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2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69656

Pambazuka News staff are taking a break for the next couple of weeks. We'll be back bringing you the latest on the struggle for freedom and justice on 6 January 2011. Meanwhile we wish you all a restful seasonal break, a happy new year and look forward to your coming back ready to advance the cause of freedom in 2011.

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WikiLeaks cables: Antidote to corruption in Africa?

Cameron Duodu

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69646

cc S BAs the fallout from the release of the WikiLeaks cables continues, Cameron Duodu considers the implications for addressing corruption in Africa.

The much-discussed leakage of US embassy cables called Wikileaks is a double-edged weapon. Those who think it is an embarrassment to the Obama administration may have got the wrong end of the stick.

Of course, it is inconvenient to find that a cable one sent to Washington DC that was deliberately classified so that only approximately 2,500,000 US Government officials could be privy to its contents can now be read by anyone who can get past the censorship voluntarily imposed on themselves by the editors of The Guardian (London), The New York Times, Le Monde (Paris) and Der Spiegel (Hamburg). These papers, having been entrusted with the cables, are publishing them piecemeal, largely on criteria that correspond to their normal ‘news agenda’.

So, as expected, Russia and Europe generally, China, Korea, Libya and even Burma have all got decent play.

But black Africa is only now beginning to get a showing. Admittedly, the material is so vast in quantity that it is difficult to handle. Nevertheless I would have expected The Guardian, in particular, to put the importance of a major drug company’s treason against poor Nigerian children above the effusions of a member of the British Royal family against journalists. But the royal tirade made it on day 1 of the publications, whereas the Pfizer case in Nigeria – as well as the Shell story in the same country – both came much later.

In fact, so far, the richest source of material on Africa has come (to me at any rate) from Le Monde, whose way of helping its readers to ‘navigate’ the stuff has been easier to utilise than that of anyone else – so far.

Now, why do I say the US will not be over-embarrassed by the leakages? The thing is that everyone who has his head screwed on right should know that if you want to keep a secret, don’t tell it to a diplomat. But some of our ministers and officials are so vain or lacking in intellect that they talk to diplomats like patients on a psychiatrist’s couch. Much of this is done to show how much they know, or to demonstrate just how much ‘better’ they are than their colleagues.

Embassy officials are trained to take advantage of such personal weaknesses and play up to them – especially with flattery – and pump those who exhibit them dry of any information they might have. No doubt it is tough for some of the esteemed ambassadors and political officers to be always interrogating people, for they do come to develop a genuine affection for some of the people they have to suborn. But they are warned during their training to be on their guard against ‘over-empathising’ with their hosts: their job is to get friendly only in so far as it gets the info to Uncle Sam.

It is in fact to prevent the development of such empathy that diplomats are routinely transferred from their 'postings' every two or three years lest they become the advocates of their host government, instead of just informing on it.

So, as the victim drives away, still savouring on his tongue, the amazingly smooth scotch or brandy served to him, the official is already at his computer, sending a ‘warts-and-all’ cable to Washington. We suspected they did this. Now we know.

It should make the job of the current crop of diplomats easier.

‘Hey, can you get us the lowdown on XZY?’ asks the desk officer in the State Department.

Three days later, he is answered thus: ‘SECRET NOFORN I cornered XYZ at a reception at the Ruritanian Embassy. But he said to me, with that wicked laugh of his, ”When I want to be sacked, I will go and sleep with the President’s Secretary. Hahahahahahaha!” Everyone turned to look at us. I blushed fit to die! But as for info -- nix.’

Now, the desk officers will know better than to pester envoys abroad for the secrets of their hosts. And as far as Africa is concerned, African ministers will now know that if they engage in corrupt practices, they will be exposed, by absolutely unimpeachable sources. When everyone knows the score, it should make for a happier diplomatic atmosphere all round, shouldn't it?

The cable that follows relates to Uganda, but comes very close to something that may – or may not – have happened in Ghana, which has similarly had its disputes with oil companies about the ownership of oil blocks. Read it and draw your own conclusions:

‘Thursday, 17 December 2009, 11:37 S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 KAMPALA CLASSIFIED BY: Donald Cordell, Economic Officer, State [Department]

‘1. Tullow Oil claims senior Ugandan government officials were ‘compensated’ to support the sale of a partner/rival firm’s exploration and production rights to Italian oil company ENI (ref. A).

‘Tullow Vice President for Africa Tim O’Hanlon identified XXX and YYY, as Ugandan officials who benefited from the sale of production rights by Heritage Oil and Gas to [Italy’s] ENI. {O’Hanlon] requested U.S. assistance in ensuring the open and transparent sale of oil assets.

‘On 14 December [2009], Tim O’Hanlon, Tullow Oil’s Regional Vice President for Africa met with Ambassador Lanier to discuss recent developments in oil exploration in Uganda . O’Hanlon explained that the $10+ billion required to produce, refine, and export oil from Uganda far exceeds the financial capacity of Tullow and other mid-sized exploration companies currently working in Uganda. Tullow is therefore considering selling a portion of its Uganda holdings to a larger international oil partner, and has unofficially ‘short listed’ three major companies as potential partners - including Exxon Mobil, Total (France), and the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC).

‘After Tullow concludes its process of selecting a partner, likely in January or February 2010, Tullow will present the ‘bids’ to the Uganda government and work with Ugandan officials to gain approval of the much larger oil partner.

‘In contrast, O’Hanlon said, the recent effort by Heritage Oil and Gas to sell its oil exploration and production license to ENI was apparently a corrupt back door deal. O’Hanlon observed that since news of the ENI sale broke, even Ministers unrelated to oil (such as XXXX) have issued public statements supporting ENI. O’Hanlon alleged that XXX received payments from Heritage and/or ENI in exchange for their support.

‘O’Hanlon referred to XXX, who facilitated an August 2009 meeting between ENI and Tullow, as ENI’s ‘patron’ in Uganda, and said ENI created a shell company in London - TKL Holdings - through frontmen XXXXX and XXXXXX - to funnel money to XXX….

‘O’Hanlon said ENI’s Uganda deal is part of a wider effort, facilitated by Heritage, to gain control of all oil fields on both sides of Lake Albert. In addition to its exploration blocks in Uganda, Tullow claims to have exploration rights on the Congolese side of Lake Albert. O’Hanlon said Tullow’s exploration efforts on the DRC side of Lake Albert are hampered by Tullow’s refusal to pay off key Congolese officials, including XXXXXXX. O’Hanlon added that Heritage recently offered to help Tullow ‘take care’ of problems on the Congolese side in order to begin exploration. Tullow refused, according to O’Hanlon.

‘5. (C) O’Hanlon concluded by asking the U.S. to help bring these corruption allegations to light and raise concerns - perhaps in concert with the British High Commissioner or other development partners - over how the Heritage-ENI sale has transpired. O’Hanlon confirmed that Tullow has the contractual right to prevent the Heritage-ENI sale by exercising its contractual ‘right of first refusal’ as a 50% partner in both of Heritage’s exploration blocks and will exercise that right. He said Tullow is confident that one of the potential major oil partners (preferably Exxon Mobil) will be able to assist Tullow in financing the approximately $1.5 billion needed to foil the Government of Uganda-supported ENI deal, by purchasing Heritage’s Ugandan holdings.

‘An Exxon Mobil executive confirmed to [the US] Economics Officer on December 16 that Exxon Mobil has a strong interest in Uganda but is still evaluating available data before making an offer. Because an eventual Tullow-Exxon deal will require Ugandan government approval, the Government of Uganda could still prevent Tullow from raising the funds needed in order to buy out Heritage (so it could then sell those shares to Exxon Mobil) and thereby deny Tullow the means to effectively block ENI’s entrance into the Ugandan oil market.

‘This is a critical moment for the future of Uganda’s oil industry. The Heritage-ENI deal could prevent a multi-billion dollar deal for Exxon Mobil, by drastically diminishing both the size and value of Tullow’s Ugandan holdings. Allegations that XXX, who has already been implicated in other government corruption scandals, solicited and/or accepted payment in exchange for government support will, if true, have serious adverse effects on the economic activity of U.S. businesses in Uganda and U.S. Mission goals regarding accountability, good governance, and economic development. After discussions with Exxon Mobil to confirm Tullow’s story, we intend to approach the British High Commissioner and the Irish Ambassador about drafting a joint letter to President Museveni expressing concern about these very troubling signs of high-level corruption in Uganda’s oil sector’.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Cameron Duodu is a journalist, writer and commentator.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

WikiLeaks Africa: Corruption, cocaine and chaos

Dibussi Tande

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69640

cc F AShell’s infiltration of the Nigerian government, cocaine trafficking through Ghana and Kenya’s strategy for dealing with the chaos in Somalia are among the topics this week’s selection of bloggers are talking about, following WikiLeaks’ release of US diplomatic cables on Africa.

Naijablog comments on WikiLeaks revelations about the infiltration of the Nigerian government by Shell:

‘From a Nigerian perspective, we find little we didn’t already know, save for details that add some fiscal spice to the talk in the beer parlour: the actual amounts a smuggler-thug kingpin charges for allowing uninterrupted passage of a container from Niger into Katsina; the price of a former (now disgraced) Attorney General’s ink. The bigger picture remains unchanged and is known to all. The history of post-independence Nigeria is intimately connected with Shell. Nigeria and Shell are twins someone forgot to separate at birth. No one is at all shocked to hear of the former head of Sub-Saharan operations Ann Pickard’s boast that the company has infiltrated government to the core. There’s little point Shell trying to deny it at this stage. It might be better to go legit and create a Ministry of Shell Affairs. All other multinationals are at least one tier below Shell in terms of their complicity with official misappropriation: Julius Berger, Pfizer, Halliburton, Siemens and so on. Again, the diplomatic cables do little more than reassure and refine our cynicism. Quite how Berger has escaped the diplo-gossip relatively unblemished so far is a minor miracle. Perhaps in the next few days of releases another national laptop recall will be circulated.

‘The lesson for those looking in at Wikileaks from a Nigeria perspective is clear. Those that dismiss Nigeria as the home of 419 and the submarine vent of originary corruption with a tired flick of the hand fail to see the enduring handiwork of the transnational corporation, attacking a fragile state like an opportunistic virus against a weakened immune system. The dismissive ones have yet to listen to Fela and allow his words to make sense in their heads. As it was in the 1960s and 1970s, so it is today, it seems.’

Myweku comments on revelations that Ghana had become a transit hub for trafficking cocaine:

‘The spectre of WikiLeaks befell Ghana this week, with the revelation that President Mills of Ghana wanted his entourage “to be checked in the privacy of his suite to avoid any surprises if they are caught carrying drugs” on travels abroad… The President was also quoted to have said that “he knows elements of his government are already compromised and that officials at the airport tipped off drug traffickers about operations there”…
‘These point to factual and incontrovertible evidence that suggests that Ghana does have a drug problem. One that it has to be made clear revolves around trafficking and not necessarily usage of drugs…

‘As proud Ghanaians the association of any negativity to our country understandably is an emotive issue, especially for a country that is seen as a beacon of hope for West Africa. Democracy, the rule of law and free press are arguably entrenched in Ghana. Visitors to our shores never fail to sing our praises so we are understandably shocked, embarrassed and “defensive” over what we have suspected but have never really been able to prove – the menace of drug trafficking sanctioned to some extent by corrupt officials.

‘As my dear friend pointed out, perhaps there are other ways of "seeing” local drug barons. Perhaps that makes us turn a blind eye to some of their "activities” especially when those “activities” do not, well for now anyway, translate into drug use in Ghana on the scale that is found in the West. Perhaps even though we are desperate to build a model country we could not do so without operating in the grey area sometimes. The West after all can NEVER claim they built their countries without operating in the grey area!’

Ken Opalo analyses WikiLeaks’ revelations about Kenya’s strategy for dealing with the chaos in Somalia:

‘According to the leak, Kenyan security chiefs are considering the creation of an autonomous buffer region in Jubaland – the area of Somalia that borders Kenya – kind of like the ones in Somaliland and Punt land. The capital of the autonomous buffer region would be in Kismayu.

‘Kenya has a sizeable Muslim Somali population and is afraid of fundamentalist Islamism on its doorstep in a lawless Somalia. A stable buffer region in Jubaland would guard against radicalisation of Kenya’s Somali youth in the northeast, on top of checking the proliferation of small arms in the country.

‘Kenya also might be thinking long term. A divided Somalia guarantees less chances of success for a greater Somalia irredentist movement if peace ever descends upon the entire country.

‘Ethiopia is not a fond of the idea. The last thing Addis Ababa wants is an autonomous region that can fund Somali separatists in the Ogaden. The region would also have a demonstration effect on Ogadeni Ethiopians who for decades now have fought for real political and economic autonomy from Addis Ababa.

‘I don’t think this is a bad idea. At this point anything that would bring order to any region of Somalia is acceptable. I have argued before that the Union of Islamic Courts should have been allowed to establish order and then bought off with aid in exchange for a more sober interpretation and application of Sharia law. The whole debate about how bad they were for women’s rights was horse manure. The Saudis aren’t any better.’

Pipeline Dreams writes about the unfulfilled promise of the Chad-Cameroon pipeline which was supposed to transform Chad into an economic Eldorado:

‘Chad’s oil, to the surprise of no-one really, has hardly worked miracles. The country is no better off than it was before oil production began. Most economic indicators are down. The people in the oil-producing region are much worse off than they were before the oil boom. Farmers for the most part, many in the Doba Basin area are no longer able to access their lands, now dotted with drill pads and crossed by pipes and high tension cables. In 2010, the World Bank admitted that “in reality, close to 50 percent of expenditures has gone to the military.”

‘Chad, once the “model” for oil development (although one can argue that Chad was only a “model” until oil began to flow), has now joined the ranks of examples to avoid. The resource curse strikes again. Ghana is next, with its first oil shipping on December 15th. Will Ghana go the way of Chad or will the country get it right this time? Although the Ghanaian government has made pledges and promises, recent news suggests that there is some cause for concern (read a few of the latest articles posted on Ghana Oil Watch to get a sense of the troubles on the horizon).

‘Ghana, Uganda, Chad, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan — sometimes it seems like there’s a new oil discovery every day in Africa. And with each country the recurring question: blessing or curse, boom or bust. Even if all goes “well,” oil drilling is a dirty, risky business. So what can be done to minimize the risks and maximize the chances that oil revenues will be used wisely, benefiting the population at large?
It is easy to point to corrupt African despots, but as the WikiLeaks cable from Nigeria ago indicates, Western companies that enable corruption are a huge part of the problem.’

Aidwatchers reviews a study which compares colonial legacy in the British and French Cameroons which reunited in 1961:

‘Comparing communities close to but on either side of the colonial border, Alexander Lee and Kenneth Schultz of Stanford discover that rural households on the British side are wealthier and have access to better water sources than those on the French side...
‘This new study on Cameroon is among many that find British colonial institutions (as compared to those of their French, German, Belgian, Portuguese or Spanish colonial competitors) lead to better development outcomes today. Lee and Schultz note that the Anglo edge comes from a combination of characteristics generally common to British colonial regimes: ‘lack of forced labor, more autonomous local institutions…common law, English culture, Protestantism’ but stop short of telling us which of these were most responsible for the differences observed in Cameroon.

‘For some relief from the oppressive conclusion that today’s development outcomes are all pre-determined, the researchers find that post-independence policies matter too. The positive effects from British rule don’t hold for urban areas or for centrally-provided public goods, showing that post-independence policies, which have generally favored the former French side with greater infrastructure investment, can overtake colonial legacies.’

Image Nations reacts to a New York Times article in which Nigerian writer Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani complains that today’s African writers would rather imitate the styles of Achebe and Soyinka than create new styles:

‘Who then is the problem if young writers ape the established ones? Publishers always want things that sell and if one has already been established why not follow them? For instance, if one is writing about Africa and it is not mundane, morbid, atrocious, despicable, political it won't sell. Should writers then be blamed if they copy those who are already established?

‘Besides, I am not comfortable when the article seems to suggest Africans would only recognise a great writer only when Western establishments have honoured him or her with a great award such as the Man Booker International (Chinua Achebe) or the Nobel (Wole Soyinka). I believe Ngugi's oeuvre is as impressive as any other Nobel laureate... He is and has been a great writer even before his name came up for the Nobel award. Hence, Nobel or no Nobel Ngugi, would be loved, emulated, and improved by writers.

‘And who said there is a writer who has never been influenced by another writer? Show me one such writer and I would boldly show you a liar. Unless one is John Nash, an Economics Nobel Laureate, who refused to attend lectures while studying for his Doctoral thesis for fear of influencing his original idea, unless one is him, one cannot hit his chest boldly and say 'I have not been influenced by any writer' including the likes of Soyinka, Ngugi, and Achebe. The key is, learn from them, add onto them, express your writings with your unique voice, and perspectives of issues.

‘Yes, we need variety and on this I have written about. Yet, I believe that Tricia herself, Tendai Huchu, Myne Whitman, Ngozi Achebe and others are doing greater exploration by charting a different path in terms of genres and issues to write about.’

Scribbles from the Den reviews a talk that former South African president FW De Klerk gave recently to a group of senior executives in Chicago, USA:

‘De Klerk began his talk by emphasizing that the ability to adapt to change was one of the key distinguishing features of humans. He said that when humans or institutions are confronted with change, they deal with it in three ways. They can resist change, let themselves be swept away by that change, or accept the change and harness its transformative power. He said these were the choices that South Africa faced when he took office in 1989; the country was isolated internationally, was facing a downward spiral of violence and repression, and its economy was going downhill. The Apartheid regime therefore had to decide which of the three options it would adopt.

‘According to De Klerk, when he first advocated change, many within the National Party wanted to resist simply because the Apartheid regime had the capacity to hang on to power against all odds; not only did it have the most powerful army on the continent, it had the tools to deal with internal dissent and also weather economic sanctions. “However, we concluded that the greatest risk that we faced was to refuse the risk of change,” said De Klerk. So rather than make piecemeal concessions or play games in order to get the international community off its back, National Party decided to accept the challenge of change, to manage the change and control its outcome…

‘For De Klerk, the vision which he outlined in 1990 is now a reality: South Africa is now a multiracial democracy, has reintegrated the community of nations, and had steady economic growth until the world recession of 2008... De Klerk however points out that there are new challenges that South Africa has to contend with in order to move forward:

‘The 1996 constitution still has to take root in all communities and become a living document;
The relationships between South Africa’s 11 nations is still fragile and has shown severe signs of strain in recent years;
The country is dealing with serious and unacceptably high levels of crime, the AIDS pandemic, high unemployment which is about 25%, a poverty rate of about 46%, and a poor education system that is ill equipped to produce the next generation of South Africa’s leaders.’

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

‘Climate capitalism’ won at Cancun – everyone else loses

Patrick Bond

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69649

cc AkuppaPositive spin about the global climate summit in Cancun is based on reaching international consensus and establishing instruments to manage the crisis using market-based strategies – even though these are ‘failing everywhere they have been tried’. Looking ‘soberly at what was needed to reverse current warming and what was actually delivered, negotiators in Cancun ‘failed by any reasonable measure,’ Patrick Bond writes from Mexico.

The 11 December closure of the 16th Conference of the Parties – the global climate summit – in balmy Cancun was portrayed by most participants and mainstream journalists as a victory, a ‘step forward’. Bragged US State Department lead negotiator Todd Stern, ‘Ideas that were first of all, skeletal last year, and not approved, are now approved and elaborated.’

After elite despondency when the Copenhagen Accord was signed last December 18 by five countries behind the scenes, resulting in universal criticism, there is now a modicum of optimism for the next meeting of heads of state and ministers, in steamy Durban in the dogdays of a South African summer a year from now. But this hope relies upon a revival of market-based climate strategies, which, in reality, are failing everywhere they have been tried.

The elites’ positive spin is based on reaching an international consensus (though Bolivia formally dissented) and establishing instruments to manage the climate crisis using capitalist techniques. Cancun’s defenders argue that the last hours’ agreements include acknowledgements that emissions cuts must keep world temperature increases below 2°C, with consideration to be given to lowering the target to 1.5°C.

Negotiators also endorsed greater transparency about emissions, a Green Climate Fund led by the World Bank, the introduction of forest-related investments, transfers of technology for renewable energy, capacity-building and a strategy for reaching legally-binding protocols in future. According to UN climate official Christiana Figueres, formerly a leading carbon trader, ‘Cancun has done its job. Nations have shown they can work together under a common roof, to reach consensus on a common cause.’

STATUS QUO OR STEP BACK?

But look soberly at what was needed to reverse current warming and what was actually delivered. Negotiators in Cancun’s luxury Moon Palace hotel complex failed by any reasonable measure. As Bolivian President Evo Morales complained, ‘It’s easy for people in an air-conditioned room to continue with the policies of destruction of Mother Earth. We need instead to put ourselves in the shoes of families in Bolivia and worldwide that lack water and food and suffer misery and hunger. People here in Cancun have no idea what it is like to be a victim of climate change.’

For Bolivia’s UN ambassador Pablo Solon, Cancun ‘does not represent a step forward, it is a step backwards’, because the non-binding commitments made to reduce emissions by around 15 per cent by 2020 simply cannot stabilise temperature at the ‘level which is sustainable for human life and the life of the planet.’

Even greater anger was expressed in civil society, including by Meena Raman of Malaysia-based Third World Network: ‘The mitigation paradigm has changed from one which is legally binding – the Kyoto Protocol with an aggregate target which is system-based, science based – to one which is voluntary, a pledge-and-review system.’ As El Salvadoran Friends of the Earth leader Ricardo Navarro lamented, ‘What is being discussed at the Moon does not reflect what happens on Earth. The outcome is a Cancunhagen that we reject.’

Most specialists agree that even if the unambitious Copenhagen and Cancun promises are kept (a big if), the result will be a cataclysmic 4-5°C rise in temperature over this century, and if they are not, 7°C is likely. Even with a rise of 2°C, scientists generally agree, small islands will sink, Andean and Himalayan glaciers will melt, coastal areas such as much of Bangladesh and many port cities will drown, and Africa will dry out – or in some places flood – so much that nine out of of ten peasants will not survive.

The politicians and officials have been warned of this often enough by climate scientists, but are beholden to powerful business interests which are lined up to either promote climate denialism, or to generate national-versus-national negotiating blocs destined to fail in their race to gain most emission rights. As a result, in spite of a band-aid set of agreements, the distance between negotiators and the masses of people and the planet grew larger not smaller over the last two weeks.

WIKILEAKING CLIMATE BRIBERY

To illustrate, smaller governments were ‘bullied, hustled around, lured with petty bribes, called names and coerced into accepting the games of the rich and emerging-rich nations,’ says Soumya Dutta of the South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy. ‘Many debt-ridden small African nations are seeing the money that they might get through the scheming designs of Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD), and have capitulated under the attack of this REDD brigade. It’s a win-win situation, both for the rich nations, as well as for the rich of the poor nations. The real poor are a burden in any case, to be kept at arms length - if not further.’

Bribing those Third World governments which in 2009 were the most vocal critics of Northern climate posturing became common knowledge thanks to WikiLeaks disclosures of US State Department cables from February 2010. Last February 11, for example, EU climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard told the US that the Alliance of Small Island States ‘could be our best allies, given their need for financing.’

A few months earlier, the Maldives helped lead the campaign against low emissions targets such as those set in the Copenhagen Accord. But its leaders reversed course, apparently because of a US$50 million aid package arranged by US deputy climate change envoy Jonathan Pershing. According to a February 23 cable, Pershing met the Maldives’ US ambassador, Abdul Ghafoor Mohamed, who told him that if ‘tangible assistance’ were given his country, then other affected countries would realise ‘the advantages to be gained by compliance’ with Washington’s climate agenda.

The promised money is, however, in doubt. Hedegaard also noted with concern that some of the US$30 billion in pledged North-South climate-related aid from 2010-2012 – e.g. from Tokyo and London, she said – would come in the form of loan guarantees, not grants. Pershing was not opposed to this practice, because ‘donors have to balance the political need to provide real financing with the practical constraints of tight budgets.’

Even while observing Washington’s tendency to break financial promises, Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi, the leading African head of state on climate, was also unveiled by WikiLeaks as a convert to the Copenhagen Accord. This appeared to be the outcome of pressure applied by the US State Department, according to a February 2 cable, with Zenawi asking for more North-South resources in return.

REDD AS WEDGE

Besides Bolivian leadership, the world’s best hope for contestation of these power relationships rests with civil society. Along with La Via Campesina network of peasant organisations, which attracted a Mexico-wide caravan and staged a militant march that nearly reached the airport access road on the morning of December 7 as heads of state flew into Cancun, the most visible poor peoples’ representatives were from the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN). On December 8, IEN spokesperson Tom Goldtooth was denied entry to the UN forum due to his high-profile role in non-violent protests.

According to Goldtooth, Cancun’s ‘betrayal’ is ‘the consequence of an ongoing US diplomatic offensive of backroom deals, arm-twisting and bribery that targeted nations in opposition to the Copenhagen Accord.’ For Goldtooth, an ardent opponent of REDD, ‘Such strategies have already proved fruitless and have been shown to violate human and Indigenous rights. The agreements implicitly promote carbon markets, offsets, unproven technologies, and land grabs – anything but a commitment to real emissions reductions. Language “noting” rights is exclusively in the context of market mechanisms, while failing to guarantee safeguards for the rights of peoples and communities, women and youth.’

The founder of watchdog NGO REDD-Monitor, Chris Lang, argues that attempts to reform the system failed because, first, ‘Protecting intact natural forest and restoring degraded natural forest is not a “core objective” of the REDD deal agreed in Cancun. We still don't have a sensible definition of forests that would exclude industrial tree plantations, to give the most obvious example of how protecting intact natural forest isn't in there – also “sustainable management of forests” is in there, which translates as logging.’

Second, says Lang, ‘The rights and interests of indigenous peoples and forest communities are not protected in the Cancun REDD deal – they are demoted to an annex, with a note that “safeguards” should be “promoted and supported”. That could mean anything governments want it to mean.’

During the Cancun negotiations, positioning on REDD came to signal whether climate activists were pro- or anti-capitalist, although a difficult in-between area was staked out by Greenpeace and the International Forum on Globalisation which both, confusingly, advocated a non-market REDD arrangement (as if the balance of forces would allow such). But they and their allies lost, and as Friends of the Earth chapters in Latin America and the Caribbean explained, ‘The new texts continue seeing forests as mere carbon reservoirs (sinks) and are geared towards emissions trading.’

In the same way, the Green Fund was promoted by World Bank president Robert Zoellick, whose highest-profile speech to a side conference promised to extend the REDD commodification principle to broader sectors of agriculture and even charismatic animals like tigers, in alliance with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. On December 8, protests demanded that the World Bank be evicted from climate financing, in part because under Zoellick the institution’s annual fossil fuel investments rose from US$1.6 billion to US$6.3 billion, and in part because the Bank promotes export-led growth, resource extraction, energy privatisation and carbon markets with unshaken neoliberal dogma.

According to Grace Garcia from Friends of the Earth Costa Rica, ‘Only a gang of lunatics would think it is a good idea to invite the World Bank to receive climate funds, with their long-standing track-record of financing the world’s dirtiest projects and imposition of death-sentencing conditionalities on our peoples.’

Unfortunately, however, some indigenous people’s groups and Third World NGOs do buy into REDD, and well-funded Northern allies such as the market-oriented Environmental Defense Fund have been using divide-and-conquer tactics to widen the gaps. The danger this presents is extreme, because the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) strategy set in place by Al Gore in 1997 – when he mistakenly (and self-interestedly) promised that the US would endorse the Kyoto Protocol if carbon trading was central to the deal – may well continue to fracture climate advocacy.

REDD is one of several blackmail tactics from the North, by which small sums are paid for projects such as tree-planting or forest conservation management. In some cases, as well as through CDMs such as methane-extraction from landfills, these projects result in displacement of local residents or, in the case of Durban’s main CDM, the ongoing operation of a vast, environmentally-racist dump in the black neighbourhood of Bisasar Road, instead of its closure. Then the Northern corporations which buy the emissions credits can continue business-as-usual without making the major changes needed to solve the crisis.

CLIMATE DEBT AND COMMAND-AND-CONTROL

Many critics of REDD and other CDMs, including Morales, put the idea of Climate Debt at the core of a replacement financing framework. They therefore demand that the carbon markets be decommissioned, because their fatal flaws include rising levels of corruption, periodic chaotic volatility, and extremely low prices inadequate to attract investment capital into renewable energy and more efficient transport. Such investments minimally would cost the equivalent of €50/tonne of carbon, but the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme fell from €30/tonne in 2008 to less than €10/tonne last year, and now hovers around €15/tonne. This makes it much cheaper for business to keep polluting than to restructure.

Having spent an afternoon at Cancun debating these points with the world’s leading carbon traders, I’m more convinced that the markets need closure so we can advance much more effective, efficient command-and-control systems. Rebutting, Henry Derwent, head of the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), claimed that markets ended acid rain damage done by sulphur dioxide emissions. Yet in Europe during the early 1990s, state regulation was much more effective. Likewise, command-and-control worked well in the ozone hole emergency, when CFCs were banned by the Montreal Protocol starting in 1996.

The US Environmental Protection Agency now has command-and-control power over greenhouse gas emissions, and its top administrator, Lisa Jackson, can alert around 10,000 major CO2 point sources that they must start cutting back immediately. But without more protest against the agency, as pioneered by West Virginians demanding a halt to mountaintop coal removal, Jackson has said that she will only begin this process in 2013 (after Obama’s re-election campaign). On the bright side, IETA’s lead Washington official, David Hunter, confirmed to me that the US carbon markets were in the doldrums because of the Senate’s failure to pass cap-and-trade legislation this year. Thank goodness for Washington gridlock.

However, Washington’s Big Green groups have admitted that they pumped US$300 million of foundation money into advocacy for congressional carbon trading, in spite of Climate Justice Now! members’ campaigning against this approach. Critique has included the film ‘The story of cap and trade’ (www.storyofstuff.org), which over the past year had three quarters of a million views. The vast waste of money corresponded to a resource drought at the base.

In October, three well-resourced environmental groups – 350.org, Rainforest Action Network and Greenpeace – concluded that more direct action would be needed. It’s happening already, of course. Two dozen US groups, including IEN, Grassroots Global Justice and Movement Generation, argued in an October 23 open letter that ‘Frontline communities, using grassroots, network-based, and actions-led strategies around the country have had considerable success fighting climate-polluting industries in recent years, with far less resources than the large environmental groups in Washington, D.C. These initiatives have prevented a massive amount of new industrial carbon from coming on board.’

CLIMATE JUSTICE INSTEAD OF CLIMATE CAPITALISM

But by all accounts, one reason the climate capitalist fantasy moved ahead at Cancun so decisively was the fragmented nature of this kind of resistance. Crucial ideological and geographical divides were evident within Mexico’s progressive forces, a problem which must be avoided in the coming period as the healing of divisions over market-related strategies proceeds. Grassroots activists are unimpressed by Cancun’s last-gasp attempt at climate-capitalist revivalism.

Indeed, the limited prospects for elite environmental management of this crisis confirm how badly a coherent alternative is needed. Fortunately, the Peoples’ Agreement of Cochabamba emerged in April from a consultative meeting that drew 35,000 mainly civil society activists. The Cochabamba conference call includes:

- 50 per cent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2017
- Stabilising temperature rises to 1°C and 300 Parts Per Million
- Acknowledging the climate debt owed by developed countries
- Full respect for Human Rights and the inherent rights of indigenous people
- Universal declaration of rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony with nature
- Establishment of an International Court of Climate Justice
- Rejection of carbon markets and commodification of nature and forests through REDD
- Promotion of measures that change the consumption patterns of developed countries
- End of intellectual property rights for technologies useful for mitigating climate change
- Payment of six per cent of developed countries’ GDP to addressing climate change

The analysis behind these demands has been worked out over the past few years. But now the challenge for climate justice movements across the world is to not only continue – and dramatically ratchet up – vibrant grassroots activism against major fossil fuel emissions and extraction sites, ranging from Alberta’s tar sands to the Ecuadoran Amazon to San Francisco refineries to the Niger Delta to West Virginia mountains to the Australian and South African coalfields. In addition, if Cancun revives financial markets for the purposes of Northern manipulation of the climate debate, then Goldtooth’s warning is more urgent: ‘Industrialized nations, big business and unethical companies like Goldman Sachs will profit handsomely from the Cancun Agreements while our people die.’

Durban will offer the next big showdown between unworkable capitalist strategies on the one hand, and the interests of the masses of people and the planet’s environment. The latter have witnessed long histories of eco-social mobilisation, such as the 2001 World Conference Against Racism which attracted a protest of 15,000 against Zionism and the UN’s failure to put reparations for slavery, colonialism and apartheid on the agenda.

It will be a challenge to maintain pressure against REDD and the carbon markets, but by next November it should be clear that neither will deliver the goods. Hence, as versed by Friends of the Earth International chair and Niger Delta activist Nnimmo Bassey, a winner of the Right Livelihood Award this year:

‘The outside will be the right side in Durban
What has been left undone
Will properly be done
Peoples’ sovereignty
Mass movement convergence
Something to look forward to!’

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Patrick Bond is based at the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and is on sabbatical at Cal-Berkeley Department of Geography. He coedited the 2009 book ‘Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society’, published by UKZN Press.

Haitian diary: survival in the time of cholera

Sokari Ekine

2010-12-21

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69774

“I do not believe in the twentieth century myth that we are all helpless, that it’s out of our hands. It’s only out of our hands if we don’t want to pick it up”. [James Baldwin “From Nationalism, Colonialism, and the United States: One Minute to Twelve - A Forum” published in “The Cross of Redemption”]

It’s been just over three weeks and I am finally getting a sense of the destruction to the people and the city. My original plan to meet with women organising in the community has fallen short of what I had hoped due to family crisis, cholera, election protests and now petrol shortages. Still I feel I have met sufficient community activists to get a sense of the truly amazing work they are doing and I will write of these in my final piece, but the story has changed and that in itself is a Haitian story and in this year, more so than usual. The earthquake is unavoidable and the intensity of the destruction is overwhelming. There is a randomness about the destruction. Whole streets destroyed except for one building and in others the whole street standing with one structure collapsed.

All over there is rubble which in parts occupies half the street and often in competition with the “Preval’s International Filth” - the huge mass of refuse which threatens everyone’s existence except the pigs which grow fat from endless munching. No one should be forced to live in such an environment and no matter how much you try to clean your own patch, and people do this all the time in an almost continuous motion, its going to make very little difference if there is no where for the rubbish to go.

The issue of large amounts of street refuse and unsanitary conditions is not peculiar to Haiti by any means. But here it is compounded by the earthquake devastation, the IDP camps and now cholera. And neither here nor in Nigeria or most other places is sanitation given the priority it requires. Rea tells me refuse collection and sanitation is used by political opponents to discredit one another for example in 2002 she was in charge of a cleaning crew in. They would go out at night clean the streets but the next day the streets would be full of refuse again. One particular day they hid and were able to catch the rubbish dumpers who were working for a political opponent in the area.

I call it “Preval’s International Filth” because its a reflection of their disdain and disrespect for the Haitian people. Why should cleaning the city be left to a few men and women of the Yele Corps when it is the responsibility of the government and all those driving around in trucks with “humanitarian” signs painted neatly on the side and who control the means to clean up the city. Especially now in the time of cholera. The great white stomping tanks and trucks guzzle the streets. Young men with brown and black faces, their blue helmets bobbing up and down - Brazil, Guatemala, Nepal, Nigeria - holding the grey steel of their weapons in one hand and their crutches in the other, they gaze blankly at the streets below their high top perch. In her 2004 novel, Memories of an Amnesiac describes the 1915 invasion by and subsequent occupation by the US until 1934 as “the boots” - “the boots” returned in 2004 and remain today....

“The first to have seen them. Who was the first? The one who received the first slap? They should have known, or at least foreseen the end, to worry that person. Leaving her house? Or rather strolling down the street, looking at the interior of stores not knowing that no one would remember that first day. What was she thinking of? What went on in her head, in her heart? What happened to her body in front of all these foreign beings? She closes her eyes, opens them; was she blind? Her ears perceive the sound of footsteps, this dull sound of boots on the beaten path. She tries to count. One, twenty-five, ten thousand. What does it matter. They are here. Within earshot, the sound gets closer. Motionless, she sense their approach. She wants to run away. But where? The boots walk past her without noticing the presence of the only witness. Anonymous. The boots could care less about this lone blind person, petrified at the corner of a street. The boots could care less about this country. The boots know nothing. They have been sent, they have been given orders, they have embarked on gigantic boats. The boots have left their wives and children behind. Perhaps the boots felt like crying. One must not feel sorry for them. One must remember everything, all of it. For the blind man, they will remain the boots of the first day. Later on, he will no longer hear the sound of the footsteps. His ears will fill up with the noise of guns and shots. Later on, he will understand that his ears had not fooled him. These boots on the damp soil [it was raining that day], the boots were the Other. Maybe on that very same day, did the boots become canons and guns? It is only necessary to determine the exact moment the blind man became aware of the change. At the moment when faking a smile was no longer needed? The day when what had been for so long took place.” [Jan J Dominique, Memoir of an Amnesiac]


Six weeks ago the international media was full of reports on the outbreak of cholera now it has largely been forgotten but for the people of Haiti it remains a daily reality. The second week I was here, a neighbour, an elderly woman died and the other family members were all sick but fortunately they have recovered. Last Monday I walked just 10 meters across the path to buy some soft drinks from a young man and his wife and of course we exchanged money. 24 hours later he was in hospital with cholera and now no one will buy drinks from his wife so in addition to the illness the family have lost their very meagre income. I had exchanged money with him and could not remember whether I washed my hands before touching my mouth. Someone gives a kiss - the passing of affection becomes the passing of infection as few days later she discovers the woman has cholera. The young children all play together so of course they are especially vulnerable even if they wash their hands before eating. So the cholera is passing from person to person and is very very real for all of us. On Wednesday and Thursday last week I visited a family member in hospital and on both occasions whilst waiting outside someone arrived with a cholera victim. In the early hours of Friday people were seen in Martissant 25 running with wheel barrows carrying cholera victims. There is no doubt in my mind that these stories are replicated throughout the country. Everyone is at risk. Outside of Port-au-Prince the problem is worse. In Jérémie the hospitals can no longer cope and for those small villages with no hospital or clinic people just die.

