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Angola: Rebuilding by demolishing

The politics of national reconstruction

Sylvia Croese

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63298

Seven people are said to have been killed and 2,000 homes destroyed in a new wave of large-scale demolitions in the Angolan city Lubanga, as part of a government clearance programme to make way for public construction or infrastructure projects, writes Sylvia Croese. Local non-governmental organisations report that almost 3,000 families have been evicted and temporarily accommodated in schools and stadiums before being forcibly transferred to Tchavola, an area 9km outside of Lubango city centre, where they are expected to rebuild their lives. So far, only 700 tents have been distributed to provide temporary shelter for the families in Tchavola, where there is no basic sanitation and little access to electricity, food or blankets. A demonstration in solidarity with the victims of the demolitions was planned for 25 March.

8 March marked the start of ‘Operation Combat and Demolition of Shacks and Anarchic Constructions in the Municipality of Lubango’, in the capital of the South Western province of Huíla in Angola. So far, 2,000 houses have been demolished along the Moçâmedes Railway (CFM) which has been under reconstruction since 2005 and will ultimately re-connect the coastal harbour town of Namibe to the southern province of Kuando Kubango, passing through the province of Huíla as part of the country’s Programme for National Reconstruction. 1,000 more houses are to follow in the second phase of the operation.

It is not the first time that large-scale demolitions have taken place in Angola, that ironically are part of the government’s efforts to rebuild the country after a war that lasted over three decades. During the parliamentary elections campaign of 2008, the Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos promised to construct 1 million houses spread over the country’s 18 provinces until 2012. After the elections, it turned out that the majority of these houses will have to be built by citizens themselves under government-led ‘auto-construction’ programmes. The minimum average cost for construction in Angola is about US$300 per square meter, while over half of the Angolan population still lives on less than US$2 a day. Meanwhile, ‘illegal’ houses continue to be demolished in the capital city of Luanda (an estimated 3,000 homes affecting 15,000 people in 2009), and increasingly in the interior provinces of the country like the coastal province of Benguela and recently, Huíla to clear ground for new public construction or infrastructure projects.

Although Angola’s recently approved constitution secures and charges the government with the promotion of the right to housing and quality of life (article 85), entire neighbourhoods all over the country continue to lack access to water and electricity. The government’s arrogant and neglectful attitude towards this right is illustrated by the recent demolitions in Lubango, which have received virtually no attention in the state media.

According to local non-governmental organisations, to date almost 3,000 families have been evicted and temporarily accomodated in schools and stadiums before being forcibly transferred to Tchavola, an area 9 km outside of Lubango city centre where they are expected to rebuild their lives. Although journalists are not allowed to enter the area, this week independent newspaper Novo Jornal was able to find out that during a visit of CFM railway officials in November 2009, people were notified about the evictions but told that they would all would receive new houses. It now appears that these houses must be built by the people themselves on plots to be bought from provincial government for about US$250 each. There are also reports that parts of the assigned plots are on farming land, which has sparked tensions between the displaced families and the original inhabitants of Tchavola.

So far, only 700 tents have been distributed to provide the families in Tchavola with temporary shelter. Children are missing school and parents, which include teachers and public officials, are not going to work as they are afraid to leave the area and miss out on plots or tents for their families. Basic sanitary conditions are lacking – there are only open waterholes – and there is little to no access to electricity, food or blankets. These conditions are exacerbated by the frequent and heavy rainfall. Robberies take place at night because there are no police present. Seven people are reported to have lost their lives, including two children.

In an interview with Novo Jornal, the governor of the province of Huíla, Isaac dos Anjos, justifies the evictions and inferior conditions in Tchavola as a necessary adherence to the law, which he says is more important than humanitarian considerations. ‘The clock doesn’t stop ticking. We had to continue our operation as planned, whether the conditions were created or not.’ Citizens claiming to have documents from municipal authorities proving legal residence and compensation for their losses are left empty-handed as Article 95 of the recently approved Constitution and Article 25 of the Law of Land state that all land is state property and unauthorised construction on public land constitutes a violation of these laws. According to the governor, these kind of acts of corruption cannot be rewarded: ‘people have to take responsibility for their actions’.[1]

Meanwhile the second secretary of Huíla province, Virgílio Tyova, has offered apologies and compensation to victims of the evictions in Lubango, in name of the ruling governing party MPLA. The mayor of the city of Lubango chipped in by agreeing that the legal procedures regarding demolitions, evictions and replacements adopted by the National Assembly as Resolution 37/2009 in September last year should have been followed, which would have safeguarded better conditions for the evicted families.

In a radio interview by Voice of America[2], Governor dos Anjos says these statements stem from the wish to distance themselves from government acts that can put them or the party in a bad light and calls for the resignation of the mayor of Lubango. Earlier, the governor had already stated in Novo Jornal that none of the appointed members of the Provincial Intervention Commission set up ‘for the eviction of the citizens that occupy public spaces’, including officials from the provincial authorities in the areas of finances, health, security forces, social assistance, public works and housing as well as transport, had stepped up to their responsibilities upon the start of the operations, leaving the governor himself to lead the demolition process on the ground.

Central government also seems to have left Governor dos Anjos to his own devices to fulfil this dirty job in order to uphold its own image. While the minister for Urban Development and Construction José Ferreira attended the 5th World Urban Forum in Brasil this week (during which the will to shortly open a UN-Habitat office in Angola was reiterated), MPLA flags were burnt by people in the Sofrio quarter in Lubango. Central government then ordered the demolitions to be stopped, indicating that the complete operation was instructed from above. The demolitions were later resumed, but limited to all dwellings within a scope of 25 to 30 meters around the railway instead of the earlier 50 meters, saving about 100 houses.

Angolan civil society, leaders of the political opposition as well as the Catholic Church in the person of the archbishop of Lubango have spoken out against the demolitions, receiving letters of support from all over the world. This is a remarkable achievement for Angolan civil society and its supporters. The non-governmental organisation OMUNGA is waiting for a court’s decision on a march on Thursday 25 March in Benguela it is organising to express solidarity with all victims of demolitions and forced evictions in Angola. This march was prohibited by the provincial government of Benguela, but OMUNGA has said it will go through with it no matter what the court decides, claiming its right to protest.

* Sylvia Croese is an independent Dutch-Angolan researcher and consultant, based in Luanda.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] It is worth mentioning that this is the same Isaac dos Anjos who was convicted when chairperson of the board of an Investment Fund set up by the Angolan president, after the Angolan state’s Audit Department discovered that the Fund’s management didn’t have any proper accounting procedures in place and diverted funds to private ends (see Marques de Morais work on ‘Angola's MPs and business dealings’ published in January on this website).
[2] http://www.voanews.com/portuguese/2010-03-23-voa3.cfm

US legislation authorises military action against the LRA in Uganda

Samar Al-Bulushi

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63283

cc US ArmyThe recent US bill aimed at achieving peace in Uganda by militarily eliminating the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is rigorously critiqued by Samar Al-Bulushi. It is a bill, she argues, that will serve to prop up Uganda’s government. Al-Bulushi highlights the questionable origins of the bill: It is a response to the calls of a few US organisations – who coincidently emerged at the same time as AFRICOM – for peace in Uganda rather than the Ugandan people, who advocate non-violent paths to finding peace. She goes on to emphasise the vagueness of the US’s strategy to bring about this peace. And she aptly points out that, in supporting the Ugandan government, the US is buffering a regime that not only has a poor human rights record, but has actively prevented peace in Uganda. Al-Bushuli concludes that ‘Propping up a militaristic regime risks not only exacerbating the conflict, but also deflecting attention away from crucial discussions and demands for internal reform.’

Despite harsh condemnation from US legislators in response to Uganda’s draft bill criminalising homosexuality, the Senate passed a bill in mid-March that will prop up Uganda’s government by authorising military action in the highly volatile region of Central Africa. Introduced last May, the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act aims to ‘support stabilisation and lasting peace’ in Northern Uganda – the site of conflict between the Ugandan government and the rebel group Lords Resistance Army (LRA) since 1986. The bill calls for an assessment of options through which the United States, working with regional governments, ‘could help develop and support multilateral efforts to eliminate the threat posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army’.[1]

While the bill allocates funding towards humanitarian aid and post-conflict justice and reconciliation processes, the primary focus in Congress is on a military strategy to ‘apprehend or otherwise remove’ LRA leaders. And despite the bill’s requirement that the government of Uganda commit to ‘transparent and accountable’ reconstruction efforts, it makes no similar demands of a military operation, thereby giving a green light to extrajudicial executions. With recent reports of US military drones flying over Mogadishu to help the transitional government in Somalia to track the Shabaab resistance, we can expect a similar ‘multilateral’ approach to eliminating the LRA.

The bill emerged in response to aggressive calls, not from the Ugandan people, but from a handful of US-based organisations. Much like the Save Darfur Coalition has done with Sudan, groups like the Enough Project, Invisible Children, and Resolve Uganda have developed an influential voice in Washington that speaks on behalf of Africans thousands of miles away, calling for the US to facilitate ‘peace’ in conflict zones through military intervention.

The emergence of these organisations roughly coincided with the little-noticed birth of AFRICOM, the US military command for Africa. Announcing the creation of the command in February 2007, President Bush stated that AFRICOM ‘will enhance our efforts to help bring peace and security to the people of Africa and promote our common goals of development, health, education, democracy and economic growth in Africa.’[2] While Africans have expressed grave concern over the political and economic interests behind a US military presence on the continent[3], the US advocacy groups campaigning to end conflict in Africa have been among AFRICOM’s most ardent supporters.

In a statement released just before Obama took office, Resolve Uganda and the Enough Project made an explicit call for a military operation to eliminate the LRA: ‘The United States military has strong ties to the Ugandan military and has assets based nearby at the U.S. military base in Djibouti. The incoming Obama administration should provide greater intelligence and logistical support and should consider direct support to, and collaboration with, Ugandan forces on the ground in direct action against the LRA.’[4] In response to their advocacy efforts, Senator Russ Feingold stated in March 2009 that the effort to stop the LRA is ‘exactly the kind of thing in which AFRICOM should be engaged.’[5]

Yet, in an effort to appeal to a wide audience, the bill’s supporters are deliberately vague about how exactly ‘peace’ will come about. Visitors to Invisible Children’s website can give US$5 to ‘rescue the child soldiers’ and can sign a petition calling on President Obama to lead an ‘international effort’ to arrest LRA leader, Joseph Kony, and implement the LRA bill. No information is provided on the content of the bill, nor is any reference made to military action.

Resolve Uganda says that US policymakers should develop a ‘comprehensive strategy for working with international partners’ to ‘permanently end the LRA insurgency’. One has to dig much deeper on their website to find reference of a military operation. On the third page of a memo to civil society partners, it states: ‘The bill makes it clear that the Obama Administration should consider supporting viable military actions to protect civilians from LRA violence and prevent rebel leaders from carrying out further attacks… for any strategy to end LRA atrocities to be deemed “viable” as required by the bill, Obama Administration officials will have to explore alternative options beyond supporting offensives led by weak regional militaries.’[6] Enter AFRICOM with its ‘assets’ in Djibouti to lead an offensive with US-trained Ugandan special forces.[7]

On its website, the Enough Project references the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the top LRA leaders, but the bill makes no mention of the ICC and none of the groups have explicitly called for the warrants to be executed. And yet the ICC’s prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo (along with the Ugandan minister of defence), attended and addressed participants in a lobby day organised by Resolve, Enough, and Invisible Children in June 2009 to raise support for the bill.

Why would the head of an ostensibly independent legal body participate in a political event dedicated to passing legislation that makes no commitment to upholding his arrest warrants and that leaves the door open to extrajudicial assassinations? For all its talk of the rule of law, the US government has never exactly been a friend of the ICC. Under the Bush Administration, the US aggressively sought out bilateral immunity agreements with governments worldwide to ensure that Americans would not be subject to the court’s jurisdiction (and threatened aid cuts to those who did not comply). Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) signed reciprocal immunity agreements with the US in 2003, thereby guaranteeing that the US would similarly shield Ugandan and Congolese citizens from accountability under international law. In light of the failure of any of these governments to hold members of their own armed forces responsible for gross human rights violations, there is an equally small chance of accountability under domestic law. The bill’s supporters fail to mention any of this.

The groups are also misleading about the level of support for the bill. Resolve Uganda refers to a coalition of organisations that includes groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, and Uganda.[8] This ‘coalition’ is composed primarily of American and Southern Sudanese organisations; it includes just two Ugandan and one Congolese group (most Congolese are wary of any Ugandan-led operation because of the Ugandan Army’s history of violence and exploitation in eastern Congo[9]).

In the US, a number of groups with greater historical ties to the region raised alarm bells about the bill’s military component. In June 2009, the Africa Faith and Justice Network (AFJN) submitted a petition to Congress against military involvement. It stated that ‘allowing AFRICOM to assist in an attack against the LRA is a recipe for disaster’, citing ‘a strong outcry from many religious groups and communities in northern Uganda, including several AFJN members’ who are against a military operation.[10] In response to these concerns, minor changes were made to the bill, such as a stipulation that military action would only be pursued ‘if there continue to be no viable efforts to achieve a genuine negotiated solution.’[11] But without further clarification on who determines what constitutes ‘viable efforts’ or a ‘genuine’ solution, it appears that the US government will retain the authority to pursue a military strategy. An AFJN staff member, has in fact, privately confirmed that the focus of discussions in Congress remains a military operation.[12]

Outside of Resolve Uganda’s website, where their names are listed, none of the African groups are vocalising any continued support for the bill. In Acholiland, the heart of the conflict in northern Uganda, where the ethnic Acholi people have suffered attacks from both the LRA and the government’s army, the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative expressed strong concerns about the military component of the bill and called for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. ‘We applaud the commitment of the bill [in the US Congress] to bring about stability and development in the region’, said the leaders in June 2009. ‘However, we as the Acholi religious leaders whose primary concern is the preservation of human life, advocate for dialogue and other non-violent strategies to be employed so that long term sustainable peace may be realised.’

James Otto of Human Rights Focus, a local NGO based in northern Uganda, says that lobbying by groups like Resolve is helping prop up a government that has long favoured a military solution. Emphasising his organisation’s long-standing insistence on dialogue, he also expressed concern about the children who were forcibly abducted by the LRA getting caught in the crossfire of a military operation. ‘I don’t know what kind of charity organization would support violence,’ he said. Referring to the funding in the bill allocated towards humanitarian and justice efforts, Otto said that no amount of money could replace the lives lost in a military offensive.

Ugandan opposition to a military solution stems from their experience of numerous counter-insurgency efforts that have not only failed to bring peace, but have led to the displacement and death of thousands of civilians. In 1996 the Ugandan army rounded up and forcibly relocated civilians in the north into what it called ‘protected camps’, claiming that this approach would make it easier to shield them from LRA attacks.

In 2002 the government launched a counter-insurgency attack dubbed ‘Operation Iron Fist’, which failed to crush the LRA. In the process, the government again ordered civilians to move to the camps, threatening military action against those who did not comply. By June 2003, it was estimated that over one million civilians were in internally displaced camps. Over-congestion, malnutrition and lack of water made these camps literal death traps – at the height of the crisis in 2005, Uganda’s Ministry of Health reported that up to 1,000 people were dying per week from preventable diseases.[13] Human rights groups have documented accounts of Uganda People’s Defense Forces’ (UPDF) involvement in rape and murder of civilians found outside the camps.[14] Between the forced displacement, UPDF abuses and failure to protect civilians from LRA attacks, some have accused the Ugandan government of a calculated attempt to destroy the Acholi people.[15]

Following the breakdown of peace talks in late 2008, the National Security Council authorised AFRICOM to support a military operation (one of the first publicly-acknowledged AFRICOM operations) against the LRA, which was believed to be in the Congo at the time. AFRICOM provided training and US$1 million in financial support for ‘Operation Lightning Thunder’ – a joint endeavour of the Ugandan, Congolese and South Sudan forces in Congolese territory launched in December 2008 to ‘eliminate the threat posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)’. According to the United Nations, the offensive ‘never consulted with partners on the ground on the requirements of civilian protection.’[16] Stretching over a three-month period, it failed in its mission and the LRA scattered and retaliated against the Congolese population; over 1,000 people were killed and up to 200,000 displaced.[17]

Despite the severe civilian casualties and the Ugandan government’s poor human rights record, Resolve Uganda, the Enough Project and Invisible Children have since been lobbying Congress for a renewed military operation to help the Ugandan government ‘finish the job.’[18] ‘Given the close U.S. relationship with key actors in ‘Operation Lightning Thunder’—in particular Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and Southern Sudanese President Salva Kiir—the United States is uniquely placed to support better targeted military efforts’, wrote Enough and Resolve Uganda in a joint policy brief in January 2009.[19]

Beyond the rhetoric, what do we actually know about what this kind of military operation would entail? The latest reports indicate that the LRA is scattered across eastern DRC, the Central African Republic and southern and western Sudan. As the LRA operates in small groups moving between each of these countries, the potential for a protracted military campaign affecting thousands of civilians is high. In January 2009, the Canadian-based Heritage Oil Corporation announced what could be the largest onshore oil discovery in Sub-Saharan Africa on the Uganda/Congo border – the terrain where the proposed military operation would occur.[20] Disputes have already surfaced between the two governments at the border, and are likely to escalate with a heavier military presence to track the LRA.

And while the US lobby groups characterise LRA leader, Joseph Kony, as the spoiler who refused to sign a final peace deal, they fail to acknowledge that the Ugandan government itself has not yet signed the agreement. President Museveni has consistently thwarted peace efforts (1985, 1994, 2003) when he sensed that they did not serve his interests, which centre primarily on maintaining power. He has used his close ties to Washington to build and maintain a favourable image, hiring the DC lobby firm The Whitaker Group (TWG) to do his bidding. Between November 2006 and June 2007, Museveni paid the firm US$75,000 to publicise the government's commitment to peace.[21] Jendayi E. Frazer, former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under Bush, now works for TWG under a US$1 million contract with the Ugandan Ministry of Finance.[22] In an August 2009 Wall Street Journal editorial entitled ‘Four Ways to Help Africa’, she called on President Obama to ‘galvanize U.S. efforts to end the militia violence of Rwandan and Ugandan rebel groups still operating in the Congo.’[23] As a paid consultant for the Ugandan government, Ms Frazer is clearly suggesting Museveni’s preference for a military solution.

Indeed, the protracted conflict with the LRA has not only helped the Ugandan government justify exorbitant defence spending levels, but has also created a constituency within the military that benefits from its continuation.[24] The ‘global war on terror’ provided a convenient basis to expand military spending. After 9/11 President Bush designated the LRA as a terrorist organisation and Museveni followed suit with his own draconian anti-terrorism law in 2002. In 2003 the US awarded Uganda US$200 million to beef up its counter-terror work[25] and the defence department has since trained the Ugandan military for counter-terrorism operations.[26] This level of support has enabled Museveni to crack down on opposition in the name of fighting terror, with the president labelling those who question the government’s policies and actions as ‘LRA collaborators’.

As American military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan should remind us, neither peace nor justice can be brought about through force. The LRA is a symptom of deeper national problems that are best addressed by Ugandans themselves, and that – without the diversion of renewed conflict – are likely to gain more attention in the lead up to the 2011 presidential elections in Uganda. While the US advocacy groups might have us believe otherwise, Ugandans are not helpless victims awaiting rescue. They are actively mobilising for change on a vast array of issues, from LGBT rights to corruption, electoral reform, political representation, land, poverty, HIV/AIDS and violence. Many of them point to the ways in which the country’s anti-homosexuality bill – the product of external ideological influences – has focused attention on questions of morality and diverted energy away from broader questions of civil liberties and representation.[27] Propping up a militaristic regime risks not only exacerbating the conflict, but also deflecting attention away from crucial discussions and demands for internal reform.

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* Samar Al-Bulushi works in the field of transitional justice and is currently examining the influence of external actors on peace and justice debates in Uganda. She is co-host of ‘Global Movements, Urban Struggles’ radio show on WBAI 99.5FM in New York.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES:

[1] See 'Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009.'
[2] The White House Office of the Press secretary, ‘President Bush Creates a Department of Defense Unified Combatant Command for Africa’, 6 February 2007.
[3] See ‘African Voices on AFRICOM’.
[4] Resolve Uganda and Enough Project, ‘No Excuses: The End of the Lord’s Resistance Army is in Sight’, Policy Brief, January 16, 2009.
[5] See the Congressional Record.
[6] See democracyinaction.org
[7] See Human Rights Watch report on US training of Ugandan forces.
[8] Resolve Uganda website, ‘32 Groups Applaud Introduction of Landmark Legislation to Protect Civilians from LRA’.
[9] See, for example, United Nations, ‘Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’, 12 April 2001. In 2005, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Uganda was liable for massive human rights abuse in Eastern Congo. Although the ICJ instructed the Ugandan government to provide the Democratic Republic of Congo US$10 billion in compensation, it has yet to comply.
[10] Africa Faith and Justice Network website.
[11] Resolve Uganda
[12] Phone interview 17 February 2010.
[13] See Republic of Uganda Ministry of Health, ‘Health and mortality survey among internally displaced persons in Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts, northern Uganda’.
[14] See for example, Human Rights Focus (HURIFO), ‘Hidden War, Forgotten People: War in Acholiland and its Ramifications for Peace and Security in Uganda,’ October 2003. See also Human Rights Watch, ‘Abducted and Abused’ July 2003.
[15] Ibid, p.152. See also Olara Otunnu, ‘The Secret Genocide’, Foreign Policy, July/August 2006.
[16] [url=See East]http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/-/2558/835156/-/px0jepz/-/]East African[/url].
[17] See Ronald Atkinson, ‘Revisiting Operation Lightning Thunder’, The Independent, 9 June 2009.
[18] See ‘Finishing the Fight against the LRA,’ Enough Strategy Paper, May 12, 2009.
[19] See [url=See Resolve]http://www.resolveuganda.org/janurary2009policybrief]Resolve Uganda[/url].
[20] Times Online
[21] See ‘Country Paid Over $75,000 for a 'Good Image' Letter to U.S. Congress’ All Africa, February 2008.
[22] Africa News Online.
[23] See Samuel Olara, ‘Blood Money: Jendayi Frazer’s Apologia for Dictators’, Black Star News; and zimbio.com .
[24] See HURIFO, ‘Hidden War, Forgotten People,’ p.8
[25] New Vision, Monday, 7 July 2003.
[26] See Kevin J Kelley, ‘Uganda: Big U.S. Military Exercise for Northern Region’, East African, 12 October 2009.
[27] See Solome Nakaweesi-Kimbugwe and Frank Mugisha, ‘Bahati’s bill: A convenient distraction for Uganda’s government’, Pambazuka News, 16 October 2009.

African Renaissance, reloaded

The old man, the behemoth and the impossible legacy

Amy Niang

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63289

cc A J LAs the Senegalese president’s ‘Monument of the African Renaissance’ nears completion, the 164-foot statue in Dakar demonstrates Abdoulaye Wade’s need ‘to imprint his legacy on a continent that hasn’t fully captured the extent of his genius’, writes Amy Niang. The monument ‘sparked debate in Senegal and internationally, not least because of the colossal financial, political and aesthetic scandal it has proved to be,’ says Niang. But its construction also symbolises the failure of opposition, civil society and other social forces to champion the needs of Senegalese people who would have preferred to ‘see their health, education and basic living problems addressed’.

Senegal’s Mr Wade claims to be the African president awarded the most academic degrees. The well-rounded professor’s favourite sport is, unsurprisingly, the production of bright project ideas. President Wade has the knack for grandiose and extravagant ideas, from high-speed underground trains that serve the congested suburbs of Dakar to motorways that connect African cities from Dakar to Addis, to name a few. However this time, he has decided to give full sway to his fertile imagination and give concrete shape to it.

