations, the media and academia have all failed the youth. A proper term would be ‘the generation in search of role models’. A generation that has seen struggle, firebrand becoming business brand, guerrillas becoming corporate gorillas, comrades becoming tenderpreneurs, respected leaders becoming culprits and suspects in corruption scandals. Children have seen fathers raping babies and their mothers being clobbered to death by their own fathers. Young people have seen and heard of priests from all religions being involved in rapes, child-molestation, pyramid scandals and various corrupt dealings.

Many of the corrupt government officials, captains of crime syndicates, drug-lords and mafia-bosses of today, are the very same comrades of the street committees, defence units, people’s courts, and guerrilla armies of yesterday. The long and short of it is that glorifying mediocrity, recklessness, violence and idiocy today is investing in the doom and damnation of the future. In marginalising the many imaginative, creative, innovative and critical, intelligent minds and voices in South Africa or Azania at the expense of giving too much platform to the theatrical, comical and farcical, Malema’s is a serious act of injustice against the youth and posterity.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

What South Africa's World Cup really means

Azad Essa and Oliver Meth

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63106

cc shanediaz120While excitement around South Africa's forthcoming World Cup continues to build, South Africa's poor are seeing none of the supposed economic benefits associated with hosting the tournament, argue Azad Essa and Oliver Meth.

The World Cup might be just around the corner, and excitement for the first event of its kind on African soil is rapidly gaining momentum, but ordinary South Africans are finding it increasingly difficult to ignore the darker side of playing host to the greatest show on Earth.

FIFA's (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) regulatory by-laws for the tournament outlaw – within a kilometre from each stadium – almost any economic activity that does not add value to FIFA and its sponsors.

But, because this law affects street traders, the Early Morning Market traders and small businesses around the stadium precinct more than anyone else, this ridiculous requirement has failed to capture South Africa's imagination.

It is therefore almost a good thing that the South African media now faces censorship as stipulated by FIFA rules in granting media accreditation. FIFA is allowed to withdraw accreditation to any journalist at any given point if the journalist is seen to bring the tournament into disrepute.

The South African media's right to function independently and without fear is enshrined in the constitution. This attack has unwittingly moved the struggle against draconian FIFA by-laws into the media domain, which should, by default, highlight the broader struggles ordinary South Africans face against FIFA in its quest to turn South Africa into a FIFA puppet.

Just as our economic policies are not designed for citizens but industries, so too the World Cup is engineered to cater to corporations and foreign interests using the vehicle of South Africa's much loved sport, soccer.

By now the envisioned development through sporting events is a long-past pipe dream. There is no evidence in South Korea, Japan or even France that hosting a World Cup would usher in tangible economic prosperity, even though the event was sold as such.

Most analysts agree that the World Cup is bound to address Afro-pessimism, create a feel-good factor and not much else.

But it is not all doom and gloom. The World Cup represents a unique opportunity for ordinary South Africans to reconsider the viability of selling their hard-earned democratic rights for one moment of history. To avert being trampled by FIFA is almost unavoidable. But to stand up and voice discontent is incumbent on the nation; the South African state is not about to do it. For some, even the unthinkable has become an option.

With World Cup preparations continuing to wreak significant havoc in South African cities, and coupled rampant corruption and unacceptable levels of crime, there have already been calls for a boycott of the premier event.

On Facebook, the 'Boycott 2010 World Cup Campaign in South Africa' fan page has drawn significant criticism from the presidency as well as national and international media. Even civil society organisations and representations of the poor are among those who have responded and voiced strong criticism of the Boycott 2010 Campaign.

On the other end of the scale, the World Class Cities for all Campaign (WCCA) has worked towards finding humane solutions to the quest by FIFA and municipalities to rid the CBDs (central business districts) of informal traders, street children, sex workers and other beings considered undesirable.

Borne out of the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, the WCCA is about reminding the government that people deserved to be engaged before being forcibly removed in the cities' attempts to create 'world class cities'.

South Africans love soccer, not only because of the beauty and art of the sport, but because one ball and some tarmac is affordable, unlike many other sports. The FIFA 2010 South Africa World Cup is seen as a great heist of lies, in taking what is beloved – soccer – and manipulating it to suit the interests of a capitalist system and marginalising the working class.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Azad Essa is a freelance journalist.
* Oliver Meth is based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal's Centre for Civil Society.
* This article was originally published by The Mercury, South Africa.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Pan-African Diary 2011: Call for entries

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/63130

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!

We want our country back!

Speech at IWOC awards 2010

Ann Njogu

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/63115

cc A ZAnn Njogu delivered her acceptance speech at the International Women of Courage (IWOC) awards held in Washington DC on 8 March 2010. Her speech was a portrait of the struggles and achievements, injustice and poverty in Kenya. Amongst others, she dedicated her award ‘to all the human rights defenders in Kenya’, stating that ‘They are the true champions and heroes of our struggle for change. They continue to put their lives in harm's way because they are convinced that a different and better Kenya is possible. A different and better Africa is possible and a different and better world is possible.’

– ‘I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of human rights.’
Desmond Tutu –

The US secretary of state, Hilary Rodham Clinton; first lady of the United States of America, Michelle Obama; Ambassador Melanne Verveer; fellow recipients of the IWOC Awards 2010; distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen; all protocols observed.

It is a great honour and humbling experience to be here to receive this award tonight. Great, because this is a distinguished award that is dedicated to honouring women who have made a contribution globally; and humbling, because I am only aware that without the many women with whom I have had the privilege to work with at the grassroots in Kenya, it would not have been possible to celebrate anything, much less for me to be here with you tonight. It is for this reason that I want to dedicate the award to all those women in Kenya who have simply refused to give up the hope for a better Kenya.

I am talking about the woman from the urban shanties who has to wake up at 4.00 am every morning to walk 20 miles to and 20 miles back from the market to fetch groceries, to come back and sell the whole day to make a dollar; the woman who has to take care of her seven children all alone; or the one who has to fend for her ten kids with her jobless and abusive husband all living in a one room shanty house;

To the rural poor who has to till tired ground to eke out a living to sustain a clan; to take her little daughter to school and avoid early marriage in the hope of breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and abuse;

To the young girl who has to brave taunts from classmates to attend school even when her dress is messed up by her menses, because she cannot afford the benefit of modern hygiene such as sanitary pads which are no novelty in the developed world;

I am talking about the woman in the Kenyan urban shanties and rural poor who have to endure the terror of local chiefs and the extortion and abuse of local police every single waking day just to get along with their lives; the women who pay tax to maintain these government officials but have no voice to control them or hold them to account, because their MPs are too busy stealing from them or plotting on the next electoral violence to care.

These are the women I work with every single day.

But I am also talking about the middle class woman who is starting to ask hard questions about our social and economic inequalities; the young executive who has started discarding the notion that the public space is male space; or that it is only bad girls that venture into politics;

I am also talking about the Kenyan youth, who have understood that the present and future of Kenya belongs to them. And that to believe otherwise would be to continually play to the plan of the political elite, who have pigeonholed them to an exploited and manipulated falsehood that they can only exist to serve the whims and narrow political interests of the politician. A youth who have understood that their unemployment, exclusion, poverty and dire needs are not by default but by design of this political class.

For we know that unless a new breed of leaders – committed to a new kind of ethics and values that celebrate merit, excellence, service and accountability – take over leadership, or unless, by unlikely, divine intervention, those currently in power are transformed, my generation's sad story will be the story of my daughter’s generation. And the generations after.

It is a combination of this fear and the inspiration that I see in the eyes of mama mboga as she works through the day in the dusty shanty towns in Nairobi or as she toils away in the sun baked earth of Machakos, that give me the drive to keep going in spite of the unrelenting repression of government and police brutality. One of the great paradoxes of my country is that we have a government elected ‘democratically’, but which is habitually undemocratic: A creature of movements such as ours, but which has shown bad manners in dealing with those who seek to hold it against its promises.

Kenya's story is part of the sad African story. But in that story a new story is evolving, the story of a people who are determined to make a clean break from the terrible legacy of unaccountable leadership and predatory governments; a story of people who are increasingly rejecting ethnic and political patronage in favour of democratic and accountable government; a story of people who are seeking transformation and not sedation through welfare; and it is a story of people who know that in Africa, we've got all the wealth we need to raise the continent from grinding poverty, disease and a sense of pervasive hopelessness into a prosperous land. A land from which no young woman or man will want to escape from to be an economic refugee in Europe, the US or anywhere else because it will be a land of opportunity.

It is with this breed of Kenyans and Africans that I identify myself and my work with. It may be: The Pioneers for Change, The C5, the Women and Youth Alliance, Bunge la Mwananchi, G10, KPTJ [Kenyans for Peace Truth and Justice], among other progressive movements. But they are all united by one thing: To make sure that the transition in Kenya is substantive and not a vacuous formality. I have dedicated my time and energy at the Centre for Rights Education and Awareness (CREAW) and the Africa Community Development Media (ACDM) to make my contribution towards this great goal. I and my generation feel greatly privileged to be at a point in our history where we can make a historic contribution.

In this we are greatly motivated by the achievements of the US, the South East Asian Tigers and the economies of Latin America.

This last Friday 5 March 2010, I celebrated my 45th birthday, away from home. However, in the midst of celebrating this personal landmark, two grim realities hit me right in the middle of my eyes. First, back home, my colleagues held a memorial service in remembrance of two of our fallen human rights defenders: GPO Oulu and Oscar Kingara both executed in cold blood on the same day last year (5 March 2009) by state police in broad daylight right outside the University of Nairobi, because of their dedication to bring to an end state-sponsored terror. Student protests were met with the further execution of one of the students. To date, state ‘investigations’ have revealed nothing. It has joined the long list of unresolved politically motivated murders in Kenya. Such is the perilous reality of human rights defenders and the Kenyan public in my country today. The second reality was that my country's life expectancy has fallen to 44 years. I am, therefore, lucky to be alive today.

OUR COUNTRY KENYA

Kenya is indeed a beautiful, great and profound country situated in East Africa with a population of approximately 40 million Kenyans. Ever since we produced and exported the incumbent president of the biggest super power in the world, President Barack Obama, our claim to greatness has been vindicated. Yes, we have a track record not just for producing and exporting presidents, but it is in our country that you find such great names like Wangari Maathai – the environmentalist – our amazing athletes, the very hard working people, the vibrant civil society, rolling mountains and scenery, singing birds, great weather, wonderful natural resources and indeed some of the best tourist destinations in the world.

Kenya has the potential to not only feed her people, but to be the breadbasket of the whole continent of Africa. While it can have enough for everyone, poor leadership and governance, corruption, impunity and lack of accountability have determined that there is not enough for a few greedy men and women.

The high levels of inequality have determined that over 70 per cent of the country’s resources are in the hands of a less than 10 per cent of the population, while the last 10 per cent of the population own less than 1 per cent of the country’s resources. It is a country where women provide over 70 per cent of total labour in the agricultural sector and yet, own less than 5 per cent of the country’s land. It is a country where over 47 per cent of the country’s population live below the poverty line earning less than a dollar a day, with 70 per cent of those extremely poor being women. It is a country where the women and youth make the majority of the populace and yet, remain at the peripherals of decision making. A country that has 89 per cent of its population below 45 years and yet, this majority remain marginalised and excluded in governance, decision making et al.

It is a country that has been seeking reform of its key institutions of governance, including the constitution, but where the said reforms have remained a mirage due to state capture of the said instruments of reform. This enduring legacy has created and fertilised a culture of impunity, abuse and disregard to state institutions of governance, a lack of accountability and a culture that disregards international norms and standards of governance and human rights protection.

The political system of ‘first by the post’ and ‘winner takes it all’ makes elections a life and death matter; always in favour of a small, very powerful clique of the political class. Many other institutions like the cabinet, parliament, judiciary, police force, military including media and religious institutions have come under total and stifling elite capture. The outcome of this elite capture is a fractured political and social system, absence of transparency and accountability, mismanagement of state institutions and impunity that have eroded the national fabric resulting in serious tensions. Not surprising, therefore, that between December 2007 and March 2008, Kenya faced its worst political and governance crisis yet and almost degenerated to a state of total breakdown of law and order.

The question of police brutality, complicity in perpetrating crime in general and violence against human rights defenders, in particular, is one of the biggest challenges for the existing coalition government. The atrocities of the police are well documented by the state human rights agency KNCHR [Kenya National Commission on Human Rights]; UN Rapporteur on extra judicial killings; the government-appointed Commission into Post Election Violence (CIPEV), which recommended a complete overhaul of the police force… Sadly, instead of implementing the recommendations, the president responded by rewarding the then commissioner of police with a new appointment and a promotion for officers implicated in sexual assault and violence against peaceful Kenyan protestors.

The story of GPO Oulo and Oscar Kingara is the story of so many other human rights defenders in Kenya and in countries where there is no respect for human life, rule of law, democracy and accountability. It is the story of so many other human rights defenders, who have paid, and continue to pay, heavy prices for exercising their fundamental and constitutional rights. When human rights activists in Kenya, as in other countries like Zimbabwe, have sought accountability from the powers that be, the response of the authorities has been an escalating intransigence and violence: The violence of police dogs, tear gas, ‘disappearings’, exile, and even death. Like Archbishop Desmond Tutu said at the height of apartheid: ‘We who advocate peace are becoming an irrelevance when we speak peace. The government speaks rubber bullets, live bullets, tear gas, police dogs, detention, and death’.

It is for this reason that while I humbly accept this award, I dedicate it to all the human rights defenders in Kenya. They are the true champions and heroes of our struggle for change. They continue to put their lives in harm's way because they are convinced that a different and better Kenya is possible. A different and better Africa is possible and a different and better world is possible. Many of them like Oulu and Oscar have paid the ultimate price.

I also dedicate this award to my amazing A-team and staff at CREAW [Center for Rights Education and Awareness], ACDM [Africa Community Development Media], paralegals, community educators and community news gatherers without whom, my work would be impossible. This award is your award for all your hard work, dedication and commitment.

I finally dedicate this award to my children Stephanie and Ted, who tearfully plead with me not to go out onto the street for fear that they might never see their mother alive again, but who also stoically understand why I do the work that I do. They too like other Kenyans, are tired of being divided along tribal and other imaginary lines, tired of running into ideological vacuums and partisan roadblocks, tired of appeals to our worst instincts and greatest fears.

It is too late to stop this movement. Change must come!

We hear the voice of the people of the United States of America urging us on. We hear the voices of the people of Europe urging us on. We hear the voices of the peoples of the world urging us on. We see the changes taking place all over the world. We see nations rising from poverty and underdevelopment and creating economic miracles and we ask why not in Kenya? Why not in Africa?

We see undemocratic nations being replaced by democracies and we ask why not in Africa? We see millions being hauled out of early death with benefit of modern medicine and we ask why not in Africa? We read about the immense wealth in the belly of the continent and the endless miseries of the people living above the grounds and again we ask why in Africa?

Like Kennedy, I belong to those who believe in the power of a dream. Like him we dream of things that are yet to be and we ask ‘why not’? I understand that it is my duty and that of my generation to replace the present despair with a new hope in the continent of Africa; it is my duty to resist oppression and plant the flag of freedom in every homestead; it is my duty to challenge the massive inequalities that exist in my society and those of all other African states; it is my duty to stand up to grand corruption; to challenge police brutality and complicity in crime; it is my duty to prevent the recurrence of the post election violence in Kenya in the next general election; it is my solemn duty to prevent more and more children from the violence and violations that continue to be visited upon our people; it is my duty because where leaders cease being role models and sources of inspiration, we must turn inwards and look for that inspiration from within ourselves. And we must stand firm in our place in the queue and never drop the ball; it is our duty to pick up the challenge that has rung from Washington DC and across the world. That time is now for a new generation of leaders to emerge and to take the onerous task of completing the change begun 20 years ago to democratise, bring prosperity to our nations and to protect the rights and freedoms of every person in my country and in my continent. It is a call I am willing to accept even if I were alone. For didn’t Rosa Parks shows us right here in the USA the amazing power of a solitary soul committed to ending injustice?

A great Kenya for all is possible: For the dignity of (Wo)man and the destiny of democracy.

We want our country back!

Thank you all

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This speech was given by Ann Njogu in Washington DC at the The International Women of Courage Awards ceremony, held on 8 March 2010.
* Ann Njogu is chairperson of CREAW in Kenya.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Why suffering and smiling?

Oludolapo Onajin

2010-03-17

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/63105

cc S I AOludolapo Onajin asks why Nigerians continue to suffer and smile. He argues that Nigeria, with its own great minds, should not ‘be under the yoke of a ruling class illiterate in resourcefulness’. He asserts that while Nigerians are paying for their politicians’ education, healthcare, services and lavish lifestyles, these politicians are denying them decent standards of living and access to services. Onajin concludes that Nigerians need to break away from their current accepting and placid attitude and must ‘rewrite their futures’ themselves.

I recently read a piece by Sola Odunfa on the BBC website entitled ‘African viewpoint: Suffering and cursing’ on 24 February 2010. The article focused on Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s popular hit ‘Suffering and Smiling’ and went on to explain that Nigerian’s have always endured hardship with a positive outlook and a smile.

He concluded that in present times, Nigerians seem to have stopped smiling yet the suffering has refused to cease. I wondered what the impact of the cessation of smiling would have on Nigerians and I came to one conclusion: Impotency.

It continually amazes me that a people, who have suffered so much under the yoke of successive, bad leadership, will carry on with life as if nothing was wrong. If this had been in the United Kingdom, British civility would have been thrown out of the window as they rose up to demand change, consequently ridding themselves of the poor leaders.

Are Nigerians afraid? Fear is a very powerful weapon and it can be seen in use by the Nazis as they ushered the Jews to the grave in their millions during the World War II. I always ask myself, if someone is going to die anyway, why do they not go down fighting? At least they will give themselves a slim chance of surviving. The answer to that is fear.

Taking away my religious beliefs, we only have this life to live. Should Nigerians continue to live it in poverty or is it time for them to arise and fight for a decent standard of living for themselves and, more importantly, for their children and future generations? Or are we too selfish and afraid to even contemplate fighting for the future of our children?

We should be reminded that some people had to fight for their country’s prosperity and peace. It was not attained by chance or complacence. If we imagine that change will occur by itself, we are on a journey with Alice in Wonderland. The country is being led down the path of destruction by a few bad men and all we need is a few good men to turn things around.

The vagrant misappropriation of public funds by the overpaid, over pampered, non innovative but violent politicians, is a slap on the faces of 160 million Nigerians. Remember that the flashy cars, the mansions and lifestyles of these men are paid for by the millions of long suffering Nigerians.

The education sector is in the doldrums because these people can afford to send their children out of the country to study. The healthcare sector is struggling because these people can afford to pay for treatment abroad. Shamefully, the president of the country has to be frequently exported out of the country for medical treatment.

Electricity is not available because these people can afford to finance the installation of generators and the subsequent running of the. The water pipes are dried up in most places. Dust is the produce when taps are opened. The roads are in various states of disrepair because these people can buy the now essential 4x4s and can replace them whenever they choose.

Crime is endemic because these people can pay for adequate security, while the under-funded police avoid any direct confrontation with criminals because to lose their lives on duty would be an unappreciated act and definite punishment for their families.

Finally, when these people have had enough of the stress created by the current state of affairs, they pack their bags and board the next available flight for a few weeks of recuperation in the mansions they have bought in the more stable and less stressful foreign countries where they have stashed their ill-gotten wealth. All these paid for by the ever-placid Nigerians.

It is even annoying when the government and big businesses ignore local talent and award major contracts to foreign companies, thereby creating jobs for the already overindulged citizens of their base counties. In a country where so many people are jobless, it stinks that key projects are still being taken from outside, denying Nigerian professionals the opportunity to improve their expertise and to offer jobs to the many graduates languishing in joblessness.

Do the people care at all? I doubt it because they seem to walk around with blindfolds purposely refusing to see the carnage and hopelessness they have created. Even the British know the importance of British jobs for British people because revenue from these jobs helps to oil the wheels of their already successful economy.

All I have said has been talked many times over and almost to death. Yet I wonder why we are not willing to do anything about it. I want to believe that every Nigerian desires a decent lifestyle, but I can conclusively state that it will not be achieved with our present attitude.

