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Between patriarchy, pornography and pleasure

Sexuality discourses in Africa

Kavinya Makau and Zawadi Nyong’o

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63525

cc K T‘Mention sex in most places on the African continent and you are likely to be met with questioning glances. Venture into speaking about controversial sexual rights and you are likely to cause a furore.’ But if we are to deal effectively with the HIV/AIDS pandemic, these are issues we need to think about, whether we consider them vile or not, argue Kavinya Makau and Zawadi Nyong’o, in their report on critical issues raised at a recent conference on sexual health and rights.

Mention sex in most places on the African continent and you are likely to be met with questioning glances. Most quietly wonder ‘What is this person up to?’ Venture into speaking about controversial sexual rights and you are likely to cause a furore. The most common reaction will ostensibly focus on their immoral or un-African nature. You will be lucky to leave the conversation unscathed, physically or otherwise.

Yet, our African reality suggests that if we are to deal effectively with the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the African continent, we must consider the tapestry of human sexuality and sexual rights issues, whether we consider them vile or not.

The 4th Africa Conference on Sexual Health and Rights, which took place in Addis Ababa in February 2010, provided an opportunity to debate diverse issues such as gender and masculinities and how they have contributed to undermining efforts to combat the HIV/AIDS in Africa.

As conference participant Julius Kaggwa noted, ‘Sexuality is an integral part of the human experience. Whether we like it or not, sex occurs 125 million times a day! It is therefore at the core of who we are as human beings. This is where human rights come in. Every human being has a right to enjoy their sexual health.’ The article below highlights some of the critical issues under discussion.

UN-AFRICAN AND IMMORAL! REALLY?

Homophobic individuals often argue that homosexuality is a ‘foreign scourge’ imported to Africa by white ne’er do wells intent on corrupting the continent’s young minds and morals. They claim that there is no word for homosexual in African local languages. Evidence to the contrary, however, is widely published and it is well established that these arguments are unfounded. The conference provided a space to discuss controversial public health and rights matters, including those relevant to Africa’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Intersex (LGBTI) community.

While many people supported the discussion of LGBTI issues, an equal number of conservative voices opposed it. Encouragingly Africa’s LGBTI community gave a number of presentations, articulating critical needs and priorities regarding their sexual health and rights. Despite great progress since the last conference, many repeated the default position that homosexuality is ‘un-African’, prompting Sylvia Tamale’s sarcastic response that if we are to criminalise anything that we deem ‘un-African’, then we should criminalise perms, chemically treated hair, or the dying of hair in unnatural colours, such as the purple being worn proudly by one of the conference participants to express her homophobic sentiments.

CRIMINALISING SAME SEX UNIONS: RAMIFICATIONS FOR HIV/AIDS

The debate on the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda represents an alarming trend to criminalise same-sex unions across the African continent; at least 39 African states have already done so. Burundi passed anti-homosexual legislation in 2009 and discussions on similar legislation in Rwanda are at an advanced stage. In Kenya, the issue has been highlighted severally in the ongoing constitution debate and most recently, in a swoop on homosexuals led by state security agents in the coastal town of Mombasa. Panelists on the criminalisation of same-sex unions presented compelling arguments on the implications for sexuality and HIV/AIDS.

Firstly, homosexuality is a part of our society and must be acknowledged. Compulsory heterosexuality is not a cure for homosexuality. The war on HIV/AIDS cannot be waged effectively without taking LGBT rights into consideration. LGBT individuals are already ‘at risk’ populations, as far as HIV/AIDS programming is concerned. Criminalisation pushes the LGBT movement underground, leading people to conceal their HIV status.

As Victor Mukasa of IGLHRC pointed out, ‘this state of affairs threatens to roll back the gains made so far in the fight against HIV/AIDS.’ Meanwhile, David Kuria highlighted that in Kenya ‘at least 60 per cent of men who have sex with men (MSM) are also in heterosexual relationships in Kenya’, with implications for the management and funding of HIV prevention and treatment programmes. But it is basic human rights that are at the heart of the debate, Kuria said, quoting Navi Pillay's 2009 World Human Rights Day speech: ‘To criminalise people on the basis of colour or gender is now unthinkable in most countries. Discrimination feeds mistrust, resentment, violence, crime and insecurity and makes no economic sense, since it reduces productivity. It has no beneficial aspects for society whatsoever.’

TRANS AND INTERSEX ISSUES IN AFRICA:

Transgender and transsexual people in Africa face major challenges as a result of the denial of their existence, stigma, discrimination, and the general fear they face in accessing medical and other public health services.

Skipper Mogapi highlighted the lack of contraceptive methods specifically designed for and targeted at trans people. Gender Dynamix’s Liesl Theron spoke about transphobia and gender based violence, highlighting several examples, such as the case of a trans F to M who feared his female heterosexual partner would be raped by a straight man while he was away at the Out Gay Games, because this man had threatened to show her what it was to be with a ‘real’ man.

Theron also spoke about the politics of naming and trans identity in Africa, where some argue that one can be transsexual without having changed one’s body, because of the infrastructure and service limitations. South Americans, however, believe that one can only claim this identity after having undergone surgery. Africans must therefore continue to develop, reclaim, define and redefine our own language around trans and other sexual identity issues, to contextualise and concretise a strong and sustainable sexual health and rights agenda.


MEN OF QUALITY AREN’T SCARED OF EQUALITY

A panel on ‘Masculinities, sexuality and HIV/AIDS’ provided insights into what African men are saying about masculinity and the role that men play in supporting the sexual health and rights agenda. Aernout Zevenbegen made the case for engaging the patriarchs in the process of dismantling patriarchy. From long distance truck drivers who purchase sex across borders, to men engaged in informal labour, Zevenbegen stressed the need to expand our focus and reach where sexuality education is concerned. For example, at a training held with Jua Kali workers in Nairobi, in 2001, when asked why they did not use condoms, several men responded that it was their task as men to ‘plant [their] seeds in as many pots as [they] can.’ Most interesting, however, was the progressive suggestion that came from a group in Botswana to expand the ABC campaign to include a ‘D’: ‘Abstain, Be faithful, Use a condom, and Do it yourself!’ Were it not for conservative religious fundamentalists, the promotion of masturbation could go a long way in supporting the HIV/AIDS prevention agenda in Africa.

Holo Machonda spoke about the Young Men and Equal Partners (YMEP) programme, which works with men in Zambia, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya to mobilise their communities to respond to sexual and reproductive health challenges in partnership with women. Because of misguided masculinity and male polarised power, men are at the centre of most sexual and reproductive health problems, Machonda argues. So YMEP is promoting the ideology that ‘Men of quality are not afraid of equality.’

A presentation on ‘Deconstructing and harnessing the ‘trophy hunting mentality’ amongst male university students in the fight against HIV/AIDS’ highlighted the need to conduct similar research in academic institutions in other parts of the continent. Nelson Muparamoto showed how ‘trophy hunting’[1], ‘one day internationals’ or ‘ODI’s’[2], ‘test matches’[3] and ‘territorial marking’[4] all play a role in constructing the kind of misguided masculinity that makes it difficult to promote a sustainable sexual health and rights agenda in academic institutions.

Sunday Akoh, coordinator of the Female Condom Project coordinator of Society for Family Health (SFH), looked at the role that men play, and should be encouraged to play, in promoting the use of the female condom in Africa. Akoh spoke about lessons learned promoting this project in Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta State, where there is the common belief that ‘All die na die’, which in pidgin English means ‘All men must die one way or another.’ This makes HIV/AIDS prevention programming quite difficult. Promoting the use of the female condom is one way to ensure that women have more control over their sexual health. But by calling it the ‘female’ condom, says Akoh, it has been made a women’s affair, making it more difficult to engage men in its promotion. Nevertheless, the project has enjoyed successes in Nigeria; as more men engage in the ‘female condom’ promotion campaign, more and more women are beginning to use it. Cost and accessibility have been a huge impediment in other countries, but a pack of two female condoms costs about US$0.25 in Nigeria, compared with US$2 for just one female condom in Kenya.

DISABILITIES & SEXUALITY

Efforts to mainstream previously neglected issues, such as sexuality as it relates to people with disabilities, are underway. Speakers Toyin Aderemi and Nancy Nteere shed light on the long journey to ensuring that people with disabilities in Africa can enjoy their sexuality and have access to adequate and relevant sexual and reproductive health information and services. The misconception that people with disabilities are asexual is one of the greatest barriers preventing us from addressing their SRH needs. About 10 per cent of Kenya’s population of 36 million are people living with disabilities; the National AIDS Control Council (NACC) estimates that 10 per cent of them are also living with HIV/AIDS. This means that close to half a million people with disabilities have little or no access to the SRH information and services they need to live healthy and fulfilling lives. As Aderemi quoted, ‘If you don’t hear the cry of your brother or sister, aren’t you the one with the disability?’

SAFE ABORTION: KENYA & ETHIOPIA

Kenya has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Africa and the world, says Dr Nehemiah Kimathi, IPPF’s Safe Motherhood technical advisor, who moderated a session on ‘Legal abortion and politics of choice: Impact on HIV/AIDS’. The language being proposed in the draft constitution is even more retrogressive. A clause stating that ‘life begins at conception’ criminalises any form of abortion, including in situations of rape, or where the pregnancy might put the mother’s life in danger. Kimathi says this means the country is ‘making safe abortion illegal, and unsafe abortion legal.’

Research by the Centre for Reproductive Rights suggests that over 300,000 abortions are performed each year, and more than 21,000 women are admitted to hospitals annually for complications from unsafe abortions. The actual numbers are thought to be much higher; these are difficult to document because of the clandestine nature of many of these procedures outside of medical facilities. There are only 5,000 doctors in Kenya properly trained to provide abortions; just 300 are trained in providing second trimester abortions. With 30-40 per cent of maternal deaths in Kenya caused by complications from unsafe abortions, it’s time we face reality and provide the necessary services. It is in the government’s interests to ensure that women have access to safe abortion – the cost of unsafe abortion is much higher. Furthermore, unsafe abortions remain a problem of the poor; safe abortions are available in Kenya for anyone that can afford them.

Ethiopia has made some progress on abortion law, but legal reform needs to be complemented with sensitisation and awareness raising efforts and the provision of proper training for mid and high-level health care providers. Jemilla Abdi’s research suggests that despite cultural and religious beliefs, those who had received training understood the need for, and were more likely to provide safe abortions without stigmatising or discriminating against their patients.

Dr Kimathi encouraged partners to advocate for the provision of safe abortion across the continent, recognising that it took Nepal 30 years to go from strict abortion law, to abortion on demand. He noted that, ‘there is nowhere in the world where restrictive laws have reduced the number of abortions.’ As an Ethiopian gynaecologist who attended the session asked, ‘Why should Africans adhere to the archaic laws we inherited from our colonisers when they are now providing legal and safe abortions to their own women?’

EVEN IN THE SPIRIT WORLD PATRIARCHY RULES

The spirit spouse phenomenon continues to intrigue various segments of society in Africa and beyond. Despite the significant role that spirituality often plays in the lives of many people, little has been done to unpack its intersectionality with other issues such as sexuality. The conference was pioneering in including Eno Blankson Ikpe’s session on the ‘Spirit spouse in the belief system of Nigerian peoples: Implications for sexual health and sexual rights’. The phenomenon ‘constitutes a binding marriage between a spirit woman or man to a human woman or man…’ Research indicates that more women than men claimed to have been party to the phenomenon. The jury is still out on whether the occurrence is a reality, or merely the product of sexual fantasy.

Nevertheless, it was clear that it presents critical ramifications for sexuality, sexual health and rights; the human spouse has no control or say as to when or how the sexual relations take place. This affects the psychological well-being of the non-consenting partner and has implications on how they relate to their human partners. The occurrence also leads to risky sexual behaviour ,as the spirit spouse can control the human partner and make them have multiple sexual partners. This heightens exposure to sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS and is a matter that warrants further research. There is also an intersection between religion, spirituality and sexuality. Unfortunately, this belief system is being used by men, who claim that they are seduced by spirits who manifest as sexy women, raising the question whether patriarchy rules even in the spirit world!

The session raised several questions for further investigation: Do all spirits spouses have a gender identity? Are there any queer people who say they have spirit spouses? To what extent is this belief system being used as a coping mechanism in the age of HIV/AIDS?


REDEFINING FEMINISM: NO IFS, NO ANDS & BUTS

Discussions on redefining feminism brought to the fore questions that continue to beleaguer the feminist movement. Essentially, feminism is about politics and hence power – understanding power, which means questioning the structures that keep women subjugated, then redefining and claiming them. Naming yourself feminist is a political statement that is defined by various factors including but not limited to gender. There are different schools of thought on feminism but this doesn’t take away from the essence of what feminism is or what a feminist should be.

The Charter of Feminist Principles for African Feminists provides insights on what it means when we say ‘no ifs, no ands and buts’: That ‘challenging patriarchy effectively as women or in the name of women means one has to understand the totality of oppressive and exploitative relations that not only affect African women but also that relate to other forms of oppression and exploitation. This is because they mutually support each other.’

A powerful way of making/exploring these connections comes from the sharing of various experiences. Participants were stunned by the sentiments expressed by a woman member of the Pan African parliament who said ‘we are not here to hear your stories.’ Yet her views echoed those severally expressed by women members of parliament in the course of the conference, especially on the rights of sexual minorities: ‘If we support some of these issues you are talking about we will lose our jobs.’

This brings to the fore a critical point that the women's and feminist movement must confront regarding women's representation in key decision-making spaces on the continent. Numbers are important but substance counts more if any inroads are to be made in realising gender equality, equity and women's empowerment.

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

For a conference that sought to interrogate diverse issues – such as vulnerabilities, gender, masculinity, positive sexuality and sexual pleasure – as fundamental to resolving the disease burden of HIV/AIDS on Africans, much work still needs to be done to ensure that it is inclusive and representative of a diverse range of constituencies.

For example, participation by non-Anglophone Africans needs to be better accommodated and integrated, since the HIV/AIDS struggle is one that knows no borders. To rephrase a quote by Eugene McCarthy, the ‘linguistic and/or cultural differences in Africa should not separate us from each other, but rather linguistic and/or cultural diversity should be a platform to bring about collective strength as Africa charts a new path on sexuality, sexual health and rights matters on the continent.

While there was greater diversity among participants in terms of constituencies represented, the same considerations need to be made when selecting panelists, as the majority of presenters were men. To address the patriarchy at this conference, more women’s rights activists and African feminists need to claim this space and be encouraged to respond when the next call for papers is launched.

The conference significantly profiled MSM sexual health and rights issues but the same was not true for women who have sex with women (WSWs). Given that many WSW in Africa are also, or have been, in heterosexual relationships, whether by choice or circumstance, the misconception that queer women are not as vulnerable to STIs, HIV/AIDS, and unwanted pregnancies, needs to be dispelled if we are to address the SRH needs of all people. The provision of safe sex information and services for queer women in Africa needs to be prioritised as we move forward. The same is true for intersex issues, which continued to be left at the margins of many of the discussions held at this conference.

Although we acknowledge the importance of grounding activism and policy development in evidence-based research, much of the work presented at this conference further emphasised the fact that the majority of scientific research being done on people and communities is still too quantitative, inaccessible, and often does not go beyond high-level conferences where the majority of research participants would never even have the opportunity to attend.

Ethical research practices must therefore be promoted to ensure that scientists and other researchers are held accountable to the people they claim to be performing research for. Otherwise, these and other conferences will continue to be nothing but high level ‘talk shops’ where individuals and institutions get to show off their research findings, show off fancy power point presentations, and deliberate on the next piece of research that needs to be done to fill the knowledge gap.

The next conference will be held in Egypt in 2012 with its overarching theme being on ‘Culture and Sexuality’. Given that this contentious subject has far reaching implications for sexuality, sexual health and rights, it is critical for the conference and organisers to reflect on of the outcomes of this conference and what we need to build on to affirm that sexuality is an integral part of all persons, with freedom to express that in any form without coercion, fear, harm or violations, with people able to make informed decisions about their sexuality, including their sexual relations that is responsible, and whether to connect sexual activity with reproduction or not.’

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Zawadi Nyong’o is the author of 'When I Dare to Be Powerful', published by Akina Mama wa Afrika.
* Kavinya Makau is acting progam officer, HIV/AIDS with Urgent Action Fund-Africa.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] Having sex with as many women as possible in order to ‘display’ them as hunting trophies.
[2] Similar to friendly cricket matches, this term is used by Zimbabwean university students to describe casual sexual relationships.
[3] Like cricket tournaments this term is used to describe relationships that require a little more emotional involvement than ODI’s.
[4] This is when a man intentionally impregnates a woman in order to mark his territory.

'Our bodies are shaking now'

Rape follows earthquake in Haiti

Beverly Bell

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63492

cc US ArmyHaiti’s earthquake has left women and children in the country highly vulnerable to rape and violence. Beverly Bell gives an account of this vulnerability and of the relentless work of KOFAVIV (Commission of Women Victim-to-Victim), a grassroots anti-violence group in Haiti, to prevent and protect women and children against rape and violence. Bell depicts the hostile environment that KOFAVIV is working in – one in which police and aid and relief groups are either less than willing to help or have limited resources. Furthermore, Bell points out that KOFAVIV members' advocacy has ‘come at a price’: Their daughters, their families and they are being personally targeted for their work.

Haiti’s earthquake has left women and children highly vulnerable to rape and violence. Beverly Bell gives an account of this vulnerability and of the relentless work of KOFAVIV (Commission of Women Victim-to-Victim), a grassroots anti-violence group in Haiti, to prevent and protect women and children against rape and violence. Bell depicts the hostile environment that KOFAVIV is working in: One where police and aid and relief groups are either less than willing or have limited resources to help. Furthermore, Bell points out that their advocacy has ‘come at a price’: Their daughters, their families and they are being personally targeted for their work.

‘The way you saw the earth shake, that’s how our bodies are shaking now,’ said a member of the grassroots anti-violence group, Commission of Women Victim-to-Victim (KOFAVIV by its Creole acronym). She was speaking at a meeting about violence against women and children since the earthquake on 12 January.

The venue of the meeting was KOFAVIV’s new headquarters: A tarp in a displaced persons camp in Port-au-Prince. All the women of KOFAVIV lost their homes in the disaster, while more than 300 lost their lives.

Though there are no statistics on rape during the ten weeks since the earthquake, reports abound. The following one was relayed by Helia Lajeunesse, a child rights trainer with KOFAVIV. Lajeunesse’s granddaughter, four-year-old Timafi Youyoute (not her real name), lives outside the town of Jeremie with her mother, her mother’s boyfriend and her newborn baby sister. On 14 March, Timafi’s mother sent her to the neighbour’s house to buy a jar of rice. As she was leaving the neighbour’s yard, 17-year-old Dekatrel Jacqué offered to take her back home. Instead, he took her to the cemetery. There, he covered the little girl’s mouth with his hand and proceeded to rape her.

An elderly neighbour, Merlise Louis, saw the incident and tried to grab the boy. He ripped the woman’s shirt and threw her down on the ground. When she shouted for help, he threw a rock at her and ran.

Timafi’s mother went to the police and filed a warrant for the rapist’s arrest. He reportedly fled town.

Photos of Timafi show a short, chubby girl with full cheeks, round eyes, a serious expression and a head full of coloured barrettes. Following the rape, she bled heavily and ran a high fever for two days. She ate almost nothing for more than a week.

In the absence of any official tracking of women and girls raped, except for a United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)-led effort just initiated in ten displaced persons camps in Port-au-Prince, KOFAVIV keeps its own tally. As of March 21, KOFAVIV outreach workers had tracked 230 cases of rapes in 15 camps, or 15.3 incidents per camp. Hundreds of such camps dot the city, their size varying from hundreds to more than 20,000. The ages of those raped in this sample range from 10 to 60, the majority of them teenagers.

Post-earthquake Haiti is plagued by high levels of anxiety and frustration among the population; hundreds of thousands of newly homeless females sleeping on the streets and in tent settlements, many of them alone; disorganised and inadequate policing; and a non-functioning justice system. For women and girls, this is a deadly combination.

The danger is compounded by the fact that thousands of prisoners, including convicted rapists, are now at large after escaping from the national penitentiary. And the majority of police who were trained in gender-based violence were reportedly killed in the quake.

KOFAVIV members keep watch in the camps for women and girls who are at risk. They listen and, if they hear what sounds to be a beating or a rape, they intervene. They pay special attention to girls who have been orphaned or abandoned since the quake, who may fall prey to rape or, out of desperation, prostitution. KOFAVIV then helps those girls get back to their relatives in the countryside. They take the testimony of rape survivors and try to get them medical assistance. KOFAVIV also conducts ‘know your rights’ trainings in the camps, including information on human rights, children’s rights, how to protect oneself against violence, and psychological care.

Their advocacy has come with a price. A man whom some KOFAVIV members caught in the act of beating a woman pulled a gun on them. And the daughter of KOFAVIV co-coordinator, Marie Eramithe Delva, very nearly became part of the group’s statistics. At 8.00am on 2 March, a man came under the tarp which is home to Delva, co-coordinator Malya Villard Appolon, their 13 combined children and grandchildren and other family members. The man threw Delva’s 17-year-old daughter Merline on the ground, dragged her outside, and prepared to rape her. Merline beat him off. An hour or so later, the man returned with three other men and a pistol. They beat four of Delva and Appolon’s daughters.

Delva ran to the police station at the edge of the camp, but the police told her that this was [president] Preval’s work and had nothing to do with them. Police told her to watch out for a patrol car with a certain number license plate; if it should pass by, they should flag it down. It never did. They also said that if Delva and her family find the perpetrators, they should catch them and bring them to the police station.

The two families quickly packed up their belongings and went out to the sidewalk, where they held an all-night vigil for human rights. They spent the next day looking for another location that could hold their group of twenty but could not, so they returned to their original tent site.

This writer made more than a dozen phone calls to potential sources of alternative lodging, from UNICEF personnel to Haitian women’s groups. In an all-too-familiar story about the dearth of options for at-risk girls and women in Haiti today, her request was turned down by all for almost three weeks. American relief workers have just offered a locale. Reasons cited for the rejections ranged from the fact that KOFAVIV allegedly supports former president Aristide, to twenty being an impossible number to find shelter for. As a result, the women and their families have continued sleeping where their attackers, who know that the women reported them, can easily find them.

A few of the recent cases that have either been reported to this writer, or where she interviewed the survivors herself, include:

- A 24-year-old man raped a 2-year-old girl in a refugee camp in La Pleine during the week of 8 March, according to the UNIFEM-led outreach team. Some members of the management committee (camp leaders elected by camp residents) told the parents that, instead of going to police, they should just demand some money from the man.
- In a case that KOFAVIV encountered in a hospital, a one-and-a-half-year-old girl was raped by her mother’s boyfriend on 22 March. Her own father died in the earthquake.
- A 2-year-old was gang-raped, her body then tossed away by her assailants, according to a second-hand report. The toddler survived and was later rescued by a woman who now wants to adopt her.
- A 12-year-old girl, whose mother was wounded and whose father died in the earthquake, was raped in a camp in the national stadium. Neighbours caught the man and attacked him with rocks and sticks, killing him.
- An 18-year-old who said she was ‘a good girl, I never talked to boys’ was raped by four men, so violently that she could not walk the next day. She was left with a severe vaginal infection.
- In the last two cases, this writer checked with numerous women’s organisations and advocates for options for free medical care and testing. With each clinic or hospital suggested, either a doctor was unavailable or, while the consultation was free, the tests were not. Only after eight days of taking public transportation and sitting for hours in line did the 18-year-old finally receive care. One can only speculate how those without well-connected allies, money for bus fare, or a cell phone, have been able to access post-rape medical attention.

On 15 March, more than two months after the quake, UNIFEM and seven other women’s groups began investigating rapes and violence against women in ten camps around Port-au-Prince. To learn of the rapes, all-volunteer outreach teams speak with the camps’ management committees. According to Gina Vrigneau, the chief of one team, should they find rape cases, they are to call UNIFEM or one of the Haitian organisations. That entity will then call the police in the hopes that they will arrest the perpetrator. One of the groups will begin a legal process, though it is unclear how that may proceed given today’s dysfunctional government. The operation will also, if all goes the plan, obtain free representation for the accused. The team will, furthermore, give the rape survivors a listing of free medical opportunities. According to Vrigneau, the operation will end 30 June 2010.

The greatest urgency remains prevention, which in turn requires security and a functioning justice system. For now, women are largely left to fend for themselves and hope for protection and support.

Says KOFAVIV co-coordinator, Marie Eramithe Delva, ‘We did so much to advance women not being victims. We’ve taken a big step backwards, but we will struggle from where we are and move forward.’ This past Monday [22 March 2010], police in Jeremie located and arrested the rapist of 4-year-old Timafi. When asked what will happen from here, the child’s grandmother, Helia Lajeunesse, made a clucking sound in her throat that in Haiti signifies doubt or resignation and said, ‘we’ll see.’

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS
* Beverly Bell has worked with Haitian social movements for over 30 years. She is also author of the book ‘Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance’. She coordinates Other Worlds, which promotes social and economic alternatives. She is also associate fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.
* This article first appeared in the Beverly Bell’s journal on Pulsewire on 24 March 2010.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Immodesty, Islam and the gender equity movement

Mphutlane wa Bofelo

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63581

cc D Z HMuslims who condemn women’s rights and gender equity often ignore the validity and legitimacy of the many issues feminism addresses, even though a number of the causes are compatible with the Islamic call towards justice for all, writes Mphutlane wa Bofelo. The usual message from the pulpit is that ‘Islam provides rights to women, but it is men who dispense these rights’, says wa Bofelo. It seems, however, that for many males ‘modesty and chastity has little to do with God and the integrity of the individual but a lot to do with controlling women’s body, voice and movement’.

The mere proposal of an All-Africa Muslim Women formation nearly caused brouhaha at a conference I recently attended. Some righteous males started pontificating about women wanting to dethrone them from their God-given seat of being the centre around which the life of a woman should revolve. They accused women of wanting to beat them in the marvellous game of smoking cigarettes, wearing trousers and sleeping around. If this was aimed at intimidation and muting and mutilating the women’s voice, I must say, this is a strategy that seems to be working very well for the blessed man. The most enthusiastic and articulate woman activist started giving men assurances that they are by no means feminists. She stressed that they want to organise themselves precisely to preach to the women who are not dressed properly, that women can police the behaviour of deviant women who wear trousers or don’t put on scarves better than men can ever do. The males who defended such a forum did this on the basis of enabling women to impart religious education to children and other, with emphasis on the usual message we hear from the pulpit: Islam provides rights to women, but it is men who dispense these rights.

My support for the idea was informed by an expectation that it will serve as a platform for women to challenge male-centric expressions of Islam, push for a fiqh that allows the voices and experiences of women to be articulated and to unapologetically confront the inequities and injustices that women face in society. I had thought that such a platform would raise issues such as women leadership and women scholarship in Islam, access to education, decent and adequate space for women in places of worship, women representation in Mosque committees and on the board of Muslim schools and other Islamic institutions. Thanks to the all-powerful protestation and rave of the male voice, this was shrinking into a place for women at a table laid out by men, with strict instructions not to forget that this is a men’s world.