The Monument of the African Renaissance is a 164-foot giant that juts out above one of the 328-foot tall twin hills of the capital (Les Mamelles). It defies New York’s Statue of Liberty (151 feet) and Christ the Redeemer (328 feet) in Rio de Janeiro. A strong and muscular African man has his arms wrapped around a woman aloft and holding a child resolutely pointing towards the future. For Mr Wade, the monument conveys a ‘message of dignity for Senegalese and Africans.’ President Wade sees himself as a moral guide, a messiah. So it’s perfectly natural and befitting his role as doyen of African leaders to dream for his people, to envision a prosperous future for the continent and carry his vision forward into posterity. For Wade, the monument is such an (another) Omega master plan. It must be difficult for the mind that fashions such a gigantic creation not to feel like a demiurge!

As the only one of the proponents of the African Renaissance movement still serving as president – former presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Thabo Mbeki are the two others – Wade feels he needs to imprint his legacy on a continent that hasn’t fully captured the extent of his genius. Oblivious to the way the Senegalese feel about the faults that punctuate his ten-year administration, Wade is curiously apprehensive about his image internationally. He seems little concerned about the present, but is quite keen on leaving to posterity the cult of his greatness.

Since taking power, Wade has undertaken to mediate a number of conflicts and crises; the services of an African patriarch of his standing could reasonably be expected to help ease tensions. From Chad to Madagascar and the Middle East, Wade has made seminal rounds, offering to be the healing and mending voice of wisdom. But his meddling ways have become unwelcome in many circles, and Wade’s supportive attitude toward the decried regimes of Daddis Camara (Guinea), Faure E. Gnassingbé (Togo), etc, did little to help restore confidence in his sense of judgment. As if this hyperactivity knew no limit, President Wade embarked on organising The Fesman (3rd World Festival of Black Arts), scheduled for 2009 and postponed so many times that co-organisers in North and South America are losing hope of ever seeing it take place.

What is apparent to many is a relentless quest, for recognition and celebration, which in his view is perhaps to slow to materialise. If the prospect of a Nobel Peace Prize has become a distant possibility, the hope of receiving it some day is meanwhile costing the Senegalese people dearly.

Wade’s statue therefore, some argue, is the illustration of a dangerous kind of madness that lays its petals, openly, one that risks running the country to bankruptcy. Wade is possessed with a particular kind of madness, for which senility is only moderately responsible. Wade has lost, a while ago, the authority of wisdom recognised to elders of African societies. He has also lost the authority of the democrat, the authority of competence recognised to leaders who know how to capitalise on meagre resources for the greater good of society. Somewhere along the way, he has become the vandal and the renegade of the African Renaissance he so expensively purports to promote.

Wade’s Monument of the African Renaissance has sparked much debate in Senegal and internationally, not least because of the colossal financial, political and aesthetic scandal it has proved to be. Wade’s project imposes on Senegalese people burdens to which they lay no claim. Moreover, President Wade is to receive 35 per cent of the proceeds of tourism expected to be generated by the project, on intellectual property rights. Following the opposition parties and civil society organisations, the intellectuals and religious leaders have also invited themselves to the debate. Imams’ contrasted perspectives derived from an interpretation of rules of Islam. Whilst a majority of them point to the un-Islamic character of the physical representation of the human form, some of them were invited to scour the holy texts in search of supporting arguments. Needless to say, the status has polarised and blighted the public debate, and again crystallised it in ‘pro’ and ‘against’ camps. For President Wade, anyone who speaks out against the sculpture must be against his rule; the members of the civil society that dare point to the uselessness of the whole project are told off. As President Wade sees it, ‘there is no civil society in Senegal, there are only politicians’.

A conclave of intellectuals, purportedly sponsored by the president’s camp, even suggested that the wispily dressed woman should in fact be naked. Surely, if this fearless family was emerging from a crater, they could not possibly worry about what clothes they had on; busy they were, running for their lives! It didn’t take long for people to accuse the ‘statue-ideologists’ of being a vile representation of woolly-minded idealists zealously allied to the cause of the president.

The nearly completed monument is also a glaring failure of the opposition, civil society and other social forces to adopt a strong stance in 2006 when the project was being initiated. Beyond the artistic value – dubious at best – and the given motives (Renaissance), it is the way it has been forced upon the lives of the Senegalese that is hard to process. But what seemed like a long inertia has converted into a mass momentum. For the ordinary Senegalese, Wade’s brainchild is a mocking affront to the daily reality of the great majority. At the heart of the debate is the question of the very opportunity of the monument: Awfully expensive, aesthetically unsightly, disparagingly indecent for some, and constructed on the basis of nebulous financial transactions by a North Korean firm. More importantly, the Senegalese people did not ask for its erection and would rather see their health, education and basic living problems addressed.

Senegal has a strong independent media, and a strong but uneven and disparate public opinion that is still struggling to occupy public space. President Wade is concerned about the possibilities of a resolute public opinion, although he remains, more than ever, assertively immune to calls for moderation. His presidential function has severally encroached on his paternal ambitions for a son, and little precaution is taken to separate the one from the other. The very principles of equity are abandoned in favour of a ‘monarchisation’ of power, manifest in the frequent tweaking of the constitution, the selling off of collective land, the embezzlement of public funds, the institution of a divide and rule policy between religious groups etc. In fact, Senegal has become a strange kind of republic, whereby rulers conceive little with a republican decency. The country has experienced false starts thrice (under Presidents Senghor, Diouf and now Wade), but could never really take off.

A friend tells me the daily awe the monument aroused in her, on her way from work. The monument exudes, she says, ‘at night, a silent and overwhelming presence that fills it with an obscure whiff of the pagan’. And so the dust of an uncertain mill rubs off on mesmerised passers-by, some of them inhabitants of the locality, social detritus produced by decades of inadequate policies both under the Socialist administration and the Wade regime.

The debate around the statue has naturally become the receptacle of social discontent and the resentment over the US$35 millions the statue is alleged to cost an overburdened Senegalese population. The Senegalese do not recognise Wade the democrat they proudly elected in 2000 and re-elected in 2007 in the current president, an 83-year-old autocrat profoundly disconnected from the concerns, the pains and dreams of his people. For Wade’s supporters, however, politicians and intellectuals, the monument should be embraced, for it symbolises Africa rising from six centuries of bondage and oppression; it symbolises Africa’s potential to start afresh and dream a brighter future.

At work is an ongoing movement of consolidation of citizenship and an ongoing interrogation of the place and contribution of the citizen in a still-to-be-nation, and in a context of a vexed relationship between citizenship and state discourse. It would be wrong to apprehend current opposition to the monument through a discourse of derision or fatalism. The discourse is one of opportunity that attempts – in the absence of an appropriate framework within which to consolidate public space in the public sphere – to take possession of the interstices between public and private space, and to exploit the ambivalences of political rule. Counter-currents run against state propaganda, in ways that make it difficult for the state to clamp down on alternative discourses.

The monument is scheduled for inauguration in April, to mark the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of independence. Interestingly, it purports to embody an African independence that is so ostensibly absent in the functioning of African national institutions. The Senegalese government in particular suffers from a glaring deficit of confidence and exemplarity. The monument, for one thing, epitomises a very African affliction: The pointless splurging drives that have plagued the purses of many national budgets. 50 years into independence, the debate is being rekindled, as to what it should mean for African states to be independent.

The Senegalese president is not the only one who has been stung by the bug of celebratory monuments. In Goho Square in Abomey (Benin), the sculpture of 19th century king Gbehanzin orders a firm ‘stop’ to French colonisers. In Kinshasa, the Monument to Laurent-Désiré Kabila has pride of place on a plinth in a central square. In Windhoek, Namibia, the Heroes’ Acre Monument features amongst other things an obelisk and an Unknown Soldier holding an AK-47. Whatever motivated the construction of these symbolic monuments, they have in common the use of the services of North Korean firm Mansudae Overseas Projects, hence the peculiar ‘Stalinist’ feel to them. Whilst African renaissance remains a burning issue, actual and endogenous, it is not clear that this form of tribute would do much to uplift its goals.

Perhaps in 20 years time, the symbolical force and the economic spin-offs of Wade’s bronze behemoth may make it possible for people to accept it as part of a Pan-African heritage, rather than decry and flay it. For now, it is a giant bitter pill that is proving rather difficult for people to swallow. It is also a thorny issue for the politically tormented president who is not apologetic about indulging his wildest whims.

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* Amy Niang is a PhD candidate at the School of Social and Political Studies, University of Edinburgh.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

‘Shoot the Boers!’: Deflecting attention from new songs of protest

Mphutlane wa Bofelo

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63291

cc R MFreedom songs ‘speak to the pertinent issues of the time, expose the excesses and injustices of the system and the comfortable beneficiaries and supporters of the system, and point to the type of society the people envisage and the means to attain it,’ writes Mphutlane wa Bofelo. That is why South Africa’s new political elite is ‘stunting’ the ‘creative imagination and revolutionary rhythm by harping on “yesterday's” songs’, says Bofelo, so that it can deflect the growing anger among the masses about the failings of their leadership back onto the ‘remnants of the old order’.

The debates around ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema’s singing of the song ‘Dubula bhunu’ – meaning ‘shoot the Boers’ – which also contains the lyrics: ‘these dogs are rapists’, says a lot about efforts to deflect the attention of the people away from composing new struggle songs that capture the contradictions, complexities and vulgarities of the time and moment, place and space that is neo-apartheid, neocolonial, neoliberal capitalist South Africa.

Freedom songs (proper) speak to the pertinent issues of the time, expose the excesses and injustices of the system and the comfortable beneficiaries and supporters of the system, and point to the type of society the people envisage and the means to attain it. They cause discomfort to those holding the reigns of political power as well as those who control the economy, and provide morale and hope to the struggling masses. Freedom songs also celebrate the victories gained on the terrain of struggle and take a dig at any act of deviation from the original goals of the struggle, as well as any reactionary project of revisionism.


A vigilant civil society will also coin slogans and songs that rile against cooption by the system or against the abuse of struggle platforms and the arbitrary change of the goals of the struggle by the political elite. In our case, there has been a deliberate stunting of the creative imagination and revolutionary rhythm by harping on ‘yesterday's’ songs without attuning them to current realities. It is true that in the freedom songs and slogans, it had become tradition to use ‘Boers’ as a kind of generic terms to refer collectively to people who benefited from and actively supported the system of Apartheid-Capitalism to the point where people had come to use the terms ‘Boers’ and the system inter-changeably. It was therefore not unusual to hear people chant ‘Pansi na Mabhunu’, and in the same breath sing songs of praise to Bram Fischer, Joe Slovo or vouch by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. Sometimes there would be white people – Afrikaner, English, Jewish – in the audience, also partaking in the singing and chanting. The understanding was that exceptions don’t render the general situation or the rule obsolete.



Everyone who had undergone proper political education knew that the problem in South Africa/Azania was with capitalism as entrenched and fostered by racialism, and with racism as consolidated and ingrained by capitalism. We knew that white superiority complex and Black inferiority complex and unequal power relations and inequitable socio-economic relations anchored on race and class were not an act of nature. We therefore believed that this could be brought to an end by a radical reconstruction and transformation of the allocation and distribution of power and resources. We also knew that it does not only take a white skin to install or perpetuate a system based on unequal allocation of power and inequitable distribution of wealth and resources. We knew that the struggle for justice is not determined by the colour of the one who holds political office; that individuals’ politics and economics and class positions are not solely influences and determined by the colour of skin or the texture of hair. 












That the political, social and economic conduct and morality of a person is not ultimately informed by his or her ‘race’ and that our judgment of what is morally and politically unacceptable should not be the race or gender of a culprit and victim. In other words, we had learnt to differentiate between generalising about the collective conditions of black and white people and endorsing stereotypes about black and white people. We knew that there were black people who have been bought into the system and white people who are conscientious dissidents and anti-apartheid activists.





We knew that our country could either reform or transform power and social relations anchored on the marriage between class and race, that post-apartheid South Africa could either be a complete break with apartheid-capitalism or be a surface modification of the old society. We also knew that we then would have to attune our forms of struggle, our activism and our slogans and songs accordingly.

The new political elite also knows that ultimately this is what the masses would do. They have already heard in some marches the masses sing: ‘Amabhunu amnyama asenzela i-
worry’ – ‘Black Boers cause us worries.’ Their harping on ‘struggle songs’ as they were sung in the past, is not a reflection of how attached they are to the struggle, but an attempt to locate the struggle literally in the past. They want us to believe that the struggle is over, that all we have is remnants of the old order against whom our anger should be vented. In this way, the political elite sidetracks us from singing about the current dislocation of water and electricity, the ruthless and violent evictions of shack dwellers by the red ants, the vicious police attack on service delivery protesters, the financial exclusion of students, the kleptomaniac proclivities of the new political and economic elite, the advent of the black colonialists, attacks on the freedom of media, the massive acts of
 de-politicisation, de-historicisation of our struggle and concerted efforts towards de-memorialisation.

While race continues to be a very important issue, the black political and economic elites raise race not to confront racism but as a card to render themselves immune from criticism and also to find a slice for themselves in the economic cake. It is a weapon of mass distraction to fail to point out that the economy remains in white hands precisely because the ‘guarantee of property rights’ and ‘protection of minority rights’ where part of the Kempton park package and precisely because the ruling African National Congress believes that there is no alternative to unbridled capital.




Jacob Zuma went to Britain and assured the masters that the ANC never made mistakes when it designed its policies, and that nationalisation will not happen. Malema himself told the press recently that by nationalisation the
 ANC Youth League only means private-public partnerships. Yet, the same man who makes it clear that the land and the mines are not going to be socialised under ANC government, leads us into singing ‘Dubula bhunu’. If it is our government that maintains the property regime established by apartheid-government, why should our guns be indiscriminately directed towards the Boers? Why aren't our machine guns directed towards the bourgeoisie – black and white? Why shouldn't our attack on capitalism be as vicious as our attack on racism? It is simple; the ranting against Boers and ugly women is to take attention away from the songs of the protesting people in the streets of Sharpeville, Bulfour, 
Harismith… multitudes of people whose life is a nightmare under the rainbow-nation mirage.

The theme songs of Malema and Zuma are subtle attacks on the creative imagination and revolutionary urge of the masses. They want to focus the people on imaginary fights with the Boers while the filthy rich black political and economic elites are involved in equity deals with the stinky rich whites, strolling half-naked with them in exotic beaches and exclusive resorts. What we need are slogans and songs that highlight that we live in an environment where the ruling party consists of the black majority, in which the black political and economic elite have been co-opted into the capitalist machinery and is responsible for the design and implementation of policies and practices that entrench and perpetuate the structural and systemic socioeconomic disenfranchisement, exclusion, disempowerment, underdevelopment and marginalisation of the black majority. We do not need empty radical posturing and racist ‘scapegoating’. We need slogans and songs that will unlock the creative imagination and revolutionary pulse of the masses and make them think and act outside of the box in search of solutions to the many problems and challenges facing them.



BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Is Julius Malema just a pinker Floyd?

Azad Essa

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63302

cc S GIn a tongue-in-cheek reflection, Azad Essa reviews the revelations of a secret dossier on Julius Malema apparently found in the abandoned mines of Diepklip.

Zimbabwean journalists, now illegal workers living in Jozi’s mines, have discovered a secret dossier that showcases one Julius Malema suffering from clinical depression. The dossier, found in the abandoned mines of Diepklip bordering the dry Mid-rand suburb of Kraakfontein (opposite the KFC) is a collection of transcribed counselling sessions between Malema, an unnamed psychiatrist only known as 'Doctor' and presumably three executive members of the ANC.

The dossier is made up of three sections – 'Report A: JM Matrix', 'Report B: JM Reloaded' and 'Report C: JM Counter-revolution' – and pinpoints key attempts to steer Malema into heading the ANC leadership from 2014.

More than anything else, it is an exploration of the difficulties faced by the ANC in rearing their latest protégé.

'Last week I got lost in my own house,' Malema arbitrarily admits during a roundtable discussion in 'Report B: JM Reloaded'.

'I still don’t know how many rooms I have, and these doors seem to take me to different places,' adds Malema.

Report A recounts up to 13 interventions since December 2008 in which the ANC top brass have had to prevent a heavily medicated Malema from slitting his wrists.

It is alleged that the trouble started when Malema realised that the woman who had once accused President Jacob Zuma of rape was actually his second cousin’s sister.

'I can’t keep up this charade anymore chief,' Malema is quoted to have said following the realisation, 'I think I have become a counter-weight; perhaps it’s time for me to go?'

While the document highlights some of the weaknesses in leadership currently experienced by the ANC, experts say that it is the role of ANCYL (African National Congress Youth League) spokesperson Floyd that disturbs them most.

According to the Zimbabwean reporters, it was precisely Malema’s reliance on quoting Floyd during counselling sessions that caught their attention.

In 'Report C: JM Counter-revolution', Malema sings to his doctor about his vision for a new South Africa: 'We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control; no dark sarcasm in the classroom; teachers leave them kids alone.'

'But my mother tells me she would like me to go back to university,' Malema soberly concludes to his psychiatrist.

The three-ply document skid-marks an ANC that is growing rapidly impatient with Malema’s flatulent histrionics. Following Malema’s admission in the report that to 'kill the Boers was not my idea in the first place', one ANC executive member identified only as 'CH' in the dossier is quoted as saying 'stop being a squealing bitch', while another, identified as 'JD', is quoted as having 'grunted' at Malema’s concerns.

'Remember what we have done for you Juliass,' drags CH.

Malema says that he was finding it difficult to even just have a quiet drink with his white friends from Sandton.

'I really do have white friends! These songs scare them chief … imagine if they leave the country and we are forced to actually keep our word and nationalise the mines. We would be f*****,' he continues.

'You are too stressed, Julius … you should consider doing some exercise,' says the doctor.

'Yes, are you a member of Virgin?', asks JD.

'Ey chief! I have children,' Malema replies.

But other sections of the dossier, experts say, prove to be more ominous than funny.

One sociologist said that the dossier is 'damning, damaging but not debilitating' because it shows that 'Malema is reflecting on his erratic behaviour'.

'This is ample proof that the lad has a brain, and despite his apparent thirst to stir violence, intolerance and gender disparity, he just wants to make his mother happy,' says sociologist Jaco van der Westwood from the University of BEE (black economic empowerment).

'It appears he is stuck in a catch-22 situation,' says Precious Ncube, a psychologist at the Cuckoo’s Nest in Middle Burg.

'On the one hand he loves the attention of being the prince of the ANC, able to raise his voice and cause a flutter whenever he wants – but he knows that dislodging this firebrand image is going to be difficult to negotiate. People don’t expect him to be the Marshmallow man, but if Julius needs a hug and can’t get it … God forbid.'

'This is a new century. This can drive a man to suicide,' adds Ncube.

However, Malema sees suicide as a shot at martyrdom.

'I think by taking my own life, it will show how counter-revolutionaries still have such a psychological advantage over black people,' suggests Malema in 'Report C: JM Counter-revolution'.

'Even with all my wealth, I still feel incomplete,' adds an emotional Malema.

'But our country’s constitution often comes in the way. And seriously, we black people need new lyricists,' added Malema.

ANC insiders nevertheless say far too much money has gone into Malema for them to simply let him die.

'Julius would like to think that he is replaceable. But he is not. There is no one like him. Yes, there are literally millions of young black and white males waiting to take his place but no one highlights and distracts the nation like Julius,' said the source. 'He would be a regrettable loss.'

In a dramatic twist, Zimbabwean journalists said they agreed to return the full document to the ANC if 'the South African government gives our country back'.

A statement released by the Zimbabwean Journalists in Exile Association, now working as illegal miners, declares their motion 'to return the entire document to the ANC NEC following a process that would get us out of the mines and back into the newsrooms of Harare'.

'The blood of the real South Africa flows within these mines … the ANC knows that this is a sensitive, coded document of high importance. We will give their life back … but we want our lives back first,' the statement added.

Attempts to reach comment from the ANCYL proved fruitless, though Floyd hinted that Malema could be just be another brick in the wall.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Azad Essa is a journalist based in Durban. He writes the award-winning blog Accidental Academic.
* This article was originally a blog post on the Mail and Guardian's Thought Leader.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Ethiopia: In defence of the Voice of America

Alemayehu G. Mariam

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63303

cc WikimediaWith Meles Zenawi comparing the Voice of America (VOA) Amharic radio service with the infamous Radio Mille Collines in operation during the Rwandan genocide, Alemayehu G. Mariam argues that the Ethiopian prime minister should apologise. Such outrageous, nonsensical accusations represent nothing more than an attempt to divert attention from the recent aid-for-arms scandal, Mariam stresses.

Meles Zenawi seems to have a morbid fascination with genocide. Whenever the going gets tough – bad news, tightening election campaigns, stiffening political opposition – he whips out the spectre of Rwandan-style 'interahamwe' (which in Kinyarwanda or Rwanda means 'those who stand, work, fight, attack together') in Ethiopia to change the subject. Predictably, as recent news of his rebel group’s use of famine aid money in 1984 for weapons purchases received massive international coverage, the opposition stepped up its campaign for the so-called May elections, the US State Department issued its condemnatory human rights report on his regime and Bob Geldof went bananas, Zenawi resurrected his favourite interahamwe bogeyman to justify his decision to jam the Voice of America (VOA):

'We have been convinced for many years that in many respects, the VOA Amharic Service has copied the worst practices of radio stations such as Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda in its wanton disregard of minimum ethics of journalism and engaging in destabilizing propaganda.'[1]

The last time Zenawi pulled the same interahamwe cock-and-bull story, he was smacked down by the European Union Election Observation Mission for engaging in 'unacceptable and extremist rhetoric'. The EU Final Mission 'Report on Ethiopia’s legislative elections' (2005) stated[2]:

'The end of the campaign became more heated, with parties accusing each other of numerous violations of campaign rules. Campaign rhetoric became insulting. The most extreme example of this came from the Deputy Prime Minister, Addisu Legesse, who, in a public debate on 15 April, compared the opposition parties with the Interhamwe militia, which perpetrated the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The Prime Minister made the same comparison on 5 May in relation to the CUD [Coalition for Unity and Democracy]. The EPRDF [Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front] made the same associations during its free slots on radio and TV… Such rhetoric is unacceptable in a democratic election.'

Welcome back to the future. We are still living in 2005, except in 2010 Zenawi is trying sneak into the political arena the ghosts of Rwanda using a new spiritual medium, the Voice of America’s Amharic radio service. Nice try, but nothing doing. 'Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.'

What is this 'interahamwe' Zenawi is talking about?

In 1993, a year before the Rwandan genocide, a notorious 'privately-owned' radio station calling itself Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines began broadcasting hate messages to incite Hutus to commit violent acts against Tutsis. It also broadcast racist and hateful messages against moderate Hutus, Belgians and the UN mission in the country. When President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was killed after his plane was shot down in April 1994, Mille Collines began calling for a 'final war' to 'exterminate the [Tutsi] cockroaches.' The station read on air the names of people to be killed, and helped direct the murderous militias to different locations where victims could be found. It also emboldened and encouraged the killers by providing them updates on their genocidal activities: 'In truth, all Tutsis will perish. They will vanish from this country … They are disappearing little by little thanks to the weapons hitting them, but also because they are being killed like rats.'

When Zenawi says, 'the VOA Amharic Service has copied the worst practices of radio stations such as Radio Mille Collines', he is asserting that the Amharic service has called for a 'final war' and the 'extermination' of certain groups of Ethiopians like 'cockroaches', 'vermins' and 'rats'. He is also saying that the Amharic service is directing and coordinating murderous militias and groups for genocidal activities to make sure that some Ethiopians 'will perish and vanish from the country.'

Has the VOA Amharic service in its history ever called for such genocidal and criminal actions?

Since Zenawi is accusing the VOA of the 'worst practices' of genocidal radio, we challenge him to produce a single word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, story, analysis, commentary, editorial or any other broadcast whatsoever in audio, written or symbolic form to back up his reckless and irresponsible charges. We pledge to bring to the bar of American justice the VOA or any individual in that organisation and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law if Zenawi were to produce a single molecule or speck of evidence, or a single example of the 'worst practices of radio stations such as Radio Mille Collines' committed by the VOA.