Kings are born to rule but politicians are elected to serve, not to rule. In Nigeria, what we get is the opposite. In a country that has produced some of the best minds in the world (some dodgy ones as well), to be under the yoke of a ruling class illiterate in resourcefulness is a thing of shame on a global scale.

Nigerians are not only suffering and smiling, but they have also turned into the living dead. I say this because in a country with the bountiful resources available for exploitation, it should be easier to attain decent livelihoods than to live in poverty. Only those who actively try to be poor should be poor.

It is time Nigerians begin to rewrite their futures, while learning from past experiences. The country is not doomed to fail but doomed it shall be if we do not take the necessary steps towards success. The evidence of a successful country is not the wealth of a minority of its people, but is the standard of living and the opportunities available to the country’s entire citizenry.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Oludolapo Onajin (MNIA) is an architect based in London.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

What is global apartheid and why do we fight it?

Yash Tandon

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/63111

cc G20 VoiceUsed to evoke poorer nations' continual domination at the hands of the rich of the world, the phrase 'global apartheid' gained prominence when used by former South Africa president Thabo Mbeki in 2001. Drawing on Africa's economic experience over the past 50 years, Yash Tandon stresses that while this is certainly a valid conceptual term, African states themselves have played a key role in intensifying their own countries' victimisation.

The term apartheid describes a system of governance in South Africa from about 1948 when the Nationalist Party came to power to independence in 1994, but it has acquired a broader usage. 'Global apartheid' was first used during the 1980s by scholars, but became famous when Thabo Mbeki, in 2001, explained why the 2006 World Cup was given to Germany, not South Africa, due to a New Zealander’s vote switch.

In 2002, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, he defined global apartheid as the continuing disparity between a small minority of rich (mostly white) nations lording over a great number of impoverished (mostly non-white) nations. The late poet Dennis Brutus, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society, thought the phrase very evocative, even while criticising Mbeki’s foreign economic policies as contributing to the problem.

I distinguish between 'global apartheid' and 'intra-state apartheid'. It is important to draw attention to inequality and injustices within states as well as between states. For example, present-day Israel is almost a replication of the classic model of apartheid in South Africa, where citizens of non-Jewish faith are treated as inferior in almost caste terms, much as black South Africans were treated in the pre-independence period.



In other words, the term 'global apartheid' should not distract our awareness of discrimination that people face within states.

This said, I do think Mbeki’s 'global apartheid' sharpened our awareness about the iniquitous and unfair global system in which we live. The underlying reason comes down to a system of production and distribution at the global level that is inherently engineered to further enrich the rich and impoverish the poor.

A good example of this is the record of Africa in the last 50 years. Africa’s integration in the global system of trade liberalisation and capital flows – globalisation – transferred wealth, in net terms, from Africa to the already industrialised countries of the North. The irony is that policies of independent African states are largely responsible for not only perpetuating 'global apartheid', but intensifying it. African governments are themselves co-authors of 'global apartheid'.

How do we jump out of this hole?

The first step is to become aware of the phenomenon and its dual roots, namely, the system of global production and distribution, and the domestic policies of the countries of the South to embrace the system. They are two sides of the same coin.

It is no use blaming 'the North' or 'the West' and then engaging in policies that accumulate wealth in the North and deepen poverty in the South.

The second step is to recognise that these policies are not accidental. It is inherent in the very class character of those who rule and govern us. To be sure, they do have contradictions with the global corporate elite in that they would like a bigger share in the global pie. However, their class character prevents them from undertaking genuine democratic reforms that would put power in the hands of working people.

The third step is to help popular democratic forces to organise themselves in order to struggle on a dual front at the same time. The struggle against the dominance of global finance-capital is as salient as the struggle for democratisation. This may sound like a cliché, and indeed it is easy to sloganise anti-imperialist and pro-democracy rhetoric, but the practice of engaging in transformative politics is harder than chewing rocks.

I say this with some experience. I come from Uganda where we suffered what turned out to be a premature experiment building socialism, called 'The Common Man’s Charter'. This led, in 1971, to a military coup engineered by Britain and Israel in collusion with local disaffected forces.

The military regime of Idi Amin was installed, serving the interests of imperialism.

It took eight years of struggle to finally end the brutal regime, with the help of Tanzanian forces.

The period since has brought relative peace and stability and in its wake some growth. But neoliberal policies created the same effects as in the rest of Africa: deindustrialisation, unemployment, increasing debt and aid dependency.

Aid dependency is both deeply ingrained in the psychology of our leaders – who wrongly believe that without aid there can be no development – and in their policies. There are, of course, other problems too. But aid dependency blocks progress in all other matters.

It also blocks progress on the further democratisation of society, because our governments tend to be accountable to donors, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank rather than to their own people. It has made a mockery of all electoral politics.

In 2008 I wrote a book, 'Ending Aid Dependence', published by the South Centre and a progressive African publisher, Pambazuka Press. The most crucial first step is the psychological leap that our leaders and our people need to make out of thinking that without aid they cannot survive.

If Africa wants to liberate itself and get rid of both 'global apartheid' and 'intra-state apartheid', it has to leap out of this hole beguilingly called 'development aid'. There is no such thing as 'development aid'.

Let me end by saying that I do not believe in 'armchair revolutionaries'. Theory is fine, but it is no substitute for concrete struggle on the ground.

I am pleased and deeply honoured that I can participate in the 'Dennis Brutus Poetry and Protest' colloquium here in Durban. Dennis was a model fighter, with action and lyric, against all forms of oppression, exploitation and injustice.

I am also delighted that I am on the hallowed ground where a young 23-year-old lawyer from India touched the soil of Africa and became the 'Mahatma' Gandhi. Few people remember that he stayed in South Africa for 21 years. This is the apartheid soil where for decades further down thousands sacrificed their life, liberty and property to create a free South Africa.

Nelson Mandela left us the same message as Gandhi. Never, he said, blame the person or the individual; forgive him or her if you have it in your heart to do so. The problem lies with the system. Fight the system.

That too is what I believe.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Yash Tandon recently retired as director of the South Centre in Geneva. This is a short version of his Harold Wolpe lecture, delivered at the University of KwaZulu-Natal for the Time of the Writer festival's Dennis Brutus memorial.
* This article was originally published by The South African Civil Society Information Service.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Salvaging EPA negotiations with Europe

A turning point for Africa

Yash Tandon

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/63120

cc W D MAsymmetric negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between African countries and the European Union, with the power balance in favour of the latter, have created a sense of helplessness among ‘concerned citizens, government circles and indigenous business interests’ that stand to lose out if comprehensive EPA is signed. But all is not lost, says Yash Tandon – there’s ‘still plenty of scope and space to save the situation’.

Much of the discussion around Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) has created a sense of helplessness among concerned citizens, government circles and indigenous business interests who stand to lose if a comprehensive EPA is signed between the countries of Africa and the European Union. However, there is no need for despondency. The situation is not as bad as it looks at first sight. There is still plenty of scope and space to save the situation.

But first we must look at facts as they are. We need neither exaggerate them nor trivialise them. One thing is clear. It is an asymmetrical negotiating situation. The weak and fragmented nations of Africa are trying to negotiate with the powerful combined strength of the countries of Europe negotiating as one. Also Africans are asked to negotiate under terms that are more or less dictated by the European Commission through the combined use of sticks and carrots, rigid time lines, and threats of sanctions – or actual sanctions, as in the case of Zimbabwe.

Nonetheless, we must not create alarm or despondency by exaggerating the dangers of EPAs nor relax our vigilance and alertness by minimising the serious risks we face in Africa if the EPAs do indeed materialise. Matters are of course serious, but they have not reached a no-turning point. Let us look at them dispassionately with a view to first understanding them and then examining a forward strategy that keeps the initiatives in the hands of our people and our governments and that advances our goals of development, the eradication of poverty, industrialisation, and a fair and equitable distribution of the wealth of our nations to the masses of our people.

So let us look at the facts first.

It is true that Africa has been fragmented in the course of the negotiations with the European Union. It is true that the five regional communities which the Abuja Treaty sought to integrate as building blocs for African unity – namely, North Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa – have been divided and sub-divided as a result of the sometimes multilateral but often bi-lateral negotiations between African countries and the European Commission (EC) acting for the European Union (EU). Thus, we have the curious phenomenon, for example, that Zambia and Zimbabwe who were the original members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) find themselves negotiating not within the SADC framework but within a peculiar hybrid called the Eastern African Region EPA grouping. Much of this division and sub-division has taken place at the insinuation of the EC; but our leaders too have allowed themselves to be so divided and sub-divided.

Notwithstanding this most unfortunate development, it is still time to remind our leaders of the commitments they had made in the Abuja Treaty and their pledges to advance the cause of African Unity. They cannot be at peace with themselves if they become the authors of Africa’s fragmentation and balkanisation. History and future generations will never absolve them.

In the Southern African region, it is true that Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique (BLSM) have signed the Interim Economic Partnership Agreements (IEPAs) in June 2009. It is important to understand why they have chosen to do so. It is important to understand their fears of the consequences of not signing the IEPAs. And it is important to address their concerns and suggest to them concrete and meaningful alternatives.

To start with, rightly or wrongly, they may be nursing the fear that without signing the IEPAs they might lose the preferential access for their products in the European market. Or they may fear that without the IEPAs, they may not secure ‘development aid’ from the European Union.

This is a factual matter. It is an empirical issue. It requires a fair minded diligent researcher qualified in economics and finance to look at what sectors in BLSM stand to lose had they not signed the IEPAs, and to verify whether they would indeed lose out the so-called ‘development aid’. It is also important to ask the negotiators of BLSM whether it is indeed worth their while to beg for this so-called ‘aid’ if the conditions attached to it make them subservient to the will of the EU, and, furthermore, to isolate them from the rest of the Southern African development community. These are serious issues with profound consequences both for them as individual countries and for the region as a whole.

The rest of the SADC community, in any case, must not look at Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique as ‘deviants’ or as having betrayed the cause of regional integration. There are still many issues that they and the EC have not agreed yet, including export taxes, quantitative restrictions, the issue of food security, and the Most Favoured Nation clause. This shows that these countries are not negotiating blindly. Each of these issues is a minefield. Each of these, if badly handled, can have profound consequences for the development of these countries in the future.

Take the issue of export taxes, for example. The EPAs, if finally concluded, will disallow BLSM countries to impose new export taxes or increase existing ones. Why are the Europeans so keen on disallowing new export taxes to BLSM? Well, because the EU is interested in their commodities and minerals which are critical to the growth of EU's own manufacturing industries. Somehow, our leaders in Africa are always made to believe (often by ‘experts’ or ‘consultants’ paid out of EC funds) that ‘we in Africa need them more than EU needs us.’ This is completely wrong-headed; in fact, matters are the other way round. Europe is in desperate need for African natural resources. If they do not secure these, they will lose them to China or India or Brazil, or other players in the global competition for resources.

So there is no reason why, provided they stand together, BLSM or any other African country should succumb to pressures from the EC. BLSM should not agree to block the policy option to new export taxes or increasing existing ones. It helps the EU; it does not help BLSM. Also, furthermore, export taxes are an important source for BLSM to secure revenue and also for encouraging their own industrial sectors. Why should BLSM lose these? If they believe that the EU would somehow compensate them for the loss of revenue or for the loss of industrial opportunities, then they would have given up what they already have in their hands in return for what they may never get in the future. Losing the proverbial bird in hand and chasing after the one that is flying in the air is no wisdom.

Or take the issue of the Most Favoured Nations (MFN) clause. It is one of those flawed principles of the global trading system, one that has never been followed in the real world, that says that if a country grants trade concessions to one country, it must grant them also to other third countries. The EU wants BLSM to sign this. But why should they? If they signed the MFN, it would bind them to ensure that any trade concession that they grant to a country enjoying more than a one percent share of world merchandise exports – such as India or China for example – is automatically extended to the EU too. Once again, BLSM could be sacrificing what they could gain from bilateral or multilateral South-South trade and services agreement for practically nothing in return from the EU. They would also, of course, isolate themselves from the rest of Africa and the rest of the Third World. So BLSM should not sign MFN under the EPAs.

These are only two examples from a number of issues that still remain unsettled between BLSM and the EU. So the situation is not as bad as it looks. BLSM should negotiate on all these issues as a package, as a block. They should insist on the WTO principle of ‘single undertaking’ – namely, that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. For otherwise, the whole idea of ‘give and take’ in the negotiating process loses meaning.



Of course BLSM are not the only countries in a dilemma. What applies to BLSM also applies, even more strongly, to Zimbabwe. In September 2009 Zimbabwe, in spite of ferocious EU sanctions against the country, signed an IEPA with the EU. It was both perplexing and surprising. Was it an attempt to appease the EU? Did the Zimbabwe government really believe that if it did not sign the IEPA it would lose out on market access to the EU? Or did they think that if they signed the IEPA, there would be great doles of ‘development aid’ pouring into the country?

Once again, there are still many issues of disagreement between Zimbabwe and the EU including export taxes, quantitative restrictions, the issue of land and food security, and the MFN clause. Zimbabwe should not yield to any of these even if, in return, the EU agrees to lift the sanctions. Lifting the sanctions could become a bait to get the country to sign a more comprehensive EPA. But this would make Zimbabwe hostage to policies decided in Brussels and other capitals of Europe, and not in Harare. Zimbabwe would look foolish (to put it diplomatically) if it fought for land sovereignty and then lost the larger economic and political sovereignty on the EPA issue!

Above all, for Zimbabwe (as indeed for Zambia), it is time to reconsider whether they wish to be part of the ‘Eastern African’ group (just because the EC put them into that box), or whether they should return to the SADC, of which, after all, they were the founding members. At least Zambia has chosen not to sign the IEPA, which further compounds the perplexity of why Zimbabwe chose to sign it. The Zambia Minister of Commerce, Felix Mutati, who was the chief negotiator in the ESA grouping, was clear about why it was not the time to sign the IEPA.

Coming back to the SADC region (where Zimbabwe and Zambia should be), besides BLSM, of the other members of the group, the majority have refused to sign the IEPA. Namibia's minister for trade and industry, Hage Geingob, is reported to have said: ’A partnership means that all partners are equal. Why else would you include the word partnership in the EPA? It also means transparency.’ Namibia is not happy with the process by which the EC is handling the negotiations, on top, of course, of the more substantive issues, such as export tariffs, quantitative restrictions and the MFN. Angola too has refused to sign an IEPA. There is nothing that the EC would not do to tie down Angola to an Interim EPA, if it could. Angola has oil and other resources that the EU needs badly, and if Europe does not get its act together quickly, it could lose Angola forever to the Chinese, Indian, the Brazilians and others. Brazil, in fact, has an advantage of language and common historical experience over Portugal and the rest of Europe put together.

And, there is, of course, South Africa. It too has not signed the IEPA. Here the negotiations are even more dense and complex than those with the smaller countries, for there is much at stake, on both sides. Of course, the experience of the earlier Free Trade Agreement between the EU and South Africa has left a bitter taste on the South African side, especially on the issue of the ‘geographic indicators’ on wines and spirits. The MFN clause, in particular, is a big issue. Can South Africa really afford to extend to the EU any trade, services or investment concessions that it chooses to make to India, China, Brazil, Russia, the US and other trading blocs and investment partners? If it did so, what would be the consequences for South African companies that are trying to hold onto the South African market (let alone the Southern African regional market), and resources? What would be the implications for the currently explosive issue of unemployment and social unrest? These are serious questions, and South Africa can ill afford to get in bed with Europe under the terms and conditions on offer from Europe.

In fact, time has come for South Africa to offer an understanding and benign leadership to the region, especially to the countries in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU). It would not do well for South Africa, for example, to tighten its borders with Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, which South Africa might be tempted to do in pursuit of short-term gain or protection of short term interests (for what could turn out to be also short-sighted). Some in South Africa might argue that this is necessary in order to prevent European goods enjoying easier rules of origin or lower tariff levels in the BLS countries from entering South Africa through SACU regime. But if this argument prevailed, and South Africa tightened its borders, then such a measure would be a triumph for the European Union’s ceaseless effort to divide and rule this part of the world. South Africa should ponder carefully before taking such a step.

South Africa might also want to review the formula and the basis for allocating customs revenue to the SACU countries. There is a common perception in South Africa that it is already doing enough to provide a more than reasonable share of the common customs revenue to these countries. Indeed, it is known that some of these countries get 60 per cent of state revenue through SACU. So it is to some extent a factual question. But it is, above all, a political question, not one of arithmetic or even just finances. Can South Africa afford to push the SACU countries into the laps of the European Union? Can South Africa afford to allow Europe to divide Africa once again? What is needed is an understanding leadership from all sides, and skilful negotiations that are not based on reprisals or retribution but on a long-term pursuit of objectives that benefit the entire population of the region that share the same space and the same historical memory.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This is an extract from a speech given at the Harold Wolpe Memorial Trust, Cape Town on 9 March 2010.
* Yash Tandon’s full speech, including conclusions and recommendations, is available from the Harold Wolpe Memorial Trust.
* Professor Yash Tandon is chairman of SEATINI and senior advisor (formerly executive director) at the South Centre, Geneva. He is author of Development and Globalisation: Daring to Think Differently, published by Pambazuka Press (ISBN 1-906387-51-6).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Fear and loathing lurk below the rationality

L. Muthoni Wanyeki

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/63107

Is it possible to have an open debate on the areas of disagreement that have emerged on the Kenyan constitution? Theoretically, yes. Realistically, no.

It is increasingly clear that the protagonists who have emerged are being dishonest.

We have all spent a great deal of time trying to respond rationally to what have been placed on the table as rationally considered positions.

We have done so in the belief that reasonable accommodations can be reached.

But what is on the table, it appears, is not what underlies these positions – and the underlying motives are both hidden as well as more emotional than reasonable – and thus far more difficult to engage.

Take this week’s about-turn by parliament on the consensus-building retreat. It took many by surprise.

Why the insistence on staying in parliament to debate the proposed constitution by, in particular, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), especially when a member of the ODM had actually moved the motion to adjourn for the retreat?

The answer was that the ODM wanted all debate to be in the public domain.

The reason for this is obvious if one goes back to the first retreat of the Parliamentary Select Committee to consider the draft constitution first proposed by the Committee of Experts.

The ODM’s representatives to that retreat were not only unable to maintain cohesiveness among the troops – given the apparently common ground between some of its troops and the Party of National Unity (PNU) – the ODM was also absolutely outnumbered in terms of technical support.

Why that is so is a question that the ODM’s leadership needs to seriously consider and address, because finding itself so outnumbered has happened before, on matters of equal importance, including its handling of the Independent Review Commission.

Something is clearly wrong with it when it comes to preparing and strategising for processes that matter.

But that is an aside. The point really is that the apparent decision was to let matters lie at that retreat and resume the battle in parliament, where the positions of individual ODM members would be clearly visible to the public (and contrary positions thus more difficult to take) and where the PNU’s technical support team (drawn also from public officeholders, it must be said, which is not acceptable for party matters) could not hold so much sway.

This is another example of dishonest engagement.

Take the position of almost all the mainstream Christian churches (minus that of the Seventh Day Adventists) on the Kadhis courts.

Supposedly rational position after rational position has been trotted out on why these courts should no longer be entrenched in the constitution.

The most seemingly logical argument has been that Kenya as a secular state should treat all religions equally, which conveniently ignores their simultaneous demand that the constitution should close all legal doors on choice and the termination of pregnancy, which is a religious rather than a secular position.

It equally conveniently ignores the fact that our constitution is actually founded on Judaeo-Christian values, and that demanding that Muslims submit to it without special consideration would be, in effect, to treat Muslims differently.

But that is also an aside, because the real reasons that this position is so strongly held probably lie elsewhere.

Primarily (from my unscientific inquiry into the matter) this is in two unspoken beliefs: first, that constitutional entrenchment of family/personal law jurisdiction would lead, in some unexplained way, to constitutional entrenchment of criminal law jurisdiction (Sharia), despite the fact that I have not heard a single Muslim leader or organisation in this country propose, for the entire span of my not-so-short life, the desire for such expansion and; second, that the experience Africa-wide demonstrates, apparently beyond doubt, that Muslim-majority states have no tolerance for other constitutional values, such as respect for religious majorities.

