Back Issues

Countdown: The Right to the City Campaign

Urgent press release

Abahlali baseMjondolo

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/action/65101

Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape 21 days ago launched its campaign ‘the right to the city campaign’ today the world and South Africans are counting few days before the kick off of the 2010 FiFa World cup, also Abahlali baseMjondolo of the Western Cape is counting few hours before kick starting its campaign.

Part of the aim of the campaign is to build shacks outside Green Point soccer stadium at Cape Town, occupying governmental offices, invading open public spaces within the city and occupying unused hotels, flats and schools within the City.

Tomorrow, the 11th June 2010 is the first day of our campaign, about 100 members of Abahlali baseMjondolo will meet at Cape Town next to Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) at Keizerngracht Street at 10:00 from there we will proceed to where our protest is going to take place.

Our action in terms of South African gatherings Act is viewed as illegal, as it suggest that we need to notify the police 14 days before such action but according to us our action is genuine and legitimate and we see no reason for us to notify them while we are going to occupy their offices because we refused to be controlled in any way in our actions.

All media agencies are invited to expose the police and governmental arrogance towards the poorest of the poor. We want the world to see how the poor are denied the right to well located land by South African Government and by the City of Toilets or the ‘Shit City’ (The City of Cape Town).

For more information please contact Mr. Qona at 076 875 9533 or Nobantu Goniwe at 078 760 5246
PLEASE NOTE: AS WE SPEAK ABAHLALI BRANCH AT QQ ARE CURRENTLY BUSY BURNING TYRES AT LANSDOWN ROAD OPPOSITE QQ IN PREPARATION OF TOMORROW’S ACTION AND MEDIA URGENCIES ARE URGED TO RUSH TO THE SCENE. FOR DIRECTION AND COMMENTS PLEASE CALL Mbongeni Mkhaliphi at 076 981 6945

For more, please visit the website of the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign at: www.antieviction.org.za and follow us on www.twitter.com/antieviction.

Visit Abahlali baseMjondolo at www.abahlali.org and www.khayelitshastruggles.com.

The Poor People's Alliance: Abahlali baseMjondolo, together with with Landless People's Movement (Gauteng), the Rural Network (KwaZulu-Natal) and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, is part of the Poor People's Alliance - a unfunded national network of democratic membership based poor people's movements.

Stop the endowment of the UNESCO–Obiang Prize

Tutu Alicante

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/action/65105

Following urgent meetings held in Paris last week in which numerous United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) countries consulted about Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo’s endowment of the Obiang Nguema Mbasogo International Prize for Research in the Life Sciences, Director-General Irina Bokova has decided to raise the issue on 15 June at an ‘informational meeting’ of the executive board. The meeting provides a crucial opportunity to block this shameful prize. If states maintain silence, however, we have been told that UNESCO will proceed to schedule the award ceremony in the coming weeks. Bokova feels that without a clear mandate from her executive board she cannot act to halt the prize.[1]

Please help us to influence the governments of Burkina Faso, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Tanzania, Djibouti, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Niger, Senegal, Zambia and Zimbabwe, all of which sit on the Executive Board of UNESCO, to encourage it to take a clear stand against the prize by 15 June.

A few ideas of possible actions that could make a difference are:

Reach out to journalists, either individually or by issuing a press statement circulated broadly, to encourage them to run stories about this issue and to seek on-the-record comments from government officials about the controversy and the government’s stance.

If you have strong contacts in the government, please call your foreign ministry and speak to the office that is responsible for human rights or international organisations. Tell them about this scandalous prize and ask them to instruct the government’s permanent delegate to UNESCO to take action to oppose it on or before June 15.

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* Tutu Alicante is executive director of EG Justice and can be contacted at tutu@egjustice.org.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES:

[1] See, for example, Ken Silverstein’s report for Harper’s Magazine.

SOME LINKS FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

UNESCO for sale

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/05/10/letter-unesco

http://cpj.org/2010/05/post-2.php

http://www.egjustice.org/?q=unesco-obiang-nguema-mbasogo-international-prize-research-life-sciences

http://tiny.cc/ccfkd

Calls for protection of Luiz Araújo in Angola

2010-06-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/action/65072

A group of civil society organizations are making public a letter sent to the Minister of the Interior of Angola Mr. Roberto Leal Monteiro Ngongo to express their concern about the situation of human rights defenders in that country. Recent years have seen a disturbing pattern of intimidation and harassment of human rights defenders and groups in Angola, as documented by national and international organizations.

The organizations Association for Justice Peace and Democracy (AJPD), Association Building Communities (ACC), and OMUNGA, from Angola, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), Christian Aid, Front Line, Pambazuka News, the Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT France), and the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, formed by the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), fear for the well being of Mr. Luiz Araújo, a human rights defender and coordinator of the directorate of SOS Habitat in Angola who received life threats in August 2009. Araújo is well known for his work and to the statements he had made regarding poor people’s rights, especially on the access to land and adequate housing.

Following these events threatening his physical integrity, Mr. Luís Araújo was forced to go on exile abroad in order to guarantee his safety. He intends to return to his country and to reside in the capital Luanda, and hope that conditions will be created to guarantee the safety and protection to human rights defenders.

The signatories of the letter understand that it is the obligation of the State to create all the conditions of safety so its citizens can freely exercise their rights and ensure their participation and of the civil society organisations in addressing the problems of the country (article 31, line 2, Constitution of the Republic of Angola). The document [pdfs available to view in English and in Portuguese] was sent with copies to the President of the Republic of Angola, to the President of the National Assembly, to the United Nations Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and to the President of the African Commission of Human and People's Rights.

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

Pambazuka Books available at Prestige Bookshop in Nairobi

2010-06-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/65180

Pambazuka Press books are now available at Prestige Book-Sellers & Stationers in Nairobi, Kenya.
Situated on Mama Ngina St in the Prudential Building, on the Ground Floor
TEL : (254) 20 - 223515 FAX : (254) 20 - 246796

Black Looks blog victorious at 2010 Nigerian Blog Awards

2010-06-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/65073

Sokari says: 'I would like to thank all Pambazuka readers who voted for Black Looks in the 2010 Nigerian Blog Awards - "Best political blog" and "Best use of theme". I would also like to congratulate all 30 category winners showing the variety of voices in Nigeria's blogosphere. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Pambazuka News for inviting me to write the Blogging Africa section back in 2006. We have all come a long way and I hope in the near future we will be able to cover blogs written in KiSwahili and other African-language blogs, as well as those written in French and Portuguese.'

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

Speaking Truth to Power

A celebration of the life and ideas of Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/65097

Walter Rodney: Prophet of self-emancipation

Wazir Mohamed

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65084

© walterrodney.comThirty years after the murder of Guyana-born scholar and activist Walter Rodney, Wazir Mohamed considers the role of imperialism and the big powers in the silencing of ‘a defender of the people’s right to equality’.

June 13, 2010 will mark 30 years since Walter Rodney ‘the prophet of self-emancipation’ was murdered in Guyana at the hands of a brutal dictator acting in cahoots with the agents of international capital. In commemorating the life of Walter Rodney, it is our responsibility to contextualise his killing and to remind ourselves of the role of imperialism and the pivotal role of the big powers in his silencing.

It was not the first time in the modern history of the world that a defender of the people’s right to equality was silenced, nor would it be the last time. Walter Rodney’s killing can be compared to that of Patrice Lumumba, the first elected prime minister of the Congo in 1961. It could be compared with the murder of Amilcar Cabral, leader of the African Party for the Independence and Union of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) in 1973 at the hands of Portuguese agents. It could be compared with the killing in 1983 of Maurice Bishop, prime minister of Free Grenada, at the hands of overzealous counter revolutionary agents in his party, the New Jewel Movement. It could also be compared with the murder in 1973 of Salvador Allende, prime minister of Chile, at the hands of Pinochet acting in collusion with agents of international capital.

These and other leaders committed one single crime; they had a passion for real change. They drew their examples for change from the working people, and created new ways, new approaches for dealing with the unequal relationship between the ruling classes and the poor. These were change agents. They recognised the historical problem of racial, economic, social, and cultural inequality between the then called ‘third world’ and the ‘first world,’ and dedicated their lives to change the status quo in their respective countries. They exposed the role of local dictators who benefited from the status quo, and hence were invested in dictatorial processes that kept the working people in subjection.

These leaders, among many others, were killed by agents of foreign and local capital over the period 1960–1990 to send a message to the working people of the former colonial world. That message being that international capital and their local agents are not prepared and will not tolerate any real demands for changes in the economic, political, social, and cultural status quo of the former colonies. This accounts in part for stagnation, retrogression, and continuous deterioration today of the conditions of ordinary people in most areas of the former colonial world.

To this day, the dream of self-emancipation and real independence is still unrealised in every part of the former colonial world. Working people across the world today are further than they have ever been from realising the dream of economic, political, social, and cultural equality. This is as true for the Caribbean – the birthplace of Rodney and Bishop – as it is in Africa, the birthplace of Cabral, Lumumba, Machel, Mandela, and others. Despite majority rule and so-called political independence in Zimbabwe and South Africa, these countries are yet to implement meaningful land reform; which if dealt with democratically could produce the answer to the structure of the historical inequality colonialism created on the continent. Like Guyana, most of the former colonies in Africa, in Asia and in Latin America are yet to find solutions to deal with and turn back the historical damage of ethnic and racial divisions that threaten to consume these societies.

The assassination of Walter Rodney must be contextualised from the confine of the people’s struggle against foreign domination of mind and body, against foreign domination of thought and action. Walter Rodney did not wake up one day, like so many leader types, and decide that he wanted to take the reign of power over the land. He had no such ambition; he was thrust into the sphere as the recognised leader of the working people of Guyana because in their estimation, he came closest to understanding and sharing their life of pain and suffering. Pain and suffering which abounded in part because of the shattered dream of democratic self-emancipation; a dream snatched away by the unravelling of the anti-colonial national movement of the 1950s. In the aftermath of this unravelling, political forces emerged to represent ethnic interests, and hence the outgrowth of political parties around which sections of the population coalesced because of the perception that they could provide ethnic security. Today, Guyana continues to suffer from the nightmare of ethnic politics. The unravelling of the national movement in Guyana, while it had important local players, occurred in the context of the global onslaught against such movements, a global onslaught against local self determination which began with colonialism and slavery, and which has kept independent nations in subjection for the last 200 years.

Haiti and its poverty is the most striking example. Since the revolution, the big powers not only refused to recognise the right of the Haitian people to self-determination, for over 200 years they also worked to snuff out the possibility of self-emancipation. In Haiti they, the big powers lead by the United States, imposed and supported the Duvalier family dictatorship, which ruled with an iron fist between 1957 and 1986. To this day Haiti is not free to decide on its path toward self-determination, its first freely elected President Bertrand Aristide now lives in South Africa having been banished into exile, because, to use his own words, he opposed ‘privatisation,’ the imposed prescription for small countries by the big powers. He was deposed because he wanted labour laws to regulate the working of the sweatshops in Haiti, because he wanted to impose a national minimum wage, because he wanted to protect local producers and rice farmers from the onslaught of subsidised food which the West dumps on small countries, and furthermore because he wanted to create a governmental structure to allow ordinary Haitians to self-organise in order to emancipate themselves.

Like Duvalier in Haiti, Somoza in Nicaragua, the Shah in Iran, Gairy in Grenada, and the many countless dictators who stalked and stymied the spirit of self-emancipation in Latin America, Asia and Africa, the PNC dictatorship of Guyana emerged and grew into a position of dominance with the backing and support of big powers. Big powers whose interest in the politics of these countries was firstly about access to control their economies, especially their mineral and agricultural production, and secondly about their political support in the Cold War period at the international level. As a young scholar, Walter Rodney who studied the impact of big power politics on the creation of unequal development and inequality, and the construction of the First and Third World was unsettled by the machinations of local leaders, whether they were in the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, or the United States of America. In all these theatres, he was drawn into debates and discussion on local conditions as more and more people came into contact with his scholarship. Inevitably, it was the discussions and debates which his scholarship opened up that lead to his banishment from Jamaica by the Shearer government, and which lead to the denial of a teaching appointment at the University of Guyana, and subsequently his assassination in 1980.

There is no separation between Rodney’s scholarship and his activism. His scholarship calls into question all those who sat on the fence and all those who would like to continue to sit on the fence as the divide between rich and poor grows, and as the ruling classes concretise their mastery to use race, ethnicity and gender as a means of imposing varying dimensions of divide and rule in specific local settings.

Having mastered the history of the Upper Guinea Coast in his doctoral studies, he explained that while local African leaders and ‘elites’ colluded in slave trading, students of history must come to grip with the global dimension; that is the growth of markets for slaves as European trade and commerce expanded and in this expansion varying forms of exploitation in specific local areas emerged.[1] He thus explained that ‘African agents of the Atlantic Slave Trade must be seen in a global perspective,’ that is how the profit motive which was shaped by the growth of plantations in the Americas, created the conditions which lead to internecine warfare, with the primary aim of capturing the ‘enemy’ who were then sold into slavery.[2] This work establishes his fascination with the methodology of capital in creating local lackeys, local agents through whom the tentacles of exploitation of the working people gets constructed and deepened.

Rodney’s scholarship is not idle, it is a call to action. It is a call to action by the working people in local settings, be it in Africa where he was a combatant in the liberation struggle, in Jamaica where he helped students to recognise the ills of society, in the USA and Europe where he implored people on the left to get to grips with the limitations of vanguard politics and the hegemonic character of the leading socialist countries, and in Guyana where he grounded with the people and helped them to understand and identify the local agents of foreign capital, whose wealth and power is derived from their labour and misery.

Walter’s scholarship calls on people to recognise that the path to resolution of historical wrongs have to arise through the understanding of the past. It was in this context that he wrote the ‘History of the Upper Guinea Coast’, ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’, and the ‘History of the Guianese Working People’. To quote from the introduction by Vincent Harding, Robert Hill and William Strickland in Walter’s ‘How Europe Undeveloped Africa’, his work is ‘imbued with the spirit, the intellect and the commitment of its author...with Rodney the life and work were one.’[3]

Nowhere is this impassioned commitment more present, than in his ‘History of the Guianese Working People’. This work, which he completed in the final couple years of his young life, represents in his view, a small contribution to fill a huge gap, the vacuum which exists in the historiography of Guyana, what he identified as the ‘profound underdevelopment’ of the historiography of the region. Having developed on the heels of noted Caribbean nationalist historian, Elsa Goveia, he was passionate about the task that confronted nationalists’ scholars, and new scholars such as him and those to follow. The task as he identified it is to create an understanding of how our societies were constructed through an understanding of the real history of the struggles of the working people. He firmly believed and was unwavering in his commitment that history should be told from the standpoint of the people. This commitment to the truth was the hallmark of his scholarship, and this scholarship was interwoven in his activism.

He believed that real history, if explained, will eventually help the mass of working people shed the shackles which divide them against each other. He exhibited a dispassionate ability to inject the understanding of history into his work, whether he was in the classroom, or whether he was grounding with the working people in their homes, in their places of work, or in their communities. He made no effort to hide where he stood on the issues of inequality and the growing divide between the haves and the have-nots in the world; he lived his life in and out of the classroom as a firm defender of the rights of all peoples to full equality. It was this resolve that lead to his banishment from Jamaica.

In responding to the ban placed on him by the Shearer government of Jamaica in 1968, he said that all he was doing was grounding with his brothers, ‘I was trying to contribute something. I was trying to contribute my experience…I went out as I said, I would go to the radio if they wanted me, I would speak on television if they allowed me…I spoke at the Extra-Mural Centre. I would go further down into West Kingston and I would speak wherever there was a possibility of our getting together. It might be in a sports club, it might be in a schoolroom, it might be in a church, it might be in a gully…I have spoken in what people call ‘dungle’, rubbish dumps…that is where the government puts people to live.’[4]

He was a firm believer that the role of the conscious (he used the word black) intellectual and academic is to move beyond the university, that the conscious academic must be able to make the connection between their scholarship and the activity of the masses of working people. Inevitably, it was the commitment to transcend the university, as he did after his return to Guyana in 1974, which lead to his banishment from the University of Guyana. The Burnham government was of the view that if they starved him through refusal to sanction his employment at the University of Guyana, he would be forced to leave the country. But they could not kick him out of the country because he was Guyanese.

Walter Rodney was committed to the political future of the multi-racial masses of Guyana. He was a firm believer that if the mass of working people was armed with the historical and contemporary reasons which create the misery of their lives, they would be able to emancipate themselves. He was banished from the university and subsequently killed because he dared to engage ordinary people. He was killed because he dared to bring to the people the tools that could lead to unity and combined action. He was killed because he was engaged with the masses, because he was grounding with bauxite workers, with civil servants, with sugar workers, with stevedores, with farmers, with villagers.

There is a historical context to the final assassination of Walter Rodney. Undaunted by the refusal to employ him, his work and contact with the mass of working people increased a hundredfold – as he would say his ‘groundings’ took on new meaning and had a new purpose. He was committed to the path of showing the working people the way forward, the path towards self-emancipation. He was committed to the path of helping the working people to sort out the problems of the country, a working people whose political, social, cultural, and economic livelihoods were threatened by a government which had seized power through rigged elections. A government, which while masquerading as ‘socialist,’ had begun to trample on the rights of workers to organise, on free speech, on the right to assemble and mobilise, etc. A minority government engaged in the process of consolidating its power. A minority government, which had begun and was in the process of laying the foundation for dictatorial rule and state sponsored corruption. A minority government, which like other foreign sponsored counterparts in that period such as Haiti, Grenada, Nicaragua, Iran and so forth, had begun to lay the basis for state-sponsored terrorism against its political opponents and the people through the reorganisation of the police force and the army to include special security apparatuses, the most notorious of these was the ‘death squad,’ as it was known at the time. A minority government, that entered into agreements with the Internal Monetary Fund, and which imposed strict austerity measures on the working people, while the elites freely dipped their hands in the treasury and dabbled with the wealth of the country.

Walter Rodney was killed because he was unwavering in his commitment to practice and teach a new kind of politics, a politics which abhors the vanguardist top down approach to decision-making. He was killed because he was a firm believer in the self-emancipation of the working, and that this will only come about when the mass of working people are united, that is when they act in unison. He was killed because his efforts to teach the working people the art of unity led to the multi-racial mobilisation never before seen in modern Guyana. He was killed because the enemies of the working people understood that multi-racial action would lead to self-emancipation, and a self-emancipated people would bring about social transformation.

The recipe for ethnic and racial healing in Guyana and the Third World was Rodney’s gift to the working people. He firmly believed in unity of the working people, and was committed to the struggle to find long-term solutions to the problems of ethnic and racial division that consumes Guyana and most of the former colonial world. He was not only committed, but placed his body and soul in the struggle for a new kind of popular politics, a new political culture of respect. He belonged to a new generation of scholar activists who saw the old political games for what they were. He did not equate liberation and development with the mere replacement of expatriate rulers with local versions. His determination as a scholar-activist propelled him to argue that transformation and true human development can only be achieved through the common struggle of all peoples to recognise the necessity for a single humanity. His life’s work of activism and scholarship stands as an exceptional example to anyone willing to think and act outside the box. As a scholar activist he led the way by showing how easy it was for one to switch between researching and writing to activism. This is attested to by his ability to switch from researching and writing about the devastation wrought by outside forces on African societies in ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’, and about the history of the working people of Guyana to intervening in the Pan-African and liberation movements in Africa, the movement for racial unity and democracy in Guyana, and to his work with Rastafarians in Jamaica.

While he emphasised, promoted and defended the right of former slaves, the African peoples of the Americas, the Caribbean and Guyana to rediscover their ancestral culture, as attested to in his work ‘Grounding with My Brothers,’ he was equally concerned for the East Indian descendants of indentureship in Guyana. He was non-sectarian and did not harbour any sectarian attitude.

His non-sectarian attitude and approach to find solutions for all peoples in Guyana is established by the equal treatment he gave to Africans and East Indians in his last published book, ‘A history of the Guyanese Working People, 1881-1905.’ In this work he debunked the culture and popular perception among sections of the Afro-Guyanese population that East Indians in Guyana are alien to the country.

Through documentary evidence of the suffering and struggles of East Indians for survival on the plantations, he demonstrates their contribution as equal partners with other groups of people, especially Afro-Guyanese to the history Guyana. His insights and analysis of the contribution of Afro and Indo Guyanese to the history of Guyana is instructive and remains as an instrument for all of us whose life goal is the creation of a united multi-racial democracy in Guyana; a Guyana for all its sons and daughters. All of us who are imbued with this common goal owe it to our ancestors, to our and to future generations to put our shoulders to the wheel and work, through our scholarship and in our respective communities, to create such a society.

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* Wazir Mohamed teaches sociology at Indiana University. He grew up in small rice-farming family in rural Guyana.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] Rodney, Walter: A History of the Upper Guinea Coast (Monthly Review Press, New York 1970), pp. 240-243.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Rodney, Walter: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Howard University Press, Washington, D.C. 1982), see introduction.
[4] Rodney, Walter: Groundings with my Brothers (Bogle L’Overture Publications Ltd, London 1969), pp. 64-65.

Development aid: Robbing the poor to feed the rich

Charles Abugre

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65096

cc S KIn producing often 'negative resource transfers' (from developing to developed countries), development aid and official development assistance (ODA) essentially remain an exercise in taking money from poor countries for the purpose of enriching wealthier ones, writes Charles Abugre. Given the difficulty of enforcing ODA commitments and the need to halt the net transfer of developing countries' resources, poorer countries should look towards drawing upon SWFs (Sovereign Wealth Funds) in combination with the globally fast-growing Islamic bond market, Abugre argues.

The Monterrey Consensus on Financing Development recognised the importance of official development assistance (ODA) as a complementary source of financing development, especially for low-income countries where domestic savings fall short of investment needs and where foreign investment flows are low. It recognised that ODA, if utilised appropriately, can help to expand economies and the domestic private sector and if invested in essential services and infrastructure, can contribute to reducing poverty and economic growth. Consequently, it called for substantial increases in ODA and for effective partnerships to channel these resources in developing countries to achieve the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). In particular, it urged those developed countries that had not reached the target of 0.7 per cent of GDP (gross domestic product) allocation to ODA to do so speedily. It also called for measures to improve the quality of ODA, including aid untying, policy space for developing countries and more efficient administration of aid.

The Monterrey Consensus was reached against the background of aid recovery on the back of relatively robust growth in OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries but also fresh wounds from the Asian financial crisis, about which developed countries felt a degree of responsibility. The conditions, as we approach Doha, could not be more different.

ODA OPTIMISM

ODA flows reached a peak in 1990 (at 0.33 per cent of GNI (gross national income) of OECD DAC (Development Assistance Committee) countries) following a decade of intense lending to Africa and the bailing-out of a number of large countries that had suffered severe debt crises. In the 1990s, the declining need to make payments to Cold War allies coincided with an increasing number of sceptical analyses of the poverty-reducing impact of aid, and aid began to fall both in real terms and as a percentage of rich country GDP. In 1997, ODA hit a trough, at 0.22 per cent of GDP of DAC countries and stayed at this level to the eve of Monterrey.

Since then ODA rose both in real terms and as a percentage of donor income, reaching a new peak in 2005. In this year of aid optimism, perhaps best captured by the celebrity and NGO-led global mobilisations surrounding the G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, the OECD projected that gross ODA would rise steadily from US$80 billion in 2004 to US$130 billion in 2010, calling it 'the largest expansion of ODA [aid] … since the committee was formed in 1960' (OECD 2005). The G8 committed to ensuring that by 2010, gross ODA would increase year on year by US$50 billion. Perhaps even more significantly, for the first time, many developed countries set up timetables and road maps to reach their targets of 0.7 per cent of GDP/GNI allocated to ODA.

UNFULFILLED PROMISES

The situation two years later was much less upbeat. Although gross ODA did increase, the change was a modest US$24.5 billion cumulatively against the annual US$50 billion target. Most of the increase was channelled into debt relief for Nigeria and Iraq. Indeed, a year following Gleneagles, gross ODA actually dipped, declining significantly in the G7 countries by 8.7 per cent. The steepest declines were in Italy (30 per cent), the USA (20 per cent) and Japan (9.6 per cent). Only the UK saw a significant increase (13 per cent), the rest coming from non-G7 countries (6.1 per cent).



Source: OECD, DAC

THE POOR HAVE BEEN AIDING THE RICH

Gross ODA doesn’t tell the complete picture. Measured in net terms (gross repayment of official loans provided as ODA), official flows to all developing countries have declined sharply, and became negative in 2002, reaching US$32 billion in 2007, according to IMF (International Monetary Fund) figures. Between 2002 and 2007, developing countries transferred cumulatively an amount of US$563 billion in ODA to developed countries. Net flows to low-income developing countries however are marginally positive, but nowhere on the scale necessary to reduce poverty substantially.

The scale of negative resource transfers (from developing to developed) is even more staggering measured in terms of total net transfers (see Table 1).[1] Put differently, developing countries became net-capital providers to rich countries, and not the other way round as theory predicts. Cumulatively, this amounted to US$2,577 billion in the period 2002–07. Add to this the volume of capital flight, especially illicit capital flight from developing countries (estimated annually between US$150–$250 billion), and the scale of 'reverse aid' is staggering.




COMPELLING NEED BUT HIGHLY UNRELIABLE

As we meet, the need for enhanced ODA cannot be more compelling. Many low-income countries are not on-track to fulfil a significant number of the MDGs at the time when the external conditions are turning onerous. I refer in particular to the volatility in capital markets risking a reversal of private capital flows, soaring prices of food and energy (especially for net food and energy importers) and the adjustment costs that will be imposed on countries moving towards a low-carbon growth path in view of climate change. Indeed, given the responsibility of developed countries in greenhouse-gas accumulation, and the right of poor countries to develop, a development-friendly climate agreement should impose an immense carbon debt on rich countries. Add to these the collapse of the value of the dollar, which threatens to wipe out the savings (reserves) of many poor countries (typically denominated in dollars). In addition, upward pressures on interest rates in the euro economies and in the UK threaten to increase debt burdens and the cost of capital.

Yet ODA is unreliable, volatile and highly cyclical. It rises and falls with economic conditions in rich countries. It is extremely sensitive to global financial stability and perceptions of stability. Moreover, as a foreign policy instrument, it rides on the waves of changing political moods. Doha couldn’t be happening at a worse time in relation to harnessing ODA, with projected downturns in some of the biggest trans-Atlantic economies, in particular the US and the UK, following the banking crisis in the UK and the sub-prime loan crisis in the United States and fears of a contagion effect. On top of this, public confidence in the political leadership of key countries is waning, with the end of the Iraq war (a major sink of public resources) not in sight. Add to this what appear to be xenophobic reactions to China’s role in the world and the cocktail for a global environment for enhanced ODA does not look pretty.

WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT ODA?

This does not suggest taking the pressure off the rich countries from fulfilling their obligations which they took on as part of an international agreement, which ought to be enforceable. Developing countries after all have been held to their side of the bargain in the form of painful economic and political reforms. Yet the reality is that developed countries have often treated their side of the bargain as voluntary and to be discarded when inconvenient. There are no practical mechanisms to effectively enforce the fulfilment of commitments, in spite of the rhetoric of mutual accountability. How could this be rectified?

One approach is to push for the enforcement of summit agreements in international law. This is of course complex, risky and requires collective action among developing countries. A complementary approach is to transform aid commitments into debt obligations, governed by the same international law that regulates international debt. In this way, unfulfilled commitments (in terms of actual disbursements) will accumulate into deferred obligations attracting interest. Gordon Brown’s International Finance Facility (IFF) was an example of how to operationalise this. The IFF sought to commit the G8 countries by raising money immediately in the capital markets on the back of the public budget. Both measures require that developed countries lend themselves to undertaking these commitments in the way that they do in relation to trade agreements. As we are all know, the rich countries refused to be drawn into the IFF in a serious way and there is little developing countries can do practically.

The treatment by developed countries of their ODA commitments as voluntary undertakings leaves developing countries with limited options. One option is the need to build and sustain domestic political constituencies and public opinion favourable to international development in developed countries. This is particularly crucial in periods of economic downturn or cycles in which the leadership is less pro-aid. This is of course difficult for G77 governments to do directly, but is something which NGOs – North and South – do best. The global debt movement and the trade justice movements have proved this. It is in the interest of G77 countries that they narrow the distance with their own civil society groups. More importantly, they need to build the trust of their citizens in the value of aid, which means effective and accountable expenditures.

But it also suggests two other equally important related priorities: the need to focus more on aid-quality issues and the urgent need to address the systemic issues underpinning global finance. On aid quality, I will emphasise the need to be unflinching in the demand for an end to policy conditionality and the liberalisation of public procurement systems, usually attached to loans, grants and debt relief. The Paris principle of better aid coordination has unfortunately been translated in practice into mechanisms by which donor agencies govern domestic budgets, often undermining fledgling parliaments and democratic accountability generally.

The key systemic issues I will emphasise include effective developing country voices in institutions that regulate capital flows, increased South–South collaboration to establish complementary institutions to regulate, mobilise and deploy capital for investment, and collaborative measures to minimise illicit capital flight.

ALTERNATIVE MECHANISMS FOR MOBILISING CAPITAL

The difficulty of enforcing ODA commitments, combined with the scale of financial outflows from developing countries, suggests a shift of emphasis in two ways: exploring alternative and innovative means of mobilising development finance and urgent steps to stem illicit outflows. On the former, we highlight opportunities in Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs), and in relation to the latter objective we refer in particular to the need for a transparent, fair and accountable international tax system.

MOBILISING SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS TO FIGHT POVERTY

The 2002 Monterrey Consensus recognised a fundamental role to international capital flows and international financial stability in supporting countries to meet their development goals. Improved economic conditions in developing countries have driven a surge in net private-capital flows in recent years, particularly foreign direct investment (FDI), though current and prospective global market conditions are likely to reverse this trend, as already happened in the past.