The US response to Zenawi’s bizarre allegations was uncharacteristically bold, and gave Zenawi a much needed introductory lesson in his own constitution:

'The United States opposes Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles’ decision to jam Voice of America’s Amharic Service and condemns his comparison of their programming to Radio Mille Collines of Rwanda. Comparing a respected and professional news service to a group that called for genocide in Rwanda is a baseless and inflammatory accusation that seeks only to deflect attention away from the core issue… The Minister may disagree with news carried in Voice of America’s Amharic Service broadcasts; however, a decision to jam VOA broadcasts contradicts the Government of Ethiopia’s frequent public commitments to freedom of the press. We note that the Ethiopian Constitution states that all citizens have the right to freedom of expression "without any interference" and that this right shall include freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, "regardless of frontiers." The Constitution further notes that freedom of the press shall specifically include "prohibition of any form of censorship." We look to the Government of Ethiopia to abide by its constitution.'[3]

But while we are on the subject of interahamwe, who gave the following speech recently?[4]:

'There are those who maintain an eagle eye on the regime with bitter animosity and sully it by painting and drenching it in soot. Regardless, our country has marched into democracy confidently and irreversibly. Anti-democratic and anti-people forces have so much contempt that they badger our uneducated people telling them chaff is wheat. However, our people are used to winnowing the chaff in the wind and keeping the wheat. Our enemies are peddling chaff to the people and trying to find holes to sabotage our peoples' democracy, peace and development. But since our organization knows that our operation is airtight, we are not concerned. The chaff hope to provoke the people into anger and incite them to undemocratically resort to violence. Although they (the "chaff") can not dirty up the people like themselves, they may try to smear the people with mud in the hope of inciting them into lawlessness.'

Could it be that 'dirty chaff', 'anti-democratic and anti-people forces', 'enemies', 'saboteurs of the peoples’ democracy', 'inciters of violence' and 'mud smearers' are kinder and gentler words for Radio Mille Collines’s 'cockroaches, rats and vermins' who need to be 'exterminated'?

The US should demand proof of the allegations against the VOA or a prompt apology and a solemn promise never to pull this loony 'interahamwe' hoax again. In the alternative, it is time for the US to take decisive action against Zenawi’s dictatorship.

Zenawi can try to jam the VOA Amharic broadcast at the cost of tens of millions of dollars, resources that could be used to aid famine victims and provide healthcare and education. But we know the whole thing is a futile attempt to distract public attention from the recent stories about the millions of dollars stolen from famine aid to buy guns in 1984, the fantastic reception Medrek candidates are getting in Tigray, the murder of Aregawi Gebreyohannes in Tigray, the fact that no credible international observers will be coming to observe the 'elections' in May, the damning US State Department human rights report, the soaring inflation, corruption and on and on. Suffice it to say that Zenawi can fool some of the Ethiopian people all of the time, and all of the Ethiopian people some of the time, but it is unlikely that he will be able to fool the VOA, the BBC, Deutche Welle, Bloomberg News, the New York Times, the Guardian, the Associated Press, ABC, CBS, The Huffington Post…

In the name of decency, those of us who have listened to VOA’s Amharic service broadcasts over the years offer the VOA and its Amharic service our profound apologies for the deeply offensive and scurrilous remarks. Though we may have had reasonable differences of opinion with the Amharic service, we have never had cause to doubt the professionalism of the service’s reporters, editors and management, their commitment to fairness and accuracy in reporting and their strict adherence to the principle of fair play. For these qualities demonstrated consistently over the years, we express our deepest appreciation, gratitude and respect to the VOA and its Amharic service.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

NOTES
[1] http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/east/Ethiopian-PM-Says-He-Will-Authorize-Jamming-VOA-88480397.html
[2] http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/human_rights/election_observation/ethiopia/final_report_en.pdf
[3] http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/03/138682.htm
[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alemayehu-g-mariam/ethiopia-waiting-for-godo_b_480444.html

Africa Initiative presents 'Africa and China in the 21st Century’

The Search for a Mutually Beneficial Relationship (Symposium, 8-10 April 2010)

Africa Initiative

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/63307

The keynote address will be delivered at 6:30 pm, Thursday 8 April by H.E. Ambassador Tete Antonio, permanent representative of the African Union to the United Nations.

Other scheduled speakers include:
- Sanusha Naidu, research director of China in Africa Project, Fahamu-South Africa
- Du Xiaocong, deputy permanent representation, permanent mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations
- Dunia Zongwe, fellow of the Institute for African Development at Cornell University
- Horace Campbell, professor of African American Studies and Political Science at SU
- Kwabena Otoo, Director of the Labour Research and Policy Institute, Accra

Select themes under discussion will include, among others, labor issues and the rights of African workers; infrastructure development; China’s win-win strategy and Africa’s extractive industries; African studies in 21st century greater China; and Africa, China, the G-77 and on-going climate change discourse.

The symposium is free to public, but those interested in attending are encouraged to RSVP to wmahenge [AT] syr [DOT] edu by March 30. For information, call 443-4180 or email africain [AT] syr [DOT] edu.

* The symposium is co-sponsored by the Department of African American Studies; African Student’s Union; and the International Relations Program, East Asia Program and Executive Education Program at the Maxwell School.
* The Africa Initiative of Syracuse University is based in the Department of African American Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. It aims to spearhead a revitalized scholarly interest and focus on Africa as an important site of knowledge by providing a platform for scholars and practitioners to re-engage with the continent.
* Fahamu Networks for Social Justice is an international non-profit organisation that endeavours to build the capacity of African human rights and social justice movements.

Second Julius Nyerere Intellectual Festival Week (12–15 April 2010)

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/63304

Second Julius Nyerere Intellectual Festival Week

Nkrumah Hall – University of Dar es Salaam

- A week of reflections on the 1967 Arusha Declaration
- Hon. Ms Samia Nkrumah will be the guest of honour. She will deliver a lecture on 'Reflections on Osagyefo: Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s Pan-African vision'
- Distinguished 2010 Nyerere lecturer Professor Samir Amin will deliver lectures on 'Crisis of capitalism and imperialism' and 'Exiting from capitalism in crisis: Initiatives in the global South'
- Interactive dialogues on 'The Arusha declaration and socialism and rural development'
- Professor Utsa Patnaik will speak on 'The agrarian question in the neoliberal era'
- Launching of 'Africa's Liberation: The Legacy of Nyerere'
- The premier of the documentary 'Walter Anthony Rodney Stories'
- Music, songs and poems by famous performers

Pan-African Diary 2011: Call for entries

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/63294

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

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Blood flood in Jos: How to defuse the tensions

Kola Ibrahim

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/63301

cc WikimediaThe inability of the regional military command in Jos to curtail the recent killings reflects not just a professional problem, but ‘deeper systemic social failure’, writes Kola Ibrahim. Although the armed forces are ‘prepared to undertake foreign military operation in the interests of the capitalist ruling class and imperialist forces under the guise of peace-keeping’, argues Ibrahim, they ‘can hardly defend public safety’. What’s really needed, says Ibrahim, is for security forces to be democratised and made accountable to the masses, but ‘it will take a pro-poor government that emerges from a people’s movement to do this’.

Again, hundreds of innocent lives – mostly of women and children – have been wasted away in Jos villages by ethnic bigots, who are banking on the failure of Nigerian government to secure citizens’ lives and properties. The over-a-decade of civil rule has meant the loss of over twenty thousand lives or more, to one form or another of communal, ethnic, religious and political strife. All this has again raised a big question about the viability of Nigeria as a country. In fact, the continuous debate about nationality question, a decade after civil rule, shows that there is more to the survival of a nation than the ritual of elections.

Many commentators have identified the failure of government to bring those behind the massacre to book as a catalyst for the continued hostility in Jos. But nobody has recognised that the failure of Nigerian government to bring the culprits to book reflects the culpability of government. How else will one show the backwardness of the Nigerian state than by the fact that, despite the massive militarisation of Jos, none of the communal crises has been stopped from happening? It should be noted that the military command in Jos is not meant for Jos alone but the whole region. That such military force could not contain the crisis in just one part of its territory reflects not just a professional problem, but also deeper the systemic social failure.

The Jos military commander claimed that he was misled, but it was glaringly obvious that he and his castes are half-sincere if they are serious at all. Is the commander saying that no one within the whole security set up – including the police, the SSS and the military – knows the terrain of Jos, such that the whole security set up will be misled for over five hours over the massacre? Were the squads sent to curtail the massacre only roving, and when it seemed there was no problem, they left the place within few minutes – or was there only one squad moving round the communities? Are the police and the SSS also deceived? When the commander got reports (through text messages), did he discuss these with other sections of the security forces – the police, the SSS and the state government (including the governor) – and what was their response? That the commander reduced everything to being deceived shows his high level of contempt for truth.

But in the real sense, what the military commander demonstrated is not just his individual nature, but a reflection of neo-colonial character of public officers. While senior military officers are prepared to defend the power and prestige of the ruling political class, they care less about public safety. That explains why, although the military will be prepared to undertake foreign military operation in the interests of the capitalist ruling class and imperialist forces under the guise of peace-keeping, it can hardly defend public safety. The same police that cannot stop crimes will smoothly repress peaceful protests against government’s anti-poor policies. According to the police command, more than a quarter of the police force is used to protect moneybags and the ruling class. Thus the military and police have continued the colonial policy of using public funds to build coercive forces amongst the people, to protect anti-poor government and imperialist economic forces.

The security forces, aside from being tailored towards the defence of the ruling class, are also undemocratically organised. This explains why it is easy for the military commander to just tell the public that he relied on text messages, and sent his men there.

This shows a total disconnect between the military commanders (and other security heads) and their rank and file (who actually carry out the field work) on the one hand, and the military forces and the people on the other hand.

The security forces are organised in such a way that a commander can take an absurd decision in a pepper soup joint, or can act on ethnic or racial instinct, without recourse to any democratic decision-making organ.

He only needs to settle himself with his superior. Under such an arrangement, the curtailment of communal conflict or even criminal acts will become a miracle. Thus, it is necessary to ask the people of Plateau State (including the Fulanis, Beroms and other tribes) to organise collective community security groups to stop this bloodletting and not rely on any security force.

Some observers are of the view that democratisation of the security forces will engender indiscipline and sabotage. But no coups organised in this country has ever been done through the democratic input of rank and file soldiers, but through coercion. Also, many of terrible actions of the police, including checkpoint bribe-taking, are not the product of the democratisation of security forces, but the lack of it.

If the security forces are democratised and made accountable to the masses, it will be hard for anybody to organise a coup. Rules guiding the activities of the security forces will be determined by the people, and the rank and file. Aside from the fact that such rules will reflect prevailing social conditions, it will be easy to implement. Public military training for adults and community control of the security forces and security arrangement will surely checkmate an illegitimate hold on power and thus control the use of public resources.

But, it will be illusory to expect the current capitalist, neo-colonial politicians who are gaining from current arrangement to undertake this reform. It will take a pro-poor government that emerges from a people’s movement to do this. The failure of the security forces to stop or curtail the Jos killings – and indeed the various killings in the country – is a reflection of the neo-colonial, elite-oriented, undemocratic character of the security forces, which itself reflects the failure of the pro-imperialist, capitalist class to move the country forward.

The state governor, Jonah Jang has tried to exonerate his government by putting the blame on the military commander. But the governor is criminally culpable. In the first instance, he claimed to have called the commander, after he was informed of the crisis, only to be ‘woken up three hours later that people are being hacked down’. But would Mr Governor have slept if it was the state house that was on fire? Despite the fact that the people being attacked are living close to the government house, the governor could not even send his security to undertake an independent security check. Someone jocularly commented that governor’s irresponsible sleep might not be unconnected to his name.

But aside from the governor acting truly to type of a typical political class in Africa (that cares less about people it claims to be representing than securing their economic and political interests), the massacres in Jos reflect the gross economic perfidy of the capitalist political class. Might one ask, since the latest crisis in 2008, how many schools, hospitals, public roads, mass housing scheme have been built, not only in affected areas but in the whole of Plateau State?

While it has been established that struggle for agricultural resources – especially land – is a major cause of the crisis, the state government has not deemed it fit to establish a pastoral village for herdsmen, or organise state farms (that will employ tens of thousands of youths and farmers) and agricultural villages, where farmers will be organised and provided with adequate facilities. If this had been done, ethno-religious crises would have been mitigated, if not completely stopped. In 2008, the state government closed down a state university under the guise of lack of resources to run it. But the same government doles out hundreds of millions of naira to politicians and contractors. Communities affected by these crises still lack basic facilities such as roads, hospitals and schools.

The Jos crisis is not a sign of ethnic backwardness as suggested by some commentators, but a reflection of economic depravity. Since the introduction of neo-liberal economic policies under SAP in the late 1980s, many communities have been dislocated economically and socially. Jos, just like every other northern city, used to have viable industries. Also, the presence of railways in many northern states created jobs for tens of thousands of youth and adults.

But with introduction of neo-liberalism, coupled with unprecedented corruption, public infrastructures and services have been destroyed, thanks to under funding and mismanagement with over 800 industries gone under. Thus a city like Jos, which has become cosmopolitan not only as a result of its geographical and climatic nature but also the presence of national facilities, is now reduced to a centre of joblessness, frustration and social tension. The civilian regimes since 1999 have only accentuated these.

Since 2007, the country has received no less than US$100 billion from crude oil alone, but this has not translated into increased living standards for the poor. Youth unemployment is estimated at over 60 percent, while more people find it impossible to afford higher education. In this kind of arrangement, expression of frustration through ethnic jingoism is not unexpected.

Worse still, those affected by the crises are not rehabilitated and given better lives. In a sane state, victims of communal crises will be given such treatment to help them forget past experiences. But with Nigeria’s treatment of the victims of these crises, recycling of social tension is assured. This is already clear from the nature of the Jos crisis. While the crisis started as a struggle for resources, it has developed into revenge, because those who have seen their lives in ruins do not care to destroy anything they see.

The response of the acting president has again confirmed the contemptuous character of the Nigerian ruling class. Rather than overhaul the security arrangement in the state, the acting president used the massacre to boost his political power, by using the crisis as excuse to remove his adversary in the political arrangement.

While the national security adviser was removed ‘because of the Jos massacre’, the call for the removal of the army commander – under whose control hundreds of lives were lost – has been ignored by the government. After the killing in Dogo Nahawa, another killing spree has been carried out in Rigim, under the watchful eyes of the security forces. Will Mr Jonathan remove the new NSA on this basis too? But Jonathan’s presidency is hanging in the balance; therefore it would be dangerous to attack the military hierarchy. This explains the boldness of the army authority in defending the Jos army commander.

The Jos crisis is also a manifestation of the colonial but undemocratic partitioning of Nigeria, to ensure smooth imperialist plundering of the colonial economies. In Nigeria, post-independence regimes have not altered this relation. The local post-independence pro-bourgeois leaders did not bother to address this conglomeration through a democratically convened sovereign national conference that will address socio-economic, cultural and ethnic bases of Nigeria’s existence or otherwise. Instead, these leaderships divided the country on regional lines, without the democratic input of the people.

As a result of the global popularity of the post-Second World War welfare states, some of the regional leaders like Obafemi Awolowo improved social infrastructures, but this was done without giving power to the people through community and trade union control of resources and development. While all the regional ruling classes were proclaiming federalism, ethnic minorities and communities were not allowed to express their democratic and political rights of decision-making. The failure to have a collectively planned national development led to serious struggle for control by various paternalistic regional ruling classes, leading to emergence of military rule and subsequent civil war.

The breaking of the country into various states and coercing people into a country without their political input not only localises the nationality problem but multiplies it. Each state is a conglomeration of various interests with ruling class at national and local level, using various methods of divide-and-rule to control power and resources. For instance, it is not uncommon see various state politicians creating policies along the lines of ethnicity and indigene-ship e.g. employment, taxation, school fees, etc. Also, federal government has made ethnicity a major policy through identifying people’s place of origin (not of residence) and the dubious federal character policy. These are done to veil government’s failure to provide basic necessities for the people. All this, coupled with a neo-colonial capitalist economic arrangement that isolates the working and poor people from ownership of the economy, has continued to make the country a hotbed of ethnic crises.

Thus unless the country is restructured in a democratic manner which will change the socio-economic and political arrangements which have made ethnicity a vital instrument of political and economic control, the various ethno-religious crises and centrifugal forces in the country will not abate. But the current political class cannot carry out this task, as this would undermine the rotten profit system on which they feast. How will you tell one percent of the population who control over 80 percent of the oil wealth to allow the over 100 million poor people to determine how public resources will be used to provide education, health, and social infrastructure? It is like asking them to commit suicide.

Thus, the labour movement, being the central organised platform of the working and poor masses, must start to build a national political platform that will raise the demands of the working and poor people for economic and political control. Such a platform will be built to wrest power from the current set of capitalist political marauders, by building the movement as a democratic platform from the grassroots.

In addition to demanding a sovereign national conference – made up of democratically elected representatives of the workers, peasants, petty traders, artisans, unemployed, youth, students, professionals, ethnic nationalities and communities – such a platform will build its programme around free and quality education and health, secure and decent job provision for able-bodied youth (with adequate living and working conditions). It will do this through massive public work programmes: extensive and integrated transport facilities (road, rail, water and air); cheap, mass housing; massive but safe and environmentally-friendly power and energy development; and mechanised, poor peasant-based, industrial-integrated but environmentally sustainable agricultural and food security system, among others. These demands and others at local and grassroots level will make such a political platform the natural abode of the working and poor people and defuse ethnic tensions.

To truly build this platform, there is need for the working class activists, progressive youth and students, socialists, left-wing activists and organisations to work towards rebuilding and restructuring the trades union movement at local, state and national levels by making them fighting platforms. This is the only way to save the country from the impending doom of ethno-religious cleavages. A responsible and fighting trade union movement and working class political platform will mobilise the anger of the people against the system and thus undermine the growth of ethno-religious centrifugal tensions (Niger Delta violence, Boko haram, Jos crisis, etc) that tend to tear the country apart. This is the major challenge as 2011 approaches.

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* 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.

Namibia: Peace, democracy and development?

Henning Melber

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/63305

cc Wikipedia‘This House believes that Namibia is a shining example of post-colonial peace, democracy, and development.’ This was the topic of a debate held in the Houses of Parliament in London on 18 March, where Henning Melber was invited to speak against the motion. The opinions in Melber's speech closely reflected those expressed in his article ‘Namibia at 20: The limits of liberation’, but we include here his concluding remarks and the outcome of the debate.

It was with a heavy heart but without remorse that I accepted this role to act as a proponent against the motion. I could not wish for more than being able to support it. When we celebrated our hard won independence 20 years ago, we shared similar hopes and expectations. Two decades later, I still treasure our achievements, but assess the limits to liberation in a more sombre way.

Let us not forget that this vote is not in favour of or against Namibia. We all, no matter which opinion we hold, are in favour of Namibia. You are asked to take a vote on the motion that Namibia is a shining example of post-colonial peace, democracy and development. Because we are in favour of Namibia and the Namibians, my fellow proponent and I argue that adopting this motion would be misleading. Yes, we have the right to our opinion and to talk freely. But some of the reactions provoked by our initial statements have actually proven the point we made. This is the intimidating way in which critical views are met and dealt with.

Since Independence, the Republic of Namibia:
- has deployed its army to be involved in a war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
- has been involved in the civil war in neighbouring Angola;
- has declared a state of emergency as the result of a failed secessionist attempt in the Eastern Caprivi region

This does not speak in favour of a degree of post-colonial peace, which would allow us to be praised as a shining example. With reference to democracy, our domestic policy has:

- displayed characteristics of a dominant party state or partocracy based on the sole power of definition exercised by the former anti-colonial movement
- resulted in a first constitutional amendment to allow the Head of State a third term in office
- intimidated and restricted the freedom of expression and limited the access to information for the media.

True democracy is not the absence of more openly repressive interventions. The features of our post-colonial development bear traces of the colonial past. Our present socio-political and economic realities have not overcome the structural legacy or the mindset we were confronted with at Independence. 20 years later we cannot blame any longer merely apartheid for this failure.

To compare Namibia with post-colonial societies on the continent, which have done worse, is no justification for elevating us to a category we do not deserve. To give us a bonus for the absence of civil war, less repressive politics and not deteriorating into a fragile or so-called failed state should not translate into a somewhat patronising reward. Yes, we could have failed more and we have not ended as dictatorial kleptocracy. But we also could have done better.

To honour our mixed record with the praise the motion suggests would be a blatant insult to those who seek to promote more democracy, more human rights and more socio-economic justice – values and norms the struggle was ultimately supposed to be about. It would betray the true meaning of liberation. Instead, we need the kind of critical solidarity in our struggle for more rights, freedom and equality, which supports the emancipation of most if not all people in Namibia from any forms of discrimination and marginalisation.

I hence finally appeal once again to all of you, to vote against the motion. Namibia is despite all limited progress after all no ‘shining example of post-colonial peace, democracy and development’. If we want to achieve this, the struggle needs to continue.

RESULTS OF THE VOTE

Abstentions: 17
Yes: 22
No: 24

The motion was dismissed.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* The discussion was organised by the Friends of Namibia and the Royal African Society at the Houses of Parliament in London, 18 March 2010.
* Dr Henning Melber is executive director of The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Uppsala/Sweden. He joined Swapo in 1974.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Muammar al-Gaddafi: Obstacle to African unity

Horace Campbell

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/63299

Muammar al-Gaddafi has established himself as an enemy of the unification of the peoples of Africa for over 40 years. Last week, Gaddafi exceeded his conservative instincts when he stated before a group of young students that Nigeria should be split in two. Instead of motivating the students to work for the transformation and unification of the peoples of Nigeria as one prerequisite for the unification of Africa, Gaddafi called for the country to be divided on religious grounds. He exposed his ignorance of African religious and spiritual traditions because there was no room for followers of African religious beliefs in his call for the division of this society. This call for the division of Nigeria is one more effort to break up Nigerian society so that this society is weakened and its people subjected to more exploitation and manipulation. For 40 years Gaddafi had supported the butchers and dictators in Africa. Starting with his military support for Idi Amin of Uganda and other murderers such as Foday Sankoh and Charles Taylor, this militarist in Libya was an obstacle to African liberation. For a short while after Nelson Mandela rescued him from obscurity, Gaddafi had sought to use his wealth to buy the leadership of the African Union (AU). He was made to understand that the unity of Africa was more profound than the meeting of leaders of states. The statements of Gadafi on Nigeria must be condemned in the strongest terms and it is time to strip away the fallacy that Gaddafi stood in the ranks of African revolutionary leadership.

Gaddafi is energetically seeking to replace the legacy of Kwame Nkrumah. Although he cannot point to a text as powerful as Nkrumah's book, 'Africa Must Unite', Gaddafi has used his oil wealth to suborn a group of sycophantic African leaders who have heaped praise on his leadership. For the past 10 years, the image of Gaddafi as the leader of the African Union has been promoted by a fawning group of leaders in Africa, and the international media was only too willing to oblige in order to obliterate the traditions of Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois, Kwame Nkrumah, Amílcar Cabral, Cheikh Anta Diop, Frantz Fanon, Patrice Lumumba and Samora Machel, who were strong advocates of African unity. Gaddafi himself used the oil resources of Libya to harness the support of servile self-seekers who refused to pay their dues to the OAU (Organisation of African Unity) and AU while salting away billions in foreign banks.



Progressive Pan-Africanists supported the project of the unification of the peoples of Africa in order to transcend the Berlinist state in Africa. By the 'Berlinist state', we mean those states that were carved out at the Berlin Conference in 1885. In reality, the progressive Pan-African project seeks to build on the ideas of Cheikh Anta Diop in relation to the psychological, linguistic and cultural unity of Africa. The people have always been for unity because they do not respect the colonial borders. One does not have to ask the Maasai whether they respect the borders between Kenya and Tanzania, or ask the Makonde whether they respect the false division of their communities. Anthony Asiwaju has written on the full impact of partitioned Africa, and the task of Pan-Africanists at home and abroad is to now build on the work of those who will work to end the divisions of the peoples. African women at the grassroots are opposed to the borders and the traders show that no colonial borders can restrain them.