Rea and I discussed the idea of giving out rubber gloves to the traders in this community to protect them and their customers but we only have a limited supply of gloves for the moment. During my first week I was down by a river on the edge of town and spoke to groups of women who were washing clothes about how they were managing to get clean water. All said they were buying purifying tablets from the market and one woman said she used bleach. This again is a problem as one has to be careful that the right quantities of bleach and water are used and the question remains as to the long term medical consequences of using these methods.

Tents are everywhere from huge camps of ten thousand, to medium ones, small ones and the occasional single tent alone. Blue and grey tarps [USAID gifts from the American people reminding us of their omnipresence] together with tents of all shapes, sizes and colours are woven into the ruins of buildings, perched on top of buildings and attached to buildings. Recently I received an email from a tent spammer who must have picked up I was in Haiti and sent me a list of tarps and tents at discount prices. This is not how people should be forced to live even for a short period let alone a year and there is no hope of change on the horizon. I think of other refugee camps like the Palestinian camps in Beirut and the Saharawi’s of Tinduff in the southern Algerian Sahara both of which have been in existence for thirty odd years. What passes through your mind passes mine.... It cannot be possible.

And there are the wounds - amputees with arms, legs, feet and hands missing, scared faces and bodies. Many of the wounds are not visible like the woman who stands alone on a street by a food vendor. She stands mouthing words silently to herself and waving her arms in gentle movements almost as it they are being pushed into motion by the gentle sea breeze of the night.

Its easy to forget PAP is by the sea. I only spot the occasional glimpse of the grey green waters far away. These are deceptive. The channels in the city which lead to the sea are full of refuse and sewage. Last time I was here we ate a lots of fish and seafood. One day we were in a supermarket where there were packets of frozen fish. I asked Rea if there was a fresh fish market in the city. She replied she no longer buys fresh Haitian fish because of the sewage which flows into the sea and the danger of Kolera. Two days later she cooked me fish. That is the nature of this wonderful family. In my own silence like a voyeur of the mind, I wonder what tragedy lies behind the faces of the people who survived. Whose homes survived? Whose didn't. Who lost loved ones, neighbours and friends. Who are those that face a lifetime of injury and loss. At the school I meet a young girl who was lifted from the rubble after two days. Another whose family home collapsed and they lost everything. Another whose father died and another and another. Some are living in camps, some with family, some far from their destroyed homes, some have gone to the country and never returned.


In Champ Mars lies the remains of the crushed palace looking like a broken wedding cake along side which there are thousands and thousands of tents. The ones on the outer parameters facing the main boulevard have set up shop providing, barbers, beauty salons, seamstresses, vendors of food and other necessities. Rising above the devastation of Port-au-Prince in twisted irony, the three heros of the revolution remain standing - Toussaint L’Overture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe. Do they speak of a fallen people or to a people on the verge of rising once again? The weirdest structure still standing is the “2004” cone tower soaring above the whole city and built by President Aristide. No one seems to know what exactly it represents but I take it to be a symbol of the “2nd Haitian revolution” - the flood of Lavalas. It speaks, you are trying to kill us but we are not dead yet, there is a 3rd revolution to come. In the now infamous recitation of Toussaint L’ Ouverture on his forced exile to France, Aristide spoke on his similar forced exile in January 2004

“In overthrowing me they have only felled the tree of Negro liberty.....It’ll shoot up again, for it is deeply rooted and its roots are many” [quoted from “Create Dangerously by Edwidge Danticat]

All we have to do is struggle and wait for that moment which in turn will become a history of this great Black country.


BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Sokari Ekine is the author of the award-winning Black Looks blog.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Regulating land grabbing?

Saturnino Borras Jr and Jennifer Franco

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69648

cc M f BPreviously reviled as ‘land grabs’, international institutions increasingly paint the global land rush as ‘large-scale land investments’, providing fertile ground for ‘win-win’ development schemes. But, caution Saturnino Borras Jr and Jennifer Franco, ‘any scheme that guarantees only winners and no losers deserves our scepticism and a closer look.’

‘Land grab’ is the catch-phrase for the explosion of (trans)national commercial land transactions currently revolving mainly around the production and export of food and biofuels. Initially deployed by activist groups opposed to such transactions, the meaning of the phrase has been slowly eroding as it gets absorbed into mainstream development currents that see the global land rush as fertile ground for ‘win-win’ development schemes.

What were once reviled as ‘land grabs’, are now increasingly seen as ‘large-scale land investments’. Telling signs of this conceptual drift are found in recent high-profile calls for a ‘code of conduct for landgrabbing’ and ‘principles for responsible landgrabbing’. Together they signal a shift in the discourse from alarm to acceptance of land grabbing.

Such calls arise out of an optimistic belief that a global rush for land can and ought to be taken as an opportunity for rural development. Multiple stakeholders should unite around a set of basic ‘good practice’-type principles (commonly referred to as the ‘Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investments’ or ‘PRAI’). This would lay the foundation for an international ‘Code of Conduct’ (CoC) to better govern the transactions.

The arguably pragmatic logic behind this vision is illustrated by International Food Policy Research Institute’s (IFPRI) version of it, unveiled in late 2009 and framed as ‘making virtue out of necessity’. The underlying entrepreneurial spirit is revealed in the World Bank’s September 2010 (Rising Global Interest in Farmland: Can it yield sustainable and equitable benefits?) land grab report with its concluding section entitled ‘Moving from Challenge to Opportunity’ (World Bank, 2010: 93).

Predictably, the idea has caught on amongst governments, development aid organisations, research outfits and think-tanks. It is now widely believed that a CoC-PRAI scheme will lead to so-called ‘win-win’ development outcomes. But surely any scheme that guarantees only winners and no losers deserves our scepticism and a closer look.

Proponents of CoC-PRAI argue that more large-scale investments, especially when these involve smallholders through a variety of joint venture arrangements, are seen as the main solution to persistent (rural) poverty. The benefits are expected to be the following: Creation of farm/off-farm job employment, the boosting of smallholder incomes, the transfer of needed technology, an increase in food production, the building-up of rural infrastructure, improved access to basic services, and the opening up of export opportunities. There are several parts to the argument.

First, proponents of CoC-PRAI resurrect an old belief in the need for better land management as a way to bring order out of chaos when it comes to land issues and conflicts. But as we will later show the kind of land management envisioned has not proven to be better for the world’s rural population where poverty is most concentrated, nor is it uncontested. In fact, over the past decade or more, so much evidence and resistance has already been built up against the kind of land management envisioned in CoC-PRAI, that it begins to look suspiciously like the proverbial back door (e.g. we couldn’t get it in the front door, so let’s try the back).

Second, those in favour of CoC-PRAI draw on new revelations based on high-tech satellite imagery of the existence of so-called ‘reserve agricultural land’ – a vast global reserve of land ready to be harnessed for ‘rural development’ (or at least their version of it). The World Bank (2010) estimates the existence of a maximum of 1.7 billion ha of ‘suitable non-cropped, non-protected’ land, and a minimum of 445 million ha of ‘non-forested, non-protected, and populated with less than 25 persons per square kilometer’. The latter is equivalent to one-third of the currently cropped land of 1.5 billion ha. This claim about the existence of an heretofore untapped wealth of reserve agricultural land goes even further – to include an insistence on how such land could be tapped without harming existing food production or local land rights, and, with the added virtues of rehabilitating ‘degraded’ land and contributing to renewable energy supplies in the process. But this too is a faulty claim.

Third, CoC-PRAI proponents stress the need to recognise the potentially harmful social and environmental impacts – reconceptualised as ‘risks’ – of new large-scale investments in agriculture. These include: Neglect of land users, short-term speculation, absence of consultation, corruption, environmental harm, violent conflict over land rights, polarisation and instability, undermining food security and loss of livelihoods, and failure to keep promises (local jobs, facilities, compensation) (World Bank 2010). While acknowledging land grabbing’s harmful effects is essential; reframing them as ‘risks’ is subterfuge. Once harmful social and environmental impacts are understood as ‘risks’ (in effect mere ‘side-effects’ of an essentially beneficial ‘cure’), they can then be ‘managed’. Proper risk-management, we are told, is what makes achieving the ‘larger good’ of rural development possible. Great. But in practice who gets to decide which larger good is – or is not – worth the risk? And who gets to decide which risks are worth taking or not? In the end, the envisioned large-scale investments are not seen as involving direct impacts that are so severe and unjust that they call into question the very validity of the ‘cure’ itself – e.g., the land deals themselves or the development model being pursued through this type of foreign direct investment.

For those who still choose to encourage foreign direct investment in the form of big land deals, one element of successful risk avoidance or management involves ensuring the proper policy environment in the host countries. The World Bank and IFPRI approach the larger policy environment in similar ways (see Table 1 below).

TABLE 1: PRINCIPLES FOR RESPONSIBLE AGRICULTURAL INVESTMENT (PRAI
1. Respecting land and resource rights. Existing rights to land and associated natural resources are recognized and respected.
2. Ensuring food security. Investments do not jeopardize food security but strengthen it.
3. Ensuring transparency, good governance, and a proper enabling environment. Processes for acquiring land and other resources and then making associated investments are transparent and monitored, ensuring the accountability of all stakeholders within a proper legal, regulatory, and business environment.
4. Consultation and participation. All those materially affected are consulted, and the agreements from consultations are recorded and enforced.
5. Responsible agro-investing. Investors ensure that projects respect the rule of law, reflect industry best practice, are economically viable, and result in durable shared value.
6. Social sustainability. Investments generate desirable social and distributional impacts and do not increase vulnerability.
7. Environmental sustainability. Environmental impacts of a project are quantified and measures are taken to encourage sustainable resource use while minimizing and mitigating the risk and magnitude of negative impacts.
(World Bank 2010: X).

The World Bank’s September 2010 formulation is very similar to IFPRI’s and an earlier joint formulation by the World Bank, FAO, IFAD and UNCTAD (2010):
(i) rights recognition, (ii) voluntary transfers, (iii) transparency, (iv) technical and economic viability, and (v) environmental and social sustainability (World Bank 2010: xx-xxi).

In sum, for advocates of CoC-PRAI a beneficial policy environment would include: (i) well-defined land rights and authorities, with an emphasis on a private property rights system; (ii) clear identification of land that is available and clear mechanisms for transfer of public land rights; (iii) improved investment climates through rule of law and contract security; (iv) evidence-based agricultural policies in relation to incentives, markets, technologies, and rural infrastructure; (v) facilitation of contract-growing and out-grower schemes; (vi) enhanced market information systems; (vii) improved knowledge and extension services (including rural banking); and – last but not least – (viii) decentralised (community-based) negotiation. Additionally, in order to promote faster, cheaper and clearer land sales of public lands – and avoid corruption in land deals, the World Bank (2010: 29) is pushing for the adoption of land auctions.

None of these items is new; many have been on the agenda of mainstream development institutions for years (although admittedly the call for land auction is something relatively new and bold for the World Bank in the current context). What is new is the other element of the proposed risk management: An international CoC-PRAI that would govern the making and keeping of transnational land deals in ways that protect local people and environments, while still allowing them to be profitable in the conventional sense. This is the magic bullet in the new narrative on land grabbing.

Advocates believe that CoC-PRAI offers the best chance for big land deals to lead to ‘win-win’ outcomes for all concerned. A win-win outcome is understood as one in which: (i) the development needs of both the resource-poor countries and resource-rich countries are met, (ii) investors’ needs and interests (i.e. profits) are served, and (iii) poor people’s incomes and livelihoods are enhanced. What the ‘resource-poor countries’ are said to need is secure supplies of food and fuel in order to sustain their current patterns of food consumption and production. What the ‘resource-rich countries’ are said to need is new investments in agriculture that would create jobs, support small farmers, and bolster exports. What investors are said to need is an improved, clear, stable, and secure investment climate (indeed, clear property rights to secure investments).

In theory, the application of CoC-PRAI might seem to be relevant and beneficial, or at the very least, harmless. At the very least, the logic seems to go, one might expect that applying the technique in this case would not do any further harm than is already being done by the illicit land grabs themselves. As we see it, the problems with CoC-PRAI include:

First, proposals for CoC-PRAI for land deals necessarily operate within and seek to sustain or extend the existing global industrial agro-food and energy complex. Positing CoC-PRAI as an overarching framework in response to globalised land-grabbing therefore does not address serious problems associated with the extractive mining of land (and water) in the Global South to meet the food and energy demands of some countries and to sustain corporate profits. It explicitly or implicitly assumes that there is no fundamental problem with existing industrial food and energy production and consumption patterns tightly controlled by transnational corporations (TNCs).

Second, the CoC-PRAI is being promoted in tandem with the notion of the existence of ‘reserve agricultural land’, combined with images of agri-industrial systems playing a beneficial role in restoring degraded land to health, utilising marginal land more fully, and reinvigorating idle land. In addition to new satellite imagery (which does not picture people or their historical land-based social relations and livelihood practices), the assumption of ‘reserve land’ is often based on standard nation-state claims derived from official census data about existing population, land use and land property relations, which are notoriously unreliable in many countries, for a variety of reasons. The very notion of ‘reserve’ more or less automatically renders such land, by definition, ‘available’, amenable to, and appropriate for transformation into global granaries or new oil wells. Other possible or actual uses are rendered invisible.

Accepting the notion of reserve agricultural land necessarily consigns existing local land-based social relations and practices that are diverse and distinct to being vestiges of the past — to be acknowledged, but in the end, not worthy of being taken seriously enough to protect and advance into the future. They simply do not ‘fit’ the economic development grid envisioned by today’s proponents of CoC-PRAI. Based on past experience, what we can expect from this kind of framing of land is more dispossession, dislocation or displacement in the name of transforming ‘marginal’ land into economically productive spaces. And because most of these people cannot be absorbed in any industrial sector of a given society, they are thus a ‘surplus population’, and who is going to take care of theme and how, as Tania Li has asked (Li, 2010), is a big question. Moreover, the rehabilitation of so-called ‘degraded’ lands often comes in the form of industrial monocropping that is portrayed as environmentally friendly, but actually undermines the lands ecologically (e.g. industrial tree monocropping is now often referred to as ‘sustainable reforestation’).

Third, advocates of CoC-PRAI argue that without clear land property rights (usually taken as individual and private) the ‘risk’ of dispossession is high. Implicit here is a belief that having formal land property rights removes this risk and serves as a guarantee that people will not be displaced and dispossessed by these large-scale land deals.

Such a view converges with years of mainstream advocacy for the privatisation of the remaining commons and formalisation of land rights, targeting public lands worldwide. Yet this view is deeply flawed. There is much evidence to show that formal land property rights are no guarantee against dispossession, and they even often appear at the leading edge of it.

The introduction of formal land property rights first requires answering in practice (in power-differentiated settings marked by conflicting interests) the complex series of questions posed earlier in this discussion — who has (or should have) what rights to which land for how long and for what purposes (Richards 2002). Formal land property rights are contested terrain, since they involve decisions about who counts and who does not, who is included/who is excluded.

Introducing formal rights for indigenous landholders is not necessarily pro-poor in and of itself; but it does recalibrate the arena of struggle (Sawyer and Gomez 2008). Gaining legal recognition of poor people’s land rights has never alone guaranteed that they will actually be respected and protected in the courts or on the ground; for the rural poor, there remains a difficult and contested process involving struggles to actually claim those rights and ‘make them real’ in fact (Cousins 1997). Neither categorically pro-poor outcomes, nor even ‘win-win’ outcomes, are ever guaranteed. Clear land property rights (private or otherwise) have certainly not guaranteed win-win outcomes in many of the land deals, nor have they automatically protected the rural poor from various forms of dispossession or ‘adverse incorporation’ into the food-feed-fuel production enclaves.

Moreover, secure property rights should not a priori, only or always, mean private property rights; in many parts of the world, an inductive approach is needed that is based on a deep understanding of the societies where intervention is targeted and ‘makes socially legitimate occupation and use rights, as they are currently held and practiced, the point of departure for both their recognition in law and for the design of institutional frameworks for mediating competing claims and administering land’ (Cousins 2007).

Fourth, the assumption that land transactions among ‘multi-stakeholders’ that are formal and transparent, and, to the extent possible, decentralised-localised, are the solution to avoid negative consequences of current mega land deals is only partly correct. Certainly, any land deal should at least be transparent, but transparency does not necessarily guarantee pro-poor outcomes. Transparency is not the same as accountability, and transparent transactions do not necessarily guarantee accountability, especially to poor ‘stakeholders’ (Fox 2007).

Fifth, inherent in CoC-PRAI is the voluntary nature of agreements. Violations are difficult to pin down; violators are impossible to make accountable. Even where there is formal adherence by the parties concerned to the principles of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC), these principles are rarely observed and enforced in practice, and it would take much political power, time, and resources to ensure that they were. Sawyer and Gomez (2008) have observed the paradox that, simultaneously with an increase in and institutionalisation of international treaties, voluntary guidelines, and FPIC principles intended to protect indigenous peoples, there have been unprecedented violations of the rights of indigenous peoples and the penetration of their territories worldwide.

Sixth, ‘partnership’ is also a key concept in CoC-PRAI. It comes in many component forms, including state/private-sector/civil-society partnerships, which are assumed to promote transparency and build win-win outcomes into any land deals. But such a notion is based on a depoliticised and unrealistic vision of engagement between various actors that strips them of any conflicting interests and places them on equal footing. Imagining equal footing and complementary interests where none exist is more likely than not to lead to the poor losing out.

Each of these principles in itself is not necessarily bad; each could have merit depending on a particular context. But none is inherently good in that none can guarantee truly pro-poor outcomes. In the absence of a clear framework and process that insists on prioritising truly pro-poor outcomes, the weaknesses of these various elements are more likely to be reinforced when framed within a win-win voluntary CoC-PRAI as the response to the global land-grab.

The CoC-PRAI being proposed by the World Bank and others is a dangerous diversion. It diverts attention away from the real issues at hand with respect to land. It diverts attention away from what is wrong with the economic development model it aspires to and the key role of land in achieving this model. And it also diverts our attention away from coming to terms with how rural poor people’s land rights, interests and concerns can (and must) be protected and advanced into the future. It should be no surprise that the forces clamouring for CoC-PRAI for land transactions today are the same ones that have been telling us that real land reform is impossible. And they are the same ones too that are telling us now that land-grabbing is inevitable.

Confronted by their ‘impossibility thesis’ on the one hand, and their ‘inevitability thesis’ on the other, we appear to have no choice but to resign ourselves and accept that TNC-driven and controlled development path – and its view of rural poverty, land, and land rights – is the only one left.

But theirs is not the only path left open; there are still choices, agency, and the capacity to struggle for meaningful change that prioritises now and into the future the rights and the voices of the rural poor with regard to land and other resources. And yet, rejecting a bad idea is one thing; asserting that ‘another world is possible’ is another; and making alternatives happen under real world conditions, constraints and circumstances is still quite another. There is complexity in land issues that can be ignored only with great risk to the rural poor. Any social justice-driven answers to the current dilemmas with regard to land resources will be confronted by and therefore must pay attention to these complexities. Global land-grabbing in favour of TNCs and for food, feed or fuel export is just one part of what is happening on the rural front. Recognising this thus demands a broader and deeper degree of understanding of contemporary land issues than the current, dominant global land grab framework can provide.

To get a better grasp of land issues today requires unpacking the vague category of ‘land use change’. Global land use today is changing not just in one direction (e.g. in favour of food or biofuel production for export); but instead it has many faces. A fuller understanding of land use change brought about by (trans)national commercial land deals requires empirical research and theorising that are able to cover the breadth and diversity of the actually existing social conditions and dynamics. It is also crucial to trace how these various directions in land use change (re)shape one another. And while mainstream institutions tend to focus their attention narrowly on issues of land use change alone, a better grasp of the current global situation demands closer scrutiny of the dynamics of land property relations changes – for these types of changes relate directly to the burning global issues of enclosure and dispossession.

This can be seen in the current (trans)national commercial land deals on two fronts. First, we see dominant social classes and groups (e.g. landlords, capitalists, traditional village chiefs) and state bureaucrats who have some kind of pre-existing access to and/or control over land resources, trying to cash in on the re-valued land property. They do this either by consolidating and expanding landholdings and selling or leasing them out to new investors, or by getting incorporated into the emerging new food and energy agro-industrial complex. This is happening in many countries today, including Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, and in many countries in Africa. Some of these economically and politically dominant classes and groups and other corporate interests have expanded their food and biofuel production by swallowing up smaller farm units either by purchase or lease. This is partly the way the sugarcane belt of Brazil has been expanding. In short, the first front is on private land property.

Then there is the other, second front, which in fact is much bigger than the first and is the main target of the current worldwide massive enclosure. These are the non-private lands, often broadly and vaguely referred to as ‘public land’ or the ‘global commons’. The ‘non-private land category’ is huge – for instance, it comprises the majority of land in Africa. But here is where it gets tricky. Official categories do not necessarily reflect actual human practice. For example, while 70 per cent of Indonesia’s land is officially categorised as ‘state forest land’, (un)official private appropriation and use of it still occurs in practice. In reality, many such lands across the globe are productive farmlands under different farming techniques. Yet this reality is essentially dismissed by the claim of a vast global reserve of available agricultural land that is central to the World Bank’s land grab report in September 2010.

Massive enclosures on these two fronts (private and non-private lands) will be far-reaching partly because of the political-economic imperatives (convergence of food, energy, financial and environmental crises) of capitalist development and expansion, and partly because this process will be aided by 21st century hi-tech gadgets (computerised recording, satellite mapping, and so on) for clearer, cheaper, faster, and more efficient land administration and management, or efficient ‘land governance’. This is likely to result not only in undermining remaining moral economies in many agrarian societies, but it is likely to result in massive dispossession and/or displacement of peasants, indigenous peoples and other rural poor dwellers worldwide. Many of them will be incorporated into these food-feed-fuel production enclaves, some under relatively bearable conditions and some under more adverse terms. Many others are likely to be completely dispossessed; and some of these will be displaced and forced to migrate to agro-ecologically precarious and fragile settings.

The contemporary land grab phenomenon has started to gain momentum and is rapidly expanding. Institutional support for this process is varied and widespread, but largely justified by calls for the need for and feasibility of regulating land grab via a code of conduct or a set of principles on responsible land grabbing. Most recently, this has been expressed in the September 2010 World Bank land grab report. Still, the affected rural poor communities and their allies are not likely to simply accept the land grabbing process in the way the World Bank and its supporters might suppose. Already we are witnessing increasingly widespread ‘everyday forms of resistance’ by villagers and increasingly organised, widely networked and politically sophisticated campaigns by (trans)national agrarian and environmental social movements in mounting opposition. The character, pace, direction and future of global land grabbing will be at least be partly (re)shaped, if not blocked, by the actions of these social forces.

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* Saturnino Borras is associate professor of Rural Development Studies at the International Institute of Studies (ISS) in The Hague and a fellow of TNI. Jennifer Franco is a researcher at the Transnational Institute (TNI) in Amsterdam. This essay draws partly from Borras and Franco (2010).

REFERENCES

Borras, Saturnino Jr. and Jennifer C. Franco (2010). ‘From Threat to Opportunity? Problems with the Idea of a “Code of Conduct” for Land-Grabbing’. Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal, vol. 13, no. 2.
Cousins, Ben (2007). ‘More than socially embedded: the distinctive character of “communal tenure” regimes in South Africa and its implications for land policy’. Journal of Agrarian Change, 7(3): 281-423.
Cousins, Ben (1997). How do rights become real? Formal and informal institutions in South Africa’s land reform. IDS Bulletin 28(6), pp. 59–67.
Fox, Jonathan (2007). Accountability Politics. Oxford University Press.
Li, Tania Murray (2010). To Make Live or Let Die? Rural Dispossession and the Protection of Surplus Populations. Antipode, Volume 41, special issue, pp. 66-93.
Richards, John (2002). ‘Introduction’, in J. Richards, ed. Land, Property and the Environment. Oakland.
Sawyer, S. and E. Gomez (2008). Transnational governmentality and resource extraction: indigenous peoples, multinational corporations, multilateral institutions and the state. Geneva: UNRISD.
Von Braun, Joachem and Ruth Meinzen-Dick (2009). ‘“Land Grabbing” by Foreign Investors in Developing Countries: Risks and Opportunities’. IFPRI Policy Brief 13, April 2009. Washington DC: IFPRI.
World Bank (2010). Rising Global Interest in Farmland: Can it yield sustainable and equitable benefits? Washington DC: World Bank.

Unpacking the hot air industry

Khadija Sharife

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69641

cc S BThe first priority for developing countries when it comes to climate change mitigation should be reducing poverty, but the market-based approach of carbon trading is doing little to alleviate imbalances in the system, writes Khadija Sharife.

By 2009, more than 17 years after the non-binding UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted at the Rio Earth Summit, developed countries had channeled just $3bn in climate funding to developing countries. In contrast, developed governments – chiefly the US – invest over $700bn each year in global fossil-fuel subsidies, using taxpayer funds to externalise the true costs of carbon-intensive economies. Countries, like Nigeria, that experience oil-related ecosystem degradation estimate the cost of damage to the environment at $5bn per year.

Studies from the University of Berkeley attempt to measure the impact of 'ecological debt' between rich and poor countries. They argue that 'rich countries' owe the developing world $2.3trn for things such as deforestation, the depletion of fisheries, ozone layer depletion and the conversion of mangrove swamps to export-oriented fish farms between 1960 and 2000.

By repackaging climate finance under the umbrella of 'aid', developed countries exploiting the 'atmospheric commons' have managed to delegitimise the issue of ecological debt. This debt – which is managed by remote-control in a globalised world – is crucial to diagnosing the problem of climate change.

PAY YOUR WAY

In the process, entire continents, like Africa, which produce just 3-5% of global emissions, will be forced to bear the brunt of carbon-intensive global economic systems. By 2020, it is estimated Africa could lose 50% of its rain-fed agriculture harvest, while by 2100 the continent could lose as much as 90% of net revenue from crops thanks to climate change. Even Africa's major emitters such as Nigeria generate emissions chiefly through 'rich country' corporations such as Shell, via gas flaring which accounts for over 50% of industrial emissions. At 102m tonnes in 2005, the company's emissions were larger than those produced by 150 individual countries.

Yet in Nigeria, as in many developing nations, Shell's emissions count as the country's emissions.

The many hidden contours of the system precipitating climate change range from the illegitimate debt (acquired by the continent's anti-democratic leaders, resulting in the double-edged sword of debt repayment 'made possible' through the World Bank's structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) generating hard currency for repayment) to the impact of SAPs designed to develop export orientations to provide cheap cash crops to developed markets. Over 70% of Africa's water, for instance, is 'virtually' exploited for monocultures. It takes over 2,000 litres of water to produce just 300 grams of cotton.

Yet the Bank's policy of export-orientation renders the continent's most unequal societies as the product of political economies dependent on revenue from exhaustible resources – chiefly oil. From Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Sudan and Gabon, countries 'healthy' GDPs and considerable growth are characterised by militarisation, clientelism, rentier states, autocratic regimes and tremendous poverty and inequality.

MARKET SOLUTIONS FOR MARKET PROBLEMS

Proponents say that carbon trading is the solution to global warming in a market-based context. Through carbon permits and the commoditisation of 'pollution', the world's largest polluters are able to circumvent emission reductions, shifting the responsibility to underdeveloped nations. Permits establishing property rights over the atmospheric commons actually distract from the concept of emission reductions.

Instead, though as much as 90% of emissions traded by some European countries using the EU's Emission Trading System is estimated as fraudulent, major multinationals and developed governments continue to promote carbon trading as a viable source of climate funding. Carbon trading is being put down to supply over 40% of the funds required to help mitigate and adapt to climate change.

A further 20% of climate change funding will be sourced under current terms from developing countries themselves, while just 20% will be supplied by developed governments, chiefly through loans or repackaged aid commitments. This was the case with the UK's commitment to provide $800m in Copenhagen (or 'Hopenhagen' as it was called) for climate funds, financing that was already pledged in 2007.

A FINANCIAL ECOSYSTEM

It was at the Rio Earth Summit, where the UNFCCC was adopted, that the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), self-described at “the world's first and North America's only legally-binding integrated emissions reduction, registry and trading system”, delivered a paper advocating "a market-based solution to global warming". Founded just prior to the signing of the Kyoto Protocol by Richard Sandor, an economics professor known as 'Mr Derivatives', the CCX owns the European Climate Exchange, is intimately linked to former US Vice President Al Gore and had ties to the upper echelons of the UN.

The founding members of CCX includes major companies such as Ford, DuPont and Goldman Sachs which were instrumental in designing the carbon market system. The revolving door between 'development' bodies such as the World Bank is too close for comfort: Ken Newcombe, for example, helped shaped the Bank's Prototype Carbon Fund. Gore, one of the chief proponents of the Kyoto Protocol, co-founded Generation Investment Management, specialising in corporate 'green investments' such as carbon offsets – a process of offsetting pollution in underdeveloped countries as a means of evading emissions reductions.

In May 2010, CCX, alongside the European Climate Exchange and the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange, was purchased by the IntercontinentalExchange, an electronics futures and derivatives platform specialising in over-the-counter trading, a move that positions the system closer and closer to the 'too big too fail' syndrome.

POISONOUS DEALINGS

Like the derivatives bubble that caused the global recession, the carbon market and that of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects are both vulnerable to gaming. A 2009 paper, "Scaling The Policy Response To Climate Change," by Benjamin Sovacool and Marilyn Brown, revealed a €4.7bn scam structured around trifluoromethane (HFC-23), a greenhouse gas used as a refrigerant. More than 70% of CDM projects were based on HFC-23, deliberately produced in excess by corporations that then claimed to 'offset' it in order to receive financial benefits via certified emissions reductions (CER) certificates.

The UNFCCC has registered 2,582 projects and issued 476,762,324 CERs. The carbon-offsetting organisation Carbon Retirement revealed that 28% of total funds received for CDM projects went to developing countries; 30% was received by banks and investors; 17% to company shareholders; and the remainder to taxes.

The mentality of the 'market solution' industry was disclosed by Jack Cogen, president of Natsource – which claims to be the world's largest buyer of carbon credits with $1bn in 'natural assets', who stated, "The carbon market doesn't care about sustainable development... All it cares about is the carbon price."

UPSETTING OFFSETS

The UNFCCC system, in addition to that of other initiatives such as the Kyoto Protocol, legitimises "flexibility points" – mechanisms that include carbon trading as well as the CDM, promoting the offset strategy. Annex 1 countries (or developed countries that are leading polluters) pledged, via a 'noted' but not binding accord pushed through by an exclusive group of countries in Copenhagen, to reduce emission by 12-18% of 1990 levels by 2020. China, an emerging country that could be classified as 'developing' - also rivalling the US for emissions, has committed to financing its own climate change requirements. Yet China, crucially, threw its weight behind the Group of 77 nations to demand that Annex 1 GDP countries spend 1.5% of GDP for climate finance, the equivalent of $600bn annually.

The World Bank has proposed, through the Climate Investment Funds unit, that the Bank levy a fee of $350,000 for each investment project, 40% more than standard development project fees. The Bank's President Robert Zoellick has promoted the Bank to developing countries as the ideal vehicle to engage in climate financing, a strategy embedded in leaked World Bank documents.

But it is not only through the World Bank that the foreign policies of developed nations are implemented - aid represents another key vehicle. As WikiLeaks recently exposed, US under-secretary of state for democracy and global affairs Maria Otero urged the Ethiopian premier and head of the Africa Union climate change negotiation's team, Meles Zenawi, to sign the Copenhagen accord, as it represented a point of departure for other discussions, or else.

As the UNFCCC noted, the first priority of developing countries concerning climate change mitigation should be poverty reduction, yet capital flight firmly prevents poverty reduction from being realised. Ironically, through similar developed-country policies, over 50% of small island jurisdictions – on the front line of climate change, are tax havens.

TAKE FROM THE RICH, GIVE TO THE POOR

Even worse, the financing that developed countries persistently claim cannot be raised, could be easily generated through a small financial transaction tax – also known as a Robin Hood Tax – on cross-border financial flows. Campaigners say such a tax could generate $400bn, chiefly from developed countries. Not only would this require information sharing on a multilateral basis as implemented within international agreements, but it would also allow for developing and developed nations to track and recover stolen wealth.

The issue of climate must be broadened beyond 'adaptation and mitigation' to a systemic overhaul, beginning at the fault line: the lack of political will on the part of systemically powerful pollution nations to correct imbalances of power in the market and the unregulated nature of international trade and financial transactions.

For the UNFCCC to have more legitimacy, these issues – fundamental to political economies integrated within the global financial architecture – must be acknowledged and made legally binding.

Unpacking the hot air industry
Khadija Sharife

The first priority for developing countries when it comes to climate change mitigation should be reducing poverty, but the market-based approach of carbon trading is doing little to alleviate imbalances in the system, writes Khadija Sharife.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article first appeared in The Africa Report.
* Khadija Sharife is Southern Africa correspondent for The Africa Report.

Is China greening Africa?

Stephen Marks

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69639

cc Klassieren‘Is China smartening up its environmental and social act in Africa? It certainly wants to be seen as doing just that’, writes Stephen Marks.

Is China smartening up its environmental and social act in Africa? It certainly wants to be seen as doing just that. One telling example was the recent Chinese government-sponsored ‘top Chinese enterprises in Africa’ competition, won by China Road and Bridge Corporation [CRBC].

The aim of the award was officially stated as being ‘to commend the contributions by Chinese enterprises in Africa’ and ‘reply to Western criticisms of Chinese enterprises with facts.’ The competition, which was jointly sponsored by the Chinese-African People’s Friendship Association, China Radio International and Africa magazine, kicked off on 22 October with the launch of a website for online voting. According to the website, the winning enterprises should ‘devote significant resources for African countries’ local economy and social development, fulfil corporate social responsibility and make a positive return to the local people of Africa.’

Another Chinese award winner is China Merchants Bank, which in September was declared the winner of the third annual Green Banking Innovation Award. Fifteen leading Chinese commercial banks were judged on their overseas investments as well as corporate governance issues, such as information disclosure, environmental policies and implementation measures. Nine Chinese environmental NGOs came together to conduct the competition – Green Watershed, Friends of Nature, Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs, Green Earth Volunteers, Global Environment Institute, Civil Society Watch, China Development Brief, Green Volunteer League of Chongqing and Hengduan Mountains Research Society.

This trend is not new. In July 2009, in what the Swiss-based international NGO International Rivers called ‘the most significant step yet’ China’s ministries of commerce and environmental protection published draft ‘Guidelines on the Environmental Behavior of Chinese Foreign Investors’. The guidelines emphasise the social and environmental responsibility of Chinese companies and banks abroad, and foresee the creation of appeal mechanisms for ‘local controversial projects.’

But how far does this indicate a likely real shift in the behaviour of Chinese companies on the ground, and how far is it simply a Chinese version of the ‘greenwash’ for which Western companies and governments have themselves long been notorious?

The 15 October incident at a Zambian coal mine, where Chinese supervisors shot and wounded 11 workers in a labour conflict brought back memories of the blast at Zambia’s Chambishi copper mines which killed 49 workers in 2005, followed by the killing of five workers by security guards at the same location a year later.

Of course Chinese companies are often used as a whipping boy for the failure of African governments to apply their own regulations. A www.saiia.org.za/images/stories/pubs/briefings/saia_spb_19_haglund_20100729.pdf].report by the South African Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA) [PDF] in July, three months before the shooting incident, stressed the failure of regulation by the Zambian government, especially its reliance on self-reporting and the influence of close relations between foreign investors and local leaders

There have been signs that African governments have been taking such criticisms on board. In October alone there were reports that Nigeria had closed the Abuja branch of China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC) over its poor health and safety record (as well as another non-Chinese company) and that Mozambique had withdrawn the labour permits of three Chinese found guilty of assaults on workers and other violations of labour and company law in the construction industry.

One common response to the record of some Chinese companies in these areas is to point out that conditions within China are often no better, especially in the mining sector. But here too things seem to be changing. China Daily has reported that – in a pilot programme – underground mine-accident shelters, escape capsules and other emergency facilities are being installed in seven coal mines in Shanxi province. Citing China Youth Daily, the report said a Lu’an Group mine in Changzhi city was the first to install the facilities. The report follows the 16 October deaths of 37 miners trapped by a gas leak at a Pingyu Coal & Electric Company mine in Henan.

International Rivers has pulled no punches in its criticism of Chinese companies and the Chinese government over such issues as the coal mine shootings. Director Peter Bosshard described conditions at the Collum mine as ‘scandalous’ and pointed out that in China’s overseas investment, unlike conditions within China, ‘muzzling public opinion is not usually possible’.