These large and increasing net transfers of resources from poor to rich are largely a reflection of the unprecedented accumulation of foreign exchange reserves by developing countries. International assets have tripled since 2001, with developing countries as a whole accounting for more than 80 per cent of global reserve accumulation. Their current level of reserves approaches US$5 trillion. Yet this extraordinary process of reserve hoarding does not tell the whole story, for a substantial part of the increase in foreign assets in some areas of the world has been accumulated in Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs). SWFs are estimated to have more than US$3 trillion of assets under management, equivalent to half of global official reserve holdings. SWFs of countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council constitute more than half of total assets managed by SWFs. These funds are on the whole additional to foreign exchange reserves, yet both phenomena are highly interrelated.

Perhaps the best solution to halting and reversing the trend of net transfer of resources from the developing world to advanced economies would require an internationally coordinated policy response to fix the international financial architecture (IFA). Some developing countries, especially in Asia, have been hoarding foreign exchange reserves chiefly to protect themselves against the risk of financial instability. Others, particularly oil-producing countries, have accumulated foreign assets mostly as a result of buoyant commodity prices. In both cases, countries are running a fixed exchange-rate regime or a managed float. Both phenomena reflect to a large extent the lack of a collective mechanism of balance-of-payments adjustment. It would therefore be of fundamental importance to reform the IFA by strengthening the voice and representation of developing countries while agreeing upon a collective insurance system.

A second-best solution would be to strengthen South–South cooperation by recycling part of the foreign exchange reserves accumulated in recent years to promote human development gains. During the last decade, developing countries have become an important source of FDI, bank lending and even aid for other developing countries, reflecting their increasing integration into the world financial markets. These capital flows are now growing more rapidly than those between developed and developing countries. This trend needs to be further supported and encouraged. However, South–South portfolio flows, in particular debt flows, are still very limited.

Portfolio debt flows in general can benefit developing countries directly, by providing financing for investment. They can be a valuable source of financing for both the public sector and large private firms. They can also benefit developing countries indirectly, by helping expand their financial sectors and deepen their capital markets. However, these flows are traditionally characterised by high volatility and reversibility, potentially generating huge costs for developing countries. Hence the need for not only increasing the size of these South–South debt flows, but also for making them stable and work in a pro-poor fashion.

SWFs have recently contributed to international financial stability by helping recapitalise international banks hit by the sub-prime crisis. They can now help fight poverty. Recently, World Bank President Robert Zoellick suggested that SWFs should invest 1 per cent of their assets in African equity markets. However, it is not clear whether such a move would have any direct developmental impact beyond that of boosting a few domestic capital markets in Africa. We alternatively suggest that the firepower of SFWs, especially but not only those in the Middle East, be combined with the globally fast-growing Islamic bond market, in particular with sukuk. Given sharia law's prohibition of interest, conventional bonds and debt instruments are forbidden in Islamic finance. Sukuk are designed to generate the same economic benefit of a conventional bond, but in a sharia-compliant manner. The market of sukuk has grown tremendously in recent years to more than US$50 billion. Sukuk issuance is not limited to Islamic countries; a growing number of Western and Asian governments and companies are increasingly using this instrument to diversify their investor base.

Sukuk are structured in a way similar to asset-backed bonds, where the payouts are based on the performance of the underlying productive assets. Instead of a fixed-interest payment, payouts to investors over the life of the bond are derived from leases, profits or sales of tangible assets. This makes sukuk a perfect instrument to finance infrastructure development, as the funds raised are used for a specific project. Infrastructure is recognised as a key ingredient in reducing poverty, increasing growth and ultimately reaching the MDGs. Billions of people still lack access to water, roads and telecommunications, and this affects their income, education and health. Developing countries need more infrastructure development. Yet there is a financing gap, as governments have very limited resources, aid is insufficient and private capital inadequate and concentrated in a few sectors.

In their search for diversification, SWFs could invest part of their wealth to finance infrastructure development in developing countries through sukuk issued by developing countries’ governments. SWFs of countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council account for more than half of total assets accumulated in SWFs worldwide. They would be key to such an investment alternative. But also Asian-based SWFs would consider putting money in sukuk. There is some evidence that sukuk provide portfolio diversification benefits for investors. Finally, their still limited secondary-market trading makes them a perfect instrument for SWFs, which are traditionally buy-and-hold investors.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Charles Abugre is deputy director of the UN Millennium Campaign, Africa. This article was written in his personal capacity while working for Christian Aid.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTE

[1] The net transfer of financial resources is essentially the financial counterpart of a surplus in the balance of trade in goods and services.

Mwalimu in our popular imagination: The relevance of Nyerere today

Chambi Chachage

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65100

Edited by Chambi Chachage and Annar Cassam, 'Africa's Liberation: The Legacy of Nyerere' is now available from Pambazuka Press. Featuring a range of well-known contributors including Haroub Othman, Nawal El Saadawi, Issa G. Shivji and Marjorie Mbilinyi, the book examines the enduring influence of the late Julius Nyerere in contemporary Tanzania and Africa at large. The following article by Chachage is a sample chapter from the book.

His is still the most popular name in Tanzania today. He nowadays arouses citizenry sentiments on any contemporary issue. A humble man, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere would shy away from such glory.

It was just the other day that I was on my way from Dar es Salaam to Arusha when I overheard an interesting conversation. In the bus the driver was discussing current issues of national concern with some passengers.

The name ‘Nyerere’ came up over and over again. This Mwalimu, one passenger quipped, is responsible for what is happening now in our society. There followed a deafening silence.

Well I thought, here again goes a popular Nyerere-bashing with no defence whatsoever as the passenger went on and on, attempting to show how a man who died 10 years ago set into motion what is happening today. Just as I was thinking that the battle for a balanced view on Nyerere had been lost, another passenger chipped in. What he said affirmed what I think is the main legacy of the Mwalimu in Nyerere: the ability to generate public debate on issues of importance to society.

So suddenly the discussion shifted to the other side of the story, as this other passenger started to narrate another conventional history of how Nyerere fostered unity and tranquillity. Other passengers also supported his narrative by noting how Mwalimu had promoted Kiswahili to that end. Surprisingly, the earlier critic seemed to switch camps as he exclaimed and nodded in agreement, Africa ’s Liberation especially after the driver cited Nyerere’s call to let Tanzania’s minerals remain in the ground until we had educated our engineers to be able to mine them for our own benefit as a nation.

To those of us who are interested in local popular knowledge, it was such an intellectually stimulating and socially activating moment to hear the driver link what Nyerere had said with the ongoing plunder of our natural resources by multinationals such as Barrick Gold and AngloGold Ashanti.[1] This shows the extent to which our popular imagination is becoming highly conscious of the pitfalls of the neoliberal reform strategy of making us LIMP, that is, liberalised, marketised and privatised. Those words recited by the driver, by the way, have many popular versions such as:

‘Nyerere once said, “We will leave our mineral wealth in the ground until we manage to develop our own geologists and mining engineers.”‘[2]

‘They have the law behind them – but should a stone that is found in Tanzania only be monopolised by a foreign company? President Nyerere said that this is the property of our children!’[3]

Ironically, this popular quote is invoked by politicians who in one way or another have been behind the LIMP-ing of the mining sector. In parliamentary sessions variations on this phrase have been quoted more than once. Interestingly, even the immediate former prime minister once paraphrased it when he was addressing mining investors.

You can indeed pick virtually any topical issue – from agriculture to Zimbabwe – and Nyerere the teacher will have something to do with it. Yes, there are tumultuous historical moments of our times, such as the post-9/11 ‘War on terror’, that he did not live to see and comment on. Yet in a prophetic way he addressed matters which related – and indeed which led – to these moments way back in 1976 in ‘The world: message to America from Tanzania’s President Julius K. Nyerere’, as published by Time:

'We watch with respect, sympathy and anxiety – and sometimes almost with despair – as Americans endeavour to cope with the political and moral results of their own wealth-creating economic system, and to give international meaning to the principles laid down by the founding fathers of their nation… Americans have created a power which is frequently abused internally and externally. But Americans continue to struggle against these abuses and for the survival of the universal principles enunciated in 1776. There is therefore still hope that America’s great power will be used for human beings everywhere, rather than simply for the preservation and creation of American national wealth.'[4]

What about the ongoing economic crunch one may ask – did he also foresee that? We may have not understood his ‘stiff-necked’ attitude in the wake of the structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), especially when he said ‘No to IMF meddling’ in 1980. Wasn’t he far ahead of his time – way beyond the era of the crestfallen neoliberal project – when he said the following stinging words while addressing diplomats during the 1980 Arusha conference on ‘Restructuring the international monetary system’:[5]

'When did the IMF become an International Ministry of Finance? When did nations agree to surrender to it their power of decision making?

'Your Excellencies: It is this growing power of the IMF and the irresponsible and arrogant way in which it is being wielded against the Poor that has forced me to use my opportunity to make these unusual remarks in a New Year Speech to you. The problem of my country and other Third World countries are grave enough without the political interference of IMF officials. If they cannot help at the very least they should stop meddling.'[6]

That was Nyerere at his best, the Mwalimu we are commemorating today as we reflect on the popular themes that preoccupied his lifelong learning. This is how Seithy Chachage captured our pan-African imagination when we mourned his physical departure over 10 years ago:

'On 14th October 1999 Mwalimu passed away after battling against chronic leukeamia – the disease which killed Frantz Fanon in 1961. The millions of the oppressed people of Africa and the world mourned his loss with profound sadness and a sense of loss, because he is among those people who in words and deeds worked for the empowerment of the powerless. It is for this reason that his influence has never been comforting for those who would like to see people revolt against the noble human ideals he extolled. SAFM (the [South African] radio station for the well informed!) announced his death first on 28th September and 11th October 1999. In both occasions, it apologised for the wrong information. Tim Modise of the same radio station in his ‘famous’ show on 18th October 1999 quipped cryptically: "People will ask why should somebody who died in another country concern us so much? Why not go on with our own business?"'

South Africans were indeed concerned because of the role Nyerere played in the fight against apartheid, among other social vices. SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) even showed his funeral live. Such is how one of the finest sons of Africa permeated that country’s imagination.

In sum, the durability of Nyerere’s legacy in generating passionate public debate aimed at bringing positive social and economic change is what ‘Mwalimu in our popular imagination’ is all about. I think it is thus fitting to close this reflection on him with one of his mottoes appropriated across the socialist–capitalist ideological divide: ‘It can be done, play your part’!



BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Edited by Chambi Chachage and Annar Cassam, 'Africa's Liberation: The Legacy of Nyerere' is now available from Pambazuka Press.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

1. K. Sharife (2009) ‘Tanzania’s pot of gold: not much revenue at the end of the rainbow’, Pambazuka News, issue 450, http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/59142, accessed 8 December 2009.
2. Comment left on ‘Nyerere and IMF: will our leaders deliver in the summit?’, (2009) Politics, Society & Things, http://taifaletu.blogspot.com/2009/03/nyerere-and-imf-will-our-leaders.html, accessed 8 December 2009.
3. Mererani citizen at a community meeting, quoted in CMI report (2006) ‘Benefit streams from mining in Tanzania: case studies from Geita and Mererani’, Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), http://www.cmi.no/publications/publication/?2398=benefit-streams-from-mining-in-tanzania, accessed
8 December 2009.
4. J.K. Nyerere (1976) ‘The world: message to America from Tanzania’s President Julius K. Nyerere’, Time, 26 July http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914388-1,00.html, accessed 8 December 2009.
5. J.K. Nyerere (1980) ‘No to IMF meddling’, Another Development: Approaches and Strategies, Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden, vol. 2, pp.7–9
6. J.K. Nyerere (1980).

A bishop's pursuit of justice for South Africa's shack dwellers

Emma Pomfret

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65090

© abahlali.orgThe first black South African to become bishop of the Anglican diocese of Natal, and chairman of the KwaZulu-Natal Christian Council (KZNCC), Rubin Phillip is playing a crucial role in opposing the government’s attempted subjugation of Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM), a South African shack-dweller movement, writes Emma Pomfret. Pomfret investigates the recent traumas endured by AbM, and talks to the bishop about his commitment to seeing those who are suffering take charge of their own destiny.

The first black South African to hold the position of bishop of the Anglican diocese of Natal, and chairman of the KwaZulu-Natal Christian Council (KZNCC), Rubin Phillip, is currently in the UK to raise awareness about the plight of the Durban-based shack-dweller movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM).

AbM have insisted on speaking for themselves on the realities of the poor, and on the right of the poor to shape their own lives. For this, they have won support in many shack settlements, and have also incurred the wrath of the political establishment.

In September 2009 AbM leaders were attacked in the Durban-based Kennedy Road settlement by an armed mob chanting ethnic slogans. The police refused to come to the aid of AbM and only stepped in to disable spontaneous resistance to the mob. Two lives were lost during the attempt to mount a defence against the mob and the homes of more than 30 AbM leaders were destroyed and looted, following which local leaders of the ruling party seized control of the settlement.

Leaders of the ruling political party in the city and the province attacked the movement in extremely strong language in the days following the attack, accusing the movement of being criminals and ‘anti-development’. Twelve supporters of AbM were arrested in relation to the attack on the movement, and eight months later they are still waiting for the presentation of evidence from the state.

The Kennedy Road attacks were explicitly directed at AbM as a movement, and at its activists and supporters.

Three weeks after the attacks AbM succeeded in having the Slums Act declared unconstitutional in the Constitutional Court of South Africa. It was a remarkable victory. This act gave the provincial minister of housing the powers to make it mandatory for landowners and municipalities to institute eviction proceedings against shack dwellers. The act undermined tenure security for all shack dwellers in the province.

Despite this victory at the constitutional court, supporters of the ruling party were simultaneously openly issuing public death threats against the movement’s leadership in the context of intense hostility towards the movement from local party leaders and police officers.

The church believes it is imperative to establish, publicly and with confidence, the truth of what has happened and to help ensure that those who are found to be responsible are held accountable. This call has found wide support in South Africa and around the world.

As the bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Natal, with the support of the KwaZulu-Natal Church Leaders' Group, Bishop Rubin Phillip will accordingly appoint a properly independent commission. This is the first time the African National Congress (ANC) will have been challenged at a national level since their ascent to power in 1994.

He speaks to us here:

EMMA POMFRET: What initially inspired you to get involved with Abahlali?

BISHOP RUBIN PHILLIP: I got involved because of my long-standing participation in peace and justice issues. As a young priest I was involved in the Black Consciousness Movement with Steve Biko and deputy president of the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) in 1969, and my participation in the struggle for justice has continued, I have never stopped, even when I became a bishop. So when I was invited to meet with the leaders of Abahlali a few years ago to hear about their struggles and problems I knew that, as a church leader, there were important issues of justice and democracy at stake and I could throw my lot in with them.

I have attended meetings, memorials, mass ecumenical prayers, marches and even Abahlali’s UnFreedom Day to show that the freedom poor South Africans were promised in 1994 has not been a reality for a large majority of poor, oppressed people.

The fact that Abahlali was – and still is – so full of initiative and dedication, is a huge inspiration. When I first met the group leaders they were in control of their situation and they weren’t asking anybody to come into direct them or to speak on their behalf or anything like that, rather they simply wanted people to come to stand in solidarity with them. I think it’s fantastic that people who are suffering and living in desperate situations on a daily basis are able to take charge of their destiny and future.

But it wasn’t just words – they were already involved in practical projects in the community such as an HIV programme and a feeding scheme, despite having very few resources. There is real hope for change among these people, and it is blossoming out of very little, which always inspires me.

EMMA POMFRET: What of Abahlali’s on-going struggle for land, housing and dignity?

BISHOP RUBIN PHILLIP: So often people think of those informal settlements or slums as hopeless places, but they are thriving communities where people feel a real sense of pride in belonging to that particular land. These people don’t want to be told where to live, in isolated areas away from the city, which is why I was so happy to support the group in challenging the constitutionality of the KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act.

I demanded the political leadership of KwaZulu-Natal to acknowledge the legitimacy of Abahlali baseMjondolo as a democratically elected, non-aligned movement of the people and work with them and not against them. This government in particular should know that when you suppress the voices and political aspirations you never win. This is the tale of a small, under-resourced organisation taking on the terrifying might of the government and I applaud them wholeheartedly.

We really cannot underestimate the importance of this victory, not only for Abahlali but any individual or group in South Africa fighting for their fundamental human rights. This legal precedent set by Abahlali could quite literally change the tenure rights lives and therefore lives of millions of people across South Africa, so if I can use my position as a bishop to help alleviate people’s suffering and bring about change then that’s what I will do. That is my duty and my prerogative.

EMMA POMFRET: The movement has imprisoned leaders and the political paradox between Abahlali and the political establishment…

BISHOP RUBIN PHILLIP: Because of the political nature of the case five of Abahlali’s leaders remain in prison and seven are on bail as the case keeps getting remanded. We think that is because the local government is bent on keeping them inside to show people that they’re tough, they mean business, and that they won’t be challenged. Abahlali has a strong voice and opinions and it appears that the government sees them as a threat to their rule and authority.

The ANC as a liberation movement knew how to protest – how to challenge the government of the day. But maybe now that they are in government they have become institutionalised and do not hear the voices of the poor. They become frightened of change. This is a very sad thing and something the church is very concerned about. The church has stood on the side of the poor and oppressed, and played a significant role in the quest for the liberation of South Africa, so we feel deeply aggrieved that this is happening to this group.

Abahlali have made demands on the state as citizens, which they have a right to do, simply by asking for basic human rights, such as clean water, housing, electricity and health care. These demands are not only for physical improvements but for the political space to live in a dignified and respectful way, and that poses a serious threat to those in power now.

The point is that we’re willing to stand up, the church is prepared to be a prophetic ministry, and there will be victories, the people will win. In one sense we shouldn’t be surprised that the government is behaving in almost illegal and shabby way towards the poor, because they know the effect of protesting and advocacy as they used similar actions themselves during the apartheid years.

EMMA POMFRET: … and Mandela?

BISHOP RUBIN PHILLIP: My favourite memory of Mandela is when he came to Durban to spend a few days in the Presidential guest house. He invited some of the church leaders to meet with him so about five of us arrived at the house.

He was very down to earth and the security at the guest house was rather relaxed – he laughed and said that if he can’t feel safe with church leaders he can’t feel safe with anyone, and he thanked the church and the South African people for standing by him while he was in prison. He spoke quite movingly about the role of the church although he was also critical and said that the church should always get its facts right before speaking out. I challenged him on this and told him that was not the role of the church – if you’re going to be prophetic you are going to speak from what you know and see, and if you need to check out your facts with those in charge then it is no longer prophetic. He smiled and said ‘Well I can’t argue with a Bishop!’ That was a memorable meeting.

I think Mandela would express a real sadness about what is happening in the country today because he has always been someone with integrity and justice and liberation for the poor is all that’s motivated him in life. He must feel deeply aggrieved when he hears about some of the events that are happening.

The bottom line is that the problem is enormous. We’ve been left with a legacy from the days of apartheid which is not going to disappear overnight – it may take a few generations – which is all the more reason why the government needs to work in tandem with local communities and help develop them. The state needs to actually welcome the critique that comes from people like Abahlali and hear their voices when they speak and protest, rather than seeing that as being disloyal or an affront to the government.

I think the ANC feel that they have the moral high ground when it comes to liberation but it has to accept that fact that they are not – they are a government and they have become institutionalised. It’s a worrying sign that people in government are losing touch with their roots.

EMMA POMFRET: Where do you see the future of the Commission of Enquiry?

BISHOP RUBIN PHILLIP: We don’t have a date yet but we have consulted lawyers in the country as well as other academics. We have recruited a professor of history who is now retired – he’s passionate about the very first Anglican bishop of Natal, John Colenso – made famous in the 1964 film ‘Zulu’. The principle aim of the commission is to establish the truth of what happened on that night in Kennedy Road.

This commission is extremely important because it has wider implications for South Africa as a whole in terms of the role and scope of the state, their definition of democracy and the political space the government allow the poor to occupy. It will begin to bring under the microscope the behaviour of the state vis-à-vis the poor and those who want to stand up and be counted and make their voices heard. Abahlali are a significant part of the new struggle for a truly democratic South Africa and they will be heard sooner or later.


BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article was originally published by Christian Today.
* Emma Pomfret is an international journalist working for Christian Aid.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

World Cup 2010 at last!

Dibussi Tande

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65082

cc Shine 2010For the next month, concerns about the World Cup – whether about the financial toll of the tournament on South Africa’s economy, the absence of concrete benefits for large swathes of the South African population, or FIFA’s stifling rules – will be put on the backburner as the world enjoys the beautiful game, writes Dibussi Tande, in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere.

When the idea was first hatched to put forward South Africa’s candidacy for the 2010 World Cup, it seemed a far-fetched dream. And when FIFA actually awarded the tournament to South Africa, it was, in the view of many, a gamble destined to fail. However, after six years of turmoil, controversy and acrimony later, South Africa is finally set for the 2010 World Cup tournament. For the next month, (legitimate) concerns about the financial toll of the tournament on South Africa’s economy, the absence of concrete benefits for large swathes of the South African population, or about FIFA’s stifling rules will be put on the backburner as the world enjoys the beautiful game.

Dori Moreno

Dori Moreno is one of those unapologetically afflicted by ‘World Cup Fever’:

‘I have been waiting for the World Cup to arrive ever since the announcement was made that it would be hosted in South Africa. It’s difficult to get excited about something happening so far into the future. But now, the World Cup is upon us, and in just 2 more sleeps, South Africa will face Mexico in the kick off game of the 2010 World Cup. And South Africa has woken up and is alive with energy, passion and enthusiasm.

‘Today, the Bafana Bafana team took to the streets of Sandton, Johannesburg in an open top bus. South African fans came out en masse to celebrate and get a glimpse of their national team. The vibe was indescribable and when the Soweto Marimba Youth League played the national anthem, I confess to being moved to tears from the sheer emotion and energy of the event.

‘I think even the die-hard pessimists out there will struggle not to get caught up in the positive energy that will carry us all on a cloud for the next month. To everyone out there, I say, ENJOY! To all the visitors to our awesome country, feel it, live it and fall in love. It’s time for AFRICA!!!!’

Jeanette Verster’s Photography

And talking about the June 9 ‘United We Stand for Bafana Bafana’ parade organised in Sandton to encourage South Africans to show their support for their national team, Jeanette Verster publishes a colorful picture essay that vividly captures the national excitement.

Brand South Africa Blog

Brand South Africa Blog hopes that the unity and patriotism demonstrated in the run-up to the World Cup will last long after the tournament:

‘The past few months have been an incredible sight. Road works, bridges being built and the most spectacular, the giant eye which watches over all of us from the entrance to the V&A Waterfront. To say I feel proud would really be an understatement, although true. Undeniably through all of this is the tangible feeling of patriotism, excitement and unified spirit in the air.

‘Flags, Zakumi’s (official World Cup mascot), soccer jerseys everywhere makes me feel that we can unite as a country, evident in the progress made.

‘*** I love SA ***

‘The feeling I hope for South Africa is that we stay this way long past the end game is played. Everyone is watching and can see that through working together and progress, we can be pushed into another league and be part of a set of countries people all of the world would like to visit sometime in their life.

‘So, Bafana, we are behind you 150%, make us proud and do your best.

‘Visitors to South Africa, our country is beautiful, take the opportunity to visit places off the beaten track you’ll be pleasantly surprised and p.s. don’t forget to shop!’

Constitutionally Speaking

Even as the excitement builds up, there is anger just beneath the surface over a number of (FIFA-inspired?) decisions which do not benefit South Africans. One such issue is the apparent blanket ban on public gatherings in many municipalities for the duration of the World Cup. Constitutional Speaking argues that:

‘If this is true, it would mean that parts of South Africa are now effectively functioning under a state of emergency in which the right to freedom of assembly and protest have been suspended. This would be both illegal and unconstitutional. Other reports have suggested that such orders were indeed given, but that the police are now backtracking – probably because the police have realised that they are breaking the law and that the order, in fact, constitutes a grave breach of the law and the Constitution.

‘It is a sad day indeed when the police itself become a threat to our democracy and our rights because Fifa and the government want us all to behave and shut up for the next month and to forget about our democratic rights.’

Scribbles from the Den

Scribbles from the Den takes us back 20 years to a memorable World Cup game which is now part of the football folklore and which credited to have changed the World Football Order in favor of African countries:

‘Exactly 20 years ago on June 8, 1990 at the Giuseppe Maezza Stadium in Milan, Italy, the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon, “a humble team with an insignificant past” to quote the Miami Herald, defeated Argentina, the star-studded defending World Champions led by Diego Armando Maradona, in a thrilling Italia ’90 World Cup opening game that came to be known as the “Miracle of Milan”…

‘The victory over Argentina was merely the beginning of Cameroon’s Cinderella story which came to an end only after England ousted the Lions in an epic quarterfinal game that is also part of World Cup folklore. Cameroon’s brilliant run in Italia ’90 in general, and its historic win over Argentina in particular reverberated around the world and changed the Football World Order forever…

‘The aftershocks from that memorable Friday afternoon at the Giuseppe Maezza Stadium would be felt years later first with FIFA increasing the number of African teams taking part in the World Cup from two to five, then with the “browning” of European leagues which opened their doors to players from the continent and in the process unearthed African football prodigies such as “King” George Weah of Liberia, Same Eto’o of Cameroon and Didier Drogba of Cote d’Ivoire.’

Up Station Mountain Club

As the football fiesta goes on in South Africa, Charles Taku, a lead counsel at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, wonders whether Africa has any reason to celebrate as many states turn 50:

‘Africa is sick; very sick indeed. It is safe to state that at 50, there is nothing to celebrate. Rather than celebrate, Africa should be engaged in a moment of soul searching to find out where we went wrong and to generate ideas about how to resolve the myriad problems afflicting the continent…

‘There is no gainsaying that Africa is a victim of its colonial heritage. It is also true that many African problems are self inflicted. For that reason, according to Peter Schwab, Africa is its own worse enemy.

‘As Africa enters the second half of the century, there is a compelling need for it to eschew all pretensions to celebration and to use the opportunity of the moment to search for viable solutions to its plethora of problems. Our collective failure enjoins us to do a lot of soul searching at this point of our history rather than celebrate a failed past in anticipation of a bleaker future. Africa and the black race in general need to take their destiny into their own hands once again. Time has come for all black people of this world to invoke the spirits of Marcus Garvey, George Pardmore, CLR James, the Osagefo , Mwalimu and others whose mere mention of name give us the inspiration, courage and hope to start all over again, in seeking a path of glory they once laid out for us. The time to build and improve on what they started for our collective survival in a mercilessly competitive world is now. Waiting for dictators that preside over the destiny of most of the continent at present to pave that path to glory is simply foolhardy, if not suicidal.”

Kumekucha

Kumekucha explains how he believes the ruling elite plan to rig the August Referendum for the proposed new Kenyan Constitution:

‘Folks I am afraid that I have more bad news for you concerning the new constitution most of us are yearning for. Let me start by confessing that for a person with my years of experience I was rather naïve to believe that those who own Kenya would ever allow for an electoral system that they did not have any control over. The truth is that the so called "tamper-proof" electoral roll has already been tampered with and non-existent voters introduced. And since it is NOT the same electoral roll that we will go to the general elections with, the only conclusion is that the intention is to rig the August 4th Referendum.

‘The game plan by the powerful owners of Kenya is for the NO camp to catch up with the YES majority so that the difference is around 20% or less. What will then happen is that NO will win with a very slim majority. Enough to deny most Kenyans what they are yearning for so much that they can no longer sleep too well. Those who have read the document and realize the sweeping changes it will bring into the country and the deadly blow it will deal to impunity.

‘What really scares me is that so far these powerful forces have been able to get things done through the NSIS and have even influenced the judiciary to make certain bizarre rulings. To me that is evidence enough that they are quite capable of going ahead with their well laid plan even as the president tires himself crisscrossing the country campaigning for a new constitution.’

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* Dibussi Tande blogs at Scribbles from the Den.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Ethiopia: Speaking truth to the powerless

Alemayehu G. Mariam

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65089

cc BBCThe Ethiopian election that ushered Meles Zenawi back to power with a 99.6 per cent majority is a testament to the tyranny of the powerful and the hypocrisy of the collective opposition, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. The opposition parties, through inaction and submission, betrayed the Ethiopian people and must share blame for this most recent violation of democratic rights. To atone, the opposition needs to make a public apology and a renew its commitment to speak the truth.

Always speak truth to power; but sometimes it is necessary to speak it to the powerless too. Truth must be spoken not only because it renders naked the hypocrites and villains, but also because it has a cathartic, or cleansing effect on its defenders. Above all, it must be spoken because it is the quintessential requirement of freedom: ‘the truth shall make you free’. It is in the spirit of freedom from the burdens of past political blunders and poor judgment, and of freedom to invent a new spirit of democracy in Ethiopia that I offer this commentary to the Ethiopian opposition. My aim is not to lecture or to bash; I leave that job to the dictators who are the true experts. When I speak my mind freely about the Ethiopian opposition, it is merely to help ‘clean out the closet’, as it were, so that we could begin afresh on the long walk to democracy. It is said that the truth hurts, but I disagree. I believe the truth heals, empowers and liberates its defenders.