It is the present leaders who are maintaining the borders in order to maintain themselves in power. There are many questions in Africa that urgently require cooperation across the false borders. Environmental degradation, tsetse fly infestation, HIV/AIDS and malaria know no border. Confronting these challenges requires new thinking and new leadership. The project of African unity is one which in the short run will require the replacement of most of the leaders in Africa, and the building of a new leadership from the grassroots.

It is time to draw a line between those so-called leaders and the people of Africa. Gaddafi himself has drawn the line by exposing the fact that he is opposed to the unity of the peoples of Africa. From the time he came to power in 1969, Gaddafi has wittingly and unwittingly served the interest of the enemies of Africa. He has also served as an enemy of the Palestinian people.

SUPPORTING BUTCHERS

When Gaddafi seized power in September 1969, there were divisions among Western political circles about the meaning of his assumption of power. After Gaddafi nationalised foreign oil companies, the US identified him as a dangerous radical, but the European imperial forces saw his assumption of power as a force to support anti-communism. Gaddafi in the early 1970s presented himself as a follower of Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Libya used the oil resources to increase the standard of living of the ordinary Libyan people and Gaddafi declared Libya to be the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. However, very soon the revolutionary rhetoric, when stripped away, revealed a megalomaniac person who interfered in the internal affairs of genuine liberation movements. Gaddafi soon alienated the Egyptian people, as well as the Palestinian people, by seeking to meddle in the internal affairs of the resistance forces in Palestine.

On the African continent, Gaddafi became the friend of the worst dictators. His relationship with Idi Amin, who regime murdered more than 300,000, stands out in this regard. The Libyan Arab Bank financed the ventures of Idi Amin’s henchmen and the Libyan army fought alongside Idi Amin’s army when Amin invaded Tanzania in 1978. This attack on Tanzania was an effort by Amin to divert attention from the struggle against apartheid and colonialism in Rhodesia and South Africa. Tanzania had been the frontline state bearing the brunt of the fight against the white racist apartheid government. In the midst of this war against apartheid, Amin attacked Tanzania. Algeria supported Tanzania and Mozambique who were clear on the reasons for the Ugandan attack. The Libyan and Ugandan army were roundly defeated by the Tanzanian forces. When Libyan soldiers were captured, Gaddafi attempted to buy them back from Tanzania. But Nyerere returned these prisoners of war, and said that there should not be a price on human beings.

DISAPPEARANCE OF MUSA AL-SADR

In the same period when Gaddafi was supporting Idi Amin, Sayyid Mūsá al-Ṣadr, a well-known Islamic cleric from Lebanon, disappeared when he was on a visit to Libya in 1978. Musa al-Sadr had acted as a unifier and reconciler within Lebanon. His patient work among the Shia and Sunni communities had ensured that war did not break out between these two communities. Musa al-Sadr was invited to Libya in 1978 and has since disappeared. Since his absence from the Lebanese scene, the society has plunged into conflicts and wars for 30 years. Once divided and weakened, the Israelis and the Falangists took advantage of the absence of Musa al-Sadr to perpetuate war. The Israeli army has also been a direct beneficiary of the disappearance of Musa al-Sadr. Gaddafi has a lot to answer for in the context of the wars in Lebanon. It is with the knowledge of the disappearance of Musa al-Sadr that Africans have to denounce in the strongest terms the call by Gaddafi for the break-up of Nigeria.

GADDAFI’S TEMPORARY REHABILITATION

During the anti-apartheid struggle, most leaders in Africa had to support liberation, and Gaddafi did give moral, material and military support to freedom fighters in southern Africa. But this support for African freedom fighters did not end the mischief-making and interference of Gaddafi. In the early 1980s, Gaddafi was supporting butchers in Sudan, Chad and other parts of Africa. Despite this mischief, Gaddafi was able to get the support of freedom fighters because the US government under Ronald Reagan bombed Libya in 1986. This imperial bombing garnered more support for Gaddafi and gave him credibility as an 'anti-imperialist' leader. Because of the ambiguous nature of his leadership, Libya was caught in the middle of the Lockerbie disaster when the Pan Am 103 plane was blown over Scotland. After the Lockerbie incident, Libya was placed on the list of states sponsoring terrorism.

MANDELA’S INTERVENTION IN 1997

Nelson Mandela had been branded a terrorist by the West, so he worked hard to clear the matter of the Lockerbie bombing. He successfully negotiated with the G7 so that the impasse between the West and Libya was significantly watered down. This intervention by Mandela to bring clarity to the question did not clear the cloud over exactly what happened in Lockerbie. Although two Libyans were later tried in a neutral country where one of them was convicted, their lawyer continued to claim their innocence. This issue remained murky because at the time of the bombing in 1988, the Western media had blamed Syria and Iran, among others, as culprits.

GADDAFI AND THE AFRICAN UNION

As a result of Mandela’s intervention, Gaddafi, who previously had been parading himself as a leader of the Arab world, now presented himself as a great leader of Africa, and convened an extraordinary summit of the OAU in Sirte in 1999. The fact that between 1999 and 2002 the Constitutive Act of the African Union was written and ratified is now history, and Gaddafi deserves credit for his leadership on this. But at the same time, while he was working for the unity of Africa, Gaddafi was financing butchers such as Charles Taylor and Foday Sankoh. Other dictators such as Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe were supported by Gaddafi. In fact, when democratic forces in Uganda and Zimbabwe were involved in a prolonged struggle to end dictatorship, Gaddafi said a revolutionary should never retire.

The contradictory utterances of Gaddafi must be analysed against the real actions of the Libyan state in relation to African peoples. Many Pan-Africanists cheered when Libya successfully pressured the Italians to consider the reparative claims of Libya and to return Libyan cultural artefacts. Libya was also promised US$5 billion by Italy. However, this reparative claim was overshadowed by the realisation that the Libyans had made an agreement with the Italians to act as the police for the Italians to control the movements of African immigrants. These agreements between Libya and Italy reinforced in the minds of the African youth the fact that Libya was a hostile place for Africans who believed in Africa for the Africans. Hostile relations between African immigrants and Libyans resulted in the deaths of hundreds of African immigrants in Libya. As a leader who claimed the mantle of Pan-African leadership, Gaddafi needed to give clearer leadership to his people on the question of xenophobia. Some of our Pan-African brothers and sisters condemned Gaddafi as an Arab, but one must see his actions as similar to the leadership of Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki spoke and wrote on African renaissance but refused to give leadership when xenophobic violence broke out against African immigrants. Gaddafi is like many African leaders who speak publicly about African unity but persecute Africans who seek to work and live in other parts of Africa.

While serving as chairman of the African Union, Gaddafi contravened the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights. There was the execution of African migrants in Libya, and putting many on death row in Libya. Indeed, Gaddafi’s tenure as chair of the AU represented a low period for African progressives. His rambling and undisciplined presentation at the United Nations in 2009 was a poor reflection on Africa. But his presence in the USA was a result of a new alliance between the oil barons in the USA and the Libyan government. After the French government mooted the establishment of the Mediterranean Union to counter the United States in Africa, sections of the US ruling circles started to court Gaddafi. Since the visit of Condoleezza Rice to Tripoli, Gaddafi has been silent in his opposition to AFRICOM. In May 2006 Time Magazine said that George W. Bush and Gaddafi see ‘eye to eye'.

Last week, Gaddafi exposed himself very clearly when he called for the division of Nigeria along religious lines. Progressive Pan-Africanists condemned this statement and joined with the Nigerian people who reject this call for division. Nigerian youths and progressives will work to end religious, regional and ethnic manipulations. Religion, ethnicity and regional ideologies are not in themselves political factors. They become so in circumstances where the people’s forces are weakened. The call by Gaddafi is for the weakening of the people’s forces in Nigeria at precisely a moment when Nigeria should be building unity, peace and reconstruction. Gaddafi is an obstacle to the unification of African peoples. African unity is not for sale.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Are the private sector and civil society natural enemies?

L. Muthoni Wanyeki

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/63281

cc T MarukoAt the Nation Media Group’s recent Pan-African Conference in Kenya, L. Muthoni Wanyeki watched a distinct animosity between the African private sector and African civil society come to a head. She saw an African private sector rejecting any value of civil society and a civil society believing that the private sector could and should do more. She argues that a way forward needs to be found: 'We cannot work at cross-purposes forever and turn round and round on the same spot while all around us Africans die of hunger.'

On the eve of the Nation Media’s Group’s 50th anniversary Pan-African Conference, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation hosted what turned out to be a more interesting dinner than expected.

Not just because of his presence, or that of Dr Salim Ahmed Salim – former secretary general of the then Organisation of African Unity – or of Joachim Chissano, former Mozambican president. And not even because of the presence of Bono of U2 and members of his One campaign, who include Bobby Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family, Joshua Bolten, the chief of staff of George Bush, and the former head of Yahoo, to name but a few.

No. What made it interesting was the discussion that the presence of all these external senior ex-political advisors and ex-industry heads provoked among the Africans present, who themselves represented a wide range of civil society and private sector (including media) leaders from across the continent.

All of these men – they were mostly men – have obviously done extremely well for themselves. They could be enjoying their lives in rather more frivolous ways than they’ve chosen to do. Instead, they’ve chosen to dedicate no small amount of their monies and, more importantly, time to African underdevelopment.

The members of One had arrived in Kenya on the heels of visits around the continent, from Senegal to Mozambique, to see for themselves what the proceeds of their work on debt cancellation are being channelled into and are achieving. Bolten introduced himself to me in Kiswahili, which he said he’d learnt while spending three weeks in Tanzania over the holidays with his girlfriend – not on the beaches of Zanzibar, but volunteering for an orphanage.

Now I’ve as strong a sense of scepticism about non-Africans wanting to ‘help’ Africans as almost every other educated African I’ve met. And yes, individual members of One seem involved in the same individual and personal ways as first occur to everyone wanting to ‘do something’; Africans included.

But both the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the One campaign seem collectively quite clear that justice, rather than charity, is what ‘doing something’ is about.
And both focus on the systemic nature of underdevelopment – the former through governance and the latter through engaging with external financing.

So what did their presence catalyse among the Africans present?

A fairly hostile exchange between African civil society and the African private sector. Lisa Karanja of Transparency International - Kenya kicked it off by asking what, if anything, the African private sector (Mo Ibrahim excluded) was putting into governance and human-rights issues on the continent.

Chris Kirubi of Haco Industries responded with words to the effect that just because the African private sector wasn’t chaining itself to fences or creating chaos through demonstrations didn’t mean that it wasn’t engaging in more sophisticated ways.

He proceeded to accuse African civil society of essentially focusing endlessly and tiresomely on the bad, simply to get more external funding. To which I had to (naturally) respond, pointing out that it was the right of all citizens to demonstrate as they saw fit and that African civil society also did a hell of a lot more than demonstrate to bring about change.

Trevor Ncube of South Africa’s Mail and Guardian fortunately added his voice, as a business person, in support of the position that the African private sector had absolutely abdicated responsibility with respect to governance and human rights on the continent.

Naushad Merali of the Sameer Group contradicted him, saying it was the African private sector that had brought about everything of developmental note in the past few years, from employment to infrastructure. And that he was personally tired of the endless stream of negativity from African civil society and the media.

A young lawyer, whose name I missed, tried to strike a middle ground saying we had to be more concerned about the basics (food, for example) if we expected anyone to be able to do anything even vaguely altruistic.

It was all quite revealing. In the main, the real captains of industry here and the media owners think they’re doing a good job with their recent ventures into corporate social responsibility, adopting, it must be said, a fairly old-school development approach. And they see civil society as adding absolutely no value except nuisance value, courtesy of external funding.

Civil society – at least the part of it that doesn’t do old school development – think the private sector could and should do more. And, also in the main, civil society secretly dislikes the old generation of the private sector, whose success they see as being inextricably linked to every horrible thing that they’re trying to address with respect to the state.

The thing is that it is not that the African private sector doesn’t give back. Every African gives back in one way or another. We just give back in highly individual and personal ways, our primary obligations obviously being our (extended) families, not to mention the endless stream of harambees for the most basic of things: From education to hospital bills (and, rather more dubiously, weddings and burials).

Those of us with the capacity to give more tend to give in a charitable way to equally basic things. It is not that basic things are not important; they are fundamental. It is that addressing them comprehensively, whether we like it or not, ultimately involves addressing the state and the governance of the state.

This is true whether you come from the left and think that the state has an obligation to provide a minimum level of services. Or whether you come from the right and think that the state has to get out of the way. And frankly, most Africans have very low expectations of the state, having experienced it in the main as an exploitative and extractive force: They just want it to get out of the way.

The question is not then the old conundrum about giving a man [sic] a fish versus teaching him to fish. It is about first assuming that s/he knows how to fish and addressing what’s preventing her or him from both being able to fish, in the first place, and from benefiting from having done so in the second place.

Is there value in continuing this fairly brutal revelation of what African civil society and the African private sector think of each other?

Probably; if only to get to some agreement on how to proceed with respect to the fish. We cannot work at cross-purposes forever and turn round and round on the same spot while all around us Africans die of hunger.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* L. Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.
* This article was first published in The East African on 22 March 2010.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Angola: Fear and panic invade populations of Lubango

Luis Samacumbi

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/63297

It is curious that natural disasters are unpredictable and governments establish early warning systems and trigger mechanisms to respond quickly when they happen to mitigate its effects, writes Luis Samacumbi. For the demolition of Lubango, one or the other mechanism was implemented but the disaster was caused by a decision without weighing the consequences of such an act. If it were possible such disasters would be avoided. In the case of Angola disasters are created.
The municipality of Lubango has 3 Communes namely: Arimba, Kilemba, and Hoque.Lubango is the most populous Municipality of Huila province (about 20% of the population).The highest density in city of Lubango. Lubango has a surface area of 3140 km2 and a population estimated at 1,414,115. 350 to 500 thousand of people lives in Lubango city, most of them live in suburbs in houses built of mud made bricks (adobe) without the minimum sanitary conditions. The demolitions began Saturday March 6th, 2010. The next day raised dustier than other days. It was the dust of homes knocked down the day before. Independent media are prevented from collecting information with more evidence. The whole operation is surrounded by a strong police apparatus preventing people from taking photographs as well as from interviewing people on site to compile data with greater statistical accuracy.

There is no place in the neighborhood or near where people may seek information about the criteria, process, where people will be taken, what will be there future and what compensation they can expect from the government. The Governor of the province hosted a radio program to clarify all doubts of the population, with limited impact, because people strived for meetings at their neighborhoods level. Moreover, the tone of the interview was more intimidating than the possibility of negotiation. The whole operation is characterized with a tone of arrogance. According to information gathered the houses to be torn down are at the foot of the mountain, underneath and beside the power lines, in riverbeds, beside rivers, along the water pipes and along the railway lines. In the first phase is being torned down houses within 50 meters from the railway line. Updated Information say the radius is 25 meters.

However the first 3 days the damage was already done. The Moçamedes railway line - CFM pass through the city of Lubango in an extension of approximately 10 km. Judging by the way people build houses of adobe, it is estimated that more than 10 thousand dwellings will be referred in this process. Considering that the average population density of the population is 5 people, then it is estimated that more than 50,000 people will be affected. The problem could reach apocalyptic proportions when the Government of Huila Province move to Phase II (demolitions under and next to power lines in the foothills of the mountain, the beds of rivers, etc.).

Currently there are no detailed information and mathematical rigor to describe the suffering of people. Although it is said that people were advised 15 days prior, the time given was not enough to prepare given the scale of the problem.

Here the customer inventory of the social dimension of the problem:
• Heavy damage and substantial destruction of people’s homes. People have lost their homes and other properties such as gardens, businesses and clients, privileged areas in terms of access.
• People are being concentrated in a camp with tents without the minimum conditions in terms of environmental sanitation.
• The “concentration camps” are Chavola 10 km from the city center. The tents were being distributed over and therefore the families began to be concentrated in the April 14 School in the district of Senhora do Monte, School 1st of December and Tundavala football stadium the new stadium built in Kanginda area located 5 km from the city center.
• Some schools will have to suspend classes because they were occupied by the homeless.
• Many children were forced to suspend classes because they were homeless and placed in distant areas of the school where they usually studied.
• Forecasts of the existence of epidemics because the population will live in these fields indefinitely.
• Interruption of the production process and peoples’ livelihoods.
• Probable increase in delinquency.
• Psychological trauma in the population that has destroyed their natural habitat and effort in vain for years to build investment properties.
• Families who sleep in the open with small children without food assistance.
• Adventist Church in full worship homeless and destroyed their temple.
• Homes popular in death, people had to be dispersed and obliged to continue with the awake elsewhere.

The police apparatus, the arrogance that surrounds the whole operation does not give chance to any type of reaction alone. The tone heard in clusters of shy people is of resignation, conversations in public blue vans, in the free markets and in the dead of night.

Fear and panic settled in the suburbs. The suspicion of being arrested for complaining, conformity is what it is seen. In the face of women’s we see tears of postponed future in the face of men impotence before a machine impossible to stop. It’s total chaos, despair and the beginning of a disaster that could reach apocalyptic proportions.

Angola: Seven killed in latest forced land evictions

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/63295

Angolan national television has confirmed that some 3,800 families were driven from their homes which were then demolished. It is alleged that the eviction orders came from the Angolan government.

Such evictions have become a regular occurrence in recent years in the capital, Luanda, major cities such as Benguela, and rural communities in many provinces.

‘Many houses have been demolished and many people evicted from their land in Angola because they are often in areas very rich in mineral resources or where there are strong economic interests,’ said Ana Menezes, Christian Aid’s Angola programme officer.

‘This is a major humanitarian emergency caused by a human rights violation.’

‘Sadly, this is not an isolated case – this is part of a long-term pattern of violent, illegal land evictions and house demolitions.’

According to Christian Aid’s local Angolan partners SOS Habitat and children’s rights lobby group OMUNGA, riot police quickly surround the area to be demolished, and then the bulldozers move in.

‘People in the Tchavola locality in Lubango are now sheltering in school precincts or have been forcibly taken to areas with an insufficient number of tents, in heavy rain. Some have been robbed by bandits at night due to the lack of protection and police supervision’, said José Patrocínio at OMUNGA.

‘We call on the State of Angola to cease immediately the demolitions, commission to evaluate alleged human rights’ abuses, and develop adequate compensation mechanisms for the people who have lost their homes and livelihoods.’

OMUNGA is planning a demonstration march in Benguela on Thursday March 25 in solidarity with the victims of this and other evictions and demolitions.
ends

For further information please contact:
Omunga


Luiz Araújo 00 351 916 559 293
SOS Habitat

ACC (Associação Construindo Comunidades):
Jacinto Pio Wacussanga 00 244 924 754 271

Red card campaign, World Cup 2010: Disqualifying human trafficking in Africa

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/63300

International sporting events have become fertile ground for human trafficking. The documented patterns of flagrant trafficking of children and women for sexual and labor exploitation at these events create a dire picture. “More than 500,000 international visitors are expected in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup, and more than 500 criminal gangs are estimated to be involved in human trafficking for the sex trade in South Africa.”

Made vulnerable by the lack of economic opportunity, political instability, gender inequality and viable migration options, Africans are easy targets for traffickers. “For the past five years, human traffickers have been using the 2010 FIFA World Cup as a ‘bait' to lure people to work in South Africa at construction sites and accommodation establishments, as escorts, stadium marshals and many more … Since 2004, the year SA was chosen to organize the World Cup, human trafficking ‘offices' have been opened at various African countries, where unscrupulous people working as ‘agents' register desperate people dying to get to the ‘final destination' (SA) to seek any form of employment or business opportunities.” [2]Moreover, the fact that the World Cup will be held within Africa and generate huge profits in the already thriving sex industry will intensify the efforts of the traffickers to recruit from African countries to fill the exponentially increasing demand. Indeed, research shows patterns of human trafficking “from as far afield as Senegal, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda,” although no preventative efforts have been put in place prior to the event, outside of South Africa and its bordering countries. Another report names South Africa as a destination and transit country for trafficking for sexual exploitation and identifies countries including Angola, Congo (DRC), Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia [3] Burundi and Rwanda [4] as well as various other African countries as recruitment grounds. [5] As a human trafficker recently stated: “This is an African World Cup and every African must somehow benefit from it,” [6] even if that profit is derived from trafficking of other Africans for labor and sexual exploitation.

An important component in addressing human trafficking during and post the World Cup is an effective awareness campaign targeting African countries outside of the immediate vicinity of South Africa where resources have not already been invested by local and international stakeholders to address the issue. "An exploitation-free World Cup will require resources and political will from the South African government and the international community alike," said Luis C de Baca. [7] The “Red Card Campaign World Cup 2010: Disqualifying Human Trafficking in Africa” is therefore a critical awareness strategy with a focus on spreading the message in countries throughout the African continent, not just those bordering South Africa and the host country itself. The symbol of the campaign, a “red card” represents red cards given to soccer players who severely violate the rules of the game, and are disqualified from further participation. By using this symbol, we are sending a simple message, that “human trafficking of Africans has no place at the World Cup 2010 and beyond, and should therefore be disqualified.” This analogy would be easily understood, and therefore effective in attracting the attention of the African public, especially when tied to a sport that is very popular and an event that will have reach into almost every home on the continent. To learn more about human trafficking, and to participate in our campaign, please visit our website

ABOUT FREE GENERATION INTERNATIONAL
Free Generation International (FGI) is an abolitionist organization committed to addressing capacity gaps in the field of human trafficking and its linkages with gender-based violence. FGI’s Africa initiative focuses on the development of innovative and culturally relevant methods of sensitizing the African public about human trafficking, mobilization of a Pan-African youth movement, creation of an African resource collection and referral database, creation of prevention services to improve skills and life conditions of families in order to reduce their vulnerability to traffickers, practical training for the investigation and surveillance of human trafficking activities and development of victim aftercare infrastructure that is almost non-existent on the continent.

NOTES:
1. Frederico Links. Southern Africa: Human Trafficking And Prostitution to Surge Ahead of 2010 World Cup. Namibian, 2 September 2008 http://allafrica.com/stories/200809020582.html
2. Issa Sikiti da Silva. 2010 FIFA World Cup boosts Africa's human trafficking. Bizcommunity.com, 15 Jan 2010. http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/147/43704.html
3. Susan Jessop. Sex Trafficking in Women and Children Flourishing in South Africa. European and North American Women Action, 29 April 2003. http://www.enawa.org/scripts/wwwopac.exe?database=brief&isutf8=1&%250=130
4. Counter-Trafficking Information Campaign in South Africa, March 2005, http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/198
5. Yazeed Kamaldien. South Africa Linked in the Global Human Trafficking. INT'L WOMEN'S DAY. http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=27772
6. Issa Sikiti da Silva. 2010 FIFA World Cup boosts Africa's human trafficking. Bizcommunity.com, 15 Jan 2010. http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/147/43704.html
7. E. Benjamin Skinner. South Africa's New Slave Trade and the Campaign to Stop It. Times Magazine, 18 January 2010. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1952335-2,00.html#ixzz0cihP6OOE

Don’t let injustice flourish in Lubango

Rosario Advirta

Christian Aid

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/63286

I write to manifest my disappointment when reading the latest issue of Pambazuka News in Portuguese and to learn about the poor coverage on the recent demolitions and land evictions in Lubango municipality, in Angola, especially because the edition highlights ‘Angola, Good Governance and Human Rights’. This is a major humanitarian emergency and a human rights violation that has engaged the majority of the civil society organisations, churches and has called the attention of the international community. So far, 3,100 houses have been violently demolished. Seven deaths have been reported, some of which have been confirmed. People are being placed in the precincts of the schools or are being taken to areas with an insufficient number of tents, and under heavy rain... There is no legal process, no explanation, no compensation, nothing in terms of water and sanitation, school or transportation. As an Angolan partner points out, the situation is of ‘total chaos, despair and the beginning of a disaster that could reach apocalyptic proportions’.