As the vigorous debate went on the voices of the women were getting muter and muter. This vindicated my observation that patriarchal, chauvinist and sexist men deliberately make generalisations and equate the feminist and gender equity movement with women smoking cigarette, drinking beer, tearing off their bras, discarding motherhood in order to intimidate and bully women away from the struggle against gender-based inequities and injustices. The same Muslim men who rile against the Islamophobic painting of Muslims with one brush find it so easy and comfortable to stereotype the feminist and gender equity movement as a lobby of immodest, anti-men, wild women. They deliberately ignore the diversity of the strands and perspectives within the feminist movement.

The reality of the matter is that as a political, cultural and/or economic movement aimed at establishing equal rights and legal protection for women, and concerned with issues of gender difference, women rights and interests, feminism addresses a range of issues and causes most of which are compatible with the Islamic call towards justice for all. These issues and causes include campaigns for women's legal rights (rights of contract, property rights, voting rights); for women's right to bodily integrity and autonomy, for abortion rights, and for reproductive rights (including access to contraception and quality prenatal care); for protection of women and girls from domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape; or workplace rights, including maternity leave and equal pay; against misogyny; and against other forms of gender-specific discrimination against women.

In addition to ignoring the validity and legitimacy of the many issues and causes addressed by the feminist and gender equity movement, those who bash women’s rights and gender equity also deliberately or ignorantly don’t recognise the diverse theories, philosophies and currents within this movement. In their zeal to portray feminists as all being frustrated, estranged, elite white and black women, the ‘haters’ lump liberal feminism, radical feminism, socialist feminism, environmentalist feminism, anarchist feminism, individual feminism, post colonial feminism and Black feminism or Womanism together. What seem to be lost to the gender equity bashers is that at its very birth Islam transformed the gender dynamics in society by recognising the full personhood of women, placing a prohibition on female infanticide, recognising inheritance, turning marriage into a social contract rather than a status, making dowry to be a nuptial gift to the women rather than a bridal-price paid to the father, and providing inheritance and property rights to women at the time such rights were unknown of.

The patriarchal and sexist brigade within the Muslim community thrives on political apathy, low culture of reading, decline in popular education and lack of access to material by classical and contemporary Muslim scholars who tackle these issues outside the framework of literalist and a-contextual fiqh. According to the catalogue of the list of books in our libraries and bookstores, and our curriculum in Muslim institutions, Qasim Amin’s Women’s Liberation (Tahrir al-Mar’a) (1899) was never written and the feminist undertones in the works of the first woman to undertake Quran exegesis – Aisha Abdal Rahman – aka Bint al Shati (Daughter of the Riverbank) – are just a figment in the imagination of modernist scholars.

How many Madressa and Dar-ulooom graduates know that women’s assertion of their right to be acknowledged, listened to and heard starts with the female companions of the prophet Mohammed (s) demanding to know from the prophet (s) why Allah does not address women directly in Quran – to which the Almighty responded by henceforth using the phrase ‘believing men and believing women’ when addressing the believers? And that this woman activism gender equity tradition continues in the medieval period and the eighteen century with Ibn Arabi arguing that women could achieve spiritual stations as equally high as men and Nana Asma’u – the daughter of the prominent and eminent reformer Uthman Don Fodio - pushing for literacy and education of Muslim women. How many Madressa teachers tell their students of the founding of the University of Al Karauine by Fatima al-Fihri in 859 CE? How many of our children know that 26 of the 160 Mosques built in the 12 and 13th century during the Ayyubid dynasty were funded by a women’s charitable trust (Waqf) and that half of all the royal patrons for these institutions were women?

Needless to mention the obvious example and inspiration behind women’s active participation and leadership in public political, economic, social and cultural affairs women were the mothers of the believers, Khadijah (RA), Aisha (renowned scholar of hadith and military leader), Fatima (RA) (the beloved daughter of the prophet).

And the prophet’s (s) words of praise to the women of Medina: ‘How splendid were the women of the ansaar; shame did not prevent them from becoming learned in the faith.’ The prophet’s (s) words clearly articulate that guarding one’s chastity, spirituality and righteousness does not dictate invisibility in public affairs. This is a sufficient rebuttal of the myth that women scholarship, leadership and activism are equal to the loss of shame and decency. What about stressing in the rules of modesty the language and tone we use when talking to our employees and house-helpers most of whom are old enough to be our parents, irritating cat-calls, suggestive looks and gestures towards women in the streets or passes at our house-helpers? How many men who rap about modesty talk down to their wives and treat them like they are dolls?

How many of the men who rant about modesty use vulgar, derogatory and degrading language, are rude to people, and give shabby treatment to their aged parents and grandparents? How many of these men are equally enraged when they witness girl-children below the age of eighteen being handed over in arranged/forced marriages to adults, and how many speak out in outrage against honour-killings and the disowning of children by their parents for marrying outside the village, race, tribe, and sect. How often do we rebuke men for strolling around the beach with bare chests and walking the streets in bermudas? It seems like for many of us males, modesty and chastity has little to do with God and the integrity of the individual but a lot to do with controlling women’s body, voice and movement to ensure that our wives and our daughters remain our property.

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

The Pope and the paedophilia scandal

Gado

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63497

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

Bad aid: Throw your arms around the world

Vijay Prashad

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63495

cc SaccaReflecting on the background to Ethiopia's 1984 famine and the global media's portrayal of an 'icon of misery', Vijay Prashad revisits the broader geopolitical context behind the country's repeated bouts of food insecurity during the period. If Haiti, as a contemporary equivalent, is to be able to offer prosperity to its people, then the current momentum behind raising aid needs to be harnessed to cancel the country's iniquitous debt, Prashad stresses, as part of a broader global transformation of economic relations envisaged under initiatives such as the 1973 United Nations new international economic order (NIEO).

In December 1984, I walked into the HMV store on London’s Oxford Street to spend a little discretionary money on an LP. Other albums drew me, but one had an advantage. It combined the talents of all the major 'Top of the Pops' singers in one song. Given the standards of British pop at the time (leaving aside Scritti Politti’s 'Jacques Derrida' and perhaps the Bronski Beat’s 'Smalltown Boy'), the diminishing marginal returns at the cash register were held in check with only one purchase. It had to be Bob Geldof’s 'Do they know it’s Christmas?' The 'charity single' had all of Britain’s finest, from Paul McCartney to Boy George, from Siobhan Fahey (of Bananarama) to Sting. The song opens with African drums and Phil Collins’s drum kit, and then the flow of British vocalists, with a young Bono in full flight. Geldof named their charity super-group Band Aid, a name that morphed as the fever caught, into Live Aid, Sport Aid and so on. BBC ran the Band Aid song non-stop. It raised millions of pounds to buy relief for the survivors of the Ethiopian famine.

Not to be undone, Harry Belafonte and Ken Kragen hastened to bring their friends into the studio in Los Angeles to sing a song written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, produced by Quincy Jones (they called their project USA for Africa). The superstars of the US billboard charts represented themselves, from Paul Simon to Stevie Wonder, from Diana Ross to Bob Dylan. Bob Geldof travelled especially to sing in the chorus, and Ray Charles held it together at the end. The British had been silly, singing about snow (the only place that gets snow in Ethiopia is its highest mountain, Ras Dashen, in the Simien range). But the Americans did what they do best, singing, 'We are the world.' And, indeed, so it seems to be.

Geldof and the other artists turned their attention to Ethiopia in 1984 because of a famine that broke out in 1982 and lingered on till 1990. In fact, the Horn of Africa suffered a plague of famines from 1973 onward, when the desiccation of the Sahara put paid to both the livelihood of nomads and petty farmers, and led to acute drought and further deforestation. When the Ethiopian regime of Haile Selassie failed to provide relief to the people whom the Ethiopians call the 'bekum mot' – the living dead – young radicals in the armed forces moved in and seized control of the country. They constituted themselves as the Derg – the Committee – drew from their own version of Marxism and set in motion some haphazard forms of agricultural regeneration. The Derg was always hampered by three factors: the inherited agricultural crisis which would be its undoing; an empire that was not a nation, with secessionist provinces (such as Eritrea, ceded to Ethiopia by the UN in 1950) unwilling to bow to the rule of Addis Ababa; and a hostile Atlantic bloc, ready and able to bring whatever pressure was needed to bring the Derg to its knees (Jimmy Carter’s evangelical humanism came alongside a cynical policy of anti-communism, which in the Horn meant a strategy to encircle Ethiopia and, with a wink and a nod, embolden its irredentist neighbours and secessionist provinces).

The Derg had little capacity to deal with any of the problems that beset the new republic. Civilians who returned from exile when the emperor was deposed found that the military Marxists had not the temperament to make room for them. One of the most difficult problems for the new regime was the land question. Imperial Ethiopia gave the land over to the aristocracy (the mesafint) and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, both of whom neglected that section of Acts 4:32–37 which enjoined the believers to share all that they had so 'neither was there any among them that lacked'. In March 1975, the Derg pushed forward a radical land reform law, whose immediate impact was in southern Ethiopia. Seven million households benefited from the reform. A flurry of activity around urban housing, literacy and relief for the destitute provided some dynamism to the otherwise devastated country.

Early in the Derg’s tenure, it set up a 'minimum package programme' to increase the productivity of the new small-hold farms. Before these initiatives could bear any fruit, the Derg began to conscript young farmers into its growing army (for the battles against a Somalian incursion into Ogaden, against Eritrean secessionists and against northern rebels, particularly in the province of Tigray). High fuel prices didn’t help, and nor did pressure from Washington and Moscow. Cuba tried to mediate. Fidel Castro met Somalia’s Siad Barre and Ethiopia’s Mengistu in Aden, along with the South Yemen Marxist leader Abdul Fattah Ismail. Nothing came of it. The Horn of Africa was rife with various strands of nationalism and Marxism, including Soviet-backed regimes and Albanianists. It was a mess, wide open for the machinations of the Cold War.

It did not help that the Derg faltered. It took refuge in the flotsam of policies that came north from Tanzania, including forced resettlement (the policy has its origins in an 1958 attempt by the emperor’s government). As in Tanzania, the policy failed: people did not wish to leave their ancestral lands, nor were they convinced that their new homes would be the promised cornucopia. Drought, war and now agricultural chaos: the famine of 1982–90 entered world history.

Like Haile Selassie, the Derg at first refused to admit to the famine. Visnews Kenyan bureau chief Mohamed Amin finagled his camera into Ethiopia and broadcast the first images of the growing disaster. It was this intrepid work that brought the attention of the BBC’s Michael Buerk. All the channels wanted in. Their initial interest, after a few years of disregard, was media competition. Mary Kay Magistad (now The World’s Beijing correspondent) wrote her master’s thesis on what she called the 'Ethiopian bandwagon'. 'Literally overnight,' she wrote, 'it seemed that everyone wanted to cover Ethiopia. Reporters deluged Addis Ababa by the hundreds; many aid workers who had been trying for more than a year to pull the news media’s attention to the famine were now finding themselves too busy briefing journalists that they barely had time to do their normal relief work.' Mohamed Amin was largely forgotten (in 1996, Amin was on Ethiopian Airlines flight 961, which was hijacked by three men who wanted political asylum in Australia. Amin negotiated with the hijackers all the way till the plane crash that killed all passengers). The world media made Ethiopia the icon of misery in the post-colonial world. State failure in the former colonies would now be blamed on that toxic brew of nationalism and corruption. The picture of an Ethiopian child with a distended belly and a tear resting on his cheek beside an engorged fly was on the cover of many glossy magazines.

The BBC’s Martin Plaut, who reported from the famine regions of northern Ethiopia in the 1970s, went back this past year and investigated the famine and the relief. His radio documentary unsettled the aid industry, and Bob Geldof. Plaut found that most of the relief money did not go to alleviate hunger. Instead, it went to buy arms for the rebels of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) through its aid cut-out, Relief Society of Tigray (REST). The TPLF was in the midst of an armed campaign against the Derg, offering a second front to give relief to the Eritrean rebels. It now turns out, according to Plaut’s report, that while the TPLF was blindsiding the aid workers, it did not surprise the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). A CIA report from 1985 quite clearly pointed out, 'Some funds that insurgent organizations are raising for relief operations, as a result of increased world publicity, are almost certainly being diverted for military purposes.' Robert Houdek, who was Washington’s chargé d’affaires in Addis, confirmed to Plaut that his government was aware of the redirection of funds. Indeed, this went along the grain of the overall contra strategy pushed by the Reagan administration (National Security Directive 75, from January 1983, which pointed out that 'US policy will seek to limit and destabilize activities of Soviet Third World allies and clients' as well the 1981 presidential finding to authorise the CIA to support 'democratic resistance' to the Derg). The contra strategy was in play in Nicaragua, in Angola, in Afghanistan and in the Horn of Africa (all this explicitly put by Reagan in his February 1986 'Message to the Congress on foreign policy'). The TPLF and its various allies were the contras of the region.

As Mary Kay Magistad points out, the British and American governments were motivated less by humanitarian imperatives than by political ones. 'This,' she writes, 'was highlighted by the contradiction of the government’s rhetoric that it was committed to helping starving Africans, and the fact that it was at the same time cutting its aid budget by an average of 6 percent per annum.' Not only were aid budgets being cut, but the United States pressured 22 of the 34 low-income countries in Africa to succumb to structural adjustment policies (devaluation of currencies, cuts in social services and so on); this was the price to be paid for short-term financial assistance from the IMF (International Monetary Fund). The mighty dynamo of the newly formed Group of Seven (G7, formed in 1974) threw itself into the narrowing of spaces for independent action by the new states in Africa, Asia and Latin America: punitive policies came alongside modern forms of gunboat diplomacy, with the occasional contra insurgency to hit recalcitrant regimes in the neck. Ethiopia never stood a chance. It was fated to be destroyed, as was its neighbour Somalia. The detritus that stands before us now is a consequence of this ghastly history.

AND SO WE COME TO HAITI

What the G7 wrought was a world of people who labour hard, but nevertheless suffer usurious debt rates and have little space to exercise their political desires. The new international economic order (NIEO, 1973), passed by the UN General Assembly, carried a reasonable platform for the transformation of the planet’s economic relations. Trade regimes would be altered, so would financial devices and restrictions on technology transfer. The dream was to shape the world not toward outrageous profits, but toward genuine development. The G7 was formed to smash the NIEO. Its interests were toward Wall Street not the Addis slum of Tekle Haymonot. The NIEO would have circumvented the debt crisis that wracked the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America in the 1980s. Absent the contra strategy, there might have been the possibility for the creation of stable political structures in much of what would become the global South. Debt and the absence of democracy was the gift of the G7, and of course with petrodollars, the massive expansion of the role of finance over the planet’s political economy. One major function of the expansion of neoliberalism (not mentioned by David Harvey in his otherwise excellent short history) is the orchestrated destruction of the NIEO, the highest point of the Third World project.

The best of the North’s liberalism, however, was not in Band Aid, but on the Brandt Commission, a panel of eminences set up at the behest of a very guilty Robert McNamara (then of the World Bank) and led by Willy Brandt, the socialist leader from West Germany. The Brandt Commission offered several of the NIEO proposals without the politics, and in a much more moderated form. Brandt was as much a threat to the G7 as the NIEO, indeed more because it did not come from Algeria’s Houari Boumediène but from the Washington Post’s Katharine Graham (one of the Brandt Commissioners). Margaret Thatcher persuaded Reagan to go to the Cancún North–South Summit (1981) to smash the Brandt dynamic. 'The whole concept of "North–South" dialogue, which the Brandt Commission had made the fashionable talk of the international community,' she wrote later, 'was in my view wrong-headed.' Reagan smiled, and the 'quality press' went along with him and Maggie. This is all before Rupert Murdoch ran the news business.

Haiti never had a chance. It had been treated as a standing threat since its revolution in 1804. Democracy was never to be permitted to it. Since the 1980s, its leading democratic leader, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was twice removed from his democratic office by the United States. When he came back to power in 1994, it was under the most benighted conditions, these set by the Clinton White House and Wall Street. They wanted Haiti to become a maquiladora, not a country. Haiti’s debt has spiralled out of control. It took the 12 January earthquake to move the US to consider joining Venezuela in debt cancellation. That is now on the agenda. But only for Haiti. Not for Ethiopia, and not for the global South. According to the World Bank, for every $1 of aid sent South, $25 goes to the North in debt-servicing. It is a standing outrage. Furthermore, the attempt to democratise the United Nations, led by former General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann of Nicaragua, has been thus far treated with contempt by the G7. What is the point of financial assistance if there is no accountable, political institution to make the best use of this money, this aid?

How is the aid that now goes to places like Haiti being spent? In the case of Ethiopia, the United States eschewed civilian agencies. The Inter-Agency Task Force on the African Famine was run by the Department of Defense, the CIA, the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as AID and the Department of Agriculture. The leader was retired Lieutenant General Julius Becton, who would lead FEMA under Reagan’s second term (1985–89). Aid was always militarised, as well in the current Haiti case. And NGOs were already at the centre, with an express purpose of displacing the state. Most of their work is 'band aid', in the pejorative sense (even The New York Times recognised this in an editorial on 25 March, 'The little country is swarming with well-intentioned organizations, each trying to do their little bit of help. One group is trying to distribute thousands of flashlights to women and girls. It’s a kind and practical gesture, but what they really need are shelters from sexual violence, and adequate policing. Haiti has neither, Amnesty International reports.'). Paul Farmer, the UN deputy special envoy for Haiti, also calls attention to the 'flock of trauma vultures, consultants and carpetbaggers'. There is money to be made in a disaster. As my friend P. Sainath put it, 'everybody loves a good drought'.

Raising money for Haiti is all well and good. But which Haiti is getting the money? That question was not asked of the Ethiopian aid effort, and it is not being asked now. Is the Haiti of structural adjustment, the raft on the Caribbean, fated to being reduced to a factory and a port for Royal Caribbean’s cruise ships? All the efforts thus far seem to suggest that this is the Haiti that is being promised.

There is an alternative. If all that energy that goes toward raising money went toward a political campaign to erase the 'odious debt' owed by the South to the North it would clear space for an alternative. That’s the first step. Another is the revival of a 21st century new international economic order.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner chair of South Asian history and the director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut. He can be reached at [email]vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu[email].
* This article was originally published by Counter Punch.
* Prashad is the author of 'The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World', New York: The New Press, 2007, which was chosen for the Muzaffar Ahmad Book Award, 2009. The Swedish- and French-language versions have just been released.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

‘Impose an embargo on the EPA talks’

An interview with Yash Tandon

Patricia Handley

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63586

cc WikimediaUgandan political economist Yash Tandon has added his voice to the call for a moratorium on the negotiations between African countries and the European Union (EU) on the trade deals known as economic partnership agreements (EPAs). This follows the call by Ablassé Ouedraogo, former minister of foreign affairs of Burkina Faso and former deputy director of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), that the EPA negotiations between West Africa and the EU should be suspended. Patricia Handley speaks to Yash Tandon about ‘the destructive course’ of EPAs.

Yash Tandon now works as senior advisor to the Geneva-based South Centre intergovernmental think tank for developing countries after serving as the centre’s executive director. He visited Cape Town as speaker at the 86th Harold Wolpe Memorial Trust Open Dialogue where he described the situation with the EPA talks as ‘a turning point for Africa’.

PATRICIA HANDLEY: What do you mean by the destructive course of the EPAs?

YASH TANDON: The EPAs are driven mostly by European interests. It is an asymmetrical negotiation ... driven mainly by considerations of power exercised by the EU and by weak African governments that are dependent on economic aid from Europe and access to markets in Europe. It’s a very unequal relationship.

Secondly, the effect of the negotiations at the moment is total fragmentation of Africa. One example: in Southern Africa, South Africa has refused to sign the interim EPA but it has been signed by Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique.

These countries will be able to import products from Europe which could then, through the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), find entry into South Africa.

South Africa could take action to prevent this but (such action) will dismantle SACU. I hope that South Africa does not do it because it (will) simply implement what the Europeans want. The Europeans want to divide and conquer Africa.

The second example is that countries like Zambia and Zimbabwe, which were the founding members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), are not even part of the negotiations with Europe within the SADC framework.

They are negotiating within the East African (bloc). Here, again, is the breakdown of SADC and creation of a new bloc including Zimbabwe and Zambia that is different from the regional groupings that Africans had agreed to in the Abuja Treaty.



PATRICIA HANDLEY: What is the alternative?

YASH TANDON: We must do this in two steps. First, we must put an embargo on negotiations with the EU until we have our house in order. As long as the EU goes on putting pressure on us and forcing individual countries to sign separately, we cannot even think of an alternative. We have time. Europe does not have time.

Then I suggest that the heads of state of SADC and East African countries meet for half a day and mandate their trade ministers to negotiate a COMESA (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa)-like customs union that should include COMESA, SADC and the East African Community to begin putting in place what they had agreed in 2008.

They should lay out a time-scale (for harmonising) their customs tariffs and complex issues like rules of origin, facilitation of trade and transportation and information networks.

This will take time but they should work out agreements on these issues in order that these countries first drop barriers to trade and investments and movement of people amongst themselves before they open up to the outside world. And by outside world I mean also China, India, Brazil and the U.S.

Our parliaments must take their responsibility seriously. None of the parliaments in our countries is sufficiently aware of what is happening.

How ironical that our parliamentarians can spend a lot of time talking on local issues but are oblivious to issues of a global nature that can have serious and irrevocable – except at great cost – consequences for our countries and the region.

The committees in parliaments that look at trade and treaty issues should compel our executives to put these treaties before parliaments to be fully debated, in view of the public and the media, in order for them to understand what the implications are.

And if they think that the implications are negative for our people, as in fact is the case, they should refuse to ratify these.

PATRICIA HANDLEY: What is the feasibility of your alternative?

YASH TANDON: It depends on the political will of the leadership and the extent to which they can be pressurised by the people and those economic interests that will be hurt by the EPA. It’s a political question.

In our countries there are export-sector interests that want to enter into EPAs because they want access to the European market.

But (small and medium industries and businesses) will lose out: small clothing firms; firms that provide food domestically; small manufacturing sectors that produce goods and services for the local, domestic or regional market.

These firms are not so much involved in the negotiations and are unaware that they will be hurt very badly if we open up markets to Europe.

It is feasible to reverse the situation provided three things happen. First, provided there is political will on the part of our leadership. Second, provided our people and parliaments are able to pressurise our governments to be sensitive to the domestic needs of our countries.

Third, provided those commercial and business interests in our countries that depend on the domestic and regional market are mobilised to put their case, as opposed to the case of the export-oriented industries. (END/2010)

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article first appeared on IPS.
* Professor Yash Tandon is chairman of SEATINI and senior advisor (formerly executive director) at the South Centre, Geneva. He is author of Development and Globalisation: Daring to Think Differently, published by Pambazuka Press (ISBN 1-906387-51-6).

Ethiopia: The ABCs of stealing an election

Alemayehu G. Mariam

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63526

cc B SA recent report by the Carter Center’s observer mission to Ethiopia’s 2005 national elections provides a unique academic opportunity to learn how an election is stolen, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. But carrying out the perfect theft is not a task for the faint of heart, says Mariam. Beyond the essential qualities of cunning, audacity and brutality, Mariam shares here the five basic principles an accomplished thief will need to understand, master and apply in order to ‘steal an election in broad daylight’.

It is a staple of the criminal defense bar to represent thieves, robbers, burglars, muggers, pickpockets, shoplifters, embezzlers, con men, fraudsters and swindlers. It is also the ineluctable lot of the defense lawyer to learn about the M.O. (modus operandi, techniques) of the criminal classes with professional detachment. But few defense lawyers could claim the dubious honour of representing criminals that specialise in election heists. So, when the Carter Center issued its post-mortem ‘Ethiopia National Elections Observation Mission 2005 Final Report’[1] recently, a unique academic opportunity became available to learn about how an election is actually stolen.

First, a detailed discussion of the specific findings of that report is unnecessary. Anyone who has followed the May 2005 electoral process and observed the post-election period even with marginal interest is familiar with the facts presented and reviewed in the report. Second, the diplomatically finessed conclusion of the report tells the whole story. The 2005 Ethiopian election was stolen in broad daylight:

‘In spite of the positive pre election developments, the center’s observation mission concludes that the 2005 electoral process did not fulfil Ethiopia’s obligations to ensure the exercise of political rights and freedoms necessary for genuinely democratic elections.’

The real value of the report lies in its plain depiction of how the 2005 Ethiopian election was stolen. One could say the report is a sort of manual on the anatomy of election theft. To be sure, the report effectively shows the ‘dos and don’ts’ of a successful election heist and the specific things one must do in the ‘pre-election’, ‘election day’ and ‘post-election’ period. Carrying out the perfect election theft, however, is not for the faint of heart. One must have the cunning of a smiling villain, the audacity of a desperado outlaw and the brutality of a back alley thug to successfully steal an election in broad daylight. Above all, the accomplished election thief understands, masters and applies five basic principles.

PRINCIPLE #1 (THE SETUP): PANDER TO YOUR WESTERN DONORS WHO BANKROLL YOU

Elections in dictatorships are all about pleasing and trying to hoodwink Western donors, who are themselves all too willing to oblige with a wink and smile. They know elections in dictatorships are always stolen, but need an ‘election’ charade to make plausible denials that they knew the election was stolen. In other words, they need a convenient cover story to shroud their hypocrisy in a garb of moral and intellectual virtue while concealing their criminal complicity in the theft. They pretend to maintain the appearance of neutrality and mediation in public while doing business as usual with the election thieves after dark. The smart election thief understands these basic facts and will do everything to make the donors happy, give them all the diplomatic cover they need and eventually squeeze more cash out of them.

The smart election thief will do just the right symbolic things to please the donors such as opening up ‘political space’ for ‘competition and dialogue’, making grand pronouncements of ‘reforms’, giving lip service to open and vigorous electoral campaigns, not overtly interfering with civil society groups and the independent press and so on. It is a big deal for Western donors to see that ‘international election observers’ are on the ground ‘watching’ the ‘election’ (from being stolen?!), and hopefully giving their blessings at the end. Western donors are kind of funny though: They want the local people to believe that an election could be stolen just a little and still be ‘free and fair’. But the people know that just as there is no such thing as a woman who is a little bit pregnant, there is also no such thing as an election that is a little bit stolen that is ‘free and fair’.

The Carter Center report describing the 2005 pre-election period in Ethiopia stated:

‘The early pre-election period saw indications of growing space for political competition and dialogue. Government leaders, and opposition leaders met face-to-face to discuss the electoral process and needed reforms, with government agreeing to implement some of the key reforms called for by the opposition. International observers were invited and freedom of movement was assured. The Carter Center assessment team found the country’s political conditions conducive for an improved election. Government representatives exhibited openness to constructive criticism, and a willingness to consider recommendations for reforms. The opposition appeared ready to participate in the elections, and civil society was positioned to conduct voter and civic education and to observe the process…’

Oh! What about democracy, free and fair elections, the people’s voice and all that good stuff? Not a problem. Western donors know the Ethiopian people are too poor, too hungry and too ignorant to understand or appreciate democracy. It is actually a simple problem of mind over matter: Western donors don’t mind (a stolen election) and the Ethiopian people don’t matter.