HOLDING A MIRROR TO THE ETHIOPIAN OPPOSITION

Now that the hoopla around Meles Zenawi’s ‘election’ is over, it is time for the Ethiopian opposition to take stock and re-think the way it has been doing business. We begin with the obvious question: what happened to the Ethiopian opposition in the make-believe election of 2010? Zenawi will argue vigorously that he defeated them by a margin of 99.6 percent (545 of 547 parliamentary seats). If that were the real ‘defeat’ for the opposition, I would not worry much. Losing a sham election is like losing one’s appendix. But there is a different kind of defeat that I find more worrisome. It is a defeat in the eyes and hearts of the people. I am afraid the opposition collectively has suffered a considerable loss of credibility in the eyes of the people by making a public spectacle of its endless bickering, carping, dithering, internal squabbles, disorganisation, inability to unite, pettiness, jockeying for power, and failure to articulate a coherent set of guiding principles or ideas for the country’s future.

In the 2005 election, there was a unifying spirit among the opposition. For that reason, they were able to trounce the ruling dictatorship in a free and fair election. What was monumental about that election was not only the fact that the opposition thumped the ruling party, but they did so with overflowing and overwhelming public support. On 7 May 2005, a week before elections that year, the opposition was able to hold a rally in the capital for an estimated 3 million people. On 15 May over 26 million people voted freely, giving the opposition a decisive victory in the parliamentary elections, including a clean sweep of seats in the capital. Of course, the elections were stolen by the current dictatorship after hundreds of unarmed protesters were massacred and shot in the streets and thousands more imprisoned and disappeared. The point is that in 2005 the Ethiopian people put everything on the line – their lives, their livelihoods and their loved ones. Fast-forward to 2010: ‘Where did the people go?’ That was the question asked by Awramba Times, the only independent and struggling paper in Ethiopia that is the regular object of the dictatorship’s wrath and fury.

The people did not vanish merely because Zenawi had unloosed his trigger-happy goons on the streets. Perhaps they did not show up because they had lost faith in the leadership of the opposition. When Zenawi herded the opposition leaders into his dungeons after the 2005 election, the people kept faith with them. They kept them in their hearts and minds and thoughts and prayers. Did the opposition leaders keep faith with the people after they were ‘pardoned’ and released from prison? That is perhaps the hardest truth for the opposition leaders to face and accept. I have heard it said anecdotally thousands of times: the opposition leaders have deeply and sorely disappointed the people. In their words, deeds and conduct, they have failed to uphold and sustain the people’s dreams, aspirations and longing for justice and democracy. As best as I can summarise, the people feel betrayed and abandoned by many opposition leaders in whom they placed so much trust.

THE OPPOSITION THROUGH ZENAWI’S EYES

Zenawi knows the opposition like the opposition does not know itself. He has studied them and understands how they (do not) work. Careful analysis of his public statements on the opposition over the years suggests a rather unflattering view. He considers opposition leaders to be his intellectual inferiors; he can outwit, outthink, outsmart, outplay, outfox and outmaneuver them any day of the week. He believes they are dysfunctional, shiftless and inconsequential, and will never be able to pose a real challenge to his power. In his speeches and public comments, Zenawi shows nothing but contempt and hatred for them. At best, he sees them as wayward children who need constant supervision, discipline and punishment to keep them in line. Like children, he will offer some of them candy – jobs, cars, houses and whatever else it takes to buy their silence. Those he can not buy, he will intimidate, place under continuous surveillance and persecute. Mostly, he tries to fool and trick the opposition. He will send ‘elders’ to talk to them and lullaby them to sleep while he drags out ‘negotiations’ to buy just enough time to pull the rug from underneath them. He casts a magical spell on them so that they forget he is the master of the zero-sum game (which means he always wins and his opposition always loses).

For the first time in nearly twenty years, Zenawi is now changing his tune a little because the opposition seems to be wising up and Western donors are grimacing with slight embarrassment for supporting him. The kinder and gentler face of Zenawi is slowly being rolled out. After his ‘election victory’, he extended an olive branch to the opposition wrapped in his inimitable condescending cordiality, magnanimity and paternalism. He solemnly ‘pledge[d] to all the parties who did not succeed in getting the support of the people… as long as you respect the will of the people and the country's Constitution and other laws of the land, we will work by consulting and involving you in all major national issues. We are making this pledge not only because we believe that we should be partners... [but also] you have the right to participate and to be heard’. In other words, he will set up a kitchen cabinet so the nice opposition leaders can come in through the back door and chit-chat with him. But they will never be allowed to get out of the kitchen and sit at the dining table.

WHO IS THE OPPOSITION IN EHTIOPIA ANYWAY?

Opposition politics in the African political context is a tragicomedy. Beginning with Nkrumah – the father of the one-man, one-party state in Africa – opposition parties and groups in Africa have been staged, suppressed and persecuted by those in power. Just a few days ago, it was reported that ‘14 opposition political parties have declared the Meles Zenawi-led EPRDF party [– the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front,] as a winner of the 2010 elections, conveying congratulatory message’. This is like the chickens congratulating the fox who snacks on them for doing a good job guarding the henhouse. It is nutty, but quaintly African. Where else on earth could an election universally declared to be a sham and a fraud be blessed by lackeys organized to look like opposition parties? Are these 14 ‘parties’ the Ethiopian opposition? How about those political parties that are permitted to run for elections just to window-dress the ruling party and make it look good and democratic? Is the opposition those parties that are handcuffed and chained at the starting line while the ruling party sprints to the finish? Is the opposition that amorphous aggregation of weak, divided, squabbling, factionalized and fragmented parties and groups that are constantly at each others’ throats? Or is it the grumbling aggregation of human rights advocates, civil society organisers, journalists and other media professionals and academics? Or are the groups committed to armed struggle and toppling the dictatorship by force the opposition?

WHAT IS TO BE DONE BY THE ETHIOPIAN OPPOSITION?

- Atonement and reconciliation with the people

There is the well-known parable of the prodigal son who took riches from his father and squandered it all. He returned home believing his father would reject and disown him. But the son asked for his father’s forgiveness. Filled with compassion and love, the father forgave his son. There may be a good lesson here for the opposition: they need to go back to the people and ask forgiveness for squandering their hopes, dreams and aspirations. They need to say to the people: ‘we did let you down. We are deeply sorry. We promise to do our very best to earn back your trust and confidence. We will correct our mistakes’. In my view, atonement is the first thing opposition leaders need to do before they can begin to reconnect with the people. I realise that many of us (including myself) find it exceedingly difficult to admit we have done wrong or made a mistake. We feel that it is a sign of weakness to say ‘I am sorry, I messed up’. But the real and tragic mistake is to know one has done wrong and irrationally insist that wrong is right. The people deserve the unqualified and public apology of the opposition leaders. They will be forgiven because the Ethiopian people are decent, understanding and compassionate.

– Work collectively for the release of Birtukan Midekssa and all Ethiopian political prisoners

Birtukan Midekksa is the symbol of the democratic opposition in Ethiopia. She is the one paying the ultimate price. Zenawi has made her his object of ridicule. But she is the personification of the spirit of the Ethiopian opposition. We must work tirelessly to get Birtukan and all of the thousands of political prisoners in Ethiopia released.

– Learn from past mistakes

It is said that those who do not learn from past mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Many mistakes have been committed by opposition leaders in the past. They need to be identified and lessons learned from them.

– Understand the opposition’s opposition

The opposition’s opposition should not be underestimated. Their strength is in dividing and ruling and in playing the ethnic card. If the opposition unites and acts around a common agenda, they are powerless.

– Develop a common agenda in support of issues and causes

The core issues – democracy, freedom, human rights, the rule of law, the unity of the people and the physical integrity of the Ethiopian nation – are shared by all opposition elements. Why not build a collective agenda to advance and support these issues?

– Agree to disagree without being disagreeable

Opposition leaders and supporters must abandon the destructive principle, ‘if you do not agree with me 100 percent, you are my enemy’. There is nothing wrong with reasonable minds disagreeing. Dissent and disagreement are essential conditions of democracy. If the opposition can not tolerate dissent within and among itself, how different could it be from the dictators?

– Guard against the cult of personality

One of the greatest weaknesses in the Ethiopian opposition has been the cult of personality. We create idealised and heroic images of individuals as leaders, shower them with unquestioning flattery and praise and almost worship them. Let us remember that every time we do that we are grooming future dictators.

– Always act in good faith

Opposition leaders and supporters must always strive to act in good faith and be forthright and direct in their personal and organisational relationships. We must mean what we say and say what we mean. Games of one-upmanship will keep us all stranded on an island of irrelevance.

– Think generationally; act presently

The struggle is not about winning an election or getting into public office. The struggle is about establishing democracy, protecting human rights and institutionalising accountability and the rule of law in Ethiopia. It is not about us. It is about the younger generation.

– Give young people a chance to lead

The older generation in the opposition needs to learn to get out of the way. Let’s give the younger generation a chance to lead. After all, it is their future. We can be most useful if we help them learn from our mistakes and guide them to greater heights. Zenawi thinks he can mould the young people in his image so that he can establish a Reich that will last a thousand years. He will never succeed. If there is one thing universally true about young people, it is that they love freedom more than anything else. Let the older generation be water carriers for the young people who will be building the ‘future country of Ethiopia’, as Birtukan would say.

– Think like winners, not victims

Victory is not what it seems for the victors, and defeat is not what it feels for the vanquished. There is defeat in victory and victory in defeat. Both victory and defeat are first and foremost, states of mind. Those who won the election by a margin of 99.6 percent project an image of being victorious. But we know they have an empty victory secured by force and fraud. The real question is whether the opposition see themselves as winners or losers. Winners think and act as winners, likewise for losers.

– Never give up, NEVER

Sir Winston Churchill was right when he said ‘never give in – never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy’.

What is NOT to be done by the opposition: ‘fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!’

There is talk now that Zenawi is shuttling his ‘elders’ (shimagles) to do a deal with the opposition. It is even said that the opposition leaders have been warned that if they do not negotiate and publicy accept the ‘election’ results, they will soon be joining Birtukan. The last time Zenawi used his Trojan horse elders to deal with the opposition, he put a noose around their necks. Birtukan Midekksa is in prison today precisely because she took a ‘pardon’ deal from the elders. Now she is serving a life sentence because she allegedly violated the terms of her deal. This is how she explained it a day or two before Zenawi threw her back to prison:

‘Let me start with the negotiation by the elders; the basic spirit of the negotiation by the elders was to bring about an agreement acceptable to both parties and to create a spirit of reconciliation and to continue the political process. This is why its progress took several months. In this, regarding the problem that was created following the 2005 elections, instead of following the path of making one party wrong and another party right, the country elders mediated with the objective of having each party ask for forgiveness from the people and from each other, presented to both parties points that would bring about a spirit of reconciliation, mediated these points between the parties, toning down the parties' opinions as much as possible, and move forward by proving their determination to their political outlooks on fundamental issues.

‘The negotiation through the elders that was focused on reaching a negotiated agreement through a give and take deal was based on not only a willingness on the part of the government but also through its participation. … Nonetheless, even at that stage, the spirit of reconciliation to which the negotiation was directed did not change. Even though other points of agreement were left behind, the elders expressed that if we signed that document which was crafted on the spirit of our country's culture to say to each other let it be settled, the matter would stop at that stage, the file would be closed, and pushed on with their elderly mediation…. In connection with this, agreement was reached "to release all prisoners in the country put in jail in matters related the CUD [Coalition for Unity and Democracy] without preconditions; to start direct discussions between the government and the former CUD leaders; for the parties leaders to continue their party's duties without restrictions …’

Not only was there no follow-up on the ‘negotiated agreement’ and no political prisoners released, Birtukan herself ended up being the number one political prisoner in the country. For Birtukan, it was Faustian bargain: In exchange for walking out of prison and staying out, Zenawi demanded her soul. But she would never sell her soul, so she is now back in Zenawi’s underworld. Just remember Birtukan when you see the slithering elders come bearing gifts and talk with forked tongues! ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.’

As I have argued before, much needs to be done to reinvent and revitalize opposition politics in Ethiopia.

I raised some questions above about who the opposition is in Ethiopia. I will answer them now. The opposition is anyone who believes in and stands for genuine democracy, protection of human rights and institutionalisation of the rule of law, accountability and transparency in government. The Ethiopian opposition is anyone who stands against dictatorship, tyranny and despotism.

Are you part of the opposition?

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

Mission impossible: Managing the Euro

Samir Amin

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65085

cc U B The introduction of a single currency was an attempt ‘to force Europe to create a transnational state’, writes Samir Amin, but despite ‘illusions of transcending national sovereignty’, “Europe” still does not exist, either in the political sense or economically and socially. Given the lack of common ground among Europe’s deeply unequal states, Amin looks at the options for managing the Euro in the face of the global financial crisis.

1) A currency cannot exist in the absence of a state. Together, a state and its currency are the means by which capital operates, above and beyond the various competing forces. The current perception of a capitalist system controlled by the market and in the absence of the state (which in this case, is reduced to the minimal role of maintaining law and order) is not based on any serious historical understanding of capital. Neither is this perception based on any scientific theory that shows the ability of the market to maintain an optimal balance.

The Euro was created in the absence of a European state, at a time when the nation-states were themselves were being stripped of the responsibility to manage capital. The notion of a currency that is ‘independent’ of the state is in itself absurd.

‘Europe’ does not exist, in the political sense. In spite of the naive illusions of transcending national sovereignty, it is in fact the national governments that remain legitimate. The political maturity necessary to accept a Europe born out of a ‘European vote’ still does not exist in any of the individual member countries. One can but only hope for this scenario at this point, but it will still take a long time to arrive at true legitimacy for Europe.

Economically and socially, Europe still does not really exist. The current entity composed of 25 to 30 states remains deeply unequal in terms of capitalist development. The oligopolies that control the economy of the region are groups whose ‘nationality’ is dependent on that of their leading stakeholders. These groups are predominantly British, German, French, and peripherally Dutch, Swedish, Spanish and Italian. Eastern and part of Southern Europe are connected to Northern and Central Europe in the same way that Latin America relates to the USA. Under the current conditions, Europe is little more than a common market, and is itself part of a global market in the hands of global financial oligopolies. From this perspective, as I have stated before, Europe is the most globalised of regions. This situation, coupled with the impossibility of a political union, means you have differentiated wage levels, social security and taxation regimes that can not be done away with under the current European system.

2) The creation of the Euro was therefore putting the cart before the horse. The founders themselves have since admitted this, claiming however, that the idea was to force Europe to create a transnational state, and in effect moving the horse in front of the cart. This miracle did not happen. Towards the end of the 1990s, I had occasion to express my misgivings about this move. My expression on the matter (putting the cart before the horse) has since been used by one of the senior officials behind the creation of the Euro, who had at the time told me in no uncertain terms that my views were unreasonably pessimistic. At the time, I stated that such an absurd system could only possibly work effectively if the general economic climate remained favourable. What happened subsequently should therefore not have been a surprise: As soon as a crisis (which initially appeared to be financial) hit the system, it became impossible to manage the Euro, and respond effectively and coherently.

The current crisis is set to persist and even deepen. The effects thereof are varied and unequal across the different European countries. By the same token, the social and political responses across the working class and the middle class, as well as the political establishment, will vary from one country to the next. The conflicts that will arise out of this crisis will be impossible to manage in the absence of a real and legitimate European state, possessed of a suitable monetary instrument.

The responses of Europe’s institutions (the CBE included) to the crises (Greek and others) are therefore absurd and futile. The responses can be summed up in one term – austerity across the board. This is very similar to how governments responded in 1929-30. And in the same way that those responses worsened the situation in the 1930s, we shall see the same results today from Brussels.

3) What should have been done in the 1990s was the establishment of a ‘European monetary snake’; each European state would remain monetarily sovereign, managing its economy and currency according to its own opportunities and needs, all within the limitations of free trade (the common market). This monetary snake would ensure interdependence through fixed (or relatively fixed) currency exchange rates that could be adjusted occasionally based on negotiated devaluations and revaluations.

Under this scenario, a longer-term view of a ‘stiffening serpent’ would be realistic – perhaps leading up to the adoption of a common currency. This process would be tempered by the slow and progressive convergence of production systems, real wages and social benefits. In other words, the serpent would have aided – not hamstrung – the process by means of a bottom-up convergence. This would have required the different countries to agree to common objectives and exercise political will to, among other things, control financial flows. This goes contrary to the absurd current system characterised by deregulated financial integration.

4) The current crisis provides the perfect opportunity to abandon the way in which this illusory currency is managed, and replace it with a European monetary serpent that conforms to the realistic opportunities available to the affected countries.

Greece and Spain could start the process by deciding to:
(i)‘provisionally’ opt out of the Euro
(ii) devalue their currencies
(iii) set in place exchange controls, at least as far as financial flows are concerned.
These countries would then be in a strong position to negotiate the rescheduling of their debts, and after audits, to call for the cancellation of debts associated with corruption and speculation (activities in which foreign oligopolies participated and enriched themselves!). I am convinced that this would set a strong precedent.

5) Unfortunately, the chances of such an exit from the crisis are slim to none. The decision to manage the Euro independent of the states, and the sacrosanct respect of the ‘law of financial markets’ are not products of some absurd theory. They are designed to keep the oligopolies in control. They are key elements in the construction of a European collective, itself designed to preclude any challenge to the economic and political power of the oligopolies.

In a widely published article entitled ‘Open letter by G. Papandréou to A. Merkel’, the Greek authors of this imaginary letter make a comparison between Germany’s past and present arrogance. On two occasions in the 20th century, the German ruling classes have taken a belligerent approach to create a single European entity in conformity with their wishes, both times unsuccessfully. Their pursuit of European leadership, ruling over a ‘Mark zone’ seems to be based on a similar overestimation of Germany’s economy, which is in reality relative and fragile.

The crisis will only be overcome when a radical left dares to take political initiative and build alternative anti-oligarchic formations. Europe will either be Left, or not be at all, I have stated. The current rallying cry by Europe leftist forces so far has been ‘the current Europe is better than no Europe at all’. Breaking the current impasse requires the deconstruction of the current institutions and treaties. In its current form, the system will lead to unprecedented chaos. All scenarios are possible, including that which we pretend not to want to see; the resurgence of the far right. For the US, the survival of an emasculated Europe, or its complete collapse, will not change much. The idea of a united and strong Europe that forces the US to take note of its interests and opinions is in the current conditions no more than wishful thinking.

6) I have tried my best to be concise in this article, to avoid repeating views I have previously made on the European impasse in these works:

Capitalism in the age of globalization, chapter 6, 1997
L’hégémonisme des Etats-Unis et l’effacement du projet européen, section II, 2000
Obsolescent capitalism, chapter 6, 2003, original French 2002
The Liberal Virus, chapter V, 2003, F 2002
Beyond US hegemony, chapter VI, 2006, F 2002.
The world we wish to see, chapter 3, 2008, F 2006
From Capitalism to civilization, chapter VI, 2008, F 2008
La crise, sortir de la crise du capitalisme ou sortir du capitalisme en crise?, chapitre I, 2008 (English translation in course)

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* Samir Amin has been the director of IDEP (the United Nations African Institute for Planning), the director of the Third World Forum in Dakar, Senegal, and a co-founder of the World Forum for Alternatives. He is a contributor to ‘Aid to Africa: Redeemer or Coloniser?’ available to order from the Pambazuka Press website.
* Translated from French by Josh Ogada.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

OECD report calls for radical tax reform across Africa

Stephen Marks

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65102

cc J R AThe OECD’s latest annual report on African economic development presents its findings on the economic performance and prospects of growth on the continent. Stephen Marks reflects on the report’s call for taxation reforms, and suggests a need for more 'effective, efficient and fair taxation in Africa’, to alleviate aid dependence and vulnerability to global financial downturns.

A call for a crackdown on tax abuses and loopholes across Africa, with an end to tax preferences for big corporations, a crackdown on transfer pricing rackets by multinationals and fair and transparent taxation on extractive industries – not an agenda many would expect to come from major global economic institutions in the Global North.

But these are all among the main action points recommended in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) African Economic Outlook (AEO) 2010, launched this week in Abidjan at the Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the African Development Fund (ADF).

The AEO finds that the global crisis has brought a period of relatively high economic growth in Africa to a sudden end: Africa’s GDP growth was slashed from an average of about 6 per cent in 2006–2008 to 2.5 per cent in 2009. Given the pace of population growth this means that growth of per capita GDP came to a near standstill. Average growth is expected to rebound to 4.5 per cent in 2010 and 5.2 per cent in 2011, although the recession will leave its mark.

Yet, according to the report most African countries were able to absorb the shock and, in some cases, to pursue expansionary fiscal and monetary policies, due largely to past fiscal prudence and disinflation. The report also finds that Africa’s strengthening economic ties with Asia helped cushion the impact of the economic slowdown on the region. It also credits the fact that Africa was able to count on timely support from the African Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as from OECD countries in the form of Official Development Assistance (ODA).

The report includes detailed regional and country-by-country breakdowns of the impact of the global slowdown. It finds that southern Africa, which was hardest hit in 2009, will recover more slowly than other regions with an average growth of almost 4 per cent in 2010/2011. East Africa, which best weathered the global crisis, is projected to again achieve the highest growth with an average of more than 6 per cent in 2010/2011. North and West Africa should both grow at around 5 per cent and central Africa at 4 per cent during the same period.

In 2009, Africa’s export volumes declined by 2.5 per cent and import volumes by about 8 per cent. Sectors such as mining and manufacturing were particularly hit by the fall of commodity prices and global trade in goods and services. Other sectors, notably non-tourism services and agriculture, were more resilient. In fact, in most African countries the agricultural sector benefited from good harvests due to favourable weather, although in some countries bad harvests worsened the effect of the global crisis.

All this, the report concludes, reinforces the need for Africa to reduce its dependence on external flows, and rely more on mobilising domestic resources for development. Here, it argues, taxation is key. And there is a wide variation in the ability of different African states to raise tax revenue.

In 2008, annual taxes per capita ranged from between US$20–40, in Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia, to US$4,866 in Equatorial Guinea, and US$11,725 in Libya. Some countries collect as little as half of what would be expected, given their living standards and economic structures, while others collect two to three times what is expected. In particular, resource-rich countries have made little effort to broaden their tax base. By contrast Kenya, Morocco, Ghana and Cape Verde have shown that it is possible to collect taxes effectively from diversified sources.

Low income countries in Africa still collect less than 15 per cent of GDP in taxes while upper-middle income countries collect 35 per cent, almost on par with OECD countries. Resource-related taxes have increased from 5 per cent to 15 per cent of GDP over the last 15 years. In Equatorial Guinea alone, over 95 per cent of taxes collected come from natural resources.

More effective, efficient and fair taxation in Africa, through broadening the existing tax base, would help reduce aid dependence and help insulate Africa from future shocks in the global economy. And this is where the radical tax agenda comes in. Policy options recommended include cracking down on fraud and evasion, removing tax preferences, particularly for large corporations and traders, dealing with abuses of transfer pricing techniques by multinationals and taxing extractive industries more fairly and more transparently.

As the report also notes, this agenda would require cooperation from the wider OECD membership – surely something of an understatement.

The 2010 AEO findings will be debated by African ministers and CEOs of companies investing in the region at the 10th annual International Economic Forum on Africa, held on 11 June at the French Ministry of Economy, Industry and Employment.

The 2010 AEO covers economic, social and political development in 50 of the continent’s 53 countries. It is published jointly by the African Development Bank (AfDB), the OECD Development Centre and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), with financial support from the European Commission and the Committee of African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP).

The whole report, including specific country performance, can be found online at African Economic Outlook.

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* Stephen Marks is a freelance writer and researcher, specialising in development and human rights issues.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Pink imperialism: LGBTQ and the Middle East

A of Arabia

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65087

cc M G Writing on his experiences as a gay westerner interested in LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) issues in the Middle East, A of Arabia highlights the misplaced, 'imperialist' nature inherent in Western efforts to 'improve' gay and trans rights in other parts of the world. Western-based approaches commonly neglect acknowledgement of the economic security and opportunities associated with being openly gay within a given society, A of Arabia contends, failing in the process to take individual circumstances into account.

Through my research about subcultures in the Middle East, I found out that the media in the West has constructed two types of Arabs, one that we (in the West) are afraid of and which is threatening to our democracy, and another that we feel sorry for and which we want to help. When it comes to LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) and the Middle East, the latter gets our sympathy and understanding. But is that image true? Do we take into account our own part of the situation?

I decided to study Arabic a few years ago. My decision came after a lifelong fascination about the region and with the intensifying media exposure of the Arab as a threat, after 9/11 I felt that now was the time. Studying this language exposed a lot of old, inherited knowledge about the Arab from people in my environment. Comments like 'Why Arabic?', 'Are you going to be a terrorist?' and 'Are you going to have sex with Arabs?' were thrown at me when I explained what I was doing. These comments showed what image we have produced about the Arab: an untamed, sexual beast who is a threat to our society. I always wondered if a student of Chinese would have the same comments.

Last year I went down to Syria to study the language in its true environment. The Swedish national radio contacted me and gave me a task, to make a short documentary about my life as a single gay man studying Arabic in Syria, my search for love and sex and looking for the 'hidden' gay culture. I not only found it but I became part of a diverse scene of people with more than one way to express their sexuality.

What I observed early on was that the scene is divided into two different societies (to simplify it). One belongs to the upper-middle class; they speak English and label themselves with Western sexual labels like 'gay' and 'bi'. This group is very active on the internet and socialises at private parties and in the fancy part of Damascus called Sha’lan. Many of them have the ability to study in Europe and they identify themselves with the Western way of being gay. The other group belongs to what I call the same-sex society. These men are mostly from the working class; they are married and they keep their same sex relations on the side. They socialise in the parks and the hamams (bathhouses) of Damascus. In an interview with the web magazine Dialogues on Civilization, the writer of the book 'Desiring Arabs', Joseph A. Massad, has described these two groups:

'… one is an identity that seeks social community and political rights, while the other is one of many forms of sexual intimacy that seeks corporeal pleasure'.

And with the power of the media I fell into the trap of producing knowledge in favour to the Western-identified group. I called them heroes and applauded their courage. The other group got pigeonholed into a dark collective. How this group was framed irritated me, and I settled with just describing them instead of giving them a voice of their own. The reason for this was mostly that I didn’t speak that much Arabic at the time and I couldn’t understand them. But as my knowledge of the language and my network grew, I couldn’t ignore the voice from this collective. And it was two meetings that made me want to learn a bit more about them.

Mahmud and Farhad were two men that I met at one of the many gay forums on the internet. They were both married with kids. Mahmud was from the upper-middle class and worked within tourism. He came out when he went to a sex-segregated college, where same-sex relations where common. After college Mahmud’s mother wanted him to get married and had picked out a wife for him, but Mahmud didn’t want to get married and tried to run away to an uncle in Europe to live his life the way he wanted to. But that plan fell through and he kept his gay life on the down-low in the beginning, but after a while he decided to be what he is. He told me once:

'I live my life ninety and ten. Ninety per cent is with my family that I adore and ten per cent is with my gay life, that my family doesn’t know about. I’m not ashamed and no one can tell me that what I do is wrong. This is what makes my life complete.'

Farhad came from the working class and worked in the market as an artisan. We met one day in his little workshop, which also served as his little love shack. After we had sex we talked about his life, his family and the future, and I was waiting for some sort of coming-out story, but it didn’t come. So in the end I asked him if he had come to terms with his sexuality. He looked at me with a perplexed look on his face. He didn’t feel that he had to come to terms with anything. When I later wrote a blogpost about Farhad, I added words like 'struggle' to describe his situation. But that was a lie; Farhad didn’t have a struggle with his life. That was just me and my biased way of producing knowledge. After this I wanted to learn more about this community. I went to the bathhouses and the parks and after a while I met Ali and we decided to date. I asked him on our first date, with my improved Arabic, how he labelled himself.

- 'Anta mithli?' ('Are you gay?')

- 'Shoo?' ('What?')

- 'Yani, anta mithli? Bathab shabab?' ('Are you gay? Do you like boys?')

- 'Bahab banat wa shabab.' ('I like boys and girls.')

- 'Ahh anta bi-sexual yani.' ('You mean that you are bi-sexual.')

- 'Shoo? Bahab banat wa shabab?' ('What? I love boys and girls.')

I laughed and took off the post-it stamps that I had forced on his forehead in order to label him. Ali didn’t want to be labelled and I had to respect that.

When it comes to media exposure and LGBTQ issues in the Middle East, the voice that is heard is from the group that we can identify with. They look like us, talk like us and act like us. We are willing to talk about their struggle, and they are willing and able to live like we do. They say what we want to hear. Their story tells us (in the West) that we are more free and that the way we live is the most admirable.

The writer that I mentioned earlier, Joseph Massad, came out with his book 'Desiring Arabs' two years ago and caused a stir in the LGBTQ community. Massad sheds light on the science that the West has produced about the Orient since the 19th century (when our modern interest in the region began). Within 19th-century Orientalism, the Arab was labelled sexually immoral and medically labelled for his sexual behaviour. But this attitude shifted at the end of the 20th century, and what was bad then was now good. And now we wanted to liberate the Orient. He has described this as Europe came and invented homosexuality where it didn’t exist, and a lot of LGBTQ organisations have accused him of homophobia.

As a westerner researching LGBTQ and same-sex relations, this book is an important tool when I produce knowledge. I don’t agree with everything, but when it comes to the West and its will to 'liberate' the Middle East, there is so much more that we have to understand. When we criticise Syria or Lebanon for penal code 534 which prohibits sex 'contradicting the laws of nature', we have to understand that we gave them this law in the first place. This is not an excuse for still using the law, but what we in the West have to understand is that we didn’t invented freedom.