There has been silence in the media about this violation of human rights. The only source of independent information comes from activists that managed to get into the destroyed areas and report the situation to blogs, sites, and few radios (in Angola only Radio Ecclesia is covering the issue) and newspapers.

The Special Rapporteur of the UN for Housing Rights is being informed since these demolitions were announced.

Civil society organisations count on independent sites such as Pambazuka News as allies to voice this act of violence, which has become, unfortunately, a pattern in Angola in the last couple of years. This situation in Lubango may well be the beginning of a big wave of demolitions and evictions, which may depend on reactions to this first occurrence.

So, if there is also silence also among independent media injustice and repression will probably grow.

I hope that Pambazuka can review it and give more attention to the suffering of the Angolan people.

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

Abahlali baseMjondolo is no ‘spent force’

A response to ‘Eulogy to Fatima Meer’ by Ashwin Desai

Jared Sacks

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/63285

I have no desire to undermine the legacy of Fatima Meer. Nor, frankly, do I have any desire to undermine Ashwin Desai as an academic, intellectual or as an activist.

But Desai's recent backhanded swipe at Abahlali baseMjondolo during his Eulogy to Fatima Meer is not only uncalled for, it is also completely inaccurate. Quoting Andile Mngxitama, he says that shackdweller movements (implying the largest movement in the country - Abahlali baseMjondolo) are no longer independent or militant but are actually 'begging' the government for permission to march.

The reality is that Abahlali baseMjondolo would have marched on 22 March with or without permission from the City and its caretaker Michael Sutcliffe. They have stated quite clearly in their own words that: ‘Our right to protest is not negotiable.’ They have also declared in advance that, ‘We will march on Jacob Zuma tomorrow irrespective of the outcome in court.’ These words are their words, not the words of any academic or sympathiser.

And if you look at the outcome as was reported in the Sowetan, it shows that Abahlali baseMjondolo is hardly a spent force. In fact, during the march, they defied both Sutcliffe and the court ruling and occupied parts of the Durban CBD. Counting the number of full buses and taxis that arrived at Albert Park, we know that there was at least 2,000 shackdwellers marching that day.

Desai has had no contact with Abahlali baseMjondolo in the past few years and really knows next to nothing about the movement. He should refrain from bashing entire movements merely because its members have chosen to be independent of Desai's own agenda as a privileged (not rank and file) activist.

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

Is buying guns really better than buying food?

Sza Sza Zelleke

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/63280

Dear Pambazuka Editors,

I am writing about a recent article entitled ‘Get real Bob – buying guns might have been better than buying food’. The article is part of an ongoing debate surrounding a controversial BBC report on the sale of food aid to buy arms during the Ethiopian famine of 1984. In light of more current reports on food aid diversion in Africa, and because food aid politics continues to be practiced throughout the continent, this article and debate deserves the attention of all Africans. Africans, who believe that Africa’s never-ending wars, poverty and hunger are caused largely by lack of accountability, need to hear the BBC programme, read reactions to it and engage with this ongoing debate.

The article in question, for example, is suggesting that choices available to Ethiopians in 1984 forced them to sell food aid and buy guns. Such a myopic view of options available to Africans should be challenged by those who believe that Africans are capable of finding a better set of solutions for their problems, than letting rebels decide to sell their food aid and buy guns. I believe Ethiopians, indeed all Africans, always have more options than having to choose between agonising death by hunger or a tortuous life of suffering under corrupt, cruel leadership.

The notion that buying guns might have been better for Ethiopians than buying food, is based on the false premise that donations for food aid – subsequently sold for arms – are ‘the greatest contribution to preventing a new famine’. Three ugly truths are hidden by the hyperbole of this sweeping statement in the article. First, the article completely ignores the uncomfortable question, ‘what did hungry Ethiopians eat while rebels fought using guns bought with their food aid rations?’ Secondly, despite facts pointing to the contrary, the article shamelessly flogs the fiction that recurrence of famine in Ethiopia was made preventable by buying guns with stolen food aid. The ugliest truth – cleverly concealed by arguments in this article – is the fact that rebels, who ruthlessly sell food aid to buy guns for overthrowing brutal regimes, invariably turn into brutally, authoritarian regimes themselves.

The good news is that the days of African leaders collecting money in the name of African people and spending it as they wish are, mercifully, coming to an end. They are being asked to make their transactions more transparent. The same is true of donor governments and international aid agencies, whose activities are increasingly being scrutinised by tax payers, media and charitable individuals. In addition to this, I believe Africans should evaluate academics writing about Africa and analyse their articles critically, especially articles defending the sale of food aid to buy arms. Africans can no longer accept expertise that does not offer solutions to break the vicious cycle of despair that they now find themselves in. It is clear that guns, and the men who sell food aid to buy them, are not the solution to Africa’s problems. What Africans needs is more accountability and less arms.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Sza Sza Zelleke is an Ethiopian based in the United Kingdom.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Checking the figures on Chinese investment

A response to ‘China in Africa: Realism conquers myth’ by Stephen Marks

Deborah Brautigam

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/63287

Thanks Stephen and Pambazuka for your thoughtful review of my new book, ‘The Dragon's Gift’.

Forgive me for saying, however, that as important (and overlooked) as China's investment in African manufacturing is, I don't believe I say anywhere in the book that it has been higher than China's investment in mining over the past five years.

We don't actually have any data on sectoral breakdown of Chinese investment in Africa, and if we did, I doubt very much it would be higher than mining. 


Best wishes and thanks again.

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

For the love of God stop the killing!

Joseph Kaifala

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/63279

God has always been the idea that most represented Africa for me, especially the moral teachings of love and compassion embedded in most religions. Whether one’s brother is Christian, Muslim or a believer in traditional African religion, the rule is to be their keeper. Extended families in many African countries are often a melting pot of different religions. My family for instance, is full of Christians, Muslims and those who really don’t bother with what one of my uncles refers to as ‘the whole God business’. As an older member of my family, my uncle has a philosophical dilemma concerning the collusion of Christianity in the enslavement and colonisation of Africa. I too, have such moral reservations as a Catholic, but God never kills anyone; humans do.

For many years I have been disheartened by reports of religious rivalries and brutal killings across Africa, especially Nigeria. Every year, hundreds of people are murdered in defence of God and religion. I can’t help but be bewildered by the irony of humans fighting for, or in the name of, God – the omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent. If God is all-powerful and all-knowing as the Bible and Koran teach us, why should humans – mere mortals – be so preoccupied with waging his wars and massacring each other as we just witnessed in Jos, Nigeria. Just in case these religious warriors have forgotten the Laws, let me remind them that the sixth commandment (Exodus 20:13) admonishes us not to murder. But if that’s not enough, we are confronted by another restraint on our human instincts in Matthew 18:22, where the Lord directs us to forgive our brothers not just seven times, but seventy times seven. If we endow ourselves with the authority to judge each other, what would God do on Judgment Day as we know it?

I grew up in Sierra Leone where I attended Mosque on Fridays with my grandmother and went to church on Sundays with my parents. My grandmother taught me that we are all ‘adamalui’ – children of Adam – in spite of our various religions. If God does not seem to have problems with the many human religions, why should we be so enraged with each other to the extent of violating his most basic commandment across many religions: Love. Africa has always received recognition for the compassion and love of its people, in spite of all other negative issues. To fight for tangible things within human control is a different matter altogether, but to murder in the name of God is a vein assumption of demi-godly role that no one should be allowed to proclaim.

Africans have too many problems to solve than to devote themselves to the slaughtering of each other in the name of God. If there is one thing that Africa should avoid, it is religious wars, because if God sits in heaven, his footstool is probably in Africa. Islam and Christianity were mere additions to our long held beliefs in God. I advise every African religious leader to return to the basic principles of their religious texts, which are love, compassion and good neighbourliness. We have no human obligation to be God’s warriors, as oxymoronic as that sounds. If God is God, I’m sure he can fight his own battles, otherwise why have ‘hijenneh’ and ‘jahanama’ – heaven and hell?

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Joseph Kaifala is from Sierra Leone. He is director of The Jeneba Project, a not-for-profit organisation providing educational assistance to Sierra Leone.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Remembering Sharpeville

Sokari Ekine

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/63306

Africa is a Country comments on a documentary ‘Living with Illegals’ by Sierra Leone/British journalist Sorious Samura who becomes an ‘illegal’ himself. Sean Jacobs questions the ethics and truthfulness of the film but like Samura, he ends up rooting for the migrants who are ‘ready to do anything’ in Euroland:







‘Samura is definitely pro-immigration. And after a while you root for these men. (He does not interview women migrants although you [see] some women migrants once in the film.) In the end, you root for the migrants. At times he can’t get his head around why these migrants risk their lives for menial jobs and loneliness.’


The Abahlali baseMjondolo shackdwellers, who have been under siege by the South African government for months, have written a list of demands to President Zuma, ‘Social land not commercial land as in soccer stadiums’:







‘For too long the promise of housing has been downgraded to forced removal to a transit camp. These transit camps are more like prisons than homes. If they are “delivery” then they are the delivery of the people into oppression. Therefore we demand an immediate and permanent end to all transit camps so that the dignity of the people that have been taken to the camps can be immediately restored.

‘For too long the housing that has been built has been built in human dumping grounds far outside of the cities and far from work, schools, clinics and libraries. Therefore we demand immediate action to release well-located land for public housing. Where necessary land must be expropriated for this purpose. The social value of urban land must be put before its commercial value.

‘For too long people that are already languishing in human dumping grounds have been unable to access the cities. Therefore we demand the immediate provision of safe and reliable subsidised public transport to these areas.’


Haitian Bloggercomments on the West’s fixation on negative reporting on Haiti:

‘Haitian child restaveks – domestic servants – does not equate to the European TransAtlantic trade/holocaust.

‘Every year one or more of these organization – CNN, NBC, New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters, Miami Herald, ABC/Nightline or another such mouthpiece of the new West Indian trading companies – will, like clockwork, do a piece on how the disease-ridden Haitian poor in Haiti own child domestic servants known as – restaveks – Kreyòl for "stay with." Poor young children, mostly small girls, who go stay with another family to work for their keep because their own families can't feed and shelter them.’


IceArc comments on religious bigots in Uganda and calls on the ‘Silent Majority’ to stand up and speak out:


‘It's about time the silent polite, loving, respectful and shy MAJORITY stand up, if you do not speak, someone else will, on your behalf, the more silent we remain, the more the Ssempa's will be adjudged to speak for the rest of us. The more the world listens to his unopposed voice in support for the hate filled anti-homosexuality bill, the more they think that we all feel the same/or that we endorse his views. Let's leave him in isolation, let's restrict him to preaching to the converted.........his fellow bigots. The more we remain silent, the more, the more we are deemed and rightly so as complicit in this evil.’


Mona Eltahawy wants the French ban on the Burka to go ahead not just in France but everywhere:

‘As a Muslim woman and as a feminist I support banning the face veil, everywhere and not just in France where they are to vote on a resolution and possibly a ban on wearing the garment in public places [hospitals, schools and public transport, but not in the streets] after regional elections end.

‘I am appalled to hear the defence of the niqab or burka in Europe. A bizarre political correctness has tied the tongues of those who would normally rally to defend women’s rights but who are now instead sacrificing those very rights in the name of fighting an increasingly powerful right wing.’


Zukiswa Wanner has her own ideas about ruling Africa and divides up the roles in the government amongst the countries – not all just a chosen few. South Africa gets the presidency whilst Nigeria – where vice-presidents are never sick – gets the VP post. Home Affairs goes to Libya – based on their expert management of African borders. One major problem she faces at least early on in this quest for the leadership of Africa is how to get women out to vote for her.

‘It will obviously be tough for me in the beginning because, despite a majority of women on the continent, most of us still believe that men are the true anointed rulers (even when we have prior evidence that they cannot run a household). So my innovative way of getting the continent to vote for me would entail sending very personalised SMSs to each and every individual on the MTN network continentally – that should give me at least a third of the electorate. I would get my other third from great adverts and some endorsements by Nollywood and Generations actors. Failing to get the two thirds majority, I would plead to my maternal uncles in Zim (think C10) to sommer make a plan and ensure that I win.’


Abuja City which seems to be a reincarnation of Cyblug posts a report on the Abjua carnival which was last month – was this before or after the return of the disappeared President who remains in hiding at the time of writing:







‘Upwards of 10,000 people participated in this intoxicating cultural fiesta from the country's very diverse 36 states. It was all part of an ambitious plan of the Nigerian government to celebrate its some 250 ethnic groups to ultimately encourage the world to discover Nigeria. The government hopes one day to make the country a tourist paradise 'beauty in diversity read one slogan.

‘One of the largest oil-producing nations, Nigeria – despite its best efforts – remains a country which has gained a reputation for banditry, ethnic strife, corruption, the presence of hostage-taking insurgents. This, as the country's leadership walks the fine line keeping peace among the Christian south and the Islamic north. Yet we grasped at the heartbeat of Africa. We harnessed the best of Nigeria, dangers and all.’


Black Looks’ Rethabile remembers the Sharpeville massacre 50 years ago, when 69 Africans protesting against pass laws were shot in the township of Sharpeville. He ends the post with a poem by Dennis Brutus, ‘A poem about Sharpeville’





‘The Sharpeville police mowed protesters down, shooting most in the back. No accountability. Nobody to turn to, in South Africa or abroad. The heavens told black South-Africans they were alone. “You’re alone.” And so they were. Many fled into exile, and Lesotho started having its first waves of South African refugees, mostly from the PAC movement, which had organised the protests.

‘We called them ma-PAC, the prefix signifying more than one, some, several, many. They played rugby at a football pitch in Motse-Mocha near the Setsoto stadium, a strange sport to us, 7 years old and staunch football players/fans. South Africa had just flipped the world a bird and got away with it. It would do so again in 1976 in a repeat performance that became Apartheid’s last straw.’

Pumla Gqola – Loudrastrass honours Fatima Meer who passed away on 12 March:

‘Rest in Peace, Fatima Meer

‘Born 12 August 1928, in Durban, the courageous, inspiring and energetic activist-academic-icon, Fatima Meer passed away on 12 March 2010. She has been a staunch feminist, having co-founded both the Durban Districts Women’s League (1949) and The Federation of South African Women (FEDSAW) anti-apartheid activist who was banned repeatedly in the 1950s, 1970s, detained without trial, and otherwise tormented by the apartheid state. Fatima Meer was also a prolific writer in various capacities – biography, academic research, history with various books.

‘I met her only a few times, in gatherings where I spoke to her as one among various other women. The last time was at a South African Women’s Press Inititative (SAWPI) workshop in the Western Cape many years ago. But her words, her work, her life have been as important for me as they have been for a generation of Southern Africans. I am sad, and short of words, somewhat. Thankfully, I can turn around and borrow a sistah’s words, instead. Below, the insanely gifted poet, Bernedette Muthien’s “necessary grief”:

“since dying is a wedding with the divine
why am i not deaf to the sounds of grief
wrenched from the very hearts of those left behind
blind to their vacant salted eyes
souls wrinkled brittle in suffering & loss
we are the stained
tattered
floor rags
wrung dry
by life’s exigencies
like made-up wallflowers without dance partners
dried up wombs & hollow testicles
trees without fruit
not even worthy of harvests
whipping boys on treadmills without red emergency buttons
cowed
seldom bowled over
often fucked over
the ugly sister dimwit uncle
unwanted
left behind
at divine weddings
is my sorrow sacred too?!!
take then the remnants of this carcass
and eat that too
as i rip the skin from my flesh
i remember
that some jews
still tear the clothes
from their own bodies
in simple grief
and thus i live”.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Sokari Ekine blogs at Black Looks.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

India stepping up the ante in African relations

Sanusha Naidu

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/63296

From the 15-16 March 2010, the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), together with the EXIM Bank of India and with support from the government of India, hosted the sixth Conclave Meeting on the India-Africa Project Partnership in New Delhi. Entitled ‘Developing Synergies: Creating a Vision’, the conclave was a significant gathering of almost 1,000 delegates, with about 380 participants, representing 34 African countries to discuss business transactions and about 150 project investments to the value of approximately US$10 billion. This made it one of the largest meetings between political leaders and captains of industry from India and Africa.

While such conclave meetings are not new – there have been five such gatherings hosted previously in India and across various regions of the continent – what marks this meeting as important is that it was hosted as a precursor and intended roadmap to New Delhi’s second India-Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) scheduled to be hosted next year. And it follows closely on the joint action plan between Africa and India launched a week earlier to follow-up and assist in the implementation of the 2008 India-Africa Summit outcomes.

Guided by the objectives of the 2008 Summit, the conclave meeting focused on four sub-themes: Partnership, rural economies, Africa tomorrow and going green.
Clearly this meeting was aimed at powering India’s public and private sector ambitions and footprint in Africa.

Total trade (including both exports and imports) with African countries as a whole rose from US$24,986 billion in 2006-07 to $34,663 billion in 2007-08 and to $39,542 billion in 2008-09 according to the minister of state for commerce and industry, Jyotiraditya M Scindia.

India's exports to Africa rose from $10,269 billion in 2006-07 to $14,192 billion in 2007-08 and to $14,813 billion in 2008-09. Imports from African countries also rose from $14,716 billion in 2006-07 to $20,471 billion in 2007-08 and further to $24,728 billion in 2008-09.

As officials at the conclave commented, this has become a ‘platform to help create a long-term vision for economic engagement between Indian and African economies’. Of course this long-term vision is to increase the trade dynamic to around $70 billion by 2015, from the original assertion made at the 2008 Summit of doubling trade from $25 billion to $50 billion in 2011.

While the usual platitudes were made in the inaugural address delivered by the external affairs minister, Shri S.M. Krishna, about how ‘the India-Africa relationship has evolved and matured into a vibrant one’, there was an interesting thread that seemed to underscore the meeting.

It became abundantly clear that the Indian officials sought hard to make this meeting more about India’s engagement in Africa and less about the Elephant following the Dragon’s tail in the African landscape. This was indeed the tone of Minister Tharoor’s speech in unveiling India’s model of engagement in Africa.

Distinguishing that India’s unique model of engagement with the continent revolved around capacity building, training and private sector investment, Minister Tharoor implicitly affirmed that New Delhi’s engagement in Africa is ‘agenda free’. Minister Tharoor went on to say the following: 'We do not wish to go and demand certain rights or projects or impose our ideas in Africa. But we do want to contribute to the achievement of Africa's development objectives as they have been set by our African partners’.

This was firmly backed by Minister Krishna in his opening address where he confirmed that ‘India will establish 19 institutions to develop human resources and capacities in Africa under the decisions of the IAFS. These will include the Africa-India Institute of Foreign Trade, Africa-India Diamond Institute, Africa-India Institute of Information Technology and Africa-India Institute of Education Planning and Administration [and] also create 10 vocational training institutions and five human settlement institutes.’

Yet, in what became veiled attempts at trying to invoke that China’s engagement in Africa is merely profit-seeking and that India’s relationships in Africa are singularly driven by a development-centric focus, one could not help but notice that New Delhi was feeling the dragon’s fire breath. Perhaps this is because these meetings follow closely on the heels of Beijing’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation held last November in Egypt.

What was even more intriguing about this conclave meeting was the view that the private sector alone could be the engine to stimulate and address Africa’s development needs.

It would, therefore, be naïve to suggest that this meeting was not fuelled by trade, investment and aid opportunities and interests; or for that matter by the need for resource security. With India’s economy predicted to grow by an average of more than 5 per cent for the next 25 years and with the country set to become the world’s third largest consumer of energy products by 2030, its national oil companies like Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Indian Oil Corporation, Oil India, Essar Oil and Reliance have chalked up significant investments across the continent.

With these measures in place this trend is likely to grow as the footprint of India Inc. can be seen and felt across the continent. Investment in Africa by India’s private sector companies – dubbed ‘global industry shapers’ – totals about US$5 billion and is led by the Tata Group, Ranbaxy Laboratories and Kirloskar Brothers. Some of these include the following:

- Overseas Infrastructure Alliance Pvt. Ltd signed a contract with the Ethiopian government to supply US$65 million worth of electrical equipment.
- Mashuli Gashmani Ltd is planning to open a US$18 million commercial prawn fishery in Uganda.
- A US$31 million contract was awarded to Ircon International by the Ethiopian government for the construction of 120km of roads.
- A concession was given to Ircon International for the rehabilitation of the 600 km Beira railway system in Mozambique, which was completed in February 2010
- A US$40 million contract was awarded to KEC International for the construction of a 132 KV power project in Ethiopia.
- US$11 million contract to Kamani Engineering Corp for the construction of a transmission line between Zambia and Namibia
- A railway rehabilitation project by Rites International in Huila Province, Angola.
- Fouress International Ltd has been managing a power plant in Uganda;
- Ranbaxy Laboratories teamed up with Lupin Labs, an Indian pharmaceutical company, to market its tuberculosis drugs in North and West Africa.
- Rites Railway was appointed as consultant for the Adama-Asela road construction project undertaken by a Chinese company in Ethiopia
- Kirloskars Brothers have sold US$75 million worth of water pumps to various African countries over the last few years with projections that its African business would reach US$300 million in 2008

Given that India’s development-centric approach found praise amongst the African participants – with African delegates emphasising that their individual countries can learn important lessons from India’s own experiences in SME (small and medium enterprise) development, the green revolution and as a knowledge economy – it would appear that New Delhi’s role in Africa is seen more as a stakeholder and not a shareholder in the continent’s development trajectory.

Clearly, then, India is not ‘sleepwalking in Africa’, as one Indian newspaper suggested in its editorial in 2006. If anything, New Delhi is upping the ante in its African engagement. This was evident as early as January 2010: At the same time that the Chinese foreign and commerce ministers were making their respective high-profile tours of Africa, there were three other diplomatic tourists on the move across the continent. They were India’s vice-president, Mohammad Hamid Ansari, who was on a seven-day official visit to Zambia, Malawi and Botswana; India’s commerce minister, Anand Sharma, who was visiting Nigeria with oil minister Murli Deora; and the minister of state for external affairs, Shashi Tharoor, who was in Mozambique.

Surely, then, it cannot be coincidental that India is beginning to flex its muscle and is trying to break out of the dragon’s shadow. During his visit to the Africa Vice-President Hamid comments to the media reflected this: ‘The direction in which the Indian economy is going, the major role will be played by the private sector, especially in industrial development’ he told reporters. ‘Local employment will be generated It doesn’t make economic sense to take work force from India because it comes with liabilities. When we go for an investment venture, we don’t go with the idea of imposing our work force or employment of Indians per se. We seek to limit ourselves to management and financial control of enterprises having an Indian element.’

If this is the case then we – as African commentators, activists and social movements – need to be on the look-out for what the Indian footprint is doing in Africa. We should be asking whether India, indeed, offers something different to China’s engagement? Or is it more of the same? Moreover, we should not assume that, because India’s involvement in Africa is not in the same league as that of China or other Northern actors, we can afford to become blindsided by the platitudes that they do business differently. To be honest, India’s ambitions and vested self interests in Africa may not arouse the same suspicions as that of China, but in the end they amount to the same issues of how this affects elite class formations in African societies, capitalist accumulation and, more importantly, what impact this has on people’s livelihoods.

Perhaps it is not enough now to say that African governments must use their relationship with India as a bargaining chip with China and other traditional actors. For there to be an effective partnership, developing a dialogue between civil society, government and business would be a valuable platform to make this engagement different from the others. The Indian government would do well to learn the lessons experienced by other actors in the African market and landscape: The type of sensitivities, threats and backlashes present and how to diffuse these situations before they become the victims of their own self- confidence. The Indian diaspora is only one stakeholder, but there are other stakeholders that fall outside this ambit that must be consulted as well if Indian truly wants to be a different development partner to Africa.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Sanusha Naidu is research director of the Emerging Powers in Africa Programme based with Fahamu in South Africa.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Pambazuka News 139 : Les risques liés à l'ingérence américaine dans la crise constitutionnelle nigériane

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/summaryfr/63284

Pambazuka News 29: Angola, governança e direitos humanos

2010-03-25

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/summarypt/63282

ZANU PF at it again!