PRINCIPLE #2 (SETTING UP THE HEIST): USE LOTS OF SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Razzle-dazzle and theatricality are critical props before an election takedown. This requires keeping ‘the people’ and the opposition distracted with all sorts of cute election games and amusements. One of the best election games is called ‘election code of conduct’. It is similar to a children’s game of marbles in which one player owns all the marbles. The game has only one rule: The guy who writes the ‘code’ always wins the elections. As the election date nears, it is necessary to create hoopla and hype. The Carter Center Report describes:

‘The pre-election period witnessed unprecedented participation by opposition parties and independent candidates, and an unmatched level of political debate in the state-dominated electronic and print media and at public forums held across the country. Political parties agreed to a Party Code of Conduct, committing themselves to compliance with provisions calling for fair play and supporting peaceful political competition. Ethiopian civil society organizations were active in the pre-election period, observing election preparations and sponsoring a series of televised debates on public policy issues between government officials and opposition leaders.’

PRINCIPLE #3: (THE TAKEDOWN) SNATCH THE ELECTION, FASTER THAN A NEW YORK PICKPOCKET

The smart election thief is lightening fast when it comes to the takedown. He does not wait for election returns, results or tabulations. He does not wait for verification reports and analysis of international observers or resolutions of vote challenges. On election day, he moves swiftly and declares victory before the votes are counted, imposes martial law and runs away with the prize in broad daylight in view of millions of stunned voters who look on in total disbelief. The Carter Center report describes:

The May 15 voting process progressed relatively smoothly with Carter Center observers reporting that polling was calm and peaceful in the polling stations visited, with only limited incidents of disturbances reported. However, problems began to emerge during the counting and tabulation phases, with significant irregularities and delays in vote tabulation and a large number of electoral complaints. Preliminary but unconfirmed reports of election results from the political parties began to circulate on election night suggesting that the opposition parties had scored significant electoral gains, especially in Addis Ababa and other urban areas. On the night of the election, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi declared a one-month ban on public demonstrations in the capital and brought the Addis Ababa security forces (soon to be under the command of the opposition that won Addis Ababa) under the control of the office of the prime minister.

PRINCIPLE #4 (THE GETAWAY): RUN THEM DOWN IF THEY GET IN YOUR WAY!

As in any daylight crime, there may be witnesses. The smart election thief will use ‘shock and awe’ to make a successful getaway. He will use extreme violence to deal with anyone standing in the way of his getaway. He will destroy any evidence of the theft and make it impossible to determine the full magnitude of the crime. He will boldly declare that it is necessary to kill unarmed demonstrators and jail nearly all of the opposition leaders to save democracy!

It's very obvious now that the opposition tried to change the outcome of the election by unconstitutional means. We felt we had to clamp down. We detained them and we took them to court. In the process, many people died, including policemen. Many of our friends feel that we overreacted. We feel we did not. There is room for criticism nevertheless it does not change the fact that this process was a forward move towards democracy and not a reversal. Recent developments have simply reinforced that. The leaders of the opposition have realised they made a mistake. And they asked for a pardon, and the government has pardoned them all.[2]

The official Inquiry Commission set up to investigate the post-2005 election violence reported[3]:

‘There was no property destroyed. There was not a single protester who was armed with a gun or a hand grenade as reported by the government-controlled media that some of the protesters were armed with guns and bombs. The shots fired by government forces were not to disperse the crowd of protesters but to kill by targeting the head and chest of the protesters.’

PRINCIPLE #5: DENY, DENY, THEN LIE

The smoothest criminals always deny, deny and lie that they have done anything wrong. It is no different for the smart election thief. In other words, once you get away with the heist, follow the wisdom of the Amharic saying Ye leba ayne derek meles o leb adrik. (A boldface thief will tax your patience by persistent denial.) Deny having stolen the election. Distract attention from oneself by pointing an accusatory finger at others and make ridiculous claims about ‘interhamwe’ conspiracies, ‘blind hatred’ and so on. Follow the teachings of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister: ‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.’

As any criminal defense lawyer knows, the criminal perpetrator gains special psychological advantages by following a strategy of denial. The act of denial enables the criminal to shield himself from the shocking reality of his wrongdoing. It also offers him an opportunity to admit a fact but deny the seriousness of the crime (rationalisation). In many cases, denial enables the criminal to admit a wrongdoing and its seriousness while avoiding moral responsibility altogether.

Everyone, including the most ardent critics of the government, agrees that right up to election day the democratic elections in Ethiopia were exemplary, by any standard. The issue arises as to whether the counting of the vote was done in a fair and transparent fashion. Here, there are varied assessments. We argue that while there may have been mistakes here and there, on the whole it was a credible and fair count. The opposition did not agree. So we said: ‘Let’s check. Let’s review the counting in the presence of foreign observers.’ We did that. After we did that, two groups of observers the African Union and the Carter Center said that while there had been some mistakes, the outcome of the election was credible.[4]

PRINCIPLE # 5.5: GO BACK TO PRINCIPLE #1

If at first you succeed in stealing an election, steal and steal again! Welcome to Ethiopia Election May 2010!

Whoever said ‘crime does not pay’ has not tried stealing an election! Steal an election and you can steal everything in sight (or out of sight) with impunity, indefinitely!

‘The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do.’
Joseph Stalin

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

NOTES

[1] http://www.ethiomedia.com/course/carter_center_final_report.pdf
[2] http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1659420,00.html
[3] http://www.ethiomedia.com/addfile/ethiopian_inquiry_commission_briefs_congress.html
[4] See footnote 2.

'Dark Heart of the Night': A foreword full of lies

Léonora Miano

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/63486

cc J C WAuthor of ‘L’intérieur de la nuit’ (’Dark Heart of the Night’), Léonora Miano, expresses her profound disagreement with both the content and the inclusion of a foreword by Terese Svoboda in the University of Nebraska Press edition of her book: ‘Let’s say it frankly,’ she says, ‘it’s full of lies’. Highlighting specific errors, Miano undermines the foreword point by point and demands that University of Nebraska Press withdraw it.

In sub-Saharan Africa, we’re used to be despised by the rest of the world and to being treated as mere animals. I knew, when ‘L’intérieur de la nuit’ (Dark Heart of the Night) was published, that some would use the novel in order to reinforce their views on Africa and its peoples. Really, I didn’t care and still don’t care about that. What I’m interested in is the African point of view on the topics I work on. I think we’ve spent too much time hoping for understanding and recognition from people other than ourselves. It’s time we focus on our problems and deal with them, no matter how painful it is. I’m confident in our ability to do so. I’m confident in our desire to no more take lessons in humanity from people who created and used the atomic bomb and who still have death penalty in their country. Things would be so cool if people could just clean their front door…

When University of Nebraska Press (UN Press) bought the rights of the book, I was happy because it’s important for me that it is translated into English; that my work is made available for the many Africans (and people of African descent as well) who actually speak English. I started to ask myself questions, however, when I saw which title had been chosen for the American translation of ‘L’intérieur de la nuit’. ‘Dark Heart of the Night’ has nothing to do with the original title. It resembles Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ and voluntarily sends wrong messages. But all right. The contract had been signed and UN Press could use a title betraying my work without me having a say in this. They could even create that ugly cover if they thought it would help them sell the book. I know nothing about the American taste as far as covers are concerned.

But now, UN Press also feel entitled to add a foreword. Why not, if the aim is to help the readers know the writer and understand the novel? The problem is that the foreword is full of misleading information. Let’s say it frankly, it’s full of lies:

1) Cameroon does not have the worst human rights record in Africa. We have a lot of issues to face, but our country is not more violent than the US, where people are killed on a daily basis for all kinds of reasons. I don’t understand why the author of that foreword, who never bothered to contact me, made up stories like that. She is insulting a country and its people. Cameroonians will certainly not allow it.

2) Cameroon is not the setting of the novel, which was, as I’ve said it many times, inspired by a documentary that I saw on children at war. We don’t have those in Cameroon nowadays, and if we ever had, I never heard about them.

3) I discovered the so-called ‘Hashish Massacre’ in the foreword. I had never heard of it, even knowing about the armed conflicts we had in the country during the late fifties, when our people were fighting for their independence.

4) I did not leave Cameroon to France to flee from a violent place. I live in France because I’m both selfish and down to earth. France is still the place where you need to be when you’re an African French-speaking writer. It’s what allows you to be published and correctly distributed. My fellow Cameroonians don’t know the many talented writers who live in the country and whose books are published there. They know me. And L’intérieur de la nuit was awarded the Prize of Cameroonian Excellency in 2007.

5) My novel is not a criticism of Negritude or Pan-Africanism. I’m deeply attached to Negritude, whose authors have nurtured and freed my mind. If it was not for what they did, I would not be such a bold and fierce voice. They made me. Isn’t it a pity to see that the author of the foreword cannot even write Aimé Césaire’s name properly?

I’m a strong advocate of Pan-Africanism, which I view as the only way to solve some of our problems. ‘L’intérieur de la nuit’ deals with fascistic views of the African identity and this has nothing to do with Negritude or Pan-Africanism.

6) I’ve not just written another novel. Three more have actually been published, in addition to one collection of short stories and a collection of creative non-fiction. The latter, entitled ‘Soulfood Equatoriale’, is my only book really talking about Cameroon. And you know what? Nobody dies in the book. If the foreword were to be informative, it would have said all this. It would also have said that ‘L’intérieur de la nuit’ is part of a trilogy. Even if those novels are written so they could be read separately, they form an ensemble.

7) There is only one child killed in ‘L’intérieur de la nuit’, and that child is an orphan (it doesn’t make it good to kill him, but we’re talking about what is in the novel). I don’t understand why the author of the foreword talks about the women, whose children are slaughtered. Can the lady actually read? Has she read? I think she must have been given an oral summary of the novel, plus two or three sentences to place here and there. This is not serious.

We’ve asked UN Press to withdraw the foreword. If they cannot do it because the books are already out, they’ll have to send them with a letter explaining everything I’ve just told you.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA PRESS

* Léonora Miano is a Cameroonian living in France. She is author of, among other titles, ‘L’intérieur de la nuit’ (’Dark Heart of the Night’).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Dare to shape the future: April 15-16, 2010

Kellogg Conference Hotel 800 Florida Ave N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002-3695

2010-04-06

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/63648

Despite continuing tensions, Zimbabwe’s year long Inclusive Government has resulted in significant economic and political changes giving great relief to long suffering Zimbabweans. Considerable as these changes are, a lot remains to be done for Zimbabwe to fully transition to a peaceful and democratic order, particularly in terms of critical political reforms and national healing. In addition, to institutionalize irreversible political reforms, key questions must be addressed in relation to how Zimbabwe’s economy long ravaged by Structural Adjustment Programs and corruption, among other factors, can be reconstructed in the interest of ordinary people.

The conference theme, ‘Dare to Shape the Future’ emphasizes thinking outside the box and encourages participants to creatively imagine and help construct a different future for Zimbabwe, moving away from destructive polarization and conflict to justice, healing and reconciliation. And from repression, exploitation and poverty to freedom, equity and development. The conference will take place within the context of the yearlong existence of the Inclusive Government in Zimbabwe and will coincide with Zimbabwe’s 30th independence anniversary. In line with the theme of daring to shape the future – the conference will pioneer a culture of inclusive dialogue among a diverse range of stakeholders of different opinions and political stripes to help forge a new culture of tolerance. Speakers from Zimbabwe will help bring a better understanding of civil society struggles on the ground and how the solidarity community can help and will help shape people centered U.S. policies at a crucial time in Zimbabwe’s history.

For more information visit http://www.africaaction.org/conference-home.html or contact Africa Action at 202-546-7961 or outreach@africaaction.org
Special Evening Event:

Africa Action Presents: Zimbabwe Solidarity Concert
6:00pm-8:30pm


For ticket information, visit:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/107605

Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited

Thomas Mapfumo, born in Marondera, Zimbabwe in 1945 is also sometimes called the Lion of Zimbabwe. He is responsible for blending traditional Shona mbira music with western instruments and a political message full of innuendo and traditional proverbs. He established the musical style, chimurenga (the Shona word for struggle).

In the 1970s Zimbabwe's people fought a war of independence againt their white Rhodesian rulers. Out of that grew chimurenga which is based on the Shona majority's chiming, cyclical rhythms, patterns and melodies of the mbira resulting in a hypnotric almost trance-like music. Mapfumo took that traditional music and added electric guitars, horns, and a drum kit. With his electronic interpretations of traditional mbira music he became a huge star in Zimbabwe. Being that some of his lyrics addressed the struggle for independence the white Rhodesian government felt threatened by his popularity, As a result, in 1977, Mapfumo was detained in prison for 90 days because of his song Hokoya (Watch Out). He and his band, The Blacks Unlimited now tour widely. Don't miss them!


Ensemble Mawuya

Ensemble Mawuya (Welcome) is a fluid group of musicians, dancers and artists brought together by the common bonds of creative expression and a strong desire to share all that is vibrant and beautiful in African culture. While its members’ artistic interests span the diversity of the continent and Diaspora, their primary focus is on the Shona culture and its signature musical instrument, the mbira.

Shona people form the largest part of the population of Zimbabwe. Music is central to their daily lives and activities, and ranges in function from ritual, ceremonial, social and incidental. As in many other African cultures, strong, complex rhythms and call and-response characterize their music.

Learn more at http://www.ensemblemawuya.org/ or download the musician's biographies below.

VM Six

Vocal Motion Six (Vm6) is a 5-person male Acappella and Classical group taking Namibia by storm with their exceptional blending harmonies. The members, Vasco, Thomas, Jones, Mark and Peter, represent the Mario and the Chizyuka families and began singing together in February 1999.

Furthermore, according to their website, "our commitment to social change is demonstrated trough a mutually embraced goal to produce “Music with a Message” with the aim to inspire other Namibian youth and the world at large. Our aim and commitment is to make a difference and bring about positive change in our world beginning with one step at a time."

Marcelino Dos Santos to launch ‘Africa’s Liberation: The Legacy of Nyerere’

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/63587

Pan-African Diary 2011: Call for entries

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/63602

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

EVENTS

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

QUOTATIONS

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

SUGGESTIONS

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

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

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

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

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'
- Marcelino Dos Santos, Mozambiquan poet, revolutionary and founder of FRELIMO will launch 'Africa's Liberation: The Legacy of Nyerere'
- The premier of the documentary 'Walter Anthony Rodney Stories'
- Music, songs and poems by famous performers

Malema's manipulation and distortion of history

We must all stand up and tell the truth in Malema’s realm of lies

Ayanda Kota

Unemployed People’s Movement

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/63529

Julius Malema’s distortion of history, says Ayanda Kota, ‘is a key characteristic of authoritarian regimes'. The 'fact that the ANC has now descended to this level,' Kota adds, 'is a very serious warning sign about where this country is going.’ While the call for nationalisation in a socialist context would be a call for ‘socialisation’, in the current pro-capitalist South African context, the call for nationalisation is a call for increasing the elite’s plunder, Kota argues.
31 March 2010

Dear Editor

Julius Malema’s attack on the role of the PAC (Pan Africanist Congress) in mobilising the masses for the protest that led to the Sharpville Massacre in 1960 is disgusting to say the least. For him to even suggest that Sharpeville must be ‘properly located’ in the struggle as led by the African National Congress (ANC) is a blatant denial of the truth of the events of our past. Malema’s negationism is typical of all authoritarian regimes that try to tell the people that they, rather than the people, liberated their countries. This is an attempt to make the people dependent on the regime in power – to forget that real power always remains with the people.

Malema is under attack for his corruption and so he is trying to distract attention from his own betrayal of the people by attacking others. The ANC are facing constant revolt from poor communities and social movements. The road blockades continue to go up all over the country. On Human Rights Day the television news led with the Abahlali baseMjondolo march in Durban and not the ANC’s propaganda for their plunder. The fact is that everyone can see that the real faithfulness to the struggle is being kept alive in the ongoing revolts across the country. This is why the ANC defends Malema – they need him to detract from the fact that the people are refusing to accept their betrayal of the struggle – of our struggle.

The manipulation of history is nothing new. It is a key characteristic of authoritarian regimes. But the fact that the ANC has now descended to this level is a very serious warning sign about where this country is going.

Sandi L Schrut writes in his poem – Truth and Lies

When fears of truth are hidden
Behind a flimsy wall of lies
And wishful dreams are spoken
By fearful lips decried

A sadness cools the soul, and grows
With each dark untruth spoken
And when the grim, true story’s told
A bond of trust is broken

When all is said and done I think
The truth tho’ sometimes hateful
Is best, by far the better choice
And oft’ times much less painful

Amilcar Cabral writes:

‘We must practice revolutionary democracy in every aspect of our party life. Every responsible member must have the courage of his responsibilities, exacting from others a proper respect for his work and properly respecting the work of others. Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures.’

Professor Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe was arrested because of his role in the anti-pass campaign in 1960. The PAC had invited the ANC, but the ANC refused to participate in the campaign. He was sentenced to three years at the end of which Parliament enacted a general law amendment act, which empowered the minister of justice to prolong the detention of any political prisoner indefinitely. This procedure became known as Sobukwe Clause. Sobukwe was the only person imprisoned under this clause. Subsequently, he was removed to Makana Island, where he remained for an additional six years. These harsh conditions came because of his leading role in the anti-pass campaign. Sobukwe was the only political prisoner to live in a separate area on the island where he had no contact with other prisoners. The only contacts were his secret hand signals whilst outside for exercise. The South African apartheid government had profiled Robert Sobukwe as a more radical and difficult opponent than the regular ANC prisoners. Later when he was sick in his home in Kimberly he was refused his freedom of movement by the apartheid regime. Thus he died under house arrest.

By understanding history you can understand why 21 March must be called Sharpville Day and not Human Rights Day, why 27 February must be declared a public holiday – Sobukhwe Day, why 12 September must be declared a public holiday – Steve Biko Day.

We have a political dispensation because of the gallant struggle waged by Robert Sobukwe, Steve Biko, Chris Hani to mention but a few, because of the fearless struggle waged by the African National Congress (ANC), Pan African Congress of Azania (PAC), the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), the New Unity Movement, the trade union movement, the United Democratic Front (UDF), Wosa and Qibla just to mention a few organizations. By understanding history, you can understand why things are the way they are right now. You can understand what it means to have no food, to be unemployed and stuck in poverty. You can understand the pain. You can picture what it means to live in South Africa as a child of the working class. South Africa is a country where almost one million jobs were lost last year. We are the most unequal society in the world: Two million families lack decent housing. We have the highest rates of new HIV infection in the world. South Africa is known across the world as a place where there are high levels of corruption.

The Malemas of this world are using their political positions to plunder the resources of our country, winning at least R140 million in government tenders. Yet the bridges that his companies build fall down in first rains – just like the RDP houses here in Vukani are blown over in the first strong wind. In South Africa government tenders and patronage are the vehicles for accumulation by a minority, in the face of the extreme monopolisation of the economy.

No one should purport to be representing the poor when they are living in opulence earned from plunder from the poor and ordinary taxpayers. When you understand history, you understand that the call for the nationalisation in a pro-capitalist country is a call the further plundering of the resources, a call for institutionalized corruption, a call for government to stop pretending to care about development and to take a clear stand in favour of the fat cats. A call for nationalisation in the context of socialism would be a different thing – it would be a call for socialisation. It would be the call for the constitutional amendment to remove the property clause. It would be a call to take action, to take a stand and fight back against capitalism that is threatening our world with disaster.

Sobukwe and Biko were, and continue to be, the greatest champions of the national liberation of the people even if little is being said about them. Those who manipulate and distort our history will be judged by history as history has judged Charles Taylor, Mobuto Seseko and other agents of imperialists.

‘We are fighting so that insults may no longer rule our countries, martyred and scorned for centuries, so that our peoples may never more be exploited by imperialists not only by people with white skin, because we do not confuse exploitation or exploiters with the colour of men's skins; we do not want any exploitation and corruption in our country, not even by black people.’ – Amilcar Cabral

Ayanda Kota

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Ayanda Kota speaks for the South African Unemployed People’s Movement.
* This letter is dated 31 March 2010
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Whither the shine in Namibia's peace, democracy and development?

Tangeni Amupadhi

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/63499

cc WikimediaSupporting Henning Melber’s arguments against the motion,
‘This House believes that Namibia is a shining example of post-colonial peace, democracy, and development’, were those of Tangeni Amupadhi. Amupadhi paints a picture of a controlling ruling elite, fearful of losing hold of power: 'In Namibia this day, dogma has replaced rationality.'

Countering the motion: 'This House believes that Namibia is a shining example of post-colonial peace, democracy and development.'

Good evening ladies and gentlemen.

It is sad indeed, taking this position and being the bearer of bad news. But we have to speak some home truths. Have you heard that hammers were selling very well at Namibia’s hardware stores last year after our founding president, Sam Nujoma, said whites, especially the English, must be clobbered in their heads? And just what was their crime? Alleged criticism of the ruling party and the Namibian government.

This might sound like a bad joke, but it is the material comedians are presented with from public rallies addressed by our most revered political leader. Such jokes remind me of the time during apartheid, when the best way to deal with ghastly realities was to make light moments of those conditions to avoid national depression and insanity.

The truth is Nujoma’s call, made at a SWAPO (South West Africa People’s Orgnisation) elections campaign rally in September last year, was a continuation of anti-democratic, anti-peace, fervour not only by the first president of democratic Namibia, but by many other leaders of the former liberation movement, which has been in power for 20 years.

Please, do let me dwell on a few examples, which have continued to wipe the shine off any aspiration we harbour to be the barometer for post-colonial peace, democracy and development.

JUDAS ISCARIOT AND SATAN:

The Namibian head of state, President Hifikepunye Pohamba, at a public meeting in February 2008, called his erstwhile comrades Judas Iscariots. These were people who, after several years complaining they were being witch-hunted and hounded out of the SWAPO, left the party to form the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP). The message the president was sending was unequivocal, as you’d imagine in a country with 90 per cent Christian following. Such a label means nothing less than a call to SWAPO followers to destroy the devil. Small wonder then that violent scenes broke out in Windhoek and some northern parts of the country during the elections campaign last year.

My team member has told you about the violent attacks that SWAPO supporters inflicted on opposition members who dared holding meeting in the areas traditionally regarded as strongholds of the ruling party. These SWAPO supporters were not ignorant, ordinary followers acting on their own. In fact, they were putting into practise a warning by Namibia’s prime minister, Nahas Angula, that this newly-formed opposition party should not be allowed to campaign in places he identified as ‘no-go areas’ for any politician but SWAPO.

And when the ruling party leadership were asked to condemn the violence and the notion of no-go areas in the interest of peace, democracy and development, guess what they did? Instead of promoting a contestation of ideas, they feebly called on their members to restrain themselves and strongly criticised the opposition for ‘provoking’ SWAPO members by campaigning and holding meetings the so-called no-go areas. Even trees were marked off as belonging to SWAPO. Talk about shining examples of post-colonial peace, democracy and development. The opposite is more apt.

MINISTER SHOOT SON:

And have you heard about the shooting incident last year? A senior minister in the Namibian government, a law-maker, fired at his son. Yes, with a gun and live ammunition. He was apparently blind with anger because the 20-year-old joined an opposition party.

Asked by a newspaper reporter why he had resorted to firing squad measures, he said: ‘I raised him with my SWAPO money, now he wants to go to RDP? He knows that I am working and getting my money from SWAPO. It irritates me so much that I breed someone with my SWAPO money and then he defects to the opposition, let him go and be educated by RDP.’

It is scary enough that a father would draw a firearm on his son because the young man joined another political party. But that shouldn’t stop you asking what SWAPO money this minister was talking about. Is it the funding that the then liberation movement received from its anti-apartheid supporters all over the world or is he talking about his government salary that comes from taxpayers’ coffers?
Anywhere in a peaceful and democratic world, such a leader would have done the honourable thing. As it is, he remains in cabinet and I don’t remember him being charged with the crime of drawing a weapon and shooting at someone, albeit his flesh and blood.

There are broader general examples of anti-peace, anti-democratic measures the country’s politicians take to discourage dissent.

ECONOMIC STRANGULATION:

ADVERTISING BAN

Ten years ago, the government at cabinet level banned all state advertising in The Namibian newspaper. The Namibian is not only the biggest and most widely read paper in the country, it is also the newspaper that ideologically aligned itself with SWAPO and the broad anti-apartheid movement.
Yet the SWAPO-government had the temerity to do what apartheid rulers did – ban state advertising from appearing in The Namibian. And this they put in writing. The reason, listen to this, ‘because of unwarranted criticism of government policies’. This would have been funny if it were not a decision of a democratically-elected government.

To date, no government money is allowed to buy a copy of The Namibian. The ban, however ineffective, remains in place as a political message that criticism of the government comes at a cost. That wipes further shine of our democracy, peace and development.

BUSINESS BOYCOTT

The Namibian newspaper is not the only entity that has had to incur the ire of its former comrades because of dissent. Several businessmen in the former war-zone of northern Namibia are finding out the hard-way the price of leaving SWAPO, especially to support opposition politics.

Several of these former SWAPO members have seen their businesses crumble after their customers were instructed by SWAPO leaders to stop buying from them because they dared to support opposition parties. Unlike The Namibian newspaper, these businesses operate in an area totally dominated by SWAPO, where mob-rule can severely punish anyone who deviates from the popular view. Economic strangulation has worked as intended.

The same economic strangulation has been used in the form of political patronage. Many Namibians of notable intelligence have been denied the opportunity to work in the civil service because they were not ‘loyal party cadres’. And no proof is needed that a person is indeed an opposition party member. For nowadays, we have ‘hibernators and saboteurs’, you see. Jobs go to comrades. And these jobs for comrades are offered without regard to competence. Mind you, I’m not referring to politically sensitive positions, but to civil service positions below that of a permanent secretary, for instance.

In Namibia this day, dogma has replaced rationality.

How much of the shine would you think such incidences have already taken off any possible exemplary stage that Namibia has been through for post-colonial peace, for democracy and for development?

Examples are plenty to support our position that Namibia is not a shining example of post-colonial peace, democracy and development. The state-funded media for instance, are a classic example of Stalinistic propaganda.
Even Namibia’s former prime minister, Hage Geingob, cautioned in his doctoral thesis about a trend that was emerging in Namibia towards a concentration of power in one person. It was a subtle jab at founding president, Sam Nujoma, and Geingob went as far as comparing the tendency to the likes of Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire and Kamuzu Banda of Malawi. Geingob said we were at the cross-roads. I’d argue that instead of power being concentrated in an individual it is concentrated in a small group. That, in itself, does not auger well for peace, democracy and development.

DEVELOPMENT

Land resettlement has become largely the preserve of the privileged, few black elite. And many take the land more for the pleasure than productivity, in the process threatening food security for the country. That my learned friends does not augur well for peace and stability.

EDUCATION

Worrying still is the education system that spews onto the streets 50 per cent of its grade 10s and 12s every year. On the whole, we are sowing the seeds of disaster instead of being a shining example.

SOLIDARITY

I bemoan the loss of solidarity by the elite. Here I refer specifically to solidarity with the poor and the most vulnerable in society.