The activism in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon is different depending on the different political situations. Lebanon, with gay organisations like Helem and Meem and its busy nightlife, is the hub of gay life in the region. A friend in Jordan, who is a gay activist, told me once that the Lebanese people are busy fighting each other so they don’t have time to 'care' about gay people. In Jordan the movement is underground but very active. My activist friend has a restaurant that is the queer hub of Amman, where most of the gay crowd networks. He calls it 'the rebel bitch of Jordan' and he is not only a gay activist but also challenges censorship and elitism. His staff is a mix of posh kids working there because it’s cool and people from the Palestinian refugee camps. When I ask him who has the biggest problem with him being openly gay he tells me:

'If there is anyone who has problems it’s mostly Jordanians educated in the West that label me with the Western sexual labels as something negative. For my workers, who come from the refugee camps and who live in the poorest of settings, I’m just the man that has intimate relations with other men.'

It’s hard to find activism in Syria, because of political circumstances. It’s hard to organise meetings and NGOs hardly exist. Most of the activism is in front of the computer, and if there is an action it’s mostly a private party that is for the privileged people. The activism that exists is mostly among women who use the blogosphere. I discussed the situation with a gay friend of mine at the beginning of my stay in Syria. With my Eurocentric view, I argued for the beauty of democracy and how well it worked in Sweden. He told me that he didn’t want democracy. Life was good as it was. If the majority won they would decide to close down the unofficial gay hamams, parks and bars:

'The secret police knows about everything and they don’t give a shit. As long as we don’t organise ourselves and become a threat to the power, we can do whatever we want to do, as long as it is behind closed doors.'

I couldn’t believe him, there I was talking about the most precious thing that I know about and he didn’t want it. What we have to add to this story is that this man comes from a privileged background. He works with oil and lives on his own. His position in the society makes it possible to choose a lifestyle.

And this is a part of my critique towards the West and its attitude to the Middle East and the LGBTQ liberation, which is that sometimes it feels like we talk about human rights as something cultural that comes from the West. This discourse explains the 'struggle', for gay people in the Middle East, to depend on the society that doesn’t want to except them, because the Arab in his culture and religion are 'unwilling' to do so. This is what the French Marxist philosopher Etienne Balibar calls the new racism, where the 'the biological interpretation of the concept of race has been replaced by a more culture-based idea of the difference'.

In his book 'Spaces of Global Capitalism', David Harvey, the social theorist and professor of anthropology at City University, New York, criticises NGOs like Amnesty because they mostly focus on civil and political rights and not on economic rights. The gay festival Pride was invented in the US and was franchised in Europe. The programme looks the same around the world, a few days of parties and lectures and a final parade to manifest your pride to be queer in front of the society. But this became possible through an economic development that made it possible to create individuals that can afford an alternative lifestyle. This is something we have to take into account when we want to 'free' the world. An activist friend in Syria told me, when we had a debate about honour-related crimes and LGBTQ, that:

'When we talk about homosexuals in the society, we need to separate men from women; each situation has its attributes. And we have to also consider whether the case comes from a rich family, a poor family, so all these elements do influence.'

With all this information that I get from scholars, activists and same-sex individuals, my critique gets stronger that our ignorance will not change the situation for the LGBTQ community in the Middle East. Karl Marx said that we have to 'interpret the world in order to change it', and to give the subaltern a voice is a good start.

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* A of Arabia's blog can be found at aofarabia.blogspot.com.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Namibia: Social justice and solidarity – think 'BIG'

Henning Melber

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65081

cc GusjerA basic income grant (BIG) ‘might not be the best answer’ to solve Namibia’s challenges of ‘structurally rooted inequality and destitution’. But ‘at least it tries to come up with some kind of initiative’ to build a society in which ‘all members obtain the minimum standard of living they deserve’, writes Henning Melber.

The current debate around a Basic Income Grant (BIG) in Namibia stands for a significant discourse. Critics tend to sweep essential parts of this discourse under the carpet. They tend to downplay if not ignore the fundamental value debate it touches upon. Their seemingly rational objections are, however, guided by an own belief system in fundamental values, which suggest a rationality of a deeply disturbing nature and orientation.

This intervention seeks to point to the principles a BIG resonates with, and the flaws the critical comments questioning the legitimacy of a BIG display. They avoid – deliberately or unintentionally – dealing with the real challenges social welfare initiatives of such a calibre present to the dominant thinking. A thinking, which privileges the so-called haves, who benefit from the socio-economic disparities of societies characterised by high degrees of material inequality in the distribution of national wealth.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

Preceding the BIG initiative, a rather intensive debate on public work programmes as a potential tool to alleviate unemployment and poverty took place in Namibia during the late 1990s, although to a large extent outside of the public limelight. It displayed a similarly disturbing bias as can be witnessed now. Advocates of labour-based work initiatives as a means to provide the marginalised with some minimum monetary income for spending on their individual priorities were in vain arguing in favour of such empowering cash payments. Instead the patronising, benevolent ‘food for work’ attitudes guiding such public employment projects in return for hard physical labour continued to maintain that these people were not able to use cash payments in a responsible manner.

The empirical evidence gathered during these debates fell on deaf ears. But it showed that the cash payments made in pilot projects were used to a large extent on basic needs and investments into a future (for example by purchase of small livestock, of school uniforms, payment of school fees and related expenses). In similar fashion as the arguments dismissed then, the BIG initiative is nowadays met with an almost knee-jerk response, ridiculing such proposals for financial transfers as naive justifications for free rides of those who do not really want to earn a decent living.

As if in Namibia one could easily earn such a decent living, in the midst of abject poverty and the highest income discrepancies measured among societies in the world. Such a dismissive attitude places the responsibility for the misery upon those who are experiencing marginalisation. As if their situation is self-inflicted and it would be merely a matter of a free will and determined mind to emancipate oneself from destitution. With an unemployment rate of above 50 per cent, this borders on a scandalous cynicism and arrogance of those who are not at the receiving end of inequality and do not have to experience what it means to be disempowered through exclusion.

Seemingly pragmatic concerns objecting to the BIG initiative fiddle with figures and thereby create a smokescreen, which misleads what a BIG debate is really about: If and how social justice and solidarity should be guiding principles for a caring society, in which the better off share a responsibility to ensure that minimum standards of living are provided to all members of society to give them the opportunities they are denied. This is anything but a new debate.

It is rooted in a long history of social philosophy and the notions of welfare. They go back at least over 200 years and can be traced in the arguments presented by Thomas Paine in his ‘Agrarian Justice’ of 1797. He suggests the creation of a national fund to provides every citizen above the age of 21 with an annual financial amount, independent of their other income and property. His proposal was not guided by humanitarian concerns, but by a deep sense of justice.

Paine based his proposal by no means on an argument for benevolence. His point of departure was the existence of enormous social disparities among citizens in a given society. ‘Poverty,’ as Paine diagnosed, ‘is a thing created by that which is called civilized life’. As a result, so-called civilisation, ‘make one part of the society more affluent, and the other more wretched, than would have been the lot in a natural state’. He therefore concluded: ‘It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for.’

SOLIDARITY

Solidarity is a complementing notion to social justice. If solidarity is taken as a living moral, ethical and political obligation, which entails empathy as much as the loyalty to fundamental human values of equality and dignity to which all human beings are entitled to in an undivided manner, acts of solidarity are not confined to a particular era or stage of historical processes. They are an ongoing commitment and engagement. Solidarity starts at home, but does not end there.

Pointers to similar initiatives propagating BIG elsewhere seem to suggest that the Namibian debate is somewhat the result of a conspiracy and imposed from the outside. This is not only bordering on paranoia, it also creates another smokescreen, in the sense that it implies that it might be something dubious that people elsewhere think and act alike. As if the anti-Apartheid struggle was morally questionable because it was supported and led by many around the world, who were sharing the conviction that people everywhere are entitled to fundamental human rights. After all, the slogan ‘an injury to one is an injury to all’ means also that there should be no borders when it comes to social and political struggles for emancipation and justice.

Solidarity as well as demands for more social justice are also anything but isolated notions of utopian socialist dreams. Such humanist concerns are rooted in very different convictions and beliefs. A recent illustration is the Encyclical Letter ‘Caritas in Veritate’ by the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI of 2009. It opens chapter four dealing with the development of people, rights and duties, and the environment with a quote from an Encyclical Letter of his predecessor Paul VI alerting to ‘the reality of human solidarity’ as ‘a benefit for us’ (clause 43).

One does not have to subscribe to the Catholic faith and the consequences the supreme pontiff draws from his understanding of solidarity as a human value (and indeed some among us might be adamant that his postulates, although seemingly based on a common point of departure, are counter to true human emancipation, justice and solidarity). The point is that there is a wide scope for alliances in the search for another development, which seeks to promote a more caring society embracing also the weakest.

It is therefore utterly disturbing that Namibia’s President Pohamba, who is known for his deeply Christian faith, dismisses BIG in the discussion following his state of the nation address in parliament as a form of exploitation of those who are able and privileged to earn their living through work, which provides them and their families with a salaried income. As if sharing is not among the fundamental principles of a Christian humanity and an ingredient to a caring society.

CARE NOT GREED

Instead, greed seems to be more acceptable than concerns for the wellbeing of others as a means of wellbeing for all. The political leaders of Namibian society reportedly celebrated the 20th anniversary of independence by toasting with French champagne at N$1,000 a bottle. The cabinet members get new top class limousines since the old ones have become too small for their well-fed bodies. These are obscenities in a country, where half the population able and willing to work is denied the opportunity to earn a living due to unemployment.

Poor people in Namibia have no choices; those in control over the wealth created do. BIG might not be the best answer to solve the challenges of structurally-rooted inequality and destitution. But at least it tries to come up with some kind of initiative to contribute to a society, in which all members obtain the minimum standard of living they deserve. It is an effort to create an environment, which seeks to enable the excluded to master their living conditions in a more empowering way with some degree of dignity.

BIG deserves better than to be dismissed by those who seem to care more about securing and advancing further their own privileges than showing empathy with the plight of the ordinary people. Our hard fought for liberation from a minority rule based on privileges for a few at the expense of the majority should mean more than just a further promotion of Social Darwinism.

As a result of such mindset, which propagates the survival of the fittest, the species of fat cats prospers and advances. In contrast, the people battling to survive in their anything but self-inflicted misery are once again losing out. It is a disgrace that despite the long way we came to fight against injustices, we have not yet reached the degree of social awareness and responsibility as expressed by Thomas Paine more than two centuries ago.

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* This article first appeared in The Namibian (Windhoek) on 8 June 2010.
* Dr Henning Melber joined Swapo in 1974 and was director of The Namibian Economic Policy Research Unit (NEPRU) between 1992 and 2000. He is currently executive director of The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Sweden.

Angola: Censorship shrouds journalist’s killing

Rafael Marques de Morais

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65088

cc OzmaIn the aftermath of the fatal attack on the Togolese football team on 8 January in Cabinda, Angola, the country's authorities moved to actively censor full and accurate coverage of what occurred, writes Rafael Marques de Morais.

On 8 January, while Angola was hosting the African Cup of Nations, the country made worldwide headlines after a deadly attack on the Togolese national soccer team, which left a coach and a journalist dead. With international attention turning to the story, a shroud of state censorship and self-censorship by the Angolan media obscured the factual circumstances of the attack and its aftermath.

Cabinda, the volatile enclave where the attack took place, is familiar territory to me because of my experience investigating the human rights situation there. The government’s shifting positions on the attack – blaming the shooting on the separatist group Front for the Liberation of Cabinda (FLEC), and then shifting responsibility onto Togo by claiming the team had failed to notify authorities of its itinerary – led me to believe that some crucial parts of the story had been obfuscated. My conversations with several journalists, members of the security forces and local officials highlighted a pattern of state manipulation of information, with the complicity of a private press working under intense political pressure.

Cristóvão Luemba, a reporter with the Catholic-run Radio Ecclésia, experienced the shooting first-hand as bullets flattened the tyres of the vehicle of the state newspaper Jornal de Angola he happened to have hitched a ride on. According to Luemba, the Togolese team, which had driven from Pointe Noire in Republic of Congo, was welcomed at the Angolan border by a delegation of Cabinda officials headed by the vice governor of Cabinda, Macário Lemba, around 1:30pm on 8 January. The Togolese delegation was then transferred to an official bus provided by the government and escorted in a convoy of 10 vehicles, including two more buses, and more than 30 members of the special police force, colloquially known as 'Ninjas'. It was 2:15pm when the convoy came under fire for about half an hour, at a bend near the town hall of the communal administration of Massabi. Stanislas Ocloo, 35, a sports reporter for Togo’s national broadcaster Télévision Togolaise (TVT) and assistant coach Hamelet Abulo were killed.

During the shooting, Luemba was the only journalist reporting live from the scene, but his station never aired his report. When I asked Rádio Ecclésia editor Tomás de Melo about this, he told me he received orders that day to wait for international media to report the attack and then only broadcast news from the wires. 'Rádio Ecclésia has been labelled as opposition radio. Thus, we had to wait for the official statement,' said the Reverend Maurício Camuto, director of the station. The news blackout did not prevent some Ecclésia editors from using Luemba’s censored report as the basis for stories they filed with international broadcasters.

Interestingly, Father Camuto called Luemba that day to congratulate him on his brave reporting. 'The priest told me that they liked my work a lot and that thanks to it the world learned about the tragedy,' Luemba told me on 20 February. But Luemba could not listen to his own radio station, for it only broadcasts in FM to the capital Luanda. When I informed him that his report had been censored, having checked this fact with his station’s management, he did not hide his disappointment. 'I risked my life on that coverage,' he said.

Luemba was not the only journalist whose account and local knowledge were ignored that day. Beyond broadcasting the government’s statement condemning the attack, not once did official media solicit the insights of state-media journalists travelling with Luemba to help audiences understand what happened.

As a result of this censorship, most international coverage relayed only the following: the minutes of horror the team endured on the bus, as described by some players; and statements by the Angolan government and comments from purported separatist groups claiming responsibility for the attack. The Togolese players could only describe their ordeal on the bus, and had no further idea of the realities surrounding them in a foreign territory. International media did not scrutinise the statements of one Rodrigues Mingas, who presented himself as a spokesperson of a purported organisation called 'FLEC-Military Position' (which claimed responsibility for the attack). People with knowledge of the area appeared to find the attack shocking, citing the fact that it took place in an open area offering little cover for a hit-and-run attack and ringed by several troop garrisons in this heavily militarised region. They also said the Cabinda police had cleared the usually busy traffic on the 55-mile (90-kilometre) stretch between the border and the Cabinda city centre.

The censorship, compounded by the dearth of knowledge among international media, allowed the government to rewrite the narrative unchallenged. The authorities sought to garner international sympathy on anti-terrorism grounds, then passed blame onto the Togolese team itself. 'If we had been informed, surely, we would have sent an aeroplane to bring [the Togolese] from Pointe Noire, in Congo, to Cabinda province. We had no knowledge that Togo had chosen to travel by land to Cabinda,' declared Justino Fernandes, the head of the Angolan host committee and president of the Angolan soccer federation, in a 20 January press conference. The statement contradicted an 8 January Jornal de Angola print edition story reporting the departure of an official delegation, including Alberto Macaia, deputy to the director of the Cabinda organising committee, to welcome and drive the Togolese national team inland. Yet neither the state media nor Rádio Ecclésia, which covered the press conference where Fernandes made these remarks, made use of the material evidence to question him. Based on this perception, Togo was sanctioned after withdrawing from the tournament while the host country received only praise.

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* Rafael Marques de Morais is an Angolan investigative journalist and the editor of MakaAngola, a website reporting on corruption in Angola.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Religious fundamentalism in Kenya: Fuelling human rights abuses?

Audrey Mbugua

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65098

cc LukasReligious fundamentalism in Kenya has played a central role in the orchestration of gross human rights abuses against transsexuals and other minorities, writes Audrey Mbugua. Urging people to change their mentality, Mbugua argues that ‘we need to respect the human rights of others whether we – or our holy books – agree with how they live their lives or not. At the end of the day, the important question is whether the other person’s acts cause harm to others or not.’

Fundamental religious doctrine, executed by more than a single religion, is a threat to individuals who lose their lives to the dogma, and to the peace and stability of the whole of society, writes Audrey Mbugua. Laughable literal interpretations of holy books lose their humourous sheen as religious leaders proselytise fundamentalism. In the Kenyan context, the danger of pandering to such doctrines looms before the constitutional referendum in August. Instead of gagging before the implacable wall of religion, citizens of Kenya should speak out against the alternative – persecution of minorities.

‘To fill a world with religion, or religions of the Abrahamic kind, is like littering the streets with loaded guns. Do not be surprised if they are used.’[1]

In February 2010 we witnessed what would have been a fête at par with Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Two priests from Kingdom Seekers Fellowship in Kenya died in a road accident. An ‘apostle’ from the same sect heard a voice of God in his head revealing that the pastors were not actually dead but merely sleeping, or hibernating. God gave him strict orders to have the burial arrangements put off and for the church to pray for their resurrection – apparently God told him the two had not completed their homework here on Earth before their untimely departure. The faith heads in this church fasted for three days and on the D-day, 21 February 2010, two caskets bearing the remains of the two sleeping priests were brought forward. The apostle first rebuked Satan for trying to stall the work of God, then went ahead to ask God to raise his disciples from their ‘sleep’. After fervent prayers, nothing out of the ordinary had happened. They tried harder and louder; maybe God was running other errands like curing cancer patients. After an eternity of negotiations with God, the apostle threw in the towel and the circus was over.

This is not a platform to argue whether God exists or not. First, it’s one of those many incidences when religious people are not right – or extremely wrong. This apostle heard a small voice in his head telling him the two were not dead and if prayed for, would wake up and move on with their lives. That didn’t happen. What other scenarios are these clowns wrong about but they don’t have the decency to admit to?

Secondly, it’s a wake up call for everyone who is tired of having some particular brand of religious rubbish shoved down their throats by some self-anointed God’s sidekick. Religions in Kenya play a vital role in the orchestration of gross human rights abuses against minorities like transsexuals, impeding effective realisation of socio-economic development in such sub-populations. It’s time to end this morbid and divine charade.

It’s not going to be easy. One of humanity’s greatest follies is to surrender their ability to query long-held, pre-medieval superstitions and myths simply because they fear something bad will happen to them – or because they are too caught up in their faith. The few rationalists who are quick to point out the ludicrousness of these superstitions don’t speak too loudly, mostly because they would loose their income or would be torched in their neighbourhood. The religious community in Kenya is one such sad lot and it would behoove us if someone was to challenge the assertions and mediocrity propagated by these faith heads.

In tandem with this tragedy, we have witnessed a collapse of democratic rule and the respect of human rights in Kenya as a result of people imposing their religious beliefs on others. This is how it goes – you people are not supposed to do a list of things: you are not supposed to change your sex (god was not a fool to have created you the way he did), you are not supposed to terminate a pregnancy (that is murder and you will burn in hell), Steven, you are not supposed to love Adam and Jane is not supposed to love Anita (its unbiblical and every time a man mounts on another the throne of god shakes), and you women need to be submissive and not question your husbands (if he slaps you, its because you are not acting the role of a woman written in the Bible).

It’s time to stand up and challenge this nonsense and the assumption that the respect of human rights comes second while first, my religion has to validate your existence. If you don’t meet my standards of a good person, I have the obligation to chop your head off and gladly hand it over to you. A time has come when the sane and rational ones have to do something and end human rights abuses inflicted on people just because their actions are sins to Jehovah.

It’s time to trash that small voice inside our heads that tells us we cannot do without ‘the alpha and omega’; a voice that tells us to kill anyone whose practices are unworthy in the eyes of a big daddy in the sky. Religion seems to be protected by a thick wall of undeserved respect. An Arsenal fan is free to criticise a referee’s decision to award Manchester United a penalty but religious matters are not to be subject to criticism. Members of the queer and transgender community in Kenya have often criticised my intolerance to religious fundamentalism. Apparently, the argument is that people have the right to have an opinion. Also, one was quick to remind me that just because religion has sponsored all the suffering that sexual minorities in Kenya have faced, it does not make religion a terrible bed fellow.

I have a problem with that: First, that’s not the sole reason why I don’t have the capacity to tolerate Stone Age superstitions. The Bible says that snakes can talk with human beings. Well, that’s a lie. The Bible says that people can walk on liquid water. That’s a lie. The Bible says that the universe was created in six days; that is also a lie. The Bible says that a walking stick can turn into a snake; that’s a fundamental lie. But, I guess one could say that you don’t interpret the Bible and Koran literally – but then which parts do you interpret literally and which are symbolic? Could it be that Adam was a transgender man and Eve was a shoe? Who sets the rules of engagement for the Bible?

If we are to base our lives on them, and allow religious books such as the Bible and Koran to be our operating manuals, humanity stands to loose its dignity and its existence. The Bible is littered with acts of genocide that any rational Kenyan would agree makes our post-election violence death list a pale shadow. Samson the Nazirite is one person who didn’t give much thought to his murderous proclivities when it came to people of divergent views and tribe. On one occasion, Samson kills 30 Philistines for their clothes. When a damsel turns down his demands for marriage, he captures 300 foxes and sets their tails on fire. As they scatter for fire extinguishers, they end up burning all the wheat fields of the Philistines, resulting in a famine. Afterwards, he kills an ass and uses one of its jaws to kill over 1,000 Philistines. Superman in action.

A religion such as Christianity practices very disturbing if not morbid rituals. There is the crucifixion of people in the name of marking the crucifixion of Jesus the Messiah. Then, there is the Holy Rosary with the crucified Messiah attached to it. Then a devout Christian has to chain him/herself to that rubbish. Once again religion abusing the human rights of Jesus and others who go through the same rituals occurs during Easter holidays. Dawkins once mentioned that had Jesus been killed during the 20th century, these Christians would have tiny electric chairs chained to their necks.

Not to forget Islam. A recent incident set Islam apart as one of the most intolerant, idiotic and murderous institutions in the world. A South African news paper recently published a cartoon of Mohammed. Hell broke loose and management at the media house were receiving threats (‘you've got to watch your back’ and ‘this will cost him his life’). A few years ago, a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Mohammed and it’s a tragedy lives were lost – people who would not even have a clue there was a country by the name Denmark. We saw people carrying slogans like ‘slay those who insult Islam’ and ‘behead those who insult Mohammed’. What is the world coming to? Would I get away with ‘behead those ethnic tribes that don’t circumcise their girls’? I have the right to an opinion, don’t I? This is the kind of oppression we reap for granting religious beliefs undeserved respect.

At the moment, Kenyans are polarised in the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ Constitution referendum camps. The ‘No’ campaign is spearheaded by the church and in a dramatic move, Christian applicants succeeded in having the Kadhis’ courts declared unconstitutional. Reason? They extend preferential treatment to one religious group – Muslims. This is a remarkable and commendable move; a move towards separating the church from the state. But, it would have been exemplary if they had also declared our national anthem unconstitutional. It has the word God littered throughout and of course on page five of the draft Constitution there are the words ‘God bless Kenya’. Why should we have such rubbish in state documents? Why should my tax be used to proselytise a particular brand of a god? And is God that desperate? Isn’t it enough to have his name in some 2,000-year-old scrolls? Why does he need his name to be inserted in a Constitution? The faith heads of this country will never cease to amaze me.

The there is the thorny issue of abortion. The draft Constitution gives room for the termination of pregnancy if a medical practitioner can prove a pregnancy is a threat to the health of the mother. The church doesn’t like the smell of that. Life begins at conception and abortion is murder of babies. This is an epitome of hypocrisy considering that these faith heads have actually murdered sexual minorities in Kenya. They have incited the members of the public to attack sexual minorities simply because their holy books don’t agree with one or two things sexual minorities do, but that doesn’t cause harm to anyone. Changing sex is unbiblical – but so what? It’s my body and my choice. If God does not like it then he should share his views – in person. If he doesn’t like who Joan dates, then let him argue his case. If God deems death to be the wage of people changing their sex, he would better do it at a personal level – a heart attack or an electrocution will do. Why do Christians have to attack transsexuals, raping them before hacking them to death? Do we have to accelerate their journey to Hell?

If you look carefully at the history of religion you would realise that religion is the most wicked and useless institution on our planet. Under the guise of salvation, religion works well by intimidating the gullible mass and numbing the ‘sheeple’ from any feelings of compassion and pity. Kiefer said it better:

‘Fundamental Christianity with its defilement of self-image, unwavering demand for obedience to authority, and sole reliance on faith diminishes the individual by eating away at the heart of human dignity. It entraps its followers by obliquely instilling in them a sense of powerlessness under the guise of salvation, and it holds them fast to the fold through intimidation of the soul.’[2]

Religion is inconsistent with the human rights concept. Human rights apply to all irrespective of color, gender, sex, religion, health status, dress, socio-economic status and any distinguishing attribute among human animals. On the contrary, religion caters specifically for those who want to control the dimwits of this world. Those with the cajoles to question ‘orders from above’ – by word or by action – don’t deserve to live dignified lives. The human rights discourse does pull the rug from under the feet of the privileged religious mouth piece out there. I guess that’s why several human rights organisations championing the rights of sexual minorities in Kenya are an anathema to these apostles.

I urge Kenyans to change their mentality. We need to respect the human rights of others whether we – or our holy books – agree with how they live their lives or not. At the end of the day, the important question is whether the other person’s acts cause harm to others or not. Religious people need to stop listening to those diabolical voices in their heads telling them to kill innocent civilians just because their acts contradict some Stone Age shepherds. There are 100s of documented gods and you could imagine if all humans were eager to create pandemonium and murder innocent people just because a god was unhappy with their mating partners or similar harmless peccadillo such as pulling a donkey out of one of our many potholes on a Sabbath. Our planet would be like a bar full of drunken monkeys.

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* Audrey Mbugua is a member of Transgender Education and Advocacy, a Kenyan organisation formed to address social injustices committed against the country's transgender community.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

[NOTES]

[1] Richard Dawkins, 2006: Religion’s Misguided Missiles, http://richarddawkins.net/articles/97
[2] Kiefer, J., 2000: The Strategies of Christian Fundamentalsim,
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/features/2000/kiefer1.html

Security checks: Joe Biden in Kenya

Gado

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/65104

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

Who are the real pirates, Somalis or Israelis?

Natasha Shivji

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/65074

Israeli commandos have murdered up to a dozen or so people upon a flotilla of six aid-carrying ships on Monday 31 May. The events have been played out on our screens and the response has been overwhelming. It must not end here.

Israel needs to be condemned under international law for committing an act of state piracy upon an unarmed ship. The Freedom Flotilla, as it has been dubbed, had no weapons aboard and all the members were registered upon embarkation from Turkey. Therefore, it posed no threat to the inhabitants of Gaza. Its mission, let us be clear, was to carry aid in the form of chocolates, toys, workbooks and most importantly medical supplies to the 1.5 million people in Gaza who depend on international aid. For the last three years, Israel has held Gaza under siege, imposing a blockade and hence bringing the people of Gaza to their knees in the face of dire shortages.

The Freedom Flotilla was carrying 10,000 tonnes of aid and approximately 750 peace activists, including politicians, former United Nations (UN) officials, European Union (EU) delegates, Nobel laureates and journalists. Moreover, the ship underwent all the legal procedures upon embarkation from Turkey and was searched to ensure that no weapons were found on board and all those on board were peace activists. Israel has blatantly made a series of statements, which lie in stark opposition to the findings of the Turkish customs upon embarkation. Israeli officials have been claiming that weapons were found on board and the people on board were dangerous activists collaborating with terrorists. Hence, they had the right to attack the ship in defence of their people. We need not deliberate much upon these statements made by Israeli officials, as it is quite clear that UN officials, EU delegates and Nobel laureates are not, in common imagination, ‘dangerous activists’. Furthermore, toys, chocolates, books and medicines do not constitute ‘weapons’.

It is unnecessary to go into the long chain of contradictions of Israel’s statements, as they are being adequately dealt with by the UN, EU and League of Arab States. Let us instead think hard about what position we on the East African coast are to adopt. Starting with an example at home, when the people on the Somali coast started to seize ships that were depositing toxics in the territorial seas of Somalia, the UN Security Council, pushed by the US, was quick to respond by issuing the UN resolution of 1816 allowing states to take action to counter the Somali ‘pirates’. There was no hesitation from the international community to deem the Somali people, defending their seas from toxic waste, as pirates. They abducted ships and were henceforth committing acts of piracy. Let us carefully note that the ships were on Somali territorial waters, and illegally depositing toxic wastes, without any consequences. When the Somali people took matters into their own hands they were immediately called pirates allowing for the necessary actions to be taken upon them.

Israel attacked an aid-carrying ship upon international waters (65km off the coast of Gaza), even though the ship posed no threat. According to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a military ship cannot lawfully board a foreign ship on international waters unless there is reasonable ground to suspect that the ship is engaged in piracy, slave trading, unauthorised broadcasting or is not bearing a flag of the state from which it originates, and therefore has no proof of nationality. The Freedom Flotilla was not a pirate ship or a slave ship, it did not carry out unauthorised broadcasting and it clearly exposed its nationality through the Turkish flag. It may be deduced that the very act of Israeli commandos being airlifted onto the Mavi Marmara was illegal under international law. One law broken.

Upon landing on the ship the Israeli commandos, as seen in footage taken on board, used live ammunition on the peace activists, killing up to a dozen or so people and injuring several. Israeli officials claimed they were met with violence once they landed on board. In fact, the peace activists raised a white flag as a sign of surrender. Of course the activists took up anything they could lay their hands on to defend themselves from being shot, but again this hardly constitutes of an attack on the Israeli commandos, rather a defence. So far, the ships and the activists have been detained. The same convention defines an act of piracy as an illegal act of violence or detention. Violence and detention on board the Mavi Marmara was illegal, as the Israeli commandos had no basis to see the Freedom Flotilla as a threat to its people. Two laws broken.

If the international community, led by the US, could call the Somalis who were seizing the ships that were harming their people ‘pirates’, then I think there can be no hesitation that Israel, with no basis in committing acts of violence upon peace activists in international waters, has committed an act of state piracy and must be punished accordingly. Yet, according to recent reports the same US government has been playing an obstructive game on the passing of a security council resolution to condemn Israel strongly.