2010-03-26

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=6530&cat=3

The police have for the past two weeks arrested scores of MDC supporters across the country on trumped-up charges in a worrying partisan move as cases of Zanu PF-instigated violence against MDC members are on the increase.

ZESN’s position on the call for elections

2010-03-26

http://www.zesn.org.zw/newsflash_view.cfm?nfid=69

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) a network of 30 nongovernmental organizations promoting democratic elections in Zimbabwe has noted pronouncements by senior politicians on the holding of elections in 2011. These calls for elections come amid the constitutional reform process which has the potential to alter Zimbabwe’s political landscape.

Zuma says government divided by sanctions

2010-03-26

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=6532&cat=1

South African President Jacob Zuma urged Western nations to lift targeted sanctions against Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his allies, saying they were undermining the nation’s coalition government. “We don’t need these sanctions now,” Zuma told lawmakers in Parliament in Cape Town.

Africa: Gender justice and local government summit awards

2010-03-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/63325

The first ever gender justice and local government summit closed in Johannesburg on 24 March 2010 with awards to five women and four men whose work on the ground won the highest accolades from judges and participants during presentations made earlier this week.

The summit featured 103 entries from ten countries in a variety of categories including prevention, response, support, individual innovation, institutional good practices, specific GBV campaigns and innovative communication strategies.
Under the banner “score a goal for gender equality, halve gender violence by 2015” the conference brought together journalists, local government authorities, municipalities, NGOs and representatives of ministries of gender and local government.

On the evening of 24 March 2010, Gender Links awarded nine winners and nine runners up awards at a colourful gala dinner that was held at the City of Johannesburg offices, Reception Room. Video footage documenting some of the grassroots initiatives were shown. Footage can be made available on request.

The judges also made their choice and a winner and three runners up were awarded. Annex A provides names of all the winners in the different categories.

Please see here for full details of the awards and winners.

Ethiopia: Mitigating risk of gender-based violence

27-30 April, Addis Ababa

2010-03-26

http://www.hedon.info/1716/news.htm

The Women’s Refugee Commission with support from the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration is conducting a participatory four-day national-level workshop on operationalizing protection into livelihood and household energy programs for displaced populations in Ethiopia. The workshop is aimed at staff from governments, donor agencies, and NGOs working in Ethiopia.

Global: Civil society group to help advise UN on role of women in peace and security

2010-03-26

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33992

The United Nations has invited a newly established group of independent experts to advise on ways to better protect women in conflict situations, and to ensure that their voices are heard in peace processes and that they are included in post-conflict reconstruction and governance structures.

South Africa: Treatment first, case number later

2010-03-26

http://www.buanews.gov.za/news/10/10032614251001

Rape victims will no longer need a case number before getting treatment at health institutions said Health Minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi. Motsoaledi said when a rape victim arrives at a health institution, they won't be asked to produce a case number before being treated.

Southern Africa: Celebrating local successes against gender violence

2010-03-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/63316

Communities across Southern Africa are fighting an uphill battle against gender violence. Among other challenges, economic inequalities, cultural attitudes, and media stereotypes all hamper turning the tide. However, looking at the approximately 200 participants from ten countries who took part in the first Southern Africa Local Government and Gender Justice Summit and Awards held in Johannesburg 22-24 March, it’s clear that making a difference is more than possible when individuals, communities, and governments put their heads and hands together.
By Calsile Masilela

Communities across Southern Africa are fighting an uphill battle against gender violence. Among other challenges, economic inequalities, cultural attitudes, and media stereotypes all hamper turning the tide. However, looking at the approximately 200 participants from ten countries who took part in the first Southern Africa Local Government and Gender Justice Summit and Awards held in Johannesburg 22-24 March, it’s clear that making a difference is more than possible when individuals, communities, and governments put their heads and hands together.

Taking place on the eve of Human Rights Day in South Africa and Namibia’s 20th anniversary of independence, the event showcased over 100 best practices led by local councillors and community activists for empowering women and ending gender violence.

The range of approaches - supporting survivors, local responses, prevention campaigns, and institutional and individual innovation – shows that creativity and commitment can weave changes in our social fabric.

For Mary Chipango Chainda of Mongu Municipal Council in Zambia, more information and awareness is needed for women and men, to help them make better and more informed decisions. “Sensitising and educating young people on the dangers and effects of gender based violence (GBV) on individuals, families and communities must be ongoing,” she said.

According to Chainda, there are rampant cases of property grabbing in her area, which often leaves women desolate. Having realised this, she took the decision to take a stand to empower women. Chainda says that through increased awareness about GBV, more women formed associations and became more willing to report incidents of GBV.

Noelene Blekkenhorst of the Family and Marriage Society of South Africa (FAMSA) in Cape Town, says that men can also play a role in the fight against GBV. She adds that perpetrators of violence also need some form of psycho-educational treatment programme.

FAMSA works to provide support and protection for survivors of domestic violence and their children, whilst also providing treatment programmes, including working with men.

“This treatment programme intervenes by equipping perpetrators with the necessary skills to overcome their violence and abusive behaviour, providing them with more appropriate, alternative behaviour patterns when faced with high risk abusive or violent situations,” she said

She adds that FAMSA deals with issues such as socialisation, low frustration tolerance, substance abuse, environmental stress, and gender stereotypes. According to Blekkenhorst, FAMSA recognises that domestic violence is a pandemic, which not only affects households but also communities.
“By working with these men, FAMSA is able to work towards equipping men with the tools to build an equality based relationship that is violence free. Therefore it is fair to say that not only do the men attending the group benefit from this intervention, but the partners and children as well,” she said.
She said this programme has proved to be effective, helping perpetrators change behaviour. She emphasised the importance of helping both victims and perpetrators of GBV to end the cycle of violence and the intergenerational transfer of violence to children through early exposure, which normalises violence.
One of the categories of best practices included in the Summit and Awards is “Individual Innovation.” Just as the category suggests, sometimes a single person can make a difference. “Individual innovation in the fight against GBV calls for citizens to take the fight single handed, without considering what others have done. The greatest efforts in the fights lies with the individual,” said Councillor Tasila Hara of Zambia.
Hara also emphasised the empowerment of women for sustainable development as one of the key aspects of reducing GBV. This echoes other indications that women’s economic dependence on their male partners can make them vulnerable to gender violence, as well as have health related consequences, especially in terms of HIV/ AIDS and reproductive health.

For example, in Swaziland, media stories often cite the so-called catalysts for domestic violence as being financially related – such as when there is contention in the home when wives request money for such things as school fees and household goods. Violence also occurs when women initiate sex, refuse to have sex, or ask their men where they have been.
Worse, many do not even feel they have any power in such situations, because they lack financial muscle to help themselves should things go wrong. Women in many situations have to ask their husbands for everything, even when they need menstrual pads, panties, water tanks, sewing machines and other things.
A World Vision Swaziland project is showing that Accumulative Savings and Credit Associations (ASCA) can have a huge impact on women’s lives. According to Thuli Chapa, World Vision programmes manager, this initiative has been implemented in different communities to help support basic risk protection and consumption needs of the most vulnerable groups.

“It is a community managed microfinance programme where a group of not more than 20 people save an agreed amount of money and loan it amongst the group members at agreed periods,” said Chapa. She says this is one strategy that can be used by other countries to help empower women economically to avoid dependency.

Chapa said through the savings and credit programme, the women become able to buy household needs and contribute towards the welfare of Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVC) During their meetings, the women also share life skills and receive training on different issues affecting society, such as that of GBV and its relation to HIV and AIDS.

Whether tacking the need for information and awareness, challenging social stereotypes and expectations, working with men, or empowering women economically, it’s clear that there is action happening the ground that needs celebrating. Though the challenge remains steep, perhaps the key now is how do we support, and scale up, the many good initiatives that are often quietly gaining ground in the fight against gender violence.

* Calsile Masilela works for the Swazi Observer. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service.

Africa: Two-pronged campaign against human trafficking launched

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yj4cqaj

Campaign against human trafficking - Africa has launched a new two-pronged campaign to address the challenges of trafficking in persons, particularly women and children, thr o ugh regional workshops and the launching of the African Union's Initiative against Trafficking (COMMIT) in the Regional Economic Communities (RECs).

Burundi: Prevent and punish ‘mob justice’

2010-03-26

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/03/25/burundi-prevent-and-punish-mob-justice

Mob attacks on suspected criminals in Burundi, often with official complicity, led to at least 75 killings in 2009, Human Rights Watch and the Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detained Persons (APRODH) said in a report released today. The government of Burundi should end official involvement in "mob justice" and should hold perpetrators accountable, Human Rights Watch and APRODH said.

Ethiopia: Repression rising ahead of May elections

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yempk9x

The Ethiopian government is waging a coordinated and sustained attack on political opponents, journalists, and rights activists ahead of the May 2010 elections, Human Rights Watch said in a report. On May 23, 2010, Ethiopians will vote in the first parliamentary elections in Ethiopia since 2005, when the post-election period was marred by controversy and bloodshed.

Ghana: Paying families to curb child trafficking

2010-03-26

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88521

Eight-year-old Nana Yaw, who is being treated at Central Region’s Winneba Government Hospital for a severe respiratory infection, was sold by his mother for US$50 in 2008. For nearly two years his owners forced him to dive for several hours a day to collect fishing nets in Lake Volta.

South Africa: Need for evidence to assess World Cup trafficking concerns

2010-03-26

http://www.issafrica.org/iss_today.php?ID=917

Several anti-trafficking campaigns have been initiated in South Africa ahead of the 2010 Fifa World Cup. These campaigns intend to prevent individuals from being trafficked by raising awareness about this exploitative practice and providing information about the danger it presents. Anti-trafficking initiatives are important, but it is equally important that the information presented in these campaigns is accurate and based on evidence, rather than merely aiming to instill fear and outrage.

Uganda: Bearing the pains of double discrimination

2010-03-26

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50795

They endure stigma, discrimination, violence and extreme poverty, but Ugandan women living with disabilities say the greatest challenge facing them centres on their reproductive health. "In addition to the impacts of physical, mental, intellectual and sensor impairments, we are double discriminated (against), first as women, and then as disabled," said Beatrice Guzu, executive secretary of the National Organisation of Women with Disabilities in Uganda.

Kenya: IDPs to boycott voter registration

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/y9qqetz

As voter registration kicked off all over the country in Kenya, the Internally displaced people, especially in Eldoret were considering to boycott the whole process altogether due to what they term as lack of confidence in the electoral system in kenya.

Kenya: Urban refugees face harassment

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yghmkzt

Tens of thousands of refugees seeking safety in Kenya’s capital Nairobi are confronted with police harassment, exposure to criminal violence and a severe lack of livelihoods opportunities says a new report by the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG), International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Refugee Consortium of Kenya (RCK).

Somalia: Camp leaders are doing it for themselves

2010-03-26

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88558

Managing camps for displaced people is usually a complex business involving aid agencies, governments and elaborate coordination mechanisms. Not in Somalia, however, where years of violence have forced hundreds of thousands of people to take refuge in remote camps that are largely inaccessible to agencies or the authorities.

Somalia: Dusty and disoriented - one woman’s journey to Dadaab

2010-03-26

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=88537

One minute Halimo Mohamed, 40, was at home with her children, the next she was on the move, fleeing violence in Somalia's capital, after her Karan neighbourhood, in north Mogadishu, was hit by a barrage of shells, killing dozens and destroying homes, including hers. After dodging militia, struggling to find food and sometimes being forced to walk, she and three of her five children finally arrived on 17 March at Dadaab, a refugee camp in northern Kenya.

Somalia: Government forces demolish IDPs homes

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yjaowdo

Somali government forces have destroyed some 500 homes near the main airport in Mogadishu, capital of the lawless and war-torn nation, Somalia, because of security concerns. About 1000 displaced people, who were demolished their houses on Thursday, are homeless and sitting the open in the Afisoyoni villag

South Africa: Court orders Home Affairs to release Afghan family

2010-03-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/63308

The Johannesburg High Court on Wednesday ordered the immediate release of a family of eight asylum seekers who fled the Taliban in Afghanistan, after more than four months in detention and numerous attempts by Home Affairs to illegally return them to Afghanistan. The two parents, their five minor children, and the oldest daughter’s fiancé, also a minor, were arrested separately at the OR Tambo Airport following attempts to join family members in France who were also refugees.
The Johannesburg High Court on Wednesday ordered the immediate release of a family of eight asylum seekers who fled the Taliban in Afghanistan, after more than four months in detention and numerous attempts by Home Affairs to illegally return them to Afghanistan. The two parents, their five minor children, and the oldest daughter’s fiancé, also a minor, were arrested separately at the OR Tambo Airport following attempts to join family members in France who were also refugees.

The oldest daughter and her fiancé first attempted to make their way to France in September last year. After detaining them at the airport, Home Affairs tried to deport the two minors back to Afghanistan without fulfilling their legal obligation to investigate whether, as children, they were in need of special protection. The children were flown as far as Istanbul before Turkish authorities intervened and prevented their return to Afghanistan. They were then returned to South Africa and detained for over two months before being moved to a place of safety for children. The parents and four younger children were intercepted at the airport 6 weeks later. While detained there, the parents made repeated requests to see the two older children, who were also being held at the airport. But they remained separated for two weeks.

Home Affairs attempted to deport the family two more times, but failed to get the necessary clearance to fly through either Istanbul or Dubai. In November of last year, the family was again separated after the parents were transferred to Lindela and the children were sent to a place of safety. Despite repeated requests by the family and their legal representatives to lodge asylum applications, and even after Lawyers for Human Rights instituted legal proceedings for the family’s release, Home Affairs persisted in seeking to deport the family. Home Affairs also leveled trafficking allegations against the parents in order to justify their continued detention. The Department made no attempt, however, to investigate these allegations or initiate protective mechanisms for the children; instead, it remained eager to deport the parents together with the children they had allegedly trafficked.

According to Gina Snyman, the family’s legal representative and an attorney with Lawyers for Human Rights, ‘Accusing the parents of trafficking the children was a spurious allegation with no basis whatsoever. It was motivated not by concern for the children, but as a purely invented justification for an otherwise illegal detention. ’The trafficking allegations required the family to undergo DNA testing, delaying the court process and prolonging their detention and the parents’ separation from the children. After more than 4 months in administrative detention, the High Court this week declared their detention unlawful because the Department failed to follow the correct administrative procedures when the family was first detained. The court ordered the immediate release of the parents, and the return of the children to their care. The court also upheld the family’s right to apply for asylum, a right that Home Affairs had illegally denied them.

‘Home Affairs consistently flouts the law by detaining asylum seekers in contravention of the Refugees Act,’ said Snyman, ‘but the treatment of this family is one of the most abhorrent examples I have seen of Home Affairs’ utter contempt for the legal process.’ Snyman says that Home Affairs actions in this matter ‘raise questions about government’s commitment to human rights and respect for the rule of law, as well as its international obligations under the UN Convention on the Protection of Refugees.’ She added, ‘Home Affairs’ insistence on defending illegal detentions with spurious legal arguments both violates the human rights of asylum seekers and wastes taxpayer’s money.’

Together with the Centre for Child Law, who joined the proceedings on behalf of the children, LHR will be seeking an additional court order declaring that the separation of the family and the conditions of the children’s detention were unlawful.

For more information contact:

Gina Snyman
Lawyers for Human Rights
gina@lhr.org.za / 072 180 7524

Uganda: Innocent Rokundo, "Will they send me home?"

2010-03-26

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88555

Innocent Rokundo, 42, is a Rwandan who has lived in a refugee camp in western Uganda for the past 15 years. He fled his country during the 1994 genocide with his wife. She returned to Rwanda in 1996, but he has had no contact with her since.

Soiuth Africa: Miners strike enters 4th day

2010-03-26

http://af.reuters.com/article/investingNews/idAFJOE62P0BJ20100326

A strike by mineworkers at South Africa's Gold One stretched into a fourth day after workers and management failed to agree on a pay rise. About 1,000 mineworkers at the company's Modder East mine, some 30km east of Johannesburg, downed tools on Tuesday night in a wage protest.

China to cement grand African research plans

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yc7go5q

China will flesh out the details of its joint research programme with Africa at a meeting in Beijing next week. The Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which includes 49 African countries, plans to implement several large-scale science and technology projects across Africa in the next three years

East Africa: Sanghi eyes Kenya for expansion

2010-03-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/63309

Gujarat-based Sanghi Industries, part of the Rs 4,500-crore Sanghi Group, has bought land in Kenya to build a cement plant, making it the first Indian company to do so in the east African country. Sanghi plans to build a 1.2-million-tonne cement plant, along with local partnership, in a bid to cater to a growing African market and to also serve neighbouring countries, said people connected with the development.
Gujarat-based Sanghi Industries, part of the Rs 4,500-crore Sanghi Group, has bought land in Kenya to build a cement plant, making it the first Indian company to do so in the east African country. Sanghi plans to build a 1.2-million-tonne cement plant, along with local partnership, in a bid to cater to a growing African market and to also serve neighbouring countries, said people connected with the development.

Sanghi, along with its unnamed local partner, has already bought 650 acres in Kenya and expects to start the first phase in June, said the people close to the development. Actual production is expected by first quarter of 2012, they added.

Sanghi Industries director Alok Sanghi told ET: “I cannot comment anything at this stage as nothing has been finalised. A few Kenyan firms have informally approached us, and if anything is finalised, the company will inform the stock exchanges.” Shares of Sanghi Industries were down 2.67% at Rs 27.35 on BSE on Thursday.

Sanghi’s plan, although part of a recent trend, is a first in a building material like cement. Indian companies have been buying land overseas, especially in east African countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia and Sudan. But this land has been typically used for agricultural business, as direct investment in India is fraught with bureaucratic hurdles and companies planning to enter the farm business, have been frustrated in their efforts to do so.

Sanghi Industries currently operates a 2.6-million-tonne cement plant in Kutch and is in the middle of an expansion programme that is estimated to cost Rs 1,100 crore.

Economic Times

Emerging Powers news roundup

2010-03-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/63420

General

Africa is new battleground for global investors
An unnoticed event happened a few days ago. CNN pioneered its Africa business programme Market Place Africa. Now, this is not CNN’s Inside Africa but a programme to showcase the continent’s business exploits and exclusively put the spotlight on commerce in Africa. On the face of it, this doesn’t make the ‘stop press’ grade, but it speaks volumes about Africa’s changing fortunes as a news item in the international media. Just 10 years ago, a business Africa programme would have been crowded out by the usual stories on Africa: famine, civil war, disease etc.
How times have changed. Read more

CHINA in AFRICA

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. Read more

Sino-African strategic partnership benefits China-Cameroon ties
Deepening China-Africa strategic partnership will bring good prospects to relations between China and Cameroon, Chinese Ambassador to Cameroon Xue Jinwei told Xinhua in a recent interview ahead of top Chinese political advisor's visit to the country. Read more

Oshikango, near Angola, is example of boost in Chinese investment in Africa
The town of Oshikango, in Namibia, next to the border with Angola, is, due to its increasing importance as a Chinese-African trading hub in the region, the example of a trend to boost ties in a post-crisis scenario, according to banker George Lo. Read more

China-Nigeria trade ties continue to strengthen
The world's eighth-largest oil and gas exporter, Nigeria's socioeconomic development is being fueled by massive Chinese investment in key sectors such as energy, financial services, manufacturing, and technology. Read more

China initiates largest automobile project in Africa
A joint agreement was signed in Changchun on Mar 19 by FAW Group Import and Export Corporation (FAWIE) and China-Africa Development Fund (CADFund). Mr. Li Weidou, General Manager of FAWIE and Mr. Chi Jianxin, Chairman of the Board of CADFund signed their names on behalf of the both sides on the agreement, which involves the terms of investment of the vehicle production, construction of localized vehicle production base in Africa, and improvement of FAW's sales and sevice networks etc.. Mr. Xu Jianyi, President of FAW, attended and made a speech at the agreement signing ceremony. Read more

China's top political advisor has put forward a proposal aiming at fully advancing relations with Africa
The proposal, which was made on Tuesday and was part of Jia's key-note speech at National Assembly of Cameroon, covered political trust, economy collaboration, cultural exchanges and global issues.
"Under the new circumstances, China will work with Cameroon and other African countries to enhance the traditional friendship and grow the new type of China-Africa strategic partnership," Jia said. Read more

Rio May Help China Get Foreign Mines, Albanese Says
London-based Rio is working to repair relations with Chinalco
Rio Tinto Group, the world’s third- largest mining company, wants to help China secure overseas mines and explore for domestic deposits.
Rio could use the joint venture with Aluminum Corp. of China to develop the Simandou iron-ore deposit in Guinea, announced last week, as a model for other China outbound investments, Chief Executive Officer Tom Albanese said in speech notes for a presentation he gave today to the China Development Forum in Beijing. Read more

China Opening Bus Assembly Plant in Cameroon
China is opening a factory in Cameroon to manufacturer buses for West and Central Africa. The $500 million factory in Douala is expected to start producing buses by the end of the year.
Read More

China boosts African research links
Next week, representatives of dozens of African countries will gather in Beijing to firm up a broad programme of economic and scientific partnerships with China. It is the latest evidence that China's efforts to strengthen ties with Africa are increasingly focused on science and technology. Read More


INDIA in AFRICA

60 Indian firms express interest in Zambia for investing
Local media reported that about 60 Indian business organizations have expressed interest in investing in the energy, manufacturing, infrastructure development and tourism sectors in Zambia. The sixth Conclave on India Africa Project Partnership, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industries and the Export and Import Bank of India, recently has attracted several inquiries from Indian companies, on investment opportunities in Zambia. Read more

India's women's bill inspiring for Africa
India's experiment with gender equality in parliament through the women's reservation bill has struck a chord in Africa, says Ghana's Trade and Industry Minister Hannah Tetteh. Read more

Indian investors undertaking $4.6b project in Ethiopia
The newly assigned Indian ambassador to Ethiopia, Bhagwant Bishnio said Indian FDI to Ethiopia will reach five billion USD until the end of this year from 4.39 billion USD at present. The ambassador said various projects will be implemented to enhance the existing trade and investment relations. Read more

Bharti gets financing for Zain telecoms deal
Former MTN sweetheart Bharti Airtel has completed financing of $8.3 billion needed to buy the African assets of Kuwaiti telecom Zain, as the deadline for talks expires. Indian-owned Bharti is seeking an African business after two failed bids for MTN. Bharti says the financing is oversubscribed, with major international banks committed to underwriting the total amount. This means the deal is likely to be completed on the 25 March deadline. Bharti wants to acquire Zain's assets in 15 African countries for a total $9 billion, putting it in competition with MTN, Africa biggest cellular operator. Read more


Sanghi eyes Kenya for expansion
Gujarat-based Sanghi Industries, part of the Rs 4,500-crore Sanghi Group, has bought land in Kenya to build a cement plant, making it the first Indian company to do so in the east African country. Sanghi plans to build a 1.2-million-tonne cement plant, along with local partnership, in a bid to cater to a growing African market and to also serve neighbouring countries, said people connected with the development. Read more

India to offer quota free access for LDCs
India said it will soon offer duty-free and quota-free market access to the least developed countries during a World Trade Organization presentation last week. Read more

‘India has room to catch up in Africa’
On Monday, Stanchart announced Shankar’s appointment as the CEO of non-Asian business, which brings in close to 30% of its global revenues. The 51-year-old banker will also be inducted on the bank board on May 1 when he also takes over as the CEO of Middle East, Africa, the Americas and Europe. He is currently the head of the corporate and institutional bank based out of Singapore. Read more