‘If the Chinese government is serious about cleaning up the safety, labor and environmental record of its overseas investors, recommendations and appeals will no longer do the trick’ he concluded. Pointing out that the Chinese government still owns the major companies, he concluded that it should ‘quickly adopt the environmental guidelines for foreign investors, which have lingered in draft stage for too long. It should closely supervise Chinese companies which invest abroad, and crack down on investors which violate Chinese guidelines and local law’.

You might think with this record that International Rivers was the sort of ‘Western NGO’ that China loves to hate. But as Peter Bosshard told , a recent workshop on environmental aspects of China’s engagement in low-income countries the Chinese government wants Chinese firms overseas to be responsible actors and is interested in learning from Western experts on the use of environmental guidelines.

International Rivers has been invited to advise Eximbank and Sinohydro on their environmental policies, and Sinohydro has adopted the recommended guidelines for complaints policy. The Gabonese environmental NGO Brainforest scored a victory when in response to its concerns, Eximbank suspended its support for a massive iron ore development project complete with hydropower dam, railway line and port, which would have violated environmental guidelines and devastated a national park.

On the other hand Sinohydro is going ahead with the much-criticised Gibe 3 dam in Ethiopia which, critics say, violates local laws, and the world’s biggest bank Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, is underwriting a US$500m loan to Chinese companies to buy equipment for the project.

The pessimists would see this as evidence for the ‘greenwash’ theory. But it might be more realistic, and more constructive, to see it as an aspect of a global contestation between elements in government and civil society which see the need to enforce environmental standards, and profit-driven firms, whatever their ownership, who will cut corners when allowed to.

As Peter Bosshard pointed out to the IDS workshop, at least the Chinese government supports moves by Chinese environmental NGOs to encourage Chinese firms to apply Chinese laws and standards in their overseas operations: ‘You would not get far in Switzerland trying to get Swiss firms to apply Swiss law overseas, or in the US either’.

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* Stephen Marks is co-ordinator of the Fahamu China in Africa project. A researcher and writer specialising in economic development and environmental issues as they impact on civil society, he has worked as a consultant for a number of international projects.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Globalising economic apartheid

Khadija Sharife

2010-12-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69606

cc VaxzineSanctions-busting was a game perfected by the apartheid regime, but modern-day corporates are also adept at finding ways to exploit Africa's minerals, writes Khadija Sharife.

Collective-security organisations such as the United Nations depend on sanctions as political tools designed to bring deviant regimes to heel, providing incentive through non-military means a return to international frameworks. Yet the presence of tax havens, whether specialising in corporate or maritime services, consistently undermines national and international rule-of-law.

This was the case with the capitalist apartheid regime in South Africa, who circumvented oil sanctions through the 'socialist' government of Seychelles. The Iranian revolution evidenced the fall of the US-backed Shah, depriving the apartheid regime of secure oil supplies. In order to counter international resistance and bypass the country-specific sanctions, the South African Treasury deposited, for instance, R320-billion from 1978-1994 into the South African Defense Force’s ‘special defense account’, used not infrequently for the ‘control of sanctions and disinvestment’.

Through key persons such as Giovanni M. Ricco, head of the Seychelles Trust Company (STC) - granted the sole right by the government of Seychelles to incorporate offshore entities - the island quickly became one of three crucial oil trans-shipment centers, alongside the US Virgin Islands.

Ricci established another company called GMR (after his initials), which specialised in oil and other strategic commodities, with operating hubs in major tax havens such as Luxembourg, the UK, Switzerland and Panama. One operating location was based in apartheid South Africa and headed by one of the country's leading intelligence agents, Craig Williamson.

Other companies like apartheid South Africa's Anglo-American - at the time, the world's largest producer of gold and diamonds - bypassed sanctions conducting trade and investment and expanding into global markets by locating the company in other tax havens such as the Luxembourg-based Minorco, a $2 billion international holding company controlled in large part by Anglo (39 per cent), De Beers (21 per cent) and the Oppenheimer family.

The company, initially based in Bermuda, would soon become a major investor in developed countries, investing or accumulating over 100 companies from the 1970s onward, including US financial and mining interests, ranging from Wall Street's Salomon Brothers to zinc mines in the Yukon.

By pyramiding holding companies in jurisdictions characterised by secrecy, the corporate beneficiaries of the apartheid regime were able to access resources and labour on the cheap, while easily navigating global sanctions.

Not much has changed when it comes to the use of secrecy jurisdictions as a means of looting African minerals. Until recently, Sierra Leone’s diamond industry was dominated by two firms: SLDC and Koidu Holdings. The latter was wholly owned by two entities based in tax havens, both of which are directly connected to the UK: Guernsey and the British Virgin Islands (BVI) through BSG Resources, recently implicated as a potential funder for Zimbabwe's Marange fields (via Canadile).

BVI offers complete tax exemption to foreign businesses via tax avoidance - a technically legal mechanism, it enables companies to engage in mis-pricing through ‘management’ fees, as well as the probable use of thin capitalisation - internally loaning high interest capital to subsidiaries and thereafter seeking repayment in tax havens. BVI also provides foreign clients with nominee shareholders, concealing the beneficial owner; complete lack of disclosure; and the use of bearer shares enabling clients to determine ownership through physical possession of shares with no paper trail.

As Fidelity Corporate Services stated, bearer shares ‘represent the ultimate way of ensuring the anonymity of offshore company owners’. To better state the obvious, Fidelity articulated why corporations should maintain entities in tax havens: ‘Tax avoidance generally means creating and organising such business structure which would pay minimum possible amount of taxes without breaking the law. All international offshore financial services industry which is functioning on a legal basis is about tax avoidance and not about tax evasion.’

In this instance, ‘minimum’ really means zero. Similarly, Frank Timis's SLDC, operating in Sierra Leone in the midst of the civil war during the 1990s (then under the name of Africa Diamond Holdings) exploited resources through the Bermuda-based company African Minerals Limited.

So while each year the continent is estimated to lose $148-billion in flight, accounting models do not factor in the billions lost to tax avoidance. The result is a type of poverty that is artificially created, artificially sustained and wholly lethal. As Dennis Fletcher, head of apartheid SA's Caltex (part of then-US corporation Texaco, currently Chevron) stated, ‘Although we are effectively prevented from buying oil openly, we still get exactly what we want.’

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* This article first appeared in The New Age.
* Khadija Sharife is Southern Africa correspondent for The Africa Report.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Will Obama end up like Toussaint L'Ouverture?

Tax cut debates in the USA

Horace Campbell

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69653

cc US Nat. ArchivesIn failing to challenge a US capitalist system geared exclusively to the economic interests of a small elite, Barack Obama is in danger of repeating the errors of Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L'Ouverture, writes Horace Campbell.

In revolutionary moments laws, ideas and politics are challenged by new circumstances. These circumstances force the convergence of revolution and counter-revolution in the same moment. New social forces emerge on the scene and there are always leaders who are thrown up by the moment. Oftentimes these leaders are not themselves revolutionaries but are caught up in the general convulsion that shakes the foundations of the old society. Toussaint L'Ouverture was one such revolutionary in Haiti who joined the revolution in 1793 and agreed that the old system of slavery must end. But Toussaint believed in the plantation model and wanted to restore the economic relations of the plantation where the former enslaved were supposed to work for a planter class.

Toussaint dithered when the people wanted a new mode of economic organisation and in the midst of these dithering internal and external forces removed Toussaint and he ended up as a tragic figure who emerged out of a revolution. While Toussaint is still celebrated as a great revolutionary, the tragedy of the bloodletting and stagnation of Haitian society cannot be separated from the fact that as a political leader he could not grasp the reality that the mass of the people wanted a new form of economic organisation.

Barack Obama as the president of the United States risks ending up being irrelevant like Toussaint as he continuously dithers and places his faith in a system that is now obsolete. Barack Obama believes in American capitalism at a moment when the environmental crisis, the economic recession, the changed international situation along with the financial meltdown demanded a new turn in social and economic relations.

When the Obama administration agreed with the leaders of the Republican Party to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest US citizens for another two years, there was outrage within the ranks of the progressive movement. This justifiable outrage clearly focused on the fact that as a candidate for the presidency Barack Obama had vowed that he would not renew the tax cuts that had been instituted by George W. Bush. No doubt, tax cuts for wealthy America are repugnant. But however much progressive forces are distressed by the fact that the Obama administration caved in to the top capitalists, this debate about tax cuts is misplaced for as long as it does not capture the dangers of the attempt to save America’s moribund capitalist system on the back of the ordinary people. It is imperative that the debate on tax cuts also grasps the larger picture on the paths that are open to society so that one can grasp the increasing concentration and centralisation of power in the hands of a few. Only a few days ago it was none other than The New York Times that outlined the unlimited powers of the top nine banks that control the derivatives market, in an article entitled ‘A secretive banking elite rules trading in derivatives’.

Before outlining the power of the top nine banks in this multi-trillion gambling enterprise called derivatives, the Times noted: ‘In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks.’ From this analysis we were regaled with the absolute powers of these bankers who were a law unto themselves to the point where we are learning of their power from other Wall Street bankers who are excluded from this elite group.

The legislation to extend the Bush tax cuts comes at a time when there are already talks about freezes in pay rise for some workers, squeezes in social services for working people, increased property taxes and other taxes on ordinary people. There is no gainsaying that the American capitalist system is organised around the exploitation of the poor, the working people and the profligate consumerism of the privileged class.

THE BUSH TAX CUTS

The tax cut for the richest US citizens by George W. Bush was one of the many ways in which the Bush administration supported the richest 1 per cent of the population. One estimate of this tax handout for the richest Americans during the eight years of the presidency shows that the wealthiest 400 Americans increased their wealth by over US$380 billion. 400 families increased their wealth by US$380 billion. This translates into an average of a US$1 billion giveaway to each of the richest 400 Americans. Senator Bernie Sanders clearly spelt out the fact that during this period of enriching the top income earners, the top Fortune 400 companies and families were further strengthened to dominate the political and intellectual spaces. It was revealed that the 400 richest Americans have accumulated US$1.27 trillion in wealth.

The Bush tax cut legislation entitled ‘The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA)’ was for 10 years and was designed to end or revert to the provisions that were in effect before it was passed. EGTRRA was supposed to sunset on 1 January 2011 unless further legislation was enacted to pronounce otherwise. By passing the US$858 billion tax plan to extend the Bush tax cuts, the Obama administration has joined with and strengthened the forces of US society who believe that the rich should get richer regardless of what is happening in the real economy. Inequality has skyrocketed in US society to the point where by 2007, the top 1 per cent of all income earners made 23.5 percent of all income. In his brilliant speech before the US Senate Bernie Sanders held forth that:

‘The percentage of income going to the top 1 percent nearly tripled since the 1970s. The fact is, 80 percent of all new income earned from 1980 to 2005 has gone to the top 1 percent. Let me repeat that because that is an important fact. It explains why the American people are feeling as angry as they are. They are working hard, but they are not going anyplace. In some cases, in many cases, their standard of living is actually going down. Eighty percent of all income in recent years has gone to the top 1 percent. The richer people become much richer, the middle class shrinks. Millions of Americans fall out of the middle class and into poverty.’

The inequality gap deepened by tax cuts for the wealthy was a major reason that the debate over tax questions was one of the major issues of the 2008 presidential campaign. Then, candidate Barack Obama vowed that when the tax cuts expired in January 2011, he would not renew them. Yet as president Obama has now agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts. This relief contains a plum of lowering the estate tax on the richest capitalists from 55 per cent to 35 per cent, with an exemption on the first US$5 million of an individual's estate and $10 million for couples.

These new subsidies to the rich were passed by a Senate that is itself dominated by millionaires. According to The New York Times:

‘The tax plan would extend all of the lowered income tax rates enacted under President George W. Bush, as well as the 15 percent rate on capital gains and dividends, which were due to expire at the end of this month. And it would set new estate tax parameters, including an exemption of $5 million per person, or $10 million per couple, and a maximum rate of 35 percent. All these provisions would last for two years. The estate tax lapsed entirely this year, but was set to return on Jan. 1 with an exemption of $1 million per person and a maximum rate of 55 percent. House Democrats were particularly infuriated by the White House’s agreement on the estate tax, which provides a more generous exemption and lower rate than many of them wanted.’

The Obama administration attempted to justify the extension with claims that the compromise with the Republicans was the only way to get the Republican Party to agree to a 13-month extension of unemployment benefits for millions of Americans affected by the capitalist crisis. This was a hollow claim because at no point during the past two years did the Obama administration seek to educate the mass of the population on the real consequences of the sharp inequalities that have enveloped the society since the dismantling of the safety nets of the New Deal of the last depression. There are those from the progressive camp who argued that Obama did not do enough to mobilise the ordinary working people against the Republican position of tax cuts for the rich. However, Obama had surrounded himself with the ideologues from Wall Street so that he (like Toussaint) believed that supporting the super rich would be the way to recharge the US economy.

TAXING THE POOR FOR FREE LUNCH FOR THE WEALTHY

According to the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), two out of every three corporations in the United States paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005. These corporations had a combined US$2.5 trillion in sales but paid no income taxes to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service). In the book, ‘Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich themselves at Government expense (and Stick it to You with the Bill)’, David Cay Johnson, explained in great detail the numerous subsidies granted to the capitalists. What David Cay Johnson did not elaborate on was that on top of the subsidies for insurance companies, banks, oil companies, telecommunications and pharmaceutical corporations, there was the major subsidy of the trillions of dollars spent on the military to protect this class. Despite the massive subsidies, the recklessness and chaotic nature of economic relations ensure that this system of capitalism generate repeated and severe crises. Under social-democratic capitalism, there is a degree of social solidarity among the citizens, providing the conditions for more regulation over capitalist enterprises and for there to be a higher degree of taxation for the capitalists so that the state can invest in social services such as health, education, social services and infrastructure. US capitalists eschewed the social-democratic model of capitalism where there was regulation of the rapaciousness of the top capitalists. The US opted for the Friedrich August von Hayek version of capitalism that is based on unlimited free enterprise. This is the idea of trickle-down economics that believes that government should leave the economy to private individuals, and that cutting tax rates for the richest Americans will improve the standard of living for the working class.

Trickle-down economics – or supply-side economics – is the old liberal version of capitalism that maintained that laissez-faire will benefit not just those well-placed in the market but also the poorest. After the economic crash of 1929, this liberal version of free enterprise was shelved only to re-emerge in the era of Ronald Reagan where the neoliberal version of supply-side thinking and economic planning was trumpeted with the view that increases in real gross domestic product are almost always good for the poor. According to this neoliberal concept of economics and politics, reducing the top tax rate is supposed to lead to economic growth, prosperity and overall income growth for all through the expansion of the economy with the creation of new jobs. However, as Senator Sanders clarified, during the Bush years alone, some 48,000 factories shut down. The US society went from 19 million manufacturing jobs to 12 million manufacturing jobs.

All of the evidence from the Bush tax cuts proved just the opposite to the logic of trickle-down economics. By every measure the economic situation has deteriorated for the vast majority of the population. This was at the same time when the top corporations were sitting on US$2 trillion that they were hoarding to use in the speculative market for derivatives.

Between 2001 and 2003 the top 82 companies in the USA paid no income tax, though they earned US$102 billion in profits. The figures from the Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) clarified that instead of paying US$35.6 billion in income taxes, as the statutory 35 per cent corporate tax rate seems to require, these companies generated so many excess tax breaks that they received outright tax rebate checks from the U.S. Treasury totaling US$12.6 billion. Overall, data from the past 10 years strongly refutes any arguments that cutting taxes for the richest Americans will improve the economic standing of the lower and middle classes or the nation as a whole. At the same time the top 1 per cent now owns more wealth than the bottom 90 per cent. The US has also successfully exported this brand of neoliberal economic organisation since the era of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. This was the counter-revolutionary era when the neoliberal forces decided to wage an economic war against the poor internationally. The election of Obama was inspired by a revolutionary moment when the peoples wanted a break from this brand of counter-revolutionary thinking.

The refutation of the trickle-down philosophy, as defended by President Barack Obama and the Republicans, was clearly articulated by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Senator Sanders stood on the Senate floor for eight hours to outline clearly why another subsidy for the capitalist classes was not needed in the midst of a ‘great recession’. His eloquence was backed up by the hard figures on the subsidies for the top 2 per cent of the population, whose income has tripled since 1970. Sanders spelt it out clearly that:

‘It makes no sense to me to provide huge tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires while we drive up the national debt that our children and grandchildren will have to pay.’

The senator then went on to outline the trillions of dollars that have been doled out in corporate welfare for the rich. What is significant about this statement was the way in which Sanders, an independent socialist senator, brought to the fore the reality that the tax cuts represent socialism for the rich. This is how America taxes the poor to offer unneeded free lunch to the wealthy.

SAVING A MORIBUND CAPITALIST SYSTEM

Our present global realities show that American capitalism is a moribund system. The tax cut for rich Americans is one symbolic effort to save American capitalism. Capitalism proves itself to be a system whose workings not only generate repeated and often severe economic crises, but which also systematically shifts the costs of that instability down the social scale to the majority in the middle and the bottom. The current debate on taxes is indeed a distraction from realities of both controllable and uncontrollable factors related to the real economy and the ‘end’ of the US consumption-led form of economic growth which cannot be created again. Even if it could, the policies of saving the banks and allowing the wealthy to accumulate more wealth only make it less likely that a consumption-based economy can be recreated. The debate about taxes must transcend the revival of a moribund system. The debate should be centred on how to organise society for ordinary people and for the survival of planet earth.

A real debate on the economy needs to include a discussion of the massive military expenditures and the deployment of over 800 military bases around the world. This debate must also include a discussion of the prison–industrial complex and the opportunity costs it places on society in terms of resources not invested in education and the millions of youths who are prevented from contributing to the real economy, both in the short term (while they are locked up) and over the long term.

A real debate on the economy needs to include discussions about the fact that for decades now, wages have stagnated while productivity has gone up – while the benefits and profits have been captured by the wealthiest. This fact of the super-profits is another reason for the ‘break’ in the ability of the economy to have sufficient demand. Of course we know that the only reason why this break did not cause a crisis a decade ago is that the financial sector was able to create a ‘credit–debt’ industry to allow society to maintain the myth of consumption-led growth while at the same time having fewer total workers and less total wage income. It was this financialisation of the system that hollowed out the real economy.

The financial crisis has forever broken this structure. The world has changed.

The realities of the current revolutionary moment dictate that the sustenance of this economic mode of organisation is moribund. The urgency to address the global environmental crisis; the beginning of the end of a uni-polar world, where the limitations of military might becomes more glaring; and the increasing need for a shared humanity in socio-economic organisation of society are only few indicators of the non-sustainability of American capitalism.

OBAMA AND TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE

From all the economic analyses of nine years of the tax cut, it is clear that the wealth of the richest Americans did not trickle down to the average American, nor did it cushion US capitalism from the economic crisis. It is therefore counterintuitive that the tax cut was an economic prescription. It is even more alarming that despite the economic doldrums orchestrated by the old policy characterised by this tax relief for the wealthy, the Obama administration is extending it by two more years. In the midst of the ‘economic recession’, the tax breaks for the wealthy meant that the US society is sliding away from the model of safety net for the poor that was carved into the social security system of the New Deal. With every day of the economic crisis there is a further shift to an even more unjust economic system where it shifts more of its tax burden onto the shoulders of the majority of the working peoples, especially those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Along with this burden is the added confusion where sections of big capital mobilise poor whites to organise against their own interests. The political mobilisation of the conservative forces have been so successful that the discussions on the Bush tax cuts are carried out to bamboozle the ordinary people and to confuse the working people.

As Barack Obama is trapped by the ideal of liberal economic theory, a major question is whether he can save capitalism. Even a more urgent question is, as Toussaint attempted to take Haitians back to the plantations, would Obama’s attempt to save capitalism not take ordinary people back to the era of ultra-Reagonomics along with the cowboy-like military adventures? What is the moral justification for trying to save a moribund system by pleasing the financial oligarchs at the expense of the working people and planet earth? A serious concern is that if Obama displeases the people to please the capitalists, and yet is unable to satisfactorily please them, he may end up like Toussaint L’Ouverture.

The capacity to reverse the political and economic power of the wealthiest US citizens and ensure that Obama does not end up like Toussaint depends on a level of political mobilisation that has not yet been contemplated by even those critical of the administration.

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* Horace Campbell is a teacher and writer. Professor Campbell's website is www.horacecampbell.net. His latest book is 'Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA', published by Pluto Press.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Protest politics and attacks on foreign nationals in South Africa

Makhosini Lucky Kunene

2010-12-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69605

cc W AMakhosini Lucky Kunene explores South Africa’s post-apartheid landscape of violent service delivery protests, with a special focus on how foreign nationals have become targets in these attacks.

It has been established through research that the 2008 xenophobic attacks that took place in South Africa were planned and orchestrated by certain local leaders who sought to consolidate and accrue political and economic power in the various townships and informal areas where the attacks against foreigners were carried out.

Through a close review of studies and news reports on violence against foreign nationals in South Africa since 2008, it can also be argued that, through the increasing violent service delivery protests that have become part of South Africa’s landscape since 2004, violence continues to be perpetrated against foreign nationals. This situation cries out not only for effective strengthening of security measures and law enforcement against those who target foreign nationals during violence, but political accountability and commitment to addressing the root causes of protests as well as lack of decent housing, sanitation, jobs, corruption and political representation.

INTRODUCTION

Violence remains an endemic feature of life in South Africa, with certain sectors of the population being more at risk of falling victim. Chief among these groups are foreign nationals whose presence has increased exponentially in numbers after the transition to democracy in South Africa. There are a number of ways in which foreign nationals in the post apartheid period have been victims of violence, with the 2008 xenophobic attacks being the best recorded. But there are other continuing means in which foreign nationals become primary targets of violence in many parts of South Africa.

This paper discusses the widespread phenomenon of violent service delivery protests and how foreigners, particularly those who own shops, fall victim to the violence.

Violence against foreign nationals continues in South Africa and takes different forms. This situation undermines the values of the Constitution of the country based on human dignity and equality of all, including foreign nationals present in the country. The security of foreign nationals is ultimately linked with how the state ensures that community leaders and government authorities act promptly on community concerns and grievances and the promises politicians make to the residents of informal settlements and townships of the country. Prompt action would pre-empt genuine community grievances being hijacked by gangsters and mobs bent on taking advantage of weak groups while using genuine community challenges and other problems as a disguise.

SERVICE DELIVERY PROTESTS AND ATTACKS ON FOREIGN NATIONALS

It is widely reported in the media and acknowledged by government itself that many service delivery protests in South Africa began in 2004 or thereabout. The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs[1] (COGTA) State of Local Government Report, citing major service delivery protests by year, shows the prevalence by percentage of service delivery protests between January and July 2009 as follows: Northern Cape 12 per cent; Western Cape two per cent; North-West 17 per cent; Limpopo three per cent; Mpumalanga eight per cent; KwaZulu-Natal eight per cent; Free State 15 per cent; Gauteng 30 per cent; and, Eastern Cape five per cent.

The report acknowledges that municipalities in South Africa, rural areas in particular, are in a state of distress[2]. The latter situation of distress of municipalities and the frustrations it invites is partly confirmed by the fact that, as noted by Heese and Allan[3], service delivery protests are well supported in the communities where they take place, ‘with crowds of protestors being at least several hundred strong’, with unemployed youths[4] at the forefront of many of these protests.

One thing not agreed on is the actual trigger or root cause of the protests. Other commentators insist that at the heart of the failure to pin point the core causes of service delivery protests in South Africa today is that, as a phenomenon, they are generally poorly understood[5]. However, a stronger discourse that is carrying much of the debates at the moment is the one centered on the structural factors of South African society after1994, which encompasses issues such as intra-group inequalities, high unemployment, grinding poverty, the legacy of apartheid and general neglect of poor working class communities[6].

Heese and Allan have characterised this phenomenon as relative deprivation, especially since it is manifested through violent protests that take place in informal settlements around South Africa’s major metros[7]. Heese and Allan view relative deprivation (feelings of being sidelined and excluded based on comparison to other communities) as critical in explaining these protests due to the fact that most occur in informal settlements with high unemployment, squalid living conditions and poor local government connections or neglect thereof. [8].

Yunus Carrim’s[9] statement on the issue is instructive of the importance attached to structural exclusion in explaining the major sources of service delivery protests in South Africa today: ‘Many of the protestors are alienated from the state as a whole, not just local government, and not just the whole state, but from society too. Moreover, the protests are also about many issues that do not fall within the competency of local government or are not its core responsibilities. They are also about housing, jobs, health, crime and other issues. The protests are about the failures of service delivery of all three spheres of government, even if municipalities are being targeted.’

At the general level, migration and the rise in urban populations is recognised as one of the important contextual factors influencing contemporary issues such as violent service delivery protests in urban development discourses in South Africa and worldwide[10] and the attendant resource competition accompanied by violence.[11] Some broad triggers of service delivery protests revolve around meanings of South African citizenship. [12] Other factors that have been found to be leading causes of violence during service delivery protests also include a total breakdown in communication channels between local leaders and community members, with suspicions of corruption and undelivered promises being the most dominant factors.[13]

The South African Human Rights Report arising out of the 2008 violence[14] notes that: ‘The effective privatization of governance… leave residents of these areas convinced that they are on their own in dealing with social problems.’ The latter statement is corroborated by the comment of one of the leaders of a strong and well organised social movement called Abahlali Basemjondolo (literally meaning, Shack Dwellers), Sbu Zikode, who also emphasises the importance of land and decent housing as core concerns of people living in informal settlements in South Africa. He argues as follows: ‘But land and housing are the most urgent problems in our cities and there is serious difficulty in resolving issues. This discussion can only begin once those who do not count begin to count. We decided long ago not to accept a situation in which some people talk about the poor and even for the poor without ever speaking to the poor.’

FOREIGN NATIONALS AND SOCIAL VIOLENCE IN INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS

Ways in which foreign migrants in general are affected by violence (structural or physical) is complex owing to the complex and dynamic nature of violence itself, particularly in urban areas where city organisation or the ‘overarching political economy of cities’ may promote monopolistic domination and exclusion or deprivation.[15]. Generally however, in South Africa, David Abraham[16] notes, ‘poverty and poor service delivery are two further causal factors for xenophobic attacks.’ South Africa experiences what can be called structural xenophobia in terms of violence against foreigners, with poverty and unemployment as key factors behind many incidences of social violence against foreign nationals.[17]

Recently, there has come to light new, bewildering complexes of the violence against migrants in South Africa, where in the Eastern Cape (Port Elizabeth), some groups Somali foreign nationals who own businesses pay off local thugs to terrorise and threaten other newcomers who seek to set up small trading stalls or spaza shops.[18]

The latest big displacement of foreign nationals that took place in De Doorns, a farming area in the Western Cape where about 3,000 Zimbabweans were chased out of the area, is said to have been instigated by South African based labour brokers unhappy with Zimbabwean labour brokers operating in the same community.[19] The vile aspect of the social violence that affects foreigners in South Africa today is that which occurs during or after service delivery protests, since many of the disturbances caused by the community upheavals open up dangerous spaces for criminals to rob, loot and sometimes physically attack foreign nationals without any fear of community reprisal or of being charged of a crime.[20]

The violence of some of the service delivery protests fuels other types of violence against foreigners in South Africa specifically and throughout other parts of the world more broadly. As though drawing directly from the 2008 South African xenophobic violence example, one of the authors in a recent Red Cross journal publication notes that, ‘when immigrants are attacked, the general chaos engendered by the disturbances and their attempts to flee to safety can provide criminal groups with an opportunity to pillage, rape and even kill[21].’ In Mpumalanga, the violence that erupted during a service delivery protest in Balfour saw attacks and looting of foreign owned shops (largely those owned by Pakistani small traders); the burning down of a library and the municipal office[22].

Another community protest turned violent took place in Drieziek, Extension 3, Orange Farm, where residents who had been protesting about lack of sanitation in the community clashed with the police. A few businesses in the area were attacked, one of which belonged to a Mozambican female by the name of Grace Mhlongo, who lost all her stock and money during the mob raid on her business.[23]

There has been a substantial and meaningful amount of studies conducted in order to understand and explain the key causes of violence against foreign nationals in South Africa since the 2008 xenophobic violence. One of these studies is that of Jean Pierre Misago, Tamlyn Monson, and Loren Landau[24]. The findings of their research report revealed that the 2008 attacks were planned and orchestrated by local leaders in various communities in the country who wanted to claim and expand their political authority and make certain economic gains.[25]

The study done above, and others, have gone into detailed profiling of various communities in the country where the attacks against foreigners were widely reported. Through their investigations, they have revealed the paucity[26] of local social governance systems in communities affected by the violence against foreigners. They have also shown how the attacks on foreigners form part of the story of locally based struggles for power across the various locations and informal settlements, of course with the slow pace in social service delivery and politically based factionalisms[27] being at the background of many community protests, a view now also widely accepted and debated in the African National Congress[28].

Misago, in another article, reasoned that the link between service delivery grievances and ultimate protests and attacks on foreign nationals is difficult to establish, but that ‘poor service delivery may have played a role in heightening tensions and delegitimising political leadership in many of the affected communities’.[29]

Misago was reflecting on the trends just before and just after the 2008 xenophobic attacks, and in this regard, he was not yet aware of the exponential increase of service delivery protests in 2009, which according to the Municipal Hotspot Monitor, have been the highest recorded in the country since 2004. My own study of Alexandra[30] last year confirmed the latter view.

PROTECTING THE DIGNITY AND SECURITY OF ALL PEOPLE IN SOUTH AFRICA

Violence and abuse of foreign nationals in post apartheid South Africa, as noted above and throughout this article, goes against the very ethos of South African society as expressed through the Constitution that expressly obliges all state institutions and people of and within South Africa to act in ways that promote equality and dignity of all people regardless of race, ethnicity and other human grounds.

The rise in xenophobia in South Africa, and its violent aspects, must and should be an issue of immediate concern for the government. This is particularly because of the increase in urban populations in the country since 1994, and the highly unsatisfactorily living conditions and endemic conditions of social violence and lawlessness prevailing in many informal settlements and townships from which many poor foreign nationals and South Africans alike reside and eke out a living.

The overcrowding, unemployment and the acute sense of deprivation and lack of strong law enforcement systems experienced in poor areas all add up to the vulnerability of foreign nationals to violence during service delivery protests. As I show in this article, this has been the case after 2008 and before[31] and continues until today, as some major studies in this area have indeed argued[32].

Thus, in essence, it appears that the failure by municipalities to meet their Constitutional obligations to provide basic services in poor communities in South Africa is a panacea for the social violence directed at local government representative structures[33], but which eventually ends up also affecting foreign nationals in the communities affected by service delivery protests.

It appears, therefore, that the question of deprivation as the main driver of community protests and the violent reprisals that result needs urgent attention, as it puts at risk the lives and security of marginal groups such as foreign migrants who live in such areas and therefore requires concerted urgent efforts from government and the communities involved.

This is made even more urgent given the fact that the projection of future occurrences of service delivery protests indicates a continuation of these protests in the country. This in turn raises questions about political accountability, employment, poverty and the efficacy of systems of security and rule of law that are aimed at promoting democracy and development at the lower levels of South African society.

The municipal IQ Hotspot Monitor and other researchers have for quite some time been pointing out that the resource competition, below average political institutions and other material challenges found in informal settlements and townships in South Africa are fueling the community protests, which in their various evolving dynamics negatively affect foreign nationals. Indeed, Cormsa[34], in addressing the community uprisings of Siyathemba in Balfour that turned into xenophobic violence last year, emphasised the importance of interventions that proactively engage with ‘community concerns as a means of addressing the source of conflict as well as ensuring the safety and security of all living in the area.’

CONCLUSION

Since the May 2008 xenophobic violence, South Africa has became a household name for being a violent society, not only for violence of South Africans against other South Africans, but also for being extra violent against foreign nationals.
Ever since then, however, despite the attempts to stem the tide of violence directed at foreign nationals, they continue to bear the brunt of violence and abuse in South Africa’s poor urban and peri-urban neighbourhoods.

This paper set out to explain and clarify another means through which foreign nationals continue to experience suffering and insecurity in post apartheid South Africa by highlighting the connections between the increase in violent community protests in South Africa since 2004 and the sporadic attacks on foreigners during such community protests in various informal settlements and townships of the country.

South Africa has seen a sharp increase in community protests since the 2008 violence against foreign nationals, and these community protests (violent or not) all have the same connecting thread - grievance against a lack of or slow delivery of social services such as houses, sanitation, jobs and land to name just a few.

The community protests are very important in understanding local governance issues affecting the communities where they occur. The evidence shows that they are well supported, especially by unemployed township youths. The major targets for protesting communities has been local government officials and indeed many ward councilors have come under physical attack in various instances. But by and large, foreign nationals have been even more routinely targeted. The latter situation calls for urgent action from government, not only in beefing up security for vulnerable groups like foreign nationals, but by proactively engaging communities or residents in decisions and concerns regarding the distribution and supply of houses, sanitation, land and all of the issues that are a source of the violent service delivery protests.

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* Lucky Makhosini Kunene is a peace and security research intern with the African Institute of South Africa in Pretoria.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES:

[1] State of Local Government in South Africa: Overview Report: National State of Local Government Assessments. The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA): South Africa. 2009 p 12.
[2] Ibid, p 4-5.
[3] Karen Heese and Kevin Allan, ‘Satisfied residents, service delivery protests coexist.’ http://bit.ly/dEwpMg (Accessed, 21/10/2010).
[4] African National Congress National General Council Discussion Documents, 20-24 September 2010: Towards 100 Years of Selfless Struggle. An Umrabulo Special Edition. p 11.
[5] Kevin Allan and Karen Heese, ‘Understanding Why Service Delivery Protests take place and who is to Blame.’ http//www.municipaliq.co.za/articles (Accessed, 12/11/2010).
[6] South African Civil Society and Xenophobia: Synthesis Report. David Everatt, ‘Overview and Prospects.’ p 01. http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/Report, 2009 (Accessed, 12/11/2010); Cornell, Terreblanche and Mamdani, ‘Only Complete Reform of Economy Can Defuse Tensions,’ Cape Times, 28 May 2008; G. Ashton, ‘Xenophobia Redux,’ 2010. Pambazuka News, http//pambazuka.org/en/category (Accessed, 14/09/2010).
[7] Op Cit (footnote, 3).
[8] Kevin Allan and Karen Heese (footnote, 3 and 4).
[9] Yunus Carrim, ‘Towards a Better Understanding of the Service Delivery Protests,’ Speech at the National Council of Provinces: Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Budget Vote Debate, 23 April 2010. http://bit.ly/foMEGJ (Accessed, 14/09/2010).
[10] Haroon Bhorat and Ravi Kanbur (eds), Poverty and Policy in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Introduction). The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) Press, p 13. www.hsrcpress.ac.za (Accessed, 09/09/2010); J. Seekings and N. Nattrass (eds) Class, Race and Inequality in South Africa. Durban: UKZN Press, 2007. Through the latter pioneering study on income distribution in South Africa, Seekings and Natrass draw from extensive empirical research and scholarship to show that, in South Africa, the income inequalities are now class based, rather than being strictly racial.
[11] In an article by Municipal IQ exploring connections of service delivery failures and xenophobic attacks, the article points out how competition over scarce resources in many communities lies at the heart of the tensions and violence between South Africans and foreign nationals. Using the example of Alexandra, it notes that: ‘Alex is a highly desirable residence, close to economic activity and a hub in its own right. These benefits make competition for land and housing intense, and therein lies the truth behind an unwillingness to share with immigrants who often appear more successful.’ The Municipal IQ: Service Delivery Failures and Xenophobic Attacks. Business Day, 20 May 2008. http://bit.ly/ex2ug4 (accessed 13/03/2010.
[12] Siphamandla Zondi, ‘Towards an Understanding of Violence Against Immigrants in South Africa,’ Africa Insight, Vol. 38 (2), September 2008; Michael Neocosmos, ‘From Foreign Natives to Native Foreigners: Explaining Xenophobia in Contemporary South Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA, 2006.
[13] Allan and Heese, (footnote, 4).
[14] The South African Human Rights Commission’s (SAHRC) Report on the Investigation into Issues of Rule of Law, Justice and Impunity arising out of the 2008 Public Violence Against Non-Nationals (Foreword), p 8.
[15] An Interview with Dennis Rogers, In Urban Violence: International Review of the Red Cross. Vol. 92, No. 878, June 2010. Cambridge University Press.
[16] David Abrahams, ‘A Synopsis of Urban Violence in South Africa’ In Urban Violence: International Review of the Red Cross. Vol. 92, No. 878, June 2010. Cambridge University Press.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Somalis go to War in Kugya near Port Elizabeth, SAPA. Http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article (Accessed, 23/11/2010).
[19] Jean Pierre Misago, ‘Violence, Labour and Displacement of Zimbabweans in De Doorns, Western Cape.’ Forced Migration Studies Programme (FMSP), Migration Policy Brief 2, December 2010, p 4-6.
[20] The South African Human Rights Commission’s (SAHRC) Report on the Investigation into Issues of Rule of Law, Justice and Impunity arising out of the 2008 Public Violence Against Non-Nationals (Foreword). The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), Johannesburg. 2010; Kunene, L. (2010) Xenophobia, Inequality and Democracy in Africa: The case of xenophobic attacks on foreign nationals during service delivery protests in South Africa (A Paper Presented at the South Africa Political Studies Association 2010 Conference, 1-4 September, at the University of Stellenbosch, Wallenberg Research Centre, Cape Town.
[21] Marion Harroff-Tavel, ‘Violence and Humanitarian Action in Urban Areas: New Challenges, New Approaches.’ In Urban Violence: International Review of the Red Cross. Vol. 92, No. 878, June 2010. Cambridge University Press; Kunene, 2010.
[22] Rioters Burn Library: Now Siyathemba Wants Mayor to Go. Sapa, Sowetan, 10 February 2010; Cormsa Calls for Effective Intervention in Xenophobic Violence in Siyathemba. Press Release. 8th February, 2010. http://www.cormsa.org.za (accessed, 20/10/2010).
[23] Lebogang Seale and Kim Tshukulu, ‘Cops fire on Sharpville, Orange Farm Protesters,’ The Star, February, 2010.
[24] Pierre Misago, Loren Landau and Tamlyn Monson, ‘Towards Tolerance, Law and Dignity: Addressing Violence against Foreign Nationals in South Africa.’A Study by the International Organization for Migration (IMO)- Southern African Regional Office and the Forced Migration Studies Programme (FMSP), University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, February, 2009; Jean Pierre Misago, Tamlyn Monson, Tara Polzer and Loren Landau, ‘May 2008 Violence Against Foreign Nationals in South Africa: Understanding Causes and Evaluating Responses.’ Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (CorMSA) and Forced Migration Studies Programme (FMSP), Johannesburg, April 2010.
[25] Tara Polzer, ‘Xenophobia’: Violence against Foreign Nationals and other ‘Outsiders’ in Contemporary South Africa,’ Forced Migration Studies Programme (FMSP), University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, June, 2010, p 04.
[26] Ibid, p 04.
[27] Service Delivery Protests: Policy Brief 4. South African Local Government Association (SALGA). June, 2007. www.salga.net/home (Accessed, 13/10/2010); The COGTA Report, p
[28] Ibid, footnote 4.
[29] P. Misago(a) Xenophobioc Violence in South Africa: Reflections on the Causal Factors and Implications, Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) Policy Studies Bulletin of CPS, Volume, 10. Number 3, August 2009
[30] Kunene, M.L. (2010), 'Post Apartheid Social Violence in South African Informal Settlements: The Case of the Xenophobic Violence in Section 2, Alexandra.' Report Funded by Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and Africa Institute of South Africa.
[31] Open Hearings on Xenophobia and Problems Related to It. Report. The South African Human Rights Commission and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs.
[32] Tolerating the Intolerable: Xenophobic Violence in South Africa (A Report). Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative (CRAI). July 2009. Http://www.citizenshiprightsinafrica.org (Accessed, 20/10/2009); David Abraham, 2010 (footnote, 17).
[33] Kunene, M.L., and Maseng, J.O., (2010) The Constitutionality of Service Delivery Protests and Violent Service Delivery in South Africa: Key Issues in Governance in Post Apartheid South Africa. A Paper Presented at the Mandela Institute’s Conference on Globalization and Governance, Chalsty Teaching and Conference Centre, School of Law, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 14-16 October, 2010.
[34] Cormsa Calls for Effective Intervention in Xenophobic Violence in Siyathemba. Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (Cormsa). Press Statement, 8th February, 2010. Http://www.cormsa.org.za

South Africa: Structural oppression and the future of democracy

Pedro Alexis Tabensky

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69657

cc I G NFollowing the ANC Youth League disruption of a UPM-convened public meeting to discuss the water crisis affecting poorer areas of an Eastern Cape municipality, Pedro Alexis Tabensky observes that ‘sadly for our democracy, this sort of oppressive behaviour in the name of the ANC seems to be part of a general trend of violence exerted against social movements’ .