We here in East Africa must straighten the international law that has been manipulated to condemn our people, to condemn Israel for its arrogant and horrendous crime. Let us learn to recognise real piracy, as in the case of Israel, and real resistance, as in the case of Somalia.

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* Natasha Shivji teaches in the history department at the University of Dar es Salaam.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

The Gaza blockade: The real problem

Hagai El-Ad

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/65092

cc O LThe question Israelis should be asking themselves about the attack on the aid flotilla on 31 May shouldn’t be why their navy failed to plan for a scenario of violent resistance by individuals on the vessel, says Hagai El-Ad, it should be why Israel’s naval forces were defending the blockade on Gaza in the first place. While most Israelis feel no responsibility for the fate of Gaza’s inhabitants, El-Ad writes, the siege ‘represents a blatant violation of Gazan civilians' human rights’. ‘If not for the siege of Gaza's population, there would be no need for an international humanitarian mission – genuine or provocative.’

In Israel, many are tempted to try and reduce the debate over the Gaza flotilla ‘incident’ to one narrow question: Why didn't the Israeli Navy, with its professional experience, properly take into account a scenario of violent resistance by individuals on board the vessel being boarded? Unfortunately, this limited formulation entirely misses the essential question. The catastrophe on board the Marmara did not begin with the landing of the first Israeli soldier on deck but much, much earlier.

So here is a brief attempt to summarise what has really brought Israel to this point. And, such an attempt must begin with the Gaza blockade.

The blockade of Gaza is in fact the siege of an entire civilian population. True, the Hamas government in Gaza is a brutal, anti-democratic regime that violates human rights on a regular basis. It deprives captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit of his most essential basic rights and does not hesitate to attack innocent Israeli civilians. But the price for the crimes of the Hamas government is being exacted by Israel on a civilian population of 1.5 million people under siege. Unable to leave Gaza, their lives are kept just above the bar of a humanitarian crisis.

Israel's siege represents a blatant violation of Gazan civilians' human rights. Around the world, it inspires rage against Israeli policy, engendering sympathy with the plight of Gazans. After the disengagement, most Israelis would probably prefer to forget the entire existence of Gaza, save for returning Gilad Shalit safely back home and preventing rocket fire on Israeli communities. But for these two issues, Gaza does not exist in the mind of the Israeli public and most Israelis feel no responsibility for the fate of its inhabitants.

But to the world, Gaza and its people do exist. Further, considering Israel's considerable – even if indirect – control of Gaza, it only takes basic common sense to conclude that with considerable control of Gaza's inhabitants also comes considerable responsibility for their fate.

This discrepancy – of facts, perception, and values – has put Israeli government policy on a collision course with reality. Since the entire planet does not singularly bow down to the authority of Israel's foreign policy and its imagined connection with reality, it is no surprise that people have begun trying to break the siege on Gaza.

And so, to truly address the situation, we have to begin with the following essential, outraged question: What on earth were the naval fighters doing out there in the first place?
Here was the crux where Israel could have decided to act otherwise, on a carefully considered policy level rather on a reactionary level. Israel did not have to send its troops into battle against a flotilla perceived throughout the world as a humanitarian mission. On a policy level, Israel should be allowing the passage of goods into Gaza, and not imposing an ongoing siege on its inhabitants. If not for the siege of Gaza's population, there would be no need for an international humanitarian mission – genuine or provocative. Moreover, there would be no need for the many tunnels that regularly smuggle goods – and weapons – into Gaza.

But there is an Israeli siege on Gaza, and there was an attempt to try to break it. In light of this, Israel should have avoided military confrontation with the flotilla, which was essentially an expression of protest by virtue of humanitarian aid. In either case the flotilla represented no security threat, certainly not one justifying military force deployed on such a scale and in such a way. When you send in commandos to deal with civilians, you can't argue that the writing isn't on the wall.

Israel chose to use military force, just as it chose to prevent aid from entering Gaza and to squelch expressions of solidarity with the Gazan people. Israel has chosen to continue the siege on Gaza. The result of all this is the dead and wounded on board the Marmara.

Those in the Israeli public focusing on the simplistic question might inquire about the operational performance of the naval commandos, and might consider the public relations disaster that the state is now forced to deal with. But these miss the point. Israel is becoming a pariah state because its leadership continues to make pariah decisions dictated by their pariah policies. This is not mere nearsightedness or amateur stupidity. It is an essential problem – a crisis of values that leads decision-makers to besiege a civilian population and to send combat soldiers to sea to fight against foreign civilians.

One can complain all one wants about how much the world is against Israel, about how the Gaza flotilla was a provocation, and about the hostile world media. One could also choose to believe that the author of this article is a traitor collaborating with the enemy, a self hating Jew, or both – whatever. Still, these remain no more than excuses that distract us from the essential question; Excuses that will not change the facts.

Israel is a sovereign state whose government is responsible for the decisions it makes of its own free will. We don't need excuses. What we need is a conceptual change on the part of Israel's decision makers – one that views the Gazan population as human beings and that takes responsibility for their fate, and, at the end of the day, our own fate as well.

If Israel continues to steer her ship against the tides of universal human values, she will continue to drown herself.

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* This article first appeared in ColorLines.
* Hagai El-Ad is the executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Africa’s continued response to Gaza flotilla attack

Dana Wagner

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/65099

Ten days after the Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla that left nine activists dead, the response from African governments and civil society groups is unrelenting. Organisation continues around the effort to condemn the 31 May attack, and to dismantle the Gaza blockade.

On board the flotilla were aid workers from more than 30 countries accompanying more than 10,000 tonnes of aid supplies intended for the occupied Gazan Palestinians. The blockade encircling Gaza has been enforced by Israel, including along the Egyptian border, since 2004. Last week in response to Israel’s naval attack Egypt opened its only unilaterally controlled entry point at Rafah, to remain open indefinitely.

Last week Pambazuka News published a summary of statements and movements condemning the violence against both the aid workers and the Palestinians of Gaza. Below is an update of the continued response to Israeli aggression.

SUDAN

Hundreds of protestors gathered on 3 June to support Gazan Palestinians and condemn the Israeli attack. The demonstration, at the UN headquarters in Khartoum, was organised by the Sudanese Council of Voluntary Agencies (SCOVA). Protestors also gave a memorandum of ‘Admiration and Respect’ to Sudan’s Turkish ambassador.[1]

MOROCCO

An estimated 50,000 filled the streets of Rabat on 7 June in support of the Palestinian people of Gaza after the flotilla attack. Rally participants included activists, trade unionists and politicians.[2]

EGYPT

In Alexandria a protest organised by the Muslim Brotherhood condemning Israeli violence against Gaza was attended by hundreds. Held 4 June, it was a rare event as protests by this opposition group are seldom left untouched.[3]

Another protest organised by the Brotherhood took place in Fayhoum, south of Cairo, and attracted 10,000.[4]

The Egyptian government has opened its border crossing with Gaza at Rafah, but a spokesperson for the foreign ministry said the president did not specify permanence. ‘It’s going to be until further notice’, said Hossam Zaki. People have been permitted to cross, but only medical aid supplies and not building have been allowed into the occupied territory.[5]

SENEGAL

The Islamic Brotherhoods of Senegal called on the Senegalese government to imitate South Africa and recall its ambassador to Israel. A statement signed by dozens of civil society organizations reads ‘We must set an example, close the Israeli embassy in Dakar and expel the ambassador’.[6]

SOUTH AFRICA

Having recalled its ambassador to Israel, Ismael Coovadia, on 3 June, the South African government is unsure when diplomatic relations will resume. Coovadia was recalled to brief the government on the flotilla attack.[7]

ALGERIA

Released nationals from Algeria allege gross violations at the hands of their Israeli captors.

‘We were deprived of basic rights. They handcuffed us after the raid and kept us waiting under the sun for many hours. It was inhuman,’ said Algerian activist Najwa Sultan. ‘I think we have achieved our goal and broke the blockade despite all what happened.’[8]

UGANDA

The Sunday Vision printed an opinion piece 10 June calling for the ‘Israel massacre’ to be submitted for review at the ongoing International Criminal Court (ICC) Review Conference in Kampala. The author asks ‘if the ongoing ICC … fails to tackle the recent Flotilla incident, then of what relevance is the ICC in combating violation of international law and stopping impunity’?[9]

Last week at the Kampala conference 33 groups in attendance issued a joint statement to condemn Israeli violence against Palestinians in Gaza after the attack on the aid flotilla.

PAN-AFRICAN

The Organisation of the Islamic Congress, whose member states include Algeria, Uganda, Togo and Sierra Leone, among others, condemns Israeli violence against the flotilla and the Palestinian people. The group asked its member states to review their ties with Israel, and called for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to establish an independent international commission to investigate the attack, termed an ‘act of state terrorism’.[10]

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

NOTES

[1] People’s Daily Online, 10 June 2010, http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90855/7011758.html
[2] Afrik.com, 10 June 2010, http://en.afrik.com/article17751.html
[3] Reuters, 10 June 2010, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37510331
[4] Reuters, 10 June 2010, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37510331
[5] The Christian Science Monitor, 10 June 2010, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0602/Egypt-eases-own-Gaza-blockade-after-Israel-Freedom-Flotilla-raid/(page)/2
[6] YNetNews, 10 June 2010, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3898727,00.html
[7] Eyewitness News, 10 June 2010, http://www.eyewitnessnews.co.za/articleprog.aspx?id=41213
[8] Agence France Presse, 10 June 2010, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gHeHJJlE23Vrk3e8OFI3wgh_UiLQ
[9] Sunday Vision, 10 June 2010, http://www.sundayvision.co.ug/detail.php?mainNewsCategoryId=7&newsCategoryId=131&newsId=721866
[10] Agence France Presse, 10 June 2010, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hilwEK7tmNW-RkZWCUJtZucDxFtw

Another panel on Africa?

Carol Tabu

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/65079

The proliferation of various forms of ‘councils of elders’ that are designed to monitor or offer advice within and to Africa is an interesting one to watch. Whether this is the Panel of the Wise within the African Union, the Council of Elders in ECOWAS, The Elders that includes a range of African and global leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Mary Robinson or now the Africa Progress Panel (APP) that is chaired by Kofi Annan – who also boasts membership to the Elders – some similarities are stark.

Firstly, there is the idea that there is need to return to traditional ways of doing things, some may argue for approaches that espouse consensus building (Wiredu, 1997) such as the Baraza la Wazee. Whether they are continentally-based, diasporic in constitution or located abroad, they are designed to look into Africa and solve its problems through wisdom.

Secondly, that it is only in Africa that structures akin to traditional – and I might add patriarchal – modes of leadership are needed to push this continent towards the right direction. Whether they are there to offer advice or monitor its progress and whisper into the right ears discreetly on what changes need to be made, or are designed as spaces for peer review.

Thirdly, that the idea of wisdom as strongly linked to experience and a track record (one would assume exemplary record) in one’s field (hence Obasanjo’s membership of the APP deserves some unpacking) sees age or rather old age become a criteria for membership. The youngest member of these outfits is Tidjame Thiam – 48 – on the Africa Progress Panel, while the oldest is a 90-year-old member of the ECOWAS Council of Elders.

The exclusion of youth in these panels is based on an association of old age with wisdom, great ideas and influence. For a continent whose liberation leaders were at their youngest when they took power (Thomas Sankara at 34, Tom Mboya at 30 was an influential trade unionist, Kwame Nkrumah at 48, Patrice Lumumba at 35, Nelson Mandela active in the apartheid struggle by 34, Steve Biko influential Black Consciousness leader at 22) and where the vast majority of citizens are between the ages of 16–35, this approach is dubious at best.

However, these panels and councils cannot be faulted for paying service lip or otherwise to the gender dimension, with Graca Machel being an African favourite across the African Union, the APP and The Elders. Nonetheless, the sequestering of the women who form part of these institutions to the essentialist notion that they bring to the table ‘a women’s voice’ and pointing to them as an indicator of a commitment to transforming gendered power inequalities points to an ideological fracture. One in which one or two skirt-wearer’s equal ‘women’s voice and women’s issues’ but only as they fit into the structure and not as they transform structures.

It is not difficult to comprehend that where individuals in various spaces are constantly grappling for ideas on how to make Africa in all its diversity work, many approaches will be adopted. Unfortunately, one of the easiest routes to take has been to argue for a return to an unadulterated Africa; read before the colonial forays into the continent.

However, it is now fairly common knowledge, due to the amount of literature that has been produced by African Scholars (See Mamdani, 1996, 2000; Lewis, 2004; Mama, 2001) that this notion is fraught. A pre colonial, egalitarian and I might add ‘pure’ (free from lesbians and gays) Africa is a utopia; it did not exist. So the question is why do we keep on rehashing this idea?

Now, the APP will argue that their mandate and vision is far from being similar to that of the other structures I have mentioned above. Indeed, the Panel of the Wise and the Council of Elders in the African Union and ECOWAS respectively all form part of the Peace and Security architecture within these bodies.

APP’s argument would also be based on the wide-ranging constitution of the panel: Former African elder statesman (Olusegun Obasanjo), former leader of the ‘developed’ world (Tony Blair), leaders in the corporate sector internationally and nationally (Tidjane Thiam, Linah Mohohlo), Nobel laureate (Professor Muhammad Yunus), cuts across race to include international bureaucrats (Kofi Annan, Michael Camdessus – formerly IMF, Robert Rubin, Peter Eigen – formerly World Bank) and global activists (Graca Machel and Bob Geldof). This powerful combination is seen as useful to an advocacy agenda, which is what the APP was primarily set up to do. This is done through the ‘street credentials’, if you will, of its panel members; a trick that many of our international civil society organisations have come to learn when they pound the halls of the African Union summits bi-annually with policy briefs and attempts to speak to the right foreign minister or finance minister to educate them on their job.

An extract from their website indicates that:

‘The Africa Progress Panel (APP) was formed as a vehicle to maintain a focus on the commitments to Africa made by the international community in the wake of the Gleneagles G8 Summit and of the Commission for Africa Report in 2007. Under the chairmanship of Kofi Annan, it pays equal attention to the implementation of Africa's commitments as set out in the Constitutive Act of the African Union and landmark international agreements. The Panel’s members continually assess new opportunities and threats to Africa’s development, including how far previous commitments of Africa are being met. They use their judgment and experience to highlight pressing concerns, inspire honest debate amongst leaders and civil society, help mobilise resources and prompt effective action’.

To this end the APP releases a progress report that serves as its main advocacy tool in the hands of the panel members. The recently released annual report ‘From Agenda to Action: Turning Resources into Results for its People’ was aptly launched on Africa Day. It cannot be faulted for providing an overview of the state of play. In fact, if one wanted a snapshot of key events and processes as they have been taken up internationally or regionally (Africa) and great visuals, this is a report to read. However, if one is looking for a collective set of ideas that will transform Africa’s resources into results, this report provides much of the same. The call to political will, an invocation of state fragility, the ills of corruption, an ever so slight slap on the wrist of international partners for catering to their interests within institutions created by them for this very purpose, and a reminder of how important women are to development.

In this year’s report, the discussion on aid and development financing highlights the ahistorical approach as well as a lack of emphasis on African international relations; however it fails to highlight that aid in Africa has often been misused for self-interested strategic pursuits rather than for poverty alleviation. These are interests that are not only located in Africa but also those that are derivative of and compounded by the Global North. The argument therefore that the collective strength of African leaders working in alliance is what is needed to shift negotiating power in the international arena is shaky. For it does not engage with nor analyse the ideological foundations on which most African States are founded and which we must destablise in order for meaningful change to occur. The fact that the ‘bold’ analysis conducted around tax havens and state coffer remittances into private bank accounts does not feature in the list of recommendations on how Africa should finance its development points to the panel’s gumption.

The erroneous assumptions and praise given in the report about the increase in regional integration efforts belie ongoing machinations at an international level to balkanise Africa through faulty trade agreements under the Economic Partnership Agreements. These have been conducted within new arrangements such as the East and Southern African Bloc as opposed to the East Africa Community or negotiated individually by targeting individual states’ weak points economically with regional strength being undermined, calls to question the good will of the international community in ‘developing’ Africa.

Most importantly, the continued categorisation of women as a social project, women as an end to development and what women can do for development in Africa is reminiscent of the 1970s Women in Development (WID) approach, which has since been relegated to the dustbin of history – useful in terms of tracing trajectories but not the stuff that change is made of, due to its analytical weaknesses. The tradition of adding women into processes whether this is for peace and security or in parliaments and the push for improved wellbeing of women owing to their contribution to development is one that has been challenged by many a feminist activist and scholar. For to maintain this approach is to adopt a Black Economic Empowerment approach to women – once they stop being good for development, we do not need to invest in them. The minute they begin to challenge the state or structures, which maintain inequality and overhaul, simply introduce a range of stringent laws that silence them and call it culture and preservation of nationhood.

Increasing state repression is hardly considered, particularly when mention is made of an assertive civil society that is curtailed through regulations, from those in Ethiopia – which is the most extreme example – to covert versions appearing in various forms, such as the anti-homosexuality legislation in Uganda, or media gags in contexts such as Kenya.

There is no question that this report is grounded in a neoliberal approach that sees the aid, development financing and ‘developmental’ trade agreements with China hailed as a very progressive partner or when it comes to Africa’s natural resources, including land. The report’s recommendations around the land grabbing phenomenon (a terminology attributed to the media in this report) by flagging Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa’s (AGRA) efforts to develop guidelines on land leasing principles for African states deserves further scrutiny, particularly on a continent where land remains one of the major causes of conflict.

The art of diplomacy is saying everything and nothing at the same time. Indeed, that is why this group of individuals may have been put together, because of their ability to wade through the multitude of challenges and prioritise one issue that should land on the ears of the range of heads of states without offending them. As such, the report strikes the right tone in taking cognisance of the what is now popularly known to be Africa – disease, strife, poverty and conflict, balancing that with the positivist view that recognises the agency of African citizens and African leaders must be included in this melee but end with – rhetoric.

For every one or two of Africa’s most pressing problems – whether it is the problem of bad governance, or the place of women or our uncanny ability to sell off the rug from right our feet – read our land – the answers to these problems indeed lie with Africa and Africans, but they do not lie in ‘political will’. For when one unpacks this oft-touted ‘political will’, one might emerge with the true answers on how to turn Africa’s resources into results for its people.

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

REFERENCES

Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton University Press. Princeton.
Mamdani, Mahmood (ed) 2000. Beyond Rights Talk and Culture Talk: Comparative essays on Rights and Culture. St. Martin's Press. New York City
Mama, Amina. 2001. Challenging Subjects: Gender and Power in African Contexts in “Identity and Beyond: Rethinking Africanity”. Discussion Paper 12, Nordiska Afrikaninstitutet. Upasala
Lewis, Desiree. 2004. African Gender Research & Post Coloniality in African Gender Scholarship: Concepts, Methodologies and Paradigms. CODESRIA. Dakar. (27 – 41)
Wiredu, Kwasi. 1997. Democracy and Consensus in African Traditional Politics: A Plea for a Non-Party Polity in Eze, Emmanuel. 1997. Postcolonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader. Wiley-Blackwell. London

WEBSITES

http://www.africaprogresspanel.org
http://www.african-union.org
http://www.ecowas.int
http://www.theelders.org

The changing political face of the God squad

Dale T. McKinley

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/65094

cc J WThe religious landscape in South Africa has been transformed by elements of the ‘born again’ evangelical church that are quietly penetrating political life, writes Dale T. McKinley. Life in South Africa has long been heavily influenced by religion, but until the recent appearance and stunning growth of the evangelical wing, there has been limited interference in politics. The new right-wing, ultra-conservative presence is pervasive, with 24-hour television networks that create celebrity-style leaders, community outreach events and missionary work.

Back in the bad old days of apartheid, things seemed to be a lot clearer when it came to God and politics. Leaving aside the confirmed agnostics, atheists and confused fence-sitters, you were either in the Nat camp and embraced the God of 'Christian nationalism', racism and class privilege, or you were in the liberation movement camp and embraced the God of social justice, racial equality and the oppressed poor.

A couple of decades on though, and the politics in the God equation has gone through quite a metamorphosis. With the slaying of the dragon of formal apartheid, the constitutional entrenching of freedom of (all) religion and socially progressive equality clauses as well as the partial breaking down of (still deeply) entrenched racial, class and gender barriers, the once-clear lines of political demarcation in 'God's house' have been blurred. Much like the former ‘communist era’ states of the UUSR and Eastern Europe, South Africa’s religious household has undergone a balkanised transformation of its own.

The once-mighty South African Council of Churches (SACC) which was at the forefront of political struggle and socio-economic mobilisation in the pre-1994 period has become a shadow of its former self. Many of its higher profile leaders have either transformed themselves into politicians or become socially respected, semi-retired 'elders'. While there is little doubt that the political loyalties of the SACC and its constituent bodies remain primarily with the African National Congress (ANC) and Alliance, its base membership has largely devolved into depoliticised church units which have retreated into the relative sanctuary of individualised proselytisation and social welfare provision.

Meanwhile, the variously constituted African/indigenous churches such as the Zion Christian Church and the Shembe Church (numerically, the largest religious collectives in South Africa) have by and large continued to formally maintain their self-contained, apolitical and predominately socially conservative character. This has clearly, however, not prevented South Africa's main political party leaders – following on from their apartheid predecessors – from doing their best to woo the millions of adherents, a sizeable number of whom it would appear have consistently given their political support to the ruling party.

Other believers, mostly coming out of the conservative, ex-Nat and ex-Bantustan religious folds, have decided that the best way to propagate their views and beliefs and contest what they clearly see as the undesirable moral degeneration and general secularisation of state and society is to form various political parties. Some of these parties, such as the African Christian Democratic Party, have contested every election since 1995 and although they hold a few seats in national Parliament their electoral support has never risen beyond two percent. Others, such as the United Christian Democratic Party, the Muslim Party and the Christian Democratic Party have never ventured beyond the local/provincial arena and their electoral appeal has remained miniscule.

Given the historic institutional and socio-political positioning of these more traditional sections of South Africa’s God squad, their various 'transformations' are fairly predictable. However, it is the new kids on the block, the 'independent' groupings of decidedly (politically and socially) right-wing Evangelical Christians, who have engendered the most sweeping facelift on the religious-political front. Clearly modelling themselves on, or products of, Evangelical (pentecostal) movements such as the US-based 'Moral Majority' and the Brazil-based Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), that has successfully combined ultra-conservative religious doctrines, populist right-wing politics, missionary work, social welfare and community-based programmes as well as media-created celebrity preachers/leaders, the wealth, membership base, range of activities and socio-political influence of this section of the God squad has grown exponentially over the last several years.

Such evangelical churches have, for some time now, been drawing by far the largest number of participants – both rich and poor – on a week-in, week-out basis. Mass events of tens of thousands such as Angus Buchan’s 'Mighty Men' gatherings and the UCKG’s Soccer City 'revivals' put most political party and sporting events to shame (the annual Zion Christian Church Easter gathering at Moria aside). Add to these the 24-hour television channels, radio stations, magazines, community 'outreach' programmes and a range of missionary activities across the country and continent and it is not difficult to understand why these ‘born agains’ have increasingly moved from the margins into the mainstream of society and politics.

Rather than operating within the practical confines of more 'traditional' churches and/or direct party politics, these evangelical groupings to varying degrees have strategically moulded themselves around a social movement form that cuts across a range of institutional, racial, class, national, linguistic and ethnic lines. Combined with their 'doctrinal' messages that conceptually and practically link religious piety, spiritual salvation, social conservatism and personal wealth-creation, the end product is a highly politicised and intensely personalised body collective.

From these foundations have sprung outfits such as the National Interfaith Leadership Council (NILC), formed in mid-2009 by Rhema Bible Church leader Ray McCauley. Through its tactically astute inclusion of other religious bodies, its highly publicised courting of the ruling party and cozy institutional and personal links with several leading political and business figures, the NILC has already been able to shape national public discourse and debate around changing legislation dealing with abortion and same-sex rights. In a similar vein, the Eastern Cape-based Godly Governance Network (GGN) which describes itself as a ‘mass movement of the Kingdom of God in South Africa’ was born out of a prayer meeting at the provincial legislature in 2000. It remains closely tied to key provincial political and business figures and its socio-political influence appears to be growing.

It is no secret that South Africa is a deeply religious society. The Human Sciences Research Council's national Social Attitudes Survey in 2008 confirmed this; 85 percent of respondents declared some sort of religious affiliation and an almost equal share expressed ‘high levels of confidence in religious institutions’. Yet, what the same survey also found was that a sizeable majority were ‘opposed to religious leaders influencing government decisions’.

While many might see this as an irreconcilable contradiction, it should be obvious that the most active, visible and growing 'face' of the God squad see it as an opportunity – a challenge to forge a transformed religious politics and politics of religion. The core aim is clearly to break down the conceptual and practical as well as societal and personal walls between religion and politics, to be refashioned in their own image; to bastardise Kwame Nkrumah’s famous dictum: ‘Seek ye simultaneously the kingdoms of God and politics and all else shall be added to you’. It's a damn scary 'face'.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Standing up for food sovereignty

The Lugar-Casey Global Food Security Act, genetic engineering and the Gates Foundation

Ashley Fent, Katie Talbot and Phil Bereano

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/65080

AGRA Watch formed in 2008 to challenge the Gates Foundation’s participation in the problematic Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, and to support sustainable, agro-ecological alternatives already practiced in Africa. We have witnessed an acceleration in the push for genetic engineering as a ‘solution’ to hunger in Africa, a criminalisation of GE’s opponents as eco-imperialists unwilling to accept scientific advancements, and a deification of philanthropic support for corporate solutions to global food issues. The Lugar-Casey bill is a case study in the interlocking interests of big business, big philanthropy, US foreign policy and US aid. Furthermore, several new developments in Kenyan legislation and in the international political economy threaten to use the global food crisis as an opening to solidify genetic engineering as a necessary part of food security strategies.

In 2009, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the Lugar-Casey Global Food Security Act (S. 384), which seeks to reform aid programs to focus on long-term agricultural development and the restructuring of aid agencies for better crisis response.[1] As part of this new reorganisation, Lugar-Casey mandates funding for genetic engineering (GE) research.[2] The bill is supported by CARE, Oxfam, Bread for the World, ONE, and US land grant colleges.[3] In his opening statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Lugar argued that worldwide food security is critical to US national security, especially in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sudan where he says hunger has fuelled conflict and extremism. [4] Lugar believes that agricultural development in these ‘troubled’ regions will ensure more peaceful conditions. He states specifically that he is ‘excited by [the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s] vision’ and their ‘beneficence.’[5] Bill Gates and Bill Clinton expressed their support for the highly controversial, pro-GE Lugar-Casey bill before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.[6] In appeasing national security priorities and corporate interests, the Lugar-Casey bill overlooks key findings of the peer-reviewed International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), which was initiated by United Nations agencies and the World Bank, and involved over four hundred scientists from around the world.[7] The IAASTD found that agro-ecological methods (research, extension and farming) offer enormous potential, and that a multi-faceted approach to agriculture is needed, rather than a narrow focus of GE technologies on higher yield and nutritional enhancement.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has powerful sway in Seattle over employment (through Microsoft), the global development industry, and local non-profits, in a way that parallels their dominance in African agricultural and health sectors. AGRA Watch’s proximity to the Foundation places us in a prime position to challenge the undemocratic nature of its philanthropic stranglehold and its impacts, both locally and globally. The Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation are partners in the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), and are also involved in numerous other projects that are aimed at spreading the purported benefits of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Africa. The International Fund for Agricultural Development works closely with the Gates Foundation, ostensibly helping small farmers improve their livelihoods through more productive agriculture, breakthrough technologies, and better markets.[8] Their shared goals pertain to the idea that, ‘Small farmers often need ... access to markets, better seeds and more fertile soil, to better farm management practices, storage and transport facilities and market information. Technologies and innovations must be developed to meet the needs of the poorest people.’[9]

The Gates Foundations, like other mega-philanthropies, use their financial power to push policies that they have decided are ‘needed.’ In this case, Gates has decided that GMOs are the solution for African agriculture. In 2009, the Gates Foundation gave US$5.4 million to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, as part of its Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative.[10] This funding went to the creation and management of the BioSafety Resource Network (BRN), and to research under the Gates’ Grand Challenges #9 Project, which seeks to develop nutritionally ‘enhanced’ crop varieties of cassava, banana, sorghum and rice for subsistence farmers in the Global South. The Danforth Center states that the ‘Results of this research will help to reduce the burden of malnutrition and ... will support the creation and management of a resource network that will help African scientists incorporate biotech advances into subsistence farming.’[11]

Among the key funders of The Danforth Center is the Monsanto Fund, the ‘philanthropic’ arm of the Monsanto Company.[12] One of the Fund’s main goals is ‘Nutritional Improvement through Agriculture: Working to implement sustainable agricultural improvements through education and research. Focus areas include field techniques, education in the areas of nutrition and vitamin deficiency and reducing the impact of pest and virus on subsistence crops’, and to do this philanthropic work in areas where the company has important interests. This means that, like most philanthropic organisations set up by corporations, their business interests are barely distinguishable from their charitable ones. Monsanto – like other agri-corporations – has re-branded genetic engineering with a softer touch. Namely, they have painted themselves as concerned with the welfare of the world’s poor. In truth, these corporations are concerned with social responsibility only to the extent that it allows them to maintain good public relations and their bottom-line. At a deeper level, corporate agendas and philanthropic agendas are linked to US policy, and are thereby granted legitimacy and enormous influence over global political systems.