Ignore for a minute the fact that that we do not live in a Muslim-majority state so the situation feared does not exist.

Ignore too the fact that this is a gross generalisation, even if it were true that previously tolerant Muslim-majority states are increasingly having to deal with the growth of religious fundamentalism.

Ignore also the fact that the growth of religious fundamentalism is also a Christian problem (and I personally would not want to live in a state controlled by either Christian or Muslim fundamentalists).

Focus instead on the implications of this belief, which are that Muslims are homogenous in how they approach constitutional values and religious minorities.

With such a focus it is clear that this belief is not just prejudicial and stereotypical – it is wrong.

Yes, it is true that we all need to focus not just on those discriminated against for one reason or another, but also on how those discriminated against address discrimination themselves.

Recently, for example, a Muslim leader, who expected the broader human rights community to address the fallout of the Al Faisal debacle, refused to shake my hand – presumably because I’m a non-believer and a woman.

And recently too, another Muslim leader (in happy concert with a Christian leader I might add) has clearly been behind the incitement to violence not just against those believed to be gay but also against a HIV/AIDS service provider offering healthcare to men who have sex with men in Mtwapa.

Both of these situations are clearly anti-constitutional values, anti-human rights and anti-rule of law.

But these two situations cannot be taken as representative of the full spectrum of Muslim (or Christian) belief and behaviour. They are not.

Debate on the fundamentals of religious belief is as old as time and as widespread as human beings who hold to a given faith are.

Debate on the relationship of the same to the state is equally so.

Struggles that swing the debate one way or another are inevitable, informed often by experiences of exclusion and how that exclusion seeks to be addressed.

The final point is that we will not get anywhere if we do not have a discussion on the constitution in an honest way, a way that fully unveils all the fears that underlie stated rational positions. It is incumbent on all of us to try to be completely honest as we proceed.

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* L. Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.
* This article was originally published by The East African.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Make way for a new Nigeria

Horace Campbell

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/63119

Who can trust the ruling elements in Nigeria? They cannot organise the transfer of power among themselves. News of forward planning by strategic planners continues to come out in the media and the management of information continues to elude the tense coalition. Their children who were sent to ‘proper’ schools can no longer be trusted.

What is emerging is a new level of vigilance among Nigerians and their allies who can expose mischief making. New connections are being made on digital platforms from home and abroad as young Nigerians engage this new period with a determination to bring peace to their society. These connections on digital platforms are being reproduced by those who carry names that place the saving of Nigeria as a priority. It is this vigilance that will expose all Nigerians to the messages and inspiration from freedom fighters such as Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem and Fela Kuti.

I went to see the musical FELA! on Broadway in New York City last December. It reflects that there has always been a cultural storm deep inside Nigeria, a reminder of the long traditions of cultural resistance in the villages, towns and hamlets of Nigeria. In this new century, the society is moving from resistance and fear to transformation. This is witnessed by the numerous forces who want to advance the vision of Tajudeen.

The forward planners are in a quandary. For a long time, the ruling elements in Nigeria were able to play the divide and rule tactics while enriching themselves. But now, they can neither organise the maintenance of power nor keep control of their children.

TAJUDEEN AS AN INSPIRATION FOR YOUTHS

It is imperative for the youth to know about Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem so that, against the backdrop of the newly found fame of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, young Nigerians can make a distinction between the politics of liberation and the politics of oppression and distress. This is all the more important as imperial planners and their local allies fear liberation and emancipation.

Tajudeen was born in Funtua, Katsina State in Northern Nigeria in 1961. He came from a decent family who worked hard to send him to school and rise above mediocrity and insecurity. Tajudeen was a Rhodes Scholar who went to the highest institution of learning in Britain, Oxford University. He was a unifier who used his sharp mind and training to work for the unity, independence and liberation of Africa. He had a great sense of humour, which he used to win new forces to the causes of peace, sharing and cooperation. In short, Tajudeen lived the principles of Ubuntu. He was selfless and did not crave crude materialism. A forthright person who feared no power, Tajudeen was willing and able to speak and organise for the most oppressed sections of society. He was a follower of the Islamic faith but he castigated the fundamentalists who manipulated the poor, whether these fundamentalists called themselves Christians or Muslims.

When there was a sigh of relief in imperial centres at the passing of Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem and his vibrant African optimism, the importance of the home state of Tajudeen came into international prominence through the actions of the misguided and clearly manipulated young Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Tajudeen may be looking down from among the ranks of the ancestors and asking himself: Why are they going into my region to continue to divide my people. He continues to inspire us to popularise his writings on peace, transformation and democratic participation so that the youths can understand that there are real choices. Soon, Tajudeen’s postcards, edited by Ama Biney and Adebayo Olukoshi, will be available for the youths who will understand the essence of ’Speaking Truth to Power’. The title of the selected postcards is not by accident because there is a new ethic in international politics, the politics of Truth. This new politics of truth is spreading like wildfire, blowing away the politics of lies, deception and double-dealing.

As the youths eagerly await this new tract of ‘Speaking Truth to Power’, teachers all over the country should be getting ready to translate this book into as many languages as possible and to enliven an interest in having the messages read in as many places as possible. Imperial planners had been taken aback by the boldness of Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem and his vision of the youths standing up for Africa. His writings, his messages, and his speeches had been reaching a small number of youths across Africa but he was not well known in his home country. The global Pan African movement will ensure that as an ancestor, Tajudeen will be better known than as a mortal.



In the corridors of foundations and think tanks, there is consternation. Many questions were being asked after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was arrested in Detroit for the attempted destruction of an aircraft: How could the child of one of our allies and someone we trained be seduced by ideas where he would sacrifice himself? Where did we lose him? Yet they were asking the wrong questions and would only get wrong answers. Even in the midst of this tragic episode for Nigerians and US citizens, the planners of war manipulate this incident to increase insecurity and fear for the travelling public, while at the same time causing anxiety for all Nigerians.

The radicalisation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab sent shock waves through society because he was supposed to have been trained properly. His parents ensured that he learnt proper English, he was shipped out of Nigeria to a proper British boarding school in Togo, and from there dispatched to the United Kingdom. They were saying to themselves: ‘We ensured that this young man did not get exposed to radical elements such as Tajudeen, Fela, Eskor Toyo and the millions of patriotic Nigerians who had been working for peace and transformation.’ Imperial planners had been paying close attention to the work of Tajudeen and his friends who were campaigning for true democracy and development.

And yet, the enemies of peace had learnt well from Western intelligence forces. After all, Bin Laden was from one of the most well to do Saudi families when the US intelligence operatives recruited him to be a campaigner for radical and counter-revolutionary Islam that called for young people to blow themselves up as suicide bombers. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was just as cocooned as Bin Laden living in his multi million dollar flat in London.

Farouk was sheltered from the harsh realities that ordinary Nigerians face daily Yet, even in this privilege, Farouk could not escape the confusion and contradiction inherent in the goals of liberty and inequality and the vast gulf that divided imperialism from the peoples who want peace and justice. The clear lesson of this episode is for the rich in Nigeria to bring home their wealth and invest in the reconstruction of Nigerian schools and places of learning. This is what Tajudeen was doing in Funtua. And the best form of penance that the father of Abdulmutallab can do is to donate all of his wealth to building new educational institutions so that never again will children be brainwashed to the point where they lose hope so that they plan to commit suicide.

Farouk was not radicalised in Nigeria, and Nigerians must not suffer because of his actions. Nigerians are correct to oppose the criminalisation and demonisation of Nigeria consequent to the attempted bombing that has caused the US to place Nigeria on the terrorist watch list.

Tajudeen and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab shared some things in common. First, they were from Katsina state. Secondly, they were both followers of Islam and thirdly, they both studied in the United Kingdom. These similarities may hide the wide gulf between Tajudeen (who would have been called a commoner) and the wealth and privilege of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Young persons such as Farouk have lost hope, and it is the spirit of Tajudeen that we are invoking to remind these youths that there is a higher goal to live for than to commit suicide. Committing suicide and taking innocent lives is not part of the African revolutionary tradition. What is going on is indeed counter-revolutionary violence.

NIGERIANS WANT PEACE AND RECONSTRUCTION

With every passing day, one is witnessing the collapse of the cultural and political world of the old ruling forces in Nigeria. From every region there is call for a new definition of independence and emancipation. Religious fundamentalism will die a slow death just as it did in the pre-independence era when the so called moral re-armament movement sought to divert Nigerians from the bold Pan African vision of Kwame Nkrumah, Zik and other founding mothers and fathers of independence. The re-definition of emancipation is not simply a Nigerian project, just as the question of the destruction of the Niger Delta is not simply a project for the peoples of this region. Boldness is required so that the debate on emancipation builds on all the positive and negative lessons, from Lumumba to Mandela, to Tajudeen. Last week we reminded our brothers and sisters that emancipation cannot be a male project. There must be a robust discussion of the efficacy of armed military struggles in a period of insecurity and divisions. What about revolutionary non-violence and defensive planning that will expose provocateurs? Vigilance among Pan Africanists, should be most sustained in support for the Nigerian people at this moment. The youth, especially, must be vigilant against manipulation, and should non-violently organise to sustain alternative sources of power, as well as resist any attempt by local politicians and foreign predators to repeat the repression, destabilisation, and plundering that the Nigerian people were subjected to under the military dictators.

The gradual transition to democracy since 1999 has reached a critical stage. It is so critical the transition is now on its deathbed. Will the transition survive? That is the question. As Bob Marley sang, ‘we are confident of the victory of good over evil.’ But this confidence does not mean that the forces of peace must rest, instead they must intensify their effort to ensure that the transition survives. And this question can only be answered by the active engagement of the people. The transition to peace and popular democracy cannot be decided by those who oppose democratic participation and popular expression. The political health of the country is also linked to the provision of services such as health care. A comatose society is not to be feared. What is to be feared is a healthy, vibrant society imbued with African optimism and the kind of cultural outpourings that can lift the spirit of the youth.

WE MUST ORGANISE, NOT AGONISE

Nigerians of all classes, but especially patriots, must shun attempts by the political and economic bourgeois class to use them to incite ethnic and religious violence. They should tap into the inherent strength of their linguistic and religious diversity, the teeming and intelligent youthful population and organise from the grassroots to bring about the social, political and cultural transformation that the country yearns for.

In the spirit of Tajudeen, those of us who stand for peace and social justice in the pan African world and globally must stand by the women and children that are being exploited and massacred in Nigeria; we have an obligation to expose those that are fomenting crisis to justify militarism and exploitation. We must support our Nigerian brothers and sisters who are resisting leaders that masquerade themselves as Pan Africanists and yet call for the division of Nigeria along religious lines.

Such leaders have failed in their attempts to manipulate and trivialise Africa’s unity for their personal aggrandisement. We must now make them realise that they do not have any credible voice in the struggle for true democracy and transformation in Nigeria. We must use new modes of communication to join in solidarity with grassroots organisers who are resisting the subjugation of self-interested elements within and outside Nigeria.

The Nigerian ruling class must also be made to understand that regard for the humanity of the people of Nigeria is more important than the political career of any individual or political cabal. It is also becoming clearer that it is not only imperial centres that fear Nigeria and Nigerians. The utterances of Colonel Gaddafi that Nigeria should be divided into two exposes the misleaders across Africa who fear a strong and united Nigeria and a strong and united Africa.

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* 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.

'We call upon the right to work…'

Unemployed People's Movement

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/63121

UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT (UPM)

“We call upon the right to work…”

69 “C” Nompondo Street, Gehamstown, 6139
Contacts: 072 299 5253, 078 625 6462, 073 578 3661
Email: xola.mali@yahoo.com, ayandakota@webmail.co.za

15 March 2010

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS ARE FIGHTING FOR A GOOD CAUSE - WE ARE NOT CRIMINALS

Unemployment is hovering at around 70 percent in Grahamstown. The most affected are young people, including graduates. Unemployment in Grahamstown has increased in the past few years. Several industries that provided employment have closed down. These include the railway industry: the line between Grahamstown and Alicedale, which used to be the core railway junction in South Africa before the mid-1990's, was closed down. A kaolin (white clay used in the manufacture of ceramics, medicine, coated paper, in toothpaste, light bulbs, cosmetics and porcelain) processing factory was also closed down. The Municipality now exports kaolin, in the process making jobs outside Grahamstown. A poultry firm has also been closed down. The Makana Municipality is not creating any labour absorbing activities to absorb the unemployment created by the closure of these industries.

The services sector in Grahamstown, such as Rhodes University and the Grahamstown Arts Festival, has not created enough jobs to compensate. Jobs that are created usually require specific skills or are temporary or casual in nature. This sector has not done enough to address the plight of the unemployed. The scale of human suffering this problem is causing must not be underestimated. The rate of crime has increased, especially in the township. The liquor and drugs industries are the fastest growing industries. There have been a number of suicide cases, and some unemployed people have died due to stress. Families are breaking down, and women and children are being abused.

The Auditor General's report which was tabled at a special council meeting last month revealed that Makana Municipality did not account for at least R26-million and that it did not claim for VAT input on the expenditure incurred during that financial year.

Grahamstown’s ostrich product exporters, have conducted tests over the last two years and found that chlorine levels in the local water have been erratic and at times fall below the level which keeps our drinking water bacteria-free. If chlorine levels drop below the standard, the amount of bacteria will increase and drinking it could lead to illness and disease. In the Makana region over November and December there were a total of 25 infant deaths due to diarrhoea, according to the municipality's account at the recent social services, community empowerment and protection services meeting.

There is backlog in service delivery. RDP house in Vukani are falling down due to inferior quality and poor workmanship. The problem with the houses is structural, weak bricks, leaking water pipes, roofs, drains and toilets. The story of RDP houses in our area is a story of fraud, general mismanagement and corruption. When we approached the municipality that the roofs are leaking we were given black plastic bags to cover the roofs. On the 25th February we lost Comrade Nomiki Ncamiso, she died due to pneumonia related illness. She lived in Vukani in a house that was hit by tornado, the wall fell on her and she was given a black plastic bag by Makana Municipality for replacement of the wall. The roof is crumbling down and the whole house will fall anytime soon. She died fighting with the Makana Municipality, demanding that the RDP houses be repaired fearing for the health of her family and children who may get TB or pneumonia due to cold. She knew little that she will be the first victim.

When we go to the streets and stage gatherings, demanding service delivery, we are shot with rubber bullets, we are pepper sprayed and we are jailed. The president of this country calls us criminals. The police have been given the right to shoot and kill us. Our comrades in Balfour are in hiding because the police are looking for them and they will be shot and killed. Their families have been harassed and tortured. Our comrades in Durban, Abahlali baseMjondolo are constantly under siege from the ruling party and government syndicates. Comrades in Western Cape have been abducted and tortured for no apparent reason. Comrade Nozipho Mnteshana was placed under house arrest for t5he period of not less than 18months, to frustrate her and her children, reason for leading the march of the unemployed people in Durban. We have witnessed kids being shot and wounded in these demonstrations.

This is the admission that this society continue to be entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself that it is left into irreconcilable antagonisms that it is powerless to dispel. A state must preserve the status quo; the state must protect the property clause enshrined in the constitution. The state is the institution of violence.

We are not criminals but criminals are those who want to bind us to perpetual servitude. Tenderpreneurs who profited from more than R130m worth of tenders in just two years are criminals; it is Malemas of this world who should be jailed not us. It is the construction company that built Vukani houses that must be jailed not us. It is the corrupt government officials, from Zuma to the councillor in Grahamstown that must be jailed not us. They profited from more than R38 billion tenders of Arms Deal, they profited from the travel gate scandal and they continue to plunder the resources of our country.

The courage and determination of the struggle during the apartheid must serve as an example to the oppressive regime of the Zuma administration that the more you suppress the people the more they resist. It is trough those struggle that we have the Zuma administration today and it is through the street protest and mass mobilization that we will topple this capitalist government and the tenderpreneurs that defend it in the language of the left.

As social movements we can learn from such struggles by re-examining the programme, strategy and tactics, learn from the experience, the triumphs and failures and see how we can apply these lessons today.

We are not criminals but we are in a cause to retaliate against syndicates who are looting our resources, we are retaliating against government thugs and mafias who are enriching themselves under the pretext that they did not join the struggle to be poor, so we did not join the struggle to enrich the few. We remain true soldiers who are committed to the question of truth.

Ayanda Kota
Chairperson
Unemployed People’s Movement
Tel: 0786256462

African journalists oppose ‘unsound’ draft press law in Uganda

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/63140

According to Uganda Journalists Union (UJU), an affiliate of FAJ and IFJ, the proposed bill has several draconian, autocratic and vaguely worded articles and clauses which will restrict severely freedom of the media and the right of journalists to provide impartial, independent and credible information to Ugandan people ahead of elections.

Under the bill, which is currently in the cabinet, newspapers would require to renew their licenses annually and will also be barred from publishing “material that is detrimental to national security, stability and unity or any matters injurious to Uganda’s relations with its neighbors and friends as well as news that amounts to economic sabotage”.

“This bill contains dangerous provisions which could curtail press freedom in Uganda and exert excessive pressure on the exercise of professional journalism in Uganda,” said Omar Faruk Osman, FAJ President. “We support the protests by the journalism community in Uganda against the unprecedented threat to independent-minded journalists and critical newspapers”.

The FAJ says the Ugandan media community has been very actively addressing the challenges facing their freedom to receive and impart information without intimidation, but the Ugandan government chose not to carry out consultations with media stakeholders and civil society groups while drafting the new law.

“We demand the Ugandan government to suspend this Bill and allow a dialogue with journalists and media houses, based on fundamentals standards of freedom of expression,” Omar Faruk added. “We are concerned that, if passed in its current form, these ill-defined clauses in this bill will be used as instruments of repression”.

The FAJ has been campaigning for the implementation of the principles of press freedom stipulated in Windhoek Declaration on Media Independence and Pluralism on the African continent. The move of Ugandan government would threaten these principles of press freedom if the Press and Journalists (Amendment) Bill 2010 is enacted.


For more information contact +221 33 867 95 87
The FAJ represents over 50,000 journalists in 36 countries in Africa

Eulogy to Fatima Meer

Ashwin Desai

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/obituary/63144

I love and respect Fatima Meer so much that to speak of her in any terms other than those in which she presented herself to the world would be a betrayal of this icon – my icon. My heart is broken at her passing but my lungs are filled with esteem.

Fatima Meer – or 'the Auntie' as we referred to her behind her back – was nothing less than the spiritual leader of the strivings for social justice and equality we have seen in South Africa post-1994. This is a massive claim but it is deserved and it is true.

This is not to deny or forget her epic contribution to the struggles against apartheid in which she featured as a trailblazing female revolutionary. This is not to deny the deep and endearing comradeships she formed with the generation of Congress leaders to which she belonged, people such as Winnie and Nelson Mandela, Albert Luthuli, Monty Naicker and Yusuf Dadoo. It is not for me to speak of these times or dare to render these relationships.

But I have seen the photographs and I have fallen in love with her over and over again, standing behind the mo-town microphones on soapboxes in the 1950s, delicate waist but eyes blazing with a passion for an unseen future.

But it was her conduct after apartheid that distinguished Fatima Meer as probably the greatest champion of freedom that South Africa has known. This is because she is the only one of that grave and distinguished generation who were able, analytically and with no end of courage, to also contest the outcome of the liberation struggle in which they participated when it became clear that this outcome had been compromised. She was the only major liberation figure to organise against ANC (African National Congress) parliamentarians when they did the same things to black people that the Tri-Cam did.

I met Fatima Meer in 1999 when she was campaigning for the ANC for the Indian vote in Chatsworth. She quickly realised that disenchantment with the former liberation movement did not stem from racism or apathy but that people in these poor areas were under direct attack by the ANC municipality. Their lights and water were being cut, they were being evicted. A granny, Begaim Govindsamy, older than Fatima by a year, had been turfed out of her council flat in the pursuit of cost-recovery. This is the other photograph that I treasure. Fatima went to Begaim Govindsamy’s poky flat and said, 'We will not move.' Fatima switched tack. She stopped campaigning for votes and started rebuilding resistance. Out of that refusal to simply tow the party line, social movements in Durban were born.