I therefore argue, without the fear of contradiction but with sadness – Namibia is not a shining example of post-colonial peace, democracy and development.

Ladies and gentlemen, the only reason you and I can support this motion tonight, is if we take the lowest common denominators – Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Angola, Somalia, Sudan and Zimbabwe. Our beautiful, beloved ‘Land of the Brave’ deserves better. We should aim to be the best!

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Tangeni Amupadhi is editor of I[http://www.insight.com.na/]lnsight Namibia[/url]
* Tangeni Amupadhi was second speaker to Henning Melber at a discussion organised by the Friends of Namibia and the Royal African Society at the Houses of Parliament in London, 18 March 2010.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Health reform, US style

Horace Campbell

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/63528

In March 2010, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act HR 3590. This historic bill for the first time extended mandatory medical care to 94 per cent of US citizens, adding another 32 million people to the healthcare system. Under this law, insurance companies can no longer deny people healthcare on the basis of pre-existing conditions. Young people are allowed to stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26. It extended coverage for senior citizens and strengthened Medicare. Still, the bill did not include a single payer system where the government would be able to provide health insurance for all. In reality, what was called health care reform in the US was a victory for the health insurance industry, biotech corporations, big pharma and the health maintenance organisations. The US is so conservative that the extreme right branded the bill as a government takeover. The bill was a desperate measure to stabilise the capitalist system in a period when the US system spends over $2.2 trillion on healthcare and yet ranks number 37 in the provision of health care for its citizens. This inefficient system of capitalist accumulation holds the citizens of the US hostage to an outmoded form of economic organisation in the 21st century. Throughout the history of capitalism in the USA, it was the capitalists who decided who had the right to live. Europeans who have always had a government health service, tongue in cheek told the US, ‘welcome to the 20th century,’ because even after this ‘reform’ there is not a universal system of healthcare coverage.

WHAT IS HEALTH IN THE US?

In any society, one cannot separate mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health. And by this criterion, the US is an unhealthy society. Racism has besmirched the society so that there is the stress and strain of living under racist laws and policies. The healthcare system was one where big companies in the health business made mega-profits. In a very inefficient system, where healthcare spending was at approximately 15.2 per cent of GDP, 59 per cent of the population were covered by private capitalists (through employers), while 26 per cent was covered through the government ‘medicare’ system. Over 15 per cent – approximately 45-50 million persons – were without healthcare. The healthcare providers were making so much money that this branch of accumulation created a severe crisis for other capitalists. Hence, as a desperate measure to save the section of the capitalist class squeezed by the healthcare industry, it was urgent that the government institute a system to prop up capitalism in general. This is what Lawrence Lessig calls a broken system. In the USA, health is considered a privilege, not a right; under this kind of thinking, only the privileged should live.

In many areas of social engagement, the USA is an unhealthy society. The air is polluted. Sixty per cent of Americans live in areas with unhealthy air pollution levels. Rivers and lakes are dumping grounds for toxic materials. The food industry is organised for the profitability of the industry, making the US a ‘fast food nation’ where processed foods do great damage to the health of citizens. Most of the favourite food types in the society – hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, cookies, pizza, Soda (soft drinks), chicken wings, ice cream, doughnuts, and potato chips – are injurious to the health of the citizens, as they are processed foods that leave citizens with symptoms like weight gain, fatigue, headaches, aches, joint pains and so much more. Unhealthy food has always been a problem, but this has been accentuated by the era of genetically modified foods and genetically modified seeds.

Yet, unhealthy food is good for profits in so far as the more unhealthy the people, the better for the pharmaceutical companies.

The health of the citizens is further being compromised by the widespread use of chemicals in society. Pesticides, petrochemicals, and fossil fuel have been so widely used that the country is polluted to the point of creating a cancer epidemic. When one adds the leading causes of death – hypertension-stress, cardiovascular disease, HIV/AIDS, diabetes, cancer and high blood pressure – it can be seen that what is needed in the US is not healthcare reform per se, but a complete change in the mode of economic organisation, so that everyone has a right to health and decent life. In essence, the health care reform debate reopens an old question in the US: who has a right to life?

HEALTH DISPARITIES

The economic and social consequences of this system were so outrageous that there was a clamour in the society for complete change. Big capitalists in the automobile industries (such as General Motors) were calling for a change in the system because they complained that their competitors in Europe and Japan had government-subsidised healthcare. Small businesses called for reform because so much of their profits were taken up by the cost of providing healthcare for the workers. Doctors and healthcare providers were conscious of the waste of the system that spent the most in the world but was 37th.The trade union movement was one of the big lobbies for healthcare reform because working people wanted change in the delivery of health. Senior citizens were lobbying through their organisation the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), and breast cancer survivors and women who termed health a gender question were clamouring for investments in healthcare. These women argued that just being a woman was a pre-existing condition. In essence, the section of the society that wanted healthcare was the vast majority of the 80 per cent of the population that suffered as a result of the cancerous society.

Yet, the three per cent of the mega capitalists could dominate the US legislative chambers to the point that, even before the healthcare bill was written, the Obama administration had acquiesced to the wishes of pharmaceutical companies. As one writer summed up the process of getting out this legislation, the Obama team bought off Big Pharma with the promise not to use market forces to force down prices for prescription drugs, and the insurance industry with the promise that it would face no new competition from a public option. So by the end, the administration succeeded in, according to Lawrence Lessing, ‘bribing and accommodating them to such an extreme degree that they ended up affirmatively supporting a bill that lavishes them with massive benefits.’

This is how conservative the society has become – that even in the face of this major compromise, the liberal language of health disparities and health care reform cannot fully explain to the people what was so good about this healthcare reform bill.

Despite the fact that conservatives have railed against this Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, one can see from studying the fine points of this bill that it is not a system of universal healthcare. It is a system to prop up the capitalists in the health industry, because even with these ‘reforms’ 18 million people will still be left out of the healthcare system. These are the citizens who do not have the right to live.

HIERARCHIES OF HUMANS

The US was founded on a system of hierarchy, in which the First Nation people did not have a right to life. The first European settlers in the US killed millions of the indigenous peoples. Their livelihoods were destroyed, and up until this day, hazardous waste is dumped in the lands and rivers of these first nation peoples.

At the dawn of the Republic of the USA, the only enslaved Africans that were seen as healthy were those who submitted to slavery. Any enslaved African who opposed slavery was diagnosed with an illness – drapetomania; for slave masters the cure for this illness was whipping the enslaved Africans. This episode in the medical history of the US has been documented in the book, ‘Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present’, by Harriet Washington. The book traces the history of experimentation on the bodies of enslaved black men and women. Gruesome tales of mutilation, forced sterilisation, violation, and terror is to be found in the history of medicine in the US. In fact, when the US was prosecuting the Nazis in the Nuremberg trials for forced sterilisation, the US government was carrying out the same sterilisation on black people.

The story of the development of one branch of medicine – gynaecology and obstetrics – owes so much to the experimentation on the bodies of enslaved black women. The story of Dr Marion Sims, the father of US gynaecology is becoming better known. Sims took enslaved black women and carried out experiments on them without anaesthesia. After the period of enslavement, there was the era of the well-known Tuskegee syphilis experiment, when the US Department of Health experimented on a group of black men for forty years to see the impacts of syphilis on black people. This same medical experimentation continues today with illegal experimental AIDS trial that has been going on in Africa. In the book, The Constant Gardener, John Le Carré presents a fictional account on the role of pharmaceutical companies in experimentation on black bodies. When interviewed, Le Carré said that the real horror of the experimentation and testing on Africans at home and abroad is more horrendous than described in the book. It is the same medical infrastructure that worked to support the patent laws to deny medicines to people who were dying of HIV/AIDS.

PRESSURES NEEDED FROM GRASSROOTS ORGANISING

African brothers and sisters still remember the pressures of the US government against the South African government when the people demanded antiretroviral drugs for the millions dying of AIDS. As in the USA, so was it in South Africa: The health of the profits of the pharmaceutical companies was far more important than the health of human beings. It required an intercontinental grassroots movement linking the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) in South Africa to the Aids Coalition to Unleash Power (ACTUP) to shame the Clinton administration, which was defending the big pharmaceutical companies on the grounds of defending Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). African people at home and abroad joined with other forces in the Third World to oppose the stipulations of the World Trade Organization to defend the big companies and bioengineering MNCs like Du Pont, Novartis, Monsanto, Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Dow Chemicals. The battle of Seattle of 1999 was a battle over the future of health.

Samir Amin has written in his book, ‘The Liberal Virus’, that under the thinking of these big companies, the planet can dispense with the lives of over 2 billion people. In short, only one section of humanity should have the right to live. The tremendous growth in capacities of the ‘scientific establishment’ to isolate and recombine genes of plants, animals and humans and ‘play God’, is being accompanied by a ‘new supporting sociology’, a ‘eugenics civilization’ and a ‘new cosmological narrative.’ One can find out about the power of these big companies in the book, ‘The Biotech Century’. The essence of these sweeping economic and social forces is a new outlook towards humans, a commodification where ‘the working unit is no longer the organism, but rather the gene’ (p.14) and respect and dignity shift from the individual to strands of manipulable chromosomal information. ‘Cell by cell, tissue by tissue, organ by organ, we may willingly surrender our personhood in the marketplace’ (p173). Ergo, when politicians, scientists and corporate leaders in the developed world sing paeans to the marvels of the biotech century, ‘they are being disingenuous in their public pronouncements’ (p36). Jeremy Rifkin’s path-breaking book, although purporting to present data and leave to the reader the choice of deciding which side one is on, is effectively an exposé of the falsity and inequity of most marvels prophesied by the promoters of unrestricted bioengineering. Rich people can spend millions on cosmetic surgeries and investing in their beauty while the poor die of hunger, environmental racism and exploitation.

The healthcare reform package of Barack Obama will not help the poor and a large section of US citizens. From the foregoing, it can be seen that health question isn’t simply one of access to care but more fundamentally as to who has right to live in the society. Universal health care will only come from bottom-up organising in the society. It cannot come from on top. When the healthcare bill was passed in the US, European newspapers commented that the US was now entering the 20th century. That is because the debate about who should have healthcare dates back to the 19th and 20th century. The USA has not entered the 21st century when it comes to valuing the lives of human beings. It was in the face of the widespread opposition from the right that progressives such as Congressman Dennis Kucinich supported the reform, looking for a new day when the reform battle will be extended. Progressives must see the healthcare reform bill as the start of the fight for universal healthcare.

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.

Endorois get their land back … what about you?

L. Muthoni Wanyeki

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/63494

Those of you around Lake Bogoria last Saturday – or around their television screens – will have noticed the huge celebration taking place there.

The Endorois community, one of Kenya’s 'real' minorities (a semi-nomadic sub-group of the Kalenjin numbering only about 60,000), had invited other Kenyans to share their joy at the landmark decision of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights over their claims to their ancestral land.

Minister of Lands James Orengo was present, as was the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and most of Kenya’s human rights community.

And tellingly, Kenya’s other 'real' minorities – or 'indigenous' peoples – from around the country were present too.

Because the decision has a bearing on their own claims to ancestral lands.

To backtrack a bit, using the term 'indigenous' peoples in what is now an independent, post-colonial, black-majority country is sometimes confusing and sometimes seen as provocative, the argument being that, with the exception of those who settled here from Asia and Europe during and post the colonial period, we are all 'indigenous'.

But, if we are honest, and if we dig even a little into what we still know of our pre-colonial past, we are forced to admit that we (like most peoples in the world) have always been on the move.

In that movement, bigger communities, with a tendency to more agricultural and settled livelihoods, have often won territory from smaller communities, particularly those with less individualistic land use patterns, such as forest dwelling and pastoralist communities.

Among the Gikuyu, for example, the stories speak of encountering small people who jumped into holes and disappeared.

'Small people who jumped into holes and disappeared'?

Are the stories referring to what used to be known as the Ndorobo, lighter-skinned people, some of whom did, in fact, intermarry with the Gikuyu?

Or are they referring to what used to be referred to as Pygmies, who presumably are what we now know as the Batwa, who were forced to move deeper and deeper into Central Africa where the forests that sustain their livelihoods persist?

It remains a mystery to me, but hopefully less so to the anthropologists and historians among us, whose explanations of our pre-colonial migratory and settlement patterns would in fact be immensely useful at this particular point in our history.

Because it is so clear that those stories live on, and inform the deepest levels of claim to land in this country.

And because it is those deepest levels of claim that form the basis for the worst of contemporary contestation over land.

Fast forward to the present and to the Endorois.

Their forcible displacement from their ancestral land around Lake Bogoria took place more recently – between 1974 and 1979, during the Kenyatta regime – to make way for what became the Lake Bogoria Game Reserve.

Denied access to pasture and water in arid Marigat, they lost most of their livestock.

They also lost access to their traditional medicines, found in plants around the lake.

And they lost access to the lake itself, a site of cultural and spiritual significance.

They did not take the forcible displacement lying down.

They petitioned the Moi regime and the former president (whose family now owns one of the lodges around the lake) for restitution. They failed.

They filed their first case against the forcible displacement in the Kenyan courts in 1997, challenging the manner in which the Baringo and Koibatek county councils – in whom responsibility for the trust lands had been vested – had exercised their trusteeship.

That is, the legality of the forced eviction and the consequent exclusion of the Endorois from benefiting from the proceeds of the Lake Bogoria Game Reserve. They failed.

And so they moved to the African Commission in 2003, which has now ruled in their favour as follows: '[I]n view that the African Commission finds that the respondent State is in violation of Articles 1, 8, 14, 17, 21 and 22 of the African Charter [on Human and Peoples’ Rights], the African Commission recommends that the respondent State: recognise rights of ownership of the Endorois and restitute Endorois ancestral land; ensure the Endorois community has unrestricted access to Lake Bogoria and surrounding sites for religious and cultural rites and for grazing their cattle; pay adequate compensation to the community for the losses suffered; pay royalties to the Endorois from existing economic activities and ensure that they benefit from employment possibilities with the Lake Bogoria Game Reserve.'

There are a few more findings, but those are the most important: recognition of ownership; restitution; access; compensation; royalties and compensation.

This is huge. It lays the ground for the kind of communal land ownership system now spelt out in the new Land Policy.

It lays the ground for negotiations by other 'real' minorities and 'indigenous' communities with the government of Kenya over other ancestral lands.

It lays the ground for recognition by all of us of the need to better balance, in future, individual and public economic imperatives for land use with the communities whose ancestral land is in question.

It lays the ground for the slow process of renegotiating our very country.

Hongera to the Endorois.

And to all of those who’ve supported their long struggle.

And to Mr Orengo, who not only saw fit to be there to celebrate the victory with them and indicate his support in ensuring the African Commission’s ruling is implemented, but who has seen the Land Policy finally move forward.

The new Kenya? Maybe it will, in the end, come – from the bottom up.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Angola: Solidarity and support to victims of demolitions and evictions growing

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/63478

Civil society organisations are making public, worldwide, a communication by the Provincial Government of Benguela (Angola) that banned the demonstration that would take place in Benguela, last Thursday (March 25th), against the brutal demolitions and forced evictions that have become a regular occurrence in major cities and rural communities in Angola.
Dear colleagues,

Civil society organisations are making public, worldwide, a communication by the Provincial Government of Benguela (Angola) that banned the demonstration that would take place in Benguela, last Thursday (March 25th), against the brutal demolitions and forced evictions that have become a regular occurrence in major cities and rural communities in Angola. The last one happened in the beginning of March in Lubango, killing seven people and displacing 3,800 families.

In the letter, the government urges the population not to take part in the protest and that it will not be responsible for the consequences if the organisations decided to go ahead with the march (attached, in Portuguese): “The Provincial Government of Benguela, within the framework of its responsibilities in the protection of order, tranquillity and social peace, will use the means legally instituted, to aim at cancelling this pretension (the march) and declares that will not be hold responsible for eventual material or physical damage arising from the exercise of its authority, in the defence of the established order”.

On the other hand, solidarity is growing worldwide! Every day more organisations, movements, groups and individuals are expressing their solidarity to the victims of the demolitions and evictions and to the cause for dignity, social justice and respect for human rights.

You can add your name and/or the name of your organisation, by simply sending it to omunga.coordenador@gmail.com, zepatrocinio1@yahoo.com.br and quintas.de.debate@gmail.com

The updated list is on the website and we copy it below.
Pictures of the demolitions and evictions and of the movement against them are here

Civil society (national e international)
MPDA
Novox
ACC
LARDEF
SOS Habitat
ADC
CRB
LAKDES
APDCH
LONCK
FRAPRU
OKUTIUKA – Huambo
Comissão de Moradores da Graça
Comissão de Moradores da Feira
Comissão de Moradores dos Jovens das Tendas
OD
WILPF UK
Fundação Open Society
CDPA
IDD
O Morrodamaianga
INACAD
IAADH
AJPD
ADRA
CALB
MOYO PAN AFRIKAN SOLIDARITY CENTRE
Associação SOLIDARIEDADE IMIGRANTE
ASSOCIAÇÃO DOS ANGOLANOS em Brockton
AJUDA CRISTÃ/CHRISTIAN AID
COHRE
PROGRESSIO
IPAM
Associação Tratado de Simulambuco – Casa de Cabinda - Portugal
COOPIL

Individuals
Filomeno Vieira Lopes (político)
Isaías Samakuva (político)
José Gama (jornalista)
Pedro Santa Maria (jornalista)
Domingos da Cruz (jornalista)
Manuel Vieira (jornalista)
José Marcos Mavungo (activista cívico)
Luisete Macedo (política)
Fernando Pacheco (eng.º agrónomo)
Tina Abreu (eng.ª agrónoma)
Assis Capamba (político)
Luiz Araújo (activista cívico)
Padre Jacinto Wakussanga (eclesiástico)
Makuta Nkondo (jornalista)
Francisco Eduardo (eng.º agrónomo)
Frei João Domingos (eclesiástico)
Nelson Pestana (professor universitário)
Fernando Macedo (professor universitário)
Justino Pinto de Andrade (professor universitário)
Sónia Ferreira (assistente social)
Rosa Mayunga (descendente da autoridade tradicional de Angola)
Carlos Figueiredo (eng.º agrónomo)
Serafim José Melo (sociedade civil)
Otinel Fernandes da Silva (assistente pedagogo social)
Inácio Gil Tomás (sociedade civil)
José Dias Amaral (professor universitário)
Padre João Pedro Fernandes (eclesiástico)
Alexandra Gamito (sociedade civil)
Alexandre Neto Solombe (sociedade civil)
Cristovão Luemba (jornalista)
Guilherme Santos (sociedade civil)
Bernardo Castro (activista para área fundiária)
Olivier Simonet (cidadão francês)
Mawete vo Teka Sala (activista cívico)
Marie-claire Faray (activista cívica)
Idaci Ferreira (activista cívica)
Emanuel Matondo (jornalista, autor e activista cívico)
Carlos Morgado (médico/professor universitário)
Massunguna da Silva Pedro (político)
Gregório Nsumbu Mbala (ecologista)
Arão Marcelino Kapinala Abel Arão (sociedade civil)
Armando Chicoca (jornalista e activista de direitos humanos)
Mihaela Webba (constitucionalista)
António Capalandanda (jornalista)
Manuel de Oliveira Xicato (sociedade civil)
Luis Samacumbi
Simão Maurício
João Domingos (agrónomo)
JACQUES arlindo dos santos (Ex-Deputado à Assembleia Nacional, Escritor e Presidente da Associação Cultural e Recreativa Chá de Caxinde).
Graça Campos (Jornalista)
Raul Jorge Resende de Barros Rosário (Actor)
Artur Queiroz (Jornalista)
Isabel Fontes Pires (Activista cívica)
Luiz Araújo (SOS habitat Coordenador da Direcção da SOS Habitat)
Isaac Paxe (Professor do ISCED de Luanda)
Pedro Miguel Pinto Cardoso (Jornalista)
Rui Amaral Neves (Professor)
Ana Branco (Escritora)
Amélia da Lomba (Escritora)
Nuno Carlos de Fragoso Vidal
António C. Ferreira Monteiro Nunes (Músico, Promotor Cultural)
José Cassanji Santos (Diácono/Sacerdote)
Reginaldo Silva (Jornalista)
Carlos J. Pinheiro da Silva
Sérgio de Castro Sousa (Aposentado)
Lúcia Rodrigues da Paiva (Contabilidade)
Maria Madalena (Empregada Doméstica)
Graça Assunção (Tradutora)
António José Piçarra (Jornalista)
Paula Andrade
Jelson Cassevela (estudante)
Maria Luisa Carvalho Rogério (jornalista)
Leonardo Pinto Eugénio (sociedade civil)
Reinaldo Miranda (estudante de economia)
Domingos da Cruz (angolano – estudante em Paraíba)
Lamine Sissé (Guineense – estudante em Paraíba)
William S. Catembera (Congolês Democrata – estudante em Paraíba)
Charlyne Lira (cidadã brasileira)
Florita Telo (angolana – estudante em Paraíba)
Eveline Dadis (São Tomense – estudante em Paraíba)
Aracy Semedo (Cabo-Verdiana – estudante em Paraíba)
Rui Seamba (angolano estudante em Paraíba)
Delma Gomes Monteiro (activista cívica)
Amor de Fátima Mateus (jornalista/artista)
Maria Celma Salla (estudante universitária)
Edgar Valaco (sociedade civil)
Gilberto Teixeira (estudante universitário)
Francisco Tunga Alberto (sociedade civil)
Abel Chivukuvuku (ex. Deputado e ex. Líder da bancada parlamentar)
Dra. Sarah Wykes (activista britânica)
“Mulata de Sanzala” (political adviser and executive)
David Mendes
Sandra Mussungo
Fernando Francisco Cardo dos Santos
Celso Malavoloneke (comunicólogo e docente universitário)
Mário I. Lironel (political specialist , political and economic unit)
João Quipipa Dias (engenheiro em informática)
Luis Abisague
Henriques Calazans
Orély Leroyer
Dimitry Manuel Mendes

ICC should offer protection to HRDs in Kenya

EHAHRD

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/63500

A pre-trial chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has authorised the opening of formal investigations into the post-election violence in Kenya; the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP) is however concerned that the ICC has not yet implemented measures necessary to ensure the protection of human rights defenders (HRDs) involved in the forthcoming investigation. In a policy brief sent to the ICC Registrar today EHAHRDP therefore called on Court to put in place a protection strategy for HRDs, as key intermediaries, immediately.
HRDs have played key roles in past investigations carried out by the ICC notably in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sudan. They have used their contacts on the ground to ensure that the ICC investigators access victims and witnesses, have offered protection to victims and witnesses and raised awareness amongst these key actors of their rights and risks incurred by involving themselves in the investigations. For this HRDs have paid a heavy price notably in terms of their own security: defenders in both Sudan and the DRC have been forced to seek exile abroad as a result of their engagement with the ICC investigations.

The ICC states that the responsibility of the protection of intermediaries such as HRDs is of the state in question but EHAHRDP believes that given the current context in Kenya concrete measures by the ICC are essential. The reality facing defenders since 2007 suggests that the Kenyan authorities are failing to abide by this responsibility if not at times complicit in the violations against HRDs. The lack of credibility of the current witness protection programme in Kenya, along with the limitations in the current draft of the Witness Protection Act, and the failure to adequately investigate the assassinations of Mr. King’ara and Mr. Oulu of the Oscar Foundation Free Legal Clinic, killed on the 5th March 2009, are telling examples of this.

“The investigations by the ICC are likely to involve high level State actors or those in control of a significant amount of power; this reluctance even antagonism on the behalf of the authorities to fulfil their responsibility towards defenders is likely to increase rather than diminish once the investigations kick off. The ICC cannot ignore this reality.” says Mr. Hassan Shire Sheik, Executive Director of EHAHRDP.

HRDs in Kenya have already been involved in the ICC activities in the country even before yesterday’s decision and are likely to play an essential role in the forthcoming investigations. According to EHAHRDP there are a range of concrete activities which the ICC could implement and include in a protection plan for HRDs. These would have a positive impact on the security and protection of defenders, and help the ICC deal with this issue in a creative and flexible manner without overburdening the court before more significant structural, legal and financial issues have been dealt with..

“If the ICC is truly committed to ensuring the success of the forthcoming investigations in Kenya it will need to commit to the protection of human rights defenders. Concrete protection measures by the ICC for defenders serve as a powerful symbol of recognition by the ICC of the key role of defenders, as intermediaries, but would also serve a preventative role.” says Mr. Hassan Shire.


For more information please do not hesitate to contact Mr. Hassan Shire Sheikh, Executive Director of EHAHRDP on + 256 772 753 753 or Ms Laetitia Bader, Human Rights Officer at EHAHRDP on + 256 775 141 756 or advocacy@defenddefenders.org (French speaking).

EHAHRD-Net Index KEN 03/005/2010

Laetitia Bader
Human Rights Officer

East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project
Human Rights House, Plot 1853 Lulume Rd., Nsambya
P.O. Box 70356 Kampala, Uganda
Tel: +256-312-265823
+256 - 414 510263
Fax: +256-312-265825

Website: http://www.defenddefenders.org

EHAHRDP: May 2010 UN Human Rights Council elections

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/63561

The East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP) urges the African Heads of State to seize the opportunity of the forthcoming May 2010 Council elections to ensure that the African group encourages the states from Africa with a human rights record of the ‘highest standard’ to run for election, in line with the spirit of UN General Assembly Resolution 60/251 creating the Council.
our Excellency,

As a diverse group of African human rights organizations engaged with the UN Human Rights Council (Council) in Geneva we urge you to seize the opportunity of the forthcoming May 2010 Council elections to ensure that the African group encourages the states from our continent with a human rights record of the ‘highest standard’ to run for election, in line with the spirit of UN General Assembly Resolution 60/251 creating the Council.

We would like to start off by applauding the competitive elections among the African candidates during last year’s Council election and would like to encourage the African group to support competition for the elections this year.

We are however writing to express our concern about several recent and established procedures within the selection process that risk to undermine the level of competition and transparency of elections within the African group.

First of all, we are concerned that the nomination of candidates within the African Union (AU) Ministerial Committee on African Candidatures within the International System, a body in which a limited number of states are represented, prevents certain states from having their voices heard and heightens the risk of power politics, reciprocal agreements, and vote trading. In fact, in past years, countries from our continent whose human rights records should be applauded and whose membership would be a valuable addition to the Council have been discouraged from seeking a seat as a result of considerations unrelated to their commitment to human rights promotion.

We would also like to express our concern by the recent decision of the AU Executive Council to only officially endorse two candidates, notably Libya and Mauritania, for this year’s election: four African seats are up for re-election in May and the elections are now just over a month away. One of the key aims of the Council was to improve the membership of the main UN human rights mechanisms, notably by ensuring that Member States are able to elect members based on the “contribution of candidates to the promotion and protection of human rights”; ensuring a competitive slate is therefore crucial.

We therefore urge you:

To call for greater transparency and representation within the selection process of candidates in the AU Ministerial Committee on African Candidatures within the International System;
To encourage the African group to ensure competitive elections by selecting in a fair and transparent manner at least five candidates for the forthcoming May 2010 elections;
To closely monitor the human rights records of states nominated to run; and
To ensure that states are elected based on an objective assessment of the state’s commitment to and promotion of human rights rather than the result of power politics, reciprocal agreements, and vote trading.