I recently attended a meeting of the Unemployment Peoples’ Movement (UPM) in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape, which was convened with the aim of exploring the causes of the severe water crisis currently affecting thousands of residents in the poorer areas of Makana Greater Municipality. Many of those affected have been without water for over ten months. The Makana Municipality has done little to address the crisis and it is not treating it as severe humanitarian emergency. The meeting was well attended by affected residents, but it had to be cut short because a group of men who identified themselves as ANC (African National Congress) Youth League members deliberately sabotaged the meeting with loudly and unremittingly voiced insults, accusations and threats. Things were looking like they could turn violent and the security of those in attendance could not be guaranteed. The police were called on several occasions by the organisers, but when they arrived they were turned away by one of the saboteurs before they could enter the venue where the meeting was being held.

The UPM is an independent grassroots movements aimed at empowering the poor. One would expect that the ANC would openheartedly support such initiatives, especially given that movements such as the UPM have no electoral ambitions. But clearly those who disrupted the event perceived it as a potential threat to the ANC. Many unsubstantiated threats were made, including incoherent allegations aimed at one of the speakers, hydrologist and director of the Institute for Water Research at Rhodes University, Professor Denis Hughes, and the chairperson of UPM, Mr Ayanda Kota. Both were accused of being Democratic Alliance- sponsored members of the AWB (Afrikaner Resistance Movement). It is revealing that such incoherent and unsubstantiated accusations were levelled, as it suggests that the saboteurs find it difficult to imagine that members of a social movement could be motivated by a genuine concern for justice rather than for obtaining favours from one political organisation or another. And this in turn strongly suggests that the saboteurs themselves are not motivated by justice. Revealingly, I was accused –presumably because I was one of the few middle class white faces present – of personally sponsoring Mr Kota to the tune of 15 million rand, something I could not possibly afford to do. In any case, the saboteurs made no effort at all to substantiate these wild allegations and it is clear, from the purely disruptive style of their interventions, that they had little interest in the facts or in genuine justice.

The saboteurs had no interest, for instance, in providing evidence in support of local government against claims that it was doing far too little to address the desperate water situation. They could have done this in question time, but decided instead to sabotage the event from the moment it started, strongly suggesting that they were merely interested in blindly defending the perceived interests of the ANC, even if morally dubious. ‘This is the ANC government’, one of the saboteurs claimed, ‘so the ANC will have the last say’. In other words, ‘We are in power and we do what we like’. A corollary to this claim is, ‘Don’t you mess with us’.

Local municipal officials, Mr Dabulo Njilo (director of Technical and Infrastructural Services), Mr Mongezi Mabece (assistant director for Water Services), and Ms Ntombi Baart (Municipal manager), were invited by the UPM to discuss the water crises at the meeting, but they replied that they would not attend because proper procedures had not been followed. It may be the case that they were not – according to Mr Xola Mali of UPM, experience has taught them that going through intricate official ‘accountability structures’ always leads to nothing—but the situation is so dire and the local government’s response has been so minimal that one cannot be blamed for suspecting that local officials have little interest in the plight of their constituency. Or, equally disturbingly, they are not fully aware of the scale of the problem, of what it means for thousands of human beings to live without water.

In conversation with UPM members, I was informed that this sort of sabotage, perpetrated by those stating their allegiance to the ruling party, has happened regularly during meetings convened by them. And, sadly for our democracy, this sort of oppressive behaviour in the name of the ANC seems to be part of a general trend of violence exerted against social movements.

What happened in Grahamstown is an example of what has become an all too disturbing trend across the country, affecting informal groups of concerned residents, and more established movements such as UPM, Abahlali baseMjondolo, and the Landless People’s Movement as recently reported, among others, by Professor Jane Duncan of Rhodes University and Mr Niren Tolsi of the Mail & Guardian. But, given the environment of intimidation and, except for and handful of exceptions, the lack of interest by the media in systematically reporting violations against the poor, these incidents tend not to be widely discussed in public space. And, yet, the health of our young democracy depends on there being clarity regarding what sorts of undemocratic political pressures are being exerted on a large percentage of the generally voiceless electorate.

What I have said above could be thought of as evidence that the ANC leadership is coordinating things from the top, but I don’t know that it is. And there probably would be little reason for them to do this given that there are structural conditions in place that will encourage grassroots oppression to mushroom spontaneously across the country, without the need for centralised coordination. But the fact that the relevant structures are not decisively being undermined from the top should be seen as a grave failing on the part of the ruling party, and should shed doubt on their commitment to the ideals they claim dearly to uphold.

Briefly, here is a list of key structural features that are encouraging widespread grassroots oppression: First, a culture of patronage where ultra-loyalists tend to obtain favours from local government. Second, poverty, unemployment and low skill levels make it the case that for some ultra-loyalist grassroots activism in favour of the ruling party is pretty much their only viable career path. Finally, there is a deep culture of blind quasi-fanatical allegiance to the ANC, making it seem in the eyes of ultra-loyalists as if any movement outside of ANC structures deserves to be crushed. This quasi-fanatical loyalty is fuelled by a deep lack of tolerance for dissenting voices among the ANC elite, as evidenced most recently by a statement by South African Communist Party deputy general secretary, Mr Jeremy Cronin, where he attacks voices of dissent coming from grassroots independent social movements on the grounds that they unwittingly aid those who are opposed to social transformation.

For genuine democracy to prosper in our country, these abject structural pressures, and no doubt others as well, need vigorously to be exposed and opposed.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Professor Pedro Alexis Tabensky is in the Department of Philosophy, Rhodes University, South Africa.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Ethiopia: The Anuaks’ forgotten genocide

A conversation with Obang Metho

Alemayehu G. Mariam

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69647

cc TurkairoIn conversation with Obang Metho, executive director of the Anuak Justice Council and the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia, Alemayehu G. Mariam discusses the forgotten genocide of the Anuak, ‘in solemn anticipation of the seventh anniversary’ of the massacres over the period 13–16 December.

A report by the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program on the Anuak concluded: ‘From December 2004 to at least January 2006, the ENDF (Ethiopian National Defense Forces) attacked and abused Anuak civilians in Gambella region - wantonly killing, raping, beating, torturing, and harassing civilians in response to ongoing Anuak rebel attacks. These abuses left Anuak villagers fearful of leaving their homes at night, going to the fields and farms outside of town, or fetching water from the water pumps or streams.’[1]

These are excerpts from an extended conversation I had with Obang Metho, the well-known Ethiopian human rights advocate, in solemn anticipation of the seventh anniversary of the December 13-16, 2003 Anuak massacres this coming Monday. The interview is captioned ‘forgotten genocide’ because very few people know what happened to the Anuak seven years ago was genocide as defined under Art. 2 of the 1948 Genocide Convention. In the interest of full disclosure, in September 2006, I was honoured to be the keynote speaker[2] at the University of California, Los Angeles premier of ‘Betrayal of Democracy’, a heartbreaking and gut-wrenching documentary on the Anuak massacre produced by the Anuak Justice Council, Obang Metho, Executive Director, in collaboration with the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

ALEMAYEHU G. MARIAM: As you know November and December are very sad months for Ethiopians. In November 2005, following the election that year, hundreds of unarmed demonstrators were massacred in the streets. The world knows a lot about those crimes. But I am not sure if too many people other than the Anuak remember what happened in December in 2003. To be frank, with the exception of some Anuak I have met, I don't recall having any serious conversations with other Ethiopians about what happened to the Anuak people in Gambella seven years ago. Do you think your other countrymen and women really care about what happened at that time?

OBANG METHO: First of all, I want to thank you on behalf of the Anuak for joining with them in remembering some of the darkest days of Anuak history and for bringing this tragedy to the attention of Ethiopians now in 2010. I am sure that Meles never expected that seven years after the genocide of the Anuak that others, like yourself, would have joined together to commemorate this day.

You ask whether other Ethiopians really care about what happened to the Anuak. At the time of the massacre, the only Ethiopian organization that came to the defence of the Anuak was EHRCO [Ethiopian Human Rights Council]; otherwise, it was either overlooked or was not known among most Ethiopians. This was not surprising for several reasons. First, the Anuak were a remote, tiny and marginalized ethnic group who were not part of the mainstream of events in the country. Secondly, Ethiopians were very divided by ethnicity, region, skin colour, political view, language, culture and to a lesser extent, by religion; so what was important was what happened to one's own group and the rest tended to be ignored. Thirdly, even today, what happens in Addis Ababa has always received far more attention than what occurs in the rural parts of Ethiopia where most Ethiopians live. Fourthly, the Ethiopian government does its best to cover up their crimes so it does not get out to the mainstream media. If the news does get out, they simply deny their own responsibility, twist the truth and blame others or try to excuse what happened as one of the regrettable consequences of ‘ethnic conflict’ or use other justifications to avoid responsibility. The government even issues a whitewashed report absolving itself of any responsibility in the massacres.

It is true that the November 2005 killing of 194 unarmed protesters in Addis Ababa and elsewhere in the country created a groundswell of outraged response from many sectors of the Ethiopian community because they could identify with the victims, and the killings were carried out in plain view. It became impossible to hide, even to the international community.

However, this was not the case in the majority of violent incidents that have taken place over the past two decades all over the country. We have over 86 different ethnicities; many of them live in remote, rural and marginalized communities and are silenced violently like the Anuak were in 2003 without too much publicity. In fact, the Anuak genocide is now much better known and more remembered than most of the other incidents that have been perpetrated by the TPLF [Meles Zenawi's party] against Ethiopians.

For example, in July of 2002, 200 Mazengers -- neighbours to the Anuak in Gambella -- were brutally killed, but who knows about this? In 2001, 100 Sidamo were massacred. Who remembers these victims today? Ethiopians were killed in 1992 in Badenyo and in Arba Gogu. In all few remember these anniversaries. I say ask the Oromo about the tens of thousands of their people who have been beaten, tortured, imprisoned and murdered in the last twenty years by the Meles regime. How can we remember an anniversary when there are so many incidents and they are still ongoing? Ask the Afar about the displacements and human rights abuses they are facing right now. Ask the Benishangul about the same displacements and human rights abuses in their area. Ask the Ogadeni about the genocide being committed against them as we speak. It is not all about ‘remembering,’ but about standing with the victims against such barbaric aggression. We can keep going on for the list is endless and many cases are still unknown.

This is why the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia (SMNE) was formed. We must no longer mourn alone; it is time to take action. Meles' government cannot stop on 80 million people if we all stood up for each other and together. I believe we Ethiopians will finally come together in this way to stop this oppression. Only then will we hear the countless stories that have never been told of the immeasurable suffering of our people, and not just the Anuak.

ALEMAYEHU G. MARIAM: Let's nail down the facts about what happened in Gambella during the infamous three days in December in 2003, and in the days preceding and following. What are the established facts?

OBANG METHO: Meles and those carrying out the atrocities against the Anuak believed them to be expendable people; they thought of them as road blocks on the way to the oil fields, the fertile lands and abundant water and rich natural resources on indigenous Anuak land. They targeted those individuals who were the voices of the community and have a say in the exploration and development of oil on their land. As you might remember, when the killing squads went through Gambella town looking for the next Anuak to brutally kill, they chanted, ‘Today there will be no more Anuak,’ ‘Today there will be no more Anuak land’. As they raped the women they said, ‘Today there will be no more Anuak babies.’ Within three days, 424 Anuak were dead.

When I received news, it was the darkest day of my life. My world was turned upside down. Among the 424 Anuak killed, I personally knew 317 of them. They were my family, my classmates and many others with whom I had been working to bring development not just to the Anuak, but to the region. Most were educated and outspoken. I have no doubts that I would have been one of the victims had I been living there at the time.

The Anuak genocide occurred as a surreal event as no one discussed it. When international news covered the massacre, they picked up the Ethiopian government's spin, which described it as an ethnic conflict between the Anuak and the Nuer. That is not true. Later on, Oromo soldiers, who had not even been in the area, were scapegoated for the killings. When I testified before the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights in March and April of 2004, I did not speak only about the Anuak, but spoke of the Oromo and others facing persecution.

However, it was only after I testified before the US Congress in March of 2006 that I became more involved in the mainstream Ethiopian community. By that time, I had been to the capital cities of most of the donor countries in Europe and in North America exposing the Anuak massacre and ongoing human rights violations against the Anuak. After the November 2005 killing of unarmed election demonstrators in Addis Ababa and other parts of the country, other Ethiopians joined in this effort. Unfortunately, most tended to cluster around their own individual ethnic or political party interests rather than joining together as a whole. Sometimes we were working at cross purposes. I often wonder where we would be today had we been willing to collaborate then. I hope we don't have to ask ourselves that question five years from now.

ALEMAYEHU G. MARIAM: I don't believe many of us in the larger Ethiopian community adequately expressed our outrage against the crimes perpetrated against the Anuak. Perhaps many of us did not particularly care, didn't know or were just indifferent. After all, the Anuak are a tiny minority. Do you sense indifference among other Ethiopians to the plight of the Anuak?

Permit me to answer this question by asking another question. How many mainstream Ethiopian people you see writing about the ongoing genocide in the Ogaden or about the displacements of people as foreign investors align with this one-party government in grabbing the Ethiopian peoples' land and resources in places like Benishangul-Gumuz, on the borders of the Amhara region or even in Addis Ababa where graves are to be bull-dozed to make room for someone who seeks ‘ownership’ of the land? This is not just indifference to the Anuak, but it is indifference to the problems our people are experiencing all over the country. The Anuak are only one example. This is why we need a ‘NEW ETHIOPIA!’

Not seeing the full humanity of each of us is the reason we have so many liberation fronts created not simply to break away from the country, but instead, created predominately to protect the interests and lives of the people that are not valued by others. As long as some feel they are more Ethiopian and see others as being of less worth, we will have indifference to the plight of others. This is why we have formed the SMNE, to fight for a new Ethiopia that values all her children the same way regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion, political view or any other distinctions. The reason why many of these separatist groups do not want to associate with ‘Ethiopia’ as they see it because they don't see much inclusiveness in the larger Ethiopian community. Meles has had an easy time of dividing and ruling; and until we all change from the heart, we will not emerge from our collective suffering.

ALEMAYEHU G. MARIAM: When you came out in public in 2006 and sought help to put a light on the Anuak massacres, did you get your much support from other Ethiopians? Did you make an effort to mobilize Ethiopians in the Diaspora, and if not why not?

OBANG METHO: In the midst of the genocide and ongoing human rights crimes, I sought organizations and government officials who were in the best position to intervene. Genocide Watch president, Dr. Greg Stanton, was one of the first to respond to my call for assistance. At the same time, some Anuak and their friends in Minnesota had already decided to send a team, which soon included me, to interview Anuak survivors and witnesses to the genocide who had fled to a refugee camp in Sudan. We hoped to gather information and evidence while the memories were still fresh. At Dr. Stanton's suggestion, we added a seasoned human rights investigator in our group. Following the investigation, we issued a report, ‘Today is the Day for Killing Anuak.’ A subsequent investigation was also completed resulting in the report, ‘Operation Sunny Mountain,’ which linked the massacre to the top officials of Meles in Addis Ababa.

Human Rights Watch did an investigation and issued two separate reports, ‘Targeting the Anuak: Human Rights Violations and Crimes against Humanity in Ethiopia's Gambella Region’( 3/24/05) and ‘Ethiopia and Eritrea: Promoting Stability, Democracy and Human Rights’(5/5/05). The International Human Rights Clinic at the Harvard Law School issued another report, ‘We Are Now Hoping for Death’, (12/14/06). In all, the Anuak Justice Council was involved in coordinating the completion of five separate human rights investigations on the massacres.

We did not attempt to mobilize Ethiopians until 2006, following my testimony before the U.S. Congress when I made strong connections with other Ethiopians. At the time, ethnic and political divisions created competition between Ethiopians. Rather than working to advance similar goals, some tried to hijack the work of others or refused to collaborate. Even though this continues to be a characteristic shortcoming of many in the struggle for Ethiopian freedom and justice, I believe today Ethiopians are discarding peripheral differences to work together in common cause. I think Ethiopians suffering in the country would be highly encouraged if they saw real progress towards this goal among us in the Diaspora. It is only then that we can work together to mobilize the people within Ethiopia towards a national rather than an ethnic solution!

ALEMAYEHU G. MARIAM: How do we keep the memories of the Anuak massacre victims alive? What can we do as individuals and as a community, that is Anuaks and other Ethiopians together?

No one except the Anuak may have cried for them in 2003, but today, millions of Ethiopians know about the Anuak genocide. On December 13th, Ethiopians may remember the pain and suffering of the Anuak; speaking to others about it, praying for the survivors, joining with Anuak they know in a service of remembrance or calling them to personally talk. Many Anuak will shed tears as they remember those dark days and the subsequent grief and hardship resulting from their losses. May this remembrance be a call to all Ethiopians to reflect on the losses of their own loved ones or those of others in the country. We have suffered much as a country. We should try to lift up others with similar losses and wounds.

For me, I will join with other Anuak in Minnesota in a service to remember December 13th; honouring the memory of those who lost their lives and praying for the future of the people and Ethiopia. For me, the pain has somewhat subsided, but my memory of this horrific loss motivates me to work to prevent it from happening again to the Anuak or anyone else. If Ethiopians have forgotten the memory of the Anuak genocide in 2010, the reasons may be somewhat different than 2003.

First of all, we Ethiopians are in great distress right now. It is natural for memories to fade, but when we are still struggling for survival, it is easy to become diverted with one new crisis after another. It is important not to forget so that we can take hold of a better future, but part of remembering ‘rightly’ will take place when peace comes to Ethiopia, when justice is finally served and when the perpetrators and their bosses are held accountable.

Another reason for the memory subsiding is that the Anuak are not alone. Many others have also suffered at the hands of this regime both before and after the Anuak genocide. Look at the genocide going on right now in the Ogaden. Look at the daily beatings, killings and imprisonment of innocent Ethiopians now carried out by this repressive regime all over our country.

Due to the current dictatorial regime, Ethiopians must first become free before official memorials will be constructed, but that time will come. Several years ago I talked about how the death of the Anuak will never be forgotten as long as there are those who care about justice. Even though the current regime would like to obliterate or ‘whitewash’ the memory of these shameful acts, we Ethiopians must be sure they are not forgotten.

When this TPLF government finally collapses, not only do I envision a memorial for the Anuak in Gambella, but also in Addis Ababa where not only will the Anuak be represented, but many others known and unknown who have tragically died at the hands of the Meles regime. At that time, Ethiopians will build a wall of shame where we can go to remember how the government that was supposed to protect the people turned out to be their mortal enemy. It will serve as a sobering reminder of how we must work to preserve a respect for the humanity in each of us.

ALEMAYEHU G. MARIAM: Is there anything being done to bring to justice those who committed the crimes against the Anuak in 2003? Are there any efforts underway?

OBANG METHO: Yes! We have a very strong legal foundation in place for that day in court where Meles and others will finally be held accountable. This is due to all the human rights investigations and documentation completed by groups like Genocide Watch, Human Rights Watch and others. The case of the Anuak alone is very strong; but when combined with others, all of this abundant evidence may easily form the foundational basis for future prosecutions. The case of the Anuak is before the International Criminal Court (ICC) right now and the UN High Commissioner is looking at the case referred by Dr. Greg Stanton regarding the pattern of human rights abuses in Ethiopia at the hands of this government. I am confident that the time will come for Ethiopians to finally obtain justice. Look at the case of Cambodia where evidence collected and secured over twenty years ago produced convictions just this year. Meles is no different than Omar al Bashir. The tide is certain to change and we will be ready!

ALEMAYEHU G. MARIAM: From what you have been able to gather, is there systematic persecution still going on against the Anuak?

OBANG METHO: The new systematic persecution has everything to do with the ‘new fever’ for Anuak land and resources. It is being advanced with speed and intensity in the case of the Anuak and other indigenous peoples of Gambella, but is also going on throughout the country; wherever there is resistance to this plan to dispossess the people of their land and assets. People from Gambella, Benishangul-Gumuz, Oromiya, Afar and Ogaden have officially been put on notice to move from their homes to be resettled in camps. Those who speak out have been harassed, threatened or beaten. In the case of the Anuak, some have turned up dead, floating in the river or have been beaten to death. We do not know what will happen to the people if they refuse to leave their homes; something that is a definite possibility. It certainly could trigger fresh violence by government security forces.

How should we, as Ethiopians, work together to prevent the type of genocide that happened to the Anuak does not happen to any other groups in Ethiopia?

December 13th should act as a reminder of the shared pain of our people and act to bring us Ethiopians together to ‘mourn under one tent’ as has been done in our traditional culture for many years. Inside the tent is the land of Ethiopia and our beautiful and precious people. The roof of that tent is the sky over our beloved country. Because of the pain, misery and ongoing threats to our survival as a nation, we must come together to find a common vision and lasting solution. This is at the heart of everything the SMNE and others have been trying to do.

Now is the time to change our thinking about each other and BEGIN to build a healthier, more inclusive society. No one but the Anuak and their friends cared about them in 2003, but we have a chance to do it over. The land grabs and human rights abuses going on right now; not only to the Anuak but to all the people of Ethiopia should sound the trumpet to gather together. Some only want to gather if they are in charge. This attitude will surely defeat us. We must ask ourselves how much we really care about potential tragedy if egos or hunger for power stand in the way. I do think we are better in 2010 than we were in 2003, but we are still not where we need to be.

The many loved ones I lost can never be replaced, but I trust God that their lives were not lost in vain. Ethnic domination and marginalization of others due to ethnicity, skin colour, culture, education, gender or religion is unjustifiable. It was the reason the Anuak were singled out to be slaughtered among the 50,000 people who also lived in the city of Gambella. It was the reason why the government viewed them as a threat rather than as valuable human beings. As most survivors among the Anuak say, the Ethiopian government does not want the Anuak people, but only the resources. These resources on their indigenous land remain today as the chief threat to their survival as they stand in the way of the regime's ambitions in the area; yet the Anuak are not alone as Ethiopians are becoming more accepting of each other.

Over the last seven years, I have met many wonderful Ethiopians like yourself, who have come into my life, contributing in some unique and special ways. You asked me about a story I have told many times about my experience in Washington DC some years ago with an Ethiopian cab driver who could not believe I was Ethiopian. I must say, Ethiopian cab drivers today are among the most educated and politically astute Ethiopians around. They know about the Anuak and the other diverse people of Ethiopia. Now, when I get in a cab in Washington DC, a more common experience I have is the driver who refuses to accept any fare for the ride saying, ‘I want to contribute to the struggle.’ This is not about me or the Anuak, but about caring about the suffering people of our beautiful country. Yes, we should remember our painful history as a lesson for the future, but we must also embrace each other as we collaborate to create a New Ethiopia where there is room for all of us!

ALEMAYEHU G. MARIAM: With all the land-grabbing and population displacement, some 45,000 plus people from Gambella being moved to make way for international land-grabbers, do you have fears that what happened in December 2003 could happen again?

OBANG METHO: Yes, because once again, this regime's greed for ‘more’ is leading to robbing the most vulnerable people of Ethiopia of their land and resources. Because these people ‘do not count,’ they are simply in the way of what this regime wants. If the people resist, the Meles government has been known to use any justification to use military force to subdue them; which could easily lead to ethnic-based killing. I do not think the people will all peacefully cooperate in this plan to displace themselves they have lived on for millennia. In 2003, the genocide was about oil. In 2010, it is about land, gold, potash, natural gas and even sand for concrete.

These are the new precipitating factors that could lead to genocide, crimes against humanity and other human rights violations. However, there is also the passive side of a new form of ‘genocide’ that could lead to putting at imminent risk, large populations of some of the most vulnerable people of our country; not necessarily in terms of direct killings, but in terms of jeopardizing the long-term survival and well being of huge groups of people who are being forced from their homes and land all over the country. How will these people support themselves?

We need to care about the pain of each other more than we care about the power and advancement of one particular group of Ethiopians for ‘none of us will be free until all are free.’ By the time I spoke before Congress in 2006, when our paths first crossed, I had already come to the conclusion that justice would never come to the Anuak until justice came to all Ethiopians; that until we cared about the wellbeing of others based on the God-given worth of every person--putting humanity before ethnicity--that Ethiopia would only produce serial dictators who would take turns preying on the vulnerable.

This is why when I testified I said I was not there not only for the Anuak, but also for the Tigrayans who disagreed with the cruelties of the Meles regime, the oppressed Oromos, the Somalis, the Afar and the other ethnic groups throughout Ethiopia who have been targeted by this regime. I said I was there for the Ethiopian woman whose son or daughter had been shot dead on the streets of Addis Ababa after the national elections and for the CUD leaders and young student protesters who had been taken away from their families and put in prisons and detention centres. I was there for those courageous prisoners of conscience, languishing in prisons throughout Ethiopia. I wanted my voice to not be my own but theirs; warning others that our country was in grave danger; that our nation was dying.

This was an effort to break out of our isolated boxes of caring only for our own tribe or ethnicity. It was the beginning of the SMNE. Today, the danger is greater than on that day and unless we put aside our differences and find common ground to unite, we have no hope. This regime will kill again and are doing so as we speak. Yet, God can help us change and I see a rising momentum for such change coming from many different groups of Ethiopians.

In 2003, we would never be having this discussion; yet, today, you are bringing these issues to the forefront. Both you and I have worked closely over the past four years on many issues. Through your many informed and insightful commentaries and analyses, you have contributed much to the discussion of the current situation by exposing the true nature of the regime and by creating greater international awareness and factual understanding of the dictatorship and repression in Ethiopia. This interview is just another example of your willingness to think beyond the ethnic-based paradigm that has defeated us for so many years. Because of people like you, who are willing to become the voices for a different kind of Ethiopia, a ‘new Ethiopia’ of the future. May it inspire others to join with us! Thank you so much my friend!

ALEMAYEHU G. MARIAM: Thank you Obang for sharing your thoughts. It has been an honor working with you all these years. They say, ‘If you want peace, work for justice.’ We all want peace in Ethiopia and for the Ethiopian people. So, we'll be right there with you working for justice; we are with you in trying to bring to justice those perpetrators of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. It's only because of scheduling conflict that I am unable to join you and the Anuak community in Minneapolis for the memorial on December 13. But be assured that all Ethiopians join you in observing this tragic date in spirit. I hope the Ethiopian in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, my old ‘stomping grounds’, will come out in full force and attend the memorial and show their solidarity with our Anuak brothers and sisters.

OBANG METHO: Thank you.

REMEMBER THE FORGOTTEN ANUAK GENOCIDE OF DECEMBER 2003

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Alemayehu G. Mariam is professor of political science at CSU San Bernardino.
* This article was first published by The Huffington Post.
* Follow Alemayehu G. Mariam on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pal4thedefense.
* Obang Metho is the executive director of the Anuak Justice Council and the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/hrp/clinic/documents/ETHIOPIAREPORT.pdf
[2] http://www.ethiomedia.com/carepress/al_mariam_on_doc_film.pdf

RESOURCE LINKS ON THE ANUAK MASSACRES:

http://www.mcgillreport.org/anuak_genocide_links.htm

Kenya’s new port: The end of Lamu's cultural heritage?

Zahra Moloo

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69659

cc K R GAs the Kenyan government continues its plans for multi-billion dollar port, oil and transport project, Zahra Moloo considers the socio-economic and environmental effects on Lamu and the absence of news coverage on the topic.

Landing on Lamu Island is akin to taking a step back in history. One of the original settlements along the East African coast, the town has retained its rich stone architecture and traditional Swahili culture. Donkeys trot along one of the two main streets of the town, by the water's edge, laden with heavy sacks. In the town square, residents and visitors perch on stone benches drinking tea until late at night and listening to the local news on the radio. The town has few cars, the most prominent being the rusty three-wheel ambulance parked close to the town's donkey hospital. Hundreds of fishermen eke out a living at sea with their traditional boats.

Lamu's old town was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2001 and its charm lies in its uniquely coastal and enduring culture that has escaped the expanding commercialisation quickly taking hold in other parts of the country. A signboard in one of the more expensive hotels along the Lamu coast instructs visitors to ‘tread gently … otherwise, the effect of your presence will destroy this rare and remarkable place.’

But the Kenyan government is treading without any caution as it signs into effect an economic deal that could very well herald the end of Lamu as it is now. The multi-billion dollar Lamu Southern Sudan Ethiopia Transport project, LAPSSET, is the government's latest plan for the area, which will consist of a port on the neighbouring island of Manda Bay, a new road network, an oil refinery and pipeline, an airport and a series of resort cities. According to the government, the aim of the project is part of its grand economic plan, Kenya Vision 2030, to accelerate the country's transformation into a ‘rapidly industrializing middle-income nation by 2030’. The developments will strategically link the country to oil-rich South Sudan and land-locked Ethiopia and develop the country's coastal tourism sector for a particularly wealthy clientele.

For residents of Lamu island, the project remains shrouded in mystery and corruption. Many say they were never consulted by the government and only heard about the port's construction through the media. ‘Truly our government is hiding everything, you know. As you know it's called serekali – it means high secret. Four or five years ago people came for the exploration of the fuel and the gas. Afterwards they just go and nobody knows what is going on,’ says Hassan, a leader of a youth group that organises dhow trips for tourists.* A firm from Qatar interested in cutting a stake in the project allegedly sat down with the local authorities and then disappeared, adding to the general confusion. The story emerged in 2008 when the Kenyan government was planning to lease 100,000 acres of land to the Qatari government to grow food, in return for funding the port project.[1] More recently, the Chinese government granted President Mwai Kibaki 1.2 billion Kenya shillings in funding for the port.[2] In the Office of the Chairman of the Council of Elders of Lamu, newspaper clippings about the port have been pasted to the wall, emphasising the irony of having to rely on news reports from the city centre to find out what is happening on the island's doorstep. Indeed, Lamu appears infrequently in the mainstream media and given the project's size, investment and impact, surprisingly little has been written about the country's second port.

The relative absence of such a big story in the media is perhaps part of the island's historic marginalisation from the rest of Kenya as a whole. Journalist Joseph Kipkoetch writes that the government's expropriation of land in the 1970s for Kikuyu settlers led some Swahilis to believe that this was a deliberate attempt to destroy their economic power.[3] Today, whilst Lamu's largely Muslim populations are proud of their history, many say that they want to see more government investment in roads, schools and basic infrastructure. The island's tourist attractions, including marine tours, have done little to benefit surrounding communities. The hotels and private houses cater to the likes of President Barack Obama and the princess of Monaco, while the villages around the island remain extremely poor – residents have no electricity or running water and cases of malaria are widespread.[4] Hotels, lodges and private houses owned by wealthy British, Irish and Italian property owners and costing up to UK£1 million co-exist side by side with the island's poor residents and fishermen, two separate realities that epitomise Kenya's status as one of most unequal countries in the world.

But Lamu's marginalisation from the rest of the country, its apparent inequalities and its up-scale tourism industry are not the only problems the island has had to contend with. US AFRICOM, the US military and counter-terrorism operation, has maintained a constant presence in East Africa for more than a decade. The Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), as part of AFRICOM, has been slowly trying to ‘win the hearts and minds’ of East African's Muslim communities, a strategy all too familiar to Kenyans who lived under British colonial rule.[5] US military officials frequently patrol Lamu island's narrow streets. With their base on the same island as the proposed port, the military has reportedly been conducting counter-terrorism operations in the region and channelling US foreign aid into projects that one analyst, Mark Bradbury, suggests are simplistic, if not downright patronising.[6] One officer with AFRICOM describes how his colleagues, missionary-like, have been interacting with local communities, building latrines in schools and distributing English books to poor students[7] – a counter-terrorism operation glossed over by clean American goodwill.

In an analysis of AFRICOM, writer Ba Karang explains: ‘It has become clear that the idea was not primarily to fight against Islamic terror, which was said to be growing in influence, but to help expand American military and economic (mainly energy) interests.’[8] Lamu's residents are well aware of this. ‘Americans they come here because of the border of Somalia, but this is a propaganda time. Americans they want petrol. They pay a lot of money to make schools for the children, but they want something for the future, resources from here. Otherwise, they are not doing anything here,’ says Ali Mahdi, a Lamunian involved in painting and recycling on the island.

The media's constant preoccupation with Somali pirates in the region, which otherwise has little interest in the quiet island of Lamu, has detracted attention from the stakes of the port project. Many Kenyans believe that the project is already mired in corruption. Jaindi Kisero of Architecture Kenya has said it is astonishing that the Kenyan government, due to its inability to finance such a colossal project, is planning to pay a Japanese consultant an outrageous 3.2 billion shillings in taxpayers money for a feasibility study, only to sell the project to a third party to build it.[9] But Lamu's residents have plenty of additional reasons to be fearful of the future. The conservation organisation Mangrove Action Project launched an action alert in 2009 which stated that the port's construction will have devastating consequences on the mangrove forests, coral reefs and critically endangered populations of dugong around the island.[10] Hassan from the island's youth organisation says that 90 dhow operators depend on tourism for their livelihoods, arranging boat and marine trips to the islands around Lamu. Also a part-time fisherman, he says that the port will decimate the fishing industry that supports hundreds of small-scale fishermen. The fishermen who have lived off the sea their entire lives have no alternative means of livelihood. The port project has also brought into question the contentious issue of land. Residents who do not hold title deeds are afraid they will be displaced without compensation, while investors, keen on their future prospects, are willing to pay up to 10 million shillings for an acre of land.