Fatima is not some safe anti-apartheid icon, although there will be many efforts to cast her as such, to claim her and neutralise her legacy. Fatima Meer was the grandmother of social-delivery protests that, right now, have this government, her movement, in panic mode. And a proud grandmother she was of these troubles too.

She recognised how the poor were on the receiving end of GEAR (Growth, Employment and Redistribution). At the height of the authoritarianism of Thabo Mbeki and his cabinet, with people dying of an AIDS virus that did not exist, at the height of water disconnections and a cholera epidemic that did not exist, Fatima Meer became a resistance fighter once more. Her role was not symbolic. She marched, or rolled when her legs became weak. She wrote and read memoranda before thousands at the World Conference against Racism denouncing ANC policies. She gave interviews supporting the protests. She raised funds. She harangued officials. She courted arrest. Above all this, she let it be known that she had taken these new stirrings of dissent and criticism of the ANC under her wing. She gave those involved so much cover. It is no exaggeration to say that without her name and protection, we would have been smashed.

And it was not as if Fatima was untouchable. Mbeki’s vile henchmen and spin doctors took her to task. She was old, she was out of touch, she was bitter, she was never that sound from the beginning. But Fatima had strength and she had mettle.

God, did she have mettle. Remember that this was the time when protests against the ANC and for service delivery were unheard of. This was a time when the NIA (National Intelligence Agency) pounced as soon as someone coughed 'Phantsi GEAR'. The Malemas, the Blades, the Zumas are Johnny-come-latelys. Fatima Meer saw the Mbeki era for what it was – and said so – years before it was fashionable or safe to do so. What I am saying is that she made it possible to ask questions about the outcome of our struggles, to imagine a return to civil protest – that the ANC with its claims to historical and moral pre-eminence – had successfully absorbed or crushed.

The social movements that Fatima Meer and people like Dennis Brutus supported are largely a spent force. The initial energies that invigorated them have been trapped in innumerable court cases. Andile Mngxitama recently remarked at the Time of the Writer that Durban shackdweller movements, which were initially militant and independent, have now taken to begging for permission to march; they cast themselves as responsible, governable citizens and their rage has become white-anted by the academics and middle-class sympathizers who write them up.

The striving for justice that Fatima embodied has now moved over to the largely leaderless, supposedly ideology-less 'service delivery protests'. Fatima knew that eruptions such as in Sakhile were necessary. Our society is built on unsustainable exclusions and privileges, she warned. It is built on myths of unity and opportunity that no sporting event can re-animate. Our society is ordered towards making the rich comfortable. The movements we have built over decades are rotten to the core and the ideas that now dominate them (tenders, hotel suites, fancy cars, state power and prestige) must be swept away. Throughout her life Fatima knew that power yields to nothing other than power.

Ironically the death of Fatima Meer also allows us to say new things about power in South Africa. She is one of the last leaders of a generation that were so grand and strong and beautiful and principled in their day that it was almost impossible for us to imagine ourselves not consulting with them or not waiting for them to speak. Moreover, we could not imagine abandoning the legacies that they had built, like the Congress movement, the Alliance, the Constitution, the new South Africa.

Now that these golden statues of the era of the 1950s and 1960s are going unto dust, it is only the bronze men, the dollar green men, the clay-footed men, the tender men and women, the BMW and Gucci comrades who stand between us and our dreams and desires for a new world. These hollow intellectuals, these spin doctors, these grubby com-tsotsis, who are they to stand in our way, when we have been fed the food of the greats and shown the way to stand up and fight?

I used to resent this generation for not delivering the promised land. Now I can appreciate that they have taken us halfway. And this was very far indeed. This laudable generation are dead or dying, and this means we are now free to sweep the intermediaries, the usurpers of our struggle from the nests they have made in our movements.

We will not miss you Fatima, we will proudly remember you. We will not mourn you, we will be grateful that you took a chance at educating and struggling with us. We will not honour you but will, Insha’Allah, take forward your struggle for justice for all.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Fatima Meer: Reminded of society’s unfulfilled desires

(1928-2010)

Patrick Bond and Orlean Naidoo

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/obituary/63122

‘Impoverished people, people who haven’t got food on their plates. Now you are going to take away the roof from their heads. And where do you expect these people to go? You are just compounding their indigency. Then you move in with these security guards and dogs and guns. Now if this is not fascist brutality, what is fascist brutality?’

The scene could have been an apartheid-era forced removal, with a brave black activist haranguing the white regime. But this question was asked of the new government by Fatima Meer exactly a decade ago, at the peak of the Chatsworth housing battle, on the SABC show ‘Special Assignment’.

The unity of poor black African and Indian people fighting city government impressed Meer. She had come to Chatsworth a year earlier as part of the Concerned Citizens Group of mainly Indian struggle veterans, campaigning for a vote for the African National Congress at a time minority parties were gaining ground.

Always nimble, Meer did a quick U-turn. On a Sunday shortly before the 1999 national election, the Jankipersadh family faced the threat of eviction from a Chatsworth shack. Shocked by the living conditions she encountered, Meer stayed to fight, cajoling and threatening city officials to halt the Jankiperasdh removal. Clearly intimidated, KwaZulu-Natal premiere Zweli Mkhize recalled this very incident at her state funeral on Saturday at the Durban International Convention Centre.

Within a year, Meer would be sucking in the smell of post-apartheid teargas that became so familiar in Chatsworth, her eyes streaming tears of anger, her throat coughing up disgust at the local ANC rulers whom she had helped put into power with unmatched courage during the bad years when she was beaten and banned.

A decade ago, the ruling party was not quite so corruption-ridden as now, although state prosecutors’ documentation of Jacob Zuma’s alleged bribery via Schabir Shaik made Durban deal-making at the time seem even sleazier than now, if that’s possible.

But the tendency of Durban officials to crush poor people’s aspirations was just as pronounced. On the week of Meer’s death, it may be Mike Sutcliffe denying local civics the right to march; back then, it was deputy mayor Trevor Bonhomme, bringing in the cops while accusing Meer and other organisers of harbouring shebeens, drug lords and brothels.

Within two years, Meer had not only helped organise the community to successfully resist. She managed to bring together all the fractious campaigning groups within Durban’s poor communities against the World Conference Against Racism. One day at the end of August 2001, the Concerned Citizens Forum of grassroots civics allied with Muslim pro-Palestinians, her beloved Jubilee 2000 anti-debt movement, and other human rights groups from across South Africa and the world.

Rightly, they were infuriated that US secretary of state Colin Powell, UN secretary general Kofi Annan and South Africa’s president Thabo Mbeki had agreed to remove from the conference agenda two critical issues: Racist Israeli Zionism, and reparations for slavery, colonialism and apartheid. Meer and her dear comrade Dennis Brutus led more than 10,000 people in a march against the UN conference that day, and suddenly the idea of South African civil society taking on malgovernance was a reality.

That force was perhaps unique in the country’s history, able to think and act locally, nationally and globally. Writing her obituary in City Press, Meer’s co-conspirator Ashwin Desai now laments that the new urban social movements which emerged on that 1999 Sunday in Chatsworth are a ‘spent force’, but many others in Meer’s circuit will disagree.

For example, from her South Durban birthplace of Wentworth, Desmond D’Sa last month helped launch a new local-global campaign – now more than 200 organisations strong – to halt the World Bank’s financing of Eskom. The activists’ ability to derail a R29 billion loan has apparently worried one of the funeral attendees, minister of public enterprises Barbara Hogan.

Aside from the police squad carrying her casket on Saturday (we imagined her voice inside cajoling them for ongoing ‘fascist brutality’), one reason Meer’s funeral seemed uncomfortable was because civil society was given no opportunity to celebrate the non-ANC causes she lent her prestige to.

She opposed a loan that Hogan – who oversees Eskom – insists we need to fund a new coal-fired plant (the world’s fourth largest) and partial energy generation privatisation, to be paid for by huge increases in tariffs for poor and working people.

Environmentalists, labour and community opponents of the World Bank and Eskom join Meer’s longstanding concern that the Bank must first repay black South Africans reparations, for supporting apartheid-era white power when from 1951-67, Washington financiers lent US$100 million to Eskom but zero African people received electricity.

Meer would have publicly ridiculed the statement by Hogan at a press conference on Friday, just as the great activist passed away: ‘If we do not have that power in our system, then we can say goodbye to our economy and to our country.’

‘Rubbish!’ Meer would have shouted, impatiently explaining that by switching supply away to the common person, away from the over-consumers who get the world’s cheapest electricity, for example, BHP Billiton, we would meet many economic and social objectives, while avoiding construction of new climate-destroying coal plants.

She would have added, we believe, that if no bank loan means the ruling party’s Chancellor House investment in Hitachi does not yield the ZAR1 billion in easy profits anticipated from Eskom’s new coal-fired plants (a business relationship Hogan herself recently implied is unethical), well, too bad for the corrupt ANC!

At the same press conference last Friday where Hogan expressed paranoia, energy minister Dipuo Peters expressed myopia: ‘Wide coverage has been given to those who are opposed to the application by Eskom, whilst we are of the view that the silent majority does indeed support our... acquisition of the World Bank loan.’

So where does Peters get that phrase? According to Wikipedia, ‘the ‘silent majority’ was popularised by US President Richard Nixon in a 3 November 1969 speech, where it referred to those Americans who did not join in the large demonstrations against the Vietnam War at the time… [and has also] been used in the political elections of Ronald Reagan, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg’ – all hostile to poor people and the environment. In this country it was used last by opposition party Congress of the People (COPE) a month before the 2009 election: ‘The people of South Africa, the silent majority are going to deliver a lethal blow to Zuma’s dome-shaped soft belly.’

Meer would have cringed at the irony. Most myopic of all, perhaps, was her old friend Pravin Gordhan, who in London recently made the startling claim that this would be South Africa’s ‘first World Bank loan’ – when in fact there were several others since 1994 (‘Industrial Competitiveness and Job Creation’, ‘Municipal Financial Management Technical Assistance Project’ and destructive Lesotho dams) as well as Bank investments in a failed Domino’s Pizza franchise and similarly well-conceived poverty-reduction strategies.

Meer’s dismay at ANC graft, bling and the youth league leader’s right-wing populism was noted by her brother Farouk at the funeral, but what went missing – especially with Gordhan in attendance – was how revolting she found the Treasury’s ongoing neo liberalism and the dalliance with the World Bank, emblematised by the failed Growth, Employment and Redistribution[pdf] programme which World Bank staff coauthored.

Delivering the Harold Wolpe lecture [pdf] at the Centre for Civil Society in February 2007, Meer observed that the Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) had ‘usurped power in South Africa and the world’ because they ‘are structured to exploit us.’

Gordhan knows this, for he was the Transitional Executive Council economics representative who in December 1993 co-signed the US$850 million IMF loan that pledged her friend Nelson Mandela’s government to painful, neoliberal policies.

On a personal level, we recall how much Meer herself suffered, not only in jail but also here at university. According to Eddie Webster of Wits University, ‘I think the big disappointment in her life is the treatment she got in the sociology department at Natal in the sixties and seventies. Her masters dissertation should have been a PhD but they did not transfer it to PhD status. It was published by Routledge – the top international academic publisher. She was treated by the establishment in a patronising and offensive way.’

So we have now lost Durban’s – and South Africa’s – two most senior civil society scholar-activists in less than eighty days: Dennis Brutus on 26 December and Meer on Friday 12 March. That probably pleases many oppressors in Washington, Pretoria and Durban.

As for the rest of us, the interview Meer did for SABC’s Special Assignment in 2000 provides as clear a mandate as we will ever hear, in light of how there is ‘No commitment at all to the poor people. It’s a very sorry state of affairs. Those of us who can stand up and shout, regardless of how many years we have spent in this life, we must get up and shout.’

With this beautiful voice silenced, surely our responsibility now is to stand up and shout louder still.

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* Patrick Bond and Orlean Naidoo work at the UKZN Centre for Civil Society. Naidoo helps organise Chatsworth against injustice.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Hamba kahle Mama Fatima

In memoriam: Fatima Meer (1928–2010)

Lubna Nadvi

2010-03-17

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/obituary/63103

On 12 March 2010, the world lost one of the greatest icons of struggle against apartheid, a champion of human rights, an advocate of the poor and disenfranchised, an outstanding academic and author and a woman of impeccable integrity and principles. Fatima Meer, also affectionately known as Aunty Bhen to close family and friends, passed away in hospital after suffering a major second stroke.

Penning a tribute to this remarkable individual is no easy feat given the legendary status she holds as one of the most powerful political figures of the 20th century. Having known her very closely – as an academic mentor, political comrade and a mother figure – I feel her loss very deeply. Since her demise a week ago, much has been written about her personal life, academic career and political activism. Apart from her public persona, she was also a wife, a mother, and a grandmother who loved her family dearly. But perhaps her most prolific role was that of being a humanitarian of great distinction, in the mould of Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi and her contemporary Nelson Mandela. At the very core of her being beat the heart of someone who could not bear to see injustice in any form. Her life long fight against injustice – be it apartheid, economic inequality, state repression, religious intolerance or gender inequality – was a testament to the principles she held most dear.

After 1994 – when many of her African National Congress (ANC) comrades opted for a comfortable and often lavish lifestyle, content simply with acquiring personal fame and wealth – she continued to stand firmly on the side of the historically disadvantaged, criticising the ANC-led South African government for its neoliberal economic policies which further marginalised the poor, who had already suffered greatly under apartheid. She was a fierce critic of the state, challenging even her closest friends and struggle comrades when she disagreed with them. In this regard she stood head and shoulders above others and, with perhaps the exception of a few of her comrades such as Dennis Brutus (who also passed away recently), was a towering example of someone who was not co-opted by a regime that has effectively betrayed the very fundamental tenets of the Freedom Charter and the ANC rallying call of a ‘better life for all’.

EARLY LIFE AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM

Fatima Meer was born in Durban in the late 1920s. She was greatly influenced by her father, Moosa Meer, who was the editor of a Durban-based newspaper, Indian Views, and was a strong political voice in his own right. She often reflected great regard for him in her personal musings on my various visits to her house, after she became largely wheelchair bound due to her first stroke. Her husband, Ismail Meer, was another strong political influence in her life. Being a close friend and political comrade of Nelson Mandela, it was inevitable that the Meer and Mandela families became inextricably linked both on a personal and political level: Fatima, Ismail, Nelson and his second wife Winnie Madikizela (and even their children) all experienced arrests and bannings at various intervals. Fatima and Winnie became close, lifelong friends, sharing the trials and tribulations of being wives, mothers and comrades in the anti-apartheid struggle.

Meer entered politics in the 1940s, becoming involved in the Passive Resistance campaign as a young student. After the race riots of 1949, she worked passionately to unite Africans and Indians across the city and country. In 1956, she was one of the leaders of the women’s march to the Union Buildings to protest against the pass laws for women of colour. When her husband was arrested some years later, under a state of emergency, she organised vigils outside the Durban prison where he was held, mobilising the families of all the prisoners who were being held without trial and arranging for food and other forms of support for them.

She also worked closely with Steve Biko in the 1970s and began to embrace the ideas of black consciousness, which became very central to much of her later writing. She was banned and arrested several times for her political activism in the 1970s. Perhaps her most well known political detention was in 1976, with other women activists including Winnie Mandela.

Apart from being recognised for her political activism against racial segregation, Meer was a renowned sociologist and an academic of note. She has the distinction of being the first ‘non-white’ woman to be appointed as an academic at a historically white university in apartheid South Africa. While at Natal University she founded the Institute for Black Research (IBR), which engaged in conducting progressive research that supported historically disadvantaged communities. As an academic and researcher she produced more than 40 books. Her autobiography of Nelson Mandela, ‘Higher than Hope’, is recognised internationally as his first authorised autobiography.

POST-APARTHEID CAMPAIGNS

She remained an engaged academic and public intellectual even after retiring from the University of Natal in the late 1980s. In fact it could be argued that her most powerful political work began in the 1990s, as she began the process of canvassing on behalf of the ANC amongst the Indian community. It was on one such campaign to the Chatsworth community in Durban in 1999 – as part of the Concerned Citizens Group – that she began to realise the full extent of the suffering of the disadvantaged masses even after the end of apartheid.

As Chatsworth residents, particularly the Bayview community, recounted to her their experiences of electricity and water cut offs and evictions by the local municipality officials, she began to take on the post-apartheid regime for their anti-poor policies as vociferously as she had tackled the apartheid state. Chatsworth had been created under apartheid and the group areas act, as an ‘Indian’ township. She assisted the poor and low income residents of the Chatsworth community, now made up of both Indian and African families, in organising themselves as a political formation. In the space of a few years, a mass grassroots movement had emerged in Chatsworth. Organisations like the Bayview Flats Residents Association, formed as a result of Meer’s intervention, was an ideal example of how a group of people, initially helpless against the brutality of the state regime, could eventually become a powerful, political space and refuse to be bullied into submission.

While Meer continued her association with Chatsworth and other communities that were struggling to respond to the state’s neo-liberal impositions, she also became critically involved in a range of global causes and campaigns. In 2001, during the World Conference Against Racism in Durban she famously led a march together with Dennis Brutus of around 20,000 people, who were calling for, amongst other things, the liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation and reparations for the victims of racial injustice.

Meer was passionate about the Palestinian issue and attended and spoke at several rallies, marches and events held in solidarity with Palestine. When the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and led a war in Iraq in 2003, she devoted herself to condemning American foreign policy, not only in the Middle East but globally, for its imperialist intentions and objectives. In all her analysis of local and global struggles, she always reminded us of the interconnectedness of these campaigns and how it was critical to fight oppression on both fronts. In the last few years of her life, Meer also became involved in debates around matters of faith and religion and continued to stress the significance of there being one God who united all of humankind. While her Islamic faith had been an inspiration to her throughout her life, she began to focus on how faith could bring people together regardless of their differences.

Fatima Meer’s story is a story perhaps unlike any other. Being a central figure in the fight against apartheid and certainly a legendary one in the post-apartheid period, she leaves a political and intellectual legacy that is profound and perhaps even incomparable. As someone who looked to her for guidance in my own activism and intellectual work, I am left bereft at her passing. But I am also reassured that her life was one which will continue to inspire those who come after her. While there can only be one Fatima Meer, she ignited the imagination of so many others that she came into contact with to fight for a better world. That is perhaps her most enduring contribution.

Hamba kahle Mama Fatima.

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* Lubna Nadvi teaches political science at the University of KwaZulu Natal and is a community activist.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

China in Africa: Realism conquers myth

Review of ‘The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa’ by Deborah Brautigam

Stephen Marks

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/63128

For three decades now Deborah Brautigam has been covering China’s African engagement, long before it was a fashionable ‘scare issue’ in the West. In this latest offering, she brings her knowledge and experience to bear, in an account at once scholarly and accessible, combining the puncturing of prevalent myths with a realist approach that does not rely on rosy assumptions. China’s involvement is shown to be motivated neither by evil conspiracy nor by altruistic benevolence, but by rational and experience-based self-interest.

China’s strategy, she demonstrates, is based on the country’s own experience of development as a receiver of foreign investment. The model – much criticised by the West when applied by China in Angola and the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) – of finance used for development and repaid with resources or the proceeds of their sale, is based on Japan’s investment in China in the 1970s, and on the experience of other East Asian ‘developmental states’.

True, China’s African strategy was devised, by trial and error, to meet three key policy challenges she faced. First, was indeed the need to secure supplies of raw materials, as China’s growth was outstripping its own resources. Second, was the need to reassure world opinion, and especially that of developing countries, that China’s rise was ‘responsible’. Another important diplomatic goal was, of course, to counter the diplomatic challenge of Taiwan. And third, was the need to expand into new markets, upgrade its ‘mature’ domestic industries and build up its fledgling multinationals.

Understanding this strategic approach, Brautigam argues, is key to assessing the vexed question of the impact of Chinese exports on African jobs. Yes, there have been job losses, especially in textiles. But firstly, their extent varies with the ability of firms and industries to restructure in the face of challenges that stem, not from China alone, but from the global market context: And China is willing to help with this.