India terrific example for Africa
Prime Minister Gilbert Fossoun Houngbo says Africa is increasingly looking at India as a knowledge power and believes Indian enterprises should scale up investment in the West African country. Read more

India Inc wants to be part of African tribe
Stephen Jennings, chief executive officer of the Renaissance Group, a leading investment bank in Russia/CIS and sub-Saharan Africa, sees explosive growth opportunities for Indian companies in Africa in sectors such as telecom and financial services. [url=http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/india-inc-wants-to-be-partafrican-tribe/389671/]Read more[url]

CIL to explore coal in Mozambique
Coal India Limited (CIL) has appointed geologists to explore possibilities of coal excavation in Mozambique, said a top official on Wednesday. Read more

BPCL unit finds additional gas in Mozambique
Bharat PetroResources (BPRL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL), said additional gas has been found in the exploration well, Windjammer (Mozambique). Read more

Visit of Foreign Minister of Congo to India
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of the Republic of Congo, accompanied by Mrs. Ikouebe and Senior Officials, paid an official visit to India from 13th to 18th March 2010. Read more

Indian firm wins textbook contest in Ethiopia
Ethiopia's minister of education has awarded Indian media house to print and distribute textbooks. Read more

GAIL ready to join RCF for Ghana foray
State-run utility GAIL is eyeing a big pie of Ghana's gas infrastructure
and retailing market and is willing to team up with fertiliser-maker RCF, which proposes to set up a plant there, as an alternate route to gain access to the African country. [url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5716969.cms?prtpage=1]Read more[url]

India can teach Africa about entrepreneurship
Africa needs to learn ways to foster entrepreneurship from India the visiting head of an African think-tank, K.Y. Amoako, president of Ghana-based African Centre for Economic Transformation, told a group of Indian businessmen at an interaction organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Read more

ONGC once again loses out to China for oil assets in Africa
In the absence of a domestic sovereign wealth fund backing, public sector oil explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), has once again lost the race to acquire energy assets to China's large state owned enterprise, the latest in a string of losses to its cash rich neighbour. ONGC Videsh, the overseas arm of ONGC has been outbid by CNOOC, China's third-largest oil company in acquiring a 50-per cent interest in Uganda's oil fields. Read More


In other Emerging News

The dragon and the elephant in a contest for oil
The elephant appears to be trailing the dragon through the jungles of the oil world. The state-owned Indian Oil Corporation is in talks to acquire Gulfsands Petroleum, a UK company active in Syria. It was only last August that Sinochem, China’s fourth-largest oil company, bought Emerald Energy, Gulfsands’s partner in Syria. Is this a battle India can win? Is it a battle India should even be fighting? Read more


Cameroon and Turkey to diversify cooperation
The Turkish President, Abdullah Gül, has visited Cameroon to strengthen cooperation ties between the two countries. The visit also saw the signing of two significant agreements which were all marked the beginning of a new era of mutual cooperation between the two countries. Read more


Shoprite buy may push Future-Carrefour deal
The buyout of South Africa's Shoprite Holdings single retail store in Mumbai by the Future group on Saturday, could well pave the way for stronger ties with French retail giant Carrefour, with whom the Future group has been in talks with for a while. Though ‘‘the government's strict limits on foreign investments in the retail sector is playing spoilsport and has delayed many mergers, talks with the retail major have moved to the last mile,'' said an official, familiar with the deal. Read more

BRICs downplay currency issue, look to boost trade
The world's four biggest emerging economic powers are unlikely to push for a new global reserve currency but will seek to boost mutual trade and investment at a summit next month, a senior Brazilian diplomat said in an interview. The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China will meet in Brasilia on April 15-16 for the second time since they created the group of emerging market powers known as the BRICs. Read More

South Africa eyes Uganda’s oilfields
President Jacob Zuma said during a two day state visit that Uganda’s recent discoveries of commercial oil reserves present new investment opportunities for South African companies already playing a key role in the country’s telecom, banking and beverages sector. Read More


EVENTS

ASSOCHAM to organize conference on India-Africa agri partnership
The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) is organizing a day long consultative conference, cum seminar cum workshop on India-Africa agri partnership in the State of Punjab on March 27. Attending the event will be following African delegates: The Agriculture Minister, Uganda, Ambassador of Zimbabwe and Dean of African Diplomatic Corps- Jonathan Wutawunashe Ambassador of Republic of Sudan to India - Khidir Harun Abdulrazig, Ambassador of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia- Ms. Gennet Zewide, High Commissioner of Ghana Read more

The India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Summit will be held in Brasilia, Brazil on the 15th of April
The International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG) is pleased to announce that it will be hosting the 4th Academic Forum (12th & 13th of April 2010) in Brasilia. The Academic forum is a supplementary environment to the Summit of the Heads of State, widening the discussion by giving voice to specialists, policy advisors, researchers and empowering civil society agents. The outputs of the Forum will be formally reported at the Summit of Heads of State. Read More


New Reports and Papers

‘China’s foray into Africa: Ideational underpinnings and geoeconomic interests’
African Journal of Political Science and International Relations, Vol. 4(3), pp.096–108, March 2010. Read More

Exim India's Study highlights India's trade and investment Potential in the SADC Region
Export-Import Bank of India (Exim India)'s study on 'SADC: A Study of India's Trade and Investment Potential" was released n March 15, 2010, at the "6th CII-EXIM BANK Conclave on India Africa Project Partnership 2010". The study draws attention to the fact that India's trade and investment relations with the SADC region have strengthened in recent years, and presents opportunities to further enhance bilateral commercial relations. During 2008-09, the SADC region accounted for 39.3 percent of India's total exports to Africa, while the region's share in India's total imports from Africa stood at 32.5 percent. India's total trade with the SADC region has risen more than three-fold from US$ 4.4 billion in 2004-05 to US$ 13.6 billion in 2008-09. Read More

African Perspectives on China-Africa: Gauging Popular Perceptions and their political determinants
This article fills a void by examining indeed not only African attitudes towards China’s African presence, but deciphering the very considerations informing these views. Employing multi-level modeling techniques, we estimate the effects of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, Sino-African trade, and African notions of democracy and human rights on African attitudes regarding ‘China-in-Africa.’ Our results suggest that the negative rhetoric emanating from much of the surrounding literature tells only part of the story, as African perceptions of China are found to be near equivalent to those held vis-à-vis Western countries. The results contained in this study further illustrate the adverse effects of increasing Chinese imports on African attitudes, and the negligible impact of FDI in this regard. In keeping with mainstream literature, this article further finds that Africans who attach particular value to human rights and democracy are overall largely critical of the burgeoning Chinese presence across the continent. These results are predicated upon a data-set containing twenty African states supplied by Afrobarometer Round 4. Read more

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS


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

What does China want?

2010-03-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/63421

Today, China is indeed a world power in every sense of the word and it is unimaginable that up till now, the country is still being referred to as an emerging economic power. China seems not bothered about the appellation out of conviction that if she continues with her developmental efforts and gets more countries, especially those in the third world, to come along with her in terms of patronage; she too would continue to be a force to reckon wit
Today, China is indeed a world power in every sense of the word and it is unimaginable that up till now, the country is still being referred to as an emerging economic power. China seems not bothered about the appellation out of conviction that if she continues with her developmental efforts and gets more countries, especially those in the third world, to come along with her in terms of patronage; she too would continue to be a force to reckon with. Where else can the country get most of her allies than Africa where the economy survives on importation? Where else with China’s capacity to feed her huge population and send extra to needy nations like Nigeria?

China respects members of its intelligentsia a lot. So, when a university lecturer expresses opinion about policy of government, such would not be ignored by government because the society depends heavily on the expertise of teachers. A lecturer in the department of Mass Communication at the Tsinghua University, China, Professor Li. Xinguang explained that his country which is one of the permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations (UN) may not send troops to war ravaged Afghanistan in order not to put its own security in jeopardy, even as he said that his country would support African quest for a permanent seat in the Security Council of the United Nations.

Apparently reacting to the appeal by the President of the United States of America, Mr. Barack Obama to all countries of the world to stop the on-going carnage in Afghanistan where hundreds of soldiers and innocent people are dying, the professor said it would be dangerous for China to accede to that request without considering how it would affect its relationship with neighbours. Professor Xiguang made these remarks while delivering a lecture titled: “The Soft Power of Chinese Power” delivered at the on-going seminar for press officers and journalists from developing countries in Beijing, China.

Though he explained that his views did not represent those of the government of the Peoples Republic of China, as an academic in a first class university known as "Harvard of China", he has a responsibility to contribute positively to any discussion that would shape the foreign policy of China in relation to its neighbours. He said that sending troops to Afghanistan would be a wrong decision for the Chinese government because it would amount to fighting its own brothers and sisters.

According to him, “There are about three million Muslims in Afghanistan and over 30 million in China. Apart from these numbers, all our neighbours are Muslims. Will it make sense for China to send guns to Afghanistan? After all, we did not start the war. If China sends troops, the same people who are appealing to us to join the war they started would accuse us of human rights violations and abuse of freedom of religion.”
While tracing the history of China, which he said includes 3,000 years of Emperor Dynasty, Prof. Xinguang emphasised that China remains a communist state without apologies and its foreign policy of good neighbourliness, irrespective of religion and ethnic affiliation, cannot be compromised for any selfish agenda of a few countries.

He lamented a situation whereby three countries would take a decision and tell the rest of the world it was the international community that arrived at that decision, stressing that by the power of western media, a lot of manipulation and distortion had been done to China.
“Gentlemen, China may not send a soldier to Afghanistan because it has more to lose if it does so. America has three neighbours and it is not fighting these neighbours. Why should China be fighting with its own neighbours and brothers? All we want in our region is peace, not war.”
Talking about the development of nuclear capabilities by some countries, especially Iran and South Korea, the university don noted candidly that nuclear weapons cannot help any nation.


“The best way to stop the proliferation is for China, the USA, France, Britain, Russia and other super powers to destroy their nuclear weapons first. But to say that I should destroy mine while you are increasing yours would be unfair to humanity. I can tell you that America and China or other world powers cannot go to war with one another because we both have capabilities to deliver nuclear weapons. I think what the world should be emphasising in this modern age is peace and development and that must be done on the basis of equality and respect for individual nations.”
On the agitation of African nations for a permanent seat at the Security Council, Professor Xinguang went down memory lane describing how the continent supported China’s transformation agenda and concluded that China has always enjoyed good relations with African countries.

He further explained that China has also been reciprocating the warm relations by supporting African nations in every way possible. He said Chinese foreign aid to developing countries started from 1950 and it has provided assistance to more than 160 countries in African, Asian, Eastern European, Latin American and South Pacific regions.
The professor also explained that China would support Africa’s efforts at getting a permanent seat on the Security Council. He however advised African nations not to be distracted by who occupies the seat among them.

According to him, in addition to having common goals, China and other developing countries have a common destiny. He said, since 70 percent of the world’s land mass belongs to developing countries of the world, the countries should take advantage of this strength to free themselves.
He however noted that a virile media and vibrant journalists who are sufficiently trained are all the developing nations of the world require in this era of globalization to counter the propaganda war from the western media that take delight in over-reporting or slanting insignificant events about third world countries.

And, how to develop the right kind of media that can help developing nations fight and win the propaganda war that was the thrust of the seminar held at the Guizhou province, China where 94 journalists drawn from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe were gathered to brainstorm on the state of the media in developing countries.
Held inside the premises of the Guizhou Television, the seminar viewed the propaganda against developing nations with serious concern and concluded that the best way to stop the media offensive of the West is for the aggrieved nations to network in the area of collaboration to establish a global multimedia agency capable of matching the established stations of the West.
Participants noted that the media should always be used to tell the truth.

But instead of presenting facts to the people, western media take advantage of their sophisticated networks to blackmail the developing world. The only stories ‘good to report’ about Africa, Asia, Latin America and other developing countries, said the participants in their various contributions, are stories about famine, starvation and war.
They however admitted that there was no point blaming the West for deploying its tools to its advantage. Most of the participants submitted that the third world should wake up to its responsibility of building global networks in the mould of CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera and others.

If there is a vibrant media that could showcase the economic potentials of the developing nations and the people know the truth, said the participants, nobody would be disturbed by what is broadcast by the powerful media elsewhere.
Earlier, at the opening ceremony, the President of Guizhou Television, Mr. Pai Fang in his welcome address, disclosed that China, particularly his station was already establishing a global network to deliver China to the world in a way that would counter the media offensive against it in an efficient manner. He said that the television station, which was established in 1969, already has one satellite channel, 10 channels and a newspaper, noting that very soon, another channel would be added to the existing ones to send the right signals to all parts of the world.

“What is important is for us to broadcast good programmes. If you broadcast good programmes to the people, they will follow you. If you present irritating ones, you lose audience. Here in Guizhou television, we present facts to our people notwithstanding the fact that we are being financed by the government. There is collaboration among all other provincial stations as we exchange ideas on how best to serve our audience. Media should be used as a medium to tell the truth without hiding anything. If people know the facts, they would not be unnecessarily agitated.”

With a flurry of visits by top Chinese government officials to many African countries including Nigeria; the opening up of its doors for exchange programmes and the need to collaborate on how to develop African tourism potentials, it is obvious that China is desirous of maintaining its relationship with the developing world in its determination to claim a befitting status in the comity of developed nations.
Education and communication appear to be the channel through which China wishes to convince Africa that there is the need to identify common problems and adopt same approach to solve them. This seems to be the most important thing that China wants from Africa.

Copyright:
ThisDay

Cote d'Ivoire: UN mission appeals for peace

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yd3yv46

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Cote d'lvoire, Choi Young-jin, has appealed for peace this week in the run-up to the country's first presidential elections since 2005.The UN mission chief made the appeal in a statement on Thursday.

Egypt: Security use force to disperse activists

2010-03-26

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE62P01420100326

Egyptian state security prevented activists from holding a symbolic "trial" of Egypt's ruling party on Thursday, using force to disperse those who tried to resist, activists said. Security men in civilian clothes beat some of the activists who gathered to hold the event at a lawyers' club south of Cairo.

Kenya: Annan meets president

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yf3d76e

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on Thursday in Nairobi met and held talks with Kofi Annan, a member of the Panel of Eminent African Personalities and Chief mediator at the 2008 peace talks which ended the post-election violence in Kenya. Annan, former United Nations secretary-general, also met Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

Nigeria: Acting President nominates 25 Ministers-designate

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yk54djt

Nigeria's Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has sent the list of the first batch of 25 ministerial-nominees to the upper legislative chamber, the Senate, for clearance. vOut of the 25, three served as Ministers while four were Ministers of State in t he 42-member cabinet which was dissolved 17 March.

Rwanda: Opposition leader prevented from leaving the country

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/y9whxhf

Mrs Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, chairperson of the opposition United Democratic Forces (FDU-Inkingi) and candidate in Rwanda's August presidential election, was on Wednesday prevented from leaving the country after she was questioned for several hours at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID)for alleged comments likely to stir up hatred and genocide, police sources told PANA in Kigali.

Togo: Police disperse opposition demonstration

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/y9ruljg

An evening of prayers and chants held in the Togolese capital, Lome, by supporters of the umbrella opposition group, Republican Front for Revival and Change (FRAC), was violently dispersed by the security forces using tear gas.

West Africa: Togo outlaws protests against elections results

2010-03-26

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE62P09M20100326

Togo's government has outlawed further demonstrations against the results of a March 4 presidential election, which opposition leaders say was rigged to favour the incumbent. The decree came a day ahead of a scheduled opposition rally in the seaside capital of Lome, escalating tensions in the West African state whose election had been widely seen as a test for regional democracy.

Egypt: Strengthening good governance

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/ya3shp7

Major corruption loopholes are jeopardising Egypt’s attempts to combat the problem despite the existence of a broad range of anti-corruption laws and regulations, according to a new report released today by Transparency International (TI).

Somalia: 'No evidence' WFP's food aid diverted

2010-03-26

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8588061.stm

The UN World Food Programme has denied a claim that up to half the food aid to Somalia was being diverted to Islamist militants and corrupt contractors. WFP officials said there was no evidence to back up the claim made in a report by a UN monitoring group.

Africa: Can Ghana avoid the oil curse

2010-03-26

http://blogs.reuters.com/africanews/2010/03/25/can-ghana-avoid-the-oil-curse/

ith a democratic touch rare in a region better known for dictators, Ghana is asking its citizens what it should do with the windfall from oil production due to start later this year. In a questionnaire entitled “The Use and Management of Oil and Gas Revenues – A Survey of Public Choices” posted on the finance ministry website this week, Ghana says oil-producer nations face major questions.

Africa: lack of adequate infrastructure 'hinders growth'

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/ydzvh92

Malawi has said Africa needs to focus on regional infrastructural development, in energy and water resources management if the continent is to realise its true growth potential, PANA reported from here Wednesday.

Africa: Slavery by another name: the CFA Franc

2010-03-26

http://www.thefrontiertelegraph.com/content/012908/slavery.html

Welcome to the Communauté Financière de l'Afrique ( CFA ), where this is how things have been working for over sixty years. The January 2008 edition of the pan-African magazine, New African, reports that "the tale of this currency is extraordinarily mind-numbing!" and inspires this special commentary

Global: African group at UN calls for fulfilment of development pledges

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/ybp2578

The African Group at the UN has called for the immediate fulfilment of all Official Development Assistance(ODA) commitment to Africa. The group also urged the Group of Eight industrialised countrie (G-8) to redeem its pledge to double by 2010, official assistance to the continent.

Global: Solar power to the people!

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/ylcvhkl

As technological obstacles to the efficient use of solar energy diminish, economic and political challenges remain to its widespread adoption by the poor. "The sun occupies centre stage, as it should, being literally the original source of all energy," said India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, describing an action plan for India's national strategy on climate change, in June 2008.

Global: Whither African cotton producers after Brazil’s success?

2010-03-26

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=50755

African cotton-producing countries hope that Brazil’s intended retaliation after its success at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) dispute settlement body will have a positive spin-off for them but seem reticent about pursuing a similar course of action against the U.S. for its continued use of subsidies in cotton production.

Global: World Bank aid for water-deprived countries misses most afflicted - Study

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/y8b6kfu

The world's most water-deprived countries are also receiving some of the least help from the World Bank to improve conditions, according to a study that the bank's independent evaluators released on Monday. The study said water shortages, being felt in more than 40 countries, are at risk of getting worse.

Burundi: Global Fund grants US$ 135m to fight HIV/AIDS

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yj6aew9

Burundi will receive a grant of US$ 135 million over the next five years, under the eighth round of the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, official sources said in Bujumbura. The funds will be allocated to the "Intensification and Decentralization Program me for the Fight against HIV/AIDS (PRIDE)," said Burundian first Vice-President in charge of Political, Administrative and Security Affairs, Yves Sahinguvu.

Global: Circumcision modestly reduces risk of male-to-female HIV transmission

2010-03-26

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/73AB07DA-D050-4681-A39C-3F3012FD36A2.asp

Male circumcision modestly reduces the risk of an HIV-positive man transmitting HIV to a female sex partner, an analysis of the Partners in Prevention study published in the journal AIDS suggests. The risk of contracting HIV was 40% lower for the partners of circumcised men than uncircumcised men, but this reduction in risk was not statistically significant.

Global: When is water safe?

2010-03-26

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88508

Diarrhoea- inducing waterborne microbes often go undetected in parts of the world with the highest rate of under-five deaths from gastrointestinal infection. According to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), lack of water safety regulations, inter-ministerial coordination and surveillance can paint a deceptively benign portrait of water quality.

Kenya: Schoolchildren sent home after cholera scare

2010-03-26

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88577

Up to 11,000 students from various schools in Msambweni and Kwale districts on Kenya's coast have been forced to go home before the Easter holidays after an outbreak of cholera in the region. Bridgide Wambua, the Msambweni District Education Officer, told IRIN the department decided to close down the schools to prevent more students from contracting cholera and other waterborne ailments that had also been reported.

South Africa: ART Guidelines updated

2010-03-26

http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032714

South Africa's antiretroviral treatment guidelines have been updated. The guidelines offer a range of improvements over the 2004 guidelines including new, more tolerable antiretrovirals, immediate ARV treatment for drug-resistant TB patients and improved prevention of mother to child transmission procedures.

Tanzania: Education crucial to lowering HIV prevalence

2010-03-26

http://www.aidsmap.com/en/news/6963E75F-E023-4E3F-B737-FD4E9658C9FE.asp

HIV prevalence among Tanzanians who attended secondary school fell sharply between 2004 and 2008, while remaining stable among the country's least educated people, a new study has revealed. "National HIV prevalence has fallen recently in Tanzania. However, the improvements have not been spread evenly throughout the population," James Hargreaves, senior lecturer in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and lead author of the study, said.

Uganda: WHO checks smallpox reports

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yzlcxx7

The World Health Organisation said today it was investigating reports of suspected cases of the previously eradicated disease smallpox in eastern Uganda. Smallpox is an acute contagious disease and was one of the world’s most feared sicknesses until it was officially declared eradicated worldwide in 1979.

Africa: Poor governance 'jeopardises primary education'

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yfbx5de

Poor governance and management are jeopardising efforts to provide quality basic education in seven African countries according to a new report published today by Transparency International (TI).

Malawi: Activists protest in London

2010-03-26

http://ilga.org/ilga/en/article/mlKxTCJ1bg

African and British human rights campaigners rallied outside the Commonwealth’s head quarters in London on Monday 22 March. They were protesting against the prosecution and imprisonment of the Malawian same-sex couple, Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, on charges of homosexuality, and against the Commonwealth’s failure to condemn their arrest and detention in Chichiri prison.

South Africa: South Africa 'needs social transformation of attitudes'

2010-03-26

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=southafrica&id=2537

Commemorating Freedom Day on 27 April, the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project (LGEP) will be hosting a “Freedom for all Rally” at the Eudy Simelane Memorial Park (Kwa – Thema), celebrating constitutional freedoms by remembering all victims of hate crimes and demanding full liberation in South Africa.

Zimbabwe: PM Morgan Tsvangirai rejects gay rights move

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8588548.stm

2010-03-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/lgbti/63375

Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has joined President Robert Mugabe in dismissing calls to enshrine gay rights in the new constitution. "I totally agree with the president," he said, state media report.

Ethiopia: Web campaign against Gibe III dam

2010-03-26

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8582682.stm

A group of international campaigners has launched an online petition against Ethiopia's huge Gibe III dam project. The group wants to put pressure on Western donors and banks not to fund the dam, saying it would destroy the livelihoods of some 500,000 people.

Global: Strengthen measures to protect forests - FAO

2010-03-26

http://www.afrol.com/articles/35780

Countries across the globe have been challenged to better manage and conserve the forests in their areas as one of the commitments to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). According to a comprehensive forest review released today by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the rate of deforestation has slowed over the last 10 years, but each year an area roughly the size of Costa Rica is still destroyed.

South Africa: Campaign Against New Coal Mines Gathers Momentum

2010-03-26

http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1898/1/

In an indication that the global climate justice movement is becoming broader, there is now intense opposition to a climate-destroying energy loan for South Africa. The campaign’s leaders are community activists in black townships allied with environmentalists, trade unionists and international climate activists.

Botswana: Bushmen mark eight years without water

2010-03-26

http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/5676

As the world marks World Water Day, the Gana and Gwi Bushmen of Botswana are marking eight years without access to a regular supply of water in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

Mali: the right to food of 30 peasant families jeopardized in N'Tabacoro

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yhn5fuw

Dozens of families on the outskirts of Bamako, the capital of Mali, are under threat of being evicted from their lands by the Government in favour of a housing project. The cultivation ban, ordered in July 2009, jeopardizes their right to adequate food. Moreover, if the eviction is realized, it will hinder the ability of the families to feed themselves in the long run.

South Africa: Land policy to limit ownership

2010-03-26

http://farmlandgrab.org/11876

South Africa’s government has drafted a new land policy that proposes limits to land ownership by its own citizens and foreigners, its Rural Development and Land Reform Minister has said.