Demonstrations held in Lamu against the port when the project was announced had little effect on the government's decision. Environmental activists had hoped that the UN would voice its opposition to the project, given that UNESCO granted the island its status as a World Heritage Site. But Director General Irina Bokova has said that the UN will only monitor the developments and inform the government if the town's heritage is endangered.[11] It is unclear what evidence the UN will need to make this judgment. Unless more pressure is exerted on the Kenyan government from both within and outside Lamu to stop its destructively ambitious economic project, Lamunians like Hassan have few reasons to be hopeful for the future. ‘Lamu will just become a museum. One day people will come and see a small stone saying 'here stood Lamu island’.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Zahra Moloo is an independent journalist from Kenya who focuses on mining and environmental justice issues.
* Names of interviewees have been changed.
* Pambazuka readers are invited to sign the Mangrove Action Project petition.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] Xan Rice, ‘Qatar Looks to Grow Food in Kenya,’ The Guardian, December 2, 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/02/land-for-food-qatar-kenya
[2] Mazera Ndurya and Githua Kihara, ‘Kenya: Land Fears as Lamu Port Project Looms,’ All Africa, 3 May 2010, http://allafrica.com/stories/201005031705.html
[3] Joseph Kipkoetch, ‘The Relationship Between Aid and Security in Eastern Africa,’ Alshahid Network, August 2, 2010, http://english.alshahid.net/archives/10531
[4] Anna Tyzack, ‘Overseas Property, Laid Back in Lamu,’ The Telegraph, 27 March 2009, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/5062591/Overseas-property-Laid-back-in-Lamu.html
Jeffrey Gettleman, ‘Future Kenya Port Could Mar Pristine Land,’ The New York Times, January 11, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/world/africa/12lamu.html?_r=1
[5] Sergeant Alec Kleinsmith , ‘Marine Leads Civil Affairs Program for Village in Djibouti,’ US Africa Commant, March 25, 2008, http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=1702
[6] Mark Bradbury, ‘Do They Think We're Stupid? Local Perceptions of US ‘Hearts and Minds’ Activities in Kenya,’ 20 July, 2010, AlertNet, Thomson Reuters Foundation, http://lite.alertnet.org/db/blogs/56091/2010/06/20-134522-1.htm
[7] Thomas P.M Barnett, ‘The Americans Have Landed,’ Esquire, June 27, 2007, http://www.esquire.com/features/africacommand0707?click=main_sr
[8] Ba Karang, ‘AFRICOM and the US's Hidden Battle for Africa,’ Pambazuka News, 5 June 2010, http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/64223
[9] Jaindi Kisero, ‘Lamu Port May be the Whitest of all White Elephants,’ Architecture Kenya, July 22, 2010, http://architecturekenya.com/2010/07/22/lamu-port-maybe-the-whitest-of-all-white-elephants-%E2%80%93-jaindi-kisero/
[10] Mangrove Action Project, ‘Devastating New Port Proposal for the Lamu Archipelago,’ February 9, 2009, http://mangroveactionproject.org/news/action-alerts/devastating-new-port-proposal-for-the-lamu-archipelago
[11] Ashley Lime and Zamzam Tatu, ‘UNESCO Pledges to Protect Lamu's Heritage Status Even with New Port,’ Daily Nation, November 16, 2010, http://www.nation.co.ke/News/regional/-/1070/1055018/-/item/0/-/5lsvjh/-/index.html

REFERENCES

[1] Xan Rice, ‘Qatar Looks to Grow Food in Kenya,’ The Guardian, December 2, 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/02/land-for-food-qatar-kenya
[2] Mazera Ndurya and Githua Kihara, ‘Kenya: Land Fears as Lamu Port Project Looms,’ All Africa, 3 May 2010, http://allafrica.com/stories/201005031705.html
[3] Joseph Kipkoetch, ‘The Relationship Between Aid and Security in Eastern Africa,’ Alshahid Network, August 2, 2010, http://english.alshahid.net/archives/10531
[4] Anna Tyzack, ‘Overseas Property, Laid Back in Lamu,’ The Telegraph, 27 March 2009,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/5062591/Overseas-property-Laid-back-in-Lamu.html
Jeffrey Gettleman, ‘Future Kenya Port Could Mar Pristine Land,’ The New York Times, January 11, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/world/africa/12lamu.html?_r=1
[5] Sergeant Alec Kleinsmith , ‘Marine Leads Civil Affairs Program for Village in Djibouti,’ US Africa Commant, March 25, 2008, http://www.africom.mil/getArticle.asp?art=1702
[6] Mark Bradbury, ‘Do They Think We're Stupid? Local Perceptions of US ‘Hearts and Minds’ Activities in Kenya,’ 20 July, 2010, AlertNet, Thomson Reuters Foundation, http://lite.alertnet.org/db/blogs/56091/2010/06/20-134522-1.htm
[7] Thomas P.M Barnett, ‘The Americans Have Landed,’ Esquire, June 27, 2007, http://www.esquire.com/features/africacommand0707?click=main_sr
[8] Ba Karang, ‘AFRICOM and the US's Hidden Battle for Africa,’ Pambazuka News, 5 June 2010, http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/64223
[9] Jaindi Kisero, ‘Lamu Port May be the Whitest of all White Elephants,’ Architecture Kenya, July 22, 2010, http://architecturekenya.com/2010/07/22/lamu-port-maybe-the-whitest-of-all-white-elephants-%E2%80%93-jaindi-kisero/
[10] Mangrove Action Project, ‘Devastating New Port Proposal for the Lamu Archipelago,’ February 9, 2009, http://mangroveactionproject.org/news/action-alerts/devastating-new-port-proposal-for-the-lamu-archipelago
[11] Ashley Lime and Zamzam Tatu, ‘UNESCO Pledges to Protect Lamu's Heritage Status Even with New Port,’ Daily Nation, November 16, 2010, http://www.nation.co.ke/News/regional/-/1070/1055018/-/item/0/-/5lsvjh/-/index.html

The Age of Polipreneurship

Dale T. McKinley

2010-12-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/69604

cc A MDale T. McKinley introduces a new word into the political lexicon – polipreneurship. The word describes the idea of politics as business, but also the way in which politics is seen and approached.

I am not sure whether the word ‘polipreneurship’ has ever been part of our political lexicon but I do know that what it represents has been with us for some time now, not just in South Africa, but globally.

At its most basic level, polipreneurship can be defined as ‘politics as business’. While there were no doubt some political figures in the pre-capitalist era that could be more broadly classified as polipreneurs (the practitioners), it was the arrival and subsequent development of capitalism as a social, economic, cultural and political system that provided the foundation for politics to become a societal vehicle for organisational and individual polipreneurship. 


It is a much more widely practiced profession than those who belong to the tenderpreneur club which, while increasingly widespread, remains largely reserved for those within closely knit and institutionally connected party political networks. Indeed, polipreneurship is not simply about making money from and through politics, although that remains a central component. It is much more about the way in which politics is seen, approached and most importantly, practiced.


Here in South Africa, we have heard many key ANC politicians talking loudly and publicly about the historic ‘traditions, cultures and values’ of their party’s politics. In doing so they have invoked the ideas and practice of ‘selflessness’, ‘serving all the people’, being part of a disciplined political collective, leading with integrity and upholding/defending basic democratic principles. Not surprisingly though, leading politicians from most of the opposition parties have invoked a similar view and approach, claiming that their politics are more in line with such ‘traditions, cultures and values’ and that it is the ANC that has tarnished our national politics (and thus our democracy, societal image and socio-economic prospects).

And then there is the general populace whose politics, besides having its own claims to a specific history of organisation and practice, mainly consists of variously voting for, engaging or disengaging with and actively struggling for and against the assorted parties and the politics they offer.


It would be easy enough for ours or any other populace to just point a finger at certain politicians, parties, the ruling party itself and/or government and argue that it is simply a matter of having different ones in power (at whatever level) in order for our politics to ‘return to the source’. In other words, for politics to be seen as a public/collective good; to be approached with an ethic of humility and honesty; and, to be practiced as a means to help construct a society in which justice and equality are institutionally organic and have real, lived meaning for all.


But it is not that simple. This is the case precisely because the kind of politics that has now taken a firm grip on South Africa and most other societies around our globe is embedded in a system of neoliberal capitalist social and productive relations whose prime vehicle has been business. The very essence of this system is to construct and run societies based on individualised and privatised material benefit, the ‘ethics’ of accumulative greed and self-aggrandisement as well as institutionalised injustice and inequality. 


What this has produced over time, regardless of changes in government and ruling parties, are societies whose dominant politics have become the most direct societal expression of such a system. Our politicians and political parties make up one part of the equation, with our ‘private’ business sector and our general polity (the ‘people’) filling in the other parts. The overall polipreneurship that has emerged is nothing more, and nothing less, than the sum of these parts - a reflection of the respective society as a whole at this stage in our human history. 


Thus, when we take a critical look at the contemporary polipreneurship that has been borne out of this systemic frame, we cannot just focus on the politicians, political parties and private business sectors; we have to also look at ourselves.

We cannot divorce ourselves from the intensifying tide of corruption, the cesspool of nepotism, the in-built disdain for organisational transparency, the conscious refusal to embrace personal responsibility, the general demise of human empathy, the consistent evading of popular accountability and the never-ending litany of false promises, lies and subterfuge. They are all representative characteristics of what we as a society, and thus our business and politics, have become. And, let us not fool ourselves; this is the norm not the exception.


In South Africa, we see and experience (not to mention practice) this political ‘normality’ every single day. However, it is on the institutional plane of governance where polipreneurship has been taken to new heights. Whether it is something as simple as a politician owning up to clear conflicts of interests or breaking of the law or something as seemingly complex as government adopting the necessary monetary policies to effect more equitable socio-economic opportunities for the majority, the reality is that the underlying politics is predominately informed by how such decisions and programmes will ensure personal, party and organisational benefit and sustenance.


In this reality the lines between business and politics have effectively disappeared. There is no foundational difference between: Premier Foods colluding to fix the bread price (and then using their corporate and monetary power to make sure that they mostly get away with it); and, the ANC and its leaders colluding to ensure their self-constructed ‘investment’ vehicle - Chancellor House - directly benefits from government mining policies (and then using their political and institutional power to arrogantly dismiss any wrongdoing and also get away with it).


Similarly, there is no principled divergence between: various provincial governments consciously spending public monies meant for things such as healthcare and environmental protection on the self-serving extravagance of 2010 World Cup projects (and thus directly contributing to increased disease and death rates in poor communities); and, mining companies consciously limiting expenditure on improving underground safety measures in order to enhance profits (and thus contributing to increased disease and death rates amongst miners).


In our polipreneur age, the mandarins of capitalist politics and capitalist business have perfected the art of creating a sustained symbiosis between the private and the public ‘interest’. They have been able to achieve this because most of those who organisationally and institutionally represent the ‘public interest’ at various levels of governance as well as ever-increasing numbers of ordinary people have personally imbibed and institutionally integrated the ‘traditions, cultures and values’ of their business counterparts. In the process, the measurement of what is ‘successful’ and of what is ‘good for society’ has become almost completely delinked from the historic and popular struggle for a universally conceived but mainly nationally practiced, collective human solidarity and benefit. 


The challenge is as difficult as it is profound. If we can’t change our politics then we can’t change our societies. Game on.


BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article was first published by the South African Civil Society Information Service.
* Dr. 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.

Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter - January issue

2010-12-20

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/69728

Fahamu’s Refugee Programme is pleased to announce the January issue of the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter [1.1 MB pdf], a monthly publication that aims to provide a forum for providers of refugee legal aid. With a focus on the global South, it aims to serve the needs of legal aid providers as well as raise awareness of refugee concerns among the wider readership of Pambazuka News.

This issue contains articles on:
- UK age assessment: a new approach
- Towards a legal asylum system in Jordan
- Witchcraft allegations and refugee protection
- UNHCR's role in Israel-Sudan returns
- Transgendered women allowed to remain in the US
- South Africa to return Zimbabweans in 2011.

'We are the solution'

Help fund African agro-ecological solutions to the food crisis

2010-12-16

http://globalgiving.org/projects/we-are-the-solution

During the first phase, the rural women’s campaign will cover five countries in West Africa: Sénégal, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Ghana). It will be extended to other countries in the region and to other regions of the continent in the second and third phases.

BACKGROUND

Since the 1980s, African agriculture has been hit by cyclical crises, with a continual decrease in production. This situation is compounded by poverty, food insecurity and deteriorating health conditions. Beyond climate change and droughts that African countries have experienced, agricultural and food crises have been reinforced by inappropriate political and strategic actions.

In July 2009, 24 organisations agreed to develop a broad-based plan for a three-year campaign to amplify indigenous African farmers’ experiences, voices and agro-ecological solutions to address the current food crisis, confronting the industrial and market-led solutions being advanced by AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa) and other Green Revolution institutions. During this meeting, a number of rural women’s associations met to address the need to support women’s organisations within the campaign.

‘We Are The Solution’ pan-African campaign objectives are:

- To promote good practices and knowledge that have been known and handed down for generations in Africa (agro-ecology, seed saving) and have sustained food sovereignty on the continent
- To influence decision-makers and promote better governance
- To value family agricultural production

THE GENERAL WOMEN’S CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES

1) To build the organizational and individual capacities of selected rural women’s associations and their leaders.
2) To build awareness and empower the voices of rural women to engage in decision-making processes in ongoing local, regional and global campaigns.
3) To organize, mobilize and sustain an Africa-wide action oriented network for information sharing and advocacy

THE SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES OF THE WOMEN’S CAMPAIGN:

1) To strengthen the work of 12 rural women’s associations and their leaders through organizational and individual capacity building activities.
2) To facilitate the participation of 75 rural women participants in media and advocacy activities so that they can engage in decision-making processes in local, regional and global campaigns.
3) To mobilise and sustain an Africa-wide action oriented network of 1,000 stakeholders for information sharing, partnership and advocacy.

IMPACTS

The impact of this campaign will be to ensure that rural women’s associations will have the skills to improve, promote and share their traditional agricultural knowledge ensuring that this rich knowledge is not lost and is indeed promoted as an alternative to the Green Revolution methods.

Family farming is one of the main solutions to reach food sovereignty in Africa. During a forum organised on 30 November and 1 December 2010 the Senegalese Rural National Council confirmed the living reality that shows that family farms are already contributing significantly to feeding Senegalese people. According to the National Agency of Statistics and Demography (ANSD), 61 per cent of the shopping basket is supplied directly or indirectly by family farms of farmers, ranchers, fishermen and foresters

Emerging Powers December edition now available

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/Announce/69645

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

The governance decay in Nigeria's Bayelsa State

Uche Igwe

2010-12-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/69618

I visited home recently and had cause to attend the burial ceremony of a friend’s relative in a community known as Famgbe near Yenagoa, Bayelsa State. There were several things that caught my attention during the ceremony, including the rich culture of the Ijaw people. But the most spectacular thing I saw happened on the morning of the burial.

The bereaved family and sympathisers woke up only to discover that a new pot of soup meant for the guests had been stolen. A quiet but frantic search commenced in the neighbourhood for the missing pot of soup. That effort did not yield a positive result as the pot of soup had developed permanent wings.

I became interested in the matter and went around asking what could have been the motive behind the soup theft. ‘People are hungry,’ someone volunteered and ‘this is an opportunity to express it’. That answer got me thinking as I boarded a boat back to my hotel on the mainland.

NO SIGN OF INFRASTRUCTURE

Even though the community we visited is a four-minute boat ride from Yenagoa, there is no sign of infrastructure there. The boats we rode on were very old and shaky, while the stinking river also served as a refuse dump. I noticed that our own boat was far better than the ones the community members used. Those ones were dilapidated and waterlogged, such that riding on them may be the same as swimming across unaided. But that is not all. Community members have no access to piped water and so most of them depend entirely on the brownish and heavily polluted water from the river. Even with the unbearable stench coming from it, I saw them take their bath in it, drink from it, brush their teeth with it and take water home for cooking.

Neither is there any stable electricity supply. Those who could afford it had tiny generating sets. About 50 of them were humming, smoking and choking at the same time as the burial event took place. This is the reality in a community exactly 15 minutes from Creek Haven, the seat of power in oil rich Bayelsa State.

Yenagoa mainland, the state capital, has literally become a theatre of abandoned projects as the majority of citizens gnash their teeth in shanty towns and slums scattered around the city. More saddening is the fact that the government has continued to watch as erosion eats up the community, leaving the people wondering if help will ever come. What a tragedy.

WHERE ARE THE MILLIONS OF PETRODOLLARS?

For those who do not know, Bayelsa is one of the beneficiaries of the 13 per cent derivation from oil revenue allocation at source from the federal government. Indeed some months ago, the governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Timipre Sylva, admitted to the Cable News Network (CNN) that the state receives at least $US30-million dollars (about 4.5 billion naira) every month. This excludes any internally generated revenue. Lately, the state government has been accused of financial recklessness and mindless profligacy. Several petitions have been written by citizens of the state to anti-corruption agencies alleging forms of petty and grand corruption. Individuals believed to be cronies and conduits of the governor, including his commissioner of finance Dr. Sylva Opuala-Charles have been charged by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for laundering more than 6 billion naira worth of public resources.

Only recently, militants attacked the home of one of his aides and hatchet men, carting away over 400 million naira stored in a septic tank. A recent petition to the EFCC alleged that Opuala-Charles had used a plethora of white elephant projects like the marginal field development by the Bayelsa Oil and Gas Company; feasibility studies for the establishment of Bayelsa Microfinance Bank and the renovation of a 500-bed hospital (already completed by previous administrations) to scam and siphon billions of naira from the state coffers. Paradoxically, Bayelsa State is the only state in Nigeria that is implementing the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) at the state level. The Bayelsa Expenditure and Income Transparency Initiative (BEITI) is a multi-stakeholder initiative inaugurated by the Opuala-Charles government and supported by the US-based Revenue Watch Institute (RWI). It was meant to be a platform where civil society groups raise debate on government expenditure in a manner that will promote transparency and citizen prosperity. Alas this was not to be.

Sources in Yenagoa and even within the BEITI secretariat confirm that it is a failed public relations project which the administration had jumped into to deceive the public and hide from the searchlight of the international community as they loot public resources with reckless abandon.

THE PARADOX OF PLENTY

Bayelsa State is the smallest of the 36 states in Nigeria, with a population of 1.7 million in 2006. The state has a very impressive revenue allocation record form central government. In the 2008 boom year, Bayelsa State received about 116 billion naira - roughly three times the national average. Per capita allocations were over 10 times higher than those in Kano State. One would naturally think that a combination of low population and high revenue would produce development. Not in Bayelsa State.

The last Nigerian Living Standards Survey said that more than 90 per cent of Bayelsans were still poor. The World Bank’s Doing Business report 2010 indicated that Bayelsa was the most difficult place to start a business in Nigeria due mainly to bureaucratic harassment, insecurity and other issues.

The state depends entirely on oil revenue and has a paltry two per cent of internally generated revenue. Until recently 11,132 unidentified persons drew salaries from government coffers, showing that corruption might have been elevated to state policy. The UNDP Niger Delta Development Report reports that the state has the lowest index in the whole of the Niger Delta. The report showed that more that 86 per cent of Bayelsans depend on kerosene for light and only eight per cent have access to piped water.

AN ANGRY POPULATION, A POLITICAL TIMEBOMB

Many Bayelsans are very angry with government neglect and the infrastructural deficit in the state. Their frustration is palpable on their faces but you dare not say anything critical of the state government in public. Many government officials could not tolerate the rot any longer and had to resign to challenge Opuala-Charles in the 2011 elections. In the PDP alone, there are about eleven aspirants, including Timi Alaibe, presidential adviser in Goodluck Jonathan’s government, who is believed to enjoy enormous grassroots support and whose entry was greeted with wild excitement and jubilation in Yenagoa.

But the state People’s Democratic Party machinery still remains under the firm grip of Opuala-Charles, who is willing to use it as a bargaining chip for supporting President Goodluck Jonathan. Rumours have it that many ex-militants loyal to Opuala-Charles are spoiling for a showdown to ensure that their man retains the PDP ticket.

Recently there have been several attacks, allegedly targeted at perceived political opponents like the impeached deputy governor Peremobowei Ebebi and Opuala-Charles staunch challenger, Alaibe.

As the 2011 elections approach, the most certain thing in Yenagoa and indeed the entire state, is uncertainty. Violence against perceived political opponents of Opuala-Charles has hit an all time high in the build up to the 2011 general elections. Even campaign billboards and offices of other aspirants have not been spared. A couple of days ago, the state watched as the campaign train of General Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) was sent packing by angry youths, supposedly angry that the Bayelsa gubernatorial aspirant for the CPC, Famous Daunemigha, is a former adviser to the governor. Judging by recent events, Bayelsa State is a political time bomb waiting to happen, sadly under the nose of President Goodluck Ebelemi Jonathan. The average Bayelsan seems to be in agreement on one issue; that Opuala-Charles has bungled the goodwill Bayelsans thrust on him and must leave the stage.

The common prayer is ‘let the Sylva Cup also pass over us and let new beginnings sprout forthwith’. Time is ticking fast, even as public opinion remains strong that the only reason the PDP may lose the gubernatorial election in Bayelsa State is if they field Opuala-Charles for a second term.

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* Uche Igwe is a researcher at the Africa Program at Paul H.Nitze School of Advanced international Studies, John’s Hopkins University, Washington DC USA
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Cote d’Ivoire: Laurent Gbagbo against the world

Uche Igwe

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/69638

The situation in Cote d’Ivoire is extremely sad and disturbing. Since the results of the 28 November run-off election were made public by the Independent Electoral Commission, outgoing President Laurent Gbagbo has defied international pressure and is clinging tenaciously to power. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the European Union (EU), the United States of America, France, China and the United Nations Security Council have all backed Alassane Ouattara, a former prime minister who was named winner with 54.1 per cent of the votes. But Gbagbo has refused to budge, preferring instead to foist a national crisis on his country, shutting down almost all the media in the country and closing the national borders. He has gone ahead to swear himself in as president for another term.

I used to admire the television clips of Abidjan on Cable News Network (CNN) as a growing young boy. I had very beautiful pictures of the city in my mind and always longed for something to take me there. However, sometime in May this year, I visited Cote d’Ivoire for the annual meeting of the African Development Bank (AfDB). It was my first visit to that country and I must say that I was extremely disappointed with what I saw right from the airport. Those images in my childhood television clips are now obviously lost. Abidjan city wore an entirely different look, with the unpleasant scars of war imprinted on every nook and cranny. Desolation and fear were on the faces of citizens. Landlords refused to renovate their houses, apparently for fear that they might be destroyed if hostilities resume. Even the famous Hotel D’ Ivoire where we were staying was still being reconstructed, even as such an important meeting was going on inside it. It was the then President Laurent Gbagbo (now former) who came to declare the meeting open. Even though the atmosphere in the city was palpably tense, he openly boasted that peace had returned to Cote d’ Ivoire and invited all those international organisations like the AfDB who once resided in Abidjan and relocated their headquarters at the peak of the war, to return to Abidjan.

A DEEPLY, POLITICALLY DIVIDED SOCIETY.

One will not know how deeply divided Cote d’Ivoire is, and how explosive internal criticism can be until you engage in a political conversation with the citizens. During one of the AfDB meetings with civil society, I inadvertently stepped onto that dangerous ground. In the course of my interventions, I had a reason to crack a joke and made jest of so the so-called ‘Ivorisation’ policy. The immediate response I got from my predominantly Ivorian audience shocked me and I had to quickly move over to a different topic altogether. A colleague of mine from Mali, who knew the fragility of the situation better, later warned me never to ever joke about that kind of thing during my stay.

The ‘Ivorisation’ policy is a politically motivated tribalistic policy introduced by the now 76-year-old deposed former President Henri Konan Bedie, after the death of the former president and father of Cote d’Ivoire, Felix Houphouet-Boigny. His main objective was to solidify power as Houphoet-Boigny’s successor. The policy sought to deny Ivorian citizenship to people who were born in and had lived in Cote d’Ivoire, but who had either or both parents born in a neighbouring country such as Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal or the Republic of Niger. It was a very unjust policy that was primarily designed to prevent the now newly elected President Alassane Ouattara from contesting for the presidency in July 1999 because he was a ‘foreigner’. That policy made it easy for Mr Konan Bedie, who was then president of parliament to retain presidency of the country in a flawed election process. The cancerous consequences of that single virulent political seed has followed that country ever since. It metamorphosed into bitter divisions that ended up in an armed conflict in 2002 after President Gbagbo continued with ethnocentric politics to retain power and control the economy. Cote d’Ivoire is rich in cocoa, coffee, timber, petroleum, cotton, and palm oil. The access to the lucrative proceeds of these natural resources has been a contributory factor in the Ivorian crisis.

LAURENT GBAGBO MUST BE STOPPED

In response to the election of Ouattarra, the chairman of ECOWAS, Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, convened an ECOWAS meeting of ECOWAS heads of government on 7 December 2010 in Abuja, where the leaders unanimously backed the president elect and asked Mr Gbagbo to step aside. The African Union (AU) also sent an envoy, former President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, to meet with and persuade the defeated president to step down, but that seems to have failed. After the report back of Mbeki, the AU announced its suspension of Cote d’Ivoire’s membership. Many other major powers, including multilateral agencies, are threatening other forms of sanctions if the Ivorian strong man continues to be obdurate and claims a hold on the presidency. The former university-lecturer-turned president has rebuffed all of these actions as ‘western intrusion’. He seems impervious to mounting international pressure and willing to risk an impending international isolation and internal conflict just to ensure that he defiantly clings to power.

Two issues come to my mind amidst this dangerous political drama. The first is the need for Nigeria to step up and re-energise her prominence in the affairs within the African continent. It falls on President Jonathan’s shoulders to rally around other African heads of government to make it categorically clear in an ultimatum to Gbagbo that he cannot continue to hang onto power. Press releases and shuttle diplomacy can no longer suffice. And so more needs to be done. The other issue is the need for politicians in Africa to understand the fundamental tenets of democracy. Kenya was recently plunged into an avoidable conflict when Mwai Kibaki refused to allow his rival Raila Odinga to form a government, when it was crystal clear that he had been defeated. So did Zimbabwe, where the strong man Robert Mugabe lost the election but refused resign and allow his rival Morgan Tsvangirai to take over. Enough of these African strong men! These are exactly the kind of men the US President Obama says we do not need. Africa needs strong institutions instead.

African leaders must learn to accept defeat with equanimity and put national interest and continental prosperity above selfish quest for power.

To sit down with Laurent Gbagbo to consider a unity or coalition government as has been done in Zimbabwe and Kenya is tantamount to denying the democratic process and the legitimate voice of the Ivorian people expressed overwhelmingly on 28 November. Africa must for once confirm to the world that we can get it right. The Cote d’Ivoire logjam must not be allowed to degenerate to war.

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* Uche Igwe is an Africa Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and visiting scholar at the Africa Studies Program, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies Johns Hopkins University.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

What nature of democracy is full of poverty?

Okello Oculi

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/69643

‘All roads lead to China’, Alan Paton may be chuckling from a place that Professor Ali Mazrui calls ‘After Africa’. The global drama of leaders of ‘developed democracies’ and old global riches (which are wracked by the crisis of unemployment and impoverishment), running to China and India in search of markets, would remind Alan Paton of his words in his book ‘Africa: Cry the Beloved Country’. Television screens showed Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron sprinting to China as if to compete for television screens with Barack Obama, who was dancing with India’s toddlers. The Chinese chipped in with their own competition, with Obama shuttling to Indonesia, with their own hosting of leaders of ‘Portuguese-speaking countries’, whose African sector a Chinese minister of trade told condescendingly that China would help to ‘pull them out of poverty’ – a brutally uncouth thing to say to visitors draped in sovereignty and fashionable European suits.

The Chinese President Hu Jintao struggled to hide from his face surging waves of historical memories that once proclaimed China as the ‘Middle Kingdom’, the centre of the world to whom barbarians in Asia, Europe and the Americas must bow. For minds nurtured during the mind-wars of the Cold War between communism and capitalism (as anchored in Moscow and Washington respectively), it is disorienting to see that a China which under Mao Zedung’s communist rule was abused as a land of poverty and starvation is now the one to whom the United States is indebted in trillions of dollars, and whom Obama is now loudly cursing for protecting its industries by giving them huge subsidies as production costs and internal markets. This Chinese sin was once condoned when Japan used it most tenaciously and successfully for rebuilding a post-Second World War economy to show other Asian peoples that capitalism was better than communism.

Since post-colonial Africa’s independence was many times cynically wrecked by military coups and invasions sponsored by one of the Cold War pugilists, we are entitled to ask why the communism of China has turned out to be so powerful that Euro-American democracy is rushing there for salvation. It is a compelling question considering that China also adamantly insists (with the former Soviet Union, Cuba and North Vietnam), that it has its own version of democracy. That democracy they insist is anchored inside the stomach and mind of every citizen. It is a democracy that insists that the state and the community must make sure that each citizen does not go to sleep at night on an empty stomach and empty intellect. That view of democracy and human rights forced its themes into the haloed offices of the United Nations Development Fund under the title of a commitment to promoting a ‘human development index’.

I recall my shock at revelations by a BBC documentary on how China has invested heavily in the intellectual and aesthetic education of its children and youths in secondary and primary schools. With the Cold War over, the BBC was now allowing me to benefit from a ‘truth dividend’ about how the state in China looks after its people. Those television pictures and their accompanying commentaries prepared me for the horrific 2010 drama of China’s soldiers providing relief to victims of devastating earthquakes with touching compassion, sensitivity and respect for the dignity of the people. Those were hints at what constituted China’s version of a socialist democracy. If the Cold War had still been raging, I would not have had eyes in my mind opened that way.

David Cameron ran to China to plead for China to open pocket books of their 1.3 billion people so that they can buy goods manufactured by machines, robots and workers after he had just taken money for purchasing both British and goods imported from China away from millions of British workers and pensioners. In Africa this was once the core of colonial economics. In South Africa the racist regime allowed the few whites in the country to have money to buy goods but denied the majority black population jobs and wages above subsistence level. Obama, for his part, left behind a horrendous electoral defeat (for his Democratic Party in the federal legislature) due to a combination of racist bile and massive unemployment inherited from the George W. Bush years. He too wanted China to gulp American exports, and thereby ‘create jobs’ for Americans.The triumphant Tea Party racists and Republicans he had left behind had crippled his efforts to give widespread purchasing power to Americans. They even called him an evil importer of ‘socialism’ to America. Socialism and its Chinese form of democracy are apparently good if they enable Chinese consumption of American goods, but not when they enable China to sell goods to Americans. There are here shades of the human right of the Chinese to buy American products. Chinese feet peddling millions of bicycles (in rivers of human bodies along streets of Chinese cities) are seen as anti-human rights, while rivers of Beijing residents inside imported and locally manufactured American cars is seen as pro-human rights. These paradoxes must encourage us to ask questions about terms like ‘free world’, and even ‘human rights’, used as terms of insults thrown at China.

We must also raise the matter of what lessons we can learn from Indonesia’s record with post-colonial governance. In 1964–65 the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) is known to have incited military officers in Indonesia and Brazil to pre-empt possible victories in elections by socialist and communist parties allied to trade unions. In each case hundreds of thousands of these ‘radicals’ were butchered and massacred in cold blood. Brazil is today lucky that socialists like President Lula survived this crime. In Nigeria during this same period, a combination of Israeli fears of Tafawa Balewa and Ahmadu Bello linking up with Arab supporters of Palestine, South Africa’s Boers being afraid of a strong Nigeria backing anti-apartheid regimes from Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to South West Africa (now Namibia) and French leaders afraid of the Guinea-virus linking up with a muscular Nigeria to throw them out of their French neocolonies may have combined to be alarmed that the rivalry through competitive development between Nigeria’s three regions was bound to produce a regional power if not quickly sabotaged with an induced military coup. Brazil, Nigeria and Indonesia were regional powers that could not be allowed to become independent rogues on the global Cold War scene.

Of the three countries, Indonesia had the luck of having watched Japan, as an Asian country that had used its own road to modernity, become a power that defeated feudal Russia in a hot war and humiliated Spain, Holland, France and Britain by military defeats and driving them out of their colonies in the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, Burma, Malaysia and elsewhere in the region. It took America’s power to beat Japan. Despite the despicably brutal treatment they met in the hands of their Japanese ‘liberators’, Japan’s ‘Asian model’ of using local political will power to build a nationalist capitalism had caught on in Indonesia. The country’s second president, General Suharto, was at his fall accused of ‘crony capitalism’, but his critics admit that he did not ruin Indonesia by exporting its oil money to private bank accounts held outside Indonesia. His regime continued Indonesia’s first president Sukarno’s policy of running a modern political governance and economy on an education system that used a locally invented post-independence national language to run it. It is important to emphasise that Indonesia’s growth was interrupted only by Suharto’s military coup, but the generals who took over the state followed the CIA script of creating a national development that does not make socialist rule attractive to alternative challengers for power.

Indonesia’s generals had in Japan’s history a non-Western model to guide development and be a focus for racial pride. They also worked with their own version of democracy. As part of the dividend of truth that the end of the Cold War opens up, we must now openly examine both the experiences of China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore to chart Africa’s safari, and critically pick through the new language of global economic diplomacy used by major actors. This must guide our questing the possibility of a democracy of poverty being dangled at Africa at a moment in history when we should be vigorously picking idea-seeds from India, China, Brazil, Japan and Vietnam to produce our own intellectual infrastructure for development and progress with freedom and dignity.

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* Okello Oculi is the executive director of the Africa Vision 525 Initiative.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

On ‘They will fry themselves with their own fat’

‘Watajikaanga na mafuta yao’

Isaac Newton Kinity

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/69642

‘Watajikaanga na mafuta yao’ (They will fry themselves with their own fat) was a daily slogan spoken by the former Kenyan president Daniel Toroitich arap Moi for many years whenever he addressed a crowd of Kenyans. President Moi stopped relaying the above message to Kenyans in 1989. What Moi meant with that clause has remained a puzzle to many Kenyans up to this day.

To a few Kenyans who became inquisitive from the beginning, the puzzle started to unravel in 1985 when thousands of Kikuyus who worked and lived in many forest stations along Mau forest were unceremoniously evicted. The brutal and the arrogant manner through which the exercise was carried out sent shivering messages to the few observant Kenyans. Those who worked as employees of the government in the forest were laid off and were among thousands of desperate Kenyans who lined up along the Njoro Nakuru Road in makeshift tents. Many of them died of disease and cold. Those fortunate and who had some money applied for licences to erect kiosks in nearby towns.

From year to year after they erected and stalked their kiosks, government agents, accompanied by the ‘Jeshi la Mzee’, stole all that was in those kiosks and demolished them in the late hours of the night. Fearing the worst in the continued destruction of their licensed kiosks, some of them joined in the sale of vegetables, pencils, pens and other small items on the streets of the cities while others went to become touts. The Kenya police descended on the touts and all those who were on the streets selling different items, beating them and throwing teargas at them.

The number of unemployed and desperate Kikuyus increased when attacks and evictions of the community from the Rift Valley started. Since 1985 to 1991–92 when those attacks and evictions started, thousands of the members of the Kikuyu community joined others on the streets, at the bus stations as touts. Soon after the police were busy chasing and beating them. But the number continued to swell for the next 14 years because of the continued attacks, killings and evictions.

Every time they tried to earn an honest living, the Kenya government forcefully went to deny them all means of livelihood. It was after those unemployed Kikuyu youth were denied all means of their livelihood when they turned on their own community for survival. The turn of the Kikuyu youth on their community, and their subsequent illegal demands of money, often resulted to deaths of innocent people. That was what Moi referred to as ‘Watajikaanga na mafuta yao’. It is therefore evident that President Moi tried as hard as he could to make sure that the Kikuyus became desperate enough in life and killed one another after he denied them every venue from which they would earn a honest living. So, when the Kikuyu youth started killing their own people, in search of money for survival, it was ‘Wanajikaanga na mafuta yao’ (‘they were frying themselves with their own fat’), just as President Moi had planned.

What became perplexing was the behaviour of President Mwai Kibaki and Honourable John Michuki towards their own Kikuyu youth. If they lacked the wisdom to understand the Moi slogan ’Watajikaanga na mafuta yao’, they should have consulted with the wise Kikuyu men in order to avoid the deaths of their daughters and sons who were ruthlessly killed in thousands in the name of destroying Mungiki. Who are the Mungiki youth? Are they not the sons of President Kibaki and Honourable Michuki and the sons of the Kikuyu community? Next time, President Mwai Kibaki and Honourable John Michuki have doubts in their decisions, they should seek the advice of the wise men and women in their community before making certain sensitive decisions which touch on the welfare, lives and survival of their community instead of giving orders which may result in their death.

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* Isaac Newton Kinity is the former secretary general of the Kenya Civil Servants Union and the chair of the Kikimo Foundation for Corruption and Poverty Eradication.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Nobel Peace Prize 2010: Norwegian dynamite

Annar Cassam

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/69644

Alfred Bernard Nobel (1833–96) was a Swedish chemist and engineer who made a fortune through the invention of dynamite, cordite and ballistite, the start of a very successful arms manufacturing business. His reputation and profits grew when he bought an iron and steel mill, Bofors, and converted it into an armaments-making enterprise. Bofors became a jewel in the crown of Swedish industry and cynics will tell you that Sweden's neutral stand during the European wars of the first half of the 20th century not only gave the country moral status but also made it possible for Bofors to sell arms and ammunition to all sides.

In 1888, a French paper mistakenly published Nobel's obituary and referred to him as the ‘Swedish merchant of death’ who had become rich by ‘finding ways to kill more people more quickly than ever before’. Nobel was said to have been so upset by this description of himself that he decided to leave behind quite a different legacy.

Thus in his will he left the bulk of his estate of 31 million kroner – worth about US$250 million today – to fund five annual prizes for excellence in the areas of physical science, chemistry, medical science or physiology, literary work and, lastly, a prize for any person or society rendering exceptional service to the cause of ‘international fraternity’, to the reduction of standing armies and for the establishment or furthering of peace congresses. In 1968, the Bank of Sweden was asked to create a new award for economists from the Nobel funds in Alfred’s memory. All Nobel laureates, except for those selected for the peace prize, are chosen by competent peer groups within Swedish institutions, ensuring a certain level of objectivity and quality control. Thus the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is the guardian of the Nobel awards for physical science, chemistry and economics, the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, guards the award for medical science or physiology and the Swedish Academy covers the literature prize.