The example of the Ethiopian shoe industry is one of successful adaptation, with Chinese help after initial devastation by Chinese imports, with the government now aiming to make Ethiopia ‘the leather centre of Africa’. South African textiles by contrast failed to benefit from a voluntary Chinese moratorium on exports, with the slack in the South African market being taken up by other exporters, while the funding that China provided for reskilling was frittered away elsewhere.

In other words, China can be the scapegoat for the failings of local entrepreneurship and effective governance. And secondly, China’s overall strategy actively encourages the ‘international product development cycle’ by which ‘mature’ industries relocate overseas, as home producers move upmarket. This was China’s own experience, and she aims to repeat it in relation to Africa – unlike the USA, where ‘outsourcing’ or ‘going offshore’ arouses fierce domestic protectionist opposition.

In contrast, as Brautigam points out, ‘The Chinese government wants exports of Chinese machinery and equipment to overtake cheap consumer goods in the export mix, moving up the value chain... it wants mature industries to move offshore. Setting up factories that process African raw materials in Africa is part of this strategy.’

Thus contrary to the impression that China is ‘only there for the oil’ [or other raw materials], Chinese investment in the African manufacturing industry has outstripped investment in mining for each of the past five years.

The author also challenges Western suspicion of the Chinese ‘package deal’ model as applied in the DRC and Angola. With regard to the DRC the IMF’s (International Monetary Fund) objections amount to a rehash of the standard objections to hypothecated taxation: It must be wrong, the argument goes, for a portion of a country’s foreign currency earnings to be earmarked in advance for one particular creditor, necessarily, to the disadvantage of the others and of sound financial practice.

But this apparently prudent argument can hardly apply when the earnings in question flow from investments, which would not have been made without the loan package. There is no ‘diversion’ as the resources are additional.

Typically, Brautigam makes this point not by arguing abstruse economic theory, but with a telling anecdote. On hearing of a BBC report which suggested the deal was ‘unfair’ to the Congolese, ‘Paul Fortin, the Canadian-born director of Gècamines, a lawyer and the man who spent months negotiating the deal with the Chinese, pointed to the ruins of the Belgian mine and replied: “Rubbish. Without the Chinese, all this would just be scenery”.’

But in addition, the other aspect of the deal will also enhance the recipient’s long-term economic viability. The £4 billion Congo loan, for example, will not be paid in cash, but in the form of power plants, a repaired water supply, 32 hospitals, 145 health centres, two hydroelectric dams, two large universities, two vocational training centres, thousands of cheap houses and thousands of kilometres of railway. It will be paid back in copper and cobalt or in the proceeds of their sale, in the future. The DRC’s overall economic capacity will be enhanced: A factor which, as Brautigam points out, is also factored into the calculations of Eximbank and other Chinese institutions.

Experience shows that the Chinese firms involved will also benefit in the longer term as they gain local knowledge and contacts that will stand them in good stead for taking advantage of the renewed economic opportunities, which the deal will have opened up.

As for the widespread complaint that the Chinese employ their own instead of local labour, Brautigam shows that the extent to which this is true varies greatly and that the longer Chinese firms have been operating in Africa, the greater the proportion of local labour they employ.

Similar considerations apply to the Angolan package where, as the author shows, despite Western protestations, there has been no shortage of Western firms eager to deal with Luanda despite supposed conditionality on governance issues. In any case, since Chinese loans are mostly used to fund specific projects on the ground, there is greater certainty that they will not vanish into Swiss bank accounts.

Brautigam also rehearses familiar ground – not, however, as familiar as it should be – on Sudan, where she points out that Japan has actually been a bigger customer for Sudanese oil than China and that India and Malaysia are co-partners with China in Sudanese oil investments. She also documents the significant shifts in China’s stance towards Khartoum. She points out that Western companies, such as Barclays and Anglo-American, have continued to operate in Zimbabwe and that Zimbabwe’s claims about the extent of Chinese support have been reported as fact in Western media when research shows them to be exaggerated.

Her point in these cases is not at all to defend China from criticism where it is merited, but to point to the one-sided way in which China is attacked for sins of which she may be guilty, but no more, or often less, than the countries which criticise her.

On issues such as labour practices and some aspects of agricultural policy, Brautigam is critical of China’s performance or policy, but she also points to China’s ability to modify policy in an intelligently, self-interested response to criticism Brautigam also documents a number of ‘urban myths’, which her own painstaking research has managed to explode.

In one example, she investigated a press report that China would invest US $800 million in modernising Mozambican agriculture. Even with an assistant to plough through four years of local newspapers, she no evidence for the story was found. What she did find was a pledge to locate one of 14 agro-technical stations in Mozambique, at a cost of US $8 million.

In another case, a report that a Chinese company had been awarded the right to farm 100,000 hectares of maize in Zimbabwe turned out to be merely a contract to clear the land and install an irrigation system. Even this project was suspended when the Zimbabwean side proved unable to make the promised payments. Other advertised agricultural deals involving Chinese firms in Zimbabwe turn out to have been turned down by the Chinese side, on grounds of security and business risk.

These well-chosen, illustrative details are typical of the author’s method, which manages to combine a readability – it is accessible to any lay reader – with a wealth of detailed and original scholarship on such issues as the unravelling and aggregation of key statistical information on the exact extent and breakdown of China’s African aid and investment.

The lay reader and the specialist will both gain from this comprehensive and thorough account.

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* Stephen Marks is a freelance writer and researcher, specialising in issues on emerging powers, development and human rights.
* ‘The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa’ by Deborah Brautigam is published by Oxford University Press, 2009.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Tradition or sedition?

J.K.S. Makokha

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/63108

_
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* This poem is dedicated to George Onyango and Ishmael Chacha, who were shot by a police officer in Kisumu on 16 January 2008 during Kenya's post-election violence.
* 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
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

When the African media drops the ball

Dibussi Tande

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/63123

West Africa Always Wins condemns two leading African magazines, the French language Jeune Afrique and the English language New African for publishing fawning and inaccurate articles about Presidents Ali Bongo of Gabon and Faure Gnassingbé of Togo:

'One would think that the defenders of African pride had something critical to say about the chubby despots. Instead, they published full-color specials portraying both men as champions of change. It remains unclear what is different besides the fact that they are not their father, but I have no doubt money was paid somewhere down the line to publish the obsequious drivel that is supposed to pass for journalism. Jeune Afrique argues that Ali Bongo is "modern" because he likes fancy suits, fast cars and expensive mobile phones. “The new master of Gabon has restructured the system built by his father to fit his own style. The country is governed like a company under the obligation to deliver and produce results." Gabon exports 13 million tons of crude oil annually. Half of the tiny population of 1.5 million lives below the poverty line. Jeune Afrique conveniently omits these embarrassing figures….

Even more revolting is the eight-page interview with Faure Gnassingbé in New African. It starts like this: 'It is not often that one meets a young Francophone president who speaks impeccable English, a young man who has an open mind and wants the country to be run on democratic lines, a young man with abundant joie de vivre.” There is no mention of vote-rigging, army brutality, or corruption.'

Africaphile argues that the African woman still has a long way to go in spite of the annual International Women’s Day celebrations:

'Women are still marginalized across the globe and even countries that boast women’s rights still aren’t entirely equal e.g. women in the US still earn less than their male counterparts. Makes me wonder…

'Now we have this day, but what does it mean? Does it mean we are going to make resolutions to change the status and actually act upon those resolutions or does it mean that we are going to forget about the plight of women until next year’s international women’s day? Or does it mean we will leave it up to people working on women’s issues to continue what they are doing and we will silently applaud by the sidelines?

'By no means am I denying the progress that has been made by African women, but I am saying that we still have a long way to go in politics, business, medicine and virtually all areas of the formal work sector. President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson of Liberia, Prime Minister Luisa Diogo of Mozambique, a number of female politicians in Rwanda, and the list goes on (not indefinitely unfortunately), but we are definitely seeing a trend of female politicians.

'As for business, strides are being made (no I do not have statistics at the moment to back up my assertion, but simply walking.'

27months comments on the recent launch of iHub Nairobi and its potential impact on technology development and innovation on the continent:

'The idea behind the iHub—and other new technology labs cropping up across Sub-Saharan Africa—is to put a group of exceptionally smart “doers” under one roof, provide them with a top notch work environment, generate ideas at a rapid pace, filter out the dead ends, present the best candidates to investors and produce viable businesses (and success stories) along the way. The end goal isn’t to generate wild profits for the iHub itself under an exclusive brand, but rather to grow a stronger technology community that hackers, researchers, policymakers and VCs are naturally drawn to.
It’s not a far-fetched idea that world class products and services can grow out of a place like the iHub. Africa is a continent renowned for innovations conceived and built from limited resources. Countless examples exist of indigenous technologies borne from constraints that have led to hugely successful solutions. Among them is M-Pesa, Kenya’s popular mobile banking and payment system, whose model has only recently been prototyped in the West. Likewise, witness how Ushahidi, an open source software effort conceived in the wake of Kenya’s 2008 post-election violence has elevated Africa’s global tech status and attracted worldwide acclaim for its rapid deployments in conflict and crisis zones such as the DRC, Gaza, Haiti and Chile, as well as serving as an invaluable tool for election monitoring. Even Washington DC has Kenya to thank for the part it played in cleaning up after Snowmageddon.'

After a five-year absence, Sudanese Thinker returns to a Sudan that has changed significantly – for better in some cases, for worse in others:

'As soon as I was out of the airport cruising in my uncle’s pick up truck, the change was instantly noticeable.

'It was already night time, and yet, it didn’t feel gloomy. Unlike before, most main streets were bright with lamps that stretched as far as the roads they lit. Most cars weren’t ancient moving chimneys anymore. The majority seemed to be Korean-made and manufactured within the last couple of years probably…

'Not everything was rainbows and butterflies though…

'This one took me a while to notice. Five years ago, it was always so easy to spot crowds of Southern Sudanese walking around together in big groups in different parts of the city. Now, their numbers have dramatically gone down.

'Drima: Where did they disappear to?
Friend: They were gradually pushed out of the city and forced to head to the South back to where they came from.
Drima: Interesting, I thought so. Well, there’s another reason to add to the list of reasons for why the South is going to separate into its own country soon.'

Grandiose Parlor argues that the recent sectarian conflict in the Nigerian city of Jos that left over 500 dead was triggered by inequality:

'The common denominator in the Jos crisis — as in most sectarian crises in Nigeria — is traceable to the deep inequalities in the society. The elements of religion and geography are just mere facilitators in the conflict…

'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 origin.

'This inequality is made even more potent at the state levels, and the crisis in Jos is not immune to the “state of origin” contraption: the Christians are the natives, while the Muslims are the settlers; the natives feel entitled to the largess but not the settlers. The natives feel threatened by the increasing population and prominence of the settlers. The natives are not too keen to share their lands with the settlers, nor offer their hands in partnership on the political tuft. The settlers on the other hand feel cheated, and threatened too, by the natives whom they feel have failed to recognize them politically and socially, despite having co-existed for decades. That the two are on the opposing sides of the religion divide certainly does not help. The cumulative effect of these factors — the aftermath of cultural and societal inequality — is what has been happening in Jos over the years: an intractable bloody violence.'

Scribbles from the Den interviews Prof. Victor Mbarika pioneer president of The ICT University which offers degree programs that target Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia. Prof. Mbarika explains the rationale for the Louisiana based university thus:

'A plethora of information and communications technology (ICT) experts and management scholars and practitioners have suggested the need for human capacity development in the ICT domain in developing economies. Empowering these economies to develop the right solutions with contextual and cultural relevance requires institutions to educate and train graduates to meet their contemporary needs. Most developing economies face challenges in establishing and sustaining ICT degree programs, namely, the acute lack of qualified faculty and the exodus of the few graduating talents to the West. Further, some existing degree programs may be considered to be more of an adoption rather than the adaption of content from universities in developed countries, usually North America and Europe. In essence, these economies need to move from being primarily consumers of the information age to becoming producers of ICT and management knowledge, products and services.
The ICT University (ICT-U) is a plausible solution to the aforementioned challenges. The distinctive characteristic of ICT-U is that it goes beyond conventional modes of graduate education to provide a creative and challenging educational platform on which graduate scholars can develop their potential. Scholars are required to conduct research, publish and present their research in academic and practitioner conferences and seminars. In the doctoral program, for example, students are required to develop a thesis/dissertation and to publish academic journal and conference papers before completion of the program. Scholars are individually mentored by international reputed faculty to ensure successful program completion.'

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

Iran’s economic ties with Africa: Responding to Western media analysis

S.H. Razavipour

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/63109

In the past decade, Africa has become a cauldron of competing interests between new and old actors. Whereas in the 19th century it was just a handful of countries that benefited and profited from Africa’s riches – namely from its extractive resources, cheap labour and not to mention slavery – now it seems that the tide has shifted with ‘new kids on the block’.

With increased competition by the emerging powers from the global South, it would appear that Western actors can no longer claim a monopoly over Africa’s resources. However, this does not mean that the emerging powers have totally eclipsed Western influence in Africa. Africa’s global trade patterns are still intricately tied to former colonial empires while for most African countries the North still remains the leading trade partner. This is because most African economies built up their post-independence economies by locking themselves into Northern markets and relying on investment from these economies.

While this new competition – from countries like Brazil and Venezuela from South America, India and China from Asia, Australia, Turkey and even Israel and Iran from the Middle East – unleashes new impulses around Africa’s geo-strategic importance in the global system and a definite challenge to the exclusive benefits that the Western countries had enjoyed from Africa until recently, it does appear that the same thing will happen with the new comers too.

Some of these new actors will find better ways to cooperate with the older ones to behave like a cartel to increase their benefits. They will tow the line with the big brothers so that they are also given a seat at the table to claim their slice of the cake.

Others like China because of their political conflicts and competitions with America and other capitalist countries will prefer to find their own business interests in Africa and follow a ‘go it alone’ strategy, although this is not to suggest that Beijing as well is not part of the global capitalist cartel.

The issue at hand is whether the new comers to the global capitalist cartel will be treated with equal rights and access, or whether they will be used as a means to an end because of their financial muscle to bail out the old Northern capitalist cartel that has suffered as a result of the financial crisis. Better yet, are these new actors willing to transform the structures of international capital accumulation by joining the capitalist roundtable, or is it more of the same?

One thing is certain though, and that is breaking into the global capitalist cartel is very much an exclusive club.

Perhaps that is why we still face the juxtaposition of some mainstream Western media and think tanks cautioning against new comers like China as a ‘threat’ to Africa while we are also told that China is an ‘opportunity’ for Africa.

Yet such warnings are more accusatory when it comes to actors like Iran’s competing engagements in Africa.

‘THE ECONOMIST'S’ CONCERNS

On 4 February 2010 The Economist published an article entitled ‘A search for allies in a hostile world’. The general tone of the article was aimed at examining how Iran’s ‘proclaimed ambitions in Africa’ were particularly worrying for Israel’s attempt to keep the few friends it has on the Africa continent.

While The Economist has been noted for raising sparring debates about the pending implications the new emerging actors from the South will have for Western engagements in Africa,[1] this report on Iran's posing a strategic threat to Israel’s ‘diplomacy and goodwill policy’ in Africa seems to be a little mischievous and cheeky to say the least.

Apart from stoking, emotionally charged language like ‘Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s controversial president’, the article raises spectres by warning that Iran’s growing political and economic relations with Africa are an attempt at making Israel nervous. But there is something more to this here than just the effort to make this into a battle between Iran and Israel for influence and friends.

What The Economist article does is promote a discourse that is similar to the ‘yellow peril’ argument. By talking about the visits by Iranian diplomats to Africa both with traditional and non-traditional partners like Kenya, the article hopes that readers will become more aware of Iran’s intent of finding friends in Africa which could undermine Western efforts of containing and isolating Iran.

By using the Israeli–Palestine conflict as a foundation to show that African countries will lend their support to the Palestine cause vis-à-vis Israel – or for that matter through Iran’s strengthened diplomatic engagements across the continent – and that African countries will not lend their voice to Western efforts around sanctions and other punitive actions against Iran through the UN, the article seems to project the notion that Tehran is on a mission in Africa which is somewhat out of the ordinary.

But is this really the case and what about the disingenuity? Let's consider Israel’s relationship with Africa.

Israel’s relations with Africa date back to the early days of the establishment as part of a carefully planned state-led project aimed at obtaining recognition for the Israeli sovereign state.

Forging relations with pariah regimes like the apartheid government of South Africa, Jerusalem identified that Pretoria provided a good opportunity to cooperate with the minority Afrikaner government and other such regimes across the continent to support each other against threats to state power and security against progressive movements seeking freedom, justice and democratic accountability.

By supplying these minority regimes with training and other military software and hardware, the proxy wars, interstate conflicts and intrastate tensions continue to remain a political burden and social scar on Africa’s landscape. Even today, diamond smuggling and arms trafficking are rumoured to also have an Israeli link at times.

And like all investors Israel has specialised in mining valuable metals and precious gems like diamonds and remains an integral participant in African markets.

From a political view, Israel is one of those countries that combines their benefit in cooperation with the old Western exploiters, and hence it has a good share in most of the businesses going on in Africa.

Therefore, it is a bit cheeky when the article claims that ‘Israel once had a lot of friends on the continent and wants to keep the few that remain’.

So why should it be a concern if Israel’s relations in Africa are being put at risk with Iran’s increasing diplomatic and economic footprint in Africa?

Like all countries Iran is also following its national interests. This is what international relations discourse tends to promote.

Therefore, it tends to be incredulous when the article mentions that Iran is helping Africans to produce their own cars and tractors and gives them cheaper technological science and technical services, as if this is not possible from a country like Iran or that there is something sinister behind these engagements.

What about the fact that those who are supporting Israel by the means of political and economic incentives also have their own hidden agendas?

To this end I would like to emphasise that Iran has the right like any other sovereign state to develop their relations with the developing South like others do. The willingness to assist countries of the Third World to develop their economies and advance their development must seen outside the realm that the ‘world is flat’ or that it can belong to only a sacrosanct few.

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* S.H. Razavipour is a researcher with the AFRAN (Africa – Iran) Research Institute.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES
[1] See The Economist debate: Africa and China: http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/468

Gono attacks planned company seizures

2010-03-19

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=6513&cat=1

Zimbabwe's central bank governor on Thursday attacked as "reckless" a drive by President Robert Mugabe's party to force foreign-owned companies to cede majority shareholdings to local black businessmen

Leaders agree on measures to end crisis

2010-03-19

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=6512&cat=1

Zimbabwe's leaders have agreed to a "package of measures" to help rescue its fragile unity government, South Africa's President Jacob Zuma said on Thursday. Regional mediator Zuma met President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in Harare on Wednesday and Thursday to solve problems that risked unravelling a power-sharing deal meant to rebuild Zimbabwe from economic ruin.

ZANU PF faces new accusations of re-oiling its violence machinery

2010-03-19

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news180310/reooiling180310.htm

South African President Jacob Zuma has come under fire for his failure to denounce the resurgent political violence in the rural areas, spearheaded by ZANU PF supporters. Zuma ended a two-day ‘mediation’ visit to Zimbabwe on Thursday without mentioning the escalation in violence or calling on the political leaders to rein in their supporters.

Africa: Depression linked to gender stereotypes, violence

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/63137

Cases of anxiety and depression, two leading mental health illnesses, are on the rise among women in some African countries, thanks to the current difficulties in the economy, gender roles and violence, writes Arthur Okwemba. Findings of study done at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi by the African Mental Health Foundation shows that 42% of adults and 41% of children who went to the facility were diagnosed with depression. This likely reflects what is happening in other African countries.
ases of anxiety and depression, two leading mental health illnesses, are on the rise among women in some African countries, thanks to the current difficulties in the economy, gender roles and violence.

Findings of study done at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi by the African Mental Health Foundation shows that 42% of adults and 41% of children who went to the facility were diagnosed with depression. This likely reflects what is happening in other African countries.

Prof David Ndetei, a lecturer at the University of Nairobi and the lead researcher, says this depression was more prevalent in women than in men. Reasons vary, but he and other researchers say they can zero in on three main factors: gender roles, gender discrimination, and hormonal or reproductive health factors, which most people are unaware of.