Commitment by the African group to the Council election process can not only help to enhance the effectiveness and credibility of the Council, but it can also shape the future of human rights in Africa by drawing international attention to Africa’s specific concerns and by giving countries within the region who serve as proponents of human rights both the standing and space they deserve.

Many thanks for giving importance to this selection.



Sincerely,

Hassan Shire Sheikh

Executive Director

East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP), Uganda

Talking about an 'SMS Uprising'

Interview

Sokari Ekine

2010-03-31

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/63470

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Sokari, the study of ‘mobile technology for development’ has become a new fad in the development world. But is ‘SMS Uprising’ different? And why is it an important book?

SOKARI EKINE: Yes, it is different. On the one hand, it discusses the political economy of telecommunications on the continent and the possibilities and constraints around future trends. On the other, it gives real practical examples of mobile phones used for advocacy, campaigning and activism. Yes there is a certain amount of hype around the use of mobile phones for social change, particularly at grassroots level, and there is yet to be any serious research on successes of many projects. Nonetheless, the fact remains that local NGOS, civil society and community groups are increasingly using mobile phones for non-instrumental uses.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Who is ‘SMS Uprising’ aimed at? Is it meant as a handbook for activists? How have you seen it being used already?

SOKARI EKINE: The book is useful as an academic text and basis for future research, as well as an extremely useful introduction or handbook for anyone interested in learning how mobile phones are being used for a range of advocacy projects, activism and service delivery. I don’t know if anyone is using it, but everyone I have spoken to about it has expressed an interest in reading it. I think the most important aspect of the book is that it is an introduction and acts as a building block for further research providing examples, which can be replicated or built upon in the future.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: ‘SMS Uprising’ is edited by you, an African woman activist. In what ways does the content of the book reflect this?

SOKARI EKINE: The emphasis in the book is on practical examples and innovative technologies being used and being developed to facilitate social and political change within the continent by Africans for Africans. So yes, I believe it does. I was interested in examples and projects that would make a difference to people’s lives and challenge existing power relations; those that enable people to have more control over their lives, more input into what information they need and how it is presented. I think the book addresses those issues.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The book has been criticised as not really reflecting an ‘uprising as such’, but instead a rather sobering reminder of the limitations of the technologies. Was it a mistake to have called it ‘SMS Uprising’?

SOKARI EKINE: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think this criticism is a fair one as obviously we could not include the vast range of innovative uses of mobile phones. What we did was give practical examples, as I have said, which can be replicated or further developed. The limitations are not due to the technology or its availability, but the diffusion and lack of knowledge of what is available and how to implement the technology. For example, the Ushahidi platform has been taken up by a number of CSO and NGOs in the country. However, due to a number of possible factors such as poor infrastructure, lack of knowledge on how to use the platform and lack of planning, those projects have remained rather static. What the book does is speak of the growing trend in using mobile phones and associated technologies and the potential for greater diffusion. In other words, the use of mobile phones for social change is on the increase and every week there are new developments, new projects, new ideas.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What for you is the most significant aspect of mobile phones in the context of activism?

SOKARI EKINE: The ease of use – a small piece of technology, but one with the possibility of multiple features: In addition to SMS messages you can have a voice recorder, camera, video, notebook, diary, email and internet access.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: In your introduction to the book you emphasise that ‘technology itself does not lead to social change’. What role, then, does technology play in social change? And, if not technology, what are the driving factors that do lead to social change?

SOKARI EKINE: Throughout the ages people have developed technologies to make their lives easier: To communicate with each other, to enable faster and more efficient production and so on. So the driving force behind social change is ideas and the search for solutions and easier ways of doing things. It’s about having a need or a problem, then an idea and then thinking about how to solve it. This may or may not include a particular technology. Technologies are not developed in isolation to the political, social and economic structures in which we live. They are a reflection of these, which is why you find many technologies we use today have militaristic origins because that is where money for research and development is located.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The book is about mobile activism in Africa specifically. How important is the African context then? Can the projects outlined in the book be replicated globally – both in the South and the North?

SOKARI EKINE: Yes absolutely and that is why the book is so exciting: The idea that the North is replicating projects and using technologies developed in the South.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: The book and its case studies look in depth at both the benefits and the limitations of mobile activism and its outcomes. Joshua Goldstein and Juliana Rotich, in ‘Digitally networked technology in Kenya’s 2007-08 post-election’, clearly portray how SMS and blogging were used for inciting and organising hate and violence, as well as for information sharing, documenting and counter-violence measures in post-election Kenya. Do you believe that the space that digital technology has created – through lowering the barriers to participation and group action – will always be a space for what Goldstein and Rotich call ‘a struggle between predatory violence and civil society’? What are the challenges in preventing the use of mobile technology as a tool for predatory violence.

SOKARI EKINE: As I said earlier technologies themselves are not innately good or bad. We have to look at the reasons for developing particular technologies and how we use them. In Rwanda the radio was used as a tool for ‘predatory violence’ to hunt and kill. In Nazi Germany the printing press was also used to spread hate. The challenge for CSO and activists is so be aware of these negative and hateful applications of digital technology and to use the same technologies to counter the ‘predatory violence’ or messages of hate. What the technology does is support the advocacy process by making it more organisationally and financially efficient and by extending the reach of the beneficiaries to rural areas, women, low-income people, people in informal settlements.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Berna Ngolobe’s chapter, ‘Women in Uganda: mobile activism for networking and campaigns’, talks of the ‘digital divide’ to describe the gender dimension of ICT. What does Ngolobe mean by ‘digital divide’?

SOKARI EKINE: With regard to mobile phones, I believe she is referring to some of the barriers to usage experienced by women: Low literacy prevents women from sending and receiving SMS; economic status and security affects women’s ability to purchase handsets and airtime and may mean having to depend on a male relative or husband for both. In terms of ICTs in general, women’s usage of ICTs is three times less than that of men. It is this that WOUGNET is trying to address in its work in Uganda. For example, in the area of ‘e-agriculture’ WOUGNET has implemented a number of projects, which enhance the livelihoods of women through providing relevant and timely agricultural information to women farmers. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that mobile phones have enabled many women in rural areas, such as farmers, to have more control over their lives through access to timely agricultural related information. Mobile phones are also being used to help women in their literacy and although there are limitations, one should not discount the fact that mobile phones are breaking down some barriers.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Ngolobe highlights the need for ‘sensitisation of men to respect women’s rights and for women to know their rights’ if the barriers to women’s use of ICT are to be overcome. But do you see mobile technology itself as having an important role to play in achieving this sensitisation and awareness?

SOKARI EKINE: Yes, and WOUGNET have taken a number of initiatives to achieve this – such as the ‘16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women’ campaign – through the use of SMS to support online discussions, as well as through community radio where listeners can call or send SMS questions and responses. The point is that mobile phones are available and so are technologies to support campaigns such as sensitisation towards women’s rights. Obviously, if NGOs and CSOs are not using them in this way then we need to find out why and to provide the necessary training and, or financial support. This is where further activist based research is needed.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What have been responses to this book on the African continent?

SOKARI EKINE: It is difficult to tell. There has been a great deal of publicity from bloggers, twitters and facebook, but beyond that I don’t know.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: And Western responses? You have given talks promoting the book in both the US and the UK. Was the reception to the book similar in these countries? Did your UK and US audiences properly understand the relevance of the book?

SOKARI EKINE: The reception in the US was incredible and surprising. I feel there is far more interest in the US around African affairs generally and also grassroots activism. I have only had one presentation in the UK – at Cambridge University – and the response was disappointing. I don’t think the audience – largely academics – really understood the relevance and importance of the book.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: You say that ‘SMS Uprising’ is offered as the ‘beginning’. What path do you hope it will carve?

SOKARI EKINE: I hope activists and academics will build on ‘SMS Uprising’ and particularly examine the sustainability and success of mobiles being used for advocacy and activism. There are hundreds of ‘projects’, but we need to know how successful they are, how much change is really taking place and if that change is breaking down traditional hierarchies or creating new ones. We need to know more about the kinds of projects, campaigns and mobilisation that are taking place. We also need to know the kinds of responses from governments, whether the increasing compulsory registration of subscribers is having an impact on take up and also how repressive governments I have to say though I do hope that whatever research is undertaken is not by outsiders, but those either actively working on the continent or Africans who have a direct interest in the technology. I also hope that the research is participatory and activist based, rather than just an academic exercise, which really does not benefit those working on the ground.



BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Sokari Ekine blogs at Black Looks. More by Sokari.
* ‘SMS Uprising: Mobile Activism in Africa’ is available on the Pambazuka Press website for £12.95.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

When I dare to be powerful

Supporting sex workers’ rights

Zawadi Nyong’o

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/63532

Akina Mama wa Afrika has launched a new book 'When I Dare to Be Powerful', a collection of herstories of five women engaged in sex work in East Africa. This is the first publication of its kind in the region, and seeks to contribute towards African epistemology on sexuality issues, with a particular goal of supporting the sex worker rights movement building agenda.

It was therefore really encouraging to welcome almost 100 people to the launch of this book that is the result of a journey that AMwA begun with a group of sex worker activists almost two years ago. The book captures snippets of the lives of five powerful women who talk about their families, relationships, health, spirituality, and positive and negative experiences with sex work.

Just as the interview and writing process was transformational, so was the event in Addis. As the audience listened to Daughtie Akoth of Kenya and Daisy Nakato of Uganda share parts of their stories, we could see the transformation happening before our eyes. Although one person in the audience assumed that we were ‘preaching to the converted’ it became apparent during the question and answer session that there were in fact a number of people that were engaging with the discussion of sex worker rights for the very first time, and still held negative perceptions about the industry and the people engaged in it. We also later discovered that when Daughtie and Daisy began to speak a lot of people in the room were surprised that there were sex workers in the room, and that they could speak for themselves in a powerful and articulate manner.

The book launch was held immediately after the session titled, ‘Sexual Rights, the Law and Legal Reforms,’ where both Daughtie and Daisy spoke as part of the AMwA panel, led by Christine Butegwa. If nothing else, participants walked away with Daughtie’s basic and yet powerful message – ‘Sex work is not who I am, it is just what I do!’

As a result of the bold activism that both Daisy and Daughtie have been doing on the front-lines of the sex worker rights movement, they have recently been appointed country coordinators for the Pan-African Sex Worker Alliance, through which they will continue to advocate for the sexual health and rights of women all over the continent. What’s more, they both made strong declarations about their long term goals, one of which is to sit on the African Union Commission, and the other is to become a lawyer to defend the rights of sex workers in Africa.

Following such moving remarks, the demand for the expansion of this initiative, to collect the stories of other ‘forgotten’ women in Africa, therefore came as no surprise.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Please contact Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) to request a copy of 'When I Dare to Be Powerful'.
* Zawadi Nyong’o is the author of 'When I Dare to Be Powerful', published by Akina Mama wa Afrika.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Freedom birthday remembrance for Mumia Abu Jamal

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/63546

Dear Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal,

Mumia’s birthday is April 24 and we would like to celebrate the whole month of April with a gigantic Freedom Birthday Remembrance for Mumia Abu Jamal.

Please join Pam and Ramona Africa and all who love and admire Mumia by avalanching him through the month of April with Freedom Birthday wishes. And, to those who can afford to, please send a few dollars through postal money orders. This would be helpful when he is released.

Mail cards to:

Mumia Abu Jamal AM 8335
SCI Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370-8090

Tell your family members, friends, fellow workers, neighbours, classmates, etc. Also, notify progressive radio stations, newspapers and organisations. Please do so immediately as April is almost upon us. Remember what Mumia has endured at the hands of the US government and the Pennsylvania criminal justice system. Mumia has already done 32 years and is still on death row because of prosecutorial misconduct. Yet he is innocent! Act now before it is too late.

Don’t let Mumia become another victim of a government’s destructive history. Mumia’s life is in peril and must be saved. He is needed to teach us how to fight for a better world for all. If ever Mumia was needed, it is now!

Join us in celebrating Mumia’s birthday throughout April and let it be a celebration for Mumia’s freedom!

Remember we need him more than he needs us. We need him, not only for today, but for all the tomorrows coming. Join us. Write to Mumia now.

From Friends and Family of Mumia Abu Jamal

Residency opportunity for a Haitian writer

Judith Bowman

Robey Theatre Company

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/63542

Thanks you for the article noting the tragic passing of Georges Anglade and his wife.

The Robey Theatre Company is interested in offering a short-term writing residency to an emerging writer with permanent residency in Haiti.

The residency would be paid for (travel/room&board/small spending stipend/weekly writing lab @Robey/reading at end of residency).

The writer might also be interested in working with playwright Levy Lee Simon to condense Levy Lee's three-part trilogy about Touissant/Dessalines & Christophe into a shorter work that could be part of a NYC Marathon reading for 2011. Your help in finding such a candidate would be appreciated!

Still fighting for freedom

A response to ‘South Africa’s forgotten intellectuals’ by Marion Grammer

Z. Pallo Jordan

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/63531

In 1935 Cape Town celebrated one hundred years of emancipation from slavery and twenty-five years of George V's reign. Gomas was sentenced to six months' hard labour and Minnie Gool to one month's for distributing an anti-imperialist pamphlet, which, the court ruled, impaired the monarch's dignity.

Gomas issued another pamphlet on behalf of the party, drawing attention to the sham of the centenary. Far from bringing freedom, emancipation made possible a form of servitude many times more subtle and deadly than slavery. The coloured man knew only the freedom to starve; his women were exploited economically by day and sexually by night; his children, reared in slums, grew old and died before their time. 'Without land, bread and equality of opportunity, there can be no freedom. After a century, the non-European must still fight for that freedom which should rightly have been his since 1834.

The gist of this appeared in the preamble to a draft programme of the National Liberation League, founded in December 1935 with Cissie Gool as the president and La Guma as secretary. It was probably the most emphatic and detailed claim yet made to complete equality before the law.
The twenty-three specified aims included demands for equal voting rights and parliamentary representation; no bars to employment in public services or private enterprise; an end to discrimination in school, games, the army and social services; and the removal of bans on sex or marriage which 'legalise the fiction of race inferiority'. Radical in terms of orthodox liberalism, the programme showed no trace of socialist thinking apart from a homily addressed to white workers on 'wage slavery.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

Lost Zion, broken dreams

Amira Ali

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/63493

Naked tracings worn thin of he
who walked miles in thousands of
shoes filled with sorrow,
shoe marks worn away
where he encamped
and where he alighted
on earth that tells the years passed
since the months of peace
gone, to months of what is now,
shoes that speak of dreams in the
West of when paradise was near;

to meet his lover of a far, he
left during the long nights that
desires to go where
the soul withdraws to its home,
to fly forgotten as a dream,
to cover the past with space
he sails on a small boat
in a sea so immense
that transports
dreams after dreams.

Night putting its shadow aside
for soles of the feet to cross
the river to Zion,
the boat awaits to take its guest
to a place of dreams of love, inside
left all; deserting a conduit and heaps
to travel with 7 oceans and
hundreds of millions of stars
swinging; to walk with a million suns
that light up the day
of whole rivers of light,

to swim, in seas of love waves
that shields pain,
to make blankets of dark sand;
sandcastles that shield,
to receive quiet nights
and mornings
that call songs of birds
that sings for souls of dreams,
and he, infix’t
to be one with dreams he becomes
one with everything around,
laughing only to the sky.

Unbending on dreams
he, dwells amid the stocks
of ruins of stone-walls
heading where the imagination
broke in, his entire sky
taken up by
a journey full of unawareness,
continuing; alighted by the affection
of Zion,
he remains a prisoner of his dream
captive to a world beyond knowing.

In the wide-of-eyes
on an open terrain he journeyed
for the love of Zion,
strung out along the route
chased, shadows of hope closing in
crying to his fears,
speaking with the deaf;
the unexpressed rocks,
befriending sands
that speaks of time.

Time that brings out his eclipse
of a spirit of unsullied lucid dreams
of mysteries of Zion,
in silence to join its silent secret place,
he sifts through the current of air
swamped by rains of a night traveler
flowing dark and under, he
enwrapped in every kind of cloud
passing the night
to join the cleared morning
of pearls of the great sky,
to witness nights of dark and under.

Unbroken, he continued
to brake past bonds
to make new ones
on the eastern slopes
to join with Zion,
and even in far holding on
to not brake the bonds of desire
he, pushed by the north winds
to what is the southern tip
of the north Afrik to that
of the northern terrain
of the Bilad as Sudan,

crossing to trade life for what
seemed not death
beyond flutes
of Sudanese tunes,
escaped eternal rest to bathe
in the Nile
to wash blood with sparks of gold,
black dust of the body
walked a mile in cracked
earth to find the feet reluctantly
stuck in cracks of xylophonic tunes of life.

A spirit of unsullied lucid dreams,
mysteries of Zion he meets,
one moment his life a stone
the next
a meet'ng of the land of his lovers;
to be embraced by ashes, cold winds
and blackened hearts of stones
of Zion,
oh closeness to life, hardness of life
to what is now
that grief’d him through journeys,

to at last, to have met his land of lovers
but to be met with phantoms
that creep around
that sting and bring droplets;
each drop for the lost dreams
of Zion;
deceived dreams that makes the heart
brew trouble and anguish,
the departure of paradise
the loss of a longed lover,

his Zion,
aching his heart of a dream
once promised and now lost,
of a friend she may have been
but even she could not keep
her promise to him,
for a well-meant word
could not be taken by she,
a friend he once called;

his heart weeps with no end
for the one he knows
and only loves,
others of a life to come;
more to come
to meet and to attest and
to have to turn their backs, and he,
the aloneness of the deluded soul
broken'n
fades into the distance
kept in the shadows of Zion.
_
BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Amira Ali holds an MA in international relations and conflict resolution. She is a freelance writer, poet and activist.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Paradigm shift for the African Diaspora

Dibussi Tande

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/blog/63491

In Postnewsline, Victor Anjeh says it is time for a paradigm shift in the relationship between African countries and the African diaspora:

'It is thus incumbent on the Governments and those in the Diaspora to adopt a collaborative posture designed to improve the domestic investment climate and better attract active participation by the elements outside of the country. This will begin with the reduction of unfriendly business regulations, lack of transparency in the judicial enforcement of contracts, bureaucracy, corruption, which are all factors that make the local business environment less attractive to foreign, Diaspora and even domestic investors...

'The Diaspora community must learn how to deploy its knowledge base, and pool the intellectual and capital resources of its global network. We should do this to facilitate foreign direct investment in income and employment generating sectors of the local economy. We should also learn to engage home country authorities to promote good governance (in a non adversarial context), and to create an inviting business environment for Diaspora participation.

'We should also actively engage host country business promotion institutions and foster links with host country firms by facilitating access to top management and providing useful insights to market entry for goods and services. While every consideration must be given to the creation of a Diaspora Investment Fund, the most visible support we can offer is to make contributions to “represent and sell Africa in a positive light”. That may turn out to be the most important Diaspora input to national development.'

Kenyan Urban Narrative laments about the negative impact of technology on the Kenyan blogosphere – and analysis that seems to hold true for the rest of the African blogosphere:

'Days I miss: when Kenyan blogs were about stories... The death of Story came when Bloggers turned into professionals- Internet authorities. Suddenly the broadcaster and his equipment became more important than the broadcast.

'By then, many of us had started clocking speaking engagements to talk about blogs and blogging... Who could find time to blog anymore while shuffling from ‘How to set up a blog’- Tech Aid, Kibera- to ‘The future of African blogs’- Afri Tech, New York?

'Meanwhile, words buzzed into meaninglessness: Social media; cyber-activism; citizen journalism and Story died...Tech for Africa became both media and content; all our internet lives became tech.
The ‘social media’ crowd made serious games; the ‘cyber-activists’ made and talked about web tools and gadgets and the ‘citizen journalists’- with the indolence and gravy-train-spotting of their mainstream media kin- followed the social media hacks and the cyberactivists around...
Tech is good and I fully support and admire those who are doing it, but if anyone wants to know: As a storyteller, I struggle with writing; writing is not the way I learnt how to tell stories, so how does innovating Wordpress make my work easier?'

HIV in Kenya explains why leading diseases are less about medicine and more about economic s and human rights:

'According to Dr Marcos Espinal of the Stop TB Partnership, "TB is not a medical problem. It is a development issue. It is an economic problem. It's a human rights situation." And I applaud him for saying this. If developing countries are not allowed to develop (and I would argue that developed countries are doing all in their power to stop them from developing), diseases like TB will not successfully be treated by drugs alone. People in developing countries are poor, they suffer bad health, they receive little or no education, they live in terrible conditions and their human rights are being denied. It is no wonder that TB and many other diseases are rife and increasing.

'I would add that HIV, also, is not just a medical problem, nor is it just a matter of sexual behaviour. Parallel arguments could be used to show that, so far, both HIV and TB programmes have failed to prevent the spread of the diseases and will continue to do so. If you don't deal with the conditions that result in diseases spreading, all diseases, you will not eradicate the diseases. After using little more than expensive pharmaceutical products to treat TB for many years, an estimated 440,000 people are now resistant to commonly used TB drugs...

'So the approach to development and human rights related problem, such as HIV or TB, is to improve education, health, economic circumstances, gender imbalances, employment, infrastructure and many other things. The approach should not be to set up well financed vertical programmes that target single diseases or narrow issues at the expense of other, broader issues.'

[url=http://www.maameous.com/2010/03/who-knew-that-firefox-in-ghana-would.html#more]
What Yo' Mamma never Told You About Ghana[/url] comments about Ghana’s first indigenous language blog:

'I was browsing the internet today and stumbled upon Jojoo's blog. To my delight, I found the blog was written entirely in modern Akan! How awesome, I thought. Now I can improve my akan. So I started devouring the articles.

'The first one I read was bitching about some Chinese folks who have posted signs written in bold Chinese with the English translation in small print. And no Ghanaian language! What I loved about the article was the fact that it was so insider. Y'know...a Chinese man/woman could have stumbled upon the article and not had a clue! But because I can read and understand akan, I got it. Point being, that the target of this article was Ghanaians, and more specifically Akans. It felt really good to be part of some inside group that could decode the language...

'How can local languages gain more prominence in both new and old media. Local language radio has changed our lives. But is this success replicable in other media like newspapers, short stories published in pamphlets and sold cheaply? etc. How can we do this without Akan taking over?

'One of the reasons local languages haven't caught on in print/web is because lots of people cannot read it. Even from the comments, on this post, it seems like some of you checked out Jojoo's blog but had much difficulty reading the text. How to get around this? Is there a place for local languages on the web? If so, where? In entertainment? News? Opinion? Everywhere?'

Myweku showcases beautiful Gele head wraps created by Nigerian designer Segun Olalaye:

'"Gele" is the name given to the head wrap synonymous with the Yoruba in Nigeria. Aso-Oke, Brocade, Hayes Original and Damask are just some of the materials used for a “Gele”.

'Historically, meanings were given to the way a ‘Gele’ was wrapped. To the novice the intricate ‘Gele’ styles may look identical. Some believe that if the right end sticks out it denotes that the wearer is married and if the left end sticks out it means the wearer is single.

'West African women take immense pride in their ‘Gele’ and see it as more than just an accessory. The finest ‘Gele’ can be spotted at the most important events.

'One of the most sought after ‘Gele’ head tie experts is none other than Segun Olalaye, popularly known as Segun Gele! Segun sees his profession as an art. He was born in Nigeria and currently lives in the United States.'

My Heart’s In Africa comments on Makmende, the Kenyan Superhero who has in recent weeks become an Internet and Youtube sensation:

'For the past few days, Kenya’s blogosphere and twitterers have been in thrall to the latest African superhero, and what might be Kenya’s first viral internet meme. An article in a Wall Street Journal blog today confirmed that Makmende is receiving attention beyond East Africa, demonstrating that our Kenyan friends are just as capable as any Moldovan boy band of creating internet buzz.

'The video for Just a Band’s single “Ha-He” features a badass protagonist straight out of blaxploitation films. Armed with an array of freeze-frame kung fu moves, Makmende brings justice to the mean streets of a hazy, sun-drenched city that seems caught somewhere between Nairobi and 1970s LA. Tongue is firmly in cheek, as the video credits introduce characters including “Taste of Daynjah”, “Wrong Number” and bad guys “The Askyua Matha Black Militants”...

'Given the high production values of the video, the fact that it accompanies a sweet track from Just a Band, and that the video producers evidently released a set of photoshopped magazine covers featuring Makmende as GQ’s sole “Badass of the Year”, perhaps it’s not surprising that Kenyan netizens have taken the Makmende trend to the next level. He’s got a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a dedicated website filled with thousands of testimonies to his badassitude: "Makmende uses viagra in his eyedrops, just to look hard."'


BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

China: Not the rogue dam builder after all?

Peter Bosshard

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/63527

In December 2003, China Exim Bank approved US$519 million in loans for the Merowe Dam in Sudan. It thus helped kick off a project that would displace more than 50,000 people from the fertile Nile Valley into desert locations, and for which the Sudanese government had failed to attract funders for many years. China Exim Bank also provided support to projects in Burma that no other funder was prepared to touch. ‘The Bank specialises in financing projects that no other financial institutions would fund’, International Rivers and Friends of the Earth warned in July 2004.

Chinese dam builders wasted no time rolling up the international market. Low costs, access to cheap loans and a big portfolio of domestic projects make them attractive partners for clients around the world. We are currently aware of at least 216 dam projects in 49 countries that have some form of Chinese involvement – and counting. The host countries include Algeria, Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, Zambia and other African nations. The president of Sinohydro recently estimated that his company controls half the global hydropower market.

When it comes to the environment, we have seen significant changes in a short period of time. In response to our alert of July 2004, a manager of China Exim Bank wrote back saying: ‘To my knowledge, [the Bank] actually cares about the environmental issues of its projects. Maybe its standard cannot reach yours or international common practice. Since it is one of export credit agencies in the world it really needs to meet the international practice.’ When I had the chance to meet China Exim’s president two years later, he agreed that his institution shared a responsibility for the projects it funds. The bank adopted an environmental policy in 2004, and published it after a request from NGOs in 2007. More detailed guidelines followed in 2008.

In late 2008 the China Exim President told Deborah Brautigam, an expert on Chinese aid in Africa, that his institution only worked with Western agencies for the assessment of environmental impacts. They were ‘more credible’, the president said, and: ‘We do not want the environment to be an issue.’

Seeing some progress with China’s main financier of overseas dams, we decided to approach the biggest hydropower company next. In February 2009 a coalition of NGOs called on Sinohydro to ‘establish a world-class environmental policy and strengthen its relations with the host communities of its international projects’. In response, Sinohydro’s management invited me to meet with them. In what was likely the first dialogue between a Chinese state-owned enterprise and an international advocacy group, the management expressed a commitment to protecting the environment, and said that they would consider preparing an environmental policy.

Late last year, Sinohydro announced that it plans to get listed at the Shanghai stock exchange. Through an initial public offering (IPO), a company defines its profile for international investors: Does it plan to take on contracts at any cost to the environment? Or does it try to minimise social and environmental risks as a good corporate citizen? We strongly suggested that if Sinohydro wanted to become a world-class brand, it needed to adopt and implement a world-class environmental policy.