The Nobel Peace Prize, following Nobel's wishes as per his will, is in the hands of Norwegian politicians and parliamentarians. Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, who make the final choice, are appointed by and from within the Norwegian Parliament. Since 1904, this committee has been assisted by the Norwegian Nobel Institute, which sifts through the many thousands of applications this prize attracts.

Every year, the Nobel prizes are handed out with much pomp and gravitas by the Norwegian royals in Oslo and by the Swedish royals in Stockholm. These awards are collectively regarded as being the most prestigious accolades in the universe and the winners bask for ever after in divine glory before reaching the Nobel enclosure in the hereafter. The peace prize, in particular, has acquired a sacred quality over the years, although the laureates are chosen by faceless, nameless Norwegians whose achievements are rather modestly restricted to local politics.

Things have changed considerably since the appointment of the new head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, in late 2008. It is under his watch that the 2009 peace prize went to the newly elected US president Barack Obama, much to the surprise of Obama himself and everyone else. Norwegians too were amazed and the opposition Progressive Party, the Conservative Party and some members of Jagland's own Labour Party called for him to be removed from his post as leader of the Nobel Committee. This year, the choice of a Chinese so-called dissident has produced even more shock and awe – and hysteria – from many sources, including the Chinese authorities and the Western press. So who is Thorbjorn Jagland?

A cursory look at his page on Wikipedia will give a clear picture. Jagland, one-time leader of the Labour Party, one-time prime minister, one-time foreign minister of Norway and currently secretary general of the Council of Europe, is bit of a national joke. Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, who left him in charge in 1996 when she suddenly announced she was quitting politics, has called him ‘stupid’. Jagland's tenure as PM lasted from 1996–97 and this very brief period was marked by controversies and scandal – two of his ministerial appointees were forced to leave the cabinet. He resigned after the 1997 elections even though his Labour Party won most votes. His tenure as foreign minister in the Stoltenberg government was equally brief (2000–01). However, Wikipedia has an intriguing entry about an official invitation to visit China in June 2001. The invitation was extended by the Chinese foreign minister at the time, Tang Jiaxuan; Jagland left for China on 27 June and ‘returned home the following day’. What could have been the reason? What bearing does this episode have on the choice of this year's prize winner?

Jagland's political career has not been brilliant, one can safely say. But it appears he is more famous at home for his ridiculous comments, and Wikipedia gives a selection: ‘We will come again, yes, we are here already’; ‘We put the foot down and stand on it’; and ‘I usually don’t look backwards, nor do I look forward.’ My favourite is this one: ‘It does not help with bulletproof vests when the shots come from within.’ This was in answer to a question about his power struggle with Prime Minister Stoltenberg who appointed him foreign minister. When asked to comment on this appointment, Jagland replied that as foreign minister his job would be to deal with ‘Bongo from the Congo’. The former Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, called Jagland a fool when he heard of Obama's peace prize last year. And so it goes on.

Last year, the Obama choice provoked serious concern among some senior Norwegians about a conflict of interests inherent in having as head of the Nobel Committee someone who was also the secretary general of the Council of Europe. This would surely lead to doubts about the independent nature of the peace prize selection procedure, they argued. The rumpus caused by this year's choice of the Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, is far more serious and damaging and the Norwegian political leadership must ask itself whether the right man is in the right place at the Nobel Committee and whether it wants its foreign policy options and its relations with China (or any other state) to be subjected to the theatrics and polemics of an annual Jagland show.

The Chinese authorities are furious and the Western press has indulged fully in China-bashing. But a more interesting point of view is expressed on the subject by Zheng Ruolin, the Paris correspondent of the Shanghai daily paper, Wen Huibao, writing in Le Monde (10 December 2010). He explains that there are two versions of this whole affair circulating in two parallel worlds, one Norwegian, the other Chinese. According to the Nobel people, the choice of this ‘political prisoner’ is aimed at promoting human rights in China. According to the Chinese authorities, Liu Xiaobo has been condemned for ‘subversion’ because of his attempt – via ‘rumours and defamation’ – to ‘reverse the regime’ and to establish ‘a federal republic’ in China.

However, Zheng Ruolin explains, public opinion in China buys neither version. Most people in China, including some democracy activists, still identify Liu Xiaobo with a famous statement made in 1988 that China must be ‘colonised for three centuries before it can become a democracy’. This claim was repeated in a magazine in Hong Kong in 2006. The shock of such a statement made in 1988 at a time when the Brits were still ruling over Hong Kong is difficult to describe, says the journalist. Furthermore, he explains, the same character caused a second scandal by publically supporting George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003, an act of war which was condemned in China, Scandinavia and all over the globe. So the question has to be asked, what links the Nobel Peace Prize with its current laureate's support for this illegal war in Iraq?

This is a pertinent question which should be answered by the Nobel Committee. But the personal link that binds Jagland to his laureate is patently obvious: they are kindred spirits, both sharing the same worldview. The statement that ‘China needs to be colonised for three centuries before it can reach democracy’ is on par with the claim that diplomacy means meeting with ‘Bongo from the Congo’.

Alfred Nobel's aim to promote ‘international fraternity’ can best be achieved by building bridges across our parallel worlds, not by blowing them up.

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* Annar Cassam is a Tanzanian and a former director of the UNESCO Office, UNO, Geneva.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

International Day to End Violence against Sex Workers

BHESP & KESWA

2010-12-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/69636

On Friday, December 17, from 9:00am-5:00pm, the Bar Hostess Empowerment and Support Program (BHESP), in collaboration with the Kenya Sex Workers Alliance (KESWA) and other local women’s rights and human rights organizations, will commemorate International Day to End Violence against Sex Workers. The gathering in Nairobi will include a silent public procession, starting at Koinange Street, and ending at the Sarakasi Dome, in Ngara, where the rest of the programme will be held. The event will include: a session to share the findings of recent research done on sex worker rights in Kenya; testimonies by sex workers who have experienced violence; edutainment in the form of theatre, music, dance, and spoken word; short speeches by various key human rights defenders; and a candle-light vigil to remember sex workers in Kenya who have lost their lives in the line of duty. All events are free and open to the press. The dress code for this day will be red (sex worker rights) and black (Africa).

International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers aims to raise awareness of the violence and abuse perpetrated on sex workers, while remembering those who have been its victims. The goal is to see a global society where sex workers’ safety and basic human rights are protected. While this day is currently marked by over 100 cities around the world, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania will be marking this day for the first time this year.

Nairobi’s celebration will feature several prominent speakers from various organizations, touching on such related topics as human rights, sexual and reproductive health, security, law & policy reform, and the impact of the new Constitution on Kenya’s laws pertaining to sex work and human rights.

When asked to comment on her reasons for organizing this event, Dorothy Ogutu, a sex worker activist, said:

As the saying goes, sex work is the oldest profession, and yet it is the one industry that records the highest rate of violence and brutality. By marking this day, we are calling for an end to violence in a working community that has experienced and continues to experience so much of it. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere, is injustice everywhere.”

For more information, contact Dorothy Ogutu (KESWA), Peninah Mwangi (BHESP) or Zawadi Nyong’o at dec17kenya@gmail.com or 0718122270.

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

Sign petitions in support of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/69662

http://www.avaaz.org/en/wikileaks_petition/?cl=850041870&v=7729

http://freeassange.org/sign-petition

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/help-julian-assange/

http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41314.html

Kenya government trashes new constitution

Mars Group Kenya

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/69650

What is shocking is that a copy of our sacred constitution which Kenyans watched Kibaki and Odinga swear to uphold and protect was snatched from Hon. Wamalwa and thrown into sewage by a policeman who Kenyans pay to protect their rights. Is the message to Kenyans from the Kibaki - Odinga Government that our Constitution is not worth the paper its written on?

Even more shocking is that a very senior Policeman had the temerity to make a phonecall to Tony Gachoka swearing he will killl Mr. Gachoka. This threat was communicated in the presence of the Media. This is Impunity indeed.

We wish to inform Kibaki and Odinga that our Rights are inalienable and God Given. Further, those rights, including the Right to meet who we want, when we want and where we want are guaranteed by Chapter Four of the Constitution of Kenya. Further, we wish to remind these two principals that the colonialists, and even the Moi Government eventually allowed kenyans to assemble at Kamukunji and elsewhere in Kenya. Raila Odinga can attest to this fact. Kibaki maybe?. What the Police did today is futile and pointless. The meetings will go on and on. The sign of the times, we need real reformers, Change is inevitable.

Mars Group Kenya

Below is an official communication from the organisers of the Kamukunji 13th
December 2010 rally.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
TO: P.K Muite S.C Advocate:
DATED:Monday 13th December 2010.

OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION.
Copied to
The President of Kenya H.E Kibaki
through Comptoller Nelson Githingi;

Rtg Hon. P.M;

Speaker of the National Assembly;

Commissioner of Police;

Attorney General;

The Mars Group;

Hon. Eugene Wamalwa;

Koffi Annan;

ICC Prosecutors

All local and International media.

"Hon. Eugene Wamalwa, Maina Njenga and Tony Gachoka have instructed Paul Muite to sue the Government, President and Prime Minister for violating the constitution of Kenya on the assault, cancellation and commotion of today's Kamkunji's Meeting. All three will be examined by Doctors and a medical Report shall be availed to the Public.

The Death Threats by Nairobi PPO against Mr. Tony Gachoka in the Presence of Journalists shall be included in the court action. Mr. Muite will provide a detailed affidavit of those threats in addition to all other legal issues arising. The ICC process in Kenya cannot proceed without dealing with New Impunity. Our Lawyer is instructed to write to the Hague on Police brutality and the authors of police violence. We herein also confirm instructions to Mr. Muite to seek legal and Constitutional interpretations aforesaid"

Hon. Eugene Wamalwa, Maina Njenja & Tony Gachoka

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

Vision of the Sudanese referendum

SuWEP

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/advocacy/69661

We members of SuWEP from both sectors North & South met at Afhad University for Women in Khartoum during the period from 12th to 13th of December, 2010 to discuss issues that affects women in the pre’ during and post referendum periods.
AWARE of the gains women of the Sudan have made during the last post conflict (CPA) period;
MINDFUL of the women issues and rights in the current political set up and structures of administration in the Sudan;
CONCERNED of the current political dispensation and the imminent transition affecting the geo-political set up of the Sudan;
DEEPLY CONCERNED about the challenges women of the Sudan are and will face in the wake of the changes about to occur;
CONSCIOUS of the sensitivity and the nature of the issues that are affecting the women on citizenship and rights of the women;
CONCERNED about the impact of and the consequences of the transition and the possible new political arrangements in the Sudan;
AWARE of the roles we as women of SUWEP played in the peace processes in the Sudan;
PURSUANT of our commitment and search as SUWEP for peace and peaceful co-existence irrespective of the outcome of the referendum;

DO HEREBY:

Urge both governments to ensure fair, free, transparent and secure conduct of the referendum and stop any acts of violence during the processes
Call upon the Sudan Referendum Commission to ensure a smooth, nonviolent fair and transparent and properly managed process.
Urge both governments to address all issues related to the referendum itself such as resources, citizenship, education and borders.
Appeal to the parties concerned to respect the outcome of the referendum, embrace peace and resist any call to return to war.
Call for formation of post referendum governance structures that are democratic, inclusive, participatory and promote respect for human rights especially women’s and children’s rights
Urge both governments to involve the civil society and women activists in the constitution review processes at all levels.
Call upon both governments for the amendment of laws that affect women negatively such laws as Family law, Public order law, Criminal law and the customary law.
Appeal to both governments in the North and the South to implement policies and strategies that will address issues of injustice, poverty and marginalization and the full attainment of the Millennium Development Goals
Appeal to both governments to ensure that all citizens of Sudan enjoy full citizenship rights according to the law.

Call upon both governments to enhance the culture of peace, promote co-existence and respect diversity as a source of strength.
Urge the two governments to develop the Countries’ plan of action to implement UNSCR 1325, 1820 on Women, Peace and Security to ensure the Protection, Promotion Prevention and Participation of women.
Call upon the two governments to ratify the African Protocol on the rights of women.

WE as SuWEP group both in the North and South, commit ourselves:

To work together irrespective of the outcome of the referendum.
To work towards a free, fair, transparent and non-violent referendum.
To work to promote sustainable peace, Democracy, human rights, justice, gender equality and development in the country (s).
To conduct massive awareness programmes to the masses to understand and accept the referendum results.
To offer support in form of legal aid, healing and psychological support through an outreach programme to the women in prisons, abused and discriminated against.
To lobby the two governments for laws that will facilitate freedom of movement, work and access to basic facilities including rights to ownership of land and properties.

Stand against racism in Brazil's educational system

Andréia Lisboa de Sousa

2010-12-16

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/against_racist_books_in_brazil/

A new book that reinforces racial prejudice against black women has been approved for distribution in the Brazilian education system. Sign a petition demanding that the Brazil ‘takes appropriate action in relation to racist books’.
This petition/protest is to stand against Racism in the Brazilian Educational System. The last two presidents of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1994-2001) and Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (2002-2010) recognized the existence of racism that plagues not only the social fabric as the individual and their interpersonal relations. However, due to the mobilization around the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women*, what perspectives were placed for black women, young girls, as well as black men and young boys in Brazil?

There has been a significant investment in maintaining the role of black women as being an unintelligent, relegated only to housework chores, and being commanded by a white woman. Would it be the image of the illiterate housemaid, caricatured, animalized, "big lipped" and a "coal monkey" the only place that society reserves and allows as the place of visibility to the black woman? Despite of the human rights struggle in Brazil, the book Caçadas de Pedrinho (Pete’s Hunting) by Monteiro Lobato has not gone through any rigorous evaluation regarding specifically the issue of race and it was approved by the evaluators of National Library Program in School (PNBE).

Notably, in 2005 we were led to believe that progress had been made in the book policy of the programs of the Ministry of Education (MEC) - the National Library Program in School (PNBE), the National Textbook Program (PNLD) and the National Book of High School Program (PNLEM) - to contemplate the principle of respect to ethno-racial diversity. The announcements of these programs categorically state that " it will be excluded from the collections books that do not obey the following rules (...)" (Edict PNBE/2010) "it will be summarily disposed of the works that do not comply with the following criteria (...)" (Edict PNLD 2010) and "All works must conform to legal principles and legal (...)" (Edict PNLEM 2007).

The rules of the National Library Program in School report explicitly that works that “convey stereotypes and preconceptions about social,regional, ethnic, racial, gender condition, sexual orientation, age or language, as well as any other form of discrimination or violation of rights (...)” will be excluded. Given this political game it is clear that the edicts have been changed in their content, but were not able to change the criteria of the evaluator and therefore did not alter the process and forms for evaluation and selection of racist and prejudiced books.

Thus, in 2010, unfortunately we are faced with the failure of the exclusion criteria of the works submitted to the process of evaluation of these programs, since both the rules of notice as the political position of the Brazilian Ministry of Education run counter to what was proposed and disclosed in their respective announcements. Therefore, there was the need for the National Education Council (CNE) to develop the report CNE/CEB No.: 15/2010, advising on the situation and considering historical, educational, cultural and identitary implications for the selection of the book: Pete’s Hunting, due to its explicitly discriminatory and racist content**.

What's behind a political book management that makes changes to their edicts and publishes them, making it look like they are complying with the law, but actually produces quite the opposite effect? ? What's behind the Brazilian publishing cartels controlled by some foreign corporations submitting racist books for selection of the Brazilian Ministry of Education programs? That is how the white supremacist social power evinces its social power, because in spite of being aware of the rules for book selection, books with racist content are submitted, selected and approved. In fact, these book programs are used as ideological State apparatus, which demonstrate to efficiently serve the production, reproduction and reinforcement of discriminatory practices, especially towards black girls, and young black women.

Why subject our black children to the painful exercise of reading: "Aunt Nastasya, forgetful of her many rheumatisms, climbed the tree, just like a coal monkey “? Why opt for distributing a book that is confirmedly an attack to the image of black Woman: "... nor even aunt Nastasya, who has black flesh"? Why invest in the destructive, shocking and terrorist image: "... birds, from the stinking black vulture up to this jewel of wings ..." and then bet that the teacher will properly elaborate such text in classroom in a racist society like Brazil?

Undoubtedly, this context is only to show that the traditional tricks of the technologies of power applied by conservative groups who can only see and wish for policies that favor the "white" intelligentsia. Thus, these groups maintain an economic supremacy at the expense of the selection of books paid for with public money, this way spreading a racist ideology, as expressed through stereotyped texts, which are vilifying and disrespectful to the black characters. Now we can clearly perceive is that managers, technicians and others who are responsible for these book programs do not take the Brazilian legislation seriously, and take even less seriously an anti-racist education for all. Similar racist situation has been dennounced worldwide and lawsuits were filed against the state, for example, in the U.S.A (book "From Slave Ship to Freedom Road"*** by Julius Lester's) and in Belgium (“Tintin in the Congo”**** - comic strips created by the Belgian Georges Rémi, who used the pen name of Hergé).

Thus, what is left for us is to criticize, to protest, to file lawsuits, demanding that the State takes appropriate action in relation to racist books or we shall have to relinquish once and for all the discourse of valuing diversity and promoting racial equality in education in Brazil. Let us protest against the violence towards women, youth and children and against the discriminatory content in this Pete’s Hunting book. We should not allow that a narrative that appeals to the abominable use of stereotypes, as well as discriminatory texts and illustrations holding the image of black characters stain our history of struggle. Sign and publish this petition against Racism in the Brazilian Educational System*****.

Andreia Lisboa de Sousa

* On November 25, 1960, three activists sisters (Patrícia, Minerva and Maria Teresa Mirabal, known as Las Mariposas) were tortured and violently killed on orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. On account of this atrocity, during the First Feminist Summit: Latin American and Caribbean countries in 1981 (Bogota, Colombia) was established the Latin America and the Caribbean Day to fight against violence against women. Eighteen years later, the United Nations officially designated November 25 as the International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women in 1999.

** Please, sign another Portuguese petition regarding Pete’s Hunting issues: http://www.euconcordo.com/com-o-parecer-152010
*** Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/11/father-sues-detroit-district-over-slavery-reading_n_782174.html
**** Source: http://www.thebookseller.com/news/95785-tintin-to-be-sued-for-being-racist-and-xenophobic.html?p=6&a=95
***** The full article can be read at: http://www.abpn.org.br/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=600%3Adia-internacional-de-enfrentamento-a-violencia-contra-as-mulheres-em-defesa-de-nossas-meninas-candaces1&catid=24%3Amaterias&Itemid=23&lang=en

If African women do not tell their own narratives, no one else will

Rasna Warah

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/books/69637

It is sad, but hardly surprising, that the narrative about [Kenya’s] post-election violence is once again being dominated by male voices.

Whether as alleged perpetrators of the violence or seekers of justice for the victims of the atrocities committed in 2007/8, the story about what happened, who did what to whom, and under whose command, is being told and interpreted mainly by men.

And as male politicians devise new ways to play the blame-game in light of the impending trials at the International Criminal Court, the voices of women victims of the violence have almost completely faded away.

As Patricia Nyaundi, the executive director of Fida-Kenya, noted in the recently-released documentary, ’The Burden of Peace’, all we hear about is the more than a thousand people who were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced, but no one is counting how many women were raped during that period, or what impact the rapes had on them.

Produced and directed by Kwamchetsi Makokha, in association with the Fahamu Trust, the film tells the story of the countless victims of gang-rape during the post-election violence, who have not enjoyed a single day of peace since neighbours, paramilitary police, militia and police officers sexually violated them.

It tells the stories of women like Maureen, who was raped “in revenge for the Kiambaa church killings” by two men who not only impregnated her, but infected her with HIV.

For months, Maureen wished she would die. When her baby boy was born, she says, she even thought of throwing him away. The film tells other harrowing tales, including that of a bed-ridden woman who was gang-raped and left for dead, of a woman in Kibera who was raped by police officers in front of her son, and of women who were reduced to becoming beggars or prostitutes in IDP camps.

But the film is also about survival and resistance — about women picking up the shattered pieces of their lives in order to provide for their families and to support fellow survivors.

Such stories have also been captured in ’African Women Writing Resistance’ — a new anthology published this year by Pambazuka Press in association with the University of Wisconsin, which brings together the writings of 31 women from 13 African countries who explore a wide range of issues, including the violence experienced by women in their homes and communities and during conflict.

In this book, you will meet China Keitetsi, a former child soldier in Uganda’s National Resistance Army, who was told “to get love from a gun”, and that “guns were our mothers, our friends, our whole world, and we must rather lose ourselves than our gun”.

Keitetsi, who now lives in Denmark, is the first former African girl soldier to have written about her experiences. You will also meet the Kenyan poet and lawyer, Ann Kithaka, who, in a poem about female genital mutilation, implores her clansmen to tell her where they have disposed of “the severed bit of my despised anatomy after the unkind cut”.

Did they, she wonders, “fling it into some mysterious African pot to concoct that rejuvenating soup, consumed so gleefully by the rika?”

Domestic violence is a dominant theme in many of the women’s stories, poems and essays. US-based Nigerian activist and performer, Zindzi Bedu, recalls the incest committed by her father, “the preacher man...who prays with the authority of raging fire”.

In a note, she explains that writing about her painful past is “an act of mediation” that gives her “the tools to reassess an old wound”. The contributors to the anthology do not feel the need — as many non-Western writers do — to disguise, tone down or even “exoticise” their experiences and stories for the benefit of a Western readership.

The editors, Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez, Pauline Dongala, Omotayo Jolaosho and Anne Serafin, have allowed the women writers to speak as honestly and as truthfully about their experiences as they can.

As Abena P. A. Busia explains in the introductory poem, “If we don’t tell our stories who will speak out for us, when we claim our bodies for ourselves and weep no more... If we don’t tell our stories, hailstones will continue to fall on our heads.”

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This article first appeared in The Nation.
* Rasna Warah is a writer and journalist based in Nairobi.
* ’The Burden of Peace’ is produced and directed by Kwamchetsi Makokha, in association with Fahamu Trust (ISBN-10 1-906387-77-X).
* ’African Women Writing Resistance’ is published by Pambazuka Press and the University of Wisconsin Press (ISBN-10 0-85749-020-6).
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Somaliland: Justice delayed is justice denied

Response to 'Hope and caution in Somaliland'

Omer Hussein Dualeh

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/letters/69654

I am a citizen of the country known widely as "Best Kept Secret in Africa" I would like to say few words of my country and I need the African head of state to digest and engage my country while forgetting the so called "Pandora Box", because my country has fulfilled the AU charter and is not successionist from
Somalia.

We have been a country for a period and later join those whom we thought they are our brothers, but miserably failed to achieve our goal. We have reclaimed our statehood in 1991, and put house in order, while the remaining of Somali Democratic Republic are fighting since.

We have achieved and contributed to the democracy in Africa and this continent and created a bottom up problem resolve during our endeavor to build what we have today. Somaliland people have made peace with themselves and those countries that are our neighbors, we have created a unique system of reconciliation while we inherited a country that was destroyed by Siad Barre.

We sat down under a tree and our elders have uniquely managed to involve this process to all section of our people, including those who were against our freedom fighting organization [SNM] at the time. Our elders were sitting under that tree for five [5] long months without any help from the International Community, but succeeded to resolve everything that was obstacle to our peace making process.

In this world we live in, there are countries who instigate conflicts in this part of Africa to satisfy their narrow agenda. They create these conflicts, because of Water and wipe Somalis against Ethiopia, and that is the reason why this war in Somalia is going on and on. Africa needs to engage Somaliland and render help to join the International Community.

This will definitely help Somalia and our government who understands the problem might find solution to this problem. Justice delayed is justice denied, our fellow Africans.

It’s about time that Africa to open their eyes and bring the surface that report in 2005 under the take. AU fact finding delegation in 2005 to Somaliland has clearly stated that Somaliland has a case. We the people of Somaliland have every right to be a member of AU and UN if another conflict in the Horn is to be aborted. I hope they will listen.

Speak no more – let us just make music

Amira Ali

2010-12-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/69635

The little boy of Addis

Amira Ali

2010-12-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/African_Writers/69632

As untamed fire ignites
a world separated by
pronouns,
broken world brakin'n
streets crack'd foot crak'd in
mak'n a dwellin' there
siftin' thru ashes
to turn cold into bliss'd air
is the story of the little boy.

From the hallowness
of time little one shines
shoes smeared w/ oil
bringin' out the beauty of
journey'd time
of comin' and goin',
rhythm of life

he covers reality
with luminous smiles
rapid rhythm
of circumstance
plungin' into the flesh
making him a man
before knowin'
youthful-ness

little boy
you have lived in so
much pain and misery
amid manifested
cruelty still
faithful-ly there
humble begin'ins
is all you made
young boy

tryin' to feed your mother
and three sista's
you live to make
things betta,
they may call you bad
but you speak only
out of desire
nothing less than
the streets inspiration inspired
yiedin' to a mother's strain,

train'd by mother
to carry rags of sadness
you stroll the streets
of Addis
the price of the poetic streets
dazed with its new
poetry-less streets,
patient in what life has not
bound'd is the story of
a little boy bruden'd by
responsibility more than less,
is the story of little boy,

Ah little boy,
what will you become
in the rough'd life,
young boy
sweet child of
God

they may say there is
nothin' they can do but
the world sees
the possibility in you
don't think you are alone
young man,
in this rough'd life
the world is your own
trust life to help you
find the way
don't look down
things will look
up little boy

Just keep tryin'
little boy, believe
you will always
be someone
and you will
be free to be
your own
young boy.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* In dedication to little ‘Tesfaye’ (which translated in English means ‘My hope’).
* This poem is in homage to Bilal's ‘Little one’ and John Legend's ‘Ghetto boy’.
* aFRo’DisaTic ExPreSsioNs
* Amira Ali © 2010 all rights reserved
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

Pambazuka News 171: Crise ivoirienne et impairs de la démocratie en Afrique

2010-12-16

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/summaryfr/69651

More WikiLeaks and the US

Gado

2010-12-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/cartoons/69629

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

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

Sudan: End lashing, reform public order rules

2010-12-20

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/12/15/sudan-end-lashing-reform-public-order-rules

The arrest of more than 60 Sudanese women's rights activists on 14 December 2010, for peacefully protesting the lashing of a woman by police shows the urgent need to reform Sudan's public order laws and practices, Human Rights Watch has said. The system imposes illegitimate restrictions on a range of personal behavior and public expression and disproportionately targets women, Human Rights Watch said. The lashing case, in a public place in Omdurman in November, garnered public attention as it was captured on a video clip, widely circulated on the internet and in the media. Visit this link to read more and to watch the video.

Kenya: Women representation in politics key to development

2010-12-20

http://www.ips.org/africa/2010/12/gender-women-representation-in-politics-key-to-development/

Research has shown that women account for more than half of the population of any country. This is reflected in the 2010 Census results, where there are slightly more women than men in Kenya. However, this large population of women is invisible in key decision-making processes, particularly in governance - at both local and national level. Even though the trend is slowly changing in Kenya and there are now more women in the current Parliament than there have ever been, there is still a need for more women in political leadership.

Algeria: Algeria considers gender equality bill

2010-12-20

http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2010/12/15/feature-02

Algeria's National Consultative Committee on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (CNCPPDH) held a conference in Algiers on 9 December on ways to implement civil rights legislation and enhance the role of women in politics. One hundred and fifty delegates, including ministers, UN agency representatives in Algiers, the two houses of parliament, members of diplomatic bodies in Algiers, along with representatives from the judicial police and national police force, took part in the conference, held to mark the 62nd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

South Africa: Few good men?

2010-12-14

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/12/20101210175411335878.html

'He pulled me by my hair and dragged me to the entrance of the house. I knew he was taking me to the bedroom, and I knew what that would mean. His one hand pulled at my long hair, braided to my scalp while his other hand wrapped itself around my face, choking me, his fingers digging into my eyes...I held on to the gate and refused to let him take me in - that was when he bit off half my ear.' Three weeks earlier, 46-year-old Gugu Mofokeng had left the shelter where she had been living for a year. Mofokeng's story may sound shocking, but it is not unusual in South Africa. Gender activists have long argued that violence against women in the country is at 'epidemic' proportions.

South Africa: State of emergency needed to end gender violence

2010-12-14

http://www.genderlinks.org.za/article/state-of-emergency-needed-to-end-gender-violence-2010-12-10

Gender Links (GL) has called on the government to declare a state of emergency in the fight to end gender violence. In a press release to mark the close of the Sixteen Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, GL said that countless research studies now show that the problem is overwhelming and the response is insufficient, especially when measured against the target of halving gender violence by 2015 in the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development.

DRC: Challenging pornophobia and moral beliefs of Congolese media practitioners

2010-12-15

http://bit.ly/hDonvm

Francoise Mukuku from the youth organisation Si Jeunesse Savait reports on a cyberdialogue organised in the DRC around ICT's and violence against women. The online discussion, organised by Genderlinks as part of the 16 Days of Activism, was to be shared with all francophone countries connecting to the dialogue. 'Everything started with this question: What is our society missing economically when women are left out of technology development? Here we all agreed that it was like trying to clap with one hand, we miss the innovation, creativity and all the beautiful things that women could contribute.'

DRC: Gender inequality and social institutions in the DRC

2010-12-20

http://bit.ly/gSxL6m

This report from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) says the analysis of the current context in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) makes obvious the existing persistence gender imbalance in all the domains of economical, social, cultural and political development. Access of women to decision making tables, as well as to national economical resources and production factors remains very limited. The situation has deteriorated in latter years with the negative effects of wars in repetition, to the current persistent insecurity. In fact, 61.2 per cent of Congolese women live underneath the poverty threshold. Furthermore, in the DRC, the situation of gender-based violence; particularly domestic violence on women and young girls is very worrying. Collected national data on various forms of Violence Against Women (VAW) demonstrates how it strongly correlates with under-development (human, economic, social and infrastructure).

Global: The revival of Zina Laws in Muslim contexts

2010-12-20

http://www.wunrn.com/news/2010/12_10/12_13/121310_revival.htm

'Control and Sexuality' by Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Vanja Hamzić examines zina laws in some Muslim contexts and communities in order to explore connections between the criminalisation of sexuality, gender-based violence and women’s rights activism. It is hoped that the publication will help activists, policy-makers, researchers and other civil society actors acquire a better understanding of how culture and/or religion are invoked to justify laws that criminalise women’s sexuality and subject them to cruel, inhuman and degrading forms of punishment.

Gambia: Death penalty alive and well

2010-12-15

http://www.ips.org/africa/2010/12/death-penalty-alive-and-well-in-the-gambia/

The appeal by the Gambia’s former Chief of Defence against his death sentence for treason is being heard during December. An amendment to the country’s drugs and human trafficking laws could mean many more capital cases come before the courts. Besides Lang Tombong Tamba and his seven co-accused, the country’s death row holds, among others, Sulayman Bah, convicted of killing his housemate in a dispute over money.

Kenya: Kenyan ministers named as suspects in vote violence

2010-12-20

http://af.reuters.com/article/kenyaNews/idAFLDE6BE1OG20101215

The International Criminal Court prosecutor has named three Kenyan cabinet ministers and a former police chief among six suspects behind the east African country's post-election violence in 2008. The widely awaited announcement has the potential to destabilise Kenya's fragile coalition, or unity government, which was formed by President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to end the bloodshed and restore stability. Prominent among the six suspects were finance minister and deputy prime minister Uhuru Kenyatta, son of Kenya's founding father Jomo Kenyatta, and William Ruto, the higher education minister who has been suspended to fight a corruption case.

Sudan: Khartoum continues to declare war against the women of Sudan

2010-12-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/rights/69630

On the morning of Tuesday 14 December, hundreds of women and men came on the streets in central Khartoum planning to walk peacefully to the Ministry of Justice to hand in a memo signed by a large number of Sudanese men and women protesting against the repressive and humiliating practices and laws constituted by the Sudanese Public Order Regime and to condemn the flogging of women. Prior to reaching the ministry, and while people were still gathering, a wave of arrests took place, with approximately 41 women and five men summarily arrested.
Khartoum continues to declare war against the women of Sudan

'Humiliating women is humiliating the whole nation'

Press Release by the ‘No to Women’s Oppression’ Coalition

Khartoum – Sudan - 14 December 2010

The whole world was shocked after a video was leaked on you tube last week showing a Sudanese woman being lashed at Al Hijera police station in Omdurman, Khartoum. The woman was lashed all over her body, back, head and face while she was screaming and begging them to stop. The loud laughter of police officers could be heard on the video and there was a well-known judge present to witness the event, urging that he is in a rush and to finish flogging the woman quickly.

The No to Women’s Oppression Coalition, an activist coalition including hundreds of women of all walks of life from all parts of Sudan which has been campaigning against the repressive Sudanese Public Order Regime had organized a meeting and produced a statement to condemn these humiliating crimes against women. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has declared that the imposition of the penalty of lashing is a violation of Article 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights which protects people from 'exploitation and degradation […] particularly […] torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and treatment'.

On the morning of Tuesday 14 December, hundreds of women and men came on the streets in central Khartoum planning to walk peacefully to the Ministry of Justice to hand in a memo signed by a large number of Sudanese men and women protesting against the repressive and humiliating practices and laws constituted by the Sudanese Public Order Regime and to condemn the flogging of women.

Prior to reaching the ministry, and while people were still gathering, a wave of arrests took place, with approximately 41 women and five men summarily arrested by a mixed force of ordinary and state security officers. Some of the detainees were subject to long interrogations at the Sudanese National Intelligence Service’s head quarters and then transferred to police stations. Others were kept for interrogation at police stations.

Some of the women were beaten up badly and are now being treated in hospital. Others have been released. Those being held at the Central Police Station remain in detention.

The women and men arrested have been charged under articles 67 (disturbance of the peace), 68 and 77 (offences relating to public nuisance) of the Sudan Criminal Act 1991.

The Public Order Regime in Sudan is a set of laws and mechanisms which prohibit and enforce a range of behavior from dancing at private parties, to 'indecent dress' to the concept of 'intention to commit adultery'. These offenses can be interpreted with great latitude and are enforced by a special police and court system with a reputation for violence and summary justice. Procedures before the public order courts completely fail to meet fair trial standards and involve the imposition of severe penalties including lashing and execution. For a detailed analysis of the public order regime see 'Beyond Trousers: The Public Order Regime' and the `Human Rights of Women and Girls in Sudan', by the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) Network: http://bit.ly/eyKxKy

Zimbabwe: Report exposes army rape abuses

2010-12-14

http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6494

Zimbabwe’s soldiers and police have been fingered in an orgy of rape in which they worked with militia from President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party to allegedly sexually assault supporters of the former opposition MDC over the past decade, according to a new report. The report that calls for a government-led 'multi-sectoral investigation into politically motivated rape in Zimbabwe' was jointly produced by the Harare-based Research and Advocacy Unit, Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) and self-help organisation Doors of Hope Development Trust.

Global: Humanitarian journal launches blog site

2010-12-20

http://www.humanityjournal.org/blog

The journal Humanity now has a blog that will feature debates about the big and small issues of human rights, humanitarianism and development. Current posts include:
- Human rights as a form of idealism
- The World Bank blog site
- The velvet glove of humanitarian biomedicine.

Kenya: Newly discovered papers shed light on independence struggle

2010-12-20

http://bit.ly/gRAQAk

Documents found in Lamu have exposed the understated role of Kenyan Asians in the struggle for independence, reports the Daily Nation. The files also shed light on the real reasons behind the detention of Jomo Kenyatta and fellow freedom fighters. 'The files are a real treasure as they explain in detail how the detainees were treated,' says Athman Hussein, the National Museums of Kenya, assistant director in charge of Coast region.

Egypt: Israel builds separation wall with Egypt

2010-12-15

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53868

After the separation barrier against Palestinian territories, Israel has begun to build a new wall, this one to keep migrants from Africa out. The new wall is coming up on the Egyptian border, and with Egyptian support. The Israeli government approved plans late last month to build a detention camp near its border with Egypt to house illegal African immigrants. Local activists decried the move, which they say flies in the face of internationally accepted human rights norms.

South Africa: Concern over Zimbabwean documentation process

2010-12-14

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/refugees/69591

As the deadline for the Zimbabwean documentation process rapidly approaches, the Forced Migration Studies Programme (FMSP) has identified shortcomings at various Gauteng Department of Home Affairs offices. FMSP’s research reveals a process that is not running effectively, despite claims to the contrary by Home Affairs.
Forced Migration Studies Programme
Press Release

13 December 2010

Many individuals will be unable to access the Zimbabwe documentation process before the deadline, says Wits research

As the deadline for the Zimbabwean documentation process rapidly approaches, the Forced Migration Studies Programme (FMSP) has identified shortcomings at various Gauteng Department of Home Affairs offices. FMSP’s research reveals a process that is not running effectively, despite claims to the contrary by Home Affairs.

Interim results from FMSP’s survey of applicants queuing outside the Pretoria, Harrison Street, and Market Street offices highlight the experiences of 366 applicants at these offices between 22 October and 3 December.

According to the survey results, over 90 per cent of respondents had a Zimbabwean passport prior to the start of this process. This means that individuals who applied for passports after the announcement of the documentation programme were largely excluded from the process at least through the beginning of December.