Women experiencing infertility, those who experience sadness or anxiety after giving birth (especially when their male partners do not support them) and those steeped in poverty are more vulnerable to depression, according to the scientists. Studies show that couples, especially women, are under intense pressure from their partners and in-laws to give birth, and that blame falls squarely on the woman, even if the cause of infertility is the man. The resulting emotional, verbal, or physical abuse can push women into depression.
In South Africa, of 120 women participating in a 2005 study titled Psychological distress among women suffering from couple infertility in South Africa: a quantitative assessment, 14.5% said that their intimate partner had used physical violence against them. About 24% of the women, recruited from the infertility clinic at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, said they faced verbal and/or emotional abuse.

Another study in Zimbabwe involving 172 women found that 65% reported anxiety. The women interviewed complained of “thinking too much,” “deep sadness,” grief, fear, or having of an insoluble problem, as some of the causes of their anxiety. Further analysis suggests that men are the leading source of the difficulties women undergo.

Ndetei says cases of depression among women are likely to be high in African countries where living conditions are difficult and there are no support systems for women who need psychiatric help.

Society generally apportions more gender-specific roles to women than men, which doctors say tends to negatively affect women’s health and productivity at the workplace, and in education and social circles. Such gender roles and social pressures can leave them stressed, which if not addressed leads to serious mental problems. This is even worse during difficult economic times.
“Many of the retrenchment programmes implemented by countries in sub-Saharan Africa in response to poor economic performance have affected those in lower cadres, which are predominantly occupied by women,” says Prof Ruth Oniang’o, a gender activist who advocates for women’s economic empowerment in the Eastern African region.


Such stress affects women from different walks of life, in different ways. Interviews with single and unemployed women struggling to cater for food, clothes and education for their children suggests that many have high levels of anxiety. On the other hand, women working outside the home who are balancing professional duties with family demands are also constantly anxious for things to run smoothly both at the workplace and at home.
According to a study by Dr Frank Njega, Depression in Kenyan Professional Women, 22% of 86 women surveyed said they experienced depression. Another 30% said they were coping less well than they usually do. Gender-based stress at the workplace, which results from such problems as double standards and sexual harassment, combined with doing double-duty at the household level, can make life very stressful for a working woman, says Peter Lubao, a consultant counsellor.

In some cases, psychiatrists say gender discrimination, sexual violence and harassment causes women to develop anxiety or depressive disorders. Women usually lack appropriate channels to cope with their situations. For example, the 2009 study conducted by Gender Links, Glass Ceiling: Women and Men in Southern Africa Media, noted that sexual harassment is a serious concern in the media industry.

Says the study findings: “Media women across the region complained about being treated as sexual objects in media houses and men showed little appreciation and understanding of what is meant by sexual harassment.” Only 28% of media houses who participated in the Glass Ceiling study, for instance, said they have sexual harassment policies.

When it comes to hormones, some studies show that hormonal fluctuations during menstrual changes, puberty, and pregnancy produce different emotions and reactions in women, which can result in depression. However, little help is available for women to cope with these developments, and society has little understanding of mental health issues.

Gender advocates want information and education programmes initiated or enhanced, where they exist, to cushion women from anxiety and depression. African governments must recognise these mental health issues, and put in place legislation on gender based violence and family laws that would help to support women’s rights and choices. There is a need to help women understand their mental health, and encourage treatment-seeking behaviours.
Men must also rethink how they treat women and be supportive partners. More and more men are participating in programmes to reshape society’s gender stereotypes, but these are mostly urban based.

While physical violence continues to be prevalent in Africa, and needs urgent attention, there is also need to understand the mental health aspect of gender roles and gender based violence. Breaking free of depression and anxiety can be the first step for women to become fully aware of their own capabilities.


* Arthur Okwemba is a journalist with the African Women and Child Feature Service in Kenya. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service.

Africa: South Africa to fast-track human trafficking law

2010-03-18

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE62F0NG20100316

South Africa is to fast-track a comprehensive new law against human trafficking before the start of the soccer World Cup, Justice Minister Jeff Radebe has said. South Africa hosts the month-long event from June 11 and some child rights groups have warned that trafficking, mainly for sexual exploitation, could rise during the tournament.

DRC: Congo's women on the front lines of a war for wealth

2010-03-19

http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/content/congos-women-front-lines-war-wealth

The Congolese conflict is considered the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, and the deadliest since World War II. Since 1998, more than six million people have died as a result of this war. Over two million people have been forced to flee their homes, and some 400,000 Congolese have sought refuge in neighboring countries. Hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been kidnapped, raped, and tortured.

Global: First UN envoy for sexual violence in war says rape must stop

2010-03-19

http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/59567/2010/02/17-162708-1.htm

Rape in wartime is a scar on modern society that must be stamped out by ending impunity and changing men's attitudes towards women, says Margot Wallstrom, the United Nations' first special representative on sexual violence in conflict.

Kenya: Abortion ban fires constitutional debate

2010-03-18

http://tinyurl.com/yldp8pe

Church leaders in Kenya are opposing a provision in a draft of a national constitution that includes emergency exceptions to the country's abortion ban. A recent study links the ban to the deaths of at least hundreds of women a year.

Malawi: Patrilineal inheritance prevents women’s access to land

2010-03-19

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=50604

Mercy Gondwe, 51, from Rumphi in northern Malawi, was married for 34 years. When her husband died in 2008, she assumed she would inherit the land they had been cultivating together since they got married. But this was not the case.

Morocco: In changing times, women play dual role

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/ykfu7dl

For many Moroccan working women, the trade-off between home lives and jobs occurs at the expense of time and peace of mind. While women have acquired some freedom in the working environment, attitudes have not changed as regards the role of a woman within the family. The equality they seek has not yet been achieved on the domestic front.

Rwanda: Woman vies for top job

2010-03-19

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50701

On average women constitute 18.8 percent of representatives in parliaments across the world according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). This gender imbalance has been subject to much feminist criticism and many campaigns for change have been staged to address the status quo. The situation is however different in Rwanda.

Global: Rights groups urge governments to join ICC

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/ykyosdk

Human rights groups, under the umbrella Coalition for International Criminal Court (CICC), have urged governments that are not yet party to ICC, to demonstrate their commitment to international justice and the rule of law by ratifying Rome Statute, the founding treaty, before 1 April, 2010

Rwanda: UN tribunal renders judgments in two appeals

2010-03-19

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34120

A United Nations tribunal has affirmed the conviction and 15-year sentence of a famous Rwandan singer and composer for his role during the mass killings that engulfed the country in 1994, and reduced the sentence handed down against a top official after reversing a number of his convictions.

Africa: Eritrean refugee in Halifax commits suicide after losing case

2010-03-18

http://tinyurl.com/y9xllrs

An Eritrean refugee in Halifax killed himself in late February after losing an asylum appeal to Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board. Habtom Kibraeb, 40, was found dead, hanging from a tree in the Clayton Park area. Kibraeb had spent several years on the run from Eritrea’s military, says Beku Feshaye, who owns Kilimanjaro Café, a store on Titus Street in Halifax.

Kenya: Film helps empower young Ugandan refugee in camp

2010-03-19

http://www.unhcr.org/4ba258356.html

Kate Ofwono recently visited Geneva to join UNHCR events linked to International Women's Day. The 23-year-old refugee from Uganda took part in a panel discussion and presented a film she made about her life in Kakuma camp. She fled to the camp in north-west Kenya four years ago after her father was killed and her mother kidnapped in eastern Uganda.

Kenya: New hope for IDPs

2010-03-19

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88485

Internally displaced people (IDPs) in Kenya are set to enjoy greater protection under a national policy that also aims to prevent future displacement and to fulfil the country's obligations under international IDP law, say analysts.

Uganda: 'We are treated like animals'

2010-03-19

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88483

All Pherebonia Nyiramatabaro, 85, wants is land where she and her 15-year-old grandson can grow a few crops. Nyiramatabaro, living in a two-roomed hut in Juru A camp in the Nakivale Refugee Settlement, southwestern Uganda, is one of thousands of Rwandans hit by a Uganda government directive barring refugees from cultivation

Uganda: Refugees face hunger as farming ban bites

2010-03-18

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88472

A farming ban imposed on Rwandan refugees in southwestern Uganda is raising concerns for their food security, while proposed cash transfers could boost both food prices and theft, warn aid workers and local officials, who are urging the government to rescind the directive.

Brazil: A rural revolution

2010-03-18

http://www.newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2010/03/05/a-rural-revolution/

Alex Kawakami calls himself an agronomist, but really he’s a revolutionary. He works for the landless people’s movement Movimento dos Trabalhardores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), a social movement of some 370,000 people organizing in over 1,000 settlements in Brazil, in addition to 90,000 families living in camps. For them, agricultural reform is more than organic farming – it’s an answer to land inequality, global food shortages and climate change.

Nigeria: “Enough is Enough!” youth march on the capital

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/yg33s9f

On Tuesday, March 16, thousands of Nigerians marched on the capital, Abuja, to show their frustration with the woes that continue to besiege the country. This sort of protest has not been a common feature of the Nigerian political scene – at least not in this decade– though this demonstration is one of several that have taken place this year.

China bails out Tan-Zam Railways

2010-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/63204

Despite the criticism of Chinese investors in Zambia, Beijing has once again come to the rescue of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) - a vital link inter-SADC link - by availing a $39-million interest-free loan. TAZARA, which is jointly owned by Tanzania and Zambia, has been teetering on a knife-edge with worn out tracks and wobbling wagons.
Despite the criticism of Chinese investors in Zambia, Beijing has once again come to the rescue of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) - a vital link inter-SADC link - by availing a $39-million interest-free loan. TAZARA, which is jointly owned by Tanzania and Zambia, has been teetering on a knife-edge with worn out tracks and wobbling wagons.

The firm, which operates the 1,860-long railway line from Zambia's central town of Kapiri-Mposhi to the port city of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania, has been providing a vital passenger and cargo service for both countries.
Zambia's Communication and Transport minister, Geoffrey Lungwangwa, announced in Lusaka that the funds would be used to revive operations of the firm, which had come to a virtual standstill. TAZARA operations have plummeted over the years while infrastructure has suffered tremendous wear and tear. Cargo has been marooned while passengers have not been spared whenever a derailment occurs. Apart from wearing out, the tracks, which were constructed between 1970 and 1975, have been vandalised, rendering operations even more difficult.

The financially-crippled firm had accumulated a $60 million debt because of failure to pay pension packages for retired employees, non-remittance of tax to revenue authorities, failure to meet clients' needs resulting in litigation, and generally poor management, among other factors.

The Zambian and Tanzanian governments last year took steps to give TAZARA a new lease of life firstly by changing management, on an interim basis, in a bid to boost efficiency. TAZARA was subsequently able to transport fertiliser into Zambia in time for the beginning of the ploughing season.

There was also an improvement in moving minerals for export from the giant Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) in Zambia's Copperbelt Province from 30,000 tonnes to 42,000 tonnes per month with management targeting to transport 72,000 tonnes per month this year.

TAZARA's regional general manager on the Zambian side, Peter Shitambuli, said in an interview that TAZARA had also revised its cargo haulage rates and improved service delivery to attract more clients in the region.

Shitambuli said TAZARA, which has approximately 1,500 wagons and more than 15 locomotive engines, still requires more investment to make it viable.
Hence the signing of the 14th protocol involving Zambia, Tanzania and China, this year for the $39 million interest-free loan to give TAZARA a new lease of life. Communication and Transport minister, Professor Lungwangwa, said the funds would be used for the rehabilitation of the 1,860km railway line, the procurement of six locomotive engines and four wagons, and for repairing 120 available wagons.

The funds would also be used to modernise the mechanical and other workshops and ensure efficiency in the company's operations through capacity building and other programmes.

Minister Lungwangwa said in an interview that TAZARA is in fact more relevant now because of increased volumes of trade and passengers within SADC and the Northern Corridor in particular.

The railway line to East Africa was conceived when Zambia's trade routes to the south were threatened. Under Ian Smith's white minority regime, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) made its notorious United Declaration of Independence (UDI) from Britain in 1965, resulting in the closure of the border with Zambia, the gateway for her exports and imports.

The Zambian and Tanzanian governments then sought the construction of the railway line to offer an alternative route. Thus TAZARA was born out of a massive $500 million loan from the Chinese government following appeals by presidents Kenneth Kaunda and Julius Nyerere.

About 25,000 Chinese were engaged in the construction of this historical railway line alongside thousands Zambians and Tanzanians who braved harsh terrain and weather conditions through one of Africa's most rugged landscapes.

On completion, passenger volumes increased, particularly those engaged in business in the Great Lakes Region and the Asian countries.

Small and medium entrepreneurs have found it convenient to use TAZARA between Kapiri-Mposhi and Dar-es-Salaam. Initially, the railway firm was staked for concession as a way of saving it from total collapse. During bilateral talks In July last year, Zambian

President Rupiah Banda and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete directed the board of directors to expedite the concessioning process of management and operations of the railway firm to a competent railway enterprise from China.

The heads of state said if the concession was not possible in the near future, the board should recruit competent managers to run the firm.
There is currently a chief executive officer and his deputy on interim basis while the firm is in the process of recruiting experienced personnel on a permanent basis

Copyright: Sila Press Agency

Emerging powers news roundup

2010-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/63202

General News

The Scramble for Africa: Profiting From World’s Largest Cache of Commodities
More


China & Africa
China shies away from role as global power
More

RIO Tinto and Chinalco are getting back together less than a year after the acrimonious breakdown of their $US19.5 billion investment deal
More

Chinese fishermen freed after Cameroon kidnap
More

WISCO spends USD 68.46 million for holding of Bong Mine in Liberia
More
Political rivalries in Algiers deepen as Chinese companies are named in an anti-corruption probe into Africa’s biggest road project More

Nigeria: Manufacturers frown at China’s dumping of cheap products More

Sino-Africa trade relationship hits record high in two years More

Slowly but surely the Chinese settled in Burundi
More

China took a step closer to securing valuable new oil reserves in Uganda More

Additional $1m needed to repair earthquake damaged road in Malawi More

Vital lessons to our leaders from the Chinese work ethic More

Senegal seeks resolution of energy crisis
More
Chinese targeted in Africa More
Kenya says oil explorer interest is returning More

Angola wants to strengthen cooperation with China
More

CNEEC gets lion’s share of Morupule
A consortium of China National Electric Equipment Corporation (CNEEC) and Shenyang Blower Works Electro-Mechanics Import and Export Co. Ltd signed the Engineering-Procurement-construction (EPC) turkey basis contract with the Botswana Power Corporation (BPC). In the contract NCEEC will take full responsibility of constructing of the Morupule B power station in Palapye.
More
Chinese firm given land deal in Sudan
The Chinese company ZTE received an allocation of approximately 10,000 hectares of land from the Ministry of Agriculture. The deal aims at boosting production of wheat and maize, state media reported. More


India & Africa

Address by Minister of State for External Affairs Dr. Shashi Tharoor at the CII-EXIM Bank Conclave on India Africa Project Partnership More


Tanzania revokes railway management contract with Indian firm
More

Govt. to set up incubators in Africa for SME skill development
Morel

Ethiopia wants to attract tourists from China, India
More

India a terrific example for Africa: Togo PM (Interview)
Togo's Prime Minister says Africa is increasingly looking at India as a knowledge power and believes Indian enterprises should scale up investment in the West African country More



India-Africa business conclave opens with large African participation
More

Indian companies invest $277m in six Ghana projects
Indian businesses operating in Ghana have altogether invested $277 million in the country, the Calcutta News has reported citing vice president John Mahama, without naming the specific companies and the projects they are investing in. The Vice President is currently attending the India-Africa Project Partnership Summit in India.
More

Indian IT companies eye Latin American and African markets for business expansion More

India to establish 19 institutions in Africa to develop human resources
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna today said that India would establish 19 institutions to develop human resources and capacities in Africa under the decisions taken at the India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) here in April last year.
More

India mends Uganda kids' hearts More

India is source of 'inspiration' for Mozambique: Envoy
Mozambique is finalising two key agreements with India, one on double taxation avoidance and another on conferring most favoured nation status, to strengthen its trade and economic ties with a nation which it sees as an 'inspiration' More

India pursues functional collaboration with Africa More

India and the African Union (AU) have finalised a Plan of Action of the Framework for Cooperation of the Indian Africa Forum Summit
More

Tharoor unveils Indian model of engagement with Africa More

Godrej Consumer Products Ltd announced on Saturday that it has agreed to buy Nigerian soap maker Tura in a bid to increase its presence in West Africa
More

India-Malawi to cooperate in agriculture, SME and IT sector More


In Other News....

Russia plans to take part in Egypt's nuclear power plant tenders More

The Next Big Opportunity for Big Pharma is BRIC [url=http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/pharma-brazil-india-russian-china-BRIC/3/11/2010/id/27248
Russian arms score big in North Africa
]http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2010/03/16/Russian-arms-score-big-in-North-Africa/UPI-53521268771381/] More[/url]

Russia's powerful oil and gas company Gazprom has announced its first operation in Africa, starting to drill a prospecting well in Algeria's Berkine basin. More
Spread of Nigerian Companies in West Africa More
Turkish President Wraps Up Successful African Tour More

Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, Minister of Foreign Trade of the UAE has praised trade relations with Africa More
South Africa's Zuma to visit Uganda with oil investors More

For the second successive month South Africa has not been a favourite among international investors buying into emerging markets More

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS


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

Human rights record of the United States in 2009

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/63125

China's Information Office of the State Council published a report titled "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009" .
China's Information Office of the State Council published a report titled "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009" in Beijing Friday. Following is the full text:

The State Department of the United States released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2009 on March 11, 2010, posing as "the world judge of human rights" again. As in previous years, the reports are full of accusations of the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions including China, but turn a blind eye to, or dodge and even cover up rampant human rights abuses on its own territory. The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009 is prepared to help people around the world understand the real situation of human rights in the United States.

I. On Life, Property and Personal Security

Widespread violent crimes in the United States posed threats to the lives, properties and personal security of its people.

In 2008, U.S. residents experienced 4.9 million violent crimes, 16.3 million property crimes and 137,000 personal thefts, and the violent crime rate was 19.3 victimizations per 1,000 persons aged 12 or over, according to a report published by the U.S. Department of Justice in September 2009 (Criminal Victimization 2008, U.S. Department of Justice, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov) In 2008, over 14 million arrests occurred for all offenses (except traffic violations) in the country, and the arrest rate for violent crime was 198.2 per 100,000 inhabitants (Crime in the United States, 2008, http://www.fbi.gov) In 2009, a total of 35 domestic homicides occurred in Philadelphia, a 67 percent increase from 2008 (The New York Times, December 30, 2009). In New York City, 461 murders were reported in 2009, and the crime rate was 1,151 cases per 100,000 people. San Antonio in Texas was deemed as the most dangerous among 25 U.S. large cities with 2,538 crimes recorded per 100,000 people (The China Press, December 30, 2009). The murder rate rose 5.5 percent in towns with a population of 10,000 or fewer in 2008 (http://www.usatoday.com, June 1, 2009). Most of the United States' 15,000 annual murders occur in cities where they are concentrated in poorer neighborhoods (http://www.reuters.com, October 7, 2009).

The United States ranks first in the world in terms of the number of privately-owned guns. According to the data from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), American gun owners, out of 309 million in total population, have more than 250 million guns, while a substantial proportion of U.S. gun owners had more than one weapon. Americans usually buy 7 billion rounds of ammunition a year, but in 2008 the figure jumped to about 9 billion (The China Press, September 25, 2009). In the United States, airline passengers are allowed to take unloaded weapons after declaration.

In the United States, about 30,000 people die from gun-related incidents each year (The China Press, April 6, 2009). According to a FBI report, there had been 14,180 murder victims in 2008 (USA Today, September 15, 2009). Firearms were used in 66.9 percent of murders, 43.5 percent of robberies and 21.4 percent of aggravated assaults (http://www.thefreelibrary.com). USA Today reported that a man named Michael McLendon killed 10 people in two rural towns of Alabama before turning a gun on himself on March 11, 2009. On March 29, a man named Robert Stewart shot and killed eight people and injured three others in a nursing home in North Carolina (USA Today, March 11, 2009). On April 3, an immigrant called Jiverly Wong shot 13 people dead and wounded four others in an immigration services center in downtown Binghamton, New York (The New York Times, April 4, 2009). In the year 2009, a string of attacks on police shocked the country. On March 21, a 26-year-old jobless man shot and killed four police officers in Oakland, California, before he was killed by police gunfire (http://cbs5.com). On April 4, a man called Richard Poplawski shot three police officers to death in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On November 29, an ex-convict named Maurice Clemmons shot four police officers to death inside a coffee shop in Parkland, Washington (The New York Times, December 1, 2 and 3, 2009).