Yet, genetic engineering is politically, socially, and environmentally problematic. It poses risks to health, ecology, and biodiversity, and remains a highly uncontrolled experiment that impacts the lives and livelihoods of the world’s farmers while enriching corporations rooted in reckless violence and exploitation. (Monsanto, for example, still has not taken responsibility for manufacturing the chemical Agent Orange during the Vietnam War and has never renounced any of the enormous profits it made off of related deaths and deforestation in Vietnam.)[13] Genetic engineering does not remedy the root causes of global hunger, which lie in the politics of food distribution and poverty that keeps millions unable to buy adequate nourishment, rather than in insufficient global production. Furthermore, it often does not accomplish its basic goal of improving yield: There is growing evidence (even with huge corporate control over research universities) that GMOs do not work. Marcia Ishii-Eiteman of the Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA) states that, ‘Despite twenty years of research and thirteen years of commercialization, genetic engineering has failed to increase US crop yields, while driving up costs to farmers...’[14] In challenging the Lugar-Casey bill, Eric Holt-Gimenez, executive director of Food First, said, ‘Past public-private partnerships on GM crops for Africa have proven to be colossal failures. The failed GM sweet potato project between Monsanto, USAID and a Kenyan research institute is a good example of fourteen years’ worth of wasted money and effort.’[15] Nevertheless, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Syngenta Foundation jointly fund the Insect Resistant Maize for Africa Project (IRMA), a project of the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI).[16] IRMA, KARI, and the International Maize and Wheat Centre (CIMMYT) are currently preparing to release genetically modified maize on a large scale to Kenyan farmers in 2011, with a ‘pre-release’ set for 2010.[17]

Given scientific data that discount the claims of genetic engineering, why would the ‘beneficent’ structures of food aid and philanthropy remain tied to claims of GE’s usefulness in the global South, particularly in Africa? According to numerous academics, policy observers, and activists, these structures are not about hunger. They are about capitalism and philanthro-capitalism: The opening of markets, the spending of wealth through tax-free foundations in order to surround wealthy principals with the aura of altruism, the expropriation of valuable resources at the lowest cost, the perpetuation of the myth that technology solves all problems, even social ones, and the intentional obfuscation of the exploitative roles of corporations.

This troubling trend in support for GE diffusion is evident in a recent Kenyan GM maize scandal. In January 2010, Dreyfus Commodities Ltd, an international grain handling company, received an export permit from South Africa to bring 40,000 metric tons – 500,000 bags – of GM maize varieties into Kenya. In April, South Africa authorised another 240,000 tonnes after GM opponents blocked the initial shipment in the port of Mombasa.[18] When the Kenyan government opened a window for importation of duty-free maize in late 2009, it was predicated on an anticipated food shortage.[19] However, at the time of this recent importation, Kenya was experiencing a bumper harvest of cereals. In early April 2010, MP John Mututho, chairman of the parliamentary committee on agriculture, protested the importation, arguing that ‘The government should buy the surplus maize from the farmers. We have maize rotting in farms...As the Parliamentary Select Committee chairman on agriculture, I will lead a protest and the people who are importing ... should take back this maize.’[20] Mututho echoes the concerns of civil society groups: Kenya does not need to import grain, and there has not been an adequate assessment of the potential risks of GMOs to human and environmental health.

The Kenya Biodiversity Coalition (KBioC), an alliance of nearly seventy organisations from farming, animal welfare, youth and other sectors, have expressed similar concerns. In response to the major influx of imported grain, the KBioC posed the question, ‘Why did the government extend the window to import duty free maize when farmers in Kenya are struggling with lack of storage facilities and low prices of their recently harvested cereals?’[21] This question supports the repeated calls for a critical exposé of the political and economic forces involved in GE technology, food aid, and agricultural development in Africa.

The recent importation of GM grains into Kenya is not unlike earlier uses of food aid in the service of corporations and industry. Proponents of genetic engineering often seek ingenious means of creating markets for biotechnology, with hopes of circumventing controversy and debate and intentionally fostering contamination of non-GM production. In 2002, USAID used the looming famine in Southern Africa as an opening for genetic engineering – they assumed that starving people would readily accept anything and everything that was sent, even if it was genetically engineered.[22] The same year, Emmy Simmons, assistant administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), said, ‘In four years, enough GE crops will have been planted in South Africa that the pollen will have contaminated the entire continent.’[23] When the governments of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Mozambique resisted the GM maize, the responses of pro-GM officials in the US led Professor Noah Zerbe to argue that, ‘the promotion of biotechnology has nothing to do with ending hunger in the region...US food aid policy following the 2002 crisis was intended to promote the adoption of biotech crops in Southern Africa, expanding the market access and control of transnational corporations and undermining local smallholder production thereby fostering greater food insecurity on the Continent.’ Similarly, the shipment to Kenya is taking numerous and dangerous shortcuts with the Cartegena Protocol on Biosafety, the African Model Law on Biosafety, and even Kenya’s own Biosafety Act, newly signed into effect by President Kibaki in 2009. And like the USAID shipment to Southern Africa in 2002, it has very little to do with hunger, and very much to do with politics.

The pro-GM lobby has frequently used the spectre of hunger to disenfranchise Africans of their rights to make meaningful decisions about their lives. At the same time the World Bank and IMF push for ‘good governance’ on the part of African governments, they and their partners support projects that suppress democracy and self-determination. Against this international political economy of powerful interests, grassroots civil society organisations are attempting to represent the demands of small farmers, pastoralists, and the poor. In response to the Lugar-Casey Bill, Ishii-Eitemann stated that, ‘The bigger, more fundamental challenge today is about restoring fairness and democratic control over our food systems. It is about increasing the profitability, well-being and resilience of small-scale and family farmers in the face of massive environmental and global economic challenges.’[24] Similarly, AGRA Watch aims to re-centre the debate on agricultural development in Africa within these larger challenges.

This resiliency depends in part on the wealth of biodiversity in African agriculture. It depends on the cultivation of a diversity of crops that are communally shared and saved, and are traditionally less susceptible to pests, droughts, and diseases than the very few varieties of staple crops consumed in the US. It depends on access to a varied, nutritional diet of locally available foods. The model of agriculture in the US does not promote safe and nutritious food for consumers, nor does it promote sustainable farming practices – it should not be upheld as a model for the world. Smallholders’ agricultural and economic resiliency must be ensured and protected by political and legislative channels as well: Through strong national biosafety laws that follow the recommendations of the Cartegena Protocol and the African Model Law on Biosafety; through international trade relationships that do not privilege corporate and Global North interests over the demands of the Global South; and through national political arenas that recognise and reflect the needs of the electorate.

Groups such as KBioC draw from broader demands made by civil society organisations, which refute those in the pro-GM lobby who argue that resistance to genetic engineering is primarily a form of imperialism in which Global North activists attempt to deny Africans life-saving food and seed, or that the opposition within Africa is driven by the European bans on genetic engineering and the European desires not to lose market access. In response to the Southern Africa famine of 2002, Robert Zoellick – then US trade representative, now World Bank president – argued that the ‘dangerous effect of the EU’s moratorium became painfully evident last fall when some famine-stricken African countries refused US food aid because of fabricated fears stoked by irresponsible rhetoric about food safety.’ [25] The demands of KBioC and other GE opponents within Kenya indicate that despite concerns about ‘imperialism’ on the part of the Global North activists, the more paramount and urgent concerns focus on contamination and destruction of biodiversity, and the associated lack of democracy and accountability in terms of biosafety. In response to the case of Southern Africa in 2002, Noah Zerbe said, ‘... the decision to reject US food aid was based not merely on the environmental and health considerations typically raised by biotechs’ critics, but focused more directly on questions of domestic and international political economy, and on market access to the European Union and the potential premium paid for certified non-GM agriculture in particular.’[26] Yet mainstream understandings of genetic engineering portray Africans as passive recipients of development, food aid, technology, and the controversies around them, rather than as actors in forming and articulating these international debates.

As KBioC and other small farmer organisations have shown, external forces will never solely determine the fate of African farming. Organisations working for food sovereignty have persistently and successfully stood up to some of the most powerful alliances in the world, and have asserted the rights of small farmers to determine agricultural policies that work for their own local and regional communities, rather than for the global market. We stand with them.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Contact AGRA Watch to get involved in their campaign for African food sovereignty.
* AGRA Watch is a project of the Community Alliance for Global Justice, who first published this paper.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] http://www.foodfirst.org/files/pdf/PB_18_Lugar-Casey_Full_
[2] http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/2412
[3] http://lugar.senate.gov/food/legislation/
[4] http://lugar.senate.gov/food/legislation/
[5] http://lugar.senate.gov/food/legislation/
[6] http://globalfoodforthought.typepad.com/global-food-for-thought/2010/03/twin-bill.html
[7] http://www.panna.org/files/Press-Release-G8-16May09.pdf
[8] http://www.ifad.org/media/press/2009/nwanze_gates.htm
[9] http://www.ifad.org/media/press/2009/nwanze_gates.htm
[10] http://www.danforthcenter.org/NEWSMEDIA/leaflet/Danforth_Leaflet_Feb_2009.pdf
[11] http://www.danforthcenter.org/NEWSMEDIA/leaflet/Danforth_Leaflet_Feb_2009.pdf
[12] http://www.danforthcenter.org/about/mission.asp
[13] http://www.monsanto.com/monsanto_today/for_the_record/agent_orange.asp
[14] http://www.panna.org/files/Press-Release-G8-16May09.pdf
[15] http://www.panna.org/files/Press-Release-G8-16May09.pdf
[16] Mbaria, John. http://allafrica.com/stories/200810060873.html
[17] Mbaria, John. http://allafrica.com/stories/200810060873.html
[18] http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=nw20100412223452635C732103, Reuters pdf
[19] http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Company%20Industry/-/539550/668996/-/u6gpadz/-/index.html
[20] Wekesa, Chrispinus. http://www.marsgroupkenya.org/multimedia/?StoryID=287174
[21] KBioC Press Release Tuesday, March 23, 2010
[22] Zerbe, Noah. http://www.humboldt.edu/~nrz3/research/zerbe_feeding.pdf
[23] Bereano, Philip http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/
[24] http://www.panna.org/files/Press-Release-G8-16May09.pdf
[25] Zerbe, Noah. http://www.humboldt.edu/~nrz3/research/zerbe_feeding.pdf
[26] Zerbe, Noah. http://www.humboldt.edu/~nrz3/research/zerbe_

Walter Rodney's spirit lives on in West Africa

Horace Campbell

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/65091

There is so much optimism in the air. The media is dominated by news on the soccer World Cup which will kick off this week in South Africa. Everywhere there are people brimming with excitement and reflecting on the chances of their favourite team and or star players. Young persons are energised by the preparations of many of the teams, and I am sure that readers will be following this international event that will take place in Africa for the first time. I believe that this spirit of optimism in the air will bear fruit and we wish all the teams well, but in the spirit of revolutionary Pan-Africanism, I hope that the teams from Africa and Brazil will take a leaf out of Usain Bolt's book and deliver in this international arena.

This week, however, I want to comment on the spirit of Walter Rodney that I have encountered among the youth in West Africa. I have been in West Africa for the past two weeks and I have been participating in groundings with those youths who want to remember the life and work of Walter Rodney. Walter Rodney was assassinated on 13 June 1980. 13 June 2010 will be 30 years since his assassination. During the month of June there will be many celebrations to commemorate his life and work. On Sunday 13 June, there will be celebrations in the United Kingdom and Guyana. Other celebrations will take place at different venues across the world. I have been in Nigeria participating in groundings with young people and I want to use this postcard to share the excitement in the society associated with the view that Nigeria is on the verge of profound change.

POLITICAL TEMPERATURE IN NIGERIA

I arrived in Nigeria for meetings and before I could embark on the work of sharing with the youth, I made a pilgrimage to Funtua, Katsina State, to visit the community of Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem and to deliver my personal solidarity with his family in Nigeria. I visited the school that he started, the Hauwa Memorial College (named after his mother) and grounded with the students who are dedicated to hard work and following the traditions that Tajudeen established for the school. I met with those workers who are carrying out the work, both as teachers and staff of the college and as workers involved in the PADEAP (Pan-African Development, Education and Advocacy Programme).

The PADEAP was founded in 1997 by Tajudeen as a strategic centre for the ‘coordination of advocacy and development education initiatives'. Despite the encumbrance of working within the context of struggling around the impossible MDGs (Millennium Development Goals), the young activists in PADEAP were using spaces to force bureaucrats to pay attention to the needs of the people. One young man told me that Tajudeen was his mentor and that his task was to organise the youth for political change all across northern Nigeria. When one sees up front what Tajudeen was trying to do in Katsina, one gets a real sense of the multidimensional nature of his life. Whether it was his work in the context of the CDD (Centre for Democracy and Development), his vision of working across religious lines or his commitment to the oppressed, one could see the legacies of Tajudeen as one encountered various parts of his Nigerian networks. I visited his family at the family compound in Funtua, and in a subsequent communication I will share the sense of the commitment of those who are carrying on the work of Tajudeen. The connections between Walter Rodney and Tajudeen flowed in every grounding as I reminded those who were participating in the discussions that Tajudeen was an active participant in the 25th anniversary celebrations in Guyana in 2005.

From the moment I arrived in the society, discussions focused on the future of democratic participation in light of the elevation of Goodluck Jonathan to the presidency. Newspapers and commentators were speculating about whether he will run in 2011 to become the elected president, and whether the ruling PDP (People's Democratic Party) will stick to the principle of zoning (that is the reservation of the leadership of the party for a candidate from the north and south in alternate periods)? These discussions in the media are also accompanied by stories of outrageous cases of fraud, corruption and graft. One story of how a highly placed security official acquired over US$1 billion illegally made it possible to better understand the extortion racket of the police at checkpoints all around the country. The Nigerian bourgeoisie is a formidable lot, and the question was being raised of whether Jonathan will be hostage to the class of looters. How long will his luck last? When will Nigerians enjoy electricity and basic amenities? Can there be free-and-fair elections?

Today, there was one answer (on the question of elections) with the appointment of Professor Attahiru Jega to be the chair of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Professor Jega, who is vice-chancellor of Bayero University of Kano, will host the Walter Rodney groundings at his university on Thursday 10 June. He was a former president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities in the 1990s. He was uncompromising in his opposition to militarism and dictatorship, and there was excitement in the air as activists looked forward to a new era of political engagement in Nigeria. Abubakar Momoh, one of the principal organisers of the Nigerian groundings, who hosted the Walter Rodney groundings at Lagos State University, commented that Jega was beyond corruption and that the progressive forces would rally to ensure that the political culture is slowly weaned from its corrosive past. In interviews with international journalists, who were calling every minute, Momoh stressed the fact that Jega will use the powers of the Nigerian electoral act to clean up the system of ghost electors and will be accountable to the people of Nigeria. It was his view that it was the popular calls for free-and-fair elections from below that pushed the Council of Ministers to appoint Jega.

GROUNDINGS IN PORT HARCOURT

Our first major groundings took place at the University of Port Harcourt. This was the school that was the space for Claude Ake and radical activists in the era of democratic rule. The university was closed because of an incident a few days earlier when two students of the university lost their lives over an argument about 1,000 naira. It was in connection with this killing that one learnt first-hand of the role of cults on university campuses all across Nigeria. The groundings organised by the Academic Staff Union of the University of Port Harcourt and Social Action drew over 350 students and faculty to an auditorium where the celebration of the life of Walter Rodney went on for over four hours. Members of the faculty reminded the students of the days when it was mandatory for students of the University of Port Harcourt to read the text, 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa'. This reminder was also to use the past democratic struggles to bring to the fore that the rot in Nigerian politics cannot be overturned without the active mobilisation of the students.

These faculty members drew attention to the need for a renewed engagement of the life and work of Rodney. The groundings in Port Harcourt were of particular interest to me because of the intensity of the struggles in the Niger Delta. In the evening there was a select groundings with activists who wanted to examine the relevance of the life and work of Walter Rodney for the contemporary struggles in the Niger Delta. There were over 30 activists from various study groups in the area, including those who supported the call for armed action by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). There were spirited and often heated exchanges on the question of bearing arms to achieve political goals in this period. Young activists who identified themselves as coming from the ‘Creeks’ made the case for armed struggle to achieve their goal of emancipation. One group called these activists ‘criminals’ who were colluding with political careerists to carry out kidnappings and other forms of struggle to raise money. Reference was made to the big shots from the Creeks who were making money from ‘bunkering’ and other activities to accumulate capital. More than one person in the grounding stated that the movement has degenerated since the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa by the military. They wanted those outside the Niger Delta to make a distinction between the intellectuals who wrote the press releases on ‘Emancipation’ and the real relationships between the militants and the poor people in the areas destroyed by the oil companies.

There was a third position by those who believe that there needs to be intensive political work in the Niger Delta and that the people must write their own history to tell the stories so that the younger generations could learn of the past struggles and be able to grasp the differences in the different phases of the struggle. Here one militant called on those present to learn from Walter Rodney, who was a historian and history maker. I used the occasion to make short references to the past experiences of militants such as Jonas Savimbi and Charles Taylor. I was not satisfied that all other forms of political and ideological struggles had been exhausted and urged the activists to continue the work.

The ideological discussion on the future forms of politics and economics were equally vibrant. Worker activists and those coming from a clear Marxist position wanted an explicit statement on class struggle and termed Ubuntu a romantic notion. This side of the discussion was calling for the rapid industrialisation of Nigerian society so that Nigeria could advance to socialism. The question of power was continuously posed and it was the view of some that the left and progressive forces must fight to win power in the state. The activists in these discussions knew Walter Rodney; what they were not fully aware of was Rodney’s philosophy of self-emancipation and his work among the working peoples of Guyana, especially his work in the ranks of the Working People’s Alliance. I shared the small pamphlet of Eusi Kwayana with these worker activists. These exchanges exposed the lie of the former government official who had commented at a CDD seminar in Abuja that young people were not reading Walter Rodney and were not engaged in discussions about revolutionary change inside Nigeria. These activists were equally clear about their opposition to external mischief, especially the advanced civilian and non-civilian advocates for the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) who are pretending to support the people of the Niger Delta.

GROUNDINGS AT RIVERS STATE

The spirited discussions on the life and work of Walter Rodney continued at the Rivers State University of Education. At that institution, over 500 students and faculty turned out to celebrate the life of Walter Rodney. Chris Akani, a lecturer from that University whom I had met at the reggae conferences in Jamaica, was proud of the fact that this lecture on Walter Rodney was the first major public lecture organised by the university since the status of the institution was upgraded. A university band, university dancers and other sections of the university participated in a five-hour lecture, dance, discussion and reflection on the role of Walter Rodney as an educator. Inevitably, there was one question that occurred in both meetings: why were we still reflecting on the role of Europe in the underdevelopment of Africa? Was Walter Rodney still relevant? Why was the Nigerian government unable to deliver electricity, water and sanitation to the people? The wealth of the society and the natural resources were contrasted with the extreme exploitation of the people.

The free flow of ideas in these groundings reflected one other struggle to claim democratic spaces in society. The fact that the Academic Staff Union organised both groundings in Port Harcourt was one indication that the staff union was not simply struggling for better pay and better working conditions, but that these struggles cannot be separated from the ideological transformation of the society. This point was stressed by the officials of the Academic Staff Union on both occasions. It was in these discussions where the ideas of Walter Rodney on the role of history, education and politics were discussed with gusto.

GROUNDINGS IN LAGOS

If the groundings in Cross River State were vigorous and exhilarating, the spirit of Walter Rodney was alive in the major rally held at Lagos State University. Organised by Abuibukar Momoh, this grounding brought out more than 1,000 staff and students of the university. The hunger for the ideas of Walter Rodney was evident as the students bought up the books, pamphlets and posters of Walter Rodney. This was another marathon session where the spirit of Walter Rodney was very much alive. The students called on each other to rededicate themselves to following the example of Walter Rodney. As in Cross Rivers State, the event ended with the singing of the Bob Marley song, 'One love'.

These groundings reminded me that there were tough and dedicated activists in Nigeria. If one gets daunted by the obstacles for political work – the massive traffic hold-up, the electricity white-outs, the potholes and the insecurity – one would be demobilised, but the courage and tenacity of the Nigerian youth showed that the people are steeled for change. It is my view that when the change comes to Nigeria, it will be like a tidal wave washing away the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats.

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.

The Gaza flotilla attack and the craziness of history

L. Muthoni Wanyeki

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/65093

Every now and then, something jolts us out of our workaday parochialism. Last week, I was in Kano in northern Nigeria. I visited the Gide Mamakan, the museum just opposite the Emir’s palace.

And even though I’ve studied African history, I was struck by how much contemporary understanding of Nigeria’s dynamics and tensions had overtaken my own sense of history and its timelines.

It was in the 900s that the decentralised government of the people of Kano was replaced by the centralised feudal kingdom of Kano.

Kano lay on the old trade routes between West Africa and the rest of the world, so Islamisation took place through the next few centuries, in a fairly syncretic way. But it was only in the early 1800s that the Jihad established Kano as a Muslim kingdom.

Then came British conquest in the early 1900s. It was only in the early 2000s that Kano formally became one of Nigeria’s ‘Sharia’ states.

What struck me was the short period, in relative historical terms, of the Kano kingdom’s formally Muslim character – one century or so. And yet, when we think of Kano today, it is as though it has always been so.

I feel the same kind of historical jolt listening to the debates in the United States on so-called illegal immigration.

The US, of course, is founded on migration (forced migration in the case of Americans of African descent). Going back only a couple 100 years, most of the territories of the border states were part of the Spanish colonies. Going back a few hundred years more, all territories belonged to Native American communities.

With that in mind, the debate on ‘illegal immigration’ seems crazy to an outsider. Yet discussions on the control of migration go so far as discussions on building a wall to span the US-Mexico border.

I felt the same historical jolt with the attack by Israeli commandos on the Gaza aid flotilla – an attack that left nine dead.

We could get stuck at the level of discussing whether or not the group on board the flotilla had arms, or if they were supporters of fundamentalist anti-Israeli groups; or whether Israel is capable of independently investigating the attack; or why the Gaza aid flotilla came about in the first place – to respond to the Israeli blockade of Gaza since Palestinians elected Hamas to the leadership of the Palestinian Authority in 2006.

We could then get stuck on whether the Israelis are justified in doing so, and the impact of all of this on the latest round of ‘talks about talks’ – the so-called proximity. But again, stepping back and looking at this from the vantage point of history and being an outsider, the whole situation is crazy. People have moved all around the Mediterranean for 100,000s of years – from Spain to Lebanon and back again.

They have fought, they have mingled, they have lived alongside each other. They are fundamentally mixed, and they all have the right to be there.

But the mass migration of Jews to what is now Israel following the Holocaust displaced those living in Palestine at that point in time. They’ve built a state, but it is one that essentially functions as an apartheid state.

Discussions about a so-called two-state solution, accompanied by discussions about a dividing wall, prove the point. Especially as the viability of what might become the Palestinian state is continually being compromised by continued settlements. Meanwhile, the right of return for Palestinians displaced during the founding of Israel is off the table.

Like I said, it’s crazy.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article first appeared in allAfica.com.
* L. Muthoni Wanyeki is executive director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

This is the constitutional moment

A statement by Kenya's victims of repression

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/65086

THIS IS THE CONSTITUTIONAL MOMENT:

A STATEMENT BY VICTIMS OF REPRESSION

We, former prisoners of conscience, political exiles and spouses, widows, parents, sons and daughters of former victims of KANU dictatorship under presidents Kenyatta and Moi have keenly and critically observed and actively participated in the developments towards the retirement of the enslaving independence constitution (with its myriad retrogressive amendments) and ushering in of a new, democratic one. As still gaping wounds of half a century of tyranny, we are both excited and alarmed. Excited because the cause for which we were jailed, tortured, ostracized by both the state and sections of society and economically marginalized is at the verge of turning the final bend. Alarmed because, determined as ever, the forces of tyranny, plunder and retrogression have once again regrouped in last ditch attempt to deny the people of Kenya their deserved prize of a new dawn of freedom and empowerment.

It is in view of the foregoing that we elect to highlight the following as Kenyans prepare to cast their vote for a new Constitution in August:

Our History has been that of Constant Struggle between Forces of Change and Those of Reaction

The Kenyan people take great pride in their long history of resistance to forces of foreign occupation and internal repression. This heroic history stretches way back from the struggles led by patriots like Yusuf bin Hassan in the 16th Century against Portuguese occupation to the current one for the realization of a new constitution based on democracy, social justice and subsidiarity. But the people of Kenya are also well aware that at each stage of the struggle, there have been forces of reaction and sabotage.

When patriotic Kenyans like Waiyaki wa Hinga, Me Katilili, Koitalel arap Samoei, Mwangeka, Odera Ulalo and others fought to resist the alienation of Kenyan land and enslavement of our people, the colonizing brigade found ready collaborators in the likes of Lenana, Mumia, Odera Akang’o and Tengecha.

On the workers front, we had progressive trade union leaders like Markhan Singh, Cege Kibacia and Fred Kubai pitted against reactionary forces coalescing around the Tom Mboya-fronted Kenya Federation of Labour. The Kenya Land and Freedom Army (Mau Mau) had its counterforce in the Homeguards and Komoreras.

In the post-independence Kenya, we had progressive forces revolving around Jaramogi Odinga, Bildad Kaggia and Pio Gama Pinto among others. They were opposed, harassed and detained without trial – some assassinated – by the reactionaries led by Kenyatta and Moi. These praxes had to be repeated at every stage of the struggle – in student leadership, in the churches and in the mosques.

It was, thus, no accident that when Kenyans could no longer bear with the repression of Moi-KANU regime and launched in earnest the struggle for restoration of multiparty democracy, Moi nad reactionary forces launched a vicious, semi-fascist outfit in the infamous Youth for KANU ’92.

The alignment of forces as currently witnessed is as natural as flies congregate around faeces.



Land is the Issue of Contention

At the centre of the National Question is land. Kenya inherited a highly skewed system of land ownership at independence in 1963. British colonialism in Kenya was not merely administrative. Rather, it was accompanied by massive and widespread land alienation for the benefit of settler agriculture. As a result the best agricultural land-the White Highlands and the adjacent rangelands were taken from the Africans, without compensation, and parceled out to white settlers. Colonial legislation was enacted to legalize this process. As a result, whole communities lost valuable land that they had occupied over generations. The customary land tenure systems under which Africans had guaranteed claims over the land they occupied were supplanted by the registration of individual title holders under the colonial system.



Independence failed to reverse this loss of African land. The colonial legislation protecting the rights of the land title holders was inherited by the first post-independence government of President Jomo Kenyatta. The Constitution negotiated at Lancaster House in London, provided for an elaborate protection of private property without reference to the history of its acquisition. The successive post-independence governments have continued to uphold the sanctity of privately owned land to the frustration of the large number of Kenyans who had been dispossessed through colonialism leaving them squatters on their ancestral land or landless poor. This situation demands an equitable land distribution process that is capable of providing livelihood opportunities to the landless poor as well as redressing colonial wrongs and re-establishing justice in the land sector.



As the struggle for independence ensued and the colonial rule looked destined to a sad chapter of history, a new ruling class with interest in landed property was quickly recruited from amongst African collaborators. With the help of the colonial state, the new gentry quickly occupied land belonging to entire communities – that had been herded into detention camps and concentration villages – and were awarded titles by the colonial authorities. Upon the attainment of independence, the new rulers could not relinquish their claim to these lands but came up with a scheme of settling the new landless in former settler areas (which had been alienated through force or treachery). It is instructive to observe that the epicentre of land-related clashes has been the agriculturally-rich Rift Valley region. This is no accident. Rift Valley is the most settled region of Kenya. It is also in the Rift Valley where communities like the Maasai, the Pokot and the Nandi have unresolved grievances over land ownership centred on historical injustices traceable to colonial occupation.

It was in the Rift Valley where British settlers alienated huge tracts of land from indigenous Kenyans (paying a mere 10 cents per acre to the crown, not to the owners). It was in the Rift Valley where the Maasai community was duped into signing a 100-year agreement with the British in 1904 and denied a hearing by Kibaki government (a successor to the colonial administration) in 2004 when the agreement had elapsed. It is in the Rift Valley where the Pokot were forcefully pushed out of their communal land.

Land grabbing, which has been used for political patronage, combined with land tenure reform, has concentrated mainly in freehold title registration without regard to distributive justice and has escalated further the oppression and marginalisation of the indigenous Rift Valley and coastal people.

The proposed constitution provides the people of Kenya with an opportunity to once for all address the issue of injustice in land ownership, tenure and utilization.

Empowering Women

Women have been the central pillars of our long struggle for emancipation. The history of our struggle against colonialism and neo-colonialism is incomplete without mention of the roles of Me Katilili, Moraa, Mary Nyanjiru, Field Marshall Muthoni, Micere Mugo and Wangari Maathai among others. Can we forget the mothers of political prisoners who bared it all at the Freedom Corner to have their sons freed? These are women who dared to speak the truth to power. Yet our women continue to be domestic slaves; because petty housework crushes, strangles, stultifies and degrades them, chains them to the kitchen and the nursery, and wastes their labour on barbarously unproductive, petty, nerve-racking, crushing drudgery. The Proposed Constitution proposes to restore our women’s full rights and dignity and gives them a role at the Boardroom, at cabinet, at the farm and firm decision organs – beyond the bedroom, nursery and kitchen.

National Values and Principles of Governance

For the first time since the establishment of Kenya as a nation, national values are postulated in the Constitution and backed by a strong, comprehensive regime of human rights and freedoms. As persons who have been arrested arbitrarily and/or our families subjected to gross abuse of fundamental human rights and denied enjoyment of basic freedoms – including torture and inhuman treatment, detentions without trial, denial of rights to work, education and practice profession or trade – we fully endorse these values as espoused in the Proposed Constitution.