In addition, the survey revealed that half of those applying for the permits are asylum seekers, while most of the remaining applicants are undocumented. According to Roni Amit, senior researcher with the Forced Migration Studies Programme, there were approximately 400,000 Zimbabwean asylum applicants in South Africa between 2008 and 2010.

She added, 'Assuming that many of these individuals will apply for these permits, and that an additional number of undocumented Zimbabweans will also apply, this suggests a serious problem with the numbers. Between 20 September and 1 December, Home Affairs was able to accept 99, 435 applications. Yet, we are expected to believe that they will be able to accept an additional 100,000-300,000 applications—more than they were able to accept in the first two and a half months—in the remaining three weeks. Either Home Affairs knows something about the numbers that we do not, or the Department is not concerned that large numbers of eligible Zimbabweans will be unable to apply before the deadline and will be deported.'

Prospective applicants expressed frustration over the long, slow process and the lack of information or communication while they queued for days outside the Home Affairs offices. They described spending all day in the queue, only to be told at the end of the day that they would have to come back the next day and try again. Many had to queue overnight, some with children in their care. They also complained that they were forced to stand all day in the sun and/or rain, with no access to toilets or seating.

As a result of the poor management and poor communication of the process, many individuals queued for three days simply to pick up an application form. They then had to start the queuing process over again in order to turn in their application. They were forced to return a third time to find out the status of their application. Each trip could involve multiple days in the queue.

Many prospective applicants worried about losing their jobs as a result of having to take many days off work to lodge their applications. They also expressed fear that they would not be processed before the deadline and would be deported.

'Multiple visits mean increased transport costs and lost wages, and for some, the risk of losing their jobs,' said Amit. 'It is likely that some eligible individuals are simply not attempting to apply because of these obstacles, and will remain undocumented.'

According to Amit, many of the problems stem from the short timeline provided for the permitting process.

'Extending the deadline would ensure that all those eligible for these permits could apply, while also alleviating the long queues. Yet, Home Affairs continues to refuse to extend the deadline, without providing any reasons for its refusal. If the Department is serious about ensuring that all those who are eligible for these permits are able to apply, there is no reason not to extend the application period. Without an extension, the documentation process will be little more than a superficial measure.'

FMSP will continue to monitor the queues at the Home Affairs offices until the end of the year, and will release additional findings in January, 2011.

For additional information, contact:

Dr. Roni Amit
Senior Researcher, Forced Migration Studies Programme
076 779 2118
roni@migration.org.za

South Africa: Bureaucracy could delay deportations

2010-12-20

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=91390

South African bureaucracy - and the vast numbers of Zimbabweans applying for a special permit to remain in the country - could delay the deportation of citizens from the neighbouring state for months. Home Affairs Minister Nkosozana Dlamini-Zuma reportedly told a meeting with the Zimbabwean Stakeholder Forum on 14 December in Pretoria that 'They [Home Affairs] have close on 40,000 applications still outstanding as we speak. So, clearly, they will not be able to finish that backlog before the end of the month.' The deportation of undocumented Zimbabwean nationals would only begin once all applications were processed, the minister said.

Global: UN officials call for respect for rights of migrants

2010-12-20

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=37111&Cr=Migrants&Cr1=

With mounting unemployment spurring discrimination and the politics of polarisation on the rise, United Nations officials have decried the human rights violations, xenophobia, and exploitation faced by many of the world's 214 million international migrants. 'It is important to recall, particularly in these turbulent times, the fundamental role that migrants play in strengthening the global economy,' Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a message marking International Migrants Day, calling on the very many States that have yet to do so to ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Their Families.

Latest Edition: Emerging Powers News Round-Up

2010-12-20

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/emplayersnews/69727

In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers.
1. General

Nigeria may be Africa’s 1st BRIC, but not yet
South Africa, the largest economy in Africa, is eager for elevation to the coveted BRIC status of emerging markets, but investors say Nigeria is a more probable African contender, even if promotion for either is some way off. Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, at last month’s G20 meeting in South Korea, said South Africa had “applied” to join the four-member BRIC grouping of fast-growing emerging economies - Brazil, Russia, India and China. Turkey, Mexico and Indonesia are typically the countries investors eye as an addition to the BRICs, which have grabbed an outsize slice of emerging market investment in recent years due to their scale, growth and impact on the global economy. But resource-rich Africa, boasting some of the fastest-growing countries in the world, has become a focus for investors looking for high returns over a longer time frame.
Read More

Emerging markets the ones to watch
Investors have shown a tendency to snub those mature markets coming out of recession, suffering from a hangover of indebtedness and stimulus packages. Instead, they're turning to emerging markets, which have shown impressive levels of growth and, because of their dynamism, are probably set to drive global economic growth in the years ahead. This is the view of Dr Lyal White, director of the Centre for Dynamic Markets at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), who spoke at the recent GIBS Foresight 2011 Forum held on major trends that will shape business in the year ahead.
Read More

Businesspeople from Mauritius to invest in tourism projects in Mozambique
Small Island Development, a company from Mauritius, has been awarded a public tender for tourist exploration of the Casuarina and Epidendron islands, in Mozambique’s Zambézia province, an official told Macauhub in Maputo. The source from the National Tourism Institute (Inatur) also said that the contract had been signed by Hermenegildo Mazuze Neves, director of the National Tourism Institute, and by Jack Francis, the representative in Mozambique of Small Island Development, and the Mauritius company plans to invest US$20 million in the project.
Read More

2. China in Africa

China business in Africa breaking free of Beijing
Chinese businesses are enjoying increased autonomy and economic freedom to invest in Africa, analysts say, challenging diplomatic perceptions that Beijing is playing puppet master on the continent. With China's role in Africa the subject of considerable tension with the United States, the reality, according to financial experts, is that the sheer scale of Chinese interests makes overarching control impossible.
Read More

China in Zambia: Jobs or exploitation?
At least 11 miners were allegedly shot by two Chinese managers during a protest about poor conditions in October. The long road leading up to the mine in the southern rural district of Sinazongwe is covered in black coal dust, but otherwise there is not a hint that the 21st Century has reached the area. And this is what has angered the miners. They feel that while the Chinese benefit from the mine and live comfortably, they remain in poverty often renting mud-walled huts lacking basic facilities. "The salaries are a problem - we get 500,000 kwacha ($100; £63) a month but our rentals cost about 100,000 kwacha ($20; £13)," says miner Ngula Simukuka, who has a wife and four children to support in nearby Sinazeze township.
Read More

Chinese firm offers $100m deal for Aurora
Liquidator Enver Motala would not name the Chinese state-owned mining company that will buy 65 percent of Aurora Empowerment Systems for $100-million (R686-million), but said he was confident the deal would give the cash-strapped company a boost. The Chinese company also promised to employ embattled workers, who are owed bonuses for December 2009 and salaries from March to date. “These are people with a proven track record. They have indicated that they will preserve jobs by utilising the local workforce. They will bring on board their management staff, which we are happy with,” Motala said. Motala said the mining company was bigger than most operators in South Africa, with 20 operations in China. “They will introduce their technologically advanced equipment to the mining operations in South Africa so they can make the mines viable,” he said.
Read More

Cameroon takes $743 mln China loan for water project
Cameroon secured a 366 billion CFA franc loan from the Export-Import Bank of China to fund a water distribution project, the government said on Wednesday. The programme will reach 2 million people in the capital city Yaounde and villages along the pipeline, marking a significant infrastructure boost for the central African state in which the United Nations says only half the 19.5 million population have access to clean water. The project should begin in January, Water and Energy Minister Michael Tomdio said on state radio.
Read More

China can get generals to quit: WikiLeaks
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) holds the key to dismantling Zimbabwe’s ruling cabal and is likely to be influential in achieving elusive reforms to nudge hardline security chiefs to agree to political changes, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable. The cable, obtained by WikiLeaks, says German Ambassador to Zimbabwe Albrecht Conze told US ambassador Charles Ray that the PRC plays a significant role in Zimbabwe and that Western nations need to involve them more in cooperative activities wherever possible. In the December 2009 cable, Ray said Conze agreed with him that while China was unlikely to want to participate in pro-democracy programmes, economic stability was clearly in its interests.
Read More

SA 'must improve trade relationship with China'
South Africa must address the "adverse characteristics" in its trading relationship with China and ensure that a relationship of "mutual benefit takes centre stage", said Jorge Maia, the head of research and information at the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). While exports to China - SA's leading export destination since early last year - are dominated by a handful of raw materials, Chinese imports play a dominant role in almost all manufacturing subsectors in SA, according to an analysis of SA's trade patterns, which was released by the IDC this week.
Read More

China, Germany pledge support for Malawi’s move to renewables
China and Germany have pledged to help Malawi explore solar and wind energy options in a bid to mitigate the Southern African country’s electricity deficit. Malawi depends on hydroelectricity generated at power stations on the Shire river and is grappling to meet the current electricity demand of over 300 MW. The country’s installed generation capacity is 287 MW. Natural Resources, Energy and Envi- ronment Minister Grain Malunga says that China has pledged to assist Malawi in embracing the use of solar energy on a bigger scale.
Read More

China's dominance in Kenya worries Washington
This sign probably says it all; 'Bear with us today for a better tomorrow'. To most Kenyans using Thika Road, the sign by China's Wu Yi, Syno Hydro and China Overseas Enginering Corporation that are transforming the busy road to a super highway cannot be more than assuring. "The traffic jams are unbearable today but when you see what is coming up, there is no doubt about a better future," said Charles Wanjau, a user of the road. But not everybody is happy with the Chinese coming to Kenya.
Read More

Chinese investors to put up tea factory in Tarime
More than 1,500 tea growers in Tarime district are expected to benefit from a tea processing plant to be built by Chinese investors in the district. The farmers are currently forced to trek long distances to Kenya to sell their cash crop due to lack of a reliable market. China has expressed its willingness to invest in the factory in the district through a private company, Chunlun Tea Group Company, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture of the People's Republic of China (MOA). The company's owner, Fu Tianlong and Cao Haijun from the ministry, met with farmers' leaders recently in Tarime district and made preliminary talks about the investment.
Read More

Vehicle assemblers queue to set up shop in Kenya
Global auto firms are increasingly looking to establish assembly plants in Kenya in a move that sets the stage for price realignments in a market that has remained in the hands of three players for decades. China’s State-owned manufacturer Foton Motor has announced plans to open a plant in Nairobi next year to produce light commercial vehicles, becoming the third auto dealer after Japan’s Toyota and India’s Tata to unveil such assemblies. The three auto dealers ship in built vehicles save for Toyota that assembles some of its pick-ups locally, a move that has denied them room to lower prices because of high freight and duty charges.
Read More

Chinese to help steer Zambia's reconstruction drive
Zambia's plum development projects under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative has taken shape, setting off a welter of investments in real estate, construction and energy. It is early days yet, but going by the recent announcement of a master plan under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiative, in which Chinese companies are tipped to play a major role, Zambia is set to maintain the regional construction boom triggered by the building of stadiums for the 2010 FIFA World Cup finals in South Africa. The country's Minister of Finance and National Planning Situmbeko Musokotwane says the government hopes the PPP initiative will grow the country's gross domestic product (GDP) by at least 10 percent within the next five years through increased investments.
Read More

China, Namibia stress commitment to stronger relations
China and Nambia on Thursday reaffirmed their commitment to building stronger bilateral relations at a meeting between Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang and Namibian Foreign Minister Utoni Nujoma, who is on a week-long visit to China. Li reviewed the sound growth of China-Namibia relations since the two countries forged diplomatic ties in 1990, citing solid progress of bilateral cooperation and deeper people-to-people friendship. China regarded Namibia as one of the most trustworthy friends and partners, Li said, pledging to make joint efforts with Namibia to boost bilateral relations.
Read More

3. India In Africa

Delhi to set up 19 training institutes in Africa
A foreign trade institute in Uganda and a diamond centre in Botswana are among the 19 training institutes that India will set up across Africa in the next two years. The two sides have finalised the location of the institutes ahead of India’s second continent-level summit with Africa next year. They are part of the commitment that followed the first India-Africa Forum Summit in 2008. The training institutes, envisaged in the 2008 Delhi Declaration, were unveiled in the joint action plan India and the African Union (AU) launched in March this year. But it was only last week that the AU conveyed to the Indian side the final list of locations where these training institutes, Gurjit Singh, joint secretary in charge of East and South Africa in the external affairs ministry, said.
Read More

State-run, private Indian firms tie up for Africa projects
The state-run Engineering Projects India (EPI) Saturday signed an agreement with Universal Empire Infrastructures Limited (UEIL) to secure high value infrastructure development projects in Africa and South Asia. 'Indian private and public enterprises are joining hands as they eye business opportunities, and also to compete against China's rapid forays in infrastructure development projects, in Africa and South Asian countries,' the company said in a statement. The tie-up, signed in the presence of Heavy Industries Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, will ensure that the combined strength will help them against stiff competition, it added.
Read More

India-Africa ties in 'transformational phase
India's ties with Africa are in a 'transformational phase' and its efforts are radically different from what any other country is doing in the vast and quickly changing continent, a senior official said here. The Indian government's challenge was to convert warm political relations with the 53-nation continent into productive economic ties, he said. 'A successful foreign policy has to transform political ties into a modern functional one,' said Gurjit Singh, joint secretary (East and Southern Africa) in the ministry of external affairs (MEA).
Read More

Strengthening Zim– India relations will catapult growth
As the global economic balance of power shifts from the West to the East, it is becoming increasingly evident that we are living through the tail end of half a millennium of Western supremacy. Consequently, Zimbabwe must perfect the art of benefiting from India, one of Asia's emerging giants and a country that may become its most important trading partner.
Read More

4. In Other Emerging Powers News

Angola, SA cement ties
South Africa is hoping that next week's state visit by Angolan president José Eduardo Dos Santos will cement political and economic ties between the two countries which suffered under Thabo Mbeki's rule but have re-engaged under President Jacob Zuma. Dos Santos, travelling with a delegation of ministers, is due on Monday and will meet Zuma during his three-day stay. South Africa's trade and industry department and Business Unity South Africa have organised a business round table to discuss investment opportunities in Angola.
Read More

SA, Angola sign energy deal in historic visit
South Africa and oil-producing Angola took a step away from decades of friction on Tuesday by signing an energy deal during the first state visit of Angola's long-standing leader to the regional economic power. South Africa is looking for new sources of oil to help power the continent's leading economy and has eyed Angola – Africa's second-biggest oil producer – as a potential new supplier. On a first visit to South Africa during his three-decade rule, Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos said he was open to new forms of cooperation.
Read More

Tanzania plans $2 bln hydro plant with Brazil
Tanzania is planning with Brazil to build a power plant estimated to cost $2 billion that could transform east Africa's second largest economy into a net exporter of electricity, a senior official said on Wednesday. Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Membe and other officials held talks with their Brazilian counterparts in Sao Paolo in September on the construction of the proposed 2,100 megawatt (MW) Stiegler's Gorge hydro-power station.
Read More

5. Blogs, Opinions, Presentations and Publications

SA must learn from DRC, China link
I don't know what you've heard about China's involvement in Africa. What I heard up to now is that that country is raping the continent of natural resources by bringing in cheap Chinese labour, building things for Africans and leaving behind structures with the possibility of becoming white elephants. When I first heard and believed this, I had never been to a country with people from mainland China who had been sent there by the Chinese government. So, on landing in the Democratic Republic of Congo last week, the last thing I thought I would encounter were Chinese people from mainland China at work. But there they were. My guide - who was once in charge of the DRC's reconstruction programme - was shocked by my perception.
Read More

Q+A-China, India rivalry across the globe
Trade between India and China is booming, but diplomatic ties have become increasingly fraught over their competing global aspirations, underlined by a rivalry for natural resources, skewed trade and an unsettled border. Here are some questions and answers about their rivalry across the globe.
Read More

Chinese Refineries in Nigeria, Chad, Niger & Ghana: The Sudan Model?
We've read recently about Chinese offers and deals to build refineries in African countries: Nigeria, Chad, and Niger and in Ghana, alumina, (but perhaps oil in the future). Not all of these deals have been concluded or financed, but we can learn something about the probable structure of the deals by revisiting the first of these: the Khartoum Refinery, a joint venture between the government of Sudan and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), which opened in June 1998.
Read More

Ivory Coast: Gbagbo allies 'ready to die' in Ivory Coast fight

2010-12-20

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE6BJ00G20101220

Supporters of Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo have vowed to fight to the death to keep him as president of the world's top cocoa producer as pressure grows for him to quit after a disputed election or face sanctions. His rival Alassane Ouattara has won almost unanimous international backing after his eight-point lead in a 28 November presidential vote was overturned on grounds of alleged fraud by the Constitutional Council, led by a staunch Gbagbo ally.

Ivory Coast: Don't attack peacekeepers, says Ban as rights violations reported

2010-12-20

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=37114&Cr=Ivoire&Cr1=

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon emphasised his warning against attacks on the United Nations peacekeeping force in Côte d'Ivoire or attempts to obstruct their work, saying there will consequences for those responsible, as the UN human rights arm reported 'massive violations'. In Geneva, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, expressed deep concern over the growing evidence of massive violations of human rights taking place in Côte d'Ivoire since 16 December, and reiterated her determination to ensure that perpetrators are held accountable for their actions.

Sudan: Sharia law to be tightened if Sudan splits, says president

2010-12-20

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12033185

The north of Sudan will reinforce its Islamic laws if the south secedes as a result of next month's referendum, President Omar al-Bashir has said. Bashir said the constitution would then be changed, making Islam the only religion, Sharia the only law and Arabic the only official language. Correspondents say his comments are likely to alarm thousands of non-Muslim southerners living in the north.

Tanzania: Four challenges to government, donors and MPs

2010-12-20

http://twaweza.org/index.php?i=452

Government, donors and Members of Parliament have been challenged to make decisions that will enable Tanzanians achieve better results from their tax and donor money. In a new policy brief, Uwazi at Twaweza presses for a more transparent budget process; implementation of the recommendations of the Controller and Auditor General (CAG), and a focus on learning in primary schools. The brief titled, 'Achieving Results: Four Challenges to Government, Donors and MPs', says effective management of public resources remains elusive because the budget process is opaque, and citizens and oversight bodies lack a substantive voice in it. It notes further that efforts to improve primary education have disproportionately focused on increasing enrolment, failing to ensure that children actually learn while in school.

Morocco: Corruption rife in Morocco, Transparency International alleges

2010-12-20

http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2010/12/16/feature-03

Thirty-four per cent of Moroccans admit to having paid a bribe in the past 12 months, according to a recent study by Transparency International. For its 2010 Global Corruption Barometer, released on 9 December, the Berlin-based organisation interviewed more than 91,500 people in 86 countries and territories. Nearly one thousand heads of household, including 483 women, participated in the survey.

Nigeria: Cheney charges dropped

2010-12-20

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12018900

Nigeria has dropped charges against former US Vice-President Dick Cheney over a 1990s bribery scandal, anti-corruption officials say. The case focused on bribes paid by engineering firm KBR while it was a subsidiary of Halliburton, a firm headed by Mr Cheney at the time. Nigerian officials said Halliburton agreed an out-of-court deal worth $250m (£160m). The firm has not commented.

Tanzania: Donors press Tanzania on corruption as TI reports an increase

2010-12-20

http://bit.ly/ieiz1L

Donors continue pressing the Tanzanian government to fight against corruption as Transparency International’s global report indicated a dramatic increase in corruption worldwide, reports the Tanzania Corruption Tracking System. Speaking at the end of a week long Poverty Eradication Review and Annual Policy Dialogue, the General Budget Support (GBS) group of development Partners in Tanzania spoke tough against the government’s slow pace in the fight against corruption. Over 14 donors contribute to Tanzania’s budget through the GBS modality.

Africa: Africa needs a strategy for ‘emerging partners’

2010-12-20

http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol24no4/emerging-partners.html

The global development landscape is changing rapidly with the growing role of China, Brazil and other 'emerging' economies. In this new context, African countries have seen a significant increase in trade, foreign direct investment and official development assistance from the South. However, 'While some emerging economies have a strategy for Africa, Africa does not have a strategy towards the emerging economies,' notes a new report of the UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (OSAA). So that both sides can gain from this relationship, African countries need to adopt a coordinated, coherent strategy and exercise greater ownership over their growing interactions with emerging economies, urges the report, 'Africa's Cooperation with New and Emerging Development Partners: Options for Africa's Development'.

DRC: Call for BHP Billiton to halt Congo smelter

2010-12-20

http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/node/6058

A group of civil society organisations have raised concerns about the adverse impacts of BHP Billiton’s ongoing negotiations with the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for a $5 billion aluminum smelter near the port of Banana on the Atlantic Coast to be powered by the proposed Inga 3 hydropower scheme. 'In one of the world’s poorest and most corrupt countries, this purely commercial venture is set to reinforce existing poverty. Without due action, it will cost the Congolese people electricity, jobs and development,' say the organisations.

Africa: EU, SADC teams miss EPA deadline

2010-12-14

http://www.trademarksa.org/node/2885

SADC states and the European Union have missed the year-end deadline for the completion and signing of a full Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), a target set in June and designed to bring finality to the complex process. Following the expiry of the Cotonou Agreement, the seven SADC states, Botswana among them, began lengthy negotiations for a new trade agreement, but the process eventually failed to meet the original December 2007 deadline enforceable by the World Trade Organisation.

Africa: South Africa and Nigeria battle for BRIC status

2010-12-14

http://bit.ly/eL3syf

South Africa is eager for elevation to the coveted Bric (Brazil, Russia, India and China) status of key emerging markets, but investors say Nigeria is a more probable African contender, even if promotion for either country is some way off. Investment flows into Nigeria are tiny compared with South Africa. Nigeria saw equity fund flows of just $216 million (R1.48 billion) for the first 10 months of this year, compared with $3.4bn for South Africa, according to fund tracker EPFR. Yet, while South Africa is the larger economy, Nigeria is expected to catch up in the next few years.

Africa: Future development lies in green energy grid

2010-12-15

http://www.ips.org/africa/2010/12/africas-future-lies-in-a-green-energy-grid/

Development in Africa could falter as climate change grips the continent, increasing the length and severity of droughts and floods by altering precipitation patterns, among other impacts. The region needs a major shift in its economic development policies and thinking towards decentralised, green economic development, experts now say. 'The world’s big economies are largely living off financial transactions which are unconnected to development,' warns Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary-general of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Global: Financial Crisis? Systemic Crisis?

Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) lecture series

2010-12-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/development/69626

The policies pursued by the collective imperialist triad (USA, Europe, Japan), which aim exclusively at restoring the system to what it was before 2008, are bound to fail. As a result, the North-South conflict moves to the forefront. By taking independent initiatives, the countries of the South can take this opportunity to move ahead towards the construction of the only effective and viable alternative for their liberation from the domination of imperialist monopolies.
The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA)
Lecture Series

Financial Crisis? Systemic Crisis? written by Samir Amin
Dakar, CODESRIA, Lectures Series n°3, 2010, 18 p., ISBN: 978-2-86978-311-9

The financial collapse of September 2008 was the unavoidable result of the long systemic crisis that had been gangrening the generalised oligopoly capitalism since the 1970s. To curb that crisis, mechanisms were set in place to preserve the monopoly of capital through policies that ensure concentration of capital and the direct and exclusive domination of a small group of oligopolies. Financialisation, which was the consequence of this centralisation as the only guarantee to capture the imperialist rent was, however, the Achille’s heel of the system. The policies pursued by the collective imperialist triad (USA, Europe, Japan), which aim exclusively at restoring the system to what it was before 2008, are bound to fail. As a result, the North-South conflict moves to the forefront. By taking independent initiatives, the countries of the South can take this opportunity to move ahead towards the construction of the only effective and viable alternative for their liberation from the domination of imperialist monopolies.

Samir Amin is an eminent professor of developmental political economics. He taught economics at both Poitiers University in Paris and Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, after which he became Director of UN-IDEP, Dakar (1970 – 80), Executive Secretary of CODESRIA (1973 – 75) and Director, Third World Forum, Dakar (1980 – date). Professor Amin has published extensively in the fields of law, civil society, socialism, colonialism and development, particularly on Africa, and the Arab and Muslim world. Some of his most recent publications are: Beyond US Hegemony (2006), A Life Looking Forward: Memoirs of an Independent Marxist (2006), The World We Wish to See: Revolutionary Objectives for the 21st Century (2008) and From Capitalism to Civilization: Reconstructing the Social Perspective (2010). Others include: Pour la cinquième internationale (2006), Du capitalisme à la civilisation (2008), Modernité, Religions, Démocratie, Critique de l’eurocentrisme, Critique du culturalisme (2008), L’éveil du Sud, Panorama politique et personnel de l’ère de Bandoung (2008) and Sur la crise, sortir de la crise du capitalisme ou sortir du capitalisme en crise (2009).

* The PDF document : http://www.codesria.org/IMG/pdf/Samir_Amin_Financial_Crises_English-doc.pdf

CODESRIA Publications/Publications du CODESRIA: http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?rubrique38

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CODESRIA Facebook Account/Compte Facebook du CODESRIA : http://www.facebook.com/pages/CODESRIA/181817969495

Africa: The real stories on HIV/Aids gallery

2010-12-15

http://www.real-stories-gallery.org/

Real Stories Gallery is a conversation created by our visual arts and stories, to shift perceptions surrounding HIV and AIDS. Today HIV affects the lives of men, women and children on all continents around the world. Artists, poets, writers and storytellers from across the breadth and depth of our communities, are invited to share their experiences, reflections and life-saving knowledge. By working together we will inspire a culture of compassion and acceptance for our neighbours whose lives are affected. To submit your contribution you will first need to 'Register'. Once this is done you will then 'Add Your Contribution' to the Gallery, by uploading a photographic image of your work and/or text in word document form. Poets, creative writers and storytellers will follow the same submissions procedure. As will those who would like to contribute music or video submissions. You may choose to exhibit only or to sell your work.

Africa: Getting men talking about condoms

2010-12-14

http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=91321

'Why, if condoms are available, is AIDS still spreading in Africa?' asks Elkana Ong’esa, an elderly Kenyan man in the new documentary, Protection: Men and condoms in the time of HIV and AIDS. 'Because AIDS has not been sufficiently explained to people, and that if you use condoms you can prevent it,' replies a young man participating in a baraza (community meeting) called to discuss the devastating impact HIV is having on their village.

Swaziland: TB care moves to the community

2010-12-15

http://www.ips.org/africa/2010/12/community-caregivers-administer-mdr-tb-injections-in-swaziland/

Until 2007, when international medical NGO Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) came to Swaziland to help the Ministry of Health in the response on HIV/AIDS and TB in the Shiselweni region, HIV/AIDS and TB treatment was not available at any of the region’s 21 clinics. Patients had to either travel to the Hlathikhulu Government Hospital or Matsanjeni and Nhlangano health centres. These centres were located in each of the towns of the different regions in the country. A health centre is a facility that is smaller than a hospital with a few beds and does not have a theatre to do operations. MSF worked with government to bring services to the clinics, but this was not enough because some patients were either too weak or too poor to reach even the clinics.

Ethiopia: Saving the lives of rural mothers

2010-12-15

http://www.ips.org/africa/2010/12/ethiopia-saving-rural-mothers8217-lives/

Nigist Abebe has grown in confidence over five years on the job. Today she is one of 34,000 rural health extension workers at the heart of Ethiopia’s primary health care strategy. One of her most important functions in Dengo Furda Kebele, the village she was born and raised in, is supporting women through pregnancy and childbirth. An estimated 94 per cent of Ethiopian mothers give birth at home and in 2005, when the Health Extension program started, 720 mothers died per 100,000 live births.

Africa: Scientists focus on male mosquitoes in bid to control malaria

2010-12-20

http://bit.ly/g9UgXX

After successfully suppressing scourges of fruit, tsetse and screwworm flies in the Americas, researchers are exploring whether the same sterilised insect technique can be used to control malaria, which kills some one million people every year, many of them in Africa. Entomologists and other researchers at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are testing whether sterilised insect technique (SIT) can be used to reduce populations of malarial mosquitoes. Experiments are taking place at the agency’s laboratory facilities in eastern Austria, and researchers emphasise that their work is at an early stage.

Global: New manual offers knowledge and skills for young adolescents

2010-12-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/hivaids/69628

identity - making decisions - peer pressure - values - HIV and AIDS - love - sex... These are just a few of the topics covered by 'My Life - Starting Now'. This 80-page manual, no. 8 in the Called to Care toolkit published by the Strategies for Hope Trust, focuses on knowledge and lifeskills for young people aged 10 to 15.
Strategies for Hope Trust
My life - Starting now
Knowledge and skills for young adolescents

Personal identity - making decisions - peer pressure - values - HIV and AIDS - love - sex... These are just a few of the topics covered by 'My Life - Starting Now'. This 80-page manual, no. 8 in the Called to Care toolkit published by the Strategies for Hope Trust, focuses on knowledge and lifeskills for young people aged 10 to 15.

The manual takes a participatory approach to teaching and learning, using role plays, case studies, games, stories, quizzes, Bible study and artwork to promote discussion and explore critical life skills for young people. It also includes sessions for parents and guardians on their roles in guiding, supporting and educating young people.

The co-authors of the book - Lucy Steinitz in Namibia and Eunice Kamaara in Kenya - have combined their vast experience of training young people in lifeskills and producing educational materials on HIV, gender, sex and sexual behaviour. Illustrations are by the Namibian artist, Marika Matengu, and the Zambian artist, Danny Chiyesu.

By Lucy Steinitz with Eunice Kamaara. 80 pages; published November 2010; price £2.60 from TALC (www.talcuk.org; info@talcuk.org). ISBN 978-1-905746-15-6. Download on www.stratshope.org/b-cc-08-life.htm For further information, contact the Series Editor:
sfh@stratshope.org

Africa: Whatever happened to the Pan-African University?

2010-12-14

http://www.scidev.net/en/features/whatever-happened-to-the-pan-african-university-.html

Plans for a university that will stretch across Africa and be a 'flagship institution of higher education' will go ahead, despite political problems with two of its five planned centres, African Union commissioner and steward of the project, Jean-Pierre Ezin has insisted. The Pan-African University (PAU), which was proposed by the African Union (AU) in 2008, is expected to offer advanced graduate training and postgraduate research opportunities for "the cream of the crop" of African students, according to a draft concept note produced at the time.

Public and Private Domains and the Social Role of Universities in Africa

CODESRIA, Lectures Series n° 5, 2010

2010-12-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/education/69612

The CODESRIA Lecture Series is a major outlet for disseminating special lectures and keynote addresses emanating from various scientific fora provided by the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA). This series projects CODESRIA’s main thematic areas, covering Africa’s social, economic, political and intellectual development. The neoliberal domination and the prioritisation of the private ruled by the market have deeply affected the educational models, and produced significant alterations on the social role of higher education institutions in Africa.
Public and Private Domains and the Social Role of Universities in Africa
by Teresa Cruz e Silva
Dakar, CODESRIA, Lectures Series n° 5, 2010, 18 p., ISBN: 978-2-86978-313-3

The backstage around which the scientific discussion of the 12th CODESRIA General Assembly is organized: Governing the African Public Sphere, makes a strong case for revisiting the theoretical approaches on the concept of ‘public sphere’ in Africa, within a global context of social, economic and political changes with impacts on the current conjuncture of the continent, since the last decades of the 20th century. In this process, the reshaping of the capitalist order has brought about profound alterations with ramifications on the public sphere and the traditional role of the state, providing by this way a justification for the academic debates around issues such as the public and the private, the narrowing of the public sphere and the role of the state.

The neoliberal domination and the prioritization of the private ruled by the market have deeply affected the educational models, and produced significant alterations on the social role of higher education institutions in Africa. Despite the enormous adversities facing higher education institutions, as knowledge producers, these institutions play a pivotal role in addressing innovative approaches to African development. In this way, the universities maintain themselves as privileged sites, not only for debate, but also for struggles over power and access to resources. This Claude Ake Lecture discusses the social role of African higher education institutions in the challenges of the new public sphere. The text also focus on the role CODESRIA should play to stimulate and/or reinforce a pedagogical project rooted in the indissociability of teaching and research, based on excellence.

Teresa Cruz e Silva, Mozambican, is currently Associate Professor at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) Maputo. Her teaching experience covers the social history of Mozambique and methods of research in social sciences. Her areas of research interest include: nationalism and liberation struggles in Mozambique and southern Africa; religion and society, youth and social identities. Her collaborative work with other universities, as guest researcher, guest professor and external examiner has taken her to Brazil and South Africa. She has published extensively on the social history of Mozambique and served on the editorial boards of several journals. Teresa Cruz e Silva is a member of WLSA Mozambique, director of Centre for Social Studies, Aquino de Bragança (Mozambique), and member of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa – CODESRIA (where she was a member of the Executive Committee (2002-2005) and President (2005-2008).

* The PDF document: http://www.codesria.org/IMG/pdf/Teresa_Cruz_Public_Private_Domains.pdf

CODESRIA Publications/Publications du CODESRIA: http://www.codesria.org/spip.php?rubrique38

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Uganda: Teachers in Uganda gain a new best friend

2010-12-20

http://www.ips.org/africa/2010/12/education-meet-tessa-ugandan-teachers-best-friend/

Beatrice Namuzibira’s class of 90 pupils is not even considered a large one, compared to classes in other schools. Universal primary education has filled classrooms beyond capacity across Uganda, putting a strain on teachers. But her teaching - and her home life - have received fresh inspiration, thanks to innovative online modules for teachers offered by the Teacher Education for Sub-Saharan Africa project (TESSA), a network created to support effective teaching in every subject area.

Africa: Homophobia Plagues Africa

2010-12-20

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/lgbti/69724

AIDS-Free World has condemned statements by a prominent Ghanaian activist, citing the statements as further evidence of the alarming homophobia that is sweeping across Africa. The statement argued publicly for the Constitution Review Commission to limit Ghana's definition of marriage to include heterosexual couples only. Read the full statement by clicking on the link provided.
Homophobia Plagues Africa
AIDS-Free World Statement

Monday's statements by a prominent Ghanaian activist provide further evidence of the alarming homophobia that is sweeping across Africa. Bernice Sam, National Programme Coordinator of WiLDAF (Women in Law and Development) in Ghana argued publicly for the Constitution Review Commission to limit Ghana's definition of marriage to include heterosexual couples only. Sam then went even further. She was quoted as saying that it will be 'almost impossible for the act of homosexuality to be considered criminal' if the constitution is not reworded in this way.

These statements are just the most recent addition to a growing fervor of discrimination, paranoia, and hatred directed at sexual minorities in Africa. Dangerous rhetoric is being spewed not only by individual citizens such as Ms. Sam, but by heads of state, members of parliaments and judiciaries, religious leaders, and others in powerful positions throughout the continent. Because it was so surprising to have a statement of this kind coming from a lawyer's human rights organisation, we wrote directly to Bernice Sam to give her an opportunity to respond. She did respond elaborately, explaining her commitment to human rights and the comments she'd made on other issues. But at no time did she disavow the statements attributed to her.

Last year, Uganda's President Museveni chaired a convening of Commonwealth country leaders in Trinidad, where they were directly confronted with the violent homophobia in Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean. (S. Lewis: Ugandan Anti-Gay Bill Must Go). The Commonwealth chose to do and say nothing in response. Left unchecked in the Caribbean, deeply offensive sodomy laws and homophobic statutes are now spreading amongst former and current Commonwealth countries in Africa - most recently Uganda, Malawi, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and now Ghana.

The time has come for leaders in the African Union to take urgent measures to stop this growing and insidious contagion of homophobia. Even those who have not thus far participated in overt discrimination or hate speech are complicit by remaining silent. It was precisely this level of silence on the part of the African Union that characterised the early years of AIDS, when something deadly took root in the continent. There is a danger that such a pattern is emerging again.

The discrimination called for by Ms. Sam and reinforced by increasing numbers of African leaders violates fundamental human rights, which are enshrined in numerous regional and international instruments, including the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, the Maputo Protocol, the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, among others. It is the responsibility of the African Union to intervene, to stop this trend of hatred, and to issue a strong public statement that affirms, protects, and preserves the dignity and human rights of all sexual minorities.

AIDS-Free World believes that HIV flourishes when hatred and discrimination drive already marginalised communities underground, beyond the reach of HIV prevention and treatment services. Anti-gay statements, laws, and policies violate the most basic of all human rights. Hate speech cannot be allowed to proliferate.

Upon reading Ms. Sam's public remarks and hearing excerpts, AIDS-Free World contacted her and gave her ample opportunity to publicly repudiate the statements attributed to her. Her first reply was lengthy and elaborate, but did not deal with the issue at hand. We requested clarification, and straightforward answers to the following three questions:

1. Do you support the rights of gay women and men to participate fully and openly in Ghanaian society with protected status?

2. Do you denounce all efforts to promote the criminalisation of homosexuality in Ghana?

3. Would you denounce any effort taken to modify the Ghanaian Constitution in any ways that would criminalise (or open the possibility of criminalising) homosexuality, homosexual acts, or homosexual relationships?

Ms. Sam has not responded. We now call upon her organisation, WiLDAF, to repudiate her positions, publicly affirm its support for the human rights of sexual minorities, and take appropriate action.