China’s ministry of environmental protection needs to clear IPOs of companies in polluting sectors. In early March, the ministry invited the public to comment on the environmental audit report, which Sinohydro had prepared for its public offering. At the same time, Sinohydro informed us that it was now indeed preparing an environmental policy, and invited our recommendations. Working together with partner groups from China and other countries, we again recommended that the company needed to adopt highest international standards if it wanted to become a leading global brand. We will also convey this message to Sinohydro’s potential investors.

Policy changes at the leading Chinese dam builder and financier are important first steps. Yet as we know from other institutions, there is often a big gap between an environmental policy and actual practice on the ground. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. What is happening there?

In December 2009, we learned that Turkey had invited China to build the Ilisu Dam on the Tigris. The Turkish government was looking for support after the German, Austrian and Swiss export credit agencies had pulled out of Ilisu because of social and environmental policy violations. Turkish NGOs and International Rivers immediately wrote to the Chinese authorities to warn against such involvement. Chinese support for the dam would enable a social and environmental disaster in Turkey, and undermine the international efforts to strengthen the social and environmental standards in big infrastructure projects.

Ilisu is a test case for the future role of Chinese dam builders and financiers. We expected China’s involvement to be confirmed by January, but so far, there has been no such news. The Chinese ambassador in Ankara has repeatedly stressed that China was not getting involved in Ilisu. Have Chinese dam builders and financiers indeed opted against this project even if it meant offending an important government and passing up a lucrative deal?

While the jury is still out on Ilisu, we have witnessed progress on the ground in Gabon. With support from China Exim Bank, Chinese investors plan to develop a huge iron ore deposit in the West African country, complete with a hydropower dam, railway line and port. Brainforest, Gabon’s inspiring environmental NGO, sent a letter to the Exim Bank pointing out that the dam was proposed to be built in a national park, and would violate its environmental guidelines. In due course, Brainforest learnt from the Gabonese government that China Exim Bank had suspended the project over environmental concerns. In a separate development, Sinohydro agreed to work together with the Global Environmental Institute, a Chinese NGO, in an effort to address the social and environmental impacts of the Nam Ngum 5 Dam in Laos.

We will not let our guards down. There are serious problems in many ongoing projects. Sinohydro has expressed an interest in extremely problematic projects such as the Gibe 4 Dam in Ethiopia and the Paklay Dam on the Mekong mainstream. And while the biggest actors have begun a process of environmental reform, other Chinese companies disregard social and environmental concerns completely, and are building rogue dams in Burma under horrific conditions. China Southern Power Grid, which is building several dams in the Mekong Basin, has so far ignored all inquiries from civil society.

Even so, the most important institutions in China’s hydropower sector have expressed an interest in following international environmental standards, and are open for civil society concerns. We are happy to acknowledge their progress. We will work to ensure that their policy principles translate into changes on the ground, and that the environmental stragglers fall in line.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Peter Bosshard is the policy director of International Rivers.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

DRC: Chinese investment in Katanga

Johanna Jansson

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/63573

The Chinese presence in the DRC has received a great deal of attention over the past two years. While Sino-Congolese relations started to emerge more decisively in 2004, the ties came into the global spotlight in April 2008 as the signature of a ‘minerals-for-infrastructure’ barter agreement was announced. The much discussed deal is of such magnitude that other facets of Chinese activities in the country have been somewhat overshadowed. Often, this barter agreement and other forms of government-led engagement with the DRC are mistakenly perceived to be linked to the existing market-driven private Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in the country. There are indeed indirect links between the two, since both forms of engagement originate from the restructuring and opening up of China’s economy which spurred Chinese companies to seek opportunities overseas. However, in many other aspects, these two forms of engagement are distinctly different. This article series focuses on analysing the presence and impact of private Chinese entrepreneurs in the country’s south-eastern mineral-rich Katanga province. It draws on field research carried out during 2008 and 2009 in Katanga province, the hub for the Congolese mining sector.[1]

CHINESE PRIVATE INVESTMENT IN THE MINING SECTOR OF THE DRC’S KATANGA PROVINCE

The most important arena for Chinese market-driven engagement with the DRC is the south-eastern mineral-rich Katanga province and its ‘copper capital’, Lubumbashi. The lion’s share of Chinese private FDI to the DRC flows to this area. While there is no comprehensive data available pertaining to the value of these investments, respondents consulted during the field research suggested that many of the Chinese entrepreneurs had invested US$ 1-5 million in their processing plants.[2]Prior to October 2008 when the global economic downturn hit Katanga, a total of around 5,000 Chinese company owners and workers resided in Lubumbashi as well as in the neighbouring ‘mining towns’ Likasi and Kolwezi.[3]

The vast majority of these private actors operated processing plants for copper and cobalt. A number of Chinese entrepreneurs also operated comptoirs, trading houses purchasing ore from Congolese middlemen and selling it on to Chinese-owned and other processing plants. While the exact number of processing companies ran by Chinese nationals at the time is not known, estimations range up to 70 companies.[4] The activities of the processing plants have been criticised on a number of points, a discussion to which we return further below. A few Chinese companies also have mining concessions in Katanga, often in joint ventures with Congolese business actors that may have held mining titles but not the resources needed to initiate exploration and extraction activities. The field research showed that prior to the financial crisis, the majority of these companies were conducting exploration activities and were yet to start full-scale extraction.[5]

The global economic downturn affected the export-dependent Katanga province severely from October 2008 onwards and the Chinese private companies in the area were hit hard. The majority of private Sino-Congolese mining operations and Chinese-owned processing plants were put on hold awaiting better commodity prices. In December 2008, merely five of the Chinese processing companies in the Katanga province were still operating.[6] In April 2009, only around 1,000 or fewer Chinese nationals remained in Lubumbashi, although operations had slowly began to recover with several Chinese processing plants resuming operations on a small scale.[7] By July 2009, most of the around 30 processing plants remained dormant awaiting better market conditions, with 4-5 of them operating on a small scale and 1-2 having gone bankrupt.[8] This situation largely remains as of March 2010. According to a manager of a Chinese processing plant, a few of the companies are currently operating and many of the closed factories are still looked after by Chinese managers and Congolese staff.[9] Given that many of the Chinese entrepreneurs have invested around US$ 4-5 million in their factories, they hope to be able to restart production in the future. The respondent argued that it is however not sure whether these operations will be ever become economically viable again.

The 2008 field research shows that with a few rare exceptions, the private Chinese entrepreneurs that are running businesses in Katanga province do not receive any support from the Chinese government or from China’s policy banks.[10] Many of the Chinese entrepreneurs interviewed stated that they are aware of the idea prevalent notably in Western media that their activities are coordinated and supported by the Chinese government, but that this perception is very far from their reality on the ground in Katanga. Instead, the Chinese entrepreneurs stated that they ventured to the DRC at their own initiative after having identified commercial opportunities in mineral trading and processing in the area. This follows the general trend of Chinese private FDI to Africa as identified by Gu Jing, where a strong entrepreneurial drive is the defining feature among the Chinese private investors present on the continent. She notes that ‘in reality, the ‘going global’ fund allocates very little to firms that invest in Africa’.[11]


IMPLICATIONS OF CHINESE PRIVATE INVESTMENT IN KATANGA: PARALLEL VICTIM NARRATIVES

The DRC’s Katanga province is known to be a challenging environment to live and operate in. Among the provincial elite and the expatriate Chinese working in Lubumbashi, Likasi and Kolwezi I have identified a pattern which I term ‘parallel victim narratives’. This means that on the one hand, the Chinese entrepreneurs in Katanga’s mining sector argue that they as economic actors are highly vulnerable in the opaque Congolese operating environment. On the other hand, provincial Congolese elites contend that the Chinese entrepreneurs are creating a great deal of problems in the area by not abiding to local laws and regulations. There is a plethora of allegations in the discourse around the Chinese entrepreneurs in Katanga and for space constraint reasons I only discuss a few of them here. Moreover, there is currently a lack of comprehensive data exploring these parallel allegations of misconduct and this article’s conclusions must therefore be regarded as preliminary.

In the discussion below I tentatively suggest, based on existing evidence, that there are elements of truth to both the Congolese and Chinese accounts. Most importantly however I argue that beyond the narratives of victimisation, there is also collusion: non-transparent economic relationships maintained between Congolese civil servants and Chinese investors. While these relationships are beneficial to both parties involved, the outcome of this form of collusion is that in reality these investments have brought little to no tangible benefits to the impoverished local population, beyond the temporary employment opportunities offered.

All of the Chinese company representatives interviewed during the 2008 fieldwork argued that it is extremely challenging to operate in Katanga, which they described as a near-lawless environment. They claimed that they are subject to a great deal of everyday harassment from corrupt Congolese government representatives and to abuse from local criminal elements.[12] They argued that they had to pay heavy, random and illicit fines, termed ‘phantom fines’ by one respondent,[13] to local Congolese officials in order to set up a business and to keep it running, extend necessary permits etc. Another Chinese respondent termed the payoffs ‘structural requirements’.[14] One of those fines, shown by the respondent, required that the Chinese company pay over US$ 1 million to Congolese authorities. That particular fine had according to the respondent eventually been negotiated down to US$ 80,000.[15] In February 2009, at the height of the global financial crisis when desperation mounted among the local population of the hard-hit Katanga province, a Chinese manager of a dormant processing plant stated that ‘it is like an American action movie here at the moment. The group of Congolese guards that we have had to hire to protect the factory fight veritable gun battles every night against local gangsters trying to break in’.[16]

It was noted above that the private Chinese companies operating in Katanga have virtually no support from the Chinese government or from China’s policy banks. The Chinese respondents further argued that they get little to no assistance from the Chinese embassy in Kinshasa. One Chinese company manager claimed that one of his colleagues had been arrested by Congolese police in Likasi near Lubumbashi since he had refused to pay a bribe. The respondent argued that when his colleague called the Chinese embassy to ask for assistance, he was told ‘to learn perfect pŭtōnghuà [standard Mandarin Chinese] first, otherwise he could not answer any of his questions’, and then the call was cut.[17] On a later occasion, the same respondent stated that the Chinese embassy in Kinshasa only cares about issues like the DRC’s relationship with Taiwan, ‘if not, they will be sleeping’.[18] It is not clear whether this lack of contact between the Chinese companies in Katanga and the Chinese embassy is a result of a lack of capacity or will from the embassy’s side. When asked about this, the Chinese Ambassador to the DRC Wu Zexian argued that the Chinese Embassy would indeed like to engage more with the companies in Katanga and even establish a Chinese consulate in Lubumbashi, but that such decisions have to come from Beijing.[19]

In this narrative, representatives of the Chinese companies in Katanga portray themselves as victims for a corrupt system that they have to operate in but have no impact over. Even though it is difficult to control for the accuracy of these episodes, the accounts are numerous and detailed and there is reason to believe that the Chinese entrepreneurs as newcomers in Katanga are at the bottom of the area’s pecking order and therefore may be more vulnerable to bullying by rent-seeking local officials than other, more established companies.

However, the Chinese narrative is contested by local Congolese officials and civil society organisations. We will return to the latter’s arguments further below. In direct contradiction with the Chinese account of the situation, Congolese provincial elites argue that many of the Chinese companies create a great deal of problems in the area by not abiding to local laws and regulations. Early 2009, Katanga’s governor Moïse Katumbi claimed that a large number of the Chinese entrepreneurs in the province had deserted their processing plants in an organised move as copper prices fell at the end of 2008. He stated that the Chinese would not be welcome back after the crisis as long as he is the governor, arguing that ‘Katanga is not a jungle’.[20] He was also quoted as saying that ‘[t]hose who left like bandits, who didn’t pay their taxes to the state, who didn’t pay anything, they don’t have their place in my province anymore’, although the companies that left everything in order would be welcome to return.[21]

In response, representatives of the community of Chinese entrepreneurs in Lubumbashi claimed in interviews that these allegations were not justified since this practice had only been confirmed in one out of the 30 companies that had closed down their operations.[22] According to the respondents, representatives for the remainder of Chinese operations were still present in Lubumbashi awaiting better market conditions, although most of the owners had left for China, leaving the factories in the hands of Chinese managers and local Congolese employees. Since these counterclaims have not been investigated by further structured research, we do not yet know the full reality behind this controversy.

At any rate, the narratives of both the Chinese companies and the Katangese government are contested. The NGO Rights & Accountability in Development (RAID) carried out field research in 2008 and 2009 investigating the impact of Chinese operations in Katanga and concluded that the ‘Chinese companies are both the beneficiaries and victims of this system’.[23] On the one hand, the Chinese companies in Katanga provide rare employment opportunities for local Congolese workers in the impoverished province, the value of which has been acknowledged also by Katanga’s governor Katumbi.[24] Further, as noted above, representatives for the Chinese companies have expressed their despair at the harassment directed against them by corrupt local government officials.[25] On the other hand, discontent has been expressed by Congolese workers and civil society representatives over Chinese company representatives’ habit to pay bribes to corrupt local officials ‘get out of situations’, since this is seen to exacerbate the local problem of corruption. RAID notes that ‘Congolese workers spoke about complicity between the Congolese authorities and Chinese companies, and denounced the widespread practice among Chinese managers of bribing labour inspection agents, security services and members of the judiciary as a means of settling labour disputes to their own advantage’.[26] The Chinese companies are thus perceived by the local Congolese population to be in collusion with corrupt local elites, reinforcing the weak rule of law and hampering socio-economic development in the area.


WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR DEVELOPMENT IN KATANGA?

While it must be recognised that the governance situation in Katanga is challenging for investors and difficult for foreign actors to change, it is also important to acknowledge the role that overseas companies play in terms of perpetuating such patterns. Efforts from both Chinese and Congolese stakeholders will therefore be needed in order to come to terms with the situation. In this regard, the Chinese Embassy in Kinshasa could definitely become more active as a liaison between Congolese local government representatives, civil society and the Chinese companies in question. In order to safeguard China’s standing as a responsible international actor, it should be in the Chinese government’s interest to engage with the Chinese expatriate business community in Katanga to address concerns raised by the local population and local civil society. The recently established Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Lubumbashi could be an appropriate starting point in terms of such engagement.[27]

A notion often echoed in discussions around corporate social responsibility (CSR) and Chinese companies’ activities in Africa is that ‘it is not reasonable to expect that Chinese companies should come to Africa and start implementing better standards than they are used to from home’. While such claims have no moral legitimacy - commercial actors cannot be exonerated from the consequences of their actions - the notion definitely holds explanatory power in terms of the CSR performance of Chinese operations in the mining sector of Katanga province. Engaging in CSR activities may not be perceived as a necessity by Chinese company owners and managers. It has been noted that ‘[u]nlike their Western counterparts, many Chinese managers arriving in the Congo are used to witnessing the hardships of migrant workers in China’s cities […]. [T]hey appear to take a fatalistic view of the problems in Katanga, which may in part explain why they do not take action themselves to prevent abuses […]’.[28] Indeed, Chinese company representatives interviewed argued that they do not see the need to invest in local communities ‘because it is unlikely that any additional revenue would be used to rehabilitate the Congo’s dilapidated infrastructure’.[29] This corroborates Jing Gu’s argument regarding the CSR performance of Chinese companies in Africa that ‘[p]art of the cause of this problem is to be found back in China and the issues of corporate social responsibility to be found in the domestic situation.’[30]

Thus, part of the reason why CSR performance is poor in many of the Chinese private operations in Katanga is probably that the Chinese owners and managers simply do not see the need to further improve working conditions or contribute to community development. This being said, they are most certainly aware that local legal requirements have to be fulfilled. Representatives from the Chinese companies in question, particularly the larger operations, have stated in interviews that they indeed seek to respect local Congolese labour- and other regulations as best as they can given the opaque operating environment.[31] However, the above outlined evidence shows that legal obligations are commonly overlooked and it is therefore apparent that intentional neglect also plays a role here. Such acts are more likely to occur in an environment such as the DRC where law enforcement is generally poor. It has been noted that the deliberate disregard by corporate entities of their responsibilities towards their employees, the local community and the environment is not often followed up with legal action.[32] The adherence to regulatory frameworks both on the side of the Chinese investors and the Katangese civil servants therefore has to be radically improved in order for the private Chinese investments in question to contribute to sustainable development of the mineral-rich Katanga province.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Johanna Jansson is an Independent Researcher based in Stockholm, Sweden.
* The author would like to acknowledge Professor Wenran Jiang, co-researcher for the Lubumbashi field research; the Centre for Chinese Studies, Stellenbosch University; the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Oslo; Revenue Watch Institute, New York and the Rockefeller Foundation, New York for enabling the field research undertakings.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] Professor Wenran Jiang was my co-researcher for the Lubumbashi field research.
[2] Interviews, 29.06.2009-02.07.2009, Lubumbashi.
[3] Jansson, Johanna; Burke, Christopher and Jiang, Wenran (2009). ‘Chinese Companies in the Extractive Industries of Gabon & the DRC: Perceptions of Transparency’. August: Centre for Chinese Studies, Stellenbosch University. Page 36-38. Available on http://www.ccs.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Chinese_Companies_in_the_Extractive_Industries_of_Gabon_and_the_DRC._CCS_report_August_2009.pdf
[4] Jansson et al (2009). Op. cit. Page 36.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Author’s telephone interview with a well informed Chinese observer in Lubumbashi, 29.04.2009
[8] Jansson et al (2009). Op. cit. Page 37.
[9] E-mail correspondence between the author and the respondent, 10.03.2010.
[10] Jansson et al (2009). Op. cit. Page 38.
China’s two policy banks, China Agricultural Development Bank and China Export-Import (EXIM) Bank provide financial backing in the form of concessional finance for the Chinese government’s ambition to encourage Chinese companies to invest overseas (c.f. Brautigam, Deborah (2009). The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 78-81). China Development Bank (CDB) was previously a policy bank, but was restructured into a commercial bank in 2008. See further in Xu, Shenglan (2008). ‘China Development Bank goes commercial,’ in China Daily. Published
02.12.2008, accessed 14.02.2010 from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2008-12/02/content_7261101.htm
[11] Gu, Jing (2009). ‘China’s Private Enterprises in Africa and the Implications for African Development’ in European Journal of Development Research Special Issue, Volume 24, Number 1. Page 579.
[12] Jansson et al (2009). Op. cit. Pp 36-38
See also RAID (Rights & Accountability in Development) (2009). ‘Chinese Mining Operations in Katanga Democratic Republic of Congo’, September. Available on www.raid-uk.org Pp 23-26.
[13] Interview, 12.09.2008, Lubumbashi
[14] Interview, 09.09.2008, Lubumbashi
[15] Interview, 12.09.2008, Lubumbashi
[16] Author’s telephone interview, 26.02.2009.
[17] Interview, 15.09.2009, Johannesburg.
[18] E-mail correspondence between the author and the respondent, 17.02.2010.
[19] Author’s interview, 29.09.2008, Kinshasa.
[20] Financial Times (2009). ‘RDC: Chinese copper entrepreneurs flee DR Congo.’ Published 19.02.2009.
[21] Wild, Franz (2009). ‘Congo Copper, Cobalt Miners Restart Production After Price Fall, says Governor Moise Katumbi’ by Bloomberg. Published 02.03.2009.
[22] Jansson et al (2009). Op. cit. Page 37.
[23] RAID (2009). Op. cit. Page 8.
[24] Financial Times (2009). Op. cit.
[25] Jansson et al (2009). Op. cit. Page 38-42.
[26] RAID (2009). Op. cit. Page 8.
[27] A Chinese chamber of commerce was established Lubumbashi in 2008 in response to the Katanga Provincial Government’s suggested rise in export taxes from 1 to 3-10 percent for companies that process minerals which they have not mined themselves. The president of the Chamber is the Chinese CEO of one of the major private copper smelters outside of Lubumbashi. This was reportedly the first time collective action such as this had come about. See further in Jansson et al (2009). Op. cit. Page 41.
[28] RAID (2009). Op. cit. Page 28.
[29] RAID (2009). Op. cit. Page 8.
[30] Gu (2009). Op. cit. Page 583.
[31] Jansson et al (2009). Op. cit. Page 38.
[32] RAID (2009). Op. cit. Page 15.

Pambazuka News 140 : Des bases pour un débat sur l'homosexualité au Sénégal

2010-03-31

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/summaryfr/63453

Electoral and Human rights commissions sworn in

2010-04-01

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=6544&cat=1

President Robert Mugabe swore in members of electoral and human rights commissions on Wednesday, a step toward fully implementing his power-sharing agreement with rival Morgan Tsvangirai. "I think what is important is that we are able to fulfill some of the agreements," Tsvangirai said after the swearing-in ceremony, according to state news agency New Ziana.

Gallery manager and artist arrested over Gukurahundi exhibition

2010-04-01

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news260310/gallery260310.htm

A well known artist Owen Maseko and Voti Thebe, the person in charge of the Bulawayo National Arts Gallery, were arrested last Friday, a day after they launched an exhibition of provocative paintings about the Gukurahundi era.

South Africa: Men battle gender-based violence

2010-04-01

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50853

When Mbuyiselo Botha decided to take the African National Congress League President, Julius Malema, to court for hate speech against women, he was confident from the start that the case had merit. But he also knew that this would be the most challenging test of his 15 years of gender activism.

South Africa: Teaching girls to report on the World Cup

2010-04-01

http://ipsnews.net/newsTVE.asp?idnews=50869

For the nearly 50 million people of South Africa, the 2010 World Cup represents an opportunity to show the world its progress through sports. But for a new nonprofit organisation, soccer's biggest stage also offers an opportunity to publicise young women who tend to go unheard.

Southern Africa: Drug dealers using women ahead of World Cup?

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/wgender/63481

What was supposed to be a joyous day turned into a nightmare for one family, when on Monday morning 1 February, Maria Lungu* arrived at Lusaka International Airport after a two-month long business trip in Asia. Joy turned to shock and disbelief when Lungu was caught and arrested for drug trafficking upon arrival, just meters away from her anxiously waiting husband, children and other family members.
By Perpetual Sichikwenkwe

What was supposed to be a joyous day turned into a nightmare for one family, when on Monday morning 1 February, Maria Lungu* arrived at Lusaka International Airport after a two-month long business trip in Asia. Joy turned to shock and disbelief when Lungu was caught and arrested for drug trafficking upon arrival, just meters away from her anxiously waiting husband, children and other family members.
Drug and security personnel quickly whisked Lungu away, straight to cells where she stayed while awaiting her trial. During trial, Lungu contended she was not guilty, arguing that she was not aware that she was carrying drugs. She said that a man she met at an airport in Mombasa, India asked her to deliver a parcel to his friend in Zambia. Lungu had no tangible proof, and the court found her guilty and sentenced her to five years in prison.
Maria Lungu is not the only one. Currently many women from Zambia and other countries have been caught and arrested at home and abroad for drug trafficking. The rising numbers concern to the Zambian government, the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC), the church, civil society and the community at large, who fear there may be a link to the upcoming World Cup.

Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) Public Relations Officer John Nyawali said the commission is worried about the escalating number of women arrested and prosecuted for drug trafficking. Some are clearly guilty, even inserting drugs in their vaginas to hide the illicit substance. Likewise, on 15 March 2010, Swaziland security personnel at Matsapha International Airport arrested a Zambia woman living in South Africa on her arrival from India, after she swallowed 72 sloops of heroin weighing about one kilogramme.

Airport authorities arrested four other women on 12 March 2010 for allegedly trafficking in pure grade cocaine concealed in their vaginas. One of the four women pleaded not guilty to the charge saying her sister-in-law allegedly forced her and inserted the drugs in her private parts. Still more have been arrested at different intervals.

"From January to date, we have arrested 126 women for drug trafficking. Some have been prosecuted while others are undergoing trial. The increasing number of women being involved in drug trafficking is worrying to everyone. The sharp increase can be said to be the dark side of the upcoming World Cup and the recent African Cup games that were held in Angola," said Nyawali.

Nyawali said women are easy targets for drug barons who themselves do not come in contact with the drugs. "It is difficult to know whether the drug barons that use women for drug trafficking are men or women but women are targeted because they portray less suspicion and they are the most hit by economic hardship," he said.

Nyawali said the drug barons have changing preferences for who to use to courier their drugs. He added, " you may recall that some time back, a number of disabled people were being used in drug trafficking. Then the trend changed to young girls. Now it is adult women between the ages of 20 - 40 who are being used for drug trafficking."

While the DEC has intensified their efforts in curbing the perpetrators of drug trafficking, the upcoming World Cup is viewed as a better opportunity for drug dealers to make money. Nyawali said at the moment, the drug barons are busy bringing drugs to all countries in Southern Africa in preparation for the World Cup. "The drug barons are frequently using women to bring drugs to Africa so that they can pile the drugs and have enough in stock for easy dealing during the World Cup," he said.

Nyawali urges women not to involve themselves in a life threatening business saying there was more life and everything to lose when one in caught in drug trafficking. Nyawali further said while many people were aware about the dangers of drug trafficking, not all women engaged in vice deliberately, as some were duped into the business.

He stressed that there are many consequences. "Apart from being arrested and prosecuted, there are many other consequences that women go through such as psychological effect, stigma from society and the family, health risks which sometimes end into death," he said.

He called on women's lobby groups to come out and speak against drug trafficking to supplement the commission's efforts. The commission has embarked on a massive sensitisation against the vice country wide. Civil society organisations, the church, government, women's groups including Gender and Women in Development Minister Sarah Sayifwanda have condemned the involvement of women in drug trafficking saying it was disgraceful.

While many are engaging in worthwhile business opportunities prior and during the World Cup, it seems that women have again found themselves in the dark side of the World Cup business opportunities. Maybe women cannot not find good and clean business opportunities in the run up to the world cup and are tired of walloping in poverty with desperate needs?

As we are nearing June 11, 2010, it is upon everything women, governments and society to mount massive sensitisation on such vices that can push women to a further corner of disadvantages.

* Perpetual Sichikwenkwe is a writer from Zambia. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service.

Egypt: Death sentences rise with poverty

2010-04-01

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50870

Egyptian courts are handing down death sentences with "alarming frequency" as the state attempts to use capital punishment to stem rising crime rates. Over 269 death sentences were imposed in 2009, up from 86 the previous year. Rights groups say the courts appear to be acting under government pressure to send a strong message to the public.

Global: The right of access to lawyers for persons deprived of liberty

APT Legal Briefing N°2

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/ygpsc5g

Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (“ill-treatment”), in almost all cases, happen in secret. Access to lawyers, as well as to doctors, and contact with friends or family members creates a more open detention environment which helps to prevent torture and other ill-treatment. The right to be protected from torture and other ill-treatment is a fundamental one from which no derogation is permitted. This briefing note is intended to outline the current state of the law in relation to access to legal counsel promptly after deprivation of liberty as a safeguard against torture and other ill-treatment.

Kenya: ICC judges approve investigation

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/yj8pbhm

A majority of a pre-trial chamber of International Criminal Court (ICC) judges today approved the ICC prosecutor's request to open an investigation into Kenya's 2007 post-election violence, Human Rights Watch said. The Kenyan inquiry is the first investigation begun by the prosecutor acting on his own initiative.