Citizen Moi Has No Moral Authority to Lecture Kenyans on New Constitution

As President for close to a quarter of a century, Daniel arap Moi became the example of tyranny in Africa and the world. Many young women and men are orphans because their parents were deprived of life as result of Moi’s reign of terror. Many are those who have been rendered landless due to Moi’s insatiable appetite for land. Scores of Kenyans met their early deaths and continue to die from lack of health facilities and drugs in hospitals, accidents caused by decayed physical infrastructure and hunger occasioned by corruption institutionalized by Moi and bequeathed to his KANU offspring. Moi and Moists have rubbished, opposed, sabotaged the quest for a democratic constitution all the way as Kenyans demanded it. Once again, Moi and his YK92 brigade have regrouped and are standing on the way of Kenyans who hunger for a new constitutional dispensation. As bleeding wounds of Moi terror rule, while we don’t begrudge Citizen Moi his right to express himself freely, his history of misrule does not qualify him to lecture Kenyans on what makes a good or bad constitution. Kenyans are better off without it such unsolicited counsel.



Dated this 6th day of June 2010 and signed:



Endorsed (so far) by:

Ms Wahu Kaara
Achoka Awori
Prof. Edward Oyugi
Paul Amina
Wachira Waihere
Njoroge Wanguthi
Paddy Onyango
Kiama Kaara
Zarina Patel
10. Komeja Msuya

11. Mwaura Kaara

12. Oduor Ong’wen

13. Dr Willy Mutunga

14. Zahid Rajan

15. Dr. Adhu Awiti

16. Mwandawiro Mghanga

17. Wachira Kamonji

18. G.C. Muraguri

19. Miguna Miguna

20. Boaz Waruku

21. Sophie Dola

22. Morris Odhiambo

23. Kawive Wambua

24. Kavetsa Adagala

25. Alice Kirambi

26. Rev. Timothy Njoya

27. Suba Churchil Meshack

African solidarity with Queers Against Israeli Apartheid

Zackie Achmat

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/65103

Pride Toronto in hiding after spirited denunciation from queer leaders
NEWS / No one takes giant shame placard from former honorees
Marcus McCann / National / Monday, June 07, 2010

Loney was joined by Farrow, Walker and a raft of others who spoke against PT. On hand were:

James Loney (“Fearless” Theme Award, 2006)

Zahra Dhanani (Honoured Dyke, 2006)

Sky Gilbert (Grand Marshal, 2000)

Faith Nolan (Honoured Dyke, 2009)

El-Farouk Khaki (Grand Marshal, 2009)

Rachel Epstein (Honoured Dyke, 2007)

Gareth Henry (International Grand Marshal, 2008)

Anna Willats (Honoured Dyke, 2008)

JP Hornick (Grand Marshal, 2002)

John Greyson (Arts & Culture Award, 2009)

Savoy Howe (Award for Excellence in Sports, 2008)

Leonardo Zuniga (Human Rights Award, 2009)

Matthew Cutler (Youth Award, 2009)

Michelle Walker (Community Service Award, 2010)

Jane Farrow (Honoured Dyke, 2010)

Six others were to return their awards but couldn’t attend in person:

Gloria Careaga and Renato Sabbadini (International Grand Marshals, 2010)

Faisal Alam (Spirituality Award, 2009)

Victor Mukasa (International Grand Marshal, 2009)

Salah Bachir (Grand Marshal, 2005)

Rosanna Flamer-Caldera (International Grand Marshal, 2007)

Alan Li (Grand Marshal, 2010)

Discontent with PT went beyond its banning of “Israeli Apartheid,” as speaker after speaker drew links between the act of censorship and other moves to whitewash the celebrations.

Farrow pointed out that performers on all PT stages must sign an agreement promising not to say anything offensive or political. Farrow says the clause, which has been in effect since 2008, was defended by PT organizers as preventing musicians from endorsing, for instance, mayoral candidates.

“This is not speech that anyone needs to be protected from,” she said.

JP Hornick, one of the women charged in the Pussy Palace raids, decried the de-sexing and de-politicizing of Pride.

“This is not a parade; it’s a march. It’s about sex. It’s about who we fuck,” she said.

Anna Willats, Pride Toronto’s honoured dyke in 2008, told the boisterous room that queers need to take back Pride “if we want to put on a World Pride [in 2014] that doesn’t look like the Santa Claus Parade.”

Performer, playwright and provocateur Sky Gilbert remembered his experience of being told not to perform sex acts on his float in the late ’90s, after he gave head to a dyke’s strap-on dildo the year before.

He also defended PT executive director Tracey Sandilands — sort of.

Armed with an oversized cardboard shame award, a group of queers trying to give back their trophies ran into a problem on June 7: the offices of Pride Toronto (PT) were locked.

As one, two and eventually three police cruisers showed up, it became increasingly clear than no one from PT was going to accept the giant shame certificate nor the statuettes from former grand marshals, honoured dykes and other honorees.

A police officer on hand said that no one was inside the building but that someone from PT had alerted police to the protest on Sunday, apparently out of fear it would lead to vandalism.

After PT announced that its board had voted 4-3 to ban the term “Israeli Apartheid” from the parade, queer community leaders mobilized to pressure PT’s board to reverse its decision. First, Alan Li refused to accept the title of grand marshal, then Jane Farrow declined the honoured dyke title. Since then, both Michelle Walker (community service award) and ILGA (international marshals) have turned down honours.

Queer leaders carried a “Shame Award” to the doorstep of Pride Toronto’s Dundonald St office.(Matt Mills photo)During the press conference, PT issued a statement on its website, saying the decision to ban the term “Israeli Apartheid” was not taken lightly.

“The board of Pride Toronto listened to members of our community,” it said. “What we heard overwhelmingly was that the use of the words ‘Israeli Apartheid’ made participants feel unsafe.”

Tim McCaskell, a member of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA), spoke to Xtra after PT’s release.

“If people feel unsafe, I would suggest that they are being manipulated,” he said. “If the word is ‘uncomfortable,’ well, Pride makes a lot of people uncomfortable.”

An hour earlier, you could have heard a pin drop when James Loney approached the podium at the 519 Community Centre, where more than 100 queers gathered for a press conference before marching on the PT office.

Loney — a peace activist who spent four months as a hostage in Iraq — was one of nearly two dozen PT honorees giving back their awards.

“Us queers know it in our bones: silence equals death,” Loney said, as he discussed how silence affected him and his partner following his abduction.

“I’m sure that she’s a nice person. I suspect that she’s maybe a nice person. Tracey Sandilands is the new face of corporate Pride, but she’s just doing her job,” he said, adding that political queers have allowed Pride to become a sanitized spectacle.

Musician Faith Nolan says that she’s been following as alternative Pride events spring up. She was invited to perform at one — apparently to be held at the Gladstone — which was to be a non-political show of unity that didn’t choose sides between PT and QuAIA.

“I looked at it and I emailed them back and said, ‘Absolutely not,’” adding, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.”

Books and films received for review

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/65076

Books received:

Title: Intercultural Dialogue in Africa: Project review
Editor: Tom Broadhurst and Jo Angouri
Published by: British Council
First published: 2010
ISBN: N/A
Pages: 130

This review of the British Council’s May 2008 intercultural dialogue in Africa (ICDA) informs of the aims, coordination and lessons from this project. The British Council focused on 12 countries in its specific intention ‘to build trust between people in the UK and African Muslim communities’. These countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda) are all Sub-Saharan countries. This review should be of interest to those wishing to understand the intentions, from the British Council’s perspective, of such a project, and what were the lessons and outcomes of its activities in 2008.

Title: Identity Economics: Social Networks & the Informal Economy in Nigeria
Author: Kate Meagher
Published by: James Currey
First published: 2010
ISBN: 9781847010162
Pages: 224

Identity Economics explores the reasons behind the recognised failure of informal enterprise networks in Nigeria. Kate Meagher seeks to demonstrate how this failure is not simply down to what some may assume to be unproductive cultural institutions governing the informal sector, but instead a result of damaging liberalization and the retreat of the state. Meagher refers to two informal enterprise networks in Nigeria in the publication’s analysis, which leads the author to insist that the state’s role is critical in directing the informal economy in its development away from insecurity and eventual poverty for those involved. The author founds her analysis on over twenty years of research on African informal economies.


Title: The Politics of Genocide
Authors: Edward S. Herman and David Peterson
Published by: Monthly Review Press
First published: 2010
ISBN: 9781583672129
Pages: 159

The Politics of Genocide takes a look at the politics behind the term ‘genocide’. These authors investigate how national and international political propaganda can influence the condemnation of actions taken by governments and military forces as ‘genocide’, and suggest that political motives determine the use or retraction of this heavy term. The authors use a variation of case studies to illustrate the ‘politics of genocide’. Edward S. Herman is professor emeritus of finance at the Wharton School, Unversity of Pennsylvania and David Peterson is an independent journalist and researcher based in Chicago.

Title: Chistopher Okigbo 1930–67: Thirsting for Sunlight
Author: Obi Nwakanma
Published by: James Currey
First published: 2010
ISBN: 9781847010131
Pages: 276

In this new biography Obi Nwakanma explores the life and work of Chistopher Okigbo – the highly acclaimed Nigerian poet who was killed fighting for the independence of Biafra in September 1967 in the Nigerian civil war. Through interviews with Okigbo’s contemporaries Nwakanma explores this literary master’s place in African literature and politics. Obi Nwakanma is a journalist and a poet, and Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Truman State University, Kirksville, Missouri.

Title: Alex la Guma: A Literary and Political Biography
Author: Roger Field
Published by: James Currey
First published: 2010
ISBN: 9781847010179
Pages: 258

In this publication Roger Field investigates the life of Alex la Guma, the South African liberation activist and writer who was exiled during apartheid in 1966 and died in 1985 in Havana. The author combines a fresh consideration of the literary achievements of la Guma with the political situation in which he operated, and on which he had an important influence. Roger Field is a senior lecturer in the Department of English, University of the Western Cape.

Title: Transitional Justice in Kenya: A Toolkit for Training and Engagement
Produced and published by: The Kenya Human Rights Commission, The Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists and the International Centre for Policy and Conflict
First published: 2010
ISBN: 9966941630
Pages: 117

Transitional Justice in Kenya: A Toolkit for Training and Engagement, also known as the Toolkit, is designed to be a manual for constructive engagement with ongoing transitional justice procedures in Kenya, following the post-2007/8 elections. The Toolkit is divided into 3 parts: part 1 defines transitional justice, part 2 informs of the mechanisms of transitional justice, part 3 demonstrates the tools that facilitate an engagement in the transitional justice process and part 4 recommends how this engagement can be achieved. The Kenya Human Rights Commission, The Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists and the International Centre for Policy and Conflict collaborate in presenting this contribution to Kenya’s ongoing judicial procedures following the post-election atrocities.


Title: African Economic Outlook 2010
Produced and published by: The African Development Bank Group, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
First published: 2010
ISBN: N/A
Pages: 277

This is the ninth edition of the African Economic Outlook – published by the African Development Bank Group, the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). African Economic Outlook analyses African economies and provides ‘evidence-based policy advice on key development challenges for policy-makers, academics, civil society, as well as the general public within and outside the African continent’. This edition has a special focus on public resource mobilisation and aid, and the alleviation of aid dependency. The analysis also explores the actors and challenges involved in the continent’s economic development, in the context of a recovering global economy.

Title: Surviving After Torture: A Case Digest on The Struggle for Justice by Torture Survivors in Kenya
Produced and published by: The Kenya Human Rights Commission
First published: 2009
ISBN: 9966941622
Pages: 107

This publication by the Kenya Human Rights Commission explores how torture victims in Kenya, from colonial days and post-colonial regimes up until the era of the present government, engaged and continue to engage courts in the pursuit of justice and the promotion of human rights. This digest is a comprehensive presentation of the history of torture in Kenya and the resilience of torture victims in confronting their oppressors through legal action.

Title: The End of White World Supremacy: Black Internationalism and the Problem of the Color Line
Author: Roderick D. Bush
Published by: Temple University Press
First published: 2009
ISBN: 9781592135738
Pages: 258

The End of White World Supremacy explores the complex issue of integration of blacks into white America. The author approaches this issue in its national and international context, as well as in the context of movements for social justice. Racial troubles in the US are presented as symptoms of global political-social relationships with the West. Roderick D. Bush was an activist in the Black Power and radical movements of the 1960s through to the 1980s, and is now an associate professor of sociology and anthropology at St. John’s University, New York City.

Title: Hope not Hype: The Future of Agriculture Guided by the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD)
Author: Jack A. Heinemann
Published by: Third World Network
First published: 2009
ISBN: 9789832729815
Pages: 160

The initiatives for agricultural sustainability envisioned by the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) form the basis of Jack A. Heinemann’s vision for global food security presented in Hope not Hype. This book calls for greater awareness about the need for sustainable food production, which not only provides for the future but improves social and economic equity, and offers advice to readers and policy-makers.

Films and documentaries received:

Title: Who They Said I Should Be: The Story Of African British Female Movers & Shakers
Director: Kwaku
Funded by: BTWSC
First released: 2009

Who They Said I Should Be, directed by Kwaku, is a testimony to female achievers of African descent. One of the original aims of this project was to restore the gender balance of the BTWSC's 2009 African History Month programme, entitled In Search Of Achievers Closer To Home, which was felt by the director to focus more on male role models. The documentary hopes to inspire women of African descent to climb the career ladder to wherever they wish to go.

Title: The ‘Unturned Stones’: A documentation on impunity and historical injustices in Kenya
A production of: The Kenya Human Rights Commission
First released: 2009

The ‘Unturned Stones’ is a four part documentary on past impunity and injustice in Kenya. The pattern of state-condoned and sponsored violence, assassinations, unlawful arrests and torture and violations against social, economic and cultural rights is presented in this production, which aims to increase awareness of these atrocities.

‘Avatar’s’ Pandora: A modern day battle in the Congo

Kambale Musavuli

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/65077

‘Avatar’, the highest-grossing film of all time, may be more real and current than the average person may know. The battle of Pandora is taking place right now in the Congo. Since 1996 a war is raged in the Congo to get access to resources vital for modern technology and global investors. Nearly six million Congolese have lost their lives, millions more have been displaced, hundreds of thousands of women have been systematically raped as a strategy of war, mass scale logging is taking place at an alarming rate in the second largest rainforest in the world and an $80 billion plan is being pursued by the World Energy Council (WEC) to dam the river ostensibly to provide electricity to Europe while the people are still in the dark. All the while, there is a deafening silence within the international community about the root causes of this fourteen year-old war waged in the heart of Africa.

Ann Hornaday, in her article in the Washington Post on 18 December 2009, delves into ‘Avatar’s’ historical connection with the Congo as she shows how Joseph Conrad’s Marlow is the ‘Avatar’ corollary of James Cameron’s Jake Sully. In Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, we see the dehumanising description of Congolese natives as ‘mostly black and naked, [moving] about like ants’ and ‘black shapes’ remarkably similar to Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ label of ‘fly-bitten savages’ and ‘blue monkeys’.

Using computer-animation and 3-D technology, Cameron takes us into a virtual world, where characters maintain humanness throughout this action-packed film. The three dimensional experience of ‘Avatar’ places the audience inside the plot. They witness in real time the resource exploitation of indigenous land at the expense of local populations in the name of profit for corporations and investors. Being sunk into the special effects, many fail to realise how they are also complicit in the destruction similar to that portrayed in the movie and leave the theatre or their couch with a predominant sentiment in their mind: ‘This is a great movie!’ Yet no global outrage, nor action, is seen on the part of the viewers for a worldwide mobilisation campaign to stop the real-life, current exploitation of the Congolese people.

This film creates space for a much-needed dialogue about what we are doing to our planet. It illustrates how interconnected humans are and touches on issues from the environment to spirituality. It lays bare the connection between the dehumanisation of native people and corporate greed whereby profit takes priority over people. To achieve their aim, corporations create chaos in order to access certain key resources at the expense of the indigenous people. ‘Avatar’ addresses the most important of wars in the world today, yet it calls for a state of amnesia. Dots are left unconnected between the movie and what is happening right now in the heart of the African continent.

This is also the set of Congo’s plight. The Congo is arguably the richest region on the planet in terms of natural resources. It is the storehouse of strategic and precious minerals that are vital to the functioning of modern society. Its minerals are key to the consumer electronics, technology, automotive, aerospace and military industries. Its diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt, uranium, iron, tin, tungsten and coltan (a mineral that is central to the functioning of our cell phones, laptops and other technology and electronic devices) are coveted from China to the United States. Its rainforest, being the second largest in the world after the Amazon, is vital to the fight against climate change, as noted by Sun Sentinel, while American companies such as The Blattner Group are cutting the trees down day by day in the name of profit.

This geopolitical and geostrategic battle to control the Congo's vast mineral wealth is devastating for the entire continent of Africa. Bordered by nine African countries, the Congo straddles the equator and is the fulcrum on which the entire continent swings. Whatever happens in the Congo affects the entire continent. As foreign governments and multinationals fight to exploit Congo’s resources, a second holocaust in just over a century is taking place in the region. Because of these resources, the Congolese people have faced distinct challenges since its modern founding in 1885 at the Berlin Conference when the Congo was given to King Leopold II of Belgium as his own personal property. A similar challenge transpired in the late 1800s when an estimated 10 – 15 million Congolese lost their lives due to the world’s appetite for rubber and ivory. The difference in present-day Congo is that it is primarily US allies – Rwanda and Uganda – who are carrying out the depopulation and control over Congolese land and resources.

The central question in the Congo, as in ‘Avatar’, is who is going to control the resources and for whose benefit? The answer to this question is evident in the very conflict that is the Congo: in the unsafe natural gas exploitation in Lake Kivu by American company Contour Global, mass displacement and environmental degradation of local indigenous people by Freeport McMoRan, odious mining contracts by American companies such as OM Group, or the illegal logging and massive exploitation of plantation workers by The Blattner Group, to name a few.

In the midst of all of this exploitation, there is a trait worth mentioning that demonstrates the resiliency and self-determination of the Congolese people. For more than 400 years, the Congolese have been fighting for sovereignty over their land. They have lost many leaders such as Kimpa Vita, who was accused of heresy by the Portuguese and burned at stake at the age of 21 with her infant son after she organised the people in the Kongo kingdom to fight for the sovereignty of their land. Another notable freedom fighter is Simon Kimbangu, who spent more years in prison fighting Belgian colonialism than Nelson Mandela did while fighting apartheid. The Congo also saw the rise of Lumpungu II who spoke out about sovereignty of the land and was hung in front of his people by the king of Belgium. Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, can never be forgotten as he fought to retain Congo’s resources for the benefit of the Congolese people and Africa in general. As a result of Lumumba’s stance, he was assassinated within months of taking office by Belgium in cahoots with the United States, other Western nations and local elites.

The Congolese youth have initiated a worldwide mobilisation campaign in partnership with other young people around the world. The Jake Sullys of the Congo who have helped in the awakening of national consciousness for centuries have fortunately been Congolese. And though they have nearly all been brutally assassinated, the Congolese fight to control their own resources and determine their own affairs has not yet died. The spirit that lives on in the Congolese youth who continue to rise-up for change of their nation is immortal. As self-determination in the rebuilding of their country goes through their veins, their ancestors’ history becomes a reminder of the struggle now waged for centuries.

Frantz Fanon says that each generation must find its destiny, and when found, either betray it or fulfill it. Congolese youth of today are fulfilling that destiny by breaking the silence both inside their country and globally. Just as in Pandora, the battle of the Congo is the battle of humanity, especially given Congo’s importance in the fight against climate change, its large fresh water reserves and mineral resources that are key to modern society. Being true agents of change, the youth are organising events, winning the hearts and minds of people in their respective communities by sharing their personal stories and mobilising support for Congolese on the ground. Youth groups inside the Congo are organising film festivals in eastern Congo where the conflict is more acute. Others are also doing their part in the education of young Congolese through history teachings.

Today, in the Congo, there is a new breed of ‘Avatar’s’. The Congolese youth are playing that role, as they are scattered around the world in countries fuelling the war in their home country. Their mission is different than that of Jake Sully. Theirs is to win the hearts and minds of the citizens of these nations and to pressure their country’s government and corporations to stop the plunder of Congo’s resources. With that diplomatic mission, we bear witness to a global movement in support of Congolese people energised by their youth in a quest to bring peace and stability to their home.

Ordinary people throughout the globe can play a critical role in bringing about change in the Congo. We all benefit from Congo’s wealth and have a responsibility to make sure we are not benefiting at the expense of the people. What is taking place in the Congo as we speak is a scar on the conscience of humanity. Congo’s problem is a worldwide problem, hence it demands a global response. The global movement in support of the Congo is as important today as the Free South Africa Movement was yesterday. We all must get involved by demanding that our leaders make the Congo a priority, hold our corporations accountable and support Congolese institutions fighting for peace, justice and human dignity.

As Fanon presciently noted, ‘Let us be sure never to forget it; the fate of all of us is at stake in the Congo.’

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Kambale Musavuli is spokesperson and student coordinator for Friends of the Congo. He can be reached at kambale@friendsofthecongo.org.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Africa must do more in the Middle East

Joseph Kaifala

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/65078

For many years I have pondered on whether Africa is politically excluded from the Middle East Peace processes by those involved or whether the continent is merely reluctant to participate out of fear of the complicated nature of the conflicts, especially the Israeli-Palestinian disputes. The question of exclusion, however, has been eliminated from my thinking because the voting records of many African countries on resolutions relating to Israeli actions towards Palestinians illustrate their diplomatic opinions. However, what remains lacking are active African voices in ongoing peace processes and political actions.

Apart from Egypt, which many continue to deliberately separate from Africa, the African Union has remained curiously silent on the Middle East and it bugs the mind. Even outside of African leadership circles, very little is been done to increase African awareness of Middle Eastern history. Most African history books have considerable portions devoted to American and European History, but very little attention is given to the Middle East. It was therefore not a surprise to me that no student at a Sierra Leonean high school I recently taught knew anything about Judaism or the actual existence of the State of Israel. Most African understanding of Israel is limited to Biblical stories of chosen tribes and a Promised Land that are not connected to contemporary Israel.

While the nature of the conflicts in the Middle East might appear to indicate that the less involved one is the better, Africa must realize that most of our independence from colonial oppression was expedited because many elsewhere screamed on our behalf. China and Cuba for instance were quite indispensable in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. The Soviet Union came to the rescue of Guinea when the French dugout tarmac roads and vandalized civil service furniture because of Sekou Toure's refusal to conform to the commonwealth of La plus grande France. Africa must remember that in times of political needs, the neutral neighbour is always more useful than the middleman with considerable stakes in the matter.

I don't believe the reasoning of US being a viable peace broker in the region, and it is high time we considered other options in the interest of genuine peace. If nothing else, African leaders must at least start to teach their peoples about the Middle East and speak their opinions openly on the conflicts. There are no moderations in the West when it comes condemning Africa's woes, why are we reluctant to condemn the dishonesty of others in the International System. Africa can no longer afford to remain oblivious to one of the saddest human crises of our time and we need more political voices added to the isolated voices of Rev. Desmond Tutu and unavoidably Egypt.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Garri in Addis

Joseph Peter Ochogwu

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/65075

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Joseph Peter Ochogwu is currently the principal research officer and the technical advisor to the director general of the Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution in Nigeria.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

President Zuma’s Indian safari

Sanusha Naidu

2010-06-10

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/africa_china/65083

Last week President Zuma made his first official visit to India since being elected as president of the Republic of South Africa a little over a year ago. It was, however, his second visit to the subcontinent; he made the first in June 2008, after becoming president of the ANC at the end of 2007.

According to the official rhetoric, the visit marked a significant moment in the history of Indo-South African relations. It signalled the continued commitment of South-South cooperation, the strengthening of mutual support for each other’s candidature for a permanent seat in the reformed United Nations Security Council and a sustained momentum towards speeding up reform of the UN and international decision-making institutions to reflect contemporary realities.

And, yet again, another ‘strategic partnership’ was born as noted in the press state issued by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

Strategic partnerships have indeed become the new lexicon in the search for pushing towards a multilateral international order by the global South. It is often inserted into various summit declarations as some kind of expression of mutual benefit. It is a catchphrase of the 21st century that policy-makers and our inspired leaders effortlessly roll off their tongues without hesitation or consideration of whether there is any substance to it.

The attraction of establishing ‘strategic partnerships’ reminds one of bees to honey or moths to a flame.

But have we ever stopped to ask ourselves what does a ‘strategic partnership’ mean? On whose behalf are these strategic partnerships being negotiated? And more importantly who benefits from them?

Let’s be honest, what was President Zuma really doing in India? What type of ‘strategic partnership’ was being forged? And who were the strategic partners in this strategic partnership?

President Zuma’s visit to the Indian subcontinent was not really about reaffirming political platitudes. This was done not long ago at the IBSA Summit hosted in Brazil and frequently at various other forums, diplomatic engagements and political networks.

The visit was really about cementing economic ties and commercial partnerships, with each side wanting to break into the other’s market. This message was clear – firstly with the 200 or so South African business people and captains of industry that were in tow, and secondly wherever President Zuma made official appearances and gave keynote speeches.

Of course, all this was done in the name of promoting regional economic integration and the markets of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), Southern African Development Community (SADC) and across the continent as a measure of good neighbourliness. Without a doubt, this is not really about Pretoria’s sub-imperial economic intentions. That would be blasphemy in the gospel of the Global South’s strategic partnerships.

Yet lets consider the following excerpts and quotations:

‘We have identified India as a strategic partner for South Africa with good reason. This country boasts a burgeoning middle class of approximately 300 million,’ Zuma said while addressing business CEOs from India and South Africa.

‘We wish to expedite negotiations on a preferential trade agreement between India and the Southern African Customs Union, so that we may realise the great potential that exists by bringing these two markets closer to each other,’ Zuma said in his prepared remarks to the Business Interactive Session in New Delhi, India.

‘There are around 200 million in the southern African region alone and 1 billion across Africa,’ said Zuma, adding that this presented a massive business opportunity for both India and South Africa.

And then there were other more straightforward clues:

- The re-launch of the India-South African CEOs forum
- The intention to expand bilateral trade from US$7.5 billion to US$10 billion over the next few years.

In addition, three accords were signed aimed at underscoring this new economic synergy:

- An air services pact that provides for additional air routes between Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg and Mumbai and and Thiruvananthapuram in India.
- A Memorandum of Understanding on agricultural cooperation, and
- An MOU between the Foreign Service Institute of India and the Diplomatic Academy of South Africa

The Joint Commission, which is scheduled to meet later this year is mandated to implement the above decisions.

President Zuma himself admitted that ‘it is in the economic sphere, that this relationship is going to be most keenly felt, and in which it is going to have the most lasting impact.’

So who are we kidding? The strategic partnership is really about the business of business is business.

South Africa represents a strategic market for Indian investors wishing to use this strategic space to push into the continent. South Africa’s economic infrastructure provides the impetus for this, and Indian investors – like all others – want a base from which to propel their onslaught into continental markets.

This was explicitly acknowledged by commentators who have noted that South Africa is not only ‘a country with vast potential, it can also serve as a gateway to other African countries’.

Second, the visit was really about connecting the economic and corporate elites from both sides with the respective governments acting as the enablers of the pending commercial partnerships. But this was done through the lens of leveraging the deep historical political leverage for commercial gains.

With most of the mainstay of the South African corporate sector prowling for economic ventures with their Indian counterparts, President Zuma and his counterpart Prime Minister Manmohan Singh encouraged the private sector to increase trade and investment ties. Currently, Indian investment in the SA market is around US$6 billion.

It is anticipated that the footprint of India Inc would increase – likewise with the South African corporate sector, through mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures. Already First Rand National, one of the four major banking institutions in South Africa, has signed an MOU with JM Financial Group to provide cross border merger and acquisition advisory services to Indian and African corporates.

Therefore, while we are led to believe that these mutual economic exchanges are going to be the panacea for sustainable development, it is frustrating to see how the political rhetoric is being manipulated to create a more embedded Southern capitalist class.

While platitudes are played about the historic connection with the Indian diaspora in South Africa and the vital role this community plays in strengthening the relationship, the political leadership from both sides need to understand that pushing this idea does not have any relevance to the engagement.

For most of the Indian diaspora living in South Africa, the connection to India is redundant. Most have lost contact with their roots. Neither have they visited India because they cannot afford to nor can they take advantage of the opportunity to apply for permanent residency in India. After 150 years, India cannot claim a link to South Africa through the Indian diaspora – for most in this community the struggles are about finding their identity in a post-apartheid South Africa, dealing with deepening socio-economic struggles. Their link to the ‘Motherland’ is only through Bollywood, and that’s where it ends.

If anything, it is elites from the Indian diaspora who gain more leverage from the engagement with their Indian capitalist cousins. For the bulk of the working class and indigent from the South African Indian diaspora, the struggle remains a daily fight for survival as a minority in post-apartheid South Africa.

So as much as it was Gandhi’s heartfelt desire that: ‘The Commerce between India and Africa will be of ideas and services, not manufactured goods against raw materials after the fashion of western exploiters’, we cannot deny that in the foreseeable future New Delhi’s role in the Great Game should not be treated lightly just because of its muted presence, the fact that it shares the same democratic traditions as Western powers and offers better business acumen.

Like most emerging Great Powers the significant question now in the current eye of the changing global economic landscape is whether it will be business as usual for Indo-(South) African relations or whether New Delhi offers something different. Judging by Zuma’s visit, it does not seem that something different is very likely.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Sanusha Naidu is research director of Fahamu’s Emerging powers in Africa programme.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Pambazuka News 149 : Leurres, lueurs et malheurs après 50 ans d'indépendance au Sénégal

2010-06-09

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/summaryfr/65071

Principals declare deadlock; refer stalemate to Zuma

2010-06-11

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news100610/principals100610.htm

South African Foreign Affairs officials in Pretoria are making frantic efforts to squeeze in a meeting between President Jacob Zuma and the three principals who will be at the official opening of the FIFA World Cup. The World Cup opens in Johannesburg on Friday and Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara have been invited to attend. The three will travel to the football extravaganza having failed to agree on any of the outstanding issues in the GPA during their Tuesday meeting in Harare.