Campuses became an area worst hit by violent crimes as shootings spread there and kept escalating. The U.S. Heritage Foundation reported that 11.3 percent of high school students in Washington D.C. reported being "threatened or injured" with a weapon while on school property during the 2007-2008 school year. In the same period, police responded to more than 900 calls to 911 reporting violent incidents at the addresses of Washington D.C. public schools (A Report of The Heritage Center for Data Analysis, School Safety in Washington, D.C.: New Data for the 2007-2008 School Year, http://www.heritage.org) In New Jersey public schools, a total of 17,666 violent incidents were reported in 2007-2008 (Annual Report on Violence, Vandalism and Substance Abuse in New Jersey Public Schools by New Jersey Department of Education, October 2009, http://www.state.nj.us) In the City University of New York, a total of 107 major crimes occurred in five of its campuses during 2006 and 2007(The New York Post, September 22, 2009).

Source: Xinhua

Namibia: Ministry defends road tenders

2010-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/63206

Namibia's Ministry of Works says it does a lot to uplift local contractors, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Ministry Permanent Secretary George Simataa last week called a media briefing to refute allegations that the ministry was giving the majority of road construction projects to Chinese companies. He was referring to an article published in the Windhoek Observer, headlined ‘Chinese could dodge tender regulations’.
Namibia's Ministry of Works says it does a lot to uplift local contractors, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Ministry Permanent Secretary George Simataa last week called a media briefing to refute allegations that the ministry was giving the majority of road construction projects to Chinese companies. He was referring to an article published in the Windhoek Observer, headlined ‘Chinese could dodge tender regulations’.

The article stated that for years local contractors in the road maintenance and construction sector have accused Government of contravening tender regulations by awarding the bulk of tenders to foreign firms, especially Chinese companies which have virtually taken over the local construction industry.
Simataa said this was not true, as the Ministry makes sure that in some categories 50 per cent of the tender value is reserved for SME contractors.
He added that in the last year only one Chinese company got a road construction tender – to construct phase one of the Rundu–Elundu road.
He said this was done because the project was co-funded by the Japanese International Co-operation Agency and part of the agreement was that the tender be advertised internationally.
Simataa added that most of the major capital projects are advertised internationally because of the skills shortage in the country and to build capacity the Ministry made it requirement that 15 to 25 per cent of the capital project value should to be subcontracted to SME contractors.
A look at the seven capital road construction tenders awarded last year reveals that five were awarded to South African contractors. The other two were awarded to a joint venture between the Roads Contractor Company (RCC) and a Lebanese firm.
For labour-intensive projects relating to gravel roads, Government requires that between 40 and 50 per cent of the construction value be given to SME subcontractors even if the main contractor is a local company.
That way, Simataa said, Government was uplifting and training local contractors for the future. None of the six labour-intensive projects have been awarded to a non-Namibian contractor.
Simataa added that maintenance tenders are given only to Namibian firms. About 70 per cent of road maintenance work is reserved for the RCC, while the remaining 30 per cent is given to local contractors through competitive bidding.
He concluded by stating that in the past six months the Ministry had advertised 42 building construction tenders, 32 of which, with a total value of N$178 million, were awarded to Namibian companies.
Ten bigger building contracts, valued at N$195 million, were awarded to foreign companies.
He said the big tenders were awarded to foreign companies because of a lack of skills locally.


Copyright: The Namibian

Nigeria: Government threatens to revoke contract

2010-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/63205

The Federal Government has threatened to revoke the N2.75 billion contract for the construction of the Oguta River Port, Osse-Motor in Aguta Local Government Areas of Imo State, following the inability of the contractor to effectively mobilise to site, nine months after the contract was awarded.
The Federal Government has threatened to revoke the N2.75 billion contract for the construction of the Oguta River Port, Osse-Motor in Aguta Local Government Areas of Imo State, following the inability of the contractor to effectively mobilise to site, nine months after the contract was awarded.

The contract was awarded in July 2009, to the Scott Amede Engineering and Power Supply Limited and its foreign partner, Zhunai Minghong Group Company, China at the total cost of N2. 743billion, with a completion period of 24 months.
However, the contractor has so far received an advance payment of N505.56million of the contract sum but is yet to make any impact except the clearing of a little portion within the project site.

Irked by this development, the Minister of Transport, Alhaji Ibrahim Bio, has issued a six week ultimatum to the contractor to fully mobilise to site, and that failure to do that, the contract would be terminated.

Copyright: Vanguard News Online

Update on Sinohydro

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/63124

Fahamu is one of the ten civil society organisations that supported International Rivers Network dialogue with Sinohydro and the need for the company to advocate a more responsible environmental policy that adopts people centred and environmental friendly operations in Africa.
Editors Note:

Fahamu is one of the ten civil society organisations that supported International Rivers Network dialogue with Sinohydro and the need for the company to advocate a more responsible environmental policy that adopts people centred and environmental friendly operations in Africa.

Given that Fahamu is the premium Pan-African organisation that supports networks for social justice issues, the emerging powers in africa programme, would like to draw the attention of African social movements and advocacy groups to the initiative below. For most social activists in Africa trying to dialogue with Chinese companies about their investments and projects on the social costs to the environment and people’s livelihoods is to difficult to achieve. This is because of various barriers including language, suspicion and not knowing where to start or who to approach and of course dealing with bureaucratic red tape. Therefore, the initiative below represents an important platform for those interested African environmental advocacy groups and social movements to engage with the IRN-Sinohydro dialogue.

While this dialogue is a global attempt to make Sinhydro more accountable and transparent about its operations and environmental footprint, it does holds useful lessons for African social activists to exploit this space to make their voices heard about what is happening in Africa with regard to other Chinese companies and their investment footprint, especially the impact on the ground.

At a time when the Chinese government and Chinese coprorates, like Sinohydro are becoming more aware of its global image and concerned about the poor publicity about their weak governance practices, the IRN dialogue initiative provides an opening for social movements, advocacy groups to make their voices through a track two dialogue approach.

Sanusha Naidu, Research Director, Emerging Powers in Africa Programme



Update: Sinohydro to Prepare Environmental Policy and Get Listed at Stock
Exchange?

Peter Bossard

Sinohydro plans to get listed at the Shanghai stock exchange. The company
has also started the process of drafting an environmental policy. Here is
a brief update.

Sinohydro is a Chinese state-owned enterprise and the world?s largest
hydropower contractor. The company estimates that it controls 70% of the
Chinese and 50% of the global hydropower engineering market.

Sinohydro decided to get listed in 2007, and restructured itself into a
shareholding company by the end of November 2009. The company plans to
offer 25-35 percent of its shares (as A-Shares) at the Shanghai stock
exchange before the end of the year. It hopes to raise at least RMB 12.9
billion (USD 1.9 billion) in the process.

Sinohydro agreed to engage in a dialogue with International Rivers in the
summer of 2009. Our basic position is that Sinohydro needs an
environmental policy that reflects highest international standards if it
wants to position itself as a leading global brand.

In early March, Sinohydro informed us that it is now drafting an
environmental policy, and invited our input into the process. This is a
very positive step. Sinohydro is also cooperating with a Chinese
environmental organization in the implementation of the Nam Ngum 5
hydropower project in Laos.

Under its green securities policy, China?s Ministry of Environmental
Protection (MEP) has to approve the listing of companies that are active
in twelve polluting sectors. The list includes thermal power ? a sector in
which Sinohydro has several projects. On March 3, the Ministry posted
Sinohydro?s Environmental Audit Report on its website, and invited
comments from the public.

On March 11, a coalition of ten civil society organizations from China and
other host countries of Sinohydro projects submitted their comments to the
MEP. The NGOs expressed support for Sinohydro?s IPO under the condition
that the company indeed adopts and implements an environmental policy that
reflects highest international standards. They put forward a series of
specific recommendations for Sinohydro?s environmental policy. Their
recommendations were based on the report of the World Commission on Dams,
the World Bank safeguard policies, and the Integrated Policy Package of
Chinese environmental institutions. The NGOs asked the MEP to work with
Sinohydro in the preparation of an environmental policy.

If the MEP approves Sinohydro?s IPO, the listing application will next be
considered by the China Securities Regulatory Commission. After this, the
company can move to the stock exchange.

International Rivers and partner groups will submit more specific
recommendations to Sinohydro for its environmental policy, and will
continue to monitor the company?s projects and IPO process. We will also
advise potential Sinohydro investors on the company?s evolving
environmental policy and track record.

Peter Bosshard
International Rivers

Zimbabwe-China trade and economic relations expected to grow this year

2010-03-19

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/63203

Trade and economic relations between Zimbabwe-China are expected to grow this year following the full implementation of the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation, a senior Chinese official has said.
Trade and economic relations between Zimbabwe-China are expected to grow this year following the full implementation of the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation, a senior Chinese official has said.

A member of the Foreign Affairs Policy Advisory Group of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, Ambassador Ji Peiding, said China is committed to enhancing co-operation with Zimbabwe and other African countries.

"This year marks the beginning of the various follow-up actions of the fourth ministerial conference of FOCAC," said Ambassador Ji Peiding at a seminar on China-Africa relations.

Chinese Premier Mr Wen Jiabao has since announced China’s eight new measures to intensify co-operation with Africa and Zimbabwe is likely to benefit as it seeks to cover climate change, science and technology, more concessional loans and debt reduction.

Zimbabwe is struggling to clear its international debt amounting to more than US$5,6 billion. However, Government is coming up with debt clearance strategies to clear debts.

FOCAC is a banner of Chinese-African friendship and has become an important platform for collective dialogue between the two parties to enhance pragmatic co-operation with the continent.

Over the years, the forum has shown great vitality and vigour and brought about substantial and extensive benefit to both sides.

China has got a long-standing trade history with Africa, Zimbabwe included, dating back over 2 000 years ago.

The commitment by the Chinese government to support Zimbabwe comes at a time when the country is recovering from a 10-year economic recession.

Increased co-operation between the two countries under FOCAC is expected in the energy sector, information communication technology, infrastructure and health sectors.

Zimbabwe’s economic recovery is also expected to be spurred through engaging China as Chinese President Hu Jintao promised to chip in with a US$950 million loan to support the country’s economic recovery.

The country adopted the Look East Policy in 2003 following a diplomatic fallout with Britain and some Western countries when the Government embarked on land reform.

China has undertaken more than 900 projects in African countries and cancelled 310 debts for 35 African countries in the last 10 years.

In 2008 the trade volume reached US$106,84 billion and nearly 1 600 Chinese companies have landed their business operations in Africa.

Over the years, China has dispatched 16 000 medical personnel to 45 African countries, who treated over a hundred million patients.

In the past three years, the Chinese side has retained more than 15 000 personnel of different professions for Africa.

In 2009 alone, 4 000 African students received Chinese government scholarships and studied in China.

Mr Ji maintained that the co-operation is of mutual benefit and is a win-win venture in line with market rules and international practices.

"Bringing the strength of China and Africa together, it will help China and Africa build up the capacity of independent development and facilitate common development of both sides," he said.

China has contributed 20 percent to the growth of African economy in the recent years.

Copyright: The Herald

Madagascar: African Union acts against Andry Rajoelina

2010-03-19

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8574051.stm

The African Union has put sanctions on Madagascar's leader Andry Rajoelina, after he failed to meet a deadline to set up a unity government. Mr Rajoelina and 108 of his backers will face travel restrictions and have any foreign assets frozen, the AU said.

Madagascar: Ending the crisis

2010-03-18

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6588&l=1

This latest report from the International Crisis Group, analyses the underlying causes and offers a new approach to unlock the negotiation stalemate. Power-sharing agreements signed in Maputo in August 2009 and Addis Ababa in November offered opportunities to promote a consensual transition. But though he signed, de facto President Andry Rajoelina and his entourage have blocked implementation of the accords, so were hit by African Union (AU) personal sanctions on 17 March.

Madagascar: Timeline - A turbulent political history

2010-03-18

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88457

Madagascar's history is marked by a struggle for political control. By 1700, France and England had attempted to establish settlements, while the rulers of the island's many kingdoms fought among themselves for dominance. Madagascar gained independence in 1960, but since then it has been plagued by assassinations, military coups and disputed elections.

Nigeria: Leader Goodluck Jonathan dissolves cabinet

2010-03-19

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/africa/-/1066/881806/-/12200cez/-/index.html

Nigeria's acting president, Goodluck Jonathan, has dissolved the country's cabinet. Mr Jonathan became acting president in February amid the continuing illness of President Umaru Yar'Adua.

São Tomé: Election dates finally set

2010-03-19

http://www.afrol.com/articles/35706

President Fradique de Menezes of São Tomé and Príncipe has decreed that local and legislative elections will be held in July and August, after government had been unable to follow the original election schedule.

South Africa: Jacob Zuma survives no-confidence vote

2010-03-19

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8574771.stm

South African President Jacob Zuma has survived a vote of no-confidence called by opposition parties. The vote - the first such move since the ANC came to power in 1994 - was defeated by 241 votes to 84 with eight abstentions.

Togo: Constitutional Court confirms election of Faure Gnassingbé

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/ykpclfd

Togo's Constitutional Court declared Thursday incumbent President Faure Gnassingbe Essozimna winner of the presidential polls held 4 March, with 60.88 per cent of the votes cast, PANA reported from here. According to the final results, Gnassingbe, candidate of the Rally of the Togolese People (RPT), won 1,242,409 votes or 60.88 per cent, followed by Jean-Pierre Fabre, candidate of the Union of Forces for Change (UFC opposition) with 692,554 votes or 33.93 per cent.

Africa: Corruption carries high cost, World Bank says

2010-03-19

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50679

Poverty is on the rise in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and various forms of corruption threaten to undermine the impact of investments made to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the continent, said the World Bank in a report released Monday on Africa's development.

Sierra Leone: Challenges remain, despite acknowledgement on corruption

2010-03-19

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34128

Welcoming the recognition by Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma that corruption poses a serious threat to the West African country, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says that while he is encouraged by some improvements in its political climate, challenges to fostering political tolerance and promoting non-violence remain.

Africa: Experts meet over looming water crisis

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/ylzrauw

Players in the water sector from Africa meet in Kampala this week for talks on how to meet the continent’s needs as the commodity comes under renewed pressure from climate change and rising demand.

Africa: JICA model to encourage increased agricultural production

2010-03-18

http://farmlandgrab.org/11756

Japan International Cooperation Agencyis building a new development model to encourage increased agricultural production in Africa, both to help prevent another global food crisis and to deter a land grab by foreign enterprises across the continent, according to Senior Vice President Kenzo Oshima.

Global: 5th World Urban Forum to focus on 'right to the city'

2010-03-19

http://www.cohre.org/view_page.php?page_id=%20392

Today, more than half the world's population lives in cities. Every year, hundreds of thousands are uprooted when neighborhoods are cleared to make way for “development”. On 22-26 March, the fifth session of the World Urban Forum will be held in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro to address these issues.

Global: International World Water Day

2010-03-19

http://www.ifad.org/media/events/2010/water.htm

International World Water Day, held every 22 March, focuses public attention on the importance of fresh water and promotes sustainable management of freshwater resources. This year’s theme, ‘Clean Water for a Healthy World’, reflects the importance of water quality in natural resource management.

Senegal: 'Only the rich get loans'

2010-03-19

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50716

Despite the financial sector boom in Senegal, small and medium sized businesses (SMBs), which represent over 90 percent of the industrial fabric of the country, struggle to access funding for their development, their representatives claim.

West Africa: Will oil build or break Ghana's democracy

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/ygbgqlg

Will commercial oil production (due to begin later this year) build or break the back of Ghana’s democracy? This may seem an unnecessarily inflammatory question, but history demonstrates that healthy caution is necessary in managing oil revenues. Ghana, however, has made history by hosting a series of free and fair elections in recent years. Twice the opposition party has won and the incumbent has stepped down in a display of due respect for democracy. This is groundbreaking progress as less than a handful of African countries have attained such a benchmark of democratic consolidation

Africa: Benghazi AIDS conference wants stigma against HIV-infected people stopped

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/ylsmpnj

The first international conference on HIV/AIDS ended Wednesday in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, with a call on the people to fight against stigmatization and seek ways of re-integrating HIV-positive patients into the society.

Kenya: Cholera risk spreading

2010-03-19

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88487

As of 15 March, 15 districts nationwide were affected with cholera, with 663 cases confirmed since January, according to a Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation update. At least 15 deaths have been recorded. Worst affected are parts of Coast, Eastern and Rift Valley provinces. Kajiado District, in Rift Valley, has 177 cases.

Malawi: Ambitious plans to prolong lives

2010-03-19

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88480

Malawi's government has set itself a major challenge this year, announcing plans to more than double the number of people receiving antiretroviral (ARV) drugs to half a million by the end of 2010. The country recently adopted new World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines that raise the threshold for starting antiretroviral (ARV) therapy from a CD4 count (a measure of immune system strength) of less than 200, to a CD4 count of 350, regardless of whether the patient is displaying symptoms.

South Africa: Government launches massive HIV testing campaign

2010-03-19

http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032690

From April 15, everyone attending a clinic or hospital will be offered an HIV test, regardless of whether they have symptoms of the disease or not. Dubbed the HIV Counselling and Testing campaign, or HCT, this is the most ambitious HIV testing campain in the world, according to SA National AIDS Council (SANAC) co-chairperson Mark Heywood.

South Africa: High prevalence of drug-resistant TB amongst HIV patients

2010-03-19

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/618C211D-0BC7-48E4-A5AC-A90DB580AA75.asp

There is a high prevalence of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis amongst patients with HIV in South Africa, investigators report in the April 1st edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

West Africa: Stopping the polio virus

2010-03-19

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50715

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and its partners hope to eliminate the circulation of the polio virus in West Africa as soon as June by launching the first round of national synchronised immunisation days against the debilitating disease

Zimbabwe: HIV biggest cause of adolescent death, hospitalisation

2010-03-19

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/F91A22F2-6668-4641-BAE2-024F18B17BE4.asp

Among adolescents in Harare, Zimbabwe, HIV is now the single most common cause of acute admission and in-hospital death, Rashida A. Ferrand and colleagues reported in a study published in the February online edition of PLoS Medicine.

Zimbabwe: Typhoid on the rise in Harare

2010-03-19

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news180310/typhoid180310.htm

The number of cases of typhoid fever in Harare is increasing, raising fears of another serious health crisis in the country. More than 140 cases of typhoid have been reported in the Mabvuku-Tafara suburb of Harare, up from 40 cases reported last week. At least five people are known to have died so far from the mainly water borne disease. Typhoid, which is very similar to cholera, is transmitted by food or water contaminated with waste from an infected person. The Harare City Council has now ordered all food handlers to undergo medical tests to try curb what appears to be the rapid spread of the disease.

Africa: African networks needed to improve higher education

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/ya3wtt3

Higher education and research in Africa have largely been neglected, both internally and externally, since the 1980s. If Africa is to join the global knowledge community as an equal partner, it must revolutionise its research, education and training systems.

Malawi: Local language dictionary released

2010-03-19

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50717

The thickest book on secondary school teacher Hellen Ndalama’s desk is her indigenous language dictionary. It is also her most-used book. The front cover is partly ripped and the upper end of the spine is secured with adhesive tape. With 35,000 entries, the new book which translates Chichewa to English (CE) and English to Chichewa (EC) is the first comprehensive dictionary of its kind in Malawi.

Sierra Leone: Government ignores demands for additional teachers

2010-03-19

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50693

Ismail Conteh has been teaching for the past year-and-a-half at a primary school in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown – without receiving a single cent. He is one of hundreds of teachers recruited by schools to match the ever-growing number of pupils. Since the country’s government started to aim for universal primary education in 2003, classes have continuously become larger, with an average of about 50 pupils per teacher. Yet, the national department of education has employed only few additional teachers so far.