Nigeria: Shell apologizes for human rights violations in Niger Delta

2010-04-01

http://shellapologises.com/statement.html

Royal Dutch Shell is holding back the tears no more. Shell apologises to all inhabitants of Nigeria’s Niger Delta for the many years of human rights violations, for which Shell takes full responsibility. Confronted with massive evidence of human rights violations that can only be attributed to its operations in the Niger Delta, Royal Dutch Shell is extremely proud to be the first international petrochemical company to publicly say: We are sorry.

Senegal: Killing babies to hide indiscretion

2010-04-01

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88642

In Senegal women who become pregnant outside of marriage - their husbands living abroad - commonly kill their babies out of fear and shame. Husbands’ absence is one of many factors contributing to infanticide in Senegal, where many young women with unwanted pregnancies see eliminating the child as their only option, authorities and researchers say. Abortion is illegal in Senegal and clandestine abortion is also common.

South Africa: Informal trader’s dreams shattered

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/63485

Informal traders’ hopes of making huge profits during the upcoming World Cup tourist influx were shattered last week when they were ordered to vacate Park Station, a key transit hub in Johannesburg’s central business district. Ironically, the incident occurred during South Africa’s Human Rights Day celebrations; the day South Africa remembers 69 victims from Sharpeville who died during the protest of pass laws.
By Libuseng Nyaka

Informal traders’ hopes of making huge profits during the upcoming World Cup tourist influx were shattered last week when they were ordered to vacate Park Station, a key transit hub in Johannesburg’s central business district. Ironically, the incident occurred during South Africa’s Human Rights Day celebrations; the day South Africa remembers 69 victims from Sharpeville who died during the protest of pass laws.

Mamusa Musa is one of the traders dislodged during the eviction. Musa says that from that day the lives of herself and fellow traders have been an uphill battle. Unlike at Park Station where different travelers pass through hourly making purchases for their journey, the small shack she occupies now is not very profitable. Musa says she struggles to collect R100 a day, meager earnings for someone trying to put food on the table for 13 members of her family.

“We could not believe our lack of fortunate, when on March 21 we were told to vacate the place where we have been selling for many years,” said Musa. “We agree that renovations are important, this is what we were told was the reason our eviction. But the conditions offered to us when we can come back in May was nothing but a polite way of saying never come back.”

Thembela Njenga, Programmes Manager at The Ecumenical Service for Socio-Economic Transformation (ESSET) in Johannesburg, witnessed the misery that the informal settlers faced during their eviction.Njenga said that it is unfortunate that informal traders will no longer enjoy the coming of the soccer games. “For them, this has brought them sorrow, their business are going to collapse. This shows that World Cup here is not for the empowerment of people at grassroots level,” argued Njenga. “They regard their poor people as a shame who need to be hidden away from the sight of the visitors.”

Addressing a gathering during the first Southern Africa Local Government and Gender Justice Summit and Awards held in Johannesburg 22-24 March, Njenga said that the 28 informal traders were asked to pay a rent of R1700 a month when they come in May, which must be brought together with an advancement of two months rent.

The expected rental amount came as a shock to the traders, some cannot even dream of raising that amount of money over a year, let alone in time for the May occupancy. According to Njenga, this sum is impossible for an informal trader to raise; it was just a diplomatic way of getting rid of them. Njenga noted the irony that this happened on the same day that South Africa was celebrating people‘s rights.
Initially, the 28 informal traders at Park Station received a letter notifying them that they must leave their spots due to renovations ahead of the World Cup mega-event. They could come back in May 2010. The actual eviction then took place on March 21

This is not the first instance of removing informal traders from locations where they have traded for years as the World Cup draws near. Njenga said that the same has occurred in Cape Town. In at least some cases the government built shelters for them where they can sell but this has also negatively affected their business, as it is not a busy place.
For the traders, who are mostly women breadwinners of families, this has means their livelihoods have literally been pulled form underneath them. Rather than supporting such marginalised people from making the most of the event, that have been further impoverished and embarrassed.
Njenga explained that informal traders are very clear on what they want; many want to remain informal. Informal trade makes up a huge percentage of the nation’s economy. However, despite this, when by-laws are made, the views of informal traders are ignored.

The story of eviction of street vendors during Summits or other “important” events when countries are expecting visitors has become normal in Southern African countries, but does this mean that for a city to look clean poor people must be further pushed to the fringes ? Or is just hypocrisy of our government trying to appear smarter than they are?
How can street vendors or people selling in our towns make a city dirty? We pass them every day, and most of us make purchases from them all the time, so how can it be that we suddenly decide that they are “undesirable”?
There has been so much concern about crime, has it not occurred to anyone that taking away someone’s source of income may push them to do something they would never otherwise consider? At least these traders are not stealing, and are doing an honest hard days work to put bread on the table.

* Libuseng Nyaka is a journalist with Public Eye News. This article is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service.

Uganda: 400 children die in road accidents

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/yduwobo

At least 400 children, mostly pedestrians, die in road accidents in Uganda every year, the Minister of Works and Transport has announced. 46% of those injured road accidents are urban children and it is twice the percent of falls and burns added together, according to the Injury Control Centre of Uganda report.

Zimbabwe: Terror breaks out in Muzarabani

2010-04-01

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news310310/terror310310.htm

There have been numerous reports from human rights organisations and from the MDC-T of an upsurge of violence in rural areas such as in Mutasa North, Mudzi, Bindura and Masvingo, by ZANU PF sponsored thugs. On Wednesday the pressure group Restoration of Human Rights (ROHR) reported that terror had broken out in Muzarabani, resulting in 16 families fleeing their homes.

Egypt: Still no justice for displaced Baha’i families

2010-04-01

http://eipr.org/en/pressrelease/2010/03/31/712

One year after the criminal attacks on Egyptian Baha’is in the village of Shuraniya in Sohag, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) expressed its disappointment at the Public Prosecutor’s failure to bring the assailants and those who incited the attacks to justice. For one full year, state authorities have yet to bring justice to the victims of the attacks or enable Baha’is forcibly removed from their homes to return

Fahamu launches new Refugee E-Newsletter!

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/63488

Fahamu’s Refugee Programme is pleased to introduce the Fahamu Refugee E-Newsletter, a monthly publication thataims to provide a forum for providers of refugee legal aid.

With a focus on the major geographical areas in the global South (Asia, Africa, Latin America, and non-EU Europe), it aims to serve the needs of legal aid providers as well as raise awareness of refugee concerns among the wider readership of Pambazuka News.

The E-Newsletter will follow recent developments in the interpretation of refugee law; case law precedents from other constituencies; reports and helpful resources for refugee legal aid NGOs; and stories of struggle and success in refugee legal aid work. It welcomes contributions from legal aid
providers, refugees, and others interested or involved in refugee legal aid.

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

Global: Calls to end forced deportations follow custodial death

2010-04-01

http://ipsnews.net/newsTVE.asp?idnews=50860

Human rights organisations have been demanding an independent inquiry into the death of a Nigerian asylum seeker died while being deported and a stop to all forced repatriations. Switzerland's sixth deportation flight of 2010, scheduled for the evening of Mar. 17 with 16 Nigerians on board, never took off. Among the prisoners was Alex Uzowulu, 29, whose asylum claim had been previously rejected.

Global: New Canadian law to kick out bogus refugees

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/ydhd2m3

To throw out bogus refugee claimants, Canada has introduced a new bill that will usher in a new system within a year. Though Canada accepts about 260,000 new immigrants each year legally, thousands of people entering this country on tourist visas or fake papers stay back to apply for refugee status on grounds of persecution in their home countries.

Kenya: Government to expand Africa's biggest refugee settlement - U.S. official

2010-04-01

http://www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/55866/2010/03/1-131330-1.htm

Kenya will expand Africa's biggest refugee settlement to accommodate an additional 80,000 people, relieving severe overcrowding, a top U.S. official said. Dadaab, a settlement of three camps in northern Kenya, was designed to house 90,000 refugees but now hosts 270,000 people - one of the world's largest concentrations of refugees.

Somalia: Situation of IDPs "at its worst" as aid runs out

2010-04-01

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88605

As more aid groups pull out of camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) and more people flee Mogadishu to escape the violence, the plight of IDPs is at its most extreme, says a doctor-turned-relief-worker in Mogadishu. "[Relief] aid is at its lowest and the need is even greater than at any time," Hawa Abdi, who turned her 26ha property into an IDP camp, told IRIN on 29 March.

South Africa: Zimbabweans living in squalor

2010-04-01

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news310310/zimsinsa310310.htm

Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans living in South Africa are still living in desperate squalor, in a country that offers them no official sanctuary. This is according to a new report released by the Solidarity Peace Trust, titled: “Desperate lives, twilight worlds - how a million Zimbabweans live without sanction or sanctuary in South Africa.” The report released on Wednesday details the dire reality facing Zimbabwean immigrants who fled their country seeking safety and work in South Africa, a trend that is still continuing.

Launch of CSO Net - the Civil Society Network

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/socialmovements/63501

With an increasing number of civil society organizations seeking consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, the NGO Branch of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), is increasingly being called upon to engage with these organizations worldwide on a wide range of issues on the United Nation’s development agenda. There is now a growing demand from organizations from both the developed and developing countries to contribute to the UN’s economic and social agenda, including to the internationally agreed development goals. In order to facilitate this engagement and provide a suitable platform for civil society, UNDESA has launched a knowledge-based, open networking platform called CSO Net - the Civil Society Network
With an increasing number of civil society organizations seeking consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, the NGO Branch of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), is increasingly being called upon to engage with these organizations worldwide on a wide range of issues on the United Nation’s development agenda. There is now a growing demand from organizations from both the developed and developing countries to contribute to the UN’s economic and social agenda, including to the internationally agreed development goals. In order to facilitate this engagement and provide a suitable platform for civil society, UNDESA has launched a knowledge-based, open networking platform called CSO Net - the Civil Society Network, which is designed to facilitate interaction among civil society groups worldwide, Member States and UN system agencies. The aim is to: share and promote best practices in the field of economic and social development; establish innovative and collaborative development solutions; facilitate partnerships among the users of the portal; and promote interactive discussions through online forums on issues of immediate relevance to the UN’s agenda. This portal can be accessed here.

Visit the portal and explore ways that your organization can contribute to and engage effectively with the NGO Branch and the United Nations system as a whole. The multiple features of the portal provide numerous tools, sources of information and news about civil society and the UN that are designed, as much to inform you about the UN’s work, and as much as to highlight and facilitate civil society contribution to the UN’s development goals. We look forward to reinforcing our partnership with civil society in order to deliver on our global commitments. To that end, we very much look forward to your suggestions, feedback and recommendations on the use of this portal and the way forward.

Department of Economic and Social Affairs
United Nations

Angola: Building firms lay off thousands on government arrears

2010-04-01

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE6300L320100401

Thousands of construction workers are being laid off in Angola because the government has failed to settle over $2 billion in arrears to foreign firms rebuilding the African nation, a union leader said on Thursday. Francisco Jacinto, leader of the country's largest union CGSILA, said the arrears and a slowdown in the construction sector were the two main reasons behind the lay-offs.

China leads G-20 members in clean energy finance and investment

2010-04-01

http://www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=57972

For the first time, China led the United States and other G-20 members in 2009 clean energy investments and finance, according to data released by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Last year, China invested $34.6 billion in the clean energy economy – nearly double the United States’ total of $18.6 billion. Over the last five years, the United States also trailed five G-20 members (Turkey, Brazil, China, the United Kingdom, and Italy) in the rate of clean energy investment growth.

China Mobile says investment interest in Asia, Africa

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/63599

China Mobile, China's largest mobile operator, is looking at possible acquisition and investment opportunities in Asia and Africa as profit growth slows at home, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Wang Jianzhou. Meanwhile, Wang stressed that any expansion through acquisitions would be balanced with continued investments in its home market because there is still huge growth potential in mainland China.
China Mobile, China's largest mobile operator, is looking at possible acquisition and investment opportunities in Asia and Africa as profit growth slows at home, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Wang Jianzhou. Meanwhile, Wang stressed that any expansion through acquisitions would be balanced with continued investments in its home market because there is still huge growth potential in mainland China. "Rising competition has already hurt our profitability. The company wants to look for additional growth and opportunities overseas," said Wang.

Significance: The comments come at a time when China Mobile appears to be taking a more aggressive approach on acquisitions. The company has this March agreed to purchase a 20% stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank for US$5.83 billion as it seeks to expand into the mobile money market; its plans to purchase a 12% stake in Taiwan's Far EasTone Communications, however, remain on hold, as it is still uncertain whether the Taiwanese government will give the go-ahead to the deal. Previously, the speed of China Mobile's overseas expansion had been slow. So far, the world's largest mobile operator by subscribers has invested only in Hong Kong and Pakistan.
© Copyright 2010 GLOBAL INSIGHT, Inc.

East Africa: NuMobile announces wireless broadband network rollout

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/63600

NuMobile, Inc. (OTCBB: NUBL) is scheduled to begin work on a project constructing a wireless broadband network in Nairobi, Kenya next month. Through the joint project with Greenfield Program Partners NewMarket Technology, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: NWMT), China Crescent Enterprises, Inc. (OTCBB: CCTR) and Nova Energy, Inc. (OTCBB: NVAE), NuMobile will take part in the implementation of the wireless broadband network, intended to provide a wireless metering capability to local utility companies.
NuMobile, Inc. (OTCBB: NUBL) is scheduled to begin work on a project constructing a wireless broadband network in Nairobi, Kenya next month. Through the joint project with Greenfield Program Partners NewMarket Technology, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: NWMT), China Crescent Enterprises, Inc. (OTCBB: CCTR) and Nova Energy, Inc. (OTCBB: NVAE), NuMobile will take part in the implementation of the wireless broadband network, intended to provide a wireless metering capability to local utility companies. The survey and design phase of the project have already been completed, and in April, the project is scheduled to move on to the construction phase in the first region. After successful completion of the testing phase, the wireless broadband project is expected to expand throughout Nairobi, followed by expansion to additional cities and countries throughout East Africa. The project team plans to report on the project's progress via intermittent Internet delivered multimedia presentations while on the ground in Nairobi.

sourced from CNN

Emerging Powers news roundup

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/63496

How Africa is Becoming the New Asia
China and India get all the headlines for their economic prowess, but there’s another global growth story that is easily overlooked: Africa. In 2007 and 2008, southern Africa, the Great Lakes region of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, and even the drought-stricken Horn of Africa had GDP growth rates on par with Asia’s two powerhouses. Last year, in the depths of global recession, the continent clocked almost 2 percent growth, roughly equal to the rates in the Middle East, and outperforming everywhere else but India and China. This year and in 2011, Africa will grow by 4.8 percent—the highest rate of growth outside Asia, and higher than even the oft-buzzed-about economies of Brazil, Russia, Mexico, and Eastern Europe, according to newly revised IMF estimates. In fact, on a per capita basis, Africans are already richer than Indians, and a dozen African states have higher gross national income per capita than China. Read more

Rice is nice but not for long
he organizers of a week-long African Rice Congress in Bamako, capital of Mali, say African countries can decrease hunger and save millions of dollars if they wean themselves off rice imports and increase local production, but experts favour a “drastic” move away from rice to native grains. Read more

Indians and Chinese worst environment regulation violators
INDIAN and Chinese investors are the worst violators of environmental regulations set by the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA). NEMA chief Aryamanya Mugisha said developers from the two countries often do not follow the conditions set by NEMA when awarding them permits to operate in fragile eco-systems. Read more

Gaddafi says Nigeria should split into several states
He said Nigeria should follow the model of Yugoslavia, after previously saying it should be divided into two - along the lines of India and Pakistan. He recently said Nigeria should be split into a Muslim and a Christian country to end communal clashes. Read more

EU forgives Gaddafi, Africa still angered
Both the European Union (EU) and the US have issued humiliating apologies to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, thus normalising ties and securing further investments in Libya’s vast oil sector. Meanwhile, African leaders are still shocked by Mr Gaddafi’s proposals to split Nigeria. Read more

EAC steps up preparations for 3rd EAC investment conference / World Bank to launch report on doing business in the EAC at Conference

The Conference theme; EAC Common Market: The preferred Investment Destination for Expanded Opportunities, is a reflection of the trajectory the EAC integration project has taken, with the EAC Common Market Protocol set to come into effect in July this year. Read more


CHINA in AFRICA

Sinopec to buy Angola oil field stake for $2.46 billion
Asia’s top oil refiner, Sinopec, will buy a stake in an Angolan oil field for 16.77 billion yuan ($2.46 billion) to boost the company’s crude oil production, Sinopec announced March 29. Read more

China Exim values cooperation with Africa
The Export-Import Bank of China (China Exim), an international cooperation bank, highly values its commercial ties with Africa, bank governor Li Rougu has reaffirmed. The ties are developing in line with the Chinese foreign policy towards the continent and the development strategy of African countries, the bank chief told Xinhua in an interview this week.
"China Exim will continue to support the Chinese companies to participate in construction of infrastructure and basic industries which will eventually help to increase the capacity of African countries to develop," he pledged. Read more


China to support oil sector in Uganda
China is increasingly looking beyond Africa's established markets to tap into opportunities in Uganda, which is expected to become a crucial new frontier in the continent's oil industry. Read more

South Africa eyes Uganda’s oilfields
President Jacob Zuma said yesterday 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


Top Chinese political advisor makes proposal, meets Namibian leaders to strengthen ties
Jia, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top advisory body, said both countries should consolidate their long-standing friendship to deepen mutual political trust, and strengthen economic and trade cooperation to realize win-win results. Read more


China-Africa Development Fund opens office in Ethiopia
The China-Africa Development Fund (CADF) on Tuesday opened representative office in Addis Ababa, which aims at boosting China-Africa development cooperation. Read more


China and South Africa have great co-operation potential
China and South Africa, two influential developing countries, have great potential to develop bilateral cooperation, Chinese Ambassador to South Africa Zhong Jianhua said. In a recent interview with Xinhua, Zhong said both countries attach great importance to developing bilateral ties and have obtained remarkable achievements in cooperation in politics, economy and trade, culture and education. Read more


China wants to evolve military cooperation with Angola
A high rank delegation from the chinese defense ministry arrived wednesday on a four day official visit to identify possible fields of cooperation with the angolan government. Read more

For Kenya, exports to China key to better relations
Despite its growing political and economic might, China has become the bashing boy for struggling businesses worldwide, especially in America and Europe, who feel they are being upstaged in almost everything by the Asian giant. In Kenya, much of the criticism against China comes from manufacturers who claim the country does little to stem the flow of counterfeit goods. Read more

China and South Africa pledge to upgrade strategic partnership
The pledge was made between China's top political advisor Jia Qinglin and Mninwa Mahlangu, the chairman of the National Council of Provinces of South Africa at Cape Town. Read more

Rwanda's RPF and China's CCP cement ties
A senior member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Gao Shiqi, and the Secretary General of Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), François Ngarambe, yesterday signed an agreement aimed at taking the existing relations between the two parties to a higher level. Read more

Ugandan President’s new office block queried
Queries are being raised over the quality of the new Shs50 billion twin-tower office building to house the President and Prime Minister’s offices after it emerged that its construction has reached the sixth floor without supervision. Read more

The China storm: Tales of missed opportunities
China’s growing dominance in key infrastructure projects is hard to miss. The chief contractor in almost every major road project in Central Kenya and beyond is now Chinese. Read more

More Chinese investment heads to Luanshya, Zambia
CHINA Nonferrous Mining Group Corporation (CNMC) will inject US$300 million more into the operations of China Nonferrous Metal Company Luanshya Copper Mines (CLM) to expand production at the mine. CNMC president Luo Tao said in an interview upon arrival at Ndola International Airport yesterday that his company had always prioritised development in Zambia and that the injection of the $300 million into the Luanshya mine was aimed at expanding and improving production at the mine. Read more


INDIA in AFRICA

Afro nations seek farmers' help for food security
The African nations have invited Punjab's farmers and agri-industry to join hands to ensure food security and strengthen agriculture production by providing technical knowhow, expertise and investment flow in return for use of their land and mineral resources. Read more

India eyeing agri-business in Africa
A delegation of ambassadors and high commissioners from several African countries such as Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Mozambique is visiting Punjab. The delegation will attend a conference and business meeting in Patiala Saturday.
"Foundation for enhancing India-Africa relations was laid during the Africa-India Summit that was organized by the government of India in 2008. Since then we have improved the bilateral relations manifold," the minister said. Read more

IPL in South Africa did diplomatic wonders for India
The second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) held in South Africa in April last year proved to be one of the biggest diplomatic exercises in that country, a senior diplomat said here on Monday. Read more

Africa's Fight Against Infant Mortality to be Inspired by India
A scheme that saw infant mortality reduced by 54% in Uttar Pradesh is all set to be replicated in Africa. The Saksham project in Shivgarh district of UP will be initiated in African countries like Malawi, according to Melinda Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Read more

Indian fellowships and teachers are playing a major role in spreading education in Ethiopia
With fellowships under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme, popularly known as ITEC, 'steadily increasing', a record number of 90 fellowships were given to Ethiopians last year. Read more

Africa looks up to Punjab for 'green revolution'
African countries are eyeing Indian technology and expertise, especially from Punjab, to bring in a green revolution that will help them ensure food security and even export food grains to other countries. Read more


Other Emerging News


Turkish President Wraps Up Successful African Tour
President Abdullah Gul returns home after signing bilateral agreements with his Cameroonian host, President Paul Biya. They include promises to cooperate more closely in agriculture and to permit visa exemptions for Cameroonians holding diplomatic and service passports. Read more

Japan's and China's rivalry leaves Kenya with contract billions
Kenya has become the latest beneficiary of the battle heating up between Japan and China for control of Africa’s economic landscape, raking in billions of shillings in new project finance and grant funds in the past two years. Read more

Developer Defends Ethiopian Hydro Project
Responding to complaints about the Gibe III hydroelectric dam project in Ethiopia, Salini Costruttori, the Italian hydropower developer behind the project, issued a statement late last week arguing that the project’s critics are opposed to Africa’s development. Read more


South Africa expects delayed returns on World Cup
The government and private entrepreneurs have spent millions renovating airports and building roads, bus and rail systems, hotels and stadiums for the monthlong tournament. In the short-term, the World Cup is a money-losing proposition, but South Africans are hoping for a payoff in the future. Read more


Temasek, Seeking Mining Assets, Invests $100 Million in Platmin
Temasek Holdings Pte agreed to buy $100 million of convertible debt in Platmin Ltd., the South Africa-based platinum miner controlled by Brian Gilbertson’s Pallinghurst Resources Ltd. The Singapore state-owned investment company, through its Ridgewood Investments (Mauritius) Pte unit, agreed to buy the convertible debenture from Platmin. Read more

Uganda's oil industry
South Africa's President Jacob Zuma visited Uganda this week with a business delegation, some of whom, according to a Ugandan official are keen to invest in the east African country's budding oil sector. Read more

Nigeria: Mobile penetration, less than 50%
Although Nigeria is known today as the largest mobile market on the African continent, it still has a mobile penetration level of less than 50%, suggesting that there is ample room for market expansion, this according to a recent study conducted by Canadian research firm Technology Strategies International, in partnership with BroadGroup TMT Ventures. The report, titled “Investment Opportunities in the ICT Sector in Nigeria: 2010”, also suggests that there is massive opportunity to improve fixed line and internet penetration in the country. Read more


EVENTS

IST-Africa 2010 Conference & Exhibition, 19 - 21 May 2010, Durban, South Africa
IST-Africa 2010 will focus on the Role of ICT for Africa's Development and specifically on Applied ICT research topics addressing major societal and economic challenges, which is part of the European Commission's Information Communications Technologies (ICT) Theme of FP7. The Conference Programme combines strategic keynote presentations, technical and policy papers, case studies, workshops, an exhibition and social activities.
Online payment registration is open with Presenter registration due by 05 March and Early Bird registration available up to 12 March 2010. The Call for Exhibitors is open with a deadline of 05 March. Read more


5th International Conference on on ICT for Development, Education and Training, 26-28 May 2010, Lusaka, Zambia
This year’s eLearning Africa, the fifth in the highly successful series of pan-African gatherings, will take place in Zambia under the patronage of the Zambian Minister of Education, the Honourable Ms Dora Siliya. From May 26th – 28th, 2010, the Continent’s largest annual assembly of eLearning and education professionals from Africa and beyond will convene in the capital, Lusaka. Read more


Common Market for East and Southern Africa States (Comesa) will hold an investment forum in April
The two-day forum, which is expected to equip investors and business leaders with a clear understanding of the opportunities and benefits of working and investing in Comesa member states, will take place in Egypt between April 12 to 13. Read more

Whitman School hosts ‘Entrepreneurship in Africa’ Conference April 2-3
he Africa Business Program, part of the Kiebach Center for International Business in the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University, will host the inaugural “Entrepreneurship in Africa” conference April 2-3 with scholars from across the globe leading discussions on entrepreneurship as it relates to business and investment opportunities on the continent. Through paper presentations, panel discussions and keynotes addresses, the conference will seek to create an understanding of the pivotal role of entrepreneurship in Africa’s economic development. Read more

Opinion


Top African Countries to do Business
Most African business venture are now in the process of business transformation. Some failed, and some are still striving. Generally speaking, African region has evolved from a risky business place to a very profitable one. Most African countries are hailed as more competitive nations in the entire globe. Investment in Africa was foreseen as the most alluring trend in every foreign economy. Read more

Africa is destination next for India Inc (Comment by Sushma Ramachandran )
The move by India's top telecom player Bharti Airtel to acquire the African assets of Kuwait's Zain marks the biggest foray of a domestic company into the continent. The landmark deal, estimated at $10.7 billion, raises the level of Indian investments in Africa to $16.7 billion. Read more

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS


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

Scholar commends Rwanda-China relations

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/63601

A director at the Institute of West Asian & African Studies at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Dr. He Wenping, has hailed the prevailing good relations between Rwanda and China. Wenping, who is in charge of African Studies, made the observation while presenting a paper on China-Africa Relations in the Era of Globalization during a public lecture at Kigali Institute of Education (KIE).
A director at the Institute of West Asian & African Studies at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Dr. He Wenping, has hailed the prevailing good relations between Rwanda and China.
Wenping, who is in charge of African Studies, made the observation while presenting a paper on China-Africa Relations in the Era of Globalization during a public lecture at Kigali Institute of Education (KIE).
Addressing the lecture, organised by Confucius Chinese language Institute, Dr. Wenpig said that the future of Rwanda-China relations is bright.
She revealed that the youth are the driving force for taking forward this relationship.
“However, there is a need to establish an economic and promotion centre in both countries in order to expand and strengthen economic cooperation as well as people-to-people and cultural exchanges,” Wenping added.
“Learning Chinese is the key for grasping the historic opportunity and building the bridge between China and Rwanda, language barrier is one of the biggest challenges, Chinese youth should learn English, French and Kinyarwanda as well”
She added that China plans to launch a China-Africa joint research and exchange program to increase exchanges and cooperation, share development experience, and provide intellectual support for formulating better cooperation policies by the two countries.