Global: Ensuring universal access to family planning

2010-06-11

https://www.unfpa.org/public/site/global/lang/en/pid/4770

This brochure reflects a consensus of 40 international experts who convened in New York on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development. Together they reviewed evidence and developed recommendations on how to reduce inequities in access to family planning and other sexual and reproductive health services, particularly for disadvantaged populations. These actions are urgently needed to accelerate progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

Global: In their own words: Eight perspectives on midwifery

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/aoKyeD

Throughout the Women Deliver conference, and the Symposium on Strengthening Midwifery that preceded it, the critical importance of midwives to meeting the safe motherhood challenge was emphasized. Here, midwives and advocates from eight countries talk about their work, the challenges they face and what they need in order to save more women’s lives.

Global: Somali women concerned about high levels of rights violations

2010-06-11

http://www.unifem.org/news_events/story_detail.php?StoryID=1101

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Somalia (SRSG), Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, and the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden, invited Somali women to share their experiences, concerns and recommendations on the implementation of UN Security Council resolution 1325 in Nairobi on 9 June, on the occasion of the Global Open Day on women, peace and security.

Kenya: Women look to Hague for justice

2010-06-11

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=51773

Hanging from a rafter in Jane Wanjiku’s home is a calendar bearing the image of the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo. It's an illustration of how the ICC has seized the imagination of ill-treated people around the world. Wanjiku has lived in Kibera for more than 60 years and witnessed many upheavals. But the 74-year-old says she has never seen violence as severe as what followed the 2007 elections.

Angola: Government jails rights activist for three years

2010-06-11

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE65A0NS20100611

A human rights campaigner has been sentenced to three years in jail by an Angolan court that convicted him of committing crimes against the state, in what his lawyer says is part of a crackdown on activists. A judge found Angolan rights activist Andre Zeferino Puati guilty late on Thursday after authorities found documents in his possession aimed at inciting people to protest against the government, his lawyer said.

Central Africa: UN lauds commitment to end use of child soldiers

2010-06-11

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34989

Six countries in Central Africa have committed to end the recruitment of child soldiers, a move welcomed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as a step forward in giving all young people in the region a better life. In the N’Djamena Declaration adopted yesterday, the six – Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic (CAR), Niger, Nigeria and Sudan – outlined their commitments to child protection in line with global standards, including those in the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict.

Eritrea: USA focus on extraction operations abroad

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/clP3TE

Last month, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, a division of the State Department, recommended that the US deter foreign mining in Eritrea following allegations of religious oppression taking place in the small African nation. "The U.S. government should...prohibit any foreign company's raising capital or listing its securities in the United States while engaged in developing Eritrea's mineral resources," the report read.

Kenya: UN rights chief calls for special tribunal for post-election violence

2010-06-11

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34959

The United Nations human rights chief has urged the Kenyan Government to reconsider setting up a special tribunal to pursue accountability for the crimes committed during the violence that followed the disputed December 2007 elections. “I have been assured that this option is still open,” High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said in a statement issued at the end of a three-day visit to Kenya.

Niger: Plan sees increase in child labour

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/9G1ngN

On World Day Against Child Labour 2010 on Saturday 12th June, leading NGO Plan International is concerned the problem is on the increase in Niger where children are being forced to work because of the food crisis. Children are being pulled out of school and sent to work for money or food to supplement their family's income.

Rwanda: Pastor gets life for genocide

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/a9r8oT

A court in Finland has sentenced a Rwandan pastor, Francois Bazaramba, to life in jail for his participation in Rwanda's genocide. Bazaramba, 59, moved in 2003 to the Scandinavian country which allows prosecutions for crimes against humanity wherever they are committed.

South Africa: Travel industry denounces sex tourism

2010-06-11

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34972

South Africa’s travel and hotel industries have signed a code of conduct designed to protect children against sex tourism, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said today, praising the ethical guide as an enduring legacy of the 2010 World Cup. “The contribution of the travel and tourism industry is vital to help stamp out child sexual exploitation,” said Aida Girma, UNICEF’s representative in South Africa, following the signing of the Tourism Child Protection Code of Conduct in Johannesburg.

Sudan: Oil consortium behind war crimes - aid agencies

2010-06-11

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=51761

The entry of a Swedish-led oil consortium into southern Sudan in 1997 triggered civil war and crimes against humanity, claims a European coalition of aid agencies. The European Coalition on Oil in Sudan (ECOS) has called on the Swedish, Austrian and Malaysian governments to investigate into the possible complicity of the consortium in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Uganda: UN envoy stresses need for rehabilitation of children war survivors

2010-06-11

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34945

Survivors of the brutal conflict that has wracked northern Uganda for two decades, most of them young people, must be helped back on their feet by supporting their efforts to acquire skills that will help them reintegrate into society, a United Nations envoy has said after spending a week in the country. “Armed conflict creates victims, but also survivors whose resilience must be reinforced by government, international organizations and civil society as well as adequate rehabilitation and reintegration programmes,” said Radhika Coomaraswamy, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.

Africa: Go-ahead for IDP convention

2010-06-11

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89445

African Union members have adopted plans to implement the Kampala convention on the protection of internally displaced people, including increasing their contributions to refugee and IDP funding and accelerating the convention’s ratification, signature and domestication, the AU said. Signed by 26 countries since it was endorsed in the Ugandan capital of Kampala on 23 October 2009, the convention obliges governments to recognize that IDPs have specific vulnerabilities and must be supported, according to Walter Kälin, Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons.

Global: ICHRP launches new report

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/cZTShC

The ICHRP is pleased to announce the publication of its new report Irregular Migration, Migrant Smuggling and Human Rights: Towards Coherence. Migration policies across the world are driven by three core concerns: border and law enforcement, economic interest, and protection. The report argues that official policies are failing partly because protection has been marginalised. Intensified efforts to suppress migration have not deterred people from seeking security or opportunity abroad but drive many into clandestinity, while the promotion of open economic markets has attracted millions of people to centres of prosperity but tolerated widespread exploitation. As a political consequence, discussion of migration is widely polarised and distorted by xenophobia and racism.

Kenya: Speedy reform needed to deal with past injustices

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/9P4aPP

In early 2008, an estimated 650,000 Kenyans were displaced and a further 1,300 lost their lives during two months of intense communal violence after the announcement of presidential and parliamentary election results. The incumbent, Mwai Kibaki, leader of the Party of National Unity (PNU), was declared to have defeated Raila Odinga, head of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) in the presidential contest, despite the fact the PNU won fewer parliamentary seats. Both local and international observers questioned the results.

Libya: UNHCR ordered to close offices

2010-06-11

http://www.unhcr.org/4c0e79059.html

The UN refugee agency has reported it had been told by the government of Libya to close its office in that country and halt activities. Speaking at a press briefing in Geneva, UNHCR's chief spokesperson, Melissa Fleming, told journalists that UNHCR was hoping the closure would be temporary and that negotiations to find a solution were continuing. However, she indicated that until the matter was resolved there would be difficulties in meeting vital refugee needs.

North Africa: UNHCR questions delays in rescue-at-sea operation off Malta

2010-06-11

http://www.unhcr.org/4c0e33b66.html

UNHCR is concerned about delays in a search-and-rescue operation involving a boat carrying more than 20 people, mostly Eritreans, near Malta. Distress calls were received on Sunday evening, including by UNHCR, and passed to Maltese and Italian maritime authorities. It is unclear which country had search-and-rescue responsibility when the distress calls were first sent. According to information made available to UNHCR, the boat was only rescued late on Monday, and by Libyan vessels.

Somalia: Bringing justice to IDPs

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/crRpFj

The lawyers and paralegals of the Puntland Legal Aid Center go weekly to visit the 24 IDP camps that are scattered in and around Garowe to help displaced people with legal issues. The staff of the Center inform the IDPS of their rights, provide them with legal advice, and when needed, with free representation. Today, Youssuf, the Director of the Center, and Asha, a paralegal, are taking us to the Ajuran camp, by the river in Garowe.

Zimbabwe: Internal displacement crisis needs durable solutions

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/d7EeYl

Hundreds of thousands of people in Zimbabwe remain internally displaced as a result of government policies and actions. The two largest groups of internally displaced people (IDPs) are farm workers and their families who have been displaced as a result of the fast-track land reform programme, which began in 2000 and continues to this day; and people displaced as a result of arbitrary evictions in Zimbabwe's towns and cities.

South Africa: Activists released

2010-06-11

http://www.abahlali.org/node/7041

All of the Protea South Five, arrested after the electricity war in Protea South, Soweto, have been released on the grounds that 'there is no evidence against them'. None of the five were harmed while in detention. A sixth person from Protea South (who is not an LPM member) has now been arrested and charged with burning the transformer. There are currently conflicting reports at to whether or not there has been an arrest for the murder of the LPM activist shot by the Homeowners' Association in Protea South.

South Africa: The Return to Kennedy Road Campaign

Abahlali baseMjondolo

2010-06-11

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/socialmovements/65144

For lies to continue to hide the truth they must be constantly sustained and maintained. For truth to be able to emerge from under the lies we have to constantly remember what has really been said and done, by whom and for what purpose. We have often said that the attack on our movement in the Kennedy Road settlement on the 26th and 27th of September last year was planned at a very high political level. It was planned outside of the Kennedy Road settlement.

Africa landing

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/cdZPwJ

It is a sign of the times that the second-largest cross-border acquisition by an Indian company involves Africa. The Bharti Airtel deal of $10.7 billion to acquire most of Zain Africa is, first, a measure of the changing footprint of global finance. Second, given that the African continent is being heralded as the global economy’s next frontier, the deal is an important chapter in the evolutionary narrative of India and Africa, which has lately been getting overshadowed by China’s presence in the continent.

Call to finalise China-Namibia agreement

2010-06-11

http://www.newera.com.na/article.php?articleid=11335

There is intense lobbying for the finalisation of a formal trade agreement on agricultural products between Namibia and China. The general mood in government corridors is explicitly clear that as of next year trade flows from Namibia to China should add tangible value to the local economy, instead of comprising minerals exports, as is the present case.

China to fund Malawi’s new science university

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/caAPSt

The Chinese government will fund the construction of a new science university in Malawi as part of the country’s ambitious initiative to open five new institutions of higher learning in the next decade, according to President Bingu wa Mutharika. China is funding major development projects in Africa, in a diplomatic initiative aimed at building good relations on the continent and averting criticism that it is only after Africa’s rich natural resources.

Corporate India’s belated grand entry into Africa

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/cjLVp1

Outrun by large Chinese state corporations, now India is making ground in its fastest growing sector - telecommunications. The $10.7bn acquisition by Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile network, of the African assets of Kuwait’s Zain is a long awaited foray across the Indian Ocean.

MTN ends negotiations about $10 billion Orascom deal

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/b4HNMz

MTN Group Ltd. ended talks with Weather Investments S.p.A to acquire $10 billion of assets of Orascom Telecom Holding SAE, abandoning a potential deal for the fourth time in two years. The discussions “have been terminated,” Johannesburg- based MTN said in a statement, without giving a reason. The talks failed after Algeria’s government blocked a possible sale to MTN of Orascom’s largest and most profitable unit, Djezzy.

South Africa sees South-South trade opportunities

2010-06-11

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE6581OX20100609

South Africa sees growing opportunities for trade with other developing countries as new economic powerhouses emerge and Europe is engulfed by economic and currency weakness, its trade chief said on Wednesday. Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said the changing world economy meant South Africa could intensify trade ties with countries such as Brazil, India and China at the expense of links with traditional partners such as the European Union.

Côte d’Ivoire: Final electoral list immediate priority for, says UN envoy

2010-06-11

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34983

The United Nations envoy in Côte d’Ivoire has urged a new impetus for the country’s electoral process and reunification efforts to overcome the ongoing political impasse and make progress towards the holding of the long-delayed presidential polls. The objective in the immediate future is to concentrate on the production of the definitive electoral list, Y. J. Choi, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, said in Abidjan on Wednesday following a meeting with the head of the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire, Henri Konan Bédié.

East Africa: Burundi’s election wobbles

2010-06-11

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89446

Allegations of massive fraud during May’s local elections in Burundi have cast a shadow over the country's democratic transition, prompting international calls for compromise rather than confrontation. Attributing the ruling CNDD-FDD’s landslide victory to ballot-box stuffing, vote-buying with state resources, the illegal use of proxies and a lack of secrecy in some polling stations, 13 opposition parties have announced a boycott of the 28 June presidential race, leaving President Pierre Nkurunziza as the only runner.

Guinea: Condé favourite to win election

2010-06-11

http://www.afrol.com/articles/36308

Alpha Condé, the "eternal opposition leader" of Guinea who is widely believed to have won the 1993 presidential election, is gathering the largest crowds as Guinea's first truly democratic poll has kicked off.

Sudan: Al-Bashir agrees to negotiations on pre-referendum deal

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/a0zMsD

Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir has agreed to negotiate with the Southern Sudan on a pre-referendum that could herald the split of the semi-autonomous Southern Sudan from mainland Sudan. The Sudanese leader met the top leader of an African Union special panel on Darfur, Thabo Mbeki, former South African President, and announced he was ready for pre-referendum negotiations.

South Africa: Corruption case still haunts Zuma

2010-06-11

http://www.afrol.com/articles/36314

The corruption case against South Africa's President Jacob Zuma, which was dropped by the prosecution before he became President, still haunts national politics. The opposition fights for documents in the Zuma prosecution case.

African Economic Outlook 2010

Launch event

2010-06-11

http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/susdevtopics/sdt_afri_aeo0610.shtml

This year’s edition of the AEO finds Africa’s economies weakened by the global recession and at the same time under pressure to make additional efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. The world economic crisis brought a period of high growth in Africa to a sudden end. Average economic growth was slashed from about 6% in 2006-2008 to 2.5% in 2009 with per capita GDP growth coming to a near standstill. The global crisis of 2009 had its strongest effect on southern Africa, where growth was slashed (from the average over the preceding three years) by almost 8 percentage points to negative growth of around 1%.

East Africa: Activists warn over EPAs deal

2010-06-11

http://www.bilaterals.org/spip.php?article17521&lang=en

Over 15 fair trade lobby organisations have warned the East African Community leaders against signing the Framework Economic Partnerships Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union. The Framework Economic Partnerships Agreement between the European Union and the East African Community is scheduled to be signed today in the Tanzanian capital of Dar-es-Salaam, despite widespread criticism.

Global: 'Aid must also aid the giver'

2010-06-11

http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=51786

Aid to poor countries should be tailored more towards benefiting European firms, a top-level Brussels official has recommended. Andris Piebalgs, the European Union's commissioner for development, is seeking a new aid strategy that has "value for money" as an overriding priority.

Global: UNESCO to launch 2010 World Social Science report

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/91sKGJ

UNESCO has said that although social science from Western countries continues to be of great global influence, the field is expanding rapidly in Asia and Latin America, particularly in China and Brazil. Quoting from its findings in a 2010 World Social Science Report - "Knowledge divides", UNESCO said in sub-Saharan Africa, social scientists from South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya produced 75% of academic publications

Global: World Bank report says developing countries lead recovery

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/cSxeVn

The global economic recovery continues to advance, but Europe's debt crisis has created new hurdles on the road to sustainable medium term growth, cautions the World Bank's latest Global Economic Prospects 2010 released on Wednesday. The World Bank projects global GDP to expand between 2.9% and 3.3% in 2010 and 2 011, strengthening to between 3.2% and 3.5% in 2012, reversing the 2.1% decline in 2009.

Global: World Bank report says global economy to grow by 3.3%

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/aai5Gi

The global economy is likely to grow 2.9 per cent to 3.3 per cent in 2010 and 2011, the World Bank said. The bank, however, said that "Europe's debt crisis poses problems for global growth". In its latest Global Economic Prospects 2010, it said global economic recovery continued to advance "but Europe's debt crisis has created new hurdles on the road to sustainable medium term growth".

Southern Africa: SADC states take different routes to EPA talks

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/bTyyJF

Members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have taken different platforms in negotiating with the European Union (EU) for the implementation of the full Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). This follows a recent engagement meeting between SADC’s Ministers of Trade and Industry and Economic Development and the EU in Brussels aimed at mapping the way forward for the implementation of the EPAs.

Tanzania: EAC, EC agree to speed up talks on EPA deal

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/cuk7re

Partner states of the East African Community (EAC) and the European Commission (EC) have ended their third negotiations session here on the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), observing that the main challenge in accessing the European Union market continued to be stringent rules of origin. Both sides, however, have affirmed their recognition of development needs of the EAC region and their commitment to ensure that EPA is an addition to development that would promote and consolidate regional integration and fast track the integration of the EAC into the global economy.

Global: Factory closure could leave 7,000 babies without ARVs

2010-06-11

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89424

Civil society activists are protesting the closure of a factory that produces the only UN World Health Organization-pre-qualified version of a life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) drug for infants. Pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), which owns the French factory that produces didanosine, a second-line ARV for babies weighing less than 10kg, will shut down the plant in June 2010, stopping production of the drug until at least February 2011, when regulatory approval of a new United States-based manufacturing site is expected.

Global: Scientists cure Ebola in monkeys

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/b9mnbN

An experimental treatment for Ebola that could potentially save human lives has been shown to be completely effective in monkeys. If approved for human use it would be the first treatment for the deadly disease, according to Thomas Geisbert, a microbiologist at the US-based National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories Institute.

South Africa: ARV vaginal ring next prevention hope

2010-06-11

http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032825

Researchers have started testing the safety a vaginal ring containing an antiretroviral drug in South Africa in the hope that it has the potential to prevent HIV infection in women. The clinical trial, known as IPM 015 will test the safety and acceptability of the dapivirine-containing vaginal ring – which is successfully used in Europe as a delivery method for hormonal therapy and birth control.

South Africa: Gold mines a “TB factory”

2010-06-11

http://www.health-e.org.za/news/article.php?uid=20032827

The gold mining sector came under heavy criticism from clinicians, ex-miners, advocacy groups and the Minister of Health for the TB crisis it faces at the recent South African TB Conference. “If TB/HIV is a snake in Southern Africa, we know that its head is in South Africa in the mines,” stated Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi. Paula Akugizibwe from the Aids and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) stressed that the mining sector, which she referred to as a “TB factory”, was over a century behind schedule with regards to its TB response.

South Africa: HIV counselling increases condom use in TB patients

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/92xU0D

TB patients who have knowledge regarding the relationship between TB and HIV or have been counselled on HIV are more likely to report having used a condom during sexual intercourse, according to a study presented at the 2nd South African TB conference held in Durban last week.

South Africa: Safe sex during the 2010 World Cup

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/cJ72JK

As the 2010 World Cup kicks off this Friday, thousands of football fans will arrive in South Africa to cheer on their favourite teams. HIV awareness and prevention is also a high priority during this time. HIV can spread particularly among young people, through the dangerous combination of alcohol and unsafe sex.

West Africa: Nigeria tries to end ‘gold rush’ after child deaths

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/8Zsy7x

Scores of infants in northern Nigeria could be left with long-term neurological damage from lead poisoning caused by illegal gold mining which has already killed at least 170, most of them under five. Authorities in the state of Zamfara, aided by international agencies including Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the World Health Organisation and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are helping treat the sick and bury mines to try to contain the pollution before heavy rains due next month

Zimbabwe: HIV fall due to deaths, behaviour change, not migration

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/chOaXT

Behaviour change and high AIDS death rates contributed to the substantial decline in HIV prevalence in Zimbabwe from 29% in 1997 to close to 16% in 2007 according to findings published by Simon Gregson and colleagues in the April 20th advance online edition of the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Ghana: Anti-gay march couldn't hamper HIV interventions

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/bCkgGa

A recent march by over a thousand Ghanian Muslims against “the growing activities of gays and lesbians” in this West-African country, could hamper initiatives that target Men having sex with Men (MSM), such as HIV and Aids interventions, activists have warned. Mac-Darling Cobbinahof the Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights Ghana, an organisation that also caters for the MSM community said, following a march that went through principal streets of the Metropolis against homosexuality, after an alleged report that close to 60 gays and lesbians from eastern

Malawi: Activist blames gay couple split on homophobic pressure

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/cuN7X5

A leading London-based gay rights campaigner has blamed the recent break-up of Malawi's first openly gay couple on what he called the southern African country's homophobia. Peter Tatchell of Outrage! said 26-year-old Steven Monjeza and his 20- year-old partner Tiwonge Chimbalanga caved in to pressure from threats on their lives.

Senegal: Dakar: From Africa's gay capital to centre of homophobia

2010-06-11

http://www.afrol.com/articles/36319

In colonial times, Senegal's metropolis Dakar was famous for its open and tolerated homosexual prostitution market, and as late as in the 1970s, as many as 17 percent of Senegalese men admitted having had homosexual experiences.

South Africa: Using soccer to tackle xenophobia

2010-06-11

http://www.unhcr.org/4c0fa46b6.html

With the World Cup finals looming, UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) turned to football to tackle the lingering problem of xenophobia in South Africa's townships. The partner organizations, together with the Africa Diaspora Forum, have just staged a pilot Township Soccer Challenge. The initiative began in May and culminated last Saturday in Mohlakeng, when Randfontein beat Tembisa 5-0 to earn bragging rights to being the best township team in Gauteng Province.

Global: Civil society groups disappointed at climate change meeting

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/auk0Td

Civil society groups attending a meeting on climate change in Bonn, Germany, have expressed disappointment that Saudi Arabia had blocked a review on the discussion of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius target as suggested by scientists. "Many civil society groups are also disappointed to see discussions of the gigat on gap, the gap between pledged reductions and what is scientifically necessary, gone missing from the talks,' said Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, an international climate campaign that has rallied millions of citizens in support of a science-based climate treaty.

Global: World day to combat desertification

2010-06-11

http://www.ifad.org/media/events/2010/desertification/index.htm

Desertification is the persistent degradation of dryland ecosystems by human activities and climatic variations. Because of its toll on human well-being and on the environment, it ranks among the greatest development challenges of our times. The World Day to Combat Desertification focuses international attention on this growing problem. It has been observed each 17 June since 1995, the same year the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) was iimplemented

Botswana: Bushmen face agonizing wait for right to water

2010-06-11

http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/6068

A High Court judge has reserved judgement on the Kalahari Bushmen’s bid to gain access to a borehole which they rely on for water. The Bushmen were at the Botswana High Court to hear their application for permission to use their borehole which the Botswana government has banned them from using.

Global: Responsibly destroying the world’s peasantry

2010-06-11

http://farmlandgrab.org/13528

The World Bank, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretariat recently presented seven “Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment.” The principles seek to ensure that large-scale land investments result in “win-win” situations, benefiting investors and directly affected communities alike. But, though well-intended, the principles are woefully inadequate.

Global: UN committee says food sources need diversity

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/9oVpXn

UN Standing Committee on Nutrition has called for more diverse food sources to curb the impact of climate change on agriculture. The committee made the call in its latest publication. It reported that climate change trends will also affect food and nutrition security.

Cameroon: Authorities urged to release journalist death findings

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/aMSJOk

Reporters Without Borders regrets the Cameroonian government’s foot-dragging in the investigation into journalist “Bibi” Ngota Ngota’s death in Yaoundé’s Kodengui prison on 22 April. See previous release. At the end of April, President Paul Biya called for an investigation into the circumstances of Ngota’s death but a report on its findings has yet to be published.

Global: ARTICLE 19 and CIHRS support special rapporteur on freedom of expression

2010-06-11

http://www.ifex.org/international/2010/06/09/un_special_rapporteur/

ARTICLE 19 and the Cairo Institute of Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) submitted a joint oral statement at the UN Human Rights Council's 14th session welcoming the annual report of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Mr Frank La Rue. In the statement to the Human Rights Council on 4 June, ARTICLE 19 and CIHRS expressed their strong support for the Special Rapporteur's opinion that laws on "defamation of religions" are incompatible with international human rights law on freedom of expression.

Somalia: Al-Shabaab orders ban on TV station

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/ddV2j1

Al-Shabaab, one of the Islamist movements opposing the Somali government yesterday decreed a total ban on Somali speaking Universal TV. The group accused the London-based broadcaster, widely viewed in Somalia, of showing cartoons negatively depicting Prophet Mohammed. In the decree issued in Mogadishu, the top Council of Al-Shabaab quoted verses of the Koran (Muslims’ Holy Book) explaining the punishment to be faced by anybody undermining Prophet Mohammed a result, the movement described Universal TV as a tool used by non-Muslims to undermine Islam.

Sudan: IFJ demands freedom for journalists

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/cfKMfc

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on Sudanese authorities to release up to a dozen journalists who have been held for over two weeks in two separate incidents in the North and South of the country. In Kharthoum, deputy Editor Abu Zar al-Amin and reporters Ashraf Abdel Aziz and Dahab Ibrahim, all working for the opposition owned Rai al-Shaab's newspaper have been in detention since 16 May accused of undermining relations between Sudan and the United State

Zambia: Newspaper editor freed after three days in prison

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/bRsSGQ

“I would like to thank everybody for the support that I have been given since Friday and before that,” The Post editor Fred M’membe told Reporters Without Borders as he was released this afternoon from Lusaka prison, where he had just spent three days. “I am very grateful to my fellow journalists,” said M’membe, who was sentenced to four months in prison with hard labour on 4 June on a contempt of court charge. “I have received more than the support I thought I would get and I deserve.”

Zimbabwe: First private daily in years opens

2010-06-11

http://zimbabwejournalists.com/story.php?art_id=6694&cat=1

Zimbabwe's first private daily newspaper hit the streets to break a state monopoly established years ago after President Robert Mugabe's government banned a pro-opposition newspaper over a registration dispute. Mugabe, in power since independence in 1980, was forced to form a power-sharing government over a year ago with his rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, to tackle an economic and political crisis, including opening up the media industry.

CAR: attacks on civilians trigger acute suffering and poverty

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/bYaNVY

Several rebel groups and bandits are spreading fear and chaos in many parts of the Central African Republic. Regular attacks on civilians are resulting in killings, abductions, rapes and looting. They are forcing people to flee their homes to find a safe haven. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, putting pressure on already impoverished host communities.

CAR: LRA rebels abduct 30 civilians

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/90hT7l

Uganda's rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army attacked a village in the neighbouring Central African Republic on Thursday and kidnapped more than 30 people, police said. The rebels besieged the village of Fode at around 16:00 (15:00 GMT) and raided local houses and stole goods and provisions, a police official in the main local town of Bangassou said.

Chad: What's happening in the north?

2010-06-11

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89412

BET, the acronym for the three northern regions of Chad – Borkou, Ennedi and Tibesti – comes up regularly in meetings of international aid agencies frustrated by the lack of information and difficulty of access to the remote territory. Drought in 2009 triggered the government’s call for international assistance, but no one really knows the full extent of the problem, according to a local NGO.

DRC: LRA becoming more deadly in attacks – UN

2010-06-11

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34993

The notorious rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) is carrying out ever more deadly attacks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and also continues to abduct children to use as soldiers in its ranks, United Nations aid workers reported. The rebels have murdered an average of 102 civilians every month in the DRC’s Orientale province since last December, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, compared with an average of 64 per month in the previous two years.

Ethiopia: Rebels say government kills 71 civilians

2010-06-11

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE65A1EV.htm

Ethiopian rebels said on Friday the military had killed 71 civilians in the last month as part of a growing crackdown in a region where international oil and gas companies are exploring. "The Ethiopian army combed the countryside, summarily executing men in front of their families while beating, raping or killing the women," the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) said in a statement.

Niger: Thirsty as well as hungry

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/dqI5Xk

Food insecurity and livelihoods have been compounded by a critical lack of water in the worst-hit southern province of Zinder. "The women with whom I've spoken in villages have said water is their first problem," UN Under-Secretary General John Holmes told journalists during a visit to Zinder in late April.

Nigeria: Former militant threatens government

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/aUUNAU

A former Nigerian rebel leader has said he would abandon an amnesty programme with hundreds of his followers if the government did not quickly provide jobs and development in the Niger Delta oil region. Ateke Tom, an ex-gang leader in the oil-producing Rivers state, told Reuters that life for his "boys" had yet to improve eight months after agreeing to surrender arms and participate in the government's amnesty programme.

Tanzania: First phase of fibre backbone activated

2010-06-11

http://bit.ly/a34bBU

The National Information Communication and Technology Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) was switched on in 16 regions after the completion of the first phase of its construction.The move brings the hope of increased efficiency and reduced Internet charges in Tanzania.

Uganda: WOUGNET 10th anniversary celebrations: The bigger picture

2010-06-11

http://www.wougnet.org/cms/content/view/533/1/

Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET) celebrated 10 years of empowering women and women organizations through the use of ICTs on 1st and 2nd June 2010 at Hotel Africana in Kampala, Uganda. Among the activities to mark the celebrations, was a one week SMS awareness campaign which took place from 24th to 29th May 2010, a two day exhibition and a one day symposium.

Global: USA/Nigeria: By way of comparison

2010-06-11

http://www.africafocus.org/docs10/oil1006.php

The estimates are at best approximate on both sides on the equation, but six weeks after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the cumulative oil spill has now reached a bit more than 3 times that of the 1989 Exxon Valdez. It is still dwarfed, however, by the estimated equivalent of 30 Exxon Valdez spills discharged into Ecuador's Amazon by Chevron/Texaco over 3 decades, or more than 50 Exxon Valdez spills into the Niger Delta by Shell, Chevron, and other companies over 5 decades.

Fahamu