South Africa: More money, less education

2010-03-19

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88452

Ethembeni Enrichment Centre, a school in a run-down part of Port Elizabeth, the largest city in Eastern Cape, South Africa's poorest province, has achieved a remarkable 100 percent pass rate for a dozen years. But officials from the education department, sent on a fact-finding mission to learn from the school's success, are running more than two hours late.

Malawi: Gay couple to know their fate

2010-03-19

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=southafrica&id=2524

The final verdict in the case of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga of Malawi, detained for performing a same-sex engagement ceremony, is expected to be on Monday 22 March 2010 and Amnesty International has urged people to send appeal letters of protest to the Malawian government opposing arrest and trial of the two men.

South Africa: Islamic retreat to respond to homophobia

2010-03-19

http://ilga.org/ilga/en/article/mkTnIwo1zt

The Inner Circle (TIC) will host the Annual International Retreat (AIR) aimed at challenging Muslim extremism as well as engaging the impact of this on gender and sexual minorities.

South Africa: Separate is not equal - gay groups on Human Rights Day

2010-03-19

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=southafrica&id=2526

Constitutional rights of South Africa¡¯s gay people are facing an increasing threat from radical elements in the conservative sector, Christina Engela of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) said also stating that gays and lesbians still have a long way to go before they can be equal to heterosexuals in terms of human rights.

Africa: Africans 'take blame for climate change'

2010-03-19

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8571589.stm

Many Africans blame themselves for climate change even though fossil fuel emissions there are less than 4% of the global total, a new survey suggests. The report, the most extensive survey ever conducted on public understanding of the issue, found that others blamed God for changes in weather patterns.

Global: Africa advised against coal power

2010-03-19

http://www.afrol.com/articles/35713

As coal power stations are demolished, due to environmental damages, in many countries, they are being offered as a "cheap energy supply" for Africa. But specialists warn this will be expensive in the long run, especially as fresh funds are available for renewable energies.

West Africa: ECOWAS ministers to adopt document on Climate Change

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/yfhttks

Ministers of Environment from ECOWAS Member States will meet on Thursday in Accra, Ghana, to adopt a draft regional programme of action to reduce vulnerability to climate change in West Africa. Experts from the region, currently meeting in Accra to validate the document, will present their recommendations to the ministers for consideration, according to a communique from the ECOWAS Commission in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.

Congo: South Africa-Congo ‘land grab’: Exploitation or salvation?

2010-03-19

http://farmlandgrab.org/11672

It has been called the “new Great Trek” by South Africans who remember their history. Presently, over 30-million hectares in almost 30 African countries have been auctioned to a host of corporations and governments, from China — housing one fifth of the world’s population on 8% of the world’s arable land — to oil-rich, water-poor Gulf nations.

Global: Hunger knows no borders

2010-03-19

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88478

West Africa can meet its food needs through regional trade, most agricultural experts say, if countries keep their borders open for the free flow of staple grains, especially in times of heightened stress, whether climatic, economic, or brought on by conflict.

Kenya: Hunger crisis – the result of right to food violations

2010-03-18

http://tinyurl.com/yhhkuvn

“Kenya’s Hunger Crisis – the Result of Right to Food Violations” is the title of a report launched today by FIAN International and RAPDA. These words also capture the main findings of a mission report by a joint international delegation of the African Network on the Right to Food (RAPDA) and FIAN International. The mission was carried out in September 2009 and investigated the implementation of the human right to food against the background of drought and wide-spread famine in some parts of the country.

Africa: Vision for Africa

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/yar4c4h

Africa’s economic future and the challenge of uniting people and nations drew eminent politicians and scholars into a historic public debate in Nairobi. They examined the role of a free Press in Africa, debated the path to regional integration and spoke out on the continent’s quality of leadership as the curtain rose on the Nation Media Group’s 50th anniversary celebrations.

Ethiopia: Government admits jamming VOA radio broadcasts in Amharic

2010-03-19

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8575749.stm

Ethiopia has admitted it is jamming the Voice of America's (VOA) broadcasts in Amharic, accusing the radio station of engaging in "destabilising propaganda".
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Ethiopia had been testing jamming equipment, although there had been no formal decision to bloc the US station.

Ethiopia: IFJ denounces ‘punitive’ fines against media houses

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/ylr3vow

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.

Somalia: IFJ calls for release of two radio journalists

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/yj338zn

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) is deeply concerned about the security and safety of journalists in Somalia following the detention of Mohamed Salad Abdulle, of Somali Broadcasting Corporation and correspondent of Markabley radio in Kismayo and Mohamed Abdikarim, a correspondent with Hornafrik and Markabley radio station. The two were arrested on Tuesday 16 March 2010 by the Al Shabaab Administration in Jubba and Gedo regions.

Global: Africa still home to two-thirds of world’s slum population

2010-03-19

http://www.afrol.com/articles/35699

The overall population of slums has swelled by nearly 60 million, even though more than 200 million slum dwellers worldwide have escaped their conditions in the past decade, a new United Nations report finds.

Global: US city opens doors to Cuban 5

2010-03-18

http://www.thecuban5.org/IWDRichmonds.html

On Saturday March 13, in the auditorium of the Lavonya DeJean Middle School, in the City of Richmond California, a large number of people gathered to commemorate International Women's Day for the third consecutive year. Under the title "Women in Solidarity: Healing Our Beloved Community" more than 300 people, the great majority women, met to share the problems that affect all of them at the local, national and international level.

Africa: Al Qaeda should stop targeting civilians

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/ycojsp6

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has in recent months stepped up targeting tourists and aid workers for murder and kidnapping in Mali, Niger, and Mauritania, Human Rights Watch has said. AQIM should immediately and unconditionally free hostages in its custody and end attacks on civilians, Human Rights Watch said.

Angola: Heavy rains kill 13, render 9,000 homeless

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/yevnr83

Thirteen lives were lost, six injured while 9,516 people were rendered homeless during heavy rains recorded in the southern Huíla Province of Angola from January 2009 to February 2010, an official source disclosed to the nation's news agency, ANGOP

DRC: US, UN accuse forces of "crimes against humanity"

2010-03-19

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88410

Government troops - the FARDC - in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are to blame for much of the epidemic of sexual violence in the east of the country, according to US and UN reports detailing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity by various groups there.

Madagascar: UN assists relief efforts after deadly tropical storm

2010-03-19

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34124

United Nations aid workers in eastern Madagascar are helping local officials mount relief efforts in the wake of Tropical Storm Hubert, which has killed dozens of people in the Indian Ocean country and left an estimated 11,000 others homeless.

Nigeria: Government recalls Libya ambassador in Gaddafi row

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/yjo5fpz

Nigeria has recalled its ambassador to Libya after leader Muammar Gaddafi suggested Nigeria be divided into two states - one Christian and one Muslim. The foreign ministry said the Libyan leader's statement was "irresponsible". Earlier in the week a senator had called Col Gaddafi a "mad man".

Sudan: Darfur rebel alliance makes peace with governement

2010-03-19

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8574195.stm

Sudan has signed a ceasefire with a major Darfur rebel group, the second deal in recent weeks, leaving just one band of rebels in open conflict. The Liberation and Justice Movement (LJM) - a newly formed umbrella group of 10 movements - signed the framework deal paving the way for further talks.

Uganda: Protesters killed at Kasubi tombs

2010-03-19

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8572588.stm

At least two protesters have been shot dead by Ugandan police after they tried to stop the president from visiting the site of a fire at a royal mausoleum. The protesters booed President Yoweri Museveni and set up a barricade to stop him from reaching the tombs at Kasubi.

Africa: Africa could join high-speed science network

2010-03-19

http://tinyurl.com/ycndzzm

African science ministers are hoping to extend a high-speed fibre optic network — currently linking Egypt to the northern hemisphere — to other countries in Africa.

Africa: Tata to capitalize on sea cable for growth

2010-03-19

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

Global telecoms giant Tata Communications was set to increase its investments in Africa to capitalise on the arrival of new submarine data cables, CEO Srinath Narasimhan said last week.

Burkina Faso: Teacher becomes ICT expert

2010-03-19

http://www.iicd.org/articles/burkinabe-teacher-becomes-ict-expert

He gives computer advice to his fellow-teachers and fixes broken printers. He also uses digital material to enrich his classes and by using a school blog he helped to set up a partnership with a French school. Through IICD-supported trainings, teacher Christophe Hien of Bogodogo College in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso is now an ICT expert at his scho

Kenya: Ministry proposes ban on used computers

2010-03-19

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

The government is proposing a ban on second-hand computers to curb dumping and encourage local assembling. A study on electronic waste conducted in Kenya in 2008 indicated that the country generated 3,000 tonnes of e-waste from computers, monitors and printers in 2007. Information and Communications PS, Dr Bitange Ndemo, says his ministry is proposing to Treasury to include in the next year's Budget a ban on used computers.

Kenya: Farmer lauds internet as saviour of potato crop

2010-03-19

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8569125.stm

Kenyan farmer Zack Matere pulls his mobile out of his pocket holds it up and takes a couple of photos. "It seems they have come back and are digging here again." He is referring to a group of people who have encroached on a water catchment area and are endangering the whole community's water supply.

Rwanda: Over Rwf60 million moved in 'mobile money' transfers

2010-03-19

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

About Rwf60 million has been moved in daily transactions, with the use of the 'Mobile Money' facility, a month after it was launched, MTN Rwanda officials said. Andrew Rugege, the MTN Chief Executive Officer (COO) told Business Times on Friday that daily transactions had increased since the 'Mobile Money' platform was launched and added that active subscribers are close to 30,000 of the over 1 million MTN mobile clients.

Africa: Staying the Course on AIDS?

AfricaFocus Bulletin Mar 15, 2010 (100315)

2010-03-19

http://www.africafocus.org/docs10/hiv1003.php

We must end the false dichotomy between prevention and treatment. If we choose one over the other we will fail. We know from our experiences in the 1990s, that if treatment isnt there, people will not come to the health centers and doctors and nurses will not stay. We know from our long experience that it is virtually impossible to have successful public sector health and AIDS treatment programs where some people get therapy and others in dire need dont. - Dr. Peter Mugyenyi, Joint Clinical Research Centre, Kampala.

CODESRIA Child and Youth Studies Institute

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/63139

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce its 2010 Child and Youth Studies Institute and invites interested scholars to send applications for consideration for selection as laureates and resource persons in the session scheduled for September 2010. The Institute is an offshoot of the Child and Youth Studies programme and is designed to strengthen analytic capacity on all questions affecting children and youth in Africa and elsewhere in the world.
CODESRIA Child and Youth Studies Institute
Theme: The Place for work in African Childhoods
Date: 6th September - 1st October, 2010
Venue: Dakar, Senegal

Call for applications for the 2010 Session

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) is pleased to announce its 2010 Child and Youth Studies Institute and invites interested scholars to send applications for consideration for selection as laureates and resource persons in the session scheduled for September 2010. The Institute is an offshoot of the Child and Youth Studies programme and is designed to strengthen analytic capacity on all questions affecting children and youth in Africa and elsewhere in the world. The impetus for the introduction of the Institute was strengthened by the critique emanating from African researchers of the content and context of the developmental crises facing the continent. In addition, the link between these problems and what is designed as an annual interdisciplinary forum where participants can reflect together on a specific aspect of the conditions of children and the youth in Africa provided further support for this kind of Institute. It is hoped that this Institute will contribute to the advancement of the frontiers of knowledge and policy.

Each session of the Institute is held over a period of four weeks under the leadership of a designated director.

Objectives
The main objectives of the Child and Youth Institute are to:
1. encourage the sharing of experiences among researchers, activists and policy makers from different disciplines, methodological and conceptual orientations and geographical/linguistic zones over an extended period of time;
2. promote and enhance a culture of democratic values that allows to effectively identify and tackle Children and Youth issues confronting the African continent; and
3. foster the participation of scholars in discussions and debates about the processes of child and youth development taking place in Africa.

Organisation
The activities of all CODESRIA Institutes centre on presentations made by resident researchers, visiting resource persons and the participants whose applications for admission as laureates are successful. The sessions are led by a scientific director. With the help of invited resource persons he/she will ensure that the laureates are exposed to a wide range of research and policy issues. Open discussions drawing on books and articles relevant to the theme of a particular institute or a specific topic within the theme are also encouraged. Each selected participant is required to prepare a research paper to be presented during the course. Laureates are expected to produce a revised version of their research papers for consideration for publication by CODESRIA. For each Institute, CODESRIA Documentation and Information Centre (CODICE) prepares a comprehensive bibliography on the theme. Access to a number of documentation centres in and around Dakar is also facilitated. All CODESRIA Institutes are held in French and in English through simultaneous translation.

Topic for the 2010 Child and Youth Institute: A Place for work in African Childhoods
There is need to rethink the place of work in children’s lives, taking into account African culture and the perspectives of children in Africa. While children in high-income families and societies often enjoy a childhood of leisure, work is taken for granted as constitutive of growing up for the majority of the world’s children. While many parents in Africa regard the international campaign against child labour as an ethnocentric imposition contrary to accepted child rearing practices, many children are concerned that the burdens imposed on them interfere with their learning and development. While work activities can contribute to growing up, child development also depends on constructive interaction with the people around them. We need to learn what work means for children in different situations.
Much discussion of children’s work considers only the point of view of adults – what they expect or demand of children. In practice, the experience of work, and the benefits or harm that it brings to children’s lives, is strongly affected by how children perceive their work. Children’s perspectives are therefore essential to understanding the benefits and harm of work in their lives.
Most childhood work in Africa consists of unpaid work, whether domestic chores in the home or work on small farms or in other family enterprises, through which children learn their roles in society and acquire standing in their families through their contributions. Nevertheless, even domestic work can be extensive in poor households, especially when it includes collecting fuel and water or the care of sick in the family. While many children receive benefits from extended families, wealthy kin sometimes exploit the cheap labour of poorer kin under the guise of offering help. When work extends to helping on farms and tending livestock, it can incur hazards and may interfere with the child’s schooling. How do we ensure that the work children rightly undertake as part of the educative process of growing up does not become so harsh or extensive as to hinder their development?

Paid work in Africa often begins at an early age. Earnings of children can help with family budgets in poor families. Contribution to family income gives to children status and respect in their families. Work can provide escape from restrictions at home, due to poverty or other constraints. Especially as children reach adolescence, work can help to extend relations beyond the home, meeting with peers, learning to deal with adults, and learning skills that are necessary for future life. When children are out of school for any reason, work provides constructive activity that is preferable to idleness. And yet work can also be psychologically and physically abusive, hazardous, and interfere with schooling. Apprenticeships can involve much work with little respect and little training in return. How do we allow children to benefit from the opportunities that work offers, while protecting them from exploitation?

There is a fear that children’s work hinders their attendance or performance at school, and so restricts their future possibilities. And yet in many situations, it is the work that provides for school expenses, and work can create future opportunities particularly for children who are not very proficient at school. Are school and work essentially incompatible? What kinds of work are compatible with schooling and what kinds of schooling are compatible with work? When children work instead of attending school, is it the work that is keeping them from school or the failure of the school system that drives them to work?

The Child and Youth Institute, from the 6th September to 1st October, 2010, will focus on work in African childhoods. It aims to gather empirical information on the nature and extent of work in children’s lives, and on the consequences of this work for their development and their future prospects, incorporating a variety of social science disciplines. All studies will be expected to consider both positive and negative aspects of work for the children: for this it is essential that they pay attention to children’s perspectives and children’s interests.

The 2010 Child and Youth Institute will be directed by Professor Michael Bourdillon fromUniversity of Zimbabwe. Professor Bourdillon has been working on African Childhood for more than 20 years. He is the author of many books. He was the director of 2009 session of Child and Youth Institute.

As the director of the 2010 Child and Youth Institute, Professor Michael Bourdillon will:

- identify resource persons to help lead discussions and debates;
- participate in the selection of laureates;
- design the course for the session, including the specific sub-themes
- deliver a set of lectures and provide a critique of the papers presented by the resource persons or laureates;
- submit a written scientific report on the session.

Professor Michael Bourdillon is also expected to (co)-edit the revised versions of the papers presented by the resource persons with a view of submitting them for publication in one of CODESRIA’s collections.

Resource Persons
Lectures to be delivered at the Institute are intended to offer laureates an opportunity to advance their reflections on the theme of the programme and on their research topics. Resource persons are therefore senior scholars in their mid careers who have published extensively on the topic, and who have a significant contribution to make to the debates on it. They will be expected to produce lecture materials which stimulate laureates to engage in discussion and debate around the lectures and the general body of literature available on the theme.

Once selected, resource person must:
- submit a copy of their lectures for reproduction and distribution to participants in the week that the lecture is presented;
- deliver their lectures, participate in debates and comment on the research proposals and draft papers of laureates;
- Review and submit the revised version of their lecture notes or research papers for consideration for publication by CODESRIA not later than two months following their presentations.

Laureates
Applicants should be African researchers who have completed their university and /or professional training, with proven capacity to carry out research on the theme of the Institute. Intellectuals active in the policy process and/or social movements /civic organizations are also encouraged to apply. The number of places offered by CODESRIA at each session of its institutes is limited to fifteen (15) fellowships. Non-African scholars who are able to raise funds for their participation may also apply for a limited number of places.

Applications
Applications for the position of Resource Persons should include:
1. an application letter;
2. two writing samples;
3. a curriculum vitae;
4. a proposal of not more than five (5) pages in length, outlining the issues to be covered in their three proposed lecture.

Applications for Laureates should include;
1. an application letter;
2. a letter indicating institutions or organizational affiliation;
3. a curriculum vitae;
4. a research proposal (two copies and not more than 10 pages) including a descriptive analysis of the work the applicant intends to undertake, an outline of the theoretical interest of the topic chosen by the applicant, the relationship of the topic to the problematic and concerns of the theme of the 2010 Institute and
5. two reference letters from scholars and/or researchers known for their competence and expertise in the candidate’s research area (geographic and disciplinary), including their names, addresses and telephone, email and fax numbers.

The deadline for submission of proposals is 31st March, 2010. Acknowledgement of receipt of applications will be sent out before the 3rd April.
A selection committee of senior scholars will select the proposals by April 15th, 2010.
Selected applicants will be notified of the outcome of the selection by 1st May, 2010.
All selected applicants are expected to use the period from May 2010 to end of July 2010 for data collection and writing draft papers for the Institute.
Draft papers should be submitted to CODESRIA by the 6th August, 2010. All submitted papers must be accompanied by a 300 word abstract which will be translated for all laureates attending the Institute.
The Institute will be held in Dakar, Senegal from the 6th September to 1st October, 2010.

All applications or requests for further information should be addressed to:
CODESRIA Child and Youth Institute
Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop x Canal IV
BP 3304, CP 18524,
Dakar, Senegal.
Tel: (221) 33 825 98 21/22/23
Fax: (221) 33 824 12 89.
Email: child.institute@codesria.sn
Website: http://www.codesria.org

Researcher - Special Focus on DRC - Amnesty International

2010-03-18

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/63134

As a research-based campaigning organization, investigating and documenting human rights issues is fundamental to our advocacy and lobbying work. We’re currently looking for a Researcher to lead on the development and implementation of overarching research strategies on the DRC, analyse human rights related development, write reports and other material for publication. You will also provide expert advice on the human rights situation, conduct fact-finding field visits and represent AI to external stakeholders.
Researcher - Special Focus on DRC
£37,584 + excellent benefits
Central London

As a research-based campaigning organization, investigating and documenting human rights issues is fundamental to our advocacy and lobbying work. We’re currently looking for a Researcher to lead on the development and implementation of overarching research strategies on the DRC, analyse human rights related development, write reports and other material for publication. You will also provide expert advice on the human rights situation, conduct fact-finding field visits and represent AI to external stakeholders.

A proven researcher who’s committed to human rights, you will provide rigorous situation analysis with excellent communication skills in French and English, particularly written and presentational. You should have excellent political judgement, a specialist knowledge of the DRC and an understanding of the nature of key human rights concerns in Central Africa.

For further information about this and our other current vacancies, and to apply online, please visit us, quoting reference AFR/CAFT/R03.

CVs will not be accepted.

Closing date: 14th April 2010.

Fahamu