* To read the correspondence between AIDS-Free World and Bernice Sam, and to view a sampling of recent news articles that follow homophobia's spread across Africa, please visit our website at www.aidsfreeworld.org

Contact:
Paula Donovan, Co-Director, AIDS-Free World
info@aidsfreeworld.org

Global: Ban Ki-moon deplores homophobia

2010-12-20

http://ilga.org/ilga/en/article/mKmW3W41la

In an event on sexual orientation at UN Headquarters in New York, held in conjunction with Human Rights Day, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon deplored discrimination against homosexuals and the violence of which they are often victims, for which the perpetrators escape punishment. Ban recognised that social attitudes run deep and social change often comes only with time, but he highlighted the collective responsibility to stand against discrimination, to defend fellow human beings and fundamental principles. Ban noted that during his recent trips to Africa, he urged leaders to do away with laws criminalising homosexuality.

Zimbabwe: LGBTI activist acquitted

2010-12-20

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/zimbabwe-court-acquits-lgbt-activist-2010-12-17

Amnesty International has welcomed a Zimbabwe court's decision to acquit a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights activist charged with possession of pornographic materials.Ellen Chademana, an administrative assistant at the prominent NGO Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ), was acquitted by a magistrate's court in Harare. The charges followed an armed police raid on the GALZ offices in Milton Park Harare in May.

Global: From Cancun to Durban, climate change negotiations COP 'Out'

2010-12-20

http://www.sacsis.org.za/site/article/596.1

South Africa is no stranger to hosting major United Nations (UN) events. In 2001 the World Conference Against Racism was hosted in Durban and in 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) took place in Johannesburg. In late 2011 the contentious climate change negotiations will continue at the UN 17th Conference of the Party (COP 17) in Durban where the South African government is hoping they could clinch the deal for a 'fair, balanced and ambitious outcome', on climate change. Judging from the outcome of the recently concluded COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico; obtaining a multi-lateral agreement through which those most to blame for causing climate change take responsibility for the damage they are causing to those most affected by climate change, is unlikely to happen, writes Michelle Pressend, who coordinates the Trade Strategy Group (TSG) at the Economic Justice Network and Global Network Africa at the Labour Research Services in Cape Town.

Niger: Greenpeace sounds alarm over radioactive spill

2010-12-20

http://www.africasciencenews.org/asns/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2632&Itemid=1

Reports sent to Greenpeace indicate that more than 200,000 cubic litres of radioactive sludge from three cracked waste pools have been leaking into the environment at the SOMAIR uranium mine in Niger since 11 December 11, says Greenpeace. 'This new leakage shows that the bad practices at the AREVA uranium mines in Niger continue to threaten the health and safety of people and the environment,' said Rianne Teule, energy campaigner for Greenpeace Africa.

Namibia: When every drop counts

2010-12-14

http://www.panos.org.uk/?lid=33741

The Omusati Region of northern Namibia is on the margins of what any farmer would consider arable land, with temperatures routinely hitting 40 degrees Celsius or more and rainfall seldom exceeding a pitiful 270 millimeters per year. To make matters worse 83 per cent of the little rain that does fall evaporates as soon as it hits the ground. In a report to the United Framework Convention on Climate Change, the government of Namibia has predicted global warming will cause a temperature rise of between two to six degrees Celsius in Namibia, while annual rainfall could diminish up to a further staggering 200mm.

Africa: Outsourced African farming threatens to alienate locals

2010-12-20

http://farmlandgrab.org/17765

Ghana and Qatar’s announcement that they will jointly farm 50,000 hectares of land is the latest in a sweeping, but controversial, trend rolling across Africa. Cash-rich countries are securing land in poorer states, which they hope will provide them with food security. But critics warn that in the rush to secure food for themselves, investors and African governments risk alienating large sectors of the populations, for whom land ownership is an ongoing, emotional issue.

Global: Saying no to a biomass economy

2010-12-20

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=5F4EBC94BF80D270

The world's biggest corporations are rushing to grab and convert living plant matter - called 'biomass' - into fuel, chemicals, and other profitable products. This new 'biomass economy' represents a trillion dollar industry but it will not feed the people or stop climate change. In order to shed light on this new economy, farm leaders from the global South participated in a public forum to share their reality and propose alternatives. This www.youtube.com page presents a series of videos from the forum.

Mozambique: South African farmers set up in Mozambique

2010-12-14

http://af.reuters.com/article/investingNews/idAFJOE6BC05I20101213

More South African farmers expect to receive land offers in Mozambique as they seek to expand across Africa amid uncertainty over land reform at home, an official from a mostly white farmers group said on Monday. South Africa - Africa's biggest economy - has one of the most developed agricultural sectors on the continent and its farmers are looking to expand into other countries. Some 800 South African farmers are already farming in Mozambique.

Africa: Farmers fighting for diversity

2010-12-15

http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/3224

Meeting the world's future food needs is dependent on preserving the genetic diversity of the plants we grow and eat, as well as their 'wild relatives'. While collecting and saving the world's seed patrimony in 'gene banks' or ex situ may be a worthy endeavor, a new FAO publication underscores the critical need for efforts that protect agricultural biodiversity on the farm itself or in situ. This means supporting the millions of small farmers and peasants throughout the world who manage diverse species of plants and animals in and around their fields.

Global: Addressing concentration in food supply chains

2010-12-15

http://bit.ly/h78VtL

Concentration in the agrifood sector has been increasing over the past few years, with sometimes tragic consequences for small-scale farmers and agricultural workers. In this new briefing note, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food explores how the creation and abuse of dominant buyer power by global agribusiness firms can be addressed in competition law, and how developed and developing States can work together in this way. The note shows that global food supply chains will contribute significantly to the reduction of rural poverty only to the extent that such abuses are effectively combated through competition law regimes that are designed to be consistent with the obligation of States to protect the right to adequate food.

Global: Putting urban gardens on the map

2010-12-14

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=91361

Mame Penda Diouf talks over car horns and city bus engines as she shows off potted lettuce, mint and potato plants at a traffic circle in the Senegal capital, Dakar. A trader and horticulture trainer, she says micro-gardening creates jobs and allows people to better feed their families. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and many other international and local institutions are pushing just that message – that micro-gardening and other forms of urban horticulture can go a long way to boosting city dwellers’ food security and improving living conditions.

Kenya: Researchers say traditional vegetables can improve food security

2010-12-20

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53907

According to Vision 2030, which is a government strategic plan on how to boost growth and development in Kenya, there are an estimated five million out of an estimated eight million households who depend directly on agriculture, despite the fact that agriculture continues to be one of the most under-budgeted ministries. Researchers have intensified research on crops that can grow in most parts of the country and which can be used to alleviate food insecurity. This has led many Kenyans to accommodate traditional vegetables that were earlier dismissed as the 'poor man’s crop'.

Burkino Faso: In Norbert Zongo case, 12 years of impunity

2010-12-20

http://cpj.org/blog/2010/12/in-norbert-zongo-case-12-years-of-impunity.php

For Geneviève Zongo, every 13 December revives excruciating memories of the loss of her husband Norbert Zongo, editor of the weekly L'Indépendant. He was assassinated in 1998 while investigating the murder of a driver working at Burkina Faso's presidential palace. More painful still is that the killers who ambushed Zongo's car, riddling it with bullets and torching it, have never been brought to justice.

DRC: Report reveals alarming plight of journalists

2010-12-15

http://en.rsf.org/democratic-republic-of-congo-journalist-in-danger-releases-15-12-2010,39033.html

Journalist in Danger, partner organisation of Reporters Without Borders, on 10 December published its annual report revealing the disturbing state of press freedom in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the plight of journalists working in the country. The report, released on International Human Rights Day, records in minute detail every attack on the right to be informed and to inform the public throughout the year - 87 cases in 2010 compared to 75 in 2009.

Gambia: Ecowas awards damages to journalist

2010-12-20

http://bit.ly/ehRNn8

The Ecowas Court of Justice in Abuja has declared the arrest and detention of Musa Saidykhan, a Gambian journalist, illegal and unconstitutional 'as it contravenes the Plaintiff’s human right to personal liberty as guaranteed by Article 6 of the African Charter on Human and People's Rights'. The Court also awarded the Plaintiff $200,000 as damages for the violations of his human rights by the Gambian authorities.

Ghana: Pioneering community radio initiative takes place in Ghana

2010-12-20

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/media/69732

An exciting new community radio project is helping communities in Ghana to share valuable experiences of adaptation with other villages and towns, as well as local decision-makers. Researchers can also hear directly from these communities, giving an unprecedented picture of what women, men and children are already doing in their daily lives to adapt to a changing climate.
Climate Airwaves: a pioneering Community Radio project in Ghana
AfricaAdapt, Institute of Development Studies in the UK

An exciting new community radio project is helping communities in Ghana to share valuable experiences of adaptation with other villages and towns, as well as local decision-makers. Researchers can also hear directly from these communities, giving an unprecedented picture of what women, men and children are already doing in their daily lives to adapt to a changing climate.

The project is being pioneered by Ghana Community Radio Network (GCRN), AfricaAdapt (www.africa-adapt.net) and the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), with technical support provided by IDS. The project was set up to address the issue that new climate research often fails to reach those who need it most. The idea is for a two-way flow of knowledge and information: the community radios will broadcast new climate research information to communities in a way that is accessible and applicable to their circumstances, while at the same time, the communities can share and report their experiences, which will help inform local decision-making and research. This will create vital information flows between local communities, decision-makers and researchers, but it will also support local community radios themselves through a programme of training and capacity building for broadcasters.

Climate Airwaves creates a buzz at international gathering of community radio projects

Climate Airwaves made a successful first appearance at AMARC 10, the international gathering of community radio projects, in Argentina earlier this month. Researchers, community radio broadcasters and policymakers are eager to follow the project as it moves from its initial stages into implementation, with Climate Airwaves signalling a radical change in the way climate information is shared with communities.

Kofi Arweh, from Ghana Community Radio Network, explained why Climate Airwaves was a hit at AMARC 10: 'Climate Airwaves is a new and different way of understanding and sharing knowledge. The radio station is helping local stations in small villages like Azizakpe, in Ada. This village has been hit with terrible flooding, but Radio Ada will broadcast the latest climate change research, in an easy-to-understand format, and translate what it means for them in terms of how they adapt to new uncertainties and changes.'

More information about the project is available on the Climate Airwaves project page: www.climate-airwaves.org

Sierra Leone: Bullying of journalists condemned

2010-12-20

http://africa.ifj.org/en/articles/ifj-condemns-bullying-behaviour-against-journalists-in-sierra-leone

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the arrest on 16 December of Mohamed Daramy, a radio presenter and Ibrahim Farmer, technician for KISS FM Radio in Bo, southern Sierra Leone by Police Assistant Inspector General (AIG) David Sesay who was acting on the order of Minister of Agriculture Dr Sam Sesay. According to the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), an IFJ Affiliate, on 16 December 2010, Mohamed Daramy and Ibrahim Farmer were arrested and detained overnight in a police cell, following an incident that saw the debate sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture discontinued for a pre-arranged radio programme paid for by the mobile phone company, Africell.

Somalia: Report exposes precarious work of Somali journalists

2010-12-15

http://www.nusoj.org/Somali%20Journalists%20and%20their%20Precarious%20Work.pdf

To mark International Human Rights Day, on 10 December 2010, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) released a groundbreaking report exposing the precarious working conditions endured by journalists in Somalia. The nationwide survey revealed how the human rights of working journalists, particularly their labour rights, are grossly violated by every company and in every corner of the Horn of Africa country.
NUSOJ marks Human Rights Day with report on the misery of the country’s journalists
The Untold Tales of Misery: Somali Journalists and their Precarious Work
10 December 2010
Press Release

To mark International Human Rights Day, on 10 December 2010, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) today releases a groundbreaking report exposing the precarious working conditions endured by journalists in Somalia.

The nationwide survey reveals how the human rights of working journalists, particularly their labour rights, are grossly violated by every company and in every corner of the Horn of Africa country.

'Every time we hear of journalists arrested, threatened or even killed by rogue elements or armed political groups, the blame is shifted onto the journalists themselves, who have supposedly been unprofessional or taken needless risks that jeopardise their security,' said Omar Faruk Osman, NUSOJ Secretary General.

'Journalists are expected to be the ears, eyes and messengers of the people of Somalia, yet they are the most disadvantaged workers in the media industry whose human rights at work are massively trampled on.'

'Media workers are among the most over-worked, most exploited and most abused,' says the report, entitled, 'The untold Tales of Misery: Somali Journalists and their Precarious Work'.

The unsafe working conditions the report reveals show journalists forced into inhumane situations that do not meet international labour standards. Journalists working for international media organisations as stringers in the country are often discriminated against and are not treated or employed on the same terms like their foreign counterparts.

'Media owners, both Somali and foreigners, are exploiting the rights of working journalists by using the excuse of lawlessness, armed conflict and reduced income for local media houses not to pay decent salaries. We see them recruiting young journalists only on the promise of using their by-line, but without payment or benefits or labour rights entitlements. This parasitical treatment of these promising young journalists is a gross human rights violation and these inhuman and despicable conditions of work must be stopped,' added Osman.

Poverty suffered by journalists has also fuelled corruption and professional misconduct. The report reveals that 'corruption in the media field is also an ongoing problem', finding 'instances of Sharuur, Duub, Children’s Milk, or Transportation', all local slang terms for payoffs to journalists or media houses for positive news coverage. In some cases media house owners encourage newsmakers, business owners, or politicians to pay to keep a friendly reporter on staff at the media house.

'This situation has pushed journalists into resigning from the profession because they can barely earn a living from it and run personal safety risks,' Osman said. 'This deep misery and unacceptable social injustice need to be reversed swiftly so that members of the fourth estate can discharge their profession without corruption and exploitation by newsmakers who are eager to manipulate news to suit their opposing interests.'

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) welcomed the report. 'The survey by NUSOJ is a welcome eye-opener on the treatment of journalists in Somalia. The global community of journalists has for many years focused on the unremitting violence and its impact on the safety of journalists, but for the first time, the report "the untold tales of misery" lifts the veil on the conditions under which journalists work, their numbers, social conditions and precarity,' said Jim Boumelha, IFJ President.

'With no employment contracts, hardly any training and poverty salaries and benefits, Somali journalists make one of the most exploited workforces working in one of the most dangerous places in the world. The IFJ fully supports the call by NUSOJ for the ILO to act swiftly in developing an urgent programme for Somalia that will help journalists secure dignity at work, improve their working conditions and bolster their status underpinned by international labour standards,' added Boumelha.

Women journalists 'earn less than their male counterparts and suffer unequal treatment in many other respects. There is prevalent isolation and sexual abuse of female journalists in the media. Women journalists are sidelined from ‘hard news’ reporting and forced into "soft" work such as advertising and public relations instead of doing the same work as their male colleagues.'

NUSOJ, the first independent trade union established in Somalia since the fall of the military government, is making a set of recommendations to the authorities governing the different territories of Somalia, to media employers, the International Labour Organisation and the world community.

'We want urgent social dialogue, legal protection and full respect for the labour rights of journalists. Political powers protecting commercial interests at the expense of hard working and starving journalists must be brought to an end,' Osman concluded.

--
For further information, contact:
National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ)
Taleex Street, KM4 Area, Hodan District,
Mogadishu, Somalia, tel/fax: +252 1 859 944,
e-mail: newsletter@nusoj.org
Internet: http://www.nusoj.org

South Africa: Zuma sues over cartoon

2010-12-14

http://www.iol.co.za:80/news/crime-courts/zuma-sues-over-cartoon-1.1001121

President Jacob Zuma is suing Avusa Media for R5-million for Zapiro's Lady Justice rape cartoon, The Times reported on Tuesday. Zuma started proceedings against Avusa, the cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro and former Sunday Times editor-in-chief Mondli Makhanya in a summons issued in the High Court in Johannesburg on Friday.

Southern Sudan: Sowing the seeds of agricultural research

2010-12-14

http://www.scidev.net/en/features/sowing-the-seeds-of-agricultural-research-in-southern-sudan.html

After the sound of gunfire fell silent in Southern Sudan, marking the end of one of Africa's longest running civil wars, Pio Kowr Ding decided he would return home to the autonomous region to take up an agricultural research job with the government. With a masters degree in soil and land evaluation, and experience working for the Agricultural Research Corporation's Land and Water Research Center (LWRC) in Khartoum, Ding was keen to help the region rebuild its agricultural research. But when he arrived in 2008 he realised that the task was actually to start from scratch and the living conditions were tough.

Sudan: Darfur leader 'ready to do battle'

2010-12-14

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/12/2010121364520272117.html

Minni Minnawi, the only Darfur faction leader to have signed the Darfur Peace Agreement [DPA] with the Sudanese government, has declared the failure of the 2006 deal. The announcement deals another blow to Khartoum, which faces the possibility of the southern portion of the country seceding in an upcoming poll. On Sunday, Minnawi accused the government of failing to implement the Darfur agreement, saying that he is ready to do battle. Minnawi, the Sudan Liberation Army [SLA] faction leader, secured several official titles after he signed the peace accord with Khartoum.

Western Sahara: Informal talks held in New York

2010-12-20

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/JDUN-8CB4UR?OpenDocument

Delegations from Morocco and the Frente Polisario have attended a fourth round of informal talks in New York on ending the conflict in Western Sahara at the invitation of the personal envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General. The three-day meeting in Long Island, convened by the envoy, Christopher Ross, was also attended delegates from the neighbouring States, Algeria and Mauritania. The proposals of the two parties were again presented, but by the end of the meeting, each party continued to reject the proposal of the other as a sole basis for future negotiations, the statement added.

Libya: Gaddafi wants million strong African army

2010-12-15

http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/gaddafi-proposes-1-mln-strong-african-army/

African nations should join forces to create a one-million-strong army to protect the continent and confront outsiders like NATO and China, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has said. Gaddafi, well known for his forthright rhetoric, has acquired growing influence in Africa but his ambition to build a united states of Africa is not shared by the continent's biggest powers. 'National militaries alone cannot save countries. Africa should have one army with one million soldiers,' Gaddafi said in a speech in the Senegalese capital.

Nigeria: Corruption-fed unrest in Delta keeps communities in turmoil

2010-12-20

http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=91402

As families count the cost of another military operation against militants in the Niger Delta, analysts say up to now government efforts to quell violence are hampered by corruption and fail to get at the deep-seated causes of unrest in the region. Residents told IRIN hundreds of families are still displaced more than two weeks after the crackdown. According to the military's Joint Task Force (JTF), the 1 December attack by its troops on the village of Ayakoromor, 50km south of Warri, was a planned operation, targeting suspected criminals. But the Red Cross says thousands of people fled, many taking refuge in swamps, then heading to nearby villages.

Somalia: Islamists al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam 'to merge'

2010-12-20

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12038556

The two Islamist groups fighting the weak UN-backed Somali government, al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam, are to merge, according to reports. The two had been allies but have fallen out over the past year, with Hizbul Islam losing ground. Some see the merger as a takeover by al-Shabab, which has links to al-Qaeda.

Africa: New Africa-focused knowledge portal launched

2010-12-14

http://www.africaportal.org/

The Africa Portal is an online knowledge resource for policy-related issues on Africa. An undertaking by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), Makerere University (MAK), and the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), the Africa Portal offers open access to a suite of features including an online library collection; a resource for opinion and analysis; an experts directory; an international events calendar; and a mobile technology component -all aimed to equip users with research and information on Africa’s current policy issues.

Africa: Social media boom begins

2010-12-20

http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol24no4/social-media-boom.html

Africans are coupling their already extensive use of cell phones with a more recent and massive interest in social media — Internet-based tools and platforms that allow people to interact with each other much more than in the past. In the process, Africans are leading what may be the next global trend: a major shift to mobile Internet use, with social media as its main drivers.

Global: Google earth engine launched

2010-12-14

http://www.scidev.net/en/news/google-earth-engine-launched-in-cancun.html

A satellite imagery tool that will make an unprecedented amount of environmental data available freely online has been launched at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 16), in Mexico. Earth Engine, launched by Google on 3 December, aims to enable scientists to monitor and measure changes in the Earth's environment, such as global land cover, and hopefully help slow deforestation in the process.

Global: New edition of GISWatch examines ICT sustainability

2010-12-14

http://www.giswatch.org/blog-entry/3/new-edition-giswatch-how-sustainable-are-icts-really

The latest edition of the Global Information Society Watch questions the assumption that information and communications technologies (ICTs) will automatically be a panacea for climate change while also looking at the potential of ICTs to mitigate and adapt to climate change, as are the roles of international institutions, the global research agenda on ICTs and climate change and 'sustainability' as an evolving concept.

Uganda: SMS election platform launched

2010-12-14

http://www.ngopulse.org/newsflash/ccedu-launches-elections-sms-platform

NGOs, under the Citizens Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda (CCEDU), have launched a short messaging service (SMS) platform to receive complaints regarding the ongoing elections. Godwin Byaruhanga, an official from CCEDU, says the campaign will involve appealing to the public to vote candidates basing on their ability to address social issues and not those who give them freebies.

Awaaz Magazine Issue 3 available

2010-12-20

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/enewsl/69726

Contents of the latest edition include:
- Cover Story:
The plight of internally displaced people: A failure of social justice.
Case studies: Kenya: Examining the plight of the IDP’s after the post election violence in 2007/8
Africa: Algeria, Burundi, Chad, Cote D’Ivoire, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Angola, Congo, Rwanda, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, Uganda, Zimbabwe.
Columbia: Internal displacement in Columbia by Bettina Ngweno

- Regular Columns:
Playing the Race Card by John Sibi-Okumu
The Imperial Capital 1910 – 2010 by Ramnik Shah

- Book Reviews:
Becoming Indian by Pavan K Varma: Reviewed by Warris Vianni
Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie: Reviewed by Ramnik Shah
Cheche; Reminicenses of a Radical Magazine by Karim Hirji (An announcement)
Dreams in a Time of War by Ngugi wa Thiongo: Reviewed by Chris Wanjala
A Knight in Africa: Journey from Bukene by Sir Andy Chande: Reviewed by AwaaZ
How to Euthanise a Cactus by Stephen Partington: Reviewed by John Sibi-Okumu
Discovering the Vedas: Origins, Mantras, Rituals, Insights: by Fritz Staal

AwaaZ Magazine
P O Box 32843 - 00600
Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: Orange Wireless:020 2063405, 020 2431554,
Mobiles:0722 344900, 0733 741085
Email: editors@awaazmagazine.com
Website: www.awaazmagazine.com

IDRC's 'Lasting Impacts' December issue now available

2010-12-15

http://publicwebsite.idrc.ca/EN/Resources/Publications/Pages/ArticleDetails.aspx?PublicationID=417

The December issue of the International Development Research Centre's (IDRC) 'Lasting Impacts, Access to Water' has been published. Articles, which can be read by visiting the website available through the link provided, include:
- A home-based clean water revolution
- Science helps to calm water conflicts
- Recycling wastewater offers a solution to scarcity
- Economic benefits flow from taps.

Africa: The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship

2010-12-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/fundraising/69625

The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship: Europe, the Middle East and Africa aims to encourage women to excel in computing and technology, and become active role models and leaders.
The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship: Europe, the Middle East and Africa

Online application: http://google.eresources.com/applications/login.asp
For more information contact anitaborgscholars-emea@google.com with 'Anita Borg Question' in the subject line.

Dr. Anita Borg (1949–2003)

The Scholarship

Dr. Anita Borg devoted her adult life to revolutionising the way we think about technology and dismantling barriers that keep women and minorities from entering computing and technology fields. Her combination of technical expertise and fearless vision continues to inspire and motivate countless women to become active participants and leaders in creating technology.

As part of Google’s ongoing commitment to furthering Anita’s vision, we are pleased to announce The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship: Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Through the scholarship, we aim to encourage women to excel in computing and technology, and become active role models and leaders.

Multiple scholarships will be awarded based on the strength of candidates’ academic performance, leadership experience and demonstrated passion for computer science. A group of female Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD student finalists will be chosen from the applicant pool. The scholarship recipients will each receive a €7,000 (or equivalent) scholarship.

In June 2011, all scholarship recipients and finalists will be invited to visit Google’s Engineering Centre in Zurich for a networking retreat. It will include workshops with a series of speakers, panels, breakout sessions and social activities, and will provide an opportunity for all finalists to meet and share their experiences.

Eligibility requirements

Candidates must:

Be a female student enrolled in a Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD programme (or equivalent) in 2011/2012.
Be enrolled at a University in Europe, the Middle East, or Africa. Citizens, permanent residents, and international students are eligible to apply.
Be studying Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Informatics, or a closely related technical field.
Maintain an excellent academic record (e.g. a First Class Honours degree).
How to apply

Please complete the online application and submit all requested documents by 1st February 2011. All application documents must be in English. Scholars and Finalists will be notified in April 2011.

You will be required to submit the following:

· Up-to-date copy of your CV

· Answers to the following short essay questions

(suggested word count is 400-600 words per question):

Describe a significant technical project you have worked on. If you have worked on a major independent research project (such as research for a Master’s or PhD programme), please describe that work here. Give an overview of the problem and your approaches to the key technical challenges. If this was a group effort, be sure to specify your individual role and contributions.
Give one or two examples of your leadership abilities. Explain how you were influential and what you were trying to achieve. These need not be demonstrated through formal or traditional leadership roles. Feel free to think broadly and examine the many ways you impact members of your technical community.

Suppose someone gave you the funding and resources for a 3- to 12-month project to investigate a technical topic of your choice. Write a short version of a proposal, including a description of the project, your planned methodology, and your expected results. Please pick something other than the project you described for the first question.

· Transcripts

Bachelor’s: A copy of your current academic record.
Master’s and PhD: A copy of your previous and current academic records.

· Enrollment confirmation for 2011/2012 or confirmation of graduation date

Please include with your application an official enrollment confirmation or a confirmation of your graduation date issued by an official authority of the university e.g. your departmental administrator or a professor.

· Recommendation letters

Two strong referral letters from individuals who are qualified to evaluate your academic and leadership accomplishments, e.g. from a professor, adviser or supervisor.

For specific questions not answered on this page or in the FAQ section, please e-mail anitaborgscholars-emea@google.com The subject field of your email must include “Anita Borg Question”. We look forward to receiving your application!

Coady International Institute certificate in advocacy and citizen engagement

30 May - 17 June 2011; 24 October – 11 November 2011

2010-12-15

http://www.coady.stfx.ca/education/certificates/advocacy/

Wherever change needs to occur, advocacy has a role to play. In this age of globalisation, development practitioners and civil society actors around the world are increasingly finding the need to be actively engaged in influencing the policies, programs and laws that affect their work at the grassroots level. Whether the goal is to protect a threatened watershed, get funding for a health clinic, enact laws to make buildings accessible for people with disabilities, or change laws which discriminate against women, advocacy can help to accomplish those goals. This three-week certificate explores advocacy as a political act. It is designed to enhance the capacity of civil society to influence decision-makers and policy makers by building the constituency for change and mobilising public opinion around issues of common concern.

Master of Public Administration in International Development

Tsinghua University

2010-12-15

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/courses/69611

The School of Public Policy and Management (SPPM) at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China is excited to announce that our Master of Public Administration in International Development (MID) Program is now accepting applications for Fall 2011 enrollment.
The Master of Public Administration in International Development offered by Tsinghua University
A Great Opportunity for International Students Who are Interested in China’s Development

The School of Public Policy and Management (SPPM) at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China is excited to announce that our Master of Public Administration in International Development (MID) Program is now accepting applications for Fall 2011 enrollment. Following the big success of launch of Master’s in Development Practice (MDP) in SPPM supported by MacArthur Foundation, U.S.A in 2009, the school will continue working with the other 21 partners in Global MDP Network to take the initiative in sustainability development in China.

The Master of Public Administration in International Development (MID) degree program is designed to prepare students to become active global citizens and to enhance their understanding of China’s development experience. This two-year full time program focuses on public policy from an international perspective, combining rigorous training in analytical and quantitative methods with an emphasis on Chinese practices and sustainable development. In addition, the program provides graduate students with field experiences in a range of disciplines, including agriculture, policy, health, engineering, management, environmental science, education, and nutrition.

According to the four MID classes, international students can benefit from several aspects through joining this program:
- Two-year experience in China
- A limited number of scholarships are available
- Joint course development under the MDP global network
- The program will be taught by some of the leading academics in China
- A master’s degree from one of China’s top universities
- Chinese language training

Should you have any questions about this program, please do not hesitate to contact the MID Program Office atmid@tsinghua.edu.cn

The MID Program Office
School of Public Policy and Management
Tsinghua University
Beijing 100084, P. R. China
Tel: (86)10- 62781945/62797483
Fax: (86)10-62782853
E-mail: mid@tsinghua.edu.cn
URL：http://www.sppm.tsinghua.edu.cn/english/mid/

Call for applications for a consultant(s)

African Women's Leadership Institute Tracer Study

2010-12-20

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/jobs/69725

Akina Mama wa Afrika is an international Pan–African non-governmental development organisation for African women based in Kampala, Uganda, with a UK/Europe Regional Office in London. AMwA aims to provide development services for African women, serves as a research forum on African women’s issues, and provides a platform for African women to participate in policy and decision-making. AMwA also serves as a networking, information, advocacy and capacity building forum for African women and builds their leadership capacities to influence policy and decision-making. We are tendering for applications for consultants to conduct a Tracer Study on the African Women’s Leadership Institute.

Closing date for applications: 15 January 2011

AMwA welcomes all applicants and values diversity. Suitable candidates within Africa are strongly encouraged to apply.

Please send your application to amwa@akinamamawaafrika.org/christine@akinamamawaafrika.org

Kazi Afrika job listings

2010-12-15

http://bit.ly/hg2fY4

Career blog Kazi Afrika has a comprehensive list of job vacancies posted on their site. Some of the jobs include:
- World Vision Africa Program Officer – Nutrition Job Vacancy
- College Principal Vacancy in Mombasa Kenya
- Marketing & Communications Manager Job Vacancy in Kenya
- New Kenya Co-operative Creameries Limited Jobs
- Pathfinder International Jobs in Kenya
- Social Assessment for Indigenous People in Lake Victoria North Water Service Board.

Africa: Africa Focus highlights WikiLeaks

2010-12-15

http://www.africafocus.org/docs10/wl1012b.php

It should be no surprise to anyone that South African diplomats been been frustrated both with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, or that Kenya and the United States have enjoyed close military to military ties despite vocal US criticism of the Kenyan government. Wikileaks cables released to date, such as the ones included in this AfricaFocus Bulletin, provide some nuances and may be embarrassing, but provide no 'smoking guns' or startling revelations. This AfricaFocus Bulletin contains the text of two cables from late 2009, one reporting on conversations between Kenyan and US officials on disagreements about shipment of tanks to Southern Sudan, and the other a conversation between the US Ambassador to South Africa and the South African Foreign Minister, including remarks about the sitution in Zimbabwe.

Africa: Algeria, Mali distrust over al Qaeda fight

2010-12-14

http://www.afrol.com/articles/37047

The government of Mali is seen as the largest obstacle to conduct an effective fight against Al Qaeda groups in the Sahara desert. Distrust between Algeria and Mali further hinder cooperation. Diplomatic cables from several US embassies, published by Wikileaks, reveal that the announced concerted fight against Al Qaeda in the Sahara and Sahel region is moving ahead slowly. Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and Niger had announced a joint effort to hit back at the terrorists.

Egypt: Mubarak turned down nuclear weapons

2010-12-20

http://bit.ly/icfjJO

Egypt was offered nuclear weapons, material and expertise on the black market after the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to a senior Egyptian diplomat. President Hosni Mubarak turned down the offer, but the incident raises new questions over what nuclear sales were made by the other states or groups in the chaos of the early 1990s in Russia and the former Soviet republics. Maged Abdelaziz, the country’s ambassador to the UN, made the revelation to America’s top negotiator on nuclear arms control, Rose Gottemoeller, in a conversation reported in a leaked US cable in May last year.

Global: WikiLeaks cables expose US use of espionage before the 2009 Copenhagen summit

2010-12-15

http://www.ciranda.net/ciranda-mundi/article/wikileaks-cables-reveal-how-us

Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage. The US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial 'Copenhagen accord', the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009.

Mauritius: British envoy summoned over Chagos

2010-12-20

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE6B20FV20101203

Mauritius plans to summon Britain's top diplomat in the country after a leaked US cable suggested a new marine park around the disputed Chagos islands was a ploy to stop uprooted islanders returning home. Mauritius' Foreign Affairs Minister Arvin Boolell was quoted in local newspapers as saying the classified document confirmed his government's belief that the protected area was in fact a smoke-screen.

Mozambique: US concerned Mozambique becoming drug hub

2010-12-14

http://bit.ly/iiziRm

The United States is concerned that Mozambique could become a narco-state because of close ties between drug smugglers and the southeastern African nation's government, according to US Embassy cables released by WikiLeaks. The four cables released this week cite unnamed officials from law enforcement, the ruling FRELIMO party and business figures, as well as local media reports. The cables say cocaine, heroin and other drugs come in from South America and Asia, and are then flow to Europe or sent overland to neighbouring South Africa for sale.

Nigeria: Pfizer 'probed Nigerian official'

2010-12-14

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/12/2010121061017861547.html

US drugmaker Pfizer hired investigators to find evidence of corruption against the then Nigerian attorney-general to convince him to drop legal action against the company over a drug trial, the UK's Guardian newspaper has reported, citing leaked US diplomatic cables. Nigeria's Kano state sued the world's largest drugmaker in May 2007 for $2bn in damages over testing of the meningitis drug, Trovan, which state authorities said killed 11 children and left dozens disabled.

Nigeria: Shell's grip on Nigerian state revealed

2010-12-14

http://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/default.asp?2,27,3,2184

US embassy cables have revealed a top executive's claims that Shell 'knows everything' about key decisions in government ministries. The oil giant Shell claimed it had inserted staff into all the main
ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to politicians' every move in the oil‑rich Niger Delta, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable. The cache of secret dispatches from Washington's embassies in Africa also revealed that the Anglo‑Dutch oil firm swapped intelligence with the US, in one case providing US diplomats with the names of Nigerian politicians it suspected of supporting militant activity, and requesting information from the US on whether the militants had acquired anti‑aircraft missiles.

Sierra Leone: WikiLeaks cables reveal US concerns over timing of Charles Taylor trial

2010-12-20

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/17/wikileaks-charles-taylor-trial

Judges in one of the world's most controversial war crimes trials have been deliberately slowing down proceedings, senior US officials believe, causing significant delays to proceedings. Secret cables reveal US doubts about the trial in The Hague of Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, amid allegations that one of the judges has manipulated proceedings so that she can personally give the verdict in the case.

Sudan: President 'siphoned off millions' - ICC

2010-12-20

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12025213

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has been accused of siphoning off up to $9bn (£5.6bn; 7bn euros) of his country's funds by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Luis Moreno Ocampo told the BBC that President Bashir had hidden the money in personal accounts outside Sudan. Mr Ocampo's suspicions originally came to light when a diplomatic cable obtained by Wikileaks was published by the Guardian newspaper. Sudan has forcefully denied the claims.

Tanzania: Tanzania official investigating BAE ‘fears for his life’

2010-12-20

http://bit.ly/fJIQrS

The Tanzanian prosecutor investigating worldwide misconduct by BAE, Britain’s biggest arms company, confided to US diplomats that 'his life may be in danger' and senior politicians in his small African country were 'untouchable'. A leaked account of what the head of Tanzania’s anti-corruption bureau, Edward Hoseah, termed the 'dirty deal' by BAE to sell Tanzania an overpriced radar system, is revealed in the US embassy cables.

Tunisia: Censorship continues as Wikileaks cables make the rounds

2010-12-20

http://bit.ly/hO3VXZ

Tunisian activists pounced on the latest Wikileaks US Embassy Cables, dedicating a new website to republish and discuss the revelations related to their country, reports Global Voices. Tunileaks, was launched by Nawaat one hour after the whistle-blowing site unleashed the cables on 28 November. The first release contained 17 cables issued from the US Embassy in Tunisia. They mainly dealt with the neglect of human rights in Tunisia and the restrictions on freedom of expression.

Uganda: Museveni wary of Odinga

2010-12-20

http://bit.ly/hyptTn

Ugandan President Museveni fears that Prime Minister Raila Odinga has thrown his weight behind his opponents. A leaked cable from the US embassy in Kampala says the Museveni government suspected Mr Odinga was working with the opposition because Mr Museveni supported President Kibaki during the election dispute in 2007/8. The Orange Democratic Movement party, which Mr Odinga leads, accused Uganda of sending soldiers to help quell anti-government protests in parts of Nyanza and Rift Valley provinces in January 2008.

Western Sahara: Wikileaks revelations spark comments

2010-12-20

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2010/12/14/western-sahara-wikileaks-revelations-spark-comments/

Reactions to the diplomatic cables released by the whistleblower website Wikileaks continue to flourish all over the blogosphere. Revelations concerning the conflict over Western Sahara have sparked a few comments. Ali Amar is a Moroccan journalist. Writing on VoxMaroc [Fr], a blog hosted by the French daily Le Monde, he underlines the fact that although the leaked cables revealed American diplomats' reservations about bad governance and corruption in Morocco, they showed unwavering American support for the kingdom's position on Western Sahara.

Zimbabwe: Zim paper gets more Wikileaks lawsuits

2010-12-20

http://bit.ly/dMDUQ1

Zimbabwe's Central Bank governor Gideon Gono Saturday filed a US$ 12.5 million lawsuit against a private newspaper, which implicated him in diamond smuggling, citing Wikileaks cables. The lawsuit is the second in the week against the Standard newspaper, which was earlier landed with a US$ 15 million suit by First Lady Grace Mugabe over the same allegations. The paper, quoting Wikileaks cables, reported last week that Mugabe and Gono were among several top officials involved in diamond smuggling from newly discovered fields in the east of the country.

Fahamu