New Times

Africa: Sudan’s rigged elections

2010-04-01

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6601&l=1

Even as opposition parties threaten a last-minute boycott, Elections in Darfur and the Consequences of a Probable NCP Victory in Sudan , this latest policy briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines how the National Congress Party (NCP) has manipulated the 2008 census, drafted the election laws in its favour, gerrymandered electoral districts, co-opted traditional leaders and bought tribal loyalties. It has done this everywhere in Sudan, but most dramatically in Darfur, where it has greater freedom and means to carry out its strategy because of the ongoing conflict.

Guinea-Bissau: Army head 'seized'

2010-04-01

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8599070.stm

A group of army officers in Guinea-Bissau is reported to have detained the chief of staff and the prime minister. Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior was set free after several hours. The whereabouts of President Malam Bacai Sanha are unknown. Heavily armed troops attempted to gain access to the UN headquarters, where a former head of the navy had fled.

Kenya: ICC prosecutor to begin investigation

2010-04-01

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhJevNs2s-s

Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the International Criminal Court prosecutor, is set to begin an investigation into the 2007-08 post-election violence. He talks to Al Jazeera about how victims and witnesses will be assured given protection.

Mauritius: Mauritian PM dissolves parliament

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/yawjshs

Mauritian Prime Minister, Navin Ramgoolam, on Wednesday evening announced the dissolution of parliament and the holding of legislative elections on 5 May. Speaking to journalists, he said the elections would be “a democratic rendez-vous" for the country and praised his government's achievements.

Nigeria: 'Era of coups in West Africa over'

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/ycj3ah9

ECOWAS Commission President James Victor Gbeho has decla red that the 'era of coups is over' in West Africa, following years of political instability highlighted by military intervention in the governance of member states.

Nigeria: Senate clears 38 ministerial-nominees

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/yce6xgm

The Nigerian Senate has cleared 38 ministerial nom inees for appointment into the federal cabinet, paving the way for Acting President Goodluck Jonathan to sw ear them into office and give them portfolios. The clearance of the nominees marked the end of three days of screening by the upper legislative chamber.

Sudan: Ruling party accused of rigging elections in Darfur

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/ye62vju

An international think tank has accused Sudan’s ruling party of trying to rig elections in war-torn Darfur region, as the country prepares for its first multi-party polls in 24 years. The International Crisis Group said voter registers for the April 11 to 18 polls had been manipulated, constituencies based on a flawed 2008 census and the election commission staffed with too many pro-government officials, in a report released late on Tuesday.

Western Sahara: Impasse continues despite UN diplomacy

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/ychmax9

Talks on the fate of the Western Sahara remained stalled last week as the UN envoy charged with facilitating diplomacy, Christopher Ross, wrapped up his regional tour. Ross, whose eight-day visit to Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Sahrawi camps ended in Algiers on Thursday (March 25th), said that while concerned parties "stressed their willingness to pursue the course of negotiations", their stances remained far apart.

Africa: Africa may have lost £1tn in illegal flows of money, researchers say

2010-04-01

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/01/africa-illegal-money-lost

More than £1tn may have flowed out of Africa illegally over the last four decades, most of it to western financial institutions, according to a new report. Even using conservative estimates, the continent lost about $1.8tn (£1.18tn) – meaning Africans living at the end of 2008 had each been deprived of an average of $989 (£649) since 1970, according to the US-based research body Global Financial Integrity (GFI).

South Africa: Government lacks resources to fight corruption

2010-04-01

http://www.afrol.com/articles/35826

The South African office of the Public Protector has more vicious teeth than anyone ever imagined, but what lacks are the resources to expedite the duty without hindrance. This is what the newly appointed public protector in South Africa, Advocate Tuli Madonsela, told the media yesterday following her consultations that took her and her team across the breath and width of the country.

Africa: Growth down, unemployment up

2010-04-01

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=50866

Due to the global economic and financial crisis, growth on the African continent dropped to an average of 1.6 percent in 2009, compared to 4.5 percent in 2008. These figures were announced by Abdoulie Janneh, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), at a joint annual conference of the African Union and UNECA in Malawi’s capital of Lilongwe.

East Africa: Uganda says won't need fuel imports in 5 years

2010-04-01

http://af.reuters.com/article/investingNews/idAFJOE6300KN20100401

Uganda expects to stop importing fuel in five years when the east African nation anticipates to start fully producing petroleum products from a planned refinery, a senior government official said on Thursday.

Global: Agricultural research must be transformed

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/yakl24d

More than one billion people in the developing world suffer chronic undernourishment and without radical changes to global agricultural research systems another billion risk going hungry, says Uma Lele, writing in Science. At the first Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD) this week, world leaders in science and society will gather to organise these crucial changes (see Global summit seeks to transform agricultural research).

Global: Recovery could leave behind world's poorest

2010-04-01

http://ipsnews.net/newsTVE.asp?idnews=50861

The world's 49 least developed countries (LDCs), described as the poorest of the poor, could feel the effects of the global economic crisis for decades, a senior U.N. official warned this week. Under-Secretary-General Cheick Sidi Diarra told IPS that if the international community does not live up to pledges made under Brussels Programme of Action nearly a decade ago, even the small gains made during 2000-2008 could be reversed.

Nigeria: Academies 'don't contribute enough to development'

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/y92vq2w

The Nigerian government is pushing its national academies to re-align their priorities following criticisms of their perceived lack of contribution to sustainable development. The Federal Ministry of Science and Technology met with the representatives of the five national academies — the Nigerian Academy of Science, Nigerian Academy of Engineering, Social Sciences Academy of Nigeria, Nigerian Academy of Education and Nigerian Academy of Letters — earlier is month (1 March) to address the situation.

Southern Africa: SACU to speak in one tone on EPA

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/yzwstfc

After months of varying views on the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), member states of the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) have finally taken a “harmonised” position on the matter when the next round of negotiations with the European Commission (EC) begins.

Africa: Pneumococcal vaccine works even in HIV patients

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/yblvhtp

Trials of a vaccine against the most common cause of pneumonia and meningitis — both leading causes of death in HIV sufferers in Africa — have proved so successful that scientists say it could be a major breakthrough in combating the diseases. The new vaccine protects against Streptococcus pneumoniae which causes pneumonia and, when it invades the bloodstream and brain, causes septicaemia and meningitis.

Global: Cheap antibiotic halves risk of death in first 18 months of ART

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/ydd33zk

Use of cotrimoxazole, a cheap and widely available antibiotic, cut the death rate by half in the first 72 weeks on antiretroviral therapy in over 3,000 HIV-infected, symptomatic and severely immunosuppressed patients in Uganda and Zimbabwe, Sarah Walker and colleagues reported in an analysis of the DART trial published on March 29 in the online edition of The Lancet.

Global: Scientists in sleeping sickness 'breakthrough'

2010-04-01

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8597774.stm

Scientists say they have identified a potential treatment for sleeping sickness, a killer disease that infects about 60,000 people in Africa a year. British and Canadian experts say drugs could attack an enzyme the parasite causing the illness needs to survive.

Global: Seeking funds to fight neglected diseases

2010-04-01

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50873

Experts from around the world are trying to attract attention to deadly but little-known illnesses, such as Chagas disease, visceral leishmaniasis and sleeping sickness, that have been neglected by the pharmaceutical industry. So-called neglected tropical diseases, which also include malaria, dengue fever and schistosomiasis, in conjunction with tuberculosis are responsible for 11.4 percent of the global burden of illness, but only 1.3 percent of the 1,556 new drugs registered between 1975 and 2004 were specifically developed for these diseases.

South Africa: Outbreak of Rift Valley fever affecting humans

2010-04-01

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34253

Dozens of farmers, veterinarians and farm workers have been infected with Rift Valley fever in South Africa, and at least two people have died, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) has reported.

Africa: Education in Africa: Challenges and success stories

2010-04-01

http://www.elearning-africa.com/newsportal/english/news229.php

High-quality education is the foundation for success and growth. There is a need for empowered teachers, strong school leaders, better curricula, and the ability for students to connect with one another and the rest of the world, says Anthony Salcito, Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector – Education, Microsoft.

Kenya: Primary education under the gun

2010-04-01

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50874

The children are afraid. There are armed bandits hiding with stolen animals in the thickets behind Nawoyaregae Primary School in Kaputir Location. Cattle rustling and gory battles between the neighbouring Turkana and Pokot communities are the order of the day in this area, some 700 kilometres northwest of Nairobi. A long tradition of cattle raiding has been sharpened by competition over grazing land and water.

North Africa: Morocco mobilises pupils to recruit peers for school

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/y9y862c

Morocco plans to train schoolchildren to help lure other youngsters into the classroom under a government initiative aimed at boosting enrolment rates. Some 500,000 schoolchildren will be trained to take part in the "Child for Child" census-taking programme that the Department of Education launched on Thursday (March 25th). Students aged 6-15 will work with teachers and officials in April and May to encourage youth who are not enrolled in school to return to their studies.

South Africa: Dr. Shock must be brought to book

2010-04-01

http://www.mask.org.za/article.php?cat=southafrica&id=2542

Gender DynamiX has asked victims of Dr Aubrey Levin, well known during the apartheid era for using electric shock to “cure” homosexual soldiers, and recently arrested on charges indecently assaulting his male patients, to come forward in order to strengthen the case against him. Also known as Dr Shock, Levin is a psychiatrist who left South Africa for Canada in the 1990’s amidst charges of chemically castrating gay men as part of their therapy and had been identified by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) as having committed “gross human rights abuses.”

Global: Over 110 nations back Copenhagen climate deal

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/ygxm9l2

More than 110 nations, including top greenhouse gas emitters led by China and the United States, have backed the non-binding Copenhagen Accord for combating climate change, according to the first formal UN list. The list, including countries from Albania to Zambia, helps end weeks of uncertainty about support for the deal, agreed at an acrimonious summit in the Danish capital in December. The list was compiled by the United Nations Climate Change Secretaria

Africa: Farmland leases threaten to drive conflict

2010-04-01

http://farmlandgrab.org/11923

Large-scale leases of African farmland by foreign investors risk driving conflict and fueling corruption in the region, farm experts said Monday at a conference on agricultural research and development. But if regulations for responsible foreign land investment can be drafted and followed, such leases could provide a much-needed cash infusion for African agriculture which has struggled to find investment elsewhere, they said.

West Africa: Nigeria seeking Gulf farmland investment

2010-04-01

http://farmlandgrab.org/11930

Countries seeking food security and will allow investors to export all of their produce, the head of a private Nigerian agriculture consultancy firm said on Monday. Gulf Arab countries reliant on food imports have intensified efforts over the last year to buy land in developing nations ranging from Pakistan to the Sudan and Ethiopia.

Global: More food, except For that billion or so

2010-04-01

http://ipsnews.net/newsTVE.asp?idnews=50859

While agricultural research has made massive strides over the years in helping the world produce more food from the same amount of land, around one in six people, the 1.02 billion hungry, have not noticed.

Ethiopia: IFJ condemns VOA jamming

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/ykjaddr

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on Ethiopia to lift all restrictions on Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts after the government summarily jammed the network's broadcasts in Amharic, amid accusations of peddling "destabilising propaganda".

Nigeria: Rights group to appeal Facebook ruling

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/yfesef4

A Nigerian civil rights group said Wednesday it would appeal an Islamic court order to shut down its chat forums on Facebook and Twitter which criticize the practice of Islamic law in northern states.

Sierra Leone: UN Radio closed down

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/yzqhd6m

Sierra Leoneans have woken up for the first time after ten years without the United Nations radio. The UN radio which was set up in 2000 played a significant role in consolidating peace in the West Africa nation. Until last night it was the 'most trusted' independent broadcaster with a country wide transmission.

West Africa: Niger moves towards press freedom

2010-04-01

http://www.afrol.com/articles/35823

In meetings with media stakeholders, Niger's transitional Prime Minister Mahamadou Danda is promising full press freedom. Already, prison sentences for journalists are repelled and the Niamey House of the Media is reopened.

Zimbabwe: African journalists conclude successful second FAJ congress

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/yb36ml7

The second continental congress of the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), the African regional organisation of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), has been concluded Sunday in Harare, Zimbabwe, on a call for a stronger and more united journalist movement in the Africa.

DRC: Hundreds displaced in floods

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/ybz3zaa

Heavy rains hit Maniema province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), flooding the provincial capital Kindu and seven neighbouring villages, according to the local government. The port city of Kindu was submerged with at least 1,220 citizens displaced in the rains that pounded the area and lifted the water levels in the River Congo, the local environment department reported on Tuesday.

DRC: LRA rampage kills 321

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/yz8vufk

The rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) killed at least 321 civilians and abducted 250 others, including at least 80 children, during a previously unreported four-day rampage in the Makombo area of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo in December 2009, Human Rights Watch said in a report.

DRC: Massacre in the jungle

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/yzexttc

The soldiers who arrived in Makombo, a remote district in northern Congo on 14 December last year were practised at this sort of thing. Wearing Ugandan or Congolese army uniforms, they did everything at first to allay the suspicions of villagers, as they searched for areas where children would gather – markets, churches or water points. Once they had identified their prey, they tied them with rope or wire into human chains up to 15 people long, and forced them to carry off the goods they had looted.

Nigeria: 20 charged with terrorism in Jos attacks

2010-04-01

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE6300Q8.htm

Nigerian authorities charged 20 people on Thursday over their roles in sectarian clashes that killed hundreds in central Plateau state last month, and some could face the death penalty. Authorities are under growing pressure to prosecute those behind the March 7 attacks on three villages near Jos, the capital of Plateau state, in a bid to prevent future violence.

Southern Sudan: Conflict exacerbates hunger season and could disrupt cultivation

2010-04-01

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/AZHU-843PD9?OpenDocument

The food insecure population in Southern Sudan has increased significantly since January, following escalated inter-tribal/clan and cattle–raiding conflicts during 2009, combined with poor rainfall that led to reduced crop and off-farm production. Areas affected by conflict include Jonglei, Warrap, Unity, and Lakes states, as well as Mvolo and Mundri East counties in Western Equatoria.

Tanzania: Experts call on Government to set up an ICT Agency

2010-04-01

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

Experts have called on the government to establish an agency that will coordinate and manage ICT activities so as to enhance the sector's growth. The call was made during at an ICT summit, which was held in Dar es Salaam to take stock of digital development in Tanzania and explore ways to catapult the sector to a new level. The experts and other stakeholders said the proposed body will also assume regulatory functions in order to create a level playing field in the fast growing industry.

Uganda: Direct data on demand

2010-04-01

http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/Feature-Articles/Direct-data-on-demand

A network of community knowledge workers (CKWs) in Uganda uses a suite of mobile applications to give farmers a broad range of information. The CKWs can provide farming advice, market data, pest- and disease-control training, plus weather forecasts. Working with GPS, they have also collected survey data to supply agricultural researchers with detailed, location-specific information on diseases affecting local crops.

West Africa: The view from above

2010-04-01

http://ictupdate.cta.int/en/Feature-Articles/The-view-from-above

The Seeing is Believing project uses very high resolution satellite imagery to give farmers in West Africa information on soil fertility and accurate land size. Smallholder farmers in West Africa, and many other tropical regions, are experts in precision agriculture, and have been for many generations.

Somalia: Somali-Led peace processes

AfricaFocus Bulletin Mar 30, 2010 (100330)

2010-04-01

http://www.africafocus.org/docs10/som1003a.php

"How do Somali communities deal with their need for security and governance in the absence of a state? The reality is that since 1991 numerous Somali-led reconciliation processes have taken place at local and regional levels. Often these have proven more sustainable than the better resourced and better publicized national reconciliation processes sponsored by the international community." Pat Johnson and Abdirahman Raghe in new report from Conciliation Resources and Interpeace

Africa: Call for Ideas: "Ten Ideas for Tomorrow's Africa"

2010-04-01

http://www.cheetahblog.com/?p=941

Within the framework of the 50th anniversary of African independence, the Social and Human Sciences Sector of UNESCO (SHS) is launching a “Call for Ideas” for prospective proposals in favour of Africa’s development within the next decade.

An Introduction to Human Rights in the Middle East & North Africa

A Guide for NGOs

2010-04-01

http://tinyurl.com/yeq86kb

This manual is designed to help NGOs in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) who may be interested in the field of Human Rights but feel that they do not know enough about it or where to start. Sections include:

Understanding the Problem
The Skills a Human Rights NGO needs
Building Cultures that favour Human Rights
Interventions
Working in Co-operation
Helping the Damaged
Further information (web links)

Global: Civil Society Health Policy Action Fund

Call for proposals

2010-04-01

http://www.healthpolicyactionfund.org/

The International Health Partnership and related initiatives (IHP+)[1] has launched a Civil Society Health Policy Action Fund in 2010. This fund is open to support health organisations, networks and coalitions in 21 IHP countries over a one-year period. The countries are Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Uganda, Vietnam, and Zambia.

African Refugee and Immigrant Conference

May 3-5, 2010, Arlington, VA

2010-04-01

http://www.ecdc-cari.org/Conference_Program.pdf

Register now for “African Refugee and Immigrants: Challenges, Changes, Champions” – From May 3-5, 2010 in Arlington, VA. Ethiopian Community Development Council is hosting a conference on African Refugees and Immigrants. Please join federal and local government officials, NGO and CBO representatives, refugees and immigrants, academics, and other experts engaged in refugee and immigrant issues.

Dare to shape the future: April 15-16, 2010

Kellogg Conference Hotel 800 Florida Ave N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002-3695

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/63484

Despite continuing tensions, Zimbabwe’s year long Inclusive Government has resulted in significant economic and political changes giving great relief to long suffering Zimbabweans. Considerable as these changes are, a lot remains to be done for Zimbabwe to fully transition to a peaceful and democratic order, particularly in terms of critical political reforms and national healing. In addition, to institutionalize irreversible political reforms, key questions must be addressed in relation to how Zimbabwe’s economy long ravaged by Structural Adjustment Programs and corruption, among other factors, can be reconstructed in the interest of ordinary people.

The conference theme, ‘Dare to Shape the Future’ emphasizes thinking outside the box and encourages participants to creatively imagine and help construct a different future for Zimbabwe, moving away from destructive polarization and conflict to justice, healing and reconciliation. And from repression, exploitation and poverty to freedom, equity and development. The conference will take place within the context of the yearlong existence of the Inclusive Government in Zimbabwe and will coincide with Zimbabwe’s 30th independence anniversary. In line with the theme of daring to shape the future – the conference will pioneer a culture of inclusive dialogue among a diverse range of stakeholders of different opinions and political stripes to help forge a new culture of tolerance. Speakers from Zimbabwe will help bring a better understanding of civil society struggles on the ground and how the solidarity community can help and will help shape people centered U.S. policies at a crucial time in Zimbabwe’s history.

For more information visit http://www.africaaction.org/conference-home.html or contact Africa Action at 202-546-7961 or outreach@africaaction.org
Special Evening Event:

Africa Action Presents: Zimbabwe Solidarity Concert
6:00pm-8:30pm


For ticket information, visit:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/107605

Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited

Thomas Mapfumo, born in Marondera, Zimbabwe in 1945 is also sometimes called the Lion of Zimbabwe. He is responsible for blending traditional Shona mbira music with western instruments and a political message full of innuendo and traditional proverbs. He established the musical style, chimurenga (the Shona word for struggle).

In the 1970s Zimbabwe's people fought a war of independence againt their white Rhodesian rulers. Out of that grew chimurenga which is based on the Shona majority's chiming, cyclical rhythms, patterns and melodies of the mbira resulting in a hypnotric almost trance-like music. Mapfumo took that traditional music and added electric guitars, horns, and a drum kit. With his electronic interpretations of traditional mbira music he became a huge star in Zimbabwe. Being that some of his lyrics addressed the struggle for independence the white Rhodesian government felt threatened by his popularity, As a result, in 1977, Mapfumo was detained in prison for 90 days because of his song Hokoya (Watch Out). He and his band, The Blacks Unlimited now tour widely. Don't miss them!


Ensemble Mawuya

Ensemble Mawuya (Welcome) is a fluid group of musicians, dancers and artists brought together by the common bonds of creative expression and a strong desire to share all that is vibrant and beautiful in African culture. While its members’ artistic interests span the diversity of the continent and Diaspora, their primary focus is on the Shona culture and its signature musical instrument, the mbira.

Shona people form the largest part of the population of Zimbabwe. Music is central to their daily lives and activities, and ranges in function from ritual, ceremonial, social and incidental. As in many other African cultures, strong, complex rhythms and call and-response characterize their music.

Learn more at http://www.ensemblemawuya.org/ or download the musician's biographies below.

VM Six

Vocal Motion Six (Vm6) is a 5-person male Acappella and Classical group taking Namibia by storm with their exceptional blending harmonies. The members, Vasco, Thomas, Jones, Mark and Peter, represent the Mario and the Chizyuka families and began singing together in February 1999.

Furthermore, according to their website, "our commitment to social change is demonstrated trough a mutually embraced goal to produce “Music with a Message” with the aim to inspire other Namibian youth and the world at large. Our aim and commitment is to make a difference and bring about positive change in our world beginning with one step at a time."

Egypt: Migration and Refugee Studies Fellowships (MRS)

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/63476

MRS Fellowships are offered by the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies (CMRS) at the American University in Cairo through generous contributions from the Ford Foundation and the International Organization of Migration (IOM). The fellowships are intended to enable qualified Egyptian Students to enroll in any of the graduates programs of the Center for Migration and Refugees Studies.
MRS Fellowships are offered by the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies (CMRS) at the American University in Cairo through generous contributions from the Ford Foundation and the International Organization of Migration (IOM). The fellowships are intended to enable qualified Egyptian Students to enroll in any of the graduates programs of the Center for Migration and Refugees Studies.

Currently CMRS has three fellowships open to Egyptians students who are interested to enroll in the FMRS Diploma. Completion of the Graduate Diploma in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies takes one year and requires the successful completion of 6 courses (18 credit hours), out of which four are core and two can be chosen from a list of electives.

Eligibility

Egyptian Nationals or qualified refugees on whom the Egyptian fees applies
Full Admission to the Graduate diploma program
A Bachelor degree in the field of the Humanities and Social Science from an accredited University with a minimum GPA of 3.5 or Gayed Geddan

Duration

The duration of the fellowship is for one year, however it is awarded only to full time student who can carry a full course load (9 credit hours) per semester and maintain a GPA of no less than 3.5.

Award

The fellowship will cover the following:
Full Tuition Waiver
Stipend
Students fees
Graduation fees

Work Requirement

The accepted fellow will be required to fulfill a total of 12 work hours per week for CMRS each semester for the duration of the fellowship.

To Apply

Download the graduate application form here
Complete the online fellowship application here
Interested applicants should apply no later than May 30th 2010.

Saraba - A Nigerian literary journal

Special issue on the Niger Delta

2010-04-01

http://www.sarabamag.com/magazine/saraba_issue5.pdf

The game of Niger Delta is an unfair one to which a whistle should have been blown long ago. Yet, the game continues in all unfairness and savagery; it has indeed become a first-come-first-swerve agendum. There’s no gainsaying that the whistle should be blown; but where is the whistle? And who is the Umpire Definitely not Saraba. By creating a collage of art forms behind an evocative front cover, we have neither changed the outlook of the Delta nor influenced it.

Tanzania-based consultant - Wellspring Advisors

2010-04-01

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/63487

Tanzania-based Consultant
Wellspring Advisors

Wellspring Advisors seeks a Tanzania‐Based Consultant to provide critical support and oversight to its Tanzania grantmaking, which focuses on pro‐poor economic development, children’s rights and development, women’s rights, and human rights. These wide‐ranging portfolios cover such issues as women’s land and property rights, prevention of violence against women, reproductive rights, countering impunity, freedom of speech, disability rights, education, child protection, smallholder agriculture, and small and medium enterprise development.

Wellspring Advisors, LLC coordinates grantmaking programs that advance the realization of human rights and social and economic justice for all people. Wellspring is a private philanthropic consulting firm with offices in New York and Washington, DC. Our services include donor education and helping to shape a strategic vision; identification and presentation of appropriate funding opportunities; grants administration; and reporting.

Wellspring Advisors is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Wellspring Advisors seeks a Tanzania‐Based Consultant to provide critical support and oversight to its Tanzania grantmaking, which focuses on pro‐poor economic development, children’s rights and development, women’s rights, and human rights. These wide‐ranging portfolios cover such issues as women’s land and property rights, prevention of violence against women, reproductive rights, countering impunity, freedom of speech, disability rights, education, child protection, smallholder agriculture, and small and medium enterprise development.

The consultant will report to Wellspring’s international program team. The initial time commitment associated with this consultancy will be part‐time, approximately 4 to 8 days per month, for an initial period of three months. Wellspring Advisors will not sponsor any candidates to relocate to Tanzania and/or obtain any necessary legal documentation in Tanzania, such as visas or work permits. Similarly, Wellspring will not sponsor candidates to move to or work in the United States.

Responsibilities

As requested by the international program team, the consultant will:

• Conduct due diligence and site visits for current and prospective grantee organizations; monitor activities and use of funds by current grantees; evaluate grantee performance;
• Identify and suggest prospective grantees that might align with Wellspring’s clients’ programmatic priorities;
• Research and make recommendations about new issue areas of interest to Wellspring’s programs;
• Report findings and recommendations to Wellspring’s international program staff through regular written updates and conference call meetings;
• Provide Wellspring with updates on unfolding current events that may have an impact on its partners or program focus;
• Support grantees and applicants to ensure completion and submission of applications and reports;
• Engage and network with donors and NGOs working in relevant fields in Tanzania; attend relevant forums, meetings and conferences;
• Provide support in the planning and coordination of grant-related activities, including technical assistance provision, trainings and convenings;
• Support Wellspring staff in planning and executing site visits to local partners in Tanzania; and
• Perform related duties as requested and as needs evolve.

Qualifications

• 5+ years professional experience working in the fields of international development and/or human rights in Tanzania;
• University degree required; graduate degree preferred;
• Expertise in the areas of human rights, economic development, women’s rights, and/or children’s rights, ability to work across a range of programmatic issue areas highly desired;
• Excellent English oral and written communications skills required, knowledge of local languages a plus;
• Prior experience with grantmaking or grants management a plus;
• Strategic planning and other organizational development skills a plus;
• Excellent analytic abilities and impartiality;
• Initiative, resourcefulness, and flexibility—ability to work independently with minimal supervision;
• Demonstrated commitment to Wellspring’s grantmaking priorities;
• Ability to handle confidential client information with complete discretion; and
• Ability to work and travel within Tanzania.

How to apply

Send an email to HLCARINO@aol.com with “Tanzania Consultancy” in the subject line, to which you have attached the following three documents:

1. Cover letter highlighting relevant qualifications and salary history;
2. Current resume with three professional references; and
3. English writing sample (5-page maximum).

Héctor Cariño, Recruiter
Wellspring Advisors, LLC
1410 Broadway, 23rd Floor
New York, NY 10018-5007
Facsimile 212/ 609.2633


Applications must be received by May 1, 2010

Due to the high volume of applications received, Wellspring Advisors regrets that it is only able to respond to finalist candidates.

Fahamu