Global: UN Recognizes the Rights of Peasants

Malian farmers fight for their seeds

2010-03-26

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2828

In an important victory in the global struggle for food sovereignty, the United Nations recently issued a preliminary recognition of peasants' rights. The decision was welcomed by rural social movements and activists throughout the world as a powerful addendum to the Human Right to Food (Article 25 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights)-which defines access to food as a human right, but is silent on the issue of access and control over food producing resources.

Ethiopia: Violations of freedom of expression and association

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yczybtj

This 59-page report documents the myriad ways in which the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has systematically punished opposition supporters. Since the 2005 polls, the party has used its near-total control of local and district administrations to undermine opponents' livelihoods through withholding services such as agricultural inputs, micro-credit, and job opportunities.

Gabon: Newspaper editor and reporter summoned

2010-03-26

http://www.rsf.org/Newspaper-editor-and-reporter.html

Reporters Without Borders is baffled by the fact that Albert Yangari, the publisher and editor of the newspaper L’Union, and Jonas Moulenda, one of his reporters, have been summoned three times in connection with a libel suit brought by Alfred Nguia Banda, the former director-general of the Gabonese Shippers Council (CGC), which oversees maritime traffic in Gabon.

Nigeria: Islamic court 'bans Twitter feed'

2010-03-26

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8584707.stm

An Islamic court in Nigeria has banned a rights group from hosting debates on the Twitter and Facebook websites on the use of amputations as a punishment. The court, in the northern city of Kaduna, backed a case brought by a pro-Sharia group arguing that the forums would mock the Sharia system.

Somalia: Court verdict frees journalist, but expels his from town

2010-03-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/63310

A radio reporter jailed for a week in Kismayo, was released, but he was expelled from the town and told not to come back, according to a statement from the Alshabab authorities. According to The statement journalist Mohamed Salad Abdulle, working for independent broadcaster Somali Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) was released but the Alshabab court has ordered him to leave the town with in 36 hours and told him not to return.
A radio reporter jailed for a week in Kismayo, was released, but he was expelled from the town and told not to come back, according to a statement from the Alshabab authorities.

According to The statement journalist Mohamed Salad Abdulle, working for independent broadcaster Somali Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) was released but the Alshabab court has ordered him to leave the town with in 36 hours and told him not to return.

Mr. Abdulle, who was also a stringer for Markabley radio in Bardhere was remanded to the jail a week before. He was accused of reporting a meeting by the Hizbul Islam authorities and some of their reports in the region.

The verdict said the journalist had admitted the accusation before court.

The Somali Foreign correspondents Association is vehemently condemning the decision by Alshabab.

“The fact that the journalist was not allowed having layers to defend him and that he was ordered to leave his home town shows the continuous ordeal and violations against the press Freedom in Somalia,” said the chairman of the Somali Foreign Correspondents Association (SOFCA)

“We call for the Alshabab Authorities in the town to retract from the decision and allow the journalist to continue his noble profession,” said Olad

SOFCA OFFCICE IN MOGADISHU

Uganda: Three journalists arrested

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yahkefe

Three Ugandan journalists were arrested by the Police over an alleged seditious story concerning the Kasubi tomb fire. The three, Dalton Kwesiga, Ben Byaruhanga and Johnson Taremwa work for The Red Pepper. Their troubles stem from a story titled ‘Police quizzes Mengo ministers over Kasubi fire’.

Zimbabwe: ZimRights forced to abandon photo exhibition after launch

2010-03-26

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news250310/zimrights250310.htm

A photo exhibition organized by the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association went ahead in Harare on Wednesday evening after the High Court ordered police to return the photographs they had seized the previous day. But that same evening the police returned to the art gallery to try and confiscate the pictures again.

Haiti: Where solidarity means survival

2010-03-26

http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1897/1/

Perhaps more than anything today, Haiti needs a new macro-economy, one based above all on meeting the needs of its citizens. Post-earthquake economic restructuring could include equitable distribution of resources, high levels of employment with fair compensation, local production, and provision of social services.

Central Africa: Eradicating arms trafficking will further peace - UN

2010-03-26

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34134&Cr=weapons&Cr1=

The efforts of Central African nations to consolidate peace and further development are being thwarted by weapons trafficking, top United Nations officials warned today, calling on Member States to do all they can to eradicate this scourge. “Central Africa is awash with illicit weapons – exacerbating inter-communal violence, increasing cross-border crime and threatening ongoing peace and national reconciliation processes,” Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro said in her remarks to a debate in the Security Council.

Global: Africa left alone over Afghan war

2010-03-26

http://www.afrol.com/articles/35774

Western nations, employing the best equipped armies in the world, are increasingly dropping their support for UN peacekeeping missions in Africa, rather focusing their efforts on Afghanistan. Even the Darfur and Congo crises are neglected.

North Africa: Libya/Chad: Beyond political influence

2010-03-26

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=6561

This latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the evolution of Tripoli’s policy towards its neighbour from open imperialism to support in peace negotiations with armed rebels and with Sudan. Libya has been the most important country for Chad since Gaddafi came to power in 1969, but its approach has had mixed results.

Senegal: Rebels call for negotiation

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/ycwownv

Following bloody fighting between Senegalese forces and rebels, in recent days, the rebel Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) have issued a statement, calling for negotiations with the government.

Somalia: Army, AU force must spare civilians in fighting - Amnesty

2010-03-26

http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/60725/2010/02/25-174737-1.htm

Attacks on rebels by government troops and African Union peacekeepers in Somalia kill and injure many civilians and should be much more discriminate, human rights group Amnesty International said on Thursday. Islamist rebels have been fighting the Horn of Africa state's fragile government since the start of 2007. African Union's (AU) force AMISOM is supporting the U.N.-backed administration, which controls just parts of the capital, Mogadishu.

Somalia: Thousands flee Mogadishu "death trap"

2010-03-26

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88515

Clashes between government troops and Islamist insurgents have displaced more than 55,000 people from Mogadishu since the beginning of February, with many of them heading out of Somalia to neighbouring Kenya, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

Uganda: Almost one million at risk in Karamoja

2010-03-26

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88569

Thick dust clouds obscure the horizon as the convoy of UN military observers sets off to patrol the oil-rich, yet desperately underdeveloped Unity State in Southern Sudan. In these borderlands, monitoring a 2005 deal that halted decades of war between north and south is a major undertaking.

Western Sahara: "Sahrawi people must decide

2010-03-26

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50799

The only solution for the conflict over Morocco's occupation of the Western Sahara is to do what the Sahrawi people decide regarding their future, Zahra Ramdan, president of the Association of Sahrawi Women in Spain has said.

Zambia: Floods displace 800 victims

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/yh3la9u

Eight hundred people displaced by excessive flooding and intense rains in Lusaka, the capital of southern African country Zambia. More than 60 families evacuated from their waterlogged shacks to a temporal resettlement campsite on higher grounds out of the Independence Stadium in Lusaka Nort

Africa: Google Code Jam 2010

2010-03-26

http://code.google.com/codejam/africa/

Google Code Jam is a coding competition in which professional and student programmers are asked to solve complex algorithmic challenges in a limited amount of time. The contest is all-inclusive: Google Code Jam lets you program in the coding language and development environment of your choice.

Africa: Mauritius inaugurates underwater fibre optics cable

2010-03-26

http://tinyurl.com/ylyhowr

Mauritian Prime minister, Navin Ramgoolam, on Wednesday inaugurated an underwater fibre optics cable called Lower Indian Ocean Network (LION) in Terre-Rouge, 10 km north of the Mauritian capital, Port-Louis.

Zambia: Government’s SMS system for HIV test results

2010-03-26

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50781

HIV-positive Bupe Mwamba, 22, lies next to her newborn baby girl at the rural clinic she just gave birth in and wonders if her baby is HIV-positive too. She has been for counselling throughout her antenatal check-ups and knows there is a chance her baby girl may be HIV-negative. But it still does not eliminate her fears and anxieties.

South Africa: Coal-fired denialism

AfricaFocus Bulletin Mar 23, 2010 (100323)

2010-03-26

http://www.africafocus.org/docs10/coal1003.php

With a request for a $3.75 billion World Bank loan for a new coalfired power plant, South African political leaders seem determined to entrench a policy on climate change that disregards clear evidence of catastrophic consequences, echoing the earlier disastrous policies of former President Thabo Mbeki on AIDS. But opposition is mounting to the current plan, which would consolidate South Africa's Eskom as the continent's leading producer of greenhouse gases.

CODESRIA Sub-Regional Methodology Workshops for Social Research in Africa

Session for North Africa

2010-03-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/63318

The 2010 session of the CODESRIA sub-regional methodological workshops will explore the conditions for the employment and validation of qualitative perspectives in African contexts. To this end, the workshops will be open to all the social research disciplines.
CODESRIA
Sub-Regional Methodology Workshops for Social Research in Africa. Session for North Africa

Theme: Fields and Theories of Qualitative Research
4-8 October 2010, CRASC, Oran (Algeria)

One of the major weaknesses of contemporary social research in and about Africa is its lack of careful attention to epistemological and methodological issues. This weakness has made itself manifest at a time when the increasing complexities of the social dynamics that shape livelihood on the continent and the wider global context call for a greater investment of effort in the refinement of the procedures and instruments of investigation and analyses with a view to achieving a more accurate and holistic assessment of rapidly changing realities. But instead of such an investment of effort, we are increasingly witnessing an astonishing neglect or misapplication of theory and method on a scale and with a frequency that calls for intervention. At one level, the neglect that has taken place has comprised a serious trivialisation of basic research protocols and their reduction to a fetishistic evocation of superficial recommendations thinly disguised with ritualistic appeals to rigour that are not reflected in the analyses undertaken. At another level, methodological issues have simply been instrumentalised in ways that ensure that narrow ideological considerations and pre-determined outcomes take precedence over science. Furthermore, it is not uncommon to come across studies in which methodological questions are outrightly ignored in the name of an alleged specificity or immediacy that amounts to the exclusion of African social realities from universal debates on the validity of scientific frames of analyses. The result is that in those debates, studies produced on Africa come across as a mix of purely literary discourses without an empirical anchorage or anecdotes hidden under a “scholarly” discourse that is not only pretentious but also vacuous. Consequently, the knowledge produced is bereft of heuristic value and simply becomes an element that, wittingly or unwittingly, justifies a predetermined set of economic, political and social policies. This is clearly not an acceptable state of affairs, if only because it impoverishes African social research. It is, therefore, high time that the social research community revisited and discussed the methodological foundations of current knowledge about Africa in order first to put an end to scientific impunity as it manifests itself within and outside Africa, and give a new impulse to the African social sciences through support programmes targeted at younger researchers.

The future of young social researchers begins with an excellent mastery of core research processes and their patient application to concrete situations as demanded by their work in the field, the archives, and the library. Unfortunately, the combination of the prolonged crises in African higher education systems and the poor example set in the writings of an increasing number of Africanists who have succumbed to the temptation to take liberties with methodological rigour mean that younger African researchers are poorly served in matters of training for independent social research. It is for this reason that the CODESRIA Secretariat has decided to convene young African researchers to methodological workshops on epistemological and methodological issues in social research designed to fill the gaps in their formal and informal training. The workshops are meant to serve as a critical space that would offer experience-sharing in the basic epistemological and empirical prerequisites for rigorous scientific imagination. The workshops will not only offer insights into the current state of the art but also provide an occasion for a critical review of contemporary research procedures, tools and theories as seen from an African perspective. The major question which the workshops will address can be summarized as follows: How can the researcher productively establish a link between dominant theoretical approaches and concrete situations in the field whilst simultaneously taking into account the state of knowledge, the techniques to be mobilized, and the evolution of African societies? In answering this question, the workshops will privilege qualitative research methods and tools on the basic premise that the popular tendency to oppose quantitative and qualitative methods is due to a wrong assumption that the former offers an exactness and “hardness” which the latter is supposedly too “soft” and “fickle” to match. Without diminishing the importance of quantitative research and methods, participants in the workshops will be encouraged to explore qualitative methods of capturing African social dynamics which do not always or often find expression, fully or partially, in figures and which are, therefore, lost to those who are wedded to rigid and exclusively quantitative approaches.

The 2010 session of the CODESRIA sub-regional methodological workshops will explore the conditions for the employment and validation of qualitative perspectives in African contexts. To this end, the workshops will be open to all the social research disciplines. These disciplines are uniformly confronted with broadly similar difficulties of understanding social reality and the challenges posed by techniques of data collection and analysis, which, on account of their “qualitative” nature, are suspected by some to be seriously lacking in scientific rigour. Each workshop will have the following concerns at its core:

i) A critical assessment of the distinction between “quantitative” and “qualitative” research with particular attention to the question of measurement in the social sciences. Participants will be taken through presentations and exercises aimed at showing that the mode of processing data that is collected depends both on the field constraints encountered and the paradigmatic options of data interpretation that are available. The procedures for the “quantification” of “qualitative” approaches will also be reviewed through discussions on the distinction between the non-metrical and “comprehensive” presentation of data and the more mathematical renditions favoured by the quantitativists.

ii) A presentation of the methodological principles of “object construction” which enables the researcher to transcend the illusions of immediate knowledge and undertake a hypothetical reconstruction of social reality. This demands that the status of the researcher, as well as the systematic role of theories and tools be subjected to intense epistemological control.

iii) An assessment of various techniques of data collection and “fact-finding” instruments available to the researcher. The usual tools of qualitative research such as interviews, observation, archival studies, and the less usual ones such as photography, will be reviewed, so as to locate their potentiality for construction of successful research projects.

The methodology workshop is designed for doctoral and masters students and young, mid-career African researchers resident in all countries of North Africa. The working language to be employed during the workshop will be Arabic and French.

The workshop will be run by a senior scholar who will work as the scientific coordinator, assisted by a team of three lecturers, all with an acknowledged expertise in the application of social science research methods. Senior researchers wishing to be considered for a role as resource persons are invited to send an application which indicates their interest and includes their current CV and an outline of issues they would like to cover in four lectures of two hours each. The outline submitted should be detailed enough to enable the director of the workshop to compile a syllabus for the guidance of the resource persons and laureates. Apart from the actual preparation of lectures and field visits, the resource persons will also be expected to submit a bibliographic list of texts relevant to the theme of the workshop and which can be made available to the laureates.

Scholars and younger, mid career researchers wishing to be considered for participation in the workshop, are required to submit an application that should comprise the following:

i) A letter of motivation which should also clearly indicate the area of research or topic on which they are working;
ii) A statement of their research project (maximum of three to five pages) stating clearly the problematic that is being addressed, the kinds of field research to be undertaken, the theoretical and methodological framework being used, as well as the methodological and epistemological problems encountered ;

iii) A detailed and up-to-date curriculum vitae;

iv) Two reference letters, one of which must be from the thesis supervisor and the other from the head of the department in which the applicant is registered. The reference letter from the supervisor is expected to address the relevance of the research project, the state of progress of the research and the theoretical and methodological approaches used, as well as the results expected. The reference letter from the head of the department is expected to attest to the qualities and academic potential of the candidate; and

v) A letter confirming the institutional affiliation of the applicant.

All selected applicants will be expected to give a presentation of their proposals to resource persons and other laureates during the methodology workshop.
Applications will be selected on basis of the innovative nature of the research question being addressed, a commitment to gender balance that is central to CODESRIA’s institutional strategy, and the desire for a geographical diversity that will, in itself, constitute an important aspect of the learning experience at the workshops. Applications must be submitted by 6th August, 2010. All applications should be sent to:

CODESRIA Sub-Regional Methodology Workshops,
CODESRIA,
P.O. Box : 3304, Dakar, CP 18524 – Senegal.
Tél. : +221-33 825.98.22/23
Fax : +221-33 824.12.89
E-mail : methodological.workshop[@]codesria.sn
Web site : http://www.codesria.org
&
CRASC
Cité Bahi Ammar Bloc n°1- Es-Sénia – Oran
BP 1955 El M’Naouer
31000 – Oran / Algérie
Tel : 213.41.58.32.77 / 81 / 84
Fax : 231 41 58 32 86
E-mail : methodological.workshop[@]crasc.org

EU-Africa Trade & Investment Conference May 2010

2010-03-26

http://eu-africatradeinvestmentconferencemay2010.yolasite.com/

The aim of the conference is to increase trade and investment flows into Africa and to encourage a transcontinental exchange of knowledge and expertise.The conference will have as a specific objective, fostering business to business linkages, and in particular encouraging technology transfer, joint ventures, manufacturing contracts, franchising, sub-contracts, financial investments, equipment provision and inter-regional trade

Global: LLM in international human rights law and practice

Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York

2010-03-26

http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/cahr/LLM/llm%20index.html

The Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York (UK) will be offering a new LLM in International Human Rights Law and Practice with the possibility of specialising in refugee law begining in October 2010. The degree aims to combine applied focus (centering around its international human rights clinic) and international breadth (involving, for example field work in Malaysia)

South Africa: The 2009 Annual Rosa Luxemburg Cape Partners Seminar

ILRIG

2010-03-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/63422

For a number of years now, particularly in the period of globalisation, trade unions have been faced with major challenges which call for strategic responses. These challenges include building trade union internationalism in the period of mobile capital, assessing relations with left political parties as these have been dragged towards the political centre, tensions between collective bargaining and defensive struggles and strategic, revolutionary unionism and so on. This, the first of a new series of Annual Conferences, hosted by ILRIG and other partners, is an opportunities for activists and analysts - trade unionists as well as those involved in social movement campaigns - in South Africa to debate experiences of organising in South Africa, and elsewhere, whilst hearing of other forms of trade unionism in South Africa and elsewhere.
New Forms of Organisation: Trade Union Forms and Organising in the Period of Globalisation
The 2009 Annual Rosa Luxemburg Cape Partners Seminar

Community House, Salt River, Cape Town
3 and 4 April 2009
Hosted by ILRIG


For a number of years now, particularly in the period of globalisation, trade unions have been faced with major challenges which call for strategic responses. These challenges include building trade union internationalism in the period of mobile capital, assessing relations with left political parties as these have been dragged towards the political centre, tensions between collective bargaining and defensive struggles and strategic, revolutionary unionism and so on. These challenges will of course be heightened in the period of the current international capitalist crisis.

Differences in strategic responses over the last 30 years of globalisation have seen sections of the labour movement seek forms of global trade unionism by championing trade union unity through the ICFTU and tactics of pressurising for reforms through the ILO and the WTO; whilst nationally, many unions have maintained long-standing alliances with labour and social democratic parties seeking to defend worker living standards. Then again in large parts of the world, notably China, there is no tradition of strong independent unions and instead there are struggles to build such a tradition underway.

But globalisation was above all a strategy on the part of capital to respond to the crisis of over-production and over-accumulation which threatened profitability from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Much has been made of the features of this form of capital accumulation – mobile finance capital, accumulation by dispossession, new roles for the state etc. Many of these features are being sharply illustrated by the current global crisis. But the restructuring of social relations that is globalisation also included quite fundamental changes to the labour process itself: from millions of workers being driven out of the labour process itself (into unemployment), to a variety of forms of externalisation and labour flexibility, part-time work, home work, casualisation and outsourcing. These changes have also seen work become increasingly feminised and more vulnerable sections of the working class – immigrants and refugees for instance – being particularly susceptible to the most extreme forms of labour flexibility.

These changes raise questions of the appropriateness of the current FORMS of trade unions and their METHODS OF ORGANISING.

Many trade unions were formed in an entirely different period of accumulation characterised by higher degrees of permanent, industrial employment. In South Africa for instance we have a model of national industrial unions defined along sectoral lines, which successfully served to build a high degree of worker unity in the 1980s. Our labour laws after 1994 explicitly championed this model and trade union organisers are well-versed in methods of organising based on signing membership via stop orders on company payrolls, sticking closely to the notion of one-industry-one-union, and decision-making processes which work through vertical national structures.

But how appropriate is this FORM for the levels of mass unemployment we have, for the near 40% of the working class who are informalised? For those who work for labour brokers and those who combine occasional work with various forms of survivalism? For women workers, especially, and for those who are the most informalised? And what challenges do these changes represent for the current METHODS of organising?

This, the first of a new series of Annual Conferences, hosted by ILRIG and other partners, is an opportunities for activists and analysts - trade unionists as well as those involved in social movement campaigns - in South Africa to debate experiences of organising in South Africa, and elsewhere, whilst hearing of other forms of trade unionism in South Africa and elsewhere.

Themes of the Conference:

The themes of the Conference are to coincide with the objectives of developing a body of work which can help revive traditions of strong, militant, workers’ controlled trade unions that are appropriate for the current historical period.

1. To explore and review the history of the emergence of the current forms of trade unionism and organising in South Africa today, in the light of the current conjuncture

2. To explore theoretical debates and case studies of the capitalist labour process, whether writ large, or in specific industries, and the challenges these pose for trade union forms and methods of organising today

3. To explore different case studies of non-industrial unionism in South Africa and internationally so as to broaden the scope of debate and offer concrete instances for evaluation.


To this end ILRIG and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation are inviting papers from any interested person.
• Expressions of Interest should be submitted by 16 February 2009
• Abstracts of papers should be submitted by 23 February 2009
• Final papers (after selection) must be submitted by 31 March 2009

Where possible, ILRIG will provide travel and accommodation for successful candidates

All communication must be directed to ilrigconference@gmail.com



Provisional Programme

Day 1: Friday 3 April:

Morning: 10.00 – 13.00hrs

Welcome and overview of aims of conference:

Plenary

• The rise of current forms

Parallel sessions

• Experiences of organising and challenges of current forms

Afternoon: 14.00 – 17.00hrs

• Overview of SA social formation at the level of the labour market

• The changing composition of the working class: Labour process changes, labour markets, gender and nationality

Day 2: Saturday 4 April

Morning: 10.00 – 13.00hrs

Plenary:

• New Forms of organising? Engaging debates

Parallel Sessions:

• Case studies in South Africa today

Afternoon: 14.00 – 17.00 hrs

• International case studies:

Training program on the Equal Status and Human Rights of Women in East Africa

Call for applications

Africa Youth Trust

2010-03-26

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/63328

Africa Youth Trust, in partnership with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute invites applications for the third Training Program on The Equal Status and Human Rights of Women in East Africa (EAHUWO). The program is jointly being undertaken by Africa Youth Trust (Kenya) and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (Sweden) with sponsorship from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).
Africa Youth Trust, in partnership with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute invites applications for the third Training Program on The Equal Status and Human Rights of Women in East Africa (EAHUWO). The program is jointly being undertaken by Africa Youth Trust (Kenya) and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (Sweden) with sponsorship from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

Program Objective

The program aims at strengthening the human rights of women in the Eastern Africa region, by promoting awareness of applicable international human rights standards among advocates, government officials and academicians working on gender equality issues. The program seeks to undertake a training that will target sustainable development by building the capacity of participating organizations to advance policies and implement actions on women human rights.



Course Content:

During the two-week training, particular attention will be placed on regional mechanisms for the protection of women rights as human rights, and the role of women in national peace-building and democratic governance.



The approach of the training is interdisciplinary and involves aspects of law and social sciences. The program will provide an opportunity for participants to exchange experiences and ideas from their national context, while offering a forum for discussions from a regional perspective.



Target countries: Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Applications from candidates from other countries other than those mentioned above will not be considered, due to budgetary limitation.



Target audience:

The training is open to representatives from government agencies and civil society organizations, both men and women, preferably in middle to senior level management, with the proven ability (or demonstrated potential) to design and influence the policy-making and national reform processes on issues of human rights of women. It is mandatory for applicants to be nominated by their institutions/ organizations.



Dates of Training: May 3– 14, 2010



Venue: Naivasha, Kenya.



For application details see attached or visit www.africayouthtrust.org/eahuwo or send an email to the Program Administrator on eahuwo@africayouthtrust.org



Closing date for applications is April 12, 2010.

Applications received after this date will not be considered. Note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. If you do not hear from us by 23rd April 2010, consider your application unsuccessful.

Download application form ]here

Fahamu